The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 20, No. 580, Supplemental Number

Now it is quite clear that however brilliant might have been the prospects of the Flybekins, the peer and his lady wished them any where but in London; and, rather than invite them to Grosvenor-square to dinner, the former would have been glad to be let off with a writership for one of the sons in India.

Their carriage was ordered at ten, to convey them to the Duchess of R.'s party, and Lord B. proposed to make a friendly call upon their relations before waiting on Her Grace. Accordingly thither they drove, accompanied by two footmen bearing flaming flambeaux, the custom of the great in those days, when the town was not so well lighted as in the present age. The signs of this custom are indeed still to be seen in the extinguishers attached to the railings in front of many houses, which served for the footmen to extinguish their lights.

Meantime the Flybekins slept on, not dreaming of the honour intended them, and were as sound asleep as Duncan in Macbeth's castle, when a long thundering rap at the door startled them amid their slumbers. The diminutive, bandy footman had gone home with the coachman and horses, the landlady and her family had followed the example of the lodgers; and before any one could rise to unbar and open the door, to ascertain the cause of such an unusual alarm, a second louder and longer rap had been made upon it, and which awoke the sleepers to an instinctive idea that the house was on fire; a notion confirmed by the strong glare of red light reflected against their windows, and illuminating the apartment, as the footmen impatiently shook thousands of sparks from the flambeaux.

As Bonaparte observed upon another occasion, "From the sublime to the ridiculous is but one step." So it was with the Flybekins. From the most sublime repose they hurried into the ridiculous fire-escapes, in the full conviction that the lower part of the house was on fire; and without waiting to dress, or inquire into the real state of affairs, they gave the signal-word "Now!" and both descended in all the freshness of their fears to the pavement before the door!

The wondering lord and lady, and still more wondering footmen, glared upon the apparition before them with the most inexplicable amazement, totally at a loss to conceive the cause of such a novel reception. The terrified pair were, like Othello, "perplexed in the extreme," when they found themselves, instead of being in the confusion of a fire, deposited beneath the windows of a magnificent carriage, attended by footmen with white torches, and a full dressed lady and gentleman inquiring after them, and the meaning of the extraordinary descent. A few minutes served to explain the mal à propos mistake; the detected pair sought refuge in the hall of the house, with some such feeling as our first parents experienced when they had tasted the fatal apple in the garden of Eden. The carriage rolled away with the tittering coachman and footmen, and the ill-suppressed mirth of their master and mistress, who quickly disseminated the story throughout the fashionable throng of the party whither they were bent, and which remained for the rest of the season a standing joke wherever Lord and Lady B. appeared.

Humbled and confused, the unhappy Flybekins could not retrieve the blunder they had committed, and prudently resigned all their ambitious schemes. So they returned to Devonshire with the unlucky fire-escapes, sincerely regretting they had ever been tempted to purchase them. But, although the disaster had got wind, and with various versions had reached even into Devonshire, they were much consoled by the following narration of it which appeared in the county paper, in a light most favourable to their interests and reputation, although totally devoid of truth in almost every particular.

The flaming paragraph ran thus:—"We understand that Mr. and. Mrs. Flybekin of – in this county, while upon a visit to their noble relatives, Lord and Lady B. in London, narrowly escaped being burnt to death. The devouring element almost destroyed the lower part of the family mansion in Grosvenor-square, over which the lady and gentleman slept, who had retired early to bed, and who by the accidental return of Lord and Lady B. from a party, were awakened only just in time to effect their retreat by means of a fire-escape, fortunately attached to their bed-room window. We are informed that the fire occurred in consequence of the footmen, appointed to sit up for their master and mistress, having fallen asleep, leaving a lighted candle in the room. Mr. and Mrs. Flybekin escaped, with the loss of all their clothes but what they hurried on in the confusion, and were conveyed to a neighbouring hotel by their noble relatives, where they received succour for the night."

But unhappily for the Flybekins, the naked truth at length forced its way into Devonshire, and the true statement of the matter was circulated as above related, and now handed down to their posterity.

Thus, the best version of their story only placed them, "out of the fire into the frying pan," and the unlucky fire-escapes merely saved them from the fear of being badly burnt, in order that they might all the rest of their lives be well roasted!

There is considerable humour and ingenuity in the following lines, introducing the names of London booksellers, and their nominal fitness for publishing certain books:—

"WHAT'S IN A NAME?"

Long hail! to Longman, and his longer Co.,Pride of our city's Pater Noster Row;Thy trade forego in novel trash romantic,And treat the world to something more gigantic.Let Underwood all essays sell on trees,On shrubs, or growth of brushwood if he please;All works on brewing leave to Mr. Porter,—To Boosey—temperance, for his firm supporter.Leave to friend Bull all works on horned cattle,While Reid will teach the youthful mind to prattle;Give Bohn—anatomy; give Mason sculpture;Gardiner's engrafted upon horticulture.For valuation-tables on the price of laud,Why should we seek, since Byfield is at hand;For works on draining either bog or fen,In Marsh and Moore we have a choice of men.Give Sherwood tales of merry men, who stood—Firm to their robbing—around Robin Hood.Ogle takes optics,—Miller, works on grain,—Ridgway, on railroads,—Surgery with Payne.Hail! Pic-a-dilly Hatchard, thy vocationShould be prolific, for 'tis incubation;Thy pious care brought Egley into note,And still on Gosling some folks say you dote.But to my plan.—To make the dull ones plod well,Books for the use of schools, give Mr. Rodwell;And works on painting should you ever lack,You need but brush to either Grey or Black.From Cowie works on vaccination fetch,Pedestrian tours from Walker, or from Stretch;And if in search of wonders you should range,Where can you seek them better than from Strange.The suff'ring climbing boys our pity claim,To aid their interest—Suttaby, I'd name;And as they're oft of churchyard-terrors slaves,Print works to cure them, O! Moon, Boys, and Graves.For plans of bridges Arch would be the best;For stairs and steps on Banister I'd rest;All that relates to church or chapel holy,I vote that such be Elder's business solely.Sustenance on diet surely ought to treat;Joy gives us human happiness complete:Tilt will all works on tournament enhance,The law—Oh! that of course I leave to Chance,Priestly and Chappell may divide theology,Hookham and Roach the angling and ichthyology;And for Phrenology, what need of rumpus,One for his Nob will do—so take it, Bumpus!

SPINNING-WHEEL SONG

BY MISS MITFORDFair Janet sits beside her wheel;No maiden better knewTo pile upon the circling reelAn even thread and true;But since for Rob she 'gan to pine,She twists her flax in vain;'Tis now too coarse,—and now too fine,—And now—'tis snapt in twain!Robin, a bachelor profest,At love and lovers laughs,And o'er the bowl with reckless jest,His pretty spinster quaffs;Then, whilst all sobbing, Janet cries"She scorns the scornful swain!"With angry haste her wheel she plies,And—snaps the thread again!

[The Publishers have obligingly enabled us to present the reader with three of the smartest Cuts. The fun of these Cuts requires neither note nor comment.

Altogether, we may recommend the Offering as a really comic companion.]

THE AMULET

[Is decidedly an improvement upon former years, and, taken altogether, plates, prose, and poetry, is the best book of the present season. The Editor, Mr. Hall, has judiciously maintained the original feature of his plan—that of "considering attractive tales and beautiful poems, however, essential to the interest and variety of the volume, as secondary to that which conveyed information and led to improvement." He then proceeds to enumerate a few of the papers to which he particularly refers, which have appeared in former volumes of the Amulet; as Dr. Walsh's Essay on Coins and Medals, illustrating the progress of Christianity: accounts of the American Christians at Constantinople, and of the Chaldean Christians, and a visit to Nicæa, by the same author: the Rev. Robert Hall's Essay on Poetry and Philosophy: Mr. Coleridge's Travels in Germany: An Essay on French Oaths, by Miss Edgeworth: the Rev. W.S. Gilly's Narrative of the Albigenses: Mr. Ellis's Account of the Austral Islands: Dr. Walsh's Account of the Aborigines of Canada; and Mr. Macfarlane's Visit to the Seven Churches of Asia Minor. These papers are entitled to special mention, and we think the Editor justified in his estimate of them. In the volume for the present year we have two contributions of this class;

an Essay on Sneezing, a learned paper, by Dr. Walsh; and the following]

HISTORY OF THE HOLY CROSS. 2

By Lord Mahon

The supposed discovery of a religious relic, and the miracles attending it, are events so common in Roman Catholic legends as to deserve but little attention, even on the ground of curiosity; but the real changes and vicissitudes of one of these relics, for twelve centuries after its discovery, may perhaps excite some interest, more especially as its singular adventures, very distant in time, and recorded by different writers, have never yet been brought together, and formed into one connected narrative.

In the reign of the Emperor Constantine the Great, his mother Helena, when almost an octogenarian, undertook a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Her pious zeal was particularly directed to the search of the holy sepulchre, and of the cross on which Jesus Christ had suffered; and, according to her own judgment: at least, she was successful in both. A vision, or perhaps a dream, disclosed the place of the Holy Sepulchre; the three crosses were found buried near it, and that of the Saviour is said to have been distinguished from the others by its healing powers on the sick, and even restoring a corpse to life. This discovery caused great and general rejoicing throughout Christendom.3 The spot was immediately consecrated by a church, called the New Jerusalem, and of such magnificence that the celebrated Eusebius is strongly inclined to look upon its building as the fulfilment of the prophecies in the Scriptures for a city of that name.4 A verse of the sibyl was also remembered or composed, which, like all predictions after the event, tallied in a surprising manner with the holy object so happily revealed. The greater share of the Cross was left at Jerusalem, set in a case of silver, and the remainder was sent to Constantine, who, in hopes of securing the prosperity and duration of his empire, enclosed it within his own statue on the Byzantine Forum. The pilgrims also, who thronged to Jerusalem during a long course of years, were always eager, and often successful, in obtaining a small fragment of the cross for themselves; so that at length, according to the strong expression of St. Cyril, the whole earth was filled with this sacred wood. Even at present, there is scarcely a Roman Catholic cathedral which does not display some pretended pieces of this relic; and it has been computed, with some exaggeration, that were they all collected together, they might prove sufficient for building a ship of the line. To account for this extraordinary diffusion of so limited a quantity, the Catholic writers have been obliged to assert its preternatural growth and vegetation, which the saint already quoted ingeniously compares to the miracle of the loaves and fishes.5 That the guardians of this cross at Jerusalem should have had recourse to such evident and undoubted falsehood, should, I think, very much increase our doubts whether the Cross itself was genuine, and whether the old age and credulity of Helena, may not have been grossly imposed upon. Where we see one fraud, we may justly suspect another. From this period, however, the history of this fragment of wood may be clearly and accurately traced during the twelve succeeding centuries.

In spite of its frequent partitions, the Holy Cross, say the monkish writers, thus remained undiminished at Jerusalem, receiving the homage of innumerable pilgrims, until the year 614, when that city was besieged and taken by the Persians. Their barbarous fanaticism reduced to ruins or burnt to the ground nearly all the sacred buildings, and made a great slaughter of the Christians, in which they are said to have been actively assisted by the resident Jews.6 The bishop and the relic in question were removed into Persia, and continued in that country fourteen years, until the victories of the Emperor Heraclius led to an honourable peace, in which the restoration of this most precious treasure was expressly stipulated. During its captivity it had happily escaped the pollution of infidel hands; the case which contained it was brought back, unopened, to Jerusalem, and Heraclius himself undertook a journey in order to replace it in its former station on Mount Calvary. The prelude to this religious ceremony was a general massacre of the Jews, which the emperor had long withstood, but at length granted to the earnest and renewed entreaties of the monks of Alsik. The fact itself, and all its details, are so disgraceful to the parties concerned, that I would gladly reject it as false or overcharged, did it not rest on the authority of a patriarch of Alexandria.7 Heraclius then, attended by a solemn procession, but laying aside his diadem and purple, bore the Cross on his own shoulders towards the holy sepulchre. An officer was appointed to its peculiar care, with the title of STAUROPHULAX;8 and the anniversary of this event, the 14th September, is still celebrated in the Greek Church as a festival, under the name of the Exaltation of the Cross.

The relic did not long continue in the place to which the valour and piety of Heraclius had restored it, but was doomed to undergo still further vicissitudes of fortune. Only eight years afterwards (A.D. 636,) an army of Arabs, the new and fervent proselytes of Mahomet, invaded Palestine. At the battle of Yermuck, the imperial forces were totally routed, and Heraclius, downcast and dismayed, returned to Constantinople, bearing with him, as a source of consolation, the invaluable fragment, whose alleged miraculous powers were never exerted for its own protection.9 It is rarely that, when a sovereign despairs of success, his subjects have the courage (it would, perhaps, be termed the disloyal presumption) to prolong their resistance; but the inhabitants of Jerusalem were animated by religious zeal and local associations, and did not, till after a doubtful siege of several months, yield the holy city to the Saracens. The event soon justified the prudent foresight of Heraclius in removing the Cross from the danger of Mahometan masters. The Caliph of Omar experienced some difficulties in the construction of a mosque at Jerusalem: he immediately supposed those difficulties to be supernatural, and, by the advice of the Jews, destroyed a great number of the neighbouring crosses; so that it seems certain that the wood of the real crucifixion could still less have escaped the effects of his ignorant fanaticism.10 At Constantinople, on the contrary, it was preserved with the utmost veneration in the metropolitan church of St. Sophia, and the honours paid to it are attested and described by the father of English historians.11 Never, but on the three most solemn festivals of the year, was its costly case unclosed. On the first day, it received the adoration of the emperor and principal officers of state; on the next, the empress and chief ladies repeated the same ceremony; and the bishops and clergy were admitted on the third. While exposed to view on the altar, a grateful odour pervaded the whole church, and a fluid resembling oil distilled from the knots in the wood, of which the least drop was thought sufficient to cure the most inveterate disease. This precious fluid is also mentioned by Pope Gregory, the Great, in one of his letters to Leontius. "I have received your present," writes the Pope, "some oil of the Holy Cross and some wood of aloes, of which the one confers blessing by its very touch, and the other, when burnt, diffuses a pleasant perfume."12

In a period of several centuries, during which this relic remained at Constantinople we find it occasionally mentioned in the annals of the time. It was on the Holy Cross that Heracleonas swore to cherish and defend his nephew;13 it was to the same fragment that the son of Justinian the Second clung for protection, in the revolution which hurled his father from the throne;14 and we might entertain more respect for the superstition of the Greeks, if the supposed sanctity of this relic had produced either the observance of the oath, or the safety of the suppliant. At length, in the year 1078, the object of this narrative recommenced its travels. A wealthy citizen of Amalfi, whose name is not recorded, had long felt a wish to exchange active life for the cloister, and had selected the monastery of Casinum as the place of his future retirement. Being present in the Eastern capital during the tumultuous deposition of Michael the Seventh, he perceived in the general confusion a favourable opportunity for appropriating this precious fragment to himself. His zeal did not forget at the same time to secure the golden case, richly embossed with jewels, which contained it, and both were laid as a welcome offering before the shrine of St. Benedict, at Casinum.15 The good fathers must have felt no little pride when strangers beheld, in their secluded and obscure retreat, a relic which a long succession of the most illustrious princes had gloried in possessing.

The next place to which we can trace the Cross is Palestine, during the crusades, to which it had doubtless been conveyed for the purpose of restoring it to its more ancient and appropriate station, at Jerusalem. In, that country it was exposed to frequent hazards, as the crusaders appear to have been in the habit of bearing it in the van of their armies, when marching against the Mussulmans, hoping by its presence amongst them to secure the victory. One of their battles against the forces of Saladin by no means fulfilled their expectations, and in the course of it the sacred relic itself was unfortunately severed; one half of it being captured by the enemy, and most probably destroyed.16 This untoward accident, however, by no means impaired their veneration for the remaining fragment; and, at the commencement of the thirteenth century, it is again recorded as taking the field with the King of Hungary and the Duke of Austria.17 From these it passed into the hands of their brother crusaders, the Latin sovereigns of Constantinople; and thus, by a singular train of circumstances, a change of dynasty restored this precious relic to the people which had so long enjoyed its possession. It does not, however, appear to have received the full measure of its ancient veneration, and a new Crown of Thorns, alleged to be that of the passion, held at this period a far higher rank with the public.

In the year 1238, the pressure of poverty and impending ruin compelled the Emperor Baldwin the Second, to sell what the piety of St. Louis, King of France, induced him as eagerly to purchase.18 A very considerable sum was given in exchange for the holy wood and on its arrival in Paris, it was deposited by King Louis in a chapel which he built on this occasion. There, the Cross remained for above three hundred years, until at length, on the 20th of May, 1575, it disappeared from its station. The most anxious researches failed in tracing the robber, or recovering the spoil, and the report which accused King Henry the Third of having secretly sold it to the Venetians may be considered as a proof of the popular animosity rather than of royal avarice.19 To appease in some degree the loud and angry murmurs of his subjects, Henry, the next year, on Easter day, announced that a new Cross had been prepared for their consolation, of the same shape, size, and appearance as the stolen relic, and asserted, most probably with perfect truth, that in Divine powers, or claim to religious worship, it was but little inferior to its model. "The people of Paris," says Estoile, an eye-witness of this transaction, "being very devout, and easy of faith on such subjects" (he is speaking of the sixteenth century,) "gratefully hailed the restoration of some tangible and immediate object for their prayers." Of the original fragment I can discern no further authentic trace; and here, then, it seems to have ended its long and adventurous career.

Before I conclude, I ought, perhaps, to make some mention of the pretended nails of the passion, which were obtained by Constantine the Great at the same time with the cross. He melted a part of them into a helmet for himself; and the other part was converted into a bridle for his horse, in supposed obedience to a prophetic text of Zechariah: "In that day shall there be upon the bells (bridles) of the horses, holiness unto the Lord."20 Yet, though the helmet alone might appear to have required all the nails which could possibly be employed in a crucifixion, it is not unusual in southern Europe to meet with fragments of old iron, for which the same sacred origin is claimed. Thus, for instance, at Catania, in Sicily, I have seen one of these nails, which is believed to possess miraculous powers, and exhibited only once a year with great solemnity. There is another in a private oratory of the Escurial; and I was surprised in observing in the same case a relic of Sir Thomas à Becket. All the nails, from the time of Constantine, are rejected as spurious by Cardinal Baronius;21 yet a former Pope had expressed his belief in their authenticity;22 and the ingenious idea of miraculous vegetation might have been easily applied to them. But to trace the other parts of this real or fabulous history, and more especially their insertion in the Iron crown of Lombardy, would require, though scarcely deserve, a separate essay.

[To this class likewise belongs a Pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre, from the accomplished pen of Contarini Fleming. The lighter papers are tinged with a high moral feeling; and we do not think that better evidence will be found than in the following of Mrs. Hall's contributions.]

THE TRIALS OF GRACE HUNTLEY

[This tale occupies nearly fifty pages. It so teems with moral pathos and touching beauty, that we are at a loss to abridge it throughout so as to preserve that acquaintance with the finest feelings of our nature, which marks every page with sterling value. We, therefore, only adopt the conclusion, and attempt a leading thread of the story. Grace is the daughter of a village schoolmaster. She loves "not wisely, but too well," "Joseph Huntley, the handsomest youth in the retired village of Craythorpe." The father consents to their union. The real character of the husband appears early; his fond love soon dwindles to painful neglect: how truly does the writer observe, "the rapidity with which love may glide from the heart of man is a moral phenomenon for which it would puzzle philosophers to account. The brief space of a few months not unfrequently converts the devoted into the unkind, or to a delicate mind still worse—the neglectful husband." The wayward Huntley breaks off church-going; he refuses Grace his company, and we find her first solitary walk since her marriage thus touchingly referred to: "almost every tree certainly every stile she passed—was hallowed by some remembrance connected with the playmate of her childhood—the lover of her early youth—the husband of her affections." When, she looked on the dew dancing amid the delicate tracery of the field spider's web—when the joyous whistle of the gay blackbird broke upon her ear—gazing silently on all that was really fresh and beautiful in nature—she felt that, instead of warming, it fell chilly upon her heart. And yet all was as usual—the bright sun, and the smiling landscape. Why, then, was she less cheerful? She was alone! No one she loved was by her side, to whom to say, "How beautiful!" Joseph gets into debt, and upon Grace offering to sacrifice a favourite article of dress to enable him to keep a "promise to pay," we find the following exquisite paragraph: "there is something so commanding, so holy, in virtue, that, though the wicked may not imitate, they cannot withhold from it their admiration." As Huntley looked upon his wife, he thought she never appeared so lovely. Some of the affection of earlier and purer years returned warmly to his heart; and as he kissed her, words of happier import broke from his lips—"God bless you, Grace! I am a sad scoundrel, and that's the truth." Joseph deserts her, and in less than eight years after their marriage, her little family are entirely dependent upon her for support. The husband returns, and sets the eldest boy to rob his mother; the villany of the father is reproved by Grace, meekly but firmly. Joseph takes the boy under his guidance, and becoming acquainted with "John and Sandy Smith, (two poachers,) who lived together in a wretched hut on the skirt of Crayton Common," he soon initiates the little fellow into crime. After a storming quarrel with his wife—]