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THE 
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MONTHLY MAGAZINE 


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BRITISH REGISTER 


OF 


2 ge LITERATURE, SCIENCES, AND THE BELLES-LETTRES. 


Wee Series. 


= % $ EL: 1949 
JANUARY TO JUNE. 


VOU,’ Vv TE: 


LONDON: } : 
PUBLISHED BY WHITTAKER, TREACHER, AND CO., 
AVE-MARIA-LANE. 


1829. 


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1 


THE 


MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 


_ New Series. 


Vou. VITI.] JANUARY, 1829. [ No. 37. 


THE DUBLIN DINNER OF THE “ FRIENDS OF CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS 
LIBERTY TO LORD MORPETH. 


Laneuace has no terms of more copious scorn than those which the 
papist haranguers perpetually cast upon the government, national 
_ strength, and individual character of England. The whole rhetorical 
| affluence of sedition is exhausted upon the baseness and meanness, the 
incorrigible dulness, and bigotted brutality of her people ; and every 
- Trish tenant of a hovel (being a papist), is triumphantly exhorted to lift 
up hand and voice, and-bless the Pope and the Virgin for his unques- 
tionable superiority. 
But while protestant Ireland shares with protestant England in the 
general degradation, papist Ireland offers the most.captivating contrast. 
+ The popish pale is the limit of light and darkness ; within it all is 
vigour, harmony, and patriotism ; religion without bigotry, the extinc- 
a Gon of all ignorance touching the interests of civilized man; the dis- 
_ ruption of those mounds and dykes, which interrupted the generous 
_ flowing of Irish affections into the one great stream of Irish privileges ; 
and not a mob can gather together, however vile to the eye, virulent to 
e ear, and suspicious and revolting to every common conception of 
orum, honesty, and allegiance, but instantly becomes a meeting of 
« Friends of Civil and Religious Liberty.” ; 
__*The reverse of the medal characterizes protestant England. And yet, 
in all this hostility, there is a lurking eagerness to canvas English opi- 
-nion, that is not easily reconcilable with the virtuous abhorrence, and 
lofty scorn, for ever burning and beaming in the popish bosom. An 
nglishman’s capture in the nets of the Association, is always a triumph. 
he prize may be of the most worthless nature—some old and decay- 
g tenant of the fat ponds of the English aristocracy, or some spawn- 
g of that small fry of which no man here takes account ; the difference 
the Association is nothing—they, with all hands, hoist him out of his 
ement—exhibit him gasping on shore—and, if they can make nothing 
else of their prize, make him a show. Lord Morpeth is the last haul ; 
and, though this unfortunate and very boyish young person contributed 
largely to his own burlesque, yet the Association were not the less 
cruelly eager in urging him to an exhibition, which will leave its ridi- 
M. M. New Series—Vou. VIL. No. 37. B 


2 The Dublin Public Dinner, to Lord Morpeth. [Jan. 


cule upon him as long as his existence £dds to the hereditary silliness of 
the name of Carlisle. 

Lord Morpeth is not yet of age—is utterly undistinguished by any 
evidence of ever being beyond the common and unnoted grade of the 
crowd, who pass from school to college, and from college to the clubs ; 
is, of course, without any political experience, knowledge or rank ; is, in 
short, neither more nor less than any of the thousand and one boys who 
ramble through Bond Street all day, are asked out to dance quadrilles in 
the evening, run down to the country in the Autumn, and run up to 
town in the Spring. Yet this nobody, is the individual whose arrival at 
the Irish side of the Channel is enough to put all the dignified energies 
of papistry in motion, sends cards showering through the country, and 
gathers from every lurking-place of liberalism, every liberal of every tar- 
nished dye of morals, manners, and loyalty. 

In the chair of this banquet of the Friends of Civil and Religious 
Liberty—how those words would sound in the ears of their lord and 
master, the pope—sat, for a warning to his class, and for his own future 
sorrow, the Duke of Leinster. By what fatality is it, that the blood of 
the Fitzgeralds is always to be found in those situations. Wise, or weak, 
brave .or poltroon, the ostentatious scatterers of wealth, or its beggarly 
and contemptible hoarders, the generations of the Fitzgeralds have 
always made the same unhappy figure. Among them all, from the days 
of the first holder of the name, there has not been one less fitted to 
flourish at the head of anything than its present possessor ; not one less 
calculated by public ability, by public consideration, by the generous 
employment of wealth in public objects, by individual acquirement, or 
by popular manliness and manners, to lead a party, much less a people ; 
yet the family destiny is upon him—he must bustle and blunder to the 
last—display his natural deficiencies in the most glaring point of expo- 
sure, and, abandoning the seclusion that is the true place for the scale of 
his capacities and virtues, force himself into the unnatural publicity — 
which to him, like sun-shine to the mole, is double blindness. 

Men like this are not made to be taught by circumstances ; but a less 
ardent volunteer in the cause of “ Popish Civil and Religious Liberty,” 
might have been startled by the sight of its supporters. On this occasion 
there met—to use the language of the popish journals, “ the elite of the 
aristocratic, &c. rank, worth, and intelligence of Ireland.” This elite con-— 
sisted of Lord Cloncurry! Lord Rossmore! the Earl of Bective! Lord 
Howth! with the Marquis of Clanricarde! and the Marquis of West- 
mieath, as Vice-presidents ; every man of whom has figured in the news- 
papers. But we leave them to enjoy their fame, and come to their per- 
formance on this day of triumph. 

The Duke of Leinster’s first toast was a plagiarism from the lips of | 
the old Spafields’ Chairmen—*<'The King, and may he never forget 
his own declaration, that he holds his Crown as a trust for the benefit of © 
his People.” Who can feel a moment’s doubt of the nature of a meetin 
prefaced by such a toast? The insinuation is plain. But to such toast=_ 
masters and the rabble that echo, hate, and laugh at them in th a 


4 


same breath, we reply, that their wish is an insolent superfluity ; tha 
the King has never forgotten the objects for which the crown was placed” 
upon the brow of his ancestors ; that he will never forget them ; and that i 
long after radicalism and liberalism, and the whole paltry affectation of = 
public spirit in the breasts of the miserable hunters of popularity, are ; 
Pf 
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aa 
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vf 


1829.] The Dublin Public Dinner to Lord Morpeth. 3 


stripped and scourged by public indignation, the King of England 
will be the King of Church and State, of a church unstained by the 
contact of idolatry, and a state strong in the affections, the interests, 
and the strength of the people. 

The Duke of Leinster’s next political exploit was the next Spa- 
fields’ toast—“ The House of Brunswick, and may it never forget the 
principles that placed it on the Throne of England.” This is another 
leaf from the book of the Burdetts, of which even they have been long 
since ashamed. From what circumstance have its present givers and 
receivers dared to conjecture the possibility of this sudden oblivion of duty 
and honour in the King and the Brunswick family? Are we to look on 
the toast in the light of a pious prayer for the preservation of his Majes- 
ty’s memory, of a contemptuous hint that it is gone, or of an insolent 
menace, if it should not be sufficiently pliable? We discharge the chair- 
man of all meaning, good or evil, on the subject. He is an instrument, 
and merely repeated what was put into his mouth; but we shall tell 
him that the Brunswick family will “ not forget the Principles that 
placed it on the Throne.” It will not forget that a weak monarch, 
deluded into the attempt to raise popery into a share of the government 
of England, instantly lost the affections of his subjects, by this greatest 
of crimes against true Religion and true Liberty ; that the pollution was 
publicly resisted by the whole body of the wise and the manly, the 

‘religious and the free; that the miserable dupe of popery was pro- 
nounced, by the voice of his whole people, incapable of holding all 
government ; and that to fill the throne of the banished bigot, a stranger 
was summoned, whose first pledge was the perpetual exclusion of popery 
from power—not simply from the throne, or from the high executive 
offices of the state, but from every shape of influence by which protes- 
tantism could be placed in the hands of popery. The Brunswick family 
will not forget that they were called, on their pledge to protestantism, 
to fill the throne from which the Stuarts had been cast out on their 
pledge to popery. 

The distinctions between the two dynasties are clear to every man of 
sense, though Dukes of Leinster may confound them ; and those are, 
that the Brunswicks were men of their word, the Stuarts were liars— 
the Brunswicks were faithful to the constitution of the country, the 
Stuarts were traitors—the Brunswicks acknowledged no superior but 

the laws, and the Great giver of all Laws—the Stuarts were born with a 
tinge of popish blood, which blackened downwards in their descending 
generation, until the stain of heart broke out upon the countenance, and 

they stood before mankind, the slaves of the popedom, and the wretched 

‘mercenaries of its allies. 

The sentence branded on the brow of James was papistry, and with 

t brand he was driven out, like another Cain, never to return. The 

runswicks have not forgotten the solemn contract under which they 
tered England. The venerable father of George the Fourth declared 
at, if such should be the necessity of the time, he would go to the 
caffold, but never would he break his oath to the Constitution. The 
of that honourable and sincere father, will no more break his oath 
than that father would have done ; and looking, as every man of honesty 
and understanding must, with scorn at the menaces of a knot of ribald 
spouters, settling the state over their cups, he will be proud to take the 

B 2 


4 The Dublin Public Dinner to Lord Morpeth. [Jan. 


first occasion of showing, by a decisive declaration, that he is a British 
King. 

Lord Morpeth followed the ducal adviser of his Majesty, and his 
speech was ridiculously worthy of his personal reputation, and political 
rank. Nothing could be more in character, or less rational, manly, or 
appropriate. His Lordship commenced, of course, with the established 
apologies for commencing at all; his reluctance to take up the invalu- 
able moments of the meeting ; his blushing consciousness of the forth- 
coming absurdity, his inexperience in addressing, his hopelessness of say- 
ing anything worth listening to, and the whole preamble that makes the 
nausea of a maiden speech. After giving them his experienced opinion 
on the best way of breaking down the perverseness of English opinion, 
and recommending “ unanimity,” that word of many meanings, he re- 
lieved himself and his audience by sitting down: prophesying with the 
expiring breath of his speech, that the time would come when England 
and Ireland wolud be united as much in amity as they are now in loyalty ! 

So much for the noble young orator’s knowledge of circumstances. 
But let us not defraud him of his honours. As every Irish assembly is 
supposed, by those who know no more on that subject than on others, to be 
stark mad for metaphor, this candidate for the falling glories of the Irish 
rostrum stirred up his energies for metaphor to the following effect :-— 

“Tt has been said, that the clouds and showers with which your atmos- 
phere is occasionally charged, have the effect of bringing forth additional 
verdure, and stimulating the natural fertility of the soil ;” thus far the 
fancy, then comes the fact. “And perhaps we may trace in the ardent 
feelings and kindheartedness of the inhabitants, the sympathy produced 
by political wrong ;” as brilliant an instance of the legitimate non sequitur 
as the language can supply. What connection showers have with sym- 
pathy, or natural fertility of soil with the popular wrongs of its tillers, 
we presume not toinquire. Butit would be unfair to omit the evidence 
of his Lordship’s delicacy in the word occasional. It disarmed the visi- 
tations of Heaven of that fatal perpetuity which might make Ireland be 
mistaken for Scotland, and ‘satisfied the most irrigated native that he 
was not to live hopeless of the sun. Sheridan talks of metaphors, “like 
heaps of marle on a barren soil, encumbering what nature forbids them 
to fertilize;” and little as we ever thought of illustrating Sheridan by 


Lord Morpeth, we must allow that his Lordship ‘has offered the happiest — 


illustration of the dramatist’s sneer, within the memory of maiden 
speeches. ‘ 

The remainder of the oratory was so much in the usual Association style, 
that we may refer to any of the speeches spoken before printing, or after 
printing, or “intended to be spoken,” that have flourished in the Irish 
papers for the last five years. Even the Bishop of Norwich underwent his 


annual toast: though we can scarcely forgive the grim ridicule of the — 


reverend popish priest who burlesqued the second infancy of Cobbett’s 


old and simple friend. 


But as men are not at all times equally silly, even in the popish 1 


parliament, it excited some surprise to find the speech, which was to 


have been spoken at Pennenden Heath, repeated by its writer. Mr.) 
Shiel should know, as well as any man, that the only chance of escape 


for absurdity in argument, or error in point of fact, is the careful avoid- 
ance of all return to the subject. But if one of the advantages of table 
oratory is the genial state of the audience, one of the disadvantages is the 


1829.] The Dublin Public Dinner to Lord Morpeth. 5. 


influence of the time on the discretion of the orator. We are perfectly 
aware that Mr. Shiel’s sagacity, half an hour before, would have 
suffered him to leap into the Liffey, as soon as plunge into the slough 
of his Pennenden speech. However, fate is not to be evaded, and in he 
dashed, to pluck up his drowned honour by the locks. His catastrophe 
was inevitable, and he since remains at the bottom. 

We can scarcely condescend to notice the compound of feeble sophisms, 
and monstrous mis-statements through which this speaker dabbled on to 
the conclusion, that popery and freedom were compatible. 


“Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign, 
And panting Time toiled after him in vain.” 

We all know that there have been periods in the history of national 
evil, when the evil has been too bitter to be borne—when human nature 
was roused from its habitual submission by the necessity of the effort, and 
men broke the strongest chains, and burst upwards from the deepest 
dungeons, without caring whether pope or prince were the tyrant. God 
has not made man to be for ever crouching under the heel of an oppres- 
sor, even though he wear the triple crown. 

England, a country whose destination from many an age seems to 
have been the great office of receiving and holding the principles of Civil 
Liberty for the future good of mankind, affords the most memorable ex- 
amples of this noble repulsion of the human heart against the spirit of 
the popedom ; of this native and generous consciousness that her laws 

_ “and crown were not.given to be the toy and the plunder of a foreign 
_ pretender to universal power ; of this proud and saving development of 
the vigour that was yet to make her the refuge of true religion and true 

freedom in the day of the perplexity of nations. 

| It is undeniable that every advance to liberty was tantamount to a 
struggle with Rome. It is equally undeniable that the whole foundation. 
___ of British freedom, which the orator boasts to have been laid under the 
_ auspices of popery, was laid before popery was known in England. And 
it is as clear as either of those principles, that every attempt to erect an 
_ additional right on this foundation, was opposed by the direct and furious 
_ indignation of Rome. 
__ Alfred is the orator’s first example. But what suggestion of Alfred’s 
reform arose from popery ? That extraordinary man found his king- 
dom paralyzed by the corrupt religion inflicted on it by Rome. He 
found the ancient Saxon vigour decayed, and, probably alike for the 
ishment of Romish idolatry, and for that renewal of national strength 
yhich often arises from national adversity, England in the hands of the 
orthern invaders. After desperate years of battle, he broke the power 
the Danes, and knowing that his ancestors had been powerful through 
ee institutions, he re-established the Saxon assemblies of representa- 
ves, the laws, courts of justice, and jury. But what lawyer, not a 
pish delegate, would venture to say that this restoration of the spirit 
d power of England had any thing to do with the Pope ; or that its 
rmission to exist did not result altogether from the remoteness of Eng- 
ind from the seat of the papacy, the contempt of Rome for a depend- 
ency looked on by the haughty Italians as completely barbarian, and 
_ the common papal presumption, that when England should arrive at 
that degree of importance which made it worth being fleeced or trampled 
on, a wave of the pontifical hand would scatter its rights and institutions 


+ 


6 The Dublin Public Dinner to Lord Morpeth. [Jan. 


to the wind. The argument from Alfred goes for nothing, unless it be 
shown that popery raised the constitution. 

The next instance is Magna Charta ; and there undoubtedly Langton, the 
Romish bishop, figured at the head of the barons. But what is the history 
of Magna Charta? In the first place, it was extorted from the king in 
consequence of the irresistible feeling of national contempt for his sub- 
mission to tle papal legate. It was no favour of the Pope. It was the 
result of the discovery, by the barons, that they might insist, to any extent, 
on the weakness and baseness of a monarch, who suffered an impudent 
Italian actually to trample the British crown under his feet. And what 
must have been the papal respect for the independence of nations, or the 
freedom of man, when it commanded such an iusult? What must have 
been the political slavery which it imposed on the English throne, as on 
all thrones, when such an insult could be conceived and offered with 
impunity? The papal vassalage exceeded all that history has ever known 
of vassalage beside. But the barons dreamed of nothing beyond increas- 
ing their own privileges. The introduction of popular rights into Magna 
Charta was simply to swell their authority over a falling crown. Popery 
was not in question. Yet what was the papal will on the occasion. 
The transaction roused all its wrath. Even Magna Charta looked too 
like an approach to liberty, to be suffered by the power whose throne was 
established on the principle of universal tyranny. By a Romish rescript, 
the “ Great Charter” was declared wholly null and void ; King and Barons 
were devoted to the curses of the “ keeper of the keys of Heaven and 
hell,” if they did not instantly abjure it ; and the popish bishop, Langton 
himself, was placed under a suspension. The barons were severally 
placed under excommunication ; their lands were laid under an interdict, 
and on the city of London was pronounced anathema. 

The argument from Kdward the First, the famous founder, or rather 

‘yeformer of parliaments, is equally extravagant. Edward was a habitual 
warrior ; a bold, and sagacious prince, who; like many a man of sense in 
his own time, and since, saw enough in the popedom to repel and scorn 
its interference in his own affairs. This he showed in his answer to the 
papal mandate against his invasion of Scotland :—* Let me hear no 
more of this,” was the reply of the indignant soldier : “ or I shall destroy 
Scotland from sea to sea.” 

The historic truth is, that at various periods of our government, men 
of determined characters rose up, who moved straight to their objects of 
good or evil, without asking themselves what a sovereign a thousand 
miles off, and still more remote, by the difficulty of communication in 
those days, thought about their proceedings. Human nature, even under 
the most abject habits of slavery, will sometimes be stirred up, and take 
advantage of an opportunity to slip off the chain, when it cuts to the 
bone. But the papacy still held the chain with 4 tremendous grasp, 
never lost sight of the principle of extinguishing all freedom of thought, 
and looked upon every attempt at self-legislation as an impiety, to be 

_ punished alike by the sword here, and the flame in the world to come. 


And where has Popery been paramount that it has not trampled out _ 


the life of Freedom? We may at this hour pronounce the rank of free 
dom in any country by its greater or less obedience to popery. France, © 
from its higher civilization, and still more, from the infusion of Protest- 
antism among its people, has been for ages the most reluctant continental 
subject of popery. France is at this hour the only popish nation that has 


~~ 1829.) The Dublin Public Dinner to Lord Morpeth. 7 


_ the semblance of a constitution. What is the state of Spain, the best 
beloved of the Church ?—abject slavery ; what of Portugal ?—abject 
_ slavery; what of Austria?—abject slavery ; what of Italy P—abject 
slavery. If we sicken at this sluggish degradation of man, let us turn to 
. the Protestant States for our revival. From England, the great head of 
title, that palladium of her prosperity, of her intellectual eminence, and 

_ Protestanism—and long may she retain that most glorious and most saving 

of her resistless empire—we see every Protestant state free in almost 
__ the exact proportion of its purification from popery ; in some a complete 
_ representative legislature, in some an imperfect one ; but in all, liberty 
on a larger or smaller scale. The seed is there, and the plant flourishes 
the more, the more it is sheltered from the blighting breath that never 
_ blew from Rome but to cover with clouds and death the rising hopes of 
nations. 
This is the true test. The popish advocate shows only a conscious- 
ness of chicane, when he leads us back through the wilderness of the 
centuries before the Reformation. We bid him place himself in the field 
of the present hour, and where our vision is not to be retarded by the 
subterfuges which chicane finds in the broken ground and obscure ruins 
of the past. On this clear field we bid him place his example. To 
which popish kingdom of the present day—even in this day of clamours 
for more than liberty, will he point in illustration? Which of those 
cowled skeletons of power, with the crown trembling on their heads, 
and the shroud wrapping their limbs, will he summon to give testimony 
to the freedom of popish vassalage? Or which of them, if it dared to 
_ utter a voice, would not tell him that the bondage of superstition has been 
the true weight which has held them back in the advance of national 
vigour and virtue; that it has filled their members with disease, and 
bowed them down to a weakness that not all the old popular homage or 
popular ignorance can save from ruin on the first shock of nations ? 

Mr. O’Connel spoke but little at the dinner ; but the relaxation of his 
customary labours on these occasions, may well be forgiven for the acti- 
_ vity of his declamation since. Mr. O’Connel may have persuaded him- 

_ self, as he certainly wishes to persuade others, that he is the depository 
_ of the intentions of the Cabinet for the ensuing session. We entirely 
doubt this initiation into the business of a British Privy Councillor. He 

ought to be satisfied with his privilege of saving five shillings a day in 

postage, and thinking himself a member of Parliament. 
___ But if Mr. O’Connel have not the advantage of being the Duke of 
_ Wellington’s confidential adviser on the occasion, we have the advan- 
tage of knowing the decision of Mr. O’Connell’s own privy council. At 
his mock election at Clare, he delivered the following manifesto of the 
moderate, safe, and constitutional demands, whose concession can alone 
satisfy popery. ‘The speech begins with patriotic remorse for the little 
intrigue which he had attempted to carry on in London for the sake of 
is suffering country, and a silk gown, and of which the detection had 
auch hurt his conscience :— 

« Mr. Sheriff:—I admit that I was wrong on the part of the 
honey. I like sentimentality, but I like consistency more. Mr. Gore 
arraigned me, and he was right, with respect to the forty shilling free- 
holders. I went to London at the time the Catholic Association was 
suppressed ; and seeing the fell disposition of the government, I did every 
thing to conciliate them. I went to London at a great pecuniary 


8 The Dublin Public Dinner to Lord Morpeth. [Jan. 


sacrifice, in order, if possible, to carry the measure of emancipation. 
I did offer to give up the forty shilling freeholders, because I thought 
they belonged to the landlord ; but now that I am convinced of the con- 
trary, I would rather die than ever consent to such a measure again ! 

* Percival it was, who first raised the No-popery cry, and every man 
who supported the base, bloody, and unchristianlike Percival, is as guilty 
of the deeds he committed, as that infamous minister himself! 

«The Marquis of Anglesey came here, and preached toleration. His 
son, as gallant an officer as ever trod a ship’s deck, voted in favour of us. 
Lord Anglesey tried to satisfy us with sweet words, but did he vote for 
us?—No? And for that I denounce him ! 

We are next told, in the most unequivocal form that the English 
language can give to furious menace, the actual purposes of the 
papists, should we be blind enough to suffer a footstep of theirs within 
the legislature. Here is none of the thin hypocrisy which hoodwinks the 
Wilmot Hortons of this confiding world ; the popish proclamation scorns 
the shallow pretence of seeking only popish freedom, and haughtily 
flings off the old shifting promises of leaving the Protestant faith in pos- 
session of the rights, which it had vainly supposed to be a living part of 
the constitution. 

“« If you send me to Parliament,” says this organ of popery, “ I will 
put an end lo the horrid tax for building Protestant Churches, and provid- 
ang sacramental wine !” 

The sentiment was loudly cheered. 

“ Pll vote for a diminution of the tithes !” 

The sentiment was doubly cheered. 

“ Pl vote for a reform in Parliament!” And, finally, I'll vote for a 
re-consideration of the union !” 

The whole assembly was in an uproar of congratulation. 


If the Protestants of the British empire are not to be convinced by 


this manifesto, of the desperate hostility of popery to all that they have 
ever honoured and loved, to their religion, their church, and their laws ; 
no voice of ours, not the voice of man, none but the thunder of the moral 
earthquake that rouses men only in the midst of ruin, can rouse them to 
a sense of their sitnation, or a feeling of their duty. We have in this 
speech the broad avowal of a plan, whose inevitable results would be to 


fill the empire with convulsion. First, the Established Church is to be 


the victim. The tenantry of Ireland are to contribute no more to the 
repair of its places of worship. This contribution being, in fact, not paid 
by the popish tenantry at all, but being a regular and an extremely small 
portion of their rent, and so paid by the landlord, who also gets his land 
the cheaper for the contribution. 

Next comes the reduction of the incomes of the clergy, a contribution 
under exactly the same circumstances ; and whose decay must leave the 


measure left them without walls to worship in. The Protestant church 
being thus disposed of, popery proceeds to the disposal of the Protestant 
constitution. “I will vote for a reform,” is the comprehensive declaration. 


ra 


ministers of the Protestant worship without bread to eat, as the former 


‘ 


{ 


We all know what this reform means, and we have seen that the governs 


ment of the mob is misery and madness. 

From England the orator reverts to Ireland, and announces that he 
will demand “a re-consideration,’ (in other words, a repeal) “ of the 
Union.” 


1829.] The Dublin Public Dinner to Lord Morpeth. 9 


We scarcely know whether this measure, or the Reform, should have 
taken the precedency in the scale of subversion ; for, if the former would 
be the endless plague of England, the latter would be the total ruin of 
Ireland. 

But the topic is too wide for our present discussion. At another time 
we shall show that, however melancholy the loss of a legislature may be 
to a people, the transfer of the legislature from Ireland, was in the stern- 
est degree essential to the connexion of the countries ; that the creation 
of the Forty Shilling Freeholders—an act of the most miserable and fac- 
tious folly—was the true evil which made the Union this matter of abso- 
lute necessity: the popish influence, by that frantic measure, having 
rapidly corrupted the Irish House of Commons, and made it a focus of 
hostility to the whole system of the British Government. The repeal of 
the Union now, would be the creation of a declaredly popish parliament. 

But we know the tender mercies of the religion of the Inquisition. 

The proscriptions of James can never be forgotten. The protestants 
would be forced to stand with arms in their hands against the inveterate 
bitterness of popery: they must fight or fly ; the British Cabinet must 
be roused by the cries of the Irish protestant for mercy, and of the 
English protestant for justice ; however weak, sluggish, or conciliating, 
they would not dare to suffer this scene, if they valued their heads. There 
must be military interference. Then there must be civil war. And can we 
suppose that a popish parliament would be looked on with an indifferent 
eye by the spirit of popery in Europe; that every agent of superstition 
would not be busy in such a hope of the reconquest of a nation to the 
undivided allegiance of Rome? or that foreign powers would not rejoice 
in the chance of British dismemberment ; and, with the faithlessness that 
belongs to their. oath-dispensing religion, rouse and sustain the fray, 
until Ireland was turned from a field of battle into an appanage of France, 
Spain, or Austria; or the war burned out in the ashes of the last inha- 
bitants of the undone land? 
_ We will pronounce to the British Cabinet, with the most solemn con- 
viction of our hearts, founded on the most intimate knowledge of popery, 
that if they suffer papists to enter the British parliament, all those things 
will be done. A faction, of which a generation of knotted snakes would 
be but a tame emblem, will start up before them. Concession after con- 
cession will be wrung from them ; till a fraudulent, a timid, or a foolish 
administration finds itself qualified to barter away the country to the 
iron-linked faction of popery. The votes of its hundred members will 
be the purchase ; but the remedy and the atonement will be Revolu- 
tion. 


M.M. New Series —Vow. VII. No. 37. C 


[au (Jan. 
A DAY AT FONTAINBLEAU: 


Tue Royvat Hunt. 

Havine learned that the King and the Dauphin, with the Due de 
Grammont, and the rest of the royal suite, were about to proceed to 
Fontainbleau, in order to enjoy the diversion of hunting, I resolved to 
be there to meet them, to see with my own eyes a royal personage of 
whom I had heard so much. Accordingly I ordered post horses, and 
arrived in the town about six hours after his Most Christian Majesty. 
Though the journals had all hinted forth the sovereign’s intent of gra- 
tifying the lorging eyes of the good people of Fontainbleau, never- 
theless I did not perceive that the public gave evidence of any strong 
ebullition of curiosity. As I passed along the almost endless but 
deserted streets, there were streaming from the windows scattered 
banners “ thinly ranged to make up a shew,” bearing the impress of the 
“ Fleur de Lis.” 

Our party first drove to the Hétel de France, but here there was no 
accommodation to be had, for love or money, and, besides, the house 
was filthy in the extreme! Our next resource was the Hétel du 
Dauphin, and here we ultimately took up our quarters, where every 
thing was regulated by a “ prix jixe.” Though in this hotel the 
traveller may have had to complain of an exorbitant bill, yet in legal 
phrase he had at least the good fortune to have become a purchaser with 
notice, and, in settling it, he could not complain that he had been taken , _ 
unawares. 

It was past six o'clock, in the latter end of the month of October last, _ 
when I found myself within the court-yard of the inn at Fontainbleau. _ 
Having travelled from Joigny, whence I started at eight in the morning, 
the reader will readily allow that I was legally entitled to have an 
appetite ; and my first impulse was to enter the kitchen to order 
dinner. While engaged in this always agreeable occupation, after a 
journey, I was approached by the post boy, whose “ compte” (as they 
call it) I had already prepared, allowing, of course, according to the 
“ Livre de Poste,’ of a quarter post, and the distance in entering 
Fontainbleau. My postillion, however, was by no means satisfied, and 
lustily demanded a whole post extra as his legal allowance. On inquir- 
ing the why and the wherefore of this, I was answered “ The king is 
at Fontainbleau.”’ On referring to the book of posts, published by 
authority, I found there was no mention made of his Majesty, and I 
became as refractory as any John Bull was in duty bound. The pos- 
tillion, meantime, quietly walked to the Poste Royale, and, whilst I was 
at dinner, returned, and put into my hand the ‘royal ordonnance “ to 
the intent and effect aforesaid.’ To pay the whole post additional, _ 
therefore, I was compelled by law, and there was no remedy. I deter- 
mined, however, to have a post’s worth of criticism on his Most — 
Christian Majesty in revenge, and I accordingly ordered a saddle-horse 
to be prepared for me at eight on the ensuing morning, in order to 
enabled to follow the king to the chace. The “ royal hunter before the 
Lord” had, notwithstanding all my efforts, the start of me by two hours; 
as I learned at. the palace that he had set off at six o'clock. P 

To return, however, to my excursion. After breakfasting on a cold 
partridge, and some excellent coffee, I set out at eight o’clock for the — 
forest. Even at that hour—a late one in France, when compared with 
England—the roads were by no means thronged, and I could very — 
plainly perceive that the major part of the equestrians were attached to ‘ 


1829.] The Royal Hunt. 1k 


the court, and that the pedestrians were either such as had been in the 
enjoyment of some of the good things of this life under the present 
family, or such as were in expectancy of them. There was a third class, 
altogether composed of the mob, who, partly incited by the desire of 
plunder, the love of idleness, or an indistinct hope of obtaining the 
entrails of the deer, flocked in great numbers to witness the feats of the 
royal party. Among this latter class, old men, old women, and very 
young boys predominated. 

The forest of Fontainbleau js in itself beautiful in the extreme. The 
various alleys formed by the manner in which the oak trees are planted, 
create an imposing and majestic coup-d’eil, which is only bounded 
almost by the horizon. At the bottom and in the middle of these alleys 
were placed mounted gendarmes, to restrain the intrusion of the popu- 
lace, and to prevent them from coming—such is French curiosity— 
within shot of the hunters. At the end of one of these alleys to my 
left the great body of the crowd was stationed, and at the top of it was 
an inclosed space, somewhat like a stand on a race course, on which the 
royal party took their station, while the carriages and servants remained 
quietly behind. Across this stand, and within the inclosed space, were 
the roe-buck, fawns, and young wild boar goaded, while the King, the 

Dauphin, the Duc de Grammont, and the rest of the royal party, had 
their shots in succession, or, as it is technically termed, their “ coup.” 
Ten men were busy charging for the King, while as many were 

j engaged for the Dauphin. Ammunition and cartridges were borne by 

t four attendants, who, as well as the chargers, were all in the livery of 

_ the King’s huntsmen. As shot after shot passed in quick succession, 
j the sounds fell chiefly on the ears of those among the crowd—and they 

were the fewer number—who had hearts within them, and to British 
feeling each reverberation brought a mingled sensation. In England, 
and in most other nations, whether civilized or savage, when an animal 
is hunted some chance at least of escape is given. Thé reader will bear 

_ in mind that the inclosed space around the stand was surrounded by a 
_ kind of chevaua de frize, six feet in height, so that the animal had not 
- the least chance of escape, and the work of destruction of course went 
_ rapidly on. 
Within 300 yards of the stand were placed a number of light carts, 
whose drivers vociferated loudly at the sound of each shot. These carts 
were placed for the purpose of carrying away the dead carcases, as they 
accumulated in quick succession within the inclosure. In the short in- 
terval of four hours I saw twenty-three of these carts filled with the 
_ produce of the slaughter, which, amidst deafening yells, was conveyed to 
_ the end of one of the alleys, where the bodies were deposited in order 
as they had been killed. In the first row those killed by the king him- 
self was ranged; and he numbered forty-six roe bucks, and one mar- 
cassin (young wild boar); the spoil of the dauphin was thirty-eight 
roe bucks, being eight less than his royal father, while the rest of the 
mpany destroyed among them fifty-four, making a grand total of 
138 roes, and one wild boar. 

While the carcases thus remained strewn on the ground, the work of 
isembowelling quickly proceeded. It was the business of one man to 
range the game in the order I have mentioned—another ripped open the 
body with a sharp knife, while a third party, to the amount of a dozen, 
were engaged in the disembowelling. 

The day, which hitherto was bright and glorious, now began to close 
C2 


J 


>.» 


> et 


aly! a MP ees - 


12 A Day at Fontainbleau. [Jan. 


into evening. -The air became keener, and I felt a disposition to leave 
the forest and return to -Fontainbleau. But, though I had heard the 
king, I had not yet seen him, and my party being anxious to come in 
contact with royalty, I consented to remain. Presently the crowd began 
to rush towards the inclosed space, but the gendarmes, ever active, kept 
them at bay. The multitude, however, despite opposition, ranged 
themselves into two lines ; and, in a few minutes, the signal ran that the 
king was coming. var 

His Majesty was on foot—he was surrounded by the officers of his 
household, dressed in a plain dark-green frock, with a star on his breast. 
On his head was a small round grey hat, full of days, or mayhap years, 
and of services. His breeches were of the homeliest thickset ; and he 
also wore a pair of large leather gaiters—such as are very common 
among farmers and peasants in Kent and Sussex. Though the conforma- 
tion of his figure was not powerful, yet it was muscular and wiry, and 
he appeared in perfect health. 

It was now past five o'clock, and the umbrage of the forest added a 
deeper tint to the shadows of evening. The air was piercingly cold, and 
his Majesty had been engaged in the sport from six in the morning, 
without intermission. Untired, however, in the work, the king deter- 
mined to continue the sport, and accordingly, with his suite, he returned 
to the inclosed space. In the inclosure his Majesty did not long remain. 
Three separate bevies of deer were let loose—again I heard the fearful 
shots, and the number was soon filled up. The king again came among 
the crowd; and, after having given directions about the game, entered 
bie carriage with a hasty step, and at a rapid pace drove off for Fontain- 
bleau. ; 

This was the signal for a general movement, and, in a short time, the 
forest was completely cleared of its late inhabitants. 


FAGGING, AND THE GREAT SCHOOLS. 


WE wish that some public man of character and diligence would take 
up the subject of our public schools, sift the business thoroughly, lay 
open the gross and scandalous absurdities and crimes of the system, in all 
its points of education, morals and discipline, and, by calling the national 
attention to one of the most formidable and pressing grievances and cor- 
ruptions of the national character, work a real reform. Such a man may 
be assured that he would not be without thousands and tens of thousands 
of well wishers ; that the mere evidence of the subject’s being likely to 
be pursued seriously, would raise up a host of auxiliaries, that he must 
succeed, and that, at the close of his labours, he would have the satisfac- 
tion of having done more good to his country, than all the orators and 
oppositionists who ever roared themselves hoarse and_ their hearers deaf, 
upon East Retfords, Birminghams, and the other stock stuff of ribald 
patriotism. ‘ 

Yet we should most strenuously deprecate the adoption of this important 
subject by any actual party man. In the hands of a minister it must _ 
have only its share of the time necessarily divided by the innumerable — 
calls of office. In the hands of a regular Whig it must fail, for all things 
fail ; it must be frittered down into little mean details, degraded by 
paltry personal objects, and, after being grasped at as an occasion of 
general abuse against the. laws and Constitution of the country, be, as 
usual, hooted out of the House, on the conviction of the fraudulent and 
swindling pretences of its supporter. 


- 


1829.] Fagging, and the Great Schools. 13 


Thus have gone down to the grave of all the Capulets, a hundred showy 
schemes of public purification, and rightly have they been sent there. We 
will not accept our food, mental or bodily, from hands that we know to 
be perpetually dabbling in poison. If our institutions are to be healed, 
it will not be by the hands of a generation of quacks, however they may 
admire the race of charlatans that figured in the mischiefs of the French 
Revolution, or lament the tardiness of spirit that has so long denied them 
the glory of an experiment of subversion at home. Out of honesty 
alone can honesty come ; and we will no more trust the wretched rabble 
of Whiggery, whether in the raggedness of the Foxites, or the new 
equipment of faction from the popish wardrobe, than we will trust 
adders fanged. 

But let any one man of character commence his inquiry into the state 
of the great schools of England, and he must succeed. The opportunity 
is now opened for him by the publication of Sir Alexander Malet’s 
pamphlet; he has only to ask what effect that pamphlet, simple 
as its statements are, has had in recalling to the public the con- 

“viction of abuses, of which every man, educated at the great schools, has 
been a witness, and of which every man so acquainted has but one feel- 
ing—abhorrence of the system, wonder at its being suffered to continue, 
and the most unpleasant struggle in his own mind, between depriving 
his children of the natural advantages that ought to belong to a public 
education, and submitting them to the vices, brutalities, and barbarities, 

perpetually going on at the leading schools. 
| We give the story of the present transaction at Winchester School, in 
__. Sir Alexander’s own clear and temperate language :— 

« The prefects, or eight senior boys of the school, are in the habit of 

_ fagging the juniors ; and that they may have a greater command of their 
services during meal times, they appoint one of the junior boys with the 
title of Course Keeper, whose business it is to take care that whilst the 
przefects are at breakfast, or supper, the juniors sit upon a certain cross 
bench at the top of the hall, that they may be forthcoming whenever a 
prefect requires any thing to be done. (This is called « going on hall !’) 

« During that part of the short half year in which there are no fires kept, 
, a sufficient number of boys for this service was generally furnished from 
the fourth class, and it was considered that the junior part of the fifth 
- class, which is next in the ascending scale, was exempt from so dis- 
agreeable a servitude. It appears, however, that within these few years, 
there has been a much greater press of boys to enter the school than 
formerly, the consequence has been, that they have come to it older, and 
“more advanced in their studies than formerly, and the upper depart- 
- ments of the school have received a greater accession of numbers in pro- 

. ion than the lower classes. The fourth class, therefore, gradually 
rnishing a smaller number of fags, the prefects issued a mandate, that 
e junior part of the fifth class should share with the fourth in the duty 
f going on hall: this was for some time submitted to ; but at length 
one of the boys of this class intentionally abstained from seating himself 
on the cross bench at supper time, and being seen by the senior prefect, 
and desired by him to go on hall, refused to do so, and argued the point 

as a matter of right, alleging, as the ancient usage of the school, the ex- 

emption of the junior part of the fifth class from this duty till the com- 

mencement of fires ; he referred to the Course Keeper as being the 

ising of the rules, and expressed himself prepared to abide by his 

ecision. 


14 ' Fagging, and the Great Schools. [Jan. 


“The Course Keeper, who does not appear to have been very well 
versed in the usages of the school, decided that the boy ought to go on 
hall, and the prefect therefore resolved, not only to enfore this new rule, 
but to punish the contumely of this unlucky boy by giving him a public 
chastisement: to this however the junior did not feel inclined to submit, 
and a second prefect laid hold of him that he might not evade the beat- 
ing destined for him—a simultaneous movement then took place amongst 
the juniors, who pinioned the two preefects, released the boy who was 
being beaten, and gave them to understand that the intended chastise- 
ment should not be inflicted. 

“The prefects instantly laid a complaint before the head master, who 
expelled the boy who refused to go on hall, and five others, who had 
appeared most active in preventing the prefect from punishing him. 
Amongst the number was my brother ; and as I considered the punish- 
ment of expulsion for this offence extremely severe, I endeavoured, 
though without success, to procure his reinstatement in the school; at 
the same time I of course pleaded the cause of all those who were ex- 
pelled, for it was manifestly impossible to make a distinction in favour 
of any one of them, more particularly of my brother, who was the first 
to lay hands upon the senior prefect.” 

The nature of the case, divested of Winchester technicality, is, that 
two big boys, for an offence which they had no right to punish, set about 
beating a junior boy, who had acted on an impression of right ; and that 
other boys seeing what they thought an act of injustice, and what every 


one must have seen to be an act of cruelty, going forward, interposed, to | 


save one boy from being maltreated by two. For this crime six were 
‘ expelled, that is, subjected to a punishment, which is one of the severest 
in its consequences that can be inflicted by any authority whatever ; 
a punishment which scarcely any crime of mature life can deserve, and, 
which extending through all portions of life, is devised for extreme seve- 
rity. Expulsion from one of the great public schools is virtual expul- 
sion from all ; for into none of them can the individual be received. It 
is expulsion from the Universities, for into none of them can he be re- 
ceived. It is expulsion from the Church, for into that he cannot be 
received. In many instances it prevents his being received as a member 
of the Law ; it has operated against his even obtaining a military or 
. naval commission ; and, on the whole, it leaves this stigmatized being 
scarcely any pursuit, except, perhaps, the stage. And all this is to be 
inflicted on. a boy of ten years old, in consequence of defending himself 
from being violently attacked by two boys of fifteen. 

Sir Alexander Malet’s letter to the head master, is a mild and gentle- 
man-like appeal to his common sense, for the restoration of the boys, in 
- whatever manner Dr. Williams might conceive least likely to incur even 
the appearance of infringing on the discipline of the school. To this 
Dr. Williams returned an answer, which we allow to speak for itself, and 
which will establish the character of that person in a remarkably singular 
point of view. 


«Sir: “* Winchester, October 13, 1828. 


“ J have had the honour to receive your letter of this day’s date ; and I beg 


you to be assured that I have paid the most serious attention to its contents. 
That you should think the sentence of expulsion pronounced against your 
brother unnecessarily severe, I cannot but regret, and the more so, as the same 
considerations of duty, which first led me to inflict the punishment, forbid me 
now to recal it. The authority of the Prefects is, as you well know, essential 


1829.] Fagging, and the Great Schools. : 15 


io, o 


to the maintenance of discipline in the School ; and it is impossible that they can 
exercise that authority with effect, if they are not protected from personal 
outrage. If they, or any of them, exceed the line of their duty, or commit any 
wrong act, they are liable to censure and punishment from the master ; and if 
any boy think himself aggrieved, he may prefer his complaint in the proper 
quarter, with a certainty that it will meet with due attention. But he cannot, 
on any account, be permitted to use force against those whom he is bound to 
obey. I cannot admit that the distinction which I understand you to make 
between authority exercised on behalf of the Master, or in enforcing privileges 
permitted to the Prefects, is of sufficient importance to make that conduct 
venial in the one case, whichis highly culpable in the other. Obedience to the 
Prefects is required by the usage and laws of the School; and if boys either 
deliberately refuse obedience, or support the disobedience of others by tumul- 
tuous and forcible resistance to their officers, such conduct is, in my judgment, 
subversive of subordination and discipline, and requires to be repressed by 
such an example as I have lately been compelled to make. Severe notice I 
conceive to be equally necessary, whether the immediate occasion of the dis- 
order arise from the exercise of authority in a matter of discipline, or of per- 
sonal privilege ; since, if it were once admitted that violent hands could, with 
comparative impunity, be laid upon the Prefects, boys who were discontented 
with their superior for a strict and honest discharge of official duty, would 
never be at a loss to find opportunities of venting their dissatisfaction on some 
question of a different nature. My conviction being still that the removal of 
your brother, and the other young persons connected with him, was a neces- 
sary measure, I am sorry to add that the step which you propose to obviate 
the charge of vacillation in the counsels of the heads of the School, in case 
they should revoke their sentence, does not appear to me to be well suited for 
that purpose. The consequence of reversing the sentence upon petition from 
‘the Prefects would be, that, if similar circumstances should hereafter occur, 
} no Prefect could, without being placed in a most invidious light, decline to 
intercede for the offender ; and the expectation that the Master would favour- 
ably receive such intercession, must operate to diminish that salutary fear of 
serious consequences, which the punishment now infiicted is intended to impress. 
In conclusion, I can only repeat my assurance, that I would not have removed 
your brother from the School, unless a review of all the circumstances con- 
nected with the case had convinced me that it was necessary ; and that I most 
unwillingly decline acceding to your proposal for his reinstatement, because I 
am persuaded that I could not receive him again without injury to the disci- 
pline which I am bound to maintain.—I have, &c. 
“ Sir A. Mater, Bart.” « D. WILLIAMS.” 
- The whole of this very magisterial declaration, divested of its yerbo- 
sity, amounts.to the fact, that Dr. Williams sanctions the beating of the 
little boy, by the two big boys. As to the pompous pretence of keeping 
up discipline, what has the good order of a school to do with the perpe- 
tual sitting of a line of little boys on a cross bench, to be ready to toast 
bread, morning and evening, for a class of big boys? The thing is non- 
sense, and only worthy of a pedagogue’s brains. Again, as to the fine 
principle of suffering all kinds of insult and injury, without daring to 
_ resist, because a complaint may afterwards be made ; thank Heaven that 
Dr. Williams is not a legislator, beyond the reach of his own birch rod. 
What would become of mankind, if a ruffian were to be suffered to 
eat, maim, and nurder, because—justice would have her ears open to 
the complaint when the mischief was done. This may be law among 
_ the empty slaves of school-legislation, but it would be scouted among all 
_ men of understanding and experience in life. 

But leaving Dr. Williams to his tardy, but sure repentance, that he 
ever tingle ‘binisclf with this subject, let us look at the question on a 
* larger scale, unencumbered with the recollection of such formal and 
i pompous practitioners of the old, and perfectly worthless school system. 


“we 
x 


16 Fagging, and the Great Schools. [JAn. 


Why should fagging be suffered in any school? Subordination, in all 
instances, is essential ; and a degree of superintendance, to be exercised 
by monitors, chosen among the better conducted, well-tempered, and in- 
telligent elder boys, may be established with obvious advantage. But 
what has this to do with fagging? The fag is a junior boy, given into 
the absolute power of a senior boy, for every purpose that boyish 
tyranny can require. The fag is actually a menial of the lowest descrip- 
tion. He is ordered to clean his senior’s shoes, brush his clothes, run 
into the street on his errands, and do every work, clean or dirty, honest 
or dishonest, that his senior may command. He must surrender his 
money, give up his bed, his clothes, his books, every thing to the 
caprice of his young tyrant; and we all know that boys can be as full of 
insolence and cruelty as men. Ifthe senior happen to feel himself cold 
at night, he takes the blanket off the fag’s bed, and leaves him to freeze 
as he may. Those, with a hundred other kinds of ill treatment, under 
which many a boy has died, and many a one lost his health for life, or 
turned idiot or madman, are the privileges of fagging ; and are alike scan- 
dalous to common humanity, and injurious to every purpose for which 
parents send their children to school. We know instances in which 
gentlemen, who had straitened their incomes, to afford the heavy ex- 
pense of educating a child at one of these schools, have, on coming to 
town to inquire into their progress, been presented with a squalid and 
spirit-broken wretch, employing his day in scrubbing boots by the 
dozen, cooking and carrying up dinners, and even stealing for his senior’s 
accommodation ; or with a hardened blackguard, ignorant of every thing 
but the slang, the filth, and the grossest vices, in the grossest shape of 
the profligate corner in which this temple of the rising generation lay ; 
a proficient in lying, thieving, drinking, and the most undisguised licen- 
tiousness. And the whole of this corruption is encouraged in the base, 
and forced upon the decent by the honoured practice of fagging. : 

Every man who has been at a public school where this system is suf- 
fered, shrinks from the recollection. Nor would a single boy be ever 
sent to those seminaries, but that there has been hitherto no alternative, 
and the exhibitions and college opportunities act as a bribe. But how is 
it possible to conceive that this “discipline” is compatible with literary 
acquirement. Let the answer be given in the contrast of the multitude 
who pass yearly through our public schools, at an inordinate expendi- 
ture, with the narrow and utterly inefficient scholarship existing at this 
hour in England. Have we one eminent classical scholar in the whole 
range of our schools, colleges, and professions? Not one! We have 
a few men who can compile a crowd of notes from a crowd of commen- 
tators on a Greek tragedy, or a Latin historian We have scribblers of 
a few verses, never heard of beyond the dreary pages of a Muse Etonen- 
ses, the greatest insult ever offered to the name of Muse. We have a 
few compilers of exercises, and six-penny tracts on prosody. “ Non- 
sense-steps-to Sense-verses’-men,” and scribblers of “ Tentamina,” that 
prove nothing but the absence of all poetic skill, feeling, and tact, be- 
yond that of the fingers. But to what comes all our pretence and osten- 
tation of classical toil, or triumph? Where are our Heynes or Hermans? 
the Scaligers are out of the question; they are of a race that we can 
never dream of equalling, until we shall unite the accuracy of the 
scholar with the lofty vigour and large knowledge of the philosopher. 
The fact is, we have not at this hour a single individual to show to Eu- 
rope, of a rank beyond a copyist and a compiler. 

We shall return to the subject. — 


i 


1829.] ie 


HELL-FIRE Dick, THE CAMBRIDGE COACHMAN. 


Ir I were writing a romance, and therefore at liberty to lay my scene 
when and where I pleased, I certainly should choose some other hero. 
Now, this I have no mind to do, detesting, from the bottom of my heart, 
all works of fiction, as they are called, whether in prose or verse ; or, 

’ «rather, the more for their being in prose—inasmuch as I deem that a 
solid, useful article, and not to be wasted on idle leasings; while poetry, 
with all its trumpery of rhymes, metres, and metaphors, is good for 
nothing that I know of except to be the vehicle of nonsense. If the 
matter rested with me, I would enact a law at once, making it felony to 
vest fiction in prose, and limiting lies, whether black or white, to the 
more genial realms of verse, so that every one might know to what he 
had to trust, which is far from being the case as things stand at present. 
—After this little prelude on the score of heroes’, I beg leave to com- 
mence my veritable history. 

Richard Vaughan, or Hell-fire Dick, as he was more popularly called, 
was a coachman of high renown, who, about fifteen, or by our Lady, it 
may be some twenty-five, years ago, drove the Cambridge Telegraph, 
the only vehicle in which a student of any standing would condescend to 
be conveyed to the embraces of Alma Mater. Freshmen, indeed, who 
knew no better, were imported with other lumber in the heavy coach ; 
but a single term at college, if they had any proper spirit, was generally 

___ sufficient to make them scorn such vulgar doings, and aspire to the guid- 
ce of Hell-fire Dick, the best of whips, and the prince of taverners ; 
for, in addition to his other high office, Richard actually kept a hostel 
—I will not call it a public-house—in Trumpington-street. Here he was 
in the habit of entertaining all the choice spirits of the University, noble 
and ignoble, till some dull clod of a proctor, who had no soul for such 
$ high conceits, came forward, with power in the one hand, and ill-will in 
the other, to put an end to what he was pleased to term this course of 
profligacy. Under the pretence of regard for the morals of the colle- 
-gians—as if collegians ever had morals!—he actually pulled down 
Richard’s sign, that honourable banner, under which so many sons of 
Granta had fought their way through debts, duns, lectures, and imposi- 
aby to the dignity of A.B. It was a heavy day to all men of spirit ; 
ut let that pass; justice has been done to both parties by that fairest and 
most incorruptible of judges—Don Posterity, who has soused the poor 
proctor fathoms-deep in the waters of oblivion, while Richard floats 
snugly adown the stream of Time, without so much as wetting an 


I was a freshman—though my gown had lost something of its vulgar 
loss, for I was in my second term—when I rode for the first time by 
side of Vaughan, on his own box—an honour that procured for me 
1e undisguised envy of two sophs, or third-year men, who sate on the 

of the coach, immediately behind me. By means of an extra glass 
brandy, and certain intelligible hints of a crown-piece to be forth- 
ing at the end of our journey; I had soon acquired a degree of favour 
fe my companion ; and, as we flew along at the rate of twelve miles 
an hour, he condescended to give me much valuable instruction, touching 
the whip-club, the prize-ring, and other similar topics ; on which, sooth 
to say, I was not so well informed as might have been wished. I was, 
however, too discreet to expose my ignorance, more than need be, by 


’M.M. New Series.—Vou. VII. No. 37. 


18 Heli-fire Dick, (Jan. 


any injudicious questions—a fault that I have observed some people 
are very apt to fall into; and, by saying no more than I was actually 
obliged to say, contrived to pass muster so well, that he pronounced me 
to be a likely young fellow enough, and even went so far as to promise 
me his interest with the club, of which he was the worthy president. But, 
as men are not always sensible of a good offer, I somewhat demurred to 
this scheme, objecting the character of the members of his learned insti- 
tute, when he cut me short with—* Tell truth in Latin, my fine fellow, 
as Frank Watson says, when your green-horns are more bold than man- 
nerly with their tongue. You have heard talk. of Frank Watson ?— 
short Watson we used to call him; for there were two of that name in 
your college—long Watson, and short Watson—though no nearer a-kin 
to each other than you are to Adam. The long one was as tall as a 
popular-tree” this was Dick’s usual name for a poplar, either as an 
elegant epithet, expressive of its popularity—or because, his researches 
being confined to other matters, he was not familiar with its more vulgar 
appellation ‘the long one was as tall as a popular-tree, though I 
never heard there was much in him; he got the wooden spoon, I fancy 
—you know what the wooden spoon is?—Steady, Bess !—what are 
you about, you old jade?” This last was an address, in paren- 
thesis, to the off-leader, who was amusing herself with either biting 
or kissing her neighbour’s neck; I was not learned enough, in the 
ways of horses, to make out which. « But Frank, for a little 
one, was as tight a Jad as any in Cambridge, be the other who he may 4 


—could manceuvre the muffles with any man of his hands; he was a © 
prime scholar too, a senior op; and lost the gold medal only by a neck. 
And then he had such a mort of queer stories!—Be quiet, you old 
jade !’——A second apostrophe to the frolicksome lady Bess. «Te 
was in this very bit of the road—ay, right down by the old oak yonder q 
—that we nearly got upset while I was listening to his tale of Flam _ 
Hall; anda droll one it was, too. Surely” a strong accent on the last — 
syllable “surely you have heard talk of Flam Hall ?—No?—Why, 
it was from that came the saying, ‘Tell truth in Latin.” If you have 
not heard the story before, you may as well hear it now; and I do not 
much mind if I tell it you.” 

I protested that I should take it as a great favour; and Dick accord- 
ingly commenced—though I should premise, that, in repeating the tale, 
I do not undertake to give it word for word in his language’ To do 
that, might baffle a better memory than I can pretend to; for he had a 
peculiar dialect of his own, borrowed from no time and no province, an 
to speak the truth, if given in its native purity, much of it might soun 
rather oddly to those who have been used to the prejudices of polite 


J 


conversation. . < 
O Pixzzdos meoroyites—or, as it may be familiary rendered, Hellfire 
Dick beginneth his narrative. “a 


“ Frank—I always call him Frank, as I have good right to do, for we _ 
were hand-and-glove—Frank, with all his mettle, had some queer fan- _ 
cies at times. After kicking up the devil’s own delight for weeks toge-_ _ 
ther, drubbing the townies, bullying the proctor, and cocking his cap at" 
the vice-chancellor himself, he would sit you down as quiet as a lamb, 
and muz over his books as if there were no more spirit in him than in a 
dead horse. Then, too, he had an odd taste for vagabondizing—taking 
a tour, I think, he called it—amongst the most out-of-the-way places, 


1829.) ! the Cambridge Coachman. 19 


where, for miles together, there was not such a thing as a turnpike-road 
to be seen, or scarce a road of any sort, that, to trot upon it for an hour, 
would not break the heart of any beast but a Welsh pony. Well, one 
day, Frank, who had been paddling it on the hoof ever since sunrise, 
up hill and down hill, found the night closing in upon him, and no 
house near. It was bitter cold, too, being the fag-end of autumn, and, 
to mend matters, there was every chance of a heavy storm. As he looked 
up, the clouds came sweeping along from the north-east, and the stars 
seemed to go out before them, one after another, like the dying sparks 
from a sky-rocket, till at last one only remained in a space of blue no 
larger than you might cover with your hat. Even that did not escape 
long ; the clouds still drove on, surging over the little twinkling light, 
first in thin vapour, then thicker—thicker—thicker—like the rising tide 
. on a rock, till it has overwhelmed it; and all this time the wind was not 
idle: it whistled over the naked heath on the sides of the hill, and 
« rushed and roared amongst the trees in the low ground he had just left, 
that you would have thought it was the sea beating on a shingly beach. 
Frank, indeed, was somewhat of that way of thinking, though he did not 
well know how it could be ; and he almost expected, on reaching the brow 
of the hill, to find the water before him. He kept on, however ; for, be it 
as it might, he could hardly be worse off than he was, sea or no sea on 
the other side of the mountain. But, as luck would have it, things 
___ turned out better than he had expected ;—on coming to the top of the 
ascent, he found a wild, gravelly common, stretching away on all sides 
- into the darkness, and saw several lights twinkling dimly at a distance, 
though it was too far off for him to tell whether they belonged to one 
house or many. Not that this was of any consequence, so that there was 
some place where he could get shelter ; for he had no fancy, as you may 
suppose, to pass the night out on this bleak waste, under the pouring 
rain, or it might be a storm of sleet and hail, after having trudged it till 
he was scarcely able to keep on his feet any longer. So, on he walked, 
as quickly as a weary man could do, and with a merry heart, though his 
road was none of the best or safest ; this moment he was up to his chin 
among the furze, that scratched and tore him worse than the worst shrew 
_ of a hundred; and the next he was wading knee-deep in a quagmire, 
from which it was a miracle he ever got out again; and when he did, 
and behold! the lights had all vanished.—‘ There is witchcraft in 
this,’ thought Frank to himself; ‘ or is it possible that, in struggling out 
of that confounded swamp, I have changed my path, and got something 
_ between me and the building ?—I'll on, however.’ And he did go on 
—for Frank, as I said before, was a stout-hearted fellow—and, to his 
eat joy, suddenly came again upon the lights, which, it might be, had 
been hidden from him by a small enclosure of firs, growing to the right— 
the only things, above a furze-bush, that could possibly thrive in such a 
heap of sand and gravel. It was now plain that he had a large build- 
ing before him, and, as he drew yet nearer, it clearly shewed itself to be 
‘an inn ; for the meon, which just then peeped out from amass of broken 
_ @louds, shone full upon the sign—a rampant red lion, which swung to 
and fro with no little noise in the night-wind. This was a pleasant sight 
enough to a weary man, on a bleak heath, with a fierce storm brewing 
up: the sounds, too, that cante from within, of laughing and talking, 
and ¢lattering of pewter pots and glasses, were no less agreeable to the 
ear than the Red Lion was to the eye. So, using no ceremony where no 
D 2 


20 Hell-fire Dick, [Jan 


ceremony seemed to be needed, he entered the public-room, and planting 
himself before the fire without noticing any one, began to call lustily 
about him for the landlord. 

«« « What may be your pleasure ?’ asked a man, who sate smoking and 
drinking at the head of one of the small tables, surrounded by, half a 
score of topers—and right jolly topers, too, if any faith might be 
placed in the evidence of their huge, tunlike forms and rubicund noses 
— ‘I am the landlord, Master Nicholas Barnaby by name, at your 
service.’ 

««« Well, then, Master Nicholas Barnaby by name,’ replied Frank, 
not over and above pleased at the innkeeper’s tone, and still less at the 
cool assurance with which he kept his seat, smoking on, as if the new 
guest were nobody, ‘ I want three things—meat—drink—bed.’ 

“It seemed that Mr. Nicholas read in Frank’s face the low state of 
his pocket ; for your landlord is as cunning in these matters as an old 
horse at the sight of a halter; you need not think to catch either of 
them by shaking an empty sieve. Instead of getting up from his chair 
to welcome his guest, he coolly said—‘ For your drink, there is plenty of 
water in the pond hard by ; for your bed, you may have the whole com- 
mon to yourself, and none to interrupt you ; and for meat, you may even 
make a shift for one night, or, if that likes you not, you have only to 
go on some twelve miles or so, and it’s a guinea to a shilling—aunless you 
lose your way in the forest, or get swamped in the fens—but you light 
on the Cat and Fiddle, where, Pll be bound for it, you may have as 
much, or more, meat than you can pay for.’ 

« Frank had a marvellous inclination to repay this advice by stretch- 
ing the giver of it at his full length on the floor ; but then Frank was a 
man of judgment as well as valour, and on eyeing mine host accurately, 
to know where to plant his blow with the most effect, he saw that it was 
better left alone. Mr. Barnaby was a tall, raw-boned fellow, with the 
arms of a blacksmith, the neck of a bull, and a huge round head that, 
from its evident thickness, must have been impenetrable to every thing 
short of a musket-bullet. He, therefore, thought it his wisest plan to 
treat the whole as a joke, seeing that, if he did otherwise, there was 
every chance of his getting a broken coxcomb for his pains. 

«<< Good, mine host,’ he said ; ‘ I like no part of your counsel so well 
that I should follow it at the risk of the fen on the one hand, and the 
forest on the other, though I will not deny that the water may be plenty ~ 
enough, and the heath wide enough. If I must fast—for which, by-the- 
by, I see no occasion when your tables are so well covered—but, if I 
must, it will be pleasanter abiding my penance before a warm fire than 
ona cold common. So, here I set up my staff for the night at least.’ 

« To shew that he meant to be as good as his word, he drew an arm= 
chair to the fire, ensconced himself snugly in it, and, taking his night-cap 
out of his pocket, popped it on his head with as little ceremony as if he 
had been in his own bed-room. There was something so irresistibly 
ludicrous in all this, that the company shouted again, while even Mr. 
Nicholas was pleased to relax a little from his austerity. A grim smile 
mantled over his hard features, and. he looked, or rather he meant to 
look, somewhat more graciously on the intruder; but, owing to the 
obliquity of his vision, his right eye, missing Frank, shot a desperate 
glance at a big-bellied green bottle in the window ; while his left expanded 
all its force on a tea-kettle that was singing away over the fire with 
uncommon gaiety. 


1829. ] the Cambridge Coachman. 21 


« «So, he said, ‘ it seems you have made up your mind to stay 
here, whether I will or no ?’ 

«« Truly have I,’ replied Frank, leisurely stretching out his feet on 
the fender, like a man very much at his ease, and determined to be still 
more so. ‘I have no mind for the common to-night ; so you may as 
well, for the credit of your house, let me have a quart of humming ale, 
with the bread and meat conforming, and a comfortable glass of punch, 
when all’s done, to qualify the crudities of the stomach and keep off the 
night-mare. It would be a scandal to the Red Lion for ever and a day, 
if I should sup on poor diet, or, what is worse, fast on no diet at all.’ 

« There was no resisting Frank’s good-humoured impudence ; and 
Mr. Barnaby, though as cross-grained a brute as ever set up a sign-post, 
found himself in a manner compelled to do his guest’s bidding. He gave 
up his own seat to him at the table, and placed before him a tankard of 
brown ale, with the cold remains of a noble sirloin, and its usual accom- 
paniments of bread and mustard ; upon which Frank fell, tooth and 
nail, with such an appetite as is only to be got by fasting for eight or ten 
hours in the bleak air of the mountains. In a short time, he had made 
himself quite at home with the good company. He hobbed and nobbed 
with those nearest to him, brandished his tankard by way of signal to 
those who were too far off for the closer ceremony of clinking cups ; 
and, as one poor quart was insufficient to so many toasts and pledges, he 
was fain to call out for a fresh supply. 

« « Come, landlord,’ he said ; ‘ the bottom of the cup cries tink, tink ! 
Let us have an editio secunda, auctior et emendatior,—or, for your better 

understanding, a tankard twice as big, and twice as full, as the last. 
j And, good Mr. Barnaby—excellent Mr. Barnaby—let us have no froth- 

ings up of the ale-pot : I love to see the top of my liquor as smooth and 
clear as a mill-pond. It is a sin to waste the good creature in foam and 
froth, as if it were so much soap-suds for a school-boy to blow away in 
air-bubbles.’ 

“The landlord guessed at once that Frank was no youngster, on 
whom a host might impose short measure and long reckoning ; but he 
liked him not a jot the more for that, though he took care to draw his 
ale of the best, and in a handsome quart that the gauger himself could 
not have quarrelled with ; at the same time scoring up this new offenee 

to Frank’s account with the rest of his transgressions—namely, his forci- 
ble entry upon the premises of the Red Lion—his persisting to stay when 
desired to take himself off—and last, not least, usurping the place of 
joker-general to the company, to the utter eclipse of the said landlord, 
who had hitherto filled the post with distinguished honour to himself, 
and to the no small satisfaction of his guests. The total of these offences 
ounted to a handsome sum, which mine host promised himself to pay 
to the last farthing ; and, indeed, I have always observed, that, how- 
er slow folks may be in money-matters, they are more than sufficiently 
ert in bringing things to a settlement, when they are indebted to any 
in an account of ill-will for offences real or imaginary.—But the 
occasion was not yet come. 

“ After a time, when the punch had circulated freely, the conversation 
turned upon ghosts—no unusual thing, at such an hour, and with such a 
meeting. This was the landlord’s strong ground ; he had at one time, 
before he succeeded, by the death of a fat uncle, to his present inn, been 
sexton tothe parish—which, by-the-by, accounts tolerably well for his spare 


92 | Hell-fire Dick, [Jan 


figure and lugubrious visage—points otherwise perfectly unintelligible in 
an inn-keeper, who, by his vocation, is bound to shew, in his own person; 
the happy results of good living. From his former trade, ‘he had naturally 
got upon a familiar footing with ghosts and goblins ; and he now struck 
into the conversation with the tone of one who feels he is master of his 
subject, and has a right to dictate to his more ignorant companions. But, 
while the rest of the company listened with awe and wonder to his ter- 
rible stories, now told for the nine hundred and ninety-ninth time, Frank 
only leered with his little, peery eyes, wrinkling his nose to and fro, that 
was as supple as the proboscis of an elephant, and, though he said 
nothing, gave evident tokens of his not believing a syllable. This net- 
tled mine host, who felt, he knew not why nor how, that his genius was 
cowed and rebuked by that of his guest, as Antony’s once was by that of 
Cesar. If any thing could have added to the dislike he already enter- 
tained for him, it would have been ‘this; and, certainly, to find another 
obstinately bent on disbelieving one’s creed, no matter what may be the 
subject of it—a point in politics, or a point in pin-making—is such an 
insult as no man, with a proper sense of his own dignity, would submit 
to, unless he wanted the means of resenting it. Now mine host, so far 
from being blind to his own extraordinary merits, was firmly of opinion 
that to differ from him, on any topic whatsoever, was to be a knave, or a 
fool at the least; and it was with more indignation than he thought it 
prudent to avow, that he attacked Frank on the score of his infidelity. 
«© Ay, ay,’ he exclaimed, ‘ there is many a one can look as bold as 


a lion, with the fire blazing on the hearth, and a score of jolly com- - 


panions about him, who would quake most confoundedly at being alone 
for half an hour in a church-yard at midnight. I wish you would try 
the experiment.’ . 

««« Much obliged to you,’ said Frank ; ‘ but, though I don’t object to 
an hour’s /éfe-d-iéte with your ghosts, I have a particular dislike to such 
a storm of rain and wind as I hear just now, beating against the win- 
dows, and blowing round the house-top as if it intended to carry off the 
chimneys.’ 

« « As to that matter,’ replied the landlord, ‘ there is no occasion for 
your wetting so much as a finger, or having a hair on your head blown 
away. Ican shew you to a place where you may meet with goblins 
enough, without stirring out of the house, since you are so dainty of your- 
self—But, twenty crowns to a single golden guinea, you have not heart. 
to undertake the business, with all your bragging.’ 

« «Done! said Frank, who was not sorry for this opportunity of 
filling his purse, which was at so low an ebb, it was a chance if it served 
to pay his reckoning in the morning. 


“« And done!’ echoed mine host, equally well pleased, on his part, . 
that he was likely to clear off the accumulated scores of the evening ‘with 


his guest ; for, if tradition spoke truth, the ghosts of the Prior’s Gallery 
were no jokers. 


“ Here I should mention, though Frank did not learn it till afterwards, 


that the inn was a portion only of the ruins of a large mansion, «which: 


had formerly gone undér the name of Flam Hail, and was even now so ~ 


called by the elders of the nearest villages. By one of those strange 
fatalities, which will sometimes occur in real life as well as in the pages 
of romance, it so happened that the heirs of the estate died, through five 
descents, in such rapid succession, that in no one instance was death’ 


es 


a ee 


1829. ] the Cambridge Coach man. 23 


separated more than a twelyemonth from inheritance. Hence a super- 
stitious dread seized the family, as if death were the necessary result to 
any heir who should venture to live in the mansion ; and accordingly it 
was abandoned, with all its furniture—its rich carpets, its splendid 
hangings, its tables of carved ebony, and of woods yet more precious 
than ebony—to the rats and owls, who soon established a mighty colony 
within the deserted walls. Even the family portraits shared the same 
fate ; for it was argued, with a degree of superstition common to those 
times, and not perhaps quite a stranger to our own, that, like the plague, 
the mysterious cause of death might lurk not only in the building, but in 
all connected with it. In this state it remained for half a century, when 
the uncle of the present tenant got a lease of the ruins, and turned the 
better part into an inn, the low rate of the rent serving, in a great mea- 
sure, to qualify the evil report that even yet clung to them, surviving 
what may not be unaptly termed the natural life of the building. But 
though it soon appeared that the curse of premature death, incident on 
_ inhabiting the forbidden mansion, did not extendto strangers, yet the bold 
~ taverner was not without his troubles. In a short time he found it was 

not enough to satisfy_a living landlord by the due payment of his rent on 

quarter-day ; the dead lords of the place had, it seemed, their privileges 

also, in which they were not to be controlled, and, instead of resting 

quietly in their graves, like other honest folks, they were sure, every 

night, fair weather or foul weather, to haunt the portrait-gallery, more 

generally known by the name of the Prior’s Gallery, from the full-length 
7 _ figure of some defunct prior on the stained glass of the eastern window. 
| } _ As, however, the ghosts were modest enough to limit their pretensions 


ie ee 
—/ 


to this one room, and were moreover well able to defend their rights, 
as appeared by their having severely drubbed the few bold spirits who 
had ventured to do battle with them, the new tenant did not think fit to 
_ dispute the point any farther, but double-locked the door, and left them 

_ in quiet possession of the domains to which they had shewn so good a 
title.—Such was the state of affairs, at the Red Lion, when Frank laid 
his wager with the malicious landlord. 

« But now another difficulty arose; Mr. Barnaby had no mind to shew 
his guest the way to the haunted room at such an hour, unless backed in 
the perilous adventure by at least some half-dozen of the company ; the 
_ company had just as little inclination for thrusting themselves into a 
hazard that nowise concerned them ; and Frank, for his part, loudly pro- 
_ tested against passing the night in a cold, damp room, without a fire. 
For some time this obstacle threatened to prevent the decision of their 
_ wager; but, at last, the landlord, who had set his heart on getting his 
unwelcome guest into a scrape, succeeded in persuading the boon com- 
ions to rise in mass, and lend him their protection to the Prior’s 
Gallery. It cost him, indeed, the promise of a bow] of punch in requital 
this good deed, to be brewed at his own proper cost and charges. 
But what is a bowl of punch, though it were as big as a water-bucket, 


to the pleasure of gratifying one’s malice? Besides, it was only requisite 
to Ee ploy a little of the host’s alchymy upon the bills already incurred 
_ during the evening, setting down quarts for pints, and shillings for six- 
~ pences, with a few other slight tricks, such as every landlord of any 
sagacity is familiar with, and, in the long-run, he would not lose so much 
as the value of a nutmeg. 


“ Comforting himself with this fair prospect of making good any 


24 Hell-fire Dick, [Jan. 


expense he might incur in the prosecution of his scheme, he swung over 
his brawny shoulders a basket, which stood by the fire, with dry billets, 
ready split for use, and sallied forth for the Prior’s Gallery, followed 
close by Frank and the rest of his guests, each carrying a candle; for 
your ghosts have ever been known for ill friends to light, be it of what 
kind it would—torch-light, or day-light. On the present occasion more 
particularly, the precaution came not amiss, in more senses than one ; 
for the haunted room lay at the very extremity of the building, and the 
way toit was precisely such as might be expected to lead to the dwelling 
of a ghost, being much less convenient than picturesque. You had to 
go up stairs, and then down stairs, and then again up stairs, over floors 
not always safe, through dreary corridores that led to no less dreary 
rooms, and through rooms that appeared to have been built for no other ~ 
earthly purpose than as a way to passages. The wind, too, howled 
through the rents in the walls and the broken windows, that it was as 
much as they could do, with all their care, to keep the candles a-light ; 
and, by the time they reached the door of the gallery, I warrant you 
there was many a pale face amongst them. Here the landlord made a 
dead halt. 

«« Well,’ said Frank, ‘ why don’t you open the door ?’ 

«Why don’t I open the door?’ repeated mine host ;—‘ humph! 
there are two words go to that bargain. Since you are not afraid to sleep 
in the room all night, I don’t see why you should be afraid to be the 
first to enter it.’ 

«« And who told you I was?’ said Frank ;—‘ give me the key, 
blockhead! and we’ll soon see if your ghosts dare to shake their beards 
at Frank Watson.’ 

«« There it is, Mr. Watson—since it seems your name is Watson,’ 
replied the landlord; ‘but I wish you would not talk after that fashion— 
at least while we are with you. I have no mind whatever to quarrel with 
the good folks within.’ 

“The door, as I have already observed, was double-locked. At the 
first turn of the key, the bolt shot half back with an ominous, grating | 
sound, not very pleasant to the ears of the guests. who instantly, as if 
they had been one man, made a sort of demivolte to the right ; and there 
they stood, ready to fly on the first alarm, yet still too curious to retreat 
without some more immediate and tangible cause of terror. It was an 
awful moment !—the bolt again grated, and Frank was forcing open the 
door, which was too much swollen by the damps to give way readily, 
when atrembling hand was laid upon his arm ; and mine host muttered, 
in a voice scarcely intelligible from fear— 

«< « Stop a moment !’ 

«< « Why ?—wherefore ?’ cried Frank, turning round hastily. 

“ «TJ thought I heard something stirring within,’ replied Mr. Bar- 
naby, in a yet lower key. 

«© « So did I,’ whispered one of the guests. 

«< « Listen-!’ 

« « Nonsense !’ said Frank ; ‘ the surest and the shortest way to learn 
if any one is within, is to go in ourselves,—And he threw the door 
wide open. 

At this moment had an owl hooted, a bat flapped his heavy wings 
across them, or even a beetle dropped from the ceiling on any of their 
lights, the whole party had infallibly been put to flight ; but as, luckily, 


1829.] the Cambridge Coachman. 25 
none of these dire portents happened to alarm them, they followed their 
more courageous leader into the haunted room, though with hearts beat- 
ing somewhat higher from the expectation of what might be before all 
was over. The gallery, however, which not a little resembled the interior 
of a chapel, had nothing particularly suspicious in its appearance. It 
was a long room, lighted, awkwardly enough, at either end, by a stained 
window, that occupied the entire height and width of the building, 
while the sides were divided into panels, on which were painted the 
antient lords and ladies of the mansion, from the first possessor down to 
the last who had died within its fated walls. The same chairs occupied 
the same places they had done a hundred years before—tall, ponderous 
fellows they were, with backs as long as an American’s, and red damask 
coverlids over a plentiful stuffing of wool, on frames of ebony. To 
match these were two immense tables of the same wood, richly, if not 
elegantly carved, more particularly about their massive legs, which 
were as tattooed as the skin of an Indian, and of weight enough to break 
down the floor of any drawing-room, such as drawing-rooms are in our 
degenerate days, when it is much if the building outlives the builder. 
The huge fire-place held no grate, probably never had done so; for a 
dog, as it is even now called in some parts of the country, still occupied 
the hearth-stone. This dog was no more than four iron bars, crossed 
and held together by rivets, but was sufficient for all the purposes of a 
wood fire, which the landlord now hastily set about kindling ; for he, as 
well as his guests, always excepting Frank, had by this time seen quite 
enough of the Prior’s Gallery to wish themselves safe back again in the 
kitchen. Not, as I said before, that there was any thing particularly 
alarming about it ; but still it had an air of desolation, from having been 
so long abandoned, that, when one thought of the tales connected with 
it, might make a man feel somewhat nervous, even if he had a stouter 
heart than could be pretended to by any of the good company at the 
Red Lion. The dust of half a century was lying on the dark oak floor, 
ildew hung upon the walls, and the spiders had drawn their grey 

ts from window to window, while yet, to the great surprise of every 
one, the pictures, though much faded by time and the damps, were as 
clear from dust or cobwebs as if some friendly hand had taken them 
under its particular superintendance. The guests shook their heads 
anxiously as they pointed this out to each other, though their remarks 
_ did not go beyond a few broken whispers ; and glad men were they 
. when they had closed the gallery-door on Frank, and were on their way 


back to the kitchen. 
_ © Not asoul in the house went to bed that night. There was something 
so cheerful in the sight of a blazing chimney and a score of human 
_ faces, that no one could prevail upon himself to quit such comforts for 
_ the loneliness of his bed-room ; so they all agreed to keep their valour 
warm by huddling close together about the fire ; and in this way, with 
_ the additional help of the punch-bowl, they contrived to pass the time 
p. rably well till the clock struck twelve. At this signal, the storm, 
J which before had been quite loud enough, now burst upon the house with 
redoubled fury ; the wind howled along the ruined passages like astrong 
man in agony ; every door and window shook and rattled, that you would 
have thought a legion of fiends were clamouring for admission ; and this 
tremendous hurly-burly was kept up at least for ten minutes ; but then 


M.M. New Series.—Vou. VII. No. 37. E 


26 Heil-fire Dick, [Jan- 


the tempest sunk into its former state of comparative calm, and the rain 
began to fall more heavily. 
« There is no such excellent stimulus to remorse as a strong dose of 
-apprehension. Mine host, who had been not a little cowed by the late 
war of elements, began to entertain some serious alarms for the fate of 
his guest, and to think he had gone a step too far in exposing him to the 
perils of the Prior’s Gallery. The act, it was true, was one of Frank’s 
own choice; but then his conscience whispered, and he could not deny 
her accusation, that, if he had not played the part of tempter to the 
enterprise, it had not been undertaken. The remarks, too, of those 


about him by no means tended to his comfort: all agreed there was - 


something supernatural in the sudden violence of the storm, so much 
beyond the recollection of the oldest man present ; and, if so, to whom 
could it refer, if not to the unlucky Frank, who was, in all human pro- 
bability, suffering the pains and penalties of his rashness—not to give it 
a harsher name—in venturing upon a room which the dead had thought 
fit to appropriate to their own especial service? It must not, however, 
be imagined that mine host was thinking of any ene but himself in his 
profound speculations on the subject ; it was not the fear of what might 
happen to Frank that troubled him, but the doubt of peril to himself 
for having led him into the temptation. 
« The morning came at last, and with it came sunshine, refreshin 

and gladdening the hearts of the watchers, who had probably seldom 


experienced keener pleasure than they did now, when, on the window- 


shutters being thrown open, the day burst in upon them in one broad 
blaze of light. It even inspired them with a certain degree of courage, 
not enough to carry them at once into the haunted chamber, but suffi- 
cient for them to form a sturdy resolution of going thither, if Frank did 
not shew himself in half an hour, and if—which was a principal condition of 
the compact—they continued, when the time came, in the same way of 
thinking. Their new-born zeal, however, was not destined to be put to 
a proof so trying ; for they had scarcely commenced offensive operations 
against the well-loaded breakfast-table, when the object of it made his 
appearance, in high glee, though somewhat pale, it seemed, with the 
fears or fatigues of the night. In his hand he bore a massive silver 
tankard, of antique fashion, the sight of which caused Mr. Barnaby’s 
eyes to sparkle, and put the good company into singular admiration. 
Question now was huddled upon question with such rapid conveyance, 
that it might have tasked the mouth of Gergantua to answer to 
them all.— 

« « How did he get the silver tankard ?—had he seen a ghost >—what 
was it like >—what did it say ?>—was he not horribly frightened >—was. 
there more than one ?’ 

“ « Softly, my masters!’ exclaimed Frank, raising his voice above this 
Babel-din of questions ;— if you wish to learn what I have heard and 
seen: 

« « We do—we do!’ interrupted the guests with one voice. 

«« « Why, then, spare this bibble-babble, and lend me your ears for a 
few moments.’ 

“Jn an instant every tongue was silent, though every mouth was wider 
open than ever, as if the tale was to be devoured by that organ rather 
than taken in at the ears. 

« « In the first place,’ said Frank, ‘ I heard : 


a 


1829. ] the Cambridge Coachman. 27 


« «Go on!’ exclaimed a score of voices ;—‘ go on!’ 

« © J heard—I heard—just what, I suppose, you did—the wind and 
the rain, with several smart claps of thunder.’ 

« «Ts that all?’ said the disappointed guests, in chorus. 

« « No—it is not all” replied Frank; “for I saw a dozen ghosts, or 
more, and very good fellows they are—to those who know how to 
manage them. But there’s the rub; if a man wants the heart to treat 
them as he ought to do, he’s sure to get the worst of the bargain ; but 
only let him come up roundly to them, and give them as good as they 
bring, and then see if they don’t mend their manners! ’Gad ! they grow 
as supple as an old glove, and as ready to the hand. Credite experto— 
trust the evidence of the silver tankard ! 

« © And did the ghosts give you that precious silver tankard ?’ asked 
mine host. 

« « Ay, that did they,’ replied Frank, ‘ and full of wine, to boot— 
such as does not come out of the cellars of the Red Lion. Only smell 
to the cup ; you, who have been lord of the spigot for twenty years and 
upwards, may guess what sort of liquor has been in it.’ 

« Mine host sniffed at the goblet with the air of a comoisseur, and 
found the odour so much to his fancy, that, holding the cup to his mouth, 
with the bottom of it turned to the ceiling, and his head thrown back, he 
endeavoured to extract still farther evidence from the few drops that 
might yet be lingering in it. ’ 

_ «© Body o’ me!’ he exclaimed, < this has a relish with it! I would 
I knew where to find a cellar of the like,’or, at least, the butt from 
which this was drawn.’ 

«« You may do that, and better, if you will, replied Frank ; ‘ you 
have only to pass the night, as I did, alone in the Prior’s Gallery—take a 
stout heart with you—and, when the ghosts shew themselves, don’t stand 
shilly-shally, but call and order lustily about you, like a rich traveller at 
a country tavern.’ 

« «J have a pretty good notion of what that is,’ said mine host ; ‘ and, 
body o’ me! if no more is needed to gain a butt of wine, I am the very 
man for them. I wish, though, I could be quite certain there was no 
bones-breaking like to come of it.’ 

«© Judge for yourself,’ said Frank, cutting a caper like a ballet-master. 
« Does that, think you, look as if my limbs were other than whole ?—or 
could aman with broken bones do this ?’— 

« And with one bound he cleared a pile of forms, that were heaped up 
at the end of the room between him and the window. 

«© All very well,’ replied mine host—‘ marvellous well in its way ; 
but, somehow or another, I can’t get it out of my head that you area 
wag, Master Watson, and would like nothing better than putting me in 
the way of getting a bloody coxcomb.’ 

« «That's all the fruit of a bad conscience, mine host; you meant 
_ mischief to me when you tempted me into the business, and now you 
think I want to return the compliment. But be of better faith, man ; I 
can easily forgive your intention, when the result has been no worse than 
the gift of a silver tankard. Don’t, however, let me persuade you into 
it against your own liking ; it’s nothing to me whether you drink wine 
or water,—only I'll thank you for my wager, the twenty crowns that 
you staked last night against my guinea.’ 

“ The landlord, who would willingly have forgotten the whole affair, 

E 2 


28 Helli-fire Dick, [Jan.. 


made wry faces at this unpleasant jog to his memory. As, however, the 
rest of his guests united with one voice in maintaining the justice of the 
claim, he saw no way of escaping from it, and was preparing, with a very 
bad grace, to pay the money, when he was relieved from at least one half 
of his pain by Frank’s protesting that, ‘ as the crowns were gained in 
the tavern, in the tavern they should be spent ;’—a declaration that was 
received with universal applause. The genial band of topers agreed, 
one and all, that he was a hearty fellow, though he did carry a Lon- 
doner’s tongue in his head, and swore loudly that they would spend 
another day and night there for the pleasure of his company. Such an 
agreeable notice, which carried with it the promise of a golden harvest, 
at once reconciled mine host to Frank and his story; he no longer 
doubted that things were in the Prior’s Gallery as he had stated, and, with 
this conviction, he resolved to follow his advice, and try whether the 
ghosts would not be as liberal to himself as they had been toa stranger.— 
‘If, thought he, ‘they did so much for one they know nothing of, it 
would be hard, indeed, should they send me away sleeveless, who am 
their landlord, and, what’s more, don’t charge a sixpence for their lodg~ 
ing from year’s-end to year’s-end.’ 

“«« T don’t know how the guests contrived to pass the day at this lone 
inn upon a common, nor is it much to our purpose; perhaps they smoked 
away the time; or they might fish, for there were two or three large 
ponds on the heath, where, if they found nothing else, it was like enough 
there would be eels in plenty ; or, it may be, they stole a sly shot at the 
venison in the forest, which I have before mentioned as skirting the 
heath to the left. Be this as it might, they did contrive to get through 
the twelve hours—in what way does not matter—and night found them, 
as before, seated round the punch-bowl. Mine host, who had been 
drawing from it frequent reinforcements to his courage, was in high 
order by the time the clock struck eleven, which, by the advice of his 
counsellor, was the fittest season for his visit to the gallery. Accord- 
ingly, forth he set, escorted, as Frank had been on the preceding even- 
ing, but under much more favourable auspices. Though the night was 
dark, it was calm ; there was no beating of the rain against the win- 
dows—no furious wind, to sound at one moment like the moans of the 
dying, and, at the next, like the trampling of feet through the long, 
crazy corridores—and, what was perhaps still more cordial, every body 
around him was in better spirits. The adventure, too, had been tried— 
the danger proved to be imaginary—and, though it was scarcely possible 
for any of them to avoid a slight palpitation of the heart on entering the 
haunted chamber, yet still there was a wide difference between this 
feeling and the dread they had experienced on the first occasion. Some 
of the boldest even ventured to jest upon the starch, staring portraits, 
that frowned upon them from their oak panels ; and amongst these, not 
the least in daring, was the lord of the Red Lion, who, elevated by the 
spirit of brandy above all sublunary considerations, gallantly snap- 
ped his fingers at the inanimate groupe, protesting that he should like — 
nothing better than half an hour’s gossip with the dead originals. It 
would seem that the portraits heard and accepted the challenge ; for 
scarcely were the words out of his mouth, than every eye amongst them 
was in motion, rolling backwards and forwards as if for a wager. This 
was quite enough for the guests ; one and all rushed out of the gallery, 
leaving the landlord to settle with his ghostly tenants as best he might ; 


1829. ] the Cambridge Coachman. 29 


and, in the hurry of their retreat flung-to the door, which was fastened 
by a spring-lock, the key of which, unluckily for mine host, had been 
left by Frank on the outside. 

« The landlord, thus abandoned to his fate, and the only outlet for 
escape cut off, placed himself with his back against a corner, the most 
remote from the point of danger, though, to do him justice, he was not 
half so much afraid as might have been expected. The punch had 
thrown a sort of mist over his perceptive faculties, so dense that he could 
hardly be said to see the peril with any distinctness, and, as he grew more 
familiar with this battery of rolling eyes—for they did not cease their 


- motion for a single instant—the sight struck him as having something so 


exceedingly ludicrous in it, that he burst into a roar of laughter. This, 
however, did not seem to be taken in good part by the gentlemen on the 
wall, who might probably belong to the sect of the crying philosopher. 
First they stretched out the right hand,—then the left ;—then’ one leg, 
—then the other ;—and, lastly, the whole body became animated, when 
each stalked from his panel with as much uniformity of motion as if they 
had been so many soldiers, marching and then halting at the word of 
command. This, which was carrying the joke somewhat beyond mine 
host’s idea of the thing, made him serious enough ; but he recollected 
the good wine and the silver tankard, and kept up a stout heart, with a 
prudent resolution, however, not to stir or speak till he saw what turn 
affairs were like to take. Nor was he long kept in doubt. A grim- 
looking figure, that, from the pre-eminent antiquity of his dress, might 
be presumed to be the founder of the family, stalked solemnly forward 
from the well-kept line, and, making his way directly for the west end 
of the room, without taking the slightest notice of the intruder, knocked 
thrice, at measured intervals, on the back of the fire-place. 

« « What can this mean ?’ said mine host to himself. ‘ Surely he has 
got no acquaintances up the chimney, that he is inviting after this odd 
fashion to come and sup with him! And yet, body o’ me! I scent as 
prime a bit of venison as ever smoked on the table of the Red Lion.’ 

« This conjecture, if not quite right, was yet not altogether wrong. 
At the old gentleman’s summons, a whole posse of serving-men came 
pouring down the chimney, loaded with various dishes, that, to judge 
from the pleasant odour which steamed from them, could not choose be 
other than excellent. Like their masters, the servants were in the cos- 
tume of all ages, from the flat cap in the time of bluff King Hal, to the 
gold-laced cocked-hat of a more modern period—as if each other century, 
or rather each reign, had sent forth its representative to a general con- 
gress. They were preceded by a grave-looking man, who, from the chain 
about his neck and the white rod in his hand, was evidently the steward. 


_ This important personage stopped before his followers with the stately 
_ pace of a captain at the head of his company, and, halting at the large 


J 


“ 


4 


table in the centre of the room, regulated every movement with his wand, 
without so much as uttering a syllable. A tap on the head from this 
emblem of office signified to the person, so touched, that he was to come 
forward with his dish ; a second tap, on the table, indicated the place 
where it was to be deposited; arap over the knuckles, at once marked 
and rebuked the placing of any thing awry; and, in this manner, the 
table was speedily covered with a quiet dexterity that put the attentive 
landlord into no little admiration. Gladly, had that been possible, would 
he have hired one of these silent functionaries to assist in waiting on the 


30 Hell-fire Dick, [Jan 


guests of the Red Lion, and, though not prone to make rash bargains, 
would have held himself a gainer in giving him a double luck-penny ; 
but, since that might not be, he contented himself with wondering at 
their proceedings. 

« Whilst the supper was being laid, the supernatural guests, for whose 
behoof it was intended, maintained their posts in strict silence, nor did 
any one break out from the line, till the steward gave notice by a pro- 
found bow that his preparations were completed. Then the mail-clad 
patriarch advanced, with the heavy tread of Don Juan’s statue of stone, 
to the half-clad maiden of King Charles’s time, whose uncovered neck, 
beyond what modern decency allows, bore ample testimony to the flesh- 
colour of Sir Peter Lely ; the velvet hose and slashed coat of a still 
later day, in like manner, offered his well gloved hand to the flounced 
and furbelowed dowager of at least a century before ; and, all being 
paired after this anomalous fashion, in utter contradiction to the esta- 
blished maxim of, ‘like will to like,’ the gentlemen handed the ladies 
to their seats, and, at a signal from the steward, the dishes were simul- 
taneously uncovered. 

“ Mine host, who, in his time, had superintended the cooking and 
eating of many a good meal, though not perhaps within the walls of the 
Red Lion, was forced to confess to himself that he had never seen any 
thing at all to be compared to this supper. All the perfumes of Arabia 
were nothing to the savoury steam of the good things that smoked be- 
fore this strange company, of whom it was difficult to say whether they 
belonged to the living or the dead. “The smell alone would have tickled 
the palled appetite of a sick man, and made: him rise from his bed to 
eat, though he had been bedridden for six months before. And the 
wine, both in quantity and quality, was well worthy of the more sub- 
stantial viands ; there was Champagne, clearer and brighter than the 
chrystal in which it sparkled; rich Burgundy, perfuming the whole 
room with a fragrance far surpassing the most delicate scent of roses— 
the choicest juice of the johannisberry, almost as old as the guests them- 
selves—and, what to our landlord was hardly less acceptable, so great 
was the abundance of silver, that its weight would absolutely have 
broken down a degenerate modern table. 

«Body o’ me!’ he exclaimed, half aloud, unable to contain his 
ecstacy—“ I never dreamt your ghosts were such a set of jolly com- 
panions. I always understood they were cold, thin, vapoury fellows, 
smelling of nothing but earth or sulphur, and going about the house in 
their winding sheets to frighten honest fellows out of their wits, if they 
happen to have any. Put these are another guess sort of folks; Gad! 
they know as well as any body what belongs to good living. What a 
delicate savour that piece of venison has!—and that fricandeaux veal, 
I fancy—and those partridges!—Ugh! ugh !—I am a rogue, if there’s 
any bearing it; I shall melt away at the mouth, like a piece of fat butter 
in the frying-pan—and then the wine !—Ugh! ugh !—enough to make 
a man forswear his father—and the silver goblets !—the least of them 
bigger than the pewter flaggon I use to measure out to the exciseman, 
and be d—d to his greedy gullet. But there is no standing this any 
longer ; I'll have a drink of that same Burgundy, and a cut of the 
venison, let what will come of it.’ 

« Accordingly he quitted his safe post in the corner ; but, not to ven- 
ture too rashly on danger, from which, when once in it, he might find 


—— 


1829. | the Cambridge Coachman. 31 


it difficult to get out again, he determined to reconnoitre his ground 
first, and marched slowly round the table, at the distance of a yard or 
two, peeping and prying for an opportunity of edging himself in be- 
tween the chairs. The little notice that was taken of this movement, 
gave him fresh courage, but still he held the more antient part of the 
company in awe, and was unwilling, if he could avoid it, to come in 
contact with any of the gentlemen in armour. The guests in the more 
modern habits looked, he thought, infinitely less mischievous than their 
warlike progenitors, and, with some manceuvring, he contrived to 
squeeze his chair in between two of them, an antient dame, with a 
good-humoured face, and a smart young coxcomb, who had nothing 
very terrible in his appearance. Still, not a word was said. He half 
stretched out his hand to the venison, at the same time looking up into 
the face of his neighbour to the right, as much as to say, ‘ Have I your 
leave ?’—but the gentleman took no notice. He turned to the left with 
a more beseeching look than ever—it was all the same—‘Silence gives 
consent,’ thought he—but no sooner did he attempt to act upon this 
maxim, and put his spoon into a rich stew before him, than he received 
a smart rap across the knuckles, that tingled again up to his very elbows, 
and, on turning round, who should be there but the sour-faced steward. 

«<< Youneed not hit so hard,’ said mine host ; “ I can take a hint, with- 
out its being rapped into me after that fashion ; and, since it seems the 
lady has a fancy to the stew, I’ll«even content myself with a wing of 
that partridge.’ 

« Accordingly, he plunged his fork into the bird ; but, before he could 
use his knife, a second smart blow on the knuckles made him sensible 
that this also, in the language of the South Sea Islanders, was a tabooed 
article. 

« ¢ What! mus’n’t I touch that, neither?’ he exclaimed, in a doleful 
tone.—‘ Well, if I may not eat, I suppose I may drink. You'll hardly 
be such a churl as to deny a honest fellow a drop of wine when you have 
got such plenty of it?’ 

«© But no sooner had he laid his hands on the silver tankard, than the 
white rod was put into action a third time, and that more smartly than 
ever. 

*< Soul of man!’ cried mine host, in extreme ire, and recollecting 
Frank’s advice, that he should give them as good as they brought—‘ this 
is too bad, master steward. Do tell me at once what I may touch, and 
leave off rapping my knuckles at this confounded rate, unless you have 
a mind I should send one of the dishes at your head. May I have a 
spoonful of that ?’—pointing to what seemed a matelot of eels. The 
steward raised his wand,—‘ Well, then, a morsel of that venison ?—Nor 


that either? Then I'll be d—d if I stand on any ceremony with you 


for the matter. You are a niggardly old scoundrel, and your masters 
are not a whit better than yourself, eating and drinking there as if for 
dear life, and never saying so much to a poor fellow, as—Dog, will you 
take a snack ?” 

_ “ At this bold speech, the company looked as much astonished as a 
set of ghosts well could do. Every knife and fork was suddenly laid 
down, and every chair drawn partly back, to stare more freely at the 
audacious intruder, who thus presumed to beard them in their own hall. 
But mine host, who imagined from their silence he had got the whip- 


32 Hell-fire Dick, [Jan. 


hand of then, continued his speech in a yet bolder strain, little deeming 
there was to be any after-reckoning. 

“«« T see you understand me,’ he said ; ‘ and, I tell you again, you are 
a set of niggardly, ungrateful scoundrels. Body o’ me! am I not your 
landlord? Is not this house mine ?—that is, so long as I pay rent for it 
to your dog of an heir, who, by-the-by, has got plenty of your miserly 
blood in his veins ;—it would be long before he would spare me in a 
single sixpence when quarter-day comes round, let times go how they 
would. But that’s neither here nor there ;—I let you have the use of 
this room without the charge of a farthing, and, soul of man! I'll go 
snacks in some of these good things, or out you bundle, bag and bag- 
gage. And, if you won’t go quietly, I'll fetch a parson, who shall 
ferret you out of the old hall as easily as my dog, Towser, would hunt 
me out a family of rats.’ / 

“It may be presumed the poor ghosts were put to a nonplus by the 
very excess of their astonishment, or they never could have heard this 
unwelcome harangue to the end. As it was, Mr. Barnaby had his full 
swing, when the steward rewarded his eloquence with so sound a knock 
on the mazard, that he measured his full-length on the floor, and, in his 
turn, began to feel the surprise he had inspired. But he had little time 
given him to reflect on this or any thing else ; one and all fell upon him 
as he lay there defenceless, the knights drubbing him with their gauntlet- 
ed fists, the more delicate coxcombs kicking him with their long-pointed 
shoes, and the females of the party scratching, pinching, and biting, with 
a fury that, however ludicrous it might have been to a looker-on, was, 
Heaven knows, a very serious matter to the unlucky devil suffering 
under the infliction. It was in vain that, one moment he consigned them 
all to a certain hot place, and the next roared out for mercy with the 
voice of a baited bull: they laughed at the one—probably as being a 
matter already settled, and not to be made worse by his wishes; and 
they only beat him so much the more furiously for the other. To just 
as little purpose was it that he kicked and struggled to get out of their 
merciless grasp ; they had not only the advantage of numbers on their 
side, but were individually the strongest, so that there was every pros- 
pect of his being beaten to a mummy, when his cries summoned Frank 
to his assistance, the only one of the party below who would venture again 
into the gallery. No sooner did the pugnacious ghosts hear the sounds of 
steps in the corridore, than they all fled, helter-skelter—the servants 
scrambling up the chimney, with the fragments of the supper—while 
their masters sneaked back again to their respective panels, and looked 
as staid and demure as if they had never moved from the wall, where 
the painter first placed them. 

<< Curse ye all!’ exclaimed the infuriated host ; ‘ who, to look at you, 
hanging there, with your sober, hypocritical faces, would fancy you 
could play a fellow such cantrips? But, as I live by bread, I'll sort you 
for it ; you shall be quiet enough for the time to come.’ 

« And forthwith he snatched up a bar from the fire-place, and pro- 
ceeded to assault the unlucky portraits with as much desperate determi- 
nation, as whilome Don Quixote evinced in his celebrated attack upon 
the windmills. Panel after panel cracked and splintered under the 
weight of his blows ;—here a face was split asunder,—there a nose was 
demolished ;—this lost a leg,—the other, an arm ;—and the work was 
still going on merrily when Frank made his appearance. 


| 


7 


3829. ] the Cambridge Coachman. 33 


« « What, in the fiend’s name are you about ?’ he exclaimed, snatching 
the iron from the breathless landlord ;—‘ are you mad ?’ 

«© « Yes, I am mad, Master Watson,’ replied mine host; ‘I have a 
right to be mad, after such a drubbing as they have given me.’ 

« « Alack-a-day, poor man!’ said Frank—‘ and so he has been beaten? 
But who is it that has done this naughty deed ?’ 

«< « Why, who but the ghosts, and be d—d to them ?’ 

«<< You have seen them, then ?’ said Frank. 

*« Seen them !’ echoed the landlord ;— the foul fiend fly away with 
the disembodied villains !|—if, indeed, he has not got his share of them 
already ; it’s seldom he gives long credit where so much is owing.— 
Seen them, say you? Why, man, I have felt them, and know the weight of 
their fists to a grain avoirdupois.—But it’s all your fault—all your fault; 
I did just as you told me, and see what has come of it! Body o’ me! 
no fish-wife could have wagged her tongue to a better tune than IJ did ; 
—and only look at my arms, Master Watson !—look at my poor back, 
Master Watson! I called them knaves, and fools, and niggardly ras- 
cals, and fifty other hard names—any one of which, if words had any 
weight, was enough to break the back of a horse.’ 

« « And did you tell them all this in plain English?’ asked Frank. 

«« « Why, in what language do you think I told it ?—or what is that to 
the matter ?” 

« « Every thing,’ said Frank ; ‘in that lies the secret.’ 

“ « Zounds! man, I am not one of your college coxcombs, who carry 
half-a-dozen tongues between one pair of jaws.—But that’s of little con- 
sequence ; they understood me well enough.’ 

“ « No doubt of it.’ 

“« No doubt, do you say? Why the devil, then, did you lead me into 


this pretty business ?’ 


“© Good, mine host! replied Frank, gravely—‘ who would have 


jJooked for this from so discreet a man as you are ?—a man who has cut 


his eye-teeth—who can give a quart of wine in a pint-measure, and brew 
strong ale without the help of barley. Go to! I am ashamed of you— 
not to have known that you should tell truth in Latin ! 

« «Tn Latin!’ exclaimed the landlord. 

« «Why, who but the veriest dolt would think of abusing a man to 
his face, and he the stronger? Ever, while you live, if you want to 
curry favour withea man, tell truth in Latin.’ ”—— 


“It was a queer saying, that of short Watson’s—wasn’t it?” said 
Dick, as he finished his tale. 

« And did he tell it to you in Latin?” said I. 

“ Not a bit of it,” replied Richard ; “if he had, you’d have heard 


__ little of it from me, I fancy.” 


“ Humph !” said I.—“ But here we are at Pembroke; so there’s a 
crown for your maxim, and, when, I say any thing of Hell-fire Dick, 
Tl take especial care it shall not be in English.” 

G. S$. 


M.M. New Series —Vou: VI. No. 37. F 


{ 34 ] [ Jan. 


OUR INQUIRING CORRESPONDENTS. 


In the course of the month we receive a vast number of letters upon 
subjects of all possible kinds ;—some from privy councillors, detailing 
to our private eye the profoundest secrets of the state ;—some from 
Opposition orators, begging of us to insert their speeches, in the hope 
that, though they can get nobody to listen to them, we may get some- 
body to read them ;—others from city politicians, soliciting our vote and 
interest at the next election, and deprecating the Lord Mayor’s intention 
of giving two dinners instead of one, as a cunning device for killing off 
the whole old Corporation, and filling the Common Council and Livery 
with his creatures, whom he will have already filled with his port and 
pudding ;—others from fathers encumbered with charming and accom- 
plished daughters, who “ would make the best wives in the world, and 
be able to spend from five to ten thousand a-year, and upwards ;” 
—an infinite number from the young ladies themselves, who, distrusting 
the eloquence of the paternal pen, think that, in such matters of life and 
death, female genius should rely on nothing but itself. But, not to 
enumerate all, we are overwhelmed by the weight of our correspond- 
ence; and, as to answer in our own person would be endless, we must 
introduce them, from time to time, to the light, and let them answer each 
other. 

The first which we shall give is neither love nor politics, but obtains 
its precedency from the pressing nature of the case, as the subject may 
be devoured before the ink on our paper is dry :— 


SiR : « Regent's Park. 

“Tam an alderman of the ancient and renowned Ward of Billings- 
gate, and having made my fortune, some years ago, by a lucky specula- 
tion in oysters, on the eve of a conspiracy among the Colchester men, I 
determined to leave off trade, withdraw from the vulgarity of fish-selling, 
and, in some fashionable part of this great city, live with a dignity 
worthy of my elevation and fortune. 

« For the benefit of escape from the vulgar, and of the speculating 
builder of a row of lath and plaster houses in the Regent’s Park, I laid 
down three thousand five hundred as good pounds as ever were stamped 
on Bank-paper—contracted with a fashionable and very roguish uphol- 
sterer for a thousand pounds’ worth of chairs and tables—and was finally 
set down in my present abode to enjoy life at my ease. 

* T need not trouble you, Sir, with my experience of what kind of 
ease that proved to be ; the experience of retired tradesmen is sufficiently 
well known ; and I only know that, if others longed to get back to their 
shops as much as I did to mine, the Regent’s Park would soon be left to 
the cows and’ pigs that were its tenants in my earlier and better days. 
However, I was now settled for life ; other hands were opening the 
oysters that had given me so many a cheerful hour; and, having taken 
my wife from our Ward, I managed to have, now and then, a little more 
of Billingsgate about me than perhaps would have satisfied many a rea-? 
sonable man. 

“« On these occasions, Sir, my contrivance for quiet was fairly to leave 
the house to its mistress, and take my walk till I thought that the storm 
was laid. But, Sir, I am now deprived of that escape, or must walk at 
the risk of having torun for my life—or, perhaps, of taking my last run, 
and furnishing a lunch to a royal tiger, or a supper to a white bear. 


a 


: 


q 


‘ 


1829.] Our Inquiring Correspondenis. 35 


« The Zoological Society have thought proper to set up their quarters 
within a hundred yards of my house: My sleep is broken every night 
by roarings, wailings, screamings, and bellowings, that make me start 
out of my bed, and think myself in the heart of an African forest: I am 
forced to look to the priming of my musket, the old companion of my 
volunteer days under the gallant Birch, and make a general search 
through the house for the hyena or hippopotamus that, I could have 
sworn, was tearing and roaring in the next room. 

«« And the day is as bad as the night. There can be no doubt, Sir, 
that some of those pleasant importations will, some time or other, escape, 
and that Heaven only knows how soon. Bars and cages are not eternal, 
nor keepers always on the watch ; and the first rotten plank that teeth 
or claws can work through, or the first keeper that gets drunk, out 
will march lion or tiger, as it may happen—swallow half-a-dozen of the 
nursery-maids and children that curiosity keeps in such troops about the 
place—and then march into the shrubberies, to pasture upon the unwary 
possessors at his leisure. . 

' © The thing may be at any time within the next four-and-twenty 
hours. Tigers and wolves have escaped out of the Tower, and put the 
whole battalion of beef-eaters to their heels. They slip, once a week, 
out of the caravans travelling through the country, and always come 
back so much fatter, that I cannot help accounting in that way for the 
frequent disappearance of farmers returning from the fairs. I myself 
have seen a tiger walk deliberately down the steps of Exeter ‘Change, 
make his way to the Strand, and, I thank Heaven, luckily take a greater 
liking to a stage-coach horse than to a morning’s meal on myself. But 
if I could fly then, what could I do now.‘ On last quarter-day, I weighed, 
to a pound, three-and-twenty stone avoirdupois, and, though that may 
be a light weight for an alderman, yet, let me tell you, Sir, that it is not 
intended for a runner against time or tigers. What the Zoological 
Society mean by bringing these savage animals into our parks, I cannot 
understand. Let thera try their skill, if they choose, on accustoming 
foreign sheep and goats, camels and camelopards, to the climate ; but, if I 
live till I see tiger-cheese, wolf’s-wool, hyzna-hams, or lions drawing 
the Lord Mayor’s state-coach, I think that I shall live a great while. 

« Now pray, Sir, be good enough to inform me what remedy I should 
have against the Zoological Society, in case of being eaten alive within 
my own shrubbery. Would any action lie, or what deodand would be 
upon the monster >—Hoping your speedy answer, 

« T remain, Sir, SOW 


The next letter is from an investigator—to the interest, variety, and 
public importance of whose queries, no observation of ours needs direct 
the reader. His knowledge of the secret springs of the great world 
would betray his rank to us at once, except that we are staggered by his 


~ candour ;—he cannot be of the Cabinet :-— 


“Sir: « Hill Street, Berkeley Square. 
“TI have been, for forty years and upwards, an inquirer. I have 
asked all the questions in the Gentleman’s Magazine—have puzzled 
myself, and been the cause of puzzling mankind, in the Ladies’ Diaries 
—have written a variety of inquiring articles in the Edinburgh 
F 2 


B36 Our Inquiring Correspondents. [Jaw 


Review, which, I fear, tended pretty much to the same purpose—and 
shall probably, to my life’s-end, continue to promote science and civi- 
lization by the great art of questioning. 

“ Your Magazine, Sir, has of late started into a style which brings 
popularity in its train, and which renders it, therefore, the more probable 
that, as ‘ among the multitude of counsellors there is safety, among the 
multitude of readers my queries may find answerers. J propose them 
seriatim, and shall wait in anxious expectation for the replies in your next 
month’s publication :— 

«« When will Parson Irving shave?—When will Iscariot Dawson 
decide whether he is a Papist or a Protestant ?—-When will Prince Leo- 
pold give a decent dinner, spend a fiftieth of his pension, disdain to sell 
his own gooseberries, and forget the difference between sixpence and six- 
pence-farthing >—When will Sir Robert Wilson’s newspaper-paragraphs 
and Tavern-harangues terrify the Premier into giving him back his 
commission >— When will a Jacobin cease to be a Jacobin ?—When will 
the difference between a stuff gown and a silk, make the difference 
between public scorn and public esteem?—When will a dandy hussar 
and a poet be fit to govern Ireland ?—When will a Popish priest refuse 
to give absolution for a Protestant burglary, burning, or murder ?— 
When will Dr. Doyle and J. K. L. say the same thing >—When will the 
Emperor of Knoutland get back a shilling in the pound for his powder 
and shot in the Turkish war, be the wiser for being beaten, or drink his 
coffee in Constantinople?>—When will O’Connel die in the field Pp— 
When will a Somerset-house exhibition produce a picture that any one 
living, except Watson Taylor, will think worth the price of its frame, at 
the close of the twelve calendar months ensuing >—When will a royal 
palace be built worthy of a better fate than a royal pig-stye, unless the 
only true mode of rewarding the vandalism ofroyal architects is resorted to? 
—When will the commander-in-chief of the army of Queen Caroline be 
the commander-in-chief of the army of King George? —When will Lord 
Norbury pun his last >—When will Lord Palmerston wear a face without 
a frown, Lord Dudley without a dimple, Lord Lansdowne without a 
languish, or Lord Holland with any thing ?—When will the Duke of 
Wellington invite all the editors of the London newspapers to Apsley- 
house, request their opinions upon his conduct, communicate his mea- 
sures for the session, and offer them seats in the cabinet >—When will 
the London magistrates discover that there is such a place as Crock- 
ford’s?—-When will a winter theatre pay sixpence a-year above its 
expenses, its creditors, and its Chancery-bills?—When will a country 
curate rival the income of a Bow-street runner, a bagman, a box-opener, 
or an orange-woman ?—When will our English dramatists be scribblers, 
drivellers, and dabblers no more ; draw from nature ; and leave French 
farces to the coxcombs that made them, and the coxcombs that they were 
made for >—When will a merchant think it necessary to begin with half- 
a-crown capital, or think it creditable to break for less than half a mil- 
lion ?—When will Judas Brownlow give proof that he has ever written 
a syllable of his harangues?—When will his Majesty’s Ministers open 
their eyes to poor Lord Nugent’s personal claims to office, the government 
of Bom-bay not being vacant ?—When will any man, except Lord W. 
Paget's re-electors, allow that swallowing one’s words is diet strong 
enough for an English constitution ?—When will any stockbroker be a 

-eurricle or a country-housethe less for a third appearance in the Gazette ? 


1829.7 Our Inquiring Correspondents. ap 


—When will Jack Lawless stand the sight of an Ulster Protestant, stand 
to his word, or stand fire ?—When will anybody take any of the Pagets 
off hands, except Jack himself >—When will the English stage exhibit a 
tragedy that does not set three-fourths of the audience asleep in the first 
three-quarters of an hour ?—When will it produce any comedy at all >— 
When will Lord Anglesea think that O’Connel has spoken the necessary 
quantity of matter to qualify him for ............... ?>—When will a Lon- 
don shopkeeper think that he may dispense with quadrilles, a villa, and 
the billiard-table >—When wil! Lord Ellenborough think a tenth as much 
of any man living as of himself?—When will Brougham’s character 
recover from Canning’s compliment to his veracity ?--—-When will Whigs 
be the wiser for the discovery that public men, without common honesty, 
are actually as weak as they are despicable ; that character, once lost, 
is never to be regained ; that the nation hate a political swindler, how- 
ever subtle, and scorn a political poltroon, however loud-tongued ; that 
rascality is instantly detected by every one but its owner ; and that, for 
all public hopes and purposes, the tergiversator might as well at once 
be hanged ?’ 
« Your's, “ QuzsTor.” 


We give the following, “without note or comment,” for the benefit 
of Reviewers in general :— 


« Sir: « Lincoln. 

« As your Magazine goes into the hands of the very bluest leaders of 
literature in our town, and exercises a very formidable influence on the 
critical disquisitions at our ‘ Library,’ where we prebendaries congre- 
gate three hours a day to discuss the weather, wonder what the Duke of 
Wellington is doing, and pick our teeth (let me tell you, no slight day’s 
work for a cathedral town), I should be much indebted by your giving 
a decided opinion, which with us will be a decisive one, upon the follow- 
ing points of learning :— 

“Ts not the favourite word ‘talented’ purely Cockney, not at all 
English, and very vulgar besides?—Is not the favourite phrase < last 
evening,’ a vulgarism for ‘ yesterday evening,’ and only worthy of the 
authorship of the Court Circular ?—Is not the favourite phrase ‘ left for 
London,’ a vulgarism for < left us for London,’ and worthy of a similar 
rank of authorship?—Is not the favourite singular-plurality of ‘ the 
Miss Snubnoses,’ a vulgarism for ‘ the Misses Snubnose,’ and not to be 
tolerated but in a village, and that village not less than fifty miles from 
the metropolis ?—Is not the favourite word of narrators, ‘incredibly,’— 
as, ‘ Mr. A. danced incredibly long, or, ‘Miss B. looked incredibly 


_ short,’—a literal declaration that, in neither case, ought the narrator to 


be believed?—Is not the favourite phrase, ‘ it was utterly impossible to 
go, and still more so to stand,’ a climax of impossibilities, difficult to 
comprehend but in the novel of a woman ‘ moving in the fashionable 
circles ?’—Is not the favourite word, ‘ lay’ for ‘ lye,’ a vulgarism, par- 


donable only toa sailor, who has no time to think, or to a parliamentary 


orator, on whom such time would be thrown away ?—Do not the noble- 
men and gentlemen who daily advertise for sale ‘ chaste’ services of 
plate, give a better character of their plate than of their own education ? 
—Do not the favourite novelist mixtures’ of French with English, the 


38 Our Inquiring Correspondents. [Jan. 


perpetual ‘ Oui—mon cher—et bien,’ and others equally remote from 
untravelled capacities, give the idea that the writer is either a titled 
tabby, just arrived ‘from a continental tour!’ or an old governess, 
daubed with rouge and sentiment, or a bedlamite, or the whole three in 
one ?—‘ A-propos de moutons,’ as her ladyship says so charmingly, what is 
become of poor, dear old Lady Morgan ?—TIs not the word ‘ breakfast’ 
quite as capable of communicating its glad tidings to a hungry traveller, 
or even to a romance-reading angel of seventeen, as the pretty word 
« déjetiné ?’—Is not ‘ the view of Miss Bronze’s shoulder-blades,’ to the 
full as expressive of that charming display, as any information that can be 
given by that very crooked, though travelled word, ‘ coup d’cil ?’—Is 
not the word ‘ mutual, in such phrases as, ‘ Sir Vincent Valancour, 
and the lovely Armida St.Osmond flirted the whole evening of the St. 
Leger ball, to the mutual satisfaction of each other,’ rather superfluous ? 
—Does not the use of past and future touch on tautology, in such phrases 
as, ‘ Mr. Brummagem Brushwood was horsewhipped yesterday, for the 
fourth time, in the vicinity of the House of Commons, when he declared 
that, if the like outrage took place again, he would complain to the 
Speaker ; it is to be presumed that his experience of the past will teach 
him what to hope from the future ?’—Is not the favourite phrase, ‘I am 
free to confess,—as, ‘ Mr. Speaker, I am free to confess that, in the 
whole course of my life, I never heard greater nonsense than fell from 
Mr. William Smith,-on the Catholic Question,—vulgar, tautologous, 
un-English, and parliamentary ?—Is not the equally favourite phrase, 
* Now, Mr. Speaker, that I am upon my legs,’ in precisely the same con- 


dition ?—Is not the ‘ subject-matter’ equally tautologous. silly, and: 


official? —Does not the use of the ‘sum and substance,’ merit to be reserved 
for a Methodist oration and the Marquis of Anglesey’s despatches ?—Is 
not the favourite habit of putting the adverb before the verb,—as, ‘ the 
reverend prebendary only ate a turbot, a haunch of Southdown mutton, 
a venison pasty, and a Christmas pie,—liable to mislead us as to the 
nature of this epulatory feat, and seemingly expressive of the historian’s 
regret that the reverend person did not drink them also, or perhaps eat 
them over again; and is not the phrase a vulgarism for ‘ ate only ?’— 
And, lastly, is not the booby who advertizes daily in the morning papers 
that he is ‘ wishful to exchange his living of 1,200/. a year,’ very likely 


to be the individual who would perform the same feat, or at least not 


have the prowess of his stomach impeded by the activity of his brains?’ 


« Your’s, till next month, 
« Critro-MAximus.” 


On the subject of the following epistle, we shall give no more opinion 
than on that of the last. Let the ladies solve a riddle which we must 
acknowledge has always puzzled our penetration. 


i Sres ** Doctors’ Commons. 
“Have the kindness to assist my inquiries into a curious fact, which 
has perpetually presented itself in the course of practice here, and from 
which some very practical conclusions in our profession have frequently 
admitted of being drawn. 
“« My question is—‘ Why, when ladies take up the public pen, are 
they so fond of plunging it into such extremely ticklish subjects ?’ 


‘ 


1829. ] Our Inquiring Correspondents. 39 


«« When men of the town, of the turf, or the tavern, or the gaol, figure 
in authorship, we know what we are to expect—the musings of minds 
as empty as their own last night’s bottle ; worn-out anecdotes of worn- 
out people; or dandyism as vapid as its life; the history of hands 
washed with Eau de Cologne ; curls of ‘ exquisite lustre, depending on 
cheeks hollow but lovely, with feelings too severely tried ; eyes lan- 
guishing with contempt of all things, human and divine ; and cravats 
tied with an indescribable knot, that instantly discloses the sacred sub- 
lime of gentlemanhood. 

« But, to do these very fine personages, or even their rougher fellow- 

scribblers, justice, their nonsense seldom goes farther ; and a woman 
may, in general, read their pages without feeling that she is making any 
progress towards distinction in our quarter of the world. 
_ © The case is rather different with the flaming colourists of the more 
ethereal sex. A noble authoress has lately written a book on ‘ Flirtation.’ 
No doubt with the best intentions. But she cures flirtation as the Spar- 
tans cured drunkenness, by the most complete display of its most com- 
plete consequences. Her flirt goes through a round of experiences, that, 
however flattering to Lady Charlotte Bury’s observation of fashionable 
facts, must communicate a great deal more knowledge than the noble 
authoress could have intended for the Lady Helenas and Aramintas 
before the mature age of fifteen. Her flirt is, of course, repentant at the 
last ; but it is repentance like Captain Macheath’s, when he is going to 
be hung, and his business is done with love and larceny. The progress 
to this perfection is the thing ; and if noble youths and bewitching beau- 
ties have any thing to learn on this high road to happiness, and the prac- 
titioners of our honourable court ; here let them study, and be as wise as 
their teacher. 

“ Her ladyship has again indulged us with a volume, a ‘ Marriage in 

High Life,’ to which she gives the additional pungency, ‘ that the facts 
are literally exact.’ And what are those facts? A lady of wealth mar- 
ries a man of rank, who (upon my life, Sir, I cannot bring myself to 
tell the story without a cover of some kind or other, and must try my old 
Latin) ‘ torum abnegat conjugale, rejicitque jura famine debita. This 
singular deduction from matrimonial prospects forms the whole sub- 
stratum of the book. The lady-wife pouts, pines in secret, and answers 
all hints about an heir to the estate with a melancholy smile. But the 
household know better ; and there is first a: murmuring, and then an open 
rebellion, among the waiting-women ; the rumour spreads, comes to the 
ears of the father and mother of the bride ; comes to the public ear, and 
becomes the universal talk in boudoirs and ball-rooms, until the 
unlucky wife dies, and the husband is very sorry ; and so ends the tale 
of the cruelest case within the bills of mortality.’ 
_ © On Lady Charlotte Bury’s idea of the hardship, I shall not dwell. 
With her ladyship’s personal opinions I have nothing to do. But I pre- 
sume that she must have either been very much at a loss for a subject, 
or been very signally alive to the nature of the misfortune, when she 
presented such a performance to the public. < It is, she says, ‘ the work 
of another.’ But it is ‘edited by her ;’ it comes to the world under her 
honourable auspices, and we are henceforth to be in no doubt whatever 
about Lady Charlotte Bury’s conception of the prime disaster of matri- 
mony. 

« Another patrician authoress follows her ladyship’s track. The 
Honourable Mrs. Grey has published ‘ De Lisle.’ The hero is a hand- 


AQ Our Inquiring Correspondents. [ Jan. 


some scoundrel, with the blackest whiskers, and the most scoundrel 
habits possible. He sighs, seduces, and looks melancholy, with the 
most bewitching air in the world. A Frenchwoman, the antipodes of 
Lucretia, and only too captivating, too exquisitely frivole, and too like a 
bird-of-paradise, to be like any thing else in this life but an Opera 
dancer, absorbs the sensitive soul of this model of lovely hazard to human 
bosoms ; and De Lisle, dangerous and delightful De Lisle, gives prac- 
tical lessons through three solid volumes, for which I rather hope than 
believe that the world will be the better. 

*« The same authoress has just sent forth another novel, of which the 
newspapers, in their style of panegyric, say, that ‘the nature and situa- 
tions remind one of what we hear and see every day in the streets.’ Very 
probably, Sir; and, in consequence of my reading the lady’s former 
work, I shall not read this. I am satisfied with her displays in drawing- 
rooms. 

« Another authoress follows in the same fashionable track. The 
Honourable Mrs. Norton, as the papers say, ‘ young, tender, beautiful, 
and moving in the first circles.’ I sincerely hope that long may she 
move there. But where did she go to look for her book, ‘ The Sorrows 
of Rosalie ?’ 

The heroine of this poem is one of those persons whose appellation is 
more easily conceived than properly announced to the general ear. She 
is like all her tribe, too lovely, tender, young, and so forth, to be satisfied 
with moving in the circles where she was bred, and she soon finds a guide 
to others of a more miscellaneous kind. She, in consequence of her 
change of conceptions, becomes, as the French delicately express it, ‘a 
mother before she is a wife; and thus germinates the rest of the history 
of this young and tender personage, moving in the first circles of the 
Strand. The fair authoress hunts the victim with a lynx eye through 
the rather oblique avenues of her memoirs. Rosalie, the lovely Rosalie, 
nightly walks the path so often interrupted by the beadle, until she sinks, 
and, urged by hunger, turns thief, and is taken up. She, as they all do 
in novels and poems, finally makes her way back to the country ; finds 
her father dying, reads the Bible for him; looks excessively pale but 
pretty still, and leaves the moral of her love and beauty, her tenderness 
and youth, for those who move in the first circles. 

“Now, Sir, could the Honourable Mrs. Norton, in the whole range 
of her fancy, find no better topic for her pen? Disguise the story as we 
may, it is the story of a harlot, the common story of one among the 
thousands that scandalize our streets; and are the joys and sorrows 
of this miserable, drunken, and degraded race, to be the theme of a 
young poetess, moving in the first circles, or in any circles but those of 
the tread-mill? Or with what feeling of propriety can such topics be 
dwelt on by females jealous of the character that constitutes the excel- 
- lence of woman ? 

“The poetry of ‘ Rosalie’ is pretty, and the writer possesses ability ; 
but the subject is unpardonable, and enough to extinguish all merit in 
the execution. 

“« The authoresses alluded to will know that they have no right to feel 
offended by even severer remarks. Let them think of what they are doing 
by making such topics popular among their own class. Their names 
sanction the passage of their works into the boarding-schools and bou- 
doirs of the nobility. Is there not hazardous knowledge enough there 
already? Is there any want of additional teachers of the stratagems of 


1829.) Our Inquiring Correspondents. 4) 


the Lady Fanny Frantics, and the Lady Susan Sensitives, to follow the 
bent of their own inclinations, and become the heroines of news- 
papers ?, 

*« But the result is more . prolific still. Who can wonder if the dis- 
covery that such works are popular should stimulate the pen of many a 
poor devil of a famishing governess, to indulge the public with a suc- 
cession of tender developments of ‘ passion, alas! too true ?’—the shame 
of the thing being handsomely covered over by the authority of the 
Lady A., and the Honourable Mrs. B., and the other adored movers in 
the first circles. Sir, I will tell those noble personages that we must 
have no more of their nudities. 

« Your’s, “ TRIBONIAN.” 


THE GRAVE OF HOFER, THE TYROLESE 


Bxoop was shed upon this spot— 

Blood, not shed to be forgot ; 

*T was no idle village fray, ag 
"Twas no sport of holiday ; 

Fierce the fight, and wild the roar, 

When was shed this stain of gore. 


Many a mountain-warrior slept 
Where that day the sabre swept ; 
Many a widowed wife could tell 
Where was heard the cannon-peal ; 
Many an infant, many a bride, 
Perished on the mountain’s side. 


Safe from sight and sound of woe 

Is the heart that sleeps below. 

Whose P—A name that none may name ; 
Tyranny has made us tame: 

But no bosom of a slave 

Held the heart that fills this grave. 


Murderer! in thy hour of doom, 
Thou shalt think upon this tomb ; 
Murderer ! on thy shrinking eyes 
Shall thy bleeding victim rise, 
Haunt thy bed, and blast thy throne, 
Till thou’rt smitten, crushed, undone. 


Then the trophied tomb shall stand 
Glory of the rescued land ; 
Then a nameless turf no more 
Shall be scattered with his gore ; 
But with heart and eye of flame, 
All Tyrol shall shout his name. 
A Apiov. 


M.M. New Series—Vou. VII. No. 37. G 


[42] [Jan. 


MR. YOUNG AND FOPERY IN PORTUGAL. 


A Carratn, of the name of Johnson, has written a very clever pamph- 
let, to prove that, by all the laws and ordinances of the Cortes of Lamego 
—by the uniform practice of Portuguese descent—by the custom of the 
dynasty of Braganza—and by the fundamental laws of Portugal— 
backed by the dictates of common sense, public principle, and civil 
law, Don Miguel, the king, de facto, of Portugal, is also king de jure. 

He argues, and most correctly, we believe, that a foreign prince can- 
not be king of Portugal, unless he surrenders his foreign dominions— 
that Don Pedro having, by his act of acceptance of the Brazilian throne, 
avowed himself a Brazilian in express and definite terms—that Brazil 
having been separated from Portugal, is as much alien from that country, 
as Kentucky, or Bloody-Shoulder-of-Mutton, or any other free state in 
the Union of North America is to us. Don Pedro has forfeited, know- 
ingly, and wilfully, all right to the Portuguese throne. Admitting 
these premises, it follows as plainly as that Charles Edward could not 
be King of England, in consequence of James the Second’s abdication, 
that no person, deriving any right from Don Pedro, can, acting in Don 
Pedro’s name, and under sanction of his authority, exercise jurisdiction 
of any kind in the realm of Portugal. Ergo, that not Don Pedro’s son, 
if he claims through his father, has the right to the Portuguese throne 
—but that, as to the claim of his daughter, it is altogether absurd, and, 
to the last degree untenable. If Don Pedro have any right, it descends, 
according to all European law and practice, to his son; it appears rather 
too much that, in these days, when kingdoms are not generally divided 
in the old fashion of the descendants of Charlemagne, or of the 
monarchs in the Fairy Tales, as plum-cake is divided at Christmas— 
this slice for “ pretty dear, my son,’—that slice for “ pretty dear, my 
daughter”—the newest of all possible Emperors should attempt to revive 
the oldest of all possible manners of disposing of crowns and sceptres. 

We skip with the greatest pleasure all the details of Captain Johnson’s 
book, and all his long recapitulation of acts of particular Cortes, &c., for 
a reason which we shall probably give by and by—but here we must 
do Don Miguel’s pretensions the justice of saying, that if law and pre- 
cedent be looked to, they are wholly irrefragable. If he came as lieu- 
tenant of Don Pedro, and afterwards cast off his authority, we admit 
that many of the finest of all possible common-places may be said and 
sung upon that head; we hold, however, that common-places, quite as 
good, and altogether as venerable, may be quoted on the other side. 
Into such a wood we have no fancy to wander. The fact, as appears to 
us, is, that the foreign and colonial government of Don Pedro was dis- 
tasteful to the resident Portuguese nobility—that the constitutionalists 
were the greatest of cowards, and the most long-eared of asses—and (for 
here we are coming to the subject of the book before us) that the influ- 
ential portion of the Portuguese people wished for Don Miguel. We 
might say that ninety-nine in every hundred are in favour of “ Nosso 
Anjo,” as they call him; but as, before we have done, it will be seen that 
we set little value on the ciphers of the country, we shall confine our- 
selves to demanding it to be granted—and it cannot be denied—that the 
influential portion, THE class, the true rulers of the country, are in his 
favour. We shall add, in favour of Don Miguel, that the principal, 
and most virulent accusations against him, come from sources, the 


1829. ] Popery in Portugal. 43 


falsehood and vulgarity of which are familiar in our mouths as house- 
hold words. It is a presumption in favour of any man, that the most 
violent aspersions upon him have been cast by recognized and undenied 
vehicles of filth, And we must subjoin one word in favour of old Euro- 
pean prejudices, that we do not like an old European kingdom—our 
oldest ally—the country of Vasco de Gama, and Alboquerque, and 
Camoens, to be governed from a mushroom Transatlantic nation, 
planted by itself. If Don Miguel be not fit to govern Portugal, let some- 
body else be found—but not, directly or indirectly, in Rio Janeiro. 
-We have said that we excuse ourselves from a long recapitulation of 
Captain Johnson’s constitutional reasonings on the subject of the Cortes of 
Lamego, and other similar bodies—we have also said, that we dismiss 
from our minds the acceptance of Don Miguel’s authority, by any other 
orders but the influential one. We have waived both considerations for 
the same reason. There might have been a constitution in Portugal 
some hundred of years ago ; we mean such an order of things as, under 
propitious circumstances, might have brought about the due checking of 
the monarchical, aristocratical, and ecclesiastical powers for the benefit 
of the people, without risking or endangering any of those privileges of 
the three orders which conduce to the proper stability of the state, 
the true liberty of the subject, and thence to the happiness and protection 
of all orders of the community. Such a predisposition did exist among 
all the Gothic race—it existed in a high degree among the inhabitants of 
the Iberian peninsula, famed in remote antiquity for a love of freedom, and, 
what was still more rare in those days, for a tolerable understanding of the 
‘means of attaining it in practice. But it has gone. The same withering 
and desolating power to which Don Miguel looks for his election to 
the throne, without which, his claims, deduced from the days of the 
Alfonsos and Diegos, would be as nothing ; without which, his lawyers 
and his pamphleteers would not find any necessity to trouble themselves 
in making out his case ; that power, that influential body to which we have 
before alluded, has suppressed even the forms of freedom in Portugal, 
as it has suppressed them in Castile and Arragon, and as it will suppress 
“them every where that its blighting and soul-destroying influence 
extends. 
It is unnecessary to say, that the power to which we allude is popery. 
In this country, we see its foul visage thickly veiled ; in Ireland, it is 
‘more uncovered ; in France, when it dares, it looks with hideous scowl 
__ upon a loathing people ; but in such a country as Portugal, where it is 
unchecked by the contact of protestantism, or the diffusion of knowledge, 
it rears its head in all the pride and all the horrors of tyranny, haughty 
and abominable in all the consciousness of being paramount and 
irresistible. On this rock Don Miguel may set his throne. The contest 
is nothing to us. Put him down, and under another name we shall have 
the loathsome reign of the priests and friars—even if that name should be 
~ Donna Maria’ de Gloria, the little lady of Laleham, ruling under the 
Vice royalty of the swift-footed Palmella. A greater change than such 
shallow fellows as the marquis and his companions have dared to dream 
of, must be effected before the real incubus of Portugal is shaken off: 
the constitution must be made by more vigorous hands than theirs—in 
a word, we do not expect any good to Spain or Portugal, until we see 
there the determination of a Henry the Eighth, ay, even were it accompa- 
nied by his roughness. The ingrained villanies of popery are not to be 


Bs Stl 


44 Mr. Young, and [Jan. 


rooted out by a delicate or shrinking hand ; much less by the hands 
of puppy pupils, or muddy-brained admirers of the Broughams and 
Benthams, the Breslaws and Katterfeltos, of politics and political eco- 
nomy. 

a his book before us, we find a graphic picture of the abominations 
wrought in Portugal by the full and unchecked domination of the popish 
system. The author is Mr. Young, a gentleman whose case has been 
so abundantly laid before the public, that it is unnecessary for us to 
recapitulate it here. He is an Englishman, who married a Portuguese 
lady in Leiria, and resided for several years in that town, apparently, as 
we gather from his book, as an agent for Lloyd’s. He was arrested in 
the course of last May, by Don Miguel’s government, on suspicion of 
having spread intelligence unfavourable to their views through the 
country, and of being in general disaffected to the present state of affairs. 
Nothing seems to have been proved against him, and after having 
suffered much disagreeable treatment in different gaols in Leiria and 
Lisbon, he was discharged in the beginning of September, on condition 
of leaving the country. His book is written, so far as his personal 
misfortunes are concerned, with considerable bitterness, and, we doubt not, 
exaggeration. Every one who is at all engaged against him, as judge, 
counsel, witness, jailer, guard, convoy, is in general treated as the 
greatest of all possible criminals ; all evil motives possible are assigned 
for their most trivial actions: and the ordinary accidents of ill-regulated 
imprisonment, are charged especially against the government which 
detamed him. We are far from wishing to extenuate the horrors of the 
filthy place in which Mr. Young was deposited in Leiria; but remember- 
ing the reports of Howard and others in our own country, we do not 
think that the existence ofa dirty cell in a jail is sufficient proof of the 
villany of a government. We are not the panegyrists of the Lisbon prison 
regulations ; but we mustrecollect that ill classification of prisoners is one of 
the most constant cries of reformers at home. It is however, we admit, 
but sorry work evento appear as if extenuating abominations, and therefore 
we hope that the publication of Mr. Young’s book may stimulate the 
Portuguese, of whatever party they may be, to amend the abuses that 
exist in their prisons ; but it should be plainly understood that these jails 
were in precisely the same situation under the sway of the constitu- 
tionalists : and the friends of the Marquis Palmella, &c., used them as 
liberally, for the punishment of their political opponents, as does 
the government of Don Miguel. The friends of humanity may 
condemn these abodes of misery, but neither Portuguese party has 
a right to throw the first stone ; and if the constitutionalists get into 
power to-morrow, much are we mistaken, if they would take the 
slightest trouble to look after the condition of the dungeons to which 
they might consign, in thousands, the partizans of Don Miguel. 

On the whole, we think Mr. Young appears a very indiscreet man. 
By his own account he had always been in the habit of discussing poli- 
tical questions, or, at least, what they thought political questions, with 
the popish priests of the neighbourhood ; he had been in the habit of 
firing off rockets, and displaying other demonstrations of joy on political 
changes in the constitution ; he was evidently a very talkative person in 
a small town, where, of course, all gossip is exaggerated and perverted. 
It is not quite fair that he speaking Portuguese perfectly—married to a 
Portuguese lady—signing a Portuguese name to a Portuguese address 
(p. 55)—assuming Portuguese manners, &c. &c. &c., should think that his 


1829. ]} Popery in Portugal. 45 


Biitish birth ought to cover him totally from all those penalties of indis- 
creet conduct in perilous times, which would await the same conduct if 
he happened to be what he simulated on convenient occasions. We hope, 
with Oliver Cromwell, that the name of Briton will be as dreaded over 
our world—i. e. the whole world—as the name of Roman was over theirs: 
but we hope it only for those who are Britons thoroughly. We agree 
with the Chinese, that those who forsake their country, to adopt the 
manners of foreigners, are dross of the earth, not perfectly worthy of the 
care of their native, or their adopted land. Our sympathy for Mr. Young 
subsided altogether, when we found him (p. 323) expressing himself 
quite “ satisfied with his sentence,” in order to get a few days earlier out 
of prison—and there was something very revolting to our feelings, when 
we found him describing himself (p. 253) as rearing his family in the 
Roman Catholic Religion, although in other parts of his work he 
describes the licentious enormities of the priests, and the power which 
their abominable invention of confession gives them for corrupting the 
females who are “ reared in the Roman Catholic Religion.” He, else- 
where (p. 291), is described as a Roman Catholic himself: We have, 
therefore, the right to consider him as a reluctant witness—a person who 
never would have said one word of the enormities which it was his 
hourly lot to witness, unless they had been the source, or supposed 
source, of some injury to himself. 

Without further preface, then, we extract the testimony of Mr. Young, 
a papist, “a good Roman Catholic,” (p. 291,) a gentleman who hears 
masses, and sermons, without end—who keeps Whitsuntide in popish 
mode—who, stating it (p. 4), that “no moral guarantee whatever can 
exist as to female honour, or female purity, in a state of society where, 
under the mask of religious duties, females of every class are committed 
to the contamination of such men as the Roman Catholic clergy; to the 
abominable farce of confession,” &c.—yet rears (proh pudor ! after such 
an avowal of what it must subject its votaries to, and puts the 
fact in a judicial paper) his family Roman Catholics ; from this unwilling 
witness, who twelve months ago would have been silent or panegyrical, 
on everything which he now denounces, we extract a few lights and 
shadows of popish life in Portugal. 

We take his commencement as a general sketch :— 


“ Having resided in Portugal, with little intermission, during the last twenty 
years ; having married a Portuguese lady, and lived in constant intercourse 
with persons of every class, both of the clergy and the laity, and being per- 
fectly acquainted with the Portuguese language, I feel myself qualified to 
form a more accurate estimate of the Portuguese character and habits, and of 
the overwhelming influence of the clergy, than any native Portuguese, whose 
religious scruples and observances preclude him altogether from investigating 
the principles or the conduct of those who are appointed his spiritual direc- 
ore, and of whose infallibility it is almost sacrilege to entertain the slightest 

oubt. 

“ So great, so universal, is this debasement of the human mind, under the 
discipline of the Romish Church in Portugal, that men of the most cultivated 
minds, in other respects, entertain an absolute dread of any inquiry into the 
moral character of their clergy... This feeling approaches more nearly to that 
awe and reverence with which the pious man contemplates the character or 
attributes of the Deity, than to the disposition with which we discuss a ques~ 
tion of merely human interest. 

“ Tt is difficult to explain this morbid reverence for men whose moral cha- 
racters are frequently stained with the commission of almost every vice, and the 


« 


46 Mr. Young, and [Jan- 


remarkable absence of almost every virtue. I am inclined to ascribe it chiefly 
to fear: those demons never fail to excommunicate all those who are rash 
enough to dispute their infallibility. I feel fully assured of being within 
bounds, when I assert that more than three-fourths of the regular and irregular 
clergy of Portugal are men capable of conniving at, or practising every vice 
that disgraces human nature. 

“T shall not take upon me to investigate the influence which these men 
must exercise over the female mind. It woukd tear asunder the veil which ought 
always to be preserved over female character, were I to repeat here all that 
has been related to me during my social intercourse with a very large circle 
of the more respectable Portuguese. 

« But I must be permitted to state my perfect conviction, that no guarantee 
whatever can exist as to female honour or female purity, in a state of society 
where, under the mask of religious duties, females of every class are subjected 
to the contamination of such men as the great majority of the Portuguese 
clergy ; to the abominable farce of confession, required by the Catholic dis- 
pensation—a confession of offences, to whom? to men who are incomparably 
more immoral than all the other portions of the community !—Whether it can 
be possible that female innocence should remain uncontaminated by such a 
moral pestilence, I shall leave such of my readers to answer, as may be either 
parents or guardians of British youth. 

«These men, who envelop themselves in the exterior garb of sanctity, can 
scarcely be said to entertain any common feeling or sympathy with the rest of 
mankind. This, no doubt, is to be ascribed in a great measure to their edu- 
cation, and to the abominable discipline of their church, which forbids con- 
tracts in marriage with the opposite sex. 

“ The violation of both religious and moral duties by these men, would often: 
consign them to that tribunal of justice which would serve as a warning to. 
others among the community, but for the shield which is invariably thrown 
over their atrocities by their colleagues, with the view of protecting their fra- 
ternity from the gaze of the public eye.” 


This is “ the excellent Roman Catholic’s” outhne. We add a few 
details :— 
Portuguese Sermonizing, and other Sketches. 


“ Nearly all sermons in Portugal are preached by friars, or at least ninety 
out of a hundred. 


“J heard a noted preacher, at a festival at Santerem, preach a sermon at 


this period, in which he made use of many curious expressions. The following 
I distinctly heard. 

“* This political priest said that—‘ He would grasp the sword till his nails 
should grow through the palms of his hands, to defend Don Miguel, and 
deliver the earth from the Freemasons: a set of men who had hair growing: 


upon their hearts, since their souls had left them ; that to kill a Freemason was. - 


an act of charity to God.’ And he concluded his discourse (which lasted 
three-quarters of an hour), saying, ‘he begged of the congregation three 
Hail Marias (a short prayer to the Virgin Mary) ;—one for all the enemies to 
Freemasons ;—one for those who wore the same coat they did on the 30th of 
April ;—and one for the House of Braganza !!! 

*T cannot refrain from mentioning these things, in order to shew the com- 
plete influence these men exercise over the people. Certainly many did not 
approve of this exhortation ; but they were obliged to be silent. The lower 
po ae believed all they heard, and wished for an opportunity to shew their 
zeal. 

**T shall add farther facts, to exhibit the true character of the priests and 
friars in general: there are exceptions, but not many. A friar, whom I knew 
very well, and often met in different parties, and who was considered an excel- 


lent preacher, had, for several successive years, preached the sermons in Lent 
at Leiria. 


oe. Oe 


1829.] Popery in Portugal. 47 


“ J had been to hear him preach. His sermon was against vice in general ; 
he pointed out how parents should educate their children ; he told them their 
‘daughters should wear no curls, and that little girls should not wear trowsers 
and short petticoats ; that dancing was the ruin of many young people, as it 
gave opportunities of making love, and often brought shame upon the parents 
who allowed it; and all those who encouraged these things committed great 
sin before God, which they themselves must answer for. His whole discourse 
was of this tendency. 

“ On the same evening, I met him at a party; and he sang several songs 
very cleverly, and waltzed with a young lady. 

“JT asked him, by way of joke, but publicly before the whole company, 
how he could do these things, after having said so much against them but a 
few hours before? He said, ‘ La coma la, e ca como he;’ that is, ‘ There as 
there, and here as it is.’ 

«‘ The priests go from the pulpit to all sorts of debauchery. Many people 
will say, there are respectable and pious priests and friars: that I will not 
deny. But, to be respectable and pious, they must be at least sixty years of 
age, and then you must not inquire too minutely what they have been. 

« What can be expected from a community of young men, forbidden to 
marry, living on the good things of the land, and without any thing to do? 

« The junior clergy study nothing but intrigue, and how to ruin the peace 
and happiness of thousands of families. 

* J could mention facts which I have witnessed within these last twenty 
years, that would make Englishmen turn with abhorrence from the pictures 
of villainy which may be concealed under the cloak of religion. Many of 
— facts would be scarcely credible in a country not cursed with monks and 

riars.” 


General Practice of the Monks. 


« About ten years since a respectable surgeon, living in a small town near 
Leiria, accompanied his wife to a neighbouring fair. The lady, like many 
other ladies, attracted by a display of jewellery at a stall, inquired the price 
of a gold necklace. The goldsmith, who was a well-known bad character, 
replied, ‘ The price is a kiss. The husband told him the lady was his wife, 
and civilly advised him to behave himself in a proper manner ; and nothing 
farther occurred at that time. 

« About six months after this, the goldsmith and a companion were travel- 
ling through a wood ; and, as usual when persons travel with any property, 
they were each armed with a carbine. In this situation, the surgeon unfor- 
tunately met the parties by accident; when one of the men said to the other, 
€ Let us shoot this fellow.’ The other said, ‘ No, let him go about his busi- 
ness. But the former ordered the surgeon to kneel down, which he did, and 
begged for life, but to no effect ; for the ruffian immediately fired, and lodged 
several slugs in his body, by which he fell lifeless. 

“ The wretches then dismounted from their mules, and dragged the body to 
a ditch, covering it with dry leaves. Their villainy was, however, observed 
by a peasant near the spot; but, for fear of his own life, he was at that 
moment incapable of giving any assistance to the deceased. 

“ At the moment they had buried the body of the unfortunate victim, 
another man, who heard the report, came up to the spot; when the mur- 
derers mounted their mules, and made off with all possible expedition to an 
adjacent convent, where, of course, they obtained sanctuary. 

“The two peasants, who had watched their proceedings, immediately 
went and gave information to the magistrates of the district, and officers were 
sent off in pursuit of the murderers ; but all in vain: for it was well known 
they had taken shelter in the Convent of Alcaboca, within two leagues of the 
place where the murder was perpetrated. 

“The widow of the unfortunate surgeon commenced proceedings in the 
criminal court ; and the murderers, being well known to the witnesses, were 
found guilty, though they defied justice by remaining in the convent. 


48 Mr. Young, and [Jan. 


“ The laws of Portugal afford a loop-hole for the escape of the villains, 
which, as a sample of barbarism, is worthy of mention here. 

“ When a culprit commits murder, if the next of kin of the deceased be too 
poor to prosecute the criminal, or corrupt enough to receive a bribe to forego 
prosecution, the culprit may be easily released from the hands of justice: the 
officers, one and all, from the judge to the jailer, being guilty of receiving 
bribes to defeat justice. 

“The unfortunate widow, however, was not to be bribed to commute the 
atrocious murder of her husband. She pursued the prosecution, and the 
ruffians were convicted by law, though protected by the friars, and enabled 
to defy the execution of justice on their heads. On the contrary, these inhuman 
monsters were kept in the convent, under the protection of the priests, for 
three years, during which period, they, with the assistance of the villainous 
monks, who regard their oath as much as they do their Saviour, commenced 
a prosecution against the widow, for defamation of character ! 

“‘ They procured what was called a ‘ justification ;’ and the greater part of 
the friars of the Convent of Alcoboca came forward to swear that the crimi- 
nals, who had already been convicted in’ the ordinary court, were honest, 
honourable men! They swore roundly that they had known the goldsmith, 
the chief murderer, for a number of years, as a worthy man, altogether inca- 
pable of committing an offence. They went so far as to suborn witnesses, 
who swore that the two culprits were, at the period of the murder, residing in 
another district, at some distance from Alcoboca. : 

“The decision of the judge, on the appeal of justification, was given in 
favour of these ruffians, with full authority to commence prosecution against 
the widow for loss of character, and loss of time from their business ; and the 
ultimate issue was the ruin of the unfortunate woman with law expenses. 

“©The lesser criminal of the two who committed this atrocious murder, I 
saw not long before my imprisonment at Leiria. He made no secret of acknow- 
ledging the whole proceedings after his acquittal, though he threw the chief 
burthen of the crime on the goldsmith, who died soon after his infamous libe- 
ration. Could such an atrocious violation of every thing like law or justice 
have taken place, but for the sanctuary afforded these criminals by base and 
perjured friars ! 

““T shall give another instance of the atrocities frequently committed by 
these friars, under the exterior mask of religion. 

“* T have previously stated that there are not less than three convents of 
monks in the immediate environs of Leiria. Many of the ignorant peasantry, 
and even the better orders, of both sexes, are in the practice of coming to one 
or other of these convents, to undergo the farce of confession before the friar 
or monk, in preference to confessing to their parish clergy and exposing their 
private affairs. During the period of Lent, in the year 1825, a farmer came 
to Leiria with his daughter, a fine girl, twelve years of age, to undergo the 
ceremony of confession. This farmer was in tolerable circumstances, and never 
failed to give something, either in the form of corn, oil, puddings, or other 
produce, to the mendicant friars, who are always prowling through the coun- 
try on begging expeditions. 

“* The farmer applied to the Franciscan Convent of Leiria for the perform- 
ance of his spiritual duties, considering that he had some peculiar claim on 
the friars of that convent from his former liberality to their fraternity. 

“ The farmer having some other business to transact in Leiria besides devo- 
tion, the worthy friar very kindly suggested to him that he should dispatch his 
(the farmer’s) transgressions in the first instance ; when he might go about 
his other business in the town, and the young girl’s confession could be gone 
through by his return. The honest farmer took this spiritual advice, and left 
his daughter in the care of the friar till his return. 

“ The holy father, as soon as the farmer had quitted the convent, said to the 
young girl, ‘ Walk into this chapel; I shall confess you here ; and carried 
the girl into the vestry-room of the chapel. 

‘* Soon after, a number of persons (some of whom I could name) who were 


1829. ] Popery in Portugal. 49 


performing their devotions in the adjoining chapel, heard a dreadful scream- 
ing from a female voice, but they were afraid to interfere by seeking the cause 
of the distress; when the young creature, having loosened herself from the 
grasp of this pious ruffian, ran into the chapel, calling on the people for 
protection, at the same time explaining the treatment she had experienced. 

“ Soon afterwards, the father of the girl arrived, expecting her to be absolved 
from her sins. When he heard the statement of his child, which was corrobo- 
rated by the spectators in the chapel, he immediately took her away, and 
proceeded to the house of the Bishop of Leiria, and related to him the whole 
transaction. 

** The pious bishop, like a true Jesuit, advised the farmer to ‘ go home, 
and let the affair remain quite quiet, and he would punish the friar for his 
misconduct!’ 

“ The farmer did as he was recommended. But the inhabitants of Leiria 
made the affair a town-talk for a few days, after which nothing more was 
heard of the matter. The ruffian friar was merely removed to a convent near 
Lisbon, as the only punishment for his atrocious conduct! 

“On this occasion, I expressed my surprise to a friend—a worthy sort of 
a man, though a priest—that the bishop should allow such a wretch as. this 
friar to go unpunished. My friend replied, ‘ that it would afford a bad 
example to punish him publicly ; that the bishop had written to the provin- 
cial, or head of the Franciscan monks, to take from this pious friar the power 
of confessing for a certain period, as an atonement for his crime ; and,’ said 
he, ‘ I have no doubt they will carry the sentence into effect.’ 

“J could fill a volume with the most scandalous and revolting transactions 
practised in the convents, and also in private houses throughout Portugal, by 
these reptiles of the creation under the garb of religion, and the sanction of 
the Inquisition; but 1 must defer it to a future occasion.” 


But enough of these villanies, as described by this sworn Roman 
Catholic. Can any thing be so abominable as the picture here exhibited ? 
Surely Don Miguel is a king good enough for the people whom such a 
herd of miscreants govern with sway so absolute. 

We pass by the coarse and unfounded attacks on Lord Beresford, 
whose services to Portugal deserved a treatment totally different. It is, 
however, only comical to hear his Lordship’s manners satirized by such 
a competent judge of high life as a provincial Portuguese ; his Lordship 
can afford to bear with such censure. Had Portugal been governed in 
the spirit which he created during the war, we should not have heard 
of the abuses which make the staple of Mr. Young’s publication. 

We should be most unjust, and most ungallant, if we closed this 
article without saying that the conduct of Mrs. Young, in the distressing 
circumstances in which she was placed, was deserving of the highest 
praise. Her devotion to her husband—her exertions, and her ingenuity, 
confer the greatest honour on her heart and her talents. 


M.M. New Series.—-Vow. VII. No. 37. H 


[50° J [Jan. 


THE THEATRES. 


Drury Lane has exerted itself with very considerable success during 
the month. Solemn tragedy has been dovetailed with sprightly farce ; 
opera has been interlaced with melodrame, and ballet has filled up the 
intervals; the whole as a preparative to pantomime, which, like its 
favourite Grimaldi, will distend its painted jaws, and swallow the whole 
ere those shoes are old, in which we followed Miss Philips’s tender 
triumphs, and Braham’s unconquerable bravura. 

Miss Philips, of whose promising performances we have already 
spoken, and who, if she be no more than seventeen, is one of the most 
singular instances of early power upon the boards, has added to her 
distinctions by playing Juliet. The character though, as every one 
knows, the perpetual first step of young tragedians, and scarcely capable 
of being a failure, where youth, prettiness, and simplicity, are to be 
found in the actress, is yet one which might display a very high reach 
of the performer’s genius. To do common things in an uncommon 
manner, has been proverbially difficult since the days of Horace ; and to 
give a character with any degree of novelty after it has been harassed 
and hackneyed through a thousand shapes, is perhaps as difficult an 
exploit as the stage can display. 

It would be idle to say that the present actress either electrified or 
dissolved the bosoms of the multitude ; but it would be as untrue to 
deny that her performance exhibited much taste and tenderness, as it 
would be unfair to estimate her future powers by her present. She is 
now the best Juliet upon the stage. The praise does not amount to 
panegyric, for this is not the day of theatrical glories ; but it implies 
success: it is the expression of popular feeling in favour of the young 
actress, and Miss Philips will greatly disappoint criticism, if she does 
not rise to early honours in her profession. 

Mr. Kean, jun., whose appearance last year was so amusingly magni- 
fied by mystery, until the doubt was whether the manager had not some 
elephant on a new construction, or a live mammoth, to exhibit on the 
rising of the winter curtain, was the Romeo. This young actor’s 
powers are scarcely yet in a state to be appreciated. Nature has been 
unfavourable to his exterior : he wants figure, countenance, and movement 
for the stage ; while the faculties whose ripeness might counterbalance 
those formidable defects, are still immature. The similitude of his 
manner to that of the elder Kean is extreme ; and he seems to be pos- 
sessed of all those peculiarities which make the prominent and unpleas- 
ing distinctions of that style, the abruptness of step, the interruption of 
voice, the rattle in the throat, the hysteric laugh ; though with these too, 
is retained a good deal of the peculiar power, the strong seizure 
of certain passages, and the new and sometimes vivid embodying of the 
poet’s thought. On the whole, the performance was more than “ credit- 
able.” We have seen actors of established reputation less interesting in 
the part ; and it may rest with the young performer himself, whether 
he is to overcome his original disabilities, or, after a little celebrity on 
the strength of his father’s successes, to sink into the palpable obscure 
of his profession. 

“ Charles the XIIth ;” a little romance from the French, as usual, 
pleasantly arranged by Planche, has been performed for some nights. 
The story is one of those customary coups de grand homme, which the 


— 


a a 


1829. ] The Theatres. 51 


French novelists and dramatists were so long in the practice of affixing 
upon Frederic the Id. ; a hero, who after losing his Parisian popularity 
by soundly beating their gallant compatriots, recovered it tenfold by his 
infidelity. But as Frederic is now a little exhausted, Charles the XIIth 
comes in for a share in the sorrows and smiles of the most easily sorrow- 
ing and smiling population on the circumference of the globe; and this 
northern brute, in whom the savage made the madman more atrocious, 
and the madman made the savage more bent on his own ruin, and that 
of his kingdom, figures as the man of feeling. Nothing can be more 
shadowy than the story. A Swedish Colonel has for some pre- 
sumed offence, been exiled from the service. He retires to the country, 
where he is assisted by a hospitable peasant. By some accident he has had 
an opportunity of saving the king’s life. The circumstance is revealed. 
Charles overhears the colonel’s and the peasant’s daughters arranging the 
mode in which the exile was to be replaced in the rays of favour ; and 
instead of ordering the two advisers to be locked up in one of the royal 
guard rooms, or sent to beat hemp in some hyperborean house of correc- 
tion, which would have been the natural course of this military brute, he 
melts into romance upon the spot, feels his early error, and orders the 
Colonel to appear for the reinstatement of his character, and even for 
his elevation to the rank of General; the whole being done in the 
regular style of a French king of melodrame. The peasant’s daughter 
was played by Miss Love cleverly, as she plays every thing; and the 
Colonel’s by Miss Tree languidly, as she seldom plays any thing. But 
the part gave no opportunity for her skill, and she had not much to do 
beyond winning all hearts, king’s, general’s, and aid’s-de-camp, by a 
smile in perpetual requisition. 

“Love in Wrinkles,” a little opera, also from the French, but of 
higher pretensions, gave room for Braham’s advantageous exhibition of 
his latent powers as an actor. The original is “ La Vielle,” a well 
known and favourite fragment in one act, played at, we think, the 
«Opera Comique,” in Paris. The heroine is the handsome young 
widow of a Russian General, fallen in the French campaigns. Return- 
ing through a wild and turbulent country, her only resource to avoid 
insult is the disguise of an old woman. She is, however, overtaken by 
a party of French plunderers, and is in danger, old as she is; but a 

oung French chevalier rides up, and gallantly sets her free to return to 
er castle. The campaign turns out unlucky for the French, and the 
young officer wounded, and a prisoner, is sent to the identical castle of the 
old lady. She had been struck with his gallantry, and retains her dis- 


guise, while she practises upon his heart, and astonishes him by the 


consciousness that he has a growing tendre for a Venus sixty years old. 
But an order comes to send all prisoners to Siberia. The officer and 
Countess are equally in dismay. The only resource is a contract of 
marriage, which gives the rites of citizenship to the husband, yet, which 
the old lady proposes as a matrimonial nullity, and merely an expedient 


_ to save the chevalier from so formidable a journey. The marriage is 


‘solemnized. But the chevalier discovers, to his great discomfort, that 
the contract has, by the mistake of a puzzled old domestic, been made of 
the firmest nature. He at length, with some. difficulty, braces up his 
resolution, and waits on_ her toilette, while the old lady is changing her 
marriage costume. To his surprise he observes a singular improvement in 
her appearance as she gets rid of her dress of ceremonial. ‘The improve- 


H 2 


52 The Theatres. [Jan. 


ment and the surprise grow together, until the old bride steps forth, from 
the circle of her waiting maids, a young beauty. Discovery and delight 
flash together on the chevalier, he sings a bravura of rapture, and the 
curtain falls. This piece was translated by Mr. Lacy, with, however, 
the serious disadvantage of being expanded, from one lively and bustling 
act into two, very considerably the reverse. The dialogue was pointless 
throughout, and often dreary. But some extremely pretty music inter- 
spersed, broke off the ennuyante tardiness of the scenes. Braham’s singing 
was aided by the new ease of his acting. Miss Love’s old woman was 
pretty, under all the horrors of a white wig; and “ Love in Wrinkles,” 
has been played several times. Colman’s monstrously heavy play of 
« Who Wants a Guinea?” has diversified rather than relieved the per- 
formances, and Drury Lane still remains much in want of something 
better than French Vaudevilles. 

Covent Garden, after its temporary closure, opened with tragedy, the 
performance fittest for its fine and stately architecture. But its choice 
of « Virginius,” was not fortunate. We must make large allowance for 
the difficulty of managers in a time so perfectly unfertile of able stage 
writing ; but Virginius had gone through its day long since, and had 
gone down. Kean’s powers now, can do nothing in the way of revival ; 
and the weight of Virginius sinks the actor, who might have been 
buoyed up by the living vigour of Macbeth and Othello. Kean’s figure, 
too, is disastrously unfitted for the Roman. The stage hero of antiquity 
must not be diminutive, and no energy of the actor can cheat us into the 


imagination that in Kean we see one of the “ wielders of the fierce: 


democracy.” But the play is feeble, with the additional drawback, that 


it is hackneyed to a singular degree. There have been a long succession 


of plays upon the subject, and Garrick is still remembered in Virginius. 
When will Mr. Knowles venture upon foundations of his own, and, 
abandoning the denizens of his shelves, trust to the creations of his 
brain? 

Both houses are just now in the full parturition of pantomime. Our 
sheets will be beyond mortal addition by the time that the clowns and 
Columbines are let loose to romp, and run after each other through the 
wide world. But report says, that they are every thing that is fine. 
Spirits, with starry wings, flirt and flutter over lovers, magicians make 
the moon come down bodily, and the pyramids develop the dances, 
drinkings and damsels that once charmed the soul and body of the 
dynasty of Psammeticus. Mr. Price’s wand summons up wonder in 
the shape of the “ Queen Bee.” Mr. Fawcett’s in that of, as well as our 
memory will help us, “ Red Riding Hood ;” but both are mighty 
masters of the spell, and we wish them both triumphs worthy of their 
prodigality of genius and gilding. 


——— a 


‘ 


1829.j [ 83 J 


MEMOIRS AND CONFESSIONS OF A POLICE OFFICER.* 


Among the duties which a great man owes to his country, there is none, 
as we think, more imperative than that of publishing, in his life time, if he 
can—if not, of leaving to the care of his executors—a faithful narrative of 
the events in which he has figured, or which have come under his _per- 
sonal observation. 

It will be remembered, that greatness is a term of relation, and that 
there are many kinds of greatness ;—there is the greatness of statesmen, 
the greatness of chimney-sweepers—and men may attain to great eleva- 
tion in either pursuit—the greatness of lawyers, and the greatness of pick- 
pockets : in short, any man blessed with genius, and sua arte peritus, 
may acquire greatness. “ Major Molasses was a great man ;” and Field- 
ing thought Jonathan Wild, his hero, was fit to mate, for his greatness, 
with those of antiquity. 

Clarendon and Burnet have told us all about their own times. Mr. 
Canning is said to-have left a similar history of the events of the period 
in which he flourished ; but the (perhaps) justifiable precaution of his 
friends will prevent its seeing the light during the present generation. We 
are delighted and-grateful at what these great men have done ; but a feel- 
ing of bitter despair comes over us when we think of the other great men, 
not statesmen, who have gone down to the tomb without leaving any 
record of their achievements, and whose knowledge lies buried for ever, 
as much lost to the world as the former possessors of it. We would give 
one of our ears to read Mr. Canning’s memoirs ; and we would give both 
to have a sight of the Peachum papers, or Filch’s materials for his auto- 
biography. 

In this species of writing the French have been always our superiors, 
as they were our first masters. The last example of this is tobe found 
in the memoirs of Vidocg, for many years Chef dela Police de Sureté, 
and who is now occupying the less distinguished station of a paper 
maker at St. Mande. 

If the avidity with which his work has been read in Paris were alone 
to be considered, there could be no doubt of its merit and interest; and 
of its having hit with admirable felicity, that craving curiosity to become 
acquainted with the mysterious and necessarily secret affairs to which it 
relates, that pervades all classes of society. Not only is it to be found in 
every salon, boudoir, and cabinet throughout Paris, but the very hack- 
ney coachmen spell its pages while waiting for their fares ; and when one 

oes into a décrottcur’s shop to have one’s shoes blacked, the artiste who 
is to operate, tears himself with a sigh from the perusal of Vidocq, and 


_ takes up his volume and his sous with equal eagerness, the moment that 
his task is finished. The marchandes des modes, who are great lovers of 
_ taking titles, have invented a captivating head-dress, which, in allusion 
to this irresistible thief-taker, is called chapeau a la Vidocg ; a patent has 


been granted for a rat-trap @ la Vidocq, and half a dozen melo-drames are 
in preparation, founded on his adventures, which will probably in due 
course, be translated (since we have left off writing theatrical pieces 


ourselves), and produced for the edification of our metropolitan audiences. 


There can be no doubt that Vidocq is in every proper sense of the word, 
a “ great man ;”—his popularity abundantly proves it, and the merit of 
his book is equal to his popularity. 


* Memoirs of Vidocq, Principal Agent of the French Police, until 1827. 4 vols. 


54 Memoirs and Confessions of [Jan. 


Before we proceed to give a notice of the contents of M. Vidocq’s 
book, we should observe, in justice to him, that he makes a very heavy 
complaint against a literary gentleman, who, it appears, was engaged by 
the bookseller to revise the manuscript of the author, and to perform for 
him that office which Dr. Pangloss undertakes with respect to Lord 
Duberly’s style, and which other great men of our own day find it expe- 
dient to have done for them—for all our Cezsars are not tam Marti quam 
Mercurio. Vidocq says, this gentleman has been bribed to be-devil his 
work, and that the ministers of the existing police, with whom, be it 
observed, M. Vidocgq is at daggers-drawn, are at the bottom of it. That 
the fracture of his arm having prevented him from personally superin- 
tending the progress of the work, he did not discover the trick which 
had been played until the first volume, and part of the second, were in 
the press, and it was too late to repair the error. He immediately, how- 
ever, suspended his assistant, and took the matter into his own hands. 
He declares, he thinks his own prose, which had been much approved of 
in the reports his former office called upon him to make, is infinitely 
superior to that of his literary agent, whom he accuses of having repre- 
sented him as a much greater knave than he confesses to have been, for 
the base purpose of blackening his character, and thereby diminishing 
the weight of the discoveries he has already made, and those which he 
promises to continue. It is impossible to decide whether this complaint 
is well founded ; but it is quite clear that the variety and interest of the 


adventures in the Jatter part of the second volume are far superior to - 


those of the first, and they are certainly not worse written. Vidocq com= 
plains too, that his mutilator, instead of representing him as the victim 
first of boyish imprudences, and afterwards of an unjust accusation, and 
his adventures as casual, and, on his part, involuntary, has placed him in 
the light of a determined, calculating, meditative rogue—an injustice he 
seems to feel very sensibly, and really, as he tells the tale, il n’est pas st 
diable qvil est noir. 

Vidocq was the son of a baker at Arras, where he was born in July 
1775. He wasa big boy, and of a very robust constitution. His educa- 
tion and early feats were well calculated to lead to the adventures which 
subsequently befel him. He began by frequenting the fencing schools 
and the taverns, where he learnt a great deal more than any honest lad 
ought to know. This led, in the natural course of things, to robbing the 
till, in which, as his brother was a participator, he could not long con- 
tinue without detection. This happened, and the brother was sent away. 
Vidocq continued, nevertheless, to plunder his father, until his ingenuity 
being baffled by the old man’s caution, he had recourse, under the advice 
of a more experienced knave, to open violence ; and having stripped the 
house of all the money he could lay his hands on, he decamped, and 


went to Dunkirk, whence he imtended to sail for America. Here he © 


was in turn the victim of sharpers, who fleeced him; and being thus 
without any other means of existence, he hired himself as servant to an 
itinerant showman. As, however, he was found not docile enough to 
learn tumbling, he was kicked out of this employment, and then became 
principal assistant to a man who acted Punch ; but an unfortunate pas- 
sion which he conceived for the frail moiety of this manager of wooden 
actors being detected, he again lost his place. He next undertook to 
carry the knapsack of an old corn-doctor ; and having thus got near to 
Arras, he went home, another prodigal son, obtained his father’s forgive- 
ness, and enlisted in the Bourbon regiment He behaved ill, was 


ee a 


: 


1829.] a Police Officer. 55 


punished, fought several duels, (which, by the way, seem to have been 
little more desperate than those of the German students, who agree before 
they begin not to hurt one another. much) ; and at length deserted to the 
Austrians—then back again to a French horse regiment—and_ returned 
wounded to Arras, just as the revolution was assuming its most frightful 
shape in that city, under the auspices of Joseph Le Bon. 

His bonnes fortunes and his indiscretion get him into prison; his 
friends get him out, through the interest of a M. Chevalier with Le Bon. 
Vidocgq joins the army, and upon his return is jockeyed into a marriage 
with the ugly sister of his deliverer, whose infidelity places him again in 
peril. Once more free, he sets out to discharge a commission which he 
has for his adjutant-general ; not finding him at Tournay, he proceeds to 
Brussels, the dissipations of which he likes so well, that he does not 
trouble himself about returning to his duty. He here becomes acquainted 
with a gang of sharpers, who, under the pretence of belonging to the 
armée roulante, assume military ranks. Vidocq is a captain of hussars, 
and he and his companions persuade a silly old rich baroness to marry 
him. Vidocq feels some compunction just as the affair is arranged, con- 
fesses his imposture, and decamps. 

The money which the generosity of the infatuated baroness had sup- 
plied Vidocq was soon spent in debauchery. In consequence of a 
quarrel with a captain of engineers, whom he beats, he is sent to 
the prison of Lille, where the adventure takes place, which influences the 

whole of his future life. He is brought in contact with professed 
_ thieves and criminals of the most desperate and depraved habits. Among 
the prisoners were 


“two old serjeant-majors, Grouard and Herbaux, the latter, son of a boot- 
maker at Lille, both condemed for forgeries; and a labourer, named Boitel, 
condemned to six years’ confinement for stealing garden-tools ; this latter, who 
was the father of a large family, was always bewailing his imprisonment, 
which, he said, deprived him of the means of working a small farm, which he 
only knew how to turnto advantage. In spite of the crime he had committed, 
much interest was evinced in his favour, or rather towards his children, and 
many inhabitants of his district had drawn up and presented petitions in his 
favour, which were as yet unanswered, and the unfortunate man was in despair, 
often repeating that he would give such and such a sum for his liberty. Grou- 
ard and Herbaux, who were in St. Peter’s Tower, waiting to be sent to the 
gallies, thought they could get him pardoned by means of a memorial, which 
_ they drew up, or rather plotted together ; a plan which was ultimately so 
injurious to me. 
_ “ Grouard began to complain that he could not work quietly in the midst of 
the uproar of the common room, in which were eighteen prisoners singing, 
Swearing, and quarrelling allday. Boitel, who had done me some little kind 
offices, — me to lend my chamber. to the compilers of his memorial, and 
consented, although very unwillingly, to give it up to them for four hours a 
y- From the next morning they were there installed, and the jailor frequently 
Went there secretly. These comings and goings, and the mystery which per- 
_vaded them, would have awakened suspicions in a man accustomed to the 
- intrigues ofa prison ; but, ignorant of their plans, and occupied in drinking 
with the friends who visited me, I interested myself but too little with what 
Was going on in the Bull’s-eye. 

* At the end of eight days, they thanked me for my kindness, telling me that 
the memorial was concluded, and that they had every reason to hope for the 
pardon of the petitioner, without sending it to Paris, from the influence of the 
pmeprowy of the people at Lille. All this was not very clear to me, but 
I did not give it much attention, thinking it no business of mine ; and there 


56 Memoirs and Confessions of [Jan. 


was no occasion for me to concern myself. But it took a turn which threw 
blame on my carelessness ; for scarcely had forty-eight hours elapsed after the 
finishing of the memorial, when two brothers of Boitel arrived express, and 
came to dine with him at the jailor’s table. At the end of the repast, an order 
arrived, which being opened by the jailor, he cried, ‘Good news, by my faith! 
it is an order for the liberation of Boitel.’ At these words they all arose in 
confusion, embraced him, examined the order, and congratulated him; and 
Boitel, who had sent away his clothes, &c. the previous evening, immediately left 
the prison, without bidding adieu to any of the prisoners. 

« Next day, about ten o'clock in the morning, the inspector of the prisons 
came to visit us ; and, on the jailor’s shewing him the order for Boitel’s libera- 
tion, he cast his eye over it, saidit was a forgery, and that he should not allow 
the prisoner to depart until he had referred to the authorities. The jailor then 
said that Boitel had left on the previous evening. The inspector testified his 
astonishment that he should have been deceived by an order signed by persons 
whose names were unknown to him, and at last placed him under a guard. 
He then took the order away with him, and soon made himself certain that, 
independently of the forgery of the signatures, there were omissions and errors 
in form which must have struck any person at all familiar with such papers.” 


By the treachery of his companions, Vidocq is accused of having 
forged this order, with which he has, in fact, hadnothing to do. He then 
determines to escape, and effects his design in the dress of a superior 
officer, which has been brought to him’ by a woman with whom he had 
lived. After remaifiing concealed some time, he is retaken. One of the 
stratagems by which he eluded the pursuit that was made after him is 
amusing :— a 

“ Jacquard learnt one day that I was going to dine in Rue Notre-Dame. 


He immediately went with four assistants, whom he left on the ground-floor, ~ 


and ascended the staircase to the room where I was about to sit down to 
table with two females. A recruiting serjeant, who was to have made the 
fourth, had not yet arrived. I recognised Jacquard, who never having seen 
me, had not the same advantage ; and besides, my disguise would have bid 
defiance to any description of my person. Without being at all uneasy, I 
approached, and with the most natural tone I begged him to pass into a 
closet, the glass door of which looked on the banquet-room. ‘ It is Vidocq 
whom you are looking for,’ said I ; ‘ if you will wait for ten minutes you will 
see him. There is his cover, he cannot be long. When he enters, I will 
make you a sign; but if you are alone, I doubt if you can seize him, as he is 
armed, and resolved to defend himself.’-—* I have my gens @’ armes on the stair- 
case, answered he, ‘ and if he escapes ‘ Take care how you place them 
then,’ said I, with affected haste. ‘If Vidocq should see them he would 
mistrust some plot, and then farewell to the bird.—*‘ But where shall I place 
them ?’—‘ Oh, why. in this cleset—mind, no noise--that would spoil all; and 
I have more desire than yourself that he should not suspect anything. My — 
commissary was now shut up in four walls with his agents. The door, 
which was very strong, closed with a double lock. Then, certain of time for — 
escape, I cried to my prisoners, ‘ You are looking for Vidocq—well, it is he 
who has caged you; farewell.’ And away I went like a dart, leaving the 
party shouting for help, and making desperate efforts to escape from the 
unlucky closet.” 


After his recapture he escaped repeatedly, but was always so unfor- — 
tunate as to fall again into the hands of his enemies. The facility of his 
evasions proves either that English prisoners are the clumsiest persons 
in the world, or that English prisons are the most secure of all places. 
His exploits are, however, always managed with great ingenuity and 
daring. Being at length taken to Douai, he was brought to trial—con- 


1829. } a Police Officer. 57 


demned to eight years’ imprisonment, and to be exposed in the pillory in 
the market-place. Soon afterwards he was transferred to the Bicétre, 
and sent thence with the chain of galley-slaves to Brest. 

The treatment which these poor wretches experience at the hands of 
the argousins, who have the task of guarding them, appears to be inhu- 
man in the extreme. The description of one of the nights passed on the 
road is frightful :— 


« We passed the night on the stones in a church, then converted into a ma- 
gazine. The argousins made regular rounds, to assure themselves that no one 
was engaged in fiddling (sawing their fetters). At daybreak we were all on 
foot ; the lists were read over, and the fetters examined. At six o’clock we 
were placed in long cars, back to back, the legs hanging down outside, covered 
with hoar frost, and motionless from cold. On reaching St. Cyr, we were 
entirely stripped, to undergo a scrutiny, which extended to our stockings, 
shoes, shirt, mouth, ears, nostrils, &c. &c. It was not only the files in cases 
which they sought, but also for watch springs, which enable a prisoner to 
cut his fetters in less than three hours. This examination lasted for upwards 
of an hour, and it is really a miracle that one half of us had not our noses or 
feet frozen off with cold. At bed-time, we were heaped together in a cattle- 
stall, where we laid so close that the body of one served for the pillow of the 
person who laid nearest to him, and if any individual got entangled in his own 
or any other man’s chain, a heavy cudgel rained down a torrent of blows on 
the hapless offender, As soon as we had laid down ona few handfulls of 
straw, which had already been used for the litter of the stable, a whistle blew 
to command us to the most absolute silence, which was not allowed to be 
disturbed by the least complaint, even when, to relieve the guard placed at 
the extremity of the stable, the argousins actually walked over our bodies. 

« The supper consisted of a pretended bean soup, and a few morsels of half 
mouldy bread. The distribution was made from large wooden troughs, con- 
taining thirty rations; and the cook, armed with a large pot ladle, did not 
fail to repeat to each prisoner, as he served him, ‘ One, two, three, four, hold 
out your porringer, you thief; the wine was put into the same trough from 
which the soup and meat were served out, and then an argousin, taking a 
whistle, hanging to his button-hole, blew it thrice; saying, ‘ Attention, 
robbers, and only answer by a yes or ano. Have you had bread ?’— Yes.’ 
‘Soup ?’—‘ Yes.’ ‘ Meat?’—‘ Yes.’ ‘ Wine?’—‘ Yes.’ ‘ Then go to sleep, 
or pretend to do so.’ 

« A table was laid out at the door, at which the captain, lieutenant, and 
chief argousins, seated themselves to take a repast superior to ours ; for these 

-men, who profitted by all occasions to extort money from the prisoners, took 
excellent care of themselves, and eat and drank abundantly. At this moment 
the stable offered one of the most hideous spectacles that can be imagined ; 
on one side were a hundred and twenty men herded together like foul beasts, 
rolling about their haggard eyes, whence fatigue or misery banished sleep ; 
on the other side, eight ill-looking fellows were eating greedily without, not 
for one moment losing sight of their carbines or their clubs. A few miserable 
candles affixed to the blackened walls of the stable, cast a murky glare over 
this scene of horror, the silence of which was only broken by stifled groans, 
or the clank of fetters. Not content with striking us indiscriminately, the 
ow made their detestable and brutal witticisms about the prisoners ; 
and if aman, fevered with thirst, asked for water, they said to him, ‘ Let 
him who wants water put out his hand.’ The wretch obeyed, mistrusting 
nothing, and was immediately overwhelmed with blows. Those who had any 
money were necessarily careful ; they were but very few, the long residence 
of the majority in prison having for the most part exhausted their feeble 
resources. 


M.M. New Series.—Vour. VII. No. 37. I 


58 Memoirs and Confessions of [J an. 


The horrors of the Bagne increase Vidocq’s desire to escape. After 
several efforts, which are unsuccessful, he gets away in the dress of a 
fifteen stone sister of charity—makes his way to Nantes, where he nar- 
rowly escapes being engaged in a burglary—is engaged by a cattle- 
dealer as a drover, and thus makes his way to Paris, and thence to Arras; 
where, with the assistance of his friends, and in a disguise, he remains for 
some time in safety. Again discovered, he is taken to the prison of 
Douai—recognized—sent to Toulon—escapes again—is enrolled against 
his will, in the celebrated band of robbers, headed by Roman, and is 
dismissed, because is discovered to have been a galley slave. These 
adventures are not very interesting, nor very well told. We have every 
respect for M. Vidocq’s veracity, but some of the stories are so impro- 
bable, that we could not have believed them even if we had seen them 
acted. A few, however, of the anecdotes, relating to some of the cele- 
brated French robbers, are odd enough. Among the convicts bound for 
Toulon is Jossas, who was commonly known by his assumed title of the 
Marquis de St. Armand de Faral. Some of the points in this accom- 
plished rascal’s character, are extremely amusing ; and the coolness, and 
well-bred self-possession, with which he effects his robberies, show that, 
if he was not born a gentleman, he ought to have been :— 


« Jossas was one of those thieves, of whom, fortunately, but few are now in 
existence. He meditated and prepared an enterprize sometimes so long as a 
year beforehand. Operating principally by means of false keys, he began by 
taking first the impression ot the lock of the outer door. The key made, he 
entered the first part ; if stopped by another door, he took a second impres- 
sion, had a second key made; and thus in the end attained his object. It 
may be judged that, only being able to get on during the absence of the tenant 
of the apartment, he must lose much time before the fitting oppo: unity would 
present itself. He only had recourse to this expedient when in despair, that 
is, when it was impossible to introduce himself to the house ; for if he could 
contrive to procure admittance under any pretext, he soon obtained impres- 
sions of all the locks, and when the keys were ready, he used to invite the per- 
sons to dine with him, in the Rue Chantereine, and whilst they were at table, 
his accomplices stripped the apartments, from whence he had also contrived 
to draw away the servants, either by asking their masters to bring them to help 
to wait at table, or by engaging the attention of the waiting-maids and cooks 
by lovers who were in the plot. The porters saw nothing, because they 
seldom took anything but jewels or money. If by chance any large parcel 
was to be removed, they folded it up in dirty linen, and it was thrown out of 
window to an accomplice in waiting with a washerwoman’s wheel-barrow. 

« A multitude of robberies committed by Jossas are well known, all of 
which bespeak that acute observation to invention which he possessed in the 
highest degree. In society, where he passed as a Creole of Havannah, he 
often met inhabitants of that place, without ever letting anything escape him 
which could betray him. He frequently led on families of distinction to offer 
him the hand of their daughters. Taking care always, during the many con- 
versations thereon, to learn where the dowry was deposited, he invariably 
carried it off, and absconded at the moment appointed for signing the contract. 
But of all his tricks, that played off on a banker at Lyons is perhaps the most 
astonishing. Having acquainted himself with the ways of the house, under 
pretext of arranging accounts and negociations, in a short time an intimacy 
arose, which gave him the opportunity of getting the impression of all the 
loeks except that of the cash chest, of which a secret ward rendered all his 
attempts unavailing. On the other hand, the chest being built in the wall, 
and cased with iron, it was impossible to think of breaking it open. The 
cashier, too, never parted from his key ; but these obstacles did not daunt 
Jossas. Having formed a close intimacy with the cashier, he proposed an 
excursion of pleasure to Collonges ; and on the day appointed, they went in 
a cabriolet. On approaching Saint Rambert, they saw by the river side a 


Ss 


1829. ] a Police Officer. 59 


woman apparently dying, and the blood spouting from her mouth and nostrils ; 
beside her was a man, who appeared much distressed, assisting her. Jossas, 
testifying considerable emotion, told him that the best method of stopping the 
effusion of blood was to apply a key to the back of the female. But no one 
had a key, except the cashier, who at first offered that of his apartment. 
That had no effect. The cashier, alarmed at seeing the blood flow copiously, 
took out the key of his cash-chest, which was applied with much success 
between the shoulders of the patient. It has been already guessed that a 
piece of modelling wax had been placed there previously, and that the whole 
scene had been preconcerted. Three days after, the cash-box was empty.” 


In the course of his adventures, he becomes acquainted with the mem- 

bers of several of the famous bands of chauffeurs, who committed the 
most daring burglaries in the northern parts of France, and on the Bel- 
gian frontier. They appear to have acquired the name of chauffeurs, 
from their practice of torturing the victims, in order to make them con- 
fess where their money was hid. Placing lighted candles under the 
arm-pits, and hot tinder between their toes, of the farmers they robbed, 
seem to have been the most approved methods of extorting their confes- 
sions. Cornu, the father of a large family of robbers, and at this time 
an old man; “had been one of the most cruel, daring, and successful 
chauffeurs of his time, and his wife was the willing partner of his worst 
crimes. He was at length taken, tried at Rouen, and sentenced to death. 
The end of his life was, in every respect, worthy of him, and there is a 
cool humour in the manner of it, which, notwithstanding its horrid 
nature, almost accounts for his detestable son, Mulot’s, laughing at it.— 
Cornu’s wife, 
* who was still at liberty, came every day to bring him food, and console 
him. ‘ Listen,’ said she to him one morning, when he appeared more dejected 
than usual, ‘ listen, Joseph: they say that death affrights you—don’t play 
the noodle, at all events, when they lead you to the scaffold. The lads of the 
game will laugh at you.’ 

« © Yes,’ said Cornu, * all that is very fine, if one’s scrag was not in danger ; 
but with Jack Ketch on one side, and the black sheep (clergyman) on the 
other, and the traps (gens-d’armes) behind, it is not quite so pleasant to be 
turned into food for flies.’ 

_© © Joseph, Joseph, do not talk in this way; I am only a woman, you 
know ; but I could go through it as if at a wedding, and particularly with 
you, oldlad! Yes, I tell you again, by the word of Marguerite, I would 
willingly accompany you.’ 

«© Are you in earnest?’ asked Cornu. ‘ Yes, quite in earnest,’ sighed 
Marguerite. ‘ But what are you getting up for? What are you going to do?’ 

'“ © Nothing,’ replied Cornu; and then going to a turnkey who was in the 
passage, ‘ Roch, said he to him, ‘ send for the jailor, 1 want to see the pub- 
lic accuser.’ 

.* *What!’ said his wife, ‘the public accuser! Are you going to split 
(confess)? Ah, Joseph, consider what a reputation you will leave for our 
children !’ 

“Cornu was silent until the magistrate arrived, and he then denounced his 
wife ; and this unhappy woman, sentenced to death by his confessions, was 
executed at the same time with him. Mulot, who told me all this, never 
repeated the narrative without laughing till he cried.” 

In the midst of the distress which his own imprudence, and the false- 
hood of his companions, had brought upon him, Vidocq found ample 
time for reflection, on the painful and desperate nature of his position. 
An escaped criminal, he was always subject to be seized by the police ; 
and the ingenious and hazardous manner of his escapes had given a dan- 
gerous celebrity to his name. Almost precluded for this reason from 

12 


60 Memoirs and Confessions of [Jan. 


attempting to gain an honest livelihood by industrious pursuits, he was, 
on the other hand, exposed to the dangerous solicitations of thieves, by 
profession, with whom, from his long residence in prisons, he had become 
intimately acquainted ; and who, if he had plainly refused to assist their 
enterprises, would either have denounced him, or cut his throat. For 
several years he endured this painful existence. He joined a privateer 
crew, whom he properly enough calls corsaires. Some of his adventures 
here are singular, and the characters he falls in with of the most extraor- 
dinary kind. ‘Some of the scenes he paints are occasionally in so extra- 
vagantly ludicrous a style, that we cannot help suspecting that he, or 
the literary gentleman who was so good as to revise his manuscript, 
must have studied that prince of farceurs, Pigault le Brun, somewhat 
too closely. The character of M. Belle Rose, a gentleman employed in 
the recruiting service, might have figured in “ Mon Oncle Thomas.” The 
ideas of enlisting a dissolute clerk to be the notary to a marching regi- 
ment, and a discontented gardener’s apprentice as chief florist, with the 
care of cultivating the marine plants on board his French Majesty’s 
Ship, the Invincible, are not badly imagined, though somewhat coarse ; 
and the speech of M. Belle Rose, in which he explains the advantages 
which the colonies held out to aspiring spirits, would make Serjeant 
Kite blush. 

Tired of the constant difficulties which he encountered, in endeavour- 
ing to live honestly, by travelling about to country fairs with millinery, 
Vidocq at length went to Paris, to be out of the reach of pursuit, and 
free from the importunities of his former intimates. Here he was again 
baffled. St. Germain, a thorough paced and desperate robber, discovered 
him, drained him of his money, and made hima receiver of the produce 
of his thefts. At the same time he was denounced by Chevalier, whose 
sister he married at Arras. The police endeavoured to take him, and, 
although he escaped for a short time, he ultimately fell into their hands. 
He then made a communication to M. Henry, the principal director of 
the police of Paris, begging that he might be allowed to assist in the’ 
detection of criminals, and asking, as his only recompense, to be freed 
from the contaminating society of the persons by whom he was sur- 
rounded, and to serve out the term of his sentence in a solitary prison. 
M. Henry had been so often taken in by similar offers, that this was no 
easy matter to accomplish. Vidocq, however, convinced him, by some. 
information he furnished, that he might be made useful, and he was put 
on a sort of a probation. Still in the prison, he was employed to gain- 
the confidence of the criminals. That he did this successfully, his libera- 
tion, and the detection of many dangereus robbers, sufficiently attest. 
As to the manner in which it was effected, and the proof which it affords 
that the adage of “ honour among thieves,” is a mistake—these are mat- 
ters which are not to be very closely inquired into; the conduct of 
“ great men” must not be too rigorously examined. He appears, cer- 
tainly, to have possessed some very rare and valuable qualifications for 
the office he undertock. Great knowledge of the characters he had to 
deal with, their habits and pursuits, considerable personal strength, 
a fertile brain, indefatigable energy, and a physical insensibility, which, 
as it made him indifferent to pain and peril, almost amounted to courage. 

As it was not thought expedient openly to release him, Vidocq was 
permitted to escape from the guards who were conducting him to the 
prefecture de police, for an examination. As soon as he got free, he 
associated with the professed robbers of Paris, and obtained a great 
quantity of valuable information, which he communicated to the autho- 
rities. St. Germain now encountered him once more, proposed to him 
to join in a robbery and murder of two infirm old men, and until this 


1829.] a Police Officer. 61 


project was ripe, engaged him to assist in the robbery of a banker’s 
house, at the corner of the Rue d’Enghien, and the Rue Hauteville. 
Some reports having got about that Vidocq was a mouchard (a police 
spy), St. Germain, though he did not believe them, would not let him 
go out of his sight. Vidocq, however, by means of Annette,,the woman 
who lived with him, contrived to inform the police; the robbers were 
taken just as they were entering the house, and Vidocq, who was upon 
the wall, fell, asif shot, and was carried for dead into the house. There 
is something appalling in the details of this expedition—the coolness 
with which the preparations were made, and the fact of St. Germain, 
and Boudin, who were the principals, getting over the walls, and begin- 
ning to break into the house, with their pipes in their mouths, makes one 
shudder. _ He is minute in his description of St. Germain, who, he says, 
“was ardently fond of field sports, and was delighted at the sight of 
blood ;—his other predominant passions were play, women, and good 
living. As he had the tone and manners of good society—expressed 
himself with facility, and was always elegantly dressed—he might be 
called an extremely well-bred robber; when it served his purpose, no 
one could assume more agreeable or more insinuating manners ;” which 
seems, in all its points, to include the definition of a fine gentleman. Of 
Boudin, the other thief, he does not speak so favourably ; he says he 
had bandy legs, a peculiarity which he has observed in many professed 
assassins ; and we must admit that his opinion upon such a point is enti- 
tled to some weight. He adds, that this man’s habit of using a knife, 
and cutting up meat, which he had acquired by keeping a cook’s shop, 
had stamped his character with ferocity. 

Vidocq’s device for getting possession of the hoard of a celebrated 
receiver of stolen goods was very ingenious. He met him in the street, 
pretended to seize him by mistake for another, and having learned his 
residence, which the man told, believing that the mistake would then be 
discovered, and he should be liberated, our thief detector ran to the 
house in the dress of a porter, told the receiver’s wife that her husband 
had been seized, and desired her to make off with their goods. She im- 
mediately set about packing ; and having filled three hackney coaches 
with stolen valuables, Vidocq drove them and her to prison. By this 
time he was known to be a police agent ; his person was familiar to some 
of the thieves, and his name feared by them all. He was obliged to re- 
sort to disguises ; and having determined to capture Gueuvive, a famous 
chief of a gang, he introduced himself to him as an escaped convict. 
Gueuvive, whose confidence he soon gained in this character, proposed 
to him to way-lay Vidocq, whose person he pretended to know, and the 
latter went to his own house with the chief, and waited there for several 
hours, with some five-sous pieces, tied up in their pocket handkerchiefs, 
for the purpose of knocking out the brains of the dreaded mouchard, who, 
the author says, drily, of course did not come home that evening. Soon 
after this Gueuvive was taken, and Vidocq laughed at him. Delzéve, a 
notorious robber, had defied the police for a long time, and M. Henry 
was particularly desirous to have him captured. Vidocq waited for him 
a whole night in mid-winter, during which he preserved himself from 
freezing by getting up to his neck in a heap of dung and filth. In the 
morning he captured Delzéve, and took him, bound hand and foot, to 
M. Henry’s office, where he presented him as a new year’s gift. 

The most daring, and the most difficult of Vidocq’s exploits was the 
capture of Vossard who had committed several very extensive robberies, 
by means of false keys. This man was always armed, and had ex- 
pressed his determination of blowing out the brains of any one who should 
attempt to seize him—a threat which his dé@sperate courage left no doubt 


62 Memoirs and Confessions of a Police Officer. [Jan. 


he would fulfil if he could. Besides this danger, his abode was not known ; 
and for a long time all Vidocq’s efforts to discover it were fruitless. The 
manner in which he paraded, for several days, in the disguise of a well 
dressed old gentleman, the quarter in which he expected to find his prey, 
is very whimsically told. At length he ferretted him out, and found he 
was living in a house at the corner of the Rue Duphot, the ground 
floor of which was occupied as a wine shop. Here Vidocq presented 
himself in the dress of a charcoal porter, which effectually concealed him 
even from his most intimate acquaintance. His first step was to make 
friends with the proprietor, and then to alarm him by a suggestion that his 
lodger meant to rob and murder him and his wife. Having thus made 
sure of their assistance he began his watch, and convinced himself that 
Fossard never went without pistols. He then abandoned the notion of 
seizing him alone, and having arranged a different plan, he watched Fossard 
home one night, saw him put out his candle, by which he concluded he 
was in bed, when he immediately brought down a commissary of police, 
and some gens-d’armes, whom he posted on the stairease. The dénoue- 
ment he tells thus :— 

“ The mistress of the wine-shop, to whom Fossard had been abundantly 
civil, had alittle nephew living with her, a boy of about ten years old, very 
intelligent for his age ; and, being of Norman birth, he was naturally gifted 
with a precocious love of money. 1 promised him a reward if, under the pre- 
text of his aunt being ill, he would knock at the door of Fossard’s room, 
and ask Madame Fossard, as the woman living with him was called, to give 
him alittle Haw de Cologne. I made the little fellow rehearse, several times 
over, the speech, and the tone in which it was to be given, and being quite 
perfect, I made all my companions take off their shoes, a precaution which I 
followed myself. We then ascended, and the boy began to knock at the door. 
At first there was no answer ; at length some one asked, ‘ Who’s there ?’ ‘ Its 
me, Madame,” replied the boy; “it’s Louis. My aunt is taken very ill, and 
begs you to give her a little Haw de Cologne. She isvery bad, indeed. I have 
got a candle here.’ 

“ The door was opened, and as soon as the woman appeared, she was 
seized by two vigorous gens-d'armes, who placed a napkin round her mouth, to 
prevent her crying out. At the same moment, with the rapidity ofa lion spring- 
ing on his prey, I rushed upon Fossard, who, amazed at the suddenness of the 
affair, was bound and handcuffed, and my prisoner, before he could stir from 
his bed. He was so surprised and confounded, that an hour elapsed before he 
found his utterance. When the light was brought, and he saw my face 
blacked with charcoal, and my coal-porter’s dress, he was so terrified that 
I believe he thought he had fallen into the hands of the devil himself. His 
first thought, when he recovered his senses, appeared to be for his arms; he 
glanced towards the pistols and dagger, which lay on a night-table beside the 
bed, and made an effort to reach them ; but he soon found it was impossible, 
and lay passive. Between eighteen and twenty thousand francs in money, 
besides jewels and property toa large amount, were found in this man’s rooms.” 

In the subsequent part of his memoirs, which are to consist of two 
other volumes, Vidocq promises some still more curious details relative 
to the execution of his important duty. He says, that he can speak out, 
and he will—a promise which we rely upon for several reasons. He 
has quarrelled with the existing police, and makes no secret of the 
hatred he bears them, and their agent, his successor, M. Coco Lacour ; 
he has been attacked in a recent publication called Vidocg Dévoilé, and 
in self-defence will be obliged to enter into the secrets of the administra- 
tion ; and he has to rectify some of the mischief which, he says, his 
literary friend has done. ‘The work is in every respect curious and 
amusing. Of its veracity we entertain some doubts; but as lying is a 
vice to which “ great men” have been notoriously addicted in all times, 
that fact will not weigh much to the author’s prejudice in the mind of 
the liberal reader. 


ee 


1829. ] [ 68 ] 
THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON’S LETTER ON THE CATHOLIC QUESTION. 


TuE most important event of the month, or of the year, or of any year 
since the year of Waterloo, is the writing of the following letter, which 
we shall leave to speak for itself, as it does incomparably to the purpose. 

Letter from the Duke of Wellington to Dr. Curtis (the individual 
who has the effrontery to call himself Catholic Primate of Ireland). 


« My Dear Sir :—I have received your letter of the 4th instant, and 
I assure you you do me justice in believing that I am sincerely anxious to 
witness the settlement of the Roman Catholic question, which by bene- 
fiting the state, would confer a benefit on every individual belonging 
to it. 

« But I confess that I see no prospect of such a settlement! Party 
has been mixed up with the consideration of the question to such a 
degree, and such violence pervades every discussion of it, that it is 
impossible to expect to prevail upon men to consider it dispassionately ! 

« If we could bury it in oblivion for a short time, and employ that 
time diligently in the consideration of its difficulties on all sides (for 
they are very great), I should not despair of seeing a satisfactory 
remedy !—Believe me, my dear Sir, &c. 

« London, Dec. 11, 1828.” « WELLINGTON.” 


Now what does this letter say, but what every true friend to the 
church and the constitution has said all along ; he would be happy to 
see the question settled—of course ; but settled by telling Popery that 
it must not hope to pollute the legislature with its presence ; that the 
slave of a pope must not become the law maker for the free subjects 
of an English king—Sett/ed, just as conspiracy ought always to be 
settled—by knocking it on the head. 

The premier confesses that he sees no prospect of carrying the question. 
What is this but the regular official announcement that it cannot be 
carried, and that Government will not take a single step in its favour ? 

It cannot be even proposed until “ men will argue dispassionately.” 
But this the letter, to make assurance doubly sure, declares to be an 
impossible expectation, “ argal,” not to be expected. In other words, 
it shall be discussed in the Greek Calends. The final recommendation 
—another official phrase for a command—is to BURY THE QUESTION IN 
Ox.ivion ! 

So much for the clumsy impostures that were perpetually brought for- 
ward with such mock solemnity in the popish parliament of representatives 
of nothing. So much for the “ bills already under the eye of Sir Nicholas 
Tindal, the abolition of the securities, the pledge to the forty-shilling 
freeholders,” &c. &c. &c. What will the ingenious find next? ‘tis 
true this is an inventive season, par excellence. Punch is in his glory, 
and pantomime at all the theatres is flourishing prodigiously. The 
Irish agitator must not lie on his oars; but have a new scheme for 
every new speech, and a thousand of each. Bur rue CaBINET IS FIXED. 
The measure is not merely postponed, it is crushed under the ministerial 
heel ; and long may it moulder there. There may be popular violence 
still, and even the impudent presumption of the popish parliament may be 
suffered to exist a few weeks more. But this measure is complete. The 
friends of the constitution must still be vigilant, active, and combined. 
The Brunswick Clubs must not suffer their victory to be thrown away 
by their negligence. But the question for this ministry is “ settled.” 


[ 64 J PJAn. 


NOTES OF THE MONTH ON AFFAIRS IN GENERAL. 


Tue Russian campaign has closed—as all men wished, but none 
expected—in extraordinary discomfiture. So much for boasting! The 
pomposity of the Russian government, and its diplomatic meddling on 
all kinds of occasions, had actually succeeded to the extent of making 
grave men fear that the Scythians were again likely to disturb the 
world. The French journals, to do them justice, led the way in this 
foolery ; and, as French journals then dared not say that the sun shone 
without the order of M. Villele to that purport, we had the high autho- 
rity of the lord of the cabinet, the slave of the Jesuits, and the lucky 
possessor of twenty-five millions of francs, or one million sterling, per 
annum, gathered by hands that came to Paris with half-a-crown in 
them, for the fact—that Russia was the genuine arbiter of Europe, the 
terror that was to keep Austria in check,-the scourge that was to punish 
the maritime ambition of England, and the magnanimous ally that was 
to place Joseph Villele at the head of all thriving politicians, past, pre- 
sent, and to come. 

We had our Russian enthusiasts, too, on this side of the Channel ; and 
those who are in the wise habit of pinning their faith on the Opposition 
papers, trembled at night to lay their heads on their pillows, through 
fear of a Russian invasion before morning. Calmucs and Bahkirs rose 


in clouds on their poetic fancies; and the Kentish coast was already ~ 


seen waving with the flags of Our Lady of Kasan. The Russian cabinet, 
too, finding that the world was inclined to play the fool on the subject, 
was by no means reluctant to minister to the indulgence ; and armies by 
the half-million were paraded on paper with a facility worthy of the 
finest gasconade of France in her days of glory and the guillotine. 
Every thing silly that could be done by fright, ignorance, or the love of 
the marvellous for its own sake, was done—except Sir Robert Wilson’s 
writing a book ; a catastrophe from which, however, we were saved 
only by the knight’s having written on both sides of the question with equal 
energy before, and being also a little aware of the unproductiveness of 
volunteering in royal quarrels. But Colonel De Lacy Evans was a 
capital substitute ; and the vigorous alarm that supplied his pen with 
projected conquests, and the Russians with capacity to compass them, 
was more than enough to throw Sir Robert into utter eclipse. Led by 
the colonel’s hand, the Russian emperor had only to come, see, and con- 
quer. The chief difficulty of this tremendous wielder of human potency 
was, where he should first condescend to triumph ; on what fair portion 
of the earth he should stoop: whether he should first deluge India or 
Austria ; settle the quarrel between the Cham of Tartary and the Chinese 
Emperor, by tying both their tails to his horse’s, or order his guard to 
cross the Rhine, and tranquilly take his bottle in the Tuilleries. 

Men are easily deceived in matters so near the North Pole, and, for a 
month, the gallant Colonel passed for a man who saw deeper into Siberia 
than his fellows ; but Nicholas soon robbed him of the honours of his arctic 
sagacity. Alexander would have been more dextrous. His natural craft 
would have suffered the vapourers and sciolists of the earth to fight his 
battle for him ; and while he conquered in the coffee-houses, would never 
have forced the cabinets to be wiser. If Alexander had lived for a cen- 
tury to come, he would never have soiled a Russian boot with Moldavian 
mire; the Pacha of Bulgaria would have been left to smoke his pipe and 


a 


1829. Affairs in General. 5 


lose his head, according t6the national manner; an ounce of English 
powder would never have b paid for with copecks and rubles, to be 
burned against Turkish walls ; atrd the coffee-house politicians, and news- 
paper generals, the Colonel de LacyEvanses, and the whole race. of 
wonderers, would have gone on, playing tke old woman, to the ridicule of 
all who knew better, and the cheap benefit.of the autocrat of all the 
Russias. 

But Alexander was cunning, knew mankind, aad had been soundly 
beaten. Nicholas had none of these advantages, the last of which, parti- 
cularly, is evidently essential to the wisdom of heroic sovereigns. Ac- 
cordingly, his first work was war; and the first week of that war was 
enough to settle the question of Russian supremacy. Luckily we may 
now breathe without dread of seeing the face of a Hulan ; and can discover 
at our leisure the charlatanry that had contrived to exalt so much actual 
feebleness into so violent a threatener of European independence. 

There never was, in the memory of man, a campaign that so speedily 
and completely confounded the pretensions of an arrogant government. 
Three months ago showed the Russian army drawn up at the foot of the 
Balkan, and only waiting for the Emperor’s nod to storm the hills, sweep 
over Rumelia, and with scarcely the formality of a siege, walk into Con- 
stantinople. But then came the Turks, ragged and raw; yet not to Le 
driven from their ground by bulletins ; and the Russian battalions rapidly 
felt that the march to Constantinople must be postponed. The labours 
of a whole campaign have issued in the capture of a single fortress, whose 
fall is imputed to treachery, and whose maintenance in the hands of the 
captors is already threatened. On all other points the “Grand Russian 
Army,” the choice of the whole force of the empire, and probably the 
whole disposable force of the empire, has been shamefully beaten. Their 
own bulletins, which of course soften the disaster as much as possible, are 
compelled to acknowledge tremendous losses. We have accounts of the 
staff of armies grouped together in Jassy and Bucharest, without a soldier 
of those armies. Colonels, in all directions, without regiments; brigades 
of artillery, without a gun; hordes of cavalry, without a horse ; cannon 
buried, waggons burned, wounded deserted, hospitals crowded, great 
army-corps left behind, to fight their way back if they can, and pro- 
bably long since broken up, and in the enemy’s hands ; that enemy pour- 
ing on in increasing force, and with the spirit of victory ; and the Rus- 
sians still flying, with the Imperial Guard leading the flight, and the 
Emperor a thousand miles from the field. It is computed that their 
three months’ campaign has cost the Russians not less than sixty thou- 
sand men slain, dead of distemper, cr disabled by wounds and hardship. 
But the scarcely less evident proofs of failure are to be found in the 
rapid changes of the imperial officers. The latest intelligence states, that 
after frowning down some half dozen of the highest rank, and among 
others, the generalissimo, the Emperor despatched an order tothe General 
commanding in Armenia, to take the charge of the Moldavian army, and 
retrieve its fortunes if he can. The case must be all but hopeless, which 
resorts to expedients like this, and runs the risk of disgusting the chief 
officers of his army, for the sake of trying how far the chaser of a rabble 
of the loose cavalry and half uaked infantry of the limits of Asia Minor, 
may be able to stand against the force of European Turkey fighting 
under the eye of the Sultan. 

We regret this melancholy waste of life; no men can think of the 

M.M. New Series—Vor. VII. No, 37. K 


66 Notes of the Month on [I AN. 


horrors that must have preceded and followed the Russian retreat, with- 
out the deepest feeling for the unfortunate bemgs who were thus urged 
into ruin. But we cannot regret the punishment of presumption, the guilt 
of an utterly unprovoked war, nor the important discovery of the true 
strength of an empire, which for the last dozen years laboured to impress 
the belief that it was restrained from universal devouring only by the 
difficulty of deciding which state it should devour first. 

The accounts from Bucharest are a terrible compound of the evils of 
war and the elements. Sudden winter—deluges of rain—intolerable 
cold—violent disease—famine—deadly fatigue—and perpetual exposure 
to the enemy, are the scourges that have driven back in shame and ruin, 
the invaders of Turkey. So may perish the unjust wherever their 
standards are unfurled ; so may perish the thirsters after conquest ;— 
such be the only honours of the lovers of war for its own sake. The 
Russians have now twice given the world a lesson. When Napoleon 
attacked them they stood on the righteous side ; and they triumphed by 
the most signal victory over the unrighteous boaster. They have now 
assailed an unoffending power, and their unrighteous war has been 
repelled. Man and the elements have been enlisted to punish them, 
almost in the express form of which their own deliverance offered so 
memorable an example. The Russian bulletins copy involuntarily the 
language of the retreat from Moscow. Long may the lesson be remem- 
bered by nations whose peace is more essential, and whose hostility must 
be more ruinous. The pledge of European quiet would be well pur- 
chased by the deepest severity of the experience that taught the Russian 
sovereigns to seek the glory of their throne only in the civilization of 
their people. 


The Leeds Radicals lately got up a meeting for the purpose of 
“« Liberty all over the World,” and peculiarly for the cause of those pro- 
fessors and patrons of liberty all over the world—the popish priests. 
That liberty should feel any very ardent interest in the concerns of 
men, who, since their first hour of influence, have been the instruments of 
tyranny where they found it created, and its creators where they did not; 
whose law imprisons without evidence, examines without witness, and 
puts to death without publicity ; who acknowledge for their supreme 
sovereign the only practical despot in existence, and who condemn to the 
lowest corner of the bottomless pit every man who dares to think for him- 
self, might seem extraordinary, but for our knowledge of the fact that 
radicalism sees nothing in the affair but the prospect of public distur- 
bance, and that it would have the same sympathy of revolt for the wor- 
shippers of Juggernaut, or for the worshippers of nothing. 

We fully acquit the Leeds Radicals of bigotry on this occasion ; for 
bigotry, bad as it is, implies some feeling of religion, and radicals are 
atheists toa man. The fact is undeniable. The more timid of them 
may set up a pretence of deism. But the more honourable, because the 
more undiseuised, scoff at the assumption of a pretence so shallow, boldly 
elaim credit for their scorn of Divine Law, as much as of human; and 
pronounce as the first article of the Rights of Man in this age of intel- 
leet, “ that there is no God.” 

That those men should unite with the priesthood of popery is not won- 
derful, while they see those priests leading troops of peasantry, with 
green flags in their pious hands. They smell rebellion across the waters 


1829.] Affairs in General. 67 


of the Irish Channel, and are cheered by the smell. That the priests 
of any altar should accept the alliance of such men, would be wonderful, 
except for the knowledge, that the extremes of the circle meet ; that the 
rankest superstition is always nearest to the fiercest infidelity ; and that 
the popish priesthood, in all countries, are divided into two bodies— 
the sots who never inquire, and are, therefore, believers still in the 
whole mystery of Rome ; and the shrewd, who inquire, and are, by the 
thousand, infidels. These follow their common sense far enough to see 
that the whole Romish system is utter imposture: and there they stop ; 
scepticism is their master. The Bible has been prohibited to them, 
until they have lost all conception of its necessity. The long habit of 
darkening the understandings of the people, has made their own incapa- 
ble of the light ; and hypocrites and infidels they live, and hypocrites 
and infidels they die. 

Such is the notorious history of the higher orders of the priesthood in 
all the popish countries of the continent. In Ireland the priesthood are 
too busy with whiskey, sedition, and the exaction of their dues, which 
they wring from the wretched peasantry with as keen a gripe as ever 
avarice fixed on superstition, to have leisure for books ; the breviary; 
and Mr. O’Connell’s pastoral speeches, make up their literature ; and they 
believe in the miracles of St. Patrick’s crutch, and St. Senanus’s slipper; 
with as undoubting a faith as the most foolish of their predecessors, or 
Lord Shrewsbury himself. 

Yet even at Leeds radicalism did not carry all things in its own way: 
The protestant and loyal inhabitants, after unwisely suffering the fac- 
tious to make their preparations at their ease, grew indignant at the 
insult to their town; and insisted that if there must be a meeting, there 
should at least be appointed tellers, to save them from the sweeping 
scandal of some prejudiced booby of a chairman’s decision. 

This was agreed to. The meeting was held ina spot provided by the 
radicals, furnished with all the Irish labourers and beggars to be found 
far and near, and with the exact species of chairman, against which the 
protestants had protested ; a notorious pro-papist ; a goose of a manu- 
facturer in the neighbourhood : one of those individuals whom chance, for 
the sake of showing its power, now and then flings up into a seat in 
parliament. 

It is scarcely necessary to say that the compact was not performed ; 
that the protestant tellers were not suffered to count ; that the delibera- 
tive wisdom of the Irish labourers was the chief ingredient of the meet- 
ing ; and that the man of cotton twist, after puzzling himself for an 
hour to know whether he should say aye or no, at length yielded to the 
Irishmen, and declared for popery and liberty. 


Since our last publication, death has put an end to the hopes long and 
anxiously entertained of Lord Liverpool’s recovery. The public estimate 
of this noble person’s powers had been formed from an early period ; but 
increasing years added to the respect for his individual character. His 
character sustained him in the premiership : and it is to the honour of the 
English mind, that such a claim should have been so acknowledged. 
There was a general feeling of security in the principles of Lord Liver- 
pool, in his straight-forward honesty, his personal disregard of influence, 
and his sincere zeal for Christianity, that was more than equivalent to the 
triumphs of parliamentary eloquence, or genius in the council. While 

K 2 


68 Notes of the Month on Jax. 


Lord Liverpool was capable of public business, and retained those prin- 
ciples, there was no rivalry for him to dread. He would have held his 
supremacy to the last hour of his life, and seen the most aspiring ambi- 
tion, or the most vigorous faculties, baffled in every attempt to wrest the 
power from his hands. The loss of such a man is to be lamented as a 
loss to his country, and to human nature. 

Yet he, perhaps, perished at the period most fortunate for his fame. 
The decline of his health had been visible for some years, and with this 
decline his intellectual activity may have shared. It is known that he 
gave himself up to the councils of individuals, whose policy was widely 
different from the English spirit of hisown. He suffered himself,to lose 
sight of the vital necessity of sustaining the religion of the state ; and by 
allowing the singular and fatal anomaly of a divided cabinet on this most 
momentous of all questions, laid the foundation for that monstrous fabric 
of folly and tumult, which we see already raised to a height that menaces 
the constitution. The rumours that the firmness of Lord Liverpool’s 
British feeling was giving way to that importunity which, in the shape of 
confidence and friendship, was labouring for his shame, had begun to 
thicken ; until this excellent and highly respected nobleman was driven 
to the painful expedient of clearing himself by a public declaration. Again 
the rumours were propagated, and the friends of the country were 
beginning to feel renewed alarm. But before any further test could be 
given, Lord Liverpool was struck by that blow from which neither his 
mind nor body ever recovered. After nearly two years of total help- 
lessness, he died suddenly, and, we are glad to say, without a struggle. 


The little Recorder is supposed to be inclined to retire from the trou- 
bles of his Old Bailey life ; and the candidates are calculating how they 
can spend his four thousand a-year. Mr. Denman, who, of course, now 
thinks that any thing can be got by booing, is booing in all quarters for 
the emolument. Mr. Law relies upon the resemblance of his face to the 
late Lord Ellenborough’s, and expects to frighten the aldermen into sub- 
mission. Mr. Bolland, the best humoured antiquarian that has collected 
buttons and autographs for the last fifty years, makes sure of winning 
the aldermanic favour, by sending the board a Queen Ann’s sixpence 
apiece. And Mr. Arabin relies upon that luck, which, after making 
him a judge of the Sheriff’s Court, may make him any thing. 


The Gibraltar fever is going away, for want ef more mischief to do; 
having done all the mischief it could. We, however, trust that those 
“eames whose mismanagement brought it, or suffered it there, will not 

e allowed to escape altogether without investigation. There was a time 
when the plague was confined to the filth, stubborn negligence, and 
desperate avarice of mahometanism. Gibraltar, fifty years ago, knew 
no more of the plague than Pall Mall. But times are changed. By a 
system of negligent abuse the population has been permitted to aug- 
ment to the most hazardous degree, and has become a composition of 
the most hazardous kind. We discharge the present governor and lieu- 
tenant-governor from all share in this abuse, which had strongly attracted 
the public eye long before their command. A multitude of the refuse 
of every population of the Mediterranean have gradually made their way 
into Gibraltar—Spanish smugglers, Moors, the basest description of Jews, 


1829.) Affairs in General. 69 


and the whole host of miserables, who live by contraband. The smug- 
gler pays handsomely—rent rises, the value of every square inch of the 
rock is worth its weight in doubloons ; the filth and negligence of the 
place accumulate, then comes a week of the Levant wind; the plague 
follows hot upon it ; Moors, Jews, Spaniards, and Maltese, die by hun- 
dreds in their hovels, and the place is cleared for the season. 

The true remedy for this horrid visitant is obvious and undeniable ; 
the expulsion of every individual unconnected with the garrison. We 
may make something less by smuggling, but it becomes a government 
like ours, founded, as its strength is, on open trade, to crush at once the 
whole vile and vice-producing system of foreign contraband. It is just, 
for we have no right to assist in robbing the revenue of other nations ; 
and it is politic, for we could not lay up a more bitter store of irrita- 
tion and disgust in the proud heart of Spain, than this sufferance of the 
perpetual infraction of its laws. ; 

Without blaming individuals for the grievances which make this 
single British settlement so often a terror even to the mother country, 
we look to the administration of the great soldier at the head of the 
State for their speedy extinction. 


The action taken by Mr. Bransby Cooper against the editor of the 
Lancet has involved some very curious considerations. The verdict was 
certainly not within our calculation. But with the bench we have no 
desire to war. The figure made by Sir Astley Cooper, too, was rather 
curious, and we think that his absence would have done him to the full as 
much credit. Mr. B. Cooper, however, gained a verdict, and we are 
satisfied that his experience acquired on the occasion will be of service to 
him in future. 

On the debated question, whether the editor of the Lancet was actu- 
ated by malice, we shall only observe that the testimony adduced by 
him was strong ; and that it seems to have been beaten down much 
more by general character than particular facts. We are not at all 
inclined to doubt Mr. B. Cooper’s general surgical skill, but the question 
was, as to its application in the particular instance. As to the contested 
value of works like the “Lancet” to the profession, the hospitals, and 
humanity, it is absurd to hesitate a moment: They must always be 
beneficial, as long as error is to be corrected, or negligence to be exposed. 
What is the true security for good conduct in the public servants of 
England but the public vigilance? No man who knew, ten years ago, 
the state of the hospitals, of the practice and the practitioners, could 
doubt the necessity for a thorough change. And whatever change has 
since taken place, to what has it been due but these publications? Ope- 
rationsof the most unscientific kind were constantly being performed, with 
no one to complain of them but the unlucky patient, whose complaints 
were generally soon silenced. What could the few attendant governors 
say, but that they were incapable judges of operations? What would 
the assisting surgeons and physicians say? Nothing. It was not their 
policy to involve themselves in feud with their brethren. But now 
comes in an inspector, qualified by his practice to detect the errors of 
practice, and independent of the parties. It is impossible but that good 
must arise from the consciousness in the operators and physicians, that 
their conduct is sure to become a subject of public attention. 


70 Notes of the Month on [Jan. 


The conduct of the “Lancet” itself is altogether another question. It 
- injures its cause most seriously by its violent, and often vulgar, personality. 
It destroys the respect which might otherwise be attached to its state- 
ments, by the palpable virulence which it feels towards many profes- 
sional individuals of great personal worth and professional ability. Yet 
its science is good, and its result is good. But the work that could best 
combine the avoidance of individual insult, with the due vigilance 
over hospital abuses, would rapidly supersede any publication stained 
by personal bitterness. 

But one subject we strongly recommend to its pages: the gross habit of 
filling the hospital situations with the cousins and connexions of leading 
professional men. We have too much of this in every public department. 
But as government takes care only of our liberties, and the church only 
of our souls, we may spare our indignation on such trivial points. But 
our bodies must not be tampered with at the mercy of the nearest and 
dearest blockheads, that ever walked in the go-cart of patronage. The 
nepotism that we should not allow toa pope, we shall not allow to a sur- 
geon ; and we heartily wish that Sir Astley Cooper and his nephew would 
take the hint, and that the governors of our hospitals would, in every 
example, discountenance the family system. If it have loaded other 
professions with imbecility, why should it be less cumbrous, stupifying, 
and hazardous, where the blockhead stands knife in hand ! 


Tue Directors of the Thames Tunnel, who seemed to have at length 
given up the idea of accomplishing that admirable and extraordinary 
work, have yet, by their allowing its exhibition to the public, encou- 
raged us to believe, again, that they only wait for better days. We fully 
hope that they do, and that they are only pausing till the first influx of 
public prosperity leads our monied men to think of the completion of 
the Tunnel. Knowing nothing, and caring nothing, about the direc 
tors or projectors, we yet should feel the final abandonment of this 
work as a national misfortune. It was amongst the finest and most singular 
attempts ever made to shew the mastery of science and man over the 
brute powers of nature; its success would have established an era in 
engineering, and would have excited a multitude of efforts of the same 
kind in situations of scarcely less importance. The incumbrance of 
bridges to the navigation of our principal rivers, the perpetual 
repair, and the enormous original expense, would have probably been 
avoided ; and from the cheapness, the facility, and the security of the 
Tunnel system, advantages of incalculable value to the internal (the 
most important) commerce of the empire would have been obtained. 
Let us look at the comparative expense. The Tunnel has been already 
driven through two-thirds of the bed of the river, at an expense of about 
250,0001., including all the experimental expenditure attending on a 
first trial of this difficult kind, and a considerable part of which, expe- 
rience must render unnecessary on subsequent occasions. For 100,000/. 
more, the work would unquestionably be completed. The Waterloo 
Bridge cost a million. London Bridge will not cost much less, if not 
much more. None of the other bridges under 750,000/., as well as we 
can recollect ; and the expense of the material invariably increases with 
every new building of this kind, while:the tunnels, from the cireum- 
stance of their being so much move the work of skill than of materials, 


1829.) - Affairs in General. 71 


and being likely, at last, to be effected wholly by some boring machi- 
nery on a large scale, would promise to decrease in expense with every 
new trial. To all these real inducements might be added, the scarcely 
imaginary one, of its being an exploit that would establish our mechani- 
cal enterprize at the head of European ingenuity. No project, since the 
balloon, has attracted so much continental interest: the scientific and 
intelligent world of Europe are now perpetually inquiring relative to its 
process and progress ; and in its completion, England would undoubt- 
edly have added, in a remarkable degree, to the reluctant respect of 
foreigners for her boldness, liberality, and fortunate skill. 

Of the easy possibility of this completion there now can be no doubt 
whatever, when money shall be supplied to meet the trivial remaining 
expenditure. And of the productiveness of the result there can be as 
little doubt, when we recollect the spot into which the Essex end of the 
Tunnel leads ; the centre of that region of docks, East and West Indian, 
London, &c., from which the wealth of every part of the globe is spread 
out through the empire. And this, too, without reckoning the traffic 
and the travelling between the opulent districts on both sides of the 
Thames, Kent and Essex; the canals, already existing, and which a 
few years more will see intersecting the eastern districts, the Great 
Portsmouth Canal, &c. The mere sight of the Tunnel, in its present 
state, is one of the most curious and interesting that Europe offers. The 
singular perfection of the building, the neatness and accuracy of all that 
has depended on manual labour, and the daring dexterity of the con- 
ception, are equally calculated to excite the spectator’s admiration. 


The French Journals mention, among other Parisian privations at this 
calamitous season, that the distinguished authoress of a distinguished 
narrative, published by Stockdale, has declared her intention of imme- 
diately honouring with her hand the president of the Chamber of Depu- 
ties. All the beaux garcons of the capital are in despair ; the Palais 
Royale isto be hung in black ; Frescati to be shut for a week ; and the 
“Salon” to restrict itself to sovereign princes and soup maigre, for the 
same period. 

The Belvoir County Intelligencer, a remarkably well informed paper, 
says, that the whole female part of a noble family have for the last week 
put their noses in papers. to keep down, if possible, the turn up into 
which they have all started, on a proposition to receive a new connexion 
of the noble line. 


__ The laws have been dealing desperately with the aristocracy of late. 
~ Lord Montford, that pleasant and perpetual assessor of that very eminent 
- judicial character, Sir Richard Birnie, of whom the wits aver, that, 
whatever law he has, bears no relation to civil law, has been lately 
bringing himself under the frowns of Themis, for a little experiment on 
his wife’s property. Lord M. happens to be in the predicament of many 
a less sonorously-named personage, and to be as little obliged as pos- 
sible to nature when she was distributing estates. In consequence, he 
had been placed in the late king’s list of pensioned nobles, to the amount 
of 8001. per annum. A large portion of this he assigned over to his 
lady for a sum of ready money. ‘The king died, the patent for the pen- 
sion was at an end, as a matter of course ; and on the present king’s 


72 Notes of the Month on [ Jan. 


accession, was, as a matter of course, renewed. But it was no matter of 
course to my lady, for my lord declared the bargain at an end. On this 
the unlucky wife, in great consternation, brought her claims before the 
Ecclesiastical Court ; and the judge, delivering exactly the sort of 
opinion that any other man of honour would deliver on the occasion, 
recommended her application to the source of the bounty, where, doubt- 
less, a similar opinion will be delivered, and a lesson given that will be 
remembered. 

In another court, a tailor has had the unparalleled impudence to insist 
on a noble lord’s paying his bill—he not thinking thirty shillings and 
the honour of my lord’s custom, altogether a satisfactory equivalent for 
thirty pounds’ worth of coats and breeches. To the scandal of credit, 
the noble lord was compelled to pay. 

Poor old Lady Gresley, too, has been used with equal cruelty by a 
washerwoman, who insisted on her discharging a bill of 28/. for the 
maintenance of her wardrobe in its purity during the last seven years. The 
sum may not seem exorbitant for the time ; but those who have had an 
opportunity of witnessing the costume of the very animated lady in 
question, universally think that it was a monstrous overcharge. But 
judges are blind, like Justice ; and the washerwoman gained the day. 


The delay in the Recorder’s late report from Windsor, which excited 
a good deal of wrath and some oratory among the aldermen at the time, 
has never been publicly accounted for. No one could believe, at the 
moment, that any of the apologies for this untoward delay were true— 
that lame post-horses, the loss of a pair of favourite spectacles, a basin of 
turtle-soup with Mr. Peel, or the comforts of a Windsor inn, could have 
kept this worthy little functionary from doing the duty that he had done 
with such mechanical accuracy for so many years. As no solution offers 
itself to us, we offer none of our own to the reader, leaving him to adopt, 
if he please, one, which will find an echo in the experience of so many a 
submissive and matrimonial bosom. Our authority is one of the weekly 
papers, as follows :— 


«« After the return of the Recorder from the Palace to the Castle Inn at | 
Windsor, he said in haste to his lady, who was waiting for him, ‘ My dear, 
we have only just time to swallow _a bit; we must be off to town imme- 
diately. We must send up our warrant as soon as possible.’ 

**« What! go up to-night?’ ejaculated the lady. ‘ You sha’n’t stir a step 
from this place to-night. Do you think I'll have my bones rattled to pieces. 
You must keep your warrant in your pocket till to-morrow.’ 

«« * Why, consider, my love, that they are waiting at Newgate to know what 
has been done: it would be cruel to delay, my dear!’—(holding up the fatal 
document.) 

«Delay! what do you mean? The greatest comfort they can have is not 
to know that they are to be hanged, poor wretches!’ 

“* Resistance was useless, and the warrant was put up for the night.” 


Haydon, the artist, has been again appealing to the public. We are 
sorry to see an ingenious and able man driven to this mode of making 
his claims known. Yet what is to be done. Privation will make a voice © 
of its own, and the demands of a family suffer no delicacy to stand be- 
tween them and the means by which alone they are to be satisfied. Haydon 
has given for many years the most unquestionable proofs of industry, 


1829.] Affairs in General. 7 


talent, and variety of power. He may not have turned his art to the 
most dextrous advantage by his personal management ; for every one 
knows how large a share of professional success depends on causes which 
have little to do with professional ability. The cultivation of patrons, 
the blandishments of those stirring individuals who direct the tastes of 
the opulent, and personal and perpetual deference to the leading mem- 
bers of the profession, are among those essentials, for the want of which 
the Barrys of the English school lived in struggle, and left nothing but 
a name for themselves, and a stain of ingratitude on their country. 

Haydon, unluckily for his prospects, began his career with a rash 
avowal of being his own sole guide, of determining to bring a higher 
style of art among us, and of reforming the presumed blunders of the 
Royal Academy. Thus, at his first step, he laid the foundation for his 
ruin. Numbers will break down any strength; and the individual who 
goes to war with corporations will reap but few triumphs. How- 
ever, this rashness has been for some time publicly at an end, and 
Haydon has become an exhibitor at Somerset House. 

The more important consideration is, whether a man, capable of the 
vigorous and rapid productiveness which characterize his pencil, ought to 
be suffered to sink. We live in the richest country of Europe. We spend, 
and we are in the right to spend, vast sums on public decoration. We 
see a hundred thousand pounds expended on amansion for a royal duke, 
and no one grudges it ; half a million of money is laid out ona royal 
palace, and no one murmurs, except at the barbarous want of taste, which 
renders it so unworthy of a British king. The directors of our National 
Gallery give fifty thousand pounds to a merchant for a few old pictures ; 
three thousand pounds are paid for a Correggio six inches long ; and 
five thousand for a pair of Caraccis. Not that we object to this, 
nor join in the very general doubts of originality, and the very strong 
clamour about mysticism in those transactions. But, we say, that the 
tenth of this money employed in commissions to capable artists, would 
produce ten times the public advantage; that more service would be 
rendered to the Arts in England, by shewing that a man who distin- 
guished himself in them was sure of public employment, than could be 
rendered by acres of walls covered with all that Raphael and Reubens 
ever painted ; that the kindling of emulation is the only way to national 
excellence ; and that the reward conferred on one able artist by this 
public employment, and the evidence that, by the historic pencil, a for- 
tune could be made, would more decidedly rouse many a latent artist to a 
vigour of which he had been unconscious, and raise a generation of 
great historic painters, than all the stars and medals that ever decorated 
the bosoms of all the presidents of the Academy. 

__ Let, then, the government of England do what the government of 
France does every year. Let commissions for subjects on the memo- 
rable scenes of national history be given to our leading artists, and our 
royal palaces and public halls be hung with them, as in France. The 
taste for this most attractive and admirable species of ornament would 
rapidly spread. When London had seen the records of her early honours 
suspended in her halls, the provinces would offer an inexhaustible suc- 
cession of the finest themes for the painter. The old annals of provin- 
cial loyalty, bravery, and suffering—the heroic struggles of the civil war 
—the deeper, yet still more interesting, struggles of the times, when the 
martyrs of the Reformation fought the patient battle of the faith, and 
M.M. New Scries—Vou. VII. No. 37. L 


74 Notes of the Month on | [Jan. 


gained that eternal victory in which no blood but the pure and generous 


stream of their own hearts flowed—the noble epochs of the rise and esta- 
blishment of civil freedom ;—all would share and reward the national 
patronage, which feels, and justly feels, that the most illustrious monu- 
ment of a people is the memory of the deeds that have made them great, 
as it is the most unshaken security for the continuance of their gran- 
deur and prosperity. We should see, living again on the canvas, the 
epochs when the Yorkshire Cavaliers came gallantly to the field for their 
king—when the fiery Rupert charged at the head of his guard of gen- 
tlemen—when, under a happier star, William came to restore England 
to its native character, and James fled to shew that slavery could not live 
on the British soil. The portrait-galleries of the nobles and gentlemen 
of England, abounding in the finest materials for giving reality to those 
pictures, would give an aid unequalled in any other country ; and by 
the same honourable, wise, and feeling patronage which gave public 
employment to the man of ability, the nation would be laying up for 
itself a treasure of the richest remembrances that ever stirred the spirit 
of a mighty empire. 

Haydon’s present picture, “ The Chairing of the Members,” that 
mock ceremonial which took place in the King’s Bench, is a most power- 
ful performance. But few artists in England could have either conceived 
or executed it. We know of no artist out of England who could have 
approached the spirit, vividness, and close portraiture of character visible 
in every feature of this fine painting. The mixture of wild riot and cure- 
less melancholy, the affected phrenzy side by side with the real, the 
mirth and misery, are admirably seized, and the whole grouping is in 
the ablest style of the pencil. It ought to be the companion to the King’s 
purchase. But it is not by a solitary instance of patronage, however 
honourable to the high quarter from which it comes, that the true means 
of securing a great artist to his country are to be compassed. We have 
not the slightest hesitation in pronouncing Haydon a great artist, a man 
of an original mind, of remarkable powers of execution, and requiring only 
the commands of the public to distinguish himself and it, more than he 
has ever done, or can ever:do without them. Let the traffickers of their 
thousands and ten thousands for Italian pictures—often the rubbish of 
Italian galleries, often the fabrication of German, French, and English 
garrets—look to this ; look to Haydon, telling him that his pencil waits 
only their disposal, and think of the fruitless prodigality of raising monu- 
ments over the graves of men of genius, whom the hundredth part of the 
expenditure would have kept in active, opulent, and nationally-honour- 
able existence. What has Scotland gained by her statues and ceno- 
taphs to the memory of Burns, but the scoff of all who know that she 
suffered that great and unfortunate genius to perish, rather than mulct 


herself of a farthing. But ostentation will give tons of gold, where cha- 


rity, common-sense, and national honour cannot extract grains. Let our 
Grosvenors, Staffords, and Farnboroughs, we say, look to Haydon. 


Hunton the felon’s villa makes a figure among the month’s sales at 
Garraway’s. This villa was a fine affair—“ a spacious family residence, 
with numerous offices, carriage-yard, stabling and coach-house, out- 
buildings, with extensive pleasure-grounds, walled gardens, orchard, 
lawn, plantations, vinery, &c., and fifteen acres of meadow and tillage.” 
The whole sold for £3,400. 


1829.) Affairs in General. 75 


Of course no man can desire to exult in the fate of a miserable being, 
urged by vanity to extravagance, and by extravagance to fraud. But 
what a lesson is here in the contrast of his luxuries and his end! and 
how naturally the one leads to the other! Here was a gradual slave of 
meanness and guilt, who could not live without the honour and glory of 
a villa, which, if he had never dreamed of, he might have been at this 
hour a thriving and respectable man, and of which the very price, if he 
could have prevailed on himself to dispense with his vinery, orchards, 
&c., might have saved him from the atrocious act for which he died. 

We shrink from the calculation of how many of his survivors are on 
the verge of the same course of guilt by the same contemptible necessity. 
When persons employed at the low salaries of our public offices, feel it 
incumbent on them to ape their superiors, and, on a couple of hundreds 
a year, shew. off at the rate of as many thousands, flourish in til- 
buries, attend Epsom, lay in their own champagne, and give dinners to 
‘a select few” atthe Albion, we know where the history must end. We 
regularly find its development in a flight to America, with £20,000. of 
that public money for which, if negligence in high places be punish- 
able, the head of the office ought to be mulcted to double the amount ; 
or in a flight from the world, in the stockbroker-style, at the tangent of 
a pistol ; or in a farewell to it, at the end of a rope, in the shopkeeper- 
style. But, in whatever style the close arrives, the catastrophe is inevi- 
table ; and if every villa in the vicinage of London, for which a specu- 
lator has been banished, shot, or hanged, were to have his effigy fixed up 
in the centre of its “lawn, surrounded,” as Mr. Robins says, “ with 
flowering shrubs of the most enchanting odours, brilliant Cape-heaths, 
and orange-trees brought from the first conservatories in the realms of the 
British isles ;’ the warning would be the preservative of many a neck. 
The seduction of the villa, even with all its silken-lined verandas, and 
plate-glass windows down to the ground, would be tolerably neutralized 
by the scarecrow in front ; or if, instead of the effigy, the skeleton of 
the culprit could be gibbeted on the parterre, the sight would be only the 
more yaluable, if not for its entertainment, at least for its moral. We 
recommend the hint to the Legislature. 


Madame Vestris, in the present quiescent state of St. Stephen’s, has 
been indulging the town with oratory. She is a clever little creature, 
and oppressed with as small a share of diffidence as any female alive. 


Her speech was totally uncalled for, and very well delivered. But the 


critics forget, when they speak of it as the first instance of female elo- 
uence on the stage. We remember better, and it is but justice to record 
t Madame Vestris herself, half a dozen years ago, moved by the indig- 
nity of having only half a dozen wax candles burning in her dressing- 


room at the Opera, when Catalani, or Ronzi de Begnis, or some equally 


superb affair, burned seven, broke out into open war with the authori- 
ties behind the scenes ; a war, the rumours of which soon, of course, 
reached the audience. A newspaper correspondence ensued, in which 
little Vestris, conceiving herself aggrieved, took the summary and 
oe resolution of telling her own story to the audience; bringing 
orward the reluctant stage director, by the ear or the nose, we cannot 
exactly recollect which, to substantiate her facts against himself, which 
the unhappy director did in a very satisfactory and rueful manner. She 
L 2 


76 “Notes of the Month on [Jan. 


is avery good actress, not a very bad singer, wears remarkably well, 
and is extremely dangerous to quarrel with. 


Of all monarchs, our excellent King is certainly the most unlucky in 
his places of residence. With five er six palaces, he has not at this 
moment one in which he can hide his head. St. James’s, once a solid, 
comfortable, old mansion, in which his royal father contrived to pass 
many a pleasant day, and give his loving subjects many a pleasant enter- 
tainment, is one half ruin, and the other half turned into a cold suite of 
heavy halls, where eternal solitude and silence reign, rooms fit for 
nothing but laying illustrious bodies in state, or the only less dreary ° 
ceremonial of a yearly levee. 

Buckingham House, once like its neighbour, a good old comfortable 
mansion, where the old king spent many a pleasant day, too, and lived 
among his lords and ladies, is down to the ground, and superseded by 
the very worst building of the kind on the habitable globe. But even 
this fine affair has not a spot in which anybody can eat, drink, or sleep ; 
and half a generation may pass away before it will be pulled down: 
again. As to being either handsome or healthy, the question has been 
perfectly settled ; and we hope that, while his Majesty can have a bed 
at the Hummums for five shillings a night, he will not be careless 
enough of his rheumatism, or of his character as a man of taste, ever to 
take a bed in the Nash palace. 

Kew Palace, at no time a great favourite of ours, but still capable of 
being dwelt in; and convenient for a royal residence by its vicinity to’ 
ministers (who regularly lose a whole day by a journey to Windsor), is’ 
now the palace of the “ Winter wild,” and we question whether a bat 
or an owl that has any notions of comfort, would think of roosting there. 
Kew is a ruin; and, though Lord Sidmouth, and others of those old’ 
gentlemen, who have been long attached to living tax free, may cast a 
longing eye to lodgings under its roof, we, as loyal : subjects, must caution | 
the } privy council ‘against sanctioning any royal attempt of the kind. . % 

Windsor Castle is, up to this hour, what it has been these six years, - 
a mass of dust, mortar, Roman cement, and Irish bricklayers. Even the 
appendix to Mr. Wyatt’s name has not wrought the miracle of giving 
his Majesty one closet in which he may drink a cup of coffee in’ secu- 
rity. Upholsterers, smiths, carvers and gilders s, usurp the regal tene-~ 
ment, and the halls of the illustrious progenitors of the Brunswicks, are 
still frightened from their propriety, by the dragging of carts, the 
pushing of wheel-barrows, the clank of hammers, and the dialect of Con- 
nemara. Whether we should impeach the architect of the voluminous 
name, or lament the severity of that fate, which for ever prohibits the 
richest king of the richest kingdom, from having a spot to call his own, 
we may pledge ourselves that there has not been a more houseless sove- 
reign since the day when William the Conqueror slept under canvass, 
on the shingle of Pevensey. ; 

They are now making the additional experiment of lighting the Castle 
with gas; in the lucky moment, too, when every body else is turning” 
it out of his house as fast as he can. Let justice be done to gas as much 
as to the Lord Mayor. Both are excellent in their proper place, and 
quite the contrary in every other. Gas in our roads, where, if it blow. 
up, it can blow up only a watchman ; gas in our streets, in our shop- 


1829.] Affairs in General. vir 


windows, in our rooms, every where that it must be in perpetual 
contact with the open air, and can do no harm to any body, is capital. 
But gas ina palace, where it can take unnoted possession of half a wing 
full of gold candelabra, Lyons’-silk draperies, and buhl cabinets, and, 
upon the entrance of the first footman with a candle in his hand, can 
carry off the whole wing into the air, may be considered a hazardous 
inmate. To prove the point on a minor scale, a gazometer has already 
burst itself in the presence of Majesty, as if with the loyal object of 
giving a lesson to the unwitting introducers of this new element of royal 
hazards. The theatre, too, has done its duty in administering wisdom 
to the gas lovers; and seldom as its lessons are worth any thing, its 
lesson on this topic is not contemptible. Long may the King live, say 
we, and soon may he have a house to live in. As to palaces, he will 
never have a modern one, worth its first coat of paint. But Alfred lived 
for a year.in a cottage. Peter the Great’s wooden hut is still an evidence 
of under what humility of roof a mighty monarch may reside; and, 
though every capital of Europe, from Paris to Petersburgh, puts our 
huge and haughty metropolis to shame, yet say we still, “ Vive le Roi, 
quand méme.” Long live the King, in spite of the architects. 

Since our writing this denunciation of Mr. Wyatville, we see that the 
architect, doubtless acquainted with our intention, and alarmed at its 
ruinous consequences, has actually contrived to sweep the Castle cause- 
way, and plant his Majesty in Windsor. So much for righteous terror ! 
But the work of repair and overthrow goes on still; and we warn Sir 
Jeffery Wyatville, that, unless he exert his energies for the utter exile of 
' the brigades and squadrons of bricklayers and hodmen that still besiege 
the royal residence, we shall nullify his knighthood. 

Mr. Denman, Nero-Denman, “ woman-go-and-sin-no-more’”’ Denman, 
has at last, after the expiration of the term of a Botany Bay repentance, 
seven long years of misery and mortification, got a silk gown! 

The vigorous, loyal, and sagacious counsel to Queen Caroline of mob- 
memory ; the liberal par excellence, the grim associate of the Woods 
and Wilsons, the Broughams and Bergamis, of that glorious time of 
love and liberty, has got a silk gown! 

The dashing Solicitor General of a week, to her Majesty of a month, 
who, by the finest exploit in blunder, since the memory of Momus, con- 
trived to burlesque common sense, insult both sides at once, and make 
his name proverbial for absurdity. has got a silk gown! How this object 
of seven years’ supplication has been vouchsafed to him by the Duke of 
Wellington, no man can conceive ; except that it may be in the contemp- 
tuous determination uniformly evinced by his Grace, to show the whole 
tribe of “popular orators” as paltry as they were ever pert, impudent, 
and presuming. 


Advices from South America mention, that the attempt to cut a canal 
between the Atlantic and the Pacific, through the Isthmus, will be 
renewed. Nothing could be more important to our Indian empire. All 
controversy on the value of India to England, has been long since ex- 
tinguished. The experience of all mankind cannot be in error; and, 
from the earliest connexion of Europe with the “ Golden Peninsula,” its 
possession, or its commerce, has been the ambition or the envy, of every 
people that aspired to European power. 


78 Notes of the Month on [Jan. 


In the later ages, Portugal, Holland, and France lavished their blood 
and treasure for this supremacy. In the older times, the states round the 
Mediterranean were powerful, or weak, in proportion as they possessed or 
lost this opulent connexion ; and the declaimer against the value of India 
to its present great possessor, must first prove that the course of nature 
which, since the earliest ages, has made India the source of opulence to 
the west, has been superseded, when the great experiment is to be tried 
by England; and that the languid industry, imperfect knowledge, and 
tyrannical restraints, which enfeebled and impoverished the progress of 
commerce in all ages, are more congenial to national success, than the 
admirable intelligence, exhaustless industry, and matchless freedom of 
mind, habits, and institutions, that place England at the head of the 
modern world. 

It is unquestionable that Great Britain has not, hitherto, been en- 
riched by India. The possession has been too brief; scarcely more than 
half a century has passed since the British name was almost unknown in 
Asia, since our dominion was limited to a factory, and our influence 
to the ear of some menial of the Mahometan courts, purchased by the 
humiliating submissions and bribes of a few merchants, whose ventures 
scarcely deserved the name of trade. Since that period we have had 
the up-hill work of constructing an empire. In a country hostile to our 
name, our faith, and our rights, we have been compelled to fight, at times, 
for existence ; and, in all instances, with an inferiority of means that 
made the effort as hazardous as the triumph was precarious and limited. 

We still persevered, under difficulties which never were surmounted 
by our earlier competitors for this most magnificent prize of valour and 
council ; and by the qualities which so nobly characterize our country, 
by the union of indefatigable firmness with active resolution—by blame- 
less justice and brilliant energy, we have at length established the British 
name in direct, or virtual authority, over a population of sixty millions. 
For the clamours which charge our mastery of India with usurpation, 
we shall not care, until they are supported by proof. The history of our 
dominion is plain and honourable. Established, originally, in a small 
factery in Bengal, our merchants were called on by the sovereign of the 
province to assist him against his invader. Every man has a right to 
defend himself; and the British factory, in taking up arms, were only 
resisting plunder and massacre. Their aid gave the victory to their 
protector. In his gratitude he enlarged their territory. The changes 
of government in India, where the slave often succeeds to the throne of 
the master whom he murders, often exposed the British factory to the 
violence of those lawless and plundering usurpers. The British vigour 
and discipline as often turned the attack into defeat ; and the territory torn 
from the invader consolidated the power of the settlers. The progress, 
thenceforth, was obvious, even to an extent of dominion which it has 
actually, at all times, deprecated, but to which it has been driven by the 
necessity for providing against the habitual violence and treachery of 
barbarians, whom it was always incomparably safer to meet in the 
field than to trust in treaty. But the expense of those struggles has been 
inordinate—vast armies to be supported—a multitude of functionaries to 
be kept in activity—a great system of law, commerce, and government, 
to be urged through the decayed and choked-up channels of the old 
Indian sovereignties, have absorbed the revenues of the country, and to 
this hour England is actually the poorer for her intercourse with India. 


? 


eS 


. 1829.) Affairs in General. 79 


But this has been but the sowing of the field, the harvest is yet to be 

reaped; and, unless we choose to defeat our own purposes, and throw 
away the benefit of all that we have done, never nation gathered such a 
Bence as is rising to our hand, at this hour, in the mighty extent of the 
British Indian Empire. 
_ It is by our commerce that this harvest is to be gathered. The limited 
nature of our early trade with the peninsula, perhaps, rendered neces- 
sary by that commercial childhood of nations, which must be led, step- 
by-step, in the nursing of monopolies, has given way to a comparative 
freedom, which a few years more will probably enlarge into complete 
liberty. Even at present, the trade from the outports is of high import- 
ance, is hourly extending, and by those miracles of industry, which ean 
be wrought only in a free country, Englandis sending back to India the pro- 
duce of her own soil, manufactured by us into the finest fabrics of human 
skill. But neither the power of the manufacturer, nor the extent of his 
market, can be yet limited. While the loom in our western world is 
speeding its progress in dexterity and beauty, the sword and the sceptre 
in our eastern, are securing the peace of the land; the spirit of law is 
spreading through the most barbarous regions, the artisan is protected, 
the agriculturist is safe in the fruit of his labours, and the merchant 
returns with his traffic, sure of enjoying it untouched by the extortion of 
his ancient plundering chieftains. The invasions which every year 
threatened every province; the perpetual robbery which made wealth 
only a mark for its owner’s pillage or death; the constant irritating 
tyranny which breaks down the strength of industry and the heart of 
man, are heard of nomore. The native under the British dominion, is 
as free as his lord; under the rajahs he is almost secure from violence, 
by the easy power of escape to our lenient government, or by the general 
amelioration of manners; and the whole productive vigour of man is m 
progress, to be expended fearlessly upon the most productive expanse of 
territory ever offered to his intelligence and activity. The conquest of 
the Burmese border has given security to our empire on a hazardous and 
ill-defended quarter. The Russian exploits against the Turkish for-. 
tresses will, probably, cure that very beasting and invading government 
of its eagerness for marching Cossacks towards India ; and the experi- 
ment of crossing the Balkan, will, we presume, be a very sufficient cure. 
for the ambition of assaulting the Himmalch. Persia is weak, wearied 
with war, and taught the value of British alliance. The Mahrattas, Pin- 
darees, and the whole race of habitual plunderers and robbers of India, 
are crushed, and kept in stern subordination by the British power. 

For what ultimate purpose, in the councils of Providence, this un- 
paralleled extent of dominion, supported by such unparalleled insignifi- 
cance of means, has been given into the possession of a people, at the 
distance of half the globe, and whose whole European dominion would 
be but an appendage to the superb expanse of Hindostan, is a question to 
be answered only by the future. But it is not inconsistent with the ana- 
logy of great Providential trusts to believe, that India has been given to 
England for the purpose of increasing the light, the happiness, and the 
purity of the governed ; and that every attempt to introduce the arts of 
peace, to civilize by literature, to ameliorate by a strict administration 
of law, and to purify by that most essential and humanizing of all know- 
ledge, the knowledge of Christianity, is not less an act of national good 


80 Notes of the Month on Affatrs in General. (Jan. 


than of political wisdom—not less a solemn duty than a solid security 
against change. ‘ 

To those who talk with alarm of the results of civilizing India, we 
almost disdain to give a reply. Ifthe result were even to be our never 
setting a foot again upon its soil, it would not the less be our indispen- 
sable duty to communicate all the good in our power, physical or intel- 
lectual. For such is the command. But nations have never lost, and 
never will lose dominion by generous and active benevolence. Tyranny 
makes the timid daring, and the weak strong, for its overthrow. But 
gentleness, wisdom, and religion, are a pledge of empire that has never 
failed. We scorn, too, the outcry raised against the extinction of the 
habitual cruelties of India; the burnings of widows, the exposures of 
the aged, and the immolation of infants. We are ourselves partakers of 
the guilt, as long as we suffer it within our limits. It is nonsense to say 
that our prohibition would not be effective and final—that the Brahmins, 
whom we pay, or the population whom we protect, would resist an 
order so palpably disinterested, and dictated by such obvious humanity. 
The peninsula is not roused in arms by our demand of contributions— 
nor by our punishment of those who resist the demand, a much severer 
privation than the abandonment of an atrocious ceremony. We hang a 
Brahmin for murder, as soon as any other man ; yet there is no insurrec- 
tion of his order. We imprison, banish, fine, execute every form of law 
on every rank of offender, yet not a syllable of national murmur is heard. 
And yet we cannot prohibit the horrid and criminal murder of unfor- 
tunate women, whether victims, or enthusiasts, perpetrated under our 
eyes. This, too, will be at an end. It must wait only the additional 
intelligence of a few years, and the closer connexion with Europe. 

The passage between Mexico and Columbia would be the greatest 
physical event in human amelioration since the discovery of America. 
The four months’ voyage reduced to two; the hazards of a navigation 
through the most perilous seas of the world, exchanged for the safest ; 
the uncertainty of the sailing vessel substituted by the steam-boat, would 
produce an interchange between Europe and Asia of the most boundless 
benefit to both. China, Japan, the Islands, the richest Archipelago of 
the world, all would be unlocked to European enterprize, and com~ 
merce then, indeed, would begin her day of glory. 


THE CHAIN OF LOVE, 


Wwbp the spell, bind the spell, 

What is init? Fond farewell, 
Wreathed with drops from azure eyes, 
Twilight vows, and midnight sighs. 


. 


Bind it on the maiden’s soul: 
Suns may set, and years may roll, 
Yet, beneath that tender twine, 
All the spirit shall be thine. 


Oceans may between you sweep, 
Yet the spell’s\as strong and deep; 
Anguish, distance, time, are vain— 
Death alone can loose the chain. 


1829.) 


( 8l ) 


MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE, DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN. 


_—_— 


The Castilian, by Don Telesforo de 
Trueba y Cosio, 3 vols. 1629:— Don 
Telesforo, of 'Trueba and Cosio, the author 
of Gomez Arias, and now of the Castilian, is 
fairly enrolled in the army of English no- 
velists, and must be allowed to take a very 
respectable rank. A tolerably easy use of 
the English language by a foreigner, and 
especially by one of the south, is a thing of 
unusual attainment; but the free and full 
command of it exhibited by the author, is 
quite without precedent—not another word 
can be pleaded in the way of extenuation— 
he writes like a native, and must be judged 
by the same standard, and he need not 
shrink from even challenging scrutiny. The 
subject of the present production is still 
Spanish—of course, the writer could net do 
better than adhere to that with which he 
must be most familiar—it has the charm of 
novelty—it is his own field of action—he 
need fear no rival, for the chances are a 
thousand to one of another Spaniard spring- 
ing up with equal advantages, and no En- 
glishman will contest the ground with him 
—except perhaps the Laureat, should he 
take to novel writing—and we wonder, by 
the way, he does not—though, to be sure, his 
histories have much of the same quality. 

_ The historical period, and indeed the 
Subject, is mainly Don Pedro, surnamed the 
Crucl. The Castilian is one, almost the 
only one of his friends, whose fidelity sur- 
vived all outrages and insults, and adhered 
to him in all extremities, with a devotion 
more than chivalric. Pedro, though repre- 
sented by legitimate histories in the blackest 
and most revolting colours, has yet found 
extenuators, especially one who takes the 
pious cognomen of Gratia dei—not a priest, 
We may be sure. Don Telesforo, too, pro- 
fesses, upon close consideration, to think the 
recorded atrocities exaggerated, and to have 
felt himself warranted in softening the shades 
a little; but the visible signs of this good 
will and gentle purpose, are out of the reach 
of our dull vision—for truly, the Don Pedro 
before us, is as justly entitled to the epithets 
of cruel, truculent, infernal, as any of the 
Don Pedros of history we ever read. He is 
_ the yery demon of revenge—what more can 
he be—the vampire of blood—a Phalaris— 
a Nero—jealous—haughty—passionate—in- 
_temperate—with sundry other choice quali- 
"ties, the direct, and, according to Mr. Godwin t 
the inevitable progeny of despotism—re- 
Nieved, and scarcely relieved, by one single 
touch of humanity—acknowledgment of 
wrong—and that somewhat corrupted by 
the presence or approach of necessity. No 
doubt Pedro is largely indebted to his cleri- 
cal friends—a priest had murdered the fa- 
ther of a cobbler—the cobbler, prompted by 
something like excuseable revenge, killed 
the priest ; and of course the whole com- 
Munity of the clergy were in arms. The 
M.M. New Series.—Vot. VII. No. 37. 


culprit was seized—he was charged rather 
with impiety, sacrilege, blasphemy, than 
murder ; and Pedro, who liked any thing in 
any shape, that savoured of despotism, chose 
himself to try the cause. He called on the 
miserable wretch for his defence, and the 
man nakedly stated the motive. What was 
done to the priest ? He was suspended from 
his sacred functions for a twelvemonth. 
Then let the cobbler be rigidly prohibited 
from mending shoes for the same period. 
The solemn mockery was never forgiven by 
the sacerdotes. 

The Castilian is of course the model of 
honour and loyalty. He is betrothed to a 
very lovely lady, the noble and inflexible 
daughter of a grandee of somewhat pliable 
principles; disposed to be on terms with 
whoever was strongest. Pedro is obliged 
to fly before the triumphs of his bastard 
brother, Enrique de Trastamara, and the 
Castilian accompanies him. Coolly received 
by the Court of Portugal, Pedro and his 
half dozen attendants repair to the Black 
Prince, our own Edward of Wales, in 
Guienne; and the chivalrous spirit of that 
redoubted prince prompts him at once to aid 
legitimacy against illegitimacy. A consi- 
derable force of knights and adventurers is 
assembled, and by the decisive battle of Na- 
jara in 1367, a battle not inferior in con- 
duct, bravery and effect, to those of Poictiers 
and Cressy, though less talked of, Enrique 
is routed, and Pedro replaced on the throne 
of Castile. Revenge was boiling in Pedro’s 
bosom—the new opportunity of indulging it 
was dearer to him than the recovery of his 
throne ; but when he demanded the surren- 
der to himself of the many noble captives, 
Edward firmly stipulated for their forgive- 
ness, and thus for a time rescued them from 
the famished jaws of the human tiger. 
Pedro was compelled to temporize ; but im- 
patient of restraint, and thirsting for blood, 
he soon broke faith with the Prince: and 
long before the English troops quitted Se- 
ville, he had made several quondam cour- 
tiers shorter by the head, and plunged one 
poor lady into the flames. Edward, after 
sundry fruitless remonstrances, in the true 
spirit of a knight, and with the humanity of 
a Christian, was finally disgusted, and aban- 
doning the tyrant, returned to Guienne. - 
This was the signal for new conspiracies 
among the nobles still attached to the cause 
of Trastamara, and more and more alienated 
by the tyrant’s recent crueltics, and their 
own impending peril:. 

Some, however, still adhered, and among 
them, of course, the Castilian, but even his 
fidelity was for a moment shaken. He had 
solicited the king’s permission to marry 
Costanza — the King hesitated —aflected 
surprise—but eventually gave his consent 
for the ceremony at the end of two months. 
That time expired, he peremptorily forbade 

M 


82 Monthly Review of Literature, 


the completion of the match—he was him- 
self fascinated by the lady’s charms, and 
resolved to enjoy them on his own terms. 
The indignation of the Castilian is raised— 
he expostulates—in vain. The insults he 
was receiving were known—he was solicited 
by letter to join the conspiracy—he shrunk 
from contagion, and proceeded to the palace 
to denounce the conspirators ; but his pur- 
pose was defeated by new insults from the 
King, and even a blow—but one which did 
not reach his person—he intercepted it with 
his hat. Pedro was wrought up to fury— 
the lady was gone, no one knew whither— 
he drew his sword, and was rushing on his 
victim, when the Castilian bared his loyal 
bosom for the stroke. The King was shaken 
by his firmness, and the Castilian withdrew, 
with the resolution forthwith to join Tras- 
tamara. But cooling again, his loyalism 
returned in full glow, and Pedro, anticipating 
his too probable purpose, had him instantly 
arrested and plunged into a dungeon, where 
he suffered all sorts of privations and indig- 
nities for a couple of months—when sud- 
denly the tyrant—his foes were hemming 
him round—made a sort of amende honor- 
able—confessed his wrongs—and consented 
to the marriage. This of course was ample 
reparation. 

The enemy approaching, Pedro was driven 
on one occasion, to take refuge with his 
faithful Castilian, in the castle of Costan- 
za’s father. Intelligence of his retreat was 
carried to the adverse party, and Don Lara, 
a relative of Costanza, and one to whom 
she had once been betrothed, and who with- 
out doubt had been indifferently treated by 
all parties—heads a detachment of troops 
to search for the royal fugitive. Luckily he 
escapes, by the self devotion of the Castilian. 
Lara, who though a somewhat generous 
fellow, is as furious as love, jealousy and re- 
venge can make him—seizes the Castilian, 
and destines him for immediate execution. 
Costanza pleads for the life of her lover, 
and a scene of very considerable force fol- 
lows—he is ungenerous enough to offer the 
alternative—her hand, or her lover’s death. 
After a deep struggle, she consents, and the 
Castilian is released, and again joins Pedro 
—though. not without firs upbraiding the 
fond and devoted girl for her cowardly 
yieldings. 

Soon a conflict ensues, in which Lara, 
after performing feats of valour, receives his 
death-stroke from the Castilian. 'They re- 
cognize each other-—coming death softens 
the heart of Lara—he repents—solicits for- 
giveness—sends for his wife—writes to 
Enrique, and dies in peace with every body, 
and forgiven by every body. 

The final scene now approaches. Pedro 
is betrayed into Duguesclin’s tent— Trasta- 
mara appears—a personal struggle follows— 
Pedro’s fury gives him the superiority— but 
by the attendants he is basely wounded, and 
finally despatched. The Castilian is con- 
demned by Trastamara as the sole victim on 


his re-accession—kings must have victims 
on these occasions—when Costanza, the 
young widow, appears, and presents to the 
king the last prayer of his favourite, Lara, 
which proved to be the pardon of the Casti- 
lian. He is accordingly released ; and he 
and the widow, after the due period of 
mourning, marry ; but the feelings of loy- 
alism, which still burn brightly in the Cas- 
tilian’s bosom, refuse to obey an usurper 5 
and he withdraws to England, to his friend 
in arms, Sir John Chandos, where he lives 
—till he dies. 

History of the Commonwealth, by W. 
Godwin, vol. iv; 1828.—This fourth vo- 
lume embraces the Protectorate of Oliver 
Cromwell, and appears to conclude Mr. 
Godwin’s purpose—though he hints at the 
possibility of yet conducting the story to 
the return of Charles, under the title of a 
History of the Restoration. For the most part 
Cromwell has been shewn up by royalists— 
his bitterest enemies—who could no better 
give vent to their rage and malignity, than 
by depreciating the man, who had so long 
kept them down. Whatever was calculated 
to excite contempt, hatred, disgust, and in- 
dignation, has been from those days to these 
zealously hunted out, and where materials 
failed, have been invented to accomplish 
their purpose—or how could we find him, as 
we do, represented in so many incompatible 
disguises—rude and brutal-—illiterate—-fanatic 
—poor—a brewer—a farmer—tyrannical— 
arbitrary—half madman—half hypocrite— 
and yet triumphant? Mr. Godwin has, of 
course, no prejudices against him, but nei- 
ther is he his unqualified admirer; he has 
no sympathies with aristocratic feelings, but 
he can mark and estimate them; he is too 
independent in thought not to judge for 
himself, too active to rest in hereditary 
prepossessions, and too sagacious not to 
question effects, which are ascribed to im- 
probable or incompetent causes. Cromwell 
dissolved abruptly his parliaments of 1654 
and 1656; he dismissed three judges, and 
sent as many eminent counsel to the tower, 
all, apparently, for discharging their duties ; 
he imposed taxes, and made laws by his 
sole authority ; he excluded, arbitrarily, a 
hundred members from parliament, and in- 
stituted a house of lords, it is added, from 
the dregs of the people. These are the acts 
of a madman ; but Cromwell was no mad- 
man; therefore either these facts were not 
true, or they are assigned to wrong causes. 
The facts themselves are mostly true; and 
the object of Mr. Godwin is to give sense 
and consistency to the narrative of Crom- 
well’s Protectorate. 'The course he takes 
is te shew the necessity under which Crom- 
wellacted, and the acts complained of were, 
generally, the best which imperious circum- 
stances admitted. He does not justify 
Cromwell through thick and thin, but sug- 
gests carefully and steadily the extenuations, 
which truth and the evidence of facts, and 
common candour demand, ; 


[ Jan.” 


1829.) 


Cromwell was @ sincere man—he had a 
conscience about him, though often passing 
the limits of his convictions of right—he 
would willingly have kept within those 
limits, under any penalty short of losing the 
sovereignty he had once seized. He was, 
besides, an enlightened man—to a degree 
far beyond the common impression—he 
wished no man to be restricted in his re- 
ligious professions, save only, prehaps, pre- 
lates and catholics. Once he was prompted 
to lend his sanction to an act against them, 
but we are left in ignorance of what imme- 
diately led to this solitary instance. Bur- 
ton’s Diary has been of infinite service in 
establishing the fact how impossible it was 
for Cromwell, even by excluding the hun- 
dred members, to get on with his parlia- 
ments. They were as resolute to abridge 
his authority, as the Long Parliament were 
to cut down Charles’s ; and Oliver as deter- 
mined to keep what he had got, as ever 
Charles had been—with more skill, temper, 
and tact. Generally historians, the least 
prejudiced, have thought he died luckily 
for himself—his resources were at an end; 
Mr. Godwin thinks differently ;. but the 
probability—the symptoms of permanence, 
are not well made out—they rest solely upon 

_ Mr. G’s conviction of the inexhaustibility of 
his mental resources. But he has undoubt- 
edly succeeded in shewing distinctly the 
bright side of Cromwell—in exhibiting his 
better and admirable points—the facility 
with which he baffled his enemies—the 
resolution with which he faced danger—the 
promptitude with which he extricated him- 
self—his attachments—his liberalities—his 
Magnanimities. Neither has he veiled the 

-Inore questionable features, though he has 
not hesitated to reject what creditable evi- 
dence warranted him in pronouncing royalist 
calumnies, 

Obscure intimations, in many quarters, 
occur relative to an attempt on the part of 
Barebone’s Parliament to suppress the 
“ universities, tithes, and leaming.’? Mr. 
G. has searched for this history of this affair 
in yain; but has collected the scattered 
hints. Among these is Cromwell’s speech 
on declining the title of king, in which, 
speaking of that parliament (Barebone’s) he 
Says, the sober part of it had returned the 
power into his hands to prevent the destruc- 

_tion of the ministers of the gospel, and the 
Setting up of the Judicial law of Moses, in 
abrogation of all our ministrations. Syden- 
in his speech to that very parliament, 
Speaks of them as the ‘ enemies of all intel- 
cultivation and learning.’ Baxter, 

in his narrative of his own life, says, it had 
been the aim of this parliament to overturn 
the established ministr (clergy). Claren- 
don, who of course raid the worst of it, 
says, they proposed to sell college lands and 
apply the proceeds to the service of the 
nation. chard talks of their proposing to 
Suppress the universities, and all schools of 
learning, as heathenish and unnecessary. 


Domestic and Foreign. 


83 


Though inclined to give little weight to 
these singly, and disposed to think Crom- 
well had an interest in misrepresenting that 
parliament, yet, when taken together, Mr. 
Godwin is forced to conclude there must 
have been some ground for the charge—es- 
pecially supported as it is by Owen’s speech, 
as vice chancellor of Oxford, in which he 
says—‘ the Supreme Arbiter of all so scatter- 
ed all their counsels and their concerts in a 
moment that the conspirators hardly and 
with difficulty provided for their own safety 
who three days before were in the act to 
devour us (the university).’ Three names 
are particularly distinguishable as enemies 
of the ecclesiastical function and of learning 
—Dell—Erberry—and Webster—all three 
of them had been chaplains in the army, 
and were eminent as men of learning them~ 
selves ; Dell was master of Caius’, and held 
the office till the restoration. Of this par- 
liament, Clarendon boldly affirms they were 
generally a pack of weak, senseless fellows, 
fit only to bring the name of a parliament 
into utter contempt; and that much the 
greater part of them consisted of inferior 
persons of no name or. quality, artificers of 
the meanest trades, known only by their 
gifts in praying and preaching. This ac- 
count Hume, as every body knows, has 
literally adopted—though it should be re- 
membered Clarendon could know nothing 
of the matter but by hearsay. It is only 
necessary to consult the list of the members 
to refute this calumny—ew pede Herculis. 

The parliament of 1656 shewed manifest 
symptoms of religious persecution—the case 
of Naylor is very memorable. Many were 
for putting him to death, and Skippon 
professed to speak the Protector’s senti- 
ments—that he had always been for 
allowance to tender consciences, but had 
never intended to indulge such things. 
Cromwell, however, shewed great anxiety, 
while the subject of death was under 
discussion, but when that was abandoned, 
left them to themselves. To Biddle, the 
Socinian, he allowed a hundred crowns a 
year, during the three years he was confined 
in St. Mary’s Castle, in the Scilly Islands ; 
and laboured hard to give some relief to the 
Jews. He named a conference, but was 
overruled by the divines, who overwhelmed 
him by piling text upon text. Firmen, 
then an apprentice, and afterwards one of 
the most distinguished advocates of Soci- 
nianism, ventured, it is said, personally to 
solicit Cromwell, to whom the Protector 
replied, “ You curl-pated boy you, do you 
think I will shew favour to a man who 
denies his Saviour, and disturbs the govern- 
ment ?”” Firmen was at this time, thirty- 
three years of age—of course the story is an 
invention. 

Godwin quotes, at great length, from the 
speech addressed by Cromwell to the Com~- 
mittee appointed to satisfy his scruples, as 
to. the royal title, and says of it, correetly 
enough, it is singularly excellont. And yet 

M 2 


b4 


of this very speech it is that Hume remarks, 
‘we will produce any passage at random, 
for the discourse is all of a piece ;’’ and then 
boldly concludes, ‘‘ The great defect of 
Oliver consists not in his want of elocution, 
but in want of ideas; he was incapable of 
expressing himself on the occasion, but in a 
manner, which a peasant of the most ordi- 
nary capacity would justly be ashamed of.” 
So, of course, every body supposes Crom- 
well was, what somebody, with equal justice, 
called Goldsmith, an inspired idiot. 

Cromwell is represented, commonly, as 
driving the Irish population, rich and poor 
—all, without exception—into Connaught. 
“ There was a large tract of land,”’ says Cla- 
rendon—he is the chiefauthority—“even to 
the half of the province of Connaught, that 
was separated from the rest of the kingdom 
by a long and large river, and which by the 
plague and many massacres, remained almost 
desolate. Into this space and circuit of 
land they required all the Irish to retire by 
such a day under the penalty of death ; and 
all who should after that time be found in 
any other part of the kingdom, man, woman, 
or child, should be killed by any body who 
saw or met them.” Of this improbable 
representation, Godwin says, ‘‘ I endeavour- 
ed to figure to myself three fourths of the 
territory of Ireland without an inhabitant— 
no soul left through its cities, its uplands, 
its vallies, its farm-houses, and its granges, 
but the English invaders, and their English 
families. I own the weakness of my under- 
standing, and my imagitiation ; I could not 
.take it in ;”? and then proceeds to shew the 
absurdity by details that must, in every 
one’s mind prove decisive. 

The book is of the highest value. 


The Disowned, by the Author of Pel- 
ham. 4 vols ; 1829.—The aiming at some- 
thing far above the fame of a fashionable 
novelist—we know not by what title the 
author can claim any higher classification. 
Pelham was a puppy, and a pedantic puppy ; 
and very much of the writing, with a sort of 
dramatic propriety, bore the characteristics of 
one. He was agentleman—a man of fashion 
merely, filling a certain small niche, or moy- 
ing in one narrow orbit, and affecting to turn 
up his nose at all others. He reminded us 
of Dr. Dibdin, a consummate bibliomaniac, 
exhibiting the follies of bibliomania. The 
vivacity and smartness compensated, how- 
ever, for a great deal of nonsense, conceit, 
pertness, and punning. The Disowned has 
all the brilliancies of Pelham, and is stripped 
of many of the petulancies, which more fre- 
quently revolted than piqued or tickled. It 
shews more reading, certainly—perhaps more 
reflection, and a more matured intellect alto- 
gether, though much of the former frippery 
still hangs about it, splendid and sparkling 
as stage tinsel. The tale—the mere con- 
struction of the tale, is far inferior to Pel- 
ham—it consists indeed only of some half 
dozen incidents, and those of the more im. 


Monthly Review of Literaiure, 


‘is about eighteen—of a patrician figure— 


{J AN. 


probable kind—of the mere ‘ novel’ cast ; 
and the whole would be nothing, but for the 
vein of commentary and discussion which 
runs through it; and unluckily those very 
discussions, though good—on character, for 
instance, and genius—and the best of the 
book, will be least read—perhaps not read at 
all. The author is a highly cultivated per- 
son, and deep in Rousseau and French sen- 
timentalists—we are not speaking disrespect- 
fully—and he is himself very capable of 
working in the depths of the same mines, 
and eliciting more metal of the same sterling 
value. We shall venture to recommend 
him to pursue his obvious bent, and give the 
results in a new shape. Essays—he must 
find a new title—written in the same spirit, 
would be read, unconnected with a tale— 
connected with a tale, he may take our ex- 
perience—they will not. A novel is taken 
up ninety-nine times out of a hundred, not 
only by young ladies, to get to the end of it 
without being interrupted by impertinencies 
—by any thing which obliges the reader to 
stop and inquire. Story, story—laugh as the 
writer will—nothing else goes down, and ~ 
luckily nobody is very particular what the 
story is. 

A young gentleman appears upon the. 
scene, tramping his way towards an inn—he 


bold forehead,: eyes of fire, and nose, like 
Lebanon. He falls in with a King Cole, 
who quotes Shakspeare and Chaucer—spends 
a merry evening—he can accommodate to 
any thing—with a troop of gypsies, and pro- 
ceeds the next morning to the inn, where he 
finds a box or two with the initials C. L., 
and a letter containing 1600/.—the whole 
he is entitled to. The curiosity of the land- 
‘lady compels him to give a name; and he 
suddenly pitches upon the liquid one of Cla- 
rence Linden. The youth, it appears, has 
been turned out of doors, the why is the — 
kernel of the mystery. He is of a soaring 

cast, and with his 1000/., and his own good 
spirits, he proposes to buffet the world, and 
win himself a name, since he has lost his 
own. ‘To town, of course, he flies; and 
luckily pitches upon a sort of boarding- 
house, where he meets with an eccentric old 
beau, living in the neighbourhood—a man — 
of family and fortune—and once conspicu- 
ously of fashion—with whom he soon forms 
an intimacy, and soon also has the opportu- 
nity of saving his life, by shooting a house- 
breaker. This, of course brings on greater 
intimacy, and the youth is prompted to tell 
his own story, to which the reader is not yet 
admitted. Luckily, again, the old gentle- 
man takes a prodigious liking—adopts him, 
in short—hints are given of some relation- 
ship—and the youth is speedily, under the 
most promising auspices, attached to an em- 
bassy, with a liberalallowance from hispatron. 
After a lapse of four years, he returns with 
the ambassador as his private secretary, and 
with him is to go out again, as secretary 0! 
Jegation. ‘Through the ambassador and his 


1829.] 


patron, we find him introduced, and quite at 
home, in the first circles (that is the correct 
phrase, we believe) chatting with the minister, 
and making love tothe daughter of a Marquis. 

The more conspicuous he becomes, the 
more of course he excites inquiry ; and whis- 
pers soon circulate, that he is nobody knows 
who—perhaps old Talbot’s bastard. A Lord 
Borodaile, the son of an Earl Ulswater, an 
admirer of the Marquis’s daughter, resolves 
to settle the question, and insultshim. The 
high spirited youth, of course, challenges ; 
but the reader is surprised to find some 
struggle—a burst of tears, even—before he 
determines. In the encounter, he is severely 
wounded, and fires in the air. Before he 
fairly recovers, old Talbot dies, and leaves 
him a mansion, 5000. a year, and 80,0007. in 
the funds—we lceve to be accurate. With 
these indispensables he addresses Lady Flora, 
and has his letter returned—the same story 
had reached her and her friends. Thus re- 
pulsed, he accepts the secretaryship, about 
which his ample windfall had before induced 
him to waver, and again we lose sight of him 
for another two or three years ; and when he 
reappears it is of course with additional splen- 
dour—he is in Parliament—under-secretary 
of state, and conspicuous for activity, intrigu- 
ing, and speaking. 

Lady Flora, in the mean while, is not 
forgotten, though no longer pursued, till 
suddenly he gets a letter from some duke, 
his particular friend—(who, by the way, 
never bows to a gentleman) who has just 
married an especial confidante of her’s, that 
neither is he forgotten—and that though 
she is now betrothed to Lord Ulswater, his 
old rival and duellist, she may still be won. 
To the marquiss he accordingly flies on 
the instant—finds her in the arbour—be- 
gins to tell the softest tale—when Lord 
Ulswater presents himself, and a scene of 
violence is threatened, till Clarence catches 
him by the arm, and bids him beware how 
he incenses him to pollute his soul with the 
blood of a - “ What ?” exclaims in 
fury the other. The word is whispered in 
his ear,—and a word that astounds and 
paralyzes. ‘‘ Are you prepared to prove it ?” 
“Tam.” <A compact follows—they are to 
meet in the presence of the marchioness 
and her daughter in two days. On the day 
of appointment Clarence appears—no Lord 
Ulswater—Clarence begins his tale—when 

Lord Ulswater is brought in, on a litter, 
_ dying.—He had, with his horse, been foreed 
down a precipice, by a man who had been 
stung into the act by an insult—and has 
but just time to request an interview with 
Lady Flora and resign her to his brother. 
And the fact was, Clarence was his half- 
brother, and had been disowned by the 
father, because the mother had intrigued with 
some one, to whom she had been attached 
before marriage; but pains are taken to 
assure us of his perfect legitimacy. Clarence 
thus suceceds to the earldom of Ulswater, 
and, of course marries Lady Flora. ‘This 


Domestic and Foreign. 


85 


story—if it is worth calling one—is mixed 
up with the events of two or three others— 
particularly those of a Mr. Mordaunt—who 
is an ardent philosopher and a fond lover— 
loses for love an estate—is plunged into the 
most loathsome poverty—loses his wife by 
disease—recovers his estate, and is finally 
shot by a radical, who mistakes him for the 
prime minister. This radical, also is shewn 
up at full length—but the lines are much 
too broad—he is a perfect and frenzied 
fanatic in republicanism. Poor Mordaunt’s 
tale is a thrilling one, and the tone of gen- 
tleness, softness, and tenderness towards the 
wife, is touching and lovely beyond any 
thing we remember. 


Memoirs of the Duke of Rovigo (Sa- 
vary), 4 vols. 8vo. 1828.—Savary has had 
hard measure ; he has been made the scape- 
goat for the sins of many of his scoundrel 
contemporaries ; hisback seems to be thought 
broad enough, and streng enough, to bear 
any burden, and no mercy has been shewn 
in piling packages upon it. Insult has 
roused him—and, like a stag at bay, he has 
turned, and made some desperate lunges 
into the viscera of his pursuers. Though 
looking upon him as no very scrupulous 
person, we do not find him either so mali- 
cious or so formidable as others represented 
him, nor so cunning or so successful as he 
probably thought himself—nor do we see 
why he is not entitled to a hearing. A man 
cannot be always lying, nor, if he could, 
would it be his interest to do so. He is 
checked in a thousand ways, and his very 
lies, in a large proportion, furnish materials 
for their own detection—were it not so, 
truth would be more scarce even than ‘it is. 
Placed in a peculiar position, and wielding 
peculiar weapons, he excited the indigna- 
tion and vengeance of numbers ; but it fol- 
lows not that this indignation was always 
just. They were thwarted often by him in 
very unjustifiable measures, and the lan- 
guage of complaint and reprobation must be 
cautiously construed into that of justice and 
equity. We take Savary to have been a 
pretty honest man, according to his standard 
of morals—obedience to a superior. We 
do not believe he originated atrocious ac- 
tions, though he might not hesitate to exe- 
cute them. With a better master he had 
been a better man. 

At the breaking out of the revolution, he 
was quite a boy, andin 1791, at fifteen, ob- 
taining a commission in the regiment of 
cavalry, of which his father had been major, 
with a cross of St. Louis, he commenced his 
career in the army commanded by Bouillé. 
He was successively with Custine, Pichegru, 
Moreau, and very early employed as an 
aide-de-camp, first by Ferino, and after- 
wards by Desaix. In the expedition to 
Egypt, he was still attached as aide-de- 


-camp to Desaix, attending him wherever he 


went, to Syria, and the Cataracts, and re- 
turning with him to Hurope—was present 


86, 


with him at the battle’ of Marengo. At 
this battle it was he first came into imme- 
diate contact with Buonaparte. By his 
activity, especially in bringing up Keller- 
man, he contributed to the recovery of the 
day, and at the close of the battle was 
named, along with Rapp, one of the Con- 
sul’s aides-de-camp. From this period he 
was constantly about the person of Napo- 
leon, and employed by him on numerous 
confidential occasions. He surveyed and 
reported on the state of the towns surrend- 
ered in Italy—inspected the troops with 
Brune, at Dijou—superintended the prepa- 
rations of the fleets at Brest and Rochefort, 
and was just returned from a mission to 
Dieppe, connected with George’s conspiracy, 
when, as Colonel of the gensdarmerie, he 
superintended the execution of the Duke 
D’Enghien. 

This action, which drew upon him so 
rnuch abuse and execration, he has detailed 
with great care and minuteness, and labour- 
ed hard to throw the odium from himself. 
He represents himself as knowing nothing 
about the previous arrangements of the 
business, but merely as commanding the 
troops, placed under the orders of the pre- 
sident (Hullin) of the military commission. 
He had been in Paris only two or three 
days, when, on the 20th of March (1804), 
the day before the execution, he was sent 
with a letter, by Buonaparte, to Murat, the 
governor of Paris, who commanded him to 
take certain troops forthwith to Vincennes. 
These troops were not all assembled, and 
disposed of at the Castle till three in the 
morning of the 21st, before which hour 
Hullin, and the other members of the com- 
mission, consisting of the colonels of the 
garrison of Paris, had arrived, had com- 
menced, and nearly concluded their labours. 
At this hour Savary, along with others, 
went into the room, and was just in time to 
hear the concluding replies of the duke. 
The room was then cleared ; and, in about 
two hours, the commander of the infantry 
came to Savary with an order for a picket, 
to execute the sentence just passed, which 
he, of course, supplied, and with the rest of 
the troops witnessed the execution, about 
six o'clock, in the spacious ditch of the 
Castle, and then proceeded with all speed to 
report to the Consul. This, he declares, is 
all he knows of the matter. The perusal 
of the particulars will not, pezhaps, satisfy 
any one, though no one will doubt that his 
refutation of Hullin’s incredible story is 
pretty complete. 

In the German campaign of 1805, he ac- 
companied the Emperor as his aide-de- 
camp, and was specially employed before the 
battle of Austerlitz, in a message to the 
Emperor of Russia, and after the battle, 
again, successively to the Emperors of 
Austria and- Russia. His conversations 
with these imperial personages are mi- 
nutely given in a dialogue form. In the 
campaigns of 1806 and 1807, he was en- 


Monthly Review of Literature, 


(Jan. 


gaged more in military commands—first, 
as a general of division—next, on the ill- 
health of Lannes, at the head of the Sth 
division; and again; at the head of the 
fusiliers ; and, on the taking of Konisberg, 
was made governor of the town. On the 
peace of Tilsit, he was dispatched as a sort 
of Ambassador, though not with the title of 
one, to Petersburgh, where he continued six 
months, making himself very acceptable to 
the Emperor, and, by degrees, subduing a 
good deal of the prejudice existing against 
him—being finally admitted to circles from 
which he was at first excluded. 

After this residence of six months at St. 
Petersburgh, he returned, in January 1808, 
to Paris; and on the creation of the new 
nobility, he was made Duke of Rovigo, and 
in March, was commissioned to go to 
Spain, and report upon the state of the Royal 
Family. This was his sole business ; but 
while in Spain, Ferdinand determined upon 
going to Bayonne to meet the Hmperor, 
and that, at least, Savary, on his own shew- 
ing, promoted. At Vittoria, Ferdinand 
stopped short, and Savary proceeded by 
himself onward to Bayonne to the Emperor. 
He was immediately speeded back to Vit- 
toria, and when finally Ferdinand was per- 
suaded to advance, accompanied him to 
Bayonne. In June he replaced, in func- 
tions, if not in appointments, the Duke of 
Berg (Murat), at Madrid ; and, during his 
administration, occurred the disastrous sur- 
render of Dupont, at Baylen. Retreat from 
Madrid was become indispensable for the 
new king, and Sayary preceded him to 
meet the Emperor, who received him more 
kindly than he had anticipated—though 
always sure the Emperor would do justice 
to well-meant efforts. 

The meeting with the Emperor of Russia, 
at Erfurt, was now at hand, and Savary ac- 
companied Napoleon thither; and, after 
this memorable interview, Napoleon, still 
taking Savary with him, hastened to Spain, 
and entered Madrid. The new adminis- 
tration of the government being arranged, 
he was pursuing the English army, when, 
at Astorga, he was surprised by intelligence 
of extraordinary movements on the part of 
Austria. Leaving Soult in command, he 
returned with all speed to Paris to hurry on 
the necessary preparations ; and, again, Sa- 
vary accompanied him in the perilous cam- 
paign of 1809, employed as before, some- 
times in commands, and sometimes on occa- 
sional commissions. 

The war over, Paris was occupied the 
succeeding winter and spring in the Em- 
peror’s marriage, and in the following June 
Savary was made Minister of Police, which 
terminated his military career, and intro- 
duced him to quite a new scene of business. 
Fouché left him completely in the lurch— 
would give him no manner of information, 
nor communicate even the names of his 
established agents, except those of the lowest 
class. But Savary’s own activity, and the 


1829. 


interests of the old employés, soon familia- 
rized him with the tricks of the office, which 
he, by degrees, remodelled according to his 
own conceptions of efficiency, and spreading 
his nets on all sides, was thus able, at any 
moment, to catch whom he pleased. He 
evidently speaks as if he had every thing 
under his thumb, though no man can doubt 
but he must have been for ever the dupe of 
the rascally agents, high and low, he em- 
ployed. His accounts of the execution of 
police duties are decidedly amongst the 
most attractive and novel parts of his book 
—by far too complicated and extensive for 
us to analyze ; but we may direct the read- 
er’s attention to them, as to portions that 
beyond all others deserve it. 

As Minister of Police, he continued till 
the exile of Napoleon to Elba ; and, though 
forbidden to take leave of him, was allowed 
to reside on his estate at some distance from 
Paris—taking no part in public affairs. 
The triumphant return of the exile surprised 
him. He went to the Tuilleries to meet 
him—was summoned by the Emperor as 
Minister of Police—executed an order given 
on the spot, but peremptorily refused to re- 
sume the invidious office, though he seems 
to haye taken the command of the gensdar 
merie. He was not at the battle of Water. 
loo; but was one of those who faithfully 
proposed to accompany the Emperor, 
wherever his destinies led him. He was 
with him on board the Bellerophon ; but 
both he and Lallemand were harshly re- 
fused permission to share his exile at St. 
Helena. After Napoleon was put on board 
the Northumberland, Savary and Lalle- 
mand were conveyed away to Malta, thrown 
into prison, and kept there till April of the 
following year, and then turned adrift. 
Savary went to Smyrna, and concealed him- 
self in the family, first of an Englishman, 
and then of a Frenchman, till he learned 
by the papers his condemnation, par con- 
tumace, and was urged by his friends to fly. 
He took the first ship, and was landed at 
Trieste, where he was seized, and carried to 
Gratz, when, very unexpectedly, he found 
himself at liberty. Luckily the Emperor 
of Austria and Metternich, were passing 
through Gratz, and Savary obtaining an in- 
terview with Metternich, engaged him to 
- him permission to reside at Smyrna. 

'0 Smyrna, accordingly, he returned, when, 

March 1819, he found himself again ex- 

} to the vexatious harassings of the 

rench Ambassador at Constantinople, and 
oc ai to quit his asylum. He was now 

ved to face his difficulties, and present 
himself to the authorities at Paris; and, 
being brought before a court-martial, was 
tried, and acquitted, and left at large. 

Of Bernadotte, Moreau, Fouché, Talley- 
rand, and their treacheries, as well as of a 
multitude of less distinguished personages, 
the reader will find particulars in abun- 
dance. The whole must, however, be re- 
ceived with caution—but whose memoirs 


Domestic and Foreign. 


87 


ought not to be so received? Here and 
there, perhaps, there is wnusual glossing. 


The Protestant, by Mrs. Bray, 3 vols., 
12mo. ; 1828.—The author—for the femi- 
nine termination is so wholly un-English that 
it is not to be borne with—the author, we 
were going to say, has conspicuously, more 
than any body we could readily mention, 
the merit of irrepressible perseyerance, and 
is now reaping, what every body does not, 
the fruits of it. She mends, and mends 
decisively. Though not, we confess, dis- 
posed to admire the selection of topic, and 
still less the spirit, in which the story is 
developed, we readily allow it is well told, 
and simply told; not complicated by cir- 
cumstances, and encumbered with details ; 
her characters are fairly and fully worked 
out, and her autherities, such at least as 
she has chosen to trust to, carefully con- 
sulted and correctly represented. The im- 
pression which the author leaves, is that 
persecution under Mary’s reign was uni- 
versal, over men, women, and children ; 
clergy and laity ; perpetual and unceasing ; 
and burning as common as dining, though 
the number of the sufferers is thoroughly 
known. Mrs. B. will not so far misun- 
derstand us, as to retort upon us a desire to 
apologise for catholic enormities. 

We trust to the good sense we are sure 
the author possesses, to take our expostula- 
tion, or rather our lament, in good part, 
while, as is our wont, we sketch slightly 
her simple and afflicting story. The ‘ Pro- 
testant’ is an aged clergyman, a friend of 
Cranmer’s, who had taken orders at forty, 
and then a married man. He had an ex- 
cellent wife, a very amiable and beautiful 
daughter, and a son who had imprudently 
suffered himself to be drawn into a corre- 
spondence with Wyatt, in his attempt to 
raise a party in favour of Elizabeth. The 
scene of the story is in the neighbourhood of 
Canterbury, and the precise historical event 
connected with the family story, is the sur- 
vey and visitation of the churches in Mary’s 
reign ; which was executed in the Canter- 
bury diocese by Thornton, called the Suf- 
fragan of Dover, and Hampsfield, archdeacon 
of Canterbury, and a Spanish priest, the 
confessor of a catholic family in the neigh- 
bourhood. These personages are represented 
as thorough-paced bigots, or knaves—Thorn- 
ton, licentious and profligate—Hampsfield, 
cruel and savage—the friar, as cunning as 
cruel, and all the subordinate agents, rogues. 
The story opens with the visit, apparently 
friendly, of Thornton, whose object is to 
entrap the aged protestant into an explicit 
declaration of his heretical sentiments ; but 
manceuvres are quite superfluous ; he is not 
ashamed of his doctrines, and disdains con- 
cealment. He resists the importunities of 
his wife, who urges him to be cautious 5 
and a crafty and scoundrel attorney is at 
hand to take notes of the conversation be- 
tween him and the suffragan. Officers are 


88 


forthwith intreduced, and the old gentleman 
is conveyed to the castle, at Canterbury, 
and flung among felons ; and the old lady, 
in like manner, is consigned to a solitary 
apartment in the bishop’s house ; to do public 
penance, in due time, in a white sheet, as a 
harlot, the law not recognising a clergy- 
man’s wife. 

Just as they have gone, and the daughter, 
with the old seryant, are on the point -of 
abandoning the parsonage, comes the son 
from the continent, who upon hearing the 
sad details, flies to the neighbouring squire, 
his father’s friend, who is sheriff of the 
county, and has jurisdiction, we suppose, 
in the city, to implore his assistance ; and 
on his way, in the plantations, encounters 
the daughter of the said squire. Now this 
daughter and he were once, with the con- 
sent of her mother, half a protestant or 
more, affianced; but religious differences, 
and the bigoted obstinacy of the squire, had 
long broken off the connexion, though the 
young man was still resolved to hold her to 
the contract, and she was nothing loath. 
A conversation and a sot of explanation 
follows, and then he proceeds to the house, 
where, at the door, he meets with the con- 
fessor, and is prompted by some insolence 
of his, to knock him down. Disposed suf- 
ficiently before by religious fecling to injure 
the youth, Spanish revenge makes him ten 
times more malignant than ever, and stirs 
all his worst energies. He leagues with a 
cousin of the young man, who stands in his 
way also to.a great inhevitance, to ruin 
him. He has also, as confessor, full con- 
troul over the squire, and by misrepresenting 
the young man, enrages the squire against 
him, past all conciliation; and then pro- 
poses and urges with all the weight of his 
spiritual thunder, the cousin as the husband 
of his daughter. This cousin is a perfect 
and profligate villain: he charges the youth 
with an act of iieason, of which he himself 
had been the chief contriver, and attempts 
to force the young lady’s consent to a mar- 
riage, by engaging to save him. She indig- 
nantly repels him, and is finally consigned 
to the charge and controul of the monk, who 
drives her, by his severities, into a state of 
incipient madness. 

In the meanwhile the persecutors proceed 
in their homid course. Thornton has an 
interview with the old protestant’s daughter, 
and attempts to seduce her to be his ¢ lady- 
love;’ and in revenge for her rejection, 
turns her over to Hampsfield, who ‘also, 
exasperated at her steadiness, threatens her 
with the stake, and finally, by way of 
specimen,' holds her beauiiful little hand 
over the candle, till the sinews snap. Then 
follow the trial of the old man, and the day 
of burning for him, his servant, an old 
woman, and a blind boy. The particulars 
are all minutely detailed—the daughter 
hangs bags of gunpowder about the necks 
of the victims—the bishop himself is put- 
ting the torch to the pile, when he is 


Monthly Review of Literature, 


[ Jan. 


seized with a fit, and then another and 
another attempt is made,- till the sheriff 
appears in sight, riding on a foaming horse, 
and cries God save Queen Hlizabeth—__ 
which implies the death of Mary, and 
ensures the pardon of the victims. Finally, 
the squire’s daughter recovers, is converted, 
and marries the somewhat moody and im- 
petuous son of the protestant; but no 
husband is found for Rosa, with the burned 
hand, which seems very unkind and quite 
incorrect. 


— eS ee 


Past Feelings Renovated; or, Ideas 
occasioned by the Perusal of Dr. Hibbert’s 
Philosophy of Apparitions ; 1823.—Few 
persons could have read Dr. Hibbert’s book 
on the Philosophy of Apparitions, without 
a conyiction that he has given a death-blow 
to the existence of very meny ghosts. He 
did not set about the annihilation by asking 
to what purpose they came, or why they 
were so rare, or why they selected some 
in preference to others, or why they ob- 
served no rule at all, or why the reality 
of their visits was still questionable ; but 
hearing of ghosts, which indubitably proved 
to be no ghosts, but the sheer effect of 
morbid impressions, he was prompted to 
conclude they were all alike; and’ subse- 
quent inquiries ripened his conclusion to 
conviction. In his own estimation, he had 
discovered a touchstone for all sorts and 
sizes, and was well disposed to bring them 
—all-abounding as they do—in old books 
especially—no new stories have been added 
of late years we ihink—to his test. But 
the want of circumstantiality in the stories 
precluded a geneval application, chiefly from 
the absence of details relative to the health 
and previous habits of the witnesses; and 
Dr. Hibbert could, consequently, only start 
certain suggestions, the realization of which _ 
would have bfought them within his theory. 
This inapplicebility has been seized upon, 
and a strange sort of exultation exhibited, 
that his victory is not complete. Dr. Hib- 
bert established the fact, that in certain 
states of diseases, old impressions re-appear, 
without the actual presence of the original 
object ; these re-appearances, when the case 
Was not understood, were mistaken for 
ghosts ; and the possibility followed at once 
that all the ghosts upon record were cf the 
same unimportant character. The case on 
which he yvelies for the basis of his theory, 
is the very memorable one of Nicholai, the 
bookseller of Beilin, who experienced these 
re-appearances, these day-dreams, and mi-— 
nutely recorded them, and accompanied 
them with the minutest details of his men- 
tal and bodily state. Farther inquiries 
brought numerous confirmations. ; 

The writer of the book before us, is 
something of an alarmist; he detects infi- 
delity and materialism, and the book must, 
on the common demands of duty, be an- 
swered. ‘To question the reality of ghost 
is, in his eyes, to deny revelation, and 


1829.] 


accordingly all the ghost-stories that were 
ever heard of, are to be raked up, and 
forced down our throats, with any evidence, 
which he chooses to consider of the most 
inrefragable kind. Lord Clarendon, for 
instance, reports the apparition which pre- 
sented itself to Villiers, Duke of Bucking- 
ham, and who can refuse the testimony of 
such a man as Clarendon ? yet he, in truth, 
bears no testimony to the truth of it ; but in- 
troduces it thus— There were many stories 
scattered abroad, at that time, of several 
prophecies and predictions of the duke’s 
untimely and violent death. Amongst. the 
rest there was one, which was upon a. better 
foundation of credit than usually such dis- 
courses are founded upon.”? Now what is 
there here to rest upon? Lord Clarendon 
does not. give his authority at all; and if 
his evidence is to be regarded as personal, 
as being admitted by a man of undoubted 
veracity and intelligence, the utmost he 
Says is, it was better supported than others. 
The author talks of judges and rules of evi- 
dence—why, there is nothing here that 
would not be rejected instantaneously, as 
mere hearsay, or wholly irrelevant, upon 
any two-penny matter that ever came into 
court. 

Then comes Colonel Gardiner’s story, as 
narrated, not as attested, though believed, 
by Dr. Doddridge. Dr. D., we are told, 
was ‘eminently pious ;’ but what has that 
te do with the story? Nobody questions 
Dr. Doddridge’s veracity—no, nor Colonel 
Gardiner’s. The doctor reported what Gar- 
diner told him—Gardiner told what he 
seemed to see and hear; but is here evi- 
dence to establish miraculous interposition ? 
* With regard to the vision,” observes Dr. 
H., “ the appearance of our Saviour on the 
cross, and the awful words repeated, can be 
considered in no other light, than as so many 
tecollected images of the mind, which, pro- 
bably, had their origin in the language of 
some urgent appeal to repentance, that the 
colonel might have casually read, or heard 
delivered. Dr. H.,” adds the anonymous 
replier, “ hints also at some possible injury of 
the brain.”’ This is true, and is founded 
upon the fact of Colonel Gardiner’s having 
a short time before received a severe fall 
from his horse—which the replier has chosen 
to conceal. 

But why should we doubt of ghosts, 
when every man has his guardian angel— 


Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth 
Unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep. 


_ This the author professes to believe no 
ae vision—and on what ground? Its 
allowed by some of our best divines, 

ve even made it the subject of dis- 
courses from the pulpit. Now, how in the 
pame of common sense, are divines to 
know any thing more of the matter than 
the laity? The reader will see the cast of 
the writer, and how little qualified he must 
be to judge of a point of evidence ; and this, 
M.M. New Series.—Vor. VII. No.37. 


Domestic and Foreign. 


89 


we suppose, is a question that rests, except 
in the case of individual experience, solely 
upon testimony. Dr. Hibbert is charged 
with fabricating a theory, and then look- 
ing up evidence to substantiate it; whereas 
facts, first pointed to the theory, and then 
other cases were tried by it. But we are 
spending more time than the book deserves. 
It will do Dr. Hibbert no harm; but col- 
lecting, as it does, all the stories of any 
notoriety, ancient and modern, the record 
will be convenient for reference. 


Mémoires inédits de Louis Henri De 
Lomenie, Comte de Brienne, Secrétaire 
@éiat sous Louis XIV; 1828.—Three 
Comtes de Brienne held in succession the 
office of secretary of state in the 17th cen- 
tury. The second, Henry Augusti, left be- 
hind him memoirs, which were published 
in 1719, and his son and successor, Louis 
Henri, left also, it seems, his memoirs, 
which are now for the first time printed, by 
Barriere, who edited Madame Campan’s 
book, and has prefixed a long essay, of no 
great value, on the “‘ Mceurs and Usages 
of the 17th Century.’? De Brienne, the 
well known Archbishop of Toulouse, a 
descendant of the family, was in possession 
of these papers, and only prevented from 
publishing them by the outbreak of the 
revolution giving him something else to 
think about. The originals are now in the 
hands of the Editor, and there exists, we 
believe, no reason for throwing a doubt upon 
their authenticity. 


The author was born in 1636, two years 
before Louis XIV., and when seven years 
old, was introduced as a playmate to the 
young king, of whose early propensities and 
extraordinary precocity, a variety of details 
are given. At fifteen, obtaining, by the 
favour of the Queen Regent, the reversion 
of his father’s office, he was admitted into 
the council, and, under Mazarin’s control, 
executed some of its functions. But the 
next year, during the confusions of the 
Fronde, he was sent upon his travels, and, 
what no Frenchman had ever done before, 
visited the remotest regions of the earth, and 
after an absence of three years, was cour- 
teously welcomed by the queen, and coms 
manded to give arelation of his adventures. 
The queen and her ladies, and all the fa- 
vourites of the court assembled, he com- 
menced his viva voce narrative in this style 
—‘ You shall see the Laplanders such as 
they are; I do not suppose they will please 
you, but I shall be but too happy, if he who 
is going to speak of them does not displease 
you. Imagine,'then, Madame, a nation of 
pygmies, covered with the skins of rein- 
deer, with nothing of the human about 
them, but their voice. The ladies are all 
smaller than Mademoiselle’s dwarf, and 
more ugly—their complexion smokey—eyes 
very red—teeth the colour of ebony—mouth 
very large—lips very pale, and nose as flat 
as a negro’s. Their hands are short and 

N 


90 


black, and more like a monkey’s paws than 
a woman’s hands, though they never take 
off their gloves, not even to eat or to sleep. 
These gloves, to be sure, are not of the per- 
fumed kind, nor like Martial’s; but muffles 
of deer skin, the fur outside, with nothing 
but a thumb and a sort of bag for the fin- 
gers. Their gowns are of the same mate- 
rial, and their head-dress like the hoods of 
the Canons of Notre Dame. They are 
only two feet and a half high, with high 
shoulders, chicken breasts, large splay feet, 
and always booted. They are all nymphs 
and naiads, nevertheless, if hunting and 
fishing, their sole occupations, entitle them 
to that appellation,” &c. 

Till Mazarin’s death, he seems to have 
acted as a sort of private secretary, and 
when Louis took the government into his 
own hands, he enjoyed under that monarch 
many of the privileges of a favourite; but 
at the end of two years, for some reason or 
other—he refuses himself to give any hint 
of it—he was suddenly disgraced, and threw 
himself, apparently for refuge, into some 
religious institution. After a time, he 
escaped into Germany, but returning again 
to France, he was finally shut up, and con- 
fined, apparently as a madman, for twenty 
years, at St. Lazare, and other abbayes, 
where, under similar pretences, by the order 
or agency of government, many others ap- 
pear to have been immured. To beguile 
the hours of solitude, these memoirs, it 
seems, were written. They betray no par- 
ticular discontent—and consist chiefly of 
gossip relative to the members of the court. 
Richelieu and Mazarin are the chief figu- 
ranti of the scene. Of Richelieu he him- 
self, of course, could know nothing—he 
was a child when the cardinal died, but his 
father held office under him during the 
whole of his administration, and Richelieu 
must naturally have been the frequent topic 
of family conversation. 

The old story is repeatedly alluded to, of 
Richelieu’s passion for the queen; and an 
anecdote is very circumstantially told of his 
dancing before her. She was, it seems, 
full of frolic, and once she and her confi- 
dante, Mad. de Chevreuse, chatting about 
the cardinal’s folly, Cheyreuse suddenly 
said—I know I can make him do any thing 
to please you—will you see him dance ? 
For the fun’s sake, the queen consented— 
the communication was forthwith made— 
the cardinal fell into the trap—and pre- 
sented himself to the queen in full costume, 
with silver bells at his garters, and casta- 
nets in his hands, to dance a sarabande. 
‘The musicians and the ladies were placed 
behind a screen, and laughed aloud at the 
ridiculous attitudes of the cardinal, “and no 
wonder,”’ says De Brienne, “ since, though 
fifty years have passed, I cannot help laugh- 
ing myself.”” © The sarabande over, the car- 
dinal seized the favourable opportunity, and 
made his declarations in form; but the 
queen, treating the whole as a matter of 


Monthly Review of Literature, 


[Jan. 


pleasantry, and turning all into ridicule, 
changed love to hatred—“ and in the end 
paid,” says De Brienne, “ dearly for the 
pleasure of seeing his eminence dance a 
sarabande.”’ 

But the chief interest of the volumes falls 
upon Mazarin, of whom De Brienne, from 
his official connexions, had a very near 
view. He represents him to have been a 
good looking man, something above the 
middle height ; of a fresh complexion, with 
eyes full of vivacity, and ‘a prominent nose, 
but suiting well with the contour of his 
face; a fine forehead, chesnut hair, and 
curly, with a beard of a darker colour, and 
always carefully curled. He took great care 
of his hands, which were very good, and was 
fond of perfumes. Unless you were early 
with him, you could not perceive gu’il sente 
maawvais. He was keen, observant, and 
prompt. He was never seen with his bre- 
viary—and probably had a dispensation on 
the score of business—but attended mass 
every day, and communicated on the great 
festivals—c’est toujours quelque chose. For 
the rest, adds De Brienne, he was not very 
scrupulous, and kept in his own hands some 
thirty or forty benefices, or more. He was 
fond of spectacles, parties, fetes, &c., and 
passionately devoted to gaming, to which 
he gave up full as much time as to business. 
He was impatient under losses, and eager 
for gain, and lost no opportunity of what 
he called taking his adyantages, which 
seems to have meant cheating. 

The interval between Richelieu’s and the 
king’s death was but four months, in which 
period Mazarin concurred in the appoint- 
ment of a sovereign council, consisting of 
the Prince de Condé, himself, and two 
others, to control the Queen Regent, and 
her Lieutenant d’Orleans. This, however, 
by the first act of the Parliament was broken 
up immediately on the king’s death, and 
the queen’s absolute regency confirmed. 
All seemed over with Mazarin—he had al- 
ready packed up for Italy, when, suddenly, 
and most unexpectedly, he found himself in 
high favour, and higher authority than be- 
fore. Beanvois proved incompetent—Ma- 
zarin was sounded, and found more’ com- 
pliant than was expected—at the first hint 
he passionately declared himself the queen’s 
devoted slave, and offered to sign the decla- © 
ration, literally, with his blood ; and all was 
forthwith put into his hands, apparently at 
first only as a temporary arrangement, but 
which his adroitness made a permanent one. 

De Brienne discredits the stories that 
were afloat of their subsequent personal inti- 
macy ; but he judges of what he saw during 
the last five or six years of Mazarin’s life, 
for he could have no acquaintance with the 
state of matters between them earlier of his — 
own knowledge. In his opinion, if Mazarin | 
was a lover, his was a sort of cupboard love 
—for what he could get; “ this,” says 
De Brienne, “ may be called ambition, but 
not /ove.” No real attachment existed, he — 


1829.] 


thinks, between them, or Mazarin never 
would have said, as he often did, in his pre- 
sence—that she was a fool, and never could 
have steered the vessel of the state without 
him—that she was more attached to the 
interest of Austria than France—that the 
king her husband had good reason to hate 
and distrust her—that she was devout solely 
from’ necessity—had no taste of any kind 
but for good eating and drinking, and 
troubled herself, indeed, with nothing else, 
&c. On some occasion, the queen gave La 
Beauvois, her femme de chambre, an order 
to take some stones destined for the building 
of the Louvre. She must have lost her 
Senses, exclaimed the cardinal, ‘to make 
such presents. ‘ This,’’ says De Brienne, 
“ put mein a passion ; and I told the queen 
what he had said.”’ “If,” replied she, “I 
had given them to him, there would have 
been no noise about the matter. But, say 
what he will, La Beauvois shall have the 
stones. Very pretty for him to control my 
liberalities—he, to whom I have given so 
much, and who has taken so much more 
than I gave.” But all this indicates only 
alienation, not original dislike. The ground 
of hostility between them, apparently, was 
her haughty refusal to consent to the mar- 
riage of one of his seven nieces with the 
young king. 

In the conferences with Louis de Haro, 
to settle the terms of peace, the cardinal 
Seems to have exerted himself beyond his 
strength; and on his return to Paris, his 
health sensibly and rapidly declined. The 
queen visited him in his chamber, and in- 
quiring how he found himself, he suddenly 
threw his legs naked out of bed—“ See, 
Madame, these legs, which have lost their 
repose in giving it to France.” “ And, in- 
deed, in a miserable state they were,’’ adds 
De Brienne, “all withered and discoloured. 
The good queen,’’ says he, “shed tears at 
the sight—it was a Lazarus coming out of 
the tomb.”” One of his medical atten-, 
dants ventured to tell him of his peril- 
ous state. ‘“ How long may I live 2?” 
“ Two months.” Cela suffit! A few days 
after, De Brienne surprised him looking in- 
tently at some beautiful tapestry in his gal- 
lery, and exclaiming several times—“ I 
must leaye all this.”” Then turning to some 
other object— and that too; what pains 
have I taken to get these things—I shall 
see them no more where I am going.” De 
Brienne, in sympathy, sighing very deeply, 
recalled the attention of the cardinal ; and 
on some papers being presented, he said, 
“T am no longer able to attend to business 
—speak to the king—I have other things 


Domestic and Foreign. 


91 


in my head.’? Then recurring to his pre- 
vious thoughts—“ see, my friend, that beau- 
tiful Corregio_that Titian’s Venus, too— 
that incomparable Deluge by Caracci—for 
I know you love pictures, and understand 
them—I must leave them all—farewell, 
dear pictures, which I have loved so much 
—and which have cos¢ me so much.” ) 

Avarice, indeed, was his ruling passion, 
and the compelling motive ‘for gaming. 
When he could no longer hold the cards, 
he had the tables brought into his chamber, 
and betted upon the players. De Brienne 
tells a story, though not from actual know- 
ledge— that a few days before his death, 
Tabeuf (privy purse to the queen) brought 
him the balance of a sum, which he had 
lost at Hoc Mazarin, a game of Mazarin’s 
invention, to which he had given his own 
name, as he was very fond of doing to all 
sorts of things.’’ The sum amounted to 
15,000 francs. The cardinal took the 
money, and put it into his casket, which 
lay beside him—and while talking with 
Tabeuf, took up his rings and jewels one 
after another, repeating several times, and 
deliberating —“ I give to Madame Tabeuf.”’ 
“ What,”’ at last said Tabeuf, expecting of 
course some valuable brilliant. ‘‘ Bon 
jour,” added the cardinal, and closed the 
casket.”’ 

On the cardinal’s death, Louis, on the 
cardinal’s hint, it is said, took the reins 
into his own hands. De Brienne was pre- 
sent at the first council, and describes very 
minutely what took place, on announcing 
his intentions of becoming his own minister. 
Fouquet’s arrest and disgrace, which occur- 
red within a year or two, is told with much 
detail, and attributed to his attempt at 
rivalling the king in the affections of Ma- 
dame de Vallierie. Fouquet had made the 
lady an offer of 100,000 francs, which she 
communicated to the king. He had accu- 
mulated immense property, and, next to 
building, his great passion was purchasing 
the favours of the distinguées of the court. 
He once offered 250,000 francs to a cele- 
brated duchess—who bravely resisted. He 
seems, indeed, in spite of his liberality, to 
have been often unlucky — Mademoiselle 
Meneville took his 100,000 francs, and 
jilted him. The money appears, however, 
to have been finally returned. De Brienne 
himself was a little enamoured of De Val- 
lierie, and was actually closeted by the king 
on the subject; but he got out of the scrape 
on this occasion, by declaring his admira- 
tion was all platonic. The secret of Fou- 
quet’s disgrace, however, seems rather to 
have been Louvois’s enmity. 


»N2 


(92) 


[ JAN. 


PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 


INSTITUTE—ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 

Paris.—July 21, 1828.—MM. Dumeril 
et Cuvier delivered a report on the memoir 
of MM. Audouin and Milne Edwards, econ- 
cerning the respiration of crustaceous ani- 
mals. The details of this report, which ex- 
tended to a considerable length, tended to 
show, in the most satisfactory manner, that 
the organization of the crustacee offers the 
strictest analogy to that which has been ob- 
served among certain fish ; and the highest 
approbation of the Academy was bestowed 
upon these accurate and ingenious natu- 
talists. MM. Cordier and Beudant reported 
favourably on a memoir by M. Bonnard, 
relative to the locality of the Manganese of 
Romaneche, in the enyirons of Macon, 
which was ordered to be printed in the 
Recueil des Savans Etrangers. M. Arago 
communicated a letter of M. de la Rive, in 
which this philosopher details several new 
facts, which appear to him favourable to the 
exclusively chemical theory of the yoltaic 
pile. M. Dureau de la Malle read a paper 
on the fabrication of sugar from beet-root by 
M. Beaujeu, at Veaulories, near Rimalard 
(Orne). M. Milne Edwards communicated 
some observations he had made on the cir- 
culation in the Nymphon gracilis. M. 
Cauchy read a memoir on a new principle 
of rational mechanics. M]. Virey presented 
the discourse which he had pronounced at 
the funeral of M. Bosc, and declines pre- 
senting himself as candidate for the vacant 
place in the section of medicine. M. Ras- 
pail communicated an experiment, which 
appeared to him to explain the circulation 
in the chara, and made some remarks on 
the use of Amici’s microscope. MM. 
Arago and Mirabel express an opinion the 
direct contrary of that of M. Raspail.--28. 
A letter was read from Doctor Alibert, who, 
while he expresses the highest respect for 
the Academy, declines appearing as candi- 


date for the place vacang by the death of 
M. Chaussier. Upon a ballot for the elec- 
tion of a member in the section of medicine, 
the numbers appeared for M. Serres thirty- 
eight, M. Degenettes five, and the other 
yotes were divided among MM. Double and 
Segalas, the former was of course elected. 
M. Brongniart read an extract from a, letter 
of M. Julius Delanoue, which states his 
having found in the grotto of Miremont 
(Dordogne) fossil bones, for the most part 
like those which have been discovered in 
the caverns of Germany, France, and En- 
gland. M. Dutrochet read a note on the 
clearing away of the heath called da Gatine, 
in the department of Vienne.—August 4, 
M. Thenard gave an account of his exami- 
nation of a substance, which, it was pre- 
tended, had fallen from the sky in Persia, 
and which turned out to be a moss.—ll. 
M. Dominico Bocchini, advocate at Naples, 
transmitted to the Academy a philosophical 
and historical account of Sirrens, which 
was ordered to be presented to the Academy, 
of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres. M. de 
Mirbel was elected for presentation to the 
minister, to fill the place vacant by the death 
of M. Bosc. M. Moreau de Jonnés read a 
memoir, entitled researches on the botanical 
geography relative to maize, the synonym 
of this vegetable, its original country, the 
extent of its cultivation, and its antiquity 
among the aborigines of the new world. 
A note by M. Adolphe Maller on the perio- 
dical oscillations of the barometer was then 
read. M. Cagnart Latour read an abstract 
of a memoir on the action of hissing, when 
that sound issues from the human mouth. 
—18. M. Moreau de Jonnés gave an ac- 
count of different earthquakes, and of an 
epidemic disease resembling rheumatism, 
and the scarlatina, which afflicted the island 
of Martinique. 


VARIETIES, SCIENTIFIC AND MISCELLANEOUS. 


Geography.—That the grandest disco- 
veries of one age should be melted into the 
elementary knowledge of the succeeding 
one, is what, if the bounds of the human 
intellect are to advance, must necessarily 
ensue; and though the writings of ancient 
philosophers must for the most part justly 
be neglected, yet the names of their authors 
live to attract the admiration of a grateful 
posterity. Except by the curious, the works 
of the old sages are rarely seen ; life is too 
short for those really interested in the pro- 
gress of the mind, to waste their time in 
ascertaining how little their ancestors knew ; 
and while they feel grateful to those who 
first cleared the path they are labouring to 
pursue, they likewise experience that they 


have themselves too many obstacles to sur- 
mount, to allow of their looking except te 
the infinitely distant goal before them. The 
success of an author must depend much 
upon the nation for whom he ‘writes ; the 
sound, sober sense, and profound researches 
of a sombre German, would scarcely be no- 
ticed in France; the mercurial, superficial 
flippancy ofa Frenchman, would be scouted 
in Germany ; in either country, if any for- 
tuitous circumstance rendered current what 
was suited for the other, the force of habit 
or feeling would soon overcome the power 
of fashion, and the author and his works, 


however valuable, when their ephemeral po- 
pularity was gone, be consigned to the 


“tomb of the Capulets.”? ‘This has been 


Pe ee eee = a 


1829] 


particularly the case with D’Anvyille—pos- 
sessing much critical acumen, profound 
learning and great industry, united in a 
degree which we believe was never before 
nor since found among his countrymen ; his 
works are for the most part unknown at 
present, and ancient and modern compara- 
tive geography has scarcely advanced one 
step since his death. D’Anville’s maps 
have been reduced and_re-published usque 
ad nauseam. Even where that great man 
had fallen into error, his servile copyists 
have blindly followed; and this country, 
though professedly classical in its pursuits, 
could not boast any decent atlas of the an- 
cient world. This state of things which 
had been of such shameful continuance, at 
last attracted the attention of the first school 
in the kingdom, and Eton has been the 
cause of giving to the world, by far the best 
system of ancient geography which Europe 
can boast. We give Mr. Arrowsmith, 
whose name this Comparative Atlas bears, 
full credit for the undertaking, which we 
recommend to the public as equally suited 
for the instruction of youth, and for a com- 
panion to the scholar’s library. The an- 
cient and the modern map of each country 
being arranged opposite to each other, af- 
fords an unusual facility of reference, of 
which we availed ourselves with much plea- 
sure, when we found that the number of 
ancient towns and cities ascertained by 
D’Anville had been nearly doubled, and 
humerous corrections in the positions of 
others, which only more extensive research 
into ancient authors, combined with the re- 
sults obtained by recent travellers, could 
haye enabled him to effect. To render the 
work more generally useful, a map of the 
western hemisphere has been introduced ; 
we could have wished that one of North, and 
another of South America had also been 
given—the trifling addition to the cost of a 
very cheap work, would scarcely have been 
grudged by those who think it as requisite 
to have an universal knowledge of geogra- 
phy, as an acquaintance with those parts of 
the world which fell within the limited 
knowledge of the ancients. 

Substitute for Tea or Coffee.—At one 
of the last meetings of that very useful in- 
stitution, the Medico-Botanical Society of 
London, a communication was read from 
Sir H. Willock, K.L,S., Charge d’ Affaires 
at the court of Persia, on the cichorium in- 
tybus of Linnzus. The author states, that 
the root of this plant, which is well known 
in England under the name of indive, or 
Succory, is employed, when roasted and re- 
duced to powder, by the inhabitants of 
Moscow, and indeed the greater part of 
Russia, 2s a substitute for tea or coffee ; and 
that he himself had derived so much benefit 
from its. use as a beverage, that he had pro- 
vided a considerable quantity to take with 
him to Persia. We trust that this hint 
will not be thrown away. 


Velocity of Sound.—An account has been 


Varieties. 


93 


recently published of some experiments made 
between Untersberg and Moenchstein, near 
Saltzbourg, by Major Myrbach and M. 
Stampfer, on the velocity of sound; the 
distance between the stations was 30,601 
Parisian feet, and the difference of level 
4,198. The mean of 88 observations gave 
1025-9 Parisian feet for the velocity of 
sound per second, at the temperature of 
melting ice. 

Hindu Sculpture.—A writer in the Ma- 
dras Gazette states, that the proportions of 
the human form, as exhibited in all Indian 
sculptures, are derived from an ingenious 
tule laid down in the Si/pi Sastra, or Prin- 
ciples of the Fine Arts, which is an ancient 
Sanscrit work—by comparing these propor- 
tions with those of some celebrated ancient 
statues, as given in the Encyclopedia Bri- 
tannica, the rule will be found surprisingly 
parallel: Let the height of the figure be 
measured, including the crest, as AB; then 
bisect AB at C, BC at D, AD at E, BE 
at F, make EG==EF; bisect AG at H, 
GC at K, CK at L, GK at M, AK at N, 
meke BP—=AH. Now if we assume a line 
of 24 inches, and divide into 480 parts, 
being twentieths of an inch, the proportions 
are as follow :—15 parts AH, the crest; 
53 HN, the face (GM is also 53); 15 NM, 
the neck ; 53 MK, the breast; 53 KL, the 
waist (or 52 ? the umbilieus); 53 LC, the 
middle (pubis); 90 CF, the upper leg ; 
30 FD, the knee; 102 DP, the lower leg 
(or 104 ?); 16 PB, the foot; G and E are 
merely measuring points. The proportions 
correspond very nearly to those of the Apollo 
Belvedere, the Grecian Shepherdess, the 
Antinous, and some other standard works 
of Greek sculpture; but all the old sta- 
tues are net on the same proportions. A 
curious circumstance connected with these 
Indian measures is, that they are always 
made with a straw, a strip of cocca-nut or 
plantain leaf. The sculptor who explained 
the result, used a piece of paper, the folds 
in which may all be made in a few mo- 
ments. The cross measurements are de- 
rived from these thus: the Indian artist 
requires the face to be nearly round; the 
width of the breast to equal two faces, and 
also that of the loins, the waist one face, 
and so forth. 'The same proportions are 
used in statues of either sex ; but the arms 
are always (according to European ideas) 
made disproportionately long. The for- 
mula of this measurement has been altered 
in a few points, for the sake of perspicuity, 
from the native method, but the results are 
precisely those given in the Sanscrit rule for 
folding the leaf. 

Height of the Aurora Borealis.—The 
ability displayed by M. Dalton in the va- 
rious researches in which he has been en- 
gaged, and the cautious diffidence with 
which his various discoveries have been an- 
nounced to the world, imparts to his opi- 
nions a weight which those of more ha- 
zardous philosophers do not enjoy. From a 


94 


paper by this gentleman on the height of 
the aurora borealis above the surface of the 
earth, which appears in the last part of the 
Philosophical Transactions, we extract the 
following results, viz. that the luminous 
arches of the aurora which occasionally ap- 
pear stretching from east to west, are all of 
the same height, and that height about one 
hundred miles. What length the upright 
beams, or, to speak more properly, ‘those 
parallel to the dipping needle, may be, 
which are the ordinary forms of the aurora, 
we have not observations to determine. 
Whether those beams arise above the arches 
as from a base, or whether they descend be- 
low, as if appended to the arches, we cannot 
absolutely determine. If the parallel bands 
be usually about twenty degrees asunder, 
their distance from each other will be about 
thirty-six miles. It is remarkable that the 
arches and beams should rarely, if ever, be 
seen cognate or in juxta position, but al- 
ways in parts of the heayens at a consider- 
able distance from each other. 

Rowing by Steam.—The employment of 
steam vessels for the purpose of tracking on 
canals, has hitherto been found impossible, 
the wave created by the action of the paddles 
being such as would entirely destroy the 
banks, unless they were faced with brick- 
work or masonry. Some attempts to ob- 
viate this by diminishing the velocity of the 
wheels have recently been made on the 
Forth and Clyde canal with tolerable suc- 
cess ; and at the beginning of the month 
of December, some experiments were made 
in the Thames with paddle-wheels con- 
structed according to the plan of Lieutenant 
Skeene, in which the floats, having a motion 
on an axis, offer but little resistance, when 
being raised from the water, when, in addi- 
tion to the speed of the vessel being consi- 
derably increased by this contrivance, it was 
found that the wave thrown off laterally was 
coniparatively so trifling as to afford a rea- 
sonable prospect of steam boats being intro- 
duced on canals, without any mischief result- 
ing to the banks. 

New Fulminating Powder.—A German 
chemist has discovered, that by mixing two 
parts of nitrate of potash, two parts of neutral 
carbonate of potash, one part of sulphur, and 
six of sea salt, all finely pulverised, a fulmi- 
nating powder of the greatest strength is 
obtained ; and what is very remarkable, the 
force of the explosion is constantly directed 
below. 

Fioses.—M. Desportes, an’ experienced 
French botanist, has recently published an 
account, professedly of the roses indigenous 
in France; but as it appears from his preface 
that those of England as well as of France 
are the subject of his labours, we think 
that the following abstract of his researches 
will be interesting to our readers. He di- 
vides into eleven tribes the seventy-nine 
species of the rose, which are actually 
known, omitting eleven doubtful species, to- 
gether with their varicties. The number of 


Varielies. 


[ Jan. 


varieties which may be considered as ascer- 
tained amounts to 2,533, divided very un- 
equally among the species, as may be seen 
in the following table, in which the most 
interesting species are enumerated. 


Species. Varieties, 
Rosier mousseux ........ 18 
des chiens ........ 20 


des Alpes i!nv.t.cas ewan 


———— de Eranefort sence ey 
Bs eGo PEPYS Cen bE 
— rubigineux....... : 57 
= = MOIsette +. eae ee 89 
=) de! dantas ft #5. see 
——— icent feuilles” =e Sen a8 
— pimprenelle ...... 123 
LATA clot iol ol nimi ete ees 
—————. ‘de Bengale’ #27... ga08 


de Provins...-.... 1215 

Electricity.—An interesting discovery, 
made by M. Becquerel, was communicated 
to the Institute of France in November last. 
It is known that when the two poles of a 
voltaic pile are connected by a short wire, 
and a proper charge is passed through it, 
the middle of the wire becomes red hot. 
This phenomengn has generally been ex- 
plained by supposing the temperature of the 
wire to be the same throughout its whole 
extent, but that the extremities being first 
cooled in consequence of their contact with 
the pile, the middle alone should display a 
more elevated temperature. M. Becquerel, 
who has been engaged for a long time in 
investigating the nature of the electric prin- 
ciple, proposed to determine the temperature 
of the different points of a metallic wire, of 
such a length as that the effect of the cool- 
ing of the extremities need not be appre- 
hended, when this wire is traversed by an 
electric current. ‘The result of this experi- 
ment showed that the temperature continues 
to increase from each extremity to the 
middle, and that consequently the cause 
which creates an electric current, of which 
the intensity is constant in each point of the 
wire, acts as an accelerating force for deve- 
loping heat. 

Steam Packets to India.—A Mr. Tho- 
mas Waghorn, of the Pilot Service in the 
Ganges, has proposed to bring out the mails 
to Calcutta from England (making Fal. 
mouth his port of departure) in seventy 
days. The vessel for the intended experi- 
ment is to be of about 280 tons; the masts 
of the vessel are to be after the fashion of 
the row boats of the river, to be made short, 
and to strike at pleasure. She is to have 
very square yards, of the lightest possible 
dimensions, as lightly fitted as can be, and 
to spread by means of studding sail booms, 
&c. a press of sail, the canvass being of the 
lightest qualities which will stand a breeze ; 
masts and yards to be so rigged, that in four 
hours they may be got up or down. The 
vessel will be schooner rigged if on a wind, 
having lower top and top-gallant gaffs, and 
square rigged when before it. In order to 
have the whole space of the vessel under 


1829.] 


deck available for fuel, of which the vessel 
will be capable of carrying enough for full 
thirty-five days’ consumption, there will be 
one small cabin on deck, in which the com- 
mander, officers, and crew, are to mess and 
sleep, until the expenditure of coals may 
make room for them below. The crew will 
consist of one commander, one mate, two 
engineers, one boatswain, one carpenter, 
six seamen, and six stokers. Forty tons of 
the coals will be filled in tanks, and, as they 
are consumed, the tanks will be filled with 
water, which will by a peculiar contrivance 
run into the vessel, and be thrown off by 
the engine ; and by these means she can be 
lightened and deepened at pleasure. It is 
proposed to have three or four depéts for 
coals on the passage, so that whenever steam 
is used, the full power may be employed. 
In the S.W. monsoon, the packet will touch 
at Madras, as the wind and current favour 
her on the western side of the bay at that 
season. In the other monsoon, she will not 
touch on the coast. The packet will carry 
nothing but the mails and small parcels; 
letters four shillings each the single letter, 
parcels four shillings per ounce. 

Russian Coinage of Platina.—A report 
which has been for some time in circulation 
is now confirmed, that the Russian govern- 
ment has resolved to coin a large sum in 
Siberian platina. It appears that Count 
Denidoff, the proprietor of the locality where 
the platina was discovered, has disposed of 
the quantity of that metal which had been 
collected, to the government. He has sent 
four young Russians, destined for official si- 
tuations in Siberia, to be educated at the 
Mining Academy of Freyberg. 

Straw Paper.—A manufactory for the 
fabrication of paper from straw was estab- 
lished some years since in the neighbour- 
hood of London, but was shortly abandoned. 
Mr. Cobbett has recently been calling the 
attention of the public to the same subject, 
only proposing to substitute the stem of the 
Indian corn for that of wheat; while an 
American gentleman has taken out a trans- 
atlantic patent for the same object. The 
last process is this: take any quantity of 
Straw, hay, or other vegetable substances, 
and boil it in a solution of salts of ley pot 
or pearlash, or other alkali or lime, in the 
proportion of one hundred and fifteen pounds 
of the former to from fifteen to twenty 
; pounds of the latter ; boil them about thirty 
Minutes, or steep the materials in the solu- 
tion a few days, or until saturated; then 
draw off the water, and put them into a 
common engine, to be manufactured like 
Tags into paper. 

ganic Remains.— The jaw of an enor- 
mous unknown fossil animal was dug up a 
short time since at Eppenheim, canton of 
Avirrey, on the left bank of the Rhine. 
Many teeth, similar to those contained in 
this, had been previously found. These 
teeth square, and with two transvers pro- 
tuberances, very like those of the tapir, 


Varieties. 


95 


had given rise to the belief of the antedilu- 
vian existence of a gigantic species of these 
animals ; this, however, appears not to have 
been the case. The animal to which these 
valuable remains belonged, is a new genus, 
of which the dimensions were truly extraor- 
dinary. For supposing that the head bore 
as small a proportion to the body as in the 
case of the hippopotamus, the quadruped 
of which the proportion between the length 
of the head and that of the body is the least, 
the total length of this animal must have 
been nineteen feet. The most bulky qua- 
druped hitherto known is the megalonix, a 
gigantic sloth, of which the length was only 
twelve feet. 

Artificial Diamonds.—An American pro- 
fessor, bearing the unlucky name of Silli- 
man, announced some two or three years 
since, that he had succeeded in the chemical 
production of diamonds; a repetition of his 
experiments in Europe proved their fallacy, 
and in that quarter at least the subject has 
not been further heard of; while in France 
a distinguished chemist, M. Cagnart Dela- 
tour, who, as appears from a sealed packet 
left with the Institute of that nation in 1624, 
and which has recently been opened, has 
been engaged for several years in the at- 
tempt, has at length succeeded in erystal- 
lizing carbon, and has submitted to the 
inspection of the Academy some tubes filled 
with diamond dust (crystallized carbon), 
and one tube containing a perfectly dia- 
phonous crystal, of which the pyramidal 
form is evident, and the weight four centi- 
grammes. These, however, are only to be 
regarded as the result of his first attempts, 
and he hopes in a short time to be able to 
submit to the Academy some specimens of 
from three to four lines in diameter. This 
eminent experimentalist has further suc- 
ceeded in crystallizing silex by one of his 
processes. At the time that the communi- 
cations on this head were made to the Aca- 
demy, M. Arago stated, that an acquain- 
tance of his had endeavoured to obtain the 
same result, by decomposing carbonat of 
sulphur with the voltaic pile. Hitherto, the 
want of conductibility in the carbonat of 
sulphur had presented an insurmountable 
obstacle to success, but still hopes were en- 
tertained of ultimately obtaining a different 
result. It is but right to state, that the 
process employed by M. Cagnart Delatour, 
is totally different from one which has re- 
cently been tried and published by M. 
Gannal. 

Winds in Northern Europe.—¥rom the 
numerous observations and researches of 
Professor Schonen on the direction of the 
winds in Northern Europe, it appears that 
westerly are more frequent than easterly 
winds ; this rule is without exception. But 
the westerly winds diminish more and more 
in proportion as we approach the centre of 
the continent; they are more frequent in 
England, in Holland, and in France, than 
in Denmark and the greatest part of Ger- 


96° 


many ; they are more often observed in these 
countries than in Sweden and Russia. At 
London the easterly winds (N.E., E., S.E.) 
are to the western (N.W., W., S.W.), 
-a81:1°7; at Amsterdam, as1:1:6; at 
Soendmoer, as 1 : 1:6; at Copenhagen, 
as 1: 1°53; at Stockholm, asl: 1:45; at 
St. Petersburg, as 1 : 1-3. The western 
winds approach nearer the direction of those 
of the south as we get nearer to the Atlantic 
ocean ; toward the interior of the continent 
they approach more to the W. or N.W. di- 
rection. The north winds appear to in- 
crease toward the east. Among the winds 
which come from the W., the S.W. pre- 
dominates in England, Holland, and 
France; that of the W. in Denmark, and 
the greatest part of Germany; at Moscow, 
the N.W.; at St. Petersburg and at Stock- 
holm, the north wind is much more frequent 
than in the most western parts of Europe. 
In the western and middle parts of the 
north of Europe, as England, France, Den- 
mark, Germany, and Norway, the westerly 
winds are much more frequent during sum- 
mer than during winter and spring. This 
appears not to be the case in Sweden and 
Russia. During the winter the western 
winds incline more to the south; they are 
more direct, or more northern, during the 
summer. Yet this rule does not appear to 
extend to Eastern Europe. 

Scientific Expedition to the Morea.— 
The French, who have at all times availed 
themselves of the protection of their armies 
to extend their scientific researches, have 


Varieties. 


(Jan. 


resolved that the opportunity afforded by 
the occupation of the Morea by their troops, 
shall not be neglected, and, on the 21st of 
last November, the minister of the interior 
requested the three academies to consult on 
the immediate appointment of an antiqua- 
rian, a naturalist, and an architect, and to 
draw up instructions for their proceedings, 
by which every thing that fell within their 
respective departments in Greece, might re- 
ceive the illustration to which the celebrity 
of that country entitled it. 

Fashionablz Novels.—The example set 
by Lord Byron, in Childe Harolde, was 
much too flattering to individual vanity, er 
afforded too much facility of execution to be 
neglected in these novel-manufacturing 
days; and the whole troop of successful 
authors have contrived to represent their 
personal histories in the form of works of 
fiction. Of this sort are the Adventures of a 
King’s Page, a book we are tempted to no- 
tice, for the sake of inquiring whether or 
not this system of making even the infor- 
mation obtained in official situations afford 
materials for a novel is such a breach of 
confidence as ought to be allowed. That 
such a knowledge of remarkable persons, 
and the events connected with them, as can 
only be obtained by their more favoured at- 
tendants, will always be, as in the present 
case, most interesting to the public, is as- 
suredly true; but we much doubt if it can 
be communicated to them without loosening 
the strongest bonds of society. 


a 


FINE ARTS’ EXHIBITIONS. 


Tue novelties of Art, during the past 
month, have been confined to that very 
limited but delightful portion of it, the 
Panoramas: for who shall deny that, now- 
a-days, these objects are not to be classed 
among the products of fine art ?—or who 
will attempt to promulgate a. set of princi- 
ples which shall exclude them ? 

There are few things more pleasant to be 
met with in London, on a raw, dark, 
drizzling day in December, than to pass 
from the miry, misty streets, and after wind- 
ing your way through long, narrow passages 
of almost utter darkness, and encountering 
two or three miserable specimens of humanity 
(called money-takersand check-takers) doing 
penance for their sins in the solitary confine- 
ment of little dim dens, ascending a flight 
of steps, and suddenly emerging upon a 
scene, glowing with sunshine, beaming with 
every kind of natural beauty that the vege- 
table kingdom can produce, bright with 
blue winding waters, picturesque with human 
dwellings scattered gracefully among all 
these, and alive with human forms and faces 
under every aspect and attitude to which 
the scenes about them can give rise. And 
such is one of the new Panoramas which we 
have now to notice—that of Sydney, New 


South Wales, as exhibited at the upper circle 
at Leicester Square. There are portions of 
this delicious scene, which are, in their way, 
the perfection of remantic beauty. Such is 
nearly the whole of the right-hand depart- 
ment as you enter, including the Governor’s 
house and grounds, the botanic garden, 
the innumerable coves and creeks, rich with 
stately vessels, and studded with little jewel- 
like islands, and the whole of the rising 
woodlands beyond, and the blue hills that 
bound the view. There is also an air of 
novelty given to the scene, especially in the 
foreground, by the character of the build- 
ings, the nature of the animal tribe that 
are common to the island, and the mixture 
of the ‘natives’? with the Enropean portion 
of the inhabitants. On the lawn of the 
Governor’s grounds, for instance, you see 
ostriches pacing along with stately steps 
instead of swans, and kangaroos sporting 
in the place of sheep or deer. At another 
point, you behold a splendid rainbow-tinted 
bird, pierced in mid-air, and falling to the 
earth, by a long spear, flung from the un-— 
erring hand of a native black. In one spot 
you see a group of European females and 
children, attired in all the fantastic elegance 
of a London or Paris costume, pacing 


1829.] 


flower-crowned lawns that would grace the 
front of an Italian villa; and, in another 
direction, you see a herd of half-naked 
negroes, practising their uncouth and _ bar- 
-barous dances and distortions. In fact, this 
scene is extremely well chosen, no less on 
account of the adventitious interest that is 
attached to it as the most flourishing and 
delightful of our youthful colonies, than by 
reason of theintrinsic beauties and attractions 
of the scenery itself, and the artificial con- 
trasts which the nature of its present circum- 
stances offer to the artist’s pencil. The only 
fault of the scene for a purpose of this kind, 
we take to be the altogether poor, and 
unpicturesque character of the. buildings— 
with one exception only—that of the Gover- 
nor’s stables. And the only error we would 
hint at in the execution of the painting is, 
the brilliant Arcadian-looking—or rather let 
us say, English-looking green of the ground, 
the foliage, &c. The climate of Sydney is 
too delightful to admit of this redeeming 
effect of an uncertain one like our own. The 
grass in New South Wales never looks as it 
does in this picture, at the period of the year 
when the trees look as they do: one or the 
other must be incorrectly given. In all 
other respects the painting is executed with 
great skill and taste, and with a real feeling 
for the beauties which are here depicted. 
The figures are also given with great spirit 
and effect. As an instance of this, we ma 
notice the group of the Governor and his 
friend on horseback, saluted as they pass by 
a group of the natives on foot. 

The other new Panorama which has been 
pened during the last month is at the lower 
circle, in the Strand ; and it represents Paris, 
as seen from the centre of the Place de Louis 
Quinze. The chief objects and points in- 
cluded by this view will at once occur to the 
reader; and when it is recollected that, 
among them, are the Palais Bourbon—the 
Pont de Louis Seize and the superb view 
beyond it—the Garde Meuble and the 
Admiralty—the Gardens of the Tuilleries— 
the Champs Elysées—and the whole line of 
the Seine in this direction—it will readily 
be supposed that a proper extent and gran- 


Fine Arts 


Exhibitions. 97 
deur of effect cannot possibly have been 
produced in a circle, the extremities of 
which you can nearly touch with your hand. 
This smallness of scale, is, in fact, the crying 
defect of the picture, and one which nothing 
else can compensate for ; because the dis- 
tinguishing character of the view chosen to 
be depicted, results from its vast extent. 
The feelings excited in the spectator when 
standing on the actual spot, spring from the 
consciousness of being placed in the midst 
of a vast city, yet with scope about him for 
the eye and the mind to expatiate freely in 
any direction, as if he were ona vast open 
plain. The view is a noble one, chiefly on 
this account: for the public edifices which 
it takes in are not of such surpassing beauty 
or grandeur, as to produce such an effect if 
they were huddled together into half the 
compass they now occupy. That this is 
true, may be seen by the picture before us. 
Every individual object in the actual view is 
of course introduced; and they are all 
depicted with infinite skill. But the effect 
of the whole is any thing but that produced 
by the real view. And it must not be said 
by the artist (or for him) that this is the 
necessary defect of his art—or of this parti- 
cular department of it: for the truth is, that 
in the space which some of our Panoramas 
have occupied, the fault here complained of 
need not have existed. If painted on a 
reasonable scale, and no better painted than 
it is here, an adequate notion of the scene 
inight have been conveyed to those who had 
not witnessed it, and an agreeable recollec- 
tion of it furnished to those who had. But 
we cannot say, that either of these is achieved 
in the present case. Nevertheless, the pic- 
ture is beautifully painted, and some of the 
single effects are admirable—that, for in- 
stance, produced by the Chambres des 
Deputés—or the long receding line of the 
Champs Elysées—or the charming Watteeoo- 
like scene between the trees of the same. 
The long group of revellers who are bearing 
the eleemosynary wine to be distributed (the 
day being the fete of St. Louis) is also exe- 
cuted with great spirit and effect. 


WORKS IN THE PRESS AND NEW PUBLICATIONS. 


WORKS IN PREPARATION. 

War Maxims, by Napoleon Buonaparte. 

The Library of Religious Knowledge, consisting 
of a Series of Original ‘Treatises, on the most im- 
portant subjects relating to the History, Pro- 
phecies, Doctrines, and Duties, of Revealed Re- 
ligion, By aClergyman of the Church of England. 
A Number will appear every fortnight. 

A Treatise on Didrostatice, By the Rev. H. 
Mosley, B.A, of St. John’s College, Cambridge. 

‘The Adventures of a King’s Page. By the 
Author of Almack’s Revisited. In3yols. _ 

Commentaries on the History, Constitution, and 


M.M. New Series. —Vou.VIU. No. 37. 


Chartered Franchises of the City of London. By 
George Newton, Esy., Advocate General of Ma- 
dias, late one of the Common Pieaders of the City 
of London, edited by. Edward Tyrrell, Esq., De- 
puty Remembrancer of the City of London. 

The Last Hours of Eminent Christians, compiled 
from the best Authorities, and Chronologically 
Arranged, By the Rey. Henry Clissold, A.M. 

Prophecies of Christ and Christian Times ; 
selected from the Old and New Testament, and 
arranged according to the Periods in whieh they 
were Pronounced. By a Layman. Edited by the 
Rey. H. Clissold, A.M. 

Longlollow, a ‘Cale of the West. In 3 vols, 


0 


98 List of New Works. 


Florence, or the Aspirant. In 3 vols. 

Cuvier’s Revolutions of the Surface of the 
Earth, translated into English. In 1 yol. crown 
8vo., with Engravings. 

Schill’s Travels among the Calmues. Trans- 
lated from the German. In 1 vol. post 8yo., with 
a Map. 

A Treatise on P inting and Dyeing Silk Shawls, 
Garments, Bandanas, &c., in Permanent and 
fancy Colours. By H. M’Kernan, experimental 
colour maker and dyer. 

Moral and Sacred Poetry, selected from the 
works of the most admired Authors, Ancient and 
Modern. In 12mo., with an Engraving by Charles 
Heath, from a Design by Corbould. 

Memoirs of the Extraordinary Military Career 
of John Shipp, Late a Lieutenant in his Majesty’s 
87th regiment. Written by Himself. 

Natural History of Enthusiasm. Consisting of 
a Series of Essays on religious subjects. 

The Arcana of Science and Art for 1829, will be 
published early in January; and will contain all 
the Popular Discoveries and Improvements of the 
past year, illustrated with upwards of Twenty 
Engravings. 

A Descriptive Account of the North Western 
Division of Somersetshire, including the Towns of 
Western-Super-Mare, Banwell, and Axbridge; 
and tne Antediluvian Bone Caverns inthe Mendip 
Hills, with Engravings by John Rutter. 

The Legendary Cabinet, a Selection of British 
National Ballads, Ancient and Modern, from the 
best Authors, with Notes and Illustrations. By 


tie Rey. L. D. Parry, M.A, of St. Peter's College, ~ 


Cambridge. 

A Letter to Sir Alexander Malet, Bart, in re- 
ference to his Pamphlet on the late Expulsions 
from Winchester School, with a word in passing 
to the Editor of the Literary Gazette. By an Old 
Etonian. 

Mr. Parkin bas in the press, The Abomination 
of Desolation, or A Voice to Jews, Philo-Judeans, 
and the people of God in Babylon, in which will 
be shewn that the destruction of Jerusalem is not 
predicted in Matt. 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21, and 
the principal parts of these chapters explained. 

A Guide to the Zoological Gardens and Mu- 
seum, with numerous Engravings, 

Mr. John Hinds, Author of the Veterinary Sur- 
geon, has anew work in the press, entitled “ The 
Groom’s Oracle and Pocket Stable Directory.” 

The first Number of The London Review, to be 
published quarterly, edited by the Rev. Blanco 
White, is now in the press, and may be expected 
to appear early in the ensuing month. 

The Annual Peerage for 1829, with new plates 
of the arms. 

A new Novel, entitled The Collogians. 

The Rey. G. Oliver has ready for publication his 
History of Institution, or an Account of all the 
Secret Celebrations of the Heathen World, form- 
ing a Continuation to his Signs and Symbols of 
Freemasonry explained, Also, a History of An- 
tiquities of the Conventual Church of Great 
Grimsby, in the County of Lincoln, 8yo. Also, the 
History and Antiquities of Beverley, in the County 
of York, 4to, 

Dr. Epps, Author of the Internal Evidences of 
Christianity, deduced from Phrenology, proposes 
to publish three Phrenological Essays :—On the 
Faculty of Veneration.—On Morality.—On the 
best Means of attaining Happiness, 


[Jan- 


William Howitt has nearly ready for the Press, 
the Book of the Seasons; a volume intended as 
a eompanion for the lover of the country. 

Mr. I. A, St. John, and Mr. Leitch Ritchie an- 
nounce a History of the Revolutions of South 
America, with a Sketch of the History of the 
Country from the earliest Times, &c. Also, a 
History of India, from the earliest times. 

Conversations on Zoology, including a descrip- 
tion of the Gardens and Collection of the Zoologi- 
cal Society. 

The Misfortunes of Elphin. Bythe Author of 
Headlong Hall. 


LIST OF NEW WORKS. 


BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY. 


Memoirs of Vidocq, Principal Agent of the 
French Police until 1827 ; and now Proprietor of 
the Paper-mannfactory at St. Maude. Written 
by Himself, translated from the French. 4 vols. 
12mo. Vol. I. published. 18mo. 3s. 6d,, 12mo, 6s. 
boards. 

The Life and Adventures of Alexander Selkirk, 
the Original Robinson Crusoe. By John Howell. 
12mo, 5s. boards, 

The Constitutional History of England, from 
the Accession of Henry VI}., to the Death of 
George II, By Henry Hallam. 3 vols. 8vo. £1. 61s. 

History of the Revolutions in Europe, from the 
Subversion of the Roman Empire in the West, 
till the Abdication of Buonaparte, from the 
French of C.W. Koch. By Andrew Crichton. 
3 vols. Vol. L 3s. 6d. boards, ‘ . 

LAW. 

Bayley on Fines and Recoveries. Svo. 14s. bds. 

Saunders on Pleading and Evidence, 2 vols. 
8vo. £2. boards. 

Thomas's Universal Jurisprudence. 8yo. 15s, 
boards. 

MEDICAL. 


A Treatise on the Diseases of the Bones, By 
Benjamin Bell. 8yo. 7s. boards, 

Craig’s Elements of Anatomy. 8yo. 16s, bds. 

Flood’s Anatomy and Physiology of the Nervous 
System, vol. 1. 12m0, 5s. boards, 

Essay on the Mechanism of Parturition, from 
the German, By Rigby. 12mo. 5s. Loards. 

A Practical Dissertation on the Waters of 
Leamington Spa, including the History of the 
Springs, anew Analysis of the Gaseous and solid 
Contents, &c. By C. Loudon, M.D. 8yo. 5s, bds. 

Lizars’ Anatomical Plates complete, coloured 
£32, 12s., plain £7. 7s. 

A New System of Geology, in which the Great 
Revolutions of the Earth and Animated Nature 
are reconciled at once to Modern Science and 
Sacred History. By Andrew Ure, M.D,, F.R.S. 


MISCELLANEOUS. 

The Planter’s Guide, or a Practical Essay on 
the best Method of giving immediate effect to 
Wood, by the Removal of large Trees and Under- 
wood. By Sir Henry Stewart, Bart. Second 
Edition. 8yo. 2ls. boards. : 

Dr. Channing’s Works, reprinted from the 
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viously printed in England. 8yo. boards. 

Optics, on the Principle of Images, without ma- 
terial Light, Rays, and Refraction, in Bight Dia- 
logues. 8yo. 4s, 


net ied 


oe ae oar 


1829.] 


No. I. of the Annals of Chemical Philosophy, 
published every two months. 2s. 6d. 

’ Oakdale Cottage, or the Christmas Holidays, a 
moral tale. 4s. 

Memoirs ofthe Rev. Wm. Good. Svo. 9s. bds. 

A Panorama of the Rhine, and of the adjacent 
Country from Cologne to Mayence. Drawn from 
nature by F. W. Delkeskamp, and engraved by 
Jobn Clark, Together with The Steam-Boat 
Companion, describing the principal Places be- 
tween Rotterdam and Mayence. Fitted up in a 
neat Case. 10s. 6d. 

The Young Gentleman’s Library of Useful and 
Entertaining Knowledge, with 35 Engravings. 
By W. Pinnock. 7s. 6d. 

Elements of Natural Philosophy. By John 
Leslie, esq-, Professor of Natural Philosophy in 
the University of Edinburgh. Second Edition, 
enlarged. S8yo. 16s. boards. 

Discourses on some important Points of Chris- 
fian Doctrine and Duty. By the Rev. Alex. 
Stewart, minister of Douglas. Svo. 10s.6d. bds. 

Comments on Corpulency, Lineaiments of Lean- 
ness, Means of Diet and Dietetics. By William 
Wadd, Esq., Surgeon to the King. 8yo, 8s, Gd. 
boards. 

The American Common-place Book, a Collec- 
tion of Eloquent and Interesting Extracts, from 
the Writings of American Authors. 12mo. bds. 

William Montgomery ; or, the Young Artist. 
By Mrs. Blackford. 12mo. 4s. boards. 

Narrative of a Tour from the Bank to Barnes, 
by way of Piccadilly, Knightsbridge, Brentford, 
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Le Petit Bijou, for 1829, entirely written in 
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Letters from an Eastern Colony, written in 
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Allen’s History of London. 4 vols. £2. 2s. 

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The Protestant Reformation Vindicated from 
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Tables of Custom Duties, for 1829, By John 
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NOVELS AND TALES. 

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Winter Evenings at College. 2 vols. 18mo. 83, 
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POLITICAL. 
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List of New Works. 


99 


livered in Parliament by Charles Lord Colchester, 
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Legislation gone Astray, or a Review of the 
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Letters to his Grace the Duke of Wellington, 
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POETRY. 

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Sorrows of Rosalie, and other Poems, 12mo. 
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Bible Poetry. 12mo. 4s. boards. 

Saul at Endor, a Dramatic Sketch. By the 
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Days Departed, or Banwell Hill: a Lay of the 
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German Poetieal Anthology ; or Select Pieces 
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RELIGION, MORALS, &c. 

Counsels of the Sanctuary, and for Civil Life ; 
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Mr. Gavin's Scot’s Worthies. Vol. 2 containing 
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Stories from Church History. 
bound. 

Sermons and Lectures, &c. By the Rev. E. 
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Objections to Israel’s Restoration to Palestine. 
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Wilson on the Priesthood of Christ. 
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Biblia Sacra Polyglotta; Bagster’s Quarto 
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Showers’ Reflections, and Hale’s Contempla- 
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Sir Matthew Hale on the Knowledge of Christ 
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02 


12mo. 6s. half- 


12me. 


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100 


nared and Contrasted, shewing the whole Doc- 
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Villaye Sermons, on Personal and Relative 
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Popular Premises Examined: a Philosophical 


List of Nen: Works. 


[ Jan, 


Inquiry into some Opinions of Christians and 
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PATENTS FOR MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL INVENTIONS, 


List of Patents, which, having been granted 
in January 1815, expire in the present 
month of January 1829. 


4.—Joseph Harris, London, for improve- 
ments in necessaries or clothing used for 
the military in general. 

6.—Christopher Dihl, London, for his 
peculiar means of making mastic cement or 
composition. 

— John Cutler, London, for improve- 
ments in fire-places, stoves, §c. 

16.—James Collier, London, “ a Creo- 
pyrite,” by means of which, power will be 
very economically obtained and applied to 
the raising of water and other useful pur- 
poses. 


16.—Jean Frederic, Marquisde Chabanus, 
London, for his method of extracting a 
greater than usual quantity of calorie from 
fuel, and applying it to warm several rooms 
with one jire. 

2).—Jean Rondoni, London, for his im- 
proved dioptric telescopes. 

— John Carpenter, Truro, for a knap- 
sack which prevents the wet coming be- 


tween it and the back, and pouch suspended _ 


from the shoulder-straps of the former so 
as to counteract its weight. 

28.—James Miller, Liverpool, for im- 
provemenis in the construction of stills, 
Surnaces, chimneys, and other apparatus 
connected with the art of distillation. 


BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PERSONS. 


MR. BONINGTON. 

Richard Parkes Bonington, a young and 
rising artist, remoyed in the very dawn of 
his fame, was born on the 25th of October, 
1801, at the village of Arnold, near Not- 
tingham. His father was a drawing mas- 
ter, and had some skill in portrait and land- 
scape painting. This may, in some mea- 
sure, account for the very early love and 
devotion which the child, Richard, evinced 
for the fine arts. It is said that, when only 
three years old, he was in the habit of 
sketching almost every object that struck 
his fancy; and that, occasionally, he even 
ventured upon designs in pen and ink. It 
is said, too—but we always receive such 
statements ewm grano salis—that some of 
these designs, yét remaining in the posses- 
sion of his parents, were illustrative of his- 
tory, and surprising for their accuracy. To 
marine subjects—a department of the art, 
in which his talents first became known 
to the public—he was particularly at- 
tached.  — 

Receiving every attention from his father, 
with the view of his adopting the art as a 
profession, Richard Bonington, at the age 
of seven or eight years, made some draw- 
ings from old buildings, at Nottingham, 
which surpassed all his former efforts. 
About the same time, his partiality for 
marine subjects, coast scenery, &c., became 
more decided. At the age of fifteen, his 
ather took him to Paris, where he obtained 


permission to draw in the Louvre. There, 
by his attention to the Italian and Flemish 
schools, he acquired great improvement, 
and attracted much favourable notice. Soon 
afterwards, he became a student at the In- 
stitute, and, also, under the immediate eye 
of M. Le Baron Gros. Rather as _ relaxa- 
tions, than as studies, he, about this time, 
produced several fine drawings of coast 
scenery, fish markets, &c., with groups of 
figures. For these he, at all times, found 
a ready sale. It was at the British gallery, 
in the spring exhibition of 1826, that he 
first became known in England, by. two 
subjects of this description: one of them, 
French coast scenery, the other, the French 
coast, with fishermen. These productions 
were amongst the chief ornaments of their 
class, in the gallery. They evinced a know- 
ledge in grouping, in colouring, in perspec- 
tive, and, especially, in the effects of sun- 
light, that would have reflected honour on 
a veteran of the art. - 

Mr. Bonington’s study from the human 
figure, and, also, from architectural sub- 
jects, was good; but, certainly, his great 
strength and excellence lay in the delinea- 
tion of marine scenery. When he first ex- 
hibited in Paris, his drawing was sold the 
moment the exhibition opened. The next 
time that he came forward, he received the 
gold medal, when Sir Thomas Lawrence 
was decorated with the order of the Legion 
of Honour. : 


> 2 
= 


—— 


4’ 


re 


1829.] 


Mr. Bonington visited Italy, where he 
studied closely and profitably, and brought 
home with him some beautiful results. One 
of these—the Ducal Palace, at Venice— 
was exhibited last spring in the gallery of 
the British Institution. Altogether, it 
possessed great merit: every object in the 
piece was remarkable for its distinctness ; but 
the almost total absence of air-tint, struck 
us as a defect. Perhaps, too, it was some- 
what deficient in imaginative power. Yet 
it was impossible to look upon the picture 
without being reminded of Canaletti. It 
is understood to have been Mr. Boning- 
ton’s intention to paint a series of pictures, 
Similar in style to the Ducal Palace. As 
far as we are aware, however, he completed 
only one—the Grand Canal, with the 
church La Virgine del Salute, Venice, 
which was exhibited last summer at the 
Royal Academy. In the same exhibition 
were two other pictures; one, Henry III. 
of France; the other, a coast scene. 
Though all different in character, they were 
all highly meritorious. 

Several of Mr. Bonington’s productions 
are in the possession of the Duke of Bed- 
ford, the Marquess of Lansdowne, the 
Countess De Grey, Mr. Carpenter, Mr. 
Vernon, &c. His latest picture, we believe, 
was painted in May last. It consists of two 
female figures, and one male, in a pictu- 
resque landscape. An engraving from it 
appears in “ The Anniversary,’’ one of the 
new annuals for the forthcoming year. 

The mind of this amiable man, and 
highly-gifted artist, is said to have been 
overpowered by the numerous commis- 
sions which poured in upon him, in conse- 
quence of his rising reputation. His nerves 
were shattered—rapid consumption ensued 
—and, in about four months, he was con- 
signed to an early grave. His latest exer- 
tion was to travel from Paris to London, 
for the purpose of consulting a Mr. St. 
John Long, an unprofessional man, who 
pretends to have discovered a new mode of 
treatment for the relief and cure of pulino- 
nic complaints. 

Mr. Bonington expired on Tuesday, the 
23d of September; and, on the Monday 
following, his remains were deposited in a 
vault, at St. James’s Chapel, Pentonville. 
Sir Thomas Lawrence, Mr. Howard, Mr. 
Robson, Mr. Pugin, and other artists, paid 
their last tribute of respect to his memory, 
by following him to the grave. The funeral 
was attended, also, by private friends of the 
deceased, to the number of about thirty. 


THE HON. SIR GEORGE GREY, BART. 

The family of Grey, or de Croy, has long 
been settled in the north of England, and 
manors have appertained to it, in the county 
of Northumberland, from the period of the 
Conquest to the present day. The head of 
this family was created Baron Grey, of 
Werke, by James II. Sir Charles Grey 
K. B., the father of Sir George, t whom 


Biographical Memoirs of Eminent Persons. 


101 


this notice is devoted, was, in 1801, created 
Baron Grey de Howick ; and, in 1806, he 
was further advanced to the dignities of 
Viscount Howick, and Earl Grey. George, 
the fourth son of his lordship, and brother 
to the present Earl Grey, was born on the 
10th of October, 1767. He was bred in 
the royal navy; was a lieutenant of the 
Resolution, in Rodney’s action, in the year 
1782; and, at the commencement of the 
war in France, in 1793, he served as a lieu- 
tenant on board the Quebec frigate. From 
the Quebec, he was promoted to the com- 
mand of the Vesuvius Bomb ; and, on the 
lst of November, in the same year (1793), 
he obtained post rank in the Boyne, bear- 
ing the flag of Admiral Sir John Jervis, 
with whom he served during the memorable 
West India campaign.. He commanded 
the Boyne, at the time when that ship was 
accidentally burnt at Spithead. 

At the siege of Guadaloupe, Captain 
Grey commanded a detachment of 500 
seamen and marines, landed to co-operate 
with the army. He subsequently com- 
manded the Glory, of 98 guns, forming part 
of the channel fleet. His next ship was the 
Victory, bearing the flag of Sir John Jervis, 
with whom he continued during the whole 
period that that officer held the command 
on the Mediterranean station. He conse- 
quently assisted at the defeat of the Spanish 
fleet, off Cape St. Vincent, on the 14th of 
February, 1797. ‘ 

In 1800, when Earl St. Vincent hoisted 
his flag in the Ville de Paris, as comman- 
der-in-chief of the Spanish fleet, Captain 
Grey assumed the command of that ship, 
which he held till the 12th of March, 1801. 
He was soon afterwards appointed to the 
Royal Charlotte yacht, in attendance on the 
royal family at Weymouth, in the room of 
Sir H. B. Neale. In that service he con- 
tinued till 1804, when he succeeded Sir 
Isaac Coffin, as commissioner of Sheerness 
dock-yard. From Sheerness, he was re- 
moved as commissioner to Portsmouth ; an 
appointment which he held until the time 
of his decease. 

In the month of June 1814, his present 
majesty, then on a visit to the fleet at Spit- 
head, in company with the allied sovereigns, 
presented Captain Grey with the patent of 
a Baronetcy; and, on the 20th of May, 
1820, he was graciously pleased to confer 
upon him the order of K.C.B. 

Sir George Grey married, in the year 
1795, Mary, sister of the late Samuel Whit- 
bread, Esq., M.P. for Bedford, by whom 
he had a numerous family. He died on the 
3d of October, at his residence in Ports- 
mouth dock-yard, after along and painful 
illness. In title and estates he is succeeded 
by his eldest son. 

Commissioner Charles Ross, C. B., suc- 
ceeds Sir C. Grey at Portsmouth dock-yard. 


THE EARL OF ERNE. 
John Creighton, Earl of Erne, Viscount 


102 


and Baron Erne, of Crum Castle, Governor 
of Fermanagh, and a Trustee of the Linen 
Manufacture of Dublin, was descended from 
a branch of the Viscounts Frendraught, in 
Scotland. One of his ancestors, Abraham 
Creighton, Colonel of a regiment of Foot, dis- 
tinguished himself at the battle of Aughrim, 
in 16923; another, David, distinguished 
himself in 1689, at the age of eighteen, by 
his gallant defence of the family seat of 
Crum Castle, against an army of 6,000 
chosen men of James IT. 

Abraham, the first lord, was created Baron 
Erne, of Crum Castle, in the county of 
Fermanagh, in the year 1768. He married 
Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of John 
Rogerson, Lord Chief Justice of the Court 
of King’s Bench, by Elizabeth, daughter of 
Stephen Ludlow, Esq., ancestor of the Earl 
of Ludlow. The second son, by this mar- 
riage (the first having died young) was 
John, the nobleman to whom this brief 
notice refers. 

His lordship succeeded his father in 1773. 
He was created Viscount Erne in 1781, 
and advanced to the dignity of Earl of Erne, 
in 1789. His lordship married, first, Cathe- 
rine, daughter of Robert Howard, Bishop 
of Elpin, and sister of Ralph, Viscount 
Wicklow. That lady having died in 1765, 
his lordship married, secondly, in 1776, the 
Lady Mary, eldest daughter of Frederick 
Hervey, fourth Earl of Bristol, and Bishop 
of Derry. 

The Earl of Eme was one of the repre- 
sentative Peers of Ireland. He was uni- 
formly a supporter of the Constitution, as 
established in 1688 ; and, in illustration of 
his principles, it is proper to remark, that 
the last political act of his life was to enrol 
himself as a member of the Brunswick 
Club. ¢ 

His lordship died, full of years and full 
of honours, on the 15th of September. He 
is succeeded in his titles and estates by his 
eldest son by his first marriage—Abraham, 
now second Earl of Erne. 


SIR ANDREW SNAPE HAMOND, BART. 
Sir Andrew Snape Hamond, Bart., was 
born at Blackheath, about the year 1738. 
His father was a merchant and considerable 
ship owner in London; his mother, Su- 
sanna, said to have been a woman of un- 
usual strength of mind, was the sole heiress 
of Robert Snape, Esq., of Lime-kilns, near 
Blackheath, brother of Dr. Andrew Snape, 
one of the Queen’s Chaplains, and Provost 
of Queen’s College, Cambridge. After re- 
ceiving the education of a gentleman—a 
character which, throughout life, he main- 
tained in all its lustre—he entered the naval 
service of his country. He was lieutenant 
on board his majesty’s ship Magnanime, in 
the action of Hawke and Conflans, on the 
20th of November, 1759; was promoted to 
the rank of post-captain on the 7th of De- 
cember, 1770; and, during the greater 
part of the American war, he commanded 


Biographical Memoirs of Eminent Persons. 


[Jan. 


the Roebuck frigate, of 44 guns, in which 
he was constantly employed in the most 
arduous service. For his able, brave, and 
spirited conduct, his Majesty, in 1778, con- 
ferred upon him the honour of knight- 
hood. 

In 1780, Sir Andrew brought home the 
despatches from Vice-Admiral Arbuthnot, 
announcing the capture of Charlestown, 
with the shipping and stores in that har- 
bour. ‘ The conduct of Sir Andrew Ha- 
mond, of the Roebuck,’’ remarked the 
admiral, in his official letter, ‘‘ deserves 
particular mention ; whether in the great 
line of service, or in the detail of duty, 
he has been ever ready, forward, and ani- 
mated.” 

Captain Hamond was soon afterwards 
appointed Lieutenant-Governor of the pro- 
vince of Nova Scotia, and a Commissioner 
of the Navy at Halifax ; situations which 
afforded him ample opportunity for the dis- 
play of judgment and integrity, benevo- 
lence and humanity. 

After the peace, in 1783, this distin- 
guished officer was raised to the dignity of 
a Baronet, designated of Holly-Grove, in 
the county of Berks, with a limitation in 
favour of his nephew, Sir Andrew Snape 
Douglas, Knt. 

From 1785 to 1788, Sir Andrew Hamond 
held the appointments of Commodore and 
Commander-in-Chief in the river Medway ; 
in 1793, he became Deputy-Comptroller of 
the Navy; and, in 1794, on the death of 
Sir Henry Martin, he succeeded to the re- 
sponsibilities of that office as principal, and 
presided over it with equal honour to him- 
self and benefit to his country, for twelve 
years; one of the most anxious and extra- 
ordinary periods in the political and naval 
history of Britain—a period which termi- 
nated with the death of Nelson, the victory 
of Trafalgar, the extinction of the naval 
force of continental Europe. 

Twice, during the time that he held the 
office of Comptroller of the Navy, Sir 
Andrew Hamond was returned to parlia- 
ment by the loyal interest, as one of the 
representatives of the Borough of Ipswich ; 
a town in which, to the latest moment of 
his existence, he was loved, honoured, and 
revered. 

On the death of Mr. Pitt, Sir Andrew 
Hamond resigned the Compitrollership of 
the Navy ; and, in 1809, he purchased an 
estate at Torrington, near Lynn, in the 
county of Norfolk. ‘There, not less vener- 
able for his virtue than his age, he con- 
tinued to reside until the time of his de- 
cease, which occurred on the 12th of Sep- 
tember. 

Sir Andrew Snape Hamond was a Fel- 
low of the Royal Society, an Elder Brother 
of the Trinity House, &c. 


Dr. PEARSON. 
George Pearson, M. D., F. R. S., &e. 
was a man of great eminence as a physician, 


1829.] 


and much celebrated, also, as a chemist. 
He was senior physician to St. George’s 
Hospital ; some years since, Lecturer on 
Chemistry, and the Practice of Physic, and 
physician to the Duke of York’s household, 
and the Vacine Institution. Dr. Pearson 
was a man of indefatigably studious habits ; 
and it was his custom to sit up later at night 
than any other person of his family. On 
the night of Saturday, the 24th of October, 
he is supposed to have been proceeding 
towards his bed, and to have fallen back- 
ward on reaching the top of ihe first flight 
of stairs. In the morning, he was found at 
the bottom of the stairs, alive, but with a 
large wound on his head, breathing heavily, 
and senseless. He was placed in bed, and, 
through professional aid, he, in the course 
of the day, recovered his consciousness, but 


Biographical Memoirs of Eminent Persons. 


103 


expired towards the evening. His death 
took place in his own house, in Hanoyer 
Square. He is understood to have been 
between seventy and eighty years of age. 

Besides many articles contributed to the 
Philosophical Transactions, Dr. Pearson 
was author of the following works, all of 
them more or less distinguished by origin- 
ality of thought :—Observations and Ex- 
periments on the Buxton Waters, 2 vols., 
1784;—A Translation of the Table of 
Chemical Nomenclature, 4to. 1794 ;—Ex- 
periments on the Potato Root, 1795 ;—An 
Enquiry concerning the History of Cow- 
Pox, 8yvo. 1798 ;—Lecture on the Innocula- 
tion of Cow-Pox, 1798 ;—Examination of 
the Report of the Committee of the House 
of Commons, on the Claims of Remunera- 
tion for the Vaccine Innoculation, &c. 


MONTHLY AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 


To wind up our agricultural and economical reports of this variable and checquered 
year, 1828, the autumn just concluded will dwell on the memory of our country friends 
as most memorable for its superiority over the preceding summer; and with few interrup- 
tions for its most propitious forwarding, not of this or that, or a part, but of every required 
or possible operation of husbandry. No living man has witnessed, no Chronicle has 
recorded, a more practicable and bountiful autumnal season. Nature, however, has 
decreed that the best of things must have some alloy. The balance is our object. 2 

The April-December now fast flitting away, has even exceeded the two preceding 
months in mildness. T'wo days and nights of frost, at least in the south, have proved the 
sum total of frost or cold, during the season. At the commencement, the heavy and 
repeated falls of rain forced up such a sudden growth of latter grass or fog, as was appre- 
hended would be little beneficial, if not prejudicial to the cattle grazing upon it, and during 
some weeks, little improvement appeared in their condition ; but subsequently, in conse 
quence of the brisk winds and general warmth of the atmosphere, evaporation took place 
so speedily and constantly, that the quality of the grass became gradually improved, and a 
simultaneous improvement followed in the condition of the grazing stock. The arable soils 
also were equally benefited, and generally have been in the finest state imaginable, whether 
for the seed process or for fallowing. In the mean time, we have to lament some serious 
calamities from storms of wind and from floods. Wheat sowing, which had been impeded 
by the state of the land, in certain districts, has since commenced, and has been finished 
in as husband-like a state as the disgraceful accumulation of weeds, of every known family 
and description, could possibly admit. This process, renewed in December, has touched 
nearly upon Christmas ; an uncommon practice, since it seems to have been heretofore the 
rule, to defer latter wheat sowing until the commencement of the New Year. The favour- 
able season and the shortness of the last crop, have certainly proved a stimulus to increase 
the breadth sown; and our letters reiterate the opinion given in our last report, that never 
before were so many acres sown with wheat in Britain. As to the deficiency of the last 
crop, it has been reported in Mark Lane, where information may be expected most uni- 
yersal and correct, to be on the average one third minus on the most productive soils ; on 
the waste, from one third to a half. From the genial warmth of December, the latter 
sown wheat was above ground sooner by two or three days than the early. A great draw- 
back upon the benefits of the season, is the general devastation of the slugs, unless we may 
calculate on the benefit of thick sowing. Did our slovenly farmers merit such a piece of 
good fortune, how it were to be wished that these slugs, alas, too well qualified by nature, 
both in smell and taste, would take or mistake the weeds for the corn. The trading of 
sheep has somewhat abated this evil, for which frost is the best specific. The winter tares 
have suffered full as much as the wheat, from vermin ; both crops, however, generally, are 
in a beautiful state of health and luxuriance, the wheat is now said not to be winter-proud 
to that degree which might have been expected from so prolific an autumn. The winter 
or Swiss beans, of which Messrs. Gibbs have a fine sample, has been cultivated to a con- 
siderable extent. 

Notwithstanding the obvious benefit to the public at large, from the late bill, by the 
greater facility and encouragement it afforded to importation, wheat must necessarily 
maintain a high price in the spring, vacillating, however, from the effects of speculatio.. 
The deficiency of the Jate harvest having been general in foreign countries, the supply, by 


104 Monthly Agricultural Report. [Jan. 


import, cannot be overwhelming, and the capitalists will doubtless be cautious in that 
respect ; but should they hold back too long, and the new crop prove abundant, a re-action 
will certainly ensue, not at all to their advantage. The old English wheats have, as we 
always supposed they would, held out in ample quantity ; and even now the stock is not 
entirely exhausted. The best of the barley does not seem to have a good character for 
malting. 

- The straw yard, at present, is a mere nominal convenience in the country, cattle and 
sheep remaining still abroad, with abundant herbage springing under their fect ; and 
should the winter, in defiance of many prognostics, prove mild, the accumulated resources 
of straw, hay, and roots, will be at a discount exactly comparable with the premiums of 
less fortunate seasons. But the wary and provident husbandman will not be beguiled and 
led astray by casual occurrences ; yet we have heard not a few farmers complain of the 
trouble of storing mangold, an improvement of expression lately taught us by the 
“ Farmer’s Journal,” the literal translation from the German, of mangold wurtzel, being 
beetroot. The charge for keep of sheep has been from 8d. down to 4d. a head; and 
where this, in some seasons so precious an article, has been superabundant, flocks have been 
kept gratis for the sake of their manure. Turnips run too much to foliage to increase in 
bulb. We have before remarked on the vast quantity of latter made and ill got hay, and 
would remind the unlucky possessors of such, of that excellent improver of it, SALT, with- 
out which, in sufficient quantity, it may be highly injurious to sheep ; with it, the fodder 
will be eaten greedily by all stock. Store cattle, sheep, and pigs, continue to bear high 
prices : so high indeed, from the quantity of food to be consumed, that the graziers express 
great apprehensions on the score of repayment, complaining of the present prices for fat 
stock, and bemoaning themselves as the “ victims” of the butchers, who are said to be 
accumulating immense profits. Turn the tables, and we should expect to hear precisely 
similar complaints from the butchers. Hodie mihi, eras tibi. Turn and turn, all fair, no 
restriction on either side. But for the numbers of cattle from Ireland, the supply could not 
have been obtained. The roi in sheep has made an alarming progress, chiefly in the west ; 
and none can be safely trusted on any but high and thoroughly dry grounds. The salted hay 
will be of great use to the stock, with pea or bean haulm ; in fact, any but the shortest and 
dryest grass is dangerous in the case. Cows, before sufficiently dear, have been enhanced 
in price, from the demand for them as consumers of that grass which would be poison to 
sheep. The scarcity of draught horses, notwithstanding the extensive imports through a 
number of years, seems not to have abated, and prices continue nearly as great as ever. 
Good coach and saddle horses are in similar request throughout the country, although in 
the metropolis, many of apparent qualification are daily offered at moderate prices. Many 
common sense sales of English carding-wool have at length been made, the stock of moths, 
by especial contract, being thrown .into the bargain. A qualified observer of the South 
Down sheep at the late Smithfield Cattle Show, could have no possible hesitation on the 
wool question. This exhibition in days of yore, so attractive of the great, of late has to 
boast of few titled visitors ; of the inferior, however, and middling ranks, the squeeze is 
delightful. 

In some parts of the country which we have lately visited, chiefly eastward, we heard 
no complaints from the farmers, of either want of labour, or of distress among the labourers. 
The report was of an opposite tendency. But our correspondence in the west, and indeed 
general report, tell a very different and very alarming story. Wages are from 8s. to 12s. 
per week, and it is acknowledged by employers that men with families cannot possibly be 
fed and clothed upon such pay, and that already they begin to make serious complaints, 
and to express great alarm at the probability of an advance in the price of necessaries. 
Moreover, a vast body of roundsmen still subsists in various parts of the country, at a 
weekly allowance of 4s. or 5s. The case of our agricultural labourers is a most fearful 
one ; and fully impressed with that sentiment, the present writer directed his reflections 
toa plan, which might possibly afford some general and fundamental relief in the case ; 
the very character, in all probability, which would have ensured its ill success, had a public 
communication been made. The general prosperity of the country in respect to national 
opulence, the arts and sciences, and all the conveniencies and elegancies of life, is unques- 
tionably beyond all precedent, in any age or nation. But there is a cankerworm in the 
state, which corrodes its bowels, and which remaining unscathed, will ultimately sap the 
foundation of its prosperity. There is an almost general dissolution of morals, among the 
inferior classes. It has gradually arisen from various causes. With respect to the 
labourers in husbandry, the chief or immediate cause is most prominent. Too many of 
them, must either poach, steal, or STARVE ; or at least, support life in so deplorable a way, 
and under such circumstances of dereliction and contempt, whilst in the daily view of so 
much ease and comfort and happiness above them, that they must have the souls of negroes 
or Indians, not to be agitated by the most determined and furious desperation. The con- 
duct of incendiaries and the maimers and houghers of cattlk—Englishmen too !—is an 
appalling illustration. Neither the gallows nor Botany Bay, yet both of acknowledged ne- 
cessity,.can ever prove specific in this dreadful moral epidemy. Is it too much to say that 
our system is any thing rather than curative in the case ?—or, that the general disposition 


| 


1829.] Monthly ‘Agricultural Report. 105 


of the public, is not at all favourable to measures of that extent and consequence, which 
could be alone, in any sufficient degree available? Some kind of settlement with dis- 
tracted Ireland, isno doubt at hand, which will have the effect of improving that country, 
and of enabling us to draw from thence still greater and increasing supplies of produce, 
to the constant convenience and emolument of both countries, and the perpetuation of 
their fraternal connection. 


Smithfield.— Beef, 3s. 8d. to 4s. 8d.—Mutton, 4s. to 5s. 2d.—Veal, 4s. Gd. to 5s. 8d. 
—Pork, ds. 6d. to 6s.—Rough fat, 2s. 8d. 


Corn Exchange.—Wheat, 52s. to 94s.—Barley, 30s. to 44s.—Oats, 21s. to 34s. 
—Bread, London 4 Ib. fine loaf, 1s.—Hay 50s. to 84s.—Clover ditto, 60s. to 105s.— 
Straw 28s. to 36s. 


Coals in the Pool, 30s. to 37s. per chaldron. 
Middlesex, December 22d. | 


MONTHLY COMMERCIAL REPORT. 


Sugars—The demand for Muscovadoes has considerably increased during the present 
week, occasioned no doubt by the general opinion, that no sugars would be offered for sale 
next week on account of the holidays ; this day the certainty of the Colonial market being 
closed all the next week, brought forward all the buyers, and the total sales are estimated 
at 2,200 hogsheads and tierces. The refined market is little varied : there are more buyers 
of refined goods, particularly from prices 32s. and 38s., and for crushing, bastards are also 
in some request for export; there has been some demand for bright yellow Mauritius 
sugars ; all other descriptions have been neglected. 


Coffee—The public sales lately brought forward are quite inconsiderable, and this week 
the only transactions are small parcels of Jamacia and Berbice ; for the home consumption 
the prices have been fully maintained : no sales of foreign coffee are reported. 

Rum—The transactions in rum have not been extensive this week : the sale of Lewards 
we alluded to last was 2 over at 2s. 5d., since which, a largegparcel of 6 over is reported 
at 2s. 6d. ; the other purchases are quite inconsiderable. 


Brandy—tIn brandy or Geneva there is little alteration. 


Hemp, Flax and Tallow—The tallow market was very firm all the week till yesterday, 
when the price rather gave way. In hempand flax there is little variation. 


Stock of Tallow 1827. 1828. 
In London - - - - 41,539 41,844 
Delivery weekly - - - 2,774 2,105 
Price Mondays - - - - 38s. 3d. 39s. 9d. 


Course of Foreign Exchange.—Amsterdam, 12. 2.—Rotterdam,12. 2. Antwerp, 
12. 2._Hamburgh 13. 134.—Paris, 25. 45.—Bordeaux, 25. 75.— Frankfort, 151.— 
Petersburgh, 10.—Vienna, 10. 3.—Madrid, 37—Cadiz, 37.—Bilboa, 37.—Barcelona, 
364.—Seville, 363.—Gibraltar, 46.—Venice, 47}.—Naples, 393.—Palermo, 1203.— 
Lisbon, 45}.—Oporto, 46}.—Rio Janeiro, 31.—Bahia, 35}.—Dublin 14.—Cork, 1}. 


- Bullion per Oz.—Portugal Gold in Coin, £0. 0s. 0d.—Foreign Gold in Bars, 


£3. 17s. 94.—New. Doubloons, £0. 0s. — New Dollars, 4s. 93d.— Silver in Bars, 
(standard), £0. 4s. 113d. 
Premiums on Shares and Canals, and Joint Stock Companies, at the Office of 
Wo re, Brothers, 23, Change Alley, Cornhill.—Birmingham Cana, 295/.—Coven- 
try, 1,080/.—Ellesmere and Chester, 1103/.—Grand_ Junction, 302/.—Kennet and Avon, 
274/.—Leeds and Liverpool, 460/.—Oxford, 700/.—Regent’s, 25/.—Trent and Mersey, 
(t sh.), 810/.—Warwick and Birmingham, 2557.—London Docks (Stock), 88/.—West 
Stock), 220/.—East London Warer Works, 118/.—Grand Junction, —1— 
West Middlesex, 69/.—Alliance British and Foreign InsurRANCE, 9}/.—Globe, 156/.— 
Guardian, 22/.—Hope Life, 5}/.—Imperial Fire, 106/.—Gas-Liaut Westminster Char- 
tered Company, 524/.—City, 185/.—British, 12 dis: —Leeds, 1951, 


| M.M. New Series.Vor.. VII. No. 37. P 


[ 106 J 


[Jan. 


ALPHABETICAL LIST OF BANKRUPTCIES, : 


Announced from the 22d of November to the 23d of December 1828 ; extracted from the 


London Gazette. 


BANKRUPTCIES SUPERSEDED. 


W. Grey, Newcastle-upon- Tyne, ship-broker 

J. Swan, Alsop’s-buildings, coal-merchant 

G. Buck, Regent-street, tailor 

J. Baird, Manchester, brass-founder 

R. Rodel, Crown-court, Threadneedle-street, 
chant 

John Slater, Francis Slater, and G. J. Skilbeck, King-street, 
Cheapside, fustian-finishers 

J. Bissell, Tipton, Staffordshire, baker 

T. Clark, Union Tavern, Union-street, Blackfriars, vic- 
tualler 


BANKRUPTCIES. [This Month, 127.] 


Solicitors’ Names are in Parenthesis. 


Andrews, D, Cranbourne-street, straw hat mauufacturer. 
(Webber, Hatton-garden 

Audsley, W. Hell-Hole-Gill, worsted-spinner, 
New Inn 3 Riley, Bradford 

Arthur, J. H. Garlick-hill, stationer. 
Little St. Thomas Apostle 

Alexander H. Salford, common brewer. 
Temple; Heslop, Manchester 

Appleton, T. White Horse-court, High-street, S: uthwark, 
hop-merchant. (Piercey and Oakley, Southwark, 

Bedford, T. Goswell-street, carpenter. (Hutchinson and 
Co,, Crown-court, Threadneedle-street 

Blackburn, J. Coleman-street, auctioneer. (Rixon, Jewry- 
sireet 

Brown, J. Greenwich, currier. 
Mayor’s Court-office 

Barber, W. Gray’s-Inn-lane, grocer, (Fairthorne and 
Lofty, King-street, Cheapside and St. Albans 

Beaumont, J. and A. Kirkheaton, manufacturers of fancy 
goods, (Clarke and Co., Lincoln’s-Inn-fields, and White- 
head and Robinson, Huddersfield 

Brown, J. B. Bulley, Gloucester, trader, (King, Serjeant’s- 
Inn ; Abel and Co., Gloucester 

Brunker, J. Westbury, clothier. (Parker, Furnival’s-Inn 

Brown, J. Manchester, cotton-dealer, (Hurd and Cory 
Temple ; Seddon, Manchester 

Banks, W. Wood-street, lace manufacturer. (Hurd and 
Co., Temple ; Fearnhead and Co., Nottingham 

Bulcock, J. Strand. printseller. (Spurr, Warnford-court 

Broughton, F, Great Russell-street, chymist. (Hensen, 
Bouverie-street 

Becket, J. and I.jun. Bilston, grocers. 
Lincoln’s-Inn-fields 3 Mason, Bilston 

Bolton, G. and J. and J. Wigan, brass-founders. 
and Co., Temple; Pendlebury, Bolton 

Blackburn, R. Cleckheator, printer. 
brook 5 Rowland, Dewsbury 

Clarkson, A. Arbor-terrace, Commercial-road, ship-owner. 
(Nind and Co , Throgmorton-street 

Christian, T. Crown-street, Finsbury-square, woollen-dra- 
per. (Gale, Basinghall-street 

Cohen, A. Lloyd’s Coffee-house, merchant. 
Co., Haydon-square 

Cooper, J. Nottingham, lace-manufacturer. (Vallop, Suf- 
folk-street 5 Parsons, Nottingham 

Clark, A. St. Mary-at-Hill, coal-factor. (Lowrey and Co., 
Nicholas-lane 

Cafe, D. S. Beaumont-street, grocer. (Johnson, Quality- 
court 

Crompton, J. Rushcroft, fustain-manufacturer, (Hurd and 
Co., Temple 5 Booth, Manchester 

Clark, J. Kensington Gravel Pitts, 
Usion-court, Old Broad-street 

Corser, G., G. Naylor, and J. Hassall, Whitchurch, 
bankers. (Dawson and Co., New Boswell-court , Brookes 
and Lee, Whitchurch 

Cockin, G. Sheepridge, fancy-manufacturer. 
and Co. Lincoln’s-Inn-fields 5 
Huddersfield 

Dndson, H. Red-lion-street, Southwark, hop-factor. (As- 
ton, Old Broad-street ‘ 

wari J. Cheapside, toyman. (Shepherd and Co., Cloak- 
ane 

Dodgson, W. F. Leeds, victualler. 
New-Inn 3 Dunning, Leeds 

Davis, D. Friday-street, cotton-factor. 
Old Jewry 

D’Oyley, J. Oxford-street, draper. 
street 

Dodgson, R. Preston, inn-keeper. 
cery-lane 5 Bray, Preston 


wine-mer- 


(Taylor, 
(Stevens and Co., 


(Hurd and Co,, 


(Carter and Co., Lord 


(Clarke and Co., 
(Hurd 
(Highmoor, Wal- 


(Evitt and 


/ 
victualler. (Branch, 


‘ (Clarke 
Whitehead and Co., 


(Smithson and Co., 
Clarke and Co. 
{Ashurst, Newga e- 


(Ellis and Co., Chan- 


Dickenson, J. Almondbury, fancy cloth-manufacturer» 
(Fenton, Austin-friars ; Fenton, Huddersfield 

Embleton, R. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, tanner, (Dunn, 
Gray’s-Inn 5 Kell, Gatechead. 

Elliott, Mary, Bawtry, boosselier. 

Ellis, T. Sidney-street, Commercial-road, 
(Dover, Great Winchester-street 

Fry, W.and J. and J. Chapman, St. MiJdred’s-court, 
bankers. (Pearce and Co., St, Swithin’s-lane 

Farrar, J. Liverpool, merchant. (Wilson, Southampton- 
street; Curr and Co., Blackburn ~ 

Fisher, J. H. Exeter, carver and gilder. 
Co, New Broad-street 5; Brutton, Exeter 

Fulwood, W. Birmingham, viccualler. (Norton and Co. 
Gray’s-Inn 3 Hawkins and Richards, Birmingh 

Fozard, J. Conduit street, mercer. {Goren and Co, 
Orchard-street 

Golding, w. Lyncombe, Somerset, dealer. 
Walbrook ; Hodgson, Bath 

Goudhugh, R. Glasshouse-street, fishmonger. 
den-square 

Gee, J. A. Salisbury-street, money-scrivener. 
Gloucester-street, Queen-square 

Graham W. Leeds, draper. (Perkins and Co.) Gray’s- 
Inn; Lewtass, Manchester 

Gibbs, E. Theobald’s-road, corn-chandler. 
James-street 

Hirst, H sen. Northallerton, (Hall and Bishop, Serjeant’s- 
Inn; Panson, Bedale 

Horneyman, H. A. Threadneedle-street, 
(Birket and Co., Cloak-lane 

Hudson, R. Norwich, stationer, 
Staff, Norwich 

Hargreaves, G. Liverpool, tailor. 
Hinde, Liverpool 


(Bell, Gray’s-Inn 
victualler. 


(Brutton and 


(Highmoor, 
(Pain, Gol- 
(Walker, 


(Hall, Great 
tobacconist. 


(Austin, Gray’s-Inn 5 


(Chester, Staple-Inn 5 


Hirschfeld, F. Z, Billiter-square, merchant, (Jones and 
Howard, Mincing-lane 
Head, J. Egremont, paper-manufacturer. (Dobinson, 


Carlisle ; Helder, Clement’s-Inn 

Hebron, R. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, merchant, 
and Co., Chancery-lane ; Forsters, Newcastle 

Hiatt, D, Camberwell, scrivener. (Fox, Finsbury-square 

Harice, J. Buckingham-streety wine-broker. (Smith and 
Co., Middlesex-street 

Howell, H. Bengal, merchant. 
Thames-street 

Hatchett, G. Hampstead, coal-merchant, 
Clifford’s-Inn 

Harper, J. Reading, draper. (Jones, Size-lane 

Jones, E. O. Gloucester, timber-merchant, 
Basinghall-street 5 Bevan and Co., Bristol 

Jones, J. jun. Aston-juxta, Birmingham, gun-maker. 
(Austen and Hobson, Gray’s-Inn; Palmer, Birming- 
ham 

Jacob, J. Trevethin, victualler. 
coln’s-Inn 3 Croft, Pontypool 

James, D. Minories, woollen-draper. 
court 

Kennington, J. Sheffield, mason. 
Tattershall and Co., Sheffield 

Kirby, W. Francis-street, music-dealer, 
bury Circus 

Knight, C. Worthing, victualler. (Hicks and Dean, Gray’s- 
Inn 5 Whitter and Co., Worthirg 

Kaye, W. Almondbury, fancy-cloth-manufacturer. 
ton, Austin-friars ; Fenton, Huddersfield. 

Kirkman, H. R. St. Paul’s Church-yard, silk warehouse- 
man. (Turner, Basing-lane 

Lavers, J. Buckfastleigh, worsted spinner. (Blake, Essex 
street 3 Taunton, Totness 

Lowick, W, Moulton, butcher. 
Cooke, Northampton 5 

Luntley, P. J. and T. Milnes, Broad-street-hill, druggists. 
(Russell and Son, Southwark 

Linsdell, W. Tower Royal, umbrella-manufacturer. (Web- 
ster, Queen-street, Cheapside 

Mason, G. Cheedle, horse-dealer, (Bodenham, Furniyal’s- 
Inn 5 Wooiward, Pershore 

Morris, T. Manchester, cotton-manufacturer. (Milne and 
Parry, Temple ; Whitehead and Barlow, Oldham. 

Manning, T. B. Lamb’s Conduit-streety money-scrivenery 
(Coombes, Token-house-yard 

Munton, T. Staines, linen-draper. (Hardwicke and Guest, 
Lawrence-lane 

Mar‘den, J. Halifax, coach proprietor, (Edwards, Basing- 
hall-street 5 Stocks, Halifax 

Mason, G. Pershore, horse-dealer. (Preston, Token-house- 
yard 5 Rogers, Pershore 


(Battye 


(Child and Mann, Upper 
(Willoughby, 


(Brittan, 


(Bicknell and Co.5 Lin- 
(Thomas, Fen- 
(Tattershall, Temple 5 


(Cocks, Fins- 


(Fen- 


(Vincent, Temple 5 


1829.] 


Mellor, E. Linthwaite, clothfer. (Battye and Co., Chan- 
cery-lane ; Stephenson, Holmfirth 

Mealing, W. High Wycombe, upholsterer, 
Thaives-Inn 

Moore, J. Camden Town, builder. 
Walbrook 


(Goddard, 


(Ewington and Co., 


Nightingale, H. Queen’s-row, Pimlico, bookseller. (Ash- 
urst, Newgate-street . 
Norton, G. Radcliffe-Highway, cheesemonger. (Baker, 


Nicholas-lane 

Norton, W. and F. Jackson, Cateaton-street, warehouse- 
man. (Rodgers, Devonshire-square 3 Rodgers, Sheffield 

Norton, W. Clayton, fancy-woollen-manufacturer. (Lever, 
Gray’s-Inn; Laycock, Huddersfield 

Newsome, S, Batley, woollen-manufacturer. 
€aton-street 5 Barker, Wakefield 

Nichols, W. H. Birmingham, victualler. (Norton and 
€o., Gray’s-Inn 5 Hawkins and Co., Birmingham 

Oakes, J, and R. Thomas, Carnarvon, grocers. (Chester, 
Staples-Inn 

Oldershaw, H. Union-place, wine-merchant. 
St. George’s Hospital 

Peake, H. S, Rosemary-lane, victualier, 
street 

Paten, R. Paddington, slate-merchant. 
street, Marylebone 

Pillin, J. Talbot-Inn-yard, High-street, Southwark, hop- 
mer.hint, (Piercy and Oakley, Three Crown-square, 
Southwark 

Pagett, F. West Smithfield, publican. 
street, Holborn 

Pringle, E. North Shields) wine-merchant. (Francis, 
Gracechurch-street, Fenwick and Co,, North Shields 

Pocock, J. W. Huntingdon, builder, (Clennel, Staples- 
Inn; Wells and Barrat, Huntingdon 

Rowe, R. Whittlebury-street, builder. 
then-street 

Robinson, C. Stone, wine-merchant. (Barbor, Fetter-lane 

Rider, T. Ashton-1nder-Lyne, cotton-spinner. (Lattye 
and Co,, Chancery-lane ; Gibbon, Ashton-under-Lyne 

Robinson, J. and J. Kitching, Sheffield, Britannia metal- 
manufacturers. (Battye and Co.y Chancery-lane 5 
Dixon, Sheffie'd 

Smith, J. Brighton, maker of swects. 
James-street 5 Attree, Srighton 

Sandeman, A. M. Fleet-street, wine-merchant. 
, Dorset-street 

Smith, N. Withington, miller. (Woodward and Co,, New 
Broad-street; Devereux, Bromyard 


Lake, Cat- 


(Gunning, 
(Norton, Jewin- 


(Carlon, High- 


(Conway, Castle- 


(Burt, Carmar- 


(Sowton, Great 


(Smiths, 


Bankrupts. 


107 


Smith, T. R. Wigmore-street, linen-draper. (Davidson, 
Bread-street 

Smith, J. Cheltenham, tailor, (Bousfield, Chatham-place 5 
Workman, Evesham 5 Bubb, Cheltenham 

Shelley, J. Hanley, sponge-deaier. (Dax and Son, Gray’s- 
Inn 5 Jones, Hanley 

Stobbs, H. J Newgate street, warehouseman, 
rence, Doctors’? Commons 

Seymour, E. Gerrard-street, dial-maker. 


(Law- 


(Norton, Wal- 


brook 

Stevens, M. H. James’s Place, Lambeth, (Heathcote, 
Coleman-street 

Stevens, J. Kennington Common, bricklayer. (Cook and 
Hunter, New Inn 

Smith, W. E, Rotherhite, boat-builder. (Dashwood, 


Three Crown-square, Southwark 

Serbutt, J. Battersea, victualler, 
Bishopsgate 

Turfrey J.and J. Osborne, Hackney-road, cabinet-makers. 
(Hill, Rood-lane 

Thomas, S. Leeds, victualler, 
ple 5; Foden, Leeds 

Turner, W Great George-street, Bermondsey, builder. 
(Sutcliffe and Birch, New Bridge-street 

Tucker, T. Sheldon, ship-builder. (Alexander and Sony 
Carey-street ; Marshall, Plymouth 

Tombs, J. Kempsford, cattle-dealer, (Sharpe and Co., 
Bread-street; Wilkins and Kendall, Burton-on-the- 
Water 

Vinton, R. Union-street, Old Artillery Ground, tailor. 
(Norton, New-street, Bishopsgate 

Williams, L. Grove Cottage, Holloway, merchant. (Ogle, 
Great Winchester-street 

Williams, E. Liverpool, builder. (Jones, Temple ; Jones, 
Liverpool 

Wanklin, J. and B, Cheltenham, 
and Co, Lincoln’s-Inn-fields 5 
Cheltenham 

Willis, J. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, builder. (Bell and 
Broderick, Bow Church-yard 3 Dawson, Newcastle 

Wainwright, J. Sheffield, button-mould-manufacturer. 
(Bigg, Southampton-buildings ; Haywood and Branson 
Sheffield 

Wood, T. Shepton Mallet, victualler. 
Bedford-row 5 Reeves, Glastonbury 

Wyatt, T. St. Paul’s Church-yard, warehouseman. 
foot, Temple 

White, J. Wakefield, carpenter. (Evans and Co., Gray’s- 
inn-square 3 Robinson, Wakefield. 


(Norton, New-street, 


(Makinson and Co., Tem- 


plasterers. (Clarke 
Walter and Billings 


(Adlington and Co., 


(Bur- 


ere EE 


ECCLESIASTICAL PREFERMENTS. 


Hon, and Rev. G. Pellew, tothe deanery of Nor- 
wich.—Rey. J. Peel, to a stall in Canterbury 
cathedral.—Rey. G. W. Scott, to the rectory of 
Kentisbeare, Devon.—Rey. H. J. Lewis, to a 
minor canonry in Worcester cathedral.—Rey. J. 
Topham, to the rectory of St. Andrew cum St. 
Mary, Witten, Droitwich, Worcester.—Rey. F. 
Blick, to the prebend of Pipa Parva, Lichfield 
cathedral.—Rey, C. Eddy, to the rectory of Fug- 
glestone St. Peter, with Bemerton, Wilts,—Rey. 
W. Thomas, to the rectory of Orlestone, Kent.— 
Rey. W. Whiter, to the rectory of Little Bitter- 
ing, Norfolk.—Rey. J. Custance, to the rectory of 
Brompton, Norfolk.—Rey. S. Byers, to the epis- 
copal chapel of St. James, Isle of Wight; and 
Rey. M. Mughes, to the curacy of Binstead, ad- 
joining.—Rey. G. Hodson, to the vicarage of 
Colwich, Stafford.—Rev. J. F.S. F. St. Jolin, to 
the mastership of St. Oswald’s hospital, Wources- 
ter—Rey. W. Harbin, to the rectory of Esher, 
Surrey.—Rey. W. W. Mutlow, to the rectory of 
Rudford, Gloucester.—Rev. H. H. Tripp, to the 
perpetual curacy of St. Sidwell, Exeter.—Rev. G. 
M. Drummond, to the pastoral charge of the con- 
gregation of St. Mark’s episcopal chapel, Porto- 
bello.—Hon, and Rey. R, F. King, to be chaplain 
to the Duke of Clayence.—Rey. J. Atkinson, to 
the vicarage of Owersby, with Kirkby and Osgar- 
by annexed, Lincoln.—Rey. E. Pelling, to the 
vicarage of Norton Cockney, Notts.—Rev. W. W. 
Smyth, to the vicarage of Manton, Rutland.—Rey. 
R, B. Byam, to the vicarage of Kew and Peter- 


sham, Surrey.—Rev. J. T. Price, to the rectory of 
Loys Weedon, Northampton.—Rey, Dr. Richard- 
son, to the rectory of Brancepeth, Durham.—Rey, 
R. Harrison, to the vicarage of Lastingham, 
York.—Rey. J. Bishop, to the vicarage of St. 
Mary de Lode, with Holy Trinity annexed, Glou- 
cester.—Rev. R. Jones to the vicarage of Brook- 
thorp, Gloucester.—Rey. J. D. Hurst, to the ree- 
tory of Clapton, with the vicarage of Croydon, 
Bedford.—Rey,. E. Trelawney, to the rectory of 
Northill, Cornwall.—Rey. T. Roberts, to the 
rectory of St. Mary’s, Stamford.—Rey. G, Shiff- 
ner, to a stall in Chichester cathedral.—Rey. J. 
A. Park, to the rectory of Elwick, Durham.—Rey. 
W. G. Broughton, to the archdeaconry of New 
South Wales.—Rey. C. Tomblin, to the vicarage 
of Walcot, Lincoln.—Rey. J. Conner, to tbe rec- 
tory of Sudbourn with Orford, Worcester.—Rey. 
W. J. Hutchinson, chaplain tothe Duchess Dowa- 
ger of Roxburghe.—Reyvy. R. T. Tyler, to the rec- 
tories of Merthydevan and Winvvle, Glamorgan. 
—Rey. J. E, N. Molesworth, to the living of 
Winksworth, Derby.—Rev. J. Davison, to the 
vicarage of Old Sodbury, Gloucester.—Reyv. T. 
Bourdillon, to the mastership of the free grammar 
school of Macclesfield.—Rey, J. D. Hustler, to 
the rectory of Great Fakenham, Suffolk.—Rey. 
R. Collyer, to the vicarage of Dersingham, Nor- 
folk.—Rey. C, Echersall, to be chaplain to the 
Earl of Southampton.—Rey. C, W. Cleeve, to the 
chaplaincy of Livery Dole: 


ae; 


[ 108 J [Jane 


POLITICAL APPOINTMENTS. 
T. Cartwright, esq., now Secretary to the Le- 
gation at Munich, to be Secretary to the Embassy 
at the Netherlands.—G. Tierney, esq., attached to 
the Embassy at the Netherlands, to be Secretary © 


to the Legation at Munich.—His Majesty has con- 
ferred the honour of Knighhood upon Jeffery 
Wyatville, esq. 


INCIDENTS, MARRIAGES, AND DEATHS, IN AND NEAR LONDON, ETC. 


——— 


CHRONOLOGY. 


November 25.—A meeting of bankers, mer- 
chants, and others, held at the London Tavern, 
presided bythe Lord Mayor, for taking into con- 
sideration the destitute condition of the Spanish 
and Italian refugees, who were driven, for self- 
preservation, to seek an asylum in England, 
when a further liberal subscription of upwards of 
£2,000 was entered into. 

December 1.—The Recorder made his report of 
the convicts capitally convicted at the Old Bailey 
October sessions, to Privy Council, when four of 
them were ordered for execution December 8, 

— Two conyicts executed at the Old Bailey. 


2.—A Deputation of gentlemen connected with 
the Silk Trade waited on the Chancellor of the 
Exchequer, at the Treasury, and held a long con- 
ference with him. 

4.—Sessions commenced at the Old Bailey. 


—At a meeting of the Waterloo Bridgg Com- 
pany, it appeared that the expenditure for the 
last half-year, including the 23d of August, 
amounted to £7,825. 9s. 2d.; received for tolls 
£7,243, 6s. 2d,, and for rents of vaults £382. 7s, 6d. 

5—Right Hon. R. Peel, Secretary of State, 
wrote to the Lord Mayor, complaining of the 
state of the gaol of Newgate, respecting the clas- 
sification and treatment of the prisoners, and call- 
ing his Lordship's immediate attention to the 
subject. 

— Orders for the Court going into mourning 
during three weeks, for the Dowager Empress of 
Russia. 

6.—News arrived at the Foreign Office from 
Lord Cowley, at Vienna, with the intelligence of 
the Russians having been obliged to raise the 
siege of Silistria. 

— The Lord Mayor ordered a circular to be 
transmitted to the Mayor, and other principal 
officers of corporations throughout England, in 
behalf of Subscriptions for the Spanish refugees. 

8.—Four conyicts executed at the Old Bailey. 

9.—His Majesty took up his residence at Wind- 
sor Castle. 

13.—Right Hon. R. Peel, Secretary of State, 
informed by letter, the several Lords-Lieutenant, 
“ that his Majesty’s government have determined 
to submit to Parliament a Bill for effecting some 
reduction in the Militia Staff.” 

14.—Court mourning commenced for the Queen 
Dowager of Saxony, for three weeks. 

15.—Sessions ended at the Old Bailey, when 24 
convicts received sentence of death ; a very con- 
siderable number were ordered for transportation 
for 14 and7 years (4 for life), and others to im- 
prisonment from two years down to seven days. 


16.—Parliament prorogued to Feb. 5., then to 

meet for dispatch of business. 
MARRIAGES. 

At Leeds, Mr. J.H. Wiffen' (the Quaker poet, 
and translator and biographer of Tasso), to Miss 
Whitehead.—At Durham, T. B. Fyler, esq., M.P. 
for Coventry, to Miss Dorothea Lucretia Light.— 
At North Aston, J. H. Slater, esq.,to Lady Louisa 
Augusta Scott, second daughter of Earl Clon- 
mell.—Henry Maxwell. esq., M.P. for Cavan, to 
the Hon. Anna Frances Hester Stapleton, youngest 
daughter of Lord Le Despencer.—At St. George’s, 
Hanover Square, the Right Hon, Charles Man- 
ners Sutton, Speaker of the House of Commons, 
to Mrs. Home Purves, widow of the late J.H. 
Purves, esq., of Purves, N. B.—Lieut.Col. Sir W. 
I. Herries, brother to the Right Hon. C. Herries, 
to Mary Frances, third daughter of J. Crompton, 
esq., of Esholt-hall, Yorkshire.—Rey. P. Hewett, 
son of General Sir G. Hewett, bart., to Anne, 
daughter of General Sir J. Duff.—At Otley, D. C. 
Wrangham, esq., son of Archdeacon Wrangham, 
and private seerctary to the Earl of Aberdeen, to 
Amelia, second daughter of the late W. R. Fawkes, 
esq.—At Edinburgh, J. Hope, jun., esq., writer to 
the signet, and son of the Lord President of the 
Court of Cession, to Elizabeth, daughter of Lord 
Justice Clark.—John Forbes, esq., M.P., eldest 
son of Sir Charles Forbes, M.P., to Jane, eldest 
danghter of H. L. Hunter, esq. 

DEATHS. 

In Canonbury-square, Mrs. M. Rivington, 74.— 
Rey. Charles Este, who, in conjunction with 
Major Topham and Mr, J. Bell, established the 
World newspaper.—At Portsea, Rey. D, Cruik- 
shank, 90.—At Beckenham, R. Lea, esq., many 
years Alderman of London.—At Parkerswell 
House, near Exeter, Mrs. Gifford, mother of the 
late Lord Gifford.—At Brighton, S. Rolleston, 
esq., many years assistant under secretary of 
state at the Foreign Oftice.x—At Kingston, Hon, 
Mrs. Lisle, sister of the late Marquess Cholmon- 
eley.—Miss Julia Burgess, daughter of the lated 
Sir J. Lamb, bart,—At Scrivelby-court, the Hon. 
and Rey. J. Dymoke, the King’s Champion; by 
his deputation, his son, H. Dymoke, esq., (now 
the cHnmpion) executed that office at the last 
coronation.—At Taunton, Mrs. Dundas, relict of 
the late Rear-Admiral Dundas, and sister to Lady 
Harris.—Captain Sir W. Hoste, bart., a distin- 
guished officer, who commenced his naval career 
under the immortal Nelson.—At Bath, General 
Ambrose, 75, formerly chamberlain to the Em- 
peror of Austria.—At Coombe Wood, the Right 
Hon. the Earl of Liverpool—Near Truro, Ad- 
miral Thomas Spry, 76.—At Pull-court, General 
W. Dowdeswell, formerly M.P. for Tewkesbury. 
—At Bath, Mrs. Priscilla Gurney, 74, minister of © 


1829.] 


the Society of Friends.—At Skirbeck, Mrs, Sarah 
Gunniss, 102.—At Brynkinalt, Nort. Wales, the 
Lady Viscountess Dungannon, daughter of Lord 
Southampton, and niece to the late Duke of Graf- 
ton.—Lady Catherine Waller, 78, mother of Sir C. 
Waller, bart., Writhlington House, Somerset.— 
Samuel Marryatt, esq., 67, one of his Majesty’s 
counsel.—In the greatest possible penury and 
wretchedness, within the walls of White Cross- 
street prison, Mrs. Frances Simpson Law, niece 
of Dr. Philip Yonge, formerly Bishop of Bristol, 
and afterwards translated to the see of Norwich. 
—At Bellevue, Wicklow, Peter La Touche, esq., 
96.—At Inverness, Mrs. Macfarlane, 77, relict of 
Bishop Macfarlane.—At Woolwich Common, Ma- 
jor R. H. Ord.—At Maidenhead, Sir G. East, 
bart., 65.—At Hampton court, Sir J. Thomas, 


bart., 83.—Hans Francis, Earl of Huntingdon.—. 


J. €. Curwen. esq., M.P. for Cumberland.—In 
Harley-street, Lady Harriet Anne Barbara, 69, 
wife of the Right Hon. J. Sullivan.—At Boxford, 
A. Hogg, esq., Purser, R.N. ; he had been with 
Capt. Cook in his voyage of discovery in 1777.— 
At Guildhall, Mrs. Woodthorpe, wife of the Town 
Clerk.—Colonel Bernard, M.P. for King’s County. 
—In Somerset-street, Mrs. Fellowes, 93. 
MARRIAGES ABROAD. 

At Paris, R. T. Evanson, esq., to Henrietta 
Catherine, daughter of the late Admiral Sir Chi- 
chester Fortescue, 


Incidents, Marriages, Sc. 


109 


DEATHS ABROAD. ; 
At Gibraltar, Rey. W. Barber, atter reading the 
burial service over 18 persons, buried in one 
t ench, he was seized with the fever, and died.— 
At Paris, the Dowager Duchess of Rohan.—At 
Paris, Donna Marie Therese de Bourbon, Coun- 
tess of Chinchong, daughter of Don Louis, of 
Spain, and sister to the Cardinal de Bourbon, 
Archbishop of Toledo. She was compelled to 
marry Emmanuel Godoy, Prince of Peace, the 
fayourite of Charles IV., from whom she had lived 
separate since 1818. She resided with her brother, 
the Duke de San Fernando, who, as well as the 
Cardinal de Bourbon, had been forced to leave 
Spain in consequence of their political opinions. 
Her cousin, Ferdinand VIJ., had allowed her, 
since last year, the means of living at Paris ina 
manner becoming her rank.—At Veyay, W. Far- 
quharson, esq.—In the Isle of Cyprus, the infant 
daughter of Rev. Mr. and Lady Georgiana Wolf. 
—At Vienna, Thomas Jackson, esq., 69, third son 
of W. Jackson, esq., of Exeter, and for many 
years Minister Plenipotentiary to the late King 
of Sardinia—At Nantes, Colonel George Gled- 
stanes.—At Trinidad, Philip Reinagle, esqg.—The 
King of Madagascar, Radama; his loss will be 
much felt from his active co-operation with our 
Government for the abolition of slavery.—At 
Nice, Aurora, wife of the Rev. J. Voules, of 
Stowey.— At Boulogne-sur-Mer, Sir Walter 
Roberts, bart. 


MONTHLY PROVINCIAL OCCURRENCES, 


NORTHUMBERLAND.—We understand that 
the following plans of public improvements have 
been lodged in the office of the clerk of the peace 
for Northumberland, as a preliminary step to ob- 
taining acts of parliament for carrying the objects. 
into effect. A plan and section of an intended 
railway or tram-road from Newcastle-upon-Tyne 
to Carlisle, with a branch therefrom. <A plan and 
section of a proposed bridge over the river Tyne, at 
or near Scotswood, and of the proposed roads, 
avenues, or approaclies thereto, with certain 
branches therefrom. A plan of part of Morpeth, 
shewing the proposed site fora new bridge, and 
approaches, A plan of an intended ferry by 
steam or other boats, between North and South 
Shields, and of the roads, avenues, ways, and 
passages thereto. A plan of that part of a pro- 
posed road between Edinburgh and Neweastle, 
whieh lies in the county of Northumberland. A 
plan of roads, under the Wooler ‘Turnpike Act 
_ with proposed alterations. 

On the Ist of December, a beautiful specimen 
of that uncommonly rare British bird, the fork- 
tailed petrel, was shot near Benwell boat-house, 
on the river Tyne, Itisthe smallest of all web- 
footed birds, the stormy petrel excepted. 

There were heavy floods in the first week in 
December, in the counties of Durham and Nor- 
thumberland. Part of the battlements of the 
bridge half way between Newcastle and Shields, 
near to Willington, were swept away. 

A dispute has arisen between the Corporation 
of Newcastle, and the stewards of the incorporated 
companies of that town, as to the right of the 
former, on their leave, to break the ground for the 


purpose of coming at the minerals beneath the 
‘Town Moor, the property of the freemen. 


DURHAM.—Novy. 28, the foundation stone for 
the new harbour at Seaham was laid by the Mar- 
quess of Londonderry, amidst an immense con» 
course of people. The same day Lord Seaham 
laid also the foundation of the first house of the 
new town of Seaham. The expense of the har- 
bour will considerably exceed the origina] esti- 
mation of £80,000; it is to consist of an inner 
and outer harbour. The business part of the new 
town is to form a crescent, with inclined planes at 
each extremity, down to the harbour, forming a 
beautiful object from the sea, 


‘A new spire to Durham cathedral, which bas 
been for some time in the course of erection, is 
now finished, and adds much to the beauty of that 
edifice. 


A petition from the clergy of the county of Dur- 
ham is circulating for signature, against the Ro- 
mon Catholic claims. 


YORKSHIRE,—On the 5th of December, the 
Leeds’ Liberals called a meeting to address the 
King in favour of the Roman Catholic claims. 
There were about 20,000 persons present: and 
an amendment to the address was moved by Mr, 
Alderman Hall. Ona division, the majority was 
certainly in favour of the amendment, but the 
Chairman declared that the address had it. A 
protest against this determination has been for- 
warded to the Secretary of State, signed by up- 
wards of 13,000 persons. 


The cuckoo was heard on the 2d of December, 


110 


on the grounds of G. B. Drewry, esq., at Shelton, 
near York. 

In the first week of December, the tides on the 
Yorkshire coast, owing to the unsettled state of 
the weather, were as unsettled as were ever re- 
membered. At the Humber dock, Hull, on the 
3d, the difference between the height of the water, 
morning and evening, on the top of high water, 
was jive feet five inches ; on the following day 
it was only four inches; and the day after that, 
but two inches. 

Three weeks back, a coal-pit at Denholme, 
near Keighley, was filled up, in the course of one 
night, by a number of persons engaged in rival 
collieries, 

The project for establishing a rail-way between 
Hull and Leeds, is revived under favourable 
auspices, 

An extraordinary fine cod-fish, weighing, when 
dressed and cleaned, 26lbs. was caught in the 
Humber, opposite Heylewood House, on the 14th 
of December. 

The Leeds’ radicals, after several refusals, have 
at length consented to a rate for repairing the 
new churches in that town. 

The weather, throughout Yorkshire, during the 
month of December, bas been remarkably mild. 
Spring flowers are in bloom almost universally in 
the gardens. 

The clergy of the archdeaconries of Richmond 
have agreed to a petition against any further con- 
cessions to the Roman Catholics. 


NORFOLK.—More herrings have been caught 
off Yarmouth this year than have been known in 
any season during the last 20 years. One boat 
has caught 61 lash, several upwards of 40, and 
the Victory, Captain Balls, caught 14 lash (or 
140,000 herrings) in one night. 


LANCASHIRE,.—The committee for conduct- 
ing the late musical festival at Manchester, have 
advertised, for the information of the public, the 
manner in which the surplus money, applicable 
to the purposes of charity, has been distributed, 
viz. Infirmary, £2,500; House of Recovery, 
£350; Lying-in-Hospital, £300 ; Ladies’ Aux- 
iliary to ditto, £50; Eye Institution, £150; Deaf 
and Dumb School, £300; Salford Dispensary, 
£500; Charlton Row ditto, £400 ; Ardwick and 
Ancoats ditto, £300 ; Lock Hospital £100; Hu- 
mane Society, £50,—Total £5,000 !!! 


DERBYSHIRE\.—The frame-work knitters of 
Derby, Duffield, and Belper, and the broad silk 
weavers, tailors, and shoemakers of Derby, have 
joined the general trades’ union of the kingdom. 
The object of the union is, the adoption of mea- 
sures tending to check the progressive reduction 
of wages ; and the means by which it is intended 
to accomplish this object, are—affording advice 
and mutual pecuniary assistance in cases of op- 
pression—collecting and diffusing knowledge on 
the circumstances which affect the wages of la- 
bour—and endeavouring to obtain Parliamentary 
regulations, tending to improve the condition of 
the artisans. 


DORSETSHIRE.—At the annual meeting of 
the trustees and managers of the Dorchester Bank 
for Savings, held atthe Guildhall, a general state- 
ment of the accounts of the Institution to the 20th 
of November last was produced. By this state- 


Provincial Occurrences: Norfolk, Derbyshire, 5c. 


[Jan. 


ment it appears that there are vested In govern- 
ment debentures, and in the Treasurer's hands, a 
total of £41,94]. 17s. 4d., of which the sum of 
£41,058. 13s. 1d. belongs to the depositors, and 
the remaining sum of £883. 4s. 3d. is the amount 
of the surplus interest, the half of which being 
£44], 12s. 13d. was, according to the directions of 
the late and former Acts of Parliament, ordered 
to be divided amongst the depositors. 

At the Annual General Meeting of the Bridport 
Savings’ Bank Trustees, &c., a report was pre- 
sented up to Noy. 20, when it appeared that 
the amount of payments was £50,094. 15s. 1d. 
£6,939, 18s. 1d. of which had been received during 
the present year 1828. 

Many of the Portland Islanders, as well as 
others, will be enabled to enjoy the Christmas 
holidays most merrily, from the effects of the late 
high tide and heavy gale of wind; which have 
been the means of throwing up on the beach bars 
of gold and silver. Guineas, crowns, and dollars, 
are picked up in abundance, which have been 
buried in the sea for many years from the various 
shipwrecks; the old adage “ it is a bad wind that 
blows no one good,” is thus amply verified. 


SOMERSETSHIRE. — The inhabitants of 
Taunton have held a meeting at the Guildhall to 
consider the present state, and severe distress of 
the silk weavers of that town, and the adjoining 
parishes, and have “‘ resolved that, without en- 
tering into the question of the policy of the pre- 
sent free importation of foreign wrought silks, it 
is expedient to afford a temporary relief to the 
distressed silk weavers during the accumulated 
pressure of the severer winter months, and that 
subscriptions for that purpose be immediately re- 
ceived at the several banks in the town.” 


The new market-house at Minehead was opened 
for business, Dec, 10, under salyoes of cannon, 
and other rejoicings. It is a beautiful little 
structure of the Tonic order, built at the sole 
expense of W. Luttrell, esq., M.P. of Dunster 
Castle, who has made ita free gift for the benefit 
and accommodation of the town and neighbour- 
hood. 


WARWICKSHIRE.—The commissioners for 
carrying into effect the Act for better paving, &c., 
and otherwise improving the town of Birming- 
ham, have published their laws, rules, and orders, 
for licensing and anthorising a sufficient number 
of haekney coaches, chariots, cabriolets, cars, and 
other public carriages, to ply for hire within, and 
for four miles round that town, together with 
their rates and fares, which were put into effect 
Dec. 5, 1828, and upwards of 40 stands nominated 
for that purpose. 

A meeting of the weavers to petition against 
Free Trade, lias been held at Coventry, when a 
memorial to the Board of Trade was read and 
adopted, and several resolutions entered into for 
that purpose, 


NOTTINGHAMSHIRE.—The twist trade of 
Nottingham continues on the decline, and a re- 
duction of a halfpenny per rack is submitted to by 
the workmen employed in that branch. This has 
extended itself to females in warehouses, whose 
hours of labour are consequently restricted, and 
lower wages accepted. ‘This is severely felt when 
connected with the present high price of bread. 


1829.) 


CHESHIRE.—At a highly respectable meeting 
lately held at Stockport, it was resolved unani- 
mously, ‘“* That it is highly desirable to form a 
railway for the purpose of connecting the Liver- 
pool and Manchester with the Cromford and High 
Park Railway, and for the purpose of giving the 
town of Stockport a direct communication with 
each of those railways. Subscriptions were en- 
tered into for application to Parliament in the ap- 
proaching session for the purpose. It is ecaleu- 
lated the expense will not exceed £166,000, to be 
raised by shares of £100 each; £13,000 were 
subscribed in the room. Upwards of £70,000 
haye been subscribed in Liverpool alone. 


In the memorial lately presented to the Board 
of Trade, by the broad silk and ribbon weavers of 
Congleton, and vicinity, it is stated that, ‘¢ Prior 
to the introduction of foreign wrought silks your 
momorialists could, by industry and economy, 
maintain their families in comparative comfort 
and happiness, as the average of an expert work- 
man wonld, under the prohibitory laws, amount 
to twenty-four shillings weekly; but under the 
present system they have sustained a continual 
reduction, both in the price and quality of the 
material, and in the regularity of employment, so 
that the same average wages of the same work- 
men, at the present time, will not exceed ten shil- 
lings weekly, in both instances subject to a de- 
duction of three shillings per week, for the un- 
ayoidable expenses in performing the work, 
leaving an average of clear wages at the present 
time, of seven shillings weekly.” 


” We have for some time past forborn to comment 
on the state of trade in this town, but cannot, 
under the impression made by the daily cases of 
distress which present themselves to our view, 
refrain any longer from publicly condoling with 
our manufacturers, throwsters, and artizans, 
upon the distress now felt in this town and dis- 
trict. What few goods the masters are getting up 
are for an already overstocked market, at prices 
which are by no means remunerative to them: 
and the workmen are weekly reduced in the time 
of labour, so that their earnings are inadequate 
to their support. ‘The workhouse is hesieged 
with applicants, who have increased in a four-fold 
degree within the last six weeks, and the rates are 
onthe increase, with diminished means of pay- 
ment. 


'SUSSEX.—On Sunday night, Dec. 7, there, 
was a very heavy storm of hail, rain, thunder 
and lightning, at Brighton ; the wind blew a bur- 
Yicane, and the sea ran mountains high. The tide 
was also very high; andthe waves dashed with the 
utmost fury against the Chain Pier and Esplanade, 
which sustained little injury; and the Pier itself 
stood firm against the wind and tide. Part of the 
new sea wall was washed down near Lamprell’s 
baths. The storm was the most violent that we 
have had since the memorable one in November, 
1824; and the spray dashed, as it did then, 
although not to a similar extent, upon the marine. 
parade, being carried over the saloon, and up the 
new steine, to the imminent drenching of the 
humerous spectators who fell in its way. 


DEVONSHIRE.—Notice has been given in the 
London Gazette, of the intention of constructing 
a jetty in the harbour of Ifracombe. 


Cheshire, Sussex, Devonshire, Oxfordshire, §c. 


lll 


A numerous meeting of the Inhabitants of Ply- 
mouth was held at the Guildhall, pursuant toa 
notice issued by the mayor, in compliance with a 
most respectably signed requisition, tu consider 
the propriety of expressing their sentiments to 
Government, with respect to the contemplated 
measure of dispersing the Portuguese refugees 
resident there. Resolutions were passed, anda 
petition to the Secretary for the Home Depart- 
ment, praying that the refugees may not be dis- 
persed or removed, was adopted. 

The foundation stone of the Episcopal Chapel, 
to be built for the Rey. J. Hawker, in Plymouth, 
to be called “ Eldad Chapel,” was laid, Dec. 3, by 
the Mayor, attended by the Aldermen, Common 
Councilmen, and other members of the Corpora- 
tion, in the presence of several thousand persons. 
The interior of the chapel (wlich is to be Gothic) 
will be 102 feet long, by 56 feet wide, and suf- 
ficiently large to comfortably seat 1,500 persons, 
besides some free sittings. 

Dec. 5. the first annual meeting of “ The Tiver 
ton Institution for the Promotion of Useful Know- 
ledge,” was held at the Guildhall, Tiverton, the 
Mayor inthe chair. The report of the Committee 
was read, which detailed the operations of the 
Institution for the last year. Several of the most 
respectable ladies and gentlemen of the town were 
present, and appeared to take much interest in the 
welfare of the Institution. 

The Exeter canal was opened Dec, 12, by which 
vessels of 200 tons will now be enabled to come up 
to the quay at the lowest tides. This is the first 
time the sea has flowed up so near the city of 
Exeter for many centuries. 

A meeting has been held at Crediton, for the 
purpose of considering the propriety of cutting a 
new line of road through that town, when several 
resolutions were passed, and subscriptions enter- 
ed into for that purpose. 


OXFORDSHIRE.—At a late general meeting 
of the governors and subscribers to the Oxford 
Lunatic Asylum, it was resolved, still farther 
to add to the honour and advantage of this cha- 
rity, and to mark the sense entertained by this 
society of the munificent donations of the Rad- 
cliffe trustees (amounting altogether to £2,700), 
the Committee recommended ‘‘ That the Asylum 
be called ‘ The Radcliffe Asylum ;’ and that the 
style and title of the charity be ‘ The President and 
Governors of the Radcliffe Asylum, on Headington 
Hill, near Oxford, for the Relief and Cure of the 
Insane, from whatever County recommended.’”’ 
After acknowledging Dr. Warneford’s late muni- 
ficence, of £5590, the Report stated, “ That in two 
years and a half, 76 patients had been admitted— 
that of these, 25 continued in the house—and that 
4 had died—that 20 had been removed by their 
friends, either from motives of economy, or as 
convalescents ; that of those 20, 10 had recovered 
—that 27 had been discharged, cured—and that 
the result of these facts would be, that if to the 27 
discharged, cured, there were added the 10 just 
mentioned, the total number of cures, upon 47 
discharges, would be 37, or about 3 out of 4.” 


GLOUCESTERSHIRE, — Cirencester is at 
length likely to be much improved. A considera- 
ble number of old and ill-fashioned houses, most 
inconveniently situated in the very centre of the 
town, are about to beremoved, and some handsome 


112 Provinctal Occurrences : Worcestershire, Hertfordshire, &c. 


buildings to be erected in their stead, which will 
be so arranged as not only to be more convenient 
to the occupiers, and more pleasing to the eye, 
but will also render the streets more commodious 
and safe to the traveller. 

A report has been presented to the Chamber of 
Commerce, at Bristol, by a committee appointed 
to investigate the capabilities of that city and 
its neighbourhood for the establishment of such 
manufactures as have not yet been introduced» 
and the improvement and extension of those al- 
ready established there. It dwells with much 
force on the advantages likely to result from the 
establishment of cotton manufactures in the dis- 
trict; acloth and wool hall are also suggested as 
peculiarly desirable, from the situation of the city 
with reference to the districts in which the woollen 
manufacture is already so extensively carried on. 


WORCESTERSHIRE, —It appears by the 
Treasurer’s Abstract Account of Receipts and 
Expenditure, that from Michaelmas 1827, to 
Michaelmas 1828, the sum of £7611. 15s, 11d. was 
paid on account of this county ; upwards of £6,000 
of which was expended in criminal jurisprudence, 
vagrants, &c. Although in the Sessions’ prose- 
cutions the expense has increased about £200, 
yet there has been a decrease of upwards of £700 
in Assize prosecutions from the preceding year. 


HERTFORDSHIRE.—At the winter goal de- 
livery for this county, 6 prisoners received sen- 
tence of death, 8 of transportation, and several 
imprisoned for various periods. 


ESSEX.—At the winter assizes for this county 
11 prisoners were recorded for death, and !2 
transported. 


HUNTINGDON.—At the 12th annual meeting of 
the Hunts’ Savings’ Bank, the report of the Mana- 
ging Committee, upon the present state of the In- 
stitution, was presented and approved. It appears 
that the number of existing depositors, including 
25 Friendly Societies, and 2] Charitable Institu- 
tions, is 758, and the sums deposited, on the 20th 
of November last, with the interest thereon, 
amount to £26,053. 2s.92d. A bonus of 2d in the 
pound (from the Surplus Fund) was ordered to be 
added to the amount of deposits and interest due 
on the 20th of November last ; but no calculation 
to be made on the fractional parts of a pound. 
The interest, in future, will be 3, 6s. Sd, per 
cent. 


BEDFORDSHIRE.—We perceive by the an- 
nual statement published by order of Act of Par- 
liament, that the funds of Sir William Harpur’s 
charity, which originally produced a rental of 
only £180 per year, have now inereased to the 
enormous sum of very nearly £12,000. Under the 
head of expenditure, among other items, we re- 
mark the following :—For the use of the grammar 
and other schools, £1,794. 5s. ; for exhibitions, 
£240; marriage portions for maidens, £240; hos- 
pital for the maintenance and education of boys 
and girls, £744 ; apprentice fees, £835. 10s, ; dona- 
tions and benefactions to apprentices after service, 
£263 ; for the support of almshouses, £1,670. 11s. ; 
distribution to the poor in same, £489. 10s, Too 
much credit cannot be given to the trustees for 
the admirable manner in which these funds are 
applied. We reckon this charity second to none 
in England.—Herts’ Mercury. ’ 


[Jan. 


CORNWALL.—The poor Germans who have 
been so long at Falmouth, and on whose behalf 
subscriptions have lately been entered into at 
Truro, and other parts of the county, have em- 
barked for Brazil. They bhaye been amply pro- 
vided with every necessary for the voyage, and 
leave our shores in much better condition than 
it appears they left their own originally. 


WALES.—A large fish of the whale species, 
measuring 19 feet in length, 10 in girth, and 
weighing two tons, was lately destroyed at Pe- 
narth, Glamorganshire, by R. Forman and D. 
Meyrick, Esqrs., who were staying there. The 
monster was discovered early in the morning, 
floundering on the mud opposite the house ; and 
those gentlemen immediately loaded their guns, 
and approaching within a moderate distance, dis- 
patched it, by firing several ball cartridges at its 
most vulnerable parts. It was then given to some 
labouring men, belonging to the village, and has 
been by them exhibited at Cardiff and Merthyr. 

La Jeune Emma, of Cherbourg, from Marti- 
nique to Havre-de-Grace, with sugars rum, &¢. was 
wrecked off Cefn Sidan Sands, Carmarthen Bay, 
the night of Friday se’nnight. The Captain had 
mistaken the Lundy lights for those on the French 
coast off Ushant, an error which led to the melan- 
choly catastrophe, andthe hazy state of the wea- 
ther for several days previous rendered it impos- 
sible for the Captain totake a single observation. 
The passengers were Col. Colquelin, of the French 
Marines, and his daughter, an interesting young 
lady, niece to Josephine, ci-devant Empress of 
France, and their two servants, and we regret to 
add, that all perished. Four of the crew, by 
clinging to spars and fragments of the wreck, 
succeeded in reaching the shore alive, and two 
more were rescued from destruction by the noble 
exertions of Mr. Thomas and Mr. Griffiths, making 
only six survivors out of 19. On Sundaythe vessel 
went to pieces, and only 300 gallons of rum were 
saved out of the cargo. ‘The staff of the Carmar- 
then militia, under Captain Harding, hastened to 
the scene of disaster. Too much praise cannot 
be given to all the resident gentlemen in the neigh- 
bourheod, for the humanity and attention they 
showed to the unfortunate survivors of this 
calamitous wreck ; but with equal grief and indig- 
nation we state, that some diabolical wretches, a 
disgrace alike to their country and to human na- 
ture, the very outcasts of all that is vile and in- 
famous, attempted to rob the unfortunates whom 
the storm had spared, and desolation and misery 
had thrown on their hospitality, strangers ina 
foreign land !!!—Shrewsbury Chronicle, Decem- 
ber 5. 


SCOTLAND.—Epinsurcn in 1828.—Popula- 
lation (including Leith) 170,000, a royal palace, a 
college, 31 professors, a riding-school, a military 
academy, 700 teachers of all branches of educa- 
tion, a royal exchange, 70 churches, 2 theatres, 
13 courts of justice, 400 advocates, 800 writers to 
the signet and solicitors, &c. ; 86 accountants, 40 
physicians, 70 surgeons, 100 apothecaries, 7 li- 
braries, 11 newspapers, 42 insurance companies 
and agencies (34 of these are English), 11 public » 
hospitals, 60 charitable institutions, 25 literary 
societies, 80 royal mail and stage coaches, 86 
hackney-coaches, 400 carriers, 80 public offices, 
850 streets, squares, lanes, &c., and 5 bridges.— 
Scolsman, 


THE 


MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 


New Serics, 


Vou. VII.] FEBRUARY, 1829. [ No. 38. 


ENGLAND AND EUROPE, 
AT THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE SESSION. 


ENGLAND, by a course of yalour exerted in a righteous cause, by 
councils manly and wise, by a national spirit unequalled for the love of 
freedom, for energy, and for generosity, and lastly and chiefly, by the 
possession of the purest form of the purest religion, stands at this hour 
in the foremost place of the civilized world. ‘ 

Where is her rival now to be found? Russia, the only power whose 
influence might have seemed to menace her supremacy, has been taught 
in a single campaign the feebleness of an empire whose strength is 
founded upon the brute force of armies. That she has been taught this 
lesson no lover of the peace of Europe, or the true interests of mankind, 

ean regret. Wherever grasping and insolent ambition receives its chas- 
tisement, a great good is done to the cause of justice ; and wherever the 
true weakness and fragility of despotism can be contrasted with the 
intrinsic and inexhaustible vigour of a government of freedom, there 
human rights have made a progress, and the victory is gained for human 
nature. Whether the next Russian campaign will be more successful 
than that which has now closed in such signal disgrace to the osten- 
tatious and unjustifiable spirit of aggression, which urged the emperor 
into the Turkish war; or whether the first campaign shall be the 
last, is of no importance to the main question. The Russians have been 
defeated, and that too under the most humiliating circumstances—not at 
the close of a long struggle, where their troops, discipline, and spirit, 
might be supposed equally broken down; but with the most com- 
pletely picked army that the empire ever sent into the field; with all 
the advantages of discipline and equipment in the troops, and experience 
in the generals ; with anational and superstitious enthusiasm to stimulate 
them to efforts even beyond the exploits of soldiership, and with the 
whole temptation of the opulence of European and Asiatic Turkey to 
reward their easy march over the bodies of the enemy. 

In this struggle too they were not to contend with the organized and 
iron power of the great European kingdoms; Austrian discipline, 
French activity, and British courage, were not to turn the bayonets of 
the grenadier-army of all the Russias. Nicholas was to march against 

M.M. New Series —Vou. VI. No. 38. 


114 England and Eurepe, [Frs. 


a rabble, almost entirely new to the field, ill equipped, ill officered, and 
stubbornly adverse to the adoption of the improvements of modern war. 
The personal bravery of the enemy was acknowledged, but superior 
tactics make personal bravery in the enemy rather a snare, than an 
element of success. Victory was secure! , 

Three months of a campaign against half naked barbarians and 
mouldering walls, were enough to extinguish the flame of Russian ambi- 
tion. The veterans of the north fled before the peasantry of Asia ; 
discipline gave way before brave disorder ; and fifty thousand Russian 
corpses, three armies utterly dismantled, enormous financial losses, and 
the lost military name, that Russia had expended her blood for a 
century to purchase, are the monuments of her Turkish war. 

Russia is still a great. empire, with great means of good or evil. But 
the secret of her weak place has been betrayed by herself. To invasion 
she may be inexpugnable. She may present a barrier of adamant in the 
severity of her climate, the barren immensity of her dominions, and the 
rude patriotism of her people; but beyond her borders she is feeble ; 
like her own north wind, her ferce is in her native region: it decays in 
its descent into Europe, and finally softens and sinks away. As a 
menacer or a rival of England, Russia is no more. When shall we hear 
again of Armed Neutralities ; of North-Sea Coalitions ; or of the March 
to India; those showy charlatawries with which the adrditness and arti- 
fice of Catherine and Alexander contrived at once to occupy the eyes of 
European statesmen, and conceal the actual weakness of their empire? 
We have now a chain upon the neck of Russia, which we shall leave in 
the hands of the Turk; and which, at the first growlings from the 
northern den, we shall teach him how to tighten. But peace with all, 
and peace among all; is the golden rule of England. Every shot fired 
in Europe, is a shot virtually fired against her; and as her injury would 
be the injury of every corner of the earth where man is above the beast 
of the field; so is her supremacy the mighty promise and pledge of 
strength, knowledge, and happiness, to the circle of the globe. 

The failure of the Russian campaign may be followed by lessons still 
more important than the chastisement of unprovoked hostilities. It 
ought to furnish a great lesson of the actual weakness of the despotic 
form of government. The leading cabinets may be made awake to the 
living evidence, that the rigidness of authority to which they sacrifice the 
incaleulable benefits of national freedom, is not worth the price ; that 
while it is directly injurious to the mighty nerve to be found in com- 
merce, knowledge, manly enterprize, and that general magnitude and 
force of the human mind, which can grow up only where man is master 
of himself; the external power of the nation is not the more exempt from 
the severest casualties: that this hard and close investiture of a nation, 
this forcing the national frame into perpetual armour, is no preser- 
vative against defeat ; and that the wisest plan may be to hang up this 
memorial of the times of feudality and barbarism among the reliques of 
years in the grave, beat the sword into the ploughshare, and leave man 
to follow the open and generous impulses of genius and nature. 

All the other leading European states, are either in close alliance with 
us, or too keenly busied with their own difficulties, to dare the chance of 
English war. France has learned by the slow wisdom of suffering, the 
infinite importance of peace with a country to which all her coasts are 
open, yet which is totally inaccessible by her: whose fleets can at a 


1829-] al the Commencement of thé Session. 115 


word, sweep her eommerce from the ocean, shut up her ports, and cut 
off her intercourse with her colonies ; and which, when the struggle 
comes at last on the land, can show that the British soldier is made of 
the same materials as the British sailor. 

Spain and. Portugal are too eagerly employed by dissensions at home 
to think of hostilities. 'The monks are the masters of both: the monks 
hate the freedom, the religion, andthe knowledge of England ; and des- 
perately would they show their hate, if they dared. But their daggers 
are for other breasts ; the spirit of jacobinism keeps the spirit of monkery 
in employment too anxious for foreign mischief. One devil has been 
called up to controul the malice of another. They are fit antagonists, and 
will rend each other with fang and talon, until their work is done, until 
the Peninsula is sunk into the final degradation of a wilderness scattered 
over with a few superstitious slaves ; or startles the world by the brief and 
bloody supremacy of a jacobin.empire. 

Austria lies in that massive tranquillity which has characterized the reign 
of the house of Hapsburg. But of all the continental states, she is the 
most essentially bound to the alliance of England ; by her position in the 
midst of the great military powers ; by the absence of any source of rival 
ambition ; and by the habits of old connexion, and combined struggle 
against Napoleon. She has all the strength of passive power ; her military 
position is impregnable, unless betrayed by negligence or imbecility ; her 
troops are brave, and she can recruit her armies from an immense extent 
of territory filled with a hardy population. 

There has not been a moment since the close of the revolutionary war, 
when the politician would be entitled to calculate more securely upon 
the general peace of Europe. Even the late disturbances of the military 
states have only assisted this probability. The interval since the fall of 
Napoleon had been long enough for a generation to start into public life, 
who knew nothing of the miseries of war. Manisa restless animal ; and 
in every continental nation, there was a rapidly rising tendency to 
recommence the scene, where their fathers had sufiered so deeply. But, 
as if for the express purpose of checking this hazardous tendency, there 
is scarcely an European nation, which has not, within a short period, had 
a trial of war, not sufficient to draw the blood fatally, yet more than 
enough to teach them the misery that can be inflicted by the sword. 

The Turkish campaign has given the armies of Russia a trial of war, 
that has palpably checked the passion of her people for tampering with 
military glory. The French soldiery were beginning to exclaim against 
the indolence of peace. The expedition to the Morea, slight as its losses 
may have been, has palpably answered the purpose of checking the insane 
love for laurels; and every man now on the Greek soil is exclaiming 
against the folly that sent him from home. If Belgium, a power of 
great importance to England, has suffered herself to be drawn into the 
views of Russian ambition, she has had a trial of war in the East, which 
will long disgust her armies. 

There is the additional security against European war, that is to be 
found in the interior disturbance of the continental states. It is aremark- 
able characteristic of the times, that insurrection, open or concealed, is in 
the bowels of every kingdom of Europe. The most formidable enemies 
of the Spanish and Portuguese thrones are notoriously active within 
their own realms, sometimes defying them in the field, and perpetually 
menacing the royal authority. In France, the spirit of disturbance lives 

Q 2 


116 England and Europe, [ Fes. 


in the two-fold shape of the Jacobin and the Jesuit ; and the slightest 
relaxation of the vigilance of government might let loose civil war 
through the land. In Belgium, one half of the population is suspicious 
of the other, and the whole power of government is employed in restrain- 
ing the mutual violences of superstition and fanaticism. In Prussia, the 
whole military strength of the crown is not too strong for the suppression 
of revolutionary opinions. Even in the heavy quietude of the Austrian 
monarchy, jacobinism, fanaticism, and the sullen repugnance of newly 
conquered countries to a master of a strange speech and soil, are felt to 
be demands on all the vigilant suspicion of the cabinet. The revolu- 
tionary impulses of the north of Germany have made their way even 
into the lazy provinces of the Danube. The Hungarian nobility, too, 
molest Austria with their old demands of privilege ; and the keeping. of 
the Italian conquests is a perpetual business of the prison and the sabre. 
The Greek revolt plagues the Ottoman with the common trrouble of 
European thrones. The Polish disaffection, and even conspiracy to an 
enormous extent in the Russian army, must exercise the fears of the 
Emperor, and teach him, if he is to be taught by experience, the neces- 
sity of applying his vigour to the correction of evils at home. Whether 
those extraordinary tendencies to popular disturbance are to be looked 
on as the last heavings of that time of tempest which wrecked so many 
European thrones, or as that ominous and instinctive rising of the great 
deep of society, the “ ground swell,” which portends the final and ten- 
fold storm, its present operation must be to retard the hostilities of the 
monarchs of Europe, to assist the efforts of England for general peace, 
and to give hertime to perfect those noble plans of national and European 
amelioration, for which she seems to have been raised by the especial 
hand of Heaven. 

We have seen the singular concurrence of what the world calls acci- 
dent, in giving England a paramount influence abroad. We shall call 
it by a loftier and more cheering name ; and exult in the proof that to 
nations strenuous in well-doing, is extended the same protection that has 
been promised to the virtuous ameng men. By this high protection, 
England, one of the smallest territories in Europe, has been raised into 
an eminence never equalled by the greatest ; has been made the sove- 
reign of realms, to which the mightiest of the European kingdoms 
would be but a province; has become the mother of colonies that 
already assume the magnitude of empires; has planted her arts, her laws, 
her literature, and her religion, in the uttermost parts of the earth ; and 
is at this hour, even in the midst of the strifes and jealousies of Europe, 
acknowledged as the universal friend, appealed to as the great arbiter, 
by whose will contending nations are to abide ; whose friendship is to 
be a pledge of safety, as her hostility is to turn the tide of conquest, to 
overwhelm the insolence of the triumphant, and to give breathing time 
and restoration to the undone. 

But, to look to the course of our domestic policy, we are persuaded 
that there too protection is capable of being traced; that evil has 
been palpably controuled to good, and that a proud and rapid progress 
of amelioration has been preparing, in the midst of what seemed to be 
but a choice of calamities. 

Scarcely more than two years ago, the nation was in the hands of 
Lord Liverpool, whose avowed policy was to govern on any terms that 
might avoid a collision of parties. Lord Liverpool’s intentions were 


1829.] at the Commencement of the Session. 117 


sincere, but his habits of life had made the retention of office a part 
of his being; and for that retention, he unconsciously sacrificed the 
principles of the British constitution. The system of governing by a 
divided cabinet, was his favourite and fatal secret ; and the confidence 
reposed in his moderation and honesty, might have made us regardless 
of the evils of his policy, until the bulwarks of the national faith and 
freedom had been irremediably broken away. A cabinet in which no 
one leading measure could have been resolved on, without parings down 
and concessions on both sides of the council-table, would have been at 
last trained to the discovery, that all rights and principles were the 
legitimate subject of barter. 

A change in the premiership, suddenly and irresistibly showed the 
perniciousness of this system. The new minister had found the cabinet 
following its separate styles of thinking on the Popish question, he 
resolved that they should try how far separate styles of thinking could 
be agreed upon in all the principles of the constitution, and with a 
stroke of the pen he made one half of the cabinet Whig. ‘The nation 
cried out against the treachery of the man, and the iniquity of the 
measure, and idly lamented the simple integrity of Lord Liverpool. 
But it was his wily successor that played the involuntary patriot. He 
showed the true tendency of the system, by a cabinet in which, not 
merely no act could pass the council without mutual concession, but 
no act whatever could pass. The fellow advisers for their country’s 
good, had but one principle in common, that of keeping their situations 
in defiance of public scorn. All the great questions were flung under 
the table, all the mouths of council were padlocked, by mutual consent ; 
and the dexterity of this amphibious cabinet was exhausted on contri- 
vances for doing nothing. The Catholic Question, the Test Act, the 
Corn Question, the Parliamentary Reform, the Finance Question, all 
were alike buried in the equivocal bosoms of this heteroclite cabinet of 
chicane. It was the deprecated power of Mr. Canning that did the state 
this service. It was he who shewed, to demonstration, that the divided 
cabinet must degenerate into a gang of political swindlers ; the evidence 
was given, and the involuntary patriot passed away before he had time 
to mature his fellow conspirators into that ripeness of conciliation, which 
would havé at length learned the folly of standing at arms’ length, when 
they might approximate, and pick the nation’s pocket together. Peace 
be tohis grave. His life was of use, if it gave us but one lesson, never 
to trust the professions of a man struggling his way up to office; and 
never to decide on the panegyric, until it can be rectified by the epitaph, 
of a statesman. An undefinable government followed, a government of 
invalids past their labour, and recruits not come to their age of service ; 
of minds long ago laid up in obscurity, and minds not arrived at the 
years of discretion. Its activity was in a life of post chaises from London 
to Windsor, to inquire whether it was in or out; its deliberation was 
in the peace-making of two clerks, and its title to the national gratitude 
was in its speedy discovery that it knew nothing about the national 
business, and that it was high time for it to withdraw. The lesson of 
the divided cabinet had now been fully given. A man of genius and vigour 
assumed the premiership. Accustomed to the sure course of’ things, he 
left the fools to expose their own folly, and the knaves to outwit themselves. 
The folly and knavery soon did their work, and the clearance of the 
eabinet justified his expectations, almost before they were pronounced. 


118 England and Europe, [ Fes. 


He will not forget the lesson wrought for his strength, by his weak pre- 
decessors. He will purify the cabinet, and the nation, already rejoicing, 
shall yet more rejoice, in the’ casualties that prepared the way for the 
supremacy of a great minister. 

Another memorable working of good out of evil, is still before us in 

full action. Six months ago the public mind seemed asleep to the most 
momentous question that can concern a people ; the question whether 
the free constitution and scriptural faith of England shall be laid at the 
mercy of the slaves of an Italian priest, and the haters of Protestantism ? 
Popery was making stealthy but rapid strides during this slumber. 
The indolent friends of the constitution felt themselves justified in their 
indolence, by the apparent neglect of the nation; the timid looked 
round, saw no help, and made a traffic of their timidity ; the knavish 
saw in the general somnolency, only a more secure season of providing 
for themselves, popery recruited her ranks from them all. 
_ Suddenly an individual made a speech at a public dinner, implying 
that the premier was a convert to the views of the papists. His speech 
was an error or a fiction, but its tidings were heard with dismay by 
every well-wisher to the empire. The exultation of popery followed it, 
with insolent triumph. But then followed the nobler results: the menace 
broke the sleep of Protestantism. Its supposed desertion by Govern- 
ment, roused it to the exertion of its own brave energies ; the premature 
menaces of popery invigorated its remembrance of the tender mercies 
of popish rebellion. It sent its summons through the land, it collected 
and combined, its speakers developed, in a course of masterly appeals to 
the common sense of the nation, the resources, the dignity, and the 
sacredness of the national cause. Its voice was heard in England, and 
echoed by the aroused and generous sympathy of our land of freemen. 
In Ireland, the Brunswick Clubs already number upwards of four hun- 
dred thousand individuals, the representatives of the property, learning, 
religion, and principle of the country ; a force that at once puts the 
nation in a state of security, leaves the mind of the minister at its ease, 
to pursue its course of manly wisdom ; and establishes the saving truth 
that Protestantism, if faithful to itself, can never fail. 

In England, the rights of our religion and freedom have since been, again 
and again, authenticated by the mightiest voice of her people. Myriads 
have already pledged themselves, by the most public and unquestionable 
declarations, to the resistance of all conspiracy against their faith and 
laws. The hypocrite and the sycophant, the rabble-leader, and the 
specious liberalist, have been turned into contempt: the summoning of the 
nation scon taught them the difference between a corrupted mob and 
the fearless and high-hearted multitudes of England. Kent, Cornwall, 
Devon, and a crowd of important districts, have already pronounced 
their will. The slightest attempt to carry the question now, would stir the 
land from north to south, and from east to west, into one grand move- 
ment ; and if, instead of exulting, as we do, in the vigour, we had to 
dread the weakness of government, we should find the noblest refuge in 
the colossal shadow of the uproused nation. 

Let one more instance be given. The feebleness of the Irish parlia- 
ment, in 1793, gave the franchise to the papist forty-shilling freeholders. 
Liberalism was the folly of the day ; and it proclaimed that then, for the 
first time, the Irish peasant was to be lifted into the rank of a human 
being ; that, with the power of voting, his moral condition must rise in 


. a 


1829.] at the Commencement of the Session. 119 


the scale ; and that, with political influence, he was to be the heir of 
the whole inheritance of freedom and virtue. 

The romance was ridiculed, and the reasoning was disproved. But 
the Irish parliament was already marked for suicide ; and its last work 
was to leave a legacy of mischief to its country. The instant operation 
of the boon was the shame of modern philosophy. The condition of 
the peasant became instantly darkened. His original evil, the minute sub- 
division of the land, was increased tenfold by the eagerness of the land- 
lord to increase the number of voters. The land was perpetually cut 
into still smaller fragments ; for the spot that could sustain nothing else, 
could sustain the false oath of a mock freeholder. The peasantry were thus 
reduced to the verge of beggary ; and their moral condition was as much 
sunk as their physical. One-third of these freeholders were without the 
value of forty shillings on earth; but it was enough for the landlord’s 
purpose if they had the hardihood to swear. The elections became, 
year after year, a thicker tissue of abomination. Perjury was notorious, 
till it almost ceased to be thought a crime. Then came a rebellion that 
wreaked its vengeance on this perjured peasantry. Next came a more 
enduring and. final vengeance, that smote the landlord through his 
pride—The house of merchandize, the temple, turned by his atrocious 
traffic of conscience and honour into a den of thieves—the Irish parlia- 
ment, was extinguished for ever. 

The punishment was inflicted, but the crime remained. The manu- 
facture of false oaths and false freeholders, the only manufacture of 
popish Ireland, went on flourishing to the highest hope of every scorner 
of the common decencies of truth and law. At the last numeration, 
made in 1815, the freeholders, above twenty pounds a-year, were not 
quite 20,000 ; while the forty shilling freeholders, or those who perjured 
themselves by the name, were no less than one hundred and _ fifty-seven 
thousand! Electors, of whom the vast majority knew no more of the 
qualities of a representative than of the philosopher’s stone ; two-thirds 
of whom could not read, write, or even speak the English language ; 
and almost the whole of whom were as much under the slavery of the 
priests, as ever dog was under the lash of his master. 

Mr. O’Connell at last made the daring attempt to turn this infamous 
abuse to the purposes of that Association, which “ governed the govern- 
ment” of Ireland. He solicited the aid of the lords of the rabble, the 
priests ; and the priests forthwith issued their indisputable commands to 
their slaves. The.mob of Clare carried the day at once. The landlords 
were trampled down in the general rush round the triumphal car of the 
© Liberator.” Old memories of benefits, the natural connexion of the 
tenant with the proprietor, the whole of the links of mutual kindness, 
obligation and service, were snapped at a touch of the priestly 
hand ; and Mr. O’Connell, the mock representative, was returned, by 
a mock election, to a parliament within whose doors he was never to set 
his foot. 

The Clare election struck the timid with the last dismay. They 
saw in it the total abscission of the people from their natural represen- 
tatives ; Ireland in the hands of the mob of superstition and civil turbu- 
lence; and the English parliament besieged by a host of popish 
radicalism ; or every county of Ireland virtually disfranchished by the 
return of disqualified members. 


The prospect was as alarming as the offence was monstrous. And yet it 


120 England and Europe, at the Commencement of the Session. [Fes. 


is inthis enormity that the safety of both Ireland and England are at this 
hour taking root. The daring insult of electing a representative in 
utter scorn of law, first shewed the lengths to which the popish faction 
were ready to urge their lawless partizans. The daring interference of 
the priests, next shewed the utter nonsense and hollowness of all the 
liberalism that had pretended to draw a line between the temporal and 
spiritual influence of Rome ; and the daring and gross contempt on the 
part of the peasantry, of all the ties of gratitude and service to their 
landlords, thirdly, shewed these landlords the way to future security. 
And this way they are now adopting in all parts of Ireland. Without 
waiting for the tardiness or dubiousness of legislative enactment, they 
are rapidly depriving the popish freeholders of the power of ingratitude 
to their landlords, of treason to the Constitution, and of perjury in the sight 
of Heaven. They are refusing leases of lives to their papist tenantry ; and 
thus, without injury to the natural feelings of humanity, or breaking 
the natural connexion between the orders of society, they are at once 
relieving the state from the power of a fierce and guilty faction, themselves 
from a mass of domestic hazard and hostility, and the peasantry from an 
employment unfit for their capacities, and which redounded to them only 
in increased poverty, embittered natures, and perpetual crime. A few 
years of this system, vigorously and conscientiously adhered to, will 
relieve the whole of the popish peasantry from the fatal incumbrance of 
electioneering. If the priests are still destined to have dominion over 
their ignorance ; their contempt of an oath will, at least, not marshal them 
in battle array against the gates of the legislature. If the Association 
shall be still suffered to insult the religion and government of the empire, 
it shall, at least, not be endowed with the power of sending its orators to 
disfranchise the Protestant electors of Ireland. Time will be obtained 
for sober thoughts, faction will fall into scorn, and the country will be 
saved. 


“A REVERIE. 


« Chaos indigestaque moles.”—Ovip. 


Lone years, methought, had gone, since I had slept 
The sleep of death, and in an unknown tomb 

My form lay mouldering ; suddenly the trump 
Thundered a summons to the dead, the grave 

Sent back an awful echo, and from hill 

And vale, and sun-kissed mead—from mountain heights, 
Untrodden save by thought—from ocean depths, 
Where the rare monster of an elder world 
Wantons in licensed solitude—from glen 

Unpierced by human glance, and so remote 

That the strong cataract beneath roars on, 
Unheard by aught above—from river, sea, 

And lake, the myriad shroudless ghosts sprung up 
High in heaven’s destined concave: I, too, woke 
To sense, to agony; and each particle 

Of dust, so aged that the very worms, 


1829.] 


A Reverie. 121 


Who long had battened on the yellow corse, 

Had crumbled piecemeal too, was fashioned 

To form distinct: before the throne of Him, 

The Unknown, I stood—when once again the trump 
Rang through the affrighted world. 


Earth, sea, and sky, 
Decked with its infinite isles of splendour, set 
Like gems upon an Indian coronal, 
Rocked to the centre ; Night, tremendous Night! 
Fell like a cold blight on the world, and shrunk, 
As a guilty thing, from the dread sight of death. 
Hark! *twas the parting groan that Nature gave, 
Conscious of fate ; Time heard the awful sound, 
And knew his hour was come, and spreading wide 
His pinions, black as Erebus, he flew 
To where proud Chimboraco’s regal front 
Soars like some giant of the elder time, 
Glorying in might omnipotent. 
Thrice the fierce trump awoke an echo ; thrice 
The wide world reeled in conscious dread, as one 
From fit of deepest inebriety 
Shocked into sudden soberness ; above 
Glory came streaming forth, and a bright form, 
Begirt with flame, companioned by a choir 
Of sun-lit souls, broke the dunnest gloom, 
And all was light again ; Time saw the God, 
And crumbled into nothing ; Nature paused 
But for an instant, and the thunders rolled 
Their last sad peal. Oh! then commenced the work 
Of desolation ! from the livid sky 
The sun dependant dropped, the billows boomed 
And lashed themselves to madness, and the face 
Of Nature, reverend in years, grew black 
With the convulsive spasms of decay. 


The world—a fearful sight—was gone, and heaven 
Flamed as a scroll, by whose sulphureous light, 
Swathed in the shroud of dead Eternity, 

The ghost of buried ages moved along. 

Then voices broke from the abyss ; and Time, 
And Fate, and Death the skeleton, athwart 

The deep gloom flitted, waiting the behest 

Of Sovereign Deity. I saw no more ; 

Sense fled my vision ; feeling lost her helm; 
Existence, but not life, of negative 

Dominion, governed me ; I knew I lived— 

But where, or how, or in what character, 

Was all a blank. ' £) 


M.M. Nem Series.—Vou. VII. No. 37. R 


formed. =f [ Fx. 


A TRAVELLER'S RECOLLECTIONS. 


I nave been for many years a rambler, but chiefly through Europe. 
The traveller’s club was not established when I began my career, and I 
therefore was not under the necessity of “ booking myself for China,” 
as is required by the statutes of that great locomotive institution. 
A simple sight of Mount Caucasus was enough for me. I ventured only 
within a days sail of Columbia ; and saw no more of New Holland, than 
might be communicated by the sight of a native, whom I met in a 
whaler, embalmed, by order of the governor of Sydney, as a present to 
the Zoological Society. 

In my wanderings, too, I differed from the tourists of this world in 
another point. I eschewed picture galleries, cathedrals, crown jewel 
offices, and “ glorious chateaux,” that no man living could distinguish 
from a Dutch stable. An English one would offer no comparison. My 
business was with man, much; and with woman, a little. I have always 
thought a man of sense, to the full as amusing as the tallest steeple that 
ever pierced the sky ; and the colour on a lovely female cheek worth 
all the carnation ever laid on canvas by the pencil. From the pomps of 
Palladio, and the magic of Titian, I turned to living lips and eyes; and, 
though the whole world of Dilettanti, measuring-rod and sketch-book 
in hand, must be struck dumb at my gothicism, I am still wedded to 
my heresy, and shall, to the last, think that the happiest descriptions 
of brick and mortar may grow dull, the liveliest catalogue of pictures 
lose its gaiety, and that, while we have our senses about us, the pleasant- 
est “ study of mankind is man.” 

As the specimens of this unusual study rose before me, I frequently 
made brief memoranda, sufficient to mark the leading features. Of 
those I shall give you a few in succession. My first is of a beautiful 
creature whom I met at Vienna.* She was French, but with a grace 
and Italian look of sensibility that seldom honours the countenance 
beyond the Alps. Strange to say, with my picture-antipathy, my first 
knowledge of her was from a picture. 

I was one morning at the Leopold Museum, where all Vienna flocked 
to see the portrait of Madame de M. I contemplated it with a pleasure 
justified by the perfection of the features, and the finish of the execu- 
tion. The beauty of the original had augmented the talent of the artist. 

The grave Imperial Aid-de-camp who accompanied me, after smil- 
ing at my long trance of admiration, proposed to introduce me to the 
acquaintance of the model, and in the evening conducted me to the 
soirée of the Comtesse de M. The portrait of the salon lost much of its 
merit in my eyes, as soon as they caught a glance of the original. The 
painter could not seize and arrest on the canvas the grace which dis- 
tinguished each motion of the young Comtesse. The spirit and anima- 
tion that heightened her slightest expression, that mingling of dignity 
and affability, which reflected itself on her countenance, rendered it one 
of the loveliest, one of the most seductive, that I had ever seen. After 
having dispersed her card tables—arranged the players—seated her 
Boston in the middle of the room—shut up in a corner the eternal pic- 
quet—the fair Comtesse came to rejoin, at one extremity of the apart- 
ment, a little group, so lucky as to escape the distribution of the markers 
—and to prefer to the melancholy pastimes of whist or écarté, the more 
rare pleasure of an agreeable and spirited conversation. 


ee ion sadam seh 


1829.] A Traveller's Recollections. 123 


At the moment of the Comtesse’s approach, a young privy councillor 
maintained—perhaps rather too warmly—that it was impossible to be 
deceived as to any one’s origin, and that a certain air of dignity, in the 
whole appearance, betrayed, in spite of themselves, those who had the 
honour of being born in the privileged classes. This opinion was also 
that of an old lady, who finished all her phrases with—* as the late 
baron used to say’—and was opposed by a superior officer of most dis- 
tinguished air, and an ex-minister, who had their own, reasons for what 
they said. At last, to give an example that must lead every one to his 
side, the orator addressed the mistress of the mansion, and triumphantly 
inquired, whether, let fate have placed her in whatever inferior situa- 
tion, her noble birth would not have been at once recognized from her 
air and manners. The beautiful Comtesse gave a smile at the words. 

« What an unfortunate illustration, Monsieur de L.,” said she. 

« What, Madame—are you not the daughter of a comte?” 

«<< No.” 

«* Of a baron?” said the old lady. 

No. 

“* Of an officer ?” resumed the colonel. 

< No.” 

« Of an administrator ?” added the ex-minister. 

Bio,” 

* You deceive us, Madame,” replied the young privy councillor ; 
* you certainly are of a family ss 

«OF honest people, but who positively had no titles to boast of,” 
said the Comtesse, smilingly. “ You can vouch that I am no better 
than I assert,” she continued turning to the friend who had in- 
troduced me. She was, at the instant, called away to decide some 
point at one of the tables; and, while the observations excited by her 
frank declaration were rapidly crossing each other, I inquired of the Aide- 
de-camp, “ Who was the beautiful Comtesse ?”——“ She shall tell you 
herself,” replied he.— I have at home her sketch of her own memoirs. 
She lent it to me, and I will lend it to you—for she seems as little 
anxious to conceal what she has risen from, as what she has risen to.” 

_ My way lay through his street—he gave me the manuscript as we 
went home, and I read, before I slept, as follows :— 

_ “ My name is Angelique L’Arjou ; I was born at Neuilly. My mother, 
who was surnamed the Belle Paysanne, died a few days after I came 
into the world, and her husband did not long survive her. An orphan 
from two years of age, I was reared by an aunt, who, having no child, 
became a second mother to me. Since the death of my parents, her 
garden had acquired a great increase—she had inherited all her sisters’ 
customers, and her sole ambition was to make me the bearer of the finest 
fruits and flowers in the vicinity of Paris. I approached my fifteenth 
year. The animated glances of the young men who sought to meet me 
—the ill-temper of the young girls who avoided me—and the anxiety of 
my aunt, taught me that I was handsome. I had suspected it myself for 
a year back. But one is never pretty with impunity. All the youths of 
Neuilly paid court to me ; however, though I cared for none, I thought 
proper not to offend any. Their rustic flames did not teach me how one 
can love—but their rustic eulogies taught me how one can please ; and, 
with a little memory, lessons of this sort are not soon forgotten. 

“For a whole year I maintained a sage equilibrium among all my 

R 2 


194 A TraveHer’s Recollections. [Frs. 


suitors. My aunt, who had the rage of husbands—she was the widow of 


her third—selected a spouse for me—a youth of my ownage ; the son of” 


a rich tradesman. I had never seen him but once, and I accepted him 
with sobs. Already were the marriage trinkets purchased—the contract 
was even drawn up, when an accident that I had the luck to meet, broke 
my marriage, and began my fortune. 

“In one of my visits to Paris, in entering the Hotel de Suede, Rue de 
Richelieu, my foot slipped, and I sprained my ancle. My screams and 
sufferings attracted a number of the strangers who lodged in the hitel. 
Among them was an old gentleman, who appeared to feel a lively in- 
terest in the accident ; he did not quit me an instant, and his benevo- 
lence exaggerated my danger to allow him the pleasure of offering his 
attentions. In the fear that the slightest movement would augment my 
sufferings, he would not hear of my removal, and, on the spot, sent off 
his carriage and footmen for my aunt. She arrived—visited me—con- 
doled with me—embraced me—was in despair—confused herself with 
excuses, lamentations, thanks—and, finally, yielding to the reiterated 
entreaties of my new guardian—she granted him a moment’s audience. 

« Monsieur de Villefort was an old bachelor, who had spent his life in 
amassing wealth, without knowing who was to spend it. He had no 
heirs but very distant relations, who had, at various intervals, given 
him hints that he had been old for a long time. Those hints, at last, 
grew displeasing. One morning he quitted Grenoble, and came to Paris, 
with the intention of disinheriting his relations. Marriage appeared to 
. him the mést ready and certain means. My appearance pleased him ; 
my youth had interested him, and he selected me for the instrument of 
his vengeance. My aunt took good care to offer no refusal. She dis- 
missed the Neuilly bridegroom—published new banns—conducted me to 
the mayoralty—led me to the church—made me utter one little word in 
its proper place—and Monsieur de Villefort teld me, with great cere- 
mony, that I was his bride. 

» « This worthy old man occupied himself seriously with my education— 
I owe to him whatever little [ know. I lost him at the end’ of three 
years from my marriage. Ishall regret him all my life. He left me 
all his estates—his relations attacked the will—they lost their cause— 
and they appealed. It was necessary that I should go to Grenoble. 
To have right on one’s side, is a fine thing—but solicitations, recom- 
mendations, and importunities, have also their merits ; and at law we 
should neglect nothing. I knew no one in this province, where I 
came for the first time ; my residence was at the Lion d’Or; the windows 
of my apartment looked to those of a colonel of infantry, who, I knew 
not how, but I knew why, contrived to be always in my way. Ina 
provincial town, a stranger has always the privilege of exciting curiosity. 
The motive of my journey was quickly ascertained ; and my adversaries 
had the address to circulate little anecdotes of scandal, to prejudice the 
public opinion. Through one of those chances—common enough in the 
history of my life—the colonel read one of those libels; he was indignant, 
nor could he persuade himself that I was such as they painted me. He 
asked permission to present himself tome. He came-—professed the 
profound attachment with which I had inspired him, and offered me, 
with true military frankness, his sword, his time, his attentions, and’ 
his heart. I accepted all; and I did well. Born in the environs of 
Grenoble, he was connected with the greater number of my judges; he 


1829.] A Traveller's Recollections. 125 


saw them—spoke to them—conyinced them of the solidity of my pre- 
tensions—and as there are circumstances where justice will carry the day 
from intrigue, I gained my cause a second time. 

*T could not dissemble to myself the obligations I owed to the colonel ; 
he had powerfully seconded me, and his zeal had succeeded in destroying 
the reports raised by the relations of Monsieur de Villefort. Each day 
his visits became more frequent, his glances more expressive, his con- 
versations more animated. At last he hazarded a demand for his reward ; 
and, be it wisdom, or be it caprice, I found myself wedded a second 
time, without having had much more hand in it than the first. 

« At the expiration of a few months my husband was called to join 
his regiment; but, led on too far by his courage, he was killed at the 
battle of Nuremberg, and I became a widow for the second time, at 
the age of two-and-twenty. As his family were allied to the best 
families of the province, I naturally found myself connected with the 
most distinguished persons of Dauphiny ; and those connections con- 
tributed in no slight degree to correct whatever might have remained of 
the manners and habits of my childhood. 

«IT quitted Grenoble, after having arranged the affairs of my new inhe- 
ritance, of which the value doubled my income. I had now been four 
years at Paris, when one of the colonel’s sisters begged of me to make an 
application for her to a man of rank, who had promised to get the eldest 
of her sons on the establishment at St. Cyr. I drove to the Comte 
de N——— ; he received me d merveille—his countenance pleased me 
infinitely ; his conversation made me forget the hour ; he assured me he 
would interest himself in my request, and next morning he brought me 
the letter of admission. As the reward of this service, he asked per- 
mission to visit me, and had no difficulty to obtain it. Some days 
afterwards the comte demanded my hand—TI really think I would have 
offered it to him. 

As they drew up the contract, my names—which of course I was 
obliged to declare—drew from him an exclamation of joy and surprise 
that he was not sufficiently master of himself to restrain. This poor 
Comte de M———— loved me through reminiscence—never expecting 
to discover in the widow of Monsieur de Villefort, and General L § 
the pretty little flower girl of Neuilly—the object of his first passion. On 
my side, how could I have recognised in the man I now loved, him whom 
ten years earlier I should only have espoused, because-I could not help 
it. Each of us had made way in the world—every one made it at that 
period. The week following I married my lover ; the first month that 
succeeded was a month of fétes and pleasures ; the second. ” 

Here ended the manuscript. ; 

“ What will your young privy councillor say to that?” observed I to 
my friend, as I next day returned him the Countess’s memoir. 

« Why, that the chateau of the Prince de ——— is close to Neuilly 
that his highness is an amateur of beauty—that the. mother was called 
ta Belle Paysanne, and was—secretly married to him ?” 


ae a | [Fes. 


FULL LENGTHS: N® XII. 
Tur AcrTor. 


Pernars Fortune does not buffet any set of beings with more indus- 
try, and withal less effect, than Actors. There may be something in 
the habitual mutability of their feelings that evades the blow ; they live, 
in a great measure, out of this dull sphere, “ which men call earth ;” 
they assume the dress, the tone, the gait of emperors, kings, nobles; 
the world slides, and they mark it not. The Actor leaves his home, and 
forgets every domestic exigence in the temporary government of a state, 
or overthrow of a tyrant; he is completely out of the real world until 
the dropping of the curtain. The time likewise not spent on the stage is 
passed in preparation for the night ; and thus the shafts of fate glance 
from our Actor like swan-shot from an elephant. If struck at all, the 
barb must pierce the bones, and quiver in the marrow. 

Let us instance an author who, by the aid of pen, ink, and paper— 
implements for immortality—makes him a world of his own, peoples it 
according to his desires, and lies basking beneath the sky of summer- 
blue. Let us take Milton, in his divine phrenzy, drawing “ empyreal 
air ;” let us contemplate him suddenly snatched from the heaven of 
heavens by a shrill warning from his landlady, that an unpoetie cob- 
bler refuses to leave the newly heel-tapped shoes of “ Mr. Milton” 
without the groat! Is not this a check? Isnot our poet brought from 
his Pegasus with a jolt that threatens dislocation? We take it, the 


feeling of an Actor, really awakened to worldly pressure, is, in some ° 


degree, the same. He descends from his throne, and the breath of 
assumed royalty is scarcely extinct within him, ere “ our anointed self” 
may receive a no very ceremonious deputation from a petty creditor, or 
the personal attack of an enraged “ cleanser of soiled linen.” 

Our Actor—mind, we are speaking of players in the mass—is the 
most joyous, careless, superficial flutterer in existence. He knows every 
thing, yet has learned nothing ; he has played at ducks and drakes over 
every rivulet of information, yet never plunged inch-deep into any thing 
beyond a play-book, or Joe Miller’s jests. If he venture a scrap of 
Latin, be sure there is among his luggage a dictionary of quotations ; if 
he speak of history,—why, he has played in Richard and Coriolanus. 
The stage is with him the fixed orb around which the whole world 
revolves ; there is nothing worthy of a moment’s devotion one hundred 
yards from the green-room. It is amusing to perceive how blind, how 
dead, is our real Actor to the stir and turmoil of politics ; he will turn 
from a Salamanca to admire a Sir John Brute’s wig ; Waterloo sinks into 
insignificance before the amber-headed cane of a Sir Peter Teazle. 
What is St. Stephen’s to him—what the memory of Burke and Chatham? 
To be sure, Sheridan is well remembered ; but then Sheridan wrote the 
Critic. 

Our Actor is completely great-coated in self-importance—buttoned up 
to the throat in the impervious inch-thick vest of vanity. We never find 
his nature cold and shivering at the atmosphere of diffidence ; no, it 
glows with all the comfortable fervour of self-opinion. Place him any 
where, and it is impossible that he should become frozen ; every Actor 
is, in fact, his own Vesuvius. In Mallim’s South Wales, there is a fine 
characteristic anecdote of the vanity of a dreamy Methodist: the man 
had come to so settled an opinion of his immaculate state, that he planted 


a 


1829. | The Actor. 127 


his belief in dwarf-box, and thus saw tlie memento of his salvation 
sprouting greenly around him. “ Howel Harris, saved by grace, 17—,” 
taught by the clipping sheers, grew letter by letter in gratifying distinct- 
ness. Now this is precisely what an Actor practises, only with different 
agents. The walls of his house (if he have one) are plastered with his 
character-portraits ; he is multiplied a hundred times ; turn where we 
will, we meet him—not a niche is vacant.* 

A mackerel lives longer out of water than does an Actor out of his ele- 
ment: he ‘cannot, for a minute’ “ look abroad into universality.” Keep 
him to the last edition of a new or old play, the burning of the two 
theatres, or an anecdote of John Kemble, and our Actor sparkles 
amazingly. Put to him an unprofessional question, and you strike him 
dumb ; an abstract truth locks his jaws. On the contrary, listen to the 
stock-joke ; lend an attentive ear to the witticism clubbed by the whole 
green-room—for there is rarely more than one at a time in circulation— 
and no man talks faster—none with a deeper delight to himself—none 
more profound, more knowing. The conversation of our Actor is a fine 
“ piece of mosaic.” Here Shakspeare is laid under contribution—here 
Farquhar—here Otway. We have an undigested mass of quotations, 
dropping without order from him. In words he is absolutely impo- 
verishable. What a lion he stalks in a country town! How he stilts 
himself upon his jokes over the sleek, unsuspecting heads of his asto- 
nished hearers! He tells a story ; and, for the remainder of the night, 
sits embosomed in the ineffable lustre of his humour. 

An Actor can always be recognized in the street ; he seems at ease 
(for where is he not?) in the crowd, yet not one of it. The peacock, 
stripped of its feathers, will still maintain its strut: the Actor has not 
forgotten the part of last night ; his head, accustomed to the velvet cap, 
the overhanging plumes, and the sparkling gem, carries the meek beaver 
with a haughty, jerking air; his foot throws itself forth with deter- 
mination, as though ambition, love, or tyranny yet burned in every toe ; 
his hand still seems to grasp a hilt or cartel ; the coat sets as though it 
knew it had usurped the place of tunic, vest, or robe ; the very cravat 
dilates with the conscious pride of “ station.” He looks at the passers-by 
with the air of an old acquaintance—of one who has obliged them— 
suns himself in the fair eyes that have wept at his “ serious business’”— 
and bathes his spirit in the dewy lips that have tittered at his comedy. 
Verily, we have seen a successful Actor air himself in the Park: we 
have seen him, whilst his inward man was wholly inebriated. with the 
looks and gestures that he drew upon him! 

The vanity of our Actor is never more apparent than in his benevo- 
lent custom of helping the ignorant dramatists whose creations he 
embodies: his philanthropy is unbounded. Even the Bard of Avon’s 
language sometimes gains correction and adornment. We once heard an 
Actor tag the exit of the starved Apothecary with an original interpola- 
tion. We should much like to have the measure of the importance of a 
popular Actor as taken by himself: it would be acuriosity for the study 
of the contemplative. We remember one striking instance. A celebrated 
mimic, a few seasons since, modestly expressed his hope that he might 


* It is odd to perceive how vanity haunts the tribe. There is now lying before us the 
address-card of a truly great tragedian. On the reverse is the Actor placed, like a naughty 
boy in the corner, with a cap on his head, and the following startling intelligence :— 
** Alanienouidet, chief of Huron tribe of Indians.” 


128 Full-Lengths. : [ Fes. 


be the means of conciliating one quarter of the world with England. 
Only think of the comfortable state of that man’s mind, who, having rub- 
bed a hare’s-foot over his cheek and nose, thinks himself sufficiently im- 
portant to form a connecting link between Great Britain and America ! 

This feeling may, however, be reasonably accounted for. The Actor, 
unlike every other professional man, receives admiration through so violent 
and gross a medium—it comes with such a gust-upon his senses, that he 
cannot maintain that equanimity arrived at by the poet, the painter, the 
sculptor. The man, accustomed to estimate his appearance as the signal 
of shouts and plaudits from congregated thousands, cannot soberly calcu- 
late his real importance, but is apt to confound his bearing in every other 
relation of life with his mere professional value. The admiration paid to 
men in other walks of art comes to them cooled, purified, and sweetened 
by distance—just as the voluptuous Turk draws the bounty of the weed 
through a dulcifying rivulet of rose-water. Now our Actor has it hot— 
“ burning hot ”—and rolling up around him, eyes, mouth, nose, ears, 
all take in the intoxicating vapour, and a large monster of vanity jis 
thereby generated. 

An Actor, in the full enjoyment of his art, must experience the most 
intense and violent delight. He fairly bathes himself in the plaudits 
showered around him: he seems saturated with commendation. His 
person dilates, his eye lightens, all the cares of existence are lost, annihi- 
lated, in the brief rapture of the moment The consciousness of self- 
importance knocks hardly at his heart; his pulses are at full gallop ; 
his very being is multiplied. It is to this cause that an Actor has less 
admiration for his author than has the uninitiated man. The Actor loses. 
all recollection of the dramatist in self: he is persuaded that he has 
snatched the unformed lump from the author, and, by his own feelings 
and emotions, given shape and beauty to the plastic mass! It is he 
-who has made the part. 

The low, creeping envy of the Actor is to be accounted for on the same 
principle as his conceit: the approbation paid to another reaches him 
-as loudly as that awarded to self. Actors come in more direct collision 
with one another than any kind of men besides. Hence, there is more 
envy, more low, petty intrigues, in a green-room, than in a court of 
-France. 

Popularity is the Actor’s idol. No matter how it be gained, so that 
the precious spoil—the golden bough, the glittering aureus ramus—be 
acquired. We will close our paper with a brief, yet striking illustration, 
of this passion: it may stand as an index, a finger-post, to the motives of 
our subject. A manager—who must be taken as an Actor, with all his 
feelings and frailties in the most intense state of expression, who is, 
in fact, to an actor, what prussic is to oxalic acid—some short 
time since smote, not a noble Venetian, but a famous burletta-writer : 
the blow or kick was more deadly from the place where it was applied. 
Our author cited the manager before a justice, who, however, pursuing 
the soothing system, dismissed the parties to debate the matter with 
themselves. The manager spoke eloquently in extenuation of the error : 
the author stilllooked sullen. At length the manager hit upon a golden 
expedient ; for, drawing up to the modern Lopez, he exclaimed, in alow, 
persuasive, yet prophetic voice, at the same time laying one hand, with | 
gentle significance, upon our author’s shoulder, “ Never mind—never 
mind, my boy ; it will make you popular !” J. 


1829.5 [129° J 


TAM GARAI, THE GOOD BANYAN. 


* Glory is but the shadow of virtue: where the one is not, the other cannot be.”’—Maw#im 
vextracted from the Sama-VrDAM of the Hindus. 


Berore the Tartars, the Moguls, the Mahrattas, or the English 
had been the conquerors of the finest countries of the east, the 
kingdom of Guzzerat was regarded as the great source of supplies, and 
the richest province of the Indian peninsula. Its rajah was just 
dead ; his son, who had succeeded him, was daring, and distinguished 
by many, brilliant qualities ; the people, whose sovereign he had become, 
were mighty ; the country he ruled was prolific; and the kings of 
Decan, of Jesselmire, and of Chitor were tributary to his power. With 
such temptations, is it strange that the youth should give way to ambi- 
tion? He desired to surpass Alexander in his conquests, and Mariadi- 
ramen in his equity. He even longed for reverses, that, in bearing 
them, he might rival Porus. The most learned brahmins of Benares, 
the most celebrated poets of India, were summoned to his court to cele- 
brate the exploits he projected, and the virtues he was going to have. 

He doubled the number of his soldiers, caused them to be attired 
magnificently, and determined to dazzle his people by personally passing 
his vast army in review. 

Between the mountains of Bollodo and the gulf of Guzzerat spreads 
an immense plain, skirted by a double vista of palm and sandal trees. 
To that spot the troops of the young prince poured from all parts of the 
kingdom. Thither thronged the inhabitants of Barocha, Cambaya, 
Boudra, &c., eager for the proud array, and for a sight of their new 
sovereign. 

The army took its position on the border of the gulf, and the royal 
retinue presently appeared. Two thousand rajputs, or sons of noblemen, 
formed its vanguard. They were all clad in baftas* of the finest cot- 
ton, stuffs of striped silk, brocades of ‘gold and silver. In their hands 
each bore either one of the famed bows of Multan, or the lance and axe 
of Kaboul. To the sound of every warlike instrument at once, wrapped 
in a scarlet mantle, his brow and breast covered with diamonds of 
Somelpour, Viszpour, and Golconda, the prince appeared. He was 
mounted on a beautiful white elephant ; its caparison was of surpassing 
splendour ; it sparkled with the most precious stones of Pegu and the 
isle of Ceylon. . ; 

The bosom of our young hero swelled with pride at this prodigality 
and magnificence, which he regarded as the harbingers of glory. He 
lifted his head, and looked about him, with extreme self-complacency, 
to gladden his eye with the evidences of the impression he was making 
upon his people. But what was his wonder, when he perceived the 
multitude, instead of pressing upon his path to feast upon a nearer view 
of his mighty person, suddenly receding like a tremendous wave. Its 
swiftness increases momentarily, and, with tumult and terror, it reeled 
backward to the vistas which fringed the plain. 

The cause of this consternation was a terrific panther, which had just 


* Bands of muslin, in which they encircled the jiend. 


M.M. New Series.—Votu. VII. No. 38. S 


130 Tam Garai, the Good Banyan. (Fes. 


darted out from the mountains of Bollodo. The rush of the animal had 
been checked by the sight of the recoiling throng, and it was advancing 
slowly, with distended jaws, in the wide space thrown open by its 
appearance. 

A poor and tattered old man, who, from the first, had stood aloof from 
the crowd, was left, by its sudden flight, alone upon the path. He was 
an Halachor—as despised a caste as that of the Parias—and, even in 
the midst of danger, did not dare to mingle with his more favoured 
countrymen, lest he might chance to contaminate them by an accidental 
touch. The monster made a spring, caught the old man, and, with a 
growl of triumph, was bearing him towards the mountains. 

Suddenly, a person darts from the throng, boldly cuts off the retreat 
of the panther, forces him to let go his prey, and thrusts his arm down 
his distended throat. 

In vain did the baffled brute, panting with fury, and his eyes starting 
from their sockets, plunge his fangs into his adversary’s side. The 
Indian resists and struggles ; strangles him, and flings him, expiring, 
upon the sand. 

The people sent forth a shout of joy and astonishment ; but it was 
louder, and still more exulting, when they recognized, in the conqueror 
of the panther, the good banyan, Tam Garai, whose whole fortune had 
formerly been exhausted in succouring the poor of Guzzerat. 

When order was restored, the young rajah reappeared. He was ina 
warrior’s costume, and mounted on a courser of Arabia. He made his 
steed prance with extraordinary skill, went through the ranks of his 
soldiers, and promised riches and honours to them all. The people 
admired the grace and dexterity of the young rajah; but every mind 
was intent upon what had just occurred ; and every eye kept turning 
from the spectacle of grandeur to the mountains of Bollodo. 

The breaking up of the review was announced for the morrow. The 
royal tents were pitched upon the bank; perfumes burned on ever 
side ; fires were lighted all over the plain. The brahmins invoked the 
benedictions of Heaven on a king who was the hope of Indostan ; and 
the poets of the courts struck up their noblest strains to celebrate his 
skill in horsemanship, the lustre of his diamonds, and even the 
generosity of which, no doubt, they were desirous to have evidence. 

The king entered his tent well pleased. He thought the praises he 
had heard of himself gave great evidence of the proper notions of his 
people. He could not consider any projects of aggrandizement too great 
for a people so deserving. He even began to ponder seriously on the 
wonderful things he meant to accomplish. But he was desirous of hear- 
ing nearer at hand of the vast impression he had made. If the great men 
and the poets were so struck by his display of magnificence and power, 
what must the populace say of it when they get among themselves, and 
can freely unbosom their delight ? He wrapped himself in a simple garb 
of rajput, and set off on foot for the great avenue of palm and sandal. 
The multitude had hastily thrown up rude shelters there for the night. 
He saw groups every where in warm and eager conversation. He 
approached some of them. It was strange to be lurking about thus to 
hear his own praises ; but he was curious to know what the lower orders 
liked him most for. He listened. The name of Tam Garai was the only 
one which met his ear! There were earnest questionings about his situa- 
tion and his wounds; the excess of his magnanimity, in exposing his 


1829.] Tam Garai, the Good Banyan. 131 


own life to save that of a miserable Halachor, was extolled over and 
over again; every one had seen the struggle with the panther; and 
every one, in recounting it with different circumstances, increased the 
size of the monster and the boldness of the combatant. Indignant that, 
on the day of his grand review, such should be the general theme, the 
king turned aside to other groups. The other groups enlarged on the 
benevolence of the good banyan! During a year of scarcity, he had, at 
his own expense, kept more than a thousand persons from starving. By 
the secrets he had discovered and disclosed in medicine, he had preserved 
‘innumerable lives ; and the name of Tam Garai, repeated from lip to lip, 
wearied the king, and he was mortified, and went back to his tent. 

The young rajah had no sooner returned, than a brahmin, who had 
brought him up from infancy, and whose frankness and virtues he 
respected, was summoned before him. The sage heard with calmness 
the result of his ramble, and replied :-— 

« Show and splendour dazzle for a moment, and are forgotten. The 
memory of a good action never dies.” 

The prince drew a long breath, and, after a moment’s pause, “ Well, 
then,” said he, “ I will perform good actions.” 

The royal favourites now appeared, and the dancing-girls and jugglers 
were called in; and, in the midst of all sorts of surprising sleights and 
dances, half the night was consumed in chewing the betel,* and in 
carousing arrack + and the juice of the toddi.{ 

Returning to Guzzerat, the capital of his states, now known by the 
name of Ahmed-Abad, the king, more eager than ever for glory, turned 
over in his mind by what means he could possibly achieve the noble 
actions he meditated. “If it is good to overcome a panther,” said he, 
« how much better must it be to overcome a people. War is the only 
thing of sufficient importance to render so great a man as I am illus- 
trious.” He instantly sent for the minister charged with the finances of 
the kingdom. He asked him whether the rajahs of Jesselmire and of 
Decan paid their tribute with punctuality. He was answered that two 
hundred thousand rupees of gold had that very moment been paid into 
the treasury in their name. The prince was quite disconcerted by a 
precision which deprived him of all pretext for invasion. 

That instant a messenger rushed in. He said the whole city was in 
consternation. The little river of Lambremetti, which runs through 
Guzzerat, and whose alternate deluge and disappearance are equal cala- 
mities to the public, was overflowing its banks, and had even then nearly 
swallowed up the dwelling of a rich merchant, which stood upon its 
shore. A woman and her child happened to be the only persons 
in the house. They were, as the messenger came away, upon 
the roof, imploring succour ; but no one dared approach them. The 
Waters were extending momentarily ; every instant they rose higher 
up the walls, and must presently overtop the whole mansion. The tor- 
rents of rain, which had swelled the river, gave such turbulence to its 
Waves, especially in this spot, which was strewed with rocks and unfi- 
nished edifices, that it was almost certain death to attempt a rescue, and 
no one could be found bold enough to venture. 


* Amalgamation of the nuts of arrack and quicklime, enclosed in a leaf of piper-betel, 
a viny plant of the pepper species. : 
+ Spirituous liquor extracted from the sugar-cane. 
t Sort of palm-tree. 
§ 2 


132 Tam Garai, the Good Banyan. [Fex, 


The king darted, with all his court, to the seat of the disaster. -In his 
hand he waved a massy goblet of gold, of inestimable workmanship, and 
enriched with the finest diamonds of the regalia.— This for their pre- 
server !” cried he. r ; 

A murmur of approbation arose on every side: yet not one of the 
numerous bystanders attempted to deserve the goblet. The king made 
it once more glitter before all eyes ; all still withstood the temptation. 

Just then there was a man perceived whirling down the rapid current 
of the Lambremetti in a little junk. After the Indian manner, he 


worked the oar with his foot, while he propped himself on his hands, ° 


and put forth all his strength to reach the wretched victims. But the 
frail bark was flung, by the turmoil of the waters, against a projection 
from their surface, and dashed to pieces, and, with its unknown navi- 
gator, disappeared. But the gallant boatman was seen presently to rise 
above the waves. Expert in swimming, he glanced from projection to 
projection—caught an axe from the scaffolding of an unfinished building 
which was nearly submerged, and, tearing apart some of the materials 
which formed it, laid them in order for a raft, and knit them firmly 
together with ligatures, which were flung to him from the trembling pair 
upon the adjacent house-top. He reached the mother and her child ; he 
placed them on the raft, and bound them there, and launched them on 
the stream, from whose impetuosity he in some degree screened them by 
means of a rope which he held extended as he swam behind them. 
Driven at length into a creek of the river, they landed there in safety. 
The people rushed to receive them ; the air resounded with acclama- 
tions ; the hero was conducted, on the shoulders of the multitude, to the 
king. 

It was Tam Garai. The young prince blushed to hear him named. 

“ Take this,” said he, offering the goblet; “ you have deserved the 
promised recompence.” 

“TI cannot take it,” replied the banyan; “ it will, in Brama’s eye, 
deprive the action of its virtue.” . 

« But, remember,” answered the astonished prince, “ had you 
perished, none would have given you credit for your disinterested- 
ness.” 

« What care I for the judgment of man? I saw two fellow-creatures 
perishing. My heart prompted me to save them. I am more than 
rewarded in the approbation of my heart.” 

«« Be it so ;—but I am aware that the prodigality of your benevolence 
has been your ruin. Let me be the restorer of your fortune.” 

“ Heaven has restored it, prince. A large sum which I lent formerly 
was restored to me this very morning.” 

Nothing was spoken of at court but the magnanimity of the king, who 
would have sacrificed the most beautiful of his goblets to save two of his 
subjects. Nothing was spoken of among the people but the noble disin- 
terestedness of Tam Garai. 

The rajah said to the brahmin, “‘ My father, are you satisfied with my 
conduct ?” 

« Yes,” replied the brahmin, “ your action is noble; but that of the 
banyan will eclipse it. You sought a glory without peril ;—he braved a 
peril without glory, for a triumph without reward.” 

Some months more passed away in warlike preparations; but for what 
war, or for what object there should be a war, not even the king himself 


wd 


1829.] Tam Garai, the Good Banyan. 133 


could tell. He was bent upon one, however; but he was too “ just” 
to invade the neighbouring states, or to draw upon his loving subjects 
the terrible chances of battles, without some sort of pretext. In the hope 
there would arise one ere long, he thought he would amuse himself, in 
the interim, by building ; and so he laid the foundations of a vast palace 
in the middle of the Meidan, the great central square of Guzzerat. He 
watched over its progress in person. Every thing was planned with 
such admirable forethought, that, even if death had come upon him 
unawares, the building might have been carried on to its completion, 
intending that, if he never obtained a chance of conquest, posterity 
should at least have an intimation of what a prince he was from this 
superb monument. 

When it was completed, “ What do the people find to talk about now?” 
asked he of his veracious brahmin. 

“ The cistern of the good banyan,” replied the brahmin. 

« What cistern?” vociferated the prince, reddening with fury. 

« Your majesty is aware,” answered the brahmin with composure, 
« that, notwithstanding what the people suffer from the inundations of 
the Lambremetti, they are even more affiicted by the scarcity of water 
when it is dried up, as it is at present. Tam Garai, at is own expense, 
has constructed a vast cistern, which, by subterranean conduits, receives 
the superflux of the river in the time of rain, and preserves it for the 
time of drought.” 

“ But my palace!” interrupted the prince, in a choked voice ; “ what 
say the people of my palace ?” 

“ The people think you will be magnificently lodged there.” 

“ What! dare they weigh the finest monument of Indostan against a 
paltry cistern ?” 

«“ King of Guzzerat!” said the brahmin, raising his voice, “ the 
esteem of the people is won by services, and not by splendour : they value 
monuments only by their usefulness.” 

More than twenty poems, in most musically-balanced periods, were 
instantly composed in praise of the palace of Meidan, the wonder of 
India ; but the rajah heard them listlessly, for the people had composed 
a song about the banyan, whose burthen ran— 


«* May Brama watch o’er Tam Garai!” 


And often did those rude rhymes reach even the ear of the sovereign. 

His disgust did not escape the courtiers. One, who was sharper- 
sighted than the rest, soon divined its cause. He hastened to the prince, 
flung himself at his feet, placed his right hand on his breast, set the 
other on the earth, then drew it back on his head, and exclaimed— 

« Justice !—justice, in the name of Brama !—justice, in the name of 
the people!” 

The young rajah was not unaware that to be equitable was one of the 
ways to attain glory. Indeed, he had long wished for an opportunity 
of eclipsing, by some signal judgment, the renown of Mariadiramen, the 
Solomon of India. He commanded the courtier to speak out. 

“ Prince, a miscreant, a heresiarch, imbued with the detestable prin- 
ciples of Agamam, dares openly profess that all men are born equal.” 

“ His name?” 

«Tam Garai.” 

The banyan was brought before the king. He was found guilty of 


134 Tam Garai, the Good Banyan. [Fes 


having indiscriminately visited persons of every caste—of having even 
suffered the garment of an Halachor to touch his without instantly puri- 
fying himself from the contamination. This was quite proof enough of 
his being a sectary of Agamam. He was doomed to banishment. Even 
the good brahmin did not dare to say a word in his favour, for the offence 
was against religion. Besides, the king, when he pronounced the decree, 
declared that he would forthwith attempt to appease the wrath of the 
gods for the impiety of Tam Garai, by raising a pagoda in their honour 
at Guzzerat, which shonld surpass the united magnificence of all the 
gorgeous three at Jaggernaut, Multan, and Kalamak. 

«« My salutary counsels,” cried the brahmin, “ begin to take effect upon 
the king. Now he plans useful monuments.” 

It was then, especially, that every lyre was tuned to teach posterity 
the equitable judgment of the Rajah of the rajahs of Guzzerat. The 
people answered only by their favourite ballad— 


« May Brama watch o’er Tam Garai!” 


The prince now thought himself quite secure with posterity. His 
poets could not say more of him than they had done. No king had ever 
built so fine a palace. No king had ever pronounced a sentence so just, 
and, at the same time, so liberal. His virtue, in this case, had literally 
been its own reward. The equity of his decree had, at the same time, 
raised his fame, and rid him of his only rival with the people. 

How is he to employ himself next? He had not yet distinguished 
himself in the career in which he had ever longed for distinction. Now 
a chance seems to offer. There is no other addition he can possibly make 
to his greatness. There is a fair excuse for war. Shall it be neglected ? 
Certainly not. : 

The Sanganians and the Warrels had long harassed his coasts by their 
piracies. They had been quiet for the last few months ; but offences had 
been committed, and might be committed again, and the offenders must 
be exterminated. However, there was no doing this without a powerful 
navy ; and powerful navies cost money, and the people were already 
complaining of the taxes. “ Double them,” said the courtiers; “ the 
camel is never quiet until loaded.” The king listened to the courtiers, 
and lost the good will of the nation. 

After long preparations, the forces were in readiness. On their way 


to embark at the gulf of Guzzerat, they were to pass through the wild | 


villages of the Kowlis, to exterminate its tribes of brigands, and to 
dethrone the queen of Sangania. This done, they were to possess them- 
selves of the sea, from the pomt of Diu to the coast of Malabar, and to 
force the Warrels to deliver up their arms and ships. 

The Kowlis were taken by surprise, and made very little resistance. 
They were conquered, destroyed, or given up to slavery. The king con- 
ducted himself like a hero: he shared all dangers with his soldiers. 
With his own hand he slew the leader of the foe, and had two elephants 
killed under him. The defeat of the brigands was followed by three 
days of rejoicing. When these were accomplished, the victorious rajah 
pronounced the order to embark. But scarcely was the signal of 
departure given, when a ship from the Warrels and the Sanganians was 
seen toenter the gulf. The deputies from those nations prostrated them- 
selves before the king. One of them addressed him in the following 
terms :— . 


1829.)] Tam Garai, the Good Banyan. 135 


- «© Rajah of rajahs! Fora long time we had no resource but war. We 
have more than once given proofs enough of our prowess, in our recep- 
tion of the united forces of your father and the kings of Decan, Cam- 
baya, and Balagata. Let those convince you that, when we submit, it 
is only because we do not choose to conquer. It was once our highest 
ambition to be feared. We are changed now: we have a nobler ambi- 
tion. The circumstance which wrought this change is one of too exalted 
a character to be concealed. Hear it. A merchant junk, captured by 
our Sanganians, had on board of her a passenger who proved to be a 
subject of yours. He was about to incur the usual fate of our prisoners,* 
when some former inhabitants of Guzzerat, who served among us, recog- 
nized him, and implored his pardon of our queen. Struck with their 
touching picture of his virtues, she commanded him to be brought before 
her. The words spoken by the sage sunk deep into her heart. The 
effect of his counsels was soon conspicuous in the improvement of every 
thing around us. By hisadvice our numerous prisoners were no longer 
treated worse than brutes; their condition was rendered comfortable ; 
their respective talents were ascertained, and called into active exercise. 
The arts and embellishments of society were thus suddenly implanted 
among us ; and we began to find better uses for life than the making it a 
mere scourge to others. That maddening beverage, bang,t which, by 
inflaming our imagination, excited us to ferocity, fell into disuse; and, 
with its rejection, the natural gentleness of the Indian character returned. 
Our disarmed vessels offered to make exchanges with the neighbouring 
nations. At first, the offer was scarcely credited ; but, gradually, we 
were believed. Commerce, at length, entered our ports. Our fields, 
which had been left uncultured, became productive. Our manners grew 
conciliating. The Warrels, who had ever been the allies of our sterner 
character, soon recognized the blessing of the change, and changed with 
us. True, there were some few untameable spirits who would not con- 
cur in the improvement, and who strove to throw us back into barba- 
rism ; but the virtues of our new legislator, and the firmness of our 
queen, prevailed, and established the revolution. This miraculous rege- 
neration of two nations is the work of a few months, and of one man; 


_ and now the Sanganians and the Warrels, in union, repeat the favourite 
ballad of Guzzerat— 


“ «Oh, Brama! bless the good Garai.’” 


At this name, the prince started, and his brow fell. The ambassador 
went on :— 

“ Disturb not, great rajah! the happiness we are beginning to enjoy. 
Every pretext for war shall be removed. The ships captured from your 
subjects shall be restored. But leave our prosperity to increase unmo- 
lested, and name your own amount of tribute as an indemnity for the 
expense of this uncalled-for expedition, and it shall speedily be paid. 
Meanwhile, accept these hostages as guarantees of our sincerity,” added 
he, presenting two of the sons of the queen of Sangania to the rajah ; 
“let them learn in thy kingdom the art of rendering nations happy. 
How can they acquire aught but virtue under his eye who can reckon in 
the number of his subjects a Tam Garai ?” 


Sr 


* These people, the moment they have made a prisoner, cut the tendon Achilles, to 
render it impossible for him to escape. 
+ Mixture of opium and henbane. 


136 Yam Garai, ithe Good Banyan. [Frs. 


« Tam Garai!” echoed the young prince, bending up his brow, red 
with spite and fury—*“ must that name haunt me through the world? 
Must it for ever cross my triumphs—thwart my noblest hopes? Must I 
renounce conquest, and my ruling passion—glory, because there hap- 
pens to be a Tam Garai?” 

The veracious brahmin was near the monarch, and heresy and Agaman 
now formed no part of the question.—< If you love glory, shew more 
self-command,” said he, “ and expose not your weaknesses to strangers. 
Accept the offer of the Sanganians. A treaty is of more value than a 
victory. It is nobler to vanquish by words than by arms, and to per- 
suade is better than to conquer.” 

« Then,” muttered the prince, “is the banyan greater than I!” 

All this, however, did not prevent the conqueror of the Kowlis from 
entering his capital, borne, on a superb palanquin of tatta, by the first’ 
lords of his court ; and yet even the clang of the trumpets, the beat of 
the drums, the shouts of the soldiers, and the songs of the bards, did not 
prevent his hearing voices murmur through them all— 


“ May Brama bless the good Garai !” 


Being alone with his brahmin,—“ Tell me,” said he, “ father, whence 
is this? How chances it that the wretched member of a caste almost 
despised—who has neither army nor treasures—who drags on a joyless 
existence in alternate poverty and exile—can thus contrive to come into 
ceaseless competition with me, a rajah of rajahs—a king, the son of 
kings ?” 

«« My son, it is because your object has been glory only—that of the 
banyan, virtue: the one benefits all—the other gratifies but one. Would 
you be truly great, and leave to posterity a durable and respected name, 
never forget the precept of the Sama-Vedam : ‘ Glory is but the shadow 
of virtue: where the one is not, the other cannot be.’ ” 


Certain confused ancient traditions would encourage a conjecture that 
the Indian monarch, of whose reign I have sketched the earlier years, 
died at a very advanced age. It is even probable that, at the time of his 
death, vast conquests had rendered him sovereign of all the region from 
between Chitor and Golconda to the Orixa mountains. At the close of 
the last century, however, I travelled through the ancient kingdom of 
Guzzerat, now a province of the Mahrattas. I sought to obtain some 
certain information of the hero of my narrative. Nota trace exists there 
of all his great achievements! His very name is utterly unknown— 
while that of Tam Garai is repeated with veneration throughout the 
whole oriental peninsula. Even the fine verses composed in honour of 
the rajah have met the fate of the hero whom they celebrated ; but, from 
the mountains of Bollodo to the coast of Malabar, you may still hear the 
homely ballad of—The Good Banyan! 


1829. i Ae 7) 
THE FRENCH ANNUALS. 


Tar French Annuals are not, in any respect, to be compared with 
ours, as far as paper, typography, and embellishments are concerned. 
Perhaps they are also inferior in writing ; but that is a question into 
which we do not think it necessary to enter ;—nor is it very material; 
for, we suppose, that the writing of these pretty books is the last thing 
looked to. One of the least ornamented among them, the “ Annales 
Romantiques,” contains occasionally a passable copy of verses, or a read- 
able prose article ; and as, we believe, it is not much seen in this coun- 

“try, we venture on a translation of a couple of its pieces. 


A Scene or 1815, Iv THE Town OF 


* Listen! listen!” cried a little man in black to the crowd which was press- 
ing round a cask placed at the door of the Brown Bear, “ I—a royalist a 

** Yes, yes!” repeated a thousand confused voices, “as great a royalist as 
a Chouan!” 

All the efforts of the little man in black were in vain; he could not make 
himself be heard from the top of his barrel ; his windpipe had got out of order 
from crying at the pitch of his voice ; he had bawled himself hoarse, and from 
his tormented throat no sounds issued but such as resembled those of a muffled 
bell. He was red with rage—his eyes sparkled—and he shook, with a sort of con- 
vulsive motion, a long sheet of stamped paper, which he thrust in the face of 
the spectators who came too near his barrel. Observing in the group a lad 
of fifteen or sixteen years old, he made signs to him to.approach: the youth 
hastened to climb the tribune ; and the little man in black put into his hand 
the sheet of stamped paper, raised on his forehead his rusty iron spectacles, 
pemece the pen which adorned his left ear, and assumed the attitude of a 

ner. 

- The lad understood him, ‘and a deep silence ensued among the multitude. 

** Napoleon, by the grace of God, Emperor of the French, King of Italy, 
Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine, Mediator of the Confederation ef 
Switzerland——” 

The boy stopped, and turning to the little man in black, “ Monsieur le 
Greffier,” said he, “‘ must I read the et ceteras ?” 

“ Yes, yes!” hastily answered the little man in black, taking the sheet of 
tamped paper out of the boy’s hand— et cetera, et cetera, et cetera!—Well! 
as not that courage? Et cetera, et cetera! People wear the cross of the 

ion of Honour who have not done half so much. ¢ cetera, et cetera! 
Draw up a judgment of the tribunal of commerce in the name of Napoleon, 
with all the et ceteras, when the white flag was still waving over our church, 
on the 10th of March! I would not have wished that you, who laugh so much 
now, had been in my place then. I should have been a fine fellow, with my 
et ceteras, if the three old lancers, who were mustered with so much difficulty 
at beat of drum, had driven off the emperor! Hanged—hanged !” 

So far the harangue of the little man in black had been listened to in silence ; 
‘but the conclusion was received with a general roar of laughter. Even the 
yery boy himself, looking the orator in the face, shared in the general hilarity ; 

jut, as for the little man, he, calm and imperturbable, contented himself in 

welling, with a most serious gravity, upon his et ceteras. 

“ Get off the barrel, then, Mr. Etcetera,” said all at once one of the spec- 
_tators, who, with naked arm, seized the leg of the poor greffier, which he 
shook like the trunk of a tree. The little man in black tumbled a couple of 

paces off from the barrel. 

It was the landlord of the Brown Bear, who, losing patience with listening 
to the greflier, had upset him. Mine host wore a white apron which reached 
to his shoes, and a cotton nightcap, adorned on one side by a brown bear, and, 
on the other, by an enormous white cockade, which, fastened by a pin,, 
moved with every breath of wind. 

_M.M. New Sertes— Vou. VII. No. 38. i 


138 The French Annuals. ‘Fes. 


“¢ Old wretch of a greffier!” he cried ; “ rascally dauber of stamped paper ! 
you shall have none of it. It is I, the landlord of the Brown Bear, who 
assures you of that. Every body shall have some, except you.” 

« Bravo! bravo, Master Laurent!” cried the multitude. 

“And I, Mr. Laurent,” said an old woman, who endeavoured to raise her 
‘withered hand and shrivelled fingers above the heads of the crowd ; “ and I 
—sha’n’t I get any?” 

* You! you, indeed !—the fruit-woman of the square !—you,-too, want it ? 
I suppose it is for having put between two flower-pots the busts of Louis 
XVIII.—the Count de Lille, I mean, as the emperor calls him ?” 

“ You lie!” said the old lady ; “ look from your barrel, and see the busts 
of the emperor; and of his dear son, the king of Rome ; and of his chaste 
spouse, Maria Louisa! Don’t you see this pretty cradle? I have bought all 
the bushes of the neighbouring forest to make it.” 

*« And I—won’t you give me some, honest landlord of the Brown Bear?” 

“Oh! as for you, it is another affair; you at least have done something. 
Was it not you who tore down the white flag?” 

“ Yes, and all the flags which have been for thirty years planted on our 
steeple. The birds of the cathedral know me ; I have frightened them twenty 
times.” 

“ You shall have two ;—are you satisfied ?” 

« And me; I want some to complete my collection of national curiosities. 
T have already Marshal Saxe’s pipe, one of the glasses of a pair of spectacles 
that belonged to Robespierre, Coligny’s toothpick, and a rag of the king of 
Rome’s frock.” . 

“Tl not forget you, Mr. Antiquary ; but it is on condition that you will 
not sell them to every Englishman who passes this way, as you did with the 
nail on which the First Consul used to hang his hat ; you remember, faith ! 
in this same hall, when he returned from Lyons?” 

“ I, too—should not I get as much, for having broken the windows of the 
Procureur du Roi ?” 

“ And I, for having given a black eye to a royalist?” 

Every one began to recapitulate his titles, vaunt his exploits, and extol his 
prowess. The only question was, who should arrive the soonest at the barrel, 

rom the top of which the landlord was distributing some grains of a whitish 
powder. 

Don’t be pushing—don’t be pushing!” cried the landlord ; “every body 
shall have some.” 

‘These words, however, only irritated the impatience of the more distant 
groups, who, not being able to get any thing, drove so furiously against the 
foremost line of the spectators as to upset them. Mine host struggled like a 
sailor in the midst of a tempest ; but the waves had reached his frail bark, and 
broke it into a thousand pieces. , 

At this moment, the guard, drawn to the spot by the tumult, arrived, pre- 
ceded by the greffier, and lost no timein driving aside the spectators by blows 
with the butt-ends of their muskets, going straight to the innkeeper, seizing 
him in the name of the emperor and king, and carrying him before the 
mayor. 

The crowd was so great, that it was impossible to prevent them from push- 
ing into the hall of justice. The innkeeper did not give the mayor time to 
ask him any questions. : 

“ Monsieur le Maire,” said he, “ you shall soon see if I was wrong 

“He was very wrong, Monsieur le Maire,” interrupted the greffier ; “ he 
called me a Chouan.” 


“ Silence, Mr. Greffier!” said the mayor ; “ silence ! you shall speak in — 


your turn.” 

“ You know, M. le Maire,” continued the innkeeper, “ that the little cor- 
poral,* passing through our town, lodged in the hotel of your humble 
servant.” 


“ Le petit caporal—the pet nickname in the French army for Buonaparte. 


a aoe a ts 


1829.] The French Annuals. 139 


« The hotel !” growled the little man in black—“ the hotel, indeed !” 

“ Silence, I say again, greffier !” said the mayor. ‘ 

“ Yes, hotel it is!”. retorted the innkeeper ; “an hétel any time these two 
centuries.” 

« Stopped at the hétel of the Brown Bear!” added the little man in black, 
shaking his head, “ when Monsieur le Maire would have given his majesty so 
splendid an apartment !” 

“ That's true.” said the functionary, in a mollified tone. 

“Tis possible,” said the innkeeper; “but Monsieur le Maire could not 
have given him a finer pullet. Well, then! Napoleon did not eat the whole 
of it: he left some of the bones upon his plate. Now these bones are my pro- 
perty, and I can do with them what I like. I did not wish to give any to this 
greftier, who, out of revenge, has called the guard. I give bones of a chicken 
eaten by the emperor to a Chouan! As for you, Monsieur le Maire, it is quite 
another thing. Here are two wings, scarcely half picked, which I have kept 
for you—d tout seigneur, tout honneur !” 

«© Very well, very well, Master Laurent; I accept your present.—Let the 
landlord of the Brown Bear be discharged.” 

Thus ended the scene, in which the whole of the population of a town dis- 
puted for the bones of a chicken which Napoleon had left upon his plate! 

*.* If any body doubt this historical fact, we can refer to the Journal 
de Lyon for April, 1815, in which the names of the actors are given. 


Let it not be thought, from this sneering at the zeal of certain pro- 
vincial Buonapartists, that the emperor is not duly remembered with 
appropriate honours. On the contrary, his praises are often the theme 
both in prose and verse. For example, Comte G. de Pons addresses 
some very agreeable and harmonious verses to M. Horace Vernet, on 
the subject of that gentleman’s picture of Napoleon meditating on a 
military map, in 1815, just before the battle of Waterloo. We shall] 
quote a few lines of the exordium :— 


* Sous tes pinceaux féconds, peintre de notre gloire, 
Un chef triste et pensif médite la victoire ; 
Puis-je le meconnoitre, et faut-il le nommer ? 
C’est homme que le monde eut peine 4 renfermer, 

- Qui nous semble long-temps le seul Dieu des armées, 

Et qui reste toujours, en dépit des pygmées, 
Apres tant de revers vengeurs de nos succés, 
Le premier des soldats, et des soldats Frangais. 
Aux yeux des étrangers son ombre menagante 
Remplit encor nos camps de sa grandeur absente.” 


&e. &e. &e. 


He sums up the glories of his hero, but winds up with— 


«« Dans son ivresse impie, et ses joyeux festins, 
Balthazar, égarant ses regards incertains, 
Vit en mots inconnus sur le mur de porphyre 
Un doigt vengeur tracer le fin de son empire. 
Il semble que ce doigt dans le fond du tableau, 
En traits ensanglantes, ait gravé WareERto !” 


There are many very pretty verses in this little poem ; but the con- 
cluding distich is sad bathos :— 


“ Malgré ta chute immense, et l’envie en fureur”— 
What then ?— 


“ Tu naquis général, et mourus empereur.”” 


T 2 


146 The French Annuals. [ Fes. 


This, as far as poetry goes—we ‘admit the rank is higher—is not 
better than 


« Thou, Dalhousie! thou great god of war! 
Lieutenant-general of the Earl of Mar!” 


There are many other Buonapartean compositions in the Annales; 
but as the Annales are romantiques, and conducted in the most ultra 
principles, and by the most renowned writers, of the anti-classical 
school—Victor Hugo, Ch. Nodier, &c. &c.—it is only fair to give a 
specimen of their romanticism upon a favourite subject—the secret 
societies of the middle ages. We select a dramatic sketch, by M. 
Loéve-Veimars, who, we may remark, in passing, has translated—but, 
alas! into prose—Monk Lewis’s ballad of the Water King, in this 
Annual :— 


A ScENE OF THE SecrET TRIBUNAL. 1362. 


(Hans, Groner, and several Squires round a fire in a wood. Night. 


Hans. It is your turn, George, to tell a story. 

Geo. 1 am going to tell you how the evil spirit twisted the necks of seven 
monks of the convent of Koenigslutter.—There was, once upon a time, in the 
monastery of Keenigslutter, seven monks, who cared for nothing but to troll the 
dice and to drink, who uttered as many oaths as words, and who would, any 
day, have left the Kyrie Eleison to follow a petticoat and two pretty feet 
under it. It was in vain for the abbot to preach to them, or to impose 
penances, or to pray to God to convert them: he gained nothing by it. What 
was the consequence? One day Don’t you hear a noise of footsteps. 
behind this tree? 

Hans. Bah! It is only a salamander coming to dance in our fire. 

Geo. One day, then, as they were sitting in the refectory, chatting jovially 
and drinking (the wine had got into their brains), they forgot that there was 
an abbot in the cloister, a God in heaven, or a devil in hell; and they called 
upon Old Nick to come and make merry with them.—Stir the fire ; this wood 
is very gloomy. 

Hans. What are you afraid of ? 

Geo. Nothing.—Scarcely had they called on the devil, but the great gate, 
grating on its hinges, opens, and—— 

A Squire. Holy Virgin! itis he! Look !—Iook! 

Hans. It is he p—who is it ? 

Geo. God keep us! Do you not see below there, in the trunk of the large 
willow, a ghost, which is only waiting for cock-croaw? Don’t you see his 
sparkling eyes, which glow like burning coals ? 

Hans. Are not you ashamed, George? Itis only a Will-o’-the-wisp ! 

Geo. No, I say, it is a human face. How torn he is, and covered with 
rags! It can’t be the devil; for Brother Hildebrand told me that he is always 
dressed out iu silk and velvet when he wishes to buy a poor soul. 

A Squire. He approaclies.—Who goes there ? 

Geo. Make the sign of the crass, I say, all of you, to keep us from harm. 

Hans. Who are you, wretched creature? what are you doing in the forest 
this freezing night P—See, George, how his sides are hollow and meagre ! 
how he lifts over his head his shrivelled hands !—Speak, ill-omened bird! or 
my spear will untie your tongue. What do you want? 

Cart. Fo warm myself. 

Hans. His voice is as hollow as that of famine itself—Approach! Why 
do you wander alone in the night? 

Cart. The nights are my days; owls and bats are the nightingales which 


1829.] The French Annuals. ; 141 


delight me ; lizards and toads are the food of poor Carl; moss and foul weed 
make his bed and his cloak. I am cold! 

Hans (aside to George). ’Tis Carl de Wolffstein, as sure as I am a Christian 
—(Aloud). Why do you haunt the spirits of darkness, and go about thus, 
almost naked, covered with weeds and straw? 

Carl. Carl is proscribed ; the black sword seeks him. 

Geo. What is your crime ? 

Carl. Raise your eyes, and look upon the heaven sowed with stars. My 
crime is written, in characters of blood, on the milky-way !—Hark! do you 
hear the crackling of the flame? It murmurs forth, like the north-wind, 
words that accuse me.—Have you nothing to eat? 

Geo. Soldiers’ fare—here’s bread ! 

Carl. Put out the fire—it is so red. Who has spilled blood into it ? 

Hans. Don’t devour so furiously ; you may eat at your ease. 

Carl. Carl has eaten brambles; his hunger would devour stones. 

Hans. I knew you formerly. 

Carl. You knew me!—The bell of the monastery calls me. Adieu! 

Hans. Stop !—( Aside to George). Let us see if he will betray himself— 
¢ Fo Carl). Were not you a rich prelate ? 

Carl. A cardinal ;—see! I have the scarlet hat. 

Geo. Holy Virgin! his skull is stripped of skin and hair! 

Hans. Poor outcast! Put your head upon my knees; I'll apply a refresh< 
ing balsam on your wounds. 

Carl. Dost thou wish to assist me, and art thou a man? Alas! the fire of hell 
burns within me. I drag myself across the fords on lizards and cold snakes; I 
lay me down on the rock where the waters of the torrent flow; nothing, 
nothing can cool me! Have you, in your castle, any dark and damp corner 
in which poor Carl can hide from his enemies? Let me follow you ; I shall 
serve you as a horse-block, when you wish to mount your charger.—Hush! 
I hear steps. Save me—save me! They come ! 

Hans. Be calm ; no one will come to do you harm. 

Geo. Who goes there ? 


[Two masked Pilgrims appear. 


First Pil. Travellers, who have lost their way in the wood, and have been 
drawn hither by the gleam of your fire. Permit us to await the arrival of day 
in company with you. 

Hans. Willingly. From what country do you come P 

Second Pil. From Augsburgh. We have made a vow to Notre-Dame-de- 
Bon-Refuge.—W hose banner do you follow ? 

Hans. That of the Connt of Buhna. 

Carl. I must go read mass before midnight. Let me depart. 

Hans. Stay where you are, poor ideot!' The wolves would eat you if you 
stirred. 

Carl. Yd rather the wolves than the crows. 

Geo. What news, Pilgrims, have you brought from your town? 

Second Pil. None. Pride, the old hack, with gilt trappings, still leads 
the world. Her daughters, Treason, Lying, and Licentiousness, carry as usual 
the fur and the ermine. Every body respectfully kisses their imperious 
hands. The devil makes a fine crop of it. 

Geo. Have you then oaks no longer in your forests, and free judges to 
assemble under their foliage ? 

Carl. 1 must depart, brother. I'll go look for glow-worms for you in the 
grass ; ye shall put them in your morion as a crown of sparkles. 

Hans. Stay ! 

First Pil. Old man, the Holy Vehme still watches. We have found in our 
way a terrible example of its justice. Two of its emissaries have seized 
a parricide within a few paces of us. 

Hans & Geo. A parricide ! 


| 


142 The French Annuals. [Frs: 


Carl. Shall I pick branches of the oak, master? Your limbs tremble with 
cold. ’ 
First Pil. For a long time they had pursued him through the forests. He 
had glided, like a serpent, through the thickest brambles.; he had plunged, 
like the mud beetle, into the foulest morasses ; he had climbed the rocks with 
the activity of the chamois ;—but his footsteps had remained imprinted on the 
rock, the wood, the morass, the river—every where the curse of Heaven had 
made him known—— j 

Carl. Hush! Do not wake the dead. I must go; my heart is freezing. 

Hans. Wait for the dawn: we shall conduct you to the next monastery. ;. 
the friars will cure you. 

First Pil. Stones and thorns had torn his feet ; his muscles were stiffened by 
rain and fatigue—— 

Carl. Oh! rub me with your balsam, brother; my flesh is falling off in 
fragments. 

Hans. Poor madman! 

First Pil. His eyes were dried up ; and the hand of God had written upon. 
his forehead—ParricipE !—— 

Carl. Oh! oh! How the tears fall into the fire from these dripping, 
branches! They weep—they Wipe my forehead ; I burn! 

First Pil. At last the emissaries of the tribunal seized him. They reminded 
him of what he had done; they announced to him that they were about to 
blot his name from the book of the living ; and then advised him to recommend 
his soul to heaven ;—but he could not pray 

Carl. Again—again! The worm eats my liver. 

First Pil. They then passed over him the fatal cord—— 

Carl (raising his hands). Mercy! mercy ! 

Hans. And you remained cold and tranquil? 

Second Pil. What could we do? They drew the cord round his neck 
we do to thee, Carl de Wolffstein, the Parricide ! 

[The Squires draw their swords. Carl falls wpon his knees.7] 

First Pil. Do you not know the form of this poniard? In the name of the 
holy Wehmic Tribunal, we order you to return your swords into their scab- 
bards. For the future, learn to know the free judges better. 

Carl. My father! my father! 

First Pil. Carl de Wolffstein, thy wife is declared a widow— thy children, 
orphans. Thy throat shall be delivered to the wolves—thy heart to the birds 
of the air—thy body to the fishes of the sea. 

Carl. Save me, good brother—assist me! They are going to kill me. 

First Pil. Assist thyself by prayers—save thy soul; but thy body must 
perish. Carl de Wolffstein, the spirit of thy father cries for vengeance ! 

Carl. Oh! untie this knot, that I may breathe. Help—help! Their hands 
burn me. Oh! grant me my life—my life! _ 

‘First Pil. Thy death! Move forward, sinner ! [ They drag him off. 

Hans. Hark! how he groans! His cries augment—they redouble! Ah! 
he cries no longer. 


as 


There is, of course, a tolerably large assortment of poetry in the 
Annales, and in general of the most sombre kind ; for the Romantiques, to 
be as un-French as possible, are as melancholy as. gibcats. . There are 
some translations too—and rather well executed—from Lord Byron, 
who is, of course, a prodigious favourite. His lordship is also the theme 
of much laboured and most flattering criticism. They have published 
an original poem of_ his to Lady Blesington, which perhaps is not 
printed in his works—Lady Blesington’s answer certainly is not ; and, 
therefore, we give them, correcting the French cacography. It is a. 
point of pride in France to mis-spell English ; and a very wise point 
it is— 


1829.] The French Annuals. 143 


Lines ADDRESSED TO LApy Burssineron py Lorp Byron. 


You have asked for a verse—the request 
In a rhymer ’twere strange to deny ; 
But my Hippocrene was but my breast,' 

And my feelings (its fountain) are dry. 


Were I now asI was, I had sung? 
What Lawrence’ had pencilled* so well ; 
But the strain would expire on my tongue, 
And the theme is too soft for my shell. 


1 am ashes where once I was fire, 
And the bard in my bosom is dead ; 
What I loved I now’ merely admire, 
And my heart is as grey as my head. 


My life is not dated by years; 

There are moments which act® as a plough, 
And there is not a furrow appears 

But is deep in my soul as my brow. 


Let the young and the brilliant aspire » 
To sing while I gaze’ on in vain ; 

For sorrow has torn from my lyre 
The string which was worthy the strain. 


ANswER By LApy Burssineron. 


When I asked for a verse, pray believe, 
*T was’ not vanity urged the desire ; 

For no more can my mirror deceive,’ 
And no more can I poets inspire.'° 


Time" has touched with rude fingers my brow, 
And the roses have fled from my cheek ; 
Then it surely were folly, if now 
I the praise due to beauty should seek. 


But as pilgrims who visit the shrine 
Of some saint, bear a relic away, 

I sought a memorial of thine, 
As a treasure when distant I stray. 


Oh! say not that lyre is unstrung, 
Whose cords can such rapture bestow, 

Or that mute is that magical tongue 
From whence!” music and poetry flow. 


And though sorrow, ere!’ yet youth has fled, 
May have altered the" locks’ jetty hue, 
‘The bays that encircle the! head 
Hide’ the ravager’s marks from our view. 


These verses are communicated by a gentleman who shrouds himself 
under the initials of “« #. B. d’O.” : 


"In the Annales, heart.—? Mug, Ann.—' In the French version, Lawwence ; but 
they put a note to say that he is a “ célebre peintre Anglois.”’ It is only fair to add that 
the translation is, in general, elegant and faithful, though in prose.—* Paculed, Ann.— 
§ Non, Ann.—* Acta plough.—? Gap.—® I was.—? Deceie.—' On this, the French 
translator adds this gallant note: “ Lady Blessington est une des plus jeunes, et des plus 
jolies femmes de Y Angleterre.—"! Since, Ann.—!2 Essence, Ann.—'® Are, Ann.—'* So 
in the Annales ; but perhaps, legendum, thy.—!'® Stide, Ann. This is pretty printing 


[ 144 [Fes. 


DICK DEWLAP. 


Taxrne a stroll, the other morning, in the Regent’s Park, with the 
intention of visiting the grounds of the Zoological Society, whom should 
I espy, sitting disconsolately on a bench not far from the entrance te 
that interesting emporium, but my old friend Dick Dewlap, whom I had 
not been able to meet, either at home or abroad, for the previous six 
weeks. Dick’s taste for solitude arises from a circumstance serious 
enough to himself, but also sufficiently comic to every body else. Poor 
Dewlap, in short, though no glutton, is troubled with an unlucky ten- 
dency to corpulence, which he finds exceedingly difficult to be a 
within tolerable bounds, as he is simultaneously plagued with an excel- 
lent appetite, which punctually reminds him of meal times, and, like 
the hungry demon of Poor Tom, often “ croaks in his belly for the 
white herring,” or for some other digestible plaything at least equally 
substantial. 

Dewlap is thus placed in a pitiable predicament. He has a lurking 
notion that there is a natural dignity in fat (which indeed seems to be 
an instinctive feeling in all men); moreover, he does not at all relish 
the attempt, either to starve out the oily devil, or to eject him by perse- 
vering and violent exercise ; but at the same time, he no less deprecates 
the “ thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to,” particularly the 
aptitude of obesity to make its victim look older than he actually is— 
no trifling annoyance toa bachelor of five and thirty, who would still 
fain pass in the world for a young and interesting sentimentalist. 

Beyond all other calamities, however, Dick execrates his office of butt 
to every witling and joker, friend or foe, wherever and whenever he 
becomes visible to human ken: so large a mark the most stupid archer 
cannot miss, and Dick thinks that even his acquaintance sometimes shoot 
with poisoned arrows ; but he generally suffers in patient acquiescence, 
and sometimes (probably with the view of deprecating hostility) even 
volunteers a watery joke on the subject himself; albeit, by no meaus 
inclined to triumph, like Falstaff, in the consciousness that “ men of all 
sorts take a delight to gird at him,” and that, on this theme, “ he is 
not only witty in himself, but the cause of wit in others.” Indeed, 
he has a sort of settled spleen towards his male acquaintance generally 
on this particular account, and luxuriates in the gentler society ot 
females, under whose soothing influence he has gradually become as 
plump and tender as a pet rabbit, and usually takes his walk solus, 
unless triumphantly caracolling as the escort of some genteely-shaped 
damsel ; for he does not care to have a Venus of the Hottentot school, 
as amemento at his elbow. When thus honoured, Dick always, with 
great gallantry, gets to windward in cold weather, and effectually pro- 
tects his charmer from the ruder breezes of Boreas; he is, however, 
exceedingly tenacious of allowing the like privilege to male applicants ; 
and confessed to me that he was never so shocked at his own enormity 
as once (going over Blackfriar’s Bridge in a storm of wind and rain) 
when a little shrivelled dwarf of a fellow got under his lee, and whatever 
pace Dick went, would follow him up, and use his overshadowing 
figure as a penthouse. 

But although my fat friend is too indolent to make any regular or 
scientific effort to shake off the enemy who sticks so perseveringly to 
every part of his person, he yet confesses to making a modest attempt to 


a 


~~ 


1829. ] Dick Denlap. 145 


run away from it, now and then, when there is nobody within view. 
I never could catch him at this benevolent amusement, “ larding the 
lean earth as he ran along ;” but I suspect he had been thus employed 
on the present occasion, for his face was flushed, and he looked a little 
splenetic, which it struck me might arise from the cruel feeling that 
such diabolical practices—so contrary to his usual musing and saunter- 
ing habits—were necessary to prevent his hard-hearted tailor from 
enlarging the measurement, when next the fatal parchment of that inex- 
orable artist encompassed his “nether bulk.” I happened to be once 
present when Dick was placed in this trying predicament. After the 
measure had, with my assistance, been passed round his rebellious 
waist (which he made a painful effort to draw in as much as possible 
for the occasion), “ Upon my word, Mr. Dewlap,” said the tailor, “ you 
get on; I see by my book you have increased an inch and a half in the 
last three months!” The barbarous communication was heard with as 
rueful an aspect as we might expect to see in the captain of a crazy 
ship, who should receive the intelligence that, in spite of every effort, 
the leak evidently gained upon the vessel. Dewlap’s only resourse was 
stoutly to deny the fact; he vehemently protested that he had fallen 
away at least the fourth of an inch; that his clothes absolutely hung 
about him (by the by, the buttons were starting in every direction) ; 
and that if Mr. Hopkins could not contrive to make a more accurate 
entry, he should be reluctantly obliged to carry his custom elsewhere. 
Dick did not appear to notice my approach ; so when I had arrived at 
the seat where he was planted, I was constrained to solicit his attention. 
« What, Dewlap, my dear fellow,” said I, “how do you do? I was 
fearful I should never get sight of you again ; not that it would be easy 
to ——” “Good morning,” said he of the twenty stone; “pray do 
you happen to know whether there’s a ship about to start for China?” 
{ was of course startled at this abrupt interrogatory, and answered it, as 
is usual in such cases, by asking “why he wished to know at that par- 
ticular moment?” “ Why,” replied Dick, “I saw your next sentence 
was to be redolent of something about my size; I only wonder how it 
escaped the first six syllables; so I chose to indulge in the luxury of 
starting the one-loved subject myself. In China, then (where I mean to 
go), as well as in other countries that we presumptuously call barbarous, 
you know that the lean and working commonalty pay proper deference 
to us victims of enjoying temperaments. A man of my dimensions might 
there stand a chance of being made a mandarin, as one born with 
nature’s stamp of nobility ; while here, the countless generation of 
_whipper-snappers teaze us perpetually, as though we were sent into the 
world merely to serve as cushions for their ricketty wits to repose on.” 
“ Well,” said I, “ I am sorry to see you so warm,: Richard ; but well 
discuss this matter as we walk ; perhaps you'll take a turn with me into 
the grounds ; I have to meet some friends there at twelve.” ‘“ What,” 
replied Dick, “some half dozen dapper little masters, I suppose, who 
are indulgently allowed to call themselves men, and would proceed to 
me, sans cérémonie, with as much glee as so many young surgeons 
would cut a the mammoth or the mastodon, if they could get him in 
their scientific clutches? No, no; no new male acquaintances for me ; 
I find it quite enough to be the standing, sitting, or walking joke of 
some five and twent sympathetic friends, who have so judiciously dis- 
persed themselves echt oni: the bills of mortality, that I cannot move 
U 


M.M. New Series—Vou. VII. No. 38. 


146 Dick Denlap. [Frs. 


2 furlong towards any point of the compass, without having my mental 
swallow choked withmy own substance. Confound them! I wish they were 
obliged to swallow their own jokes, and found them as hard of diges- 
tionas I do. Not that I care a button about it (making at the moment 
a desperate but fruitless effort to fasten the two lower ligatures of his 
surtout); the women don’t object to me as I am, and men are too 
envious to express their real sentiments. Don’t you observe,” added he, 
“ that women as seldom think a man too fat, as men do awoman? The 
most intolerant critics on this point are sure to be of the sex of the cor- 
pulent beauty, male or female, though such critics have no right toa 
vote in the matter ; while the opposite gender (whom alone it concerns) 
will no more object ‘to an extra stone or two of loveliness, than they 
would to the liberality of the goldsmith, who should sell them plate at 
avoirdupois weight, instead of paltry troy. However, let men say 
what they will, I’ve this solid consolation, that three of the cleverest 
fellows of our time, have also been three of the plumpest—Charles 
Fox, Byron, and Napoleon—there was a podgy triumvirate! I fancy 
they'll go floating down the stream of time, with their heads buoyant, 
as long as it is natural for a fat man to swim better than a lean one! 
Besides, what does Hamlet’s mother say of him?—‘ My son is fat, and 
scant of breath.’ Shakspeare, who knew every thing, knew perfectly 
well that a fine tender-hearted philosopher, like Hamlet, could not be 
otherwise. I have often thought of playing Hamlet myself: depend 
upon it, that character can never be done to perfection by any man under 
fifteen stone—a performer of at least that weight, who had also the other 
requisites, would make the indolence, philosophy, good nature, and 
irritability of Ophelia’s ‘glass of fashion and mould of form’ (an inte- 
resting creature that Ophelia!) all appear quite natural separately, and 
perfectly harmonious in combination.” 

Finding that Dick had talked himself into good humour, I took the 
‘opportunity of telling him they were ladies whom I was going to meet 
—the two Misses Lightfoot and their mamma—whose amiable manners, 
I flattered myself, he would find nicely conformable to his ideas of 
female taste and politeness. Dick brightened up at this intelligence, 
and immediately inquired, with an air of interest (having, I believe, for 
some time cherished the notion of getting himself well off his hands), 
« whether the mother was a widow, and what might be her age?” I 
informed him she was the relict of the late Commissioner Lightfoot, well 
dowered, and extremely genteel. ‘The young ladies,” added I, “ are 
respectively seventeen and nineteen” (Dick shrugged his shoulders) ; 
“« they have learned—at least professors have been paid for teaching 
them—as many languages, arts, and sciences, as, to have known tho- 
roughly, would have made a man illustrious half a century ago; but 
‘such is the fashion of the day ; and my aunt Lightfoot does not choose 
that her daughters should be left behind in this forced march of intel-— 
lect, whatever valuable time they may have thrown away in order to— 
make a show of keeping up with it. , 

« A short time since (continued I) the damsels seemed likely to be 
sighing, like female Alexanders, for fresh realms of knowledge to sub-— 
due ; but the introduction of calisthenics has, I should think, happily 
furnished them with employment for the rest of their lives, if they 
actually mean to make themselves mistresses of all the postures pre- 
ecribed in the book from which they study. You are a humane man, 


1829.] Dick Denlap. 147 


Mr. Dewlap ; think, then, of the perplexity of a youhg lady, who is 
directed, as one of a hundred tasks equally easy, to ‘ place her two hands 
on her hips, raise the right leg and left arm as high as possible ; the arm 
a little bent, and the hand above the shoulder ; lower quickly the leg 
and the arm, placing the hand on the hip, and raising at the same time 
the left leg and the right arm.’ I protest, for my own part, after reading 
this singular jumble of legs, arms, hips, and shoulders, I hardly know 
whether I stand on my head or my heels ; what then must be the pre- 
dicament of a girl of sensibility, after she has takem her tutor’s advice, 
and ‘repeated the exercise several times with celerity ?’ Surely she can 
never survive to go through the fatigues of ‘ crossing and jumping,’ and: 
numberless ef ceteras. However, it is certain my poor cousins cannot 
do too much to strengthen digestions which have never been disturbed, 
and to keep down superfluous flesh, of which they have not the slightest. 
symptom.” 

Dick heard all this with profound attention, observing, that perhaps 
the young ladies, at my intercession, would impart to him some of the 
inestimable calistheric knowledge, for which it seemed they had so little 
use themselves; and this, he said, would be the more compassionate, as 
he would die sooner than go through a course of gymnastics, in the 
presence of a set of male monsters, who would probably scoff at his 
efforts of agility, as we may suppose so many monkeys would, if they 
could catch an elephant essaying a hornpipe. 

Dewlap now cordially gave me his arm; and as we walked towards 
the gardens, I primed him for his interview with the widow, by the 
information that she was not merely a femme savante in the general 
sense, but a particular connoisseur in painting ; and that, in this cha- 
racter she could not fail to be struck with that predominance of the 
curve (allowed by all artists to be the line of beauty) which was visible 
in every part of his comely outline; his plump cheeks, double chin, 
and the gentle protuberance he carried in front. Dick looked ruefully 
at the semicircle I had last described. “ Ah!” said he, with a sigh, 
«you'd hardly think what a perpetual torment I find this line of beauty, 
as you call it ; the line of Jack Ketch would be scarcely less welcome ; 
and, indeed, I did dream, the other night, that it had been the means of 
introducing me to an acquaintance with that worthy.” 
~ I could not help laughing at this nocturnal extravaganza, and asked: 
him the particulars. “I believe,” said Dick, “ my dream had a com- 
mencement rather tragical than uncommon ; for few people can acquit 
their consciences of having dreamed they were going to be hung, 
though I never could get any one to own that he also knew he had’ 
done enough to deserve the punishment. Unluckily for me, how 
ever, I had not even this consolation ; I thought I was to be hung for 
being too fat ; and so far was I from feeling shocked at the circum- 
stance, that I was only surprised how I had escaped so long. Though’ 
in Newgate, I was perfectly tranquil ; and received with resignation 
the intelligence that I was to be hung the following morning, the cause 
being, simply and solely, because two credible witnesses had sworn 
that, in their judgment, I was too fat to be allowed to live any longer. 

“ Still more at his ease, however, if possible,” continued Dewlap, “ was. 
Daniel Lambert, who was, I thought, my fellow prisoner, and to suffer 
in the same way, for a far weightier offence of the same unpardonable: 
description. As the kitchen (for, with a dreamer’s privilege, I imagined 

U2 


(148 Dick Denlap. [Fes 


all this took place in a Newgate kitchen) as the kitchen, I say, was not 
over large—and my partner and I were—we could not move about 
without jostling each other; so I helped Daniel to perch himself on the 
top of an empty hogshead, that stood near the dresser ; and there he sat, 
drumming with his mill-posts against the side of his pinnacle, his hands 
placed quiescently under his knees, and his pouting lips suitably 
employed in half-whistling ‘ See the conquering Hero comes.’ I sup- 
posed that poor Daniel, being at least three times my weight (I found 
that circumstance no small consolation), had long considered his crime 
too enormous to pardon ; and as hiding or running away was out of the 
question, had made up his mind that the affair would terminate fatally, 
from the moment he was seized and shoved into a waggon. I cannot help 
remarking, though, that Mr. L., had he seen the matter in a proper 
light, must have considered me a martyr in comparison with himself ; 
the victim of a law, equally just and necessary as it regarded him, but, 
in my case, carried to a most cruel extreme. 

« Affairs were in this interesting position,” continued Dick, “when 
Mr. Ketch made his appearance, bringing in his hand some twenty yards 
of cordage, about as thick as a brig’s hawser, and asked us, on our 
honour as gentlemen, whether we thought that would be strong enough 
to answer a certain purpose? I replied, that I could not speak from 
experience, but I flattered myself the line was strong enough, and that 
for me he need not be at the trouble of getting a chain cable. As for 
Mr. Lambert, I left him to speak for himself, as he had not favoured 
me with any remarks on,things, either in general or particular. Daniel, 
I suppose, heard this remark ; but he still kept whistling and drum- 
ming, with undisturbed calmness, and did not answer a syllable. 

«© When Mr. Ketch had withdrawn, it occurred to me, that, however 
merited my sentence (and I could not deny that I had enjoyed a long ~ 
career of excessive stoutness), yet still the humane community, temper-— 
ing justice with mercy, could only require that I should be despatched, 
no matter how; and that I might, therefore, as well make my exit in 
private as public, at ease as in pain. No sooner thought than done. A 
bottle of laudanum stood at my elbow. I poured a large quantity into 
a breakfast cup, and instantly drank it off, with the serenity of a 
Socrates. My friend Daniel witnessed the heroic performance with 
equal apathy, and still continued drumming and whistling ‘ See the con- 
quering Hero comes.’ 

« As a convicted fat man, anxious for the honour of the chief of his 
caste, I could not help feeling somewhat piqued at Mr. Lambert’s indif- 
ference to his impending disgrace. ‘ Why, Daniel,’ said I, ¢ will you be 
fool enough to be led out to-morrow morning, at eight precisely, to 
dance in the air for the amusement of the skin and bone scoundrels who 
have sworn away our lives, and will gloat over our fatal fall, as they 
would over the prize beef that they devour, as well as kill? Why don’t 
you behave like a man, and do as I have done?’ His reply petrified 
me. ‘I don’t know,’ answered the monster, coolly, ‘ I think its hardly 
worth while. The fact is, that the Secretary of State (on condition of 
our eating no more rump steaks) has sent down our pardons, and I’ve 
got them both at this moment in my pocket.’ a 

« Here was an answer to give aman whom he had just seen swallow 
laudanum enough to kill a cart horse! After staring at him for half a 
minute, with ‘thought too deep for tears’-—indeed I was studying which 


" 
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a 
wba 
{' 


* 


1829.] Dick Dewlap. 149 


way to sacrifice him—my indignation at length found utterance— Why, 
you envious, overgrown villain,’ said I, ‘ why did not you tell me this 
before?’ ‘ Why did not I,’ replied he (as if confident I could not pos- 
sibly object to his most exquisite reason), ‘why, because you did not 
ask me!’ What signified arguing with such a dolt? I determined to 
make short work of it. ‘ Now, you fat fool, cried I (going up to him 
with my clenched fist), ‘now I must go and have the laudanum taken 
out of me with the stomach pump, through your stupidity—take that !’ 
(knocking him off his perch into the empty hogshead, the top of which 
suddenly gave way behind him); and I think I awoke with the noise 
he made in bawling out—* What’s that for?’ From this specimen,” 
concluded Dick, “ you may judge whether I am not as much to be 
pitied for my nightly visions as any opium eater in England. Ill dream 
against the best of them for a veal cutlet any night he likes.” 

This chat had brought us to the place which we intended visiting ; 
we entered, and found the ladies had arrived before us. I introduced 
Dick, who blushed as he bowed, and was received very graciously, but 
with a kind of conscious reserve on the part of the genteel widow, which 
I thought augured not ill for him. Dewlap, theugh evidently gratified 
with his reception by the ladies, was not quite pleased to find they had 
brought with them our old acquaintance Toby Aircastle, a mere mathe- 
matical line of a man, whose lath-like apparition contrasts so provokingly 
with Dick’s circular tendencies, that few can resist hazarding a hit now 
and then on the subject. Toby, who is a married man, as wellasa 
professed joker, rather relishes than dislikes this state of juxta-position 
with Dewlap, and often provokes him to an encounter ; in which, how- 
ever, Dick is sure to suffer most, though he may seem to come off victo- 
rious ; for he evidently envies Toby his leanness, and would give the 
world if the sarcasms which, acting on the defensive, he is obliged to 
let fly at Toby, could be fairly levelled at himself. Dewlap now, there- 
fore (ladies being present), treated Mr. Aircastle (as he studiously called 
him) with the gravest respect, and seemed as fearful of making a false 
step in conversation, as a young legacy hunter would be of treading on 
the gouty toe of his rich and irritable uncle. Having, while the females, 
were a little in advance, inquired, with the most considerate politeness, 
after the health of Mrs. A., and why she did not favour us with her 
company, “Oh,” replied Toby, “I’ve lodged a detainer against her ; 
« she is as ladies wish to be who love their lords.’ By the by, Dick, V’ll 
hold two to one that she recovers her gentility of outline before you 
do.” Dewlap, though evidently nettled, merely bowed, and gravely 
observing that he never laid wagers, heartily wished Mrs. Aircastle a 
happy deliverance of twins. 

In perambulating the grounds, I was much amused with the way in 
which the tenderness of feminine nature displayed itself towards the 
fiercer animals, whom our ladies spoke of as though they had been par- 
rots or lap-dogs. “ Oh, what a sweet tiger-cat!’ exclaimed Sophy. 
“ Yes, my dear,” said her mamma, “but look at this lovely leopard !” 
“ What a darling tiger,” cried Matilda ; “ and look at this love of a 
lion, just like one of the judges!” «“ That may be,” replied her sister ; 
“but I think this dear playful bear far more interesting, don’t you, Mr. 
Dewlap?” Dick had all along eagerly catered to their curiosity ; and 
frisked about (being, as a subscriber, no stranger to the place), in giving 
them explanations, as though he had deposited some three stone of 


150 Dick Denlap. [Fxs. 


fleshly frailty, together with his umbrella, at the entrance-lodge. He 
now thought this question of Sophy’s afforded him a fair opportunity of 
getting remunerated with a little lady-like sympathy, and perhaps com- 
mendation, to counterbalance the jests of his male acquaintance.— 
“ Why, Miss,” he replied, “I must confess ursa-major is to me the 
most interesting animal in the place; not merely because you say so. 
but because they tell us he retires, when grown ‘more fat than bear 
beseems,’ into dignified solitude ; and after living six months simply by 
sucking his paws, issues forth a perfect specimen of ursine gentility. This 
is a practice from which I have often thought it would be wise in me to 
take a hint; and I only wish I had fortitude enough to set about it.’’ 
Dick’s stratagem took effect. ‘ Dear me!” said the widow, “ what 
can have put that odd notion in your head, Mr. Dewlap? I’m sure you 
are not at all too stout.” “ Oh, not the least in the world,” echoed the 
two young ladies, in the same breath (the sweetest, I dare say, in Dick’s 
estimation, that ever issued from rosy lips). His gratitude rushed 
into his cheeks, and he made a bow of profound deference to their supe- 
rior judgments. Aircastle winked at me, with the eye that was turned 
from the rest of the company, but with laudable forbearance held his 
tongue. Shortly afterwards, Richard, with an air of triumphant cour- 
tesy, that would have done honour to his lion-hearted namesake, offered 
his puissant arm to Mrs. Lightfoot, and we left the gardens, much pleased 
with our visit and ourselves. 

As we walked towards the residence of the ladies, which skirts the 
park, the subject of calisthenics was started; and, at my suggestion, 
the obliging damsels proffered, if Mr. Dewlap really thought himself 
rather too stout (which, however, was by no means apparent to them), to 
give him, from their book of knowledge, some instructions, which they 
had no doubt would quickly invest him with a waist like that described 
by the poet (exemplified in each of their own, by the by), “ fine by 
degrees, and beautifully less.’ The offer was of course accepted with 
gratitude ; and, when we arrived at the house, Dick allowed me, 
as a special favour (resolutely excluding poor Toby) to be present at 
his inaugural lesson. 

Mr. Dewlap was first directed to take the dumb-bells, and open his 
chest, as the best preparative for other amusements that awaited him ; 
with these practised for some minutes, when, with panting pathos, he 
requested a truce, and begged that his exercise, though he found it 
exceedingly pleasant, might be varied as often as possible. In order to- 
accommodate him, a skipping rope was now put into his hands, and his 
grotesque performances with it, made me think the days of Orpheus and 
jumping towers had returned; the skipping-rope, however, was soon 
withdrawn, at it is well known our houses now-a-days are not built 
with any view of resisting the shock of an earthquake ; moreover, the 
cook came up to complain that all the plates and dishes in the kitchen 
were tumbling about her ears. 

It were useless to describe, even if it were possible to remember, the 
numberless contortions (all doubtless equally useful and ornamental) 
which poor Dick had to exhibit in this his initiatory service at the altar 
of the Graces. At its conclusion, however, his fair instructors allowed 
that he had acquitted himself with astonishing fortitude and cleverness, 
and, moreover, favoured us with an invitation to dinner. 

We walked home to dress, and on our way Dick told me, in confi- 


1829.] Dick Denlap. 151 


dence, that he felt wonderfully exhilarated by the occurrences of the 
morning; that he had had no previous notion of his great powers of 
activity and endurance, which he had now no doubt would soon enable 
him to cast away all superfluous flesh, and with it all superfluous sorrow. 
<« I must own,” added he, “it willbe rather unkind to deprive Aircastle 
and the rest of my facetious friends of their moveable Joe Miller ; but 
since I find the enemy is to be got rid of, I don’t see why I should 
continue to drag about a fat folio jest book, merely for their accommo- 
dation. As to how much of my outward man I ought to throw off, I 
shall take an early opportunity of requesting the private opinion of the 
widow, and make a compromise between her taste and my own ; for, 
between ourselves, her bright eyes, amiable manners, and solid turn of 
thinking, have made an impression on me, which can be removed only 
by death—or marriage !” 


LIFE. 


Wuar art thou, Life? Pale Vanity! 
Dim Shadow of the things to be! 
Weak as the wind, and sightless as the grave! 
Thy gold but yellow dross; thy fame, 
Thy pomp and pride, an idiot’s game— 
The rattling of the chains that load the slave. 


Thou, and the scenes that round thee rise, 
What are ye? Loose uncertainties : 
Yet still we hug ourselves with rash presage 
Of future days serene and long— 
Of pleasures fresh, and ripe, and strong— 
And active youth, and slow-declining age. 


Like a fair prospect, still we make 
The future shapes of beauty take: 
First verdant gardens rise and pansied fields, 
Then lofty groves and bowers appear, 
Then rills and winding rivers clear, 
While change of landscape still new pleasure yields. 


Farther bold castles we espy, 

Where lordly wealth and honours lie ; 
Beyond a gorgeous picture fills the stage, 

Till the remoter distance shrouds 

The plains with hills, the hills with clouds ; 
There we place Death behind old shivering Age. 


When Death, alas! perhaps too nigh, 
In the next hedge does skulking lie, 
There plants his engines, there lets fly his dart, 
Which, while we ramble without fear, 
Will meet us in our full career, 
And drive the world’s wild follies from our heart. 


; 


gee ie | [Fxs. 


METROPOLITAN IMPROVEMENTS: N°. IV. 
« London Bridge is broken down.”—Old Song. 


Wuite the spirit of improvement is advancing with such rapid strides 
under the auspices of the Board of Works, and the Committee of Taste, 
at the west end of the town, the Aldermen and Common Council of 
the City of London, have not been idle in the east. For more than half 
a century the state, the decay, and the inconveniences of London Bridge, 
have been the subject of discussion at city meetings ; and, from time to 
time, engineers have been employed in surveys, and reports, and on 
estimates for repairs and rebuilding. At length the corporation screwed 
up their courage to the sticking point, and came to the resolution of build- 
ing a new London Bridge, a little to the westward of the old one, which, 
in spite of the interesting chronicles attached to its history, and of all the 
old associations connected with it-in the mind of every good citizen of 
London, from Sir Richard Whittington, down to the entertaining wine 
and walnut collector of its chronicles, was doomed to destruction. 

Plans and estimates were advertised for ; those of the Messrs. Rennie 
approved—the work is now rapidly advancing towards completion, and 
promises, by the solidity of its construction, and the stateliness of its 
appearance, to save the good citizens of London the like trouble for 
many centuries to come. 

It seems, however, to be the fate of the improvements at the east end 
of the town, as well as those at the west end, that difficulties should arise 
in their progress, and unanticipated inconveniences attend their comple- 
tion. For, as at the Treasury, Mr. Soane has given the public the half 
of a building that can never be finished, so have the Messrs. Rennie 
given the good citizens and Southwarkians a noble bridge, without any 
approaches ; and now that the structure is nearly completed, all the mem- 
bers of the Bridge Committee, with the engineers, are laying their heads 
together, to find a way to get at it. In addition to these legitimately 
appointed planners, several volunteers have likewise started with ideas, 
some of which we believe have been laid before, and are actually engaging 
the attention of the Common Council. 

How such an undertaking as that of building a bridge between two 
such populous neighbourhoods, as the city and Southwark, could have 
been carried on, even to the commencement of the building, without 
having ascertained and determined the approaches, we are at a loss to 
guess—and to whom so great a fault is attributable we know not; all 
we do know is that such is the fact, and that, at this moment, there are 
seven or eight plans, to obviate the difficulty, under consideration, 
without any one having yet been determined on. 

In an age of science, like the present, and what is, perhaps, more sur- 
prising, in an age of so much common sense, we cannot help wondering 
that there could be found any body of men to commence an undertaking, 
in which so much property is concerned, and in the completion of 
which a million must be expended, without having taken every circum- 
stance connected with the undertaking into consideration—but that such 
a palpable part of the plan as the approaches on both sides of the bridge 
should not have been accurately ascertained, and completely determined 
before the commencement of the building, would induce the supposition 
that “all the wise men had indeed come from the east” before the new 
London Bridge was thought of. This deficiency is still more surprising, 
when we reflect that the rebuilding of the bridge has been the conversa 


1829. ] Metropolitan Improvements. 153 


tion of succeeding corporations for full half a century. We are anxious 
to do full justice to the design and the construction of the bridge itself ; 
to the science which has been displayed in almost every department of 
its building, as well as to the ingenuity with which the piers of the old 
bridge have been removed, .and the arches supported, at the north and 
south ends of the old bridge, to facilitate the navigation during the pro- 
gress of the works of the new bridge; but we cannot pass over a 
neglect which threatens to impede the utility of the new construction, 
and to destroy so much of that property, which is now rendered so valu- 
able, by forming the lines of approach to the present bridge. Such a 
neglect will give proprietors excuses for enhancing the value of their 
loss, and give many of those who do not come directly within the line of 
approaches just cause of complaint, and, perhaps, reasonable ground of 
action for the damage which their premises and their property must 
naturally sustain. At this moment a number of persons are actively 
employed in obtaining data, on which to found claims of this nature, by 
counting the carriages and passengers which pass up and down Thames 
Street, and such other means as their ingeuuity can invent to sustain 
their complaint of a deterioration in the value of their premises. 

In all undertakings of this kind, it is but fair that every one living 
within reach of the effect of the projected alteration should previously be 
made fully acquainted with the extent of the intended improvement. 
This would have two good effects; it would apprize every one of the 
nature of the loss or improvement their property might sustain, and 
produce, previously to the undertaking, such notices of claims as would 
prevent the woeful inaccuracies of estimated losses, which have generally 
attended the execution of London plans of improvement. It would like- 
wise diminish the actual loss, and many of the inconveniences sustained 
by those whose property and business are affected, by giving them more 
time to provide against contingencies, and to take such steps as would 
lessen the injury which their business might sustain. 

Finding that no accurate account or plan had been given of the in- 

tended approaches, one or two of the inhabitants of the different districts 
affected by the bridge, have published their ideas of the most beneficial 
plans for accomplishing the object in question ; and among these an 
ingenious plan of Mr. George Gwilt has been submitted, and, likewise, 
that of a local architect, Mr. George Allen, has also been submitted to 
the consideration of the city, and subsequently published, with his obser- 
vations, in the form of a pamphlet. 
_ In this pamphlet is described a system of vacillation, not at all cre- 
ditable either to the New Bridge Committee, or their engineers, who it 
is stated have actually laid six plans for these approaches before their 
employers, without either of them having yet been approved, or at least 
adopted. 

Mr. Allen, from living on the spot, may be well supposed, from his 
locality, to have obtained accurate notions of the value of the property 
necessarily affected by the alteration ; and it has been his employment, 
in the valuation of some of the contiguous wharfs, and Thames frontages, 
that led him to a more elaborate consideration of the best plan for the 
approaches to the new bridge. With this view, in 1826, Mr. Allen pre- 
pared a plan of a new street, commencing at the Watch House, near 
Bridge-yard, and proceeding towards the bridge, to the south of the 
existing properties, in Tooley Street, till it entered the Borough, High 

M.M. New Series.—Vour.VII. No. 38. x 


154 Metropolitan Improvements. | [Fre 


Street, at White Horse Court. Finding, however, that a professional 
friend had prepared a plan nearly similar, and which was on the point of 
publication, he gave up all idea of publishing his own, and the plan 
alluded to was accordingly published in May 1827. 

It appears that, up to this period, Messrs. Rennie had no idea of 
departing from the old line of Tooley Street, upon which, according to 
the contract plan, the ascent to the new bridge was to be formed ; but 
after the publication in May, of the. plan above-mentioned, they prepared 
and submitted to the New Bridge Committee an entirely nem series of 
plans, in which three different modes of attaining the New Bridge, from 
the city side, were suggested ; but for the approaches from Southwark, 
though the engravings were also three in number, yet the designs were 
one; the plans not only being all alike, but so far as related to the new 
approach from Tooley Street, were precisely the counterpart of the plan 
before alluded to, as being published in the May preceding. 

« This coincidence,” Mr. Allen says, “is too remarkable to be con- 
sidered accidental, as it comprises another very important feature of the 
plan published in May; namely, the suggestion of a new street, to 
extend from London Bridge to the Bricklayer’s Arms; yet, without 
even a hint being given in the Report which accompanies it, of the idea 
having originated with another party.” 

If the new plans of the Messrs. Rennie were actually the result of the 
publication of this plan, it was certainly an ungenerous omission not to 
allude to it—and with this omission the above paragraph certainly 
charges these gentlemen. It is, however, no unusual thing in these days 
of liberality, to see the heads of a profession obtain wealth and fame, by 
carrying the suggestions and plans of uninfluential and obscure artists 
into execution, as their own. It may one day be our task to trace many 
of the late plans up to their original sources, and give the wreath of the 
fame, if we cannot give the wealth which has been their produce, to 
the original projectors. 

The new plans for the approaches designed by Messrs. Rennie, were 
published in the Repertory of Arts, in December 1827, six months sub- 
sequent to the previous publication—and they bear too evident marks — 
of having been at least very materially grounded on the others, to permit — 
a supposition that the coincidence is merely accidental. The three great 
considerations in such plans, are, of course, economy, convenience to 
proprietors, and the easiest accomplishment of the object proposed ; yet, 
in defiance to nearly all these considerations, in their proposed new 
street to the Bricklayer’s Arms, these gentlemen have intended passing 
through the centre of St. Thomas’s and Guy’s Hospitals ; thus entailing 
either the destruction or the removal of two of the most valuable public 
institutions of which the Metropolis and its environs can boast. 

Finding that the new approach to the bridge, from Tooley Street, 
was coldly spoken of in Messrs. Rennie’s Report, as “ productive of 
considerable expense and inconvenience,” although admitted to be an 
‘«jmmense improvement,” Mr. Allen determined to give publicity to his 
ideas on the subject, as, from his local knowledge, he was convinced that 
the result would be directly the reverse of that represented in the 
Report, and that it would effect, “ upon the lowest calculation, a saving 
to the city of a hundred thousand pounds.” 

With much difficulty and delay, Mr. Allen, at length, finding that 
there were objections in the Bridge Committee to receiving them, ob- 
tained leave to lay his plans before the Common Council; and these are, 


=o, 


1829. ] Metropolitan Improvements. ‘ 155 


therefore, at this moment, in addition to the plans of Mr. Allen, one of 
Mr. Gwilt’s, anda sixth plan of the Messrs. Rennie’s, under the considera- 
tion of the city, it being still undetermined which shall be adopted. As 
there appears incontestable evidence that none of these latter plans were 
copies of the others, their similarity is extraordinary ; and, as the same 
idea, with regard to the Southwark approach seems to have struck three 
ingenious and scientific men, it may well be imagined that the outline of 
the plan is the best that can be devised. In this their sixth design, the 
employed engineers at last concur in recommending that the approach 
to the new bridge, from Tooley Street, be made to open in front of 
St. Saviour’s Church ; we may, therefore, guess that this plan will, at 
last, meet the approbation of the New Bridge Committee. 

The most probable approaches, on the Southwark side, therefore, will 
be, by widening the High Street in the Borough, from the present Town 
Hall, and by a proposed new street, to lead from Bridge-yard, in Tooley 
Street, till it intersects the High Street, opposite to St. Saviour’s Church. 
From this intersection a wide Street, adorned on either side with hand- 
some buildings, will lead immediately to the bridge. In this plan, sites 
are marked out for a new Town Hall, and other public buildings— 
St. Thomas’s and Guy’s Hospitals are left unmolested—and the line will 
be the least expensive that can be planned. The great object, however, 
and certainly the grand desideratum of this plan, is to lay open St. 
Saviour’s Church. It has long been the regret of every man of taste, 
that so many of the finest buildings which the Metropolis can boast, 
should be concealed from view by the mass of rubbishing houses which 
surround them—and none of them has occasioned more regret from this 
circumstance, or would excite more public admiration, if more exposed 
to view, than this structure of St. Saviour’s—now scarcely perceptible in 
the dirty neighbourhood by which its beauties are hidden. To display 
the long hidden architecture of such venerable structures as this, is one 
of those objects to which some considerable expense of property may be 
legitimately sacrificed. 

For this purpose it is proposed to lay open a circular site, and thus form 

a circus round the church, which is to be approached by steps, leading 
to a platform from the High Street, towards which the whole front of 
the church will remain open ; by this means the whole of this beautiful 
church, with its venerable architecture, will be in full view, and form a 
striking object at this entrance to the metropolis. In front of the church 
will be a large open space, from which the road will gradually ascend, 
to meet the slope of the bridge. 

Such is the general outline of the plan which will, most probably, be 
adopted on the Southwark side of the bridge ; and as there is no possi- , 
bility of obtaining a direct line of street from the Bricklayer’s Arms, 
without such a destruction of property, including the two hospitals 
above-named, as would render the accomplishment of such a plan nearly 
impossible, it is, perhaps, the best that could be adopted. 

By this design, the present Tooley Street will pass under a dry arch, 
similar to that of the Commercial Road, at Waterloo Bridge, and lead 
into a new street, proposed to form a more direct line of communication 
with Blackfriar’s Road, along the banks of the river, than is afforded by 
the tortuous path that at present forms the only connection between the 
two bridges. Upon the whole, this appears to us, both as it respects con- 
venience and economy, and as affecting the property in the neighbour- 

xX 2 


~ 


156 Metropolitan Improvements. [Fes. 


hood, the most feasible plan that the Committee, under the circum- 
stances, could adopt ; while the venerable church of St. Saviour’s, sur- 
rounded by a series of modern handsome buildings, will gratify the 
curious in architecture, and greatly add, by its beauty, to the improve- 
ment. 

As pounds, shillings, and pence are, however, in the opinion of John 
Bull, paramount arguments in all questions of improvement, we may, 
perhaps, cite the economy of this plan as the most hkely argument in 
favour of its adoption. Stairs, in the dry arch, to lead up to the High 
Street, in addition to the street to lead under it, would greatly diminish 
the claims of the occupiers of premises in Tooley Street, for loss of busi- 
ness in consequence of the elevated level of the new bridge ; and the 
formation of a new road*leading thereto, would most likely produce the 
means of acquiring an increase of business, arising out of their being 
situated directly in the channel of a water-side street, leading to the west 
end of the town. 

On the city side of the bridge, the approaches seem to be quite as un- 
decided as on the other ; the height of the new structure, its not coming 
opposite to any opening wide enough to give a chance for a competent 
approach, have added to the difficulties of the decision; while the 
clamours of the inhabitants of Upper Thames and Gracechurch Streets, 
and Fish Street Hill, distract and alarm the Committee, by the expres- 
sion of their fears, and the threatened amount of their claims for com- 
pensation. For our own part, while there is still the possibility of 
accomplishing it, we think that expense ought to be the secondary, and 
the greatest improvement, the first object, in the minds of the Committee. 

Nearly two centuries of regret at having, from false motives of eco- 
nomy, rejected Sir Christopher Wren’s plan for re-building the city, 
after the fire of London, ought to be a lesson to the citizens, not to 
throw away the present opportunity of a great improvement in the very 
heart of their city. We confess, we think, that all private benefit should 
give way to public good, and that a great object ought not to be.pre- — 
vented by such principles of economy as will render the improvement 
abortive. We would, with one fell sweep, get rid of as many of those — 
tortuous and winding alleys, misnamed streets, as are in the present 
neighbourhood of ‘Thames Street, and which stand in the way of some 
grand and direct communication with the new bridge ; and as it appears — 
but natural that this communication should lead to the-greatest and most 
considerable marts of commercial intercourse, we hope that plan will 
be adopted, which will give us one grand street, leading from the 
foot of the bridge immediately to the Bank and Royal Exchange. A street 
of this kind, leading from the present London Bridge to the neigh- 
bourhood of the Royal Exchange, was suggested and laid before 
the public, as long ago as 1796; and was further brought into — 
notice, as connected with the new bridge, in a letter from Dr. Price 
of Cannon Street, which appeared in the Eclipse newspaper in 1824. By 
this plan, a neighbourhood would be destroyed, which, for the tor- 
tuous and narrow streets it contains, is literally a nuisance; and a © 
cross street communicating with Fish Street Hill, would greatly 
obviate any injury that the inhabitants of that Hill and of Gracechurch 
Street might sustain, and thus diminish their claims for compensation, — 
at the same time that it lessened the inconveniences of that great 
thoroughfare. This cross street might open opposite to the Monument, 
which would then stand in a more exposed state than at present; and — 


1829.] Metropolitan Improvements. 157 


being one of the finest monuments of this kind in the world, it is well 
worth while to open it as much as possible to the public view. A dry 
arch might be carried over Thames Street, so as to prevent any interrup- 
tion in that great thoroughfare to the water-side wharfs, and Sir 
Christopher Wren’s Church of St. Magnus, might become the principal 
ornament of a large space to be appropriated as a quay for the accom- 
modation of the passengers and luggage of the numerous steam packets, 
which has been a desideratum long since wished by every body. For 
the further accommodation of these vessels, a dock might be formed, and 
by such means this site would be rendered an ornamental appendage to 

hie bridge, as well as a great commercial convenience. Such appear to 
be the outlines of the best plan yet submitted for the consideration of 
the city, as they are detailed in Mr. Allen’s pamphlet, and we heartily 
hope the Committee will be induced to adopt it. 

By devoting the site contiguous to St. Magnus Church to the above 
purposes, two very important objects will be attained ; “ First, that a 
new description of trade and traflic will be supplied to the inhabitants 
of Fish Street Hill and the parts of Thames Street adjacent; and, 
secondly, that the city would derive from the vessels resorting thereto, 
a very considerable source of revenue in the way of pier and quay duties.” 

These are two great objects attainable: and the ornamental is so blended 
with the useful, that the very decoration will tend to fill, instead of empty, 
the coffers of the good City of London. 

» “The resort of steam vessels to this quay,” continues Mr. Allen, “ would 
likewise form an interesting and animated object, which would not only 
much enhance the effect of the New Bridge, but would convey an idea 
of the beauty and commercial importance of the British metropolis, 
both in embarking from, and landing on the British shore.” Such a 
quay and dock too, would also obviate the danger and serious incon- 
venience which has been found of late years to arise from the difficulty 
of obtaining access to the numerous steam vessels which now lay off the 
Tower, and which at present form such frequent subjects of dispute 
and complaint, and not unfrequently endanger the lives of boatmen and 
passengers. Under all these circumstances, and deeply anxious for the 

_ advancement of the commercial interests of the City of London, so far 
as they may depend on the improvement of the public avenues, and 
solicitous to promote its architectural magnificence, and economize its 
funds, Mr. Allen has submitted to the board, models, plans and illus- 
trations of a design embracing the above objects ; and we heartily hope 
that those who have any influence in the affairs of the bridge, will 
neither be blind to the advantages or deaf’ to the arguments which such 
a plan presents, as a claim to their favourable consideration. 

Having entailed upon themselves the difficulties which must naturally 
arise from their having commenced their undertaking without having 
contemplated its end, these seem to be the best plans for obviating them, 
since it is now impossible for them to obtain, what ought to have been 
their first object—namely, magnificent streets on each side the river in 
a direct line with the new bridge. 

Such a want of foresight is a little extraordinary, but it is still more 
extraordinary, that the same neglect has characterized the proceedings 
of those concerned in the construction of Waterloo and Southwark 
bridges ; both of which, on the north side of the river, are still without 
any direct line of communication to those parts of the town, to which it 
was originally intended they should lead. S. S. 


[ 158 J [Fes. 


TWELVE YEARS’ MILITARY ADVENTURE.* 


Tuar must be a curious moment, and, to the person whom it most 
concerns, at least, an interesting one, in which it occurs to him that the 
adventures of his past life deserve to be recorded, and that what he has 
seen and done are worth being told for the amusement or information 
of the public. To a man little in the habit of writing at all, and wholly 
unacquainted with the craft of authorship, the notion must come with 
overwhelming force ; and one may imagine the embarrassment with 
which he sets about his new task—the doubts that assail him, whether 
any body will read what he is laboriously committing to paper—and the 
still more serious hazard he runs of being censured or ridiculed for 
intruding himself upon public notice. And yet nothing is more true than 
that which has been so often said—that there is hardly any man who 
has led an active life who could not make an interesting narrative, if he 
would tell all that he has witnessed or enacted, and the remembrance 
of which is worth preserving. The qualities necessary to make such a 
narrative are neither so rare, nor so exclusive, but that they fall within 
the reach of almost every one who can write or tella story. The first 
requisite is veracity, and the next simplicity. Ifa man will write with- 
out embarrassment or affectation—if he will content himself with telling 
his tale plainly, and relating events as they really happened, confining 
himself to what he personally underwent or saw, and giving up the 
attempt to create a more forcible impression on his readers than was 
made upon himself—there is hardly a possibility of his failing to gain 
the first object of his labours, and of engaging the attention and exciting 
the interest of the persons he addresses. There can be no proof more 
striking and satisfactory of this than in a narrative which has just been 
published by an officer, detailing the military adventures which occu- 
pied twelve years of his life. A man less likely to have produced a 
book, judging from so much of his character as is developed in the 
work before us, can hardly be imagined, and yet with no other qualifi- 
cation than a certain gaiety of temper, and a frank unconstrained man- 
ner of telling his story ;—relying upon his memory chiefly, and upon 
his imagination not at all, he has put together a pair of very readable 
volumes. There is nothing very new in them; but yet they are very 
agreeable, because they relate to affairs of which every one knows some- 
thing, and in which every one has an interest, more or less remote. They 
are told, too, in so unpretending and familiar a manner, as places the 
author at once upon the footing of an old acquaintance. There is one ~ 
particular in which he is tiresome. He is fond, like all soldiers and 
sailors, of sentiment, and he handles the weapon “as a bear would a 
musket.” When he means to be very pathetic, he is only maudlin ; 
and at the moment he thinks he has raised the tenderest sympathy, the 
reader bursts into a loud laugh. To do him justice, however, he does 
not sin in this respect so frequently as to make it offensive. In the 
main, he tells his tale plainly and unaffectedly ; and, without much 
skill in description, or any elegance of style, his sketches of a soldier’s 
life, rapid and concise as they often are, keep the attention of the reader 
very pleasantly excited. 


* Twelve Years’ Military Adventure in Three-Quarters of the Globe ; or, Memoirs 
of an Officer who served in the Armies of His Majesty and of the East-India Company, 
between the Years 1802 and 1814 ; 2 vols. London. Colburn. 


1829.} Twelve Years’ Military Adventure. 159 


Our author had the good fortune to be born when that delectabie system 
prevailed in the army of giving commissions to boys at school—the 
remnant of a worse system under which old ladies were captains of 
horse, maids of honour received pay as ensigns of grenadiers, and 
which enabled Serjeant Kite to enlist l'enfant du régiment of a week old, 
whom he benevolently fathered, and to enter him on the roll as “ absent 
on furlough.” Being one of six sons, and having been endowed by nature 
with “shoulders of requisite breadth, and a head of suitable thickness,” 
he was devoted to the military profession, and, at nine years old, a com- 
mission was obtained for him. Soon afterwards, the Duke of York’s 
regulations, which abolished that absurd practice, were passed, and the 
young soldier retired on half-pay. The mischief, however, he says, was 
done ; and he throws all the blame of having been an incorrigible dunce 
at school upon the fatal circumstance of having borne his Majesty’s 
commission at too early an age. As he would learn nothing at Win- 
chester, he was transplanted to Woolwich, where he mde some better 
progress, and, in the ripeness of time, was sent as a cadet to India. The 
incidents which occur upon a voyage to India are neither so many, nor 
so varied, that they are very well worth describing ; and our author, 
determined that the irksomeness of the reality shall not infect his narra- 
tion, passes them over very lightly. His account of the company usually 
found on board such vessels is amusing and characteristic :— 


“ The generality of our society on board was respectable, and some of its 
members were men of education and talent. Excepting that there was no lady 
of the party, it was composed of the usual materials to be found at the cuddy- 
table of an outward bound Indiaman. First, there was a puisne judge, in- 
trenched im all the dignity of a dispenser of Jaw to his majesty’s loving 
subjects beyond the Cape, with a Don’t tell me kind of face, a magisterial air, 
and dictatorial manner, ever more ready to lay down the law, than to lay 
down the lawyer. Then, there was a general officer appointed to the staff in 
India, in consideration of his services on Wimbledon Common and at the 
Horse Guards, proceeding to teach the art military to the Indian army—a man 
of gentlemanly but rather pompous manners ; who, considering his simple nod 

equivalent to the bows of half a dozen subordinates, could never swallow a 
glass of wine at dinner without lumping at least that number of officers or 
‘civilians in the invitation to, join him, while his aid-de-camp practised the 
same airs among the cadets. Then, there was a proportion of civilians and 
Indian officers returning from furlough or sick certificate, with patched-up 
livers, and lank countenances, from which two winters of their native climate 
had extracted only just sufficient sun-beams to leave them of a dirty lemon 
colour. Next, there were a few officers belonging to detachments of king’s 
troops proceeding to join their regiments in India, looking, of course, with 
some degree of contempt on their brethren in arms, whose rank was bounded 
by the longitude of the Cape; but condescending to patronize some of the 
most gentlemanly of the cadets. These, with a free mariner, and no incon- 
siderable sprinkling of writers, cadets, and assistant-surgeons, together with 
the officers of the ship, who dined at the captain’s table, formed a party of 
about twenty-five.” 


The author is one of those practical philosophers who, being con- 
vinced that to enjoy life is the true end of living, determine on being 
as comfortable as they can in whatever situation they find themselves. He 
looks always on the bright side of events; when any thing disagreeable 
happens, he leaps over it—passes it as a thing to be endured, but not 
talked about~—and hurries to something more pleasant. He is no 
grumbling traveller—wonders that any body else can grumble—says the 


160 Twelve Years’ Military Adventure. [ Fre. 


complaints of officers at not getting readily into society in India are 
wholly groundless, for he never met with any difficulty—(““ Such 
fellows,” as Cowslip says, “ would find room anywhere.” )—thought the 
ladies of India very charming, because they were the only ladies there, 
and says Mrs. Grahame ought to be ashamed of herself, for insinuating 
that they are given to tipple. We have all possible respect for our 
adventurer, and admire his gallantry of all things ; but we suspect that 
Mrs. Grahame is a better witness than he on this point, and, what is 
more to the purpose, she is not the only one. 

The author was attached as a subaltern of engineers to the army 
encamped near Vellore, and commanded by General Stewart. His 
description of an Anglo-Indian camp is curious and striking. A much 
greater space is occupied than in European camps, and the number of 
persons belonging to it, and the quantities of draught cattle accom- 
panying the army, give it a novel and picturesque appearance. 


: 

« Supposing the force encamped to consist of 10,000 fighting men, the front 
would be about two miles, and the depth about half a mile ; the greater part 
of this parallelogram, not taken up by the regular tents of the army, being — 
covered with the booths of the bazaar and the small tents of the camp- — 
followers. Imagine that over this space are scattered bipeds of all shades, . 
from the fair European down to the pariah, whose skin rivals the polish of 
Warren’s blacking, intermingled with quadrupeds of all sizes, from the 
elephant down to the dog, and you will have a tolerable idea of an Anglo- 
Indian camp. : 

“ The breaking up of such a camp is perhaps a more curious sight than the 
camp itself. Soon after the general has sounded the preparation to march, 
the tents disappear, and, in their place, an innumerable swarm of living crea- 
tures are seen busily moving about like a disturbed ant’s nest ; or, to a person 
taking a bird’s-eye view of the scene, it would seem as if an immense hatch 
of oviparous animals had just broken from their shells.” 


The adventurer beguiles the tediousness of the march, by telling some 
mess-room stories, which, to those who have not heard them before, may 
be amusing enough. The following is not bad :— 
3 
*. 
; 


«¢ An officer, whose stock of table-linen had been completely exhausted 
_during the campaign—whether by wear and tear or accident I cannot say— 
had a few friends to dine with him. The dinner being announced to the 
party, seated in the a/ fresco drawing-room of a camp, the table appeared 
spread with eatables, but without the usual covering of a cloth. The master 
who perhaps gave himself but little trouble about these matters, or who pro- 
bably relied upon his servant’s capacity in the art of borrowing, or, at all 
events, on his ingenuity in framing an excuse, inquired, with an angry voice, 
why there was no table-cloth? The answer was, ‘ Master not got ;’ with 
which reply, after apologizing to his guests, he was compelled, for the present, 
to put up. The next morning he called his servant, and rated him soundly, 
and perhaps beat him, (for I lament to say that this was too much the prac= 
tice with European masters in India,) for exposing his poverty to the com= — 
pany ; desiring him, another time, if similarly circumstanced, to say that all 
the table-cloths were gone to the wash. Another day, although the table — 
appeared clothed in the proper mamner, the spoons, which had probably found 
their way to the bazaar, perhaps to provide the very articles of which the | 
feast was composed, were absent, whether with or without leave is immaterial. 
«« Where are all the spoons?’ cried the apparently enraged master. — 
‘ Gone washerman, Sar!’ was the answer. Roars of laughter succeeded, and a 
tea-cup did duty for the soup-ladle.” 


1829.] Twelve Years’ Military Adventure. 161 


This is followed by another story, of a man who used to beat his 
maty-boy, and who, in order to indulge himself at his leisure in this 
very noble recreation, called him into a bungalow at the bottom of his 
garden, when, having locked the door, he told the boy that nobody was 
within hearing, and that he was determined to rub off a long score of 
punishment which his disobedience had contracted. “ Master, sure 
nobody near?” asked the Indian. “ Yes, yes, I’ve taken good care of 
that.” « Then I give master one good beating,” replied the boy ; and, 
being the stronger of the two, he was as good as his word, after which 
he ran away for ever. The story is a good one; and though neither 
new, nor Indian, it may be said of it—se non é vero, é ben trovato. 

Poor Captain Grose, son of the antiquary, and who was killed at 
Seringapatam, had left a reputation for wit and love of fun, which was 
still fresh when our author was in India. The airs which the staff- 
officers of the army then were in the habit of giving themselves, and 
which are said to have been equally offensive and ridiculous, provoked 
a whimsical retort from him. 


** Having had occasion to make some communication to head-quarters, he 
was received much in the usual manner by one of the under-strappers, who 
told him that no verbal communications could be received, but that what he 
had to say must be sent through the medium of an official letter. He hap- 
pened, some days afterwards, to have a party dining with him, and among 
others were a few members of the staff. In the midst of dinner a jack-ass 
came running among the tent-ropes, exerting his vocal organs in a manner by 
no means pleasing to the company. Grose immediately rose, and thus 
addressed the intruder : 

“< T presume, Sir, you come from head-quarters. I receive no verbal com- 
munications whatever, Sir. If you have any thing to say to me, Sir, I beg 
you will commit it to paper.’ The will- which Captain Grose made the night 
before the storming of Setingapatam, under a presentiment of his fate, was 
quite in character. It began with the apostrophe of “ O my nose!” and 
among other bequests contained the present of a wooden sword to an officer 
of rank to whom he bore no good will, and who was supposed not to be 
endowed with any superfluous quantity of personal valour.” 


At Hurryhur, that detachment of the army which the author accom- 
panied was joined by that under the command of the Duke of Welling- 
ton, then Major-General Wellesley. This occurred soon after an event 
which has been frequently alluded to by the enemies of that distin- 
guished personage, and which, as it has been almost always misrepre- 
sented, ought to be set in its true light. The author had the details of 
the circumstance from Colonel M‘Kenzie, who accompanied the duke 
on that occasion ; and his explanation is, in every respect, satisfactory. 
That it was felt. at the time, that no imputation could rest upon Colonel 
Wellesley, is quite clear ; because, if there had been the slightest foun- 
dation for such a charge as has been brought against him respecting this 
affair, his military reputation must have been (and not undeservedly) 
destroyed. His subsequent career is a sufficient reply to the malignant 
whisperers who have ventured to attack him ; but, as that reputation has 

, in some degree, a matter of national interest, we are not sorry 
to see the particulars made public, on such authority as Colonel M‘Ken- 
zie’s :— , 

“Shortly after the investment of Seringapatam, Colonel Wellesley, who 
commanded what was called the Nizam’s detachment, was ordered to dis- 
lodge the enemy from the ground intended as the scene of our operations 


M.M. New Series.—Vou. VII. No. 38. 


162 Twelve Years’ Military Adventure. [Frs. 


during the siege. The night appointed for this duty was particularly dark. 
Pushing on rather too eagerly with the light company of the 33d regiment, 
which had, by those means, got separated from the main body, he came sud~ 
denly on a work of the enemy’s, who opened a heavy fire. The light com= 

any, finding themselves unsupported, retreated rather precipitately, leaving 
Colonel Wellesley and Captain M‘Kenzie by themselves. In this predicament 
they endeavoured to regain their division ; but in the attempt, owing to the 
darkness of the night, they quite lost their way, and it was not till after grop- 
ing about for some hours that they succeeded in regaining the British camp, 
but without their division. Having proceeded to head-quarters, to report the 
State of affairs, Colonel Wellesley, hearing that General Harris was asleep, 
threw himself on the table of the dining tent, and, being much fatigued with 
the night’s labour, fell fast asleep. The next in command had, in the interim, 
after the repulse of the head of the colunm, and the loss of the commander, 
thought it prudent to proceed no further, and made the best of his way back 
to the camp with the division. Arriving at the tent of the commander-in- 
chief to make his report, he was surprised to find his missing supetior, fast 
locked in the arms of Morpheus, in the situation above described. This affair, 
of course, made considerable noise, and things were whispered about not at 
all to the advantage of Colonel Wellesley ; and it is to be supposed that the 
commander-in-chief must have partaken of this feeling towards the Colonel, 
otherwise he would not have ordered General Baird to wadertake the attack 
which had failed the preceding night. General Baird most handsomely re- 
quested that Colonel Wellesley might again be appointed to the duty, ashe 
was convinced that the circumstances which had caused his failure were 
purely accidental... Colonel Wellesley was accordingly directed to, make 
another attempt the night following, and succeeded: yet, so poisonous is the 
breath of slander, and so rapidly is it wafted, if not by the loud trumpet of 
fame,, at least by the low but quick vibrations of malice, that it requived years 
of victory entirely to wipe away the impressions then received from the minds 
of those who are more ready to listen to evil than to good report.” 

The district which is traversed by the Toorabudra is infested by 
Bheels, who are thieves by birth and education; for, in India, the 
divisions of society are so strongly marked, that even the robbers form a 
distinct and, for some purposes, a recognized class. The stories that 
one has heard of the ingenuity of these thieves almost pass belief. The 
author contributes to the stock the following :— 


« A bet was laid by a gentleman that he would procure a Bheel who should 
steal the sheet from under, a person without waking him. ‘The thing was 
effected in the following manner: the Bheel approaching the person, who lay 
on his side, from behind, carefally folded up the sheet in small compact plaits 
till it reached his back ; then, taking a feather, he tickled the nose of the 
sleeper, who immediately scratched his face and rolled over on the other side 
when with a slight effort he completely released the sheet, and bore it off in 
triumph.” 


- You can scarcely ever talk with a person who knows this part of 
India, or any part in which the Bheels are to be found, who cannot 
furnish similar instances of their ingenuity and dexterity. As no disgrace 
attaches to them for the exercise of that which is their profession, and 
their only means of living, they make no scruple of practising it openly ; 
their sole object, next to making good their booty, being to escape detec- 
tion. Their powers of endurance are extraordinary, and they will suffer 
any pain or privation in the pursuit of their design. An old officer of 
our acquaintance, was. marching a small detachment up the country, 
when owing to the damps which the monsoon had. produced, he was 
attaeked by a rheumatic fever, which confined him to his bed. He 


1829. ] Twelve Years’ Military Adventure. 163 


was lying in his tent at night, when he heard a noise resembling that of 
an animal moving about his room. He thought it was a dog or some 
such thing, and called up his orderly serjeant, who slept in an adjoining 
tent. The man got a light, looked all round the tent, but could discover 
nothing ; and the officer having bade him leave a long dirk unsheathed 
by his bedside, again tried to sleep. When all was still he heard the 
same sound, and was convinced that something was approaching his 
bed. He could not move his lower limbs, but reaching for his dirk, 
and aiming a blow at the spot whence the noise proceeded, which was 
close beside his bed, he felt that he struck some firm body: he repeated 
his blow—a low grunt followed—after which all was still, and the night 
passed away without further disturbance. In the morning his man 
found marks of blood in the tent, which he traced through an opening 
that had been made by removing one of the pegs, and some paces 
further he found the body of a Bheel pierced with two wounds, the 
effusion of blood from which had caused his death. 

Another story, which displays the ingenuity of the Bheels in a stronger 
light, was told by the same officer. The pay-serjeant of the company, 
a native, and a fellow of uncommon sharpness, heard that there were 
Bheels at hand, and knew that, by reason of his office, he should be the 
object of their particular attention. He always carried his money con- 
cealed about his person by day, and at night, thought he had contrived 
most effectually to disappoint the thieves. He dug a small hole in his 
tent, in which he deposited his money-bag, and spreading his mat over it, 
he lay down to sleep, with his feet towards the opening of the tent, so 
that nobody, as he thought, could enter without awakening him. In 
the middle of the night, a Bheel introduced himself into the farther part 
of the tent, by loosening one of the pegs; at the same moment another, 
rawling on all fours, put his head into the tent at the opening, and 
seizing one of the pay-sergeant’s great toes, he bit it to the bone. The 
sergeant jumped up in agony to seize his assailant, but caught only a 
shaven head which was well oiled for the purpose, and slipped through 
his hands almost as soon as he touched it. As he left his mat, the other 
Bheel, of whose presence he was unconscious, darted upon it, scrambled 
the bag out of the hole, and got out of the tent as he had entered ; the 
whole affair occupying much less time to act, than it takes to tell it. 

The author was at the battles of Assaye and Argaum, which have 
been so often described that it is hardly werth while to go over the 

ound again, and so, indeed, the author seems to think, for he does 

ittle more than state the result of each, accompanying them with a few 
anecdotes of his companions. Withstanding the temptation which these 
eyents hold ont to him to talk about himself, he gives a very simple 
account, and for his own part confesses that he was soundly frightened, 
and that he forgot his sword ; by which moderation, for our own part, 
we have a much higher opinion of his courage, than if he had told us he 
enacted more wonders than Bobadil. 

The most agreeable parts of his book are those in which he gives 
sketehes of local customs and manners, or of events connected with 

- There is something very stirring and spirited in his description 
of the transport of the troops across the Kistnah, which the south-west 
monsoon had filled from bank to bank, and which being, therefore, not 
fordable, it became necessary to prog, boats to cross :— 


164 Twelve Years’ Military Adventure. [ Fes. 


« But, as only two wooden ones, and a very few basket-boats could be 
procured, we were obliged to set to and make a good number of the latter 
class ourselves. Though their construction is rude and simple, consisting 
merely of a round wicker-work basket, about ten feet in diameter, shaped 
just like a saucer, and covered with hides, they are capable of trans- 
porting artillery ; but no attempt is ever made to put horses or cattle into 
them. In fact it is not necessary; for, with a little management, the horses 
are made not only to swim with the boat, but to drag it after them. For this 
purpose two horses are generally taken with each boat, having a watering 
bridle in their mouth, and a rope attached to the mane close to the withers. 
Their heads being turned the right way, which’is the only difficult part of the 
job, they make for the opposite bank without hesitation, dragging by the 
rope, which is tied to their mane, and held by some person in the boat. It is 
altogether a gallant sight. Their eager look, their inflated nostrils, and the 
occasional dashing of their forelegs above the water, produce an effect which 
might not unaptly be compared to the foaming team which fabulists have 
yoked to the car of Neptune. 

« Indeed, if it had not been for the cavalry horses, I know not how we 
should have crossed the river ; for, besides being nearly half a mile in width, 
full from bank to bank, and running at a most rapid rate, the wind blew so 
strong against us, that not a single boat which attempted to cross without a 
horse succeeded ; and, as it was, the stream generally carried them half a 
mile down the river before they could gain the opposite bank. There were 
very few instances of the horses attempting to turn back when once there 
heads were fairly turned in the proper direction, notwithstanding the great 
distance they had to swim, and the load they had to draw; so that very few 
of these noble animals were lost. The elephants in general took the water 
well, though one or two of them could not be persuaded to go in of their own 
accord; two or three of the strongest of their own species were therefore sent 
to compel them. These, after having given the refractory gentlemen a sound 
drubbing with sticks, which they held in their trunks, fairly shoved them into 
the water, and did not quit them till they were landed on the opposite bank. 
It was a curious sight to witness, and perhaps the strongest instance of the 
power of man over the brute creation that can well be imagined. Their 
manner of swimming is curious. ‘The whole of the body is immersed in the 
water, sometimes to the depth of two or three feet, and occasionally they send 
their trunk up to the surface for a fresh supply of air. Thus their keeper has 
no very pleasant birth of it, being sometimes soused over head and ears. 
Camels cannot be persuaded to go into the water at all: and it is consequently 
necessary to lash them to the side of the boat. Bullocks will swim well, but 
cannot be used like horses for dragging the boats.” 


It was the author’s misfortune to be in the immediate neighbourhood 
of Vellore, when the mutiny, which occasioned so much bloodshed, 
took place there. Two battalions, one of the Ist and the other of the 
23d regiment of the Madras army, had conspired to gain possession of 
the garrison, which they meant to keep in the name of Futteh Hyder, 


one of Tippoo’s sons. The plot had been so well arranged, that at first 
it succeeded entirely :— 


* About four o’clock, the battalion of the 23d regiment having fallen in on 
their parade by order of their native officers, as if preparatory to the drill, 
and ball-cartridge having been served out to them, as if for practice at the 
target, a body of the sworn mutineers belonging to the 1st regiment, who had 
been told off for that purpose, marched silently down to the main-guard, 
which was composed partly of Europeans, the massacre of whom was to be 
the signal for the general movement. As soon as this party had approached 
sufficiently near to give assistance if necessary, the sepoys of the main-guard, 


oi 


4 
J 
}y 


1829. ] Twelve Years’ Military Adventure. 165 


who had previously loaded their pieces privately, presented them at the breast 
of their sleeping or unheeding comrades, and soon dispatched them. At-the 
report of the firing some of the principal mutineers came running to the sepoy 
barracks, calling out that the European soldiers had risen and were murdering 
all the natives they could lay their hands on ; and that it was necessary that 
they should immediately march to the European barracks, to put a stop to the 
business. Upon this the battalion on parade, the greater part of whom were 
Hindoos and ignorant of the plot, allowed themselves to be marched off, and 
drawn up round the 69th barracks, into the windows of which they poured a 
volley over the heads of the scarcely awaked soldiers, on whom they continued 
to keep up an incessant fire. Meanwhile parties of the Ist regiment, among 
whom were the principal conspirators, proceeded to secure all the posts of 
importance, and a select band commenced the bloody work of massacring the 
European officers, in which, unfortunately, they were but too successful. 
Having obtained possession of the powder magazine and arsenal, the muti- 
neers were enabled to supply the sepoys, engaged in firing into the European 
barracks, with ammunition; and, having also found two field-pieces ready 
mounted, they brought them down into an unoccupied barrack immediately 
fronting that of the 69th, and thence opened a fire on the latter building. In 
the mean time the Europeans, taken by surprise in this extraordinary manner, 
while naked and unarmed, and having no officers with them, became quite 
paralyzed, and lay crouching under their beds, or behind pillars, to screen 
themselves from the fire, without making any effort for their defence, except 
in the instance of a serjeant or two, who, rallying a few of the stoutest hearts, 
kept possession of the gate, from which they made some successful sallies.” 


Some of the officers who had escaped the first attack of the mutineers, 
managed to keep them in check for a short time, and being joined by 
about a hundred men of the 69th, who were headed by two young 
assistant-surgeons, kept up a fire upon them. Soon afterwards, Colonel 
Gillespie, who had been at Arcot, arrived, with the author and a squadron 
of the 19th dragoons, and the rest of that regiment soon followed. 
They effected an entrance into the town, the sepoys were soon silenced, 
and the ringleaders suffered a summary punishment, which, severe as it 
was, had been deserved by them, and was absolutely necessary to main- 
tain the discipline of the army. This tragic affair cost the lives of 200 
Europeans, a large proportion of whom were officers, in addition to a much 
larger number of natives who fell in the conflict, and were put to death 
after it was over. But the most melancholy reflection arising from it 
is, that it was occasioned by the mischievous meddling of some persons 
whose piety was of that exclusive kind that they would not let the 
Hindoos and Mussulmen of the native army go to heaven in their own 
way. ‘The sepoys had been threatened with alterations in their costume, 
and had been assailed by missionaries and the distribution of religious 
tracts in a manner extremely injudicious on the part of the authorities by 
whom it was sanctioned, and most offensive to Indian prejudices. Of 
the value of missionary labours, a pretty general and just estimate seems 
now to be entertained in this country. The author says that their con- 
verts consist only of persons who become Christians because their worth- 
lessness has driven them out of the pale of their own religion; but, 
when the quackery of the missionary system extends so far as it did in 
this instance, it ceases to become merely ridiculous, and assumes a shape 
so dangerous, that those who are interested in preserving the British 
dominion in India, would do well to curb the misguided zeal of men 
whose hobby-horsical piety may produce extensive destruction, if not 
general ruin.—Among the anecdotes which are told of the events con- 


166 Twelve Years’ Military Adventure. [Frs. 


nected with this affair, there is one which is strongly characteristic 
of that habitual indifference to danger which is so common among Eng- 
lish soldiers. A private of the 69th had been placed sentry over the 
magazine :— 


“ In the midst of the work of slaughter, an officer, who was running for 
his life, passed him at his post, and, seeing him walking up and down with 
the utmost composure, hastily asked if he knew that the sepoys were mur- 
dering all the Europeans. ‘I thought as much,’ he replied. ‘ Why don’t 
you fly for your life then?’ exclaimed the officer. ‘ I was posted here,’ he 
said, ‘ and itis my duty to remain. I’ve six rounds in my pouch, and 1'l sell 
my life dearly.” The noble fellow was afterwards found dead on his post.” 


The captain is fond of a joke, and does not like it the less for being 
a practical one, as the following story will testify :— 


« Among my mathematical instruments, I had an inverting telescope, 
which I used sometimes to let my servants look through, that I might enjoy 
their surprise at seeing the world turned upside down, and, in particular, the 
astonishment they expressed, when they saw men and women walking on 
their heads, without their clothes falling down. It got about in the cantgn- 
ment that the engineer Saheb hada telescope which could turn people upside 
down, without the latter part of the phenomenon being generally known. 
So I used sometimes to amuse myself by pointing my glass at the women as 
they passed my window ; upon which they would run as fast as they could, 
holding their clothes down with both their hands.” 


He aceompanies the expedition to the Isle of Bourbon, and on his 
return is made aid de camp to Sir Samuel Auchmuty. The importance 
which this accession of dignity gives him in the eyes of some of his 
Madras acquaintances, and the respect they commonly pay to rank, is 
ridiculed humorously enough :— 


** Although I had generally been well received in society at Madras, yet, 
when I came to mount the aid-de-camp’s coat, I observed many persons eye 
me with a degree of consideration which I never could ebtain from them when 
inthe garb of a simple subaltern of engineers. Many a cordial greeting did 
I now receive, where once a simple nod was thought sufficient ; and many a 
whole handful of fingers would now be thrust into my palm, where formerly a 
couple of digits at most were brought forth to balance my five. This respect 
and attention paid to my new coat was not confined to the male sex ; so that, 
however I might have benefited, in many respects, by the change, my amour- 
propre was not much flattered, nor my estimation of mankind much raised, by 
the little peep into the human heart which J had thus obtained. In every 
society there will always be a certain number of low-minded persons, who 
pay no respect but to rank or riches. One family I recollect in particular at 
the Presidency, which was so notorious in this respect, that a trick which 
was played them by a captain of the navy whom they had offended, afforded 
considerable amusement, if not gratification, to the greater part of the Settle- 
ment. Expecting to meet this family at the assembly-rooms, he brought a 
young midshipman ashore with him, and introduced him as the Honourable 
Mr. so and so. As he anticipated, the bait took, and a set was immediately 
made at this sprig of nobility by the party in question. The daughters 
monopolized him as a partner during the eveuing. His daneing was admired, 
his face pronounced truly patrician, his manners considered superior, and even 
his gaucheries set down as the véritable ton. They begged as.a favour that the 
captain would allow him to stay ashore with them for a short time—they 
would take such care of him. To which the captain, after some demur, for 
“he was given into his special charge,’ consented. The next day Middy is 
taken round to see the lions, and to be introduced to their most fashionable 
acquaintance. His cocked hat is rather the worse for a sea voyage, and ‘his 


1829.) Twelve Years’ Military Adventure: 167 


dirk is grown shabby: they stop at the Europe shops, and new ones are pre- 
sented to him by the hands of the young ladies. A ball is given on purpose 
for him. Im short, every possible attention is paid to the little honourable, 
whose noble parents will doubtless seek out the family on its return to England, 
to repay the obligation ; and already had they begun to anticipate the pleasure 
which they should enjoy at the Countess’s fashionable parties, and the advan- 
tages they shou!d derive from being introduced into the beaw monde through 
the means of her ladyship. In fact, Middy was in clover. To be obliged to 
part with their young friend at last was painful. It cost the fair members of 
the family some tears, and gained Middy some caresses, and, what was of 
more value, some substantial tokens ‘of friendship ; and fame went so far as to 
say that he carried away a lock of hair belonging to one of the young ladies. 
Nor did they part without mutual promises to renew the acquaintance in 
England. The next day, as the ship was about to sail, the master, a gruff, 
tobacco-chewing tar, waited upon the family, to thank them for their kind- 
ness—to his son !” 


For some period after this, his life in India was a very active one. 
He was in the expedition to Java, at the taking of Batavia, Cornelis, and 
Sammarang, and on his way back visited Serineapatam. His observations 
upon the natives and the government of India, are in general concise, 
but very shrewd and sensible ; and are always made in a spirit of -can- 
dour and fairness. En passant, he has a word to say about Dr. Leyden :— 

“ Before we left Java we heard accounts of the death of Dr. Leyden, a 
man well known in the literary world, but more as the friend of Sir Walter 
Scott, who has dedicated to him one of his poems. He was a wonderful 
linguist, and an incessant talker ; so that while Nature supplied him with the 
talent of acquiring languages, she also amply furnished him with the dispo- 
sition to give utterance to them. In him great learning and volubility of 
tongue were associated. The reverse we generally find to be the case—those 
who have most to communicate being commonly the most reserved, not 
liking, I suppose, to cast their pearls before swine. Dr. Leyden was besides 
a great antiquary and botanist. He died from exposure to the climate of one 
of the islands to the eastward; but whether in search of heathen images or 
botanical specimens, I could never learn. He was on the medical establish- 
ment of the Madras army; but Lerd Minto, who knew how io estimate and 
to patronize genius, had lately attached him to his person. I once heard him 
call Sir William Jones, in his strong North country accent, “ an eclegant 
humbug.” 


This is in the true taste and tone of a modern Athenian, who could 
not forgive one of the most accomplished scholars and amiable men that 
the nation has produced, for being born south of the Tweed. Without 
meaning to detract from the real merit of Dr. Leyden, who, notwith- 
standing that he has been egregiously puffed and overrated, was really 

_aclever man, we may be permitted to say, that whatever there was of 
humbug in his character was much more apparent than his eelegance. 
The author gets tired of India, and hearing of Lord Wellington’s 
ampaign in the Peninsula, then in its progress, he feels a strong desire 
to join him, quits the East, sails for England, pays a short visit to his 
mother, has his liver repaired at Cheltenham, procures a commission, 
and embarks for Lisbon. 

Notwithstanding the stirring nature of the events in which he now 
became an actor, the latter part of his narrative is much less agreeable 
than the former. The ground has been so beaten, that little new is to 

be said about it, and this he seems to have felt. His description of the 
battle of Vittoria, of the attack on Salamanca, and of the march in 


168 Twelve Years’ Military Adventure. (Fes. 


pursuit of the French army, are vivid and forcible, but they lack that 
spirit of fun and good humour which is the very salt of his earlier 
relations. A story which he tells of the way in which a German soldier 
excused himself for stealing fowls, is odd enough :— 


« One day that I was quartered in a farm-house, along with some of our 
German dragoons, the owner came to complain to me that the soldiers had 
been killing his fowls, and pointed out one man in particular as the principal 
offender. The fact being brought home to the dragoon, he excused himself 
by saying, ‘ One shiken come frighten my horse, and I give him one kick, and 
he die.’ ‘ Oh, but,’ said I, ‘ the patron contends that you killed more than 
one fowl.’ ‘Oh yes; that shiken moder see me kick that shiken, so she come 
fly in my face, and IJ give her one kick, andshedie.’ Of course I reported the 
culprit to his officer, by whom he was punished as a notorious offender.” _— 


On the termination of the war, the author quitted the army, and now 
reposes under his laurels. One is very sorry to part with him, for a 
more agreeable good tempered companion, during twelve years, one is 
not likely to meet with; and although the book is the simplest and 
most unpretending possible, it is infitely more amusing, as well as 
intrinsically better, than some modern publications, the authors of which 
claim for themselves, with great complacency, the praise due to works 
of genius and imagination. 


‘THE THEATRES. 


Tar superb affair the Kive’s Turarre, having fallen into the hands of a 
Frenchman, the “ abstract and brief chroniclers of the time,” will have it 
that preparations for unrivalled success are made for the season. But we 
have seen the same thing said of the monarch of the Muscovites ; and we 
have become sceptical as to bulletins of all kinds, imperial and theatrical. 
Monsieur Laporte, like his royal prototype, is said to have a little insurrection 
at home. If Nicholas is in awe of the Poles, M. Laporte is at war with the 
fiddle-sticks. The orchestra is in astate of discord ; and those veteran leaders 
Lindley, Dragonetti, the head of the éite of clarionets, trumpets, and bassoons, 
declare that they will neither bow nor blow, for his Gallic majesty. Spagno- 
letti, is said to have left the camp, and, like a true Italian, come over to the 
paying side. But he was of no use to either side. The sterner spirit of the 
true born English fiddlers is still unsubdued, and M. Laporte must bring 
reinforcements from his native territory, or be forced to make, like Nicholas, 
a frost-bitten retreat of it, and comfort himself by swearing at the climate 
and the malevolence of fortune. 

In the meantime he is entrenching himself in the pit, where to the astonish- . 
ment and chagrin of all those sons of freedom and Fop’s Alley, who used 
to range over its mighty level, free as a Cossack over the plains of the 
Ukraine, a series of barricades have been constructed, impassable by all who 
have not the managerial pass of a regular annual subscription. Why this has 
been ever suffered, we are at a loss to understand. Things that are charming 
to the Parisian, have sometimes a different aspect to the English. The Parisian 
may like to be escorted every three steps by a gensdarme, to take his seat 
only by direction of a fixed bayonet, and to keep it with his eye perpetually 
fixed on the movements of a horse-guard blue. He may like to be told off — 
with his playgoing brethren into little sections and fragments of audiences, 
fixed in the basket-work of an open gallery, or the back benches ofa play- 
house paterre, with the satisfaction of seeing that the gentleman on the bench’ 


1829. ] Zhe Theatres. 1cg8 


three inches before him, is separated by .a barrier, which distinguishes the 
gentleman from the xo gentleman, and that the whole house can discover at 
a glance, that he has come in for sixpence less than his fellow before him. 
But these tastes are not popular in our stubborn and old fashioned country. 
We love to see men take their fair chance of being mistaken for gentlemen, 
and the principle of equality left to thrive without the restriction of ten rows 
of high-backed chairs with locks to them. 

Let the nobility have their private boxes, since this has been the custom ; 
but let the gentry have their rights, since this has been the custom too. If 
no places can be kept in an English theatre after the first act, why should 
they be kept in the Opera pit? We hope the question will be tried in the 
plainest way, on the very first night of the season. 

But we turn to a more congenial subject ; those werks of genius, in which 
we defy competition ; those brilliant compounds of wit, scenery, magic, and 
jumping, which enchant all ages alike, which give the nursery the first taste 
of the raptures of life, the mature the full fruition, and the ancient the bright 
retrospect of the days when they were young, when the prospect of Christmas 
holidays brightened half the year; when the spirit of man was not. flattened 
between the pressure of the times, and the march of intellect; when Jack 
the Giant-killer was an original hero, and Mother Goose a greater wonder- 
worker than Pope Joan with her seventy cardinals at her back, and her 
sceptre in her hand. 

The pantomine at Drury Lang, is entitled “‘ The Queen Bee, or Harlequin 
and the Fairy Hive.’ The Honeycomb Palace is discovered with its swarms 
of Lady Bees, whose dances are interrupted by a complaint against a Drone 
for idleness and disorderly conduct. ‘The Drone is summoned before her 
stinging majesty and sentenced to be “ transported to roam the flowers of 
Botany.” No sooner is he drummed out in form, than “‘a golden radiance in 
the sky,” proclaims some celestial visitor; and Fortune, in her splendid 
temple, appears. She tells the queen she comes to complain of Harlequin, 
who has grown so fat from “drinking double X, to double ewcess,” that he 
is utterly incapable of his regular Christmas duty. The Queen says she 
knows the disgraceful cause; it is owing to his having been idle nearly a 
year; and she sends Rose Rifle, one of her attendaits, to “ lie ambush’d in 
some rose’s cup,” till summoned to execute her commands on the delinquent. 
The country house of old Harlequin is now displayed. He out-Falstaff’s 

_ Falstaff in obesity. He has a valet as monstrous as himself; and a son 
whom he discountenances from a double jealousy of his agility, and of the 
Fy interest taken in him by a young female, the village schoolmistress, to whose 
“hand the old gentleman, being a widower, aspires. She refuses.the lover, 
__ who is about to vent his rage on her, when the fairy, Rose Rifle, interposes. 
She bids her be of good cheer ; directs her to aid young Harlequin in getting 
possession of the charmed sword, which his father, out of malice and avarice 
detains from him, locked useless in a box. The youthful couple get into the 
amber of the “ ton of flesh,’ and obtain the box ; but the house is alarmed: 
when Fortune and the Queen Bee come in together, delegate the power to 
the son—to whom, of course, Margery is Columbine—and the pursuit begins. 
__ The rival wonder at Covent Garpen, is ‘‘ Little Red Riding Hood, or The 
_ Wizard and the Wolf.” ‘The story passes on the banks of the Seine, near 
Rouen. It begins with a tremendous Freischutz sort of scene, in which the 
_ Wizard of the Dell appears, awaiting the manufacture of a charmed girdle, 
Which is managed after the manner of the charmed balls of Caspar. Strange 
and reptiles caper about, and at length a gigantic spirit rises with the 

girdle completed, and gives it to the Wizard of the Dell, telling him three 
shall possess it, but it shall afterwards revert tohim. The Wizard is in great 

e at this, and splutters about the Fairy of the Rosy Bower, and intimates 

t he nows means to “‘ feed the ancient grudge he bears her.” The Wizard 
of the Dell has a son, who, by the power of the fairy, was deformed at his 

M.M. New Series —Vov. VII. No. 37. Z 


170 The Theatres. (Fer. 


birth. Humpo, this son, appears: and to do the fairy justice, she certainly 
succeeded in producing a sufficiently hideous gentleman. Humpo now 
discloses a greater calamity under which he has fallen, than even his dis- 
tortion: he isin love! There is a little rural beauty, who has bewitched all 
the neighbourhood ; lawyer, curate, and miller, are all enamoured of her, and 
Humpo has fallen under the general fascination, and shares in the general 
despair. Rose d'Amour, for such is the name her loveliness has brought 
upon her, has chosen secretly for herself, and cares for none of them. The 
miller’s son, young Colin, is the man—and, of course, Colin is not in the 
most enviable position. But the Wizard of the Dell encourages his boy to 
look for a triumph. By the magic girdle, he changes Humpo into a Wolf, 
and bids him watch Rose d’Amour. The Wolf seizes her, and she screams. 
Colin and the Miller, and all the parties interested, rush on to her rescue. 
A struggle follows; the Wizard comes to the aid of his son. The Fairy 
changes ‘Colin and Rose, to Harlequin and Columbine ; and the Miller and 
Grandmother, to Pantaloon and Clown. The Wizard charges his son to 
bring Harlequin’s sword to the “ ivy tower ;” the Fairy bids Harlequin bring 
the magic girdle to her “ rosy bower.” Rose d’Amour is to be the reward of 
whoever succeeds. The pursuit then begins, and, of course, ends in the 
loss of the girdle, and Harlequin’s triumph. 

The pantomime at the Surrey Tuparre, is “ The Golden Goose, or 
Harlequin and the Goblin of the Mine ;” “‘ founded on the popular legend 
Die Goldene Gans, in the Kinder und Haus Marchen of M. M. Grimm.” 
Carl Von Brandencoken, a charcoal burner, has three sons; the youngest, 
Dolph, is a sort of male Cinderella, loaded with all the work of the family. 
The retreat of the charcoal burners is in the Crimson Mountains, at Alter- 
bourg, which is also the scite of the Lake of the Silver Swans, where 
Sunbeam, the Genius of Light, has her domicile. The piece opens with a 
view of this romantic region of firelight and moonlight, where Dolph has 
been set to tend a pile of burning charcoal. His father, and his two brothers, 
Rip and Klaus, are comfortably asleep on a bed of leaves and skins. Dolph, 
weary of long watching, falls asleep, also, at his post. Sunbeam appears on 
the bosom of the lake, and the silver swans lift their heads and exult. He is 
the guardian genius of the Princess Una, the daughter of Maximilian the 
Sixth, Emperor of Oriana, the kingdom of the Gold Mines. Maximilian had 
incensed Swartz, the malignant Goblin of the Gold Mines, by drawing, with 
too unceremonious a liberality, upon his treasures ; and Swartz, in revenge, 
has cast a spell upon the Princess Una—has plunged her into a melan- 
choly, which there is but one hope of overcoming—and that is, by getting 
possession of “a wonderous talisman, a golden goose,” which is “ deep 
buried in Swartz’s dwelling ;” an achievement to be accomplished only by a 
tender, virtuous, and courageous, youth! “ Here are three young men,’ adds 
Sunbeam, “ let me try what I can make of them.’ A mantle descends upon 
Sunbeam, and gives him the appearance of a decripit old man. Carl and his 
two favourite sons awake, and discover Dolph sleeping. He is ungently 
roused up and ordered to get breakfast, which the others eat, giving him the 
fragments. Carl and Klaus begin to replenish the charcoal piles with logs, 
Sunbeam steals forward and implores charity of Rip, is spurned away, and 
goes out threatening vengeance, which is speedily excecuted, for when Rip 
casts a log upon the pile, a flash darts out from it and burns his face. Sun- 
beam, asking arms of Klaus, is alike repelled, which is requited by the same 
punishment, and Klaus is also taken out by his father, greatly astonished at — 
this double accident, to the doctor. Sunbeam now tries the sensibility of © 
Dolph, the youngest son. Dolph tells the old man his store is scanty, © 
but such as it is, he is welcome to it. Sunbeam replies that he has long © 
sought a heart like his, and having found it, will give it the reward it merits. 
Sunbeam discloses himself Mm all his glory, and tells Dolph he his destined 
“to win a throne and wife.” He bids him seek the Golden Goose in the 


1829. ] The Theatres. 171 


haunted Gold Mine; and to haste with it to Maximilian’s court, there to 
disenchant the Princess Una, and gain her hand. To provide him with a 
guide and aid, Sunbeam strikes a pile of charcoal, out of which tumbles Nip, 
who is instructed by Sunbeam in his duty, and presented with “a fam’d 
aliiagest of wond’rous power.” Dolph receives the miniature of Una, with 
whose beauty he is enraptured. We at last see the outer cavern of the 
haunted Gold Mine, its guardian demon is fighting with a serpent, when Nip 
leads in Dolph, who, stimulated by a look at the miniature, proceeds. All 
sorts of shadows and “ chimeras dire,’ vanish at the almagest of Nip. 
Presently Swartz, the “ Goblin of the Gold Mines and Incubus of the 
Golden Goose,” is seen in “‘ the magic cavern of the Golden Goose.” He calis 
his goblin spies, Firedamp, Mouldwarp, Dross and Zink, and the Blue 
Devils, and tells them, “ by the pricking of his thumbs,” he knows there’s 
something wicked in the wind. ‘They all peep about, but, by the magic of 
Nip’s almagest, are eluded and depart. Dolph and Nip, after many skirmishes 
with the imps, succeed in finding the goose. They go to a tavern to rest 
themselves. he fame of their achievement, and the value of their acquisition, 
has gotabroad. Dolph falls asleep at the table with the goose under his arm, 
and the landlord and his family steal thither in the dark to get possession 
of it: but ignorant of its quality of making people adhere together on 
touching it, each is bound to the other; they shriek and alarm Dolph, who 
recovers the talisman and departs, leaving the party vainly endeavouring to 
disentangle themselves. The court of the Empero Maximilian is next 
discovered. Every dress and every article of furniture has been contrived 
with the view of exciting merriment. A proclamation is exhibited, promising 
that he who shall first succeed in making the princess laugh, shall have her 
hand and her father’s crown. ‘The princess appears, wrapped in the most 
immoyeable gloom. Various officers of state cut antics before her, but it will 
not do. A baron of the court presents himself, in full confidence of obtaining 
the prize. He, with the rest, makes himself ridiculous to no purpose, and 
is greatly annoyed at the failure. Intelligence is brought of the arrival of a 
person unquestionably possessing power to revolutionize the lady’s muscles. 
Officers of the court are dispatched in quest of him. Dolph enters, followed 
by the messengers, all sticking together. . Stumbling, in their attempts to get 
apart, against the king and his ministers, the whole court is suddenly entan- 
gled so absurdly, that the princess can resist no longer, and bursts into an im- 
moderate fit of laughter. The charm having wrought its effect, Dolph releases 
the groupes, and demands his recompence. The disappointed baron asks the 
king if he can disgrace himself by receiving a poulterer’s boy as his son-in- 
law, and bids Dolph begone, as the proclamation was a jest. The king sides 
with the baron, and orders his guards to seize Dolph. Una pleads for him, 
and the youth keeps them at bay with the goose, till Swartz rising out of the 
earth, tells the king that falsehood has renewed the spell upon his daughter, 
and restored the goose, which Swartz now seizes. Nip waves his talismanic 
wand, and Sunbeam appears, and defies Swartz, and to show that mirth shall 
not forsake either the princess or the youth, they are transformed into Harlequin 
_and Columbine, and attended by the faithful Nip as Pierrot ; while to punish 
_ the king and baron for their folly, she turns them into Clown and Pantaloon. 
Swartz then flies off, declaring that, do their best, Harlequin shall never be 
united with Columbine, till, from the “ depths of night,’ he regains the 
Golden Goose; and here the harlequinade commences; at the close of 
which, Swartz appears with the Golden Goose in the realms of fog. Signs 
-and omens have warned him that his prize is in peril, and he invokes the 
mists to hide him from pursuit. The wand of Harlequin, and the talisman 
of Pierrot, combined, enable them to intercept Swartz and seize the Goose. 
This done, Sunbeam dispels the clouds, Swartz owns himself vanquished, and 
the loving couple are happy. 

_ The fourth of these Christmas novelties, that at the Copure, is “ invented 


Z2 


172 The Theatres. [ Fes. 


and produced” by Mr. T. Dibdin. It is entitled, “Harlequin and Jack the 
Giant-killer, or the Golden Castle.” Gaffer and Gammer Goodenough, the 
father and mother of Jack, are discovered in their cottage, counting the chimes 
of the village clock. It is getting late. ‘They are in great distress about the 
absence of their boy ; but a voice bids them be of good cheer ; and when they 
ask, why ? a cuckoo from the top of a clock, in the corner, sings, “ Because a 
fairy will return him safe and well before midnight.” But at this moment, 
thunder increases their alarm. They talk of three giants that are abroad, and 
more to be dreaded than even thestorm. One of these giants, Galligantus, has 
an establishment in the neighbourhood, ‘‘ The Golden Castle,” and is a monster 
of peculiar terror. In a facetious song, perfectly a Ja Dibdin, which is given 
in the course of the piece, he is said to be so tall, that, when at church, he 
hangs his hat upon the steeple: that he makes the Monument his walking- 
stick ; and once stepped over Waterloo Bridge, to save the toll: that his face 
is so broad, that when one eye is at Drury Lane the other is at Vauxhall: 
that, being locked out one night, he put his hand down the chimney and 
opened the street door: .that, although he looks like a Hy-man, yet he was 
once unfortunate in a hymeneal attempt; and, on that melancholy occasion, 
with a couple of his gentlest sighs, “ he drove two vessels out to sea, and sent 
one plump ashore !” 

Of the more rational novelties, Drury Lane has produced a tragedy, since 
Christmas, and Covent Garden an opera. Both have been successful, 

The tragedy at Drury Lane appeared on Monday, January 12. It turns 
on the subjugation of Wales by our first Edward. 

There is considerable intricacy and interest in this plot; but the excess of 
intricacy is its fault. The language is smooth ; but the style does not vary with 
the speakers. Mr. Walker, however, may be satisfied. Nothing could have been 
more warmly applauded ; and for the applause of the million it seems to have 
been written. Still, mere plot seldom carries a play over a season. Even 
those who are most strongly wrought upon by striking adventures, care little 
for them after they once knew. their end. Who reads a circulating library 
novel twice? It is only when blended with striking and obvious character, 
that interest has a sterling and enduring value. Young performed Caswallon. 
He was powerful, and always full of meaning. May we venture to suggest, 
that the enunciation of Miss Phillips would be much the better, if she would 
get rid of an awkward habit of dwelling on the letter s, especially at the end 
of sentences? Her Eva was often picturesque, sometimes touching, and 
never unattractive. 

The opera at Covent Garden was produced on Thursday, January 16, 
“The Nymph of the Grotto, or, The Daughter's Vow.” It was much 
applauded. Madame Vestris, Fawcett, Miss Jarman, Mrs. Gibbs, Mrs. 
Chatterly, Mr. Wood, Mr. Bartley, and Miss Cawse, were all in it, and all 
did their best, with such opportunities as were given them. A Mr. Stansbury 
made his first eppearance in it at this theatre. He was encouragingly received. 
If his powers were as high as his shoulders, he would make Braham tremble. 
Madame Vestris sang delightfully. Two songs by Wood, are the best—one, 
on “ Time,” is likely to become popular. The music of the piece is the joint 
work of Liverati and Lee,—this song, of ‘‘ Time,” belongs to Leée’s share. 
The dialogue is generally ostentatious ; and even Fawcett is made to talk in 
long and lofty sentences. 

Mr. Dimond takes to himself the praise of exclusive originality in his story. 
“Tt is,” says he, “neither a translation, nor an adaptation from the stock of 
any foreign stage.” But he is mistaken in fancying this confusion of the sexes 
entirely his own. With the recent story of the female husband, whose wife, 
a new wonder of “ woman’s love,” puts patient Grizzle out of countenance, 
the possibillity of long concealments of this sort ceases to be questionable. 
But such an incident has been used more than once upon the stage; ay, and 
in the “stock” of more than one “ foreign stage,” too, in the same way in 


2 ee ee 


1829.] The Theatres. 173 


which Mr. Dimond has employed it. The papers have pointed out the story 
in an old collection of French nowvelles, as well known to the French, as 
patient Grizzle is to us: the name of the heroine, while she appears as a 
man, being Agenor D’Agen,—afterwards, Leonor. But did Mr. Dimond 
never read Moliere? There is a play of Moliere’s, from which many English 
writers, of the days gone by, have pilfered. Dryden, for instance, in his 
**Mock Astrologer ;” Ravenscroft, in his ‘‘ Wrangling Lovers ;” and Van- 
brugh, in his “‘ Mistake ;’—we allude to the “ Dépit Amoureux.” To this play 
we think we can show that Mr. Dimond’s wnborrowed plot is to be traced. 
Our stock farce of “ Like Master like Man,” is the underplot of Vanbrugh’s 
modification of the same original. Mboliere, it is said, took it in his turn from 
a Spanish romance, called “‘ Deceptio Vissus,” or “‘ Seeing and Believing are 
Two Things ;” which some romance afforded Corneille the ground-work of 
his “ Engagemens du Hasard ;” but it is more probable that he owed it to 
the ancient Italian piece “ La Creduta Maschia,” or “ The Daughter believed 
to be a Son,” which contains all the leading events of Moliere’s fable. A 
French enthusiast for Moliere, Monsieur Cailhava, was so particularly struck 
with the beauty of this very play, that, finding it mutilated by the players till 
it had entirely lost its first form, he took infinite pains to re-establish it in five 
acts. Discovering a copy of the Italian piece, he concocted a five act 
arrangement of the story from that and from Moliere. 

The personal theatrical -history of the month is brief. Young Kean 
re-appeared rather creditably at Drury Lane, and old Kean dis-appeared 
rather discreditably from Covent Garden. He was to have acted Richard 
II., but in his dressing-room was taken //, and was thence taken home. 
No manager being in the house, Mr. Warde called a council of safety, 
and told the audience the calamity, and begged for time to collect per- 
formers for the Beggar’s Opera, which did not begin till after eight, when 
Fawcett took advantage of the first disapprobation to come forward in 
déshabille, profess his devotedness, explain his absence, and state that he 
* supposed Mr. Kean was ill,” in a way which, an epigrammatist says, plainly 
“ meant that no one else should suppose it.” The papers have taken up the 
matter, and nettles have been thrown about, ‘which may sting Mr. Kean 
when he comes again to Covent Garden. At the Surrey, old Elliston has 
shewn himself again ; and, though he looks wrinkled, plays as well as ever. 
Young Elliston has appeared there, but with nothing of the father but the 
name. Stansbury’s entrée at Covent Garden we have already noticed. Jack 
Johnstone’s exit from the world occurred on the 26th of December. To the 
great surprise of many, who had venerated him as a man worth fifty thousand 
pounds, he has left but twelve thousand: about one thousand in legacies, and 
the rest closely tied up for the children of his daughter. 


[ 174 ] [ Fes. 


DANCING, 


I never to a ball will go, 
That poor pretence for prancing, 
Where Jenkins dislocates a toe, 
And Tomkins thinks he’s dancing : 
And most I execrate that ball, 
Of balls the most atrocious, 
Held yearly in old Magog’s hall, 
The feasting and ferocious. 


I execrate the mob, the squeeze, 

The rough refreshment-scramble ; 
The dancers, keeping time with knees 
That knock as down they amble ; 
Between two lines of bankers’ clerks, 
Stared at by two of loobies— 

All mighty fine for city sparks, 
But all and each one boobies :— 


Boobies with heads like poodle dogs, 
With curls like clew-lines dangling ; 
With limbs like galvanizing frogs, 
And necks stiff-starched and strangling ; 
With pigeon-breasts and pigeon-wings, 
And waists like wasps and spiders ; 
With whiskers like Macready’s kings’, 
Mustachios like El Hyder's. 


Miss Jones, the Moorfields milliner, 
With Toilinet, the draper, _ 
May waltz—for none are willinger 
To cut cloth or a caper :— | 
Miss Moses of the Minories, . 
With Mr. Wicks of Wapping, : 
May love such light tracasseries, 
Such shuffle-shoe and hopping :— | 


Miss Hicks, the belle of Holywell, ; 
And pride of Norton Falgate, } 
In waltzing may the world excel, 
Except Miss Hicks of Aldgate. . 
Well, let them—'tis their nature—twirl, 
And Smiths adore their twirlings, 
Which kill with envy every girl 
That fingers lace at Urling’s. 


I laugh while I Jament to see 

A fellow, made to measure 
’Gainst grenadiers of six feet three, 

*‘ Die down the dance” with pleasure. 
I laugh to see a man with thews 

His way through Misses picking, 
Like pig with tender pettitoes, 

Or chicken-hearted chicken ; 


1829.] Dancing. 175 


A tom-cat shod with walnut-shells, 
A pony race in pattens, 
A waggon-horse tricked out with bells, 
A sow in silks and satins, 
A butcher’s hair en papillote, 
And lounging Piccadilly, 
A clown in an embroidered coat, 
Are not more gauche and silly. 


Let atoms take their dusty dance, 
But men are not corpuscles ; 

An Englishman’s not made in France, 
Nor wire and buckram muscles. 

The manly leap, the breathing race, 
The wrestle, or old cricket, 

Give to the limbs a native grace— 
So, here’s for double-wicket. 


Leave dancing to the women, Men— 
In them it is becoming :— 
I never tire to see them, when 
Joe Hart his fiddle’s strumming, 
Or Colinet and mild Musard 
Have set their hearts quadrilling ;— 
Then be each nymph a gay Brocard, 
And every woman killing. 


I love to see the pretty dears 
Go lightly caracolling, 

And drinking love at eyes and ears, 
With every look their soul in! 

I like to watch the swan-like grace 
They shew in minuetting ; 

It hits one’s bosom’s tenderest place, 
To see them pirouetting : 


But when a measurer of tape 
Turns butterfly and dandy, 
Assumes their grace, their air, their shape, 
I wish a pump were handy! 
I never to such balls will go, 
Those poor pretexts for prancing ; 
Where Jenkins dislocates his toe, 
And Tomkins thinks he’s dancing. 


ILuscEeNOoR. 


[-176.7J {Fes 


NOTES OF THE MONTH ON AFFAIRS IN GENERAL, 


Tue Marquis of Anglesey has at length, to the general gratification of 
the empire, been exported from Ireland. How much better and more 
congenially would this gallant hussar have been employed in smoothing 
his own mustachios, or docking his horse-tails, for the last six months. He 
had begun to make the discovery in the course of the first week, and but 
for the visits to his stud, and an occasional frolic at the neigbbouring 
fairs, would have perished of ennui, like any of his brother hussars exiled 
from the perpetual paradise of St. James’s. His chagrins rapidly 
thickened on him ; for the gentlemen of Ireland quietly shrank from his 
levees, while the mob orators thronged his halls. He gave claret and 
quadrilles to a set of bog-trotters, who swallowed his hospitality by the 
hundred, and did him, in grateful return, the honour of begging every 
thing, from a gaugership up to a peerage. As to the Irish ladies, his 
Excellency took a sure way of ascertaining their sentiments. He brought 
over his wife ; and the Irish ladies, for what reason that wife may best 
know, whether vanity, hurt by her superior attractions, physical and 
moral, or some of those odd prejudices which mothers inculcate in their 
children, took wing, and left the Marchioness to the solitary exercise of 
her virtues. Here we drop the subject, with no attempt to explain. 
Female caprices are problems with which we have no idea of meddling. 
But the Marquis began, for the whole, to discover that Ireland was as unfit 
for his wisdom, as unlucky for his popularity. A pair of his best 
beloved magistrates and liberators were kicked out, green ribbons, medals, 
and all. His tenderness for their little error in abusing the constituted 
authorities, and soldiery, became the subject of an opinion from head- 
quarters, which was enough to have ruffled the sensibilities: of any 
hussar that ever wore ringlets. His Excellency was not a man to take 
a buffet of this kind tranquilly ; and, in a moment of indignant heroism, 
he entered into a correspondence with that very notorious printer and 
publisher of MSS., Dr. Curtis. It was once said by Socrates, that the 
sword and the pen were equally dangerous ; the sword in the hands ofa 
brave man, and the pen in those of a fool. He might have added, that 
if the sword of the former generally cuts up his enemy, the pen of the 
latter universally performs the same office on himself. The Marquis 
wrote his wrath in the strain of the following extract, which we give 
from a popular paper :-— ‘ 

“I tell you, in defiance of the Duke of Wellington, that you ought 
not even to appear to bury your grievances ; for if you did, a base advan- 
tage would be taken of it by your persecutors, who would represent it as 
the consequence of a panic with which they by their threats and violence had 
inspired you—and by proclaiming that if the government at once had 
peremptorily decided against concession, the Catholics would cease to agitate, 
all the miseries of Ireland will be to be re-acted !”— Times. 

A version not quite so vividly expressed has been since suggested ; 
but the meaning is not diluted by a single drop of water to its gall. 

We now give a fragment of the Marquis’s mind, delivered but a little 
more than twelve months before this manifesto—being an extract from 
his speech on the popish question, May 17, 1825. 

« Emancipation is not the object of the Catholics. They now evidently 
look forward to Catholic ascendancy. Every concession that has been 
made to the Catholics has been followed by increased restlessness and 
irritation. 


1829.] Affairs in General. 177 


« The conduct of that body, and the language which they adopt, are 
such as to shew that emancipation alone will not satisfy them; and that 
they will be content with nothing short of Catholic ascendancy. 

« Now if it must be a trial of strength between the Catholic and the 
Protestant interest—and something like this is implied in the intemperate 
language of the Association, when they talk of six millions of men that 
can be repressed only by foree—if it must be a struggle, I think that 
the present time, and the present position, are the best that can be chosen 
to bring the matter to issue.” 

Thus, on the 17th of May, 1825, his Lordship’s opinion was, that war 
should be made upon the papists, with horse and foot, sword and gun ; 
and that the six millions should have the matter brought to issue in the 
fair field. If his words do not mean this, we cannot, under Heaven, 
conceive that they have any meaning whatever. In the month of 
December, 1829, his Lordship writes his dispatch to the six millions to 
the foregoing effect. Has his Lordship changed his mind? We do not 
believe a syllable of it. The six millons are just as much alive, their 
claims are more exorbitant, and their orators more open-mouthed than 
ever. Has the simple act of eating his cofelette at the Irish side of the 
Channel given him new knowledge of Ireland? Let those suppose it who 
will. But Ireland is as well known in the club-houses of St. James’s, as 
in the Castle of Dublin. We leave his Lordship to reconcile his opinions ; 
and think whether Philip drunk, or Philip sober, was the better hussar, 
to ask pardon at the next horse-guards levee. 

Those who wish to fathom the depths of this miserable intrigue, we 
refer to that masterly detector of pro-popery knavery and folly, the 
Standard ; a journal which almost redeems the character of the news- 
paper press, by the spirit of its style, and the accuracy of its information ; 
and still more, by the steady honour and soundness of its principles. 


Stephenson the banker's flight, after having given the idlers some- 
thing to talk of in the icy interval before the meeting of Parliament— 
after buoying up the spirits of the Bow-street officers with the hope of 
the 1,000/. reward—and after erecting even Sir Richard Birnie into 
something of public importance—has given birth to the curious meta- 
physical question: “ Whether a banker ought to live like a gentle- 
man?” 

One of our clever contemporaries goes through tie problem, as he 
would go through a speech of Lord John Russel’s, or any other Whig 
lauding popular election and returned for a close borough, the élite 
of Opposition, the proud and independent representative of my lord’s 
bailiff and barber. He dashes the difficulty to the right and left, and 
pronounces boldly that there is no earthly reason why bankers should 
not live like gentlemen. ‘To this we fully agree, with only the proviso 
—if they honestly can. And this proviso includes the whole question. 
If a money-dealer is rich enough to live showily, there is no law to 
make him live otherwise ; and, if there were, it would have no more 
effect than a law against poaching. However, this notion of bankers 
living like gentlemen, seems to be urged a little too far, when it means 
that bankers should live like peers—nay, like princes. The first opera- 
tion of a banker of the present day is what was the last of a banker of 
the past day. A magnificent establishment—a couple of town houses, 
acknowledged—probably as many more to which he does not allow the 

M.M. New Series —Vou. VII. No. 38. 2A 


178 Notes of the Month on [ Fes. 


honour of his name, but which are not the less costly—a succession of 
dinners in town, a couple of routs a week for his wife’s visitors, and a 
couple of months’ round of “ particular friends” at his villa in the shooting 
season, with a subscription to the nearest hounds, if he does not keep a 
pack of his own—are the earliest furnishing of a modern banker. To this 
there are, of course, exceptions. But the race of the Fauntleroys is not 
yet extinct ; and those gentlemen of Grecian villas, and various esta- 
blishments, are still a tolerably numerous body. In all this it is to be 
recollected, that they are figuring on the property of others, and that, in 
nine instances out of ten, they are figuring beyond it, and rich in a 
capital in the clouds. ' 

This fact is so well known, that the principle has actually been 
stated, and not by Mr. MacCulloch, but by persons supposed to be men 
of sense, that a banker cannot be expected to confine his speculations to 
his bond fide means. The consequence is, that, on the first attempt at 
the resumption of the property deposited with him, the showy personage 
breaks down—takes the first skiff for France or America—or heroically 
comes forward to stand the brunt of the Commission Court, and offer 
his creditors, in return for their confidence, sixpence in the pound. 
How widely this ruin must extend—what pittances of widows and 
children, old persons and struggling familles, are swallowed up in this 
wreck—every man can conjecture ; and it is the villas and the hounds, 
the palace at the west end, and the twelve horses in the stable, that have 
done this. For the trade of banking is a good one ; its expenditure is the 
slightest, and its profit the most secure, ready, and undiminished in the 
return, of any trade. It is the rage for living like nobles, the emulation 
of the shew of high life, the presumed necessity of keeping up to the 
established rank of “ bankers,” that precipitates the ruin. 

Another result of these fine conceptions, is negligence in their shops. 
The villa-keeping gentleman, loaded with the delightful employments of 
his west-end and rural existence, visits his bank merely as a novelty—a 
pleasant half-hour’s délassement—and thus come the clerks into play. 
These gentlemen also see too much of the glory of the banking life, not 
to feel their fingers a little excited towards the means in their possession. 
They have their villas too, their cabriolets, and perhaps their curricles ; 
they falsify their accounts, and when they have got all that they can — 
conveniently carry away, they carry it away. The senior partner has 
been at his villa, entertaining a duke during the pheasant season ; the 
second has been canvassing a knot of Scotch burghs ; the junior partner, 
who had been left to wield the sceptre, and who knows no more of busi- 
ness than his worthy seniors care for it, finding his time heavy on his 
hands in the compting-house, has gone for a week to Brighton, or has 
kept an appointment at Bath, or has a bet on the St. Leger, and likes 
to see how matters are going on at the course. As no man can be in two 
places at once, his presence is not likely to disarrange his clerk’s plans, 
who, finding the coast clear, puts fifty thousand pounds in his pocket, | 
puts on his hat, and drives to Dover in a chaise and four, leaving the — 
partners the pleasure of being very much surprised, of returning to town 
by express, and of discovering, to their infinite astonishment, that their 
fugitive clerk had been cheating them to their teeth for the last ten 
years. 

Now a vast deal of this foolery would be avoided, if the banker-gene- 
ration did net think it incumbent on them to figure as first-rate person- 


teins ™ 


1829.] Affairs im General. 179 


ages. Rowland Stephenson would probably have never found the 
necessity of robbing his creditors, if he had not found that an Opera-box, 
a country-seat, and a dozen dilettanti dinners a year, were a regular 
part of the accomplishments of a banker. Fauntleroy would not have 
felt the necessity of being hanged, but for the discovery of similar 
necessities; and three-fourths of the bankruptcies, that make half a 
million of pounds not worth half a million of farthings, and wrap thou- 
sands of the industrious and honest in the ruin of a single shewy firm, 
would never startle commerce “ from its propriety.” 

As to the general point—why they should be considered so peculiarly 
gentlemen—we should first be told what there is so peculiarly consti- 
tuting the character, in the mere act of trafficking paper against gold, of 
keeping other men’s accounts, or ef dealing professionally in the sale of 
stock. he fact is, that the mere trade of banking has no more to do 
with gentlemanhood than the mere trade of scrivening, or book-keeping, 
or any other vulgar and mechanical occupation of the pen. If the bankers 
are men of education and good-breeding, their claims must be acknow- 
ledged, but not on the strength of their firms. Let scholarship, personal 
accomplishment, high-bred manners, or active ability, give a title te 
general consideration in society ; but let us disdain to accept the supre- 
macy of the purse as the title to respect. It is the glory of England 
that there is no aristocracy of talent, and that every man of mental attain- 
ment may establish his right to public attention. But the mere fact of 
making money by the most common-place and mindless method of accu- 
a should establish no title to any rank beyond that of a money- 

er. 

But, if they are to figure at all, let them figure in the way of their 
trade. Let the English banker be like the foreign one, and he may 
become as public a character as his strongest passion for publicity can 
desire, without leaving his credit to the fingering of underlings. Every 
traveller on the Continent has felt the advantage of the hospitality, pro- 
tection, and valuable introductions of which the great bankers are the 
direct instruments. The foreign banker opens his house, at intervals, 
for the general meeting of his correspondents with the principal persons 
of importance in the place; and thus not merely serves them in the 
general purposes of his trade, but greatly adds to the personal gratifica- 
tion and convenience which induce the resort of strangers, The Lafittes 
and Torlonias ef the Continent do more in a year for the promotion of 
good society, by their occasional soirées, than the whole race of the 
London bankers for a century. What foreign tourist, coming to this 
country, ever knows more than his banker’s counter? The stranger 
finds no place where he may reckon on a reception, as abroad. While 
the superb English banker is aping the habits of the superb English 
lord, and exceeding the expenditure of the superb English prince, his 
torrespondent knows no more of his house than that it is the largest in 
some patrician square—or of his hospitality, than that the newspapers 
mention his having had half the Cabinet to dinner. Let our bankers 
attend to their ledgers, if they will not be cheated and ruin their cus- 
tomers ; and, if they will solicit public importance, let them do it in the 
way of their business, by exercising fair English hospitality to their 

rrespondents at home and abroad, and being as little like dukes, and 

much like honest tradesmen, as their fathers were. 


2A2 


180 Notes of the Month on [Fes. 


The Duke of Wellington—We had all along relied upon the manly 
views of the Minister, and lgughed to scorn the attempts of the popish 
journalists to intimidate the public by hints, promises, and oaths, that 
the Duke was a friend of the faction. His letter to Dr. Curtis has, we 
presume, settled the doubt tolerably. But let those who offered such an 
insult to his common-sense and. constitutional knowledge, refresh their 
memories by reading the subjoined authentic record of his opinions, 
extracted from a revised report (revised, we have reason to know, by the 
Duke of Wellington himself) of the speech delivered by his Grace on 
the debate of the Catholic Question in the House of Lords.—[It differs 
peed rg! from the report which appeared in the newspapers at the 
time |— 


** The question is one merely of expediency ; and I ground my opposition 
not on any doctrinal points, but on the chwch government of the Roman 
Catholics. My Lords, I do not intend, on the present occasion, entering into 
any detail, because I do not wish to say anything invidious, or which might 
hurt the feelings of any man; but I must nevertheless observe, that nobody 
can have looked at the transactions in Ireland for the last 150 years, without 
at the same time seeing that the Roman Catholic Church has acted on the 
principle of combination; that this combination has been the instrument by 
which all the evil that has been done, has been effected ; and that to this cause 
the state of things in Ireland is to be attributed. My Lords, the Noble 
Marquess has talked of the aristocracy being powerless, and of the people 
being powerful, but under the influence of their priests and demagogues ; and 
he has attributed this state of things to the state of the law, rather than to the 
combination to which I have referred. I do not think that the state of the 
law can account for this state of things ; the combination to which I have referred 
certainly will. We are then told—be the cause of the evil what it may—that 
Catholic Emancipation is the remedy. My Lords, I am afraid that if, in 
addition to Catholic Emancipation, we were to give up to the Roman Catholics 
in Ireland, the Church Establishments in Ireland, we should not have found a 
remedy for the evil produced by this combination, unless we could find the means 
of connecting the Roman Catholic Church with the Government of the country. 
But, my Lords, we are told, that there are securities. I am willing to admit, 
my Lords, that from the moment this question was first launched in this 
country—from the time of the Union to the present day—those who agitated 
it in Parliament have always stated, that securities ought to be required. It is 
also perfectly true, that the Right Honourable Gentleman under whose 
auspices the Union was brought about (Mr. Pitt), and who supported this 

uestion, stated, in the very letter alluded to by the Noble and Learned Lord 
CLotd Plunket), and I believe also in Parliament, that provision must be 
made to secure the State, including, of course, the Church of England, as 
established by law, its rights, privileges, and churches ; its union with the 
state; the King’s supremacy, and the denial of the claim of any other person 
whatever to any power or authority within this realm. But I likewise know 
that that Right Honourable Gentleman never stated in the cabinet, or else- 
where, what in his opinion, ought to be the nature of those securities. Ihave 
talked with those who were very intimately acquainted with that Right 
Honourable Gentleman, and who have held frequent conversations with 
him on that subject, and I have never yet been able to hear what securities 
they were that he had in contemplation. 

“ I beg leave to remind the Noble Marquess, and the Noble and Learned Lord 
on the cross-bench (Lord Plunket), of a fact which they cannot deny, that the 
Catholics themselves have all along objected to all securities. But the Noble and 
Learned Lord tells us that we ought not to attend to what we hear in Ireland 
on this subject. Now, though he may know that this is the case, I do not set 
how we, in this country, and in this house, are to get at this knowledge; © 
indeed, how the people of England are to become acquainted with it. Thes 


1829.] Affairs in General. 181 


things may be known to the Noble and Learned Lord, but I do not see what 
we can do but believe what we hear; and he cannot, therefore, be surprised 
that we, who feel strongly on this subject, should wish to feel secure as to the 
safety of the Church and State before we venture to proceed on such an 
experiment as this. My Lords, 1 am very much afraid that the Roman 
Catholic religion, in its natural state, is not very favourable to civil government in 
any part of Europe; and I must beg your Lordships to observe, that in ail 
the countries of Europe, the Sovereigns have, at different periods, found it 
necessary, as has been stated by my Noble and Learned Friend (Lord 
Colchester) on the cross bench to-night, to cAnL upon THE PopE TO ASSIST 
THEM IN THE GOVERNMENT OF THEIR PEOPLE.” 


The first art in the art of writing is to know how to choose a subject. 
There are men, and clever ones too, who, with the tide of pence and 
publication before them, have suffered their voyage to run into flats and 
shallows, till they were stranded in that Godwin Sands of genius, the 
King’s Bench, through the simple want of knowing how to catch a taking 
topic. Memoirs on the longitude; histories of the Royal Society ; 
treatises on moral philosophy ; annals of the Revolution of 1688, and 
of all other revolutions ; mathematical memoranda ; lives of philosophers, 
patriots, and heroes ; voyages round the world ; and discoveries from 
pole to pole—are fatal. They die of the yearly distemper that loads the 
Paternoster Row cemetery with such mortality of quarto. No man reads 
their epitaph ; and their authors, growling at the degeneracy of the age, 
sink into the tomb with their own labours, calling all the surviving 
world, to their last breath, Goths and Vandals. 

Yet, from time to time, the misery of an injudicious choice may be 
palliated by the address of the chooser. We haye known a mathema- 
tical folio come to some favour, notwithstanding its horrid perversion of 
the arts of printing and engraving, by containing a “ demonstration of 
squaring the circle,” by giving, in perches, the height of a mountain in 
the moon, or by the infallible proof that the sun was only a gazometer on 
a considerable scale. Memoirs of great men may be made popular by 
memoirs of the great men’s wives, and of the little men that licked the 
dust off the great men’s shoes ; voyages to the pole may find a charm in 
the loves of those bear-skin and blubber beauties, the Esquimaux ; and 
histories of the French war, or even of that most horribly hackneyed 
portion of it, the peninsular campaigns, may be made swallowable by a 
little radicalism, and a sly hit now and then, tending to prove that the 
Duke, on certain occasions, did not know his right hand from his left, 
and, at the best of times, saw no farther than his own Roman nose. 
The only unequivocally and irrecoverably destined to extinction are 
all treatises on modern divinity, proceeding from either of the uni- 
versities, and there, xar sfoxn, if proceeding from the divinity pro- 
fessors. The letters S. T. P. are never failing on the occasion of obli- 
vion ; they are the brand on the offender’s forehead, which saves all the 
trouble of the judge on any future appearance in the dock. A man 
would as soon buy a gown and cassock from Gibraltar as clothe his 
literary loins in this article stamped, with death in every plait. Such 
is the inevitable law of lecturing on a port and pudding regimen, with 
“ prodigious prospects” in reversion! We say no more—the tale is 
melancholy, moving, and true; and let the race of “ compilers,” how- 
ever buzz-wigged and bulky— the gatherers of other men’s stuff,’ with 
the addition of all the stuff that they can fabricate of their own—look to 
the solution of the problem. 


182 Notes of the Month on [Fes. 


But let us turn from the church-yard to the mart—the crowded, gay, 
and living promenade of the saleable. 

Novels are well received in this shewy receptacle of all animated 
things ; but there are distinctions. The historic novel is at a formidable 
discount. Like an old belle of ton, it has walked the world so long 
that no one cares how soon it walks out of it. Like the Duchess of 
, it has rank, but not fashion ; its figure has a touch of the grand- 
mother more than borrowed from its costume ; and we unanimously wish 
it out of the troubles of this life as soon as possible. 

The novel of Character is likely enough to follow this venerable 
maiden—but not in decrepitude, but in disdain. It finds dandyism the 
rage, and it leaves the ladies to find out what charm their happy fancies 
can, in honey-water wigs, kid gloves, Caoutchouc slippers, a cheek tip- 
ped with carmine, and a tongue lisping alternately the language of the 
boudoir and the Newgate Calendar. ; 

Medical books are good.—* Cum grano ;” that is, “ good for the 
writer, bad for the reader.” We have known a peer and foot-ball 
player-of the first rank of calcitration, read himself into an irresistible 
belief that every toe in his machinery was only an elongation of a foot of 
pure chalk ; and a country squire, of the usual squiralty faculties—a 
helluo of beef and mutton—a feeder before whom a turkey and chine 
vanished, as if they had suddenly resumed their original legs and wings 
—a three course and three bottle man—demonstrably convinced, by a 
week’s study of the “ Art of prolonging Life,” that he had not ano- 
ther week to live—that he had no more digestion than a dormouse—that 
his lungs were cobwebs, the coats of his stomach isinglass, and his liver 
and spleen nonentities. Medical books are good for the faculty, who thus 
play the double card of making pages and patients together. But of these 
the very best are the treatises on the “digestive functions.” These are 
the things that come home to the heart and bosom after all. What are 
the West Indian Question, or the Greek Loan, to a man who cannot eat 
a three hours’ dinner without being called to account for it by a night- 
mare? What is it to the martyr in the cause of taste whether the Russians 
pull off the Turks’ caps, or the Turks pull off the Russians’ beards, if 
every moment of table-delight is to be darkened into an age of suffering 
in bed—if every slice of venison is to rise up in vengeance in the shape 
of a fiery scymitar in the hand of a bottle of champagne, transformed 
into a giant breathing red-hot coals—if his three gentle bottles of Car- 
bonel’s best are to pursue him over hill and heath, like another Orestes, 
in full chace before the three Furies—or a perigord-pie open, at its 
delicate incision, a perpetually-expanding bird’s-eye view of the bottom- 
less pit ? 

The world has often heard the inquiries for a new pleasure, and for 
the philosopher’s-stone. They would be both revealed in the book that 
could teach an additional faculty of reception to the stomach, without 
the penalty of dying of our supper. But for the fear of apoplexy, the 
life of an alderman would be as happy as the life of a hog. The writer 
who could give us the indulgence of eating two dinners where we now 
dare eat but one, would cheer innumerable bosoms distended with more 
than sighs, might raise for himself a statue of diamond on a pyramid of 
gold, and, when he died, leave the residue of his professional profits to 
pay the national debt, build a bridge from Calais to Dover, cut through 
the Isthmus of Darien, and even satisfy the Scotch peerage. 


1829. ] Affairs in General. 183 


On the strength of a mere approximation to this sublime discovery, 
Dr. Paris sells an edition of ten thousand in as many months ; Dr. Uwins 
pours out octavos unnumbered ; Dr. Philip shines a star of the first 
magnitude in the catalogues; and a hundred other aspirants for the 
honour of contributing to the ease of the human stomach, roll in their 
own cabriolets. 

+ But John Bull is a straitforward animal, and cookery-books have 
a still higher claim on his love. The power to know of what his medi- 
cine may be composed, is prohibited by the physician, for, probably, 
very sufficient reasons ; but the power to ascertain the ingredients of his 
own dinner, is an indulgence which no man, born in a free country, can 
be fairly expected to relinquish. On this principle, cookery-books 
have exhibited the finest instances of popularity since the invention of 
printing. Amatory tales, political libels, and Moore’s Almanack, may 
boast of a handsome circulation ; but what are their exploits to the half- 
million annual copies of Mrs. Rundell’s modes of dressing fish, flesh, and 
fowl—to the late ever-lamented Kitchiner’s receipts for sorrel-sauce and 
salmagundi—to the ancient glories of Madame Glasse, or the rising 
fame of “ Every Man his own Cook-Maid?” Yet, if these fine applica- 
tions of human genius to human utility take the highest rank, next, and 
not far below, are those works which look to the well-being of the 
human outside. Such works are hitherto few among us; and we have 
not more than half-a-dozen that teach a yellow skin to rival the snow, 
or a snowy skin to assume the tincture of the rose. The ladies generally 
manage these matters for themselves, without the aid of books; but 
there are cases in which neither a Parisian marchande, nor Messrs. Bay- 
ley and Blew, can help them; and the case to which Mr. Wadd turns 
his charitable pen is one. 

_ We must let his title tell his story; nothing can be more expres- 
sive :— 

ComMENts oN CoRPULENCY ; 
LryeAMENts OF LEANNESS ; 
Mens. oF 
Drier AND DrIererics. 


By Wm. Waonp. 


Every particle in this epigraph is full of intelligence. Even the 
author’s name is one of those happy instances of fortune, which, like 
that of Kitchiner to a cookery-book, is equivalent to excellence. “ Fast- 
ing made Easy, by Wadd,” will, we undertake to say, be considered a 
stock-book until the art of distention is no more. 

The book begins in the mysterious manner suited to its lofty subject : 
—The celebrated traveller, Dr. Clarke, alluding to the Pyramids, says, 
‘ The mind, elevated by wonder, feels at once the force of the axiom— 
that in Vastness, whatever be its nature, dwells sublimity.’” From 
this the conclusion is rapid and irresistible :—“ Why may not the moun- 
tains of fat—the human Olympi and Caucasi—excite our attention ? 
They fill a large space in society, are great objects of interest, and 
ought to afford us no small maatter of instruction.” 

On the matter of cookery, he quotes that unquestionable maxim 
which has given immortality to Monsieur Ude :—“ Music, dancing, 
encing, painting, poetry, generalship, politics, and mechanics in general, 


184 Notes of the Month on [Fxs. 


possess professors under twenty years of age; whereas, in the first line 
of cookery, pre-eminence never occurs under thirty !” 

Having thus thrown open the vestibule of this Temple of Taste, we 
leave it to the reader to enter, assured that, if he come out a more cor- 
pulent man, he will not have studied for nothing. The book is hand- 
somely furnished with plates, of different human proportions, dressed 
according to the most approved receipts of the Board of Aldermen. 


We leave our popish rebels to digest the following : 
Letter of His Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland. 


“ To the Right Hon. the Earl of Enniskillen, Deputy Grand Master of 
the Royal Orange Institution of Ireland. 


“ My dear Lord: « Berlin, Nov. 1, 1828. 

«« Having had the gratification of accepting the office of Grand Master 
of the Loyal Orange Institution of Great Britain, as successor to my 
much-lamented brother, the Duke of York, and having presided at its 
anniversary in the month of June last, it cannot but afford me great 
gratification to accept the proposal made to me, through you, to fill a 
similar office in Ireland, where that loyal society originated, for the 
defence of the constitution in a time of peril, and where, still more even 
than in Great Britain, every energy is needed to defend the sacred caues 
of Protestantism. 

« My attachment to that cause, which I imbibed from the instructions 
and example of my late revered father, George III., has been increased 
and strengthened by experience and reflection ; convinced as I am that 
the British constitution, the most invaluable that ever existed, from its 
religious and free character, cannot continue, should Protestant ascen- 
dancy be destroyed. I shall ever be found to abide by those principles 
which guided the conduct of my honoured father and Sovereign, and of 
my beloved brother, the present King, and the late Duke of York ; 
and which I cannot but consider to be those for the defence of which 
the House of Brunswick was called to the throne. 

“ I rejoice that the time is arrived when the laws no longer forbid the 
revival of the society in Ireland, and that I have the pleasure of confiding 
its interests to you, my dear lord, as Deputy Grand Master.—Believe, 
my dear lord, your’s very sincerely, : « ERNEST.” 


The United Service Magazine, projected by one of the most active and 
ingenious publishers of the day, does credit to his invention. All the 
reading world have been long anxious to see something of the kind ; 
while our soldiers continued to remember the curious variety of adven- 
ture, and the powerfully interesting scenes of the late war. For the 
narratives that such reminiscencies might supply, a magazine is the true 
receptacle. Brief memoranda may be best treasured there ; striking 
traits of intelligence, bravery, and presence of mind ; facts which, appa- 
rently slight, may yet be of the highest use to history ; memoirs of gallant 
men, whose example may be yet a guide and a stimulant to British 
intrepidity ;—those, and a hundred similar features, find their natural 
place in a well-conducted Naval and Military Magazine. 

The writers who will sit down to the labour of a volume, cannot be 
numerous in the active profession of arms. But there are few who have 
not fragments and anecdotes, of the most peculiar interest, within thei 
recollections ; and to those a periodical work is the true dépét. Th 


1829. ] Affairs in General. 185 


officers of the United Service, too, have of late years, much to their 
honour, shewn that they can’ manage the pen with effect ; and it cer- 
tainly becomes a matter of importance with them that they should not 
suffer the record of their exertions to be mutilated by the hands of indi- 
viduals who, from their book-shelves, venture to fight battles and 
decide upon reputations. Let our military and naval officers once take 
this method of doing justice to themselves, and we shall see am end of the 
whole generation of pen and ink tacticians—those Czsars and Turennes 
of the closet and the circulating-library—amilitary historians, who have 
formed their notion of battles from a volunteer field-day, and who imagine 
a campaign to be something very like a cricket-match or a village 
scuffle. 


The murder-trade of Burke and his accomplices is not among the 
subjects that we would willingly approach even with an observation. 
But it stands among the prominent features of the day ; and it is per- 
haps fortunate, for the interests of humanity, that this hideous trade has 
forced itself upon the public eye. 

- There can be no doubt of the value of occasional dissections to the 
operator, in some of the nicer cases of surgery ; but there can be as 
little doubt that this use of the dead has degenerated into an abuse— 
that private lecturers have laboured to attract pupils, by the frequency 
of those mutilations of the dead—and that the pupils have been indulged 
in the grossest and most unnecessary violations of the respect that human 
nature itself suggests as due to the remains of man. - 

As to the wretched villains by whom the grave is habitually robbed 
for this purpose, they are described, by those who know them best, to 
be capable of every crime ; and the occupation, which thus tempts and 
hardens man to villainy, is so far obnoxious to moral abhorrence and public 
justice. But, what answer can be made by the surgeons, and other 
professional persons who have trafficked with Burke, is beyond our com- 
petence to conceive. We cannot understand how men of science could 
have believed that the bodies which he brought to them, fresh from 
murder, had ever been in the grave. The appearances are so distinct to 

_ the common eye, that nothing but the most singular blindness could have 
concealed the truth from the anatomists. In one instance, a body was 
said to have been sold with their hair in papillotes. The conclusion must 
have been irresistible ; yet it was undrawn. How are we to account for 
this? We repeat, that the whole transaction must undergo the strictest 
inquiry—that no Scottish favouritism must be suffered to screen the 
abomination, to whatever quarter it may be traced—and that Mr. Peel 
is bound, by as sacred a duty as he ever took upon himself, to see justice 
done to the character of England, of science, and the feelings of human 
nature. 

But how are the anatomical halls to be supplied? In the first place, 
undoubtedly, the necessity for this repulsive supply is greatly exag- 
gerated. In all the earlier stages of anatomy, models are decidedly the 
best mode of giving a knowledge of the human frame. They have been 
already brought to an extraordinary degree of accuracy ; and the leisure 
which they allow for study is so infinitely superior to the hurried and, 
at the best, sickening examination of the actual subject, that a student 

f the model will know as much of the human construction, peculiarly 

M.M. New Series.—Vou. VII. No. 38. 2B 


186 Notes of the Month on  [Fse. 


im its finer texture, in a month, as a student of the actual subject will in 
a year. 

For the practice of operations, the body is required; but even this in 
by no means a frequent degree, and only in the hignest grade of the art. 
The simple inspection of an ably-performed operation in an hospital, will. 
give more real knowledge than a dozen dissections. But even where 
these are required, there is the most complete facility of obtaining the 
subjects from France. The Custom-house has hitherto objected to this, 
on the ground that it might be turned into a means of smuggling, and 
that the officers could not be expected to undertake so unpleasant a duty 
as the search. But the objection might be instantly obviated, either by 
the offer of some additional salary from the College of Surgeons or others, 
to the examining officers, or by the appointment of half-a-dozen surgical 
pupils to the work of examination. ‘To this, in some shape or other, the 
matter must finally come ; and the sooner the better. 

. The last hours of such a wretch as Burke can be looked on only with 
horror ; yet is is a striking trait at this time to see the working of the 
popish superstition. His priest attends him, hears his detail of crime, 
gives him absolution, and the murderer is sent to death with the abso- 
lute conviction, as far as Rome can give it, that he is “as innocent as the 
babe unborn!” 

Such is the fatal practice of popery, which suffers men to go-on in 
the most horrid atrocities, with the feeling, that, when they can go on no 
farther, the priest washes them from guilt at the moment, and sends 
them pure to the future world! The belief in this monstrous doctrine 
has been one of the chief treasures of Rome. For every crime there is 
a price ; and the revenue of dispensations and absolutions thus acquired 
has flowed into the papal coffers for a thousand years. In Italy; in Ire- 
land, in all the earth where popery is suffered to bewilder the minds and 
pervert the moral feelings of mankind, this atrocious practice is still the 
same. The Irish murderer walks, with the blood of his landlord red on 
his hands, to the priest—makes his confession, which the priest is never 
to disclose—and, on the strength of his having thus easily cleared his con- 
science, receives full absolution, and is ready to commit the murder of 
any body else’s landlord on the night after—Who can wonder at the 
murders of Ireland ? 

The Italian bravo, the regular trader in assassination, whose profession 
is to stab for hire, is generally one of the most regular at the confessional ; 
if he has any more hazardous butchery than usual to do, he takes the 
sacrament, and purifies his soul beforehand ; but always, if he escapes 
with life, returns to the altar, and-there makes himself sinless for a six- 
pence.—Can we wonder that Italy is a seat of midnight murder—that 
its roads are infested by gangs of desperadoes—and that the com- 
mon passage, in open day, from Rome to Naples, one of the most fre- 
quented highways in Italy, is a constant peril? f 

The whole fabric of continental society is rotted by this guilty sys- 
tem. The habitual adulteress goes as regularly to confession as the 
maiden—comes away from it, with as full a consciousness that her 
impurity has been wiped away—and. instantly, embarks in her old 
career, with the same assurance of perpetual absolution—Can we won- 
der at the general pollution of character throughout the papal world ? 

The priest, educated in the midst of this pollution, shares it in instances 
unnumbered. It is on record that, in the single province of Murga, 


1829.] Affairs in General. 187 


three thousand ecclesiastics were lately charged, in the course of a few 
years, with the attempted seduction of women at the confessional !—— 
Can we wonder at the general degradation of the female character in 
Spain, at the gross habits of popular life, or the horrid abominations that, 
from time to time, transpire in the monkish annals? Or can our surprise 
be any longer excited at the feebleness of those once mighty nations— 
at their failure in all attempts at rational freedom—at their intestine 
wars, and bloody and fruitless revolutions—at the whole long train of 
national evils, which, rooted in domestic impurity, irreligion, and blind 
confidence in the dark and vitiating doctrines of popery, overrun and 
strangle every bud and branch of national prosperity ? 


The Irish papists treat their English great-folks in a very pleasant 
style of radicalism. The poor old, and very imbecile, Duke of Norfolk, 
lately having ventured to exhibit at a papist meeting here, unluckily for 
himself uttered the sentiment that he and his compatriots might, by pos- 
sibility, condescend to give protestantism some pledge, that the first 
act of popish admission into parliament would not be an attempt to 
break down the constitution. Upon this, Mr. O’Connel, naturally indig- 
nant at such a humiliation of the glorious cause of papal supremacy, and 
scorning any terms with a nation of heretics like the English, attacked 
the unlucky old man with his best language, and covered him, from 
head to foot, with oratorical mire. That the poor old duke deserved this 
recompence, nobody will deny but himself. The act of mixing his name 
with the cause of that rabble, who, in the presence of such men as Lord 
Anglesey, fearlessly laugh at all common sense, discretion, and sub- 
ordination, is an offence that deserves a deeper punishment than can be 
inflicted by the tongue of any brawler of them all. Let his pride digest 
what his folly has brought upon its stomach ; and let this weak old man 
_ learn to be satisfied with the discovery in time, that if the faction once 
came into power, they would trample upon him, and that stick of office, 
which he holds with such burlesque dignity in the Lords. 

The next subject of castigation is the unfortunate Lord Shrewsbury, 
a simpleton who, by the decease of the late lord ~without issue, suc- 

ceeded to the title a year or two since. In England, money does much ; 
_ and the Shrewsbury money lifted this innocent and easy-souled young 

man into a little importance. In an evil moment for his quiet, he tried 
the career of a popish champion. But he was not made for such things. 
He was too much of a gentleman, and too little of a knave. The ruffians 
of patriotism did not like him, and he did not like them. He had lived 
a good deal abroad, where, even to the poor, society is accessible ; and, 
in his poor days, he had been suffered to ramble through such society as 
is to be found cheap on the Continent. But his first contact with papistry 
at home disgusted him. He shrank from suffering every dirty fellow 
who called himself a “Catholic” to rub against the skirts of his good 
breeding—declined the readily thrust-out hand of the descendant of 
Trish kings, as if it had been thrust out by a Highlander—and closed 
his ears and his pocket alike to the rough requisitions of the rent. Day 
by day he began, more and more, to feel that the scene was not made for 
him. He loved to whistle and sing, play upon the guitar, and lounge 
about in the train of the old, supper-giving marchesas, that make life 
sweet at Rome. He loved to pore over prints, and prose on sculptures, 
and spend his day, rambling and gossiping, from oue artist's studio to 
2B 2 


188 Notes of the Month on [Fxs. 


another, and slip through life as quietly and uselessly as any casino- 
hunter of them all. 


To a soft-souled personage like my lord, the life of popish champion-_ 


ship was abominable; it was, at once, dulness and defilement—trou- 
blesome and base compared with his caléche during the morning, and 
his picture-fancying till dinner, and his quadrilling and private thea- 
tricals till midnight. He accordingly fled his “ beloved country,” left 
the “ glorious cause” to take its chance, and alike left her “ illustrious 
champions” to the fate that, if there be any virtue in law, or any vigour 
in government, will overtake them, great and small, before his dilettante 
lordship’s return. 

For this timely fugitation—the only act of his life that implies the 
possession of brains—he has fallen under the lash of the popish parlia- 
ment ; and its acting executioner, in the absence of his chief, has laid the 
scourge on as handsomely as a fugitive lord could wish. Yet it must 
be owned that Lord Shrewsbury did all that he could before he escaped. 
He published a book, as thick as ever was penned by peer ; and, though 
he might be guiltless of having written a line of it (the work being pro- 
bably compiled by the priests harboured under his roof), he yet had the 
fortitude to issue it with his name. The work, thereupon, went instantly 
down to the lowest depths of forgetfulness. He next made a speech: 
nothing could be more similar, in compound and fate, to the book. 
What more could man do? He accordingly, having put down ten 
pounds, as the worthy contribution of a man of forty thousand pounds 
a year, to the rent that was “to save his country and his religion!” 
ordered his coach for Italy, and is now serving her “ glorious cause” in 
leoking at Punchinello, and in buying bargains of old pictures. 

But the Dublin radicals will not let him sigh and smoke away his 
soul in peace ; and their flagellation has extorted from him a succession 
of sorrowings, in the shape of a letter nearly as long as the noble per- 
sonage himself. The letter is, as might be expected, nonsense from 
beginning to end—finished, for sentimental perusal, with a little of that 
whining about “ lost privileges” (the lost*privileges of a dandy !), and 
the asseveration of an eternal passion for his long-suffering and hard- 
drinking country, which will last till—he gets to Calais, and be remem- 
bered as honestly at Rome as every other duty that this generous absentee 
has thought proper to have forgotten. 

At Rome let him stay. The society of shuffling picture-dealers, dan- 
glers about decayed belles, yawning Opera-loungers, and the whole name- 
less and contemptible mixture of vicious and unmarked life that makes 
Rome the sink of Europe, may be the fittest for his capacities, as it is 
evidently the most congenial to his tastes. We must lament that chance 
should have thrown the means of doing good, that his income implies, 
into hands that can make no better use of them than by a wretched spirit 
of shrinking from all the honourable and humane offices of an English 
landholder. But there iet him go; we are better without men like him. 
Let him, a thousand miles off, talk of wishing well to the country that 
he has deserted ; let him propitiate, by paltry flattery, Shiel, who lashed 
him, and who must scorn this attempt to qualify his deserved correction ; 
let him kiss the Pope’s toe, who must despise a man hiding his head 
in perpetual exile ; let him linger out his life in cabarets and casinos, 


spend his rents and his years abroad, and, with his last breath, play © 


Scrub to the old Lady of Babylon ! 


ee 


1829.] Affairs in General. 189 


Kine’s CoutEece has been as much on the “ look gut” for a local 
habitation, as any “ gentlemen that had left his lodgings.” The discus- 
sions, inquiries, and solicitations for some place of rest to this pilgrim of 
literature, have been innumerable, and still no rest is found for the 
« sole of its unblest foot.” 

It first was to alight on Highgate-hill, for the benefit of the air, and then 
on Hampstead, for the benefit of the scenery. Whitechapel then wooed 
its presence for the good of the circumcised population, who were, on 
the earliest opening of its doors, to forswear the sale of old clothes, shave , 
their Rabbinical chins, and turn converts to the sermons of Mr. Mathias. 
Then Northumberland House was thought convenient, as the Admiralty 
and Foreign Clerks might step in, between office hours, and learn to 
spell. Then the Regent’s park combined all voices, from the salubrity 
of the atmosphere, and the exercise of the pupils in walking from six to 
ten miles every morning from the city to school; but the tigers were 
there already. Then the King’s mews, on the strength of a pun of that 
very lively nobleman, Lord Goderich, as the native soil of the metro- 
politan Apollo. Then the site of St. Margaret’s, Westminster, with the 
double advantage of removing a notorious eye-sore, and studying the 
memories of great men in the Abbey. Then Vauxhall, from its proxi- 
mity to the more profligate quarters of London, and the advantage of 
planting such a seminary of purification under the eye of Lambeth. 
Then the site of Billingsgate market, with a similarly double purpose of 
extinguishing a commercial nuisance, and of rectifying the proverbial 
piseatory dialect of that eminent vicinage. Then Somerset House, the 
taxes having fallen off, the clerks having been put on half-pay, and the 
Strand and Fleet-street affording a clear and decorous promenade for 
the students. Then the Artillery Ground, on the strength of teaching 
the young idea how to shoot. All these plans have been duly considered 
and rejected. We understand that the favourite conception, at present, 
is that of establishing this great institution in the Castle of Dublin, the 
Castle being vacated by the sinecure government: the students to be 
carried over in classes, by steam-boats regularly in waiting at Tower- 
stairs for the purpose: and the lecturers, for greater dignity and expe- 
dition, to be conveyed in balloons, to start every half hour with the 
newest regulations of principle and costume, from the Golden Cross, 
Charing Cross. . 

We give the outline of the establishment, already drawn up by the 
Committee :— 

Visrrer.—The visiter will be invested with all the powers usually belong- 
ing to his office. 

Governors.—All fundamental regulations concerning the course of studies, 
and the internal discipline of the college, which the council may frame from 
time to time, as well as the appointment and removal of all the officers of the 
college, will be subject to the approval of the governors. 

Councit.—The council will direct the financial concerns of the college. 
They will regulate the payment for attendance at the several lectures, but 
will not interfere with the discipline of the college, except by promoting such 
ple as they might think expedient for the approbation of the governors. 


ey will also appoint the principal and professors, subject to the confirma- 
tion of the governors. 

Princieau.—The internal government of the college, and the general direc- 
tion and superintendence of the course of education, will rest with the prin- 
cipal. He must be a clergyman, having the degree of M.A. at least, in one of 


the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, or Dublin. It will be his duty to 


190 Notes of ihe Month on [ Fr. 


preside over the public examinations, to preach often in the college chapel, 
and to report from time to time the state of the college to the council and 
governors. 

Proressors.—T he professors will be appointed by the council, and must all 
be members of the church of England, except in the case of the teachers of 
Oriental literature and modern languages. 

The prescribed course of lectures, to which all students regularly admitted 
will be required to conform, will comprise religion and morals, classical 
literature, the lower branches of mathematics, the elements of natural philo- 
sophy, English literature and composition, and modern history. 

The professors in all these branches will have salaries secured to them out 
of the college funds, besides such addition as the council may think proper to 
make, in proportion to the number of students who attend their lectures. 
They will be expected not merely to lecture their classes, but to ascertain 
individual proficiency by frequent examination. 

Lectures also will be given in law, the higher branches of mathematics, na- 
tural and experimental philosophy, chemistry, medicine, and surgery, anatomy, 
natural history, the principles of commerce, Oriental literature, modern lan- 
guages, and such other branches of literature and science as may be hereafter 
directed. The attendance on these lectures will be optional on the part of the 
students. The remuneration of the professors who lecture on these subjects 
will be regulated by the council, and will depend wholly on the number of 
students in their respective classes ; some part of the payments made by the 
students being reservable for the general purposes of the college. 

Turors.—Tutors will be appointed by the principal, with the approbation 
of the council. One or more of the tutors, under the direction of the principal, 
will reside in each house, or in each portion of the college allotted to the 
reception of students ; they will be responsible to the principal for preserving 
good order and discipline, and will be removeable by him, with the approba- 
tion of the council. 5 

The remuneration of the tutors will be provided for, according to the 
number of their pupils, out of the college fund. 

Every student, whether resident or not, must be entered under one of the 
tutors, who will direct and superintend the course of his studies, and assist 
him with private instruction. 

SrupENTs oF THE Hicurer Drrartment.—Students will not be admitted 
under the age of 16, except in cases of remarkable proficiency, recommended 
to the principal, and approved by him. An inquiry will be made bythe 
principal, previously to the admission of every student, both into his pro- 
ficiency and his former good conduct. 

The principal alone will be authorised to admit or reject students, and to 
determine the number of pupils to be entered under each tutor. 

The resident students will be subject to such regulations as the principal 
may from time to time announce. They will be required to attend the service 
of the church of England in the college chapel on Sundays. 

The non-resident students will be allowed to attend church on Sundays with 
their families; the principal to be, in all cases, satisfied that they have so 
attended: but whenever required by him, they must attend the service in the 
college chapel. 

Prayers will be read on all other mornings, at which the attendance of all 
students, resident and non-resident, will be required. 

Pusiic Examrnations—Public examinations of the students will take place 
at stated periods, when prizes and other honorary distinctions will be awarded. 

At these examinations, the student’s knowledge of the evidence of natural 
and revealed religion, and of the doctrines and duties of Christianity, as taught 
by the united church of England: and Ireland, will be carefully inquired into. 
Every student will be expected to exhibit a certain degree of proficiency in 
these subjects. 

OccasionaL AtrenpANis AT Lectrures.—Persons, properly recommended, 


1829.] ; Affairs in General. 191 


will be allowed, under the sanction of the principal, to attend lectures in any 
particular course of study; but never to such an extent as to interfere with 
the education of the students, or the discipline of the college. Persons so 
attending will not be recognised as students, nor will they be entitled to con- 
tend for prizes or rewards ; nor will certificates of attendance at lectures be 
granted to any persons who have not gone through the prescribed course of 
religious instruction. 

. All persons under 20 years of age, so attending, will be required also to 
attend such parts of the course of religious instruction as, in the opinion of the 
principal, may be expedient in each particular case. 

Lower DepartrmEent.—The lower department, which, in its detail, will be 
totally distinct from the higher, though intended to afford an education pre- 
paratory to it, will consist of a school for the reception of day scholars. 

This department will be placed under the separate management of a 
head-master, appointed by the council, and a competent number of under 
masters, appointed by him, all members of the church of England. 

The system here carried on will embrace a course of religious instruction 
suited to the age of the pupils, classics, arithmetic, elementary mathematics, 
the modern languages, &c. 

The salaries of the masters will depend on the number of the pupils. 


One or more public examinations will take place every year, at which prizes 
will be distributed. 


We hope, for the honour of English common sense, that the following 
story is not true :— 

« A superb diamond necklace is said to have been ordered for the 
young queen of Portugal, and is understood to be actually in hand at 
the manufactory of Messrs. Rundell, Bridge, and Co., jewellers, Lud- 
gate-hill. Report says the design is most tastefully contrived, consisting 
of brilliant heart’s-ease, surrounded with other flowers, and leaf-work 
of various hues and colours. It is expected to be finished in the course 
of the present week, and intended to be presented to her majesty by 
some great personage, whose name has not transpired.” 

Have we not had enough of this poor child, whose little Portuguese 
brains must have been long ago completely addled by presentations, 
addresses, gracious receptions, hand-kissing, and the other gingerbread 
of court ceremony, to a sovereign of nothing, a wife of nobody, a child 
sent rambling through the world like a gipsey, by her copper-coloured 
papa, rejected by uncles, aunts, godfathers, and godmothers: and now em- 
ploying her regal leisure in the inquiry who is to pay the next quarter’s 
salary of the yellow fellows about her? ’Tis true, we English have a 
national propensity for foreign shows. Every half-baboon monarch of 
every South-Sea fragment of an island, every king of Squawmania, is 
received here with all the honours of regular kingship ; has a public 
table for his unbreeched aids-de-camp, an establishment for his unpetti- 
coated harem, sits surrounded by his coffee-skinned council ; and, if he 
does not choke himself with English beef in the first fortnight, break 
his neck down the tavern stairs, or go mad from overdoses of brandy, is 
leveed, hawked about, gives his black paw to kiss, and promises to 
send his three canoes to the assistance of the English navy, in their first 
war with the emperor of Tongutaboo. 


The Pimlico Palace is beginning to be—there is no other word for it 
—puffed in the most approved manner. But all the puffing on earth will 
not make it a palace fit for George the Fourth. We, however, believe, 


192 Notes of the Month on Affairs in General. [ Fr. 


that as a specimen of bricklaying, plastering, and making up an archi- 
tect’s bill, it is unexceptionable, and there our belief ends. We give 
Mr. Nash’s description of his work :— 

« The grand entrance in front, which is to be reserved for the especial 
use of his Majesty and the Royal Family, will be composed of white 
marble, and will be a faithful model of the arch of Constantine, at Rome, 
with the exception of the equestrian figure of his Majesty George IV. 
on the top. The workmanship of this arch is expected to rival any 
thing of the sort in the kingdom, and to equal the finest works of 
antiquity. From each side of the arch a semicircular railing will ex- 
tend to the wings, executed in the most beautiful style, in cast-iron, and 
surmounted by tips or ornamental spears of mosaic gold. The area, 
within, will consist of a grass-plat, in the centre of which will be an 
ornamental fountain, and the whole will be bounded by a gravelled 
road. 

« The wing on the left will comprise his Majesty’s chapel, the kitchen, 
and other offices ; and that on the right, his Majesty’s private suite of 
apartments. The entrance to the former is from the back, near to where 
Buckingham-gate formerly stood, and it is by this door that the visitors 
to the palace on gala days, will be admitted. Passing through the 
building, they will enter a spacious colonnade, which extends along the 
front of the body of the palace, and in front of each wing; above the 
colonnade is a magnificent balcony, supported by columns of the Doric 
order. At the end of each wing is a pediment, supported by Corinthian 
columns. The entablature of each pediment is tastefully filled up with 
groups of figures in white marble, exquisitely carved in alto relievo, 
illustrative of the arts and sciences. On the extreme points of the wing 
on the left, are fixed statues representing History, Geography, and 
Astronomy; and on those of the right-wing, Painting, Music, and 
Architecture. On the entablature of the pediment, in front of the main 
body of the palace, it is intended to place the Arms of England; and 
on the top are placed Neptune, with Commerce on one side, and Navi- 
gation on the other. Around the entire building, and above the 
windows, is a delicately worked frieze, combining in a scroll the Rose, 
the Shamrock, and the Thistle. 

« The entrance hall is about thirty-three feet in height. The pave- 
ment is of white marble slightly veined with blue. The entire hall is 
bordered with a scroll of Sienna or yellow, centred with rosettes of 
puce-coloured marble, inlaid in the most masterly style of workman- 
ship, The walls are of Scagliola, and the ceiling is supported by a 
succession of white marble pillars. From the hall are the avenues 
leading to the state apartments—drawing-rooms, dining-rooms, throne 
room, statue-gallery, picture-gallery,” &c. 


a 


929.] 


( 193) 


MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE, DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN. 


Sailors and Saints. 3 vols. 12mo.; 
1829.—This is the joint production, not of 
2 sailor and a saint, but of a sailor and no 
saint, hic est, a templar—the Orestes and 
Pylades of the Naval Sketch Book, a book 
which met with a warmer welcome than any 
thing, so technical and professional, since 
the days of Dr. Moore. The templar’s 
share in the concern is not very detectable, 
though without doubt the scene of a Scotch 
reformer, soliciting signatures from the 
sailors against pressing and flogging, is his, 
for it smacks of \politics; and in some 
courts of the Temple there is, we know, 
more politics than law. The title is chosen 
mainly, or merely, for the alliteration—the 
mother of the heroine is, to be sure, a saint, 
and, so far as she is concerned, the object is 
to shew how thoroughly worldly an attend. 
ant on preachings and biblical meetings 
can, or rather must, be—which is, we think, 
a little invidious, because, though profes- 
sion is not a good thing, profligacy is not 
better ; and profession may be accompanied 
with correct conduct, whilst profligacy has 
nothing to redeem or relieve it. It shews 
no great advance in good feeling to be im- 
patient of others’ professions, or of pursuits 
uncongenial with our own. 

The leading purpose of the chief contri- 
butor is, plainly, not to teli a story, but to 
exhibit the life and profession of a sailor, 
and, above all, the management and con- 
duct of a ship—to detail the constituents of 
good seamanship—the superiorities of the 
existing practice, &c., of all which we are 
no competent judges ; but the author writes 
confidently, and, as far as we can see, clearly 
and cleverly. Insulars as we are, the Eng- 
lish language is as full of sea metaphors as 
the Greek ; and there is as strong a leaning 
to bring them into popular and public use— 
and even our poets and novelists cannot re- 
frain. Blunder, there can be no doubt, 
they do often enough, and the author has 
taken occasion to overhaul 2 few of them— 
sometimes in the shape of notes, and some- 
times by the taunts of the commodore. 

” -“ Breasting her broad bow to the billows, 
_ she dauntlessly cuts through the foaming 
fluid, as the huge ship Jore up gallantly 
against the wind.” “Downright nonsense,’’ 
exclaims the Commodore—“ who ever heard 
of a ship bearing wp in the wind’s eye ?” 
Among the “lubberly” phrases he detects 
in the “ Mariner’s Song””—“ wet sheet, and 
a flowing sea,” the author of which, he sup- 
poses, must somewhere have heard of a flow- 
ing sheet and a following sea, and to have 
confounded the real reading with the meta- 
phorical meaning. A ship is said to have 
a “flowing sheet’? when the wind crosses 
the /ine of her course at right angles, that 
is to say, a ship stecring south, with the 
wind at west, has a flowing sheet; for if 
the were “ close hauled,” she would lie two 
_ M.M. New Series.—Vou.VII. No. 38. 


a 


points nearer to the wind, viz. 8.8.W. We 
may add here, too, from the guthority be- 
fore us, that the s/reets, which are univer~- 
sally mistaken by “ English Bards,” and 
even “ Scotch Reviewers,’’ and their read- 
ers, for the sails themselves, are no other 
than the ropes employed to extend the clues, 
or lower corners, of the sails to which they 
are attached. 

Now to the story. An old captain, of 
the Trunnion school, laid upon the shelf, 
has a cottage on the shore near Dartmouth, 
in which every thing is kept ship-shape. His 
old coxswain is his factotum—dressed in 
blue jacket and white trowsers— another 
Pipes, only a little more talkative, who 
manages every thing within and without, 
and as well as his master, can talk nothing 
but sea slang, The family consists of a 
widowed sister—the saint—and her daughter, 
a very charming girl, of course, for she is to 
be the heroine. Matters commence with a 
brig of war anchoring in the offing, and the 
approach of an officer, whom the old com- 
modore mistakes for the captain, and is in- 
duced by the young lady to go forward and 
meet him. Though mounting an epaulette, 
he proves to be nothing but the second lieu- 
tenant. In the commodore’s days, this 
epaulette marked the post captain; but 
honours and insignia haye always advanced, 
pari passu, with corruption. ‘Though an- 
noyed by this blunder, he gives the youth a 
hearty welcome, and an invitation to dinner. 
The lieutenant is a clever and active scuv.v, 
with a consfant eye to promotion, and falls 
in leve, of scurse, wich the young lady, and 
contrives to get on shore every day as long 
as the brig remains in the neighbourhood. 
The intimacy proceeds, not only with the 
commodore, but also with the young lady. 
Mamma looks blue—and does all she can to 
repress the growing inclination of the par- 
ties to each other. The commodore delights 
in depreciating the new fangled ways of the 
nayy, and deals out his criticisms very 
liberally. By and by a party is proposed 
to visit the ship; when, unluckily, a fit of 
the gout ties him by the leg, and the ladies 
are entrusted to the coxswain. An accident 
follows, the young lady is precipitated into 
the sea, and rescued by the lieutenant at the 
hazard of his life. This of course seals the 
matter of affection between them; and the 
mother is driven to sundry indirect ma- 
neuvres to keep them apart. 

In the meanwhile the ship puts to sea, 
and speedily takes fire, and a scene, as the 
reader will imagine, is got up, in the wri- 
ter’s best manner— which is a very su- 
perior manner — detailed, indeed, in the 
most minute and painful degree. The 
crew are of course preserved, and brought to 
shore. ‘The youth, though in a worse con- 
dition than ever, for he is now even without 
a ship, flies with all speed to the Dartmouth 

2C 


194 


Cottage, and, unluckily; as he naturally 
thinks, just as he reaches the village, he 
is overturned, and dislocates his shoulder. 
This event, however—such is the course of 
things—was the very means of bringing 
him within reach of his mistress. The com- 
modore hears of the accident, and insists 
upon swinging a hammock for him in his 
own cottage till he recovers. The mother 
is as watchful as a cat, but of course, event- 
ually, the young folks get an interview, and 
all is explained. The coxswain detects the 
lieutenant kissing the young lady’s hand, 
and reports—and as saints seldom do any 
thing, it seems, direct, she manoeuvres with 
the apothecary, alarms the commodore for 
his health, and effects a removal to Chel- 
tenham—to get rid of the lieutenant. But 
just as this is brought about, a letter arrives 
to summon the lieuteflant to his old post on 
board a new ship—with a promising pros- 
pect of prize money from American captures. 

The commodore and the ladies, never- 
theless, proceed to Cheltenham, where the 
widow presently flirts with the preacher ; and 
a military officer, just returned from India, 
rich as the mines of Golconda, smiles upon 
Emily. The commodore, finding himself 
neglected, determines on returning to the 
cottage with the coxswain—and soon re- 
ceives a communication of the approaching 
marriage of both mother and daughter. 
But suddenly presents himself again the 
young lieutenant. His ship had encountered 
an American vessel of war; in the engage- 
ment—which is detailed with great parti- 
cularity—the captain and first lieutenant 
were killed—the second fights the ship, and 
after a desperate struggle defeats the enemy, 
for which he is made post. With his new 
rank, and £3,000 prize money, he demands 
the commodore’s consent to propose for 
Emily, which is promptly given, accom- 
panied with a declaration that he is pro- 
bably too late. He is, however, not too 
late—and Emily is rescued at the very 
altar ; and the preacher, finding the widow 
not so rich as he had anticipated, holds 
back, and leaves her finally in the lurch— 
or to look out for another of the order. 


Legends of the Lakes of Killarney, by 
T. Crofton Croker. 2 vols. ; 1829.—At 
the very announcement, every body knows 
what he has to expect from Crofton Croker 
—vernacular exhibition of Irish extrava- 
gance—humour we scarcely venture to call 
it. But he is a very clever fellow, with a 
pencil at once light and vivacious, dextrous 
and effective. He shews off all his accom- 
plishments—seribbling, sketching, and scor- 
ing. Many of the sketches are equal to 
Mr. Hood’s, and quite in his style—and the 
music is, we dare say, accurately given, and 
conveying a meaning which words of course 
cannot—and for our own part we welcome 
any thing calculated to supersede verbal 
description. The legends, unluckily, in 
spite of all his maneuvring, pall upon the 


Monthly Review of Literature, 


(Fer. 


taste, from the sameness, not so much of 
the tales and their incidents, as from the 
cast and character of the absurdity. He 
has not, we dare say, any thing like ex- 
hausted his wares, but another budget will 
be perfectly intolerable—nobody wants more 
than a specimen of what is radically absurd. 

The book furnishes a survey and tour of 
these celebrated Killarney lakes—every spot 
has a name, and every name a legend—and 
Mr. Croker hasno mercy. The cicerones 
of the place, who are as cunning as foxes, 
cover their roguery and inventiveness with 
the cloak of simplicity, and keep up the 
ball by playing into each other’s hands— 
the stimulus, too, is a powerful one—the 
best talker is the best guide, and the best 
paid. Generally, the legends are sheer ex~ 
travaganzas, which it soon becomes difficult 
to grin at. We caught ourselves, several 
times, when we came to a new one, turn- 
ing over the pages to see how Jong it was— 
a strong symptom of weariness, we take it, 
and of the incompetency of these things to 
keep up an interest. The author has con- 
trived to interweave his compliments to his 
literary acquaintances with great dexterity 
—nothing like this kind of “‘ clawing.” 

The Legends, however, are not all—the 
volumes furnish a number of little charac- 
teristic incidents, indicative of deep-seated 
prejudices and impressions, which can be 
the result of nothing but the corrupt teach- 
ing of the country. 

“ That’s a wonderful story—where did 
you get it, Daniel?’ ‘This is said in reply 
to alegend of St. Bridget—who made three 
ears of corn grow out of a griddle-cake. 
“ Why then,”’ said Daniel, “I read it many 
a long day ago in the Scripturs, or the 
lives of the Saints, or some such book ; and 
sure, I suppose it’s all one; but at any rate 
we ought to put our trust in God.” 

On coming out of Killamey Church, an 
immense crowd assembled to see, what in 
Killarney was a wonder, a Protestant Lady 
Kenmare coming out of church— 


Mixing with the crowd, I could not avoid over- 
hearing some of the remarks—* Why then, isn’t 
she a fine figure of a woman?” said one. 

“Oh, but isn’t it a pity to see her coming out of 
a church, where a Lady Kenmare never went be- 
fore, since the world was a world ?” said another. 

“ Och,” said a third, ‘‘ she’ll soon be taught 
the right way, and come to the true church; for 
didn’t my lord take her to Rome to see the pope? 
And doesn’t she go to visit the ladies at the con- 
vint, and hear the childer the riglit catechism? 
And doesn’t the priest stand by, and be explain- 
ing the maning of it all to her ladyship?” 

“That’s true for you,’ was the reply; “and, 
sure, if she was at last mass to-day, she’d have 
hard 2a beautiful fine sarmint, from Bishop 
Eagan, that would have convarted her entirely, 
so it would. For didn’t he tell low the Catholics 
was the only true chure? and how there wasn’t 
much differ between them and the rale protes- 
tants? for, sure, there isa great differ between 
the rale protestants and such methodises and 


oF 


ha 


1829.] 


new lights as little Stephen, that preaches in Wat 
Agar’s barn.” 


An old woman solicited, for the honour 
of God and the glory of the Virgin, a trifle 
towards burying her— 


“ Why, Molly,” said Mr. Lynch, “ you ought to 
have been buried six months since.” 

“ What, buried alive ?” said I. 

«< No—but dead and buried,” replied Mr, Lynch, 
“at least, all the preparations for the funeral 
were, to my knowledge, made last Christmas ; 
but, perhaps,” he continued, addressing the men- 
dicant, “you have not yet determined as to 
whether it is to be at Mucrus or Aghadoe.” 

** Oh, then, long life to your good honour en- 
tirely,’ ejaculated the old woman, ‘‘ and may 
every day be full of blessings, and luck, and grace 
be with you, and the widow’s blessing be upon 
you wherever you 0.” z 

** Weil, Molly,” said Mr. Lynch, “ which is it, 
Mucruss or Aghadoe you are to be buried at ?” 

*?Tis, it is the eruel hard question for a poor 
cratur like me to answer; for sure there’s my 
husband lies in Aghadoe, God be gcod to him, and 
my father, and my six brothers, Lord rest their 
sowls, at Mucruss. And sure then it would be 
only proper for me tu spend a little time with my 
father and my brothers, but then ‘tis a deal more 
natural for me to go to my poor husband.” 

“My good woman,” said I, “it appears to me 
a matter of very little consequence what becomes 
of your body after death.” 

“ Och, ’tis easy for quality like your honour to 
say so,’ she answered; “ but ’tis I that knows 
well enough, if twas buried I was at Mucruss 
along with my own people, 'tismy husband would 
be coming looking after me every night. And 
indeed, a cushla, ’tis only last Saturday week 
that lsaw my husband through my sleep, and his 
legs were all cut from the knees down, for the 
want of the shoes and stockings. So the little 
trifle I had to make a comfortable wake for my- 
self, I couldn’t find it in my heart to keep, and 
poor Paddy in waut of the shoes and stockings, so 
I bought a pair for him; and I saw him since he 
gotthem, and now he’s quite comfortable.” 

“* What, buy a pair of shoes for a dead man! 
I never heard of such a thing.” 

“May be not: why, your honour, ’twas not 
myself, you see, bought them, for sure there would 
be no use in that, but ’twas the priest, long life to 
him, took the money.” 


One legend we think we must give for 
the honour of St. Patrick— 


“By the by, Sir,” said Spillane, “ I believe 
there isa story, something about a great serpent, 
I think—do you know any thing of it, Picket?” 

“The serpent is it?’ said Picket in reply. 
*“ Sure every body has hard tell of the blessed 
Saint Patrick, and how be druve the sarpints 
and all manner of venemous things out of Iveland. 
How he ‘ bothered all the varmint, entirely. 
But for all thatthere was one ould sarpint leit, 
who was too cunning to be talked out of the 
country, and made to drown himself. Saint Pa- 
trick didn’t well know how to manage this fellow, 
who was doing great havoc ; till, at long last he 
bethonght himself, and got a stwong iron chest 
spade with nine boulés upon it, 


4 


Domestic and F oreign. 


195 


**So one fine morning, he takes a walk to 
where the sarpint used to keep; and the sarpint, 
who didn’t like the saint in the least, and small 
blame to him for that, began to hiss and show his 
teeth at him like any thing. ‘Oh,’ says Saint Pa- 
trick, says he, ‘ where’s the use of making such a 
piece of work, about a gentleman like myself 
coming tosee you. "Lis a nice house Ihave got 
made for you, agin the winter ; for I’m going to 
civilize the whole country, man and beast,’ says 
he, ‘and you can come and look at it whenever 
you please, and ’tis myself will be glad to see 
you.’ 

“The sarpint hearing such smooth words, 
thought that though Saint Patrick had drwve all 
the rest of the sarpints into the sea, he meant no 
harm to himself; so the sarpint walks fair and 
easy up to see him and the house he was speaking 
about. But when the sarpint saw the nine great 
boults upon the chest, he thought he was sould 
(betrayed), and was for making off with himself 
as fast as ever he could, 

« «Tis a nice warm house you see,’ says Sain 
Patrick, ‘ and ’tis a good friend I am to you,’ 

“© T thank you kindly, Saint Patrick, for your 
civility,’ says the sarpint, ‘ but I think it’s too 
small it is for me’—meaning it for an excuse, and 
away he was going. 

“© Too small ! says Saint Patrick, © stop, if you 
please,’ says he, ‘ you’re out in that, my boy, any 
how—I ain sure ’twill fit you completely ; and, I'll 
tell you what,’ says he, ‘ Pli bet you a gallon of 
porter,’ says he, ‘ that if you'll only try and get in 
there’ll be plenty of room for you.’ 

“The sarpint was as thirsty as could be with 
his walk, and ’twas great joy to him the thoughts 
of doing Saint Patrick out of the gallon of porter, 
so, swelling himself up as big as he could, in he 
got to the chest, all but a little bit of his tail. 
* There, now,’ says he, ‘I’ve won the gallon, for 
you see the house is too small for me, for I can’t 
get in my tail.’ When what does Saint Patrick 
do, but he comes behind the great heavy lid of the 
chest, and, putting his two hands to it, down he 
slaps it, with a bang like thunder. When the 
rogue of a sarpint saw the lid coming down, in 
went his tail, like a shot, for fear of being whip- 
ped off him, and Saint Patrick began at once to 
éoult the nine iron boulis. , 

“ * Ob, murder !—won’t you let me out, Saint 
Patrick? says the sarpint—‘I've lost the bet 
fairly ; and I'll pay you the gallon like a man.’ 

«* Let you ont, my darling,’ says Saint Pa- 
trick, ‘ to be sure I will—by all manner of means 
—but, yon see, I haveu’t time now, so you must 
wait till to-morrow. And so he took the iron 
chest, with the sarpint in it, and pitches it into 
the lake here, where it is to this hour for certain ; 
and ‘tis the sarpint struggling down at the bottom 
that makes the waves upon it. Many is the living 
man,” continued Picket, “ besides myself, has 
hard the sarpint erying out, from within the 
chest under the water, ‘Is it to-morrow yet?—Is 
it to-morrow yet?’ which, to be sure, it never can 
be: and that’s the way Saint Patrick settled the 
last of the sarpints, Sir.” 


The Hedge schoolmaster is a capital mor- 
ceau, after Mathews’s style, and which he 
could not do better than adopt. It is too 
long to quote—but as a piece of confusion, 
botheration, and effrontery, inimitable. 

2C 2 


196 


The Man with two Lives. 2 vols. 
12mo. ; 1829.—This is at least no every 
day story. The hero is from his earliest 
sensations impressed with the reminiscences, 
at first vague, but gradually defining and fix- 
ing, of a previous state of existence. Scenes, 
names, persons, incidents recur, particular- 
ly of Frankfort-on-the-Maine—a place at 
which, at least as Edward Sydenham, he 
had never been—till proof upon proof esta- 
blish the conviction of some extraordinary 
destiny, and finally force him to the scene 
of his supposed former existence. The re- 
collections, which relate to his personal his- 
tory, are none of the most agreeable. Fre- 
derick Werner, whose representative, or 
successor, or continuator, he appeared to 
be, had abandoned a lovely wife, for the 
blandishments of a public singer, and ruined 
the peace of a relative by a groundless 
charge of adulterous intercourse with the 
wife he had deserted. Accompanied with 
these impressions of former offences, was 
the onus of atoning for the wrongs he had 
committed. The duty and object of the 
life of Edward Sydenham seemed to be to 
cancel the crimes of Frederick Werner. 

At first, all was attributed by his friends 
to illusion, or fancy, or fabrication ; but so 
correct, consistent, steady, and conscien- 
tious, was his general conduct in every re- 
lation of life—and, finally, the evidence he 
furnished of an antecedant acquaintance 
‘with places and persons, so conclusive, even 
to natives of Frankfort, that his parents, 
‘and especially a German friend, themselves 
shared the conviction, and furthered his 
views, and encouraged him to develope the 
mystery. 

To Frankfort he accordingly went, where 
he was immediately introduced to the house 
and family of a wealthy banker, consisting 
of two very lovely daughters, and was in- 
vited to take up his residence with them. 
Sydenham found himself at once at home— 
and literally so, for it had been Werner’s 
residence. In the dressing-room, he met 
with a very curious cabinet, which he in- 
stantly recognised to have been his own 3 
recollecting a compartment with a secret 
spring, he touched the spring, and the 
drawer flew open; but he hesitated to go 
further, for now he recollected also he had 
there deposited a mass of private papers ; 
and it now became a question of morals, 
whether he could honourably look at what 
he could not legally or personally claim, 
though by the evidence of his own con- 
science he knew them to be his own. 
Luckily, his perplexity was remoyed by the 
banker’s accidentally making the discovery 
himself; and the papers were put into his 
own hands as a matter of curiosity. They 
consisted chiefly of reflections expressive of 
remorse for the writer’s treatment of his wife 
and relative. 

Circumstances soon shape themselves to 
enable him to proceed in the work of atone- 
ment. In the church, which he had visited 


Monihly Review of Literature, 


_ [Fes. 


on his first arrival, he had seen his own 
tomb, and at the tomb a lady deeply veiled, 
kneeling. To this lady, an intimate friend 
of the banker's family, he is quickly intro- 
duced ; she is forcibly struck by his appear- 
ance and by the tones of hisvoice ; confidences 
follow; he reads to her Werner’s papers, 
and in the name of Werner throws himself 
at her feet, and implores forgiveness. At 
all this no amazement is expressed—Ger- 
mans are too much familiarized with the 
wonderful for this. The syren that had 
enchanted is still living—little shorn of her 
charms, and not at all of her musical powers, 
though no longer exhibiting them on the 
stage. She resides some few miles from 
Frankfort, and Sydenham finds her no 
longer a coquette, but a staid philosopher ; 
and his first introduction was at one of her 
converzationes, where she figures among the 
learned, like another Lady D. With this 
lady, however, nothing in the shape of 
eclaircissement takes place—he had done 
no wrongs which demanded reparation ; but 
she is finally induced to repeat the part of 
Medea, in the manner in which she had 
done two or three and twenty years before, 
in the presenee of Werner’s wife, when in 


the height of her influence over the hus- ~ 


band, she had, by sheer strength of talent, 
forced even that lady’s admiration. At this 
repetition scene, Werner’s widow, though 
unknown to Sydenham, is herself present ; 
the singer suddenly recognises her, and, 
glancing at Sydenham, seems intuitively to 
take in the whole singular realities; but 
nothing farther passes, except a request to 
be allowed to sing at Sydenham’s mar- 
riage. 

A visit is now in like manner made to 
the injured relative, who mysteriously grants 
his forgiveness; and on this final retribu- 
tive event, Sydenham feels the guilt of 
Werner no longer a burden upon his own 
conscience. He has acknowledged the virtue 
of his wife, and the innocence of his friend 
—has confessed his offences, and been for- 
given by both. Henceforth he lives singly 
for Edward Sydenham. He enters upon a 
new and independent course. Werner is 
nothing more to him, and is forgotten. 


Romantic, absurd, and, in sober earnest, 
fit only as it is for boys and girls to maun- 
der over, the tone of earnestness and so- 
lemnity which everywhere pervades it is 
very striking, even interesting. The writer 
must have German blood in his yeins. 


Trials of Life, by the Author of De 
Lisle, 3 vols.; 1828.—The volumes con- 
tain two distinct tales, both coming under 
the general title of Trials of Life—both 
gloomy, distressing, and eyen oppressive ; 
but not by any means of equal interest, nor 
equally calculated to arrest general attention. 
The first is by far too fine and fastidious for 
common use; the last, painful as it is, and 
revolting, has more of ordinary life in it— 
has, indeed, an air of harrowing reality 


‘ 
i 
4 
q 


1829.] 


about it, which comes home to the convic- 
tions, and recals what has fallen within the 
experience of thousands. There is no over- 
straining in the tale, it is an inimitable 
performance, there is nothing in it, which 
has not happened and may not happen 
again—and proves how little occasion there 
is for going out of the way to pick up the 
extraordinary, and aiming at effect by ex- 
travagance. This is making a novel a les- 
son, without telling us it is one—a very 
different thing from a sermon. Nothing 
but a vehicle of this kind will admit of the 
details, which alone can effectually point a 
moral. We shall sketch this first, for it 
presses most upon us, and we cannot recal 
the other, till we have thrown this a little 
from our feelings. 

Alicia is the very beautiful daughter of a 
naval officer, a young lady capable of deep 
feeling—resolution—exertion—but very lit- 
tle cultivated morally or intellectually. To 
escape a marriage proposed by her friends, 
she throws herself suddenly into the arms of 
aman more than double her own age, but 
of high abilities and distinction—not of for- 
tune, but of fashion and popularity—a lead- 
ing member of the opposition—an associate 
of the ‘ Prince’—a wit—a poet—Sheridan, 
in short, with family circumstances a little 
varied. By him she is brought forward into 
gay society, and getting fairly into the vor- 
tex, is féled and courted—admired even by 
the prince, and honoured from him, for 
obvious purposes, with a present of diamonds 
[by the way, we cannot but think ‘his 
mightily indecorous], which, though pas- 
sionately thirsting for admiration, she rejects 
with horror. S. is now embarrassed beyond 
escape ; but all along keeps up his good 
Spirits and gaiety, and makes no secret of 
his resolution to cut all difficulties by suicide, 
and finally executes his purpose. 

Recovering by degrees from the shock, 
after some time the widow is importuned 
into another marriage with an officer of 
slender fortunes, who soon treats her with 
great severity, and subjects her to sundry 
inconveniencies, such as living in a barrack ; 
but though suffering privations to which she 
has been but little accustomed to submit, 
she endures without complaint. By and 
by he is broken for some unofficer-like 
conduct; and after his disgrace she ac- 
companies him to the sea-side, where her 
mother, now a widow, and her sister live 
together, very much straitened ; and there, 
to fill up the measure of her annoyances, her 
husband speedily seduces her sister. The 
first intelligence she has of the fact is from 
himself, when, in a burst of repentance and 
misery, he solicits her protection for her 
sister, now on the eve of becoming a mo- 
ther. This, though cut to the soul, she 
grants, and withdraws with her, though at 
the hazard of her own character, to a dis- 
tance, during her confinement. Returning, 
she is fixed in her purpose of separating 


-from her worthless husband, but want of 


Domestic and Foreign. 


197 


money preyents the execution, and they 
continue to live in the same house—he 
occasionally intriguing with a servant, and 
she suffering new annoyances. By chance 
she hears of pensions given to the widows 
of distinguished men, and especially the 
favourites of the prince, and she makes her 
application through many of her old ac- 
quaintance. These, however, all prove fair- 
weather friends, and her petition itself was 
perhaps never presented; for some reason 
or other, she makes no direct appeal. A 
friend at last is met with, to whom she is 
able to confide her reasons for separation, 
and who offers an asylum, to which, with 
an allowance of fifty pounds a year from 
her husband, she retires, and endeayours 
to turn her talents for drawing to advantage. 
Her residence here, was the last ray ofSun- 
shine—her health, long deeply shaken, at 
length gave way, till she lost the use of her 
limbs; and being suddenly summoned to 
see her mother before she dies, she quits 
her retreat, and she and her mother, nearly 
together, quit the scene; leaving the sister 
to mourn over the premature death to 
which she had contributed to bring her 
lovely relative. 

The other tale, entitled Lord Amesfort’s 
Family, opens with a family portrait—a 
lady in ill-health, with a son just rising into 
manhood, a daughter of sixteen or seven- 
teen, and another two or three years 
younger. They are all the gate of the 
castle (Lord Amesfort’s), when the youth 
takes leave of his friends. He is forthwith 
conducted to a splendid apartment, where 
a number of magnificent people are assem- 
bling before dinner. Lord Amesfort wel- 
comes him with kindness, and coldly intro- 
duces him, as his ward, to his lady and his 
nephew, neither of whom scarcely take any 
notice of him. But Adolphus is of a cast 
and character not readily to be confounded. 
He has been well bred, and used to good 
society ; he soon makes his way, and is 
quickly a great fayourite with the countess, 
and Lord De Colmar, his guardian’s nephew. 
Though exceedingly proud and reserved, 
the earl is evidently very much interested 
about Adolphus, and symptoms of mystery 
are apparent enough. Nothing, however, 
is elicited yet. In a few days, being pre- 
sented by his guardian with a commission 
in the Guards, he goes to town, accompanied 
by De Colmar, who is also in the army. 
The young men are now sworn friends. 
Among the first events is a chance meeting, 
at the Opera, between his sister Emily and 
De Colmar, who falls, forthwith, desperately 
in love with her, and is only withheld from 
declaring his passion by the remonstrances 
of Adolphus, who thinks him too young. 
De Colmar is, however, nearly of age, and 
then he resolves to communicate with his 
guardian, and marry, in spite of all oppo- 
sition. 

Scarcely had he reached the castle, with 
this resolve, when he is ordered with his 


198 Monthly Review of Literature, 


regiment abroad, and Adolphus is sum- 
moned to pass a few days with him before 
he quits England. De Colmar visits Emily 
to take leave, but though making the state 
of his affections manifest enough to the 
young lady, says nothing. Adolphus re- 
mains at the castle, and the countess and 
he become exceedingly intimate; a fall, 
which puts the lady to some pain, elicits a 
sudden expression of their mutual feelings ; 
but luckily, by the presence and prudence 
of a young Minerva, the lady’s friend, no 
harm follows, and he is induced to leave 
the castle, and return to his duties in town. 

Very soon, news arrives of De Colmar— 
he is wounded, and returns home. Adol- 
phus, to his amazement, hears nothing from 
him. He is going, it is reported, to marry 
somebody’s widow. Adolphus at last meets 
him by chance, but gets no explanation. 
While distressed and anxious about his 
sister, whose affections he has reason to fear 
are fixed on De Colmar, he attends a sick 
friend, catches a fever, and after a very 
serious illness, on recovering from his de- 
lirium, he finds himself, he knows not 
how, in the castle, and under the countess’s 
personal care. Their fond attachments now 
break out, almost uncontrollably; Lord 
Amesfort is in the North; and just as 
Lady Amesfort has come to the resolution 
of renouncing her home, and name, and 
respectability, by the exertions of the young 
Minerva, who had before saved her, her 
purpose is interrupted by the presence of 
Lord Amesfort, who, to prevent extremities, 
is finally driven to avow himself the father 
of Adolphus. Distracted at this intelligence, 
he suddenly seizes Lord Amesfort’s son, a 
_child of five or six years old, and flies with 
him to the continent; where, without an 
object, except that of killing time, and 
smothering his humbled feelings (he is a 
bastard), he continues a considerable time, 
suffering sundry mortifications from his 
suspicious position in seciety. 

In the meanwhile, by a series of judicious 
attentions, Lord Amesfort reconciles the 
countess to herself—soothes her feclings, 
and finally, what he had never done be- 
fore, attaches her affections. Young De 
Colmar too, who had been withheld from 
prosecuting his marriage, on the ground of 
Emily’s illegitimacy—which accounted also 
for his mystery with the brother—at length 
gets the better of his prejudices and offers 
his hand; but Emily has a worm within 
—she has been struck to the heart by the 
desertion of De Colmar, and especially 
by the cause, and the same blow also levels 
the poor mother; and both of them die. 
The final scene between De Colmar and 
Emily is very striking. Lord Amesfort had 
seduced his cousin, or rather they had se- 
duced each other; the act of imprudence 
was committed; he offered reparation, 
which she, in a sort of Eloisa enthusiasm, 
vefused—forgave—was happy—she was but 
a girl, and not very well taught, or able 


[Frs. 


to measure effects. They lived abroad, till 
friends interfered, and he was persuaded 
to abandon her —to marry legitimately, 
and live respectably. He did so, but the 
remembrance of Emily embittered every 
feeling. She pined and lingered, till at 
last her daughter’s disappointment from 
her imprudence, added the final pang, and 
reduced her to a state of idiocy. The 
surviving parties are made very comfort- 
able. Lady Amesfort loves her husband, 
Adolphus marries Minera, and De Col- 
mar, Emily’s youngest sister. 


Leiters from the West, by Hon. Fudge 
Hall, 1828.—This is neither historical nor 
tourical, but a gossiping book of anything 
and everything American, though chiefly 
relative to the settlements in the west. The 
author commences a series of letters from 
Pittsburgh, and continues them as he 
drifts and rows down the Ohio, as far as 
Shawnee—noticing the incidents of his pas- 
sage, which are nothing at all, and the 
scenery and the sailors; but for the most 
part expatiating upon any thing that pre- 
sents itself to his recollection—some things, 
perhaps, picked up on the spot, connected 
with the first settlers of those far off regions. 
Though not incapable of serious discussion, 
his pages are full of flippancy, according 
very little with our notions of the gravity of 
a ‘Judge’—fitter, indeed, for a youth of 
eighteen or twenty—eternally talking of 
‘female charms,’ eyes, and ankles, and of 
poetry, confining his notions of poetry, as 
thousands besides, to babbling brooks and 
green fields. With England he has no ace 
quaintance but from books, and American 
books ; and judges of the notions English- 
men entertain of Americans, by such writ- 
ers as Fearon, and others of his unlicked 
class—busying himself with rebutting the 
invidious remarks of these gentry, and the 
Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, and 
getting often very angry, and committing 
flagrantly the very offences he thinks he is 
castigating. The taste, indeed, of the whole 
book is of the worst description; he is a 
common quoter, which is almost next to a 
common swearer—tells broad caricature 
stories, and concludes, because America has 
made great advances, nothing can be better. 


Accounting to his correspondent for the 
motives of his tour to the west, he asks, 
“ Who has not heard of the antiquities of 
the west ?” 


When we are told of the Great Valley, whose 
noble rivers, stretching in every direction from 
the distant mountains, poured their waters into 
the bosom of the Father of Sireams; and of the 
rich bottoms, extensive prairies, and gigantic fo 
rests of the West, we could smile at what we be- 
lieved to be simple exaggeration. But when we 
heard of eaverns, extending horizontally for miles, 
and exhibiting traces of former inhabitants, of 
immense mausoleums filled with human bones, 
some of them of a dwarfish size, indicating the 
former existence of a pigmy race—of the skele- 


1829. 


tons of gigantie brutes—of metallic ornaments, 
warlike implements, and earthen utensils, found 
buried in the soil—of the vestiges of temples and 
fortifications—in short, of the many remains of a 
civilized population, we were inclined to consider 
them as gross impostures. Yet tliese curiosities 
actually exist, as well as others of equal interest. 


Of all these wonderful matters, however, 
the reader will hear no more. 

Pittsburgh is entirely a new creation—the 
chief seat of the iron factories—the magnifi- 
cent scenery of which he is never weary of 
describing :— 

But the prospect which the good people of Pitts- 
burgh consider as most lovely “to soul and to 
eye,’ is to be found on the northern face of Coal- 
hill.. The yawning caverns which here display 
their hideous mouths, would have been celebrated 
among the ancients as the abodes of unpropitious 
deities; the less classical citizens have peopled 
them with spirits of sterner stuff—have made them 
mines of inexhaustible wealth, and drawn from 
them the materials of substantial comfort. Not 
only this hill, but the whole of the surrounding 
country, is full of coal of excellent quality, which 
s found in immense strata, lying almost invaria- 
bly upon one and the same level. It contains a 
large proportion of sulplur, and is hard, heavy, 
and of a deep shining black colour; it is easily 
ignited, and produces an intense heat ; but is very 
dirty, emits immense volumes of smoke, and 
throws up an unusual quantity of cinders and 
dust. These latter fill the atmosphere, and are 
continually falling in showers, to the great terror 
of strangers and sojourners, and with manifest 
injury to the dresses of the ladies, and the white 
hands of eastern gentlemen. From this cause, 
every thing in Pittsburgh wears a sombre hue; 
even the snow as it falls brings with it particles of 
cinder, and loses its purity by the connexion. But 
the people are now so used to the black and mid- 
night appearance of the objects in their city, as 
scareely to be aware of its inconvenience ; so that 
I once heard a lady exclaim, on witnessing a snow 
storm out of town, “ La! what white snow!” 


The men, it seems, are not very ‘ polished 
or urbane ;? but the sweetness and affabi- 
lity of the ladies have beauty and grace 
enough ‘to decorate a ball room to great 
advantage.” Indeed he has seldom seen 
finer displays of female loveliness—in defi- 
ance of the filth too. 

But Pittsburgh is, besides, the chief depo- 
sitory for goods destined for the western 
country. ‘They come chiefly from Balti- 
more and Philadelphia, in waggons, carry- 
ing about forty or fifty hundred weight— 
four thousand in a year; but this very pro- 
fitable monopoly it is soon likely to lose— 
indeed has already began to lose, from the 
unwise economy of the Philadelphians, who 
have kept and left the road in a state barely 
passable. The river, again, is not always 
equally navigable up to Pittsburgh. New 
York and Maryland have, accordingly, de- 
tected an opening for their own advantage ; 
the first has projected, for the purpose, a 
grand canal from the Hudson to the Lakes ; 
and the Marylanders, prompted by the west- 


Domestic and Foreign. 


199 


ern ‘states, have nearly completed the great 
* national turnpike,’ as they call it, from 
Cumberland Fort, on a branch of the Poto- 
mac, to Wheeling, in Virginia, on the 
Ohio, but many miles lower down the 
stream than Pittsburgh; and this road is 
intended, it seems, to be carried into the 
Ohio state, as faras Zanesville. Pittsburgh, 
therefore, so far as its prosperity depends on 
the traffic to the west, must scon succumb 
to Wheeling, unless the Pensylvanians bestir 
themselves more than they have yet done, 
and the river between Pittsburgh and Wheel- 
ing be cleaned and rendered more uniformly 
navigable. 

It is worth a voyage down the Ohio, the 
author says, to pass the rapids :— 

They are two miles in length, with a descent of 
twenty-two feet and a half in that distance, and 
are formed by ledges of rock, which extend quite 
across the river. The current is said to have an 
average velocity of thirteen miles an hour, which 
of course is increased or diminished by high or 
low water. 

As you approach the head of the rapids, the 
mighty stream rolls on in a smooth unbrokea 
sheet, increasing in velocity as you advance. The 
business of preparation creates asense. of im- 
pending danger; the pilot, stationed on the deck, 
assumes command; a firm and skilful helmsman 
guides the boat; the oars, strongly manned, are 
vigorously plied to give the vessel a momentum 
greater than that of the cnrrent, without which 
the helm would be inefficient. he utmost silence 
prevails among the crew; but the ear is stunned 
with the sound of rushing waters: and the sight 
of wayes dashing, and foaming, and whirling 
among the rocks and eddies below, is grand and 
fearful. The boatadyances with inconceivable 
rapidity to the head of the channel—* takes the 
Chute”*—and seems no lunger manageable among 
the angry currents, whose foam dashes upon her 
deck, but in a few moments she emerges from 
their power, and rides again in serene waters. 


“ The French have left some curiousnames 
in Missouri,” he says, ‘‘ and some curious 
corruptions have followed. La Femme Osage, 
the Osage Woman—Misere, Misery—Creve 
Ceur, Broken Heart—Vuide Poche, Empty 
Pocket—Bois Brulé, Burnt Wood, which the 
Americans pronounce Bob Ruby—Cote sans 
Dessein, which you,’’ says the author, “may 
translate for yourself. I should call it Acci- 
dental Hill, which is justified by the appear- 
ance of the place. It is an eminence,” he 
adds, and we hope the reader will under- 
stand it—“on a hill, without a valley, and 
which looks as if it did not belong to the 
place, but had dropt there by accident.’ 
A creek, called Dordon Eye, took its name 
from an Indian chief, noted for his vigi- 
lance, and to whom the French gave the 
name of Dor d’wn Gil. A small stream in 
ilinois has the very strange name of Bum- 
paw, from Bonpas—and that from Bonne 
Passe. 


* The word is evidently Frenecli—the author 
struggles hard for a puu—the boat, he says, 
shoots like an arrow. 


200 


The judge—we hope upon good evidence 
—tells a story of a miraculous escape near 
Shawnee, occurring some ten or twelve 
years ago, of a man, who fell into an am- 
buscade of Indians, and was shot through 
the body—a ball also passing through the 
breast of his horse, and coming out between 
the shoulders. Behind the passage was 
completely blocked up, and before him a 
deep miry creek, with high precipitous 
banks. Giving the rein and the spur to his 
horse, he trusted to Providence, as he calls 
it; and down the horse plunged, rose from 
the mud, and up the banks, and bore his 
rider through the thick and bushy forest, 
till he (the. rider we mean), fainted and fell 
and still went till he was six miles from 
the scene of the disaster. The course was 
carefully tracked—he had leaped about 
twenty feet to the surface of the riyer— 
had broken through the ice in the middle, 
and had climbed up an almost perpendi- 
cular bank on the other side ; and all, as he 
adds, with a heayy burden on his back, and 
wounded in a vital part, and that, according 
to persons who understood gun-shot wounds, 
where nine out of ten would have died in- 
stantly. All which is about as probable, 
perhaps, as the story of the traveller, which 
he himself gives, quizzingly, to illustrate the 
state of the Ohio roads :—- 

A weary way-farer, who journeyed through 
Olio a few years ago, illustrated his remarks 
upon the badness of the roads, by relating the 
following curious fact. We was floundering 
through the mire, as many an honest gentleman 
flonnders through life, getting along with diffi- 
culty, but still getting along; sometimes wading 
to the saddle-girth in water, sometimes clam- 
bering over logs, and occasionally plunged in a 
quagmire. While carefully picking his way by 
a spot more miry than the rest, he espied a man’s 
hat, a very creditable beaver, lying with the 
crown upwards in the mud, and as he approached, 
was not a little startled to see it move. This hap- 
pened in a dismal swamp, where the cypress 
waved its melancholy branches over the dark soil 
and the frogs croaked as mournfully as they did 
of old. under the reign of King Stork, and as in- 
cessantly as if an influenza had invaded their 
borders ; and our traveller’s flesh began to creep 
at beholding a hat move without the agency of a 
head. “ When the brains are out the Aead will 
die,” thought he, “and when the head is out, the 
hat, by the same rule, should receive its gutetus. 
Not being very superstitions, and determined to 
penetrate the mystery, the solitary rider checked 
his nag, and extending his long whip, fairly upset 
the hat—when, lo! beneath it appeared a man’s 
head, not 

*« The ghastly form, 

The lip pale, quivering, and the beamless eye, 

No more with ardour bright;” 
bat a living, laughing head, by which our inqui- 
sitive traveller heard himself saluted with, ‘ Hul- 
lo, stranger! who told you to knock my hat off?” 
The person thus addressed was so utterly asto~ 
nished as notto be able for a moment to under- 
stand that the apparition was no other than a 
fellow-creature up to the neck in the mire; but 


Monthly Review of Literature, 


[Fes. 


he no sooner came to this conclusion than he 
promptly apologized for the indecorum of which 
he had been guilty, and tendered his services to 
the gentleman in the mud puddle. “ I will alight,” 
said he, ‘‘and endeavour to draw you forth.” 
** Oh, never mind,” said the other, “ I’min rather 
abad fix, it is true, but I have an excellent horse 
under me, who bas carried me through many a 
worse place than this—we shall get along.” 


Here is a fair hit at national vanity, 
though nobody of common-sense depreciates 
the real advantages of American freedom :-— 


If a foreigner, in passing through our country, 
grasps at every occasion to make invidious com- 
parisons, sneering at its population, manners, and 
institutions, and extolling those of his own native 
land, nothing is said of national vanity. When 
it was determined in England to tear the “striped 
bunting” from the mast-heads of our “ fir-built 
frigates,” andto sweep the Yankee cock-boats 
from the ocean, “no national vanity was dis- 
played at all; when the very Review in question 
(Edinburgh) tell us that England is the bulwark 
of religion, the arbiter of the fates of kingdoms, 
the last refuge of freedom, there is uo national 
vanity in the business—not a spice. But ifa 
plain backwoodsman ventures to praise his own 
country, because he finds all his wants supplied, 
and his rights defended, while he is not pestered 
with tax-gatherers and excisemen, is not devoured 
by fox-hunting priests, pensioners, and paupers, 
sees no dragoons galloping about his cottage, and 
is allowed to vote for whom he pleases to repre- 
sent him—all of which he has good reason to be- 
lieve is ordered differently in another country— 
thisisa ‘‘disgusting display of national va- 
nity.” Ifhe ventures to exhibit a shattered limb, 
or a breast covered with scars, and to tell that he 
recived these honourable scars in defence of his 
native land, on an occasion when the “ best troops 
in the world” fied before the valour of undiscei- 
plined freemen, led by a Jackson or a Brown 
this is very disgusting. 

The fact is, that English travellers, and English 
people in general, who come among us, forget 
that the rest of the world are not as eredulous 
and gullible as themselves ; and are continually 
attempting to impose fictions upon us, which we 
refuse to credit. They seem not to be aware that 
we are a reading people, and wonld conyince us 
that they are a wise, valiant, and virtuous people, 
beloved and respected by all the world, while we 
are an ignorant idle set of boobies, for whom 
nobody cares a farthing. They tell us how happy 
and comfortable every body is in England, and 
what a poor, forlorn, forsaken, miserable set we 
are, who have had the misfortune to be born in @ 
new country, and never saw a king, a lord, or a 
hangman. One of them told me that he had neyer 
heard of the battle of New Orleans, until he came 
to America several years after it was fought, and 
that the British nation had hardly ever heard of 
the war with America. Now, when we refuse to 
credit these things, and flatly deny them, as we 
often do, we are sct down as a conceited, vain 
people, who presume to think for ourselves, and 
to believe that we know something, when a prating 
renegade or a venal reviewer shall pronounce us 
fuols. Jolin Bull forgets that his own vanity isa 
source of merriment with the rest of the world. 


| 
| 


1829.) 


Memoirs of Scipio de Ricci, Edited by 
T. Roscoe, Esq, 2 vols., 8vo. ; 1829.— 
These are memoirs merely pour servir— 
chaos of notes and documents relative t 
Leopold of Tuscany—the Jesuits—the Ro- 
man See—and Scipio de Ricci, a Tuscan 
bishop. To be readable, they must first be 
reduced to something like order. Nothing 
can exceed the confusion, the absolute and 
intolerable contempt of method, in the whole 
book. The narrative—even when the reader 
has succeeded in picking it out—is incom- 
plete to a vexatious degree, and is suspended 
and broken by matters which no way con- 
cern the bishop. 

A great fuss has been made about these 
memoirs on the continent, but a glance has 
convinced us they will attract very little at- 
tention here. Ricci was no reformer, in 
the English popular and comprehensive 
Sense, politically or ecclesiastically—a dis- 
ciplinarian merely episcopal. He was a 
very honest, right-minded man to the ex- 
tent of his intelligence, but as superstitious 
and prejudiced, as a good Catholic must 
necessarily be. But as to questioning the 
doctrines of the Church of Rome, or the 
foundations of its authority, he never so 
much as dreamt of such a thing. He got 
into wrangles with the Court of Rome, and 
was stiff in maintaining his opinions, but 
not because he deemed the papacy usurpa~ 
tion, but its ministers careless and corrupt. 
In his diocese he found abuses, and he re- 
solyed to reform them, and, certainly in 
what came specifically under his jurisdic- 
tion, he was not of a character to flinch 
from what he considered his duty. The 
measures he adopted were of the thorough- 
going kind; but a doubt may well cross 
our minds, in looking over these documents, 
whether he was not, like many other men, 
who are eager to sweep clean, at once the 
dupe and tool of others. The abuses were, 
generally, relative to nuns and friars—nei- 
ther nuns nor friars were without enemies— 
the Grand Duke had an eye to their en- 
dowments—courtiers were thirsting—the 
bishop was capacious of belief—every story 
was welcomed. He was taught to believe 

> friars were salt as monkeys, and nuns, 
_ universally, their victims or their lemans— 
music, dancing, plays and farces, drunken- 
_ hess and gluttony by day and by night— 
men and women /assati non satiati. Some 
communications from nuns of different con- 
vents are quoted, and bear on the face of 
them the marks of malice and mortification. 
They charge universal profligacy, and in 
the same breath speak of mancuvres and 
cunning contrivances to accomplish secret 
urposes. 

Though himself, in principle, a Jansenist, 

_ and of course opposed to the Jesuits, he 
i had been educated at their institutions, and 
_ Was even connected by family relationship 
_ with the /as¢ general of the order—though 

he did not, according to the heading of one 
of the chapters, inherit his wealth—for the 

M.M. New Series.—Vou, VU. No.38. 


Domestic and Foreign. 


201 


poor general, it seems, had nothing to leaves 
and had eyen lost the two and twenty thou- 
sand masses, to which, as general of the 
Jesuits, he was officially entitled on his 
death. The property inherited by Ricci 
was that of a brother of the general’s, a 
canon of Florence. Ofa staid and serious 
cast, unambitious and withdrawing, Ricci, 
for a long time, refused the preferments 
family interest could have insured him ; but, 
in 1780, then nearly forty years of age, he 
was prevailed upon to accept the Bishopric 
of Prato and Pistoia. At this period Leo- 
pold was zealously pushing his reforms. 
The views of the prince and the bishop, 
though in no respect ultimately the same, 
occasionally concurred in the measures em- 
ployed to effect them.  Leopold’s object 
was, doubtless, to be his own Pope, and the 
distruction of convents and monasteries was 
a favourite point with him. The bishop, 
on discovering, or being assured of the 
existence of unbounded profligacy in these 
institutions, was ready to repress, or even 
suppress ; and thus, first in this respect, and, 
by degrees, in others, the bishop, in appear- 
ance, became the great agent, and most ef- 
fective instrument of the prince. 

But to break up the foundations of the 
Roman authority was never in his thoughts. 
In spite of himself, however, and surely to 
his own amazement, he was involved in fre- 
quent dispute with the Court of Rome, not 
only by acts, of which he was the real au- 
thor and adviser, but those into which he 
was precipitated by the rashness or cunning 
of others. Two powerful orders he almost 
immediately made his implacable foes—the. 
Jesuits and Dominicans. The first, by re- 
sisting the new worship of the Sacred Heart 
—a contrivance of the Jesuits to keep them 
together by a common bond; and the se- 
cond, by exposing the corruptions of the 
friars of that order, and especially by ex- 
cluding them from confessing the nuns. In 
Leopold’s plans for promoting a more gene- 
ral education in all classes, he was the zea- 
lous agent and seconder, without probably - 
seeing the tendency of his labours. For 
general education seems something very like 
general unsettling. We have no notion 
education—such as deserves the name—can 
be forced. The effects, everywhere visible, 
produced by forcing, are such as no sane 
man would wish to Sanction—misplaced am- 
bition—relaxation of manners and morals— 
insolence — insubordination —disunion in 
families, &c. 

The nuns were as restive as the friars— 
some of them avowed the principles of 
atheism, and justified the indulgence of 
their passions—while others insisted on 
their old confessions. The good bishop com- 
plained to the Pope, and avowed his sus- 
picions, that the monks alone were the 
cause of so much obstinacy on the part of 
the nuns.—“ Can you doubt it ?”’ said Pius 
VI., giving utterance at the same time to 
violent invectives against the general of the 

2D 


r 


202 


Dominicans. But the Dominicans soon 
bestirred themselves, and the Pope quickly 
surprised Ricci with a brief, in which he 
declared that he himself would not have 
dared to conceive such suspicions against 
the most holy order of the Dominicans. 
Still Leopold upheld the bishop, at least for 
the furtherance of his own views, till, by the 
death of his brother Joseph, he, in 1790, 
became Emperor. His departure was fol- 
lowed by a general outbreak against Ricci 5 
and even when the Emperor returned in the 
following year to Florence, Ricci could 
never recover his ground—the Emperor 
himself had cooled—the French Revolution 
had alarmed him; and though he treated 
Ricci still with distinction, he himself beg- 
ged him to resign his bishopricc. 

We have no space to trace his after 
course minutely. Before the French took 
possession of Tuscany, in 1800, he was 
persecuted almost to death by his personal 
enemies, who had got things in their own 
hands. For after the battle of Trebia, and 
Tuscany was again occupied by the Au- 
strians, and the old enemies of the Tuscan 
reforms had again the upper hand, Ricci 
was quickly thrown into prison, and sustained 
the most intolerable treatment till the re- 
turn of the French in 1800. Still persecu- 
tion, though of a milder kind, followed, nor 
did his enemies desist till they had driven 
or beguiled him into concessions, and re- 
conciled him to the Holy See by confession 
of error. 


Life and Adventures of Alexander Sel- 
kirk, by John Howell; 1829,—As_ the 
person, whose adventures are said to have 
suggested to Daniel de Foe his memorable 
romance of Robinson Crusoe, Selkirk is 
naturally an object of curiosity. The first 
notice found of him is in 1711, in the 
Englishman, one of Steel’s periodicals. 
Steel. had seen and conversed with him, 
and moralizes upon his story after his not 
very profound fashion. This plain man’s 
story,”’ says he, “‘ is a memorable example 
that he is happiest who confines his wants 
to natural necessities, and he that goes fur- 
ther in his desires, increases his wants in 
proportion to his acquisitions ; or, to use his 
own (Selkirk’s) expression, I am now worth 
£800; but shall never be so happy as when 
I was not worth a farthing.’” The mate- 
rials of his little volume, Mr. Howell has 
gathered from. “‘ Voyages to the South Sea,” 
published by Dampier, Rogers, and Cook, 
and partly from family tradition—a great 
nephew of Selkirk’s being now a teacher in 
Cannon-mills, a village near Edinburgh, 
who inherits the relics of his ancestor, con- 
sisting of a chest, a flip-can, and a staff, 
and which he carefully preserves. By this 
person Mr. Howell was conducted over 
Selkirk’s favourite spots in his native vil- 
lage of Largo, in Fife, and all the family 

ers were thrown open to his researches. 
Mr. Howell is known to the public as the 


Monthly Review of Literature, 


[Fes. 


Editor of the Journal of a Soldier of the 
78th, and the Adventures of John Nichol, 

iner, but more advantageously as the 
author of an essay on the War Galleys of 
the Ancients, noticed by us some time ago, 
as by far the happiest solution of that puz- 
zling question. 

Of Selkirk, after all Mr. Howell’s indus- 
try, little is known, and that little of less 
importance. It cannot detract an atom 
even from the originality of De Foe’s 
inimitable conceptions. The son of a fisher- 
man, Selkirk’s inclinations naturally lent to 
the sea; and, being a seventh son, he was 
more indulged than his brothers by a fond 
and foolish mother, and thus neither his 
temper nor his actions were disciplined to 
the usual sobriety of the peasants around 
him. When he first went to sea is not 
ascertained ; but before 1703—he was then 
twenty-seven years of age—he must have 
been in the South Seas; for in that year he 
was appointed sailing-master to one of 
two ships, fitted out for privateering, under 


the command of Dampier—a man not at all. 


likely to appoint a raw sailor to so respon- 
sible a post. Though a good seaman, Dam- 
pier was headstrong and violent, and quar- 
relled with most of his officers. Mutinies 
were frequent—intemperance, desertion, and 
expulsion, till Selkirk came to the resolu- 
tion of demanding to be left on some island ; 
and about the end of September, 1704, he 
was landed on the island of Juan de Fer- 
nandez. The delight with which he stepped 
on shore was speedily checked by the retreat- 
ing of the vessel, and the coming conscious- 
ness of his solitary position—he rushed into 
the water, and implored to be taken in 
again; but he was cursed for a mutinous 
rascal, and left unceremoniously to his 
fate. 

For days and days he could not bear to 
quit the shore for a moment ; despair seized 
him—he was on the point of suicide ; but 
the lingering lessons of religious instruction 
withheld him, and the thoughts thus sug- 
gested, verifying and reinvigorating, brought 
him to feelings of resignation, and finally 
cheered him to endurance. He now turned 
his attention to the securing of accommoda- 
tion; he built a hut, and caught goats, and 
tamed them, laming them to keep them 
within bounds ; and being annoyed by rats, 
he at last succeeded in catching some wild 
cats, whom—when the rats were routed— 
he taught to dance, and divert him. Much 
of his time was spent in acts of devotion. 
The constant exercise he was compelled to 
take for procuring food, and the temperate 
and regular life he led, increased his bodily 
powers prodigiously—till, indeed, he could 
run down the strongest goat, and tossing it 
over his shoulder, carry it with ease to his 
hut. Events were of course few and far 
between—he had no man Friday—onee he 
fell down a precipice in pursuing a goat, 


where, by the increase of the moon, he cal- 


culated he must have lain senseless three 


1829.] 


days ; and once a Spanish vessel came to 
the coast, and some of the crew landing, 
and catching a glance, shot after him; but 
by climbing a tree, he eluded pursuit. Had 
he been captured, murder, or imprisonment 
for life, he knew, was inevitable. 

Atlast, in January 1709, about four years 
and four months from his first landing, two 
English vessels bore in sight, on board of 
one of which was Dampier, now only sail- 
ing master; and Selkirk, finding Dampier 
had no command, willingly went on board, 
and served in the expedition, till the ves- 
sels returned in 1711, by which he gained 
£800. 

He now re-visited his native Largo, where 
his father and mother were still alive. There 
he indulged in the solitary habits contracted 
in the island ; and spent whole days sitting 
on a crag, which overlooked the waters, or 
roaming in a boat along the shores, till 
finally he met with a young girl, who was 
tending a single cow, and seemed as lonely 
as himself. An acquaintance commenced 
between them, and in a few days, to avoid 
the opposition probably of his friends, or 
their rude mirth and coarse raillery, he per- 
suaded her to elope with him to London. 
From this period nothing was known of 
him by his friends till his death in 1723, 
when a second widow appeared to claim her 
husband’s share of some paternal property. 
His first wife, it appeared by the papers pro- 
duced, a power of attorney and a will, died 
before 1720; and he himself died a lieu- 
tenant on board His Majesty’ ship Wey- 
mouth. 


Historical and Descriptive Sketches of 
the Maritime Colonies of British America, 
by J. M’Gregor ; 1829.—This will prove 
an acceptable volume, for, unless they have 
escaped us, there is a singular dearth of 
books relative to these regions. Of the 
author we know nothing; but he professes 
to give the results of personal observation, 
or the best authority: and certainly the 
contents, the general style and tone of the 
whole, is well calculated to conciliate con- 
fidence. He dedicates to Sir George Mur- 
ray, and dates from Foxteth Park—Ros- 

 coe’s residence, near Liverpool—and so we 
may conclude him to be respectable ; and 
as to any political bias or colonial prejudice, 
nothing is very observable. It is, in short, 
a book of information, and just what the 
chimney-corner man desires to have at 


The colohies described are Prince Ed- 
ward Island—Cape Breton —Nova Scotia 
—New Brunswick, and Newfoundland.— 
Prince Edward is the most minutely de- 
tailed—the author apparently being more 
intimately acquainted with it than with the 

rest. Of this he speaks in very favourable 
terms. The soil is generally good—scarcely 
an acre of it uncultivable—almost wholly 
flat, or only varied by such gentle swells as 
ad almost indispensable for successful culti- 


Domestic and Foreign. 


203 


vation. Its extent is about 140 miles by 
34, and divided into 67 townships, of 
20,000 acres each; the whole of which is, 
we believe, appropriated, but very large 
tracts are still in the rudest state. 

Though originally discovered by Cabot, 
under English auspices, the island was nei- 
ther occupied nor claimed by the English. 
Within a few years it was re-discovered by 
the French, and by them, though not till 
1663, granted to a single individual, in vas- 
salage to a French Company; but settle- 
ments were generally discouraged in favour 
of Cape Breton, so much so, that, in 1758, 
when it surrendered to the British, not 
more than 10,000 persons were upon the 
island. Since that period it has been in 
our hands. The population has been aug- 
mented by considerable accessions of Scotch, 
Trish, and English ; and, in 1778, was 
honoured with a representative government. 
By an act of the Colonial Legislature, the 
name was changed from St. John to 
Prince Edward—in compliment to the late 
Duke of Kent, then commander of the forces 
in the colonies. 

What may be the amount of the existing 
population does not appear, nor what the 
number of French descendants. There are 
about 4,000 Acadian French from Nova 
Scotia, who retain, with a kind of religious 
feeling, the dress and habits of their an- 
cestors; “nor have they,’’ says Mr. G., 
“at all times received the kindest treatment 
from their neighbours.” The industry of 
the wives and daughters is wonderful ; they 
are at work during the spring and harvest 
on their farms ; they cook and wash, make 
their hushands’ as well as their own clothes ; 
they spin, knit, and weave, and are scarcely 
an hour idle during their lives. 

These Acadian women dress nearly in the same 
way as the Bavarian broom-girls. On Sundays 
their clothes and linen look extremely clean and 
neat; and they wear over their shoulders a small 
blue cloth cloak, reaching only half way down the 
body, and generally fastened at the breast with a 
brass brooch. On week-days they are more care- 
lessly dressed, and usually wear sabots (wooden 
shoes). The men dress in round blue cloth 
jackets, with strait collars and metal buttons set 
close together; blue or scarlet waistcoats and 
blue trowsers, Among allthe Acadians, on Prince 
Edward’s Island, I never knew but one person 
who had the hardihood to dress differently from 
what they call notre facon. On one occasion he 
ventured to put on an English coat, and he has 
never since, even among his relations, been called 
by his proper name, Joseph Gallant, which has 
been supplanted by that of Joe Peacock. 


Belfast is now in a state of considerable 
prosperity. This region, from the period 
of the surrender of the island, was almost 
wholly unoccupied, till Lord Selkirk’s colo- 
nists were established upon it. 

In 1803, says Mr. Macgregor, the late enter- 
prising Earl of Selkirk arrived on the island with 
800 emigrants, whom he settled along the front of 
the townships that now contain these flourishing’ 


2D 2 


204 


settlements. His Lordship brought his colony 
‘from the Highlands and isles of Scotland ; and by 
the convenience of the tenures under which he 
gave them lands, and by persevering industry on 
their part, these people have arrived at more 
comfort and happiness than they ever experienced 
before. The soil in this district is excellent ; the 
inhabitants are all in easy circumstances, and 
their number has encreased from 800 to nearly 
3,000. 


CarE BreTOoN contains 500,000 culti- 
vable acres. The population -does not 
amount to more than 17, or 18,000, chiefly 
depending on the fisheries. Mr. M’G. 
thinks the colony neglected. It is capable 
of supporting perhaps 300,000.—To Great 
Britain its possession is of the greatest im- 
portance. 

The nayal power of the French began to decline 
from the time they were driven out of the 
fisheries ; and the Americans of the United States 
would consider Cape Breton a boon more valuable 
to them as a nation than any of our West India 
islands would be. Did they but once obtain it as 
a fishing station, their navy would ina few years, 
I fear, have sufficient physical strength to cope 
with any power in Europe, not even excepting 
England. Let not the British nation, therefore, 
lose sight of this colony. 


The extent of cultivable ground in Nova 
Sco7ta is at least five millions, and a large 
proportion is still in the hands of govern- 
ment. The population amounts to about 
120 or 130,000. “* Slavery,” says the au- 
thor, “ does not exist in Nova Scotia; but 
there are 1,500 frée negroes assembled here 
from the West Indies and United States, 
and some natives.’’ very facility has been 
afforded to these people by the government, 
at a settlement laid out for them a few miles 
from Halifax, but they are still in a state of 
miserable poverty—the cause perplexes the 
writer. Lord Dalhousie’s exertions in this 
colony are highly extolled—he is represent- 
ed as governing here to the entire satisfac- 
tion of the colony—unlucky as he has been 
in Canada. Halifax is a very smart place. 
“¢ The state of society,’’ says the writer, “is 
highly respectable, and contains more well- 
dressed and respectable looking persons 
than any town of its size in England. The 
officers of the army and navy mix with the 
merchants and gentlemen of the learned 
professions, and ¢hws the first class of so- 
ciety is doubtless more refined than might 
otherwise be expected. The style of living, 
the hours of entertainment, aid the fashions, 
are the same as in England. Dress is fudly 
as much attended to as in London; and 
many of the fashionable sprigs, who ex- 
hibit themselves in the streets of Halifax, 
might, even in Bond Street, be said to have 
arrived at the ne plus ultra of dandyism.” 

* The population of New Brunswicx is 
at least 80,000. The crown holds between 
two and three millions of acres, and grants 
to settlers, in common soccage, reserving a 
quit rent of two shillings per hundred acres. 
Dhe fire of Miramichi, in 1825, is repre- 


Monthly Review of Literature, 


[Fes. 


sented as the most dreadful conflagration 
that ever occurred. It spread over a hun- 
dred miles of country. 


It appears that the woods had been, on both 
sides of the N.W. branch of the St. John’s, par- 
tially on fire for some time, but not to an alarming 
extent, till the 7th of October, when it came on to 
blow furiously from the N.W., and the inhabitants 
on the banks of the river were suddenly alarmed 
by a tremendous roaring in the woods, resembling 
the incessant rolling of thunder; while at the 
same time, the atmosphere became thickly darken- 
ed withsmoke. ‘They had scarcely time to ascer- 
tain the cause of this phenomenon before all the 
surrounding woods appeared in one yast blaze, 
the flames ascending more than a hundred feet 
above the tops of the loftiest trees, and the fire, 
like a gulf in flames, rolling forward with in- 
conceivable celerity. In less than an hour Doug- 
lastown and Newcastle were enyeloped in one 
vast blaze, and many of the wretched inhabitants, 
unable to escape, perished in the midst of this 
terrible fire. Numbers were lost in lumbering 
parties. 


NEWFOUNDLAND, though first disco- 
vered, is the least known. A Mr. Cor- 
mack, of St. John’s, has done what no other 
European ever attempted, crossed the island 
—‘*a most arduous and perilous undertak- 
ing, when one considers,”’ says Mr. M’G., 
“the rugged and broken configuration of the 
country.’’ Bad as the climate may be, Mr. 
MG. thinks it calumniated. There is not 
so much ice as on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 
nor so much fog as at Cape Breton. No- 
where do the inhabitants enjoy better health. 
The population amounts to about 90,000, 
with some few natives, a few families of 
Micmacs, Mountaineers, and Boethics (Red 
Indians). The country, on the whole, re- 
sembles very much the Western Highlands 
of Scotland, and will produce whatever will 
grow on them. The fisheries the author 
longs to monopolize. ‘The Americans em- 
ploy 1,800 or 2,000 schooners, of GO to 120 
tons, manned with 3,000 (that is, at the 
most, one man and a halfeach). “ Nothing,” 
says he, “could be more unwise than to 
allow either the French or Americans to 
enter the Gulf of St. Lawrence—it is a Me- 
diterranean, bounded by our colonies, and 
those powers had neither right nor pretence 
to its shores or its fisheries.”’ 

Generally, the writer considers these colo- 
nies as of far higher importance than the 
West India islands—especially with re- 
ference to emigration.— 


The svil, climate, and productions, adopt them 
for the support of as great a population as any 
country on earth; and in this respect are in- 
finitely more valuable than any of our other pos- 
sessions. New Holland and Van Dieman’s Land 
may be considered an exception ; but the distance 


of these countries from England will be for ever — 


an important objection to them. 


\ First Steps to Astronomy and Geo- 
graphy ; 1828.— That elementary books 
multiply is no evil, but a positive advan- 
tage—except in the eyes of those who 


Bren 


1829.] 


grudge expense in necessaries, to make dis- 
plays in superfluities—it is a positive ad- 
vantage, we say, ifit be granted that benefit 
is at all accomplished by communication— 
for every new elementary book is, in some 
respect or other, it may be safely affirmed, 
better than its predecessor. The last com- 
piler has the opportunity, and of course takes 
it, of making use of the labours of those 
who preceded him in his particular line, 
and of renouncing the bad. The great com- 
pelling motive for the new attempt is the 
correction of mistakes—the perception of 
some improyement—the expansion of some 
pursuit some sagacious suggestion, or 
some happy facility ; and as in all commu- 
nication, the plainest and readiest mode is 
the point of perfection, and this can only be 
attained by successive attempts—we repeat 
it, new elementary books are no evil; and 
no rational person will lament the pitiful 
loss incurred by giving up a bad book for a 
good one, or a good book for a better. 

With this conviction upon us, we gladly 
take every opportunity of pointing our 
reader’s attention to new works of this 
kind; and we have never with more plea- 
sure or confidence recommended any thing 
of the kind than we now do these First 
Steps to Astronomy and Geography—pub- 
lished by Hatchard. It is the production 
of a lady—the writer of a well received 
volume of Conversations on Botany, and 
does her infinite credit. If the neatness 
and simplicity of Mrs. Marriott’s conversa- 
tions recommended them to the instructors 
of young people, the volume, before us, is, 
on the same grounds, entitled to the same 
warm and welcome reception. It is well 
calculated to be popular in schools, and with 
governesses. A little contrivance, a sort of 
occular illustration of the sphericity of the 
earth, is well imagined—a ship, with all 
her sails set, is made to revolve on the cir- 
cumference of a circle, shewing distinctly 
why the sails come first in sight, and the 
hull last—as they are actually observed to 
do. The Geography consists of a light and 
lively sketch of the divisions of the globe ; 
but which, in a second edition—which it 
will undoubtedly reach—will require a little 
revision—some of the many changes of the 
last twenty years are not noticed ; and it is 
desirable that things of this kind should be 
brought up to the latest date. 


The Elements of Plane and Spherical 
Trigonometry ; by John Hind, M. A.— 
Analytic geometry has been so long and so 
successfully cultivated in France, while in 
this country it has but so very recently 
formed a branch of education, that it is not 
to be expected the elementary works we 
possess on the subject should bear any com- 
parison with those of our neighbours. Yet 
this is not altogether the case; and Wood- 
house’s Trigonometry will fairly compete 
with any similar treatise which Europe can 
boast. Longo proximus interyallo appears 


Domestic and Foreign. 


205 


the present work. Mr. Hind seems to have 
written exclusively for the students of the 
university of which he is a member. But 
as we do not consider the system of instruc- 
tion pursued at Cambridge the best calcu- 
lated to advance mathematical knowledge, 
we can say very little in favour of the work in 
question, but must enter our most vehement 
protest against the introduction of innume- 
rable questions to exercise the ingenuity of 
the learner, when neither the method nor 
the result is given of their solution. 


Analytic Physiology ; by Samuel Hood, 
M.D. — At a time when the press teems 
with ill-written volumes on medical subjects 5 
when every youthfnl candidate for the ho- 
nours and emoluments of his profession, 
deems it necessary to advertise himself to the 
public as an author, whether he have a 
single new fact or observation of the slightest 
importance to communicate, or not; when 
medical men are condemned to winnow a 
few grains of information from the appal- 
ling mass of dulness, ignorance, and mis- 
statement, with which they are beset, 
quarterly, monthly, and weekly, in count- 
less periodicals; we hail a work which 
professes to present us, in a small compass, 
with the most important facts in physical 
science, and to deduce from them xational 
principles of medical practice. Our author, 
if we may judge from his preface, appears to 
consider himself a discoverer ; to think that 
he has made a grand step in medical science ; 
and that, while the profession at large are 
wandering in the night of prejudice, and are 
held in subjection by the authority of obso- 
lete theorists, he alone has applied the lights 
of modern physiology to medical practice, 
and, in an especial manner, to the improve- 
ment of the treatment of nervous diseases. 
We know not what may be the doctrines 
taught in the schools in the other parts of 
our island; but, accustomed as we are in 
London to the rapid diffusion of knowledge, 
through the medium of the press, and know- 
ing that every physiological and medical 
fact of importance is, by some of our more 
enlightened teachers, communicated to their 
respective classes, often within a few hours 
after their publication, we cannot repress a 
smile when we are told of the ‘ physiology 
of the schools,’ and fancy we hear the 
language of a former age. Without for a 
moment desiring to withhold from our 
author the praise which is due to his fair 
pretensions, or doubting that many of his 
views are, relatively to himself, original, we 
feel, from the candour which we think we 
discern in his pages, that we shall have his 
forgiveness, when we express our belief that 
we have found more than “ some crude ves- 
tiges of most of his theories in the records of 
medicine.” The most remarkable feature 
in Mr. Hood’s practice is the formation of 
successive eschars with nitrate of silver or 
lunar caustic, in the course of the spine. 
We cannot suppose that he is not aware of 


206 


the frequent, we may even say routine prac-~ 
tice of treating some nervous diseases— 
paraplegia, for example, by external appli- 
cations to the spine; and among them, 
caustic issues made with nitrate of silver: 
and we would beg leave to refer him to the 
records of some of our hospitals for informa- 
tion as to the extent to which physiological, 
principles are made the basis of medical 
practice. We should, however, do our au- 
thor injustice if we hesitated to express our 
conviction, that no one will be found to dis- 
pute his claim to originality in his theory of 
the mode in which the external application 
of nitrate of silver acts on the animal eco-~ 
nomy, as hinted at in p. 20, where, after 
stating the well-known analogy between 
galvanism, electricity, and the caloric pro- 


Monthly Review of Literature. 


[ Fes. 


cess, he proceeds to observe, that, “ diluted 
nitric acid is the most effectual mean of 
augmenting the caloric of a galvanic trough. 
Combined with the oxide of silver, or diluted 
with water, it is also the most effectual means 
of augrnenting animal heat, when externally 
applied.”” It would give us real pain if we 
thought that any of our readers would infer, 
from the remarks which we haye felt our- 
selves called upon to make, that we wish to 
depreciate the labours of an ingenious phy- 
sician, for whose talents we entertain. much 
respect. This isso far from being the case,, 
that we have much pleasure in assuring our 
professional friends, that they will find many. 
ingenuous hints in our author's work, which 
we unhesitatingly recommend to their atten- 
tive perusal, 


ae 
VARIETIES, SCIENTIFIC AND MISCELLANEOUS. 


Organic Defects.—We have always felt 
pleasure in communicating to the public 
any inventions which, either from their inge- 
nuity, or from the advantages which could 
be derived from them, were raised above 
the class of metre scientific conundrums; and 
lately have been much interested in the pe- 
rusal of a practical work on the deficiencies 
of the palate, nose, lips, &c. which has been 
published by Mr. Snell, an intelligent and 
scientific dentist in Baker Street. The sub- 
ject has been illustrated by researches, which 
extend back to the fifteenth century, detail- 
ing the various contrivances invented by dif- 
ferent artists, many indeed of the most en- 
tertaining description, and closing this part 
of the work with the most approved construc- 
tions for supplying these unfortunate de- 
ficiencies, among which are a consider- 
able number invented by himself, which 
display not only great medical talent in 
their adaptation, but a very correct know- 
ledge of the anatomy and physiology of the 
organs of deglutition and speech, which they 
are intended to relieve. With the surgical 
contents of this book we have nothing to do ; 
but having taken the liberty, in consequence 
of the perusal of it, to ask permission to in- 
spect his cabinet, we feel that we are confer- 
ring a real benefit upon a numerous class of 
sufferers, as well as doing simple justice to an 
able man, in detailing his merits to the 
public. 

Paper Linen.—A new invention called 
papier linge has lately attracted much atten- 
tion in Paris. It consists of a paper made 
closely to resemble damask and other linen, 
not only to the eye, but even to the touch. 
The articles are used for every purpose to 
which linen is applicable, except those re- 
quiring much strength and durability. The 
price is low—a napkin costs only five or six 
centimes, about a halfpenny; and, when 
dirty, they are taken back at half price. A 
good-sized table-cloth sells‘for a franc, ten- 
pence ; anda roll of paper, with one or two 


colours for papering rooms, or for bed 
curtains, may be had for the same price. 
The French have a strange fancy for paper 
things. ‘Two or three years ago paper clocks 
were all the rage—novelty, perhaps, was their 
principal recommendation; but their per- 
formance was extremely good. 

Mouth Harmonicon.—A mostenchanting 
little musical instrument, to which this name 
has been applied, has been imported into this 
country, and is for sale by Mr. Weiss, the 
very ingenious cutler in the Strand. It 
produces modulated chords by the action of 
the breath, similar to the tones from an 
Eolian harp. when struck sharply by the 
wind, or like the distant fall of military 
music, or a blast of fairy trumpets. The 
tones are variable; from the lightest echo, 
to a swelling strain; and they have that 
metallic sound which is the characteristic of 
martial music. It approaches nearest to 
the music of the Celestina. In size it is 
very little larger than a crown-piece, and the 
manner of playing it is extremely simple ; so 
much so, that any one, however unacquainted 
with it, can produce the most perfect chords. 
In short, this instrument is to music what 
the kaleidoscope is to painting. It has 
been, as was to be expected, pirated in this 
country. We have inspected the imitation ; 
and though an apparatus has been con- 
structed of greater pretension, it is totally 
destitute of the simplicity, and wants the 
mellowness of tone so remarkable in the 
former instrument—we therefore withhold’ 
the name of its inventor. 

The Steam-Engine.—England, exulting 
in the perfection to which she has brought 
the steam-engine, has habitually claimed, 
while others have blindly conceded to her 
the priority of invention. 
French philosopher, the astronomer royal, 
M. Arago, has recently investigated the sub- 
ject. The result of his inquiries for which 
alone we can find room, is as follows :— 

A.D, 1615. Salomon’ de Caus is the first 


An eminent: 


a 


, 


4 
a 


* 


1829.] 


who thought of employing the elastic force 
of aqueous vapour in the construction of an 
hydraulic machine suited to effect exhaustion. 

1690. Papin imagined the possibility of 
making an aqueous steam machine with a 
piston. 

1690. Papin first combined in the same 
steam machine with a piston, the elastic 
force of the vapour, with the property be- 
longing to this vapour of being precipitated 
by cold. 

1705. Newcomen, Cawley, and Savary 
first perceived that to effect a rapid conden- 
sation of the aqueous vapour it was necessary 
that the water should be injected in drops 
into the vapour itself. 

1769. Watt shewed the immense econo- 
mical advantages resulting from condensing 
the vapour in a separate vessel instead of in 
the body of the cylinder. , 

1769. Watt first pointed out the signal 
improvement of using the steam expansively. 

1690. Papin first proposed a steam-en- 
gine for turning an axle or a wheel, and 
“suggested a method of producing this effect. 
Preyious to him, steam-engines had been 
regarded as fit only to be employed as ex- 
hausting machines. 

1690. Papin suggested the first double 
steam-engine, but having two cylinders. 

1769. Watt invented the first double ma- 
chine with only one cylinder. 

Previous to 1710, Papin had thought of 
the first high-pressure steam-engine without 
condensation. 

1724. Leupold described the first machine 
of this kind with a piston. 

1801. The first high-pressure locomotive 
engines are due to Messrs. Trevithick and 
Vivian. 

1690. Papin must be considered the first 
projector of steam-boats. (We may also 
add, that the invention of steam-guns be- 
longs to Papin. As what is the digester 
which killed poor Naldi to be reckoned ?) 


-Of the principal parts which compose a 


steam-engine. 

1718. Beighton invented the plug-frame, 
the apparatus for opening and shutting the 
valves in the large machines. 

1758. Fitzgerald first employed a fly- 
wheel to regulate the rotatory motion com- 
municated to an axle by a steam-engine. 

1778. Washbrough employed the crank to 
transform the rectilinear movement of the 
piston into a rotatory one. 

1784. Watt invented the jointed parel- 
lelogram for producing a parellel motion. 

1784. Watt applied to his different ma- 
chines, with great advantage, the centrifu- 

gal regulator, previously known. 

1801. Murray described and executed the 
first sliding valves moved by an eccentric. 

Before 1710, Papin invented the four 
way-cock, of such great importance in the 
high-pressure engines. 

1682. Papin invented the safety-valve. 

Of the above conclusions, so totally different 
from those hitherto received, we have only 


Varieties. 


207 


to say, they rest on the indisputable evidence 
of printed works. 

Antidote to Poisonous Mushrooms.— 
Whenever a fungus is pleasant in flavour 
and odour, it may be considered wholesome ; 
if, on the contrary, it have an offensive 
smell, a bitter, astringent, or styptic taste, 
or even if it leaye an unpleasant flavour in 
the mouth, it should not be considered fit 
for food. The colour, figure, and’ texture 
of these vegetables, do not afford any cha- 
racter on which we can safely rely. But, 
in general, those should be suspected which 
grow in caverns and subterraneous passages, 
on animal matter undergoing putrefaction, 
as well as those whose flesh is soft or watery. 
All edible species should be thoroughly 
masticated before taken into the stomach, as 
this greatly lessens the injurious effects pro- 
duced by the poisons. When, however, 
this dangerous mistake has been made, vo- 
miting should be excited immediately, and 
then the vegetable acids should be given, 
such as vinegar, lemon, or apple juice ; after 
which, to stop the excessive bilious vomit- 
ing, antispasmodic remedies should be ex- 
hibited. Infusion of gall nuts, oak and 
Peruvian bark, are recommended, as capable 
of neutralizing the poison. Spirit of wine 
and vinegar extract some part of their poison, 


and tanning matter decomposes the greatest 
part of it. 


Steam Navigation to India.—The go- 
vernment of the Netherlands has ordered 
the immediate construction of alarger steam- 
vessel than has hitherto swam the ocean. 
It is to be 250 feet in length, to have three 
decks, four masts, and a bowsprit, and steam- 
engine power equal to 300 horses, and to 
cost 800,000 Dutch florins. This monstrous 
vessel is to draw but 16 feet water when 
laden, and 10 feet unladen. The object of 
the government is to facilitate the intercourse 
between Holland and the Dutch East Indies; 
and it is calculated that about 40 days will 
be sufficient for the voyage, which may be 
effected with the consumption of about 
2,400,000 pounds of mineral coal.— Asiatic 
Journal. The cost appears to be about 
£71,700 sterling, if the florin mentioned be 
that which is equal to about one shilling and 
nine-pence halfpenny, English money. 

Arlificial Diamonds.—We mentioned, a 
short time since, the attempts of an expe- 
rienced French chemist to produce crystals of 
pure carbon, and his failure.—Since that 
time, M. Gannal has communicated the re- 
sult of his researches, as the action of phos- 
phorus in contact with the carburet of pure 
sulphur. This gentleman having to prepare 
a great quantity of carburet of sulphur, con- 
ceived the idea of separating the sulphur from 
this compound body, and thus to obtain pure 
carbon. For this purpose he employed phos- 
phorus, which he perceived by combining 
with the sulphur, the carbon was disengaged 
in the form of small crystals, possessed of all 
the properties of the diamond, and in par- 


203 


ticular of that of scratching the hardest bo- 
dies. The details of the experiment are as 
follow :—If several sticks of phosphorus be 
introduced into a matrass containing carbu- 
ret of sulphur, covered with water, the mo- 
ment the phosphorus comes in contact with 
the carburet, it melts as if it were plunged 
into water, having the temperature of 60 
or 70 degrees of the centigrade scale, and, 
becoming liquid, it unites to the lower part 
of the matrass. The whole mass is then di- 
vided into three distinct strata—the first 
formed of pure water, the second of carbu- 
ret of sulphur, the third of liquefied phospho- 
rus: if, then, the vessel be shaken, so that 
these different substances become mixed to- 
gether, the liquor becomes turbid and milky, 
and, after resting for some time, it separates 
again, but only into two strata—the upper 
one formed of pure water, the lower one of 
the phosphorus and the sulphur ; and there 
may be observed, between the stratum of 
water and that of the phosphorus and sul- 
phur, a very thin layer of a white powder, 
which when the matrass is exposed to the rays 
of the sun, displays prismatic colours, and 
which consequently appears to be formed of 
a multitude of small crystals. M. Gannal, 
encouraged by this experiment, endeavoured 
to obtain larger crystals, and has succeeded. 
He introduced into a matrass, placed in a 
perfectly quiet situation, at first eight ounces 
of water, then eight ounces of carburet of 
sulphur, and the same quantity of phospho- 
rus. As in the former experiment, the 
phosphorus was at first liquefied, and the 
three liquids arranged themselves according 
to their specific gravities. After twenty- 
four hours, there was found, between the 
stratum of water and that of the carburet of 
sulphur, an extremely thin pellicule of white 
powder, which contained some few bubbles 
of air, and different centres of crystallization, 
some formed by needles and extremely thin 
laminz, and the others by stars. At the 
end of some days, this pellicule gradually in- 
_creased in thickness. At the same time, 
the separation of the two inferior liquids 
became less well defined, and, after three 
months, they appeared to form only one and 
the same substance. Another month was 
allowed to elapse, but no farther change 
took place; and a method of separating the 
crystallized substance from the phosphorus 
and the sulphur, was then investigated, but, 
on account of the inflammability of the 
mixture, great difficulties were met with here. 
After many attempts, more or less unsuc- 
cessful, M. Gannal resolved to filter the 
whole through some chamois leather, which 
he then placed under a glass bell, in which 
he occasionally removed the air. At the 
end of a month, as this skin might be han- 
dled withoutinconvenience, it was folded up 
again, washed, and dried; and then this 
ingenious philosopher could examine the 
crystallized substance which remained upon 
it. Exposed to the solar ray, this substance 
presented.to him numerous crystals, reflect~ 


Varieties- 


[ Fes. 


ing all the colours of the rainbow. Twenty 
of these were sufficiently large to be taken 
up with the point of a knife: three others 
were of the size of a grain of millet. The 
last three being put into the hands of an ex- 
perienced jeweller, appeared to him real 
diamonds. They have since been submitted 
to the Institute of France, whose decision 
upon the subject we shall not fail to make 
known. 

Fossil Turtle.—Another of those inter- 
esting productions of nature, the fossil or- 
ganic remains of a sea-turtle, has been dis- 
covered, and is now in the possession of Mr. 
Deck, of Cambridge. It is imbedded in a 
mass of septaria, weighing upwards of a 
hundred and fifty pounds, with two fine 
specimens of fossil wood, and exhibits, in a 
most perfect state, this singular animal of a 
former world, once undoubtedly an inha- 
bitant of our shores. It was obtained in 
dredging for cement-stone, about five miles 
from Harwich, in three fathoms water, and 
as a mass of stone, been used for some 
time as a stepping block, from which hum- 
ble station it was accidentally removed, by 
its present possessor, for the admiration of 
the virtuosi. 

Friction of Screws and Screw-Presses. 
—An examination of the friction in screws, 
having their threads of various forms, has 
led a French engineer to this very important 
conclusion—that the friction in screws with 
square threads is, to that of equal screws with 
triangular threads, as 2°30 to 4°78, proving 


“a very important advantage of the former 


over the latter, relative to the loss of power 
incurred in both by friction. 

To render Platinum malleable.—The 
only paper of any consequence which has 
been communicated to the Royal Society, 
during the present session, is one by the 
late Dr. Wollaston, on a method of render- 
ing platinum malleable; and the details of 
the process, which, from long experience, 
he regards as the most effectual for the pur- 
pose, are as follow :—When the platinum 
is purified by solution in aqua regia and 
precipitation with sal ammoniac, sufficient 
care is seldom taken to avoid dissolving the 
iridiunr contained in the ore by due dilution 
of the solvent. The digestion should be 
continued for three or four days with a heat 
which ought gradually to be raised, and the 
fine pulverulent ore of iridium allowed to 
subside completely, before the sal ammoniac 
isadded. The yellow precipitate thus ob- 
tained, after being well washed and pressed, 
must be heated with the utmost caution, so 
as to expel the sal ammoniac, but, at the 
same time, produce as little cohesion as pos~ 
sible among the particles of platinum. It is 
then to be reduced to powder, first by rub- 
bing between the hands, and next by grind- 
ing the coarser parts in a wooden mortar; 
with a wooden pestle, because the friction 
with any harder surface would, by producing 
burnished surfaces, render them incapable 
of being welded together by heat. The 


1829. ] 


whole is then to be well washed in clean 
water.—In this process, the mechanical dif- 
fusion through water is made to answer the 
same purposes as liquefaction by heat in the 
case of other metals—the earthy impurities 
being carried to the surface by their superior 
lightness, and the effect of fluxes being ac- 
complished by the solvent powers of water. 
The grey precipitate of platinum being thus 
obtained, in the form of a uniform mud or 
pulp, is now ready for casting, which is ef- 
fected by compression in a mould formed of 
a brass barrel, six inches and a half long, and 
turned rather taper within, so as to facilitate 
the extraction of the ingot when formed. 
The platinum is first subjected to partial 
compression by the hand with a wooden 
plug, so as to expel the greater part of the 
water. It is then placed horizontally in an 
iron press, constructed so as to give great 
mechanical advantage to the power applied 
to produce compression. The cake of pla- 
tinum is then to be heated to redness by a 
charcoal fire, in order to drive off all the re- 
maining moisture—afterwards subjected to 
the more intense heat of a wind furnace— 
and, lastly, struck, with certain precautions, 
while hot, with a heavy hammer, so as effec- 
tually to close the metal. The ingot thus 
obtained may, like that of any other metal, 
be reduced by the processes of heating and 
forging to any other form that may be re- 
quired: it may then be flattened into leaf, 
drawn into wire, or submitted to any of the 
processes of which the most ductile metals 


Varieties. 


209 
are capable. The perfection of the above 
method of giving complete malleability to 
platinum, is proved by comparing the spe- 
cific gravity of a fine wire of that metal ob- 
tained by this process, which is found to be 
21-5 with that of a similar wire drawn from 
a button, which had been completely fused, 
by the late Dr. Clarke, with an oxy-hydrogen 
blow-pipe, and which the author ascertained 
was only 21-16. A farther proof of the ex- 
cellence of the method employed by Dr. 
Wollaston is derived from the great tena- 
city of the platinum thus obtained, as deter- 
mined by a comparison of the weights re- 
quired to break wires made of this metal 
so prepared, and similar wire of gold and of 
iron. These weights he found to be, in the 
proportion of the numbers, 590—500 and 
600 respectively. 

Boring for Water.—Among the various 
discoveriesand improvements that have lately 
taken place, none haye been more conducive 
to the general benefit of mankind, than the 

lan now adopted of procuring water by bor- 
ing to the main spring, the success of which 
is certain, and the results thence arising are 
known to be advantageous. We have so fre- 
quently heard of the failure of this process, 
in consequence of its being undertaken by 
inexperienced operators, that we are glad to 
make known the names of the engineers 
who introduced the practice into this coun- 
try, and by whom it has been carried on 
with the greatest success, Messrs. Goode, of 
Plough Court, Lombard Street. 


FINE ARTS’ EXHIBITIONS. 


Britton’s Picturesque Antiquities of 
English Cities.—In the absence of more 
imposing and popular novelties in Fine 
Arts, we have much pleasure in directing 
the public attention to a work under the 
above title, two numbers of which have 
already appeared, and the whole of which 
(to be completed in six numbers) promises 
to supply a fund of interesting matter not 
inferior in value and variety to the numerous 
publications of a somewhat similar nature 
which had previously gratified and instructed 
thelover of picturesque antiquity, and ofarchi- 
tectural beauty and curiosity, from the same 
source. We have had occasion to notice, with 
commendation, some of Mr. Britton’s pre- 
vious undertakings in illustrations of the ar- 
chitectural and antiquarian riches of our 
island, buthave not hitherto beenable to give 
them that detailed attention which their com- 
parative interest and importance seem to 
claim for them. 

The object of Mr. Britton’s new work is 
in some measure, but not fully, explained 
_ by the tithke—“ Pictaresque Antiquities of 

fhe Engi Cities.” It is intended as sup- 
entary to and illustrative of a most in- 
teresting work edited by Mr. Britton some 

M.M. New Series.—Vox. VII. No. 38. 


time ago, entitled “¢ Views of the English 
Cities,” the drawings for which were so 
charmingly executed by Mr. Robson. The 
present work is intended to include all the 
minor features which the nature of the other 
work precluded from introduction: such as 
the ancient bars, gates, posterns, sally-ports, 
ruins of towers, dungeon keeps, city walls, 
remains of churches, castles, mansions, &c. 
&c.; in short, every thing connected with 
our English cities, which unites in itself 
the two characteristics of picturesqueness 
and antiquity.—Each number of the work 
is to include an average of from nine to 
twelve highly-finished engravings, besides 
wood-cuts of minor subjects, which latter 
are to be introduced into the page of the 
letter-press that is to accompany the illus- 
trations. 

Portraits of the Female Nobility in La 
Belle Assemblée.—In looking on one, in 
particular, of the portraits which form part of 
the embellishments of La Belle Assemblée 
for January and February, 1829, we can- 
not help exclaiming, jiat juslitia, ruat 
celum ! which we will, on this occasion, 
interpret, “ Let justice be done, even though 
in doing it we hold up to admiration the 

2E 


210 Fine Arts’ 


merits of a rival magazine !’”,—a thing, we 
opine, as yet unheard of in the annals of 
periodical criticism. The truth is, that the 
art of pictorial embellishment has reached a 
height to which it never approached in for- 
mer times ; and its comparative cheapness is 
no less noticeable than its other merits. We 
have here two portraits, each of which would 
be cheap at the price of the whole publica- 
tion of which it forms the frontispiece merely. 
That of the Duchess of Northumberland is 
executed with great care, and the likeness has 
that individuality about it which almost proves 
it a resemblance. But the portrait of the 
Marchioness Wellesley is really an exquisite, 
and, in its way, a perfectly faultless work of 
art. There is no part about it that has not 


Exhibitions. [Frs. 
truth, force, and delicacy, each in a high 
degree, and the whole mingled together 
with singular taste and spirit. There is a 
brilliant precision in the character of the 
face ; the Sesh, of the left arm in particular, 
is alive and warm; the dress is admirably 
discriminated in its details; and the land- 
scape back-ground is delightfully tender and 
tasteful. Among the many excellent por- 
traits.of our English beauties, which this 
work has presented to the world, we cannot 
help looking upon this as the very best 
and most striking. The painter is Mr. 
Robertson, and the engraver Mr. Dean, 
who should congratulate himself when he 
hé&s such paintings to engrave from. 


WORKS IN THE PRESS AND NEW PUBLICATIONS. 


— 


WORKS IN PREPARATION. 


Genealogies of the present resident Families of 
each County, by Mr. Berry, Author of the Ency- 
clopedia of Heraldica, to begin with Kent and 
Sussex. 

A Treatise on Hydrostaties, by the Rey. H. 
'Phoseley, B.A. of St. John’s College, Cambridge. 

What must I do to be saved? by the Rey. 
Richard Warner. 

The publishers of The Boy’s Own Boy, have 
nearly ready, The Young Lady’s Book, a novel 
and elegant volume, highly embellished, devoted 
to the most favourite pursuits and recreations of 
young ladies. 

The Portraiture of a Christian Gentleman, by 
a Barrister. 

An Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone, made 
during the year 1819, by Jolin Hughes, A.M., of 
Oriel College, Oxford, illustrated by views from 
the drawings of De Wint, and engrayed inthe line 
manner. 

Holliday Dreams, or Light Reading in Poetry 
and Prose, by Isabel Hill, Author of The Poet’s 
Child, &c. 

An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, with explanations 
in Latin and English; and a Copious English 
Index. In 1 thick vol. 8vo. By the Rey. J. 
Bosworth. 

The Prize Essay on the Lever (embracing its 
numerous modifications in the Wheel and Axle, 
and Pulley). In this distinguished production of 
an Operative Mechanic, the errors of Gregory, 
Lardner (in the Society’s works for the diffusion 
of Useful Knowledge), Nicholson, and other emi- 
nent professors of mechanical science, are proved 
and corrected, while the theoretical part of the 
subject is mathematically treated. 

Men and Cities, or Traits of Travel. 
Author of Highways and Byways. 

The necessity of the Anti-pauper System, shewn 
by an example of the oppression and misery pro- 
duced by the Allowance System, which paralyzes 
the beneficial operation of Friendly Societies, 
Savings’ Banks, Select Vestries, well-managed 
Workhouses, and every other means of ameliora- 
ting the Condition of the Poor, By the Rey. J. 
Bosworth. 


By the 


A Second Edition of Mr. Derwent Conway’s 
Solitary Walks through many Lands. 

A Personal Narrative of a Journey through 
Norway, &c. By thesame Author, will form ao 
early volume of Constable’s Miscellany. | 

Bibliographica Cantabrigiensia ; or, Remarks 
upon the most valuable and curious Book Rarities 
in the University of Cambridge. Mlustrated by 
original Letters and Notes, Biographical, Lite- 
rary,and Antiquarian, By the Rey. C. H. Harts- 
horne, 

The Venetian Bracelet, and other Poems. 
L. E. L. 

Observations upon the Natural History of many 
remarkable or hitherto undescribed British Spe- 
cies, and a Catalogue of Rare Plants, collected in 
South Kent ; with coloured Illustrations, etched 
by the Author. By G, E. Smith, of St. John’s 
College, Oxford. To be published by subscrip- 
tion. 

A Practical Synopsis of Cutaneous Diseases, 
according to the arrangement of Dr, Willan, ex- 
hibiting a concise View of the Diagnostic Symp- 
toms, and the Method of Treatment. By Thomas 
Bateman, M.D., F.L.S.,&c. A New Edition, by 
A, T. Thomson, M.D., F.L,S., Professor of Ma- 
teria Medica in the University of London. 

Memoirs of the Administration of the Right 
Hon. Henry Pelham, chiefly drawn from Family 
Documents, and illustrated with Original Corres- 
pondence, never before published. By the Rey. 
Archdeacon Coxe. In 2 vols 4to., with Portraits, 
from Original Paintings in the possession of His 
Grace the Duke of Newcastle. 

Tales of the Wars of our Times. By the 
Author of Recollections of the Peninsula, &c. 

An Essay on the Operation of Poison upon the 
Living Body. By J. Morgan, Surgeon of Guy’s 
Hospital, and Thomas Addison, M.D., Assistant- 
Physician of Guy’s Hospital. 

Elements of Medical Science; containing the 
Gulstonian Lectures delivered at the Royal Col- 
lege of Physicians; with numerous Additions, 
illustrative of the comparative Salubrity, Lon-. 
gevity, Mortality, and Prevalence of Diseases, in 
the principal Countries and Cities of the Civilized 
World. By F. B. Hawkins, M.D. 

Some Account of the Writing and Opinions of 


By 


1829.] 


Justin Martyr. 
Tn 8yo. 

The Rey. Dr. Kennedy, Lecturer of Greek in 
the University of Dublin, is preparing a new edi- 
tion of the Agamemnon of Aschylus, to be accom- 
paniéd with the German Translation of Voss, and 
a new English Translation in blank verse. With 
copious Notes, Critical and Explanatory, and 
Indexes. In royal 8vo. 

Tractatus Varii Integri; being a Selection of 
the most valuable Productions of the Fathers of 
the Chureh during the first Four Centuries. By 
the Rey. Dr. Turton, Regius Professor of Divinity 
at the University of Cambridge, 8vo. 

The Rey. S. Wix has a Volume of Sermons on 
the Beatitudes and the Lord’s Prayer, inthe press. 

A Plain and Short History of England, for 
Children, in Letters from a Father to his Son. 
By the Editor of the Cottager’s Monthly Visitor. 

Mr. Atherstone will publish the remaining por- 
tion of his poem of the Siege of Nineveh, in the 
course of March. 


By the Lord Bishop of Lincoln. 


LIST OF NEW WORKS. 


BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY. 


History of the Peninsular War. 2 vols. 
#1), 11s. 6d. boards, 

The Modern History of England. Part 11.— 
Reigns of Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth, 
By SharonTorner. 4to. £2. Is. boards. 

Memoirs of the Affairs of Europe, from the 
Peace of Utrecht. By Lord John Russell. vol. 2. 
4to. £2. 2s. boards. 

The Life and Times of William Laud, D.D., 
Lord Bishop of Canterbury. By John Parker 
Lawson, M.A, 2yols, 8vo. 28s. 

A Reply to Sir Walter Scott’s History of Na- 
poleon. By Lewis Buonaparte. S8vo. 3s. 6d. 

The Searborough Collector, and Journal of the 
Olden Time. Plates,demy. 8vo, 6s. boards. 

The Annual Biography and Obituary for 1829. 
8yo, 15s. boards. 

Memoirs of Scipio de Ricci, late Bishop of 
Prato, Reformer of Catholicism in Tuscany, under 
the Reign of Leopold, &c. Edited from the origi- 
nal of M. De Potter, By Thomas Roscoe, 2 yols. 
8vo. 24s. 

The Ellis Correspondence, Letters written du- 
ring the Years 1686 7-8, and addressed to John 
Ellis, Esq., Secretary to the Commissioners of 
Revenue in Ireland, comprising many particulars 
of the Revolution, Edited from the Original, with 
Notes, &c. By the Hon, George Agar Ellis. 2 
vols, 8vo, 28s. boards. 

A Catalogue of Books, Ancient and Modern, in 
2 various Languages, and in every Department of 

_ Literature and Science, now on Sale. By John 

_ Heaton, Leeds. 1s. 6d. 


MEDICAL. 

An Elementary Compendium of Physiology, for 
the Use of Students. By F. Magendie, M.D. 
Translated from the French, with copious Notes, 
Tables, and Illustrations, by E. Milligan, M.D. 
Third Edition. 8vo. £1.18. boards. 

* Lectures on Comparative Anatomy. By Sir 
£, Home, Volumes V. and VL ; in which are ex- 
plained the Preparations in the Munterian Col- 
lection. 4to. £4. 4s, 
Medical Jurisprudence. By Dr. Forsyth. 8yo, 
. 6d. boards, 


8yo. 


List of New Works. 


211 


Wardrop on Aneurism. Post 8yo. 1Us. 6d. 
boards. 

A Chart of the Diseases of the Skin. By Jona 
than Green, Surgeon, &c. 

Cullen’s Practice of Physic, 2vols. Syo, 24s. 


boards, 
MISCELLANEOUS. 

The Slide Ruler’s Guide, being a Practical 
Treatise on the Use of the Artificer’s Common 
Slide Rule, as applied to Arithmetic, Mensura- 
tion of Superfices, Solids, Board, Timber Guag- 
ing, and Land Surveying, &c. By G.O. Lucas. 
2s. 6d. boards. 

Affection’s Offering, 2 Book of the Seasons. 
18mo. ° 4s. boards. 

Instructions on French Pronunciation, and om 
the Genders, in the form of a French Vocabulary 
and Reader. ByM.I. G. dela Voye. 4to. 

Early Impressions; or, Moral and Instructive 
Entertainments for Children,in Prose and Verse. 
12s. 6d. boards. 

The Annual Peerage of the British Empire, for 
}829, &c. 2vols. 18mo. 28s. 

Woolrych’s Commercial and Mercantile Law. 
8vo. 18s. boards. 

A Treatise on the Poor Laws. 
cock. 8vo. 18s. boards, 

County Album of England and Wales, with 400 
wood-cuts. 12mo. 5s. 6d, half-bound. 

The Modern Martyr. 2 vols. 12mo, 
boards. 

The Metres of the Greek Tragedians Explained 
and Illustrated. By J. M‘Caul, A.B. S8yo. 7s, 6d. 
boards, 

The Origin of the French Language; or, an 
Essay on French Literature, with Observations on 
various Plans of Education, &c. By G. Lea. 
12mo. 4s, 6d. sewed. 

Vincent’s School Atlas. 8vo. 12s. half-bound. 

The Oxford Atlas of Ancient Geography, with 


By Mr. Wil- 


10s. 


Illustrations. 4to. Coloured, £3, 3s., plain, 
£2. 12s. 6d. 

Gumersall’s Tables of Discount. 8yo. 25s. 
boards. 


History of Bullanabee and Clinkataboo, two 
recently-discovered Islands in the Pacific. 18mo. 
3s. 6d. boards. 

What is Luxury? Post 8vo. 8s. 6d. boards. 

An Essay on the Origin, Progress, and Decline 
of Rhyming Latin Verse, with many Specimens. 
By Sir A. Croke. 8vo, 7s. 6d. boards, 

A Treatise on Zodiacal Physiognomy. By John 
Varley. Part I. royal 8yo. 5s. sewed. 


NOVELS AND TALES. 

The Fate of Graysdall. A Legend. 
12mo, 14s. boards. 

Reginald Trevor, or the Welsh Loyalists,, A 
Tale of the Seventeenth Century. 3 vols. 12mo,. 
18s. boards. 

Sailors and Saints, or Matrimonial Maneuvres. 
By the Authors of the Naval Sketch Book. 3 vols. 
12mo. £1. lls. 6d. 

The Last of the Plantaganets. 
Romance, 8yo. 12s. boards. 

Rankand Talent. By the Author of Truckle- 
borough Hall. 3 vols. 12mo, £1. 8s. 6d. boards. 

The Ball, or aGlance at Almack’s. 8yo. 8s. 6d. 
boards. 

The Legendary, consisting of OrigiMal Pieces, 
principally illustrative of American History, 
Scenery, and Manners. Edited by N. P, Willis. 
12ino, 

252 


2 vols. 


An Historical 


212 


. The Fool of Quality. Edited by the Rey. John 
Wesley. 2vols. 18mo. 6s. boards, 


POETRY. 


Poems, Lyric, Moral, and Humorous. By 
Thomas Crossley. 12mo. 4s. boards, . 

Belgic Pastorals, and other Poems. By Francis 
Glasse, Esq. 12mo. 7s. boards. 

A New Year’s Eye, and other Poems, 
Bernard Barton, 8yo, 93. boards. 

Christmas Trifles; consisting principally of 
Geographical Charades, Valentines, and Poetical 
Pieces, for Young Persons. By Mrs, Reeve. 
18mo. 2s. 6d. boards, 

The Ruined City. 
James, Esq. 8vo. 

Woman’s Loye, or the Tria] of Patience. A 
Drama, in Five Acts. 2s, 6d. 

Christmas. A Poem. By Edward Moxon. 
12mo. 4s. boards. 

Montmorency, a Tragic Drama. 
Montagu. Crown 8yo. 5s. boards. 


By 


A Poem, ByG. P.R, 


By W.H. 


RELIGION, MORALS, &c. 


An Inquiry, What is the One True Faith, and 
whither it is professed by all Christian Sects? 
With an Exposition of the whole Scheme of the 
Christian Coyenant, in a Scriptural Examination 
of the most important of their several Doctrines. 
8yo. 12s. boards. 

The New Testament, with a Key of Reference 
and Questions, Geographical, Historical, Doc- 
trinal, Practical, and Experimental ; designed to 
facilitate the acquaintance of Scriptural Know- 
ledge in Bible Classes, Sunday and other Schools, 
and Private Families. By Henry Wilbur, A.M. 
4s, bound. 

Observations addressed to the Rey. H. Phill- 
potts, D.D., on his Letters to an English Lay- 
man respecting the Coronation Oath. By J. K. L. 
8vo. Is. 6d. 

Sermons Doctrinal and Practical, for Plain 
People. By G.R. Gleig, M.A. 8yo. 4s. 6d. 

Prayers of Eminent Persons, adapted to the 
purposes of Family Worship and Private Devyo- 
tion. By the Rey. Henry Clissold, A.M. 8yo. 

Friendly and Seasonable Advice to the Roman 
Catholies of England. Fourth Edition. By the 
Rey. W.F. Hook. 5s. boards. 

A Third Volume of Death-Bed Scenes, and 
Portral Conversations. 8yo, 12s. boards. 


List of New Works. 


(Fes. 


Wolf's Missionary Journal. Vol.3. 8yo. 8s- 
boards. 

A Companion to the Altar, with occasional 
Prayers. By George A. E. Marsh, A.M. Is. 6d. 
boards. 

Conversations on the Life of Jesus Christ, for 
the Use of Children. By a Mother. 

Liefchild’s Help to Reading the Scriptures. 
12mo. 2s. 6d. boards. 

The Christian Souvenir. 
bound. 

Bible Histories, with 52 engravings. 18mo., 
bound in silk. 12s. 


VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 


Twelve Years’ Military Adventure in Three 
Quarters of the Globe, or Memoirs of an Officer 
who served in the Armies of his Majesty, and of 
the East-India Company, between the Years 1802 
and 1814, 2vols. 8yo, 24s, 

Travels in Arabia, comprehending an Account 
of those Territories in the Hedjay which the 
Mohammedans regard as Sacred. By the late 
J.L. Burekhardt. 4to. £3. 13s, 6d, 

Journal of a Second Expedition into the Ins 
terior of Africa, from the Bright of Benin to 
Saccatoo. By the late Commander Clapperton, 
R.N. To which is added, the Journey of Richard 
Lander, from Kano to the Sea Coast, partly by a 
more Eastern Route, &c. 4to. £2. 2s. boards. 

Letters from an Eastern Colony, addressed toa 
Friend, in the Years 1826-27. By a Seven Year’s 
Resident. S8yo. 7s. boards. 

Memoirs of the Extraordinary Military Career 
of John Shipp, late a Lieutenant in His Ma- 
jesty’s 87th Regiment, Written by Himself. 3 
vols. 12mo. 30s. 

Franklin’s Journey to the Shores of the Polar 
Sea in 1819, 20, 21, 22, with a brief account of 
the Second Journey in 1825, 26,27. 4 vols. 18mo, 
20s. boards. 

The Present State of Van Diemen’s Land. By 
John Widowson, 8yo. 8s, 6d. boards. 
Guatimala in 1827-8. By L. Dunn, 

boards. 

Letters from the Agean. By J. Emerson, Esq. 
2vols. 12mo. 18s, boards. 

Historical and Descriptive Sketches of the 
Maritime Colonies of British America. By Js 
M‘Gregor. 8yo. 7s. boards, 


32mo. 3s. 6d. half- 


8vo. 9s. 


PATENTS FOR MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL INVENTIONS. 


New Patents sealed in January 1829. 

To Wiliiam Parr, of Union-place, City- 
road, and James Bluett, of Blackwall, Mid- 
dlesex, ship joiner, mast, block, and pump 
maker, for a new method of producing a reci- 
procating action by means of rotatory motion, 
to be applied to the working of all kinds of 
pumps, and other machinery, in or to which 
reciprocating action is required, or may be 
applied—Sealed, 22d December ; 2 months. 

George Rodgers, of Sheffield, Cutler ; 
Jonathan Cripps Hobson, of the same place, 
merchant, and Jonathan Brownill, of the 
same place, cutler, for certain improve- 
ments on Table Forks—23d December ; 
2 months. 


To Orlando Harris Williams, of North 
Nibley, Gloucestershire, Esq., for having in- 
vented certain improvements in the paddles 
and machinery for propelling ships and other 
vessels on water—7th January ; 6 months. 

To Septimus Gritton, of Pentonville, 
surgeon, and late of the Royal Navy, for 
an improved method of constructing paddles 
to facilitate their motion through water— 
7th January ; 2 months. 


To Francs Neale, of Gloucester, barrister- — 


at-law, for a machine, apparatus, or coim- 
bination of machinery, for propelling ves- 
sels—7th January ; 6 months. 

To William Taft, of Birmingham, harness 
maker, saddle and bridle cutler, for certai 


1829.) 


improvements in, or additions to, harness 
and saddlery; part, or parts of which im- 
provements or additions are applicable to 
other purposes—7th January; 6 months. 

To Archibald Robertson, of Liverpool, 
ship carver, for certain improvements in the 
construction of Paddles for propelling ships, 
boats, or vessels on water—7th January : 
6 months. 

To James Deakin and Thomas Deakin, 
of Sheffield, merchants and manufacturers 
of hardware, for certain methods of making 
from horns and hoofs of animals various 
articles—14th January ; 2 months. 

To John Dickinson, of Nash Mill, in the 
parish of Abbotts Langley, Hertford, paper 
manufacturer, for a new improvement in 
the method of manufacturlng paper by ma- 
chinery ; and also a new method of cutting 
paper and other materials into single sheets 
or pieces, by means of machinery—14th 
January ; 6 months. 

To Thomas Smith, of the borough of 
Derby, engineer, for an improved piece of 
machinery, which, being combined with 
parts of the steam engine, or other engines, 
such as pumps, fire engines, water wheels, 
air pumps, condensers, and blowing engines, 
will effect an improvement in each of them 
respectively—l4th January; 6 months. 

To Chuck Hewes, of Manchester, en- 
gineer, for various improvements in the 
form and construction of wind-mills and 
their sails—14th January ; 6 months. 

To John Uldney, of Arbour-terrace, Com- 
mercial-road, Middlesex, Esq., for certain 
improvements in the steam engine—l4th 
January ; 2 months. 

To William Erskin Cockrane, of Regent- 
street, for an improvement in or on paddle- 
wheels for propelling boats and other vessels 
—l4th January ; 6 months. 

To James Moore Ross, of Symond’s Inn, 


List of Patenis. 


213 
Middlesex, ironmonger, for an improved 
tap or cock for drawing off liquids—19th 
January ; 2 months. 

To John Hopper Caucy, of Aylesbury- 
street, Clerkenwell, Middlesex, for certain 
improvements in the construction of um- 
brellas and parasols—2Ilst January; 2 
months. 

List of Patents, which, having been granted 
in February 1815, expire in the present 
month of February 1829. 

4. John Wood, Manchester, for his im- 
provements im machinery for preparing 
and spinning cotton, wool, &c. 

— Joseph and Peter Taylor, Manches- 
ter, for their improvement in a loom for 
weaving cotton, worsted, silk, or other 
cloth. 

— James Thompson, Primrose-hill, 
Lancaster, for an improved process of 
printing cloth made of cotton, or linen, or 
silk. 

7. William Griffith, London, for an im- 
proved toast-stand. 

9. Richard Jones Tomlinson, Bristol, 
for improvements in the method of framing, 
Sc. the roofs of buildings. 

13. William Moult, London, for an im- 
proved mode of evaporation and subliming. 

21. Jonah Dyer, Wootton-under-edge, for 
an improved frame or machine for shearing 
woollen cloth. 

— Joseph Burrell, Thetford, for a sup- 
port and safeguard in getting in and ou} 
of chaises, and other two-wheeled carriages, 

28. Ralph Dodds, and George Stephen- 
son, Killingsworth, for their improvements 
in the construction of locomotive engines. 

28. Samuel Brown, London, for a rudder 
and apparatus for producing effects not 
hitherto practised or known. 


BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PERSONS. 


LIEUT. COLONEL WILLIAM DICKSON. 

This distinguished officer, (commanding 
the 7th regiment Bengal cavalry, at Kernaul, 
in the upper provinces, ) was in the 47th year 
of hisage. He was the eldest son of the late 
Thomas Dickson, Esq. of Southampton ; 
and, by his mother’s side, descended from 
Colonel Gardiner, whose confessions are 
well known, and who was killed at the head 
of his regiment at the battle of Preston Pans, 
in 1745. Colonel Dickson entered the army 
in 1802, and has all his life been in the ac- 
tive service of his country in the East Indies. 
He was noticed by Lord Lake for his gallant 
conduct in the campaigns of that General, 
and was twice severely wounded. For several 
years afterwards, the management of one 
of the principal stud departments was en- 
trusted to his superintendance. His merits 
as a cavalry officer were well known and 
appreciated by government; and, a very 


few months before his death, the highest 
eulogiums were passed on his meritorious 
conduct, and on the discipline of his regi- 
ment, by Lord Combermere. His death 
was suddenly produced by a violent fever, 
which cut short his career, just as he was 
on the eve of returning to his family in 
England, having completed his period of 
service, and earned an honourable retire- 
ment. This is the third brother who has 
fallen in the military service of the East 
India Company, either on the field of 
battle, or from the effects of the climate ; 
and his mother, who now survives him, at 
a very advanced age, has only one of her 
large family to soothe her declining age, 
(the present Peter Dickson, Esq. of South- 
ampton). Colonel Dickson was married at 
a very early age, and has left a widow and 
several children, who are, we believe, in 
England. He was a man of very consider- 


214 


able literary attainments, and of a cheerful 
disposition, temperate in his habits, a strict 
disciplinarian, but conciliatory and kind to 
those under his command; a warm and 
zealous friend, and an indulgent and affec- 
tionate husband and father. His remains 
were interred with the highest military ho- 
nours, the day after his death, the General 
commanding the station, and the troops, all 
attending the funeral. . 


THE EARL OF LIVERPOOL. 

The Right Honourable Robert Banks 
Jenkinson, Earlof Liverpool, Baron Hawkes- 
bury, of Hawkesbury, in the county of 
Gloucester, and a Baronet, K.G., late First 
Lord of the Treasury, a Lord of Trade and 
Plantations, a Commissioner for the Affairs 
of India, Constable of Dover Castle, War- 
den, Keeper, and Admiral of the Cinque 
Ports, a Governor of the Charter-House, an 
Official Trustee of the British Museum, 
Elder Master of the Trinity-House, and 
High Steward of Kingston, in the County 
of Surry, &c., was born on the 7th of June, 
1770. His lordship’s ancestors were settled, 
a century and a half ago, at Walcot, near 
Charlebury, in Oxfordshire. His great- 
grandfather, Sir Robert Jenkinson, Bart., 
married a wealthy heiress of Bromley, in 
Kent ; his grandfather, who was a colonel 
in the army, resided at South Lawn Lodge, 
in Wychwood Forest ; and his futher, Sir 
Charles Jenkinson, Bart., created Baron 
Hawkesbury, and afterwards Earl of Liver- 
pool, was first known in public life as Secre- 
tary to the Earl of Bute, in 1761. He 
afterwards filled some of the highest po- 
litical offices in the country. 

The late Earl’s mother, who died in the 
month succeeding his birth, was Amelia, 
daughter of William Watts, Esq., Governor 
of Fort William, Bengal. He was placed, 
at a very early age, at an academy at Par- 
son’s Green, Fulham ; whence, after mak- 
ing considerable proficiency in the classics, 
he was removed to the Charter-House, where 
also his father had been educated; and, 
from the Charter-House, he was sent to 
Christ Church College, Oxford. There he 
was distinguished amongst his associates—of 
whom the late Mr. Canning was one—ra- 
ther for assiduous attention to his studies 
than for those shewy qualities which fre- 
quently gain for young men a premature 
and unsound reputation for talent. Political 
economy is understood to have been the 
leading object of his attention. 

Mr. Jenkinson was at Paris, in 1789, at 
the very time when the Bastile was de- 
stroyed. He is said to have been an eye- 
witness of many of the most horrible crimes 
which were at that time perpetrated. At- 
tentively watching the progress of the Re- 
volution, he conveyed much important in- 
formation to Mr. Pitt upon the subject. 

After his return to England, in 1790, he 
was elected M. P. for the borough of Rye, 
twelve months before the attainment of his 


Biographical Memoirs of Eminent Persons. 


majority. The interval between the period 
of his election and that of his taking his 
seat, in 1791, he employed in a continental 
tour. His maiden speech was delivered in 
opposition to the resolutions of Mr. Whit- 
bread, respecting the war between the Em- 
press of Russia and the Ottoman Porte. 
His speech was distinguished by a profound 
knowledge of the subject, force of argument, 
and perspicuity of language.—In 1793, Mr. 
Jenkinson was appointed one of the Com- 
missioners for the Affairs of India; in 1794, 
he was made Commander of the Cinque 
Ports’ Cavalry ; and, in 1796, he was ap- 
pointed Master of the Mint, made a Privy 
Councillor, and named one of the Commis~ 
sioners for Trade and Plantations. On the 
retirement of Mr. Pitt, in 1804, he suc- 
ceeded Lord Grenville, as Secretary of State 
for Foreign Affairs; and, when Mr. Pitt 
returned to office, in 1804, on the renewal 
of the war, he quitted the Foreign for the 
Home office. 

On the 21st of August, 1806, in his fa- 
ther’s life-time, Mr. Jenkinson was sum- 
moned, by writ, to the House of Peers, as 
Baron Hawkesbury. When Mr. Pitt died, 
a few months before, he respectfully declined 
the offer of the premiership ; and, unable to 
retain office under Lord Grenville and Mr. 
Fox, he resigned. However, though in 
many points an opponent of ministers, he 
supported the war. When Mr. Pitt’s friends 
returned to power, in the following year, 
Lord Hawkesbury resumed his former sta- 
tion, still declining to take upon himself 
any higher office. On the death of the 
Duke of Portland, the nominal head of the 
ministry, in 1809, Mr. Perceval, the efficient 
chief, still finding Lord Hawkesbury (the 
death of whose father had just made him 
Earl of Liverpool) averse to the premiership, 
united in his own person the two offices of 
Lord High Treasurer and Chancellor of the 
Exchequer. The Earl of Liverpool then 
became Secretary of State for the War 
Department.—The deplored assassination 
of Mr. Perceval, in 1812, left the ministry 
in so disjointed a state, that Lord Liverpool 
yielded to the request of the Prince Regent, 
to place himself at its head. This was 
deemed a fortunate event for the country ; 
the unimpeachable integrity, high honour, 
and eminent moral worth of his lordship, 
stamping respectability on the cabinet, and 
inspiring foreign as well as domestic confi- 
dence. It would be a waste of time to fol- 
low the Noble Lord in his political career. 
To his lasting credit, as a statesman, he 
conducted the most arduous war in which 
this country had ever been engaged, to an 
honourable, successful, and triumphant close. 
Perhaps the most difficult task which he 
ever had to perform, was that of introducing 
and carrying forward the Bill of Pains and 
Penalties against Queen Caroline, in 1820. 
His conduct was distinguished by tempe- 
rance ; but there are yet many who con- 
sider that, by abandoning the Bill—proba- 


[Fes. 


1829.] 


bly through a weakness of nerve—he failed 
in performing an act of justice to his Sove- 
reign. 
The noble Earl continued to hold the 
high office of Premier of England until 1827. 
On the 17th of February, in that year, his 
lordship was attacked by a stroke of apo- 
plexy, from which he never recovered. So 
strong, however, were the hopes of his re- 
covery, and so anxious was his Majesty that 
he might be enabled to resume the functions 
of his office, that the premiership was not 
transferred to Mr. Canning, who had re- 
garded himself as his successor, till the 10th 
of April. His lordship remained until the 
period of his death—which took place on 
Thursday, the 4th of December, 1828—in 
a state incapable of discharging any public 
duty, and seldom able to hold intercourse 
even with his nearest friends. His death, 
however, at Coombe Wood, wassudden and 
unexpected ; as, for some time previously, 
bis lordship had been in rather better health 
than usual. His remains were, on the Mon- 
day following, removed to the family vault 
at Hawkesbury, in Gloucestershire. The 
funeral ceremony was of an unostentatious 
character. A handsome mourning hearse, 
drawn by six horses, preceded by mutes bear- 
ing the coronet and the armorial distinctions 
of the deceased, was followed by three 
mourning-coaches and six, containing the 
domestics of his lordship’s establishment ; 
then came his lordship’s own carriage, fol- 
lowed by those of his brother and the Mar- 
quis of Bristol; afterwards, that of his 
Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence, who, 
unsolicited, paid this mark of respect to his 
deceased neighbour. The carriages of Vis- 
count Sidmouth, and C. N. Pallmer, Esq., 
M.P., closed the procession. 
Of the Earl of Liverpool’s political cha- 
_ racter, it can hardly be necessary to speak. 
His information was extensive, varied, and 
Solid; his abilities were rather sound than 
splendid ; his judgment was perhaps more re- 
markable for its accuracy than for its acute- 
ness. In private life, his lordship, distin- 
guished by benevolence, charity, and every 
amiable quality, was universally beloved. 
He was twice married: first, in 1795, to 
Lady Theodosia Louisa Hervey, daughter 
of the late, and sister of the present Earl of 
_ Bristol ; secondly, in 1822, to Miss Chester, 
the daughter of a clergyman long since de- 
ceased, and sister of Sir Robert Chester. 
is first Countess died in 1821 ; his second 
survives him. Dying without issue, his 
lordship is succeeded by his half-brother, 
Charles Cecil Cope Jenkinson, the son of 
the first earl, by his second wife, daughter of 
Sir Cecil Bishop, of Parham, in the county 
of Sussex, Bart., and widow of Sir Charles 
Cope, of Orton Longueville, Bart. The 
oct nobleman was, some time since, 
nder Secretary in the Colonial and War 
Department. 


ee 


Biographical Memoirs of Eminent Persons. 


215 


THE REV. DR. NICOLL. 

‘The Rey. Alexander Nicoll, D.D., one 
of the Canons of Christ Church Oxford, 
and Regius Professor of Hebrew in that 
University, was born in 1793. He was a 
native of Aberdeenshire : his parents, hum- 
ble in their walk of life, were eminently 
respectable in character. Educated at the 
college of Aberdeen, he was, by the kind- 
ness of the late Bishop Skinner, sent to 
Oxford, at the early age of fifteen, and 
elected to an exhibition in Baliol College. 
There, but for his constitutional shyness, 
he would have cbtained the honours of first 
class degree, in both classics and mathe- 
matics ; but, failing in that object, he took 
pupils, with one of whom he some time tra- 
velied. Weary of that mode of life, how- 
ever, he settled in Oxford, where he ob- 
tained the appointment of under librarian 
in the Bodleian Library. There, availing 
himself of the vast treasure of oriental ma- 
nuscripts, chiefly uncatalogued, he made 
himself complete master of the Hebrew, 
Arabic, Persic, Syrian, Ethiopic, Sanscrit, 
and various other eastern dialects. He 
drew up and published a catalogue of the 
manuscripts brought from the East by Dr. 
E. D. Clarke; and he entered upon the 
Herculean labour of completing the general 
catalogue of the oriental manuscripts in the 
Bodleian Library—more than thirty thou- 
sand in number—which had been com- 
menced a century before by Uri, the cele- 
brated Hungarian. This procured for 
Mr. Nicoll, a splendid literary reputation 
throughout Europe. In the course of his 
frequent visits to the continent, he had 
examined every great collection of oriental 
manuscripts in this quarter of the world. 
His correspondence with foreign literati 
was conducted principally in Latin; but 
he also spoke and wrote, with ease and ac- 
curacy, French, Italian, German, Danish, 
Swedish, and Romaic. 

On Dr. Lawrence’s promotion to the See 
of Cashel, Dr. Nicoll, through the unso- 
licited influence of the late Earl of Liver- 
pool, succeeded to the Hebrew chair at 
Oxford ; a promotion which changed his 
situation in life from £200 a year to nearly 
£2,000; and from an under librarian of 
the Bodleian Library, he took rank, as Re- 
gius Professor, and as Canon of Christ 
Church, to the first dignities of the Uni- 
versity. This event occurred in the sum- 
mer of 1822. 

Dr. Nicoll’s unremitting exertions proved 
too much for a frame not originally vigo- 
rous; and an inflammation in the trachea 
carried him off suddenly, at Oxford, on the 
24th of September. Dr. Nicoll was twice 
married ; first to a Danish lady, who died 
suddenly, in 1815; and, some years after- 
wards, to Sophia, daughter of the Rey. J. 
Parsons, the learned editor of the Oxford 
Septuagint. The latter lady, and one daugh- 
ter, survive. 


[ 216 ] [ Fes. 


MONTHLY AGRICULTURAL REPORT.. 


THE most important relative topic is the FROosT—and it is gone ; in all probability not 
to return during the present season. It was ardently and impatiently desired by the whole 
countty, not only as most congenial and salubrious in our climature, as Marshall would say, 
were he living, but for especial and most important purposes in our agricultural system— 
the natural draining and moulding of our heavy lands, rendering them friable and cultur- 
able, checking inordinate luxuriance in the wheat plant, changing myriads of slugs and 
insectite vermin into a manure, instead of a devouring plague; and surely last of all, 
compelling the farmer to take his stock home to the fold, that they might eat up his super- 
abundance of fodder and of hay, lest he should, like Midas, be surfeited and undone by 
the excess of that, which he had so eagerly coveted and sedulously stored up. Thus the 
world wags; we are at one time overburthened with that which at another time we are 
exerting ourselves velis et remis, omnibus nervis, to obtain, and are at last probably and 
sorrowfully compelled to go without. The frost in our county, commencing on the 17th, 
continued nine days, acting very beneficially in the respects above stated. With respect to 
slugs, grubs, and wire-worms, we have ourselves formerly tried lime, and the nonsense of 
turning flocks of ducks upon the wheat, without any perceptible benefit ; the vermin would 
yet remain through the spring, unless destroyed by severe frost. The only remedy in our 
power, is heavy rolling, early and frequent, in order to crush and destroy the ova of the 
marauders, and so practice the noble cure of prevention. A month’s continuance of the 
frost, would have been of immense benefit to the lands, wherever there isany depth of soil. 
Tt has been said that wheat, after fallow, is never slugged; the land then, must have been 
well and frequently heavy rolled. 

Until the commencement of the frost, live stock, in general, were abroad and doing 
remarkably well, excepting that the tread of heavy cattle was mischievous upon wet and. 
tender soils ; and that sheep at turnips on such soils were much in want of shelter during 
the high winds. In fact, unless upon the best lands, the turnip has been running away 
fast, the bulb losing its size and substance, and retaining very small power of nutrition. 
Of this tribe the rwtabaga, or Swedish turnip, alone can be depended on, in either moist or 
frosty seasons ; and we submit to those flock and stock masters, who have a sufficient breadth 
of grass land, whether it would not be to their interest, to confine their culture of the com- 
mon roots to the Swedish turnip and Mangold, with the caution, however, that the latter be 
not brought into use until it shall have passed through its sweating process, as several acci- 
dents came under our notice in the late autumn, of cattle blown, and dangerously affected 
by the too early use of that root. Generally, its use should not commence until about the 
present time. Considerable stock farmers, whose turnips have failed, allow their sheep full 
feeds of corn, oats, and beans. Such a process continued, will no doubt clap two or three 
stone upon the backs of the sheep ; and as a valuable addition, will so enrich the manure, as 
to have permanent effects on the land. Generally, however, never has live stock been 
maintained better, and at less expence, than during the present season. This fortunate 
abundance of keep, will have the effect of preventing flesh meat from rising to any exor- 
bitant price in the spring, since it has compelled all who had it in their power to provide 
stock to graze their lands ; and the common sense of the present Ministry, to do them justice, 
by that well timed national measure, passing the corn bill, have secured a similar advantage 
in the still more important article, BREAD. A considerable supply of flour is expected from 
the us flaminica. There is little variation in the price of flesh meat, fat or lean stock ; the 
latter still held too dear to return a profit to the feeder ; store pigs, indeed, are quoted still 
higher ; and by the invariable scarcity and high price, through such a number of years, an 
occurrence unprecedented in former days, it is obvious that the national stock and breed is 
upon too limited a scale. Our musical farmers prefer the lowing of cattle and bleating of 
sheep, to the grunting of nasty pigs. Fat hogs are worth about sixpence per lb. in the 
distant counties. It is universally expected that the fall of lambs in the spring will be 
uncommonly large, from the favourable circumstance of the ewes having been so fully fed 
during the autumn and winter. 

Wheat, besides being a most extensive crop, is almost universally, a strong and good plant, 
upon the best lands, fully tillered and stooled, no material damage having yet occurred ; 
the same may be said of winter tares, clover, and seeds of every description ; but the last 
year’s seeds were a defective crop, with the exception of hop-clover or trefoil. Clover and 
sainfoin, though considerable in bulk, are yet poorly in seed, whether as to quantity or quality. 
The lands are generally in great forwardness, and ready for the seed furrow. The short 
interval of frost was employed in carting manure or mending roads. Fine malting barley 
is very scarce, and must be dearer ; the crop having been large, it may be supposed the 
inferior surplus will be used, to some extent, in the country, as horse-feeds, which will have 
considerable effect in moderating the excessive import of oats. Hay and fodder of all kind 


/ 


1829.] Monthly Agricultural Report. 217 


declining in price. It is remarked, that wheat and barley only, are dearer at the present, 
than at the same period in 1827; all other farm produce cheaper. Hops dull of sale, with 
no prospect of a rising market. This article has long been a deceptive one to the specu- 
lator, showing that the annual growth and quantity on hand, have far exceeded the general 
opinion. Wool scarcely need be mentioned, but for the purpose of remarking, that with 
respect to fine, if our flock masters-will not grow fine wool, they ought not to expect a fine 
price, nor be so unreasonable as to expect legislative compulsion in their favour. From 
Scotland, as usual, we receive the most favourable accounts, and the fewest complaints, 
from the cultivators of the soil, and from the labourers. It may be, perhaps, a useful and 
profitable question for us to ask ourselves in the south—why is this so ? 


Smithfield. — Beef, 2s. 2d. to 5s. 0d.—Mutton, 2s. 8d. to 5s. 2d.—Veal, 4s. 8d. to 5s. 2d. 
—Pork, 5s. 2d. to 5s. 6d.+Raw fat, 2s. 7d. 


Corn Exchange.—Wheat, 48s. to 92s.—Barley, 27s. to 42s.—Oats, 15s. to 32s, 
—Bread, London 4 ib. fine loaf, 1s.—Hay 50s.—Clover ditto, 70s. to 105s.— 
Straw 30s. to 38s. } 

Coals in the Pool, 35s. 6d. to 42s. 9d. per chaldron, 


Middlesex, January 26th. 


MONTHLY COMMERCIAL REPORT. 


Sucanrs.—Tne demand for Muscavadoes has continued general and extensive ; the 
estimated sales of last week were 300 hogsheads; the good and the fine sold at rather 
higher rates ; the low browns were more inquired after, on account of the scarcity of good 
sugars ; but no improvement of the:prices could be stated, as the holders met the demand 
freely, on account of their being so long neglected, and the great proportion of stock being 
of soft low brown descriptions. The refined market continued to attract attention last 
week ; the sales of fine goods were on an extensive scale, and the low goods for export 
were nearly cleared of the: market. Several sales of crushed were reported. Bastards 
were in great demand, ‘and were 2s. higher. Molasses, dull._Foreign Sugars. There 
haye been several arrivals of Havannah and Brazil sugars lately, but none are reported.— 
Last-India Sugars. There are inquiries after good Mauritius sugars, but few are offering 
in the market ; the crop is reported to be late, and nearly one-third less than last year. 
In Bengal sugars no sales are reported.— West-India Molasses, There are no sales of 
‘any extent to report. , 
Correr.—There was a slight improvement in the demand and in the prices of Coffee 
last week. A large parcel of Brazil descriptions, old to fine old, sold at 34s. 6d. @ 37. 6d. ; 
and, afterwards, a large proportion were sold at the advance of ls. per cwt. The inquiries 
___ after Coffee by private contract considerably revived last week ; and, if the holders had met 
4 the demand at the market -prices, the transactions would have been extensive. A small 
_ portion of good old St. Domingo was made at 37s. 6d. ; 

_ Tattow.—The demand for Tallow was brisk and extensive last week, but the request 

esterday and this forenoon is not so general ;- the prices are a shade lower. In Hemp or 

Flax there is little alteration. | ¥ 

Course of Foreign Exchange.—Amsterdam, 12. 1.—Rotterdam,12. 1}.— Antwerp, 
12. 2.__Hamburgh 13. 113. — Paris, 25. 35.—Frankfort,, 151.— Petersburgh, 10.— 
Vienna, 10. 2,—Madrid, 37}.—Cadiz, 374.—Bilboa, 374.—Barcelona, 363.—Seville, 37. 
_ —Gibraltar, 46.—Leghorn, 43.—Genoa, 25.—Venice, 474.—Bordeaux, 25. 65.—Naples, 
_ 89%.—Palermo, 120.—Lisbon, 45.—Oporto, 46.—Rio Janeiro, 274.—Bahia, 35.— 

Buenos Ayres, 0/.—Dublin 14.—Cork, 14. : 
gene 


- Bullion per Oz.—Portugal Gold in Coin, £0. 0s. Od.—Foreign Gold in Bars, 
» 17s. 104d.—New Doubloons, £3. 16s. — New Dollars, 4s. 93d. — Silver in Bars, 
rea ), £0+0s. Od. 
Premiums on Shares tnd Canals, and Joint Stock Companies, at the Office of 
Wotrr, Brothers, 23, Change Alley, Cornhill.—Birmingham Canaz, 295/.—Coven- 
try, 1,080—Ellesmere and Chester, 1103/.—Grand Junction, 295/.—Kennet and Avon, 
27}/.—Leeds and Liverpool, 4607.—Oxford, 700/.—Regent’s, 244/.—Trent and Mersey, 
Gs), 7951.—W arwick and Birmingham, 255/,—London Docks (Stock), 853/.—West 
ndia (Stock), 200/.—East London WarEer Works, 117/.—Grand Junction, —/.— 
West Middlesex, 687.—AViance British and Foreign INsuRANCE, 9}/.—Globe, 1514/.— 
Guardian, 23/.—Hope Life, 5}/,—Imperial Fire, 105/.—Gas-Liauz Westminster Char- 
tered Company, 524/.—City, 185/.—British, 15 dis.—Liceds, 195/. 


M.M New Serics.—Vou.VI. No. 3.8 2F 


-¥ 
‘ 


{ 218 J] 


LFes. 


ALPHABETICAL LIST OF BANKRUPTCIES, 


Announced from the 22d of December, 1828, to the 21st of January, 1829 ; extracted from 


BANKRUPTCIES SUPER- 
SEDED. 
J. Cork, New Bond-street, silk-mer- 
cer. 
J. Turner, Hatherleigh, spirit-mer- 
chant 
BANKRUPTCIES. 

[ This Month, 115.] 
Solicitors’ Names are in 
Parenthesis. 

Brooke, T. Bradley, farmer. (Clarke 


and Co.,  Lincoln’s-inn-fields 5 
Whitehead and Co., Hudders- 
field 


Brooke, M. Sheepridge, fancy manu- 
facturer. (Clarke and Co. Lin- 
coln’s-inn-fields 3 Whitehead and 
Co., Huddersfield 

Beaumont, J. B. Newcastle-under- 
Lyme, Stafford, common-brewer. 
(Ewington and Co., Bond-court, 
Walbrook 

Butcher, J. jun, Coal Exchange, 
coal-factor. (Rankin and Co., Ba- 
singhall-street 

Brewin, T. Melton Mowbray, mercer. 
(Holme and Co., New Inn 3 Bishop, 
Melton Mowbray 

Beckwith, G. Batty-street, Commer- 
cial-road, coach-maker. (Horsley, 
Commercial-road 

Boindley, J. Shelton, earthen-ware 
manufacturer. (Wheeler, Gray’s- 
Inn; Griffen, Shelton 

Cottreli, J. Pangbourn, 
(white, Lincoln’s-inn 3 
Wallingford 

Coucher, T. Worcester, victualler. 
(white, Lincoln’s-inn 

Cauty, T. H. H. Pall-Mall, auc- 
tioneer. (Ford, Pall-mall 

Carrington, J. Ludgate-hill, linen- 
draper. (Ewington and Co., Bond- 
court, Walbrook 

Cooper, W. Nottingham, wine-m er- 
chant. (Hurd and Co., Temple 5 
Fearnhead and Co., Nottingham 

Costerton, S. Great Yarmouth, 
brewer. (Butterfield, Gray’s-inn 5 
Fisher, Great Yarmouth 

Cardinal, J. Leicester, currisr. (San- 
dom, Dunster-court, Mincing ~ 
lane 

Chadwick, T.Crab-Eye, Heap, Lanc., 
cotton-spinner. (Wheeler, Gray’s- 
inn , Halsall, Middlesex, near Man- 
chester 

Cooper, S. Newington, builder. 
(Fisher and Rhodes, Davies-street 

Duffy, W. Spital-square, silk-manu- 
facturer. (Surfoot, Temple 

Dodgson, T. and T. Hartley, Cheap- 
side, warehousemen, (Bell and Co., 
Bow Church-yard, or James, Buck- 
lersbury 

Duncombe, W. Broomserove, builder. 
(Simcox, Birmingham 

Drew, J. Cheltenham, builder. (Bous- 
field, Chatham-place 3 Rayner and 
Co., Cheltenham 

Don, T. Holland-street, engineer. 
(Bowden and Co., Aldermanbury 

Edwards, W. Derby, bookseller. 
(James, Charlotte-row, Mansion- 
house 

Ferguson, T. Catterick-bridge, inn- 
keeper. (Williamson, Gray’s-inn 5 
Glai:ter, Bedale, York 

Fox, J. and T. R. Trapps, Church- 
court, drysalters. .(Steyens and Co.) 
St. Thomas Apostle 


innkeeper. 
Hodgesy 


the London Gazette. 


Foster, E-. H. 
wine-merchant. 
dred’s-court 

Ferneley, T. Thrussington, coach 
maker. (Emley and Sanger, Tem- 

le 

Firth, J. Heckmondwike, merchant. 
(Stevens and Co., Giay’s-inn 5 Carry 
Gomersal 

Forsyth, J. C. Milk-street, silk-ma- 
nufacturer. (Leigh, George-street, 
Mansion-house 

Gisborne, H. P. Manchester, mer- 
chant. (Hurd and Co., Temple5 
Heslop, Manchester 

Gordon, L. Westmoreland-place, and 
Lewisham, _ black-lead-manufactu- 
rer. (Bolton, Austin-friars 

Glover, W. Wood-street, woollen-fac- 
tor. (Lucket, Wilson-street 

Goss, T, Newton Abbot, Devon, 
mercer. (Williams, North-placey 
Gray’s-inn-road 

Gregory, B. Brighton, druggist. (Rose, 
Essex-street 

Green, G. Little Chester-street, cow= 
keeper. (Carlon, High-streeet, 
Marylebone 

Godwin, J. Manchester, flour-dezler. 
(Milne and Co., Temple; Ains- 
worth and Co., Manchester 

Griggs, R. jun., prisoner for debt in 
Dover Castle, farmer. (Dawson and 
Co., New Boswell-court 5 Kennett, 
Dover 

Heale, R. Mincing-lane, grocers 
(Pearce and Co., St. Swithin’s-lane 

Hammond, G. Eye, victualler. (Slade 
and Co., John-srreet, Bedford-row 5 
Mariotts, Stowmarket 


Lincoln’s-inn-fields, 
(Scott, St. Mil- 


Hyde, L. ,Horsley, clothworker, 
(Beetham and Sons, Freeman’s- 
court 


Haslam, J. Bolton-le-Moyrs, tripe- 
dresser. (Hurd and Co., Temple, 
Pendlebury, Bolton 

Hammerton, J. near Holywell, Flint, 
wire-maker. (King, Castle-street, 
Holborn 5 Oxley, Rotherham 

Holroyd, W. Old Bailey, eating-house 
keeper. (Bowden and Co,, Alder- 
manbury. 

Hetherington, F. St. John-street, 
Clerkenwell, cheesemonger. (Crow= 
ther, Newgate-street 

Hartley, J. Liverpool, victualler, 
(Adlington and Co., Bedford-row 5 
Brown, Liverpool 

Hodson, R. Camberwell, upholsterer. 
(Parker, Furnival’s-inn 

Higgins, J. jun., Lancaster, scrivener. 
(Wheeler, Gray’s-inn 5 Robinson, 
Lancaster 

Jones, M. Brinmawor, Brecon, iron- 
monger. (Poole and Co, Gray’s 
inn; Cornish and Son, Bristol 

King, C. jun., Halesworth, carpen- 
ter. (White and Co., Great St. 
Helens ; White and Co., Halesworth 

Keer, W. Southend,; linen-draper. 
(Jones, Size-lane 

Kendrick, J. and T. Bruze, Tipton, 
engineers. (White, Lincoln’s-inn 5 
Smith, Walsall 

Leekie, W. Adam’s-court, Old Broad- 
street, insurance-broker, Oliyerson 


and Co., Frederick’s-plicey Old 
Jewry 
Lee, J. Leeds, tea-dealer. (Strange- 


ways and Co., Barnard’s-inn 5 Scott 
and Co., Leeds 

Logan, D. Brighton, builder. (Sow- 
ton, Great James-streety Bedford- 
row; Attree, Brighton 


Lambert, S. North Shields, grocer. 
(Bell and Co., Bow Church-yard 5 
Carr and Co.,; Newcastle-upon- 
Tyne 

Lawrence, J. B. Great St. Helens, 
scrivenir. (Vincent, Temple 

Layton, J. Kentish Town, stock- 
broker. (Wilkinson and Co,. Buck- 
lersbury 

Leighton, T. H. late of Bread-street- 
hill, and Blyth, Northumberland, 
chemist. (Plumptree, Temple 5 
Cram, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. 

Mellor, D. Lane Top, Almondbury, 
clothier. (Battye and Co., Chan- 
cery-lare 3 Cloughs and Co., Hud- 
dersfield 5 

Morrah, M. Worthing, apothecary. 
(Hillier and Co., Gray’s-inn ; Tribe, 
Worthing 

Morley, W. Manchester, factor. 
(Willis and Co,, London, or Wilson, 
Manchester 

Meyer, H. Red Lion-square, print- 
seller. (Jeyes, Chancery-lane 

Monson, Honourable Katherine, Chel- 
tenham, builder and hallier, (King, 
Serjeant’s-inn 5 Strafford and Coxy 
Cheltenham 

Marshall, J.. Vere-street, linen-dra- 
per. (Bartlett and Co., Nicholas- 
Jane 

Middiecoat, W. Walworth, coal-mer- 
chant. (Matlock, Southampton- 
street, Bloomsbury 

Mason, R. Norwich, earthenware- 
man. (Francis, New Buswell- 
court ; Beart, Great Yarmouth 

M’Kee, S. Liverpool, merchant. 
(Blackstock and Co.,, Temple3 
Bardswell and Son, Liverpool. 

Manger, J- Mount-street, grocer, 
(Brooks, Lincoln’s-inn-fields 

Newton, J. Dissington, joiner. (Hol- 
der, Clement’s-inn 5 Walker, White- 
haven 

Nicholson, W- Manchester, broker. 
(Makinson and Co. Temple 5 Oliver, 
Manchester 

Orton, R. N. Ashted, scrivener, (Nor- 
ton and Co., Gray’s-inn; Spurrier 
and Co., Birmingham 

Ostler, S. Helston, grocer. (Brown, 
Cook’s-court, Carey-street 

Prior, R. Hillingdon, chair-maker. 
(Poole and Co y Gray’s-inn 5 Riches 
and Co., Uxbridge 

Pound, G. Brudonell-place, New 
North-road, builder. (Young and 
Co., Mark-lane 

PohJman, J. G. Kentish Town, book. 
seller. (Parker, Furnival s-inn 

Pearson, J. Manchester, flour dealer, 
(Hurd and Co. Temple 5 Higson 
and Co., Manchester 

Parker, S. Dublin, draper. (Brit- 
tan, Basinghall-street 5 Beevan and 
Co., Bristol ; 

Pyne, W. Great Scotland-yard, bro- " 
ker. (Venning and Co., Copthale — 
court " 

Powell, H. Boroughbridge, corn-fac- — 
tor. (Dawson and Co., New Bos- _ 
well court; Hirst, Boroughbridge 

Rawlinson, J. King’s Cliffe, grocer. 
(Fladgate and Co., Essex-street 5 
Jackson, Stamford i 

Ree, J. Aston, Hereford, dealer, — 
(Fitch, Southwark 5 Coates and Co. 
Leominster 

Ruppenthal, E. Pall-Mall, wine-mer- 
chant. (King, Bedford-place 

Remington, W., R. Stephenson, D, Re 
Remington, and J. Ps Toulmin, 


1829.] 


Lombard-street, bankers. 
and Co,, Leadenhall-street 

Rowley, W. G. Leeds, hatter. (Ro- 
binson, Pancras-lane, Queen-street 

Rose, F. B, High-street, Southwark, 
dealer, (Clutton and Co. High- 
street, Southwark 

Rolling, C. Moorgreen, Notts, lace- 
mianfacturer. (Hurd and Co., Tem- 
ple 5 Hopkinson, Nottingham. 

Smith, T. and T. Hall, Wcou-street, 
warehousemen, (Bolten, Austin- 
Friars 

Swindall, W. Worksop, grocer, (Al- 
len and Co., Carlisle-street 3 Beard- 
Shaw, Worksop 

Sands, W. Leeds, tailor. (Few and 
Co., Henrietta-street 5 Bloome and 
Co., Leeds 

Shiers, T. Huddersfield, wool-stzpler.s 


(Barrow 


Bankrupts. 


Sloper, J. D. Stone-street, shoemaker. 
(Cates, Rebert-street, Adelphi 

Thomas, J. Burslem, grocer. (Wil- 
son, Inner Temple; Hilliard, Leek 

Tooteil, J. Heaton-Norris, ircn foun- 
der, (Tyler, Temple 5 Lingard and 
Co., eaton-Norris 

Thomas, R.- Piccadilly, livery-stable 
keeper. (Ford, Pall-Mail 

Thomas, E. and W. Park-laney horse- 
dealers. (Stevens, Hatton-garden 

Wright, J. Ashton-under-Lyne, cot- 
ton manufacturer. (Clarke and Co., 
Lincoin’s-inn-fields ; Higginbott.m, 
Ashton-under-Lyne 

Webb, G. and J. Stewart, Thread- 
needle-street,. merchants. (Spurr 
and Leach, Wamford-court 

Warne, G. Clifton, hotel-keeper. 
(Poole and Co., Gray’s-inn 3 Cor- 


liner and dress-maker. (Richard~ 
son, Golden-square 

Watts, J. Brighton, builder. (Lowe 
and Sor, Southampton Buildings 5 
Evans, Carnarvon 

Whiteside, J. Whitehaven, merchant. 
(Falcon, Temple 5 Ho:!gson, White- 
haven 

White, G- Worthing, 
(Wise, Harpur-street 5 
Worthing 

Whiting, W. Manchester, oi)-manu- 
facturer. (Swain and Co., Fre- 
derick’s-place 

Wyatt, T. Hunter-street, Kent-road, 
flour-tactor. (Wright, Little Aylie- 
street 

Williams, R. Great Surrey-street, 
piano-forte maker, (Hume and Co,, 


whitesmith. 
Edmunds, 


(Battye and Co., Chancery-lane 5 
Stevenson, Holmfirth 

Swonnell, W. and J. Harley, Nzg’s- 
Head-court, Gracechurchestreet, 
dealers in drugs, (Templar, Great 
‘Tower-srreet 

Spilier, R. Lansdown Mews, Guild- 
ford-street, stone mason. (Hall 
and Co,, Salter’s hail 

Stratford, W. Tottenham-court-road, 
cutler, Williams, Alfred-place 


linen-draper. 
Lawrence-lane 


merchant. 


nish and Son, Bristol 
Weod, J. Shoreditch, and Chatham, 
(Hardwick and Co., 


Woodd, J. Manchester, toy-dealer. 
(Holme and Co., New-inn; Booth, 
Manchester 5 Bartlett, Birmingham 

Wildish, W. D. Carfterbury, wi 

(Brooks and Co., John- 
street, Bedford-row 

Watson, G. W. Charles-street, mil- 


Great James-street, Bedford-row 
Warburton, W. Harmood-streety 
jeweller. (Florence, Regent-street 
Wright, R. Thevbald’s-road, builder. 
(Stokes and Co., Cateaton-street 
Wadsworth, A. Stuerton-row, New- 
ington, Surrey, cheesemonger. 
(Grown and Co., Mincing-lane 
Yoscall, R. Stockport, victualler, 
(Tyler, Temple ; Hunt, Stockport 
Young, T. Threadneedle-street, 
builder. (Smith, Basinghall-street 


wine= 


ECCLESIASTICAL PREFERMENTS. 


Rey. R. L. Townshend, to be Chaplain to St. 
Philip’s, Liyerpool.—Rey. L. V. Nernon, to the 
Archdeaconry of Cleveland, York.—Rey. C. W. 
Eyre, to the Canonry and Prebend of Strensall.— 
Rey. J. F. Roberts, to be Chaplain to the Trinity 
House Chapel, Mile-End. — Very Rey. Dean 
Greene, to the Precentorship of Connor, and living 
of Balleymoney.—Rey. W. Hett, to the living of 
Elkesley, Notts.—Rey. J. R. Inge, to be Chaplain 
to Earl of Winterton.—Reyv. E. Goddard, to the 
Vicarage of Eartham, Sussex.—Rey. T. Best, to 
the Rectory of East Barkwith, Lincoln.—Rev. 
B. Gilpin, to the Living of St. Andrew’s, Hertford. 
—Revy. Dr. Fancourt, to the Living of All Saints, 
Leicester.—Rey. H. Banks, to the Living of Cero- 

* Jinge, Suffolk.—Rey. Dr. Wilson, to be Rural 


‘ 


December 23.—His Majesty having taken up his 
residence at Windsor Castle, received the young 
~ Queen of Portugal with the honours due to her 
rank. 
27.—Mr. Rowland Stephenson went off with an 
mense amount of property, belonging to the 
of Reamington, Stephenson, and Co., bankers, 
that house gazetted. 
wary 3.—Marquis of Anglesea recalled from 
Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland. 

— The enclosure of St. James’s Park, which 
been lately tastefully laid out in gravel walks, 
and planted with shrubs, thrown open by order of 
his Majesty, to the public. 

5,—State of the revenue published up to this 
, announces an increase for the year 1828 of 
21,660,647. 

6.—First division of the Portuguese troops, 700 
number, sailed from Plymouth, under the com~ 
of General Saldanha and Pizarro. 
9.—Atthe half-yearly meeting ofthe West-India 


Dean, Southampton.—Rev. C. Pitt, to the Vicar- 
age of Malmesbury, Wilts——Rey. C. Neyille, to 
the Cure of the Chapelry of Hindon, Wilts.—Rey. 
J. Brasse, to the Lectureship of Enfield.—Rev. J. 
Buckingham, tothe Rectory of Doddiscombsleigh. 
—Rey.J. C. Clarke, to the Perpetual Curacy of 


_Fyfield, Berks.—Rey. J. Maingy, to the Perpetual 


Curacy of Shotwick, Cheshire.—Rev. C. H. Col- 
lyns, to the Rectory of Stokeinteignuead, Devon. 
—Rey..W. Heberden, to the Vicarage of Broad- 
hembury.—Reyv. J. J. Lowe, to the Rectory of 
Fletton, Hants —Rey. J. Proctor, to be Chaplain 
to the Royal Military Asylum at Southampton.— 
Rey. E. P. Henslow, to be Chaplain to the Royal 
Artillery, Woolwich.—Rey. J. Field, to the Rec- 
tory of Braybrooke, Northamptonsbire, 


: CHRONOLOGY, MARRIAGES, AND DEATHS, ETC. 


CHRONOLOGY. Dock Company, the directors reported, that in 


consequence of the increase to the dock accom- 
modations of the port, &c., it would be expedient 
to reduce the dividend at the next meeting to 8 
per cent. 

9.—At a meeting of the London Dock Company 
the Report stated that there had been an excess 
in the receipts, beyond those of the corresponding 
half-year of 1827, of about £10,000. 

15.—The Recorder made his report to his Ma- 
jesty in Council, of 24 prisoners condemned at the 
last Old Bailey Sessions, when two were ordered 
for execution on the 21st instant. 

— Sessions commenced at the Old Bailey. 


19.—The Marquis of Anglesea quitted the scene 
of his vice-royalty in Ireland, and embarked on 
board the Pearl, sloop of war, at Kingston, for 
England. 

— The Secretary of State for the Home De- 
partment addressed a letter tothe Lord Mayor, 
desiring the concurrence of the Court of Alder- 
men, in allowing the warrants of the Middlesex 
magistrates to be acted upon in cases of great 

2F 2 


220 


necéssity, without waiting to be backed by those 
of the City, which was refused, on account of its 
Privileges !!! 

20. —Prince Polignac, the French Ambassador, 
suddenly left town for France, after an audience 
with the ministers. ° 
.— The Duke of Wellington appointed to the 
office of Warden and Keeper of his Majesty’s 
Gi.que Ports. 

21.—Two culprits executed at the Old Bailey. 

— Sessionsended at the O)d Bailey, when 16 
were condemned for death, and 90 transported, 
besides a large num! er imprisoned. 

— The Duke of Northumberland received the 
keys of office, and went through the preliminaries 
for entering on the functions of Lord Lieutenant 
of Ireland, at the office of Mr. Peel, in Downing- 
street. 


MARRIAGES. 


_ At Brotherton, Lord Muncaster, to Frances 
Catherine, daughter of Sir John Ramsden, Bart, 
—At Bath, Rey. J. H. Keane, to Madame Leo- 
nora Garciar.—T. Davidson, esq., to Miss Anne 
Grace.—At Charlton, O. Lang, esq., to Charlotte, 
daughter of Lieut. Col. Rogers.—At Abberley 
Lodge, Rev. H.S. Cocks, son of the Hon. Regi- 
nald Cocks, to Frances Mersey, daughter of H. 
Bromley, esq.—At Godalming, H. Watkins, esq., 
‘to Miss Lack.—W.H. Wood, esq.,of Brazenose 
College, Oxford, to Miss Mancknols.—At Maryle- 
bone, Rey. W. H. Hughes, to Miss A. C. Williams. 
—At Marylebone, W. Peters, esq., to Marianne 
Jane, second daughter of Henry Bonham, esq., 
M.P.—At Brighton, W. Campion, esq., 15th Hus- 
sars, to Harriet, eldest daughter of T. R. Kemp, 
“esq-, M.P.—At St. George’s, Hanover-square, the 
Earl of Cornwallis, to Miss Laura Hayes. 


DEATHS. 
_ At Missenden, General ‘Sir Brent Spencer, 
Bart.—At her residence at Whitehall, Baroness 
Willoughby de Eresby, joint hereditary great 
chamberlain of England (with her sister the Mar- 
chioness of Cholmondeley).—At Brighton, Sir 
Hutton Cooper, M.P. Dartmouth.—aAt Horsley 
Hall, P. Philips, esq., only brother of Viscountess 
Strangford.—Rey. R. Bathurst, third son of the 
Bishop of Norwich.—At Gloucester, Lady George 
Sutton.—At Hampton Court, Sir John Thomas, 
Bart.,82.—At Norwich, P. M. Martineau, esq., 
-76.—At Great Yarmouth, J. Watson, esq., 79.—At 
Eaglehurst, Viscount Kilcoursie.— At Bruton, 
Rear Admiral Goldesbrough, 82,—At Hampton, 
the Right Rey. Dr. Robert Stanser, Bishop of 
“Nova Scotia.—In Tavistock Row, J. Johnstone, 
esq., 82, the celebrated Irish comedian.—Dr. 
"Hyde Wollaston, Vice President of the Royal 
Society At Holbeck, near Leeds, Betty Jack- 
son, aged 106 ; she had resided the whole of her 
life in that village, and had not suffered much 
fromthe infirmitiés of age —At Gawsworth, Mr. 
‘W.Gee, farmer, 93 ; he had resided during the 
whole of his protracted life upon an estate belong- 
‘ing to the Earl of Harrington, and retained all his 
faculties to the last, Working about the farm till 
within a few weeks ofhis death.—At Coventry, J, 
Woodcock, esqy., 70.—In Powis Place, Godfrey 
Sykes, esq., Solicitor to the Board of Stamps.—At 
Hampstead, Hon. Mrs. Tyler, sister to the late Lord 
Teynham.—At Peterborough, Mr, R. Wilson, 97. 


Chronology, Marriages, and Deaths. 


. celebrated General Massena.—At Paris, F. Plow- 


-good spirits. 


“her thigh was broken. 


(Fes. 


—At Threnhall Priory, the Baroness de Feilitzseh, 
87,—In Norfolk, Sir E.Stracy, DBart., 88.—Near 
Swansea, Catharine Rees, 101,—In the alms- 
houses, at Ludfotd, Herefordshire, endowed for 
the relief of old servants, Jolin Griffin, 87 ; he had 
formerly been coachman to Sir F. Charlton, and 
in his latter days his great boast was, that he had 
eclipsed all his rival charioteers belonging to the 
noblemen and gentlemen inthe neighbourhood, by 
taking the family coach in siv days to London, 
which no one else could accomplish under seven! 
—Rear Admiral Swiney,82,—At Exeter, Elizabeth 
Blanchard, she was widow of the late town-ser- 
jeant, and was upwards of 100 ; she was remark~ 
able for ready wit and rhyme, and retained these 
gifts, with all her mental faculties, to the end of 
her life.—1n Sidmonth-street, Mrs. F. H. Duncan, 
widow of J. Duncan, esq., late member of the 
medical board, Madras:.—At Hillington, Maria, 
youngest sister of G. Fuller, esq., banker.—At 
Bottesford, Roosilia, 77, widow of Admiral E. 
Sutton, and sister to Mrs, M. Sutton, widow of 
the late Archbishop of Canterbury.—In Baker- 
street, Mrs, Campbell, 82.—At Edinburgh, Mr. 
R. A. Smith, presenter in St. George’s church, 
well known to the musical world by his Scottish 
and Irish Minstrels, “The Flower o’Dumlane,” _ 
&c.—At Lliangoedmore-place, Archdeacon Mil- 
lingchamp.—At Solihull, Rey. C. Curtis.—In 
Stratton-street, Roger Wilbraham, esq., 86, for- 
merly M.P. for Helston and Bodmin.—At Bath, 
Rachael, wife of Lieut. General Dickson; and 
Sarah, daughter of the late. Sir R. Blackwood, 
Bart.—At Exmouth, C. Baring, esq., 88. younger 
brother of the late Sir Francis Baring, Bart.—At 
Sturbiton, Sarah, wife of Alderman Garratt.—At 
Ramsgate, Sir William Curtis, Bart., 77. 


MARRIAGES ABROAD. 4 

At New Orleans, Mr. Alexander Philip Socrates 
Aurelius Cesar Hannibal Marcellus George Wash- — 
ington ‘l'redwell, to Miss Caroline Sophia Juliana 
Wortley Montague Joan of Are Williams!—At 
Paris, Viscount Perceval to Lonise Marie, daugh- — 
ter of Count d’Orselet.—At Florence, Sir S. C. 
Bruce, Bart., to Miss H. B. Alves.—At Quebec, 
Rey. E, W. Sewell, son of Chief Justice Sewell, 
to Susan Stewart, daughter of the Hon. M. 
Stewart, aud niece to the Earl of Galloway, and — 
Bishop of Quebec.—At Paris, E. Gambier, esq.,to 
Emily, daughter of the late C. Morgell, esq., M.P. 


DEATHS ABROAD. 
At Tananarwo, Madagascar, Rey. D. Tyerman, 
deputy froin the London Missionary Society.—At 
Paris, the Princess of Essling, 63, widow of the — 


den, esq., formerly a distinguished member of the 
Chancery bar, and well known for his Histories 
Ireland.—At Boulogne, R. Peake, esq., 72, trea 
surer of Drury Lane theatre 40 year's,—At Chau- 
celade, Frances Descoure, on the eve of attaining 
her 111th year. Her body was nothing more than 
a dried-up skeleton, but she had not lost, even to 
her very last day, either her perfect senses or h 
It is to be remarked that she hi 
had a fall within the last six months, by which 
‘She was not bedridden 
until this period, and her death is to be attribute 
to this accident.— Bulletin de la Dordogne. 
Cadiz, J, N. Hall, esq., of Bow Chureh-yard.. 


1829.] 


[ 221 J 


MONTHLY PROVINCIAL OCCURRENCES. 


NORTHUMBERLAND.—There are no less 
than five Associations for the Prosecutions of 
Felons advertised in the Wewcastle Ccurant, as 
having just held their annual meetings, viz. Ur- 
peth, Newbura, Witton Gilbert, Belsay, and Chir- 
ton ; the number of prisoners at the county guar- 
ter sessions does not appear to be near so nume- 
rous as in many other counties. 

There is a nest of resurrection men now prow- 
ling about all parts of the country. A corpse was 
lately taken up at Newcastle, and the grave so 
neatly made up, that no person could have dis- 
covered the robbery if the body had not heen 
seized at the coach office. 


DURHAM.—A skeleton was discovered a week 
or two back, in the kitchen of an old house, in 
‘Warren-street. Sunderland, about two feet below 
the floor, Much curiosity was excited by the cir- 
cumstance. 

We learn, from the bills of mortality for the 
city of Durham, that 252 baptisms, 56 marriages, 
and 257 burials have taken place in the year ; 
being a decrease of 5 in baptisms, and of 4 in mar- 
riages ; and an increase of 62 in burials. 

Bills of mortality, in the parochial chapelry of 
Barnardcastle, for 1818—baptisms, 175; mar- 
Tiages, 25; burials 104. 

A fine specimen of the red-coated diver (coly 
wubus stellatus, Lin.) was shot, on the 12th of 
January, on the river Wear, near Framwellgate- 
bridge, Durham. 


CUMBERLAND.—At a meeting held at the 
grand jury room, Carlisle, Jan. 10, of the sub- 
scribers fayourable to the Rail Road betwixt 
Newcastle and Carlisle, it was resolved, that ap- 
_plication be made to all the members of the Legis- 
ature, connected with this part of the county, 
‘soliciting their active support of the Bill about to 
be introduced into Parliament. About 100 share- 
holders have already paid, in Carlisle, their de- 
"posits, upon their shares, amounting to nearly 
£25,000, 

On Christmas day, there was, in the vicarge 
garden at Alston, a gentianella, in full flower. 
This was the more remarkable, when we con- 
wider, that Alston is the highest inhabited town 
in England, being 1,460 feet above the level of 
the sea. 


. YORKSHIRE.—The corporation of the Hull 
_ Trinity House have given notice that a light has 
been established by night at the entrance (between 
.the piers) of Bridlington harbour, and a red flag 
_by day, which will be hoisted when there shall be 
seven feet depth of water on the flood tide, and 
‘remain up till the tide shall have ebbed the same. 
‘The delegates from the different towuships in 
the parish of Halifax for negociating the business 
_of the Vicarial tithes, have arrived at the termi- 
. nation of their labours, the result of which is quite 
satisfactory to the parish. A bill will, in conse- 
quence, be introduced tn Parliament early in the 
next session, which, when passed to a law, will 
eure to the present, and all succeeding Vicars of 
Halifax, an incame of about £2,000 per annum! 


~~ 


An accurate census of the population of Halifax 
has just been completed, and the following is the 
‘result compared with different periods, beginning 
with that of 1574, « when,”*says Camden, “ there 
were more human beings than beasts ;’—1574, 
12,000—1811, 73,415—1821, 93,050—1828, 104,259. 

‘The ancient custom of tolling the Deyil’s pass- 
ing bell on Christmas eye, at Dewsbury, which 
has’been discontinued for some years, at the re- 
quest of the worthy Vicar, has this year been re- 
vived. The practice originated in the belief, that 
the Devil died when the Saviour of the world was 
born.—Leeds Mercury. 


The sixth annual general meeting of the Ship 
Owner’s Society was held at the Mansion Honse, 
Hull, Jan. 14, when it was unanimously resolved, 
‘“That this meeting, after another year's expe- 
rience, are more strongly convinced of the de- 
plorably depressed state of the shipping interest 
of the United Kingdom, and recommend to the 
Committee for the ensuing year, to pursue all 
such measures as they may deem advisable, in en- 
deayouring to procure some relief frum this de- 
pression.’’—The chairman stated that during the 
past year the entry into the port of Hull was 858 
British ships, being 105 less than 1827 ; and 640 
foreign ships, being 124 less than 1827. 

A few months ago a Roman Catholic Defence 
Society was instituted at York: several highly 
respectable gentlemen were named on the com- 
mittee, most of whom have since withdrawn, the 
society having been converted into one of offence, 
and not of defence, by the circulation of tracts of 
the most seditious tendency. 

A new sect of Christians has sprung up at 
Grassington, in Crayen. They call themselves 
Nazarene Canaites, who believe that no religious 
assemblies are lawful except they are held in a 
barn, as our Lord was born in one, 

A singular modification of the aurora borealis 
was observed in the vicinity of Hull, in the 
evening of the 26th of December. It wore the 
appearance of a broad belt of pale, but very vivid 
light, forming the segment of an immense circle. 
It was visible for nearly an hour. 

A swallow was seen flying in the streets of 
Hull, in the last week of December, a most un- 
usual occurrence, 

The branch bank of the Bank of England, at 
Hull, commenced its operations on the Ist. inst. 

The workmen who are employed in laying out 
the grounds round the museum, now erecting on 
the ancient site of St. Mary’s Abbey, York, for the 
Yorkshire Philosophical Society, on the 12th and 
13th of January, found seven statues, which had 
been laid at the bottom of the foundation of a 
wall, which wasten feet thiek, and six feet under- 


-ground, and which were in a very good state of 
- preservation. 


One*was a'statue of Moses, and 
four of the others were, most probably, the four 
evangelists. ‘I'wo of them are without heads. 
These statues aré) very well executed, and were 
originally embellished in all the splendour whieh 
painting and gilding could impart. Of course 
little of this now remains ; the number of years 
they haye been imbedded, having obliterated 


299 


nearly all the purple, and crimson, and gold, 
which once shone resplendent upon them. They 
will form a very valuable addition to the anti- 
quarian stores of the society. 


NORFOLK.—By the abstract of receipts and 
disbursements of the treasurer of this county 
from Midsummer 1827, to Midsummer 1828, 
authoritatively published in the Worfolk Chroni- 
cle, it appears that (allowing a trifle still left in 
the treasurer’s hands) the sum of £16,590, 6s. 
lias been paid for expences—upwards of £12,000 
of which has been devoured in the administration 
and attendant expenses of the criminal laws, for 
punishing, but not preventing crime! 


DORSETSHIRE.—His Majesty has been plea- 
sed to confirm and renew the ancient crown grant 
to the inhabitants of Portland, enabling them to 
dig and raise stone in the common lands of the 
said island. 

At the last meeting of the trustees of the New 
Blandford Savings’ Bank, it appeared that the 
affairs of the institution were in a prosperous 
state, that the amount vested in Government Se- 
curities was upwards of £44,980, and the number 
of accounts open 1050, being an increase of 74 in 
the last year.—Salisbury Journal. 


LANCASHIRE.—By the annual return of the 
number of vessels and tonnage which have enter- 
ed the port of Liverpool last year, it appears that 
there was an increase of 1,025 vessels, and 67,033 
tons, while the duties present a decrease of 
£2,742. 4s. fd.; in the year 1827 they being 
155.211. 13s. }d., in 1828, £152,469, 9s, 

The new church of St. Martin’s in the Fields, 
at Liverpool, has been consecrated ; it will seat 
upwards of 2,000 persons, including 1,300 free sit- 
tings for the poor. It will be of great use to the 
inhabitants of the north part of the town, for 
whose convenience not a single place of worship 
has been erected during the last 20 years. 

The new cemetery now in progress behind the 
Mount, will form the most ornamental and pic- 
turesque abode for the dead which at present 
exists in these islands, and in some respects will 
exceed the celebrated Pére la Chaise, with which, 
we believe, originated the idea of a decorated 
burial-ground. The beautiful and classical chapel 
is roofedin, and is complete as to the exterior, 
except the fluting of the columns; it is exactly 
copied from the Greek temple, and has at each 
end a portico of six Doric columns, supporting a 
rich entablature and a _ pediment.—Liverpool 
Paper. 

Warrington will be graced this year with two 
new churches, at leastone inthe town, and the 
other in Latchford; the latter place is now very 
much increasing in population, and stands in need 
of greater accommodation in the church. The 
present church of St. James’s is to be taken 
down, and a new one erected on a more extensive 
scale, and in auother site, fronting the Wilders- 
pool road, the foundation for which is now pre- 
paring; it will contain about 1,500 persons, in- 
eluding the free sittings, and is expected to be 
consecrated this year. The other church is to be 
built by the Parliamentary Commissioners, and 
will contain about the same number as St. James’s 
church, including the free sittings. 

The annual meeting of the trustess and mana- 
gers of the Warrington Sayings’ Bank, was held 


Provincial Occurrences: Norfolk, Dorsetshire, &c. 


(Fes. 


‘on the 16th ult., when it appeared, from the report, 
that the deposits of last year had somewhat ex- 
ceeded the sums withdrawn and the interest, 
The sums deposited were £14,117, and those with- 
drawn were £12,207. The amount now in the 
bank is £67,457. 


CHESHIRE.—At the eleventh annual meeting 
of the trustees and managers of the Chester 
Savings’ Bank, held at the Exchange, Dec. 22, 
1828, it appeared that from December J, 1817, to 
November 20, 1628, they had received (including 
interest, and bonus at 3 per cent) the sum of 
£235,472. 78.21d.; the repayments during that 
period amounted to £134,678. 15s. 8d.; and that 
the amount of Government receipts and money in 
hand, amount to upwards of £191,000! 

The following is the state of Knutsford gaol, at 
the beginning of the year 1829!—For trial at the 
sessions, on charges of felony, 73; on charges of 
misdemeanour, 17; for Congleton sessions, 3 ; 
convicted prisoners, 157 ; total, 250; of which 
are, males 212, females 38, total 250 prisoners, 
and eleven children!!!—* The police expenses 
for this county last year,” said the chairman at 
the quarter sessions, to the grand jury, “ were 
at least £15,000; and in Stockport alone, £2,400, 
whilst the county rate collected in that town was 
only £904!’—Macclesfield Courier. 

The depredations and boldness of poachers have 
now risen to an alarming height in this county, 
and call aloud to the legislature for some alter- 
ation in the game laws. Lately, a gang of 17 
scoured Stanneywood, when the keepers retired, 
to ayoid so numerous a gang of desperados. At 
Cholmondeley Castle,a numerous gang of poachers 
had a complete bative in the plantations, and 
challenged the keepers to fight! The latter very 
prudently declined the invitation ; upon which the 
poachers gave three cheers, and departed heavily 
laden with the spoils of the preserves. Mr. Shaw, 
head-keeper of the Earl of Stamford and War- 
rington, accompanied by his assistants, encoun- 
tered a gang of from 10 to 15 poachers, at Dun- 
ham Massey. The keepers very prudently de- 
termined to retire, upon which the poachers fired 
a volley upon them. One of the assistants was 
shot in the face and most frightfully disfigured, 
one eye being completaly torn out of the socket. 
A second was shot with a ball under the shoulder- 
blade, and it came out in the breast below the 
arm-pit. A third was shot also with a ball, in the 
left side of the neck, andit came out in the oppo- 
site side of the throat, narrowly missing the 
carotid artery. A second division of the gang 
visited Tabley Park the same night. 


WARWICKSHIRE.—At the quarter sessions 
for this county, commenced Jan. 12, upwards of 
140 prisoners were for trial. 

At the last meeting of the Birmingham Savings’ | 
Bank, it appeared that upto Dec. 10, 1828, the ~ 
sum of upwards of £35,632 had been paid in by | 
1,893 depositors. 

A declaration against the proposed ‘* London 
and Birmingham Junction Canal,’ has been 


signed by upwards of 180 owners and occupiers | 
of land on the line, considering the measure un- 


necessary, and injurious to their property. 

Ata late meeting at Birmingham, of the pro- 
prietors of the Worcester and Birmingham Canal,% 
it appeared that the tonnage had increased during™ 
the last year as much as £3,000. : 


1829.) 


Seven poachers were committed to Warwick 
gaol, charged with being concerned inalate affray 
with the gamekeepers on the Earl of Denbigh’s 
estate, One of them is supposed to be the man 
who shot at, and dangerously wounded, the prin- 
cipal keeper. This gang consisted of 30 armed 
poachers, who commenced their operations close 
to his lordship’s house at Newnlam Paddox. 

Another instance of those wicked and malicious 
offences lias occurred near Stratford-upon-Avon, 
which haye so often alarmed and terrified the in- 
habitants of that town and adjoining county ; Mr. 
Low’s premises at Binton, his house, his corn 
ricks, clover, hay, &c., have all been wilfully set 
on fire and totally consumed. Some opinion may 
be formed of the state of alarm in which the neigh- 
bourhood has been kept, when it is stated that the 
fire-bell at Stratford has been rung 6 times within 
the last twelve months, and yet none of the per- 
petrators of these diabolical acts have been yet 
apprehended. 


NORTHAMPTONSHIRE, — At t'e annual 
meeting ofthe managers of the Northamptonshire 
Savings’ Bank, it appeared that up to Dee. 31, 
1828, the sum of €316,980. 10s. 9d. had been re- 
ceived, and that £172,920. 2s. 53d. had been re- 
paid to depositors, leaving in the hands of the 
managers upwards of £144,000. 


LEICESTERSHIRE.—At a meeting at Leices- 
ter, Jan. 2, it was resolved to form a public 
banking company in that town. The capital pro- 
posed is £500,000, divided into 5,000 shares of 
£100 each, and the company to be considered as 
formed, as soon as 2,000 shares are subscribed. 


STAFFORDSHIRE.—At the county sessions 
upwards of 110 prisoners were for trial. 


SOMERSETSHIRE,—It is a fact, that there 
is a man in Ilchester gaol upon an execution for a 
debt of 12s. 6d.'!! For six months has this man 
been a charge to the county, and his family to the 
parish of Martock, at an expense, perhaps, of 20 
times the amount for which he is confined.—Sher- 
borne Mercury. 

At the eleventh annual meeting of the trustees 
and managers of the West Somerset Savings’ | 
Bank, held at Taunton, Dec. 15, 1828, it appeared 
“by their report (made up to Nov. 20), that they 
have invested in government securities, with in- 
‘terest on ditto, the sum of £203,725. 10s. 10d., 
which, with balance in bankers’ hands, and 
their actuary (£1,239. 15s. 8d.) amounts to 
£204,965. Gs. Gd., the number of depositors were 
3,823.— Taunton Courier. 

By the last statement of the Yeoval Bank for 
‘Savings, it appeared the trustees had placed in 
ernment investments, £34,060; and that the 
ber of depositors amounted to 771, besides 23 
table and friendly societies, 


GLOUCESTERSHIRE.—At the general quar- 
ter sessions, nearly 100 prisoners were for trial, 
86 being in the calendar for the county, and 9 for 
be city. 
Last year’s importation to Bristol, exhibits a 
ry large dncrease, upon the whole, as regards 
duties that have been collected: it is upon 
ugars ; upon which, we believe, not less than 
26,000 increased duty has been paid, owing to 
magnitude of the crops, and the consequent 
ged importations.—Bris(ol Journal. 


- Northamptonshire, Leicestershire, Staffordshire, &c. 


223 


The amount of tonnage on the Gloucester 
canal, in 1827, was 106,996 tons; in 1828, it was 
223,574, thus shewing an increase in the year just 
ended, of 116,578 tons! The receipt of duties last 
year exceeded that of 1827 by no less asum than 
£16,000.— Gloucester Journal. 


HAMPSHIRE.—There are 61 persons confined 
for offences against the game laws in the Bride- 
well at Winchester, besides a number of others 
committed for trial at the next assizes, for conflicts 
with game-keepers! The magistrates have made 
an energetic Report upon the subject, alluding 
very forcibly to the fashionable battwes I! 

Notice has been given for an application to 
Parliament to obtain an Act for paving, watching, 
&c., the town of Ryde, in the Isle of Wight, and 
for establishing a market there. 

Portsmouth, Dec. 20.—The four Egyptian offi- 
cers who have been for some time in England for 
the purpose of studying our language, and of ac- 
quiring a knowledge of various arts and sciences 
that may be useful to their country, and promote a 
beneficial intercourse with our own, arrived here 
this week, Ali Effendi is going out in H. M.’s 
ship Shannon, Capt. Clements, to learn naviga- 
tion, and Mohammed Effendi is to remain here to 
study nayal architecture and ship-building. Selim 
Aga is studying mathematics and military en- 
gineering at Woolwich, and Omar Effendiis qua- 
lifying himself for diplomacy, They all speak our 
language fluently, and express themselves in terms 
of the warmest gratitude for the liberality they 
have experienced. They are attached to the 
household of Ibrahim Pacha, son of the Viceroy of 
Egypt. 


BEDFORDSHIRE.—Poaching has this winter 
become more distressingly alarming than ever. 
Bedford gaol and penitentiary are very full, and 
there are upwards of 40 prisoners contined under 
the game laws; there is one who has taken up 
his winter quarters for the 21st time !!! 


WORCESTERSHIRE.—State of the Worces- 
ter Savings’ Bank up to Noy. 20, 1828—by money 
invested with the National Debt commissioners, 


» including interest, £170,233. 1s. 3d,—in the hands 


of the bankers, £1,738. 17s. 7d.—total amount, 
£171,971. 18s. 10d.; depositors,4,087,—The Bewd- 
ley Savings’ Bank produce up to the same period, 
amounted to £14,369. 8s. 8d.; and the number 
of depositors was 294, 


DEVONSHIRE.—A new church is about to be 
built in the centre of St. Petrox, Dartmouth, and 
the present church, so far removed from the 
parishioners, and so beautifully situated at the 
mouth of the harbour, is to remain, as a cemetery 
for the dead. 

An estate, situate at Lodeswell, near Kings- 
bridge, in this county, has within the last few 
days, by the death of a person-advanced in years, 
come into the possession of his brother ; the value 
of the estate is estimated at £500, and on ex- 
amining the title-deeds of the property, it appears 
that it was purchased about two centuries ago for 
the enormous sum of Four Pounds Ten Shil- 
lings !—Trewman’s Exeter Flying Post. 

At the commencement of the Devon sessions 
(Jan. 13), the county prisons contained 253 pri- 
soners, including those for trial, and those in pri- 
son on former orders! 


224 


BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. —There are now in 
Aylesbury goal nearly 180 prisoners !! 4 only are 
debtors !—Berkshire Chronicle, Dec. 27, 1828. 


KENT.—At the winter assizes for this county, 
6 convicts were recorded for death; 7 were tran- 
sported, and 30 sentenced to imprisonment for 
various periods, 


SURREY.—The following resolution was pro- 
posed, and carried unanimously, by the magis- 
trates assembled at the quarter sessions of this 
connty—“ That this Court deem it a duty to re- 
present to the Secretary of State for the Home 
Department, the crying eyils resulting from the 
present state of the Game Laws, and to implore 
his Majesty’s Government to effect such an 
amendment of those laws as to its wisdom shall 
seem expedient, for the diminution of crime and 
the general welfare of the country; and that the 
county members do present, the same.” 

The ancient Archiepiscopal Palace, at Croydon, 
the remains of the once splendid palace, were 
sold at the Mart. ‘This extensive palace once 
covered 13 acres of land. The principal remains 
are the ancient hall, with its curiously-construct- 
ei roof, the chapel, the Judges’ chambers, and the 
old head of water. There are now a number of 
modern buildings erected on the site, which is 
bounded by the river Wandle.—The whole pro- 
duced £6,700. 


CORNWALL.—The Union Canai, between 
Liskard and Looe, is now in full working : it has 
been effected in the course of two years, at an ex- 
pense of nearly £15,000.—The new line of turn- 
pike roads, avoiding hills, between Liskeard and 
Torpoint, and branching thence towards Looe, 
are now open to travellers, combining usefulness 
with pleasure. These works have been the result 
of very liberal expense ; and the grand cbject of 
establishing a steam ferry across the Tamar, 
from ‘Torpoint to Devonport, is nearly accom- 
plished.— Sherborne Mercury. 

Ata late meeting held at Penryn, it was unani- 
mously resolved, that an institution for the in- 
struction of infant children should be established. 

At the quarter sessions, the chairman stated 
that a saving had been made last year in the ex- 
penditure of the county goal of £1,428 in the cur- 
reat expences, and on the total expenditure, of 
£583, notwithstanding an increased sum of £840 
had been expended in repairs. 

The Plumper is arrived at Falmouth from Sierra 
Leone, with forty prisoners, crew of a piratical 
schooner under Buenos Ayres colours, captured 
by one of onr cruisers, and sent to this country 
for trial. Sterborne and Yeovil Wercury. 


WALES.—The late tempestuous weather has 
been truly terrific throughout the county af Mon- 
mouth, and the country round Abergavenny, is 

_ entirely inundated. Theriver Usk has overflowed 
its hanks, and the Merthyr mail-coach has been 
washed from the road through one of the arches 
of the bridge. One of the passengers was drown- 
ed, and the whole of the horses. 

The inhabitants of Merionethshire thus intro- 
duce their petition to the commissioners appointed 
to inquire into the practice and proceedings of 
the courts of commonlaw in England and Wales ;— 
** We, the undersigned inhabitants of the county 
of Merioneth, beg to solicit your investigation of 


Provincial Occurrences : Buckinghamshire, Kent, §c. 


“made her drunk, then laid his breast over her 


[ Fes. 


the present mode of administering justice in 
Wales, more particularly as regards the expe- 
diency of assimilating the Welsh judicature to 

that of England. The facilities that must be at 

your control, and the information that has been 
forwarded to you from other parts of the princi- 
pality, reuder unnecessary our going at length 

into the subject. But we are anxious that, 
amidst other matters of consequence, your atten- 

tion should be given to this subject, which is 

of paramount importance to the community in 4 
Wales, so as to ensure them the benefit and 
instructions of the leading gentlemen of the 
law.” 


~ 


SCOTLAND.—A noted resurrectionist, named 
Burke, and a woman with whom he cohabited, 
named Helen M‘Dougal, have been apprehended 
in Edinburgh on several charges of haying com- 
mitted murders for the purpose of selling the 
bodies of their victims to surgeons for dissection. 
The crime seemed to be of too horrible a nature 
to be true, and few persons were disposed to be- 
lieve in its reality. Their doubts, however, have 
been removed, and one of the inhuman wretches 
has expiated his offences by the forfeiture of his 
life—a punishment scarcely adequate to the enor- 
mity of bis guilt. Their trial came on in the 
High Court of Justiciary, Edinburgh ; they were 
indicted on three counts ; the first, with the mur- 
der of Mary Paterson, while in a state of intoxi- 
cation, by covering ber mouth and nose, and 
forcibly compressing her throat, thereby causing 
suffocation; the second, with having committed a 
similar offence on J. Wilson, commonly called 
Daft Jamie ; and the third, with haying murdered 
Mary Campbell, also by suffocation. The pri- 
sOners were tried on the latter count only; antl 
in this case, after witnesses had testified to their 
belief in the horrible trade carried on by them, 
W. Hare, an Irishman, who acted as an accom- 
plice in the disposal of the bodies, proved the facts 
stated in the indictment: that Burke had drawn 
the old woman into the murderous receptacle, had 


head, and remained in that state till he had suffo- 
cated her; they then put the body in a tea-chest, 
and sold it to the Museum, whither it was carried 
by witness. The deceased had arrived from the 
country only one day before the murder, having 
left her home at Glasgow in search of her son, 
and being nearly destitute, was found by Burke 
in the street begging: he promised to give her 
food, and induced her to go home with him. Be- 
fore he could finally accomplish his purpose, the 
poor woman cried “ Murder,’ which was heard 
by a passer-by, and this led to the horrible dis- 
covery. Burke’s accomptice, Helen M‘Dougal, 
was acquitted ; and he was ordered for execution 
on January 28. i 
The theatre at Glasgow has been burnt to the 
ground. , 


IRELAND.—The following is an estimate of 
the value of the principal articles of produce, &e, 
exported from Ireland to Liverpool, in the yeal 
1827 : grain, £1,451,170—provisions,, £1,010 
—live stock, £1,170,998—manufacture, £€1,011,6 
—cotton twist, woollens, soap, glue, stareh, snuff 
quills, hides, and skins, potatoes, feathers, & 
£200,000 —salmon ahd poultry, 50, 
£4,894,643, 


— 


THE 


MONTHLY. MAGAZINE. 


New Serirs. 


Vor. VII.] MARCH, 1829. [ No. 39. 


TO THE PUBLIC. 


In the hands of the present Proprietors, the Monrunty Maaazinr 
has always been devoted to the Constitution. But, with the rise of 
stronger public emergencies, more direct exertions are called for: if 
great political hazards are threatened, they are to be repelled only by 
ne reased public vigilance ; if the old barriers of the State are shaken 
by open violence or treacherous friendship, the most secure and legiti- 
mate defence is in a Press guided by constitutional knowledge, by zeal 
for the country, and by that British pride of principle which scorns alike 
‘the frowns and the influence of corrupt authority. 

_ Those declarations have been often made before ; but the time compels 

a stern sincerity. Our principles are British, in the strongest sense of 
_ the word. We have not adopted them for fee or reward; nor will we 

_ abandon them for fee or reward. The country, at this hour, is in immi- 
_ ment danger. A convulsion, that may crush its whole system, is threat- 
ened. A new element of discord is about to be introduced into our 
Constitution ; and every means—from the basest corruption of the base, 
to the most insolent intimidation of the high—is at work. Events are 
ripening with a tremendous rapidity, that nothing can counteract but the 
boldest resolution, the most extended fellow-feeling, and the most 
vigorous, straitforward, and faithful fidelity to the Constitution. 

Let what will come, we shall do our duty as men, while we have the 
“power of speaking to our fellow-subjects. If chains are forging for 
us and them—if we are to be tortured and persecuted by triumphant 
Popery—we shall still put our trust in the righteous cause, and still feel 
the life of man cannot be more nobly expended than in the service 

of freedom. 
M.M. New Series—Vou. VU. No. 39. 2G 


[ -226 | {[ Marcu, 


THE DANCERS OF ENGLAND AND IRELAND. 


crite, and a traitor, proclaimed “ His Majesty’s most gracious declara- 
tion to all his loving subjects, for liberty of conscience,” England has 
seen no day of danger equal to the present. The mask was worn long ; 

but it.has now been daringly thrown off ; and, if we do not feel the tre- 
mendous hazard in which stands every thing dear to us asmen, as * 
freemen, and as Christians, we must be alike incapable and undeserving 
of freedom. : 

After a long course of ministerial disguises, carried on by arts which 
we do not hesitate to pronounce the basest that ever disgraced the cha- 
racter of British statesmen ; after speeches studiously couched to convey 
« the word of promise to our ear, and break it to our hope ;” after a long 
series of every miscreant contrivance to lull the honest suspicions, and .. 
disqualify the manly resistance of the country; the measure came out 
full-blown at last, with the high and the haughty triumphing before 
it, and the mean and the dastard creeping with wretched subserviency 
in its train, the whole succession of the cold-blooded sycophancy that 
had waited only to know which was the more lucrative side ; and, for the 
sake of honour, decency, and the name of the church, we grieve to. say 
it, among the most menial of those menials—the very vilest of that 
reptilism, which less excites indignation than disgust—was a Church- 
man! This miserable apostate had been for twenty years scribbling 
in all directions against Popery, calling heaven and earth to witness 
against its innate abomination, and declaring that its immutable princi- 
‘ples were alike ruin to Protestanism, and degradation to man. “ No 
compromise with this misbegotten atrocity, the invention of monks for 
the shame and subjugation of the human mind!” was his perpetual out- 
cry. On the strength of this ostentatious zeal, the contemptible hypo- 
crite laboured himself into some ephemeral repute with the public friends 
of the church. His powers were at best nothing beyond the ordinary 
calibre of a pert pamphleteer; his pamphlets lasted their week, and 
then went down to oblivion; but he gained his object—the notice of 
persons of rank : and he fondly imagined that every petty performance 
of this kind brought him a step nearer the object of his pitiful soul. But _ 
the steps were slow, and there began to be a probability that he might _ 
never accomplish another. Then came the conviction. In a quarter of 
an hour’s closeting, the film was taken from his eyes ; he discovered that 
all the principles of his previous years were smoke—that he had been 
scribbling on,the wrong side of the question—and that the best thing he 
could do was to shew the zeal of a convert, and swear on the other. 
«“ Heccine fieri flagite.” If But he is undone—sunk for ever ! 
‘He at this hour hides his head in the obscurity fit for him. Repentance 
he will never feel; remorse he feels already. Peter’s generous nature 

wept; but Iscariot went and hanged himself. 

Then comes the sanctified Minister—equally contemptible, equally a _ 
‘slave, and equally undone ; but with more effrontery than his colleague | 

in shame, for he still talks of principle. Well ; we believe him to have, at — 
this hour, as much as he ever had—to be as honest, sincere, and dignified. , 

But he can deceive no more; and he is, therefore, useless in his voca- 
tion. “ Othello’s occupation’s gone !” Never shall man again be tricked 
by his sallow smile; his gracious bow shall go for nothing ; and even 
his notorious mediocrity shall no longer saye him from being suspected 


From the memorable day when James the Second, a tyrant, a hypo- | 
| 


1828.] The Dangers of England and Ireland. 227 


Next comes in this gallery of diplomacy, the lawyer. This slave was 
one of the most open-mouthed of the assailants of Canning, a man whose 
faults were worth all their virtues, and whose abilities threw all their 
pert and pettifogging souls to a distance immeasureable. Canning was 
of their own school, but he scorned them down through all their degrees 
of littleness; he used them, but he used them as tools ; his sneer was at 
their service, and undisguised contempt was their perpetual portion. 

The lawyer, once vehement and voluminous to the full extent of his 
brief, has suddenly discovered, like the minister and the parson, that all 
his protestations of last year were good for nothing but to be protested 
against this year: and sheltering himself under the public conception 
ofa lawyer’s integrity, has declared that he acted only—in a professional 
way. 

Next shines out the solemn and heavenward physiognomy of the 
Chancellor of the Exchequer. What, and is he gone too? The fervent 
saint who was sent to Ireland to keep the little viceroy’s papist propen- 
sities in order? the depository of the anti-catholic conscience of the 
Cabinet ? the orator who always lost his breath, and deprived the world 
of the half of his harangue, when the subject was that “ abhorred 
anomaly the attempt to bring in papists to domineer over the British 
Legislature?” Ay, he is gone. Conversion has been wrought upon 
the protestant-pagan. His belief is now sterling, and long may he 
live, to be an example. 

Herries, that staunch friend of the constitution too, has discovered his 
mistake, and fills a place in the cabinet collection of portraits: a collec- 
tion, which we defy the world to equal. One picture is still unfmished, 
the fiercest and subtlest physiognomy of them all: a face of the most 
daring and remorseless ambition, busied in the most’ tremendous game 
that can be played by man. The player is evidently in the last stage 
of desperation, and determined to make one throw which will either 
extinguish him finally, or place him beyond the reach of chance for 
ever. But the picture, though urged on with a furious rapidity, may 

_ never be finished ; and some future wanderer through the halls of state, 

"may find an empty frame, and a fatal inscription. 

\ But a few weeks will now conclude all, and we shall either see 
England driven to extremities which no man of sense and feeling can 
anticipate without horror, or this mean, incompetent, and apostate 
ministry cast out, in the midst of an universal uproar of triumph from 
a rescued people. But we call upon our country to reflect upon the 
‘utter ruin which those few weeks may bring, for as sure as there is a 
Providence above us, so sure shall we be slaves, if papists are suffered to 
set foot within the Legislature. Popery hates protestantism with a 
yerfect hatred, denounces it as damnable, declares every protestant, at the 
resent hour, in a state of damnation, declares that every protestant is 
ally a rebel to the Pope, declares that all oaths to heretics are but 
porary and capable 6f being dispensed with by command of the 

urch, and finally declares that it is fitting to destroy the body for the 
zood of the"soul, and make proselytes by fire and sword. 

_ What dependence is it possible to place on men who hold those ini- 

jtous tenets, and who have followed them up in all times and places, 

ere they had the means, by the most cruel, persevering, and horrid 

flictions? They refuse the bible to the people ; they are at this hour 

ing bibles abroad, and burning them at the foot of the crucifix—at 
2 a 


-“ 


226 The Dangers of England and Treland. [ Marcu, 


the foot of the image of that insulted Being who came on earth to incul- 
cate benevolence, and whose last command was that the scriptures should 
be promulgated to all mankind ! 

But the ministry have not waited for even the few weeks that may 
deposit the Constitution in their hands ; and one of them has been com- 
missioned to make the astonishing, but totally superfluous announcement, 
that he MUST BREAK IN UPON THE CONSTITUTION oF 1688. If he do, 
may he meet the fate that the act deserves. Another has been sent for 
from the land of his congenial papistry, to put the doctrine into shape, 
and to astound our ears by the monstrous conceptions that are ready 
for all emergencies in the brains of a place-hunting lawyer. For Lord 
Plunket we have long had the deepest scorn. This is the man whom 
Mr. Tierney, to his face, described as making the most degrading 
efforts to pick up some of the crumbs of office, ay, and’ well con- 
tent to be a dog under his master’s table for the purpose—as a “ ship in 
distress, roving about with anchor a-peak to find a snug harbour on 
either side to drop it in ;’—as pretending fear in order to palliate his 
meanness in acting the mendicant, and “ first taking a panic, and next 
taking—a place.” So much for this miserable old man, who, after pro- 
curing for himself a title—such are titles now—and saddling the country 
with his own provision, and that of his family, to the amount of sixteen 
thousand. pounds a year! comes over to get something else, and tell 
England that she knows nothing about her constitution—that the 
constitution is not exclusively protestant, and that the introduction of 
_popery is scarcely more than an easy and salutary return to the prin- 
ciples of English freedom ! 

We shall now give a short detail of what the Law of England says, 
and overthrow the time-serving lawyer. 

What was the actual nature of the Pope’s supremacy from which 
the Reformation delivered us? The ecclesiastical code of England and 
.of Europe once contained the following principles :— 

“ 1,—He that acknowledgeth not himself to be under the Bishop of 
Rome, and that the Bishop of Rome is ordained by God, to have pri- 
macy over all the world, is a heretic, and cannot be saved—nor is of the 
church of Christ. 

“© 2.—The Bishop of Rome hath authority to judge all men—but no © 
man hath authority to judge him, nor to meddle with any thing that he 
hath judged—neither emperor, king, people nor clergy. . And it is not 
lawful for any man to dispute his power! 

“ 3.—Prince’s laws, if they be against the canons and decrees of the 
Bishop of Rome, are of no force or strength. 

“4, All kings, bishops and noblemen, that suffer the Bishop of Rome’s 
decrees in any thing to be violated, are accursed, and for ever’ culpable 
before God as transgressors of the catholic faith. 

“ 5.—The Bishop of Rome may excommunicate emperors and prince 
depose them from their states, and assoil (absolve) their subjects fron 
their oath and obedience to them. 

“ 6.—He is no manslayer who slayeth a man that is excommunicated. 

“ 7.—The collation of all spiritual promotions appertaineth to Rome 

“ 8.—The Bishop of Rome may unite bishopricks, and put one un 
another at his pleasure. 

“9.—There can be no council of bishops without the authority of t 

-see of Rome. 


1829. The Dangers of England aud Ireland. 229 


< 10.—The Bishop of Rome may open and shut Heaven to men. 

«1].—It appertaineth to the Bishop of Rome to judge which oath 
ought to be kept, and which not. 

“ 12.—The see of Rome hath neither spot nor wrinkle in it, and can- 
not err.” 

Such was the state of universal slavery into which popery had sunk 
mankind, and from which we were delivered by what we. cannot con- 
sider as less than the merciful interposition of God. 

The first legislative act of the Reformation, was the denial of the papal 
supremacy (25 Henry 8, c. 1); this was demolished by Mary, of bloody 
memory. 

The true basis of English religious liberty was the act (1 Eliz. ec. 1), 
entitled, “ An Act to restore to the Crown the ancient jurisdiction over 
the estate, eclesiastical and spiritual, and abolishing all foreign powers.” 

By this Act, all public officers, ecclesiastical and temporal, must take 
the Oath of Supremacy ; which oath, amended by subsequent acts, 
and finally settled at the accession of George the First, is as follows :— 

« J, A. B. do swear that I do, from my heart, detest and abjure, as 
impious and heretical, that damnable doctrine and position, that princes 
excommunicated or deprived by the pope or any authority of the see of 
Rome, may be deposed or murdered by their subjects, or any other 
whatsoever ; and I do declare that no foreign prince, person, prelate or 
state, or potentate, hath or ought to have any jurisdiction, power, supe- 
riority, pre-eminence, or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within 
this realm. So help me God.” 

This oath was required from members of parliament within four years 
of its original enactment. By the Act (5 Eliz.c.11), ‘ Every person 
who hereafter shall be elected or appointed a knight, citizen or burgess, 
or baron of any of the five ports, for any. parliament or parliaments 
hereafter to be holden, shall, before he shall enter into the parliament- 

. house, openly receive and pronounce the said oath before the Lord 
Steward or his deputy—and he which shall enter into the parliament 
house without taking the said oath, shall be deemed no knight, and 
shall suffer as if he had presumed to sit without any election.” By an 
act after the Restoration of Charles the Second, the oath was appointed 

_ to be taken by the temporal peers. 

By the Act (13 Eliz. c. 2) “ The bringing in of papal, bulls, &c. as 
exciting disturbance, was made high treason.” By the Act (27 Eliz. 
c. 2) against Jesuits and designing priests, it was declared (third section), 
* That it shall not be lawful for any jesuit, or ecclesiastical person 
whatever, being born within the dominions of England, who shall be 
ordained or professed by any authority or jurisdiction derived from the 
see of Rome, to come into or remain in any part of this realm, or of the 
dominions thereof, other than for such time and such occasions as are 

_ expressed in this Act, and that every such offence shall be adjudged 
high treason.” 
Those laws completed the original code of the Reformation in England. 
Their purpose was the debarring from all power of evil to the 
Constitution all men who were not exclusively British subjects. The 
oath of supremacy, and its following acts, is against a divided allegiance, 
_ for there is no doubt to be entertained that the papist offers his allegiance 
to two powers at the same time—the pope and the king—and that the 
papal is the paramount one. 
The reign of Elizabeth had been one continued but triumphant re- 


? 


230 The Dangers of England and Ireland. [Mancw, 


sistance to a series of popish efforts for the Queen’s assassination—for 
‘the seizure of the throne, and for the extinction of the Reformation. 
The Stuarts, naturally treacherous, feeble, and despotic, naturally leaned 
“to popery—but its encroachments were at length found so alarming, that 
under Charles the Second—himself a papist, an. Act was passed (30 
Car. II., sec. 2) “ For the more effectual preserving the King’s person 
and government, by disabling Papists from sitting in either House of 
Parliament.” The Act recited that, the law for preventing the increase 
and danger of popery, had not the sufficient effect, by reason of the 
liberty taken of late by some papists to sit in Parliament ; it therefore 
required, among other stipulations, that every member of either house, 
should, before taking his seat, take the oath of supremacy. 

The Duke of York, afterwards James the Second, was a papist, and 
a bill was brought in to exclude him from the throne—it passed the 
Commons, but was thrown out by the Lords. The notoriously popish 
prejudices of the king, and the open popery of his next heir, now filled the 
nation with the most justified alarm—and the celebrated Lord Russell, 
son of the Earl of Bedford, and leading the defenders of the Constitu- 
tion in the House of Commons, determined to resist the succession. 
This he unhappily, in a rash and unwise despair of better means, pro- 
posed to effect by force—a measure which nothing but direct self defence 
can justify, in any instance, and which in matters connected with reli- 
gion, has uniformly undone the righteous cause.. Argument, appeal, 
all legal opposition, every effort of persuasion and remonstrance, are open 
to the friends of truth ; but when those are exhausted, there is no wise 
nor hallowed resource, but patience and prayer—the work of time and 
the will of Providence. If Russell had adhered to his legitimate means, 
he would, within five years, have seen the Constitution restored, and 
even invigorated, and this whole magnificent boon unpurchased by the 
price of a drop of blood. Russell was put to death in 1683, on the 
constructive treason of intending to depose the reigning king, an obvious » 
and scandalous fiction. 

Russell died with the spirit of an English noble, and the feelings of 
a patriot on the great question of his time and ours. The paper which 
he delivered to the sheriff, on the scaffold, contained this memorable and 
true declaration of the incompatability of popery with the British con- 
stitution. 

«J have lived, and now die in the reformed religion, a true and sincere 
protestant, and in the communion of the church of England. I wish 
with all my soul all unhappy differences were removed; and that all 
sincere protestants would so far consider the danger of popery, as to lay 
aside their heats, and agree with me against the common enemy. 

* For popery, I look upon it as an idolatrous and bloody religion, and 
therefore thought myself bound in my station to do all I could against 
it. And by that I foresaw I should procure such great enemies to - 


myself, and such powerful ones, that I have been now for some time’- — 


expecting the worst. And blessed be God, I fall by the axe, and not by 
the fiery trial (persecution). Yet, whatever apprehensions I had of 
popery, I never had a thought of doing any thing against it basely or 
inhumanly ; but what could well consist with the Christian religion, 


and the laws and liberties of this kingdom. I have always loved my - 


country more than my life. J did believe, and do still, that popery ws 
breaking in upon this nation, aad that those who advance it, will stop at 
nothing to carry on their design. I am heartily sorry, that so many. 


1829.] The Dangers of England and Ireland. 231 


Protestants give their helping hand to it. But I hope God will preserve 
the Protestant religion, and this nation!” Signed, “ William Russel.” 

Such was the language of a whig, when whigs were men of honour ; 
and of a Russel; when the name had not been prostituted to the lowest 
mixture with the most vulgar faction. ey 

James II., a papist, abolished the oath of supremacy and the several 
tests appointed to keep papists out of public trust ; he received the 
popish bishops at court in their robes, he carried on a negociation with 
the Court of Rome, and he placed the government of Ireland in hands 
devoted to the papists. His course was short: he was driven. from his 
throne by the united and indignant resolution of his people. 

The first act of William, which is the corner-stone of the constitution 
of 1688, (1. W. and M. ce. 1.) declares that “ In all future parliaments 
the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and the declaration required by 
(30. Car. 2.) for ‘disabling papists from sitting in parliament,’ shall be 
taken and subscribed by every member of both Houses.” The penalty for 
sitting without having so sworn, being 500/. The next step was to exclude 
them from the throne. By the ninth section of the Bill of Rights, 
(1 W. and M. st. 2. c. 2.) it is declared, “ That all and every person 
who is, or shall be reconciled to, or shall hold communion with the see 
of Rome, or shall profess the popish religion, or shall marry a papist, 
shall be excluded, and be for ever incapable to inherit, possess, or enjoy 
the crown and government of this realm and Ireland. And in all such 
cases, the people are absolved of their allegiance, and the crown shall 
descend tothe person or persons being Protestants, who should have 
inherited the same in case the persons so reconciled were dead.” 

By the tenth section of the same Bill, every king and queen of Eng- 
land, is required on the first day of the meeting of the first parliament, 
next after their accession, sitting on the throne in the house of peers, 
in the presence of the lords and commons, or at their coronation, to 
subscribe and audibly repeat the “ declaration ” required of the members 
of both Houses by the last mentioned act. By the Coronation Oath 
established at the same period (1 W. and M. c. 6.) the monarch is 
sworn, “ To maintain to the utmost of his power the laws of God, the 
true profession of the gospel, and rH ProresrANT REFORMED RELI- 
‘GION, AS ESTABLISHED BY LAW.” And secondly, “ To preserve unto 
the bishops and the clergy of the realm, and the churches committed to 
their charge, all such rights and privileges as by law do, or shall apper- 
tain to them.” 

Nothing in human obligation can be clearer than that the construction 
of this oath was not intended to be left to the new version of any future 
monarch ; nor its validity to the caprice of a vote of parliament. The 
_men who tendered the oath to William, had given the throne to him and 
his successors, on the principle, that by this change of the dynasty they 
‘secured themselves and their descendants for ever from the. possi- 
ty of being the slaves of a porish government. They must have 
mown the many adventitious circumstances that might influence a 
_ parliamentary majority ; and itis a mere contradiction to common sense 
suppose that they had expelled a king, encountered the most formi- 
ble personal risks, and provoked’ battle with the whole of popish 
urope, simply to impose an oath, which half-a-dozen voices more or 
3 might at any moment turn into a nursery tale. 

The oath is obviously distinguished into two parts. The former 
dging the monarch to maintain “the laws of God, the true profession 


232 : The Dangers of England and Ireland. (Marcu, 


of the gospel, and the Protestant reformed religion, as established by 
law.” Those three are placed in one class, they are principles,” and 
unchangeable. ‘ 

The second clause refers to the rights and privileges of the clergy, 
things in their nature liable to legislative change, which the monarch 
is bound to preserve in such powers as do or shall appertain to them. No 
similar provision for contingency applies in the former clause ; which, as 
strongly as words and the texture of a solemn obligation can.make it 
binding, is unalterable. The oath was regularly taken and regularly 
observed, in its palpable sense, by the Brunswick succession. 

In 1778 the laws against popery began to be relaxed (18 George III. 
c. 60) as far as related to the apprehension of Jesuits, popish bishops and 
priests, and theinheritance of estates by papists. In 1791 the act (31 Geo. III. 
ce. 32.) took away the prosecution against Papists and Papist ecclesiastics, 
authorised Papist schools and chapels, and allowed Papists the profes- 
sion of thelaw. In 1817 the army and navy were opened tothem. But 
in Ireland, in 1793, by the weakness of the Irish government, and the 
liberalism of faction, had been given the first fatal privilege of voting for 
members of Parliament, by the popish peasantry—a guilty and factious 
measure, which plunged the whole of the lower orders into increased 
poverty, rendered them objects of every inflammation of treason, and, 
finally, prepared them for the insurrection of 1798. . 

The more daring attempt is now to be made, to give the furious, and 
ignorant, and disaffected agents of the Popish priesthood, seats in the 
legislature. The blow will be fatal to either the constitution or the peace 
of the empire. It will either break down Protestant liberty, or rouse a 
spirit of angry repulse, whose results cannot be contemplated without 
horror. There are in the empire two men, either of whom could avert 
the crisis. The Duke of Wellington could, by refusing to carry on the 
popish bill. extingyish the evil at a word. A gesture from him, would 
instantly bring back Mr. Peel’s opinions into their oldtrain, clear he 
Chancellor’s visual nerve, and make the whole tribe of the Goulburns, 
Dawsons, Herrieses, Sugdens, and other vermicular adherents to the good 
things of the Treasury, creep back the way they came. But this the © 
Duke of Wellington will not do. He has not adventured so far for — 
nothing. He must carry the Popish Bill, or must fly from office, and be — 
undone. 
- The King can do it. By one declaration—by one syllable, he can 
overthrow all designs against the constitution, and save the country from 
the most tremendous struggle that it has known since the days of Edge- 
hill, Marston Moor, and Naseby. By decision now, he may break up, 
even more than parliamentary hostility. Men are beginning to consider — 
for what ulterior purposes England is now to be startled from her quiet. 
They call the Popish question only a cloak—they scoff at the idea, that 
fear of the braggart harangues of Irish Popery can have required the 
sacrifice of the constitution. They see ministers themselves at length 
loftily protesting against all idea of intimidation. They see the militia 
staffs broken up, the yeomanry extinguished,—a military cabinet, and 
they ask in low tones, but with wondering faces, to what do all these 
things tend? Solemnly and, affectionately, and anxiously, they call upor 
the protection of their King. 

But if in England men look to desperate changes and as desperati 
effects upon the public mind, what must be the result in Ireland 
We dare not shape to ourselves the catastrophe that may be hurrie 


1929.) ~~ The Dangers of England and Ireland. 233. 


on there by the attempt to controul the feelings of a Protestant people, 
possessing the whole intelligence manliness and education ; masters by 
birthright of almost the whole landed property of the country ; men 
bound together in an untameable abhorrence of the vileness and vices of 
popery, every recollection of whose hearts points to the ancestors 
who achieved the revolutien in England, crushed rebellion in Ireland, 
drove the popish slaves of James from one field of battle to another, 
until at last, on the stone bridge of Limerick, the last spot in 
Treland left to the foot of renegades, they forced the signature of that 
glorious treaty which sent the popish army to live and die, mercenaries 
in France, and consigned the baffled adherents of popery in Ireland to 
the obscurity and impotence fittest for the slaves of priesthood. 

Of those Protestants there are thousands and hundréds of thousands, 
men who will not shrink from the side of the constitution, let come what 
will. A single petition from the Protestants of Ireland, contains s1x 
HUNDRED THOUSAND NAMES! Let ministers hear this, and think of 
what they are doing. We shall tell them, that the voice of the Pro- 
testants of Ireland is the voice of truth, wisdom, and self-preservation ; 
and let ministers ask themselves, are they prepared to stifle it? or have. 
they the power, or is there any power on earth that could stifle it? 
We say, may God avert the trial of that question ! 

Let ministers look to the declarations at the great Protestant meeting 
in Dublin, on the 13th of February ; and, when they read the speeches 
delivered there, ask themselves whether such men either deserve to be 
put under the heel of an insolent and idolatrous priesthood, or can be 

ut under that heel. Let them see how the nervous language of Sir 
B. King was received. 


__* My Lord, we are not come here to whine and whimper over the funeral 
_ pile of the Constitution—(Cries of hear, hear.) My Lord, we are come here 
one and all, I trust, I hope, determined every man, if necessary, with our 
lives—(cries of “yes, yes” )—to support the Protestant Constitution in Church 
and State—(Renewed applause.) If, my Lord Mayor, this then be your. 
sentiment, let us now rally round the embers of the dying Constitution— 
Bapplause). Let us endeavour from them, while they still remain, to ignite a 
ark of fire which may kindle into a blaze of feeling that shall enlighten and 
Illuminate the whole land—(Loud cheers for some time.) Then shall the 
voice of the people be heard, and I trust that our watchword will resound 
throughout the nation, and that all will unite in defence of our. Protestant 
Constitution.—(Cries of “ Nor Surrender,” throughout the whole assembly). 
What is it we are now called on perhaps to fight for >—what called on to pro- 
tect and defend? Our lives, our liberties, and our revered religion—(Cheers.) 
My Lord Mayor, I shall rot longer trespass on your kindness and patience, and 
of this assembly, than by expressing my hope and conviction, that you 
ill this day, before your departure from this meeting, call on our revered 
e eign, and surely that call will not be made in vain—(cheers, and cries of 
e will” )—to stand forward in defence of that Constitution for the preser- 
ation of which he holds his throne—(Renewed cheers.) I am satisfied, my 
fds and Gentlemen, that if we make that application to his Most Gracious 
d y, our beloved Sovereign, the head of the House of Brunswick—(ap- 
ise )—that House which has been called to the Throne of these Realms for 
maintenance of the Constitution of 1688, to maintain and uphold those 
iples—the call will not be made in vain—(hear, hear)—and that a Sove- 
of that family will not hear his people’s voice in vain. Gentlemen, if 
speak to our beloved Sovereign, in language couched with that respect, 
hat veneration, and that honour which becomes us, and which he so strongly 
2H 


M.M. New Series.—Vou. VII. No. 39. 


234 The Dangers of England and Ireland. [Marcu, 


deserves, I again repeat, that such language addressed to him, and carrying 
the sentiments of his people, cannot be heard in vain’—(Applause.) 


Lord Frankfort de Montmorency’s speech, though brief, was couched 
in language to which nothing but frenzy would refuse an ear. 


“ T must address a few words to the Protestants" assembled here, the des- 
cendants of those illustrious men who sealed the Constitution with their 
blood—(Loud applause.) Yes, my Lord and Gentlemen, they bled for that 
free and glorious Constitution, and are we not ready to do the same ?—(Loud 
cries of “ yes, we are.”) I am called on, imperatively called on, to make use 
of strong language. It is necessary for us to defend the Constitution if it 
should be attacked. The country has been lulled into most dangerous secu- 
rity, and that by the basest measures—(Loud cries of hear.) I am certain 
that the Throne, notwithstanding all that has yet been done, will demon- 
strate its attachment to the principles which has placed its present possessor 
thereon. If it have been deceived, I am sorry for it; but it becomes our duty, 
and we will speak out in the language of determination and truth to rouse 
the nation and the people.” 


————— 


Lord Longford, castigated the scandalous meanness of Mr. Peel, in 
language which ought to make the apostate hide his head for ever. 

After a succession of able addresses, the Reverend Charles Boyton, 
one of the Fellows of the University, and who has distinguished himself, 
from the first, by his vigour and manliness, took a view of the question 
in all its details, with an energy worthy of his character and his cause. 
We regret that we must restrict ourselves to a single brief passage. But 
the whole speech must be read and felt in every part of the empire. 


i i i i 


‘ ©] shall proceed to show you a few specimens of their private conduct 
which had the same result, and which will show you, that while as a govern- 
ment, they never interfered with this factious body, they were, as private 
individuals, in close and continued intimacy with the leaders of the Associa 
tion. I speak notorious facts—ay, facts, as notorious as that sun which now 
shines above us—that a leading Roman Catholic barrister, occupying a high 
legal situation in this country, the highest which a Roman Catholic can Wy 
hold, has been the confidant, the confidential adviser of the two last vice-regal 
Administrators in Ireland ; and I would mention, too, that this man was the 
intimate companion and bosom friend with the leading disturbers of the country. 
—(Cries of “ Hear, hear.”) I say, that during Lord Wellesley’s administra~ 
tion, he was the right-hand man of the Viceroy ; and I assert, that during 
Lord Anglesey’s government, he was a leading friend and adviser of his 
Excellency.—(“ a groan for Lord Anglesey,” which was given on the instant. 

And I say, that during all this time this person was in close connection wit 

O’Connell and Sheil. I would refer you for proof of the position, which I have 
laid down, to a fact which at the time was quite notorious in Dublin, that 
when the Marquess Wellesley came to this country, this very gentleman 
ordered the waiters at the hotel where he stopped, to deny access to him to 
all persons except Mr. O’Connell, and the Attorney-General for Ireland. I 
would even go still further, to show the exertions which have been made in 
favour of the Roman Catholics of this country. Not very remote from the 
place where I stand is a Popish mass-house, which is now designated as a 
church ; that Popish mass-house was made the receptacle of vice-regal 
dignity.” 


1829. fr 235 J 
" THE THEATRES. 


Ir is unquestionably no more than fair to Fawcett’s management of 
Covent Garden, to say, that he has conducted the season hitherto with a 
very unusual degree of activity. This is in the style of his former 
master, Harris, who certainly had all the merit of never suffering the 
theatre to go to sleep; his expedients might be open to criticism, but he 
was never wanting in expedients. If a comedy failed, there was a 
melo-drame ready to fill up the breach, with invincible knights, and 
princesses in despair. If Young was sick, or Macready sorrowful, 
Madame Saqui wes summoned to walk, like the queen of the monkies, 
up arope at an angle of forty-five degrees, or Monsieur Tournetéte to 
cling to the roof like a colossal spider. Frederic Reynolds too, was a 
tower of strength. If his pleasant farces were not forthcoming—and they 
seldom were a day behind their time—Reynolds had a dog to astonish all 
the sportsmen, by his pointing at partridges in a field of stage stubble ; 
or a horse to overwhelm the é/éves of the five hundred boarding schools 
round London, by walking the minwet de la cour better than any of them ; 
or a learned pig that beat Hoyle at whist, and made Philidor, in two 
games out of three at his own chess board, tremble for his laurels. 
And, let the wise men of the world, who know every thing by instinct, 
say what they will, this is the true way to carry on a theatre. Harris 
had too much to contend with in the enormous debt which the enormous 
ostentation of building an enormous theatre laid on his shoulders ; but, 
he did wonders, for he contrived to keep his theatre in perpetual 
popularity: his company was the best that the whole force of dramatic 
ability could supply. He had playing at one time, and frequently in 
one performance, Young, Charles Kemble, Macready, and Miss O’Neil, 
with a crowd of the best remplagants and subordinates, and his own 
indefatigable exertion, personal punctuality, and unwearied good humour, 
complete as large around of managerial qualifications as could be found 
on the stage. 
In looking over the memoirs that have been within these few years 
published by actors and dramatic authors, we see perpetual pangyrics 
on the generosity, and honour, the personal good sense, and the public 
“activity of the elder Harris. We allude to him now, merely as the model 
which every modern manager ought to have before his eyes. With this 
intelligent man, the author was the first object. It was a fixed principle, 
to cultivate the intimacy of clever men and turn their powers to the 
stage. When once they had exhibited decided ability for the drama, 
they might look upon themselves as secure of the manager’s services for 
life. It was Harris’s rule, to have at least four comedies in preparation 
at the commencement of every season, and to bring them out in succes- 
sion, but not till the actors were most thoroughly prepared, and the most 
favourable junctures had occurred. For those labours he allowed the 
most liberal remuneration. He drove none of those harsh bargains that 
so often make it a humiliation for a gentleman to have any thing to do 
with the stage. If the performance merited the public approbation, 
there was no vulgar limit to its reward. Colman has for one play 
received 1,000/., and probably more in other instances. Cherry received 
for “ The Will,” 1,300/. Holcroft received 1,100/. and 1,300/. Morton, 
eceived 1,000/. for “ Town and Country,” even before it was played. In 

e instance, O’ Keefe had produced an opera in extreme haste at Harris’s 

‘suggestion, who was in want of an immediate performance. The sum 
be paid was six hundred guineas. The opera failed totally, and at 

ce. O'Keefe, a neryous man, overwhelmed with its ruin, which 


236 The Theatres. [ Marcu, 


seemed to him to involve his own with the manager, fled. from, the theatre 
and threw himself upon his bed in despair. He was roused by Harris’s 
arrival shortly after, who cheered him, talked of the disaster asa mere 
accident owing to the haste with which his production was urged ; and 
ended, by pouring out the six hundred guineas onthe table. i 

The man who could do this, deserved to have the best ability of able 
men at his command, and he had it. The theatre never was in so 
flourishing a state since the days of Garrick. Covent Garden, with 
its comedies, anda comic company (though that was first-rate) fought 
and conquered the grand dramatic army of Drury Lane, with the 
Kembles and’ Siddons at its head, and with only, at least, the name of 
Sheridan to make it the centre of fashion, and the centre of wit together. 
Still Harris vigorously fought his battle, and when he retired from the 
management through age, he retired with 80,0007. 

But there was in his conduct more than the mere official drudgery of 
a manager. He cultivated society at home. He felt that he might take 
rank among his fellow men by his personal merits, and his house received 
with honourable and accomplished hospitality a large suecession of 
individuals fitted to give distinction to any rank. He thus at once made 
his profession popular, and acquired for himself the active civilities and 
‘polished intercourse of the learned, the witty, and the influential. Six 
Joshua Reynolds had done this before him, and found its advantages in 
the best sense of the word, in the cultivation of his own understanding, 
in the pleasant opportunity of bringing intelligent and valuable men 
together, who, but for that casual intercourse might never have met, and 
in the added information and personal pleasure to be found in manly 
and highly instructed minds. 

But who does this now? Sir Thomas Lawrence, at the head of his 
profession, and with the duty incumbent on him of promoting and 
keeping it in public honour, sees the example of Sir Joshua pass away, 
without an attempt to emulate it. The lives of all the other headsof 
professions are strictly, almost sullenly, private ; from the highest rank 
to the most common, all in this point, are the same. Yet this is impolitie. 
Those chiefs of the staff, those leaders of the intellectual forces of the 
country, should feel that their situation imposes on them the duty of 
publicity, and that the most natural way of ennobling a profession, is to 
bring its professors into frequent contact with able men ; at. present, all 
those leaders are obscure, from a love of keeping in the back ground. 
Not one man out of a thousand knows any thing of their existence, and 
of course, their own opportunities are equally narrowed. Mr. Davies 
Gilbert is known among the Royal Society as the gentleman who sits in 
their chair, and there ends the knowledge. Sir Henry Halford has too 
many pulses to press in an evening, to trouble himself with calling his 
equals about him. Sir Astley Cooper, by nature a jovial fellow, yields 
to the force of custom, and shuts himself up by his fire-side. A solemn 
dinner once a year, or an evening levee, at which he preposterously 
orders his visitors to appear in bags and swords, satisfies the Chancellor’s 
duties in this point ; and so goes on the round, dull and undelighted, — 
beggarly and obscure, until painters, poets, lawyers, and physicians, sink 
into the common dust, to be not more forgotten in the churchyard, — 
than they were in society. : 

The principal novelty of the season has been “ The Nymph of ‘the 
Grotto,” written by Mr. Diamond, and composed by Liverati and Lee. 
We give this, ‘as it is given by the papers, but the originality of 


1829.] The Theatres. 237 


writing seems to have consisted in a translation from the French, Mr. 
Diamond's proverbial resource ; and the originality of the music in com- 
pilation from half-a-dozen old operas. Of course, a few additions have 
been made, and sufficient changes, to avoid direct plagiarism. The 
denial is at once vulgar and useless, for we prefer the French to any 
thing that we can expect from the regular workers for our stage ; and 
we think, that nine-tenths of our present school of composers, puffing 
personages as they are, are infinitely better employed in copying airs 
from old operas, than attempting new ones of their own. The opera has 
succeeded to a certain extent, for the scenery, the music, and the acting 
were all pretty. There was some pretiy dialogue in the more sentimental 
parts, and though the leading idea, of a man falling into any kind of love 
with a being presumed to be of the male sex, is repulsive in the extreme, 
and should be shrunk from on the stage, as much as it is abhorred in real 
life, yet the dénouement was prettily contrived, and the audience were 
pleased to see that the nymph was a nymph after all. The opera has 
since gradually expired. 

A comedy by Mr. Lunn next appeared. The author is an ingenious 
man, and with no slight theatrical talent, but his comedy was either 
“too broad or too long;” and the “ Widow Bewitched,” was per- 
formed but a few nights. It was treated with considerable negligence 
in the papers, and in some instances with severity—this tone we regret. 
The difficulty of producing a comedy must be very great, from the very 
few instances in which we see the attempt made, and the fewer, if possi- 
ble, in which we see it succeed. There has been but one performancé 
of this kind successful to any extent within the last quarter of a century. 
Of course if the play do not please the audience, the audience will 
extinguish it ; and there is no reasoning with pit, box and gallery, on that 
subject or any other. But criticism should look out for the good as 
well as the evil—and authorship, a thing easily cast down in the better 
order of minds, might be cheered to superior efforts by the feeling, that 
let actors, managers and audiences do what they may, it will be sure 
of justice at the hands of men, whose opinion spreads beyond the 
ephemeral decision of a theatre. We hope to see Mr. Lunn exerting 
himself with additional spirit in the service of the drama. “ Yelva,” a 
translation from the French, perished on the second night. 

In this general mortality of the present generation, it occurred to the 
clever manager, to try what could be done among the dead of the past ; 
and the “ Beaux Stratagem” was dug up. Farquhar’s pleasantry has 
been proverbial, and as his indecency kept pace with his humour, he 
wanted nothing for the richest popularity with our jocund forefathers. 
But with all his merits, and he obviously had very remarkable ones in 
the powers of his dramatic conception, his day is past, in every sense of 
the word. The “ Beaux Stratagem” lingered a few nights and disap- 
peared. The “ Recruiting Officer,” a much more poignant and objec- 
tionable affair, followed in its reproduction, and in its fate. What the 
manager will exhume next we can only conjecture. But he may take 
our advice as to the plays of the last century, and let them alone. 

The manager of Drury Lane has exhibited his usual activity. But 

_ authorship has not prospered among his ranks, and nothing but increased 
- good fortune among those gentlemen can revive the public gratification. 
Caswallon, Mr. Walker’s tragedy, is gone. With some excellent situa- 
tions, and some very good acting, it had not the general power essential 
_to holding a permanent place upon the stage. Shakspeare, the ever- 


238 The Theatres. [Marcu, 


lasting Shakspeare, has been tried; and “« Cymbeline” has given oppor- 
tunity for new displays of Young’s force, and Miss Phillips’s tenderness. 
A little farce, by Peake, “A Day at Boulogne,” has the merit of being 
English, and in this day of smuggling, a little fair trading between 
Boulogne and the Port of London, is so much a novelty that we honour 
the trader with peculiar promise of popularity. Yet the day at Bou- 
logne is not destined to be a long one, and Mr. Peake must speedily 
make a second voyage. _ 

On the 21st, a drama, compiled from the French, by Morton, and 
with the dialogue by Kenny, was performed with, we are glad to say, 
very considerable approbation. The title is, “‘ Peter the Great; or 
the Battle of Pultowa.” The piece opens at the period when Peter 
(Mr. Young) is preparing to repel the attack of Charles XII. The 
adherents of a banished nobleman have formed a plot for his destruc- 
tion, and have induced the exile’s son, Alexis (Mr. J. Vining), to place 
himself at their head. The plot is discovered to the King by means of 
a paper found on an old soldier, Swartz (Mr. W. Farren), whom Peter 
pardons, and then goes in disguise, and alone, to the place at which the 
conspirators had fixed their meeting. As soon as Alexis has quitted 
them, the Czar discovers himself, shoots the ringleader, and the rest of 
the traitors are seized by the guard. The next scene, in which the 
Czar pardons Alexis, and places him at the head of the conspirators as 
his officer, is effective. eter is cut off from his army, and obliged to 
take refuge in the house of the miller Addlewitz (Mr. Liston), recently 
married. The miller is from home; Peter secures the assistance of his 
wife and mother (Miss Love and Mrs. C. Jones),—puts on his clothes, 
and not only passes with the Swedish soldiers for the miller, but endea- 
vours to persuade Addlewitz on his return that he is not himself. This 
is a well-managed part of the play, and was most favourably received. 
Charles himself appears ; relieves an exhausted sentinel, and takes his 
place ; some Cossacks come in pursuit of the Czar, and avow their inten- 
tion of murdering him if they fall in with him. Charles, who com- 
mands them to abandon this design, is attacked by them, and rescued 
by Peter, who then discovers himself, offers to treat for peace, and upon 
Charles’s refusal, returns to his own army to continue the war. Charles 
is wounded at Pultowa, and his army dispersed. Among the prisoners 
is Dorinski, a Russian nobleman, who has joined the enemy. He is the 
father of Paulina (Miss E. Tree), who has been brought up by her 
maternal grandfather, Swartz, and is betrothed to Alexis. He is con- 
demned to death ; his daughter learns her relationship to him for the 
first time, attempts to effect his escape, and failing, sends Swartz with 
a ring which Peter had given her when she assisted him to assume the 
disguise of the miller, to implore the Czar’s clemency. The prisoner is 
led to execution, but is pardoned by Peter, and the lovers are married. 

All this is very good for the kind of thing that melodrame aims at— 
there is a great quantity of bustle, and some degree of interest. Peasants of 
the most generous hearts—soldiers of the most enthusiastic valour—officers 
of the most brilliant sentimentality—and heroines all for love, and some- 
times, for a little more than the tolerated language of la belle passion, 
are abundant. Miss Love, to whose share those vivid conceptions seem 
to be apportioned by some peculiar privilege, gave them all with all her 
liveliness, and was hissed for doing her duty to the utmost on the occa- 
sion. But the speeches were not hers, and we are by no means of 
opinion that so pretty an actress should be answerable for any concep- 
tions but her own. We missed Farren, who is invaluable in old men of 


z 


i 


1829. ] The Theatres. 239 


every species, from the king to the cobbler; Swartz is not equal 
to his powers. Cooper’s Charles exhibited the judgment of that 
manly performer. Liston, in the miller, had his jokes in full va- 
riety ; but Young, as the Czar, had certainly the monarchy of the piece. 
Young’s grave comedy we have always thought fully equal to his tra- 
gedy, able as that is; and the little humourous touches thrown into his 
part were given with great skill. Miss Tree, who has been lately rather 
languid, exhibited herself to remarkable advantage, and with the 
exception of her “ Christina” in the “ Little Queen,” which is as 
beautiful a sketch of youthful passion contending with royal pride, as 
we have known on the stage, we have not seen this very intelligent actress 
more triumphant. The play was received with very general applause. 

The Italian Opera has gone on with tolerable success—but we have 
not room for dilating on it now. Pisaroni is the leading singer ; and so 
far as power of voice and knowledge of her art go, she is a first-rate 
performer—beauty is not among her qualifications, but the world has 
been already sufficiently prepared on that point ; and as voice is the first 
qualification for the opera, we have no right to be discontented. The 
new contrivances of the stalls in the pit, are convenient, but the system 
is un-English, and we shall not object to M. Laporte’s feeling its effect 
in due season. 


SPECIMENS OF HOTTENTOT POPULAR POETRY 35 
TRANSLATED BY PETER BOREALL, M.P.R.S.T. 


Mr. Bowrrne has for a long time possessed the office of master of the 
ceremonies to the productions of the barbarous Muses. His specimens 
of the Russian, Dutch, Servian, and Polish poetry, have convinced an 
enlightened public that the charms of melody are equally dear to the 
slave of a despot, and the stern lord of himself—to the polished inha- 
bitant of the city, and the wild wanderer of the desart. His researches 
were, however, confined to Europe. The gentleman, whose translation 
forms the subject of the present article, has conducted us to the unex- 
plored regions of Southern Africa, and has shewn us that “ the stormy 
spirit of the Cape” has had worshippers as valuable as the “ dweller in 
Delphi’—that the Table Mountain has been as consecrated a haunt of 
the Muses as the summits of Parnassus. 

The greater part of these melodies have been written subsequent to the 
settlement of the Europeans, and consequently do not furnish us with 
a pertect view of the natural state of the Hottentots ; but Mr. Boreall 
states that some original poems, of great antiquity, are in his possession, 
though, from their obsolete style, he has not been yet able to overcome 
all the difficulties of translation. We were not a little amused by the 
application of magisterial titles to the wild animals of Africa: the buf- 
falo is designated “ his worship ;’ the lion, “ captain ;’ the hyena, “ a 
tax-gatherer ;”’ the cameleopard, “ a gentleman ;” the jackall, “a 
hanger-on at the Stadt-house ;” birds of prey are called “ merchants ;” 


"and a vulture, “ governor-general.”” Indeed, we were for some time 


afraid that we had picked up a political satire, in which the res geste 
of my Lord Somerset were enshrined in immortal verse. 


“ Complaints were made by all the crowd, 
But each request was disallowed ; 
The lordly vulture with disdain 
Survey’d the minor wretches’ pain, 
And swore that neither print nor press 
Should tell the tale of their distress.” 


240 Specimens of Hottentot Poetry. [ Marcu; 


On reading farther, we found, . however, that “ print or press”, meant 
merelythe traces of desolation left by a suffering crowd. We shall select 
one or two of those melodies, as specimens of the literature of this inte- 
resting people ; and our first shall be the description of a hunt, some- 
what different from the absurd sport of our fox-and-hare-hunting 
gentry :— 

THE Butt HUNT. 

His lordship the bull is asleep by the lake, 
He'll astonish the hunters as soon as he'll wake ; 
Now calm as the storm-cloud that rests on the hill, 
His roaring to-morrow the ether shall fill: 

Bullaboo, bullaboo ! 

When they come in his view, 

By my conscience, the hunters will look very blue! 


There’s Quashee and’ Smashee have found out his lair, 
Our kraal never witnessed so gallant a pair ; 
With their dogs, that are smart as the dogs of excise, 
His worship the smuggler they soon will capsize: 
Bullaboo, bullaboo ! 
Their rifles are true ; 
Betimes in the morning you'll meet with your due. 


The dogs in the morning burst into the brake, 
In the blood of his worship their fury to slake ; 
They barked, and he roared ; they bit, and he kicked ; 
And his fiercest assailants he craftily nicked: 
Bullaboo, bullaboo! 
When at you he flew, 
Sky-high from his forehead the bull-dogs he threw. 
The bull from the thicket then solemnly walked, 
But earth shook beneath him as onward he stalked ; 
And Smashee exclaimed, with a terrible call, 
“You must dance, Mr. Bull, when I open the ball :” 
Bullaboo, bullaboo! 
Your lordship he slew, 
And that night all the village were feasting on you. 
Ope XV. 1 28. 


Our last specimen shall be from one of their amatory poems. The 
reign of love is, it appears, not as limited as the domination of other 
sovereigns, but equally pervades the civilized and uncivilized classes of 
society :— 

I have got for my love a baboon, 

And the fat of a newly-killed sheep ; 
A ram’s-horn made into a spoon, 

A bull’s-hide on which she can sleep : 
And if a young lizard I find, 

Of the booty you shall have a part ; 
So now to your lover be kind, 

And give him a piece of your heart. 


We close the volume with sentiments of respect for the learned trans- 
lator ; for we have seldom enjoyed a greater treat than from the perusal 
of his unpretending little volume. We sincerely hope that his future 
labours may meet with public approbation, and that his forthcoming 
specimens of the Ashantee and Caffrarian poetry may remunerate the 
toil of translating from languages, whose beauties have been hitherto 
so little appreciated. 


1229, ]- Bibel 
MINE HOST’S LAST STORY. 


« You are an Englishman, I believe, Sir?” 

I looked up, startled, at the face of the speaker; but Cayrmelo’s eyes, 
bent upon me with a sad and thoughtful expression, and the words he 
uttered, seemed no longer unmeaning. I did not question him in return, 
as my first impulse prompted me, but quietly left him to the unravelment 
of his own thoughts in silence, if they were too sacred for disclosure, or 
by such gradual exhibition as his mood chose to indulge in. The old 
man laid his pipe upon the table before us, and, rising from his seat, 
paced once or twice the whole length of the chamber ; then suddenly 
fixing his gaze upon a rude picture that leant against a retiring panel, 
on one side of the little lamp for ever illuminating his patron saint, he 
seemed absorbed in contemplations, the spirit of which was of no happy 
character. He returned to his seat—his features unfixed, his look dim 
and quivering ; and when he examined his pipe, and railed against the 
exhausted tobacco, the tone of his anger was heightened and falsified, to 
conceal the tremulous accents in which otherwise -he would have ex- 
pressed himself. This depression was not. customary in my excellent 
old host. His name was more often coupled with supper-songs, and the 
quotations of merry roysterers, than used as a fit appendage to a love- 
tale or twilight sentiment. But his heart was human; and, in that 
strange, capricious atmosphere, the succession of whose storms and sun- 
shine no philosophic laws have availed to regulate, he lived as cther men, 
subject to the raging of its Dog-star— to the soft influences of its Pleiades. 
It was a dark moment with him, and something of sympathy forbade me 
to interfere with it. I was rewarded. 

« Sir,” said he, after a long pause, “ you have heard from me the 
story in which one of my kindred bore a trifling part ;—at any rate, you 
remember her name ;—I mean Rosalia, the mother of that young vixen 
whom you have been so kind to?—Well !—I am tempted to use an old 
man’s privilege, and confide to you some more family particulars—more 
interesting to me, because the parties were still dearer to my heart, and 

_ nearer tome by blood. I can bear to think of them now ; for, tottering 
as I do on the very parapet of this world, I seem to lose the former mag- 
nitude of the objects which engrossed me in it, whilst I catch a dim and 
fanciful, but perhaps a very close, view of those which are opening upon 
me in a world which has no horizon.” : 

He crossed himself, and bowed his head reverently, as one already 
eccupied with the mysteries which emanated from the Deity whose pre- 
gence he acknowledged. 

« And yet,” he proceeded, “I do not think myself unblest, even 
though I have these mortal recollections tugging at my worn-out heart 
_—worn out because of them. Something have I lost, but much have I 
here gained, even by the sorrows which taught me to despise the 
romises of our present pleasures, and the-sleck looks of earthly attrac- 
»—Psha! what will you think of this, whoare still young, and fresh, 
and undesponding ? You, too, who have laughed and made merry with 
_ ie, as though either my mirth or my sadness were hypocrisy ? . There 
are times, young man, when we are opposites of ourselves ; and, in a 
single hour, the mind, if agitated, will traverse the whole extent of its 
sensations, and, resting only on the extremes, make itself appear a trifler 
or a dissembler.—Will you hear my present narrative ?” 

_ MLM. New Series—Vou. VII. No. 39. | 


242 Mine Hosts Last Slory. [ Mancu, 


I assented willingly; and my old friend, subduing the emotions 
which he would not acknowledge, began pretty nearly in the following 
words :— 

« T was the father of four daughters ; each different from the other in 
face as in character ; each possessing—not in my fond eyes alone, but 
by the common voice of the world—enough of feminine sweetness, both 
of person and disposition, to separate her from the ordinary creatures 
whom mothers make puppets of for their advancement and wretchedness. 
My eldest, left by my wife almost in the position of a parent to her 
motherless sisters, became in a short time rather too dictatorial and 
matronly to combine very cordially with them in their childish sports 
and occupations. Unfortunately, the watchfulness with which she 
checked their follies and directed their improvement, was never entirely 
of that disinterested kind which only a mother can exercise. Some little 
of rivalry, of fear, of unprovoked suspicion, was mixed up with her 
amiable efforts to preserve the girls from the corrupt accomplishments 
and tricks of their playmates ; and, in consequence, the few years which 
intervened between her birth and that of my second child, became mag- 
nified into a large space, and she stood on a height above her sisters 
which they regarded with awe. This was the source of many misfor- 
tunes ; for they concealed things from her which were done only for the 
sake of the concealment ; and as a thousand clandestine acts are sure to 
succeed one, so that one would not have been thought of even by these 
very children, if the eldest had lived with them in a perfect state of cor- 
dial and confiding intercourse. My second, you know almost as well 
as myself: you may draw her character. The third—how shall I find 
phrases to describe her? She was my favourite child, Sir. I may 
acknowledge it now without scruple. She was the one whom I admired 
and loved most strongly, and yet most reasonably, for her excellence 
was pre-eminent ; and those graces which link the hearts together were 
as thick and powerful upon her as the tendrils ef our native vines. In 
truth, she had a very singular and commanding character. I speak of 
that ; for though, in my sight, she was as beautiful as daybreak, yet it 
was more common to give the praise of features to the little one, her 
youngest sister ; and I am content to give way so far as this. But her 
soul was her dower. Without a taint of earthly grossness, pure and 
glittering as the dew, she had the faculty of correcting and elevating 
those with whom she went, not by reproof, but by the insensible power 
of virtue in itself, which would not suffer the company of evil and con- 
trary affections. Yet so diflident—so retiring! Amongst strangers, she 
seemed all coldness, both of feeling and manners ; her heart, as well as 
her head, was distrusted or looked lightly upon by the world, who knew 
her not ; but to us she abounded in all the rich and generous accomplish- 
ments of perfect womanheod. Her step, her countenance, for ever gay, 
lightened by a free conscience, and a thousand intentions of benevolence 
towards her fellow-creatures. Her voice never heard in @ispraise, or 
clamour, or sullen complaint ; but happy, musical, and heralding to all 
about her all that she had heard or seen that might contribute to their 
benefit. Of herself, or for herself, there was nothing ; but, for the rest, 
she was a household spirit, without whom their wisest projects would 
have been imperfect ; and the neighbourhood, far and wide, can answer 
how kindly she aided their poor plans, relieved their wants, and com- 
forted them in their distresses; and yet all unseen as the light that 
wakens the song of birds, or the heat that calls forth the perfume of the 


1829. | Mine Hosts Last Story. 243 


flowers. I have grieved that many of her attractions were hid even 
from me. She was, in some degree, shrouded by her sisters. The elder 
checked and overawed her—the younger eclipsed her in the admiration 
of strangers. She was not ambitious, and yielded to any one who was 
likely by any means to usurp her place in the regard of others. I never 
knew the true enthusiasm of her soul—its high religious principle—its 
strong and uncontrollable impulses. I thought her almost too mecha- 

. nical; I was afterwards taught the extent of my blindness. I cannot 
tear myself away from my praises of this child, for I know that they are 
yet incomplete ; but I know too, that, in your ears, they will seem the 
extravagance of an old man’s dotage. Yet will I say no more of her ; 
for you are anxious to know the incidents to which this description is a 
preface. 

« Well, then, you must know that, in the year 12, one of your coun- 
trymen, an amiable and sensible young soldier, used to frequent this 
house so habitually, as to be at least almost considered one of our own 
circle. Hehad scarcely emerged from boyhood, and the long separation 
from his own home and domestic occupations gave him an inducement 
to take up any place as a substitute; and here, accordingly, he used to 
pitch his tent. He spoke our language like a native ; and the complete 
reliance on us, and interest in our personal affairs, which he not only 
professed, but manifested, made me, in return, regard him with confi- 
dence, and a feeling nearly allied to parental affection. He engaged in 
the amusements and all the petty politics of the girls, and did not scruple 
to be their companion in their walks or rides, whether. for duty or plea- 
sure. The danger to which this led, in his case, was of a different 
nature from the usual risk attending such intimacies. I knew him to be 
above dishonour, and I never dreamed of any thing beyond a temporary 
and sober attachment. But you shall hear the issue. My youngest 
child was, by accident, away from home during the earlier part of our 
acquaintance with the young Englishman, and thus Gianina was gene- 
rally his companion in the excursions and little enterprises of the time ; 
for the two eldest were more engaged at home, and invalids into the bar- 
gain. After a while, the absent one came back from her visit to the 
country ; and the first thing I observed was a total change of manner 
exhibited towards her by Gianina, who had usually been her constant 
and confiding playfellow, rarely separated from her by day or night. 
But now, by some mischance or other, she scarcely addressed her but in 
a constrained tone, and seemed to shun her company, and seek that of 
the Englishman with more than former eagerness. On his part, I could 
trace no indications of reciprocal preference. At times, his eyes would 
be riveted on his new acquaintance, my little Madelena; and a flash of 
scarlet passed over his countenance, as if in consciousness that her sister 
was observing the pleasure which he derived from the contemplation of 
so much beauty. And she did observe it. I perceived it in her dejec- 

 tion—in her abandonment of her usual occupations—in the listless look 
towards others—and the quick, jealous glance, yet soft and beautiful, 
with which she seemed to upbraid him for refusing her all his devotion. 
I knew not how to interfere; but I felt sure that it was my duty to 
check the progress of these emotions, which threatened a convulsion in 
our little community. Luckily for me—yet how can I call it so?—my 
part was not to be played as I expected. 

“ One day, as I was sitting alone, the young man came into my room, 

912 


~ od 


244 Mine Host’s Last Story. [ Mancu, 


and requested a half-hour’s conversation with me. We sat together, 
and, for a few minutes, neither epened his lips. At last he com- 
menced :— : 

. © My good friend,’ said he, ‘ I wished to see you thus by yourself; 
that I might have an opportunity of more fully expressing to you my 
gratitude for the many hospitable acts, and liberal feelings, that you have 
shewn to me for so long. If I do not see you again, be assured they 
are not thrown away upon one who cannot appreciate such kindness ; 
but if, by any exertion at any future season, I can shew more perfectly 
my sense of these obligations, trust me that I shall not feel towards you as 
foreigners, but as beings for ever connected with my happiest recollec- 
tions. I cannot hope to be remembered as I shall remember you, for 
you have around you hundreds who will, at any time, supply. my un- 
worthy place; but not in thé world shall I ever find a hearth so warm, 
and faces around it so kind to welcome me.’ 

“ He paused, evidently oppressed with the strength of his own excited 
feelings; and I was glad to seize the moment and ask, why he had 
so unseasonably come to distress me with something like a farewell 
speech ? 

“ He cast his eyes on the floor, and, in a troubled voice, answered, that 
he purposed leaving us on the following morning. I asked him whether 
he intended visiting the interior ? 

«© No,’ he replied ; ‘ I am going to England without delay.’ 

“« To England! 

. “© Ves,’ he continued; ‘ I have obtained leave of absence, and shall 
sail at day-break to-morrow morning, in the Spanish brig going to 
Gibraltar,’ 

« « And is your motive for leaving us so unexpectedly any which I may 
hope to hear ?’ 

“ He was silent ; and I apologized for a want of delicacy in requesting 
that which I had no right to be concerned in. He shook his head, and, 
grasping my hand in his, faultered out the words, ‘ You shall hear.’— 
Another pause ensued, and it was in scarce distinguishable accents that 
he finally was enabled to communicate his story. It was as follows:— 
He began by announcing to me, that Gianina had conceived for him 
an ardent and most incomprehensible attachment, of which he had for 
some time been quite ignorant, and failed to see a trace till it had been 
matured and fixed irrevocably in her bosom. An accident, which need 
not now be related, disclosed to him in a moment this wonderful truth. 
He had laughed with her, and been her merry companion for weeks, 
but never till that instant did he imagine the possibility of any passion 
arising in her breast more strong or more romantic than the friendly 
feeling which existed in his. From that moment the relation between 
them was changed. Her secret being once known, she no longer scrupled 
to acknowledge each impulse as it arose, in expressions as warm as they 
were innocent. From a maidenly, and almost painful, reserve, she 


passed into the extreme state of inconsiderate ingenuousness. She rarely 


spoke of any thing but him, and her love for him. She planned for the 
future, she revelled over the past, but always as connected with, or 
arising from him. Yet, though she neither checked her words nor her 
actions when with him alone, before others it was impossible to detect 
in her the slightest variation from the indifference with which she used 
to regard all who were not of her own family, even though not abso- 
lutely strangers. Haying told me thus much of my girl, he next dis- 


1829.] Mine Hosts Last Story. 945 


closed his own sentiments regarding her. He said, ‘candidly, that 
though from the first he had admired her as a creature of a superior 
order, yet had he never felt for her anything beyond the tempered 
regard which sprang from such an intimacy towards such a character. 
‘I revered her innocence, her guileless and simple morality ; I liked her 
as my companion, I was grateful to her for her kindness in my behalf: 
but till the hour when, as a flash of lightning, the fact of her loving me 
burst upon me, it was my belief that she herself was incapable either of 
conceiving or of exciting that gentler interest which we term love. From 
that instant, however, I was perplexed between two opposite intentions 
—one, to leave your neighbourhood instantly, as I could not endure to 
see her pine with unreturned affection ; the other, to force a feeling 
which had not sprung up spontaneously, and render myself, by industry, 
worthy to be loved by such an admirable and perfect creature. The 
latter plan prevailed. I tutored myself into a state of factitious sentiment, 
so far as to believe that the love was not wholly on her side. Without 
deluding myself into the notion that my frame and sphere of character 
could ever be so elevated as her own, I yet thought I could return, by 
anxious services and attention, that fondness which she manifested for 
me ; and, therefore, in my weakness, I did not attempt to restrain the 
exhibitions of her sentiment, or destroy the opportunities for them, 
which were afforded to her by the absence of her sister. But that sister 
arrived at last, and I was undeceived. In a few moments I felt that my 
heart was still untouched. In a few moments I bowed to the fascina- 
tions of Madelena, and now, in a repentant season, I have resolved to 
_ quit a scene, where I must always be a torture to myself, and—far 
worse—to that angelic creature who gave me her virgin heart, and 
trusted in me. I have behaved, I know not how. Since the return of 
Madelena I have been in ceaseless agony. I go, I care not where ; but 
my prayer is, that I may not leave behind me one atom of the great 
mass of pain which will hang on my heart whithersoever I wander. 
Feign for me some reasonable excuse for departure. How could I bear 
to see again that innocent girl, and know that she is pouring out for me 
so many blessed wishes, and prayers, and hopes, which I am requiting 
by ingratitude—by base and villainous deceit? The sacrifice, were I 
now to offer her my hand, would be nothing ; but my conscience would 
not suffer her to be so abused. For ever will my purest thoughts turn 
to her as their origin, and my strongest benevolence strive for her as its 
object. But my heart—my wicked heart—points elsewhere—and she 
shall not be abused !’ 
« His story was completed. Again, and fervently he grasped my hand, 
as I sate in wonder and silence listening to so unexpected a narration. 
It was nearly for the last time. Shortly after he bade us adieu. I cannot 
describe the parting ; he had won all our hearts; and that night was 
the most dismal one we had had for years. He was to sail at daybreak. 
I got up early on the following morning, and, sauntering upon my ter- 
race, I made out clearly, on the western horizon, the white sail of the 
Spanish brig. He was gone ;—in that speck upon the ocean went his 
world of troubles. How many distracting thoughts were throbbing 
there! What a tumult, what an honourable conflict is waging in that 
bosom! Peace be with him, poor fellow! he has acted well ! 
* Such were my reflections (and my eyes were moistened as they rose 
within me), when I took a last farewell view of the diminishing sails of 


246 Mine Hosts Last Story. [Mancu, 


his little vessel. I went down to my customary cup of coffee, but none 
of the girls were there to help me to it. I called, but no one answered. 
I called again; still no reply. Then, in impatience or anxiety, or what 
not, I hurried up to their rooms. That which contained the two elder 
ones was empty; I passed on to the other ; in that were three of my 
daughters, I saw not which; and as they heard my approach, they 
skulked to the further corner, and scarcely seemed willing to look at 
me. I demanded the cause of all this. Their tears and dishevelled looks 
told some part of the tale. I looked for the fourth—I inquired for her ; 
they did not, they could not answer me. Of Gianina, no one might say 
a word. ; 

“It would weary you, Sir, were I to repeat one half of our horrible 
conjectures upon this her strange disappearance. In vain I questioned 
Madelena, and strove to discover something from her as to the probable 
fate of her so recent companion. They had, as usual, retired to rest 
together on the preceding evening, they had recited the customary 
prayers, and she fancied that her sister had been the first to fall asleep ; 
she awoke in the morning, and her place was vacant. My only comfort 
now-a-days was from the little particulars which Madelena afforded me 
of her sister’s love for the Englishman, and his return of it. She said _ 
that Gianina had for a long time been very reserved about her attach- 
ment to him, but that at last she had disclosed every thing, in conse- 
quence of her lover’s making a confidante of her on the evening but 
one before his departure. On that occasion he contrived, when Gianina 
was out of the way, to address himself to her on the subject of her 
sister’s passion. He said, that his object in making her acquainted with 
it was, to enable her to comfort Gianina when he was gone, and use her 
most judicious efforts to obliterate the recollection of him. He confessed 
that, from the first, he had distrusted the character of his own requital of _ 
this regard, and that now he had become convinced that he could not | 
love her as she loved him. His departure was so immediate, and his 
chance of again seeing them so very slight, that he would hazard the 
acknowledgment, that those feelings were won by her which Gianina . 
had every claim to. In a mood of painful excitement, he seized the fair . 
hand of her he was addressing, and imprinting upon it a kiss, which — 
seemed to bear with it his very soul, he cried, ‘ May God and the Virgin 
bless you! Ihave been foolish to say so much; but in telling you, 
who are every body’s darling, that I love you, I do not say aught to 
astonish you or disgrace myself. Yet, I have done wrong—it is the last . 
time! Farewell, dearest! may you be happy!’ She saw him but for 
a moment on the following day ; but Gianina having learnt that her 
attachment was no longer unknown, was, during that day, very explicit _ 
on the subject whenever she had the opportunity, and talked of him as 
one to whom her life and all its energies were devoted. 

« A painful time followed.. Weeks succeeded weeks, but no comfort — 
came. Others perhaps soon forgot poor Gianina; but she was not one | 
whose place with us could be well supplied. At last, a packet one day _ 
brought us a fumigated letter, pierced through and through, and bearing _ 
the post mark of Gibraltar. It was from the Englishman.—I will show 
it you.” 

The old man went to the corner of the room, and opening a rough 
and unwilling drawer, extracted thence a dark, begrimed letter, which 
he handed me to read.—This was its purport :— . 


1829. ] Mine Ilost’s Last Story. 247 


« My dear friend: I have lost no opportunity of writing to you, 
anxious, as you must be, to know all that is possible about your dear 
Gianina. I will proceed, in order of time, to relate all that has happened 
since our departure from Syracuse. On the morning of making sail, I 
was too unwell to remain long on deck, and so betook myself to my cot, 
though the weather was tolerably fine, until the evening. Being then 
seized with an oppressive thirst, I called lustily for some wine and water, 
or coffee, or whatever else their stores would afford me. A gruff voice 
answered that my boy would bring me something. Not fully hearing, 
and not at all understanding this speech, I was yet too indolent to de- 
mand an explanation; and accordingly waited until a little fellow in 
the common dress of a servant, brought me a glass of acqua vita and 
water. He handed the glass to me, spilling some of its contents ; and as 
he delivered the rest, he laid his soft gentle hand upon mine, and uttered 
the word ‘Hush!’ in a low and well-remembered voice.—It was your 
daughter! I sprang from my bed, and in a few minutes we were 
together in an unobserved corner of the deck, where she explained the 
mystery of being there and thus detected. She said, that hearing of my 
intended departure, she felt her spirit breaking ; and fully convinced that 
flight with me, or madness if left, was her alternative, she determined to 
abandon her kindred for my sake, trusting implicitly in my honour, and 
content if she might remain as she then was—my menial servant! She 
had gazed beneath the rising moon to the point where lay hid her quiet 
home, but she smiled as she looked upwards at me, and said that her 
world was there! I will not tire you with a narrative of feelings that 
are now past, or a statement of plans which fate has marked out for me. 
I ask your blessing on our nuptials ; they will be consummated as soon 
as we are permitted to land ; but this place is in a state of consternation 
from the appearance of their old malady, and if it continue, I know not 
what we shall do, for no seaport will receive vessels coming hence.—She 
is in perfect health, and cheerful as she used to be in her own happy 
home. I cannot express all I feel towards you; to Madelena what shall 
I say ?>—Adieu !” 


« After this letter, we did not hear for a long time. The next thing 
that came was the intelligence that he had fallen ill of the fever, and that 
no entreaty could keep her from him. She watched him most carefully 
to the end of his disorder, and was providentially guarded against it her- 
self. Upon his recovery they were united according to the ceremonies 
of both churches—for she would not forsake that of her forefathers— 
‘and not long after took ship and returned to Sicily. When we received 
them, we were all struck with the falling off of poor Gianina’s looks, 
partly from exhaustion during his illness, partly from the voyage ; but 
more than all, I fear, from a suspicion that he had married her on a 
point of honour, rather than from love, and the constant and nervous 
solicitude to win his heart by acts of kindness done at any personal risk 

or sacrifice. Yet, to do him justice, he never displayed any thing less 
~ than an unbounded and genuine affection for his little wife. Whatever 
might be defective, arose perhaps from the greatness of her ambition to 
be loved, or was traced by those little indications which are felt only by 
the principals in such cases. As for her sister, all jealousy towards her 
was now out of the question. She was about to be espoused in a few 
days to a substantial merchant of Palermo, and so seldom was she out of 
' the company of her promesso sposo, that my English son had no means, 


= 


243 Mine Host’s Last Story. [ Maxcu, 


even if he had the will, to renew that disastrous passion which he had 
before so laudably resisted. Yet his countenance might almost be sup- 
posed to experience a shade of variation, as she spoke to him, or when - 
the discourse fell upon the events of his previous visit ; but it might 
have been interpreted as naturally resulting from associations of the past 
with the present ; especially when it was remembered how short had 
been the interval between his declaration of love for the one, and his 
consummation of it with the other. But when the time for her nuptials 
drew nigh, and it was expected that he would take part in the holy fes- 
tival, or, at any rate, join in the family rejoicings on the occasion, it was 
with pain they heard him declare that he must decline all participation ; 
sheltering his denial under a thousand frivolous excuses—his difference 
of religion—weakness of spirits—and beyond all, a pretended engage- 
ment with a friend to penetrate into the campagna, or interior parts of 
the island, which he had never before visited. Dissatisfaction was on 
the countenances of all at this announcement. Madelena, alone, half 
suspected the cause, and perhaps half-rejoiced that the impression which 
her charms had made should not yet be effaced. But Gianina looked as 
though her hope was turned into despair, and the brightness of that eye 
which had cheered many a festive day when others were dull, now was, 
for the first time, shaded by a gloom that was not again thoroughly dis- 
persed. But his voice to her was more soothing and kind than ever, 
and for a day or two before his excursion he abandoned all other society, 
and lived only with her. He left this house two days before my 
Madelena was married. He returned a week afterwards, conducted 
home with difficulty by his English companion, having been caught by 
the marsh fever, or malaria of the pestilential districts. His face was 
thin and sallow, his limbs quivering, his blood heated and chill at the 
same moment: I never saw such an instance of the disorder. <A year 
before, and a finer youth never went to battle. Now a child could have 
outmastered him—a spectre could not have been more unsightly. 
Gianina was by his side night and day. Her cave protracted the oper- 
ations of the disease, but could not parry them. He lingered on, to 
become every hour more convinced that in this world he could not hope 
to requite one little moiety of the debt of affection incurred to his wife. 
He lingered on, to fear that the sin of not having requited it might be 
registered against him, to forbid his entering there where his earthly 
affections might be renewed and purified. He lingered on, his life spun 
out by the solicitude cf his constant nurse, and entailing upon her an 
inheritance of disease which would shorten her passage through this 
desolate werld. Before he died, he confessed that he absented himself 
from Madelena’s marriage, in the wish to avoid a spectacle which to him 
was still painful. He had been punished! I do believe, from my soul, 
that never worshipper so adored his idol as this dying man reverenced 
his poor wife during the last scenes of this tragedy. The strength of 
love grew upon him, and only combatted with those pious thoughts 
which she herself would prompt, though otherwise, she herself was sure 
to be the theme of his contemplations. He died in her arms, begging 
pardon for the love of which he had defrauded her till now, and in frag- 
ments, speaking with assurance of a happier meeting in a happier world.” 

«© And Gianina ?” 

“« In the left aisle of the Augustine church, just below the shrine of 
St. Magdalene, you will ‘see a flat tablet with a name ———, for she 
did not hold up long afterwards.” JEVAH. 


1829.) [249 7 
MEMOIKS OF JOHN SHIPP.* 


Tus John Shipp is a fine fanfaronading-sort of fellow—every inch a 
soldier. He has an extraordinary tale to tell, has told it freely and fairly, 
and deserves to be heard. The pen, indeed, is not his weapon, but he 
handles it boldly; and though he knows nothing of the perils he 
encounters, the fullest knowledge would never have daunted his adven~ 
turous spirit. The book is full of offence against what is considered 
good taste and cultivated feeling, and the fastidious must expect to be 
revolted at every turn. They must make the best of it. For our own 
parts, annoyed as we are perpetually with affectation and pretence, we 
are well content with a little roughness and defiance of niceties, accom- 
panied, as it is in this case, with some genuine and unusual experience ; 
and find the jokes of the guard-room about as refined as those of the 
mess. Shipp knows something of both, and he has given us the full 
benefit of his double acquirements. Though our intention is to present 
to our country readers—for the book will scarcely reach them—some 
considerable extracts, we must preface them with a slight sketch of the 
writer’s career. 

Shipp was born in 17€5, and left, in his infancy, an orphan, to the 
mercy of the parish officers. At seven or eight years, he was placed 
with a farmer, whose brutalities he details at some length and with some 
bitterness. He reminds us of a wretch of this cast, who boasted of tak- 
ing out the pith and vigour of his labourers in four or five years, and 
never considered them worth a rush after that period. He estimated 
them precisely as he did his horses—by their strength and powers of 
endurance; and, being the chief of his parish, he carried his theory 
resolutely into practice, and was surely one of the veriest tyrants that 
every disgraced humanity. To quit this atrocious monster, Shipp gladly 
acceded to the wishes of the overseers to take him to the depot at Col- 
chester, and enter him into one of the experimental regiments. These 
were the 22d, 34th, and 65th, consisting of a thousand boys each, from 
ten to sixteen, and were destined to relieve the parishes. Though mak- 
ing most excellent soldiers, this experiment—by the way, we know not 
why—was never repeated: yet surely, with the daily complaints of the 
increase of juvenile delinquency, arecurrence to this expedient would be 
one of the most effective measures that could possibly be devised. Shipp 
was ten years of age when he joined this corps, and, after a year or two 
spent at Hilsea barracks, was sent to the Cape, where the regiment was 
employed in a pretty rough warfare against the Caffrees, till, in 1801, 
the colony was delivered up to the Dutch, and the regiment proceeded to 
India. : 

In 1803, wearying of the drum and fife, and ambitious of distinetion— 
active and alive—he solicited to be placed in the ranks. The request was 

anted—with the rank of corporal, which was quickly followed by 

her promotion—passing through all gradations, to the important post 
of chief non-commissioned officer. On every occasion of danger, he was 
foremost—till, finally, at the memorable siege of Bhurtpore; in 1805—he 
was then but twenty—he volunteered to lead the forlorn hope, and was 
promised a commission if he survived. In four desperate attempts was 


* Memoirs of the Extraordinary Military Career of John Shipp, late a Lieutenant in 
His Majesty’s 87th Regiment. 3 vols. 8vo. Hurst, Chance, and Co. 


M.M. New Scries—Vou. VII. No. 39. 2 K 


250 Memoirs of John Shipp. [ Marcu, 


this impregnable post stormed, and three times Shipp led the way, 
wounded severely every time. Recovered from his wounds, he was 
rewarded with an ensigncy, and, ina few weeks, with a lieutenancy , and, 
for some time, acted as extra aide-de-camp to the brigadier-general. In 
1807, he returned with his regiment to England, where, in a few 
months, in a country town, he got into pecuniary difficulties, and obtained 
leave to sell out. Debts paid, he was again upon the world ; and, seeing 
no impediment to his again running the same career, he forthwith, with his 
characteristic care-nothing recklessness, enlisted in a marching regiment, 
and was again almost immediately sent to India. 

For seven long years he served as a non-commissioned officer—the 
greater part of the time as serjeant-major ; and, in 1815, again by his 
gallantry, won another commission—a thing unparalleled, perhaps, in 
the British army. As lieutenant of the 87th, be led the attack of Hut- 
trass, and was again wounded. After the close of the Pindaree war, 
eame peace, for. which Shipp was much less fitted. Idleness worked 
mischief. He joined the major of his regiment in a racing partnership, 
in the course of which differences arose, and Shipp impetuously expressed 
his dissatisfaction with both the major and the lieutenant-colonel. For 
this breach of discipline—for so it was construed—he was brought to a 
court-martial, first, for charging the major with persecution ; and next, 
the colonel with unfairly listening to Major Browne’s misrepresentations, 
and excluding Shipp from all opportunity of explaining: The court, 
after sentencing him to dismissal frorn the service, recommended him to 
mercy,on the grounds of his former gallantry, his numerous wounds, 
and the high character he still bore ; and the sentence was, in conse- 
quence, remitted, and, in lieu of it—a favour almost equally galling— 
leave of absence was granted, and a removal to the half-pay. The 
prosecutor himself, in reply to a question, said, “I consider him, and 
indeed know him to be, up to the present moment, one of the best officers 
in his Majesty’s service.” The fact is, this was a private quarrel, and 
the proper way of dealing with it was not by a court-martial, but by 
removal to another regiment, either of Shipp or of his superior officers. 
Shipp publishes the official details of the trial, and we form our judg- 
ment on the perusal of them: of any thing beyond, we know nothing. 

This occurred in 1823, and in the following year he came to England 
—since which he has remained unemployed, on half-pay, and with a 
pension of 50/. from the India Company. The avowed object of his 
work is the chance of attracting attention to his very hard case. He is 
in the full vigour of life, passionately devoted to the service, and panting 
for action. This, we fear, is not the course; but, in the changes and 
chances of life, it may be as successful as any the most prudent could 
suggest. The pages are full of interesting materials, communicating 
information—from the writer’s very peculiar position—which rarely fall 
under the consideration of men differently placed. We shall give our 
extracts without much regard to connexion. 

At eighteen, when at Calcutta, he felt the stirrings of ambition, and 
solicited a change :— 

“Tn about a week after having made this request, I was transferred from 
the drummers’ room, and promoted to the rank of corporal. This was pro- 
motion indeed—three steps in one day! From drum-boy to private; from 
a battalion company to the Light Bobs; and from private to corporal. I was 
not long before I paraded myself in the tailor’s shop, and tipped the master 


1829.] Memoirs of John Shipp. 251 


snip a rupee to give me me a good and neat cut, such as became a full cor- 
poral. By evening parade my blushing honours came thick upon me. The cap- 
tain came upon parade, and read aloud the regimental orders of the day, laying 
great stress upon—‘ to the rank of corporal, and to be obeyed accordingly.” I 
was on the right of the company, being the tallest man on parade, when I was 
desired by the company to fall out, and give the time. I did so, and never 
did a fugleman cut more capers ; but here an awkward accident happened. In 
shouldering arms, I elevated my left hand high in the air ; extended my leg 
in an oblique direction, with the point of my toe just touching the ground ; 
but, in throwing the musket up in a fugle-like manner, the cock caught the 
bottom of my jacket, and down came brown Bess flat upon my toes, to the 
great amusement of the tittering company. I must confess, I felt queer ; but 
I soon recovered my piece and my gravity, and all went on smoothly till I got 
into the barracks, where a quick hedge-firing commenced from al! quarters ; 
such as,—‘ Shoulder hems !’—‘ Shoulder hems !’—‘ Twig the fugleman!’ This 
file-firing increased to volleys, till I was obliged to exert my authority by 
threatening them with the guard-house, for riotous conduct; but this only 
increased the merriment: so I pocketed the affront, as the easiest and most 
good-natured mode of escape ; my persecutors ceased, and thus ended my 
first parade as a non-commissioned officer. 


“Jn my new sphere of life I now felt that there was, unquestionably, some 
satisfaction derivable from being 


“¢ ¢ Clothed in a little brief authority.’ 


A corporal has to take command of small guards; is privileged to visit the 
sentinels whenever he pleases ; his suggestions are frequently attended to by 
his superiors ; and his orders must be promptly obeyed by those below him. 
There is certainly a pleasure in all this, and a man rises proportionately in his 
own esteem. In short, to confess the truth, I now looked upon a drum-boy as 
little better than his drum. 

« Full of the importance of my situation and duties, thus passed the time 
for nearly six months, at the end of which I was advanced to the rank of ser- 
geaut, and, shortly afterwards, to that of pay-sergeant, in the same regiment. 
The post of pay-sergeant is certainly one of importance, and he who holds it 
a personage of no smail consideration, He feeds and clothes the men ; lends 
them money at moderate interest and on good security ; and sells them watches 
and seals, on credit, at a price somewhat above what they cost, to be sure, but 
the mere sight of which, dangling from a man’s fob, has been known to gain 
him the character of a sober, steady fellow, and one that should be set down 
for promotion. Thus, at least, good may sometimes be educed from evil; and, 
as it is not my intention to enter into a detail of the chicanery practised among 
the minor ranks in the army, let it suffice that I never served in a company in 
which every individual could not buy, sell, exchange, lend, and borrow, on 
terms peculiar to themselves.” 


In the pursuit of Hoolkah, he gives an animated sketch of the Pin- 
daree :— 


“ Hoolkah, a native Pindaree, was at this time in full force, with about sixty 
thousand horse, and twenty-five thousand infantry, encamped a short distance 
from us, ever on the alert to watch our movements, and supported by Ameer- 
khan, and other self-created Rajahs. From the very nature of this service, 
against a flying enemy, thoroughly acquainted with the localities of the coun- 
try, we had but little chance of coming up with them. Any thing like a gene- 
ral eeeanent they studiously avoid: plunder only is their aim. In this 
way they pay themselves, giving their chiefs any great article of value that 
may fall into their hands ; that is to say, if they are known to have it. Their 
wives are excellent horse-women, and many of them goood shots with the 
matchlocks, and active swords-women. They are always mounted on the 
best horse, and it is not an unusual thing for them to carry one child before 


2K 2 


252 Memoirs of John Shipp: [Manrcu, 


them, andanother behind, at full speed. The Pindaree horsemen (and, indeed, 
all horsemen in India) have a decided advantage over the English. Their 
horses are so taught that they can turn them right round for fifty times without 
the horse’s moving his hind-legs from the same circle, or pull them up at full 
speed instantaneously. Our horses are heavy, fat, and quite unmanageable 
with the bit; it takes them as long to get round as a ship; and you cannot 
pull them up under ten or twenty yards. Some of their horsemen have spears 
seventeen feet in length, which they handle in so masterly a style that singly 
they are dangerous persons to have any thing to say to ; but I have frequently 
seen Lord Lake charge, with his body-guard, a whole column of them, and 
put them to the rout.” 


On the occasion of attacking a mud-fort, he gives the result of his 
observations :— 


_ © Our operations against the fort continued active and resolute; but our 
balls made but little impression upon the mud bastions and curtains. Many 
of them scarcely buried themselves, and others rolled down into the under- 
works of the enemy, and were kindly sent back to us. It is almost folly to 
attempt to effect a practicable breach in a fort built of such materials. The 
crust you knock off the face of a bastion or curtain, forms a great barrier to 
your approach to a solid footing. Young engineers are too apt to judge, from 
the appearance of the fallen mud, that the breach is practicable; when, the 
first step the storming-party takes, they find they sink up to their necks in 
light earth. A woful instance of this nature I shall have to advert to more 
particularly in the course of my narrative; and, if it prove a timely hint to 
the inexperienced, I shall be rewarded. Stone forts are soon demolished ; 
when undermined well at the bottom, the top will soon follow, and they can- 
not easily be repaired ; but mud forts defy human power.” 


Of the storming of Bhurtpore, we have nowhere seen the details 
so distinctly given. He himself, we have already said, led the forlorn 
hope three times out of four. Of the first, after detailing the prepara- 
tions, he says— 


** We pushed on at speed ; but were soon obliged to halt. A ditch, about 
twenty yards wide, and four or five deep, branched off from the main trench. 
This ditch formed a small island, on which were posted a strong party of the 
enemy, with two guns. Their fire was well directed, and the front of our column 
suffered severely. The fascines and gabions were thrown in; but they were 
as a drop of water in the mighty deep: the fire became hotter, and my little 
band of heroes plunged into the water, followed by our two companies, and 
part of the 75th Regiment. The middle of the column broke off, and got too 
far down to the left; but we soon cleared the little island. At this time 
Colonel Maitland and Major Campbell joined me, with our brave officers of 
the two companies, and many of the other corps. I proposed following the 
fugitives ; but our duty was to gain the breach, our orders being confined to 
that subject. We did gain it ; but imagine our surprise and consternation, 
when we found a perpendicular curtain going down to the water’s edge, and 
no footing, except on pieces of trees and stones that had fallen from above. 
This could not bear more than three men abreast, and if they slipped (which 
many did), a watery grave awaited them, for the water was extremely deep 
here. Close on our right was a large bastion, which the enemy had judiciously 
hung with dead underwood. ‘his was fired, and it threw such a light upon 
the breach, that it was as clear as noonday. They soon got guns to bear on 
ug, and the first shot (which was grape) shot Colonel Maitland dead, wounded 
Major Campbell in the hip or leg, me in the right shoulder, and completely 
cleared the remaining few of my little party. We had at that moment reached 
‘the top of the breach, not more (as I before stated) than three a-breast, when 
we found that the enemy had completely repaired that part, by driving in 


1829.] Memoirs of John Shipp. 253 


large pieces of wood, stakes, stones, bushes, and pointed bamloos, through 
the crevices of which was a mass of spears jobbing diagonally, which seemed 
to move by mechanism. Such was the footing we had, that it was utterly 
impossible to approach these formidable weapons. Meantime, small spears or 
darts were hurled at us; and stones, lumps of wood, stink-pots, and bundles 
of lighted straw, thrown upon us. In the midst of this tumult, I got 
one of my legs through a hole, so that I could see into the interior of the fort. 
The people were like a swarm of bees. In a moment I felt something seize 
my foot: I pulled with all my might, and at last succeeded in disengaging 
my leg, but leaving my boot behind me. Our establishing ourselves on this 
breach, in sufficient force to dislodge this mass of spearsmen, was physically 
impossible. Our poor fellows were mowed down like corn-fields, without the 
slightest hope of success. The rear of the column suffered much, as they were 
within range of the enemy’s shot. A retreat was ordered, and we were again 
obliged to take to the water, and many a poor wounded soldier lost his life in 
this attempt. Not one of our officers escaped without being wounded, and 
Lieutenant Creswell was almost cut to pieces. He, I believe, still lives in 
England; and, should this little history fall into his hands, he will read these 
events with as much regret as the narrator writes them. We, as may be sup- 
posed, returned almost broken-hearted at this our first failure in India. Our 
loss was a melancholy one, and the conviction that the poor wounded fellows 
we were compelled to leave behind would be barbarously massacred, incited 
our brave boys to beg a second attempt. This was denied: had it been 
granted, it must infallibly have proved abortive ; for there was, literally, no 
breach.” 


The second attack is thus described :— 


“J once more took my station with my twelve volunteers, supported by my 
two companies as before. A shell from one of the howitzers was a signal to 
move. On this signal being given, the shell, bursting in the muzzle of the gun 
or mortar, killed two of our grenadiers: a sad beginning. The bridge fol- 
lowed the Forlorn Hope, carried on men’s shoulders, and must have appeared 
some extraordinary monster to those who were not acquainted with its intended 
use. We moved on, and before I got half way down to the fort, six of my 
men were killed or wounded.. The enemy, no doubt encouraged by our late 
defeat, had redoubled their fire, both in guns and men; and on the right side 
of the breach they had thrown out an under-work, which was filled with 
matchlock-men, and in which they had several guns. My men kept falling off 
one by one ; and when I arrived at the edge of the ditch, which appeared wide 
and deep, and was assisting the men with the bridge, I received a matchlock 
ball, which entered over the right eye, and passed out over the left. This 
tumbled me, my forehead literally hanging over my nose, and the wound 
bleeding profusely. I was at this time close to our gallant Captain Lindsay, 
who, at the same moment, received a ginjall-ball in the right knee, which 
shattered the bone to pieces. I recovered a little from the stun of my wound, 
when the first thing that met my eye (for I could only see with one) was the 
bamboo bridge quietly gliding down the stream, being some yards too short. 
Nothing but killed and wounded could be seen, and there was not the most 
distant chance of getting in. To have attempted crossing the ditch would 

ave been an act of madness. In descending we must have phinged over our 
heads in water, and they had two small guns bearing on the spot. At 
last a retreat was ordered. Previous to this, our poor fellows stood like 
sheep to be shot at, without the remotest hope of success. ‘The camels and 
elephants, alarmed by the tremendous firing and shouting, could not be 
induced to approach the fort, many of them throwing their loads and running 
back to camp, and wild into the woods. Seven hundred men were killed and 
wounded on this occasion. Our brave Captain Lindsay’s wound was so bad 
that his leg was amputated in the battery. My wound was a dangerous one 
having touched the bone. I was immediately sent home to camp, where f 


24 Memoirs of John Shipp. [ Marcu, 


lay completely blind for several days. This, added to our disastrous defeat, 
threw me into a fever, and nearly cost me my life; but, with the aid ofa 


kind Providence, and the advantage of a strong and unimpaired constitution, 
1 soon recovered. : 


Of the third and fourth, he says— 


“* When this strange rencounter had subsided, the storming-party was 
ordered for twelve o’clock. Reader, imagine my disappointment when my 
doctor most positively forbade me my being employed on this occasion, as my 
wound in the forehead was still in such a state that, should I get heated or 
catch cold, he feared an inflammation of the brain would take place. I could 
have thrown what few brains I had in his face, but I was obliged to obey. 
The forlorn hope was led by Lieutenant Templer, of the 76th regiment, as 
brave a little fellow as ever wore a red coat. I looked on at a short distance 
from the scene of action, and a desperate hard struggle it was. No sooner 
did our brave boys gain the top of the breach, than the well-directed fire 
from the fort swept them off. Footing they had none; they literally hung on 
the bosom of the bastion. A third retreat was the result; leaving behind 
them upwards of five hundred dead and wounded: indeed, they might all be 
said to be dead, for death was inevitable. The enemy again manned the 
breach in swarms, shouting victory! It would have been better for me had 
I been there, for I am sure I fought and struggled as hard as any one engaged. 
I cannot describe my feelings and those of the other spectators of this dread- 
ful scene ; but what can eight or ten men a-breast do against a legion, posted 
aloft, and protected by walls, bastions, &c., and where every possible engine 
is in requisition for their destruction? Thus exposed, there was never any 
real chance of success. The whole circumference of the bastion, if lined with 
men, would not have contained. more than fifteen or twenty men a-breast ; 
and the whole means of the fort were levelled on this small space, to their 
certain defeat and destruction. All that was in the power of mortal man to 
do was done, but all our efforts were in vain. 

“ The storming-party was again ordered for the following day. I suffered 
an excruciating headache, but said nothing of the .badness of my wound, 
which at that time bore a most frightful appearance, resolved to die rather 
than give up my past honour. I assured my doctors that I was well, and 
felt quite adequate to take my station, and entreated that they would not 
stand between me and glory. At last they consented, and I made the most 
of the short period between that and the storm, in supplicating the divine 
protection, and in penning a letter to my only relation, on account of arranging 
my little affairs. I had made up my mind that I could not, in all human 
probability, escape a third time: but He alone who created life can destroy 
it. In the evening I left my tent, to seek in solitude that consolation for my 
troubled bosom which the drunken and tumultuous riot of a camp could but | 
ill afford. 

** ‘Two o'clock in the afternoon of the next day was ordered for the assault. 
I forgot my aches and wounds, and was at my old post. Lieutenant Templer, 
of His Majesty’s 76th Regiment (he was but a little man, but he possessed the — 
heart of a lion), accompanied me on this occasion, with a small Union Jack, 
to plant on the enemy’s bastion. He gave me his hand, and, smilingly,- said, 
— Shipp, Iam come to rcb you of part of your glory ; you are a regular 
monopolist of that commodity.’ He continued, ‘I will place Old England’s 
bamer on their haughty bastion, or die in the attempt!’ He fell a victim to 
his zeal, having first planted his colour on the bastion. i 

“ The storming-party marched out in the usual steady order; yet, from 
our recent calamitous defeats, there was not that spirit amongst the men — 
which I had witnessed on former occasions. We had already experienced 
three disastrous repulses from this fort, and there now seemed a cloud on 
every brow, which proceeded, I have no hesitation in assserting, from a well-_ 


x 


grounded apprehension that this, our fourth assault, would be concluded by — 


1829.] Memoirs of John Shipp. 255 


another retreat. If any sight could be exhibited to the human eye that was 
calculated to work upon the feelings of men already disappointed and dis- 
pirited, it was the scene that was exposed to our view on approaching this 
breach ; for there lay our poor comrades who had fallen in previous attempts, 
many of them in a state of nudity ; some without heads; some without arms 
or legs; and others whose bodies exhibited the most barbarous cruelties, for 
they were literally cut to pieces. The sight was truly awful and appalling, 
and the eye of pity closed instinctively on such a spectacle of woe. Those 
who attempted to extend the hand of relief were added to the number of the 
slain, as the spot was much exposed to a cross-fire from the fort. Could any 
sight be more distressing for affectionate comrades to look on? I say affec- 
tionate, for, among men living together in one barrack, and, perhaps, under 
one tent, in familiar intercourse, there must be a greater regard for each other 
than is found to subsist among those who meet casually, once a day or once 
a week. Ina soldier’s barrack, the peculiarities, good or bad, of every indi-~ 
vidual are known; added to which, arduous services will always link men 
together in the bond of union and affection. Many of these mutilated objects 
still breathed, and could be seen to heave the agonized bosom, some raised 
their heads clotted with blood ; others their legs and arms; and, in this man- 
ner, either made signs to us, or faintly cried for help and pity. It was a sight 
to turn nature’s current, and to melt a heart of stone. Such was its effect 
upon our lines, that, after a short conflict of the softer feelings, the eye of 
every man flashed the vivid spark of vengeance against the cruel race who 
had committed such wanton barbarities ; and, if mortal effort could have sur- 
mounted the obstacles in our path, those who witnessed the horrid scene I 
have just described must infallibly have succeeded. But the effort was beyond 
mortal power. Braver hearts, or more loyal, never left the Isle of Albion, 
than those who fell like withered leaves, and found a soldier’s grave at 
Bhurtpore. 

-© Our ascent was found, for the fourth time, to be quite impossible: every 
man who showed himself was sure of death. The soldiers in the fort were in 
chain armour. I speak this from positive conviction, for I myself fired at one 
man three times in the bastion, who was not six yards from me, and he did 
not even bob his head. We were told afterwards, that every man defending 
the breach was in full armour, which was a coat, breast-plate, shoulder- 
plates, and armlets, with a helmet and chain face-guard; so that our shots 
could avail but little. I had not been on the breach more than five minutes, 
when I was struck with a large shot on my back, thrown down from the top 
of the bastion, which made me lose my footing, and I was rolling down side- 
ways, when I was brought up by a bayonet of one of our grenadiers passing 
through the shoe, into the fleshy part of the foot, and under the great toe. 
My fall carried everything down that was under me. The man who assisted 
me in getting up, was at that moment shot dead: his name was Courtenay, 
of the 22d Light Company. I regained my place time enough to see poor 
Lieutenant Templer, who planted the colour on the top, cut to pieces, by one 
of the enemy rushing out, and cutting him almost in two, as he lay flat upon 
his face on the top of the breach. The man was immediately shot dead, and 
trotted to the bottom of the ditch. I had not been in my new place long, 
when a stink-pot, or other earthen pot, containing combustible matter, fell on 
my pouch, in which were about fifty rounds of ball cartridges. The whole 
exploded: my pouch I never saw more, and I was precipitated from the top 
to the bottom of the bastion. How I got there in safety I know not; but, 
when I came to myself, I found I was lying under the breach, with my legs 
in the water» I was much hurt from the fall, my face was severely scorched, 
my clothes much burnt, and all the hair on the back of my head burnt off: 
I for a time could not tell where I was. I crawled to the opposite side of the 
bank, and seated myself by a soldier of the same company, who did not know 
me. I sat here, vee unable to move, for some little time, till a cannon-balt 
struck in the ditch, which knocked the mud all over me. This added greatly 


256 Memoirs of John Shipp. [Marcn, 


to the elegance of my appearance ; and in this state I contrived, somehow or 
other, to crawl out of the ditch. At this moment the retreat was sounded, 
after every mortal effort had been made in vain. 


The advice which he offers to young men destined for India, is the 
result of long experience. The following is excellent as a warning, and 
as a piece of description :— 


« A young man, on joining his regiment, which happens to be stationed in 
some remote part of the country, instead of meeting with that hospitality and 
friendly association which he has a right to expect at a well-regulated mess 
(the great basis of unanimity amongst the officers of a corps), finds every 
officer of the regiment living separate, and keeping native women. With these 
women they spend the greater part of their time, to the entire neglect of the 
more intellectual and rational pursuits of men. With such examples before 
his eyes; ata solitary place, far from any large station, where good society 
is to be met with; deprived of the company of his brother officers, and 
doomed to a life of unvaried monotony ; the inexperienced youth who joins 
the regiment, is but too often induced to fall in with the prevailing folly ; 
and, at length, instigated by others, and seduced by the amorous professions 
of a mercenary fair (or rather black) one, he consents to keep her and her 
numerous attendants. This connexion being formed, he may, probably, ask 
himself this question,—‘* Who is it that I have thus selected to be my com- 
panion,—the sharer of my fortunes, the participator of my cares, the solace of 
my woes, and the partner of my bed?’ If he does not know, I will tell him, 
in plain terms, but without the least exaggeration. She is a black woman, 
labouring under the influence of dark idolatry ; so ignorant as to be wholly 
unfit for your companion ; so immodest and lascivious as to be disgusting ; 
jealous in her disposition ; cruel in her nature ; despotic to your household ; 
extravagant in her expenditure ; and her sole object in connecting herself 
with you, is the mercenary prospect of having herself, and those whom she 
may please to call her relations, kept at your expense. This, young man, is a 
true character of the object you have selected to spend your days with. 

“To a consciousness of the consequences of-this illicit and vicious con- 
nexion, a man is first awakened by the inharmonious jabber of half a dozen 
plack bantlings surrounding his table, which groans under huge dishes of 
curry and rice. When each little darkling is ushered into the world, gold 
bangles are expected for the mother, silver ones for the nurses, new dresses 
for all the lady’s relations, and a grand dinner to her whole circle of acquaint- 
ance—at least fifty persons. When the darling little creature is christened, 
a similar routine of expenditure must be quietly submitted to, to which is 
usually added an entertainment to your brother officers, on which truly 
interesting occasion you would be accounted but a shabby fellow if you did 
not sport sparkling champagne. When the child begins to toddle, there is 
another day of jubilee,—for all which rejoicing poor ‘master’ pays the piper. 
Then comes the day when the little duck begins to lisp the endearing names 
of pa’ andma’. This is another gala-day ; and before all these holidays have 


been duly observed, the probability is, that ‘ master’ receives an addition to, 


his already-crowded circle, by the production of another dear little stranger, 
with master’s nose and eyes. 

« 'Thus goes on the life of a man who has once formed a connexion of the 
kind of which I speak, till at last he awakens to reflection and remorse, and 
distractedly asks himself—‘ What have I been doing? What is to become 
of these children? Can J abandon them? Am I not already a beggar, for 
ever estranged from my native land, and cut off from all chance of again’ 
seeing my dear relations in England?’ Alas! these reflections are too late, 
and it remains only for the victim of his own folly to. consider what he has 
remaining which may console him. Has he love?—No. Has he peace of 


mind?—No. Are the children which he is supporting his own ?—Very doubt-_ 


ful even this. Is his mode of life such as he can reconcile to his principles or 


\ 
; 


1829.] Memoirs of John Shipp. 257 


feelings?—No. In short, he has nothing but the gratification of a sensual 
appetite to set against all the misery which must inevitably be entailed on 
him by its indulgence. His moral principles become vitiated ; his prospects 
for the future cannot fail to be blighted ; and he has little but wretchedness 
to look forward to. I have myself known officers intimately who have formed 
these sad connexions, and who, although they certainly did not absolutely 
become Musselimen or Hindoos, yet have been so infatuated as to lose, to all 
appearance, every thought for the present, and all regard for the future. Let 
but the iron hand of poverty assail you, or sickness enter your doors, then 
shall you find that those whom you have for years fed, clothed, and cherished, 
will be the first to turn and sting you; all will then unite to benefit them- 
selves by your misfortunes; all your faithful lady’s soi-disant relations will 
conspire to plunder you ; and your charmer herself will soon take an oppor- 
tunity of wounding you in the tenderest point, by eloping with one of her 
long-supported brothers or cousins, leaving you in your poverty, or on the bed 
of sickness, to drink the bitter draught of repentance. Should any of your 
offspring by this heartless woman be boys, they would be left behind to 
assist in soothing your cares, as unsaleable commodities ; but for the girls, 
especially if they should have proved handsome, they would be carried off by 
the mother, for a purpose, the mere contemplation of which would, one would 
suppose, alone deter men from forming connexions so likely to entail misery 
both on themselves and the wretched offspring of their criminal indulgence.” 


No where have we seen so admirable a drill-scene as the following ; 
it is essentially of the finest comic effect :— 


“ Two Days in THE Ripine-ScHoo.. 


“ The first morning after a young officer has joined his regiment, he finds 
himself exalted ona spirited steed, some sixteen hands high, from whose 
back he dares not cast the eye downward, to take even a glimpse of the 
immense space between him and the earth. His chin is so elevated, by a 
leather stock, that he can just see the head and ears of the animal on which 
he sits ; his heels are screwed out by the iron fist of the rough rider ; and the 
small of his back is well bent in. Having been knocked and hammered into 
this posture, the word ‘march’ is given. This command the well-drilled 
animal obeys immediately, and the machine is suddenly set in motion, the 
result of which usually is, that the young gentleman speedily finds his way to 
the ground, with the loss of half a yard of skin from his shin, or with his nose 
grubbing in the earth. 

«« Well done, Sir; Astley himself could not have done better. Mount 
again, Sir; these things will happen in the best regulated riding-academies ; 
and, in the army, Sir, you will have many ups and downs. Come, Sir, jump 
up, and don’t be down-hearted because you are floored.’ 

“¢« Well, sergeant, but I am very seriously hurt.’ 
ie Nay, nay, I hope not, Sir; but you must be more cautious for the 

ture.’ 

“The pupil mounts again, and the order is again given to march, and off 
oes the horse a second time, the sergeant roaring out, at intervals—‘ Well 
one, Sir! Head a little higher—toes in, Sir—heels out—bend the small of 

the back a little more—that will do, Sir—you look as majestic as the Black 

Prince in the Tower, or King Charles’s statue at Charing Cross. Bravo, Sir 

—rode capitally! We will nowtry a little trot. Recollect, Sir, to keep your 
well in hand—trot.’ 

_**Wrell done, indeed, Sir—knees a little lower down, if you please—that’s 
higher, Sir—no, no, Sir, that’s higher, I say—you look for all the world like a 
tailor on his shopboard. What are your elbows doing up there, Sir? Elbows 
close to your body—you pay no attention to what I say, Sir—faster, faster.’ 

“ «Oh dear! oh dear! oh dear! Sergeant, halt, for God’s sake! I shall be 
off! I shall be off! oh dear, oh dear !’ 


M.M. New Series—Vou. VII. No. 39. 21 


258 Memoirs of John Shipp. [Marcu, 


« ¢ Bravo, Sir, that’s better—fuster.’ 

«Sergeant! I am sick, sergeant!’ 

“* « Never mind such trifles, Sir ; riding is an excellent remedy for all kinds 
of sickness. Now, recollect, in changing from one to two, you round the 
horse’s croup well, by applying your right leg to his flank, and take care he 
does not kick you off—Change from one to two.’ : 

« ¢« Halt, Sir: halt! that won’t do: what the devil are you about? . That's . 
the wrong way ; I told you from one to two: turn your horse about from one | 
to two.’ 

«TJ can only just see the top of the riding-school—I can see no figures at 
all, sergeant.’ 

** Well, Sir, we'll dispense with this for the present; but soldiers should 
learn to turn their eyes every where. Suppose we have another march, Sir. 
March—trot—faster—faster ; very well, indeed. Now, Sir, you must recol- 
lect, when I say the word halt, that you pull your horse smartly up, by - 
throwing your body well back, and pressing the calves (if any) of your legs 
to his side. If you don’t keep your body upright, the horse’s head will soon 
put it in its proper place. Faster—a little faster—halt. There, Sir, I told 
te bes would be the consequence of your not keeping your head pro- 
perly up! . 

«Stop, stop; my nose bleeds, my nose bleeds !’ ' 

“© Rough-rider, get a bucket of water for the gemman. You had better 
dismount, Sir.’ 

“« Dismount, sergeant? How am I to get off this great beast ?’ 

«“« Why, jump, Sir, to be sure—jump off. Come, Sir, we cannot wait all 
day ; you delay the whole drill. Come, come, Sir, dismount!’ 

‘©* Put your hand on the horse’s rump, and lay fast hold of his mane,’ 
cries a young officer, who had just surmounted the same difficulties, “ and 
you will soon be off.’ The tyro in riding follows this friendly advice, and 
finds himself neatly floored by a tremendous plunge of the horse, thus finishing 
his first day’s drill. : 

“The next morning the pupil attends the riding-school, with his nose some- 
what embellished by his fall. He enters the school with his—‘ Good morn- 
ing, sergeant ;’ for it is always good policy to keep friends with both riding- 
masters and rough-riders. ‘ Good morning, Sir,’ says the sergeant; ‘ IT hope 
you did not hurt yourself yesterday.’ 

“ «Oh, no—oh, no! Mere scratch—mere scratch—not worth mentioning.’ 
««« Glad to hear it, Sir. We must expect in the army both scratches and 
falls. I have ordered you, for to-day, a horse somewhat more spirited, that | 

will jump under you like an antelope.’ 

*°« Much obliged to you, indeed,’ says the pupil, making a tremendous wry 
face. 

«©* Oh, don’t mention the obligation, Sir. It is my duty to make a good 
rider of you, and I flatter myself that I have turned out some of the best 
riders from this school that are to be found in the kingdom, and with as few 
accidents as could reasonably have been expected ; though, of course, casual- 
ties will sometimes inevitably happen, in a large academy like this. To be 
sure, continues the sergeant, winking at the rest of the party assembled, 

‘ there was poor Cornet Shins, who broke his neck, and, by the by, off the 
very horse you are going to ride to-day ; but that, of course, was no fault of 
the poor animal’s. Then, there was Lieutenant Stew, who broke his thigh, 
and a few other trifling circumstances of this kind, which make good for the 
army. 

“© Good for the army! How do you make that out?’ ¥ 

*« « Why, Sir, itis as plain as the eighteen manceuvres. We will just sup- 
pose, for the sake of argument, that your neck is broken this morning.’ 

«<« My good sergeant, what are you talking about?’ 

“©T am only supposing, you understand, that your neck was broken ; in 
which case it must be clear to you that you would make room for another : 
but come, Sir, we must proceed to business! Prepare to mount—ynount— 
steady there—not an eye or muscle to move—pray, Sir, keep your horse 


. 


1829.] Memoirs of John Shipp. 259 


steady—put your left leg to him, and put him straight—don’t touch him in 
the flank, Sir, or he will soon have you off—that will do—march—sit still, I 
beg, Sir; you are all on one side, like the lug-sail of a boat—that’s better ; 
now, Sir, trot—/faster—halt. Pray, Sir, do be attentive.’ 

«« ¢ My stirrups are too long.’ 

“« Rough-rider, take them off, the gentleman will ride better without 
them. Now, Sir, off with you again—march—faster—hait. Why, Sir, you 
roll about like a ship in distress ; pray keep your seat—march.’ 

*°« T am off, I am off!’ 

« © Not yet, Sir’ 

« « Yes I am, yes I am.’ 

« « Well, I believe you‘are now, Sir; at least I never saw any thing more 
like it in my life. I hope you are not hurt, Sir.’ 

“© No, not much; but this horse is-worse than the other.’ 

« «Why, of course, I know that, Sir; you must have a worse horse every 
day. Come, Sir, mount again.’ 

*©«T can’t; you have taken the stirrups off.’ 

«© « Oh, never mind that, Sir, jump up.’ 

<< Vican't.’ 

«© Try, Sir; there is no remedy. Yonder I see the riding master coming 
this way.’ 

“ The riding-master now comes up, and inquires into the progress of all - 
his pupils. 

««« Well, sergeant, how gets on Cornet Waddle ?’ 

«© Very well, indeed, Sir; he has only had two falls in two days.’ 

“Tam glad to hear it. What horse is that he is on?’ 

« ¢ Kicking Billy, Sir.’ ' 

«« Ah! a good horse to learn on. Heads up, Cornet Waddle—six inches 
from hand to hand—four inches from holster-pipes—that will do—trot. Bless 
me, Cornet White, how your elbows go; one would imagine you had been 
either a tailor or a fiddler. Do keep them close to your sides, Sir.. We'll now 
‘try a little canter—canter. Very well, indeed—change from three to four. 
Cornet Shanks, pray keep those stretching legs of your’s quiet, and feel the 
horse’s mouth lightly. Not with that hand, Sir, but with the bridle. Keep 
down your knees—faster—halt. What, three of you off! Come, mount 
again, gentlemen; when I was.a recruit, I fell fifty times a-day, and laughed 
at the fun. Now, hold on—march—trot--gallop. Cornet Waddle, let go the 
horse’s mane ; let go, Sir.’ 
~ ©©T can’t Sir; if 1 do, I shall be off’ 

“© You must go faster, then, till you do—faster—fuster ; well done, indeed 
—halt. What, off again !’” ‘ 


The siege of Huttrass is detailed at great length; we take only a 
scrap, descriptive of the effects of shelling :— 


“On the following day, after reconnoitring the fort andthe ground in its 
vicinity, spots were fixed upon for new breaching and shelling batteries ; 
and, in twenty-four hours afterwards, we commenced our work of death on 
_ the fort and its obdurate inmates. Long ere the hour of the sun’s decline, it 
_ grew asdark as midnight. About ten o'clock, the terrific shelling commenced, 

ery whistling shell bearing on its lighted wings messengers of death and 

desolation. I never saw these implements of destruction so accurately 
thrown—some of them scarcely five inches above the walls of the fort. In 
five minutes the screams of the women in the fort were dreadful. In a place 
so confined, where numberless houses were crowded together, every shell 
must have found its way to some poor wretch’s dwelling, and, perhaps, torn 
from mothers’ bosoms their clinging babes. No person can estimate the 
dreadful carnage committed by shells, but those whose fate it has been to 
witness the effects of these messengers of death. On this occasion our shells 
_ Were very numerous, and of enormous size, many of them thirteen inches and 
ahalfin calibre. The system of eng had been so improved in the twelve 
2L 


4 


260 Memoirs of John Shipp. [Manrcu, 


years which had elapsed since the siege of Bhurtpore, that, instead of about 
one shell in five minutes from a single battery, it was by no means extraordi- 
nary to see twenty in one minute, from the numerous batteries which were 
brought to bear upon this place. It was, at times, truly awful to see ten of 
these soaring in the air together, seemingly riding on the midnight breeze, 
and disturbing the slumbering clouds on their pillows of rest ; all transporting 
to a destined spot the implements of havoc. and desolation contained within 
their iron sides. The moon hid herself, in seeming pensiveness, behind a 
dense black cloud, as though reluctant to look on such a scene; and the 
feathered tribe, that were wont, in those warm nights of summer, to melodize 
the breeze, retired far into the distant woods, there to tune their notes of sor- 
row- Mortal language cannot array such a scene in its garb of blackest woe. 
Some carcasses were also thrown. hese, when in the air, are not unlike a 
fiery man soaring above. ‘They are sent to burn houses, or blow up maga- 
zines. Far and wide they stretch forth their claws of death; and well might 
the poor natives call them devils of the night, or fiends of the clouds. To 
complete this dreadful scene, the roaring Congreves ran along the bastion’s 
top, breaking legs and arms with their shaking tails. Nothing could be 
more grand to the eye, or more affecting to the sympathizing heart, than this 
horrid spectacle. Still, the superstitious foe were stimulated by some hoary 
priest with hopes of victory, thus imbruing their hands in the blood of their 
children, their parents, and their friends. Our shells found their way to their 
cells, tearing babes from their mothers’ bosoms, and dealing death and 
destruction around. Oh! what must be the anguish of a fond mother, to see 
nothing but the head of her fondling hanging to her bosom.” 


As one of the most active officers of the army, Shipp was appointed 
baggage-master in the Pindaree war. The oflice is peculiar to Indian 
warfare, and a view of the duties is worth reading :— 


j 
: 
; 
; 
‘ 
a 


* He is a stafl-officer, and, when not employed in his particular department, 
is attached to the suite of the commander of the division, as much as the 
commissary-general; quarter-master-general, or any other staff-officer of the 
division. On the line of march, le is held entirely responsible that neither 
men nor baggage precede the column of march, and that they are on their 
proper flank, which is regulated by the general orders of the day. If the 
reader recollect what I before stated, that he may safely calculate ten fol- 
lowers in a Bengal army to every fighting man, and when he is informed that, 
according to calculations made in our camp, including the several native con-~ 
tingencies we*had with us, our followers were not less in numberthan eighty 
thousand men, women, and children, some thirty thousand of whom followed 
the army for what they could pick up, by fair means or otherwise, my situation 
cannot be supposed to have been asinecure. It was truly one of great labour _ 
and activity. I had twenty men belonging to a corps of local horse. These — 
men were provided with long whips, and placed at my disposal. To attempt — 
to talk the numberless camp-followers into obedience was quite out of the 
question ; and, therefore, these whips were for the purpose of lashing them 
into something like discipline. To the great number of human beings I have 
spoken of must he added fifty elephants, six hundred camels, five thousand 
bullocks, five thousand horses, one thousand ponies, two hundred goats, two - 
hundred sheep, fifty ruts, one hundred palanquins, one hundred dogs, and one 
hundred hackeries or carts ; presenting the following total :— 


Pighting Men si .ctr..tesccriests Beet Rene oak ae cca res see eens 8,000 
Camp-followers ..........066 sah aeaehcaee cect one es parece 80,000 
Elephants .......... BSD a se eadenene tenet temem er Peeecetds : 50 
MdmClS weacis acs sidesmotedaccecuustcccewunsecens Sceoor Ct: shee) 600) 
Bullocks, horses, and tattoos ..........006 Pooprcte ech coud 11,000 
Goats, sheep, and dogs ..........se000 Lesgserdecenekes aes 500 
Palanquins, hackeries, and ruts .......seeeseeeevers sieeadesl FOU) 


Total 100,400 


1829.] Memoirs of John Shipp. 261 


“ One hundred thousand four hundred were thus under my command, for 
the movements of the whole of whom, men, animals, and vehicles (except 
fighting men) I was responsible ; and I am sure the reader will not class me 
amongst cruel men, if I was obliged to use the whip where obduracy and 
contempt of orders were frequent. 

“On the following morning we commenced our march, and I began the 
functions of my new situation, by impressing upon the minds of some of the 
followers, that my arm was strong as well as the lash of my whip. I found 
I was soon obliged to take other measures besides merely bellowing to them ; 
and in three days I had whipped the whole body into perfect obedience, which 
saved me a tremendous deal of labour afterwards, and some hundred yards of 
whip-cord. Sometimes some mischievous fellows would, to annoy me, get 
the whole baggage on the wrong flank, but I had influence enough to find 
them out, when they paid dearly for their trick. After a short time they found 
it would not do ; so, my situation, instead of a task, was at last a pleasure to 
me, and the sight of my whip was syfficient to deter the most desperate from 
exceeding his limits. My commanding officer frequently said, that if he lived 
and commanded twenty armies, I should be his baggage-master.” 


Amidst the numerous wounds he received, he tells of scores of hair- 
breadth escapes. Here is one :— 


“IT went to breakfast with Captain Daggalier, of the old 13th Regiment 
Bengal Native Infantry, in the large house occupied by our men, about five 
hundred yards from the fort. We were busily engaged up stairs securing a 
hearty meal, when a large three-pound shot found its way through the win- 
dow of the room in which we sat, and passed under the table between my 
legs and those of Captain Daggalier. This convinced me that there is some 
advautage in having long legs. Mine were so excessively lanky, that I could 
only just screw them under the edge of the little camp-table, from which fact 
only J can still boast of having two legs. I need not say that the tea-things, 
breakfast, &c. were broken and upset. I joined another party, and, having 
finished my breakfast, I proceeded to meet the general, who had arrived to 
examine our approaches in this direction.” 


Stories of tigers, elephants, and monkeys abound. Here is an escape 
from a tiger :— 


* One night, having dined with an officer of the Madras army, during the 
time that we were before this place, and partaken rather too freely of the 
Tuscan grape, I started towards home on my favourite mare, whose speed 
not a horse in camp could equal, and. lost my way. There was a considerable 
space between the camp where I dined and our own encampment, the lights 
of which I thought I was standing fair for ; but, after riding a much greater 
distance than that between the two encampments, and being in -a thick 
jungle infested with tigers, I began to reflect seriously on my situation, and 
for a moment I paused to consider, under such circumstances, what was best 
to be done. How short-sighted is mortal man! That brief moment had 
nearly been my last! I had laid the reins of my mare over her neck, when, 
in an instant, she gathered herself up, snorted, and wheeled right round. 
Fortunately for me, I seized the mane, and, in an instant after, I saw, squat- 
ted down and crouching to the ground, a huge tiger. To have run from him 
would have been inevitable destruction. I therefore wheeled my mare round, 
and pressed her on towards him, but she would not approach him. I had a 
aed of loaded pistols in my holster-pipes. One of these I drew out, resolving, 

wever, not to throw away my fire. While endeavouring to spur my mare 
on, and making all the noise I could, the ferocious animal slunk off, to the 
great joy of both my mare and myself, and I was not long before I reached’ 
my own tent.” 


This is followed up by a mess-room story :— 


“ I would recommend to those who may chance to get into the vicinity of 
such bad neighbours, never to run from them, but, if sufficient courage can 
be mustered, to run at them, or to stand and stare them full in the face. A 


262 Memoirs of John Shipp. (Marcu, 


captain in the Company’s service once told me, when speaking of these savage 
beasts, that he was out shooting in some part near Loodiannah, alone, and he 
had just discharged his last barrel at some wild ducks, when a large tiger 
made his appearance. He had not time to load again, but, for a time, stood 
his ground. He stared—the tiger grinned, but did not seem inclined to come 
to the scratch. This said captain, being a funny fellow, at last thought of a 
stratagem that was likely to put his grinning neighbour to flight, which was 
by turning his back to the animal, looking at him through his legs, and thus 
running off backwards. He positively declared, that the moment the tiger 
saw this strange metamorphosis, he took to his heels and was out of sight in 
an instant. I will not vouch for the verity of this tale, but I have heard, 
since my arrival in England, that the same trick was actually played on a 
savage mastiff belonging to a tan-yard, that would not permit a stranger 
near the premises, without tearing him to pieces, but the moment he saw this 
curious figure he took refuge in a drying-house, and, for some time after, on 
the least noise, he would hide himself, thinking, no doubt, it was his friend 
with his head between his legs again. The reason on account of which I 
cannot take upon myself to vouch for the veracity of my friend the captain 
is this: I once tiffed in company where this brave son of Mars was one of the 
party. The conversation turned on the privations which soldiers and sailors 
are frequently called on to endure. Some of ths company said, that in the 
course of their services they had not tasted food for three days; some men- 
tioned a longer period. I said I did not believe that the system could be 
sustained for more than seven days, if so long, without food or some kind of 
sustenance. The captain, however, thought otherwise; and, begging my 
pardon most politely, he protested that he had often, when in the West 
Indies, lived himself for weeks without food, and that once, for six months, 
he had nothing to eat but Cayenne pepper! This was likely to be a hot man 
in dispute, so we deft him in possession of the field as well as of his story, and 
this is the reason why I would not take upon me to vouch for the authenticity 
of his tiger adventure.” 

A chapter of some length is occupied with the subject of flogging, to 
which he is decidedly hostile, as a punishment not productive of any 
benefit to the victim, and only exciting disgust in the spectators whom it 
is intended to deter. He is entitled, we think, to be heard on such @ 
question, being thoroughly qualified to enter into the feelings of the 
soldier, to which the mere officer must be comparatively a stranger. He 
produces numerous instances of the ruinous effects of this system, for 
which we have no space ; but this is the sort of evidence most decisive. 
Flogging depends more upon the character of the commander than the 
eonduct of the men :— 

“ Let the returns of each regiment be called for, for any given year, and it 
will be found that, in some corps, not a man has been flogged, and in others 
fifty, and perhaps more. How is this to be accounted for? The thing is 
obvious and clear: it cannot rest so much with the men, for they will be 
found pretty much alike in all corps; it will depend entirely on the dispo- 
sitions of the commanders. If an officer be of a tyrannical disposition, or an 
ungovernable temper, the cat will be found in frequent use in the regiment 
under his command. If the commander be a man of humanity, and possess 
a heart of kindness, he will admonish, advise, encourage, and endeavour to 
infuse into the minds of youth a kind of parental love and affection. In the 
regiment where mercy reigns, discipline, order, harmony and peace of mind 
will be found ; but, in the regiment where rigid flogging is practised, dis- 
content, disorder, and a great deal of bad feeling towards the officers are sure 
to prevail.” 

We have no room for a specimen of his Irish bulls, of which he has a 
choice collection, while serving with the Royal Irish, the 87th ; they are 
of the coarsest and most extravagant kind ;~—-nor for his ship and camp 
miseries, after the manner of Beresford, and about as fantastical. 


1829.) $A 2630 J] 


EVENTS IN A RECENT JOURNEY IN SOUTH AMERICA. 


Journey by Ox-Carts, from Mendoga to Buenos Ayres, across the Pampas, 


Ir was in the autumn of the year 1824, that I determined on revisiting 
Buenos Ayres, after an absence from it of four years ; and, as there are 
two very different modes of travelling thither from Mendoca, where I 
had been for some time sojourning, I chose that, which my inclination 
for novelty and adventure, rather than my desire for ease and conve- 
nience, pointed out: for the traveller who pays too much deference to 
the undeniable attractions of these latter, will be pretty sure to miss 
much of that spirit-stirring excitement in which the main pleasure and 
advantages of travel, both actual and prospective, consist. The two 
modes of travelling to which I have alluded are, by the regular post 
road, and by the Ox-carts which traverse the vast and pathless Pampas. 
It will be readily conjectured, from what I have hinted above, as to my 
turn for deviating from the beaten track, that the latter of these modes of 
reaching my destination was the one I chose. 

In performing this journey by the Ox-carts, it is customary for many 
parties to unite, and start at the same period ; keeping together as one 
body during the whole journey : for without this precaution (and some- 
times even with it) the traveller is not safe from the attacks of the 
roving Indians who infest many portions of the route, and particularly 
the Pampas themselves. 

The equipage which I engaged for my exclusive use was simply a 
two-wheeled cart, drawn by six oxen. The cart consisted of a frame of 
timber, of which the pole or perch was twenty-four feet long, and nine 
inches square, of very hard massive wood, and not unlike, in size and 
weight, the beam of a house. The two side pieces were of the same 
form, but only thirteen feet long. On this frame was erected a rude 
tilt of sticks, arched at the top, and seven feet high; the sides being 
closely thatched with rushes, and the top covered with raw hide, so as 
to be quite impervious to the weather. Under this monstrous erection 
was placed an axle of lance wood, lashed to the bottom with raw hide ; 
the spindle arms being about two feet six inches long, and eight inches 
thick. The wheels of this vast machine were of corresponding dimen- 
sions, being about nine feet high, and with massive naves and fellies, 
and put together (notwithstanding the rudeness of the tools employed 
in the work) in a manner that would not have disgraced an English 
wheel-wright. Behind the car was lashed an earthen water jar, holding 
twenty-five gallons ; and underneath, a spare axle, fellies, spokes, &c., 
in case of accident. 

The oxen were yoked to the cart two and two, by thongs of raw hide, 
the foremost yoke being not less than fourteen feet distant from the 
pole ; and the whole of them were managed by a driver sitting in front 
of the machine, and directing the animals by means of two goads ; the 
one of great length and slung to the roof of the cart, and the other much 
shorter, and used only for the wheel oxen. The drivers pique them- 
selves greatly on their skill in the use of these goads, which consist of 
light cane and willow wands, armed with iron points, and bound from 
heel to point with pack thread, rubbed over with blood by way of 
ornamental varnish: they are also sometimes adorned with feathers, &c. 

I haye been thus particular in describing my vehicle, because, in 


264 Recent Journey in South America. [Marcn, 


placing one of them before the reader, I make him acquainted with the 
exact character of the whole sixteen of which our caravan consisted. 
For this conveyance, I engaged to pay 120 dollars for the journey 
from Mendoga to Buenos Ayres—a distance of three hundred leagues : 
and, for the additional sum of a few dollars, I was to be supplied 
with a riding horse or mule, whenever I chose that mode of con- 
veyance. 

Before starting, I should mention, that the crew of these land ships, 
as they are called, (“ Barcos de Tierra”) consisted simply of the 
driver of each cart; a general director or bailiff (called a Capataz ;) 
a supercargo ; a carpenter ; four men called Boyeros, whose duty it was 
to attend to the oxen during halts, and collect them together when 
needed ; and lastly, three Manseros, or Muleteers, to perform the same 
office by the horses and mules. The passengers on this occasion 
(including four mulatta girls who had been purchased as slaves by some 
residents of Buenos Ayres) made our company amount, in all, to forty- 
three persons. 

It was on a fine sunshine morning of the 20th of August, 1824, that 
our troop started from Mendoga. The scene was an interesting one. 
The friends of all the party were present, waving hands and handker- 
chiefs, pronouncing and receiving farewells, pressing forward to deposit 
little presents and remembrances, and exhibiting the numerous tokens of 
interest and anxiety, which a long, and in some respects hazardous 
journey so naturally excites. As for myself, my cart was presently so 
loaded with tokens of good-will from my Mendoga friends, that I was 
at last obliged to decline receiving any more. 

Our line of march occupied about a quarter of a mile in length; for, 
besides the oxen attached to the carts, there were many spare ones 
intended to supply the place of any that might fall lame, and also a 
considerable number of bulls to supply food for our company, which 
the entrepreneus of the troop engaged to furnish during the whole 
journey, the drivers and other employés eating nothing whatever 
but beef, without vegetables, bread, or even salt. So that, including 
horses and mules, we were attended, at starting, by not less than two 
hundred and thirty head of cattle. 2 

At first, we got on very indifferently, from the draught oxen being 
fresh from grass, and consequently somewhat wild and unmanageable. 
So that during the first day, we did not advance more than four leagues 
from the town. I was not long in discovering that I had done well in 
providing the means of riding on horseback ; for I found that the cart 
I had engaged was useless except as a baggage waggon, on account of 
the almost unbearable violence of the motion, occasioned by the rudeness 
of its construction. On the second day, our troop was in motion long 
before sunrise ; aud I was struck with the remarkable skill with which 
each driver singled out, and caught his own set of oxen, notwithstanding 
the darkness which prevailed. Our road during the second day, lay 
through a sandy desert covered with coarse shrubs; and at night-fall, 
we had not made more than four additional leagues in advance. But 
after the third day, our progress increased ; for we now began to travel 
during the night also; proceeding for four hours regularly, and then 
resting for one hour. Immediately the carts stopped, it was the practice 
of the drivers to unyoke their oxen, and turn them loose, to be attended 
to by the Boyeros; while the drivers themselves instantly lighted fires 


1829. ] Recent Journey in South America. 265 


to dress their portions of beef, which, as I hinted above, they devoured 
without any accompaniment whatever: a draught of water completed 
and concluded their repast. On these occasions I found the herb of 
Paraguay a most useful and agreeable addition to my meal, not only 
from its refreshing qualities, but from the facility with which it was 
prepared, by merely pouring a little hot water over it. The only sleep 
I was able to procure during the actual journey was at these brief 
periods of halting, except when I chose to ride forward in advance of 
the troop, and lay down to snatcl+ a few minutes rest till they reached 
me. But the worst off in this respect were the poor Boyeros, who had 
the care of the loose cattle, and, who consequently were obliged to be 
perpetually on the watch to keep them from straying away. There 
being but four of these, they were only able to sleep each in his turn 
for a few minutes together. The skill of these men in tracking the 
cattle when they do stray (which they frequently will in the night, in 
spite of every precaution to the contrary) is quite astonishing, and will 
be looked upon as almost incredible by the European reader. They of 
course track the stray cattle by their footmarks ; and they can instantly 
tell the footmarks of their own oxen—can distinguish those of an ox 
from those of a bull or cow—those of the mare from the horse—whether 
the animal they are tracing is a mild or a tame one—whether mounted 
or not—and all this not merely on bare ground, but through deep pas- 
tures or tangled forests. It is their practice at all times, when riding, 
to keep their eyes bent upon the ground over which they are passing. 
So that they thus acquire from time to time, a knowledge of the peculiar 
character of every footmark left by the animals that precede them on 
the march. 

On the third evening we slept at the village of Retamo ; and from this 
time the rate of our progress increased to about ten leagues in the twenty- 
four hours. From Retamo to San Luis, we met with the air-plant in 
great abundance (Flor del Ayre) growing on the low scrambling bushes 
and shrubs with which this whole district abounds. On the night of the 
27th of August, we rested in the middle of a most beautiful wood of chanar 
trees ; and nothing could be more picturesque and romantic than the 
appearance of our whole troop, shown by the light of the numerous 
fires which blazed everywhere about us. The golden coloured bark of 
the chanar trees reflected the lights which flickered upon its shining 
surface ; and as the various groups of our party lay reclining beside the 
fires, in their striking and singular costumes—each group being partially 
hidden from the rest by the stems of the numerous trees which em- 
bewered and surrounded us on all sides—the whole presented the 
semblance of a scene in some romantic melo-drame, or of a horde of. 
banditti carousing after some perilous enterprise. The ground was 
covered here and there with patches of a thick heath, which served us 
as couches to rest on; and as the night was warm, we here spent the 
most agreeable hours since the commencement of our journey. 

_ On the next day, the 28th, we reached the banks of the great river 
peeepnscero, and nothing could be more striking than the contrast 
which presented itself to the scene just described. The place seemed 
the very abode of barrenness. It reminded me of the Dead Sea shores, 
or the fabled banks of the infernal river itself. No vestige of pasture, 
or of any green thing, grew on the precipitous banks of this forlorn 
stream ; the black, deep, and salt waters of which went rushing hoarsely 
M.M. New Serics.—Vou. VIL. No. 39. 2M 


266 Recent Jonrney in South America. [ Marcu, 


along, at a depth of twenty feet below where we stood. On our appear- 
ance, a few wretched huts ejected from their door-ways about a dozen 
squalid looking human beings, in the garb of women, whose coarse black 
elf-locks streaming down their backs, and their yellow cadaverous 
countenances, reminded me of those horrifying beings conjured up on 
the “ blasted heath” with which (like the present) they were so strictly 
in keeping, and which 
“ Looked not like inhabitants of earth, 
And yet were on it.” 


They had nothing to offer us for sale; nor did there appear to be any 
means of their furnishing even themselves with subsistence, not even a 
root or a vegetable ; nothing but a few half-starved goats, which looked 
as miserable as their keepers. Even the sun itself seemed to “ disdain 
to shine” upon this realm of wretchedness and despair. Close at hand 
lived the ferryman, whose appearance and bearing completed this 
singular scene. The sight of him and his dwelling, at once realized in 
my mind a description I have somewhere read of “ Felon Care.” 
Suspicion was in every look and accent, and sordid grasping avarice 
seemed to hold possession of his whole soul. On entering the dark den 
which formed his dwelling, we found the centre occupied by a round solid 
table, like a butcher’s chopping block. Besides this, nothing was clearly 
distinguishable on account of the almost impenetrable darkness ; but in 
one corner I thought I could perceive the remnant of a broken musket. 
His ferry-boat was formed by two canoes lashed together, and sur- 
mounted by a stage about twenty feet long. On crossing the river some 
of the carts were upset, and their cargoes, consisting of hides, wine in 
barrels, dried fruits, &c. were much injured ; and this accident detained 
us till night-fall; at which old Charon seemed not a little gratified : 
for he said, that our supercargo had cheated him of some portion of 
his fare. 

On the 3lst of August, we reached San Luis de la Punta, in which 
abode of ruin and desolation we were detained three days. This is one 
of the most wretched places that can be conceived as the abode of men. 
It does not contain a single white-washed building ; the Plaza is in 
ruins ; the Cathedral fallen to the ground ; and though the Piazza still 
stands in front of the Town-Hall, the roof which connected it with the 
main building no longer exists but as a mass of ruins—among which, a 
solitary sentinel paces slowly, backwards and forwards, and seems to 
increase by his appearance, rather than dissipate, the desolation of the 
scene. 

On the third day from the period of our entering San Luis de la 
Punta, we sallied forth from it, and by night-fall reached the banks of 
the beautiful Rio Quinto, where we rested. On the following morning, 
instead of keeping with the general troop, I rode on ahead, in company 


with the supercargo, a respectable and intelligent young man, named ~ 


Blas Valdor. Passing an isolated mountain called El Morro, we 
yeached the Portezuelo; and here there opened upon our view a most 
beautiful grassy plain, extended interminably on every side as far 
as the eye could reach, and free from a single bush, shrub, or any other 


object whatever to intercept the view ; except that on a rising ground, ~ 


just at the verge of the horizon, we could distinguish a human dwelling, 
which proved to be the house of a wealthy landholder, with whose 
_ agreeable family we spent three days. 


1829. ] Recent Journey in South America. 267 


Quitting this hospitable roof, we reached, on the 9th of September, 
the Villa del Rio Quinto, the cultivated lands appertaining to which 
town are irrigated by the beautiful river from which it takes its name. 
This place is within the jurisdiction of Cordova, and contains a popula- 
tion of four thousand souls. Here we passed a day and night, and then 
proceeded to the picturesque village of San Bernardo, where we slept. 
On the 11th, we crossed the river Quarto, at the Paso del Durazno, and 
the next day arrived at a small village named Reduccion. Here we 
found the inhabitants busily employed in repairing a mud fort, in 
anticipation of an attack from the Indians. Soon after leaving this place 
we encountered some fallow deer, which we occasionally hunted ; some- 
times running them down by the superior speed and strength of our 
horses, and at others catching them by means of bolas (a species of mis- 
sile noose), or shooting them with rifles. At first, my companions refused 
to partake of the flesh of these animals—alleging that | was rank and 
unwholesome ; but my example at length induced them to make a trial 
of it, after which they preferred it to any thing else. I afterwards 
found, that the reason of their not liking the flesh of the wild deer 
was, that all the South Americans are accustomed to dress and eat 
their meat immediately it is killed ; and venison in this state is not only 
hard and unpleasant, but unwholesome. They had no notion that hang- 
ing it up for a few days would produce any other than a mischievous 
change in it. But when the experiment was made for them, they 
readily acknowledged and availed themselves of the advantages it offered. 

On the 13th of September, we reached the Punta del Sauce,. a most 
wretched town situated on the river Quarto, and forming the frontier 
line of the Indian territories, called Las Pampas, an uninhabited plain, 
forty leagues in breadth, extending from the Rio Saladillo to Melinque. 
During the whole route from San Bernardo hither, we had been infested 
almost incessantly by flights of locusts, so numerous that they sometimes 
literally intercepted the light of the sun—throwing a shadow upon the 
ground as if a dense cloud was passing. They rose in almost unbroken 
masses before our horses feet as we galloped onwards, and we were 
compelled to cover our faces with our ponchos, to ward off the blows, 
which might otherwise have proved seriously injurious, especially if they 
had struck the eyes—for the locusts were of great size and weight. 
The town of Punta del Sauce we found in a most ruinous condition, 
consequent on repeated attacks of the Indians for purposes of plunder ; 
but still, it was not without an appearance of considerable activity 
arising out of the commercial pursuits of the inhabitants. It contained 
no less than six shops for the sale of European goods of various kinds— 
for which returns are made in mare and other hides. A shop (or 
pulperia) in the Pampas is distinguishable from a great distance in every 
direction, by means of a flag which is fastened to a high pole stuck in 
the ground, as a sign. The governor of this town was a brave young man, 
who had fifty militia under his command, at the head of whom he occasion- 
ally scoured the country in a circle of a hundred miles, on the look-out for 
the roving Indians with which these plains are infested. Though these 
expeditions sometimes last for more than a month, the party take with 
them provisions for the two first days only; trusting for the future 
: wpPly to the wild animals they may be able to take as they proceed. 

The flesh of ostriches is that which they prefer before any other ; then 
that of mules ; after that, of horses and mares ; and lastly that of deer. 

2M 2 


268 Recent Journey in South America. [Maré u 


Black cattle are never to be met with in these plains; but sometimes 
(though rarely) a lion is killed, and its flesh looked upon as delicious 
food. At this town we observed a ruined mud fort, mounted with a 
one pound swivel, but so honey-combed, as to threaten much more danger 
to the firer than to the party aimed at. There was also a long four pounder 
lying on the ground, but useless from having been spiked in the war of 
the Montenero. 

On leaving Punta del Sauce all population ceases ; except that you 
meet with here and there a scattered hut, called a Puesto, inhabited by 
men who gain an uncertain living by hunting the wild mares of the 
Pampas, and killing them for their hides. These people may be described 
as resembling the Back-woodsmen of North America. They are conti- 
nually shifting their habitation, as the prey of which they are in search 
becomes scarce ; and they seldom follow this wandering mode of life for 
any great length of time; always abandoning it as soon as they have 
gained a little money to purchase cattle and commence breeding them in 
another situation. But to begin even this first occupation of mare-kill- 
ing, it is necessary to be possessed of a herd of about two hundred tame 
horses and mares, all of which are trained to follow a bell fastened to the 
neck of the most docile among them—which is hence called Madrina. 
The horses of this herd are used for riding, but the mares for breeding 
only. Two or more gauchos having joined their stock of horses together,. 
they erect a mud house on the open waste, and thatch it on the top with 
rushy grass; after which they procure from a great distance, and by 
almost incredible labour, a quantity of wooden palisades, with which they 
form a corral, or penfold, of great size. Their stock in trade being thus 
established, they set out from their new home to scour the country ; 
taking little or no material for subsistence with them, but depending on 
their own skill in procuring it for themselves when needed. They are 
frequently absent on these expeditions for a month together ; never sleeping 
under a roof during all that time, and their food the flesh of wild animals, 

‘and a little brackish water. The only means which they have of dressing 
the former is by roasting it on fires made with horse-dung ; for there is 
no other fuel to be met with. Their mode of taking the wild mares of 
which they are in search is very simple, and attended by little difficulty. 
Immediately they encounter a herd of wild horses they drive their own 
troop of tame ones among them, and the two soon become, as it were, 
incorporated together. The whole are then driven in one bedy towards 
the Puesto, and on reaching it are made to enter the enclosures of -pali- 
sades ; where the wild mares are noosed one by one, with the lazo, and 
dragged outside to a short distance, where they are slaughtered, and 
their hides taken off—the carcasses being left to be devoured by the 
vultures, caranchos, and other birds of prey which are always present in 
vast numbers in the immediate vicinity of those loathsome shambles. 
There are frequently not less than a hundred carcasses at one time left to 
be devoured in this manner. Ifthe mares happen to be fat, this sub- 
stance is used for the fires and lamps of the Gauchos; but generally 
speaking, the hide is the sole source of the profit derived from this 
disgusting occupation. The bones, indeed, after the vultures, &c. have 

icked them clean, are used for fuel, in addition to the dried dung and - 
tallow. On these fires it is that the Gauchos roast the flesh that is their 
only food. In our journey across the plain, the situation of these Puestos 
might always be discovered at a great distance in advance, by the cloud 


1829. } Recent Journey in South America. 269 


of birds—several hundreds in number—that was always hovering over 
them ; and on approaching nearer, the odour from the putrid carcasses 
was perfectly horrible. To complete the disgusting scene, the prominent 
object of sight was a’ pile of white bone ashes, reared close to the hut, 
but not applied to any use whatever. Before quitting this subject, it 
should be mentioned, that all the young horses which are found among the 
mares caught in the manner above described, are immediately broke in 
to the saddle, by main force as it were, in the course of about two days ; 
and the hides of* the mares, after being dried in the sun, are sold at the 
nearest town for about half a dollar each. The purchaser, when he has 
collected a sufficient number together, sends them in carts to Buenos 
Ayres, where they produce from six reals to a dollar each. 

About this point of our journey it was hourly to be expected that the 
wild Indians would make their appearance. At Punta del Sauce, there- 
fore, our supercargo had engaged with an active Cordovese Gaucho, and 
a gigantic Negro, both of whom were well acquainted with the country, 
and who were to keep a constant look out in advance of the troop, in 
order to prevent a surprise from these roving marauders. The tract of 
country over which we now had to pass was one level plain, entirely 
covered with pasture ; and on the 20th we crossed a deep stream called 
Saladillo, and entered upon the Indian territory. Having filled our 
water-jars at the above-named stream—which was of a brackish taste— 
we now travelled day and night, with the least possible intermission—as 
it was considered unsafe to linger a moment longer than was necessary 
in these rude and inhospitable wilds. Our chief occupation by day was 
running down or shooting the fallow deer—a sport which took a most 
animated character from the nature of the ground over which we were 
passing ; and in these beautiful plains the game is extremely abundant. 
This sport was sometimes varied by that of snaring partridges—with 
which game the plains also. abounded. This we effected by means of 
horse-hair nooses, fixed to the end of long canes. Another practice was, 
to ride round in a circle swiftly, decreasing the extent of the circle at 
every turn, till the bird became literally bewildered and giddy by its 
efforts to escape, and at last suffered itself to be approached near enough 
to kill it with a riding-whip. 

During the eight days that were occupied in crossing the Pampas, I 
found it scarcely possible to get an hour’s sleep, either by night or day. 
The only means by which I could effect it at all were, by riding forward 
in advance of the troop for some distance, and then dismounting, and 
flinging myself in one of the deep wheel ruts, in order to avoid the cold 
winds ; still retaining my horse’s bridle in my hand. On these occasions, 
instead of being awakened by the creaking and lumbering of the carts, as 
they passed me, I was pretty sure to sleep till these sounds ceased, and 

_ then to awake by the absence of the noise—as the miller is said to do 
when his mill stops. On one of these occasions, however, at night, when 
I had been unusually oppressed by sleep, I found, on awaking, that the 
carts were not only out of hearing, but out of sight. At first I was not at 
all alarmed, but springing on my horse, thought to regain my company 
in a few minutes. Not coming up with them as soon as I expected, I 
looked up to the heavens, and found that the constellation Orion was on 
the wrong side of me. I therefore quickly retraced my course; but it 
was full an hour before I regained my companions. If it had been a 

_ cloudy night I should assuredly have lost my road altogether, and in all 


ly 


270 Recent Journey in South America. [Marcu, 


probability have remained several days without meeting with any assist- 
ance in regaining it. Indeed, more than one European has been lost in 
these extensive solitudes, and died from starvation. My length of resi- 
dence in the country had enabled me to acquire e#ough of the Gaucho 
habits to prevent me from feeling any great dread of this; but still my 
situation under such circumstances would have been any thing but a 
pleasant one. 

On these extensive plains I frequently had occasion to observe the 
singular effect of the “ mirage,” described by travellers over the Ara- 
bian deserts; and several times our whole company were deceived by 
it. On one occasion I perceived before me, apparently at the distance 
of about a mile, two low trees, of singular appearance, which I turned 
to inquire the name of, and found that they were called Los Quebrachos ; 
but on turning the next instant to look at them again there was no such 
object within sight. At first I could not believe my senses, but was 
informed that the occurrence was quite a common one. And in fact the 
trees themselves were, as I afterwards found, at a distance of about two 
leagues from us at the time I saw the illusive appearance, and were 
completely hidden from actual view by an undulation in the surface of 
the ground. The explanation of this phenomenon is now well known, 
and need not be more particularly referred to. But another curious 
instance of the effects of the mirage is worth relating. One morning, 
about eleven o’clock, we suddenly perceived, at a considerable distance 
a-head, what we conceived to be the figure of an Indian, and as there 
was little doubt that we should soon see a party of them approach us 
with hostile intentions, we did not wait for the appearance of more, but 
instantly prepared to meet their attack. This was done by, in the first 
place, arresting the progress of all the carts, and causing them to be 
drawn up ina double line, so as to serve as a sort of fortification, 
behind which each man was posted with his musket, and prepared for a 
desperate resistance. On riding up and down, to see that all were in 
due order, I soon perceived that more was to be apprehended from the 
awkward movements of our men themselves, (most of whom were en- 
tirely unaccustomed to the use of muskets) than from the expected 
enemy. I therefore consulted with the supercargo, and it was presently 
arranged that only seven or eight of our party, who were accustomed 
to fire arms, should attempt a defence by that means, and that the rest 
should lash their knives to the end of their bullock goads, and use them 
by way of pikes—an instrument they were much more likely to handle to 
advantage. I was not long in discovering too, that our drivers were 
much better disposed to mount their horses and run away, than 
stand their ground and defend themselves: so that, to guard against an 
event of this nature, some of us were obliged to swear that we would 
shoot the very first man who did not stand his ground fairly, and take 
his chance with the rest. Presently, however, all chance of escaping 
seemed cut off, for the enemy were now seen advancing on all sides, and — 
seemed closing in upon us in a circle, carrying their long lances erect. 
Our entrenchment being complete, we awaited the onset, each with 
several loaded guns, but firmly resolved not to fire till sure of our shot — 
telling. Suddenly, however, our opponents made a dead halt, as if” 
intimidated by something in our appearance—on this our hitherto — 
cowardly drivers took courage, and shouted them on tothe combat. But 
still they remained stationary—seeming, as well as we could distinguish, 


| 
; 


1829.] Recent Journey in South America. 271 


to be brandishing their long lances in the air. At this moment the 
mist that surrounded us cleared partially away, and we discovered that 
our supposed enemies were no other than a herd of wild horses, which, 
being startled at the unusual appearance of our caravan, had lifted their 
heads, with erect ears, high in the air, and seemed to approach us 
momently, by reason of the thickening mist magnifying their size, and 
at the same time changing their real appearance into something like that 
for which our fears had mistaken them. As soon as our ludicrous mis- 
take was discovered, shouts of laughter burst from all our company, 
and such of them as were mounted, riding towards the cause of our 
late fears, they turned in an instant, and fled away across the plain with 
the speed of the wind. 

Soon after the incident happened which has just been related, we 
were a little surprized by the appearance of a man gallopping towards 
us. On discovering him, the Cordovese and the negro took a wide cir- 
cuit to cut off his retreat. On his coming up with us, he told us that 
he had left Punta del Sauce, for the express purpose of joining our 
troop, in order that he might cross the Pampas in safety. But as he 
had a somewhat suspicious look, and might prove a spy of the Indians, 
and as our position was one which did not admit of our standing much 
on ceremony, we at once caused him to dismount, and put him into safe 
custody in one of the ox-carts, till we should reach an inhabited district. 

The next day we met with an instance of that extraordinary spirit of 
independence and enterprize, which is only to be met with in savage 
life. We saw before us, at a little distance, a man mounted on a horse, 
and driving twelve others before him. On approaching him, to ascertain 
who it could be that was thus traversing a deserted plain alone, where man 
meets his fellow man only to dread him as an enemy, he proved to be an 
old Gaucho, sixty years of age, anative of Rojas, who told us that he 
was journeying to San Ignacio, in the mountains of Cordova, to fetch 
home his son. This seemed so unlikely a tale, that we asked to see it 
corroborated by his passport, and it proved to be true. He had, in fact, 
set out from Rojas to San Ignacio, a distance of seventy leagues, fifty of 
which were over pathless plains, where nothing could guide his way 
but the sun by day, and the stars by night ; and with no provisions but 
a little dried beef in his saddle-bags, two small horns of water, and a 
little tobacco. There was also the constant risk of meeting with the 
wild Indians, and he had moreover the perpetual anxiety attendant on 
keeping together twelve animals who were entirely loose, and well 
enough disposed to make their escape. These latter the old man rode 
alternately, catching one with his /azo whenever he wished to change 
his saddle, and at night it was his practice to stop immediately the sun 
went down, and feed his horses, he himself lying down to sleep for a 
few minutes at a time, but being compelled to get up and mount a horse 
every now and then, in order to keep the herd together. The bridle of 
the horse he was riding, he used always to keep in his hand while 
sleeping. This rencontre presented me with an instance of mingled sim- 


_ plicity and self-confidence, which it would be difficult to parallel in a 


more civilized class of life. 

On the 24th of September, our water being all exhausted before 
reaching the expected means of supplying it, we were tormented for 
some hours with a burning thirst. ‘Towards evening we discovered a 
pond at a distance, and rode eagerly towards it ; but on reaching it, we 


272 Recent Journey in South America. [Maxrcu, 


found that although half a mile in circumference, it was no where more 
than two inches in depth, and lay on the surface more like oil than 
water. We were, however, not to be deterred by its appearance, nor 
by the clouds of musquitoes that were hovering over it; but spread our 
handkerchiefs on the surface, and lying on our faces, sucked the muddy 
liquid through them, and felt it like nectar to our parched throats. The 
next instant the whole was converted into a quagmire, by the horses 
and mules rushing into it, and attempting in vain to quench their thirst. 
It was not till towards the middle of the next day that we again disco- 
vered a rushy marsh at the distance of about a league, and as this 
offered the probability, though not the certainty, of a supply of water, 
I hastened to it, accompanied by the capataz and our Cordovese scout, — 
which latter was the most active and skilful horseman I ever beheld. 
On approaching pretty near to the marsh, we discovered, to our infinite 
delight, a considerable quantity of rain water among the rushes, and 
were on the point of dismounting to partake of it, when suddenly a 
large Puma, or South American lion, sprung from a rushy lair where 
he had been couched, and instantly fled across the plain. This some- 
what startling appearance dispersed our thirst, of the sense of it, for the 
moment, and we all turned our horses in pursuit of the fugitive. I 
have elsewhere described the extraordinary skill of the Gauchos with 
their Jazo. On this occasion I had to witness a new instance of it in 
the Cordovese scout, who, presently coming up with the lion, cast his 
lazo over its head in an instant, and brought it to the ground almost 
choked by the running noose. On recovering himself a little, the lion 
seemed disposed to turn on his assailants and defend himself, but before 
he could rise, the lazo of the capatax was dexterously cast round his 
hinder legs, and the holder of it riding on, the lion was stretched on 
the plain by the tightened cords, without the power of moving. With 
the rapidity of lightning the Cordovese now dismounted, and the blood 
of the animal was the next instant gushing forth beneath his knife. 
After satisfying our thirst by returning to the marshy pool, the carcase 
of the lion was dragged to the carts, where the skin was taken off, and 
the flesh cut into small pieces, roasted and eaten, within an hour of 
our first sight of the living animal! The flesh, which I tasted, was 
very white, and resembling veal, but of a fishy flavour, but certainly it 
was much preferable to that of a newly slain buck, which was roasted 
at the same time. The flesh of the lion is esteemed a great delicacy by 
the Gauchos, and consequently a feast on one is looked upon as a treat 
of no ordinary kind. The next day we arrived at Melinquecito, where 
a lioness with two cubs was taken—the mother was killed and eaten, 
and the two cubs were put into one of the carts, with the intention of 
conveying them alive to Buenos Ayres, but for want of proper food 
they soon died. Close to the above-named place there was an enormous 
lake of salt water, having the character almost of an inland sea, for we 
could not perceive the opposite side of it. On this lake were immense: 
numbers of aquatic birds, and in particular, large flocks of the splendid. 
flamingo. On the firing of our rifles, these magnificent birds rese from — 
the water in vast numbers, and the effect of their gorgeous plumage 
shone upon by the rays of the morning sun, was brilliant beyond de- 
scription. 59 

On the 27th we reached Melinque, which was formerly a settlement: 
of some importance, but is now abandoned, having been previously 


1829.] Recent Journey in South America. 273 


ruined by the repeated ravages of the Indians. On the evening of this 
day, the sky threatened a pampero, or land storm, in consequence of 
which the carts were drawn up in a circle, and lashed together, for the 
purpose of securing the oxen within the inclosure thus formed. This 
necessary arrangement for preventing the escape of the cattle was 
searcely completed, when faint flashes of lightning were seen on the 
verge of the horizon, which proved the near prelude of a most furious 
hurricane. To the “ pitiless pelting” of this storm, which was so vio- 
lent that even the heavy ox-carts could scarcely stand against it—the 
Boyeros were exposed during the whole night, being obliged to ride 
round the entrenchment constantly, for the purpose of seeing that the 
oxen did not escape in their fright ; but notwithstanding these precau- 
tions, it was found in the morning, that four of the cattle were missing, 
and a Boyero was immediately sent after them, but did not rejoin us for 
four days, having lost his way during another storm two nights after. 
The condition of these poor fellows is perhaps worse than that of any 
other class of their countrymen. The one I have just alluded to, who 
was sent after the stray cattle, had neither eaten nor drank during the 
whole period of his absence from the troop, having taken nothing with 
him but a little tobacco, with which he contrived to sustain nature ; and 
yet, on his return, his case did not seem to be looked upon as a pecu- 
liarly hard one. He was only considered as having performed an ordinary 
portion of his duties, for which he receives 15 dollars per month, or 
six weeks, i.e. for the whole period of the journey, which is more or 
_less, according to the condition of the oxen. I observed that imme- 
diately on the return of the one alluded to above, he proceeded to 
“refresh” himself, by devouring about four pounds weight of tough beef, 
without either bread or salt. This, with a draught of brackish water, 
formed his repast, after which he betook himself to sleep—not having 
closed his eyes during his absence. 
_ Having passed a ruined fort, called Fortin de Mercedes, which had 
formerly been used as a place of garrison to protect the Indian frontier, 
_we came to a spot where some wild barley had usurped the place of the 
common rushy pasture with which the Pampas are for the most part 
covered. Near to this spot an accident happened which gave occasion 
for some of those numerous expedients to which the imhabitants of an 
uncultivated country are so often compelled to resort. In soaping the 
wheels of one of the ox-carts, the cart itself, being not properly supported, 
in the absence of its wheel, fell to the ground, and broke in two places 
the thigh of the poor man whom we had encountered some days before, 
_and fearing that he might be a spy sent by the Indians, had kept prisoner 
ever since. I was immediately applied to, as the most likely person of 
the party to possess “skill in surgery ;” and on inspection I found that 
the fractures were simple ones. I therefore caused a shirt to be cut into 
strips and sewed together for a bandage; managed to form a set of 
splinters with a broken driving cane ; picked out a portion of a dry hide 
_which had received a conical form from the use to which it had been applied, 
and which I made to assume the character of a cradle ; and with these 
a apparatus” I contrived to reduce the fractures, and place the limb in 
its proper form. Having then managed to suspend a hide by way of 
hammock, in such a manner as to prevent much jolting from the motion 
of the cart, the “patient” was placed in it, and we were enabled to pro- 
ceed on our journey. The bandage being kept moistened by some diluted 
M.M. New Series—Vou. VU. No. 39. 2N 


274 Recent Journey in South America. [ Marcu, 


vinegar, and the sufferer being prevented from taking any thing but a 
little water, in three days time all fever had ceased, and I had the satis- 
faction of finding that, if I had not managed the case precisely, “ secun- 
dum artem,” the patient seemed likely to be “ doing well” nevertheless. 
The truth is, there is no skill like that which grows out of necessity, and 
no nurse like Dame Nature. On arriving at the little town of Salto, on 
the fourth day after the accident, we left the man in the care of a humane 
inhabitant of the place, who promised to afford him an asylum till he 
should be sufficiently recovered to follow his occupations. On the day . 
that we passed the little town of Salto, we met with some armadillos, several : 
of which we caught ; and, as in these parts of the world an animal must 
be a non descript indeed, that is not considered as worth eating, these, 
like the rest, were submitted to the somewhat rude process of our travell- 
ing cuisine, and roasted in their shells. In making journeys like those 
which I am describing, it is good for tie traveller to be an epicure or the 
opposite, as the case of the moment may happen to require. For my 
own part, I have always considered, that as there is no reason, d@ priori, 
why a snake should not be as good as an eel, or a foal as a fawn, so it is 
always worth while to taste every thing that comes in your way ina 
“* questionable shape.” Accordingly, on the occasion just alluded to, I 
willingly made trial of the roasted armadillo, and found it not unlike’ 
a sucking-pig in flavour, but even more delicate. 

On the 29th of September, we reached the little town of Rojas. 
which presents a very characteristic scene, arising out of the necessities 
and corresponding expedients of its peculiar position. The town con- 
sists, besides a fort mounting three guns, of many detached houses, each 
of which is an impregnable fortress in itself—that is to say, impregnable 
with reference to the attacks likely to be made upon it. Each house is 
surrounded by a deep ditch, and, within that, planted with a hedge the 
nature of which renders it a perfect safeguard against the attacks of the : 
Indians. This hedge consists of the torch thistle (Tuna) so planted 
that its thorny stems almost touch each other to the thickness of four or 
five feet. It is true the stems of this plant, being merely of the con- 
sistence of a cabbage-stalk, might easily be chopped down by means of 
an axe. But as the Indians never, or very rarely, dismount, when 
making their attacks, and as the hedge I have described is fire-proof, 
and may be defended by musquetry from behind, it becomes, in point 
of fact, an absolutely impregnable barrier against such assailants. At 
the time we visited it, Rojas contained about 1,500 inhabitants, and 
presented a most singular and romantic appearance—being situated on a 
slight eminence, and the enclosures of the Tuna thickly planted, chiefly 
with peach groves. The entrance to each enclosure is by a draw-bridge. 
We observed among the inhabitants many Indian boys and girls, who 
had been taken prisoners from the Indians in various incursions, and 
were used as slaves. I remarked, that the heads of these Indians were 
all more or less flattened behind; which I ascertained to have been 
caused by the mode of their treatment during infancy. As the Indian 
children, while infants, always accompany their mothers on however 
long a journey they may take, and, as their journeys are all performed 
on horseback, they resort to the expedient of lashing the infant flat on 
its back to a board, and slinging it over their own shoulders; in which 
position, they ride at a great rate the whole day ; and it is only at nigh 
when they stop, that the infant is unloosed and permitted to suck 


1829.] Recent Journey in South America. 275 


after this, it remains for the rest of the night loose upon the grass. It 
may readily be supposed, that this mode of treatment in some measure 
answers the purpose of more refined and civilized expedients for thinning 
and keeping under the surplus population. I was informed that the 
value of the slaves, obtained from the Indians in the manner alluded to 
above, is, at the age of eight years, about 100 dollars. 

On the 30th, we fell in with a herd of about four hundred wild pigs. 
We gave chase to them, and at first they ran very swiftly ; but they 
soon became tired by rushing through the tall pasture, when several 

- ferocious boars suddenly stopped and faced us—gnashing their tusks 
and putting on a somewhat formidable appearance. Owing also to the 
suddenness of their halt, our guns were not available at the moment, 
and we were compelled to wheel our horses round, in order to avoid the 
danger of their being gored by these savage animals. As they kept 
their ground resolutely, we now immediately unslung our rifles and 
commenced the attack—which, after no little danger from the monstrous 
white tusks of our opponents, and several severe wounds from the same 
about the legs of our horses, ended in laying ten of the herd dead at our 
feet. Though we were four in number, and armed with rifles, pistols, 
and sabres, it cost us a full hour to achieve the above victory. We now 
dragged four of the finest carcasses to the carts, which had stopped at a 
little distance, and it was not long before portions of them were roasting. 
The drivers seemed to partake of this feast with great gusto ; but, on 
tasting the flesh myself, I found its flavour not unlike that of rancid 
whale oil. This was probably occasioned by the animals feeding so 
much on carrion, which they greatly prefer to grass. These herds of 
pigs, though running wild, I afterwards found to be, in fact, the pro- 
perty of the estancieros, or holders of the cattle farms, who, when the 
pasture fails or becomes scarce, cause a number of wild mares to be 

' slaughtered for the purpose of supplying their herds of pigs with food. - 
These herds form a great article of commerce with the shipping agents 
of Buenos Ayres, who come hither and purchase the herds’ at the rate of 
about areal a head. They are then driven to Buenos Ayres, where 
they are fed for some time on grain, &c. and then killed and salted for 
ship provisions. 

In the afternoon of the day on which we had performed the above 
exploit, our Cordovese scout encountered a very strong wild boar, which 
he immediately caught with infinite dexterity, by casting his lazo over 
it. He then drove it on before him for some time; but, on the animal 
shewing his distaste to this mode of travelling, and turning to attack 
Ais conductor, the latter immediately put his horse to speed and dragged 
the boar for half a mile at full gallop till he reached the carts ; by which 
time the boar was strangled, and the side on which he had been dragged 
was completely bare. We now began to enter a district well peopled 
with estancios, or cattle farms; to each of which is attached a large 
mere of peach-trees—this being the only tree used for firewood in these 

stricts. On the night of this day, a little incident occurred singularly 

eharacteristic of the state of manners and feeling of the people forming 
our troop. Every body having for some days past been tired of the beef 
belonging the troop itself—which had assumed that condition called 
* carne cansado” (tired flesh), and which is abhorred by the Gauchos 
on account of its having lost all its flavour—some of the drivers sallied 


N 2 


276 Recent Journey in South America. [ Marcu, 


forth at night, on foot, supplied with /azos, and soon returned with a 
fine fat cow, which they had stolen from one of the neighbouring herds ; 
and she was immediately killed, cut up, and eaten with great gozil by 
the whole of the troop ; though all, including the supercargo himself, 
knew perfectly well how it had been obtained. 

On the Ist of October we reached the Guardia del Salto, a town with 
a fort and two thousand inhabitants. This place was captured by the 
Indians, under Carrera, and great atrocities committed. At the time of 
our passage, it contained a regiment of 500 hussars, to guard the neigh- 
bouring country against any meditated attacks. 

On the 2d of October, we passed through Areco, a town similar in 
character to the above ; and on the 4th, we reached one of a very superior 
description—the pretty town of Luxan—which includes several hand- 
some buildings, and a church surmounted by a dome. The next day an 
incident occurred, which, though frequently productive of very melan- 
choly effects, is not uncommon in these plains. The dry grass by which 
a portion of the plain was covered, had taken fire, and the column of flame 
approached our troop so quickly, that one of the carts, laden with wine, took 
fire and was entirely destroyed, while the rest escaped with considerable 
difficulty. It sometimes happens that the whole of the dry grass on the 
plains is thus consumed ; and as the flames travel at a much greater rate 
(sometimes three leagues an hour) than the ox-carts can do in attempting 
to escape from them, there is great danger in meeting with a moving 
conflagration of this kind. It was only a month before our journey that 
a troop of sixteen carts had met with one of these travelling columns of 
fire, and four of them fell a sacrifice to it—the rest only escaping by 
taking refuge in a stream of water. On this occasion, two of the drivers 
of the carts were also killed, and the other two so injured as to remain 
cripples for life. The best plan of escape in cases of this kind seems to 
be that of setting fire to the grass to leeward on seeing the approaching 
flame at a distance ; and then driving into the vacant space thus obtained. 
But there is risk in this plan, because the fibrous roots of the grass 
retain the fire for a considerable time. These fires are frequently occa- 
sioned by’ the carelessness of travellers and others, in cooking their food 
among the grass ; but they are sometimes the result of wanton mischief 
or of malice. 

The above incident is the last worthy of note that I have to relate, in 
connection with my somewhat romantic journey from Mendoga to Buenos 
Ayres. On the 6th of October we reached the last named place, after 
having been seven weeks on the road. 


A. G. 


1829.] puny 


THE WIFE OF SEVEN HUSBANDS: A LEGEND OF. LONDON. 


In the beginning of the reign of Edward the First, of long-legged 
memory, there lived upon Corne-hille, over against the spot where the 
water-tonne was a few years afterwards built, a certain blithe and 
buxome widow, very wealthy, and as fair withall as she was wealthy : 
she was only in her twenty-eighth year, of a tall and stately shape and 
bearing, and with commanding and yet right modest features: her face 
was oval, her hair and eyes of bright black; her forehead high; her 
eyebrows arched, almost into semi-circles ; her nose slightly aquiline ; 
her cheeks high coloured, and yet delicately so; her lips small, and 
prettily bent ; her teeth white and regular ; her chin rather forward and 
dimpled ; and her complexion dark though not swarthy: so that upon 
the whole she had rather a Jewish cast of countenance, and yet there 
was no rightful reason to suspect that there was even a drop of Israelitish 
blood in her vains, for her father, and his fathers before him, for many 
generations back, had been rich and respectable goldworkers, citizens of 
London, and had always married among their equals and friends. 
Busy tongues, however, there were that whispered something or other 
to this effect—that the maternal grandmother of Mrs. Alice (my young 
and pretty widow), during the absence of her husband, who was a mer- 
chant, had become pretty closely acquainted with a young Hebrew, at that 
time staying in London ; and that, when her husband returned, he was, 
for some reason or other, so angry with his wife, that he put her away 
from him, and would never after see her, though he provided for her 
during her life, and himself educated the children she had borne up to 
the period of their parting. Now, though the latter part of this story is 
undoubtedly true, I would nevertheless caution my readers, gentle and 
simple, not to put too much trust in the former part thereof; remember- 
ing that husbands are husbands, and, from the beginning of the world 
to the present day, have been, and are, a jealous and wayward race ; 
and, moreover, that the breath of slander will at times sully the brightest 
reputations ; and, besides, that conclusions are too frequently drawn 
which the premises will by no fair means justify. 

But be this as it may, Mistress Alice was a very handsome woman, and, 
as has been before said, very wealthy, for her father always petted her, 
and although he had two other children, sons, he quarrelled with them 
both and turned them out of doors, and very solemnly vowed he would 
disinherit them, and there is little doubt he would have kept his vow, 
but that they prevented him, the eldest, by being drowned in the Fleet 
river, and the other by getting murdered in an affray with the city watch. 
At the old man’s death, therefore, he left all his property, real and per- 
sonal, to his “ deare daughter Alice,” who was then twenty-one years 
old, and had lately been married for the first time in her life. She has 
been already introduced to the reader as a widow, and if he was tempted 
to be surprised at her being so young a one, what will he think when 
he reads that she was a widow for the fifth time ?—ay, and was now on 
the eve of being married to her sixth husband—this was a Master Simon 
Shard, a draper of Corne-hill, who had a well-filled purse, a rather 
corpulent figure, a round and ruddy face, and was about two and thirty 
years of age. It was said he had been enamoured of the fair Alice pre- 
viously to her three last marriages, but that he had not had courage 
enough to break his mind to her till some time after the death of her 


278 The Wife of Seven Husbands : (Marc, 


fourth husband, and when he did so he found she was unfortunately 
engaged to his immediate forerunner, at whose death he again pressed 
his suit—was accepted, and they were married. After living for about 
six months on the most seemingly loving and comfortable terms, Master 
Shard was one morning found dead in his bed, without any previous 
_ illness or indisposition: this was very strange, at least strange it will 
probably seem to the reader, though it was not so to Mrs. Alice’s 
neighbours, for, wonderful to relate, all her other husbands had died in 
the same way, and under the same circumstances. There had been from 
time to time many various opinions afloat upon this subject, and they 
had become more prevalent, stronger, and of longer lasting upon the 
successive deaths of each of her husbands. The most moderate had 
merely observed, that “ for certes Mrs. Alice was a very unlucky, or a 
very lucky woman,” according to the speaker’s appreciation of wed- 
lock : others looked very wise, and seemed to think a good deal, but 
said very little, generally contenting themselves with observing, “ That 
it really was very odd ;” but again there were others, who—especially on 
the death of Mr. Shard’s predecessor—declared that ‘“ such things were 
clean out of the common run of nature, and that either Mrs. Alice, or 
some one not to be named among Christians, must have bewitched her hus- 
bands,” (and. here the speaker and listeners, especially if females, would 
devoutly cross themselves) “or else some thing or other” (also it seemed 
not to be named among Christians) “ had carried them off in a very odd 
way, to say the least of it ;’ and to this cautious and mysterious opinion 
the generality of the last mentioned sect of gossips, with additional self- 
crossings, assented. Still however, Mrs. Alice’s conduct was so, not only 
unobjectionable, but praiseworthy; she was so pious and charitable a 
woman, so good a neighbour, so kind a friend, and in short, both 
publicly and privately fulfilled all the domestic relations of life, in so 
exemplary a manner, that even the tongues of those who secretly envied 
her wealth, her beauty, and may be her luck, had not as yet dared to 
wag in open scandal against her ; but a sixth recurrence of so extraor- 
dinary an event, it would seem gave sudden loose to their hitherto con- 
fined scruples and tongues; or, perhaps the reason why they more 
freely vented their suspicions or their spite on the present occasion might 
be that Master Shard had been a man of great influence in the city— 
his connexions stood high in the eyes of men, and he had a cousin who 
was sheriff at the time of his death, and who declared when he heard it, 
«by cock’s marrow, he would see into the matter that very moment,” 
and accordingly next morning, for he was just going to sit down to 
dinner when he made the above declaration, he presented himself with 
a posse comitatus at Mrs. Alice’s door—and then the neighbourhood, 
as with one voice, spoke out against her ; for their long held opinion of 
her (at least they said it had been long held) now found the counte- 
nance of power—her piety had been hypocrisy, and they had thought 
so all along—her charity, ostentation—her goodness and kindness, even 
those that had benefited by them, now found some hole to pick in, and 
in plain and pithy English they called her a murderess. 

While this was going on without Mrs. Alice’s doors, another kind of 
scene was taking place within. The sheriff had been readily admitted, 
and was followed not only by the posse of the county, but by a posse of the 
venue (to use, I believe, a strictly lawful phrase), consisting of all sort 
of people, who either had, or thought they had, or thought they shoul 


1829. ] a Legend of London. 279 


like to have some concern in the business. They found the widow by 
the bed-side of her departed husband: she not only did not fly from, 
but courted investigation, and accordingly the body was investigated, 
but not the slightest sign of violence was found upon it; no trace of 
steel or poison—all was as right and as unaccountable as it ought to 
have been. There were some present who pretended to a great know- 
ledge of human nature, and who strictly watched Mrs. Alice during 
the whole transaction, and their evidence went still further to clear her 
from the imputation it was sought to affix upon her: for they said her 
conduct was so thoroughly natural—she seemed struggling between 
indignation at the charge brought against her, and grief for the cause 
thereof ; and yet there was no overacting in her grief, it seemed just 
what she would be likely to feel for the loss of such a husband, and to 
be rather sorrow for the spell that appeared to be upon her, than for the 
man himself. The sheriff and his friends therefore, whatever they 
might have thought or wished, found themselves forced to declare her 
guiltless ; and after partaking of a slight refection, consisting of boiled 
beef, suet puddings, sausages and ale, left the widow to her solitude. 
His declaration of her guiltlessness was soon known among her neigh- 
bours, almost all of whom without any delay or difficulty returned to 
their former good opinion of her, greatly pitymg her for the trouble she 
had been put to, and much wondering how folks could be so spiteful as 
tell such wicked stories. In a few days orders were given for the burial 
of the late Master Shard in Mrs. Alice’s family vault, which was in 
St. Michael’s church, and which vault, though one of considerable 

_ extent, Mrs. Alice seemed in a fair way of filling choak full with her 
husbands. 

St. Michael’s church stood at the period of this tale, and for aught 
the teller knows to the contrary, stands to this day at the eastern end of 
Cornhill, and about midway between this church and Mrs. Alice’s house 
there was a pot-house or tavern, known by the sign of the “ Sevenne 
Starres:” in the tap-room of this tavern, upon the afternoon when 
Master Shard was to be carried to his long home, there was assembled 
a very merry company of some dozen worthy citizens, who were getting 
full of good things and gratitude towards the giver of the feast, Master 
Martyn Lessomour, a young merchant, whose safe return from a long 
and successful voyage in the Mediterranean they were met to celebrate. 
Master Lessomour was not yet thirty, though hard upon it; tall, 
strongly and well-built ; his face was handsome and manly, and his 
large blue eyes looked like mirrors of his frank heart ; his complexion 
was naturally fair, but exposure to sun and storm had given it a healthy 
tan, as they had also yet more bleached his light hair, which he wore 
long and curling down his neck and shoulders ; in short, he was altogether 
a comely young man to look upon, and the rogue knew it too, for it was 
particularly observed of him that his carriage, which was at all times 
free and easy, would assume a little bit of a swagger when he either 
met in the streets, or passed under windows where were sitting any 
young and pretty city damsels. In his merry moods he was playful as a 
month-old kitten, as very a galliard as the best among them ; but when 

business required it, he was as staid and sober as if an idle jest or an 
extra cup of canary had never passed his lips, so that he was equally 
well thought of among the grave and the gay ; some of the oldest and 
wealthiest of the citizens would nod to him in passing, and some even 


280 The Wife of Seven Husbands = [ Marcu, 


went so far as to declare upon ’Change, “they believed young Master 
Lessomour would be a man well to do in the world, if,” for they gene- 
rally added a reservation, “ if he only took care of himself and had good 
luck.” They might indeed have been a little influenced in the forma- 
tion of this good opinion, by the fact of his being the only heir and 
great favourite of a very rich and very old uncle. On the afternoon in 
question, he and his boon companions were at the height of their mer- 
riment, when one who was sitting in the bay window, that jutted out 
into the street, observed the funeral of Master Shard approaching, and 
gave notice thereof to the others. The passing of a dead body being 
a solemn event, and they being orthodox Christians (according to the 
orthodoxy of those times) their merriment was therefore suspended, and 
I will not undertake to say there was not a share of curiosity mixed up 
with this religious feeling, for they rose, one and all, and huddled into 
the window recess, in order to have a fair view of the funeral proces- 
sion, which as matters went then-a-days was a very sumptuous one. 
Most of the party present being acquainted with the circumstances of 
the case, at once recognized whose funeral it was, and the ignorant and 
anxious ears of Master Lessomour were greedily drinking in sundry 
marvellous tales of the rich widow of Corne-hille, when she herself 
passed immediately by the window, looking becomingly downcast and 
sorrowful. 

“ Be she what she may,” exclaimed my young merchant, “by the 
pillars of St. Hercules, she is a lovely wench, and steps out like an : 
emperatrice.” 

« A witch, Master Martyn,” replied one, the oldest of his companions, 
« a wicked witch is she, take an honest man’s word for it, who should ; 
know something about such things.” 

< He is married to a shrew,” said another, in an audible under tone, : 
which produced a hearty laugh against the former speaker: in this, 
however, Master Lessomour did not join, nor with his companions who 
resumed their places round the well stored table, but drawing a stool 
into the window recess, and taking a tankard of ale with him, he sat 
him down, intending, he said, to have another glimpse of the fair widow 
as she should return from the church ; meanwhile, he requested the 
company to tell him something more about her as they seemed to know 
so much, and he nothing, having been so long away from home—and 
accordingly, Master Andrews (he who had boasted of his knowledge 
of such things, and was indeed reputed the most garrulous gossip in 
the parish) with the assistance and interruption of his companions, when 
they thought he had not made enough of a good point, went through a 
relation of Mrs. Alice’s life and adventures; and, which relation, 
divested of a considerable share of fiction with which Master Andrews 
had laden it, and put together, it is humbly hoped, in something of a 
more coherent manner, corresponded very nearly with that which has 
been already laid before the reader. During all this while, Martyn 
Lessomour spoke not a word, and, when at length the narration: was 
ended, he slapped his hand lustily on the window-sill, and cried out, 
«« By the seven stars, and they are ruling ones now,” casting up his 
eyes to the sign over the door, “ but it is a strange tale—and whether 
true or false I will soon know—+for if the mind of man hold good within 
me four-and-twenty hours, I will somehow or other scrape knowledg 
with this said witching widow.” ; 


1829.] a Legend of London. 28) 


At this observation, there was a general outcry, some declaring he 
would not do as he said, others that he could not ; and some, presuming 
on long intimacy with him, or on their greater advance in years, vowed 
he should not. 
« And we'll see that, my merry masters, in an eye-twinkle,” cried 
Lessomour, “for here comes the dame back as if to my wish;” and 
with that, to the no small wonderment of his friends, he started from his 
seat, and clapping his cap upon one side of his head, hurried out of the 
door, and posted himself on the middle of the path, whereon Dame 
Alice with a few attendants was returning: he staid there, till she came 
within two or three paces of him, and then drew back to make way for 
her—she looked up, and their eyes met, and, bowing as gracefully as he 
could, which was not indifferently, he drew hack still farther. Mrs. 
Alice turned with the intent to cross the road, but some horsemen riding 
by at the moment prevented her from doing sa; whereupon Master 
Lessomour, stepping to her side, said “ Fair dame, will you let a stranger 
do his poor duty here, and see you safe over.” She curtsied, and accepted 
the arm he offered her ; and after escorting her across the road, where 
they again exchanged courtesies, he left her, and joined his companions, 
who from the window had beheld with astonishment his bold gallantry, 
They conspired to attack him with a good deal of bantering and raillery 
upon his exploit; but he was in such high spirits at the good success of 
it, and so well pleased with the way in which he had acquitted himself, 
that he fairly turned the tables upon them ; or if, literally speaking, he 
did not do that, they pretty nearly did it for themselves ; for in the 
course of two hours there was not one of the party, with the exception 
of Master Lessomour, who was too merry to get drunk, and of Master 
Andrews, on whom liquor had no more effect than on a sponge, only 
making him heavy: with these exceptions, there wag not one who did 
not turn himself under the table. 
Martyn dreamed all night of the lovely widow, and rose next morning 
at the first break of dawn. He proceeded immediately to rummage over 
all his mails, a process he went through three or four times before he 
could fix upon what suit of clothes he should array himself in. Having 
at last chosen one, which he thought the handsomest, and the best cal- 
culated to show off his figure to advantage, he began to dress himself 
therein; but before he had got half through his toilet, it occurred to 
him that the suit he had chosen being a very gaudy one, was not the 
most suitable for the visit he intended to make ; he therefore picked out 
one of a more sober cast, in which he finally clethed himself to his 
heart’s content. It consisted of a sad-coloured doublet, breeches and 
hosen ; the greater part of which, except the sleeves of the former, were 
concealed by a long cloth coat or robe, of a deep claret hue, hanging 
down nearly to his heels: this outer garment was open up the front, 
and fastened at the top with three silver buttons ; there were no sleeves 
in it, but large apertures to let the arms through, which, together with 
the bottom, front and neck, were trimmed with a broadish border o. 
silver lace: upon his head he wore a high peaked hood, with a long and 
full tail hanging from it, of the same materials and colour as his robe ; 
and a pair of pointed shoes completed his dress. He then selected a few 
ieces of black and grey bombacyne, as the species of silk then chiefly 
ufactured in Sicily was termed, which he had himself brought home ¢ 
his last voyage, and tied them up with a silken cord—and having 
M.M. New Serics—Vo1. VII. No. 39. 20 


282 The Wife of Seven Husbands : [ Marcu, 


broken his fast, he sallied forth from his lodging in Ship-alley, near 
Tower Hille, with his parcel under one arm, and his hands tucked into 

the arm-holes of his robe to keep him warm, for although it was May, it 

was areal English, and not a mere poetical one. He arrived at Mrs. 
Alice’s door and was admitted into her presence. In the most picked | 
language he could master he excused his intrusion, relying upon the : 
slight courtesy he had happily been enabled to show her the preceding 
day ; while she was lavish in her thanks for that courtesy, and seemed 
quite as willing to overrate, as he was to lessen it: after a good long 
interchange of such civilities, he respectfully requested her examination 
of the contents of his parcel, at the same time, letting her know as much 
as he with propriety could of his situation and prospects in life: and 
when she had chosen two pieces of the bombacyne, and begged to know 
at what price they were to be purchased, he gallantly entreated her to 
receive them as a trifling token of the great esteem wherein he held 
her: this gave rise again to a great many very pretty speeches, and at 
last Mrs. Alice very graciously vouchsafed to accept his handsome pre- 
sent—and they parted mutually pleased with each other. 

He visited her however, again and again, and their liking of each 
other seemed to increase with each meeting ; for if he was charmed by 
her wit, her modesty, and her beauty, she was decidedly as much taken 
with his good looks, his open-heartedness, and his conversation :—she 
would sit for hours and hours together, listening to the strange history 
of his adventures upon the high seas, of his being chased by, and 
escaping from the pirates of the Atlantic and Mediterranean; of the 
wonders he had seen in Spain and Italy ; of his visits to Venezia and 
Genoa ; and, finding what interest she took in such relations, he un- 
doubtedly did a little amplify the truth now and then, making as much 
of an uncommon circumstance as he consistently could; though he 
never outraged veracity or her common sense’ so far as to talk of 
Anthropophagi, or of men whose heads did grow beneath their shoulders. 
In fine, so agreeable did they find each other, that as soon as decenc 
would permit, they married ; neither, it would seem, at all deterred by 
the fate that had attended all Mrs. Alice’s former husbands.. The pre- 
parations on this occasion were as splendid and expensive as possible, 
every citizen of any importance that was at all known to either of the 
parties, graced the ceremony with their august presence, bringing with 

‘them too a host of wives, sons and daughters, kinsfolk, friends and 
acquaintance. The bride wore upon her head a small cap of cloth of — 
gold, wrapped about with silken cords and stringed pearls; her gown 
was of green silk, embroidered round the neck with jewels, as was also 
her broad silver girdle ; and over all she bore a long mantle of white 
cloth, richly trimmed and figured with silver, fastened round her neck 
with thick silver cords, and lined throughout with white fur ; her shoes 

' were also of white cloth, with long points something turned up. The 
bridegroom was arrayed in.a pair of peach coloured hosen of fine cloth, — 
serving the double purpose of stockings and pantaloons, and a short — 
cointoise, or robe of crimson silk, lined with white persan, open at the 
front, and fastened with golden buttons, set upon a broad border of dark 
blue velvet, and this trimming also ornamented with similar buttons 
ran round the skirts, and wristbands of the robe ; his waist was cinct 

‘ by a golden girdle ; a small dagger hung from it, the ivory handle 
yellow velvet sheath of which were richly ornamented with preci 


1829. ] a Legend of London. 283 


stones: over this coinioise he wore a long mantle similar to his bride’s, 
only of dark blue cloth, lined with white persan, and clasped at top by 
a large sapphire, set in chased silver ; behind his back there hung a 
hood of the same colour and material as his robe, werked all over with 
golden sprigs, and buttoned under his chin ; on his feet he had a pair 
of yellow Spanish leather crackowes, or shoes, with long pointed toes, 
the ends of which were fastened to his knees with silver-gilt chains: 
gleves also he had, and so indeed had the bride, though I forgot to 
mention it; they were alike of fine white kid leather ; hers, embroidered 
with gold ; and his, with a large emerald set in the back of each one, 
gauntlet-shaped, and edged with golden buttons. {f all that has not 
been told, would have been irksome and tedious in the telling, much 
more so, nay, quite impossible would it be to tell of all the feasting and 
mummeries that had place in Mrs. Alice’s house on that day—of the 
quantities of roast, boiled, grilled and fried—of mortries, pies and tarts, 
that appeared and disappeared—of the oceans of liquors and wines too— 
French and Greek—of Ypocras, and Pyment—of Rumney, Malaspine, 
Vernage, Mountrese, Algrade and Garnarde, the very names whereof are 
lost in this degenerate age. Let the reader only rest assured, that this 
was better than any common feast, inasmuch as there was more than 
enough. 

This day seemed to have been the beginning of a new life for Mrs. 
Alice ; she became from that time a gayer woman, and mingled more in 
company than ever she had done before ; for, with all her good qualities, 
she had lived hitherto rather a retired life: and yet she certainly. did not 
fly to society, as I am afraid some modern housewives do, to escape from the 
fellowship of her husband ; but rather, as it seemed, to give her a greater 
zest therein—for she loved him almost to devotion, and he was equally 
attached to her. They had been married for nearly four months, and 
not yet across word or look had passed between them: their mutual 
affection, indeed, seemed on the increase, which is not always the case 
with a new-married couple, especially after the honey-moon ; but, as 
Master Lessomour took care to exact from his wife nothing either unrea- 
sonable, or what she thought so, he found her all duty and obedience. 
Many people, indeed, whispered that all this would not last long; for 
they had not forgotten her other husbands, though it might almost seem 
that Master Lessomour and Mrs. Alice herself had done so. 

It chanced, however, that, as they were sitting together silently one 
evening upon a low stool or settle (in shape something like a modern 
‘settee, only with quaintly carved frame and elbows), gazing upon the 
dying members of a wood-fire, that had been piled up between the 
brazen dogs on the brick hearth, that Mrs. Alice fetched a sigh. 

a Why dost sigh, sweetheart?” said her husband; “ art not 
Pp” 

: i knew not that I sighed, dear Martyn,” she said. ‘“ Certes, it was 

not for lack of happiness, for I am right happy.” 

“ I am glad to hear thee say so, and think thou sayest sooth—if I may 
i all judge from mine own heart—for I am happier than I ever yet bave 

een.” 

And so, in truth, am I, Martyn—for I am happy now ; and, indeed, 
I never knew happiness till I knew thee.” 

' © Nay, now thou art surely cajoling me, sweetest. Meanest thou, 
ou wert never happy ere now?” 
202 


#34 The Wife of Seven Husbands : [ Marcu, 


« J say, till I knew thee, never—never !” As she said this with great 
Stress on the word never, Martyn, whose arm was girdling her, felt her 
shudder strongly, and he shook too. 

After a short pause, he resumed, “ Didst thou, then, not love thy other 
husbands, Alice ?” 

« Love them! No, Martyn—no; I hated them—hated them with 4 
deadly hate.” And at these words her face grew lividly pale, and her 
eyes fixed on her husband’s with a strange and snake-like glistening, 
that his marrow thrilled again, and his heart beat thick. He spoke to 
her, however, in a meek voice, and said— 

« Why didst thou hate them so, Alice?” 

** By cause that they were drunkards and faithless, Martyn; and, 
therefore, I hated them so ; and, therefore, were it possible thou shouldst 
be such, I should even so hate thee, much, very much as I do now love 
thee.” She uttered these words in a tone of deep tenderness, and fell 
weeping on his neck. 

He strove, both by caresses and assurances, to soothe her ; but it was 
some time before he could do so. The conversation was not resumed; and 
they ‘retired to bed. But Martyn’s mind continued very restless, and he 
lay awake long after his wife had gone to-sleep ; he could not dismiss 
her words from his brain, nor efface the impression they had made thereon ; 
and, after turning the matter over a great many times, he came to the 
resolution that he would see a little into the matter. At last he fell 
asleep, but it was only to wake soon froma wild dream. He thought 
he and his wife were still sitting on the low settle, as they had 
been that evening; and that their “faces were lit up, as they then had 
been, by the fitful glimmering of the dying embers—that her’s wore the 
same livid hue, and her eyes glistened in the same snake-like manner, 
that had then so frightened him; and that they were fixed, as then; 
upon his, and, though her look was most shocking, that he was fasci= 
nated by it, and could not move away his glance from her’s; and ‘her 
face kept growing paler and paler; and her eyes brighter and brighter, 
and more ‘and moré terrible; and he grew sick and sicker at heart, and 
felt a reeling in his brain, and a choking in his throat ; and still he 
could not turn his eyes from her. And, behold! her long black curls, 
that hung about her neck and shoulders, seemed of a sudden, and yet 
slowly, to become instinct with life; and, one by one, they uncurled 
themselyes—some moving their ends to and fro, and up and down, as he 
had seen leeches do in a vase when they sought to fix their heads some= 
where—others, again, twined themselves round the carved rail-work of 
the settle—while others, arching and stretching themselves out, twisted 
round his neck so tightly that they nearly throttled him. He woke up 
in alarm and agony, and found his wife’s long hair, indeed, around his 
neck—and her arms, too ; and her head was lying on his chest, and she 
was sobbing violently. He asked her what ailed her; and she said she 
had had a dreadful dream, all of which that she could recollect was that 
she had seen him murdered. 

_ Martyn slept no more that night; and, the next morning, he rose 
betimes, and, pretending business, he went out at an early hour. Busi- 
nsss, however, he had none. He walked forth at the Cripplegate, and 
strolled through the Finsburie fields, and so away into the country, with+ 
‘out any fixed determination or even knowledge of whither he was going. 
It was a drizzly day, too; but he seemed unconscious of it, though he 
Was soon drenched ‘to the skin. “But he kept walking about, thinking 


‘ 
{ 


1629.) a Legend of London. 285 


over the scene of the last evening, and all the stories ie remembered to 
have heard of his wife from the day he first saw her, and all other stories 
he could remember ever to have heard of witches and their cunning, till 
he began to hold his wife for one in real earnest ; or, if she was not a 
witch, she certainly was something else of an unusual nature, but what 
he could not just then bring himself to decide. Still he felt that he was 
not, somehow or other, safe with her, in spite of all her fondness for him ; 
and reflecting upon her expressions of deep hate for her former husbands, 
and the cause whereto she had ascribed that hate, he conceived a design 
to try her love, which he determined upon carrying into immediate exe- 
cution. It was long after sunset when he returned home, and he went 
straight to bed, pleading cold and weariness. The next day, he sat all 
the forenoon with his wife; but, in spite of her kindness and attentions, 
he could not overcome the disagreeable feeling that was upon him. He 
remained reserved, and almost sullen; and, at last, Mrs. Alice seemed 
infected with the same manner. At noon he left his house, and went 
straightways to Master Andrews, who lived not far off, with the pur- 
pose of inducing from him a recital of some of those marvellous tales 
wherewith he had, on a former occasion, regaled him. His purpose was, 
however, so far forestalled; for when he came there, he found he had 
some friends with him, and, of course, he was not anxious to make his 
wife’s conduct matter of public talk. He sat, therefore, the whole even- 
ing nearly in silence ; for which, however, they made full amends b 
their boisterous and drunken noise. He sat as late as any, and left them 
with the full determination of putting his plan into effect that very night. 
On his way home, he trod casually upon a piece of apple-rind lying in 
the path, and, slipping, fell in the mire ; for it had been raining all that 
day too. At first he was not a little put out; but, after a little 
reflection, remembering that this very mischance might be made ser- 
viceable to his scheme, with disordered dress, bending knees, drooping 
mouth, and half-closed eyes (assuming, as much as he could, the bearing 
of a drunken man), he presented himself at his door. His wife, although 
it was now late in the night, had sent the servants to bed, and had her- 
self sat up for him—a mark of attention that some very loving wives do 
at times pay their husbands, often more to their annoyance than comfort. 
‘In the present instance, however, nothing could have happened more to 
Lessomour’s wish. The moment his wife saw him, her face flushed even 
to darkness, and her large black eyes widened to a greater size, as she 
said in a tone half of anger, half of dread, « Why, Martyn, what is 
this ? what has befallen thee?” 
_* I’ve been with some friends, my love,” he replied, speaking 
thickly. 

“ Martyn! Martyn!” she answered, and bit her lip, and shook her 
head, “ a-get thee to thy bed; I will follow quickly.” 

He went accordingly ; but it was some time before she did follow him, 
and she lay down by his side without speaking a word to him. He pre- 
tended to be asleep, though he did not really sleep all that night ; nor 
more, he thought, did she—for she tossed about, and seemed very rest- 
less, now and then muttering to herself ; and as soon as morning broke, 
she rose, and dressed herself, and left the room. The whole of that day 
he staid at home, feigning to have a bad head-ache. She was very atten- 
tive to him, but in no way hinted at his conduct of the foregoing even- 
ing. In two or three days he repeated the experiment, and with nearly 
the same success, saving that Mrs. Alice seemed a little more gloomy the 


286 The Wife of Seven Husbands : [ Marcu, 


following day. He tried it a third time, and a fourth, and that night 
she did not come to his bed at all. The next morning she spoke to him, for 
the first time, upon the subject; she expressed more sorrow than anger 
—talked kindly to him—said she had hoped once, twice, and even thrice, 
that his coming home full of liquor might have been a mishap ; but she 
now felt forced to fear that drunkenness was becoming an usage with 
him; and she begged him, with tears in her eyes, as he prized her hap- 
piness, to stop in good time, ere it did in truth become an usage. He 
was moved by her earnestness, and promised her, and, at the time, 
himself determined to disquiet her no farther on this head; but an 
impulse, which’ somehow he could not resist, urged him in afew days to 
break his word. Twice more his conduct called forth pressing entreaties 
from his wife—the last time, indeed, they were mingled with some 
reproaches: but it all was of no effect upon Lessomour, he continued in 
the career he had began. The day after he had returned home, for the 
seventh time, in a pretended state of drunkenness, his wife said to him, 
« Martyn, I have prayed thee till I am weary: I now warn thee—take 
heed. As my husband, I owe thee love and duty ; but I can pay neither 
to a drunkard. Heed my warning, or woe upon us both !’’ 

And did Martyn still go on with the pursuit of his experiment >—He 
did. Although he saw it was losing him his wife’s love, and winning 
him her anger—her hate—he went on, with an unswerving resolution, 
which, in such a cause, seemed obstinacy, or madness, or worse. In the 
present enlightened age, I should not like to say he was bewitched, or to 
attribute to any supernatural influence the strong impulse which led hira 
on to do as he was doing, in spite of his better sense and better feeling 
—in spite of the love he had unquestionably borne his wife—in spite of 
the danger which he felt he was thrusting himself into and feared ; and 
yet I equally dislike to suppose that he was tempted to this severe trial 
of his wife’s love and duty either by too great faith in them, or a want 
of it ; though something, perhaps, of a similar nature was the trial to 
which Henry put his Emma, and Posthumus his Imogene: in neither 
case, indeed, so severe a one, nor, for his personal safety, may be, so 
dangerous ; but, whatever might have been his motive, it certainly to 
himself was as inexplicable as he owned it to be irresistible. Again, 
therefore, he transgressed, and was again threatened: again he reiterated 
his offence ; and then his wife said to him the next day, “ Goest thou 
forth to-day, Martyn ?” 

“IT must, indeed, Alice,” he answered; “ I have weighty business 
to do to-day.” 

*« Then mark me, Martyn. I am not going to pray thee; but I have 
warned thee once, and I have warned thee twice, and I now warn thee 
for the third and for the last time. Go at thy risk, and see thou heed this 
warning better than thou have done mine others. Go not forth to-day, 
Martyn; or, going, come not back to me as thou hast been wont of late 
to come. Better that thou stay from me altogether ; but better yet that 
thou stay with me altogether, Martyn.” 

«Nay, nay, I needs must go, Alice.” 

«« There needs no plea, Martyn, but thine own will—thine own stub- 
porn will—that will not bend to thy wife’s prayer. Ay! I said I 
would not pray thee, but Ido now. Look! see, Martyn! I am on my 
knees here to thee—and there are tears in mine eyes!—and, kneeling 
and weeping thus, I pray thee go not forth to-day. I have had dreams 
of late—dreams of bad foretoken, Martyn ; and only last night I did truly 


1829.) a Legend of London. 287 
dream that ” [Here she gulped, as if for breath.] “ Thou wilt 


lose thy life, an thou go forth to-day, Martyn.” 

But Martyn Lessomour, like Julius Cesar, was not to be frightened 
from a fixed purpose by a wife’s dreams ; and he answered her,— 

« Wife, wife, thou art a fearful woman, and makest me fear thee ; 
but, natheless, I shall go.” 

« Go then,” she said, and rose and left him ; and he shortly after went 
from the house—he returned in the evening in the same assumed state 
as before, and went to bed. For the last two days that he had played 
this part, since his wife had begun to use threats, he had gone when he 
left his own house, either to a friend’s or a tavern, where he slept away 
all the time he was absent, in order that he might lie awake during the 
night, to watch what his wife would do; but during this day he had 
not, for disquietude of mind, been able to sleep at all; but now that he 
was in bed, such a drowsiness came over him, that in spite of all his 
endeavours he soon fell into a sound sleep. From this he was aroused by 
his wife’s getting out of bed; yet, although he at once started into 
thorough wakefulness, he had the presence of mind to pretend to be 
still asleep, and lay still and watched her. She had thrown a night 
gown around her—but her hair was loose, and hung struggling about 
her neck, and as she passed the foot of the bed, the light from a lamp 
that was burning on a table, fell through her locks upon her faee, and 
Martyn saw that it was of that livid paleness, and that her eyes were 
brightened by that hateful snakelike look, which he had only once before 
beheld in reality, though in memory, thousands and thousands of times : 
*he saw too that she held a small knife in one hand. Slowly and stilly, 
like a ghost, she glided on—but away from him; and going up to the 
place where she had hung her gown up when she undressed, she took it 
down, and ripped open one of the sleeves of it, and took something out : she 
then went to the hearth, where there was a fire burning, for it was winter, 
and having laid the knife and whatever else she held in her hand, besidethe 
lamp upon the table, she seemed searching for something about the hearth. 
-At last Martyn heard her mutter, “ Not here—how foolish—heedless of 
me—I must go and fetch it from below.” She moved towards the door 
—Martyn’s heart beat high within him, as he thought the moment she 
should be gone, he would leap from the bed and rush past her down 
the stairs, and out of the house—for he strangely felt to be alone would 
be more dreadful than to be in her most dreaded presence. She stopped, 
however, at the door—laid hold of the latch, but did not raise it—and 
continued in a low mutter, “ Not here: mayhap it was for some good 
end that I forgot it—mayhap that I should give him one more trial yet 
—shall 1? I shall—one more trial I will give thee, dear Martyn, dear 
still, though lost, I dread—one more—one more ;” and saying this, she 
hurried back to her bed, and leaning her head upon Martyn’s shoulder, 
sighed and sobbed, not loudly indeed, but as if her heart were cracking 
—and he—he lay deadly still by her side, for he really feared to speak 
to her, even though it were to speak comfort ; or when he thought of 
doing so, the remembrance of her word, “one trial more” stifled him. 
—she seemed soon after to doze. In the morning he took care to rise 
before her, and woke her in so doing—he went up, as if by accident, te 
the table, and saw that beside the knife there lay a smallish round 
dump of lead. 

“ What is this for Alice?” he said, in a careless tone—for he knew 
she was watching him, 


288 The Wife of Seven Husbands : [ Marcu, 


«« What is it?” she replied. He took it to her bedside.’ “ That,” 
she continued, “ is a weight from the sleeve of my gown; I cut it out 
last night, to put in asmaller, for I find it too heavy.” 

Martyn laid it down, and presently left the room. It was some time 
before his wife joined him below stairs, and when she did at last come, 
her eyes looked so swollen and red, that Martyn was pretty sure she had 
been weeping ; he said nothing about it, however, but in a few minutes 
rose, and took down his cap, and said, “ I am bidden forth to dinner 
again to-day, Alice.” ‘ Good bye then, Martyn, good bye,” was all her 
answer, and that was said in a low, very solemn, and yet kind tone of 
voice. He lingered in the room for a moment or two, in the hope she 
would say something more to him, for he felt less inclined to pursue his 
fraud that day than he had ever felt before ; perhaps it was from a return 
of love he felt this, perhaps from fear—she said, however, nothing more, 
indeed, did not seem to notice his presence; so after saying, “ Well, 
good bye, Alice,’ he withdrew. He went at once to his next door 
neighbours, and requested them to hold themselves in readiness, in case 
he should want for their assistance in the night, for he had some idea, 
he said, that there would be an attempt to rob, or perhaps to murder 
him that night. This greatly alarmed his neighbours, and they. pro- 
mised to do what he requested, and the moment he had left them they 
sent for a reinforcement of their friends, and also begged of the fitting 
authorities that there might be an additional watch set in their neigh- 
bourhood that night. 

Lessomour returned earlier by some hours than usual, and to his 
wonder, found his door was not fastened within. He entered, and called, 
but no one answered—he fastened the door, and went up to his bed- 
room, where he found his wife already in bed, and seemingly fast 
asleep :—this was the first time she had not sat up for him. He made a 
great noise, overturning stools and boxes, and sundry other things, and 
then cursing at them, after the manner of drunken men—but his wife 
still seemed to sleep soundly ; he spake to her, but she made no answer. 
Really believing she was asleep, he ‘got into bed, and pretended him- 
self to sleep, and to snore—still she lay quiet. For two hours after he 
got into bed she never moved ; but then she quickly but silently slipped 
from the bed, hurried, but still without noise, to a stool near the fire, 
took from under one of the cushions a small iron ladle, and, what 
Martyn knew again for the leaden weight he had seen in the morning 
'—this she put into the ladle, and kneeling upon one knee, set it upon 
the fire ; in about a minute she turned her face to the bed, and then 
raised it up, and Martyn saw that though her features were frightfully 
writhen with bad passions, there were tears in her eyes that bespoke an 
inward struggle. She rose notwithstanding, and whispered—“« Now— 
no flinching ”—and walked up to the bed, with the ladle containing 
the molten lead in her right hand ; and just as she brought this forward 
so as to pour it into her husband’s ear, he started up with a loud outcry, 
seized her hand, and jumped out of bed, at the same time saying, “ Shame- 
less assassin! have I caught thee? -Help, ho! help, neighbours! Help 
—murder!” Alice did not scream—nor start even—but stared in her 
‘husband’s face, and with a strong effort freed her hand, flung the ladle 
into the fire, sank on a stool behind her, and hid her face in her hands. 
Lessomour continued calling for help, which call his neighbours, to 
do them justice, were not slow to obey—but to the number of two score 
and odd, well armed, they forced the outer door, and were hastening u 


1829.) a Legend of London. 289 


the stairs. As they were close upon the bed-room door, Alice tock her 
hands from her face, and with a hollow voice said—“ Martyn Lessomour, 
before the ever living God, I am glad this hath so happened.” Before 
he could reply, his neighbours and the watch were im the room, and, 
upon his charge, seized his wife. 

The next day the coffins of her former husbands were all opened, and 
in the skulls of each was found a quantity of lead, which had plainly 
been poured in through one of the ears. Mrs. Alice was soon after 
tried upon the evidence of her living husband, and that of her dead 
ones, which though mute was no less strong. She would say nothing 
in her defence; indeed, after the words she spoke to her husband 
in their bed-room on the night of her apprehension, she never uttered 
another: only, in the court, during her trial, when Lessomour was 
bearing witness that he had pretended drunkenness to try what effect it 
would have upon. her—when he swore to this, Alice, whose back had 
hitherto been towards him, turned rgpidly round, fixed her glazing eye 
upon his, and uttering a shriek of piercing anguish, would have fallen, 
but that her jailer caught her in his arms: and that look and that sound 
Martyn Lessomour never forgot to his dying day. His wife was found 
guilty of petit treason, and was burnt to death in Smithfield, according 
to the law of the land. 

And so great a noise did this story make, that in the course of that 
year a statute was passed, more determinately to settle the office of 
Coroner, and the powers and duties of him and the jury he should sum- 
mon to the Inquest. : 

Martyn Lessomour lived to be a very old, and, as had been foretold of 
him, a very rich man—but he never was a happy one. 


NOTES OF THE MONTH ON AFFAIRS IN GENERAL. 


We cannot begin these sketches of the prevalent features of the time, 
better than by adverting to that great topic which now most engrosses 
every loyal and honourable mind of the community. The Oxford elec- 
tion will have begun as these sheets are going to press ; but we will fear- 
lessly anticipate that the Protestant University will do itself honour on 
this public trial of its principles. Mr. Peel is a paltry turn-coat: that is 
the only description by which he will ever be known, should he live to 
the age of Methuselah. He has done a poor and disgraceful thing, which 
which will leave him open to the taunt of every man while one fragment 
of him clings to another. Fox’s reputation, with all men of honour, was 
utterly ruined by the Coalition. The act was infamous ; and even Fox’s 
talents could not save him from being called infamous to the end of his 
career. But what protection can Mr. Peel’s intellect give to his tworals— 
his contemptible powers of mind to his contemptible conduct? The pre- 
sent question with Oxford is not so much whether Papists should or 
should not be suffered to pollute Parliament, as whether Oxford should 
involve her character, in the presence of the world, with that of a slave 
of office—a wretched mendicant for salary—in one word, a durn-coat, 
who has the effrontery to talk of “ retaining his principles while he 
changes his conduct,” and the folly to suppose that any human being 
will now care which he retains or changes. The trial is not of Mr. Peel, 
but of Oxford. 

M.M. Nem Series.—Vou. VII, No.39. 2P 


290 Notes of the Month on [Marcn, 


On the contrary, Sir Robert Inglis is a gentleman, who has retained 
his principles without changing his conduct—a scholar, an able speaker, 
and, what is better than either, a man in whom his fellow-men can con- 
fide. Mr. Peel we have always looked upon as a meagre drudge of 
office, ventilated into a little public notice by public employment, but 
who has never, in the whole course of hiscareer, made one vigorous display 
—has never delivered even one generous sentiment—hasnever been betrayed 
into any one noble burst of feeling. All his speeches are dry and dull, 
tame and verbose, the regular progeny of the counter. We would not 
take the whole of them in exchange forthe single short speech of Sir Robert 
Inglis on the Treaty of Limerick, which sewed up the everlasting mouth 
of Sir Francis Burdett, and deprived Lawyer Plunkett of his favourite 
theme for life. Let Oxford return this honest, high-minded, and vigor- 
ous friend of the establishment; let her laugh at the paltry slander. of 
calling that Churchman a saint, who is abused by that most noisy and 
consummate of saints, Saint Daniel Wilson ; and let her tell the world 
that she will have as little to do with Mr. Peel, as the world will have to 
do with him. ‘ 

But, hollow as mankind are, Protestantism has still some steady and 
able friends. The admirable Duke of Newcastle and Lord Kenyon 
have already spoken with eloquent boldness to the nation. And what 
can be more worthy of a man of English rank and English honour, than 
the following Address of Lord Winchelsea !— 


“To rHE ProresTAnts or GREAT BRITAIN: 


« Fellow Countrymen !—Brother Protestants ! 

“In the name of our country and our God I call upon you, without one mo- 
ment’s delay, boldly to stand forward in defence of our Protestant constitution 
and religion—of that constitution which is the foundation of our long-cherished 
liberties—of that religion which is the source of the many blessings which this 
nation has received from the hands of the Almighty Governor of the Universe. 
» © Let the voice of Protestantism be heard from one end of the empire to the 
other. Let the sound of it echo from hill to hill, and vale to vale. Let the 
tables of the houses of parliament groan under the weight of your petitions, 
and let your prayers reach the foot of the throne; and though the great body 
of your degenerate senators are prepared to sacrifice, at the shrine of treason 
and rebellion, that constitution for which our ancestors so nobly fought and died, 
yet I feel confident that our gracious Sovereign, true to the sacred oath which he 
has taken upon the altars ofour country to defend our constitution and our religion 
from that church which is bent upon their destruction, will not turn a deaf ear 
to the prayers and supplications of his loyal Protestant subjects. 


**T have the honour to be, 
_ With every respect, 
“ Your humble and devoted servant, 


* Wincninsra AND NotrinGHAM.” 
*° London, Feb. 9, 1829.” 


1829.] Affairs in General. 291 


We remember to have seen, inthe letters of a tourist some years since, 
a proud boast of the pre-eminence of London thievery. “I wandered,’’ 
said the patriotic tourist, “« from end to end of Paris, and I protest in the 
most solemn manner that I did not see above a dozen reputed thieves, 
and those of the most contemptible appearance. They wanted the force, 
the fearless gait, the determined, business-look of the London thief. I 
do not think that there was a man among them capable of any thing 
above a petty larceny.” 

The tourist was a good observer, for such is the fact ; but he was no 
philosopher, or he would have discovered that the true cause of this 
national inferiority is not in the want of a turn for the trade of transfer, 
but in the want of opportunity, the public profession being actually 
starved by the quantity of private practice—a matter which occurs in 
more professions than one in the capital of all the Graces. But the 
following paragraph in the papers makes us dread the loss of our 
acknowledged superiority in the science :— ’ 

“ A daring burglary was committed, on Tuesday night, at Covent 
Garden Theatre, when nearly the whole of the musical instruments were 
taken from a lumber-room under the stage, the place where they are 
usually deposited. The robbery was discovered early the next morning, 
when it appeared that the thieves had effected an entrance into the 
interior of the theatre, by cutting away one of the panes of glass. A 
cremona, one of the instruments stolen, belonging to Mr. Bowden, one 
of the band, worth forty guineas, was only recovered from a pawn- 
broker’s shop about six weeks ago, which had previously been stolen 
from the theatre.” 

This paragraph is altogether unworthy of the London papers, the 
theatre, and the thieves. When gallant men are reduced so low as to 
steal any fiddle that has been heard in the orchestra of either of the 
theatres for the last ten years, we can only weep over the degradation of 
burglary. The next fall will be to sweep off the trumpets and jew’s-harps 
of Bartholomew Fair, and make catcalls scarce in the market. It is true 
that there may have been some legal dexterity in the choice ; for as no 
jury will hang a man for less than from three to four shillings, there 
was comparative safety in carrying off goods, the best of which could 
not be valued at half-a-crown, ‘As for the cremona, which had so lately 
returned from the pawnbroker’s, we entirely disbelieve the story that 
there was any compulsion in the matter. The cremona, of course, being 
the only one of the kind in the orchestra, and not liking the rascal society 
of the machines of English handy-work and Norway deal round him, 
disdained to remain solo, and went to look for a due accompaniment 
the pawnbroker’s, to which it had so often gone before that it could now 
make its way blindfold. 
_ His Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland’s arrival was eagerly 
looked for, and the libellers of the Royal Family declared at once that he 
was coming over to vote against the principles that actually seated his 
family on the throne. He soon gave them their answer ; and, we have 
reason to think, that he has given more powerful personages their answer | 


too, by this time. His speech in the Lords is prompt, powerful, and 
decisive :— 


iy The Duke of Cumberland said he never rose to address their lordships 
with more painful feelings than he felt at that moment. Indeed, he begged 
assure their lordships that nothing but the duty which he felt he owed to 


292 Notes of the Month on (Marcu, 


that house, the country, and himself, should have induced him to then trespass 
on their indulgence. But feeling as strongly as he ever did the importance of 
the subject, he thought it his duty to let the country know—not whether he 
said this or whether he said that—sur wHar ne was. (Hear, hear.) It was 
a source of painful regret to him to differ on any measure from the noble Duke 
at the head of the government, with whom he had long been on habits of inti- 
macy, and for whom he entertained the highest respect. He would put it to their 
lordships, whether they were prepared to say, or that was, in fact, the question, whether 
this country was to be a Protestant country with a Protestant government, or a 
Roman Catholic country with a Roman Catholic government. (Hear, hear.) This 
was the question and none other. The moment that there were Roman Catholics 
admitted into that House, or the other House of Parliament, their House, or the 
House of Commens, must cease to be a Protestant House of Peers or Protestant 
House of Commons. Although as much a friend as any noble lord within the 
reach of his voice to toleration, he was not prepared to admit the Catholics to 
seats in that House, to become members of the Cabinet, to be eligible to the 
high and confidential situation of Lord Chancellor, nor to that of Lord Lieute- 
nant of Ireland. He was unwilling to say more at present, though he would 
confess that he believed there were many Roman Catholics who were just and 
worthy men. He felt sorry that he had been called, as it were, somewhat out 
of place, to interrupt the regular proceeding by this avowal of his sentiments 
on this important subject. It had cost him some efforts ; but he felt, consi- 7 
dering the turn which the observations of a noble lord who had preceded him . 
had taken, that this explanation on his part could not be avoided. (Hear.) , 


“ The Brighton and Sussex bank stopped payment on Saturday, on 
which day the doors were not opened. The event created much dismay 
and distress among the market-folks, many of whom had that morning 
taken of the notes.” 

So says the Brighton Guardian ; and we can fully believe that the 
market-folks were by no means pleased with the discovery that they had 
given their eggs for the paper of the Brighton and Sussex bank. When 
are these things to attract the eye of our wise and patriotic legislature, 
governed as it is by the wisest and most patriotic of field-marshals? If a 
wretch starving, and naked as the winds, ventures to turn a sleeve- 
button into a sixpence, he is dragged to justice ; and learned serjeants on 
the bench put on their black caps, and dilate with judicial pride on the 
unfailing vigour of British law. If a miserable clerk, at fifty pounds a 
year, with a wife and a dozen brats to feed upon his soul and body, 
imitates a five-pound check, the law grasps the emaciated felon, flings 
him into the dock, and, when he has gone through the bitterness of” 
death a hundred times over, in all sorts of shame, taunts, and tribulations, 
sends him to be hanged. ’ 

But, when a gentleman, or a knot of gentlemen, who drink Champagne — 
and Hockheimer, keep berouches and Opera-boxes, and flourish in the 
ton, take it into their ways and means to issue fifty thousands pounds in 
paper, which turns out to be not worth so many farthings, the whole 
affair is perfectly selon les régles—“ quite an every day thing, done by 
gentlemen of the purest honour and the most unimpeachable character, 
and, in fact, no disgrace whatever’—the whole matter being a mere 
inisfortune. 

But what must say the men, women, and children—the feeble, the 
decaying, the undone—who have given their labours for the paper of 
these men of elegance? Where are they to go for bread—where to hide — 
their houseless heads—where to answer the demands of creditors as" 


1829.] Affairs in General. 293 


poor as themselves—where to look for the necessaries of hourly exist- 
ence? Let the law take those infamous infractions of every obligation 
in hand, and grasp the villainous issuer of money without more substance 
than his own honesty ; let this privilege of coining to an unlimited 
amount be as penal as coining a farthing ; and, for once, every man of 
honour and humanity would rejoice in enlarging the hand of the law ; 
and the scaffold would be looked upon as the instrument, not of a national 
fondness for severity, but as the instrument of popular preservation. 


Let banks be established throughout the country in shares, of which 
every man may be the purchaser—or in large companies, of which every 
man is responsible. The system of private banking, as it is now carried 
on, must be extinguished. There may be, of course, individual bankers 
to whom these charges do not apply. We will not say even that they 
apply to the Brighton bankers in question, ef whose peculiar proceedings 
we know nothing but from the papers. They may be honest, for any 
thing that we can tell, though we are glad that we have not been dealing 
at their counter. It is the system that we execrate ; a system so palpa- 
bly hazardous to the people, so adverse to the common caution of the 
law against imposition, and offering so powerful a temptation to the 
fraudulent, that we cannot conceive under what pretext it ever existed. 


We live in a time of discovery. Mr. O’Connel has discovered that he 
has aright to be dubbed M.P., and has communicated his discovery in a 
letter, which, by Cobbett’s pocket-rule, measures two miles and a half, 
or,as Mr. O’Connel nationally rectifies him, measures two miles and a 
half and three-quarters. Hitherto all the world have been thinking that 
it was the actual intention of English law that Papists were not to sit 
in Parliament. But Mr.O’Connel has written lis columns to prove that an 
Irish Papist has nothing to do but to put on his hat, walk into the lobby, 
kick the repugnant serjeant-at-arms from the door, and take his seat at 
the elbow of his honourable friend, Mr. Peel. If this be the fact of the 
case, we must own that we think Mr. O’Connel has thrown away a vast 
deal of time and oratory in the Corn Exchange, and that his wiser plan 
would have been to have packed up his portmanteau for Whitehall 
twenty years ago, and taken his seat, with as many of his fellow-patriots 
as had the fear of duns before their eyes, which would have made a most 
voluminous addition to his ¢ail. 

As to his abuse of Mr. Sugden, we heartily ccincide with him. His 
calling the Chancery-man any name of contempt that fills his rich voca- 
bulary, will hurt no feeling of ours ; though to be fallen into the con- 
tempt of Mr. O’Connel, is of itself as deep a plunge into the mire of 
scorn as could easily happen to any one. Mr. Sugden has, forsooth, been 
suddenly enlightened: he too has made the brilliant discovery that all 
the conceptions of his learned life on the nature of the Constitution; nay, 

that all the principles which, six months ago, he so solemnly protested 
were as solidly imbedded in his brain as Westminster Abbey in its foun- 
dation, were absolute nonsense ; that he had beén dreaming all his life ; 
that, treating of the Constitution every day of his existence, and 
Seiving by his presumed knowledge of it—he knew nothing at all on 

e subject, and that he has received his new inspiration from Mr. Peel ; 
nay, that he has turned off all his old whims, and new clothed his inner 
man in realities from the broadcloth wardrobe of Mr. Peel. And the 


294 Notes of the Month on [Marcn, 


man has uttered this in the face of day! Well, let it pass. Those things 
must work themselves to an end! 

But a noble Whig, too, has been out on his voyage of discovery, and 
has brought back the extraordinary knowledge that the Protestants of 
1688 had no objection whatever to the fullest admission of Popery into 
all the recesses of the Constitution. In our ignorance, we had all along 
thought that James was flung from his throne in a burst of national 
indignation at his frauds upon the Protestant Constitution, at his guilty 
abolition of the acts that excluded Papists from the power of destroying 
the Constitution, at the course of Jesuitism, vileness, and vice by which 
he was labouring to make the government Papist, and the country the 
slave of Rome. We had thought that William had fought against Popery 
in Ireland, and persecution in France ; and that, after having stricken 
down the fiend, he had delivered it over to the generations of England, 
to be kept in eternal chains. But Lord Holland’s discovery, reserved 
for this age of congenial illumination, brings the intelligence that every 
statesman, writer, and speaker, since 1688, has been totally in error ; 
that even the men who made the Constitution did not know what they 
were making ; and, finally, that King William was one of the most 
determined friends imaginable to Papists. Where the noble Whig, or 
individuals like him, find their authorities, is no inquiry of ours; but 
here follows the unquestionable language of the King :—- 

« Speech of King William III. on opening the Sessions of Parliament 
(a Whig one), in December, 1701.—‘ I promise myself you are met 
together full of that just sense of the common danger of Europe. The 
eyes of all Europe are upon this Parliament ; all matters are at a stand 
till your resolutions are known. Let me conjure you to disappoint the 
only hopes of our enemies, by your unanimity. I have shewn, and will 
always shew, how desirous I am to be the common father of all my 
people ; do you, in like manner, lay aside parties and divisions ; let there 
be no other distinction heard of among us for the future, but of those who are 
Sor the Protestant Religion and the present Establishment, and of those who 
mean a Popish Prince and a Foreign Government. If you do, in good 
earnest, desire to see England hold the balance of Europe, and to, indeed, 
be at the head of the Protestant interest, it will appear by your right 
improving the present opportunity.’ ” 


« The will of Dr. Wollaston has been proved in the Prerogative Court 
in Doctors’ Commons; and probate granted for fifty thousand pounds 
personal property, which he has left among his brothers and sisters.” 

So much for philosophy. Wollaston was a shrewd, sour, and indefa- 
tigable money-maker. The little stories on record of his dexterity in _ 
turning every toy of his trade of science to account, from the new point- 
ing of a pin to the polishing of a diamond, would make a pleasant 
memoir. His Camera Lucida, an ingenious trifle for sketching land- 
scape, is said to have netted, by his peculiar management, no less than 
four thousand pounds. His next contrivance for gathering a little of the 
floating capital of this world, was a pasteboard Map of the Stars— 
ridiculous, of course, in the hands of science, but very well for school- 
girls, who very well paid for it. The Doctor’s chief money was - 
made by the working of platina, for which he had discovered a process, 
which process he kept dextrously to himself, until he felt that he could 
melt and mingle no longer, and he then gave the secret to the public. — 


1829. ] Affairs tn General. 295 


His latter years were engaged in pursuits equally promising: he was 
supposed to have occupied himself in making a portable steam-engine, 
by which a lady could have her family washing done under her dressing- 
table, without smoke, smell, or noise. He was the the inventor of the 
boiling machine, by which three inches of Cobbett’s paper, tightly 
rolled together, would boil water enough for the shaving of a company 
of the Coldstream in five minutes. A musical Tetotum, carved into the 
form of a Secretary of the Home Department, was the work of the last 
six months, and he had already added to “ Rule Britannia,” and the 
“ Duke of York’s March,” the new airs of “ Long live the Pope,” and 
« A Fig for the Country.” A humming-top, on a new construction, 
exhibited the curious phenomenon of a speech of his Grace the Duke 
of Wellington in transparent characters, changing colour at every twirl ; 
and a chief source of the Doctor’s chagrin was his not being able to add 
to it the speeches of all the Cabinet Ministers ; for though in every 
attempt it twirled enough, yet it seemed suddenly to have lost the power 
tohum. Nothing escaped the Doctor’s eye <A gentleman, at a dinner 
party, had described to him the common contrivance in the streets, by 
which a sheet of paper could be folded into twenty different shapes—a 
fan, a wheel, a hat, and so forth. The Doctor slept a night upon the 
idea ; and, at the next meeting of the Royal Scciety Club, at the Crown 
and Anchor, took from his pocket a sheet of paper, which he twisted 
with almost invisible rapidity of hand into a military hat, a mitre, a 
crown, and one of those coverings of the head which, from their peculiar 
place of employment, are called Old Bailey night-caps. After having 
delighted the president and fellows with this most ingenious exhibition, 
he proceeded to increase their surprise, by unfolding the paper, which, 
by simply pressing his hand upon it, displayed a late remarkable ministe- 
rial declaration. ‘This he passed round the company, requesting each to 
read it aloud; and, to the universal amusement, every second reader 
read it in a directly contrary sense to his neighbours. The perplexity 

rowing considerable, and the several readers contending with growing 
irritation for their readings, the Doctor took the paper into his hand, 
and simply breathing on it, returned it to the company. The characters 
had totally vanished, and the paper was voted to be the most ingenious 
exhibition of a talent for tricking that would have beat all the Breslaws 
out of the field. 

The Doctor had so strong a passion for purchasing every thing, among 
which were some of the most curious-as well as the most repulsive 
monstrosities of human nature, that we have no doubt his sale will be 
highly worth atttending. We shall make a point of watching the deve- 


lopment of his treasures, and hope to have an opportunity to describe 
em. 


A Dublin paper states that the plate of the Duke of Northumberland, 
forwarded to Holyhead, weighs three tons. 

Parsons, the clever Irish barrister, and intended residuary legatee to 
Lord Norbury’s fame, said, on reading this announcement, “ that he 


supposed O’Connel had gone over to New-market, to be ‘in training for 
the Northumberland plaie.” 


“In Great Britain there is one soldier for every 229 inhabitants, 
France 138, United States 1977, Russia 77, Prussia 80, Austria 118, 


296 Notes of the Month on [Manrceu, 


Netherlands 142. The relation of the fleet to the population is—Great 
Britain, one ship of the line or frigate to every 82,979 inhabitants, 
‘France- 290,909, United States 316,000, Russia 686,250, Austria 
2,909,091, Netherlands 170,556.” - 

How long this humiliating inferiority in our military muster is to 
remain a disgrace to England, we cannot say. What! only one showy 
fellow in a red coat walking up and down a barrack yard, or shining in 
ball-rooms, to 229 of such useless and ill locking animals as merchants, 
citizens, farmers and manufacturers! We ought to be ashamed of 
ourselves. 

But there are better hopes in store for us. The warlike tastes of his 
majesty’s premier are making way as they ought. We understand, that 
the cabinet are already drilled to an extraordinary degree of discipline, 
all the old stiff members of the corps having been discharged, and a new 
recruiting having taken place, by which several remarkably promising 
additions have been made, fit for any service. The sergeant major 
employed to teach them the manual, declares that in the course of his 
‘experience he never met a squad more obedient to the rattan, and 
quicker at obeying the word of command. That the “ eyes right and 
eyes left” is already complete ; the kneeling in platoon very correct ; 
the general salute performed with the exactness of the most regular 
parade, and the whole done with a degree of silence, such as he never 
observed before. He has, in consequence, reported some of them as 
worthy of being made corporals, and, we heartily wish them the stripes 
that their merit deserves. 

Lord Lyndhurst is said to be indefatigable at his exercise, but he 
prefers the dragoon drill to the infantry, from his having been trained 
in early life to a charge. Undoubtedly, twelve men are different from 
twelve millions; but we rely upon his lordship’s profession and prac- 
tice alike, and are assured, that let who will tumble, he will stick to 
the saddle still, and push on through thick and thin. 

Lord —— is one of the last brought in; and a fine strong backed 
recruit he is, he can bear any thing; he, to be sure, lies under rather an 
awkward suspicion of having deserted from every corps that he engaged 
in during about forty years of all kinds of service. But he swears, that — 
he is sobered by misfortune, and the man has certainly a look of ragged — 
repentance ; besides, he will now be kept to his tether, and the first attempt 
to call his soul his own will be the last. As to desertion, let him try - 
that if he can; his face is too well known at every receiving house in 
the kingdom, and not a corps will have any thing to do with him. As 
it is, he is fit only to stand centry at the custom-house docks, he having 
a natural antipathy to every kind of spirrr. He is, in fact, already ex- 
pecting to be placed on the list of out pensioners. ‘ 

We understand, that the fashionable vocabulary is to be reformed in 
the rising taste. That an evening party is henceforward to be called a 
drum ; and that gunpowder tea is to be the reigning potation. A dance is — 
to be a all again.—A_ conversazione retaining its old right to the name 
of bore, and cutting being more ton than ever. Some of our belles have — 
taken to powder for the first time since the French revolution, and the 
favourite is marechale. Even the clergy have submitted to the general 
influence, and there are at this moment several hundred dozens of vene-— 
rable men sent packed on the tops of stage coaches, up to town, for the 
express purpose of changing their condition, and being cast into canons. 


1829. ] Affairs in General. . 297 


Lord Mayor Thompson, is a good fat fellow enough, with a good 
face, as the court ladies of the Easter ball say ; a good fortune, as is 
presumed in the heavy regions round the London Docks, and a good 
voice for haranguing that magnanimous concentration of practical wis- 
dom, a common council. But why the deuce does he always slide into 
the common stuff that has been talked for the last five hundred years by 
the common council understanding. We know, by precedent, what any one 
of those orators will say in the irregular succession of every five minutes of 
his blundering. There is in all the same eternal stuff about gratitude, 
and insufficiency, and awe, and determination to love, honor and obey the 
fat fellows wallowing in tureens of turtle soup, by the thousand, as far 
as the eye can reach through the smoke of the hecatomb fresh from the 
altars of Smithfield. Let us now hear my Lord Mayor :— 

““ The Lord Mayor returned thanks—He felt that the duties he had 
to perform were onerous and embarrassing, but he certainly never felt 
more difficulty than in giving utterance to his sentiments on this occa- 
sion, overwhelmed as he was by the kindness which he that day expe- 
rienced.—(Cheers.) The ward of Cheap was the cradle in which his 
young ambition was first rocked—he had acquired vigour and strength 
under the parental care of the honourable men by whom he was sur- 
rounded ; and if his heart did not beat with gratitude at this proof of 
the continuance of their affection, he must be destitute of the feelings 
which they must have thought he was influenced by when they raised 
him to the elevation he had at present attained.—(Loud cheers.)” 

What can be finer than all this—The most exquisite flummery ever 
administered by the spoon of city gratitude? ‘ Ambition rocked in a 
cradle,” and that cradle Eastcheap. “ Cheap ambition,” says one wag, 
“ambition founded on a rock,” says another. “ Ambition rocked by a 
ward. The man himself, instead of the nurse, should have been the 
ward, until he came to years of discretion,” says a third. A fourth, and 
the kindest of all, with a sigh over an orator nipped in the bud, says, 
** Lord Mayor Thompson, be an orator no more!” 


The Pantomimes.—“< The whole of these annual entertainments have 
been very successful this season. The following is an estimate of the 
expences attending each of the pantomimes, both at the major and minor 
establishments :— 


Drury Lane, about m= - £1,870 
Covent Garden a ~ 2 - 1,426 
The Adelphi 4 - E - 500 
The Surrey - - . - - 600 
The Cobourg = = = - 400 
The Pavilion = a a - 100 
The Olympic = 80 


Making an aggregate of 4,976l. for providing enjoyment for the holida 

folks. Sadler’s Wells is not Gheluded in thre above sum, as that aie 

blishment (contrary to its practice from time immemorial) produced no 
+ pantomimic Christmas entertainment.” 

We wish the Harlequins and Columbines well ; they are good subjects, 
and never fail to do their duty. Of tragedies we are desperately tired, 
and of French farces desperately sick : there is not marrow enough in a 

ole theatre of them to furnish any thing beyond a professor of the 
M.M. New Series.—Vou.VII. No. 32. 2Q 


208 Notes of the Month on [Marcn, 


London Boarding-house-Radical-Rationality-College with a thought; 
while Harlequin and his rose-cheeked Columbine, and his well-made 
and well-kicked Clown, have flesh and bone undeniably national. What 
is it to cry out at, if Harlequin keeps his carriage, and Columbine is in 
doubt which of three lords she shall marry ? They deserve their honours, 
and shall have them. 

The story goes, that the Marquis of Clanricarde had ordered his house 
to be fitted up for the reception of Mr. O’Connel in London. Of the 
nature of the fittings which would be most appropriate in this country 
for the Irish M.P.’s reception, we have a very distinct opinion; but, as 
Jekyll said the other day, “ Englishmen should drop the subject.” Mr. 
O’Connel politely declined the honour, saying “ that he was in charge 
of the “ rent.” 

The “ Counsellor” has, however, since put himself into the hands of 
Sir Francis Burdett, Sir James Mackintosh, and Mr. Brougham ; a 
strong indication that he has gained courage on the part of the “ rent.” 
But, in point of personal precaution, nothing could be more judicious ; 
for, in the multitude of counsellors, says the proverb, the timid may look 
for saFETy ; and, if Sir Francis has not been at the bar, he has been in the 
dock, which is nearly the same ; and has, besides, during his whole ~ 
career, exhibited the true slipperiness of Chancery Lane. The poet was 
of old gifted with prediction, and we fully agree with the annexed 
pleasant lines :— her 


THE DEMAGOGUE’S DEPARTURE. 
Arr.— The Minstrel Boy.” 


The sham M.P. to “ the House” has gone, 
In the ranks of rogues you'll find him ; 

His green surtout he has buttoned on, 
And Killeen trots behind him. 

“* Child of Rome,” said the silly Lord, 
“ Though all the world despise thee, 

The ‘ Rint’ at least thy rights shall guard, 
And J, for one, will prize thee.” 

O’Connel went down, for the Speaker’s rod 
Soon forced him to knock under ; 

And back he flew to his Papist sod, 
With his bruises, and brogue, and blunder : 

And he cried, “ I thought the English soft, 
And I whined about Papist slavery ; 

But they shewed me the Drop, and the rope aloft— 
So, Here’s long life to knavery !”—[_dge. 

Martin the Incendiary.— He was born in the year 1782, at Hexham, in 
Northumberland, of parents in an humble station, who apprenticed him to 
atanner. In his twenty-second year he went to London, where’ he was 
impressed, and sent to sea on board the Hercules, a74 gunship. While 
on board this vessel, he was engaged in the bombardment of Copenhagen. 
He was afterwards engaged in«the blockade of the eight Russian ships _ 
in the Tagus, and from thence sailed to Corunna, where the wreck of | 
the English army, under the command of Sir John Moore, was taken on 
board. Subsequently he sailed to Egypt. After a number of adventures, 
by sea and land, in which he mentions having been four times ship- 


1829. ] : Affairs in General.’ 299 


wrecked, he returned to his parents in Northumberland, ‘ as safe and as 
well as when he left them.’ He states that he is brother to Martin, the 
celebrated historical painter. Having obtained employment at his own 
business at Norton, in the county of Durham, he married. On the death 
of his mother, he dreamed that she came to see him, ‘ and told me,’ says 
he, ‘ that I was to be hanged. At another time,’ he adds, ‘ I dreamed, 
and looking up, I saw there was a sea of fire coming upon me, and found 
myself surrounded with it. I thought surely the world was at an end.’ 
He then began to go to the church and chapel by turns. He afterwards 
joined the Methodists. He next travelled to Stockton, where he con- 
ducted himself in such a way as to shew that he was deprived of reason. 
While in this state, he took the resolution to shoot the Bishop of Lincoln. 
The parish officers committed him to a lunatic asylum, from which he 
escaped. Again he was committed, and again escaped from the asylum 
at Gateshead. From that time he seems to have led a vagrant life, sup- 
porting himself by selling his own history, and exhibiting every where 
symptoms of mental derangement. The last event recorded in his history 
is his visit to Lincoln, in September, 1827, where he went to view the 
cathedral, for what purpose is not mentioned. It appears to have been 
his practice to fix written denunciations of vengeance against the clergy 
on the doors of churches.” 

This wretched individual’s story seems true enough, and belongs to the 
multitude of those who with weak brains are set to read “ religious 
books,” as they are called, written by brains as weak as their own. The 
Bible makes no man mad: there is not an irrational, fantastic, or high- 
flown syllable in the language of Revelation. But the writers of these 
books never read the Bible as an instructor—the safest, the only instruc- 
tor—of the great truths by which man is to be raised as well above his 
delusions as above his vices. They look into it only for some quotation, 
which they pervert, or to reinforce some argument, of which they are 
equally incapable to see the force or the falsehood. Toplady and Flavel, 
Scott and Hawker, are their Bible, and the true sources of that infinite 
quantity of blindness, folly, and fanaticism, which among us degrades 
the beauty and the power of religion. This miserable incendiary was a 
reader of their pious nonsense, and by their fruits they are best known. 

We give the following from that high-toned, able, and constitutional 
paper, The Standard :— 


THE IRISH MINSTREL. 
* Now let every string of the Harp of Erin resound to Liberty.”—Association Speech. 


Awake, Old Erin’s tuneless harp ! 

And if thy tones were stern and sharp, 

When earlier traitors bade thee ring 

The praise of Pope, the curse of King, 
Now answer to a darker hand, 
The minstrel of a bloodier band! 


Compound of every baser sin, 

Halt sycophant, half jacobin ; 

Pledging his prostituted soul 

For pees or place’s meanest dole ; 
Seside his country’s yawning tomb 
He sings the victory of Rome. 


2Q2 


300 Notes of the Month on [ Marcu, 


Hear it, ye traitors, far as wave 

Or wind can drive you—hear it rave ; 

Hear it, ye livid, craven crew, 

Scorn of the old world and the new, 
Ye cleansings of the nobler jail ; 
And give America the tale. 


Hear it, ye sons of every crime, 

That stains the man, or shames the clime ; 

Thief, perjurer, traitor, murderer, all 

Hear from your depths the kindred call! 
Shout, brothers of the whip and chain ! 
Blasphemers! echo back the strain. 


Hear it, ye old unlucky slaves, 
That justice trampled into graves ; 
Hear, Atheist Jackson, mad Despard, " 
At length has come your native bard ; 
Hear it beneath your gibbet-stone, 
Ye grinning wrecks of Sheares and Fone. 


Hear it! ye rude and nameless crowd, 
That sleep your last without a shroud ! 
Ye clay, that shot and sabres strewed, 
When justice crushed rebellion’s brood ! 
Ye festerers in the bloody ground, 
Start at the old congenial sound ! 


But where’s the striker of the string? 

To scoundrel life the slave shall cling, 

Still shift and fawn, abjure and lie ; 

Yet comes his hour. The slave shall die. 
The axe shall drink his recreant gore ; 
Then Ireland shout! Thy shame is o’er. 


The burning of York Minster is of course a matter to be much 
deplored, for its sacrifice of some very fine portions of the finest of 
English cathedrals. But we hope that the investigation will not close 
with the punishment of the miserable fanatic who did the immediate 
mischief. Was there any due precaution used? Where were the watch- 
men, or church-officers, that ought to have been taking care of a build- 
ing of so much value? The story is told, that, in a spirit of curious 
economy, the single watchman (who cost twelve shillings a week) was 
cut down to half-pay, and that his watching was thenceforth to be only 
on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays—cathedrals being never capable 
of conflagration on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. For this tale 
we cannot vouch, though it is current enough. But we hope, at least, 
that other cathedrals will be taken better care of, and that other Martins 
will not be suffered to take possession of their pulpits, and harangue on 
the glories of arson, previously to the deed, quite so much without audi- 
tors, as the burner of the Minster. . 

«On the Sabbath evening there was service in the Minster as usual, 
and all appeared to be left safe. About four next morning, a man passed 
through the Minster yard, and saw a light in the building ; but, it not 
being very considerable, he supposed there might be workmen preparing 
a vault, or otherwise engaged, and he consequently passed on without 
inquiry. The discovery, however, between six and seven o'clock, was 
made in a most extraordinary manner. A young boy, of the name of — 
Swainbank, who is one of the choristers, was passing through the mas- 


1829. ] Affairs in General. 801 


ter’s yard, and accidentally stepping upon a piece of ice, was thrown on 
his back ; thus placed, and before he could recover himself, he saw a 
quantity of smoke issuing from several parts of the roof. The sight 
was truly alarming and unaccountable, and he lost no time in going for 
the man who keeps the keys. They returned together ; and when they 
entered, the sight was beyond description—a dense mass of smoke per- 
vaded the whole building, and the beautiful work of the choir was 
extensively on fire. An alarm was immediately given ; the workmen 
connected with the cathedral were all called up, fire-engines procured, 
and the whole city soon became acquainted with the distressing 
tidings.” 


PARODY, BY THE GREAT SOLDIER. 
“ Toby, or not Toby—that’s the question.” —SHAaKSPEARE. 


Dear friends, this smug priest, who now foams with sham zeal, 
In which I now trace the delusion of Peel, 

Was once Dr. Philpott’s, as worldly a Dean 

As e’er bullied Papist, or spattered a Queen: 

In veering about ’tis his praise to excel, 

And amongst ratting Parsons he bears off the Bell.* 


It chanced as last summer he sat at his ease, 

In his living of Stanhope, as gay as you please, 

From the Church and the State puffing Popery away, 
And to honest old Eldon was writing each day : 

His letters announced a bright change in the scene, 
And he saw himself hailed as the new Chester Dean. 


His Reverence, when placed on this eminent perch, 
And wishing still higher to rise in the Church, 

The Premier found out, in his chapter—poor Phil, 
And out of his brain he has formed this fine Bill, 
Made sacred to Popery, Connel, and Shiel— 

So, Here’s to Rat Toby, the tempter of Peel ! 


The fair sex are making their way to distinction. Several phenomena 
have been exhibited lately. A woman, somewhere among the villages, 
is astonishing every body, and setting an example to the churchwardens, 
by fasting. She has contrived to take no sustenance (publicly) for a 
month; and, though fish and game have been known to enter the 
chamber from the generous ponds and preserves of the unconscious 
gentry around, yet she has persisted in the determination to fast as long 
—as she can make anything by it. 

Mr. Mary Allen was another wonder, too peculiar for us to make any 
remark upon the subject, any further than that the seven cabinet coun- 
cils, held in one week lately, were supposed to be summoned for the pur- 
pose of investigating the statement, and ascertaining to what extent the 
clothes of manhood, in general society, might be presumed to negative 
the idea of the wearer’s being of the opposite sex. It was after much 


* This coincidence is curious—the father of the Very Reverend Dean Philpotts was the 

iately-named landlord of the Bell Inn, at Gloucester. It is probable, therefore, 

that the Very Rev. Dean, though subsequently educated for the church, was, in earlier life, 

intended for the ban: at all events, his assumption of the apron, like his present con- 

duct, is only a return to first principles. It was in the Bell Inn that John Wesley was 
born.—John Bull, 


302 Notes of the Month on [Magrcu, 


deliberation resolved, that mustachios were no convincing proof, but 
rather in the style of a mask, and, in fact, suspicious; that lounging 
behind the Opera scenes, a half-hour’s swagger through Bond-street, 
nay, even the privilege of hanging one’s boots out of the Guards’ 
Club-house window ; or wearing a Hussar jacket, embroidered as thickly 
as a Lord Mayor’s footman, or a travelling jack-pudding, were not infal- 
lible evidences. The resolution of the council has not transpired ; but 
we understand that, by the suggestion of his Majesty’s sempstress, who 
had advised a great public measure on the subject, a very considerable 
number of gowns and petticoats are in hand, to be ready for the first 
effect of the proclamation, which is supposed to be on the tapis, against 
deluding his Majesty’s lieges by false appearances. 


We are sick of Dr. Curtis and his noble correspondent, one of 
whom answers by a public letter, which he “ never intended to be seen,” 
as the other had begun the affair by a private letter, written by a 
committee of Jesuits. But the doctor, impatient to display himself just 
as he is, writes a second letter to a newspaper editor to disclose at last 
to the admiring world, the fact, that his original letter, the private 
impulse affair was written, “ contrary to his own wish and opinion, and 
at the urgent request of several of his friends.’ Of course, the Duke’s 
answer, which the doctor declared himself unwillingly and compul- 
sively induced to read to several of his friends, merely to avoid the 
public surmises of what was inside the letter, from seeing “‘ Wellington” 
on the cover, was actually received by him as an answer to the letter 
of his Jesuit committee, and was as such read to them: it no doubt 
being as such written by his Grace. Now, let honest men see the whole 
shuffle on both sides, and think what dependence can be placed on 
either. The Doctor contradicts himself under his own hand—the Duke 
contradicts himself by word of mouth. So much for the primate—so 
much for the premier—Philpotts, and Philpotts alone, could have made 
the third. 


De Beranger, the French poet—perhaps the only poet of France, in 
the Parisian sense of the word, namely, a keen, bitter, very impu- 
dent, and very Jacobinical versifier—has lately undergone the natural 
apotheosis of French fame. He has libelled his king grossly, religion 
more grossly still, and, for the double exploit, has been tried, found 
guilty, fined, and confined as he deserved. We give a parodied spe- 
cimen of him, much better than the original poem ;— 


THE PIGMY OPPOSITION. 


In sorcery my faith is great: 
A wizard shewed me in a glass, 

A night or two ago, what Fate 
Would in our country bring to pass. 

At the droll sight I stood and gazed, 
And of delight I drank my fill, 

To see—I was not much amazed— 
The Whigs in opposition still, 


1829.] Affairs in General. 303 


A dwarfish tribe appeared the crew ; 

The Whigs great-grandsons were so small, 
That only by their rags I knew 

The pigmies who could scarcely crawl: 
Fox, but a shadow of the shade 

Of Charles Fox, preterea nil ; 
But bright the magic glass displayed 

The Whigs in opposition still. 


What crowds of little tiny souls! 
Here little Broughams full of bile ; 
And little, little Humes in shoals, 
All doing shabby tricks the while: 
The Burdetts, Russells, Caves, had shrunk 
To creeping nothings—but my quill 
Must tell that they, thus sadly sunk, 
Were Whigs in opposition still. 


All, all was little—Brookes’s clan 
Had into antlike insects dwindled, 
And here and there they crawled or ran, 
The swindlers petty as the swindled : 
All were a knot of Mammon’s slaves, 
Who act obedient to his will ; 
But -while they live, the elfish knaves 
Will be in opposition still. 


Such did the magic glass unfold ; 
At last to close this sight of pain, 
A giant Tory we behold, 
Whom scarcely can a world contain ! 
He comes and puts this tribe so small, 
With gentle but resistless skill, 
Into his pouch—yet one and all 
Would be in opposition still —[[Age. 

Sir Anthony Hart, an old goose, more tedious than Chancery itself, 
more crabbed than blackletter, as much a Christian as Lord Holland, 
and as much a lawyer as Lord King, is making himself remembered by 
the only contrivance open to such intellects. He had already distin- 
guished his office by the appointment of Messrs. O'Gorman and Steele 
to the magistracy ; and he is now receiving the distinction of being the 
pis-aller of all the puns of all the punsters of Ireland. Old Lord 
Norbury still fires a shot a head of him now and then. Blake the 
popish barrister, the confidential councillor, and depository of the suc- 
cessive brains of Lords Wellesley, and Anglesey, and now of Hart, was 
called the sham-rock, in some allusion to the captain. “ No,” said 
Norbury, “ sham won't do, call him heart’ s-ease.” 

India will soon be as regular a place for disposing of our superfluous 
clergy, as our superfluous cousins. There is some unlucky planet about 
the business: either the labour is so enormous, the space to be traversed 
so vast, or the climate is so fatal to the bodies of English-fed parsons, 
that they all seem to go like the governors of Sierra Leone, to take 
measure -of their final beds, in India. The third bishop, Dr. James, 
has just died, at 43, an amiable man, and a loss. Heber, too, was a 


304 Notes of the Month on Affairs in General. (Maren, 


premature sacrifice. The following document shows how much it was 
felt in India :— 


INSCRIPTION ON THE MONUMENT, ERECTED IN MEMORY OF BISHOP HEBER, AT 
MADRAS, COMPOSED BY THE REY. T. ROBINSON, M.A. 


M. S$. 
Viri admodum Reverendi et in Christo Patris 
Reewarpi Heber S$. T. P. 
Primo Collegii nie Nasi in Academia Oxoniensi 
Alumni 
Collegii deinde Omnium Animarum Socii 
Parochie Hodnet in Agro suo Natali Salopiensi 
Rectoris 
Apud Societatem Honorabilem Hospitii Lincolniensis 
Predicatoris 
Postremo autem Episcopi Calcuttensis 
Qui in ipso Adolescentie Flore 
Ingenii Fama 
Humanitatis Cultu 
Omnigeneque Doctrine Laude 
Ornatissimus 
Ea omnia in Communem Ecclesie Fructum afferens 
Se suaque Deo humillime consecravit 
In Sanctissimum Episcopatus Ordinem 
Bonis omnibus Hortantibus adscriptus 
Ecclesie apud Indos Anglicane Infantiam 
Non pro Viribus sed ultra Vires 
Usque ad Vite jacturam 
Aluit fovit sustentavit 
Admirabili Ingenii Candore 
Suavisnima Morum Simplicitate 
Divinaque Animi Benevolentia 
Usque adeo omnes sibi vinxerat 
Ut Mortuum 
Ecclesia Universa Patrem 
Etiam exteri Patronum carissimam 
Desiderarent 
Natus Die Aprilis xx1 A.D. mpconxxxu1 
Subita Morte Prereptus jaxta Urbem Trichinopolim 
Mortales Exuvias deposuit Aprilis Die m 
Anno Salutis mpcccxxvi Aitatis sue xLur 
Episcopatus uz 
» Madrasenses 
Non solem Christiani sed et Ethnici 
Principes Magnates Pauperes 
Ad hoc Marmor Exstruendum 
Uno Consensu adfuere. 


1829.) 


( 305) 


MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE, DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN, 


Tales of Passion, 3 vols. 12mo. by the 
Author of Gilbert Earle, 1829.—Gilbert 
Earle established for the author of these tales 
a reputation much too solid and exciting not 
to ensure a readiness in his readers to see 
whatever he produces. The volumes before 
us comprise three tales, one common cha- 
racteristic of which the general title suf- 
ficiently indicates. Here are no milk and 
water dealings. To sketch the point and 
purpose of each is scarcely compatible with 
our limited space; and, indeed, we know 
nothing within the whole circle of onr re- 
viewing labours so untractable as bundles of 
tales. To do justice to either reader or 
writer is impracticable—general words are 
incompetent, and almost always inapplicable ; 
and as to a dry succession of skeletons, what 
can be more repulsive? Of the present 
series we have read but two. The first is of 
a lady—the daughter of a noble baron, who 
falls in love with—her confessor, who is, of 
course, the very beauty of holiness. The 
scene is laid in Henry VIII’s reign, at the 
time when he and his grasping courtiers 
were looking to the spoils of the monasteries. 
The lady is young, innocent, inexperienced 
—she listens to the preacher—he is in the 
prime of manhood—a man of energy and 
talents ; and she drinks in love at both ears 
without knowing any thing of the nature or 
qualities of the draught. The discovery 
soon comes—the father proposes sudden 
marriage with a courtier and favourite of 
Wolsey—which rends away the veil, and 
tells her the true state of her feelings. Re- 
sisting her father’s importunities, she is 
turned oyer to the monk, who is com- 
manded to dive into the mystety. The 
very first interview breaks up the secret— 
she prostrates herself in agony at his feet 
—the word love escapes; and the holy 
father, though not yielding an atom of his 
stern and stoic propriety, finds it safest for 
himself to cut the temptation, and fly to the 
continent. The lady pines the meanwhile 
at home ; and true as the needle to the pole, 
(which, by the way, it has not been these 
150 years) she can think of nothing but 
the monk ; but she is pure as the icicle on 
Dian’s temple. The coming ruin of the 
monastery, after three or four years, brings 
back the holy father to the neighbourhood, 
and the lady Alice is not long before sheseeks 
an interview —from which, aftershewing some 
slight touch of humanity, he again tears 
himself away. Actively engaged in stirring 
up the adherents of the Catholic faith, he is 
now speedily involved in political difficulties, 
is secured, condemned, and brought to the 
stake. Alice pierces the gates of the prison, 
and offers him escape ; but he is inflexible— 
he goes to the stake—and she throws herself 
upon the burning pile, &c. 

_ The reader will find some very superior 

M.M. New Series.—Vou..VIUI. No. 39. 


developement of feeling, and excellent 
writing ; but the parties are prudent—they 
scarcely offend—and the interest is, upon 
the whole, but feeble. But this tale is fol- 
lowed by one called the Bohemian, which is 
indeed a tale of passion—where love curdles 
into hatred, with an enduring thirst of ven- 
geance—cherishing a plan of revenge, 
which requires some eighteen or twenty years 
to ripen. The Bohemian is a gipsy girl, a 
dancing and singing itinerant. At Leipzig 
Fair she is observed by Count Oberfeldt, a 
gentleman of family and fortune, who had 
spent some six or seven years diplomati- 
cally at Paris, equally distinguished for gal- 
lantry and cultivation, in the best days of 
Louis XIV’s court. Out of employment, 
he had returned to his castle ; and to relieve 
the tedium of loneliness—for he had no 
relish for the society of German boors—he 
resolved to go to Leipzig Fair, in the vague 
expectation that some adventure might turn 
up. The gipsy dances and sings to admi- 
ration ; she is very young—sixteen—beauti- 
ful as a houri—full of grace and fascination, 
and the promise of voluptuousness. Her 
conversation was still more extraordinary. 
She resisted all his blandishments with the 
wisdom of a Minerva, and rejected,his offers, 
but met him by appointment every day 
during the continuance of the fair. At last 
came the moment for decision—the alterna. 
tive was continuance with her odious associ- 
ates. She yielded to his respectful and 
ardent importunities and attentions, and 
withdrew with him to his castle, and eighteen 
months of perfect felicity followed—he 
solely given up to instructing her, and she 
to eagerly imbibing. She had high talents, 
and lofty feelings, and strong passions, but 
all were absorbed in the intensity of her 
affection for the count. Still she felt occa- 
sionally her position—she knew she had 
fallen—she had lost her self-respect ; but 
the devotion of her admirer turned her from 
dwelling upon degradation. The first in- 
tention in cultivating her musical and dra- 
matic talents was the stage ; but this object 
had been gradually lost sight of in the 
charms and contentment of each other’s 
society, and the pursuits of literature. At 
length the count proposes a little change, 
and a visit to Dresden is determined upon, 
mainly for the advantage of music-masters. 
There the report of her beauty and her powers 
quickly spread. The king, Augustus, re- 
nowned for his gallantry, hearsof her, and the 
supposed purpose of the instructions she was 
taking at Dresden, and lays his commands 
upon the count to permit her to be introduced 
in some new piece that was then forthcoming. 
Though reluctantly by both parties, consent 
was yielded. Mabel appeared, and carried all 
hearts by the splendour of her charms, and 
the superlatiyeness of her performance. 
2R 


’ 306 


This event precipitated the break up of 
that fond intercourse which was always but 
too probable, though she at times cherished 
the hope of being still his wife; but he was 
proud of his birth and his sixty quarterings, 
and must keep up the family succession— 
and marriage with an actress was quite im- 
possible. The thing that was thus inevita- 
ble one day or other, seemed at last, as if it 
were well done if it were done quickly ; and 
meeting with a desirable match, on the 
common principle of life, he abruptly and 
perfidiously announced his intention to marry 
and see her no more. Shocked at this bar- 
barity, she spurned at his offers of provision, 
and determining to rely on her own talents, 
she fled to Naples, and assuming another 
name, unknown to the count, she quickly 
attained the highest celebrity. Here all the 
fascination of the tale terminates. Mabel 
had been insulted, and revenge she was de- 
termined to have. She laid a deep and 
loathsome scheme. The count had only 
one child by his wife, and that a daughter. 
The very purpose for which he had thus 
abandoned Mabel, and married—the exten- 
sion of his line—was thus defeated; und 
Mabel resolved, Medea-like, to strike where 
he was most sensitive. She contrived to 
steal the girl when three years old, and 
finding her likely to grow beautiful, re- 
solved to pervert her moral feelings, and 
expose her to the corruptions of profligacy 
for the purpose of disgracing the man who 
had abandoned her for considerations of 
family pride. The plan succeeded but too 
well: the miserable girl became accom- 
plished and unprincipled, and fell the vic- 
tim of the young Duc de Richelieu, and 
thus became qualified for Mabel’s ultimate 
vengeance. Mabel now returned with her 
to Dresden, under an assumed name, to 
throw her in the way of the profligate 
Augustus. All fell out as she had planned ; 
and the count, still a favourite at court, was 
actually employed by the king to promote 
his connexion with the young beauty, which 
‘was brought about at his own castle— 
when Mabel presented herself, and an- 
nounced the completion of her revenge—and 
died at his feet, suffocated by the violence of 
her emotions. 

This naked outline shews more extrava-~ 
gance than will be felt in the story—for 
thereallisadmirably developed. Thefirst part 
in particular is all in a tone of beautiful and 
touching softness, and the whole career of 
passion is traced with such a thorough defi- 
niteness, that every word of it may be 
read. We have seen nothing so energetic 
and fixing for many years. 

We have just cast our eyes over the third 
story, and perceive it has great capabilities, 
which the author is well able to make themost 
of, and can have no offence in it—which can 
scarcely be said of the one we have been 
describing. 


The Ellis Correspondence ; 2 vols., 8vo ; 


Monthly Review of Literature, 


. obligations. 


[Marcu, 


1829.—This is another addition to those 
stores, which have of late been thrown open, 
and which are calculated to let us in toa 
closer and more correct view of events, by 
the communications of men who have come 
in contact with official persons—communi- 
cations, which made in the confidence of 
friendship, have not been dressed up to meet 
the general eye—to gull the public, or gra~ 
tify private passions. Admirably fitted are 
these sorts of memorials for exhibiting the 
naked state of facts—indispensable, indeed, 
for stripping off the shows of things—but 
which-can seldom be got at till generations 
pass away, and family interests and family 
pride have none to support them. A cen- 
tury must generally lapse before they are 
released, though, undoubtedly, the present 
passion for private history, which is however 
a very justifiable one, will, in numerous in- 
stances, accelerate the publication of family 
papers, and vanity will here, as in many 
other cases, be often more than a match for 
pride. 

How comes it about that these revelations 
of private documents have almost invariably 
tended to make of historical persons the bad 
better, and the good worse? Simply be- 
cause the plain truth was never told. Spite 
or partiality, for the most part, were the first 
to tell the public tale. Sometimes the truth 
itself was unknown, but more frequently, 
we believe, it has been designedly perverted. 
Cotemporary writers are stimulated by per- 
sonal feelings--resentments—admirations— 
Historians, who come after, in 
absolute ignorance of circumstances, and 
often of the characters and connections of 
their authorities, can only take what they 
find, or pick and cull, and must give to 
events that tone which depends on their 
own judgments and convictions. These 
may be good or bad—sagacious or simple ; 
and generally, though there are conspicuous 
exceptions, it may be said, from their actual 
position in society, or their necessary re- 
tirements, they are fairly excluded from the 
means and opportunities of measuring the 
motives and rules of action of influential 
persons, and are disposed with a marvellous 
tenacity to judge of public men by the rules 
of romance instead of humanity—giving 
them credit for pure patriotism and undis- 
turbed rectitude, because, in their uncor- 
rected simplicity, they persuade themselves 
official persons are too high-minded to suffer 
private bias to influence public action. 

It is not one in a hundred, who writes 
with a free spirit, bent upon penetrating, — 
into secret and real motives, and exhibiting © 
uncoloured truth, whomsoever it may offend, 
or with whatever theory or favourite fancy — 
the results may conflict. Who write the — 
lives of great men? Sometimes their very 
protégés ; and the world—which has always — 
more regard for conventional proprieties than — 
facts—would brand with infamy the man, 
who so circumstanced should venture to do- 
any thing but applaud his protector. Even — 


1829.] 


those who undertake the office, apparently 
from their station, independent of all arti- 
ficial shackles—must often trust for mate- 
rials to family descendants; and which of 
them has ever ventured to expose obliqui- 
ties in the ancestor of the very person pers 
haps who has furnished the evidence—has 
Archdeacon Coxe or Dr. Nares? Facts 
will speak. There are no bounds to the in- 
sinuations of patronage—lies lurk under 
compliments, and collusions are shielded 
and sanctioned by personal favours. 
The papers which we are thus prefacing, 
are not strictly however of the authoritative 
kind. The correspondence is, for the most 
part, anonymous, though evidently very 
much of it is from persons in immediate 
contact with office, and familiar with the 
current of events, and the gossip of the town 
and court. They are all of them, however, 
addressed to one person, and his respecta- 
bility will, of course, to some extent, an- 
swer for his correspondents—some of them 
pretty obviously are his own brothers. The 
reader must not anticipate large additions of 
new intelligence, but rather confirmations of 
old—mixed up still with a multitude of allu- 
sions and circumstances, that help admi- 
rably to fill up the outline. Mr, Ellis, the 
person to whom the correspondence is ad- 
dressed, was secretary to the commissioners 
of public revenue for Ireland at the time 
of the correspondence, which extends from 
the beginning of 1686 to the end of 1688, 
and of course embraces almost the whole 
period of James’s reign, detailing or hinting 
throughout at all the leading incidents of 
the period, especially the process and pro- 
gress of conversion among the courtiers and 
aspirants for office. 
the most interesting part of the papers, and 
shews more distinctly than any thing we 
haye seen the headlong zeal of the infatuated 
monarch. There is a gap of seyen months 
about the middle of the period, apparently 
from Mr, Ellis being himself in London. 
Many of the letters, particularly towards the 
latter part, are strictly news-letters, that is, 
letters written by persons in town for pay, 
whose profession it was to gather and com- 
“municate intelligence—the frequenters of 
_coffee-houses—at a period when newspapers 
did not abound, and when the editors of 

them, if they ventured a little too far, had 
no protection against broken heads and slit 
“noses. 

This Mr. Ellis, with four or five brothers, 
were the sons of a clergyman of some dis- 
tinction in a turbulent period, and all edu- 
cated at Westminster, and then apparently 
thrown upon the public to struggle for office 
—some of them taking the shortest course to 
it. The eldest, the one more particularly 
connected with this correspondence, was, as 

_we have said, secretary to the Irish revenue, 
and after the revolution became under secre- 
tary of state:—the second was knighted, 
and following the fortunes of James, was his 
secretary of state, and finally treasurer to the 


Domestic and Foreign. 


This is indeed by far , 


307 


old Pretender, and of course a Catholic. 
The. third was Philip, who was kidnapped 
while at Westminster by the Jesuits, and 
brought up a priest of the Catholic church 
at St. Omer. He was in great favour with 
James, and actually consecrated bishop of 
the English Catholic church at St. James’s ; 
and after he was compelled to quit the 
country, was made bishop of Segni, in Italy. 
The fourth was Welbore, a Protestant 
bishop, successively of Kildare and Meath; 
and the fifth, Samuel, was marshal of the 
King’s Bench ; and a sixth, in orders, of 
whom nothing more isknown. Ofall these, 
Welbore was the only one who left a family 
—from him have descended the Lords 
Mendip and Clifden; and Mr. Agar Ellis, 
the heir of the latter nobleman, is the editor 
of the present papers. They were found by 
him among the Birch MSS. in the British 
Museum, and considered, very justly, worthy 
of publication; and he has taken great 
pains to supply notes, elucidating, briefly, 
obscure passages, explaining personages, and 
occasionally sketching characters—discharg- 
ing his office in a manner highly commend- 
able to his industry and liberal spirit. 

The thousand events, significant and in- 
significant, scattered over the volumes, are 
too little connected, and too little detailed, 
to admit of any condensing ;—but we will 
give a specimen of the correspondence. 


London, April 6th, 1686. 

Yours of the 5th of last month came on Satur- 
day hither per the boat we concluded lost. The 
busy time of devotion is now over here: his Ma- 
jesty, God bless him, one of the zealousest ; ten 
hours in a day sometimes. The Court returns 
from St. James’s to Whitehall to-morrow, and 
goes not to Windsor till the middle of May, when 
also the camp opens at Hownslow. Our sparks 
all go for Hungary to-morrow. Duke of Hamil- 
ton, Lieutenant-General Drummond, &c., come 
to town this evening, sent for ; I imagine it will 
end in his Grace’s becoming Commissioner of 
Scotland, though the common vogue is, he was 
sent for to be chidden for the method of his 
management, since he became a Commissioner of 
the Treasury there. Our ministers of state have 
all retired likewise this holy-season; Lord Chan- 
cellor* to his country-house near Uxbridge, Lord 
Treasurer} to Twitnam, Lord Sunderland to 
Althrope, either for the private satisfaction in 
their consciences, or to ayoid showing in town 
whether they had any or no. 

Limagine your Countess of Dorchester (Ma7rl- 
borough’s sister) will speedily move hitherward, 
for her house is furnishing very fine in St. James’s- 
square, anda seat taken for herin the new conse- 
erated St. Ann's Church. The French King is not 
right yet, though little is said of him. Madame de 
Maintenon makes all the applications to him that 
he stands in need of. I hear poor Princess Aun is 
sadly teazed about a new declaration in matter of 
faith, so that at last itis agreed to after lying in: 
but I hope it may not be thus, say nothing of it. 


* Lord Jeffries. His country-house was Bul- 
strode, afterwards belonging to the Dukes of 
Portland and Somerset. 

+ Lord Rochester. 

2R2 


308 


New equipage in great splendour is every where 
to be seen, especially their Majesty’s. Her Ma- 
jesty is wonderful glorious in her own apparel, 
Here is arrived an Italian Prince of Piombino,* 
the greatest spendthrift in the world reckoned, 
for he has consumed the greatest part of a patri- 
monial estate of £150,000 per annum, and the 
treasure of three Popes. So it seems notthat we 
need fear his politics. This next term I am like 
to be confined hither, and then what I shall do I 
know not. Lords Ormonde and Ossory come 
next week ; if their favour help not, I will see you 
foy a little, to wind up a mean bottom very indif- 
ferently worth my while, and so go for Paris, and 
with my Lord Denbigh} into Italy in the winter. 
I hope you will succeed in, your design of re- 
moyal hither; but these lords keeping thus out 
of town, puts us both out of our way. Phil.t 
has many wonderful kind expressions from the 
King, so that I imagine some room in the navy 
(where they rollin money) might be found ; so T 
adyise you to solicit hard and court kindly. Sure 
Pepys would value Lord Ossory’s recommenda- 
tion at no mean rate, though Eure and he to- 
yether neglect all where money chinks not. You 
may be sure of me upon all occasions. 

Your new Chancellor (Porter) is on the road ; 
and Tam going to sup with Will Legg, Governor 
of Kingsale, who follows him to-morrow. 

Sir G. Hewet is dying. The Graces Grafton 
and Northumberland (two of Charles's sons) are 
returned from Newport,§ and put the lady (@ wi- 
dow lady whom Northumberland had married, 
and wished to get rid of) ina monastery ; but the 
King says, it is not fit she should stay, nor is it 
believed she will. 


Now, though here is nothing very memo- 
rable, yet it is very agreeable gossip, and 
familiarizes with the times, and recalls old 
acquaintances. 

One of the letters notices the death of 
the Duke of Buckingham in these terms. 
“The Duke of Bucks, who hath some time 
supported himself with artificial spirits, on 
Friday fell to a more manifest decay, and 
on Sunday yielded up the ghost, at Helmes- 
ley in Yorkshire, in a little alehouse, where 
these eight months he hath been without 
either meat or money, deserted of all his 
servants almost.” To this Mr. Ellis adds 
the following note :— 


This contemporary aceount of the death of 
George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham, is 
curious, as showing the grounds upon which 
Pope wrote his pathetic description of the decease 
of this nobleman ; and yet it would appear that 
the statement of his extreme penury and desertion 
was much exaggerated. He died not ‘in the 
worst inn’s worst room,’’ buat in the house of one 
of his tenants, in the town of Kirby Moorside, 
which still exists, and must have been at the time 
ee A A LS EL EE ERI 

* Buoncompagni Ludovisi, Prince of Piom- 
bino, who had inherited the fortunes of the Popes 
Gregory XII. and Gregory XV. 

; Basil (Fielding) fourth Earl of Denbigh, who 
was going on his travels, not being yetofage. He 
had suceeedea his father in the title of 1685. He 
became Master of the Horse to Prince George of 
Denmark, and subsequently one of the Tellers of 
the Exchequer, He died March 18th, 1717. 

{ Philip Ellis. 

§ Nicuportin Flanders. 


Monthly Review of Literature, 


(Marcu, 


one of the best houses in the place. He had 
canght cold by sitting on the ground after fox- 
hunting, which brought on internal inflammation. 
A letter from Lord Arran, afterwards Duke of 
Hamilton (to Dr. Sprat, who had been chaplain 
to the Duke of Buckingham), which appeared in 
the Whitehall Evening Post, January 3d, 1784, 
and has every appearance of being authentie, 
gives the most credible and detailed account of 
the death of the conspicuous nobleman in ques- 
tion. ; 

The letter itself is too long to quote, 
though very interesting. 


We do not remember to have heard of 
this medal, struck on the acquittal of the 
bishops. 

A medal is said to run about with the seven 
bishops on one side, with these words: “ #isdom 
hath built her house, and chosen out seven 
pillars ;” on the other side, a church under- 
mined by a Jesuit and a fanatic, with these words, 
“ The gates of Hell shall not prevail against 
her.” 


What would be thought of this, now, 
in the Alley ? 

Among other Policies of Assurance which ap- 
pear at the Exchange, there is one of no ordinary 
nature ; whieh is, that Esqr Neale, who hath for 
some time been a suitor to the rich Welsh Widow 
Floyd, offers as many guineas as people will take 
to ensure thirty for each one, in case he marry 
the said widow. He hath already laid out as 
much as will bring him in 10 or 12,000 guineas ; 
he intends to make it 30,000, and then to present 
it to the lady in ease she marry him; and any 
one that will accept of guineas on that condition, 
may find as many as he pleases at Garraway’s 
Coffee House. % 


Talesand Confessions, by Leitch Ritchie, 
1829.—Once upon a time, when a new 
writer appeared, it was with a name; and 
the inquiry was, what’s the performance ?— 
now, the name scarcely ever appears, and 
the sole question is, whose is it? The 
manceuvre, for mancuyre it is, is often a 
successful one ; for if the writer announced 
himself John Smith, or William Tomkins, 
no soul would care about him ; but a book 
with no name at all, may be, now-a-days, 
a patrician performance—curiosity is con- 
sequently on tip-toe; for the sooner the 
secret is discovered, the sooner is the disco- 
verer in possession of something to commu- 
nicate. It is always worth something to 
know what others, no matter how insignifi- 
cant, do not. But if, after all, the name, 
upon inquiry, prove the writer to be nobody, 
—one which goes in at one ear and out at 
the other, and, of course, never likely to 
extend beyond his own immediate circle, 
he himself throws off the incognito, and 
uncovers. Nothing, therefore, finally goes 
unclaimed. Even the periodicals give up 
their dead, and we ourselves have some 
faint thoughts of re-publishing in a justwm 
volumen, and with our own names at full 
length, all these our doings and misdoings— 
but who is to pay the printer’s bill? But 
seriously, these re-printings and collectings 


1829.] 


must be extremely annoying and confounding 
—first, to those who build a reputation upon 
what does not belong to them ; and next, to 
those who know what every body writes, espe- 
cially in periodicals, and venture at a glance, 
to name the scribbler. This will soon be- 
come a very hazardous speculation. 

The collection before us, for the most 
part, has appeared, partly in our own excel- 
lent miscellany, and partly in the New 
Monthly and a Weekly Review, and is, on 
the whole, certainly, as deserving of this 
' species of conservation, as any of the small 
curiosities usually locked up in amber. 
They consist chiefly of rough and striking 
incidents, ambitiously, but not unsuccess- 
fully detailed. The wonderful is the writer’s 
point, and surprise the immediate aim, and 
this occasionally at the expense of all proba- 
bility, or the pretence of it. The “Strange 
Ormonds”’ is an attempt to raise an interest 
in a family succession, where the proprietors 
succeed each other, allofthesame qualitiesand 
characters—pursuing the sdme career, and 
terminating the same way—so as to produce 
the effect of a marvellous identity upon the 
minds of the neighbourhood. The “ Last 
of the Ormonds”’ is scarcely intelligible— 
and, we shall only blunder by attempting 
to detail it. ‘“ The Midshipman’’ has a 
veal ghost in it. Occasion is sometimes 
taken from actual occurrence, as the narra- 
tive of “John Williams,” supposed to be 
one of the persons buried alive in the ruins 
of the Brunswick Theatre, carrying with it 
au air of reality, enough almost to confound a 
reviewer. But the “ Life of Allen Grey,” 
is, in this respect, perhaps the most success- 
ful. He isa Scotch peasant, who took to 
rhyming—fell in love with a lady, who 
admired his verses—slighted for her a simple 
maiden of his own cast—was jilted by the 
patrician—fled to sea, as a refuge from 
misery—cooled back to his senses—returned 
home to marry Mary—found her dead of 
neglect—and then ran mad, anddied. His 
-verses are shortly to be published. Here is 
no bad specimen, sung by the widow of 
a drowned fisherman :— 


Oh saftly sleep, my bonnie bairn, 
Rock’d on this breast 0’ mine ; 

The beart that beats sae sair within, 
Will not awaken thine. 


Lie still, lie still, ye canker’d thochts 
That such late watches keep, 

Alv if ye break the mother’s heart, 
Yet let the baby sleep. 


Sleep on, sleep on, my ae, ae bairn, 
Nor look sae wae on me, 

As if ye felt the bitter tear, 
That blins thy mother’s e’e. 


Dry up, dry up, ye saut, saut tears, 
Lest on my bairn ye dreep, 

An’ break in silence, waefw’ heart, 
An’ let my baby sleep. 


But among the most appalling are the 
** Confessions of William Jones.” He was 


Domestic and Foreign. 


309 


a Welch grocer, well to do in the world, 
whose wife being in ill-health, was indulged 
with a cottage at some distance from home, 
where, by degrees, she became too inti- 
mately acquainted with an idle neighbour. 
Taffy’s suspicions were awakened, and 
more than once expressed ; but, being pre- 
sent once at the representation of Othello, 
he took a vigorous resolution to shake off his 
own, perhaps unfounded suspicions, confess 
his folly, and offer reconciliation. Unluckily, 
on his arrival at home, he deteeted the 
parties in each other’s arms. In the frenzy of 
his rage, he seized the wife, beat her violently, 
and drove her, more than half naked, out of 
doors, in the middle of the night, in the most 
inclement season of the year—which severity 
was quickly the death of her. The grocer sold 
off, and quitted the neighbourhood. But 
revenge was rankling—duelling was not to 
his taste—assassination was , perilous—but 
the offender was a gentleman, haughty, fas- 
tidious, and sensitive; and the Welchman, 
with a sort of Medea-like malignity resolved 
to strike where he was most vulnerable—he 
determined upon disgracing him. He found 
him at Bristol; and contriving to put the 
plate of the house into the gentleman’s 
trunk, he left the thing to work its own 
effect. The gentleman was arrested, tried, 
condemned, and brought to the scaffold. 
The Welchman presented himself, and 
whispered in his ear, “‘ This is my doing— 
I am William Jones.” The victim shouted 
out to seize him; but the cap was over his 
eyes, and he could not identify the man. 
The grocer still looked calmly on, and en- 
joyed his sensations, till the last moment, 
when, suddenly, by a violent revulsion of 
feeling, he screamed out, “ Stop !—stop— 
he is innocent.”? The cords which bound the 
arms of the unhappy man burst like a thread, 
and he tore off the cap from his head ; 
but on the instant the drop fell—the body 
swung round, and the eyes glared on the 
demon. 

Autographs, by John Gough Nicholls ; 
1829.—This is a very complete collection— 
comprising most of the royal, noble, learned, 
and remarkable personages of English his- 
tory, from the reign of Richard IT. to that 
of Charles I1.—including also some illustri- 
ous foreigners, as the title page has it. The 
editor accompanies the autographs with 
brief sketches of the characters and circum- 
stances of the individuals ; and, occasionally, 
whole letters are inserted; and pains have 
been taken to select such specimens as are 
characteristic of the writers; or, he says, 
from having been penned at remarkable 
periods in their lives, exhibit the influence 
of some extraordinary mental excitement. 
We have no doubt the collection will prove 
an acceptable present to many curious per- 
sons; and, at all events, will admirably suit 
a drawing-room table—calculated as it is to 
suggest topics for chit-chat, where they are 
often most wanted. We do aot ourselves 


310, 


quite enter into the sotence of the thing, 
nor quite understand the editor, when he 
talks of the taste for autographs being no 
longer in its infancy—nor his anticipations of 
its further advance as a prevalent and even 
fashionable pursuit. The following remark 
was less puzzling :—‘ It (the collection) will 
also be a great assistance in reading, and, 
in some instances, in appropriating those 
annotations, which the learned of other days 
have so frequently left in the books which 
once constituted part of their ‘libraries.”’ 
The whole will be completed (perhaps is 
already completed) in ten monthly numbers, 
each containing five plates. 


The Last Days, by the Rev. Edward 
Irving, 1828.—Whatever be: the bent or 
the prejudice of the reader—whether he 
thinks Mr. Irving a fanatic or a quack— 
whether he be indisposed to theological 
reading, or leans to a party, or is bound up 
with one, or starts free of all—let him, for 
the sake of the sound stuff, which we assure 
him he will find, take up this volume of 
sermons—it will abundantly repay him, if 
he can be repaid by independence and. bold- 
ness of conception, by sagacity and depth 
of remark, .by generous and even liberal 
sentiments, by touches of great moral beauty, 
by flashes of lofty eloquence, and floods of 
vigorous writing. 

The author’s purpose is to establish his 
own interpretation of the prophetic declara- 
tions of the Scriptures. Our days, accord- 
ing to him, are the ‘ Last Days’—the pe- 
riods and characteristics of which, he con- 
tends, are generally mistaken. Every class 
of religionists, established or sectarian, are 
representing the present age as an improv- 
ing one—Christianity as extending—reli- 
gion as better understood, felt, and prac- 
tised, and, of course, approaching, and soon 
it may be, to the state of the Millenium— 
‘though they may not exactly use the term. 
Mr. Irving contests both the conclusion and 
the grounds of it. The ‘ Last Times,’ or 
© Days,’ are not synonymous with the Mil- 
lenium, but are destined to precede them. 
The characteristics, again, of the ‘ Last 
Times’ are not good, but bad. They are 
perilous times—for men shall be lovers of 
their own selves, covetors, boasters, proud, 
blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthank- 
ful, unholy, without natural affection, truce- 
breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, 
despisers of those that are good, traitors, 
heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure, 
more than lovers of God—having a form 
of godliness, but denying the power thereof. 

These characteristics, which the author 
carefully and ably specificates, it is the ob- 
ject of the volume to establish, as peculi- 
arly and pre-eminently marking the exist- 
ing state of society, in all classes, high and 
low, cleric and laic. Now, whatever we 
may think of the theory—whether we con- 
cern ourselves with his interpretation, or 
not—nine-tenths of the book is full of mat- 


Monthly Review of Literature, 


[ Marcu, 


ter of great pith and substance—quite in- 
dependently of the application he makes of. 
ft. Facts are facts; and he has clenched 
them with a firm grasp. He looks abroad 
upon society—especially on the middle 
classes—where, if there is more decorum, 
there is more sordid, grubbing, demoraliz- 
ing conduct—more vices degrading human 
qualities, than in any other, high or low— 
with a clear and comprehensive eye ; and 
denounces their obliquities with a courage 
and simplicity we have never seen equalled, 
and almost wonder to see tolerated, for his 
admirers and hearers are chiefly of these 
classes—the truth must be, they scarcely 
take him. _Worldliness is the game he 
delights to hunt down—and he detects it 
especially among religionists and the clergy ; 
and without mercy lays bare profession and 
ostentation wherever he finds them—as- 
sumption, pretension, thirst for gain, and 
selfishness—and a rich harvest he gathers, 
in the city and the court—the church and 
the chapel. He has no disguises ; he shews 
himself, his views, and his principles, with- 
out desire or attempt to conceal, or with- 
hold. Bigotted he undoubtedly is, though 
we employ the word unwillingly—for he is 
not so, in a thousand instances, where 
others, professing liberality, are habitually 
so: he cannot tolerate catholics, nor soci- 
nians—they are blasphemers; he cannot 
bear radicals, and especially, and we join 
him, newspaper-radicals ;- and he has the 
profoundest reverence, not hypocritically, 
but on principle, of power, and all that 
are in authority.. But he is an honest man, 
if ever there was one—no hypocrite could 
sustain the noble ‘tone—and we should as 
soon doubt Latimer himself. 

One of the characteristics on which he 
dilates is disobedience to parents—this he 
assigns, with every justice, to the ‘ relaxa- 
tion of discipline on the part of parents, 
or rather to the general dissolution, and 
breaking up of that most natural and most 
venerable relationship,’ of which he pro- 
duces, what he considers, four memorable 
signs. The first is, that the legislature has 
been forced to interfere with an enactment, 
in order to prevent the children of the labo- 
rious poor from being over-wrought, to the 
injury of their health and growth, a thing 
which, I suppose, says he, is unparalleled 
in the history of Christendom. The second, 
is the number of young men, who take up 
with young women in the same circum- 
stances, live in concubinage, form irregular 
marriages, or otherwise come together in a 
wicked, hasty, and inconsiderate manner, 
cast off their parents, and leave them to be 
supported by public charity—and why ? 
merely because ¢hey entwined no affections 
round their children’s hearts, who laboured 
not, who suffered not for them more than 
they could avoid. The third is the amaz- 
ing increase of juvenile depredations and 
felonies, not only in town, but over the 
whole country—a proof that children have 


1829. 


no longer that reverence for their parents’ 
commands, nor parents that command over 
their children, which, in times past, was 
sufficient to keep them from the open ways 
of iniquity. The fourth is the frequency of 
infant schools and Sunday schools. These, he 
considers, as they truly are, indications of a 
diseased and disorganized state of family ties. 
These, which are regarded as improvements 
of the age, he justly describes as the best 
proof of its decline. He is glad such reme- 
dies for parental neglect exist—but would 
be more so if there were no diseases calling 
for such remedies. 


But the pious efforts of the religious 
world are the especial object of his scrutiny. 
In the sermon on the covetous, he sud- 
denly asks—‘ What is the first subject of 
conversation in all their meetings, and the 
great theme of their delight ?_ Is it not the 
state of their funds? What the great end 
of their speeches? The increase of dona- 
tions and subscriptions. What the great 
labour of their travellers, and what the 
proof of their success? The amount of 
their in-gatherings. What the qualification 
for honourable office ? The amount of your 
contributions. What the great fear and 
apprehension ? Lest the funds should fall 
off. If these things do not betray a covet- 
ous spirit, I know not where it is to be met 
with elsewhere,” &c. 


Again :— 


Outside, indeed, asin the reports of societies, 
they are truly spiritual; but, inside, in the ma- 
nagement, they are truly carnal and legal. Any 
body knows this, who will be at the pains to 
examine. So also it is in the management of 
chnrehes and chapels—the pulpit must be evan- 
gelical, but behind the scenes the management is 
legal. Look, for example, at the Sunday-school 
institutions—be present in their public meetings— 
read their reports—their published books—and 

~ you will find nothing but the most holy, evangeli- 
eal spirit. In the Bible Society, to take another 
example, which assumeth such a holy, Catholic 
appearance—it is not long since it was applauded 
as the true doctrine, and may, perhaps, be so ac- 
counted still, that it really was not a religious so- 
ciety at all—and certes this seemeth to be truth, 
whereas they contend to the uttermost against 
their meeting with prayer. I am quite willing to 
go the round of every other evangelical, spiritual 
work, which hath given so much celebrity to these 
latter days, and to shew that they are /egal, 
worldly, yea, and often hard-hearted in their ad- 
ministrations—insomuch, that after much expe- 
rience, Ido uniformly dissuade, when asked ad- 
viee upon the subject, from entering into their 
service. Not that I love the missionary cause 
less than they, but because I do not love that the 
evangelical and legal spirit should be mingled and 
confused. And so exceeding overwhelming in 
its influence is this spirit become, that it seems 
to change the very aspect of womanhood itself ; 
yea, even of tender-hearted mothers, whom, 
when clubbed into a committee, I have known 
guilty of the cruellest things towards even the 
most deserving of their own sex, 


Domestic and Foreign. 


311 


“ Tove we good men ?”’ he asks, in ano- 
their place :— ‘ 


I think it is departed wholly, for the love of 
gifted men, men of talents and of understanding, 
on the one hand; and for the love of benevolent, 
ana charitable, and useful men, on the other. 
Instead of dreading unsanctified talent, as the 
most adverse unto God, and friendly unto satan, 
of all the possessions of man, and keeping by the 
good old maxim of our forefathers, that gifts are 
not graces, the men of these times set their af- 
fections, and pay their respects to men of great 
talents, of great eloquence in the senate, of great 
wealth, of great skill in affairs, of great weight 
and influence in the state. I myself have had 
opportunities of witnessing this, which made me 
weep. Ihaveseen good men rush into the arms 
of open reprobates ; nay, sue them and woo them 
unto the unnatural and hideous alliance; entreat 
them to become their patrons, and the patrons of 
their societies, and the patrons of their seats of 
learning; for all which they should have looked 
out for good men, and accepted of good men only. 
You know, my brethren, without my going about 
to enumerate the instances, to what an awful 
height this love, this endurance of unsanctified 
talent, hath arisen. For once I have been en- 
treated to serve any society for the worth or in- 
tegrity of my character, I have been a thousand 
times, without exaggeration, for the talents which 
they supposed me to possess, or for the popularity, 
the transient popularity, which I might chance to 
have at the time, &c. 


In the sermon—lovers of pleasure—where 
he glances at the literature of the day, there 
are some admirable morsels. 


The poetical justice, the moral of the tale, the 
purity of the sentiment, and, in one word, the mo- 
ral and spiritual of the composition, are all lost 
sight of, in the entertainment, the power, the fer- 
tility, or in one word, the pleasure which is set be- 
fore us. They call it an intellectual age; but 
they should call the age of the love of pleasure, in 
which the intellect is constrained to contribute its 
share to the great banquet of pleasure that is 
served up. It is not for the discovery of the 
truth, it is for the admiration of moral worth, not 
for the discernment and taste of what is beautiful, 
but for the gratifications of our likings and dis- 
likings, that we write and read in these times.—I 
think it is not many years since we first had a 
book entitled the Pleasures of the Imagination ; 
and now, I may say, that we have Pleasures of 
Hope, of Memory, and even of Religion—every 
thing brought to contribute its portion to the love 
of pleasure, rather than to the loye of God.—Tf, 
again, we look to the lust of the eye-~we find that 
men seem no longer to dread any evil in this 
quarter, nor to guard against it; but rather to 
think that the elegance and beauty of the object 
seen, isa complete justification of the time, the 
expense, and the honour bestowed upon if. For 
example, of beautiful pictures and precious sta- 
tues, of ornamental objects in our apartments, 
of outward decorations in our habitations, and 
of every other thing pleasant to the eye, the in- 
erease which hath taken place within these thirty 
years, abstracting the minds of our nobility and 
gentry, and well conditioned people, from the study 
of homely household economy, from family cares, 


312 


from noble and charitable pursuits, which hath 
increased the vanity and the expense of living, 
and propagated so much the more toil and specu- 
lation of every kind—this increase, I say, of the 
lust of the eye, within my own remembrance, is 
not to be reckoned up.—Take up a book of travels 
into foreign parts, of older date than fifty parts— 
for example, Burnett, or even Moore, or Coxe— 
and you find the religious, and moral, and social as- 
pect of men and things to have been what they 
chiefly reported ; but now what have ye but the 
description of lakes and waterfalls, of mountains, 
and avalanches of snow, of pictures and statues, 
interlarded with a gazing admiration of the abo- 
mination of the papacy, &c.—If I direct my at- 
tention to public entertainments, I can hardly keep 
my indignation within bounds. <A rout, a ball, a 
eonversazione for the exhibition of rarities and 
shows—to what do they amount but foolish spec- 
tacle? To speak, is out of the question—to dis- 
course, madness—to breathe, oft difficult enough. 
—And, again, if [turn to look at the character of 
our theatrical exhibitions, the same love of show— 
the same gratification of the sight— splendid 
seenery, wonderful machinery, which now will 
open to you the mouth of hell, now present you 
with airy congregations of the gods, and now with 
the mockery of a battle ; and, inshort, with every 
thing which addresseth the eye, which sparkles 
and flames, and flares, and thunders—an endless 
round of sights, signifying nothing—or if any 
thing, something very evil, &c. 


Sometimes the reader will find something 
approaching to humour :— 


Men speak of a sermon (says he) in the same 
language, and perhaps with the same gesture of 
the hand, smiting the body in the same place, with 
which they speak ofadinner—it did me good, Sir, 
i felt the better for it. 

Again :— 

Between the oppression of business and the op- 
pression of fashion, the tender, and delicate, and 
blessed abode of our natural affections, which our 
fathers called Home, hath been almost crushed to 
pieces, and the very word hath changed its mean- 
ing; so that af home now \signifies being sur- 
rounded with a multitude ; and not at home, al- 
most signifies being alone with your children. 


Of the common intercourse of man and 
wife, this is a very happy morsel, and the 
volume has many such:— 


To speak of one another with good-natured 
gaiety—to neglect one another with easy good 
breeding—to let one another go their several 
ways unchecked—to make sprightly allusions and 
sparkling witticisms on the relation of husband 
and wife—this, even this, is the present state of 
that everlasting covenant, &c, 


To do any thing like justice is, with our 
limits, quite impracticable—we have thought 
of Mr. Irving with contempt—he has won 
our respect. 


Biographical Magazine, No. IT. 1828. 
—The first number of this publication 
escaped us. We have glanced over the 
second, and venture to pronounce it a valu- 
able addition to our periodical literature. 
Something of the kind was evidently re- 


Monthly Review of Literature, 


[ Marcu, 


quisite to keep up with the current of mor- 
tality. Every body feels the defects of 
biographical dictionaries—their value is per- 
petually oozing away, and in afew years they 
become comparatively and painfully useless. 
Every year numbers pass off the stage, of 
whom it is desirable to know something 
more, and more authoratitively than can 
generally be learnt from the ordinary on 
dits that float in common conversation, of 
distinguished individuals. Their origin and 
connexions—the steps of their progress—the 
developement of their abilities—the growth 
of their reputation—the aids and friends they 
have made, and met with—the order and 
succession of their publications—all these 
matters are subjects of interest, and the 
earlier they can be obtained the more wel- 
come they are. A man’s death is the time 
when his merits are most minutely scanned 
—for his memory soon gets washed away by 
succeeding waves. Few things will be 
more acceptable than a register of this con- 
tinuous and cotemporaneous kind—well done 
or ill done. 


The specimens before us, however, are, 
some of them, very well done ; while others 
are conspicuously meagre—too much so to 
be of any use—Lemot, for instance, or 
Mark Noble. The personages are Mitford, 
the historian—Thiebault de Leveaux— 
Madame Guizot —Beethoven— Professor 
Jardine—Holloway, Rafaellé’s engraver— 
Lemot—Mark Noble—Dawbeny—Clive— 
Laplace—Clapperton, and Canning. All 
cannot, of course, be of equal interest—the 
editor must trust to the chapter of accidents ; 
but it is of no use to give obviously inade- 
quate accounts—he should wait for further 
information. The most agreeable article is 
Madame Guizot. By the way, it is sur- 


prising hew little is known in this country 


of this indefatigable and intelligent lady’s 
exertions—the Miss Edgeworth of France. 
Too much is made of Archdeacon Dawbeny, 
who was merely a polemic, and not a very 
successful one. Too much, also, we ven- 
ture to add, is made of Mr. Canning, 
of whose classical attainments it is quite 
sickening tohear, for obviously they amounted 
to nothing beyond an Eton school-boy’s 
flippancies ; and as to his claims as a states- 
man—as to any measures which may be 
regarded as personally fis—as to any dis- 
position he ever shewed to check corruption 
—as to any actual benefit conferred upon the 
country—as to any assistance contributed 
to useful reforms—the less his friends, old or 
new, say about him the better. He was a 
man of words—words! When shall* we 
have done with babbling ? 


al Pronouncing Dictionary; Whittaker, 
1829.—This, we confess, is entirely out of 
our beat. When we venture a dictum, we 
like to place it upon» some acknowledged 
basis. The matter of pronunciation has” 
none. In the little work before us, which 
is evidently very respectable, words are to 


1829.] 


be pronounced so and so, because it is cor- 
rect—and correct, because it is fashionable, 
or polite, or learned, or according to ana- 
logy and usage, or sanctioned by the stage ; 
or, again, such and such pronunciations are 
to be shunned, because they are too learned, 
or vulger, &c. The compiler has mani- 
festly taken great pains, and consulted care- 
fully and critically all the established— 
orthoepists we find they are called—and we 
-haye no doubt is as weil deserving of con- 
fidence—to all who place confidence in such 
things—as any of them—vwith these special 
advantages, that the book is a small one, 
embracing on/y, which is surely all that is 
demanded, the doubtful words, and that 
the price cannot be considerable. 

If we were to give our opinion on certain 
pronunciations here recommended, we might 
object—but then our objections are mere 
matter of taste, and depend more on habit 
than inquiry—to the substitution of e for i 
in ad’-mie-ra-bl, ep-e-cu-re’-an, be-tu’-men, 
&c.—to pre-zhum/’-tshu-us, rit/-tshu-al, sat’- 
tshu-rate, &c.—to ad/-ju-la-tur’-re, ed’-ju- 
kate—to in-nish’-al, luk’-shu-re, naw’-she- 
ate. Where has the writer heard of pad’- 
jun-tre? Is not padg’-en-tre nearer the 
mark? Is not o-rawn’-zher-e (orangery) a 
queer-looking word, and would it not be 
a queer-sounding one ? And is not spur’-it 
gueerer still? To pronounce this latter 
word, as if written spe-rit, is declared, as we 
suppose it is, vulgar—but is not spur-it, if 
possible, more so—and is not spir-it both 
more according to analogy, literality, and 
even fashion? But enough of this. 


Conversations on Intellectual Philosophy, 

2 vols. 12mo. ; 1829.—This is wholly Dr. 
Brown ; and as every thing must get into 
the crucible of “ Conversations,” we are 
heartily glad the very able framer of these 
has chosen to melt Aim down rather than 
Dugald Stewart—not so much because we 
think ill of Stewart, and well of Brown, as, 
because, though Brown be not, perhaps, 
essentially better, he is so circumstantially. 
In all respects his equal—save only in the 
very equivocal advantage of knowing other 
people’s opinions—in subtility of intellect 
and flexibility of power—in easy and efiec- 
tive discrimination—in brilliant and vivify- 
ing development he is immensely his supe- 

_ Itis more difficult, we take it, in this coun- 
try than in any part of the world when once 
a man is seated at the top of his profession, 
to dispossess him. It is the most prevail- 
ing conviction among us, shewn more by 
deeds, if possible, than by words, thet the man 
who has by any means attained a sort of supre- 

- macyin any department, can have noequal — 
no other person’s opinion in that line can be 
worth a rush; and hence it is, we see every 
body running after one doctor, one surgeon, 

< lawyer, one chemist, one astronomer, 
_ one mathematician, one artist, one sfales- 
man, even though they are scores of men of 
| M.M. New Sevies.—Vou.VIUL. No. 39. 


Domestic and Foreign. 


. 


313 


equal powers, and, in the case of professions, 
starving for want of employment—while the 
fashionable individual is overwhelmed, and 
compelled, be his honesty what it will, to 
sacrifice ihe interests of his employers to 
their caprices, and pocket the difference. 

But the worst effect of this foolish and 
baby-like confidence is, that if a man find 
reason for contending with the principles or 
practice of the favourite, and venture to give 
expression to his conviction, he raises a nest 
of hornets about his ears—the friends of the 
idol unite to repel the invader, and as it is 
much easier to revile than refute, no scruples 
are spared to depreciate him, not merely as 
a mistaken man, but as a mischievous per- 
son, as one actuated by jealousy, or prompted 
by a restless spirit of opposition, and al- 
together unworthy of attention. Mr. D. 
Stewart, the acknowledged head of his 
branch of study, had prosecuted his class of 
researches, in which others had taken great 
liberties, with so much retenue and respect 
for all existing institutions as to secure the 
suffrage of all, and more especially of those 
who knew nothing of the subject. Dr. 
Brown succeeded him in the philosophical 
chair, and from the first moment opposed. 
his views with little or no consideration for 
his awthority—scarcely indeed noticing him 
—and ventured upon novel statements and 
bold expressions, which threw certain good 
people into a frenzy of alarm. He was 
young, ardent, something of a poet, adven- 
turous, and with a little dash of the coxcomb 
in his composition; he manifestly took 
pains to make the differences of docirine as 
glaring as possible, and certainly made no 
attempt to conciliate. At the bottom we 
do not believe the differences are at all 
essential—but consist almost wholly in form 
and language. We like Brown—both in 
form and language—because his statements, 
generally, are at least as satisfactory, and 
have much less of pedantry and assumpiion 
about them. 

Dugald Stewart distinguishes a thought, 
from the act of thinking—memory, from 
the thing remembered—judgment, from the 
thing judged—consciousness and conscience, 
from the subject ofconsciousness, &c. Where 
is the harm of this? He called memory, 
judgment, conscience, &c., faculties ; butthen 
he did not suppose them a something dif- 
JSerent from the mind itself. They were 
not new, or separate entities—it was merely 
his mode of expressing the feeling and 
phenomena. They were not, even in his 
representation of them, parts of the mind ; 
or, if they were, they were only metaphori- 
cally so. Dy. Brown will have no faculties 
at all—he extinguishes them all—the thing 
remembered is the memory, and nothing 
else—nothing of it exists, but what is pre- 
sent—no storehouses—no receptacles. Still 
the memory is distinguishable, at least from 
consciousness, for instance-—and to mark this 
distinction in whatever it consists, was all 
that Stewart aimed at. These very distinc. 

258 


314 


tions Brown acknowledges, by terming them 
states or affections of the mind ; but if any 
body likes to speak of them as faculties, we 
do not immediately see the mischief that 
‘will result from it. While Stewart talks of 
faculties, he means nothing but mind; and 
while Brown admits of nothing but states 
and affections, he all the while means dif- 
ferent things—distinguishable feelings. 
Though admiring Brown’s mode of ex- 
hibiting his sentiments, more than we can 
readily express, we still think he chose to 
fix upon Stewart, and men of his school, a 
meaning which they could not recognize ; 
and that Stewart, in return, jealous, 
piqued, and sulky, affected a contempt which 
could not be sincere, and secretly felt his 
pupil had beaten him on his own ground. 
There was some littleness in Stewart with 
respect to Brown, but there was also some 
provocation. 
Every thing with Brown rests upon ex- 
perience—every thing is phenomena—we 
know nothing of the nature of the mind— 
we can only observe its operations ; but how 
does all this differ from Stewart? Nota 
jot. The fault with Stewart, if fault there 
be, is, that with all his horror of materialism, 
he is perpetually running a parallel between 
the properties of matter and those of mind, 
which, of course, has a tendency to defeat 
his ultimate object, the distingnishing of 
one from the other—while he proves we can 
know nothing of the nature of either. 
What, again, know we of power—the rela- 
tion of cause and effect? Nothing, but 
that one thing precedes another. But this 
was shewn distinctly long before, by Hume ; 
and Stewart, though not using precisely the 
same language, is essentially of the same 
opinion. Brown will have nothing to do 
with associations, of which Stewart is eter- 
nally talking ; but then his “ suggestions” 
do not at all differ from them, as to their 
application to facts. Though specificating, 
in some measure, we wish to speak generally 
—for there are still many small points on 
which the parties really clash, and there 
we, for the most part, incline to Brown— 
the differences between these potent rivals, 
to our conception, are equally more in man- 
ner than matter. 
_» But as to power of clear statement—of 

easy and flowing expression—as to simpli- 
city, directness, and natural coupling of 
thought—as to the detection of misleading 
terms, and the selection of more appropriate 
ones—as to subtility of discrimination—as 
to native force and penetration—as to real 
genius—as to generous and liberal senti- 
ments—freedom from prejudice, and con- 
tempt of mere authority—Brown is immea- 
surably his master’s superior. 

We have not forgotten the “ Conver- 
sations”’ all this while. We find them 
expressly representing Brown’s sentiments, 
and adopting his language and arrange- 
ments ; and they do so with great distinct- 
ness and ability. They will attract some, 


Monthly Review of Literature, 


[Maren, 


where the name of Brown might deter. 
The writer carefully and even painfully 
guards against all deductions, conflicting 
apparently with morals and doctrines sanc- 
tioned by general and public adoption. 


Chemical Catechism, by Dr. Thomas 
John Graham ; 1829.—Is this intended to 
supersede Mr. Parkes’ well-known book— 
and why? Yes; because, first, the science 
is every day enlarging its domains—its ar- 
rangements, by the accumulation of new facts, 
require frequent shifting, and Mr. Parkes is 
gone, where he can nolonger for usrevise and 
correct; because, secondly, Mr. Parkes’ book, 
independently of recent discoveries, which 
change the aspect, or at least exact a change 
in the nomenclature of many previous mat- 
ters, contains numerous recognised errors ; 
because, thirdly, Mr. Parkes’ arrangement 
originally was radically bad, and the work 
itself ‘not sufficiently elementary, for he 
treats of compound substances before he 
gives the details of the simple ones, and in- 
stead of laying down affinity, or attraction, 
as the foundation, which it truly is, of che- 
mistry, and of course making it the first 
object of his consideration, happens to haye 
made it the last, apparently from not 
thoroughly grasping its important and all- 
pervasive influence; because, fourthly, he 
has almost wholly overlooked two pre-emi- 
nently important matters, vegetable and ani- 
mal chemistry ; because, fifthly, in the same 
manner, he has barely alluded to the atomic 
theory, by which alone is an adequate ex- 
planation obtained relative to the uniformity 
of the proportions of chemical compounds, 
and the cause which renders combination, 
in other combinations, impossible: and 
finally, because Mr. Parkes’ book has 
neither plates nor cuts. 

These defects it is the object of the 
author to supply, and we believe he has 
accomplished that object very completely. 
The more important facts are exhibited in 
the text briefly, but with remarkable clear- 
ness, while the Jess important matter, to- 
gether with all requisite details, are thrown 
into the form of notes at the foot of each 
page. Every thing is written up to the 
latest date, and the work cannot fail, we 
think, of being found eminently useful. 

In turning over the pages, to ascertain 


how particular facts were stated, we dropped . 


upon the article Sugar. This, every body 
knows, is extractable not merely from the 
cane, but in considerable quantities from 
maple, beet-root, skirret, parsnips, dried 
grapes, &c.; but it is not every body who 
knows that old rags are even convertible, 
every thread of them, into sugar. Yet this 
is represented as an indubitable matter :— 


Ttis a remarkable fact (says Dr. Graham) that 
a pound of rags may be converted into more than 
a pound of sugar, merely by the action of sul- 
phurie acid. When shreds of linen are triturated 
in a glass mortar, with sulphuric acid, they yield 


3 


a gummy matter on evaporation, andif this mat- 


: 


1829. 


ter be boiled for some time with dilute sulphuric 
acid, we obtain a crystallerable sugar. 


Nitric acid, too, it appears, has the same 
power and privilege of converting rags into 
sugar. Even wood, for instance, well-dried 
elm-dust, may be converted into sugar by 
sulphuric acid. Truly this is a matter to 
be remembered against the seizure of the 


Domestic and Foreign. 


315 


West Indies by the Americans—the Pre- 
sident has lately hinted very broadly that 
they already geographically belong to them. 
Our own rags and saw-pits must then supply 
sugar, and Cobbet has just made the timely 
discovery that the husks of his corn will 
furnish paper in abundance. 


Cae eS 


VARIETIES, SCIENTIFIC AND MISCELLANEOUS. 


Fall of a Hill in India.—The follow- 
ing circumstance is communicated in the 
Asiatic Journal, in an extract of a letter 
dated Colabah, in the Southern Concan, 
August 21, 1828. The hamlet of Cathe- 
nera, consisting of twenty-one dwellings, 
situated at the foot of a hill about two miles 
south of Berrowavva, in the direction of 
Kongoory fort, had, on the evening of the 
20th July, after the inmates had collected 
their cattle, been completely destroyed by 
what may be called an avalanche of earth 
from the adjoining hill. I found the place 
silent: an old man in a cow-hut was all I 
could see; the destruction had been com- 
plete, and left but this cowshed and three 
other huts standing. The hill was neither 
very high nor remarkably steep. The heavy 
and incessant rain on the above day had 
penetrated the side of the hill and worked a 
passage to the rock under the earth, which, 
from appearance, lay from fifteen to sixteen 
feet in depth. The unfortunate beings 
could have had no warning, for at the same 
instant themselves, their cattle, and homes, 
were buried in the same graves: sixty-five 
human beings, eighty-six cows and buffaloes, 
twenty-three goats, and eighteen dwellings, 
are the numbers I collected as swept off by 
this catastrophe. This bank of earth broke 
from the hill in form of a cone, the apex 
having loosened perhaps about sixty feet up 
the hill, and the base about forty yards in 
breadth, no doubt rested almost against the 
houses: in the velocity of its progress part 
of it reached a rivulet eight hundred yards 
down the plain, and scattered fragments of 
rafters and posts over a considerable space of 
batty ground, which it completely destroyed 
for this season. At the village the ava- 
lanche lay deep. I attempted to go across 
the end of it, and got up to my knees the 
first step. I then was yearly overpowered 
by a smell, doubtless similar to such as may 
always be found at those places yclept fields 
of glory, a few days after the carnage. 

Experiments on Friction.—An account 
of a series of experiments on the friction 
and resistance of fluid and solid bodies re- 
tarded by the attrition of their surfaces 
when rubbing against cach other, has been 
communicated by Mr. Rennie to the Royal 
Society. Nearly fifty years have clapsed 
since the labours of mechanicians were di- 
rected to this subject: the progress of know- 

ledge consequently in this department of 
‘Science has been slow and unsatisfactory, 


and a wide field is still left open to experi- 
mental investigation. The following are the 
principal conclusions deduced by Mr. Ren- 
nie. The friction of ice rubbing upon ice 
diminishes with an increase of weight, but 
without observing any regular law of de- 
crease. When dry leather is made to 
move along a plate of cast iron, the re- 
sistance is but little influenced by the extent 
of surface. With fibrous substances, such as 
cloth, the friction diminishes by an increase 
of pressure, but is greatly increased by the 
surfaces remaining for a certain time in con- 
tact; it is greater cederis paribus with fine 
than with coarse cloths: the resistance is 
also much increased by an increase of 
surface. With regard to the friction of 
different woods against each other, great 
diversity and irregularity prevail in the re- 
sults obtained in general, the soft woods 
give more resistance than the hard woods, 
thus yellow deal affords the greatest and red 
teake the least friction ; the friction of differ- 
ent metals alsovaries principally according to 
their respective hardness, the soft metals 
producing greater friction, under similar 4 
cumstances, than those which are har 
Within the limits of abrasion, however, 
the amount of friction is nearly the same in 
all the metals, and may in general be esti- 
mated at one-sixth of the pressure. The 
power which unguents have in diminishing 
friction varies according to the kind, and 
the fluidity of the particular unguent em- 
ployed, and to the pressure applied. 

Natural History.—On the second of 
February, Dr. Ovid Lallemand presented to 
the Academy of Sciences of Paris, a mon- 
ster, which, from particular circumstances, 
he was induced to regard as the issue of a 
dog and an ewe. Upon examination, how- 
ever, it was rather considered as belonging 
to a genus already known, and which M. 
Geoffrey-Saint-Hilaire has pointed out under 
the name of Polyotus, a monstrocity observa- 
ble among several animals and even among 
the human species. 

Experiments on Coal Gas.—The Rev. 
W. Taylor, of York, in performing some 
experiments on the combustion of coal gas, 
has obtained results which promise to be of 
public importance. He has discovered very 
simple means by which the illuminating 
effect of a common argaud gas burner may 
be much increased, while its flame is pro- 
portionally enlarged. The following state- 
ment will show the nature of the experi- 

252 


316 


ments. A piece of wire-gauze being laid 
upon the glass chimney of a common 
argand gas burner, the flame is immediately 
enlarged to twice its former dimensions, and 
its light fully doubled. (A similar experi- 
ment being tried with a common argand oil 
lamp or reading lamp with a flat wick, the 
flame is often enlarged, but so discoloured 
as to yield less light). Place the finger or 
a bit of cork, so as to close the lower open- 
ing of the interior air passage of a common 
argand gas burner: the flame experiences 
a sudden enlargement with an increase of 
light nearly equal to that in Exp. 1. (the 
inner air passage of an argand oil lamp 
being closed, the flame is greatly deterio- 
rated and darkened.) The air tube of an 
argand gas burner being stopped as in Ex. 2. 
and the fiame consequently. enlarged no 
further change happens when wire gauze is 
laid on the top of the glass chimney. Over 
the glass chimney of a single jet gas 
burner, wire gauze being laid, produced no 
enlargement of the flame and no increase of 
the light. . In an experiment at the rooms 
of the Mechanics’ Institute, York, it was 
found that one hundred feet of gas were 
consumed in three hours and twenty-five 
minutes by six argand gas burmers in the 
ordinary state, while the same gas burners 
provided with wire gauze caps to their chim- 
neys yielded an equal light for an equal 
time, but consumed only about fifty feet of 
gas.— Phil. Mag. 

The Apotheosis of Travellers. — The 
beams of light seen at times to issue from 
the sun through the interstices of dense 
clouds when that luminary is near the hori- 
zon, appear by the laws of perspective, 
to diverge from the sun, but are, in fact 
parallel; and when seen of considerable 
length, they of course appear arcs of great 
circles. When the sun is in, or a little 
below ‘the horizon, they are often seen 
to converge toa point diametrically opposite, 
and are seldom seen far from the vanishing 
point. These beams are produced in the 
same manner as those in a room where 
there is smoke or dust and the sum shining 
in through the window. The vanishing 
point of the solar beams is seen in the sea 
when transparent and smooth, and the sun 
shining at least 60° cr 70° above the hori- 
zon. ‘Then by looking over a vessel’s side 
opposite to the sun, the spectator will see 
around the shadow of his own head only a 
kind of corona: the same phenomenon may 
likewise be observed in a stratum of fog, 
when the sun and observer are in certain 
positions. This has been called the apothe- 
osis of travellers. The appearance is caused 
either by rain, fog, or spray, on the same 
principles as the common rainbow. A line 
drawn from the centre of the sun passing 
through thé eye of the spectator, who has 
his back to the sun, passes through the cen- 
tre of the bow; consequently if the spec- 
tator be elevated above the horizon, as when 
ona high mountain, he may see the entire 


Varieties. 


(Marcu, 


bow, encircling like a corona, the head of his 
shadow projected on the subjacent plain or 
upon the clouds. 

Crystal Bed.—_Immediately before the 
late war broke out between the Russians and 
the Persians, a bed of massive crystal-was 
made in the imperial manufactory of Pe- 
tersburg to be sent as a present to the Shah 
of Persia, by the Emperor of Russia. This 
magnificent bed, the only one of the kind 
perhaps in the world, is resplendent with 
silver, ornamented with columns of crystal, 
and ascended by steps of blue glass. It is 
constructed in such a manner that there can 
be made to issue from it on each side jets of 
odoriferous water, the murmuring sounds of 
which may excite an agreeable slumber. 
It reflects by the light of flambeaux a daz- 
zling splendour, resembling myriads of dia- 
monds. There is no doubt that this piece 
of furniture would nave astonished even 
eastern luxury and magnificence. 

Sieam Artillery.—In a memoir on the 
comparison of the mechanical effects of 
gunpowder and steam, as applied to artillery, 
a German author, Herr Prechtl, concludes, 
from a series of analytical deductions from 
facts and experiments, that steam artillery 
will never offer practical advantages over 
powder orduance, and that it is an inven- 
tion to be ranked among the number of dis- 
coveries more curious than useful or appli- 
cable. 

Earthquake in India.—A smart shock 
of an earthquake was felt at Bhooj, in 
Cutch, on Sunday, July 20, 1828, about 
1 p. m., and although it does not appear 
that any accident has happened there or in 
the surrounding neighbourhood, the vibra- 
tion was so great as nearly to spill water 
from a tumbler half full. The day was dull 
and somewhat close, and in the evening 
there was a heavy shower of rain. The 
shock, as far as could be judged, was from 
East to West. 

Natural History.—An account has been 
communicated to the Lyceum of Natural 
History of New York, of a case of singu- 
lar malconformation observed in the teeth 
of the Arctomys Monax. In this individual 
there had been a cavity in the lower jaw, 
which had prevented the growth of the 
incisor on that side. Its antagonist in the 
upper jaw having nothing to oppose it, had 
continued to be developed until it had de- 
scribed more than one complete spiral revo- 
lution. There is in England, in the posses- 
sien of an eminent scientific surgeon dentist, 
Mr. Snell, the head of a rabbit, in which 
the grinding surfaces of the inside teeth of 
the upper and lower jaw, not being in con- 
tact, the teeth had described more than 
half a spiral revolution. 

Drinking Ice Water.—It has long been 
known that ice water debilitates the stomach 
much more than spring water of nearly the 
same temperature. On two very hot days 
in the month of June 1828, some experi- 


ments were made in America, with ice 


1829.] Varieties. 317 
water and cold spring water. As much dif- flame is well known, and has been beauti- 


ference in the efiect, as has usually been 
represented, was experienced when the dif- 
ference in temperature was scarcely per- 
‘ceptible by the hand or tongue. These 
trials led to the following inquiry by Pro- 
fessor Eaton. The experiments of Black 
and others have shown, that when. water is 
brought to the freezing point, a quantity of 
‘caloric sufficient to carry the thermometer 
through many degrees, may be imbibed or 
given off without affecting the thermometer 
or the sense of feeling. May not the state 
_of ice water be such, that though it seems 
to be but little colder than spring water, it 
‘will take much more caloric from the sto- 
mach ? Would not this inquiry afford am- 
ple materials for a medical graduate’s disser- 
tation ? 3 
New Salt Pans.—A patent has been ob- 
tained for an admirable improvement in the 
‘construction of salt pans, which consists in 
raising what might be called the bottom of 
the boiler up to an angular form in the 
middle, like the two upper sides of a prism, 
in order that the crystals of salt as they 
become concentrated by the evaporation of 
the water, may descend down the inclined 
planes, thereby preventing an inconvenience 
called or known to salt makers by the name 
of pan scratch, and fall into boxes or troughs 
placed in recesses below the fire, and may 
thus allow the salt tobecome cool. Which 
boxes or troughs when they are full, may 
be drawn up by the cords or chains attached 
to them, and the salt discharged without 
drawing off the brine from the interior. 
New Constant of Aberration.—From 
a mean of 4119 observations made at the 
Royal Observatory at Greenwich, during the 
years 1825-6-7-8, with the two mural circles 


of Troughton and Jones, on the stars most 


affected by aberration and the least affected 
by refraction, whereby the errors of observa- 
tion have the least possible influence on the 
result, Mr. Richardson has determined 
20°5035 as the most probable value of the 
constant of the aberration of light. 
A medical fellow of the Royal Society, 
much distinguished by his ingenious re- 
searches regarding mummies, was detailing 
at one of the meetings of that society, the 
celebrated characters who had attended to 
witness his labours. Among others Dr. 
Wollaston was mentioned; the latter al- 
though in a different group, was within 
hearing, and briefly inquired “ What is it 
-you say, Sir?’’ “ Only that you were pre- 
sent at my last examination of the mum- 
my.” “ Sir; I was not present.’’ ‘ Yes 
you were, Dr. Wollaston, and made such and 
such remarks.” ‘Sir, I never was in your 
house in my life—Sir, I do not even know 
were your house is situated,’ said Dr. W., 
turning his back with indignant astonish- 
‘ment at the other’s singular misconception 
or unparalleled effrontery. 
Intense Light.—The intense light pro- 
duced by igniting lime in the oxy-alcohol 


fully applied in the construction of geode- 
sical signals, by Lieut. Drummond. It is 
said that an easy mode of exhibiting it on a 
small scale, is to place a small piece of lime 
on charcoal, lighted at the spot by a little 
piece of tinder, and throw a jet sof oxygen 
from an ordinary blow-pipe aperture upon it. 

Antiquities.—The report just published 
by the Royal Society of Northern Anti- 
quaries, at Copenhagen, giving an account 
of its labours for the years 1825-6-7, makes 
mention of a discovery of some interest for 
the history of northern navigation. A stone, 
engraved with Runic characters, was found 
in 1624 in the island of Kingilktorsoak, 
on the western coasts of Greenland, bearing 
an inscription, of which the following is a 


‘translation by Dr. Ragn, secretary to the 


society. “ Erling Sigvatson, Bjarne Thor- 
darson, and Enride Oddson, erected these 
heaps of stones, the Saturday before the day 
called Gagndag (April 25) and they cleaned 
the place in 1135.” M. Kragh, a Green- 
land missionary, saw three heaps of stones 
on the spot where this inscription was found, 
each of these three individuals having ap- 
parently erected his own. This stone, ac- 
cording to Dr. Ragn, is of great historical 
importance, as it proves that so early as the 
twelfth century our ancestors had pushed 
their navigation on the western coast of 
Greenland up toso high a latitude. 

Meteorite Phenomenon.—An uncommon 
phenomenon appeared at Malacca, on the 
evening of May 14, 1828, between seven 
and eight o’clock, which produced a curious 
sensation among the inhabitants. A meteo- 
ric globe of fire, of about the size of the 
full moon when seen in the horizon, ap- 
proached fzom the south-east and passed over 
the town in a north-west direction, at a 
height apparently not much above the tallest 
trees. It was followed by arattling, rumbling 
noise, somewhat resembling that of thunder, 
produced, we suppose by the bursting of 
the ball, which took place at some distance 
from the town. The oldest people in Ma- 
lacca say they never witnessed such a thing 
before, and many, not knowing its real na- 
ture, consider it a portentous omen for evil. 

Fossil Osteology.——- Among the fossil 
bones discovered by Mr. Mantell, of Lewes, 
during the present year in the Hastings 
strata of Sussex, are two specimens, which 
M. Cuvier has determined to be the ungueal 
bones, or those which support the nails of 
the Iguanodon. The largest is four inches 
in length ; while the corresponding part in 
a recent Iguana three feet long, is but two 
fifths of an inch. 

Antiquities.—At a recent sitting of the 
Socicté de Géographie at Paris, M. Warden 
communicated an extract from a letter, ad- 
dressed to the Marquis de Fortia, by M. le 
Comte Saqui,. from which it appeared, that 
in digging a weli in Cuba, about twelve 
leagues from the Havannah, at the depth of 
about one hundred French feet, a vase was 


318 


found in perfect preservation covered with 
hieroglyphics, and bearing several figures, 
one of which resembles the Sagittarius of 
our Zodiac, and is represented drawing his 
bow at two individuals, who appear chained 
together or holding each other by the hand. 
These figures resemble those found in Egypt. 
The vase has been presented to the city of 
Orleans. 

The Italian Language.—Prizes are con- 
tinually offered in Italy for discoveries re- 
garding the formation of the Italian tongue ; 
hjtherto but imperfect success has attended 
the inquiry ; but one point appears to be un- 
questionably settled, namely, that the Sici- 
lians were the first who wrote Italian, and 
no compositions remain of a date anterior to 
Frederic II. who was Emperor in 1230. 

Russian Trophies.—Among the trophies 
brought by the Russians from Persia, is the 
library of Ardebihl, which fell into the hands 
of General Count Suchteleu. This library 
was founded in the year 1013 of the hegira, 
1635 of our own. Shah Abbas I. who reign- 
ed at that time, deposited the manuscripts 
which he had collected in the mosque erected 
in memory of his ancestor Sheikh Sofi, on 
the very spot where that founder of the dy- 
nasty was buried. 

New Carronade.—A deputation from the 
navy board, with several officers of the 
royal artillery, lately inspected a sixty-eight 
pounder carronade, fitted on a new principle, 
on board the Blenheim, at Woolwich. It 
is placed on the poop, and the carriage is so 
constructed as to allow the gun to traverse 


Varieélies. 


[ Marcu, 


both sides, and to fire down upon any object 
along side the ship. 

Oriental Antiquities.—An eminent Ori- 
entalist, Mr. Wilson, of Calcutta, speaking 
of the carved temples of the Indian penin- 
sula, considers the fact as nearly established, 
that these excavations, which are in general 
Saiva and Bauddha are comparatively recent, 
or that none of them bear a high an- 
tiquity. There is nothing in their construc- 
tion which Hindu architects of the present 
day would not be as well qualified as ever to 
accomplish. The sculptured works are 
equally destitute of pretensions to antiquity 
as well as many of the great temples of 
Southern India, which, though genuine 
Hindoo monuments, and probably of the 
same style of architecture as when first 
erected, are modern constructions, in spite of 
the testimony of the local Puranas, which 
are impudent fabrications. 

Schools in the State of New York.— 
There are in the State of New York, 50 
incorporated academies, numerous private 
schools, and between 8 and 9,000 school 
districts, in which, last year, instruction was 
given regularly to 441,850 children, besides 
9 or 10,000 more in the higher seminaries, 
without including the colleges; so that the 
whole number of young persons at this 
moment under instruction in that State 
probably falls little short of half a million, 
which is between a fourth and a third of the 
whole population of the State.—Public Re- 
port, Dec. 1828. 


FINE ARTS’ EXHIBITIONS. 


British Institution.—Ovur limits cau- 
tion us to avoid all introductory matter under 
the above head, and proceed at once to the 
immediate subject of our notice—the Exhi- 
bition of the Works of Living Artists, at the 
rooms of the British Institution. The col- 
lection of this year is, generally speaking, a 
good one; but in the highest department of 
the art—that which takes a poetical charac- 
ter, by blending the ideal with the historical 
—we find a marked deficiency. In fact, we 
do not observe in this department a single 
work calling for high or unqualified com- 
mendation; and only two or three that 
merit a detailed notice at all. These latter 
are all on scriptural subjects ; and the best is 
the veteran Northcote’s Adoration of the 
Shepherds, (No. 1 in the North Room). 
The subject is treated with that simplicity, 
both in the composition and the expres- 
sions, which is the best characteristic of this 
painter ; and which, while it is the source of 
much merit in his works, is also not free 
from the charge of originating some of their 
faults. In the present picture, for example, 
the desire to be natural and simple, has led 
to what we cannot but look upon as the 
error of being common-place, and conse- 


quently unimpressive. Surely, if we have 2 
right to demand an ¢deal character any 
where, it is in the virgin mother of the Sa- 
viour of the world; and yet in this picture 
she is a mother merely—a sweet and touch- 
ing one, but no more so than may be seen 
every day among ourselves. It is the same 
with all the other persons in the picture. 
Moreover, they are all English, which we 
cannot but look upon as another fault, in a 
work of this class. Nevertheless, the pic-~ 
ture is a pure, and, upon the whole, a very 
meritorious one. The colouring of it, in 
particular, is more to our taste than this 
artist’s usually is. The two other historical 
attempts are, The Deluge, by W. Bracxr- 
DON, (251); and Satan, by S. Par- 
TRIDGE, (474). The first of these is dark, 
dreary, and desolate, without being either 
mysterious, fearful, or impressive ; and the 
second is ambitious and conspicuous, with- 
out being either grand, striking, or original. 
Among what may perhaps be called the 
second class of historical composition—that 
which has for its object simply to illustrate 
or commemorate known events, in connec- 
tion with which (on account of their proxi- 
mity to our own times, and the exact know- 


: 
: 
: 


1829.) 


ledge we possess relative to them) the idea 
cannot with safety or propriety be intro- 
duced—we have two excellent productions, 
one of them by J. Jones, R. A., and the 
other by H. P. Briggs, A. R. A. These 
works are the joint result of an order given 
to the artists respectively, by the British In- 
stitution, and are intended as presents to 
Greenwich Hospital; and the subjects chosen 
are of course commemorative of events in our 
nayal history. Mr, Jones’s work represents 
a particular moment in the battle of Saint 
Vincent,—when Nelson (the commodore) 
and Captain Berry, are leading a party of 
boarders over the deck of one of the Spanish 
vessels. We have never scen Nelson so 
well represented, with a view to pictorial 
effect—his historical character (if we may so 
speak) never so skilfully and impressively 
blended with the actual traits of his counte- 
nance—as in this work. There is also great 
spirit and effect given to the whole scene,— 
which is one of the best we could any where 
point to on so extremely intractable a sub- 
ject. Mr. Brigg’s picture, which is a sort 
of companion to the above, and of the same 
size, represents the late king presenting a 
sword to Lord Howe, on the Ist of June, 
1794, on board the Queen Charlotte; her 
Majesty and some of the Court being pre- 
“sent. This is a still more intractable sub- 
ject than the last, with a view to any thing 
like dignity or grandeur of historic effect. 
The odious costumes, and “ not to speak it 
profanely,”’ the no less odious physiogno- 
mies of our gold-loving (the antithesis of 
“ golden”) age, defy the pencil in this re- 
spect. All we can say, therefore, is, that 
Mr. Briggs has not only escaped unhurt 
from his task, but has produced a work 
highly creditable to his taste and execution. 
Descending (if it must be looked upon as a 
descent) one step lower in the scale of com- 
position, we meet with some exquisite works 
—works on which the value and beauty of 
this exhibition may be said almost entirely 
to depend. We allude to those having for 
their object at once to move, to elevate, and 
to gratify the intellectual faculties and affec- 
tions of the spectator, by illustrating matters 
connected with, or growing out of, the events 
of actual life and manners, or depicting 
actual scenery as modified and coloured by 
that life and manners. At the head of this 
class of works we must place two little cabi- 
net gems, by Newton.—The Letter, (166) 
and @ Dutch Girl (255). As a piece of 
execution,—resulting jointly from skill of 
hand, force of imagination, and delicacy of 
taste and feeling,we know of very few 
things indeed, that are superior to the first 
named of these works. Yet the whole pic- 
ture is simplicity itself. A single female, 
not a vestige of whose face you are per- 
mitted to see, has just opened and read a 
letter, which evidently contains some fatal 
news, for she has dropped it on the floor— 
buried her face in her hands—bent her frail 
form half way to the earth—and, in brief, 


Fine Aris’ 


319 


seems stricken into a new Niobe, for she is 
“all tears.’? We look upon this picture as, 
without exception, the best repetition we 
have ever seen of the antique painter’s idea, 
of hiding the face of an afflicted person, in 
despair of duly expressing the depth uf hu- 
man sorrow. Here, however, the attempt 
has evidently been made with the view, not 
of escaping from the artist’s admitted want 
of power, but of proving his possession of it 
—of shewing the possibility not merely of 
making inanimate things conform to and 
assist in the production of an expression that 
we look for from the human face alone, but 
of actually drawing the whole effect from 
these inanimate accessories. And the at- 
tempt has been singularly successful: so 
much so, that we scarcely think any expres- 
sion of face could haye added to the pathetic 
effect of the picture. The other work exhi- 
bited by Mr. Newton, is, we imagine, a 
portrait ; and it is, in point of style and exe- 
cution, not inferior to the foregoing. It re- 
presents a Dutch Girl, dressed in the national 
costume, and standing at an open window, 
the curtain of which she has just withdrawn 
with one hand, while she leans on the ledge 
of the window with the other. This work 
small as it is, (scarcely bigger than the 
page the reader is perusing) may be pro- 
nounced a capital production, no less for the 
force and spirit of its execution, than for the 
delicacy of taste displayed in the air and 
attitude, and the refinement of tact in the 
intellectual expression.—But we must stop 
here, we shall, however, return to the sub- 
ject next month. 

Portrait of the Honourable Mrs. Charles 
Lindsay.—We verily believe there is no 
end to the progress of improvement, in 
the department of Art to which this 
charming little portrait belongs. It forms 
the new number of the series of “ Por- 
traits of the English Female Nobility,” 
which grace the opening page of La Belle 
Assemblée; and though we lately pro- 
nounced an opinion that the portrait of the 
Marchioness Wellesley, which formed the 
last number of that series, had reached the 
acme of the art in such matters, yet we can- 
not but think that the present portrait sur- 
passes it in some particulars at least. This 
praise, however, is intended to apply entirely 
to the accessories of the picture—the dress, 
furniture, &c.; for we must still consider 
the face of the former portrait as maintaining 
the supremacy over any of the series that we 
have seen. In the white satin dress of the 
present picture, we have an effect produced 
not greatly inferior to that of an oil painting 
by Netscher, Terbourg, or F. Meires: yet 
with not half the “ appliances and means,’” 
employed by those artists; and the rich 
curtain which forms the back ground, the 
ornamented antique chair in front, the hair, 
&c. are of corresponding merit; and the 
whole forms a most agreeable and tasty 
production. The painter is Mrs. James 
Robertson, and Mr. Wright the engraver. 


Exhibitions. 


320 


Interior of York Minster.—This large 
engraving of the interior of York Minster 
(just published by Messrs. Colnaghi) is one 
to which late circumstances have given an 
unexpected and permanent interest. It is 
slightly executed, but with sufficient skill 
and effect, especially in the perspective— 


Fine Aris’ Exhibitions. 


[ Marcu, 


which is well preserved, and conveys a fine 
and imposing idea of this magnificent edi- 
fice. The engraving is executed by Mr. 
W. Woolnoth, from a painting by Mr. 
Harwood, and it forms a pendant to one 
lately produced by the same artists, repre- 
senting the interior of St. Paul’s Cathedral. 


WORKS IN THE PRESS AND NEW ‘PUBLICATIONS. 


—_—— 


WORKS IN PREPARATION. 


The Antiquities of Mexico, by A. Aglio. ‘This 
work will contain the fac-similes of all the Mexi- 
can Hieroglyphic Paintings and MSS. preserved 
in the principal libraries of Europe, with the 
texts in the original languages, Collection of 
American Monuments, with their deseription, by 
M. Dupaix, made during the years 1805, 6, and 7, 
by direction of the late King of Spain, and taken 
from the original drawings now in possession of 
Mr. Aglio, with the addition of some very curious 
MSS, never before published. The whole tran- 
slated into English, with highly interesting notes, 
and will contain nearly eight bundred plates, 

Apician Morsels; or, Tales ofthe ‘Table, 
Kitehen, and Larder ; consisting of Select Upi- 
eurean Precepts, Nutritive Maxims, Retlections, 
Anecdotes, &c. &c., illustrative of the veritable 
Science of the Mouth; whieh includes the Art of 
never breakfasting at Home, and always dining 
Abroad. 12mo. 

The Improved Syllabie Spelling Book; or, a 
Summary Method of teaching Children to Read, 
upon a principle originally discovered by the 
Sienr Berthaud, adapted to the English Lan- 
guage. By Mrs. Williams, author of * Conver- 
sations on English Grammar.” In 12mo., the 
Fourth Edition, newly arranged, and very mate 
rially improved, with an entirely new Set of 
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Mr. W. Carpenter, author of the Scientia 
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Mr. W. Jones, author of the History of the 
Waldenses, &c., has nearly ready a Christian 
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euch persons in every country, and in every age, 
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Barker's Cicero’s Catalinarian Orations. 12mo. 
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18mo. 12s. cloth ; l4s. silk. 

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Sir James Mackintosh announces his first vo- 
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early in the ensuing season. 

Some Reinarkable Incidents in the Life of 
Alexander, Emperor of Russia, illustrative of 
his Religious Character. Translated from the 
French, 

Flora Devyoniensis ; or a Descriptive Catalogue 
of Plants growing Wild in the County of Devon, 
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and J. F. Kingston. 

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& 


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The long projected edition of the Greek Orators 
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sition to the classical student. So complete and 
skilfully selected are the subsidia, that no foreign 
edition can compete with it, and in England no- 
thing of the kind has ever been attempted. It 
required no common resolution to risk the enor- 
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demanded ; and we trust the spirited publisher 
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The Housekeepers’ Oracle; or, Art of Do-_ 


) 


1829.] 


mestic Management: containing a complete Sys- 
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Washington Irving announces the Chronicle of 
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The beautiful Portrait of the Hon. Mrs. Bar. 
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY. 
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History of Russia, and of Peter the Great, by 
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2 


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aT 


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322 


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[ Marcu, 


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1829.] 


f 323 4 


PATENTS FOR MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL INVENTIONS. 


New Patents Sealed in February, 1829. 

To James Fraser, Limehouse, Middlesex, 
engineer, for having invented a new and 
improved arrangement of a flue, or flues, to 
communicate with the various parts of culi- 
nary apparatus; such as steam, soup, or 
water-boilers, ovens, hot plates, hot closets, 
and stewing stoves, to render. them more 
compact, and to appropriate part of the said 
apparatus to effect other useful purposes— 
Sealed, 27th January ; 2 months. 

To John Braithwaite, and John Ericsson, 

New-road, Fitzroy-square, Middlesex, en- 
gineers, for a new-invented method of con- 
yerting liquids into vapour or steam—3slst 
January ; 6 months. 
‘* To Lieutenant Robert Parker, R. N. 
Hackney, Middlesex, for an-improved drag 
or apparatus applicable to stage coaches and 
other wheel carriages, whereby the motion 
may be retarded and stopped when required 
—3lst January » 2 months. 

To Joseph Rayner, King’s-square, St. 
Luke, Old-street, Middlesex, civil engineer, 
for his improvements in machinery for con- 
ducting heat, and applying the same in the 
operations of washing, scouring, cleansing, 
fulling, dressing, dyeing, and finishing wool- 
len cloths, and in callendering, straining, 
glossing, polishing, and finishing silks, cot- 
tons, linens, &c.—5th February; 6 months. 

To Julias Pumphrey, Jally Hill, Wor- 
cester, glover, for his improvements in steam 
engines and machinery to propel steam 
boats and vessels, some of which improve- 
ments are applicable to other purposes— 
3d February; 2 months. 

To Alexander Daninos, Leman-street, 
Goodman’s-fields, Middlesex, for an inven- 
tion for the manufacture of improved hats 
and bonnets, in imitation of Leghorn straw 
hats and bonnets—5th February ; 6 months. 

To John Burgis, Maiden-lane, St. Paul’s, 
Covent-garden, Middlesex, ornamental paper 
manufacturer, for a new method of gilding 
or silvering woven fabricks in burnished 
and dead or matted gold or silver, and 
which fabrick may be used as gold or silver 
and laced borderings, &c.—5th February ; 
two months. 

To Richard Green, Blackwall, Middle- 
sex, ship-builder, for improvements in the 
construction of made masts—5th February ; 
4 months. 

To William Henry Kitchen, High-street, 
St. Giles’s, Bloomsbury, Middlesex, iron- 
monger; and Andrew Smith, York-terrace, 
St. Margaret’s, Westminster, merchant, for 
improvements in the construction of win- 
dow frames, sashes, or casements, shutters, 


and doors, designed to afford security against 
burglars, as well as to exclude: the weather 
—7th February ; six months. 

To Edward Heard, Devonshire-street, 
Vauxhall-road, Lambeth, Surrey, chemist,. 
for an improvement in. illumination or arti- 
ficial light—12th February ; 6 months. 

To Samuel Walker, Beeston, Leeds, 
cloth manifacturer, for an improved appa- 
ratus, whicly he denominates ‘ an Opera- 
meter, applicable to machinery for dressing 
woollen or other clothes—20th February ; 
6 months. 

List of Patents, which, having been granted 
in March 1815, expire in the present 

month of March 1829. 


7. Dudley Adams, London, for improve- 
ments in the construction of paper vellum 
tubes and other parts of telescopes. 

— William Drakin, London, for his 
portable kitchen. 

— William Mitchell, Glasgow, and John 
Lawton, London, for their improved lock 
and key. 

9. William Wood, Shadwell, for a 
method and material, called adhesive felt, 
for rendering ships water-tight and sea- 
worthy. 

14. Elizabeth Breveridge, London, for an 
improved bedstead. 

— John Mills, London, for improved 
elastic stays for women, pregnant ones in 
particular, and children. 

— Robert Dickinson, London, for im- 
proved tools, implements, and other ar- 
ticles. 

— William Bell, Edinburgh, for im- 
provements in the apparatus for copying 
MSS. and other writings. 

— Jonathan Ridgeway, Manchester, for 
metallic types, and a mode of fixing them 
on cylinders for printing cotton or linen 
cloth. 

— Thomas Potts, Rickmansworth, for a 
mode of applying principles.already known 
Sor producing pure-fresh warm air. 

18. Henry Houldsworth, Glasgow, for a 
mode of discharging air or condensed steam, 
or both, from pipes used for the conveyance 
of steam for the purposes of heating bliud- 
ings or other places. 

21. Charles. Gent, and Square Clarke, 
Congleton, for a swift, and other appa- 
ratus belonging to it, for winding silk. 

29, Richard Smith, Stafford, for an im- 
proved method of smelting and refining all 
metallic substances. 


2T 2 


E 324.4 


[ Marcu, 


BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PERSONS. 


THE EMPRESS DOWAGER OF RUSSIA. 

Her Imperial Majesty, the Empress Ma- 
‘tia Feodorowna, was a Princess of Wir- 
temberg, sister of Frederick, late King of 
Wirtemberg Stuttgard, who married the 
Princess Royal of England, and niece to 
Frederick the Great, King of Prussia. Her 
baptismal name was Sophia Dorothea ; but 
on her marriage, at an early age, about the 
year 1766-7, to the Grand Duke Paul, 
afterwards Emperor of Russia, she assumed, 
in compliance with the custom of the court, 
that of Maria Feodorowna, as descriptive of 
her alliance with the Imperial family. On 
the death of the Empress Catherine II. 
Paul ascended the throne. 
the short reign of that unhappy prince, and 
the tragical termination on the 11th of 
March, 1801, are still remembered. What- 
soever may have been the political faults of 
the Emperor, historians are unanimous in 
attesting his amiable qualities in domestic 
life. The virtues of his accomplished con- 
sort were fully estimated by him, and to- 
wards her he at all times evinced the greatest 
tenderness and affection. Kotzebue re- 
lates an affecting instance of his attachment, 


which occurred the night before his assas-. 


sination, and describes the last and affec- 
tionate leave which he at the same time 
took of the Empress and of his youngest 
children. : 

In the various relations of life, as daugh- 
ter, wife, and mother, the Empress shewed 
herself possessed of every yirtue that can 
adorn the female character. She superin- 
tended the education of her children, with 
the most sedulous attention; and, to her 
instructions, and to the principles of mo- 
rality and religion, which she from infancy 
instilled into his mind, may be attributed 
the numerous acts of goodness and philan- 
thropy by which the reign of hereldest son, 
the late Emperor Alexander, was distin- 
guished. Nor were her exertions less suc- 
cessful in forming the characters of her 
younger children. The present Emperor 
Nicholas appears to sympathize, as did his 
brother, with the noble feelings of his mo- 
ther. Of the talents and graces of her 
daughters, a specimen was offered by the 
Duchess of Oldenburgh, during her visit to 
England ; and a similar example presents 
itself in the character of the Grand Duchess 
Anne, who is married to the Prince of 
Orange.—Her exertions were not, however, 
confined to her own family, ‘but were bene- 
ficially felt throughout the empire. She 
established schools for the education of the 
poor, and, in almost all the large provinces, 
female colleges, on the model of the cele- 
brated St. Cyr. These institutions she re- 
peatedly visited and inspected. She was 
also a munificent benefactress and patroness 
of every charitable foundation in the em- 
_pire. 


The events of, 


The Empress, on the marriage of the 
Princess Royal of England to her brother, 
the King of Wirtemberg, presented her 
with the Order of St. Catherine; and the 
Princess frequently displayed, on Windsor 
Terrace, the insignia of the order—a mag- 
nificent collar and star of jewels. 

Her Imperial Majesty expired, after a 
short illness, at St. Petersburgh, on the 5th 
of November. The terms in which this 
évent is officially announced in the St. Pe- 
tersburgh Gazette, strongly indicate the 
warm and kind feelings with which she was 
regarded by all ranks. 


MR. BEWICK. 

Mr. Thomas Bewick, the _celebrated 
wood-engraver, was born at Newcastle- 
upon-Tyne, about the year 1754. He was 
a pupil of Mr. Beilby’s, a gentleman who 
was employed -by Dr. Hutton in engraving 
some plates for his Mensuration, his Theory 
of Bridges, and his Diarian Miscellany. 
Under Mr. Beilby’s auspices, Mr. Bewick 
proved himself to be the best wood-cutter 
of his time. He is universally allowed to 
have carried the art to a greater height of 
excellence than it had ever before attained 
in this country. In partnership with Mr. 
Beilby, he, in 1793, published a General 
History of British Quadrupeds, the figures 
of which, on wood, were executed with un- 
precedented neatness, precision, and truth. 
In 1797, he published, in twé yolumes, a 
History of British Birds, similarly illus- 
trated; and, just before his death, he was 
employed upon a work of the same charac- 
ter, relating to Fishes. Amongst many 
other valuable performances, Mr. Bewick 
prepared the wood-cuts for a system of eco- 
nomical and useful Botany, to include 450 _ 
plants, the text of which was furnished by 
Dr. Thornton. 

Mr. Bewick was a man_apparently of a 
strong and durable frame ; but he had been 
many years subject to attacks of the gout, 
a spasm of which is thought to haye caused 
his death on the 8th of November. 


PROFESSOR BONTERWEK. 

Francis Bonterwek, a distinguished Pro- 
fessor of the University of Gottingen, was 
born at Goslar, in Germany, in the year 
1766. He was at once a poet, a philoso- 
pher, and a philologist. In the course of 
his life, he produced nearly thirty literary 
works, filled several public offices in his 
native country, and was indefatigable in 
promulgating and commenting upon, the 
doctrines of Kant. He acquired, by his 
General History of Poetry and Eloquence, 
since the End of the Thirteenth Century— 
a stupendous work relating to French, Ita- 
lian, Spanish, Portuguese, English, and 
German literature—the reputation of one of 
the most eminent writers on the Continent. - 


1829.] 


Amongst his other works are—Menneus, or 
Thebes saved; a Tragedy ;—Count Dona- 
mar, a Metaphysical Romance ;—Poems, 
&e. ; 
Professor Bonterwek died, greatly. la- 
mented, about the month of September or 
October last. 
JAMES WEBSTER, ESQ. 

James Webster, of the Inner Temple, 
fifth son of the late Rev. John Webster, of 
Inverary, in the county of Forfar, and bro- 
ther of George Webster, Esq., of the firm 
of Moncrieff and Webster, of Palace Yard, 
Westminster, was born in the year 1802. 
His education was completed at the Uni- 
versity of St. Andrews, where his merits 
and acquirements obtained for him distin- 
guished notice. His imagination was vivid, 
his reason strong, and his deyotion to study 
indefatigable. He laboured with equal 
success in the respective departments of lite- 
rature, as in those of the exact sciences. 
His amiable manners, his unimpeachable 
moral character, the chivalrous warmth of 
his heart, had, even in early youth, secured 
for him a place in the affection of all his 
friends. 

Intended for the English bar, Mr. Web- 
ster entered himself of the Inner Temple ; 
but, previously to his commencing the ar- 
duous duties of his profession, he resolved 
to devote a few years to the improvement of 
his mind, and the acquisition of a know- 
ledge of the world, by visiting the principal 
countries of Europe. For that purpose he 
left England more than three years since. 
Subsequently, his views and objects were 
enlarged ; he traversed the Crimea, and, 
after visiting Constantinople, he proceeded 
to Egypt—ascended the Nile to the confines 
of Nubia—examined the ruins of Thebes, 
&c.—returned to Grand Cairo—and, in- 
tending afterwards to visit Jerusalem, made 
an excursion, in company with his friend 
and fellow-traveller, Mr. F. Newnham, to 
Mount Sinai. From that excursion, his 
friend endeayoured to dissuade him, as he 
had for some time been subject to feverish 
attacks, and a determination of blood to the 
head. To Mr. Newnham’s remonstrances, 
he answered :—“ To you, perhaps, it may 
not be so interesting as to me; but if I 
could stand on the top of Sinai—on the spot 
where the. Commandments were given, 
which are, as it were, the fountain of all 
law—it would be a day which I should re- 
Member with satisfaction all my life. Will 
you wait for me here ? Iam almost inclined 
to go alone.’”’ Mr. Newnham, however, 
accompanied him. Mr. Webster accom- 
plished his object, but experienced much 
indisposition in the course of his journey ; 
and, after his return to Cairo, his debili- 
tated frame sinking beneath a renewal of 
fever, he died on the Ist of August. He was 
interred at Old Cairo, in the Greek burial 
ground. An accacia tree overshadows his 
graye, over which is to be erected a plain 


Biographical Memoirs of Eminent Persons. 


- very scanty. 


325 


monument, with a marble tablet, recording 
his name, age, and death. The funeral ser- 
vice was performed by the Rev. William 
Cruser, a clergyman stationed at Cairo, by 
the Missionary Society. 


LIEUTENANT-COLONEL DENHAM. 

Our information respecting this lamented 
individual, the late—and we hope it may 
prove the last—Governor of Sierra Leone, is 
Lieutenant Colonel Dixon 
Denham, the associate of Captain Clapper- 
ton (whose melancholy fate it was lately 
our duty to record*) in his memorable ex- 
pedition for penetrating the interior of 
Africa, was a native of London, where he 
was born in 17853; consequently, he was 
only in his 43d year... After much and 
varied military service, he was appointed to 
the office of Commissioner of Inquiry into 
the state of the settlement of Sierra Leone ; 
and, upon the death of Sir Niel Campbell, 
a short time since, he succeeded that officer 
in the government. This. appointment 
gave great satisfaction to all ranks of per- 
sons; and the most sanguine hopes were 
entertained, that a new era was about to 
commence in the colony. Amongst other 
sound and judicious regulations, he teok 
measures for inviting the native chiefs to 
come down to the seat of government to trade 
—to promote the interchange of good offices 
between them and the people—and for the 
establishment of savings’ banks amongst the 
poorer classes of the inhabitants. The ex- 
cellence of Colonel Denham’s constitution 
had enabled him to encounter, and to tri- 
umph over, all the rigours of a life in 
Africa; even the pestilential climate of 
Sierra Leone—that insatiable grave of Eu- 
ropeans, the very existence of which, as a 
settlement, is a disgrace to the British 
government—did not seem to affect him ; 
and, down to the 29th of May, his letters 
to his friends in England show him to have 
been in high health and excellent spirits : 
they were full of sanguine promise respect- 
ing his plans for ‘the prosperity of the 
colony, and the advancement of the salu- 
tary and benevolent objects that he had in 
view. Alas, how sudden was the reverse ! 
a very short illness terminated his valuable 
existence at the government house, early in 
June. His death is thus affectingly re- 
corded in a letter from Sierra Leone of the 
10th of month :—“ Exactly four weeks ago, 
this day, I had the honour of being pre- 
sented to him on his assuming the com- 
mand of Sierra Leone. His levee was most 
numerously attended by all the military and 
civil officers of this station—by its magis- 
trates and merchants. This gallant officer 
and celebrated traveller was surrounded by 
his staff and friends—all eyes were turned 
upon him with looks of admiration and re- 
gard; he had escaped the dangers of battle 
and travel—the field of Waterloo and the 


* Vide page 324. 


326 


deserts of Africa. He returned here to 
rest after his many perils and enterprizes— 
he now rests in his silent grave. This day 
the same hands bore the pall of his coffin 
which a little month ago grasped his in 
congratulation and joy. In the freshness 
of his fame, and in the vigour of his man- 
hood, even he succumbs to the destiny 
which awaits all who have the temerity to 
intrude upon this awful spot, where death 
sits high enthroned. He was interred with 
all the military honours of a soldier, and 
with the still more precious honours of tears 
and of sorrow poured over his grave.” 


: DR. O'CONNOR. 

The Rev. Charles O’Connor, D.D., was 
a Roman Catholic clergyman, librarian to 
his Grace the Duke of Buckingham, at 
Stow, and confessor to the late Marchioness. 
He had acquired considerable eminence in 
the literary world. By the violent mem- 
bers of the Romish faith, he had the mis- 
fortune to be reproached as an apostate; but, 
in truth, he appears to have been a mode- 
rate and sensible man. He declared against 
papal influence, and the lofty pretensions of 
the Irish prelates ; and he contended that 
a veto ought to be allowed to the govern- 
ment, in return for any concessions which 
it might make. 

Dr. O’Connor was the author of Colum- 
banus’s Letters, with an Historical Address 
on the Calamities occasioned by Foreign 
Influence in the Nomination of Bishops to 
Trish Sees, in two volumes 8yo., published 
in the years 1810-13; and, in 1812, of a 
Narrative of the most Interesting Events in 
Modern Irish History, in one volume. Some 
years since, he announced for publication a 
work to be entitled Rerum Hibernicorum 
Scriptores Veteres, which was to comprise, in 
four 4to volumes, the Irish annals, and a 
variety of documents connected with them ; 
but+ the volumes have never appeared, 
though they are understood to be in the 
library of the Duke of Buckingham. 

Dr. O’Connor died on the 29th of July, 
at Belinagar, the seat of his brother, Mr. 
O’Connor Don. 

GENERAL Mack. 

General Mack, the scion of a poor family, 
was born in Franconia, in the year 1752. 
Having received an excellent education, he 
entered the army asa soldiey. During the 
war with the Turks, he was placed upon the 
staff, and obtained a captaincy from Mar- 
shal Lascy. Laudhon, the successor of 
Lascy, disliked, and grossly insulted Cap- 
tain Mack, as acreature of Lascy’s. Mack 
replied, ‘‘ Sir, I have ‘the honour to tell 
you, that here I serve neither M. de Lascy,, 
nor you, but the emperor, to whom my life 
is deyoted.”” Two days after this unplea- 
sant rencontre, Laudohn having hesitated to 
attack Lissa, under the idea that it was 
defended by a garrison of 30,000 Turks, 
Mack swam across the Danube, in the 
night, accompanied by a single hulan, pene- 


Biographical Memoirs of Eminent Persons. 


[ Marcu, 


trated into the suburb of Lissa, between 
twenty and thirty miles from his own camp, 
seized, and carried off a Turkish officer, 
and, early on the ensuing morning, in- 
formed his general, that the town was gar- 
risoned by only six thousand, instead of 
thirty thousand men. This bold action 
won the esteem of Laudohn, who made 
him his aid-de-camp, and on his death- 
bed recommended him to the emperor. 

In 1793, Mack, as quarter-master-gene- 
ral in the army of the Prince of Saxe 
Cobourg, directed the operations of the 
campaign. Early in 1794, he was sent to 
England te confer with ministers ; and on 
his return to the Netherlands, he drew up a 
plan for a general attack on the republican 
forces, which, however, proved unsuccessful. 
Not being: upon good terms with the Prince 
of Saxe Cobourg, he obtained his recall. In 
1797, he was employed in the army of the 
Rhine ; and, on the renewal of the war be- 
tween France and Naples, in 1798, he was 
appointed to the command of the Neapoli- 
tan army. Having sustained a succession 
of defeats, he was suspected of treachery, 
and, to avoid the fury of the Neapolitans, 
compelled to throw himself upon the mercy 
of the French. Treated as a prisoner of 
war, he remained in captivity till 1800, 
when he effected his escape. In 1804, he 
was appointed to the command of the 
Austrian forces in the Tyrol, Dalmatia, and 
Italy. He then drew up a scheme, exeeuted 
by the Arch-Duke Charles, for organizing 
the troops. In 1805, he commanded the 
Austrian army in Bavaria. Whether he 
were bribed, or out-manceuvred by Bona- 
parte, was a point much contested at the 
time. Certain itis, that he was shut up in 
the fortress of Ulm, upon the Danube, 
where, though forty-thousand men were 
under his orders, he surrendered his troops 
as prisoners of war without an effort for 
their relief. 

On his return to Austria, General Mack 
was arrested, and sent to the citadel of 
Brunn, in Moravia, whence he was trans- 
ferred to the fortress of Josephstadt, in 
Bohemia. He was tried by a military com- 
mission, and condemned to death; but the 
emperor was pleased to mitigate the sen- 
tence, and his actual punishment was the 
loss of rank, and two years’ imprisonment. 
Candour and probability now favour the 
idea, that his judgment, rather than his 
loyalty and honour, had failed him. EH by 
no means followed that, because he had 
been an able tactician, and had distinguish- 
ed himself in various minor commands, that 
his talents—his mind—should be such as to 
qualify him for a first-rate station. How- 
ever, he published a memoir in justification 
of his conduct. 

Subsequently to his release, General Mack 
lived in retirement, on a small estate in 
Bohemia, and, we believe, with a pension 
from the Austrian court. More recently, 
his residence was at Vienna, where he died, 

on the twenty-second of October last. 


1829.] [ 327°] 


MONTHLY AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 


REPORTING since the commencement of last autumn, on the weather, the condition of the 
lands, the forwardness of every agricultural process, the prosperous state of the crops, and 
the well-doing of every kind oflive stock, has proved to us a very satisfactory and pleasing 
task. It would be even difficult to conceive a state of greater prosperity and of promise. 
We cannot, however, say so much in favour of the accounts that we are constantly receiving 
from our farming friends, which are of the most gloomy, desponding, and even reproachful 
nature ; nor are we well able to reconcile or digest the discrepancies ; for how would it 
be possible for a tenantry in re, and actually ruined, beggared, and pauperized, as so many 
of them declare themselves to be, to find the ability to cultivate their farms in the superior 
state wherein they are found, sow such vast breadths of corn and agricultural productions of 
all kinds, and feed such immense numbers of live stock, in the depressed circumstances 
under which they are said to groan ? 


The late frost atoned for the shortness of its duration, by its remarkably intense severity ; 
and the lands, on its commencement, being generally in a dry and favourable state, it had 
a very speedy and salubrious effect ; and although its dissolution was succeeded by a 
renewal of hard weather, an alternation generally dangerous to the crops on the ground, 
yet the second frost lasting but a short time, no visible ill effects, to any extent, have 
ensued. The wheats were checked in their ultra-exuberance, as also was the foliage 
and stem of the turnips; and the former at present, having taken a fresh start since the 
frost, wear perhaps as promising an appearance as any man can recollect to have witnessed. 
In course, we speak of the aggregate, for upon poor, low, and wet lands, where the slug had 
been most active, the wheats appear thin, weak, and not, thus far, of a healthy com- 
plexion ; but a warm and moderately dry spring may do much for such lands. 


Never was there a more rapid and effective destruction of the slugs and vermin than 
appears in those parts of our country which we have lately gone over, and a similar good 
report seems universal. This speedy destruction, it may be apprehended, was the result 
of the suddenness and intensity of the frost, and the want of a deep cover of snow. 
An infinity, too, of the mischief workers of the feathered race, are said to have 
perished from the same cause. Few of the common turnips escaped some damage, and 
most of them upon improper soils were completely rotted, and unfit for sheep; espe- 
cially as so many flocks must yet be regarded as only in a state of convalescence. No 
season, however, can be better calculated to encounter a loss of this kind than the present. 
The Swedes have not been much, or at all affected; and the few Scotch (Aberdeen) 
turnips, some very excellent seed of which several of our friends purchased last year of 
Messrs. Gibbs, have stood the frost nearly or equally well as the Rutabaga. A friend of 
ours, against sound advice, left two acres of mangel abroad, when it was totally 

‘destroyed by the frost, for any other purpose than that of manure. The young clovers 
are in a flourishing state, and we may hope for a better crop than the late, both 
of clover and sanfoin seed, inthe present year. The frost is said to have had the further 
happy effect of checking, and, we trust, in this fine season, of putting an end to an ende- 
mie febrile disease, which has prevailed in certain low and damp situations, since the in- 
cessant rains and floods of the last summer. 


The clays have been in a most favourable degree freable, and the lands in general have 
worked admirably well ; a dry March will put a good spoke in the wheel of prosperity to 
the crops of the season. Farmers in forward districts have nearly got through with their 
bean and oat sowing ; and under a continuance of the present favourable weather, the 
present will be an early seed season, always the harbinger of good expectation. On 
Wool there is nothing novel, far less favourable, to advance. Complaints still prevail 
against the excessive price of store stock, and asseverations are continued of the losses, or, 
in other words, the no profit of the graziers and feeders. Yet fat stock and meat certainly 
make high prices ; at least, the consumers deem them such. Mutton must continue dear, 
from the late prevalence of rot in the low lands; but we have good hope of a repair 
for our losses, in the present successful lambing season ; in which, perhaps, as few ewes 
have warped (slunk their lambs) as has been remembered. In Lincolnshire, and the 
fen districts, the Pigs have been almost as unhealthy as the Sheep; and from the same 
cause, superabundant moisture, numbers have died, and still greater numbers have been 
killed in a state of unsoundness. This disease, in swine, has not been hitherto generally 
understood ; but we have long since known it, to our cost, having lost great numbers, 
even from damp lodging, the disease usually commencing from the symptom called the 
“ heavings.”” The inflammation was so great in some of them, that their skins, after 
death, were red as morocco leather. Of Horses there is nothing new to report; the 
dearest season for them is immediately at hand. 


cm 
328 Monthly Agricultural Report. [ Marcu, 


A considerable decline in the price of Wheat has taken place at the Corn Exchange, 
though the home supply has been on a very narrow scale throughout, and the quantity of 
the last crop is now estimated lower than before. But the foreign supply has been much 
more plentiful than was expected, and it is now ascertained, will continue sufficiently 
ample, both from the north, the Mediterranean, and, in all probability, from America. 
Barley is much lower, even the best samples ; the maltsters haying been, for some time, 
large purchasers, and the malting season being far advanced. There can be now no ex- 
pectation of much advance in the price of wheat; but there may well be of its further 
decline, for various reasons. It may be presumed that, the large cultivators of our best 
lands have held their wheats on the speculation of great spring demands. Those 
wheats must come to market, and they are in considerable quantities, and the best of 
the year. A promising crop on the ground will have its effect. 


We have already remarked on the extremely gloomy tone of the letters received from 
various parts of the country, and several such are now open before us. They assert, in a 
mood of irritation and despair, that their tradesmen’s bills and taxes are in arrear, and 
that they have not wherewith to pay, their funds, in produce and cattle, being nearly, or 
entirely exhausted; that tithes are exorbitant, and that the money squandered in building 
new churches ought to have been applied to the support of their pauper labourers ; and 
that the diatress and criminal conduct of these last are entirely owing to the intolerable 
weight of taxation. They deprecate violently the importation of untaxed and untithed 
wheat, and even of wheat and provisions from Ireland, and of Irish labourers ; complain 
bitterly of the export of our currency, yet acknowledge the necessity of our poor haying 
bread at a moderate price. 


Letters also, of a directly opposite tendency, are in,our hands from the best corn countries. 
With respect to the farmers of poor lands in these days, we can sensibly feel for 
them, having ourselves farmed poor land, in much better times, with sometimes at a 
little, and at others with no profit. But this account, in the gross, cannot be balanced 
without serious and various considerations. If rents be too high, the tenantry cannot 
in reason expect to be excused their share of the blame, since it is well known the com- 
petition for farms is at present as eager as in the most prosperous times, and even 
among those already holders of land, and with respect to the weight of taxation, the 
interest of the national debt must be paid ; and also, it seems, other heavy public charges, 
which have notso fair aclaim. Now, it is a material question, what particular class or 
description of the people was it who were most urgently instrumental in forwarding those 
measures, in pursuance of which our enormous and unpayable debt originated? and 
who have since been most opposed to all attempts at investigation and reform ? Surely 
a shilling for a loaf of bread, and perhaps that is cheaper than the inferior bread, is full 
as much as our best paid labourers are able to afford. But, without an ample import of 
wheat and flour, what might have been the advance? As we neither grow wheat, nor 
various other provisions sufficient for the national supply, can there be aught of common 
sense or justice in this everlasting declamation against import? Of this also Ireland, a 
part of ourselves, has its share; but we are not aware of what could be done in this 
country, independently of Irish provisions and Irish labour. 


Smithfield.— Beef, 3s. 6d. to 4s. 10d.—Mutton, 4s. 4d.to 5s. 10d.—Veal, 4s. 6d.— 
Pork, 4s. 0d. to 5s. 8d. to 6s.—Raw fat, 2s. 7d. 


Corn Eachange.—Wheat, 60s. to 75s.—Barley, 20s. to 34s.—Oats, 18s. to 32s. 
—Bread, London 4b. fine loaf, 1s.—Hay, 45s.—Clover, ditto, 50s. to 105s,— 
Straw, 30s. to 38s. 


Coals in the Pool, 26s. 7d. to 35s. 3d, per chaldron. 
Middlesex, February 23d. 


Corrigenda in the last Report.— For “ Flaminica” read “ U. §. America.”—For “are 
yet” read “ yield.” 


1829.] E329 J 


MONTHLY COMMERCIAL REPORT. 

Sucar.—The request for Muscavadoes was not so general and extensive last week, as 
during the preceding weeks ; yet the actual purchase reached 2,500 hogsheads and tierces. 
There was a heaviness about the soft and low brown descriptions, and in some instances 
prices a shade lower were submitted to. All sugars 58s. and upwards, fully supported the 
previous currency ; they are still scarce. In the refined market there were no supplies of 
goods to any extent; the purchase of lumps were limited, but they were so scarce that a 
further advance of of Is. per cwt. must be stated.__Molasses were 6d. higher. 

Corrrr.—The Coffee market continued languid till Friday, when 1,388 bags Cheri- 
bon, and 140 bags Brazil, were brought forward at public sale ; nearly the whole went off 
with briskness, at prices 1s. higher than what had been obtained early in the week. 

The few parcels of British plantation Coffee sold last week, went off at very full prices ; 
Jamaica fine old, 52s. to 54s; good old coloured, but very rank, 43s. and 44s. 

Rum, Branpy, anp HoLtitanps.—The rum market continues heavy, the few sales 
reported are small parcels for shipping, at prices equal to 2s. 3s. and 2s. 4d. for proofs.— 
Brandy is neglected, but the prices are not lower.—Geneva is without inquiry. 

Hemp, Frax, and Tattow.—The demand for Tallow early in last week, rather 
improved, and the prices were firm ; but the market is again rather heavy.— In Flax and 
Hemp there is little variation;—the letters from St. Petersburgh, dated 30th January, 
state large sales of Tallow exchange a shade under 11d. 


Course of Foreign Exchange.—Awsterdam, 12. 1}.—Rotterdam, 12. 2._Antwerp, 
12. 2._Hamburgh 13. 124. — Paris, 25. 40.—Bordeaux, 25. 90.—Berlin, 0.—Frank- 
fort-on-the-Main 151.— Petersburgh, 10.—Vienna, 10. 2.—Madrid, 373.—Cadiz, 373. 
—Bilboa, 37}.—Barcelona, 363.—Seville, 37._Gibraltar, 494.—_Leghorn, 48.—Genoa, 
25. 45.—Venice, 473.—Malta, 47._Naples, 39}.—Palermo, 1. 19.—Lisbon, 453.— 
Oporto, 463.—Rio Janeiro, 28.—Bahia, 34.—Buenos Ayres, 0.—Dublin 14.—Cork, 
13.—Canton, 0. ; 


Bullion per Oz.—Portugal Gold in Coin, £0. 0s. 0d.—Foreign Gold in Bars, 
£3. 17s. 103d.—New Doubloons, £0. 0s. —~ New Dollars, 4s. 92d. — Silver in Bars, 
(standard), £0. 5s. Od. 


Premiums on Shares and Canals, and Joint Stock Companies, at the Office of 
Worre, Brothers, 23, Change Alley, Cornhill.—Birmingham Cana, 295/.—Coven- 
try, 1,080/.—Ellesmere and Chester, 111/.—Grand Junction, 295/.—Kennet and Avon, 
273/.—Leeds and Liverpool, 4607.—Oxford, 700/.—Regent’s, 25/.—Trent and Mersey, 
(} sh. ), 7924/.— Warwick and Birmingham, 255/.—London Docxs (Stock), 884/.—West 
India (Stock), 195/.—East London Warrer Works, 115/.—Grand Junction, 50/.— 
West Middlesex, 674/.—Alliance British and Foreign InsuRANCE, 94/.—Globe, 15137.— 
Guardian, 234/.—Hope Life, 5}7.—Imperial Fire, 105/.G.as-Licur Westminster Char- 
tered Company, 514/.—City, 185/.—British, 17 dis.—Leeds, 195/. 


4 


ALPHABETICAL LIST OF BANKRUPTCIES, 


Announced from the 22d of January, to the 2\st of February 1829 ; extracted from 
the London Gazette. 


merchant. (Evitt and Co., Hay- Berridge, J. George-yard, Whit- 


BANKRUPTCIES SUPER- 
SEDED. 


‘W. Harker, Cropton, York, grocer 

J. and T. R, Oakes, Carnarvon, 
grocers 

C. Cunningham, 
Money-scrivener 

R. T. Cotton, Worthing, and Great 
St. Helens, surveyor, 

W. Fulvood, Birmingham, victualler 

J+ Wright, Ashton-under-Lyne, cot- 
ton manufacturer, 


BANKRUPTCIES. 
This Month, 159.] 


Solicitors’ Names are in 
Parenthesis. 
Atkin, J. Greenwich, draper. (Hurd 


and Co., Temple; Hadfield and 
Co., Manchester 


Appleby, J. R. Bath, soap-maker, 
—_» Furnival’s-inn; Gaby, 


Appleton, J. Mansel-street, spirit. 


Bryanstone street, 


M.M. New Series.—Vou. VII. No. 39. 


don-square 

Allen, T. Mile End-road, tailor. 
(Chitton and Sony Chancery-lane 5 
Eagles, Beaford 

Allen, J. E. Aldersgate-street, drug- 
gist. (Lane and Son, Lawrence 
Pountney-lane 

Archer, R. jun, Upper East Smith- 
field, corn dealer. (Sarson, Bridge- 
Street, Southwark 

Armitage, John and Joseph, and 
Isaac, Emley Park, York, fancy- 
manufacturer, (Clarke and Co., 
Lincoln’s Inn; Whitehead and Co., 
Huddersfield 

Brock, J. St. James’s-street, silk- 
mercer and hosier. (Stokes and 
Co., Cateaion-street 

Blincow, N. Holborn-bridge, grocer 
and tea-dealer, (King, Castle-street, 
Holborn 

Briggs, 8. Grantham, tailor and dra- 
per. (Young, Great Tichfield- 
Street; White, Grantham 


2U 


combe-street, stable-keeper. (Clut- 
ton and Co., High-street, South- 
wark 

Barehead, J. New Malton, corn and 
coal merchant, (Wilson, South- 
ampton-street 5 Allen, Malton 

Burleigh, R. B. Bishopsgate-street, 
wine-merchant, (Parton, Bow 
Church-yard 

Boulton, T. Painter's-court, 
street, tailor. 
buildings, Soho 

Balch, J+ Evercreech, Somerset, 
baker. (Burfoot, Temple; Russ, 
Castle-Carey 

Baxter, W, Oxford, printer. (Holmes 
and Co., Great Jamesestreet 5 
Taunton, Oxford 

Buckland, J. W. Great Tower-street, 
tailor. (Young and Co., Mark-lane 

Brown, N. Bristol, druggist. (vans 
and Co., Gray’s-inn; Peters and 
Haberfield, Bristol 

Brown, P.Blandford-Forun), yictualler, 


Bury- 
(Wood, Richmond- 


330 


(Chisholme and Co.» Lincoln’s-inn- 
fields 5 Moore, Blandford-Forum 
Bannister, J- Knightsbridge, picture= 

dealer. (Popkin, Dean-street 
Burton, B- Huddersfield, woollen- 


draper. {wiglesworth and COs, 
Gray’s-ind 3 Sutcliffe, Hebdon- 
bridge 

Bishop, J. Sheffield, miller. (Taylor, 


John-streety Bedford-row 5 Badger, 


Rotherham . 4 
Borkwood, T- Norwich, brewer. 
(Clarke and Co, Lincoln’s-innr 


fields 3 Dyes Norwich 

Bennison, H- New-road, and High 
Holborn, iron-fence maker. (Rhodes, 
Chancery-lane 

Braddock, S. Leek, innholder. (Jen- 
nings and CO-, Temple 5 Crusd, 


Leek 

Banks R. and A- Richardson, Boston, 
shipwrights. (Taylors Ciement’s- 
inn 3 Tuxford, Boston 

Bennet, J. and R- Cerne-Abbas, Dor- 
set, grocers, jronmongérss and but- 
ter-factors. ~(WetTYs New-inn 5 
Cockeram, jUn-» Cerne-Abbas 

Carey, W- Leamington Priors, and 
Stourport, periumers victualler, and 
hair dresser. (worthem and Co., 
Castle-streety Holborn 3 Kitchen, 
Barford ‘ 

Cardinal, J. Halsted, currier. (Hewitt, 
Token-house-yard 

Cock, E. Eastche2ps stationer. (Strat- 
ton and CO+9 Shoreditch 

Cowper, S- High-street, Wappiney 
victualler- (Matanie, Pancras-lane 

Cooper, J+ Lancing, erecer- (Vaughy 
Great James-street 5 Edmunds, 
Worthing 

Caspar, E. Bevis-Marksy watch-ma- 
nufacturer, (SPYETs Austin-Friars 

Cass, Janes Kennington-lane, school- 
mi-tress. (Walker, Austin-friars 

Clapham, C- Wakefield, wine-mer- 
chant. (Leigh, George-street, Man- 
sion-house 

Cockerell, J. Blackman-street, pawn 
broker. (Eaton, New-inn 

Cartwright, T- and W. Langston, 
Wolverhampton, factors. (Norton 
and Co., Gray’s-inn 5 Corser, Wol- 
verhampton 

Crane, J. Warringtons burcher. (Ham- 
mond, Furniyal’s-inn 5 Croxony Os- 
westry 

cCandlin, J. J- Fenchurch-street, mer- 
chant. (Parrys Gray’s-inn 

Clarke, P. Manchesters erocer. (Ad- 
lington and C04 Bedford-row 

hisman, T- Castle-court, Birchin- 
jane, jnsurance -broker. (Hindman 
and Co., Basinghall-street 

Cock, A. and M. J. Wellard, Shad- 
well, sugat-refiners. (Stratton and 
Co. Shoreditch 

Copley, J- \urton-upon-Trent, Ca- 
binet-maker. (Turnley, White 
Hart-court 

Chapman, w. and T+ Fairclough, 
Harrington and Liverpool, timber- 
merchants. (Bl ckstock and Co. 
Temple 5 Ramsbottom, and Co. 
Liverpool 

Clarke, S. and Isaac, 
street, bricklayers+ 
church-strect 

Dunn, B. Pimlico, appraiser. (Eaton, 
New-ion 

Drew, T. Exeter, linen-draper, and 
silkemercer. (Burt, Mitre-Court, 
Cheapside 

Everiste, J. and Smithy R- Kent-road, 


Fenchurch- 
(Laing, Fen- 


coal-merchants. (Wright, Little 
Ayhie-strees ; 
Edwards, T- Liverpcol, victualler. 


(Ellis and Cov, Chancery-lane 5 


Holden, Liverpool 


Fiack, J. Chatham, builder. (Robin- 
son, Pancras-lane 
Farr, G. Exeter, silversmith. (Brit- 


ton and Co, New Broad-strect 5 
Hugo, Exeter 

Ferret, M. Bristol, victualler. (Ha- 
milton and Cory Berwick-street 5 
Clarke, Bath 

Freitas, M. A. de, and A. de Costa 


Tokenhou:e, merchants. (Gates, 
Lombard stree! 
Grifin, J. Palsgrave-placey wine- 


merchant, (Davies, Palsgrave-place 


Bankrupts. 


Greenwood, Jane Eliza, Bath, mil- 
lincr, (Williams and Co., Lin- 
coln’s-inn-fields ; Mackey Bath 

Goatley, D. Nun-court, Alderman= 
bury, ironmonger and bill-broker- 
(Hyde, Ely-place 

Getting, J. Lime-street, wine-mer- 
chant. (Miller, Ely-place 

Garbutt, T. Manchester, linen-manu- 
facturer. (Hurd and CO. Temple 5 
Buckley, Manchester 

Glover, E. june, Leicester, Silver- 
smith, (Toller, Gray’s-inn ; Toller, 
Leicester ‘ 

Greenwoo!, J. Marsden, calico-ma- 
nufacturer. (Ellis and Co., Chan- 
cery-lane 5 Hadfield and Co-, Man- 
chester 

Green, W. Shefheld, grocer. (Dun- 
can, Gray’s-inn 3 Broomhead, Shef- 
field 

Horden, J, and J- Wood, and J. 
Crosse, Lad-lane, warehouseman. 
(Mangnall, Aldermanbury 

Hedgson, J- Staindrop, draper a: d 
grocer. (Griffith, Gray’s-inn 5 Trot- 
ter, Bishops- Auckland 

Hall, W. Ollerton, grocer. (Hurd and 
Co., Temple 5 Greasley, Notting- 
ham 

Hart, F. T- Charlotte-street, Black- 
friars-road, tailor. (Stafford, Buck- 
ingham-street 

Herapath, S- Oat-lane, Wood-street, 
hat-manufacturer. (Hemman, Wal- 
brook 

Hopper, S. Luston, Hereford, mason. 
(Smith, Basinghall-street 5 Coates 
and Co., Leominster 

Hanks, H. Great Surrey-street, shoe= 
maker, (Russell and Son, Lant- 
street, Southwark 

Hare, W. ‘Marchmont-street, draper+ 
( Ashurst. Neweate-street 

Hibbert. J. Little Bolton, shop-keepere 
(Adlington and Coy Bedford-row 5 
Cross and Co., Bolton-le-moor 

Higginbotham, J- Macclesfield, silk- 
manutacturer. (Bell and Co-y Bow 
Church-yard 5 Grimsditch and Co, 
Macclesfield 

Hill, J. juny stoke Lacy, dealer. 
(Auxten and C0., Gray’s-inn 5 
Milnes, Leominster 

Hale, J- Bromley, Midclesex, meal- 
man. (Young ond Co. Mark-lane 

Heslop, G- fimlico, cheesemonger. 
(Dodds, Northumberland-street 

Hetton, T. Stockporty painter. (John 


and CO. Palsgrave-place 5 Booth- 
royd, Stockport 

Hurst, T- Louth, victualler. (Hicks 
and CO. Gray’s-inn 5 Anisony 
Louth 

Irwin, E. Gracechurch-street, vic- 
tualler. (Pelham, Paradise-street, 
Rotherhithe 


Inman, J- Tower-streety wine and 
spirit broker (Dillon, Furnival’s- 
inn 

Jones, J- and H. Grafton-street, 
brass-founders.  (Ullithorne and 
Cory Lincoln’s-inn- fie.ds 

Jones, J. and J- Fereday, Dudley, 
pig iron-maker. (Barber, Fetter- 
Jane 5 Fellowes, jun, Dudiey 

Joyce, Ce ‘Thaives-inn, jeweller. 
(Whitehuuse and Co., Gray’s-inn 

Jacques, J. and W. Wright, Newing- 
ton Butts, bookseJlers. (Dashwood, 
Southwark 

Jeffries, W- and W. Mz Spiringy 
Aylesford, and Newnham, smelterse 


(Kings Serjeant’s-inn 5 Chodborny 
Newnham 
Jones, J. Swansea, jinendraper. 


(Holme and Co.» New-inn; Bar- 
rington and Co., Swansea 
Jerard, J. Halesworth, chymist. (Ay- 


ton, Milman-street 5 Braine, Ips- 
wich 
Jones, F. junes Bristol, builder. 


(Evans and CO. Gray’s-inn3 Ha- 
berfield, Bristol 

King, M. D., and King Henre, Ful- 
con- treet. (Gates, Lombard-street 

Knowling, J. Exeter, builder. Ad- 
lington and Co. Bedford-row 5 Fur- 
long Northenhay, Exeter 

Kirby, M- of the Wood, Hawkshead, 
buccher. (Cavelje, Staple-inn; Ar- 
mistead, Lancaster 


[ Marcu, 


Lycett, P. E. Worcester, and Ger- 
rard’s Hall, Basing-lane, glove-ma~ 
nufacturer. (Hurd and Co. Inner 
Temple; Hadfield and Co., Man- 
chester 

Lawes, S. New Sarum, victualler. 
(Nettleford, Clement’s-inn; Wil- 
mot and Son, Salishury 

Lee, J. Derby, draper. (Knowles, 
New-inn 3 Hurst, Nottingham 

Lomax, W. Bolton, euctioneer. (Ad- 
lington and Co. Bedford-row 5 
Boardman, Eolton 

Langford, W. Manchester, machine- 
maker. (Adlington and Co., Bea- 
ford-row 3 Morris, Manchester d 

Leeds, T. Manchester, spinner. (Per- 
kins and Co., Grays-inn 3 Lewtas, 
Manchester 

Lodge, G- Tower-street, wine-mer- 
chant. (Hill, Cross-lane, Tower- 
street 4 

Mackenzie, J. Watling-street, warc- 
houseman. (Kemp, Lincoln’s-inn- 
fields 

Martin, M. and S. Barnard, Regent- 
street, paper stainer. (Pope, Gray’s- 
inn 

Meyer, J. Lawrence Pountney-lane, 
and Quebec, North America) mer- 
chant. (Borradaile and Co. King’s 
Arm’s-yard 

Mores, W- G. Old Bond-street, auc- 
tioneer, (Withy, Buckingham- 
street 

Mutrie, R. Manchestery chemist. 
(Chester, Staple inn 3 Tindall and 
Co., Manchester 

Milton, M. Piccadilly, horse-dealer. 
_(Archery Percy-street 

Nixey, T. Oxferd-streety hosier. 
(Hamilton and Co. Berwick-street 

Nicholson, T. Hertford, scrivener and 
paper manufacturer. (Templery 
Great Tower-street 

Nelson, A. Deptford, draper. (Ches- 
ter, Staple-inn; Lewtas, Manches- 
ter 

Oldfield, F. Norton-strcet, wine-mer- 
chant. (Spurr apd Co., Warnford- 
court 

Ogle, A. Ollerton, seedsmar. (Hall 
and Co., New Boswell-court 5 
Maw, Mansfield 

Pue, J. Harp-lane, and Lambeth, 
flour dealer. (Deverell, Gray’s-inn 

Pear, J. Coleman- street, horse-deaier. 
(Gates, Lombard-street 

Palin, G. F. Gosweil-street, rope 
manufacturer. (Willet and Co., 
Essex-street 

Pitman, C.F. Butcherhall-lane, sta- 
tioner, (Foudrineery Angel-court 

Price, J. and Unwin, Wiliam, High- 
bury, victuallers. (Shave, Fens 
church-street 

Primett, T. juny Beccles, butcher. 
(Bromley, Gray’s-inn; Bohun and 
Son, Beccles 

Parker, D. Chester, hop-merchant. 
(Austen and Co., Gray’s-inn 5 Ar- 
nold and Co,, Birmingham , 

Pearson, S- Birmingham, cabinet- 
maker. (Norton apd Cov, Gray’s- 
inn; Hawkins and Co.) Birming- 
ham 

Pace, W. Hastings, surgeon: (Miller, 
Bedford-row 5 Miller, Ry& 

Porter, J. and N. N. Clark, Framp- 
ton-upon-Severn, edge-tool-makers. 
(Britten, Basinghall-strect; Bevan 
and Co., Bristol 

Parsons, J. Leamington Priors, vic- 
tualler. (Meyrick and Co. Red 
Lion-square 5 Burbury, Warwick 

Powell, W- Cheltenham, coach- 
builder. (Clarke and Co., Lin- 
coln’s-inn-fielus 3 Walter and Cov, 
Cheltenham © 

Parkes, H- W- Pimlico, spirit-mer- 
chant, (Henson, Upper Stamford- 
street 

Powlett, D. Nottingham, 
(Gregory, Clement’s-inn 5 
and Co., Nottingham + 

Rose, A+ M. Stock Exchange, coal- 
merchant and broker. (Bebb and 
Ganning, Bloomsbury and Cor 

Rayner, W. Fartown. ‘coal-master and 
surveyor. (Walker, Exchequer Of- 
fice 5 Allison, Huddersfield 

Rob:on, Re Manchesters yictualler. 


grocers 


| 


4 
‘ 
; 
; 


1829.] 


(Adlington and Co., Bedford-row 5 
Temperley, Manchester 

Richmod, W. Stockion, mercer. (Per- 
kins and Co., Gray’s-inn3; Wilson 
and Co., Stockton 

Rowland, H. Chaworth, paper-manu- 
facturer. (Hutchinson ahd Co., 
Crown-court, Threadneedle-street 

Stabler, R. Leeds, chymist. (Ellis 
and Co., Chancery-lane 3 Hall and 
Co., Beverley, and Scotchburn, 
Driffield 

Stanfield, R.and J. G. Rigby, Ash- 
ton-under-Lyne, _cotton-spinners. 
(Ellis and Co. Chancery-lane ; 
Hampson, Manchester 

Spedding, B. J. and R. A. Lambeth, 
coal-merchants, (Thomas, Fen- 
court 

Sims,R. King-street,Snow-hill,leather- 


seller. (Richardson, ironmenger- 
lane 
Smalltone, J. Berner’s-street, auc- 


tioneer. (Popkin, Dean-street 

Stephenson, H. Lombard-street, ban- 
ker. (Barrow and Cu., Basinghall- 
street 

Sanders, J, Epsom, 
(Davison) Bread-street = 

Smith, T. Manchester, publican. 
(Capes, Gray’s-inn 5 Smith, Man- 
chester 

Shewring, L. Eristol, ironmonger. 
(Poole and Co,, Gray’s-inn 5; Cor- 
nish and Son, Bristol 


coach-matter. 


Bankrupts. 


Sawdon, R. Ashton-under-Lyne, and 
Manchester, innkeeper. (Adl-ngton 
and Co., Bedford-row; Chew, 
Manchester 

Smith, W. Leeds, corn-dealer. (Holme 
and Co,, New-inn 5 Moore, Leeds 

Seymour, R. Princess-street, Lis:on- 
grove, builder. (Carlon, High-street, 
Marylebone 

Smaliman, J. F.-Basinghall-street, 
Blackwell-hall, factor. (Fisher, 
Queen-street, Cheapside 

Salt, J. Stafford, grocer and ironmon- 
ger. (Clowes and Co-, Temple 5 
Webb, Stafford 

Shires, or Shiers, T. Sheffield, grocer. 
(Tattershall, Temple 5 Tattershall 
and Co., Sheffield 

Thompson, J. Great Quebec-street, 
Marylebone, merchant. (Noy) 
Cannon-street 

Toms, A. Highe-srreet, Shadwell, 
cheesemunger. (Burford, Cannon- 
street 

Tonge, J. Grappenhall, dealer and 
chapman. (Appleby and Co. Gray’s- 
inn; Whitehead and Co., Man- 
chester 

Turner, W. R. Great Dover Road, 
Surrey, carver and gilder. (Kear- 
sey and Co., Lothbury 

Thompsun, J. Fox Ordinary-court, 
tailor. (Whiting, London-bridge- 
foot 

Traynor, P. A, Salisbury-court, fea- 


331 


ther-merchant, (Burrard and Co.? 
King-street, Cheapside 

Turner, G. Bognor, 
(Becke, Devonshire-street 5 
Ecgnor 

Vaughan, J. Lamb’s Conduit-street, 
linendreper. (Turner, Basinghall- 
street 

Webb, R. Ledbury, coal-merchant. 
Clarke and Co., Lincoln’s-inn - 
fields 3 Higgins, Ledbury 

Wilkinson, J. Barge-yard, Bucklers- 
bury, merchan™. (Nicol, Queen- 
Street, Cheapside 

Wade, J. Wood-street, warehouse 
man, (Burt, Mitre-court, Milk- 
street 

Whitehead, J. Leeds, victualler. 
(Makinson and Co., Temple; Fo- 
den, Leeds 

Wilcock, J. Nottingham, 
(Hurd and Co., Temple5 
head and Co,, Nottingham 

White, G. H. Ipswich, linendraper. 
(Jones, Size-lane 

Wood, J. Horncast'e, tailor. Norris 
and Co., John-.treet, Bedtord-row 5 
Parker, Horncastls 

Young, W. Lambeth, currier. (Sun- 
dom, Donster-court 

Young, J. Shepherd’s-place, Brook- 
street, plumber and glazier. (Har- 
risy Bruton-stre t 

Young, Ann, Rochester, corn-factor. 
(Collins, Great Knight, Rider-street. 


innkeeper. 
Dally, 


rocer. 
Fearn- 


ECCLESIASTICAL PREFERMENTS. 


__— 


Rey. W. Nicholson, to the Rectory of Bram- 
shot, Hants.—Rey. W. Church,to be Chaplain to 
Dowager Countess of Erne.—Rev. W. R. Taylor, 
to the Perpetual Curacy of West Beckham, Nor- 
folk.—Rey. W. H. R. Birch, to the Vicarage of 
Reydon, and Perpetual Curacy of Southwold, 
Suffolk.—Rev. C. Crayen, to be Lecturer of St. 
Philips, Birmingham.—Rev. J. Graham has been 
installed into the prebend of Sancta Crucis, in 
Lincoln cathedral.—Rey. R. T. Singleton, to be a 
Prebendary of Worcester cathedral.—Rey. W. 
Harding, to the Chapelry of Bubbenhall, near 
Coyentry.—Rey. R. Messiter, to the Rectory of 
Purse Caundle, and to the Perpetual Curacy of 
Stourton Caundle.—Rey. C. Webber, jun., is 
elected Canon-residentiary of Chichester—Rey. 
J.Crane, to be Chaplain to Lord Lyttleton.— 
Rey. C. Nairne, to the Curacy of Carrington, 
Cheshire.—Rey. R. Bloxam, to be Chaplain to 
the naval yard, Milford Haveu.—Rey. T. Robin- 
son, sen., to be Archdeacon of Madras.—Rey. D. 
G. Morris, to the Rectory of Belaugh, with Scot- 
tow annexed, Norfolk.—Rey. J. Prowett, to the 
Rectory of Helgham, next Norwich.—Rey. A. 
Clive, to the Rectory of Solihall, Warwickshire, 
—Rey.R. Messiter, to the Rectory of Bratton.— 


Rey. J. H. Seymour to the vacant stall in Glou- 
cester cathedral.—Rey. J. K. Whish, to the Per- 
petual Curacy of Christ Chureh at the Spa, near 
Gloucester,—Rey. J. Lubbock, to be Chaplain to 
the County Lunatie Asylum, Norwich.—Rey.F. 
Rouch, to the Livings of St. George the Martyr, 
and St. Mary Magdalen, Bristol—Rey. E. P. 
New, to the Perpetual Curacy of Northmore, 
Oxon.—Rer. J. W. Hughes, to be Chaplain to 
Lord Colville,—Rey. G. P. Richards, to the Rec- 
tory of Sampford Courtenay, Devon.—Rev. T. 
Jones, to the Rectory of Creaton, Northampton. 
—Rey. M. Wridick, to be Curate of Milbrook.— 
Rey. J. Bond, to the Rectory of Romansleigh, 
Devon.—Rey. T. Moseley, will succeed the Rev. 
C. Curtis, as Rector of St. Martin’s, Birming- 
ham. (Worcester Journal).—Rey. J. M. Tur- 
ner, nominated to the See of Calcutta.—Rev. J. 
B. Frowd, to the Rectory of Letcombe Basset, 
Berks.—Rev. W. Mousley, to the vicarage of 
Cold Ashby, Northampton.—Rey. J. James, to 
the Canonry of Peterborough.—Rey. R. Foot, to 
the Rectory of Longbrady, Dorset.—Rev. J. 
Davies, to the Vicarage of Windrush and Sher- 
borne, Gloucester. 


CHRONOLOGY, MARRIAGES, AND DEATHS, ETC. 


CHRONOLOGY. 

January 27.—His Excellency Count de Matus- 
cewiez, Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister 
Plenipotentiary from the Emperor of all the Rus- 
sias, arrived in London on a special mission, 

Feb, 3.—The Spitalfields weavers went in pro- 
cession to deliver a memorial to the Duke of 
Wellington, expressive of their miserable state. 
It was a long and melancholy line, about ten 
thousand persons, extending from St. Paul’s to 
Charing-cross, eight or ten deep.—Yhey moved 


slowly and in a most orderly manner—and their 
appearance was sufficient to shew that they were 
indeed in great distress ; it was a moving mass of 
misery from which not a single word of dissatis- 
faction against Government was heard. They 
had banners with inseriptions upon them—Vic- 
tims of Free Trade.—We only wish to live by 
our Labour.—British Artisans reduced to 
Starvation.—Free Trade and Pauperism.— 
We pray for Restoration of our Trade. And 
there were looms and other instruments enveloped 


2U2 


332 


with crape carried by weak hands, and emaciated 
bodies, in behalf of thirty thousand poorcreatures 
out of employ !!! 

Feb. 5.—Parliament opened; and his Majesty’s 
speech read by commission, by the Lord Chan- 
cellor as follows :— 

“My Lords and Gentlemen: His Majesty com- 
mands us to inform you, that he continues to re- 
ceive from his Allies, and generally from all 
Princes and States, the assurance of their un- 
abated desire to cultivate the most friendly re- 
lations with his Majesty—Under the mediation 
of his Majesty, the preliminaries of a treaty of 
peace between his Imperial Majesty the Emperor 
of Brazil and the Republic of the United Pro- 
vinces of Rio de la Plata, have been signed and 
ratified.—His Majesty has concluded a convention 
with the King of Spain for the final settlement of 
the claims of British and Spanish subjects pre- 
ferred under the Treaty, signed at Madrid, on the 
the 12th of March, 1823.—His Majesty has direct- 
ed a copy of this Convention to be laid before you ; 
and his Majesty relies upon your assistance to 
enable him to execute some of its provisions,— 
His Majesty laments that his diplomatic relations 
with Portugal are still necessarily suspended,.— 
Deeply interested in the prosperity of the Portu- 
guese Monarchy, his Majesty has entered into 
negotiations with the head of the House of Bra- 
ganza, in the hope of terminating a state of affairs 
which is incompatible with the permanent tran- 
quility and welfare of Portugal.—His Majesty 
commands us to assure you, that he has laboured 
unremittingly to fulfil the stipulations of the 
Treaty of the 6th of July, 1827; and to effect, in 
concert with his Allies, the pacification of Greece. 
—The Morea has been liberated from the pre- 
sence of the Egyptian and Turkish forces.—This 
important object has been accomplished by the 
successful exertion of the naval forces of his 

- Majesty and of his Allies, which led to a conven- 
tion with the Pacha of Egypt; and finally, by 
the skilful disposition and exemplary conduct of 
the French army, acting by the commands of his 
Most Christian Majesty, on the behalf of the Al- 
liance.—The troops of bis Most Christian Majesty 
haying completed the task assigned to them by 


the Allies, have commenced their return to France.- 


—It is with great satisfaction that his Majesty 
‘informs you, that during the whole of these oper- 
ations, the most cordial union has subsisted be- 
tween the forces of the three powers by sea and 
land.—His Majesty deplores. the continuance of 
hostilities between the Emperor of Russia and 
“the Ottoman Porte,—His Imperial Majesty, in the 
prosecution of those hostilities, has considered it 
necessary to resume the exercise of his belligerent 
rights in the Mediterranean, and has established 
a blockade of the Dardenelles.—From the opera- 
tion of this blockade, those commercial enterprizes 
of his Majesty’s subjects have been exempted 
which were undertaken upon the faith of his Ma- 
jesty’s declaration to his Parliament respecting 
the neutrality of the Mediterranean Sea.—Al- 
though it has become indispensable for his Ma- 
jesty and the King of France to suspend the-co- 
operation of their forces with those of his Im- 
perial Majesty, in consequence of this resumption 
of the exercise of his belligerent rights, the best 
understanding prevails between the three powers 
in their endeavours to accomplish the remaining 
objects of the treaty of London. 


Chronology, Marriages, and Deaths. 


[Marcu, 


“Gentlemen of the House of Commons: Weare 
commanded by his Majesty to acquaint you that 
the estimates for the current year will forthwith 
be laid before you. His Majesty relies on your 
readiness to grant the necessary supplies, with a 
just regard to the exigencies of the public service, 
and to the economy which his Majesty is anxious 
to enforce in every department of the state. His 
Majesty has the satisfaction to announce to you 
the continued improvement of the revenue. The 
progressive increase in that branch of it which is 
derived from articles of internal consumption, is 
peculiarly gratifying to his Majesty, as affording 
a decisive indication of the stability of the na- 
tional resources, and of the increased comfort 
and prosperity of his peopie. 

« My Lords and Gentlemen : The state of Ireland 
has been the object of his Majesty’s continued 
solicitude.—His Majesty laments that in that part 
of the United Kingdom an association should still 
exist, which is dangerous to the public peace, 
and inconsistent with the spirit of the constitu- 
tion ; which keeps alive discord and ill-will 
amongst his Majesty’s subjects, and which must, 
if permitted to continne, effectually obstruct every 
effort permanently to improve the condition of 
Ireland.—His Majesty confidently relies on the 
wisdom and on the support of his Parliament ; 
and his Majesty feels assured that you will com- 
mit to him such powers as may enable his Ma- 
jesty to maintain his just authority.—His Majesty 
recommends that when this essential object shall 
have been accomplished, you should take into 
your deliberate consideration the whole condition 
of Ireland ; and that you should review the laws 
which impose civil disabilities on his Majesty’s 
Roman Catholic subjects. — You will consider 
whether the removal of those disabilities can be 
effected consistently with the full and permanent 
security of our establisiments in church and 
state, with the maintenance of the reformed re- 
ligion established by law, and of the rights and 
privileges of the Bishops, and of the Clergy of 
this realm, and of the churches committed to their 
charge.—These are institutions which must ever 
be held sacred in this Protestant kingdom, and 
which it is the duty and the determination of his 
Majesty to preserve inviolate.—His Majesty most 
earnestly recommends to you to enter upon the 
consideration of a subject of such paramount 
importance, deeply interesting to the best feelings 
of his people, and involving the tranquillity and 
concord of the United Kingdom, with the temper 
and the moderation which will best ensure the 
successful issue of your deliberations.” 

10.—Protestant Petition from the county of Lei- 
cester presented to Parliament signed by 17,035 
persons ; it measured 52 yards in length, and 
consisted of 154 skins of parchment. 

11.—The Recorder made his report to his Ma- 
jesty at Windsor, of the 16 prisoners capitally 
convicted at the last Old Bailey Sessions, when 


all were respited except two who were ordered 
for execution on the 17th instant. 


— His Majesty appointed Lord Willoughby de 
Eresby to be Lord Lieutenant of the county of 
Carnarvon. 

15.—News arrived of a revolution happening in 
Mexico ; a general pillage and a great massacre 
in the streets of that town, and all commerce at a 
total stand. 


| 


1829.) 


15.—The Duke of Cumberland arrived in town 
from the Continent. 

17.—Two culprits executed at the Old Bailey. 

19.—Sessions commenced at the Old Bailey. 

20.—News arrived of the disastrous intelligence 
that a most ruinous fire had broken out in George 
Town, Demerara, which occasioned an immense 
destruction of property, calculated at no less 
than £2,000,000 sterling. 

21.—Prince Polignac arrived in London from 
Paris, and had a conference of two hours with the 
Duke of Wellington; he likewise had an inter- 
view with the Earl of Aberdeen. 

— Duke of Wellington’s answer to the Spital- 
field’s weayer’s petition is, “ that the Government 
willdo every thing in its power, short of return- 
ing to the prohibitory laws, during the present 
sessién of Parliament, for the alleviation and 
remoyal of the existing distresses in the silk- 
trade ;’? and that his Grace had it in command 
from his Majesty to contribute to their present 
relief. 


MARRIAGES. 

At St. George’s, Hanover-square, Montague 
Cholmeley, esq., M.P. Grantham, to Lady Geor- 
giana Beauclerk, sister to the Duke of St. Albans. 
—At St. James’s, Rev. W. D. Bromley, to Lady 
Louisa Dawson, daughter of the late Earl of 
Portarlington.—At Marylebone Chureh, T. J. 
Ireland, esq., to Elizabeth, daughter of Sir W. E. 
Welby, Bart.—At St. George’s, Hanover-square, 
C. S, Dickens, esq., to Lady Frances Elizabeth 
Compton, sister to the Marquess of Northampton. 
—At Marylebone chureb, the Hon, Stafford Jern- 
ingham, eldest son of Lord Stafford, to Miss Ho- 
ward, niece to the Duke of Norfolk.—At Maryle- 
bone, Trinity Church, J, Wainwright, esq, to 
Miss Elizabeth Powell.—At Thetford, Rev. F. 
Leighton, son of the late Major General Leigh- 
ton, to Miss Catherine Severne.—S. Newton, esq., 

‘to Charlotte, daughter of General Onslow.—Rev. 
R. Anderson, to the Hon. Caroline Dorothea 
‘Shore, third daughter of Lord Teignmouth,—At 
St. George’s, Hanover-square, Lieut. Col, Fre- 
mantle, to Miss Agnes Lyon. 


DEATHS. 


Rey. M. Wilks, minister of the Tabernacle, 
Moorfields, upwards of half a century, and suc- 
cessor to the celebrated George Whitfield.—At 
Heathill, Stafford, Mrs. Elizabeth Tooth, 102, in 

_ possession of all her faculties: she had been 80 
years tenant to the Marquess of Stafford, on the 
_ same farm, and the family, for time immemorial:— 
Hon. Margaret Emma, wife of J. H. Langham, 
_ @sq., and daughter of Lord Kenyon.—In Wey- 
Mouth-street, R. K, Cox, esq., 84.—At Evesham, 
aged 98, Mrs, E. Horne; she left upwards of 
3,000 guineas to various public charities.—At 
Worcester, Mrs. M. Bevin, 94 ; and Mrs. E, Grif- 
fiths, 100; at Frampton-upon-Severn, Sarah 
Frape, 98; at Bromyard, Mrs. Boar, 101, and at 
Madeley, J. Cramp, 103.—In Pall-Mall, Sir Mark 
_ Wood, Bart., 82.—At Yarmouth, Dowager Lady 
Lacon.—At Harefield, Lieut. General Lawrence, 
_ 74.—In St. James’s-square, Amelia Anne, Marchio- 
_ ness of Londonderry.—At Clontarf, the Rey. Dr. 
Usher, 100, formerly rector of Clontarf. —In 
Queen-square, Rev, W. Crowe, 83, public orator 
of the University of Oxford.—At Bury St, Ed- 


Chronology, Marriages, and Deaths, 


333 


munds, James Oakes, esq., 87; he had served 
the office of chief magistrate in 1771, 1785, 1798, 
1802 and 1810.—At the advanced age of 87, Mr. 
Jobn Pratt, the oldest person connected with the 
turf in Newmarket, and the most eminent 
rider of his day.—At Kenilwerth, the Hon. T, R. 
Arundel, brother to the late Lord Arundel, of 
Wardour.—At Brixton, S. F. Waddington, -esq., 
70.—At Edinburgh, Lady Anu Wharton Duff, 
sister to the Earl of Fife, and wife to R. W. 
Duff, esq.—At Bath, Lieut. Gen. Dickson, 84.— 
At Arundell, Lady Caroline Sidney Kerr.—At 
Minehead, Capt. Murdoch Mackenzie, 86 ; he was 
the last surviving officer who sailed round the 
world with Admiral Byron.—In Lincoln’s-inn- 
fields, the Baroness Le Despencer.—At Newnton 
Priory, the Hon. Jane Estcourt, relict of T. Est- 
court, esq., and eldest daughter of James and 
Viscount Grimston.—Foxton, alias Jack Ketch, 
in a natural, not a professional way, aged 61.— 
At Dalston, B. Flower, esq., 74, formerly editor 
of the Cambridge Intelligencer.—At Brighton, 
Mr. W. Bradford, 96; he started the first coach 
from Brighton to London.—At Ashley Park, 
Frances Charlotte Fletcher, only daughter of 
the late Sir Henry Fletcher, Bart.—Mrs. Riggs, 
100, of Kingston, Isle of Wight.—In Regent-street, 
Lieut. General Sir P. K. Roche. — At Mardy- 
newyd, Mr. E. Thomas, 101; he served in the 
first militia in Glamorganshire ; and his name 
was inserted in a lease for 99 years determinable 
by three lives, the second instance of the kind on 
record in the kingdom.—At Kingston (Surrey) 
Mr. J. Astin, a celebrated florist.—At Bath, D. H. 
Dallas, esq., only son of Lieut, General Sir T. 
Dallas.—At Starston, Anne, wife of the Rev. J. 
Aldershaw, Arclideacon of Norfolk,—At Lincoln, 
the Dowager Lady Nelthorpe. 
DEATHS ABROAD. 

In India, Sir Edward West, Chief Justice of 
Bombay, and Lucretia, his widow ; and Lieut. 
General Sir T. Bradford, Commander-in-Chief at 
Bombay.—At Naples, J. Maberley, esq., and son 
of J. Maberley, esq.,M.P. Abingdon.—At Dieppe, 
Rey. T. Hartcup, son of the late General Hartcup, 
—At Berlin,the celebrated writer Von Schlegal.— 
At Paris, Paul Barras, 72, formerly President of 
the Directory during the French Revolution.—At 
Vienna, the beautiful Princess Meternich, 23, wife 
of the great diplomatist.—At Rio de Janeiro, the 
Hon, G. J. Stanhope, son of Earl Stanhope.— 
At Bayonne, a widow named Prado, 108.—At 
Prades, in the Eastern Pyrenees, Anne Bennet, at 
the extraordinary age uf 114, wanting 2 months,— 
At Paris, the Fey. Francis Henry Egerton, Earl 
of Bridgewater, and a prebendary of Durham. 
At Brussels, Lady Whitefoord.—At Borno, in 
Moravia, the learned and erudite Abbé Dobrow- 
sky, 70, well known by his “ Institutes of the Old 
Slavonian,” “ History of the Bohemian Tongue,’ 
&c, &c,—At Paris, Mme, la Comtesse de Bruce, a 
descendant of Robert and David Bruce, Kings of 
Scotland.—At Rome, his Holiness Pope Leo XI. 
—At Pisa, Grace, third daughter of the late Ad- 
miral Sir C, Hardy, Bart.—At Passy, M. de 
Gossec, 95; he composed-the music to the cele- 
brated Hymne des Marseillois in the Freneh 
Revolution, and which, was the national hymn 
performed at all the atrocities during the reigns 
of Robespierre and the Goddess of Reason, as 
well in the armics as in the interior of France. 


8889 


[ Marcu, 


MONTHLY PROVINCIAL OCCURRENCES. 


NORTHUMBERLAND.—A meeting has been 
‘held at North Shields for the establishment of 
an Asylum for Decayed Master Mariners, and a 
committee formed and subscriptions entered into 
for that purpose. 

A woman has been committed for trial at New- 
eastle, on acharge of having wilfully murdered 
her own mother, Margaret Jameson, widow, by 
thrusting the point of an old iren poker, through 
the breast-bone into her heart! 

A public meeting has been held in Newcastle, 
for the purpose of facilitating the intended rail- 
road between that town and Carlisle. It was 
determined to petition Parliament in favour of the 
measure, 


DURHAM.—The ship-owners of Sunderland 
‘jhave resolved, at a general meeting, not to take 
any freights below a certain rate ; and they have 
published a list of the freights to be taken, which 
are all rather higher than last year. They ex- 
press their decided conyiction, that the great 
cause of the depression is the ruinous competition 
which the ship-owner has been drawn into with 
foreigners; and they have resolved to present 
another memorial to government praying for re- 
lief. 

It isin contemplatian to build a bridge over the 
Tees, at Whorlton, with roads leading to it from 
Stainton and Barnard-castle. The estimated ex- 
pense is £2,400; which is to be raised by sub- 
scriptions of £50 each—repayment and interest to 
be secured on the tolls ; and donations of smaller 
sums. 


YORKSHIRE.—A meeting of the ship-owners 
of Hull has been held at their Mansion House for 
the establishment of an association for the mutual 
insurance of vessels at that port, when resolutions 
were voted for purpose, 

In the last week but one of January, a severe 
frost, with a heavy fall of snow, visited York- 
shire. On this occasion, a species of carriages, 
much used in winter in the United States, as well 
asin the North of Europe, were introduced at 
Hull, viz. sleighs. The thermometer, at York, 
between 7 and 8 o’clock on the evening of the 
26th, stood at 12. 

One of the most lamentable events that ever 
occurred in Yorkshire, took place on the morn- 
ing of the 2d of February. On that day, about 
half past two o’clock, an incendiary, of the name 
of Jonathan Martin, who had*concealed himself 
behind a tomb, in the north trancept of the Min- 
ster, during service in the afternoon, set fire tothat 
sacred pile, by collecting the clergymens’ and 
singing-men’s surplices, &c., and placing them 
in a heap, in the vestry, on the north side of the 
choir, usually called the clergymen’s robing- 
room, and applying a candle to them, which he 
had lighted by means of a flint and steel he 
earried in his pocket. Having seen the flames 
fairly take their hold of the elegant tabernacle 
wood-work by which the choir is surrounded, he 
made his escape through a window in the north 
traneept, by means of a piece of rope cut from the 


one attached to the prayer-bell. The fire was 
not discovered till 7 o’clock the next morning. It 
had then extended nearly the whole of one side of 
the choir, and was making a rapid progress. Had 
there been a few active firemen present at that 
period, we have little doubt but the whole of the 
south side of the choir might have been sayed. 
However, the flames communicated to the organ, 
from thence to the roof; and the latter being soon 
burnt through, the timbers fell upon the hitherto 
unburnt part of the choir, and that was also set 
on firs,and every thing combustible was consumed 
from the southern tower to the east end, including 
the noble organ, and a quantity of music. The 
greatest efforts were made to subdue the flames, 
and the utmost anxiety was displayed by all 
classes of persons. All the engines in York were 
soon on the spot, and more were sent for from 
Leeds, from which place four arrived inthe af- 
ternoon; but the fire was then completely pre- 
vented from doing any more danger, by having 
exhausted the materials on which it had to feed. 
An engine arrived from Tadcaster, and another 
from B. Thomson’s, Esq., of Escrick. After the 
roof had completely fallen in, which was about 
half-past eleven o’clock, the whole floor of the 
choir and chancel resembled an immense furnace, 
and continued burning for hours after. An im- 
mense torrent of water was directed upon it from 
the engines. The rope, by which Martin escaped, 
being left suspended from the window, led to an 
inquiry, which ierminated in his apprehension, 
near Hexham, the following Friday. He is a 
brother to Martin the historical painter, according 
to his own account, and was born at Hexbam; 
and has been a sailor, but has lately obtained his 
living, hawking about a pamphlet called ‘‘ The 
Life of Jonathan Martin.” 

The subscription entered into jfor the restora- 
tion of the choir of York Minster amounts to up- 
wards of £10,000. Mr. Smirke, the architect, 
has just concluded a survey: and a public meet- 
ing of the snbscribers will shortly be held, at 
which the ulterior measures to be adopted will be 
determined upon. 

The Festival of Bishop Blaize, the patron Saint 
of wool-combers, was celebrated at Wakefield, 
by a public procession, on the 3d of February, 

The project of carrying a railway from Leeds 
to Hull is abandoned. The application to Parlia- 
ment will only be for powers to construct a rail- 
way from Leeds to Selby. 

A fine specimen of that very rare bird the 
Waxen Chatterer, was taken a few days ago by 
Mr. Westoley, of Humbleton, in Holderness. 

A meeting has been held at Doncaster, for the 
purpose of considering of a plan for warping and 
draining the level of Hatfield Chace. It will re- 
guire about £110,000. to carry this plan into 


execution, which will forthwith be raised. 


The trade of Leeds and neighbourhood has 
been very bad during the month; so has that of 
the West Riding generally. Sheffield is not much 
better. Indeed, all over the county there are great 
complaints. 


1829.] 


LANCASHIRE.—A society has been establish- 
ed at Bolton, in conjunction with the parent 
society in Manchester, for protecting children 
employed in the cotton factories, by enforcing the 
provisions of 6 Geo. LV. “for regulating the hours 
of working children in cotton manufactories.”’ 
Subscriptions were intered into for its support. 

A yery numerons meeting of the merchants and 
principal inhabitants of Liverpoool was lately 
held at Liverpool, presided by the mayor, for the 
purpose of taking into consideration the best 
means of removing the restrictions imposed upon 
commerce by ihe present charter of the East India 
Company, and for prevailing on the legislature to 
secure to the public all those benefits which a free 
commercial intercourse with India and China is 
capable of affording ; when several resolutions 
were unanimously passed, by the last of which the 
mayor is requested to transmit copies of them to 
all sheriffs of counties, and chief magistrates of the 
principal trading and manufacturing towns in the 
United Kingdom, requesting the consideration of 
all their inhabitants to the important subject. 


LINCOLNSHIRE.—The expenditure for that 
part of the county of Linculn called * Parts of 
Lindsey” for the year 1828, amounted to no less a 
sum than nearly £22,000—deducting about £4,000 
for bridges, &c.; the rest was swallowed up en- 
tirely for the administration of justice, and its 
attendants, gaols, houses of correction, &c. &c.!!! 
In addition to which, £1,356. 4s. 6d. was likewise 
expended for the borough of Stamford ! Notwith- 
standing these heavy expenses for punishing 
crime, sheep-stealing, in the south-east division of 
the county, where some considerable works are 
executing, is arrived at a pitch that calls for pre- 
ventive measures of severity and vigour commen- 
surate to the evil, and to do away the discredit 
which attaches to the police of the county ; inde- 
pendent of the numerous burglaries and otber 
daring robberies which have been almost without 
a parallel! 


WARWICKSHIRE.—Two more incendiary 
fires bave taken place in the neighbourhood of 
Stratford-upon-Avon. At one farm, the barns and 
avaluable wheat-rick were destroyed ; at another, 
a rick of bay was consumed, During the last 
twelve months there have been fourteen fires of a 
similar kind in the neighbourhood, all supposed to 
be the work of one miscreant. Rewards to the 
amount of £600 have been offered for his appre- 
hension ! 


SUSSEX.—The gross amount of expenses for 
the better regulating, paving, improving, and 
mavaging the town of Brighthelmstone, for the 
last half year, was £13,317. 148. 7d.!!! indepen- 
dent of the maintenance of the poor! 


CHESHIRE.—A meeting has been held at the 
Guildhall, Congleton, of the inhabitants and 
tradesmen of that borough, at which it was unani- 
mously resolved, that the alarming state of stag- 
nation and distress in which the trade of this 
borough is now placed is unparalleled ; and pro- 
ceeds, in the opinion of this meeting, from the 
reduction which has taken place in wages, and 
the want of employment by the working classes, 

thereby rendering them incapable of purchasing 
a sufficiency either of food or clothing requisite 
for their subsistence and comfort—that the dis- 


Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Warwickshire, §c. 


335 


tress they suffer can only be improved by the 
improvement of the staple trade—which can only 
be effected by a return to the prohibitory system 
in the silk trade !!! 

A meeting has been held at the Town Hall, in 
Macclesfield, of the principal inhabitants, to take 
into consideration the present distressed state of 
the working classes, as the relief found in the 
ordinary operations of private benevolence, had 
become utterly incapable of meeting the demands 
upon them !!!—A subscription was entered into, 
which we trust will be more effective, if support- 
ed by other resources in addition to those of the 
town. A petition has likewise been forwarded to 
Parliament, stating “ that the deplorable state of 
the town is wholly attributable to the recent 
changes in the commercial policy of the coun- 
try fp? 

WILTSHIRE.—The manufacturers of Trow- 
bridge, we are sorry to say, are in a yery dis- 
satisfied state, and, to such an extent, that the 
trade of the town is suffering very severely ; and 
the cavalry have received orders to be ready for 
prompt attendance whenever called on. The poor 
workmen are dreadfully oppressed by the bad 
system among the small manufacturers of paying 


- intruck. Meetings of the Union are frequently 


held in different pnblic-houses, and the magis-~ 
trates have interfered to prevent it. Those who 
are employed in respectable establishments have 
still plenty of work, and are satisfied, it appears, 
with their wages ; but it is to be feared, the steady 
course of trade will, with them, be disturbed, by 
the influence of the suffering thousands. We 
have heard it asa fact, that the workmen of a 
respectable firm in Wilts have been offcred £1,000 
to be paid weekly from the Union, if they would 
strike, but the men informed their employers, 
expressed their satisfaction, and would not com- 
ply with their request. It appears that the society 
above alluded to, extends throughout Yorkshire, 
and to many parts of the kingdom, containing 
more than 300,000 members,—T7ewman’s Exeter 
Flying Post, Jan, 29. 


DORSETSHIRE.—Preparations are making to 
proceed with the Dorset County Lunatic Asylum 
early in the spring, and the utmost care will be 
taken to render it in every respect well adapted to 
its object, and ready as soon as may be for the 
reception of patients, From the central situation 
of Forston House, in respect of the whule county, 
an easy opportunity will be afforded to magis- 
trates, and to overseers of the poor of parishes 
having patients in the asylum, as well as to other 
persons interested in the condition of Iunaties, to 
inspect and judge of the merits of the establish- 
ment. There remains to be provided the accom- 
modation for sixty pauper lunatics, towards which 
nearly £3,000 has been already subscribed. The 
vote of the Court of Quarter Session, just closed, 
reduces the burthen ef the contributors to the 
county rates to the half only of that amount to 
which they are by law liable in this instance, but 
the most sanguine expectations may justly be en- 
tertained, that, through the operation of snbserip- 
tions, what may further be required will be raised, 
and that the county rate may be exonerated from 
the whole expense. 


WORCESTERSHIRE.—A general meeting of 
the subscribers and friends fo the newly formed 
institution for the diffusion of useful literary and 


336 


scientific information among the industrious elasses 
of the community, was held at the Guildhall of 
Worcester, Feb. 9. A committee for the ensuing 
year having been appointed, thanks were voted to 
the mayor, for the use of the Guildhall, on the 
oceasion. The object of this establishment is to 
afford to the labouring classes, by means of useful 
books, philosophical apparatus, and occasional 
lectures, an opportunity of employing their leisure 
hours in an agreeable and profitable manner; 
thereby partially removing one cause of a disso- 
lute and immoral life, the want of an interestmg 
occupation when not employed in their business. 


SOMERSETSHIRE,.—A numerous meeting of 
officers belonglug to his Majesty’s navy and ma- 
rines was held, January 29, at Bath; when the 
report of the Bath Branch of the Royal Nayal 
Annuitant Society was read, and exhibited a very 
gratifying improvement in the funds, more par- 
ticularly in the general fund, which now amounts 
fo nolessthan £41,621. 15s.6d. Of officers en- 
rolled, the number is 1,936, showing an increase 
of members during the past year, amounting to 
266, and an augmentation of capital of £12,322! 
The report, after alluding to the investment of 
the capital inthe Bank of England, &c., con- 
-cludes by a congratulation from the committee 
to their friends for the eminent success which this 
institution has received. 

Last year’s expenses for this county (as pub- 
lished by the treasurer, and audited bythe ma- 
gistrates) amounted to nearly £18,000; upwards 
of £14,000 of which were paid for the dispensa- 
tion of criminal jurisprudence, and about £2,000, 
of the remainder, for building bridges, treasurer’s 
salary, &c. &c. 


WALES.—Thereis now living at Penboyr, Car- 
marthenshire, a female of the patriarchal age of 
108 years, in perfect possession of all her faculties, 
with the exception that her hearing is very 
slightly impaired. She frequently travels eight or 
even ten miles a day, generally barefooted, whilst 
her shoes and sandals are snugly lodged under 
her arm, until she approaches the precincts of a 
village, when her feelings of economy give way 
to her sense of propriety, and the aforesaid ha-~ 
biliments are transferred from under her arm to 
her feet. Two females died in that town within 
the last twelve months, whose united ages amount- 
éd to 208 years; and there are two women now 
living whose joint ages exceed 200 years.—WVorth- 
ampton Mercury. 


SCOTLAN D.—Wednesday, January 28, Burke, 
the monster of iniquity, whose offences are with- 
out parallel in the annals of human depravity, 
paid the last penalty ofthelaw. ‘The assemblage 
of spectators drawn together on this oceasion was 
immense, and far surpassed all former example. 
The hardened insensibility of the wretch continued 
unshaken, until his “dead-clothes” (a suit of 
sables furnished him at the expense of the city) 
were produced, when he shewed considerable 
emotion. On Tuesday evening, long before the 
erection of the gibbet commenced, many people 
had collected ; and crowds continued observing the 
progress of the operation until its completion ; and 
when it was effected, the crowd gave three loud 
cheers. At a very early hour on Wednesday 
morning, while the rain fell in torrents, the people 
began to assemble; and by eight o’clock one of 
the densest crowds had collected ever witnessed 


Provincial Occurrences : Somesetshire, Wales, &c. 


[ Marcu, 


in the streets of Edinburgh. Every window and 
housé-top from which a glimpse of the eriminal 
eould be obtained, was occupied. Burke walked 
to the scaffold with a firm step. As soon as the offi- 
cers by whom the culprit was preceded made their 
appearance at the head of Libberton’s W ynd, aloud 
and simultaneous shout was given by the crowd ; 
and as soon as the culprit appeared ascending 
the stair towards the platform, the yells of execra- 
tion were tremendous, and at the moment when he 
came full in view, they were redoubled, intermixed 
with maledictions. Arrived on the platform of 
the scaffold, the miserable wretch was apparently 
somewhat blenched by the appalling shouts and 
yells of execration with which he was assailed, and 
cast a look of fierce and even desperate defiance 
at the spectators, who reiterated their cries... At 
the time when he was observed to kneel, which he 
did with his back to the crowd, the shouts were 
repeated, with cries, to the persons on the scaf- 
fold, of “ Stand out of the way!” “Turn him 
round!” Signals were made to the crowd by the 
magistrates to intimate that Burke was engaged 
in his devotions ; but these were totally disregarded» 
and the clamour continued. The executioner then 
proceded to untie his neckcloth. At this moment 
the yells which had been almost uninterrupted, 
became more tremendous. When every thing 
was ready, and the assistants of the executioner 
had withdrawn, he at once gave the signal, and 
was instantly launched into eternity, and the fall- 
ing of the drop was accompanied with three sa- 
vage shouts. After being suspended, he gave 
several convulsive heaves, to each of which thé 
spectators responded by another shout of triumph ! 


IRELAND.—Carnouic Association Drs- 
SOLVED.—At a meeting of the Catholic Associa- 
tion in Dublin, Feb. 10, the predominant and almost 
universal feeling was in favourof its immediate dis- 
solution—a result much promoted bya speech from 
Mr, Shiel, who urged “the fatal folly of continu- 
ing a single hour In an attitude of defiance or dis- 
trust towards a government which has, of its own 
accord, held out the olive branch, and pledged 
itself to the work of Emancipation.” The disso- 
lution was, in substance, and amidst loud plaudits, 
adopted by the numerous meeting. It would have 
passed in form as well as substance, but for 
a letter from Mr. O’Connell to Mr. Dwyer, entreat- 
ing the Catholics not to dissolve until «complete 
and unconditional empancipation’ should have 
been actually carried. In another paragraph, 
Mr, O’Connell tells his countrymen, that there is 
‘* reason to apprehend DELUSION Or CONTRIV- 
ANCE ;”’ and, therefore, to be upon their guard. 
Mr. Maurice O’Connell, son of the M.P. for Clare, 
declared that his own mind bad been made up as to 
the necessity of dissolution, but requested that 
another meeting should take place, as he wished 
‘his father should have time, by another, letter to 
share the credit of that salutary sentiment which 
actuated every distinguished friend of the cause in 
England, and every sound Irishman, ineluding the 
Catholic bishops, to insist on a dissolution, frank, 
prompt, and final.” The meeting was held on 
Thursday, as follows :—* Dublin, Feb. 12, 1829.— 
Sir Thomas Esmonde, Bart, in the chair. Moved 
by Richard Shiel, Esq. Seconded by John Law- 
less, Esq,, and carried unanimously, ‘That the 
Catholic Association, at its rising this day, do 
stand totally dissolved.— Thomas Esmonde, chair 
man, Edward Dwyer, secretary. 4 


“ive 


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THE 


MONTHLY MAGAZINE. — 


New Series, 


Vou. VII] APRIL, 1829. _ [No. 40. 


THE CORONATION OATH, AND THE CABINET. 


In the tremendous extremity to which the Constitution is reduced, 
the only hope of England is in the fortitude, integrity, and patriotism of 
the King. 

In the House of Commons the question is at an end; and while we 
give due tribute to the manliness that has distinguished the defenders of 
their country, we almost wish that they should not condescend, by their 
attendance on the Committee, to give the sanction of their presence to 
a measure which they have so irresistibly pronounced ruinous to the 
Constitution. 

In the House of Lords the battle is still to be fought, and we have 
no doubt that it will be fought with the vigour and intelligence of 
patriotism. But we have seen too much of human nature in these trying 
times to feel secure in the result. We turn from the broken outworks 
to the citadel; from the fears, the weaknesses, and the tergiversations of 
the many, to the firmness and faith of the one ; from the representatives 
and Peers of England to the King of England. 

The original Coronation Oaths of the early English kings, contained 
general declarations of reverence and adherence to God and the Church. 
The first regular form was in Edward the Second’s coronation; when 
the king, after pledging himself to the observance of the ancient laws and 
customs of the realm, and peculiarly the laws, customs, and liberties 
granted by Edward the Confessor, by a separate clause, swore to 
preserve perfect peace and concord in holy things to the Church of 
God, the Clergy, and the People. We must remark, too, that by those 
laws of Edward the Confessor, no supremacy whatever was given to the 

e. The king was declared to hold the complete supremacy. “Rex, 
quia vicarius summi Regis est, ad hoc est constitutus ut regnum terrenum, 
et populum domini, et super omnia sanctam veneratur Ecclesiam ejus, 
et regat, et ab injuriosis defendat, et maleficos ab ea evellat, et destruat, 
et penitus disperdat. Illos decet vocari reges, qui vigilanter defendunt, 
et regunt Ecclesiam Dei.” (Leges Edwardi, 17 De Regio jure, &c.) 

This oath continued, with scarcely an alteration, down to James II. 
to whose oath there was appended an express demand or petition of 
the bishops (probably from the fears of the nation of the coming in of 
popery) that the king should “ preserve to them, and the church com- 
mitted to their charge, their canonical privileges, and due law and jus- 
tice: and that he should be their protector and defender, as every good 
king ought to be in his kingdom.” 

M.M. New Series,—Vou. VII. No. 40. 2X 


338 The Coronation Oath, and the Cabinet. [Aprrin, 


To this formal demand the king’s answer was an equally formal pro- 
mise of protection, expressed as closely as possible in the words of the 
demand. To all this the king swore. 

This oath James violated: and for the violation was expressly declared 
to have forfeited the throne—in the words of the Act, “ King James 
having broken the solemn compact with his people.” The accession of 
William and Mary, the Protestant sovereigns, saw the oath moulded 
into a new shape, and that shape expressly formed with a respect to the 
perpetual security of the established religion. After two clauses, 
declaring, with scarcely an alteration from the original oath, the Sove- 
reign’s promise to govern according to the laws, statutes, and customs 
of the land, and the execution of the laws in justice and mercy, comes a 
third, béing the first part totally new modelled. The archbishop demands 
of the king,—* Will you, to the utmost of your power, maintain the laws 
of God, the érue profession of the gospel, and the ProrEsTANT REFORMED 
ReviGion as EstaBLisHED By Law? And will you preserve unto the 
bishops and clergy of this realm, and to the churches committed to their 
charge, all such rights and privileges as by law do and shall appertain 
to them or any of them?” This is the first of William and Mary Ce. 6.) 
But, as if to make assurance doubly sure in the Act of Union with 
Scotland (the 5th of Anne), it is enacted, that “every King or Queen 
of England for ever hereafter, coming to the throne of Great Britain, 
shall, at his or her Coronation, take and subscribe an oath to maintain 
and preserve inviolably the said settlement of the Church of England in 
the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof, within the 
kingdoms of England and Ireland, the Dominion of Wales, and Town 
of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and the territories thereto belonging.” This 
oath was evidently framed with a peculiar view to the security of Pro- 
testantism. It added nothing to the old promise of security to the civil 
rights, but it added, in the most emphatic degree, to the security of the 
Protestant Church. 

The necessity of this change was pressed on the mind of the legisla- 
ture by the necessities of the time. They had seen the former oath 
evaded by the sovereign, and they were determined to construct an 
oath which no evasion could nullify. And so important did they con- 
sider this bond, that to form it was among the very earliest efforts of 
their newly created freedom. On the very day after the declaration that 
the throne was vacant, Sir Richard Temple, on the 29th of January, 
stated, as the three essentials of the free constitution,—* ist. The secu- 
rity against encroachments on parliament, by providing for the certainty 
and frequency of holding its assemblies, and allowing no standing armies 
without its consent.—2d. Security for the faithful administration of the 
laws, by giving salaries instead of fees to the judges. And, 3d. The 
settlement of the Coronation Oath.” Within a month, on the 28th of 
February, the Coronation Oath was referred to a Committee to -inspect 
it, and consider what alterations ought to be made therein. On the 
25th of March, the House resolved itself it into “a Committee to take 
the matter into their consideration’”—and the oath was modelled as it 
now stands. The purport of the whole change was security against the 
influence of papists in the government, and their returning power of 
perplexing the constitution. The only question which had at all retarded 
the House in settling the oath was, actually, how far it might restrain 
the king from giving the Protestant Dissenters the relief which had 
made a part of his original promises, and in which many members were 
willing to concur. 


; 
: 


1829.] The Coronation Oath, and the Cabinet. 339 


The purpose of all those debates and declarations was to settle the 
fact without any further controversy, that England must be in all the 
branches of its government Protestant ; that finding popery to have been 
pernicious, as was declared even in the reign of Charles, by the statute ; 
(30, c. 2.); to have involved the councils of the king in doctrines of 
tyranny ; and to have entangled the king in foreign connexions ruinous to 
his honour, the independence of his throne, and the safety of his people ; 
the legislature, speaking the voice of the nation, resolved, that (in the 
language of the late King George,) the door should be shut against the 
incursion of a religion which, wherever it worked its way, made mis- 
chief, which lived on intrigue, which had no bounds to its intrigue, 
which hated with a mortal hatred the religion, the constitution, and the 
power of England, and which, swearing allegiance to the pope, laboured 
to reduce every country under the dominion of the papacy, with all 
its plunders, political depravity, popular ignorance, and sanguinary per- 
secutions. 

The declaration of the Prince of Orange when he embarked, stated, 
“That it is certain that the public peace and happiness of any kingdom 
cannot be preserved where the laws, liberties, and customs are openly 
transgressed, and more especially where the alteration of religion is 
endeavoured, and that a religion which is contrary to law is endeavoured 
to be introduced ; upon which, those who are most immediately con- 
cerned in it, are indispensably bound to endeavour to preserve and main- 
tain the established laws, liberties, .and customs, and, above all, the 
ReEwieion AND WorsurP oF Gop.” 

The “ Nottingham paper,” bearing the signatures of a great number 
of the nobility and gentry, states, “that the exclusion of popery, and 
the support of Protestantism, constitute the object of their resisting 
James and offering to join William. Not being willing to deliver their 
posterity over to such a condition of popery and slavery as their oppres- 
sions inevitably threatened, they will, to the utmost of their power, 
oppose the same, by joining with the Prince of Orange for the recovery 
of their almost ruined laws, liberties, and religion. And herein they 
hope all good Protestant subjects will not be bugbeared with the op- 
probrious term of rebels, by which the court would frighten them to 
become perfect slaves to their tyrannical insolences and usurpations. 

«“ For they assure themselves, that no rational or unbiassed person 
could judge it rebellion to defend their laws and religion, which all © 
English Princes have sworn at their Coronation, which Oath, how well 
it has been observed of late, they desire a free Parliament might have 
the consideration of.”—(Cobbett’s Parl. Hist. v. 17.) 

In the celebrated discussion between the Lords and Commons on the 
word “abdicated,” Mr. Somers pronounced, that James, by breaking 
the original contract between the king and the people, had renounced 
being a king according to law, such a king as he swore to be at his 
coronation. 

The Declaration of Rights, in February 12, after stating the crimes 
by which James was dispossessed of the throne, declares, as the sub- 
stance of the whole, that he did endeavour to subvert and extirpate the 
Protestant Religion, and the laws and liberties of this kingdom. The 
letters summoning the New Parliament, desire that the Lords Temporal 
and Spiritual, being Protestant, and the representatives of the counties, 
&e., shall meet at Westminster, in order to such an establishment as 

2X2 


340 f The Coronalion Oath, and the Cabinet. (Apri, 


that their religion, laws, and liberties might not again be in danger of 
being subverted. The full and solid establishment of Protestantism for 
ever, and the utter exclusion of the perverted principles, and unscrip- 
tural religion of popery, from all power to trample upon England again, 
are the constant topics in the addresses of the people to the parliament, 
and of the parliament to the king. In the royal proclamation, the 
« zeal of the Princess of Orange for the Protestant religion,” is augured 
into “ bringing a blessing with her on the nation.” 

In the speaker’s address to their Majesties on the 12th of April, the 
day after their coronation, he declares this: “That which completes our 
happiness is, the experience we have of your Majesties’ continual care to 
maintain the Protestant Religion, so that we can no longer apprehend 
any danger of being deprived of that inestimable blessing by either secret 
practices or open violence.” 

We have now seen how important the maintenance of the established 
religion was held by the parliament and people, who best knew, from 
experience, its value ; and we see that the means by which they proposed 
to maintain the religion, were the renewal of the tests, which James 
had abrogated ; and the wtter and jinal rejection of Papists from all 
and every share in the legislature. The Protestant lords and represen- 
tatives only were summoned to parliament, and the whole offices of the state 
were filled with men who had publickly taken the oath of supremacy. 

If it be said, that at the time of taking this Coronation Oath, Papists 
sat in the Irish parliament, let it be remembered how slightly Ireland was 
at that time under English jurisdiction ; that, immediately on the over- 
throw of James, and its reduction of English allegiance, Papists were 
excluded from parliament, and that the 5th of Anne,the Actof the Scotch 
Union, declares, that every sovereign of England and Ireland shall take 
the oath to the support of the established religion, inviolable for ever. 
The true means on which no change of circumstances could be brought 
to act, being the exclusion of all Papists from parliament. 

It will be seen that the ecclesiastical clause of the Coronation Oath 
consists of two parts, the latter part, one in some measure dependant on 
circumstances. It declares that the bishops and clergy shall be main- 
tained in the privileges that do or shall appertain unto them. But the 
former clause contains three things, which it separates, as equally and 
perfectly unchangeable: the maintenance of the laws of God, the true pro- 
fession of the gospel, and the Protestant reformed religion, as established 
by law. 

Mr. Hampden, the younger, expressed the common sense and truth 

‘of the case, when he said, “ As to religion, the king swears positively 
to the true profession of the gospel, that is, the Christian religion—no 
latitude in that—and then comes to the Christian religion, as it is, 
against popery, and this is the stress of all your oath.—This Coronation 
Oath ‘ is the very touchstone and symbol of your government.’” (Cobb. 
Parl. N. V. p. 202.) 

This oath, then, thus changed and formed for the express mainte- 
nance of Protestantism, in its power and purity, to the end of time; was 
the Oath taken by King George the Fourth on the day of his putting 
the crown upon his head ; and from this Oath he cannot withdraw, while 
he is able to maintain it by his “ wémost” exertion. In fact, nothing but 
the sword at his throat, nothing but the most absolute physical necessity, 
can justify his conceding an iota of this, the most solemn obligation 
that can be laid on the conscience of man. It is nonsense to say that he 


— 


Nt as te 


bi} 
5 
i 


1829.] The Coronation Oath, and the Cabinet. 341 


takes it merely as an executive officer ; the king is a legislator. It is 
nonsense to say that he cannot resist the will of parliament.. It was for 
the actual purpose of resisting the will of parliament, if it should ever 
be mad enough to approach the overthrow of the established religion, 
that this oath was framed. It was meant to be the last rampart of the 
constitution. It is nonsense to say that the parliament can dispense with 
the oath. The oath has been made by the king, not as a member of 
parliament, but as a sovereign; not simply to his people, but to God. 
He has pledged himself not merely to keep the religion safe for the 
present generation, but to deliver it as he received it, to his successor, 
for the latest posterity. By this oath the king is bound, until he puts 
off all human obligations for the grave. 

We must not now go further into the reasons which make this conclu- 
sion still more unanswerable, but advert to the slight and common topic 
of the difficulty of finding any successors to the present unpopular and 
hazardous Cabinet. 

Since the world began, the rogues and fools, a pair of deliberative 
bodies that always act in conjunction, have had their rallying cry. And 
the cry now is, where, if we kicked out, or hanged, or sent to Botany 
Bay, to-morrow, the whole of the present cabinet, should we be able to 
find another. That we should not be able to find another like it, we hope 
from the bottom of our souls; and firmly believe, that except among 
the Rats, we should be under a moral impossibility of making the 
discovery. 

But the cry is, where will you find the talent? The “talents” is an 
old burlesque, almost too old for any thing but the dullest of jokes, and 
worthy of figuring in a speech of Lord King; but we shall take the 
liberty of inquiring singly into the extraordinary brilliancy of those 
lights, whose extinction would leave the empire to darkness. We put 
his Grace of Wellington out of the question, for a while. As to his 
military merits there is no doubt, we may come to his ministerial by 
and by ; but of his whole cabinet beside, we pronounce that there is 
not one man above the commonest average of society. We will go fur- 
ther, and with as much security ; and pronounce that there never has 
been, in British history, a cabinet so contemptible, not merely in point of 
principle—that point is settled by universal consent—but in point of in- 
tellect. In all the cabinets, hitherto, there have been three or four of 
the best men that the premier could collect. The stronger his cahinet 
was, the stronger his ministry, and, of course, he looked out for the 
ablest coadjutors. But the very reverse has been the present system. 
Wellington has looked out for the weakest coadjutors, and has done it 
on principle, if the word be not scandalized by its application. _It was 
his object to have a submissive cabinet, a table-full of miserable depend- 

ants, ready to do as they were bid in all things; not daring to speak 
above their breaths while the field-marshal was present ; and so per- 
fectly conscious of their own total exclusion from public respect, 
confidence, or consideration, that a look from him would turn them aloof, 
without a hope of commiseration or their quarter’s salary. 

Now let us see, one by one, those extraordinary geniuses, whose being 
kicked out of Downing Street—which we pray Heaven that they may 
before another month is over—would be so fatally irreparable. 

First comes Lord Melville, a shining character, as every body knows ; 
and without whose seamanship the navy of England must go head- 
foremost to the dogs. We hope that it may be no public crime to 


342 The Coronation Oath, and the Cabinet. CArriz, 


mention this noble lord as one of the very dullest individuals that ever 
pocketed five thousand a year on the merit of his being a Scotsman. The 
merit has gone far in other times, but in Lord Melville it has gone be- 
yond any endurable length ; and we feel ourselves warranted in the 
conclusion, that if Scotland could not produce a duller person, England 
could at least find his equal in naval affairs, and the empire would be, 
by no means ruined, even if Lord Melville should be sent back to his 
native North, and be left to vegetate on his recollections of the integ- 
rity of his father, and his own popularity in the navy. - 

Then comes Lord Bathurst. This noble person is in exactly the same 
predicament ; and, after a salaried life of a quarter of a century, no man 
living can recollect any one public service of his—any trait of talent— 
any evidence of his being beyond the most common grade of clerkship. 
Lord Bathurst is, like Lord Melville, a mere cash-bag, for receiving so 
much per annum of the public currency. 

Then come the three secretaries of state. First, the foreign secretary, 
Lord Aberdeen. Who, on earth, knows any thing about Lord Aber- 
deen? He is a scribbler in the Edinburgh Review, he wrote some 
nonsense somewhere or other about sculpture, and he is. president of the 
Antiquarian Society—that learned body which meet to read abstracts — 
of the bricklayers’ bills of old London, write papers on Queen Elizabeth’s 
farthings, and publish memoirs on all the cobwebs of history. Worthy 
president of a worthy assembly. And this sullen and dull personage, 
one of the very “ weeds that grow on Lethe’s wharf,” is the holder of 
the office which is presumed to conduct the whole foreign diplomacy, 
the treaties, negociations, and wars of England with the world! This 
man is actually in the office which Canning held, which Castlereagh held, 
which Fox held, which a crowd of the first names of English history 
have held. And, yet, we are to be told that the world could not go on 
if Lord Aberdeen were to be kicked out of office !. 

Then comes Mr. Peel. But of this wretched being we will not permit 
ourselves to speak. Our hearts shrink at the mention of the apostate. 
Scorn has no word deep enough for the emotion that his very name stirs 
inus. He is undone: if he were to live for a thousand years he can ~ 
never wash away the name that his apostacy has earned for him. The 
best thing for him to do, is to fly from public life, and make his peace 
with Heaven ; for, by his country, he will be called apostate during his 
existence, and it will be the only title upon his grave. 

But, what are his abilities? Neither of the first, the second, nor the 
third rate. During nearly twenty years of perpetual opportunity, he has 
not signalized himself by any one great public measure ; by any one 
marked evidence of talent, not even by any one distinguished speech. 
Mr. Sadler’s speech, the other night, was worth all that Mr. Peel has 
spoken since he was born, as an evidence of ability. It had more of’ 
powerful thinking, the real matter of a vigorous mind, than all the long- 
winded stuff that Peel nas ever prosed. ‘The home secretary was always 
a poor creature, puffed by the sycophants who hang upon the heels of 
every man who can feed them, and who would puff the devil at the same 
wages ; but dull, dry, long-winded, and wearisome, to a degree not to 
be borne by any human being, except some miserable expectant, whose 
business it is to sit on the back benches and cry “hear,” from five in the 
evening till three in the morning. We could do, incomparably well, 
even though Mr. Peel were kicked out. 

Then comes Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald. We have yet to learn what are 


1829.] The Coronation Oath, and the Cabinet, 343 


the invaluable qualties of this individual. He has been in the House 
for about the same time as Peel, and endeavoured to craw! on in the 
same track. But there he failed. Peel crawled better—he was thrown 
back even by Peel, and that is enough to settle his claims for ever. At 
the Clare election he behaved in the silliest and most imbecile manner ; 
he bore all the cutting scorn of his respectable opponents, and all the 
impudent brutality of his disrespectable ones, including O’Connel, with 
the most babyish affectation of sensibility ; he wept, or pretended to 
weep, where another man would have manfully put down the ruffianism 
that was roaring round him, and triumphing over his foolery. He 
took all as tenderly as a school-girl, whipped for mislaying her sampler ; 
he abounded in compliments, to a set of rascals to whom it was a degra- 
dation for a gentleman to speak; and concluded his wretched exhibition 
by begging pardon of every body for every thing. During his whole 
parliamentary career, Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald has done nothing —has 
never distinguished himself by speech or action, or any attempt that 
could place him beyond the average of those good-natured gentlemen who, 
like Billy Holmes, are ready to take up with any thing that offers. We 
think that we could survive as a nation, even though Mr. Fitzgerald 
were kicked out. . 

Then comes Mr. Herries, whom we conclude to be a clever fellow 
from one fact—that being the son of a bankrupt, he has contrived to lay 
out the slight sum of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds on an 
estate! How he managed this piece of luck, Mr. Herries has never con- 
descended to explain. There was some growling at it when Lord Gode- 
rich proposed him as Chancellor of the Exchequer. But that innocent 
and silly lord having given him a regular character in the newspapers, 
and other matters of more importance having caught the public eye, 
Mr. Herries and his money were forgotten for the time. But we hope 
he may yet be indulged with the opportunity, which, to a man of his 
sensitive feelings, must be so extremely desirable. 

Mr. Herries is, in all points, utterly below notice as a debater ; and 
while his ability might be matched by any clerk, at five shillings a day, 
in any banker’s shop in London, we cannot think that the empire would 
be undone if Mr. Herries were kicked out. 

Then comes Mr. Goulburn. For this individual we have an especiat 
contempt, for Mr. Goulburn is a Saint. As such, we presume, he has 
found out that to keep in place is his first duty ; and, as such, Mr. Goul- 
burn, hitherto one of the most violent, determined, and furious, in his. 
hostility to the Papists, has thought proper to turn to the right about at 
the word of command, discover that all that he had been doing under a 
ministry which allowed a man to speak his own mind, was the height of 
error under a ministry which ordered a man to speak their mind; and is 
how a solemn, solid, stupid pillar of the apostacy. As a speaker, Mr. 
Goulburn has always been confused, prolix, and intolerable. His 
hew principles have not brightened his elocution in the most trivial de- 
gree; and we have arrived at the full conviction that the nation would 
not be undone by the most summary process of kicking out Mr. 
Goulburn. 

Then comes Lord Ellenborough, who, at present, rides double, being 
mounted on the privy seal and the presidency of the board of controul. 
His lordship is a handsome man, with a handsome head of hair, and a 
handsome wife; and beyond those qualifications for governing India, 
taking a two-fold share in the government of England, and receiving 


344 The Coronation Oath, and the Cabinet. [ APRIL; 


a two-fold salary, amounting to eight thousand British pounds, we know 
of none in the possession of this noble lord, who, by the by, is in the 
receipt of some thousands a year, besides, from a large sinecure in the 
King’s Bench. Why the nation should thus pay about ten thousand 
pounds a year for the services of Lord Ellenborough, however rich his 
ringlets, or high his eonception of his own merits, we profess ourselves 
totally at a loss to imagine. Our opinion is that the nation would not 
perish even if his lordship were, to-morrow, to throw up his functions, 
and retire, for life, to his looking-glass. 

Then comes Sir George Murray, a good hard-working soldier, we have 
no doubt, though we are by no means in the habit of connecting superb 
military reminiscences with the name of Murray. We have had enough 
of them in the service, for public experience, and we as little desire their 
following in the cabinet as their leading in the field. In fact, we have a 
good deal of dislike, suspicion, and disgust, at seeing this man, the noto- 
rious confident of the marshal’s military career, exalted into one of the very 
highest places of confidence in the minister’s Cabinet career. It is not 
the custom of Englishmen to have the laws of civil life made or admi- 
nistered by soldiers. Let Sir Francis Burdett, and the mendicant fol- 
lowers of that political mountebank, take up his jackanape’s maxim, that 
soldiers are the very men to manage the British government. We shall 
chime in with the radical, when we shall think that the sword is a safer 
instrument than the constable’s staff, that an order from the provost 
marshal is more suitable to a free country than a Habeas Corpus, and 
that a drum-head Court-martial is the finest possible substitute for the 
Trial by Jury. On the whole we should feel no compunction whatever, 
if Sir George Murray were kicked out before next roll-call. 

The chancellor comes next ; and we join in the universal opinion of 
the chancellor. Enough is said. He has the merit of being a convert 
on the shortest notice. As to his personal virtues, private morality, and 
pecuniary independence, we know no more than we do of Lady Lynd- 
hurst’s. We hope the best of this well-matched couple ; but would have 
no objection to see his lordship kicked out, to-morrow, in the most sum- 
mary, contemptuous, and returnless manner. 

So much for the Cabinet of England ; so much for the governors of 
the first and freeest of empires; and so much for the security, honour, or 
dominion, of England, while tergiversation is the triumph of politics, 
while the last year’s speech of every man is the bitterest rebuke of his 
this year’s speech, and while the most unblushing political effrontery, 
even to the open avowal that the constitution is to be broken in upon, is 
the merit that distinguishes one man from another, and confers the 
supremacy of defection upon that most odious of politicians—the home 
secretary. That there would be some difficulty in making up such 
another Cabinet we readily allow: for we hope, for the honour of 
England, and human nature, that such another display of political slip- 
periness is not to befound. But, in point of ability, we could match it 
from any dozen clerks in Whitehall ; and, in point of public confidence, 
could match it from the first dozen men whom we met in the streets, let 
them be who or what they may. We call upon our countrymen still to 
rouse themselves ; to express, in the boldest language of truth, their abhor- 
rence of, what the Attorney-general has justly called, The “ Arrocious 
Bru,” and ofa faction whose triumph is pregnant with the most fatal 


consequences to all that we value. Once more we say, Englishmen must — 


never despair.—“ No surrender.”— So, help us, God !” 


1829.] [ 345 ] 


THE TWO MINERS OF FAMATINA.* 


. Tue great mountain of Famatina, situated in the province of Rioga, 
has long been looked upon traditionally as the depositary of enormous 
wealth in the form of gold and silver ore; but the turning this wealth 
to any important practical account is a circumstance of very recent date ; 
partly owing to the superstitious feelings which the native Indians have 
always connected, and still connect, with the supposed demons and other 
supernatural beings who are believed to inhabit the mountain; but 
chiefly, no doubt, from the absence of any sufficient motive, on the part 
of the occupiers of the surrounding country, to encounter the perils and 
hardships attendant on exploring the scene of those, to them, useless and 
unnecessary treasures: for, so rich and fertile are the surrounding plains 
of the Rioja, and the Pampas, and so comparatively trifling is the labour 
required to obtain from them all which the simple-minded inhabitants 
need for their subsistence and comfort, that probably nothing but an 
actual display of the physical consequences (in wealth and considera- 
tion) to be gained by the enterprise in question, could have induced 
them to commence or continue the prosecution of it, even since the revo- 
lution, and the new train of motives and feelings which that event has 
introduced. But before that period the wealth of the Famatina moun- 
tain remained a treasure of the imagination merely ; and was, as such, 
as much superior to the actual possessions of the miser, who has not the 
heart to use what he has hoarded, as the feeling of having all one’s 
wants supplied is to that of wants increasing in the exact ratio of the 
supply to which they refer. The innumerable herds of the Pampas, to 
be had almost by seeking for—the inexhaustible fertility of the soil, 
requiring nothing worthy the name of toil in its tillage—the peculiar 
character of some portion of the vegetation, serving for almost every 
purpose connected with the actual wants of human life ;+ and, finally, 
the beautiful, but enervating and relaxing climate; all these things 
united, afforded ample means of content to the comparatively few inha- 
bitants of the vast province of Rioja; which, even at the present time, 
does not number more than twenty thousand souls. It is true the King 
of Spain and his government have made repeated attempts to work the 
mines, known to have formerly existed in this mountain. But they 


* This brief sketch of the singular circumstances attending the comparatively recent 
discovery of the wealth of the Famatina mines, is by one who collected them on the spot, 
and from persons who may be described as eye and ear witnesses of what they reported. 

+ Allusion is here made to the Algarrova tree, in particular. This tree seems to have 
been expressly provided by Providence for the sustenance of the rude inhabitants of these 
districts, and if it were by any accident of nature to be exterminated, it is scarcely too 
much to say that the population would follow it. It is the universal sustenance of the 
poor, the idle, and the destitute ; there is a drink made from its bean-like pod, which is 
excellent—its seeds are ground into flour—its leaves are used as the general food for 
eattle—and its branches, which are studded with sharp-pointed thorns, are stuck in the 
earth, and wattled together into a sort of palissade, which even a starving bull will not 
attempt to break through, though he see the tempting pasture on the other side. The 
wood, too, is not only excellent for all agricultural and architectural purposes, but is, feom 
its hard and solid nature, almost as durable as coals, for fuel. Finally, even dogs are fond 
of the pod, and pigs fatten on it better than on any other food. The former will often 
Teave their homes, and live in the Algarrova woods as long as the pod is in season ; and 
oe) poor will none of them work—nor need they—while that portion of the Algarrova tree 


M.M. New Seriesm_Vou. VIL. No. 40. 2Y 


346 The Two Miners of Famatina. [ Apriv, 


could never hit upon any inducements sufficiently strong to secure the 
earnest and active co-operation of the inhabitants, or even to overcome 
that superstitious horror which had been left as a legacy to them by their 
simple, but in this instance, perhaps, wise ancestors, relative to the dan- 
gers—unnamed and unknown, but not the less effectual in their influ- 
ence—attendant on the task of exploring the vast and naturally terrific 
solitudes immediately surrounding the objects of search. The early 
Indians, just referred to, had also adopted another precaution, as if 
with the view of deterring their descendants from the perilous enterprise 
in question—perilous even, more on account of the cupidity which its 
results excited in their European masters, than in the actual physical 
hardships and evils connected: with it. On ceasing to work the mines, 
they carefully built up and concealed, by every means in their power, 
the various openings to them, so as to remove all clue, if possible, to 
the exploring of them in future. 

It should be mentioned, however, that just before the great discovery, 
now about to be described in detail, a slight impulse had been given to 
the Riojanos, to avail themselves of the wealth which all believed to be 
at their disposal, if needed, by the smuggling trade, which commenced 
at the opening of the present century, between the province and 
Buenos Ayres, in articles of English clothing. The desire of being more 
gaily clad than their neighbours—a desire always easy to be put in 
action, in idle and unoccupied bosoms—had induced a few of the inha~ 
bitants to undertake mining expeditions into the heart of the desolate 
mountain ; and the consequence was that a little silver got into circula- 
tion in the province—a thing, till then, almost unknown. At length, in 
the year 1805, about four years after the slight and insignificant attempts 
just referred to, there were seen one day, riding into the village of 
Chilecito, two wretchedly clad men, both mounted on one sorry mule, 
and armed with one old musket. On inquiry, it appeared that these 
men had travelled from Peru in the manner just described, and had 
supported themselves on their journey, entirely by the aid of their old 
gun, with which they had killed, from time to time, what they needed 
for their subsistence. It was ascertained, too, that, having been long 
engaged as labourers in the Peruvian mines, and having acquired the 
knowledge necessary for their purpose, they had left that country solely 
with the view of seeking their fortune in the mountain of Famatina—the 
traditional reports of its wealth having long ago reached the country 
from which they came. These two men were named Juan Leita, and 
Juan Echavaria; and I have been told by persons who were eye- 
witnesses to their first entry into Chilecito, that nothing could exceed 
the astonishment excited in the inhabitants of the village, at the idea of 
two poverty-stricken and almost naked beings attempting to contend 
with the dangers and rigours of the so dreaded solitudes of the Fama- 
tina mountain. But these men, unlike the happier inhabitants of the 
fertile plains of Rioja, had long felt the evils of poverty, and craved the 
advantages which they had been accustomed to see enjoyed by the posses- 
sors of wealth alone ; and they determined to risk, and to bear every- 


thing, with the view of bettering their condition. These are the class of 


persons from whom we are to look for those discoveries and achieve- 
ments, which demand unwearying perseverance, and suppose and include 
constant privation. The two pennyless and friendless adventurers, from 


a distant land, looked on the wondrous mountain, of which they had — 


1829.] The Two Miners of Famatina. 347 


heard so much ; and seeing in its now visible form literally “a mine of 
wealth,” they determined within themselves to explore and take posses- 
sion of its treasures, or perish in the attempt. On their arrival at Chile- 
cito, they were literally destitute of everything necessary to their enter- 
prise, except that unquenchable desire and determination to accomplish 
it which constitutes in such cases great part of the required power. They 
had not even brought with them any of the mining tools necessary for 
the commencement of their operations ; nor a farthing of money to pur- 
chase them. These, therefore, together with the supply of provisions 
indispensable to their very existence, while working on a spot, near 
which none could, by possibility, be procured, they contrived to obtain 
on credit, from a curate of Chilecito, named Granillo, who agreed to 
supply them with what they needed, to the amount of thirty dollars, on 
condition, that if they succeeded in their undertaking, they were to 
repay him double the amount within a certain time ; and, with these 
supplies they started for the mountain, the very day after their arrival 
in its neighbourhood. They proceeded on foot themselves, as it was 
necessary to load their mule with the provisions, tools, &c., which they 
were enabled by the curate to take with them. It is said that the hard- 
ships they endured, for the first three or four days, were almost incredi- 
ble ; for, during the whole of that time, they were exposed to the fury 
of a snow storm, almost naked, and without firing, or even shelter. At 
the end of that time they had contrived to dig out a small cave in the 
side of the rock to shelter them at night from the snow and rain; and 
there they used to lie close together, with no other means of avoiding 
being frozen to death, but that of receiving the animal warmth of each 
other. Their only provisions were biscuit, and a little dried beef, or 
charqui, which they were obliged to eat cold—having, as I have said, no 
means of procuring firing of any kind. Nevertheless, they persevered 
—their first attempt being made at that part of the mountain, called the 
Cerro Negro, where, after working for some time, they discovered a 
small vein of virgin silver, mixed with sulphuret of silver. They con- 
tinued working upon this for about a month, never quitting the moun- 
tain during that period; at the end of which time, having collected 
together as much ore as they could carry, they returned with it to Chi- 
lecito. As all mining speculations had ceased in that neighbourhood, 
they were now at a loss how to turn their little treasure to account, by 
reducing it to atangible form. This, however, they at last effected, by 
grinding the ore to powder, on a large flat stone, as painters grind their 
colors, and then triturating it with mercury to extract the silver. The 
produce of this their first adventure was about one hundred dollars ; 
with which, having first paid the curate his promised sixty dollars, they 
purchased more provisions, and a little clothing, and then returned to 
the mountain, and were heard of no more for three months. At the end 
of that time one of them came back to the village, with sufficient silver 
ore to purchase two additional mules, for the purpose of bringing back 

e increasing produce of their labours. And thus they went on for 
about twelve months, never quitting the mountain but when compelled 
to return in search of provisions. It was understood that, by this time, 
they had accumulated a capital of about two thousand dollars; and 
about this time it was that they discovered the rich mine called Santo 
Domingo. They now found themselves sufficiently beforehand with the 
world to feel justified in hiring labourers from the village to work for 

2 Y 2 


348 Fhe Two Miners of Famatiia, _ [ArRiL, 


them; and having also’ purchased a spot of ground in the valley of 
Famatina, in which there was a convenient fall of water from one of the 
mountain rivulets, Juan Leita, who was a man of great mechanical inge- 
nuity, constructed with his own hands a trapichi mill, for the purpose of 
grinding the ore on a larger scale. The whole of this construction he 
completed without assistance; and then, being the hardier man of the 
two, he returned to the mountain, to work and superintend the opera- 
tions there, while Echavaria came to reside at the mill, and attend to the 
extraction of the metal from the ore. In this manner they proceeded 
for ten years, by which time they had accumulated a capital of a hun- 
dred thousand dollars. But in doing this they had excited the malicious 
envy of the Riojanos, whose cupidity made them covet the wealth which 
their want of industry prevented them from even attempting to compass 
for themselves by similar means. At this period, too, the revolution 
broke out, and afforded the means of, in some measure, accomplishing 
the object which was now contemplated by some of the heads of the 
people. The first step taken against them was to order them to pay a 
contribution of a thousand dollars for the service of the state. This 
was no sooner complied with than another was sent for a similar sum, 
and shortly afterwards others to the amount of five thousand dollars more. 
On this, Echavaria, who was at once a shrewd and a timorous man, 
and foresaw the storm that was brewing, endeavoured to prevail on 
Leita to join him in retiring to Peru with the property they had amassed. 
But Leita refused to consent ; and the result was, that they came to the 
resolution of dividing their property, and Echavaria made his escape 
immediately after—having first buried in a spot, near the mill, that por- 
tion of his gains which he was not able to carry with him. Shortly 
after the departure of Echavaria, it was reported that Leita had dis- 
covered another mine, still richer than any of those they had hitherto 
been working upon. Whether this was true or not, it had the effect of 
exciting still further the cupidity of the new government, and an order 
was speedily sent to Leita, requiring him to furnish a still larger con- 
tribution. This he had expected, and had prepared himself for, by 
burying in the ground nearly all his treasures ; and his reply to the 
government order was that they had already deprived him of all his 
gains. But they were not to be put off in this manner. On receiving 
the above reply, they immediately had a meeting of the Cabildo, in the 
town of Rioja; and the result was the sending a militia officer, and 
twenty men, to take Leita into custody, and lodge him in prison, under 
the pretence that he was an old Spaniard, and an enemy to the state. 
The party arrived at his house, in the Escaleras, just as he was sitting 
down to dinner ; and having immediately taken him, and placed heavy 
fetters upon his legs, they were about to place him on a horse, and 
carry him away. But he determined on having recourse to stratagem, 
‘with the view of, if possible, gaining his liberty, and escaping from their 
hands. Accordingly, pretending the utmost submission to the com- 
mands of the government, he invited the party to take some dinner 
with him before they set out, and offered to supply them with some 
excellent wine, which he possessed. This proposal was immediately 
accepted by the officer commanding the party ; and, as the only 
servant of Leita, a black slave, had ran away on the approach of 
the military party, Leita offered to wait on them himself, and. fetch the 
wine, serve the dinner, &c. This he did for some time with 


1829. ] The Two Miners of Famatina. 349 


great apparent good humour, and with. great satisfaction to the 
party ; who, as their spirits waxed higher with Leita’s excellent wine, 
grew more favourably disposed towards their prisoner ; and the head 
of them, seeing with what alacrity he went in and out in their service, 
observed that it was a pity he should be so much inconvenienced by his 
fetters, and ordered that they should be taken off. Freed from this in- 
cumbrance, he still kept running in and out doing their bidding, and 
supplying them with more wine ; till at length, having ascertained the 
position and arms of the three sentinels who had been placed without, 
he watched his opportunity, and suddenly closed the door (which shut 
with a spring latch) on the drinking party within ; and then, having by 
great resolution and strength disarmed and put to flight the sentinels, he 
presented himself at the window of the room where the rest were enclosed, 
and threatened with an axe to chop off the head of the first person who 
offered to escape by that exit. Then, still keeping watch over the now 
drunken party within the room, he whistled for his black slave, (who, it 
appeared, had only been sent ont of the way to conceal himself with the 
view of assisting his master’s project,) Leita ordered him to prepare the 
two best horses of the party and bring them to him, and to unsaddle and 
turn loose all the rest. This being done according to his desire, both 
master and man mounted, and were soon at a great distance on the road 
across the Andes to Coquimbo in Chile. They rode day and night ; but 
by the time they had reached the central ridge of the Andes, their horses 
sunk under them from fatigue ; and, on seeing their pursuers appreaching 
in the distance, they abandoned their horses, and continued their flight 
on foot, making for the craigs and precipices where their pursuers could 
not possibly follow. They were now safe for the present; and in a few 
days Leita made his appearance before the Spanish Royalist, General 
Osorio, representing who he was, and the circumstances under which he 
had left Rioja ;.and stating that if the general would supply him with 
a certain number of men he would engage speedily to reduce the whole 
province to the dominion of the Spanish monarchy. Osorio could not 
supply Leita with the required means, but was induced, by his represen- 
tatidas, to provide him with letters of recommendation to Pezuela, the 
viceroy of Peru, who, he said, would be likely to further his view in the 
proposed project. But to deliver these letters, it was necessary that 
Leita should travel through a great tract of country in the provinces of 
Tucuman and Salta, at the imminent risk of falling in with his enemies. 
He therefore determined on disguising himself as a poor miner, and 
taking with him only one attendant as a guide on the road he was to go, 
leaving his own faithful black behind him to avoid suspicion. In this 
manner he reached in safety the boundary of the province of Salta. But 
here, observing a scouting party of fifty men in the distance, Leita hid 
his money and papers in a thicket hard by ; which he had scarcely ac- 
complished when the party came up, and began to make illusory 
inquiries, which he at first refused to answer, for fear of causing suspi- 
sion by his Arragon accent. At last, being compelled by their ill usage 
and threats to speak, he described himself as a poor miner in search of 
work. But, as he had feared, his accent excited further suspicions, and 
they proceeded to beat him and his guide, till the latter at last confessed 
who Leita was, though he could not disclose the object of his travelling 
that road. But another blow or two soon induced him to confess where 
his master had hidden his papers and money ; and these disclosed all 


350 The Two Miners of Famatina. [ApRIL, 


that they wished to know. They then immediately conducted their 
prisoner to the city of Tucuman ; where he was subjected to a brief and 
summary trial, and was immediately condemned to death for being in 
correspondence with the enemies of the Patria. Soon after his condem- 
nation, a priest, named Jose Augustin Colombres, came to confess Leita ; 
and, with the view of extracting from him the knowledge of where he 
had hidden his supposed treasures, he promised to procure a grant of 
his life on condition of such disclosure. Leita was easily induced, under 
his desperate circumstances, to fall into this snare; and having made 
the desired confession to the wily priest, he was almost immediately shot 
in the Plaza of the town. Two years after this, the above-named priest 
made a journey to the Escaleras, for the purpose, as is supposed, of 
taking away the buried treasure, the knowledge of which he had ex- 
tracted from its owner; and thus concluded the first modern mining 
enterprise of the Famatina. 

This history was related tome by a person named ————*, who was 
himself intimately connected with the mines then working in the 
mountain, and who went on to tell me a few further anecdotes relating to 
them. He said that having by dint of hard industry amassed a little 
capital, he determined to embark it in the mining speculations which the 
success of Leita and Echavavia had brought somewhat more into fashion ; 
and that having exhausted his own savings of 2000 dollars, he borrowed 
2000 more, with which he was at length successful, and speedily after- 
wards accumulated a capital of 10,000 dollars ; but that disgusted by 
the vexatious obstacles thrown in his way by the new government, he 
had retired to Cordova with his little fortune, and embarked it in trade. 
Until this period the mines of the Famatina had been looked upon as 
open to the enterprises of any body who chose to engage in working 
them. But when Rivadavia came into power in Buenos Ayres, he de- 
termined on turning their wealth to a national account. He therefore 
sent to the governor of Rioja for a statement of the general state of 
the mines, and their adaptation to the purposes he had in view, of 
making them subservient to the interests of the state. The consequence 
was that a great company was formed at Buenos Ayres under the auspices 
of Messrs. Hullet, Brothers, and Co., consisting partly of English and 
partly of native merchants; and to this company the right of working 
all the mines in the province of Rioja was conceded, for a certain period, 
and under settled restrictions. 

It may be well to close this sketch by a brief notice of the present, 
or at least the very recent, condition of the mines at Famatina. Some 
years ago, the number of working miners, employed on the mountain, 
was rather less than four hundred, a comparatively insignificant number, 
when it is considered that the mountain is twenty leagues in length, and 
that not more than about one-fourth of that extent had been, in any way, 
explored for mining purposes, and even that portion had been examined 
very imperfectly. Indeed, so rude was the method then employed of 
working the mines, and so inexhaustible are the riches supposed to be 
which they contain, that, at the time referred to, the miners used to turn 
away with contempt from any spot which did not contain ore capable of 
returning 640 ounces of silver for every cajon (about 4,800lb ); and 


* T omit the name, as it might possibly expose my informant to persecution. 


1829. ] The Two Miners of Famatina. 351 


many of the mines then in work produced an average of four times that 
proportion. Moreover, so defective was the system of working the mines, 
it was perfectly well understood that the workmen stole at least half 
the produce. Yet, notwithstanding all these drawbacks, the profits of 
working the mines were understood to be immense, as compared with 
the capital employed for the purpose. The wages paid to the workmen, 
at the period now referred to, were as follows:—To the working miner 
(barretero) twelve dollars per month, and as much beef, bread, and fire- 


_ wood as he chose to consume ; to the apire, or labourer, who carried up 


the ore on his back from the lodes, eight dollars per month, and the same 
provisions ; the overseer (majordomo) was generally paid from twenty- 
five to thirty dollars per month, and he generally contrived to appro- 
priate as much more. The mountain was, as it were, parcelled out into 
nine different divisions ; of which the richest and most productive was 
said to be that portion called the Cerro Mejicano, and situated just beneath 
the snowy ridge. The other portions, bearing the best repute for riches, 
were the Ampallao, the Cerro Negro, and the Cerro Tigre. In the Cerro 
Mejicano alone there are eight rich mines. The particular mine which 
is reputed to be the richest is called the mine of Santo Domingo. It 
produces abundance of virgin silver, and was, at that time, estimated at 
the value of 200,000 dollars. The metal of nearly all the mines is silver; 
but there were three or four which produced gold. These, however, 
though much more healthy to work than the silver mines, were not 
looked upon as nearly so profitable. 

Finally, it may be mentioned, that the mountain of Famatina presents, 
from the village of Chilecito, a most beautiful and noble appearance, 


especially in the early morning, when its enormous snow-crowned ridges 


are just receiving the first rays of the sun. At this period of the day, 
indeed, it is usually enveloped, for the most part, in light mists. Butas 
these clear away before the increasing power of the sun as it rises, the 
various effects of light and shade are most curious and beautiful ; and 
when, at last, the whole is enveloped in the full blaze of day, the effect 
is truly magnificent. A. G. 


THE CHRISTIAN MARTYR: A FRAGMENT. 
By the Author of “ Field Flowers,”’ &c. 


So stood the Christian Martyr ;—he that morn 
Had heard his dreadful doom, had heard, unchanged 
His mind and purpose ; and, with step as firm 
And brow as placid, to the stake moved on, 

As when in other days he claimed the bride 

Of his young heart’s affections. Now he came 
To wed another bride, but not of Earth, 

For he was Earth’s no longer; his the bride 

Of Heaven, immortal, pure, unchangeable. 

Oh, what an hour was that! With eye upturned 
To the blue ether, and with soul outpoured 

In prane to his Creator, there he stood, 

A thing of fearful wonderment, and fraught 
With such high aspirations, that e’en they, 

Who had but come to scoff, in silent prayer 


wo 


The Christian Martyr: a Fragment. 


And adoration owned Religion’s power. 
Religion! mightiest of the mighty gifts 

Of God to man; thou, who with awful voice, 
Speakest amidst the thunder ; thou, whose form 
Bids us fear not the tempest, it was thou 
That, in this hour of horror, took’st thy stand 
Beside him, and to mortal ken badst wide 
Unclose the gates of Heaven’s eternal dome, 
And to his dazzled eye the sapphire throne 
Shewedst of immortality ; and what 

With thee may be compared, all-powerful, 
Eternal, glorious, great, majestic, good ? 

All that man seeks on earth, is it not found 

In thee—the balm, the comfort of the soul ? 
Thou art not liké the insensate Ocean, which, 
With greedy waves and darkling, swallows up 
The guilty and the guiltless in one vast 

And common grave, unheedful, a deaf ear 
Turning alike on all. What matters it 

Who seeks thy guardian power, whether the poor 
And sad repentant sinner, or the man 

By no foul crime polluted ! thou to each 

Thy hand alike extendest, and for each é 
Crownest the cup of grace, pointing the path 
To life eternal and the throne of God. 

Thy sway is all-resistless, and thine aid 

Sure, universal ; in his palace, lo! 

To thee down bends the monarch ; in his cot 
The peasant; and thou hearest, ’mid the blaze 
Of the full noontide, or amid the depth 

Of the still midnight, when the thousand stars, 
Bright suns to other systems, sparkling gem 
The infinite abyss—thou hear’st the prayer 

Of penitence, or thanks, and bidst it soar 

On angel wings to Heaven. 


’ On thee, on thee 
Alone relying, confident and bold, 
So stood the Christian Martyr ; in his eye 
Hope, in his mouth Thanksgiving, in his whole 
Deportment Faith unchanged, unchangeable. 
So stood he, and so died! for through the land 
(Working God’s secret purpose, out of ill 
Producing good) strode Persecution then, 
And unrelenting Hate, and bigot Rage. 
But all in vain—for though the flames arose 
High o’er his head and round him, burning slow 
And lingering out his agonies, yet still, 
True to the glorious purpose of his soul, 
Unflinching stood The Protestant ; so firmly 
Meets death the Christian Martyr. 


Brighton, Feb. 8th. - 


LAPRIL, 


1829.] [ 353 ] 
a 
AN ADVENTURE NEAR GRANVILLE. 


Joy to those travellers who find a pleasure in foreign countries! It 
was not with such feelings that I left England, and even now, after a 
twelvemonth’s residence in France, I am as little reconciled to it as ever, 
and that from no fault either in the people, or in the country ; both are, 
in many respects, delightful ; but champagne itself is flavourless to a 
sick palate, and the fairest land is no better than a desert, when the 
affections are pointing homewards. 

I landed at Granville, with the intention of making France my place 
of abode for some years. At first, therefore, I set up my rest at an inn, 
that I might have leisure to look about me, and find a permanent dwel- 
ling suited to my narrow income, and, as far as might be consistently 
with that essential condition, agreeable to my taste and habits. Fortu- 
nately, before I had been in the town three days, I heard of a house to 
be sold, that, from the description, I thought would suit me. It was 
small, cheap, not more than two English miles from Granville, and with 
no other fault, according to my informant, than its extreme loneliness. 
This fault, however, was tome rather a recommendation. I lost no time 
in seeking out the proprietor, who proved to be ostensibly a tailor, 
though, as I learnt by the way, he was shrewdly suspected of carrying 
on a more lucrative trade with our Guernsey and Jersey smugglers. 
This might well be, if any conclusion could be drawn from the exterior 
man, for certainly he had much more of the smuggler than the tailor in 
his appearance. He was a tall, gaunt fellow, with a sallow face, that 
was three parts overgrown with whiskers, that from their colour might 
seem the legitimate produce of a coal mine, while a broad scar across 
the cheek made him look yet more ferocious. It extended down to the 
upper lip, which it had drawn considerably on one side, so that when he 
attempted to smile—and a Frenchman is seldom without a smile—it re- 
sembled nothing so much as the grin of an angry bull-dog. 

But, however little promising the man’s exterior, I had no reason to 
complain of him when we came to talk of business. His demands were 
extremely reasonable, and delivered in few words, with the plain frank 
manner of one who knows he is offering a bargain; and does not think 
it worth his while to tempt a purchaser by specious language. We soon, 
therefore, settled preliminaries. If I liked the house upon seeing it, 
I was to purchase it for my life only, a mode of sale not very common 
in France, I believe, any more than in England ; but it suited me well 
enough, the price was proportionably low, a matter of the first import- 
ance with me, and I had no great wish to acquire property in a foreign 
land, even had I possessed the means. 

The tenement in question was, as I have already noticed, about two 
English miles from Granville, and was neither more nor less than an old- 
fashioned farm-house, in every respect, except size, far inferior to the 
worst cottages on the Acton and Ealing road. It consisted only of a 
ground floor, and a single story above, but there was room, and to spare, 
for a moderate family. Grates there were none, even in what seemed 
to be intended for a parlour ; this, however, was the less necessary, as 
wood was the fuel in general use, and it burnt as well upon the hearth 
as between iron bars. I ought, perhaps, to except the kitchen, in which 
was a sort of earthenware stove, about three feet high, with large cir- 
cular holes in the top for the saucepans to be placed upon, any other idea 

M.M. New Seriecs.—Vou. VU. No. 33. 22 


354 An Adventure near Granville. [ Apri, 


than that of boiling or stewing never, as I suppose, having entered into 
the head of a French cock. The rest of the house was in perfect keep- 
ing with these arrangements; the sashes were about the size of four 
panes in the window of a fourth-rate London house; the bed-rooms 
were floored with brick, and the furniture, which was to be included in 
the purchase-money, was such as may be found in most English cottages, 
—not, to use Porson’s phrase, “cottages of gentility,” but those of the 
Yorkshire farmer, which are a very different matter. Still the extreme 
cheapness of the house tempted me, and on the second day I entered into 
possession of my new abode, perfectly out of humour with myself and 
every thing about me. I would have given the whole of my domain, 
with its acre of garden and orchard for a first floor in London, or, what 
I should have rather prized, a snug little cottage in my favourite Isle of 
Wight. But the thing was not to be. 

Upon the recommendation of the tailor, I had taken into my service 
a girl from Granville, who, like Scrub, was every thing to her master— 
cook, housemaid, valet, and even gardener. Nay, had I wanted a groom 
or coachman, I have no doubt she would have been both willing and 
able to officiate in either character. Madelon, for such was her name, 
was about twenty years old, and no less strange to my eyes, at least, in 
her costume than in her manner. Of the first, the principal singularity 
was in the head-gear, which, I believe, is peculiar to Granville and the 
parts adjacent. It consisted of two, or even more yards of coarse white 
ealico, folded something like a dinner-napkin, in which form it lies flatly 
upon the head, with the square corners brought down to either ear, and 
then turned back again upon the crown. A red handkerchief was 
crossed over her neck down to her waist, and there fastened. This last 
was joined, and partly covered by a white apron, with pockets in it, into 
which her hands were constantly inserted when she had no employment 
for them, or rather when she indulged them with a holiday, that she 
might talk with the greater vigour. Her gown was made of chintz, 
and open ; her stockings were of grey woollen, smuggled probably from 
Jersey, and her shoes were nearly the same as those worn by our ~ 
English ploughmen. 

Madelon spoke English, as her friend the tailor said, and as she her- 
self swore, “ bien—trés-bien !”—To give a correct idea of it would be 
utterly impossible; but when I say it was picked up in the school of 
the Guernsey and Jersey seamen, the reader will easily imagine it could 
be no other than elegant. 

Madelon was a rogue, that was clear; I read it in her eyes and face, 
the first of which were remarkably handsome, and the latter would have 
been equally so had it been less exposed to the weather ; for beauty, 
after all, is a hot-house plant, and requires no little nursing to its perfec- 
tion. But then the tailor gave her an excellent character, and she her- 
self confirmed his account after a manner, that in any one else had been 
downright impudence, but in her, by some strange alchymy, was 
converted into humour and simplicity. Madelon, therefore, upon her 
own guarantee, even more than that of her friend, the tailor, was duly 
installed in her four-fold office, being thus one degree better than the 
tripartite, Hecate; and I who, in England, could not contrive to keep — 
one servant, had now my cook, housemaid, valet, and gardener. In 
spite, however, of these advantages, and wine at tenpence a bottle, I was 
far from being comfortable, and twenty times a day I had to undergo © 


1829. ]} An Adventure near Granville. 355 


Madelon’s reproaches. for my blue devils English, as she called it. 
« Eh! mon Dieu!” she would begin—“ vous autres Anglois, vous étes 
si tristes—so sad you English gentlemens !—always ces maudits blue 
devils! We have no blue devils in France, but when you English 
gentlemens bring them from Angleterre. Ces coquins de douaniers 
should put a duty comme ¢a,” spreading out her hands, “ on the blue 
devils Inglis.” : 

«« Have patience with me, Madelon,” was my answer ; “ I shall be 
merry enough, no doubt, when I have got a little more reconciled to 
absence from those I love in England.” 

*« Love Ingeland!” the nearest approach I can make by letters to her 
mode of pronouncing England. “Love Ingeland!” in a yet higher 
tone. “ Bah! C’est la France is the pays for love—G—d damn! You 
sell your wives in that maudit Ingeland !” 

« Tt is the first time I heard of it, however.” 

« Ah, oui! All de Inglis sont des coquins—except Monsieur, and he 
is tout-a-fait un Francois.” 

«« By no means, Madelon ; I have no title whatever to that distinction. 
I neither sing nor dance.” 

« Ah quel malheur!—Mais G—d damn! I forget die garden. Par- 
donnez-moi, Monsieur’— 

And off flew Madelon, humming another of her hundred and one 
songs. 

From this slight specimen it will be seen what sort of a treasure I had 
lighted upon in my Granvillian. In other respects she was invaluable. 
Never was so seemingly affectionate a creature, or one so assiduous in 
the discharge of all her duties. A watch was superfluous to me with 
one so rigidly punctual. Did my breakfast appear? I was sure it was 
eight to a minute. Was dinner upon table? with equal certainty I 
might calculate upon its being four exactly. And, when at night she 
summoned me to my coffee, I was no less sure it wanted a quarter to 
ten. Nor was her attention given solely to these matters, which, as they 
were fixed and invariable, the observation of them was a point of no 
great difficulty ; she seemed to have an intuitive knowledge of what 
I wanted, without the expression of my wishes, insomuch that the little 
hand-bell lay almost unused upon my table. 

The month was June, the day fine ; an unusual fit of cheerfulness 
seized me, and I felt, in my dark study, much as a school-boy feels over 
his task, when the sun is shining through the window, and the young 
blood is boiling in his veins. I flung down my book—it was Goéthe’s 
Faust—and walked into the fields that skirted my little domain. 

__ Before the fervour of these feelings had exhausted itself, I met a poor 
French sailor, who did not indeed beg, but who continued for a long 
time eyeing me in a way that made me suppose he wanted the charity, 
which, from some cause or other, he did not choose to solicit. Without, 

fore, waiting to be asked, I proffered him a small piece of silver. 

€ man stared at me in evident surprise, as if alms-taking was by no 
means a part of his trade ; but he did not the less pocket my gratuity, 
returning me at the same time a profusion of thanks, probably as sin- 
cere, and certainly more gracious, than I should have received from an 
Englishman under the same circumstances. His manner induced me to 
enter into conversation with him, and when, in the course of it, he learnt 
that I was the owner of the near house, he testified his pity or surprise, 

222 


' 


356 An Adventure near Granville. [Aprit, 


—I know not which—by a shrug of the shoulders, and a long-drawn 
* Ah!” inimitable by any save a Frenchman. I was astonished in my 
turn. 

“You don’t seem to admire my house, friend ; what fault do you see 
in it?” 

It should be observed that this conversation was carried on in French, 
—indifferently enough, I dare say, on my part,—but still we could con- 
trive to understand each other. 

“ What fault? Does Monsieur say what fault >” 

« Ay; what fault?” Ireplied. “The house is stout enough to last 
my time ; is it not?” 

Another long-drawn “ Ah!” with a corresponding shrug of the shoul- 
ders. and elevation of the eyebrows, was the only answer. 

“ If you have any thing to say,” I exclaimed, “ say it out at once 
plainly, that I may understand you.” 

He had nothing to say—* nothing in the world.” 

This of course did not satisfy me. I pressed him yet more closely, 
and at last brought him to confess that he looked upon the house as 
unlucky. At first I thought he was laughing at me; but he protested 
again, with great earnestness, that the house was truly and notoriously 
unlucky.—* In three years it had been possessed by four different pro- 
prietors, who had all come to an untimely end. One had been found 
dead in his bed in the morning, after having gone to rest on the night 
previous in perfect health. A second had tumbled into the well, and 
been drowned.”—That I by no means wondered at, considering the state 
of the wood-work about it; and, though I had not given it a thought 
before, I now mentally resolved to have it repaired without delay, that 
I might not be added to the list of casualties—« A third, in an English ~ 
fit of despondency, had hung himself on a pear-tree in the orchard.” 

Here I interrupted his list of disasters, telling him, jestingly, that to 
prevent the repetition of any such accidents, I would have the pear-tree 
cut down. 

«‘ There are many trees, besides pear-trees, in that orchard,” replied 
my sailor, significantly. 

“ But your fourth proprietor,” I said; “ what became of him ?” 

“ He was found dead in the high-road, with a bullet in his body.— — 
So Monsieur may see I had some reason for calling his house unlucky. 
If it were mine, I would sell it before the day was over.” 

** And who is to become the purchaser ?” I asked ; for I had little 
doubt that the rascal was employed by some greater rascal, who expected, 
by alarming my fears, to get a good bargain of the house—perhaps the 
tailor himself; he was like enough to do such a thing if he at all re- 
pented of the sale. Had I been a jot less angry, I should have laughed | 
in the fellow’s face for his excessive impudence. 

« Who is to become the purchaser ?” I repeated. 

“Not I, for one,” replied the seaman ; “ Monsieur may be sure of 
that.” 

And, so saying, he set off on the road for Granville, just as the punc-_ 
tual Madelon came to summon me in to dinner, which, to her great 
annoyance, I had already kept waiting nearly a quarter of an hour—_ 
enough, as she said, to spoil any thing but English cookery. 4 

But Madelon’s disappointments were not to'end here. Just as I sate ) 
down to table, in came an agent of the police, at sight of whom the poor - 


1829. ] An Adventure near Granville. 357 


girl turned as pale as ashes, and I myself did not feel too comfortable, 
though I could not imagine what I had done in my retirement to draw 
upon me the attention of the authorities of Granville. Nor would the 
officer vouchsafe me a syllable in answer. Without bestowing a single 
look upon the terrified Madelon, he peremptorily bade me follow him, 
assuring me that he had at hand the means of compelling obedience if I 
were so unwise as not to yield it voluntarily. This was true enough. 
Without were three sturdy fellows in waiting; and I had, therefore, 
nothing left to me but to do as I was ordered. 

From the marked incivility of the subaltern, I augured little good of 
my meeting with his superior. But herein I was agreeably disappointed. 
_ The Prefect (or rather Sous-préfet), a tall, dark man, with a keen, yet 
by no means unpleasant expression of features, received me with the 
greatest politeness. His first words were to apologize for any uneasiness 
he might have given me, and the next to beg that I would be under no 
apprehensions. “ His conduct,” he said, “ had its origin in motives 
which he could not at present explain ; but any thing rather than evil 
was intended to me personally.”— 

« You are,” he added, “ an Englishman?” 

«7 am.” 

«« And probably have served in the army ?” 

«Nos? 

* In the navy, then?” 

« No; my pursuits are literary.” 

A dissatisfied “ hem!” followed this answer ; my examiner was evi- 
dently puzzled by it, and seemed like one who wavered in some pre- 
conceived purpose. At length he abruptly asked, “ Are you a man of 
courage ?” 

There was something so ambiguous, and at the same time so absurd, 
in this query, that I knew not whether to laugh or to be offended. I 
replied, “ That to ask a man if he had courage was about as reasonable as 
to ask a woman if she were chaste. What answer could he possibly 
expect to such a question ?” 

The Prefect smiled as he replied, “I am quite satisfied ; we may 
proceed to business.” 

I was all attention. 

* Your life will be attempted to-night. You seem surprised; but 
nothing can be more certain. Are you in the habit of keeping any 
weapons in your bed-room ?—-pistols, for instance ?” 

“ Undoubtedly ; I never go to rest, or travel, without having a brace 
of pistols at my side.” 

** Whatever you may see or hear, you must not make use of them on 
the present occasion—if, indeed, that has not already been provided 
against.” 

“ How!” I exclaimed, “ not defend myself if I see a fellow in my 
bed-room ready to cut my throat ?” 

“ No,” replied the Prefect, coolly. “ You must not even speak, or 
move, or take any sort of notice, see what you will. Have you sufli- 
cient firmness for this? If not, say so plainly: yet I hope better things; 
I hope I am speaking to an English gentleman.” 

I bowed—what else could I do? 

“ We understand each other, then?” continued the Prefect; “ you 


trust yourself to my vigilance, and promise to be perfectly passive, let 
what will happen?” 


358 An Adventure near Granville. [ApRIL, 


* Certainly—though I should have been much better pleased not to 
have played so secondary a part in a matter where, as it seems to me, 
I ought to be the principal.” 

“I trust, in the end, you will have reason to think otherwise. At all 
events, I have your word that you will be passive ?” 

« Most assuredly.” 

“ T am obliged to you for this confidence. Yet one thing more. You 
will be good enough not to breathe a syllable to any one of what has 
passed between us. Should your servant be curious ¢ 

“I will be silent,” I said, interrupting him, “ though I have not the 
slightest reason to doubt her fidelity.” 

“ Nor do I doubt it ; but she might chatter, or she might be alarmed ; 
and in either case she would equally defeat my projects.” 

“ The first,” I replied, “is impossible, as she has no one in the 
house, except myself, to talk to; the second, I grant, is likely enough, 
though I should not think Madelon was a woman to start at trifles either. 
I will, however, do as you wish me, and the rather as I cannot be sup- 
posed to be a competent judge of measures, of which I am utterly 
unable to divine the motives.” ; 

With this understanding I was dismissed, and returned home, not well 
knowing what to think of my first introduction to French justice. There 
was a degree of mystery in the whole proceeding that I might have 
laughed at had it involved less serious personal consequences. As it was, 
I sate down gravely enough to my half-spoilt dinner, Madelon besieging 
me all the time with a thousand questions in the style of familiarity so 
common among French servants. These were not direct, but put in the 
way of conjecture, as—“ Ce maudit Préfet! -Est-il possible, he trouble 
Monsieur! G—d damn! I fear you find him un peu béte.” 

« Pretty well for that, Madelon.” 

« Ah! c'est un misérable! But, may be, he shall be trompé by his 
spies?” 

« Not unlikely.” 

« Ah! I suppose he fancy Monsieur come to cut de heads off to all de 
Bourbons.” 

« That would, indeed, be doing things on a grand scale; but the 
Sous-préfet has not half your fancy.” 

« Ah, oui! C’est un homme béte—vraiment béte. I should no sur- 
prise if he take Monsieur for a smuggler.” 

« No.” 

* Tant mieux! Dere is hard law against ces pauvres diables de 
smuggelers. Peutétre he hear. Monsieur’s garden a été.volé, and wants 
to do you justice. Ence cas, Je laime beaucoup.” 

« Nor that either.” 

“ Diable !” exclaimed Madelon, driven by impatience out of her 
polite conjectures—< Diable! Pourquoi then ce béte, did he send his 
gens-d’armes after Monsieur ?” 

« The fault was your’s, Madelon.” 

« Mine!” said, or almost shrieked, Madelon, turning deadly pale— 
« Mine !” 

Seeing the poor. girl so seriously alarmed, I was angry with myself, 
and told her, truly enough, I had spoken in jest only. 

«In jest!” said Madelon, rapidly repeating my words; “ Monsieur 
was in jest!” 

«“ No more, Madelon—and that to punish you for your idle curiosity. 


Vv 


he _ 


1829.) An Adventure near Granville. 359 


But I care not if you know the truth. The other day I was at Gran- 
ville, when it seems I spoke somewhat too plainly of your blessed 
government, and this was carried to the Préfet by one of his spies I 
suppose. Luckily, he contented himself with reading me a lecture on 
my want of prudence, and took my word for my better discretion 
for the future.” 

As the evening advanced, I began to feel, not alarmed—I should 
wrong myself if I said so—but certainly anxious and restless. I pro- 
tracted my supper as long as possible, to the visible annoyance of Made- 
lon, who was at no time a friend to late hours; and when at length I 
retired to my bed-room, it was with feelings that I should in vain 
attempt to describe. 

My first care was of course to lock and double-lock the door, and see 
to the fastenings of the windows: my promise to the Préfet did not 
prohibit me from this necessary act of self-defence. I next proceeded 
to examine my pistols ; the charge was drawn, and, upon farther inquiry, 
I found my powder-flask had been emptied. The villains, then, were 
already in the house! They had begun their work by disarming me 
previously to the intended attack! For the first time, a suspicion flashed 
across my mind that Madelon, for as honest as she seemed, might be in 
the plot against my life. But what was to be done? I was alone and 
unarmed ; and the murderers, it was plain, were already within the walls, 
so that it was fruitless to think of escaping. The slightest symptoms on 
my part that they were discovered, would only precipitate matters ; 
whereas, by waiting quietly for the tardy aid of the Prefect, I had some 
chance for life. 

Just as I was preparing—not very wisely, all things considered—to 
examine my chamber, I was startled by a low whisper—so low, indeed, 
that no ears but those sharpened by a keen sense of danger could have 
distinguished it. The sound evidently came from under the bed. My 
first impulse, since I was unarmed, was flight ; but a moment’s reflec- 
tion—and moments are as hours in such situations—convinced me, that 
to attempt leaving the room he surest way to rouse my assassins, 
whose scheme it probably was to wait tillI should be asleep. I took my 
_ measures accordingly, and with a calmness that now seems even to 

myself surprising. 

My plan proceeded upon two suppositions—first, that in a short time 
the police would come to my assistance—and, secondly, that while I 
remained awake, the attempt upon my life would not be made. I, there- 
fore, protracted my preparations for rest as long as I well could without 
awaking suspicion ; and when, after having spent full half an hour at 
the toilette, I at last went to bed, I took a book with me, and left the 
lamp burning on the table by my side. To convince my enemies that I 
was watching, I read aloud, though I must frankly confess I hardly 
knew what I was reading. 

On such occasions we count time by minutes, and think and feel more 
in a single pulsation than in a day of common life. Half an hour had 
elapsed, and still there were no symptoms of the police. Oh, how in my 
heart I cursed the dilatory Prefect! It was not to be expected that the 
assassins would wait much longer for my sleeping. 

: I was afraid to leave off reading, lest my silence, even for a moment, 
should bring on the catastrophe ; and yet I would have given any thing 
to be able to listen freely, that I might catch the meaning of the whis- 


360 An Adventure near Granville. [ApRIL, 


pers, that began again, low as before, but quick and impatient. The 
crisis was evidently at hand. It was a terrible moment !—I do not 
hesitate to say so—a terrible moment! Had I been armed, it had been 
something ; the consciousness of having the means to make a struggle 
must stir the blood, whatever may be the odds; but to be locked up in 
the same room with a band of midnight murderers, defenceless, such a 
moment is terrible ! 

The whispering grew more and more frequent. Had instant death 
been the consequence, I could not have read a moment longer. The 
book might be said almost to drop from my hand, and, scarcely allowing 
myself to breathe, lest I should lose a single syllable, I listened to the 
almost inaudible whispers, till my ears tingled with the intenseness of 
the application. I heard the cocking of a pistol, and knew the time was 
come,—when, to my infinite surprise, the door was gently lifted off its 
hinges, the screw having evidently been drawn and left loose for that 
purpose. Whether it was the effect of the air, upon the door being 
opened, or my moving, or only chance, I know not; but just then the 
curtain on that side of the bed, which I had tucked back when I first 
began reading, now fell forwards, and I could only see through it the 
shadows of two figures, without being able to distinguish the persons. 
As I lay with my eyes fixed in that direction, the light, which one of 
them held up as if examining the room, rendered their forms yet plainer. 
I could see that one of them carried a weapon of some sort in his hand, 
and that both were creeping stealthily towards my bed. ‘Then there was 
a pause. I thought, from the action of the hand, that the man who car- 
ried the drawn knife or dagger gave a sign to those under the bed: at all 
events, they were in motion. I heard a slight rustling, and, turning my 
eyes to the right, saw through the curtains on that side the shadows of no 
less than six men, rising successively from under. the bed. The natural 
instinct of self-defence would have prompted me to spring into the very 
midst of them, and make a struggle for my life. But, before I could 
move, the shadows on my right flitted rapidly round my bed—a loud 
shriek followed—and, on throwing back the curtains, I saw Madelon and 
the tailor struggling in the hands of the police. 

I now learned that the sudden deaths of my four predecessors in the 
possession of the house had long excited suspicion, and the rather as the 
property was always sold for the life-time of the occupant. This had led 
the Sub-prefect to imagine, as indeed was afterwards confessed by Made- 
lon, that the tailor tempted purchasers by the cheapness of his house, 
and, having pocketed the money, he then made away with them as soon 
as possible, that he might resume the property, and have the benefit of 
a fresh sale on the same conditions. But, however strong might be the — 
Prefect’s suspicions, the tailor managed his affairs too cunningly for him — 
to get any thing like certainty on the subject ; and I might have perished, 
as my predecessors had done, to make room for another tenant, had not 
a little girl overheard the tailor settling with Madelon the time and 
manner of my murder. The child, naturally enough, lost no time in 
communicating what she had just heard to her parents ; and they, as a 
matter of course, carried the tale to the police. But, besides that she 
was very young—she was scarcely seven years old—she had, partly 
from fright, and partly perhaps from deficient understanding, contra- 
dicted herself so often in her story, that the Prefect had deemed it pru- 
dent to get more certain evidence by seizing them in the very attempt to 


1829.] — An Adventure near Granville. 361 


murder. With this view, he had taken the opportunity of Madelon’s 
being abroad in the afternoon, to introduce his people into my bed- 
room. 

In the midst of my inquiries, the Prefect himself made his appearance 
on the scene, with another party of his gens-d’armes, in a high state of 
exultation, as it seemed, at the success of his schemes. 

« Eh bien, Monsieur! C’est un joli roman, n’est-ce pas?” was his 
first exclamation upon seeing me. 

In reply, I gave him full credit for his ingenious management ; but I 
could not help adding, that he would have spared me no little anxiety 
had he let me into the whole secret beforehand. 

“No doubt,” he said ; “ but it is generally believed at Granville that 
there is a liaison between you and Madelon.” 

« Ridiculous !” 

« Yes, indeed,” continued the Prefect; “‘ and I feared lest, in a fit of 
generosity, you should give the girl warning of her danger. In that 
case, I should have lost both my criminals.” 

“ It.seems hard though,” I replied, “ that a man cannot live quiet and 
secluded, without its being gossiped over a whole town that he is in love 
with his servant maid.” 

« Bagatelles !” said the Prefect. 

« Well, but there is not a word of truth in it, I assure you.” 

The Prefect shrugged his shoulders; and, saying that he should 
require my attendance at the police-office early in the morning, very 
politely bade me good night. G. S. 


THE LONDON MARKETS. 


. - ? 
ea asia vee of Leadenhall. 

Tue construction of useful buildings, for the mere convenience of 
society, are among the first efforts of civilization—their utility is felt 
and acknowledged, and mankind are satisfied. Time and improve- 
ment beget fastidiousness, and beauty must be united to utility —the 
“ utile and the dulce” must be commingled, before the taste of increased 
civilization will condescend to bestow its praise. Thus the convenience 
of trade pointed out the necessity for a general rendezvous of merchants 
of different commodities ; and large open spaces were left in towns and 
villages, for the congregation of agriculturists and manufacturers, where 
the productions of labour and of cultivated nature were displayed to 
purchasers. At first these places were open and unsheltered, and each 
merchant took his station, as his convenience directed him, and displayed 
his fruit, his meat, or his merchandize, in the best manner his invention 
dictated, shielding them from the evil influence of the sun and the rain, 
by awnings of cloth, or, where the climate afforded them, by the large 
leaf of the palm or the plantain. 

These shelters gradually grew into tents, which were pitched at the 
pleasure of the proprietors, as they are at present in our fairs, while, 
with venders of lesser note, the plantain and the palm were replaced 
by umbrellas of various colours, covering the baskets which formed 
their shops. 

M.M. New Series.—Vou. VII. No.40. 3A 


362 The London Markets. LApRIL, 


As civilization, and consequently luxury, increased, their tents became” 
permanent buildings of solid materials—the ground on which they were 
erected became the source of income to proprietors or public bodies, and 
the Turkish bazaar, the Italian piazza, the Spanish placa, and the 
English market-place, gradually succeeded to those ruder marts of do- 
mestic commercial intercourse. 

Still convenience was considered without reference to beauty, and 
more particularly in London, where our market-places have remained 
rude and vulgar buildings, while, on the continent, they have long since 
assumed that architectural appearance which renders them an ornament 
instead of a disgrace to the places in which they have been erected. 

In London our markets have long been nuisances in themselves, as 
well as to the neighbourhood in which they are placed. Rows of un- 
sightly booths — brick, mortar, and timber, mingled together, without 
taste or form, and the buildings placed so contiguous to each other, as 
scarcely to admit a free passage between the meat, fish, and vegetables, 
which they displayed for sale, while this passage was also impeded by 
the offal, formed the general character of our London markets. All 
that the ground proprietors have thought about, was, how to get the 
greatest number of standings in a certain given space ; and all that ever 
entered the occupiers’ heads, was, how to dispose of their meat, &¢. to the 
best advantage. These were the only ideas with which our markets have 
been hitherto constructed, no one having hitherto chosen to think and 
see that these advantages might be quite as easily, if not with more 
facility, obtained, by being united with architectural regularity ; and 
that this architectural regularity would cost no more than the unsightly 
buildings which disgrace our present market-places, since the same 
quantity of material and labour would have constructed them with ar- 
chitectural proportion. 

A walk through the markets of London will convince any spectator of 
the truth of this statement, for there is not one, we believe, that does 
not form a complete illustration of our observations. Look at St. James’s, 
Clare Market, Newport Market, Carnaby Market, Hungerford Market, 
and, again, at the east end of the town, at Newgate and Leadenhall 
Markets — one and all of the same character —a congregation of low, 
vulgar buildings, without any more form or proportion than if they had 
been built by the butchers, fishmongers, and greengrocers who inhabit 
them. 

Markets should, likewise, never be in the direct thoroughfares of a 
city, although they should not be far removed from them ; for nothing is 
more disagreeable than the passage through a market, to those whose 
business is not in it: nor could this slight removal from the general 
thoroughfare affect its trade, since the market is sought by purchasers, 
and very seldom owes any part of its success to the chance custom of 
casual passengers. 

What can be a more disgusting, not to say disgraceful, scene, than 
Whitechapel Market presents to the eye of the passenger, while the feet 
of the pedestrian are slipping about among the offal, or the horses of one’s 
carriage perpetually impeded by oxen and sheep, goaded on into the 
neighbouring slaughtering houses. Yet this is the scene which, for 
nearly a mile, greets the traveller at the only eastern entrance to the 
metropolis ; and all the disgusting appearances of raw meat and its ap- 
pendages, is added'to the brutality of manner and language, which is, 


1829.] The London Markets. 363 


unfortunately, the too general characteristic of the tradesmen and 
labourers in this department of commerce ; it becomes doubly desirable 
that the markets should be removed from public thoroughfares, and have 
places set apart for their separate reception. 

Amidst the general cry for improvement in the metropolis we are 
glad to find that the removal of these inconveniences has found many 
advocates, and that attempts are making in different directions to destroy 
such nuisances. 

Smithfield is already, we believe, condemned; and, we trust, that 
some future attempt to remove that extraordinary nuisance, the Haye 
market, will be more successful than the last that was made. 

People seem to forget that when these privileges were first granted, 
that the places were then the suburbs, instead of the centre, of the 
metropolis; and legislation should take care that they are always 
kept in the suburbs, where they may be held without that dreadful in- 
convenience which they are to the neighbourhood in which they are 
situated. 

Improvements in the markets of London are now, however, gra- 
dually taking place; the old lumbering building, so long used as the 
Corn Market, in Mark-lane; has been taken down, and has given place 
to one of the most elegant buildings in the city, from the designs of Mr. 
George Smith, the architect to the new St. Paul’s school. His new Corn 
Exchange does credit to his talent as an architect, and to the liberality of 
the directors of the establishment. It is replete with every convenience 
for the purposes of its peculiar commerce—contains a superb subscription 
room, and a handsome and commodious coffee room, and presents, 
towards Mark-lane, a part of Grecian doric architecture, than which we 
cannot call to mind any building in the metropolis which surpasses it of 
this simple style. : 

We trust that this spirited example, on the part of the directors of this 
establishment, will be followed by the directors of other great com- 
mercial marts ; and that the exterior of our buildings, devoted to that 
pursuit which forms our greatness, will be in some measure commensu- 
rate with the importance of the business which is done within their walls. 

At the other end of the town that long-continued nuisance, though 
very great convenience, Covent Garden, has at length become the object 
of improvement. This has, indeed, been long called for, on many 
account ; not only from the dreadful state of dilapidation of its wretched 
buildings, and for the quantity of filth, partly the consequence of the 
nature and disposition of these buildings, and partly of the want of 
proper regulations, but, also, for the numerous and perpetual disputes, 
as to the boundaries and dues of the market. Many an hour of their wor- 
ships of Bow-street, and the judges of Westminster Hall, has been obliged 
to be bestowed upon the tediousness of an argument, as to the right of 
paying two-pence for a load of potatoes, or the exact and proper extent 
of the denter stones. While, however, a certain income was produced, the 
ery for improvement was in vain ; at length Mr. Fowler, the architect to 

market now building, hit wpon an expedient that was sure to lure 

the Duke of Bedford into the long-wished for improvement ; and this 

was a plan by which the income would be increased considerably, by 

extending the convenience of the market. Additional income is of great 

import, where fortunes must be saved out of the surplus for younger 

children ; and the Duchess, having no small quantity of them to provide 
3 A 2 


364. —(C«w The London Markets. [Aprin 


for, has, for years, been looking out, with all the laudable anxiety of a 
‘good mother, for means of doing so. The market afforded, not only 
the present means of additional income, beyond the common interest of 
capital, but, also, the opportunity of a real benefit to the estate, and a 
permanent improvement to the public convenience. 

Designs were therefore made, according to Mr. Fowler’s ideas; the 
interest of the noble proprietor got a bill through the house which must 
set at rest all future disputes, and diminish the fees of certain barristers, 
and the costs of certain solicitors, most materially, and the long-talked of, 
and long-wanted, work, is now not only began, but one side of the 
quadrangle nearly completed for occupation. 

We have frequently observed, in our former lucubrations on the archi- 
tectural improvement of the metropolis, that it is unfair to criticise any 
building until it is complete, for nothing but completion can convey to 
the eye and mind of the spectator the idea or the intention of the archi- 
tect. We have ourselves seen many buildings, which from ugly and 
rude masses, promising neither beauty nor proportion, have become, 
when the whole was put together, good specimens of architecture ; 
and, in the same manner, we have frequently admired parts of a building 
in progress, the completion of which has disappointed our expectations. 

In architecture that may be bad, as a part by itself, which, by be- 
coming a part of a whole, is essentially good ; and vice versa ; a column— 
a wing—a porch, may be good in itself, yet from some want of propriety 
in appropriation, or from the incongruity of other portions of the structure, 
there are instances in which it may become a deformity. One front, 
however, of Covent Garden Market being completed, the critic is fully 
competent to judge of its merits and defects; and presuming that two 
sides of the quadrangle are intended to correspond, the one half of this 
large building may be contemplated in the “mind’s eye” of the spectator. 

This front, which is towards James-street, consists of two ranges of 
granite columns of the Greek doric, connected by an arched centre, 
forming an entrance, and terminated by a square building at either end ; 
on the other side of which four columns are returned so as to give uni- 
formity to the flank elevations. These columns are surmounted by a 
balustrade which we do not at all think compatible with the simplicity 
of the style of the architecture ; and from the base of this balustrade 
rises the slated roof, giving light to the upper apartments by sky- 
lights. The buildings at each end form the boundaries of this balus- 
trade; and, by being one story higher, or, rather, by the upper story 
being an attic instead of a garret, the elevation is rendered complete. 
The centre is formed by simicircular arches springing from two columns 
of the same order with the other, and each arch is surmounted by a 
pediment. A waggon head ceiling is carried over this entrance, and, 
by the plastering works going on, it seems the intention of the architect 
to. bestow a little more decoration in this than in the other parts of the 
building. 

The construction is divided into small shops, with staircases leading to 
the sleeping apartment or store room over, and display no pretensions. 
whatever to any architectural appearance. _ 

For all the purposes of its construction the plan and disposition of the 


building appear extremely well calculated, and perhaps we ought to look . 
for no further excellence than this. But we confess that in asituation, so _ 


conspicuous, and so well adapted for architectural display, as the insulated 


n 


1 


1829.] The London Markets. 365 


area of Covent Garden—in the direct passage, too, between the two ex- 
tremities of the metropolis—we should have wished for a specimen of 
architecture, characterised by a little more embellishment than the artist 
has bestowed upon his design. P 

Covent Garden should not have been considered quite like a meat 
or a poultry market. It is the great mart, it is true of vegetables, and 
vegetables may be said to require no more display of taste in the shops 
‘than animal food. But it is likewise the great mart for fruits and 
flowers—for the beautiful productions of spring, summer, and autumn. 
It is the great garden of London for roses, carnations, and all the other 
blooming attributes of the season, which we should not like to see dis- 
playing their lighter beauties amidst the heaviness of granite columns. 
We would have had Covent Garden one large conservatory, of such a 
light style of architecture as is more adapted to the display of fruits and 
flowers, and such as this very architect is displaying, on a grand scale, 
for the Duke of Northumberland at Sion. 

Such a specimen of architecture as this might have made Covent Garden 
one of the show places of London, and have ranked it, in the flower 
season, among one of the most agreeable lounges of the metropolis. Our 
imagination can easily conceive gallery on gallery, leading into apart- 
ments of this sort, tending, at once, to display, to the best advantage, 
the articles to be sold, as well as helping greatly to their preservation. 

As only one of the sides of the quadrangle is yet built, we are still in 
hopes that the architect has the intention of making at least two of the 
others a little more conformable to our ideas on the subject; or if such 
should not be his present intention, we trust that some such reasons as we 
have advanced will now have their influence upon him, and induce him to 
make the parts of the building which are to front St. Paul’s church and 
Russel-street, of a lighter description of architecture. 

The Ionic order, surmounted and: backed by conservatories, in which 
stained glass might be introduced, would be far preferable, and then the 
present buildings might be preserved as wings, and used for the sale of 
vegetables, while the others might be kept exclusively for flowers. We 
earnestly hope the architect will not permit such an opportunity of 
giving to London so unique and splendid an embellishment as _ this 
would present, to pass without availing himself of it. 

In the centre of the square, too, something of this sort might be very 
well adapted, in the form of a temple, whose dome of glass might give 
additional effect to the whole pile. Such an opportunity as this presents 
has seldom been afforded to an architect, and much blame will certainly 
attach to him if he neglects or loses it. His present building is of too 
mean a character — the wide-stretched, low slate roof — the balustrade 
parapet—and, indeed, the common appearance of the whole, disappoints 
us exceedingly ; and the only redemption will be in the other parts 
of the building being composed something in the lighter style above 
proposed. 

The arch in the centre, springing from columns, is bad in architecture. 
An arch should always have an APPARENTLY strong abutment, as well 
as a real one, otherwise the idea of insecurity will enter the imagination 
in spite of our knowledge of its fallacy. In the present instance, this 


arch is also surmounted by a pediment, which really puts one in mind of 
the distich— . 


366 The London Markets. [ApRIL, 


“ On the top of his head was his wig 
“ On the top of his wig was his hat.” 


The opposite side of the quadrangle will, of course, we imagine, cor- 
respond with this, but we shall look, with much anxiety to the con- 
necting ones, and to the centre building, for something to which we can 
give more unqualified praise. 

New Fleet Market is also now rapidly in progress, and will no longer 
be the dreadful nuisance that it has so long proved in one of the most 
crowded thoroughfares of the metropolis. Of the style of architecture 
of this building we are yet in ignorance; but from the able hand to which 
the management of this great improvement is consigned, we have the 
best hopes. : 

Gentlemen engaged in concerns of this kind should recollect that taste 
must be mingled with utility, and they should select men of taste as well 
as men of business, on all committees connected with carrying public 
works into execution. 

Much of the beauty of the metropolis has been sacrificed to mere men 
of business—men who think only on pounds, shillings, and pence, and 
the mere utility of a thing; not considering that beauty has its useful- 
ness by the instruction it imparts, the example it affords, and the 
emulation it creates. 

The same architect has, we understand, submitted a new design for 
Hungerford Market, which we consider, from the model which we have 
seen, far superior to Covent Garden ; but the project for its erection has 
been arrested by the Woods and Forests, who have some idea of adopting 
Mr. Burton’s plan of converting this market into a grand mews, and ap- 
propriating a portion of it to the stabling, &c., of the Golden Cross, 
which must be taken down in the progress of the present contemplated 
improvements in that quarter. 

There is likewise some intention of constructing a market in the rapidly 
rising and increasing neighbourhood of Pimlico, for the purpose of 
affording accommodation to Belgrave and Eaton Squares, and their vicinity. 
Should this be the case, and Mr. Porden inherit the talent and taste of 
his uncle, along with his employment as the architect to Lord Grosvenor, 
we have little doubt of seeing something worthy of the splendid 
neighbourhood in which it is to be erected. 

We cannot conclude this article better, than by earnestly calling the 
attention of the proprietors of markets towards making them rather em- 
bellishments than nuisances to our metropolis; and we trust that the 
general spirit of improvement will not stop till these disgraces are 
reformed altogether. 

Ss. S. 


1829.] 


[ 367 ] 


THE RACE BALL. 


The Races, dear Martha, are over; 
You can’t think how gay we have been ; 
I hate you for living at Dover— 
I like so to tell what I’ve seen: 
*Tis better by half, love, than writing ; 
We both, you know, doat on a chat ; 
It saves one the bore of inditing, 
My letters are always so flat. 


However, no doubt you are dying 
To hear all the news of this week ; 
A truce, then, dear girl, to my sighing— 
I'll write, though I still long to speak. 
First, fancy our starting from London, 
Close pack’d in Pa’s new yellow coach ; 
(My Harry says I shall have one done 
Just like it, when I’m Mrs. Roach.) © 


Our party consisted of nearly 
The whole of our family squad ; 
My sisters were dress’d out so queerly, 
Folks thought us, I’m sure, very odd. 
As soon as we got to Southampton, 
Ma made us all dip in the sea ; 
I said that it cruelly cramped one; 
My father said, “ Fiddle-de-dee !” 


We daily attended the Races, 
And always had plenty of beaux ; 
The course, though, was thronged with plain faces, 
And people whom nobody knows. 
We dined the first day at the Major’s, 
And afterwards had a quadrille ; 
The men talked of nothing but wagers, 
Their noise made Mamma very ill. 


To me it was vastly amusing— 
The horses have such funny names! 
(I hope you don’t think of refusing 
The offer you had from Sir James.) 
Perhaps you don’t care about betting, 
Or bolting, or jockeying, dear ; 
You see that I am not forgetting 
To tell you of all I’ve heard here. 


The next night, though terribly rainy, 
We all started off to the play ; 

The “ Hamlet” was rather a Zany— 
The farce was the “ Devil to Pay.” 

I dropp’d my pink shoe in a puddle, 

_ Our coach was so far from the door ; 

Conceive, too, the barbarous huddle 
Of seven, when room but for four ! 


368 


The Race Ball. LApRIL, 


But now comes the best of my story— 
The charming, the exquisite Ball! 

I never felt more in my glory 
Than when I’d the dances to call. 

The fuss and the fun, too, of dressing, 
In order to be in good time! 

For when one goes late, its distressing 5 
7 think it amounts to a crime. 


My dress was a brilliant blew d’ Hayti— 
“A love of a Mamaluke sleeve ! 
My gold chain d Amour was so weighty, 
1 broke it, which made Mamma grieve. — 
I danced half the night with dear Harry— 
I stood next that horrid Miss Jones ; 
I pity the man she’s to marry— 
How can he endure her cheek-bones ? 


The rooms were so cramm’d with gay prople ; 
A great many of them we knew— 

Young Dawes looked as tall as the steeple, 
He sits, when in town, in our pew: 

The Fothergills, Wilsons, and Parrots, 
Were waltzing as if for their lives ; 

The latter (their hair is like carrots) 
Ma thinks would make excellent wives. 


The two Birds were quite in a flutter, 
For Harry abused their French curls ; 
I heard them soon afterwards mutter, 
« They wondered brunettes should wear pearls!” 
Their ill-natured glance at my necklace 
Told plainly enough what they meant ; 
"Twas his gift they knew—but I’m reckless, 
As long as my Harry's content. 


e 
1 never saw half so much flirting ! 
Quadrilles were delightfully played ; 
The whole scene was truly diverting— 
I fear that my blue gown will fade ! 
I wish you had seen the nice supper— 
You can’t think how much those Birds ate ; 
They fully employed poor James Tupper, 
‘And took every thing he could get. 


We staid there till five in the morning, 


I danced out a new pair of shoes: 
This sheet, being full, gives me warning 

To tell you that thus ends my news. 
We go back to Town, love, to-morrow— 
_ This week seems so soon at an end ; 
Yet always, in joy and in sorrow, 

I am—Your affectionate Friend, 

Fanny. 


1829.) | [ 369. ] 


NARRATIVE OF SOME EVENTS IN THE IRISH REBELLION: 
BY AN EYE-WITNESS.* 
“© Let not Ambition mock their useful toil.” 


My father’s name was Samuel Barbour ; he held a small farm within 
two miles of Enniscorthy, called Clevass. It contained but twenty-two 
acres, but it was rich ground, and the rent was low; it had been in our 
family since the battle of the Boyne, for both my father’s people and my 
mother’s were Williamites.t It lay in a pleasant valley between two 
hills, one called Coolnahorna, and the other the Mine. On the former, 
an old tradition said, that King James, when flying, stopped to take. 
breath ; and an old prophecy said, that before an hundred years should 
have elapsed from that flight, the Irish should yet gather on that hill, 
strong, and victorious. The truth of this I myself saw but too clearly 
confirmed. 

Our farm, though very productive, would not have supported us in 
the comfort and respectability we enjoyed, but that my father was also 
a clothier ; he bought the fleece from the sheep’s back, and manufactured. 
it into middling fine cloths and friezes, which he sold at the neighbour- 
ing fairs. He thus gave employment to eight men and six women, and 
no one, rich or poor, had ever reason to complain of Sam Barbour. 
Though all our neighbours of the better class were Protestants (for we 
lived in the midst of twenty-two families of our own persuasion), yet all 
the people he employed were Roman Catholics, and we met with as 
much honesty and gratitude from them as we could have desired. 

My father was advanced in life when he married, and I was his second 
child. He had five more; the eldest, William, was at this time a fine 
well-grown boy, little more than sixteen. I was not much above fifteen, 
but tall and strong for my age. I had two sisters, of eleven and six, a 
little brother of four years old, and my mother had an infant only six 
weeks before the fearful times which I am endeavouring to describe. 

During the entire winter of 1797, when my father returned from 
Enniscorthy, he would mention the rumours he had heard of the dis- 
contents of the Roman Catholics, and the hopes they entertained that 
the French would assist them ; but we never had time to think of such 
things, much less to grieve about them. We never imagined that any 
one on earth would injure us, for we had never done the least hurt to 
any one, and we relied on the strength of the government, and, in par- 
ticular, on the bravery of the Enniscorthy Yeomanry, for putting down 
any disturbances. My brother William was one of these. 

On Saturday, the 26th of May, Whitsun-eve, Martin, our labourer 


*This narrative is taken, almost without the alteration of a word, from the lips 
of a plain respectable woman, the daughter of a County Wexford farmer; and though 
unpretending in its style, it possesses the merit of strict fidelity, and is so far curious, that 
few females in her rank, placed in such fearful circumstances, could have been capable of 
collecting their ideas into a continued narrative, and still fewer have ever met one to record 
itfor them. It will, at all events, give to the tenderly-guarded of the sex who read it some 
knowledge of what was once suffered by hundreds, with as kind hearts, and as soft feelings, 
as their own; and it will cause them to pray fervently against the miseries of civil war, 
which always fall heaviest on the most unoffending, on the widow and the orphan, the help- 
less woman, and the unconscious babe. 

+ Williamites were the soldiers of William the Third, who most of them, after the 
final expulsion of James the Second from Ireland, got grants of land; Clevass was one of 
these. The Battle of the Boyne was in 1690. 

M.M. New Series —Vou. VII. No. 40. 3B 


370 Narrative of some Events [Apri4, 


was shovelling oats, and my father went to the field to look at him. 
When he saw my father drawing near, he laid down his shovel, and, 
looking earnestly and sorrowfully at him, he said, “ Master, if you would 
promise me not to betray me, I would tell you something that might 
serve you and yours.” My father answered, “ You ought to know me 
well enough by this time, Martin, to be certain that I would not betray 
any one, much less you.”—“ But, master,” rejoined he, “ I’m sworn 
never to tell any one that won't take the same oath that I did to be true 
to the cause.”—“ You unfortunate man,” said my father, “I had rather 
see all belonging to me dead, and die myself with them, than prove 
false to the government that has sheltered me.” On this, Martin, with 
a heavy sigh, resumed his shovel, and continued his work. My father 
had but little time to think on this, for he was obliged to leave two cart- 
loads of oats at the mill of Moinart, to be ground into meal for the use 
of the family. Moinart is about two miles from Clevass, and Mr. 
Grimes, the miller, was a Protestant, and much respected in the county. 
As soon as my father cast his eyes on him, he saw that he too knew of 
something bad going on; yet he hardly exchanged a word with him 
but on business, for his heart, as he told us, was too full; and, leaving 
the oats to be ground, he turned back with the empty cars, anxious to 
rejoin us as soon as possible. When he had gone nearly half the road, 
he saw imperfectly (for it was now almost dusk) a great dust on the road 
before him, and heard a confused murmur of voices—a moment after he 
thought a body of troops were advancing, for he fancied he saw their 
bayonets ; but the next instant he was surrounded by a party of more 
than two hundred rebels, armed with pikes, who stopped him, and drag- 
ged him off the car he was sitting on. My father was no coward, as he 
fully shewed two days afterwards ; but he said, that, at that moment, 
the thoughts of all he had left at home rushed into his mind, his knees 
failed him, and if he had not clung to the head of his horse, he would 
have fallen to the earth. They asked all together who he was, and 
where he came from, and he was unable to answer; but one of them 
happening to know him, cried out, “Oh, let him go, that is Sam Bar- 
bour, of Clevass, he is an honest man ;” and they did set him at liberty. 
He came home, and, turning the horses over to Martin’s care, he 
walked in amongst us, and his face told us the ruin that was coming upon 
us, before we learned it from his words. 

We cared little for eating the supper we had prepared for him and 
ourselves ; and after hearing his story, we stepped to the door to listen 
whether any of the armed ruffians were coming towards us; we heard 
nothing, but we saw in the distance eleven distinct blazes, every one 
from its situation marking out to us where the house and the property 
of each friend and neighbour were consuming. In immediate expec- 
tation of a similar fate, we instantly began to load our cars with what- 
ever furniture and provisions were portable, that as early as possible the 
next day we might fly with them to Enniscorthy ; what we could not 
pack up we carried out to the fields, and concealed in.the ridges of 
standing corn ; and it was but little of it we ever saw again. 

We passed the whole night thus ; but the poor children, hungry and 
sleepy, lay down in the nearest corner, for we had placed the beds on 
the cars. On Whit-Sunday morning we set off for Enniscorthy, with 
heavy hearts, just about the same hour we thought to have gone to its 
church. My mother, yet weak, leaned on my father, I carried the 


1829.] : in the Irish Rebellion. 371. 


infant, and the other children followed us, the little one clinging to my 
gown. My brother William had already been in Enniscorthy for more 
than a week with his corps; the female servant went with us, but Mar- 
tin, who, with his mother, lived in a small cottage on our ground, staid 
behind us: and when we again saw him he was an armed rebel. Yet, 
from his humanity to us, I cannot think that he ever was guilty of the 
same cruelties that were committed by his comrades. 

When we entered the town, we went to the house of a relation, whose 
name was Willis, who instantly received us, but when we entered, we 
had hardly room to sit down, it was so full of the Protestant inhabitants 
of the neighbourhood, who had fled into the town for protection. Few 
of these had had time to save any thing, and those who, like us, had 
brought food, immediately gave it to be shared in common. My father, 
on seeing us safe in the house, immediately went and enrolled himself 
amongst the Supplementary Yeomanry, and was provided with a musket 
and cross belts, to wear over his coloured clothes. ‘There were more 
than two hundred of the neighbouring gentry and farmers armed hastily 
in the same manner. Our regular yeomen, who were clothed and dis- 
ciplined, amounted to about as many more ; we had one company of the 
North Cork Militia, ninety-one in number; and it was this handful of 
men, not much exceeding five hundred in number, that, in our sim- 
plicity, we had imagined could conquer all the disaffected in the county. 
Excepting the few militia-men, all our little garrison were neighbours, or 
friends, or near relations, who now knowing the immense force of the 
rebels, which was well known to exceed ten thousand, and their bar- 
barity, for they gave no quarter, knew they had no choice between 
dying like men with their arms in their hands, or standing tamely like 
sheep to be butchered. Scarcely one of these men but had every one 
that was dearest to him sheltered in the town he was about defending ; 
and yet it is this very circumstance that was one of the causes of their 
losing possession of it, as I shall explain shortly. 

When my father left us, and we had unpacked our furniture, my 
sisters and I were at first so unconscious of any immediate danger, that we 
were rather gratified by the novelty of our situation, and passed some 
time leaning out of a window, looking at the horse yeomen passing 
hurriedly back and forwards, and disputing between ourselves which 
man looked best in his uniform, or sat best on his horse. A very short 
time, however, changed our feelings, when we saw seven or eight men 
covered with blood carried into the house, and were called to lay down 
our beds for them to lie on; these were yeomen, who had been skir- 
mishing in the neighbourhood, and who, full as the house was, were 
brought into it for present relief. I now began to see, for the first time; 
some of the miseries that threatened us; and thus passed a few anxious 
hours, when it suddenly struck me that our cows would be injured if 
they were not milked again, and the servant girl and I set out about six 
in the evening, and without meeting any thing to injure us, we got safe 
to Clevass ; we found all as we had left it, with the poor cows standing 
lowing to be milked; we brought home a large pitcher each, and, on 
our road home, met several Roman Catholic neighbours, with whom we 
had lived on the most friendly terms, we spoke to them as usual, but 
they looked in our faces as if they had never seen us before, and passed 
on. I have since thought they either looked on us with abhorrence, as 
those devoted to destruction in this world and in the next, or, that know- 


3 B2 


372 Narrative of some Events [ArriL, 


ing our doom, and pitying our fate, they were afraid to trust themselves 
to speak to us. We could not at least accuse them of hypocrisy. 

It was late when we returned to the town, and, even in the midst of 
his anxiety, I could see joy lighten in the looks of my father at our 
safety, for even during our short absence, the reports of the rapid 
advance of the rebels had been so frequent, that he feared we might 
have been intercepted on our return. The milk was gratefully received 
by our own children, as well as all the other poor little creatures shel- 
tered in that crowded house. We prayed, and endeavoured to rest on 
the bare boards, though worn out in mind and body; but I slept but little 
that night, with the moans of a wounded man in the very room with us, 
and the heat and closeness of the air, so different from our own pleasant 
airy little bed-rooms. 

At the very dawn I arose, and my father seeing me preparing to 
venture once more to see our cows, and that I was seeking in vain for 
our servant (whom it was many weeks before I saw again) said he 
would go with me, for he hoped there would not be any immediate want 
of him in the town. We arrived at the little farm, and found, as yet, 
all was safe. The cows waiting for us, and the poor poultry and pigs 
‘looking for food that we had not to give them. After attending to the 
cows, I thought of some brown griddle cakes we had left behind us on 
a shelf, and went to break some to the fowls, when my father followed 
me into our desolate kitchen, and, taking a piece of the bread, asked me 
for a mug of the warm milk. I gave it to him, and turning to the door, 
and casting my eyes up to Coolnahorna Hill, which was not a quarter of 
a mile distant from us, I saw the top ridge of it filled with men, armed 
with pikes, the heads of them glistening brightly in the morning sun. 
Much troubled, I called to my father, and hardly knowing what I did, 
1 took up the large vessel of milk I had intended to carry into the town 
for the children; but my father, looking at ‘me as if he never thought to 
see me again, said, “ Lay that down, Jane, it is most probable we shall 
none of us ever want it.” I laid it down, and we returned back to 
Enniscorthy, where we arrived breathless about ten in the forenoon. 
As we advanced towards it, we heard the drum beating to arms, and on 
entering, we heard that the enemy were closing in on all sides of the 
town in vast force. We saw our friends hurrying through the streets 
to the different posts assigned to them; the North Cork were placed on 
the bridge over the Slaney, which ran on the east side of the town ; our 
own horse yeomanry filled the street leading from that bridge; our 
infantry, amongst whom were the supplementaries, were placed at the 
Duffrey Gate Hill; at the opposite extremity of the town to the west, 
a guard of yeoman was placed over the Market-house, where there was 
a great store of arms and ammunition, and where a few prisoners were — 
‘confined ; some more mounted guard over the castle, an ancient build- 
ing, in which some of the most dangerous rebels were lodged; and my 
father, after leaving me with my mother, put on his belts, took up his 
musket, and joined my brother (whom we had never seen all this time 
though he was on duty in the town), at the Duffrey Gate, the post they 
were, ordered to occupy. 

In the course of this morning, Willis, whose house we were sheltered 
in, put his wife and his two infants on a horse, and mounting another, 
fled with them to Wexford ; he never told any one he was leaving them, 
nor could ‘we blame him, for such a ‘calamity as we were all involved in 


1829.)] in the Irish Rebellion. 373 


would have made the most generous man selfish. And he was a friendly 
man, but he could not save us all, so, as was but reasonable, he took with 
him those who were nearest to him. 

At eleven in the forenoon, the videttes brought word from the Duffrey 
Gate, that the rebels were advancing towards the town from the north- 
east, in a column that completely filled the road, and was more than a 
mile in length ; they were calculated, by some of our garrison who had 
served abroad, to exceed six thousand men. They soon closed with our 
Enniscorthy Yeomen, and the shots, and the shouting, fell sharply on 
our ears. I was at first greatly frightened, and the children hid their 
faces in my lap, but in a few minutes I became used to the noise, and 
could speak to my mother, and try to give her some comfort, but she 
seemed stupified, and could say nothing in answer, but now and then 
to lament that her fine boy was in the midst of the danger. She seemed 
not to comprehend that my father was equally exposed, more especially 
as he (seeing that the disaffected inhabitants had now actually begun to 
set their own houses on fire) had twice or thrice quitted his post, on 
the enemy being partially repulsed, and ran down to see if we were yet 
safe, and to tell us that William was well, and behaving like a man and 
a soldier ; he then, on again hearing the advancing shouts of the rebels, 
would rush back to the fight. This imprudence, in which he did but 
imitate the rest of his comrades, gave dreadful advantage to the enemy, 
yet it was not cowardice that caused them to actthus, for they gave proofs 
of even desperate courage, but from their painful anxiety for all that 
was dearest to them, and from their being totally unacquainted with the 
duties of a soldier, for, until the preceding day, the greater part of the 
Supplementary Yeomen had never before carried arms. 

The fearful firing had now continued nearly three hours. Our men 
were forced to fall back into the town, for our little garrison was now 
reduced to less than two hundred, and though upwards of five hundred 
of the enemy were killed, they were so numerous that they never felt 
the loss. The North Cork were now obliged to provide for their own 
safety ; and I have since heard it said, that they neglected to sound a 
retreat, which, if done, might have enabled many of the Enniscorthy 
men to make a more regular one. As it was, some of them dispersed 
through the fields, and gained Duncannon Fort in safety, amongst whom 
was my brother, and the rest retreated fighting through the burning 
streets, and more than once repulsed the enemy; these would again 
return on them in thousands, till at last, though they disputed every 
inch of ground, they were forced to retreat to the Market-house, 
and join their comrades who kept it. The house that sheltered us was 
directly opposite, and though nore within dared venture to the win- 
dows, yet we knew, from the increased uproar, that destruction had 
come nearer to us. At last the fire reached us, and we rushed from the 
flames into the midst of the fight, leaving all we had so anxiously saved 
the day before to be consumed, without bestowing a thought upon it. 
A know not what became of the wounded, but if they even perished in 
the flames, it was a more merciful death than they would have met from 
the rebels. We fled across the square to the Market-house, and I, who 
had never before seen a corpse, had now to step over, and even upon, 
the bodies of those rebels who had fallen by the fire of our men, whilst, 
which ever way I turned my eyes, I saw dozens strewed around. I do 
not know by what means we were admitted, but it was owing to the 


374 Narrative of some Events [Apriu, 


courage and humanity of Mr. Grimes, the miller, and here we once more 
met my father ; we now sank exhausted with terror amongst barrels of 
gunpowder, arms, furniture, and provisions confusedly heaped up toge- 
ther ; but in less than an hour (during which time our defenders fired 
often and effectually) the fire reached the Market-house also, and all 
within it, women, children, and yeomen, were forced to leave it, and 
throw themselves into the midst of the enemy, who now surrounded it 
in thousands, or they would have been destroyed by the explosion of the 
gunpowder, which shortly after took place. As we were going to unbar 
the doors, Grimes determined on a desperate effort for our safety, he 
stretched out his hand, and seized the pikes of two men who lay dead 
across the door way, he turned then to my father, and said, “ Throw 
aside that musket, Sam, take this pike, put a piece of the child’s green 
frock on it for a banner, and perhaps you may save the lives of your 
family.” But my father answered, “ Never! I will never quit the 
King’s cause whilst I have life.” Grimes then raised a flitch of 
bacon on his pike, and bidding us follow, he rushed out of the Mar- 
ket-house cheering, and appearing as if he were joining the pikemen, 
and bearing provisions to them; my father, still holding the musket, 
followed. I snatched up the child of four years old, my little sisters 
hung on my skirts, and my mother, with the infant, came after me. 
My father now turned to me, and said, “ Jane, my dear child, take care 
of your mother and the children!” They were the last words he ever 
spoke to me. 

Grimes stopped now to parley with the pikemen, who completely 
surrounded us, when a fine infant of five years of age, the son of Joseph 
Fitzgerald, a near neighbour of ours, ran out to join us ; at this moment 
one. of the rebels, who had some particular hatred to his father, unfor- 
tunately knew the child, and exclaiming, “That’s an Orange brat!”” 
ide bien down with his pike (as I thought) on his back ; the child 
gave a faint cry, and I was stooping to raise him, when I saw the pike 
drawn back covered with its blood! It shivered in every limb, and 
then lay perfectly still—it was dead, I had strength given me to sup- 
press a shriek, and I hid my face in my little brother’s bosom, whilst 
my sisters never uttered a cry, but pressed still closer to me; and my 
mother, who never took her eyes off my father, did not see it. 

We were allowed to pass over the square without any injury, and 
were following Grimes towards the river, when I noticed a pikeman 
following us closely, and at last pushing between my father and me. 
In my fear and confusion I did not know the man; but I was told 
afterwards it was a man named Malone, whom I had many times seen, 
and who of all other men we should have thought we had least reason 
to fear. His mother had been of a decent Protestant family, but had 
married a profligate of the Roman Catholic persuasion, he deserted her 
and one infant, when she was with child of another, and my father’s 
mother took her home, and on her dying in childbirth of this man, my 
kind grandmother then nursing her own child, put the deserted infant 
to her breast, and prolonged his life for some days till a nurse was pro-= 
vided for him, whom she paid ; he was reared by our family, and was 
at this time a leather-cutter. I could not then recollect him, however, 
for his face was covered with dust and blood, a terrific looking figure, 
‘and his action was suspicious ; so, as if I could protect my father, I deter- 
amined not to lose sight of him, and, with his three young children, kept 


1829.] in the Irish Rebellion. 375 


close to them. Concealed in a chimney, at the corner of the lane, we 
were now about to enter, there was a yeoman, .who, it was said, fired 
away more than an hundred ball cartridges at the rebels in the square 
below, and made every shot take effect. He at this moment took aim at 
a pikeman within a few paces of us, who staggered some steps, and fell 
dead across my mother’s feet ; she dropped in a dead swoon beside the 
corpse. I turned to raise her, and to lift the infant from the ground it 
had fallen on, and I thus lost sight of my father, and the fearful pike- 
man who followed him: I never more saw him alive. But Providence 
thus kindly spared me the sight of his murder, by the very man that 
drew his first nourishment from the same breast with himself. He fol- 
lowed him, as I afterwards heard, into Barrack-lane, and killed him at 
the door of a brewery ; a man, named Byrne, who had the care of it, 
saw him, through a crevice in the door, commit the act, and saw him, 
too, with his leather-cutter’s knife disfigure the face of the dead, after 
plundering him, and stripping him of the new coat he wore. 

In a few minutes my mother came to herself ; she arose, and we both, 
unconscious of our loss, went with the children towards the river, think- 
ing that perhaps we might rejoin my father there. My mother was 
now quite bewildered, and unable to speak to, much less to advise me ; and 
I, though born so near the town, had never been in it, but to church or to 
market, and was totally ignorant whither to direct my steps. We asked at 
many doors would they admit us, but were constantly driven away, and, 
for the most part, with threats and curses. At last we came by chance 
to the house of one Walsh, a baker, who knew my mother, and spoke 
compassionately to her, but we had hardly entered, when five or six 
pikemen followed, and ordered him to turn us out, or they would 
burn the house over our heads. He dismissed us unwillingly ; and 
we then followed some other desolate beings like ourselves, who led 
us into the garden of one Barker, that held a high command among the 
rebels. His family seemed not to notice us, and we here sat down, with 
many more, on the bare ground under the bushes. All were women 
and children, some, from their appearance, seemed to be of a rank far supe- 
rior tous; and I have since heard that forty-two widows passed the night 
in that garden. Many of these knew their loss, yet fear had overpowered 
grief so completely, that not one dared to weep aloud. The children 
were as silent as their mothers, and whenever a footstep, going to or 
from the house, was heard to pass along, we dared not even look towards 
it, but hid our face against the earth. The moon shone brightly, and 
I at one time saw a man led along, pinioned, but Barker, who was then 
in the house, was so humane as not to put him to death amongst us, but 
ordered him off for execution to Vinegar Hill. 

As the night advanced, a rebel, named Lacy, observing my mother to 
shiver violently, went out, and, soon returning, threw over her shoulders 
about three or four yards of coarse blue cloth, speaking at the same time 
some words of pity to her. She, in her frantic terror, endeavoured to 
cast it away, lest, as she said, she should be killed for having what was 
not her own, but I, with some difficulty, made her keep it, and, except 
the clothes we wore, it was the only covering by night or day we had 
for ten weeks. 

In the dead of the night I began to take somewhat more courage, and 
hearing a strange noise in a lane, which was divided from the garden 
only by a low wall, I crept to it, and saw a sight that soon drove me 


376 Narrative of some Events [ APRIL, 


back to my mother’s side. Some wounded men had been dragged to 
die in that lane, and some boys of the rebels’ side, were mounted on 
horses, and galloping up and down many times across their bodies, 
whilst the only signs of life they shewed were deep groans. But Bar- 
ker, when he heard of this cruelty, put’a stop to it, and allowed them to 
die in peace. 

A Protestant lady, of great respectability, was allowed by Barker to 
take shelter with her children in his house. As a great mark of good 
will towards her, some thin stirabout was made for her early the next 
morning, which was Tuesday. She had noticed us from the house, and 
beckoning to me, with much kindness gave me a plateful of it for our 
children, but, though they tasted, they could not eat, for terror had com- 
pletely deprived them of appetite. 

About nine, I felt such a desire to rejoin my father, and to Pave that 
garden, that I left my mother’s side, and went alone towards the garden 
gate, to see if it were possible. The first person I saw at it was Mar- 
tin’s mother, dressed completely in new and excellent clothes, and in 
particular wearing a remarkably handsome hat. Knowing her poverty, 
I was so much astonished at her appearance, that, forgetting for the 
moment all my anxiety and fear, I asked her where she got the hat ; to 
which she replied sternly, “ Hush! ’tis not for one like you to ask me 
where I got it.” I then said, “Oh! did you see my father ?”—“ I have,” 
answered she; “and he is dead!” 

I forgot what I said or did for some minutes after this, but I found 
Mary Martin had drawn me away from the garden gate, lest, as she said, 
my cries should inform my mother of what had befallen us. I clung to 
her, and intreated her to take me to him, that I might see him once more. 
She at first refused, but at last, to pacify my violence, she consented. 
We went about a quarter of a mile to Barrack-lane, where, lying in the 
midst of eight or ten other bodies, with two pikemen standing looking 
on, I saw, and knew my father. 

He lay on his back, with one hand on his breast, and his knee slightly 
raised, his shirt was steeped in blood, the lower part of his face dis- 
figured with the gashes of the ruffian’s knife, and his mouth filled pur- 
posely with the dict of the street ; beside him lay our large mastiff, who 
had licked all the blood off his face, and who, though he was heard two 
or three nights after howling piteously round our burnt cottage, was 
never again seen by any one. I can now describe what then almost 
killed me to look upon. I felt as if suffocating: I thought, as I looked 
on him, that I could have given my mother, my brother, even my own. 
life, to have brought him back again. I fell on my knees beside him, 
and, whilst kissing his forehead, broke out into loud cries, when one of 
the pikemen gave me such a blow in the side with the handle of his 
pike (cursing me at the same time), that it stretched me breathless for a 
moment beside my father, and would have broken my ribs but for the 
very strong stays which I had on. He was going to repeat the blow, 
but that his comrade levelled his pike, and cried out, “If you dare do 
that again, I'll thrust this through your body! Because the child is 
frightened, are you to ill-treat her?” He then raised me; and I knew 
him to be a man named Bryan, who but the week before had purchased 
some cloth from my father at a fair to which I had accompained him. 
He spoke kindly to me, and led me back to the garden where I had left 
my mother, telling me to keep-silence as to what I had seen, lest she 
should perish with fear and grief. ey, 


1829.] in the Irish Rebellion. 377 


We remained without food all that day, and towards six in the even- 
ing, Barker’s family turned us all out of the garden, for they said it was 
not safe for us to remain there any longer. I now thought to take my 
mother home, for she was totally incapable of giving me advice ; but just 
as we arrived at the outskirts of the town, and were slowly walking by 
the river, a party of rebels on the opposite bank, ordered us to return 
again or they would fire onus. We then endeavoured to quit it by 
another outlet, when we were surrounded by a strong body of pikemen, 
ot with many more whom they had already prisoners, to Vinegar 

1. 

This hill lies close to Enniscorthy, it is not high, but tolerably steep, 
and the rebels were assembled on it in thousands. They seemed to have 
a few tents made of blankets, but the greater number were in the open 
air. I could see that some were cooking at large fires, whilst others 
lay about sleeping on the ground. It was probably about eight in the 
evening when we arrived at the hill, whén the men whom they had 
captured were separated from us, and driven higher up, whilst we, and 
many other woman and children, were ordered to sit down in a dry 
ditch not far from the foot of it. We had not been long here, when we 
were accosted by a neighbour, whose name was Mary Donnelly, she was 
a rebel’s wife, and had now come to the hill to join her husband. She 
pitied us, and sat beside my mother the entire of that night, who, feeling 
her presence a protection, would cower down beside her when she heard 
the slightest noise. And that whole night we heard fearful sounds on 
the hill above us, as the men who were brought there prisoners with 
ourselves, were massacred one by one. We could hear distinctly the 
cries of the murdered, and the shouts of the executioners. The moon 
shone brightly, and, towards dawn, I saw what I think alarmed me 
even more than any sight I had yet beheld. A tall white figure came 
rushing down the hill: as it came nearer, it had the appearance of a 
naked man, and I felt my heart die within me, for I thought it was no 
living being. He passed so close to us, that I could see the dark 
streams of blood running down his sides. In some minutes the uproar 
above shewed he was missed, and his pursuers passed also close to us ; 
one of them perceived I was awake, and asked if I had seen him pass, but’ 
I denied it. This was a young gentleman named Horneck, one of the 
finest lads in the County Wexford; he had been piked and stripped, 
but recovering, hadfled from the hill, he waded the Slaney, and ran six 
miles to the ruins of his father’s house, where his pursuers reached him 
and completed their work of death. 
~ On Wednesday, about ten in the forenoon, owing to the intercession 
of Mary Donnelly, we were allowed to leave the hill. When we had 
gone about a furlong, I was shocked at missing the infant from my 
mother’s arms. On inquiring of her what had become of it, she seemed 
at first not to understand me; she was so much bewildered, she had 
actually forgotten it beltind her. I returned, and found the poor little 
creature asleep on the ground, where she had laid it, and she did not 
even seem to rejoice when it was restored to her. In our slow progress 
towards home, we met a silly, harmless fellow, a wood-ranger, who 
called himself a pikeman, but who was armed only with the handle of 
a shovel, with no head on it. He took one of our children on his back, 
amd another in his arms, and said he would not leave us till we had 
arrived at our own house. When within half a mile of it, we met a 

M.M. New Serics—Vou. VU. No. 40. 3C 


378 Narrative of some Events [Aprit; 


Roman Catholic lad, a school-fellow of my own, named Murphy, who 
wept bitterly on seeing us, and, perceiving that we were sinking with 
weakness, he led us to the next house, insisted on our admission, and 
then flew off to his father’s cottage for some bread and milk, but though 
two days had now fully passed since we had eaten, we could only 
moisten our lips. We were allowed to rest. here till towards evening, 
but were then ordered to leave the house by the owners, for they said 
that our stay endangered their own safety: Murphy again gave my 
mother his arm; towards dusk we at last reached the home we had so 
long wished for, and found the house only a heap of ruins. It had been 
burned to the ground, the side walls had fallen in, and nothing remained 
standing but one chimney and a barn, from which the doors and part of 
the roof had been torn. Our little factory also lay in ashes, with all our 
looms, presses, wheels, and machines. All our cloth and wool, which 
we had concealed in the corn, was carried off ; our young cattle, horses, 
and pigs, were all driven to Vinegar Hill, our stacks of hay and corn 
were burnt down, and yet we stood looking on all this desolation in 
utter silence, as if we could not comprehend that it was on ourselves it 
had fallen. 

My father's brother lived within two fields of us: his wife had been 
uncommonly charitable to beggars, or poor travellers, as they called 
themselves, and even had an outhouse, with clean straw, purposely for. 
them to sleep in. Oue of these, a woman of the very lowest class, when 
she saw the family on the preceding Sunday, preparing to take refuge, 
as we did, in Enniscorthy, clung round them, and between intreaties 
and threats prevailed on them to remain in their house. She remained 
also, and protected them ; and owing to her courage and presence of 
mind, she saved nearly their entire property from destruction, for she 
turned back more than one party of rebels who were bent on murder 
and plunder. My uncle hearing that we were standing at the ruins of 
our house, came to us, and led us to his, where we found more than fifty 
women and children, many of the highest class, who had no other place 
in which to lay their heads, nor a morsel to satisfy the hunger, which 
(now that they were no longer in immediate terror for their lives) they 
began to feel. 

All the provisions in the house had been given to the different parties 
of rebels who had called, but we milked all the cows, both those of my 
uncle and our own (which had not been carried away with the rest - 
of our cattle) and made curds, which for some days was our only food. 
On the third day, poor Martin came to see us, he wept with us, and 
gave us two sacks of barley meal, which he and his comrades had plun- 
dered from some other distressed family, but want forced us to accept 
them with gratitude. My uncle, in a day or two more, found that two 
of our pigs had returned home, and he killed them, which gave us a 
great supply of food. In about a fortnight the greater part of those 
creatures he had sheltered, departed to whatever homes or friends were 
left to them, but still for many weeks we, and several as desolate, were 
entirely dependent on him. - , 

In a few days after Martin’s first visit he came again, with some tea 
and sugar for my mother, whose health was now so precarious, that, 
for many days, it was her only nourishment; and until he was killed, 
about the latter end of June, at Borris, he continued to shew us similar 
kindness. Even when dying, he made his comrades promise to carry 


1829.] in the Irish Rebellion. 379 


his body to his mother and us, though the distance was twenty miles, 
and we had him laid in his own burial-ground, as he earnestly desired. 

On the day after we returned, my aunt said to me, “ I shall tell your 
mother of your father’s death; for it is better she should be in sorrow 
than in her present state of stupefaction.” She did so, and I cannot bear 
even now to think of how my mother behaved when she heard it; yet the 
thoughts of his body lying unburied seemed to give her (even in the 
midst of her extreme grief) the greatest anguish. My aunt, who was 
a woman of great strength of mind, and who loved my father as if he 
had been her own brother, now proposed that I should accompany her 
the next day (Friday) to the town, to seek for the body, which we 
agreed to lay in one of those pits in which we buried our potatoes, but 
which was now empty, and open. We went in much apprehension, 
and on reaching the town, and passing though the Market-place, we 
could hardly tell which way to go, the appearance of every place was so 
much altered by the number of houses that lay in ruins. No one 
molested us, and with some difficulty we found the place where I had 
seen my father lying, but, on reaching it, the body was no longer there. 
All the others had also been removed ; yet the smell of putridity was so 
strong that my aunt fainted. I brought her home again, and we found 
Martin there ; and he seeing my mother’s anguish, told her he had laid 
his master’s body in a gravel pit, but this I knew was merely to soothe 
her; and I was afterwards told, that it and the others had been thrown 
into the Slaney, which ran close beside the spot, but a few hours before 
we went to seek for it. 

We lived thus for some weeks, in constant dread both of the rebels 
and even of the straggling parties of the military sent out to apprehend 
them ; from the first we were protected by the female beggar and Mar- 
tin’s mother, who lived with us, but the last, either not knowing we 
were loyalists, or not caring, frequently behaved with much insolence ; 
the smaller the party was, the more we dreaded them ; and more than 
once myself and a few more young girls, fearing to pass the night in the 
house, slept in the centre of a large holly bush, at some distance from 
it. But after the rebels were repulsed at Newtown Barry, and finally 
routed at Vinegar Hill, a regular camp was formed within a quarter of 
a mile of my uncle’s house: we were then in safety, for the soldiers were 
under better discipline, and we found an excellent market for our milk 
and butter, which enabled us to purchase a few indispensable articles of 
furniture and clothing, and to fit up the barn as a dwelling-house. 
About this time, Grimes, who saved not only his life but his mill, and 
the greater part of his property, restored a good part of our oatmeal. 
The latter end of J uly, a field of barley, which had escaped trampling, 
became ripe, our new potatoes became fit for use, and we never after- 
wards knew want. We could not, however, rebuild our house till the 
next summer ; and the blackened walls of our little factory (which we 
could never afford to build) are yet to be seen. 

A few nights after Vinegar Hill was taken by the King’s forces, I 
went with a lanthorn to an unfrequented outhouse to bring in some 
straw for our beds ; Martin’s mother, who did not at first know where I 
was going, followed me in much agitation ; but I had already reached 
the little building, and, as I removed the sheaves, I was dreadfully 
shocked at seeing that they concealed four or five pallid ghastly-looking 
creatures, who, on seeing me, intreated me in the most piteous manner 

C 2 


380 Narrative of some Events [Arrin, 


not to betray them. They were rebels, who had been badly wounded 
in the battle ; and the woman who sheltered them there, and supplied 
them with food from my uncle’s house, joined her intreaties to theirs, 
and I promised I would be silent. In four days more one died there, 
and the rest were able to remove. I have been since blamed for not 
giving them up, but I have never repented that I kept my promise to 
them. 

It was just seven weeks after the beginning of all our sorrows, that as 
I was passing one evening near the ruins of our house, I was greatly 
startled at hearing from within it the deep sobs and suppressed lamen- 
tations of some person in great trouble. I ventured to look in, and 
found they proceeded from a man who was sitting on a low part of the 
fallen wall, with his head resting on his kness. When he heard me he 
arose, and I saw it was my brother ; but if it had not been for the 
strong likeness he yet bore to my father, I should never have known 
him; from a fair ruddy boy, he had become a haggard, sun-burnt 
man, so thin, that his waist might have been almost spanned ; and this 
change had been wrought in him by want and hardship in the short 
space of eight weeks, for it was just so long since we had met. He 
immediately turned when he saw me, and fled from me at his utmost 
speed. In four days more he returned again to us, and seemed more 
composed ; he occasionally got leave of absence to assist in our business 
of the farm, but he never could settle entirely with us till the winter was 
past. In one of his short visits, being alone with him, I asked him how 
soon he became acquainted with my father’s death, and he answered, 
« T knew of it before I was told of it. I knew it when I was on guard 
at Duncannon Fort, the third night after the battle of Enniscorthy, for 
I saw him as plainly asI see you. I was overpowered with hunger and 
fatigue, and I slept on my post, and he stood beside me and awakened 
me ; as I opened my eyes, I saw him clearly in the bright moonlight, 
he passed away from before me, and I knew by what I felt he was no 
living man!” This might have been but a dream, yet who can say he 
was not permitted to save his son from the certain death that awaited 
him if he had been found sleeping on his post ? 

I have now told the principal circumstances that fell under my own 
eye during the fearful summer of 1798, in which, besides my father, I 
lost fourteen uncles, cousins, and near relations ; but if I were to tell 
all I saw, and all I heard, it would fill a large volume. Yet before I 
conclude, I must mention one evil that arose from the rebellion not 
generally noticed, but the ill effects of which may be said still to con- 
tinue. The yeomanry was composed mostly of fine boys, sons of farmers, - 
some of whom had scarcely attained the age of sixteen; these, removed « 
from the eye of their parents, with arms placed in their hands, raised to 
the rank of men before they had discretion to behave as such, and 
exposed to all the temptations of idleness, intoxication, and evil com- 
panions, when peaceful times returned, were totally unable to settle to 
their farms (too often left by their father’s death to them alone), but 
continued the same careless, disorderly life, till they became quite unable 
to pay their rents. They were then ejected, and emigrated to America ; 
and on the very farms which thirty years ago were possessed by old 
Protestant families, there now live the immediate descendants of the 
very people who may be said to have been the original cause of all this 
eyil. 


1829.] in the Irish Rebellion. 381 


This, thank God, has not been the case with our family. Clevass is 
still in my brother’s hands, my mother, now an aged woman, lives with 
him, and all the rest of our family have-been for many years married, 
and settled in our own homes. Yet fears and suspicious still remain in 
the hearts of the two opposite parties in the County Wexford, and until 
the present generation, and their children after them, shall have passed 
away, it will never be otherwise ; for those who, like me, have seen their 
houses in ashes, their property destroyed, and their nearest and dearest 
lying dead at their feet, though they may, and should forgive, they never 
can forget. 

Enniscorthy. R. E. S. 


NOVELS BY THE AUTHOR OF HEADLONG HALL. 


7 \ 

WE have long been familiar with the name and reputation of the gen- 
tleman who, though anonymous, is the well-known and much admired 
author of the very peculiar class of novels, commencing with Headlong 
Hall, and concluding—though we hope only for the present—with the 
Misfortunes of Elphin. We have long been familiar with his genuine, 
but somewhat elaborate humour, grave and saturnine as Swift, and occa- 
sionally extravagant as Rabelais, though recurring at rarer intervals— 
with his various acquirements—his fulness of ideas, and wealth of lan- 
guage—his agreeable poetic fancy, and above all, with his incomparable 
powers of ridicule and sarcasm. Among the numerous writers of the 
present day, he has long stood out, in our estimation, as one of the most 
sterling ; and, though his works have been ushered into public life in a 
homely, unobtrusive sort of manner, without either puff, paragraph, or 
advertisement, to call attention to their characteristic excellencies, yet 
they have, nevertheless, grown upon the minds of their readers, forced 
their way into general notice, and abundantly proved that they have 
_ within them the undoubted germ of perpetuity. 

Mr. Peacock’s first novel, entitled Headlong Hall, published some- 
where about the year 1815, attracted general attention, by its quaint, 
recondite, and various originality. It had no plot—scarcely any inci- 
dent—little description—absolutely no sentiment—none of those clap- 
traps, by which our more glaring writers of fiction appeal to the public 
sympathies, and conceal their own intellectual sterility ; its chief and 
only merit was its felicitous mode of hitting off some of the pedantic 
absurdities of the day, and discriminating between what was true and 
what was false, in ethics, philosophy, and sentiment. In a word, it was 
a tale penned by a profound and versatile scholar, who despising the 
ordinary resources of novelists, trusted for success to his own untrum- 
peted deserts. All who read it felt that its author was capable of greater 
things ; they perceived in every page quaint gleams of a superior genius, 
which could launch with effects the massive bolts of declamation, and 
play with the keen lightnings of sarcasm. The incidents of this racy 
tale may be summed up in a few words. Squire Headlong, of Head- 
long Hall, in the county of Carnarvon, a genuine hot-headed Cambrian, 
descended from a pedigree of a more ancient date than that of Adam him- 
self, having tired, for a season, of hunting, coursing, racing, dancing, and 
other equally enlightened and characteristic pursuits of country gentle- 
men, resolves, by way of novelty, to turn his attention to literature ; with 


382 Novels by the Author of Headlong Hail. [Aprit, 


which view he hurries off impatiently to town, where, with no small in- 
genuity, and after much research, he contrives to become acquainted 
with divers cognoscenti in the Belles Lettres and the Fine Arts, all of 
whom he invites to spend the ensuing Christmas with him in North 
Wales. Asa matter of course they accept this invitation—the details 
of which, meagre and unsatisfactory as they may seem to the mere lover 
of incident and bustle, have furnished Mr. Peacock with materials for a 
volume, abounding in shrewd thought, broad caricature, and masculine 
and pertinent ridicule. Having discussed the plot, we proceed to the 
more important features of the tale, viz., its characters. In these it is 
rich to profusion. We have first Mr. Foster, the Perfectibilian, a gentle- 
man who is a staunch believer in the daily progress of human nature to- 
wards perfection, in every department of mind:—secondly, Mr. Escott, the 
Deteriorationist (whose motto ought to be “ deteriora sequor”), a cynical 
sort of philosopher, marvellously sceptical on the subject of the improve- 
ment of mankind, and one who holds it as his firm belief that they are 
fast retrograding in all branches of knowledge and virtue :—thirdly, 
Mr. Jenkinson, the statu-quo-ite, a negative sort of personage, who con- 
ceives that the human species is neither advancing nor retrograding, but 
remaining just where they ought to be :—fourthly, the Rev. Dr. Gaster, 
a pragmatical orthodox divine, fond of good cheer, as all orthodox 
divines are, or should be, and much addicted to falling asleep after din- 
ner, when abstruse or philosophical conversation is going forward :— 
fifthly, Mr. Cranium, whose name sufficiently implies the nature of his 
favourite pursuit :—and sixthly, Mr. Milestone, an enthusiastic advocate 
for the orderly—becoming—artificial—sophisticated, in architecture and 
landscape gardening. All these different gentlemen, together with their 
respective hobbies, are brought into the broadest and most amusing con- 
trasts imaginable ; their opinions are set in the richest light of ridicule, 
while an earnestness, a gravity, a calm, deliberate mode of discussion is 
adopted throughout their numerous dialogues, that renders the tale a 
complete unique of its kind, a production sai generis, standing boldly 
out in the desert flats of modern literature, like Zenobia’s column in the 
wastes of Tadmor. 

“* Melincourt,” which was Mr. Peacock’s second production, is a 
novel of a more original and elevated character. It may be called a 
satirical allegory, a species of writing of unusual rarity in the writings 
of modern times, as distinguished from those of Greece and Rome. We 
know, in fact, but of three writers who have immortalized themselves by 
their allegorical turn for satire, and these three are, Rabelais, Swift, and 
Arbuthnot. The first is, beyond all comparison, the greatest, most 
inventive, and most original ; he has a singular faculty of enabling his 
wildest fantasies to illustrate the plainest truths ; wears his fool’s-cap and 
bells with an imposing air ; end, under the surface of frivolity, conceals 
a rich stratum of religious and political wisdom. He has had numerous 
admirers, and countless imitators, none of whom, however, with the ex- 
ception of Swift, ever reached within a hundred degrees of his excel- 
lence, one great reason of which is, that the talents of Rabelais are pecu- 
liarly inaccessible to rivalry, or imitation, asmuch as he is an author of 
extraordinary political foresight, and a long reach of experience, extend- 
ing over upwards of half a century, during which time he saw life in its 
most varied forms, from the prince to the peasant, and at a period, when 
the intellect and manners of Europe were yet unsettled, and, conse- 


4 


1829.] Novels by the Author of Headlong Hall. 383 


quently, possessed all the rich excrescences of roughnesses of character 
that distinguish such a period—moreover he possesses, in their fullest 
degree, two qualities, seldom found combined in the same person ; viz., 
unbounded learning, and equal powers of humour, andvis gifted, in addi- 
tion, with a vigorous imagination, which had it directed itself into a 
different channel, might have made Rabelais the first poet of his age. 
For these reasons it is that this incomparable satirist has seldom met 
with imitators, a mean ignoble race, whose professed object isto pull 
down their great models to their own inferior level. When, however, 
we use the term “ imitators,” we are far from meaning to apply it to the 
intellect of a man like Swift, who followed in the track that Rabelais had 
before pointed out, only because his genius was of a congenial quality, 
and his learning nearly equal. The author of such works as the “ Tale 
of a Tub,” and “ Gulliver’s Travels,” both of which are store-houses of 
rich and matured thought, must not be confounded with the “ imitatorum 
servum pecus.” He has too much vigour of fancy—too much profound- 
ness of reflection—too much searching wit, and envenomed sarcasm— 
too much, in short, of all that constitutes the man of genius, to be other 
than a splendid original. In one point alone he is faulty, miserably 
faulty, we mean in a studious imitation of his great prototype’s obsceni- 
ties. Were it not for this taint, which throws over the splendour of 
Swift’s intellect a cloud that nothing can disperse, which tends even 
to impeach his moral character, and almost induces us to believe (despite 
the contradiction of Hawkesworth, who, in his memoirs of this great 
Tory writer, asserts that he was cleanly in his habits, and decorous in his 
conduct, even to fastidiousness) that the author who could deliberately 
put forth such degrading suggestions, must himself have been perverse, 
and equally degraded as a man—were it not, we repeat, for this sick- 
ening taint, the works of Swift would be among the very first of their 
class ; calculated no less to form and mature the mind of the philosopher, 
than of the politician. Arbuthnot, who forms the third of this illustrious 
triumvirate, is a writer of a quiet and lively fancy, full of ease and sim~ 
plicity, and a certain bonhommie, or archness, unknown to either of the 
other two. He has little or nothing of the extravagance of ‘Rabelais— 
nothing of his sweeping satire, or bold heedlessness of style, and is 
equally deficient in the perpetual point, terseness and dry sarcasm of 
Swift. But then to make amends, he is more natural than either: his 
jests seem to drop with less effort from his mouth; he appears more at 
home in his laughter. The tale of “ John Bull,” by which he is chiefly 
_ remembered, is an allegorical satire, in which an easy power is every- 

where visible—it is full to overflowing of character, and has the addi- 
tional qualification of good humour to recommend it. In this last 
respect Arbuthnot is incomparably the first satirist of modern times. In 
reading Rabelais, the mind is oppressed, dazzled, bewildered ; we feel, 
throughout his works, the presence of undoubted genius ; but it is of a 
genius alien to our own—one in which we cannot sympathize as we 
would desire; his humour astonishes more than it delights us, and we 
acknowledge, rather than feel, the magic of his works. The cheerful- 
ness of Swift is of a still less gratifying character: it is the cheerfulness 
of a determined misanthropist, and like a jest, uttered beside the grave, 
has a striking air of repulsiveness and inconsistency about it. We 
always feel as if we owed an apology to ourselves for even smiling at this 
author's humour—so withering is its character-—so malignant—so wholly 


384 Novels by the Author of Headlong Hail. [Aprit, 


an appeal to the baser passions of humanity. All that would furnish 
others with food for quiet thought, and gentle commiseration, is, with 
Swift, made a matter for laughter and derision; we actually do not, 
throughout his voluminous works, remember one single remark suggested 
by good nature, or put forth in a spirit of humanity. His very smile is 
a scowl; his laughter the hysteric utterance of a rancorous and disap- 
pointed mind. Arbuthnot, on the contrary, is, as we before observed, a 
writer of the most social character ; his humour is natural, unforced, 
conversational ; and, though his allegory be at times a thought confused, 
yet his jests are universally intelligible. His sketch of Sister Peg can 
never be mistaken, or forgotten. 

We have mentioned these three great writers as being the most re- 
markable in modern days for their powers of satirical allegory ; and 
contenting ourselves with remarking that a few other, though inferior 
specimens of this quality of mind, may occasionally be met with in the 
pages of Steele and Addison, (more especially in the former’s Tatler) we 
come, without further preface, to the consideration of the tale before us, 
« Melincourt ;” a tale which possesses something of the extravagant in- 
vention of Rabelais, something of the stern sarcasm of Swift, and a great 
deal of the lively humour of Arbuthnot. The incidents of this novel are, 
like all the other of Mr. Peacock’s works, trifling ; being, in fact, mere 
pegs on which to hang up and support his own peculiar theories. Such, 
however, as they are, we feel it our duty to detail them. Anthelia 
Melincourt is an amiable, intelligent young lady—an orphan, an heiress, 
and the owner of Melincourt Castle, a fine estate, situated in the county 
of Westmoreland. Of course, under these circumstances, she is an ob- 
ject of great consideration, and equally a matter of course is it, as our 
author takes care to inform us, that among the number of her visitors 
are to be found Irishmen of various grades and habits, but all equally 
well matched on the score of excessive impudence. At the time the 
story commences, Melincourt Castle is filled with company who have 
just arrived, the majority from London, and some few from the neigh- 
bouring lakes. These, for the most part, are mere pedantic curiosities ; 
but there is one redeeming character among them; a Mr. Sylvan 
Forester, a high-minded, poetic enthusiast, fond of the practice of virtue 
for its own sake, of learning, for a similar reason—a man, in short, who 
is manifestly intended as a type of Mr. Peacock’s notions of perfeetion. 
Among this gentleman’s peculiarities is a passionate admiration of human 
nature in its wildest and most untutored condition ; a peculiarity which 
he carries to such an excess that, following up the well-known notion of 
Lord Monboddo, that “all men were originally monkeys, but that in 
process of time they wore out their tails,” he, with some difficulty, pro- 
cures an ourang-outang whom he educates, d-la-mode, and for whom he 
procures a baronetcy, under the appropriate title of Sir Ouran Haut-ton, 
and subsequently a rotten borough, the important and highly-disinterested 
borough of One Vote. Accompanied by this original, Mr. Forster makes 
his appearance at Melincourt, in the neighbourhood of which his own 
estate of Red Rose Abbey is situated ; is, of course, favourably received, 
inspires Anthelia with a strong interest in his favor, and after releasing 
her from an imprisonment to which she has been subjected by the offi- 
cious perseverance of one of her suitors, Lord Anophel Achthar, is finally 
rewarded with her hand and fortune. Such are the master features of 
a tale, which, though it extends to three volumes, is replete with arch 


1829.] Novels by the Author of Headlong Hail. 385 


and lively incidents, some of which are of a highly intellectual character. 
The details, in particular, of the interview between Mr. Forester, Mr. 
Fax, (a Malthusian philosopher, if we remember rightly,) and Mr. 
Moley Mystic, of Cimmerian Lodge, are imbued with a strong Rabelaisian 
spirit: the allegory is admirably preserved throughout. We subjoin this 
able chapter. 


*‘ CIMMERIAN LODGE. 


“ After a walk of some miles from the town of Gullgudgeon, where no 
information was to be obtained of Anthelia, their path wound along the shores 
of a lonely lake, embosomed in dark pine-groves and precipitous rocks. As 
they passed near a small creek, they observed a gentleman just stepping into 
a boat, who paused and looked up at the sound of their approximation ; and 
Mr. Fax immediately recognized the poeticopolitical, rhapsodicoprosaical, 
deisidemoniacoparadoxographical, pseudolatreiological, transcendental meteo- 
rosophist, Moley Mystic, Esquire, of Cimmerian Lodge. This gentleman’s 
Christian name, according to his own account, was improperly spelt with an e, 
and was in truth nothing more nor less than 


¢ That Moly, 
’ Which Hermes erst to wise Ulysses gave ;’ 


and which was, in the mind of Homer, a pure anticipated cognition of the sys- 
tem of Kantian metaphysics, or grand transcendental science of the duminous 
obscure ; for it had a dark root, which was mystery ; and a white flower, which 
was abstract truth: it was called Moly by the gods, who then kept it to them- 
selves ; and was difficult to be dug up by mortal men, having, in fact, lain perdu 
in subterranean darkness till the immortal Kant dug for it under the stone of 
doubt, and produced it to the astonished world as the root of human science. 
Other persons, however, derived his first name differently ; and maintained 
that the e in it shewed it very clearly to be a corruption of Mole-eye, it being 
the opinion of some naturalists that the mole has eyes, which it can withdraw 
or project at pleasure, implying a faculty of wilful blindness, most happily cha- 
racteristic of a transcendental metaphysician ; since, according to the old 
speaverb, None are so blind as those who won't see. But, be that as it may, Moley 
ystic was his name, and Cimmerian Lodge was his dwelling. 

“ Mr. Mystic invited Mr. Fax and his friends to step with him into the boat, 
and cross over his lake, which he called the Ocean of Deceitful Form, to the 
Island of Pure Intelligence, on which Cimmerian Lodge was situated: pro- 
mising to give them a great treat in looking over his grounds, which he had 
laid out according to the topography of the human mind ; and to enlighten them, 
through the medium of ‘ darkness visible,’ with an opticothaumaturgical 
process of transcendentalising a cylindrical mirror, which should teach them 
the difference between objective and subjective reality. Mr. Forester was 
unwilling to remit his search, even for a few hours: but Mr. Fax observing 
that great part of the day was gone, and that Cimmerian Lodge was very 
remote from the human world ; so that if they did not avail themselves of 
Mr. Mystic’s hospitality, they should probably be reduced to the necessity of 
passing the night among the rocks, sub Jove frigido, which he did not think 
very inviting, Mr. Forester complied, and, with Mr. Fax and Sir Oran Haut- 
ton, stepped into the boat. 

“ They had scarcely left the shore when they were involved in a fog of un- 
prcneied density, so that they couldnot see one another ; but they heard the 

ash of Mr. Mystic’s oars, and were consoled by his assurances that he could 
not miss his way in a state of the atmosphere so very consentaneous to his 
peculiar mode of vision ; for that, though in navigating his little skiff on the 
Ocean of Deceitful Form, he had very often wandered wide and far from the 
Island of Pure Intelligence, yet this had always happened when he went with 
his eyes open, in broad daylight ;, but that he had soon found the means of 

M.M. New Scrics—Vou. VII. No. 40. 3 D 


386 Novels by the Author of Headlong Hall. [Aprit, 


obviating this little inconvenience, by always keeping his eyes close shut when- 
ever the sun had the impertinence to shine upon him. 

“ He immediately added, that he would take the opportunity of making a 
remark perfectly in point: ‘that Experience was a Cyclops, with his eye in 
the back of his head ;? and when Mr. Fax remarked, that he did not see the 
connexion, Mr. Mystic said he was very glad to hear it ; for he should be sorry 
if any one but himself could see the connexion of his ideas, as he arranged his 
thoughts on a new principle. 


“They went steadily on through the dense and heavy air, over waters that 


slumbered like the Stygian pool; a chorus of frogs, that seemed as much 
delighted with their own melody, at if they had been an oligarchy of poetical 
critics, regaling them all the way with the Aristophanic symphony of Brex~ 
EK-EK-Ex! xo-ax! Ko-Ax! till the boat fixed its keel in the Jsland of Pure 
Intelligence ; and Mr. Mystic landed his party, as Charon did Hneas and the 
Sybil, in a bed of weeds and mud: after floundering in which for some time, 
from losing their guide in the fog, they were cheered by the sound of his voice 
from above, and scrambling up the bank, found themselves on a hard and 
barren rock; and, still following the sound of Mr. Mystic’s voice, arrived at 
Cimmerian Lodge. © 

** The fog had penetrated into all the apartments: there was fog in the hall, 
fog in the parlour, fog on the staircases, fog in the bed-rooms: 


¢ The fog was here, the fog was there, 
The fog was all around.’ 


It was a little rarefied in the kitchen, by virtue of the enormous .fire ; so far, at 
least, that the red face of the cook shone through it, as they passed the kitchen 
door, like the disk of the rising moon through the vapours of an autumnal 
river: but to make amends for this, it was condensed almost into solidity in 
the library, where the voice of their invisible guide bade them welcome to the 
adytum of the LUMINOUS OBSCURE. 

“Mr. Mystic now produced what he called his’ synthetical torch, and 
requested them to follow him, and look over his grounds. Mr. Fax said it was 
perfectly useless to attempt it in such a state of the atmosphere ; but Mr. 
Mystic protested it was the only state of the atmosphere in which they could 
be seen to advantage: as daylight and sunshine utterly destroyed their 

eauty. 

“ They followed the ‘ darkness visible’ of the synthetical torch, which, ac- 
cording to Mr. Mystic, shed around it the rays of transcendental illumination ; and 
he continued to march before them, walking, and talking, and pointing out 
innumerable images of singularly nubilous beauty, though Mr. Forester and Mr. 
Fax both declared they could see nothing but the fog and ‘ Za pale lueur du 
magique flambeau ;’ till Mr. Mystic observing that they were now in a Sponta- 
neity free from Time and Space, and at the point of Absolute Limitation, Mr. 
Fax said he was very glad to hear it ; for in that case they could go no further. 
Mr. Mystic observed that they must go further ; for they were entangled in a 
maze; from which they would never be able to extricate themselves without his 
assistance ; and he must take the liberty to tell them, that the categories of 
modality were connected into the idea of absolute necessity. As this was spoken in 
a high tone, they took it to be meant for a reprimand ; which carried the more 
weight, as it was the less understood. At length, after floundering on another 
half hour, the fog still thicker and thicker, and the torch still dimmer and 
dimmer, they found themselves once more in Cimmerian Lodge. 

«« Mr. Mystic asked them how they liked his grounds, and they both repeated 
they had seen nothing of them: on which he flew into a rage, and called them 
empyrical psychologists, and slaves of definition, induction, and analysis, which he 
intended for terms of abuse, but which were not taken for such by the persons 
to whom he addressed them. 

“¢ Recovering his temper, he observed that it was nearly the hour of dinner ; 
and, as they did not think it worth while to Le angry with him, they con- 


 —— 


1829.] Novels by the Author of Headlong Hall. 387 


tented*themselves with requesting that they might dine in the kitchen, which 
seemed to be the only spot on the Island of Pure Intelligence in which there 
was a glimmer of light. 

“Mr. Mystic remarked that he thought this very bad taste, but that he 
should have no objection if the cook would consent; who, he observed, had 
paramount dominion over that important division of the Island of Pure Intel- 
ligence. The cook, with a little murmuring, consented for once to evacuate 
her citadel as soon as the dinner was on table ; entering, however, a pro- 
= that this infringement on her privileges should not be pleaded as a pre- 
eedent. 

“* Mr. Fax was afraid that Mr. Mystic would treat them as Lord Peter treated 
his brothers: that he would put nothing on the table, and regale them with a 
flissertation on the pure idea of absolute substance ; but in this he was agreeably 
disappointed ; for the anticipated cognition of a good dinner very soon smoked 
before them, in the relation of determinate co-existence ; and the objective pheno- 
menon of some superexcellent Madeira quickly put the whole party in perfect 
good-humour. It appeared, indeed, to have a diffusive quality of occult and 
mysterious virtue ; for, with every glass they drank, the fog grew thin, till by 
the _ they had taken off four bottles among them, it had totally disap- 

eared. 

Pee Mr. Mystic now prevailed on them to follow him to the library, where they 
found a blazing fire and a four-branched gas lamp, shedding a much brighter 
radiance than that of the synthetical torch. He said he had been obliged to 
light this lamp, as it seemed they could not see by the usual illumination of 
Cimmerian Lodge. The brilliancy of the gas lights he much disapproved ; 
but he thought it would be very unbecoming in a transcendental philosopher 
to employ any other material for a purpose to which smoke was applicable. 
Mr. Fax said, he should have thought, on the contrary, that ex fumo dare lucem 
would have been, of all things, the most repugnant to his principles; and 
Mr. Mystic replied, that it had not struck him so before, but that Mr. Fax’s 
view of the subject ‘ was exquisitely dusky and fuliginous:’ this being his 
usual mode of expressing approbation, instead of the common phraseology of 
bright thoughts and luminous ideas, which were equally abhorrent to him both 
in theory and practice. However, he*said, there the light was, for their bene- 
fit, and not for his: and as other men’s light was his darkness, he should put 
on a pair of spectacles of smoked glass, which no one could see through but 
himself. Having put on his spectacles, he undrew a black curtain, discovered 
a cylindrical mirror, and placed a sphere before it with great solemnity. 
‘ This sphere,’ said he, ‘is an oblong spheroid in the perception of the cylin- 
drical mirror: as long as the mirror thought that the object of his perception 
was a real external oblong spheroid, he was a mere empirical philosopher ; but 
he has grown wiser since he has been in my library ; and by reflecting very 
deeply on the degree in which the manner of his construction might influence 
the forms of his perception, has taken a very opaque and tenebricose view of 
how much of the spheroidical perception belongs to the object, which is the 
sphere, and how much to the subject, which is himself, in his quality of cylin- 
drical mirror. He has thus discovered the difference between objective and 
subjective reality : and this point of view is transcendentalism.’ 

*¢ A very dusky and fuliginous speculation, indeed,’ said Mr. Fax, come 
plimenting Mr. Mystic in his own phrase. 

“ Tea and coffee were brought in. ‘I divide my day,’ said Mr. Mystic, 
£on a new principle: I am always poetical at breakfast, moral at luncheon, 
metaphysical at dinner, and political at tea. Now you shall know my opi- 
nion of the hopes of the world.--General discontent shall be the basis of 
pa resignation. The materials of political gloom will build the steadfast 

ame of hope. The main point is to get rid of analytical reason, which is 
experimental and practical, and lives only by faith, which is synthetical and 
oracular. The contradictory interests of ten millions, may neutralize each 
other. But the spirit of Antichrist is abroad :—the people read !—nay, they 


3D 2 


388 Novels by the Author of Headlong Hall. [Arrit, 


think!!_ The people read and think!!! The public, the public in general, 
the swinish multitude, the many-headed monster, actually reads and thinks!!! 
Horrible in thought, but in fact most horrible! Science classifies flowers. 
Can it make them bloom where it has placed them in its classification? No. 
Therefore flowers ought not to be classified. This is transcendental logic. 
Ha! in that cylindrical mirror I see three shadowy forms :—dimly I see them 
through the smoked glass of my spectacles. Who art thou?—Mysrery !— 
I hail thee! Who art thou?—Jarcon!—I love thee! Who art thou?— 
Superstition !—I worship thee! Hail, transcendental rrrap !’ 

“Mr. Fax cut short the thread of his eloquence by saying he would trouble 
him for the cream-jug. 

«Mr. Mystic began again, and talked for three hours without intermission, 
except that he paused a moment on the entrance of sandwiches and Madeira. 
His visitors sipped his wine in silence till he had fairly talked himself hoarse. 
Neither Mr. Fax nor Mr. Forester replied to his paradoxes ; for to what end, 
they thought, should they attempt to answer what few would hear, and none 
would understand ? 

“It was now time to retire, and Mr. Mystic showed his guests to the doors 
of their respective apartments, in each of which a gas-light was burning; and 
ascended another flight of stairs to his own dormitory, with a little twinkling 
taper in his hand. Mr. Forester and Mr. Fax stayed a few minutes on the 
landing-place, to have a word of consultation before they parted for the night. 
Mr. Mystic gained the door of his apartment—turned the handle of the lock— 
and had just advanced one step—when the whole interior of the chamber 
became suddenly sheeted with fire: a tremendous explosion followed ; and he 
was precipitated to the foot of the stairs in the smallest conceivable fraction of 
the infinite divisibility of time. 

“ Mr. Forester picked him up, and found him not much hurt ; only a little 
singed, and very much frightened. But the whole interior of the apartment 
continued to blaze. Mr. Forester and Sir Oran Haut-ton ran for water: 
Mr. Fax rang the nearest bell: Mr. Mystic vociferated ‘ Fire with singular 
energy: the servants ran about half-undressed: pails, buckets, and pitchers, 
were in active requisition ; till Sir Oran Haut-ton ascending the stairs with 
the great rain-water-tub, containing oné hundred and eight gallons of water, 
threw the whole contents on the flames with one sweep of his powerful arm. 

“The fire being extinguished, ‘it remained to ascertain its cause. It 
appeared that the gas-tube in Mr. Mystic’s chamber had been left unstopped, 
and the gas evolving without combustion (the apartment being perfectly air- 
tight), had condensed into a mass, which, on the approach of Mr. Mystic’s 
taper, instantly ignited, blowing the transcendentalist down stairs, and setting 
fire to his curtains and furniture. - 

«© Mr. Mystic, as soon as he recovered from his panic, began to bewail the 
catastrophe: not so much, he said, for itself, as because such an event in Cim- 
merian Lodge was an infallible omen of evil—a type and symbol of an ap- 
proaching period of public light—when the smoke of metaphysical mystery, 
and the vapours of ancient superstition, which he had done all that in him lay 
to consolidate in the spirit of man, would explode at the touch of analytical 
reason, leaving nothing but the plain common-sense matter-of-fact of moral 
and political truth—a day that he earnestly hoped he might never live to see. 

“© Certainly,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘ it is a very bad omen for all who make 
it their study to darken the human understanding, when one of the pillars of 
their party is blown up by his own smoke ; but the symbol, as you call it, may 
operate as a warning to the apostles of superstitious chimera and political 
fraud, that it is very possible for smoke to be too thick ; and that, in condensing 
in the human mind the vapours of ignorance and delusion, they are only com- 
pressing a body of inflammable gas, of which the explosion will be fatal in 
precise proportion to its density.’ ” 


Among the practically satirical passages in which Melincourt abounds, 
we must not omit the catastrophe of the Country Bank, whose firm, con- 


. 


1829.] Yovels by the Author of Headlong Halli. 389 


sisting of Messrs. Air-bubble, Smoke-shadow, and Hop-the-twig, (what 
a vein of arch humour lurks even in these cognomina) has just contrived 
to fail, notwithstanding the exertions of the clerk, Mr. William Walkoff, 
at the moment when Forester enters the village in pursuit of Anthelia. 
We have already observed that this novel possesses a tinge of Swift’s 
sarcasm: such is literally the fact, in proof of which we need only ad- 
duce the circumstance of Mr. Peacock’s having brought forward his 
Angola Baboon to represent a modern gentleman of  fashion—a piece of 
practical satire which is little if at all inferior, either in severity or con- 
ception, to the Yahoos or Houhnymms of Gulliver. But the whole tale, 
we unhesitatingly repeat, is full of a high and commanding intellect that 
knows well how to play with the literary follies of the day, as also how. 
to put them forward in the broadest and strongest light, though in no 
one instance, not even in the chapter entitled “Mainchance Villa,” 
where a stinging faculty of invective is throughout the predominant 
feature, is the amenity of the gentleman, or the enlightened liberality of 
the scholar, forgotten. Altogether, Melincourt is a production worthy of 
Arbuthnot, to whose easy, unembarrassed, and social style of humour, it 
bears no slight resemblance. 

“‘ Nightmare Abbey,” as may be readily imagined from its title, is a 
capital quiz on the rueful sentimentality of the German school. The 
owner of the Abbey, Mr. Glowry, is a gentleman wholly devoured by 
blue devils: he is only happy when miserable ; only miserable when 
there is any prospect of a moment’s happiness either for himself or his 
guests. He is thus described :— 


’ “Mr. Glowry used to say that his house was no better than a spacious 
kennel, for every one in it led the life of a dog. Disappointed both in love and 
in friendship, and looking upon human learning as vanity, he had come to a 
conclusion that there was but one good thing in the world, videlicet, a good 
dimer ; and this his parsimonious lady seldom suffered him to enjoy ; but, one 
morning, like Sir Leoline, in Christabel, ‘he woke and found his lady dead,’ 
and remained a very consolate widower, with one small child. 

“This only son and heir Mr. Glowry had christened Scythrop, from the name 

of a maternal ancestor, who had hanged himself one rainy day in a fit of tedium 
vite, and had been eulogised by a coroner’s jury in the comprehensive phrase 
of felo de se ; on which account, Mr. Glowry held his memory in high honour, 
and made a punch-bowl of his skull. 
- “ The north-eastern tower was appropriated to the domestics, whom Mr. 
Glowry always chose by one of two criterions,—a long face or a dismal name. 
His butler was Raven; his steward was Crow ; his valet was Skellet. Mr. 
Glowry maintained that the valet was of French extraction, and that his name 
was Squelette. His grooms were Mattocks and Graves. On one occasion, 
being in want of a footman, he received a letter from a person signing himself 
Diggory Deathshead, and lost no time in securing this acquisition ; but, on 
Diggory’s arrival, Mr. Glowry was horror-struck by the sight of a round 
ru ay face, and a pair of laughing eyes. Deathshead was always grinning,— 
not a ghastly smile, but the grin of a comic mask ; and disturbed the echoes of 
the hall with so much unhallowed laughter, that Mr. Glowry gave him his dis- 
charge. Diggory, however, had stayed long enough to make conquests of all 
the old gentleman’s maids, and left him a flourishing colony of young Deaths- 
heads to join chorus with the owls, that had before been the exclusive cho- 
risters of Nightmare Abbey.” 


We cannot too warmly praise the moral of this tale, as it is one of the 
most uniformly beneficial character. It is an attempt to illustrate the 
folly, not to say the selfishness—the utter inexcusable selfishness 


390: Novels by the Author of Headlong Hail. [Aragin, 


of that school of ethics which teaches its disciples to look only on the 
gloomy side of things, which in the external forms of nature can discern 
nothing but a foul and perishable process of corruption, and which in- 
culcates the pernicious doctrine that man, even in his most elevated con-. 
dition, is but a passive instrument in the hands of the great principle of 
evil. Moreover it is a useful tale, inasmuch as it ridicules that now. 
almost exploded system of transcendental philosophy which Mr. Cole- 
ridge has for years been doing his best to engraft on the staple literature 
of England 

« Maid Marian” is a lively, entertaining Sylvan story, with this be-~ 
setting defect, that throughout the narrative the author has mistaken his 
forte. His genius is any thing but sylvan: he lacks an eye for nature, 
and is at home only where he grapples with the quaint absurdities of 
learning. His “ Robin Hood” and his “Maid Marian,” his “ Friar Tuck,” 
his “ Little John,” and his “ Scarlett,” are the creations not of nature but 
of art. They want the freshness — the vividness —the individuality of 
real life, and force on our minds a dangerous recollection of the pastoral 
sketches in “ Ivanhoe.” But this, we may here observe, is the leading 
fault of all Mr. Peacock’s heroes and heroines. They are not men or 
women, but opinions personified ; each individual being, in his or her 
person, the representative of some abstract truth or quaint pedantic anos 
maly. They smell of the schools, and are tainted with the miasma of meta- 
physics. In consequence of this defect, the range of our author’s invention 
is limited ; for though the varieties of human nature are inexhaustible, 
those of art are necessarily confined. Sir W. Scott, in this respect, stands 
out in fine contrast to Mr. Peacock, and confirms the truth of our remark. 
His characters are all drawn from life ; just as he himself has seen them, 
so has he described them,, embellished, of course, and heightened by the 
magic touches of afancy, such asShakspeare only has surpassed, and hence 
his power of creation has been bounded only by his experience. With 
the author of “ Melincourt”—or, as he delights to style himself, of 
“ Headlong Hall”—the case is altogether different; he has drawn all 
his characters, their feelings, prejudices, opinions, &c. from books ; with 
nature he has had little or nothing to do. He is, therefore, perpetually, 
though we are bound in justice to add, agreeably, repeating himself. 
His Mr. Flosky, the transcendental philosopher, is the mere echo of Mr, 
Moly Mystic, the Cimmerian metaphysician ; Mr: Foster,*the Perfecti- 
bilian, is a Variorum edition “ longe auctior et emendatior” of Mr: 
Forester, the enthusiast ; and the origin of Mr. Glowry, the sentimen- 
talist, may be found in Mr. Hippy, the hypochondriac. To such an 
excess does Mr. Peacock carry his love of learning, so completely is his 
mind saturated with classic lore, that his very style partakes of this pe- 
culiarity ; and though, in his latter fictions, it is purely English, just, in 
short, what it ought to be, in his former ones the idiom is, in many, 
instances Latin ; the phraseology especially so. No one who reads his 
« Headlong Hall” will fail to perceive this characteristic feature. 

It may here seem a strange remark to hazard, but we cannot help fancy- 
ing that Mr. Peacock is the man of all others to enjoy a clever Christmas 
pantomime. With the tumblings—and the twistings—and the rollings one 
over the other, which constitute so much of the fun of this species of 
dramatic amusement, our author is perfectly familiar. No man makes 
so much of the downfall of a fat oily monk, or an equally plethorie 
churchman. His. incidents:of this nature—and he is never tired of dex 


—— a 


1829.] Novels by the Author of Headlong Hall. 391 


scribing them—are irresistibly comic. His dumpy divines, with their 
thick, short legs and puffy lungs, tumble about with all the rich effect of 
Grimaldi in his better days, nor do we know, in the wide compass of 
‘modern comedy; a scene more truly laughable than the one in “ Melin- 
court,” where the fat, broad-breeched, short-winded, apopletic Mr. 
Grovel-grub is described as running at full gallop, over loose yielding 
sands, from the pursuit of Lord Anophel Achthar. To heighten the 
effect, Mr. Peacock takes leave of him in this condition, so, for aught we 
know to the contrary, the poor gentleman may be running to this hour. 
Another excellence, which our author shares equally in common with Sir 
W. Scott, is the exceeding felicity of his names. We have already 
spoken of the country-banking firm of Air-bubble, Smoke-shadow, and 
Hop-the-twig, with their clerk, Mr. Wm. Walkoff, and may mention, in 
addition, the cognomina of Mr. Portpipe, a high churchman, who requests 
his friends not to take down Homer from his allotted shelf, as he “has 
not been dusted for thirty years’—of Mr. Grovelgrub, the clerical tutor 
to a dissipated young nobleman—of Mr. Harum O’Scarum, the Irish 
fortune hunter—of Mr. Feathernest, the political sycophant—of Mr. 
Vamp, the Court reviewer—of Mr. Anyside Antijac, the uncompromising 
supporter of Ministers, “ so long as they can keep their places’”—of Sir 
Oran Haut-ton, the monkey-man of fashion, who “ never failed to feel 
himself at home at the Opera” —of Mr. Derrydown, the ballad-monger— 
of the Hon. Mrs. Pinmoney, the match-maker and wholesale dealer in 
marriages—of Miss Philomela Poppyseed,-the celebrated she-poet—and, 
above all, of the Rev. Dr. Gaster, whose highest boast is to have his 
patronymic mixed up with the recollection of the® gastric juice. 

Having. already spoken at length on the subject of: Mr. Peacock’s 
novels, we have little space left to discuss the merits of his last-published 
one, entitled “The Misfortunes of Elphin.” Luckily it is not of a nature 
to require any very minute analysis. It is a mere sylvan story, like 
«Maid Marian,” the scene’of which is laid in Wales, and at that ro- 
mantic period when King Arthur and the knights of his Round Table 
were alive in all their glory. It has no new characters, little fancy ; but 
is penned in an easy colloquial style, very different from the cumbrous 
mannerism of Mr. Peacock’s earlier tales. The best point in itis the 
brief description of the holy abbot of Avallon, who “ was a plump and 
comely man, of middle age, having three roses in his complexion ; one, 
in full blossom, on each cheek, and one, in bud, on the tip of his nose.” 
The following also possesses merit : it is the description of a minor king 
of South Wales ; one of those despotic individuals who stick fast to the 
doctrine of “ the right divine of kings to govern wrong.” 


ff nang Melvas was a man of middle age, with a somewhat round, large, 
regular-featured face, and an habitual smile of extreme self-satisfaction, which 
he could occasionally convert into a look of terrific ferocity, the more fearful 
for being rare. His manners were, for the most part, pleasant. He did much 
mischief, not for mischief’s sake, nor yet for the sake of excitement, but for the 
sake of something tangible. He had a total and most complacent indifference 
to every thing but his own will and pleasure. He took what he wanted 
wherever he could find it, by the most direct process, and without any false 
a0 He would have disdained the trick which the chroniclers ascribe to 

engist, of begging as much land as a bull’s hide would surround, and then 
shaving it into threads, which surrounded a goodly space. If he wanted a 
piece of land, he encamped upon it, saying, ‘ This is mine.’ If the former 
possessor could eject him, so; it was not his: if not, so; it remained his. 


392 Novels by the Author of Headlong Hall. [Aprit, 


Cattle, wine, furniture, another man’s wife, whatever he took a fancy to, he 
pounced upon and appropriated. He was intolerant of resistance; and, as the 
shortest way of getting rid of it, and not from any blood-thirstiness of disposi- - 
tion, or, as the phrenologists have it, development of the organ of destructive- 
ness, he always cut through the resisting body, longitudinally, horizontally, or 
diagonally, as he found most convenient. He was the arch-marauder of West 
Britain. The Abbey of Avallon shared largely in the spoil, and they made up 
together a most harmonious church and state. He had some respect for King 
Arthur ; wished him success against the Saxons ; knew the superiority of his 
power to his own: but he had heard that Queen Gwenyvar was the most 
beautiful woman in Britain; was, therefore, satisfied of his own title to her, 
and, as she was hunting in the forest, while King Arthur was absent from 
Caer Lleon, he seized her, and carried her off.” 


From the extracts that we have given from these delightful fictions, it 
will be seen that they possess strong claims on public attention. They 
are, indeed, in their own particular line, “ gems of the first water :” but 
clever—humorous—satirical—thoughtful—learned as they are, we are 
firmly convinced that they are mere trifles, compared with what their 
author has it yet in his power to achieve. We are convinced that he has 
it in his power to build up for himself a splendid and durable reputation ; 
splendid, because founded upon principle, and durable, because cemented 
with thought, learning, and morality. Anxiously do we look for some- 
thing from his pen that may justify these our confident prognostications. 


THE DRUGGIST OF FIFE. 


WHETHER, in consequence of an epidemic prevailing, or of the season, 
which was Christmas, and the consequent repletion attendant on it, had 
caused such an unusual influx of customers to the shop of Andrew, 
Chemist and Druggist in the town of Fife, or no, certain it is he and his 
boy had been more than usually employed in compounding aperients 
and emetics for the inhabitants of the good city ; never before had such 
a demand on his gallipots and bottles been made—never before had 
blue pill and jalap been used in such profusion, and never before had 
Andrew felt more sincere pleasure than he derived that evening, from 
the market-house clock striking eleven, his signal for closing ; with 
alacrity his boy obeyed, and in a few minutes departed, leaving him to 
enjoy solitude for the first time during the day, and to calculate the 
quantity of drugs made use of during it; this was not small—l4! oz. 
blue pill, 4]b. jalap, besides colecynth, senna, and rhubarb, at the lowest 
computation, had he prepared for the good townfolk of Fife ; innumer- 
able had been the cases of cholera morbus, and plum-pudding surfeits, 
he had relieved that day, and the recollection of the proportion of evil 
he had been the means of alleviating, gave him the most pleasing sensa- 
tions ; the profit also accruing from his day’s labour, contributed no 
small share of pleasing thoughts, and one half hour more had passed, 
ere it entered his mind the time for closing had more than arrived; he ~ 
had, however, just arisen for the purpose, when a stranger entered. 
Now Andrew, though an industrious man, would willingly have dis- — 
pensed with any other call for his services for that evening, and not 
altogether so obligingly as usual did he welcome his customer, but 
awaited his commands without deigning a question. The stranger was 


1829.] - Che Druggisi of Fife. 393 


not, however, long in opening his commission, neither did he appear to 
take Andrew’s inattention at all amiss; he seémed one of those happy 
beings upon whom outward circumstances make little or no impression, 
who could be either civil or otherwise, as should happen to suit his 
humour, and who cared little for any opinion but his own ; his broad 
and ample shoulders, over which was cast a large coachman’s coat, with 
its innumerable capes, with his hands thrust into the pockets, and his 
round, ruddy, good-humoured face showed the cares and troubles of the 
world had made little impression on him. Andrew had seen many a 
wild Highlander in his time ; but either there was something peculiar in 
his customer, or his nerves were a little deranged by his exertions during 
the day, but an undefinable sensation of fear came over him, for which 
he could’ not account, and his first impulse‘ was to run to the door for 
assistance ; but then he bethought himself he may, perchance, fall into 
the hands of some of those night prowlers, who, reports say, make no 
scruple of supplying students with the living subject if they cannot pro- 
eure dead ones. I cannot state this as a fact, but it occurred to Andrew 
he had heard so, and more, did he leave his shop, his till would be left 
to the tender mercies of the stranger ; he was, therefore, compelled to 
summon courage, and demand the stranger’s business. This was not 
so difficult to him, perhaps, as we may imagine, Andrew having for- 
merly served in the militia; but it appeared his fears had alarmed him 
far more than there was any occasion, for, on asking the stranger’s busi- 
ness, he in the most polite manner only requested him to prepare a box 
of moderately strong aperient pills; this at once relieved his fears, 
though it did not entirely remove them, and Andrew quickly set about 
the necessary preliminaries. Blue pill and jalap once more were in 
request, but so much had the stranger’s sudden appearancg agitated him, 
he could not recollect their places so readily as usual, and he was more 
than once on the point of mixing quite the reverse of what he intended ; 
the stranger observed to-him he appeared agitated, but politely begged 
he would wait a little and compose himself, as he was in no hurry ; here 
all Andrew’s fears returned, and in spite of all his efforts his hand shook 
as though he had the palsy, and never had the preparation of a box of 
pills appeared so irksome to him ; it seemed as though the very medicine 
itself had this evening conspired to torment him—three times longer 
than it usually took him had he now been, and though the town clock 
had already told the hour of midnight, still Andrew was at his post, 
grinding and pounding, and often, as he delayed for a moment from 
mere inability to proceed, the stranger politely besought him to rest a few 
minutes and compose himself, and Andrew for very shame, was com- 
pelled to resume his occupation. At length his labours drew to an end, 
and he prepared the label, pasted it on, neatly covered the box with 
blue paper, and presented it to the stranger. 
_ “T will thank you fora glass of water,” said he, as he bowed to 
Andrew, on receiving it, “and I see, Sir, you have given me a smartish 
dose. < All these pills to be taken at bed time,’ but so much the better, 
they will perform their required duty sooner. I have, ere now, mastered 
aleg of mutton: and some writers affirm the human stomach can digest 
a tenpenny nail, so here goes.” 

It was in vain Andrew assured him he had made a mistake in the 


directions, and that one pill was sufficient ; in vain he remonstrated with 


him on the danger of taking a larger dose ; pill after pill disappeared 
M.M. New Series.—Vou. VII. No. 40. Z8E 


394 The Driggist of Fife. [Apriz, 


from his alarmed view, while between every three or four, in the same 
equable and polite tone came, “I will thank you to prepare me another 
box, and compose yourself, Sir; min no hurry.” Who could the 
stranger be ? Andrew was now at the very climax of alarm ; the perspira= 
tion stood on his brow, and his hands trembled so as to render it almost 
impossible to reach down his jars without damaging them ; strong doses 
he had certainly often prepared after a city feast for the attendants on it, - 
but this outdid it all. A man that could devour a leg of mutton, digest 
a tenpenny nail, and take a box of blue pills at a mouthful, had never 
entered his imagination, much less did he ever expect to see such a being 
in person, but be he who he may, he was again obliged to commence his 
labour. The stranger had now finished his box, and Andrew had no 
alternative but to commence again, or stare him in the face—the latter 
he could not do, as his imagination had now metamorphosed into some- 
thing more or less than man ; once more, therefore, did Andrew ply at 
the pestle, while the stranger, as if to beguile the tedium of waiting, 
began to grow more loquacious. Had Andrew ever scught after the 
Philosopher’s Stone, the Universal Solvent, or the Elixir of Life? Did he 
put much faith in Solomon’s Balm of Gilead, or Carrington’s Pills, er 
did he believe in the Metemsychosis ? In vain he assured him he studied 
nothing but the Edinburgh Dispensatory, that his shop bounded his 
researches ; the stranger took it for granted he must be able to give or 
receive information, and question after question did he put, to which 
Andrew assented, without knowing their purport. At length he seemed 
to have exhausted all his subjects, sat himself on the chair, as if to com- 
pose himself to sleep, and in a short time gave unequivocal proofs of it. ~ 
Andrew now began to breathe more freely, and ventured to cast his eyes 
towards his strange customer; and, after all, there was nothing to be 
alarmed at in his appearance, except he noticed the breath from his 
nostrils appeared more like the steam of a tea-kettle than the breath of 
a human being—still there was nothing extraordinary in his appearance ; 
he had a good jovial English farmer’s face, and a dress that well suited 
it; to be sure a smile, or rather grin, lurked in the corner of his mouth, 
even while asleep, as if he mocked poor Andrew’s perplexity ; he did 
not, however, allow much time for observation—he seemed to be intui-— 
tively aware Andrew had ceased his operations, and he awoke with his 
usual polite manner. ‘Oh, I see you have finished ; have the goodness 
to prepare me one box more ; but let me pray you to take your leisure 
and compose yourself, for I am in no hurry.” Andrew, who had fondly 
hoped his labour was at an end, now found himself obliged to renew it 
again with vigour, while the stranger aroused himself, rose from his 
chair, yawned and shook himself—spoke ot the comfortable nap he had 
enjoyed, was sorry he had kept Andrew up so late, or early rather, for 
it was now morning. Andrew, though tternally wishing him any 
where but in his shop, yet constrained himself politely to answer, his 
commands gave him much pleasure. Again did he renew his toil. Box. 
after box did he prepare without intermission, and the hours of one, two, 
and three, had been told in succession, by the market clock ; bitterly 
did he lament his destiny—long before this ought he to have been snug — 
and comfortable in his warm bed. Anger now began to assume the 
place of fear, as he grew more accustomed to his visitor’s company, and — 
often did he determine in himself to refuse preparing any more, still his 
courage was not yet at that pitch; probably his exertions, as I said 


1828. ] The Druggist of Fife. 395 


before, may have injured his nerves—however, he could not rally him- 
self enough to do it. The stranger, with his usual smile or grin, stood 
looking on, employing his time by beating the devil’s tattooon his boot, 
while at intervals came forth the usual phrase, “ Another box, but don’t 
hurry yourself.” At length, mere inability to proceed any farther, sup- 
plied the place of courage ; his arms and sides ached to such a degree 
with his labour, as to cause the perspiration to stand on his brow in 
great drops, and he declared he could proceed no further. The altera- 
‘tion in the stranger’s countenance told him he had better have left it 
unsaid, and his hands instinctively grasped the pestle with renewed 
vigour, but his repentance came too late ; the stranger’s hand was already 
across the counter, and in a second more had grasped Andrew’s nose as 
firmly as if it had been ina vice. Andrew st?ove in vain to release him- 
self—the stranger held him with more than human grasp ; and his voice, 
instead of the polite tone he had before used, now sounded to his terri- 
fied ears what his imagination had pictured of the Indian yell. The 
pain of the gripe deprived him of voice to assure his tormentor he would 
compound for him as long as he would wish ; still he contrived to make 
signs to that effect, by stretching his hands towards his mortar, and 
imitating the action of grinding ; but his tyrant was relentless—firmer 
did he close his fore-finger and thumb. Andrew could not shake him 
off; like a person afflicted with night-mare, he in vain essayed his 
strength, though agonized with the fear of losing his promment feature 
in the struggle. The stranger, at length, as if endowed with superna- 
tural strength, lifted him from the ground, balanced him in the air for a 
moment, gave him a three-fold twitch, drew him head foremost over the’ 
counter, and let him fall. When he came to his senses.he found himselt 
lying outside his bed, his only injury being a broken nose, from coming 
in centact in his fall with a utensil that shall be nameless. 
8.5. S. 


- 


THEATRICAL MATTERS. 


Drury Lane has been making the Beaumont and Fletcher experi- 
ment, and Morton and Kenny have been the representatives of that 
famous pair. They are both clever men—both practised in the affairs of 
the stage, and have both had the happiness of transferring to our boards 

as many French farces as any ten gentlemen within memory. Frederic 

Reynolds, himself, never transacted business so vigorously, on both sides 

of the channel at once ; and, yet, Frederic was a determined spoiler of 
_ the Egyptians, indefatigably active, and burning with a patriotic love for 
increasing the literary opulence of his country at the expence of the 
enemy. 

' Some say that the reason of this joint-stock operation was the cover- 
ture of the smuggling, by dividing the produce. Others, that each was 
so much ashamed of the petty larceny, from the Porte St. Martin, (some- 
thing in the style of the Olympic Theatre) that they agreed to divide the 
shame. Others, that they were so certain of being hissed, that each 
offered the other the honour of the paternity, and that, neither being in- 
clined to fall the victim to popular vengeance, they agreed to take the 
storm in the same boat. Others, that Covent Garden, having laid hold 
of the same precious drama, the principle of the division of labour was 

3 E 2 


396 The Theatres. [Apnrin, 


called in, and the two workmen were “ put on,’ ’ to distance the solitary 
operative of the rival theatre. We shall give no more reasons, though 
we have them, like Falstaff’s, as plenty as blackberries. The joint per- 
formance was called “ Peter the Great.” It was, as all the French melo- 
drames are, a curious contradiction of every fact of history, crowded 
with sentiments in equally vigorous contradiction to every dictate of 
nature. ‘There was a great deal of forgiveness of Russian Conspirators, 
an act of which Peter was never guilty in the course of his existence ; 
and the conspirators were Strelitzes too, those preetorian guards that had 
been exterminated at the very beginning of his reign, and whose memory 
used to drive him into all but convulsions. Peter and Charles meet 
alone, who never met but at the head of their battalions. Peter plays a 
miller, and makes love, mystifies a Swedish regiment, persuades a clown 
that he is not himself, and, finally, flourishes as the conqueror of 
Pultawa. 

Charles plays an inferior card, but has the courage to scorn fact with 
equal intrepidity ; and the melo-drame closes in, as the Duellists call it, 
an amicable arrangement. 

We have laughed at this specimen of combined authorship ; but we, 
by no means, laughed at the performance, except in the graver parts, 
the livelier being as productive of seriousness as if they had been excerpts 
from a Methodist sermon. Nor do we laugh at the twin authors, whom 
we have always allowed to be clever fellows, and to whom we shall allow 
the same title of honor, while we remember Jeremy. Diddler, and Sir 
Able Handy. But they ought to have been otherwise employed. Kenny 
writes as vigorous dialogue as any author, at least among his contempo- 
raries ; Morton has as dextrous a conception of the embroilment of a plot 
as any man since the last century ; and we wish to see them scorning the 
worthless facilities of French melo-drames, and making comedies of their 
own. “ Peter,” after six nights of dubious existence, ceased to perplex 
conjecture, and died. 

The “ Casket, an Opera,” followed. This opera was a compound of a 
French vaudeville, “les Premiers Amours,’ and a melo-drame. The 
vaudeville is a pretty little feeble pleasantry ; in other words, is in the 
most vigorous style of French jest, and it was completely spoiled, the 
gossamery texture of the original was hardened and solidified, as the 
scientific say, beyond all endurance ; and the jests fled away with the 
language of which they were born. A Palais de Justice, or Old Bailey 

catastrophe, in which somebody steals a case of jewelry from Braham, 
followed the love affairs ; and Cooper, in the culprit, looked so regularly 
dressed for the guillotine, that we, every moment, expected to see more 
than poetic justice done. The music was said to be by Mozart, and 
“ never heard before in this country.” If it was by Mozart, he was wise 


in keeping it to himself while he lived ; and, as to the wedanlid clause of — 


the statement, we are satisfied that ne one will ever desire to hear it 


again. Mr. Lacy, the prevalent fabricator of those formidable pasticios — 


is a good musician; but much as we pardon to his skill on the violin, 
we cannot be kept in a state of eternal tendernes to his literary sins. 
There is a vast difference between handling the bow and the pen, be- 
tween dashing through a concerto and combining a plot. Wit and words 


are not obsolete, and the man must have both, who can a to reap 


the harvest of the stage. 
However, Mr. Price is an active manager, date to seize his op- 


——— 


1829.] The Theatres. 397 


portunity,: and ingenious to make the best of the means which his 
admirable company supplies. His comic strength is complete; he 
has an excellent operatic force ; and now he wants only the authorship 
that is to employ those means. Jones, the most intelligent, ani- 
mated, and accurate, of performers of the lighter comedy. Farren, match- 
less in the close portraiture of age; and Liston, unequalled in 
rich eccentricity and natural humour, would, of themselves, give an 
unrivalled claim to a theatre. Novelty alone is now wanting. <A 
new Comedy. Some happy and spirited sketch of the manners of the 
hour, undegraded by the gross allusions which make the vulgar laugh, 
but disgust good taste and delicacy together; the seizure of those 
characters which, belonging to the great museum of human oddity, in 
every age, are capable of such keen, yet inoffensive reference to the pro- 
minent “absurdities of the passing day ; a dialogue which should less glitter 
with laborious jests, than attract and amuse by graceful pleasantry, would 
make the beau idéal of modern comedy. And one such work would 
instantly raise the character of the whole dramatic system of England. 

Covent GarpEN, under Fawcett’s management, has exerted itself 
with great diligence, and very considerable success. ‘Mr. Diamond’s 
«< Nymph of the Grotto,” which was by no means a bad production on 
the whole, though fragments of it were like lead dropt into water, 
having died a natural death, the “Maid of Judah” followed; an 
Opera on the story of Ivanhoe; which all the critics instantly declared 
to have been the first adaptation of that able story to the stage, with all 
the playbills staring them in the face, with no less than half-a-dozen 
previous adaptations of this same Ivanhoe, in all kinds of shapes, from 
high tragedy down to low farce. It was said to have been even per- 
formed at Sadler’s Wells by the ponies last season, to the great delight 
of the audience, and the great popularity of the actors. The “real water” 
played a principal part in the catastrophe ; and the hymn, in which 
the coroner and his jury brought in their poetic verdict of “ Found 
Drowned,” soliciting sympathetic drops, from eyes accustomed to 
drops of another kind, and extracting thunders of applause from hands 
to which the law of Meum and Tuum was not supposed to have been 
the most sacred. 

But the Opera contains some fine and popular music by Rossini, a 

composer whose personal impudence, while he was here, injured, as it 
ought, his popularity ; but who is, after all, the most showy of living 
musicians. 
_ The story of the original is so dramatic, that the difficulty would be, 
to spoil it; and Miss Paton’s singing, and even her acting, in the fair 
Jewess, are enough to carry a heavier performance through the season. 
The whole is a good melodrame. 

Mr. Wood is not a very vivid warrior, though, we must allow, that 
Scott's Ivanhoe is a drivelling and well-behaved gentleman enough ; as, 
by some curious fatality, is the case with all the intended heroes of the 
author. The true hero being some bold ruffian, who starts up, in spite 
of all Scott’s efforts to strangle him, overtops and tramples the gentleman 
of the piece, scatters his well-plaited frills and fineries' to the winds of 
scorn, wipes his memory out of the world, and sends him to the limbo 
of vanity, to give his gentle countenance to his companions in misfor- 
tune, the young Waverleys, Harry Mertons, the Frank Osbaldistons, 
&c., forever. The “ Maid of Judah” is the arrangement of Mr. Lacy ; 


398 The Theatres. [ApRIt, 


who, instead of that extraordinary addition to his Irish name, from the 
treasures of his own fancy, Rophino, (by no means, we believe, a literal 
translation of the name under which he delighted the John Bull at the 
Haymarket, and which, to an untravelled ear, sounds so like that expres- 
‘sive name, “ Rufiano; *) he should call himself Heliogabulus, or some 
name expressive of a dramatic digestion, on the largest scale, for we have 
Mr. Lacy, the manufacturer, compiler, arranger and deranger, of three- 
fourths of the French farces that have perished in the course of the year. 

The “ Oratorios” under the supreme command of Mr. Hawes, are 
solemnly following up the career of their predecessors, and are, like 
them, full of attraction to those who can listen to the heaviest music on 
earth for five hours together, and terrifying to all who have better 
tastes. The truth is that the world wears out its fondnesses for things 


of this kind, just as it does for every other. Thirty years ago we were 


all in love with revolutions, France, dancing dogs under the guillotine, 


_ and king killing. That taste wore itself out, and we had no more of it 


left, except here and there among a few little bitter coteries, of which 
the men were “ beggars” and “ philosophers,’ and the women scrib- 
blers and any thing else that the reader may please to conceive-—Our 
next taste was war: then nothing was delightful but Sunday drills, 


_ battles, with handsome loss in killed and wounded, illuminations, 


gazettes, and K.C.B.’s. Of that, too, we got-tired; the taxes helping 
to clear our sight on the subject. Then came long-winded speeches 
zbout trade, the rabble of political economists, prosings on poor laws, 
corn laws, and cheap ways of smothering the Irish peasantry, and 
banishing the English. Those at length tired us. Then came Mr. 
Hume with his “ tail’ of forty clerks, fishing up the crimes of the 
Chancellor of the Exchequer, with one hand, and with the other fishing 
for pint mugs clubbed by the aggregate sixpences of statesmen of the 
smithy and ‘the scullery, assembling their “ collective wisdom” in the 
appropriate pot-house. Of that, too, we got sick in time. Then came 
Queen Caroline, a magnificent card in the pack of the Burdetts and 
Broughams, the queen of clubs, that the knaves would have turned into 
the queen of diamonds, if they could. Wise England! land of the phi- 
losopher and the statesman, profound in thought, and pregnant with 
experience, glory be to the days of the mob- led queen ! glory to the 
assembled cleanliness of her vindicatory chimney-sweepers, to the 
unblemished purity of the white-robed and plumaged sisterhood of 
Marylebone, to the sensitive delicacy of the nightmen of Whitechapel, 
to the scrupulous honour of the Rabbies of Moorfields, to the English » 
feeling and legislative knowledge of the patriots of St. Giles’s, and to 
the manliness and majesty of the Wilsons and Woods! Of that, too, we 
became tired. Then came this eternal Catholic Question, of which we 
are sick ever since we heard Mr. Peel, saw the back of Sir John Copley, 
and the brains of Sir Thomas Lethbridge. This taste is already gone : 
and now, unless we have a war, or pestilence, or half London burnt 
down, or an Irish invasion, or a pasture of the potatoe crop, or a run- 
away of some new Stephenson, we shall be absolutely at a loss for some- 
thing to read of at breakfast. The newspapers will be merely schedules 
of sales of Mr. Robins’s new filterer, histories of Mr. Elliston’s next tor- 
toise-shell snuff-box, pr esented by a “ grateful company ;” the squab- 
bles of Madame Vestris with her adorers, the loss of Mrs. Waylett’s best — 
paste tiara, or the honour of the king’s sword laid on the shoulders of 


1829.) The Theatres. 399 


some eminent orator, much worthier of the king’s horsewhip. How- 
ever, the wheel of the world is always going round, and the quidnuncs 
may live in hope. 

The Adelphi has had a prosperous year. Monsieur Mallet has 
behaved like a true English gentleman, entertained his friends in the 
most handsome manner, and dismissed them with a most particular invi- 
tation to them all to gratify him with the frequent enjoyment of his 
open house. Yates is a clever fellow in all ways, a genius in his own 
way, and if, by this time ten years he is not a member of parliament, or 
an alderman, or of the firm of Rothschild and Company, or dispersing 
his half million in some inordinate Covent Garden or Drury Lane spe- 
culation, we are false prophets, and worse mathematicians, and know 
nothing of the geometrical progression, beginning with five thousand 
a year, and are as little acquainted with the natural course of the thea- 
trical soul. 

The Dublin theatre is basking in the broadest beams of royalty and 
loyalty. The Duke and Duchess of Northumberland have gone to the 
theatre, surrounded with such a halo of Aides-de-camp as never were 
seen since the original raising of the militia. The duke’s whole gallant 
battalion disbanded; all the Percys are in arms, and red coats—all 
ready to take any thing for the good of their country—and the duke, 
who, though the descendant of the Hotspur blood (diluted a little 
through the female line), has not figured much as a warrior before, feels 
the martial ardour burn within, and proclaims, that at the head of his 
faithful vassals he has no fear of suffering any place under the crown to 
be vacant for an hour. Foreign levy or domestic treason cannot sub- 
due. the strong hold of the pension list. Duncan sleeps well, and we 
wish him joy of his dreams. The performances fixed on for the viceregal 
entertainment were Simpson and. Co., and Paul Pry. What glory to 
Mr. Poole, who should lose no time, but take the world at its will, go 
over and get himself knighted. All the theatrical woodcocks, the birds 
of passage, are hurrying over as fast as their wings can carry them to the 
land of sunshine and salaries. Kean, whom we heard of last as making 

_ a highway to his hereditary palace in the Isle of Sky, and whom we 
_ supposed to be either drowned, carried off by the “spirits” of that 
enchanted soil, or claiming the honours of chieftainry among his favou- 
rite squaws of Smokill-arrow mawkies, the legitimate heir of the great 
Tomahawk, and happy spouse of the majesty of the Mohawk’s daughter, 
has suddenly transpired in the form of a candidate for an engagement 
of three nights on the Dublin stage. Macready, whom we concluded 
equally lost, and likely to come to the human ear only in some rumour 
from Kentucky, has likewise transpired in the vicinage of this all- 
engrossing theatre. And so ardent is the theatrical passion at this 
period, that the Lord Lieutenant has granted his license for the erection 
_ of a second theatre, to be dedicated to the improvement of the native 
genius for the drama and composition ; Ireland having been, hitherto, as 
much accustomed to be indebted for those things to England as for her 
petticoats, having two theatres, being confessedly the only way to cure 
the national distaste or deficiency, which has hitherto made a regular 
bankruptcy affair of the only one that it had. However, the new paten- 
tee, Mr. Jones, having tried all the fortunes of theatres, knows, we hope, 
as well how they may be raised, as he certainly does how they may be 


400 The Theatres. [APRIL, 


ruined, and we wish him the benefit of his experience, and his sub- 
scribers handsome dividends. 
Catalani, the Catalani, the queen of song, is now waving her sceptre 
for the “last” (tenth) “time” over the souls of the Irish amateurs. And 
this— 
“ Creature, 
< Of a glorious feature,” 


as Wordsworth, the great poet of namby-pamby, sublimely names 
his muse, is shouting Rule Britannia, and God Save the King, four 
times a night, and not a verse left out, for the loyalty and English sym- 
pathies of the “ Hereditary bandsmen.” 

The King’s Theatre we mention last, because we feel no great rapture 
on the subject. While the English stage is become a fashionable 
“horror” to the dandies of one sex, and the high-bred “ dubious” of 
another ; while no woman of ton can endure to be seen within the walls 
of the theatre of Shakspeare and Sheridan ; and, while the silliest per- 
formances of the very vilest portion of society, the danseuses and chan- 
teuses, of the foreign stage, are patronized, profusely paid for, and extra- 
vagantly worshipped, we shrink a good deal from giving our assistance 
to the general tastelessness and folly. We have no objection to 
Mr. Laporte. He is probably as fit to manage the King’s Theatre as 
any body else. We care not about Mr. Bochsa, or the memory of his 
foreign exploits, but we think that Madame Pasta has made quite as 
much money as she deserves, if she carried off 17,000/. by her last year’s 
singing in London. We think, too, that we might make better use of 
our purses than in giving Madame Sontag 10,000/. for three months of 
solfaing, or 5001. for a couple of songs at a charity meeting. We have 
no delight in hearing of the purchase of a villa by Mademoiselle Noblet, 
nor of Mademoiselle Brocard’s exhibiting the handsomest equipage in 
Paris. When all the world know the habits of the foreign stage, the 
resources of those showy personages, with which their dancing and 
singing have nothing to do—the notorious system of their lives, and the 
system into which they lead the whole tribe of the brainless young men, 
and old men, too, that have a few thousand pounds, or pence, on 
hands, we honestly and heartily wish that our nobility could afford to 
dispense with the light fantastic toe ; the display of the female figure in 
silk pantaloons ; the mixture of grossness, avarice, baseness, and intrigue, 
that belongs, in every instance, to the continental stage ; and that the 
whole of its exports should be met at Dover by an order, like the Old 
Bailey order, for their instant return “to the place whence they came.” 

The “ Messicani,” a dull opera; the “ Conte Ori,” a still duller, and 
one or two ballets of no interest, have been hitherto the chief efforts of 
the King’s Theatre. Pisaroni is the prima donna still, if donna she be 
at all. 


“ 


1829.] f 401 J 


NOTES OF THE MONTH ON AFFAIRS IN GENERAL. 


Tue Duke of Wellington’s duel has luckily passed over without 
‘bloodshed. But the example is mischievous, as much as the event was 
without excuse or necessity. Lord Winchelsea, in the letter withdraw- 
ing his subscription from the King’s College, had charged the Duke of 
Wellington with using his zeal on that occasion as a cloak to deeper 
designs. The charge was of a public nature, on public grounds, and 
publickly brought forward. There were two ways of acting left open 
to the individual so charged. One was to deny the charge, prove that 
it was erroneous, and thus stand acquitted before the country. The 
other was, to say no more about it, quietly acquiesce in what the charged 
must allow to be true, and leave the wiping it away to the work of 
oblivion, of a majority, or of that factious clamour, which is always ready 
to follow the powerful. But the Duke of Wellington, not content 
with either, made for himself a third way, altogether unjustifiable, and 
tending in no degree to clear up the charge. This way was a challenge: 
which, translated into plain language, runs thus: “My Lord Winchelsea, 
you have accused me of an act of low hypocrisy in perverting the objects 
of religion and loyalty into the reverse. To this I make no defence, but 
I shall insist on your standing to be shot at, unless you retract the 
charge, whether you believe it to be true or false.” In other words, “ you 
must concede to personal fear, what the truth might not demand from 
you.” Accordingly Lord Winchelsea would not thus concede to fear ; 
and-he went out to be shot at, and was shot at by the duke, Lord Win- 
chelsea being the mere target for his grace’s ball, and not firing, nor 
intending to fire. Thus, the affair, at this moment, stands in exactly 
the same position as before the meeting: the charge resting on the same 

ounds ; being as fully believed as ever, and even more fully believed, 

‘om this military mode of silencing the charge and the charger together. 
Of course Lord Winchelsea’s note on the field goes for nothing beyond 
the common ceremonial of a pistol affair. But whether his lordship be 
or be not converted to a belief of the duke’s-innocence by his readiness 
in sending challenges, nobody else is: and so far, the stigma is left just 
where it was. 

As tothe offence of the duel itself, it must be reckoned among the 
most offensive insults of the time to common sense and public morals. 
The only ground that any reasoner offers for duelling is, its saving a 
man from the imputation of pusillanimity. No one attempts to justify it 
as revenge, or defence against an accusation of immorality, political 
treachery, or personal hypocrisy. In the case of revenge, the duellist 
who kills is a deliberate murderer; and in the others, he attempts to 
screen himself by terrifying his accuser, or taking away his life. It is’ 
-anutter abuse of words, to say that it is due to his honour to fire at his 

accuser. His honour can be defended only by fairly rebutting the accu- 
sation. But had the Duke of Wellington any necessity to vindicate his 
character for personal fearlessness ? No man less. He has, then, left only 
the alternative of revenge ; or of a determination to screen himself from 
all charges, by holding out the evidence that he is ready to meet the 
accuser, if not in the fair tribunal of parliament, or of law, in the field ; 
and decide the point of guilt or innocence by that high judicial authority, 
the trigger. 

But what is this duel, when we look upon its effects in the light of exam- 


M.M. New Serics—Vou.VII. No. 40. 3 F 


402 Notes of the Month ou [ APRIL, 


ple? The whole authority of law, morals, and religion, has been found 
searcely able to restrict duelling within bounds suitable to the peace of 
society ; and here comes, in full opposition to those efforts, the prime 
minister, the distributor of all power, the maker of bishops, the patron of 
judges, the originator of the whole moral action of the state, hurrying 
out, pistol in hand, with the impatience of an unfledged ensign, to show 
his readiness in imagining an affront. Is this example to be lost upon 
the army? ‘There is a whole code to prevent military men, from 
shooting each other. The officer who fights a superior is certain to be 
broke. The officer who fights an equal is liable to a court-martial. The 
regiment in which two or three of those rencontres take place, is sure 
to receive a stigma from head quarters, and either to have its promotion 
totally stopped, or to be sent to some West Indian island to learn the 
effects of insubordination. But now, every ensign can claim the sanc- 
tion of Field-martial the Duke of Wellington! The first officer who is 
brought to a court-martial for pistoling his brother officer, will be enti- 
tled to call the duke on his defence, and prove, from the record of the 
duel with Lord Winchelsea, the duke’s palpable opinion that any thing 
is ground enough for duelling. We look upon the whole transaction as 
weak, irrational, and violent; in every point of view mischievous, 
except in the one of developing more fully to us the character of the 
man with whom England has now todeal; into whose hands her par- 
liament is, at this hour, giving an influence unprecedented m history ; 
and by whose unlimited use of means, which, of themselves, inspire 
heady and dangerous thoughts, she is to be guided for the time to come. 


« On Monday, the 26th current, the business of the Justices of Peace 
Court, Falkirk, was suddenly interrupted by an accident, which at first 
sight had a very tragical appearance. The assembly-room, in which the 
monthly court is held, is likewise the place in which the members of the 
School of Arts have their meetings: and for their accommodation a tem- 
porary gallery had been erected at the north end of the room. Upon. 
Monday this gallery was crowded with. above 150 people, witnessing 
the proceedings of the court, when, in one moment, owing, it is sup- 
posed, to some of the props below giving way, the whole of the gallery 
fell to the ground, and brought along with it, of course, the mass of 
men, women, and children, who were stationed upon it. The crash was 
tremendous, as if the house had been shaken by an earthquake. The 
bar, or railing, which separated the spectators from the ministers of 
justice, was broken down, the clerk’s books and papers all scattered on 
the floor ; and so alarmed were some of the members of court, imagin-. 
ing, no doubt, that their judicial labours were at an end—that one of 
them is reported to have uttered an audible prayer.” 

Where are all the “ gens de protection,” as our travelled people say, 
that should have prevented this affair, and fifty others of the same 
calibre? Scarcely a month passes without the discovery, that some 
solid place of assemblage is as perilous as amine charged with gun- 
powder, and that a man is nowhere more unprotected than when he is 
under shelter. A theatre rises with the rapidity of a rocket ; in fact, the 
art of building, in this instance, is all reduced to the art of hurrying up 
one rotten wall upon the top of another rotten wall, and with the same 
rapidity it descends. It is a sort of steeple chace, and the hardier the 
exploit the more honour. Nothing is done unless there are half a dozen 


1823.) Affairs in General. 403 


broken necks for the newspapers. Methodist chapels are the next in 
point of honour. They maintain a very active competition in the rapi- 
dity of their rise, and the certainty of their expeditious fall. They have, 
for the last half year, generally come down at the rate of a couple a 
month, and with a considerable loss of legs and arms—the conversion of 
gouty old saints into flying sinners—the stoppage of old women’s 
tongues in that final rest, which is the only one that such tongues will 
ever know ; and the solemn determination of all who value their osteo- 
logy, craniology, and physiclogy, never to go within sound of popular 
preaching, and the Irvings of this world again. 

* The next description of candidates for overthrow, are county assembly 
rooms ; where no sooner have the last touches of the Raphael of the town 
been applied to brightening the true-blue of the county arms—the cards 
of the stewards been duly honoured by the universal attendance of the 
fair and illustrious for ten miles round—the sheriff, at the head of his 
ten daughters paid his devoirs down the blushing and bowing ranks— 
the sheriff’s lady, to set an example, set to the retired major of militia, 
the great military authority of the place; and both on the heavy 
fantastic toe, are boreing their way like linked buffaloes down the red- 
cheeked and full-fronted mob, when a crack is heard above ; the floor 
shudders below—the candles in all their sockets sympathize by tumbling 
out—a shower of fresh plaster gives notice that the ceiling is giving 

* way—the fiddlers fly for their lives—the stairs are choked with the 
heroes of the “local,” trampled down by fat and frantic belles ; the walls 
heave like the side scenes of a village theatre; the young gentlemen 
jump over the young ladies in their way to the stairs ; partners are 
forgotten, first loves jilted, passion breathes its vows no more, fortune- 
hunting is thinking not of the ladies’ pockets, but of its own bones ; the 
sheriff no longer takes the lead of the county ; the representatives take 
leave of their constituents, without the ceremony of a farewell speech ; 

« Sauve qni peut!” is screamed in all the languages of Somersetshire. 
The doors are no longer the received mode of discharge, the windows 
being substituted ; flying leaps of the most magnificent kind are made 
without notice or applause. At last a burst of slates, dust, laths, plaster, 

_ brick and mortar, the crash of the last tea-cup, the last candle sconce, 
the last fiddle, and the last fiddler, announce that all is over. In a week 
more the ruins are developed; shoes and stockings are recognized by 
their distracted owners; a snuff-box leads to the discovery of some 
ancient she-conveyancer of scandal, who was supposed to have taken 
advantage of the general confusion to elope with the retired serjeant of 
the militia staff; and at the bottom of all is found the sheriff’s enormous 
lady, with her arm tight round the neck of the old major, whom a coro- 
xs inquest declares to have died of “ strangulation.” 


+ 


Captain Garth’s affair has gone down. The black box that was to 
A -; out such overwhelming ruin on the head of the Duke of Cumber- 
land, and to prove the gallant Captain a prince in disguise, is found 
out to be worth nothing, to contain no secret deeper than that of the 
Captain’s own incumbrances, and to prove no fact, beyond the ingenuity 
of the party in making it the foundation of a claim for the clearance of 
his debts. Into the depth of the transaction, of course, we do not con- 
descend to look. There is degradation in the touch of such matters, 
and we leave the fictions as we find them. But the true purpose of 
‘ ot 2 


404 Notes of the Month on [ APRIL, 


the clamour, after all, was of a more intelligible description ; and this, 
‘we pronounce, has totally failed. The infamous calumnies on the Duke 
of Cumberland’s character, were not let fly without their object ; and 
the black box was an “ infernal machine” for other explosions than 
those of the poor Captain’s obloquies against the cruelty that refused 
to supply him with money ad libitum, The royal Duke’s firm defiance 
has turned round the charge: he has demanded of his calumniators 
that they shall put their slanders into shape, and suffer him to give 
them the opportunity of proving them before a court of justice. He 
has solemnly and publicly denied, scorned and taunted, his calumnia- 
tors; and where are they now? No where. Their slanders have 
shrunk into pitiful apologies, or blundering attempts to defend them- 
selves. As tothe other parties, let them answer, boldly, if they can, - 
why General Garth should have preserved letters written in the unre- 
strained confidence of married life, and speaking the idle gossip of the 
court circle, we know not, when we consider the habits of caution 
which his peculiar circumstances demanded? But why he should-have 
. suffered those letters to pass into the hands of Captain Garth, is a 
matter that requires clearing up, for the sake of the General’s character. 
However, so the matter lies, The Duke of Cumberland stands clear ; 
and that is the only point worth any rational man’s caring about. The 
intrigue against him is scattered into thin air, and the Duke will neither 
be frightened out of the kingdom, nor the attention of the public be 
diverted from the tremendous question on which its liberties depend 
for life or death, by this new bait flung to the whale. Mr. Peel must 
come as dry as ever to his old dry problems, and prose about. his “ two 


evils,” till he relieves the House of himself and the subject, by setting 
the whole five hundred asleep. 


THE LEAST OF TWO EVILS! 


When Satan, the father of lies, first exhorted” 
The mother of all men his will to obey, 

He made her tell Adam she would not be thwarted, 
And, like other women, she had her own way. 


’T was “ the least of two evils’—so Adam, deciding 
To please her, abandoned all else he held dear ; 

Though storming the conflict his bosom dividing, 
He yielded with many a. groan and a tear: 


He knew she was wrong, but he could not persuade her 
To choose, like himself, between darkness and light ; 
So rather than force her to yield, he obeyed her; 
Afraid to do wrong, more afraid to do right. 


Thus Peel, honest man! by the tempter exhorted 
To pull down the bulwarks of Church and of State; 
Assures us the Catholics will not be thwarted— 
Secure what’ you can—to resist is too late. 


Though awful the danger, if Papists lave power, 
The least of two evils is always the best : 

If we can have concord and peace for an hour, 
Let those who come after take care of the rest. 


But urged by necessity, plea of the devils! 
The Church he loved dearly, yet feared Papists-:more— 
So her cause he deserts as the least of “two evils,” 
And calling out “ Robbers!” he opens the door.—[ Standard. 


a 
>. . 


1829. | Affairs in General. 405 


If Lord Lowther have actually resigned, we shall regret his loss, as a 
public officer. The Strand was a nuisance; and we might well be 
alive to the taunts of foreigners at our suffering the chief transit of the 
capital, the very highway of London, to remain for centuries the same 
dirty, dilapidated, narrow passage. If two cabriolets came in different 
directions, nothing but good driving could keep them from a crash ; a 
pair of coaches could scarcely escape without carrying off a wheel of 
each other ; a waggon reigned royally over the whole passage ; and if 
a van, presuming on its lightness, attempted to slip by, its only choice 
was into the windows of which side it was to discharge its cargo; a 
dozen gazers at a print-shop swelled the population to such a plethora, 
that there was no passing without a battle, or the loss of one’s pocket- 
book ; and the halt of a ballad-singer was a stoppage of the whole pedes- 
trian intercourse of the west and east for the time. But better things 
are at hand ; workmen have been employed for the last week or two in 
pulling down the old houses in the Strand which, in consequence of 
being too near the road, had impeded for a length of time the carriage- 
way, and, in fact, foot-path of that place, and, although not perceived 
by the public, in erecting the new buildings in lieu of the others. A 
day or two since, the labourers having cleared away all the rubbish 
occasioned by taking down the three houses that were nearest to Exeter 
‘Change, the passers by were (as well they might be) astonished to see 
one house at the distance of five or six yards‘ from. the old pavement 
completed and occupied, and’ another nearly half finished. The im- 
provement, which will undoubtedly be finished soon, is decidedly one of 
the most useful that has been lately effected, and the Strand will shortly 
present a very pretty appearance, especially when the long-talked of 
King’s College is erected, and the square built near the National Repo- 
sitory at Charing-cross. It is said that the conductors of the works are 
only waiting now for the pulling down of Exeter Change to advance 
more rapidly. The conception of those improvements is, we will admit, 
not due to Lord Lowther, but the execution is: and in this world of 
matter-of-fact, we consider the execution of a public work to be quite 
as good as the conception, and more useful too. We hope that he, or 
some successor inspired by his activity, will proceed up the Strand and 
utterly knock down that perilous receptacle of filth, pestilence, rags, and 
Israelites, lying between the New Church and St. Clements. Let the 
same mallet which knocks down Exeter "Change and sends its Jews- 
and wild beasts to seek whom they may devour elsewhere ; knock down 
the Lions’ Inn colony, and let the tribes of Dan begin their peregrina- 
tion to the east, by removing beyond Temple Bar. 


The Irish papers are just now especially indignant at three’things ; at 
O’Connel’s not daring to take the seat which he pledged his soul and 
body that he would take in “less than no time,” according to his own 
brilliant chronology—with his Grace of Wellington for saying, that the 
object of his bill was to curb, break in, and finally break down popery ; 


oS insult which is not by any means the less, for their not believing that 


a 


he means any such thing—and with the Marquis of Anglesea, for his 

not running, scymetar in hand, all the way from Holyhead to Downing 

Street, and scalping the Duke at his desk, like a chevalier, as he is. 
We are no warriors, and will not lend ourselves to this thirst of car- 


406 Notes of the Month on [APRIL, 


nage. But, as we have already stated, we have been at least as much sur- 
prised as edified, by the equanimity of the gallant and very ill-treated 
Marquis ; the angelic mildness with which he has borne as unpleasant 
an application to his feelings as we should suppose has been, for many 
years inflicted on a “ fighting man ;” and the lady-like delicacy of never 
adverting, by more than a sigh, to the most unqualified and hectoring 
turn out that ever befel anything above a footman, since the days of the 
first King Arthur. However, if the gallant Marquis can swallow this 
pill, we suppose he finds it for the good of his health, and we wish him 
joy of his digestion and his doctor together. 


LORD ANGLESEY’S THREE LEGACIES! 


Lord Anglesey had, when on Waterloo plains, 

Two legs, and a heart, and a head with some brains ; 
He fought like a lion, and yet was so kind, 

On leaving the field, to Jeave one leg behind. 


* When Ireland to govern his Lordship was led, 
He took one leg with him, a heart, and a head ; 
But, somehow or other, it entered his mind, 

To leave all his brains, in old England behind. 


The mode he adopted the Irish to rule, 

Was soon to become a pro-Popery tool ; 

His heart with the Papists became so entwined, 
He /eft it all with them,-in Dublin behind. 


So arriving again upon true British ground, 

No more than one leg, and his head could be found ; 
But doubtless his Lordship is sparing no pains 

In helping his head to recover his brains.— Age. 


The following account of the late Colonel Labedoyere appears in a curious 
publication which has just appeared in Paris, called Le Livre Noir :— 
“ This unfortunate young officer had actually escaped after his condem- 


nation, and was at large for three days, a circumstance not mentioned in. 


any of the journals of the period. An inspector of police, named De- 
basse, who was indebted for numerous acts of kindness received from 
Labedoyere and his family, was applied to assist in getting him safe 
out of Paris after he should have escaped from prison. This he promised 
to do, assuring them that, by his means, Labedoyere might set at nought 
all the efforts of the police to intercept him. The evening of that day 
Labedoyere escaped from the prison, Foudras, the inspector-general of 
police, ordered no pursuit: but Debasse was called before the minister 
of police, to whom he basely revealed the hiding-place of his benefac- 
tor. The colonel, who thought himself perfectly secure in the asylum 
which he had chosen, remained three days ; during which time Debasse 
frequently came to see him, for the purpose of discovering those who 
were aiding him to escape. This wretch denounced several, and amongst 
the rest an English captain, living in the Rue de la Puisi, who was im- 
mediately arrested. Labedoyere was the same day surprised and taken 
back to the Abbaye, from whence he was led forth, after a few hours’ 
interval, to execution. For this deadly treachery towards his former 
master and benefactor, the vile Debasse, who could scarcely write his 
name, was made officier de prix at the prefecture of police.” 


— ow eo 


ee 


Ds 


1829.4 Affairs in General: 407 


Of course we are not much in love with the officials of justice, from 
one of Mr. Peel’s red-breasted guardians of the peace up to the home 
secretary himself. We do not think that the hangman, though an un- 
doubted essential in a civilized country like ours, where every body 
learns every thing, has a happy time of it. And yet we are not disposed 
very bitterly to whine over the trickery that entangled M. Labedoyere. 
What was the conduct of that exemplary patriot himself? He was as 
base and infamous a traitor as ever France, in her republicanism gene- 
rated, to turn slave and lick the footstool of a tyrant. When Napoleon 
was flung into banishment, this rascal was patronized by the king, placed 
high in rank in the army, and made immediate commander of a military 
force. What was his honour thenceforth? He took the very first op- 
portunity of breaking his oath, revolted, and rode off with his whole 
regiment te the Usurper. He finally fell into the hands of justice, and 
he paid the penalty due toa liar, a slave, anda traitor. So may every 
man perish who plays the traitor! So may he find man unsafe, con- 
fidence a burlesque, honour a dream, and nothing true but the stern 
punishment that he has earned at the hands of his country! 


Origin of the Anglesea Family. 

« Srr.—You forget, in your genealogy of Lord Anglesea, that his 
father’s name was Bailey, and that the name of Paget, though not 
ancient, is»still far more so than anything from which Lord Anglesea 
can paternally claim descent. The Baileys were, a few years ago, small 
farmers in Wales, like the Hughes, Williams, &c.; and, like them, 
found a mine on their little barren plot of ground. On this, one got a 
Baronetcy, and marrying a distant relation of Lord Paget, of Beaudesert, 
she, by the death of her male relations, eventually became his sole heir. 
On this, Sir Nicholas Bailey, the present Lord Anglesea’s father, took 
the name of Paget, and forgot the ‘ Bailey’ as much as he could. 


« Your obedient servant, B. B.” 


Now this we think not fair, though it is true enough. Heaven help 
us from a turn for genealogy hunting. Swift said, with his usual know- 
ledge of affairs, “ I never look into any man’s pedigree if I mean to 
know him, nor into his kitchen if I mean to dine with him. I am sure 
to be sick in both cases if I do.” It is no blame to the poor Marquis of 
Anglesea if his father was of the Gld Bailey descent, a descent, how- 
ever, which though constantly supplied, leaves few heirs in the right 
line. Wis father might have been a tailor for anything that we or the 
world care. At the same time that we have a considerable objection to 
the living representative’s showing the meekness of that useful and 


sedentary race. 


We are not sure that out of the whole corporate body, which is com- 
posed of so many fractional parts of man, any one fragment of huma- 
nity would have taken a master’s treatment with such humble gratitude. 
If ever there was a man turned out of employment, at a minute’s notice, 
with less ceremony and more ease, than this son of Old Bailey, we will 
be soused gurnets. With the Duke it was a word, and blow; “ Veni, 
vidi, and out with him.” The whole being done with the rapidity of 
“ parade, right-about face.” The Marquis was, certainly, as summarily 
sent about his business as any hussar within memory ; and he took it, at 


408 Notes of the Month on [ApRIL, 


once, with as indignant a face, and as patient a spirit, as any gentleman 
within the bills of mortality. 

What! after he had made up his mind to the pleasant receipt of 
30,000/. a year, for the next half dozen years? After having taken over 
his bulls and calves, his promising young Lord Toms and Harrys, his 
poultry and pigs, his Lady Aramintas and J uliettas, and prepared to 
distribute them in holy matrimony among the lords of the bogs; after 
he had even removed his last treasure, the late wife of the Duke of 
Wellington’s brother, now gazetted Marchioness ; after he had familia- 
rized himself to Irish patriotism in the shape of Jack Lawless, and 
revelled in a long vista of the annual raptures of Donnybrook Fair—to 
be routed from his position, ordered to march without beat of drum ; to 
return instantly by steam-boat, and deposit’his three months’ truncheon 
on the desk of the horseguards? All this was enough to try the patience 
of a saint, to make a hussar twirl his moustachios to the topmost curl of 
indignation, to raise the stones in mutiny ; and fiercely did the dethroned 
hussar threaten—we will do him that justice ; his parting correspon- 
dence with Dr. Curtis, that venerable personage who was destined to 
hold in his portfolio, at once, the secret souls of the Duke and the Mar- 
quis, was full enough of the wonders that he would do. His honour was 
to be plucked up, though by the locks, from the bottom of the deep, or 
brought down from the “ bright-faced moon.” ; 

He arrived at last; and we expected to see vengeance let loose in her 
most terrific form, the hussar in full charge on the prostrate Duke ; 
nothing but fiery tropes, and metaphors of oil of vitriol, thoughts that 
blast, and words that turn the culprit into tinder. 

On the contrary, not a syllable was uttered; the dethroned monarch 
took his stool at the foot of the dethroner with the most exemplary tran- 
guillity ; not a word was suffered to escape on the “unexampled wrongs” 
that had pulled him out of his sovereignty—the babe untimely plucked 
from the womb of that parturient parent of grievances, the teeming 
Sister Isle. There sat the Marquis, and there sat the Duke, calm and 
fond, as two kings of Brentford “smelling at one nosegay.” Nobody 
knows till this minute anything of the matter of dismissal ; nobody has 
heard of the remonstrance—nobody knows more than the O’Connells, 
and other infallibles of the day, whether any offence was given, or how 
much was swallowed. The Marquis sits silent, smiling and contented, 
and why the deuce should not we? 

The French papers have gathered up the anecdotes of those -public 
personages, Hare and Burke, and are making very gay paragraphs out of ~ 
them for the terror of all the female world. They, however, acknowledge 
our superior facility of invention, and commemorate our skill. The 
English, they tell us, are all turned Burkites. The word “to Burke,” 
has become a word of science ; and the disappearance of any individual 
from his general round of society is regularly accounted for on the prin- 
ciple of Burkeism. 

If a member of parliament shrink from a meeting with his consti- 
tuents, and take wing for the Continent, he is declared to have under- 
gone the hands of some active assistant to mortality, and to be now doing 
more good by exhibiting his proportions in the surgeon’s hall, than he 
could have done in his whole life-time. If a gentleman of peculiar ele- 
gance of dress has found it inconvenient to pay his tailor, and wishes to 


~~ 


1829.] Affairs in General. 409 


withdraw himself from the officious civilities of the individuals that pay 
particular attention to the leaders of fashion under those. circumstances, 
he has only to spread the report that he has been captured by one of the 
School of Science, and no one looks for him afterwards. He may ramble 
from Calais to Constantinople without a fear of pursuit ; and, as long as 
he can contrive to beg his way, so far he may go with the other polite 
beggars of the world. 

The French journalists further say, that the invention is so delightfully 
applicable to a variety of purposes, that, reluctant as they are to receive 
an expressly English manufacture, they are beginning to adopt it on a 
considerable scale. The Rue de la Paix, as being the chief resort of the 
English, has for some time exhibited those singular disappearances, 
which are rapidly losing their singularity. The neighbourhood of the 
Italian Boulevard is pretty much in the same condition; and the sud- 
denness of John Bull’s retreat is fully beginning to equal the oddity of 
his appearance. The Frenchmen, however, are not easily to be outdone 
in the talent of retreat, which, as the proverb says, shews the soldier, 


-and which certainly is practised by soldiers at present in the most 


exhaustless variety. A demi-solde is assure to break up without beat of 
drum, as if his object had been to capture an enemy’s patrol ; and his bill 
is much more likely to be left behind, than was once any fragment of the 


enemy’s spoil. It is the science of the affair that dignifies this old 


manceuvre. Formerly, it was a simple flight ; the wife was inconsolable 
for the disgrace, and in dread of the return; and the children starved 
with double appetite, through the loss of their family honour. Now, 
however, the honour is out of the question. If “ mon cher mari’ has 
fled the land, there is the comfortable hope that he has not fled, but 
fallen into the clutch of a tribe, to whom mankind, from the king to the 
beggar, must yield submission. She is at once tranquil; for the disci- 
ples of the School of Science suffer no continuance of life’s troubles in 
their subjects. He is serving the great curative purposes of mankind 
and benevolence ; he is making from sixteen to twenty pounds sterling 
for some brave son of surgery ; and his wife is freed from all distressing 
doubts as to his reappearance, is entitled to write herself down “ widow” 
at the moment, and marry her “ cher petit Auguste,” her husband’s aid- 
de-camp, before four-and-twenty hours are over. 


We give these clever lines from that very vigorous, eloquent, and 
constitutional paper, the Morning Journal :—- 


MY FATHER! MY FATHER! 
“ The chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof !”’ 
Awake, ere the sceptre is wrung from thy race, 
Son of the sainted and lord of the free— 
Awake, ere the serpent has coiled in thy place, 
And the hearts of the honest have perished with thee. 


Thy name is still shrined in our heart’s deepest core, 
Those hearts which thy raruEr long loved as his own; 
And those hands which ne’er quailed to a traitor before, 
Are outstretched for their worship, their God, and thy throne ! 


Arise, and dash from thee the spirit of lies, 

That would tempt thee thy purpose and pride to forego ; 
Trusting millions implore thee, their Lord, to arise, 

Ere the temple their ancestors reared is laid low. 


M.M. New Series.—Vou. VII. No. 40. 3G 


410 Notes of the Month on [Apriu, 


It was given to thy keeping unblemished and pure, 
From a hand that was firm to its faith and its trust ; 
And we feel that its glory is not less secure, 
Though the form of our father is laid in the dust. 


Not the deep cant of Priesthood should lure thee away 
From the path which thy honour so brightly hath trod ; 
And the rrura which was given, with the symbol of sway, 

Should be left, but with that, at the call of thy Gop! 


Though others be false, oh! thou Lord of our love, 

Be thou true, and the serpent is spoiled of its sting ; 
And the Temple of Truth shall no traitor remove, 

While the God of that temple preserves us our King! 


There is high exultation among the honest part of the Cambridge 
A.M.s, at the prospect of getting rid of Sir Nicholas Tyndall, whom 
they already term Old Nick. If that fine fellow, Wetherell, whom we 
honour for the masterly lashing which he inflicted on the soul of that 
most contemptible of all apostates, Peel, should give up office, then 
Tyndall must give Cambridge an opportunity of vindicating her character. 
We own that we wish, rather than expect this. Cambridge is the new- 
light University—a good deal in the ‘‘ march of mind” way—and gene- 
rally plays a republican trick when she can ; which means, that she 
generally loves and worships the heels of power—a Democrat being 
always a despot when possible; anda Republican always a slave when he 
can get any thing by it. However, Oxford has set an example, which, 
if Cambridge be not deep in the mire of Jacobinism, she will rejoice to 
follow, and Sir Nick will be flung out with the utmost contempt— 
namely, the contempt due to a turncoat. But the honest electors must 
be on the alert, and not suffer themselves to be taken by surprise by 
stage-coach parcels of dirty fellows, sent down, at half an hour's notice, 
like hue and cry bills, from town. 


LINES mot ASCRIBED TO PROFESSOR PORSON. 


From the Inns of Court at break of day, 
The nawvers are riding gone, 
To the Camprince Senate House far away, 
To see how the Cuunrcn goes on. 
And hard by the Hills, and over the dales 
They rambled, and over the plain ; 
And backwards and forwards they switch’d their Whig-tails, 
Like boys smarting under a cane. 


* And pray now, how did the lawyers go?” 
By the Fly, or Star (erst Tally-ho) ? 

They went in two Paddington coaches—'tis true !! 
With a seat behind fitted for two: 

They snuff’d the fresh air, as they clean escap’d 
From smoke and the Court’s botheration ; 

And the lawyers they smiled, for it put them in mind 

'. Of caTHaRtic EMANCIPATION. 


They saw a soldier fall from his horse, 
As he rode in deep reflection; ; 

And the lawyers groaned, for it put them in mind 
Of Scarzerv at one election. 


a Fs, 


1829. ] A jfairs in General.” 411 


They stopped at the neighbouring bookseller’s shop, 
Said they, “ We’re of Trinity College, 

Come down to support the Romanists’ cause, 
Without the Master’s knowledge.” 


They saw the non-Regents preparing to vote, 
They reckoned the hoods, black and white ; 
And, ‘‘ Now, Mr. Dean,” they whispered, ‘“‘ we ween, 
Our own sly cause goes right.” 
They saw the Vice-Chancellor taking his seat, 
A seat of good report ; 
And the lawyers grinned, for it put them in mind 
Of their own sweet Chancery Court. 


They saw swim down through the learned tide 
A Lamps, with vast celerity ; 
Oh! he cut his own throat, and they thought the while 
Of the Porr, whom he wished prosperity. 
They stood by St. Marv’s, and heard the sound 
Of the deep and solemn bell ; 
And the lawyers paused, for it gave them a hint 
That the soul goes to heaven or hell. 


They saw the Soricrror-GENnERAL’s face 
Lengthen with consternation ; 

So they hied them back in the Pappineron stage, 
In fiendish exultation. 

Sir Nicuoras grinned, and twitched his brief tails, 
But not with admiration, 

For he thought that his seat in the Parliament 
Was lost through Emanerpation.—[John Bull. 


« Parliamentary language,” as it is called, is proverbially absurd, 
* Now that Iam on my legs—I am free to confess,” and that whole slip- 
shod family, have long fallen under the lash ; but what is called “ Par- 
liamentary courtesy,” is to us much more detestable. We waive the 
nonsense of calling every one, that a man has ever talked three words to, 
“my honourable friend,” and we are by no means sure, that “ honour- 
able member,” applied to every individual who works his way into what 
Sir Francis Burdett was accustomed, in his patriot days, to call “ that 
room,” may not be sometimes productive of odd emotions. But our 
complaint is of more serious things ; it is of the actual injury to the 
good cause, and the offence against truth, contained in the application of 
the words “honourable friend,” and its expletives, to persons whom, in 
their souls, the speakers believe to be the very reverse of honourable ; 
whom they dislike and scorn, as committing, in their idea, the very 
basest acts ; and whom it would be their duty to exert all their means to 
detect and degrade for the good of the country, and the example to 
- mankind. 

We have, at the present moment, questions of the most signal import- 
ance agitated in pailiament. The Opposition desire, if they are sincere, 
to overcome those measures by the most condign species of extinction. 
What can they think of the men who have proposed those measures ? 
The answer is plain. But what is their language? One high-minded 
oppositionist prefaces his speech with “I beg to assure the Home Secre- 
tary that my opinion of him is of the same-high order that it always 
was.” Another merely varies the phrase, and pronounces that, “ though 

3G 2 


412 Notes of the Month on [Aprin, 


nothing shall ever make him think otherwise of the measure than as most 
“iniquitous,” and so forth ; yet “ nothing shall ever make him think that 
his Right Honourable Friend, on the Treasury Bench, had any ill inten- 
tion whatever in the bill,” &c. Now, this is fulsome ;. ay, and suspicious 
—ay, and in nine instances out of ten, it implies neither more nor less, 
than that the honourable oppositionist by no means wishes to be on bad 
terms with the Treasury Bench. With some, however, the matter is 
more honest, and the whole is a mere idle adaption of an absurd phraseo- 
logy. We do not object to civility on the ordinary occasions of debate. 
But nothing can be more misplaced than this tenderness of tongue on 
the vital questions of the state. The subjects now before the legislature 
are not party matters; not whether Lord Grey shall have the disposal 
of places, or Lord Holland make laws—but whether the people shall have 
a Constitution.— Whether the laws, liberties, nay, lives of Englishmen, 
shall not be in the most imminent danger ;—whether we shall not intro- 
duce idolatry into the land, and provoke Heaven by desecrating Chris- 
tianity ? 

What we desire to see is this ; a dozen men boldly and firmly resolving 
to do their duty to the utmost ; to abjure all compromise—to speak their 
disgust, their scorn, and their determination, in the most direct terms ;— 
to leave no room for reconciliation, and do their best to crush the guilty 
measure, that, once passed, will not leave them a country. So long as those 
childish courtesies pass between them and ministers, so long it 1s impos- 
sible for the nation to believe its advocates sincere. A dozen bold men, 
whom the Home Secretary saw resolutely and systematically scorning 
his advances, would be an opposition more formidable to him, than all 
the bowing and smiling hostility that he thinks still within the reach of 
his lure ; whose bowing and smiling he interprets into a wish to remain 
within the limits of treaty ; and whose hostility he at once deprecates and 
derides. 


The late frosty winds have given catarrhs to all the singers of the 
King’s Theatre ; stopped two operas, utterly d—m—d one, and made 
all the premiéres danseuses epileptic. At the French play in the Strand 
they made Perlet forget his part, Mademoiselle Stephanie Euthanasia 


Merveille stand gazing at two guardsmen in the stage box until every 


soul in the house thought her nailed to the stage; and Mademoiselle 
Pauline Precoce play Roxalana, for which she had no other qualification 
than the petit nez retroussé. 
At Drury Lane they limited Kenny and Morton’s play to six very 
bitter nights, and then blew it out of the world. They served Mr. 


Poole’s farce of “Sixes and Sevens” in exactly the same way. Nor 


were they an atom less unrelenting to Mr. Lacy’s Casket, which they 
treated in the same unceremonious manner ; though, being of nearly the 
heaviest matériel that the stage ever suffered, the Casket must have gone 
to the bottom of itself. 

At Covent Garden they destroyed nothing but Mr. Wood’s voice and 
Madame Vestris’s gaiety, for there was nothing else to destroy ; they, 
however, had the advantage of making Madame wear a handkerchief 
on her neck ; which is a protection not merely to the wearer, but, in this 
instance, to the spectator also ; and of making her keep her mouth shut, 
when she had nothing to say ; a practice which we recommend to her, as 
a valuable discovery, for the future. 


1829.] - Affairs in General. 413 


In the House of Commons it carried away Mr. Peel’s blushes, and all 
that makes a public man unfit to meet the world’s eye after he has done 
things of which he ought to be ashamed. We will not suppose Mr. 
Peel about to pick pockets, or forge bank notes; but the countenance 
that he has now manufactured, would, we promise that worthy young 
person, not disgrace either of the occupations. 

It also carried off Sir Thomas Lethbridge’s last dozen years’ harangues 
against the papists, and left in their place the very silliest apology for a 
turncoat that we ever heard in the shape of the most profound speech 
ever attempted by Sir Thomas. But we have to pay our compliments to 
him again, and shall let him down only until we have leisure for his 
flagellation. 

The next performance of those all-pervading winds was to go down to 
Windsor, and stop Sir Jeffery Gimcrack Michael Angelo Palladio 
Wyattville, in full swing at the Royal Lodge. We grieve for the delay 
of that enterprising performer. In a week, no doubt, he would have 
had the whole job in a way to so handsome a catastrophe, that nothing 
short of a miracle could have given a well sized rat, or any thing short 
of the patience of a cabinet minister, such as they are at the present 
day, room to rest a foot in. But the besom of destruction was checked 
at once ; the Royal Lodge was left to that miserable state of dilapidation 
in which the king has, however, contrived to eat, drink, and sleep, for 
years ; and the formidable calamity has actually occurred, that Sir 
Palladio Wyattville is, at this present writing, standing without a job on 
hands. Only 217,000 pounds have been yet laid out on Windsor Castle. 
Only 70,000 pounds have been. laid out on York House; which, if the 
Marquis of Stafford had not stepped into take it off their hands, would 
have been turned into a barrack, a menagerie, or a receptacle for the 
Marchionesses of Westmeath and other highborn personages of the beau 
sexe who prefer living in lodgings rent free. So much for the blood of 
all the Salisburys ; and of some dozens of other superb aristocrats, who 
will let any one that likes, pay for their coalsand candles. The Palace! 
late Buckingham-House, has hitherto cost only 300,000 pounds, and is 
not to cost above double the sum besides, before his Majesty ever sits 
down in it, which we understand his Majesty never intends to do ; and 
for which we by no means blame him, it being the vilest compilation of 
brick and plaster, that Mr. Nash, who is a bricklayer and plasterer, and 
nothing more, ever perpetrated. We profess, and vow, that the sight of 
this finished production makes us sick, and that our only consolation 
arises from the fact, that the brewery in its rear will so utterly blacken 
it in a month or two, that the world will not distinguish it from West- 
minster workhouse. 

Who can call usa poor nation, when we can lay out a million in such 
__ a handsome manner ; or a nation careless of the residence of our king, 
_ when we lodge him in such a style as no king in Europe beside is 
lodged in: or niggardly in our employment of artists, when we patronize 
the persons who now flourish away on our public buildings ? 

The next exploit of the nipping winds was to go to Rome, and extin- 
guish the Pope; the poor old man died a great penitent, sent for St. 
Dominic's breeches from the Dominican convent, put them on, was 
anointed with the oil which St. Francis brought from Paradise two 
_ hundred and fifty years ago, and which has never lost a drop since, 
though it has oiled all their holinesses, and spared a regular supply for 


4i4 Notes of the Month on [ APRIL, 


the French kings; was wrapped in St. Vitus’s cowl, and after having 
provided handsomely for his sons and daughters, he died innocent, as a 
Pope should do, in the midst of the general rejoicings of his afflicted 
people ; who saw in his death the gaiety of a new election, and the 
general intrigues of the holy college of cardinals, every man of whom 
was instantly speculating upon the profit and loss of the next turn. 

The next victim was the General of the Jesuits, who departed this 
life in the glorious anticipation of seeing his suffering brethren of Lan- 
cashire settling matters in their own way at Lambeth, sitting in the 
Cabinet, and cutting up the fat bishoprics of Rochester, Winchester, and 
Chester, cum multis aliis, as will be seen all in good time, or we are 
much mistaken. 


“It is known that when Sontag entered into terms with the Opera 
Managers, she particularly agreed that her forfeit-money should not be 
enforced if she married a sovereign prince! . We think, had such been 
the case, the prince could have well afforded 1,000/. penalty.” 

We think that the person who “ thought” so, could know nothing 
about Germany and its princes. A sovereign prince with us, means 
something better than an Irish squire, the dominator of a thousand 
acres of bog, with a thousand half-naked subjects. But they settle matters 
in another style in the land of Sourcrout. A sovereign prince there 
is sovereign enough if he have a territory of a couple of miles in a ring 
fence, have a house that would make a tolerable kennel to an English 
mansion, and rule, by right divine, over from fifty to five hundred boors, 
Sontag was quite right in her stipulation. The idea of his having to lay 
down a thousand pounds for her, would overwhelm the philosophy, and 
exhaust the finances of many a little monarch on the right bank of the 
lordly Rhine. However, we are not much at a loss to judge of the 
class, while we have the honour and happiness of possessing the light of 
Prince Leopold’s presence among us. There is a model of a prince for 
the admiration of the world! That brilliant, magnificent, and open- 
hearted personage, has already received no less than six hundred 
thousand pounds of English money!! Why does not some honest 
senator stand up in the House, and demand that some reason shall be 
assigned to the nation why this enormous expenditure should be yearly 
persevered in? Why, when our Weavers are marching through the 
streets to beg at the doors of the Treasury, this hero should be suffered 


to stuff his pockets with the money that would feed and clothe- a 


province? But can any body tell where he is; or what he-is doing ; 
or where he hides himself; or where he puts his gains out to interest? 
Has Joseph Hume nothing to ask upon this subject? Is the dashing Sir 
Robert Wilson chopfallen ? Is the democratic Burdett inclined to pass this 
plethoric pair of pockets by, and let the German march off full to Germany? 
We certainly do not expect much from those personages. But we offer 
them a piece of fair game, in pursuit of which they could not go astray. 
By forcing this munificent prince to do his duty, they might, for once, 
gain popularity by honest means; and they would at once save their 
own names, and the money of the nation. 

However, as to Sontag, the affair is yet a mystery. Who is the father 
of her child? There is the rub. One story says that she is married to 
Lord Clanwilliam. Another gives the honour to one of the Pagets. 
We disavow all belief in the report that Rogers the poet and banker is 


1829.] Affairs in General. 416 


the happy man. As to the lordly coxcombs about the Foreign Office, 
we have too high an opinion of Sontag’s taste, clumsy little flageolet as 
she is, to suppose that she would recognize their existence. Is our 
beloved Prince Leopold the happy husband after all? And is he laying 
out his money in the savings bank, to make a pretty retiring allowance for 
himself and his wife, when she shall sing herself of the stage, and be a 
prima donna no more? 


_ The Kemble Family.—<We hear that this admired work of poor 
Harlowe is missing at the present moment; whither it has fled, nobody 
ean tell ; but it is not among the treasures left behind by Rowland 
Stevenson ; and Mr. Walsh declares that he is inconsolable about it.” 

The whole affair of Rowland Stephenson’s escape, property, and 
accomplices, is still nearly as much a mystery as ever. We give the 
Banker credit for, at least, his dexterity ; and only regret that he did 
not remain in his legislatorial post, to place the last laurel on his brow 
by ratting. As it is, Sir Thomas carries it against him, and the banker 
inust be content with mutilated honours. 

In the whole career of “ appropriation,’ no more effective example 
than the banker’s is on record. The auctioneers have thriven on him 
ever since. Plate of the most recherché kind, as Mr. Robins says ; jewels, 
equipages, furniture, prize pigs, marble Venuses, and Ormolu clocks, 
found in him a most dashing bidder ; and, as he paid with other people’s 
money, or with very handsome promises, no man could come between 
him and the favourite of his fancy. How much Mr. Tom Welsh lost 
by him, or how much he gained, has not yet come to the publiceye. We 
think that the Banker’s tears and implorations to Welsh, were merely 
to squeeze from his very costive friend the last sixpence that he could 
squeeze on this side of the Atlantic. Other people say other. things. 
But, however the picture of the Kemble family came to leave Welsh’s 
own wing, we should like to know what has become of it. It was the 
finest performance of one of the cleverest painters that England has 
produced since Lawrence. As a memorandum of the most extraordi- 
nary theatrical family of our time, it had a singular value, and as a work 
of art it was admirable. If Stephenson swindled Welsh out of this pic- 
_ ture, he was doubly black ; if Welsh let him have it for a “ considera- 

tion,” we should like to know of what nature. In short, we look with 

prodigious interest on the remaining feats of a man of genius in the art 

of knavery ; who, though now in a land where he will find a good many 

clever persons, will probably not meet his match until he meets him in 
_ the finisher of the law. 


> 


_. “ Mr. Martin—A large and handsome gold medal was presented to 
this celebrated painter a few days ago, on the part of the king of France, 
in acknowledgment of a copy of Mr. M.’s engravings, which his most 
christian majesty has been graciously pleased to accept. The medal has 
a bust of the king on the one side; and on the other (in French), 
‘ Presented to Mr. John Martin by the King of France.’ The medal is 
very weighty, and the intrinsic value of the gold alone cannot be less 
than twenty guineas.” 
This is an honour, no doubt ; yet ifthe king of France were to go on 
with this pleasant species of interchange, he would make a fortune in a 
very short time. The king’s medal is worth twenty guineas—a set of 


416 Notes of the Month on Affairs im General. CAPRI, 


Mr. Martin’s proof prints would sell for fifty pounds. His majesty has 
thus much better the bargain. Why did not the old king send the artist 
a hundred pounds at once, though, to be sure, the sum put into francs, 
would be enough to frighten the “ grande nation” —2,500 francs given toa 
foreigner! Why, a Parisian would think that it was a fair advance to 
the discharge of the national debt. 


We hear an infinite quantity of fine and flourishing declamation on the 
change of mind, manners, and so forth in the papist world. Bigotry and 
superstition, fictitious miracles, and the other old abominations of a lying 
priesthood, are declared to have exploded before the touch of that civiliz- 
ing and enlightening affair—the progress of the nineteenth century. 
But how are we to suppose that there is one word of truth in all this, 
when we see Prince Hohenlohe at work at this minute, giving tongues to 
the dumb, and teeth to the jawless? This is all very well for the prince, 
whose German pocket may find a very comfortable revenue in this stu- 
pidity of his fellow papists. But what are we to think of the people who 
believe that the German can do these things? Yet there are such 
people ; and not merely among the morasses of the German mind—nor 
merely among the mob of Irish popery—but among the men who pre- 
tend to be fit to govern England, and who, unless Providence interposes 
to crush as dangerous a faction as ever threatened the safety of a people, 
will be the governors of England. It is the most notorious fact imagi- 
nable, that one of these predestined legislators—a rank papist, of course 
—who thinks himself measurelessly aggrieved at not having been allowed, 
for these last dozen years, to be a maker of laws for men of sense, a 
master over the Protestant religion, and a ruler of the revenues, rights, 
and liberties of the British people, is at this hour soliciting a MIRACLE 
at the hands of Prince Hohenlohe. And the miracle is—to give him an 
heir! We shall not suffer ourselves to repeat the burlesques to which 
this extraordinary request has so naturally given rise among the English 
at Rome, where this patriot continues to spend his income, and increase 
his claims to the gratitude of that miserable tenantry whom “he loves in 
his soul,” and whom, however, it does not appear that he is inclined to 
favour with the light of his countenance, or with a sixpence of his 
income, which they would doubtless consider the much more valuable 
favour of the two. 

The story is this :—The noble earl has a pretty wife, who has hitherto 
brought him but daughters. The noble earl, to whom his estate and 
title were but a windfall after all, he being only a collateral branch, is in 
agony at the idea that any body else may be as lucky as himself, and 
have a windfall of the estate and title after him—the next heir, too, being 
Protestant. Not content with the natural course of affairs in his family, 
or the will of Providence, or any other of those sources which may be 
supposed to regulate the sex or number of a man’s children, he takes, — 
like a true papist, the help of the miracle-monger, and demands an heir of — 
a German quack—as thorough a mountebank as Breslaw or Katterfelto. 
And this is to be called piety, or common-sense, or manly feeling! Let — 
the papists call it what they will, we hope in Heaven that we shall never _ 
be at the mercy of the minds that are capable of this nonsense ; for of all 
tyrants, the most formidable is the compound of the bigot and the — 
slave. ; 


1829.] 


@ ARG) 


MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE, DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN. 


—— 


The Present State of Van Dieman’s 
Land, by H. Widowson; 1829.—Of a 
country so recently and already so exten- 
sively colonized, it is desirable to have ac- 
counts following each other pretty frequent- 
ly. Though numerous descriptions of New 
South Wales have been published within 
these five or six years, nothing has appeared 
relative to Van Dieman’s Land, since Mr. 
Carr’s book, which though, on the testimony 
of Mr. Widowson, it was accurate enough 
at the time it was written, is now very de- 
fective, and must give an imperfect notion 
of the island, and can be of no use at all to 
emigrants: The especial object of Mr. 
Widowson’s performance is to furnish in- 
formation for such as contemplate a removal 
to these antipodes, and the book is, accord- 
ingly, filled with practical directions, which 
can be of no interest to the general reader. 
He will, however, find every thing relative 
to the history—the climate—the soil—the 
colonists—the natives—the convicts—the 
towns—the settlements, and the govern- 
ment, which can be demanded for the gra- 
tification of common inquiries. 

Mr. W. has himself recently returned, 
after surveying the whole of the ‘‘ located 
country,’ in his capacity of agent to the 
agricultural society established there. It 
was, to him, he says, a matter of pleasure to 
investigate the capabilities, peculiarities, ad- 
vantages, and disadvantages of this new 
world, and to compare them with similar 
and different things at home, as regards 
agriculture, grazing, and other affairs of the 
field. The whole is delivered in a spirit of 
‘moderation and fairness. It was not his 
purpose, he adds—and we may safely trust 
‘the tone of the work—to tempt those who 
can live well at home, to go to Van Die- 
man, or any where else, beyond the limits 
of their own happy island. He speaks of 
things as he found them—a mixture of 
good and evil, such as are found, though 
not in the same proportion, every where. 
Van Dieman’s Land is not a paradise, where 
‘we may eat and drink of the abundance of 
nature, without the sweat of the brow, or 
Some equivalent sacrifice. The “ thistly 
‘curse”’ is not repealed, and the man who 
migrates there, expecting to live and prosper 
without labour, in some shape, will find 
himself miserably disappointed. But there 
is ample room, and abundant opportunity ; 
‘there is a benignant sky above, and a fruit- 
ful soil beneath ; there is, since the extirpa~ 
tion of the bush-rangers (run-away convicts) 
protection for life and property; and the 
emigrant who carries with him moderate 
means of beginning, habits of industry and 
skill, will soon acquire competence, &c. 

Of the Aborigines scarcely any thing 
seems known— 


So little is known (says Mr. W.), of these chil- 


M.M. New Series.--Vor. VII. No.40. 


dren of nature, and still less has been done to 
gain any knowledge of them, that not much can 
be offered as to their present numbers or con- 
dition. From what I have seen and read, the 
natives are unlike any other Indians, either in 
features, mode of living, hunting, &c. There are 
many hundreds of people who have lived for years 
in the colony, and yet have never seen a native, 
The stock-keepers, and those who frequent the 
mountains and unlocated parts of the country, 
now and then fall in with then; and sometimes a 
tame mob, as they are called, visit the distant 
settler, to beg bread and potatoes. An Aborigine 
has occasionally been seen in Hobart Town, bu 

not of late years, ; 


No mercy has been shewn to the bush- 
rangers, and, of course, none could be shewn 
with any regard to the safety of the colonists, 
and they appear now to be completely sup- 
pressed. ‘* I am by no means,” says Mr. 
W., “ ambitious of the character of a pro- 
phet, but I will*venture to predict, that 
bush-ranging is never likely to be carried on 
again in Van Dieman with the same de- 
vastation as before. The country is now 
more explored, the settlers are daily be- 
coming more respectable, and the police 
decidedly more efficient—the plan of dis- 
seminating suspicions of each other amongst 
the respective gangs, is also perfectly un- 
derstood.” 

Though not a matter relative to Van 
Dieman, the author has furnished some in- 
formation not generally known concerning 
the fate of La Perouse, the French nayiga- 
tor, who was supposed to have been wrecked 
‘in 1788. While at Hobart’s Town, in 
April 1827, a vessel, the Research, carrying 
16 guns, and 78 men, commanded by a 
Capt. Dillon, came into harbour for pro- 
visions, which vessel had been fitted out by 
the government at Calcutta, for the purpose 
of ascertaining the fate of La Parouse. The 
year before, Captain Dillon had looked in at 
Tucopia, an island in lat. 12 S. and lon. 
169 E., where thirteen years before he had 
left, at their own desire, a Prussian, and a 
Lascar and his wife, to see if they chanced 
to be still living. This Lascar had an old 
silver sword-guard,’ which he sold to the 
sailors for some fish-hooks, and which, on 
examination, was found to haye the name of 
La Perouse upon it. This, it appeared on 
inquiry, he had obtained from the natives, 
who were, he said, in possession of many 
articles, apparently of French manufac- 
ture—all which had been obtained from 
one of the Malicolo islands, situated two 
days’ sail, in their canoes, to the leeward, 
where, it was understood, there were many 
more, and also the wreck from which they 
were procured. This intelligence determined 
Capt. Dillon to go to the Malicolos, and 
examine the wreck; but unluckily, on 
nearing the land, it fell a perfect calm, and 
continued so for seven days. Provisions 

3H 


418 


became short, and the yessel was leaky from 
long continuance at sea, and Capt. Dillon 
was thus compelled to take advantage of a 
breeze, and make for his port of destination. 
His reports, however, induced the govern- 
ment at Calcutta to fit out the Research, 
for the prosecution of the discovery, and ap- 
point Dillon to the command. He was on 
his way, when he called at Hobart’s Town. 
In a note, Mr. Widowson adds, “ since my 
arrival in England, I have received from a 
friend the following intelligence. The let- 
ter is dated Hobart Town, 9th January, 
1828. Accounts have been received from 
Capt. Dillon, that he has discovered several 
articles belonging to La Perouse, and there 
can be no doubt of his having been lost at 
the Malicolo Islands. A French corvette, 
L’ Astrolabe, has been in search of Capt. 
Dillon for the same object.” 


Capt. Dillon, we believe, has since been 
presented to the King of France, received 
the reward offered by that government for 
the discovery, and even been made a Knight 
of the Legion of Honour. 


Wolff's Missionary Journal; 1829.— 
This is a third volume—the other two we 
have never seen—of Wolff’s Journal—em- 
bracing a period of something more than a 
year-and-a-half, 1824, 5, 6, and detailing 
his roamings from Bushire, on the Persian 
Gulf, through Shiraz, Ispahan, Tabreez, 
Teflis, Kertish, Theodosia, Odessa, Con- 
stantinople, Adrianople, and Smyrna, when 
he returned to England, married a lady of 
the Orford family, and then, in company 
with his noble bride, set out again into the 
same regions, and on the same object. The 
writer, as every body knows, is the fanatic— 
we do not mean to use the term offensively, 
but we have no other half so applicable— 
Jew-convert, and the object to the realiza- 
tion of which he has devoted himself, under 
the auspices of Squires Drummend and Bay- 
ford, is the conversion of his brethren in 
foreign countries. The book is filled with 
details of the condition of the Jews under 
the tyranny of the Turkish and Persian 
governments. ‘To every thing but the one 
purpese of his journey he is completely 
blind—his whole time and energies were 
‘occupied in debatings, now with the Jews, 
now with the Mahometans—occasionally 
with the Guebres, and once or twice with the 
Nestorians, and singularly curious is fre- 
quently the style of the discussions—the 
perversions of the several parties—the equal 
perversion often of Wolff himself—the su- 
periority he every where arrogates—the rough 
tone he assumes, or rather indulges, for it is 
native to the soil—the undoubting confi- 
dence in the correctness of his particular 
views — interpretations — applications. Si- 
lence he takes for conviction—embarrass- 
ment for wavering—civility and gentleness 
for a favourable leaning and thought of 
conversion—opposition for obstinacy—dis- 
trust for wilful and wicked disbelief, as if 


Monthly Review of Lilerature, 


[Arnrin, 


there was or could, in the nature of things, 
be such a thing. But his yehemence arid 
violence are sometimes quite amusing—the 
voie de fait is evidently more congenial than 
the voie de raison—he longs to break their 
heads to get at their brains—and teach 
them—not better manners, but more com- 
pliance. 

The Jews appear to be in a miserable 
plight, particularly at Bushire. Their con- 
dition is something better at Teheran—the 
sovereign has them under his own eye, and 
finds it his interest. At Shiraz it is surely 
worse again. 


I called on Rabbi Eliasar (the high-priest at 
Shiraz), whose room was cleaner than I expected 
to find it. He told’ me, I must be cautious in con- 
versing with the Jews, in order that the Mussul- 
man Mullahs may not become jealous, and find a 
reason for exacting money from them ; for he 
himself was not long ago bastinadoed, and obliged 
to pay 20,000 rupees to the Shah-Zadeh of that 
place. He treated me (Wolff) very kindly; but, 
although he is the high-priest, he is the most 
ignorant man among the Jews of Shiraz, He 
was made high-priest on account of the merits of 
his deceased father. He has, however, much 
power, and the Shah-Zadeh, gives to him the 
permission of flogging the Jews, if they do not 
obey him ; and as often as he is bastinadoed by 
order of the prince, in order to get money from 
the Jews, he, the high-priest, orders his flock 
to be bastinadoed, to compel them by it to assist 
him in satisfying the demand of the prince. 


Take a specimen of the style of argu- 
mentation :— 


Mullah David.—How old was Jesus when he 
died? 

WF olf.—He walked thirty-three years upon 
earth. 

Mullah David.—Then Jesus of Nazareth can- 
not have been the Messiah, for hearken to the 
words of Moses—The Lord thy God will raise up 
‘unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy 
brethren, like unto me—/ike unto me ; the words 
“like unto me,” contains the number 120 (we 
have no Hebrew type at hand to shew this— 
the reader must take it for granted). The Mes- 
siah must therefore be a man of 120 years, like 
unto Mwses, 


Again—where Wolff shines in his own 
peculiar light :— 


Mullah David.—You say, that the Messiah 
has already come, and ‘that he will come again ; 
but must not Gog and Magog precede him? 

W olf—Gog and Magog, whom we call Anti- 
cbrist, is already come. 

Mullah David,—Haye you seen him? 

Wolff.—Yes, [have seen him, In short, Ithen— 
says Wolff—described to them the Pope, as that 
Gog and Magog—as that Antichrist, who is men- 
tioned in scripture. And this, he adds, is my firm 
belief, with all the respect I have for the private 
character of Pius VII. 

Mullah David.—What kind of man is the pre- 
sent Pope? 

Wolff.—Leo XII. opposeth every thing that is 
good, and lying wonders are done every where. — 

Mullah David.—He will lead us, according to 


~\: 


1829. ] 


your account, after other Gods. 
man is he—is hea tall man? 

¥ olf —Not very tall; but the most of his 
cardinals are very fat men, and are clothed in 
scarlet, according to the prediction of Jesus 
Christ. 

Mullah David.—Send us only the gospel. 


What kind of 


We must furnish one specimen of the 
temper of the man. Wolff visited the Jewish 
College at Constantinople :— 

Rabbias.—We wish to hear of you words of 
wisdom. 

-Wolf.—You are disciples of the wise men, I 
shall therefore ask you questions. Of whom did 
the prophet Isaiah speak in the 53d chapter? 

Rab.—(Looking at it)—This istoo mysterious 
for us. 

WF olff—David, king and prophet in Israel, said 
— The Lord said to my Lord’—who was the 
Lord of David? 

- Rab.—Jehovah was the Lord of Dayid. 

¥W olff —David speaks here of two Lords. 

Rab.—We know not. 

FF ol ff. —That Lord was the Messiah. 

Rab.—How can the Messiah have been that 
Lord—tle Messiah being the son of David, the 
branch of David ? 

Wolff.—But that branch was the Lord our 
righteousness. 

Rab.—But the Messiah is still to come. 

¥ olff —This is another question ; but I tell you 
that the Messiah has already come. 

Rab.—Un the greatest Jury)—Are you a 
Jew? 

Wolff—aA Jew } 

Rab.—You arean apostate, your name shall be 
blotted out from the book of life ; (and to this they 
added blasphemies.) 

WF olff Hold your tongue this very moment, I 
command you, hold your tongue ; the names of all 
the compilers of the Talmud are cursed for ever— 
and you hayenow betrayed your ignorance, in the 
presence of your disciples. And then I said—All 
ye children of Israel hear; Jesus of Nazareth is 


the very Christ—Jesus of Nazareth is the son of 


God. Then I went to the coffee-house, &c. 


His discussions with the Seip nt pee are 
equally curious :— 


Mullah.—Oh, Mullah Wolff, do you believe in 
the existence of the devil? 

Wolff —Yes. 

Mullah.—Where is he? 

Wolff—tn you.—A lond fit of laughter took 
place, and this answer came about in the town 
(Shiraz). 

Mullah.—The gospel you have is corrupted. 

Fol ff.—Prove it. 

Mullah.—Our prophet—the comfort and peace 
of God upon him—tells it us in the Koran. 

W olff—The words of your Koran are no proof 
for me. 

Mullah.—According to the Taurat (law of 
Moses) you must believe in Mahomet, for the 
Jews themselves tell us that he was mentioned 
Ly Moses, and that he is called in Hebrew mad- 
mad. , 

W olff.—There is no such word in Hebrew as 
fad-mad. Mad is an English word, which occurs 
in the English bible--which is said of Nabal. 

- Mullah.—What do you believe Jesus Christ to 
have been? 


Domestic and Foreign. 


419 


I olff—The son of God. 

Mullah.—Gou has no wife. 

ol ff.—Abuse not my Saviour, and blaspheme 
not the Lord of Hosts. God, who created Adam 
by the power of his word, out of a piece of clay, 
was able likewise to overshadow, &c. 

Mullah.—In this sense we might all be called 
sons of God, for we are all made by God. 


Here is a specimen of mystical inter- 
pretation, which might very well be paral- 
leled among ourselves :— 


Wolff—What do you think of Mahomet’s 
journey to heaven? 

Mussulman.—t do not believe it literally ; but 
I believe that it indicates Mahomet’s approach to 
truth. 


Wolff asks the same person which is the 
true prophet—the one who acts by force, or 
the one who works by persuasion ? 


Mussulman.—One General takes a city by 
persuading the inhabitants to deliver the town— 
another takes it by foree—both are generals. 
And thus Jesus, who gained the world by per- 
suasion, and Mahomet who applied the sword, 
have been prophets. 


Wolff asked a dervish, how it came about 
that Hafiz (poets are next to prophets s¢ill 
with the Persians) so much praised the wine 
of Shiraz, as it is a draught forbidden among 
Mussulmans. 

Hafiz, said he, meant the mystical wine 
of truth. Mei hakeket, adds Wolff. 

Upon some occasion W olff was railing at 
the Koran, as being the most sensual book 
that ever was written. 


Mussulman.—You must understand the mean- 
ing of the Koran in a mystical sense. 

Wolff.—The Koran is a code of laws—therefore 
Mahomet understood every thing literally; and 
what mystery can be inthe swelling breasts of 
girls, which are mentioned in the Koran? 


It was well for the disputant, his oppo- 
nent knew nothing of the canticles. Wolff, 
we suppose, trusted to his ignorance—or did 
he really forget ? 

We have no space for the extracts we had 
marked relative to Henry Martyn, who is 
not yet forgotten—the Guebres and Nes- 
torians; and must conclude with the fol- 
lowing effusion, which is worth reading on 
more accounts than one :— 


The British and Foreign Bible Society, which 
has reached the highest degree of fame, is now 
nigh, very nigh to her decline, toteach the mem- 
bers who compose that society more humility, and 
more dependence upon God, than upon human 
patrons. Popery will acquire more power in the 
world, and then utterly sink and full before ten 
years are past ; and then a purified chureh will 
rise. I write this down with my own hand, but 
the spirit of the Lord dictated the words. I 
beg my friends in England not to imagine that 
I was warm-headed at the time I wrote it 
down. I never was cvoler than I am at this 
moment; but I argue from the whole history of 
the Bible Society, and from their mivtu fidei et 
phantasie; andi am forced at this moment to 


3H 2 


420 


write down what I feel—forced, { say, by an in- 
ward impulse. Itis awful tosee by what spirit 
some missionaries are animated, who have been 
sent out from Protestant socielies; there re- 
mains among them a spirit of jealousy—of an un- 
holy jealousy. - 


A Second Judgment of Babylon the 
Great. 2 vols. 12mo. ; 1829.—This is a 
second judgment of the Great Babel, Lon- 
don—the focus of all that is great and bad. 
We forbear the use of the common anti- 
thesis—more from the difficulty of defining 
good, or rather the impossibility of finding a 
scale which all can use with the same result, 
than from any doubt of the existence of 
what we might be disposed to term good. 
The author’s subject is Men and Things in 
the British Metropolis, and his point to 
shew up the perversions of English institu- 
tions, and the corruptions of town habits— 
exposing, in short, what must be allowed on 
all sides richly to deserve exposure. His 
general competence for the task, so far as 
this can be attainable by one person, a slight 
survey of the book—both this and the 
former—will satisfactorily prove; but the 
whole is manifestly beyond the grasp of any 
one-minded mortal. It is too much for 
one person to strip off disguises attending, 
for instance, the courts, common and equity 
—the hells—the theatres, and the Stock 
Exchange ; yet even these ramiferous topics 
are lost in the multifarious matters he at- 
tempts to clutch. He must trust to reports, 
and then it is hear-say evidence, and no 
longer admissible. 

The first judgment, which appeared but a 
few months ago, was limited to a survey of 
the two houses of Parliament, and their 
most conspicuous members, and to the state 
of the periodical press. Among the Par- 
liamentary characters, some of which were 
very elaborately and successfully drawn— 
evidently from the life—none struck us 
equally with that of Brougham—it was 
quoted in all the daily papers, and must 
have been noticed by most persons. Ina 
second edition, we observe, the author al- 
ludes to this character, as to a part of his 
book, with which, though others have ex- 
pressed some satisfaction, he could never 
Satisfy himself. Feeling, as we did, that 
the sketch was at once correct and forcible, 
and incomparably the best that ever was 
made on the subject, and the best morceau 
of the book, we give no credit to this dis- 
satisfaction, and fancy the remark was made 
merely as a stalking horse for the following 
anecdote. 

The author’s attention was drawn to 
Brougham, more than twenty years ago, by 
a sort of prophecy, delivered by one who, 
like Brougham, had no rival when alive, 
and to whom there is yet no appearance of a 
successor—John Playfair, of Edinburgh. 
At this period, Brougham had not began 
his public career; he was known to a few 
friends as a young man of very extraordinary 
and very versatile powers; but the world 


Monthly Review of Literature, 


[ APRIL, 


had not heard much of him. The author 
called on Playfair one morning, and there 
lay upon the breakfast-table, the Transac- 
tions of the Royal Society, which the pro- 
fessor had been reading. Playfair, laying 
his hand upon the book, said, “there is an 
extraordinary paper here (as far as is re- 
membered, it was on porisms or on Joci), a 
paper that I did not expect. It is not like 
the writings of the present day at all. It 
puts one in mind of D’Alembert, or Euler, 
or aman of that calibre. It is by a callan 
of the name of Brougham—I remember 
him—he was very inquisitive—Edinburgh 
will not be big enough for holding him yet. 
He must go to London, and turn politician, 
there is no room for him in any thing else. 
Whoever lives to see it, that callan will 
make a figure in the world.” 


Some misapprehension or mis-statement 
there must be. The paper related, it seems, 
to an abstract snbject, and the professor is 
made to jump to—what conclusion ? That 
he must go to London and turn politician. 
The logic of this, and of course the sagacity, 
which is indeed the same thing, is quite un- 
intelligible. The conclusion does not at all 
bind up with the premises ; and the writer, 
who is a sharp fellow enough, would himself, 
in any other case, have detected the essen- 
tial absurdity of the tale. The venerable 
professor must have perpetrated a pun upon 
loci ; and Brougham is probably now within 
sight of a very good one. 

This second judgment is of the same style 
with the first, but employed generally on 
more important, at least more permanent 
subjects—more which come home to the 
experience and annoyance of more indi- 
viduals. The first volume is occupied with 
the Chancery Courts—the Common Courts 
—Banking—the Exchange—Hells—Thea- 
tres, on all the more obvious evils of which, 
and some will be thought apocryphal, he 
touches with a light but effective pencil. 
The absurd and the ludicrous is his chief 
aim, though the mockery is occasionally bit- 
ter. Accuracy, of course, must sometimes be 
sacrificed to effect. ~The second volume 
finds abundant materials in the observance 
of a London Sunday—charities—Jews—the 
buildings—streets—and lastly the legal ini- 
quities—the production, that is, of bad laws 
—hbad administration—and bad execution, 
in all which the author shews a learned 
spirit in the dealings of infamy—too minute 
almost to be honestly come by. Among the 
subjects most effectively exposed are Chan- 
cery suits, and special pleadings, but the 
first we have ourselyes often anatomised, 
and for the last, we have at present no 
space, or we should willingly extract. The 
hells and tke charities, are two capital 
chapters. 


Whatis Luxury 2—with a Monica 
of Etymological and other Nuge, by a 
Lay Observer ; 1829.—For those who can 
at all bear themselves from the tumult of a 


1829.) 


town life—from the seductions of gain—the 
contentions of ambition, and professional 
distinction—the emulations of finery and 
ostentation, and the idle pursuit of splendid 
acquaintance—who can bear for a moment 
to be alone, abstracted from all absorbing 
agitations, in the retreats of privacy—this is 
a soothing and delightful little book. It is 
the production of an amiable, and in these 
respects, we would fain believe, an enlight- 
ened person—with a mind cultivated by 
self-examination rather than by conflicting 
with others—finding enjoyment, not in 
topics of transient interest, but of permanent 
value—the aims and ends of life, and the 
means of attaining its best felicities—seek- 
ing in literature for the results of long and 
patient thinking, not the mere sparklings of 
conceit—calculated only to surprise and ex- 
tort applause, rather than excite admiration 
or respect. Luxury—the question proposed 
—is described mainly by negatives ; but so 
far as any thing positive is enforced, a con- 
fident dependence in a moral providence is 
the main spring—a conviction, that is, that 
evil produces evil, in one shape or other, to 
those who practise it ; and that good pro- 
duces good. Next to this principle, which at 
once restrains and impels—the writer insists 
upon moderate views, retirements, avoid- 
ance of display, and whatever the native 
emotions of the individual do not demand, 
which excludes at a sweep the artificial. The 
example of the Quakers is held up as the 
brightest object of imitation ; and we must 
think—from some little experience of our 
own—very injudiciously. Surely the writer 
would himself think the same, if he re- 
flected upon Mincing-lane—that is, if he 
ever heard of such a place; but, generally, 
Quakers are thorough money-makers, and So- 
lomon long ago told us what sticks between 
buying and selling. They have good qua- 
lities, as a body—they are persevering, quiet, 
and abstain from gross offences—and these 
are good points of emulation for those who 
want such examples; but there is among 
them abundance of arrogance, under the 
‘shows of humility. They have been flattered 
by silly, but well-meaning people, into a 
belief of superiority ; till they fancy it uni- 
versal, and put on with the same ease as 
their dresses. We have observed a sort of 
amazement flashing across them, at the re- 
‘motest hint implying a possibility that others 
“of less seeming than themselves, may be 
‘equally virtuous and humane. A little at- 
tendance on ‘charity’ meetings, where the 
passion for distinction is remarkably ap- 
parent, might usefully dispel something of a 
very common delusion respecting Quakers. 

Among the smaller scraps are some sound 
remarks upon several subjects, especially re- 
Jative to the principle on which lives are 
written, that is, of suppressing or colouring 
whatever is unfavourable to the hero—upon 
Gibbon, and his obscurities and detestable 
affectations—upon vulgar errors, and particu- 
larly, that which supposes a man justified 


Domestic and Foreign. 


421 


by the acceptance of reward or recompence 
in assisting another to make an unjust or 
resist a just claim—directed mainly against 
the lawyers, which, if they were in any de- 
gree corrigible, they would do well, perhaps, 
to attend to. 

The publisher announces, we observe, 
that he jas paid, by desire of the author, the 
whole sum, agreed upon between them as 
the price of the copy-right of this work, to 
Messrs. Fry, for the use of the Guardian 
Society, of which they are Treasurers! 
( Treasurers, indeed !_ What amount of this 
and other charities was in their hands at the 
bankruptcy ?) We must characterise this 
announcement, as it deserves—a humbug. 
What was thesum? We have little con- 
fidence, that a book of this kind will pay its 
own expences—and still less that a pub- 
lisher would purchase. 


The Beauties of St. Francis de Sales, 
selected from the Writings of John P. 
Camus, Bishop de Bellay ; 1829.—Of the 
writings of either Camus, or St. Francis, we 
ourselves know nothing—those of Camus, a 
French bishop—Dr. Dibdin has probably 
seen the title pages—consist it seems, of 
theology, morals, mysteries, &c. composed, 
according to the translator, with wonderful 
facility ; but with too much rapidity for 
elegance, and in a very metaphorical style. 
One piece entitled ‘‘ The Monks,”’ in which 
he handled the monastic fraternities with 
some severity—another, or others, to coun- 
teract the taste for romances prevalent in his 
day (1582-1652). In painting scenes of 
gallantry, ‘ which is expressly forbidden by 
St. Paul,’ he employed colours which ex- 
cited contempt and disgust, so that the 
charms of fiction led the reader to the greater 
charms of truth. But above all, the work 
which he contemplated with most delight 
was one in which he professed to “lay open 
the heart and understanding of his pious 
and highly-gifted friend St. Francis de 
Sales.”” 

The little volume before us is, it appears, 
a selection from this work; and among 
numerous puerilities and credulities, contains 
some remarks of a sharp and shrewd cast, 
with many prompt and happy replies—enough 
to excite a desire to learn a little more of the 
saint. -He has evidently—though large re- 
batements must be made for blind admira- 
tion on the part of his friend—a very clever 
fellow ; and, moreover, honest, direct, and 
above-board, and disposed to treat with con- 
tempt very many matters which his co- 
religionists regarded with reverence. They 
must have been a little shocked now and 
then. Camus is a perfect worshipper, and 
plays to admiration the part which Boswell 
afterwards played to Johnson. 

St. Francis himself was more distinguished 
for piety, activity, and zeal, than for scrib- 
bling; though some of his productions, it 
seems, particularly “‘ ‘The Introduction to a 
Life of Piety,” called Philoshée, and ano- 


422 


ther on the “ Love of. God,” called Theo- 
time, haye been admired by “clergy and 
laity,” in all “ranks and ages.’? He was 
the founder of a religious institution, called 
the “ Annunciation of the blessed Virgin,” 
and for which, probably, he was mainly in- 
debted for his canonization. This institution 
was destined to benefit the church, by afford- 
ing a safe retreat to such as from age, in- 
firmity, widowhood, or poverty, could not 
gain admittance into other convents. He 
proposed no hardships, or extraordinary 
severities, concluding, that the subjection 
of the will and the passions was of more im- 
portance than corporal austerities. Origin- 
ally, it had been a part of his plan, which 
eventually he was induced to abandon, to 
exact very simple vows, and to enjoin on 
the members, after the year of noviciate, the 
duty of visiting and consoling rich and poor. 
In a wealthy lady, the grandmother of 
Madame de Sévigné, he found a patroness 
to start his favourite plan in 1610 ; and such 
is the passion for imitating matters of this 
kind, that, by the year 1666, one hundred 
and thirty of these religious houses were 
established in different parts of Europe. 

St. Francis was the son of a Savoyard 
nobleman, lord of Sales, and so early dis- 
tinguished for piety, that, according to a 
very barren sketch of his life before us, the 
first words he uttered were, ‘* God and 
my mother love me.’’? But without detail- 
ing any nonsense, we need only remark, that 
being exceedingly well connected on all 
sides—with a decided leaning to the eccle- 
Siastical profession—he very early succeeded 
to excellent appointments. He was bishop 
and prince of Geneva; and residing at 
Annecy, diligently engaged in the discharge 
of his episcopal functions. Employed, more- 
over, on several occasions by the courts of 
Savoy and France, he came in contact with 
the most eminent individuals ; and ladies of 
distinction, in abundance, with a sort of 
fashion and passion, placed themselves under 
his spiritual guidance. He died at Avignon, 
after great exertions, on the day of his death, 
in the 56th year of his age, in 1622. 

We furnish the reader with a specimen or 
two from Camus’s collections. 

Recommending gentleness in reproof, he 
tells Camus— 


You know thaton a good salad, there should be 
more oil than vinegar or salt. Be always as mild 
as you can—a spoonful of honey attracts more 
flies than a barre! of vinegar. ‘ruth, uttered with 
courtesy, is heaping coals of fire on the head ; or 
throwing roses in the face. How can we resist a 
foe whose weapons are pearls and diamonds? 
Some fruits, like nuts, are by nature bitter, but 
rendered sweet by being candied with sugar, &c, 

Speaking of professions of humility, he 
observed— 

They are the very cream, the very essence of 
pride. Humility is timorous, and starts at her 
own shadow, and so delicate, that if she hears 
her name pronounced, it endangers her existence. 
He who blames himself, takes a by-road to 


Monthly Review of Literature, 


. 


[Aprin, 


praise; and like a rower, turns his back to the 
place whither he desires to go. 


Submission, he once remarked to his 
friend— 


Submission to a superior is justice rather than 
humility, for reason requires that we should re- 
cognise him as such. Submission to an equal is 
friendship, civility, or good breeding ; but sub- 
mission to an inferior is genuine humility, for this 
makes us feel our own nothingness, and places us 
in our own estimation below the whole world. 


This was eminently St. Francis’s virtue. 


He submitted himself (says Camus, with 
a wondering admiration) in many things to 
his valet, as if he had been servant instead of 
master; and if study or business obliged him to 
sit up late at night, he used to dismiss him, lest 
he should be fatigued. He one morning rose un- 
usually early, and called his servant to come and 
dress him. The man was too fast asleep to hear 
the call, and St. Francis contrived to dress him- 
self, and quietly set down to write. At his usual 
hour the servant rose, and finding his master 
dressed, inquired who had assisted him. “TI 
dressed myself,’ replied the good-humoured pre- 
late, ‘‘ did you think I could not do so?” Ina 
surly tone the man asked if he could not have 
taken the trouble to call him, “I do assure you, 
my good friend, I did call you, and then cons 
cluding you were not in the dressing-room, F 
went to seek you; but there you were sleeping 
so pleasantly, that I had not the heart to disturb 
you.” ‘ You are very pleasant indeed,’ mur- 
mured the valet, ‘‘to make game of me thus.” 
««T assure you,” meekly expostulated St. Francis, 
that far from making game, I rejoiced that you 
were so comfortable ; but set your heart at rest ; 
I promise, in future, to call till you are awakened, 
and I will take care not again to dress without 
your assistance.” 


“How must I love God with all my 
heart ?”’ inquired Camus— 


« The best, and the easiest, and the shortest 
way to love God with all your heart, is—to love 
him with all your heart ;’? and when urged to be 
more explicit, he observed, ‘“‘ we learn to study 
by studying, to speak by speaking, to run by run- 
ning, to walk by walking, and so in the same 
manner we learn to love God and our neighbour 
by loving, and those who take any other method, 
deceive themselves.” 


St. Francis was urging his friend to be 
more indifferent to the world’s censures— . 

The principal of a college, he told him, by way 
of illustration, placed the great clock under the 
care of an idle man, to whom he thought the oc- 
cupation would be an amusement, but having 
tried, he declared that he had never found any act 
of obedience so tiresome or difficult. ‘* Why,” 
said the principal, “ you have ouly to wind it up 
regniarly.” ‘Ohno, not that, but I am tormented 
on every side.” “ How sor” demanded the prin- 
cipal. ‘“ Why,” said the poor man, “ when the 
clock loses a liltle, those who are labouring in 
the college complain ; and when, to satisfy them, 
I advance it a little, those who are in the town 
come and abuse me because the clock gains. If 
to please them, I retard it again, complaints are 
renewed on the other side. I am bewildered with 
their murmurs, for my head is like the bell against 


~~ o 


% 


1829.] 


which the clock strikes—I am attacked on all 
sides.” The principal consoled him with this 
advice, “ Keep to true time—give gentle and 
obliging words, and all parties will be satisfied.” 


St. Francis’s application of his little tale 
involves an admirable hint for reviewers. 


Some ladies of rank, at Paris, came to visit St. 
Francis, just after he had been preaching. Every 
one had some difficulty. They all assailed him at 
once with different interrogatories. ‘*I would 
willingly reply to all your questions, provided 
you will answer one I wish to propose—In a 
society where all talk and none listen, pray what 
is said?” . 


Here is a morsel for Dugald Stewart 
himself— 

“ Reason,” says he, ‘‘is not deceitful, but rea- 
soning is.” After due attention to the arguments 
of those who were conversing with him, he would 
say, “ These, I perceive, are your reasons, but do 
you perceive that all your reasons are not reason- 
able ”’ “‘ This,’’ said some one, “is accusing heat 
of not leing hot.’’ “ No,’ says he, ‘‘ reason and 
reasoning are things widely different—reasoning 
is the road that leads to reason,’’ &c. 


On some occasion something reminded 
him of a woman remarkable for her way- 
wardness, and constant opposition to the 
wishes of her husband— 


*« She was drowned,” said he, “in ariver. On 
hearing of it, her husband desired the river should 
be dragged, in search of the body—zgo against 
the current of the stream,” says he, ‘* for we have 
no reason to suppose that she should have lost 
her spirit of contradiction.” 
“Nothing sh ould be done,’’ said St. Francis, 
“ for the paltry love of praise—and no duty left 
undone from the fear of applause. It is a weak 
head that is overcome by the perfume of roses.” 
Some one in the Saint’s presence was ridiculing 
a hump-backed person—* All the works of God 
are perfect,” observed St. Francis. ‘ How per- 
fect?” said the satirist ; “ the figure I speak of is 
evidently imperfect,” “ Well,” replied he, as- 
suming a lively tone— may there not be perfect 
hump-backed people, as weil as people of perfect 
symmetry ?” 

* Virtuous habits,” he would say, “ are not de- 
stroyed by one bad action ; you cannot call a man 
intemperate, who, once in his life, is intoxicated.” 

“ Ido not know,” said St. Francis, “how that 
poor virtue, prudence, has effended me, but I can- 
not cordially like it—I care for it by necessity, as 
being the salt and lamp of life. The beauty of 
simplicity charms me—I would give a hundred 
serpents for one dove.” 

The conversation turned one day on a person 
who sought the reputation of heing a man of deep 
understanding, by the practice of great silence. 
“Well then,” said he, “he has discovered the 
secret of purchasing celebrity with yery little ex- 
pense.” After a pause, he continued—* Nothing 
%o much resembles & man of sense, as a silent 


fool.” 
> Experience, 4 vols., 12mo. ; 1828.—This 


Domestic and Foreign.” 423 


comes from Mr. Newman’s manufactory— 
the once memorable Minerva press—a 
house which supplies inferior libraries 
with inferior novels—sometimes, perhaps, 
only because a more fashionable publisher 
is not come-at-able—to inferior classes 
of readers, tradesmen’s daughters, and 
milliners’ girls, if, poor souls, the latter we 
mean, they can steal an hour to glance at 
them. In the height of our dignity we 
might be expected to survey them with the 
supercilious scorn of our colatemporaries, but 
not being habitually governed by names 
and precedents, and blest, or curst, with 
some little curiosity—-we turned over the 
pages of Experience, and if not very pro- 
foundly struck, or very greatly instructed, 
or very intensely interested, we were at 
least well pleased to find—what is surely no 
unimportant improvement—indications of 
considerable ability, an easy command of 
good language, vigorous sentences, and even 
sentiments—no straining and wrenching—a 
distinct, though a complicated narrative, and 
more than usual facility in the conduct of 
conyersation-scenes—many of much higher 
pretensions would shrink from the com- 
parison. 

Still we do not feel ourselves warranted 
in any attempt to elevate it to the first class 
of novels—to such as are written by men and 
women familiar with the business of life, 
and the manners—the habits—the tone— 
the sentiment—the whatever distinguishes 
the cultivated from the unreclaimed regions 
of modern society. For the truth of it is, 
the story and style of development has 
little to do with real life; and is, indeed, 
very obviously the production of a reader, 
and not of an observer—comparatively, of 
course we mean—of some accomplished go- 
verness, perchance, very capable of compre- 
hending and even estimating refinement, 
but denied, by position, the attainment of 
more than a glance, to vivify occasionally 
her not very useful readings. 

The title of Experience is expressive 
of the religious and moral benefits of ad- 
versity—the advantages of change of cir- 
cumstances. The scene is almost wholly 
confined to one noble family. The earl 
is very stiff and stately and important, 
the countess extremely well-behaved, but 
even with the earl distant, and never 
more than courteous. They have several 
children—one son, merely a worthless and 
insignificant profligate, and not likely to 
live, and a daughter, a very haughty young 
lady, with a toadying attendant and a vul- 
gar servant for her confidantes, and full of 
malignity, jealousy, and all uncharitable- 
ness. In the family, in a very equivocal 
position, is a young girl of seventeen, some- 
times in the school-room with the governess, 
sometimes in the working-room under the 
dominion of the favoured servant, appa- 
rently, and, generally, dull and spiritless, 
but giving, occasionally, indications she is 
not what she seems. Among the visitors 
is a nephew, a very brilliant youth, who 


424 


detects the young lady in her rags, and 
concealments—is shocked at the treatment 
she meets with—falls desperately in love 
with her, and resolves to effect her rescue, 
and bring her forward into the scenes which 
she is so manifestly capable of adorning. 

Approaching his uncle and aunt for this 
purpose, he meets with nothing but dis- 
couragement, but the young lady herself, 
at last, effectively co-operates, and when 
called upon, stoutly asserts her claims to 
equality with her protectors, and even a 
superiority of rank. By degrees it appears 
she is the daughter of the earl’s sister, who 
had been married to a Spanish Hidalgo—a 
Catholic of course. The earl, to justify his 
desire of keeping her in the back-ground, 
assures his nephew, her birth was illegiti- 
mate, the marriage was sanctioned only by 
Catholic rites. Confiding in the young 
lady’s declarations, he distrusts, and still 
more, when he learns that large estates are 
connected with the subject. ‘These estates 
the earl holds, solely on the ground of her 
illegitimacy. Though still insisting on the 
prudence and propriety of his conduct 
relative to his niece, he is finally forced to 
introduce her into company, where her very 
brilliant accomplishments speedily outshine, 
and even throw into the shade every other— 
even the earl’s eldest daughter, whom he had 
intended to marry to his nephew. But the 
Spanish beauty is irresistible, and the 
nephew, quickly throwing off his uncle’s 
authority, precipitately marries Georgette, 
and institutes a lawsuit for the recovery of 
her estates. The difficulty is to substantiate 
the /egal marriage. Her father was dead, 
and her mother had withdrawn to a con- 
vent, nobody knew whither, but her con- 
fessor. Inquiries are set on foot on all 
sides, and ruinous expence is incurred in 
lawyers. 

In the meanwhile the young people 
thoughtlessly dash into display and dissipa- 
tion, and are soon involved in difficulties ; 
the lawyers too for ever want feeing; and 
retirement to the continent is indispensable. 
Disappointed, harassed, annoyed, debts on 
one side, lawyers on the other, excluded 
from the brilliant society he had so long 
figured in, banished, almost disgraced 
and disowned, he plunges into profligate 
courses; and she takes to the consola- 
tions of religion, and by controlling 
her own haughty spirit, and conciliat- 
ing his wayward one, she more than once 
brings back her offending husband to a 
sense of her wrongs and her merits. On 
one of these returning fits of domestic 
repentance, they set out themselves to dis- 
cover the retreat of her mother; and first 
go to Italy, where inflicting more trials 
upon his excellent wife, he again repents, 
and then they proceed to Spain. Here she 
is well received by her father’s family—they 
even offer to restore her to splendour, if she 
will become Catholic, and renounce her 
husband. ‘This of course she refuses—the 
husband resents—and by virtue of Spanish 


Monthly Review of Literature, 


[ApRIL; 


revenge, gets thrown into the dungeons of 
the Inquisition, from which he is finally, 
but with difficulty, rescued, by his wife’s 
forcing her way into court, and actually 
softening the iron hearts of the inquisitors 
themselves. Quitting these dungeons, and 
hastening to escape from so detestable a 
country, they learn, by the oddest accident 
in the world, where her mother is. She is 
herself the abbess of a conyent—an inter- 
view is accomplished—the important proofs 
of legitimacy are furnished, and they fly 
back to London ; where they find the mag- 
nificent earl brought down and humbled by 
afflictions—the loss of court favour—the 
crim. con. of his daughter, and the death of 
his male children. The sobered tempers 
of his nephew and niece, softened the new 
blow to him, and reconcile him to himself. 
To the nephew fall a marquisite, and ano- 
ther splendid property—and “no longer im- 
petuous, rash, generous [?] and changeable, 
the chastened marquis of thirty-two is as 
superior to the youth of twenty-two, as 
religion and experience, must tend to make 
a man of sense and principle.” 


Restalrig, or the Forfeiture, 2vols. 12mo. ; 
1829.—This must of course be termed an 
historical novel; but it is historical, only so 
far as historical characters are occasionally, 
or rather forcibly, introduced, for they are 
none of them necessary to the structure and 
development of the story, and we should 
therefore undoubtedly have assigned their 
introduction to poverty of inventive power, 
had not the author assured us his object was 
to contribute his mite to the filling up of 
our knowledge relative to the first years of 
James’s English reign. The author has 
before written, it seems, the story of the 
Gowrie conspiracy, from which the present 
tale is made to grow. The hero of the 
piece is Walter Logan, the young Laird of 
Restalrig, who in the previous story had 
rescued, by his activity, the two remaining 
sons of the Countess of Gowrie; and after 
spending six years abroad, returned to Scot- 
land, jast in time to learn that his estates 
had been forfeited by the trial and convic- 
tion of his dead father, actually brought into 
court three years after burial, on a charge of 
being implicated in the Gowrie conspiracy. 
To efface impressions of this matter unfa- 
vourable to James, the charge was got up 
by the grossest subornation. Some unseen 
person, the agent vf Lord Dunvere, who 
was himself the agent of James, seduced the 
confidential man of business of old Restal- 
rig, to forge letters in his late employer’s 
name, and confess himself an associate, 
under the promise of a pardon on the scaf- 
fold. To complete the treachery of the bu- 
siness, the miserable tool was betrayed, and 
the law was suffered to take its course—to 
make all sure. The unseen person. proves 
to be a Lord Algerton, a wretchedly de- 
formed and diminutive person, whose defor- 
mities had bent and crooked his soul into 
still worse obliquities.s He had been sup- 


1829.] 


planted by a brother, and robbed of both 
title and estate ; but what interest-he had in 
Restalrig’s forfeiture is no where made out. 
For any thing that appears, the act was per- 
fectly gratuitous on his part ;—perhaps the 
author considered this the best possible illus- 
tration of consummate malignity. But the 
fault of the whole story is want of skilful 
complication. It no where moves along 
easy ; and the springs of action are conti- 
nually inadequate, or over adequate. 

Left thus destitute by the result of this 
iniquitous proceeding, Logan has but one 
friend, Sir Robert Carey, a favourite in 
James’s court, and the friend of his father, 
and uncle and guardian to a young heiress, to 
whom he had been betrothed from his child- 
hood, but whom he had scarcely seen, and 
had no thoughts, particularly after his 
father’s death, of marrying. Now, too, he 
was a beggar, and too high spirited to be 
indebted for subsistence to a wife. Sir Ro- 
bert, a very careful person, knew nothing of 
this determination of the young man, and 
would willingly have kept him at a dis- 
tance; but, as ill luck would have it, the 
queen, who delighted in opposing the king, 
and patronizing his enemies, or those he con- 
sidered such, had insisted upon his being 
brought up to town, and commissioned this 
very Sir Robert to take all possible care of 
him. This was a delicate business alto- 
gether, for James, of course, could not wish 
to hear any thing of Restalrig; and the 
niece—she must be kept out of sight—who, 
on her part, being a damsel of spirit, re- 
solved to see the youth, whom she regarded 
inviolably as her husband. To London the 
hero comes, and was receiyed with all due 
courtesy by the old courtier, and myste- 
riously conducted—for what purpose heaven 
knows, except to listen to an insignificant 
‘dialogue between Sir Walter Raleigh and 
the young prince Henry—through the pri- 
sons of the Tower, and safely lodged for the 
night. The quecn, too, was as mysterious as 
she was perverse, and would needs see young 
Restalrig at a masque, to which also Sir 
Robert’s niece was invited, and knowing all 
about the connection, (as what do kings and 
queens not know ?) she contrivedan interview 
between them, and for lack of a little pre- 
vious concert, produced a very awkward re- 
sult. Without knowing her person, how- 
ever, Restalrig falls desperately in love with 
his own betrothed. 

Before eclaircissement takes place, Carr, 
the king’s near favourite, discovers the se- 
cret of Restalrig’s presence, and immedi- 
ately acquaints the queen he is in possession 
of it. Dreading the king’s wrath, she finds 
it necessary to despatch Restalrig forthwith 
out of the country. He is accordingly fur- 
nished with letters of recommendation from 
the young prince and his mother, to Sully, 
the king of F’rance’s minister. Within a 
few miles of Paris, he encounters the king, 
engaged in an act of gallantry, and exposed 
to some danger, from which he rescues him, 

M.M. New Serics.—Vou. VII. No. 40. 


Domestic and Foreign. 


425 


and for which he is eventually presented 
with a commission in his Guards, and be- 
comes something of a favourite. 

In the meanwhile, Sir Robert’s niece, 
being now of age, and in a state almost of 
despair, resolves to go to Scotland, and sigh 
upon her own domains—taking with her as 
her companion, a cousin, whom she consi- 
dered to be in some peril from the profligate 
attentions of Lord Algerton. They accord- 
ingly set out together, but before the first 
day’s journey was completed, this Lord 
overtakes them, and claims the cousin as his 
bride, and she is thus left to finish her jour- 
ney alone. That very night, by the trea. 
chery of some attendant, she is induced to 
accept of accommodation at a distance from 
the road side, where she is exposed to the 
most imminent peril—it being the purpose 
of those who betrayed her to throw down 
the building, and bury her and her suite in 
the ruins. Lord Algerton is at the bottom 
of this, or rather his deformed and. sup- 
planted brother ; but, apparently from such 
change of purpose on the part of hunch-back, 
who falls in love with the lady, she is res- 
cued from the impending stroke, and car- 
ried off to France. Under the ruins, how- 
ever, she is supposed to be buried, and Lord 
Algerton, in right of his wife, who was next 
heir, takes possession of her estate. In 
France, the dwarf harasses the lady with his 
addresses; but, presently, without knowing 
why, or wherefore, we find him at his bro- 
ther’s—openly, at dinner, where a party 
were assembled, mocking and taunting, till 
at length, the insulted brother making a 
lounge at him, he is compelled, apparently, 
to stick his own dagger into him, and then 
make his escape. This he attempts—but 
stepping into a crazy boat, he is overtaken 
by astorm, and drowned—and disappointed 
of his full revenge. In the meanwhile, the 
lady and Restalrig, being both in France, of 
course, by some odd chance or other, come 
together, and of course also come to an 
understanding. Restalrig’s forfeiture is re- 
versed, and the lady recovers her estates— 
and they are of course as happy as the day is 
long. 

The writer’s acquaintance with the times, 
is correct and close ;—but really the story is 
a dull piece of business, and stuffed with 
improbabilities ; and is as heavy and labo- 
rious as a piece of grave history.—Defend 
us from too much of this! 


Letters from the Augean, by J. Emerson ; 
2 vols., 1829.—These letters do not, as any 
one would have expected, from the title and 
the author, in the least concern the Greek 
revolution, but are confined mainly to a de- 
scription of places and scenery, and travelling 
incidents, with here and there something of 
a story made to look as like a novel as pos- 
sible, interfused —one of them excepted, 
relative to a victim of the Scio massacre» 
not at all worth the telling. The letters, 
which are in fact nothing but the siftings 

31 


426 


and sweepings of his warehouse, assume the 
form of a tour from Sunium to Smyrna— 
from Smyrna to Laodicia and three other of 
the “Seven Churches,”’ and back again to 
Smyrna ; thence, down the #gean, by Scio, 
Patmos, Cos, to the northward of Rhodes, 
back again by the south of it, and then on- 
ward to Naxos, Delos, &c. till it terminates 
at Milo. Not that this tour was actually 
taken by him or any of the contributors— 
for the book is a sort of pic-nic concern— 
the information was collected at different 
times, and on several excursions on the 
shores and islands of the AZgean, partly by 
himself, and partly by Messrs. Scoles, Ten- 
nent and Thomson, and Co. ; but then for 
every thing, of which he was not himself an 
eye-witness, he can depend on the accuracy 
of his friends—his own experience, besides, 
on numerous occasions, being so completely 
confirmatory, he safely undertakes to stand 
sponsor for the rest. A considerable part 
has already appeared in the New Monthly, 
and might, for any thing we cansee, as well 
have quietly remained there : for really the 
book, though not on the whole disagreeable, 
contributes little or nothing to the informa- 
tion which already abounds with respect to 
the scenes he describes. Still we are far 
from adverse to the multiplying of books of 
travels, for it is only by the reports of num- 
bers that any adequate conception can be 
gained of foreign places and manners. Two 
men will never see the same thing in the 
same aspect, and thus the receiver of the 
reports, by getting two distinct views, will 
know more than if he had only one—he 
may see both sides of the shield. It may be 
sometimes a puzzle to know which of them, 
in any conflictings, gives the most faithful 
account, but, luckily, the fool leaves his own 
ineffacable marks, and the intelligent and 
attentive reader will generally come to the 
safer conclusion—will perhaps gain a more 
complete conception than either of the re- 
porters, or even than which his own eyes 
would have given him. 

Mr. Emerson is, the reader will find, a 
great deal too fine for the occasion—his ela- 
borate phrases and poetical prose only shew 
he is thinking more of the manner than the 
matter, and tempt a suspicion that he. is as 
often giving a fancy picture, as drawing 
from nature. Take a specimen on his set- 
ting out from Sunium :— 


Y had seen nearly all the temples now remain- 
ing in Greece, but none, not even Athens itself, 
is calenlated to produce such vivid emotions as 
that of Sunium. The greater number of these are 
seated in frequented spots, and surrounded. by 
the bustle of the crowd; Sunium stands alone, 
its crumbling columns look but on the blue hills 
of Attica, or the azure billows of the #gean: all 
fs solitude around it, save the whirl of the sea- 
bird towards its summit, or the waving of the 
olive-groves at its base, and the only sound that 
wakes its silence is the sigh of the summer 
wind, or the murmur of the wayes that roll into 
the time-worn caves beneath it. 


Monthly Review of Literature, 


[ APRIL, 


This must surely have been borrowed 
from Mrs. Radcliffe—the reader will see the 


confusion between the temple and the pro- 
montory, and so would the writer, if he had 


not been so absorbed in smoothing his 
phrases. We must quote another morceau, 
which will, otherwise, perhaps be overlooked, 
to the serious annoyance of the artist. It is 
only the sun again :— 


The dawn of morning at sea is perhaps the 
most sublime sight in nature: sunset on land is 
more reposing and lovely, but sunrise on the 
ocean is grandeur itself. At evening, he sinks 
languishing behind the distant hills, blushing in 
rosy tints at his declining weakness ; (poor old 
fellow!) at morn, he rises all fresh and glowing 
(dripping !) from the deep, not in softened beauty 
but in dazzling splendour. With the weary pace 
of age, he glides, at eye, from peak to peak, 
and sinks from hill to hill ; at morn, he bursts 
at once across the threshold (beautiful!) of the 
ocean with the firm and conscious step of a 
warrior, His decline conveys the idea of fading 
brightness, bis rise the swelling effulgence of 
mounting and resistless light. Risum teneatis? 


Now and then this love of finery precipi- 
tates him into a regular blunder. When at 
Smyrna :— 


We went (says he) to see the site of the Temple 
of Homer, and the Baths of Diana, near the river 
Meles, which flows to the north-east of the city. 
Nothing remains of either save the echo jof 
a distant tradition, whilst the ruins of her 
(Diana’s) aqueduct, the mouldering and almost 
illegible inscriptions of her sepulchres, and the 
vestiges of her paved highway to Ephesus, afford 
but vague testimonies of the extent and import- 
ance of Smyrna. 


Oh, the aqueduct and the sepulchres are 
Smyrna’s—we took them for Diana’s! He 
proceeds with his account of the city. 


In fact, of the ancient city nothing now exists : 
the modern town is supposed to occupy its site, 
hut the opinions of almost all its annalists are at 
variance. Frequent earthquakes and conflagra- 
tions, and the invasions of time and its enemies, 
have so often reduced the city to ruins, that eight 
or nine periods of its being rebuilt are on record ; 
whilst from each successive menace of annihi- 
lation, the beauty of its situation, and its import- 
ance to commerce, have protected it. 

From the effects of such vicissitudes it may 
naturally be concluded that the appearance of 
Smyrna is as incongruous as her annals. The 
remnants of all ages are strewn around her: a 
castle of the middle empire crowns a hill which 
looks down upon the aqueducts and ampitheatre, 
relics of more remote and flourishing epochs, 
while at its base the modern city is a mass of all 
architectures and all ages, built as the varying 
taste of every period and of every nation prompt- 
ed; nothing is harmonious; antiquity and mo- 
dernism are blended in every quarter, whilst its 
muddy, narrow streets are traversed by a popula- 
tion as varied as the differences of costume, lan 
guage, manners, and country can render them, 


In another part of the volume he gives 
the results of his inquiries—his personal or 
vicarious survey—of the seven churches ; 


pl DR er ee, 


et ee i 


Beat 


1829.] 


but of these the account does not differ from 
Arundel’s, lately noticed by us, except that 
it supplies an omission of Mr. Arundel’s— 
the state of the church of Smyrna—which 
we shall, therefore, quote. The reader must 
take it mixed up with the author’s own ver- 
biage :— 

To Smyrna the message of St. John conveys at 
once a striking instance of the theory I am illus- 
trating, and a powerful lesson to those who would 
support the shrine of Omnipotence by the arm of 
impotency, and faney they can soothe the erring 
soul by the balm of persecution, and correct its 
delusions by the persuasions of intolerance. To 
this church is foretold the approach of tribula- 
tion, and poverty, and suffering, and imprison- 
ment : whilst the consequence of their endurance 
is to add permanency to their faith, and to reward 
their triumphs with the crown of immortality. 
Since the first establishment of Christianity at 
Smyrna, from the murder of Polycarp, down to 
the massacre of the Grecian Patriarch, and the 
persecutions of to-day, the history of Smyrna pre- 
sents but one continued tale of bloodshed and re- 
ligious barbarity; the sabre of the Ottoman 
promptly succeeding to the glaive of the Roman, 
in firm, but bootless attempts, to overthrow the 
faith of “the Nazarene ;” but centuries of op- 
pression have rolled oyer her in vain, and at this 
moment, with a Christian population of fourteen 
thousand inhabitants, Smyrna still exists, not only 
as the chief hold of Christianity in the East, but 
the head-quarters from whence the successors of 
the Apostles, in imitation of thei» exertions, are 
daily replanting in Asia thuse seeds of Chris- 
tianity which they were the first to disseminate, 
but which have long since perished during the 
winter of oppression and barbarism. 

This fact is the more remarkable, since Smyrna 
is the only community to which persecution has 
been foretold, though to others a political exist- 
ence has been promised. It would seem, however, 
that in their case, ease and tranquillity had pro- 
duced apathy and decay ; whilst, like the humble 
plant which rises most luxuriantly towards heaven 
the more closely it is pressed and trodden on, the 
eburch of Smyrna, in common with the persecuted 
tribes of every age and of every clime, has gained 
strength from each attack of its opposers, and 
triumphs to-day in its rising splendour, whilst the 
sun of its oppressors is quickly gliding from twi- 
light to oblividn. 


Nothing in these regions is more wanted 
than a distinct account of the actual state of 
each of the more celebrated islands. Mr. 


Domestic and Foreign. 


427 


Emerson furnishes very little, though visit- 
ing several of them—except in the case of 
Delos, which is now a desert, though that 
we do not learn from him. His description 
of the relics in this once-renowned spot is 
among the most valuable parts of the book. 
Gyarus—aude aliquid brevibus Gyaris, et 
carcere dignum—is now a complete waste. 

When at Paros, he endeavoured, he says, 
to collect some particulars from his com- 
panions, one of them an intelligent priest, 
about that quarter of the island in which 
the celebrated Arundelian marbles professed 
to have been found (the professors, it may 
be supposed, were the finders), but none of 
them had ever heard of the name. Did 
the author then inquire for the Arundelian 
marbles ? The ignorance, or non-intelli- 
gence of this priest seems to warrant Mr. 
Emerson in adopting the doubts that have 
been entertained of their authenticity—of 
which, the general terms he uses, with re- 
spect to them, shews manifestly he knows 
nothing. 

The author occasionally ventures upon a 
bit of criticism, especially to illustrate the 
scriptures. One particularly struck us— 
speaking of the cisterns, or reservoirs, or 
tanks, so common in the neighbourhood of 
towns in the east, he is reminded of the 
Samaritan woman and Jacob’s well. In 
the story two words are used, ppewp and xnyn, 
both translated well. The author insists, 
truly enough, perhaps, that the first is a 
tank ; and the latter a spring ; but what is 
his conclusion ? 


The import of the passage therefore is, that the 
woman of Samaria stood by the cistern of Jacob, 
and hesitated to give Jesus to drink of the stag- 
nant water collected within it, whilst he, had she 
known to ask it, could have given unto her to 
drink of the fresh fowntain that springeth up 
into endless life. 


“TI may be mistaken in this interpreta, 
tion’’—he modestly adds—“ but,” &¢.— 


Stamboul or Constantinople, it has been 
often pointed out, is a corruption of “ <g chy 
mony.” In like manner, Izmir, the Turkish 
name for Smyrna, is a corruption of “ cic rity 
Zupvay’?——Negropont, ‘cig ri Evgime? 
(which the Greeks pronounce Evripo), and 
Stanco is “ «ig ry Kow.”’ 


VARIETIES, SCIENTIFIC AND MISCELLANEOUS. 


Real Toadstones.—The discovery of toads 
in secondary rocks, is often announced in 
public journals. A very particular account 
was published in the newspapers, of one 
found at Lockport, United States, while 
they were cutting the Erie canal bed in the 
a lime rock. Professor Amos 

‘aton, of New York, collected all the facts in 
his power, and examined the rock from 
which it was taken. The evidence would 
have been sufficient to establish, he states, 


any ordinary fact. But there seemed to be 
so many ways for illiterate labourers to de- 
ceive themselves, that he took no further 
notice of the report. He has, however, since 
received an account of a large dark brown 
toad being found in a rock of mill-stone 
grit, near Whitesborough, “ which I can- 
not,”’ he says, ‘‘ hesitate to believe. While 
laying the cellar wall of the house of one of 
the representatives in the legislature of this 
state (New York) two respectable masons, 
312 


428 


entitled to the highest confidence, whom he 
examined personally, had occasion to split a 
large stone from the quarry which he calls 
the millstone grit. It was perfectly close- 
grained and compact. On opening it they 
discovered a black or dark brown spherical 
mass, about three inches in diameter, in a 
cavity which it filled. On examining it 
particularly, they found it to be a toad, 
much larger than the common species, and 
of adarker colour. It was perfectly stupid. 
It was laid upon a stone, and soon began to 
give signs of life. In a few hours it would 
hop moderately on being disturbed. They 
saw it in the yard moving about moderately 
for several days ; but it was not watched by 
them any further, and no one observed its 
ulterior movements. They laid one half of 
the stone in the wail, so that the cavity may 
still be seen. The millstone grit in which 
this stone was found, is the oldest of the 
secondary rocks. It must have been formed 
many centuries before the deluge. Was 
this toad more than 4,000 years old? or was 
it from an egg introduced through a minute 
and undiscovered cleavage into this cavity, a 
geode made precisely to fit the size and form 
of atoad? I was particular in my inquiry, 
and learned from them, that the whole 
stone was perfectly compact, without any 
open cleavage which would admit an egg. 
Beside, it is well known that the millstone 
grit is neither porous nor geodiferous. If 
this rock stratum was deposited upon the 
toad, it must have been in aqueous, not 
in igneous solution, and the toad must 
have been full grown at the time. Toads 
are often found in compact hard . gra- 
velly diluvial deposits, in situations which 
demonstrate that they must have lived 
from the time of the deluge. I think 
I am warranted in saying this,’’ adds the 
Professor, “without citing authorities, as it is 
a common occurrence. Then why may they 
, not have lived a few centuries longer, if we 
admit them a life of at least 3,000 years ?”’ 
New Picture, by David.—Two distin- 
guished French painters, MM. Carle and 
Horace Vernet, have discovered at a small 
village called Eza, situated two leagues from 
Nice, and near the great road to Genoa, a 
hitherto unknown picture, representing the 
baptism of our Saviour, by the ceicbrated 
David. Unfortunately it is in a most ruin- 
ous condition, and lying on the pavement. 
David and a companion were proceeding to 
Rome, and were surprised by a tempest at 
* Eza during the time the church was being 
erected. Being detained three days in the 
house of the curate of this village, as an 
acknowledgment of the hospitality he re- 
ceived, the artist promised to execute a 
painting for the church. The promise was 
fulfilled, but rendered nugatory by the care- 
lessness of those for whom it was performed. 
Discovery of Coal near Leicester.—A 
report was made in September 1827, by Mr. 
Francis Forster, mineral surveyor, on the 
probable existence of coal in the vicinity of 


Varieties. 


[APRIL, 


Leicester, arising from the supposed exten- 
sion of the Ashby coal measures, under the 
new red sand-stone formation, from Ibstock 
near Ashby, by way of Bagworth, Dorford, 
Kirby, Muxton, and Glenfield, towards 
Birstall, thus passing within about two 
miles of Leicester. The opinions expressed 
in this report have since been confirmed, in 
great measure, by the discovery of a seam of 
coal, by boring near Bagworth. 

Height of the principal Buildings in 
Europe.—A discussion haying arisen on the 
Continent respecting the height of the cathe- 
dral of Anvers, compared with that of St. 
Peter’s at Rome, the following are the re- 


sults of the inquiry, expressed in English 
fect :— 


‘The highest pyramid of Egypt .... 479,27 


The Cathedral of Anvers ......-- 472,66 
The Cathedral of Strasburgh ...... 466,27 
The spire of St. Stephen’s church, 


Viennaretix teledielste eden we dee) 402j05 
The spire of St. Martin’s church, 
Landshut ......... ceiiaai felis ¥44O75 


The cupola of St. Peter’s, Rome .. 433,76 
Spire of St. Michaels, Hamburg .. 428,43 
Spire of St. Peter’s, Rome ....... 391,13 
Cathedral of St. Paul, London .... 361,02 
Cathedral of Ulm .........+...- 309,16 
Cathedral of Milan ...........-. 358,09 
Towers degli Asinelli at Bologna .. 351,07 
Dome of the Invalides, Paris .... 344,66 
Cathedral of Magdeburg ........ 353,58 
Cupola of the Pantheon, Paris.... 259,03 
Balustrade of Notre Dame........ 216,67 

Massive Crystals.—In the vicinity of 
Paradise River, a few miles from Bridge- 
town, in Nova Scotia, gigantic crystals of 
smoky quartz, or the cairngorm stone of 
Scotland, are found among the masses of 
sienite, or imbedded in the alluvion which 
forms the banks of the Annapolis River. 
Of those most extraordinary for size, was 
one found several years ago on ihe estate of 
Mr. Langley, which, from his description, 
weighed more than 120 pounds. Another 
from the same place weighs 30 pounds. It 
is covered externally by a thin incrustation 
of common quartz, and presents within the 
richest gradation of shades, from light topaz, 


or straw yellow, through clove brown into a — 


dark almost opaque smoky colour. Clove 
brown is the predominating colour, or cha- 
racterises the greater part of the crystal. 
is rendered doubly interesting by the long 
and slender prismatic crystals of black schorl 
which traverse its surface, and even pene- 
trate or shoot into its solid substance, to the 
depth of three or four inches. This crystal 
measures in extreme length 19 inches. 


It 


It | 
is twelve inches in diameter at the base, — 


and its six lateral planes are nine inches in 


length to the acuminating planes, one of : 


which being unduly extended, nearly ob- 
scures the two adjoining ones, and is twelve 
inches in length. 

Safety Dress for Firemen.—The Cheva- 
lier Aldini has received a gold medal from 


the government of Milan, for contriving, — 


1829. 


and he has formed an establishment for the 
manufacture of dresses of wire gauze and 
asbestos, which will allow firemen to traverse 
with impunity the fiercest conflagration. 
The ancient armour has served as a model 
for their dresses, and it is officially stated 
that the success of them is incontrovertible. 

Chimneys.—Many researches haye been 
mage to ascertain if chimneys were used by 
the ancients. The houses discovered at 
Herculaneum and Pompeii have none; so 
that it is to be presumed, when these two 
cities were buried, chimneys were unknown 
in Italy, and that open portable burners 
were employed at that time. The palaces 
appear at that epoch to have been warmed 
by ovens placed underneath the ground 
floor. The enormous quantity of combus- 
tibles which this method of heating required, 
is not astonishing ; it was probably one of 
the principle elements of luxury. The 
epoch at which the origin of chimneys is to 
be placed, is not very well known; the 
writers of the fourteenth ceniury appear not 
to know them, or at least speak of them only 
as a novel invention, and an object of lux- 
ury. It may be presumed, that up to this 
period chimneys were not known, or at least 
were not generally used. It appears that 
the fire was ordinarily placed in a hollow 
effected in the middle of the floor, above 
which an opening was made in the roof. 
At the time of Seneca they began to make 
grooves in the walls to diffuse the heat 
through the upper stories ; it is probable, that 
from these was derived the idea of channels 
to carry off the smoke. The year 1347 is 
the most ancient, as well as the most certain 
epoch at which there is any mention of 
chimneys. An inscription found at Venice 
commemorates an earthquake which over- 
threw several chimneys. The first chimney- 
Sweepers came from Germany, France, 
Savoy, Piedmont, and other swrounding dis- 
tricts. For along time these were the only 
countries where the business of a chimney- 
Sweeper was carried on, whence it may be 
conjectured that chimneys were invented in 
Italy. 

Spring of Sulphuric Acid.—Sulphuric 
acid in large quantities is produced in a 
diluted and in a concentrated state in the 
town of Byron, Genessee county, 30 miles 
west of the river of that name, and ten miles 
south of the Erie Canal, in Nova Scotia. It 
has been known in that vicinity by the name 
of the sowr spring, about 17 years. Here is 
a hillock 230 feet long, and 100 broad, ele- 
vated about 5 feet above the surrounding 
plain. The hillock resembles the longitu- 
dinal section of an egg, with the convex side 
uppermost. Its greatest extent is north and 
south. It consists of a kind of ash-coloured 
analluvion, containing immense quantities 
of exceedingly minute grains of iron pyrites. 
It is mostly covered with a coat of charred 
vegetable matter, four or five inches thick, 
and black as common charcoal. The same 
charred coal extends some distance from the 


Varieties. 


429 


base of the hillock on-all sides. It appears 
as ifit had been recently burned over, though 
it is in a meadow where no fire had ever 
been, at least for several years. Its charred 
state is caused wholly by the action of the 
sulphuric acid. Several holes have been 
dug in the hill, which now contain turbid 
dilute sulphuric acid; also the depres- 
sions in meadow ground surrounding it. 
Should curiosity or interest induce the pro- 
prietor to dig a trench about it, or to make 
an artificial pond on one side, which might 
be occasionally drained and cleaned, a very 
interesting bath of diluie sulphuric acid 
might be constructed. The strength of the 
acid increases in a drought. When rain 
has fallen, it is proportionally diluted in 
most places. In some places it is strong, 
and appears to be perfecily concentrated, 
and nearly dry in its combination with the 
charred vegetable coat. In this state it is 
diffused throughout the whole piece of 
ground, which presents the charred appear- 
ance to the depth of 12 or 15 inches, and in 
some places three or four feet, but it is 
every where the strongest at the surface. 

Chronology.—F rom the last volume of M. 
de Hammer’s Ottoman History, we learn 
that posts by carricr pigeons were employed 
by the Turks in Hungary, in the year 1552. 
The first coffee-house was established at 
Constantinople in 1556, although in Egypt 
and Syria, and possibly in Arabia also, they 
had been long known. The first men- 
tion of them in Christian Europe, is at 
London, in 1636; but it was not till some 
forty years afterwards at Amsterdam that 
these establishments acquired any celebrity, 
and even a certain influence on political 
opinions; it may be remarked, that it was 
about the same time a great number of po- 
litical and literary papers commenced in 
Holland. 

Bricks.—The practice of making bricks 
is of no great antiquity among the English. 
By the common process of hand labour, one 
man has been known to mould eleven thou- 
sand in a day; the average quantity, how- 
ever, is not more than 5000, which shows, 
that manufacturing bricks by machinery 
could never be attended with profit. Itisa 
matter, perhaps, not geuerally known, that 
vast quantities of bricks are exported from 
England to different parts of the world. 
The modern city of Moscow has in a great 
measure been built with English bricks. 

Coral Islands.—The subject of the coral 
insects has occupied the attention of two 
eminent Trench naturalists, MM. Quoy 
and Gamard, who, contrary to the re- 
ceived opinion, suppose that those animals, 
which work in solid masses, and form coral 
reefs and islands, do not in fact operate at a 
lower depth than from 25 to 30 feet. From 
various facts, and analogical reasonings, they 
demonstrate, that these animals commence 
their operations only on the peaks of sub- 
marine mountains, working gradually to the 
surface ; and they deny that these animals 


430 


ever can form precipitous submarine moun- 
tains rising from the depths of the ocean. 

Sharks.—The first descriptions of the 
Squalus Maximus, the large basking shark, 
that modern naturalists have considered a 
doubtfulspecies, and have accordingly describ- 
ed several large individuals of this genus as 
new species, the S. Pelerin, S. Gunneria- 
nus, S. Herianus, S. Elephas, and S. Rhi- 
noceros, as well as the S. Pereginus, pinna 
anali nulla, all belong to the S. Maximus. 
The most striking peculiarity in the S. Pe- 
reginus is the presence of the baleen. 
Each branchial opening is furnished with a 
fringe of baleen, four inches in length. 
This is composed of a great number of dis- 
tinct flattened fibres, a tenth of an inch wide 
at their origin, and tapering gradually to 
minute threads at their extremities. In 
colour, texture, and flexibility, this resembles 
very much the baleen of the Balaena Mysti- 
cete. The lamine are extremely regular in 
their position ; thirty of them are included 
within the space of an inch, and they extend 
the whole length of the branchial apertures. 
All inferences respecting the size of a shark, 
founded on the magnitude of the fossil teeth 
alone, must be erroneous, as an individual 
28 feet long, had teeth only half an inch in 
length ; by parity of reasoning, fossil sharks’ 
teeth four inches in length, and many such 
exist, must have belonged to an animal 220 
feet long. 

German Extravagance.—Absurd and ri- 
diculous as are many of the works which 
issue from the English press, we have not 
yet seen the equal of one written by a Ger- 
man of the name of Wienbrach, and pub- 
lished last year by Brockhaus, of Leipsig,; in 
which the author endeavours to demonstrate 
that the earth is hollow—that the entrance 
to it is in Poland, and that within there is 
fire, water, air, amphibious animals, fish, 
insects, birds, quadrupeds, and men. He 
then details this subterranean life, and ends 
with a description of the roads which lead 
there, and by an address to the inhabitants 
of the surface of the earth. 

Bread from Wheat that has germinated. 
—A way has been discovered in Germany, 
of making good bread with the flour of 
wheat that has germinated. The two prin- 
cipal precautions to be observed, are to 
work the corn carefully, particularly if it be 
also mouldy, and to dry it carefully in a 
stove or oven, before taking it to the mill. 
The grinding should be performed as quickly 
as possible, and the grain should not be 
ground at all fine. When it is converted 
into meal, leave it quiet for a few days to 


Varieties. « 


| [AprIt, 


get cool and aired. When the leaven (a 
yeast) is added, more than the usual quan- 
tity must be employed, and to be perfectly 
mixed up with the dough, which made 
with warm water, is to bej thinner than 
in common; the whole to’ be well and 
quickly kneaded. Iveave it to ferment from 
two to four hours, then knead it up carefully 
again, and add sufficient meal to make it of 
a proper consistency. When it is divided, 
the loaves should not weigh more than from 
two to four pounds. 

To bronze Metals.—To give to different 
objects the appearance which distinguishes 
the ancient bronzes, mix 62 grains of muri- 
ate of ammonia, and 15-5 grains of oxalic 
acid in a pint of good vinegar ; after having 
well cleaned the metal, rub it over with a 
brush dipped in this solution, taking only a 
very small quantity at a time; when it is 
dried by rubbing, take some more, and con- 
tinue so doing till the metal has acquired 
the tint desired. To render the proceeding 
more expeditious, it may be performed in 
the sun, or on a heated stove. 

Silk Worms.—The difficulty is well 
known of providing silk worms with food. 
Lettuce leaves have been employed as a sub- 
stitute, but with these, if the silk do not de- 
teriorate in quality, its quantity is much 
less than when the insect is fed upon the 
leaves of the mulberry. Recent experi- 
ments, however, on a large scale, have satis- 
factorily demonstrated that the leaves of the 
Scorzonera afford a sufficient and wholesome 
nutriment for these extremely tender in- 
sects, and the quantity of silk obtained is at 
least double what they yield when sup- 
ported by lettuce. The leaves, before they 
are given to them, should be wiped, in order 
to remove the humidity and the sort of down 
with which they are covered; they should 
then be supplied in small quantities, and 
frequently during the day. 

To destroy Weevels.—The following me- 
thod of destroying these injurious insects, is 
much too simple and valuable not to find a 
place here ; it has been successfully practised 
on the Continent, and in consequence made 
public a few weeks since. The agriculturist 
by whom it has been practised, states, that 
he was infested with them to an incredible 
extent. He moistened with urine, diluted 
with water, the floor and sides of the granary 
in which he intended to place his corn ; this 
was frequently done, and the granary care- 
fully swept in the interval between each 
watering; the success of this process was 
complete. 


1829.] 


(431 J 


FINE ARTS’ EXHIBITIONS. 


Tue Spring Exhibitions, in connection 
with Art, have commenced in a most aus- 
picious manner, by the production of three 
groups of sculpture from the chisel of a per- 
son whose name even has hitherto been 
almost unknown to the general public; but 
who must henceforth take his rank among the 
very best artists of his day, in a line of art 
where high merit is rarer than in any other 
line whatever. These sculptures consist, as 
we have said, of three separate and distinct 
groups, each in a style different from the 
two others, and each reaching to a high de- 
gree of excellence. The largest and most 
important, and that probably which will be 
looked upon as displaying the greatest 
power, and producing the strongest effect on 
the spectator, is on the subject of Vulcan and 
Venus. The time chosen is when the god- 
dess has just returned from one of her wan- 
derings, and is trying by her blandishments 
to dissipate the jealous anger of her stern 
lord. Vulcan has flung himself in a sitting 
posture, upon the anvil at which he was the 
moment before working, and his left leg 
hangs dependent, while his right rests upon 
the ground in the rear, and one hand is sup- 
ported on his huge hammer—the latter rest- 
ing on his left knee. His whole figure is in 
advance of Venus, who is leaning towards 
him enticingly, and placing one hand, or 
rather one finger, on his shoulder. We 
have no hesitation in pronouncing this a 
noble work—no less for the mingled force 
and simplicity of its design, than for the 
truth of its various details, whether of ge- 
neral and particular expression, or of those 
which belong purely to the anatomical por- 
tion of the subject. The left leg, in parti- 
cular, of the Vulcan, is extremely fine, and 
the whole upper portion of the Venus is most 
lovely. On that side of Vulcan, opposite to 
the Venus, a Cupid is introduced, with no 
very good effect, except the technical one of 
balancing one part of the composition against 
the other. Next in importance to this prin- 
cipal group (which is larger than the life) is 
a group of Arethusa and a hound—smaller 
than the life, but of exquisite truth, elegance, 
and purity. There is a something about 
_ the head of this lovely figure, which is more 
Greek than any thing we are acquainted with 
from a modern hand ; and the whole group 
is full of that finest of all attributes, and that 
yarest of all, as the result of a general de- 
sign—namely, expression. The nymph is 
listening intently to a distant sound, which 
has just reached her ear, and startled her, as 
she was in the act of dressing for the chace, 
after having bathed in aneighbouring stream. 
By her side is a dog, which is also listening, 
and which she holds with her left hand, 
while her right is raised in a hushing atti- 

e. 
The third group is on the subject of 
Adonis and the Boar.to which he owed his 


death. The boar has attacked and wounded 
him—having been previously wounded to 
death himself by the spear, the broken rem- 
nant of which the youth holds elevated in his 
right hand, while his left is endeavouring in 
vain to force down the head of the savage 
animal that has reared itself against him. 

There is great power of expression shewn 
in,the face of the youth ; and the whole group 
displays a fine simplicity in its design and 
composition ; but there are defects in the 
execution which we do not observe in the 
other works, and which shew it to have been 
an early work of the artist—perhaps his first. 
The chief of these defects is to be found in 
the right fore-arm of the Adonis. But the 
Boar is executed with great skill, and is 
certainly among the very best specimens of 
animal sculpture that we are acquainted 
with from a modern chisel. These fine 
productions were all executed for the Earl 
of Egremont, at whose seat, at Petworth, 
they have already been placed, but have just 
been removed thence for the purpose of 
public exhibition, with the view of making 
the artist’s merits known and appreciated ; 
and they can scarcely fail to answer this 
end. 

The only other Exhibitions of Art that 
have opened since our last are, a collection 
of nine great pictures, representing various 
points in the Coronation of Charles X. of 
France ; andaset of pictures—for so they must 
be called—having all the appearance, at a 
little distance, of live etching ; but which, in 
fact, are cut out of the paper with scissors. 
Both these exhibitions are to be seen at the 
Royal Bazaar, in Oxford-street. The first 
of them is a little passé in point of subject ; 
but it will long retain a very marked in- 
terest, on account of the numerous portraits 
it includes of all the distinguished persons 
who bear offices about the French Court at 
this time, and many, if not most of whom, 
have acted conspicuous parts in the affairs 
of Europe, for the last 20 or 30 years. 
The second set of objects are by no means 
of sufficient consequence to justify their 
being offered as a separate exhibition ; but 
this will perhaps be forgiven, in considera- 
tion, not only of the extreme labour and 
ingenuity which they display, but of the 
fact that they are the production of an expa- 
triated officer of the Spanish army. This, 
and their curiosity together, make them 
well worth a visit by those who are seeking a 
morning’s amusement at this season of the 
year. 

It should be added, that the department 
of sculpture is singularly meagre this year. 
The only work calling for notice is a very 
graceful and pleasing group, of Cupid and 
Psyche, by C. Smith, (542) which evinces a 
considerable degree of poetic feeling, with. 
out departing from that truth and simplicity, 
in the absence of which, even subjects of 


432 


this essentially and exclusively ideal nature, 
degenerate into impertinencies. 


British Institution. 

In the same class of art with “ New- 
ton’s Dutch Girl’’—mentioned in our last 
—is “Auld Robin Gray,” (150) by T. 
Kwicut; and it is scarcely inferior to 
them in truth of expression, though consi- 
derably so in its style and tone of colouring, 
and its general execution. It furnishes the 
most pathetic illustration we have ever seen 
of the most pathetic ballad in the world. 
The faces of the heart-broken maiden and 
the dying mother, are equal to, though some- 
what different from, the conceptions we derive 
from reading the ballad itself, or hearing 
Miss Stephens sing it; and the contrast be- 
tween these, and the old suitor and half-sel- 
fish, half silly father, are perfectly effective, 
without being in the least degree forced or 
extravagant. We would point to this pic- 
ture as one of rare merit, and, in its way, only 
second to Newton’s “ Letter,’? just de- 
scribed. Among numerous other merito- 
rious works, on subjects growing out of do- 
mestic life and manners, our limits will only 
permit us to particularize the following,— 
chiefly of the humorous class :—“ The 
Blackbird and its Tutor,” (72) and “ The 
Pimp,” (358) boih by A. Frazer; and 
finished with a mingled delicacy and spirit 
which it is not a little rare to find united ; 
“ The Cottage Toilet,” (135) and “ The 
Deserier,” (173) by R. Farr1er—the first 
very pretty and engaging, and ihe last full 
of humorous matter,—but neither of them 
equal to many of the previous works of this 
pleasing artist ;—“ Lviraordinary News,” 
(125) by T. S. GoopeE; in which the head 
of the old man who is reading is extremely 
well conceived and executed ;—“* The false 
Parcel,” (139) by W. Kirpp—which is 
very rich in colouring, neat without being 
finical in the finishing, and full of humour 
in the expressions—in which, however, there 
is great sameness; and, finally, a litile pic- 

.ture by P. C. Wonder, which is very clever 
in some respects, and is called “ Waiting 
for an answer’’ (139). The effect of light 
in this little scene is remarkably well ma- 
naged, and makes us the more regret the 
rawness in the colouring, and the seeming 
want either of care or skill in the rest of the 
execution. In the landscape department we 
have several charming works ; none of them, 
however, making pretensions to the highest 
rank in this class, unless it be two by Danby 
—a pair—the subjects, Moonlight, and Sun- 
set (56 and 67). There is an ideal air 
communicated to both these works, which 
lifts them aboye the aciual scenery with 
which we are familiar in our own land, but 
without removing them from our instant re- 
cognition and sympathy, as belonging to the 
domain of Nature. But we are inclined to 
think it will demand a more than ordinary 
habit of observation, to admit the exact 
truth of the features of nature here pre- 


Fine Arts’ Exhibitions. 


[APRIL, 


sented to us. The one, we imagine, will 
by many be pronounced rather too dark and 
indistinct, and the other too bright and gor- 
geous.—Not so with respect to two excel. 
lent productions by ConsTABLE (38 and 
348)— ihe first a landscape, including this 
artist’s favourite feature, of a Lock, and the 
other a charming cottage scene. Unlike 
the two scenes just noticed, the truth. of 
these will be recognised at once by every 
class of observers—itrom the most careless to 
the most subtle. The cottage scene in par- 
ticular is.as fresh as Ruysdael, and as true 
as Hobbima, with a look of English nature 
that is purely this artist’s own. But among 
the landscapes in this collection, there is not 
one that pleases us better, (if so well) than 
“ Cottage Children going to bed,’ (51) by 
Sir W. Beecury. his scene of simple 
nature (which we perceive, on a close inspec- 
tion, was painted no less than forty years 
ago—which accounts in same measure for 
the rich depth of tone that the colouring has 
acquired) is, to our thinking, worth any 
score of the portraiis of the ‘ nobility and 
geniry” that this so long fashionable artist 
has painted siuce. In the same delightfully 
simple class, though altogether different in 
style, is a coast scene by Couiins (22). 
WITHERINGTON has also a most agree- 
able picture, in which he seems to have 
adopted (not without great advantage to his 
style) some of Collins’s simplicity of expres- 
sion, and lively tint of coldwiing. It is 
called “ The Hop Garden,” and represents 
a party of rustics engaged in hop-gathering. 
The group in front is less laboured, and 
consequently more agreeable, than most- 
tat we have seen from the pencil of this 
artist—who, wiih great merit, is open to 
much and siriking improvements. The 
little boy in this group, weaving the patched 
and darned apron, is particulaily good. 
Epwarp LanpDsEER does not shine very 
conspicuously in this Exhibition ; for though 
all that he has contribuied is good, there is 
nothing very strikingly so: and there is 
great sameness in his subjects. No. 10— 
“ Highlanders returning from Deerstalk- 
ing,” is by far the best; and indeed we do 
not know that it could easily be improved 
upon. But we begin to grow tired of his 
eternal dead deer, especially when we call to 


mind the infinite variety of the subject mat- — 


ter that is open to this cleverest artist in his 
own line, that we possess. 
In the poetical class of the art we have 


scarcely any thing worthy of particular men- — 


tion. The only two that have left traces 
upon our memory are, 232, by Erry, and 
485, by CorBoutp; the first, including 
about equal proportion of the good and the 
bad of the artist’s peculiar style; and the 


second, blending with much of more pretti- _ 
ness and pretence, some delicacy of expres= — 


sion, and some poetical feeling. Finally, — 


in the class of Portraiture, we have one — 


capital production, by PIcKERSGILL, 
“ The Hookah-bearer” (78); and several 


- 


1829.] 


by other artists, that rise considerably above 
mediocrity; at the head of which may be 
hamed the “ portrait of Mr. Soane the 
architect,” by Jackson, (254); three by 
BoapeEn, designated in the catalogue 
(which does not recognise portraits) .as 
“ Head of an Old Lady,” (95); “ Lavinia,” 
(221); and “ Rebecca, from Ivanhoe,” 
(379) ; and one, a little Frenchified in the 
style of handling, but very individual and 
forcible, which is called “A Study,” (457), 
by Dubuffe. 

The only other works to which we shall 


Fine Arts’ 


Exhibitions. 433 
point particulary attention, are a pair of capital 
fruit pieces, by Lance, (104 and 105) ; 
and all the views of foreign architectural 
seenery, by STANLEY, JONES, and 
Rozerts, but especially the excellent pro- 
ductions of the latter artist, “* Town-hall of 
Louvain,” (30); and an interior view of a 
church at Caen, (355). In conclusion, we 
must express regret that our restricted limits 
have compelled us to-pass by unnoticed many 
meritorious works, and our gratification that 
the same cause affords us an excuse for 
withholding much well-merited censure. 


WORKS IN THE PRESS AND NEW PUBLICATIONS. 


os 


WORKS IN PREPARATION. 


John Huss, or the Council of Constance, a Poem, 
Accompanied with numerous Historical and De- 
scriptive Notes. In small 8yo. 

The Rey. H. I. Todd is preparing a Life of 
Archbishop Cranmer, in one volume. 8vo. 

The Rey. P. Allwood will shortly publish a Key 
to the Revelation of St. John; or an Analysis of 
the parts of that Prophetical Book relative to the 
State of the Christian Church in After-Times. 
Tn 2 volumes, 8vo. 

A yolume of Parochial Letters, from a bene- 
ficed Clergyman to his Curate, treating of the 
most interesting and important Subjects relating 
to the Pastoral Care, will shortly appear. 

The Rey. Dr. Walker, of the Scottish Episco- 
pal Church, has a Volume of Sermons preparing 
for publication. 

* The Rey. Dr. Cresswell will shortly publish a 
Volume of Sermons on the Domestic Duties. ‘In 
i2mo. 

» Miss M. A. Browne, the Author of Mont Blane, 
Ada, &c., &c., is about to publish a small Volume 
of Sacred Poetry. Dedicated to the Rev. H.H. 
Milman, Professor of Poetry at the University of 
Oxford. 

‘Traits of Travel; or, Tales of Men and Cities. 
By the Author of Highways and Byways. In 
3 vols. 

Tales of a Physician. By Mr. Harrison. 

* The Philosophy of History. In 1 vol. 8yo. 

 D’Erbine; or, the Cynic, a Novel of the De 

Vere class. 

Mr. Sharpe, the proprietor of the Anniversary, 
will start a new periodical at Midsummer next. 

_ It will combine engravings from the finest works 

_ of British art that can be procured ; with con- 

- tributions from the pens of the most distinguished 
writers of the day. 

Mr. Backe, Author of The Italians, a Tragedy, 
towards which Mr. Kean played rather a con- 
spicuous than creditable part, and also of The 
Beauties, Harmonies, aud Sublimities of Nature, 
has written another Tragedy, entitled Julio Ro- 
mano. 

' Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of 
Society. By Robert Southey. In 2 vols. 8yo., 
with Engravings. 

_ An Essay on the Effect of the Reformation on 
Civil Society in Europe. By William Mackray, 
Minister of the Gospel, Stirling. 

A New Edition of Sir Walter Scott's Novels, 

M.M. New Series.—Vou. VU. No. 40. 


with Engravings, and Notes by the Author ; to 
be published in Monthly Volumes, at 5s. each 
volume. To commencein June. 

All for Loye, the Pilgrim of Compostella; and 
other Poems. By Robert Southey. 

Clouds and Sunshine, a collection of serious 
Pieces. By the Author of the Village Pastor. 

Peace Campaigns of a Cornet. In 3 vols, 
post 8yo. 

The Life of John Locke ; it will contain extracts 
from his correspondents never before published, 
English and Foreign, from 1660, to the last year 
of his life, in 1704. 

An Essay on the Deaf and Dumb, shewing the 
necessity of medical treatment in early infancy, 
with Observations on Congenital Deafness. By 
J. H. Curtis, Esq., Aurist to the King. 

The Rey. Dr. Wait (of Cambridge) is about to 
commence a Repertorium Theologicum, or Criti- 
cal Record of Theological Literature, in which 
dissertations are Theological Antiquities, the 
State of the Texts, and other subjects of neces- 
sary inquiry will be contained, in which Foreign 
Works on Divinity, will be condensed so as to 
form a complete work of reference to the Biblical 
Scholar. 

A Manual of Ancient History, considered in 
Relation, to the Constitutions, Commerce, and 
Colonies of the different States of Antiquity. By 
A. H. Heerend; Professor of History in the Uni- 
versity of Goettingen. 

Holbein’s Bible Cuts, being fac-similes of the 
celebrated Icones Historiarum Veteris Testa- 
menti of Hans Holbein, beautifully engraved on 
wood, with descriptions in four of the modern 
languages. 

A new edition, with considerable additions, of 
the Poetical Works of S. 'T. Coleridge, Esq. In 3- 
volumes, crown octavo, 

Patriotism: Essays on Love; Truth; Self ; 
Our Native Land; The Land we live in; The 
Affections, filial, social, conjugal, and parental ; 
Agriculture ; Population; Emigration; The 
Moralist Address to Britons. By Robert Mac- 
William, Author of An Essay on Dry Rot and 
Forest Trees. 

Gabriella, a Tale of Switzerland, is nearly 
ready for publication. It is an attempt to deviate 
alittle from the fashionable path of sentimental 
Poets, and to delineate mental aberration of the 
niildest kind in union with singylar and romantic 
scenery, 


3K 


434 


The Poetical Sketch Book, in one volume. By 
T. K. Hervey, inclading a Third Edition of his 
Poem Australia. 

The Rey. William Kirby, M.A., F.R., and L.S., 
&e. &c., has in the press Seven Sermons on the 
Temptation, grounded on those upon the same 
subject by the learned Bishop Andrews. 

Leonora, or the Presentation at Court, being 
the first of a Series of narratives, called Young 
Ladies’ Tales. By the Author of Private Educa- 
tion, Poor Girl’s Help, &c, 

Mr. Vignoles, civil engineer, is preparing for 
publication, Observations on Railroads and Rail- 
way Carriages, &c., in which will be shewn, the 
principles and practice of laying out, graduating 
and working a line of railroad, contrasting also 
the various circumstances under which railways 
may be formed for the carriage of heavy materials, 
or the transport of light packages and passengers. 

A Treatise on the Art of Bilting Horses, With 
plates. 

A Treatise on the Varieties of Deafness, and 
Diseases of the Ear, with Methods of relieving 
them. By William Wright. 

The Protestant’s Companion ; being a choice 
collection of preservatives against Popery. 

Mr. Mill’s Analysis of the Phenomena of the 
Human Mind. It contains a view, purely exposi- 
tory, of the phenomena generally classed under 
the heads of the Intelleetual and Active Powers of 
the Human Mind. 

Karly in the month of May will appear the first 
number of The Juvenile Literary Miscellany, a 
weekly periodical adapted for the use of young 
people in private tuition or public seminaries, 
It will be published under tbe sanction, and with 
the support of, the most approved and eminent 
female and other writers of the day. 

The Legend of Einsidlin, a tale of Switzerland, 
and other poems. By the Rey. W. Liddiard. 
Dedicated to Thomas Moore, Esq. 

- A new novel, entitled Jesuitism and Methodism. 

A History of the late Catholic Association of 
Treland. By a Member of that Body. 

Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe, wife of the Am- 
bassador from Charles II. to Madrid, from Origi- 
nal MSS. 

Journal of an Embassy fromthe Governor Ge- 
neral of India to the Court of Ava. By Jobn 
Crawford, the late Enyoy. 

The School of Fashion. In 3 vols. 

The Sectarian, or the Church and the Meeting- 
honse. 

The Author of Pelham has another work in 
preparation, which may be expected in the course 
of the summer. 

The Author of the Red Rover has also ano- 
ther novel nearly ready. 


LIST OF NEW WORKS. 


BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY. 


Memoirs of General Miller. Second Edition, 
much enlarged. 2 vols. 8vou. 36s. Also in 
Spanish and French. 

The History of the Huguenots during the Six- 
teenth Century. By W.S. Browning, Esq. 2 vols. 
8yo. 2s. 

A Sketch of the Political History of Ancient 
Greece. By A. H. Heeran, Professor of History 
in the University of Goettingen. S8yo, 10s. Gd, . 


List of New Works. 


[ApriL, 


Faulkner's History of Chelsea. 2 yols. 8vo. 
boards. Forty plates. £2. 2s. 

A Short History of Spain. By Maria Callcott, 
with Wood Engravings. 2yols. 12mo, 16s. 

History of the Revolutions in Europe, from the 
Subversion of the Roman Empire in the West, to 
the Abdieation of Buonaparte. From the French 
of C.W. Koch. By Andrew Crichton. 3 vols. 
12mo. 16s, 6d. 

Origines; or Remarks on the Origin of several 
Empires, States, and Cities. By the late Right 
Hon. Sir William Drummond. 4 vols. 8vo. £2. 8s- 

A Complete History of the Rebellions in Scot- 
land, under the Marquess of Montrose,and others, 
from 1638 to 1660; and under the Pretender in 
1745 and 1746. By Robert Chambers. 4 yols- 
12mo. 2is. 


BOTANICAL. 


A Synopsis of the British Flora; arranged ac- 
cording tothe Natural Orders ; containing Vas- 
culares, or Flowering Plants. By J. Lindley, 
F.R.S. &c. &c. &c. 12mo. 10s. 6d. boards. 

A Treatise on the Inscets most prevalent on 
Fruit Trees and Garden Produee, giving an ac~ 
eount of the different states they pass through, 
the Depredations they commit, Recipes for their 
destruction, &c. &c. By Joshua Major, landscape 
gardener. 8yo. 10s. 6d. 

Steggall’s Introduction te” Botany. 18mo. 5s., 
eoloured 7s. By the same Author, An Essay on 
Poisons. 18mo. 4s, 6d. 

CLASSICAL. 

(Edipus Tyrannus of Sophocles, with Englist 
Notes, Questions, &c. By the Rey. L. Brasse, 
D.D. 8vo. 5s. boards. 

Historical and Critical Remarks on the Nine 
Books of the History of Herodotus, translated 


from the French of P. H. Larcher. 2 ols, Sy¥o. 

28s, g 
LAW. ; 

Archbold’s Practice of the Court of Common 

Pleas. 2yols. 12mo, 21s. . 


Robiuson’s Analysis of the Criminal Statutes. 
12mo. 8s. - 

A Treatise on Bills and Banking. 12mo. 7s. 6d: 
- Jickling on Legal ané@ Equitable Estates. 
Royal 4to. 24s, : 


MEDICAL. 


The Influence of Physical Education, in pro- 
dueing and confirming, in Females, Deformity of 
the Spine. By E. W. Duffin, Surgeon. 8yo. 

Observations on the Derangement of the Diges- 
tive Organs, and on their Connection with Local 
Complaints. By William Law, Esq. 8yo. 6s. 

Duncan’s Supplement to the Edinburgh Dis- 
pensatory. Syo. 8s, boards. 

Compendium of Anatomy for Students. 
plates. 18mo. 2s. 6d. 

Mackintosh’s Practice of Physic. 8vyo. 
boards, 

An Address to the Public, drawn from Natnre 
and Religion, against the unlimited Dissection of — 
Human Bodies. 1s, 6d. 


With, 


14s 


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the Classification of Linneus; with Dlustrations 


of every Order. By John Howard Hinton, AM. 
4to. 5s. to 


Anderson’s Druggist’s Price Book for 1829 
2s, 6d. 


1829.] 


MISCELLANEOUS. 

A Catalogue of the Library, Queen’s College, 
in the University of Cambridge, Methodically ar- 
ranged: By Thomas Hartwell Horne. 2 vols. 
royal 8vyo. £3. 3s. 

The Shepherd’s Calendar. By James Hogg, 
Author of the Queen’s Wake, &c. 2 vols. 12imo. 
Ids. 

A Treatise on Naval Gunnery. By Sir Howard 
Douglass, Bart. 8vo. lis. 

Oxford and Locke. By Lord Grenville, excul- 
pating the University of Oxford, from the charge 
of having expelled the immortal Locke.—A 
pamphlet. 

‘The Games of the Match at Chess played be- 
tween the London and Edinburgh Chess Clubs, in 
1824-5-6-7-8. With Notes and back Games. 
8vo. 7s. 

Friendly Advice te my poor Neighbours. 12mo, 
4s. 6d. 

Transactions of the Royal Academy, Volume 15, 

The Home Book, or Young Housekeeper’s As- 
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Economy. 12mo, 5s. Also, 

The Hgme Account Book, or Housekeeper’s 
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Observations on the Arts, with Tables of the 
Principal Painters of the various Italian, Spanish, 
French, Flemish, Dutch, and German Schools, 
their Scholars and Imitators, &c. &c. By ‘Thomas 
Winstanley. 5s. 

Synopsis of Practical Perspective, Lineal and 
Hrial. By T. H. Fielding. Royal Svo. 18s. 

Cruikshank’s London Characters, 4to. 6s. 

Leigh’s New Pocket Road Book of Scotland ; 
to which are added, Pleasure Tours. Illustrated 
with a coloured Map of Scotland, and a Guide to 
the Curiosities of Edinburgh. 18mo. bound. 8s. 

Crosby's Builder’s Price Book, for 1829. 4s. 

An Explanation of the Differences existing be- 
‘tween the Manager of the Italian Opera, and the 
*“Nonconforming Members of the late Orchestra. 

' Letters on the Climate, Inhabitants, Produc- 
tions, &c. of the Neilgherries, or Blue Mountains 
of Coimbatoor, South India. By James Hough, 
of Madras. 8vo. 6s. boards. 

NOVELS AND TALES. 

Eleanor Oxilvie, the Maid of the Tweed ; a Ro- 
mantic Legend. By Rosalia St. Clair. 3 yols, 
‘12mo. 16s. 6d. 

The Female Character Illustrated,in Tales and 
‘Sketches from Real Life. By Piers Shafton, 
Gent. 8yo. 10s. 6d. 

Schiller’s William Tell, closely translated frum 
the German, with illustrative Notes. 8vo. 

Military Memoirs of Four Brothers (natives of 
Staffordshire,) engaged in the Service of their 

Country, as well in the New World and Africa, as 
on the Continent of Europe. By the Survivor, 
- Byo. 

Misfortunes of Elphin. 
‘Headlong Hall. 12mo. 17s. 

Ralph Gemmell, a Tale for Youth. By the 
Rey. RB. Pollock, Author of The Course of Time, 
with an Engraving, and Life of the Author. 
Third Edition, 18mo. 2s. 6d. boards. 

The Persecuted Family, a Narrative of the 
Suflerings endured by the Presbyterians in Scot- 
Jand, during the reign of Charles IJ. By the 
Rey. Robert Pollock, Author of 'The Course of 
Time, with an Engraving, and Life of the Author. 
Third Edition. 18mo. 2%, 6d. boards, 


By the Author of 


List of New Works. 


435 


POETRY: 

The Legendary Cabinet ; a Collection of Bri- 
tish National Ballads, Ancient and Modern, from 
the best Authorities, with Notes and Illustrations. 
By the Rey. J.D. Parry, M.A. 12s. 

Lays of Leisure Hours. By Maria Jane Jews- 
bury. 12mo, 5s. boards. 

The African, a Tale, and other Poems, By D. 
Moore. Post 8vo. 

The Village Patriarch, a Poem, in Ten Books, 
12mv. 6s. 

The Doom of Derenzil, a National Poem, By 
the late I’. Furlong. Post 8yo, 5s. 

Holiday Dreams, or Light Reading in Poetry 
and Prose. By Isabel Hill. Post 8vo. 7s. 6d. 

Lux Renata, a Protestant’s Bpistle, with Notes. 
by the Rey Edward Smedley,M.A. 8yo. 4s. Gd. 
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BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PERSONS. 


MR. JOHNSTONE. 

The history of the early years of the late 
Mr. John Johnstone, the celebrated thea- 
trical representative of Irish characters, is 
somewhat obscure. Dublin has generally 
had the credit of giving him birth; but, 
according to a source of more probable au- 
thenticity, he was born at Kilkenny, on the 
Ist of August, 1749. One account states, 
that his father was a quarter-master, riding- 
master, and paymaster to one of the regi- 
ments of horse in Ireland ; another, that his 
mother was a dealer in second-hand wear- 
ing apparel, and well known to theatrical 
people; and that, in consequence, little 
Jack acquired an early knowledge of the 
sons of the sock and buskin, became at- 
tached’to the histrionic profession, and en- 
listed under the banners of an itinerant com- 
pany in Iréland. “There is little doubt, we 
believe, that he was employed some years in 
an attorney’s office in Dublin ; and, it is an 
admitted fact, that he was some. time in the 
army, but whether as a private soldier or as 


a cadet, is contested. However, in due time 
he obtained an engagement in Smock ‘Alley 
theatre, Dublin, where he made his first ap-— 
pearance as Lionel, in the opera of Lionel 
and Clarissa. His reception was flattering. 
At that time the favourite songstress of that 
theatre was a Miss Poitier, a young woman 


of unblemished reputation. Johnstone mar- — 


ried this lady, and gradually rose in estima- 
tion as a singer, until he and his wife took 
the lead in that department. Macklin wit-— 
nessed his performances in Ireland, and on— 
his return to London, the veteran recom- 
mended him to Mr. Harris, of Covent-gar- 
den theatre, who engaged him and his wife 
‘for three years, at the weekly salary of four- 
teen, sixteen, and eighteen pounds. It was 
.on the 3d of October, 1783, seven years 
afier he hod made his débi¢ on the Dublin 
stage, that he made his first bow to a Lon- 
don audience, in his favourite part of Lionel. 


He and Mrs. Johnstone were both received 


with considerable éclat. Soon afterwards, 
however, the scandalous chronicles of the 


a 


1829.] - 


time made very free with the conjugal cha- 
racter of our hero. He is said to have been 
seduced by the personal charms and meretri- 
cious wiles of Mrs. Wilson, an actress, who 
was as much detested for her vices as a wo- 
man, as she was admired for her professional 
talent. The laudable emulation of Mrs. 
Johnstone was thus checked ; her health de- 
clined, and, within a brief period, she died 
of a broken heart. Poetical justice speedily 
overtook the worthless woman, to whose 
artifices she had fallen a victim; and she, 
too, died soon afterwards, at Shrewsbury, 
friendless, in poverty, and in misery. John- 
stone, at first, a very general lover, at length, 
consoled himself in the society of a lady 
upon whom a handsome annuity had been 
settled by a member of the Society of 
Friends. With her he lived for several 
years. The beautiful Miss Bolton, daughter 
of a wine merchant in Bond-street, took a 
strong fancy to the gay and dashing Irish- 
man; and, obeying the impulse of passion, 
rather than the dictates of prudence, she 
eloped, accompanied by one of her sisters, 
and they both resided some time with Mr. 
Johnstone, in his own lodgings. The affair 
of course got wind, and only one measure 
remained open by which to save the lady’s 
reputation. That step Johnstone honour- 
ably and generously took ; he married hera 
few wecks after her elopement ; and, by the 
mediation of friends, a general family re- 
conciliation was effected. This was about 
the year 1791. 

After remaining several seasons at Covent 
Garden Theatre, in the vocal line, he was 
induced to attempt Irish’ characters, of 
which there was, at that time, no adequate 
- fepresentative. In these, his rich, genuine, 
and characteristic humour, sécured for him 
Such eminent success, that he ever after- 
wards retained their sole and undisputed 
possession. Indeed, all who remember him, 
even down to the very close of his career, 
must allow that his place as yet remains ut- 
terly vacant. Johnstone was one of the 
performers who remonstrated with the pro- 
prietors of Covent Garden Theatre, in the 
year 1600, respecting certain new regula- 
tions unfavourable to the interests of the 
dramatic corps. Notwithstanding this, his 
engagement was renewed. In 1803, he 
quitted Covent Garden, and joined the 
Drury Lane Company. It was at Covent 
Garden, howeyer, that he took his final leave 
_ of the stage, in the part of Dennis Brul- 
gruddery, in 1820. The performance was 
or his benefit, towards which his present 
Majesty, who, while Prince of Wales, had 
been much attached to his society, contri- 
buted 1001. Mr. Johnstone retired upon 
a handsome competence, accumulated by 
industry, economy, and judicious appropria- 
tion of money. 

Johnstone’s person was manly and hand- 
some, with the exception of his legs, which 
Were remarkably large and clumsy. In 
early life he was a bon vivant; but we are 
not aware that he ever forgot his duty upon 


Biographical Memoirs of Eminent Persons. 


437 


the stage. Until within a few months of 
his decease (which occurred at his residence, 
Tavistock-row, Covent-Garden, on the 27th 
of December) his appearance was that of a 
hale hearty man, not more than sixty years 
of age. On the 3d of January, his remains 
were interred in one of the vaults, beneath 
the church of St. Paul, Coyent-garden ; the 
body having been deposited in a hearse, 
drawn by six horses, and followed by six 
mourning coaches, in which were Messrs. 
Kemble, Price, Fawcett, Bannister, Ellis- 
ton, Matthews, Munden, Pope, Powell, 
Harley, T. Cooke, Power, Cooper, Keeley, 
Blanchard, &c. About ten days afterwards, 
his will was proved in Doctors’ Commons, 
and probate granted under 12,0001. personal 
property. Rumour had given him credit 
for being worth four or five times as much, 
He left a gold snuff-box and ring to each 
of his executors, Mr. George Robins, and 
Mr. O’Rielly; a ring to his friend, Mr. 
Joblin, of the Adelphi; and a ring to Mr. 
Dunn, the treasurer of Drury Lane Theatre ; 
and, as Mr. D. is one of the angle, John- 
stone also left him all his fishing tackle. 
To a female servant, who had nursed him 
during the last eight or ten years of his life, 
he bequeathed an annuity of 501. The re- 
mainder of his property, with the exception 
of a legacy of 5001. to Mrs. Vining, is left 
to the children of his favourite daughter, 
Mrs. Wallack, so closely tied up, however; 
that the interest only can be touched during 
that lady’s life. 


THE COUNT DE BARRAS. 

Paul Francis John Nicholas, Count de 
Barras, a name of note in the French Revo- 
lution, was born in the year 1756 or 1757. 
He was the descendant of a family of whom 
it was proverbially said—“ as ancient and as 
noble as the Barras, who are as old as the 
rocks of Provence.” 


Barras commenced his career in the army. 
In 1775 he served in the Isle of France 
with the regiment of Pondicherry. He had 
nearly perished on the coast of Coromandel : 
overtaken by a storm, the ship in which he 
was sailing struck on a rock; the crew 
abandoned her in despair ; but Barras roused 
them from their stupor, stimulated them to 
exertion, constructed a raft, and succeeded 
in reaching an island inhabited by savages. 
In about a month afterwards, he and his 
companions found means to reach Pondi- 
cherry. 

Barras returned to France with the rank 
of Captain ; but his dissipated habits, his 
addiction to gaming and to women, ruined 
his fame and his fortune, and qualified him 
for any desperate enterprize that might offer. 
It is not therefore to be wondered at, that 
he embraced the cause of the revolutionists. 
He distinguished himself in the National As- 
sembly of 1789. On the 14th of July heassist- 
ed in the attack on the Bastile ; and, on the 
10th of August, 1792, in that against the 
Tuileries. In September he was returned 


438 


to the National Convention a Deputy from 
the Department of the War. He was one 
of the members who voted for the death of 
Louis XVI. In October, 1793, he was sent 
to the South, in conjunction with Ricord 
and Freron ; and, in the violence of his mea-~ 
sures, he fell not short of his colleagues. He 
was at Toulon when that place was deli- 
vered to the English. With difficulty he 
escaped ; and, after fighting his way through 
the party which attacked his carriage at 
Pignan, he embarked at St. Tropez, and 
arrived in the night at Nice. There, in the 
midst of his army, he arrested General 
Brunet, who was accused of having been the 
secret author of the surrender of Toulon. 
Through the precipitate abandonment of the 
place by the British troops, (December 9th, 
1793) the Republicans again obtained pos- 
session of Toulon. The cruelties which 
were exercised towards those of the inhabit- 
ants who had, or were supposed to have par- 
ticipated in delivering the city to the Bri- 
tish, will not soon be forgotten. In those 
eruelties Barras had his full share. In an- 
nouncing the recovery of the city to the 
Convention, he thus expressed himself.— 
“‘ The only honest men I found at Toulon 
were the galley slaves; and,’ he added, 
“ every foreigner is a prisoner, every French- 
man is shot.” 

Robespierre found Barras a sturdy oppo- 
nent; thence he attempted to have him 
arrested, but without effect, for Barras op- 
posed force to force. Robespierre was, at 
that time, meditating a grand proscription. 
Barras united with the members of the 
Committee, who, to avoid the impending 
storm, made a great effort of counteraction. 
By these means he became one of the prin- 
cipal actors in the memorable scenes of the 
27th of July, 1794. He was then named 
Commandant of the armed force, which 
repulsed the troops of Henriot, and seized 
Robespierre. On the following morning he 
resigned the command, and, in a few days 
after, was elected Secretary. On the 23d 
of September he denounced Moyse Bayle, 
and Granet, as the authors of the troubles 
in the South; and he farther accused them 
of being the enemies of Marat. Barras was 
inculpated in his turn, by Granet and Escu- 
dier, as a dilapidator, but was cleared by 
a decree of the Convention. 

On the Ist of April, 1795, the Conven- 
tion was besieged by the people of the sub- 
utbs, vociferating for bread, and the consti- 
tution of 1793. Paris was declared in a 
state of siege, and the command of the 
troops was given to Pichegru. Repeatedly 
in the course of the year Barras was again 
entrusted with the command of the national 
troops ; and it was upon one of those occa- 
sions, that he invited Buonaparte, then a 
young artillery officer, to his aid, and en- 
trusted him with the charge of keeping the 
Parisians in order. In his report, Barras 
ascribed all the honours of his success to 
Buonaparte, and obtained for him the com- 
mand of the Army of the Interior. Buona- 


Biographical Memoirs of Eminent Persons. 


LArrit, 


parte, it will be remembered, afterwards 
married Madame Beauharnois,. the mistress 
of Barras. 

For his numerous services, Barras was 
named one of the Five Directors, and thus 
became one of the chiefs of the government. 
By his firmness and spirit, he maintained an 
ascendancy over his colleagues. On the 
2lst of January, 1727, as President of the 
Executive Power, he pronounced, in the 
church of Notre Dame, a discourse on the 
decapitation of Louis XVI. By the 18th 
of Fructidor, he became almost absolute 
master in the Directory ; but, in 1799, find- 
ing that his power had become precarious, 
he entered into a negociation, the object of 
which was to restore the Bourbon dynasty. 
Buonaparte at that time suddenly returned 
from Egypt, and appeared in Paris. In 
that ambitious military adventure, Barras 
found not the steady friend he expected. 
Buonaparte had views of his own; those 
views were hostile to the interests of Barras ; 
and, by the triumph of Buonaparte, the 
Director was hurled from the summit of 
power. 

Barras soon afterwards retired to Brussels, 
where, for many years, he lived in a splen- 
did mansion, and maintained a consider- 
able retinue. In 1805 he obtained permis- 
sion to remove to the South of France ; but, 
being implicated in a plot, in conjunction 
with the English government, to reinstate 
the Bourbons, he was exiled to Rome. 

In 1814, he returned to Paris ; and soon 
afterwards he shewed his attachment to the 
monarchy, by imparting to the Count de 
Blaccas some hints respecting the manceuyres 
of Buonaparte in the Isle of Elba. He also 
made a tender of his services to proceed to 
Naples for the purpose of inducing Murat, 
over whom he considered himself to possess 
some influence, to resign the crown. Louis 
XVIII. deemed it expedient tosend a courier 
previously to the 20th of March, 1818, to 
Barrras, to hasten his arrival in Paris, but 
Buonaparte made so rapid a progress in his 
journey, that he intercepted. the despatch. 
Barras, however, reached Paris in the month ~ 
of May following.. Not accepting any office 
under Buonaparte, he was not rendered ob- 
noxious to the decrees of exile issued on the 
final restoration of the Bourbons ; and, con- 
sequently, he continued to reside in the 
capital until the time of his death, which 
occurred at the latter end of January last. 

Barras’ mind was active and ambitious 5 
and he possessed a boldness of character, 
which, on great occasions, frequently sup- 
plies the want of talents, and a natural wit, 
which as frequently covers the defects of 
education. 


MR. SHIELD. 

William Shield, one of the most cele- 
brated of English composers, was born at 
Swalwell, in the county of Durham, in the 
year 1754. His father, an eminent singing 
master, removed to South Shields soon after 
his birth ; and such was his musical repute, 


1829. 


that his practice, even in that obscure situa- 
tion, embraced the tuition of nearly a hun- 
dred pupils. William was taught by his 
father to modulate his voice, and practise 
the violin, when he was only six years old ; 
and, within a year and a half, he had made 
so extraordinary a progress as to be able to 
perform Corelli’s fifth work. This was the 
more remarkable, as much of his time had 
been occupied by the harpsichord. He could 
then sing at sight, and read every cliff. In 
his ninth year, William lost his parent and 
tutor, who left a widow with four children. 
He was desirous of making music his pro- 
fession, but his desire was checked by the 
ridicule with which the calling of a fiddler 
was constantly treated in a sea-port town. 
He had the choice given him of becoming 
a sailor, a boat-builder, or a barber. He 
decided in favour of boat-building, and was 
bound apprentice to Edward Dayison, then 
residing in the neighbourhood of South 
Shields. He was kept rather close to his 
employment ; yet his master occasionally in- 
dulged him in the exercise of his favourite 
pursuit, from which, in the third year of his 
apprenticeship, he sometimes obtained slight 
pecuniary advantages. He led the New- 
castle subscription concerts, where he re- 
peatedly played the solo parts of Gemini- 
ani’s and Giardini’s concerts; and haying 
produced an admired specimen of sacred 
music, when the new church was to be con- 
secrated at Sunderland, he was requested to 
compose the anthem, which was performed 
by the then excellent Durham choir, to an 
immense congregation. Soon after the ex- 
piration of his term, he resolved to relin- 
quish boat-building, and to adopt the pro- 
fession of music. From the celebrated theo- 
rist, Avison, of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, he 
received lessons in thorough bass ; and, hay- 
ing grounded himself in the principles, as 
well as practice of his art, he went upon a 
musical expedition to Scarborough, whither 
he was inyited by his intimate friend, Cun- 
- ningham, the well-known pastoral poet, 
__ several of whose songs he had set to music at 
_ South Shields. At Scarborough, his talents 
~ were much noticed ; he acquired the situa- 
_ tion of leader of the theatrical band, and of 
the principal concerts ; and he obtained the 
intimacy and friendship of many respectable 
individuals. Soon after the death of Mr. 
_ Avison, the son of that gentleman engaged 
~ him as leader at the Durham theatre and at 
the Newcastle concerts. Returning next 
‘season to Scarborough, he was solicited by 
Fischer and Borghi to accept a vacant seat 
in the orchestra of the Italian Opera House. 
The offer was accepted, and Giardini placed 
him in the rank of the second violins. In 
the following season, Cramer removed him 
to the principal viola ; at which post. he re- 
mained eighteen years; in the course of 
which he produced upwards of twenty operas 
for Colman’s theatre, and that of Covent 
Garden. 
Mr. Shield, on account of the ill health of 
Mr. Bulkley, was, one season, leader of the 


Biographical Memoirs of Eminent Persons. 


439 


band at the Little Theatre in the Hay- 
market, At that time the Rev. Mr, Bate 
(afterwards the Rey. Sir Henry Bate Dud- 
ley) wrote the pleasant little afterpiece of the 
Flitch of Bacon, for the music of which he 
applied to Mr. Shield. Dr. Arnold being 
the regular composer for the theatre, Shield’s 
delicacy induced him to hesitate ; but, as 
Mr. Bate threatened to withdraw the piece 
unless it were produced with Shield’s music, 
he at length complied. His success was 
great and decisive. 

Mr. Shield’s time was much occupied in 
assisting at the great concerts; such as 
Bach’s, Abel’s, and La Motte’s, for which 
first-rate performers only were qualified ; 
when Mr. Harris, manager of Covent Gar- 
den Theatre, offered to engage him as re- 
gulator of the band, and composer to the 
House. This appointment he accepted, 
and filled with much success, until a differ- 
ence between him and Mr. Harris, on a pe- 
cuniary point, induced him to resign. He 
was also appointed one of the musicians in 
ordinary to the King; and he was engaged 
in the Ladies’ Friday Concerts, the grand 
Sunday Concerts, and the Wednesday’s 
Concerts of Ancient Music. From the last 
of these he withdrew, as the necessary atten- 
dance at the Monday’s rehearsels, interfered 
with his theatrical duty. Lord Sandwich, 
however, who was the influential friend of 
Mr. Harris and Joah Bates, commanded his 
return to a task which he always performed 
with pleasure, and at last relinquished with 
regret. 

About this time, Mr. Shield accidentally 
travelled from London to Taplow, with the 
celebrated Haydn ; and he considered him- 
self to have gained more important informa- 
tion by four day’s society with that great 
founder of a style which has given fame to 
numerous imitators, than ever he acquired 
by the best directed studies in any four years 
in any portion of his life. 

In the month of August, 1792, after the 
relinquishment of his engagement at Covent 
Garden Theatre, he resolved to employ his 
leisure in visiting Italy, the land of the me- 
lodious' art. He accordingly quitted Eng- 
land in company with the ingenious but 
eccentric Mr. Ritson, to whom the public 
are indebted for the restoration of many va- 
luable productions of the British lyric muse. 
At Paris, Mr. Shield and Mr. Ritson were 
joined by several agreeable foreigners who 
also were anxious to improve their taste by 
witnessing the great operatical performances 
of the Continent. From Paris they pro- 
ceeded to Lyons, to Chambery, Turin, Mi- 
lan, Lodi, Piacenza, Parma, Modena, Bo- 
logna, Florence, Sienna, and Rome. At 
Rome Mr. Shield met with Sir William 
Hamilton and his lady, whose attention to 
him did honour to their regard for genius 
travelling in search of science. Prince Au- 
gustus also noticed him in a very flattering 
manner. At Rome, too, he contracted an 
intimate friendship with More, the land- 
scape painter. After receiving lessons every 


440 


day for two months, and obtaining much 
particular as well as general instruction, he 
returned to England. 

On his arrival, he renewed his engage- 
ment at Covent Garden Theatre. However, 
another misunderstanding soon took place 
‘between him and the manager, and he again 
resigned. Not long afterwards, he published 
his well-known “ Introduction to Har- 
mony.’’ At the death of Sir William Par- 
sons, his present’ Majesty, with whom 
Shield was always a great favourite, most 
graciously appointed him, without solicita- 
tion, Master of his Musicians in Ordi- 
nary. - 

Mr. Shield, as a composer, was pure, 
‘chaste, and original. His prominent cha- 
acteristic was simplicity. Perhaps no com - 
poser ever wove so few notes into melodies 
so Sweet and impressive; while the con- 
struction of the bass and harmony is at once 
graceful, easy, and unaffected. In Rosina, 
Marian, &c. his airs breathe all the fresh- 
ness and purity, and beauty of rural life ; 
though the more ornamented and difficult 
parts are carried far beyond the common 
style of bravura. His songs are strictly na-~ 
tional. After Purcell, Shield constitutes the 
finest example of really English composers. 
It was to his compositions that the late 
Charles Bannister, Charles Incledon, Irish 
Johnstone, and Mrs. Billington, were chiefly 
indebted for their celebrity as English bal- 
lad singers. Of his dramatic pieces, the fol- 
lowing is, we believe; a complete list :-— 
The Flitch of Bacon; Rosina;° Lord 
Mayor’s Day; The Poor Soldier; Robin 
Hood; Friar Bacon ;-Fontainbleau ; Omai; 
‘The Choleric Father; The Magic Cavern ; 
The Noble Peasant ; Sprigs of Laurel ; 
Travellers in Switzerland; The Midnight 
Wanderer; Netley Abbey; the Highland 
Reel ; the Farmer; Love in a Camp; The 
Crusade; The Woodman; Marian; The 
Picture of Paris; The Enchanted Castle : 
The Czar; Oscar and Malvina; Hartford 
Bridge; Arrived at Portsmouth ; Lock and 
Key ; Abroad and at Home, and the Italian 
Villagers. 

Mr. Shield has‘also published an Intro- 
duction to Harmony; A Cento; Six Can- 
zonets ; Two sets of Trios for a violin, tenor, 
and violencello, &c. Amongst his simple 
pieces, always in great estimation, we find : 
—Shakspeare’s Loadstars: The Thorn ; The 
Bird of the Rose ; O bring me Wine; The 
Wolf; The Heaving of the Lead; The 
Post Captain; Old Towler; The Stream- 
let; The Ploughboy ; Let Fame sound her 
Trumpet; The Pretty Little Heart; How 
shall we Mortals ; Village Maids ; Ah, well- 
a-day my Poor Heart; the Battle Song; 
T’ve traversed Judah’s Barren Land; ’Tis 
no harm to know it, ye know; Heigho; 
Tom Moody; Poor Barbara; the Literary 
Fund Glee ; Down the Bourne and Through 
the Mead; the Prince and Cld England for 
ever; Our Laws, Constitution, and King, 
and Oxfordshire Nancy bewitched. The 
last of these is said to have been composed 


Biographical Memoirs of Eminent Persons. 


[Aprin, 


at the request of Garrick, long after he had 
retired from the stage. 

Mr. Shield was devotedly attached to his 
wife, and, while she was living, to his 
mother. It has been said of him, that he 
never broke his word, or lost a friend. He 
died at his residence, in Berners-street, on 
the 25th of January; and his remains were 
interred in Westminster Abbey, on the 4th 
of February. The funeral procession com- 
prised nearly all our great musical per- 
formers, vocal and instrumental. The King 
has been pleased to appoint Mr. Kramer, 
the master of his Majesty’s private band, to 
succeed him as Master of the band of the 
King’s musicians. 

JOHN CHRISTIAN CURWEN; ESQ., M. P. 

The late Mr. Curwen, one of the repre- 
sentatives in Parliament of the county of 
Cumberland, was brother to Edward Chris- 
tian, Esq., the well known editor of Black- 
stone’s Commentaries, Chief Justice of the 
Isle of Ely, &c. He was a member of the 
the ancient and very respectable family of 
M’ Christen, of the Isle of Man, “ who,” 
says Lysons, ‘ for several generations were 
deemsters, or judges of that island. They 
appear first to have written their name Chris- 
tian, about the year 1600. Ewan Christian, 
Esq., the first of the family who settled at 
Unerigg, (or Ewanrigg) died in 1719.” 

Mr. Curwen was born in July 1756. At 
the age of about twenty he (then Mr. Chris- 
tian) married Miss Taubman, of the Isle of 
Man, by whom he had issue, the present 
John Christian, Esq., now one of the deem- 
sters of that island. On the death of his 
first wife, he married his cousin, Miss Cur- 
wen, only daughter of the late Henry Cur- 
wen, Esq., of Workington Hall, and last of 
the family of that name. In 1790, there- 
fore, Mr. C. added Curwen to his name of 
Christian, by the King’s sign manual. By 
his second marriage he had three sons, — 
Henry, William, and John, and two daugh- 
ters, all of whom are living, with the excep- 
tion of William. Mrs. Curwen died in 
1820. 

Mr. Curwen was first returned, as a Mem- 
ber of Parliament, for Carlisle, after a warm — 
contest, in which he was supported by the 
Norfolk interest. He was seven times re- 
chosen for the same city. He had been 
constantly opposed by the Lonsdale interest ; 
and it was not until 1796 that he triumphed 
completely over it. He sat in two, if not 
three Parliaments for the county of Cumber- 
land. He was, both from connection and 
principle, a steady opposition member. He 
took an active part in the debates on the 
property tax, and on the game and corn 
laws; and made some attempts to reform 
the poor laws. As an electioneering orator, 
he was perhaps unrivalled ; he spoke to the 
passions and feelings, and rarely failed in~ 
making all the impression he desired. As 
a politician, he was shewy, but superficial. — 
His parliamentary speeches, though deli- 
vered with flu~ncy, and in a-com’ °nding 


1829.] 


voice and aitituce, were meagre, tautolo- 
gical, and exceedingly ill-arranged. He 
was, if we forget not, a supporter of the 
wretched, demoralizing, and now almost ex- 
ploded system of Malthus. However, he 
_was entitled to the merit of cleverness, con- 
sistency, and integrity. 

Active and temperate from youth, and 
strongly attached to rural pursuits, he en- 
joyed an almost uninterrupted flow of robust 
health during his long life, till within about 
the Jast two years, when his constitution ex- 
hibited symptoms of breaking up. He was a 
practical agriculturist of no small note; he 
obtained from the Society for the Encou- 
ragement of Arts, Manvfactures, and @om- 
merce, several gold medals for planting, and 
‘other improvements in agriculture; he also 
completed the most extensive drainage in 
the kingdom; and he held annually, a 


Biographical. Menwirs of Eminent Persons. 


441 


grand sheep-shearing at’ Harrow, on the 
borders of the Windermere lake. 

In the session of Parliament of 1826-7, 
Mr. Curwen began to experience the incon- 
venience of late hours and crowded houses. 
The freshness of the Cumberland breezes 
produced a beneficial effect upon him in the 
summer and autumn of 1827 ; but, as winter 
approached, his debility returned, and he 
found himself unable to encounter his sena- 
torial duties during the succeeding session. 
The summer of 1828 failed in its restorative 
effect ; and he gradually declined till.the 
period_of his decease, on the Lith of De- 
cember. His Unerigg property goes to his 
eldest scn, John Christian, Esq., of the Isle 
of Man; and the Workington Hall estate 
descends to Henry Curwen, Esq., who, for 
many years past, has lived in comparative 
retirement at Belle Isle, Windermere, 


MONTHLY AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 


_ Reports from all parts ef the country, whether with respect to the weather, the state 
of the lands, or the forwardness of the various agricultural operations, continue highly 
satisfa¢tory and pleasant. We have, indeed, had an ample share of that wonder-worker 
in the opinion of our three times great grandsires—marcn Dust. The vast and general 
advantages, howeyer, derived from the weather, will not be expected to exist, indeper- 
dently of any drawback or alley. Upon poor soils, and in bleak, exposed situations, vege- 
tation has suffered much from the rigour of this long course of easterly winds, and has 
exchanged that premature and unseasonable bloom which it possessed at Christmas, for 
a pale and sickly green, which stropgly indicates the want of a change of temperature, 
Bating some few breadths of wheat which having perished, and the land has been broken 
up and re-sown with other crops, no material injury has hitherto been sustained ; and 
their season approaching, the advent of genial showers and mild western breezes, may yet 
have the effect of exciting the full of that fertility, of which our poorest soils are suscep- 
tible. In the mean time, we hold ourselves fully compensated for any disadvantages 

which may have resulted, by the uncommonly fine and friable state to which the fallows 
have been reduced, enabling us to put in the spring crops with an uninterrupted facility 
and dispatch which is not an every-year occurrence, and rendering the present one of the 
earliest of Lenten seasons. 


In the forward districts, beans and peas, and a considerable quantity of oats, were put 
into the ground by the end of last month; the pulse, of course, either drilled or dibbed ; 
_though, strange to say, there are too many parts of the country where the old, barbarous, 
and unprofitable method of broad-casting beans, even yet, prevails. The winter beans, 
on proper soils, have stood well, and that article is under experiment in several parts 
_ northward, where it has hitherto been a stranger. Barley sowing has proceeded expe- 
_ ditiously, and yery considerable breadths will have the great advantage of being put into 
_ the ground early. The early sown, and the wheats on good lands, have an appearance 
_ of high promise ; being well stocked and standing thick upon the soil, their roots are so 
‘ell defended from the rigour of the season, that no apprehension is entertained on their 

ount. The thin wheats, here and there, show considerable ravages from the grub and 
Worm ; yet farmers, in their usual tone, are making heayy complaints against the 
e of rooks with which their lands are pestered: to these complaints the old 
5 y, or rather demand, is at hand—if such myriads of insects can co-exist with the 
‘ rooks, the natural prey of which those insects are, what would be the consequence to the 
land and to the farmer, were the rooks destroyed or driven away ? ‘Tillage is very forward 

_ for seeds and roots, and all the spring latter crops. 


The cold and dry weather has preserved the turnips, by checking their growth and pro- 
_ gress towards seeding. In some parts of the North, the surplus of these roots is so con- 
siderable, as to have been offered, gratis, for the consumption of cattle and sheep, in order 
to clearing the lands. A correspondent in the West remarks, that his English turnips, in 
_ the present season, have remained sound, whilst the Swedish (J?uéabaga) decayed very 
early ; and, compared with the former, were a very unprofitable crop. ‘This is not an 
yee occurrence, and the probable cause is the unfitness of the soil for the Swede, 
which requires stronger land than the common English turnip. The autumn continuing 


M.M New Sevies.x—Vou.VII. No. 40. 


3.1L 


442 Monthly Agricultural Report. [ArRiL, 


so mild to the very end, and the soil so grassy, the cattle have made very moderate 
demands on the straw-yard; the consequence is the largest stock of hay, straw, and roots, 
that has ever before been accumulated in this country: a sudden and mighty contrast to 
the spring of last year. The fate of the Mangold, or cattle-beet, is amusing; it took us 
full twenty long years to write and preach it into fashionable use, and behold within these 
few years—“ the stone which the builders rejected, is become the head stone of the 
corner!’ From being deemed unworthy of notice, and useless, Mangold Wurtzel has 
been suddenly elevated into a crack article of general utility—wine is made from it ; it 
fattens fowls and even bacon hogs; but it must assuredly be for those who have not much 
skill in the quality of pork or bacon. The chief merit of the beet resides in its vast 
quantity of produce, not in its quality, in which it is inferior to all the roots applicable to 
farming purposes, the common turnip, perhaps, excepted. 


The lambing season has been generally fortunate, extending from the middle of last 
month to the conclusion ofthe present. Had the weather been of a wet or moist 
character and equally’cold, half the fall of lambs would have been destroyed. The cold 
and drought have had another beneficial effect, that of checking, or happily putting an 
end to the progress of the rot. Some flock-masters whom we know, have lest a conside- 
rable number of their lambs by a flux, known by the name of the scows ; a never-failing 
friend to the venders of quack medicines. Now this scour is generally caused by improper 
and inordinate exposure to cold, and is the probable result of suppressed perspiration, and 
may be prevented, but can seldom be cured. In well managed flocks and good situations, 
there are many yery forward lambs, which will soon be at market. From the immense 
quantity of food, which will require no trespass on the early grass, store stock, of all kinds, 
is still in great request at high prices. The meat markets, of late, have given way, it 
being supposed that farmers are more inclined to raise money from the sale of cattle than 
of corn. Pigs are grammatically dear, by custom. Good horses, of any kind, still fetch 
any price that can be demanded for them. Little is said about hops, the demonstration 
of a sufficient stock ; still less about wool, which yet continues an heir-loom in too many 
quarters. 


Wheat seemed, some weeks since, to have reached its lowest point, the usual signal for 
a rise. This, from the tenor of the corn bill, necessarily produced a sudden and con- 
siderable rise on the duty. It remains to be seen whether there be any considerable 
Stock of bread corn in the country, to take advantage of this favourable change. The 
quantity imported has been very great, producing, it is said, very considerable profits to 
the importers, and much yet remains in various exporting countries, ready for shipment. 
The usual declamations against the corn bill continue in full force, but what a crisis might 
have been induced with our superabundant population, had not every method of supply 
and of keeping down prices been adopted? ‘The fallacy of our attempts at dependence 
upon the home supply, not only of bread corn, but of various other articles of necessity, 
has become fully conspicuous. The potatoe crop has proved most abundant, and of a 
quality far surpassing expectation: the immense benefit resulting from it, as an econo- 
mizer of our stock of bread corn, exceeds all powers of description. The old cry from 
the country, that there is “‘ no money”—and what is to be done when the one pound 
notes shall become extinct ?—is as loudly cuckooed as ever: but country produce must be 
had, with the indispensable addendum—it must be paid for; hence produce will ever be — 
synonymous with money. Farmers ought to have no need to be told that their forefathers — 
were well contented to accept gold for their produce, and that there is a far greater stock 
of bullion in proportion in the country at present than in former days, and a greater facility 
of coinage. We are well aware of the great accommodation of country bank paper, and 
how it has been applied to the purpose of supporting prices, in order to enable the farmer 
to exist under the present enormous load of taxation ; but instead of perpetually calling 
out for paper, he had better spend his breath and use whatever influence he may possess, 
in favour of a more honest system. 


Smithfield.—Beef, 3s. 2d. to 4s. 4d.—Mutton, 3s. 8d. to 4s. 10d.—Veal, 5s. 6d. to 6s. 2d. 
—Pork, 5s. Od. to 6s, 6d.—Grass Lamb (scarce) 6s. to 6s. 6d.—Raw fat, 2s. 3d. 


Corn Exchange.—Wheat, 42s. to 80s.—Best Foreign White, 60s. to 85s.—Barley, | 
24s. to 40s.—Oats, 16s. to 32s.—Bread, the London 4lb. loaf, 1ld.—Hay, 36s. to 86s.— 
Clover, ditto, 50s. to 105s.—Straw, 30s. to 42s. . 


Coals in the Pool, 26s. to 34s, Gd. per chaldron. 
Middlesex, March 23d. 


1829.) c 


MONTHLY COMMERCIAL REPORT. 


Sucars.—There was.a dull sale at the sugarmarket last week ; the estimated sales of 
were only about 2000 hogsheads and tierces : no alteration could be stated in the prices : 
the good and fine descriptions are getting very scarce, and the prevalence of easterly 
winds prevent any further arrivals. In the refined market the sales last week were on a 
very limited scale; there was no alteration whatever in the prices. Some purchasers for 
the Mediterranean are stated ; but the buyers are again offering low prices. Some good 
lumps sold at 75s. Molasses are little varied.—Foreign Sugars. There has been in- 
quiries for yellow Havannah sugars for early shipment, but no parcels offered for sale. At 
public sales last week 535 chests Bahia sugars.—East India Sugars. There has been no 
sales ; the crop in the Mauritius is one-third of last year, and the quality chiefly inferior. 


Correrer.—The public sales of coffee after Tuesday last week were limited. 150 casks 
and 40 bags British plantation. Good ordinary Jamaica 38s.; ordinary middling 
50s. ; good to fine ordinary Dominica 40s. @ 47s. ; fine ordinary 48s. @ 50s.; the 
Berbice and Demerara sold high ; fine ordinary to middling 63s. @ 88s. 


Branpy, Rum, anp Hotianps.—The government contract for 150,000 gallons. 
Rum was taken by the trade at 2s. 127d. per gallon. No Jamaica rum to any extent has 
been sold. In brandy there is no alteration. Geneva continues neglected. 


Hemp, Frax, anp TaLLtow.—The fall of the town tallow-market, and a large sale 
of 3000 casks of St. Petersburg yellow candle last week, occasioned a fall of fully Is. in all 
foreign descriptions. In hemp and flax there is little variation. 


Course of Foreign Exchange.—Amsterdam, 12. 3.—Rotterdam, 12. 33.—Antwerp, 
12. 34.—Paris, 25. 50.— Bordeaux, 25. 80.—Berlin, 0.—Frank-fort-on-the-Main, 15. 14. 
— Petersburgh, 10.—Vienna, 10. 5.—Madrid, 36}.—Cadiz, 363.—Bilboa, 363.—Bar- 
celona, 36}.—Seville, 364.—Gibraltar, 49}.—Leghorn, 473.—Genoa, 25. 60.—Venice, 
474.—Malta, 483.—Naples, 39}.—Palermo, 119.—Lisbon, 453.—Oporto, 46.—Rio 
Janeiro, 26.—Bahia, 34..Dublin 14.—Cork, 13. 


Bullion per Oz.—Portugal Gold in Coin, £0. 0s. 0d.—Foreign Gold in Bars, 
£3. 17s. 9d. — New Doubloons, £0. 0s.— New Dollars, 4s. 95d. — Silver in Bars, 
(standard), £0. 5s. Od. 


Premiums on Shares and Canals, and Joint Stock Companies, at the Office of 
Wotre, Brothers, 23, Change Alley, Corthill.—Birmingham Cana, 295/.—Coven- 
try, 1,080/.— Ellesmere and Chester, 111/.—Grand Junction, 295/.—Kennet and Avon, 
274/.—Leeds and Liverpool, 4607.—Oxford, 700/.—Regent’s, 25/.—Trent and Mersey, 
( sh.), 790/.—W arwick and Birmingham, 255/.—London Docks (Stock), 873/.—West 
India (Stock), 195/.—East London Warrr Works, 115/.—Grand Junction, 50/.— 
“West Middlesex, 673/.—Alliance British and Foreign INsuRANCE, 93/.—Globe, 1513/.— 
Guardian, 23}/.—Hope Life, 5}/.—Imperial Fire, 105/.—Gas-Licur Westminster Char- 
tered Company, 51/.—City, 1874/.—British, 17 dis.—Leeds, 195/. 


% ALPHABETICAL LIST OF BANKRUPTCIES, 


q 
Announced from the 22d of February, to the 2\st of March, 1829 ; extracted from 
, the London Gazette. 


BANKRUPTCIES. 


Bowring, J. G. Fen-court, East-In- 
dia broker. (Thomas, Fen-court, 


BANKRUPTCIES SUPER- 
SEDED. 


J. Smith, Diorama, Regent’s Park, 
printer 

EZ. Seymour, Gerrard-street, dial- 
maher 


W. Smith, Leeds, corn-dealer 

Sir Charlies Henry Rich, Beenham, 
Berks, Bart., dealer and chapman 

T. Parry, Caccrugog, Hope, Flint, 
drover 


T.Smith, Manchester, publican 
W. G. Rowley, Leeds, hatter, 


[ This Month, 101.] 


Solicitors’ Names arein 
Parenthesis. 

Andrews, W. H. Judd-street, iron- 
monger. (Field, King’s-road, Bed- 
ford-square 5 Field Hitchin 

Brown, H. Gravesend, victualler. 
(Towne, St. Helen’s-place 

Bunn, J. Cellbarns, Herts, coal and 
corn-dealer, (Hilliard and Co. 
Gray’s-inn 

L 9 


- 


Fenchurch-street 

Bonus, W. Ware, innkeeper, 
lington and Co., Bedford-row 

Brown, W.H. Newington, Surrey, 
draper. (Ashurst, Newgate-street 

Burton, S$. sen., Leadenhall-street, 
bookseller, (Ewington and Co,, 
Walbrook 

Bynner, J+ Long-Acre, 
(Walker, Gloucester-street 

Bennet, S. jun.y Truroy grocer, 
(Berkeley, Lincgln’s-inn 


(Ad- 


erocer, 


Ad4 


lig t, Re Westbury-upon-Trym, car- 
penter. (Vizard and Co.) Lincolo’s- 
inn-fields 5 Heavens Bristol 

Brancher, J. B- Liverpool, brokers 
(Chestery Staple-inn 3 Davenporty 
Liverpool 

Bessell, E. C- Cadogan-strecty Chel- 
sea, professor of music. (Cannon, 
Adam-street 

Bray, E. and W. Me Horsefall, Kirk- 
eaten, York, fancy cloth manufac- 
turers. (Walker Lincoln’s-inn~ 
fields 3 Cloughs and Co., Hudders- 
field 


Barret, R. Pavementy Moorfields, 
laceman, (Keene, Furnivai’s-inn 
Buons, P. Liverpool, livery-stable- 


keeper. (Slade and Co-y John-street, 
Bedterd-row 5 Fosters Liverpool * 

Baker, T- Lath, innke=per- (Jones, 
Croshy=square 5 Hellings, Bath 

Butterfield, R. Knaresborough, fax- 
dresser. (Sirangeways and Co. 
Barnard’s-inn 3 Gill, Kneresbcrough 

Clarke, W.B. Cheapside, silversmiths 

_ (Bartlett and Co. Nicholas-lane 

Clarke, F. H- Birchin-lane, provision= 
broker. (Blocklow, Frith-street 

Crowther, Bs Bristol, pawnbroker. 
(Hicks and COs, Bartlett’s-build- 
ings 5 Hinton, Bristol 

Dermot, G. D- Great Pulteney-strecty 
surgeon. (Ashton, New-inn 

Day, Je Leeds, jron-merchant. 

» (strangeways and Coy Barnard’s- 
inn 5 Robinson, Leeds 

Davies, T. Be Chester-street, surgeon. 
(Selby, Serjeant’s-inn 

Draper, B. and H. Back, Margate, 

- grocers, (Patterson, Mincing-lane 

Down, W+ Church-passaze, Guilahall, 
Blackwell-hall- factor. (Borradaile 
and Co.5 Kine’s-arm’s-yard 

Downing, W- Ripon, money-scrivenir. 
(Maxon, Little Friday-street 5 Up- 
ton and Son, Leeds 

Doue, E. Dover-road, Newington, 
grocer. (Paterson, Mincing-lane 

Eckenstein, D. Billiter-street, mer- 
chant. (Venning and Co., Cop- 
thall-court 

Evennet, Re Wardrobe-place, coal 
merchant. (Teague> Cannon-street 

Edwards, C. T> Aldgate, chemist. 
(Taylor, Fen, court 


Edgar, T- Nottingham-place, Com- 
wmercial-road,’ drapers (Chester, 
Staple-inn 


Evans, S. J+ Wadebridge, Cornwall, 
tallow-chandler. (Allison and Coy 
Freeman’s-court5 wovulcombe and 
Co. Plymouth 5 Symons, Wade~ 
bridge 

Edwards, G. 
ecrivenir. 

» Commons 

Evennett, J. Harlows cattle-jobber. 
(Teagues Cannon-street 


st. Albansy money- 
. (Lawrence, Dector’s 


Fitch, R. Sible Hedingham, miller. 
(Taylor, Jobn-street 5 Rustler, 
* Halstead 


Frankland, A. Nottingham, lace-dea- 
ler- (willet and CO. Essex-street 5 
Fox, Nottingham 

Gill, T. Winchester Wharf, South- 
wark, flour-factor. (Brough, shore- 
ditch 3 

Greaves, H. Manchester) merchant. 
(Ellis and Co+5 Chancery-lane 5 
Hampson, Marichester 

Grimmap, W- York-street, Bryan- 
stone-square, builder. (Haslam and 
Co. Leadenhall- Street 

Gerrard, T. Stoke upon-Trent, joiner. 
(Harvey and CO.- Lincoln’s-!nn- 
fields 3 Hubbard, Cheadle, Stafford 

Gilson, R. York, victualler. (Norton 


ECCLESIASTICAL PREFERMENTS. 


‘Rev. G. W. Sicklemore, fo the rectory of Mil- 
ton, otherwise Middleton Malzar, Northampton .— 
Rey. M. Simpson, to ‘the Rectory of Mickfield, 
Suffolk._Rev, E. C. Kemp, to’ the Rectory of 
T. Evans, to the 
ving of Longdon-upon-Tern, Salop.—Rey. R. Cc. 


Whissonsett, Suffolk.—Rev. 


Bankrupls. 


and Co., Gray’s-inn 5 Seymour, 
York 

Hill, J. Royston, builder. 
Austin-friars 

Henderson, J. A- Talbot-court, wine- 
merchant. (Gates, Lombard-street 

Hall, T. Macciesfield, silk-msnufac- 
turer. (Clarke aud Co., Lincoln’s- 
jnn-fields 5 Higginbotham, Maccles= 
field 

Heald, T+ Kent-road, merchant. 
(Haslam and Co., Leadenhail-street 

Hornblower, B. High Holborn, vic- 
tualer. (Williams, North-place, 
Giay’s inn-lane 

Harrison, W. Maidstone, cattle-sales- 
man. (Heming and Co. Gray’s- 
inn 3 Norwood, Charing 

Hunt, W. Stockport, cotton-manufac- 
turer. (Tyler, Temple 3 Hunt or 
Coppock; Stockport 

Harrison, E. Lofthouse, York, spirit- 
merchant. (Adlington and C0. 
Beuford-row § Taylor, Wakefield 

Hamilton, G. F. Plstt-place, Camden 
Town, merchant. (silk, gold- 
smith-row 

Jaques, E. Fy Gravesend, market- 
gardener. (Clare and Co.) Fre- 
derick’s-place 

Jackson, S- Congleton and Manchester, 
silx-throwster. (Willis and Co., 
London 3 Wilson, Manchester 


(Bolton, 


King, J. Au twick, grazicr. (Holme 
and COs New-inn 5 Edmons0iy 
Settle 


Kilby, T. and S. Carroll, Fenchurch- 


street, brokers, (Gatty and CO 
Angel-court 
Lilwall, 4H Threadneedle-street, 


grocer, (Dicas, Austin Friars 

Lightfoot, P. T. and C. V. Copthall- 
court, stock-brokers (Stephenson 
and Co. southampton-buildings 

Mason, W- St. Albans, linen-drapere 
(Jones, Size-lane 

Morris, E. Woolwich, linen draper- 
Jones, Size lane 

Moriey, G. Great Yarmouth, miller. 
(white and Co., Great St. Helens 5 
Worship, Yarmouth 

Manthorp, R. Southwold, timber- 
merchant. , (Bromleysy Gray’s-inn 3 
Wood and Co., W oodbridge 

Myall, J. Castle Hedingham, 
merchant. 
Gray’s-inn 5 Pattison, Witham 

Michelron, Le Union-place, Kent- 
road, merchant. (Turner, Basing- 


hop- 


jane 

Miller, J+ Pall Mall, bookseller. 
(Ford, Pall- Mall 

M’Niell, W. juny Charles-street, 


» Maryl: bone, coach-maker. (Bailey, > 


Ber..er’s-street s 

Murdoch, E. Rayléigh, Essex, scri- 
vener. (Milne and Co. Temple 5 
Shaw, Billericay 

Nelmes, W. Charlton Kings, timber- 
merchant. (Blunt and Co. Liver- 
pool-street 5 Rubb, Cheltenham 

Newman, G- stockwell Park, Brix- 
ton, cow-keeper- (Sarson, Bridge- 
street, Southwark 

Ormond, J. Boston, baker. (Dawson 
and Co 5 New Boswell-court 5 Hop- 
kins, Boston t 

Ormrod, J. St. Helens, Lancashire, 
Jinen-draper. (Chester, Staple-inn 5 
Barnes, St. Helens s 

Pierpoiit, M. M. Ed ward-street, mil+ 
jiner. (Sheriff, Salisbury-street 

Payne, H- White Conduit-fields, 
builder. {Hutchinson and CO» 
Ci own-court, ‘Threadneedle-street 

Pottinger, J: Brighton, _ builder. 
(Faithful, Brighton 5 


te A 
——————————— 


—_—— 


(Brooksbank and Cory - 


Griffith, to the Rectory of Fifield, Wilts.—Rev 
E, Thackeray, to be Chaplain to the Lord Liew 
tenant of Ireland.—Rev. H. Huscham, to the Pe 
petual Curacy of St. Sampson’s, Cornwall.—Re 
he Rectory of Stockleigh, En 


M. Williains, to t ? 
lish, Devon,—Rev. J, Hindle, to the vicarage 


LAPRIL, 


Pearson, R. Liverpoo), flour-dealer. 
(Adlington and Cov) Bedford-row 5 
Moss, Liverpool 

Pointer, T- Golden-Horse-yard, Dor- 
set-square, job-master. (Stedman 
and CO. Throgmorton-street 

Phillips, J. Bristol, builder. (Parker 
and Co., Bristol 

Pope, J. C. Seble Hedingham, malt- 
factor. (Halland Co.) Salter’s Hall, 
Sewell, Halsted 

Rhodes, C. New Gosle, York, linen- 
draper. (Willis and Co.) Loncon 5 
Wilson, Manchester 

Ross. B. Hull, spirit merchant. (Ros- 
ser znd Son, Gray’s-inn 5 England 
and Cos, Hull 

Rigg, H- Liverpool, merchant. 
(Rlackstock and CO.) Temple 5 
Bardswell and Sons, Liverpool 

Roberts, T. Churchwell, Batley, wool- 
stapler (strangeways aud Co. 
Barnard’s-inn 3 Robinson, Leeds 

Raven, H. Holt, Norfolk, miller. 
(Bridger, Fincbury-circus 5 Withers, 
Holt 

Sewell, J. Great Yarmouth, — sail- 
maker. (Ashurst, Neweate-street 5° 
Coaks, Norwich 

Salmon, T. A. Leeds stuff-manufac- 
turer, (Batty and Co., Chancery- 
lane 3 Lee, Leeds 

Shephard, W- Shoe-lane, glass-cutter. 
(Dashwood, ‘Three Crown-squarey 
Southwark 

Sadleir, J. Liverpool. , victualler.. 
(Chester, Staple-inn 5 Hinde, Liver- 
pool 

simmons, T. and J. and W. Winch- 
combe, road-contractors and buil-* 
devs. (Dean, Palsgrave-place 5 Ro- 
berts, Oswestry 

summerfield, W.P. and W. L. Liver- 
pool, mercl ants. (Chester, Staple= 
inn 5 Davenport, Liverpool 

Slee, E. G, Mark-lane, flour-fa ctor. 
(Stevens and Cos, Little St. Thomas 
Apostle 

Shepley, J. Hayfield, cotton-manufac- 
turer. (Hurd and Cos, Temple 5 
Booth, Manchester 

Thackney, George and John, Leeds, 
merchants. (Few and Co., Covent, 
Garden; Hamingway and Co.» 
Leeds 

Tomkinson, T. Leek, tanner. (Ad- 
lington’and Co., Bedford-row 5 Kil- 
minster and Co., Leek 

vaile, G. Maze Pond, carpenters 
(Sheffield and Sons, Great Prescot- 
street . ° 

Vickers, J. C. Leeds, printer. (At- 
kinson and Co., Leeds 

Wallis; H-» Harpur-streety engraver. 
(Armstrong, St. John’s-square 

Walker, J. Rochdale, miller. (Norris 
and Co., John-street 5 Wood, Roch- 
dale 

Waller, J. Sheepridge, Huddersfield, 
fancy-cloth-manufacturer. (Daw- 
son and Co. New Boswell-court 5 
Pearce, Huddersfield 

Watkins, H. C. Liverpool, cotton= 
broker. (Blackstock and Co., Tem= 
ple ; Deane, Liverpool } 

Wood, M. W- Fosdyke-Fen, wool- 
dealer. (Gell and Co., Bow Church- 
yard 3 Marshall, Boston 

Wright, T. Mountsorrel, miller. 
(Holm and Co., New-inn; Bon! ¥ 
Leicester , 

Welsby, J- Liverpool, coal-merchant, 
(Chester, Staple-inn 5 
Liverpvol 

Weller, S.sjun. Oxford, 
(fvans, Gray’s-inn; Parsons, 
ford. . 


1829.) 


Higham, Kent.—Rev. J. Watherall, jun., to the 
Rectory of Carlton, Northampton.—Rey.C. Tripp, 
te the Rectory of Budleigh, Devon.—Rey. J. 
L’Oste, to the Rectory of Caister St. Edmund 
with Marketshall, Nor‘olk.—Rey. F. Howes, to 
the Rectory. of Framlingham Pigott, Norfolk.— 
Rey. R. Hamond, to the Rectories of Harpley 
and Great Bitcham respectively, Norfolk.—Rev. 
J. Driver, to the Perpetual Curacies of Elleb and 
Shireshead.—Rev. C. R. Jones, to the Vicarage 


Ecclesiastical Preferments. 


ras 
“Ed 


of Roath, Glamorgan.—Rey. D. Felix, to the 
Living of Lianilar, Cardigan.—Rey. J. Husband; 
to the Perpetual Curaey of Allerton Manleverer, 
York.—Rey. T. Sheriffe, jun., to the Rectory of 
Eyke, Suffolk.—Rey. G. T. Seymour, to be €hap- 
lain to the Sherif uf Somerset.—Rey. J. Horse- 
man, to the Rectory of Middle, Saiop.—Rey. R. A. 
Musgrave, to the Prebendaryship of St. George's, 
Windsor. 


Sue er 


CHRONOLOGY, MARRIAGES, AND DEATHS, ETC. 


—_—— 


CHRONOLOGY. 
» February 25.—Sessions ended atthe Old Bailey, 
when 7 prisoners received sentence of death; 78 
were transported ; 61 ordered to be imprisuned 
for various periods ; 12 whipped and discharged, 
and 23 discharged by prociawation. 

25.—Court of Common Council at Guildhall, 
decided on petitioning both houses of Parliament 
in favour of Catholic claims, and voted the free- 
dom of the city to be presented in a gold box, 
Yalue 109 guineas, to Secretary Peel, for his con- 
duct on Catholic emancipation. 

March 3.—Royal assent given by commission to 
the bill for the suppression of dangerous assuci- 
ations in Ireland. 

— A deputation headed by the Lord Mayor 
waited upon the Duke of Wellington, ou the sub- 
ject of the Thames Tunnel. After being informed 
that £240,000 would be sufficient to complete it, 
the Duke desired that an estimate of the expenses, 
as well as the probable profits, &c., should be 
made out and transmitted to him, before he could 
Sanction a Parliamentary loan to finish this great 
national object. 

5.—Mr. O'Connell declared, by a committee of 
the House of Commons, to be duly elected member 
of Parliament for the county of Clare. 

' 6.—Mr. Peel’s motion to take into consideration 
the laws affecting his Majesty’s Roman Catholic 
subjects, was carried in the House of Commons, 
by a majority of 188-348 voting for it, and 160 
against it. 

- 18.—The Recorder made his report to his Ma- 
jesty of the prisoners condemned in Newgate at 


the last Old Bailey sessions, when four were 


ordered for execution on the 24th instant, 

* 20.—The bill for depriving the 40s, freeholders 
of Ireland of the right of voting, was, in the House 
of Commons, sent to a committee by a majority of 


200 voters. 


21.—A duel was fought in Battersea fields, be- 


tween the Duke of Wellington and the Earl of 


Wineliclsea. The Duke fired first, without effect, 
and the Earl discharged his pistol in the air. 
 24.—Four criminals were executed at the Old 
Bailey; their ages were, one 23, one 22, and two 
21st 

; MARRIAGES. 

At St. Asaph’s, Lord Willoughby de Broke, to 
Margaret, third daughter of Sir John Williams, 
Bart.—At Marylebone, J. ¥. W. Herschel, esq., 
of Slough, to Miss Margaret Brodie,—At Maryle- 
Done, A. ‘Taylor, esq., to Lydia, widow of Col. W. 
Cowper.—Rey. KR. Traill, son of the Archdeacon 


of Connor, to Anne, daughter of Sir Sanmel 
Hayes, Bart.—At St. Pancras, Sir James Wil- 
liams, to Miss A. Goodman.—At St. Georve’s, 
Hanover-square, Capt. H. Bentinck, son of Ma- 
jor-Gen, J. Charles and Lady Jemima Bentinck, 
to Reciera Antoinette, daughter of Sir Admiral 
H. Whitshed.—Captain Byng, eldest son of Sir 
John Byng, to Lady Agnes Paget, filth daughter 
of the Marquess of Anglesea.—J. Chitty, esq., to 
Miss Sarah Hardwick.--At Mitcham, W. Sey- 
mour, esq.,to Sarah Lydia, eldest daughter of 
the late Sir Henry Oakes, Bart.—At Richmond, 
Don Manuel de la Torre, to Miss A. J. Harrison. 
—At Lincoln, Rev. W. J. C. Staunton, to Isa- 
belta, only daughter of the Dean of Lincoln, 
DEATHS. 

At Blithfield, the Hon. Louisa, eldest daughter 
of Lord Bagot.—At Brighton, Dowager Countess 
of Minto.—At Sherborne, Eliza, grand-daughter 
of Lord Sherborne.—At Bath, D. H. Dallas, esq., 
only son of Lieut.-Gen. Sir T. Dallas.—In Gros- 
venor-square, Lady Robert Manners. 92,.—Rev. 
C. Coxwell, 89; he had been rector of Barnsley 
60 years ; he was the father of the justices of 
Gloucestershire, the clergy of that diocese, and 
the University of Oxford.—Colonel Sir Robert 
Barclay, 71.—In Curzen-street, the Dowager 
Countess of Stanhope.—Henrietta, Dowager Lady 
Rodney, 85, relict of the late Admiral Lord Rod-, 
ney.—At Market Drayton, Jolin Shnter, 104,—In 
Spring Gardens, Louise Henriette, wife of Sir J- 
Scarlett, M.P. for Peterborough.—Mary, widow of. 
the late Lord Seaforth.—At Southampton, Mrs. 
Chamier, 93, sister of the late A. Chamier, esq.. 
M.P.—In Hanovyer-street, Colonel Sir Robert 
Barclay.—At Belfast, Dr. Young, Professor of. 
Moral Philosophy and Metaphysics to the Belfast 
Institution ; he was much respected, and the con- 
course of people that attended his funeral was 
immense; all the shops were shut in the streets 
through which the long procession passed, and at 
his grave a very pathetic and impressive address 
was delivered by Dr, Hanna.—At Leicester, Mr, 
T. Phillips, 89; he has left 14 children, 87 grand 
children, 95 great grand children and 11 great 
great grand children—total 208.—At Camberwell, 
Lewis de Beaune, esq.—In Sloane-street, 'T.) 
Hurlstone, esq., 72, author of several dramatic 
pieces. — At Harnels, the Hon. M. Perceval 
brothey to the late Earl of Egremont,—At the Isle 
of Wight, G.Warde, esq., father to the member 
for the city —Sir Mark Wood, proyrietor of the 
celebrated rotton borough of Gatton, situated in 
his park near Riegate, Surrey.—At the work~ 
house, Thirsk, Mary Kilvington, 100 ; until within 
a year of her death she walked regularly every 


446 


Sunday to and from the Roman Catholic chapel 
at North Kilvington, four miles distant.—At Can- 
nington Convent, the Rey. Dr. Collenridge, 90, 
yicar apostolic of the western district—At Hale’s- 
place, Sir E, Hales, Bart. 72.—In Harley-street, 
Mrs. B. E. Lloyd.—At Dummer-house, near Ba- 
singstoke, T- Terry, esq., 89. 
DEATHS ABROAD. 

At Rome, Mrs, F. Buller, wife of Lieut.-Gen. 

Buller. — At Chatelaine, Geneva, Mrs, Lloyd, 


Chronology, Marriages, and Deaths. 


[APRIL, 


sister to the late Earl Whitehurch—At Paris, 
Miss Haggerston, daughter of the late Sir Car- 
naby Haggerstone, Bart.—At Florence, Sir Gren- 
ville Temple, Bart,—At Port Sal, South America, 
Colonel W. Perks, he was basely murdered by 
bandittii—At Antwerp, Rey. R. Heber, of Bossal 
Hall, York.—At Rome, Giovanni Torlonia, Duke 
of Bracciano, long known as a celebrated banker 
there.—At Rome, Viscount Barrington, 68, Pre- 
bendary of Durham, and Rector of Sedgefield.— 
At Rome, Lady Abdy, 78. 


MONTHLY PROVINCIAL OCCURRENCES. 


NORTHUMBERLAND.—The trustees of the 
Newcastle Savings’ Bank have published their 
account of last year up to Nov. 20, 1828, by which 
it appears that they have received since their 
establishment (and which is invested with the 
commissioners for the reduction of the national 
debt) the sum of £260,299, 13s. 6d. The number 
of depositors are 4,080; besides 120 friendly 
societies. 

A grand ball was given, Feb. 6th, to the work- 
men and others employed at Gosforth colliery, on 
account of the coalbaving been won on the Satur- 
day previous, The ball-room was at the depth of 
nearly 1,100 feet below the surface of the habitable 
globe, in the shape of an L, whose width was 15 
feet, base 22 feet, and perpendicular 48 feet. 
Seats were placed round the sides of the room, 
the floor was flagged, and the whole place was 
brilliantly illuminated with lamps and candles. 
‘The company beganto go down about half-past 
9 o’clock, a.m.; the Coxlodge band was in at- 
tendance, and dancing continued, without inter- 
smission, till 3 o’clock pm. There were present 
100 ladies, and not the slightest accident occurred, 

At the assizes for this county seven prisoners 
received sentence of death; one of them, Jane 
Jamieson, for the murder of her mother, in a fit 
of intoxication! She was executed March 7. 

The combination, or vend of coals, at Neweastle 
and the neighbourhood, has fallen to pieces, in 
consequence of the seceding of some of the prin- 
cipal coal-owners. Coals fell immediately 4s, 
per chaldron. 

At Newcastle, on the 10th of March, a meeting 
was held to petition Parliament in favour of the 
removal of all civil disabilities from the Roman 
Catholics. In a meeting of 12,000 persons, the 
petition was negatived by at least three to one, 

Hare, the associate of Burke, has been appre- 
hended at Newcastle, on suspicion of murdering a 
young man named Margetts, whose disappear- 
ance some time since occasioned considerable 
emotion in that town. 


DURHAM.—At the Lent assizes, Mr. Justice 
Bayley regretted, in his address to the grand jury, 
that the calendar contained a very great number 
of charges. Seven prisoners were recorded for 
Yeath, and several transported. 

At the last Durbam sessions, an inquisition was 

t aken before the magistrates, to determine what 
amount should be paid by the Stockton and Dar- 
lington Railway Company to the Bishop of Dur« 
ham for 6 acres, 1 rood, and 26 poles of land, re- 
quired by the company for their railway; the 


inquiry lasted from 10 o’clock in the morning til] 
8 at night, when £2,000 were awarded to the 
Bishop !!! 

A penny post has been established to run be- 
tween Hartlepool and Stockton, 

A main of cocks was fought in Durham, the 
last week of February. The owner of one of the, 
birds gave it the name of Lord Eldon; and this 
bird vanguished all its opponents, including one 
belonging to a man named Peel, and finally won 
the main! 

A meeting of the Committees of the Insurance 
Associations of the port of Sunderland was held 
on the llth of March, at which it was resolved 
not to accept lower rates of freight than were 
agreed to at the meeting of the 20th of January. 

A gentleman who holds oftice under the Duke 
of Wellington, lately wrote to his brother, a 
clergyman in this county, to this effect—‘‘ His 
Grace—I heard it from his own lips—purposes, 
when the Catholic Relief Bill has become the law 
of the land, to make some important and unex- 
pected alterations in the ecclesiastical depart- 
mients,’”’ 


YORKSHIRE.—A meeting of the proprietors 
of lands interested in the drainage of the Level of 
Hatfield Chase, was held recently at Doncaster, to 
consider a plan of warping and drainage for the 
general benefit of the Level.—The plan, of which 
prospectuses haye been very extensively issued, 
comprehends the drainage of upwards of one 
hundred thousand acres, and the warping of fif- 
teen thousand acres. The immediate object of the 
meeting was to ascertain whether the genera’ 
consent of the proprietors to the proposed terms 
would be given. It appears, from the prospec- 
tuses, that the estimated expense of the works is 
£110,000. It was resolved that the plan should 
be adopted ; and a committee appointed, to take 
the proper steps for carrying it into execution. 

On account of the great increase of police busi- 
ness at Leeds, there is some talk of a stipendiary 
magistrate being appointed. 4 

A gveet number of the inhabitants of Sheffield 
haying agreed to a petition against concessions to 
the Roman Catholics, some of the Pro-Catholics 
called a meeting, at which an opposition petition 
was gotup. The former was signed by 30,000, 
the latter by 8,000 persons. 

On the 2d of March, an Anti-Catholic meeting 
was held. Ten thousand persons were present, 
There was no opposition; and petitions to the 
King, and to both Houses of Parliament, were 
gidopted unanimously. The same day, at a meet; 


1829.) 


ing at Barnsley, the Pro-Catholics were beaten by 
a majority of 3to1. At Doncaster, on the 26th 
of February, a Protestant meeting was held, and 
petitions adopted by a large majority. On the 2d 
of March, a Pro-Catholic meeting was held, which 
was attended by the Anti-Catholics in such num- 
bers, that the chairman (Sir W. Cooke) did not 
dare to put the petition to the vote. 

At Beverley, on the 5th of March, a meeting 
was held, at which were both Anti-Catholics and 
Pro-Catholics, the former in great numbers. It 
was assembled in the East Riding Session’s 
House: and as the Anti-Catholics could not all 
get in, an adjournment was moved. The Mayor 
and the Anti-Catholics accordingly went to the 
market-place, where Protestant petitions were 
agreed to. The Liberals remained in the Ses- 
-sion’s House, and passed resolutions of a different 
tendency. At Rotherham petitions on both sides 
‘the question have been adopted. 

The New Junction Dock Bridge, at Hull, was 
opened on the 7th of March; on which occasion 
the mail-coach passed over; a band playing God 
Save the King, and Rule Britannia, 

A meeting was held at Doncaster on the 0th of 
Mareh, at which it was resolved to open an insti- 
tution in that town for the benefit of the deaf and 
dumb children of the poor of the county. The 
amount of annual subscriptions, at present, is 
about £100. 

A yery numerous meeting was held at the Fes- 
tival Concert Room, York, onthe 5th of March, 
of noblemen and gentlemen connected with the 
county, at which Mr. Smirke’s report as to the 
damage done to York Minster by the late fire, 
and his estimate of the sum required for its repair, 
were read. The former differs nothing from the 
details previously laid before the public in the 
papers ;: the latter was estimated at £60,000. It 
was resolyed, that the choir should be restored as 


“nearly as possible to its former state ; the expense 


_ to be defrayed by public subscription. 


select vestry. 


A new church is about to be built at Hull; Mr, 
Hanson, of York, is the architect. ‘The expense 
is estimated at £6,000. 

* Almost every village in Yorkshire have adopted 
petitions against the Roman Catholic claims. 


* LINCOLNSHIRE.—By the abstract of the 
accounts of the treasurer of the hundred of Elloe, 


it appears that the sum of £5,008, 83s, 2d. was 


raised for the expenses of that hundred, from 
Epiphany Sessions 1828, to those of 1829 inclusive, 

The monthly report of the casual poor who 
have received relief in Boston during the month 
of January, has been published by order of the 
No less than 23! names are insert- 


_ ed, and the sum distributed is littleshort of £100! 


“This item is entirely exclusive of the regular 
paupers, who are wholly supported by the parish !!! 

- At Lincoln assizes, 20 prisoners were recorded 
for death ; and a few transported, and imprisoned. 


STAFFORDSHIRE, — The trustees of the 
Savings’ Bank, established at the little town of 
Shenstone, bave published an account of their re- 
ceipts up to Nov. 20, 1828, by which it appears 
that the sum of £17,924. 14s, 84d. has been re- 
ceived since its establishment. 


WARWICKSHIRE.—At a public meeting held 
at Warwick, March 20, it was resolved to estab- 
lish a Mechanics’ lustitutionein that town, and 


— 


Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Staffordshire, $c. 


447 


the names of 200 individuals were forthwith en- 
tered as members, 


WORCESTERSHIRE.—At Worcester assizes, 
28 prisoners were recorded for death; 4 trans- 
ported, and 13 imprisoned. 


BEDFORDSHIRE.—At Bedford assizes, 17 
prisoners were recorded for death, 15 were trans- 
ported, and 15 imprisoned for yarious periods. 


NORTHAMPTONSHIRE, — At Northampton 
assizes, 6 prisoners were recorded for death, and 
13 transported. 


SOMERSETSHIRE.—At a meeting of the in- 
habitants of Taunton, conyened by the bailiffs, 
March 10, it appeared by the report of the com- 
mittee appointed for the relief of the distressed 
silk-weavers, that their distress has increased 
since the last public meeting for their relief in the 
proportion of five times its amount, they therefore 
resolyed to call the attention of the affluent in- 
habitants, and particularly the ladies, to their 
melancholy situation, and to solicit personally 
from house to house, in aid of the fund. 

By the annual report of the Taunton Eye In 
firmary, it appears that last year 502 patients 
were received there, and 43 of the preceding year 
remained on the books ; of whom 473 were cured, 
32 benefited, 13 incurable, and 27 remains on the 
books. 


GLOUCESTERSHIRE.—At the reeent meet- 
ing of the managers, &c. of the Bristol Sayings’ 
Bank, it appeared by the statement made up to 
Noy. 20, last, that the whole reeeipts amounted to 
£307,278.7s. 8d., and that the number of de- 
positors had been 6,642. 

At a very respectable meeting of principal Jand- 
owners and agviculturalists lately held at Ciren- 
eester, it was resolved unanimously, that a society 
should be forthwith formed, to be called ‘* The 
Cirencester and Gloucestershire Agricultural As- 
sociation,” when Lord Sherborne was appointed 
president. 

The city of Bristol has yoted its freedom to the 
Earl of Eldon, as a token of respect for his oppo- 
sition to the ministers in their encroachment of 
the constitution of settlement of 1688. 

The concert and ball for the Spitalfield’s wea- 
vers, at Bristol, under the auspices of the Mayor, 
&c., produced the sum of £318. 10s., after de- 
ducting all expenses, 


WILTSHIRE.—At the assizes held at Salis- 
bury, 12 prisoners were recorded for death, 17 
were transported, and several imprisoned for 
various periods. 

The first anniversary of the committee of the 
Trowbridge Tradesmen’s Nightly Watch, was 
held, March 3, when it was announced with gra- 
tification, that for the last 12 months not a single 
depredation had been committed within the 
watchman's beat, inwatch hours—that the whole 
expense attending it (including watch coats, 
rattles, lanthorns, printing, &c., together with 
the use of a room for the members to assemble in, 
on having gone their hourly rounds), had not 


‘amounted to £40, a great part of which would 


not occur again; whereas to employ and pay re« 
gular watchmen would cost upwards of £200,— 
That the society is still in active operation, de- 


ALS 


termined to persevere jn their system, and express 
2 wish that other towns and populous villages will 
follow their example. The advantages ensuing 
from it are preservation of property, prevention 
of crime, saving expense of prosecution, attend- 
ance of witnesses at sessions or assizes, and of 
course a very considerable diminution of the 
county rates. 


DORSETSHIRE.—At the assizes held at Dor- 
chester, Mr. Justice Gaselee said “ he was sorry 
to find that the calendar was of unusual magni- 
tude.” Ten prisoners were recorded for death, 
and several were transported, 

The new road over Crackmoor Hill, between 
Sherborne and Milborne Port, is now opened+ 
The mail passed over it, March 3, upon which oc~ 
casion the workmen were regaled, and Milborne 
bells rang amerry peal. This road has been ac- 
complished by filling the valley for a considerable 
extent and great depth; and also by cutting 
through the rock, from 40 to 50 feet perpendicular 
depth ; the last 20 fect through a dense blue rock, 
which resisted all ordinary means of lifting, and 
yielded only to the explosive force of gunpowder. 
The great object has been obtained, of rendering 
the hill perfectly easy trotting ground, whiist the 

“distance is actually lessened ; this, and the other 
improvements upon the line of road from Salis- 
bury, through Shaftesbury, Sherborne, Yeovil, 
Crewkerne, and-Chard, to Exeter, cannot fail to 
confirm the public in their choice of this line as 
being the nearest and best, as it is also the most 
populous and beautiful in scenery.—/W’estern 
Flying Post. 


HANTS,.—At the assizes held at Winchester, 
18 prisoners were recorded for death ; 13 trans- 
ported, and several imprisoned. 


DEVONSHIRE.—The trustees of the Devon 
and Exeter Savings’ Bank have published an 
account of their funds up to November 20, 1828, 
by which it appears that they have invested in 
government securities the sum of £699,947. 1s. 3d., 
and that with £696. 13s, 6d. in the hands of 
their. treasurer, the whole sum amounts to 
£700,643. 14s. 9d.! Of this sum there belongs to 
20,794 individuals £633,556. 8s. 8d.—to charitable 
institutions £15,031, 15s, 6d.—to friendly societies 
£51,886. 8d.—This excellent establistinent was 
begun Dec. 4, 1815 ; and ‘we believe it to-be the 
most extensive of the kind in the United Kingdom. 


WALES.—A special meeting of the trustees of 
the Radnorshire district of roads, was recently 
held at Presteign, when it was resolved to make a 
new line of road from the village of Llanvihangel 
Nantmellan, to the summit of Gorelis Pitch, on 
the road from New Radnor towards Rbayader 
and Aberystwith, and also a road from such new 
line to Llanelin Pool, inthe direction of Builth ; 
as thereby important improvements would be 
effected, and travelling 
greatly facilitated. 


SCOTLAND.—The exhibitions both of the 
Royal Institution and the Scottish Academy are 
now open, aud we consider it a proud era in the 
history of Scotland, that Edinburgh possesses two 
such associations for the encouragement of the 
fine arts. The zeal and assiduity of the members 
of the Scottish Academy deserve every encourage- 


Provineiai Occurrences : Dorsetshire, Hants, §e. 


altogether bare. 


through. the district 


[Apnit, 


ment, and their present collection is highly eredit- 
able to their taste and industry. The Royal In- 
stitution exhibition is upon the whole fully a 
better collection, though not a more prominent or 
striking one, than any we have yet seen at the 
rooms of the Royal Institution. In one or two 
particular departments, such as those of portrait 
and historical painting, it is superior to the exhi- 
bition of the Scottish Academy, but in general 
excellence and power, we are compelled to give 
the palm to the Jatter. In landscapes the institu- 
tion is very deficient, and in domestic scenes it is 
The number and variety of | 
portraits are the most prominent features of this ~ 
year’s exhibition.—-Edinburgh Evening Post. 


IRELAND.—His Grace and the Duchess of 
Northumberland, reached Kingston from Holy- 
head about three o’clock, March 6, on board the 
Escape packet; but their arrival not being ex- 
pected at so early an hour, none of the govern- 
ment vessels in the harbour had gone out to meet 
them. At 7 o’clock the Viceregal party went on 
board the yacht, where an elegant breakfast was 
provided. At 9 o’clock the Shamrock Hound, 
and other vessels in the harbour, fired a salute in 
honour of his Grace’s arrival, and shortly after- 
wards all the shipping in the bay hoisted their 
colours as a token of welcome. At 12 o’clock the 
Viceregal party left the yacht in a twelve-oared 
barge, manned from that vessel, and were landed 
on the spot from whence his Majesty embarked 
on leaving Ireland.—At this period there could 
not be less than 20,000 persons, of all sexes, ages, 
classes, and grades, on the pier, the rocks, and 
the shore. Their Graces were greeted with an 
universab burst of enthusiastic cheering on their 
landing, and several minutes elapsed before the 
efferyesence of popular feeling had time to sub- 
side. Their Graces were received by the Harbour 
Commissioners and several persons of the highest 
distinction, including the Archbishop of Dublin — 
and the Chief Justice of the King’s Bench. Having — 
been introduced, his Grace was pleased to invite — 
them to take seats in his own carriage, and they 5 
rode with their Graces to the castle, The pro- 
cession left Kingstown at a quarter past 120 "clock, 
attended by such an immense crowd of persons 
that at one period it wasimpossible to advance-— 
The military presented arms as the procession. 
moved along, and the bands, at equal distances, 
struck up the national anthem of “ God save the 
King ;” while the waving of hats and handker- 4 
chiefs from the windows and honse-tops, and — 
cheers of the throng beneath, indicated the sin= 
cerest welcome of the people. The three state 
equipages presented a singularly elegant appear=— 
ance. Each carriage was drawn by six richly- 
caparisoned horses, all decked with bows of light’ 
blue ribbon. The bodies were of a bright yellow 
colour, tue liveries blue and. silver, with yellow 
facings, and two large silver epaulets. The 
upper pannels of his Grace’s own carriage being 
glass, their Graces were enabled to see and 
seen by the populace as they passed. The crowd 
made several desperate but ineffectual attempts 
to get nearer the carriage. Her Grace appeared 
highly delighted, and ‘smiled repeatedly at the 
vigorous efforts madé to obtain a more convenient 
proximity to the Vice-Regal equipage. She wor 
a velvet bonnet and feathers, and a purplesil 
dress, with ermine muff and tippet. 


THE 


MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 


New Series. 
Vou. VII.] MAY, 1829. [ No. 41. 


POPERY, AS IT WAS, AND WILL BE.—THE MASSACRE OF SAINT 
BARTHOLOMEW, 


Tue popish question is now a question no more. The question now 
is of the a and liberties of Englishmen ; how much we virtually 
have remaining this day of what we had this day month? at what 
measure the complacency of a legislature will stop, which has abandoned 
at a word the principles of the British government during a hundred 
years of unexampled success, freedom, and glory? and into what hands 
will henceforth devolve the care of that fragment of the constitution of 
1688, which in the mercy of our lords and masters has been for a while 
conceded to the nation. 

We will not despair. The word, however fitted for the times, is 
unworthy of the school in which we have learned the language of free- 
men. We may see a furious and reckless ambition lording it over the 
state ; a ready profligacy in its accomplices, a feeble and broken resist- 
ance in its adversaries ; corruption the code of the aristocracy ; time- 
serving, place-hunting, and selfishness, the principles of the gentry ; the 
multitude equally engrossed by a systematic and pampered scorn of their 
superiors, and a fierce appetite for rude indulgence of all kinds, and at 
all hazards ;—we may see contempt of the people on the lips of their 
governors, and contempt of their governors retorted from the lips of the 

ple ; solemn lawyers ridiculing the principles of human right ; proud 
soldiers scoffing at human honour ; lofty statesmen vilifying the very 
existence of truth ; and learned divines pronouncing before their asto- 
nished country that the guilty church of Rome is not idolatrous,—yet 
desperate as the whole aspect of public life is, we will not despair. And 
is we will not do, because we believe that there is a being superior to 
e vileness of man, who is not to be deluded by base hypocrisy, nor 
‘thwarted by miserable ambition ; who will send out his judgments on 
the guilty whether they are wrapped in rags or in purple, and who in 
the face of the unbeliever will vindicate the sanctity of an oath, and the 
dignity of religion. Much as the doctrine may be openly reviled by the 
Jacobin, or practically denied by the sleek hunter after the good things 
of this world, we firmly believe that there is a Gop, and it is in this 
‘Strong consciousness that we bid the virtuous, manly, and Christian 
portion of England, determine never to despair. 

M.M. New Serics—Vou. VII. No. 41. 3M 


450 Popery, as it was, and will be. [ May, 


We may see terrible days yet, miserable shame, and vast and various 
suffering ; and many wise, honourable, and pure, may be sufferers in the 
common calamity. But we shall see a majestic clearing up of the storm, 
the retributive thunders themselves sweeping away the national impu- 
rity ; and after the land has been relieved of its burthen, after the whole 
atrocious scene of crime, and corruption, wily perfidy, and headlong 
violence, has passed away with the rapidity and strangeness of a feverish 
dream, we shall see a new dawn summoning us to enjoy an atmosphere 
untainted by the night, and rejoice in a freshened and glorious face of 
society and uature. 

We speak this in the strongest and calmest impression of our minds. 
We have nothing to bias us. We are no man’s partizans, for party is 
actually extinguished, as much as a puppet show is extinguished. when 
the showman throws his actors into his trunk, and having gained all that 
he could by their mock loves and quarrels, walks off with them at his 
back. We are no worshippers of political personages and their systems ; 
for experience has made us sick of the name; and when we hear the 
word Statesman pronounced, we instinctively pronounce the word, 
Scoundrel. We are no religious traffickers in pretended sanctity, for the 
word Saint, has in our feelings assumed just the same synonym with 
Statesman, and while we have the power of pronouncing between right 
and wrong, between Christian truth and the vilest love of lucre, we 
shall not hesitate to think that the saint who makes his way to office by 
his supreme piety of face; who hunts for money through the dingy 
passages of the Treasury one day, and of the tabernacle the other ; and 
who, in his zeal for negro happiness, sends his assorted cargoes, layer 
on layer, of methodist tracts between new rum and Birmingham muskets, 
is a pest to society and a disgrace to religion. We are now neither Whig 
nor Tory, for now the names convey no meaning beyond that of the slave 
already purchased, and the slave waiting to be purchased. But we are 
lovers of our country, let her fates be what they will; haters of her 
enemies, whatever masque they may wear ; and lookers forward to that — 
high and illustrious day of restoration, when the land shall be roused 
from its depths by a voice which none can disobey—when the guilty and 
the great shall call even for the rocks and mountains to fall upon them, 
if they could but hide them from the presence of that hour of reckoning ;_ 
and when the long tried and forgotten sons of integrity shall be sum- 
moned from their obscure and humble rank among the corrupted race of 
mankind, to be thenceforth the guides and the lights of the globe. We 
are the more strongly convinced of the coming of some great consumma-~ 
tion, from the more complete guilt of the public abandonment of pro- 
testantism. In all those other periods of British history which exhibited 
protestantism in a state of depression, popery had been in some degree a 
necessary result of public circumstances. There had been a popish king 
urging his religion oa the legislature, or popish councillors urging their 
religion on a protestant king; or, as in the earlier reigns, popery had 
been so deeply wrought into the state and nation, that to relieve the 
constitution from its influence at the moment was found impossible. 

But, in our instance, all has been the direct reverse. We have had 
neither the popish king nor the popish minister, nor the popish parlia-— 
ment, nor the popish nation. We have had a country and a state cleared 
of all popish influence for a hundred years. . We have had the most sin- 
gular prosperity of any nation on record, from the time when we pub-— 


1829.] The Massacre of Saint Bartholomew. 451 


licly, and as our fathers rashly deemed, for ever, excluded popery from 
all influence in England. We bore all the characteristics of the favoured 
people of Providence, from the moment when we finally and unequivo- 
cally pledged ourselves, and bound our sovereign never to stain the 
nation with the admission of Romish slaves into our free state, and the 
conjunction of Romish idolatry with our pure religion. 

But now in scorn of experience, in the total absence of any necessity— 
fot the minister’s alarms were denied by himself, and scoffed at by every 
one else—in the face of the oaths which our legislators, one and all, have 
taken, that Popery is a superstition, and thereby a guilty and groundless 
absurdity, and that it is an idolatry, and thereby a direct enemy to the 
religion of God ; we have welcomed this superstition and idolatry ; we 
have volunteered the connexion, we have actually solicited the complete 
and final junction with this worship which all our men in authority have 
been pronouncing criminal for the last three hundred years. If the 
adoption of popery into union with protestantism be an act of guilt, 
never has the perpetration been more public, gratuitous and conclusive. 
We have even, for the obvious purpose of discountenancing at once all 
doubt on the completeness of the junction, and of casting off all appear- 
ance of reserve, ostentatiously abandoned every thing in the shape of 
securities. It is true that the king had declared that the most cautious 
and satisfactory securities should be given. But his Grace, the minister. 
subsequently found “ that he had never said one word about securities,” 
and that the true securities were to consist in there being no securities at 
all. Mr. Peel had the same song on his lips, and found that “ formal 
securities” were apt to give offence, and that “ the true security was in 
the thousands of petitions,” every one of which, as it happened, was a 
direct assault upon the miserable duplicity of that right honourable 
personage. Beyond this “ infringement of the constitution of 1688,” 
nothing further can be required in point of principle. We shall see the 
principle exemplified: in what shape a few years, probably a few 
months will tell; and we may well look with terror on the common 
fates that have long marked every popish kingdom of Europe. We have 
a large field of view before us ; Poland, with her furious civil wars, and 
her final dismemberment—Italy, with her contemptible tyrannies, her 
private profligacy, her priest-ridden people, and her foreign masters— 
Spain, with her perpetual civil tumults, her dismembered colonies, her 
ruinous invasion, and her hopeless slavery-—Portugal, with her civil 
war, her separated transatlantic empire, her guilty clergy, and her 

bitter and suspicious usurper—France, with the memory of her hideous 
revolution still fevering her blood, the perpetual scaffold, the confis- 
cation of hereditary property, the universal foreign war, the Vendée, 
that cut off half a million of men, the military despotism, and finally, 
that fierce concussion and trampling of armies, that was necessary to 
smooth the soil for the return of even that feeble and dubious charter 
at she was willing, after all her miseries, to accept as a substitute for a 
ree constitution. 
Those examples are irresistible evidence of the operation of popery on 
the freedom and civil happiness of states at this hour. But are we to 
hear that its perfidy and persecution are to be dreaded no longer. We 
must demand what part of the Romish code of treachery and cruelty 
thas been abrogated within the last three hundred years? Where has 
Rome abandoned, by any authentic declaration from the only authority 
, 3M 2 


452 Popery, as it was, and will be. [May, 


on those things, the pope, or the pope at the head of a council, the 
right to excommunicate kings, to extinguish the scriptures, and to burn 
those who refuse slavish obedience to its worship? Not a syllable of 
those assumed rights of tyranny and blood has been erased from the 
code of the vatican. 

Are we to hear that persecution can never return, and has been vir- 
tually abandoned? We must demand how many native protestant 
congregations are there at this hour in Italy, Spain, or Portugal? We 
answer, not one. Where there are no victims there can be no fires. 
The foreign protestants in those countries are merely suffered ; are 
besides under the protection of their respective governments ; and what 
is the chief source of safety after all, they are the means of bringing a 
large addition to the court revenue. In France alone, the native pro- 
testants enjoy considerable privileges ; but those privileges were not the 
grant of popery. They were in the first instance wrung from popery 
by arms in the wars of the league. The subsequent power of popery in 
the seventeenth century was shown in the sudden disruption of all 
treaties, and the furious persecution that, after slaying tens of thousands 
of protestants, drove half a million into exile, with the utter confiscation 
of their property. This act of perfidy and horror, which threw the 
whole of popish Europe into paroxysms of joy, was revenged in 1789 
by the Revolution, which overturned the superstitious priesthood, the 
corrupt nobility, and the infidel court of France. But this fearful 
judgment, by a signal providence gave civil liberty to French protes- 
tantism ; a liberty which it still enjoys, though seriously thwarted by 
the jealousy of the court, and tormented by the restless irritation of the © 
priesthood ; a liberty which trembles, like that of every protestant 
congregation of the whole continent, on the fates of English protes- 
tantism. Let popery but once see popish influence active in the British 
legislature ; cardinals confronting protestant bishops, and the delegates — 
of the Irish priests laying down the law for the British people ; a steady — 
majority of a hundred furious devotees making the minister irresistible 
when he is for them, and impotent when he is against them: we shall 
then soon see how temporary has been the slumber of popery. We 
shall then have clearer demonstration than from books, that Rome is 
the same every hour since the triumphant days of the inquisition. We 
shall then hear the voice from the east, and from the west, from the 
north, and the south, lamentation and mourning and woe; and then 
shall we learn that the power of the prince of this world is come. 

It has been publicly declared that the opposers of popery are con 
temptuous of the authority of the past, and that history should teach 
them confidence in the new allies who have been brought to the honour 
and glory of the popedom in the British empire. One orator—may it be 
written on his grave—has told us, that in protestant hands history is only 
an old almanack: and a hundred orators equally honest, and equally to 
be relied on, have told us, that the horrid outrages which cover the 
popish history with blood, have had nothing to do with its spirit, have 
had nothing to do with its rulers, and have nothing to do with ou 
natural feelings on giving the professors of those revolting doctrines the 
ultimate power over ourselves. Our answer to all this eloquence is a 
single and straightforward appeal to the fact. Without wandering over 
the wilderness of history, we fix upon a distinct and unquestionable 


Sas ; ; ; 
crisis ; one, of which the horrors are unexampled, the treacheries pal 


1829.] The Massacre of Saint Bartholomew. 453 


pable, and the connexion with the popedom is established by every 
evidence that can bring conviction to the mind of man; the massacre of 
the protestant princes and gentlemen in Paris, in the memorable 
year 1572. 

The design of this comprehensive butchery seems to have directly 
originated with the court of Rome. Only three years before the 
massacre, Pius the Vth, despairing of the extinction of the protestants 
by open arms, darkly suggested a way more secret and more sure. 

“ Our zeal,” said his letter to the Cardinal of Lorrain, “ gives us the 
right of earnestly exhorting and exciting you to use all your influence 
for procuring a definitive and serious adoption of the measure most 
proper for bringing about the destruction of the implacable enemies of 
God and the king.” A letter to Charles the [Xth, written soon after,* 
is not less explicit. “ We pray God to grant your majesty the victory 
over our common enemies. When God, as we trust, shall have given 
us the victory, it will then be for you to punish with the utmost rigour 
the heretics and their leaders, because they are the enemies of God ; 
you must avenge upon them not only your own injuries, but also 
those of Almighty God.” + 

The battle of Jarnac was fought, and the Protestants suffered a defeat. 
The Pope could not restrain his exultation at this prospect of ruin to the 
“heretics,” and he laboured to stimulate the fierce spirit of the French 
court to immediate and remorseless massacre. 

“The more,” said this atrocious manifesto, “ the Lord has treated 
you and me with kindness, the more you ought to take advantage of the 
opportunity which this victory offers to you, for pursuing and destroying 
all the enemies that still remain ; for tearing up entirely all the roots, and 
even the smallest fibres of the reots, of so terrible and confirmed an evil. 
For unless they are radically extirpated, they will be found to shoot out 
again ; and as it has already happened several times, the mischief will re- 
appear, when your majesty least expects it. You will bring this about, 
if no consideration for persons, or worldly things, induces you to spare the 
enemies of God, who have never spared God; who have never spared 
yourself. For you will not succeed in turning away the wrath of God, 
except by avenging him rigorously on the wretches who have offended 
him ; by inflicting on them the punishment they deserve.” 

The Pope did not neglect a person of so much influence as the queen 
mother ; but, as if he knew her wolfish spirit, he writes to her in the still 
plainer terms, of promising the assistance of Heaven, if she pursue the 
enemies of the Catholic religion, “ till they are all massacred ; for it is 
only by the entire extermination of the heretics, that the Catholic worship 
can be restored.” In another letter he tells her, that having heard it 
stated, “ that some persons were exerting themselves to save a small 
number of the prisoners, he warned her to be careful that no such thing 
should be done; and adjured her to neglect no means that these abo- 
minable men should suffer the punishment they deserved.” 

Those letters are undenied; they are public documents of French 
history ; and what can be more hideously sanguinary than their spirit ! 
We are to remember, too, that they are the commands of one who holds 
the supreme rank in spiritual things over the minds of papists, that he is 
to them infallible, “the vicar of God, a God on earth.” We cannot 


—_—----—--—---- 


* 13th of January 1569. | + 6th of March 1569, 


454. Popery, as it was, and mill be. [May, 


wonder at the horrid iniquities, the complication of perfidy and blood- 
thirstiness, that so immediately after deluged France with murder. 

The mind of the court being thus prepared by the exhortations of 
Pius the Vth to every individual of influence round the person of the 
young king, Catherine and her councillors waited only for an opportu- 
nity of striking the decisive blow. At the conferences of Bayonne in. 
1567, the Pope, Philip of Spain, and Catherine, had formed the design 
of extinguishing the Protestants; but it is not clear that they looked 
further than to the assassination of the leading princes and nobles, pre- 
suming, that with the loss of the leaders the party would perish. But 
the crime became familiar by contemplation. The death of the prince 
of Condé at Jarnac, seemed to produce so slight an impression on the 
fortunes of the Protestants, and so many bold and able men were seen 
ready to supply the place of those who fell in the field, that a more 
sweeping measure of ruin was resolved on in a cabinet, which seemed 
less of human council than of the fierce malignity and furious rebellion 
of fiends, 

In 1570 the treaty of St. Jermain en l’Aye was made, and thence- 
forth the whole policy of the queen was directed to lulling the suspicions 
of the Protestants, and drawing them to Paris. For this purpose a mar- 
riage was proposed between Henry, the son of the queen of Navarre, and: 
the princess Margaret, sister of Charles the IXth. A long course of the 
most dextrous dissimulation overcame Coligny, the Protestant leader’s, 
prudence, and he attended the court. The queen followed his example. 
She arrived in Paris in May, and was poisoned within a month. But 
this period of popish supremacy was the period of poisoning. Coligny’s 
brother had died by poison. Coligny himself was attempted by poison, 
and Philip the IInd of Spain had poisoned his wife, the king of France’s 
sister. A powerful and sagacious enemy was thus removed, but her 
death served as a protection to many of the Protestants, for it startled 
them so much, that they retired from Paris, and the general fears of the 
reformed were suddenly awakened. A saying of the Baron de Rosny, 
the father of the celebrated Duke of Sully, is reported, “If the prince of 
Bearn’s marriage is to be in Paris, the wedding favours will be crimson.” 

On the 18th of August, 1572, this ill-omened marriage took place. 
Four days were spent in public rejoicing. On the fourth day, Coligny 
returning from the Louvre, was fired at from the house of Villemur, the 


Duke of Guise’s tutor, in the Rue des Fosses, St. Germain. He was — 


wounded in both arms. Paris was instantly in confusion, and the 
princes of Navarre and Condé demanded an audience of the king for ven- 
geance on the assassin Maurevel and his employers. To lull suspicion 
to the last, the court visited Coligny in his bed. Councils were now held 
in rapid succession, to decide upon the means of striking the final blow. 
One of the points discussed was the death of the young king of Navarre, 
and the prince of Condé. The arrangements were at length made. The 
Duke of Guise was to murder Coligny on hearing the palace bell ring. 
Tavannes, a celebrated officer, was to muster the armed citizens at mid- 
night, at the Hotel de Ville ; when on the signal of the bell, they were to — 
barricade the streets, and get ready for the massacre. To keep up the 

delusion, the king rode out with the chevalier d-Angouleme, his natural 
brother, in the afternoon, through the streets; and the queen had her 
court circle as usual. Secrecy was to be rigorously observed, and yet 
secrecy must have exposed some who were not intended for the common 


* 1829.] _ The Massacre of Saint Bartholomew. 455 


slaughter. The Duchess of Lorrain, who was in the secret, wished her 
sister, the young queen of Navarre, not to go to bed. But Catherine 
prevented her importunity from betraying the massacre, by saying, that 
if she were not suffered to go, it might produce suspicion. The king 
wished to save the Count de Rochefoucault, and bade him remain that 
night in the Louvre; but the Count would sleep at home. Charles let 
him go, saying, that “it was clear that God intended him to perish.” 
But Ambrose Paré, the king’s surgeon, was not to be hazarded on any 
account, and Charles commanded his stay in the Louvre. 

As midnight approached, the armed companies were collecting before 
the Hotel de Ville. They required some strong excitement to bring 
them to a proper mind; and in order to animate and exasperate them, 
they were told that a horrible conspiracy was discovered which the 
Huguenots had made against the king, the queen mother, and the 
princes, without excepting the king of Navarre, for the destruction of 
the monarchy and religion ; that the king wishing to anticipate so exe- 
crable an attempt, commanded them to fall at once upon all those cursed 
heretics, (rebels against God and the king) without sparing one; and 
that afterwards their property should be given up to plunder. This was 
sufficient inducement for a populace who naturally detested the Hugue- 
_ nots. Every thing being thus arranged, they impatiently waited the 
dawn, and the signal which it was to bring with it. 

The wretched king of France had gone so far, that a retreat was im- 
possible ; but there is every reason to believe, that even at the last 
moment he would gladly have obeyed the dictates of nature, and have 
desisted from the cruel purpose. Among the inferior classes of mur- 
derers, whose condition is unable to protect them from the laws, we fre- 
quently find, that unless their lives have been of an abandoned descrip- 
tion, they have generally hesitated at the moment of committing the 
crime, and have required some excitement to urge them to the work. 
The hesitation, therefore, which Charles displayed, was natural ; although 
depraved in his mind, and vindictive in his disposition, his rank had pre- 
served him from conduct which would sear his feelings ; and we find that 
too late he sent orders to prevent the massacre from taking place. But 
the queen had perceived the inquietude which tormented him ; she saw 
that if the signal depended upon him, he would not have resolution to 
give it ; she considered that the hour should be hastened to prevent any 
rising remorse from destroying her work; she therefore made another 
effort to inflame her son, by telling him that the Protestants had dis- 
covered the plot ; and then sent some one to ring the bell of St. Germain 
L’ Auxerrois, an hour earlier than had been agreed upon.* <A few 
moments after was heard the report of a pistol, which had such an effect 

nthe king, that he sent orders to prevent the massacre, but it was then 
00 late. + 
_ Guise, who had waited with impatience for the signal, went at once to 
Coligny’s house, accompanied by his brother Aumale, Angouleme,; and 
anumber of gentlemen. Cosscius, who commanded the guards posted 
there, broke open the doors in the king’s name, and murdered some 
Swiss who were placed at the bottom of the stairs. Besme, a Lorrain, 


_ ™ De Thou, liy. 52. vol. 6. p. 397.—The church bell was rung at two o’clock in the 
Morning of Sunday the 24th of April. 
+ Villeroy, vol. 2, p. 88. 


456 Popery, as it was, and will be. [ May, 


and Pestrucci, an Italian, both in Guise’s pay, then went up stairs to the 
Admiral, followed by some soldiers. He awoke by the noise, and asked one 
of his attendants what it was; he replied, “ My lord, God calls us to 
himself.” Coligny then said to his attendants, “‘ Save yourselves, my 
friends ; all is over with me. I have been long prepared for death.” 
They all quitted him but one, and he betook himself to prayer, awaiting _ 
his murderers. Every door was soon broke open, and Besme presented 
himself. “ Art thou Coligny?” said he. “Jam he indeed,” said the 
Admiral ; “ young man you ought to respect my grey hairs; but do 
what you will, you can shorten my life only by a few days.” Besme re- 
plied only by plunging his sword into Coligny’s body ; his companions 
then gave him numerous stabs with their daggers. Besme then called 
out of the window to Guise, that it was done. “ Very well,” replied he, 
“ but M. d’Angouleme will not believe it, unless he sees him at his feet.” 
The corpse was then thrown out into the court from the window ; and 
the blood spirted out on the faces and clothes of the princes. Guise 
wiped the murdered man’s face in order to recognize him, and then gave 
orders to cut off his head. * 

The ringing of the bell of St. Germain L’Auxerrois was answered by 
the bells of all the churches, and the discharge of fire-arms in different 
parts. Paris resounded with cries and howlings, which brought the 
defenceless people out of their dwellings, not only unarmed, but half 
naked. Some tried Coligny’s house in the hope of obtaining protection, 
but the companies of guards quickly dispatched them; the Louvre 
seemed to hold out a refuge, but they were driven away by men armed 
with spears and musquetry. Escape was almost impossible; the nume- 
rous lights placed in the windows deprived them of the shelter which 
the darkness would have afforded them; and patroles traversed the 
streets in all directions, killing every one they met. From the streets 
they proceeded to the houses; they broke open the doors, and spared 
neither age, sex, nor condition. A white cross had been put in their . 
hats to distinguish the catholics, and some priests holding a crucifix in — 
one hand, and a sword in the other, preceded the murderers, and encou- 
raged them in God’s name to spare neither relatives or friends. When 
the daylight appeared, Paris exhibited a most appalling spectacle of 
slaughter: the headless bodies were falling from the windows, the gate- 
ways were blocked up with dead and dying, and the streets were filled — 
with carcases, which were drawn on the pavement to the river.t : 

Even the Louvre became the scene of great carnage; the guards 
were drawn up in a double line, and the unfortunate Huguenots who — 
were in that place were called one after another, and were killed with 
the soldiers’ halberts, most of them without complaining or even 
speaking ; others appealed to the public faith and the sacred promise of 
the king. “ Great God,” said they, “ be the defence of the oppressed, 
Just Judge, avenge this perfidy.” Some of the king’s servants, who 
lived in the palace, were killed in bed. a 

Tavannes, Guise, Montpensier, and Angouleme, rode through the 
streets, encouraging the murderers. Guise told them it was the king’s 
wish ; that it was necessary to kill the very last of the heretics, and 


* De Thou, liv. 52. ; { 
+ D’Aubigné Davila, Maimbourg, De Thou, Mathieu, &c. &c. Mem. de Tavannes, © 
p- 418. Davila, liv. v. p. 620. ’ 


| 
1829.) The Massacre of Saint Bartholomew. 457 


crush the race of vipers. Tavannes ferociously exclaimed, “ Bleed ! 
bleed! the doctors tell us that bleeding is as beneficial in-August as in 
May.” 
| These exhortations were not lost upon an enraged multitude, and the 
_ different companies emulated each other in atrocity. One Cruce, a 
agian boasted of having killed four hundred persons with his own 
and. 

The massacre lasted during the whole week, but after the first day its 
fury considerably abated ; indeed, on the Tuesday a proclamation was 
issued for putting an end to it, but no measures were taken for enforcing the 
order ; the people, however, were no longer urged on to the slaughter. 
What horrors were endured during that time, can be best described by 
those who were present or contemporaries.’ Sully gives the following 
account of his suffering: “I went to bed overnight very early ; I was 
awoke about three hours after midnight by the noise of all the bells, 
and by the confused cries of the populace. St. Julien, my governor, 
went out hastily with my valet-de-chambre to learn the cause, and I 
have never since heard anything of those two men, who were without 
doubt sacrificed amongst the first to public fury. I remained alone 
dressing myself in my chamber, where a few minutes after I observed my 
host enter, pale, and in consternation. He was of the religion, and 
having heard what was the matter, he had decided on going to mass to 
save his life, and preserve his house from plunder. He came to per- 
suade me to do the same, and to take me with him. I did not think 
fit to follow him. I resolved on attempting to get to the college of 
Burgundy, where I studied, notwithstanding the distance of the house 
where I lived from that college, which made my attempt very dan- 
gerous. I put on my scholars’ gown, and taking a pair of large prayer- 
books under my arm, I went down stairs. I was seized with horror as 
I went into the street at seeing the furious men in every direction, 
breaking open the houses, and calling out— Kill, massacre the Hugue- 
nots!” and the blood which I saw shed before my eyes redoubled my 

fright. I fell in with a body of soldiers, who stopped me; I was 
questioned—they began to ill-treat me, when the books which I carried 
were discovered, happily for me, and served me for a passport. Twice 
afterwards I fell into the same danger, from which I was delivered with 
the same good fortune. At length I arrived at the college of Burgundy ; 
a still greater danger awaited me there. The porter having twice 
refused me admittance, I remained in the middle of the street at the 
mercy of the ruffians, whose numbers kept increasing, and who eagerly: 
sought for their prey, when I thought of asking for the principal of the 
college, named Lafaye, a worthy man, and who tenderly loved me. 
The porter, gained by some small pieces of money which I put into his 
s hand, did not refuse to fetch him. The good man took me to his 
_ chamber, where two inhuman priests, whom I heard talk of the Sicilian 
Vespers, tried to snatch me from his hands, to tear me to pieces, saying, 
that the order was to kill even the infants at the breast. All that ‘he 
could do was to conduct me to a remote closet, where he locked me in. 
I remained there three whole days, uncertain of my fate, and receiving 
| no assistance but from a servant of this charitable man, who came from 
| time to time, and brought me something to live upon.” 
The Queen of Navarre has also given an account of the dreadful 
night which preceded, or rather ushered in the massacre. She relates, 
M.M. New Series —Vou.VU. No. 41. 3 .N 


458 The Massacre of Saint Bartholomew. [May, 


that in retiring to rest her husband’s bed was surrounded by thirty or 
forty Huguenots, who were talking all night of the accident which 
had befallen the admiral, and resolved the next morning to insist upon 
the king’s doing justice for them on the Guises. No sleep was to be 
had under such circumstances, and before day the King of Navarre rose 
with the intention of playing at tennis till the king (Charles) was up. 
When the King of Navarre and his gentleman had retired, the queen 
soon fell asleep. In less than an hour she was woke up by a man 
striking with his hands and feet against the door of her chamber, and 
calling out ‘ Navarre! Navarre!’ Margaret’s chambermaid opened the 
door, and immediately a man covered with blood, and pursued by four 
soldiers, ran in for refuge. ‘ He, wishing for protection,” says Margaret, 
“ threw himself on my bed. I, feeling a man lay hold of me, threw 
myself out at the bed-side, and him after me, still holding me round the 
body. I did not know the man, nor did I know if he came there to 
injure me, or whether the soldiers were ‘after him or me; we both of 
us cried out, and were both equally frightened.” It was with difficulty 
the queen could obtain this person’s pardon ; the captain of the guards 
conducted her to the chamber of her sister, the Duchess of Lorrain ; 
and at the moment of entering that apartment, a gentleman was killed 
close to her. She almost fainted away, and could only be brought to 
by her sister’s care. 

On coming to herself, the Queen of Navarre inquired for her husband, 
who on quitting his room had been conducted to the king’s presence, 
along with the Prince of Condé. They were not allowed to take their 
swords, and on the way they saw several of their friends murdered 
before them, particulerly the brave Piles, who so valiantly defended 
St. Jean d’Angely. In order to frighten them into compliance with the 
king’s wishes, they were made to feel the full extent of their danger ; 
they passed through long lines of soldiers, who were prepared to 
massacre them. Charles received them in great anger, and commanded 
them with his usual oaths and blasphemies to renounce the religion 
which they had only taken as a pretext for their rebellion. As the — 
princes, however, expressed the difficulty they felt in changing their 
creed, his rage became excessive, and he told them that he would no ~ 
longer be thwarted in his wishes by his subjects; that they ought to — 
teach others by their example to revere him as the image of God, and 
be no longer the enemies of his mother’s images. The Prince of Condé — 
boldly told him, that he was accountable to God alone for his religion; — 
that his possessions and his life were in his mejesty’s power, and he 
inight dispose of them as he pleased; but that no menaces, nor even — 
death should make him renounce the truth. They were then remanded — 
for three days, with the information, that if they did not become 
éatholics they would be treated as guilty of high treason, both human ~ 
and divine. The King of Navarre was in addition to send an order to 
his states, forbidding the exercise of every religion but the Romish. 

The Marshal de la Force was a child at the time of the massacre ; he 
has left some memoirs of his life, and has given the following narrative — 
of what occurred to him. “ A horse-dealer, who had seen the Duke of 
Guise and his satellites go into the Admiral Coligny’s house, and who, — 
gliding through the crowd, had witnessed the murder of that nobleman, _ 
ran immediately to give information to M. Cammont de La Force, to — 
whom he had sold ten horses a week before.” é 


1829. | Lhe Massacre of Saint Bartholomew. : 459 


_ La Force and his two sons lodged in the Faubourg St. Germain, as 
well as many Calvinists. There was not then any bridge which joined 
this Faubourg to the city. All the boats had been seized by 
order of the court to carry over the assassins. The horse-dealer plunged 
in, swam across, and informed M. de la Force of his danger. La Force 
was out of his house, and had time enough to save himself; but seeing 
his children did not follow him, he returned to fetch them. He had 
scarcely entered again when the assassins arrived. One Martin at their 
head entered his room, disarmed him and his two children, and told 
him, with dreadful oaths, that he must die. La Force: offered him a 
ransom of two thousand crowns. The captain accepted it. La Force 
swore to pay it to him in two days, and immediately the assassius, after 
having stripped the house, told La Force and his children to put their 
handkerchiefs to their hats in the form of a cross, and made them tuck 
up their right sleeves on their shoulder; that was the token for the 
murderers. In this state they made them pass the river, and conducted 
them into the city. The Marshal de la Force declares that he saw the 
riyer covered with dead hodies. His father, his brother, and he, landed 
before the Louvre. There they saw several of their friends murdered ; 
and among others the brave De Piles, father of him who killed in a duel 
the son of Malherbe. From thence Captain Martin took his prisoners to 
his house, Rue des Petits Champs, made La Force and his sons swear 
that they would not go out thence before they had paid the two thousand 
crowns, and went in search of other Calvinists to massacre in the city. 

One of the Swiss, touched with compassion, offered the prisoners to 
let them escape. La Force would do nothing of the kind. He answered, 
that he had pledged his word, and that he would rather die than forfeit 
it. An aunt of his had procured him the two thousand crowns, and they 
were going to be delivered to Captain Martin, when the Count de 
Coconas (the same who was afterwards beheaded) came to tell La Force 
that the Duke of Anjou wished to speak to him. Immediately he made 
the father and the children go down stairs, bareheaded and without their 
cloaks. La Force plainly saw that they were leading him to death; he 
followed Coconas, praying him to spare his two innocent children. The 
younger (aged thirteen years, the writer of this, and who was called 
James Nompar) raised his voice, and reproached the murderers with 
their crimes, telling them they would be punished for them by God. In 
the meantime the two children were led with their father to the end of 
the Rue des Petits Champs. ‘They first gave the elder several stabs. 
He cried out, “Ah! my father! Oh! my God, I am dead.” At the 
same instant the father fell upon his son’s body covered with wounds. 
The younger, covered with their blood, but who, by an astonishing 
miracle, had received no stab, had the prudence to cry out also, “ I am 
tn He then threw himself down between his father and his brother, 


d received their last sighs. 'The murderers, believing them all dead, 

ent away, saying, “ There they are all three.” Some wretches after- 
wards came to strip the bodies. The young La Force had one stocking 
A marker of Verdelet’s tennis-court wished to have it: in taking 
it off, he mused on the body of the young child. “ Alas!” said he, 
“ what a pity! Thisis but a child: what can he have done?” These words 
of compassion obliged the little La Force to raise his head gently, and say 
in a low voice, “1 am not yet dead.” The poor man answered, “ Do not 
stir, child, have patience.” In the evening, he came to fetch him. “ Get 
3 N 2 


460 The Massacre of Saint Bartholomew. [May, 


up,” -said he, “ they are no longer here,” and put a shabby cloak upon 
his shoulders. As he conducted him, some of the executioners asked 
him, “ Who is that boy?” <“ It is my nephew,” said he, “who has got 
drunk ; you see what a state he is in: I am going to give him a good 
whipping.” At last the poor marker took him to his house, and asked 
thirty crowns for his reward. From thence the young La Force was 
taken, in the disguise of a beggar, to the arsenal, to his relative, Marshal 
Biron, grand master of the artillery. He was concealed some time in 
the girls’ chambers. At length, hearing that the court were hunting 
after him to destroy him, he made his escape in the dress of a page, 
under the name of Beaupug. 

Although bigotry and fanaticism were the chief motives with the 
murderers, part of the crimes committed on the occasion were the effect 
of other bad passions, and many true Catholics were involved in the 
massacre. Those who were rich were sacrificed by their heirs, and 
many fell victims to private resentments. The Marshals Biron and 
Cossé were both devoted to destruction through the effect of personal 
dislike ; but Cossé found a powerful intercessor in the Duke of Anjou’s 
mistress ; and Biron, who was commander of the Bastile, defended him- 
self by pointing cannon against the infuriated mob. This attempt against 
him ensured his assistance for those Huguenots who sought his help. 

In the meantime, Coligny’s body was the object_of every kind of in- 
sult. His head was cut off and sent to Catherine. What became of it 
afterwards is unknown. Some say it was sent to the Pope ; others, to 
to the King of Spain. His body was mangled, and drawn through the 
streets during two or three days. The populace threw it into the river, 
but afterwards drew it out again, and hung it up by the heels at the 
gibbet of Montfaucon: a fire was placed underneath and disfigured it 
horribly. 

It was in this state when Charles went with his court to indulge in 
the sight of his murdered enemy, the same whom a few days before he 
had calied his father, assuring him that he should always consider him 
a faithful subject and a brave general. Some of the courtiers stopping 
their noses on account of the smell, the king remarked, “I do not as you 
do, for the smell of a dead enemy is always good.” __ 

Marshal Montmorency employed some persons to take down the 
miserable remains at night, and placed them in a secret place, being 
afraid to trust them in the chapel at Chantilly lest they should be taken 
away. They were afterwards interred at Montauban ; and, subsequently, 
when the decrees against Coligny’s memory were reversed, they were 
removed to the tomb of his ancestors at Chatillon sur Loire. a 

The savage passion for blood was mingled with the horrid mirth of — 
savages. The king and his companions enjoyed the popular sport, and _ 
even the ladies of the court made a promenade through the squares of — 
the Louvre to amuse their curiosity by walking among the bleeding © 
bodies of the Protestant gentlemen who had been at their parties but a — 
few hours before. All that fell on this dreadful occasion were not — 
butchered at once. Among them were nearly eight hundred who had — 
taken refuge in the prisons, expecting, of course, that this proof of re- 
liance on the government would have saved them from its rage. The — 
soldiery, however, were sent after them; they were brought out one-— 
by one, murdered, and then thrown into the Seine. AEN one 

The orders had rapidly spread to the provinces, and not only the 


ia 


1829,] The Massacre of St. Bartholomew. 461 


great cities, but the villages, and even the chateaus, were deluged with 
slaughter. Sully computes the number of the slain at 70,000; De Thou 
at 30,000. But Sully, from his rank, his personal connexion with the 
leading individuals of the French court in the reign of Henry IV., and 
his unimpeached honour, may be presumed the true authority. 

The first object of the French king, after glutting his thirst of 
slaughter, was to disguise his share in the conspiracy. But his words 
on the day itself, that, “now every one must turn Catholic!” were too 
well remembered ; and it was undeniable that he was seen firing from 
the Louvre windows on the fugitives, and exclaiming, “ Kill! kill 
them !” 

A more specious contrivance was equally ineffectual. On the 26th, 
he went to mass with his court to thank Heaven for having saved him 
from the Protestants ; and on his return to the palace he held a “lit de 
justice,” in which, changing the former ground, of the massacre having 
been an accidental tumult, he observed, that it was committed by his 
orders, but that it had become necessary to prevent an attack on the 
royal person by the Protestants. In two days after, the king, by pro- 
clamation, declared himself the author of the massacre, and, at the same 
time prohibited the exercise of protestanism “ till provision were made 
for the public tranquillity.” This was followed by a parliamentary 
decree, declaring the memory of Coligny infamous; and the French 
ambassadors were everywhere directed to put this colouring on the 
conduct of Charles. But they were everywhere received with either 
open horror or open incredulity. Elizabeth’s reception of the ambassa- 

dor Fenelon was characteristic. She and her whole court were in deep 
mourning. Nothing could be at once more dignified and more expres- 
sive. Two sovereigns, and but two, welcomed the tidings : those two were 
the King of Spain, and the Pope. The King of Spain, however, had one 
regret ; it was, that the work was not completed by the death of the 
young King of Navarre and the Prince of Condé. 

But at Rome the triumph was open and boundless. The messenger 
who brought the dispatch to the Cardinal of Lorrain, was rewarded like 
one who had brought the news of a great victory. The Cardinal Alex- 
ander exclaimed, exultingly, “ The King of France has kept his word !” 
And the Pope, Gregory XIII., ordered a grand procession, went to high 
mass, had “ Te Deum” sung, the cannon of St. Angelo fired, and a 

_medal struck, in commemoration of this holy slaughter, bearing on one 
side his own head, and on the other the destroying angel smiting the 
Protestants; the motto, to make all clear, being, “ Huguenotorum 
Strages. 1572.” 

- The natural reflection upon events like this—and the massacre is but 
one of many in the history of this tremendous power—is, whether there is 
discoverable in the laws of popery any rational ground for conceiving 
that with the new extent of its influence that must follow from its ad- 

_ mission into the Legislature, the old and undying antipathy of Rome to 

_ every shape of truth, whether civil or religious, may not be expected to 
start up again? The Government of Charles I. among ourselves, by en- 
couraging the papists in Ireland was the direct and immediate origin of 

_ the Irish massacre of 1641, which was computed to have destroyed up- 

wards of a hundred thousand Protestants, almost at the instant. The 

tampering of the Government in our own time with the Irish 
papists produced the ‘rebellion of 1798, in which a great number 


462 The Massacre of St. Bartholomew. [ May, 


of Protestant gentlemen and their families were murdered in cold 
blood, on the mere assumption of their being “ heretics.” 


Charles II. with the papists in England and abroad, was on the very 
verge of producing a general popish insurrection, aided by a foreign 
army, and that the original depositions of Titus Oates were true, though 
he subsequently disgraced their truth by the perjuries with which he 
strove to sustain himself as an object of public interest. 

We deprecate all those fearful consequences ; but it is the knowledge 
that those consequences have always followed hitherto, that makes us so 
deeply deprecate the measure that has been forced upon the country. 
God grant that they may not follow ; that the national voice so strongiy 
raised against the measure, may have reached a higher tribunal than the 
throne of man, and have averted the punishment ‘of tergiversation and 
apostacy at least from the people. None will be more rejoiced at the un- 
broken’ tranquillity of the empire than ourselves; but we must long 
tremble. 


THE WARRIORS, 


Long life to the men of the pistols and swords! - 
Long life to the men that can eat their own words! 
Long life to the flyers ! long life to the fighters ! 
Long life to the holy Lord Curtis's writers! 

Tol de rol. 


Long life to the warrior, so gay and galiant, 

That neither the duke nor the devil could daunt, 

Who swore by his whiskers he’d die on the spot, 

Or he’d make certain ministers know what was what! 
Tol de rol. 


. Long life to the swearer ! long life to the throng, 
That shouted from shore as his yacht flew along! 
Long life to the tear that he dropt for his cows, 
For his daughters, and Wellesley’s sweet eiedevant spouse ! 
Tol de rol. 


And long life to the wisdom that tempered his vigour, 

And bade him put up in its case his hair trigger ; 

And whispered him, ‘ Asses have no brains to spare ; 

So go and beg pardon—Ground arms!—As you were !” 
Tol de rel. 


* And knowing henceforth that your head and your buff 
Are gifted by nature with lead quite enough, 
Go, make up your mind that your buff rand your hea | 
Shall be safe from all lining, except their own lead.” 

Tol de rol. 


Now long life to all heroes, on horse or on foot ! 
Long life to the talkers! long life to the mute ! 
Long life to the trickers ! long life to the tricked ! 
Long life to the kickers! long life to the kicked ! 
Tol de rol. 


Long life to the man that can swallow his Spa ! 
Long life to the great, and long life to the little! 
_ Long life to the slave that can simper and spraw] ! 
And long life to the Marquis, the Marshal, and all ! 
Tol de rol. 


There is now: 
no doubt on the mind of any reasonable man, that the tampering of 


= 


pe 


1829.] [ 463. ] 
; THREE YEARS AT CAMBRIDGE. 


- Towarps the close of the year 1819, I left R——g school for Cambridge. 

There is a wild, buoyant feeling of independence, a strange mixture of 
sadness and enthusiasm, that alternately sways the mind at the idea of 
thus throwing off for ever the trammels of scholastic bigotry, and putting 
on instead the toga virilis of manhood. While we are at school—it is 
useless to mince the matter—we are, in every sense of the word, 
children, with whom ladies may venture to be familiar before com- 
pany; superannuated nurses to visit and salute by some old nur- 
sery abridgement, that adds any thing but grace or dignity to our 
patronymic ; and indescribable grandmothers—those venerable and gro- 
tesque abominations—to treat half-price, to the pantomime of some minor 
theatre. But when once we have bidden adieu to the school-room, the 
scene becomes altogether changed. In an instant we take our proper 
station in society. We rise to the moral altitude of manhood by virtue 
of our incipient whiskers and instinctive impudence; are no longer 
cyphers, but have a stake in the great affairs of life, and may even go 
the extreme length of sporting a political opinion. 

Some such blissful ideas flashed across my mind as, on a fine cool 
morning in October, I bade adieu to my school companions, and most 
condescendingly shook hands with one poor class-fellow in_ particular, 
who hadbeen well flogged only ten minutes before—a circumstance that 
materially improved the pathos of our mutual farewells. As the coach 
passed the old Abbey, behind whose ruins I had so often skulked ; as it 
wound along the side of the river, in whose waters I had so often, with 
scientific discrimination, hooked a bullrush for a barbel, and where I 
was once nearly, if not quite, drowned; the most riotous fancies came 
over me. I felt that I was now independent—oh, in this one word 
Independence, what a volume of pleasurable emotions is comprised !— 

_ that I was going to exchange the sky-blue and swipes of school for the 
_ more dignified compotations of college ; ring-taw and rounders for hunt- 
_ ing and tandem-driving ; and my ribbed corduroys blurred with ink, 
and bleached with perpetual ablutions, for clothes such as Petersham 
might be proud to wear, and Stultz to manufacture. Under the influence 
of these feelings I reached Cambridge—that hallowed, mysterious spot, 
which, with whatever sang froid we may approach it in after-life, can 
most assuredly never be visited for the first time in embryo manhood, 
_ without sentiments of the most elevated character. 
__. My first night was passed at that excellent inn, the Eagle and Child ; 
but, early on the following morning, I made my way to Mr. 
_T——a, tutor of the college at which I had previously entered my 
mame. By this gentleman I was received with the customary stateliness, 
d recommended, till rooms could be procured for me in the college, to 
ings at a bookbinder’s in the Pease Market. “ Of T. n,” to adopt 
e language of Dr. Johnson, “thus presented to my mind, let me here 
ndulge the remembrance.’”” He was—I should say, is, for he yet lives 
ished specimen of those dry adust book-worms—a race, thank 
God! now nearly extinct—whose brains are filled with learned lumber, 
_ to the diligent exclusion of all that is really valuable in learning. In 
person he was long—thin—transparent ; of a grave and formal demeanor, 
ding a joke in the most respectful abhorrence, and so strait-laced in 


464 Three Years at Cambridge. [ May, 


morals, that he possessed the singular and enviable recommendation of 
being the only virgin in Cambridge. His dress, like his intellect, -was 
quaint and antique ; his coat dated from the Pyramids, his breeches 
from the Christian era, his stockings were infants during the dynasty 
of the Plantaganets, and, as for his hat, it was one of those obscure his- 
torical matters whose origin is lost in the remoteness of antiquity. To 
enhance the graces of his countenance, he wore huge black horn specta- 
cles, which, whenever he wished to see remarkably well, he never failed 
to take off, and has even been known to hunt for them a full half-hour, 
when all the time they were quietly seated astride his nose. It is but 
justice to this eminent individual to add, that he was seldom seen abroad 
without a face thickly coated with dust, which gave his countenance a 
sort of mahogany tinge, and made it look so crisp and dry, that, when 
slapped, an experimentalist would be apt to fancy it would crackle like 
a piece of parchment. Report gave T. n the credit of washing once a 
week: this, however, I feel bound in honour to declare is base, false, 
and calumnious. 

On returning to my lodgings, after my first interview with this gent., 
in the course of which I was supplied with every possible variety of 
useless exhortation, I found my table thick spread with tradesmen’s cir- 
culars, stating in business-like terms their anxiety for the honour of my’ 
custom. ~Here was temptation with a vengeance! Luckily I had the 
good sense to resist, and to content myself with a few absolute necessaries, 
for which I proffered immediate payment—a silly habit, and one, as I 
afterwards had reason to find, peculiarly unfashionable at Cambridge. 

On the third day of my arrival I made my first appearance at the Col- 
lege Lecture Rooms. The subjects of the lecture were the five first 
propositions of Euclid, and a few pages of Wood’s Algebra. This was 
bad enough ; but, unfortunately, T n’s mode of tuition rendered the 
business worse. Instead of simplicity, his explanations possessed the 
most perplexing abstruseness. He made, besides, no allowance for dis- 
relish or inexperience, but, judging of others by his own practised 
habits, imagined that every student must necessarily burst forth at once, 
like Minerva from the brain of Jupiter, a full-grown, full-fledged 
mathematician. The consequence of this was obvious. I began speedily 
to entertain a dislike to science—to fancy that I was one of those born — 
with what Horace calls a “ crassa Minerva,” and that all the prognostics — 
which my friends had been pleased to entertain respecting my success at _ 
Cambridge, would, from the single circumstance of the University 
honours being restricted, if not exclusively, at least in most cases, to — 
mathematics, be at once and for ever blighted. This for a time threw an 
intolerable damp on my spirits. I could not but feel that, as a mathe- — 
matician, I was the most promising blockhead in my college ;. that — 
I was eyed with pity by some, and with contempt by others. — 
Strongly acted on by these possibly over-sensitive opinions, I began 
gradually to withdraw more and more into myself, and, in my intervals” 
of study, to confine myself exclusively to the classics. In this state 
mind I was found by an old schoolfellow, named P. t, a friend, whose 
intimacy had been for years my chief delight at Reading.—A word here 
upon those very agreeable delusions, school friendships. Though 
apparently bottomed on durable foundations, they are the mere creatures — 
of impulse, hollow and illusory, short-lived and fantastic, glow-worm 


1829.] Three Years at Cambridge. 465 


splendours, that fade and become extinct as reason dawns on the mind. 
Formed in a moment of confidence, they expire with the cause that 
originated them—the unreflecting sensibility of the young heart. “Self 
militates against them. Engaged in after years too much with Number 
One, to bestow a thought on Number Two, our attention is solely occu- 
pied in bustling through the crowd that every where retards our pro- 
gress. Though we see him whom we once loved, jammed—pressed— 
and finally trodden beneath our feet, we gaze with indifference at the 
sight. Perhaps, at that moment, a thought of past times darkens our 
brow. We cast a cautious glance about us—the crowd thickens—the 
hazard increases—we sigh out, “ Poor fellow !” and then pass on, leav- 
ing the object of our early love to perish or escape, as may happen: 
Thus is it with human nature. The affections of the heart, like streams 
flowing on towards the sea, roll awhile in different channels, but are all 
at last engulphed in the one wide grasping ocean of self. | 

At this particular juncture, however, I had yet to feel the full truth of 
the foregoing remarks. P. t was still the same frank, though some- 
what fanciful fellow, I had known at Reading; I was equally disposed 
to admire him; and, to cement our union, “each had sufficient funds to 
enable him to be independent of the other. If you wish to preserve 
your friend, whether at school, college, or in the world, avoid borrow- 
ing money of him. Friendship, that can stand the test of almost every 
thing, that can bear with advice and be patient under vituperation, 
shrinks from that superhuman ordeal—the loan of money. Depend on 
it, Pylades never owed Orestes a single farthing; had he done so, he 
would most probably have died in some Grecian Newgate, and the world 
a lost as pretty a bit of sentiment as school-boy ar school-girl could 

esire. 

It was on my road home from the Lecture-Rooms that I first lighted on 
P——t. After the usual greetings, he proposed that I should accompany 
him to Sapsford’s (the Merman of the Cam), and take an hour's boating 
on the river. No sooner said than done: our caps and gowns, those 
“ outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual” intellect, were 
instantly thrown off, the boat unmoored, the sails unfurled, and away 
we went, with a fair wind, at the uncommonly mercurial pace of two 
miles and a half an hour. - Ina short time we reached Chesterton, where 
we landed, went into the billiard-room, and amused ourselves with 
watching the bad play of two consequential fellow-commoners—that 
amphibious compromise between the glittering rank of the nobleman 
and the staid gentility of the pensioner. Of all the sports to which 
our British youth are addicted, I know of none so utterly without 
apology as billiards. Sailing I can fancy, and even exult in, for there 
is something ennobling to the mind in being able to render a new 
element subservient to one’s purpose, in enslaving the free winds, and 
moulding its very caprices to one’s wants ; in driving, a sense of power 
is felt, and dexterity called into action ; in skaiting, the elegance of the 

7 form is put forth in all its attractions ; the pulse beats high, a 
ous ferment warms the blood, and the whole man becomes elastic 
—mercurial—spiritualized (if I may venture to use an expression which 
skaiters alone will comprehend)—but in billiards, the whole gist of 
which consists in knocking two bone balls, like two thick heads, against 
h other, and shoving them into a yellow worsted bag, at the same 
ime stretching out the legs and arms to an extent provocative of dislo- 
ion—in this amusement, I am yet to learn where lies the extraors 
M.M. New Scries—Vouw. VII. No. 41. 30 


466 Three Years at Cambridge. [ May, 


. dinary fascination. The two fellow-commoners seemed pretty much of 
my way of thinking, for shortly after our entrance: they both left off 
their game, and after a few indifferent remarks, proposed that we should 
all adjourn to a neighbouring fish-pond at (I forget the man’s name), 
and there troll for a few pike. Having nothing better to do, we unhesi- 
tatingly closed with this proposition, and set off for one of those well- 
known reservoirs of mud in which the starvling pike of Cam are pre- 
served. And here it may not be amiss to sketch, for the benefit of the 
uninitiated, the delights of Cambridge trolling. In the first place, you get 

as close as possible to the muddy margin of an oozy oblong pond, agree- 
ably chequered with bullrushes and chickweed (both usually in high 
condition) ; secondly, you flourish over-head an uncouth rod, with a 
wheel as large as Ixion’s, and equally impracticable ; thirdly, having 
finished such aérial evolution, you let your bait drop into the water, and 
there keep it till you find your wrist nearly jerked off your arm; 
fourthly, being convinced, from this satisfactory symptom, that you have 
hooked a fish, you proceed to pull him out, or rather he proceeds to pull 
you in; and, fifthly, the sport is wound up by your throwing a summer- 
sault, head-foremost, into the water, in an abortive attempt to bend 
gracefully forward for the purpose of securing your prey. After a half- 
hour’s amusement of this sort, in the course of which I had caught 
nothing but the calf of P. t’s left leg, I bade adieu to Chesterton, and 
took the shortest road back to Cambridge. By this time the second bell 
had rung for dinner; so, without a moment’s delay, I proceeded to 
Hall, where I was just in time to secure the last cut of a cold leg of 
mutton, near the knuckle. This being with difficulty discussed, and 
washed down with a proportionate modicum of brisk swipes, I hurried 
back to my rooms, where I soon forgot all my dietetic mortifications 
in a glass of Mr. Triston’s best wine, and a volume of the Scotch 
novels. In the evening, I attended chapel—for I had not yet learned 
to set college laws at defiance—where I received a strong stimu- 
lus to my devotion by hearing the long mellow snore of the Master keep 
time to the deeper and more practised tones of the Bursar’s nose. This — 
brought me to the social hour of tea, which being also concluded, I 
strolled for an hour into Deighton’s, to read the last number of the 
Monthly Magazine, and fimished the night with P. t, and one or two 
other friends, over a bow] of that immaculate milk-punch, which, what- — 
ever be the envy of his contemporaries, will assuredly hand down the 
name of Newby to posterity. 

Thus with a few slight variations, such as fits of hard study and occa- 
sional breakings forth into strenuous dissipation, passed my first year at 
Cambridge. My second brought an addition to my income by the death ~ 
of my father—I was his only child, and my mother had been long since — 
dead — which event took place for the sole purpose, as it should seem, of 
luring me on to destruction. I now began to enlarge the sphere of my 
amusements: among other follies, I became ambitious of the honor of 
being a whip, procured a tandem from Jordan, cultivated the acquai 
ance of that immortal coachman, Hell-fire Dick, and was often se 
bending beneath the weight of a box coat with countless capes. My — 
particular crony at this period was the above mentioned driver of the — 
Telegraph. True, he was not exactly a gentleman, but he was better; _ 
he was a genius of the first water. His eloquence was bold, vigorous. 
and discursive ; his habits social and bibulous; his opinions quaint ane 
anti-matrimonial. He was attached to church and state, hated the French: 


1829.] Three Years at Cambridge. 467 


eschewed the Catholics, and had a good opinion of George III. His 
person was as peculiar as his mind, and would have been eminently 
handsome had it not been for a red pimpled nose, on whose volcanic sur- 
face every succeeding week’s tippling threw up a fresh eruption ; a 
mouth from ear to ear; a slight squint, and two legs formed on the prin- 
ciple of mill-posts, with the exception that the thickest part was down- 
wards. Such was Richard Vaughan, who, after a life spent in the service 
of the University, broke his neck at Puckeridge, by a fall from a 
one-horse chaise. He died, as he had lived, drunk : and it is gratify- 
ing to reflect that his last moments were those of an orthodox Christian, 
being spent in the discussion of a glass of brandy and water, cold and 
without sugar. The day of his decease was rendered memorable by my 
first excursion to Newmarket. It wasa fine cool morning in October, and 
as my horses’ hoofs went clattering along the hard flinty road, at the 
rate at least of twelve miles an hour, I thought I had never till then expe- 
rienced true enjoyment. By the time that I reached the heath the racers 
had just started for the Riddlesworth. Gay cavalcades of carriages filled 
with elegantly attired females—groups of Cantabs galloping in every direc- 
tion across the heath in all the pride of youth and health—hundreds of 
pedestrians cheering on their favourite horses—black legs assembled round 
the betting-post, hushed as death in the stillness of intense excitement— 
and, to crown all, a cloudless meridian sun shedding down its mellow 
October radiance on horseman and pedestrian, tandem, chariot, and 
racer—all these combined enchantments lent a grace—a novelty—a fresh- 
ness to the scene, which I, for one, shall never forget. But when the 
horses reached the brow of the hill the interest became inexpressibly 
heightened. A roar like the sound of many waters, or the descent of an 
Alpine avalanche, came up from the assembled multitude; oaths, 
shouts, screams of fear, and peals of laughter, rang aloud in all directions, 
while the high mettled racers, as if inspired by the sound, strained their 
every nerve to gain the goal. By this time they had advanced to within 
a yard of where the umpires had taken their stand. On—on they came, 
bounding forward like a wave, and for a moment all was hushed, as Fanny, 
the favourite of the day, made her last triumphant spring. With foam- 
ing mouth, glaring eye balls, and muscles stretched to the extreme point 
of tension, the generous creature sprung to some distance beyond the 
_ goal, staggered for an instant, made one strong convulsive movement, 
_ and then dropped dead on the course. 
; It is surprising how soon, when the chief heats are over, the heath 
_ becomes deserted. The Newmarket races, unlike those of Epsom or 
Ascot, are matters rather of business than fashion, and when once the 
great sweepstakes are decided, off start the company, some to Cambridge 
and some to Bury, but the majority back into the town, where they ar- 
range their bets, drink success to the turf, and not unfrequently contrive 
_ to acquaint themselves before morning with the sub-tabular proportions 
of the dining room. I was one of those who, immediately the Riddles- 
worth was over, hurried back to the University in order to make due pre- 
arations for the first grand ovation I had yet ventured to give. 
he A Cambridge dinner party! Who that has once witnessed it, can 
forget that Euthanasia of tipple, that Apotheosis of hiccup and huzza? 
Before dinner, the company—more especially the juniors—are much ad~ 
dicted to stiffness and dignity, and, unless properly introduced, will sit 
beside each other a whole hour without speaking. Moreover they inva- 
riably come full-dressed, and, after the cloth is removed; afford, (the 


468 Three Years at Cambridge. [May, 


majority at least) with their red faces and white waistcoats, the most 
picturesque and edifying contrasts. But to return more immediately to 
my subject. After the bottle had made a few rapid circuits round the 
table, the mauvaise honte of my guests disappeared, toasts were given— 
one of which, however acceptable to Sir J. Scarlett, would have given 
sore offence to the Rev. Mr. Cunningham — songs were sung ; stories 
prosed over; and olives voted nem. con. an invention worthy of divi- 
nity. But literature was on all hands proscribed. One deprecated 
the introduction of such a topic, on the plea that it gave him the head- 
ache ; another, fresh from school, yet felt the tingling of the birch on 
that particular part of his outer man to which schoolmasters never fail 
to apply for information on all doubtful points, and was therefore 
sore upon the subject ; while a third left all such stupid matters to the 
Sizars. Conversation meantime flowed on, when, suddenly, a pause en- 
sued owing to the defection of one of the party. Here was a flagrant 
act of mutiny! Luckily for the ends of justice the deserter was detected, 
brought back with all the honors of war, and condemned to drink a 
bumper of salt and water, which had such an immediate effect, that from 
sheer charity we were obliged to trundle him home in a wheel-barrow. 
The talk, which had hitherto rolled on quietly enough, now burst forth 
with a roar like that of Niagara: the hon. Gent. who was above the table 
begged leave to toast the hon. Gent. who was below it ; till, at last, when 
nothing more remained to drink, the whole party, with the exception of 
those who clung to the legs of the table, sallied forth in the direction of 
the Pease market. Here, as ill luck would have it, we encountered a 
half-dozen brace of snobs. To meet with such a gang and drub them 
is, at Cambridge, one and the same thing, and, accordingly we set-to 
with a heartiness that soon brought six of our party in abrupt collision 
with the earth. But the ery of “ gown, gown,” procured us a speedy re- 
inforcement ; detachments of two, three, and four, all belligerent, and 
one or two rather sober than otherwise, rushed forward to the scene 
of action; the counter cry of “ town, town,” gave the snobs a nearly 
equal accession of strength, and both parties kept up the engagement 
with Homeric spirit and dexterity. Just at this crisis, however, we were 
surprised by the appearance of the night proctor and his bull-dogs. 
Away scampered “ town” and “ gown,” each in an opposite direction ; 
some tumbled headlong into the sheep-pens ; others, after fathoming the 
exact depth of every gutter in their road, finished the night on one of 
those mud-heaps in which the purlieus of “ Jesus’ abound; and the _ 
majority were captured by the constables, but not till every alarm bell 
had been set in action, every bed-room window garnished with a night- 
cap, and the town seized with a universal paralysis from Parker’s Piece _ 
to Castle end. $ 
The next day I rose with an intense head-ache. My hand shook, 
my limbs quivered, my pulse fluttered, I was altogether a disjointed 
jumble of penitence, hypochondriasm, and sophistication. To make 
matters worse, a chivalrous testimonial of my prowess on the pre- _ 
ceding night, began to make its appearance on either optic in| the 
shape of a black eye. Pray, have any of my readers ever been fortunate 
enough to experience such an ornamental appendage to their outer man? 
If so, they will not fail to appreciate the full force of the satisfaction 
with which, on rising from my bed, and applying for information to my 
glass, I detected a wide discoloured circle, made up in equal portions of 
black and yellow; deepening gradually round each eye. As if this rain- 


a 


1829.] Three Years at Cambridge. 469 


bow were not in itself sufficient, I had the additional consolation of dis- 
covering that my eye-tooth on the left hand side was missing. In the 
hurry of business during the preceding night, it had been loosened, dis- 
lodged, and bolted ! 

In this state of mind and body I was found by Mr. G——, 
the horse-dealer, who abruptly entered my room with a bill of 
ominous longitude in his hand. His face was awfully ugly ; the features 
grim and satanic—the expression—but what beauty can you expect from 
a creditor? Venus herself would look a fright if she came to ask for 
money! Scarcely had I got rid of this unreasonable being, which I did 
with the greatest difficulty, when P. t burst in upon my solitude. 
His demeanour, like his predecessor’s, was thoughtful, for not a bone in 
his skin—and he abounded in that article—had been left unvisited by 
the mobility. His memory, too, was unusually vivid; and as few, if 
any, of my numerous scrapes during the last year and a half had escaped 
him, he now indulged me with a copious catalogue of them, concluding 
his “reminiscences” with a florid description of my black eye, the justice 
of which was a strong provocative to suicide. So passed the first truly 
miserable day I had yet spent at Cambridge. 

It was about a month after this adventure, that I was invited to form one 
of a party who were on the eve of setting out on a journey to Whittelsea 
Mere. There is something so peculiar about the scenery of the Isle of Ely 

-fens—so desolate, so uniform, so truly oppressing to the imagination, that 
I may probably be excused if I here attempt a description of them. We left 
Cambridge about four o’clock in the evening, and after a toilsome, I may 
even add perilous, circumbendibus through cross-roads, rarely visited 
except by the enterprizing sportsman, arrived at a late hour at Ramsay. 
Here we halted for the night at a small public house, the best that the 
place afforded, and early on the following morning, after a breakfast 
that would have done honour to a beef-eater, prepared to continue our 
journey. What was our astonishment, on reaching the inn door, to find 
the streets nearly knee deep in water, and crowds of people paddling , 
their way through it, some in boats, some in coracles, and one or two on 
foot! On inquiring into the cause of this phenomenon, we were in- 
formed that, owing to the late rains, the neighbouring fenny lands had 
overflowed ; and, with a punctuality rather to be admired than imitated, 
had paid their usual periodical visit to Ramsay. Under these circum- 
stances we were obliged to hire a two-oared boat, in which we were 
rowed down to a barge which, according to previous orders, lay in 
waiting for us at the canal bridge. Our Palinurus was a dull amphibi- 
ous sort of biped, half bargeman, half coachman—who placed himself at 
the helm, and, by a peculiar movement of the cable, directed the motion 
of the horse who towed us slowly along. This mode of journeying, 
however efficient in countries like the Netherlands, where every conve- 

nience is provided for the traveller's accommodation, is any thing but 
i ry in England, where it is wholly out of character. For miles 
miles the Cambridge and Lincolnshire fens possess not the slightest 
iety. ‘There are no villages scattered along the borders of the canals 
no sylvan snatches of scenery—no detached cottages, where the busy 
inning wheel may be seen to ply—no luxuriant meadows, where at the 
ting season the hum of human industry may be heard, and the chirp 
the grasshopper, and the quick shrill carol of the blackbird may give 
ife and interest to the landscape—the whole is one deceitful desert flat, 
hing on to an apparently interminable distance on all sides. 


470 Three Years at Cambridge. [May 


As we threaded in succession Soham, Ramsay, Ugg, and Meres, a 
strange feeling of desertion came over us. Imperceptibly the blighting 
spirit of the scenery passed into our minds: we even forgot the object of 
our excursion, and became reserved and silent. Sir W. Scott, in one of 
his immortal fictions, has remarked upon this strange susceptibility of the 
human mind to the external influences of nature. He has described the 
impression made upon one of his heroes ; first, by the appearance of a 
black deeply-wooded stream ; secondly, by a sparkling salient summer 
brooklet. He has pourtrayed his young enthusiast as sauntering beside 
the first with a step of congenial gloom, but bounding along the daisied 
margin of the other with a sunniness of mind and aspect exactly in 
accordance with its character. Precisely of this nature were our feelings 
as we passed lazily down the canal; nor did we resume our usual tone 
of mind, till our steersman, pointing» to something that glittered in 
distance, told us we were fast approaching the long-desired lake. Ina 
few minutes after this announcement, our horse was disengaged, fastened 
to a small shed or stable built for that purpose on the bank, the mast 
hoisted, and the sail sét. In its approach to Whittelsea Mere the Ramsay 
canal widens considerably. So gradual, however, is this increase that 
the stranger is not at first aware of it until the fact is forced upon his 
attention by the augmented velocity of the current and the undulating 
motion of the vessel. As we approached the lake, our barge, which had 
been hitherto apparently immoveable, began to reel like a drunken man, 
under the influence of a stiff breeze: at the same moment a sudden lurch 
dislodged us all from our seats ; nor were we able to regain them until 
our heavy lumbering barge was fairly launched on the expansive bosom 
of the Fen. 

And here a landscape impressed itself on our minds such as is 
seldom seen in England. An immense sheet of water, a sort of 
inland sea, heaving and agitating under the influence of a fresh wind, 
surrounded us in every direction, fringed on one side by acres of bull- 
rushes, the growth no doubt of ages, and which gave out a long melan- 
choly sigh as the uninterrupted breeze swept over them; and onthe — 
other by the distant spires of Peterborough Cathedral, to the right and — 
left of which stretched out a vast extent of morass, dark, dull, and so ~ 
cursed with sterility that no living thing could pick even a blade of 
grass from its surface. But what rendered the scene more peculiarly 
impressive was the awful character of its desolation. As far as eye 
could discern, not a symptom of life was visible; the spirit of an 
eternal solitude seemed to hover in cloudy grandeur over the landscape, 
whose silence was never invaded, except now and then when the sound- 
ing bittern soared upward from her sedgy nest, or some huge — 
fish leaped up from the water to catch at the shadow thrown by | 
the passing plover or wild duck. After a full half hour spent in 
the contemplation of this striking scene, we prepared our fishing- — 
tackle, a large artificial fly made of the gaudiest colours, and used 
in the same way as the old fishermen use them in South Wal 
For some time we met with not the slightest success, and were j 
about to give up the pursuit, when suddenly from amidst a group 
floating rushes, forth sprang a mighty fish, which seized the bait, an 
made off with it to his retreat, with a splash that set the water in a foam 
around him. For ten minutes the monster remained immoveable, during 
which interval we waited in a state of the most anxious suspense ; when 
once again he darted forward, mad with pain and dragging many yard 


1829.) Three Years at Cambridge. 471 


of line behind him. Now and then we caught a glimpse of his broad 
black back as he rose to the surface to get breath, and the sight served 
wonderously to whet our expectations. At last, after a full hour’s 
exertion, we contrived to draw him into the boat, and were literally 
thunderstruck by his size. He was the largest pike, said our Pali- 
nurus, as he stuck him coolly through the skull, that had ever been 
caught in the Lincoln Fens; and may, to this hour, be seen stuffed in 
the front parlour of the George Inn, Ramsay, to whose quaint but 
social landlord we presented him on our return. By this time the sun 
had declined considerably from his meridian ; and as night on the Fens, 
more especially when the waves run high, is anything but satisfactory, 
we prepared for our return to Ramsay. As we reached the mouth of 
the canal, we paused an instant to catch a parting glimpse of the scene 
we were quitting. It was more than ever impressive, for the gathering 
shadows of evening had heightened its fearful gloom. No sun dyed in 
blood, set in deep purple splendour on the vast waters of the lake; 
the twilight was worthy of the landscape, and crept on, accompanied 
by a mass of leaden clouds that momently sank down upon the Fen, 
whose livid surface, as we quitted it, lay stretched out in indistinct and 
frightful blackness behind us. 

Ihave now brought down my narrative to the third (¢.e. the last) 
year of my residence at the University. This is usually a very awkward 
and embarrassing epoch. For his two first years, the dashing Cantab is 
every where abroad—he is seen dancing at the Huntingdon Assemblies 
—boating at Chesterton—betting at Newmarket—fishing on the fens— 
sporting on the Gogs—but the last year he gradually retires from notice ; 
his instinctive bashfulness gets the better of him; he shrinks into him- 
self, and becomes invisible, first to his friends, and finally to his creditors. 
This, therefore, I call the year of retribution and invisibility. With me 
it passed slowly, and in extreme wretchedness. I was dunned all day, 
and had the nightmare all night. Wherever I went, there was I sure to 
meet a creditor. In fact, so numerous were these last, that, had I been 

patriotically addicted, I am convinced I could have raised a regiment from 
them, out of which a capital Light Company—or, rather, a Forlorn 
Hope—might have been formed from my tailors only. 

Asif this of itself were not sufficiently vexatious, I had farther the feli-~ 
city of finding myself confined to Gates, Hall, and Chapel, for a week, in 
consequence of having presumed, through the medium of an epigram, 

_ to do justice to the personal and mental attractions of my before-men- 
_ tioned tutor. Of course, such rigour on his part was not to be passed 
over with impunity ; and, accordingly, I meditated a plan of revenge, 
which I put into execution as follows. Attached to our college was a 
__ smart, lively young girl, the niece of one of our bed-makers, of whose 
charms T- n—at least so said report—was far from entertaining a 
bad opinion. Acting on the probability of this rumour, and having 
_ heard it luckily confirmed by some sly compliments which my chaste 
instructor paid one evening to the fair Dulcinea as she passed the Com- 
jination-room, in which he happened to be seated alone at his wine, I 
yrote him a letter in her name, requesting that he would meet me the 
ensuing evening at Parker’s Piece, disguised in a dark cloak, as I wished 
much to consult him on matters of moment. I added, that, in order to 
reyent mistakes, I should be plainly dressed in a full black hood, 
vith a hat on. I then addressed another epistle to 'T n’s chief 
enemy, the Bursar of the college—whose penchant for the same nymph 


472 Three Years at Cambridge. [May, 


was notorious—containing a similar request, and appointing eight o’clock 
as the hour of assignation for both. This done, I summoned P. t and 
a few others to my presence, to whom I imparted my scheme, and who 
delighted of course at the idea, promised to aid me in its development. ° 
With this view, at the appointed hour, we all took our station behind 
a hedge, close to which was the scene of assignation, and there awaited 
in anxious suspense the arrival of the enamoured couple. It was a 
cloudy night ; the moon was at the end of her first quarter, and there 
was just sufficient glimmer to enable us to see, without very accurately 
distinguishing objects. The Bursar—a thin, spare, irritable little being, 
was the first who arrived. He was succeeded almost instantly by T. n, 
when both Gentleman advanced stealthily and cautiously towards each 
other. At the distance of a few yards T halted, and after taking off 
his spectacles to scrutinize the dark stranger who stood near him, and 
finding that he still remained looking towards him, as if in expectation 
of his approach, felt convinced that this must be his Dulcinea, and, in a 
paroxysm of emotion, walked briskly up, casting at the same time a 
second furtive glance around him, clasped the figure in his arms, and 
imprinted a deep, fervent, sonorous kiss upon its cheek. In an instant 
he recoiled with horror; the supposed damsel’s face was as Coarse as a 
gravel pit, and to complete his confusion, the moon suddenly peeping 
out from behind a dense mass of vapour, enabled him satisfactorily to 
ascertain that he had been kissing his greatest enemy. Paralyzed by 
such a blunder, he stood staring wildly at the Bursar, who, in turn, 
wiped his lips with a look of equal astonishment, not unmixed with — 
indignation. After a moment’s pause— 

« A very awkward mistake!” faltered forth T. n, in a voice meant 
to be facetious—“ very awkward, indeed! He! he! he!” 

“ Sir,” replied the Bursar, “ I must say, this is the most unexpected ; 
—the most insulting—the most unprecedented——” . 

Before he could finish the sentence, the real damsel herself, to whom 
P t had imparted the joke, with a request, strengthened by a bribe, 
that she would assist at the dénowement, made her appearance. At sight 
of this unwelcome apparition, the two Gents. were literally stupified, and 
stood bowing and scraping to each other, at the same time edging off the 
scene of action, with a grave solemnity of visage that would have split 
the sides of Heraclitus himself, had it been his good luck to have fallen — 
on such days of wickedness. This was the moment that P t had selected — 
for the exposure. In an instant we had all leaped the hedge, and planted 
ourselves, while the tears of laughter ran down our cheeks, full in front 
of the two unfortunates, who, struck no doubt with an awful conscious- 
ness of their meditated iniquity, stood upon no further punctilios, but 
scampered off the field, neck and neck, at a rate that would have done | 
credit to a Newmarket race-horse. Unfortunately, on reaching the 
borders of Parker's Piece, they overlooked the slight obstacle thrown in 
their way by a ditch of singularly superb dimensions, into which they 
both plunged headlong, with a precipitancy proportioned to the weig 
and thickness of their respective skulls. Just at this crisis we came w 
and finding four legs sticking up, like tall bullrushes, above the wat 
concluded of course that the owners of such enviable property must b 
somewhere in the neighbourhood ; so proceeded at once to search for 
them, and, in less than a second, had the satisfaction of bringing up two 
heads, which, weighed down by the laws of specific gravity, had anchored 
alongside each other in the mud, To have attempted to distinguish t 


1829. . Three Years at Cambridge. 473 


features of these heads would have been presumptuous ; we, therefore 
contented ourselves with ascertaining that they were indeed portions, 
however singular, of humanity ; and this achieved, we set out for P—-—tt’s 
rooms at Trinity, where we supped, after which, at an hour infinitely later 
' than usual, our whole party broke up, P—-—t proceeding on his road 
alone, in the direction of Barnwell, beneath a cold wintry sky ; and 
the remainder of us, each taking our departure for our respective abodes. 

Early the next morning, while I was yet living over in dreams the 
occurrences of the preceding day, I was roused from sleep by the abrupt 
appearance of my servant. “Oh, Sir,” he said, breathless with agitation, 
“have you heard the news? all Cambridge rings with it!” Scarcely had 
I time to reply, when three or four of my last night’s companions rushed 
into the room. “ Get up, for God’s sake get up,” they one and all ex- 
elairaed, “ Poor P——t"’ 

“ What of him?” I cried, springing from my bed in terror. 

* He is dead.” 

* Dead! dead !” the word pierced me like a shot. . In an instant I 
was up, and dressed, and flying as fast as grief and surprise could, bear 
me towards my poor friend’s rooms at Neville’s Court. Alas! the news 
was tootrue. P t, the social andmerry-hearted P t, he from whom 
I had parted but a few hours before, and the echoes of whose last words - 
were still ringing in my ear, was indeed a corpse! On his road to 
Barnwell, the night air operating on a frame heated with wine, and ren- 
dered sensitive by the warmth of a crowded supper-room, had brought 
on a resistless lethargy, under the influence of which, my ill-fated friend 
had laid himself down and tranquilly slept to death. His body was 
found at day-break by some labourers who were going to their work, 
stretched full length in a ditch scarce six inches deep in water, half 
naked, with his clothes and watch carefully placed beside him on the 
bank. He had actually imagined himself going to bed! 

Such were the tidings I heard as I stood absorbed in thought beside 
the corpse: of my late social, frank, and thoughtless crony. A few 

_ short hours ago, and who so full of life; now, who so dull, cold, and 
‘ assionless. How hushed was his sleep! how profound, how eternal ! 
0 fire shot from his eye—no mirth played round his lip—the fixed, 
hastly spirit of death, hung out its dreary banner on his countenance, 
beneath whose dread symbol of power my heart sickened and died away. 
_ That night, my few remaining debts discharged, I bade adieu to the 
_ University. The porters had just closed the college gates, and the last 
chimes from Saint Mary were pealing out their solemn tones, as the 
Leeds coach arrived at the Eagle and Child. How different were the 
feelings with which I had last entered into that same inn yard! Then I 
was just starting into life, full of hope and buoyancy ; now, my health was 
a tie 3 my prospects blighted; and I myself was flying by some 
ssistless impulse, from the grave of my best and earliest friend! These 
eflections rushed with inconceivable bitterness across my soul, as I 
med, while the coach proceeded swiftly down Trumpington-street, 
take one farewell glance of the scene I was quitting for ever. The 
ajestic spires of King’s College, shooting proudly up into the sky, 
ere still visible in the gathering gloom of the hour ; an instant, and 
were concealed from view ; and, as the last glimpse of Cambridge 
ided on the horizon, my heart sunk within me, for I was a wanderer 
‘the face of the earth ! 
M.M. New Series.—Vou. VII. No. 41. 3P 


E +474...) [May, 


THE GOVERNMENT OF WELLINGTONIA, A NEWLY-DISCOVERED . 
EMPIRE AT THE ANTIPODES. 


Our readers are already acquainted with the enterprizing attempts 
of some active and daring individuals, to found establishments in the 
newly discovéred islands of the great Southern Pacific. But the arrival 
of the Wellesley Whaler in the river, on the 16th instant, puts us in 
possession of intelligence of the most curious nature, relative to a new 
power which has started up in those seas, and which threatens soon to 
produce very formidable consequences to the neighbouring empires of 
China, New Holland, and Owhyhee. 

We shall probably in our next number be enabled to give some de- | 
tails of the progress of this extraordinary government, which is alto- 
gether formed on the military principle. For the present we must 
restrict ourselves to giving the code, which, as well as the settlement, 
is named from our favorite field-marshal. 


General Orders. 

The following rules and regulations having been enacted by his high- 
ness the sovereign in his highness’s supreme council of general officers, 
are hereby declared to be law.—From the Grand Parade, April 1828. 

The great question which hath hitherto divided this realm, creating 
divers opinions on matters of exceeding weight, and thereby disturbing 
the government thereof, having been happily settled by the wisdom and 
decision of his highness ; it is commanded, that henceforth there shall be | 
no divisions of opinion whatever. The offenders to be shot. 

The tranquillity of the state having been insured by this salutary 
regulation ; it is further ordered, that there shall be no Public Questions . 
for the time to come. The offenders to be shot. a 

It being well known to us that, by long speeches and specious argu- 
ments in the legislature, much time is wasted, and the business of go- 
vernment thereby much delayed ; it is ordered, that in future no speech 
shall exceed five minutes in duration, and that no argument whatever. 
shall be used. The offender to be shot. 

The term Loyalist having been long assumed as the designation of the 
friends of the former system, now happily abolished ; it is ordered, that 
there shall in future be no loyalists. The offenders to be shot. 

The term Liberal having been for some time understood to mean an 
enemy to the system for the time being, whatever that might be; it is 
ordered, that there shall be no more liberals. The offenders to be shot. 

The factious opposers of government being obviously criminals — 
against the state; it is ordered, that all opposition shall henceforth be. 
considered factious. The offenders to be shot. 

Riots and other movements tending to the injury of the public peace, _ 
being much promoted by late hours ; it is hereby ordered, that no indi- | 
vidual, out of uniform, sha!l appear in any street of the metropolis after _ 
the hours of seven in winter, and nine in summer. The offenders to be shot. | 

Theatres and other places of public tesort, being capable of affording 
to turbulent and disaffected individuals the means of venting opinion: 
offensive to the government, it is ordered, that the audience shall pr 
serve strict silence during the representation. That no passage in the’ 
performance shall be noticed with either applause or censure, and that 
God save the King shall not be called for on any pretext, it being a 
notorious rallying cry and signal of disaffection to government. The 
offenders to be shot. 


> 


- 


1829.] The Government of Wellingtonia. 475 


Dramatic writers, and other persons employed in fabricating per- 

formances for the stage, are on no pretence whatever to introduce poli- 
- tical allusions, or observations tending to bring ridicule upon the great 
oly of government, or any other public persons. The offenders to 

e shot. 

Newspapers being, in all countries, the instruments of disaffection and 
misrepresentation, it is ordered that, from and after the date hereof, all 
newspapers shall be abolished ; and, in their place, a Gazette shall be 
issued weekly from the grand parade, giving notice of all matters essen- 
tial to the community, namely, promotions in the army, the changes of 

-the ministerial staff, the cabinet dinners, and his highness’s levees. The 
offenders to be shot. 

The distribution of justice being retarded by the old forms of Europe, 
its acceleration, impartiality, and easiness of access, will be provided for 
by permanent courts-martial held in the metropolis; and by moveable 
columns of judge advocates, and fusileers making the circuit of the pro- 

‘vinces. The members to be sworn on the army list. With which regu- 
lations all men are hereby commanded to comply. Offenders to be shot. 

The new subordination of society being of the highest importance, and 
dress being one of the most valuable means of sustaining that subordina- 
tion, it is ordered, ‘that every individual shall dress after a pattern pro- 
-vided at the office of the grand parade. And the military costume being, 
in all instances, the most convenient, natural, and simple, it is further 
-ordered, that all professions shall model their clothing thereon. That 
judges shall be distinguished by scarlet coats, with six stripes of gold 
-lace, on the model of the heavy dragoons. That the clergy shall wear 
-hussar jackets with fur, and foraging caps on the model of the commis- 
‘sariat. Physicians to wear the death’s-head shako. Lawyers the rifle 
‘uniform ; and. county members of the legislature, the uniform of the 
-waggon train. The nation in general to wear liveries, turned up with 
blue and yellow, according to the taste of the district general officers, 
with worsted lace epaulets and edging: in the colour of which the 
en are graciously permitted to choose for themselves. Offenders to 

e shot. 

The accumulation of plate and other articles of value, in individual 
hands, being a source of discontent to those who do not possess such 

5 property, and of danger to those who do ; it is ordered, that no person, 
~ of whatever condition, shall possess more than one dozen of silver spoons ; 
silver forks, and other table furniture, and ornaments of the precious 
metals, are prohibited. Offenders to be shot. 

But the exigencies of the state being, in every instance, essential to be 
provided for, it is ordered, that the money arising from the foregoing 
disuse of an idle and invidious luxury, shall be paid into the public trea- 
‘ssury. Offenders to be shot. 

The defence of the state being of the very first importance, and the 
old system of levies being slow, expensive, and inefficient for hostilities 
a grand scale ; it is ordered, that every male individual, from sixteen 
sixty, without exception of rank or age, shall be at the disposal of the 
te ; and that daily drills of the whole population shall be held in every 
district ; and general reviews once a month, when those fit for foreign 
service, or to be drafted into the colonial regiments, shall be reported to 
his highness. Offenders to be shot. 

It being necessary that the high functionaries of the state shall sustain 
heir offices with becoming dignity ; it is ordered that, by and with the 


bi 


476 The Government of Wellingtonia. [May, 


consent of his highriess, they may augment, from time to time, their 
salaries and other appointments, as they may deem necessary, and that 
no inquiry be made into either the augmentation or the necessity. Offen- 
ders to be shot, 

Rewards for merit Species suitable to the wisdom of the state and the 
encouragement of individual exertion, it is ordered that a pension list be 
constructed of unlimited dimensions. The allotment thereof being solely 
in the hands of his highness, and no inquiry to be made on the subject: 
the merits of individuals, whether public or private, being of too deli- 
cate. a nature to be judged of and ascertained by the hasty opinions of the 
people. Ladies to have a separate list, under the head of “ Home de- 
partment.” Each high functionary being empowered to charge allow- 
ances thereon for all the younger branches of his family and connections 
to the tenth degree removed: all public inquiry is strictly prohibited on 
the subject. Offenders to be shot. 

The secret service money being issued for objects of the first necessity, 
it is ordered that no inquiry shall be set on foot as to the existence of 
the necessity, the extent of the issue, or the hands through which it 
passes. Offenders to be shot. 

The building of palaces for the high functionaries being one of the 
most appropriate employments of the national money, it is ordered, that 
such palaces shall be built, when and wherever it may suit the conveni- 
ence of the high functionaries. The buildings being called public offices, 
and all investigation on the subject being deemed vexatious and insubor- 
dinate. Offenders to be shot. 

Great offence having been given from time to time to eminent indivi- 
duals, of tender consciences, by the application of names and other desig- 
nations, taken from the worst and most odious characters of history, or 
the vilest vermin, or the habits of the basest men, it is hereby most 
strictly ordered, that no public servant of his highness shall be stigma- 
tized with the name of Judas, or Iscariot, or both together; nor by the 
name of Jefferies ; nor be called lily livered slave, nor sneaking apostate. 
The word “ Rat’ to be abolished from the language. Offenders to be 
shot. 

Improper use having been made by factious individuals of the occa- 
sional distresses of merchants, manufacturers, and others, it is ordered, 
that such topics shall not be adverted to in future; that commerce and _ 
manufactures shall be always understood to be in the most flourishing 
state, the finances thriving, and every thing in the best possible condition. 
Offenders to be shot. 

Oratorial exaggerations, and other arts of public declaimers, being at- 
tended with manifest injury to the public peace, it is hereby ordered 
that all speeches shall be fairly written out and laid before his highness, 
for the space of at least one fortnight before they shall be spoken in the 
legislature. That all references to public pledges be strictly suppressed, 
and that the words “ Reform, GZconomy, Public Principle, and National 
Rights,” be deemed rebellious and revolutionary. Offenders to be shot. 

This code being the wisest, freest, and happiest that ever was offere 
toa nation, it is ordered that all men shall pay thereto “ cheerful obedi 
ence.” Offenders to be shot. 

Given under our hand and sword, this Sixteenth day of Apa, and 
First of our Reign, X.Y. Z. § B..P. ‘ 


Maid: 
V. F. A true copy. 


1829.] [ 477] 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A NIGHT OF FEVER. 


Ir was the eleventh day of my fever. The medical attendants had 
again collected round my bed for a last struggle with the disease, that 
was drying up my blood, and searing the very marrow of my bones. 
Unfortunately, in every sense of the word, for my present comfort, as for 
the chance of recovery, I had little faith in them, though, to judge from 
the result, my opinion had less of reason than of prejudice. But I could 
‘not help myself; I was far away from those in whom I should have put 
trust, in the Isle of Jersey, which, for any useful purpose, as regarded 
distance, might as well been the Isle of Madeira. ' 
My physicians had deemed it proper to bring with them a third—an 
addition to their number that I felt at the time was ominous of nothing 
good, Still I had an instinctive dread of asking the one plain question, 
“ Do you give me over?” This would have ended all. suspense, but 
then it might have also ended all hope ; and who would willingly put 
hope from him? I endeavoured to gather from their looks the opinion, 
which I feared to ask for ; but men of this description have either no 
feelings to conceal—long acquaintance with misery having rendered them 
perfectly callous—or, as in the better and rarer case, the strong sense of 
duty has taught them to subdue every appearance of emotion. How 
eagerly did I watch their passing glances as they stood about me! and 
how yet more anxiously did I listen to their half-whispered consultation 
on their retiring to the next room, to decide upon the awful question of 
life or death ; for to that I knew too well my case had come. I felt 
as the criminal must feel when the jury have left the box, carrying with 
them the power to save or destroy, and much more likely, from what has 
pees to use that power fatally. Death, when it shall come, will never 
have half the bitterness of those few mimutes of horrible suspense, when 
life, the dearest stake we can play for, is on the die, and hope is strug- 
_giing, single-handed, against doubt, and fear, and reason. I listened 
‘till I heard, or seemed to hear, the throbbings of my own heart ; but I 
could catch nothing beyond a few broken sentences, though the folding- 
doors that divided the two rooms were left ajar ; and the words heard 
thus imperfectly, only added to my apprehensions.—“ I think not,” 
said the new-comer. What was it he did not think ?—that I should live, 
or that I should die?“ To-morrow,” said the same voice.—“ Ay, to-mor- 
row !” thoughtI, “ to-morrow I shall be cold and senseless ; she who now 
drops the tears of burning agony over my death-bed—who would give 
her own life, were that possible, to prolong mine but a few hours-—even 
she will shrink in horror from me.”’ I could almost fancy it was written 
on yonder wall that it shall bethus. Fancy ?—why, it is there, written 
by the same hand that. wrote the awful “ Mene, mene tekel upharsin,” 
on the walls of the banquet-room of Belshazzar. 
' Will it be believed? I was yet in the full possession of my senses 
| when this wild notion seized me ; or at least I had a perfect conscious- 
ness of my own identity. The setting sun shone broadly and strongly 
through the red curtains that had been drawn to exclude the light, and 
upon the walls opposite to me in crimson lines, that irresistibly 
alled to my overheated brain the letters of fire that brought dismay 
id death to the heart of the Babylonian king. But, I repeat it, I was 
ill in my perfect senses ; I knew that I was at St. Heliers, in the Isle 
f Jersey ; I could distinguish all around me ; I could count the rapid 


478 Recollections of a Night of Fever. ' [May, 


beatings of my pulse ; I knew, too, that the rushing sound below my 
window was the bursting of the waves upon the beach ; and could even 
argue with myself on all I saw and felt. If that were not real, which 
my eyes presented as such, what was real? The moon, the sun itself, 
existed to me but as I saw them ; and if sight be the evidence of reality 
in one case, why not in another? This, therefore, wasno more than the 
‘prologue to delirium ; the thing itself was yet to come. 
The physicians had long since gone. The evening declined rapidly, 
and in those few hours, which may be said to linger between light and 
darkness, I was in a state of comparative quiet. But when night came 
on—eyeless, voiceless, heavy night !—oh, how inexpressibly wretched 
then is the chamber of sickness! Darkness made visible by the dim, 
dull taper, that only serves to light our terrors ;—silence so deep, that 
the low ticking of the clock falls on the ear like rain-drops on stone, 
fretting and consuming ;—the array of phials, full and empty ;—the 
clothes long since disused, and now hanging on the frame, from which it 
is probable the same hand will never again remove them ;—the old, 
hard-featured nurse, whose presence cannot for a moment be separated 
from the idea of disease and suffering ;—the light, ominous click of the 
death-watch, a fable which health with reason laughs at, but which — 
sickness believes, and trembles while it ‘believes :—all these work upon 
the mind, and the mind again upon the body, till the brain is excited to 
delirium. And to that state I was fast tending; I felt it myself, and 
even tried by reasoning to keep down my rising fancies. But it was all - 
to no purpose ; strange shapes began to float about me, while my hands 
and feet burnt like iron thrice heated in the furnace, and my own touch 
‘scorched my own flesh. Those fantastic shadows, too, flung from the — 
various pieces of furniture upon the wall!—how they mocked me by — 
their flitting forms, as the rushlight flickered to and fro under the air! 
« Will it never again be morning? Oh, if this long, dreary night 
would only pass! If I could but again see the light of day !—Hark ! ~ 
the clock strikes ; another hour is gone !” . 
I had spoken this aloud ; and the nurse, with that gratuitous spirit of 
information, which infects the old and heartless when the thing to be 
communicated may give pain, lost no time in setting me right: it was — 
the passing bell I had heard. And what was that to me more than to 
any one beside? I was not the nearer death because another had just 
deceased. Had I been capable of reason, there was nothing in this for ~ 
terror ; but, in such cases, we do not reason—we feel. q 
« Only the passing bell!” I said, repeating her words—“ only—the 
bell that calls the worm into a new feast! Oh, for morning—morning ! — 
—when will it be morning ?—I say, what is the hour ?” 
« Ten, Sir; it has just struck. But you had better try to sleep.” ! 
“No more than ten! I thought it had been three at least—Sleep, 
you say? Ay, but how can I, when that fellow grins at me so horribly, 
and the room goes round, and the lights flicker? But you are right ; 
will go to sleep—to sleep—to sleep !” i. 
I buried my head in the clothes, to-shut out the images that harassed 
me, and for a time slept, or seemed to sleep. It was, however, only 
for a short time—perhaps an hour—perhaps a few minutes—I kno 
not; but time grows longer as we approach the grave, as the shadow 
increase in the decline of day. , 
-The sound of trumpets startled me from my broken slumber. I was 


1829. ] Recollections of a Night of Fevers 479 


in Rome, a Roman amongst Romans, with no other- consciousness of 
individual being than what belonged to that moment ; yet memory and 
fancy had strangely wrought together, confounding men and things, 
times and places. War had fixed his throne in the capital, and bound 
his brow with the crown of victory. Men neither thought nor spoke of 
any thing but battle and triumph ; they were the only measure of glory 
—the sole object for which we lived. The wealth of nations was con- 
stantly pouring through the streets, either as tribute or as plunder, to 
satisfy a spirit that was insatiable, and to swell a pride that was already 
towering to the clouds. What were kings, rich with barbaric gold and 
pearl, tothe meanest of us, though our rags were an offence to earth and 
heaven ?—to_us, the citizens of eternal Rome? Our eagles waved over 
them, to defend or to devour ; our senate gave them laws, either as 
slaves or allies. And who lent wings to those eagles, or gave voice to 
that senate, but ourselves—the children of eternal Rome? It was told 
us by our tribunes ; it was repeated by our consuls; it was engraved 
upon our banners, that spoke neither of tribunes nor of consuls, but of 
| the senate and the Roman people ; while the tremendous Cabulz, the 
S.P.Q.R., spread terror amongst the remotest nations of the world. 
We might want for bread, but we never wanted for that food which 
| pampers the spirit, and elevates poor mortality above the level of earth. 
| Slaves in gold and purple might flatter kings, but our flatterers were the 
| conquerors of kings ; they were heroes and demigods, the bravest, and 
the wisest, and the noblest of the earth, and yet were fain to put on the 
garments of humility, shewing their scars and counting their deserts to 
win our favour. Wherever our eyes turned, they were saluted with 
the monuments of our glory—the records of a conquered world. There 
| was no pause, no stagnation of existence with us ; our tide of life rolled 
onward like a torrent, foaming, boiling, and sparkling, amidst the shouts 
of victory, the glitter of triumph, the pageantry of festivals, the elo- 
| quence of the senate, the tumult of the forum, the crowning of one hero, 
the immolation of another ;—amidst crimes that, from their greatness and 
| their motives, shone out like virtues—and virtues which wore the bloody 
| hue of crimes—but both crimes and virtues such as none but a Roman 
| could have had the head to imagine, or the heart to execute. Such was 
our every-day life ; but the present day was one of even more than usual 
| interest. The formidable eagles were passing out at one gate with their 
| mailed legions to distant battle ; while, at another, Pompey, and Scipio, 
| and Camillus, and Cesar, and the conqueror of Corioli, were returning 
ictorious in the midst of rejoicing multitudes. The kings and warriors 
| of many nations, from India to Britain, followed their triumphant wheels; 
| and in the faces of those kings and warriors might be read defeat, and 
shame, and wrath, and captivity.. The masses of human life grew yet 
| denser ; the clamour of triumph swelled louder and louder, peal after 
peal, incessant, like the bursting of astormy sea upon the shore. I saw 
| a king—he who a few days before had ruled a world, who had been the 
i r the terror of more millions than Rome could count thousands—I 

aw him, this mighty one, dash out his brains, in the impatience of 
despair, with his fetters ; and the many around shouted applauses on the 
ble deed, as if it had been a mimic death onthe public stage ; but, in 
@next moment, the glorious suicide was forgotten, the pageant passed. 
and the marching legions trampled with indifference on the corse, 
i it became a portion of the highway. 


480 Recollections of a Night of Fever. May, 


In the midst of this swelling pageant, and while the temples were yet 
reeking with incense, I was sensible, though I knew not why, that I had 
become the object of general awe and hatred. Men scowled as they 
passed by me, and drew their garments more closely to them, to avoid 
the contamination of my nearness, as if I had carried plague and pesti- 
lence in my touch ; or else turned pale with terror, and hurried on, as 
they would have fled from the path of the aspic: Still I kept on my way 
without stop or question, the startling crowd dividing before me like 
water before the prow of a vessel when the gale is at the highest, till I 
found myself in the senate-house. A general murmur arose at my 
appearance, and all simultaneously started up from the bench on which 
I had seated myself, and passed over to the opposite side, where Cato 
sate lowering hatred and defiance, and Cicero was watching me with his 
keen, eagle eyes, while his whole frame trembled with visible emotion. 
I knew that I was Catiline, with the will to be lord of the city, or to lay 
it in ruins—I recked not which—and the dread and loathing I inspired 
were sweeter to me than flattery. Rome, that feared nothing else, feared 
me. I rejoiced that it was so; I could have laughed, but for prudence, 
at the majestic horrors of Cato—the doubtful brow of Cesar, who loved 
the treason, though he shrank from its danger—and the spare face of the | 
consul, bleached with his midnight terrors, and not yet seeming quite 
assured of his safety, even when bucklered round by his friends. But 
even then, while my heart was swelling with present and expected 
triumph, the orator arose and thundered in my ears the terrible “ Quo- 
usque tandem, Catilina ;” and a thousand voices re-echoed with deafening _ 
roar, “ Quousque tandem—quousque tandem!” It was like the unholy — 
spell of some wizzard. The images of the gods, the marbles of the — 
illustrious dead, in temple and in porch, in the forum and in the conait 
all at that sound became instinct with life, and cried out with the’ pale 
orator, “ Quousque—quousque !” I endeavoured to reply, to defend 
myself, to hurl back defiance on the wretched peasant of Arpinum, who ~ 
had dared to brand a Roman and a noble; but my voice was no more, 
amidst the tumult, than the voice of a child would be to the cataract or 
the ravings of the tempest. I was stunned, beaten to the earth, by the — 
mighty congregation of sounds; my eyes dazzled ; my brain shook ; ~ 
and down I toppled—down—down—a precipice as deep as from heaven | 
to earth, catching at every thing in the long descent to break my fall. 
But all was in vain: the stoutest oaks snapped under my grasp like the — 
dried reeds of autumn ; the ponderous masses of jutting rock sank from 
my tread like hills of sand. The weight of some strange crime was upon 
me ; and, loaded as I was, nothing was so stout it could give my foot a— 
resting-place. 

Unconsciousness, or sleep, its counterfeit, dropt a curtain between me 
and this stage of suffering, and again the shadows of my delirium took — 
another form. I was ina spacious theatre, where the earlier events of 
the French revolution were being represented, till, by degrees, that 
which at first had been no more than a show, became reality ; and I, who 
had only been a spectaror, was converted into an actor, and called upo 
to do and suffer. Sometimes I paraded the streets with the infuriate 
mob, shouting “ Ca ira” and the Marseillois Hymn; while, at others 
I was the doomed object of popular hatred, and had a thousand hait 
breadth escapes from the guillotine, which was going on incessantly by 
night and day, till the kennels ran with gore, and Paris had the look and 


1829.] Recollections of a Night of Fever. 481 


smell of one huge slaughter-house. Still the ery was for blood—“ more 
blood!” The sun itself refused to shine any longer on the polluted city. 
It was the third morning, and still no other light appeared in the sky 
but a broad, crimson moon, in which Paris, with its deeds of death, was 
reflected as in a mirror suspended above our heads. This sign, however, 
prodigious as it was, had no effect except on a few weaker spirits; in 
general, the yells of blasphemy only became so much the louder and 
the fiercer ; for the people were drunk with sin and blood as with new 
wine, and reeled along the streets like Atys and the frantic crew of 
Cybele in olden times, when their limbs were wet with recent gore, the 
foul offerings to the unknown goddess. A pale priest, venerable from 
his grey locks and placid features—placid even in the midst of all this 
fearful tumult—pointed with his aged hands to the red sign above, and 
bade us remember the fate of Nineveh. He was instantly seized by the 
mob, and dragged towards the scaffold, where the executioner inces- 
santly plied his office, and as each head fell, shrieked, rather than called, 
to the populace, “ Encore un! encore un!’ He was the rabid ogre of 
the fairy tale, who scarcely devours one victim ere he clamours for 
another. Imagination cannot picture a more loathsome or terrific mon- 
ster. His face, though still human, bore the same revolting resemblance 
to the wolf that man, in his worst form, is sometimes found to bear to 
the monkey ; his teeth, or rather fangs, for they were of enormous size, 
protruded from the bloated, purple lips, that were constantly drawn 
back and distorted with one eternal grin; his cheeks had the fixedness. 
of marble, with that frightful ashy hue which is only to be found on the 
face of the dead, and can be compared to nothing living ; the colour of 
his eyes, small, fierce, and burning, could not be distinguished ; but 
they were deeply sunk under huge brows, which, like his head, were 
utterly bald of hair. In place of all other dress, he wore a winding- 
sheet, without belt or buckle, that at every movement spread and again 
closed upon his body, as if it had been a part of himself, and more like 
the wings of a bat in its action, than the mere waving of a shroud. 

| The populace thrust forward the poor old priest with clubs and staves 
ards this monster, much as the keeper of some wild beast thrusts into 

its den the living victim that is destined to gorge its appetite. In the 

twinkling of an eye, his head fell; when the man of blood shook his 
shroud till its swelling folds left his body naked; and holding out to 

_ me his long arms, reiterated his incessant.cry, “ Encore un!” Before 

_ the rabble, who were well enough inclined to, gratify. his wishes, could 

_ seize me, I had burst my way through them,. and.leaving the noise far 
_ behind me, had found a refuge in my hotel. 

/ Here I fancied myself safe. I could still hear the shouting of the 
people, but it was at a distance ; and the very sound of danger, thus 
remote, added to the feeling of security. It was like the idle roaring of 

the sea, from which we have just escaped, to listen on the safe summit 
of a rock to its impotent growlings for the prey that has been snatched 

from it. But what was my dismay, when, on turning to the window, 

I again saw the shrouded monster's face close to the glass, and heard 

fain his terrific cry, “ Encore un!” With a speed such as only horror 

an give, I darted out of the room, and fled to the topmost chamber of 

e building, where, if at all, I might reasonably hope to be beyond the 

ach of his fearful pursuit. But the lock !—the cursed lock that should 

ave shut out mine enemy !—the key was fixed in its rusty wards beyond 
M.M. New Series.—Vou. VII. No. 41. 0 


482 Recollections of a Night of Fever. [ May, 


my power to move it, and, strive all I would, I could not shoot the 
bolt. 

In the midst of my desperate efforts, the key broke—shivered into a 
thousand pieces, as if it had been glass; and there I stood, hopeless, 
helpless, without the possibility of further flight. I had reached my 
utmost limit. 

But how could I be blind to those ponderous bolts and bars, that 
made any lock unnecessary, and were almost too weighty to be lifted ?” 
Nothing short of the hand and hammer of a blacksmith, and those too 
plied for hours, could break down a door with such defences. To draw 
and fasten them was no more than the work of a single instant ; and no 
sooner was this effected than I felt myself as safe as in a castle of triple 
brass. In the triumph and excess of my confidence, I flung open the 
window to look for my baffled enemy, and tauntingly shouted his own 
cry, “ Encore un!” <A voice, close at my ear, returned the cry, 

« Encore un!” At that hateful and hated sound, I reeled round as if 
staggering from a pistol-shot, when—horror !—there was the monster, 
neither all man nor all wolf, but an inexplicable compound of both—a 
thing not to be defined by words ; there he was, hanging over me, closing’ 
me about with his shroud like a serpent with his folds, his face close to 
mine. I gave not a moment’s thought or look to the depth below, but — 
flung myself from the window, and, without knowing how or why, found ~ 
myself a prisoner in the Temple, amongst many others, destined like 
myself to the guillotine. 

Never were mirth and misery so intimately blended as amongst us, 
who could have no other expectation than that of death ; whether to-day 
or to-morrow, was uncertain ; but still death by the edge of the axe, and 
before the week was over. Some wept, and some laughed—some ~ 
prayed, and some danced; and, every time the sun set, its beams fell 
upon diminished numbers, till myself and four others were all that 
remained of the hundreds that filled the prison on my entrance. 

It was the seventh day. Of our little band it was doubtful who, if 
any, would see the next morning; and this very circumstance, this 
community of near danger, had linked our hearts more closely than years 
of friendship could have done, though cemented by rank and fortune. 
But this tie, close as it might be, was destined in a few hours only to 
be snapped asunder by the hand that, sooner or later, breaks all ties. 
The last rays of the sun were dimly melting into shadow, when my 
companions were summoned to attend their judges—a summons that was 
in itself equivalent to a sentence of death ; for with such judges, to try 
was to condemn. We all felt it to beso. Our farewells were accordingly 
warm and earnest, like those of men who were parting never to meet ; 
and in a few minutes I was left to the solitude of my dungeon. q 

Night came on. I knew that I had not another day to live, an 
could count the hours between the present moment and the time whe 
I should cease to be; a knowledge which, whether it be a curse or 
blessing, is granted to none save the criminal doomed to expiate on ear 
his offences against the children of earth. My fancy laboured with 
thousand schemes of escape, none perhaps absolutely impracticable, 
all improbable, and such only as a prisoner would conceive with t 
immediate fear of death before his eyes. » 

In the midst of these imaginings, I was struck by a light, shini 
through a crevice, as it seemed, of the prison-door. Life and libe 


1829.] Recollections of a Night of Fever. 483 


were in the pale glimmer. I started up to examine it, and found that 
the jailer, in his hurry, or in his intoxication—a state that always pre- 
vailed with him, more or less, towards the evening—had turned the key 
in the lock without first fairly closing the door, so that the bolt had been 
shot beside the staple. Here, then, was a chance of escape when I least 
expected it, if the occasion were only boldly, wisely, and seasonably 
employed. Boldly and in good time I resolved to use it; whether 
wisely or not, the result would shew. Leaving my dungeon, I entered a 
long winding corridor, and after passing through an empty room of 
somewhat less dimensions than the onewhich I had just quitted, at length 
found it terminate in a sort of porch or hall, closed by the great gate of 
the prison, the only obstacle that now remained between me and freedom. 
It was, however, guarded, and trebly guarded by locks, bolts, and bars, 
all of the most formidable calibre ; but the jailer, with the keys at his 
girdle, and his hat slouched over his face so as to conceal his features, 
sate in an arm-chair before a blazing wood fire, which roared up the 
chimney, and danced in broad light upon the walls. The cigar that he 
had been smoking hung loosely in his hand, half-burnt out ; and by his 
side was a rough deal table on three legs, scored and stained with the 
marks of former debauchery, and now set out with a horn jug and a 
flagon, that, by the smell, had contained brandy—thus proving the fixed- 
ness of his habits, while all round him was changing, not only from day 
to day, but from hour to hour, and, it might almost be said, from minute 
to minute. 

_ I listened, and was convinced that the man slept; but, besides that 
his slumber was far from sound, as was evident from his disturbed 
breathing and the occasional lifting of his arms, I could hardly hope, 
under any circumstances, to detach the keys from his belt, and undo the 
ponderous bolts and bars, without awaking him. There was but little 
time for choice or reflection. Such an opportunity was not likely to last 

long, and still less to occur a second time, so that what I did I must 
do quickly. To murder him was all that was left to me, and, seeing no 
‘cause to hesitate when the alternative was his life or mine, I drew from 
my bosom a knife, that, by some negligence on the part of the searchers, 
Z had been fortunate enough to retain. In another instant he had been 
with the dead. I raised my arm to strike ; but just then he seemed to 
be awaking. I paused: there was a smothered laugh beneath the hat, 
and, strange to say, it thrilled through me. I trembled from head to 
foot ; but there was no time to be lost, and the weapon glittered in its 
descent—when the appalling cry, “ Encore un!” again burst upon my 
ear, striking me almost senseless. The cloak and hat dropped from the 
supposed sleeper ; and there again was the untiring monster, in all his 
hideousness! For an instant we gazed on each other, without words 
_and without motion. I had no power either to stir or speak—to depre- 
_¢ate his approach, or to fly from it. 
_ The spell slowly dissolved. I crept, or rather glided from him, my 
eyes still fixed upon his visage, till the wall prevented further flight. I 
as now like a stag at bay. He began to move in his turn. With a 
g, measured stride, he put forth one foot, and it came again to the 
oor with the sound of an enormous hammer on the anvil. There, for 
e space of a minute, he paused, fixing me with his fierce red eyes, that 
ed to burn with some unholy fire. He took a second step, slow and 
ging as the first—a third—a fourth!—and the fifth brought him 
3Q2 


s 


484 Recollections of a Night of Fever. [May, 


close to me-—~ay, 80 close, that I could look into those terrible eyes and 
see myself imaged there. And I did so: I could not help it, in spite of 
the horror with which they inspired me. 

His shroud now folded round me—tighter—tighter—till the hair stood 
erect upon my head, and my breast laboured to bursting. I struggled 
and struggled, under the horrible sense of suffocation, while he folded 
me yet more closely, his voice sounding all the time, “ Encore un!” 

The catastrophe of this fearful struggle was lost to me in a rapid suc- 
cession of visions, that came more or less distinct, and again melted away, 
like those fantastic forms which the clouds build up in a summer’s even- 
ing, when the winds are high, and the sun is sinking amidst a world of 
vapours. I skimmed the air with the birds; I dived into the waters 
with the sea-mew ; or floated on its surface with a fleet of gallant barks, 
that were sailing to some tnknown land, which no one could name, but 
which all knew to be the land of the sun, where the spice grew like © 
acorns, and the stones of the highway were emeralds and diamonds. As 
we neared it, the air grew softer, the skies brighter, the waters clearer : 
it was a world unlike the world we had left, not in degree, but in kind ; 
and the feelings it excited required a new language for their expression. — 
But even then the scene faded. I was burning at the stake by the side © 
of the Huguenots, surrounded by thousands, who in general did not, or — 
dared not, pity us, though the faces of many were convulsed with eager ~ 
horror ; and here and there the features of some young female, in despite _ 
of beads and rosary, expressed a sympathy with our fate. The flames ~ 
from the new-lit fagots hissed like serpents. Anon, before the fires, 
that wrapt us as with a garment, were burnt out, I was tossing on the ~ 
waters of the Polar Sea, amidst mountains of blue ice, whose tops were — 
in the clouds. The surge dashed and broke upon these colossal masses — 
as upon so many rocks of granite. On a sudden, a crash like thunder — 
stilled the mutinous billows. The huge icebergs were rent and shivered, 
and their summits dissolved into floods, that came roaring and tum- — 
bling down their rugged sides, till all around us was a world of cataracts, — 
and in the pool below our little bark tossed and eddied like a dry leaf in 
the whirlwind. i 

Again the scene changed. I was an Indian prince, hunting the tiger 
with my attendant rajahs, richer and prouder than the Persian satraps of 
old, when Xerxes led forth his millions to perish on the Grecian soil, and 
build up an everlasting record to the glory of the Athenian. The sun 
set,—and rose,—and again it set,—and still we were following our spot- 
ted prey over stock and stone, dashing through rivers and down pre- 
cipices so steep, the chamois must have broken his neck in the attempt. 
to descend them, till I had at last far—far outstripped my companions of 
the chase. The tiger was now within a few yards of me. I fired, and 
wounded him in the flank, as was evident from the gush of blood that 
followed. The animal turned suddenly round upon me, rearing himself 
on his hind-legs with a hideous growl that sounded like a human laugh, 
and,—horror !—there again was the man of blood, with his ery ¢ f 
« Encore un!” Tongue cannot tell, nor brain imagine, the despair, # 
loathing, the shrinking of soul and body, that I experienced at agai 
coming in contact with this éternal apparition! I called on the sands @ 
the desert, to rise in clouds and bury me—on the mountains, to fall ar 
crush me—on the distant ocean, to ascend in a second deluge and swallow 
me. And my wish seemed likely to be accomplished ; for, while I w 


1829.] Recollections of a Night of Fever. 485 


yet in the horrors of his presence, by some inexplicable shifting of the 
scene I was in Africa, and the past was as if it had never been. On 
every side, as far as the eye could reach, was sand—nothing but sand— 
hot and burning sand—which scorched the weary soles of the feet, as 
though I had been walking on molten lava. Suddenly the wind began 
to howl, and at its voice the fiery mass rolled, and swelled, and surged, 
and was lifted up as the storm lifts up the sea; but its waves were more 
like mountains. Then again the unstable mass formed itself into moving 
columns, and these giants of the desert traversed, or rather swept, the 
waste with a speed that made flight hopeless. But I was not fated to 
perish by them. They rolled around me harmless, and, in less than what 
seemed an hour, all was again calm, and the sun sunk down upon 
silence—a silence that was lifeless! 

-A raging thirst tormented me. But no stream was near in the moon- 
light expanse, and the night of the desert had no dews to moisten my 
parched lips. Had any benevolent genius stood before me, with an 
offered diadem in one hand, and a glass of fair water in the other, I had 
rejected empire, and snatched at the more humble boon with rapture. 
‘The pains of fire or of steel—and I had felt both within the last few 
hours—were nothing to the torments of this terrible thirst: it drank my 
very life-blood. 

In the midst of this unutterable agony, I heard, or thought I heard, 
the rushing of water. Strange that I had not seen it before! Within 
a hundred yards of me was an oasis, or island of the desert, covered with 
‘a grove of palms, and a remarkable sort of tree, for which I knew no 
name ; but it breathed a fragrance sweeter than all the spicy gales of 
Araby the Blessed: yet still sweeter to my fancy was the little crystal 
spring that bubbled from the turf beneath, sparkling, and leaping along 
over stone and pebble, as if rejoicing in the soft moonlight. If ever there 
was bliss on earth, it was mine for that brief moment when my eyes first 
‘fell upon the stream. But, like every joy beneath the sun, it proved a 
shadow, an insubstantial vapour, fading the very instant it was grappled 
with. When I would have drunk, all was mist and confusion ; and 
then, for awhile, my troubled fancy slept. 

There was a blank in my existence—for aught I know for hours. Had 
I been dead, the mind and body could not have been wrapt in a repose 
more deep or senseless. 

After atime, it seemed to me as if I awoke from a long, long slumber, 
all that had passed shewing to my memory rather as the dream of sleep 
‘than of delirium. On this awaking, I had a distinct perception that I 
‘was in my bed-room, dangerously ill, if not dying. Buta great change 
had taken place since ten o’clock. In the middle of the chamber was 
an unfinished coffin, supported by tressels, on which several funereal 
figures were busily at work, driving in the nails, that were yet deficient, 
with huge sledge-hammers. Their blows fell fast as hailstones, striking 
forth a continued stream of fire, the only light they had.to work by ; and 
‘it lent a horrid hue to their faces, such as belongs to the dead rather than 
| the living. 

It was a ghastly sight for a sick man to see these creatures employed 
pon his own coffin ; for that it was intended for me, I knew too well 
—how, or whence, I cannot say—but the conviction was as strong upon 
me as if I had read my own name upon the lid. The hag of a aurse, 
‘too !—she who was paid to watch over my sickness—to guard m from 


486 Recollections of a Night of Fever. [May, 


every danger—she, too, was busy amongst them, urging on the work, 
and giving her directions to those who were prompt enough of them- 
selves without her assistance. It was evidently a labour of love to all 
concerned in it. 

At length their task was finished ; not a nail, not a screw, was want- 
ing ; every thing was ready but the corse to put in it. 

At the striking of the last blow, the owl whooped thrice; and there 
was a flapping of wings, and the beating of some hard, horny substance 
against the window. 

“ He is here !” said one of the men, drawing back the curtain. 

And there, indeed, was a monstrous owl, staring at me with his red 
eyes, and beating the glass impatiently with his wings. The cricket 
answered from the hearth with a shriller cry ; and the death-watch by 
the side of my bed was louder and faster in his ominous clicking. 

A deep silence followed. Nothing, for a few minutes, was heard in the 
chamber but my own breathing, which fear had rendered hard and 
hurried. The funereal figures stood with uplifted hammers, like men 
in anxious and momentary expectation ; and even the old hag, though 
her coarse features were distorted with the workings of impatience, yet 
remained silent. 

Again the owl whooped, striking the window so furiously that it rat- 
tled in the frame; and again the cricket cried, and the death-watch 
answered as before. At these signs of increasing impatience, he who 
had drawn the curtain spoke again :— 

“ Master ! shall I toll the bell? The owl Has whooped,—the cricket 
cried,—and the death-watch called.” 

«Not yet,’ was the answer. “It is not quite twelve; the clock 
must strike first.—Be still, Sir Urian,” he added, turning to the bird of © 
night, who flapped his pinions yet more vehemently at the delay ;— — 
“ your time is not yet come.” 

At this rebuke, the owl folded his wings upon his breast, and the 
cricket and the death-watch hushed their cry. 

But even this respite, short as it was, seemed too long for the hag. 
She could not wait for the fated hour, when, as it seemed, death would 
of himself visit me, but must needs anticipate his coming, though the 
hand of the time-piece on the table pointed to the last quarter before’ 
twelve. Filling a cup from one of the many phials, she came to my bed- 
side, and croaked out, “ It is time; drink, and die!” But I stoutly 
refused the draught so ominously presented. The hag persisted, uttering 
dreadful, half-intelligible menaces ; and, in the very desperation of ter- 
ror, I struggled as for life, and endeavoured to dash down the chalice. | 
But I was a mere child in her hands. She forced me back upon my 
pillow with a strength that to my feebleness seemed gigantic, and poured 
the poison down my throat in spite of my utmost resistance. 

No sooner was it swallowed than it crept like ice through my veins, 
freezing up life as it stole on, drop by drop, and inch by inch, the 
numbness beginning at my feet, and mounting upward till it curdle 
at my heart. It must not, however, be supposed that I was silent durin 
this deadly march of the poison; on the contrary, my rage was, at lea: 
equal to my terror ; and their united influence was powerful enough 
loosen the bonds that had hitherto kept my tongue tied, when to hav 
spoken would have been some relief to the overwhelming sense of agony. 
I poured forth the bitterness of my heart in curses that staggered the 


1829." Recollections of a Night of Fever. 487 


old hag, and sounded tremendous even to my own hearing. At first she 
only stared, like one struck by sudden wonder ; then, as surprise gave 
way to fear, she covered her face with her hands, as if to shut out the 
sounds that were too horrible for bearing; and, finally, fled with the 
long-protracted howl of the wolf when driven from its prey. 

I was dead, and knew that I was dead. I had consciousness without 
life—sense only for suffering—and lay a fettered prisoner in my narrow 
prison-house. Still sext¥, that centre-point to which in life all pain and 
all pleasure are referred—that individual but invisible existence, which 
remains entire even when the limbs are lopped away from the trunk— 
which, mutilate the body as you will, retains in its wholeness the same 
capacity of suffering and enjoyment—this seLF still was. J lived, though 
my body had perished ; and the stings and bruisings of the insensible 
flesh were, by some mysterious agency, reflected on the spirit. 

But I was soon to be called to another sphere, and to loftier modes of 
suffering. While I was yet mouldering, a voice reached me, and it 
sounded like a tempest—“ Let the dead arise!” Death, which had 
closed my ears to all other sounds, could not make me deaf to this awful 
summons. I arose from the grave as from a bed, shaking off the mould- 
ering garment of the flesh, and was in eternity, myself a portion of it, 
however indefinite. There was neither sun, nor moon, nor star, nor 
earth, nor space, nor time: all was eternity—immeasurable, incompre- 
hensible eternity!) And there I was alone with my own conscience, 
that, with a thousand tongues spoke out the sentence of anguish, and 
drove me onward through the boundless without rest, for in it was no 
resting-place. I called on Death ; but Death himself had passed away 
with the world. Not even an echo answered to my cry. I called on 
those who, like me, were to know anguish ; but either they were not, 
or else were lost in the void. 

On a sudden a whirlwind arose. I heard the mighty flapping of its 

wings as it rushed on towards me through the boundless, and again felt 
that there was hope. The darkness rolled away before it ; the sound of 
many instruments came up from the deep ; and I was hurried onward, 
till at last, by a transition as rapid as the passing of a sunbeam over the 
water, I found myself in a state, blissful indeed, but such as almost sets 
description at defiance. I heard the voice of those I loved so dearly ; I 
saw their little fairy forms gliding dimly about me, as if in mist; but I 
could neither move, nor speak, nor in any way, as it seemed, make them 
sensible of my nearness. They were talking of me. I heard one say to 
the other, “ To-morrow is his birth-day!” And then they began to sing 
in low, plaintive tones, one of the wild strains of a wild drama that I 
had written many years before, and which was even too apt to my situa- 
tion. Strange to say, though till that moment I could as soon have 
repeated the whole of the Iliad as my own lines, yet, ever since, the 
address of the poor Adine to Faustus has remained indelibly written 
‘upon my memory. It ran thus :— 


tg Oh, Saul! oh, king! 
Wake from thy fearful dream ! 
The chains, that bind 
Thy horror-haunted mind, 
Drop from thee, as the stream 
Of music gushes from the trembling string. 


\ 


488 Recollections of a Night of Fever. [May, 


Softly, softly breathe, my lyre, 
Stilling every wild desire ! 
Let thy music fall as sweet 
~ On the anxious, listening ear, 
As the odours to the sense 
When the summer’s close is near. 
More soft! more slow! 
The measure flow! 
Softer, slower yet! 
Till the sweet sound beget 
A joy that melts like woe. 


I listened, and wept! Oh, the unutterable luxury of those tears! 
They worked upon my burning brain as the long-withheld dews fall 
upon the dry and rifted earth. The fever of my blood was stilled, and 
the air seemed to blow so coolly upon my parched cheeks! A sense of 
enjoyment stole over me, calm as the breath of a summer’s evening, but 
vivid beyond the power of words to paint it. 

The sounds of that wild strain came fainter and fainter ; the fairy 
forms waxed dim ; my eyes grew heavier ; I slept. 

The morning awakened me ; it was not till the sun had been up for 
many hours; but when it did break my long slumber, it found me far 
other than it had left me on the preceding day. Then I was dying ; 
now the dangerous crisis was past. Then I had neither eyes, nor ears, 
nor indeed any other sense, for pleasure ; now the sight of the blue sky 
alone, seen through the window as I lay in bed, was a source of infinite 
delight. Even the poor old nurse, who, in the hours of the night, had 
been so hateful to me, was, in my altered mood, a kind, officious crea- 
ture, whose happy face had in it as little as could be well conceived of 
the night-hag. By-the-by, the good old creature, half-laughing, half- 
crying, reproached me with having beaten her in my delirium. This, 
if ttue—and I much fear it was—must have been when she brought me 
the medicine, and my overwrought fancy represented her as conspiring 
with the shadowy men of the hammer to poison me. Nor have I the least 
doubt, if it were worth while, that all my visions might in the same way 
be traced to some existing or foregone reality. 


THE SAINT. 


“ Mihi sit propositum in taberna mori, 
« Deus sit propitius huie potatori.” 


Sarr Dan was a saint, with as saintly a face 

As e’er played the sinner, or poached for a place ; 

*T was delicious to hear him “ improve” upon hell! 
And at love-feasts, and so forth, he bore off the bell ; 
The ladies all vowed him an exquisite man: 

In short, of all saints, the prime saint was Saint Dan. 


Six days in the week he at banquets harangued, 

Six times on the “ Sabbath” old Satan was banged ; 
His tricks were out-tricked, his skin done to a toast, 
Till all the world knew that Saint Dan ruled the roast, 
And pronounced that Old Nick must soon alter his plan: 
In short never saint snubbed the devil like Saint Dan. 


— 


— se 


The Saini. 


Now, Saint Dan thought it hard that the children of Ammon 
Should have to themselves all the good things of Mammon, 
So he sobbed and he sighed—for your sobs and your sighs 
Are the true way in chapels to raise the supplies ; 

Never glance was so holy, or visage sc wan: 

In short, old Saint Dunstan must yield to Saint Dan. 


Dan went on his travels. Six angels to Dover 

From Paradise posted to ferry him over ; 

One kept on the road a sharp eye to the ditches, 

One knotted his neckcloth, ene buttoned his breeches ; 
In his rear one bivouacked, one kept wing in his van: 
in short, never saint was‘so watched as Saint Dan. 


On travelled Saint Dan, by miracle saved, 

By miracle lathered, by miracle shaved, 

By miracle helped his faint stomach to fill, 

By miracle helped to find ease in a pill,’ 

By miracle ’scaping from freckle and tan: 

In short, never saint washed his face like Saint Dan. 


He was thankful in turn, for he never took snuff, 

But he wrote down a prayer (none must call it a puff ‘is 
He thanked Heaven that his toothpick was never mislaid, 
That his nose was his own, and his bed ready made ; 
With a hymn he decanted the Swiss chambertin : 

In short, never saint prayed so thick as Saint Dan. 


Aspiring at length with old Satan to grapple 

In something less low than his mob-smelling chapel, 
He summoned his angels, and, borne on their backs, 
{Loretto was never more lucky in hacks )— 


“* The first step to the bench ;” Heaven speed the good man !— 


In a church shone at last the pure face of Saint Dan. 


Saint Dan, as he dropped down his glance from the sky, 
Heard a voice in his ear, “ Dan, bid canting good by ; 
“ There’s no reason on earth why a man with a call 

“ Should not feather his nest with whatever may fall ; 
“ You see that the maxim is, ‘ Catch all you can!’ ” 

So whispered the vision; so listened Saint Dan, 


Then rose by his elbow a sallow-faced slave, 

A soft-spoken scoundrel as e’er played the knave ; 
“Saint Dan,” said the miscreant, “ a Saint you may die, 
“A second-rate Wilberforce, tenth Sister Fry ; 

“ Come, Dan, turn your doublet—I’ll make you a man : 
“A stall’s not a bad thing.” — Go on!” said Saint Dan. 


Says the fiend, “‘ There are holy, and wealthy, and wise, 

“ Who deserve to be hanged every day that-they rise ; 

“ There are Statesmen and Lawyers all turning like wheels, 
“There are Doctors and Deans, tumbling head over heels, 
“ (Whom Satan selects for his special divan.”) 

“ Well, if ratting will do it, I'll rat!” says Saint Dan. 


Then up sprang the fiend with a laugh and a howl,’ 
And grasped bs id Fe ¥ “ 


CZTERA DESUNT. 


WM. M. New Serics-—Vox, Vil. No. 41. 3K 


469 


[ 490 ] [May, 


OUR COLONIES. 


Tuer is an old German proverb which says, “ The very best shoe- 
ties in the world are those which you cut out of another man’s leather ;” 
and the English Government, in the conduct which it has of late thought 
fit to adopt towards the colonies, seems to have taken this venerable 
axiom as the ground-work of their policy. Nay, they are not only bent 
upon indulging their own caprices at the expense of those countries, but 
they permit every body else who wants shoe-ties to cut them out of 
the colonies’ leather—and, what is worse, to cut them of any fashion 
they like. Now, if the wealth, or the power, or the prosperity of this 
country were in no degree involved in the welfare of those distant pos- 
sessions of the crown, the matter would be perhaps of little importance 
in a political point of view. The violating a series of pledges, some 
tacit, but confirmed by the unvarying practice of many years; some 
ratified by all the solemnity of legal enactments, and all of them binding 
in conscience, and in honour—the interfering with private property— 
the reducing an orderly, and well-conducted, and virtuous community 
to beggary and degradation, would be reprehensible and disgusting to 
the very last degree ; but as these are matters wholly beneath the con- 
templation of the professors of liberal notions—the new-light governors 
of England—they might pass: the victims would have to endure their 
undeserved sorrows and agonies, pitied by some, and neglected by the great 
majority of their countrymen ; but the liberal system would flourish, the 
theorists would triumph—and if the nation were not content with such 
glories, it must be hard indeed to please. The case, however, is not quite 
as we have supposed it—the colonies are a source of great pecuniary — 
advantage to this country. It would seem hardly necessary to state a 
fact which ought to be so well known, so universally felt, but that the — 
recent treatment they have experienced would induce the belief that it 
has been forgotten. They yield a royal revenue, they furnish annual 
employment for thousands of tons of British shipping, they spread the 
strength and power of this country to the most remote quarters of the 
globe. These are the advantages which concern immediately the nation ; 
and the nation may, if it will, dispense with them. There is, besides, a 
sum amounting to many millions of British capital, invested in those 
countries: this the nation must reimburse, if it can, to the owners; but — 
until it does so, it ought to keep its hands from their property, and to | 
forbear to deprive them of the fruits of their mdustry and enterprize. 

It is because these facts, and the principles of common honesty—to _ 
say nothing of political sagacity—have been lost sight of, that’a state of — 
things pregnant with danger has been brought about. The position — 
in which this country stands towards her colonies, is at this moment a 
matter of very deep and painful interest. The seeds of discontent—we 
hope not of disaffection—are sown in all of them; in some thé growth 
is more forward than in others; but in all, unless measures, in every 
respect different from those which have lately been pursued, shall be — 
speedily resorted to, a bitter harvest of cost, and disappointment, ant 
humiliation, must be reaped. Canada breathes discontent, and on 
feather more thrown into the scale of her wrongs will raise the expres-— 
sion to an indignant remonstrance—while the elements within her lie 
ready to assist that apt disposition she cannot but have to relieve herse 
The fiscal regulations of Grenada, of Trinidad, and of Honduras, have 


829.) Our Colonies. 491 


exasperated the minds of their several inhabitants to the last point of 
endurance ;—and at the same time, the enterprising and ambitious 
United States of America stand well inclined—as who can doubt— 
and well able—as they have proved—to assist in curtailing and reducing 
England’s power and resources ; and this, too, even if they had not, as 
in this instance they have, the powerful inducementafforded by the expec- 
tation that they may gain some of those advantages which, in the event 
_ of a quarrel with our colonies, we must lose. 

Of all the colonies which have reason to complain of the misguided 
policy of this country’s government, Jamaica has suffered most. At 
once the most valuable, and the best-disposed towards the mother- 
country, her importance has been derided, her intentions doubted ; her 
attempts even to comply with the requisitions of this country, unreason- 
able and harsh as they have sometimes been, have been thwarted, 
baffled, and mocked ; and not only the future destruction of the colony 
has been threatened, but steps have been taken—nay, may be, even now, 
in more rapid progress than at any former period, for her present ruin. 
Although each of the colonies we have alluded to would furnish ample 
topics for observation, the task shall at present be confined to Jamaica, 
whose case is the most striking, and to which the public attention at 
this moment ought most especially to be directed. 

The cause of quarrel—for to deny that deep and serious quarrel exists 
would be absurd—between the government of this country and the 
legislature of Jamaica, is bottomed upon the existence of slavery there. 

_ The English government has resolved to adopt measures for the present 
_ amelioration with a view to the future emancipation of the slaves. The 
proprietors of the Island of Jamaica concur in the spirit of those resolu- 
3 tions: they differ, in some respects, from the government of England, as 
_ to the means by which they should be carried into effect; and for this 
offence, and for this alone, it is that they are threatened with destruction, 
and their enemies of all kinds and descriptions, high and low, “ the lit- 
tle dogs and all,” are caressed and urged on to attack them ; and open 
and violent denunciation, and the small lie and back-wounding calumny, 
are echoed and encouraged with joyous and eager applause. It 
is not enough that the Colonists feel and evince an anxious desire to 
ameliorate the condition of their slaves — that their interest, as well as 
their duty and feelings, prompt them to that course—that their per- 
sonal characters, their moral conduct, their intelligence and respecta- 
bility, place them as high in the estimation of every man who thinks for 
himself, as that which is held by any of their accusers :—facts and eyi- 
dence are alike disregarded:—it is enough they are found guilty of 
having relied upon the protection of this country’s laws, of having in- 
creased this country’s wealth; for these crimes their property is to be 
_ confiscated—their reputation crucified-—their very names delivered over 
to reproach and obloquy. 
. mere fact of the existence of slavery is so repugnant to the feel- 
ings of the British people, so odious to their very.nature, that the con- 
femplation of it, in whatever shape it is presented, excites disgust and 
eprobation ; and their minds are already prepared to censure its ex- 
stence, and to vote for its abolition. Of this predisposition the enemies 
the colonists have adroitly availed themselves, and have directed it as 
erved their several purposes or favoured their interests. It has, how- 
ever, been left to these days of liberality to act in matters of national 
3 R 2 


: 


492 Our Colonies. ; [May, 


policy upon mere prejudices, and no candid or honest mind but must 
shrink at the notion of having its better feelings wrought upon, for the 
purpose of working an injustice, by means of an honest impulse misled, 
or under colour of some sacred but prostituted name. And yet, with 
respect to Jamaica, the government and the people of this country have 
been induced to condemn and to sentence, unheard and untried, the con- 
duct of persons who participate with them—nay, who go beyond them, 
if that be possible, in their abhorrence of slavery, if by slavery is meant 
privation, and suffering, and injustice ; the denial of the rights of huma- 
nity, and the violation of all social privileges. If the people of Jamaica 
have been guilty of the crimes which have been laid to their charge, 
there can be but one feeling excited respecting them. If the system of 
slavery prevailing in that island be such as their enemies have described 
it to be, there can be no doubt, not only that it should be abolished, at 
whatever cost of pecuniary interest, at whatever sacrifice of political 
power ; and though the fate of the colonists should be beggary, the 
scorn of all good men, even anihilation itself—the punishment will have 
been deserved by their offences, and they will be seen to endure it with- 
out exciting or deserving one particle of commiseration. 

All that they ask, and if they did not ask it, common justice and the 
interests of the country would demand it, is—that the foundation of 
.their supposed crimes should be inquired into, and that their guilt should 
be ascertained before their punishment is visited upon them. 

With respect to slavery itself it must be remembered, that the institu- 
tion is neither of this day nor by those people who are now interested in 
its continuance ; whatever may be its evils, no man is now called upon to 
justify or to excuse them ; it was begun under the direct sanction of the 
British Government ; it has grown under the protection of British laws, 
and is as much a part of the legislative enactment of this country, as the 
poor laws, or any other provision which the interests or the exigencies of 
the state may have required. The colonial system, of which it has been, 
of which it ts, an inseparable part, has been nurtured by British capital, 
and British industry ; its fruits have been commercial prosperity—an 
influx of national wealth—an ample market for the sale and consumption 
of British manufactures, and the extension of that political power which 
has made this country prosperous at home and formidable abroad—rich 
in peace, and terrible‘in war—the source of opulence and security to its 
people, and an irresistible weapon of offence against its foes. Still, — 
though these benefits were infinitely increased, we are not prepared to 
‘deny that they ought all to be surrendered unhesitatingly, if they can be 
held by no other than unjust and unchristian means. A cursory exami- 
nation—and though it be cursory, it will yet be more profound, as well” 
as more candid than that which the enemies of the colonies have chosen 
to make into the subject—will prove that no such principle applies to the 
case of the colonies. Without adverting to the fact that the evidence of 
‘all history, sacred as well as profane, establishes the existence.of slavery 
‘without reminding the Englishmen of the nineteenth century, that the 
Villeins of the thirteenth were in name and in-fact, slaves under a more 
‘galling yoke than those Africans who till the soil in Jamaica,—let ut 
examine into the actual condition of the latter slaves, and see in what re= 
spects they differ, excepting in the name, from that large class of humaiy 
‘beings whose fate it is by the laws of nature, and the regulations 6 


society, to earn the food they eat by the cultivation of the earth which 
produces that food. 


1829. ] Our Colonies. _ 493 


' In the first place let it be remembered, that, owing to the peculiarities 
of climate in the torrid zone, scarcely any but the natives of Africa can 
be found who are capable of enduring such heat as attends upon their 
toils; and that, therefore, the Europeans who, invited by the government 
of this country, and protected by its laws, have ventured their capital 
in cultivating the burning, but fertile soil, of Jamaica, are compelled to 
resort to these people, and to these alone, for the assistance which is 
necessary to the completion of their enterprise. That they are slaves is 
not the fault of the planters ; that being slaves, they are the property of 
those planters, is the fault—if fault in it there be—of this country’s 
government and laws. The conditions, upon which those laws, no less 
than the precepts of common humanity, permit the colonists to avail 
themselves of the labour of the slaves, are, that they should provide for 
them in sickness as well as in health; that they should furnish them 
with food and raiment and dwellings, and that they should extend to 
them that protection Which masters in all communities afford to their 
servants. The mere pecuniary interest which the West-India proprie- 
_ tors have in the persons of their slaves, requires that they should do 
' something more—and as the value of the slaves obviously depends in a 
great degree upon their being able to perform that work from which the 
gains of the planters are produced, the preservation of the health, the 
‘comfort, and the content of the negroes, each of which must influence 
to a very important extent their capabilities and disposition to labour, 
_ become matters of solicitude and anxiety to their masters, and thus 
: the powerful stimulus of interest is added to every other inducement 
_ which the feelings of humanity and the principles of religion exercise 
over the minds of the West-India planters, in favour of their slaves. If 
this were mere reasoning upon principles which are universally recog- 
nised to act upon the minds of men, in all conditions of society, it would 
be hard to refute it; but the case of the West-India planters does 
_ not rest only on such grounds: the indisputable evidence of authenti- 
_ tated facts proves that the slaves of Jamaica are in the actual enjoyment 
_ of all the comforts and advantages which are the fair rewards of their 
labour. The hours during which they work are not more—we believe 
not so many—as those which are devoted to the same purpose by the 
agricultural labourers of Great Britain. The negroes toil under the 
_ burning sun of the torrid zone; but it is the climate to which they are 
_ born; nor are its effects more painful nor more injurious upon their 
_ constitutions, than the stormy and inclement weather which belongs to 
our “cold and cloudy clime.”’ They enjoy an ample sufficiency of 
- nutritious food ; and, unless all that has been heard of agricultural dis- 
tress in England be a wanton fiction, a malicious invention of the enemy, 
_ can the same thing be said of the suffering peasants of England? of the 
_ potatoe-fed population of Ireland? of the healthless myriads who swarm 
in our manufacturing towns? or of the famishing silk-weavers of Spital- 
ids, whose cries of hunger still ring in our ears? But it may be 
ected that these advantages, even though they preponderated more 
than they do in favour of the negro slaves, would not weigh as a 
feather in the balance, with the inestimable advantages of liberty. 
_ The Englishman who should deny it would be a shame to his country, 
a reproach to the mother who bore him. But the answer to this objec- 
ion, and it is a sufficient one, is that which has been furnished by one 
of the ablest, the most eloquent, and the most candid, of the enemies 
of the colonies—and would to God that he were still alive, and that 


494 Our Colonies, [May, 


they had all such enemies to deal with. Mr. Canning said the system 
of slavery “is an evil which is the growth of centuries and of tens of 
centuries, which is almost coeyal with the deluge, which has existed, 
under different modifications, since man was man.” Let us, however, 
pursue the comparison a few steps further—the labour of the negroes is 
compelled by the stern enforcement of their masters. To effect this the 
use of the whip has formerly been found necessary. That it was ever 
so, excites on all occasions deep regret,—in many, censure not less pro- 
found. That. baneful practice has, however, been almost if not wholly 
discontinued in Jamaica. But is there no enforcement to the toils of 
agricultural labourers in this country? Are not the stings of hunger, “the 
bare point of sharp necessity,” the horrid alternative of starvation, or of 
crime and its attendant penalties, compulsion as strong upon the minds 
of English peasants as the whip of the taskmaster upon the less 
exalted understandings of the negro slaves? Save as the punishment of 
crime, the use of the whip in the West Indies is discontinued ; and for . 
the same purpose is it not in operation here? Are the vagrant laws—the 
laws against poaching—the penal parts of the poor laws—more mild in 
their effect, or more leniently administered, than the measures which the 
policy of the colony, the interests of the proprietors, the very existence 
of the slaves themselves, have rendered necessary in Jamaica? In sick- 
ness they are carefully tended ; and when old age deprives them of the 
capability of further exertion, the humane laws of the colony provide for 
them an asylum for the enjoyment of the repose which their declining 
years demand—not in the prison-like walls of a parish workhouse—not 
upon the condition that the miserable object of the reluctant and enforced 
benevolence of a thrifty overseer shall renounce the society of his family 
—the comforts, scanty and few as they must needs be, yet not on that 
account the less prized, of his humble home ; but in the same hut, upon 
the same land that witnessed his birth, and has been the scene of all his _ 
simple joys, in the bosom of his family, and surrounded by his com- _ 
panions and connexions. The contrast is painful, but justice requires 
it to be continued. What man’s knowledge or memory can furnish him 
with an instance of an English day-labourer, whose exertions were so 
rewarded, or whose industry was so repaid, that he was enabled to 
accumulate money and stock sufficient not only to dispense with the — 
necessity of further exertions in his old age, but to transmit the property 
to his children? In the West-Indies, these occurrences are frequent 
enough to justify the pressing of this point much farther than it is here 
carried, and slaves could be specified, who have purchased their freedom, 
who have become the masters of slaves and the owners of property, and 
in sufficient numbers to lead to the conclusion that industry and sobriety, 
and those habits of order, that increased intelligence, which is the result — 
of the measures willingly and even eagerly adopted by the West-India — 
proprietors for the amelioration of their slaves, secure there the reward 
they are entitled to every where.* . 


et i a a 


* We know the name of a gentleman, at present the proprietor of an estate in the 
parish of Westmoreland. He had been for many years overseer on an estate, and whi 
in that situation, he was about to purchase a small gang of negroes. The slaves on the 
property who were under his charge, felt towards him so much attachment, that one of 
them was deputed by several others to offer him a sum of money, exceeding £1,500, _ 
which they had saved from their earnings, if he required assistance in the purchase. He de- 
clined accepting their offer: he had sufficient gratification in the proof which was afforded 
him of their attachment, which he had by his conduct towards them acquired, and of oe 
prosperity and comfort which they had enjoyed, to enable them to make that offer. Will 
any body tell us of a similar instance in any of the colonies in which the members of th 
African Society are concerned ? 


1829.]} | Our Colonies, 495 


These are facts so carefully kept out of sight by the déclamatory ene- 
mies of the West-India proprietors, that they are probably seen for the 
first time by some of those persons who have, nevertheless, formed an 
opinion on the subject of slavery and the expediency of its abolition ; 
and yet every one of these facts is not only so true, but so capable of 
instant and indisputable proof, that the colonists would be content to 
stake their interests upon their being able to establish every one of them. 
If some of those good-natured, dreaming people, who take for granted 
all that they have been told on the other side, ask why we have left out 
of the picture, the tortures to which slaves are put at the mere caprice 
of their masters, the dismemberments, the chainings, the wanton flog- 
gings, the separate selling of slaves who are united in families, the cruel 
severing of nature’s sweetest and holiest ties—the answer is, that if such 
atrocities ever existed, they have for many years past ceased to disgrace 

_the colonies. That to assert they now exist, in any degree, is a foul, 
gross, malignant calumny,—the falsehood of which is notorious to every 
one who has taken the trouble to read and examine the evidence on the 
subject ; and more notorious to none than to the crafty forgers of these 
monstrous lies. 

Relying upon the public appetite for whatever partakes of the mar- 
vellous—upon the proneness of uncharitable natures to believe impu- 
tations of evil rather than to receive proofs of good deeds—and, more 
than all, upon the supineness and apathy of the West India proprietors, 
their enemies have exerted themselves indefatigably, and, to a certain 
extent, successfully, to create a public prejudice against the colonists, 
and to engage the co-operation of the Government to their ruin. These 
enemies are very numerous, and consist of persons of various opinions, 
pursuing various interests. 

One class consists of those pious enthusiasts, who are so very humane, — 
whohave such a superabundance of charity, that they cannot sleep for think- 
ing that there are in the West India colonies a set of persons who are not 
so white, nor so free, nor so poor, nor so hard worked, nor so miserable, 
in fifty other respects,—as the agricultural labourers of England. -With 

_ these people it is extremely hard to deal—because it is impossible to tell 
_ which of them is sincere—as doubtless many of them are—and which 
crafty and dishonest, as some of them must be. God forbid that one 
word of disparagement should be uttered against such as are actuated by 
truly religious feelings. The colonists have no quarrel with them, al- 
_ though they have received deep wrongs at their hands, the greatest of 
which is, that they have lent a fait colour to the foul cause of their 
corrupt enemies. The test of their honest intentions is this—will they 
listen as attentively to the vindication of the colonists, as they have 
"listened to the accusations of their foes? Will they receive the evidence 
honest men, opposed to the false and wild assertions of nameless 
erers? Will they be as prompt in repairing wrong, as they have 
eager in inflicting it? If they will, their sincerity cannot be 
d—if they will not, their piety is a pretence. 

his class of persons have earned for themselves the appellation of 

“ Saints,” which, for distinction’s sake, they may as well keep. Fore- 

most in their ranks is the gentle ““ Master Stephen,” the old, indefatigable, 

Virulent enemy of the colonies. Then those two yards—full measure— 
# lean philanthropy which compose the body corporate of that most 

benevolent brewer of porter, Fowell Buxton, Esq. Then, the African 


496 Our Colonies. [ May, 


Society, with its crowd of votaries, to many of whom, (as one of them was | 
told by Dr. Dodson, in the Admiralty Court,) “ godliness is great gain” 
—and most of whose consciences are so thin-skinned, that the exercise of 
the offices of charity in their own country does not furnish a plaister 
thick enough for them. Then the “old ladies, and old gentlemen with 
old lady-like minds—antiquated spinsters, and bachelors of slender wits, 
who veut their overflowing sensibilities upon the ill-used blacks—about 
whom they know just as much as they do of the man in the moon. The 
rear is brought up by a crowd of missionaries, who, having conceived a 
noble disgust of “ sewing nether stocks,” cobbling shoes, or seating 
breeches, prefer the more dignified and less laborious task of converting 
the slaves in the West Indies, many of whom are better informed, and 
most of whom are more honest, than those Mawworms who, under the 
impulse of a “ call,” devote themselves to “ rum and true religion.” 

Another set of the enemies of the West India colonies, are those who 
are interested in bringing into this country the produce of the East. If 
the burthens which England has imposed upon Jamaica were taken off, 
and she was left to trade freely, she would have nothing to fear from — 
the competition of the Mauritius or any other place. Until that is done, — 
she has a right to look with no small degree of jealousy to the part 
which East India Directors and East India Proprietors take in the 
attack that is made upon her. 

Another division of the foes of the West India colonies are those 
old haters of the government of England, the Whigs. Their mouths 
are at this moment stopped; and since they hope more effectually — 
to compass their objects, they prefer the insidious appearance of a — 
truce, to the open hostility they have always before avowed, and 
which is so deeply implanted in them, that fire would not burn it out. 
They have bullied and cajoled, and at length succeeded in obtain- — 
ing the surrender of a valuable portion of the British constitu- 
tion, and the recognition of Popery as a part of the law of this land. ~ 
With such a triumph, we see no reason why they should despair of 
destroying the nation’s existence; and in that laudable design they 
have hitherto exerted themselves, with that eager zeal which they 
never display but in a bad cause, to obstruct those measures of the 
government which had for their view the tranquillizing differences, 
and to swell the cry against the colonists. There are minor shades 
of distinction, some of which are so minutely marked that they are 
‘not worth tracing, and others arise from certain individual enemies 
belonging to several of the classes. Some of the saints are in the East 
Indian interest; some of the whigs are saints, like Buxton and Dr 
Lushington ; some have no religion at all, like Brougham ; some have the 
old revolutionary taint in them—their early fond recollections of the Amis 
des Noirs, of the Abbé Grégoire, and of Robespierre, still cling about 
their hearts.—*‘ Que nos colonies périssent !” ring in their ears ; and they 
would make Jamaica like Hayti, where, thanks to their judicious and 
humane dealings, want and desolation and misery reign over fields, where 
plenty and content once smiled; where the whip has been laid aside 
and the humane substitute of a large thick stick resorted to; and wher 
every man is so free, that if he does not work willingly, he is imprisoned | 
and enforced to it by stripes and starvation. ‘y 

But all these several classes, whether saints or sinners,—whigs or jaco 
bins—actuated by sordid interests or perplexed by amorbid sensibility— 
all of them combine and make use, as occasion serves, of one another 


/ 


1829. } Our Colonies. 497 


gain their several ends ; all are equally eager to cut their shoe-ties out of 
the colony’s leather, and, although the shapes might vary in each case, 
there is no doubt that the wearers would cut stuff enough. 

Now, because the colonists of the West Indies, notwithstanding the 
respect which they must needs feel for the pure and estimable motives 
of their enemies, nine-tenths of whom know nothing of the matter, and 
are directed by the remaining tenth in a scheme of mere plunder, be- 
cause they venture to defend their reputations and their property, and the 
colony itself, against the vain and dishonest purposes of their enemies, 
they find themselves involved in a serious quarrel with the English govern- 
ment, which stands thus :—In 1823, that most amiable and fair dealing 
porter brewer, Mr. Buxton, (whose beer, if it is no better than his 
speeches, is enough to make any reasonable stomach revolt,) proposed 
to the House of Commons a resolution to abolish slavery throughout 
the British colonies ‘with as much expedition as may be found 
consistent with a due regard to the well-being of the parties concerned.” 
The dishonesty of this attempt is obvious in every line of Mr. Bux- 
ton’s speech ;—see him at every step mixing up the old horrors of the 
slave trade with his present proposition, and endeavouring to establish a 
connexion between the West India proprietors of this day, and those dis- 
graces to humanity, who trafficked in the blood and lives of African 
slaves. Look to the indignant rebuke which the brewer received from 
-Mr. Fanning, who reminded him that the two subjects had no natural 
reference to each other, and could never be joined but for a purpose dis- 
honest in itself, unfair tothe house, to the country, and the colonies ;— 
that the house was under an engagement, “ not, on every subsequent 
‘discussion to look back to atrocities which have ceased,—not to revive 
-animosities which have been extinguished—not to throw in the teeth of 
_those whose interests are at hazard, cruelties with which they in fact had 
‘no concern.” The whole of Mr. Canning’s answer is an admirable run- 
ning stricture upon Mr. Buxton’s address, and is to that address what 
benevolence, guided by sound judgment, philantrophy, regulated by the 
doctrines of Christianity, and political sagacity, the result of profound 
study and deliberation, are to an ignorant zeal, an overweening vanity, 

and an hypocritical pretence, extraordinary virtue. . Having sufficiently 
_ demolished that insidious proposition, Mr. Canning submitted certain 
resolutions which were afterwards adopted, the object of which was the 
_ -institution of measures for ameliorating the condition of the slave popula- 
_ tion in the colonies, to be effected through the progressive improvement 
in the character of the slaves, and in such time as might be “ compatible 
with the well-being of the slaves themselves, with the safety of the 
colonies, and with a fair and equitable consideration of the interests of 
»private property.” The sense which that statesman entertained of the 
duty of this country towards the colonies, and the conduct which in justice, 
and in good policy, ought to be adopted towards them, may be gathered 
from the concluding sentence of his speech, in which he expresses the 
anxiety of the government “ on the one hand to redeem the character of 
the country, so far as it may have suffered by the state of slavery in the 
colonies, and their duty on the other, to guard and protect the just 
| interests of those who by no fault of their own—by inheritance—by 
| accident—by the éncouragement of repeated acts of the legislature—find 
their property vested in a concern exposed to innumerable hazards and 
-slifficulties which do not belong to property of another character, such 
» M.M. New Series—Vou. VII. No.41. 35 


498 Our Colonies. [ May, 


as, if they had their option (as their ancestors had) they would doubt- 
less, in most cases, have preferred. If they have stood these hazards— 
if they have encountered these difficulties, and have to stand and encoun- 
ter them still—we may not be able to secure them against the conse- 
quences of such a state of things, but at least we have no right to aggra- 
vate the hazard or the difficulties which we cannot relieve.” 

Although Jamaica was not expressly named, it was well known that 
she was aimed at in these resolutions. The legislative assembly of that 
colony, however, so far from receiving captiously, or reluctantly, the 
measures which were then proposed, set about giving the fullest effect to 
them—having always regard to that which they did know, and which the 
English government did not know—the local interests and peculiarities 
of their island. While there had been a great deal of prating here about 
the amelioration of the slaves, the legislature of Jamaica had been ear- 
nestly, and actively, and successfully employed in effecting it; acting ~ 
upon the principle which was known here, and laid down by some per- 
sons, (who only knew it, however, because the colonists of Jamaica had 
told them so) that it was necessary to prepare the slave, by enlightening 
his mind with the diffusion of knowledge, and purifying his heart with 
the principles of religion, before the gift of freedom could be any thing 
but a curse to him.* In 1816, the laws relating to slaves were consoli- 
dated, and the new act received the royal assent. The progress of im- 
provement was rapidly continued, and so many other provisions, extend- 
ing the privileges and comforts of the slaves, were subsequently passed, 
that, in 1826, it was thought advisable to frame a general act which 
should combine the whole code of laws relating to the slave population of 
the island. At this time, a despatch from Lord Bathurst, then Secretary — 
of State for the colonies, containing certain recommendations in pursu- — 
ance of the resolutions respecting the slaves, had been received in 
Jamaica. The assembly, who thought that their knowledge was at least 
equal to that of the persons by whom these recommendations had been 
suggested, felt reasonably dissatisfied that measures had been dictated 
to them, without any previous investigation, at which they had been 
heard, either for the preservation of their interests, or for the vindication 
of their character. They contented themselves, however, with 
expressing this just and natural feeling, and set about carrying such of 
the recommendations of this government into effect as they thought 
practicable and judicious. A concise statement in their own words of the 
objects of the new law which they framed, will prove their earnestness 
to assist the work of improvement, and the injustice and falsehood of 
the imputations which have been made against them. Having stated 
that they had provided for the protection of the persons of females, in 
conformity with the spirit of the English laws, they proceeded thus: 
«Sentence of death, by judicial authority, cannot be enforced withou' 
the sanction of the Governor. Manumissions have been encouraged and 


* «Tn dealing with the negro, Sir, we must remember that we are dealing with a being 
possessing the form and strength of a man ; but the intellect only of a child. To tum 
him loose in the manhood of his physical strength, in the maturity of his physical passions, 
but in the infancy of his uninstructed reason, would be to raise up a creature, resembling 
the splendid fiction of a recent romance, the hero of which constructs a human form with — 
all the corporeal capabilities of a man, and- with the thews and sinews of a giant; but 
being unable to impart to the work of his hands a perception of right and wrong, he finds, — 
too late, that he has only created a more than mortal power of doing mischief, and himself — 


recoils from the monster which he has made.”—Mr. Canning’s Speech in the House of — 
Commons, March, 1824. 


1829. ] Our Colonies. ; 499 


facilitated. The slave has been exempted from the effect of legal pro- 
cess on Saturday, that he may dispose of the produce of his labour on 
that day, and devote his Sunday to religious worship. Curates, 
throughout the several parishes of this island, have been appointed, for 
the special purpose of instructing the slave population in the tenets of 
the Christian faith. Fees on baptism and marriage have been abolished. 
The slave has also been made capable of receiving bequests of personal 
property toany amount. These enactments emanated spontaneously from 
the humane and benevolent disposition which has prompted us from time 
to time to revise our slave code ; and, in strict conformity with that spirit, 
we have, during the present session, steadily pursued the same course, and 
have expunged all those enactments which the policy of a remote period 
rendered imperative, but which, in the present day, are no longer called 
for, and appear harsh and unnecessary, and have afforded still greater 
protection to the slave, by imposing further restrictions on the mode of 
punishment, and by extending to him, in common with every British 
subject, the benefit of a grand jury, and thereby securing a twofold in- 
vestigation before guilt can be affixed to him. An advantage has also 
been conferred, which no British subject in the United Kingdom enjoys, 
of having counsel assigned, with liberty to address the jury, on behalf of 
the slave who may be put on his trial for any capital offence. The 
Sunday market has been abolished after the hour of eleven; marriage, 
among our slaves, has received legislative encouragement; and the sepa- 
ration of families, under judicial or other process, has been abolished. 
_ The maintenance of infirm slaves has been enforced ; the acquisition of 
personal property, which had been permitted under the usage of the 
_ country, has been sanctioned and secured by law. Lastly, to obviate 
every possible objection that the enemies of our colonial system can urge, 
that ample protection is not afforded by law to our slaves, we have de- 
clared them competent to give evidence in criminal cases.’’* 

When the act thus framed was submitted, by the Assembly, to the 
Governor of the island, that officer expressed his entire approbation of 
the beneficial alteration which it produced in the condition of the slaves 
in many particulars—more especially in those which regard the mode 
of trial, and the admission of their evidence in courts of justice. 
« Adding, his belief that the measure would be highly satisfactory to 
his Majesty’s government.” 

Their convictions of the utility and propriety of the law thus con- 
firmed by the unequivocal sanction of a high and able state officer, 
whose residence in the colony for many years had made him fully 

acquainted with the character, and habits, and wants of the slaves, and 
whose inclination, as well as his duty, must have been in favour of the 
views contemplated by this country’s government, the Assembly of 
_ Jamaica had good reason for believing not only that their bill would have 
‘been adopted without hesitation, but that they should have received the 
commendation to which their evident and disinterested desire to amelio- 
the condition of the slaves, had fairly entitled them. A more mis- 
taken calculation never was made. At the end of the following year, 
a anangr arrived from the Colonial Office, which informed the Assem- 
bly that their bill was disallowed, and gave, at some length, the reasons 
on which the privy council had advised his Majesty to reject it. ‘To 


a 


* Address of the Assembly, 22d December, 1826. 
38 2 


500 Our Colonies. . [ May;- 


that despatch Mr. Huskisson’s name was subscribed ; and whatever share 
he may have had in its composition, the disgrace of having baflled and 
defeated the most rational and efficient measure that has ever yet been 
devised to effect the object of the resolutions to which the government 
stands pledged, sticks upon him. The colonists, whom years of perse- 
cution and insult have taught to know their enemies pretty well, could 
be at no loss to see from what source these notable reasons proceeded, and 
by whose hand they were drawn up. It has long been one of their sorest 
grievances (and is it not sufficient cause for disgust and irritation ?) that the 
son of “ Master Stephen,” their sworn foe—the companion and intimate 
associate of their banded enemies—has been employed as law adviser to the 
Colonial Office—that he is paid a salary of 1,500/. a year, to help, by all 
the arts of his profession, the designs which have been constantly carried 
on against them. It was impossible for them not to detect, in the style, 
the spirit, the very expressions of these “reasons,” the cry of the 
“ young Cockerell ;” while the ignorance, the absurdity, the implacable 
determination to harass and insult the colonists, which the document 
betrayed, pointed out, most distinctly, the quarter from which it came. 
The most intolerable wrong of all was, that the governor was directed to 
pass no bill on the subject of religion, without a clause suspending its 
operation until the king’s pleasure should be known. This injunction 
is framed so as to cast upon the Assembly, by implication, the reproach of 
having attempted to impede the diffusion of religious truths, and is another 
device of their enemies to raise an unjust prejudice against them. All 
that the proposed law did, was to prevent designing persons, under pre-_ 
tence of religion, from collecting money from negroes, (we have surely 
had enough of a “ Rent,”)* from holding nocturnal meetings—and to — 
restrain the mal-practices of “ignorant, superstitious, and designing 
slaves.” . The sole object of the law is, to enforce a simple regulation of 
police, which the safety of the colony, and every other state requires ; 
and this they are told they shall not do. Not pass a law to prevent the 
dissemination of “ principles subversive of the peace and good order of 
society !”—why, just as well may a man be told that if in this country 
some crop-eared Tartuffe should venture into his house, there to dis- 
tract the minds of his family and servants from their duty, he might not 
kick him into the street. 

The course which the Assembly adopted, was dignified and tem- 
perate ; but at the same time as resolute as became men who felt that 
they were struggling, not only for their individual rights, but for consti- 
tutional privileges. They appointed a committee, who drew up a reply 
to Mr. Huskisson’s despatch, in which every article of his objections— or 
rather the objections he has stultified himself by fathering, are clearly 
and satisfactorily answered. Our limits compel us unwillingly to refrain 
from going at length into this precious document and the reply toit. A 
future occasion may enable us to do so; but in the mean time, we assert, 
in defiance of contradiction, that the “reasons” are in many respects so 
puerile and foolish, as to be a disgrace to a public office in which th 
interests of the country are supposed to be managed—that they are for 
the most part composed in ignorance, real or’ affected, of the subject to’ 


* The Assembly examined witnesses as to the sums which had been wrung from the 
slaves under the pretext of religion, and ascertained, from the persons who had 
received it, that it amounted to at least seven thousand pounds per annum. 
“ Bridge’s Jamaica,” Note LVI. 


‘ 


1829.] Our Colones. 501 


which they relate ;—that in many respects the law has been mistaken— 
and in all, an ungracious, unbecoming tone is adopted, which is ill con- 
cealed by the faint praise extorted from the writer as to such parts of the 
law as he does not venture to condemn. The preparation of the reply 
was committed to Mr. Barrett, a gentleman whose talents and acquire- 
ments are of the highest character, and whose earnest desire to improve 
the condition of the slaves and coloured population, is so universally 
known and appreciated, that even the most rabid of the colony’s enemies, 
in a work called “ The Yellow Book,” of which we may at some future 
time have a word or two to say, congratulated his partisans on that gen- 
tleman’s being returned as a member of the House of Assembly. The 
manner in which Mr. Barret executed his task, at once justified the 
expectations of his friends, and dismayed his enemies. ‘The reply is in 
every point of view a masterly performance ; the mistakes of Mr. Hus- 
kisson’s despatch, are powerfully exposed—its ignorance justly rebuked— 
the true motives and policy of the Assembly vindicated—and their rights 
asserted ; and all this with a moderation and temper which forms an 
admirable contrast to the peevish conceit and insincerity of the “ rea- 
sons.” In the mean time, the advocates for the amelioration of the con- 
dition of the slaves, because they do not approve of some part of the 
measures which the Assembly proposed, have rejected the whole ; and 
have left the objects of their benevolence and charity, with no other pro- 
tection than that which the law of 1816—confessedly inadequate— 
afforded to them. 

The question between this government and the colonists, now, there- 
fore is, whether the Assembly of Jamaica have, or have not, the right to 
frame laws for the internal regulation of their country, without inserting 
in them a clause suspending the operation of those laws until the plea- 
sure of the king shall have been known? Of this question the Assembly 
asserts the affirmative. They do not claim a power of giving effect to 
any regulation which this country may disapprove of; they willingly 
acknowledge, and are ready cheerfully to obey, the orders of the king in 
council, for the suspension or disallowance of any law which they may 

have passed ; but they insist that until their proposition shall have been 
examined, and its expediency determined upon, it ought there to have 
the full effect of a legislative provision. They justify this claim by the 
exercise of the right for the whole period during which the government . 
of Jamaica has existed. - Jf they relied upon a mere prescription, during 
a period of nearly two hundred years, that would surely be enough, un- 
der the circumstances, to establish their right; but when their history 
shows, as it does in the most indisputable manner, that attempts have at 
various times been made to infringe that right ; that those attempts have 
been invariably resisted, and always with success ; that at personal risk, 
at the hazard of life and property, the people of Jamaica have vindicated 
their claim to the exercise of this important privilege, and the power, as 
an early commission expresses it, of “ making, with the consent of the 
vernor and council, laws for the public peace, welfare, and good go- 
vernment of the island and the people and inhabitants thereof,” they may 
as safely defy the technical subtlety of their enemies, as they may reckon 
upon the sympathy and support of every one who can appreciate the 
value of a free constitution, and the virtuous resolution of men who 
| ee enmined not to surrender the privileges which are their birth- 
right. 


502 Our Colonies. [May, 


Our present observations have been confined chiefly to Jamaica, not 
because that is the only colony which has to complain of the mistaken 
and unjust policy of this country’s government ; but because the wrongs 
she has suffered present the most urgent claim for redress; and because 
it is more than probable that she is about to be made still further the 
victim of misrepresentation and of a system of blind persecution. The 
other colonies of Great Britain also call for deep and prompt considera- 
tion. The intolerable oppressions in Canada and elsewhere, have been 
carried so far that there is no alternative between their being redressed, 
and the fatal alternative of their being lost to Great Britain. Their ene- 
mies are abroad ; but by the help of our own exertions and a good cause, 
those enemies shall not have all the fight to themselves. The new re- 
gulations lately passed at Grenada, respecting the slave population, are 
lying before us, and shall shortly be noticed. In the mean time, what 
we ask for the colonies is all that Englishmen ever require—“ a fair 
field and no favour”—and we take upon ourselves to convince all such as 
will be convinced, that, in the march of improvement and amelioration, 
there are not, and there never have been, persons more warm, more 
honest, more earnest, or more successful, than the calumniated and mis- 
understood colonists themselves. 


IN LAUDEM BULLZ AERO-NAUTICE. 


Tuey may talk as they will 
Of their steam-engine skill, 
But, as sure as the sun shines at noon, 
Straps, boilers, and springs 
Are a waggon to wings, 
Compared with the air-balloon. 


If you’re troubled with taxes, 
You cross the Araxes, 

Or fly to the plains of Hairoun ; 
In the height of the summer, 
Cool as a cucumber, 

You sit in your air-balloon. 
The ladies, poor souls ! 

Once sent sighs to the poles ; 

We may now send the sighers as soon: 
Painted canvas and gas 
Whisk away with the lass, 

in the car of the air-balloon. 


Our girls of fifteen 
Will disdain Gretna Green, 
The old coupler must soon cobble shoon ; 
With a wink to the captain, 
The beauties are wrapt in 
The car of the air-balloon. 


1829.] 


In Laudem Bulle Aero-nautice. 503 


Old fathers and mothers, 
Grim uncles and brothers, 
May hunt them from Janu’ry to June ; 
They are off to the stars, 
And in Venus or Mars 
You may spy out their air-balloon. 


Your makers of rhyme 
May at last grow sublime, 
Inspired by a touch at the moon ; 
And lawyers may rise 
For once to the skies, 
In the car of the air-balloon. 


Your ministers, soaring, 
May shun all the boring 
Of country and city baboon; 
Or, like ministers’ spouses, 
Look down on both Houses 
From the car of the air-balloon. 


The sweet six months’ widow 
Her weeds will abide, O, 

No longer, nor cry “ ’Tis too soon !” 
But range the skies over, 
In search of a lover, 

In the car of the air-balloon. 


If you wish for a singe-a 
In Afric or India, 
Or long for an Esquimaux tune, 
Or wish to go snacks 
With the king of the blacks,— 
Why,—call for your air-balloon. 


If, on Teneriffe’s Peak, 
You'd wish for a steak, 
Or dip in Vesuvius your spoon, 
Or slip all the dog-days, 
The rain-days, and fog-days,— 
Go, call for your air-balloon, 


Your doctors of physic 
May banish the phthisic, 
Your cook give you ice-creams in June ; 
If a dun’s in the wind, 
You may leave him behind, 
And be off in your air-balloon. 


On the top of the Andes, 
Who’s tortured with dandies ? 
On Potosi, who meets a buffoon? 
But, for fear I'd get prosy, 
I'll stop at Potosi,— 
So, huzza for the air-balloon ! 


q { 504. J [May, 


DE BOURRIENNE’S MEMOIRS.* 


THE memoirs which form the subject of the present article bear the 
stamp of authenticity. They treat of events which can scarcely yet be | 
said to come within the domain of history, and which, notwithstanding, 
are portrayed with a truth of character, and a correctness of outline, 
rarely to be found in the delineation of contemporary scenes. ‘ And this 
merit is further enhanced, when we reflect how much truth has been 
awed into silence before the powerful ascendency of a man whose singu- 
lar fortunes subdued the mighty ones of earth, and whose light, like 
the meteor’s, has left behind it the mingled emotions of admiration—of 
abhorrence—of blind and enthusiastic idolatry. 

Future ages will pronounce judgment upon Napoleon, and to them 
has he appealed. That posterity, with a view to whose applause he in-— 
variably regulated his actions, may be said to have, even now, com- 
menced for him. The tomb has for ever closed upon the mighty con- 
queror on whose individual acts the eyes of nations were fixed. The 
reign of adulation is past—that of impartial judgment has succeeded. 

The “ Memoirs of M. de Bourrienne” present some striking points of 
contrast with the historical narratives of his predecessors. Many of the 
biographers of Napoleon have laboured to prove that his actions de- 
pended on each other, by a sort of indefinable sympathy. Those who 
have formed their ideas of Napoleon from the dramas arranged by such 
authors, will be disabused on the perusal of M. de Bourrienne’s me- 
moirs. They will in vain seek indications of that innate spirit of impe- 
rialism, so ingeniously discovered in Napoleon, by writers whose imagi- 
nations enable them to divine the inmest thoughts of great men. They 
will be disappointed if they expect to find in M. de Bourrienne’s me- 
moirs a confirmation of those uninterrupted symptoms of greatness— 
those unceasing and super-human workings of lofty purpose which the 
flatterers of Napoleon have so fondly and so absurdly ascribed to his 
character. 

In the course of his memoirs, M. de Bourrienne often brings the do 
cuments of which he is in possession into collision with the assertions of 
Napoleon. He raises doubts as to the sincerity of one whom he knew so 
well: nay more, he often disproves his ipse dixits by the stubborn tes 
mony of facts. But if he plucks from Napoleon’s laurels a few artifie 
leaves, he restores, with the holy zeal of a devotee, those which the breath 
of envy would wither. . 

The two volumes now presented to the public rectify many important 
errors. M. de Bourrienne -has devoted himself to the arduous task of 
restoring to events their real colouring, of sifting their causes, and tracing 
them through the development of their effects. The companion of Be- 
naparte’s youthful studies, the private secretary and intimate friend of 
the Conqueror of Italy, the sharer of his councils, and the right hand ¢ 
the measures which emanated from the imperial throne, M. de Bo 
rienne describes events of which he was an eye-witness, and disclose 
the secret of intrigues in which he was himself personally involved, 
the web of which Napoleon wove or unwove at pleasure. 

We present our readers with the following extracts, translated from 
M. de Bourrienne’s memoirs. 


* Mémoires de M. De Bourrienne, Ministre d’ Etat, sur Napoléon, le Directoire, le 
Consulat, Empire, et la Restauration. 4 


1829.] De Bourrienne’s Memoirs. , 505 


« Tn the month of April, 1792, I arrived at Paris, and renewed those habits 
of intimacy with Bonaparte which our boyish friendship and college studies 
had rendered dear to both of us. My circumstances were not at that time 
particularly fortunate ; the hand of adversity weighed heavily upon him too ; 
his resources were often totally exhausted. The reader may form to himself 
an idea how the time passed with two young men of 23 years of age, who were 
richer in leisure hours than in worldly wealth; and of the latter commodity 
Bonaparte had still less than myself. Each day gave birth to some new pro- 
ject, and found us busily engaged in endeavouring to seton foot some pro- 
fitable speculation. On one occasion, Bonaparte, in conjunction with myself, 
wished to hire some houses then being built in the Rue Montholon, for the pur- 
pose of sub-letting them. The demands of the proprietors we found most 
exorbitant ; we could therefore do nothing in that way. About the same time, 
he solicited a commission in the army, and I an appointment to a civil situa- 
tion in the foreign department. It will be seen, that for the moment I was 
more fortunate than he. It was before the 20th June that on the occasion of one 
of our frequent excursions to the environs of Paris we went to St. Cyr to see 
Bonaparte’s sister, Marianne (Eliza) who was a boarder in the establishment. 

“ Whilst we rambled away our time in this manner, arrived the never to be 
forgotten 20th of June—the sombre herald of the still more memorable 10th of 
August. Previously to setting out on our daily peregrinations, we had mutu- 
ally agreed upon a rendezvous at the house of a restaurateur in the Rue St. 
Honoré, near the Palais-Royal. On quitting the restawrateur’s we saw a mob 
approaching, apparently collected from the different markets, and amounting, 
as Bonaparte supposed, to about five or six thousand men, in rags, armed in 
a manner absolutely burlesque, shouting, vomiting forth oaths and insults, and 
directing their march with hasty strides towards the palace of the T'willeries. 
A more brutal, or more ferocious rabble could not possibly have been collected 
from the vilest population of the vilest faubourg of Paris. ‘ Let us follow this 
canaille, said Bonaparte. We fortunately obtained the advance of them, and 
took our station on the terrace that borders the river. From that spot Bona- 
parte had a full view of the scandalous scenes that took place. It were dif- 
ficult for me to portray the sentiments of surprise and indignation which they 
excited in his breast. He could scarcely recover from his astonishment, at 
so much patient, I had almost said, so much weak endurance and long suffer- 
ing. But when the king presented himself at one of the windows that look 
into the garden, with the red cap which one of the rabble, more audacious 
than the rest, had placed upon his majesty’s head, the indignation of Bonaparte 
mocked all restraint. ‘ Sacre Diew!’ cried he, aloud, ‘ how came they to let in 
these ruffians 2? It would have been much better to broom away four or five hun- 
dred of them with cannon, and the rest would at this moment be in full flight.’ 

© After the fatal 10th of August, Bonaparte departed for Corsica, whence 
he did not return till 1793. Walter Scott says upon this occasion, that subse- 
quently to the above period, he never went back to Corsica. We shall have 
Occasion to notice this mistake more fully in speaking of Bonaparte’s return 
from Egypt.” 


The following extract relates to Napoleon’s marriage with Josephine, 
in giving his opinion on which, M. de Bourrienne follows the prevailing 
supposition that the union in question appeared desirable to Bonaparte 
motives of ambition rather than of affection. 


At dinner one day, Napoleon directed my attention to a lady seated nearly 
site to him, and asked me what J thought of her. My reply seemed 
to afford him pleasure. He then spoke much of her family—of her personal 
qualities, adding that he had serious thoughts of offering her his hand, from a 
conviction that a union with the young widow could not fail to ensure his hap- 
piness. It was easy to gather from his conversation, that he thought the mar 
riage principally desirable as a means of seconding his ambitious projects, 
increasing intimacy with Madame Beauharnois, brought him into contact 


_M.M. New Serics.—Vou- VIL. No, 41. BT 


506 . De Bourrienne’s Memoirs. [May, 


with the most influential personages of the day, and opened a wide field to the 
exercise of his political views. He remained at Paris but twelve days after: 
his marriage with her, which took place on the 9th of March, 1796. Through- 
out the whole of this union, the greatest cordiality ever prevailed, if we except 
some slight differences that will occasionally disturb the harmony of the best 
assorted matches. Bonaparte never to my knowledge afforded real cause for 
discontent to his wife. Madame Bonaparte possessed many charming and 
excellent qualities. None that enjoyed the advantage of knowing her, ever 
complained of her conduct towards them. As she never forgot any of her , 
friends, arrived at the summit of power, she contrived to retain the affections 
of all. Her character might have been tainted with something of frivolity, but 
she was an obliging and a sincere friend. The exercise of benevolence was 
with her a sort of moral necessity—a second nature: but as she generally 
obeyed the impulse of the moment, her protection was not unfrequently be- 
stowed on undeserving objects. She had a decided taste for luxury and extra- 
vagance. This propensity, nurtured by idleness, had grown into a confirmed 
habit, and was almost always exercised without discrimination, and without 
real necessity. What scenes have I not witnessed when the time came round 
for paying bills ! (of which, by the way, it was her custom to declare only the 
half.) How many tears might not a little more frankness on such occasions 
have spared her ! 

“ When fortune placed the imperial diadem on her brow, Josephine told all. 
who had the complaisance to listen to her, that this extraordinary event had 
been predicted. It is necessary here to observe, that she placed implicit faith 
in the rhapsodies of fortune-tellers. At this I often ventured to express my 
amazement. On such occasions she was always the first to laugh at her own 
credulity, without, however, abandoning it. The prediction was certainly in 
this instance realised ; but there is reason to suspect that the natural order of 
things was reversed, and that in this case, as in many others, the event gave 
birth to the prophecy.” 

_ We gratify the reader with the substance of one of M. de Bourrienne’s 
anecdotes relative to the directory. It affords us pleasure to be able to 
give our fashionables an idea of the elegance of the manners and the eti- . 
quette observed in those revolutionary days. M. Barras had, it would 
appear, a quarrel with M. Carnot. The latter found it convenient to 
league himself with the deputies who were at that time denominated 
Clichians, and M. Barras had now and then a tiff on this subject with 
his honorable coadjutor, M. Carnot. On the occasion of one of their al- 
tercations, it. seems, (though M. de Bourrienne does not exactly say so,) 
that M. Carnot thought proper to reproach M. Barras with the mas- 
sacres that had taken place in the south. We give the other “ honorable 
gentleman’s” reply in the original, our pen being much too courteous, and, 
withal too patriotic, to shock the reader’s eye with an English version. 
“ Tais-toi, tu es un infame brigand ; il n’y a pas un pou de ton corps 
qui ne soit en droit de te cracher au visage.”—-Our readers may imagine 
if poor M. Carnot had a word to answer to such a specimen of elegance, 
concision, and energy. Indeed it would have been utterly impossible 
for him to surpass such an exquisite morceau. 

We continue our extracts :-— 

“ During his sojourn at Montebello, Bonaparte made an excursion to the 
Lake of Como, and on his return occupied himself with a project for the orga- 
nization of the states of Venice, Genoa and the Milanese. One of his observa- 
tions on this occasion, I shall not readily forget; ‘Good God! how scarce 
men have become! Italy contains eighteen millions of souls, and I can 
scarcely find two men.’ ” 

In the estimation of an observer of the world, the justice of Bona- 
parte’s reproach dwindles into’a common-place remark. Speaking of 


1829.] ‘De Bourrienne’s Memoirs. 507 


‘a country represented by its own historians, and the public prints as 
overflowing with superior talent, a woman* of no ordinary mind has ob- 
served :—“ Since the elevation of my husband has afforded me the op- 
portunity of personal acquaintance with men appointed to the most 
important posts, nothing has occasioned me more surprise than the me- 
diocrity of talent which universally prevails: it surpasses all that the 
imagination can conceive, and is observable in the meanest clerk—in the 
minister—in the general—in the ambassador. Were I not personally 
convinced of the fact, I could never have believed my species so poor 
and worthless.” 

Who does not recollect the memorable reply of Oxenstiern to his son, 
who wished to excuse himself, on account of his youth, from being pre- 
sent at the congress at Munster? “ Go, my son, and see with your owh 
eyes what a small share of wisdom governs mankind.” 

The following is M. de Bourrienne’s delineation of Berthier’s cha- 
racter :-—. 

“ Berthier was a man replete with sentiments of honour, courage, and 
probity, and with regard to business, possessed the qualities of method and regu- 
larity. Bonaparte’s esteem for him was the result of habit rather than of inclina- 
tion. In conferring a favour Berthier was not affable, and his refusals were 
always harsh and blunt. His character, morose even to selfish rudeness, 
‘without increasing the number of his enemies, was not calculated to attach to 
him many friends. He was perfectly acquainted with the stations of regi- 
ments, the names of their officers, and their numerical force. He was always 
ready, night and day, and dietated with precision all orders depending on the 
general order. His devotion to Bonaparte was besides excessive. In short, 
‘to sum up the measure of his military merit, he was an excellent staff-officer. 
But there we must stop; even he himself aspired to no greater eulogy. He 
was not a man that could with advantage to himself be removed from the 
narrow circle of ideas rendered familiar to him by assiduous application and 
constant habit. So excessive was his admiration of Bonaparte, that he never 
suffered himself to give him advice, or even to reason internally on his plans. 
Berthier’s capacity was of a second-rate order, and could only be adapted to the 
occupations in which he was habitually employed. He was not a man of 
strong mind, and the reputation which he enjoyed was merely the result of 
the friendship with which Bonaparte regarded him, and was exaggerated by 
the frequent appearance of his name in bulletins and official despatches. 

“ For my part, I loved Berthier, and thought him an excellent man. Not- 
withstanding the intimate terms on which we were together, particularly in 
Egypt, I could never cure him of a habit which he had contracted of biting 
his nails in conversation—a habit which rendered his pronunciation extremely 
indistinct. 

« Bonaparte was in many respects the creature of habit, and liked to be sur- 
rounded by those with whom custom had familiarized him. He hated new 
faces. Berthier loved him, executed his orders with precision ; and those qua- 
lities covered a multitude of defects, and redeemed his mediocrity of talent.” 


“ A sort of analogy exists between great men and celebrated places. It was 
not an indifferent spectacle to behold Bonaparte in contemplation of the spot 
where, in 1476, Charles of Burgundy, surnamed the Bold, witnessed the over- 
throw of his soldiers by the Swiss. Bonaparte had slept the evening before at 
Moudon, where the most marked honours had been paid him, as had been the 
case throughout all the places which he had visited. An accident having 
happened to his carriage in the morning, we continued our route on foot, 
accompanied only by a few officers and an escort of dragoons. Bonaparte, an 


* Madame Roland. 


3 T 2 


508 De Bourrienne’s Memoirs. [May, 


arriving at the spot where many of the slain where buried, demanded to be 
shewn the place where the battle of Morathad been fought. A plain opposite 
the chapel was pointed out to him. An officer who had served in France 
took pains to explain to him how the Swiss, rushing down from the neighbour- 
ing hills, and protected by a thick wood, had succeeded in putting the army 
of Burgundy completely to the rout. ‘Of what strength was the army com- 
posed?’ asked Bonaparte. ‘Of sixty thousand men.’ ‘ Sixty thousand men !’ 
cried he, ‘ that force was sufficient to cover the whole of the mountains.’ 
‘ Frenchmen now-a-days fight better, said Lannes, who was one of the 
officers of his suite. ‘ In those days,’ interrupted Bonaparte, sharply, ‘ the 
men of Burgundy were not French.’ ” 


“¢ Bonaparte lodged in a small house, No. 6, Rue de Chantereine, which, in 
virtue of a departmental decree soon afterwards received the name of Rue de la 
Victoire. The cries of ‘ Vive Bonaparte,’ and the incense of flattery heaped 
upon him effected no change in his position. Erst while conqueror and ruler 
of Italy, now the subject of a party for whom he could feel no respect, and 
who in turn looked upon him as a formidable rival, he one day observed to me, 
‘the air of Paris is not favourable to the recollections of greatness. If I res 
main much longer inactive, I am undone. In this second Babylon one repu- 
tation succeeds another. Were I to go three times to the theatre, I should 
no longer be even looked at: for that reason I go as seldom as possible.’ 
When he did go thither, he invariably sat in a latticed box. On one occasion 
he commissioned me to request of the Director the representation of two pieces 
then much in vogue, and in which figured the most celebrated performers of 
the day. He however demanded the representation merely in the event of its 
being possible. The director returned me for answer, that ‘ nothing was impos- 
sible when desired by the conqueror of Italy, who had long since erased the 
word from the French dictionary.’ Bonaparte could not avoid laughing 
heartily at this extravagant compliment. The administration of the opera 
wished to gratify him with a representation arranged expressly for the occa- 
sion. This however he refused. When I observed to him that he could not 
but feel flattered at the sight of his fellow citizens, who pressed together in 
crowds to obtain a glimpse of his person. ‘ Bah!’ said he, ‘ the same people 
would throng as eagerly to witness my execution, were I this moment dragged 
to the scaffold.’ ” 


“ Bonaparte departed for the north on the 10th of February, 1798, but 
received no order to repair thither, as has been commonly asserted, to prepare 
operations that had for their object a descent upon England. His voyage to the 
coast was merely a rapid excursion, and was intended to throw a feeble light 
‘ upon the ground-work of the question. His absence lasted only eight days, 
and not several weeks, as has been currently reported. We were four in num- 
ber, and travelled in his carriage, himself, Lannes, Sulkowsky, and I. Bona- 
parte was nota little surprised on reading in the Moniteur of the 10th Febru- 
ary, an article that attached to his short excursion a degree of importance 
which, in reality, it by no means merited. My readers have on this point learned 
the exact truth. Bonaparte visited Etaples, Ambleteuse, Boulogne, Calais, 
Dunkerque, Furnes, Newport, Ostend, and the Isle of Walcheren. In these 
different ports he obtained the various information requisite, and displayed 
the patience, the presence of mind, the tact, and the perspicacity that he pos 
sessed in an eminent degree. 

“ We returned to Paris by way of Anvers, Brussels, Lille, and St. Quentin. 

« T am at a loss to know where Sir W. Scott obtained his information that 
the preliminaries of invasion were proceeding with vigour, and that immense 
preparations were being made: when, in fact, everything was confined to 
some common-place official correspondence, and some still less important 
conversations. Whatever may have been asserted on this subject, never were 
any serious preparations for the invasion made by either Bonaparte or the 


1829.] De Bourrienne’s Memoirs. 509 


Directory. Sir Walter Scott does not flatter the national vanity of England, 
in thus magnifying a mole-hill into a mountain, and admitting that the bare 
idea of invasion was a subject of so much alarm to the British government.” 


* On his arrival at Toulon, to take the command of the army of the east, 
(Yarmée de l’Orient,) Bonaparte learned that the laws inflicting the pain of 
death upon emigrants continued in full force, and that not long previously, an 
old man of more than eighty years of age had expiated the offence of emigra- 
tion by a military execution. Indignant at such horrible barbarity, Bona- 
parte dictated to me a letter, in the form of a general order, expressive of his 
detestation of such proceedings, and his determination to visit them in future 
with exemplary severity. This letter saved the life of an unfortunate man in 
the predicament above alluded to; and, on that occasion at least, the influence 
of a powerful name was nobly exercised. A man named Simon, who had 
followed the fortunes of his masters by emigrating with them, and who now 
dreaded the severity of the laws, learned, by some accident, that I was in 
want of a servant. He addressed himself to me, and frankly avowed his 
position. He suited me, and I engaged him in my service. He afterwards 
expressed his apprehensions of being seized on going to the port to embark. 
Bonaparte, to whom I spoke of him, and who had just signalized his abhor- 
rence of an act of cruelty similar to that which gave rise to Simon’s alarm, 
replied to me in the kindest manner, ‘ Give him my portfolio to carry, and let 
him remain near you.’ The words ‘ Bonaparte, General-in-chief of the Army of 
the East,’ were inscribed in large letters of gold upon a handsome green mo- 
rocco leather portfolio. Whether it was the portfolio, or the circumstance of 
his being in my service, that saved him, I know not, but at all events he passed 
without molestation.” ; 


“ One of the most remarkable amusements of Napoleon during the voyage 
to Egypt, consisted in appointing three or four persons, after dinner, to main-= 
tain a given proposition, and as many to oppose it. These discussions were 
not without their object. They afforded him opportunities for studying the 
mental capabilities and resources of those with whom it was his interest to be 
thoroughly acquainted, in order that on after occasions each might fill the 
station for which the nature of his talents had best adapted him. Those who 
have lived in intimacy with Bonaparte were not surprised that after these 
‘keen encounters’ of wit, he uniformly paid a greater deference to those who 
had skilfully defended an absurd opinion, than to those who had espoused the 
cause of reason and common sense ; and it was not merely superiority of talent 
that influenced his judgment on this point ; for he really preferred the sophist 
who had argued plausibly in defence of absurdity, to the reasoner who, with 
equal power, had employed his eloquence in support of a tenable proposition. 
He himself always named the subject of discussion, and generally contrived 

‘to turn it upon questions of religion, of government, or of the art of war. On 
one occasion he proposed for the subject of argument, the question if the 

lanets are inhabited: on another, the age of the world. At another time he 
introduced the discussion of the probability of the destruction of the globe 
which we inhabit, by water or by fire—the truth or fallacy of presentiments— 
and the interpretation of dreams. 

“ During the course of a long voyage it was not to be expected that some 
casualty should not happen, that some person should not accidentally fall 
overboard. The latter circumstance frequently happened on board the 
Orient, and afforded proofs of the humanity of the man, who subsequently on 
the field of battle was so prodigal of the blood of his soldiers, and who was 
destined to shed that blood in torrents throughout the land to which we were 
then steering our course. From the moment that any one fell overboard, the 
general enjoyed no repose till he was saved. He instantly gave orders for the 
vessel to lie to, evinced the keenest anxiety till the unfortunate man was taken 
up, and ordered me to recompense in the handsomest manner the efforts of 


510 De Bourrienne's Memoirs. [May, 


those who had exerted themselves for his preservation. Whenever amongst 
his deliverers was found a sailor who for some fault had incurred chastise 
ment, Bonaparte insisted that he should be exempted from his punishment, 
and that he should moreover receive a present of money. During the course 
of one very dark night a splashing noise was heard, apparently caused by the 
fall of some person overboard. Bonaparte instantly gave orders for the vessel 
to lie to, that the supposed victim might be snatched from a watery grave 
The most active exertions were made on all sides, the most minute precau- 
tions adopted ; and at length, after considerable difficulty, those employed on 
the occasion succeeded in rescuing—a magnificent quarter of beef, which had 
well nigh made its escape from the provision store to the bottom of ‘ the 
vasty deep. What was the conduct of Bonaparte? He ordered me to 
recompense with even more than usual generosity the sailors who had sig= 
nalised themselves on the occasion. ‘ It might have been a fellow-creature, 
observed he, ‘ and these brave fellows have not the less displayed real courage 
in their attempt to avert a supposed catastrophe.’ 

“ After a lapse of thirty years, these circumstances are as fresh upon my 
recollection as if they had occurred but yesterday. Such was the manner in 
which Bonaparte passed his time on board the Orient. It was about that 
period that he dictated to me the famous proclamation, or general order, 
which I give unmutilated and unchanged. 


“ © Bonaparte, Member of the National Institute, and General-in-chief on 
© board the Orient, 4th Messidor, year 6th of the Republic. 


« ¢ Soldiers:—You are about to attempt a conquest, the effects of which 
€ upon civilization, and the commerce of the world, will be incalculable. You 
* are about to strike the most certain and the most fatal blow to England, till 
“ the time come when you may be able to annihilate her power altogether. 

«* «We shall have some tiresome marches to endure—we shall have some 
“desperate battles to fight: we shall succeed in our enterprises—fate is 
‘for us. Ina few days after our landing, the Mameluck Beys shall cease to 
© exist—those beys who favour exclusively the commerce of the English— 
© who load our merchants with oppressive imports, and lord it over the unfor- 
* tunate inhabitants of the Nile. 

« « The people, whose land we are about to enter are Mahometans: their 
© first article of faith is this, ‘ There is no other God but God, and Mahomet 
“is his prophet.’ Do not contradict their religious belief. Act with regard to 
“them as you have acted with the Jews—with the Italians: treat their 
* Muphtis and their Imans with the same respect that you have heretofore 
© shewn to rabbins and bishops. Regard the mosques—the ceremonies pre= 
* scribed by the Koran, with the same toleration that you have shewn to the 
* convents—to the synagogues—to the religion of Moses, and of Jesus Christ: 

« «The Roman legions of old afforded equal protection to all religions. 
‘ The habits of the country we are about to enter are different from those of 
* Europe ; you will do well to accustom yourselves to them. 

« «The people with whom we are about to mix, treat women differently 
© from us ; but in every country aravisher is justly considered a monster. 

« € Pillage can enrich but a handful of individuals ;—it dishonours us at the 
“ same time that it destroys our resources, and loads us with the enmity of the 
* people whose friendship it is our interest to conciliate. 

« © The first city we shall enter was built by Alexander; each step we 
* tread will present to our imagination recollections of ancient times, the most 
‘ interesting, and worthy of exciting the emulation of Frenchmen. 

«« ¢ BoNAPARTE. ” - 


“ Several authors have asserted, that during his sojourn in Egypt, Bonaparte 
took part in the religious ceremonies of the Mahometans, and in the exterior 
forms of their worship; but nothing can be more absurd than the assertion 
that he celebrated the fétes observed on the occasion of the overflowing of the 
Nile, or of the anniversary of the birth of the prophet. At such fetes nothing 


1829.) De Bourrienne’s Memoirs. 511 


wmusual took place; the same customs were observed as on ordinary occa- 
sions ; the Turks invited Bonaparte to be present, and he from complaisance to 
them, took his place as a mere spectator. -But the idea of ordering any. parti- 
cular solemnity never entered into his imagination ; he contented himself with 
outwardly conforming to established customs. He never learned, repeated, or 
recited any of the prayers of the Koran, as some have ridiculously asserted. 
We know not on what grounds certain writers have represented him as dis- 
perk to admit doctrines so subversive of the interests of society, as those of 
atalism, polygamy, and the absurd tenets of the Koran. The Scottish novelist 
may have thought proper to adorn his tale with the episode of Napoleon on 
the point of embracing the religion of Islamism; but such embellishments 
should be rejected from the sober narrative of history. Bonaparte had more 
serious occupations than the discussion of the theological tenets of the sons of 
Ismael ;—his time was too precious to be wasted in their ridiculous and mani- 
fold ablutions. These ceremonies, at which policy alone required his presence, 
amused him and his companions in arms with the novelty of an oriental spec- 
tacle. The tact of Bonaparte enabled him to turn the stupidity of the Mus- 
sulmans to the advancement of his own purposes, but he never set foot within 
a mosque ; and whatever may be asserted to the contrary, he never, but on 
one single occasion, dressed himself in the Mahometan costume. The whole 
of the absurd imputations of apostacy that some poetical historians have 
laboured to establish against him, amounts to this simple fact—that he was 
present at the festivals to which the green turbans invited him. The religious 
toleration of Bonaparté was a natural consequence of his philosophic mind. 

“ Without doubt Bonaparte shewed, and with reason, considerable defer-. 
ence to the religion of the country. Policy required that he should play the 
Mussulman rather than the rigid Catholic. An experienced conqueror should 
ever consolidate his triumphs by protecting, by upholding, and even by distin 
guishing with peculiar favour the religion of a conquered people. Bonaparte 
has often assured me, that he held it asa principle to consider all religions as 
established by man, but that he respected them all as powerful auxiliaries to 
the art of government. I am not, however, prepared to say, that he would not 
have changed his faith, had the conquest of the East been proposed to him as 
the price of his apostacy. When we were alone, he himself was the first to 
laugh at every thing he might previously have said before the grandees of the 
country, on the subject of Mahomet, Islamism, or the Koran; but he desired 
that his religious rhapsodies might be repeated, and even translated into har- 
monious verse, or sounding Arabic prose, in order to conciliate the good will 
of the natives. The soldiers were highly amused with this farce; and if we 
recollect the religious complexion of the era at which the French troops 
entered Egypt, the slightest reflection will suffice to convince us that an ha-~ 
rangue on Christianity or on Islamism, pronounced by a Bishop or a Muphti, 
was to them a matter of equal indifference. 

“< If Bonaparte ever adopted the tone of the Mahometan religion, it should 
be recollected that he spoke as a military and political chieftain in a Mahome~ 
tan country. The safety of his army, the success of his arms, and consequently 
his own personal glory, depended on his momentary adoption of such a lan. 

age. In any other country, he would have framed his proclamations, and 
modelled his harangues on the same principle. In India, Ali would have 
been his deity ;—in Thibet, Dalai-Lama would have been his idol ;—in China, 
Confucius would have been his prophet. 

“With respect to the charge of his having adopted the Mahometan cos~ 
tume—it is true that Bonaparte for amusement ordered a Turkish dress to be, 
made for him. He desired me one day to breakfast without waiting for him, 
intending, as he said, to rise a little later than usual. In about a quarter of an 
hour afterwards he made his appearance dressed in his new costume. He had 
scarcely been recognised, when he was received with a universal shout of 
laughter. He took his seat with gravity and composure, but felt so awkward 
and so ill at ease in the turban and oriental garb, that he speedily retired to, 


512 De Bourrienne’s Memoirs. [May, 


undress himself, and was never afterwards tempted to favour us with a second 
representation of the masquerade.” 


M. de Bourrienne draws a lively picture of the sufferings of the French 
army in Egypt, and of the general discontent that prevailed amongst the 
troops, almost amounting to open rebellion against the authority of Bo- 
naparte. ‘ Plague, pestilence, and famine” had, it seems, wonderfully 
cooled the warlike ardour of the Republican heroes. Into what extremes 
will not over-excitement plunge the creatures who yet boast that reason 
has stamped them with the image of their Maker, and endowed them 
with the perfection of moral beauty! Those who had followed the des- 
tinies of Napoleon when the meridian brightness of his star was unsul- 
lied by a single cloud—those who had acquired name and opulence 
from the favor of one whose smile was fortune, and whose praise was 
fame—even these bade adieu to the enthusiastic feelings which mocked 
at suffering, while triumph was at hand—which had dared all while the 
perspective of famine and disease was yet in the distance—and which 
now were exchanged for the selfish desire of sacrificing to their hopes 
and their fortunes him to whom they owed hope, fortune, all !—All re- 
gretted their momentary apostacy from the altar of self—all renewed 
their homage to their hideous deity. 


** J will here assert, because it is a truth to which the testimony of thou- 
sands bears incontestable evidence, that from the instant the French army set 
foot on the soil of Egypt, disgust, anxiety, and discontent took undivided pos- 
session of all. From the moment of the arrival of the troops, the bright illu- 
sions of the expedition had faded,—the sad reality alone remained. What 
bitter lamentations have I not heard from Murat, from Lannes, from Berthier, 
from Bessiéres—from all! These incessant, immoderate, and ill-timed com- 
plaints often assumed the aspect of open rebellion against the authority of 
Bonaparte, whom they deeply afflicted, and whom they occasionally betrayed 
into the expression of severe reproach, and the violence of intemperate sallies. 
Proud self-sufficiency of human nature! Stoical insensibility to human suffer- 
ing! Ardent and enthusiastic heroism, that would sacrifice friends, fortune, 
country, to the dreams of ambition, and the glory of the Republic! How low 
were you then fallen! How contemptible then appeared those sublime senti- 
ments that exist but in the fancy of the poet, glowing with the fervour of 
inspiration—or in the reveries of the patriot by his fire-side, encircled with the 
tranquil pleasures of existence, and a stranger to the privations which on a 
foreign and pestilential soil, await the exile from his country and his home! 
Each now thought of France—of his affections—of his pleasures ;—some per~ 
haps—(shall I speak out ?)—of the opera !—All found it impossible to recon-" 
cile themselves to the idea of a separation from home which seemed destined 
to be eternal. 

’ © Bonaparte himself was overwhelmed on learning the terrible catastrophe 
at Aboukir—the burning of our fleet. Spite of the energy of his character, 
how could he have triumphed over the shock inflicted on him by so many dis- 
asters. To the painful sensation caused by the ill-timed complaints and the 
moral discouragement of his companions in arms, was added the reality of a 
vast, positive, and irreparable evil. His perspicacity enabled him to calculate 
at a single glance its fatal consequences. All communication with France 
was cut off. No other chance of return was left, than one from which the 
conqueror of Italy turned with horror—with despair ;—a disgraceful capitula- 
tion with an exasperated foe. No chance was left, (and this blow was to him 
the most terrible of all) no hope remained of preserving his conquest. At the 
very moment too when this disastrous blow was struck, he meditated the pro- 
ject of returning to France for the purpose of demanding reinforcements. Was 
it to be expected that these united considerations—the present replete with 


1829. ] De Bourrienne’s Memoirs. 513 


horror—the future with uncertainty and dismay—should not produce on his 
mind a deep and painful impression? The panegyrist of Napoleon blasphemes 
his idol, when he would incense his shrine by imputing to him at such a 
moment a degree of apathy so unnatural. Such eulogy is satire. To be truly 
great, must the feelings of human nature be divorced ?” 


The following anecdote will serve to convey an idea of the character 
of the Egyptian Chiefs :— 


“ General Kleber sent on board the Orient the cherif of Alexandria, Sidy- 
Mohamed el Coraim, arrested by order of Bonaparte, and charged with 
treason. 

“ The following sentence was pronounced against him. 

« «The General-in-chief having obtained proofs of the treason of Sidy- 
£ Mohamed el Coraim, whom he had loaded with favours and obligations, 
* decrees as follows :— 

“ © Sidy-Mohamed el Coraim is condemned to pay a contribution of 
£ 300,000 francs: in default of payment by him of the said contribution within 
‘ five days from the publication of the present order, he is condemned to be 
* beheaded.’ 

* Coiaim was to repair from Aboukir to Cairo, having demanded and 
obtained permission to plead in justification against the charge. On his 
arrival at Cairo, he was again required to pay the 300,000 francs as a justifi- 
cation. This he positively refused. I one day signified to him through the 
medium of Venture, our interpreter, that,if he wished to save his life, he must 
pay the demand made upon him, in order that his defection might be over- 
looked. I moreover assured him that the general was determined to make 
an example. Coraim was a remarkably fine-looking man, and his situation 
interested me. ‘ You are rich,’ said I to him through Venture, ‘ therefore 
make this sacrifice.’ ‘If,’ said he, with a sneer, ‘ it be my fate to die now, 
nothing can save me, and my piastres would be sacrificed to no purpose: if 
it be not my fate to die, why should I make any sacrifice ?? He was executed 
at Cairo, at twelve o’clock at noon, on the 6th of September, 1798: his head 
was exposed in the streets of the city, with this inscription— 

“ © Coraim, Cherif of Alexandria, condemned to death for having betrayed 
‘ the oath of fidelity sworn by him to the French Republic, and for having 
* engaged in a treasonable correspondence with the Mamelucks whom he 
* served in the capacity of spy. 

«« « This is the punishment reserved for traitors and perjurers.’ 

‘© Nothing of Coraim’s wealth was found after his execution: he had taken 
his precautions. -The example, however, facilitated the collection of the 
subsidies, and intimidated the other Egyptian Creesus, who were not alto- 
gether such decided fatalists as Coraim. ‘Three,or four millions were speedily 
raised for the supply of the army.” : 


The following may be taken as a specimen of some of the chit-chat of 
M. de Bourrienne’s memoirs :— : 


* Towards the middle of September in the same year, Bonaparte assembled 
in the house of Elfey-Bey half-a-dozen Asiatic women, of whom report spoke 
highly on the score of grace and beauty: their clumsy towrnure, however, soon 
obtained their dismissal. A few days afterwards he became violently ena- 
moured of Madame Fourés, the wife of a lieutenant of infantry. She was 
extremely handsome, and her charms were still further enhanced by the great 
scarcity in Egypt of women formed on a model to please the European taste, 
Bonaparte furnished’ a house for her close to the palace of Elfy-Bey, which 
we inhabited. He frequently took it into his head, towards three o'clock, to 
order dinner at her house: on such occasions I went thither alone with him 
at seven o'clock, and retired at nine. 

“ This intrigue soon became the standing topic of the quarter, and the 
subject of general conversation. 


M.M. New Series—Vou. VII. No. 41. 3 U 


514 De Bourrienne’s Memoirs. [ May, 


“ From motives of delicacy to M. Fourés, the general-in-chief entrusted 
him with a mission to the Directory. That officer accordingly embarked at 
Alexandria. The vessel on board of which he sailed was taken by the 
English, who, informed of the cause of his mission, had the malice to send the 
envoy back to Egypt, instead of detaining him prisoner. 

« Bonaparte ardently desired to render this lovely woman a mother. , On 
this subject I frequently conversed with him, when we breakfasted together 
téte-a-téte. ‘ What would you have?’ asked he, ‘ la petite sotte n’en peut pas 
Saire, i . 

“* The lady on her part, when we represented to her the great advantage 
she might derive on presenting Bonaparte with a pledge of their mutual ten- 
derness, generally replied—* Ma foi, ce n'est pas ma faute !” 

** One of that class of men, who in the east have for ages past claimed the 
privilege of predicting future events with assurance, if not with truth, was, on 
account of his wonderful skill, recommended to Bonaparte by the principal 
inhabitants of Cairo, who assured him that the personage in question could 
predict his fate with certainty. Bonaparte ordered him to be admitted, and 
Venture the interpreter was present at the interview. When this second 
Zoroaster prepared himself to commence his jugglery upon Bonaparte, the 
latter refused, and requested me to allow the magician to exercise’ his skill 
upon me, to which'I without hesitation acceded. In order that the reader 
may better appreciate the merit of his prophecy, I should premise, that since 
my arrival at Cairo, I had ,been reduced to a state of excessive weakness. 
The navigation of the Nile, and the badness of the food during twelve days, 
had enfeebled me extremely. I was frightfully thin and pale. 

“ After having examined my hands, and felt my pulse and forehead, the 
conjuror assumed an air of composure and sympathy, shrugged his shoulders, 
and said to Venture that he did not feel at liberty to acquaint me with my 
destiny. I intimated to him that he might say whatever he pleased, as it was 
perfectly indifferent to me. After considerable difficulty on his part, and 
equal obstinacy on mine, he endefl by informing me, that ‘ in two months the 
land of Egypt would receive me into its bosom.’ 

“ T thanked him for the information, and he was dismissed. When we 
were alone, Bonaparte said to me, ‘Well, what think you of that?’ I 
replied, ‘ that the sage ran no great risk of compromising his reputation, by 
announcing my last moments. Considering the state under which I suffered, 
the probability was that I should die. However,’ said I, ‘ if Louis only 
sends the wine I have applied for, I do not despair of coming round.’ ” 


“ The art of imposing upon mankind has from time immemorial formed a 
considerable part of the science of government, and in this admirable art 
Bonaparte was unquestionably a proficient of the first order. He neglected 
no opportunity of shewing off the superiority of France before the Egyptians. 
But it happened more than once, that their simple unaided tact disconcerted 
his manceuvres to this effect. 

“ Some days after the visit of the pretended magician of whom I have just 
made honourable mention, Bonaparte conceived the design of playing con- 
juror against conjuror, if I may use such an expression. For this purpose he 
invited the principal sheicks to be present at some chemical experiments which 
it was proposed that M. Berthollet should make. Bonaparte expected to 
enjoy their astonishment. However, the many wonderful transmutations of 
liquors, electric shocks, and galvanic experiments that took place, seemed to 
cause them not the slightest surprise: they witnessed the operations of the 
skilful chemist with the most mortifying and imperturbable sang froid. When 
Berthollet had finished, the sheick El-Bekry replied to him through the inter- 
preter, ‘ your experiments are superb, but can they effect that I shall be at 
Maroc and here at the same instant?’ Berthollet answered with a shrug. 
© In that case,’ observed the sheick, ‘ you are not altogether a conjuror.’ ” 


1829. ‘De Bourrienne’s Memoirs. 515 


Massacre of the Prisoners at Jaffa:— 

“On the arrival of the prisoners, Beauharnois and Croisier received the 
most severe reprimands. But the mischief was done, and it now became 
necessary to decide the fate of about four thousand men. The two aides-de- 
camp alleged in their defence that they had been surrounded by a host of 
enemies, and that Bonaparte himself had recommended them to use their exer- 
tions to assuage the carnage. 

« A council was held in the tent of the General-in-chief, to deliberate on the 
measures proper to be adopted in this emergency. The members remained 
long in consultation without agreeing upon any final decision. 

“The third day arrived, and no feasible measure, how ardently soever 
desired, could be suggested for the preservation of the unfortunate prisoners. 
Insubordination and mutiny were making rapid progress throughout the 
camp ;—the evil was hourly increasing—the remedy seemed impossible ;—the 
‘danger was imminent. The fatal sentence of death was pronounced and exe- 
cuted on the 10th of March. The assertion that the Egyptians were separated 
from the other prisoners is incorrect ; there were no other prisoners. 

“ Many of the wretched prisoners composing one of the columns that were 
‘marched for execution to the sea-side, succeeded in swimming to some rocks 
whose distance from the shore protected them from the musquetry of the 
troops. The soldiers grounded their arms upon the sand, and to induce their 
victims to return, employed the signals of peace and reconciliation in use 
among the Egyptians. The latter swam towards the shore, which they were 
destined never to reach with life. 

“ T confine myself to these details of the dreadful sacrifice which necessity 
imperiously required, and of which I had the misfortune to be an eye witness. 
Other pens than mine have done more ample justice to the fearful narrative, 
‘and have spared me the anguish of portraying a scene, the recollection of 
which, vivid, as when I first beheld it, even at this distant period, paralyzes 
_ my faculties. Would to God that a total eblivion of that day of blood ren- 
dered me inadequate to trace even this faint sketch of its horrors! All that 
the imagination can conceive of misery—of despair—and death—must fall 
ineffably short of the appalling reality. 

“ On this painful subject 1 have advanced the truth—the whole truth. I 
was present at all the discussions—at all the conferences—at all the delibera- 
tions. It is needless to state that I had no voice on the occasion. But I owe 
it to truth to declare, that the result of the debates—the position in which the 
army was placed—the scarcity of provisions—the exhausted state of our forces 
in the midst of a country where each individual was a desperate foe—these 
considerations would have extorted my consent to the general decision, had I 
possessed a vote on the question. None but those who witnessed that dread- 
ful day, can form a just conception of the horrible necessity in which we were 

laced. 

Pe In the catalogue of the miseries of war, it ought not to be reckoned one 
of the least, that it gives birth to circumstances of too frequent occurrence, in 
which a law, that from age to age has existed amongst the nations of the 
earth, decides that private interests must be sacrificed to the general good, 
and that humanity itself must sometimes be forgotten. Whether such was 
the dreadful position in which Bonaparte was placed, posterity must judge. 
For myself, my opinion, or rather my firm conviction, on this point, has long 
been formed beyond the possibility of change. Nor could the sanction of 
Napoleon be obtained till the committee on this question had pronounced their 
decision without a dissentient voice. It is, moreover, but justice to declare, 
that a reluctant consent was not wrung from Napoleon till matters were at 
the last extremity ; and that of the spectators who witnessed the massacre, 
none perhaps felt a pang that for bitterness could be compared with his. 

“ It was after the siege of Jaffa that the plague began to manifest itself 
with the most intense violence. In the country about Syria, we lost by the 
contagion from seven to eight hundred men. Sir Walter Scott says that 

3U 2 


516 De Bourrienne’s Memoirs. [EMay, 


divine vengeance, in the shape of the plague, pursued us for the massacre. 
Did it never occur to the romantic historian that Providence might have found 
it much more simple to prevent the massacre than to revenge it? I must 
observe, besides, that Kleber’s division had imbibed at Damietta the poison of 
this frightful malady which developed itself and communicated its contagion 
on the march: it in fact accompanied us into Syria.” 


The death of General Caffarelli. 


“On the 9th April, General Caffarelli, so well known for his courage, and 
so much esteemed for his talents, was standing in the trench: his hand rested 
on his hip ; thus opposing a sort of counterpoise to the inconvenience which 
his wooden leg occasioned him. In: this attitude his elbow happened to pass 
the trench. He was warned that the enemy’s fire, directed with fatal preci- 
sion, missed scarcely the smallest object. To this suggestion he paid no 
attention ; and in a few seconds afterwards his elbow was fractured by a ball. 
Immediate amputation was judged necessary. The general survived but 
eighteen days. Bonaparte visited him in his tent regularly twice a-day. His 
orders, seconded by my own personal friendship for Caffarelli, induced me to 
remain with him almost constantly. A short-time before he breathed his last, 
he said to me, ‘My dear Bourrienne, I beg of you to read me. Voltaire’s 
Preface to the Spirit of Laws’ (I’Esprit des Loix). When I returned to 
Bonaparte’s tent, he asked me how Caffarelli was. ‘ His last hour approaches 
—he requested me to read him Voltaire’s Preface to the Spirit of Laws. He 
is now asleep.’ ‘ Bah! he wished to hear that preface! how odd! Bona- 
parte then visited him ; but he was still asleep. I returned to his tent and 
received his last breath, which he gave up with the utmost tranquillity. His 
loss excited the most lively regret throughout the whole army, and was long 
considered irreparable by men illustrious from their birth and station, and still 
more distinguished ‘by the unequivocal advantages of talent, courage, and 
exalted minds.” ; 


“We arrived at Tentoura on the 20th May. The heat that day was exces- 
sive, and produced universal discouragement. Our losses in sick and wounded, 
since we had quitted Acre, were already considerable. The perspective before 
us was most gloomy. Scarcely had we arrived at Tentoura, when Bonaparte 
ordered his tent to be got ready. He summoned me; and, with a degree of 
pre-occupation, the inevitable effect of our situation, he dictated to me an 
order, that every body should go on foot, and that the horses, mules, and 
camels should be given to the sick and wounded who still shewed signs of 
life. ‘Take that to Berthier’ Scarcely had I returned to the tent when 
Vigogne, Bonaparte’s éeuyer, advanced, and, with his hand to his hat— 
“ General, what horse do you reserve for yourself?’ In the first movement of 
anger which this question excited, Bonaparte raised his whip, and struck the 
luckless ecuyer a violent blow in the face, adding in a voice of thunder, ‘ Let 
yey body go on foot, f——e ; myself the first. Do you not know the order ? 

egone.’ 

“We slept at Cesarea on the 22d May, and marched the whole of the 
following night. Towards day-break a fellow, concealed in a thicket on our 
left, (the sea was within a few yards of us, on our right,) discharged his 
musket almost in the face of Bonaparte, who had fallen asleep on his horse. 
I was close to him. The wood was searched, the assassin seized without 
difficulty, and the order given to execute him on the spot. Four men pushed 
him towards the sea, which was close to us, and discharged their carbines at 
him. The four carbines all missed fire—a cireumstance that must be 
attributed to the dampness of the night. The Syrian, profiting by this occur- 
rence, instantly prunged into the sea, and swam with amazing rapidity and 
agility to a rock sufficiently remote from his pursuers to prevent any of the 
troop (who all fired at him as they passed) from killing him. Bonaparte 


1829. ] De Bourrienne’s Memoirs. 517 


pursued his march, and desired me to wait for Kleber, whose division formed 
the rear-guard, inform him,of what had happened, and recommend him not to 
miss ‘ce drole. I presume he must eventually have paid the forfeit of his 
attempt with his life.” 


We anticipate that the suite of these Memoirs will contain some curi- 
ous disclosures, and many novel interpretations of events, the origin of 
which is, to this day, a mystery. From the station which M. de Bourri- 
enne has occupied, we presume that materials at least will not be want- 
ing : his task will be to shape them into form. The historian who would 
render his labours useful to the world, must narrate events with truth, 
and be abundantly provided with matter of a nature to excite public 
curiosity. 


MY INTENDED ! 


MarirtpA! my fate is decided ; 
My marriage is fixed for next week ; 

I fear that I’ve been at last guided 
Far less by affection than pique— 

For he who I once loved so dearly, 
Neglects me so shamefully now ; 

_ Indeed, it has shocked me severely, 

To bear his changed look and cold brow. 


And so I permitted another 
To echo the vows he had made ; 
I felt I should please my poor mother— 
Yet thus all my early hopes fade !— 
I meant but to speak of my wedding, 
I find I am talking of love ; 
I'll dry up the tears I am shedding— 
Tl) burn what [ve written above. 


You must come and see my Intended, 
A very respectable man ; 
He longs for this week to be ended— 
I would it had never began ! 
They tell me he’s rolling in riches, 
Our neighbours all think him a gem ; 
‘This country is famed for deep ditches— 
I wish he were rolling in them. - 


Youll scold me, Matilda, for joking— 
You can’t think I mean what I say ; 
Yet is it not sadly provoking, 
One never can have one’s own way ? 
I wonder if he will live single !— 
Pshaw ! his name again from my pen ! 
He flirts with that odious Miss Pringle— 
Detestable wretches, these men! 


My Intended. 


The gentleman I am to marry, 
Good soul! has an excellent heart ; 
But still ’tis fatiguing to parry : 
His nonsense about “ Cupid’s dart.” 
How careless !—I find, in my hurry, 
I have not once mentioned his name ; 
It is, love, Sir Marmaduke Curry ; 
He’s rather—mind, not very—lame. 


He says he must live in Barbadoes, 
He only came here for a wife ; 

So when I am married, away goes 
Your schoolfellow, dearest, for life! 

This match is, however, so pleasing 
To every one of my friends, 

That, though I at first found it teasing, 
Their happiness makes me amends. 


Besides, not a soul has a penny 
Of fortune amongst us, you know ; 
We're now all grown up—and so many !— 
I think I do wisely to go. 
Sir M. C. has promised to settle 
Upon me twelve hundred a year ; 
I’m sure I don’t care for “base metal” — 
Why can he not stay and live here P 


You cannot imagine the bustle 
The talk of this marriage has made ; 
Sir Marmaduke moves not a muscle— 
It strikes me, he’s rather afraid. 
I wish you could see all the malice 
Betrayed by the Misses who call ; 
Some guess [I shall “ live in a palace”— 
Some think that “ Sir M. is too tall.” 


“ Barbadoes is bad for the liver ;’— 

They ‘ wonder I can cross the sea ;’— 
They find that “ it quite makes them shiver, 
To think of such hardships” for me ;— 

And one of them ventured to whisper 
His name, as “ an old flame” of mine: 

Alas! dear, I needed not this spur— 
Yet think not, Matilda, I pine, 


I am, I assure you, too busy 
To dwell on or care for the past: 
What-can make my head feel so dizzy ? 
Perhaps I am writing too fast ! 
I really detest all the flurry 
Of choosing such lots of new clothes ; 
And dress-makers send (what a worry !) 
Such cargoes of “ white satin bows!” 


A beautiful veil of rich Mechlin, 
Sir Marmaduke bought me to-day, 
“To save my complexion from freckling,” 
His gallantry led him to say. 


d 


[May, 


1829.] My Intended. 519 


For him, this was quite an exertion— 
He seldom attempts a fine speech ; 

’T would be but a sorry diversion— 
Heroics are out of his reach. 


Will you, dearest girl, when I’m married, 
Continue to write to your friend ? 
I shall not much like being carried 
To Bridgetown—'tis quite the world’s end ;— 
At least ’tis to me, for my travels 
Have yet been but short country tours ; 
Til go, though—to save future cavils— 
But still shall be faithfully your’s,— 


THEATRICAL MATTERS. 


Easter is a sort of renewal of theatrical youth. The Christmas 
impulse has by this time perished. The pantomimes have, like the 
Lord High Admiral, done their duty, and retired from public life. The 
débuts of all those extraordinary young persons who, at the commence- 
ment of every season, promise to supply the past glories of the Kembles 
and Siddonses, have all had their display, and faded into the tenth rank 
of ranters and farceurs, and the ten new comedies, reduced to a pair of 
French farces, have been found wanting. ‘ 

At this moment of theatrical exhaustion, when the manager is gasp- 
ing for something new, like a mouse in an air pump,—when Mr. Kenny 
demands another month, and Mr. Morton, adroit as he is, would perish 
on the spot rather than send his last scene to the green-room—then 
comes Easter, kindly to interpose and save. Stanfield’s brush produces 
some charming creation—Roberts works his corresponding wonder— 
the shrinking audiences rush back to be delighted with genii, wizards, 
tyrants, and imprisoned damsels—the whole glory of melo-drame is sum- 
moned from the “ vasty deep’”—and all the world are happy. 

At Drury-lane Miss Phillips achieved a new triumph in Belvidera. 
For the first time, since Shakspeare, the gods were hushed on Easter 
Monday! Silence was the applause of this clever actress, and we again 
challenge the theatrical annals to say when was this phenomenon known 
before ? | 

Young’s Pierre was able, like every thing that he does. Cooper was 
the lover, and he actually gave some interest to one of the feeblest cha- 
racters on the stage. ) 

Covent-garden has not surrendered its ancient melo-dramatic honour. 
It has, on the contrary, actually made a stride to popularity by one of 
the richest, wildest, and most amusing diablerics that has appeared for 
some years. The chief subject is to be found in a mad romance, by a 
mad German lawyer, who died about twenty years ago in Berlin, leaving 
it uncertain whether he died of prussic-acid, opium, or the workings of 


520 The Theatres. [May, 


a metaphysical brain. This book, the “ Devil’s Elixir,” would be evi- 
dence of his insanity in any court in Christendom. 

But like the paroxysms of a feverish body, there are paroxysms of a 
mad brain which show power ; and in the midst of the most extrava- 
gant rambling, Hoffman struck, now and then, bold ideas, like the spark 
of a runaway horse’s shoe from the flint. The arranger, on the present 
occasion, has combined the little story of Peter Schlemil, the man with- 
out a shadow, with the Elixir; and, by an unusual piece of good luck, 
the two tissues of phrenzy join into one clever performance. 

The music is by that very promising composer, Rodwell, and in the 
hands of Miss Hughes and Wood—though the lady was sometimes too 
boisterous, and the gentleman too tame—it was done justice to. 

The French plays at the Lyceum are still popular. Perlet, in L’Avare, 
is extremely clever ; and the little entremets, the vaudevilles, are the best 
specimens of light acting possible. : 

Elliston, the indefatigable Elliston, fights his battle at the Surry 
theatre with great intrepidity. “ John Overy, the Miser of Southwark 
Ferry,” is the grand piece. The story is one of those old monstrosities 
that are used to keep children out of their beds in wonder, and to send 
old fools to their beds in fear. Overy, about a thousand years ago, 
rented the Southwark Ferry, and got rich; but he thought that his 
family ate too much, and to give them at least one banyan-day, he pre- 
tended to be dead. The news, instead of sending his household to fast, 
threw them all into the greatest rapture—and dancing, drinking, and 
gormandizing, were the order of the day. Overy, horrified at this waste, 
started up from his coffin, when a “ London prentice bold,” conceiving, 
or pretending, that it was the devil, gave him a knock on the head, 
which prevented his starving himself or others any more. The story 
goes, that the Miser’s daughter, however glad at first, was afterwards 
reluctant at this mode of summary inheritance—beeame a nun, and 
founded the church of St. Mary Overy. The scenery, story, and songs 
were received with high applause, the galleries being infinitely de- 
lighted. 

Hogarth’s “ Industrious and Idle Apprentices” was next performed. It 
is not new to this theatre ; and it abounds in such low and unrelieved 
scenes of wretchedness and villainy, that no one can be the better for it. 
The manager should extinguish it. 

Astley’s exhibits “The Siege of Seringapatam,” in which Tippoo is 
conquered every night most triumphantly. Why does not Mr. Ducrow 
give the world “The Siege of Saragossa,” which has made Franconi’s 
fortune? 


NOTES OF THE MONTH ON AFFAIRS IN GENERAL. 


Bons Mors or tur Susitime.—From the principle, vigour, and wit of 
our innumerable correspondents we propose to delight the public for a 
century to come. We have materials unequalled in the history of pub- 
lication ; the stores of the wise, the recollections of the diners-out, the 
inventions of the aspiring, and the secrets of the reserved, are all pouring 
in upon us day after day, until we absolutely sink, like another Atlas, 
under the oppression of this world of pleasantry, and cry out for another 
Hercules to sustain our burthen even for a day. But “ commencer par le 
commencement” is the dictate of Aristotle, who knew how to make a maxim, 
and make a fortune, with any man of antiquity — and his advice we' 
shall follow. , 

Some of the ablest things of the day have been said by one of th 
most distinguished persons in other points ; an individual at present re- 
tired from public life, and living in the dignified ease of a great public 
servant, handsomely provided for, and willing to let the bustling people 
of Downing-street wear themselves into spasms and spectres for the 
glory of being leveed by hypocrites and beggars. In his leisure he 
amuses himself with fishing, the gout, a few friends, and reading the Red 
Book ; but his pleasantries are piquant and perpetual ; his definitions 
of public characters, living and dead, are struck off with the vigour of a 
Swift, and are worth, for living likenesses, all the chisels of all our 
stone-cutters. 

Character of a Whig Leader—That long fellow’s abuse of party, al- 
we reminds me of a flying pick-pocket, who, to escape, cries “ Stop 

ief 1” 

Character of an Ex-chancellor. — For forty years he was a pet fox, 
who, whenever he was hunted, contrived to double till he got earthed 
under the throne. But when they stopped up his earth, he showed his 
teeth, whisked his brush in their faces, and died fighting. ” 

A tall Cabinet Minister. — 1 should have taken this beast for an Ou- 
ran-ou-tang, but that he looked so like a fool. 3 

A Bust of a Scotch Lord.— The likeness is perfect; but I did not 
think that stone could be made to look so stupid. 

A Colonial Lord. — He looks perfectly like one of his office pens, and 
fit only to be an instrument, and alike in all hands ; feather at top, gall 
at bottom. 

A Trade Lord. —1 remember to have heard of his father as a very. 
accomplished jester: the son emulates him in the wish without the 
power. _ He has risen higher than the father ; but he is as the potatoe 
apple to the potatoe. 

Promotion —Why did I make that man a dignitary? The fact is, the 
public were beginning to abuse me, and it was necessary to provide them 
with a substitute. 

Lord Vassal. — Do you think I could have suffered this blundering 
fellow and his set to approach me, through any liking for their nonsense ? 
The reason was — we were at that time all a little touched with the 
Scotch metaphysics, and it amused me to study what I conceived a 
living evidence that the soul was of the same matter as one’s stomach or 
one’s shoe. 

M. M. New Scries—Vou. VII. No. 41. ° 3X 


522 Notes of the Month on [ May, 


Our manufacturers are crying out in all directions. Meetings are held 
in which the masters tell the men, and doubtless tell them truly, that if 
things go on in this way, they must consider whether the human stomach 
cannot adapt itself to the food of the ox and the donkey, and whether 
they should not be led by their reason to do what King Nebuchadnezzar 
was led to do by his madness, and eat grass. The silk weavers are 
starving by twenty thousand at a time, in this very city of London, in 
the very centre of the opulence of the earth. The glovers are in the 
same condition.» The whole tribes of manufacturig commerce are say- 
ing or shouting the same thing from end to end of the land ; and what 
is to be the remedy? It will be found, we conceive, a much more puz- 
zling thing to his Majesty’s Cabinet, than any purchase of live stock that 
they have lately made, whether in the shape of noble individuals or ig- 
noble, or both in one. Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald’s argument has, we con- 
ceive, no chance of producing any other kind of conviction than that he 
is at an immeasurable distance from discovering the remedy, wherever 
it may lie. His answer to the complaint, that a hundred thousand men, 
willing to work, and perhaps the best workmen in the world, were with- 
out food, was the old official answer of the Huskisson school, from 
which and whose pupils may Heaven soon relieve our persons and 
purses. ‘ There is more raw silk imported this year than there was 
last year.”, Undoubtedly, if the weaver could eat silk, or if it could be 
stewed, in Sir Humphry Davy’s newly-invented crucible, into any sub- 
stantial expulsion of the feeling of emptiness from the stomach, the Pre- 
sident of the Board of Trade’s answer might have some meaning. But 
are we to take the desperate struggles of expiring trade, the mere 
fierce and gambiing throws of commerce,’ for its solid success? In the 
words of our intelligent contemporary, the Morning Journal—*« The im~ 
portations of silk have nothing to do with the question. On the same 
grounds might the President of the Board of Trade adduce, in proof of 
the prosperity and the high wages of the cotton weavers, the large and 
increased importations of cotton wool. The question at issue is, not 
whether more or less raw silk has been imported, but whether the manu- 
facturer is pursuing a profitable business, and the weaver earning ade- 
quate wages? It is true we may be weaving more yards of broad silks 
and calicoes ; but if we be giving ten pieces of silks and fifty pieces of 
calico, for one barrel of tallow, instead of the five pieces, and twenty-five 
pieces, which we were wont to give, does not this show that our labour 
is of less value than it was before, and that, under the new system, we 
are following a ruinous trade? If we now give fifteen hours’ labour for 
that foreign commodity which we were wont to purchase with ten 
hours’ labour, does not this show that our condition is worse, and the 
condition of the foreigner better? What does it signify how much silk 
and wool we import if the persons employed in the manufacturing of 
this silk and wool be starving? It is not a question of quantity—not a 
question of yards—not a question to be settled by the ell-measure ; buta 
question whether t eaver be adequately remunerated, and the capital 
of the manufacturer } ofitably employed? Now, we say that, under the 
present system, both of these parties are reduced toa state of unexampled 
distress. The employer is nearly ruined, the workman is reduced, to 
pauperism. This is the only fact worthy our consideration. The Mi- 
‘nister of the Crown, if he be an honest Minister, must endeavour first to 
’ e 


1829. ] Affairs in General. 523 


relieve these persons before he can with any decency boast of our in- 
creased imports. We require exports, not imports. We require a 
high value for these exports, not an increased quantity of exports. We 
desire high wages and high profits, as well at home as abroad — not 
cheap goods, not rotten muslins, not goods burnt with acids, that, like 
the Jew’s razors, are made to sell, not to use. We care nothing for 
‘large quantities. ” And all this true, fatally true. The spirit of the 
modern economist is the most extraordinary contrast to that of the 
modern politician. The politician says, think nothing of your posterity, 
extinguish the rights of your children, that you may contrive to pur- 
chase a little quiet for a year or two for yourselves. The economist 
says, look to the glorious quantity of ribbons and silk stockings that 
your grand-children will make; and, in the mean time, break up your 
looms, and. starve yourselves.—Every man, but a member of the present 
philosophical school, might comprehend that it is much more manage- 
able to live in the hearing of an occasional brawl in Ireland, than to live 
without eating. However, this is the decision; and the texture of a true 
philosopher, in those matters, scorns to be ruffled by the cries of men call- 
ing out for work in the land of whose wealth their labour formed so 
Jarge a part, and might form a so much larger one, 


DIALOGUE OF A GREAT MAN WITH A SUPPLICANT FOR A SILK GOWN, - 

* Well, what the devil brings you here?” 

“ I come to beg your Grace’s—” 

___“ Ay, ay, you come to beg ; so does every one who comes here. 
But, upon my soul, I thought, with that face of yours, you came to steal. 
Well, mendicant, what is it that you come to beg?” ; 

“ The truth is, your Grace—” ‘ 

“ Pho, pho, fellow, come to the point at once; I have no time for non- 
sense ; out with your lie and be done.” 

*« My story then, your Grace, is—that, having seven years ago, most 
inadvertently, and in the heat of virtuous enthusiasm, uttered language 
touching his most gracious Majesty—” re 

“Why, sirrah, do you think that I can sit here all day, listening to 
this long winded stuff? Get out of the room.” 

* Why then, your Grace, I want a gown.” 

“ Pho! a petticoat, you mean.” 

“IT want a silk gown; for which I am ready ta make any acknow- 
ledgement, or submit to any recantation whatever.” a 

“ Well, fellow ; as it is my purpose to show that all your party, with 
all their boasting, are slaves in their souls; that I might have any and all 
of them for asking ; and that I might tie them neck and neck by the 

dozen, and drive them round the ring in Hyde Park any day I liked, 

‘you shall have the silk gown. Eh, kneeling? Do you take me for 
the Pope already ?” : 

“ Oh, may Heaven shower down on your Grace’s head the blessings 
of a deceived demagogue, of a repentant radical, of.a loyal liberal. Here, 
at your Grace’s feet, I forswear Tom Paine, Ri d: Carlisle, Henry 
Hunt, and William Cobbet ; and may I go to—” ; 

* To Beelzebub, if you please ; but out of this you go instantly. 
Here, Hill, call in ‘the corporal’s guard, and out with him— But, 
no—stop; my boots want cleaning. fellow, paligh them over 
carefully with your tongue: it has “es ‘so well employed, 

3 X 


> 


524 Notes of the Month on [May, 


Tt is done, your Grace.” 

“ Yes, faith, soles and all. Ay, I see every creature is good. for 
something. Now. begone, and never let me see that culprit face of 
' yours again.” 


We have long held in supreme scorn academic reputations, no matter 
how they were built, whether on the waggon-wheel verse of a Seatonian 
prize, the adust puzzling of a compend of Aristotle, the plunder of a 
regiment of obsolete sermons to fabricate a Bampton lecture, the transla- 
tion of a French algebraist, or the accumulation of all the dull, dry, in- 
compatible meanings that ever overpowered a classic through ten genera- 
tions of the Heynés, Schweighausers, and other barbarians of the land of 
beer and Meershaums. On those we look with irresistible scomm. We hear 
the triumphant flapping of their academic plumage as we hear the wings 
‘of a flight of crows from a church-yard. ‘They are the obscene plunderers 
of the dead ; the air refuses their weight, the day rejects them ; and their 
‘first flight from the towers and houses, where the “ moping owl doth to 
the moon complain,” is sure to drop them into the first mire that they 
‘could by possibility reach. It is nothing to the purpose to quote the 
great names that have issued from our halls and colleges. Where almost 
every man in the kingdom, who is not intended for a soldier or a shoe- 
maker, either goes himself, or sends his son, some must figure in the 
world, unless it be conceded that the University crushes the human 
mind into a conspicuous and irrecoverable stupidity: and this we will 
allow, is very closely borne out by the facts of the case. But still, in 
‘the mercy of nature or its scorn, bold spirits have come out from Uni- 
Versities from time to time, and Milton could not be extinguished by an 
University, though to the last hour of his life he hated it, wrote against 
it, and laboured to substitute a higher system for its sluggish formalities. 
Locke could not be extinguished by an University, though ke could be 
expelled. Newton knew all he ever knew, before his University knew 
any thing. What did Pitt—father, or son—Fox, Grattan, Canning, 
Burke, the richest mind of them all, owe to an University? But, to 
come to the living hour. 

We have had passing under our eyes a most tremendous crisis, which 
stirred, as it ought to stir, the feeling of the country, from its uttermost 
depths: which has been declared to peril, still more with every hour, 
‘the whole fabric of those rights which alone make it better to live 
than to die, without which the proudest noble of the land is a slave, and 
may be a beggar at the will of his fellow ; for as sure as there is a heaven 
above us, the admission of popery into the legislature has not been for 
love to the papists. Yet what evidence of mind have our Universities 
given in this crisis? Where are the bold orators, the vigorous sages, the 
accomplished youth, the spirits of patriots rising from the study of 
ancient wisdom and courage, to lead the trembling and perplexed genera~ 
tion up to the path of glory, from which art and corruption have 
estranged them? Not one, not one man has started from those strong ~ 
holds of knowledge and religion. Ay, one man has, and he has come 
with his robe of office on his shoulders, to declare that “ idolators are 
hot guilty of idolatry!’ Where are the bright and shining lights that 
«vere to awake and guide the land? Like the Eastern echo, when ‘the 
voice is uttered, « Where are they >” the answer is, “ Where?” «Of Cam- 
bridge, as a body, the trial is yet to be made. And we must hope’that 


-1829.] . Affairs in Generals ($25 


the example of Oxford will stimulate its priesthood. But still the service 
that we hada right to expect from our seats of learning has miserably 
failed. The curse of dulness is upon the generation; and we shall see 
before long, the weapons which indolence would not, stupidity could 
not, and corruption dared not, wield, wrested ay, contemptuously and 
irretrievably wrested from their hands. The atheist college is now 
.to be laughed at no longer. It is thriving and spreading, and it is 
absorbing the whole sap of the infidei community. It will not stop.; and 
the times are coming when it will show, in open day, what sudden mag- 
nitude may be given by the “ spirit of revenge, immortal hate,” to the 
shape that our folly despised. The toad will start up, like Milton’s evil 
principle—« A giant armed.” 


LA CABINETTE DE ARTHURE; 07, THE FRIENDES AND FINALE OF 
GREATNESSE. 


(From MSS. in the State-Paper Office.) , 


Crutched Friars, April 1, 1829. 

Srr :—As I, with equal sincerity and justice, scorn all contemporary 
literature, and have satisfied myself that since the period when I ceased 
to write verses—about sixty years ago, come Michaelmas—not a syllable 
worth reading has been written, I have occupied myself chiefly in 
looking over the invaluable labours of the past generations, collected 
as they are in the official dust under the care of my excellent friend 
Mr. Lemon. It must be unnecessary to state to a gentleman of your 
exquisite taste, universal knowledge, matchless learning, and remark- 
able courtesy (I scorn to flatter), the nature and extent of the discoveries 
to which Mr. Lemon’s very late awakened vigour has led the world of 
literature. To him we are indebted for that infinitely curious autograph 
of the original writer of Tom Thumb, which has furnished the last 
months’ readings to the learned Society of Antiquaries. In fact, the 
long disputed authorship of that truly original work, seems now to be 
finally settled, unless, which Heaven avert, some members of the sacred 
bench should take it in hand, and of course puzzle it into new per- 
plexity for three generations to come. To him are we indebted for the 
first copy of Mother Goose, which had been so long lost to the eyes of 
the intelligent, and which is the only book that his Royal Highness of 
Sussex declared ever completely suited his taste: and to him we owe 
the endless gratitude due to the man who recovered so fine a subject of 
controversy, as the Milton MSS., which will, I trust and hope, defy all 
certainty to the end of time, whether it was written by the great poet, 
or by the great poet’s valet de chambre ; whether it was meant as a 
defence of Christianity, or an attack ; whether it was republican and 
infidel, or royalist and religious. 

Emulating the extraordinary discoveries of this English Angelo Mai, 
I have laboured for twelve. hours.a day in erudite dust, enough to have 
choaked a coal-heaver, and dug wp from the depth of miasmatic cellars 
and darkness undisturbed for a hundred years, MSS. of the most 
precious kind, which I shall probably submit to you in succession. 
The long lost Treatise, by Machiavelli, “ How to carry on a Govern- 
ment by bribing one half the people, robbing the other, and cheating 
all,” is among my treasures. I have, also, a Treatise by Cardinal Pole, 
on the “ Art of Reconciling a Protestant Bishop to Idolatry,” with an 


526 Notes of the Month on [May, 


Appendix of the History of Parker, Bishop of Oxford, who turned 
papist “ to oblige his Majesty King James II., of pious memory.” A 
most curious volume, also, on the “‘ Newe Exercise of the Sworde ; or, 
the Sixe Cuttes for a Troublesome Nation,” &c. But, as a specimen of 
my acquisitions, I send you a Ballad, in which, as a marginal note, by 
my little friend Ellis, of the Museum, informs me, the Anglo-Saxons 
took great delight for its historical truth. The date is undecided, but 
the style is of the remotest antiquity :— 


Wnuenne Arthure firste at courte beganne 
To laughe in Treasurie sleeves, 

He entertainde nine servinge menne, 
The whole of whome were thieves. 


One-thirde of themme were sharp-sette knayes, 
One-thirde of themme were flattes ; 

One-thirde of themme were paltrye slaves, 
And all of themme were Rattes. 


' The firste he was an Oxforde manne, 
The Beliale of the crewe— 
A hang-fire rogue, a flashe-in-panne, . 
To give the devile his due. 


The nexte he was a Jacobinne, 
Thatte softende to a Whigge, 

Then like a weathercocke did spinne, 
To gette a Chancerie wigge. 


The nexte he was a pale bastarde, 
Gotte by one Huskissonne ; 

His tongue was softe, his hearte was harde, 
His head was thickeste bone. 


The nexte he was a hungrye Scotte, 
All Scotte from head to heel ; 

A shillinge woulde his soule have boughte, 
You had him for his meale. 


The nexte he was a cunning wighte, 
A sage amonge the ninnies, 

Most quick at drawinge billes at sighte, 
And turninge them to guineas. 


The nexte he was a talle jackasse, 
Complete in eares and braye ; 

None everre sawe his lordshippe passe, 
But wishede him oates and haye, 


The nexte he was an office toole, 
A dry, dumb-founded drudge, 

Alike in vice and virtue coole, 
An icye Viscounte Fudge. 


The nexte he was a soldiere stoute, 
A Highlande “ fee-fawe-fumme ;” 

His gospelle—“ Eyes right, face aboute ;” 
His law, the tappe of drumme. 


The nexte he was a patterne-sainte, ; 
Whose godde was pelfe and place ; : 
Ande whenne Olde Nicke shall learne to painte, a: 
He'lle studye Save-alle’s face. 


1829.) Affairs in-General, 527 


Nowe, gentles, shoulde I not live longe, 

Yet maye I see ye die; 
: With prayerre fulle shorte, and rope fulle stronge, 
; And plentye of companye. 


_ It is the duty of all who desire that the understandings of the supreme 
classes should be held in honour, to lose no opportunity of giving them 
that public fame to which they are so fully entitled. We have no doubt, 
such is the proverbial innocence, modesty, and reserve of high life, that 
many of those who shall yet figure in our pages, will be utterly as- 
tonished to find themselves forced into this involuntary distinction, for 
any thing wise or witty since their cradle; and the astonishment is not 
unlikely to be shared by a large circle of their acquaintances. However, 
-we have a duty to do which shall be done, as the orators say, with an 
impartiality of the most conscientious kind, imperturbable by any thing 
that might move a less delicate integrity than that of a member of parlia- 
ment. But “ revenons a nos moutons,” or, in plain English, let us come 
to our Lords. 

Lord G— ’s account of his own susceptibility, as touching oaths, 
is admirable for its naiveté. “ I think that the oath against the practises 
of popery is a very hard oath. I must say I never took a more disagree- 
able one.” 

But another noble Lord, whose name we equally regret to suppress, 
was finer still. In fact,” said this conscientious person, “ the oaths that 
a member is compelled to take, are so obnoxious, that I have always felt 
it my duty to forget them as soon as possible.” 

The Episcopal distinction between idolater and idolatrous is equal to 
any thing since the days of “Drunken Barnaby’s Journey.”—“ The 
church of Rome is idolatrous.” This is the language of the church of 
England, to which the pledge is given. But idolatrows means—only 
“having a tendency to idolatry”—for which see Johnson’s Dictionary ! 
ha, ha, ha. Bravo, my Lord, Peel-tutor, Regius Professor. Thus John 
Bull, which said of a Regius Professor that he was a voracious fellow, and 
not to be trusted at a city feast, meant not that he was a regular glutton, 
but that he had a tendency to overload his Gisophagus with eel-pie and 
champagne. Thus a ratting bishop has only a tendency to turn his 
cassock. Thus an adulterous Marchioness has only a tendency to add to 
the carneous thickness of her old Marquis’s forehead. Thus a sanctimo- 
nious hypocrite, eternally haranguing on the purity of his super-evange- 
lical soul, has only a tendency to cheat the world with his up-turned 
eyes, while his hand is picking their pockets. Thus a mendaciows, and 
time-serving wretch, no matter in what kind of gown he thinks to laugh 
at the honest part of mankind, is not a liar and a slave, a solemn beast 
in whom the truth is not, but a delicate gentleman, with a tendency to 
mendacity. Thus every thing rascally is every thing right, and slaves 
may say black is white, and strangle the language at their pleasure. 


Mr. Burford has struck into a new line of Panorama, which does 
credit to his invention. He has given his compatriots a view of hell, 
not the real hell of Crockford’s, or his competitors in the trade of 
exchanging capital, but of the visionary hell of Milton. The moment 
chosen is when Pandemonium is in the condition of the Nash palace, 
excepting that the Pandemonium seems capable of being inhabited at 
some time or other; which, from our souls we aver, we think its 


528 Noles of the Month on [May, 


Westminster rival is not. The picture would please an American, 
because all the demons have the genuine John Bull face, or a French- 
man, because the place and the pranks, the ormoulu snakes, and the 
figures gnashing their teeth, would put him in perfect remembrance of 
the Palais Royal, of which the Frenchman boasts that there is but one 
in the world, and on which every honest man on the face of the globe * 
exclaims, thank Heaven! In the fore-ground, Satan himself is address- 
ing his chiefs, on awaking from the trance, after his fall; over his head 
is waving the standard, held by Azazel; round him are gathered his coun 
sellors and warriors, among whom the most conspicuous is Beelzebub. In 
another part are seen Mammon and his brigade returning from the hill ; 
and Mulciber, the architect, is viewing with admiration, the production 
of the work. Gods of the ancient mythologies of India, Egypt, Greece, 
and Rome, are spread on the prominences rising out of the lake, filled 
“ with sulphur.” The picture closes with flames. Some of the colour- 
ing is beautiful, particularly the hill on the left of the grand bridge, 
from which the materials of the building have been obtained ; and the 
general effect of the panorama is impressive. ‘The idea of such a paint- 
ing is altogether original, and it is executed skilfully and faithfully. 
The figure which occupies the most forward place, is.that of the great 
dragon—a strangely shaped, green monster, yawning prodigiously at his 
brother, who holds a similar post on the other side of the bridge. The 
figure of Satan is somewhat obscured by “ excess of light.” The Pan- 
demonium is ornamented with rows of serpents, supporting blazing. 
cressets, fed with naptha and asphaltus. There are also figures of ele- 
phants and other animals worshipped in the east. The architecture 
partakes of the Egyptian character, which is, of all others, the best. 
adapted to immense edifices. This panorama is, indeed, a splendid and 
terrific bold exhibition, and far surpasses in effect all that has yet been 
attempted in this way. We agree with the reasons for applying the 
panorama to works of imagination, in which we have no doubt it will 
prove powerfully interesting and successful. 


Steam.—Politicians as we are, and as we intend to live and die, and 
contemptuous.as we are in our souls of the march of intellect men, from 
Brougham. down to Burdett, yet we feel a strong interest in the march 
of steam, and are perfectly satisfied that it has not yet done the fiftieth 
part of the clever things that it was intended to do, and that it will yet 
do. Why have we not our houses warmed by steam, our dinners drest 
by it, our gardens fertilized, our clothes washed, our houses built, 
our baths warmed, our carriages drawn, our diseases cured by steam? 
These things are all done by it partially, and completely too, enough to 
show that in steam we have the power. But why are they not done uni- 
versally? The present reason is, that experiments are expensive, and 
this is a good reason for individuals ; but no reason whatever for the 
nation. Why should not the Treasury be ordered to lay out a 100,000/. 
in experiments? The money would be repaid a 100,000 fold in the next 
ten years. Let the Gurneys and the Burstalls, and id genus omne be 
set to work by a Treasury order, and we shall see the thing done, and every 
thing done but flying, and perhaps even that too in time. We are glad 
to see that an idea of a public fund for this great purpose, has been put in 
practice in the East; and we shall pledge our credit on the work’s 
coming to a prosperous issue in a few trips back and forward. We were 


1829. ] . Affairs in General. 529 


not disappointed by the comparative failure of the attempt made by the 
« Enterprize” to steam her way to India. Experience was wanting, and 
the failure was so far an actual success. The trial is about to be made 
again, and in a better style ; and we shall look anxiously to this building 
a bridge over the great ocean, and bringing the ends of the earth together. 


“On board of the Enterprize, both on the voyage out and during part of this 
arduous service at Arracan, was a most active and intelligent oflicer of the 
name of Waghorn, of the Bengal pilot service, who having thus the best 
means for ascertaining the various defects and capabilities of vessels of that 
class, availed himself of that experience to form various plans for the improve- 
ment of their structure, so as to fit them more completely for a long and dif- 
ficult navigation. As soon as Mr. Waghorn was set at liberty by the peace 
with the Burmese, he set about the means for prosecuting the design he had 
formed, in which he had no ordinary difficulties to surmount, and among them 
not the least was a total want of the capital requisite for the purpose. He 
accordingly visited England in the spring of last year, and laid before the 
Directors of the East India Company, as the parties most deeply interested, 
certain proposals for carrying his plan into effect, but met with no definite 
encouragement, either from that body, or from the postmaster-general, to 
whom he also applied. He therefore re-visited India, and directed his endea- 
vours to the obtaining a grant from that fund which had been raised in India, to 
reward the person who should first establish a successful steam communica- 
tion with England, a portion of which had been already voted, notwithstand- 
ing his very imperfect success, to Captain Johnson, of the Enterprize. A 
meeting of the subscribers to that fund was consequently held at Calcutta in 
July last, who resolved, that should no speculation promising equal or greater 
success be entered into before the 14th of January, 1829, the unappropriated 
fund for the encouragement of steam navigation should, under proper secu- 
rity, be applied, for the purpose of enabling Mr. Waghorn to carry his plan 
into execution. Mr. Waghorn also obtained from the Governor-General an 
authority for charging, on the first voyage of the kind he should make to India, 
certain rates of postage, and freight for light and valuable goods, such as he 
conceived to be an adequate remuneration for the expences of the voyage. 
Having, by an application to the Marine Board at Calcutta, obtained farther 
leave of absence for two years, Mr. Waghorn next proceeded to Madras, 
where, on the 4th of October last, another public meeting was held, expressly 
in aid of his views ; a subscription commenced on the 10th ; and on the 12th of 
that month a large sum was collected, with the expectation of its beng much 
more. At the Mauritius, the Cape of Good Hope, and St. Helena, which 
places were visited by Mr. Waghorn on his way back to England, he met with. 
similar encouragement, and arrived in London in the end of last month, to 
secure that co-operation which he now felt himself entitled to claim from the 
government, the East India Company, the general body of merchants trading 
with India, and other persons to whom he conceived the success of his plan to 
be important. In this his progress has been so rapid and encouraging; that all 
obstacles to the attempt at least may be said to be removed. Mr. Waghorn is 
quite confident in the opinion that he can perform the voyage to Calcutta, out 
and home in six months, including stoppages both ways, to deliver letters, &c. 
at Madeira, St. Helena, Cape of Good Hope, Isle of France, Trincomalee, and 
Madras, at all which places depéts of coals will be formed. We understand 
that the steam vessels on this service are not to be fitted up for the reception of 
passengers generally, though an exception will be made in favour of any indi- 
vidual of high military or civil rank, engaged on some public and important 
duty, but that their use will be confined to the conveyance of despatches, 
letters, newspapers, and specie, or other light and valuable articles.” 


Buti portant as this is, we are entirely of opinion that at last the true 
a 
e 


on of steam will be made in the way of towing, and not of ini- 
» A curious paper on this subject has been lately published, 


M.M. New Serics.—Vou. VII. No. 41. oo: X 


530 Notes of the Month on [May, 


stating two or three points, which, if true, are decisive. In the first 
place, it says that none of the steam vessels pay, except such as are 
merely used for passage boats, the room taken up by the machinery 
being so great as to preclude any considerable freightage. This of itself 
would be decisive. And the only remedy, namely, the reduction of the 
size of the machinery, seems to be almost hopeless, if we are to judge from 
the failure of all attempts of the kind. Inthe next place, a steam power 
will, like the power of a horse, draw twice as much as it will carry, at 
least on the water ;—thus a steam vessel of half the power towing, will 
answer the purpose. Thirdly, there is a great loss of power by having 
none but engines of one particular kind of force on board ; while the cir- 
cumstances of wind and tide, currents, &c., vary the necessity for its use. 
The hundred horse power goes on pushing away alike in a wind and out 
of a wind, with tide or against tide. 

The application of steam engines, to vessels going the East Indian voy- 
age, has been shown to be unfit for ships of any considerable size, be- 
cause such vessels cannot be moved but by a great power, which takes 
up great room for its machinery and for its fuel. Next, the sailing vessel 
can take advantage of so many points of wind, from the use of which the 
steamer, even with sails, is precluded, that in a voyage of three months 
the sailing vessel will probably beat the steamer ; and, thirdly, for the 
line-of-battle ships no engine in common use could be adopted with any 
reasonable security of its not being rendered useless by shot, when of a 
size to act on one of those enormous fabrics. The plan proposed is 
this :—That the man-of-war should have a launch fitted up with a small 
engine, which is to be employed to tow her in calms, or bring her out of 
action if disabled or under a battery. The same service would be ren- 
dered to the East India ship, she having twice to cross the line, and 
each time being delayed by the tropical calms. A launch, with a small 
engine, which would move her three miles an hour during those calms, 
would probably shorten the average voyage three weeks or a month. 
The same principle might be applied to all our coast trade, which might 
be towed from port to port with an extraordinary saving of expence in 
point of rigging, crews, &c. The memoir states also, that an immense 
waste of power occurs in the attempt to give great swiftness to the 
steamer, from the resistance of the water, which increases in a prodi- 
gious proportion above the velocity. The resistance to the velocity of 
four miles being to that of ten, something near the numbers ten and twa 
hundred. 


A valuable suggestion has been made by Martin, the artist, for erect- 
ing beacons along the edges of the Yarmouth and other sands on the east 
coast, and which might be applied to the whole circuit of the island. He 
proposes, that on the edges of these shoals, a succession of metal boxes 
shall be sunk to form a foundation, in which three metal columns are to 
be fixed, meeting each other at the top; and from this centre of the 
triangle a metal basket is to be hung, large enough to contain a light 
and the two men who are to take charge of it. The project seems a 
little fanciful, from the difficulty of securing the beacons on the sands, 
which themselves frequently shift in the violence of a furious sea. The 
situation of the watchers, too, would be by no means enviable; but it would 
probably be filled by discharged sailors, or old fishermen. The advan- 
tages of having lights along the sands would, however, be incalculable, 


1829. ] Affairs in General. 531 


for at present vessels are generally forced to come to anchor for fear of 
running on them in the dark: and thus, time is lost, the storm is waited 
for, and the vessel sent to the bottom. 


Little Lord Hardwicke, anxious to vindicate that church to which 
his little soul has thought it convenient to offer the very little 
aid of his very little name, writes a newspaper letter, declaring that the 
old opinions on Rome’s giving no toleration to Protestants are unfounded ; 
because “ he and his family were not hindered from saying their prayers” 
in some obscure hovel of the city of the idolater. And this least of peers 
actually thinks that he has proved his point, when he gives a notice from 
a Cardinal Gonsalvi, saying, that he would know nothing formally about 
the meeting of the English Protestants. And this the little Lord actu- 
ally calls “ Toleration!” A pleasant legislator this, for Englishmen, or 
any men of sense on the face of the earth. This is connivance, 
and not a jot more. Cardinal Gonsalvi knew that there were houses in 
Rome where thieves as regularly congregated as cardinals in the con- 
clave. At those his majesty the pope connives, and travellers say that he 
does a little more. But there are in Rome tribes of individuals whose 
distinction is by no means an extraordinary degree of cruelty to their 
admirers, and those persons this Vicar of Heaven does not connive 
at, for those he tolerates. Those ladies have their quarter where they 
are authorized by the law to live, are publicly recognized in their sin- 
gular trade, pay a well-known tax for their privileges, like all other le- 
gitimate subjects for a legitimate commerce, and are among the ways 
and means of the state. Thisis toleration, meaning a recognition by the 
laws, rights in consequence, and an acknowledged position and protec- 
tion by the government. But has any Protestant congregation in Rome, 
or in the dominions of Spain, or the Italian kingdoms, or the Spanish colo- 
nies, any such toleration? And yet this little lord was Lord Lieutenant 
of Ireland ; into this little man’s hands were actually entrusted the in- 
terests of a great church, engaged in perpetual struggle with the idola- 
trous faith of the peasantry ; and with all his opportunities of discovering 
the difference between connivance and toleration, in the course of a time 
in which a rebellion of a half mad boy, with a pair of shamrock epau- 
lettes, and fifty of the rabble to carry pikes after him, was within a hair’s 
breadth of seizing upon the seat of government and setting the Irish 
metropolis in flames from one end to the other. Not that we suspect 
his little lordship of any toleration on the subject of setting the castle of 
Dublin in a blaze, or connivance as to his own being roasted-in the ge- 
neral auto da fé of the heretics. On the contrary, we give him credit 
for being very much astonished, as well as very much frightened ; for 
being as much surprised as ever man was, and for being as angry as 
a keen sense of personal hazard could have made any man. We re- 
member well the recriminatory correspondence of the Irish commander- 
in-chief, General Fox, with the little lord, and the discovery, like that 
of Peachum and Locket, that the less that was said on either side the 
better. “ Brother, brother, we are both in the wrong.” As for Ge- 
neral Fox, he was a brother of the great Coalition Rat, and, of course, 
good for nothing. And yet at these years, with his experience, that 
experience which a lying proverb has told us, teaches the imbecile 
when nothing else can teach them, we have this little old lord advo- 

3 Y 2 


532 Notes of the Month on [May, 


cating Popism in his own small way, and telling us that Rome folerates 
Christianity ! 


So—old Hesse Homburg is gone. Young ladies, ye who sigh with 
envy when ye see red coated footmen standing behind huge yellow 
bodied coaches with the king’s arms on their pamnels, learn the moral 
of this grandeur! Lilies of the valley! sigh no more. Think: of the 
fate of the fair women dragged about in those same yellow bodied 
carriages. How would you like to live an eternal life at Windsor ; 
your tours and travels divided between a drive to Frogmore and a 
drive to the Lodge, with an intermediate visit to some dilapidated 
maid of honour, as much alive as the waxwork of Queen Elizabeth 
in the abbey, and to the full as amusing? You love flattery, gentle 
creatures, you to whom the visiting breath of the sweet south is too 
harsh, and whose souls pant for sylphs spreading their silken pinions 
in the regions of the vesper star. Daughters of love! how would you 
relish flattery from the wrinkled lips of old staff-majors, and generals 
that carried your grandmother’s lap-dog ; from old mummies, ill pre- 
served, and brains as dry as if they were stuffed for preservation in a 
museum? Then, angelic creatures ! you pine for husbands, lovely youths, 
light as zephyrs, perfumed like roses, ever eloquent, like the Marquis 
of Bute; desperately fond, like the Marquis of Worcester ; and 
smiling for ever, like the Countess St. Antonio and her new set of patent 
teeth. Yet, lovely aspirants, look to the desperate reality—see one of 
those royal virgins, those tulips of the field of England’s beauty, those 
happy creations of kings and queens in their days of youth and glory— 
see her married to the Prince of Wirtemberg, the “largest animal that 
walked the shaking earth,” as the divine Milton says; a lover, of whom 
the poets of England wrote these moral lines :— 


“ Tf flesh is grass, as parsons say, 
« Old Wirtemberg would make a load of hay.” 


‘This large lover had been a husband before, and was reported not to be 
much better when he came wooing our eldest princess: the story, in his 
own capital, being, that he had a wife still living, but dungeoned some- 
where or other from his having taken a dislike to her. Old George, our 
late honest king, who never took an oath but with the intention to keep 
it, nor when he had taken it, suffered any man nor woman neither, to. 
tamper with either him or it, made a serious business of this report, and 
the fat duke had no slight trouble in bringing evidence to his not having 
been guilty of bigamy. However, the match took place, the princess 
was tied to her prince, and the two were packed up and sent off to 
Germany. Thirty years passed before the exile returned for a day to 
her family, and then only to find the king and queen dead, every human 
being, whom she had known gay, handsome, and young, transformed 
into meagre and old cats and spaniels, or fatted to a degree indicative 
of nothing but the quantity of food that is served up in England for 
the noble. 

Then came the bride of grey Hesse Homburg. If Wirtemberg was 
the fattest of Sovereign Dukes, Homburg was the most ferocious 
looking of Christened beings. The wolf might have said to him, 
‘Thou art my brother,” and the buffalo, “Thou art. my cousin- 


1829. ] Affairs in General. 533 


German.” When this compound of tobacco and sourcrout first made 
his appearance in England, the national sagacity was puzzled to dis- 
cover to which class of the creation he belonged. He fled from the 
royal dinner to smoke his pipe, chew sausages, and sleep in his boots. 
The Princess Elizabeth was linked to this lover, and away they went 
to live and love together in a marsh. So much for the happiness of 
princesses ! 


THE FALL OF EMPIRE. 


Let England remember the hour of her pride, 
What the arms of her heroes made her, 
What fields with the blood of her martyrs were dyed, 
When the foes of her rights would invade her, 
When she tore the sceptre from slavery’s hand ; 
When her red-cross was proudly streaming ; 
When she trampled in ashes the fiery brand, 
That in Rome’s fierce grasp was gleaming ;— 


When the world was in arms against her gates ; 
When against the world she thundered ; 

When her scale sustained earth’s final fates ; 
When earth was saved, and wondered ; 

When her people were fearless, and free, and one, 
And her church was a holy thing ; 

When her mighty throne was the Protestant throne, 
And her King was the Protestant King ;— 


Let England now think of the days to come, 
When the sun of her glory shall set ; 
When her priests shall be sycophant slaves of Rome ; 
When her soil shall with blood be wet ; 
When Rome shall defile her holy walls ; 
When the proud idolater 
With traitors shall sit in her council-halls,— 
Then, England, thy death is near ! 


When Rome’s old pageants shall haunt her streets, 
When a wafer shall be her god,— 

Then pestilence and famine shall waste her fleets, 
Then her armies into clay be trod. 

When her incense to Saint and to Virgin shall fume, 
When she gives to the dead her prayer, 

Like a garment in the flames shall her strength consume, 
Her treasures shall be dust and air. 


Down, down to the grave shall thy grandeur go— 
Down, down to the endless grave ! 
Though come on thy sleep no human foe, 
No torch o’er thy palaces wave ; 
For thou shalt be roused at the dead of night, 
By the thunder and the trumpet’s roar ; 
No hope then for struggle, no hope for flight, 
He that loved thee, has loved thee no more. 

As shooting is so much the fashion that it is employed to settle 
consciences, establish political facts, and supersede the necessity of argu- 
ment, we feel some delicacy in saying a syllable that may seem to 
depreciate so salutary and summary a kind of conviction. Yet, ad- 
mitting its merits in dispatching political antagonists, who are to be 


§34 Notes of the Month on [May, 


silenced in no other way, and in slaying men in general, we may be 
permitted to doubt whether any valuable national benefit is actually 
connected with the Red House exploits of the Osbaldiston and Ken- 
nedy generation. We allow the infinite merit of knocking out a 
pigeon’s eye at thirty yards, nineteen times out of twenty, or shooting 
a hundred and fifty of those little living marks before dinner; and yet, 
if the cut bono were proposed to us, we should find ourselves much at 
a loss. But all the Red House exploits are thrown into shade by a 
Chester champion, who is willing to back himself for any sum above 
300/. to kill with ball from an air gun, 1300 rooks in twelve successive 
days (Sunday omitted), he to name the day of starting, which he will 
do the mornirig he commences; the gentleman will put the whole of 
the money down at one meeting, and will meet either at Birmingham or 
Shrewsbury to stake. { 

This is incomparable; and will be the most exemplary piece of 
shooting on record, since shooting the centre arch of London Bridge is 
so nearly about to be expunged from the glories of the British name. 
The only point that strikes us as objectionable is the omission of Sun- 
day ; why should the laudable execution of the rookery be stopped by 
any of the old-woman prejudices as to keeping Sunday sacred? We 
are sorry to think that the bold spirit of this original rook slaughterer, 
this mighty shooter, should be still bowed by vulgar opinions ; and that 
he did not persevere in knocking down his regular hundred and odd 
on Sunday as well as on Monday, and so forth. We trust that the 
Methodists have not been insidiously at work in the case, and in- 
fluenced this active exterminator to blow the powder out of his pan, and 
let his barrel cool for twenty-four hours together. To the Methodists 
alone such an imputation can by possibility attach ; for the estab- 
lished parsons are too many of them excellent shots themselves, and 
hard goers over the country, to make it possible that they should think 
of interfering. No, while we see advowsons in every newspaper, “ in 
a first-rate sporting neighbourhood, with a right of shooting over 
twenty miles of manor, and six capital packs of fox-hounds within an 
easy distance,” far be it from us to suppose that the same sporting 
characters, who, however grave may be the colour of their cloth, have 
the true sportsman within them on every day of the week, should 
object to throwing the Sunday into the bargain. 


If we were inclined to encourage the practice of gaming by our high 
example, we should wager no trivial sum, that before fifty years there 
will be more tongues busy in talking English than in talking any other 
language in the world. The hearts of all the abbés, belles, savants, 
and lovers of “ la gloire” in Paris will be broken by the fact. But, not- 
withstanding such a catastrophe, the consummation will arrive. At this 
hour English is the language of settlements under every circle of longi- 
tude and latitude, which is not the exclusive dwelling of whales or 
white bears. And all those settlements are but the origin, the seedlings 
of empires: in them. men are not cramped by the sea shore at every 
half day’s journey. They cannot, as in England, leave one sea behind 
at breakfast time, reach the opposite side of the land, and take dinner on 
the shore of a second ocean. Nor, asin England, compass the breadth 
of the terra firma in twelve hours. They are mighty territories, 
opened to the research, the vigour, the ability, and the necessities of 


1829.] : Affairs in General. 535 


Englishmen, and to whose expanse the present colonies are but as 
huts in a wilderness; and in all those English is the language. We 
have thus an empire of English swelling over Canada; an empire 
swelling over the South Sea; an empire swelling over the Indian Ar- 
chipelago ; an empire swelling over New Holland ; an empire swelling 
over the Southern Islands, with a crowd of minor stations, the sup- 
ports and outworks of those enormous dominions. Next we have 
British America, with all its provinces and colonies, from the Atlantic 
to the Pacific, English still in tongue. In Spanish America, from 
Mexico to the Straits of Magellan, the mercantile and civil intercourse 
is spreading our language. It is making progress in India. English 
colonies will be established in the Mediterranean. Even in West 
Africa our settlements are laying the foundation of new intercourse with 
England. In East Africa we have an empire already commenced, to 
which the whole line of the coast and its islands will, before long, 
become tributary. And where then will be the boasted superiority of 
the French? It will have the range of Europe, and of Europe alone, 
and that too divided with the vernacular dialect of the kingdoms, and 
with English, which through books and travel is becoming a regular 
part of education. England is at this moment the language best 
known in an extent of space three times the size of the Roman Empire. 
It is the grand medium of communication of the whole maritime 
world. 

Even on the continent, where native prejudices are stronger, from 
their antiquity, and from an absurd pride in the follies of the time 
gone by, English is beginning to be studied in palaces and colleges, 
though the mode may sometimes be curious enough. The writer of the 
“Hungarian Tales,” tells us that in the University of Pesth there is a 
professorial chair for the English language, with a liberal endowment. 
It is at present filled by an “intelligent Frenchman,” a soldier of Napo- 
leon’s army, who has compiled in Latin, for the use of the students, an 
English grammar, dictionary, and other class-books, which have been 
honoured with the commendation of the critics of Gottingen. The 
works first placed in the hands of the scholars of Pesth, are The Vicar 
of Wakefield and Shakspeare’s comedies ! 

The Frenchman must make a fine professor of English. Of all mem 
living, the French are the most tardy in learning a foreign tongue- 
This they, of course, set down as a merit in their configuration, and igno- 
rance has the honour to be pronounced the proof of exquisiteness of 
taste. In all probability, not one of the Frenchman’s pupils will ever 
speak a syllable of intelligible English. But he will receive his salary— 
the belles and beaux of Pesth will conceive that they have Chatham’s 
language on their lips—and all parties will be happy. We recollect a 
curious instance of this style of instruction. In a German city on the 
Rhine, the Anglomania had made every one eager to read and speak 
English. But there were no teachers. In this emergency it was recol- 
lected that there were some. British prisoners in one of the French 
garrisons on the left bank. Application was made by a young lady of 
rank for one of those tutors of the fashionable language. The French 
general was too much a man of gallantry to refuse a fair lady’s request ; 
and the prisoners were mustered to ascertain their literary qualifications. 
As it was before the national schools were established, the greater num- 
ber of the gallant warriors could neither read nor write ; and they were 


536 Notes of the Month on Affairs in General. [May, 


pronounced unfit for the mission. One, however, could do both, and he 
was sent. This language-master remained in the household of the noble 
family for some years. On the peace, he obtained leave to give up his 
task, and returned to his country. The intercourse with England was 
speedily opened, and the principal pupil of the soldier was employed to 
do the honours to the distinguished guests, not one of whom spoke Ger- 
man, French, nor any other language than their own. But the difficulty 
was by no means diminished on the new plan. The guests listened to 
the young interpreter ; not a word of her zealous communications 
could they comprehend. The interpreter was equally at a loss to de- 
cipher the language of the strangers. It turned out, that the English 
teacher had been a Highland serjeant, who had taught her Erse, the 
only language of which he was capable. 

The French revolution, by sending over a number of ecclesiastics, and 
persons of rank and education, partially propagated the language among 
us; but the chief result was to break up the trade of the travelling 
teachers. Those had been, in general, valets, (who called themselves 
counts and barons,) hair-dressers, and disbanded dancing-masters. A 
commission in the French army was frequently the assumption of those 
brilliant personages, and the teacher. of elegant phraseology was often a , 
fellow who had graduated in the servant's hall. 


THE PROPHECY. 


Ere Rome first trampled England’s crown, our soil was proud and free, 
Our Alfred boldly swept the land of foes from sea to sea ; 

Where trod the Dane, a bloody stain was all he left behind ; 

His fierce heart’s blood was on the flood, his groan was on the wind. 


Then Popery with a vulture’s wing came rushing o’er the soil ; 

The Romish robbers crowding came, our ancient shrines to spoil; _ 
Till, roused at length, the nation’s strength uprose and burst the chain, 
And Britain’s lion shook its links, like dewdrops, from its mane. 


Then great Elizabeth unfurled the red-cross banner true ; 

Then William came, and o’er the fields of France the banner flew : 
A hundred years of wealth and peace, a hundred years of power ; 
By Heaven the faithful land was blest, and freedom was her dower. 


Then George the Third—long live his name! to Britons proud and dear— 
Disdained, when traitors girt the throne, their councils base to hear : 

The deed is done, the woe begun, which after times shall weep, 

And curse the hour when treachery’s steps stole on the nation’s sleep. 


Old Persecution then shall rear her gory blade on high, 
The holy laws we now revere shall then be deemed a lie ; 
Apostacy shall then be praise, and villainy be fame, 

And honesty a standing joke, and patriotism a shame. 


And those that have their trust betrayed, shall rule the sinking land ; 
And those that have their creed unsaid, among the first shall stand ; 
And those who still maintain their faith, shall fall by fire and sword ; 
And Mammon be prime minister, and Satan sovereign lord ! 


a —s 


eS EE 


1829-] (5 


37) 


MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE, DOMESTIC. AND FOREIGN. 


Traits of Travel, or Tales of Men and 
Cities, by the author of “ Highways and 
Byways, 3 vols. 12mo; 1829.— What 
could have prompted these curious titles ? 
“ Traits of Travel”? convey no meaning 
whatever; and as to “ Tales of Men and 
Cities,” what tales are not of men and 
cities ? The very intelligent author professes 
himself to have been puzzled to hit upon 
what might, he says, unpresumingly tell the 
nature of the book, and finally, in despair, 
left the matter in the hands of his experi- 
enced publisher; he must have consulted 
his Cumzan oracle, and muddled the sibyl’s 
leaves. Tales, or Sketches, by H. Grattan, 
would have told the reader at once what he 
was to expect—faithful records of foreign 
Seenes and foreign manners—knowledge 
acquired not by posting over the highways, 
but by footing it in the by ones—mingling 
intimately with the people, and finding vut 
ail their ways. Mr. G. has travelled ta 
good purpose, and is, perhaps, the most com- 
petent man of his day to communicate the 
spirit and peculiarity of continental feelings. 
__ The present series of tales is, however, not 
wholly characteristic of the author. Some 
of the smaller pieces, to the amount of half a 
volume, perhaps, are of another and a com- 
moner kind ; scribbled obviously for periodi- 
cals, more for effect than from goodwill ; 
more from a feeling of obligatior to‘¢entri- 
bute so many pages, than any natural 
promptings; and of course savouring, and 
pretty strongly, of extravagance: such as 
the Confessions of an English Gatton, and 
the Pleasures of the Table. <A tale of 
revenge, called a Bone to Pick, though one 
of the best of the set, is of the same charac- 
ter, and contains none of Mr. G’s peculiari- 
ties. An Irish squire, of the last century, 
had a wife who was a bit of a termagant, 
whose railings and perverseness he met, not 
by retorting abuse, or even by whacking 
her, but by the most provoking contempt— 
leisurely taking out his snuff box, and 
tapping it, and opening it, and taking an 
ample pinch, and returning the box to his 
waistcoat pocket, he would utter some half- 
expressed sneer, some irritating equivocation, 
or sarcastic hint, and adding to it—“ and 
there now, my darling Nelly, is a bone to 
pick,” he would stalk out of the room, gently 
closing the door. The good lady, appa- 
rently, digested the matter very easily, and 
Was at once pitied and admired by servants 
and neighbours as an ill-used and most for- 
giving creature. But she was treasuring up 
a delicious morsel of revenge; nor did a 
long illness, of a fatal character, divert her 
from her purpose. When all hope of her 
recovery was abandoned, she called the 
squire to her bed side, and, after a tantaliz- 
ing prelude, when the last gasp was upon 
her, pointing to her two sons, she said, “One 

M.M. New Series.—Vou. VII. No.4l. 


of the boys is not your child, and there is a 
bone to pick for you /” This was touching 
the squire on the tenderest point; his 
passion was love for his children, and his 
prejudice, family pride. No explanation 
could be got, she died on the instant, with 
this post-mortem satisfaction for all the 
taunts she had endured. The uncertainty 
distracted the miserable man; suspicions 
were excited, and then dismissed to make 
way for new ones: now Jack was his, and 
now Tom; will after will was made and 
destroyed, till the life was harassed out of 
him ; the property was disputed by the sons, 
and finally fell into the pockets of the law- 
yers; some of whom, more conscientious 
than is usually believed of them, at every 
assizes, raised a small subscription for one of 
the survivors.—The Maison de Santé is a 
mad-house, in the south of France, into 
which the author strayed, and incurred some 
risk of being placed under the discipline of the 
establishment, and where he witnessed a scene 
of cruelty, sufficient to make one’s hair stand 
onend. The circumstances are represented as 
facts, and it is some satisfaction to be told, 
that, on proper representations being made 
to the government, the victims were rescued, 
and the establishment broken up.—A little 
tale, entitled Laura Pemegia, is beautifully 
told: the essential libertinage of which is 
exhibited with a delicacy and taste that 
unhappily veil the turpitude. Laura is the 
child of a Sicilian fisherman, whose beauty 
and ‘extreme simplicity attracted the notice 
of the son of an Irish peer, who is himself 
every thing that is noble and generous, but, 
and that appears a trifle, prompted by his 
passions to purchase this little charmer, of 
her abandoned mother. She has no notion 
of any thing wrong, and advantage is taken 
of her simplicity. After touring about the 
continent, he takes her to his Irish estate, 
which he holds, independently of his father, 
where he lives with her, passionately and 
permanently enamoured, and has two 
children, till a discovery is made on the 
part of an aunt, and attempts are made to 
separate them. The young nobleman’s 
father is dying in London, and in his 
absence, Laura is seduced from her home, 
put on board ship, and taken to Sicily. But 
scarcely had she landed, and began to taste 
the bitterness of desolation, when she is hap- 
pily overtaken by the young lord with her 
two children; and being once free from 
family ties, he yields to his better feelings, 
and puts a legitimate sanction to their 
union, &e. 

One of the volumes is filled with Belgian 
scenes ; a country of which singularly little is 
known ; which js most unreasonably under- 
valued by travellers, and rarely ever recur- 
red to by writers of romance; we recollect 
nobody but Scott and Mrs, Bray. National 

32 


538 


character is dependent upon great events. 
« Shew me,”’ says Mr. G., ‘‘ the man who 
may not be warped by circumstances. Then 
how shall a nation escape ? Are the English 
what they were before the reformation ? 
The French the same as before the revolu- 
tion ?”? The Belgians have been subject to 
repeated changes, have consequently been, 
in some proportion or other, more modified. 
They have mo national character, say 
strangers. They have two or three, cry the 
native writers. Mr. G. thinks they have 
none peculiarly their own. Centuries of 
subjection to various European powers, all 
widely opposite to each other in manners and 
customs, have left among them evident 
traces of inconsistency, modified by time, 
and by one brief and brilliant era of liberty. 
The taint of each separate tyranny blends 
with the bright colouring of freedom, and 
their faults combine with courage, humanity, 
industry, and pride. Under a settled state, 
a constitutional government, a liberal king, 
and a gallant heir-apparent, they will take a 
place among the nations, and be themselves. 
At present the Belgian but scurvily com- 
pares with others. A Spaniard throws an air 
of chivalry into his fanaticism. The bigotry 
of a Belgian is as dull as it is gross. An 
Irishman ‘disguised’ amuses by his humour ; 
the bright spirit of his whisky evaporates in 
fun or fighting. The drunken Belgian is 
besotted as well as brutified; he is but a 
fermented beer-barrel. The avarice of a 
Dutchman is based in calculation ; that of a 
Belgian in cunning. The petty cheateries 
on the road, the impositions of the swarm of 
blood-suckers that fastens on the traveller, 
are the plodding realities of roguery. A 
picturesque highwayman, or sentimental 
pickpocket, never appears. Elsewhere one 
is cheated sometimes; but in Belgium one 
never escapes. “I met,’’ says Mr. G., “with 
more exactions ; I lost more articles of dress, 
in afew months rambling through Belgium, 
than in twice as many years of travelling 
and residence in France. Yet, after all, I 
majntain that there is much of individual 
and natural good to be found by those who 
will take the pains to seek it; and I (like 
my countrymen) think the ‘ trouble a 
pleasure.’ ”’ 

The Begging brother of La Trappe will 
illustrate these characteristics, but we have 
no space to sketch the interesting details. 


The Naval Officer, 3 vols., 12mo. ; 1829. 
—This is one of the effects of a long peace— 
to generate idleness and book-making. With 
no fighting, and an army of half-pay, naval 
and military, multitudes of them are rushing 
into the ranks of literature—within these 
few months we know not how many stories 
we have had of sea-scenes and adventures. 
This is one of the best we haye seen—bear- 
ing with it an air of life and reality (as to 
the facts we mean, for as to the authors of 
these things nobody can doubt of their being 
professional—no landsman can be up to the 


Monthly Review of Literature, 


[May, 


details) though not without manifest signs 
of a propensity to exaggerate and rhodomon- 
tade. But how any soder person, if any 
such person should read these tales, and 
especially the one before us, who has any 
regard for the moral welfare of a child, can 
expose him to the corruptions and horrors of 
such a situation, must excite our wonder, if 
it were not for the commonness of the thing 
—and even common as it is, we must still 
wonder. It only shows how thoroughly 
hypocritical we are, when the chances of 
providing, as we call it, for a son in the ser- 
vice, can counterbalance the dread that must 
naturally spring from the consequences of 
such exposures. The motive is evidently 
an overwhelming one—otherwise the Ad- 
miralty had need look to it and suppress 
such disclosures—to secure the manning of 
the navy, or rather boying, from families of 
any respectability. 

The hero tells his own rough tale, with a 
view chiefly to apologise, or at least to ac- 
count for the excesses he commits. He was 
early exposed to the perversions of bad ma- 
nagement, for, at school, he was taught 
lying and treachery, by the mistress of the 
establishment, systematically disbelieving 
“ what boys said;’’ recklessness, was, of 
course, the natural effect, and this, by as easy 
a consequence, led to mischief, and a love 
for adyenture—nothing was gained by in- 
tegrity and order. The sea was now his 
choice, and at, thirteen he was plunged into 
the very-hot-bed of iniquity, a vessel of war, 
at anchorin Plymouth harbour. There his 
first reception by the young fry of middies 
was a rude one, and by the boy petulantly 
resented, which led to hatreds and suspicions 
on their part, and prompted in him a desire 
of revenge, and a determination to indulge 
it. His activity, his energy, and the pride 
of his nature, spurred him to the attaining 
of an early and athorough knowledge of his 
profession, and to some superiority over his 
associates. This could only be accomplish- 
ed by skill or strength, and he was not de- 
fective in either—but mainly fowght up his 
way to the head of his mess. Quickly he 
became ringleader in all schemes, either for 
the glutting of revenge, or the maintenance 
of privilege, and in more than one instance, 
by dint of combining, effected a riddance of 
obnoxious officers —making the ship too hot 
to hold them. His popularity among the 
crew was unbounded, by indulgence—and 
affecting a generosity, and a promptitude in 
all perils personal or general, which he, in a 
spirit of mock humility, acknowledges to 
have had its spring in vanity. With the 
first years of puberty, he forms a /iaison 
with a young actress of the Plymouth boards, 
and quits his ship himself to play Romeo to 
her Juliet. The father suddenly presents 
himself, and contrives to get him on board 
again, with the captain’s injunction to the 
lieutenant to take care of him. When refused 
permission, accordingly, to go ashore, he 
leaps into the water, like another Leander, 


1829. ] 


to swim to his Heroine, and effects his pur- 
pose through showers of musket-balls shot 
after him, on the supposition of his being 
a deserter. This connexion is finally 
broken up by the romance of the lady, who 
suddenly and mysteriously withdraws, and 
leaves him a power to draw upon her banker, 
without explaining, or telling him where she 
is gone. This gives him little concern—he 
had, in the meanwhile, laid siege to the 
heart of a daughter of his father’s friend, 
and won it—but marriage was not to he 
thought of till he got a pair of epaulettes. 

The career of the midshipman is com- 
pleted in different quarters—partly in the 
Mediterranean and the Spanish coast—and 
partly in America, during the war of 1813 
and 14; and the details consist of pranks 

~ and feats—of darings and escapes—conflicts 
with his comrades, battles with the foe, and 
encounters with whales, and still more peril- 
ous with sharks. Sundry tales of gallantry, 
on the Halifax station, fill up the intervals— 
others of plunder and roguery—some few of 
mere fun—with a few of real humour, and 
all of the ludicrous, and some too coarse or too 
licentious to be thus exposed to the general 
eye of the young, who will be sure to gloat 
in them. But one remarkable thing strikes 
the reader, and that is a disposition to de- 
preciate—he has the worst luck man ever 
had in his captains—one is a good officer, but 
too precipitate—another, witha smiling ex- 
terior, is a brute—a vile and vulgar plebeian 
—a third is a lord, who does not know the 
difference between the bow and the beam— 
but as brave a man as ever stepped between 
stem and stern, though how that was estab- 
lished is not very apparent, seeing he never 
encountered an enemy—and all these de- 
cisions from a boy. The same contempt is 
expressed for a// the examiners, when he 
passes for lieutenant—they are all ignorant, 
or brutal, or partial. 

His father’s influence at the Admiralty 
secures him the rank of commander at the 
earliest possible period, and he immediately 
flies homeward, from America, on the wings 
of love, to marry his Emily. Landing in 
his way at Bourdeaux, he suddenly en- 
counters at the theatre his old acquaintance 
of the Plymouth stage. She presents him 
with a beautiful boy, the “moral” of him- 
self, of four or five years old, but refuses, 
though he eagerly solicits, to renew their in- 
timacy. She had unexpectedly come into 
possession of property, and withdrew for her 
credit’s sake to Bourdeaux—but was now 
growing weary of it. She accompanies him 
to England, and is persuaded by him, im- 
pelled by his usual thoughtlessness, to go 
and reside in the very neighbourhood of 
Emily’s father. The natural consequence 
followed—that Emily, on the eve of their 
marriage, surprised him in company with 
the lady and the child, en famille. She was 
inexorable in breaking off the match, and 
he, in a rage, curses his unoffending mis- 
tress, and flies to the continent in dogged 


Domestic and Foreign. 


539 


despair. Here he is roused to sensation by 
the charms and stimulus of a gaming house, 
and draws, without stint or measure, on both 
father, and mistress, but by one lucky stroke 
recovers his losses and more, and abandons 
the dice. Scarcely rescued from impending 
infamy, he shoots his dearest friend in a 
duel, in defence of his sister, through mere 
impatience—and is again on the point of 
distraction, when luckily his friend recovers. 
By and by he hears from his old mistress— 
she has lost her little boy by an accident, 
and is dying of grief. He flies to England 
—is too late to see her—rushes to the 
church-yard and indulges to extravagance 
his grief. Then suddenly seeing a bishop 
driving past, in state, he rushes to the 
palace, forces himself into the episcopal 
presence—just to see if he is as capable of 
administering spiritual comfort as a curate. 
Beyond his expectations, or desert, he is re- 
ceived with kindness and consideration—is 
soothed — pitied — instructed —converted ; 
and, by the final agency of the good bishop, 
reconciled to himself and to Emily. Not- 
withstanding this change of feeling—the 
effect of religious convictions, it seems— the 
tone of the whole is that, we had almost 
said, of a profligate, which is surely not re- 
deemed, by occasional expressions of regret, 
and confession of wrong—it is indeed the 
tone of one, who still delights to trace his 
feats of audacity, and the frolics of rakery, 
and only requires the same opportunities 
to repeat the same offences. 

As a matter of amusement, there is abun- 
dant materials to excite a smile, and occa- 
sionally a hearty laugh—the best thing 
is a dialogue between Sir Hurricane Hum- 
bug and the housekeeper, which, how« 
ever, for certain reasons, is not quotable, 
Instead of it, we must give the following. 
In a party of young Philadelphian ladies, 
speaking of some lady, he observed he had 
not heard of her since she was seen by some 
friend of his at Turin on the Po. 


The last syllable was no sooner out of my 
mouth than tea, coffee, and chocolate was out of 
theirs, all spirting different ways, just like so 
Many young grampuses. They jumped up from 
the table and ran away to their rooms, convulsed 
with laughter, leaving me alone with their uncle. 
I was all amazement, andI own felt a little an- 
noyed. ‘* Haye I made any serious lapsus, or 
said any thing yery ridiculous or indelicate? if I 
have, I shall neyer forgive myself.” 


The uncle’s reply is admirable. 


“Sir,” said Mr. MacF linn, “ I am very sure you 
meant nothing indelicate ; but the retined society 
of Philadel pbia, in which these young ladies have 
been educated, attaches very different meanings 
to certain words, to what you do inthe old coun- 
try. The back settlements, for instance, so call- 
ed by our ancestors, we call the wesfern settle- 
ments, and we apply the same term, by analogy, 
tothe human figure and dress. This is a mere 
little explanation, which you will take as it is 
meant. It cannot be expected that foreigners 
should understand the niceties of our language. 


3Z 2 


540 


You used a word exclusively confined to bed- 
chambers.” 


The uncle’s illustration was farther iflus- 
trated on a visit to the ship—when one of 
the young ladies getting too near some 
paint—another exclaimed, “a! Jemima, 
what have you done to the western side of 
your gown? It is all over green.” Of 
course the “‘ west”’ became a standing joke. 


The Divine Origin of Christianity, by 
John Sheppard, Author of “ Thoughts on 
Private Devotion,” &c., 2 vols. ; 1829.— 
It is the assertion of a certain zealous class 
of Christians, that books on the evidences 
of religion are worse than useless, for in- 
stead of making believers, they unmake 
them. If this be true to any extent, it can 
be applicable only to the hot-headed, or the 
soft-headed—to impatience or imbecility. 
The faith, which suffers by any thing de- 
Serving the name of sound evidence, must 
have been built without evidence, and the 
structure is of course liable to be overthrown 
by any wind that blows. The writer, like 
a man of sense, as he truly is, has disre- 
garded this idle or fanatic opinion, and 
yielding to his own convictions has produced 
a book, which must class, and that with 
honour, with Paley, and the best stock- 
books upon the subject—condensing and 
filling up what was before scattered or im- 
perfect. It is an attempt to do effectively, 
what has been often done partially—but 
never with so much distinctness—never with 
an effort so concentrated, and in a manner 
so entirely exhaustive—the establishing, we 
mean, of the probability, or rather the cer- 
tainty of the divine origin of Christianity, 
on evidence totally independent of the scrip- 
tures, or of any authorities, which might, by 
malignity or possibility, be styled suspicious 
or interested. The author is, we believe, a 
layman, and a dissenter, but perfectly free 
from the common accompaniments of sec- 
tarianism, of all acrimony especially, except 
perhaps a little towards Gibbon, in exposing 
whose misrepresentations, it must be difficult 
for the mildest, and the author is one of 
them, not to be provoked into severity. Of 
himself, he remarks—and this to remove 
prejudice or suspicion—he has no stake in- 
volved, either of rank or profit; nor can 
even, consistently, take a clirect interest in 
those political benefits, which many ascribe 
to the alliance of religion with the state. 

We can, with our limits, dono more than 
indicate the course and method of the writer, 
by which the reader will leam what he has 
to expect, and we add our assurance, if that 
is worth any thing, that the plan has been 
prosecuted with diligence, research, and 
fairness, and executed with conspicuous 
success. 

While some, in exhibiting the evidences, 
have searched for the internal-—the self-evi- 
dence of the scriptures, and others have 
laboured to establish their genuineness, and 
their consequent historical truth, Mr. Shep- 


Monthly Review of Literature, — - 


[M AY, 


pard’s specific aim has been to shew, “ that 
even if the New Testament had been un- 
happily destroyed, or its genuineness were 
not ascertainable—yet, provided the primi- 
tive spirit of the religion could be learnt 
from the writings of early believers, and 
those indirect proofs collected of its rise and 
progress, and their causes, which now exist, 
we ought not to reject it, but to judge that 
it came from God.’? This design and its 
limitations he undertakes to execute by 
establishing two propositions—first, ‘* There 
may be enough known of Christianity (with- 
out investigating either its miraculous cr 
prophetic proof, and without studying the 
written accounts of its progress, whether as 
given by friends or enemies) from a view of 
its distinctive character—of its actual effects 
—of its continued and prospective spirit and 
tendency—and of its acknowledged origin— 
to yield complex presumption that it is not 
ofmen, but of God ;”’ and secondly, ‘“* There 
are statements concerning Christianity (and 
other coeval religions)’ in extant Jewish 
and Heathen writers—in citations from the 
lost works of its adversaries—in notices of 
current oral objections to it—in public ap- 
peals as to public facts by early Christian 
apologists—in details by Christian writers of 
events, the general truth of which is amply 
confirmed by their opponents—together 
with implications in the silence of some 
Jews and Heathens, and in the conduct of 
others; which concur to furnish very strong 
grounds for believing its supernatural ori« 
in.” 

5 The first he accomplishes, by pointing 
out how far it differs from all religions 
that men have fabricated, and from any that 
we can suppose they would fabricate; and 
again, how far it differs from all other re- 
ligions in its ascertained effects, and in its 
continued and prospective spirit and ten- 
dency. The second, by collecting the ad- 
missions, tacit and verbal, of persons not 
professing Christianity, as to the moral cha-~ 
racter of Jesus, and that of the early Chris- 
tians—by discussing the oppositions Chris- 
tianity was likely to encounter, first from 
the Jews and next from the Heathens, de- 
duced from the diversified and long-con- 
tinued influence of belief and habit—the lax 
and optional morality of polytheism, and the 
peculiar disadvantages of the first Christian 
teachers—and next by exhibiting proofs and 
instances of actwal oppositions, which Chris- 
tianity endured from both quarters. In 
connexion with the same subject, the second 
volume discusses the evidence for Christ’s 
resurrection, especially the firm belief and 
testimony of the fact—the absence of con- 
trary evidence— and the indispensableness of 
the fact, for the subsistence of the religion. 
This is followed by the tracing up of int 
direct evidence for the miracles of Chris- 
and his immediate disciples. 

The arrangements are calculated for two 
classes of readers—the general sentiments 
and conclusions of the writer are given in 


eS. CtC(i‘( Pt: 


1829.] 


what may be called the text, while the de- 
tails and authorities, classed with unusual 
felicity, are thrown into supplements, at the 
close of each chapter, and in a smaller type— 
the first will suit the idle, and the latter 
will satisfy the more active inquirer. 

Of the real usefulness of the book, to 
those who are capable of estimating it, we 
can entertain no doubt. The writer himself 
dissuades some classes of readers— 


As to those, says he (and such there appear to 
be), who have no difficulties or distrusts, I would 
give them advice which is not common either in 
preface or ‘ntroduction—do not proceed to read 
the book. ‘There is another class, he adds, ina 
note, whom I would frankly forewarn not to seek 
satisfaction from these pages. I mean those who 
feel less advantage in having premises carefully 
laid down, than conclusions strongly wrought up— 
who prefer the impression that is given or im- 
posed by inferences very amply and eloquently 
urged, to that which they must in part acqnire for 
themselves by an attentive view of facts presented, 
the use of which by the writer may not be always 
full or vigorous—who are disturbed, besides, at 
all concessions, and may be alarmed, at certain 
points, lest the cause should be betrayed. For 
such readers I am not enough an advocate, 
When pleading for a religion, which, if true, 
makes truth a high and sacred duty, we ought 
not to colour falsely, or to male unfair reserya- 
tions. I am far from saying or thinking that I 
haye been nowhere biassed in method, or misled 
in judgment, by the desire to convince; but I 
would hope not to have jesuitically departed in 
practise from the maxim, ‘‘ Basuage—le grand 
art dans la religion est de n’en avoir pas.’ 


These admirable sentiments cannot but 
recommend this very able and amiable per- 
son’s production. ° 


Tales of a Voyager (Second Series), 3 
vols. 12mo. ; 1829.—Whether the bent of 
the reader be to facts or fancy, he may be 
equally gratified by this production. The 
facts will take him over the scenes of the 
frozen ocean, and lay before him the pretty 
general career of a Greenland whaler faith- 
fully and vividly—the crew alternating 
between activity and listlessness. Their 
perils —labours—amusements—alarms of 
famine—are all graphically traced, and the 
details diversified by descriptions of the 
phenomena of the polar regions—the habits 
of arctic animals, marine and ice-ine, for 
land animals there can be none—nothing is 
passed over. With the experience of the 
traveller, the author has the faculty of de- 
scribing with effect, and might prove a 
valuable collaborateur of Captains Parry and 
Scoresby. ‘The tales have no connexion 
whatever with the voyage, and might have 
been as well interwoven with any other sub- 
ject upon earth. They, however, exhibit 
no common talent in detailing strong feel- 
ings, and critical occasions—a talent which 
betrays him frequently into too great par- 
ticularity—he has not yet learned where 
to stop. The characters are mostly of the 


Domestic and Foreign. 


541 


rougher cast—not one gentlemen or edu- 
cated person among them, which is—some 
relief, we were going to say, but certainly 
some change. Smugglers—pirates—these 
are his favourites—and one hero is often 
very like another. The chief tales are Ber- 
nard Hyde, Letitia, and the T-Man—of 
which the first and second have several good 
points, but the last is full of a sort of coarse- 
ness—city vulgarity—the exposure of which 
has long ceased to haye the power of exciting 
a smile. 

Bernard Hyde is the son of an officer in 
the customs at a northern sea-port, and one 
of a large family of low habits. For no ex- 
plicable reason, Bernard is detested by the 
mother—such things have occurred—and 
treated by her with great severity, and by 
the father with neglect. The boy is a fine 
vigorous fellow, and seeks a refuge naturally 
in any thing that will divert his feelings, and 
becomes, almost inevitably, reckless, dazing, 
and mischievous. To get rid of him he is 
apprenticed to some low trade in London, 
from which he speedily takes wing, goes to 
sea, and eventually joins a gang of smug- 
glers. Of an active and adventurous tum, 
this employment suits him to a tittle, and 
he prosecutes his new profession with great 
success. Occasionally—money abounding 
and vanity prompting—he comes to town— 
dresses and dashes and plays the coxcomb. 
On one of these out-breaks, his attention is 
caught by a flirtation between a young lady, 
accompanied by an elderly one and a sister, 
and attended by a servant, on one side of 
the road, and a young gentleman in black 
on the other—a lap-dog, in particular, is 
despatched across with a glove. In the 
meanwhile, Hyde is shewing off his own at- 
tractions, and the young gentleman in black 
is alternately filled with rage and contempt 
at his impudence. Presently the little dog 
is set upon by some brutal butchers—the 
young lady screams—and the young gen- 
tleman flies to its rescue, but he isno match ~ 
for the sinews and muscles of the butchers, 
and fails. Hyde—a strapping fellow, and 
accustomed to rough measures—to the voies 
de fait—kicks and cuffs about him, till he 
reaches the dog, and soon restores him to 
the lady. . From this event springs not any 
intercourse with the lady, but an intimacy 
between him and the favoured youth, which 
continues till Hyde’s stock of money is ex- 
hausted—still knowing nothing of the story 
of his companion, though evidently involving 
some mystery—and then returns to the 
coast. 

Some months after, while engaged in the 
traffic of his profession, he suddenly meets 
again with his new friend, who is skulking 
in the neighbourhood of his mistress’s dwel- 
ling to escape the eyes of the father. These 
eyes, however, are as wakeful as Argus’s, 
and the owner has something to stimulate 
him: for he has done the youth an injury, 
which gives him little repose. He is ac- 
tually in possession of an estate, to which he 


542 


has no title—which in reality belongs to this 
very youth, who, however, knows nothing 
yet about the matter. He is supposed to be 
the illegitimate son of one who died intes- 
tate, to whose property this person succeeded 
as heir-at-law. He had educated the youth, 
and finally, on discovering a growing pen- 
chant between him and his daughter, dis- 
missed him with a certain sum, and thus 
won the character of prodigious liberality 
from admiring friends. Hearing, through 
his agents, of the youth being in the neigh- 
bourhood, and of his associating with Hyde 
the smuggler, whom he well knew—and 
whom, as magistrate—such things we sup- 
pose do occur—he had protected—grew sud- 
denly alarmed—and issued a warrant for the 
apprchension of both parties, as dealing in 
smuggled goods. The constable was a 
friend of Hyde’s, and had often given hints 
all was not right with his employer; and 
the story of the youth still further roused his 
suspicions. He resolves to fathom the mys- 
tery, and not being troubled with scruples 
in the process, he makes the constable tipsy, 
and worms from him the secret. The con- 
stable had been one of the usurper’s agents, 
and had received £500 for his assistance, 
and a lawyer £2,000, which lawyer proves 
to be Hyde’s own father. Though checked 
a little in his ardour by this discovery, he 
soon recollects how little he is indebted to 
him, and boldly prosecutes his purpose. 
The father, though reduced to a state of 
sottishness and eternal remorse, stands out, 
till Hyde, who knew his man, offers another 
£2,000, which clinches the business, and 
produces the marriage-certificate, which legi- 
timates his friend. Of course all obstacles 
disperse—the usurper resigns—the youth 
marries the daughter, and has no greater 
pleasure than sharing his fortunes with the 
impetuous and generous smuggler. We 
have hung too long over this. 

The longest tale, occupying a full volume, 
is entitled Letitia. She is a very beautiful 
girl, the daughter of a small farmer, and 
living as a sort of companion with the wife 
of a large one, whose only son falls in love 
with her. The mother of the youth is a 
very termagant—she violently expels the 
young woman, and rails at her son, till he is 
driven to flight, and the same night is found 
drowned in the neighbouring inundated 
marshes of Essex. Though with no de- 
finite grounds for the suspicion, the poor 
girl is impressed with the conviction of his 
having been murdered, and thinks herself 
preserved solely for the detection of the 
murderer. She pines and mopes, but 
neither actually loses her senses, nor her 
powers of exertion. Her father is seized 
with paralysis, and large demands are made 
upon the little property ; but the conscious- 
ness of coming want rouses her to many 
noble acts of energy. While thus exerting 
herself, a younger sister, as beautiful as she 
had been herself, going to a dance at a 
farmer’s in the village, attracts the admira- 


Monthly Review of Literature, 


[May, 


tion of a stranger, who suddenly presented 
himself to the party. This person proves to 
be the run-away son of wealthy people in 
the neighbourhood — distinguished, before 
his flight, for profligacy—and now returned, 
from nobody knows where, nor from what 
employment, to claim his father’s property. 
He is a dashing sort of fellow—rude and 
rough in language—with a fierceness and 
air of command not easily accounted for— 
but very capable of softening in the pre- 
sence of women. Recovering his property, 
and apparently settling quietly in the neigh- 
bourhood as Capt. Glennon—though re- 
ported occasionally to be entertaining very 
strange companions—he presented himself 
to Letitia’s sister, and quickly won the sim- 
ple girl’s heart. Letitia is deeply distressed 
at this event, but knows not how to enforce 
her objections. It was true, he had as a 
saucy boy, before he left his home, offered 
her personal rudeness, and had his head 
split with a spade; but as to his being the 
murderer of her lover, though deeply im- 
pressed with the conviction, she had no 
means of supporting the charge. She, how- 
ever, resolutely rejects all his proffers of 
assistance for herself and her father; but 
when finally they come to their last bit of 
bread, and Glennon still presses his suit, 
she at last reluctantly gives her consent to 
the sister’s marriage. - The wedding-day 
arrives, and the ceremony begins, when sud- 
denly a face appears through the window, 
which startles Glennon, and he rushes out 
of the church ; but quickly returns to apolo- 
gize and complete the solemnities. The 
parties drive immediately towards his resi- 
dence, when half-a-dozen strange-looking 
fellows on horseback in foreign dresses meet 
him and accompany them home. ‘To his 
great apparent vexation, he is obliged to 
absent himself with them, and does not re- 
turn to the wondering bride till ten at night, 
when they sit down to dinner, and in com- 
pany with these rough and odd-looking 
persons. In the meanwhile, near midnight, 
appears at Letitia’s cottage, a dying person, 
who, on being admitted, proclaims Glennon 
the murderer she felt he was—and the hus- | 
band of another. To rescue her sister, she 
rushes to Glennon’s house, finds her in bed, 
and Glennon every instant expected. He 
comes, and Letitia challenges him as a mur- 
derer, and calls upon her sister to shrink 
from pollution. A passionate scene en- 
sues, in which Glennon confesses himself 
the guilty person, but still implores the fond 
bride to abide by him. Letitia’s importu- 
nity finally prevails with her, when Glennon 
summons his myrmidons—they were a gang 
of pirates, and Glennon their Captain—to 
carry the bride by force to the vessel, now in 
the river. A ruffian seizes her—Letitia 
clings—and Glennon maddening at the ob- 
struction, is on the point of plunging his 
sword into her bosom, when a tumult from 
without arrests the blow. This proceeded 
from a posse of the police with a warrant of 


~ 


1829-] 


apprehension on the charge of murder. No- 
thing daunted, Glennon places the strongest 
of his fellows on horseback with the bride— 
mounts himself another, and determines to 
cut his way through all opposition. In the 
plunge he fires upon the officers, and the 
fire is instantly returned. In the melée 
Glennon is shot—the bride is shot—both 
die on the spot, and poor Letitia, torn and 
exhausted by the violence of her emotions, 
dies too. It is a most tragic conclusion, 
but the whole story is told with great force 
and feeling. 


Ecarté, or the Salons of Paris, 3 vols., 
12mo.; 1829.—The first attractions of a 
gaming-house, of the more recherché cast, 
in London, are the cuisines and the wines ; 
while the more conspicuous temptations of a 
Parisian one, are women and dancing. 
Drinking or gaming is stimulus enough for 
an Englishman. Women, at such a time, 
are misplaced; he cannot attend to two 
charms at once; when he is bent upon 
cards or dice, he cares not for women ; and 
when he has the company of women, he has 
no superfluous spirits for cards. Women 
are consequently never seen in English 
hells, and women of this class themselves 
have no turn for gaming. In Paris, both 
men and women, and as many of the latter 
as of theformer, frequent places—the younger 
women decoying for the proprietors or fish- 
ing for themselves ; the older, chaperoning, 
or searching for stimulus; and, mixing in 
the mélée, are as eager to make money by 


their skill, as the young ones by their_ 


charms. Thesalons of Paris are conducted 
with great art and effect. Women, some of 
them once of distinction, before their attrac- 
tions have utterly withered, appear as the 
heads of these establishments, and keep up 
some of the appearances of respectability by 
not throwing open their doors to all. In 
many of them there is no admittance ex- 
cept on special invitation; and they have 
their friends and associates, to point out dis- 
tinguished individuals, nativesand foreigners, 
to whom their invitations are liberally, but 
still with reserve, extended. Dress balls 
are given in some twice a-week, at which 
men of rank and fashion are to be found, 
and women of all ages and of all variety of 
seductions. The rooms are superbly fur- 
nished and brilliantly lighted—gilding and 
mirrors dazzle and distract—wines flow in 
profusion, and delicacies of all kinds abound, 
the expense of which is sustained by a cer- 
tain sum paid by the visitor on entrance, 
and a fee upon each game—collected by the 
mistress of the establishment or her confiden- 
tial agents. The consequences upon the 
young, especially, are generally liaisons, in 
the first place ; and these are quickly follow- 
ed by embarrassments, duels, and suicides. 
The object of the writer is to lay open 
these scenes of iniquity, the agents and 
machinery, with which he has coupled a 
tale, and one, of course, as custom impe- 


Domestic and Foreign. 


543 


ratively demands, of love—to answer the 
double purpose of information and amuse- 
ment—at once to instruct and warn. The 
effect to be apprehended in matters of this 
kind is, that the representation of conse- 
quences, however fatal they may be, will 
not counterbalance that of the fascinations. 
A scene of voluptuousness, stript, in descrip- 
tion, of the coarseness which, in reality, in- 
separably belongs to it, is itself scarcely 
resistible ; the describer, besides, is insen- 
sibly tempted to exaggerate, for his very 
object is to produce effect; and as to the 
perils, most men, and especially young men, 
have too much confidence in their own luck 
or prudence to care a fig about them, whilst 
their curiosity is sharpened by the. very 
descriptions, and the resolution instantly 
fixed, at all events, tosee them. This is all 
the proprietors are anxious about; enter 
the net, and the victim will not readily 
break through, or even wish to break 
through. The author professes a complete 
acquaintance with the scenes he describes— 
he is too warm occasionally, and clothes his 
cyprians with too many of the charms of 
virtue; but we are by no means disposed to 
rave against the licentiousness attributed to 
the book generally, by the violent severity of 
some of our conscientious cotemporaries. If 
these scenes are real, we are not sorry to see 
them thus exhibited ; and if they are in- 
deed fictitious, they must be the fruits of a 
prurient imagination, that riots in profli- 
gacy, and deserves, what the deceiver will 
be sure to gain—the contempt of his 
readers. 

An old and gouty uncle visits Paris, in 
company with a nephew—a youth of high 
talents, considerable cultivation, and great 
personal attractions. At Paris they encoun- 
ter an old friend of the uncle’s, a Colonel 
Stanley, of the India service, and his daugh- 
ter, lovely as one of the daughters of the 
east, and as wise and susceptible as it be- 
comes heroine to be. The young persons” 
had never before met, and, of course, forth- 
with fallin love. Before the youth, Del- 
maine, has time to get into mischief, he meets 
with a college friend, changed, in a short 
space, into a grave, thoughtful person, who 
tells him an eventful story—all how and 
about the ruin of his fortunes and his hopes 
by an unlucky acquaintance with the salons 
of Paris, and concludes, by warning his 
friend against their seductions. Scarcely 
had Delmaine been in Paris twenty-four 
hours, when he was insulted by a young 
French count, notorious as a duellist ; and 
a meeting took place, in which he had the 
good fortune to hit his skilful opponent, and 
escape himself. This event brought him 
at once into a sort of fashionable notice, and 
he became an object of admiration and jea- 
lousy to men and women. A Marquis de 
Forsac particularly seeks his acquaintance— 
a regular owé—and who, upon learning the 
youth’s connexions, immediately gets up 
a plot against him, and prevails upon a 


544 


young lady, of distinguished attractions, 
whom accidentally, and knowing nothing 
of her character, Delmaine had a few days 
before rescued from some imminent peril. 
The scheme of the marquis was to detach 
Delmaine from Miss Stanley, by involving 
him in the seductions of the salons, and 
himself to lay siege to her, in the hope of 
carrying her and her fortune. 

The insidicus marquis commences opera- 
tions by persuading Delmaine to’break an 
engagement for the theatre with Miss Stan- 
ley, and go to Madame Costello’s, on the 
assurance that the beautiful being to whom 
he had been of such essential service, would 
be present, and was actually longing to 
make her personal acknowledgments to him. 
The lady, in fact, fascinates him—he spends 
the evening with her—dances—plays at 
Ecarté, and accompanies her to the door of 
her apartments, under an engagement to 
meet her next day. His morning’s reflec- 
tions annoy him, and expecting a cool 
reception from his friends, he stiffens—is 
stifly received—withdraws in disgust, and 
rushes to the charmer of the previous eyen- 
ing. They dine together at an hotel, and 
go to the theatre; and at both these places, 
by the contrivance of the marquis, they are 
seen by Miss Stanley and her friends. This, 
with some expostulation on the part of his 
old college friend, completes his alienation, 
and he gives himself up to his new con- 
nexions. The liaison is of the most inti- 
mate and absorbing, but not of the common 
sordid kind; for the lady—she is very 
young—is deeply attached, and does all she 
can to detach him from play. But the arts 
of the marquis baffle her, and he pursues 
his career till his purse is exhausted, which 
he replenishes by borrowing 20,000 francs 
for six months, at fifty per cent. The money 
is obtained from a common usuter, through 
the agency of the marquis, who himself 
pockets at once one-half of the premium. 

This very accomplished scoundrel has 
now an infallible plan for breaking the 
HWearté bank, and he urges Delmaine to jcein 
him in the execution of his scheme; but 
the significant glances of the lady check the 
rising inclination, and he consents only to 
go and watch the effect of the new plan, 
refusing, at the same time, to take any 
money with him. He is, however, soon 
convinced of the success of the plan, and 
now begins to wish that he had brought his 
purse withhim. The marquis contrives to 
engage him with a lady, and to get himself 
deputed to go to Delmaine’s apartments, 
and fetch it; and finding Delmaine’s lovely 
mistress alone, is tempted to avail himself 
of the opportunity, urges his passion, and 
finally is just resorting to force, when Del- 
maine, who had his suspicions of the mar- 
quis, rushes in—inflicts summary vengeance 
on the marquis, and in despite of assurances 
and protestations, renounces the lady. Ex- 


pecting the next day to receive a hostile’ 


message from the marquis, he is surprised 


Monthly Review of Literature, 


[LMay, 


by an arrest on the part of the usurer, on the 
plea of Delmaine’s quitting the country. In 
prison he is visited by his unofiending mis- 
tress, with an offer of money, which she had 
raised by pawning her jewels; he repulses 
her roughly and sternly, till, in the agony 
of her distress, she falls and bursts a blood- 
vessel. Scarcely was the miserable girl re- 
moved, when his old friend arrives, com- 
missioned by Miss Stanley, who had acci- 
dentally learnt his imprisonment, and who 
had also pawned he diamonds, to release 
him. The debt is thus paid—Delmaine is 
released—his unhappy mistress dies, and is 
thus put out of the way. A reconciliation 
follows, with Miss Stanley and his friends— 
the salons are forsworn, &c. 


Diversions of Holycott ; 1829.—This is 
one of the best conceived and best executed 
little books, we have seen, of the Edgeworth 
cast. Utility, improvement of intellect, and 
correction of feeling, are constantly in the 
writer’s eye, and her measures and methods 
are blended with as little nonsense—as little, 
we mean, beyond the reach of the age she 
writes for—as any thing can well be ima- 
gined. The family of Holycott consists of 
two boys and two girls, and an occasional 
cousin or two, of different ages, from seven 
or eight to fourteen or fifteen—the eldest 
girl has some lurking conceit and vanity— 
the youngest already a little Minerva; the 
eldest boy a sage lad, and quite a protector 
and example for the rest, and the youngest, . 
a fine bold and generous little fellow, des- 
tined for the navy, and ready to fight for his 
friends, right or wrong—while the cousin is 
comparatively incorrigible — corrupted by 
the vices of a public school. The tares that 
spring up occasionally, are carefully weeded 
by the skilful husbandry of a model of . 
mothers—cool, steady, and enlightened. 
To secure attention in reading, she con- 
trives little narratives, with omissions of 
words, which the reader must supply as he 
goes, to make an intelligible meaning—a 
scheme suggested originally, we believe, by 
Gilchrist, who, though a bit of an enthusiast, 
is a very shrewd and active person, and only 
wants ballast to make him a very useful 
one. The book is a valuable addition to 
the nursery library. 


Visits to the Religious World; 1829.— 
There exist among us—every neighbour- 
hood discovering to its great annoyance—a 
set of persons styling themselves “ professing 
Christians,’? whose chief characteristic is a 
meddling, inquisitorial, intolerant spirit— 
the leaders of bible societies—schools—mis- 
sions—bazaar-works—a class of persons, 
who entertain no doubts at all of their own 
immeasurable superiority to those about 
them, and in virtue of this assumed supe- 
riority, take upon them to canvass the con- 
duct of all with whom they come in contact, 
censure those who shun their society, and 
domineer over all who are unhappy enough 
to share the services they ostentatiously con- 


1829.] 


fer. The volume before us, though it dis- 
claims the being written for the purpose of 
exposing and shewing up their failings, does 
undoubtedly, with a good deal of justice 
and success, do so, though not at all ill- 
naturedly, nor satirically, or at least: very 
slighily so; and only so far as it is subser- 
vient to the final object of inculeating cal- 
“vinistic doctrines of the more exalted cast— 
those of Newton, Beveridge, and Romaine. 

Those, who desire to know what these 
doctrines really are, will, in this little book, 
find them more in detail, more explicitly 
and more advantageously enforced than in 
any volume we could immediately lay our 
hand upon. We notice it more as a matter of 
literary curiosity than of doctrinal import- 
ance ; we do not ourselves adopt these dec- 
trines, nor, on the other hand, are we dis- 
posed to ridicule those who do. The per- 
Sons who can fully enter into them and 
Share them, must be pre-eminently happy ; 
but we have no notion of the permanence of 
them. They are of an intoxicating kind, 
and must have their re-action. The pro- 
fessors are nevertheless the only consistent 

_ class of Christians. They do not profess 
one thing, and exhort to another. Others 
profess a total reliance upon the Saviour—in- 
sist upon the operations of the spirit—and 
affirm all are vicious, and all are unprofitable ; 
but in the teeth of all this they talk of duties 
and exertions, and perseverance. Whereas the 
Calvinists (we scarcely know how to desig- 
nate them) not only throw themselves in full 
dependence upon the Saviour, but do not 
talk of duties and doings. They are 
miserable sinners—but the gospel is gospel 
—is good news, and what has good news to 
do with duties? This unconditional re- 
liance is productive, we doubt not, of hap- 
piness, because it is accompanied with 
assurance of divine guidance—the soul is 
absorbed in contemplating the effects. of 
personal favour, and so long as these im: 
pressions are vivid and absorbing, they 
must operate upon the conduct. Negligence 
it cannot produce—supineness is incom- 
patible—for that is the fruit of forgetful- 
ness; and the feelings of, we may almost 
‘term it, union with the Deity, cannot consist 
‘with profligacy or obliquity. The difficulty 
is to conceive the permanence of this, which 
is surely a state of exaltation and enthu- 
siasm; and the evil is—the liability to 
misapprehension, which is almost sure to be 
the case with uncultivated persons—and 
chence the danger of an indiscriminate pub- 
lication of such ambiguous doctrines. The 
yotaries of these opinions believe them of 
divine authority, and of course do not hold 
themselves responsible for the consequences 
of what is—of God; and thus, of course, 
also, are inaccessible to the force of any 
logic which depends mainly or solely upon 
human experience. Absit invidia. 

We extract a specimen of a “yisit” to a 
religious meeting, which, we have no doubt, 
occurred to the letter. : 

M.M. New Scries.—V ov. VU. No, 41. 


Domestic and F oreign. 


545 


There was a large assemblage of persons, the 
proportion of ladies nine to one gentleman, and the 
former mostly ranged together; they entered the 
room with a slow silent step,each bearing a work- 
bag, or a box containing implements of industry, 
and papers accounting for the distribution of 
money laid ont in charity: when they accosted 
each other, it was in a low voice or whisper; the 
gentleman rather less timid, though all evidently 
under some restraint, addressed one another in a 
subdued tone, one oceasionally rising to approach 
within safe distance of the friend he wished to 
address, and standing before him in an attitude 
of constraint. 

The ladies whispered to cach other theif ex- 
ertions amoug the poor ; books were inspected by 
the treasurer, and new powers conferred ; fresh 
plans laid for enforcing economy in the domestic 
arrangements of the poor, whose want of manage- 
ment and frugality were strongly reprobated ; 
some asserting that they could maintain five 
families on the same weekly income which their 
thriftless neighbours squandered on one. One 
lady madera heavy complaint against a labourer’s 
wife, who suffered her two elder girls to go to 
school barefooted and without frocks, while it was 
proved that her husband earned nine shillings a 
week, which was surely enough to buy bread, 
and clothe themselves, and their seven children. 
Another lady taking a more lenient view, thought 
it might be difficult to find shoes and frocks for so 
many upon that sum. She was answered that 
the mother might take in washing or needle-work. 
To which she replied, that she conceived the 
seven children would require all her time and 
attention. The other lady instanced a poor family 
who had only seven shillings for ten of them, and 
contrived to make it suffice. Her friend said, that 
they of her own society might equally make their 
income answer double its present purposes by de- 
priving themselves of a meal or two daily. It was 
at last agreed by the committee, that the shoeless 
and frockless girls should for once be allowed to 
remain in the school, provided they made the 
shoes and frocks, which the generosity of the 
above-mentioned lady engaged to provide, last for 
the entire year. 


Peace Campaigns of a Cornet, 3 vols., 
12mo. ; 1629.—Every body has some cu- 
riosity about what he cannot personally get 
at; and therefore he is obliged to any one 
who profters a communication, whateyer be 
the style or taste in which it is made, whe- 
ther with humour or without—gaily or 
gravely ; nor should he be too nice in exact- 
ing—let him not look a gift horse in the 
mouth. The details of professional advyen- 
ture are inaccessible, for the most part, to all 
who are without the pale of the profession— 
a number, which we fervently hope—even 
against hope—will grow less and less, as a 


sense of the iniquity of war spreads more 


and more. The life of a soldier or a sailor 
can be known in its peculiarities and fami- 
liarities by none but soldiers and sailors, and 
none, of course, but soldiers and sailors can 
make the communication. The peace cam- 
paigns of a young soldier are perhaps of no 
great promise, but the condition has_ its 
peculiarities—it is one of the scenes of 
4A 


546 


*¢ many-coloured life ;”? and if we cannot 
know too much, even of the possibilities, 
we cannot, surely, of the realities of society. 
The writer of the volumes before us pro- 
fesses to furnish realities ; and though the 
details are not of a very instructive or strik- 
ing interest, they are capable of exciting, in 
certain states of the diaphragm, a hearty 
laugh or two, and are probably the best his 
experience could supply. The performance 
may, perhaps, prompt others, who have more 
to communicate; and thus, after the fashion 
of Falstaff, he may not only be funny him- 
self, but awake the recollections of fun in 
others. 

The hero of the piece is the son of a Cork 
merchant—a dealer in bacon and butter, 
who is seized with a passion for a red coat, 
and finally abandons the desk for a cornetcy 
of dragoons. He is in love, too, with a 
neighbouring rector’s daughter, though he 
shas never told his love; and the develop- 
ment of these softer feelings, with the oppo- 
sition he meets with, and his final triumph, 
make up the plot of the story ; but all this 
is of so insignificant, or, at least now-a-days, 
of so common a kind, that it is not at all 
worth while to waste good paper in tracing 
the steps of it. Nor is the story by any 
means the writer’s prime object—that is 
rather 4n exhibition of professional scenes 
and occasional adventure. The new cornet 
joins his regiment at a small town in Ire- 
land, and a large space is occupied with his 
initiations into the socialities, or rather the 
debaucheries of the mess, and the mysteries 
of the drill, told with some relish of humour, 
surely ; but the incidents generally are of 
too boisterous and schoolboy-like a cast, to 
ensure sympathy, except among the rude 
brothers of the mess. The first night, in 
‘spite of all resolution and actual resistance, 
he is made dead drunk, and left by the party 
‘laid out as a corpse, on the table, with 
candles placed round him, and regularly 
waked. Though cheated at the first start, 
‘by an officer of the corps, in the purchase of 
a horse—this is universally, we believe, a 
very venial offence among gentlemen of this 
cast—he is pretty much on the qui vive, 
and sharp enough to get through his novi- 
‘ciate with tolerable credit. The riding- 
master he softens by a well-timed purchase, 
and the adjutant’s good-will he secures by 
giving punch-parties. One of the first acts 
of service is a still hunt, that is, aiding an 
excise-officer in seizing illicit distillers. The 
party were, in this case, baffled by the dex- 
terity of an urchin of ten or twelve ; and every 
intelligent and considerate person must wish 
for the same result in every case, and depre- 
cate the continuance ofa system that requires 
a military force to support it. These moun- 
tain makers of potheen—like smugglers and 
poachers—are created by the laws, and by 
unequal laws; for they tempt the poor into 
crime for the benefit of the rich. Prohibi- 
tions of this kind are against natural feel- 
‘ings, and undemanded for the security, or 


° 


: Monthly Review of Literature, 


[May, 


for any general advantage of society. But 
the particular adventure, from which we 
have thus been led, is well told, and must 
be classed among the best morceaua of the 
book—the best hit at a description of active 
scenes. Considerable efforts are made in 
getting up the ludicrous and perilous—par- 
ticularly crossing a torrent in a post-chaise— 
a sort of mock corporation scene of glut- 
tony, at Cork—and a Sunday dinner, given 
by a man more prompt in offering hospi- 
talities than affording them; but there is 
too often in these efforts a want of concen- 
trating object—a certain hardness and angu- 
larity in the details—the consequence of a 
want of practice, probably—which has occa- 
sionally a very disappointing effect: they 
fall dead-born. 

At Clonmell, during the assizes, the cor- 
net visits the court, and listens to a trial, 
which is, at all events, no bad caricature, if 
it be not, as is probable enough, a faithful 
portraiture of the scene. On struggling 
through the crowd, he found the clerk of 
the crown calling on the prisoners. 


Clerk.— Patrick Gilloughly, are you ready for 
your trial?” 

Prisoner.—* Na, my lord.” 

Clerk,—Well, you must be ready to-morrow. 
Timothy Spillaan, are you ready for your trial?” 

Prisoner.—* My lard,my wutnesses arn’t come 
yit ; they’ll be here a Monday.” 

Clerk.—*« The court can wait no longer, you 
promised to be ready yesterday. Gentlemen of 
the jury, you are to understand, that in No, 203, 
Timothy Spillaan stands indicted, for that he, not 
having the fear of God before his eyes, but being 
moved and seduced by the instigation of the 
devil—” 

Prisoner.—* Och, my lard, my lard, I’m as 
innocent as the shyld unborn.” 

Clerk.—* Hold your tongue, Sir; his lordship 
will hear you, by and by.—On the third May 
&e. &c. with a certain oak stick, value six 
pence.” 

Prisoner.—* Och, my lard, my lard, I didn’t do 
it.” 

Clerk.—‘* Silence, Sir.—Which he, the said 
Timothy Spillaan, then and there held, did assault 
one Patrick Hurliby; and in and upon his head 
did give him one mortal wound, of the breadth 


of three inches, and of the depth of four inches, 
&e. mo.” 


This is followed by the counsel for the 
crown, who states the particulars of the 
case, and that in astyle of peculiarity, which, 
no doubt, will be readily recognized by 
those who are acquainted with the Irish bar. 
Then comes forward a witness. 


Counsel.—* Did you know Patrick Hurlihy?”’ 

Witness.—(pretending not to hear, and in- 
clining his body towards the counsel)—“ What’s 
that, Sir?” 

Counsel.—“ Did you know Patrick Hurlihy ?” 

Witness —* DidI know him?” 

‘Counsel.—* Yes, Sir ;—did you know him?” ~ 

Witness.—* Did 1 know bim?” 

Judge.—* Why don’t you answer the question, 
witness? Did youknow him?” 


— 


—— 


er 


1829.] 


Witness.—(with much impatience, as if he 
thought that the counsel knew this as well as 
himself, but was affecting ignorance for some 
sinister purpose)—‘ Why to be sure [ did.” 

Counsel. Is he living or dead ?” 

Witness.— Living or dead?” 

Judge.—** Why don’t you answer the question, 
witness? I shall put you into the dock if you 
don’t. Come; Sir, is he living or dead?—answer 
that gentieman.” 

Witness.—(adyancing close up to the counsel, 
and looking him in the face, as mueh as to say, 
“ T now see clearly you are trying to humbug me, 
but I'll show you that I am not such a spalpeen 
as you take me for” )—‘‘ Damned well; you know 
he’s dead,” 


The prisoner’s counsel appears, in the 
person of O’Connell, who presently gets into 
a wrangle with the judge, on a point of law, 
relative to cuts and contusions—the counsel 
insisting that the length and breadth of a 
cut must be proved, the length and breadth 
of a contusion need not. How the matter 
ended, appears not, for the able reporter left 
the court before, &c. 

The lack of variety and adventure in Ire- 
land must, of course, have wearied the luck- 
less cornet, and he looked forward to a 
change of quarters with great satisfaction, 
especially England for Ireland. But Bir- 
mingham proves as uneventful as Ireland ; 
and page after page, to the number of fifty 
or sixty, is occupied with the details of a 
stratagem to drive the major out of the bar- 
racks, who, with his meddling and medicine- 
loving wife, had encroached upon the offi- 
cers’ apartments. This will suit some tastes 
admirably. To further his views of ad- 
vancement, the cornet is finally induced to 
go to Sandhurst, where officers of all ages 
and commissions are admitted in statu pu- 
pillari. The machinery of this institution, 
which we have no doubt is faithfully shewn 
up, constitutes the chief novelty of the book. 
Among the regulations of this precious esta- 


blishment, it seems, the students are required 


to attend the Hall of Study, not to be in- 
structed, but literally to study, or affect to 
study, or even notaftect to do so, for there is 
no controlling power present. For the most 
part, the hours are wasted in a sort of boy- 
ish frolicking, even by the older men; 
and the reading men, if there are ever any 
after the first week or two, are, of course, 
the objects of attack by the idlers. Our 
hero had some desire to get on, and, cutting 
the hall, pursued his studies quietly in his 
own apartment, for which he was quickly 
called before the governor. The cornet 
defended himself, and assured the governor 
that he not only copied the questions of 
Dalby’s Mathematics, which were already 
solved, but even worked the extra ques- 
tions. ‘This, however, was, by no means 
satisfactory to the governor; for how 
could the cornet know when he was 
right? In vain he urged that he thought 
himself secure, when the results corres- 
ponded with the answers furnished by Dal- 


Domestic and Foreign. 


547 


by; the goyernor insisted that the pu- 
pil’s presence in the hall was the essential 
act, for that alone could be admitted as evi- 
dence of study. That alone appears in the 
weekly reports, and the professor’s testi- 
mony is nothing without it. In spite of all 
testimony, if your name does not appear in 
he report, the general officers will be at 
once convinced you know nothing, &c. 
This, of course, is a personal hit. 


German Poetical Anthology, by A. Ber- 
nays ; 1829.—This is a judicious and ele- 
gant selection, comprising specimens of all 
the distinguished writers in the poetical re- 
cords of Germany. The aim of the very 
respectable selector has been to combine 
two, perhaps not very compatible, objects— 
at once to furnish a reading manual for the 
first stages, and a literary guide for the suc- 
ceeding ones of the German student. His 
excuse is, that the cultivators of German 
literature, in this country, are still too few 
to warrant an attempt to separate the two— 
to make two books, that is, each more spe- 
cific—because there are not enough to buy 
them. 


The specimens are preceded by an his- 
torical sketch of German poetry. The 
earliest surviving pieces are a few fragments 
of the Carlovingean period, of a very un- 
licked description. In the 12th century 
commenced the splendid era of the Suabian 
emperors, when the Minne-singers, with 
monarchs and nobles, vied with each other 
on subjects of love and chivalry in strains 
scarcely inferior to the Troubadours and 
Trouveurs of France. Among the compo- 
sitions of this period are the Epics of Nie- 
belungen and Book of Heroes, the latter of 
which, records some of the traditions of the 
days of Attila. The language of these 
poems, the editor describes as simple and 
harmonious—much more so than the literary 
language of the present day. With the fall 
of the house of Suabia declined the poetry 
of Germany. Private feuds and foreign 
wars brutalized the nobles, and silenced the 
minstrels. The muse, if muse she might 
still be called, took refuge in the free cities, 
and presided over the dull fraternities of the 
Meister-singers, who made verses and called 
them poetry. Hans Sacks, the Nuremberg 
cobler, deserves to be distinguished among 
them. The 17th century reopened a new 
era for something that better deserved the 
name of poetry. Opitz, a Silesian, is the 
chief, and he and his followers constitute the 
first Silesian school ; for in the latter part of 
the same century figured another school, 
called the second Silesian, the chiefs of 
whom are characterized by the editor, as 
better versifiers and worse poets—deluging 
the country with trash, which, however, 
suited the coarse taste of the readers. The 
early part of the 18th century is marked by 
the Lower Saxon school, which, though cold 
and feeble, was more refined in matter and 
Ma re To this succeeded the ‘ Leipsic,” 

4A2 


548 


producing few eminent writers, but memor- 
able for the dominion exercised by Gotts- 
ched, whose models were exclusively French. 
The tyranny of this leader was resisted by 
the Swiss Bodmer and Breitenger, the pa- 
trons of the English models, and under 
their vigorous exertions, succumbed the 
authority of Gottsched. The subsequent 
history of German poetry is better known, 
and we conclude our brief notice, with the 
editor’s reply to the charge of sentimentality 
and mysticism usually urged against Ger- 
man literature. 

As to the first (says he) it cannot be denied that 
from the time Giethe wrote his Werter and Mil- 
ler his Siegwart, Germany was deluged with sen- 
timental novels and plays, calculated to emascu- 
late even the most robust minds; nor could poetry 
entirely escape the lacrymose infection. But sen- 
timentality has never been one of its charac- 
teristics; and thanks to the stern realities of the 
times in which we have lately lived, my country- 
men are now almost. radically cured of this 
malady, 

But the charge of mysticism, as a general one, 
is unfounded. The German language supplies 
many terms for the mysterious emotions of the 
mind, which are not found in English. The ex- 
istence of such peculiar expressions naturally 
produces peculiar and more profound methods of 
reasoning, which render inany of our philosophical 
writings, and even some of our didactic poems, 
unintelligible to those who like to read, ‘‘ as they 
run.’ For such, there certainly is much mysti- 
cism in German literature; but it soon disappears 
to those who are in the habit of applying thought 
to the productions of thought. 


The volume contains also biographical 
notices of all the poets quoted. 


Apician Morsels, §c. by Dick Humelber- 
gius Secundus ; 182G.—The votaries of the 
kitchen and Dr. Kitchiner—and who are 
not votaries of the Dit Culinarii 2—will, 
no doubt, find ample materials in this olio 
to tickle their palates, though they may 
have to dip and plunge their forks or feelers 
into the mess more than once before they 
fish up any thing precisely to their taste. 
The truth is, here are conglomerated, by 
singular industry of research, all sorts of 
matters, any thing and every thing, that 
could, by ingenuity, and even violence, be 
twisted into any connexion with the science 
of good eating—and all in most admired 
disorder. Here are gravities upon tempe- 
rance, and gaieties upon gluttony ; maxims 
from Hippocrates to Cornaro, and from Cor- 
naro to Cullen—memorable sayings of me- 
morable gowrmands, and still more memo- 
rable doings—truths masked by ironies, and 
absurdities by puns and parodies—receipts 
for punch and prescriptions for pills—the 
bane and antidote—dainties of yore, and 
delicacies of the day—miseries and feli- 
cities—advice to Amphitrions, and warn- 
ings to parasites—with sundry other anti- 
theses, too numerous to mention—_together 
with endless allusions, and abundant ex. 
tracts from the Al/manach des Gourmands, 
and a multitude of other French publications, 


Monthly Review of Literature. 


[ May, 


on the subject of eatics, of which we con- 
fess ourselves in most unenviable ignorance, 
and quite incompetent to dive into the mys- 
teries that crowd upon us, and wrap us ina 
cloud of more than Egyptian darkness. 


Hunc igitur terrorem animi tenebrasque ne cesse 
est f 

Non radii solis neque lucida tela diei 

Discutiant, sed natura—edendique cupido. 


An Analysis of the Second Decade of 
Livy, chronologically arranged on Two 
Charts, by Fred. Russell. M.A.; 1829.— 
This, it may be presumed, was originally 
executed to assist the analyser himself to 
encounter some examination, perhaps, and 
very effectual assistance it probably furnish- 
eds but we have no notion it can assist ano- 
ther to the same extent. Like causes, like 
effects, and, we have little doubt, the same 
result—a clear and full possession of the 
contents—can only be obtained by a similar 
process, or some equivalent labour. It is 
the very effort of such a reduction that fixes 
—not glancing over the tabular statements 
of another’s analysis. More is perhaps 
grasped for the moment, and for immediate 
shew, but we are pretty confident it will 
slip from the memory, as readily as water 
through the fingers. Nevertheless, a thing 
of this kind is good for reference—for re- 
freshing facts and dates. 

No part of Livy is so generally read as 
this of the Second Punic War; but the 
narrative is so broken and detached, by 
being thrown into the form of annals, that 
it is extremely difficult, especially by such 
as are learning the language at the same 
time, to keep up with the connexion. Year 
by year the author details the events of the 
city and the seats of war, and the reader is 
driven from Italy to Sardinia, and Spain, 
and Africa, to pursue cotemporary details ; 
but that is the fault of the writer, or rather, 
perhaps, of the subject, which is incapable of _ 
strict unity, or more compact statement. In 
one respect the order is natural enough—it 
is that of councils and results—but it fails 
in continuity ; matters might have been more 
insensibly, and, in the same proportion, 
more agreeably mixed. Mr. Russell has, 
however, analyzed the whole; and the 
materials, by the aid of two of the “ broad- 
est”’ sheets—some nine square feet—he has 
contrived to throw into two tables, which, 
studied previously and simultaneously with 
the narrative, cannot fail of facilitating the 
reader’s acquisition, and keeping things in 
his mind all in their proper places. Truly, 
with all the aids that are now daily supply- 
ing, the student will soon have no occasion 
for his own intellect—all will be done me- 
chanically, and steaming will soon be as 
common as “ grinding.” We begin to 
wish we were young again, when we think 
of our own comparatively unaided faggings. 
The rising generation will put their fathers 
to shame. But, seriously, though much 
may be superfluous, we cannot think it will 
be all thrown away. 


1829.) 


[ 549 J 


FINE ARTS’ EXHIBITIONS. 


TuHE spring Exhibitions being in full 
play, the best thing the critic can do is to 
fairly confess his occupation ‘ gone,”’ for 
the time being : unless indeed he can invent 
a stenographical mode of performing his 
office. This not being our case, we can 
only pretend to glance at the various matters 
that ask our attention ; and this, chiefly with 
a view to make our readers acquainted with 
the general character of each of the various 
objects we have to place before them ; inorder 
that all may judge for themselves as to which 
of those objects it may be suitable to exa- 
mine, and which to pass by. 

Society of British Artists.—The most 
Striking and important of the exhibitions 
opened since our last is the collection of 
paintings at the rooms of the above-named 
society in Pall ‘Mall east; and by far the 
most important object in this exhibition is a 
picture by Mr. Roberts (the scene painter of 
Coyent Garden Theatre) on the subject of 
“ The Israelites going up out of Egypt.” 
This very clever and striking work has, no 
doubt, been snggested by the peculiar style 
of Mr. Martin, and much of its effect is pro- 
duced by means similar to, or rather the 
same with, those employed by the artist last 
named ; that is to say, by a certain arrange- 
ment of architectural lines, according to the 
exact .rules of perspective. These lines, 
being connected with other objects, and 
arranged with a view to certain preconceived 
associations and feelings, produce an effect 
of extent, of distance, and of architectural 
grandeur united, which nothing else can. 
But this is not the sole merit of Mr. 
Roberts’s work. He has displayed great 
skill in the management of his distances, 
and produged an extraordinary effect in this 

articular ; and he has evinced considerable 
knowledge of the mechanical resources of his 
art in various other respects. But, we are 
bound to add, that it is the mechanical 
resources alone of his art that he has em- 
ployed in the present instance, or even 
attempted to employ. His work addresses 
itself to the eye, and to that alone; and 
even that it appeals to in a manner, and to 
an effect, altogether vague and general, not 
to say visionary. 

We are sorry to report that this exhibition 
includes scarcely one other work claiming 
particular mention in a brief summary like 
that which we are this month called upon to 
give. There is one very clever, but not very 
agreeable picturc, by Stanfield; a gentle- 
man’s seat; a very charming view of a pic- 
turesque Vale in the county of Cumber- 
land, by Hofland—a work of great merit, and 
some few good portraits. But, upon the whole 
the present exhibition is decidedly inferior 
to any that have preceded it; and this, no 
less in its positive than its negative defi- 
ciencies—no less in the bad pictures that it 
includes, than. in the good ones that it 


lacks. We do not of course mean to state 
that there would be any difficulty in pointing 
out several very meritorious ‘works if our 
limits would permit; but we do mean to 
state, that none could be pointed out worthy 
of a detailed critical description. 

In the sculpture room of this exhibition 
we notice several busts, and some groups 
and single statues, of great; and indeed 
striking merit ; and to these we may possi- 
bly be induced to return hereafter. 

Haydon’s Eucles.—Next in importance, 
perhaps, to the above, is Mr. Haydon’s un- 
finished picture on the subject of Eucles. 
We scarcely know whether to approve or 
condemn this new experiment, of placing a 
picture before the public eye, in a state in 
which no eye but that of the painter himself 
can pretend to judge of it, because none can 
imagine what it is even intended to be wken 
finished. The outline and grouping can 
alone be criticised—the general effect, or the 
individual expressions, not even guessed at. 
With respect to the former of these, the 
composition, it strikes us as being worthy of 
very considerable praise. The whole busi- 
ness and interest of the scene are clustered 
and gathered around the principal figure, 
Eucles, in a yery judicious and effective 
manner. Every feeling, every action, every 
expression, seems‘ to spring from, and 
centre itself in him ; while he, on the other 
hand, is utterly absorbed and lost in the in- 
ternal struggle between death and life, which 
is on the point of ending in favor of the 
former at the moment represented in the 
picture. He has reached the threshold of 
his own dwelling—his wife and children are 
rushing out to meet and greet him—the 
people are crowding round to hail and 
honor him—and he himself is uttering the 
accents of victory—when death gains the 
mastery, and he is falling to the ground as 
the last words quit his lips. The only 
figures in this scene that are in a state to be 
judged of are those of Eucles, and of a man 
who is rushing ferward to receive him as he 
falls. The Eucles we cannot entirely 
approve of, either in regard to design, ex- 
pression, or coloring: the first is forced and 
unnatural; the second is not either very 
forcible or very distinct; and the last is 
heavy and unpleasant, speaking of it as a 
single object. But the figure which is 
rushing forward to catch Eucles as he falls, 
is executed with great power, and produces 
a most lively and spirited effect upon the 
scene. We have no hesitation in saying 
that if Mr. Haydon finishes the whole work 
in a manner corresponding with this figme, 
it will be the very best he has ever painted. 

The Montgomery Gallery.—An exhibi- 
tion has been opened in Regent-street under 
the above title, and it consists of ten large 
pictures, each taken from some one scene in 
each of the ten cantos of “ The World 


550 


before the Flood.’’ It was a hazardous 
attempt to describe “ the world before the 
flood ;”’? but to paint it—to place its visible 
forms before the bodily eye—is one still more 
hazardous ; and we cannot pronounce that 
the attempt has been attended by success, 
Some of the scenes depicted have an imagi- 
native air about them that has its birth in the 
general truth of nature, and therefore appeals 
(however vaguely) to the almost instinctive 
feeling of that truth which pervades the 
human mind. But there is a falsehood in 
the details, and a heavy, unmeaning, mono- 
tonous character in the general effects, which 
render the set of works of little or no value, 
either as illustrations of the poem, or as in- 
dividual scenes, bearing their own intrinsic 
merit upon the face of them. Upon the 
whole, therefore, we must pronounce the 
exhibition a striking instance of much time, 
and some talent, nearly thrown away, unless 
indeed the pictures have been executed to 
some ‘* order,” or with some express view 
with which we are unacquainted. 

British Diorama.—F our new views have 
been just opened to the public at this place. 
They are executed with some skill, and the 
effects of light and shade are managed in 
them with great success; but the pictures 
themselves are, with one exception, of com- 
paratively little value. The village of 
Verex, by Stanfield, is worth the other three 
ten times told. It is painted with that inti- 
mate and intuitive feeling for the truth, 
which this distinguished artist possesses in a 
degree not surpassed by any of his cotempo- 
raries, and not equalled by more than three 
or four of them. The other scenes consist 
of a view of York Minster, first by twilight, 
and in its late form and character, and 
afterwards during the catastrophe which 
destroyed so much of its unequalled beauty ; 
a view of the interior of an old Church in 
Normandy, Saint Sauveur’s ; and a view of 
the temple of Apollinopolis in Egypt. The 
view of the Cathedral is by Stanfield; and 
we must pronounce it an entire failure under 
both its aspects, but particularly the burning. 
Nothing can be worse managed than the 
effects sought to be preduced; and we 
cannot persuade ourselves that Mr. Stanfield 
has had eyen the direction, much less the 
execution of them. The other two scenes 
are by Roberts. The interior of the ruined 
church is good, particularly when illumined 
by the artificial sunshine. Nothing can be 
more complete than the illusion in this case. 
The temple is not so good; but it is, 
perhaps, better worth looking at than any of 
the other scenes, if we may receive it as an 
authentic representation of the place. 

Panorama of Pandemonium.—The only 
other exhibition that we can notice this 
month is Mr. Burford’s new Panorama, 
representing Pandemonium as described in 
Milton’s Paradise Lost. This picture has, 
no doubt, been suggested by Mr. Martin’s 
productions ofa similar kind, and chiefly by 
his illustrations of the same poem; but it 


Fine Arts Exhibitions. 


[May, 


has great merit nevertheless, and great origi- 
nality ; and many portions of it are executed 
in a manner, and with an effect, that the 
original inventor of this style of composition 
might in vain hope to surpass. It is true 
that in many parts the colouring is altoge- 
ther gratuitous; and in others it is worse 
than so, for it is impossible; that is to say, 
the various tints that we see blended together 
could by no possibility have existed in con- 
tact and combination with each other. But 
the truth is, that panoramas are painted for 
effect. None of them—not even the very 
best that has been offered to public notice, 
and gained public admiration, since their 
first invention—could haye borne a criticism 
founded on any of the received rules of art ; 
and therefore the panorama which produces 
the best popular effect is the best panorama. 
On this principle, the present will compete 
with most of its predecessors; and will 
assuredly deserve all the praise and admira- 
tion thatit gains, provided the former be 
not awarded to it on mistaken grounds. 
NEW ENGRAVINGS. 

Martin’s Deluge, Danby’s Passage of 
the Red Sea.—The press of other matter, 
at this busy season of the year, makes it 
absolutely impossible for us to do justice to 
the new engravings that have reached us 
within the last few weeks. The works, on 
account of which we chiefly regret this, are 
two superb mezzotints, one from “ The 
Deluge”’- of Martin, and the other from 
Danby’s fine picture, ‘“‘ The Passage of the 
Red Sea.’’ Perhaps, in order to entirely 
neutralize and put to shame some of the 
most plausible among the adverse criticisms 
that have been pronounced on these two dis- 
tinguished artists, nothing more is needed 
than to look at these engravings from.two 
of their principal works. It is conceived by 
many that the peculiar effects ofiihose works 
are, in a great measure, produced by the © 
singular and novel (and as it is alleged, the 
unnatural) mode and tone of theircolowring. 
If so, to engrave them: would be at once to 
get ridof this fertile source of popular appro- 
bation. But is there, in point of fact, any 
striking difference felt, or any remarkable 
deficiency observed, in the engravings now 
before us, as compared with the coloured 
works from which they are taken? We deci- 
dedly answer no: so far from it, we conceive 
that, in some respects, the peculiar merits of 
the works are not increased, but made 
more manifest, by thus divesting them of 
that adventitious effect which colour alone 
can give to a pictorial representation. It is 
one of the most decisive criteriafordetermin- 
ing the merit of a poetical composition, to 
try if it will bear translating into a foreign 
language, or even into prose: if it will, the 
great essential of all poetical composition— 
the chief material—the thought, the senti- 
ment, and the imagery—are there. And 
precisely thus it is with compositions of the 
nature of Martin and Danby’s best works: 


1829.] Fine Arts’ 


they are essentially poetical in their nature ; 
and to engrave them, is to translate them 
into a foreign language, or into prose. That 
they will bear this process, that is to say, if 
skilfully and judiciously performed, and by 
a hand guided by a kindred, or the same 
spirit, the plates before us fully testify ; and 
this, perhaps, is all the criticism that we need 
pronounce upon those plates; especially as 
the original works are so universally known 
and appreciated. 

North elevation of St. Paul’s Cathedral. 
Gladwin.—The unrivalled beauties (for un- 
rivalled we must believe them to be) of our 
national Protestant Cathedral, have hitherto 
been most strangely neglected and over- 
looked ; and this no less among artists than 
the general public. The present is among 
the very best attempts we have witnessed to 
place those beauties and merits in a shape 
which will ensure them the attention and 
admiration which they so well deserve. It 
is an entirely detached and architectural 
view of the north elevation of the Cathedral. 
Its execution is exceedingly careful; and 
there is a delicacy of hand about it which is 
much more appropriate to subjects of this 


Exhibitions. 55k 


kind than is generally supposed. There is 
something spirited and original about the 
architectural engravings of Piranesi and the 
artists of that school; but we doubt if the 
effect of what they have produced is so true 
and so appropriate to the subject matter as 
works executed in the formal manner of the 
one before us: for architecture is a formal 
art altogether, and is not susceptible of 
being illustrated in what is understood by 
picturesque style of execution. : 

View of Cologne. By Kernot, from a 
picture by Stanfield.—Though altogether 
different in its style of execution from the 
engraving just noticed, the present is equally 
effective, because equally appropriate to its 
subject matter. The foreground is as forci- 
ble and brilliant, as the distances are tender 
and truly touched. All the figures (even to 
those which are almost invisible, touched 
out here and there in the distance) have the 
air of life which they received from the pencil 
of the original artist ; and the Cathedral has 
an effect of misty and mysterious beauty 
which even the original was certainly 
without: for nothing can produce this effect 
so perfectly as the burin skilfully wielded. 


VARIETIES, SCIENTIFIC AND MISCELLANEOUS. 


THE incalculable advantages which the 
Quarterly Journal of Science derives from 
its astronomical and nautical collections have 
induced the Proprietors of Tur MontTHLY 
MaAGazine to spare no expense to obtain 
‘the inyaluable assistance of the compiler of 
them ; unfortunately, his professional avoca- 
tions in public and private practice, his 
‘Rumerous duties as secretary, inspector, ad- 
viser, calculator, computor, projector, transla- 
tor, and decipherer, haye prevented his 
ing mo: an withhold some occultations 
of science from the forthcoming number of 
e Royal Institution Journal, and transfer 
em to our more lucrative pages. 
Almanacs.—About nine or ten years ago 
the editors of Moore’s Almanac attempted 
-to improve the work placed under their direc- 
tion by discarding the monthly column con- 
_ taining the moon’s supposed influence on 
the several members of the human body ; 
__ and as an experiment to ascertain the feel- 
ing of the public on the occasion, printed at 
first only 100,000 copies. But the omission 
Was soon detected, nearly the whole edition 
Was returned on their hands, and they were 
obliged to reprint the favourite column.. The 
total annual sale of this work by the Station- 
ers’ Company is nearly half a million copies, 
besides pirated editions of about 100,000 
copies, and two or three reprints of it in 
France—one at Boulogne, the other at 
Paris. The column of predictions of the 
weather in this almanac is regarded by the 
lower classes with peculiar respect; the 
coachman of an eminent astronomer assured 


7 
‘ 


his master that he always consulted it to 
learn if it would rain, as he might know 
thereby whether or not to clean the carriage 
harness. 

Eclipses.—During the time that L. F. La- 
lande superintended the Royal Observatory 
in Paris, not long, indeed, before the revolu- 
tion, a party from the court proceeded to the 
observatory to see an eclipse, which was to 
take place on the day in question. When 
they arrived Lalande was occupied, and 
there was no admission; they desired the 
astronomer to be informed they had come 
to witness the eclipse. An answer was re- 
turned that the eclipse was over. ‘“ Let 
him know,” exclaimed one of the indignant 
courtiers, * that the Duc de 4 the Du- 
chesse de , the Marquis de ——, &c. 
&c. are waiting, and we expect the eclipse 
to be repeated.” 

At the conclusion of the last century some 
fortuitous circumstances strongly directed 
the attention of the inhabitants of Bologna 
to an eclipse which was about to take place. 
As the hour approached, the people flocked 
in crowds to the great square of the city ; 
many, the ladies especially, were provided 
with chairs, and tranquilly seated themselves, 
as in a theatre, to gaze at the phenomenon. 
The clocks in Bologna were not sufficiently 
accurate, the predicted time of commence- 
ment was apparently past; the spectators 
were impatient, and a general clamour arose, 
to accelerate the movement of the celestial 
bodies. At length the eclipse began ; un- 
luckily it was but a partial one, as after some 


552 


delay was sufficiently perceptible. This was 
too much for the excited minds of the good 
Bolognese, who with one accord began to 
hiss the sun and moon for affording them 
so wretched a spectacle. 

Value of the Greenwich Observations.— 
The Greenwich observations are published 
in a style which may be suited perhaps to 
the magnificence of the country, but at a 
price which puts them beyond the reach of 
most astronomers. Two years since no less 
than jive tons of them were discovered.in an 
old paper shop in Thames-street, near South- 
wark-bridge; two tons and a half were seld 
to a maker of Bristol board, the rest were 
disposed of in smaller lots. An inquiry was 
instituted on the subject by the Royal So- 
ciety, when it was ascertained that the 

_unsold copies of these observations were the 
perquisite of the astronomer royal. In pub- 
lishing his proceedings at such a price as 
almost precluded their being purchased, we 
admire the judgment of Mr. Pond. When 
he himself disposed of them for waste paper, 
he, of course, was best acquainted with their 
yalue. 

Astronomical and Nautical Instruments. 
—France possesses some artists whose skill 
is not surpassed by that of any whom Eng- 
land can boast; at the head of these is 
Gambey, the perfection of whose astronomical 
and nautical instruments is acknowledged 
throughout Europe. On the return of a 
French ship from a voyage of discovery, the 
instruments with which it had been fur- 
nished, and among them was an admirable 
circle by Gambey, were consigned to a dépét 
belonging to the Hotel de la Marine. The 
deputy inspector, who had the care thereof, 
finding that Gambey’s circle, in particular, 
was much tarnished, and moreover had 
divers scratches upon its surface, in his zeal 
for discharging the duties of his office, in- 
trusted a journeyman clockmaker with the 
task of polishing it. In a few days the 
‘clockmaker returned, and presenting the 
instrument, which shone with more than its 
original brightness, expressed some regret 
that a few of the scratches were too deep for 
‘him to efface: The rest, viz. nearly the 
whole of the divisions, were quite oblite- 
rated. 

One of the most celibtated nations 
of Europe, though not for the patronage 
it extends to science, possesses a public 
observatory, for the purposes for which 
it is designed, far surpassing what any 
other kingdom can boast. Yet the ofli- 
cial observer, though furnished with the 
most splendid apparatus that ever was con- 
structed for the advancement of astronomy, 
and far more than he himself and his assist- 
ants ean employ, is always crying, like the 
daughter of the horse leech, ‘‘ Give, give.” 
The fact is, that the‘ worthy man, being 

insufficiently remunerated, receives, like all 
other professional people, a handsome per 
centage on the instruments ordered by 


him. 


Varieties: 


EMay, 


Among the instruments with which. the 
commander of one of the last ships sent on a 
voyage of discovery was furnished, was, of 
course, a transit. Not long after the sailing 
of the vessel, the instrument maker received 
a letter, dated from one of the outports, 
desiring to be informed, by return of post, 
the use of two screws, projecting from the 
eye end of the transit instrument. ‘‘ What 
is to be done with such a fellow as this ?”’ 
said the astonished optician, wondering not 
more at the’ presumption. of the man who, 
with so little practical knowledge, could 
accept such an appointment, than at the 
government who could entrust it to such 
hands. 

Philosophers.—In order that the mercury 
employed for artificial horizons may be free 
from extraneous matters, the aperture 
through which it is poured from the wooden 
bottle containing it, is extremely minute. 
An amateur astronomer, who had provided 
himself with this apparatus, waited upon the 
venerable and eminent artist who had con- 
structed it. “ Mr. ,” said he, “I 
have come to acquaint you with a discovery 
I have made. At first I met with great 
difficulty in getting the mercury belonging 
to the artificial horizon back into the bottle 
through the capillary orifice ; in fact, it was 
impossible, till it occurred to me to place it 
under, and then exhaust the receiver of an 
air-pump, and that is the way I do it.” 
“ This is the way I do it,’’ said the worthy 
optician, unscrewing, at the same time, the 
top of the box, tothe astonishment of the 
ingenious philosopher, who for the purpose 
above-mentioned had actually expended 
twenty or thirty pounds in the purchase of 
an air-pump, which, when it was found to 
be superfluous, was generously taken back 
by the maker at ten Pa less than the 
oviginal price. : 

Two English gentlemen, uch dis- — 
tinguished in the scientific were tra- 
velling through Switzerland a few years 
back, and stopped at the romantic village of 
Chamouni. While there, they happened 
to be measuring, by means of a stick and 
the shadow which the sun projected, the 
height of a tree. Their proceedings at- 
tracted the notice of another traveller, who, 
in the course of the evening, detailed what 
he had witnessed to the wondering fre- 
quenters of the table d’hote. -Doubts were 
expressed as to the correctness of his state- 
ment. The narrator maintained his vera- 
city, John Bull fashion, with a bet; the 
‘proposition was received with a sarcastic 
grin. ‘* Well, then, the party should have 
ocular demonstration of the truth of what 
he saw.’”’ A large lanthorn was procured, 
and off the whole party scampered, to verify 
by its light the effect of the sun! We did 
not hear whether the hero of this tale was a 
cockney, a country gentleman, or an F.R.S. 

Rail Roads and Canals.—If with a 
speed of 2°5 miles per hour, 30 tons 
upon a canal be equal to 7*5 upon a 


1829. 


level rail road, a speed of five mile per hour 
would, upon the principle of the square, 
bring therail road and canal to an equality ; 
whereas from a series of experiments by Mr. 
Walker, recorded in the last volume of the 
Philosophical Transactions, it appears that 
the two modes of conveyance are equal con- 
siderably under four miles per hour, and 
gives the rail way the decided preference at 
all higher velocities. In the present state of 
our commerce and manufactures, the main 
result of Mr. Walker’s paper, viz. the great 
superiority of land over water carriage, is a 
matter of national interest. 

Belemnites.—An eminent French natu- 
ralist, M. Raspail, has lately announced to 
the Institute that after a careful study of 
250 belemnites, collected in the mountains 
of Provence, he has discovered that belem- 
nites are not the shells of animals, as geo- 
logists generally think, but that they are 
cutaneous appendages belonging to marine 
animals, allied to the echinodermata, but 
which are now extinct. 

Fire Arms.—A French artist, M. Burel, 
has proposed to fix a small mirror, 0:47 of 
an inch square, in the side near the mouth 
of the piece, so that the person using it shall 
see the reflection of his own eye. - In this 
way it is supposed that very exact aim may 
be taken; and the experiments made by va- 
tious officers and sportsmen seem to encou- 
rage the idea that this application may be 
useful. It is considered as most likely to 
prove serviceable when applied to war 
pistols. : 

Roman Antiquities. —At Sainte-Colombe- 
Vienne, department of the Rhone, some 
very perfect remains of Roman baths have 
been discovered, together with the mutilated 
remains of what must have been fine statues, 
Also a fine marble monument, consisting of 
edestal in grey marble, with 
ion, has been found at Bor- 
It belonged to a votive monument 
rected to Tutela, a mysterious goddess of 
_ the ancient city. The inscription, which is 

well preseryed, is useful to prove the second 
consulship of Julianus, in 224, which, 

though mentioned in the Capitoline 
marbles, has been doubted by some anti- 
quaries. The face, opposite to the inscrip- 
tion, is decorated with a crown of oak. 
_ Permanent Increase of Bulk in Cast 
Tron by successive Heatings.—In the course 
of some experiments on high temperatures, 
Mr. Pringep, assay master of the mint, at 
Benares, discovered the very remarkable 
fact, that cast-iron acquires a permanent 
increase of bulk by each successive heating. 
This point is determined by measuring the 
cubic extent of an iron retort, as ascer- 
tained by the weight of pure mercury which 
it contained at the temperature of 80°. The 
actual contents were as follows: before the 
first experiment, 9°13 ‘cubic inches; after 
the first fire, 9°64; after three fires, 10-16. 
But what is more remarkable still, the aug- 
mentation of the bulk of the retort exceeds 

M.M. New Serics.x—Vou. VIL. No. 41, 


Varieties, 


553 


the dilatation due to the temperature to 
which it was exposed. or as iron expands 
0-0105 by 180 of Fahrenheit, the increase 
of bulk upon ten cubic inches should 
0:105¥3==0-315 at 1800° of Fahrenheit, 
or even the melting heat of silver. Hence 
we may conclude that the dilatation of iron 
is not equable—a result formerly obtained 
by M. M. Dulong and Petit. 

Earthquakes in Holland.—Earthquakes 
have been very rare in Holland; only ten 
were on record previous to last year; but 
during 1827 as many as three occurred, one 
on the 23d of February; the second, March 
21; the third, December 3. 

Eruptions of Mount /Etna.—Thucydides 
preserved the memory of three great erup- 
tions.. Diodorus records another which took 
place in the first year of the 96th Olympiad. 
One hundred and twenty-two years B.C. 
the earth shook and vomited fire, even under 
the sea, and vessels perished near the coast 
of Sicily. In Casar’s time, a great eruption 
took place, perhaps two; another, in the 
44th year of our zra, in the 252d and 812th. 
Only two eruptions are recorded in the 
twelfth century, one in the thirteenth, two 
in the fourteenth, four in the fifteenth, and 
four in the sixteenth. During the last part 
of the fifteenth century and the first part of 
the sixteenth, a period of ninety years inter- 
vened without any. Twenty-two eruptions 
were recorded in the seventeenth century, 
thirty-two in the eighteenth, and in the 
few years that have elapsed of this present 
century, already eight. 

Astronomy.—We mentioned in a former 
number of this journal that by the co- 
operation of the most eminent astronomers 
throughout Europe, under the direction of 
the Royal Academy of Sciences of Berlin, a 
series of celestial maps were being prepared 
to be published at the expense of the 
Prussian government. Two years were 
allotted to the observers for the execution of 
their respective parts, which period was to 
expire in the course of the present year. 
Two maps and the accompanying catalogues, 
by M. M. Inghirami, of Florence, and Har- 
ding, of Gottingen, have been already deli- 
vered, and are now in the hands of the 
engraver. 

Plantation of Potatoe Buds.—A clergy- 
man in Germany made some experiments on 
this subject in 1826. Notwithstanding the 
great dryness of the weather, the produce 
much surpassed his expectation, since each 
sprout yielded from three to four pounds of 
potatoes, and some of the potatoes weighed 
nearly .a pound each. He remarks, that 
according to his experience, the early pota- 
toe, called Hernkartoffel, by Putzsche, is 
the most advantageous for this method of 
propagation. A single germ gave sometimes 
from six to seven pounds of potatoes. 

Instinct of Spiders. —A_ small spider 
(Lpeira Diadema, Latreill), had spread its 
net between two neighbouring trees, at the 
height of about nine feet. The three prin. 

4B 


554 


cipal points to which the supporting threads 
-were attached formed here, as they usually 
do, an equilateral triangle. One thread 
was attached above to each of the trees, and 
the web hung from. the middle of it. To 
procure a third point of attachment the spi- 
der had suspended a small stone to. one end 
of a thread; and the stone being heavier 
than the spider itself, served in place.of the 
lower fixed point, and held the web extended. 
‘The little pebble was five feet from the 
earth. The whole was observed and is 
described by Professor Weber, of Leipzig, in 
a German journal. A case exactly similar 
was witnessed by the writer hereof, and 
described in the MontHLY MaGaziIneE, 
about two years since. 

Melting Point of Silver, and its Alloys 
with Gold.—Mzr. Prinseps of Benares, in a 
very able paper on the measurement of high 
temperatures, has given the following ave- 
rage results, which are of great importance. 
Full red heat, 1200° Fahrenheit; orange 
heat, 1650; silver melting, 1830 ;. silver, 
with one-tenth gold, 1820 ; silver, with 
one-tenth gold, 2050. Mr. Wedgewood 
made the melting point of silver so high as 
4717°, and Mr. Daniell 2233°. 

Polar Red Snow.—According to the che- 
mical examination of the red snow brought 
from the north by Captain Franklin, 
M.M. Macaire, Prinsep, and Marcet are 
inclined to think it may be of animal pro- 
duction, and not vegetable, 7. ¢. consisting 
of animals and animaleules. The ana- 
logy of this substance to a red matter taken 
from the lake of Morat, was one among 
other reasons for this opinion ; and also the 
circumstance that gelatine, containing azote, 
‘has. not as yet been found in the vegetable 
creation, whereas it is in this red snow. 

Mineralogy.—A. curious specimen of 
common blue chalcedony, having in it a 
cavity half full of a limpid fluid, not unlike 
water, is now in England. The specimen 
has been ground and polished all round the 
cavity, so as to leave a crust of chalcedony 
about one-tenth of an inch thick. The ex- 
ternal dimensions of the. specimen are, two 
inches long by one inch. broad, so that the 
length of the cavity. is at: least 1*7 inches. 
The price asked for this specimen is. thirty, 
guineas.’ If the fluid is water, it is not 
worth the tenth part of that sum ; but if it 
is, which is not probable, one of the new 
fluids discovered in topaz, the specimen 
_ would be invaluable, 

Congress of Philosophers at Berlin.—At 
the great congress of philosophers which was 
held at Berlin on the. 18th of September of 
last year, the numbers sent by different king- 
doms were, Russia, 1; Austria, 0; Eng- 
land 1; Holland, 2; Denmark, 7 ; France, 
1; Sardinia, 0; Prussia, 95 ; Bavaria, 12 ; 
Hanover, 5; Saxony, 21 ; Wirtemberg, 25; 
Sweden, 13; Naples, 1; Poland, 3; Ger- 
man States, 43. Total, 206. Berlin, 172. 
“¢ Total of the whole,”’ 378. 

. New Field Sport,—A. sportsman at Nee- 


Varieties. 


‘May, 
mutch, in’ Bengal, during thé last hot ‘sea- 
son, made a practice of sitting up alone at 
nights, near pieces of water, in the midst of 
the jungles, with only a double-barrelled 
Manton, in quest of tigers and other wild 
beasts. A small embankment of loose 
earth, raised about a foot and a half, was the 
only cover he had, and this was, of course, 
more to keep him out of sight’ than to afford 
protection. In this manner he has killed 
tigers, leopards, elks, hyenas, and hogs, 
without having occasion to deliver a second 
shot, allowing them to approach within ten 
or twelve yards of him, which was easily 
effected in the obscurity of the night. Ona 
few occasions he was in great danger, one 
night particularly, when the animal he 
fired at sprang into the middle of the nullah 
near to which he was sitting. This surely 
is a more dreadful trade than that pursued 
by him who gathers samphire. 

Morbid Structure. —A very singular and 
curious case of cutaneous enlargement has 
been met with in India, in a lad about six. 
teen or eighteen years of age. The skin of 
the left thigh to below the knee has become 
a loose pendulous mass, covered with strong, 
black, crispy hair, like that of the beard or 
whiskers. . There has been some peculiarity: 
of the limb ever since his birth ; but he feels 
no inconvenience in walking, excepting 
from the increased weight. The temperature 
of the enlargement is about three degrees of 
Fahrenheit warmer than the other parts of 
the body. The lad appears to be otherwise 
healthy. a 

Magnetism.—From ; a series, of experi- 
ments with various instruments, the dip of 
the magnetic needle in London, in August 
1828, was ascertained to be 69° 47’ N., 
which compared with observations made in 
August 1821, gives a decrease of 17’*5 in 
seven years, or an annual decrease of 2/5. 
The average annual decrease e century. 
preceding 1821, appears from the. most — 
authentic observations, to have exceeded 3/4 — 

Pendulum Experiments.—Professor Bes- 
sel has lately published the first part of his 
pendulum experiments, which contains the 
investigation of the length of the pendulunt 
at. Koenigsberg. The final results he has 
obtained: are the following: length of the 
second, pendulum in the observatory of 
Koenigsberg—=440-8147 lines, Parismeasure, 
by the toise of Peru. The same reduced to 
the level of the Baltic=440-8179. 

. New. Safety Lamp.—The safety lamp 
of Sir H. Davy is known to be in many 
respects very defective, and frequently pro- 
duces the danger it is intended to avoid, by 
a misplaced confidence in its capability and 
protection. Its illuminating power is but 


»small, and when in an impure atmosphere 


that power is so far diminished as to render 
it of little or no service. This will ever be 
an inducement. to the miner to remove the 
top, even at the risk of life. A lamp, free 
from al] these imperfections, has recently 
been invented; it consists of a vessel in 


1820.) 
which oxygen gas is condensed; to this 
vessel is attached a lantern, made ‘perfectly 
air-tight, furnished with a thick glass lens. 
The lantern may be locked , to prevent the 
miners opening it, and the admission of gas 
is regulated by a screw valve. Oxygen gas 
may be obtained at a very little expence ; 
and even if it were greater, the saving of 
human life ought to be considered greatly to 
oyerbalance it. 3 
_ Alloyed Iron Plate.—A., manufacture of 
prepared iron has been practised, and the 
substance produced used to a considerable 
degree in Paris. The object has been to 
prepare iron in large plates and other forms, 
so that it will not rust; and this has been 
effected by coating it with an alloy of tin and 
much Jead, so as to form an imitation of tin 
plate. The trials made with this article 


Varieties. 


555 


s 

have been favourable; it very well resists 
the action of certain fluids that would’ 
rapidly corrode iron alone, and can be pre- 
pared of any size, and at a low price. Its 
use in the manufacture of sugar pans and’ 
boilers, in the construction of roofs and gut- 
ters, is expected to be very considerable. 

Royal Institution.—Mr. Curtis, whose 
acoustic labours are well known, lately exhi- 
bited a newly-invented hearing-trumpet, 
having two apertures, one directed to the ear. 
and the other to the mouth—an improvement 
which promises great advantage in cases 
which do not admit of cure. It was stated’ 
that the idea orignated with Sir Edward 
Stracey, bart., and its testified utility over, 
other acoustic tubes, in affections of the 
ear, in all the different stages of disease, is 
affirmed by Mr. Curtis. 


WORKS IN THE PRESS AND NEW PUBLICATIONS. 


WORKS IN PREPARATION, 

Lady Morgan has a new work in the press, in 
2 vols., entitled The Book of the Boudoir. 

The author of Pelham's new work is called 
Devereux, and will appear about the middle of 
May. | 

Biography of Captain Beaver, a work of a simi- 
lar nature tothe Memoirs of Lord Collingwood. 

An Account of the Romantic Wars of the Moors 
in Grenada, by Mr. Washington Irving. 

Elements of Natural History, or an Introduction 
to Systematic Zoology, chiefly according to the 
Classification of Linneus, with illustrations of 
every Order, by John Howard Hinton, A.M. 

_ Mr. Samuel, of Liverpool, is about to publish 
, ‘the Book of Jasher (a traditional work in the early 
world) i in Hebrew and English, with notes, 

: A volume on the Universe as it is, with Astro- 
_ nomieal Plates, in illustration ofthe First Chapter 
of Genesis, by Captain Woodley. : 
The Marquis Spineto is preparing for publica- 
ion, a Course of Lectures upon Hieroglyphics, 
livered at the Royal Institution, and at the 
niversity of Cambridge. In 1 vol. 8vo., with 
plates, 

_ Ein Deutsches Lesebuch; or, Lessons in Ger- 
man Literature ; being achoice collection of amus- 
ing and instructive pieces, in Prose and Verse, 
selected from the writings of the most celebrated 
German Authors, with Interlinear and other 
Translations. By J. Rowbotham, F. Ast. S. L. 

_ Cyaig-Millar Castle, and other Poems, by John 
Gordon Smith, M.D., M.R.S.L. 

. A Journey from Sarepta to several Calmack 
Hordes of the Astracan Government, by H. A, 
Zwick and I..C. Schill, In post 8yo. 

The Villa Flower-Garden Directory, with Ins 
structions for the ‘Treatment of Plants in Pots. In 
foolscap 8yo. 

A little Annual, of a new and distinct class, will 
appear on the first of June; the contents of which 
will be selected, principally from the best English 
writers, ancient and modern, and arranged under 
suitable heads, The design, which has been re- 
commended by high authority, being to supply an 


appropriate Reward-Book for the young, either 
as a prize at School, or as a domestic present. 
To be edited by the Rev. J. D. Parry, M.A., of St. 
Pever’s College, Cambridge. 

The British Preserve, comprising accurate re- 
presentations of Animals and Birds, peculiarly 
the objects of the Sportsman, drawn and etched 
by S. Howitt, with concise and familiar descrip- 
tions of the subjects illustrative of their habits, 
manners, &c. &c., by C. Armigar. ; 

An Argument for the further Division of La- 
bour, in the ease of various Public and other 
Duties discharged, or Offices performed, in this 
Country.—Part I., in which the argument: is ap- 
plied to Parliament, 

Tales of Field and Flood, with Sketches of Life, 
at Home, by John Malcolm, author of ‘* Scenes 
of War,” &c. In small 8vo, 

Biographical Sketches and Authentic Anec- 
dotes of Dugs. By Captain Thomas Brown, 
F.R.S.E., &e. Royal 18mo. 

An Epitome of the’Game of Whist ; consisting 
of an Introduction tothe Mode of Playing and 
Scoring ; the Laws of the Game essentially re-, 
formed ; and Maxims for Playing, arranged ona 
new and simple Plan, calculated to give rapid 
Proficiency to a Player of the dullest Perception 
and worst Memory, by E. M. Arnauld; with a 
Frontispiece on Wood by Branston, In 18mo. 

The Family Chaplain, or St. Mark's Gospel 
Analysed and prepared for Reading’ and Ex- 
pounding to a Family Circle, by the Rey. S. 
Hinds, M.A., Vice-principal of St. Alban’s Hall, 
Oxford. 

A second volume of the Tenancy of Land, in 
Great Britain. It will comprise all the grazing 
districts of England and Scotland, with a com- 
plete History of Sheep, &c, 

_ Nearly ready for publication, The Willow Bank 
Dairy History. In 1 vol. 8vo., with engravings, 
by Mr. Harley. ; 

Beatrice, a Tale founded on facts, 
Hotland, In 3 vols. 12mo, 

The Chronicles of Geoffrey de Villehardown, 
Marshal of Champagne and Romaine, concerning 
the Conquest of Constantinople, by the Freich 


: 


by Mrs. 


556 


and Venetians in 1204, translated from the French 
by T. Smith. 

An enlarged edition of Boswell’s Life of Dr. 
Johnson, with copious notes, by the Right Hon. 
J. W. Croker. 


LIST OF NEW WORKS. 


BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY. 
Life of Francis the First, King of France. In 


2 vols. 8yo. 28s, 
Memoirs of Marshal Suchet. Volume Second. 
8vo. 12s, 


Notices of the Life and Works of Titian. 8vo. 

History of the Huguenots during the Sixteenth 
Century, by W. S. Browning, Esq, 2 vols. 8yo. 
2ls. 

The Miscellaneous Works of Sir Philip Sidney, 
with a Life of the Author, and Illustrative Notes, 
by William Gray, Esq., of Magdalen College, 
Oxford. 

The History of the Roman Law during the 
Middle Ages, translated from the Original Ger- 
man of Carl Von Sayigny, by E.Catcheart. 8vo. 
14s. 

History of England, by Dr. Lingard. Vols. 11 
and 12. 24s. 

A Topographical and Historical Description of 
the County of Suffolk ; containing an Account of 
its Situation, Extent, &c. &c., embellished with 
Prints and a Map ofthe Country. In 8vo. 12s. 
boards. 

Mr. Britton’s History and Antiquities of Glou- 
eester Cathedral, with 22 Engrayings, by Le 
Keux, &c., and 2 Wood Cuts. 

The History, &c., of Bristol Cathedral, will be 
completed in the ensuing winter, and contain 
eleven Engravings by Le Keux, and 1 Wood Cut. 
£1, 4s, medium 4to., and £2, 2s. imperial 4to. 

The Picturesque Antiquities of the English 
Cities, No. III, contains Ten Engravings of two 
Views of Lincoln, one of Bath, and one of Wor- 
cester, also Picturesque Representations of the 
Fishmongers’ Hall, London ; Broad Street, Bris- 
tol; Edgar’s Tower, Worcester ; Street View in 
Salisbury ; and Kitchen in St. Mary’s Hall, 
Coventry. Engraved by Le Keux, Varral, Reda- 
way, &c. It also contains Six Wood Cuts of An- 
tiquities of Lincoln, Peterborough, and Canter- 
bury, with descriptive Accounts of the Pictaresque 
Features and Antiquities of those Cities. 


CLASSICAL. 

Aristophanis Comeedie: with a new Text and 
Scholia, revised by Professor Bekker, of Berlin. 
In 5 vols. 8yvo. £3. 153, A few copies are 
printed on royal paper, £6. 6s. 

Theocritus, Gr. et Lat. recognovit et cum Ani- 
madversionibus Harlesii, Schreberi, Aliorum Ex- 
cerptis suisque edidit Theoph. Kiessling ; Acce- 
dunt preter Argumenta, Scholia et Indicis in 
Theocritum. In2vols. 8vo. 18s. A few copies 
are printed on royal paper, £1. 11s. 6d. 

Ulysses Homer ; or, the Discovery of the true 
Author of the Iliad and Odyssey, by Constantine 
Koliades, Professor of the Ionian University. 


EDUCATION. 

Universal Education considered with regard to 
its Influence on the Happiness and Moral Charac- 
ter of the Middle and Lower Classes, and the pro- 
bable tendency of its indiscriminate application, 


List of New Works. 


(May, 


to the increase of Crime. To which are added, 
Suggestions to the Legislature, relative to the 
salutary control of Popular Education. 8vo, 
2s. 6d. ; 

Extracts from Letters on Early Education. By 
Pestalozzi. 8vo. Is, 6d, 

Letters on the System of Development, as pur- 
sued in Infants’ Schools. By a Master of an In- 
fants’ School. 12mo. Is. 6d. 

Library of Entertaining Knowledge, Part I., 
containing The Menageries; or Quadrupeds, 
described and drawn from Living Specimens. 
18mo. 2s, sewed, 


FINE ARTS. 
Williams’s Views in Greece, 2 vols. imperial 
8vo, £7. 10s. Royal 4to. India proofs, £12. 12s. 


LAW. 

The Parochial Lawyer; or Church-Wardens’ 
and Overseers’ Guide. By James Shaw, Esq. 
5s, 6d. 

Remarks on the Statute Law affecting Parish 
Apprentices, with Regulations applicable to Local 
Districts and Parishes for Allotting and Placing 
out Poor Children. By J.M. White. 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
sewed. 

A Digest of the Laws relating to Turnpike 
Roads. By a Clerk to Trustees. 18mo. 2s. 6d. 
sewed. 

Parkes on the Practice of the King’s Bench 


and Common Pleas. 12mo, 12s. 
MEDICAL. 
Elements of Pathology and Practice of Physic. 
By J. Mackintosh, M.D. Vol.I. Syo. 14s. bds. 


Pathological Researches into the Nature and 
Treatment of Dropsy of the Brain, Chest, Abdo- 
men, Oyarium, and Skin. By Joseph Ayre, M.D. 
Second Edition. S8yo, 8s. boards. 

A Pocket Compendium of Anatomy, &c. 
Edward William Tuson, Surgeon, Edinburgh. 


By 


MISCELLANEOUS. 

Apician Morsels ; or Tales of the Table, Kit- 
chen, and Larder ; consisting of Select Epicurean 
Precepts, Nutritive Maxims, Reflections, Anee- 
dotes, &c. &c., illustrative of the veritable Science 
of the Mouth; which includes the Art of never 
breakfasting at Home, and always dining Abroad. 
Foolscap 8yo. 8s. ‘ 

The Groom's Oracle and Pocket Stable Direc- 
tory, in which the management of Horses gene- 
rally as to health, dieting, and exercise, are con- 
sidered in a series of familiar dialogues between 
Two Grooms, engaged in training horses to their 
work ; with Notes and an Appendix, including ex- 
tracts from the Receipt Book of John Hinds, P.S. 
author of the Veterinary Surgeon. 12mo. 7s. 
boards. 

The Practice of Cookery: By Mrs. Dalgairns. 
12mo. 7s. 6d. : 

Remarks on the Policy of introducing the Sys- 
tem of Poor Rates into Ireland. Addressed to the 
Society for the Improvement of that Country. 
By G. H. Evans, Esq. 

On the Cultivation of the Waste Lands of the 
United Kingdom, for the purpose of finding em- 
ployment for the Able Poor, now receiving paro- 
chial aid, and thereby diminishing the heavy bur- 
dens of the Poor Rates; and the expediency of 
making some provision for the aged and disabled 
paupers of Ireland. By L. Kennedy, Esq., author 
of Tenancy of Land in Great Britain. 


1829.] 


An Essay on the Effects of the Reformation on 
Civil Society in Europe. By William Mackray, 
Minister of the Gospel, Stirling. 8yo. 8s. 

Lectures on Freemasonry. By the Rey. Georg e 
Oliver. 2 vols. 8vyo. 21s. boards. By the same 
Author, The History of Initiation, in Three 
Courses of Lectures. 8vo. 10s. 6d. 

Observations on Warming and Ventilating 
Houses: 8yo. 15s. 

Clouds and Sunshine. 

Azimuth Tables, 
4to. £2.2s. 

Gandell’s Philosophy of History. 8vo, 15s. 

Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy. 
Vol. XV. 

Principles of Natural Philosophy, or a New 
Theory of Physics, Founded on Gravitation, and 
applied in Explaining the General Properties of 
Matters. By T.Exley. 8vo. 14s. boards. 
Flowers of Fancy ; exhibited in a Collection of 
Similes taken from various Authors, and Alpha- 
betically arranged.. By Henry Schultes. . In 
demy 8yo,, hot-pressed, with engraved Title-page, 
and Emblematical Vignette, on India paper. 12s. 
boards. 

Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of 
Society, &c. By Robert Southey, Esq., L.L.D+ 
2 vols. 8yo. 

Mr. Britton is preparing a new edition of 
Anstey’s New Bath Guide, with illustrations by 
Cruickshanks, &c., a Prefatory Essay on the Life 
and Writings of the Author, on the Localities and 
Peculiarities of Bath at the Middle of the last 
Century, and with Elucidatory Notes, 


NOVELS AND TALES. 
Tales, Mirthful, Mournful, and Marvellous. 
By Mrs. Wells. 3 vols. 12mo. 21s. 
Traits of Travel, or Tales of Men and Cities. 
By the Author of “ High-ways and By-ways,” 
3 vols. £1. 11s. 6d. 
_ Waldstein, or the Swedes in Prague, from the 
_ German of Madame C. Pichler, By L. D. Ro- 
P senthal. 2 vols. post 8vo. 
_ Eecarté, or the Salons of Paris, 
8vo. £1, 8s, 6d. 
Peace Campaigns 
£1, 8s. 6d. 
_ Florence, or the Aspirant, a Novel. In 3 vols. 
post 8vo. 24s. 
Stratton Hill. By the Author of Tales from the 
East. In3 vols. 12mo. 
Sketches of Irish Character. By Mrs. S.C. 
Hall. In 2 vols, foolseap 8vo, 12s, 


Post 8vo. 8s. 6d. 
By Captain Thomas Lynn. 


3 vols. post 


of a Cornet. 3 vols. 


> POETRY. 

All for Love, or the Sinner well Saved; and 
The Pilgrim to Compostella, or a Legend of a 
Cock and a Hen. By Robert Southey, Esq. 
12mo. 

The Age, a Poem, in Eight Books, 
7*. 6d. 

Monody on the Death of the Duke of York. 
By the Rev. G. Bryan, M.A, 18mo. 1s. sewed. 

Mary Queen of Scots, and other poems. By 
Jolin Heneage Jesse. 


12mo, 


List of New Works. 


557 


Malvern Hills, Poems and Essays by Mr. Cot- 
tle. In 2vols. 12mo. 12s, 


ON POPERY. 

The Protestants’ Companion; being a Choice 
Collection of Preservatives against Popery. 12mo. 
5s. 

- England’s Protest is England’s Shield, for the 
Battle is the Lord’s. By the Rev. Hugh MeNeile, 
A.M, 

A Political View of the Catholic Question. 
8vo. Is. 

Nine Letters to Lord Colchester onthe Catholic 
Question. 8vo. 6s. boards, j 

An Address to the Protestants of the United 
Kingdom of every denominatlon ; aud to those 
Roman Catholics whose Religious Opinions do not 
wholly overcome a just regard for the free Con- 
stitution of the British Government, for the Inde- 
pendence of their Country, and for that Harmony 
which they ought to wish should prevail hetween 
them and their Fellow-subjects of every Religious 
Persuasion under one Government. By Lord 
Redesdale. 1s. 6d. 

The Religious and Political Evils of Catholi- 
cism, or the Protestant Interests in Danger. By 
the Rey. S. Hopkins, M.A. 8vo. 1s. sewed. 


RELIGION, MORALS, &e. 

Bishop Heber’s Sermons, preached in India. 
8vo. 9s. 6d. boards. 

Baxter’s Reformed Pastor, with an Introduc- 
tory Essay.- By the Rev. Daniel Wilseen. 12mo. 
4s. 

Henry Marriott’s Fourth Course of Sermons. 
8yo. 10s. 6d. 

A Second Volume of Sermons, chiefly Practi- 
cal. By the Rey. Edward Bather, M.A., Arch- 
deacon of Salop, in the Diocese of Lichfield and 
Coventry, and Vicar of Meole Brace, Salop. 12s. 
boards. 

‘The Importance of Public Worship, and espe- 
cial Claims of the Established Church; a Sermon, 
preached in obedience to the Royal Letter, Noy. 9, 
1828; with an Appendix. By Jobn Overton, M.A., 
Rector of St. Crux, and of St. Margaret, York. 
8yo, 2s, 6d. 

Discourses on some Important. Subjects of Na- 


tural and Revealed Religion. By D. Scott. 
Second Edition, enlarged. 8yvo. 12s. boards. 
Sermons on Various Subjects. By A. Thom- 


son,D.D. 8yo. 12s. boards. 

Mahometanism Unveiled, an Inquiry, in which 
that Arch-Heresy, its Diffusion. and Continuance, 
are examined, on a new Principle, tending to con- 
firm the Evidences, and aid the Propagation of 
the Christian Faith. By the Rev. Charles Forster, 
B.D. In2vols. 8yo. 24s, 

Some Account of the Writings and Opinions of 
Justin Martyr. By John, Bishop of Lincoln. 
8vo. 7s. 6d. 

The Life and Death of Lancelot Andrews, D.D., 
late Lord Bishop of Winchester. By his Friend 
and Amanuensis, H. Isaacson, &c. ‘The whole 
edited, &c., by the Rey, S. Isaacson, A.M. 8yo. 


PATENTS FOR MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL INVENTIONS. “ 


£558 J 


[May, 


New Patents sealed in Aprit, 1829. 

To William Madeley, of Yardly, Worcester, 
farmer, for an apparatus or machine for catching, 
detecting, and detaining depredators and tres-. 
passers, or any animal ; which he denominates the 
human snare.—28th March ; 2 months. 


To Josias Lambert, of Liverpool-strect, Lon- 


don, esq., for an improvement in the process of, 
making iron applicable at the smelting of the ore, 
and at various subsequent stages of the process, 
up to the completion of the rods or bars, and for 
the improvement of the quality of inferior iron.— 
30th March ; 4 months, 

To William Prior, of Albany-road, Camber- 
well, Surrey, gentleman, for certain improve- 


ments in the construction and combination of: 


machinery for securing, supporting, and striking 
the top-masts, and top-gallant masts of ships and. 
other vessels.—Hth April; 6 months, 

Yo John Lihon, of Guernsey, but now residing: 
at the Naval Club-house, Bond-street, Middle- 
sex, a commander in our royal navy, for an im- 


List of Patents, which having been granted in) 
the month.of May 1815, expire in the present 
month of May 1829. : 
8. Peter Martineau, jun., and Joln Martineau, 

jun., London, for an improved method of re-: 

Jining and clarifying certain vegetable sub- 

stances. : 
11. Charles Pitt, London, for a secure method 

of conveying small parcels and remittances of 
property, and also for the secwrity in the for- 
mation or appendage of shoes. 4 
— Samuel Pratt, London, for an improved 
wardrobe trunk for travellers. jf 
— John James Alexander Macearthy, London,’ 
for an improved neto pavement, or method of 
paving, pitching, and covering streets, roads, 
or ways. Mts 

' 93. Archibald Kenrick; West Bromwick, for! 
improvements in the mills for grinding ‘coffee, 

malt, and other articles. 5 

_ 26. Jonathan Ridgway, Manchester, Sor anew: 

method of pumping water or otheF fluids. 

* — John Pugh, Over-Chester, for anew method’ 


> 


of making salt-pans upon an improved princi-- 
ple, to save fuel and labour. LB 


proved method of constructing ship’s pintles for 
hanging the rudder,—1l4th April; 6 months, 


‘ 
} 


—————— 


2 


MONTHLY AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 

“ Tuts is the coldest and most backward spring within the memory of man.”” Such 
is the norma loquendi, the invariable phraseology adopted on every similar occasion. The 
present backward spring, or burning summer, is always the most backward ‘and the most 
ardent of any predecessor. But we, who have passed through very many cold and ungenial 
springs, with sufficient fretfulness at their retarding and probable future ill effects on vege- 
tation, have also witnessed many of a character, in these respects, fully equal to the — 
present. 
progress, and some real damage will have been sustained, but hitherto of no material con 
sequence. Should, however, the present ungenial easterly winds continue yet for any con- 


siderable length, it may be hoped not a very probable case, much damage to all the crops’ 


must inevitably result. On the other hand, a favourable change, and continuance of season- _ 
able spring weather, will leave us little to regret, since, sometimes, a backward spring is the 
harbinger of a plentiful harvest. The early part of the present month gave us hopes, from a, 


few days of mild temperature, with south-western breezes; when, suddenly, the wind 4 


changed to its old quarters, north-east and south-east, accompanied with storms, and rain, 
and an uncomfortable and chilling state of the atmosphere, which yet remains. 

Until the above change, the land had worked admirably, even the most rough and in- 
tractable clays, and the barleys and other remaining spring crops were getting into the 
ground with the utmost expedition, and in the most husband-like manner, when the con- 
siderable quantity of rain which fell, reduced the low and heavy lands to such a stateas to. 
arrest the course of semination, and to render it almost impossible to cover the seed already 
spread: Many breadths of such land have been actually flooded, particularly where drain- 
ing has been defective ; a defect, we regret to say, of too frequent occurrence. On the 
light, high, and exposed soils, the tender and chilled wheats, much of them have been 
actually blown out of the soil ; and even the strongest and best wheats, do not exhibit that 
healthy and blooming luxuriance appropriate to a genial season. The early sown spring 
crops are still more affected by the dampness and chilliness of the air, especially by night, 
when frost, and even snow, have not been uncommon. As to be expected, the ill effects 
of this unfavourable season have been most severely felt in the northern parts of the 
country, where, in consequence, the spring seeds will be put into the ground more than 
usually late. The grass, though it retain a good colour, at least in this country, is to» 
backward to afford a bite to any kind of stock, whence the late boasted superabundance of 
hay, must have received considerable help towards its reduction, and the turnips. which 
have endured the season, must have come into requisition. The young clovers, which 
were advancing with so much luxuriance, have received a considerable check. Potatoe 


No doubt, all the earth’s productions have been inordinately delayed in their — 


> > 


ry 


1829.) Monthly Agrivultural Report. 559 


planting commenced in the middle of the month, and is now proceeding generally with 
expedition. : 

! The hop market remains in the same dull state in which we have'so long found it, quite 
guiltless of those revolutions by which, in former days, so many speculators were accustomed 
toprofitandtolose. It maybethat theculturehasincreased, or speculation decreased. In this 
state of things, we have the news, that the county of Stafford is making its début inthe hopeul- 
ture, by way of experiment, as it is averred ; as though hops would not grow in any county 
of England, because good cheese can only be made in the cheese counties; at any rate, 
that fact has appeared, strange as it may seem, on various actual trials. The corn markets 
have varied little of late. The foreign supply has been, and continues to be, ample, not- 
withstanding the increase of duty, and much of it is of fine quality, particularly the white 
wheats ; the best samples of which have been sold at six shillings per quarter above our 
best home-grown wheats, a thing unprecedented in days long past, if we except Cape of 
Good Hope wheats, of which we saw cargoes of the earliest import, most beautiful in sam- 
ple, and then said to weigh as heavy as clover seed. We once attempted to grow Cape 
wheat in this country, but without success ; it seeméd to require the genial warmth of an 
African sun. The catile markets afford no novelty : steers are said still to be too high in 
price for the grazier to expect much profit; milch cows considerably reduced in. price, 
Some fresh complaints are abroad of the loss of lambs, but to no great extent ; and the rot 
has said to have re-appeared in the west, in consequence, probably, of the late moist and 
rainy weather. The price of ordinary horses has suffered a still further decline ; but the 
paucity of good ones, too invariable to reflect much credit on English breeders, has held 
such fully up to their accustomed high rate. We-hear of seventy, and even seventy- 
five pounds, given at a fair for a cart-horse! and the import from Belgium, continues 
with little or no reduction. In fine, it seems, that foreign assistance is indispensable to 
us, in all the prime necessaries, however capable our soil may be of their production. 

The late corn bill, as new modelled, on its second introduction into Parliament, has 
given as little satisfaction to the public at large, as to our cultivators of the soil. Bread, 
the first object, is yet at a price above the ability to purchase of an immense body of our 
labourers. On the other hand, our home-growers of bread-corn, loudly insist that it is at 
a price too low for them to live by its production; a. proposition too plainly proved by 
many of them, who are unable to pay their rent. ‘Temporary relief has, however, been 
afforded by benevolent landlords, who have, of late years, been in the habit of returning a 
per centage on the rents. But whither does this beneficence tend, but to an attempt to 
perpetuate high prices? A vain and dangerous attempt, considering the critical and un- 
paralleled state of the country, with respect to both its agricultural and manufacturing 
population. A great part of the former are without employ, or the means-of subsistence, 
and have, in consequence, degenerated into prowling hordes- of poachers and marauders: 
The whole, indeed, may be described as in a state of slavery, and dependence on parish 
_ charity, since their highest wages are insufficient for the maintenance of a family. It is 
less to deny that such has ever been the case in a great degree, however we may be dis- 

to laud “ the good old times;’’ and we do but deceive ourselves, if we expect relief 
m any superficial and temporary measures, however plausible and ingenious. The 
tional disease is inveterate, urgent, and will submit to none other than heroic remedies: 
these are, REFORM, AND RETRENCHMENT OF TAXATION, TO THE UTMOS®? 
POSSIBLE Limits. Even so, and were such a stretch of patriotism possible, in this 
eat and luxurious country, where political morality is necessarily at so low an ebb, it 
ould still be impossible utterly to exclude so great a share of poverty and distress for the 
recarious remedy of private charity. Yet we find active and speculative intelligences in- 
efatigably engaged in spinning out plans, by virtue of which, our system of poor laws may 
_ be gradually, and in a few years, ultimately and safely repealed. These are more properly 

essays cwm ratione insanire. ‘They go to argue, from the abuse of an institution of mere 
_ justice and indispensable necessity, against its use. Complaints are reiterated by our 
__ flockmasters, of the impossibility of making sale of their wool, with the allegation, that the 
Price is depressed to the rate ofa century past. But surely this need excite no surprise, 
since the public, generally, and the land proprietors, with the gay tenantry themselves, 
tefuse to be coarsely clothed in their own wool. As toa free import of bread-corn, its im- 
perious necessity remains incontrovertible, when we compare the frequent trifling quantities 
of home-grown wheat which haye appeared in the metropolitan market, with the abundant 
foreign supply ; but for the aid of which, many parts of the country would now have been 
in want of bread, 


_ _. Smithfield.—Beef, 38. 6d. to 4s. 8d.—Mutton, 4s. 4d. to 5s. 8d.—Veal, 4s. to 6s. 44. 
—Pork (Dairy) 4s. to 6s.—Raw fat, 2s. 5d. 

Corn Exchange.—W heat, 50s. to 78s.—DBarley, 27s. to 38s.—Oats, 12s. to 32s,— 
Bread, the London 4b. loaf, 104d.—Hay, 42s. to 85s.—Clover, ditto, 50s. to 105s.— 
Straw, 28s. to 38s, 

Coals in the Pool, 24s. 6d. to 36s. per chaldron. 

Middlesex, April 24th. 


C 560 J 


[May, 
MONTHLY COMMERCIAL REPORT. 

Sugar.—The plentiful supply of new Sugars brought forward this week has occasioned 
some briskness in the market ; the sales, in three days, are estimated at 3000 hogsheads 
and tierces ; the holders have been anxious.to meet the demand; they- sell freely since 
they see the fallin Mauritius Sugars. This will, ultimately, affect the West Indian 
Muscovadoes. The refined market has remained all the week in a languid state: the few 
goods sold were again at a small reduction, particularly the low brown lumps for exporta- 
tion. Fine goods were heavy ; Molasses varied. East India Sugars.—There have been three 
public sales of Mauritius Sugars this week, and a general reduction of 2s. and 3s. per cwt. 
on all qualities. 

. Coffee.—The public sales this week consisted of Jamaica, Demerara, and Berbice: 
chiefly of inferior qualities, which have gone off heavily ; good and fine middling 70s. and 
74s. 6d. ; good middling Berbice 75s. and 83s. ; about 600 bags good old Brazil sold 1s. 
lower, 36s. ‘ 

Rum, Brandy, and Holiands.—The Rum market continues heavy, Leeward proofs 
sold at 2s. 2d., and a few fine Jamaica have also been sold. The offer for Leewards are 
Id. under the present currency; they have been rejected. In Brandy and Genoa there is 
no alteration. : 

Hemp, Flax, and Tallow.—The Tallow market continues steady ; in Hemp and Flax 
there is little variation. 

Tobacco.—The inquiries after Tobacco are very considerable, and sales would be effected 
if the holders would submit to lower prices, but they are firm, and no transactions to any 
extent have taken place. 


Course of Foreign Exchange.—Amsterdam, 12. 44.—Rotterdam, 12. 4}.—Antwerp, 
12. 144.—_Hamburgh, 13. 143.—Paris, 25. 60}.—Bordeaux, 25. 90.—Frankfort-on-the- 
Main, 152.—Vienna, 10. 6.—Madrid, 36. 03.—Cadiz, 36. 03.—Bilboa, 36. 03.—Bar- 
celona, 36. 01.—Seville, 36. 03.—Gibraltar, 49. 0.—Genoa, 29. 65.—Venice, 47. 04.— 
Malta, 48. 04.—Naples, 39. 03.—Palermo, 119.—Lisbon, 45. 03.—Oporto, 46.—Rio 
Janeiro, 24.—Bahia, 34.—Dublin 1. 0}.—Cork, 1. 03. : 


Bullion per Oz.—Portugal Gold in Coin, £0. 0s. Od.—Foreign Gold in Bars, 
£3. 17s. 9d. — New Doubloons, £0. 0s. — New Dollars, 4s. 93d. — Silver in Bars, 


(standard), £0. 4s. 113d. 


Premiums on Shares and Canals, and Joint Siock Companies, at the Office of 
Wotre, Brothers, 23, Change Alley, Cornhill.—Birmingham Cana, 292/.—Coven- 
try, 1,0802.—Ellesmere and Chester, 110/.—Grand Junction, 298/.—Kennet and Avon, 
2711.—Leeds and Liverpool, 463/.—Oxford, 700/.—Regent’s, 243/.—Trent and Mersey, 
G sh.), 7901.—Warwick and Birmingham, 255/.—London Docks (Stock), 87/.—West 
India (Stock), 1907.—East London WatrER Works, 112/.—Grand Junction, 501.— 


West Middlesex, 68/.—Alliance British and Foreign Insurance, 10/.—Globe, 01. 
Guardian, 23/.—Hope Life, 5}/.—Imperial Fire, 105/.—Gas-LicuT Westminster Char- 


tered Company, 503/.—City, 187}/.—British, 17 dis.—Leeds, 195/. 


ALPHABETICAL LIST OF BANKRUPTCIES, 


Announced from the 22d of March, to the 2\st of April, 1829 ; extracted from 
the London Gazeite. . 


BANKRUPTCIES SUPER- 
SEDED. 


Friend, J. Bristol, maltster 

Robson, R. Manchester, victuallcr 

Atkin, T. Greenwich, draper 

Aubrey, H. H. W.  Broad-street, 
Edgeware-road, merchant 

Mott, W. R. Brighton, builder 

Quick, J. and F.J.Chown, Stonehouse, 
miller 

Goss, T. Newton Abbot, mercer 

Balch, J. Evercreek, baker 

Bedford, T. Goswell-street, carpenter 

Smee, J. and E. A. Crown-court, 
warehousemen 


BANKRUPTCIES. 
[ This Month, 126.] 
~ Solicitors’ Names are in 
Parenthesis. 


Alcock, H- Threadneedle-street, ta- 
vern-keeper, (Dicas, Austin Friars 


Arnitt, F. Thirsk, draper. (Atkinson 
and Co, Manchester; Makinson 
and Co., Temple 

Amphlett, T. Bromsgrove, seedsman. 
(Robeson and Co., Worcester 3 Gre- 
gory, Clement’s-inn 

Armittage, J. and W. and S. Standish, 
Sheffield, manufacturers of Brittan- 
nia-metal goods. (Tattershall, Teme 
ple 5; Palfreyman, Sheffield 

Armfield, M. Macc‘esfield, silk ma- 
nufacturer. (Clarke and Co,, Lin- 
coln’s-inn-fields 5 Higginbotham, 
Macclesfield 

Adams, W. Winchcombe, surgeon, 
(King, Serjeant’s—inn 5 Straford 
and Co., Cheltenham 

Andrew, T. Gosberton, victualler, 
(Willis and Co , Tokenhouse-yard 5 
Carter, Spalding 

Burne, W. Cornhill, woollen-draper, 
(Burt, Mitre-court, Milk-street 

Boston, W. Hackney, whitesmith. 
(Nokes, Southampton-street 

Burns, R. Liverpool, chemist. (Bircb 
and Co.) Great Winchester-street 


Brown, H. Hackney-roady and Red 
Lion-street, Whitechapel, baker. 
(Thompson, George-street, Minories 

Boulcot, J. Worcester, glover. (White, 
Lincoln’s-inn 5 Holdsworth and Co., 
Worcester 

Bannister, T. John-Street, Totten- 
ham-court-road, goldsmith. (Chip- 
pindall, Coventry-street 

Beart, T. Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, 
money-scrivener. (White and Co., 
Great St. Helens; Worship, Yar- 
mouth : 

Bond, T. M. East Dereham, linen- 
draper. (Sole, Aldermanbury 

Bray, A. Red-lion-yard, -St. Giles’s, 
horse-dealer. (Denton and Co., 
Gray’s-inn-square 

Burn, T. Govent-garden-market, and 
Streatham, fruit salesman. (Hard- 
wick and Coy Lawrence-lane 

Burfitt, J. Frome Salwood, Clothier, 
(Perkins and Co.y Gray’s-inn 

Box, C. Maidstone, grocer. (Rush- 
bury, Carthusian-strcet 

Boothby, F, C. Hulme-Walficld, far- 


4 


ld Me 


1829.J 


mer. (Cole, Serjeant’s-inn ; Browny 
Macclesfield 
Bedford, T. Goswell-street, carpenter, 
(Fisher and Co., Davies’-street 
Bell, G. Regent-street, tailor. (Leigh, 
George-street, Mansion-house 
Biges, T. C. Russia-row, silk-manu- 
facturer. (Smith and Co., Kings- 


arms yard 
Bond, J. B. Windmill-street, yic- 
tualler. (Hensman, Bond-court 


Baker, C. and J. Allen, Bedminster, 
nurserymen. (Hicks and Co., Bart- 
lett’s-buildings 5 Hinton, Bristol 

Blazard, J. Liverpool, victualler. 
(Bebb and Co., B comsbury-square 5 
Armstrong, Birmingham 

Bamber, J. Liverpool, ship-owner. 
(Chester, Staple-inn 5 Mallaby, Li- 
verpool 

Bowditch, W-+ Walworth, corn-chand- 
ler, (Kissy Walworth 

Cocker, S. Witton, cotton-manufac- 
turer. (Milne and Parry, Temple 5 
Howorth, Boulton-le-moors 

Clares, J. J. Liverpool, grocer. (Nor- 
tis and Co,, John-street, Bedford- 
row 5 Tuulmin, Liverpool 

Cocksdrott, J. and J. Green, and R. 
Swarbrick, Wairington, cotton-ma- 
nufacturers. (Adlington and Co. 
Bedford-row; Nicholson, Warrington 

Cooper, T. Congleton, silk-throwster. 
(Rudson, Gray’s-inn 

Crighton, J. Manchester, machine- 
maker. (Perkins and Co., Gray’s~ 
inn; Thomson, Manchester 

Cumpsty, T. Liverpool, jeweller. 
Amory and Co., Throgmorton- 
street; Parkes, Birmingham 

Cramp, J. Phenix-wharf, corn-factor. 
(Barlow, Austin friars 

Coltman, M. Kingston-upon-Hull, 
master-mariner. (Bogue and Co., 
Gray’s-inn 

Carden, T. Oxford-street, silk-mer- 
cer, (Clarke and Co,, Lincoln’s- 
inn-fields 

Cottle, s. and J. Watt, Carey-lane, 
auctioneer. (Watson and Co. 

* Falcon-square 

Cutler, H. London Well, wine-mer- 
chant (Woodward and Co., New 
Broad-street 

Dickinson, W. City-road, silk-dyer. 

* (Fisher, Walbrook-buildings 

Downing, B. H. Liverpool, broker. 

(Adliygton and Co., Bedford-row 5 

‘Houghton, Liverpool 

Eames, J. Angel-inn, st. Clement’s, 

Strand, coach-master. (Stevens and 

Co,, Little St. Thomas Apostle 

les, T. Houndsditch,woollen-draper. 

(Battye and Co., Chancery-lane 

ans, M. Nottingham, linen-draper. 

“(Brittan, Basinghallestreet ; Bevan 

anc Co., Bristol 

er, J» Leamington, press-builder, 

(Sharpe and Co., Bread-street; 

Haynes, Wacwick 

lower, S. S. and J. Worsley, Wath- 

upon-Dearne, flax spinners. (Tay- 

lor, John-street, 1 edford-row 5 

Badger, Rothersham 

) W. T. Constitution-row, Gray’s- 

inn-road, historical engraver. (Da- 

vison, Bread-street 

Forrester, W. Red Lion-street, Cler- 

kenwell, jeweller. (Stafford, Buck- 

ingham-street 

Fisher, R. L. Compton, sailcloth- 
maker. (Ciowesand Co.) Temple 5 

_ Templer, Bridport 

Greenup, W. M. Strand, commission- 
merchant. (Walker, Hatton-garden 

Glover, D. E. St. Helens, Lancashire, 

painter, (Chester, Staple-inn 3 

Barnes, St. Helens 

Gamsov, T. Mark-lane, corn-factor. 
(Swinford, Mark-lane 

Guoter, T. Halesworth,  currier. 

“(Bikins and Son, Exchequer-office 5 
Southwell and Son, Halesworth 

Gibbs, T. J. Eastbourne, winc-mer- 
chant. (Adlington and Co., Bed- 
ford-row 

Graves, J. and G. Norwich, bomba- 
zine-manufacturers. (Spence and 
Co,, Sizelane; Turner and Co., 
Norwich 

Henderson, J. Lawrence, Pountney- 
lane, drysalter, (Atkins and Cov, 
Fox Ordinary court 

» H. Olcbury-on-the-Hill, 


M.M. New Series.—Vouw. VII. No. 41- 


Bankrupts. 


mealman, | (Pinniger, Gray’s-inn 5 
Pinniger, Chippenham 

Howson, W. Newcastle-under-Lyne, 
grocer. (Barber, Fetter-lane 5 
Fenton, Newcastle-under-Lyne 


Hinton, J. tinckley, victualler. (Ni- 
choll’s, Stamford-street 3 Mullis, 
Coventry 


Harris, J. Fore-street, linen-draper. 
(Brittan, Basinghall-street f 

Hughes, H. Basinghall-street, Black- 
weil-hall, factor, (Sale, Basinghall- 
street 

Hutchinson, J. Lynn, draper. 
hurst, Newgate-street 

Haworth, T. Boiton-le-moors, cotton- 
manufacturer, (Barker, Gray’s-inn 5 
Woodhouse, Bolton-le-moors | 

Hughes, R. Liverpool, linen-draper. 
(Chester, Staple-inn; Cort, Liver- 
pool 

Hancock, T. Manchester, innkeeper. 
(Adlington and Co., Bedford-row 5 
Chew, Manchester 

Hillary, J. P. Poultry, wine-merchant. 
(Ogden, St. Mildred’s-court 

Hart, A. Whitehaven, draper, (Fer- 
kins and Co., Gray’s-inn 5 Lewtas, 
Manchester 

Harrison, C. L. Furnival’s-inn, hotel- 
keeper. (Shirreff, Salisbury-street 

Hunt, H. L. and C.C. Clarke, York- 
street, bookseller. (Gadsden, Fur- 
nival’s-inn 

Harris, J. Picket-street, linen-draper, 
(Birkett and Co., Cloak-lane 

James, J. Rhew-Shop, Rock, Bed- 
weltz, Monmouthshire, coal-miner. 


(As- 


(Wilson, Great Suffolk-street, 
Borough 
Johnsun, H. Berwick-upon-Tweed, 


corn-merchant. (Bromley, Gray’s- 
inn-lane; Willohy and Co, Ber- 
wicx-upon-Tweed 

Jackson, W. and H. and J. Leeds, 
towers. (Smithston and Co., New- 
inn 5; Kenyon, Leeds 

Johns, R.- Stratford-upon-Avon, corn- 
dealer. (Adlington and Co., Bed- 
ford-row 5 Tibbits, Stratford-upon- 
Avon 

Knight, J. C. Finsbury-place south, 
druggist. (Stevens and Co., Little 
St Thomas Apostle 

Lucas, H. Donington, miller, (Tooke 
and Co.- Bedford-row; Smith and 
Co., Horbling 

Lewis, L. jun, Throgmorton-street, 
stock-broker. (Wild and Co., Col- 
lege-hill 

Lewis, D. E. Bath, surgeon. (Ar- 
notr and Co,, Temple; Roberts, 
Bath 

Lightwood, E. Birmingham,  coal- 
merchant. (Austen and Co., Gray’s- 
inn; Hayes and Co., Hales Owen 

Liley, J. Redbourn, innkeeper. (Wat 
son, and Co., Falcon-square 

Larke, R. N. Brooke, surgeon. 
(Bromley, Gray’s-inn 5 Copeman, 
Chedgrave 

Lyons, J. Manchester, publican. 
(Hurd and Co., Temple; Seddon, 
Manchester 

Mitchell, J. Old Cavendish-street, 
tailor. (Mayhew, Carey-street 

Margett’s, J. Oxford,  victualler, 
(Tomes, Lincoln’s-inn-fields 5 
Tomes, jun. Oxford 

Mulicr, J, F. Ludgate-hill, perfumer, 
(Young and Co., Slackmann-street, 
Southwark 

Myon, M. Keswick, nurserymen. 
(Chisholme and Co., Lincoin’s-inn- 
field»; Fisher and Son, Cocker- 
mouth 

Maccullock, H. and S. StockSy sen. 
warehousemen 5 (Richardson and 
Co., Poultry 

Moore, G. sheffield, scissar-manufac- 
turer. (Rodgers, Devonshire-square 5 
Rodgers, Shr ffielu. 

Masters, Jy sen. and J. jun. Ciren- 
cester, brewers. (Burtlett and Co. 
Nicholas-lane ; Bever, Cirevcester 

Pettit, C. A. Golden-square, carpen- 
ter. (Flower, Austin-friars 

Pott, M. Heaton Norris, and Man- 
chester, coach-proprictor. (Lowes, 
Southampton-buildings 5 Newton 
and Co., Heaton Norris 

Paine, W. D. Red Lion-street, Cler- 


kenweil, iron-founder. (Tawner, 
New Kasinghall street 
4C 


561 


Poowrie, Anne, Manchester, milliner. 
(Hurd and Co., Temple; Seddon, 
Manchester 

Robinson, R. Wolverhampton, hair- 
dresser, (Clarke and Co., Lin- 
coln’s-inn-fields ; Bennett, Wolver- 
hampton 

Roberts, Eliza, Regent-circus. coffee- 
house-keeper. (Fynmore and Co.y 
Craven-street 

Robinson, J. Keighley, worsted stuff 
manufacturer. (Constable and Co., 
Sym@nd’s-inn 3; Dawson, Keighley 

Reynolds, J. Broad-street-hill, dry- 
salter. (Watson and Co., Falcon- 
square 

Sparkes, W. H. Godalming, paper- 
maker. (Browne, Sewin-crescent 

Skelton, D, Lincoln’s-inn} money- 
scrivener. (Bousfield, Chatham- 
place; Mann, Andover 

Shrimpton, A, Newman-street, gold- 
smith, (Ellis and Co.) Chancery- 
Jane 9 

Spencer, T. Leeds patten-maker. 
Austen and Co., Gray’s-inn 5 Ar- 
nold and Co., Birmingham 

Smee, J. and E. A. Crown-courty 
Cheapside, waiehousemen, (Smith, 
Basinghall-street 

Smith, L. H. Greenwich, wine-mer- 
chant. (Druce and Sons, Billiter- 
square 

Sumpter, W. T. Bnedenelleplace, 
statuary. (Fenton, Austin-friars 

Scott, G. Providence-buildings, Kent 
Road, grocer. (Dods, Northumber- 
Jand-street, Strand 


Scott, J. and M. Ellis, Cateaton- 


street, warehousemen. (Mangnall, 
Alcermanbury 
Tapp, J. and C. Wigmore-street, 


coach-makers, 
street 

Thompson, C. jun, Beaumont-street, 
wine-merchant, (Ellis and. Cosy 
Chancery-lane 4 

Thornton, H. Blyth, grocer and 
draper.. (Dawson and Co., New 
Boswell-court ; Mee and Co., East 
Retford 

Travis, T. Manchester, 
(Makinson and Cov, 
Ogden, Manchester 

Thompson, E. Kingston upon-Hull, 
merchant (Ellis and Co., Chancery- 
lane 5 Schofield and Co., Hull 

Wilgos, T. J. Dearden, and G. Hay- 
land, Sheffield, file-manufacturers. 
Duncan, Gray’s-inn ; Broomhead, 
Sheffield 

White, G, Haughton, seedsman. 
(Williamson, Gray’seinn; Brown 
Shiffnall 

Winnall, J. Wourdwall, maltster. 
(Philpot and Co., Southampton- 
street; Vickers, Bridgenorth 

Weir, W. and J. Tamworth, calico- 
printers, (Perkins and Co., Gray’s- 
inn; Lewtas, Manchester 

Williams, J, and G. Glover, Fen 
church-street, coffee -dealers.( Young 
and Co., St. Mildred’s-court 

Wingate, T. W. Bath, dealer. (Wil- 
liams, and Co., Lincoln’s-inn-fields 5 
Graves, Bath 

Wheeler, J. and W. J. Adamsy 
May’s-buildings, drapers. (Tanner, 
New Basin, hall-street 

Worthington, M. Failsworth, bleacher, 
(Appleby and Co.) Gray’seinn 5 
Whitehead and Co., Manchester 

Walton, W, Liverpool, cloth-merchant, 
(Lowes, Southan:pton-builuings 3 
Lowes, Liverpool 

Woliaston, J. Great Castle-street, 
wine-merchant. (Freemans and 
Co., Coleman-street 

Worthington, G. Wigan, butcher. 
(Adlington and Co,, Bedford-row 5 
Gaskell, Wigan 

Wiarton, T. Wyton, and Kingston- 
upon-Kull, merchant. (Knowles, 
New-inn 5 Scholefield and Cory 
Hull 

Wrigley, J. Know], merchant. (Batty 
and Co., Chancery-lane. (Ainley, 
DeJph. Saddleworsh 

Wilde, J. T. Wath-upon-Dearne, 
grocer. (Taylor, John-street, Beds 
ford-row 5 Badger, Retherham 

Wood, G, Canterbury, prin er. (Wim- 
burn and Cory Chancery-lane 3 
Peirce, Canterbury, 


(Robins, Bernard- 


merchant. 
Temple 5 


[ 562 


[May, 


ECCLESIASTICAL PREFERMENTS. 


Rev. J. M. Turner, to be Bishop of Calcutta.— 
Rey. R. Twopeny, to the Vicarage of North 
Stoke, Oxon.—Rev. J. Dymoke, to the United 
Rectories of Scrivelsby, with Dalderby, Lincoln. 
—Rey. R. Lee, to the Vicarage of Aslackhy, 
alias Asleby, Lincoln.—Rev. R. Wood, to the 
Consolidated Vicarages of Woolaston and Ir- 
chester, Northampton.—Rey. J. D. Parham, to 
the Vicarage of Holme, Devon.—Rev. W. H. 
Marriott, to the Perpetual Curacy of St. Pacot’s 
Episcopal Chapel, Edinburgh.—Rey. W. Cooke, 
to the Rectory of Ullingswick, or Helenswick, 
Hereford.—Reyv. A. Fitzclarence, to the Vicarage 
of Mapledereham, alias Maple Durham, Oxon.— 
Rey. Dr. J. H. Monk, to the Rectory of Peakirk, 
with Glinton, Northampton.—Rev. S. Tillbrook, 
to the Rectory and Vicarage of Freckenham, 
Suffolk—Rev. W. Tiptaft, to the Vicarage of 
Sutton Courtney, Berks.—Rev. Speidell, to the 
Rectory of Creeke, Northampton.—Rer. C. Thorp, 
to a Prebendal Stall in Durham Cathedral—Rev. 
G. A. Biedermann, to the Rectory of Dauntsey, 
Wilts.—Rev. W. Hall, to the Rectory of Sudden- 
ham, Suffolk.—Rev. T. S. Escott, to the Rectory 
of Foston, York.—Rey. Dr. E, Tatham, to the 


Rectory. of Whitchureh, Salop.—Rey. S, Slocock, 
to the Chapel of St. Paul, Southsea.—Rev. Dr. 
Hurlock, to the Rectory of Langham, Essex.— 
Rev. W. Gordon, to be Minister of the New 
Church at West Bromwich.—Rev. C. G. Boyles, 
to the Rectory of Buriton, Hants.—Rev. S. 
Smith, to the Rectory of Dry. Drayton, Cam- 
bridge.—Rev. R. E. Landor, to the Rectory of 
Bistingham, Worcester.—Rev. G. Dayys, to the 
Rectory of All-Hallows, London.—Rey. J. Spence, 
to the United Rectory and Vicarage of Culworth, 
Northampton.—Rev. E. Dewing, to the Rectory 
of Barningham Parva, Norfolk.—Rev. T. Gais- 
ford, to the Golden Stall in Durham Cathedral.— 
Rev. C. Harbin, to the Office of Chaplain Priest 
in Hindon Chapel, Wilts.—Rey. C. Hall, to bea 
Priest in Ordinary of His Majesty’s Chapel Royal. 
—Rey. J. B. Whittenoom, to be Principal Chap- 
lain of the Swan River Settlement, Australia.— 
Rev. H. L. Bamford, to be Chaplain of Price’s 
Hospital, Hereford.—Rey. J. Daubuz, to the 
Rectory of St. Creed, Cornwall.—Rey. E. C. 
Kemp, to be one of the Duke of Cumberland’s 
Domestic Chaplains. 


» 


POLITICAL APPOINTMENTS. 


——— 


Lieutenant-General Sir H. Fane, to be Master 
Surveyor and Surveyor-General of the United 
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.—Right 


Hon. Robert Gordon to be His Majesty’s Am- 
bassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to 
the Sublime Ottoman Porte. 


CHRONOLOGY, MARRIAGES, AND DEATHS, ETC. 


CHRONOLOGY. 


April 2.—Cardinal Castiglioni, 68, elected Pope, 
and assumed the name of Pius VIII. 

3.—The port of Picton, Nova Scotia, declared, 
by His Majesty’s order, a free warehousing port. 

4.—The Roman Catholic Relief Bill carried in 
the House of Peers by a majority of 105!—Con- 
tents 217, Non-Contents 112—103 proxies !!! 

9.—The Lord Mayor presented Mr. Secretary 
Peel with the freedom of the city of London, at 
the Guildhall, in a gold box of the value of 100 
guineas. His lordship presented it in a com. 
plimentary speech, which was answered by the 
Right Hon. Secretary, who said, ‘‘ It is a matter 
of trifling concern to be assailed by vulgar and 
malignant calumpiators ; it could do no injury ; 
it could inflict no pain!’ A grand dinner was 
afterwards given by the Lord Mayor at the Man- 
sion House onthe occasion, to upwards of 300 
persons, many of the first distinction, and all the 
members of the Common Council who voted for 
the breaking up of the Constitution of 1688. 

— Sessions commenced at the Old Bailey. 

10.—Lord Farnham presented a petition to the 
House of Lords from the Proprietors, Editors, 
Printers, &c., of the Monthly Magazine against 
the subversion and destruction of the Constitu- 
tion of 1688, the only petition in a literary shape 
presented against the measure!!! A similar pe-~ 
tition from the same persons had been presented 
in the Commons by Lord Tullamore.* © 


* Its insertion in our next. 


11.—The Irish disfranchising forty-shillings © 


freeholder’s bill, passed the third time in the 
House of Lords without even a division. On the 


previous reading it hadpassed withthe very great ~ 


majority of 139 against 171!! : 
12.—Court mourning for the late Landgray 
of Hesse Homburg. 
13.—The Royal Assent was given by commissio 


to the Roman Catholic Relief Bill, and the Dis- . 


franchisement Freeholder’s Bill. ; 
— Esther Hibner, 61, executed at the Ol 
Bailey for the murder, by starvation, of Frances” 


Colpits, her apprentice, aged nine years ; the mob 


saluted her with yells and execrations. 


— Several hundreds of the Spitalfields 


weavers assembled jn front of the houses of Par- — 


liament, and conducted themselves with the ute 
most regularity and order. They displayed seve- 
ral banners bearing inscriptions, among which 
were these—‘ We desire only to live by our la- 
bour.”—* Suffer us to work for our livelihood.”— 
“ Victims of Free Trade/’—* British Artisans 
reduced to starvation.’ 

16.—The Gazette announces the capture, on the 
coast of Africa, of the Almirante, a Spanish slave 
vessel, having 466 slaves on board, by the Black 
Joke tender, Lieut. H. Downes, after a gallant 
action. The Black Joke carried 2 guns and 55 
men ; and the Almirante 14 guns and 80 men. 
The Spanish vessel had 15 killed, including he 
captain and Ist and 2d mates, and 14 wounded 
the loss of the Black Joke, including the mate 
was 6 wounded, 2 of whom, seamen, afterwards 
died. 


1829.] 


18.—Sessions terminated at the Old Bailey, 
when 20 prisoners received sentence of death; 
84 were transported ; and between 70 and 80 
imprisoned. 

23.—The Roman Catholic Relief Bill this day 
(St. George's) became an operative law! The 
following is the protest of the Lord Chief Justice 
of England against the third reading of the Ca- 
tholic Bill——* BecauseI think this bill is a great 
departure tromthe principles of the revolution of 
1688, by which, in my opinion, it was establisbed 
that the government of Great Britain and Ireland 
should be conducted wholly by Protestants, and 
because I think the measure is calculated to give 
encouragement to violence and disaffection, and 
is more likely to lead to the overthrow of the Pro- 
testant church in Ireland, which I consider essen- 
tial to the maintenance of civil and religious 
liberty, and to cause the dignitiesand revenues of 
that church to be transferred to a Popish priest- 
hood, than to produce permanent tranquillity in 
Treland.—TeENTERDEN.” The following Peers 
afterwards signed this protest: Kenyon, Verulam, 
Farnborough, Abingdon, Newcastle, Brownlow, 
Falmouth, Churchill, Farnham, Clanbrassil, 
Ailesbury, Skelmersdale, Bexley. 


MARRIAGES. 

At Bath, the Rey. H. Stenhouse to Miss Louisa 

Bart Taylor.—At St. George’s, Hanover-square, 

the Hon, G. Talbot, brother and heir of the Earl 

of Shrewsbury, to Miss Jones, daughter of Sir 

: H. St. Paul, Bart, M.P. Bridport.—Earl Nelson, 
to Hilare, widow.of G. U. Barlow, esq., eldest son 

of Sir George Barlow, Bart., and 3d daughter of 
Sir Robert Barlow.—Viscount Stormont, eldest 
son of the Earl of Mansfield, to Louisa, daughter 
of C. Ellison, esq., M.P.—Rev. W. J. Brodrick, 
‘to the Honourable Harriet Broderick, third 
daughter of Viscount Middletou.—J. Donkin, 
esq., to Caroline, eldest daughter of B. Hawes, 
esq.—Hon. J. H. R. Curzon, 4th son of Lord 
eynham, to Miss Isabella Hodgson.—At Pad- 
dington, W. Oakes Blount, esq., son of Sir C, B. 
Blount, to Miss F.C. Olebar.—At Cheltenham, 
the Rey. H. Withey, to Christian Dottin, 4th 
daughter of the Hon. Sir J. G. Abbyne, Bart., of 
“Barbadoes.—At Saucethorpe, J. G. Pole, esq., 
eldest son of Sir W. T. Pole, Bart.,to Margaretta, 
daughter of H. Barton, esq.—At Bergh Apton, 
A. Kyd, esq., to Miss Emma Beeyor.—At Edin- 
burgh, J.P. Read, esq., to Helen, daughter of 
Sir J. Colquhoun, Bart.—At Chichester, the Rev. 
_H.H. Dod, to Frances Elizabeth Holland, grand- 
_ daughter to the late Lord Chancellor Erskine.— 
At Shenley, the Hon, and Rey. C. G. Perceval, 
3d son of Lord Arden, to Miss M. Knapp.—At 
Rockingham, W. de Capel Brooke, esq., 2d son 
of Sir R. de C. Brooke, Bart., to the Hon.Catherine 
Watson, sister to Lord Sondes.—At High Clere, 

_ Rey. J. C. Stapleton, to the Lady H. E. Herbert, 
daughter to the Karl of Uarnarvon.—At Ply- 
mouth, G. H, Palliser, esq., to Mary White, 
eldest daughter of Colonel Westropp. 


DEATHS. 

At Pimlico Lodge, J. Elliot, esq., 65.—At Wands- 
worth, Marianne, wife of the Bishop of Chester. 
—At Spatisbury, the Hon, Miss Arundell.—Rev. 
R. Nares,76, Archdeacon of Stafford.—In Mon- 
_ tague place, H, Hase, esq., principal cashier to the 


Chronology, Marriages, and Deaths. 


563 


Bank of England.—Viscount Pevensey, only son of 
Earl Sheffield.—Earl] of Carhampton, 89; he had 
been a captain in the navy 67 years, and was 
brother to one of the late Duchesses of Cumber- 
land.—At Camming Convent, Dr. Collenridge, 
vicar apostolic of the Western District.—At 
Chelsea, W. Stevenson, esq., author of “The 
Historical Sketch of the Progress of the Discovery 
of Navigation and Commerce.’ — At Coombe 
House, N, B., Anne, Countess of Kellie—At 
Brighton, the Hon. Miss Caroline Vernon, 83, 
many years maid of honour to the late Queen 
Charlotte.—At Winchester, Jane Dymocke Black- 
stone, relict of the Rey. Dr. H. Blackstone, 
brother of the late Sir W. Blackstone.—Charles 
Douglas, esq., 78, brother to the late Lord Glen- 
bervie.—G. Engleheart, esq., 79, of Bedfont 
Lodge.—At Colsterworth, Mrs, A. Lowth, 160,.— 
In Foley-place, Dr. Edward Ash, F.R.S.C,S.—At 
Kirkley, Lord H. V. Vernon, brother to the 
Archbishop of York.—At Spalding, R. Holdich, 
esq., 83, deputy lieutenant of Lincolnshire.—In 
Regent’s Park, Esther, wife of Mr. Serjeant 
Goulburn.—At Trewithen, Sir C. Hawkins, Bart, 
71, M.P., for many successive parliaments, and, 
during the last sessiun, father of the House of 
Commons.-—At Bath, Mrs. M. A. Anstrey.—At 
Westbourn Rectory, the Rev. W. de Chair Tat- 
tersall, 79.—Mr. W. Bromley, 66 ; this respectable 
old servant of the public had driven the Rocking- 
ham coach for 47 years; the average yearly space 
traversed by him as a driver, was 17,478 miles, 
and the whole length of his course 821,250 miles, 
equal to 34times the circumference of the globe.— 
At Anwick, Dame Lunn, 87: she had been the re- 
spected village schoolmistress for upwards of 
half a century.—At Woolwich, Major-General 
Ford.—William Blake, son of Lord Wallscourt.— 
At Bath, Sir V. Keane, Bart., 72.—At Northwick, 
Mrs. Fairclough, 107.—At Chester, T. Harrison, 
esq.,85.—In Albemarle-street, Sir Brook William 
Brydges, Bart., 62.—At Dryburgh Abbey, the 
Earl of Buchan, 88.—At Argyll House, Lady 
Alice Gordon, eldest daughter of the Earl of 
Aberdeen, — At Bath, General James Mont- 
gomerie, 73, M.P. for the county of Ayr, and 
brother to the late Earl of Eglington.—At Ply- 
nouth, the Rey. Levi Benjamin, 100; he had 
been 60 years reader to the Jewish synagogue 
there.—At Bampton, Mrs. Betty Clarke, 100.— 
At Thoraby, Lord Rokeby, 71.—At Wolverhamp- 
ton, Mary Anson, 105.—At Maidenhead, S. Wil- 
son, esq., 95; he had served in the American 
war, and was supposed to be the last surviving 
person who served at the battle of Bunker's 
Hill.—At Cork, W. Yates, 96, pensioner ; he en- 
listed in 1755 in the 28th regt., was at the taking 
of Quebee ; at the taking of the Havannah; and 
at different battles in the American War ; and in 
1783 was discharged on a pension which was 
subsequently increased ; and, in consequence of 
his being supposed the last of the survivors who 
fought under General Wolfe, his pension was 
still further offered to be augmented, which he 
declined, saying his sovereign had been already 
sufficiently bountiful to him.—A. Donadieu, esq. 
DEATHS ABROAD. 

At Rome, Lady Abdy, 78, relict of the late Sir 
W.Abdy, Bart.—On hoard the Cornwall, East- 
Indiaman, Flora, eldest daughter of Sir W. Rum- 
ble, Bart.—At Homburg, His Serene Highness 

4C 2 


564 


the reigning Landgrave of Hesse Homburg, 59, 
brother-in-law to His Britannic Majesty, by his 
union with the Princess Elizabeth.—At Rotter- 
dam, the Rey. J. Hall, upwards of 40 years minis- 
ter of the English church in that city.—At Rome, 
Dr. Fortis, late General of the order of the Society 
of Jesus, 80. In consequence of his death, the 
provincials, or heads of the different communities 


Chronology, Marriages, and Deaths. 


[May, 


throughout Europe, will have to assemble at 
Rome, to choose a successor.—At St..Mary’s, 
Georgia, J. Wood, esq., 76, brother of the late 
Mr, Baron Wood.—Baroness Humboldt, who had 
accompanied the Baron in most of his journies.— 
At his residence in the government of Pultawa, 
Demetrius Troscetshinsky, 76, privy-counsellor. 
and one of the most distinguished men in Russia, 


MONTHLY PROVINCIAL OCCURRENCES. 


_— 


NORTHUMBERLAND —A number of gen- 
tlemen haye, in former periods, received grants 
from governors of Tynemouth Casile, conveying 
leave to bury their relatives in the Castle-yard.— 
An order has recently been received from the 
Board of Ordnance, prohibiting such interments 
in future: and at a public meeting, it has been 
resolved to petition the Board of Ordnance to 
take off that prohibition : and should this applica- 
tion be unsuccessful, then to petition the King. 


DURHAM.—A cushat, or wood pigeon, was 
shot afew days ago, in the neighbourhood of Wit- 
ton-le-Wear, in the stomach of which was found 
a brass screw an inch and-a-half in length, and an 
inch and-a-quarter in circumference. 

A new butcher, fish, poultry, vegetable, and 
fruit-market, is now erecting at Sunderland. 

A very important improvement in Durham, by 
the alteration of the road, at the north-end of 
Framwellgate Bridge, has been determined upon, 
and will soon be commenced. 

At a public meeting at Durham on the 6th of 
April, a subscription was entered into for the re- 
lief of the Spitalfields silk weavers, 

The mortality at St. Mary, Gateshead, was 
more in the month of March than was ever known 
in a similar period.—The number of deaths was 
fifty-four. 

A subscription has been entered into for the 
purpose of providing an organ for the new church 
at Bishopwearmouth. 


CUMBERLAND,—A subscription for erecting 
“a public test in Liverpool for the re-proving of 
chain cables, has been set on foot at Carlisle, 
and is in a fair way of being speedily completed. 
This project is calculated to save many lives and 
much property, as shipwrecks are very frequent 
from the breaking of chains; and when itis con- 
sidered that there is no mode to control the manu- 
facturer in the making of a bad chain, or to re- 
ward him for the making of a good chain, and 
who, perhaps, is borne down to the lowest market 
price by a purchaser, it is not to be wondered at 
that inferior chains should be in the market. The 
test now in fair progress will correct these de- 
ficiencies, and give a stimulus to the further im- 
provement of chains. 


YORKSHIRE, — The assizes for the county 
of York eommenced on the 21st of Marchi,-and 
terminated on the 4th of April. There were 78 
prisoners for trial (including Jonathan Martin); 
of whom one (for murder) was executed ; and 

‘death was recorded against 35. f 

On Friday, March 31, Martin took his trial be- 
fore Mr. Baron Hullock, and after an inquiry, 
which lasted nine hours, he was acquitted on the 


‘of the empire. 


.form similar unions in every district of the cou 
. try ; and in. case this. part of the plan should 


ground of insanity. It is astonishing the interest 
this unhappy maniac excited in York. The York- 
shire Gazette says : “* The curiosity to be intro- 
duced to the man who has immortalized his name 
by the burning of York Minster, is scarcely in- 
ferior to that which prevailed as to Buonaparte, 
when at St. Helena. Noblemen and titled ladies, 
a crowd of persons of rank and distinction, throng 
to Martin’s levees ; they are all very graciously 
received, have the honour to shake the incendiary’s 
hand, and depart highly gratified! Martin, on 
his part, is noless gratified, and declares he never 
shook hands with so many people of qnality in his 
life, as since he burnt the Minster!” 

The prefatory steps are taking towards the re- 
pair of York Minster ; the stone-masons are pre- 
paring the stone for replacing the cylinders of the 
clustered columns of the choir, which were so 
much damaged, and the roof will soon be com- 
menced ; the subscriptions amount to upwards of 
£47,000. Timber to the amount of £5,000 has 
been granted by Government, for the Minster ; ‘ 
and to lessen the expense of carriage, we under- 
stand the roof will be finished at the Dock Yards 
at Chatham, . 

On the 2lst of March, the water undermined 
the coffer-dam of the old dock, Hull, and com- 
pletely filled the new dock, which was not quite 
finished, with water. It was apprehended that 
great damage would ensue, but this, fortunately 
was not the case. The new dock will be opened 
about the Ist of June. & +4 . 

On the 8th of April, a Protestant meeting was 
held at Barnsley, and an address to the King, , 
“ praying him to dissolve parliament,” was agreed 
to by an overwhelming majority. The edie 


Methodists of the city of York have addressed the 
King, also, praying him not to give his consent 
to the Roman Catholic Bill. a" 
A Protestant Association has been formed in 
Yorkshire, the head-quarters of which are at 
Barnsley. It is called ‘‘ The Wapontake of 
Staincross Protestant Union ;” its great object is, 
to secure the return of Protestant members to 
parliament. This is not to be a mere local asso- 
ciation, but one in which are to be concentrated 
all the available Protestant strength and resources 
Funds are to be collected tor the 
purpose of upholding, by every /awful means, 
Protestant ascendancy. A register is to be kept 
of those freeholders who will pledge themselves 
to support the return of Protestant members to — 
Parliament, the funds of the union to be appro: 
priated to this purpose ; endeayoursto be used 


=: Aden 


realized, delegates are to be appointed from eac 
union, who are to assemble either periodically o1 


1829.] 


on special occasions, as may be thought most ad- 
yisable. 

On the 8th of April the first stone of a new 
church was laid at New Mill, in the parish of 
Kirk-burton. 

On Sunday evening, the 12th of April, during 
evening service at the Methodist chapel, Keck- 
wardwicke, part of the stone pipe fell down, and 
the congregation were so alarmed, that a rush to 
the door took place, and six persons were trodden 
to death. 

A woman named Elizabeth Edwards, an inmate 
of the seamens’ hospital, Whitby, lost her speech, 
by a paralytic affection, 18 years ago. On the 6th 
of April she was reading the 5th chapter of St. 
John’s Gospel: and whilst meditating on the 
miracle performed at the pool of Bethesda, she 
prayed that God would restore her her speech 
again. Her prayer was answered, and her 
speech restored! 

Trade is in a very depressed state in all parts 
of Yorkshire. The manufacturing and agricul- 
tural interests are equally on the decline; and the 
general trader, of course, must suffer with the 
falling fortunes of his customers. 

The Fifteenth Anniversary of the Wesleyan 
Missionary Society was lately held at Hull, when 
#151. 9s. 54d. was collected ; and the general re- 
port of their proceedings was read, when it ap- 
peared that, exclusive of catechists, local preach- 
ers, and a great number of persons, diligently 
employed in the religious instruction of the chil- 
dren, there are, at present, 190 missionaries em- 
ployed on 138 different stations; some of which 
are important in a very high degree, extending 
instruction to various towns and villages, con- 
taining a population of many thousands. ‘ In 
Ireland, we have 21 missionaries; in France, 

Gibraltar, Malta, Egypt, and the Ionian Isles, 
12, 12 are employed in the Islands of the South 
Sea; 16 in Southern and Western Africa; 27 in 
Ceylon and Continental India; 47 in British 
North America ; and 55 in the Islands and Colo- 


£50,000 have been received by the treasurers of 
arent Institution, being an advance of nearly 


languages) and to more than 100,000 beings. 
36,917 of these are members of the Methodist So- 
ciety. In addition to the adult population com- 
mitted to the care of your missionaries, there are 
16,917 children regularly and carefully instructed 
the great truths of Christianity; and those 
aborious men have already translated the living 
oracles of truth into the Cingalese, the Indo-Por- 
tuguese, and the Pali languages.” 


. LANCASHIRE.—We are sorry we are still 
_udableto announce any material improvement in 
_ the demand for cotton goods, ‘There las been a 
_considerable number of drapers in town, and 
_ several wholesale purchasers from London; but 
they bave purchased yery cautiouly and sparing- 
ly, and in general not above one third of what 
hey have usually taken at this season, The 
ipping trade is exceedingly dull, except in 
ns of low numbers. We are sorry to add, 
e spinners of eighteen mills, employed in 
fine numbers, have turned out against a 
“of wages. By this proceeding, from 


Yorkshire and Lancashire. 


565 


ten to twelve thousand pérsons have been de- 
prived of employment. It is one of the unfortu- 
nate circumstances attending a dispute between 
the higher class of workmen in cotton mills and 
their employers, that it involves in its conse- 
quences the comforts of thousands who are not 
otherwise concerned in the quarrel. The women 
and children who receive weekly wages are all 
thrown out of employment along with the spin- 
ners, thongh they have nothing to gain by the 
triumph of either party. We fear that the suf- 
ferings of this class will be great, as there is no 
prospect of a speedy settlement of differences.— 
Manchester Herald, April 9. 

The turn-out cotton-spinners, at Stockport, 
amounting to no less than 10,060 persons, haye 
been supported, since they left their work, prin- 
cipally by the contributions of those spinners who 
remained in full work in other places, particu- 
larly in Manchester, Hyde, and the neighbour- 
hood. The master manufacturers have had se- 
veral meetings to concert measures for destroying 
that combination ; and they came to the resolu- 
tion, of making a progressive reduction in the 
wages of their hands while the Stockport turn- 
out should continue. They also issued an address, 
calling upon the men who are in work, to sign a 
declaration, that they will not contribute to the 
support of the turn-outs. For the purpose of con- 
sidering this address, a numerous meeting of the 
operative spinners and weavers in Hyde took 
place on Wednesday evening, April 1, in a large 
room at the Norfolk Arms, which was attended 
by between 600 and 700 persons, including a pro- 
portion of females, when suddenly the two large 
beams, which supported that part of the floor 
which extended over the travellers’ room, sud- 
denly gave way, and about 300 persons were pre- 
cipitated into the room below. The floor of the 
travellers’ room also gave way, and the whole 
descended in one mass into the cellar, and no less 
than 30 persons lost their lives, actually dying 
from suffocation ! 

An unparalleled stagnation pervades all com- 
mercial pursuits ; transactions are on a very re- 
duced scale, and are, for the most part, wholly 
without profit. In some articles, and those the 
most important, the trade is attended with very 
serious loss. We have heard the loss on the im- 
port of cotton into Liverpool stated at £20,000 
per week, and we believe the estimate is not 
exaggerated, though the price is lower than was 
ever before known. All commodities are daily 
sinking in price, the demand is decreasing, and 
the confidence which formerly induced specula- 
tions is entirely at an end.* 

The expenditure of the parish of Liverpool, 


“ It is scarcely possible to convey an adequate 
idea of the distressed state of trade both in town 
and country. What tends materially to keep 
what is going on from the knowledge of the pub- 
lic is, thata multitude of insolvencies, which in 
ordinary times would tind their way into the 
“ Gazette,” are disposed by private compromise 
among the creditors, becanse it would only tend 
to make the mischief greater to reveal its extent ; 
as the heavy law expenses contingent upon bank- 
ruptcies cannot in many casesbe afforded. There 
is scarcely a staple article of consumption which 
has not fallen. within five or six months 20 per 
cent. or more in yalue; and persons connected 
with the management of our great canals ob- 
serve, that on most of these there is literally no- 
thing doing. 


566 


during the year 1828, was £43,130. 12s. 9d.; out 
of which £5,616. 17s. was paid for churches and 
clergy, and upwards of £2,700. for salaries. 


WARWICKSHIRE, — At Warwick Assizes, 
judgment of death was recorded against 66 pri- 
soners, 28 of whom were poachers, found guilty 
of shooting at the gamckeepers of the Earl of 
Denbigh and D. S. Dugdale, Esq., M.P. ; 22 were 
transported, and 57 ordered to be imprisoned for 
various periods. The calendar of these assizes 
presented a lamentable list of juvenile offenders, 
One child, only eleven years old, has been three 
or four times imprisoned, and has lived entirely 
by theft since he was but eight years of age; he 
was sentenced to seven years’ transportation. 
Four prisoners were 13 years of age, four were 
15, eight 16, ten 17, and there were sixty-seven 
others, the ages of whom did not exceed 21 
years!!! The whole number of prisoners exceeded 
200; many of whom had necessarily been in pri- 
son three, four, and tive mouths before trial! 
Surely this system ought to be altered! 

The Chamber of Manufactures and Commerce 
in Birmingham, have resolved to petitiou the two 
Houses of Parliament, praying them to take into 
consideration, during the present session, ‘* the 
restrictions which impede the commerce of this 
kingdom with India and China, for the purpose of 
facilitating and extending a more beneficial inter- 
course with those vast regions than has hitherto 
existed.” , 


LINCOLNSHIRE. — The persons petitioning 
in the matter of the Free Grammar School, at 
Sleford, have received permission from the Vice- 
Chancellor to lay before one of the Masters of the 
court a scheme for the re-establishment thereof. 
In consequence of this permission, a public meet- 
ing, in the vestry-room, was lately he!d, when it 
was agreed to propose tothe court, that the sti- 
pend of the master, who must be an under-gra- 
duate of one of the universities, should be £80 
per annum; which sum, with a house free of 
rent, itis thought will make an adequate allow- 
ance to any gentleman duly qualified, and the 
charity will be of inestimable benefit to the town 
and neighbourhood. 

The annual report of the Lincoln General Dis- 
pensary, from the 25th March, 1828, to the 31st 
March, 1829, has been published. ‘The number 
of out-patients is 901 ; of home ditto, 455—total, 
1356: of which number 965 have been discharged 
cured. As home-patient, 66 remain, and 145 as 
out-patients. This popular and useful institu- 
tion, though so recently established, now pos- 
sesses a roomy and convenient building, a liberal 
income from subscriptions, and the foundation of 
a reserved fund to meet contingencies. 

The greatest and most ornamental addition to 
the town of Stamford made within half a cen- 
tury is now in course of erection. Twenty new 
and very handsome houses are building on the 
site of the late bowling-green and its adjoining 
enclosure, at the western entrance of the town: 
they are to be finished with French windows and 
balconies in front, and each with a coach-house 
and stables behind. They command the delight- 
ful south view of Burghley Park, Wothorpe, and 
Easton. 


NOTTINGHAMSHIRE. — About half- past 
seven o’clock of the evening of April 13,a tremen- 


Provincial Occurrences : Warwickshire, Lincolnshire, Sc. 


[May, 


dous fall of rock (some hundred tons) took place 
nearly at the back of the Loggerheads’ public- 
house, in Nottingham, in which, it appears, the 
landlord, Mr. Godkin, then was. In about three 
minutes, the whole extent of Cliff gave way, and 
five houses were crushed into one general wreck. 
The street was completely buried im the mass of 
huge rock stones, and buildings crushed down 
with their weight. As soon asthe clouds of dust 
arising from the ruins had somewhat subsided» 
every hand was ready to render aid in endeayour- 
ing to ascertain whether any person had been 
buried under the now immense heap of rubbish 
that spread itself for the extent of about 120 feet. 
A young man was dug out in a state of insensi- 
bility, bat shortly afterwards recovered, having 
only received a few bruises. Reports were cir- 
culated that others were under the ruins, but no 
more bodies have been found. The Nottingham 
Review adds, that about 30 houses in the conti- 
guity of the ruins are now shut up, as another 
fall of rock is continually expected. 


NORFOLK.—At the Lent Assizes for this 
county, Baron Vaughan, in addressing the grand 
jury, regretted exceedingly to observe a frightful 
and appalling calendar of crimes, and the more 
especially so, because it was not with respect to 
the county of Norfolk alone that the remark was 
to be made; he was sorry to say that it had been 
the case also in every county through which he 
had passed. To what cause to attribute such an 
increase of crime he could not now inquire ; it 
might possibly arise from the long continued 
peace, and the consequent redundaney of popu- 
lation!!! 15 prisoners were recorded for death, 
and 10 transported, besides several imprisoned 
and hard labour, 

A fine new vessel, of 450 tons, intended for the ~ 
East India private trade, was launched, April.23, 
in honour of His Majesty’s birth-day, at the yard — 
of Mr. Palmer, at Yarmouth; and the new Sus- 
pension Bridge, over the Bure, or North Rive 
was opened to the public the same day with gr 


ceremony. 

SUFFOLK.—At the Lent Assizes, 18¢pri mers } 
received sentence of death; one of then Par j 
tridge, 21) was for the murder of two little boys, 
brothers. ee ee Pa 


a cae 


=f 
LEICESTERSHIRE,—At these assizes 17 « 

the criminals were recorded for death, 4 were 

transported, and seyeral ordered to be imprison 


CAMBRIDGE.—By the abstract of the a 
counts of the treasurer for this county for th 
last year, it appears that £3,687. Is. 4d. was th 
total amount ofits expences ; all but about £55 
was expended in gaols, sessions, assizes, and other _ 
objects connected with the administration of the 
laws. At the Isle of Ely assizes, the chief justice 
of the Isle, in addressing the grand jury, congra- 
tulated them ‘‘on the now admission of the 
affirmation in a court of justice of that’ very re- 
spectable and unimpeachable sect, the Quakers, 
who before had, on account of their religious 
principles, been excluded as witnesses; and ] 
wish to see all religious distinctions done away 
5 prisoners were recorded for death, and 
transported and imprisoned. © 

Seven prisoners were recorded fo al 
Cambridge assizes, and:a very few trans 


1829.] 


The commissioners under the South Level River 
Act are proceeding rapidly with the execution of 
their work, upwards of 400 labourers being now 
employed in excavating the intended new river 
between Ely and Littleport. The steam-dredging 
engine used upon this occasion is capable of 
raising 40 tons of earth per hour. 


HUNTINGDONSHIRE.—At the Lent assizes 
two convicts were recorded for death, and two 
‘transported. Baron Vaughan congratulated the 
grand jury in not having any one for trial for the 
violation of the game laws, hoping before long 
there would be some amendment in those laws, 
for his mind had been very much harassed on this 
cireuit, having been obliged to sentence several 
to the most severe punishment for those offences. 


DEVONSHIRE.—The old adage of ‘ bringing 
coals to Newcastle,” was exemplified last week at 
Barnstaple, by the quay being covered with packs 
of wool landed from the Bristol traders, whilst 
there are immense stocks of wool now in the 
hands of the growers in that neighbourhood ; 
many of the farmers have four, five, and even 
more, years’ clip by them. The depressed state 
of the wool trade, at the last Bristol fair, offered 
an opportunity uf which some of the North Devon 

1 manufacturers availed themselves, of making pur- 
chases there at a much lower price than they 
could buy for at home ; and hence the unusual 
circumstance of an importation of wool, in the 
place where large quantities were used to be 
exported. 

Since the destruction of the Axminster carpet 
manufactory by fire, a large and commodious one 
has been erected on a new site, the extreme di- 
mensions of which are 110 feet long, by 28 feet 
_ wide, and four floors high. Aprill, Mr. Whitty 
" gave a dinner to his work- -people, and the arti- 
ficers employed, in a room the whole length of the 
building, and about 150 persons were regaled 
with the old English fare of roast-beef, plum 
budding, and strong beer. 
passengers in the Plymouth coach, on its 
to Barnstaple, on Saturday last, were placed 


prevention to travellers from pur- 
way ; the coachman, however, ven- 


skill and power that he could again set them in 
motion ; this cpwever, he effected, after the fire 


At Dorchester assizes 9 
ed for death, 4 were trans- 
tenced to hard labour and 


RE. — Forty-one prisoners 
‘or death at these assizes ; 30 re- 


Huntingdonshire, Devonshire, Dorsetshire, &c- 


567 


ceiving sentence of transportation, and 52 im- 
prisoned. The number of prisoners, originally for 
trial, amounted to about 200, and it is a remark- 
able fact, that such was the rapid increase of 
commitments, even during these assizes, that 
after Mr. Justice Littledale had been disposing of 
prisoners for three days, there were as many for 
trial on the fourth day as when he began. 


The glove trade at Yeovil still continues in- 
active, and the stock of the manufacturers, which 
is considered to be larger than at any former 
period, is become altogether unsaleable. The 
distress among the lower classes, arising from 
this depression, is in the highest degree lament- 
able. 

The collections made by the benevolent exer- 
tions of several gentlemen of Bath, in favour of 
the Spitalfields weavers, and the monies sub- 
scribed by the corporation, and at the banks and 
libraries, amounted to £542. 2s. 6d, 

The ceremony of laying the foundation-stone of 
the new church in the parish of Walcot, Bath, 
took place April 2, 


BUCKS.—At the assizes for this county, death 
was recorded against 13 prisoners, 15 were tran- 
sported, and 20 imprisoned. 


SUSSEX.—April 14, the mackarel boats of 
Hastings returned laden with fish, haying from 
4,000 to 10,000 in a boat—the whole number 
landed that day was 17,000, varying in price ac- 
cording to the quality, but, on the average, 
fetched 14s. per hundred. The next day the boats 
again returned heayily laden. This unexpected 
good fortune has come most opportunely to the 
relief of the fisherman, many of whom were abso- 
lutely insolvent, and but for the above providen- 
tial assistance, must have parted with their boats, 
to defray the expense of cordage, &c., and, with 
their families, taken refuge in the poor-house. 
It has diffused a general joy among those poor 
industrious people. The oldest fisherman of 
Hastings say, they never saw any thing to equal 
this, particularly so early inthe season, 


GLOUCESTERSHIRE,— At the assizes at 
Bristol, 9 prisoners were recorded for death ; two 
brothers were tried, one for stealing goods from 
his employers, and the other for receiving them 
knowing them to be stolen, when the first was 
transported for 28 years, and the latter for 14, 

At the Gloucester assizes no less than 157 pri- 
soners were for trial; 17 were recorded for death; 
1 for stealing a pig, and a gun from different per- 
sons, was transported for twice 7 years; several 
others were transported, anda number imprisoned 
for yarious periods. 

This county rate, which has been very expensive 
hitherto, has been reduced to nearly one-half the 
amount which was levied at the spring sessions of 
last year. 

An interesting and affecting spectacle was pre- 
sented on Easter Wednesday morning, in the 
assembling of all the children belonging to the 
schools connected with the Church of England in 
this town, at the parish church. Upwards of 
1,000 neatly dressed boys and girls were present, 
who receive gratuitous education in the charit- 
able establishments of Cheltenham. Notwith- 
standing the unfavourable state of the weather, 
the chureh was crowded ; many ladies of highrauk, 
and a number of the most respectable inhabitants 


568 


having attended with their families, to witness 
the gratifying sight. The parents of most of the 
children were also present, and after the service, 
the children were regaled with buns, &c. 

April 14, a very numerous meeting of bankers, 
merchants, traders, and other inhabitants of 
Bristol, was held at the Guildhall, the mayor in 
the chair, when various resolutions were unani- 
mously passed, for petitioning Parliament against 
the renewal of the East -India Company’s charter. 


WALES.—In the county of Merivneth, about 
8 miles from Bala, at the distance of about 50 
paces from the south side of the road leading to 
Festiniog, may be seena rock, which presents a 
range of columns, to all appearance of basaltic 
formation. The columns seem to be about a foot 
in diameter, and 6 or 8 feet in length, and the 
fragments on the road side possess all that an- 
gular appearance so characteristic of basalt; 
and, though they cannot bear any comparison 
with the celebrated columns on the south-west of 
Staffa, yet they seem to be full as regular as those 
of several cliffs on the other side of that island, as 
well as on the coast of Mull, As the geological 
structure of the principality affords so great a 
variety of formations, and as the face of the coun- 
try presents so many obstacles to a complete in- 
vestigation of its contents, notwithstanding the 
numerous preserving and intelligent geologists, 
who have, from time to time, been occupied in 
exploring its recesses, still it may be presumed 
that there lie concealed, among the seclusions of 
the mountains, many curious appearances which 
have hitherto escaped observation; and, amongst 
the number of such, may be placed the columnar 
formations on the side of the Arennig, of which, 
most probably, no description has hitherto been 
given: A complete and scientific description of 
the rocks alluded to, would afford great satisfac- 
tion to all lovers of natural history. 


SCOTLAND..-An aggregate meeting of the 
distressed and ill-fated weavers was recently 
held on the public green at Glasgow. They ar- 
rived by districts or divisions, in regular array, 
three men deep, and the number assembled 
amounted to about 12,000. After several of their 
own body had made remarks on their sickening 
state of destitution, a committee was appointed 
to wait on the manufacturers, with a view to in- 
duce them to pay the prices going in October last. 
Five of a committee were also appointed to wait 
on the lord provost and magistrates, with a me- 
morial previously prepared. ‘The magistrates re- 
plied that they could hold no conference with a 
body so assembled, and the meeting dispersed, on 
the understanding that their delegates were to be 
received by the magistrates the following day.— 
Scotch Paper. 

Queries were some time ago circulated among 
the manufacturers of Paisley with a view to 
ascertain the condition of the silk trade in that 
town, under the operation of the free trade sys- 
tem, of which the following is the result: It is 
proven that in silk gauze, which is the principal 
branch of the silk trade in Paisley, there were 
two-thirds more looms employed in the year 
1824 than at the present time; that prices have 
been reduced from 33 to 50 per cent.; and that 
the average wages per week, in 1824, were 
15s. 2d., and only 8s. 14d. for the last six months. 
From the information obtained from the manufac- 


Provincial Occurrences : Wales, Scotland, &c. 


[May, 


turers in the India imitation line, it appears that 
the number of looms have been reduced two-fifths, 
while the prices haye declined 30 per cent., that 
the average weekly wages of the weavers in 1824 
was 2Us., and for the last six months 14s. In Can-~ 
ton crapes the prices paid for weaving have fallen 
75 per cent. The manufacture of broad silk is 
almost unknown in Paisley. For a long period 
prior to 1824, the silk trade in Paisley was pro- 
gressively on the increase, with little or no fluc- 
tuation in prices ; and that since 1826 the decline 
as to quantity, quality, and price, has been so 
rapid, that the conclusion is warrantable that the 
continued enforcement of the laws referred to will, 
in the course of a very short time, produce the 
total extinction of the silk manufacture in that 
neighbourhood.—Macclesfield Courier. 


IRELAND.—March 21 there was a very nume- 
rous meeting of the freeholders of Erris, held at 
Binghamstown for the purpuse of considering the 
propriety of petitioning Parliament against the 
bill for raising the qualification for the elective 
franchise. Mr, Lyons commented on the. bill for 
the disfranchisement of the 40s. freeholders. 
This measure, he contended, by inducing the 
landlords to divide their land into large farms, 
would be depopulating in its effects, and throw 
thousands upon the world without a home or the 
means of subsistence. ‘Were the tithes and chureh 
rates mitigated, and the sub-letting act repealed, 
he thought the 4Us, freeholder would have some- 
thing to console lim for the loss of his franchise ; 
but as it was, the Relief Bill would render him 
little more at present than an ideal service, whilst 
he was thus robbed of his only valuable politieal 
privilege. He thought it unjust that the poor 
peasant should be required to pay so dearly for 
the new order of things, and that too, when his 
only crime was having exercised his privilege in 


latter to virtue and indep 
resolution, among others, 
‘« That while we hail wit 
sure of relief now before 
dismay upon the bill for 1 


sent imposing aspect of the national question, and 
its near and certain approach to a happy termi 
nation.” 


behind each chair, in .a 
other attendants are keptsi 


* The forty-shillings freehglde 
amount to upwards of 400,000"persnn 


-<t 


ee ige S wa _ Nip Fay 4 
vies 1e IMCANICINS FED 


THE 


MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 


New Serics, 


Vor. VII. ] JUNE, 1829. [ No. 42. 


ENGLAND, RUSSIA, AND TURKEY. 


Onz of the peculiarities of the insular position of England is, that she is 
compelled to feel a direct and immediate interest in every other conntry. 
The very separation from continental Europe is thus the actual source of 
her more intimate connexion ; and instead of being, like Portugal, or Bel- 

}  gium, vitally anxious only about her relations withthe adjoining dominion, 
_ she is under the political bond of looking to the changes and designs of 
all. This is the work of the element by which she is surrounded. The 

Ocean, separating her for defence, approximates her for intercourse; every 

quarter of the world is as the gates of her dock-yards; wherever a 
British ship can touch, there exists a British interest, and the truest and 
‘most essential British interest ; one which must be fostered, protected, 
and propagated. A tumult in China is feltin London with scarcely less 
-vividness than in Canton. The rise or fall of a South-American party 
awakes a keener sensation among us than within the next province; and 
the late abstraction of Persian territory, by its encroaching and ambitious 
enemy, has turned as many English eyes to the Russian march, as 
pver watched it from the towers of Erivan. ; 
tis this strong and general susceptibility to the changes of dominion 
png the remotest sovereignties, that gives the war-of the Turks and 

ans the powerful interest which, even in its commencement, it has 
exerted upon the councils of England. The Baltic, andthe 
es; at Lritish highways, and whatever event is likely to shut 
of our universal enteyprize, becomes, to us, a matter of 
bg portance. 

Gee madness of thrones, and it is the madness of per- 
psire—the madness of avarice and accumulation: No extent of 
min can satisfy it ; the utter worthlessness of the object cannot 
ain it ; desart is added to desart, marsh to marsh, a sickly and beg- 
red population is gathered to the crowd that are already perishing in 
he midst of their uncultured fields; yet the passion is still keen, and 

usands of lives are sacrificed, years of desperate hazard are encoun- 
Se and .wealth, that might have transformed the wilderness into a 

varden, { 


18 fang away, for the possession of some leagues of territory, fit 
4] 4 


he grave of its invaders. Austria, at this hour the mis- 
Hdigious empire, one half of which is forest, heath, or 

mpled, or only peopled by barbarians—Austria, the mis- 
the Bannat, and Transylvania, is longing for Albania; a 
en mountain and swampy valley, with a population of 
gja, with a territory almost the third of the old world, 
Series, —Vou. VIL. No. 42. 4D 


570 England, Russia, and Turkey. [June, 


stretching from the Black Sea to the Pole, and from Finland to the wall 
of China, is longing for the fatal marshes of Wallachia and Moldavia ; 
for the desarts of Romelia, and the sovereignty of the fiercest race of 
barbarians on earth, alien by their creed, alien by their habits, and 
cursing the ground that has been defiled by the tread of a Russian. 
With two capitals already hostile to each other, she is struggling for a 
third, incurably and furiously hostile to both. With an extent of 
dominion that no single sceptre can adequately rule, and which a few 
years will see either torn asunder by the violence of rebellion, or falling 
in pieces by the natural changes of overgrown territory, she is at this 
hour marshalling her utmost strength, and laying up debility for many 
a year, in the franitic eagerness to add the Turkish empire to the Musco- . 
vite, the Siberian, and the Tartar. 

And in this tremendous chase of power, what is to be trampled under 
the foot of the furious and guilty pursuer! The heart sickens at the 
reckless waste of life and the means of life, the myriads that must perish 
in the field, the more miserable myriads that must perish of disease, 
famine, and the elements let loose upon their naked heads ; the still 
deeper wretchedness of those lonely and deserted multitudes, whose 
havoc makes no display in bulletins and gazettes, but whose history is 
registered where the eternal eye of justice and vengeance alone reads— 
- the innumerable host of the widow and the orphan. Yet this weight of 
calamity is let fall upon mankind at the word of a single individual:— 
often the most worthless of human beings, an empty, gaudy, ignorant 
slave of alternate indolence and sensuality ; trained by the habitual life 
of foreign courts to thesperpetual indulgence of personal excess, and dif- 
fering trom the contemptible race generated by the habits of foreign life, 
only by his being the more open dupe of sycophancy, the more promi- 
nent object of public alarm, and the more unbridled example of every 
profligacy that can debase the individual, or demoralize the nation. Such 
are the mysteries of Providence—such is the unaccountable system o 
which the fates of millions are given into the hands of incapacity, vanity, 
and corruption ! 

In this merciless and guilty spirit of accumulation, Russia has beenffo1 
the last fifty years, the great criminal of Europe. Other powers 
been forced into war by situation; and success has almost 
them to an increase of territory. Revolutionary Fran¢e was 
its violence was no more to be reasoned upon than 
madness. Imperial France was forced, by the charagtet 
and extraordinary being on her throne and the fantastic "re 
her own nature, into conquest ; but the conquest was unsubstantia 
dominion of the ancient sovereigns was but slightly shaken, and the 
ebb of French victory disclosed the land again with all its native thr 


the first open act of that course of perfidy and blood, w) 
to overwhelm his own kingdom in the common ruin of 
Frederick, Joseph, and Catherine, were the three gran 
against the Law of Nations—the three impugners of that 


1829. ] England, Russia, and Turkey. 571 


is the supreme Law of God among empires, and the three creators of the 
French revolution. Dearly and deservedly they all paid for their crime. 
Before the lapse of a few years, they were all broken to the ground by 
the trampling of hostile armies; the French soldiers rioted in their 
palaces ; their military name was degraded, and Vienna, Berlin, and 
Moscow, were in the possession of the most insolent and merciless of vic- 
tors. But the wisdom of Adversity has, with the suffering, passed away, 
and Europe is again threatened with universal hostilities by the passion 
of the Czar to be master of Constantinople. 

The nominal cause of the war with Turkey is the removal of the 
hospodars of Wallachia and Moldavia by the Porte. A treaty in 1804 
had established that those governors of the provinces should be removed 
only at the end of every seven years ; a period fixed by the customary 
cunning of the Russian cabinet, as one in which the hospodars, thus 
rendered secure from the bow-string, might connect themselves more 
effectually with Russia. The hospodars were Greeks, and their national 
prejudices allied them to their new protectors; they were like all the 
Greeks of the Fanar—ambitious, corrupt, and crafty ; and the gold of 
Russia was the virtual sceptre of the hospodariates. 

In the French war, Sebastiani was sent to the Porte with proofs that 
those Greeks were in actual correspondence with St. Petersburg ; and they 
were dismissed. The Russian minister declaimed against this dismissal, 
as a breach of treaty. The Turks gave way, replaced the hospodars, 
and the first intelligence that followed their submission, was of the march 
of a Russian army over the border! But a more powerful influence, 
that was seldom employed to prevent the shedding of blood, forbade the 
impending devastation of the provinces. Napoleon commanded the 
invaders to retire, and the treaty of Tilsit tied the hands of Alexander. 
But Napoleon himself was only a murderer on a larger scale ; and Spain 
“was given over to his love of carnage. There retribution awaited him, 
like a vulture on the wing above the corpse: the mountain and the desart, 
the barren sand, and the scorching sun, warred against the man of ambi- 
lion ; “ the stars in their courses fought against Sisera,” and there was 
hesfirst blow given to a diadem loaded with the double guilt of revolu- 
many and imperial ambition. The tiger was entangled in the net, and 
he jackal went forth to prey ; a Russian army instantly spread itself 
e Danube. The Turks were taken by surprise ; and a succes- 
vns on the Bulgarian bank rapidly surrendered. But winter 
be defied in those climates ; and the invaders, repulsed by the 
swellings of the Danube and the severity of the storms, were driven 
into winter quarters. In the next year the invasion was renewed ; but 
he Turks defended themselves with their national intrepidity. The 
uccess was alternate and ruinous; and, at the close of a campaign of 
erpetual fighting, the invaders had not advanced beyond the Danube. 
n the memorable year of 1812 Napoleon again interposed, but no 
longer as the master of the Russian councils. He was now overwhelm- 
ing the empire with that mighty chivalry which had crushed the power 
of the continent, and saw before it but one magnificent and secure 
victory over the barbarian levies and helpless irresolution of the Czar. 
un this crisis of imperial fate, the whole strength of Russia was essential 

er resistance, and the army acting against Turkey was recalled. 

treaty was made with the Porte; the conquests of Kaminsky and 

usoff were abandoned, and, by the mediation of England, Alexander 

elf at once relieved ae ,. unprosperous war, and strength. 
D 


572 England, Russia, and Turkey. [ June, 


ened by a powerful and practised force. We are no panegyrists of 
Alexander ; but he had merits that ought to distinguish his memory. 
His early life was that of a Russian noble, and was deeply stained by 
the excesses of a court, over which reigned the most profligate sovereign 
of the age. But time, the vicissitudes of a life of great public anxiety, 
and perhaps feelings, born of a higher source, gradually purified and 
elevated his character. To the proposals for renewed hostilities with 
the Porte he turned an unwilling ear ; he resisted the popular outcry 
with a fortitude which had often been found fatal to Russian princes; 
he cultivated peace with Europe; he made no aggression on his 
neighbours, and his death displayed the calmness and the hope of more 
than the feeble and failing philosophy of this world. 

The new reign began ominously ; for it was signalized by the most 
extended and extraordinary conspiracy that had ever been formed even’ 
in Russia, the country of conspiracy. A sudden zeal of revolution had 
seized the army, and Nicholas found that his first step to the throne 
must be over the bodies of his soldiers. <A list of wpwards of a thousand 
officers, of every rank, showed at once the peril of the monarch, and the 
strange and desperate spirit that rises from despotism, like the pestilence 
from the swamp. Scaffolds and military massacres tamed the insurrec- 
tion for the time: but the despot’s fate is to sleep on an uneasy pillow, 
and with the form of conspiracy haunting his dreams. While Europe 
looked with surprise and repugnance on this frightful scene of fierce 
enthusiasm crushed by savage justice, it was startled by the sound of 
war on the devoted frontier of Wallachia. 

A new pretext had been easily found in the shape of the old, exaggerated 
by the proverbial artifice of Russia. The removal of the Hospodars, _ 
who had been again found in close connexion with Russia, the pacifica- 
tion of Greece, and the navigation of the Dardanelles, furnished grounds -_ 
sufficient for the flourish of a manifesto; and the young Czar plunged 
into hostilities, with the lofty determination of planting his standard on — 
the walls of Constantinople before the close of the campaign. ¢ 

Nothing in this whole tissue of rashness and perfidy was more sing 
than the part which England suffered herself to play. Her policy i 
principle peaceful ; for every shot fired in Europe either kills a puré 
‘ of her manufactures, or wastes the money that was to purchase 
Burke, in his pithy style, describes an English war, even for lish 
objects, aS one in which we buy ten thousand Wee ies a : 
at ten thousand times their value. But the hostilities of Europe 
break up the highways of British commerce, crush it by emb 
goes and blockades, exhaust the means of the population, and dispirit — 
the whole frame of commercial intercourse. War is fatal to trade, and 
trade is the sinew of the strength of England. But her old alliances were 
sworn with Turkey ; her recognized policy for centuries was the protec- 
tion of Turkey; her commercial prosperity was incompatible with the — 
possession of the Turkish capital by the same power which already — 
domineered over the Baltic ; and yet, in the face of all those important 
considerations, England struck the most formidable blow against the 
Porte that it has received since the days of Sobieski. For the misfor- 
tune of her ally, and the disgrace of her own wisdom, Mr. Canning had 
suddenly been placed at the head of her councils. His elevation onl 
shewed the infinite difference between the distinctions of a pop 
assembly, and of a cabinet.. He was a wit, a man of' taste, and a flu 
orator: He captivated the House of Commons; and he forgo 


1829. } England, Russia, and Turkey. 57 


epigrams and metaphors, the happy sneer that makes an opponent ridi- 
culous, aud the ready retort that keeps the dull in distant awe, were 
not the true means of guiding the career of a mighty empire. He was 
always busy, and always unfortunate. He made shewy speeches, and 
worthless treaties: he alienated the continental cabinets by feeble 
menaces, and made Ireland a rebel by idle conciliation. He struggled 
to make friends for the throne, and he made it pre-eminently unpopular ; 
he struggled to make a firm ministry, and he filled it with contradiction ; 
he struggled to place England at the head of Europe, and he laid the 
foundations of a rebel violence which will yet shake every throne into 
dust. Proclaiming universal peace, he urged England into hostilities 
with Spain to protect Portugal ; and invaded Portugal, to gratify Brazil. 
Professing a hatred of revolution, he unfurled the English banner as a 
rallying point for the revolutionists of all countries, and boasted of wielding 
the power of conspiracy. Loud in his abhorrence of British faction, he 
canvassed every faction of the legislature, recruited his parliamentary 
ranks from the men whom he hated, and by whom he was hated in 
return: pledged himself to the most determined defence of the consti- 
tution, and dug its grave. 

At once to fulfil the views of Russia, and sustain the policy of Eng- 
land was impossible, and he therefore tasked himself to combine them. 
He remonstrated loftily, and he yielded weakly. He formed a compact 
with Russia, by which she was at liberty to send a powerful fleet into 
the Mediterranean, but she was not to fire a gun. The Russians dispatched 
a fleet of twice the permitted force ; he indignantly sent them back ; and 
yet, uniting a British fleet with the remainder, he attacked the Turkish 
squadron, and extinguished at a blow the naval resistance of the Otto- 
man. 

_ He died, fortunate only in having anticipated, by a single month, the 
__ fall of the miscellaneous government that he had collected with such 
worthless toil. His successors disclaimed the victory of Navarino, and yet 
_ paid public honours to the victors ; cleared their consciences by harangues 
on the impolicy of the attack, and indulged their patriotism by the tri- 
~ umphant declaration, that Britons had not lost the art of conquest, though 
eg might blunder into beating their friends for the sake of their 
ies. 
The treaty of London was now brought into force, and diplomacy has 
never furnished a finer instance of the genuine enigma. In the same 
¢ page it denied the right of European powers to interfere with the 
quarrel of Turkish subjects, and demanded the liberty of Greece. It 
denied the right of Russia, as a neutral, to attack the Cttoman empire, 
and it suffered her to throw off the neutral character at her first conve- 
__ nience, and begin the work of fire and sword. The result of this dextrous 
% _ policy is, that Russia is now blockading the Dardanelles, that Turkey is 
; without a ship to oppose her attempt to storm the capital, that France 
has possession of the fortresses of Greece, and that English diplomacy is 
F in possession of nothing but the general ridicule of mankind. 
The determination of Russia to seize upon the European dominions of 
the Sultan, was at length practically exhibited by the march of her troops, 
under Wittgenstein, to the Danube. The Turks, after some affairs of 
posts, retreated before the powerful army which now rushed down from 
Podolia and Moscow on their scattered parties ; and the three sieges of 
humla, Silistria, and Varna, were immediately and rashly undertaken. 
ose places, the first is, beyond all comparison, the most important, 


574 England, Russia, and Turkey. [ June,’ 


from its being the gate of the grand pass of the Balkan. The city also 
stands at the central point of the roads from almost the whole of the 
fortresses of the Danube, and has the power of protecting, or intercept- 
ing their connexion with the capital. But the position of this important 
city gives it great defensive advantages. It is nearly encircled with a 
range of the mountains, which serve as an outwork, and those hills are 
covered with thickets, which incomparably suit the species of service to 
which the Turkish troops are most accustomed. The inhabitants of 
Shumla are about 30,000, and are, of course, to a certain degree available 
for the defence. The size of the city is advantageous; from its allow- 
ing quarters to the chief divisions that might be left to protect not 
merely Shumla, but the pass of the mountains. It is nearly three 
English miles long, by a mile and a half in breadth. The fortifications 
are rude, and of the class of the Lower Empire—walls with occasional 
towers ; but the true strength of the place is in its locality ; the range 
of hills round it forming the true rampart of the city, and the whole 
being a large entrenched camp, with thickets, precipices, and ravines for 
its fortifications. 

The result of the campaign undoubtedly disappointed, to a great ex- 
tent, the expectations formed of the Russian arms. The Turks were 
often the assailants even upon level ground, and were not unfrequently 
left masters of the field. Some of their incursions into Wallachia put the 
Russian corps into such imminent hazard, that they were saved only by 
an instant retreat: large convoys were intercepted by the Turkish 
cavalry, and the campaign was speedidly discovered to be only the be- 
ginning of a dubious and protracted struggle. The assaults on the 
Turkish posts were generally repulsed with heavy loss ; and, of the three 
great sieges, but one offered the slightest hope of success. Shumla, the 
grand object of the campaign, was early found to be totally impracticable : 
Silistria was nearly despaired of, and finally was abandoned by a disor- 
derly and ruinous flight: Varna alone gave way, after a long succession of 
attacks ; and, from the singular circumstances of its surrender, is still said 
to have been bought from the Governor, Yussuf Pacha, a Greek rene- 


gade. One of the most extraordinary features of the whole campaign, is 


the small force on both sides. The Russian gazettes state the number 
of their army that crossed the Pruth at little more than eighty thous 
Yet this service was of the most popular kind with the court and people. 
The nature of the enemy was perfectly known from long warfare ; the 
difficulties and losses which belong to Turkish war must have been 
clearly anticipated ; and yet the whole Russian empire, setting forth on 
the conquest of an empire, which had been the object of its ambition 
from the days of Peter the Great, was not able to send one hundred 
thousand men across the border. The sultan, commanding a population 
of twenty millions, had probably not forty thousand in arms, from Con- 
stantinople to the Danube. So much does military strength depend on 
public wealth, and so impotent is the mere power of population in the 
struggles of European war. But the difficulty of arming the troops, and 
supplying the artillery and provisions for large bodies of men, are the 
great drawbacks on mutual aggression: and, by a curious and effective 
chain of consequences, nations are compelled to find, in the activity 
of commerce, the sinews of war. 


The campaign was urged into the depths of winter, and the weather © si 


was remarkably inclement ; the Turks were elated by success, and their 
attacks kept the enemy perpetually.on the alert ; the walls of the great 


4 
¥ 
vy 


1829.] ‘England, Russia, and Turkey. 575 


towns would not give way ; the villages were burnt, and could give shelter 
no longer ; and, as the general result, the Russian army were ordered to 
retreat from the Danube. The retreat was a second march from Mos- 
cow. Every thing was lost, buried, or taken. The horses of the 
cavalry and artillery were totally destroyed, the greater part of the 
artillery was hidden in the ground, or captured, and the flying army, 
naked, dismantled, and undisciplined, was rejoiced to find itself once 
more in the provinces from which it had poured forth but a few months 
before, to plant its standards on the seraglio. 

This was defeat and disgrace, and every man who hates aggression, 
exulted in the shame of the invader. But in this exultation we must 
not forget the actual conclusions that force themselves on the under- 
standing from a general view of the campaign. Russia, beaten as 
.she has been, has yet showed that she is too strong for the Turk ; she 
has mastered Varna, a situation of high importance to her further 
movements, and she has been able to baffle every exertion to wrest it 
out of her hands. She has seized some minor fortresses, and in every 
instance she has been equally able to repel the efforts of the enemy. 
She has also conquered a city between the Balkan and Constantinople, 
which, if she shall pass the mountains, will be a place of arms for her 
troops, and a formidable obstacle on the flank of the Turkish army. In 
Asia, her successes have been regular and progressive. Paskevitch has 
advanced with the troops which beat the Persians, has taken some of 
the strongest places on the south of the Black Sea, and what he has 
once taken, no Turkish effort has been able to retake. The southern 
shore of the Black Sea, in its whole length, is open to Russian dis- 
embarkation ; and an army of fifty thousand men marched down to 
Odessa, would keep the entire coast in a state of agitation, probably 
give an opportunity to the rebellious pachas of Asia to rise, and would, 
unquestionably, by their landing, make a most formidable addition to 
the perplexities of the Sultan. The system of the Russian discipline, 
finance, and influence over the population of the North, is so immeasur- 
ably superior to the broken and disorderly polity of the Turk, that if 
the war be a work of time, victory must fall to the Czar. On the other 
hand we must remember the daring and sagacious spirit of the Sultan, 
the fierce bravery of his people, the power of the most warlike super- 
stition on earth, the national abhorrence of the Muscovite, and even the 
new intrepidity of recent success. A still more powerful element of 
defence remains, the jealousy or prudence of the great European king- 
-doms. The possession of Constantinople, by the masters of Moscow 
and St. Petersburg, would shake the whole European system, by giving, 
for the time, at least, an exorbitant influence to Russia. England would 
see in it the threatened conquest of India: France, the complete 
supremacy of the Levant, and the exposure of her own shores to a 
Russian fleet on the first hostilities. Spain, though fallen in the scale, 
must still resist a measure which would lay open her immense sea-line 
from Barcelona to Cadiz. Austria, alone, might look upon it with 
some complacency, if she were bribed by the possession of Albania, or 
the prospect of planting her banners in the Morea. But the aggran- 
dizement of Austria would be resisted by Prussia, and then the whole 
continent must hear the Russian trumpets as a summons to prepare 
for universal war. 

The possession of Constantinople would be, not merely the mas- 
tery of the emporium of Asiatic trade, nor of a great fortress from 


4 


576 England, Russia, and Turkey. [June, 


which Asia and the East of Europe might be awed ; but it would be 
an immediate and tremendous instrument of European disturbance by 
its perpetual transmission of the whole naval strength of Russia into 
the centre of Europe. The Russian fleet is unimportant, while it is 
liable to be locked up for half the year in the ice of the North; or 
while, to reach the Mediterranean, it must make the circuit of Europe. 
But if the passage of the Dardanelles were once her own, there is no 
limit to the force which she might form in the Black Sea, and pour 
down direct into the Levant. There can be no doubt, that with this 
occasion for the employment of a naval force, Russia would throw a 
vast portion of her strength into a naval shape ; and that while the Cir- 
cassian forests furnished a tree, or the plains, from the Ukraine to 
Archangel, supplied hemp and tar, fleet upon fleet would be created in 
the dock-yards of the Crimea, and be poured down in overwhelming 
numbers into the Mediterranean. 

Thus it is impossible that the Czar shall attack Constantinople with- 
out involving the world in war, and in that war England must be a 
principal. The premier’s opinion has been distinctly stated on this 
subject, and so far as we can rely on the fluctuating wisdom of cabinets, 
it coincides with that of France and Prussia. To arrange more syste- 
matically the resistance to the ruin of Turkey, the Duke of Wellington 
is said to be on the eve of an extensive European tour, in which he will 
ascertain the dependence to be placed upon the courts, and discover 
how far the Czar may have learned moderation from his last campaign. 
But the world is in a feverish state: ambition is reviving ; conspiracy 
is gathering on the Continent, and the first hour that sees the Russian 
superiority in the field decisive, will see the great sovereignties remon- __ 
strating, arming, and finally rushing, as to a new crusade, but with the 
sword unsheathed, not for the fall, but for the defence of the turban! 

That this will be the ultimate consequence we have no doubt. But 
the time may not be immediate. We are inclined to think that the 
French war has not yet been sufliciently forgotten by the states of cen- 
tral Europe to suffer them to run the hazards of collision without the 
most anxious efforts for its avoidance. There is a general deficiency 
money. All the great powers are actually, at this hour, living on loans. 
There is no power in Europe whose revenue is enough for its expendi- 
ture. Even here we are borrowing. Our three millions of exchequer 
bills, issued in the fifteenth year of peace, shows us how little the finance ~ f 
system has sustained our expectations. A war, even for a year, would | Fs 
double our expenditure. On the continent, Rothschild is the true 
monarch. Every state is in his books, and what must be the confusion, 
the beggary, and the ultimate bankruptcy of hostilities. The fall of every 
throne must follow the bankruptcy of every exchequer, and the whole 
social system be broken up amid revolutionary havee and individual 
misery. We believe that the four great powers are so fully convinced 
of the evil of this tremendous hazard, that they are struggling in every 
shape of diplomacy to avert the continuance of a war between Turkey 
and Russia. If they succeed, peace will, in all probability, continue for 
a few years more ; if they fail, Europe must instantly arm, and a scene 
of warfare be roused, to which there has been no equal since the fall of 
the Roman Empire. But no skill of diplomacy, no terror of thrones, 
and no poverty of nations, can avert the evil beyond a certain time. 
War will come. We are now treading on the fuel that will be kindled 
into an irresistible blaze ; empires will be consumed, and the old and 
accumulated guilt of mankind will be at length revenged ! 


>. = 


iy 


1829.) oy 


THE FORTUNE-HUNTERS: A TALE OF THE SOUTH. 


In the stable-yard of the inn, called the Little Windmill, that we find, 
on the road leading from Castello to Andalusia, on the confines of the 
’ famous country of Alcudia, on a certain day, the hottest of the summer, 
there encountered, by chance, two youths of from fourteen to fifteen 
years of age; of a certainty the elder could not be more than seventeen. 
They were both well-looking, though in a pitiable state. Their habits 
ragged—broken—torn—and falling in rags. As to cloaks, there was no 
question of them at all. Their breeches were but coarse canvas ; and the 
skin of their legs served in place of stockings. However, in revenge for 
that they had shoes—those of the one were of wood, such as are com- 
monly named alpargates, and as much worn by dragging as by walking. 
Those of the other, pierced with a hundred holes, and without soles, 
appeared less for use than ornament. One wore a tattered green cap, 
after the hunting fashion—the other, a flat crown with a tremendous 
brim. ~The one, who wore a shoulder-helt, had a shirt, the colour of 
yellow chamois, folded up and thrust into his sleeve. The other came 
lightly along without any burthen, except that the eye could detect some- 
thing that swelled out the bosom of the shirt, and afterwards proved 
a pack of cards wrapped in an old rag. Their faces were burned brown by 
the sun—their nails long and black—and their hands no whiter. One 
had a short sword—the other a couteau de chasse, with a yellow handle. 
Both having entered at the same instant to repose under at least a roof 
that shut out the sunbeams, they sat themselves down on two benches 
directly opposite to each. The elder began by saying, “ May one ask 
your country, my lad, and what road you travel?”—“<I have no 
country, Senor Cavalier,” replied the other; “and I know no more of 
the road I travel.” But, in good truth,” said the first, “ you do not 
look as if you fell from the clouds; and it being an impossibility that 
you should remain where you are, you must perforce go somewhere 
else.” “ You are right,” returned the second. ‘“ However, I have told 
‘you nothing but what is; because the place I come from is not mine. 
have only a father there who does not acknowledge me for his son, and 
‘a step-mother who treats me as a step-child. The road I travel depends 
on chance; and it will finish wherever I find the necessaries for my 
existence.”—“ Have you any particular talents?” demanded the elder. 
“None other,” replied the younger, “than to run like a hare, to leap like 
a doe, and to use the scissors with some dexterity.”—*« All very good, 
useful, and advantageous,” said the first ; “ for you will easily find some 
 sacristan to make you an offering, on All Saints’ Day, that you may cut 
jm paper ornaments on Holy Thursday.’—“ It is not in that way 1 
4 ke use of scissors,” replied the second. “ You must know, that by 
_ Heaven’s grace, my father being a tailor and gaiter-maker, he taught me 
to cut out these latter, which, as you know, are but half stockings, with 
a foot-piece that we call palaynas ; and so able am I at them, that I 
might pass for master, but that my evil destiny, which persecutes me 
unceasingly, has never allowed me to profit by my ability.”—“ Honest 
people are generally the least lucky,” replied the elder; “ and I have 
always heard, ‘a rich head and a poor pocket.’ But you are yet young 
endugh to correct the caprices of fortune. However, if I do not much 
ceive myself, you have yet some other qualities in secret that you have 
not manifested to me.”—“ It is true,” replied the second, “I have yet 
M.M. New Series:—Vou. VII. No. 42. 4E 


578 The Fortune- Hunters : [ June, 


another, but it is not for the public to see, as you yourselt have well 
observed.” —“ Well! I can only assure you that I am the most discreet 
person in the world ; and, to induce you to open your heart to me, I 
will first discover to you all the folds of mine—for, truly, I think it is 
not without design that fate has thus thrown us together. As for me, 
my dear Senor, I am a native of Fuentrida, a well-known spot, and re- 
nowned for the illustrious travellers who daily pass through it. My 
name is Pedro de Bincon. My father isa man of quality, one of the 
ministers of Santa Cruzada, that is to say, he distributes and carries 
round the bulls (church bulls). I used at times to assist him in his office ; 
and so well did I profit by my practice, that I defy the most experienced 
of the trade to make more of his bulls than I did of mine. But, one day; 
feeling more inclination for the bull-meney than for even the bulls 
themselves, I took possession of a purse of it, and walked off to Madrid, 
where;.by the aid of the favourable occasions that are there ordinarily to 
be met with, I cleaned out the entrails of the purse, and left it with more 
plaits in it than the pecket handkerchief of a bride. He who was ac- 
countable for the bull-money ran after me. I was seized. But the 
judges had some pity for me on account ef my youth, and contented 
themselves with ordering me an iron necklace, a strapping on the shoul- 
ders, and banishment from court for four years. I took patience, 
shrugged up my shoulders, bore the tempest, and left Madrid in such 
haste that I had not time to take leave of my friends, or bring away my 
mule. I merely snatched from among my valuables some trifles within 
reach, and, among them, these cards (pulling them from out his 
bosom), with which I have gained my livelihood in the inns and wine- 
houses from Madrid to this by playing at vingt-un. Greasy and mal- 
treated as you see them, they have such a virtue for him who understands 
them, that he needs never cut them without finding an ace below. And 
however little you may know of this game, you can easily comprehend 
the advantage of always having an ace, which counts one, or eleven, as 
you choose ; so that, with this card, you are pretty sure to put money in 
your pocket. Besides, the cook of a certain ambassador has taught me __ 
a trick or two to win at quinola ; so if you are master of the art of af 
gaiter-cutting, also am I of that of cheating the novices ; and, for a cer= — 

tainty, I run no risk of starving. Miserable as is this village, [remain __ 
in it because I seldom fail an hour of meeting some one who plays a 
game or two to kill time, and we may have the experience of it presently. _ f 
Let us spread the net, and see if there will not fall into it some of the 
muleteers who are within; that is to say, we two must begin as if we 
were in earnest, and he who comes to make the third shall pay the 
stakes.” —“ With all my heart,” said the younger: “ I owe you many 
thanks for recounting to me the incidents of your life, which obliges 
me not to conceal those of mine—and here they are. My father, the 
tailor, taught me to cut gaiters ; and, from the constant use of scissors, I 
learned of myself to cut purses. The limits of a village were as dis- 
pleasing to me as the bad usage of a step-mother. I left my birth-place 
to work at my profession in Toledo, and acquitted myself there to a 
miracle. There was no rosary so well-tied, no packet so close shut, that 
my fingers did not visit, or my scissors divide; and during the four 
months that I lived there, never was I caught between two doors ; never, 
did alguazil run after me ; never did. stick cross my shoulders. It is 
true that, about eight days ago, aspy made mention of my abilities to the: 


1829.] a Tale of the South. 579 


governor, who admiring my remarkable talents, desired to have me 
brought to him ; but I, who am a professor of humility—I am never for 
any intercourse with those so far above me; and, not to be troubled with 
it, I left the city with such dispatch, that I had not time to bring away 
either watch, or money, or equipage, or valet.”—“ An understood thing,” 
said Bincon. “ But, as we at present know each other, let us leave off 
grandeur, and candidly confess that we have neither a dinner nor a pair 
of shoes between us.” —“ Agreed,” replied Diego Costado, the name of 
the younger one; “be our friendship, Senor de Bincon, eternal ; 
let us signalize its commencement by a sacred and praiseworthy cere- 
mony:” and, rising, they mutually embraced with expressions of the 
most profound esteem. They then set themselves to play at vingt-un, 
with the aforesaid dog-eared cards, which abounded as much in grease as 
in malice ; and, in a few seconds, Costado was no less expert at cutting an 
ace than was his tutor Bincon. In this moment there stept a muleteer 
out of the inn, to refresh at the door; and seeing them play, he asked 
leave to make a third. They received him with the best grace in the 
world ; and, in less than half an hour, they won from him twelve reals 
and twenty-two maravedis, which the muleteer seemed to feel as much 
as if they had given him twelve stabs of a poignard, and twenty-two 
thousand curses. The muleteer, believing that the two lads would 
never dare to defend themselves against him, wanted to force back his 
money from them; but the one putting his hand to his short sword, and the 
other to his couteau de chasse, they would soon have cut him out so much 
work, that if his comrades had not run to his assistance, he would have had 
occupation for a week at least. While this was going on, a company of 
travellers, mounted on mules, who were going to dine at the inn called 
: the Alcalda, about a quarter of-a mile farther on, passed by chance. 
The cavaliers, seeing the two youths at cuffs with the muleteer, appeased 

_ them, and said, that, if they were for Seville, they might travel along 
_ with them. “ We are going there,” said Bincon ; “ and we will serve 
and obey you, Senors, in all that you may deign to command us ;” and, on 
_ the spot, they began to march off a-head of the mules, leaving the mule- 
teer sorrowful and angry, and the hostess, who had overheard all that 
was said, astonished at the good education of those young vagabonds. 
‘Scarcely had she suggested to the muleteer that the cards were false— 
for she had, unperceived, overheard that also—than he tore his beard, 
d would have run after them to recover his money, crying that it was 

an affront which dishonoured him—that two young boys should have 
_ thus duped a man like him. His comrades restrained him, and counselled 
him not to go after them and expose thus his ignorance and simplicity. 
In fine, though all the reasons they alleged could not console him, they 
induced him at least to stay where he was. In the mean time, Costado 
and Bincon applied themselves so studiously to serve the travellers, that 
these latter took them up behind them for the last half of the way ; and 
though there offered many different occasions to visit their masters’ valises, 
they would not make use of them in the fear of losing this agreeable 
manner of making the journey to Seville, where they longed much to 
arrive. When they had reached the custom-house, just before the gate 
of the city, at about night-fall, Costado could no longer refrain from 
cutting open the valise that a Frenchman carried behind him, and with 
his couteau de chasse, he gave it such a long and deep wound as shewed 
its entrails to view, and subtly drew from among them two good 

4E2 


580 The Fortune-Hunters : [June, 


shirts, a mariner’s compass, and some tablets—things which certainly 
would not have been the choice of the two youths, who never could 
imagine that the Frenchman would burthen himself with his own valise 
for such miserable contents. They wished to make still a second essay, 
but they abstained from it, sure that by this time the fact was discovered, 
and the rest of the luggage placed in security. They had, beforehand, 
taken leave of those who had fed them by the way ; and, next morning, 
they sold the shirts for twenty reals in the market which is held beside 
the Arsenal. After this they walked about through the city, admiring 
the grandeur and magnificence of the Cathedral, and the great number 
of persons who lined the river ; for it was the time of loading the fleet. 
They remarked, above all, the six galleys that were there, nor could help 
sighing at their view in the fear of that day when they might be con- 
ducted on board them for the rest of their lives. They then turned their 
attention on certain youths who swarmed about the port, and whose 
trade seemed to consist in carrying in their baskets whatever was given 
them. Addressing one of them, they inquired of him what was his em- 
ployment? did it give much trouble? and did it bring much money ? 
The -young Asturian, to whom they made this demand, replied, 
that the business was easy enough, free from all tax or impost ; and that 
almost every day it brought him five or six reals, with which he filled 
his stomach as full as a king’s; that he never had to seek a master, or 
wait for a meal, as the one always found him ready, and he always found 
the other ready in any of the eating-houses. The two friends thought 
there was much sense in the Asturian’s relation; and his trade, far 
from being against their tastes, appeared to them as very proper to assist 
its execution with more of disguise and surety, as it would give them 
admittance inside the houses. 

On the spot, then, they resolved to purchase all the utensils necessary 
for it; and the more willingly, as there was no examination to undergo 
beforehand. They demanded of the Asturian, then, “‘ what ought they 
to buy?” He replied to them, “ you want nothing more than two 
sacks, new or clean, and each of you three hand-baskets, two large and. 
one small, to carry separately, meat, fish, and fruit. One sack is for 
bread, merely.” ‘The Asturian conducted them to where those things 
were sold—and with the produce of the Frenchman’s valise, they bought 
all that they had occasion for. In less than two hours they had learned” 


so well to bear their sacks and to carry their baskets, that one might — 
have imagined they had taken their degree in their new office. Their — 


conductor pointed out to them the gates where they ought to station 
themselves every morning—at the meat markets, and at the Place St. 
Saviour ; on fast. days at the fish-market, and the vegetable market ; 
every evening at the river, and always on Thursday at the fair. This 
lesson they engraved profoundly in their memories. Next morning they 
went betimes to the Place St. Saviour, and no sooner did they reach it, 
than many of the same trade surrounded them; and judging by 
the brilliance of their sacks and baskets, that they were new comers, 
they asked them a thousand questions, to which the others replied dis- 
creetly and measuredly. 

A sort of student and a soldier at this moment arrived in the square, 
and, charmed with the cleanliness of the baskets of: our new professors, 
he who appeared-to be a student, called Costado, and the soldier Bincon. 
« Saints be praised!” exclaimed they both. Then said Bincon to the 


7: 
Say, 
sis 
ri 


» 


1829]. a Tale of the South. 581 


soldier, “ I cannot but be lucky in the trade, since it is you that handsel 
me, Senor.” The soldier replied to him, “ that the handsel would not 
be bad, because he was full of money and in love, and was that day to 
give an entertainment to his mistress and her friends.” Good,” said 
Bincon, “laud me to your fantasy—there is not wanting to me either 
strength or spirit to carry away the whole market; and, if you choose, 
I can even help to prepare your entertainment with all good will.” The 
soldier, charmed with the youth’s fair manner, said, “ that if he would 
serve him, he would withdraw him from such a wretched occupation.” 
Bincon replied to him, “ that this being the first day of his exercising it, 
he did not wish to give it up so soon, before he had learned its good and 
bad by experience ; but that whenever he was wearied of it, he pledged 
him his honour that he would serve him in preference to a canon.” 
The soldier laughed, loaded him well, and pointed out his mistress’s 
house to him, that he might know where to go now and in future, 
without his being obliged to look after him. incon promised fidelity 
and good service, and the soldier gave him three sols. Bincon with 
one spring was back again in the square, for the Asturian had advised 
him never to lose time—that so he might never lose occasion ; and, 
also, that when he carried small fish, as anchovies, sardinias, &c., he 
might fairly set a few aside for himself, but that it must be dexterously 
done, or they would lose their credit—the base of their profession. 
Though Bincon was not a minute out of the square, on his return he 
found Costado at his post, who, approaching, asked of him “ how much 
he had earned?” Bincon opened his hand and showed him the three 
sols. Costado put his into his breast, and pulled a purse out of it that 
looked tolerably swelled. “ There,” said he, “ is what his reverence, 
the student, rewarded me with—two more sols; take them, Bincon, 
for fear of accidents:” and he slyly slipped the purse on him. In the 
instant ran the student up, all in a sweat, and pale as death. As soon as 
he perceived Costado, he demanded of him “ if, by chance, he had not 
seen with him a purse of such and such a fashion, in which were fifteen 
crowns in gold, three silver doubloons, and as many copper maravedis ?” 
Costado, without changing countenance or colour, replied with the 
greatest coolness—“ All that I know of your purse is, that you would 
not have lost it if you had taken better care of it.’—“ Just so: wretched 
man that I am,” replied the student— but if I had not been among 


_ thieves, I had not been robbed.”—< So think I, too,” said Costado ; 


“but there is a remedy for all things but death—the first you should 
take is patience. See how much Heaven has left with us. It may be, that 
some day, he who took your purse will repent of it, and restore it to 
you with interest.” We will excuse him the interest,’ said the stu- 
dent, “ for the sake of the principal.” Costado continued—* Alas ! what 
excommunications—what monitories—what bulls—and—more — useful 
than all—what vigilance against this crime—and nothing can turn the 
hearts of its perverted agents. I would not have your purse, Senor, 
for the world; as you are in holy orders, I should fancy I had com- 
mitted some sacrilege or blasphemy.”—‘ How—holy orders?” said the 
student ; “ not quite yet; though there is sacrilege in the case, sure 
enough, for the purse contained the dues of a chapel, that a priest, a 
friend of mine, begged me to secure for him during his absence. So it 
is blessed and sacred money.’— All the better for him who gets it,” 
returned Bincon, “ though I don’t envy him his gain; there is a day 


582 Lhe Fortune-Hunters : [June, 


of payment. All will be seen through in that hour, and woe to the 
robber of the church, or church-man. But tell me, Senor, how much 
may be the revenue of one of those chapels?”—“ Have you or have 
you not seen my purse ?” said the student, in a passion—“ if not, I will 
go and have it tolled in the streets.”—“ Not a bad idea,” observed Cos- 
tado, “ but take great care not to forget any of the tokens of the purse, 
and the exact quantity of the money it contained; for if you make the 
mistake of one real, never will you set your eyes on it while you live, 
I can assure you.”—“ There is no fear on that score,” replied the stu- 
dent, “ I never forget a sol.” He drew from his pocket a silk hand- 
kerchief to wipe away the perspiration which stood in great drops on 
his face ; and Costado no sooner cast his eyes on it, than he set it down 
as hisown. The student departed ; Costado followed him, and having 
come up with him on the steps, took him aside, and repeated to him 
such an overflow of verbiage on the loss of his purse, and the means of 
recovering it, that the poor student was in the clouds, requiring the 
same thing to be said a dozen times over: all the while Costado and 
he looking each other stedfastly in the face—of the which bewilder- 
ment of the student, Costado profited so well, as to finish his work by 
adroitly stealing the silk handkerchief out of his pocket. On quitting 
him, the youth appointed to meet him on the same spot that evening, 
having strong suspicion, he said, of a lad of about his own appearance, 
who stood in the market, and had somewhat the reputation of being a 
pickpocket, and that he would force him to give back the purse if he 
had stolen it. This assurance more or less consoled the student, who 
took leave of Costado, whom Bincon now joined, having seen aside the 
whole of what passed. A young man of the same trade, who stood a 
little distant, had also been a spectator of it; and when Costado had 
given the handkerchief to Bincon, approaching them, he said— 
“ Senor, are you of the company or not ?”—“ We do not comprehend 
you, Senor,” replied Bincon. “ Are we not comrades, Senors of Mur- 
cia?” returned the other—“ We are neither of Thebes nor of Murcia,” 
said Costado ; “ if thou hast aught to say to us, say it at once—if not, 
go to your own place.”——“ You understand me not,” replied the youth, 
“ but it will be your own fault if you do not, and your loss, likewise. 
I ask of you, Senors, if you are not thieves? But need I ask, when I 
know you are—tell me, have not you been to the custom-house of 
the Senor Monopadis ?”—*“ Do they pay dues in this town, then, for 
leave to thieve, gallant Senor?” said Bincon.—“ If they do not pay 
dues,” replied the lad, “ at least it is necessary that all pickpockets 
register themselves with Senor Monopadis, who is their father, their 
master, and their refuge. It is for this reason that I counsel you to. 
come with me to swear allegiance to him ; for if you are bold enough 
to thieve without serving under his standard, it may cost you dear.”— 
“IT have always,” said Costado, “ considered thieving to be a free 
trade, without tax or imposition—and that if one did pay, it was once 
for all; but as it is not so here, and that each town has its own customs, 
we shall not be the first to alter those of this city, which, as being one 
of the first in the world, must, without doubt, have also the best 
usages: so we will accompany you to the dwelling of this cavalier who, 
from all I have heard of him, must be a man of consideration, 
ability, generosity, and expertness in his profession.”—“ You may well 
say all that,” replied the other, “ for these four years past that he has 


1829. a Tale of the South. 583 


been at the head of us, there are but four of us have gone in 
bus, but thirty on their travels, and only sixty-two have been paired.” 
— OF a truth,” said Bincon, “ we know as much of what you mean 
as we do of flying.”—“ March,” said the guide—“I will explain by 
the way ; it is as necessary for you to learn as to eat:” and he gave 
them the explication of many terms that they named German; and as 
the way was long, there was plenty of time to enlighten them. Bincon 
then said to his conductor, “ Senor, may one take the liberty of asking 
if you are not also a thief ?”—“ Yes,” replied he, “to serve Heaven and 
honest folks ; I am not, however, one of the most skilful beings as yet 
in the year of noviciate.”—“ By my faith,” replied Costado to him, 
“it is a thing which I had yet to learn, that there are thieves in the 
world to serve Heaven and honest folks.”—* Senor,” returned the novice, 
“TI am not learned in theology ; all that I know is that every man may 
serve Heaven in his profession ; for Senor Monopadis gives this order to 
all his disciples."—*< Of a certainty,” said Bincon; “it is a saintly 
company where they all so serve.”-—“‘ The Senor Monopadis,” con- 
tinued the youth, “ has furthermore prescribed that we should give a 
certain portion of all we steal, for oil for the holy lamp, that burns before 
the sacred image here: and, of a truth, we have seen miracles occur 
from this good work. A few days ago, they gave three turns to a 
quarterer, who had decoyed two nightingales ; and though he was very 
weak and had a tertian fever, he bore all without fiinching—just as if 
it had been a mere nothing. We attributed this miracle to the holy 
lamp, for his own strength would never have done it. As I see you 
are about to ask me the explanation of all this, I will give it you with- 
out praying :—know, then, that a quarterer is a sheep-stealer ; turn—is 
the torture, and nightingale is an ass: we have plenty more of these 
sayings, which we repeat as a catechism once a week ; there are some 
of us who won't steal of a Friday or Saturday, and we never go near 
a woman called Mary.”—« All that appears to me magnanimous,” said 
Costado ; “ but tell me—do you never make any restitution, or per- 
form any other penance than those you speak of ?”— As to restitution, 
that is out of the question, because the plunder is divided into too many 
shares—the judge’s and the lawyer’s portion not to be forgotten ; but as 
we never confess, it is of no consequence. And as to excommunica- 
tions—-by always avoiding the churches at these seasons, we never fear 
them. It is only in the carnivals and fetes we go, when we find our 
account in the throng.”’—“< So, then, what.with alms and offerings, and 
the other devotions you use,” said Costado, “ you fancy that your life 
ig holy and discreet.” Well, what harm do you see in it?” replied 
the young man, “is it not better to be a thief than a renegade, or a 
heretic, or to kill one’s father or mother ?’”?—*« A difficult point,” said 
Costado, “ but though I don’t find your calling as innocent as you do, 
nevertheless, lead on a little faster, as destiny will have it that we enter 
into your honourable company. I long, truly, to see this Senor Monopa- 
dis, of whom report speaks such brave things.”—“ You will soon be satis- 
fied,” said the guide—“ you are at the house now; wait both of you 
before the gate while I go and see if he is visible, for it is the hour in 
which he gives audience.”—“ Audience !” said Bincon, “ good, by my 
faith!” The lad went on and entered a house of very ill appearance, 
while the other two remained outside ; their conductor returned in a 
second, called them in, and made them wait in a tolerably clean looking 


584 The Fortune-Hunters : [June, 


court, paved with brick, and washed with bullock’s blood, till one might 
have brushed carmine off it. On one side was a bench, and on the other 
a water-jug with a broken mouth. A little mug, as infirm as the jar, in 
another place. An old mat, and a pot of ointment. Our two youths 
attentively regarded all around them while awaiting the Senor Monopa- 
dis ; and as he was not forthcoming immediately, Bincon had the hardi- 
hood to enter a small room that led from the court. He perceived in it 
two foils and two bucklers of cork hanging up on four nails—a large 
chest without top or cover of any kind, and three old mats spread 
on the ground. On the wall, directly opposite the door, was stuck up a 
coarse image of Our Lady—and a little below it hung a palm-basket, and 
a small earthen pot, which led Bincon to conclude that the basket served 
to receive alms, and the earthen pot to hold holy water—wherein he was 
not deceived. During this time, two young men, of about twenty-two 
each, in the habit of scholars, entered the court. Shortly afterwards, two 
porters, and a blind man, followed ; and, without speaking a word, they 
began walking about. Two old men, clothed in black stuff, appeared 
next, each with a long rosary in his hand. A withered hag succeeded 
these ; and making straight toward the little hall, she sprinkled herself 
with holy water, devoutly kneeled down before the image, and, after a 
certain interval, and having three times kissed the ground, and as many 
times lifted her hands and eyes to heaven, she arose, put her alms into 
the basket, and mingled with the rest inthe court. In fine, in less than 
half an hour, as many as fourteen persons, of different habits and different 
trades, were there assembled. Two young men, well made, and stout 
made, with great mustachios, broad-brimmed hats, Flemish cravats, red 
stockings, and shewy garters, long swords, and pistols in the guise of 
daggers stuck in their belts, entered the last ; and casting a glance on 
Bincon and Costado, as strangers, they came straight towards them, and 
demanded if they were of their fraternity. Bincon replied yes; and 
their Senor’s very humble servants. While this was going on, the 
Senor Monopadis descended—as anxiously expected, as he was re- 
spected by this honourable company. He appeared to be a man of from 
forty-five to fifty years of age, of tall stature, a sunburnt complexion, 
bushy eyebrows that joined, black and full beard, and deep-sunk eyes. 
He descended in his shirt, over which he wore a frize cloak, that 
came down to his feet, on which he had an old pair of slippered shoes. 
His legs were covered by great wide trowsers, reaching to the instep. 
His chimney-crowned hat had immense wings. A leather thong passed 
over his shoulder, and across his breast, sustained a stout short sword. 
His hands were hairy—his fingers short and thick—the nails long and 
hooked. His legs were not visible; but his monstrous feet were full of 
corns and horns—the whole personage presenting an assemblage the 
most rude, barbarous, and deformed, that the world might produce. 
The conductor of our two youths came down stairs with him; and 
taking them by the hand, presented them to Monopadis, saying, “ Here 
are the two amiable young Senors of whom I had the honour to speak 
to your worship. Senor Monopadis, have the goodness to examine them, 
and you will see that they are worthy of entering into our congregation.” 
—< I shall do so with pleasure,” replied Monopadis. I omitted to say, 
that when Monopadis descended, the whole of the assembly made him a 
profound and ample reverence, excepting the two bravos, who, with the 
air of petits-maitres, just touched their hats, and continued their parade 


1829.) a Tale of the South. Bye) 


at one side of the court, while he walked up and down at the other. 
Monopadis demanded of our youths their trade, their father, and their 
province? Bincon answered, “For our trade, our being here tells it 
to you. As to our fathers, and our province, it does not strike me that 
there is any necessity for speaking of them, as there is no question at 
present of proofs for entering into an order of knight-errantry.”—* You 
say true, my child,” replied Monopadis ; “ it is just as well to keep 
one’s self incog.; for if fortune should be unfavourable, it is not agree- 
able that there should be set down in the jail-book, as the sentence, such a 
one, son of such a one, of such a place, has been hanged, or whipped, &c. 
Thus you will do well, I repeat, to conceal your name and _ birth- 
place from others, though with us there should be no concealment. 
However, at present, the knowledge of your names will suffice to me.”— 
Bincon and Costado gave them. “ For the future,” said Monopadis, “I 
will that ye be called Binconet and Costadillo; two names just moulded 
for your years. As to your parents’ names, we shall learn them in time, 
for we consider it a duty every year to order a certain number of masses 
for the souls of our relations and benefactors deceased—withdrawing, for 
the remuneration of those who say them, a certain portion from the booty 
we win; such masses being held to be of great efficacy both for the 
dead and living: and we count as our benefactors the lawyer who 
defends us—the alguazil who forewarns us—the officer who has mercy 
for us—and when we fly through the street, followed by ‘ stop, thief! 
puts himself right in the way, saying, ‘let him go, he is bad enough 
to be no better ; his own crime will be his worst punishment. We 
count, also, as benefactors, those poor young women who help to comfort 
us in the prisons, as in the galleys—and as benefactors the father and 
mother that brought us into the world. For all those of whom I make 
mention, our fraternity keeps every year a religious anniversary, 
with the greatest solemnity that is possible.”—< Certainly,” said Bincon, 
“all that is the fruit of the great and grand genius that, as we have 
heard said, the whole world acknowledges the Senor Monopadis to 
possess. Our fathers are yet alive, but if they die before us, we shall 
not fail, Senor, to inform the fraternity of it in time to secure their 
Sale against the grand anniversary, as you call it.’ So be it,” said 
onopadis. Then, calling the spy, he said to him, “ Ganchuelo, are 
the posts sentineled ?”—“ Yes,” replied Ganchuelo, “ there are three 
sentinels round us; no fear that we shall let ourselves be surprised.”— 
« But to return to our subject,” continued Monopadis, “ I should wish 
to learn, my children, of what you are capable, that so I may distribute 
to you employs suited to your inclinations and capacities ?”—*“ For 
me,” answered Bincon, “ I know a little how to amuse the clowns. I 
ean overhear the gander—I can see smoke a mile off ; whatever I once 
get hold of, I don’t readily quit ; and I can give a hard blow rather 
than pay a debt.”—“ Very fair beginnings,” said Monopadis, “ though 
they are but old tricks, known of all novices; but in time we shall see 
that on these foundations, and a half dozen of good lessons, you will turn 
,out an able companion, and, perhaps, a good master.”—« All that I 
know, or shall know, will be ever at the service of you, Senor, and these 
honourable gentlemen,” replied Bincon——“ And you, Costado, what 
dost know?” demanded Monopadis. “ Me, Senor, ’’replied Costado, “I 
know the rule to count two, and carry five; and I can sound a purse 
with skill.”—« Know you no more than that?” said Monopadis.— 
M.M. New Series —Vou. VII. No, 42. 4 F 


586 The Fortune-Hunters : [June, 


“« No, Senor, for my sins,”- replied Costada.—“ Afflict not yourself, my 
child,” resumed Monopadis, “ you are now arrived in port, and you 
may reap from our school all the advantages that you can desire. Well, 
how go your hearts, my boys?”—“ How would you have them go?” 
replied Bincon ; “ here we are, ready to undertake all that touches our 
trade and exercise.” —“ It is very well,” said Monopadis, “ but I would 
that ye had also the courage to suffer, if necessary, a half dozen turns 
without flinching or speaking.”—“ We have already heard of your 
turns,” replied Bincon, “ and we have as much courage as our neigh- 
bours ; neither are we so ignorant as not to know that the neck often 
pays the slips of the tongue, and that no is shorter by a letter than yes.” — 
«« There is no need of more,” interruped Monopadis ; “ this sole argument 
induceth me—obligeth me—constraineth me, as it were, to admit you 
on the instant as members of the first class—and thus to discharge ye 
from your year of noviciate.”—“ I am of the same advice,” said one of 
the bravos. All those who were of the assembly, and had heard the 
replies of the two novices, approved of the favour that was shown to 
them, and prayed of Monopadis that they should, from the moment, 
enjoy the full privileges of the fraternity, of which their good appear- 
ance and ready wit rendered them worthy. He replied that in con- 
sideration for those who asked, their request was granted—informing 
the two youths that they were to look on this as a favour extraordinary, 
because these privileges consisted in not paying the half of their plunder, 
nor exercising the lowest employs for the noviciate year ; that is, not to 
carry provision to a brother in prison, but to give entertainment where, 
how, and when it seemeth good to them, without leave from the inspec- 
tor ;—to enter into instant partition of the plunder of the principals, as 
one of them, and to enjoy a number of other prerogatives, considered 
as a singular grace ; and for which they returned ample thanks. 

While this scene passed, there came in a little boy running and out of 
breath, who said to them “that the alguazil of the vagabonds was 
making straight towards that house, but without any followers after 
him.”—“ Let no one be alarmed,” said Monopadis, “it is a friend of 
ours, who never comes here for evil: recover yourselves, I go to speak 
to him.” They did, for they were a little moved ; and Monopadis went 
out at the gate, and there found the alguazil, with whom he had a 
moment's conversation; and, as soon as he re-entered, inquired “ to 
whom had fallen on that day the square of St. Laurent ?”—-* To me,” 
said the conductor of Bincon, and his comrade.—< How! and thou 
hast not given me part of an embroidered purse, which made shipwreck 
in that quarter this morning, containing fifteen crowns in geld, two 
reals in small silver, and I know not how much in copper?”—* It is 
true,” returned the lad, “that this purse has been stolen to-day— 
but I did not take it, nor can I imagine who did.”—“ No humbugging 
me, if you please,” said Monopadis, “ the purse must be forthcoming, 
because the alguazil requires it, and he is one of our friends, and a very 
useful friend.” The lad began again to swear that he was ignorant of 
what had become of it. Monopadis flew into a passion in such sort that 
fire seemed to strike from his eyes—while he cried out, “ Who dares to 
mock at Monopadis ? who is so hardy as to hesitate to obey his command ? 
Be his life the sacrifice. The purse, I say—produce the purse.” The 
lad swore a thousand oaths, and gave himself a thousand curses “ if he had 
either seen, taken, or knew aught of the purse.” It but the more irritated 


1829.) a Tale of the South. 587 


Monopadis, and disturbed the company, to see their statutes and regula- 
tions thus infringed. Bincon, at last, finding the tumult increase, 
thought it behoved him to allay it—and after a whisper with Costado, 
drew forth the student’s purse—“< My comrade Costado,” said he, 
** possessed himself of this, cunningly, to-day, with the handkerchief to 
boot, from the same person.” The storm ceased—Monopadis, enchanted, 
desired him to keep the handkerchief, and restore the purse—“ for the 
alguazil must have it, as it belonged to a kinsman of his, and the worthy 
alguazil remits more to us in a day than we dotohim ina year.” All, with 
one accord, admitted the nobleness and liberality of the two new comers, 
and the sirname of “ good” was bestowed on Costado, as it had been 
on Don Alonzo Perez de Gusman, sirnamed the good, for having thrown 
over the walls of Tarifta the knife with which he had just served himself 
to cut the throat of his own son. Monopadis, on returning, was 
followed by two young girls, highly painted, their lips well reddened, 
their necks well whitened—mantillas thrown lightly over their 
shoulders—their air gay—and assured enough, to give authentic proof 
to the two novices that they were free of the house. They rushed in 
with open arms, and one flung hers round Chiquisnaque, the other 
round Maniferro, the names of the two bravos above mentioned. Ma- 
niferro bore this name on account of the iron hand with which he had 
replaced that he had been deprived of by justice. The bravos returned 
the embrace with joy, and demanded of the young women if they had 
brought wherewithal to wet their lips. “ Never think we could forget 
it: Silvatillo is coming with a basket of whatever it please Heaven to 
send.” And effectively there appeared at the instant a boy with a wash- 
basket, wound with a bed sheet.* The arrival of Silvio restored all the 
company to good humour ; and then Monopadis had one of the mats 
brought from the hall and spread in the court, and ordered that every 
one should sit round, that so in eating and drinking they might talk of 
their affairs. Upon this, the old woman, who had paid her devotions to 
the image of the Virgin, said, “ My son Monopadis, I am not come here 
to enjoy myself—it is some days since I have had such an illness in my 
head as almost to turn it: and besides, before it be noon, I must make 
my accustomed devotions, and light the tapers at our lady of the 
waters, and the holy crucifix of St. Augustin, in the which I may 
not fail if it ramed cats and dogs. Why I am here is because last 
night the Renegade and Cantopio brought to my house a wash-basket, 
somewhat larger than that before us, filled with linen, which, as Heaven is 
my judge, had yet the suds in it—the poor lads not having allowed 
themselves time to throw it out. If you had seen how the drops stood 
on their faces as they ran into me, looking like angels! They told me 
they were hastening after a shepherd who was taking his sheep to the 
butchers, and it would go hard with them if they did not come in for a 
good share of the money he was to carry home on him—so they never 
emptied the basket, nor even counted the pieces, trusting, as well they 
might, tomy good conscience. Heaven be gracious, and deliver us all from 
justice, as I tell you the plain truth, when I protest that I have not 
once touched the basket, and that it is just as it was the minute it set 


* Formerly the washing was done in little baskets in Spain—few of either men or 
women having, in general, more than two shirts or shifts—and the rest of their linen in 
proportion. Lyery Saturday this washing took place—and the fashion is not yet quite extinct: 

F 


/ 


588 The Fortune-Hunters : [Junu, 


foot in my house.”—‘“ We have no doubt of it,’ replied Monopadis, 
“ that the basket is in its natural state. I will stand between dog and 
wolf and examine its inside, and divide its contents among the commu- 
nity with all fair consideration.”—“ Just as it please you, my son,” 
replied the old woman ; “ it grows late, give me a cup, if you have it, to 
fortify my stomach, which is always weak.” Good Lord! what a 
swallow you have, old mother,” cried Esculante, the comrade of Gamen- 
ciosa. Then, removing the basket, they drew out a leathern barrel that 
might hold about three-and-twenty bottles of wine, and a flagon that 
could contain at least a quart. Esculante took the flagon, and gave it 
to the old devotee, who, seizing it with both hands, after having blown 
away the froth, said, “ There is plenty here, daughter Esculante—but 
Heaven gives strength enough for all,” and applying the flagon to her 
mouth, at one draught, never even stopping to draw breath, she passed the 
whole of it into her stomach, exclaiming, “ It is the wine of Guadalcanat, 
and not bad either. Heaven comfort thee, my girl, as thou hast comforted 
me. I fear, nevertheless, that it may do me evil, as I am yet fasting.” 
—‘ Fear nothing, good mother,” replied Monopadis, “the wine is old.” 
—* I hope the kind Virgin will grant me this grace,” replied the old 
devotee ; ‘try, dear daughters, if ye have not, by good luck, some money 
to give me to buy tapers. I ¢ame here in such haste to bring ye all 
news of the basket, that I forgot my pocket at home ?”—‘“ Aye, I have 
some, Dame Pipota,” (it was the hag’s name), replied Gamenciosa, 
“take these two sols to buy a taper, and put in my name before Senor 
St. Michael—and if you can get two for them, offer the other to Senor 
St. Blaise—those are my two patrons. I should wish much that you 
could put a third before Senora St. Lucia, for whom I have a great 
respect, on account of her curing of eyes, but I have no more money 
now—another time I expect to be able to satisfy my wish.’—* You will 
do well, my child—be not stingy—consider that it is better to make 
friends of the saints before death, than trust to our heirs and executors to 
do it afterwards for us.”—“ Mother Pipota speaks well,” said Esculante, 
and putting her hand to her pocket, gave her a sol, begging her to put 
two other tapers before such saints as she thought might be most ser- 
viceable and grateful. Pipota promised, saying, “ Enjoy yourselves, 
my children, now that you may—age will come, and you will then weep 
the youthful moments you have thrown away, as I do now daily. 
Recommend me, all of you, to Heaven in your prayers, as I am going to do 
you and myself-—and that he may save and keep us in our trade, from 
the unforseen hand of justice,’—and thus saying, she went away. No 
sooner was she departed than the fraternity seated themselves round the 
mat, on which Gamenciosa spread the bed sheet for a table cloth. The 
first thing she drew from the basket was a large bunch of radishes, 
somewhere near to two dozens of oranges and lemons, and a great dish 
of stock-fish cut in slices. She afterwards exhibited the half of a 
Holland cheese, a pot of the finest olives, a dish of tripe, a quantity 
of lobsters, seasoned with capers, and swimming in a sauce of Indian red 
pepper, and three great loaves of white bread. Those to breakfast 
were to the number of fourteen, and each of them pulled out a yellow 
handled knife, except Bincon, who produced his short sword. The two 
ancients in black; and the young spy, had the flagon new filled given 
between them. Scarcely had this joyous company began to fall on the 
oranges, than they were surprised by a knocking at the gate. Monopadis 


1829:] a Tale of the South. 589 


desired that they should remain quiet ; and going into the little hall, he 
took down a buckler, and having his sword in his hand, he approached 
to the gate, demanding, in a hoarse and fearful tone, who was there? 
“It is I, Senor Monopadis,” was replied from without, “ there is no 
one else; I am Faganto, the sentinel of the day, and run to tell you that 
Juanna Cariharte is coming along the street all torn and crying, as if 
something had happened to her.” She came up at the moment. Mono- 
padis hearing her, opened the gate, and ordered Faganto to return 
to his post, and henceforth to give his notice without making such an 
outcry. He promised obedience, and Cariharte entered. It was a 
young woman of the same style asthe others: her hair was loose—her 
face was marked with blows—and no sooner did she enter the court than 
down she dropt in a fit. Esculante and Gamenciosa went to her assist- 
ance, and having unlaced her boddice, found her all black and blue with 
blows. They threw water in her face, upon which, returning to herself, 
she cried out aloud, “ May the justice of Heaven and the king fall 
upon the villain—the robber—the thief of a pickpocket—the miserable 
coward, that I have saved from the whip as many times as he has hairs 
on his chin. Wretch that I am—see for what I have lost, and past the 
flower of my youth and of my tender years: for a scoundrel—a cheat— 
an assassin—a_ good-for-nothing !’—“ Tranquillize thee, Cariharte,” said~ 
Monopadis to her “ I am here to render thee justice—tell us the wrongs 
that have been done thee—thou shalt be longer in recounting them than 
I in revenging them. . Who has failed in respect to thee? If thou wilt 
have vengeance there is no need to call twice for it.”—* Respect,” 
replied Cariharte, “ there would be more respect for me in hell than 
with that coward who acts the lion among lambs—and the lamb among 
men. I, to drink, eat, live, with such a vagabond—sooner would I 
throw myself to the dogs, than stay to be used in this manner, you 


shall see.” So saying, she lifted her coats to the knee, discover- 


ing the marks of the whip that had been laid on her, “ There,” 
exclaimed she, “ see there how that ungrateful Repolido has treated me— 
he who owes more to me than the mother who bore him. And would 
you guess why he didit? I dare say. you think he had at least some cause, 
though ever so little; devil a bit, as you shall hear :—all this is because 
having lost at play, he sends Cabrillos, his boy, to ask me for thirty 


reals, and I had only twenty-five to give him. Heaven knows, and I 
hope it will keep count of the labour and pain I had to get them. In 


revenge for my civility and trust in him, fancying that I hid from him 


some of what he chose to imagine I had gained, he led. me this 


morning bebind the royal garden, and there, among the olives, without 
rhyme or reason—and may the same send him to the galleys—he whips 
off my gown-—and gives me such a flogging with his leather belt, 


_ that he left me for dead—in witness of which you see the marks.” She 


then recommenced crying and demanding justice, which Monopadis 
forthwith promised her, as did also the two bravos who were listening. 
Gamenciosa took her by the hand to console her, saying that she would 
give the last jewel she possessed that the same thing might happen 
between her and her husband—* for you must know, sister Cariharte,” 
added she, “ if youdo not already know it, that who loveth well chasteneth 
well. When these wretches thump, flog, and kick us about, it is then 
they are fondest ofus. Tell me, in conscience, after Repolido had thus 
flogged and bruised thee, did he not offer to give thee a kiss?” 


590 The Fortune- Hunters : [June, 


« How! a kiss,” replied the mourner, “a hundred thousand an’ I had 
let him. I could have had a finger off his hand from him if I would 
have gone home with him :—and I really think, of a truth, that the tears 
came in his eyes, as soon as he saw what he had done.”—“ Devil take 
him—no doubt,” replied Gamenciosa, “ that he was ready to cry for having 
been so hasty—such men as he have no sooner committed the fault than 
they repent of it. Thou wilt see, sister, that ere we part, he comes 
looking for thee, and asking pardon for the past, as gentle as a lamb.” — 
“Of a certainty,” said Monopadis, “the miserable wretch shall not 
enter in at that gate-if he does not show a penitence. pro- 
portioned to his crime. To have laid such hands on Cariharte, 
who might compare with even Gamenciosa, for gentility and 
propriety !”—“ Alas, Senor Monopadis,” returned Cariharte, still crying, 
«don’t threaten poor Repolido ; bad as he is, I love him better than I do 
my own limbs. The good reasons that Gamenciosa has given in his 
favour, have so changed my opinion, that, in truth, I feel half inclined 
to go and see what is become of the creature.”—* No—that thou 
shalt not, by my counsel,” returned Gamenciosa. “He would think 
bt worth nothing if you were to make yourself too cheap. Haye a 
ittle patience, sister ; you will soon see, as I have said, that he comes in 
penitence ; and, if he does not come, we will write him some verses that 
will set him mad.”—*“ Aye, truly,” said Cariharte ; “ I can say a thou- 
sand things to vex him.”—“ And I will be the poet,” said Monopadis ; 
“for, though I am no wit, I could make a hundred verses while you 
would be reading them ; and if they are not good, there is a barber, a 
friend of mine, a famous genius, who will mend them: so now, as all 
else is finished, let the breakfast be finished.”’ Cariharte was contented 
to obey the chief, so every one resumed his occupation; and, in a 
minute, you could have seen the bottom of the basket, and the dregs 
of the leather wine barrel. The old people drank without end; the 
youths did the same ; and the women imitated them. The two ancients 
then demanded leave to depart, which was acceded to by Monopadis, 
who recommended their coming, with the required punctuality, to give 
account of all that might be of profit or use for the interests of the fra- 
ternity. They had nothing more at heart, they said, as they went away. 
Bincon, who was naturally inquisitive, having obtained permission to 
speak, inquired of Monopadis, of what use to the company were those 
two silent personages? Monopadis replied, that such persons were, in 
their dialect, called drones, and their employment consisting in peram- 
bulating the city by day to find out what dwelling was fit to enter by 
night—to follow those who received sums at the public offices—to 
mark where they resided—to observe the most probable way to get at 
it, &c. &c. ; in short, they were a species of pointers, of great necessity 
to the company, and who received a fifth of all secured through their 
intelligence, just as the king did from all mines and treasures—that, 
otherwise, they were men of honest and good life and reputation, dwell- 
ing in the fear of God and their consciences, and every day attend- 
ing mass with sincere devotion. “Among them, for we have several 
besides those just gone, are two who adopt the trade of porters, by 
the which they make many changes of furnitures, &c. in the houses 
they carry a worse thing into, and take a better out; and, by it, also, 
they learn to know those which are worth entering, and which are not.”— 
s¢ All that is surprising,” said Bincon. “I hope I may ever be of such 


1829.] a Tale of the South. 591 


advantage to this worthy commodity.”—“ Heaven encourage goodness,” 
said Monopadis. As they thus discoursed, some one called at the gate. 
Monopadis went to it, to ask who was there. A voice replied, “ Open, 
Senor Monopadis ; it is Repolido.” As soon as Cariharte heard this, 
she called out aloud, “ No—don’t open, Senor Monopadis—don’t open 
to that sailor of Tarpeya—to that tiger of Olagno.” Monopadis, not- 
withstanding, opened the gate ; the which Cariharte seeing, she rose up, 
ran into the Hall of Bucklers, and having dashed the door after 
her, cried out from within, “ Away, away from me, with your pleasant 
countenance, you murderer of the innocent, you bugbear of the dove.” 
Maniferro and Chiquisnaque restrained Repolido, who would absolutely 
enter where Cariharte was, when they would not allow him. “ Very 
well, my good girl,” said he; “ don’t vex yourself any longer; good 
day, and I hope to hear yet of your being well married.” Married ! 
you malignant devil you,” replied Cariharte. “I hope to be hanged 
first ; though you’d give your eyes it was to yourself, that you would. 
But Id rather be the bride of a skeleton out of the grave.”— Have 
done, fool,” replied Repolido, “ have done ; it is already late, and you 
had, better not wait to be prayed to, for fear that I may not wait to pray. 
I speak to you quietly now ; but if I once get into a passion, this morn- 
ing was play to it. Hear reason, and don’t let us give a dinner to the 
evil one.’—“ That I would, and a supper to boot, if he would but carry 
thee off to where my eyes might never light on thee.’””—*“ I tell thee,” re- 
plied Repolido, “ that, as Heaven’s my hearer, if I am obliged to have 
recourse to Don Strap, you shall have it by the dozen, gratis.” Mono- 
padis interrupted him with—*“ No one should talk of being driven to 
such excess in my presence. Cariharte will come forward—not through 
fear of you, but regard for me ; and it will be as it ought—the quarrels 
of lovers are but the renewal of love. Juanna, my dear daughter, 
come out for my sake, that so Repolido may ask pardon of thee on his 
knees.”—“ Provided he promises that,” said Esculante, “we will all 
join for him in praying Cariharte to open the door.’—<« If it was to be 
looked on as a submission to the contempt of the one who made it,” 
said Repolido, “ I would not do it for an army of Swiss ; but if it is to 
give pleasure to Cariharte, I am ready to knock a nail into my fore- 
head.” Chiquisnaque and Maniferro burst out laughing, which so 
angered Repolido, imagining that they mocked at him, that, with an air 
of anger, he exclaimed, “ Whoso laughs, or is inclined to laugh at any 
thing Cariharte has said, or may say, against me—or at any thing I 
have said, or may say, against her, is a liar—aye, and will be a liar 
every time that he laughs, as I already said.” The two bravos regarded 
Repolido then with such a sullen look, that Monopadis saw well there 
would be a storm if he did not turn it off—for which reason, putting 
himself between them, he said, “‘ Senors, let this end here; and let no 
such other words pass your mouths: those that have been spoken, as 
they have gone in at one ear, have also gone out at the other, they be- 
long to nobody.”—“ Not to us, at least,” said Chiquisnaque ; “ such 
impertinences durst never have been meant for us; if they had. ? 
« I say again,” said Repolido, “ that whoso diverts himself at our ex- 
pence, lies: if any one chuses to gainsay me, he has only to follow me, 
and he shall have striking conviction of what I advance ;” and, so saying, 
he moved a step towards the gate. Cariharte, who overheard all, no sooner 
found him about to go, than out she came, exclaiming, ‘“ Don’t let him 


592 The Fortune-Hunters : [Juxz, 
stir—don’t you see he is in a passion—and then he’s as brave as Judas 
Macaret.* Return, Don Haughty—my precious ;” and she flung her 
arms round his neck, while Monopadis seized him by the cloak to stop 
his departure. The bravos, not certain whether they ought, or ought 
not, to be in a passion, awaited quietly to see what Repolido intended, 
who, finding himself thus entreated by Cariharte and Monopadis, turned 
to them, saying, “ Friends should never vex friends, or mock at them 
when they saw that they did not understand the jest.’”—‘ There is here 
no friend,” replied Maniferro, “ who wishes to vex or jest at his friend ; 
and, as we are all friends, let us shake hands upon it.”—“ Gentlemen,” 
said Monopadis, “you speak as friends should ;’ and they all shook 
hands with each other. Esculante then took off one of her shoes, turned 
it, and touched % on the in-sole, in the manner and tone of a tam- 
bourine. Gamenciosa seized upon a palm broom, which lay near by 
accident, and, in scraping it along, contrived from it a sound, that, 
though harsh and rude, accorded perfectly with the shoe tambourine. 
Monopadis broke an earthen platter; and, from two morsels of it that 
he struck one against the other, there resulted a contre-point in unison 
with the shoe and the brush. The two novices were utterly astonished 
at the invention of the broom which they had never before seen; and 
Maniferro, observing their surprise, said to them, “ I see our concert 
amuses you. Never music was so promptly invented, executed so easily, 
or at a cheaper expense, since the world was a world: indeed, it is but 
a day or two ago, that I heard a scholar declare, that neither Morpheus, 
who drew his mistress from hell; nor Marion, who rode about the sea 
on a dolphin, just as if it was a kind mule; nor that other great musician, 
who built a city with a thousand gates, ever invented a sort of music so 
agreeable to hear, so quick to learn, so easy to play, and with so little 
of making ; and yet the inventor is a very young man of this city, I hear, 
who, however, is quite a Hector in music.”—* I can believe it,” said 
Bincon, ready to laugh outright ; “ but let us listen. It seems to me 
that Gamenciosa is going to sing, for she smiles.” Monopadis had 
begged the two young women to sing a seguidella. Esculante began 
first, and, in a sharp and cracked tone, gave the following verse :— 


«« Oh, take me to the Prado!’ 
Is all my new Montilla’s cry ; 
© Oh, take me to the Prado, 
Nor hide me thus from ev’ry eye 


| haa 


Gamenciosa then took it up, and sung— 


* Oh, buy me, buy me, buy me, 
A pair of amber ear-rings small ; 
Oh, try me, try me, try me, 
And I'll become you best of all.” 


Monopadis, hemming his voice as clear as he might, resumed the 
strain with allusive gallantry, and continued thus :— 


“ Two hearts that have been fighting, 
When once the silly quarrel ends, 
In the new peace delighting, 
Become the better friends.” 


_* Maccabeus. 


AY eae 


1829.) a Tale of the South. 593 


Cariharte, not wishing to pass over in silence the pleasure she felt 
from the return and repentance of her lover, took off her shoe likewise, 
and, beating it in time, she accompanied the others, singing — 


« We ne’er should lay the stick, love, 
Upon the beauty we adore ; 
In her ourselves we strike, love— 
Then, dearest, strike thyself no more.” 


« Agreed ;” replied Repolido, “so no more of it. The past is past. 
Let us take a new theme, and have done with the old.” They had no 
notion, however, of so soon having done with their couplets, when 
they heard a thundering knock at the gate. Monopadis went forthwith 
to see who was there ; and the sentinel told him that, at the end of the 
street, there appeared the alcalde of justice, and before him Tordillo 
and Cornicola, the under alguazils. Those within, hearing this advice, 
were so troubled at it, that Cariharte and Esculante shoved on their 
shoes wrong side out—Gamenciosa flung down her broom—Monopadis 
his bits of platter—and the whole orchestra, dumb through fear, rested 
in profound silence—Chiquisnaque lost his sight—Repolido fainted— 
Maniferro sprang up the wall to escape into the next street. Never 
sudden shot more terrified a flock of pigeons, than did the news of the 
alcalde’s apparition this assembly of honest folks. The two novices, 
not knowing what part to take, stood quite quiet, awaiting the result of 
the hurricane, which subsided at the second report of the sentinel, that 
the alcalde had passed on without betraying any suspicion. As the 
youth gave this information, a young coxcomb of a cavalier came up. 
Monopadis brought him in with him to the little hall, and calling 
“* Chiquisnaque—Maniferro, and Repolido,” desired all the others to stay 
where they were. Bincon and Costado got so near as to hear the 
conversation with the new comer. The latter asked Monopadis “ why 
he had so ill executed his orders?” Monopadis replied “ he was igno- 
rant how it had been done, but that he who was charged with the affair 
was on the spot to answer in person.” Chiquisnaque then came for- 
ward, and Monopadis demanded of him “if he had not done as he 
was ordered about the picado* of the fourteen points ?”—< What !” 
exclaimed the bravo, “ the picado for the litle merchant of the cross- 
way ?”——“ The very same,” replied the cavalier. “ What passed on that 
occasion, you shall hear,” returned the bravo. “I waited him from 
dusk at his own door ; he arrived just a little before night. I looked in 
his face, and saw it so small, that it was the impossible of impossibilities 
to grave there the fourteen pointed picado; and so—not to fail my 
destruction—’—“ Instruction,” said the cavalier.—« Just so,” continued 
the bravo. “ Well, finding I could do nothing with such a scrap of 
visage as the master’s, I printed the fourteen points on the servant’s, 
which was full large for my purpose.”—“I had much rather,” re- 
turned the cavalier, “that you had given even seven pinks to the 
master, than fourteen to the man ; it was not acting honourably by me ; 
but, no matter, I shall not forget the thirty ducats you got as a whet.” 
And so saying, he turned to go away; Monopadis catching him by the 
cloak, said to him, “ Stop, Senor, if you please, and keep your word 
with us, as we have loyally kept ours with you ; there are still due to 


* Picase, to pink. 
> 


M.M. New Series—Vou. VII. No. 42. 4G 


594 The Fortune-Hunters : (June, 


us twenty ducats, and you do not stir from this till you either give 
them, or a pledge for them.”—“ What! you call it keeping one’s 
word,” said the cavalier, “ to give the pinking to the valet, that was 
ordered for the master ?”—“ Well, and is it not nearly the same thing ?” 
replied the bravo. ‘“ According to the old adage— love me, love my 
‘dog.’ ”—« And what has this proverb to say to the affair in question ?” 
resumed the cavalier—< Why, it is as much as to say, ‘ hate my dog, 
hate me,’” continued the bravo.—< The valet is the dog, and your 
hatred is thus shown for the master. So, as that settles your debt, you 
must now settle ours, without more words.”’—“ Chiquisnaque speaks like 
an oracle,” said Monopadis ; “ so, my good Senor, there is no use in 
attempting to trick your friends. Pay at once what is done—and if 
you would give the master as much as his face will hold, fancy him 
under the barber’s hands already.”—“ If I was sure of this,” replied 
the cavalier, “I would pay willingly.’—* Be as sure of it as that you 
are a Christian,” said Monopadis, “ Chisquisnaque shall set his mark so 
well, that it will look as if he was born with it.’—“ Well,” replied the 
cavalier, “ on that promise, here is a golden chain I will leave you as a 
pledge for the twenty ducats due, and the forty for the picado to come. 
It weighs a thousand reals, and, probably, it may remain with you 
entirely ; for I foresee that I shall require another fourteen point picado 
before many days.”—Undoing a chain which went several times round 
his neck, he handed it to Monopadis, who, by the touch and weight, 
knew at once it was of no composition ; and, thanking him with much 
ceremony for it, he charged the bravo “ not to be later than that same 
night in the execution of his office.” The cavalier then went off, well 
satisfied ; and Monopadis, calling all his company about him, drew from 
the hood of his cloak some tablets which, not knowing how to read, 
any more than the rest of the fraternity present, he begged of Bincon 
to do it for him. The youth, opening the first half, read— 
« List of Picadoes, to be given this week : 
“ First, to the merchant of the crossway, price 60 dollars :—Received 
“on account, 30.—Agent, Chiquisnaque.” 


«I think there is nothing more, my child,” said Monopadis ; “ pass on, 
and see what is written under the head ‘ Drubbings.’” Bincon turned 
the leaf, and found— 
« List of Drubbings : 
« To the victualler of the alfalz, 12 of the best blows, at a dollar a blow. 
Received on account, 8 dollars.—Time within 6 days.” 


«© We may rub out that article,” said Maniferro, “ because to-night 
I shall bring its receipt.”—“ Is there any other article ?” inquired 
Monopadis.—* Yes,” replied Bincon, “ one more, which runs thus:— 


«© To the hump-backed tailor, nicknamed the giber, 12 blows of the 
best quality, at the suit of the donna, whose pearl necklace he has in 
pledge.—Agent, Dimochado.’ ”’ 


“TI am much surprised,” observed Monopadis, “ that this article has - 
not been yet.rubbed out ; it must be that Dimochado is ill, for the time 
is passed.” I saw him yesterday,” said Maniferro ; “he told me the 
humpback had been ill, and did not stir out.”—‘ Something of the sort, 
I guessed.” I knew Dimochado for a good and punctual workman, 


- 


1829.) a Tale of the South. 595 


Any thing more, my boy ?”—* No, Senor ;” returned Bincon.—“ Well, 
look for ‘ List of Punishments.’” Bincon, turning over some leaves, 
found written,— 


« List of Punishments, to be levied in common ; that is to say, bottles 
of ink dashed in the face—unctions of juniper-oil—inquisition scapula- 
ries—frights—threats of the picado—calumnies—anecdotes, &c. &c.” 


« Look lower down,” said Monopadis.—“ Juniper-oil unction,” said 
Bincon.—* The house ?”—“ Not mentioned,” replied the youth.—« No 
matter, I think I know it,” said Monopadis, “ for I take that little job 
on myself; it is four dollars easily gained, Any thing more ?—go on, if 
my memory does not deceive me, there ought to be there, a twenty- 
dollar fright—the half paid beforehand—and the whole gang charged 
with its execution—time, the present month. It shall be one of the 
best turns that Seville has had played in it for some years. Give 
me the book, youth—I know there is nothing more ; the business grows 
slack. However, when things are at worst, they mend ; we shall, very 
likely, soon have more on our hands than we can well manage. Not a 
leaf falls without the will of Heaven; we cannot drag customers here 
whether they will or not; and, unluckily, many folks do their own 
business now, at a cheaper rate they pretend than they can get it done.” 
—*It is but too true,” said Repolido; “but, Senor Monopadis, consider, 
it grows late, and the sun grows hot.”—“< Then,” returned Monopadis, 
* let each to his post, and no change till Sunday, when we all meet here,, 
and divide whatever Heaven may send in the mean, without injury to 
any one. Bincon and Costado shall have for district, till then, from the 
Golden Tower to the castle gate, where they may work, seated at ease. 
I have seen lads of but very scarce wit, gain more than twenty reals a 
day there, with a single pack of cards that wanted five. Gamenciosa, 
you will point out this division; and even should you extend it to 
St. Sebastian and St. Elnore, there will be no harm done, as it is, in fact, 
a mixed jurisdiction, though no one interferes there with his neighbours. 
The two novices thanked him for their promotion, and promised fidelity 
and industry in their avocation. Monopadis, drawing from the cape of 
his cloak a folded paper, bid Bincon set down their names on it among 
the list of the fraternity ; but as there was no ink, he gave it to them to fill 
up at the first apothecaries’ shop. Just then came in an old brother 
thief, who said, “ Gentlemen, I have just met Lobitto and Malaya 
outside the gate, and they swear that they are much cleverer at the pro- 
fession than formerly ; insomuch as, that, with good cards, they could coax 
the money even out of the devil’s inside pocket ; and that, as it is 
now too late, on Sunday, if you allow, they will be here to register 
themselves anew, and take orders.”—‘< I used to think,” said Mono- 
padis, “that this Lobitto had good abilities, though he made a 
bad use of them. He has the most dexterous fingers for his trade that 
one could desire : it will be his own fault if he is not a first-rate workman.” 
—* I have also to tell you,” added the old thief, “that I saw, a minute 
since, at the Golden Sun, the Jew in the habit of an ecclesiastic. He is 
there because that two Indians from Peru lodge in the hotel, and he hopes 
to get into play with them and some of their ingots. He assured me he 
would not fail the Sunday meeting, nor a good account of his time.”— 
« This Jew,” said Monopadis, “is an able and witty person as ever I 
met. It is long since I saw him ; and he is wrong in not letting me see 

G 


596 The Fortune-Hunters: a Tale of the South. [JuNE, 


him oftener. By St. Jerome, if he does not correct himself of that bad 
habit, I will expose him. The rascal has no more a degree than the 
Grand Turk, and knows just as much Latin as my grandmother. Is 
there any news ?”—“ No,” replied the old man, “ none, that I know of.” 
—* All the better,” returned Monopadis: “ take among ye this trifle ;” 
and he gave forty reals to them to share. “ Let none miss the Sunday : 
the work shall then be punctually paid up.” Every one returned thanks 
—Repolido and Cariharte embraced—Esculante with Maniferro, and 
Gamenciosa with Chiquisnaque, followed the example, and agreed to 
meet.at night at Dame Pipota’s, where Monopadis said he would go to 
examine the wash-basket, and afterward to dispense the unction of 
juniper oil ; and so separated they all for the time being. 


THE CONVERSAZIONE. 


Scenr.—A Suite of Rooms in Portland Place ; the walls hung with some 
of the finest works of the old Masters ; and the tables covered with 
books, portfolios, and costly curiosilies. 


Time.—WNine 0’ Clock in the Evening. 


Dramatis Personm.—About a hundred and fifty Gentlemen, of all sizes 
and ages—of ali callings, pursuits, and ranks—sitting, standing, and 
walking. 


Coffee with the chill off, and Tea mith it on, to be had every five minutes. 
Solid mahogany Toast, and transparent gauze Bread and Butter, as 
an ad libitum accompaniment to the Tea and Coffee. 


Groups of Talkers and Listeners scattered about. 


First Group. 
Mr. A—n—I—y. Were you in the House, Sir George, when Mr. 
Peel made his famous “ breaking-in-upon-the-Constitution” speech ? 
Sir George M. . I was; and a more humiliating spectacle I never 
beheld. I looked at the man, and thought of Satan’s Address to Beelze- 
bub, “ rolling in the fiery gulph :’— 


* If thou beest he ; but, oh! how fallen! how changed 
« From him, who, in the days of Liverpool, 

“ Clothed with the cause that made thee what thou art, | 
*« Didst win applause: if he, whom mutual league, 

“ United thoughts and counsels, equal hope, 

«* And hazard in the glorious enterprise, 

« Joined with him once, into what pit, and from 

«What height, thou'rt fallen!” 


Mr. A—n—Il—y. I wonder no one got up, and asked the renegade 
why he deserted Canning in 1827, and played the spaniel to Wellington 
in 1829? 


1829.)] The Conversazione. 597 


Sir George M. . He would have told you, if so interrogated, that 
“ existing circumstances” justified his present course ; and referred you 
to Canning’s own declarations in Parliament, as a proof that his former 
one was without reproach, in the estimation of Canning himself. 

Mr. M——d. Yes; and he might have done so honestly, in what 
regards the latter case. Some letters passed between Mr. Peel and Mr. 
Canning, on that occasion, which, I dare say, ARE STILL IN EXISTENCE. 
Mr. Peel’s reasons, why, in his own judgment, he could not continue to 
hold the office of Home Secretary, under a Premier whose policy was 
favorable to the Catholic Claims, (even though that policy was never 
separated from guards and securities, ) carried a reluctant conviction to the 
mind of Mr. Canning. He did, indeed, think, the scruples of his Right 
Hon. friend, were somewhat too refined ; a little too nicely weighed ; but 
they appeared to spring from such a pure and delicate sense of public 
honor and official duty, that they commanded his respect and acquies- 
cence. They were confined, however, EXCLUSIVELY to the view taken 
by Mr. Peel, of the peculiar relations which subsisted between the go- 
vernment of Ireland and the Home Secretary ; and had it not been that 
Mr. Peel happened to entertain a remarkable predilection, just at that 
time, for the situation of Home Secretary, preferring it to any other, ex- 
cept, perhaps, that of First Lord of the Treasury ; had it not been for 
this singular attachment to the onty office he knew he could not hold, 
consistently with his previous declaration, he admitted there was nothing 
in Mr. Canning’s politics touching the Catholic Question, which ought 
to be a bar to his acceptance of office as Foreign or Colonial Secretary ; 
or as Chancellor of the Exchequer. But all his affections had taken root 
in Whitehall ; he could not reconcile himself to the thought of being 
transplanted. It was natural, therefore, that Mr. Canning should honor 
his motives, and bear public testimony to their apparent purity. _Good 
Heavens! Had Canning lived to witness this same Robert Peel, this 
squeamish Home Secretary of 1827, bring in a bill, as the apostate Home 
Secretary of 1829, to concede, without guard or protection, the WHOLE 
of the Catholic Claims—had he lived to hear the prostitute arguments, 
by which he endeavoured to brazen out his apostacy ; the draggle-tailed 
morality, in which he bedizened his conviction, how deep, how unutter- 
able, would have been his contempt for the man—or, if not unutterable, 
how withering the indignant scorn with which he would have laid bare 
the rottenness of his principles. | 

Mr. D. The plain fact of the matter is, that though, from obvious 
causes, Mr. Peel’s dereliction stands pre-eminently conspicuous, there 
has been a frightful competition among our public men for the crown of 
infamy. As to Peel, if he has ever read, and remembers, or should he 
hereafter read and reflect, he would find little difficulty, I apprehend, ~ 
in applying some of the caustic invectives which the pen of Sir Charles 
Hanbury Williams heaped upon a renegade of his day, (William Pulte- 
ney, First Earl of Bath,) whose political guilt, after all, was not a tythe 
of that of the late member for Oxford. Take the following stanzas for 
example, from “ Britannia’s Ghost.” 


While Robert, seeking lost repose, 
His downy pillow prest, 

Fresh horrors in his soul arose. 
And further banished rest. 


598 The Conversazione. [JunE, 


For, lo! Britannia by his side, 
All ghastly, faint, and wan, 
Thus in indignant accents cried, 

“ Oh, base to God and man ! 


“ How canst thou hope that balmy sleep 
Should close thy guilty eyes, 

When all Britannia’s sons must weep 
Her fall in thy sacrifice ? 


“« Long had she trusted to thine aid 
Against her bosom-foe, 

Depending on the vows you made 
To ward the fatal blow. 


“ Hence, she each traitor had supprest, 
Or boldly had defied ; 
Till, leaning on her guardian’s breast, 
His treacherous arm she spied.” 


The following lines, too, from “A Ballad in imitation of William and 
Margaret,” addressed to the Earl of Bath, would not be altogether with- 
out its application :— 


Bethink thee of thy broken trust, 
Thy vows to me unpaid ; 

Thy honour, humbled in the dust, 
Thy country’s weal betrayed. 


For this, may all my vengeance fall 
On thy devoted head! 

LiviInG, BE THOU THE SCORN OF ALL 5 
THE CURSE OF ALL, WHEN DEAD! 


Mr. A—n—l—y. You may depend upon it he would read these, or 
any thing ten times as strong, without wincing. When a man’s con- 
science is once seared, and his face well bronzed, when he has arrived 
at that point which enables him to set himself at defiance, he is not 
accessible to the “ paper pellets of the brain.” Take my word for it, how- 
ever, the events of the last two months have sown the seeds of a harvest 
which will be reaped in blood and misery to thousands. A whole nation 
is not suddenly wrought into an attitude of retributive justice upon its 
oppressors. But the feeling of injury is deep and general. Confidence 
in public men is destroyed. The people of England have now before 
their eyes, not insulated instances of shameless tergiversation, such as 
‘must happen, from time to time, as long as man is man; but the 
example of whole classes making a mockery of public honour, and private 
character, such as can never happen, except when the body politic has 
fallen into that state of disease which only a thorough purgation can 
cure. They are the plague spots—the blotches of the commonwealth, 
which, all history teaches us, bring on, sooner or later, the crisis that 
resolves the powers of the state into their original elements. I lament 
that the measure has been carried ; but I lament infinitely more, that it 
has been carried by such degenerate instruments. 

Sir George M. Being carried, however, and being now the law of the 
land, we are told, by high authority; it is our duty, as good and loyal 
subjects to obey. 

Mr. M——d. That doctrine, pushed to its legitimate consequences, 


1829.] The Conversazione. 599 


would exact from us obedience to every act of the parliament, till we were 
stripped of all our legal and constitutional rights. If we are denied the 
power, by petition, to arrest the progress of a bill before it is a law, and 
if we are to be subjected to its authority when it is a law, at what point, 
I should like to know, is resistance to tyranny, or impatience of mis- 
government, to manifest itself? But we need not perplex ourselves 
with+these subtleties. Every nation that knows the value of freedom, 
knows the way to obtain it; and no nation has given so many 
and such signal proofs of this truth as England. The country feels 
itself disgraced and insulted ; disgraced, in the unparalleled baseness of 
its representatives, and its hereditary legislators ; insulted by the con- 
temptuous disregard of its voice, as conveyed through innumerable 
channels, to parliament and the throne. Jt will forget neither. 

Dr. S—r. It is neither possible, nor desirable, that it should be for- 
gotten. In many a fierce struggle hereafter, the sin of the present day 
will be the watch-word and rallying sign of the sound democracy of 
England. The whole herd of the Lyndhursts, the Lethbridges, &c., 
the rank and file in both houses, who have marched, and counter- 
marched, like well-disciplined divisions, at the word of command, may 
pass away, and rot in dishonourable graves ; but the mischief they have 
done in holding up to public scorn and derision the authority of parlia- 
ment as founded upon the dignity and purity of its proceedings, will 
remain, like a festering sore, till the last vestige of it is eradicated. It 
must be the wish of all honest hearts, that the remedy should be applied 
before the authors of the evil are remembered only by their legacy. It 
would cost them as little to protest, next year, that every Catholic ought 
to be broiled alive in Smithfield, as it did this year, that every Catholic 
ought to have whatever it was his pleasure to demand. Such pliant 
senators are adapted to any kind of work. 

Mr. D. The king himself, 

* 


* * * * 


Seconp Group. (A loud burst of laughter.) 

Mr. S. n. (Laughing, a gorge deployée, and at least half a minute 
after all the rest had done.) Ha! ha! ha! That is excellent! It is 
one of the happiest applications of a quotation I ever heard. It beats my 
story of the oculist all to nothing. 


Dr. U——uns. What is your story of the oculist ? ' I never heard it. 

Mr. S. n. Oh, yes, you have, I am sure. 

Dr. U——xns. Then I have forgotten it, soit will be as good as new. 
Let us have it. 

Mr. S. nm. You remember Sir William Adams, afterwards Sir Wil- 


liam Rawson, which name he took in consequence of some property 
he succeeded to by right of his wife, I believe. Poor fellow! He was 
one of the victims of the South American mining mania. He plunged 
deeply into speculation, and wrote pamphlets to prove that so much 
gold and silver must ultimately find its way into Europe from Mexico, 
that all the existing relations of value would be utterly destroyed. He 
believed what he wrote, though he failed to demonstrate what he 
believed. At one period, to my positive knowledge, he might have 
withdrawn himself from all his speculations with at least a hundred 
thousand pounds in his pocket ; but he fancied he had discovered the 
philosopher’s stone—dreamed of wealth beyond what he could count,— 


600 The Conversazione. (Jung, 


went on—was beggared,—and you know how and where he died. 
Poor fellow! He deserved a better fate. He was a kind-hearted crea- 
ture ; and if he coveted a princely fortune, I am satisfied he would 
have used it like a prince. But I am forgetting my story. Well, then. 
It was after he had totally relinquished his profession as an oculist, that 
he might devote his entire time and attention to the Mexican mining 
affairs, that a gentleman, ignorant of the circumstance, called upon him 
one morning to consult him. Sir William looked at him for a moment, 
and then exclaimed, in the words of Macbeth, addressing Banquo’s 
ghost, “ Avaunt—there is no speculation in those eyes !’—[_Another loud 
laugh. | 

Dr. U.- ns. Ha! ha! ha! very good: but too good for my friend 
Sir William. I never knew hin: guilty of saying a good thing; and 
not often of comprehending one. 

Major P—r—it. His apprehension was not so slow, I suppose, 
as that of a gentleman in whose company I dined yesterday, who 
broke out into a violent fit of laughter, half .an hour after a joke had 
been passed, protesting, with great earnestness, that he had only just 
then discovered its meaning. 

Mr. § n. That’s nothing compared to Lord Sundon, who was 
one of the Commissioners of the Treasury in the reign of George II. 
The celebrated Bob Doddington was a colleague of the noble lord, and 
was always complaining of his slowness of comprehension. One day 
that Lord Sundon laughed at something which Doddington had said, 
Winnington, another member of the board, said to him, in a whisper, 
«You are very ungrateful: you see Lord Sundon takes your joke.”— 
« No, no,” replied Doddington, “ he is laughing now at what I said 
last board day.” 

Mr. G t, (a genileman weighing eighteen stone, with a wooden leg, 
and a cork hand.) Talking of apt quotations, I'll give you an instance 
of an apt translation. Lord North, whom the Oxonians used to call 
their witty chancellor, was performing the office of a Cicerone, or, in 
other words, showing the lions of the University, to a lady. They came 
to the schools. The lady was inquisitive. She asked the meaning of 
« Ars Grammatica, “ Ars Logica,’ &c. &c. written over the doors. 
Lord North explained. At length she espied “ Ars Musica.”—« That, 


said the lady, “means of course .’ © Yes,” interrupted Lord 
North, “ that is what we call in English bum-fidale !” 
Dr. U——ns. That’s a pun, and a vile one. I abhor punning. It 


is the very lowest species of wit, if indeed it can be called wit at all. - 
Any booby can make a bad pun, and I never heard a good one. 

Major P—r—tt. Then I'll tell you one, Doctor, and you shall con- 
fess it is a good one. A certain person, who shall be nameless, filled the 
situation of Plumian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford. He was a great 
stickler for decorum, and all due respect to his office. One day he re- 
ceived a letter by the post, directed to himself, as the Plumbian Professor. 
He shook with indignation. What an insult! Plumbian professor ! 
Leaden professor! Was it meant to be insinuated that there was any 
thing of a leaden quality in his lectures or writings! While thus irate, 
a friend of the professor happened to drop in. He showed him the 
letter, and. expatiated upon the indignity of the superscription. His 
friend endeavoured to convince him that it must be merely a slip of the 
pen. In vain. The professor would not be pacified. “ Well,” said his 


1829.] The Conversazione. 601 


friend, “ at any rate, it is evident the 6 has stung you.” What do you 
say to that, Doctor? ; 

Mr. G——I. (The gentleman with a cork hand, a wooden leg, and 
carrying twenty stone.\—The Doctor is silent, though I see the outward 
and visible sign, of an inward and struggling laugh. Let me try if I 
cannot draw it forth. I was in company some time since with George 
Colman, “the younger,” as the old fellow still styles himself. It was 
shortly after the death of Mrs. , the wife of a popular actor, and 
at that time an unpopular manager. Some one at table observed that 
« Mr. —_—— had suffered a loss in the death of his wife, which he 
would not soon be able to make up.”—“ I don’t know how that may be,’ 
replied George, drily, “ but to tell you the truth, I don’t think he has 
quarrelled with his loss yet.” 

Me > U——ns walked away, rubbing his chin and mouth, and joined 
the 


Tuirp Group. 


Sir Robert A t. Y’'ll tell you a remarkable circumstance connected 
with the death of the late Marquis of Londonderry, which I know to be a 
fact, and which seems to prove that the lamentable catastrophe of his 
decease was not the consequence of any sudden paroxysm of insanity. 
After his death there was found, among his papers, a letter addressed to 
Mr. Canning, recommending to his particular patronage, a young man in 
whose welfare the Marquis of Londonderry was warmly interested. 
He had been educated for a diplomatic life, and the Marquis had under- 
taken to promote his views. It would appear, therefore, the noble Mar- 
quis was well aware that Mr. Canning was the only individual likely to 
succeed him in his high office of Foreign Secretary. I know the young 
man in whose favour the letter was written; and I know that he was 
appointed, by Mr. Canning, Secretary of Legation to one of the South 
American Republics. 

Sir Benjamin H. Thatis a singular and interesting circumstance ; but 
quite consistent with the character of the late Marquis. He cared as 
little for life, as life, as any man I ever knew. He had a thorough dis- 
regard of personal danger. It is within my own knowledge, that indi- 
viduals would frequentiy request interviews with him, to communicate 
intelligence of plots, intended attacks, &c. His answer always used to 
be, “ If you have any thing to tell me which concerns the safety of the 
cabinet generally, or of any one of my colleagues, I'll hear you ; but if it 
is merely to announce that this or that person, or that two or three, have 
sworn to kill me, I wish to know nothing about it ; for I am well aware, 
_ if any one has determined to assassinate me, though I may frustrate him 
to-day, he will succeed to-morrow or next day. I do not say,” he 
would continue, “ that were I told a man will be lying in wait for me 
to-night, at a particular hour, and a particular place, I would purposely 
go to that place at that hour ; but I am determined not to trouble myself 
about general menaces.” 

Mr. T——-ss. There was much sound philosophy in that view of the 

uestion, circumstanced as the late Marquis was, being at no time, 
eisert perhaps immediately after the peace of Paris, in 1814) a popular 
minister. He was well aware that the life of any man is in the hands of 
him, who stakes his own in the taking of it. 

M.M. New Series.—Vou. VII. No. 42. 4H 


602 The Conversazione. [June; 
‘ e 


Fourtn Group. 


Professor §. t. I confess I am one of those who think that the 
popular voice ought to prevail when it is clearly and distinctly pro- 
nounced. I would yield nothing to mere clamour ; nothing to faction ; 
but to the public will, every thing. In short, I am almost democratic, 
enough to assert that the “ vor populi” is the “vox Dei.” 

The Rev. Mr. H.- tt. You remind me of an anecdote I heard, when 
I was a very young man, at the University; and which I have never 
since forgotten, so strong an impression did it produce. It wasa reply 
made to the celebrated John Wesley, by his sister. Wesley had been 
insisting, in a company where she was present, (much in the same wa 
as you have been doing) that the will of the many should be the law of 
the whole; and avowing that the “ vow populi, vor Dei,” was his motto. 
** Yes, brother,” she said, with a quiet emphasis of manner, “and the 
vox populi, cried aloud, cruciry! cruciry!” When we consider to 
whom this reply was made,—to a man who was exalting himself by 
preaching the doctrines of Christianity in what he devoutly believed to 
be their purest and most acceptable form,—it is hardly possible to con- 
ceive a finer rebuke. 

Mr. C——p. Well, I don’t see any thing so fine in it ; I think I could 
have said the same myself, and much better. 

The Rev. Mr. H. tt. (laughing.) You are like an Irish barrister 
I have heard of. He had the failing of Goldsmith, in an emi- 
nent degree: that of believing he could do evey thing better than any 
other person. This propensity exhibited itself ludicrously enough on 
one occasion, when a violent influenza prevailed in Dublin. A friend 
who happened to meet him, mentioned a particular acquaintance, and 
observed, that he had had the influenza very bad. “Bad!” exclaimed the 
other, ‘“‘ I don’t know how bad he has had it, but I am _ sure I have had 
it quite as bad as he, or any one else.” Not quite, I think,” replied his — 
friend, “for poor Mr. Gillicuddy is dead.”—«< Well,” rejoined our 
tenacious optimist, “ and what of that? I could have died too, if I had 
liked it.” t 

Mr. C——>p. (Alitile sulky.) I don’t see any thing in that either to 
laugh at: it’s very well; but nothing particular. 


[ Eleven o’Clock. Groups grow thin, and disappear.—The stream sets in 
for the staircase.—Some saunter along, as if admiring the pictures which 
are hung on each side, and make a sudden exit when opposite the door.— 
Others button their coats, and put on their walking gloves, with a cool de- 
termination to go home.—A few, who have the felicity of knowing the host, 
(who is standing with his back to the fire-place, to keep the night arr from 
three coals that are still burning in one corner) deliberately approach, and 
bow good night, or familiarly shake hands with him, according to their 
respective degrees of intimacy.—The opening and shuiting of the street door 
is heard every minute. } : 


ExreuntT OMNES. 


1829. ] > [>.603 J 
LITERARY PROPERTY.* 


In the objects of their protection, and the variety of solicitude with 
which it is bestowed, the laws of every country, during any given period, 
afford a fair indication of the tastes and general advancement of its ruling 
classes. Labour will not be directed towards any particular production 
without security for its enjoyment ; and, accordingly, if a want be felt 
for any specific object, care will be taken that the law throw around it 
the requisite protection. Were a country to be discovered in which 
copyright was found secured by laws, which permitted the owner of a 
work to set. spring guns in booksellers shops to preserve it from piracy, 
by shooting the purchasers of pirated editions—to seize printing presses, 
on the presumption that they were kept with intent to be used in the 
piracy of books—or to arm copyright keepers with bludgeons, for the 
purpose of going about knocking all literary poachers on the head, 
while the same laws disqualified from the perusal of a book every one 
who had not lands, either in his own right, or his wife’s right, of the 
annual value of one hundred pounds, nor any lease of the yearly value of 
one hundred and fifty pounds, nor unless he were the son and heir appa- 
rent of an esquire, or other person of higher degree—we should be driven 
to infer a most unusual love of learning in the rulers of that country, and 
the most intense selfishness in its gratification. It is true that. indications 
so conclusive as these are seldom to be met with; and, at all events, 
whatever other tastes the institutions of one country at least may bespeak, 
we are aware of none which display a correspondent passion for learning. 
The code of literary jurisprudence may, however, generally be taken as 
a sort ofithermometer-in the moral world—a pretty accurate index of the 
influences to which such a code must necessarily be subject; and we 
believe it will be found that the extending protection to literary pro- 
perty which, in different countries, that code has from time to time 
afforded, has been in close consistency with the dgreee in which the 
rulers in each participated in the general advancement of the age. 

In Greece and Rome, indeed, where learning was in high esteem, it 
appears that, notwithstanding authors were in the habit of selling such 
copies of their works as they could get transcribed, and the sale of those 
copies constituted a branch of trade, the law did not recognize any ex- 
clusive proprietorship in the copyright.t But then, it is to be remem- 
bered, the labour and cost of transcribing must have been so great, as to 
have contracted sale within very narrow limits ; and we can conceive of 
nothing short of the capability of multiplying to some such extent as that 
which the art of printing has introduced, which could render piracy a 
pursuit sufficiently alluring to call forth the protection of the law against 
it. Legislatiou has its erigin only in some antecedent want; and a law 
for the protection of literary property, in a country destitute of the 
knowledge of printing, would be about as much required, as one to 
guard from imitation the Logos of Leonardi da Vinci, or the Cartoons of 
Raphael. Galen might have delivered, to the hour of his death, surgical 


* A Treatise on the Laws of Literary Property, with an Historical View and Disquisitions 
on the Principles and Effects of the Laws. By Robert Maugham, Secretary to the Law 
Institution, &c. London, Longman and Co., Dixon and Co., Adam Black, Edinburgh. 
1828. 10s. 6d. 

+ Dissertation surla Propriété Littéraire, et la Librairie chez les Anciens, lue le 27 Nov. 
1827, a la Société d’Emulation du’ Département de Vain, 

4H2 


604 Literary Property. [June, 


lectures to his pupils, but if there were no Lancet to report them, how 
should we ever have heard of an injunction for their protection ? 

Antecedently to the year 1777, under the selfish regime of an imbe- 
cile noblesse, the law of France contained no positive recognition of 
literary proprietorship ; and copyright enjoyed only that sort of security 
which was involved in a state license obtained for a particular work. A 
royal decree of that year established its existence, but, by a whimsical 
caprice, while the decree bestowed a copyright in perpetuity on the 
author, so long as it remained in the hands of himself, or his descendants, 
the very act of assignment to a bookseller, restricted the period of enjoy- 
ment tothe author's life. The right accidentally perished at the revolu- - 
tion in the comprehensive blow which the National Assembly struck at 
all “ privileges,” but it was revived by a decree of 1793, which, inclu- 
ding authors of every description, composers of music, painters and en- 
gravers, gave an unqualified power of disposition to the author, and his 
representatives, for the life of the former, and ten years after -his death ; 
and a decree of 1810 continued the copyright to the widow for her life, 
and to the children for twenty years from the death of the survivor. Still 
these repeated extensions were insufficient to satisfy the growing convic- 
tion of the French nation of the necessity of affording to literature further 
protection. Struck with the spectacle of the descendants of those who 
had enriched the literature of the country by their labours, being left in 
a state of destitution because the law did not allow their ancestors to 
transmit to them the fruits of their labours, the people became desirous 
of having the whole matter placed on a more liberal footing. The sub- 
ject was again, accordingly, brought before the legislature, and, at the 
close of the year 1825, a commission was appointed to revise the whole 
state of the law of literary property. The commission was composed of 
twenty-two members of the council of state and of the institute, with the 
Duke de la Rochefoucault at their head, the president of the department 
of fine arts, four literary men, and two booksellers. They proceeded in 
their task with great spirit, and the whole matter underwent the most 
thorough discussion. It was originally proposed to establish an absolute 
perpetuity ; but some practical difficulties appeared to the committee to 
oppose themselves to this, and it was finally resolved to recommend the 
extension of the period to fifty years beyond the death of the author. 
The draught of a law, conformably with this principle, was appended to 
the report,* but we believe the sanction of the legislature yet remains to 
be given to it. The commissioners state in their report, in reference to 
the law, “The regulations which it contains are the most favourable 
that have ever existed in any country for authors and their families. They 
will encourage men of talent to compose great and serious works, by the 
certainty that their families will possess in them, for a long time, an 
honourable patrimony.” If duration of proprietorship be, however, any 
criterion of favour to authors, the committee were in one respect mis- 
taken :—in the majority, we believe the whole of the German states, the 
right is enjoyed in perpetuity. ‘ 

Though in modern times the French have thus outstripped us, in the 
zeal they have displayed for the interests of literature, the literary 
labourer was, in England, placed under the protection of the law at a 
much earlier period than he was in France. It is fortunate, however, 


* Jurist, No. 1. 


1829. ] Literary Property. 605 


for the theory with which we started, that we can account for the 
absence even of a far earlier protection, in the causes we have assigned 
for a similar state of things in the old republics :—so antient an inhabi- 
tant is learning said to have been of these isles, that Cleland, the philo- 
logist, launching forth into the greatest rhapsody about the sublime dis- 
coveries of the druids, asserts, what Cicero alleged to be only matter of 
opinion as to Athens, was literally true as to Britain,—‘‘ Unde humani- 
tas, doctrina, religio, fruges jura leges orta atque in omnes terras distri- 
bute putantur.”* The precise period at which that protection commenced 
is not however known, though, from the habit which prevailed on the 
introduction of printing of resorting to the Pope, and the Venetian, and 
the Florentine republics, for an exclusive license of publication,t it could 
not have been until some time after that period. Still it is probable, as 
the spoliation on individual labour, which this power of infinite multipli- 
cation was capable of producing, became more manifest, protection 
would have gradually sprung up; and Carte, the historian, states, 
that, on examining one of the registers of the Stationers’ Company, 
from 1556 to 1595, “ he was surprised to find, even in the infancy of 
English printing, above two thousand copies of books entered as the pro- 
perty of particular persons, either in the whole, or in shares ; and men- 
tioned, from time to time, to descend, be sold, and be conveyed to others ; 
and the whole tenor of these registers is a clear proof of authers and pro- 
prietors having always enjoyed a sole and exclusive right of printing 
copies, and that no other person whatever was allowed to invade their 
right.” Indeed, by the reign of Anne, so completely was copyright esta- 
blished, that an action of damages lay for its infringement. No judicial 
declaration had pronounced any specific period for the continuance of 
the right, nor does it appear that any thing arose to call for it. There 
is no ground of distinction, however, between literary and every other 
species of property, and there could be no reason, therefore, why this was 
to be the exception to the ordinary principle, which bestowed a proprie- 
torship co-existent with the subject—matter of every right :— 

“The absence of judicial authority,” says Mr. Maugham, “ can form no 
objection to the claim. It was not decided until within a century of the present 
time, that a title to literary property could be maintained, even prior to publi- 
cation, and that according to the principles of the common law, no distance 
of time, however great, could authorize a publication without the consent of 
the author: as in the cases of Lord Clarendon’s History and the Letters of 
Pope.” p. 7. 


But, by the reign of Anne, it began to be seriously felt that the reme- 
dies of the common law were an insufficient protection, and, in the year 
1710, an act was introduced for the purpose of extending the additional 
security of penalties : 


*« The liberty now set on foot of breaking through this ancient and reason- 
able usage,” said one of the papers given in to the members in support of 
the bill, “ is no way to be effectually restrained but by an act of parliament. 
For, by common law, a bookseller can recover no more costs than he can 
prove damage ; but it is impossible for him to prove the tenth, nay, perhaps 
the hundredth part of the damage he suffers, because a thousand counterfeit 
copies may be dispersed into as many different hands all over the kingdom, 


* Way to Things by Words, and to Words by Things, page 68. 8vo. 1766. 
+ Westminster Review, No. 20, art. ‘ Literary Property and Patents.” 


606 Literary Property. . [June, 


and he not able to prove the sale of ten. Besides, the defendant is always a 
pauper, and so the plaintiff must lose his costs of suit. ‘Therefore, the only 
remedy by the common law’is, to confine a beggar to the rules of the King’s 
Bench, or Fleet, and there he will continue the evil practice with impunity. 
We, therefore, pray, that confiscation of counterfeit copies be one of the 
penalties inflicted on offenders.” 


Penalties accordingly followed ; but the House of Lords; alarmed at 
their establishment in perpetuum, refused to grant them for any thing 
but a limited term. The act being made to speak of vesting a pro- 
perty in the author, and containing a clause professing to bestow the 
privilege of printing for a term, it seems somewhat, in language, as 
if it had been creating a right anew. Still, at the period at which it 
was passed, it was only regarded as conferring additional security : 
least of all was it supposed to have abridged the period of proprietorship 
thus tacitly assumed to have existed at the common law. “ It certainly,” 
says a high authority, “‘ went to the committee as a bill to secure the un- 
doubted property of copies for ever. It is plain objections arose in the 
committee to the generality of the proposition, which ended in securing 
the property of copies for a term, without prejudice to either side of the 
question upon the general proposition as to the right.” * 

By the year 1760, a suspicion having notwithstanding got abroad that, 
in opposition to the popular apprehension, the law, in reality, only recog- 
nized the existence of copyright for the restricted period*,mentioned in 
the statute of Anné, the booksellers became anxious to obtain a decision 
of the question, and a fictitious action was instituted for the purpose. 
The case was very elaborately argued before the judges, but the collusive 
character of the proceedings having come to their ears, they refused to 
proceed, though not it appears until after they had arrived at an unani- 
‘mous opinion in favour. of the continuance of the perpetuity. A piracy 
perpetrated on Thomson’s Seasons, after the period specified in the 
statute had expired, about seven years afterwards, again, however, 
brought the question before the court in the celebrated case of Millar 
and Taylor ; in which the two propositions set up for the defence were :— 


1st.,. That the common law had never, in point of fact, given any 
property in literary composition ; and 
Qdly., That if it had, the statute had abridged the term. 

The arguments in support of the first, were the finest specimens of legal 
puling it has ever been our luck to meet with. -It was urged that mental 
productions could not fall within the legal definitions of property—that 
there could be no property in ideas—that thought was common stock— 
accordingly there could be no appropriation of the thinking faculty— 
and that the very act of publication was a dedication—a gratuitous 
present to the public. The second proposition was principally main- 
tained on the construction of the statute. The defendant found a 
staunch supporter in Mr. Justice Yates, but the other three judges of the 
court, with Lord Mansfield in their number, as stoutly opposed him, and 
Judge Yates being outvoted, a judgment was given establishing the 
perpetuity of copyright. 

But the matter was not fated to rest here. The principle of the de- 
cision hecame afterwards the subject of appeal to the Lords in the case 


* Mr. Justice Willes in the case of Millar.and Taylor. 


— 


1829.] Literary Properiy: 607 


of Donaldson and Becket, and the whole question was once agaih ripped 
up. The appeal was mainly supported by Lord Thurlow, then attorney- 
general, and Sir J. Dalrymple, with much variety of assertion, but with 
little novelty of argument. Sir J. Dalrymple’s address was one conti- 
nued display of buffoonery ; but in his illustration of the proposition 
that publication is a dedication to the public, he quite out-heroded him- 
self. “ Besides,” says he, “there are various methods of conveying 
ideas—by looks, at which the ladies are most expert. Now an ogle is a 
lady’s own whilst in private, but if she ogles- publicly, they are every 
bedy’s property.” Convincing as might have been Sir J. Dalrymple’s 
wit to his audience, it was not quite so pointed as Falstaff’s. Be her 
eyes ever so active, no lady ever bestows her ogles gratuitously. She 
ogles only for a return, and dear enough too is often the price at which 
her ogles are purchased. With Lord Thurlow this would not have 
affected the aptitude of the illustration. So admirable a political econo- 


mist was his Lordship, “ Publication wasin his mind sale.”* The assist- 


ance of the twelve judges was called in, and of these there were eight to 
three of opinion that a perpetuity in copyright had had an existence 
previously to the existence of the statute of Anne. On the second 
question, that involving the construction of the statute, they would have 
been equally divided, had not Lord Mansfield, from the etiquette of the 
House, been prevented, as a peer, from supporting his own judgment. 
As it was, the opinions accordingly stood six to five in favour of the 
abrogation of the right by the statute. Unfortunately, Lord Camden 
took up the case very strongly against both the existence and the expe- 
dience of the right of proprietorship, and the judgment in the court 
below was ultimately reversed. 


“It is evident,” says Mr. Maugham, “ that the several Universities were 
as little prepared as any individual author or publisher, for the decision of the 
House of Lords, which overthrew the exercise of unlimited copyright, although 
it had prevailed, not only all the time antecedently to the 8th Anne, but for 
sixty-five years subsequently. The Universities hastened immediately to Par- 
liament, and in the same year, 1775, obtained an act for the two Universities 
in England, the four Universities in Scotland, and the several Colleges of 
Eton, Westminster, and Winchester, to hold in perpetuity their copyright in 
books given or bequeathed to the said Universities and Colleges, for the 
advancement of useful learning, and other purposes of education.” p. 33. 


To the Universities alone were the favours of parliament confined ; 
nor were any other steps taken to meet the consequences of this decision, 
until an act passed in the latter part of last reign at length extended the 
period of proprietorship from fourteen to twenty-eight years ; and for the 
additional contingent of fourteen then exisisting, substituted the life of the 
author, other statutes having placed the Fine Arts pretty much on the 
same footing of protection. 

Unfortunately, while contrasted with other countries, literary compo- 
sitions are, with us, thus in point of protection left so comparatively ex- 
posed, on the score of taxation, we present to foreign states a contrast 
still more invidious. “In no other country,” say the committee of 
1818, in their report, “as far as the committee have been able to procure 
information, is any demand of this kind carried to a similar extent. In 
America, Prussia, Saxony, and Bavaria, one copy only is required to be 


* Cobbett’s Parliamentary Debates, vol. 17, pp. 62, 967. 


608 Literary Property. [ June, 


deposited ; in France and Austria, two ; and in the Netherlands, three ; 
but in several of these countries the délivery is not necessary, unless 
copyright is intended to be claimed.” But with us the public libraries* 
actually sweep off eleven copies of every work which issues from the 
press. It is true, that on those of small value and extensive editions, the 
loss of eleven copies may not be felt as a very grievous sacrifice ; yet, 
even with reference to these we cannot help admitting the proposition of 
the authors in their able petition to the House in 1818. “To deliver 
eleven copies out of the regular number is a subtraction from the 
petitioners and their assigns of the whole trade sale price of those 
eleven copies when the impression sells; and if the impression should 
not sell, then the petitioners are aggrieved by the loss of the amount of 
the paper and printing of so many copies; and they submit, that if this 
amount be in some cases not large, yet it is considerable in the aggregate 
of the whole quantity demanded ; and no law of any country has made 
the amount of any property the measure or the standard of right and 
justice respecting it: the smallest quantity of value is protected to every 
one as much as the greatest ; the legal right is the same, whatever be the 
pecuniary amount ; and all penal codes for the preservation of property 
are founded on this natural principle so essential to the general welfare 
of society.” 

Of the extent of “the aggregate of the whole quantity demanded,” 
the evidence of a few of the booksellers affords us some slight 
indication. In their petition of the 9th April, 1813, the Edinburgh 
booksellers stated, that in the books recently published, and then in the 
course of publication at Edinburgh, the amount would not be less than 
one thousand four hundred and twenty-six pounds eight shillings and 
sixpence. In the petition of Messrs. Longman and Co., presented in 
1818, it was declared that, since the passing of the act of 1814, and the 
date of the petition, the eleven copies of works delivered by their house 
to the eleven libraries, had cost them three thousand pounds, or nearly 
so ; and, in the general petition of the London booksellers, presented in 
the March following, it appeared that, during the same time, the cost to 
Mr. Murray had been one thousand two hundred and seventy-five 

ounds. 

. The method of estimating the loss, not at the selling, but at the cost 
price of the copies, was happily exposed by Lord Althorp in the debate 
which arose on bringing up the petition of the authors in 1818. “ With 
respect to the Right Honourable and learned Gentleman’s (now Lord 
Plunkett) observation on the mode of calculating the evil, surely, if a 
farmer was obliged to give away a bushel of wheat which he could sell 
at a certain sum, the loss he would sustain would not merely be what 
the bushel had cost himself, but the price at which he might sell it.” 

Supposing the tax, however, to press comparatively lightly on one 
class of works, it may be imagined with what weight it will fall on the 
other, when it is remembered that Mr. Sharon Turner handed in to the 
committee of 1813 a jist of eleven, on which it would have amounted to 
five thousand six hundred and ninety-eight pounds one shilling. Of 
these, one alone, The British Gallery of Engravings, made up one 


* These libraries are the Royal Library, the libraries of the Universities of Oxford and 
Cambridge, and of the four Universities in Scotland; the library of Sion College in Lon- 
don, of the Faculty of Advocates, in Edinburgh, and the libraries of Trinity College, and 
the King’s Inns, Dublin. 


1829. } Literary Property. G09 


thousand and sixty-five pounds thirteen shillings and sixpence ; and, 
another, Daniel’s Oriental Scenery, actually amounted to two thousand 
three hundred and ten pounds. Mr. Turner shrewdly observed, that in 
each one of these cases the tax was as complete an invasion on individual 
property as would be an enactment that a silversmith should give to 
these public bodies eleven silver candlesticks. Had he alluded to 
candlesticks of gold instead of silver, and those, too, of a pretty massive 
character, we suspect, in these two instances, he would scarcely have 
been guilty of exaggeration. 

It is the object of Mr. Maugham’s work to place this miserable con- 
dition of the jurisprudence of our literature once more before the public ; 
and most heartily do we wish his book the success it deserves. The 
first part is devoted to an elucidation of the history, and comprises a 
complete compendium, of the existing state of our laws of literary 
property, including the Fine Arts under that term. The second is a 
disquisition on their principles. The latter is again divided into an 
examination of the objections which have been urged to a perpetuity in 
copyright, and the arguments on which the library tax is supported ; 
and both display an ingenious exposure of the various fallacies with 
which sophistry has contrived to mystify this simple question. We select 
a few of the more important. 

Whenever a pretext is wanting for the injustice thus done to the 
literary labourer, there is none more often resorted to than one which 
comes wearing the smiling air of a compliment. Authors, it is said, 
require no extension of copyright: beings of an ethereal mould, they 
look down with as much contempt on gold as would Cobbett on a bit of 
the filthy rag signed by a Bank Director, and stamped with the number 
one thousand. “ Glory is the reward of science, and those who deserve 
it scorn all meaner views.” Now, grand as all this would sound if put 
into heroics, as a fact from which to deduce a principle of legislation, it 
has one unlucky drawback, and that is, that it is not true. Unfortu- 
nately for authors, they are destitute neither of stomachs or gastric 
juices ; and they have legs and other parts which require to be covered ; 
nor is it so pleasant in these days of luxury and splendour—days in 
which it may be said of all the world, like the people in the fable of the 
Abeilles :—* on s’habille au-dessus de sa qualité pour étre estimé plus 
qu’on n’est par la multitude,’—to be forced to walk the streets in 
ragged breeches—like Johnson, to remain at home for a pair of shoes— 
or, with Polyglot, to have to lie in bed for want of a shirt. But, to 
be serious, a more preposterous piece of declamation never escaped 
the lips of man; and we are glad to find it so ably grappled with by 
Mr. Maugham. After alluding to the absurdity of pronouncing men 
“mean,” simply because they desire to be paid for their services, he goes 
on to observe— 

“ There is yet another class of men, the most numerous of all, who are not 
actuated by any single predominant motive, to whom neither glory, nor gain, 
are master passions; but who are influenced by mixed motives, and who 
would bestow greater exertions, if their social, as well as selfish feelings, were 
equally gratified. Why should we not use all the means which justice per- 
mits, to excite men to the exertion of their best faculties ? 

“ He who can, by his works, obtain not only the prospect of future fame, 
but the substantial advantage of immediate recompense, with a provision for 
his family after his death, will labour with greater diligence than those who 
are incited only by the desire of posthumous renown. 


M.M. New Serics—Vou. VII. No. 42. 41 


616 Literary Property. [Junz, 


“The reward of glory may, indeed, stimulate the production of works of 
pure genius, and the more especially as the exercise of the imagination is so 
peculiarly delightful ; but this cannot be the case, in an equal degree, in the 
department of philosophy. Great, persevering, aud often painful labour, is 
necessary to the accomplishment of many works of science; and, therefore, 
every possible inducement should be added, instead of being diminished, that 
may tend to encourage the prosecution of such labours. 

“ Besides, an author who wished for no other reward than renown, might still 
exercise his liberality, and either present his labours gratuitously to the public, 
or bestow them on some meritorious object. He can do so now in favour of 
the Universities ; and the glory of the bequest would be greater, because it 
would be more rare and generous.” p. 187. 


Such then being the real state of the case when stripped of its false 
decorations, let us see what are the objections to holding out the utmost 
stimulus to production to which the law is capable of being applied, by 
Securing to the labourer the whole fruit of his labour. The only two of 
these which have ever appeared to us worth listening to are well an- 
swered by Mr. Maugham :— ; 


“It is objected,” says he, “ that it would prolong the power of the owner 
to deal with the public as he chose, and that he might either suppress a valuable 
work, or put an exorbitant price upon it; in both of which events the public 
would be injured. 

“ The fear of suppression may be easily provided against. If the proprie- 
tor does not re-print the work when required within a reasonable time, there 
would be no injustice in considering the copyright as abandoned. It is replied 
that there would be a-difficulty in proving an abandonment. We do not 
perceive the difficulty, at least, in the majority of instances and regulations 
which experience would suggest, might be adapted to circumstances. Gene~ 
rally speaking, if it were worth while to re-print a work, the copies of which 
were exhausted, it would not be abandoned. When it was out of print, 
notice might be given to the last publisher and entered in the registry of the 
Stationer’s Company; and if at the expiration of a certain length of time 
(perhaps proportionate to the magnitude of the work) it were not re-printed, 
it might then become common property.” pp. 184-5. 


With respect to the price, he elsewhere observes: 


““ It is obvious, that if the period were extended, a higher remuneration 
might be afforded for works of superior importance, on account of the endu- 
ring nature of the property in them. » The profit, it is true, might not be rapid, 
but its unlimited continuance would, generally, in the result, compensate for 
the advance of a larger amount of capital. We might illustrate this fact by 
reference to the nature of leasehold and freehold property, For all ordinary 
purposes to the great bulk of mankind, lony leasehold property is really as 
useful as freehold, and endures as long as the lives of any for whom they feel 
an interest ; yet we may perceive that such is not the general feeling, for the 
price in the market is exceedingly different: men are content with about 
three per cent. when it is ensured to them in perpetuity, but they expect 
seven or eight in the other case, though it may last out three generations. — 

“The cheapness of a work would thus obviously be promoted by the just 
extension of the period of its protection, because the proprietor would not 
depend upon any sudden return of his capital, but proportion his gain to the 
extent of its duration. As he would ultimately receive a better remunera~ 
tion, he could afford to diminish its present amount. The calculation is now 
made upon an immediate return: if that does not take place, the work is 
supposed to be condemned—no matter what may be its intrinsic merits, no 
further efforts are made to bring them before the notice of the public. The 
legal period being so short, it is not deemed worth while to keep open the 
account, and it is closed as soon as possible.” p. 194. 


1829.] Literary Property. 611 


Indeed, the price of a book appears to us to be a good deal dependant 
upon circumstances not very different from those which regulate the rate 
at which an annuity is sold. Whenever a book is first brought into the 
market, the price will necessarily be, to some extent, adjusted by a 
comparison to other works of similar pretensions. But then, it must be 
remembered, that while there are so many of these, all vying with each 
other, and such numerous competitors, each eager to push those pub- 
lished by himself into circulation, the result will be a general tendency 
to adjust the prices of the whole at the lowest point which will return 
the ordinary profits on capital. Of course, the more extensive the circu- 
lation, or what amounts to nearly the same thing, the longer it continues, 
the lower down on the scale will this point be ; just as the better the life 
on which it is to be granted, the less will be the annuity which a pur- 
chaser will be content to take in return for any given purchase-money. 
Such is the sensitiveness of the public on the point, that those not con- 
versant with the book-trade could scarcely conceive how trifling an 
addition to the price of a book would operate in deterioration of its sale. 
** Suppose an octavo book,” is asked Mr. Baldwin, by the committee of 
1818, “ of 400 or 500 pages, which sells at nine or twelve shillings: 
would an addition to the price, of sixpence, materially injure the sale ?” 
He answers—* In some instances it might operate prejudicially, though 
it would not be so material an addition as to a book of 5s. 6d. ; but, still, 
I think i would be prejudicial to the sale; and particularly, im a popular 
work, it may be considered such an addition as to operate as an objection 
to the work.” —Min. of Ey. p. 45. There is abundance of other evidence 
to the same effect. 

But although we admit that a rise in price would be a calamity for 
which even an increase of production could scarcely compensate, it must 
not be forgotten that there is every reason to presume that the narrow- 
ness of the present term of proprietorship conduces to keep many works 
from coming into existence.— ~ 

“Tt is a fact,’ says Mr. Maugham, “ proved by indisputable evidence 
before a committee of the House of Commons, that many important works of 
an expensive nature have not been published, owing to the hardships imposed 
by the law. A great part of that hardship is attributable to the heavy tax of 
the eleven presentation copies for the public libraries (which we shall pre- 
sently examine)—but much also of disadvantage arises, even as regards those 
costly publications, from the limitation of time.” p. 193. 


We confess we think it impossible to read the evidence without coming 
to the same conclusion—nor when it is remembered at what immense 
cost, both of money and labour, many works are brought into being— 
how high-priced these must necessarily be—and how protracted, conse- 
quently, the period to bring them into a remunerating circulation, we do 
not see how any person could require any further demonstration of the 
fact, than that which he would get by walking into a bookseller’s shop, 
and looking over his catalogue of standard books. Milton said of Truth 
that it was like a bastard, at its birth, so little credit did it draw down on 
those who brought it forth ; and, assuredly, it is too much the fate of all 
truth long to have to shine in darkness, while “the darkness compre- 
hendeth it not.” It must necessarily, therefore, occasionally happen, 
that, some books which stand out beyond the age in which they are 
written, accident may serve to repress the circulation of others ; and 
thus, beside the class to which we have just been alluding, there will 

212 


612 Literary Property. [JuNnE, 


always be another with which all protection, not carried to a compara- 
tively remote period: will be utterly worthless. The Esprit des Lois of 
Montesquieu is an apt illustration of this; and we refer to it because it 
gives us occasion to quote the observation made by D’Alembert in 
tracing its history, which in one short but brilliant passage, admirably 
depicts the gradual process by which all the great works written for the 
instruction of mankind arrive at their ultimate renown. “ I] fallut que 
les véritables juges eussent eu le temps de lire: bientét ils ramenérent 
la multitude toujours prompte 4 changer d’avis. La partie du public 
qui enseigne dicta a la partie qui écoute ce qu’elle devoit penser et dire ; 
et les suffrages des hommes éclairés, joint aux échos qui le répéterent, ne 
forma de plus qu’une voix dans toute Europe.” Still, we have no 
occasion to go for proof to foreign countries. The fate of our own 
Milton’s Paradise Lost is well known ; and Hume’s History, to use Mr. 
Maugham’s phrase, “ fell still-born from the press.” 

When Lope de Vega, the Spanish dramatist, was twitted by the 
critics for the boldness with which he set all the Aristotelian rules of 
criticism at defiance, he made a reply, which has been translated into 
French :— 


** Le peuple est mon maitre ; il faut bien lui servir, 
« 4 oer ae ? 
I] faut pour son argent dui donner ce qu'il aime. 


It happened, in this particular case, that the taste of the multitude was 
better than that of the critics ; but the people, in general, rather require 
to be taught by their writers, than to direct the character of their 
writings. Yet, unfortunately, the existing state of the law, as far as 
any state of the law can operate, has the additional objection of tending 
to contravene these the best interests of society :— 


“* Authors,” says Mr. Maughan, “ are at present discouraged from executing 
works of a standard nature, because such works demand the labour of a life. 
It is evident that talent may be more profitably employed in the attention to 
works of temporary excitement. The fashion of a particular age or season is 
consulted, instead of the general and enduring interest of the community. 
The question with an author who is about to select the sphere of his literary 
labour, is not determined by any opinion of what will be beneficial to man- 
kind at large, or ultimately ensure his own reputation, but what will sell the 
best in the literary market.” p. 192. 


The whole principle on which the library tax is justified is very suc- 
cessfully attacked by Mr. Maugham :— 


« But the law,” says he, “ is said to be beneficial to general literature, by 
affording to men of literary talents and industry the means of information, and 
enabling them to accomplish works of the highest merit and utility. 

“This is too barefaced an excuse for injustice: it is robbing Peter, not to 
pay Paul, but to enable him dishonestly to live at the expense of Peter. The 
men of ‘ literary talents and industry, who have accomplished works of merit 
and ability, are to be deprived of a large part of their profit, where any exists, 
in order that others may avail themselves of the results of their industry gra- 
tuitously. Surely, the fellows of these learned Universities, who favour the 
world with their collegiate lucubrations, and who set their own price upon 
them, should stand on the same footing as other literary men, and purchase 
the materials which they require in the course of their labours. It may be 
very convenient, but it cannot be just, that by the aid of these Universities a 
writer should possess himself of the property of his predecessors, for which 
no remuneration whateyer has been made. And, after all, there is not the plea 


1829. ] Literary Property. 613 


of necessity in favour of the injustice ; for it is the common practice of an 
author who is engaged in a work, in the preparation of which he has occasion 
to refer to a variety of books, to obtain them from his publisher ; and it is 
part of the understanding between them, that all the books which are neces- 
sary shall be lent him. Of course there is, of all others, the least difficulty 
in supplying the modern publications. And, we presume, no one who is 
tolerably acquainted with the history and circumstances of literature, can 
believe that it has been, or is likely to be, benefited or improved by the 
doctrine, for the first time laid down in 1812, that the Universities are entitled 
to copies of every publication. We may venture to say, that if not the besé 
authors of the present age, at least, as good as any others, are unconnected 
with the Universities, and derive no advantage whatever from the accumula- 
tions which have been made in their libraries, either since 1812, when every 
book has been supplied, or prior to that time, when the registered books only 
were delivered. Indeed, it is absurd to suppose that the intellect of the 
country is to be advanced by such paltry means, and the true friends of acade- 
mical learning are, no doubt, as much ashamed of the folly of such an argu- 
ment, as of the dishonesty of such a principle. 

“< Supposing, however, all these considerations set aside, let us inquire what 
is really the use of the single copy given to any one University? In general, 
the books are of no use whatever to any one in any of the colleges. Of the 
far greater portion, not a single page is ever read. It either is utterly use- 
less, or is so considered for all collegiate purposes. Indeed, how can it be 
otherwise, when the libraries indiscriminately demand their copies of every 
publication—of all the trash, folly, and obscenity, which find their way out 
of the press? 

« But suppose the work to be really valuable, either for its profound philo- 
sophy or learning, or for the popularity of the subject and the talent it indi- 
cates ; then every one becomes desirous to read it. Thousands of students 
apply for it; and what is the consequence ? As but few can possibly obtain 
it, the work is either purchased or borrowed from the common circulating 
libraries, and the copy in each of the eleven libraries has precisely the effect 
of preventing purchases from the author, for the sole benefit of a few indi- 
viduals, who can either do without the book, or afford to pay for it.” p.p. 199, 
200. 


With respect to the indiscriminate demand of the libraries, we suppose 
Mr. Maugham will be met with this stale apology, that they are willing 
to return the books which are not deemed, on examination, to be 
appropriate for their shelves. The value of this apology is, however, 
just nothing. Booksellers are not less keen-witted than other men in 
looking after their interests, yet they do not avail themselves of the 
offer ; and the fact that they do not is the proof that the rejected books 
are not of the class on which the tax is felt; at least not to so great a 
degree as to make it worth while to incur the trouble and cost of reclaiming 
them. But when people pretend to be liberal, it is well to take the 
guage of their liberality. Hear then, as far as the Bodleian at least 
is concerned, the evidence of one of the curators before the committee 


of 1818 :— 


“What proportion do you suppose the number rejected bears to the 
number deposited ?—A very small proportion ; not perhaps one in a hundred, 
or less peiaig. 

“Speaking generally, what do you suppose to be the value of the books 
rejected in the course of a year >— £3 or £4, not more.”* 


Mr. Maugham exposes, with equal success, what we may call the 
advertisement fallacy :— 


* Rey. Thomas Gaisford, Minutes of Evidence, p. 105. 


614 Literary Property. [June, 


«‘ Amongst other arguments, or rather pretences, in support of the policy, 
if not the justice of the law, it has been strangely contended that the sale of 
valuable publications is favoured by an opportunity being offered of seeing 
such works in the public libraries, and thus awakening a relish for them! 
Nothing can exceed the puerility, untruthfulness, or misapprehension of such 
a suggestion. We take it, that, if the knowledge of the public with respect 
to new publications, were restricted to such information as they could obtain 
from their deposit in the libraries named in the Act of Parliament, very few 
of them would find purchasers. Indeed, a single advertisement or notice in 
a periodical work of extensive circulation, will evidently effect more in behalf 
of the work, than if it were bestowed upon every college in the empire. We 
may be sure there is no Jack of inclination to purchase able and useful publi- 
cations, and if the supply could be made at a cheap rate, it is scarcely pos- 
sible to estimate the extent of the demand. It is perfectly childish to talk of 
the excitement produced by seeing books in a public library, when compared 
with the effect of their exhibition in the shops of the booksellers. In London 
there is one copy deposited in the British Museum ; and another, for the benefit 
of the clergy, in Sion College: compare the number of persons who look at 
books of any kind in those two repositories, with those who are attracted by 
their exhibition in other ways, and we shall be satisfied of the fallacy of the 
notion. The fact is, that the British Museum (to which no one would object 
that a copy should be presented) is resorted to, generally, not for the purpose 
of reading new publications, but to consult those which are old and scarce ; 
and it is to the periodical press, and to the activity of publishers, that an 
author can alone look for ‘ awakening a relish,’ for any production that can 
now be offered to the public.” p.p. 203-4. 


Had Mr. Maugham been desirous of sparing himself the trouble of 
refuting so preposterous a vindication, he need only have quoted the 
short answer of the extensive publisher to whom we have previously 
alluded, to the same committee. ‘“ Do you conceive that your publications 
acquire any advantage by any such supposed notoriety ?”—<« We do not 
consider the supposition of notoriety, arising from the depositing of the 
books, to be well founded, or productive of any advantage ; if we did, WE 
SHOULD SEND THE BOOKS TO THE PUBLIC LIBRARIES WITHOUT ANY 
COMPULSION.” * 

We suppose the day is already set in on which bullism is to be wiped 
out from among the national characteristics of Ireland. We avail our- 
selves, however, of its brief existence to observe that the “ encouragement 
to literature,” as it is called, which we have been sketching must be an 
encouragement only of an Irish nature. Those were not the encourage- 
ments which called into existence the splendour that shone around the 
pontificate of Leo—nor was it by laying on men of learning “ burthens 
grievous to be borne,” that Louis in France, and Elizabeth in England, 
revived, each in their own times, the Augustan age of old Rome. Not, 
indeed, that we are exactly admirers of the pensioning system, With 
literature, as with much else, “ laissez faire,” and not “ encourage- 
ment,” is our motto—nor is the lesson which Mr. Burke pointed out 
with reference to political less applicable than to intellectual advance- 
ment, when he attributed the prosperity of our North American colonies 
to the circumstance, that, “ through a wise and salutary neglect, a 
generous nature had been suffered to take her own way to perfection.”t 
But whatever may be our notions on this subject, assuredly it is impos 
sible to dissent from Mr. Maugham :— 


* Mr. Baldwin’s Min. of Ev. p. 47. 
+ Speech on Conciliation with America. 


1829.] Literary Property. 615 


“ The law in its present state is a disgrace to the country. It is an ano- 
maly in our legislative system. Let men of letters be placed, at least, on 
equal terms with the commonest artizan. We think the tax on the ‘ raw 
material’ of paper might be diminished ; but if that cannot be done, surely 
the manufactured article of books should be free from impost. Every prin- 
ciple of political economy demands it, and the more especially, when it is 
recollected that the tax is not imposed for the benefit of the state or the com- 
munity, but in favour only of chartered bodies, whose wealth and immunities 
are already sufficiently abundant. 

“If our literature be equal to that of the continental states, let us imitate 
their example: let us cease to injure, and really encourage those to whom we 
are indebted for our eminence. If it be inferior, let us lose no time in remov-~ 
ing every impediment from its way, and introducing every means that can 
facilitate its improvement, and promote its rise: let not Great Britain be the 
country in which literary property is burthened more oppressively, in a six- 
fold degree, than any other nation of ‘the civilized world; rather let her 
abolish the imposition altogether, and surpass even the republics of the new 
world, as she undoubtedly might the monarchies of the old.” pp. 206-7. 


CLASSICAL CORRECTIONS: No. I. 


Ty a neat little cottage, some five miles from town, 

Lived a pretty young maiden, by name Daphne Brown, 
Like a butterfly, pretty and airy: 

In a village hard by lived a medical prig, 

With a rubicund nose, and a full-bottomed wig— 
Apollo, the apothecary. 


He, being crop-sick of his bachelor life, 
Resolved, in his old days, to look for a wife— 
(Nota bene—Thank Heaven, I’m not married) : 
He envied his neighbours their curly-poled brats, 
(All swarming, as if in a village of Pats), 
And sighed that so long he had tarried. 


Having heard of fair Daphne, the village coquette, 
As women to splendour were never blind yet, 
He resolved with his grandeur to strike her ; 
So he bought a new buggy, where, girt in a wreath, 
Were his arms, pills and pestle—this motto beneath— 
« Ego opifer per orbem dicor.” 


To the village he drove, sought young Daphne’s old sire, 

Counted gold by rouleaus, and bank notes by the quire, 
And promised the old buck a share in’t, 

If his daughter he’d give—for the amorous fool 

Thought of young ladies’ hearts and affections the rule 
Apparently rests with a parent. 


616 


Classical Corrections. 


Alas! his old mouth may long water in vain, 

Who tries by this method a mistress to gain— 
A miss is the sure termination: 

For a maiden’s delight is to plague the old boy, 

And to think sixty-five not the period for joy ; 
Alas! all the sex are vexation. 


Daphne Brown had two eyes with the tenderest glances ; 
Her brain had been tickled by reading romances, 

And those compounds of nonsense called novels, 
Where Augustus and Ellen, or fair Isabel, 
With Romeo, in sweet little cottages dwell: 

Sed meo periclo, read hovels. 


She had toiled through Clarissa; Camilla could quote ; 

Knew the raptures of Werter and Charlotte by rote ; 
Thought Smith and Sir Walter extatic ; 

And as for the novels of Miss Lefanu, 

She dog’s-eared them till the whole twenty looked blue ; 
And studied The Monk in the attic. 


When her sire introduced our Apollo, he found 
The maiden in torrents of sympathy drowned— 
« Floods of tears” is too trite and too common: 
Her eyes were quite swelled—her lips pouting and pale ; 
For she just had been reading that heart-breaking tale, 
* Annabelle, or the Sufferings of Woman.” 


Apollo, Pll swear, had more courage than I, 
To accost a young maid with a drop in her eye ; 
Td as soon catch a snake or a viper : 
She, while wiping her tears, gives Apollo some wipes ; 
And when a young lady has set up her pipes, 
Her lover will soon pay the piper. 


Papa locked her up—but the very next night, 

With a cornet of horse, the young lady took flight : 
To Apollo she left this apology— 

“That, were she to spend with an old man her life, 

She would gain, by the penance she’d bear as a wife, 
A place in the next martyrology.” 


Apollo gave chase, but was destined to fail ; 
The female had safely been lodged in the mail, 
Now flying full speed to the borders : 

So the doctor, compelled his sad fate to endure, 
Came back to his shop, commissioned to cure 
All disorders but Cupid’s disorders. 


[JuNE, 


W.C.T. 


1829. | PIODgeen] 


THE PIMENTO FAMILY; OR, SPOILED CHILDREN. 


Sir Perer Pimento is an eminent West-India merchant, remarkable 
for coolness of temper both as merchant and husband; Lady P. (ere- 
while Miss Penelope Harpoon, and daughter of a Greenland trader) is, 
on the contrary, remarkable for a sort of pepperiness of temper, which 
acquired her the reputation of a vixen whilst yet a mere minx, a virago 
when a virgin, and a Xantippe now she is a wife. Her absolute “ shall” 
was a fiat not to be contravened in Lothbury during her maidenage, 
nor in Finsbury-square, in her wifeage; at least by beings bearing as 
little gall about them as the humble and peace-loving Sir Peter. If 
clerk or cook, house-maid or nurse-maid, exhibited the slightest spice 
of opposition to the home-administration, the house was dissolved sine 
die, and the malcontents expeiled, to find new constituents, if they 
could. 

Sir Peter, in the three preparatory years of his wedded infelicity, was, 
on three several occasions, made happy, though exceedingly incom- 
moded, by the production of two sons and a daughter, to be the olive- 
branches of his table. A hundred humble names were, with all proper 
submission, suggested by Sir Peter, as cognomens for the crude Pimen- 
tos, but were all and severally over-ruled by the absolute ‘ it shall not 
be” of his lady; and, accordingly, young Pimento, No. 1, was chris- 
tened Alfred; No. 2, Augustus; and No. 3, Amarantha, because she 
had been pronounced by Mrs. Deputy Dogrove (who was cultivating 
botany) to be the flower of the Pimentos. Sir Peter would have preferred 
the plain English triumvirate of John, George, and Betty ; but;when he 
muttered, rather than audibly expressed, his “ three wishes” on that 
important head, a toss of another head. a dilatation of the nostrils, and 
a frown, put down the ineffectual opposition; and the quiet-loving 
merchant succumbed away from the pertinaciousness of his spouse to the 
price-current, and the averages of rums, sugars, gingers, and arrow- 
root. 

Twelve years passed, and the young Pimentos really began to grow 
“very interesting” at the dinner-parties with which the hospitable merchant 
entertained his friends during school vacations, that the juveniles might 
see something of the world, and the world see something of the juveniles. 
Master Alfred could rant the soliloquies in Douglas, and, to shew the 
versatility of his genius, perform “ Little Pickle,’ with an additional 
scene (got up by Lady Pimento herself, who began to betray symptoms 
of bleu-ism), in which he set fire to a chintz curtain, broke some china 
chimney-ornaments, upset a dumb-waiter, and fired a cracker under the 
chair of his indulgent papa. The several parties who were made audi- 
ences of his pranks, pronounced him to be a prodigy in mischief ; Lady 
P. was delighted ; while the “ judicious” Sir Peter grieved. 

Master Augustus was also a prodigy, but in another line. He could 
hit the house-cat on the nose with a blunt arrow five times out of ten, 
and strike an egg out of a breakfast-cup once out of twice, if he did not 
break both cup and egg at the first five. It was, indeed, prophesied by 
the sporting part of the city, that he must ultimately become the first 
shot of his day. ’ 

Miss Amarantha was the third prodigy—a musical and metrical’ pros 

_ MM, New Series —Vou. VU. No, 42. 4K 


618 The Pimento Family ; or, [June, 


digy. In her eleventh summer she could make verses; and, in her 
twelfth, marry metre to music, but, like most early marriages, they 
jangled most deplorably. Her master, Signor Soprano, pronounced her, 
as well as he could express his flattery, to be “a Billington in the bud ;” 
and her ladyship, as sugars were “looking up” in the market, raised 
the professor's salary half-a-guinea per quarter. . 

Under the instruction of the Signor, Miss Amarantha had already 
began to scream out “ sounds it was a misery to hear,” and thump the 
piano in such a manner as was barbarous to behold. Di piacer, and 
Una voce poco fa, filled the town-house in Finsbury with “ discords 
dire,” the superflux half filling the area forming the square, and fright- 
ening that merchant-congregating spot “ from its propriety.” Lady P., 
however, and her coterie were delighted to observe the devotion with 
which the young lady went throught the rudimentary martyrdom of her 
musical education. 

I have foredated a principal incident in my history ; for it was at this 
era that Peter Pimento, Esquire, became Sir Peter Pimento, Knight. 
He had been elected Sheriff of London ; and an address of congratula- 
tion about something procured him the intoxicating honour of knight- 
hood. Then it was that the Pimentos “looked up ;” and Sir Peter, 
after much special pleading, for the sake of that peace of which, as 
sheriff, he was a public conservator, reluctantly agreed that a more 
fashionable house, and a more fashionable neighbourhood, were neces- 
sary to the double dignitaries of sheriff and knight. Accordingly, the 
Pimentos emigrated to Portland-place. Sir Peter, however, soon dis- 
covered that a residence so situated was too far from the city for com- 
merce, and too near for the country air. One horn of this dilemma was 
soon gilt over: Lady P. insisted upon a second carriage. 'The merchant 
demurred, but in vain: it was ordered from Birch, Prince Leopold’s 
builder ; and Lady P. and Miss Amarantha kept it in activity,—first, 
by shopping-expeditions, about the West End, in the morning,—and, 
secondly, by putting in appearances in the Park two hours before din- 
ner. Sir P. complained, and was told he could well afford a third car- 
riage, for “ ginger was in demand.”—“ Anything for a quiet life,” 
thought Sir P.; and a third carriage was placed on the stocks. Lady P. 
then discovered that her “dear Alfred” could not positively take rank 
with the young nobility with whom he had bowed himself into acquaint- 
ance, if he was not allowed a cabriolet. 

Here Sir Peter did venture to rebel so far as to lift his eyebrows in 
astonishment ; and a “ D—n it, Madam, this is too much!” and a posi- 
tive “ No!” had half-escaped his lips, when the lady informed him, in 
her peremptory way, that opposition was useless—it was necessary to the 
dignity of the family ; that she had ordered Birch to build a curricle for 
the “dear boy ;” and that, if Sir Peter refused the expense, she would 
sustain it out of her private purse, for she was determined that “ the 
Pimentos should look up.” Sir P. gave an audible “ humph!” whistled 
a variation on a favourite air; and then, buttoning up his coat to the 
collar, walked as coolly as he could to Cornhill. Fortunately for his 
peace of mind, good tidings from Lloyd’s met him there ; and he began 
to think it not impossible that a merchant, whose profits were twenty 
thousand per annum, might sustain the rise in the demands of Lady P. 
and her “dear” Alfred. But he had, for the hour, forgotten that he 
had also a “ dear Augustus.” The last-named young gentleman had 


1829.] Spoiled Children. 619 


lately made a match with the Hon. Mr. Wingpigeon, and, presuming on 
the reputation acquired in the precincts of Finsbury, had staked a cool 
thousand on the issue, which the noble destroyer of doves very shortly 
brought down in bills at six months. 

“ Very well,” said Sir Peter, when he was made acquainted with his 
son’s exploit—<* I had fixed just that sum for his education at Oxford: I 
perceive that it is already finished—-Here, Lady Pimento, is a cheque 
for the trifle, as you are pleased to consider it:—if I had many such 
sons, such trifles would soon make me a broken merchant.” A lucky 
speculation, the next day, restored the worthy knight to his usual placid 
state ; and he began, philosophically, to consider children as a sort of 
commercial venture, which might turn out fortunate, pay the outfit, and 
reward the underwriters for the risk ; or the reverse—just as “ the Fates 
and Sisters three, and such like destinies,” decreed. 

It was at this epoch that Lady P. was struck with the discovery that - 
it was high time the interesting and accomplished Amarantha should be 
brought out. Her father listened, in his usual serene way, to the sug- 
gestions of her lady mother; and, as he dared not demur, the thing was 
set about with becoming spirit ; and routs, balls, and, to complete all, 
a morning concert, made Portland-place one universal chaos of carriages, 
company, and confusion. The young lady was, indeed, brought out to 
some purpose ; for, at the close of the morning-concert, she was disco- 
vered to be missing, and no one knew how ; but a polite note, left on 
her dressing-table, informed her expectant parents that she had gone the 
way of all runaway young ladies—via Gretna Green ; the companion of 
her flight being the Signor Soprano, who had conferred on the concert 
the honour of his voice. Sir: Peas stared, and looked puzzled, as well 
he might, and Lady P., for once, seemed baffled and confounded. 

« This is one of the consequences of teaching a merchant’s daughter 
the trills and tricks of an opera-singer !” said Sir Peter, with a groan :-— 
“« Lady P., I hope you are satisfied with her choice, and gratified by this 
result of your precepts?” Lady P. did not look as if she was ; but there 
was no knowing, for Signor Soprano was one of Lady P.’s “ dear 
creatures.” 

“ Surely every thing that could tend to deprive a father of pride and 
comfort in his children, has happened to me!” sighed out the merchant, 
as he stepped out of doors, on his way to the City : but he had reckoned 
without his ledger, as will be hereafter seen. However, to throw a little 
sunshine over that hour of unhappiness to the father, the merchant 
received the news of the safe arrival of “ the good ship Amarantha,” 
with a fine cargo, “all well.” 

« Ah!” sighed Sir Peter, “‘ the winds and waves are more obedient 
to my wishes, than my children!” With a lighter heart he transacted 
the business of the day, and returned home at five. A mob was about 
the dodr: a cabriolet broken, and a beautiful bay bleeding at the knees, 
told what had happened. Herushed in: Lady P. met him at the stair- 
foot.—* Oh, Sir Peter! Sir Peter!” exclaimed she, and fainted. 

« What new horror have I next to endure?”” demanded the anxious 
father, as his usual healthy hue forsook his face. It was explained to 
him, as tenderly as possible, that, whilst Mr. Alfred was “ airing” 
Mademoiselle Pirouette, the Opera-dancer—with whom, it then came 
out, he had “ an affair of the heart’—the bay, being high-bred, had 
taken fright at the red coat and wooden legs of a Chelsea pensioner, near 

4K 2 


620 The Pimento Family ; or, [Jung, 


Kensington Gardens, and plunging into the surrounding “ Ha-ha !” had 
broken its knees, the cabriolet, Mr. Alfred’s head, and Mademoiselle 
Pirouette’s ankle. Here Lady P. recovered ; and after listening, with 
more patience than usual, to the lecture which her worthy husband deli- 
vered on the fashionable follies which he could foresee were destined to 
ruin him and his children, Lady P. commenced a reply equally eloquent, 
in vindication of her ‘“ dear Alfred.” His errors were the errors of a 
young man of fashion—indications of the esprit de corps—signs of a 
noble ambition to be one of the haut ton. ‘ And pray, Sir Peter,” 
inquired the lady, to clinch the matter, “ were you never guilty of any 
fashionable follies, when you were a young man ?”——“ None, Madam,” 
replied the husband, “ save going, once in the season, to Vauxhall, and 
twice or thrice to the theatres: these were follies sufficient to season a 
year. But now— 

Lady P. cut short the comparison by a second query :—“ And were 
you never guilty of a worse folly ?”—*« Yes, Madam,” replied the hus- 
band.—*« And pray what might that be?” further inquired the lady.— 
* T married you, Madam!” answered Sir Peter. And here Lady P., 
who had become a patroness of nerves, fainted again, and was carried by 
her women to her bed-chamber. Sir Peter then’ took the road to his 
son’s dressing-room. 

On entering, he found the valet bathing the head of his heir-apparent 
with Eau-de-Cologne ; and, truly, when the father looked in his face, he 
might well seem, as he was, puzzled, and somewhat dubious whether the 
good Samaritans who had brought him home had not brought some other 
unhappy father’s “dear Alfred,” for he could not recognize a single 
feature in his face. a, 

“Good Heaven!” groaned the afflicted father, “ that young men 
should thus wantonly risk limb and life in the pursuit of fashion!” He 
then gave a multiplicity of tender directions that “ he should be well 
looked to ;’ and wiping the moisture of anxiety from his forehead, stept 
softly out of the room, to visit his least patient patient, Lady P. He 
knocked gently at the door, and then entered; but what was his sur- 
prise to find “ the” Piroutte in his lady’s bed, and Lady P. on an otto- 
man, not quite recovered from the shock of her nerves, yet sufficiently so 
to command Sir Peter to leave the chamber “ for a brute as he was ;” 
which he, as a husband should, did, and, in a minute more, the house. 

He was met at the door by the stable-keeper of whom the bay had 
been hired, who very doggedly desired to know what was to be done 
with the mare, for she was ruined beyond repair? “ Shoot her at once, 
out of her misery,” said Sir Peter ; “ and, if you have a second bullet 
disengaged, do me the same favour, and put down another hundred to 
your bill !’—*‘* Perhaps, Sir Peter, you will oblige me with your cheque 
for one hundred now for the bay?” Sir Peter hesitated a moment : 
“ Tl see the damage done first, if you please, Mr. Mr. . Good 
morning, Sir!”—and he bowed the trickster from the door, and made 
his way.to the City. 

“Tam an unhappy father!” sighed the worthy merchant, as he _ 
entered his counting-house. ‘“ How is the market, Transit? how go 
sugars ?”—“ Up, Sir Peter, up—the demand is immense!” answered 
Mr. Transit.—< Come, this is well!” The merchant made a good morn- 
ing’s work, and returned in a more pleasant mood than usual to Portland- 
place. The lion-headed monster of his door was by that time comfort- 


2” 


1629. ] Spoiled Children. 621 


ably wrapped up in white kid ; the blinds were down from top to bottom 
of his house ; and the splendid carriages of three fashionable leeches 
were drawn up before the door. 

« What now >” exclaimed Sir Peter, as he knocked softly, and then 
rang loudly the area-bell—< What has happened now?” he inquired 
anxiously, as the door opened.—“< Mademoiselle is in a fever, and the 
surgeons are in consultation about her ankle.”—“ Plague take her ankle, 
and its owner ~ 

Sir Peter had almost vented his impatience in an English way, by 
bestowing a few epithets of national prejudice on foreigners generally ; 
but he restrained the Englishman, and ordering a fowl to be served up 
in the library, entered that abode of silence, glad to escape from his own 
thoughts to those of others. 

He had not long enjoyed himself in the refreshing solitude of that 
sanctuary, when a loud noise was heard in the hall. He rushed out to 
see what new domestic convulsion had occured: it was the “ dear 
Augustus,” brought home from the Red-house at Battersea, drunk with 
a double charge of champagne, swallowed to console him for his losses 
in a match at pigeon-shooting, played and payed that day. Mr. Augus- 
tus came home minus two thousand guineas, besides an annuity of 
twenty pounds for life upon the wife of the trap-man, whom, in his 
anxiety to secure the last bird, he had sent to his long account. 

“Take the brute to bed!” said Sir Peter, sternly ;—“ and, John; 
countermand the fowl, and light me to my chamber. I shall breakfast 
at six to-morrow, John—recollect, at six.” Sir Peter then retired to his 
chamber, which was on the same floor with his lady’s ; for Lady P. was 
already fashionable enough to insist upon the propriety of the disunion 
of bed, if not of board. 

Sir Peter waked at six, and his chocolate was punctual. He threw 
up the window, and as he glanced out, observed a post-chaise and pair 
driving with fashionable—that is, furious—speed up Portland-place. — It 
stopped at his door; the steps were let down, and, wrapped in a loose 
travelling dress, out stepped Miss Amarantha, alone. Sir Peter rang the 
bell hastily, and he was about to give orders that she should not be 
admitted ; but the father overcame him, and he relented.—< Attend to 
the door, and admit your young lady, but deny me,” said Sir Peter, 
_ with a countenance “ more in sorrow than in anger.” 

In justice to the young lady it must be recorded that no marriageable 
harm had been done: for when the lovers had arrived half way on their 
route to Gretna Green, Miss Amarantha discovered that, in the hurry of 
her flight, she had brought away her cotton-box, in mistake for the case 
which contained her diamond necklace—a discovery which, by some 
mysterious psychological process, not thoroughly understood by the 
learned in love matters, acted so suddenly on the passion of Signor 
Soprano, that, two hours after, he stole out of the hotel where they had 
put up, and left the fair runaway to “ gang her gate” back again. 

« Take away the chocolate—I shall breakfast this morning with your 
mistress,” said Sir Peter. He then descended by the back stairs to his 

ibrary ; there, shutting himself up from all interruptions, he read 
Bishop Horne’s sermon on “ Patience” twice through ; and, having 
stored his mind with its precepts, he heard the summons to breakfast 
with a proper degree of composure, considering the weight of the domestic 
duties he had that morning to perform. ; 


622 The Pimento Family ; or, [JuneE, 


The meeting between the belligerents was what, in military phraseo- 
logy, has been termed “ imposing.” Lady P. brought into the field a 
powerful force of frowns, glances like Parthian darts, a masked battery 
of words, and a well-placed ambush of allies; the whole being backed 
by an irresistible corps de réserve of tears, upbraidings, threats of separa- 
tion, spasms, shrieks, and salts. Sir Peter, on his part, took his ground 
armed at all points, from a thorough consciousness that “ thrice is he 
armed that hath his quarrel just.” The disputed and despised authority 
of the husband, the “ proud mife’s contumely,” had stirred all his soul 
to the war ; and whether domestic peace should smile on him in future, 
and dominion be allowed him over his own little kingdom and rebellious 
subjects, or whether anarchy and riot were to rule, was now at issue. 
Sir Peter advanced to the attack with a bold front, yet affecting no 
more courage than he felt—whilst it was easy to observe that Lady P. 
exhibited a certain flutter of preparation, which betrayed to the wary 
eye of the general the ill-disguised apprehensions of the enemy. 

“ Betty, leave your mistress alone with me,” said the knight. Betty 
did as she was bid, and retired. And now there wasa clear field for the 
contest, and no quarter expected! An awful pause ensued—to fill up 
which, or rather to inspirit himself to the war, Sir Peter, in the absence 
of Spartan fife and drum, whistled a sort of battle symphony. As the 
last war-note died on the gale, Lady P. made demonstrations of a wish 
to parley. 

“ Sir Peter,” said the lady, “do you take chocolate or coffee this 
morning ?” 

Not a word in reply. The silence of a settled purpose sat on the 
soul of Sir Peter, as he half turned away from the table. This was per- 
haps an indiscreet movement, for he thereby left his right wing exposed 
to the light artillery of Lady P., which instantly, as might have been 
expected, commenced a galling fire. 

“ Really, Sir Peter,” said the lady, “ your contempt of me—your 
conduct towards me—your opposition to my most moderate wishes— 
your indifference to my comforts—I can only impute to your having 
grown weary of so virtuous, so conciliating, patient, and careful a 
wife |” 

« Madam!” said Sir Peter, facing to the front. 

« What am I to understand from your behaviour?” demanded the 
lady. 

oem are to understand, Madam,” returned the knight, “ that I have 
at length come to the determination of being the master of my own 
house, and director of my own children, of whom I am, by the law of 
nature, the first protector, and, by the law of society, the legal and pro- 
per guardian; and whom I am, from this day, determined to guard in 
future from the errors into which they have fallen.” 

« Well, Sir Peter,” returned the lady, with an air of infinite astonish- 
ment, “ and who has for a moment disputed it?” 

« I will do you the justice to say, that you have not——” 

«Your candour, Sir Peter, does you honour,” said Lady P., inter- 
rupting him rather too hastily. 

« Hear me out, Madam !—For a moment you have not, but for twenty 
years you have disputed it, inch by inch, instance by instance, day by 
day, night by night.” 

* You surprise me!” said the lady. 


1829.) Spoiled Children. 623 


“ I meant to do so, Madam,” returned the knight; “ and I shall sur- 
prise you more. Know then, Madam, that from this day the firm of 
Lady Pimento and Sir Peter Pimento, in which I have hitherto appeared 
to be little more than the sleeping partner, ceases, or rather is re-modelled 
—the oldest partner in the house resuming his right and power to govern 
and direct its affairs.” 

“ Never!” said Lady P., who could no longer restrain her rising 
spirit: “ I will be mistress in my own family !” 

“ You shall be, Madam!” continued Sir P: “ but the partners not 
agreeing as to who is the head of the house, the partnership must be 
dissolved.” 

This he said with such a cool air of settled determination as stunned 
his good lady into wondering silence. Lady P. bit her lips, bit the 
initials out of the corner of her handkerchief, and then, bouncing from 
her chair, would have fled the field, and left the resolved husband to 
enjoy in peace the honours of the war. But Sir Peter, expecting this 
manceuvre, had cut off her retreat, by previously locking the door, and 
putting the key into his pocket. 

« Resume your seat, Lady Pimento.” 

And in this one instance the lady was certainly obedient. Sir Peter 
then proceeded to deliver himself as follows, but to no very attentive 
audience :— 

* You are my wife—it is a sacred title, and imports a sacred obliga- 
tion. Itis not a mere empty distinction between women, but one con- 
ferring an office of most solemn duties. A wife should be a crown to her 
husband—her children its jewels. Her virtue should be his pride and 
pleasure, not his pain and punishment: for virtue in a wife is not the 
only thing necessary to make a husband happy ;—there are other quali- 
ties—temper, cheerfulness, patience, forbearance—all essential. Her 
nature should soften the sternness of his, where it is stern—not stub- 
bornly resist it where it is gentle. Her hand should gently detain him, 
when he would take the wrong path—not rudely pull him back, when 
he has made choice of the right. Her children should be as the apples 
of his eyes, the wine and honey of his heart, the grace and ornament of 
his house. They should be to him as the second spring of his own youth 
—the pride of his summer—the fruitfulness of his autumn—and the 
light and warmth of the winter of his manhood. Such should be the virtues 
of a wife :—I am not prepared to say, Madam, that I am the possessor of 
such a woman. Such should be the virtues of the children.” 

Here Sir Peter hid his face in his hands: Lady P. sat silent, and 
apparently ashamed. He resumed, after a moment— 

“ No, Madam! Ihave a wife who would endanger the fortunes of 
her husband for the poor ambition of moving in a circle to which the 
industry and success of that husband may have lifted her, but to which 
her birth, and habits cannot entitle her. And Ihave sons, who, imbibing 
her precepts and influenced by her example, plunge headlong into 
fashionable pleasures, that they may be named among the fools of For- 
tune to-day, only to be pitied by the wise, and laughed at by the fools 
they court as their companions, to-morrow. But the reign of Folly I am 
resolved shall cease, in my family, at least. My wife shall be a real orna- 
ment to me, or nothing: my children shall serve and enrich their country, 
and themselves, by their industry as merchants, and be an example of 
prudence, not profligacy—or they are no children of mine. Having 


\ 


624 The Pimento Family ; or, Spoiled Children. JUNE, 


acquainted you with thus much of my determination, I leave you, Lady 
Pimento, to your own reflections ; and I trust they will be such as will 
bring conviction home to your bosom, and lead you to agree with me 
that amendment—ay, even a thorough reformation—of my family, is 
necessary to their reputation in this world, and their happiness in the 
next.” So saying, he rose from his chair. 

Lady P, held out to the last, but finding her supplies cut off, and her 
hope of maintaining the contest single-handed becoming weaker and 
weaker, she sent in a flag of truce ; and from that day tyranny ceased in 
the Pimento kingdom. 

Sir Peter followed up his lectures on family government with Spartan 
rigour and vigour; Mr. Augustus has merged the glory of being a first- 
rate shot, in the glory of being a good man upon Change; Mr. Alfred 
has ceased to air the exotic beauties of the Opera, and has made a for- 
tune by a speculation in tobacco ; and Miss Amarantha, putting off the 
“ prima donna,” and forgetting her Signor, has nursed her own six 
children, and looks to the promotion of the excellent citizen her husband 
to the honours of the next year’s mayoralty. 


INSCRIPTION IN A GARDEN AT ALTONA. 
[From the German of BonsteTTENn.] 


Wuen on my bed of woe I lay, 
With friends all weeping by, 
And felt life ebbing day by day, 
And felt I dared not die—. 
I prayed for life; yet had I known 
The bitter days to come, 
How had I shunned the thankless boon, 
And joyed to meet the tomb! 


A throb, a sigh, and I had slept, 
Forgiving and forgiven ; 

No more for love or hope had wept, 
But waked to joy and heaven: 

But now I live to stand alone 
Upon a stormy shore, 

And see each tie of life undone, 
The loved return no more! 


My teacher is in yonder flower— 
It charms the heart and eye ; 

Then comes the gale, then comes the shower, 
Its hues, its perfumes die. 

There speaks my fate ; in vain, in vain, 
With pride, hope, love, we burn ; 

The heart will never bloom again, 
Life’s spring will ne’er return ! 


Yet, ye who live on Beauty’s smile, 
On Glory’s splendours gaze, 
Who build in pride the regal pile, 
Or toil for human praise,— 
Remember that a nobler clime 
Awaits the immortal’s wing, 
Where life is hallowed, grand, sublime, 
And Man is more than King ! 


1829.] [ 625 J 


HAS ENGLAND MISGOVERNED IRELAND? 


. Accorpine to the fashionable doctrine of the day, Ireland has been 
invariably a misgoverned country, from its conquest in the twelth cen- 
tury to the present time—the governors and not the people being the 
cause of her manifold miseries! A fine, civilized, industrious people, 
governed by a long succession of barbarian pashas ! 

But let us imagine Strongbow and his handful of knights, squires, 
pages, men-at-arms, and archers, conquering three hundred thousand of 
the “ finest people on earth,” whose princes dwelt under the canopy 
of Heaven, or the embowering shelter of woods, or in those magnificent 
palaces and castles called boolies (mud cow-houses), after the fashion 
of which are the modern cabins. In such ample variety of dwellings 
they abode, so long as there was pasture for their cattle ; but when they 
had completely depastured the surrounding country, they moved on to 
anew region, devastating as they went; and then again set themselves 
down to luxuriate at leisure. These were neither locusts, nor sloths, 
nor wandering Arabs, but the Irish chieftains, and their tribes of the 
middle ages. These were the breechesless, shoeless kings, princes and 
warriors, who rode sans saddles or stirrups, to combat the English 
knights and men-at-arms, clad in steel from pole to sole! 

It is no disparagement to Irish valour that they could not withstand 
the English warriors. Neither is it surprising that small accessions of 
numbers to the English should not, during many generations, extend 
the actual sway of England over eleven millions of square acres of 
mountains, bogs, and woods. England had not, during several ages, a 
superabundant population ; besides which, France occupied her atten- 
tion, and Ireland had been a desart in the nominal possession of tribes 
unacquainted with civilized life. To illustrate this point, I shall quote 
the following anecdote from an Irish authority :— 

Sir John de Courcy having built two castles in Mac Mahon’s country, 
that chieftain swore fidelity, and made de Courcy his gossip. De Courey 
at length bestowed on him the castles and lands appendant to them. 
Within two months, Mac Mahon demolished both the castles. When 
asked his reason, he answered, “ that he did not promise to hold stones, 
but lands, and that it was contrary to his nature to live within cold 
-stone walls when the woods were so nigh!” 

Even so late as the seventeenth century, Sir John Davis states, “ I 
dare boldly say, that no particular person (Irish), from the Conquest to 
the reign of James I., did build any stone, or brick house, for his private 
habitation, but such as have lately obtained estates according to the law 
of England.” Of course, it was the misgovernment of the Plantage- 
nets and Tudors, which caused the native Irish to prefer bivouacing in 
-warm woods to dwelling within cold stone walls. And the same mis- 
government made the Irish slight the use of coined money, which had 
been first introduced amongst them by Edward III., barter better 
suiting the habits of those of the woods. Thus, in the reign of Henry IV- 
Mae Murrough, Prince of Leinster, did not value his favourite horse at 
so much silver or gold, but at four hundred cows ; and this system of 
barter continued up to the seventeenth century, gold or silver being 
unknown even in the household of the great O'Neal! Giraldus Cam- 
brensis, who accompanied Prince John into Treland, describes the 
country as being without inhabitants and without roads, which Sir 

M.M. Nem Series.—Vou. VII. No. 42. 


626 Has England misgoverned Ireland ? [J UNE, 


William Petty’s calculation, above alluded to, of its thin population, 
not exceeding three hundred thousand souls, scattered over a sur- 
face of eleven millions of acres of mountains, bogs, woods, and pas- 
tures, fully explains. How abominable is it in the governors of Upper 
Canada, that they have not yet civilized the Red Indians—that they are 
only driven further back into the woods and morasses as the English 
advance and establish new boundaries ! 

The Anglo-Canadian pale of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, 
is similar to the Anglo-Irish pale from the twelfth to the sixteenth 
inclusively. If we were as kind to these Red Indians as our ancestors 
were to the Irish—if we did not poison them with rum, but let them 
make a little usquebaugh to keep out the damp, our descendants would 
have the gratification of hearing Mohawk orators demanding seats in 
the imperial parliament as the imprescriptible birthright of freemen— 
whether idolaters or true believers—whether zealous maintainers of 
the integrity of the British empire, or lovers of Canadian indepen- 
dence. 

England found Ireland a fertile but uncultivated wild ; the habits 
of the people, and the fancied interests of their chieftains, were alike 
opposed to the introduction of civilization ;—the people knew nothing 
of its value, and their chiefs dreaded, in its adoption, the downfall of — 
their own barbarous sway. The adventurous English, however, gra-_ 
dually, as the population increased, extended their power ; and, while 
they yet scarcely held a moiety of the country, had built three thousand 
castles of solid masonry to preserve their conquest,—thus imitating the 
policy of William the Conqueror towards the Anglo-Saxons. But 
England did not confine herself to building castles, however necessary 
to protect her own settlers and the civilized Irish from the predatory 
attacks of the wild natives, issuing from their morasses. She planted 
English colonies, and built towns and cities, and introduced all the arts, 
then known by herself, into this late wilderness. All which improve- 
ments were made maugre the most inveterate hostility of the breeches- 
less princes of the soil, by the lords lieutenants and lords deputies of 
those incompetent and misgoverning dynasties, the Plantagenet and 
Tudor. It is the acme of ignorance and insolence to hear the milk-and- 
water statesmen of the present day—men, who have been blustered 
out of every thing that they have affected to hold sacred, by two or 
three brawling demagogues, and-who have had the ineffable assurance 
to say that they musi surrender, because it would be more dangerous 
to exercise the power of the English monarchy—I repeat it, it is the 
acme of ignorance and insolence to hear these modern statesmen echo 
the ravings of Irish demagogues against the illustrious men who admi- 
nistered the government of Ireland, from the twelfth to the seventeenth 
century. If they mus‘ prate of misgovernment, let them confine their 
vituperation within the period of their personal recollection. Let them 
denounce the surrender to the Irish Volunteer Association of 1780. 
Let them denounce the surrender of 1793 to French revolutionary 
terrors, which led to the surrender of 1829; but let them not presume 
to accuse the governments of the Edwards and the Henrys. Ireland 
owes every thing to England that partakes of civilization and pros- 
perity ; and if she have not as much of either as she is naturally capable 
of receiving, it has not been the fault of her fostering nurse, but of her 
own wayward and intractable disturbers. 


ait 


1829.] Has England misgoverned Ireland ? 627 


Hew vain a man, say the enlightened philosophers of the present 
day, must that John de Courcy, and Earl of Ulster, and Baron of Kin- 
sale haye been, who, when desired by his sovereign, King John, to 
demand at his hands a reward for his great services, requested that he 
and his heirs, Barons of Kinsale, might have the privilege of wearing 
their hats in the royal presence. Do these critics consider de Courcy’s 
motive? Do they consider that he demanded and obtained what would 
give him and his heirs, when seen by the native Irish in the presence 
of the English monarch, the consequence and dignity of sovereign 
princes—that de Courcy, from being seen covered in the presence of the 
king, would rank far higher in their eyes than the greatest princes and 
nobles of the English court ? 

The Irish, unwilling to acknowledge that they owe their civilization 
to the English, refer back to the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries, 
when Ireland was one of the chief seats of learning. We shall not deny 
them this honour, but only submit to whom they owed it—certainly 
not to the English—but indubitably to the British. The fact stands 
thus: Ireland, never having been a Roman colony, retained its original 
habits ; when, in the fifth century, numerous Britons, and especially 
many ecclesiastics and men of learning, fleeing from the persecutions of 
the Saxons, found a shelter in Ireland. Thus were Christianity and 
learning first introduced into a country at the then extremity of the 


earth; and where, remote from the collision of hostile arms, which 


during some centuries continued to devastate every other country in 
Europe, successive generations cultivated letters in undisturbed tran- 
quillity, receiving students from foreign climes, and sending forth 
missionaries (abroad styled Scots) who became famous in every country 
in Europe. This was the literary golden age of Ireland, but it was of 
British planting. Yet, after all, these seats of learning were like the 
Oasis of the desert—the spire of a church, the palm tree at the fountain, 
marking the sacred spot, was hailed with joy by the wearied pilgrim, 
who to gain it, had passed the surrounding waste. It is perfectly recon- 
cilable to experience, that monastic and collegiate institutions—the 
cultivation of the Latin language and literature, may attain to eminence, 
without any great popular advance in civilization. And thus we find, 
that no sooner had the Danes commenced their descents on Ireland, 
than her learning disappeared. 

The English conquest in 1172, was the next grand epoch in Irish 
history, but English laws never extended beyond the English pale, 
until James I., in the fourth year of his reign, was enabled finally to 
abrogate the Brehon laws, and introduce those of England. The old 
Irish laws were a mixture of Gavelkind, Tanistry, and Brehonic insti- 
tutes. No man endeavoured to acquire property, when his children 
were not to inherit it. Since, although by the law of gavelkind all the 
children share alike, by which property, in two or three generations, 
becomes frittered away ; yet there was a much shorter process by which 
a man’s wealth could be seized by his lord, whose arbitrary cuttings 
and “ cosherings” soon reduced him to a level with beggars and slaves. 
Of the blessings of tanistry, by which the heads of tribes elected, 
from the family of the deceased chieftain, his successor ; and the nobles, 
by a similar process, their king from the children, brothers, uncles, and 
cousins, of the late monarch, a just notion may be formed from the. fact, 

4L2 


628 Has England misgoverned Ireland ? [Junz, 


that out of two hundred of those elected kings, one hundred and seventy 
came to violent deaths ! 

The flight of O’Neal having given James a fair occasion to escheat 
that chieftain’s great territories in Ulster to the crown, the monarch 
was enabled to colonize that province with English and Scots. This 
work, and the universal substitution of the English for the Brehon 
laws, which no preceding monarch had been able to accomplish, first 
gave Ireland a consolidated character; and from that epoch is to be 
dated the modern history of Ireland—a history full of storms and 
miseries—stained with the horrible massacre of the Protestants in the 
reign of the first Charles—miserable from the consequent re-conquest 
and confiscations under Cromwell, and again under William III., yet 
still gradually making progress in civilization. 

At present it appears to be altogether lost sight of, that Ireland is a con- 
quered country, peopled by two distinct races—the aboriginesandthe'chil- 
dren of the conquerors. The first forming the majority of the people, but 
the latter possessing the far greater part of the soil, the far greater por- 
tion of wealth, and consequently a more general diffusion of education. 
These two classes are now commonly distinguished as Catholics and 
Protestants ; but it would be far more intelligible, in a political point of 
view, were they to be considered as purely Irish and Anglo-Irish, since _ 
it is thus that they are considered by the purely Irish themselves. Nor — 
should it be forgotten that the infusion of so great a mass of English 
blood was not solely in the remote eras of the Plantagenets and the 
Tudors, but at the several periods of James I., Cromwell, and 
William III. Thus, although the first conquest was in the twelfth 
century, there have been subsequent ones in the seventeenth ; and at no 
period, from the reign of Henry II., up to the present hour, have the 
original inhabitants been kept in allegiance to the crown of England by 
any thing but the force of the Anglo-Irish, supported by the power of 
England. Long prior to religious distinctions, the aborigines and the 
Anglo-Irish were distinct masses ; and although religion is now the out- 
ward and visible sign which keeps them separate, it is not the less felt 
by the Catholic serfs of the soil, that their lords are not only heretics, 
but intruding foreigners. 

With that precipitancy which characterized him, Mr. Canning recog- 
nized the independence of the revolted Spanish Colonies in South 
America, because the King of France assisted the King of Spain in 
escaping from the hands of domestic rebels. With similar precipitancy 
his successor has cut the gordian knot ; and, casting off the Anglo-Irish, 
has thrown the crown of Ireland into the keeping of the aboriginal Irish. 
The system of six centuries and a half has been suddenly and at once 
departed from. The Anglo-Irish are no longer the peculiar care of the 
English government, and the right hand of her power in Ireland. 
They must now become exclusively Irish ; they must unite themselves 
with their ancient enemies; they must join them in every measure 
which is strictly Irish and anti-English. And that they will do so— 
that there will be wnited Irishmen, without distinction of ancestry, or 
religion, there can be no doubt. Irish loyalty to the crown of England 
has hitherto arisen from fear in the one party, and from the sense of pro- 
tection in the other. The protection having been withdrawn, the ‘de- 
serted party must make the best terms they can with their hereditary 
foes, and join them in rendering Ireland independent of England. 


1829.] Has England misgoverned Ireland ? 629 


There is but one alternative: that, provoked by some sudden popish 
insolence, the Protestants may take the alarm, may retort, and, 
with a new spirit of combination and resistance, commence a civil war. 
A fearful result, but speedier, and less fatal than the final and inevitable 
amalgamation which a more cautious policy on the papist side, and the 
continued contempt and neglect of the British cabinet, might produce in 
the Protestant mind. 

But are we to lose Ireland because the system of governing her has in 
one great respect been changed? Certainly not. Yet she may give us 
the trouble of another conquest—be again the scene of war and _spolia- 
tion, and her fields again change hands: pass from those of the Butlers, 
the Fitz-Geralds, the Fitz-Maurices, the De Burghs, the Cavendishes, 
the Fitz-Williams, cum multis aliis of English breed, into those of a new 
race of British adventurers. Nor will those great families have any 
right to complain of any but their ancestors of the present day. 

One word, in parting, of Irish landed proprietors. These personages, 
whether old Irish, old English, or English of a century or two old, all 
look upon the people after the old “cutting and coshering” fashion—the 
first from the inherent vice of their character, and the two latter from 
being heirs of conquest, and of a distinct race from their serfs. If these 

_ persons are allowed to legislate for Ireland, they will do nothing for the 
‘amelioration of the people. It is to English legislators that the Irish 
peasant must look for succour. The Irish landlord—especially the resi- 
dent landlord, for he is often more arbitrary than the absentee, particularly 
when the latter has an Englishman managing his Irish estates—will, 
without ruth, turn adrift the poor who are no longer necessary to his 
political power. English legislators hearken not to Irish senators when 
they deprecate poor laws to the unhappy wretches whom they turn 
adrift from their cabins, their potatoe gardens, and two or three acres of 
land, to perish in the neighbouring bogs :—but, as nature is not so 
accommodating as parliament, it would be well to consider, that if Ireland 
is to be tranquil, the people must be fed. 

One remark I would make, and then have done. Henry VII. created 
the middle classes of England, by enabling the barons to break the entails 
of their estates. Our modern nobility have risen on their ruins. Would 
it not be well done to enable the Cavendishes, Fitz-Williams, Pettys, 
&ec. &c. &c., to break the entails of their Irish estates, and limit the 
sale of them ; not on the plan of the Swan River, but on something 
like that of James I., in Ulster. By this process a number of resident 
gentry would be created, whose fortunes would be too moderate to 
tempt them to St. James’s, and yet their protection be amply sufficient 
for the growth of a repectable peasantry. The great English landed 
proprietors, who have large estates in Ireland, add not by them an iota 
to the power of the English crown in that country—but they take 
vastly from its popularity. The same means, in the hands of a new race 
of intelligent residents, might work wonders : example is worth precept at 
any time ; and in this middle order, law, religion, and civilization would 
find their strong hold. 

S. 


[ 630 j [Jung, 


THEATRICAL MATTERS. 


Covent GARDEN has redeemed its pledge by bringing forward Miss 
Smithson: Her illness in Amsterdam seemed ominous, as theatrical 
illnesses generally are ; and the fair enchantress of so many French 
bosoms was understood to shrink from the peril of presentation before 
a British audience. But our alarms were relieved like her own, and she 
at last made her début. Jane Shore, the favourite of the French, was 
chosen for her first impression, in some degree judiciously, for no cha- 
racter could offer more for the peculiarities of Miss Smithson’s style. 
It_is essentially melo-dramatic ; it requires a very various display of 
agony, exhaustion, resignation, and despair. The close is among the 
most harrowing on the stage; and no audience could ever see the 
beautiful wife of the goldsmith reduced into the mendicant, dying of 
hunger, and rejected from every door, without strong sympathy. But 
here is the whole effect of the play. To an audience who can understand 
the dialogue, nothing can be more tiresome. The characters are at once 
feeble and extravagant; the plot wants incident and probability, and 
the language is alternate childishness and raving. 

The public anticipation of Miss Smithson’s performance was realised. 
She exhibited improved powers of stage effect ; she trod the boards with 
a less embarrassed air, and she pronounced the declamation with a 
stronger sense of its purpose. But nature has prohibited her from any 
high degree of success on the English stage. We by no means desire 
to follow the opinions of those who, almost before she appeared, had 
begun to depreciate the actress. She certainly has talents ; but the 
same talents which please a foreign audience are not calculated to please 
an English one. Which is the truer judgment we have no present space 
to examine. Miss Smithson’s Juliet is much more attractive than her 
Jane Shore, chiefly through the infinite superiority of the play. But 
her figure is not suitable to the young graces of Juliet ; and forcible as 
her conceptions were in the more vigorous portions of the character, and 
deserving of applause as her acting frequently was, still the “ girl Juliet” 
was not there. 

Since this effort Covent Garden has rather lain on its oars. Some- 
thing of this may be attributed to the progress of the season, which is 
now advancing into the benefits ; yet we look for activity from Fawcett, 
and the restoration of the Farce of the Master’s Rival is not enough. 
The fate of this farce is a curious incident in itself, and, we suppose, may 
furnish its author with hints for a new dramatic effort. It was brought 
out at Drury Lane, where it failed; according to Liston’s version, from 
the dulness of the piece ; according to Peake’s version, from the intoxica- 
tion of the principal performer! It has been transferred to Covent 
Garden, where it has succeeded ; and it has finally appeared in print, 
with a preface, detailing the author’s grievances with angry pleasantry, 
and saying that though an act of oblivion in the performer may cer- 
tainly relieve the audience of a good deal of an author’s nonsense, yet 
that they are not much the better if the performer introduces the same 
quantity of nonsense of his own ; that he has no objection whatever to this 
exercise of extempore ingenuity, except where he himself is concerned, 
but that he must be excused from being d-mn-d for the best bottle of 
wine in London. We may not quote Mr. Peake exactly, but we give, 
as the parliamentary writers say, the substance of his speech. 


1829.] Theatrical Mattcrs. 631 


At Drury Lane, the latter part of the season is atoning for the earlier. 
Auber’s opera of Massaniello has been put into shape by Kenny with 
his usual skill, and its effect has been highly popular. The plot deviates 
in all possible ways from the history ; but it is not the less amusing as 
an opera. The female interest turns on the fates of Massaniello’s sister, 
a dumb girl, with whom the son of the Spanish viceroy of Naples had 
fallen in love: but a noble bride is found for him: and the fisherman’s 
sister, who had been imprisoned to prevent her interference, makes her 
escape at the critical moment of the marriage, forces herself into the 
presence of the bridal party, and attempts to tell her tale. She accom- 
plishes this object in all points but that of telling the name of her false 
lover. She is conveyed away, fainting, and recovers only to be pre- 
vented by her brother, from suicide. Her injuries, added to those of 
the Neapolitans, rouse him into insurrection. He harangues the multi- 
tude in the market-place ; they sing a hymn, and a beautiful one it is, 
and rush from prayer into massacre with the national facility. The 
viceroy is defeated ; the fisherman is supreme. ' He receives the homage 
of the nobles, and goes in triumph through the city. Butt conspiracy is 
awakened against him, too; @ confederate poisons him, and he rushes 
out, mad with pain and thwarted ambition, uttering wild werds, and 

"singing fragments of wild songs. He is now on the edge of Vesuvius, 
the mountain bursts out in eruption, and Massaniello flings himself into 
the burning stream. 
_ The whole performance is highly various, animated, and picturesque ; 
the scenery beautiful ; and the national airs, the Barcarole, Tarentalla, 
and fisherman’s songs, are extremely characteristic and striking. The 
general music is of inferior merit, for France is not the land of able 
opera composition ; but it fills up the interval of the Neapolitan airs 
inoffensively, and the whole is entitled to the applause which it receives. 
Great promises are made for the coming season. The success of Rienzi 
has stimulated the latent energies of our blank-verse writers ; and two 
tragedies, at least, from “ first-rate pens,”—so say the green-room 
rumours—are already soliciting the manager’s acceptance. How far 
the tragedies may be good for any thing, if they come from any of the 
young lords who have been lately flirting with the awful muse of 
tragedy, we have our personal opinions, which, we fear, are not unlikely 
to be confirmed in due season by the public: However, it is only by 
the general effort of those who have time or inclination to labour at that 
most laborious work—a tragedy, that we can ever expect to see a tolerable 
one. The customary candidates for the honour, are certainly entitled 
to none beyond the praise of making the experiment ; but some man of 
untried powers may start up at last and revive the stage. We are now 
in the very central age of theatrical mediocrity ; not an attempt at 
original writing is ever made. A little disguise of some little French 
farce—a feeble melo-drame turned into English—a French comedy cut 
down, or a French tragedy broken into scenes of staring heroines, 
strutting heroes, bombastic declamation, and the trampling of iron boot- 
heels, the clang of trailing sabres, and the eternal thunder of drums, 
make up the whole “ delici’” of the modern drama. In the spirit of 
the proverb, that, when things come to the worst they will mend, we 
ought to be on the very verge of prosperity ; for our stage has certainly 
sunk as low in point of original production as it is possible to sink. We 
defy it to find a lower depth. Thus, from our very despair, we may 


632 Theatrical Matters. [June, 


indulge ourselves with deriving hope ; and from the existence of the 
fooleries that load the stage, we may augur some merit in even the two 
cherished tragedies. 

The success of the theatrical speculations on the Continent is stirring 
up the spirit of our actors, and a company is said to be forming to make 
the tour of the Netherlands and Germany. Kemble, Egerton, and 
others, are on the wing at the close of the season; Miss Smithsen, of 
course, is the heroine. Abbott is on the Continent, and from his habits 
would make an expert manager, and the speculation promises to be a 
fortunate one. The English language is popular in Germany, though it 
is miserably spoken. But Shakspeare is read every where, and under- 
stood no where ; however, the name is enough: he is lectured upon, and 
dissected, and criticised, and lithographed, and imitated, and disfigured 
in all imaginable ways. But all this bustling makes him popular, and 
will make the English actors popular, and will even conduce to the popu- 
larity of the English themselves, intractable as they are. 

The King’s Theatre proceeds from triumph to triumph.  Pisaroni, 
after having sustained the frosty fortunes of the season during the winter, 
has now given way to the spring flower generation of the Malibrans and 


Sontags. Neither of the younger ladies is handsome, but they sing | 


tolerably, and the noblesse must be satisfied with them, or they can hav 
none ; and the Opera-house must not be shut up while it affords the only 
general receptacle for diligent matrons and their unmarried daughter 
Flirtation must find its vent, matches must be made somewhere or other ; 
divorces must be arranged, scandal must be talked, sets must be made at 
young boobies flung loose upon the world with money ; in short, the 
great business of the great world must have an Exchange, a grand 
Auction mart for its management ; Almack’s is too exclusive; routs 
are not exclusive enough. The Opera-house is the exact medium, 
where the discreet matron may open her box to whom she likes, or shut 
it on whom she dislikes—may draw a favourite fool from any quarter of 
the house, or keep out a bore, or be blind to an ami de trop, those nui- 
sances of society, who act as Marplots in the most critical occasions, and 
have spoiled more marriages than the blacksmith of Gretna ever made. 
Sontag’s voice has lost its novelty, and with it has lost its chief charm. 
It executes violin passages, and flourishes through the scale with the 
adroitness of desperate practice, but it never had feeling, and it never 
will. But the interest attached to Sontag is now of a tenderer kind. 
Happy exemption of singers and actresses from the penalties of the sex! 
one of those syrens may march through the world with all the evidences 
‘of being as “ women wish to be that love their lords,” and only become 
more interesting. ‘The newspapers have been for the last three months 
discussing the hollowness of this German woman’s physiognomy, and 
lamenting over the lost charms of her neck and chin. But beyond this 
all is wrapt in a cloud. Lord Clanwilliam first had the honour of being 
supposed her husband. But he escaped the charge under cover of the 
rumour that he was affianced to the Duchess of Berri. Prince Leopold 
next had the honour: and if sneers could fasten matrimony on his High- 
ness, he is fast bound in the chain.. Then the Duc de Chartres was sup- 
posed to have come over expressly to introduce the lady to his illustrious 
father, and obtain his consent to the alliance. Then a sovereign prince 
with three hundred acres of empire in the Black Forest, was the happy 
spouse. The last report gives the lady to a German Count; and a still 


1829,] Theatrical Matters.. (53 


more cloudy apology just put forth, says, that “ whatever may be the 
result, Mademoiselle Sontag will come out of the affair with as much 
character as before !” é 
Now all this is a great deal too profound for our comprehension. 
If any woman on or off the stage, expect to have the privilege of gomg 
through society with an untainted reputation, let her take the honest 
and easy mode of sustaining it. Let her take her husband's name. We 
cannot understand these unmarried marriages ; these illustrious husbands 
of whom nobody knows any thing; the female virtue that wears the 
badge of shame; nor the male dignity that suffers a wife to run the 
round of nightly scorn, for the sake of securing her salary. 
_ Malibran, as the novelty of the season, bears away the honours of the 
Opera. Her Desdemona delights all the amateurs, and makes all the 
women weep, when they are not otherwise engaged. She is an inge- 
nious performer, and has as much feeling as an Italian stage generally 
exhibits, which is scarcely any whatever. Her voice is not unlike her 
father’s, feeble and thin, well practised rather than well taught, and 
infinitely too much of the violin school for vocal expression. She is a 
tolerable actress in parts of youth, and a tolerable singer in the general 
range of Italian music, and she is no more. She has been extravagantly 
yuffed, and as this anticipatory praise settles the judgment of nine-tenths 
f mankind, she has been extravagantly admired. But it would be 
burlesque to name any of our Opera wonders, of the present time, 
ainst the true bravura singer. ‘They are trifling and superficial, they 
want the power, and the profound and spirit-stirring richness of expres- 
sion, that make the great singer. They are expert at ballads, and there 
the panegyric is at an end. Othello, melted down, disfigured and dis- 
graced by some Italian compounder of operas, is the principal perform- 
ance of the season. But as a drama, it is a national offence. If ghosts 
were ever permitted to rise and vindicate their characters on earth, we 
should inevitably see Shakspeare starting up between the boards of the 
King’s Theatre, and making an example of both the Desdemona and 
Othello ; and after having extinguished Donzelli and Malibran for their 
presumption, extracting, in the most summary mode, whatever brains 
were left to M. Laporte. One of the imported fooleries of the time, is 
the French trick of summoning the performers to appear after the fall 
of the curtain. We thus have the murdered Moor and his Venetian 
starting on their feet, making their obeisances to the pit, and consoling 
those tender bosoms which thought them dead, by the walking evidence 
that they are actually alive. 
he uncertainty of the law still keeps up its reputation by its theatrical 
decisions. The Lord Chancellor has just reversed the decision of the 
Master of the Rolls in the case of Harris and Kemble, &c., giving the 
cause against Harris, and saddling him with costs, an enormous sum. 
Harris intends to appeal to the Lords. A similar decision has been 
given against Waters, the late proprietor of the King’s Theatre. The 
bargain which he attempted to break with the bankrupt, Chambers, has 
been confirmed, and thereby Waters looks upon his loss as some twenty 
thousand pounds and costs. With these eternal appeals to law, theatres 
must be undone. But the true source of astonishment is how, with 
their inordinate expenses, they can subsist at all. With actors at 
twenty pounds a night, and rents from ten to fourteen thousand 
_ pounds a year, and with a mountain of outstanding debt accumu- 
M.M. Nem Series.—Vow. VII. No. 42. 


634 Theatrical Matters. [Junr, 


lating every year, the only surprise is to find their doors open. On the 
subject of the receipts and expences, &c. some curious details have 
been lately given. Drury Lane is said to contain about 3,060 people. 
Covent Garden about 2,800. We should have conceived the numbers 
transposed. 

In 1805 Drury Lane Theatre held 3,611 persons, when the receipts 
amounted to 770/. 16s. The expences, including performers, lights, 
ground-rent, &c. were upwards of 200/. per night. Salaries 740/. per 
week, or about 124/. per night. The receipts of Drury Lane Theatre 
during the four years after building in 1812, were, first year 79,924l. ; 
second year 78,389]. ; third year 71,585/ ; fourth year 49,586/. In 1816, 
the seven last nightly receipts on Kean’s performance (as Sir Giles Over- 
reach, and one as Bertram) were 3,984/., averaging 569]. each night. 
From a statement of the accounts of Covent Garden Theatre from 1803 
to 1809, six years, it appears that the receipt of each season averaged 
61,000/., and the average profit of each year 8,345/. ‘ 

It appears by the suit in Chancery relative to Covent Garden Theatre, 
that the annual expences of that establishment amounted to an average of 
about 53 or 54,000/., making the nightly expences between 3 and 400/. 
By the same proceeding it appears that the average profits are about 
12,000/. per annum. The nightly expences of each patent theatre is else-_ 
where stated to be from 200 to 220 guineas, and Mr. T. Dibdin, wh 
has examined the Drury Lane books, gives the expences of that hous 
at the latter sum. 4 

The provincial theatres are, as they always have been, the very 
emblem of struggle. How any man who is tall enough to enlist in the 
militia, or strong enough to dig in the colonies, would ever undertake 
the management of a country theatre, is to us beyond all conception. 
The Irish theatres are now illuminated by the transit of some of our stars, 
and a week’s success must lighten the darkness of a year. Mrs. Waylett 
has been lately the star of Cork, where she quarrelled with Mrs. Humby 
about a song. The results of this important quarrel have not trans- 
pired. Miss Foote declared herself ill used, and protested against the 
management in a public appeal ; and Mr. Kean was suddenly indis- 
posed, and deprived the honest Cork people of their Richard. Another 
effort however was made, and he appeared as Macbeth... But the actor’s 
malady became so formidable in the third act, that his son was obliged 
to offer to play the part of Norval. This was a curious substitute for 
Macbeth ; but as the hero was not forthcoming, there was no remedy. 
The cause of this propensity to fall down in the green-room, has like the 
results of Mrs. Humby’s quarrel, not transpired. 

At Bristol, Mr. Macready—we believe, the tragedian’s father—was 
found dead in his bed. Miss Coveney, an infant, sang a bravura, played 
in opera, and had a benefit ; and Miss Love, or rather Mrs. Calcraft, 
has been delighting all the world in the Siege of Belgrade, &c. 

The Apeurut closed, after a productive season, with a punning speech 
from Yates, of which the following is the most punistical fragment :— 

“It will be, perhaps, in the recollection of some of you, Ladies and Gen- 
tlemen, that we commenced the season with Wanted a Partner, and I need 
not tell you how efficiently that want has been supplied by. the firm of 
Mathews, Yates, and“ Company; and though you, who have found the 
capital for carrying on the firm, have not been actively engaged in the con- 
cern, yet we trust you have been any thing but sleeping partners ; nor can you 
blame us for any want of activity, since our Earthquake has filled the pit, 


1829.] Theatrical Matters. 635 


our May Queen outlived the Christmas season, and our Rover induced so many 
to imitate him, and quit their homes; while you have, over and over again, 
enabled us’to pay the postage of My Daughter's Letter, which, since its receipt, 
has been any thing but a dead letter in our treasury. But, Ladies and Gen- 
tlemen, there is a time for all things. Our season is over; our Harthquake is 
silenced ; our May Queen must be put to bed; our Rover must be laid up in 
port; and our Daughter's Letter remain in the post-office unopened—till the 
magic touch of the Lord Chamberlain’s license, like Harlequin’s wand, shall 
again set them free.” 


The Covent Garden Theatrical Fund had a magnificent dinner on the 
10th inst., at which the Duke of Clarence was to have presided, but the 
death of the Prince of Hombourg prohibited this, and Lord Blessington 
was his substitute. Fawcett’s speech was manly and angry, and 
announced something like his resignation. He descanted fiercely on the 
negligence of the actors in contributing to the fund, from which he 
warned them, that many a revolter might be glad, at afuture day, to have 
a share of its donations. On the health of the stewards being drank, 
Mathews returned thanks with considerable pleasantry :— 


“ Gentlemen: I am deputed by my brethren—I really don’t know why—to 
return you their thanks for the honour just conferred upon them. Considerable 
difficulty in choosing a speaker, I conjecture, must have occurred before I 

as applied to. I certainly inquired why so serious a task should be imposed 

pon a comic actor [cheers], when there are so many persons who belong to 

e more dignified department of the drama, whose power would be more 

uited to the occasion. I was told they had all individually declined. One 
_ of the principal tragedians, to whom the noble Lord had referred, thought he 
was too Young for such an undertaking. Surely, I’ve a better right to this 
excuse, for every body knows I am but a minor [laughter]. Mr. Keeley, 
though so often seen to advantage, thought he should not be seen here 
[laughter_|—he was too short, he said ; I hope I shan’t be thought too long ; 
and Mr. Blanchard thought his voice too weak for the room, not having been 
used to speal-in a larger space than Covent Garden for the last twenty-five 
years ; and I feared that I should not be heard at all, having lately contracted 
my voice for the Adelphi; and having set up to be my own master, had some 
_ fear that it would be infra dignitatem to speak amongst his Majesty’s ser- 
vants.” 


But all this badinage had a lively effect on minds that had already 
dipped deep in the second bottle, and the collection amounted to 
upwards of 1,000/. 

We learn that a Miss Mordaunt is delighting all hearts—the old and 
the young, the grave and the gay—at Southampton. Her being a pretty 
girl, as well as a clever comic actress, is in her favour :—we hope soon 
to see her on the London boards. 


NOTES OF THE MONTH ON AFFAIRS IN GENERAL. 


We are sick of Irish affairs, and no sickness is more epidemical. We 
are perfectly certain that the sickness is at this hour universal, and that 
if a man want to have a disgust and contempt for every thing in the 
shape of public life—for its protestations and principles, for its speeches 
and performances—he has but to glance at the proceedings which have 
originated in Irish politics, at any hour for the last ten years. The 
Marquis of Anglesey’s conduct has at length forced itself before par- 
liament ; and the orale Marquis, after having swallowed his wrongs 

} 4M 2 


. 


636 Notes of the Month on [Junn, 


for some months, has made a clear conscience of them, and at once 
attempted to vindicate himself and his Irish administration. Nothing 
could be more childish, loose, and contemptible, than his vindication, 
except his administration. But the first fault was, unquestionably, with 
those who sent such a person to Ireland. It is not a ¢rime to possess 
a weak head, but to entrust its possessor with the power of withholding 
good or committing evil, is a crime. No man ever conceived that the 
Marquis of Anglesey had any degree of understanding requisite to 
conduct public affairs of any kind. He was a good trooper, a good 
dandy, a good lounger about fashionable parties, and, possibly, a good 
judge of .a horse. But his qualifications went not a step beyond: and 
his proper place would have been the parade or the club-room. Yet 
the crime of sending this fashionable and galloping person to dispense 
government in Ireland, was, if possible, enhanced by its purpose; for 
that there was a deep purpose concealed in his mission, no doubt can 
be entertained. He was known to those who sent him, just as much as 
he could be to the public: and in a time when a loose, violent, and rash 
party, was to be suffered to assume importance, there could be no fitter 
governor than an idle nobleman, who with the air of power had none 
of the vigour; whose giddiness of character was likely to give way to 
the slightest and silliest impression of the moment ; and who leaving — 
England with the loftiest deprecation of Popery, and the sense 
pledges to Protestantism, would not be found twenty-four hours in the 

hearing of Popish harangues, without forgetting every pledge, swallow- 
ing every syllable that he had ever spoken, and with the sudden zeal 
of a ridiculous convert, launching out into absurdity, as a sort of 
revenge on himself for his having been ever betrayed into sense. The 
scheme succeeded perfectly, as might be expected from its wily con- 
triver. The bewildered Marquis had not dined out half a dozen times, 
when he convinced himself that the men against whom he had raised 
the warhoop so shortly before, were the finest fellows in the world ; 
that those whom he had called rebels and traitors, and whom he had 
only longed to charge with the chivalry of England, were patriots to 
the bone; and that Emancipation would extinguish the barrenness of 
the soil, clothe the nakedness of the population, reform. the imclemency 
of the seasons, and make the potatoe crop inexhaustible. In this foolery 
he was clearly encouraged from home, until his business was effected, 
‘and those who knew him infinitely better than he did himself, knew 
that he could not be left any longer to blunder in safety. The corre- 
spondence that followed, showed their opinion of his understanding, and 
certainly not less of his patience. We are quite satisfied that such a 
course of systematic affronts was never before put on any man bearing 
the viceregal commission. He was called to order for every thing : for his 
personal acquaintance, for those whom he casually visited, those whom 
he invited to his table, nay, for his passing nod in the street. Even his 
son’s rambles through the city, were charged, in a lecture, on ‘the 
father’s defenceless head, and he must have felt that he lived in a state 


‘of perpetual surveillance. Of this he complains, but he finishes his 


complaint, with the broadest possible hint that if he might be suffered 
to retain his government, he would be found infinitely willing to do so. 


‘ But he might as well have spared himself this humiliation, for his sen- 


tence was already passed; and a few posts after brought him as 
summary a sentence of dismissal as ever came to a disbanded groom. 
‘We must own, in justice to those who treated him with such contumely, 


1829.] A {fairs in General. 637 


that his last act authenticated all they could think of the giddiness of 
his character. His letter to the Popish bishop Curtis, was a document 
of which we shall not trust our opinion to paper. Under the hand and 
seal of an Irish viceroy, it recommended “ Agitation.” The word is 
enough ; the other nonsense of the paper might have been erased: the 
single word was sufficient ; and we fully coincide in all that the ministers 
can say of the propriety of this man’s recal. On this point the premier’s 
cutting remarks are utterly unanswerable :— 


“The Noble Lord said he had written the letter to Dr. Curtis with a view 
to restore tranquillity ; but Mr. O’Connell thought that it recommended some- 
thing more, and observed, that to that extent the Catholics would not obey 
his Lordship’s recommendation. The Noble Lord said that the letter was 
quite innocent, for though it recommended agitation, it did not really mean 
agitation. (Hear.) But, upon referring to the state of Ireland for three years 
before, the agitation meant only something short of rebellion; it did not subse- 
quently change its character. The Noble Marquis when he recommended its 
continuance was still in his Majesty’s service, and he asked if such a circum- 
stance did not render his removal a matter of necessity ? (Hear, Hear.) The 
Noble Lord began his administration in Ireland by a regular discussion with 
his Majesty’s government. He asked if the law was to be enforced against 
the Catholic Association ? and the government replied in the negative. The 
Noble Lord subsequently received instructions to consider with the law officers 
of the crown, whether the common law or one of the six acts could put it 

_ down? and he (the Duke of Wellington) now begged leave to ask if the letter 
to Dr. Curtis was in conformity with these instructions? (Hear, hear.) Surely 
the continuance of agitation was not at all consistent with the desire to restore 

tranquillity to the country.” 


In the most preposterous instances before, the viceroy, however silly 
or angry, always laid down his delegated authority, previously to 
arraigning public measures, or appealing to public feelings. But the 
letter in question, was issued from the full-blown authority of the 
British viceroy ; and on this ground alone, if there were no other, we 
cannot conceive how ministers could have acted but as they did. 

Of the explanations in the House, the only public idea is, that they 
are no explanations at all ; they neither tell why the Marquis originally 
incurred the wrath of the Premier—why he threw himself into the arms 
of the O’Connells—why he was so strangely enraptured with the inter- 
course of such aman as every body knows Lord Cloncurry to have been 
and to be—nor why he wrote his letter to the popish priest. The 
little story about the Marchioness of Westmeath—that lady who so pug- 
naciously prefers single blessedness, a pension, and a lodging in St. 
James’s, to the society of her husband and the advantages of her station 
in society—has sunk away ; yet it was upon this that the partisans of 
both sides were prepared to make their first battle. However, the 
subject, the parties, and the system, are now alike unimportant ; and 
from Irish affairs, the sooner the eyes of honest men are turned away, the 
sooner they will escape a sight of folly, disgust, and corruption. 


The Swan River job, there is every reason to hope, will be.a sublime 
disappointment to the new dynasty of jobbers. None of “THE family” 
are likely at present to wear the imperial diadem on the shores of New 
Holland ; om its head must exert his wits to provide some hundred new 
sinecures for them at home. The whole business had the essence of 
modern statesmanship breathing from every pore ; and we must lament 
that such brilliant prospects for a young ministerial brood, and such 


638 Notes of the Month on [Junr, 


pleasant promises of royal revenue in the handicraft management of 
our governors from Manchester, should have been embarrassed to 
a degree that threatens total extinction. The tale which we have 
to offer to posterity, is that in the allotment of the territory on the 
west coast of New Holland, a brother of Mr. Peel had the 
modesty to apply for no less than a province of four hundred 
square miles, and the good fortune to have his request most graciously 
acceded to. The future sovereign doubtless felt the sentiments belong- 
ing to his high rank; had already contemplated the movement of an 
army into the interior ; the conquest of some thousand square miles 
more in a campaign or two; a fleet to act against the coffee-coloured 
sovereignty of the Sandwich Islands ; a dozen of the islands for himself ; 
a standing army, with a kangaroo corps, for his Majesty’s guards; a 
peerage, and a revenue on sharks’ fins, seals’ blubber, Indians’ ears, and 
English land-bargaining. Unluckily, the plan escaped from the secre- 
tary’s desk, and found its way to those universal tell-tales, the newspapers. 
Discussion, the direst foe of family arrangements, followed ; and even the 
ministry were driven to the reluctant necessity of “attempting to 
explain ;” defence was out of the question. The result is, that the job 
is likely to end in nothing—that the grant is, probably, about to be aban- 
doned by the grantee. There was connected with Mr. Peel in the 


grant, a member for a county, who, holding a quantity of land in 


New South Wales, was desirous of being appointed governor of that 


colony, and who offered to go out in a similar capacity to the Swan 


River. There was also connected with the grantee a gallant colonel ; 
but those individuals, finding that their principal in the affair did not 
answer their expectations, have declared off, and expressed their deter- 
mination to have nothing to do with the Swan River. Mr. Peel’s 
method of settling was to sell leases for life ; but buyers were not ripe, 
and some who had come into his terms have backed out, on the ground 
that he had withheld from them the stipulations on which the grant had 
been made to him. The family scheme of providing for this younger 
brother at a distance, is thus likely to fall to the ground, and his rela- 
tions will still enjoy the satisfaction of having him near them. 

If all this be true, we congratulate the country. Fallenas England is, 
she has still some power of awaking the fears, if she cannot awake the 
principle of her masters. If this cotton-spinning family must be fed at 
the expense of the state, let them be fed at home. The younger brood 
have never exhibited the slightest degree of public ability, ’tis true ; of 
the head of the house the nation has long settled its opinion, and consi- 
ders his talents to be ofthe same rank as his honesty. Of the whole 
generation besides, what living man knows any thing, except that they 
have all got places, or commissions, or livings, or something or other, 
which they had no right under heaven to get? But, if it be the law of 
degeneracy that they must be provided for, let them be provided for at 
home ; here they will be in some degree harmless: they will feel them- 
selves under the eye of a*Dictator who will permit no minor tyranny, cor- 
ruption, or misgovernment. They will lounge at their desks, mend their 
pens, read the newspapers, long for the coming of quarter-day, when it 
has come, rejoice that they have lived to it, and hope that they may find 
favour in their military master’s eyes to be allowed to live and draw 
another quarter’s salary. They will be like the Arbuthnots, the Plantas, 
the Dawsons, the whole militia of official mediocrity, the whole sappers 
and miners, corps of the army of Whitehall, the band of gentleman pen- 


—e 


1829.) Affairs in General. 639, 


sioners, whose services are to be found only in the Red Book, and whose 
living and dying escape the public recollection. But one of those idlers 
at the head of an empire ten thousand miles from the lash of Downing- 
street, might develope the tyrannous spirit that so often lurks in the 
slave, the furious extortion of the habitual mercenary, or the ambition of 
which official sycophancy has only constrained the appetite. The pub- 
lic have the strongest interest in detecting the frauds committed in those 
new outlets for our population. The time may come when Canada, the 
Cape, and New Holland, will be not merely resources for the superflu- 
ous multitudes of England, but places of refuge for her noblest minds ; 
when British freedom will look to them as its last strong holds ; and the 
once famous Island be known only as the tomb of learning, liberty, 
and religion. 


We wish that there were some established penalty for printing a joke 
above a certain number of times. The following has lately gone the 
round of the newspapers :— 

« A lady sitting in one of the lower boxes at the Opera House, being 
much annoyed by a knot of talkers in the pit, gave one of the sprigs of 
fashion with whom she was acquainted, a card, with these words written 
on it—‘ Ladies’ ears bored gratis,—a hint which the whole party had 
the good sense to take.” 

_. This joke is actually above a hundred years of age, and has been printed 
in the principal collections of “ incomparable things,” since the days 
when “ gentlemen of wit and humour” took their coffee, and exhibited 
their genius at Button’s and Wills’. For a ten times, or fifty times 
told jest we have great allowance. The teller may have lost his 
memory of the repetition, or he may think that we have lost ours; 
or he may be a bore, and thus any antiquated bon mot may be better 
than his conversation ; or the repetition may make us wiser in the way 
of avoiding such practices in our own person, or may lead us to moralize 
on the innate dulness of mankind, the failing honours of a wit, or the 
folly of wasting our time in listening to any body past the age of 
forty-five. 


The member for Clare has been thrown out, and the grant for May- 
nooth been passed by about the same majorities. It is with those 
* ludicra rerum’ that legislation now employs its hours. Nothing could 
be more pitiful and trifling than the idea of resisting O’Connell’s claims to 
walk in through the breach of the Constitution, that has been made for 
the general entrance of every popish vagrant in the empire ; and he will 
be returned for some place or other, as surely as the Rent can help him 
in his objects. The grant to Maynooth, being no more than a national 
bounty for teaching British subjects that idolatry and the worship of an 
Italian monk are the first principles of religion and government, of 
course passed with applause. 


0’CONNELL’S LAMENT. 
“ There was a profound silence in the House when Mr. O'Connell entered, supported 
by Lord Duncannon and Lord Ebrington.””—Morning Paper. : 
Not a sound was heard, nor a cough, nor a hum, 
And the porters looked dreadfully flurried ; 
Not a Tory but looked ghastly and glum, 
And wished that O’Connel]l was buried. 


640 Notes of the Month on [Jung, 


He came to the lobby on Friday night, 
The oath of supremacy spurning ; 

He thought of Guy Fawkes with fresh delight, 
And his lantern dimly burning. 


No maudlin feelings annoyed his breast, 
As he dreamed of his lofty station ; 

But he eagerly thought how to feather his nest, 
While he talked of Emancipation. 


Few and short were the words that pass’d, 
And. he looked with a look of sorrow, ; 
When he found that his schemes no longer could last, 
And his glories. would fade on the morrow. 


Duncannon and Ebrington, Whigs, in their pride, 
Led him up to the chair, unabashed ; 

But the Speaker’s stern “ Vo /” was the word to decide . 
That O’Connell’s pretensions were smashed. 


Loudly they'll talk of the Franchise that’s gone, 
And the Paddies will ever upbraid .him— 

But little he'll reck, if they let him plead on, 
With the briefs and the fees that are paid him. ~ 


Slowly and sadly the Paddy-whacks 
Will spell the sad end of their story ; 

He'll care not a jot for Catholic quacks, _ 
But leave them alone in their glory.—[Age. 


The enormous inconveniences resulting from the position of our wreat 
cattle-market in the centre of the city, are beginning, once more, to com- 
pel public attention. The London corporation seem to have given up 
the business in despair, though, certainly, not without remonstrance ; for 
they had petitioned parliament no less than ten times, from 1802 to 1812, 
for the removal of the market from Smithfield. Private interests, how= 
ever, made the fierce fight that they generally do, and the petitions were 
left to their long slumber in the clerk’s desk. The pressing necessity 
of the measure has forced it forward again. Mr. Pocock, a liveryman, 
who protests against his being presumed to have any other object in 
view than the public good, has brought forward a plan which he conceives 
likely to answer all the purposes—to relieve London of the hazard and 
the nuisances of the market, and to assist the owners and salesmen by 
contrivances for security and expedition of every kind. : 

In order to meet the wishes of the population, he offers the following 
suggestions for the consideration of the legislature and the citizens of 
London :— © 

« That ten acres of land should be purchased, as contiguous to the 
present site of Smithfield market as possible, and that the area be en= 
closed by a substantial brick wall, of sufficient altitude, which land is 
now procurable within a distance of two miles from the existing market. 
The spot alluded to is freehold property, situated at Islington, bounded 
by excellent roads, diverging in all directions, without interfering in the 
smallest degree with the pleasure or business roads of the metropolis. 
Should the spot be pronounced eligible, every evil complained of at the ex- 
amination before the Committee of the House of Commons, would be reme-" 
died, and the city of London put in possession of double the quantity of 
ground at a trifling expenditure, when compared with the calculation 
and preposterous plan of the butchers. According to their statements, 
the exorbitant sum of 120,000/. would be required, for the enlargement 


1829. ] Affairs in General. 64] 


of Smithfield Market about one acre, in order to avoid the cruelty and 
damage to which cattle are now subjected, and the danger and loss sus- 
tained in the market. The major part of the butchers being provided 
with riding horses, they could have no objection whatsoever to Islington ; 
added to which, they would not be subjected, as at present, to ride over 
the stones. The site is, in every respect, similar to that which Smithfield 
originally was, in reference to London ; since, as previously remarked, 
it was once no other than an open field adjacent to the metropolis. To 
this must be added, that land contiguous might be easily attained 
for the erection of Abattoirs for the supply of London. The spot al- 
luded to, in consequence of the present depressed state of building spe- 
culations, might be obtained for a sum comparatively insignificant, when 
contrasted with what would be the increased valuation of the land, in pro- 
portion as the city was nearer to the site. Difficulties and impediments 
must of necessity arise upon the removal of a market to any place where 
a neighbourhood is already established. It, however, appears unreason- 
able, that Smithfield should be established as a mart for the major part) 
of the cattle consumed within a circuit of twenty miles of the outskirts 
of London ; a fact that does not admit of a doubt, as all the leading 
butchers from Windsor, and other places equally removed, are regular 
attendants at Smithfield Market.” 4 

The necessity for the removal is plain enough to any one who has 
been in danger of his life by the irruption of those horned Goths and 
‘Vandals, that three times a week charge down every street, passage, 
and lane, on their march to market. An over-drove ox clearing the 
world before him from St. Paul’s to Temple Bar, is one of the most 
common, and to those who happen to come within his line of march, 
one of the most unamusing phenomena that the streets of London can 
furnish, abundant as they are in obstacles, dangers, and annoyances. 
Carriages thrown over, aldermen hunted for their lives, old women 
trampled down, and prebendaries of St: Paul’s of the utmost portliness, 
transported on the horns of some foaming, bounding, and bellowing 
monster, some Leicestershire mammoth, are incidents occurring with a 
frequency that alone diminishes the grandeur of the scene. And the 
stoppage of the whole civic procession on the Lord Mayor’s-Day, the 
dismay of the city halberdiers, and the utter routing of the men in 
armour, by an irritated mangel-wurzel, oil-cake-fed mountain of this 
kind, will long cover city prowess with disgrace, and long furnish anec- 
dotes for the never-ending line of Lord Mayors. But humanity to the 
bulls, oxen, and sheep themselves, is also in question. The only thing that 
could possibly reconcile them to Smithfield is, the conviction that their 
days are numbered, and that they are speedily to be eaten. It is now a 
sort of ante-purgatory ; where the want of food, water, and rest, are the 
pains and penalties, and where the drivers, salesmen, and dogs, are the 
‘imps and tormentors. We hope that Mr. Pocock, who has shown so 
much good feeling and intelligence on the subject already, will perse- 
vere ; if he does, he will succeed, for the abuse is palpable, the nuisance 
repulsive, and the remedy plain. John Bull is not the most rapid ot 
animals to catch a clever conception, but he is honest in the main; he 
is not irrational, and he ought to be prevailed on to feel a sympathy for 
‘the honest, quiet, and universally sacrificed animals that resemble him, 
alike in fate, in nature, and in name. 


M. M. New Series.—Vou. VIL. No. 42. 4N 


642 Notes of the Month on [June, 


Death, the only law that is never violated, is rapidly striking away 
all the names that figured in our youth. The bar, the senate, and 
the stage, have lost, in quick succession, nearly every eminent name. 
Lady Derby has just gone: she who, when manners were a science, 
was their supreme representative ; who, in the wittiest, gayest, and 
most graceful day of the last century, was the observed of all 
observers; the toast of the Hares, Townshends, and Burgoynes ; 
the heroine of every stage, and the model of every theatrieal aspi- 
rant, has laid her graces in the grave, and now sleeps where neither 
fame nor flattery can reach her more... The life of an actress is, 
proverbially, of a “ mingled yarn,” and perhaps no human lot so 
thoroughly acquaints the individual with the pleasantnesses and the 
pains of life. But Miss Farren seems to have had all the roses for her 
own ; almost from the commencement of her career, she was a public 
favourite. Her fine theatrical powers were instantly acknowledged, and 
the style of her performances gave, invariably, the impression of an 
original elegance of mind. She had the higher merit of preserving 
herself from the peculiar hazards of her profession ; and her marriage 
with Lord Derby, at once rewarded and raised into affluence and rank, 
an actress whose personal conduct did honour to her sex, as it undoubt- 
edly added highly to the public respect for the stage. She thenceforth 
enjoyed a long career of opulent tranquillity. She quitted the stag 
in 1797, after just twenty years of success, and was Countess of Derb 
two-and-thirty years. She was born in 1759. 


We have no conceivable respect for Mr. Maberley as a politician, a 
financier, or a money-dealer ; even in his capacity of bazaar-keeper and cab 
speculator, our admiration of him is by no means vivid ; yet, as Fox said 
of Jack Ketch, such men are useful in society, and we wish he would 
exert his faculties in a new speculation, and give us something in place 
of our hackney coaches. Nothing in nature or art can be so abominable 
as those vehicles at this hour. We are quite satisfied that, except an 
Englishman—who will endure any thing—no native of any climate under 
the sky would endure a London hackney coach; that an Ashantee 
gentleman would scoff at it ; and that an aboriginal of New South Wales 
would refuse to be inhumed within its shattered and infinite squalidness. 
It is true, that the vehicle has its merits, if variety of uses can establish 
them. The hackney coach conveys alike the living and the dead. It 
carries the dying man to the hospital, and when doctors and tax- 
gatherers can tantalize no more, it carries him to Surgeons’ Hall, and 
qualifies him to assist the “ march of mind” by the section of body. 
If the midnight thie? find his plunder too ponderous for his hands, the_ 
hackney coach offers its services, and is one of the most expert convey- 
ances. Its other employments are many, and equally meritorious, and 
doubtless society would find a vacuum in its loss. Yet we cordially 
wish that the Maberley brain were set at work upon this subject, and 
some substitute contrived. The French have led the way, and that too 
by the most obvious and simple arrangement possible. The “ Omnibus,” 
—for they still have Latin enough in France for the name of this travelling 
collection of all sorts of human beings—the Omnibus is a long coach, 
carrying fifteen or eighteen people, all inside. For two-pence halfpenny 
it carries the individual the length of the Boulevard, or the whole 
diameter of Paris. Of those carriages there were about half-a-dozen 


s 


1829.] Affairs in General. 643 


some months ago, and they have been augmented since ; their profits 
were said to have repaid the outlay within the first year: the pro- 
prietors, among whom is Lafitte the banker, are making a large revenue 
out of the Parisian sous, and speculation is still alive. 

«“ The papers announce that a new description of omnibus is about to 
be established, which for its capacity is to outdo all former outdoings, 
since it will be able to carry one hundred passengers. A model is now 
exhibiting. It is constructed in two stages or departments, one above 
the other, but, though it is to be drawn by horses, it can be moved only 
on an inclined plane! This is the serious statement; but the projectors 
do not appear to have calculated on the somewhat limited field which it 
will have for its operations. This machine is to be furnished with seven 
invisible wheels.” This is, we presume, by way of ridicule. But why 
is the speculation to be left to the French? or why are we to be lett 
at the mercy of plague and fever in the most hideous of all moving 
receptacles of unpatrician mankind? Why not construct the Omnibus 
here? Of course we should be prepared to expect tremendous declama- 
tion from the whole generation of the whip, outcries about vested 
interests, tavern speeches, and applications to parliament. But the pub- 
lic convenience being the sole source of the existence of the present 
establishment, the same convenience must be a sufficient ground for 
change. Let the Omnibus then be authorized here. Let the coach 
owners, if they please, take their shares in the project, and transfer their 


_ capital from a sinking and useless trade, to a rising and valuable one. 


Let the public have a vehicle which will answer its purposes at once of 
safety, conyeyance, and health; and all with cheapness. An improve- 
ment on the French coaches might be easily made. They run in 
scarcely more than the streets immediately about the Boulevard (the 
Strand and Fleet Street of Paris). Let them run in all the leading 
streets of London, from north to south, and from east to west, regular 


_ coaches starting from their settled stations at known hours, and meeting 
each other at particular points, for the convenience of passengers from 
_ the cross streets. By this means the individual would be sure of always 


finding some carriage ready to convey him at least within a short distance 
of his destination, and sixpence might pay his fare from one end of London 
to the other. The advantages of the plan to the citizens would be ob- 
vious, for the facility and rapidity would save time, the cheapness would 
save money, and the fixed prices would put an end to the possibility of 
offence on the part of the coachman. The plan will of course at last 


‘force its way, and our only wonder will be, after having endured the 


inconvenience of the present system so long, how we could ever have 
endured it at all. The only objection to those French street stage coaches 
is, that they are not sufficiently select, the eagerness of the firms to make 
money, inducing them to let in the rabble, and that they run but in 
one direction. In London a dozen coaches, intersecting each other’s 
routes, would be the least that could supply the public convenience ; 
and notwithstanding the calamity of their putting a speedy end to the 
hackney coach system, there could be no doubt of their public profit and 
utility. The expense of those abominable vehicles is a point worthy of 
being looked to. A stage coach carries passengers from Hampstead, 
Fulham, or any of the villages at the same distance, to St. Paul's, a 
travel of nearly seven miles, for a shilling outside; the hackney coach 
would charge little less than seven times the sum. Yet from the -clum- 


4N2 


644 Notes of the Month on (June, 


siness of the whole system, the latter charge is rendered almost -ne- 
cessary, for it is computed that the proprietor must starve unless he can 
make upwards of fifteen shillings a day, that sum being actually the 
necessary expense for his horses, driver, coach repairs, and taxes. It is 
the business of a wise legislature to save the pockets of the subject, and 
in this instance, there is a large expenditure through mere mismanage- 
ment, and without good to any one. Let the street stage coach be 
adopted ; and the affair will soon find its level. As many hackney coaches 
will remain as are required by the actual wants of the population, and 
no more. The transit from the different quarters of the capital will be 
accomplished for a fifth of the price. Settled rates will succeed arbitrary 
extortion ; we shall have no more harassing appeals to magistrates against 
ruffian insolence ; the coaches in which the living are conveyed wili not 
be the medium of infection ; rapidity, cheapness, and cleanliness will 
supersede the abuses of the old system ; and London will have a coach 
establishment that will not disgrace her in the eyes of every stranger. 
We are anxious to see the speculation adopted by some man of character 
and public spirit ; for among the projects of public service, there has 
not been one for these fifty years that would be more conducive to the 
comfort of the people. 


‘ 


There is some hope of China after all. It has been for a thousand 
long years the Holland of the East, flat, swampy, full of canals and quiet- — 
ness, women whose lives are spent twisting their distaffs, plaiting their — 
locks, sitting on their chairs, and generating Chinese ; and men with milk 
and water for blood, petticoats for pantaloons, rice for meat, the rattan 
for law, and dollars for religion. They had one merit, however, and it 
was the good sense that kept them from having any intercourse with 
‘Europeans, further than to fleece them of their money. What becomes 
‘of the coin poured into China by the European and American traders, is 
certainly a curious question. Millions of millions of dollars have been 
sent to China in the course of the last hundred years, and not-one dollar 
has ever been sent back ; the law of the Chinese, from the Emperor on 
his throne, to the beggar on the dunghill, being never to let money re- 
turn to an European hand. Yet what they do with all this silver is just 
as difficult to comprehend. They have it not upon their persons, nor on 
their furniture, nor in their ships, nor in any discoverable shape of show, - 
use, or pleasure. They possibly have it buried; and thus the treasure 
returns, like the treasurer, to the clay from which it was taken. The 
‘silver mines of Istria and Potosi have been exhausted to fill the pockets of 
this tea-making nation, and yet China does not seem to be a shilling the 
richer. But its time will come. Ifthe isthmus of Darien shall be cut 
across, all the guards of the yellow empire will not save its shores from 
being visited by tempters in every form of smuggling, with alluring rum, 
and fascinating flannel ;—Manchester cottons will make the lovely for- 
swear their allegiance to chintz and the Emperor ; and gold lace and me- 
rino cloth will subdue the fidelity of the most rigid Mandarin. Thus the 
dollars must come forth. The coffers must give up their dead, and 
Dutch skippers, and Yankee pirates from Massachusetts, and the solid 
and sulky men of the Thames, will retaliate the long plunder of mankind. 
Nay, the-time is actually coming, for the Chinese are beginning to dip into 
revolution; and though we must conceive it to be a very swampy affair, 
yet the attempt has made the old Manchu tremble. 


1829.] Affairs in General. 645. 


«A great sensation has been excited at Macao by the discovery of a 
conspiracy, which is said to have for its object no less than overturning 
the present dynasty of China. If the accounts which have been received 
may be relied upon, this plot is most extensively organised, and spreads 
by a sort of freemasonry over the whole empire. The spot pitched. upon 
by the conspirators for their deliberations, was the English burying- 
ground.” 

About rebellions we care but little. They are military matters, to . 
which we can never reconcile our understanding. We hate bulletins, 
gazettes extraordinary, despatches from the commander-in-chief, and 
the whole tissue of official lying. Conflicts of horse and foot, pike-men, 
and pistol-men, are to us common-place. Besides, they are utterly 
unproductive to every body, except to the general who grasps the plunder 
of the dead, or to the dentist, who has a contract for teeth to be supplied 
without fail for the next court day. The true subverter is conspiracy. 
There have been a hundred Chinese rebellions, and the only result -was, 
that Changhi being charged by the invincible guards of the cousin-ger- 
man of the Sun and Moon, loses, in the bulletin language, half a million 
of men, is taken prisoner, and with his whole family is cut into a hun- 
dred thousand pieces by the mercy of his lord the Emperor, who might 

ave ordered him to be boiled alive. 

_ But conspiracy is of another calibre; it digs and undermines, and 
ntroduces its combustibles, unseen by the “ all-seeing eyes” of Chinese 
sovereignty. The train is fired just in the moment when the Emperor of 
Emperors is drinking his rice milk, and ordering a new execution. 
He is blown up in the midst of porcelain and Mandarins; the crash 
resounds to the extremities of the empire ; and the Tartars ride down from 
Bokhara, and dismember the provinces north of the wall. The India 
company send in fifty thousand men from Nepaul, simply to prevent 
the overflow of the disturbers into their own territory ; and finally find 
themselves under the painful necessity of seizing on a few provinces. 
The Japanese strengthen their frontier by a similar act of necessity. 
The “ merchants trading to Canton” discover that some little settlement 
is absolutely essential to their security, in a time of general trouble to the 
monarch and his allies, land a few hundred seamen and marines, seize 
upon Canton and the district for fifty miles round, build a fortress, and 
having fairly imbedded themselves in the soil, turn the guns against all 
change. The Chinese captains carve little kingdoms and republics out 
of the great monster’s territorial carcase, and the affair is finished in the 
handsomest style of European partition. To all this we have no objec- 
tion. We can have no reluctance in seeing the bastile of a hundred and 
fifty millions of human beings broken down, even if it were by bullet 
and brand. The Chinese are to this hour prisoners, and the sooner they 

are let out of their dungeon the better for them and for mankind. 


The lofty anticipations of national prosperity that were to cheer us for 
the downfall of the constitution, have not yet been realized. The Irish 
peasantry cut each other’s throats and burn each other’s cabins with the 

_ same average zeal as when the O’Connells and O’Gormans were “ bonds- 
men, groaning in chains, and lifting up their almost stifled voices for the 
freedom of their beloved and undone Emerald Isle ;” the priesthood are 
not much better patriots, if they are much more insolent subjects ;. and. 
the forty-shilling freeholders will probably have to thank their emanci- 


646 Notes of the Month on (June, 


pation for turning them out of their cabins, and sending them to exhibit 
the first energies of freedom, in enduring the miseries of famine, or 
taking revenge on the heartless poltroons who abandoned the constitution, 
or the high-talking and artful villains who tore it down. But if Eng- 
land may not be exposed to the first actual violence, she will not be suf- 
fered to escape the consciousness that she has plunged into a fatal act of 
misgovernment. The finances of England are tottering ; and the danger 
is not the less undeniable from her not being able to detect the cause. 
There is an undoubted decay of trade throughout the empire. A vast 
quantity of misery has already been the consequence, and it is more 
likely to increase than diminish. The Chancellor of the Exchequer 
has already been compelled to borrow. But let us allow him to state 
his own case, of which he takes the more specious part first. — “ It 
will be in the recollection of many honourable members on the Com- 
mittee, that when I brought forward the budget last year, I estimated 
the revenue at fifty-four millions, or, rather, 53,900,0001.; and my 
estimate of the expenditure during the same period was 50,100,0001., 
thus leaving, at the end of the year 1828, a surplus of 3,797,0001. 
to be applied to the reduction of the national debt. In making 
the calculation which I did at that period, I was anxious to keep 
as much within the sums as possible, in order not to give rise t 
any high and exaggerated expectations; and the result proves how 
wise and necessary it was to do so, for the committee will perceive, 
when I state the amount of revenue and expenditure in 1828, that the 
amount of the former, as well as the amount of the surplus, is greater 
than I contemplated, and is altogether most satisfactory. It appears 
that at the close of 1828 the amount of the revenue, instead of being 
54,000,0001., was 55,187,0001., and that the expenditure for the same 
period, instead of being 50,100,0001., was not more than 49,336,0001. ; 
thus leaving 2,054,000]. more than I calculated on, and a total surplus 
of 5,851,0001. applicable to the purposes pointed out by parliament.” 
This fine statement, however, is connected with one which is a full com- 
ment on its fallacy.“ The funding of three millions of Exchequer 
Bills is a measure which must have been long since anticipated.” No 
doubt it was anticipated by every man of sense, and it is not the less 
an evidence of financial failure ; and it will be anticipated that three 
times the amount must be called for before twelve months are over our 
heads, and yet the evil will not be lightened a grain by the anticipation. 
The truth is that the revenue is not equal to the expenditure, and the 
first sacrifice must be the Sinking Fund: that fund which old Lord 
Grenville, after spending thirty years of his life to defend and panegy- 
rize, has spent his last to vilify ; the distinction between his reasons for 
panegyric and contempt, being apparently no other than his having been 
in place in the former instance, and his being out of place at present, 5 
and hopeless of ever getting in again. That Sinking Fund must go, 
which the Duke of Wellington not a year since made a speech to 
justify, and declare the chief pillar of English finance; yet down 
must his very hand pull that pillar; and so will follow the rest with 
equal respect for protestation and policy. 

As to Mr. Goulburn’s flourishing statement, we must remember that it 
was the statement of last year ; that he has not dared to touch upon this 
year; and that the constitution was unbroken last year ; that we are 
under a Semi-Popish Legislature this year ; and.that the only fact which 


| 
| 


1829. ] Affairs in General. - 647 


has transpired is, that we are obliged to raise a loan. It is our decided 
opinion that the revenue, instead of improving, will go on from bad to 
worse, that financial difficulties will thicken on us, and that the perjuries of 
the people will primarily be scourged in that wealth for which so many 
have made the most guilty sacrifices. 


The French maxim, that “ no man is a hero to his valet de chambre” 
is true only in France, where the footman is the confidant, the compa- 
nion, the fellow-intriguer, and, on occasion, the fellow-knave. In Eng- 
land we have not the habit of this footman-familiarity, and our servants 
know little of that taste which levels a French duke to the population of 
the servants’ hall: But if a man, even here, may not be a hero to his 
valet de chambre, we are quite satisfied that every little location and 
assemblage of Englishmen looks upon itself as something very impor- 
tant to the universe besides. The papersare perpetual evidences of the 
fact. The memoirs of P. P., parish-clerk, are less parodies than fac-similes 
of the intelligence that reaches us in the shape of matters which our 
country friends think interesting to the world at large. For example :— 
« The village of Sandgate was on Sunday afternoon visited with a hurri- 
cane, accompanied with hail and thunder. Mr. Roberts had 61 squares 
of glass broken and starred ; Mr. Brockman 12 squares and part of a 

himney blown down. A boat, fifteen feet in length, belonging to 

dward Lawrence, was carried off the beach to a distance of about 300 

feet, and was so greatly damaged as to be unworthy of repair ; two 
other boats in the village were very much injured.” Thus it is con- 
ceived by the chroniclers of the pretty little village of Sandgate essential 
to the well being of the empire, that Messrs. Roberts’ and Brockman’s 
panes of glass should not be broken without their share of the national 
regret, nor the transit of Mr. Lawrence’s boat effected in a silence un- 
worthy of so important a transaction. A neighbouring paper, too, has 
its storm, with very formidable damage to a hedge-row, half a dozen 
band-boxes blown into the street, several mignionet pots put hors de 
combat, and the calamity of a life lost—that of a promising “ pig belonging 
to Mr. W. Uwins, of Wisbrook-farm.” Scotland was long in the habit of 
laying wait for public sympathy by a regular export of grievances. But 
the steam-boats have, in some degree, cured her misfortunes. Evil has 
been found to be distributed with considerable impartiality every where ; 
and except an annual earthquake at Inverness, of whose reputation the 
town is remarkably jealous, few things of note add to the imperial 
sympathy for the northern portion of the island. 
_ The departure of the court from Brighton to Windsor, or, in other 
words, the descendancy of Sir Matthew Tierney, and the ascendancy of 
Sir William Knighton, has transferred a vast quantity of ‘local intelli- 
gence” into the more favoured regions of Berkshire. Windsor now sup- 
plies us with the only authentic arrivals and non-arrivals of the king’s 
messengers, the disasters of post-chaises going down overloaded with 
ministers and cabinet-boxes, and the exploits of the buck-hounds, with 
little old Lord Maryborough acting the part of Nimrod in their rear. 

We propose to the men of genius in and about London, a number, 
probably as Swift has it— 

* Computing by their pecks of coals, 

About a hundred thousand souls,” 
‘to form an establishment for enabling the newspapers to get through thre 
dull season from June to November. During those fatal months the 


648 Notes of the Month on [ June, 


most vigorous journal gasps for life, like a mouse in an exhausted re- 
ceiver. Like the garrison in a famishing town, every food is swallowed 
with the most unhesitating avidity. A Bow-street examination, with 
the legal remarks of Sir Richard Birnie, or the dignified observations 

on men and manners, that make Mr. Hall memorable, is, at this period, 

of inestimable importance ; the fall of an old house, or the overthrow — 
of an old woman, the death of a peer, or the report of a mad dog, have _ 
their value ; and if the proprietors of such papers ever pray, a new gun- 
powder-plot would be the thing most devoutly prayed- for. Battle, 
murder, and sudden death, would be so far from being deprecated, that, 
in all probability, the most ardent aspirations of their secret souls 
would be sent up for some handsome affair, in the shape of, at least, a 
six months’ convulsion. A new conspiracy, with a knot of the peerage 
implicated, would offer a prospect infinitely cheering. The first sur- 
mise, the sudden detection, the general seizure, the examination before 
the Privy Council, the ten cabinet councils a day, the escapes of 
some, and the defences of others, with the final retribution of the law, 
would form a promise of active paragraphs, long columns, and inquisi- 
tive purchasers, that no patriotism could resist ; and we should not be 
surprised to hear of a general combination of the journalists for the express 
purpose, with some new Thistlewood urged to take the lead of a host 
conspirators. Still a great deal may be done out of moderate materials, 
where the talent of paragraph exists: and we give the account of Mr. 
Augustus Woodthorpe’s porcine manufacture, as a happy instance of the 
art of making something out of nothing —“ Mr. Augustus Woodthorpe, 
of Boston, seems to have acquired the singular knack of feeding pigs 
until they resemble bullocks in size. Some years ago he travelled 
through the country exhibiting a huge mountain of hog’s flesh, which 
gained the prize at the Smithfield Show. Grunter the First being con- 
signed to the tomb, another of the same kind has been puffed out, and 
reached the enormous weight of ninety-five stone. Having attained 
this happy stage of fatness, his honour was marched into a caravan, and 
exhibited to the wondering natives of Boston, last Saturday. To 
increase the effect, Mr. Woodthorpe has ingeniously procured a very 
dwarfish pig, two years old, weighing only forty pounds, which stands 
beside the mighty giant, strongly reminding the spectator of the frog 
and the ox in the fable.” 

In ordinary hands this intelligence would not have filled three lines. 
But the writer is palpably a man of genius in his department, and we 
doubt whether the simple art of fatting a pig has ever been detailed in a 
more graphic manner. We doubt as little that this happily concocted des- 
cription has attracted more eyes among the rustic readers of newspapers, 
than the bulletins of the Russian campaigns ; and that there is no one cir- 
cumstance of village life which might not be made profitable and _pic- 
turesque bythe same ability. We say to the writer, as Cato said to the 
young Roman,“ Macte virtute tua:” make the most of your talent, de- 
scribe our plagiarisms from the French stage, and make them palatable ; 
become the historian of a session of parliament, and give it an air of 
rationality ; turn modern public architecture into a subject of public 
congratulation ; make us imagine wit in a masquerade, pleasure in a 
rout, patriotism in a club-room of either Whig or Tory, piety in a 
fashionable chapel; or virtue, generosity, or good sense, in one out of 
every ten thousand of mankind. These will be the triumphs of the couleur 


1829.4 Affairs in General. : 649 


de rose school, and since life is but an illusion at best, be a benefactor to 
a world of fools, and make the illusion as perfect and permanent as 
fools can desire. 

The last month has teemed with suicides; and the habit of “ felo 
de se,” which was once so aristocratic, has strangely gone down into the 
lowest ranks of human absurdity. A footman has just hanged himself 
for the loss of his place. An errand-boy having told a lie, and being 
unable at the moment to invent another to cover it, could find no better 
contrivance than walking into an out-house and strangle himself. A 
crowd of examples of the same courting of death, have lately occurred, 
and the “ king of terrors’ must, on these terms, soon change his old 
designation. To what is this owing? Has the abolition of the cross- 
way burial had any share in it? or is it the east wind that has been 
blowing with such merciless perseverance for the last six months? or is 
it the official lie of the coroner’s inquests, that by bringing in the verdict 
“ insanity” on all occasions, makes those miserable idiots imagine that 
they will take rank with their masters, and die, like them, with the 
honours of madmen? 

In Paris, suicides are perpetual, and the police acknowledge from 
four to five hundred per annum, without counting the murders, whether 
uicidal or otherwise, that take place in the indescribable hovels of 
misery, dissipation, and iniquity, with which Paris abounds. But in 
that gay metropolis, there is an established reason for suicides ; the 
gaming-houses are always in full work; every night, every hour of 

every night witnesses the irreparable ruin of some wretch, who has no 

other resource from famine for the next day, than a plunge into the 

Seine. Thanks to the government of that pious and Popish nation, a 

man may indulge in every vice at the cheapest rate: but there is still 

a time when the indulgence becomes too dear; and the Frenchman 

must be a very different being from his metropolitan countrymen, at 

least, when he can prevail on himself to dispense with those little profli- 
gacies, that make his morning’s meditation and his evening’s employ- 
ment. Those once shut up from him, life is valueless ; his priest has 
_ not taught him that there is any thing beyond ; or if the idea enters into 

his head, sixpence for a mass will ease his anxieties, save him from a 

thousand years of purgatory, and quiet his conscience in the last rattle 

of the dice-box that decides the fate of himself and his last farthing 
together. 
There seems to be some hope, at last, that the duties on French wines 

_ will bein some way or other so far modified, as to bring them within the 
use of the community. Nothing can be more against common sense 
and the palpable will of nature, than that within fifteen miles of the 

British shore, one of the finest products of the earth should be in a 
_ state of cheapness that almost renders its cultivation a loss, while we 
are compelled to be content with the fierce and unwholesome wines of 
Spain and Portugal, brandied into the very materials of fever. Three- 

fourths of the chronic diseases, too, that make such fearful havoc in 

English life, at all times, and which, among the habitual drinkers of 

those fiery wines, regularly make the last ten years of life a wretched 

struggle between the doctor and the distemper, owe their birth to those 

draughts ; and while the light wines of France are the actual sustainers 

of health and animation, and in many instances the curers of disease, 

we daily swallow high-priced poison for the good of Portugal, and the 
M.M. New Series ——Vouw. VII. No. 42. 40 


650 fotes of the Month on [June, 


shame of our commercial code. As to the gratitude of foreigners for our 
custom, it will be pretty much the same in both cases ; for a Portuguese 
vineyard-owner looks upon thé Englishman as much a heretic as the 
Frenchman possibly can; and the only question is, our own convenience. 

_ The old supposition that Portugal must perish unless London burns its 
throat with bad port, and plunders its pocket to fill that of Lisbon and 
Oporto, is nonsense: Portugal will keep up its connexion with England 
as long as it can, for the sufficient and only reason that Portugal or any 
foreign nation ever thinks about—its own interest. Let it break up its 
English’ alliance, and it falls into the jaws of Spain; and this it will 
avoid at all risques, if it never sold a bottle. But then we are 
told, that France will not lower its duties on our manufactures, 
and take five thousand bales of Manchester cottons, or five thousand 
bags of Sheffield nails, which France does not want, in consideration 
of our taking five thousand hogsheads of cheap, good, and palatable 
wine, which England does want. This has been the argument of 
all the wiseacres, for the time being, and will always be, until 
some man of common sense, if such a man is ever to be minister, 
brings in a bill to let us buy claret as cheap as we can—and we can 

import it into London, from the South, at a lower rate than they can 
buy it in Paris ; then the wiseacres will change their hereditary choras 
and all will be wonder at ministerial sagacity. And this is no emanation 
of the free-trade system, no offspring of the mischievous foolery of the 
Huskisson school. We have no vineyards to be plucked up in the 
collision of the trades, no wine-growers to bid wait without food for 
the next fifty years, till “the supremacy of the steam-engine, and the 
vigour of British credit, beat foreign rivalry out of the market,” and 
similar stuff. The whole advantage would actually be on our side ; for 
we should have good wine instead of bad, and wine for a sixth or a 
tenth of the price that is now extorted from us. Even, if there were 
lovers of the gout and palsy still among us, they might enjoy their 
favourite aliment on easier terms, for the inevitable consequence would 
be to lower the rate of all foreign wines together ; the Portugal market 
being now a monopoly, and as it has been declared, of the most scanda- — 
lous kind, But the statesman must be shortsighted, who cannot see, in 
the admission of French wines, a rapid completion of his object as to. 
reciprocal trade. . The French vintager commencing an intercourse 
with England in one commodity will naturally extend it to others ; 
English money in his hands, will allow him the opportunity of indulging 
his taste in the purchase of English goods, The prohibitions which — 
now exist, will gradually give way to the national wish. France will — 
discover how far it may be for her advantage to withdraw the restraints on 
manufactures which she cannot provide for herself as cheap as we can 
sell to her. ‘The Anglomanie is common among our neighbours, and it — 
would not then be confined to our dandyisms and affectations. =~ i ; 

The final argument of the wiseacres, that we should be enriching an — 
enemy, is just as palpable nonsense as the rest. All the money that 
France could make by the opening of the wine trade for the next twenty 
years, and have so far disposable as to be at the service of government, 
would not equip a single seventy-four. |The money would go in good ~ 
living, in cleanlier clothes, in more decent cottages, in more cows and 
pigs, chickens and cabbages; it would be as much beyond the grasp of 
government as the dinner of last Lord Mayor’s Day. But it would have 
an expenditure of the highest advantage to both countries. Commercial 


1828.) A ffairs.in General. 651 


intercourse is the true peacemaker. | National mtercourse of ali kinds is 
good; and there can be no doubt that in any question of quarrel, at 
present, the French Cabinet would very seriously consider the loss that 
must result to France from the sudden retreat of the English, and the 
deprivation of the money which they expend. But the intercourse of 
trade is still more powerful. If our merchants could establish a close 
connexion with those of France, even in the purchase of wines, the whole 
of the south, a great portion of the east of France, and many other districts 
in the north and centre, would shrink from the thoughts of war, as the 
extinction of their incomes. ‘“ La Gloire,” has been the absurd cry of 
the Frenchman only when hehad nothing better to lose than a life of 
beggary. But let him once feel that La Gloire means the stoppage of 
five thousand a year in London bills, the plucking up of the vines on 
his new purchase of five hundred arpens from the seigneur, the dismissal 
of his footmen, the sale of his carriage, and the melting down of his 
service of plate, and he will wish “ La Gloire” stuck in the throat of the 
first ministerial madman that ventures to set up that cry of desolation. 
But it is to the merchant and the opulent dealer that the minister must, 
in the first and last instance, apply for the very means of war; and what 
answer may we suppose him to receive from a man who knows that the 
first shot fired might as well be fired into his own bosom? What would 
be the result of a million of wine-dressers, with all the millions connect- 
ed with the trade, suddenly thrown out of employment? The sudden 


_ falling off of a great branch of finance, the sudden excitement to riot and 


civil convulsion: and all for the purpose of shooting, robbing, burning, 
and drowning the men with whom they had been in the habit of weekly 
correspondence for the last half century, whom they visited once a year 
by the Bordeaux steam-boat, and after feasting at their villas in every 
hill and dale, from Thames to Avon, and falling in love with their daugh- 


ters, repayed the hospitality by a summer’s invitation to the bastides 


of Marseilles, or the chateaux that look out from peach trees, myrtles, 
and thickets of the grape, on the purple waters of the Garonne. 

We pledge our reputation as discoverers, that, if this policy were 
adopted, we should soon have no more quarrelling between France and 
England than we have between Bath and Buttermere. 


Pastorini’s prophecies are undergoing a new version in Ireland, and 
putting their promises of bloodshed in order for 1830. Great hopes are 
entertained by the “ Emancipated” of some illustrious change by that 
time, and we have no doubt that Lords Curtis and Doyle long to hear 
the bells that toll out the year 1829. The time will assuredly come, 
and the mitres of those gracious persons will of course glitter in Cathe- 
drals ; but we do not think the next twelve months quite broad enough 
for the march of popish triumph. In the mean time, holy water and 
missives from Rome keep up the hearts of the faithful. A massacre is 
promised, and between prophecy and whiskey-drinking, the Lady of 
Babylon possesses the full fidelity of the most “inspired and magnifi- 
cent” race of burglars under the moon. One of those predictions 
which has been spread for the comfort of the holy people, is as 
follows : — 

PROPHECIES. 
Eig hteen hundred and twenty-one, 
Great events will be begun ; 
Eighteen hundred and twenty-three, 
Dreadful war by land and sea ; 
1 


652 Notes of the Month on Affairs in General. [J UNE, 


Eighteen hundred and twenty-five, 
Not a Protestant left alive ! 
Eighteen hundred and twenty-seven, 
Widows and orphans cry for vengeance to Heaven ; 
Eighteen hundred and twenty-nine, 
» A Milesian king shall o’er us reign ; 
Eighteen hundred and thirty, 
The struggle’s ended—peace and plenty. 


The prophecy has rather failed in its glorious anticipation of 1825 ; 
and we know no argument by which we can console the Mother of all: 
Churches for the disappointment. But let her rest in hope. Pro- 
testantism is at a discount already in all directions, The Houses of 
Parliament have outvoted it by mighty majorities ; and we certainly have 
not yet come to the full extent of the complacency which our politicians 
are willing to exhibit for the opinions of the premier. But we have 
had our predictions on our side the water, too—not, perhaps, quite so 
spiritualized—but borne out hitherto by facts, stubborn enough in 
their way. 


PREDICTION. 
From a MS. found in Arthur O’Connor’s baggage in 1798, on his escape to Franee. 


Kighteen hundred twenty-one, 

No man thinks of Wellington ; 
Eighteen hundred twenty-two, 
Wellington joins Canning’s crew ; 
Eighteen hundred twenty-three, 
Wellington joins Castlereagh ; 
Eighteen hundred twenty-four, 
Wellington joins. Burdett’s corps ; 
Eighteen hundred twenty-five, 
Wellington and joint stocks thrive ; 
Eighteen hundred twenty-six, 4 
Wellington tries Canning’s tricks ; 
Eighteen hundred twenty-seven, 
Canning goes (perhaps) to heaven ; 
Eighteen hundred twenty-eight, 
Goderich bungles Church and State ; 
Eighteen hundred twenty-nine, 
Wellington! they both are thine. 
Then, secure of ayes and nges, 
Monarchs kiss his ducal toes ! 
Lawyers, prelates, nobles, all 

At his Highness’ footstool fall. 
Eighteen hundred thirty-one, 

Look to altar and to throne ; 
Eighteen hundred thirty-two, 

* Freedom, bid the land adieu ; 
Eighteen hundred thirty-three, 
Windsor, who shall sit in thee ? 
Righteen hundred thirty-four, 
Field and flood are red with gore ; 
Eighteen hundred thirty-five, 
Martyrs with the tortures strive ; 
Eighteen hundred thirty-six, 
Welcome idol, host, and pix ; ; 1 
Eighteen hundred thirty-seven, 
Rome, thy furious triumph’s given ; 
Eighteen hundred thirty-nine, 

All are wrapt in wrath divine ! 


1829] ( 


653) 


MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE, DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN, 


The Life and Times of Francis I., 
King of France. 2 vols. 8vo. 1829.— 
This is a careful and spirited survey of 
Francis and his Times, well considered and 
well executed; indicating a good deal of 
research in the less frequented sources, and 
conducted throughout with good taste, and, 
at the bottom, with all fairness, though a 
desire to detect favourable circumstances is 
sometimes too visible, accompanied with an 
anxiety to exhibit and spread them out, 
which throws obliquities (never evaded) into 
the shade, and produces occasionally the 
effect almost of designed misrepresentation. 
Of misrepresentation, however, we entirely 
acquit the author ; it is perfectly natural for 
one who is ferretting among old books and 
papers to make much of what has been over- 
looked by those who have gone before, and 
thus insensibly to give undue weight to 
mere novelty. 

Mixed up, as are the actions of Francis, 
almost wholly, and for the most part insepa- 
‘tably, with those of Charles the Fifth, and 
well and unexceptionably ‘as the life of 
‘Charles has been written, and in every 

_body’s hands also as that life certainly is, 
it required no common degree of courage to 
go over a ground which had been tracked 
in almost every direction. Nothing appa- 
rently was left but the interior history of 
the country, of which not much is known, 
and that not of much interest, and the per- 
sonal, or rather private conduct of the 
' monarch, which was any thing but com- 
manding and respectable. To make the 
story, however, complete and independent, 
» the author has industriously gone over the 
whole series of his acts of government ; and, 
moreover, omitted nothing to exhibit the 
gay but heartless monarch and his court, 
in the most attractive, and to the very fur- 
thest point that kindliness and charity would 
permit, in the most amiable light. This, 
however, was a difficult anda trying matter. 
Take away the frankness, the freedom, the 
occasional chivalry, which are admirable 
qualities—take away, too, the gaiety and 
Spirit of the man, which are qualities of 
very equivocal value, and what have we left 
—profligacy in domestic life, cruelty and 
carelessness in public, and in both, caprice, 
_ indolence, intemperance, and a degree of 
_ subjugation to wayward women—to a 
mother and a mistress, or rather to many 
mistresses, who forced him to protect their 
unworthy favourites, and share in the ex- 
cesses of a guilty revenge. “ Je n’aime 
guere Francois ler,” says Voltaire, in his 
exquisite manner, when glancing over sub- 
jects which he has before minutely consi- 
dered, “ Je ne vois guére dans Francois 
ler. que des actions ou injustes, ou honteu- 
ses, ou folles. Rien n’est plus injuste que le 
procés intenté au connéctable qui s’en vengea 


a” 


si bien, et que le supplice de Samblangai qui 
ne fut vengé par personne. L/atrocité et 
la bétise d’accuser un pauyre chimiste italien 
d’avoir empoisonné le dauphin son maitre, 
a Vinstigation de Charles-Quint, doit cou- 
vrir Francois ler. d’une honte éternelle. I 
ne sera jamais honorable d’ayoir envoyé ses 
deux enfans en Espagne, pour avoir le 
loisir de violer sa parole en France,” &c. 

Conflicting with Charles for thirty years 
(for our Henry’s caprice and coxcombry, 
and Wolsey’s avarice, made them compa- 
ratively insignificant opponents), no experi- 
ence was of service to him; he was never 
ready, or beforehand with his enemy, and 
always without money, without system, 
without efficient combination. Nothing 
but the Emperor’s undertaking perpetually 
more than he could accomplish, with his un- 
united and unusually scattered forces, could 
have saved Francis from final ruin, and the 
dismemberment of his kingdom. Any 
thing like consistency, or steadiness of pur- 
pose, was not to be expected from one whose 
adventurousness and indiscretion were con- 
tinually plunging him into difficulties ; but 
why, when protecting, or rather undertaking 
to protect, Protestants in Germany, treat 
them at home with a severity and savage- 
ness which was utterly uncalled for by any 
peculiar hazards? Nay, he could even su- 
perintend in person their executions on 
gibbets suspended over flames, and com- 
mand the wretched victims, after’scorching, 
to be run up, and let down again, and 
this repeatedly for hours, to protract the 
miseries of martyrdom, for the edifica- 
tion of the spectators, or their sport. If his 
own son, he declared, would not believe in 
transubstantiation, he would burn him too. 
This is not to be accounted for, and lightly 
passed over, by confounding it with the 
spirit of the age (superiority is shewn in re- 
sisting such spirit), it proceeded from a 
reckless humour—a hard and unsympathizing 
bosom, with a disposition—a mixture of the 
ape and tiger—to cruelty, that required 
only a little more opposition to break out 
into a Nero. 

To counterbalance—the story of his life 
presents nothing worthy of admiration, even 
to the most disposed to admire, but’a little 
reformation in the administration of justice, 
by the revival of circuit-courts to check the 
tyranny of the nobles—which, however, 
soon fell again into disuse— and the projec- 
tion of a royal college, and the intention of 
endowing it with a rental of 100,000 livres 
for the gratuitous instruction of 600 scholars, 
but which terminated with him in the 
appointment of sundry learned professors, 
with salaries, irregularly, or, more correctly, 
rarely paid. ‘T'o these must be added what 
is called. his patronage of the arts, which 
amounts to the occasional employment of 


654 


Leonardo da Vinci and Titian, and the pur- 
chase of a few. bronze castes of antique 
statues. Apparently, however, this slender 
protection—he had too many. ways of spend~ 
ing money to do more—gave rise to the 
French school of painting; and his own 
taste for verse making, with his sister’s 
most decided talents, gave a spur to litera- 
ture, though, if Marot and Rabelais be ex- 
cepted, it will be difficult to discover a name 
that still lives in the records of fame. 

One of the foulest stains in the life of 
Francis, fs the sacrifice of Semblangai. The 
author throws the whole blame upon the 
Duchess’ D’Angouleme, the king’s mother, 
and the Chancellor Du Prat,” her tool ; and 
_ doubtless the evidence is irresistible that she 
was the original demon; but it should not 
be kept out of sight, or in the back ground, 
that Semblangai’s ‘innocence, and the Du- 
chess’s falsehood were made manifest to the 
king, who, nevertheless, suffered him to be 
executed, on a charge of malversation, which 
he knew to be groundless, to gratify his 
mother’s revenge. 

‘Infinite pains too are taken to represent 
in the fairest light, the solicitude of Francis 
—his frank offers of pardon, the amiable 
and earnest manner with which he endea- 
voured to recal the revolting Bourbon to his 
duty; but it should be more distinctly 
marked, and be placed conspicuously in the 
foreground, that he suffered his mother, 
though he knew her motives, to injure him 
deeply in his fortunes, and himself assisted 
in wounding his honour and his pride—that 
the attempt to conciliate was obviously too 
late—that Bourbon had no security, and 
surely could have no reliance on the steadi- 
ness or even honour of a man, swayed as 
that man was, by profligate women. 

£n revanche, the author no where spares 
the Duchess, nay, on one occasion he has 
even hazarded a charge that appears to have 
no specific foundation, on the principle ap- 
parently that no great harm was done by 
the risk. Speaking of her regency during 
her son’s imprisonment, he observes, “ It is 
not improbable that had the regency been 


* Of this man, the author takes a story from 
a MS.,. copied by Gaillard, in his Life of Fran- 
cis:—-Duprat had said in one of the conversa- 
gions with the Emperor’s minister, that he would 
gonsent to lose his head if his sovereign had aided 
Rebert de la Mark against Charles. The Spanish 
chancellor claimed du Prat’s head as forfeited, 
for, he said, be had in bis possession letters which 
»proved Francis’s connivance with Robert de la 
Mark. “My head js my own yet,” replied Du 
Prat, “for I haye the originals of the letters 
‘yon allude to, and they in no manner justify the 
scorn you would put upon them.’ “ If I had won 
your head,’’ replied the imperial chancellor, “ you 
might keep it still. I protest T would rather have 
a pig's head, for that would be more eatable.”"— 
MSS. de Bethune, No. 8179, apud Gaillard. 


Monthly Review of Literature, 


[v UNE, 


in other hands, his confinement might have 
been of shorter duration.” 

The book, however, may be safely com- 
mended as the result of original and close 
inquiry. The writer has carefully and faith- 
fully studied the more obvious sources of 
history, nor has he neglected the cotempo- 
rary and less hackneyed ones—Montluc 
and the two Langeis. The memoirs of the 
elder Langei, contains, he observes, a very 
accurate and faithful narrative (of course, he 
means, apparently) of the principal events 
of the times in which he lived, and ate, 
with those of his brother, Du Bellay, to the 
reign of Francis, what the memoirs of Sully 
are to that of Henry the Fourth. Though 
not duly rewarded by the monarch whom he 
served, Langei’s merit was duly estimated ; 
but the highest eulogium that his political 
memory has received, proceeded from the 
mouth of his enemy. The emperor, when 
he heard of his death, said, “ That man has 
done me more harm than all the people of 
France besides.”” Of Montluc’s commenta- 
ries on the times in which he lived, and in 
which he was a most active performer, the 
author justly remarks—“ His work is ex 


tremely valuable for the light it throws on the 


military history of that period ; and for the 
simplicity, jadiciousness, and grave humour 
with which it is written, can hardly be 
equalled by any of even those cotemporary 
authors whose lives had been less busily 
employed, and whose education had been 


more carefully conducted than that of © 


Montluc. His account of the Dauphin’s 
attempt to recover Boulogne from the 
English is extremely amusing. He is 
sorely perplexed between his reluctance 
to admit that his- party was defeated, 
and the necessity of telling the truth. 
The complacency with which he speaks of 
his knowledge of the English language is 
irresistible :— 


« Tout 4 un coup voici une grande troupe 
@Anglois quai venoient, la teste baissée, droit a 
nous qui estions devant léglise, et en la rae 
joignaut a icelle, criant, ‘ Vuho, goeht there?’ 
c’est a dire, ‘Qui va la? Je leur respondis en 
Anglois, ‘.4frind, afrind :’ qui veut dire, * Amis, 
amis;’ car de toutes les langues qui se sont 
meslées } army nous, i’ai apprins quelques mots, 


et passablement l’Italien et Espagnol; celam’a 
Comme ces Anglois eurent fait 
d'autres demandes, et gue je fus au bout de mon ~ 
Latin, ils’ poursuivirent en criant, ‘Quill Quill 4 


par fois serui. 


Quil!’ c'est a dire, ‘Tue! Tue! Tue?” 


The Library of Entertaining Know- 
ledge. Part I. of Vol. I. 1829.—The 
Society for. the Diffusion of Useful Know- 
ledge, has commenced a new series of pub- 


‘lications, called The Library of Entertaining 
‘Knowledge. 
‘is entitled The Menageries, and is occupied 
“with quadrupeds solely—the dog, wolf, 


The first part, now, before us, 


jackall, fox, hyena, lion, tiger, and cat. 


1829.9 


The aim of the society, in this particular 
department, or rather that of the very intel- 
ligent and skilful compiler, is not to give a 
systematic work upon Zoology, comprising 
every specimen of the animal kingdom, but 
to supply information as to the peculiarities, 
talents, qualities, and capabilities of such 
animals as fall more or less under closer 
inspection, and not—what is the common, 
but very unworthy object of naturalists—to 
make these matters subordinate to classifi- 
cation. The Menagerie of Regent’s Park,— 
the King’s collection at Windsor—that of 
the Tower—and animals in the possession 
of private individuals in different parts of 
the country, but chiefly in the neighbour- 
hood of London, have furnished him with 
the specimens, which he has described and 
drawn ; and he professes distinctly to ven- 
ture nothing which does not rest upon his 
‘own knowledge, or upon the testimony of 
unexceptionable authorities. 3 
A well-ordered menagerie is the only 
means, at home, of observing accurately, 
the natural habits of undomesticated ani- 
mals. A kangaroo in a cage, is scarcely 
worth looking at; but see him in a pad- 
dock, as in Windsor Park, and his spring 
_ and bound at once fixes attention, and 
_shews a new variety in the exhaustless con- 
trivances of nature. 
private gentleman at Limehouse, there are 
three monkeys, in a state of remarkable 
freedom. “‘ We went,”’ says the author, “to 
see them, with but few anticipations of 
pleasure ; for a monkey, as monkeys are 
ordinarily seen, confined in a box, shews 
‘little but the cunning and rapacity of his 
race. The monkeys at Limehouse were let 
loose into an orchard, in which were some 
high and spreading elms: their gambols 
_ were the most diverting that could be ima- 
_‘gined. They pursued each other to the top 
“of the highest branch, where they sat fear- 
lessly chattering, and in an instant they 
would throw themselves down, with uner- 
xing aim, some twenty feet, and resting 
- upon the bough which they had selected to 
leap at, would swing to and fro with mani- 
* fest delight. We shall not be satisfied,” he 
adds, ‘‘again with a menagerie which has 
; not trees for its monkeys to sport on.” 
7 e sloth, again, is usually described as 
slow in his movements, and as in a perpe- 
_ tual state of pain ; and from his supposed 
; inaction his name is derived. ‘‘ And why is 
this ?”’ asks the author. ‘‘ He has not been 
- seen in his native woods by those who de- 
__ scribed him ; he was resting on the floor of 
some place of confinement. His feet are 
‘not formed for walking on the ground ; 
cannot act in a perpendicular direc- 
tion; and his sharp and long claws are 
curved. He can only moye on the ground 
by pulling himself along by some inequali- 
ties on the surface; and, therefore, on a 
smooth floor, he is. perfectly wretched. He 
is intended to pass ‘his life in trees; he 
does not move or rest wpon the branches, 


Domestic and Foreign. ; 


At the residence of a _ 


“655 


but under them ; he is constantly suspend- 
ed by his four legs: and he thus travels 
from branch to branch, eating his way, and 
sleeping when he is satisfied. To put such 
a creature in aden is to torture him, and 
to give false notions of his habits. If the 
sloth be placed in a menagerie, he should 
have a tree for his abode; and then we 
should find that he is neither habitually ins 
dolent, nor constantly suffering.” - ; 
This is good common sense, and “ enter 
taining,” and “ useful” knowledge. The 
writer keeps, we observe, a sharp look out— 
for we find him quoting the journal of a 
naturalist, and other recent. publications. 
The second publication of the same class, 
we have but just glanced at, but it is of 
the same practical character, and_-filled with 
the latest information—we find extracts ~ 
from the Quarterly on the subject’ of the 
Oak, and from Walter Scott, on Firs, &c. 5 
but the subject, Trees used inthe Arts, is 
more exclusively “‘wseful.’’ The “ enter- 
taining” can scarcely belong to-any thing 
unconnected with life and mobility. 


Schiller’s William Tell; 1829.—Be the 
celebrity of this play what it may in Ger- 
many, it never can win any admiration, 
and scar¢ely any distinction, in an English 
dress. It is too thoroughly German—too 
minute, particularizing—too lecal, topogra- 
phical—too full of national allusions, feelings, 
and associations—too homely and unadorn- 
ed, also—to bear transfusion into an uncon- 
genial element. It is a Flemish picture, 
moreoyer—faithful.exact, but too unselect and 
unideal, except occasionally in the senti- 
ments of the more elevated parts. The chief 
agents and the subordinate ones are brought 
forward too much in equal relief; the cha- 
racters crowd upon us in numbers.that defy 
individualizing ; and, the fact is, there is 
very little character, strictly speaking, dis- 
tinctly and extensively developed — few 
shades, and little discrimination. Baum- 
garten, and Walter Fiirst, and Stauffacher, 
are none of them distinguishable from each 
other, but by their names and personal acts 
—the tone and calibre of all is the same— 
they are all of the same family, animated by 
one soul and one spirit—a sort of modern 
Geryon. The cutting out of about one half 
of the characters, and a third of the scenes, 
would greatly concentrate the interest of the 
piece. The grand scene—the apple-shoot- 
ing—is fitted only for a melo-drame; and, 
being of questionable historical authority, 
might have been judiciously superseded by 
some invention of the poet. 

The play, it appears, has never been trans- 
lated—in verse, this must mean—for in 
prose we feel pretty certain we must haye 
read one some twenty years ago; and the 
translator's sole motive for publishing (bless 
his benevolence!) is a wish to make the 
English reader acquainted with one of Schil- 
ler’s best producticns. But, though the 
motive be of the most laudable kind, and the 


656 


translation be as well done as it probably can 
be, we doubt if the English reader will be 
convinced, or will not rather be constrained 
to exclaim, “ Bad is the best!” The 
translator sanctions his own opinion by Ma- 
dame de Staél’s conceptions, in these terms 
—if terms of her’s can be anglicised :— 
“¢ Schiller’s Tell,” says she, ‘ is coloured 
with those vivid and brilliant hues, which 
transport the imagination into the pictu- 
resque scenes, where the virtuous conspiracy 
‘of Riitli was formed. From the first line, 
the Alpine horns ring in our ears—every 
thing inspires a glowing interest for Switzer- 
land ; and so closely does the skill of the 
artist make every thing bear upon this point, 
that the nation itself becomes a dramatic 
personage.”? This, no doubt, it is which 
constitutes the charm to the native; but 
this is precisely the charm that cannot be 
communicated to aliens. The beauty of 
the original, too, consists very considerably 
“in the idiomatic strength and energy of the 
language—in the proverbial cast and mould 
of the words and sentiments, which find a 
recognizing sympathy —an echo—in the 
heart of a German, which vanish utterly in 
translation. Occasionally, the translator 
catches successfully the pith and spirit of the 
original—as often, indeed, we doubt not, as 
the thing is practicable. When Tell’s wife 
upraids Baumgarten for suffering her hus- 
band to be arrested, who had rescued him at 
his own extreme peril :— 


Hast thou, then, tears alone for bis misfortune? 
Where, Sir, were you when your deserving 
friend 
Was cast in bonds? 

sistance? 
You saw, and let the cruel deed be done! 
You coolly suffered them to take your friend 
From out the very midst of ye! Would Tedz 
Have acted so by you? Did he that time, 
When your pursuers press’d upon your heels— 
Did he stand whining, as the raging lake 
Was foaming in your path? No! not with idle 
tears 
He pitied thee! He sprang into the boat, 
Forgot both wife and child, and—set thee free! 


The opening scene is most felicitously 
turned ;— 


Where then was your as- 


FIsHER-Boy (sings in his boat). 
The smiling lake tempted to bathe in its tide, 
A youth lay asleep on its green swarded side, 
There heard hea melody 
Flowing and sweet, 
As when voices of angels 
In paradise meet. 
As thrilling with pleasure he wakes from his rest, 
Up rises the water—it flows o’er his breast ! 
And a voice from the deep 
Cries, “With me must thou go, 
I lure the young shepherds, 
And drag them below.” 
HERDSMAN (0n the mountains). 
Ye meadows, farewell! ; 
And thou sunny green shore, 
The herd must depart, 
For the sunimer is o’er. 


Monthly Review of Literature, 


[June, 


We traverse the mountain, yet come we again, 
When the birds of the spring re-awaken their 
strain ; 
When the earth with new fiow’rets its breast shall 
array, 
And the rivulet flow, in love's own month of May. 
Ye meadows, farewell! 
And thou green sunny shore, 
The herd must depart, ~ 
For the summer is o’er. 


CuAmors Hunrer (appearing on the top of 
a cliff). 
When it thunders: on high, and the mountain- 
bridge shakes, 
Undismayed the bold hunter hisdizzy path takes, 
He daringly strides o’er 
The icy-bound plain, 
Where spring ne’er can flourish, 
Nor verdure e’er reign. 
All under his feet is a wide misty sea, 
Which shuts from his sight where man’s dwelling 
may be, 
Save when, through a rent 
In the clouds, is revealed, 
Deep under their billows, 
The green of the field. 


History of Russia and of Peter the 
Great, by General Count Philip de 
Ségur, Author of the History of Na- 
poleon’s Expedition to Russia in 1812; 
1829.— Russia has no history before the 
ninth century. It commences with ‘the 
irruption of a horde of the Baltic Varan- 
gians, in 862, headed by Rurick, who laid 
at Novogorod the foundations of an em- 
pire, which, by his immediate successors, 
was enlarged to an enormous extent, but 
soon split and broken, after the fashion of 
those ages, into family appanages, perpe-’ 
tually the source of discords—alternately lost 
aud won—resumed and regranted—till, thus 
torn and lacerated, it sunk under the do- — 
minion and tyranny of the Tartars. Writh- _ 
ing under the fangs of these conquerors for — 
more than two centuries, it was at length ~ 
rescued, to be again crushed and rent under 
invasions from the west, as destructive, 
though not so permanent, as those of the 
east; but, finally, under a new dynasty, 
re-assembled and re-combined, to cover, as 
it now does, the ninth part of the habitable 
globe, and control a population of sixty 
millions. 

Over this immense empire, and over a 
period of nearly nine hundred years, Count 
Ségur has cast a rapid but discriminating 
glance, catching, in the wide sweep, at no- 
thing but the main and marking points— 
because, he seems to think, these are not 


times for more particularizing views. “The 


sciences,” says he, *¢ are spreading with — 
rapidity. A larger share of our attention 
is every day required by them. At the 
same time,-our recent political emancipa- 
tion adds to the number of our habitual du- 
ties, and the lessons of history become more 
than ever indispensable for our guidance. 
But how can we satisfactorily attend to the 
present, if we do not abridge the study ofthe 


1829.) 


past? Itis, therefore, a matter of neces- 
sity for the major part of us to have to learn 
only in masses the political and philosophi- 
cal progress of great nations, down to the 
period at which we live.”” Though the rea- 
son assigned for this epitomizing iS calcu- 
lated for France, it is not inapplicable for 
ourselves, and especially as to what relates 
to foreign history; but, generally, the 
masses are for foreigners, and the details 
for natives. 

To facilitate the general view, which is 
all he thus aims at, of the early history of 
Russia, he distributes it into five periods ; 
the first extending to 1054, which presents, 
as the chief objects of consideration, the ter- 
ritorial conquests, and five distinguished 
princes—Rurick, the founder of the em- 
pire; Oleg, the conqueror; Olga, the re- 
gent; Vladimir, the Christian; and Yras- 
lof, the legislator. The second, extending 
to 1236, is wholly occupied with internal 
discords and tumults, offering only two men 
of any mark—Vladimir Monomachus, and 
Andrew—and terminating in perfect sub- 

+ jugation to the Tartars. The third, the 
__ period of foreign servitude, reaches to 1460, 
exhibiting, through its obscure but tumul- 
tuous scenes, the deeds and struggles of 
three memorable personages—St. Alexander 
Nevsky, a great man, in every sense of that 
emphatic word—the able Ivan the First— 
and Dmitry Donskoy, the first who de- 
feated the Tartars: this third period con- 
cludes with the final rescue of the empire 
from the grasp of the Tartars. The fourth, 
which may be characterized as the period of 
deliverance and of despotism, extends to 
1613, and presents, as the most conspicuous 
and influential princes, Ivan, the Third 
and Fourth—the one styled the Autocrat, 
the other the Terrible. The death of the 
“ Terrible”’ was followed by fearful scenes : 
the throne was usurped by his ininister, a 
Tartar, and the country exposed to the in- 
vasions of the west, chiefly the Poles, under 
which the empire sunk for fifteen years, 
till it was reinvigorated by the election of a 
new dynasty—that of the Romanoffs, ori- 
ginally a Prussian family, but settled in 
Russia for more than two centuries, and 
covered, as Ségur after his fashion phrases 
it, by Russian soil and native laurels. 
From that decisive period, the career of 
Russia has been one of comparative calm 
and regularity, advancing from barbarism, 
step by step—sometimes slowly, sometimes 
 rapidly—towards civilization. Mikhail, the 
_ first of the family, reigned till 1645, and 
__ Was eminently distinguished for moderation 
and love of peace—for the creation, at the 
7a time, of a regular army, which re- 
stored tranquillity, and paved the way for 
indispensable conquests. The reign of his 
son Alexis lasted till 1675, and might well, 
in the language of historians, have been 
deemed illustrious, had it not been eclipsed 
by the wild but splendid superiorities of his 
son, Peter the Great. He was a formidable 
M.M. New Series,—Vou. VI. No.42. 


Domestic and Foreign. 


657 
warrior, who recovered from the Poles the 
provinces which had by them been torn from 
her—he was a legislator, who strove to ame- 
liorate the laws—a ruler, who knew how to 
discover and repair his faults—who invited 
foreign arts, founded manufactories, opened 
the copper and iron mines, constructed the 
first two vessels—the sight of which was 
said to have awakened the genius of his son 
—summoned the chiefs to consult on public 
interests, and shewed himself, on numerous 
occasions, clement, pious, and faithful. 

This Alexis left three sons: Feodore, the 
eldest, succeeded and died in 1682; Ivan 
was passed over as an idiot. The crown 
thus fell to Peter, then only ten years old; 
and Sophia, the sister, was appointed re~ 
gent. Sophia intrigued with her favourite 
Golitzin to exclude young Peter from reap- 
ing the succession, and removed him to a 
distant and obscure village. In the hope of 
prolonging her own authority, indefinitely, 
she had the wretched Ivan married; but 
the native and early energies of Peter baffled 
all her schemes ; and, in 1689, when only 
seventeen, he succeeded in wrenching the 
empire from her grasp. 


From this period, Peter reigned alone the 
autocrat of his country; and one half of 
Ségur’s very interesting and stirring volume 
is occupied with sketching—the whole is 
but a succession of sketches—the main ob- 
jects of his indefatigable labours for five- 
and-thirty years.. For the details of his 
conduct—for the concatenation of events— 
the reader must look elsewhere; but no- 
where will he find a more vivid representation 
of the characteristics of the man—nowhere 
will he find better and more fairly displayed 
the definiteness of his views—the force and 
efficiency of his measures, sticking, it is 
true, at nothing to accomplish them—the 
flexibility, nevertheless, and perseverance 
which he turned to all quarters, and varied 
his means—the dexterity with which he 
baffled his enemies, at home and abroad— 
the energy, and indomitable perseverance, 
by which he roused and raised his country, 
to take its seat in the synod of European 
powers. 


Thus forcibly he concludes his view of 
Peter :-— 


Historians of the nineteenth century! while we 
detest the violent acts of the prince, why should 
we be astonished at his despotism? Who was 
there that could then teach him, that to be truly 
liberal or moral is the same thing? But of what 
consequence is it, that he was ignorant that mo- 
rality calls for the establishment of liberty, as 
being the best possible means of securing the ge- 
neral welfare? All that he did for that welfare, 
or, in other words, for the glory, the instruction, 
and the prosperity of his empire, was it not bene- 
ficial to that liberty, which neither himself nor 
his people were yet worthy? Thus, without be- 
ing aware of it, Peter the Great did more for 
liberty than all the dreams of liberalism have 
since fancied that he ought to have done. His 
people are indebted to him for their first and most 


4P 


658 ) 


difficult step towards their future emancipation. 
What matters, then, his abhorrence of the word, 
when he laboured so much for the thing? Since 
despotism was necessary then, how could he bet- 
ter employ it? 

Let thanks be paid to him, since he changed 
into a source of light that source of ignorance 
whence the barbarism of the middle age had 
flowed in torrents over the face of Europe, en- 
gulpbing the civilization of ancient times. Never 
again will burst forth from those countries the 
Attilas, the Hermanrics—the scourges of God and 
of mankind, Peter the Great has called forth 
there the lastre of the Scheremetefs, the Aprax- 
ins, the Mentrikofs, the Tolstoys, the Schuvalofs, 
the Ostermans, the Rumianzofs, and the nn- 
merous band of other names, till then unknown, 
but of which, since that epoch, the European 
aristocracy has been proud. 


The passage we have quoted is taken 
from the translation, which the reader will 
see is miserably executed—full of French 
idioms. If we are to have translations at 
all, surely it would be better policy in pub- 
lishers to get them done decently—to em- 
ploy competent performers. 


The Library of Religious Knowledge, 
Parts I., II., III. 1829.—These publi- 
cations are designed to fill up a gap left by 
the Society for the diffusion of Useful 
Knowledge, essentially, if not professedly, 
open to any who chose to undertake it. 
It is the purpose of those who have under- 
taken to fill up this important gap, to pub- 
lish a series of Original Treatises, which 
means, treatises written expressly for them, 
and containing, in a condensed form, the 
substance of the reasonings and researches 
of our best divines, relative to the history, 
prophecies, doctrines and duties of revealed 
religion ;—together with memoirs of such 
as have most eminently exhibited its influ- 
ence in their lives and conduct. The three 
parts before us, each consisting of about 
forty-eight pages, of a clear anc bold type, 
in a pocket size, are wholly occupied with 
the subject of natural theology, and com- 
prise and. complete the arguments for design 
and intelligence deduced from the anatomy 
of men and animals. The writer has, of 
course, made a liberal but not an unacknow- 
ledged use of Paley, and has, what Paley 
did not, illustrated the subject by wood-cuts, 
accurately and distinctly drawn. The exe- 
cution is, indeed, perfectly unexceptionable ; 
and from the size and price, (sixpence each 
‘part) and’mode of publication, the work is 
ealeulated to circulate where books of a 
Jarger, and more expensive, and more 
‘learned and pretending cast, cannot. It is, 
“however, equal to the best of them. It is 
tight to add, there is nothing sectarian in 
‘the publication—whatever there may be by 
‘and bye. _ : 


Memoirs of ‘General Millar, of the Pe- 
‘ruvian Service. Byhis Brother. 2 vols., 
8vo., second edition, 1829.—Of General 
‘Millar’s Memoirs we gave a general sketch 


Monthly Review of Literalure, 


(June, 


some months ago, prompted by the evidence 


the book bore on the face of it, of full and ; 


fair statements, and the minute accounts it 
furnished of many scenes and circumstances, 
before little known, relative to the Revolu- 
tions of Chili and Peru, and the leading per- 
sonages connected with the management 
and settlement—if settlement there is ever 
likely to be, of these distracted regions. 
The opportunity of a second edition has 
been seized to make considerable additions, 
and some change in the general arrange- 
ment—all of advantage to the reader, and 
to the credit of the intelligent and compe- 
tent author. Additional documents have 
been inserted in the appendix to illustrate 
the military operations in the Puertos In- 
termedios, and especially the characters of 
the more conspicuous persons that figure in 
the narrative. Portraits also appear of San 
Martin, Bolivar, and O’ Higgins. 

A translation into Spanish has been pub- 
lished, executed by General Torrijos, and a 
portion of the preface to this translation, 
expressive of the translator’s sentiments on 
the Spanish colonial system, which is worth 
reading, is prefixed to this new edition o: 
Millar’s Memoirs. 
Spanish brigade at the battle of Vittori 
and continued attached to Hill’s division 
till the peace of 1814. The gratitude of 
his sovereign threw him into the cells of the 
inquisition at Marcia, where he remained in 
solitary confinement from 1817 to 1828, 
when his prison doors were thrown open by 
the re-establishment of the constitution. In 
1823 he commanded in Cartagena and Ali- 
cant, and retained those fortresseslong after 
the king re-occupied the capital. After 
surrendering on favourable terms, he emi- 
grated, and is now living in London, 
“ where,” says Millar, ‘“‘ he is respected 
and esteemed by all who have the pleasure 
of his acquaintance.” 


Syllabic Spelling. By Mrs. Williams. 
1829.—This is a new edition, the fourth, of 
a book very well known, it may be gathered 
from this fact, in schools and families. The 
system, founded upon one originally suggest- 
ed by the Sieur Berthaud, and warmly recom- 
mended by Madame de Genlis—an infallible 
authority in these matters—is that of teach- 
ing syllabic sounds by means of emblematic 
pictures. 
the mind of the suggester, to arise from the 
non-significant and non-communicative 
names of the letters of our alphabet. Aitch, 
for instance, of what use in the world is this 
name for indicating the sound intended to 
be represented ? But a picture presenti 
a hurdle, with the name, and form, and use 


Sort of natural and binding association, 


‘which securely conveys the true sound. 
‘The one is, to be sure, equally a name with 
the other; but the one is visible and defi- 


nite, the other ideal only, and incapable of 
exhibition. We do not ourselves feel the 


Torrijos commanded a 


The necessity for this seems, in 


A 


‘of which, the new student is familiar, formsa - 


1829.] 


deep want of these contrivances, for we can 
very well imagine a child’s being taught to 
read, without being perplexed by names or 
rules for the letters and the sounds—as boys 
often learn Greek, without knowing the 
specific names of the characters. We have 
this moment questioned one, and found him 
ignorant of the names of nine of them. 
But though we may think little of these 
things, there are numbers who do think 
them even of importance; and we have 
no doubt, from the respectable testi- 
monies prefixed to the publication, the 
method recommended has been found effec- 
tive. It is the neatest little book imagina- 
ble, and the engravings delicately executed. 


The Christian Gentleman. Bya Bar- 
rister. 1829.—Colloquially the gentleman 
is one thing and the christian another— 
at least there is no inseparable connection : 
we speak of persons of certain manners, 
and certain conduct, without reference to 
their religious profession. The writer of 
the book before us—a very able person, and 
very capable of expressing his sentiments 

distinctly, and of enforcing them energeti- 
cally, chooses not only to describe the 
christian gentleman, which is an intelligible 
‘distinction, but to deny, in broad terms, 


that the qualities of the gentleman and the 


christian can spring from separable sources. 
“Tt is a mistake,” says he, “‘ to suppose that 
the qualities of the christian and the gentle- 
man are in parallelism with each other, and 
that each draws its existence and perfection 
from a distinct source—that the one taking 

its origin from the world and its school of 
manners, and the other derived from its 
proper author, work together as coefficients 

in fashioning the character of the christian 
gentleman. The case is far otherwise. 

he whole composition is fundamentally 
christian ;—the result of that formative 
grace which renoyates the heart, and which, 

as a refiner’s fire, or as fuller’s soap, purges 
the thoughts and temper from the dross and 
scum of their gross adhesions.’’? The spe- 
cific object of the writer is to portray the 
-eonduct and duties of the’christian gentle- 
man—the man of wealth and influence— 

__ the head of a family—the person whose ex- 
ample and authority is naturally looked up 
_ #0, and insensibly imitated; and this per- 
_ Sonage he accompanies, step by step, in his 
_ practice of family prayer and domestic ser- 
yices—in his politics, his literature, his con- 
_Yersation, his social intercourse and general 
dealings, in the education of his children, 
in his observance of the sabbath, and even 
his personal deportment and positions at 
_ the house of worship. Episodically, beacons 
and warnings are presented against the 
perils of metaphysical morals on the one 
hand, and of mechanic philsophy on the 
other ; for the dangers which spring up on 
the side of “ induction,’ he considers to 
be as great as those which appear on the 
side of abstraction. The former, which he 
brands with the term ‘ German metaphy~ 


Domestic and F oreign. 


659 


sics,”” he describes as tending to loosen the 
controul of testimony and authority, and to 
turn the mind to the fatal folly of looking 
within ourselves, and into the constitution 
of things, for the principles of our belief and 
practice. Of course such sort of censure is 
much too sweeping and declamatory. It is 
good, because it tends a/so to the detection 
of truth, to sift testimony and authority— 
and it is good, moreover, to look to our own 
feelings, and into the constitution of things, 
for facts are facts, and not to be shaken by 
testimony or authority, though they may 
and must be shaken by opposing facts. The 
truth is, it is no philosophy that shakes 
testimony—she rather co-operates and es- 
tablishes its force:—it is the prevalence 
of falsehood and imposture, that has done 
the mischief. But there is deep meaning 
and some eloquence in what follows—the 
fault is—which is that of the book gene- 
rally—it is too undistinguishing, too dis- 
dainful of due qualifying broad assertions. 
“ Nothing better,”’ says he,“ than this 
unhallowed product can come of an educa- 
tion of which real scriptural religion does 
not constitute the prevailing ingredient— 
no system of education can prosper which 
leaves out that which is the great and 
proper business of man. A principle of 
culture is proposed to us which has no 
reference to the end for which we were 
born : its maxims and dogmas are flux and 
evanescent, like the particles, whatever they 
are, which carry abroad the virus of disease. 
Down from the lofty, but unsound reveries 
of Madame de Stael, through all the 
deepening grades of German story, domestic 
or dramatic, to the pestilent pen of. that un- 
happy lord, whose genius’ has thrown 
lasting reproach upon the literature of his 
éountry—through every disguise, and every 
modification, the lurking disease betrays 
itself, amidst paint and perfumes, by the 
invincible scent ofits-native quarry.” 
Discoursing on the eftect of example, and 
especially that of high stations, he descants 
at great’ length, and with warmth, on the 
influence of the late king; and takes a 
side-wind occasion to brand his personal 
opponents with very unmeasured opprobri- 
um. Than John Wilks a more wicked 
man has seldom disgraced the name of 
Englishmen.”? Junius was “ malicious 5” 
the secret of his vaunted style was his 
“dextrous use of tawdry antitheses, a 
certain temerity of diction, and the play of 
verbal ingennity.”” Horne Tooke was the 
man of insolent phlegm, and studious ma- 
lignity. Fox, Burke, and Pitt, are alk 
tried by the writer’s stern standard.—Fox, 
of course, falls much below the level of the 
christian statesman. Burke was by many 
degrees nearer the christian gentleman 5. but 
though the christian. orator, he wanted 
many things which go towards the finished 
fabric of the christian gentleman. But 
Pitt (obviously the writer’s beau-idéal of a 
statesinan) has full credit given him (for of 
proof of course little could be found) for the 
4P 2 


660 


potentialities of the christian gentleman. 
The man had not time to elicit them into 
action. ‘“ If he was not the exact model of 
a christian gentleman,’’—see how prejudice 
can warp even this stern professor—‘ it 
was because his country, with its engrossing 
cares, borrowed too much from the concerns 
of his soul—that time was too strong for 
eternity—action too importunate for reflec- 
tion: but he was every way a great man, 
and chiefly so by the magnanimous dedica- 
tion of himself to the public’—and, we 
suppose it may as pertinently be added, the 
exclusion of others. 

When glancing over the reign of George 
II., he says, of that monarch, “nothing 
was decisive or emphatic in him, but the 
love of money and of Hanover:—his own 
religion, and that of his court, were very 
low—so low, that Lord Bolingbroke, Lord 
Chesterfield, and Horace Walpole, were 
scarcely noticed as infidels or sceptics, 
although three worse men have seldom 
appeared in array against the cause of God 
and the soul.”” Of Addison, he observes, 
‘he had a plausible conception of the 
christian gentleman, as appears by many 
passages in his Spectator, in which chris- 
tianity, according to the view he took of it, 
was a necessary constituent of thorough 
good-breeding ; but in the religion which 
he has brought so graphically before us, we 
see more of colour than consistence, of sen« 
timent than self-denial, of imagination than 
conviction. The christianity of his fine 
gentleman shines only upon the surface of 
his manners.”” The three friends, at 
Wickham, Gilbert West, Lord Lyttleton, 
and Mr. Pitt, are all of them found seri- 
ously wanting. Of the first- he observes, 
“he was a man of great worth, a gentleman 
with many christian graces, and, upon the 
whole, after his work on the Resurrection, 
not too highly appreciated if called a chris- 
tian gentleman : but still in him there was 
a want of spiritual decisiveness—of evange- 
lical seriousness.”? ‘Though commending, 
in much the same terms, Lord Lyttleton’s 
Treatise “on St. Paul’s Conversion, he turns 
over its celebrated pages in vain for the pure 
spirit of evangelical piety, or the charac- 
teristics of a mind under the humbling in- 
fluence of vital faithin the gospel.”” “ Lord 
Chatham was a gentleman and a christian, 
in a modified understanding of these terms ; 
but as his piety breaks out in his letters to 
Lord Camelford, or as it sometimes casts a 
gleam across the path of his political glory, 
it reveals to us no intimate convictions of 
gospel truth—no clear knowledge of the 
saving virtue of the Redeemer’s cross.”” 

This is good, vigorous writing; the 
author is thoroughly in earnest—and his 
object is most important, whatever may be 
thought of particular sentiments. 


Prize Essay on Comets, by. David 
Milne ; 1829.—Every body has heard of 
the Rev. Mr. Fellowes, if for nothing else, 
at least as the eloquent inditer of Queen 


Monthly Review of Literature, 


LJung; 


Caroline’s addresses. Very much, we be« 
lieve, to his own surprise, he succeeded to 
the immense wealth (ignotum pro mag- 
nifico,) of Baron Maseres. Among the 
first uses to which he proposed to apply 
the fruits of this extraordinary wind- 
fall, was the furtherance of science—many 
munificent things have been mentioned, and 
among others a botanical plaything for the 
London University. But whatever may 
have been the projects of himself or his 
friends, one act was the offer of fifty guineas 
to the University of Edinhurgh for an Essay 
on Comets, and twenty-five guineas for the 
second best. This was about two years ago. 
At the first examination of papers, none 
were deemed worthy either of the first or 
second prize; but, on an extension of time 
being given, to Mr. Milne was awarded the 
Jirst—the second was not disposed of. 

But for this stimulus of Mr. Fellowes, 
this very superior performance would never 
have been written; and though something 
better might be accomplished in point of 


matter, and certain speculations omitted with 


arrangement, and especially in the historical 4 
m 


advantage, it is incomparably beyond any 
thing of the kind extant on the subject. 

The-real value of the book is, that it em-= 
braces every thing of any importance, either 
in fact or inference, ascertained or sance 
tioned by men of any authority. The sub- 
ject is distributed by the able author into, 
1. Physical constitution of comets, com- 
prising details on the nucleus, envelope, 
and tail; 2. the movements, or the orbits, 
with the mathematical investigation; 3. the 
influence of comets and planets on each 
other ; 4. the various stages of maturity— 
which is wholly conjectural, proceeding on 
the supposition chiefly that comets are ori- 


ginally exhalations from some quarter or — 


other, gradually condensing, hardening, 
solidifying, perhaps into planets, the chief 
ground for which is, that sometimes comets 
can be seen through ; and 5. general views 
respecting the system, in which some me- 
nacing conclusions are drawn, which do not, 
however, threaten the present generation— 
requiring, indee&, some two hundred mil- 
lions of years to mature them. 

The accuracy of the treasury is proverbial 
—in the midst of millions we find pence 
and farthings carefully recorded. Astro- 
nomers are equally precise; but really, 
after all the boasted pretensions to close ob-. 
servation, and closer calculation, it is a little 


% 
‘a 


remarkable how widely they sometimes a 


differ. Myr. Milne records a few. The 
nucleus of the comet of 1807, according to. 
Herschel, was 538 miles diameter; but. 
Schroter, another German, made it 997. 
The second comet of 1811 Herschel deter-: 
mined to be 2,637, while Schroter could 
make no more than 570 of it. Of course, 
Herschel is the more credible authority—it 
is nothing short of presumption, in the 
smallest degree, in this country, to question 
the decisions of the greater man in any pro- 
fession. 


1829.) 


Then, again, as to the periodic times of 
the comets—Bessel declared the period of 
that of 1769 to be 2,089 years; but then it 
is acknowledged, that an error of only jive 
seconds in observation would alter the period 
to 2,678, or 1,692 years. The comet of 
1680 was calculated by some at 8,792 years, 
by others at 8,916, while Newton and Halley 
fix it at only 570. 

Mr. Milne, we think, gives up the para- 
bolic and hyperbolic curve—of course no- 
thing can exceed the absurdity of calculating 
the returns of a comet, on the supposition of 
any but a recurring or continuous curve—a 
circle or ellipse ; and equally absurd is it to 
talk of periods of thousands of years, be- 
cause that in fact involves a confession, that 
by far too small a segment of the orbit is 
ascertained to determine the whole. 

It isnot by calculation, but by comparing 
and observing, that the probability of Hal- 
ley’s comet began. He ascertained the ap- 
pearance of a comet in the same quarter of 
the heavens in 1531, 1607, 1682, and on 
this ground predicted its recurrence in 1758; 
and a comet actually did appear in the ex- 
pected position in March 1759. The dif- 
ference is attributed to disturbances, which 

tronomers have yentured to calculate. 

Now, if a comet recur in the same regions 
in 1834, or 35 (the perihelion is calculated 
for 16th March 1835, by Damoiseau), no 
one will any longer doubt its identity. 

But what has become of the comet of 
1770? This appears, on probable evidence, 
to have had an orbit of five years and a half, 
and yet has never been seen since. Dr. 
Brewster shrewdly suspects it has been meta- 
morphosed into a planet, and that Pallas is 
the very he or she. If not, he concludes it 
must be lost ; but what he means by “lost,” 
we do not understand. Mr. Milne evi- 
dently does, for he solemnly and italically 

“assures us it is mot lost. ‘* Beyond a doubt,” 
he adds, “‘ it isno longer discernible, solely 
through the disturbing influence of Jupiter.” 
Some new intrigue of his, beyond a doubt. 
Encke’s comet, however, of which we have 
heard so much lately, is the most interesting, 
because it is better identiffed than any other. 
Its revolution appears to be about three 
and four months. In 1818, Pons 
__ ‘ discovered a comet, and Encke calculated 
its period to be 1,208 days. In the same 
regions had one been observed in 1786, 
_ 1795, and 1805. He accordingly ventured 
_ to predict its recurrence in 1822, visible in 
34° south latitude in the beginning of June; 
and on the 2d of June, 1822, a comet was 
actually seen at Paramatta, 33° 42’ lat. 
Encke announced it again for August 1825, 
and his calculation was true to a minute. 
Again he announced its perihelion this very 
10th January 1829, the day on which we 
are now writing, and visible through No- 
vember and December. But whether it 
has been actually seen, we know not. It is 
not visible by the naked eye. Mr. South, 
of Kensington, the sidereal astronomer of 


Domestic and Foreign. 


661 


the day, tells us, by the papers, he chinks he 
sees it. 


Stories from Church History from the 
Introduction of Christianity to the Six- 
teenth Century. By the Author of “ Early 
Recollections,” &c. 1829.—If there is one 
thing less fitted than another to be pressed 
upon the consideration of children, or very 
young people, it is, we verily think, Church 
History. Its pages, come from what quarter 
they may, are filled with prejudices and mis- 
representations. Scarcely any but profes- 
sional persons—scarcely any, therefore, but 
those who are interested in the support of 
particular churches, or sects—quite a different 
thing from religion, for that is a personal 
thing—eyer discuss the subject with any 
particularity. In such histories we find 
every thing twisted to suit the personal ob- 
ject; and, unhappily, in the few instances 
where distinguished laymen have taken up 
the topics, they have done so in a spirit of 
mockery, not only towards the agents of 
religion, but of religion itself. It is only, 
too, since the reformation, that materials 
exist on all sides, to enable impartial men 
to examine conflicting statements, and draw 
honest conclusions, which must be, gene- 
rally, of the most unfayourable kind—vary- 
ing only in degree. In the remoter periods 
of Church History, the predominant party 
took effectual measures to suppress evidence 
by extinguishing the writings and state- 
ments of their vanquished opponents. It 
is, therefore, only incidentally, or by saga~ 
cious inferences fermed on close sifting, 
that any information has been gathered of 
what was so sedulously destroyed,—nor 
would even such materials have been left 
us, had the parties been capable of esti- 
mating the possible acuteness of after criti- 
cism. From these causes scarcely a step 
can be safely taken, without the utmost cau- 
tion—every assertion, every fact, requires 
its evidence to be looked into, and much 
more, every deduction and every sentiment 
built upon them. ‘This, then, is no subject 
for children, let the story be told by whom 
it may; but when it is told by a person, 
whose object is directly and avowedly to 
enforce the sentiments of a party, and thus 
entrap young people into unsure and premas 
ture judgments, it is still more unfit. The 
title, too, misleads—we took it to consist of 
stories of individuals, but it proves to be a 
regular survey of the general history, and, 
of course, the more intolerable. The writer 
uses no measure or scruple in the delivery 
or his judgments—nay, he regards it as a 
point of duty, to apply the most virulent 
terms upon all who are not of the true 
evangelical caste. Vile heretics—bad men, 
are continually at his pen’s end. He is, 
like Cobbett, with rogue and scoundrel for 
ever in his mouth, or a parrot, that calling 
every body enckold, is, probably, now and 
then right. Speaking of the heresies of the 
third century, he tells the children whom he 


662 


is addressing—“ One of. these I will men- 
tion to you, because it is one of which you 
might have sometimes heard me speak to 
older people. Do you know the term Soci- 
nian? Have you not heard me say with 
grief, nay, horror, for I felt it, that I had 
been in company with a Socinian—that I 
had heard him, whom I adored as ‘ my 
God and my Lord,’ called a ‘ good man, 
the most perfect of human beings.’ You 
are shocked, perhaps, that any one could be 
guilty of robbing Christ of his glory—of 
calling him who is ‘one with the Father,’ 
a mere man! Yet this is the doctrine of 
Socinianism,” &c. 

Constantius, he tells the same children, 
like his father, professed Christianity,—7f 
that can be called Christianity, which would 
make the great author of our religion less 
than God. 

Again—Athanasius thought, as every 
true believer in Jesus, must think, &c. 

Again, Genserec, King of the Vandals, 
was nominally an Arian Christian,—if the 
coupling of the terms were not absurd. 

Calvin, of course, finds the author a 
staunch apologist. ‘‘ So far,” says he, to the 
‘children he is instructing, “so far from pre- 
curing the death of Servetus, he seems to 
have pleaded for his life, or at least for the 
mitigation of his punishment; and, nof- 
withstanding the odium undeservedly cast 
upon it by this transaction, the name of 
Calvin will ever be great in the Protestant 
church, which by his means was established 
‘not only in Geneva, but in many countries 
in Europe. But, perhaps, you can form a 
better opinion of Calvin from his death than 
from any account I can now give you of his 
life’-_which he then quotes from Fry’s 
Church History. 

We had marked several inaccuracies, the 
results of mere carelessness—where the 
writer, we mean, could have no interest to 
serve by misrepresentation—but we have 
no space,—nor is the book of sufficient im- 
portance to regret the want of it. 


Flowers of Fancy, by Henry Schultes ; 
1829.—These flowers consist of ‘ similes’’ 
used by poets, and those who, like poets, 
write ornamentally—collected and arranged 
with great industry, and apparently with a 
miserable waste of good leisure, into an 
alphabetical list—thus : 


Buinp as ignorance, Beaumont and Fletcher 
—asdeath, Jbid—as hell, Habingdon—as for- 
tune, Dryden—as upstart greatness, Lillo—as 
Cupid, Sir W.Davenant, Fred, Reynolds—as 
love, Mead, T. Killigrew, and others—as moles, 
Beaumont and Fletcher, Silvester, and others 
—as owls amidst the glare of day, Donne’s Tas- 
so—as bats, Sylvester, d. Maclaren—as a buz- 
zard, Otway—as the Cyelop, Dryden—as a stone, 
Chaucer—blind and silent as the night, Sir V7. 
Davenant—&e. ; 


Tn a very elaborate preface, the author—a 
man, nevertheless, of taste and cultivation 
—<Struggles hard, in reality, to find a jus- 


Monthly Review of Literature, 


[J UNE, 


tification or apology for his performance, 
but ostensibly to point out the use and ad- 
vantage of it. In the first place, he dis- 
covers “it will assist (we use his own 
words) the writer, who, following the light 
of truth, is enabled to convey his ideas with 
clearness into the minds of others, and who 
can occasionally illustrate his propositions 
by apposite comparisons formed by allusions 
to natural and familiar objects of the sense.’’ 
It is too obvious to urge that swch a man— 
if illustrations do not rise spontaneously— 
had better leave them alone; and, indeed, 
nobody will know this better than such a 
man. But, besides, the author, by dint of 
close scrutiny, detects a second use—“ it 
will offer a list, by which a writer may dis- 
cover whether the offspring of his mind be 
a new creation, or an adoption.” Un- 
luckily, this is incompatible with the 
former—they are destructive of each other. 
He might as well have said, “ It is of use, 
and of no use ;’’ or, had he said, “ Read, 
mark, learn these similes—to avoid the 
use of them’’—this had been admissible, 
and in accordance with a remark of his own 
in another place—that the second user of a 
phrase cannot escape the charge of plagi 
rism; whether truly or not, he loses, in 
every body’s charitable conclusion, the me- 
rit of invention, and is considered a mere 
imitator. 

In this same preface, the writer quotes a 
few similes which he regards as marks of 
bad taste, or at least negligent composition. 
“ The qualities compared have no just cor- 
respondence,”’ he says, “* with each other ; 
and they evince an erroneous judgment, not 
unlike that of the blind man, who thought 
the colour of scarlet resembled the sound of 
a trumpet.” The spirit of this decision is, 
on the whole, sound enough; but the in- 
stances are not equally liable to the censure. 
There are grounds of comparison, in gene- 
ral association, and in obvious and habitual 
transitions, though the qualities will no 
parallel :— ad 


oe 


His heart was light as a sun-beam ;— 
His heart was light as sunshine on the deep ;— 
Happy as a waye that dances on the sea;— . 
As soft in manners, as the silky fur upon the 
bosom of a playing kitten! !!]— as 
Sounds which are soft as Leda’s breast ;— ee 
Music, sweet as the tears that the dews of 
night distil ;— ob 
A joy, as pure and stainless as the gem that. 
the moruing finds on the blossom of the rose ;— 
Joys, bright as April showers ;— 
The feelings, pure as morning’s dew ;— a 
An empire, which rose like an exhalation. 


Memoirs of the late Rev. W. Goode, 
Rector of St. Ann, Blackfriars. By his 
Son. 1829.—This is a memoir, by the son 
of a very zealous professor, of the Evan- 
gelical class, which can, from the exclusive 
and sectarian tone of it—for the Church has 
its sectaries—be readable by none but those 


1829.] 


of the same party. The phraseology, which 
from an impulse of impatience, without 
meaning to charge hypocrisy upon all who 
use it, one is tempted to describe shortly as 
cant, can be tolerated only by those, who 
by habitually adopting it, forget—not the 
bad taste of it, for that is an inferior con- 
sideration—but the sense of mockery it ex- 
cites in others; and surely it is no sign of 
a sound understanding to practise what in 
the main is but the shiboleth of a party. 
Nor are the sentiments expressed by this 
phraseology less revolting, though more 
from their implications than their actual 
and immediate force. Mr. Goode—the 
father, we mean—has occasion in a letter to 
speak of the effects of his preaching—“ it 
is the Lord’s doing—the glory is his—we 
are but earthen vessels,’ &c. Now phrases 
of this kind are offensive; first, because 
they are borrowed ones, and so scarcely 
prompted by the speaker’s feelings—there 
is, besides, affectation, and arrogance in 
them—and in the mildest estimate are but 
the prating of a parrot; or if they be allowed 
to express the feelings of the party using 
them, they are still offensive, because they 
imply: a sense of overweaningness, as if 
ey were called upon to exclaim, ‘‘ we are 
en of like passions with yourselves’’—it 
a sort of mock-modesty, as if others could 
mistake them for any thing but earthen 
vessels. But, generally, the language of 
evangelical teachers is offensive—for it 
everywhere implies a personal superiority— 
a consciousness of something like exclu- 
sive favour—a pretension to a something 
approaching the prophetic or apostolic au- 
thority,—while congregations are addressed 
as poor, unintelligent animals, who have 
not access to the same means of enlighten- 
ment with themselves, but must depend 
upon their privileged and inspired instruc- 
tors for the knowledge of what is as im- 
portant to the one as the other. 
One of Mr. Goode’s letters begins in this 
way—“ TI am happy to inform you that 
through the goodness of oun God, I got 
safe to Margate on Monday afternoon,” &c. 
Here is the exclusive tone. In another— 
“the weather is somewhat pleasanter, 
which is very desirable, if it please God,” — 
which if it is not mock, is ostentatious 
piety. Mrs. Goode’s clothes caught fire, 
Mr. Goode was fortunate enough to 
escue her from destruction. Of this “ pecu- 
jar dispensation of mercy,’’ as the son 
les it, Mr. Goode thus writes to a friend, 
_—* Thad not pulled off my great coat in 
the passage, when I heard most violent 
‘shrieks up in our bed-room, and, running 
up stairs, saw Mrs. Goode coming out of 
the door all in a blaze, and running up into 
the nursery, where was only the nurse and 
the infant; besides which, she must have 
been so totally in flames before she got 
there, that it would have been put out with 
great difficulty. I laid hold of her, pulled 
her back into the room, and instantly rolled 
her-up in the carpet, which extinguished 


Domestic and Foreign. 


663 


the flame, but not till burnt much in her 
back and right arm. Had I not come in 
that minute, she must have been burnt to 
death ; they were all in confusion, and there 
is little probability they would have taken 
the proper method to smother the fire— 
perhaps the whole house might have been 
set on fire—indeed there is no calculating the 
probable consequences. ’Z'was most evi- 
dently the Lord’s hand, and it requires,”’ &c. 

“ Had I not come she must have been 
burnt”’—that is, if no other means of rescue 
had been present, but if any direct interpo- 
sition be meant,—if any extraordinary 
sources be supposed to be put into activity— 
one mean may well be supposed as ready as 
another, and if he had been absent, another 
might have been at hand—or the accident 
not have occurred at all. ‘’T'was evidently 
the Lord’s hand’’—so, it must be supposed, 
surely, was the calamity. But such inter- 
preters of events seem always to suppose 
the event is appointed to bring about the 
interposition; and so it may be, for any 
thing we can establish to the contrary, but 
it must surely to most persons appear to be 
an odd conclusion to come to without dis- 
tinct evidence, and of such evidence we can 
imagine none. 

Mr. Goode was, no doubt, an excellent 
man—of very considerable theological at- 
tainments—of great zeal and indefatigable 
effort—tive sermons a week for many years 
is proof enough, but of no very enlightened 
benevolence—of no very enlarged informa- 
tion—of no free or liberal inquiry—of little 
sympathy or concern for any thing out of 
his own exclusive circle, and less tolerance 
for other’s opinions, for he had no distrust 
of his own, and scarcely can be said to 
know those of others, or be capable of esti- 
mating them with any thing like an un- 
biassed judgment. His horror for them, 
however, was, of course, not the less vehe- 
ment. From a child he was remarkable 
for the phrases and the practices of piety, 
originating, we may suppose, in the habits 
of his friends, and their connection with 
dissenting ministers. He was educated 
also by a dissenter of some provincial dis- 
tinction in his day, Bull, of Newport Pag- 
nell. These phrases and practices grew up 
with him—never suffered any suspension or 
interruption, and were mixed up, in his 
mind, irresistibly, with essentials, and un- 
distinguishably so; and the absence or dis- 
use of them, in others, was to him, inevi- 
tably, as it is to thousands, indicative of 
the absence of all vital religion. Soon 
after his ordination he became a curate to 
Romaine, to whose living of Blackfriars, 
after some years, on the petition of the 
parish to Lord Loughborough, he succeed- 
ed,—which place was, of course, the chief 
seat of his professional exertions. 

He was a conspicuous member in all com- 
mittees and societies for charitable and mis- 
sionary objects, and was, we believe, the 
jirst, who made preaching tours to raise 
contributions for these purposes. In a time 


664 


of great excitement, his Christian Loyalty 
and Patriotism, as the son phrases it, was 
strongly manifested, especially during the 
war with France, when he was always ready 
with sermons on the times; in one of 
which, we observe, he recommended to his 
congregation, Robson’s Proofs of a Con- 
spiracy—which will indicate to the discern- 
ing pretty plainly, the spirit of his Christian 
politics—not but the spirit of his deduc- 
tions, and the drift of his spiritual advice, 
were. correct and applicable enough. The 
late king seems to have been often the sub- 
ject of his pulpit eulogium, and, of course, 
in language that accords very slightly with 
the suggestions of common sense in a con~ 
stitutional monarchy. But it must never 
be forgotten, that when the principle of the 
government was changed, the language of 
the liturgy was not, as it ought to have 
been, conformed ; and, of course, it cannot 
be expected that ministers of that liturgy 
will not fondly cling to the language and 
all that it involves. 

The analysis of the intellectual and 
moral character of the man—who was, 
doubtless, eminently influential and useful 
to his party—a good man, too—always 
honest and well-meaning—with some talents 
for business, and some eloquence, and some 
acquirement—displays a good deal of dis- 
crimination, and shews the son to be an ob- 
servant and intelligent person. 


The Legendary Cabinet: a Collection 
of British National Ballads. Ancient and 
Modern, §c. By the Rev. J. D. Parry; 
1829.—This is not strictly a collection of 
old ballad-romances—for, after Percy, Rit- 
son, Scott, Jamieson, &c. there could be no 
sort of occasion for such a thing—but rather 
a selection out of the collected mass of old 
and modern—conducted, in the language of 
the editor, on a MORAL plan; or, at least, 
with an exclusion of all articles of a directly 
unexceptionable character. This is the cha- 
racteristic of the selection, and what entitles 
it to the preference of parents and instruc- 
tors. The editor further remarks, his pur- 
pose has been—seeing subjects of this kind 
have such peculiar charms to both old and 
young—to render what is thus popular com- 
paratively innocent, which nobody, it seems, 
has attempted or thought of before him; 
and, in “ this commendable purpose, he has 
had the satisfaction of coinciding with the 
ideas of a high ecclesiastic character,’ but 
whose name he is not at liberty to mention. 
This, to be sure, is intelligence there was 
no withholding; but, really, it becomes, 
now-a-days, a matter of wonderment that 
young and unbeneficed clergymen do not 
discover that the opinion of a diocesan, or 


other church dignitary, is, not once in a 


thousand times, on a thousand topics, of 
so much importance to the world as it seems 
to. be to themselves.—But this, by the 
way. 

The editor has further wished to make his 
selection national—excluding, with one or 
two exceptions, not only foreign pieces, but 


Monthly Review of Literature. 


[JuNE, 


foreign subjects. The volume, too, we per- 
ceive, is, with exemplary equity, equally 
divided between the ancient and modern— 
the ancient admitting none below the vener- 
able age of 200 years—though among them 
we remarked Hardyknute, which, the editor 
himself observes, first appeared in 1719, and 
speaks of as a modern forgery, and ascer- 
tained to be the production of Lady Wardlaw, 
or of Sir John Nicholls, who employed the 
intervention of that lady in the publication. 
But the greater part are taken from Percy’s 
Reliques, or from Scott, Jamieson, Evans, 
&c. : such as Chevy Chace, Robin Hood, and 
his encounters with Guy, and the Curtal Friar, 
and the Fisherman, St. George and the 
Dragon, Johnny Armstrong, George Barne- 
well, Valentine and Ursine, &c. The mo- 
dern half consists of compositions of the 
last seventy years (what is the authority for 
this new statute of limitations ?), and some 
of the present century: such as the Red- 
cross Knight, Hermit of Warkworth, Friars 
of Orders Gray, Goldsmith’s Hermit, &c., 
with some of Southey’s, Wordsworth’s, Miss 
A.M. Porter’s, Walter Scott’s, Wiffen’s, 
&c.,—and one of the editor’s own. 

But why—we must ask—why should the 
editor be so excessively angry with Ritson 
The language, as well as the sentiments, 
of the old ballads should surely be sacred. 
Suum cuique is a good rule always. Now, 
Dr. Percy took great liberties, which no- 
body denies, with both; Ritson remon- 
strated; and for this, apparently—for no 
other reason peeps forth—the editor charges 
the unlucky remonstrancer with being en- 
vious and malicious; and, by way of make- 
weight, he must needs add, after an ap- 
proved fashion—gross and impious; the 
applicability of which is not wholly to be 
denied} but which the editor was not fairly 
called upon to urge. 

The editor has, however, done what he 
had to do, well; and we have a perfect con- 
fidence that the new volume he contemplates 
will be equally acceptable, and furnis 
another specimen of his own powers in this 
line, equal to his “* Ella.”— 


No !—yet, even yet, for Ella’s love, 
I'll mighty deeds essay ; 

Those nobler feats of worth I'll prove, > 
That lead to heaven the way. 


My op’ning buds, so sweet and fair, 
Pll first secure amain ; 

Good Clement holds that tender care 4 
In Ina’s holy fane. a 


In arms full clad, an errant knight, 
T’'ll roam o’er hills and seas, 

Restoring to the wrong, their right, 
And to the afflicted, ease. 


I'll ’venge the cause of orphans poor, 
I'll crush the tyrants down ; 

T'll raise the meek, that pensive cow’r 
Beneath a dastard’s frown. 


Once more shall Ella’s chief have place 
In many a minstrel’s song ; 

And all the fruits his name that grace = 
To Ella’s love belong.—&e. 


1929. Te 


te” 


»”) 


} 


FINE ARTS’ EXHIBITIONS. 


—— 


THE exuberance of matter pressing upon 
us for notice at this season, precludes the 
mecessity of any general comparisons, whe- 
ther ‘ odious” or agreeable. We shall 
therefore proceed at once to give the most 
satisfactory positive account that our limits 
will permit, of the chief exhibitions opened 
to public inspection since our last notice. 
The most important is that of the Royal 
Academy, where we meet with a collection 
ef works highly creditable te the general 
state of art among us, and including many 
individual examples, in many different de- 
partments, that have never been surpassed 
in our own country, and rarely in any other. 
It must be admitted at once, that not only 
the mest conspicuous, but the most meri- 
torious objects of this year at the Royal 
Academy, are the portraits by Sir Thomas 
Lawrence. They are eight in number; 
and though each has something to distin- 
ish it ina peculiar manner from all the 
est, it is difficult to determine which should 
arry off the palm of praise and admiration. 
Three are whole-lengths, the size of life ; 
nd for airy grace of style, and mingled 
tila and fidelity of execution, they have 
never been surpassed, even by this accom- 

plished artist himself. That of the Duchess 
of Richmond (102) represents the very per- 
fection of natural beauty, heightened to its 
acme by all the inimitable graces of high 
blood and breeding; that of the Marchioness 
of Salisbury (193) includes an intense in- 
tellectual vivacity of look which rivets the 
eye with a sort of talismanic power; and 
the capital one of the Duke of Clarence, has 
a still and unpretending gravity about it 
‘that cannot be too much admired. Next 
in merit and effect to the above, are two 
which include an extraordinary union of 
force of character with happy facility of 
_ style: they are(135) Lord Durham, and (97) 
Miss Macdonald; there is a look of what 
our neighbours called minauderie about the 
Jatter, which is executed with singular deli- 
cacy and nicety. The other portraits of 
_ Lawrence are a not very agreeable one of 
_ Southey (172), a fine one of Mr. Soane 
_ (338), and a somewhat stiff and starched 
one of Mrs. Locke, sen. (455.) 
__ Among the Historical works this year, 
the most conspicuous is that of Benaiah, by 
‘Etty (16). 
“ He slew two lion-like men of Moab.” 
; SAMUEL. 
It displays considerable power of conception 
‘and execution ; and there is great and very 
‘striking merit in the chiaro-seuro ; but the 
-work is of overgrown size, and has not much 
that will recommend it to general admira- 
tion. ‘The little work by the same artist, 
‘on the subject of Hero and Leander (31), 
has ten times more real merit; but even 
‘this is of a nature that will cause it to be 
M.M New Series.—Vou.VII. No. 42, 


generally passed by unnoticed. These are 
the only works by Etty. Hilton has a 
large work of the historical class, “‘ The 
meeting of Abraham’s servant and Rebecca” 
(180), in which he has adopted a tame and 
feeble general manner, that does not augur 
well forhis progressin the art. Unfortunately, 
in the historical class we have also to rank 
the chief of Wilkie’s productions of this 
year. We but little expected, and still less 
are we pleased with, the striking change 
that seems to have taken place in the ideas 
of this distinguished artist, as to the line of 
art in which his great talents are available. 
He has given us, instead of his former un- 
rivalled pieces of humour and character, 
monks, priests, and princesses going through 
the serious mockery of bathing pilgrims’ feet 
—amazons fighting furiously, and priests 
debating gloomily — shepherds singing 
hymns to Madonnas, and sinners kneeling at 
confessionals. This is a grievous contrast to 
what we looked for at the hands of Mr. 
Wilkie. Has his own pilgrimage to the 
Eternal, City made a saint or a Roman of 
him 2We shall abstain from criticising 
his new class of works, till we ascertain from 
what causes and motives they have pro- 
ceeded. 


In point of mere colouring, and, indeed, 
we may add, in almost every other particular 
except choice of subject, Mr. Briggs’s pic- 
ture of Margaret of Anjou flying with the 
young prince, after the battle of Hexham, 
and confiding him to the care of robbers, is 
the very best historical work on a large scale 
in this collection. There is a coherence, a 
consistency, a general harmony in the produc- 
tions of this artist, which would alone place 
him in a high rank. But he has, more- 
over, an excellent conception of individual 
character, a fine taste in colouring, and 
much graceful ease in his style of handling. 
Nevertheless, he is far from having hitherto 
performed what we are entitled to expect 
from his various powers ; and one reason of 
this is, that he has not hitherto made a 
judicious choice of subject. He paints scenes 
in which his powers of conception and his 
skill in delineating character, are too much 
tied down to certain specific claims upon 
them. In the department of external nature 
we have a few fine, and several highly agree- 
able and meritorious productions. Calcott’s 
“ Dutch Ferry’? (66) is a work of rare 
power and beauty, shewing all the artist's 
best qualities in their best point of view. 
Collins’s “ Morning after a Storm” (166) 
is equally pure and simple; yet with more 
of manner, and consequently less of nature : 
for Calcott has less manner than any other 
distinguished artist of his day. Constable, on 
the other hand, has more of manner than any 
one else; but it is a bold and original man- 
ner, and one which is at least founded on a 


4Q 


666 


close observation and appreciation of nature. 
He has two exceedingly cleyer works this 
year, but they are not of a conspicuous cha- 
racter. Turner has a brilliant production 
from the Odyssey, “ Ulysses deriding Poly- 
phemus”’ (42). There is little of mere 
nature in it; but in its place a poetical 
power of imagination, embodied by a power 
of execution, the result of which is the next 
best thing, and, in connexion with a sub- 
ject of this kind, a better thing. 

In that department of art which is nei- 
ther historical, imaginative, nor wholly 
natural, but combining in a piquant manner 
some of the most attractive qualities of all 
these departments, we have a few agreeable 
works this year, but none that merit a par- 
ticular and detailed description. Edwin 
Landseer’s “ Illicit whiskey still in Ireland”’ 
(20) is among the best of these. It unites 
his fine observation and singular skill, in 
embodying the results of that observation, 
in a very effective manner. ‘“‘ Sir Roger de 
Coverley and the Gypsies,” by Leslie (134) 
is another of these pleasant true fictions— 
which are worth all the fictitious truth in 
the world. But the most striking and 
meritorious of them all, is Newton’s piece 
from Gil Blas. It is in many respects an 
exquisite work; and our only regret in 
recurring to it is, that we are compelled to 
pass over such a production with a few 
vague and general words of praise. When 
we can succeed in persuading the proprietors 
of this entertaining miscellany, yclept the 
Monthly Magazine, to double its attractions, 
by devoting the whole of their space every 
month to remarks on Art and its produc- 
tions, we may hope to render a due measure 
of justice to such productions as this of Mr. 
Newton. But this exquisite artist has 
-another little picture in the present exhibi- 
tion, which we prize even more highly than 
the above-named, though it is merely a 
“< portrait of a lady, in a cauchoise dress” 
(114). There is a spirit, a speaking grace, 
and an intellectual life about it, to achieve 
which is the perfection of Art. 

Society of Painters inWater Colours.— 
‘The Water Colour Painters have presented 
us with a charming exhibition this year; 
such a one as no other country has, or ever 
had, the means of equalling, or even making 
any near approaches to: for the art of 
painting in water colours is an art belonging 
to the present century almost exclusively, 
at least as practised by many of the leading 
artists of our day. At present, effects are 
attempted and produced in this way, which 
it was thought, could only be accomplished 
by the most elaborate and skilful employ- 
ment of oil. In order to illustrate our 
position in this particular, the reader has 
only to visit the Water Colour Exhibition of 
the present year, in which he will find pic- 
tures that include qualities and effects of 
the very highest class, and such as are by 
many conceived to be unattainable by the 
means here employed. 


Fine Arts’ Exhibitions. 


[Junn, 


At the head of the exhibitors, in merit 
as well as in number, stands Mr. Copley 
Fielding—an artist to whom this department 
of art, more than to any other person, pecu- 
liarly belongs. He exhibits this year, be- 
tween forty and fifty pictures, many of which 
are of first rate merit, and not one of which 
would not, a few years ago, have been looked 
upon as a masterly production in this class 
of art. Perhaps the most skilful, and cer- 
tainly the most original, of Mr. Fielding’s 
productions, are his sea pieces, in which he 
displays a power of hand, and a feeling for 
natural truth, which have rarely been sur- 
passed. His ‘‘ Vessels in Yarmouth Roads,” 
(11) is an admirable work in these respects. 
Another of his works in this class of scenery, 
but in altogether a different style, is “ Tele. 
machus going in search of Ulysses,”’ (103) 
a scene of gorgeous and poetical beauty, 
that finely contrasts with the simplicity of 
the former, yet is equally true to nature with 
that, or with any other work in the room— 
though surpassing them all in brilliance 
and poetical effect. ) 

Among the works representing merel 
external scenery, we cannot point to one of 
amore popular class, and likely to please — 
and satisfy generally, than Mr. Nash’s View 
from the Pont Neuf at Paris. Itisa high 
agreeable and characteristic work, but is 
without that originality of style which is so 
much to be admired in Fielding, because it 
is so perfectly consistent with nature. Mr. 
Robson also displays much originality in his 
numerous works this year, but, we are sorry 
to say, very little of that quality without 
which all the originality in the world is 
worthless—we mean truth of character. 
His scenes are gorgeous to look upon, and 
will assuredly attract and fix the popular 
gaze ; but they will not, generally speaking, 
satisfy those who gain their impressions of 
nature from nature herself. They are like 
portraits which present all the features of 
the original, and give to those features their 
exact form ; consequently you know the ori- 
ginal on seeing it; but they are on that 
account /ike the original, because they miss 
all the intellectwal expression of the fea- 
tures, and all their play and spirit—conse- 
quently all their peculiar character. And 
thus it is with the landscapes of Mr. Rob- 


son. They are beautiful objects to look at, 


but they leave no distinct impressionsarising _ 
out of themselves, and they recal no dis- — 
tinct recollections which may have been ga~ 
thered from real objects. There is a vague — 
look about them, like that of a summer sun- 
set, which, however beautiful, is like no- 
thing that you ever saw before, and leavés 
no image that you can recal. Not so 
with the scenes of Mr. Christall in this 
exhibition. They display great and sin- 
gular merit, and are indeed unique in 
this department of art, so far as regards 
their intellectual character. This artist 
has the singular skill to give a sort of 
antique and classical air to every figure he 


1829. ] Fine Aris’ 


represents, without in the least degree di- 
vesting it of its natural and modern look 
‘and expression. And this is the more sin- 
‘gular as all his figures are taken from a low 
grade of life—scotch peasants, water car- 
riers, shepherds, and the like. In this res- 
pect his “ Scotch Peasants, Loch Lomond’’ 
(173) is a most admirable work. There is 
a grandeur of style about it that would be- 
‘come a subject from ancient poetry or My- 
‘thology; and yet every part of it, and the 
‘whole together, are perfectly consistent with 
the actual scene and persons represented. 
Exactly the same may be said of several 
‘other of this artist’s productions in the pre- 
sent collection, in particular two of “ Fern 
Burners” (219), and “Scotch Peasants, 
Loch Achray” (263). 
Mr. Prout has but few of his fine, rich, 
weighty and characteristic (howbeit some- 
what too much mannered) productions this 
year ; but what he does exhibit are as mas- 
terly as usual. The most striking and ela- 
borate is a View on the Great Canal at 
Venice. The other leading supporters of 
this society, and practisers of this charming 
art, Messrs. Varley, Lewis, Harding, Gas- 
tineau, Evans, &c. have each contributed 
_ their share of attraction ; and we meet with 
_ Many very pleasing productions by hands 
“searcely as yet ‘known to fame.” 
 Cosmorama, Regent Street.—This Ex- 
‘hibition has just re-opened, with a set of 
‘new pieces, no less than fourteen in number, 
and of very various merit. Some are mere 
_worthless daubs; others have little to re- 
commend them but the interest and curio- 
Sity of the scene and objects represented ; 
and others are executed with considerable 
. skill, and their subjects are so well adapted 
to the peculiar nature of the exhibition, as 
“to produce a strikingly agreeable and inte- 
resting effect. “Among the latter, the chief 
and most meritorious are, the Interior of 
St. Peter’s, at Rome, the Interior of t’e 


named Thom. 


Exhibitions. 667 


Church of St. Gudule at Brussels, and the 
Interior of Saint Paul’s Cathedral. We do 
not remember to have seen any views at 
this or similar places, more effective than 
the three we have named; and the whole 
exhibition is one presenting considerable 
attractions to mere sight-seekers of the sea- 
son of the year. 

Mr. Thom’s Sculpture.—Among the 
most remarkable exhibitions connected with 
fine arts that we remember to have wit- 
nessed, is one lately open to public view in 
Bond-street, consisting of two pieces of 
sculpture, by a self taught Scottish artist, 
Each object consists of a 
figure, as large as life, seated in a chair, 
and representing, the one, Tam O’Shanter, 
and the other Souter Johnny—the two he- 
roes of one of Burns’s admirable comic 
stories. In point of intrinsic merit, these 
works have been ridiculously overrated ; but 
as evidences of an extraordinary degree of 
natural cleverness, they are perhaps unri- 
valled, and cannot be too much admired and 
praised. 

Gallery of English Beauties. —The June 
number of this charming collection ofengray- 
ings, represents the elegant and piquante 
Lady Ellenborough ; and it represents her 
in a manner, and to an effect exactly cor- 
responding with her peculiar class of beauty, 
which is as simple as it is sweet and touch- 
ing. She is attired in clouds alone, which 
cluster about her till she seems emerging 
from and born of them, as Venus was of 
the ocean waves; and around her head a 
sort of starry glory has been added, which, 
if it is not exactly appropriate to a living 
beauty, gives an interest and effect to the 
face and form which its extreme simplicity, 
in other respects, makes it stand in need of. 
This portrait forms the 54th of the Series 
of the Beauties of the Court of George the 
Fourth, now in course of publication in 
La Belle Assemblée. 


TARIETIES, SCIENTIFIC AND MISCELLANEOUS. 


«The Public and Private Libraries of 
Ancient Rome.—During the first five cen- 
_ turies, Rome appears to haye possessed 
: either literature nor libraries. The first 
considerable library was brought to Rome 
/Emilius Probus, in the year 586, after 
ie plunder of the treasures of King Per- 
“seus ; but it is not known whether this was 
preserved or sold. After the taking of 
Dem thens, Sylla enriched Rome with the 
if ~ Deautiful library of Pisistratus; he trans- 
- mitted it to his son, and the ulterior fate of 
this collection is unknown. After the ex- 
| ample of Sylla, Lucullus chose from the 
booty of Pontus, a library for his own use 
‘and that of the studious. The private 
library of Terentius Varro is also men- 
tioned ; unfortunately it was dispersed after 
the death of the proprietor. Cicero also 
possessed a fine library. . Aulus Gellius 


likewise specifies that of Tibertius; there 


were several others in the municipia and 
the colonies. LEpaphroditus of Charonea, 
is said to have possessed 30,000 volumes, 
and Serenus Sammonicus 62,000, which 
were bequeathed to the emperor Gordian. 
As to public libraries, Augustus first esta- 
blished oné in Rome ; it was placed under 
the vestibule of the Temple of Liberty, on 
the Aventine Hill. Soon after, the same 
emperor founded two other libraries, the 
Octavian, under the portico of his sister 
Octavia, and the Palatine, in the temple of 
Apollo, on the Palatine Hill; this was rich 
in Greek and Latin works, and authors re- 
garded it an honour to have their writings 
placed there ; under the reign of Commo- 
dus, this literary treasure became a.prey to 
the flames. In the palace of Tiberius, on 
the same hill, was also a library, the Tibe- 
4a2 ° 


668 


rian ;_ this, likewise, was burnt, under Nero. 
Another great public library at Rome, the 
Capitoline, the foundation of which is attri- 
buted by Donatus to Adrian, and with 
more appearance of truth, by Lipsius, to 
Domitian ; this, like the former, was de- 
stroyed by fire, under the reign of Commo- 
dus. Lastly, Aulus Gellius mentions the 
Ulpian library, or that of the temple of Tra- 
jan, which was subsequently removed to the 
Viminal hill, to embellish the baths of Dio- 
clesian. According to P. Victor, there ex- 
isted at Rome, at the time of Constantine, 
29 public libraries, of which the finest were 
the Palatine, restored after the conilagra- 
tion, and the Ulpian. 

Toads.—When mentioning in our num- 
ber for April the account of a large toad 
which had been found imbedded in a stone 
in America, we inserted a remark of Pro- 
fessor Eaton, or, rather, a query, “ might not 
an egg have been enclosed in the cavity ?” 
To this a respectable correspondent, and 
we fully agree with him, objects, as being a 
most unsatisfactory explanation. The re- 
sults of this gentleman’s partly novel and 
judicious experiments, with which he has 
obligingly furnished us, are, that the spawn 
of frogs and toads will not come to matu- 
rity without the aid of water and heat. 
“* The spawn is of the form of a mustard- 
seed, but nearly black, and surrounded by 
an albuminous fluid, very viscid, so much 
so, that the female could not detach it from 
her body without the aid of water. When 
ejected and in the water, it assumes the 
appearance of a quantity of white currants, 
with a black speck in each of them.” 
(Perhaps boiled sago would furnish a more 
exact simile.) That sun is necessary to 
the animation of the spawn, I proved, by 
taking a male and female toad and making 
the latter deposit her spawn in a vessel, 
part of which I kept there with a sufficient 
quantity of water, but prevented it from 
receiving the sun’s rays; the remainder I 
put into another pan, ard placed so that 
the sun might shine on it all day.. In the 
latter vessel I soon had the tadpoles, in the 
former none.”” We have frequently endea- 
voured to impress upon our readers the 
advantages that must result to science, if 
isolated observers of natural phenomena 
would communicate to the publie an unvar- 
nished statement of what they may haye 
seen. The pages of this journal will always 
be open to such information, which will be 
thankfully acknowledged; to our present 
correspondent we feel much obliged, and 
look forward with interest to his future 
favours. 

Schinderhannes. — At the commence- 
ment of the French revolution, and for some 
time after, the two banks of the Rhine were 
the theatre of continual wars. Commerce 
was interrupted, and robbery the only me- 
chanical art which was worth pursuing. 
These enterprises weré carried on at first 
by individuals trading on their own capital 


Farieties. 


June, 


of skill and courage ; but when the French 
laws came into more active operation—in 
the seat of their exploits, the desperadoes 
formed themselves, for mutual protection, 
into co-partnerships, which were the terror 
of the country. Men soon arose among 
them whose talents or prowess attracted the 
confidence of their comrades, and chiefs 
were elected, and laws and institutions esta- 
blished. Their last and most celebrated 
chief, was the redoubted Schinderhannes, 
i.e. John Buckler, one of whose exploits 
we shall now detail. The robberies of this 
noted chief became more audacious and 
extensive every day, and at last he esta- 
blished a kind of “ black mail’? among the 
Jews, at their own request. Accompanied 
one day by only two of his comrades, he 
did not hesitate to attack a cavalcade of 
45 Jews and 5 Christian peasants. The 
booty taken was only two bundles of tobacco, 
the robbers returning some provisions, on a 
remonstrance from one of the Jews, who 
pleaded poverty. Schinderhannes then or- 
dered them to take off their shoes and 
stockings, which he threw into a heap 
leaving to every one the care of finding hi: 
own property. The affray that ensued w 
tremendous; the forty-five Jews who had 
patiently allowed themselyes to be robbe 
by. these men, fought furiously with each 
other.about their old shoes ; and the robber, 
in contempt of their cowardice, gave his 
carbine to one of them to hold while he 
looked on. 

Captain Franklin. —On the 27th of 
March last, the Geographical Society of 
Paris presented their annual gold medal of 
the value of one thousand francs, to Captain 
Franklin, as a testimony of their sense of 
the importance of his second expedition to 
the shores of the Polar Sea. 

The Keith Medals.—Extract of a letter 
addressed to the Royal Society of Edin- 
burgh by the Trustees of the late Alexan- 
der Keith, Esq.—‘‘ As the Royal Society 
of Edinburgh is the principal scientific esta- 
blishment of Scotland, we hereby offer to 
the President and Council the sum of £600, 
the principal of which shall on no account 
be encroached on; while the interest shall 
form a triennial prize for the most important 
discoveries in science made in any part of 
the world, but communicated by theirauthor 
to the Royal Society, and published for the _ 
first time in their Transactions. With re- 
gard to the form in which this prize is to be _ 
adjudged, we beg leave to suggest that it 
may be given in a gold medal, not exceed- 
ing 15 guineas value, together with a sum 
of money, or a piece of plate bearing the 
devices and inscriptions on the medal.’ 
The above-mentioned sum has been paid 
over to the Treasurer of the Royal Society 
of Edinburgh; and the prizes will be 
awarded at the specified periods, if any 
discoveries of sufficient importance: be pre- 
sented during their currency. sor 

The Water of the Mediterrancan.— 


1829] 


The late Dr. Marcet in. his examination of 
sea water, has been unable, for want of a 
sufficient number of specimens of water, 
taken at various depths in the Mediter- 
ranean, to draw any certain inference as’ to 
what becomes of the vast amount of salt 
brought into that sea by the constant cur- 
rent which sets in from the Atlantic through 
the straits of Gibraltar, and which, as the 
evaporation of the water, must either remain 
in the basin of the Mediterranean or escape 
by some hitherto unexplained means. In 
the hope of obtaining further evidence on 
this question, he had requested Captain 
Smyth, R.N., who was engaged i in a survey 
of that sea, to procure specimens of water 
from the greatest accessible depths. The 
specimens collected by Captain Smyth were, 
in consequence of Dr. Marcet’s death, given 
to other persons, and applied to other ob- 
jects; Dr. Wollaston, however, obtained 
the three remaining bottles of the collec- 
tion. The contents of one of these, taken 
up at about fifty miles within the Straits, 
and from a depth of 670 fathoms, was 
und to have a density exceeding that of 
istilled water by more than four times the 
sual quantity of saline residuum. The 
esult of the examination of this specimen 
cords completely with the anticipation 
hat a counter current of denser water might 
ist at great depths in the neighbourhood 
‘of the Straits, capable of carrying westward 
into the Atlantic as much salt as enters into 
the Mediterranean with the eastern current 
near the surface. If the two currents were 
of equal breadth and depth, the velocity of 
the lower current need only be one-fourth 
of that of the upper current, in order to 
prevent any increase of saltness in the Medi- 
terranean. ; 

Culture of Indigo in Senegal.—Indigo, 
which forms so material an article of com- 
_mercein France, and of which they have been 
‘such extensive purchasers in the English, 

or rather Anglo-Indian market, has been, at 
length raised in the French African Colony 
of Senegal, and from recent accounts, it 
seems probable that the Indigo, which now 
; _Yivals in quality the best produced in 


: 


Bengal, will, at no distant period, supersede, 
_— from its quality, what has hitherto been 
plied from English culture. 
Extraordinary Invention. — An inge- 
us hat-maker has recently taken out a 
nt which, so far as we can judge of its 
‘meaning, far surpasses in absurdity even 
any that has as yet been enrolled. He pro- 
ne to recover the spirits which have been 
_ employed in dissolving the gums used in 
_ “stiffening hats, hat bodies, bonnets, caps, and 
divers articles of merchandize, and convert 
ing such spirits (after rectification) into use, 
by submitting the said old hats, caps, bon- 
nets, &c. to a sort of distillation” !! ! 
Anatomical Description of the Foot of a 
Chinese Female.—That the standard of 
beauty is different in different nations is 
readily admitted, but that any set of men 


Ae 


Varieties. 


vessel. 


* 669 


should regard, as an embellishment, such a 
perversion of the gifts of nature as render 
these last perfectly unfit to discharge the 
functions for which they were designed, 
would, but for the evidence of the fact, be 
utterly incredible. Mr. Bransby Cooper 
has just communicated to the Royal Society. 
an anatomical description of the foot of a 
Chinese female, which is much too curious 
to be omitted here. The foot was obtained 
from the dead body of a female found 
floating in the river at Canton, and had all 
the characters of deformity consequent upon 
the prevailing habit of early bandaging for 
the purpose of checking its natural growth. 
To an unpractised eye it had more the 
appearance of a congenital malformation 
than of being the effect of art, however long 
continued ; and appears, at first sight, like 
a club foot, or an unreduced dislocation. 
From the heel to the great toe the length of 
the foot measures only four inches; the 
great toe is bent abruptly backwards, and 
its extremity pointed directly upwards ; 
while the phalanges of the other toes are 
doubled in beneath the sole of the foot, 

having scarcely any breadth across the foot 
where it is naturally broadest. The heel, 

instead of projecting backwards, descends in 
a straight line from the bones of the leg, 
and imparts a singular appearance to the 
foot, as if it were kept in a state of perma- 
nent extension. From the doubling in of 
the toes into the sole of the foot, the ex- 
ternal edge of the foot is formed in a great 
measure by the extremities of the metatarsal 
bones ; and a deep cleft or hollow appears 
in the sole across its whole breadth. From 
the diminutive size of the foot, the height of 
the instep, the deficiency of breadth, and 
the density of the cellular. texture, all 
attempts to walk with so deformed a foot 
must be extremely awkward ; and in order 
to preserve an equilibrium in an erect posi- 
tion, the body must necessarily be bent for- 
wards with a painful effort, and with a very 
considerable exertion of muscular power. 
We may remark, that in all Chinese 
paintings wherein a female of the higher 
class is represented as standing, her position 
is invariably such as has been described by 
this excellent anatomist. 

Steam Navigation.—That the character 
of maritime war will be materially changed 
by the introduction of steam is universally 
admitted; we have already apprised our 
readers of the proposition of Mr. Waghorn 
to perform the voyage to and from India 
with despatches in six months, and Captain 
Ross, whose voyage to the northern regions 
opened the path in which Parry so suc- 
cessfully advanced, is now. about to 
depart on a polar expedition in a steam 
A little more experience will soon 
convince the mercantile part of the British 
community that the greatest effect can be 
produced by a steam vessel when it is em- 
ployed to tow, not for freight. 


[- 670 J 


(Jung, 


WORKS IN THE PRESS AND NEW PUBLICATIONS. 


WORKS IN PREPARATION. 


A work of fiction, entitled The Five Nights of 
St. Albans, is upon the eve of publication, in 
three volumes, which is likely to excite some 
interest from the peculiarity of its plan, and the 
singular nature of its incidents. 

In the press, Beatrice, a Tale founded on Facts. 
By Mrs. Hofland. Jn 3 vols. 12mo. 

Preparing for publication, under the superin- 


tendance of Mr. George Don, 4.L.S., a new edi-- 


tion of Miller’s Gardener's and Botanist’s Dic- 
tionary, containing a complete enumeration and 
description of all Plants hitherto unknown, newly 
arranged according to the natural system of Jus- 
sieu, and comprising all the modern improyements 
to the present time. To be published in parts, 
and completed in four quarto volumes. 

An Engraving, from Sir Thomas Lawrence’s 
painting of the Hon. Mrs, C, Arbuthnot, is an- 
nounced for the 55th of the Series of The Fe- 
male Nobility publishing in La Belle Assemblée. 

Mr. William Hosking is preparing for publica- 
tion, A Popular System of Architecture, to be il- 
lustrated with engravings, and exemplified by re- 
ference to well known structures. It is intended 
as a Class or Text Book in that branch of liberal 
education. 

The Three Chapters, to be published Monthly, 
under the superintendance of Mr. Sharpe, will 
commence on the Ist of July, with an engraving 
from the pencil of Mr. Wilkie. 

Another portion of Mr. Booth’s 
tionary is now in the press. 

Gideon, and other Poems. By the Author of 
** My Early Years for those in Early Life.” 

The Village Patriarch, a Poem. 

The New Forest, a Novel. By the Author of 
« Brambletye House,” &e. 3 vols, 

The Offering, a New Annual, consisting of 
Contributions in Prose and Verse, from the pens 
of eminent Writers, and especially designed to 
establish and illustrate the connection between 
polite literature and religion. © With Illustrations, 
By the Rev. Thomas Dale. 

In afew weeks will appear, the first monthly 
number of a work to be entitled The Gardens and 
Menagerie of the Zoological Society Delineated ; 
being Descriptions and Figures in Illustration of 
the Natnral History of the Living Animals in the 
Society’s Collection. To be published, with the 
Authority of the Council, under the superinten- 
dance of the Secretary and Vice-Secretary of the 
Society. 

Progressive Exercises for the Voice; from the 
easiest Lessons in Solfeggio to the most difficult 
Passages in Modern Music. With illustrative 
examples from the works of Purcell, Handel, 
Haydn, Mozart, &e. By David Everard2¥ord. 

Memorials of Charles John, King of Sweden 
and Norway, illustrative of his Character, of his 
relations with Napoleon, and of the present state 
of his Kingdom; with a Dicourse on the Politi- 
eal Character of Sweden. By W. G. Meredith, 
A.M., of Brazennose College, Oxford. 

The Village Nightingale, and other Tales. By 
Elizabeth Frances Dagley, Author of “ Fairy 
Favours,” &c. 

A Journey through Norway, Lapland, and 
Parts of Sweden; with Remarks on the Geology 


Analytical Dic. 


of the Country, Statistical Tables, &c. By the 
Rev. Robert Everest, A.M., of Oxford. 

Mr. Northouse announces the Present State of 
the Principal Debtors’ Prisons of the Metropolis ; 
comprising the King’s Bench, the Fleet, White- 
cross-street Prison, Horsemonger-lane Prison, the 
Marsbalsea, and the Borough Compter. 

Travels in Turkey, Egypt, Nubia, Palestine, 
&c. By R. R. Madden, who has resided four 
years in these countries, 

A Series of Dissertations, preliminary to a New 
Harmony of the Gospels By the Rey. E. Gres- 
well, M.A. 

A Tour in Barbary and Spain. By Captain 
Brooke, Author of “ Travels in the North of Eus 
rope.” 

Mr. Lewis Turnor announces his History of 
Hertford, which will contain an ample and accu- 
rate Narrative of the Borough, its Government, 
Franchises, and Privileges, a History of the 
‘Castle, besides the Ecclesiastical History of the 
Town, with every information relative to the 
Parish Churches and their Antiquities ; the Pub- 
lic Buildings, Institutions, &c. &e. 

Life of John Locke, with Extraets from hi 
Correspondence, Journals, and Common - plac 
Book. — By Lord King. 

The Author of “The Opening of the Sixth 
Seal” is about to publish an Essay, suggesting a 
more easy and practicable mode of aeqniring: 
general knowledge, which will include instruc= 
tions fora course of study necessary for that 
purpose. 

Dr. James Clark has in the press an Essay on 
the Influence of Climate in Diseases of the Chest, 
Digestive Organs, &c,; including Directions to 
Invalids going Abroad, respecting the best sea~ 
sons and modes of Travelling, and the general 
management of their Health ; and Remarks on 
the Effects of the principal Mineral Waters of the 
Continent in Chronic Diseases. 


LIST OF NEW WORKS. 


BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY. 

The Life and Services of Captain Philip Bea» 
ver, late of H.M.’s ship Nisus. By Captain W. 
H. Smyth, R.N. S8yo. 8s. 6d, 

The life of Belisarius. By Lord Mahon. Bro. . 
12s. 

Memoir of Mrs. Ann H. Ludson, Wife of the 
Rev. Adoniram Ludson, Missionary to Burmah: 
including a History of the American Baptist Mis- 
sion in the Burman Empire. By James DD. 
Knowles. 12mo. 5s. t's be 

Memoirs of General Miller, inSpanish. 2 vols. 
8v0. £2. 2s. ae 
The History of Scotland. By Patrick Fraser 
Tytler, Esq-, F.R.S.E., and F.A.S. Vol. I 
Price 12s, ‘ 

The History of Farnham, and the Ancient Cis- 
tercian Abbey of Waverley. By W. C. Smith. 

In 18mo. 4s. Gd. 

The History of the Hebrew Commonwealth, 
from the earliest Times to the Destruction of Je- 
rusalem, A.D. 72, translated from the German of 
John Jahn, D.D. With a Continuation to the 
time of Adrian. By Calvin E, Stowe. 2 vols. 
8vo, 21s. 

A Chronicle of the Conquest of Grenada, from t 


1899.7 


the MSS. of Fray Aritonio Agapida. By Wash- 
ington Irving. 2 vols. 8vo, 24s. 
. The History:and Antiquities of Beverley in 
Yorkshire. By the Rey. George Oliver. £2. 2s. 
boards, 

LAW. 


The History ofthe English Law, from the Time 
of the Saxons to the End of the Reign of Eliza- 
beth, by Jon Reeves, Esq., Barrister. Vol. 5. 
8vo. 10s. Gd. 

A Treatise on the Equity Jurisprudence of the 
High Court of Chancery. By George Jeremy, 
‘Esq. Royal 8vo. 30s. 

The History of the Roman Law during the 
Middle Ages, translated from the original Ger- 
man of Carl Von Savigny. By E. Catheart. Vol. 
T. in 8vo. 14s. boards. 

The Practice of the Court of Great Sessions in 

Wales, as settled by the various Acts of Parlia- 
ment, including the 5th George IV., cap 106; with 
a brief Account of the Legal Polity of the Princi- 
pality, &c. &c. By William Jones, an Attorney 
of the Court. In 8vo. 10s. boards. 
~ An Abridgment ofthe Penal Regulations enact- 
‘ed for the Government of the Territories under 
the Presidency of Fort William, Bengal. By 
- €. Smyth, Esq. 4to. 7s. 
Reports of the Cases determined in the Court 
of Nizamut Adawlut, Bengal. By W. H. Mac- 
aghten, Esq. .Vol. 3, Part I.; containing Re- 
orts for 1827. Royal 4to. 4s. 


4 MEDICAL. 
An Account. of some of the most Important 
Diseases peculiar to Women, By Robert Goochs 
M.D. 8vo, 12s. boards. 
An Account of the Morbid Appearances ex- 
hibited on Dissection in Disordersfof the Trachea, 
Lungs,and Heart. By T. Mills, M.D. 8yo. 8s. 


MISCELLANEOUS. 
Practical Remarks on Modern Paper, with an 

Introductory Account of its former Substitutes ; 
also Observations on Writing Inks, the Restora- 
tion of illegible Manuscripts, and the Preserva- 
tion of important Deeds from Damp. By Juhn 
Murray, F.S.A.. &c. 12mo. 4s. 

Lessons in German Literature, being a choice 
Collection of Amusing and Instructive Pieces, in 
Prose and Verse. Selected from the best Ger- 
man Authors. By S. Rowbotham. 12mo. 8s, 

“The Art of Latin Poetry, founded onthe well 
_ known work of Lani. By a Member of the Uni- 
_ versity of Cambridge. 8vo. 
- Lectures on Sculpture: English, Egyptian, 
Grecian, Science, Beauty, Composition, Style, 
pery, Ancient Art, Modern Art. By John 
man, R.A. 53 Plates, Royal 8vo. £2. 2s. 
n Introduction to Heraldry. By Hugh Clark. 
ach improved and enlarged by new and addi- 
nal Engravings, and accompanied with full 
listorical Notices, a Dictionary of Mottos, &c. 
ke. Royal 18mo, 21s. coloured ; 9s. 6. plain. 
A Treatise on the Police and Crimes of the 
Metropolis. By the Editor of the ‘‘ Cabinet Law- 
yer.’’ 8vo. 12s. boards. 

An Epitome of the Game of Whist ; consisting 
of an Introduction to the Mode of Playing and 
Scoring; the Laws of the Game essentially re- 
formed ; and Maxims for Playing, arranged ona 
new andvimple Plan, By E.M. Arnaud. 18mo. 
2s, 6d. boards. 

* Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and 


a 


List of New Works. 


Statesmen; Second Series, 


671 


By. W. S. Landor, 
Esq. 2 vols. 8vo. 283, 

Foscarine; or, the Patrician of Venice, 
small 8yo. 20s. 

Miscellanies, in Two Parts, Prose and Verse, 
by W. Mavor, LL.D. 8yvo. 15s, 

A Descriptive Catalogue of the Oriental Manu- 
scripts, collected by the late Lieut.-Colonel C. 
Mackenzie, Surveyor-General of India. By H. 
H. Wilson, Esq. 2 vols.8vo. £1. 12s. 

The East India Directory for 1829, Corrected to 
the present Time. 10s, 


NATURAL HISTORY. € 

The Nineteenth Part of Cuvier’s Animal King- 
dom. By E. Griffith, F.L.S., and others, being 
the Sixth of the Class Aves, 123. plain; royal 
8vo., coloured, 24s, 

Biographical Sketches and Authentic Anec- 
dotes of Dogs, exhibiting remarkable Instances of 
the Instinct, Sagacity, and social Disposition of 
this faithful Animal: illustrated by Representa- 
tions of the most striking Varieties, and by cor- 
rect Portraits of celebrated or remarkable Dogs, 
from Drawings chiefly Original. By Captain 
Thomas Brown, F.R.S., &e. Royal 18mo, 8s. 6d. 
boards. 

A Deseriptive Catalogue of the Lepidopterous 
Insects contained in the Museum of the Hon. East 
India Company, illustrated by Coloured Figures 
of New Species, &e. By T. Horsfield, M.D., 
F.R.S., &c. Part II., in royal 4to. £1. 11s. 6d.; 
cr, with Proof Impressions, and all the Plates 
coloured, £2. 2s. ; 

The Beavers and the Elephant, Stories in Na- 
tural History fur Children. By a Mother. 18mo. 
2s, 6d. 


2 vols. 


NOVELS AND TALES. 

Romances of Real Life. By the Authoress of 
** Hungarian Tales.” 3 vols. post8vyo. £1. 11s. 6d. 
The School of Fashion. 3 vols post Svo. 27s. 

Richelieu, a Tale of France. 3 vols. post 8yo. 
£1. 11s. 6d. 

The Sectarian, or the Church and the Meeting 
House. 3vols. post 8vo. 273. 

Geraldine of Desmond, or Ireland inthe Reign 
of Elizabeth, an Historical Romance. 3 vols 
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D’Erbine, or the Cynic. A Novel of the “De 
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Anne of Gierstein, a New Novel by Sir Walter 
Scott. 3 vols. post 8vo. £1. 11s. 6d. 

The Chelsea Pensioners. By the Author of 
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Reay Morden, a Novel. 3 vols. post 8vo. 24s. 

Margaret Croyton. By Leigh Cliffe, Esq. 3 
vols, post 8yo. 27s. 

Shreds and Patches of History, in the Form of 
Riddles. 2 vols. 12mo. 

Tales of Field and Flood, with Sketches of Life 
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of War,” &c, &e, Small 8yo, 7s. 6d. boards, 

- Tales of a Physician. By W. H. Harrison. 
post 8vo. 7s Gd, : 

Chapters on Churehyards. By the Authoress 
of Ellen Fitzarthur.” 2 vols. 12mo, 12s. 


POETRY. 

Fugitive Pieces and Reminiscences of Lord 
Byron: containing an entire New Edition of the 
Hebrew Melodies, with the addition of several 
never before published. Also some Qriginal 
Poetry, Letters, and Recollections of Lady Caro- 
line Lamb. By IJ. Nathan, Author of an Essay 


672 


.on the History and Theory of Music,” 
8s. 6d. 

Jolin Huss, or the Council of Constance, a 
Poem, with Historical and Descriptive Notes. 
12mo. 4s. 6d. 

The Garland, a Collection of Miscellaneous 
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18mo. 3s. 

Repentance, and other Poems, By Mary Anne 
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‘Post 8yo. 5s. boards, 

Alfred the Great, a Drama, in Five Acts, 3s. 

The Hope of Immortality, a Poem, in Four 
Parts. I2mo. 6s. 

’ Poems and Essays. By John Bennett, Author 
of “ Short Hand Explained,” &c. 3s. boards. 

Twelve Dramatic Sketches, founded on the 
Pastoral Poetry of Scotland. By W. M. He- 
therington, A.M. 12mo. 


RELIGION, MORALS, &c. 

Sermons on Various Subjects and Occasions. 
-By the Rev. James Walker, D.D., Episcopal Pro- 
fessor of Divinity. 8vo. 10s. 6d. 

Sermons. By the Rey. I. Jones, A.M., of St. 
Andrew’s Chureh, Liverpool. 8vo. 10s. 6d. 

Seven Sermons on Our Lord’s Temptation, 
grounded upon those of the learned Bishop An- 
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sa Sermon on the Passion. By the Rey. William 
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Parochial Letters from a Beneficed Clergyman 
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Essays on the Pursuit of Truth, the Progress 
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A Paraphrastic Translation of the Apostolical 
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The Antisceptic: (a Father’s Gift to his Chil- 
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of Testimony itself. 12mo. 4s, 6d. 

Letters to the Jews, particulariy addressed to 
Mr. Levy, of Florida: with a Copy of a Speech 
said to have been delivered by him at a Meeting 
of Christians and Jews in London, in May 1828. 
By Thomas Thrush, late a Captain in the Royal 
Navy. 2s. 6d. 


Post 8vo,. 


Lisi of New Works. 


(June, - 


The Relief of the Jewish People, and of the 

most eminent Gentile Plilosophers, more espe- 
cialiy Plato and Aristotle, in a future State, 
briefly considered. By the Rey. W, Mill, B,D. 
8yo. 6s. boards. 
- A Key to the Revelation of St. John the Di- 
vine; being an Analysis of those Parts of that 
wonderful Book which relates to the general 
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Philip Allwood, B.D. 2 vols. 8yo. 24s, 

A Letter to the Lord Bishop of London, in 
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An Answer to the Roman Catholic Doctrines of 
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Peter Augustin Baines, D.D,, Catholic Bishop of 
Siga,&c. By a Protestant. 6d. 

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VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 

Stories of Popular. Voyages and Travels; wit 
Tllustrations. Containing Abridged Narratives 
Recent Travels of some of the most Popular W. 
ters on South America. With a Prelimina 
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Narrative ofa Journey from Calcutta to E 
rope, by Way of Egypt, inthe Years 1827 and 8 
By Mrs. Charles Lushington. Post 8vo. 8s. 6d. 

Journal of an Embassy to the Court of Ava, 
from the Governor-General of India, in the Year 
1827. By John Crawfurd, Esq., late Enyoy. 4te, 
with Plates, &e. £3. 133, 6d. 

A Dissertation on the Course and probable 
Termination of the Niger. By Lieut-General 
Sir Rufane Donkin. 8vo. 9s. 6d. 

A Companion to the Lakes of Cumberland, 
Westmoreland, and Lancashire; ina Descriptive 
Account of a Family Tour, and an Excursion on ¢< 
Horseback. By Edward Baines, Jun. 12mo., 
with a Map, 6s. 6d. 

A Glance at some of the Beauties and Sublimt- 
ties of Switzerland, with excursive Remarks on 
various Objects of Interest presented during a 
Tour through its Picturesque Scenery. By John 
Murray, F.S.A. 12mo. 7s. 


“4 


PATENTS FOR MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL INVENTIONS. 


New Patents sealed in May, 1829. 

To Henry Robinson Palmer, London Docks, 
Middlesex, civil engineer, for improvements in 
the construction of warehouses, sheds, and other 
buildings, intended for the protection of property. 
—28th April; 2 months. 

To Benjamin Cook, Birmingham, Warwick, 
brass-founder, for animproved method of making 
rollers or cylinders of copper and other metals, or 
a mixture of metals, for printing of calicos, silks, 
cloths, and other articles.—23d April;6 months. 

To James Wright, Neweastle-upon-Tyne, Nor- 
thumberland, soap-maker, for improvements in 
condensing the gas or “gasses produced by the 
decomposition of muriate of soda and certain 


other substances, which improvements may al on 
be applied to other purposes,—28th Aprikgs 
months. " 

To Peter Pickering, Frodsham, Cheshire, an 5 
William Pickering, Liverpool, Lancashire, mers 
chants, for haying invented an engine, or machi- 
nery, to be worked by means of fluids, gasses, or 
air, on shore or at sea, and which they intend to t 
denominate Pickering’s Engine- — 28th April; 
6 months. 

To John Davis, Lemon Street, Middlesex, 
sugar-refiner, for a certain improvement in the 
condenser used for boiling sugar in yacue.— 
—28th April ; 6 months, 

To George William Lee, Bagnio Court, New- 
gate Street, London, Middlesex, merchant, for 


1829.] 


certain improvements in machinery for spinning 
cotton and other fibrous substances.—2d May; 6 
months. ‘ 

To Henry Bock, Esq., Ludgate Hill, London, 
Middlesex, for improvements in machinery for 
embroidering or ornamenting cloths, stuffs, and 
other fabrics,—2d May; 6 months, 

To James Dutton, junior, Wotton Underedge, 
Gloucester, clothier, for certain improvements in 
propelling ships, boats, and other vessels or float- 
‘ing bodies by steam] or other power-—19th May ; 
6 months. 


List of Patents, which having been granted in 
the month of June 1815, expire in the present 
month of June 1829. 


1, John Lingford, London, fur an anatomical 
self-regulating truss. 

— John Kelby, York’ for improvements in the 
art of brewing malt liquors. 

— Benjamin Stevents, London, for his method 
of making marine and domestic hard and soft 
soap. 

6. Richard Trevithick, Camborne, for im- 
rovements on the high pressure of steam- 
ngines, and the application thereof. 

8. Julién Joret, Join Postee, and Lewis Con- 
fre; London, for their method of extracting 
old and silver from the cinders of gold re- 
nes and other substances, by means of cer- 
‘ain curious machinery. 

14. Charles Whittow, London, for a process 
o 4 - 


List of Patents. 


673 


of obtaining from plants of the genus Ustica 
and Asclepias, substitutes for hemp, §c. 

— James Gardner, Banbury, for an improved 
machine for cutting hay and straw. 

— William Pope, Bristol, for his improved 
wheel carriages, and method of making them 
£0 without the assistance of animals. 

— Robert Brown, Burnham, Westgate, for 
improvements upon the swing of wheel ploughs, 
plough-carriages, and ploughshares. 

— John Taylor, Stratford, for a mode of pro- 
ducing gas, to be used for the purpose of afford- 
ing light. 

17. Grace Elizabeth Lenice, Newington, for a 
method of manufacturing straw with gauze, 
net, web, §c. for hats, bonnets, §c. 

22, Charles Silvestre, Derby, for improve- 
ments in thetexture of bobbin-lace. 

— Robert Dickenson, London, for his means 
Sor facilitating the propulsion, and for the 
safety of boats and other vessels through the 
water. 

— John Taylor, Stratford, for his method of 
purifying and refining sugar. 

— Robert Raines, Baines, Kingston-upon-Hull, 
Sor an” improvement in the construction of 
vertical windmill sails. { 

24, Samuel Balden, Ridditeh—and John Bur- 
ton Shaw, London—for a machine or instru- 
ment for the better heating ovens. 

— Samuel John Smith, Manchester, for an 
improved method of staining, printing, and 
dyeing silk, woollen, cotton, yarn, or goods ma- 
nufactured of cotton. 


, MONTHLY AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 


Ovn first and most important topic, in every report, is the past state of the atmosphere, 


and its effect on the earth’s productions. 


In the last we expressed our hopes of a favour- 


able change of the weather, on the ground of those vicissitudes to which we are accus- 
tomed in this climate, those alternations from moisture to drought, from mildness to 
Severity of temperature, and their contraries: and we have not been altogether disappointed. 


BP 2 is forturiate change actually supervened on the commencement of the present month— 
_ the cold northern and easterly winds and April quitting us together, succeeded by mild 


south-western breezes, and gentle showers. This genial temperature continued during 


‘and eyen frosty dews at night. 


state of the atmosphere. 


to an advanced period of May. 


spring weather. 


M.M. New Serics.—Voux. VII. No. 42 


upwards of two weeks, producing the most beneficial effects upon all crops, and upon the 
health of animals, which is always susceptible of injury, and their progress in condition 
retarded by cold winds and an over-moist and chilling atmosphere. 
wind changed to its old quarter, between the north and south-east, with great solar heat 
by day, intermixed and alternating with a keen and chilling air, and succeeded by cold 
a: This weather continued with little variation, and gene- 

rally so dry, that our clay lands became surface bound and cracked, exhibiting great 
_ need of warm and moistening showers, until the 23d, when we were flattered with a 
: favourable change of the wind to the south and south-west, and a peculiarly welcome and 
The following day brought soaking rains of some hours 
finuance, succeeded in the night by heavy gusts of wind from the north-east, bringing 
on their wings a sharp and piercing air, appropriate rather to the month of March than 


Subsequently the 


“These heavy gales must have occasioned various local mischiefs, and the repeated sudden 

langes of temperature, equal in degree to any hitherto experienced, must have proved 
injurious to vegetation, in certain respects, at present concealed from our view. 

se of an old term, an early blight must have taken place; to obviate the distant and 
ultimate effects of which, at this late period, requires an uninterrupted series of genial 
However, accounts of the crops from all parts are generally favourable, 
the exceptions being as few as could possibly be expected. ‘The “ sare and yellow leaf” of 
the wheat was fast recovering its natural and seasonable bloom, during the mild part of the 
month, until the late check ; and it is yet said, upon all good and well-managed lands, to 
be a strong plant, well and thickly stocked. Upon those of inferior descriptions and 
quality, as has been often repeated in these re 


To make 


ports, our expectations are not sanguine: on 
4k : 


674 Monthly Agricultural Report. [Juneg, 


all lands the common opinion is, that harvest, whatever may be its success, must inevitably 
be late. In most poor districts, a small portion of the failing wheat has been ploughed up, 
and barley substituted. All the early sown spring crops are said to exhibit the fairest 
prospect ; and, perhaps, on an average of seasons, early sowing is attended with the least 
risk. The forwardest of these look well and promising, perhaps oats the least so. Beans 
and peas have varied much in their appearance ; and that portion of the spring seeds which, 
from the ungenial state of the weather, laid too long inert in the soil, much of them perish- 
ing or devoured by vermin, have produced thus far thin and unthrifty crops. It has 
proved an expensive and harassing season, particularly to the farmers of wet and heavy 
lands, who, in numerous instances, have been compelled to repeat the ploughing and 
culture of their lands to enable them to deposit the seed, a sudden change of the weather 
having rendered the surface, previously friable and culturable, baked and consolidated. 
The season has been most unfavourable to heavy and undrained lands, the surface of which 
appears parched and arid, whilst all below is a chilling dampness, most unfriendly to vege- 
tation. Potatoe planting is nearly finished; and, as usual, a vast breadth of that second 
bread planted throughout the island. The chief spring business remaining is to get in 
the Swedish turnip, and mangold, or beet, for which the lands, in too many parts, are said 
not to be in the best state of preparation, especially those characterized as subject to be 
overrun with charlock ; in which state of subjection they have been and will be suffered to 
remain, from father to son, by their anxious cultivators in secula seculorum. 'The culture 
of winter beans is spreading and successful. General opinions are always variable, and not 
much entitled to dependence: it is now averred that the last wheat crop was not more 
than half an average, and that there is less wheat, or any other grain, in the hands of the 
farmers, at this time, than during any former similar period. Markets are on the advance, 
both for ordinary and fine samples, which will bring forward large quantities of forei 
corn. The apprehension of the blight insect, fly or flea, has produced some speculatio’ 
and advance of price, in that hitherto unusually dull article the hop. Barking the o 
took place in the beginning of the month, with a continuance of favourable weather 
securing the bark. . Fruit is said to promise generally, with the exception of part of t 
wall fruit, which has suffered from blight. Vegetation is said to be nearly three we 
later during the present, than the average of seasons. 

In the forwardest lands of this county, cutting grass for green food began about the 20th 
of the month. The great quantities of hay remaining on hand, with the stocks of roots of 
those who were provident enough to store them, proved most fortunate, by enabling the 
farmer to support his stock until the grass lands were ready for their reception; another 
good effect in such a case, is the avoidance of turning cattle upon wet and poachy lands, 
whence the grass is sure to sustain a lasting injury. Great complaints, however, are made 
of the low condition of the stock from the home-fold, in consequence of the general bad 
quality of the hay, the best, it may be presumed, having been disposed of. The accounts 
from fairs and markets, in different and distant quarters, vary much. In some the sales 
are represented as brisk, and the prices good ; in others the reverse. The rot has cer- 
tainly prevailed to a very serious extent; and in Lincolnshire especially, and the fen dis- 
tricts, the diminution in the number of sheep is said to be enormous and alarming. In 
many parts, the unfavourable state of the weather occasioned a considerable loss of lambs. 
The season for a decline of price has arrived, and it has taken place, even in pigs, which 
have so long remained stationary at a high price. The scarcity of good horses preyents 
their decline in value ; and the import of Belgian cart horses still continues, with no reduc- 
tion of price. Milch cows, and heifers, to come in this season, are somewhat cheaper. 

Complaints from the country are universal and incessant, at the same time urged with 
a sufficient quantum of passion and irritation. Effects, lamentable enough indeed, appear 
to us attributed to wrong causes, whilst the real and fundamental are kept, either from 
misapprehension or design, entirely out of view. Free trade, which, by-the-by, has never 
yet taken place, a contraction of the currency, and want of money, are stated as the prime — 
operating causes of distress. There can be no real or actual want of money in a most 
opulent country, possessing a currency both metallic and paper, equal to every possi ~ 
contingency of commercial transactions. As to a slackness of trade, such state is neces- 
sarily periodical, however prosperous the times, and a vast and increasing population pe 
sessing the means must be supplied. The state of the labouring population, both agricul 
tural and manufacturing, is truly dreadful and appalling, and the general dissolution ‘of 
morals and want of principle among them, truly lamentable to those who are most disposed 
to commiserate their unfortunate sufferings and privations. Great blame ought certainly _ 
to attach both to the manufacturers and the government, that timely measures were not 
adopted in prevention of those excesses, and that wanton and unprincipled destruction of — 
property, which have so disgracefully taken place. Nothing, however, as is evinced by all 
experience, is so difficult to states and opulent bodies of men, as to take warning. Will 
such difficulty remain in our state, until the great crisis expected by our seers shall arrive ? 
In North Britain, the rent of grass lands is said to have declined from twenty to thirty per 
cent. ; and we have before us a letter from a tenant, who must have thrown up his lease, 
‘but for a very considerable reduction of rent to the remainder of the term, assented to by 


& 


 1829.] 


Agricultural Report. 


675 


his landlord. This rational and liberal plan, it seems, has been adopted by several Scotch 
proprietors, and not improbably will become general, whenever required by peculiar and 


pressing circumstances. 


It holds forth a salutary example to our landlords of the south. 


Smithfield.— Beef, 3s. 4d. to 4s. 6d.—Mutton, 3s. 8d. to 4s. 4d.—Lamb, 4s. 10d. to 
6s. 6d.—Veal, 3s. 4d. to 4s. 10d.—Pork, 3s. 5d., Dairy, 6s.— Raw fat, 2s. 34d. 

Corn Exchange.—Wheat, 52s. to 82s.—Barley, 27s. to 38s.—Oats, 12s. to 32s.— 
Bread, the London 4lb. loaf, 10}d.—Hay, 36s. to 84s.—Clover, ditto, 50s. to 110s.— 


Straw, 38s. to 46s. 


Coals in the Pool, 23s. to 31s. per chaldron. 


Middlesex, May 25th. 


Notice.—Mr. Joan Lawrence, a veteran and well-known writer on the subject, has in 
the press a small but comprehensive work on the Horse, in which every relative topic of 
importance is discussed and explained. The book is calculated for those who desire to 
obtain experience on a subject so generally interesting to Englishmen. 


ALPHABETICAL LIST OF BANKRUPTCIES, 
Announced from the 22d of April, to the 23d of May, 1829; extracted from 


BANKRUPTCIES SUPER- 
SEDED. 


orden, J. J. Wood, and J. Crosse, 
Lad-lane, warehousemen 

Collins, F. Springfield, Upper Clapton, 

- bleacher 

Glover, T. Derby, flax-manufacturer 

Holroyd, W. Old Bailey, eating-house- 

keeper 

-Edwards, W. E. Walton, Great Bed- 

win, mealman 

-Paonrie, A. Manchester, milliner 

Lee, C. L, Leeds, stuff-manufacturer 

Smith, T. Watling-street, warehouse- 
mart 

-M‘Coulloch, H. and S. Stocks, sens, 

} Watling-street, warehousemen 

, ‘Serjeant, J.Weston-upon- Mare, grocer 

Hale, J. Bromley, mealman. 

Wells, H. Bottinham, surgeon 

Harris, T. Newent, innkeeper 


| BANKRUPTCIES. 
‘. [This Month, 155.] 


_ Solicitors’ Names are in 
Parenthesis. 


Ankers, S. Tarporleis, spirit-dealer. 
. (Ellis and Co., Chancery-lane 5 
Roberts, Chester 
Age, G. and Gee Wingfield, Childs- 
- wickam, silk-throwsters. (Wim- 
burn and Co., Chancery-lane 3 
savender and Co,, Evesham 
> T- Witney, tallow-chandler. 
ler, Ely-place ; Looker, Oxford 
ton, T. Manchester, innkeeper. 
ngton and Co., Bedford-row 5 
», Manchester 
$A. Swansea, draper.(Fisher, 
Valbrook-buildings 
day, J. Birmingham,wire-worker, 
Cordaile and Co., Gray’s-inn 3 
wkins and Co., Birmingham 
rdicey A. Chadwell-strect, corn~ 
handler. (Pocock, Bartholomew- 


khouse, P. Liverpool, glass-dealer, 
Blakelock and Co., Serjeant’s-inn 5 
_ _ ray, Liverpool 
Barret, J. Upper Berkcley-street, 
painter. (Robinson, Orchard-street 
Bainbridge, W. Ryder’s-court, cord- 
wainder. (Dover, Great Winches- 
ter-street 
Balls, 1. Litchfield-street, fish-dealer. 
(Robins, Bernard-street 
Baxter, S. Carm rthen-street,builder, 
. (Blunt and Co., Liverpool-street 
Badcock, K.Gutter-lane, warehouse- 
man. (James, Bucklesbury 
Barber, C. Little Newport-street, 
victualler, (Vandercom and Co., 
Bush-line 
» Erooks, G. Town, Melling, Jinen- 
draper. (Farrar, Doctors’ Commons 
" Beckers, G. EK. Brittania-place, Old 


the London Gazette. 


Kent-road,late of Angel-court, mer- 
chant. (Ogle, Great Winchester- 
street 
Buchanan, E. R. Stowmarket, malt- 
ster, (Jones, John-street; Marriot, 
Stowmarket 
Bradley, J. A. Hulme, 
(Clarke and Co., Lincoln’s-inn- 
fields ; Higginbotham, Ashton- 
under-Lyne 
Brumfield, M. Croydon,coal-merchant, 
(Hyde, Ely-place 
Banson, J. and J. W. Wesley, Wil- 
liam-street, coal-merchants. (Ma- 
dox and Go. Austin-friars 
Blathenrick, W. Beeston, !ace-manu- 
facturer. (Capes, Gray’s-inn 5 
Wadsworth, Nottingham 
Besty W. Wolverhampton, factor. (Vi- 
zard and Co., Lincoln’s-inn-fields 5 
Holyoake and Co., Wolverhampton 
Bennet. J. Manchester, earthenware- 
dealer, (Hurd and Co.) Temple; 
Wood, Manchester 
Batt, D. Hazel-Down-Farm, Hants, 
corn-dealer. (Ford, Great Queen- 
street; Frankum, Abiagdon 
Baker, J,Hockwold, butcher.( Lythgoe 
Exeter-street; Unthank and Cory 
Norwich 
Bine, S. Idon, grocer. 
singhall-street 
Cross, J. Croydon, grocer. 
Essex-street 
Collis, B. G. Colne-Engaine, miller. 
(Hall and Co., Salter’s-hall 5 Daniel, 
Colchester 
Children, G. Tunbridge and South- 
wark, hop-merchant. (Pownell, 
»  Nicholas-lane 
Cockburn, J+ sen, and J, Cockburn, 
jun. Berwick, —cori-merchants. 
(Douce and Sons, Billiter-square. 
Cartwright, G. Nottingham, commis- 
sion-agent. (Taylor, Featherstone- 
buildings 5 Payne and Co., Notting- 
ham 
Cooper,R.B. Princes-street, Lambeth, 
dealer, (Lawless and Co., Hatton- 
garden 
Cook, J. Bermondsey-street, wool- 
stapler, (Watts, Dean-street, South- 
wark 
Cockshott, W. Warrington, cotton- 
manufa.turer. (Adlington and Co. 
Bedford-row 5 Boardman, Bolton 
Constable, M. Commercial-chambers, 
flour-factor. (Nichulson, Dowgate- 
hill 
Cosfield, 'C. W. Norwich, leather- 
cutter, (Holme and Co,, New-inn 5 
Lawter, jun. Norwich 
Coster, R. Staining-lane, merchant, 
(Rushbury, Carthusian-street 
Cosser, A. Lambeth, carpenter (Alex- 
ander, Clement’s-inn 
Coster,,J. Gosport, baker. (Minchin 
Harpur-street 
Carter, P, Janies-street, potatoe-mer- 


surgeon. 


(Clarke, Ba- 
(Blake, 


chant. 
court 

Coe, F. H. and F. F. Moore, Old 
Change, _ privters. (Thwaites, 
Queen-street 

Child, R. Walcot, builder, (Williams, 
Gray’s-inn ; Watts, Bath 

Crosse, J. and J. Horden, Lad-lane, 
lacemen. ( Gore, Wa\brook-buildings 

Dickinson, T. Liverpool, timber-mer- 
chant. (Kear-ey and Co., Lothbury 5 
William, Liverpool 

Dixon, F. Oxford-street, upholsterer, 
(Brvugh, Shoreditch 

Davis, B. Leominster, flax-dresser, 
(Lloyd, Furnival’s-inn ; Herbert, 
Leominster 

Edwards, R. Newport, Salopy grocer, 
Poole and Co., Gray’s-inn 5 Livett, 
Bristol 

Evans, W. Liverpool, grocer. ( Adling- 
ton and Co., Bedford-row 3. Hough- 
ton, Liverpool 

Eager, E. Langley, and New South 
Wales, merchant, (Harrison, Bond- 
court 

East, G. Hanover-place, bookseller. 
(Burt, Mitre-court 

Fagans. J. H. Old Broad-street, mer- 
chant. (Nias, Princes-street, Bank 

Fowler, J. High Halden, victualler. 
(Jordan, Lincoln’s-inn-fields 

Finlayson, J. Cheltenham, music- 
seller. (King, Serjeant’s-inn 5 Croady 
Cheltenham 

French, H. jun. Cardiff, draper.(Brit- 
tan, Basinghall-street , 

Freakley, C. Manchester, shoemaker. 
(Adlington and Co., Bedforc-row 5 
Cross and Co., Bolton-le-Moors 

Featherstone, W. C, Exeter, toyman, 
Anderson and Coy New Bridge 
street 

Gallimore, T. Burslem, earthenware- 
manufacturer. (Walford, Grafton- 
Street; Hardings, Burslem 

Garner, J. G. Kyton-upon-Dunsmore, 
miller, (Haming and Co.) Gray’s- 
inn; Greenway and Co,, Warwick 

Gribble, R. Barnstable, linen-draper 
Jenkins and Co., New-inn 3 Clarke 
anc Son, Bristol 

Garner, J. Woolston-mill, Warwick, 
miller, (Jones and Co., Gray’s-inn 5 
Jarvis and Co , Hinckley 

Hanson, G. salisbury-square, commis - 
Sion-agent. (Matalne, Pancras-lane 

Hartin, W. Bridgenorth, linen-draper. 
(Beck, Devonshire-street; France, 
Worcester 

Hutchinson, $. 
woollen-draper, 
Basinghall-street 

Herrock, T. Middleton, horse-dealer. 
(Clowes and Co., Temple 3 Thom- 
son and Son, Stamford 

Hart, J..M. East India chambers, 
wine-merchant. (Bowden, Little 
St. Thomas Apostle 


(Davis and Co., Corbet- 


Mary-la-bonne-lane, 
(Tanner, New 


676 


Narris, C. Alcester, saddler.(Michael, 
Red-lion-square 5 Phelps and Covy 
Eyesham 

Hughes, J. Hereford, confectioner, 
(Fitch, Union-street, Southwark 5 
Coates and Co., Leominster’ , 

Hawkins,O. J. G. Tuffey-house, near 
Gloucester, boarding and lodging- 

housekeeper. (Spence, St. Mildred’s 
court 

Harrington, T.T. Cornhill, merchant. 
(Bourdillon, Bread-street 

Hewett, C, Sidmouth, gardener.(Lysy 
Tooke’s-court 5 Stevens, Sidmouth 

Hollingsworth, T. Goswell-street, but- 
cher. (Hindmarsh and Son, Crip- 
plegate 

Hill, R. Shepton-Mallet, shopkeeper. 
(Vizard- and Co., Lincoln’s-inn- 
inn; Gregory and Co., Bristol 

Hessey, J.A. Fleet-street, bookseller. 
(Hopkinson, Red-lion-square 

Hinton, J. Nottingham, Jaceemanu- 
facturer. (Knowles, New-inn 35 
Hurst, Nottingham 

Ireland, G. Birmingham, brass-foun- 
der. (Clarke and Co., Lincoln’s- 
fields ; Colmore, Lirmingham 

Jarvis, T. Chatham, builder. (Hens 
man, Bond-court ¥ 

jutting, J.H.Bury-court, commission- 
merchant, (Hutchinson and Co. 
Crown-court 

Janson, W. Hayfield, Derby, cotton 
spinner. (Makinson and Co, 
Temple; Makinson, Manchester 

Kay, T. King-street, Covent-garden, 
linen-draper. (Jones, Size lane 

Kershaw, E. and W. Taylor, late of 
Milnrow, Butterworth, flannel- 
manufacturers. (Norris and Co,, 
John-street 3 Wood, Rochdale 5 
Whitehead and Co., Oldham 

King, S. J. Stratford-upon-Avon, 
upholsterer. (Smith, Chancery-lane 

Kendrick, C. F. Stroud, maitster. 
King, ‘Serjeant’s-inn 5 Newman 
and Son, Stroud 

Lowth,W. and J. Wilson, Nottingham, 
lace-manufacturers, (Hurd and Co., 
Temple ; Bowley, Nottingham 

Lewis, T. Rood-lane, merchant, 
(Templer, Great Tower-street 

Lazarus, P. Maiden-lane, rag-mer- 
chant. (Mitchell, New London- 
street 

Lait, W. St. Clement’s, near Oxford, 
builder. (Honney, Chancery-lane 5 
Lee, Ducklington 

Levens, R. Drury-lane, coach-master, 
(Bruce and Sons, Surrey-street 

Lewis, L. Cwmsychan, grocer. (Bigg, 
Southampton-buildings’; Bigg,Bristol 

Lister, S. Hersforth, farmer. (Battye 
and Co.) Chancery-lane 

Miers, W. and’ J.Field, Strand, jewel- 
Jers. (Eicke, Old Broad-street 

Moulton, S. Pilgrim-street, stationer. 
(Tilleard and-Co., Old Jewry 

Moore, G. B. upholsterer. (Poole and 
Co,, Gray’s-inn 5 Riches and Co.) 
Uxbridge 

Murch, J. Honiton, grocer, (Darke, 
Red-lion-square 5 Cox and Cory 
Honiton 

Mackellar, D. Ely-place, wine-mer- 
chant. (Gates, Lombard-street 

Maculloch, H. Watling-street, ware- 
houseman. (Richardson and Co. 
Poultry 

Mathews, B. Hooper-square,victualler. 
(Matanle, Pancras-lane 

Martin, B. Nottingham, lace-manu- 
facturer, (Taylor, Featherstone 


Bankrupts. 


buildings; Payné and Co.) Not- 
tingham 

Mitton, R. Storth-in-Linthwaite,cloth- 
merchant. (Walker, Lincoln’s-inn- 
fields ; Peace, Huddersfield 

Melladew, ‘J. Meadowcroft, fustian- 
manufacturer, (Hurd and Co.) 
Temple ; Hitchcock, Manchester 

Megson, S$. Osset, cloth-manufacturer. 
(Battye and Co., Chancery-lane 5 
Hargreaves, Leeds 

Meirelles, A. J. Liverpool, merchant, 
(Gregory, King’s arms-yard 

Meyer, J. and W. B. Old Broad- 
street, and Quebec, and (Ipswich, 
merchants. (Borrodaile and Co., 
King’s-arms-yard 

Ottway, R. H. New Sarum, coach- 
maker. (Hicks and Co., Bartlett’s- 
buildings 5 Dew, Salisbury 

Ormrod, R- Manchester, iron-founder. 
(Ellis and Co, Chancery-lane 5 
Taylor and Son, Manchester 

Pons, C. J. B. Regent-treet, milliner. 
(Walford, Grafton-street 

Patterson, J. sen. and G. F, Shackel- 
well, boarding-housekeepers. (Noy, 
Cannon-street 

Paine, G. G. and P. Rock, Chelten- 
ham, builders. (Beetham and Sons, 
Foreman’s-court 5 Williams, Chel- 
tenham 

Pryce, T. Lianfair, Montgomery, 
maitster. (Edmunds, Cooke’s- 
court 5 Williams and Co,, Llanfyllin 

Peonrie, A. Manchester, milliner, 
(Hurd and Co., Temple; Seddon, 
Manchester 

Parker, J. G. York, wine-merchant. 
(Leigh, George-street 

Phillips, J. Bristol, builder. (King 
and Co., Gray’s-inn3 Cross and 
Cary, Bristol" 

Pomfret, W. York, dealer in China, 
&c. {Hicks and Co.) Bartlett’s- 
buildings 5; Brown, Hanley 

Phillips, E. Bristol and Melksham, 
vitriol-maker. (Poole and Cory 
Gray’s-inn 5 Evans, Bristol 


Physick, J. jun. Bath, scrivener. 
(Williams, Gray’s-inn 5 Stallard, 
Bath 

Rollinson, J. Stansfield, miller. 


(Dixon and Sons, New Boswell- 
Court; Holmes and €o., Bury St. 
Edmunds 

Radclyffe, J. N. Queen-street, Gros- 
venor-square, coach-plater, (Darke, 
Red-lion-square 

Robinson, J. W. and H. M. Wal- 
brook-buildings, wrought-iron tube- 
manufacturers. (Gale, Basinghall- 
street 

Robinson, J. Knottingley, _vessel- 
builder. (Blakelock, Serjeant’s-inn 5 
Horner, Pontefract 

Rawlings, H. Surrey-street, hatter, 
Constable and Co,, Symond’s-inn 

Stark, J. Kingston-upon-Hull, pawn- 
broker. (Bosser and Son, Gray’s- 
inn-place ; England and Co,, Hull 


-Sherley, W. Stanwell, innkeeper, (Ro- 


binson, Orchardestreet 

Sloss, B. Bermondsey-wall, shipwright, 
(Jones and Co., Mincing-lane 

Simms, R. Simms .E- Simms A. and 
Hamer J. jun. Mansfield, and Not- 
tingham. cotton-doublers. (Taylors, 
Featherstone-buildings 5 Payne and 
Co., Nottingham 

Simms, J. St. John-street, victualler. 
(Young and Co,, Blackman-street 

Senior, R. Manchester, and W. Senior, 
Glasgow, manufacturers, (Willis 


[June, 


and Co., Tokenhouse-yard 5 Whit- 
low, Manchester : 

Smadley, T. Warwick, victualler. 
(Heming and Co,,~ Gray’s-inn 5 
Greenway and Co., Warwick 

Spencer, R. Leeds, grocer (Makin- 
son and Co., Temple 5 Foden, Leeds 

Scott, J. Northall, horse-dealer, 
(Gresham, Barnard’s-inn 

Sheppard, W. Purton, linen-draper. 
(Jenkins and Co., New-inn 5 Clarke 
and Son, Bristol 

Smith, J. High Holborn, bookseller, 
(Lonsdale, Symond’s Inn 

Sillitoe, A. Newcastle-under-Lyne, 
silk-throwster. (James, Buckles- 
bury 

Seals R. Nottingham, lace-manufac- 
turer. (Knowles, New-inn 5 Hurst, 
Nottingham 

Spencer, R. Burton-upon-Trent, vic- 
tualler, (Bicknell and Co., Lin- 
coln’s-inn ; Drewry, Burton-upon- 
‘Trent 

Townley, J.Castle Donnington, cotton- 
spinner, (Hurd and Co, Temple 3 
Fearnhead and Co., Nottingham 

Tarrer, C. Romsey, corn-factor, 
(Sandys and Co.) Crane-court 5 
Holmes, Romsey 

Turner, T. Liverpool, shoemaker. 
( Adlington and Co., Bedford-row 5 
Maudsley, Liverpool 

Teague, M. Redruth, grocer.( Adling- 
ton and Co., Bedford-row 5 Edwards 
and Co., Truro 

Taylor, J.Manchester, general dealers 
Mile and Co. Temple; Ains- 
worth and Co., Manchester 

Tulloch H. Gloucester-place, Hoxton, 
merchant, (Burt and Co., Carmar- 
then-street 

Thomas, J. J. Blandford, wine-mer= 
merchant, (Bolton, Austin-friars 

Taylor, R- H. and H. Walker, New- 
court, Throgmorton-street, wine- 
merchant. (Wadeson, Austin- 
friars 

Ward, E. jun. Buckingham, victualler, — 
(Browning, Hatton-court 4 

Wooding, G. Eardsley, draper.(Smithy 
Basinghall-street ; Coates and Co,, 
Leominster 

Warner, S. Crayford, farmer.( Bowler, ; 
St. Thomas-street, Southwark 

Waite, J. Chipping Lambourne,tailor, 
(Hallier and Co., Gray’s-inn; Row-= 
land, Rambsury 

Williams, L. East-road, Hoxton, 
victualler. (Vandercom and Cor 
Bush-lane 

Weakes, N. London-street, merchant. 
(Swain and Co., Frederick’s-place : 

Wright, J. Manchester, bookseller. 
(Ellis and Co,, Chancery-lane 5 
Taylor and Son, Manchester 

Walton, J. sen. Bromley, clothe 
dresser. (Wilson, Southampton- 
street 5 Coupland and Co., Leeds 

Wyatt, F. Marlow, coach-proprietors : 
(Goodman, Tokenhouse-yard 5 Ash- , 
ley, Walford : 

Williams, W. Lombard-street, mer- 
chant. (Nicholson, Dowgate-hill 

Walter, T., sen. Wilstone, baker. 
(Williams and Co, Lincojn’s-inn- 
fields ; Williams, Berkhamstead 

Winnall, R. Bedwardine, miller. 
Cardale and Co., Gray’s-inn; Par- 
ker and Co., Worcester = 

Wild, R. Craven-street, tailor. (Pas- 
more, Sambrook-court 5 A 

Young, G. Rochester, merchant.(Col- _ + 
lins, Great Knight-rider-street. < me 


ECCLESIASTICAL PREFERMENTS. 


* Rev. C. R. Jones, to the Rectory of Langhor, 
Glamorgan.—Rey. E, B. Sparke, to a Prebendal 
Stall in Ely Cathedral.—Rey. E. T. Halliday, to 
the Perpetual Curacy of Broomfield.—Rev. M. 
‘Bower, to be Chaplain of Wilton Prison. — 
Rey. W. H. M. Roberson, to be Chaplain of Ox- 
ford Gaol.—Rey. C. G. Boyles, to the Rectory of 
Buriton, with Petersfield Chapel.—Rey. H. K, 
Cornish, to be Chaplain_to the Dowager Bavoness 


Audley.—Rey. A. J: Latrobe, to be Chaplain to 
Lord Mount Sandford.—Rey. E. S. Bunting, to 
the Rectory of Datchworth, Herts,—Rey. C. A. 
Morgan, to be Chaplain to the King.—Rey. M. 
West, to the Chaplaincy of Bury Gaol, with a sa- 
lary of £200. per annum.—Rev. G. Hodgson, to 
. be Archdeacon of Stafford, and a Canon Residen- 
tiary of Litchtield Cathedral.—Rev. A, W. Nare, 
to the Rectory of Alton Barnes, Wilts.—Rey. W. 


1829. 


C. Risley, to the Vicarage of Whaddon, with 
Nash, Bucks.—Rey. T. L, Strong, to the Rectory 
of Sedgefield, Durham.—Rey. T. Bullock, to the 
Rectory of Castle Eaton, Wilts.—Rey. J. Smith, 
to the vicarage of Great Dunmow, Essex.—-Rey. 
E. Mathew, to be reader of St. James’s Parish, 
Bath.—Rey. W. A. Bouverie, to the Rectory of 


Ecclesiastical Preferments. 


677 


West Tytherby, Hants.—Rey. T. S. Smith, toa 
Prebendal Stall in Exeter Cathedral.—Rey. T. 
Cooke, to the Rectory of Grafton-under-Wood, 
Northampton.—Rey. W. Allen, to the Rectory of 
Allhallows, London.—Rey J. Griffin, to the Rec- 
tory of Bradley, Hants.—Rev, M. Moule, to the 
vicarage of Fordington, Dorset. 


CHRONOLOGY, MARRIAGES, DEATHS, ETC. 


oe 


CHRONOLOGY. 

April 24, Newspapers from Van Diemen’s Land 
received, by which it appears the colonists have 
lately been much annoyed by a system of depreda- 
tion and murder on the part of the native tribes. 
The Hobart Town Courier says, there can be no 
doubt that the depredations proceed from an or- 
ganized plan to exterminate the white inhabi- 
tants. 

28. The Duke of Norfolk, Lords Clifford and 
Dormer, Roman Catholics, took their seats in 
the House of Lords, by virtue of the late act, 


29.— His Majesty conferred the honour of 
nighthood upon Captains Parry and Franklin, 
consequence of their Arctic expeditions by sea 
nd land. 


May 4. The borough of Horsham returned the 
first Catholic member to the House of Commons 
in the person of the Earl of Surry. 
i 5, Ata meeting of the Middlesex magistrates 
_held at the Sessions House, the sum of £50,000. 
was yoted, for erecting a Pauper Lunatic Asy- 

Inn. 

. 8. The Chancellor of the Exchequer opened his 
_ budget in the House of Commons, stating that the 
real surplus of the reyenue for the Sinking Fund 
-would exceed that of last year; and that the 
country was in a situation of suspense rather 

a __than of positive ill, and required the patient rather 
than the active interference of Parliament; and 

that he saw nothing discouraging in the future 

, prospects of the country ; and when the clouds 

, which overshadowed it should have passed away, 

it would exhibit an aspect of prosperity as per- 

, m: nent and as brilliant as at any previous pe- 

riod! 

: us —. Vice-Adm. Sir Pulteney Malcolm bas trans- 

mitted to the Admiralty-office a letter from Com- 

4 _mander Nias, of H. M. sloop Alacrity, reporting 

* _thata piratical mistico, which had plundered a 

b 


ea yessel under Ionian colours, and committed 
t epredations, was captured, on the 11th of 
jary last, near Cape Pillouri, in the Archipe- 
lag’ , by the Alacrity’s cutter, under the orders of 
L aut. Chas. Frederick. The captain of the mis- 
tice, a noted pirate, named Giorgio, and one of 
his men, were severely wounded, and, with two 
ers, wade prisoners, and sent to Malta for 
trial. The rest of the pirate’s crew jumped over- 
board, and were either drowned, or made their 
escape by swimming to the shore. 

—. A disturbance haying broken out in Spital- 
fields, and many looms having been destroyed and 
their silks cut, in consequence of the reduction of 
prices by some of the master-weavers, a deputa- 
tion met at the City of London Tavern; and reso- 
lutions were entered into by the masters, to give 
the wages required by the journeymen, 


Ly 


9. The deputies from Glasgow, Liverpool, Man- 
chester, Bristol, Birmingham, &c., for the pur- 
pose of taking measures to open the trade of this 
country with India and China, had an interview 
with the Duke of Wellington, the Chancellor of 
the Exchequer, and the President of the Board of 
Trade. The Duke of Wellington promised that 
their representations should receive the fullest 
considerations. 


12, The Lord High Chancellor of England ac- 
knowledged in the House of Lords (in proposing 
anew equity Judge!) that “a suit might, ac- 
cording to the present practising, be continued in 
Chancery for twenty or thirty years, without any 
of the officers being blameable” !!! 

12 & 14. Motions made in Houses of Lords and 
Commons for appointment of Select Committees 
to inquire into the state of the East-India Com- 
pany’s affairs, relative to the subject of their mo- 
nopoly and a free trade, when ministers declared 
that measures had been taken to collect the am- 
plest information for that purpose, to be laid be- 
fore the legislature next sessions, 

13. The Recorder made his report to the King, 
of the 20 convicts capitally convicted at the last 
Old Bailey Sessions, when three were ordered for 
execution. 


14, Anniversary festival of the Sons of the Cler- 
gy celebrated at St. Paul’s, and at Merchant 
Taylors’ Hall; the collections amounted to £966, 
15s. 2d. 


—. A meeting of West-India planters was held 
at the London Tavern, when it was resolved to 
delay their petitions to Parliament till next ses- 
sion, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer had said 
his attention had been so much drawn to the Ca- 


-tholic Question, that he could not pay attention to 


them at present. Resolutions were passed ex- 
pressive of the disastrous state of the Colo- 
nies, 

15. Mr. O’Connel conducted to the table in the 
House of Commons, by Lords Ebrington and Dun- 
cannon, in order to take his seat for Clare—when 
the Speaker ordered him to withdraw. 

16. Meeting held at Freemasons’ Tavern of the 
subscribers and donors of the King’s College, 
London, when it was announced that £126,900, 
had been already subseribed; and that Govern- 


~ ment had consented to grant the College a charter, 


and that it was intended to commence the build- 
ing immediately on the ground east of Somerset 
House, which had been granted for 1,000 years, 
with the stipulation that the front of the building 


facing the river should be so constructed as to 
complete the original design of Somerset House. 


19, Three convicts were executed at the Old 
Bailey. 

21. Lord Eldon, on the third reading of the 
Suitors in Equity Bill, said that the first time Lord 


678 


Apsley took his seat in Chancery, a Peeress came 
into court, and was seated on the hench by his 
side ; she came to give her consent that a sum 
should be paid out of court to the person who was 
to take some property after her decease. Lord 
Apsley told her he would not detain her ; but she 
begged to stay a little longer, ‘‘ wishing,” she 
said, ‘‘ to see how they proceeded in settling it, as 
it was only eighty-two years since her cause had 
been in court’’!!! 

—. The disqualification of Mr, O’Connel, and a 
new writ for Clare, ordered by the House of Com- 
mons. 


Want of room prevented the insertion, in our 
last number, of the following Petition to the Le- 
gislature, which was presented to the House of 
Lords by Lord Farnham (April 10), and to the 
House of Commons by Lord Tullamore (March 
30 :)— 

" The Humble Petition of the Editors, Proprie- 
tors, Printers, Publishers, and others con- 
nected with the Montuty MAGAzINE :— 
Sheweth, 


«“ That—feeling the common interest of all free- 
born Englishmen in the freedom of their country, 
they haye heard with great alarm that the Con- 
stitution of 1688 is to be broken in upon. 

“ That—being, in their different ranks of life, 
devoted to Literature and the employments there- 
from arising, they look upon this danger with 
personal and peculiar dread; inasmuch as all 
experience has pYoved, that with the fall of afree 
Constitution perishes the free literature of a coun- 
try. 

“That your Petitioners see, in the measure of 
bringing Papists into the Legislature, the com- 
mencement of a system, in all its principles, prac- 
tices, and progress, fatal to Protestantism—to 
equal law—to ancient privileges—to the whole 
body of those rights and liberties which were 
wrung by the courage and wisdom of English- 
men from Papists and the abettors of papist ty- 
ranny. 


«““ That—they see, in its operation on the Laws, 
the rapid rise of that most dreadful of all govern- 
ments—a military pESPoTiIsM! the substitution 
of might for right, and the consequent seizure, ex- 

ile, or extinction of every man who will dare to 
lift up his voice for his country. 


“ That they see, in its operation on the Legisla- 
ture, the introduction of an unlimited number of 
individuals, returned exclusively by the Romish 
priesthuod ; representing the inveterate hostility 
of that priesthood to the religion, liberties, and 
existence of the British empire ; chosen expressly 
for their violence, prejudices, and dependence 
upon their masters ; and certain to be the direct 
and united agents of all and every popish power 
_ on the Continent, that desires to perplex the coun- 
cils and break down the independency of Eng- 
land. 

« That—with still deeper dread they see, in 
its operation upon Protestantism, the pollution of 
the national faith, by the intermixture of the 
strange rites and unhallowed doctrines of Rome 
—the exaltation of idolatry—the abjuration of that 
solemn and high covenant, by which our fore- 
fathers pledged themselves to man and God that 


Chronology, Marriages, and Deaths. 


[JuneE, 


they would no more for ever suffer Popery to de- 
grade the understanding, pervert the hearts, and 
cloud the eternal hopes of their fellow-men ;—by 
which they commanded that every member of the 
Legislature should thenceforth swear on the 
Scriptures that Popery was a superstition and an 
idolatry ; and by which they laid upon the King 
that Coronation Oath, which bound him, as to 
three alike immutable things—to the ‘ mainte- 
nance of the Laws of God’—the ‘ true profession 
of the Gospel’ and the ‘ Protestant Established 
Religion’—for ever. 

“Your Petitioners, therefore, pray your Ho- 
nourable House to take this their humble request 
into consideration, 2nd throw out any Bill for the 
admission of Papists into the British Legislature. 

“And your Petitioners will ever pray.” 


MARRIAGES. 

At Titchborne, Lord Dormer to Elizabeth Anne, 
eldest daughter of Sir H. J. Titchborne, Bart.—At 
Willesden, T. Beaseley, esq. to Miss S. Noble.— 
At Lewisham, C, Deacon, esq. to Miss Laura 
Lucas.—At Brighton, R. Marriott, esq. to Sophia 
Lucy, youngest daughter of E, A. Stephens, esq. 
—At Hastings, Rev. E. Cardwell to Miss Cecili 
Feilden.—At Fulham, J. A. Hammet, esq. to Mi 
Sybella Daniel.—At Lambeth, D. W. Barnar 
esq. to Miss Ann Greensill.—At Harbury, Rev 
G. A. Owen,to Anna Maria Sarah, eldest daug! 
ter of C.R. Wren, esq. Wroxhall Abbey.—At 
rylebone, J. Houblon; esq. to Ann, grand-daugh- 
ter of C. Dundas, esq. M.P. Berks.—At Peckham, 
Rev. J. Deedes to Henrietta Charlotte, sister to 
Sir Edward Cholmley Doring, Bart.—At St. Pan- 
eras, Adrien Joseph Verstraeten, esq. of Bross 
sels, to Miss Anna Hamstede.—At Great Birch, 
Rey. H. Freeland to Georgiana Frances, second 
daughter of C. Round, esq.—Lieat. Col. Leggatt, 
to Miss Grisdale.—At Charlton Kings, Rey. W. S. 
Phillips, to Penelope, youngest daughter of the 
late Commodore Boughton, and niece to Sir J. 
D. Boughton, Bart.—At Dover, J. ple a 
to Mrs, Haynes. 


DEATHS. 

At Upperwood (Kilkenny), Sir William Rynes 
de Montmorency, Bart., by whose death ‘the title 
is become extinct.—At Wolverhampton, M 
son, 124.—At Knowsley, the Countess of 
68.—At Bristol, W. M‘Cready, late lessee and 1 
nager of the theatre there.—At Hampstea ww. 
Carr, esq.—In Argyrshire, Lord Allowiays=At MY 
Newcastle, J. Anderson, esq, 71.—In Belg a 
place, Lady Forrester.—At Pembury, Captail 
Shaw, R.N.—At Bath, Rey. G. Best, a 
of New Brunswick.—In Spring Garde 
Colchester, 72.—At Claverley, Mrs. Skett, 
In Grosvenor-street, Lord Crewe, 87.—In- 
square, Dr. Thomas Young.—Lady Dalry 
widow of Sir John Daltymple.—At Stoke D: 
non, Katherine, 100, relict of Rey, U. Fetherst L 
haugh.—At Kensington, Lieut. Col. Pearse, 77.— 
At Bristol, J. Hart, esq., 70.—At Owmley, W. 
Bennard, esq., 82.—At Peterborough, Mr. Good- — 
man, 78.—At Whatton, John Tutt, 70; his father, 
now in his 100th year, attended his funeral—At 
Cowley, J. Curtis, esq., brother to the late cele- 
brated botanist.—Mr. Burroughs, registrar to the 
Court of Chancery.—In Bruton-street, Mrs. Tra- 
vers.—At Stow, Huntingdonshire, Joseph Paek, 


1829.] 


95; he served the office of parish clerk for two 
generations, ti!l the Sunday preceding his death, 
and, in the humble capacity of day-labourer, main- 
tained himself to the extreme period of life—At 
Little Dean Lodge, Gloucester, Mrs. Elizabeth 
Long, $7, leaving children, grand-children, and 
great-grand-children, to the number of 120!—At 
Terrington, Rey. D. Palmer, dean of Cashell.— 
At Windsor, 81, Catharine, relict ofthe late Lieut, 
Cul. W. Monsell, 29th regiment, and subsequently 
paymaster of the Manchester district. At Wood- 
bridge, Lady Charlotte Onslow.—At Liverpool, 
Miss E, Randles, 28; her extraordinary musical 


Chronology, Marriages, and Deaths. 


679 


Mrs. Muspratt, 83.—At Hampton Court Palace, 
Mrs. Walker, 81. 
MARRIAGE ABROAD. 

At Brussels, at His Britannic Majesty’s Ambas- ~ 
sador’s chapel, C, Bell, esq., to Lucy, daughter of 
the late K, Brasier, esq., county of Cork. 

ri DEATHS ABROAD. 

At Paris, Lady Morres Gore.—At Bombay, Mar- 
garet, wife of Archdeacon Hawtayne.—At Tours, 
Rey. Dr, A. Richardson.—At Paris, Mr. O'Connor, 
son of General O’Connor, and grand-son of the 


genius and talents, gained her the particular no- ~ celebrated M. de Condorcet.—At New York, Mr. 


tice of his late Majesty, when she was only three 
years old.—At Clapham, Rey. S. E. Pierce, 83.— 
At Tewkesbury, Major R, Alcock, 79.—At Chel- 
tenham, Mrs. Baker, relict of W. Baker, esq.,and 
daughter of the late Sir 'T. Roberts, Bart.—At 
Belmont, ‘General Lord Harris, 83.—At Rumsey, 


Archibald Gracie, 74; he was, for many years, 
the most eminent shipping merchant in New 
York, and held the place of vice-president of the 
Chamber of Commerce.—At Antwerp, by the 
oversetting of the Antwerp Diligence, T. Legh, 
esq., of Adlington, Cheshire. 


MONTHLY PROVINCIAL OCCURRENCES. 


NORTHUMBERLAND.—The number of poor 
pitmen who have been destroyed by the foul state 
of the collieries is truly appalling. The following 
is a full and accurate account, from 1805 to the 
last explosion. We trust this subject will be now 
properly investigated, as the legislature is at pre- 
sent occupiedon the coal trade, and thatintelligence 
_and science will be employed to produce some im- 
_ provement, and to explode the ordinary excesses 

of i ignorance and indolence, in attempting such an 
ee amelioration.—Oct, 2, 1805, at Hebburn, 35 ; May 
_ 25,1812, at Felling, 92; Oct. 10, 1812, at Herring- 
. ~ ton Mill Pitt, 22; Sept, 28, 1813, at Hall Pitt, 
_Fatfield, 30; Det. 23, 1813, at Felling, 22; ‘Aug. 
_ 12, 1814, at Hebburn, 11; Sept. 9, 1814, at Lee- 
” field, Chester-le-street, 4 ; June 2, 1815, at Success 
aad Newbottle, 57; June 27, 1815, at Sheriff 
“Hill, 11; June 30, 1817, at Row Pitt, Harraton, 
38; Sept. 25, 1817, at Jarrow, 6; Dec, 18, 1817, 
at Plain Pitt, Rainton, 26; Aug. 5, 1818, at Walls- 
-end,4; July 19,1819, at Sheriff Hill, 35; Oct. 9, 
1819, at George Pit, Lumley, 13; July 9, 1821, 
at Coxlodge, 1; Oct. 23, 1821, at Wallsend, 52; 
Yet. 23, 182], at Felling, 6; Feb. 21, 1823, at 
on Colliery, Chester-le-street, 4; Nov. 3, 
at Plain Pitt, Rainton, 57; Nov. 19, 1823, 
isham’s Dolly Pit, Shiftree, 11; Oct. 25 
at George Pit, Lumley, 14; July 3, 1825, at 
et Pit, Fatfield, 11; Oct. 5, 1825, at Hebburn, 
Jan. 17, 1826, at Jarrow, 31; May 30, 1826, at 
fley, 38; Sept. 5, 1826, at Heworth, 4; Oct, 
6, at Benwell, 2; March 15, 1828, at Jar- 
8; Sept. 1, 1828, at New Pit, Houghton le- 
g, 7; Nov. 20, 1828, at Washington, 14 ;— 
Total, 674 !!!—What a frightful list of poor hard- 
orking men, who have been instantaneously 
hurried into another world, many of them leaving 
behind them large families to struggle in misery 
and want.—Tyne Mercury. 
An explosion took place, May 14, at Killings 
worth Colliery; there were fortunately few men 
down the pit at the time, and only one person, a 
poor boy, lost his life. 

On St. Mark’s-day, thirteen young men took up 
their freedom of the borough of Alnwick. ‘This 
privilege is obtained by plunging through a well, 


called Freemen’s Well, and riding the boundaries — 
of the moor. 


DURHAM.—When proclamation was made for 
the fair at Sunderland, the name of the Lord Bi- 
shop of Durham was not mentioned, as was for- 
merly the case. The fair is known to be held 
by authority of the Bishop, and, therefore, the 
servants of the Commissioners, instead of only 
saying, “ God save the King and the Commission- 
ers under the Sunderland Improvement Act,” as 
they do now at the close of their proclamation, 
ought to say, as they did in former years, “ God 
saye the King, my Lord of Durham, and the 
Commissioners under the Sunderland Improve- 
ment Act.”—Durham County Advertiser, May 
16. 

The ship-owners of Sunderland have petitioned 
for the throwing open the trade to the East Indies, 
and China, 

On the 28th of April, the city of Durham was 
visited by a thunder storm in the afternoon; in 
the evening there was hail, which was succeeded 
by snow in the night and part of the following 
day, accompanied by a very boisterous wind from 
the north and north-east, 

The mayor of Durham has transmitted to Lon-» 
don the sum of £182. 17s.,being the amount of the 
subscriptions entered into in that city for the Spi- 
talfields weavers, 

In the three months ending April 11, 1828, there 
were 163 prisoners committed to Durham Jail and 
House of Correction; and in the three months 


“ending April 11, 1829, 201, being an increase of 
38 ? 


The trustees of Queen Anne’s Bounty have 
granted £400. for the purpose of building a par- 
sonage-house at Ryhope, in the county of Dur- 
ham. 


YORKSHIRE.—The criminal business of the 
Pontefract Easter Sessions was of unexampled 
magnitude. The calendar contained the names 
of 142 prisoners, 119 of whom were charged with 
felony, the others with misdemeanors of various 
kinds. In addition to this formidable list, there 
was a considerable number of persons, charged 


680 


with felony, admitted to bail, whose names, of 
course, do not appear in the calendar. The 
Bench, previous to proceeding to business, made 
an order for the holding of a second Court, of 
which.a reverend gentleman was appointed the 
Chairman, 

The merchants of Hull, Huddersfield, Wakefield, 
Bradford, and Leeds, have petitioned for the re- 
moval of the East-India monopoly. 

A number of persons, emigrating, have lately 
sailed from Hull for America. 

Martin, the incendiary, was removed from York 
on the 27th of April, to be confined in the Criminal 
Lunatic Asylum, St. George’s Fields. 

‘On the 28th of April two Jews publicly em- 
braced Christianity, and received the rites of bap- 
tism from the hands of the Rey. J. Graham, St. 
Saviour’s, York. 

The place for the organ to be erected in York 
Minster, is agreed upon. It has been arranged 
by Dr. Camidge, and the instrument will be the 
largest and most complete in the world. 

A number of rare organic remains have lately 
been discovered in Huddersfield, which are now 
in the possession of Mr. James Milnes, of Croland 
Moor. The most remarkable of these relics is 
that of a petrified fish, resembling the Anguilla 
species ; it is about 3 feet 8 inches in length ; near 
the head, the circumference is about 11 inches ; in 
the middle, 6} inches; and just above the tail, 4 
inches, | 

On the 29th and 30th of April, the Bradford 
Auxiliary tothe British Reformation Society held 
a public meeting, at which some of the funda- 
mental errors of the Church of Rome were ex- 
posed. Henry Hall, Esq., Recorder of Leeds, 
was in the chair, 

At the East Riding Easter Sessions, the sin- 
gular circumstance took place of a boy being sen- 
tenced to 35 years transportation; 7. e. seven 
years on each of five indictments. 

The Directors of the York Sayings Bank in- 
tend to build a handsome edifice for the purposes 
of the institution with the surplus fund. 

On the 12th of May, a heron caught a pike 
weighing 4lbs. in one of the ponds at Studley 
Royal. It flew with it in its mouth about half a 
mile; when it alighted to feast upon its prey. 
Being frightened, however, by a party of ladies 
and gentlemen, it flew off, and left its prey alive, 
which was sent as a present to Mrs. Lawrence. 

Trade still continues very bad in the West Rid- 
ing; but itis not so depressed as in many other 
places—the woollen manufacture never having 
been reduced to so low a point of depression as 
those of silks and gloves, 


LANCASHIRE.—The County Rate Committee 
for Lancashire have recently made their new 
report, by which it appears that the amount of the 
old assessment was £3,106,009., of which Liver- 
pool contributed £584,687; the new assessment 
amounts to £4,214,634, towards which Liverpool 
contributes £751,126. By the last report of the 
Manchester and Salford Bank for Savings, it ap- 
pears that the sum in hand amounted to £226,224. 
10s. 11d.—that, during the last year, there had 
been 2,440 additional depositors—that the total 
number of depositors, from its institution up to 
the present moment, is 13,647. 


At Oldham, April 20, the foundation-stone of 
the new Blue-Coat School was laid in grand ce- 


Provincial Occurrences : Yorkshire, Lancashire, Sc. 


[Jung, 


remony. It will be a splendid fabric, in the Colle- 
giate style of architecture ; its length will be 180 
feet, and depth 60: it is to be composed of two 
stories, and both centre and wings will be orna- 
mented with turrets and pinnacles, forming a su- 
perb ornament tothe town. At the dinner on the 
occasion, after the usual loyal toasts, the “ Man- 
chester Courier’ informs us, the following was 
given—‘‘ Prosperity to the industrious labouring 
classes of this community’—and introduced by 
the information that the workpeople of one house 
(Mr. Gee’s) had subscribed nearly £200, towards 
completing this excellent establishment, « The 
Oldham Blue-Coat School” !!! 

In consequence of a considerable deficiency in 
the funds of the Bolton Dispensary, the ladies of 
that place opened a bazaar for its benefit, and, by 
their meritorious exertions, have accumulated the 
sum of £716. during two days’ sale and admis- 
sions. 

Serious disturbances have broken out at Man- 
chester, in consequence of the reduced price of 
weaving ; and the rioters destroyed a yast quan- 
tity of goods, looms, &c., which they devoted to 
the flames. At Rochdale, affairs took a more 
serious turn, and much mischief was done, and 
several of the ringleaders committed to prison ; 
when an attempt being made at forcing the pri- 
son, for rescuing them, the military fired, and 
seven persons were killed, besides a numbe 
wounded. Similar disturbances took place a 
Macclesfield, but not to so great an extent. 

By an actual survey just made to ascertain the ; 
condition of the poor of Colne, and the neighbour- — 
ing townships of Folridge and Trawden, it ap- 
pears that nearly one-third of the inhabitants had, 
on an average, an income only of Is. 22d. per 
week, and that the weekly income of nearly ano- 
ther fourth did not exceed Is. 93d. per head! 


HANTS.—By the abstract of the Receipts and 
Expenditure of the parish of Portsea for last 
year, it appears that the amount was no less than 
£14,361. 11s. ; the article of victualling, including 
bread (37,834 Ibs.), given to the out-door poor, 
was £3,407. 10s, 9d. ; and that, for weekly relief 
alone, £4,514. 6s, 10d. 


es in 


GLOUCESTERSHIRE.—The rate ordered at 
the Gloucester Sessions, last week, is considera- 
bly less than one-half of that levied at the last 
Epiphany Sessions, and little more than one-fifth 
of the rate ordered twelye months ago. This re- 
lief, it is hoped, may be still further extended. _ { 

The expenses for paving, pitching, cleansing, and 4 
lighting the city of Bristol last year, amounted to 
upwards of £10,000; the lighting alone aes ; 
the sum of £3,999, Ils. 3d. . 

Nearly £700. has already been subserib i to. 
wards the reparation and embellishment o ‘the — 
fine old Abbey Church at Tewkesbury ; and whet 7: © 
it is remembered that a great portion of that va 
has been contributed by the inhabitants of t ; 
borough, and by a few liberal individuals in its 
immediate neighbourhood,—that there has beens 
recently upwards of £2,000. collected by rates 
upon the parishioners, for the exclusive purpose 
of repairing this grand and almost sole relic of ” 
one of our richest monasteries,—and that the { 
whole of the immense revenues which the noble 
founder and his pious successors gave for its sup- 
port, were alienated at the Reformation,—it can- 
not be denied that the inhabitants haye a strong 


1829. 


claim on the generosity of the public, to enable 
them to efféct the contemplated improvements in 
their ancient and interesting church. As the dila- 
pidation and ruin of such a magnificent religious 
edifice would be a national disgrace, the affluent, 
the great, and the good are called upon, by the 
strongest motives, to contribute to its restoration. 
Already has the cheerless whitewash been effaced 
from the massive walls and traceried roof,—from 
the Norman circular pillars and rich Gothic cha- 
pels,—and a suitable warm stone«colour, to match 
the original material, been substituted through- 
out ; and the more delicate portions of those splen- 
did specimens of ancient masonry, the tombs and 
shrines, have been renewed. 


DORSETSHIRE.—The poorer inhabitants of 
Bridport are in a truly pitiable condition, in con- 
sequence of the very depressed state of the staple 
trade of the town. About four months ago, the 
manufacturers found difficulty in getting the work 
done, but now there is scarcely a thread of twine 
put out to the braiders from the beginning to the 

end of the week; there seems to be an entire 
stagnation of business, and there is no chance of 
a revival till next winter. The high price of po- 
tatoes is a great increase to their lamentable con- 
i They live principally on rice, which they 


tion. 
ly for 22d. per lb. Two or three cargoes of po- 
tatoes are daily expected, which we sincerely 
hope will be offered at a reasonable rate, which 
will no doubt serve to ameliorate their distress. 


Sironecasrensiini—« handsome and spa- 
‘cious apartment, capable of holding 200 persons, 
was opened, May 12, at the Worcester Literary 
and Scientific Institution, as their lecture-room ; 
and the first lecture, on the advantages resulting 
from associations for the diffusion of useful know- 
ledge, and their important bearing upon society, 
was delivered by Dr. Malden. 


ra a the late Staffordshire 
ssions, the Chairman stated, that, in conse- 
quence of the vast increase in the number of pri- 
soners, nearly £5,000, had been required during 
the quarter for their maintenance, and for prose- 
cutions. Upwards of 300 prisoners had been 
tried at the Lent Assizes, and at the Epiphany 


Sessions. 
. meeting of the mer- 


chants, manufacturers, and other inbabitants of 
Birmingham, was held May 8, for the purpose of 
‘consi g the distressed state of the country, 
and » propriety of petitioning Parliament to 
sh measures as may be necessary for its 
when 31 resolutions were passed for that 
Resolution 16 states, “ that in the opinion 
meeting, the lower classes of the people 
e no longerin a condition to pay taxes, and 
erefore that the taxes upon beer, malt, tea, su- 
, tobacco, soap, and candles, ought to be 
orthwith entirely repealed, and the amount of 
uch taxes ought to be raised by a property tax, 
‘or by some other tax which should be borne by 
the more affluent members of the community.” 
Upwards of 3,000 persons were present. 


NOTTINGHAMSHIRE. — There has been 
two falls of rock at Nottingham, to a very great 
extent’; indeed, the latter, it is supposed, weighed 
from 30 to 40 tons. It took place about three 
o'clock inthe morning; and the reiterated howl- 


M.M. New Series«Vou. VII. No. 42. 


Dorsetshire, Worcestershire, Staffordshire, Sc. 


681 


ing of a dog in an adjoining house gave euch 
timely notice as to enable several persons to 
escape, who otherwise would have been er ushed 
to death. 


NORTHAMPTONSHIRE.—The affairs of the 
Northampton Town and Country Bank have been 
brought to a most saiisfactory close, by paying 
twenty shillings in the pound, with interest. Mr. 
Howes and Mr. Osborn, two of the late firm, have 
very handsomely presented to each of the three 
assignees an elegant silver cup, as a tribute of 
gratitude and respect for their indefatigavle exer- 
tions, and most judicious conduct, in bringing the 
whole of the accounts to a final settlement !!! 


NORFOLK.—Lately, at the Common Council 
Chamber of the city of Norwich, the sum of £100. 
was voted to the Norfolk and Suffolk Artists’ So- 
ciety, to assist in enabling them to enlarge their 
premises im Norwich, and to purchase casts and 
models, with a view to the further promotion of 
the Fine Arts in this part of the country. 

At the County Meeting in the Grand Jury Room, 
one of the magistrates could not forbear express- 
ing his regret at being obliged to move for so 
large a sum ; but the proposed county levy for the 
ensuing quarter, he feared,.must be £5,700. It 
was occasioned by the great expense attending 
the prosecution of prisoners, which, since Christ- 
mas, amounted to £2,100.; the greater portion 
of which (£1,370.) was incurred by prosecutions 
at the Lent Assizes, 


LINCOLNSHIRE. — The number of Scotch 
vagrants on the great north road have become 
a severe tax on the payers of county rates, and 
the evil is daily increasing. Atthe last quarter- 
sesions for Stamford, 400 vagrant passes were 
charged in the account for 3 months; and with- 
in the last year the nnmber was 1,400. It has 
become a regular trade with a numerous class 
of the Scotch to go twice a year by water to 
London, and to get passed by land to their pa- 
rishes. The vagrant allowance is such as en- 
sures a comfortable support to the vagrant and 
his family, and even enables them to save some- 
thing handsome out of it. In this pleasant wea» 
ther, the number of vagrants brought to Stamford 
in the pass-carriage reaches from 12 to 20 daily! 
—Stamford Mercury. 


RUTLAND.—By the abstract of the treasurer’s 
account for this county, it appears that the sum 
of £1,123.6s. 4d. was expended, during the last 
year, for county services, most of which were 
“ eat up,” as the Frehch say, “ by the lawyers”’— 
£2, 16s, having been paid for repairing county 
bridges, and nearly all the‘rest used in the’crimi- 
nal jurisprudence and its accessories, 


SOMERSETSHIRE,.—The crape factory at 
Shepton-Mallet is again at work, which has had 
some effect in relieving the parish-rates ; but they 
are still heavy, in consequence of the stoppage of 
the silk and lacé-works—the machinery of the 
latter, which, a few years since, was erected at 
the cost of upwards of £30,000., bas been sold for 
little more than £1,400, 

The new line of road between Chard and Yar- 
combe (made at an expense of upwards of £5,000, 
and by which more than 500 feet of hill is saved), 
was opened by the Devonport mail, on Saturday, 
the 2d instant. The labourers employed in the 


682 Provincial Occurrences : Kent, 


work, exceeding 100, had decorated the road by 
wreaths of laurel and-a triumphal arch, to wel- 
come the approach of the mail, which, on its ar- 
rival, was covered with laurels and appropriate 
flags,and went over the 4 miles in about 16 minutes, 
followed by a train of carriages and equestrians. 


KENT.—The committee appointed to ascertain 
the state of the Gate of St. Augustine’s Monas- 
tery of Canterbury, have given notice that the 
subscriptions already entered into for carrying 
into effect the repairs intended for the preserva- 
tion of that beautiful structure, being at present 
inadequate to defray the estimated expense, they 
solicit the aid of the admirers of this antique 
and elegant architectural ornament, to enable 
them immediately to proceed with the intended 
repairs. 


WILTSHIRE.—The Wiltshire Society held 
their anniversary meeting at the Albion Tavern, 
May 13, when the report of the Committee was 
read by the Secretary: it stated that, since the 
last anniversary, the Committee have been enabled 
to confer on the objects for whom the society has 
been established, more extended benefits than 
during any preceding year since the charity has 
been founded; and that eight candidates had been 
elected for apprenticeship during the present year, 
tive of whom have been already apprenticed to 
respectable tradesmen, and the remaining three 
are only waiting until suitable masters shall have 
been provided forthem. <A long list of subscrip- 
tions and donations were announced. 


DEVONSHIRE.—It is with much concern that 
we send forth the announcement of the robbery 
of the firm of Floud and Co., of the Exeter West 
of England Bank, which was burglariousy en- 
tered on Saturday night, or early on Sunday 
morning last, and property, in drafts, notes, 
and cash, stolen therefrom to the amount of seve- 
ral thousand pounds. In consequence of this 
event, the bank has suspended its payments for 
-\ the present, with the view, it is presumed, of pre- 
_jventing the negociable property getting into cir- 
culation, and so far of frustrating the anticipated 
7 booty of the thieyes.— Taunton Courier, May 13, 


CORNWALL.—At the Easter Sessions for this 
county, the calendar was unusually light; on 
which the Chairman, in his address to the Grand 
Jury, complimented them, as well as on the re- 
duced expenditure of the county, and the conse- 
quent diminution ofthe county rates : he also was 
rejoiced to say, that the most beneficial effects 
had been accomplished by the alterations that had 
been so judiciously introduced into the manage- 
ment of tle prison. 


WALES.—A considerable number of work- 
men engaged in the iron and coal trade, in Mon- 
mouthshire, have been discharged, and a reduc- 
tion in the wages of those employed is contem- 
plated. One great iron-master in Wales has, it is 
reported, upwards of 40,000 tons of manufactured 
iron lying in one only of his warehouses at Car- 
diff. Indeed, the over-productiveness of the iron- 
trade, in consequence of new works opened, and 
old ones improved and enlarged, is stated to be 
such, that the works of Monmouthshire and South 
Wales are supposed to be alone capable of supply- 

ng the demand for England and Wales, home and 
foreign. 


Wiltshire, Devonshire, §c. [J UNE. 


SCOTLAND.—On Friday week, a list of the 
unemployed in Paisley was taken by order of the 
provost and magistrates. According to the returns 
it appears that there are no fewer than 1,112 
heads of families, and 1,099 boys and girls, wholly 
destitute of work. There are about 800 weavers 
at Kilbarehan, nearly one-third of whom are at 
present idle. The aveaage of a silk-weaver’s 
wages is from 9s. to 103.; of a muslin weaver, 
from 5s. to 6s.—The distress of the weaving body 
seems to increase, The number of idle hands, as 
far as yet ascertained—some of the districts hay- 
ing not yet forwarded their reports—was, on Sa- 
turday, stated by the delegates’ reports, at 2,200; 
and, if the females and apprentices are included, 
the total number idle will exceed 3,000.—Glasgow 
Chron. 


IRELAND,—Very great anxiety was occa- 
sioned by the arrest, at Doneraile, of 22 persons, 
on the warrant of Lord Kingston. The rumour 
ran that fifty or sixty persons conspired to avenge 
the death of Patrick Magrath, who was convicted, 
at the last Cork assizes, of having fired at G. B. 
Low, Esq., and executed. It was further added, 
that one of the conspirators, becoming approver, * 
gave informations to Lord Kingston and Genera 
Barry, of an intention,on the part of the conspi- 
rators, to murder every magistrate in the county 
who rendered himself at all obnoxious to the peo- 
ple. The investigation took place May 9.—22 per- 
sons, several of them respectable farmers, of the 
surrounding parishes, were brought to the bar, 
when Mr. Creagh, late high sheriff of the county, 
addressed them on the enormity of the crime la 
to their charge, and added, that they (the prison- 
ers) were aware there was amongst them the man 
who fired at Dr. Norcott’s carriage the shot, which 
was not intended for the doctor, but for him (Mr. 
Creagh), and that there was also amongst them. 
the man who lay in ambush on the bridge. A 
dreadful conspiracy, he said, was planned amongst _ 
them—a conspiracy, which aimed at the life o abe 
Admiral Evans, for no-other reason than becau 
of his having dared to deliver his honest senti- 
ments in the House of Commons,—Mr. Creagh 
then called the names of eight persons, whom he 
gave in custody to the chief of police, directing. 
him, under the warrant of Earl Kingston, to con- 
vey them tothe county jail—Admiral Eyans ad-, 
dressed a few words to the prisoners,saying it was 
strange they see have resolved to murder him 


time in that part ‘of the country, and 
any one to impeach them with an act discredit 
to themselves, or injurious to society.—Of th 
maining 14 prisoners, 7 were sent for re-exa 
nation to the Mallow Bridewell, and 7 oth 
Fermoy. 

The country is now all in bustle, preparing fo1 
the registry of freeholds under the new act. The 
county of Clare men are bestirring themselves ae 
tively, but whether for the advantage of the mem- 
ber elect, or not, is as yet undetermined. The 
clerk of the peace for the district called the Is- 
lands, alone has been served with more than 600 
notices to register £10. freeholds, Upwards of 
500 notices have been served on the clerk of the 
peace for the county of Limerick, 800 on the coun- 
ty of Tipperary, and 300 on the county of Kerry. 


INDEX 


TO 


VOL. VII. 


ORIGINAL PAPERS, &c. 


Page 


An Adventure near Granville .. .cccscoccecscsesvccccsccsccoassvesccsveseveessasae GOD 
Actor, the........ Bee wa eercbetiegtciciee sacgtamabucase ce Lied dice IG 
Adventure, cacae Nodes = Military .. dialinilesdaemiaas ccaubettedape ae 
Agricultural — Satbsleshenb vide eves erereevoner MDa, ‘216, "397, 441, 561, 673 
Annuals, the French .......seeeseeeeeneeererereesccsseecseenencesess ee pea LAT 
Bankrupts ..... wtuliwuwes sere 105, 218, 329, ‘443, "562, 675 
Byron (Lord) and ‘Lady Blessington Waxuededsevia pe sstaddps sa eiaidecteclne shinee te 
Ball, the Race ..........+++ gedaccesdudats ven se smn cevss[sa arian oblasledusianh servers Oh 
Bartholomew, the “‘Massaere ‘of St.. soa vIaid ates eipteves Sabena annicsenisen «aeia evowe 449 
Bourrienne’s (De) Memoirs ...1..csescsseceeererseseeneeceencecesettoressessensees SOM 
Biographical Memoirs of Eminent Persona - evwseseeee LOO, 213, 324, 436, 560 
Caffarelli, Death of General... .... 1. seseseceereneneres se ccertecesesececoseeresssreee O16 
Cambridge Coachman ...... Pena edtde sales naa saas sweionnas Webley eis tant das an we 
Catholic Question, Duke of Wellington’ UL abc eal 0. cca elkand- ald 
Petition of the opi Proprietors, &c., of the 
Monthly Magazine to the ie danas Saabivocis ca cciesion'sn uvislewmlaaianise event slay cal, GING 
@onfessions: of 2 Police OfGCOY..1e +0 eneweves cn vsavce cn sccccecssvoscecsscasnaccasenss, OD 
Commercial Reports......+.seecesreecesneeserscseerceseee 105, 217, 329, 443, 562 
Coronation Oath, and the Cabinet .. setliebdogiial ccacwucre teens baehweke shade devastate & 
Christian Martyr . ol duitetdotos ajourennsctiviws ae loslodnemneraoa aaeniene aaabise icladanian ody ladiaant AOL 
ae asst ah uc piers as ogi cn ew o0evs licen a ea can hed -sghtobe he tes 615 
Cambridge, Three Years at .....cscsessceceeceesecreccscesssvesecesecssesevnsreeses 463 
MRIS OUT oeiistdcacrecdendecsecuscsodessesneclecesancs <emelsacenbivoes ese cdsdes gas 
Conversazione, the . Rue Eb tbs levee siepareeeiecisasectiorinclen «sislekteeh aon ele 
Dublin Dinner to Lord ‘Morpeth. Gels astiee tle eceenemetsoinsentateenanl a seats ae 
ay at Fontainbleau ...........sccceverser eres cecranersscses cn cseccscssscsrscscsesae 10 
ck. Dewlap... Gadssuvtids vensdadonasiessnedwesspoibatisvies stunomasehecl dtaecase cnt 
Dancing... Wer ouioy oxleasuicer aoe san seed atenelen ape sen eran Le 
ers of England ‘and Ireland .. Suamialaeias Cetamualay «antics esa eeeneeiacitentan ack 
Druggist of Fife . - eed sepennvanacasusabta od US 
nd and Europe, ‘at the Commencement of the "Session.. siceradiactarewne aor en fle 
, Russia, and Turkey... Sbalas nembateeees rere Bath . 569 
e iastical UBF BLGEEG GT El dere tayroratesrestowrotwemicioe etsres 107, 219, 331, 444, ‘563, 676 
BEA LTIOBB'E ALLE ELV 5 vrorcetterovs 1s tosirn tants vweororio oie wosindinate cin ar sviearenreiebisslsicle sao loaleb mG 
ming, and the Great Schools. .........ewseerescvecvecscerscecssssscsecessssees 12 
Lengths,. Noe XI ]s:..ccccccssocsvencevessssecsscves aids cee H2e 
Arts’ Exhibitions.. Pactibstapres ss eahbiacesant 96, "209, "318, 431, 549, 665 
matina, the Two Miners of... band qniedubserde case 1h Neat wees Veo SR MR Cen cee sai FO Aan 
re, the Druggist of .. verve vetene = 
ever, Recollections ofa u Night Dbrinsercsdy ded rercass sousnnseesstvelusiss bee phe velit Ah i 
ortune-Hunters, the.. wh e.deSeoedeevecwewsgdedes sede eves seequnen caesccncenciosenl Ol © 
ave of Hofer, the ‘Typrolesesaevensesnseesessetserenesnenneenssnnsnta 41 
ood “rel the.. apd bcavervenwe sevewelieedvUal ch ll cehdasberkroks voradeebsceuemnae 
Granville . Dy hv SPSDSVESMEMUAD ONDE SI.00 chon tnene te seendenedearensveverssvsniniiwegieen GOs 


INDEX. 
Page 
Government of Wellingtonia, a ne norered | Island at the Taare 474 
Has, England Sr Gh ae Treland hs. cccnaqesesee sees scccuseunrenaisnsscechecve) OSS 
Elunt, the Royale es acer o0cs seen cece snes esvnensasaue ss ovens oh ee senunenesndnesc cosas SAG 
Hell- Fire D1 OI2) ca secs cesucv'comscacsucrscwlestencennenteds ¥avsien s ceotmmne amen tas cone nmnlng 
Hottentot Popular Poetry nseessserseseesnennsersneerseseeseearenesee 239 
Headlong-Hall... delasbsanseiwevends ccs slameapoancecescke cose eeataeeeneeses Sie 
Inquiring Gorrespondents, o our Sp nelecletiogsebtemeue ncgins cclacas veweesacemetemee ls Sa 
Improvements, Metropolitan otic. ..s. snes seaemrian'as es aqcesseossneareassneseetre.. MDS 
Inscription in a Garden at Altona .....scesecsresrcncrcececececcctcecseeeeerserses 624 
Trtended 2 |My x, dices se'cenens ob ae sus engnasss dugecs ono ve caysasesti reat emiiteien ss (Ol 
Journey, recent, in South -Amerieasescscasabetecnees «> <naqadeccue ee oe Se 
King’s College... o cclebawiecee sos sosefrenepedes stesess sacveccecccsscraccsseceescs LTE 
Giieseresensseness Gasniscles Slave ubelssisnisesciceuccenceasgugud tahneumeuneacu sss smt line 
Last Story, Mine “"Host’s .. oh Sesics maenmnigaiaclenc ese cduianaanaasedeateemenecs s+ ccmonne 
Laudem (in) Bulle Hro-Nautice .. puans selagt . 602 
List of New and Expiring Patents .. sulessees seme 100, 212, 323, “436, ‘558, 671 
London Markets, the.. Ls aaeneas beeaive we Re al 
London Incidents, Mantiages, Deaths, & Si, saee “108, ‘219, "331, “445, 564, 677 
London Bridge... cobble apaae aise eb'delvs ue cv eolee eesclenne Wanpacbeesascene, LOD 
Literary Property. .. nideabiacaiennna.seqe te a0 np pone tsles'ss an'es op salnanea@ Momsleteaae hOUaE 
Legend of London.. wiche annie siegudcac.qecsiqhieeccinncaceeacuge co @tenenee. odin seeeen mm 
Matters, Theatrical. deipeascdebesnes prepa ssohsspnaess.sercaemn sar, ome OT nee 
Memoirs of a Police Officer .. sonaciacneaacd Ned cas Ubasine ce is caicesvieresLaamnn ss <a 
——. of John Shipp... sweat an aeagaaueanescneciedanssas,.c,cosen teen tte: sien 
of de Bourrienne.: JUednwescasdneaclenie dub oles baiserescabnaQee Metin Gece Mi 
Metropolitan Improvements... anlsana-SaeeoraSNay say ieaeesve ln 
Monthly Review of Literature . sees cena oe 81, "193, ‘305, ‘417, 537, 
Massacre of St. Bartholomew......... cape se pedsiedeqes MeReinMtet ens ae cal nn 
Narrative of Events in the Irish Rebellion .. = 0,00,55q0 ehiehieemmnden as veces eae 
Novels by the Author of 8 gst Hall . cleo ws colsece becepessiseceiccen sycape il 
Night of Fever........ Be enaass 
Notes of the. Month on 1 Adains, 3 in . Gapenale. "64, 176, 289, ‘401, ‘21, re 


O’Connell and My Lord Shrewsbury .. sdaeseulainetcch trenitemeaehivas oan mnee 
Our Colonies.. Ace “A 
Petition of the Editors, Proprietors, & Bees, of the Monty Magazine a the 4 
Houses.of£ lords; and. COMMON Sccarcnesemsasce onennsesns.dsnsinsacieseas rene: uaa 678 
Misia ei WO gp. 5 ocxnanoema-renaensesine <tanaatwtconn apnpensenedeah a) sa 
Popery in. Portugal .......ssssssecseeneressesersseecnesceneeseneeeeseatescesenscenen 42 
Popery, as it was, and. will ie tana Ra dalneuced a Talsee een a aN caaiecics'< Sanne 449 
Police Officer svtorneetnetnnseteetveernsenanettvenveeensteseernsteseaeg 6B 
Popular Poetry... aac cat ... 239 
Provincial Tecumucnces. Marriages, a andl. Deaths.. PAPA “109, 221, "334, “446, "565, 679 
Proceedings of Learnéd Societies .......csesesceeceeeeeencees oo ssepae 
Patents, New and. Expiring .........sssseeeses . 100, 212, ‘923, ‘436, 558, 6 
Political ee eiceieaianetintiananiccinennaciseeesmenewesscmlO ls bar 331, 444, 5 
Royal Hunt.........-scesesvcecseccesaseceseseqsce cots anenscennacncesncnnccssasa 


Reverie . Waco memteasscesanubadery bakpisaniveenais a> pitatad 

Recent Journey. i in n South “America. nantaeesnedeae cas tasueserash ee aaeaaee 
Race-Ball. SaaESUe Aawetr cess asmhaubnnaseenencasnasacseeds'ss=<aaeceea nae 
Rebellion, Techs Ses, cnaunien seneibcasnn.ceoelaceeneina enema 


Recollections ofa Night of Fever... coinoicniau'ple s0's0is6is0 gels oocleslenhaitann 
Schools, the Greate .c.ccicvecsccocncacecssccoceccuecc nace cocncncnssssseeqnneey 
South America, Journey ih apis sninelanesaeae oelaces’ssidesunc kcal oe 
Save, ELUSDANGS. <ccjesicnsscanaccansacnacaarasiance ¢¢4s4s0cedeeh ieee 
HRM E 2s os ccen caiceine nangricnskaanemeenee nap sar > mass sanseeeee 
Theatrical Reports... slsaisplgAbhdanialanaaingnajncdsives tena 150, 168, 235, ‘39 
AY eats ie ease caine sa aoiencidaninninarng ancien sean cen) 3 O2_ Abang 516, 67 
Warriors, So scone coed UMEEieae ss oes ouat wvsues 463 


Works i in the Press and d New ee 97, 210, 320, “433, 5 a 


INDEX TO WORKS REVIEWED. 


Page i Page 
Bernay’s German Poetical Antho- Howell’s Life and ee of Alex- 
logy ..... SUpade oon Gacape sence 547 ander! Selkaric sta0 «ssid ef Sone One e; 
- Biographical ieee veseeeeesess SIZ Trving’s Last Days yea ey Ee 5 310 
Bishop de Bellay’s Beauties of St. Fran- Judgment (A Second) of Bebe Eo 
eis\de Sales ......... sfereleiere eis ae 421 Great er tse cee weettna ss ae see 420 
_ Bourrienne’s (De) Mémoires........ 504 Library of Religious Knowledge ... 658 
 Bray’s Protestant ........... ++++ 87 Memoirs of the late Rev. W. Goode.. ib. 


Brienne’s (Count de) Mémoires, &c.. 89 
Castilian, (the) by Don Telesforo de 
Trueba y Cosio PEN 
_ Christian (the) Gentleman .......... 
_ Conversations on Intellectual Philo- 


Croker’s Legends of the Lakes of Kil- 
larney 
Dick Humelbergius Secundus’ Apician 


ee ey 


a oe SARE A OG"! 
versions of Holycott 
wté, or the Salons of Paris........ 


li (the) Correspondence.......... : 
erson’s Letters from the gean 425 

BETIETICE 5050 oceviss vise dee ose és 
irst Steps to Astronomy and Geo- 
BIBDUY aisles els <ocvvceses 
Godwin’s History of the Common- 

wealth .. 


Hall’s Letters from the West.......+ 
Hind’s Elements of Plane and Spheri- 

cal Trigonometry ...... Mabie picis (EOD 
Hood’s (Dr.) Analytical Physiology.. ib. 


M’Gregor’s Historical and Descriptive 
Sketches of the Maritime Colonies 
of British America.......e..00.+ 

Man (the) with Two Lives........0. 

Milne’s Prize Essay on Comets...... 

Naval (the) Officer.......... Seteretare 

Nicholl’s Autographs....... stale a opti 

Novels by the Author of Headlong 
EAI eich, vatete stachals aiehs es mievavevetavey™ 

Parry’s Legendary Cabinet ........ 

Past Feelings Renovated; or, Ideas 
occasioned by the Perusal of Dr. 
Hibbert’s Philosophy of Apparitions 88 


Peace Campaigns of a Cornet........ 545 
Pronouncing Dictionary......... «oe 312 
Restalrig, or the Forfeiture.......... 424 
Ricci’s Memoirs ............. soeee 20] 
Russell’s Analysis of the Second De- 
cade of Livy...... at bieh sate ales -.. 548 
Sailors and Saints .......4... .... 193 


Savary’s (Duke of Rovigo) Memoirs.. 85 
Schultes’ Flowers of Fancy.......... 
Shephard’s Divine Origin of Christia- 
TURE Y oi ninth seh 's o,¢/ 0% lin pies \ni reseeee 540 
Stories from Church History, by the 
Author of Early Recollections .... 661 


INDEX. 


Page Page 
Shipp’s Memoirss-...¢seseeeseeeee 249 What is Luxury? ...... Reesicwss 420 
Tales of Passion, by the Author of Widowson’s present State of Van Die- 
Gilbert Earle ....-. Pores ine DOD man’s Land...... ica hapens es 417 
Tales of a Voyager, Second Series..-. 541 VVilliams’s (Mrs.) Syllabic Spelling .. id. 
Traits of Travel, or Tales of Men and Wolff’s Missionary Journal ........ 418 
Wifes Hew aie is ahd wieiejyieie dict tees 587 Young on Popery in Portugal ...... 42 
Trials of Life, by the Author of De Life and Times of Francis I., King of 
Lisle. see. eee sees eee eeee nen os 196 Brance <<< vies Se wees a tiie waoeere-s; GES 
Twelve Years’ Military Adventures in Library of Entertaining Knowledge .. 654 
Three-Quarters of the Globe ...... 158  Schiller’s William Tell ............ 655 
Vidocq’s Memoirs ...-....0.44--+ 53 Ségur’s (General Count Philip de) His- 
Visits to the Religious World ...... 544 tory of Russia and Peter the Great 656 
EMINENT AND REMARKABLE PERSONS, 
Whose Deaths are recorded in this Volume. 
Count Barras, 437 Lieut. Col. Dickson, Mr. Johnstone, 436 Dr. Pearson, 102 
Mr. Bewick,, 324 213 Earl of Liverpool, Empress Dowseaet 
Mr. Bonington, 100 Earl of Earne, 101 214 ~—- Russia, 4 
Professor Bonterwek, M. Gossec, 560 General Mack, 326 M. Schlegel, 560 
324 Sir George Grey, Archdeacon Nares, Mr. Shield, 438 
Mr. Curwen, 440 101 560 Mr. Webster, 325 
Lieut. Col. Denham, Sir A.S.Hammond, Dr. Nicoll, 215 
325 102 Dr. O'Connor, 326 


PRESENTED 
=~ § DEC 1948 


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