The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 12, No. 324, July 26, 1828

The preparations were by this time concluded, and nothing now remained but the last summons of the sexton. At this juncture, while the coffin was being lowered into its resting place, my eyes, accidentally, it may be said, but in reality by some fatal instinct, fell full upon the lid, on which I instantly recognised a name, long and fearfully known to me—the name of the Mysterious Tailor of High Holborn. Oh, how many thrilling recollections did this one name recal? The rencontre in the streets of London—the scene at the masquerade—the meeting at Bologne—the storm—the shipwreck—the sinking vessel—the appearance at that moment of the man himself—the subsequent visions of mingled fever and insanity: all, all now swept across my mind, as for the last time I gazed on the remains of him who was powerless henceforth for ever. In a few minutes one little span of earth would keep down that strange form which seemed once endowed with ubiquity. That wild unearthly voice was mute; that wandering glance was fixed; a seal was set upon those lips which eternity itself could not remove. Yes, my Tormentor—my mysterious—omnipresent Tormentor was indeed gone; and in that one word, how much of vengeance was forgotten! I was roused from this reverie by the hollow sound of the clay as it fell dull and heavy on the coffin-lid. The poor sleeper beneath could not hear it, it is true; his slumber, henceforth, was sound; the full tide of human population pressing fast beside the spot where he lay buried, should never wake him more: no human sorrow should rack his breast, no dream disturb his repose; yet cold, changed, and senseless as he was, the first sound of the falling clods jarred strange and harsh upon my ear, as if it must perforce awake him. In this feverish state of mind I quitted the church-yard, and, on my road home, passed by the shop where I had first met with the deceased. It was altered—strangely altered—to my mind, revoltingly so. Its quaint antique character, its dingy spectral look were gone, and there was even a studied air of cheerfulness about it, as if the present proprietor were anxious to obliterate every association, however slight, that might possibly remind him of the past. The former owner had but just passed out, his ashes were scarcely cold, and already his name was on the wane. Yet this is human nature. So trifling, in fact, is the gap caused by our absence in society, that there needs no patriotic Curtius to leap into it; it closes without a miracle the instant it is made, and none but a disinterested Undertaker knows or cares for whom tolls our passing bell.

Monthly Magazine.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

THE TOUR OF DULNESSFrom her throne of clouds, as Dulness look'dOn her foggy and favour'd nation,She sleepily nodded her poppy-crown'd head,And gently waved her sceptre of lead,In token of approbation.For the north-west wind brought clouds and gloom,Blue devils on earth, and mists in the air;Of parliamentary prose some died,Some perpetrated suicide,And her empire flourish'd there.The Goddess look'd with a gracious eyeOn her ministers great and small;But most she regarded with tendernessHer darling shrine, the Minerva Press,In the street of Leadenhall.This was her sacred haunt, and hereHer name was most adored,Her chosen here officiated.And hence her oracles emanated,And breathed the Goddess in every word.She pass'd from the east to the west, and pausedIn New Burlington-street awhile,To inspire a few puffs for Colburn and Co.And indite some dozen novels or soIn the fashionable style.Then turning her own Magazine to inspect,She was rather at fault, as of lateThe colour and series both were new;But the Goddess, with discernment true,Detected it by the weight.She cross'd the Channel next, and peep'dAt Dublin; but the zealOf the liberty boys soon put her to flight.And she dropp'd her mantle in her fright,Which fell on Orator Shiel.Thence sped she to the Land of Cakes,The land she loves and its possessors;She loves its Craniologists,Political Economists,And all Scotch mists and Scotch Professors.And chiefly she on McCulloch smiled,As a mother smiles on her darling child,Or a lady on her lover;Then, bethinking her of Parliament,She hasten'd South, but ere she went,She promised if nothing occurr'd to prevent,To return when the Session was over.Blackwood's Magazine.CANNIBALISM

In great cities, cannibalism takes an infinite variety of shapes. In the neighbourhood of St. James's-street there are numerous slaughter-houses, where men are daily consumed by the operation of cards and dice; and where they are caught by the same bait, at which Quin said he should have infallibly bitten. A similar process is likewise carried on in 'Change Alley, on a great scale; not to speak of that snare especially set for widows and children, called a "joint stock speculation." But your cannibal of cannibals is a parliament patron. Here, a great borough proprietor swallows a regiment at a single gulp; and there, the younger son of a lord ruminates over a colony till the very crows cannot find a dinner in it; and there again, a duke or a minister, himself and his family, having first "supped full of horrors," casts a diocese to the side-table, to be mumbled at leisure by his son's tutor. The town is occasionally very indignant and very noisy against the gouls of Surgeons' Hall, because they live upon the dead carcasses of their fellow-creatures; while, strange to say, it takes but little account of the hordes of wretches who openly, and in the face of day, hunt down living men in their nefarious dealings as porter brewers, quack doctors, informers, attorneys, manufacturers of bean flour, alum, and Portland stone; and torture their subjects like so many barbacued pigs, in the complicated processes of their cookery.—New Month. Mag.

SIGNS OF THE TIMES"They say this town is full of cozenage,As nimble jugglers that deceive the eye,Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks,And many such like libertines of sin."SHAKSPEARE.

Caveat emptor! This is the age of fraud, imposture, substitution, transmutation, adulteration, abomination, contamination, and many others of the same sinister ending, always excepting purification. Every thing is debased and sophisticated, and "nothing is but what is not." All things are mixed, lowered, debased, deteriorated, by our cozening dealers and shopkeepers; and, bad as they are, there is every reason to fear that they are "mox daturos progeniem vitiosiorem." We wonder at the increase of bilious and dyspeptic patients, at the number of new books upon stomach complaints, at the rapid fortunes made by practitioners who undertake (the very word is ominous) to cure indigestion; but how can it be otherwise, when Accum, before he took to quoting with his scissors, assured us there was "poison in the pot;" when a recent writer has shown that there are still more deleterious ingredients in the wine-bottle; and when we ourselves have all had dismal intestine evidence that our bread is partly made of ground bones, alum, plaster of Paris; our tea, of aloe-leaves; our beer, of injurious drugs; our milk, of snails and chalk; and that even the water supplied to us by our companies is any thing rather than the real Simon Pure it professes to be. Not less earnestly than benevolently do our quack doctors implore us to beware of spurious articles; Day and Martin exhort us not to take our polish from counterfeit blacking: every advertiser beseeches the "pensive public" to be upon its guard against supposititious articles—all, in short, is knavery, juggling, cheating, and deception.—Ibid.

Retrospective Gleanings

SONNETBY HENRY TEONOE, A SEA CHAPLAIN IN THE REIGN OF CHARLES II

Composed October the First, over against the East part of Candia.

O! Ginnee was a bony lasse,Which maks the world to woonderHow ever it should com to passeThat wee did part a sunder.The driven snow, the rose so rare,The glorious sunne above thee,Can not with my Ginnee compare,She was so wonderous lovely.Her merry lookes, her forhead high,Her hayre like golden-wyer,Her hand and foote, her lipe or eye,Would set a saint on fyre.And for to give Giunee her due,Thers no ill part about her;The turtle-dove's not half so true;Then whoe can live without her?King Solomon, where ere he lay,Did nere unbrace a kinder;O! why should Ginnee gang away,And I be left behind her?Then will I search each place and roomeFrom London to Virginny,From Dover-peere to Scanderoone,But I will finde my Ginny.But Ginny's turned back I feare,When that I did not mind her;Then back to England will I steare,To see where I can find her.And haveing Ginnee once againe,If sheed doe her indeavour,The world shall never make us twaine—Weel live and dye together.SONG BY KING CHARLES IIOn the Duchess of Portsmouth leaving England

(For the Mirror.)

Bright was the morning, cool the air,Serene was all the skies;When on the waves I left my dear,The center of my joys;Heav'n and nature smiling were.And nothing sad but I.Each rosy field their odours spread,All fragrant was the shore;Each river God rose from his bed,And sighing own'd her pow'r;Curling the waves they deck'd their heads,As proud of what they bore.Glide on ye waves, bear these lines,And tell her my distress;Bear all these sighs, ye gentle winds,And waft them to her breast;Tell her if e'er she prove unkind,I never shall have rest.

The Anecdote Gallery

VOLTAIRE

(From various Authorities.)

The Chateau of Ferney, the celebrated residence of Voltaire, six miles from Geneva, is a place of very little picturesque beauty: its broad front is turned to the high road, without any regard to the prospect, and the garden is adorned with cut trees, parapet walls with flower-pots, jets d'eaux, &c. Voltaire's bed-room is shown in its pristine state, just as he left it in 1777, when, after a residence of twenty years, he went to Paris to enjoy a short triumph and die. Time and travellers have much impaired the furniture of light-blue silk, and the Austrians, quartered in the house during the late war, have not improved it; the bed-curtains especially, which for the last forty years have supplied each traveller with a precious little bit, hastily torn off, are of course in tatters. The bedstead is of common deal, coarsely put together; a miserable portrait of Le Kain, in crayons, hangs inside of the bed, and two others, equally bad, on each side, Frederic and Voltaire himself. Round the room are bad prints of Washington, Franklin, Sir Isaac Newton, and several other celebrated personages; the ante-chamber is decorated with naked figures, in bad taste; each of these rooms may be 12 feet by 15.

Such is the narrative of an intelligent traveller, who recently visited Ferney. "Very few," says he, "remain alive, of those who saw the poet: a gardener who conducted us about the grounds had that advantage; he showed us the place where the theatre stood, filling the space on the left-hand side in entering, between the chateau and the chapel, but the inscription on the last, Voltaire à Dieu, was removed during the reign of terror. The old gardener spoke favourably of his old master, who was, he said, bon homme tout-a-fait, bien charitable, and took an airing every morning in his coach and four."

In the sitting-room, adjoining the bedroom, which he was accustomed to occupy, besides some good ancient paintings, is a very singular picture, which was painted according to Voltaire's direction. The principal personages are Voltaire, holding in his hand a roll of paper inscribed La Henriade; next him is a female personification of this favourite poem, whom he is presenting to Apollo crowned with rays of glory; Louis XIV. with his queen and court, are observing these chief figures. In another part, the Muses are crowning the burst of Voltaire with wreaths of flowers, and proposing to place it with those of other immortal authors in the Temple of Fame. The bottom of the picture is occupied by his enemies, who are being torn to pieces by wild beasts, or burning in flames of fire.

In the bed-room is a marble cenotaph, on which is an urn that formerly contained the heart of Voltaire, which was removed several years ago, and placed in the church of Les Invalides at Paris. In this room also is an engraving of Voltaire's monument in the church-yard of Ferney. In this, four figures, representing the four quarters of the world, are preparing to honour his bust with wreaths of laurel and palms. Ignorance, meanwhile, with the wings of a fiend, armed with rods, is driving them away in the midst of their pacific employment, and extinguishing a lamp which burns above the tomb. It is a singular circumstance that Voltaire caused the church of Ferney to be built, as well as several houses in the village, and on an iron vane on the top of the former is inscribed, "Deo erexit Voltaire."

After his escape from the court of Frederic, Voltaire went first to Lausanne, were he resided some years, and where he fitted up a private theatre; his acquaintances there supplied him with performers, of whom it seems he was proud, and who acted for him Zaire, Alzira, and several other plays. Some spirited drawings of Huber represent him behind the scene teaching, scolding, encouraging the actors; you might have thought you heard his loud bravo! The part of Lusignan was frequently filled by the poet himself, who was so much taken with it as to be seen in the morning at the door of his house already dressed for the stage. Voltaire had a hollow wooden voice, and his declamation had more pomp in it than nature; yet in the part of Trissotin, in the Femmes Savantes, he performed very well.

From Lausanne, where he quarrelled with several persons, he went, in 1755, to St. Jean, close to Geneva, and gave to the house he occupied the name of Les Dèlices, which it retains to this day. Ferney, which he bought soon after, became his permanent residence for twenty years.

Strangers of distinction made a point of calling on the philosopher of Ferney, who for some years received their visits very willingly, giving them fêtes and plays; but he became tired of this, and at last would only see those who could amuse him while he amused them. A quaker from Philadelphia, called Claude Gay, travelling in Europe, stayed some time at Geneva; he was known as the author of some Theological works, and liked for his good sense, moderation, and simplicity. Voltaire heard of him, his curiosity was excited, and he desired to see him. The quaker felt great reluctance, but suffered himself at last to be carried to Ferney, Voltaire having promised before hand to his friends that he would say nothing that could give him offence. At first he was delighted with the tall, straight, handsome quaker, his broad-brimmed hat, and plain drab suit of clothes; the mild and serene expression of his countenance; and the dinner promised to go off very well; yet he soon took notice of the great sobriety of his guest, and made jokes, to which he received grave and modest answers. The patriarchs, and the first inhabitants of the earth were next alluded to; by and by he began to sneer at the historical proofs of Revelation; but Claude was not to be driven away from his ground, and while examining these proofs, and arguing upon them rationally, he overlooked the light attacks of his adversary, when not to the point, appeared insensible to his sarcasms and wit, and remained always cool and serious. Voltaire's vivacity at last turned to downright anger; his eyes flashed fire whenever they met the benign and placid countenance of the quaker, and the dispute went so far at last, that the latter, getting up, said, "Friend Voltaire! perhaps thou mayst come to understand these matters rightly; in the meantime, finding I can do thee no good, I leave thee, and so fare thee well!" So saying he went away on foot, notwithstanding all entreaties, back again to Geneva, leaving the whole company in consternation. Voltaire immediately retired to his own room. M. Huber,8 who was present at this scene, made a drawing of the two actors. PHILO.

THE GATHERER

A snapper up of unconsidered trifles. SHAKSPEARE.

SIR W. JONES AND MR. DAY.

One day, upon removing some books at the chambers of Sir William Jones, a large spider dropped upon the floor, upon which Sir William, with some warmth, said, "Kill that spider, Day, kill that spider!" "No," said Mr. Day, with that coolness for which he was so conspicuous, "I will not kill that spider, Jones; I do not know that I have a right to kill that spider! Suppose when you are going in your coach to Westminster Hall, a superior being, who, perhaps may have as much power over you as you have over this insect, should say to his companion, 'Kill that lawyer! kill that lawyer!' how should you like that, Jones? and I am sure, to most people, a lawyer is a more noxious animal than a spider."

BISHOP

In Cambridge, this title is not confined to the dignitaries of the church; but port wine, made copiously potable by being mulled and burnt, with the addenda of roasted lemons all bristling like angry hedge-hogs (studded with cloves,) is dignified with the appellation of Bishop:

Beneath some old oak, come and rest thee, my hearty; Our foreheads with roses, oh! let us entwine!

And, inviting young Bacchus to be of the party, We'll drown all our troubles in oceans of wine!

And perfumed with Macassar or Otto of roses, We'll pass round the BISHOP, the spice-breathing cup,

And take of that medicine such wit-breeding doses, We'll knock down the god, or he shall knock us up.

GAZETTED AND IN THE GAZETTE.

These terms imply very different things. The son of a nobleman is gazetted, as a cornet in a regiment, and all his friends rejoice. John Thomson is in the Gazette, and all his friends lament.

UNFORTUNATE CASE.

A zealous priest in the north of Ireland missed a constant auditor from his congregation, in which schism had already made depredations. "What keeps our friend Farmer B–away from us?" was the anxious question proposed by the vigilant minister to his assistant, "I have not seen him among us," continued he, "these three weeks; I hope it is not Protestantism that keeps him away," "No," was the reply, "it is worse than that." "Worse than Protestantism? God forbid it should,—Deism?" "No, worse than that." "Worse than Deism! good heavens, I trust it is not Atheism." "No, worse than Atheism!" "Impossible, nothing can be worse than Atheism!" "Yes, it is, your honour—it is Rheumatism!"

LIQUIDATING CLAIMS.

During a remarkable wet summer, Joe Vernon, whose vocal taste and humour contributed for many years to the entertainment of the frequenters of Vauxhall Gardens, but who was not quite so good a timist in money matters as in music, meeting an acquaintance who had the misfortune to hold some of his unhonoured paper, was asked by him, not uninterestedly, how the gardens were going on? "Oh, swimmingly!" answered the jocose Joe. "Glad to hear it," retorted the creditor, "their swimming state, I hope, will cause the singers to liquidate their notes."

Mr. Samuel Deacon, a most respectable Baptist minister, who resided at Barton in Leicestershire, was not peculiarly happy in his cast of countenance or general appearance; conscious of the silly ridicule his unprepossessing tout ensemble occasionally excited, he made the following good-humoured, quaint remark:—

"The carcass that you look at so,Is not Sam Deacon, you must know,But 'tis the carriage—the machine,Which Samuel Deacon rideth in."

ADVANTAGES OF LOQUACITY

A very pretty woman, who was tediously loquacious, complained one day to Madame de Sevigné, that she was sadly tormented by her lovers. "Oh, Madame," said Madame de Sevigné to her, with a smile, "it is very easy to get rid of them: you have only to speak."

1

The old bridge was of wood, and 168 yards in length. It was the most ancient on the River Thames, except that of London, and is mentioned in a record of the 8th year of Henry III.

2

At the time the chapel fell, the sexton, while digging a grave was buried under the ruins, with another person, and his daughter. The latter, notwithstanding she lay covered seven hours, survived this misfortune seventeen years, and was her father's successor. The memory of this event is preserved by a print of this singular woman, engraved by M'Ardell.

3

The work is dedicated to Dr. Babington, "in remembrance of some delightful days passed in his society, and in gratitude for an uninterrupted friendship of a quarter of a century;" and in the preface the author, after saying that the characters are imaginary, intimates that "in the portrait of HALIEUS, given in the last dialogue, a likeness, he thinks, will not fail to be recognised to that of a most estimable physician, ardently beloved by his friends, and esteemed and venerated by the public."

4

In our last volume, this was erroneously attributed to Swift.

5

See page 370, vol. xi. MIRROR.

6

As "kill him, crimp him," &c.

7

The late worthy and scientific Wm. Reynolds, of the Bank, near Ketley.

8

M. Huber was the father of the author of a work on the economy of bees, and the grandfather of the author of a work on the economy of ants. The first M. Huber had a very peculiar talent for drawing; with his scissors he could cut a piece of paper into a representation of anything, as accurately, and as fast, and with as much spirit, as he might have delineated with his pencil either figures or landscapes. Voltaire was his favourite subject; and he is known to have taught his dog to bite off a piece of crumb of bread, which he held in his hand, so as to give it as last the appearance of Voltaire.