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

TRAGEDY

We do not see any necessary and natural connexion between death and the end of the third volume of a novel, or the conclusion of the fifth act of a play,—though that connexion in some modern novels, and in most English tragedies, seems to be assumed. Nor does it seem to follow, that, because death is the object of universal dread and aversion, and because terror is one of the objects of tragedy, death must, therefore, necessarily be represented; and not only so, but the more deaths the better. If it be true that familiarity has a tendency to create indifference, if not contempt, it must be considered prudent to have recourse to this strong exhibition as to drastic remedies in medicine, with caution and discrimination, and with a view to the continuance of its effect. We cannot help wishing that our own Shakspeare, who lays down such excellent rules for the guidance of actors, and cautions them so earnestly against "overstepping the modesty of nature," and the danger of "tearing passion to rags," had remembered, that the poet himself has certain limits imposed upon him, which he cannot transgress with impunity. We should not then have observed, in the perusal of some of his plays, the marginal notice of ["dies"] with about as much emotion as a note of exclamation; nor, when at the actual representation, we behold the few remaining persons of the drama scarcely able to cross the stage without stumbling over the bodies of their fallen companions, should we have felt our thoughts unavoidably wandering from the higher business and moral effect of the scene, to the mere physical and repelling images of fleshly mortality.—Edinburgh Rev.

The inquiries of the committee appointed to devise means for the suppression of mendicity, leave us no reason to doubt that in an average of cases a London beggar made by "his trade" eighteen-pence per day, or twenty-seven pounds per annum!

One-ninth of the whole population of Paris are wholly maintained by funds which the different bureaux of charity distribute for their relief; and still a countless horde of mendicants infest her streets, her quays, and all her public places.

Science and literature are "the nourishment of youth, the delight of age, the ornaments of prosperous life, the refuge and consolation of adversity, the companions of our weary travels, of our rural solitudes, of our sleepless nights."

The following quotation from Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary points out the frugal and temperate Scot; and, in illustration, may be contrasted with the proverbial invitation of the better feeding English, "Will you come and take your mutton with me?"

"KAIL, used metonimically for the whole dinner; as constituting among our temperate ancestors the principal part, s.

"Hence, in giving a friendly invitation to dinner, it is common to say, 'Will you come and tak your kail wi' me?' This, as a learned friend observes, resembles the French invitation, Voulez vous venir manger la soupe chez moi!"

THE RIVER NILE.

Ledyard, in his Travels, speaks thus contemptuously of this celebrated wonder:—"This is the mighty, the sovereign of rivers—the vast Nile that has been metamorphosed into one of the wonders of the world! Let me be careful how I read, and, above all, how I read ancient history. You have heard, and read too, much of its inundations. If the thousands of large and small canals from it, and the thousands of men and machines employed to transfer, by artificial means, the water of the Nile to the meadows on its banks—if this be the inundation that is meant, it is true; any other is false; it is not an inundating river."

The Jewish children to this day celebrate the fall and death of Haman, and on that anniversary represent the blows which they would fain deal on his scull, by striking with envenomed fury on the floor with wooden hammers. This observance was but very lately forbidden in the Grand Duchy of Baden.

TRAVELLING FOLLIES

"Many gentlemen," says an old English author, "coming to their lands sooner than to their wits, adventure themselves to see the fashion of other countries; whence they see the world, as Adam had knowledge of good and evil, with the loss or lessening of their estate in this English Paradise; and bring home a few smattering terms, flattering garbs, apish carriages, foppish fancies, foolish guises and disguises, the vanities of neighbour nations."

The Spaniards are infinitely more careful than the French, and other nations, in planting trees, and in taking care of them; for it rarely happens, when a Spaniard eats fruit in a wood or in the open country, that he does not set the stones or the pips; and thus in the whole of their country an infinite number of fruit-trees of all kinds are found; whereas, in the French quarters you meet with none—Labat.

PAINTING

It is painful to think how soon the paintings of Raphael, and Titian, and Correggio, and other illustrious men will perish and pass away. "How long," said Napoleon to David, "will a picture last?" "About four or five hundred years!—a fine immortality!" The poet multiplies his works by means of a cheap material—and Homer, and Virgil, and Dante, and Tasso, and Moliere, and Milton, and Shakspeare, may bid oblivion defiance; the sculptor impresses his conceptions on metal or on marble, and expects to survive the wreck of nations and the wrongs of time; but the painter commits to perishable cloth or wood the visions of his fancy, and dies in the certain assurance that the life of his works will be but short in the land they adorn.—For. Rev.

A Chinese novelist, in describing his hero, says, "the air of the mountains and rivers had formed his body; his mind, like a rich piece of embroidery, was worthy of his handsome face!" Pity he has not been introduced among our "fashionable novels."

PHRENOLOGY

In 1805, Dr. Gall, the celebrated phrenologist, visited the prison of Berlin in the course of his experimental travels to establish his theories. On April 17, in the presence of many witnesses, he was shown upwards of two hundred culprits, of whom he had never heard till that moment, and to whose crimes and dispositions he was a total stranger. Dr. Gall immediately pointed out, as a general feature in one of the wards, an extraordinary development in the region of the head where the organ of theft is situated, and in fact every prisoner there was a thief. Some children, also detained for theft, were then shown to him; and in them, too, the same organ was very prominent. In two of them particularly it was excessively large; and the prison-registers confirmed his opinion that these two were most incorrigible. In another room, where the women were kept apart, he distinguished one drest exactly like the others, occupied like them, and differing in no one thing but in the form of her head. "For what reason is this woman here," asked Gall, "for her head announces no propensity to theft?" The answer was, "She is the inspectress of this room." One prisoner had the organs of benevolence and of religion as strongly developed as those of theft and cunning; and his boast was, that he never had committed an act of violence, and that it was repugnant to his feelings to rob a church. In a man named Fritze, detained for the murder of his wife, though his crime was not proved, the organs of cunning and firmness were fully developed; and it was by these that he had eluded conviction. In Maschke, he found the organ of the mechanical arts, together with a head very well organized in many respects; and his crime was coining. In Troppe he saw the same organ. This man was a shoemaker, who, without instruction, made clocks and watches, to gain a livelihood in his confinement. On a nearer inspection, the organ of imitation was found to be large. "If this man had ever been near a theatre," said Gall, "he would in all probability have turned actor." Troppe, astonished at the accuracy of this sentence, confessed that he had joined a company of strolling players for six months. His crime, too, was having personated a police-officer, to extort money. The organs of circumspection, prurience, foresight, were sadly deficient in Heisig, who, in a drunken fit, had stabbed his best friend. In some prisoners he found the organ of language, in others of colour, in others of mathematics; and his opinion in no single instance failed to be confirmed by the known talents and dispositions of the individual.—For. Q. Rev.

SAVING HABITS OF THE ENGLISH

According to the House of Commons' returns in 1815, there were no fewer than 925,439 individuals in England and Wales, being about one-eleventh of the then existing population, members of Friendly Societies, formed for the express purpose of affording protection to the members during sickness and old age, and enabling them to subsist without resorting to the parish funds. "No such unquestionable proof of the prevalence of a spirit of providence and independence can be exhibited in any other European country." We have to add, that these must be the happiest people in the social scale.

In the year 1300, Giovanni Cimabue and Giotto, both of Florence, were the first to assert the natural dignity and originality of art, and the story of those illustrious friends is instructive and romantic. The former was a gentleman by birth and scholarship, and brought to his art a knowledge of the poetry and sculpture of Greece and Rome. The latter was a shepherd; when the inspiration of art fell upon him, he was watching his flocks among the hills, and his first attempts in art were to draw his sheep and goats upon rocks and stones. It happened that Cimabue, who was then high in fame, observed the sketches of the gifted shepherd; entered into conversation with him; heard from his own lips his natural notions of the dignity of art; and was so much charmed by his compositions and conversation, that he carried him to Florence, and became his close and intimate friend and associate. They found Italian painting rude in form, and without spirit and without sentiment; they let out their own hearts fully in their compositions, and to this day their works are highly esteemed for grave dignity of character, and for originality of conception. Of these great Florentines, Giotto, the shepherd, is confessedly the more eminent; in him we see the dawn, or rather the sunrise, of the fuller light of Raphael. —For. Rev.

A REAL HERO

In a recherché article in the Foreign Quarterly Review we meet with the following marvellous story of Sterkodder, a sort of giant-killing hero of the North, who, having reached his 90th year, became infirm, blind, and eager to die. To leave the world in a natural way was out of the question; and to be dispatched to the Hall of Odin by an ignoble hand was scarcely less to be dreaded. Leaning on two crutches, with a sword at each side, he waited for some one to give him the mortal stroke. To tempt the avarice of such a one, he suspended from his neck a valuable gold chain. He slew a peasant passing, who, rallying him on his infirm state, had ventured to beg one of his swords, as neither could any longer be of service to him. At last his good fortune brought him a worthy executioner in Hather, the son of a prince whom he had slain. The young hero was hunting, and seeing the old man, he ordered two of his attendants to tease him. Both lost their lives for their temerity. The prince then advanced; and the old man, after relating his great actions, desired the former to kill him. To make the inducement stronger, he displayed the golden chain, which would be the reward of the deed; and to excite his rage, as well as avarice, he avowed that it was he who had slain the late prince, and that revenge was the sacred duty of the son. Influenced by both considerations, the latter consented to behead him. Sterkodder exhorted him to strike manfully. The head was accordingly severed from the body at a single blow; and as it touched the earth, the teeth fastened themselves furiously in the ground.

WORKHOUSES

Were first erected in England in the year 1723, when they had an instant and striking effect in reducing the number of poor. Indeed the aversion of the poor to workhouses was so great, that Sir F.M. Eden mentions that some proposed, by way of weakening this aversion, "to call workhouses by some softer and more inoffensive name." Previously to this date, it had been customary to relieve the able-bodied poor at their own houses.

MARRIAGES IN CHINA

Are effected through the assistance of go-betweens, who enjoy, however, a very different repute from those of Europe, inasmuch as, among the former, the employ is of the most honourable character.

There are 300 palaces at Rome, of which 65 only are worth seeing, and these are defined to be houses which have arched gateways into which carriages can drive. Some of these palaces contain pictures and statues worth 130 or 160,000l., but with scarce a window whose panes are all whole, or a clean staircase.

HORRORS OF THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN

Endless was the catalogue of most pious men and eminent scholars who underwent purification, as it is termed, in this den of superstition and tyranny. The culprit was not permitted to speak with his attorney, except in the presence of the inquisitor and a notary, who took notes, and certified what passed; and so far from the names of the informer or of the witnesses being supplied, every thing that could facilitate the explanation of them was expunged from the declarations; and the prisoners, one and all, in these dungeons might truly exclaim, with Fray Luis de Leon, "I feel the pain, but see not the hand which inflicts it." Even in the early days of the inquisition, torture was carried to such an extent, that Sextus IV., in a brief published Jan. 29, 1482, could not refrain from deploring the wellknown truth, in lamentations which were re-echoed from all parts of Christendom. The formula of the sentence of torture began thus, Christo nomine invocato; and it was therein expressed, that the torture should endure as long as it pleased the inquisitors; and a protest was added, that, if during the torture the culprit should die, or be maimed, or if effusion of blood or mutilation of limb should ensue, the fault should be chargeable to the culprit, and not to the inquisitors. The culprit was bound by an oath of secresy, strengthened by fearful penalties, not to divulge any thing that he had seen, known, or heard, in the dismal precincts of that unholy tribunal—a secresy illegal and tyrannical, but which constituted the soul of that monstrous association, and by which its judges were sheltered against all responsibility.—For. Rev.

COLONIZATION

In the colonization of the West Indies, "when a city was to be founded, the first form prescribed was, with all solemnity, to erect a gallows, as the first thing needful; and in laying out the ground, a site was marked for the prison as well as for the church."

"An attempt to handle the English law of evidence, in its former state," says the Edinburgh Review, "was like taking up a hedgehog—all points!"

Man is not quite so manageable in the hands of science as boiling water or a fixed star.

PICTURE OF CONSTANTINOPLE(From the French of Lebrun.)Queen of the Morn! Sultana of the East!City of wonders, on whose sparkling breast,Fair, slight, and tall, a thousand palacesFling their gay shadows over golden seas!Where towers and domes bestud the gorgeous land,And countless masts, a mimic forest stand;Where cypress shades the minaret's snowy hue,And gleams of gold dissolve in skies of blue,Daughter of Eastern art, the most divine—Lovely, yet faithless bride of Constantine—Fair Istamboul, whose tranquil mirror flingsBack with delight thy thousand colourings,And who no equal in the world dost know,Save thy own image pictured thus below!Dazzled, amazed, our eyes half-blinded, fail,While sweeps the phantasm past our gliding sail—Like as in festive scene, some sudden lightRises in clouds of stars upon the night.Struck by a splendour never seen before,Drunk with the perfumes wafted from the shore,Approaching near these peopled groves, we deemThat from enchantment rose the gorgeous dream,Day without voice, and motion without sound,Silently beautiful! The haunted groundIs paved with roofs beyond the bounds of sight,Countless, and coloured, wrapped in golden light.'Mid groves of cypress, measureless and vast,In thousand forms of circles—crescents—cast,Gold glitters, spangling all the wide extent,And flashes back to heaven the rays it sent.Gardens and domes, bazaars begem the woods;Seraglios, harems—peopled solitudes,Where the veil'd idol kneels; and vistas, throughBarr'd lattices, that give the enamoured view,Flowers, orange-trees, and waters sparkling near,And black and lovely eyes,—Alas, that Fear,At those heaven-gates, dark sentinel should stand,To scare even Fancy from her promised land!Foreign Quar. Rev.

THE SKETCH BOOK

THE MYSTERIOUS TAILORA Romance of High Holborn

(Concluded from page 46.)

On recovering from my stupor, I found myself with a physician and two apothecaries beside me, in bed at the George Inn, Ramsgate. I had been, it seems, for two whole days delirious, during which pregnant interval I had lived over again all the horrors of the preceding hours. The wind sang in my ears, the phantom forms of the unburied flitted pale and ghastly before my eyes. I fancied that I was still on the sea; that the massive copper-coloured clouds which hovered scarcely a yard overhead, were suddenly transformed into uncouth shapes, who glared at me from between saffron chinks, made by the scudding wrack; that the waters teemed with life, cold, slimy, preternatural things of life; that their eyes after assuming a variety of awful expressions, settled down into that dull frozen character, and their voices into that low, sepulchral, indefinable tone, which marked the Mysterious Tailor. This wretch was the Abaddon of my dreamy Pandaemonium. He was ever before me; he lent an added splendour to the day, and deepened the midnight gloom. On the heights of Bologne I saw him; far away over the foaming waters he floated still and lifeless beside me, his eye never once off my face, his voice never silent in my ear.

My tale would scarcely have an end, were I to repeat but the one half of what during two brief days (two centuries in suffering) I experienced from this derangement of the nervous system. My readers may fancy that I have exaggerated my state of mind: far from it, I have purposely softened down the more distressing particulars, apprehensive, if not of being discredited, at least of incurring ridicule. Towards the close of the third day my fever began to abate, I became more sobered in my turn of thought, could contrive to answer questions, and listen with tolerable composure to my landlord's details of my miraculous preservation. The storm was slowly rolling off my mind, but the swell was still left behind it. The fourth day found me so far recovered, that I was enabled to quit my chamber, sit beside an open window, and derive amusement from the uncouth appearance of a Dutch crew, whose brig was lying at anchor in the harbour. From this time forward, every hour brought fresh accession to my strength, until at the expiration of the tenth day—so sudden is recovery in cases of violent fever when once the crisis is passed—I was sufficiently restored to take my place by a night-coach for London. The first few stages I endured tolerably well, notwithstanding that I had somewhat rashly ventured upon an outside place; but as midnight drew on, the wind became so piercingly keen, accompanied every now and then by a squally shower of sleet, that I was glad to bargain for an inside berth. By good luck, there was just room enough left for one, which I instantly appropriated, in spite of sundry hints hemmed forth by a crusty old gentleman, that the coach was full already. I took my place in the coach, to the dissatisfaction of those already seated there. Not a word was spoken for miles: for the circumstance of its being dark increased the distrust of all, and, in the firm conviction that I was an adventurer, they had already, I make no doubt, buttoned up their pockets, and diligently adjusted their watch-chains. In a short time, this reserve wore away. From this moment the conversation became general. Each individual had some invalid story to relate, and I too, so far forgot my usual taciturnity as to indulge my hearers with a detail of my late indisposition—of its origin in the Mysterious Tailor—of the wretch's inconceivable persecution—of the fiendish peculiarities of his appearance—of his astonishing ubiquity, and lastly, of my conviction that he was either more or less than man. Scarcely had the very uncourteous laughter that accompanied this narrative concluded, when a low, intermittent snore, proceeding from a person close at my elbow, challenged my most serious notice. The sound was peculiar—original—unearthly—and reminded me of the same music which had so harrowed my nerves at Bologne. Yet it could not surely be he—he, the very thoughts of whom now sent a thrill through every vein. Oh, no! it must be some one else—there were other harmonious sternutators beside him, he could not be the only nasal nightingale in the three kingdoms. While I thus argued the matter, silently, yet suspiciously, a wandering gleam of day, streaming in at the coach windows, faintly lit up a nose the penultimate peculiarities of which gave a very ominous turn to my reflections. In due time this light became more vivid; and beneath its encouraging influence, first, a pair of eyes—then two sallow, juiceless cheeks, then an upper lip, then a projecting chin; and lastly, the entire figure of the Mysterious Tailor himself, whose head, it seems, had hitherto been folded, bird-like, upon his breast, grew into atrocious distinctness, while from the depths of the creature's throat came forth the strangely-solemn whisper, "touching that little account." For this once, indignation got the better of affright. "Go where I will," I exclaimed, passionately interrupting him, "I find I cannot avoid you, you have a supernatural gift of omnipresence, but be you fiend or mortal I will now grapple with you;" and accordingly snatching at that obnoxious feature which, like the tail of the rattle-snake, had twice warned me of its master's fatal presence, I grasped it with such zealous good will, that had it been of mortal manufacture it must assuredly have come off in my hands. Aroused by the laughter of my fellow passengers, the coachman—who was just preparing to mount, after having changed horses at Dartford—abruptly opened the door, on which I as abruptly jumped out; and after paying my fare the whole way to town, and casting on the fiend a look of "inextinguishable hatred," made an instant retreat into the inn. About the middle of the next day I reached London, and without a moment's pause hurried to the lodgings of my beforementioned friend C–. Luckily he was at home, but started at the strange forlorn figure that presented itself. And well indeed he might. My eye-balls were glazed and bloody, my cheeks white as a shroud, my mouth a-jar, my lips blue and quivering. "For God's sake, C–," I began, vouchsafing no further explanation, "lend me—(I specified the sum)—or I am ruined; that infernal, inconceivable Tailor has—." C–smilingly interrupted me by an instant compliance with my demand; on which, without a moment's delay, I bounded off, breathless and semi-frantic, towards my arch fiend's Pandaemonium at High Holborn. I cannot—cannot say what I felt as I crossed over from Drury-lane towards his den, more particularly when, on entering, I beheld the demon himself behind his counter—calm, moveless, and sepulchral, as if nothing of moment had occurred; as if he were an every-day dun, or I an every-day debtor. The instant he espied me, a sardonic smile, together with that appalling dissyllable, "touching" (which I never to this day hear, see, or write without a shudder) escaped him; but before he could close his oration, I had approached, trembling with rage and reverence, towards him, and, thrusting forth the exact sum, was rushing from his presence, when he beckoned me back for a receipt. A receipt, and from him too! It was like taking a receipt for one's soul from Satan!!

The reader will doubtless conclude that, now at least, having satisfactorily settled his demands, I had done with my Tormentor for ever. This inference is in part correct. I followed up my vocation with an energy strangely contrasted with my recent indifference, was early and late in the schools, and for three months pursued this course with such ardour, that my adventures with the Mysterious Tailor, though not forgotten, were yet gradually losing their once powerful hold on my imagination. This was precisely the state of my feelings, when early one autumnal morning, just seven months from the date of my last visit to High Holborn, I chanced to be turning down Saint Giles's Church, on my way to—Hospital. I had nothing to render me more than usually pensive; no new vexations, no sudden pecuniary embarrassment; yet it so happened, that on this particular morning I felt a weight at my heart, and a cloud on my brain, for which I could in no way account. As I passed along Broad Street, I made one or two bold attempts to rally. I stared inquisitively at the different passers by, endeavouring, by a snatch at the expression of their faces, to speculate on the turn of their minds, and the nature of their occupations; I then began to whistle and hum some lively air, at the same time twirling my glove with affected unconcern; but nothing would do; every exertion I made to appear cheerful, not only found no answering sympathy from within, but even exaggerated by constrast my despondency. In this condition I reached Saint Giles's Church. A crowd was assembled at the gate opposite its entrance, and presently the long surly toll of the death-bell—that solemn and oracular memento—announced that a funeral was on the eve of taking place. The funeral halted at the entrance gate, where the coffin was taken from the hearse, and and thence borne into the chancel. This ceremony concluded, the procession again set forth towards the home appointed for the departed in a remote quarter of the church-yard. And now the interest began in reality to deepen. As the necessary preparations were making for lowering the coffin into earth, the mourners—even those who had hitherto looked unmoved—pressed gradually nearer, and with a momentary show of interest, to the grave. Such is the ennobling character of death.