The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 273, September 15, 1827

AUSTRALIAN IMPORTUNITY

As beggars, the whole world will not produce their match. They do not attempt to coax you, but firmly rely on incessant importunity; following you, side by side, from street to street, as constant as your shadow, pealing in your ears the never ceasing sound of "Massa, gim me a dum! massa, gim me a dum!" (dump.) If you have the fortitude to resist firmly, on two or three assaults, you may enjoy ever after a life of immunity; but by once complying, you entail yourself a plague which you will not readily throw off, every gift only serving to embolden them in making subsequent demands, and with still greater perseverance. Neither are their wishes moderately gratified on this head—less than a dump (fifteen pence) seldom proving satisfactory. When walking out one morning, I accidentally met a young scion of our black tribes, on turning the corner of the house, who saluted me with "Good morning, sir, good morning;" to which I in like manner responded, and was proceeding onwards, when my dingy acquaintance arrested my attention by his loud vociferation of "Top, sir, I want to peak to you." "Well, what is it?" said I. "Why, you know I am your servant, and you have never paid me yet." "The devil you are!" responded I "it is the first time I knew of it, for I do not recollect ever seeing your face before." "Oh yes, I am your servant," replied he, very resolutely; "don't I top about Massa –'s, and boil the kettle sometimes for you in the morning?" I forthwith put my hand in my pocket, and gave him all the halfpence I had, which I left him carefully counting, and proceeded on my walk; but before advancing a quarter of a mile, my ears were again assailed with loud shouts of "Hallo! top, top!" I turned round, and observed my friend in "the dark suit" beckoning with his hand, and walking very leisurely toward me. Thinking he was despatched with some message, I halted, but as he walked on as slowly as if deeming I ought rather to go to him than he come to me, I forthwith returned to meet him; but on reaching close enough, what was my astonishment on his holding out the halfpence in his open hand, and addressing me in a loud, grumbling, demanding tone with—"Why this is not enough to buy a loaf! you must give me more." "Then buy half a loaf," said I, wheeling about and resuming my walk, not without a good many hard epithets in return from my kettle-boiler.—Cunningham's Two Years in New South Wales.

CONFESSION OF THE EXECUTIONER OF CHARLES I

There have been great disputes about the person who beheaded Charles I. Mr. Ellis says, "it seems most probable that the person who actually beheaded the king was the common executioner." And then adds the following valuable and interesting note, which seems to us to settle the question.

"Among the tracts relating to the civil war, which were given to the British Museum by his late majesty King George III. in 1762, there are three upon this subject. One is entitled, 'The Confession of Richard Brandon the Hangman (upon his death-bed), concerning his beheading his late Majesty. Printed in the year of the hangman's downfall, 1649.' The second is entitled, 'The last Will and Testament of Richard Brandon,' printed in the same year. The third is, 'A Dialogue or Dispute between the late Hangman (the same person), and Death,' in verse, without date. All three are in quarto."

The following are the most important paragraphs of the first tract:

"The confession of the hangman concerning his beheading his late majesty the king of Great Britain (upon his death-bed) who was buried on Thursday last in Whitechapel church-yard, with the manner thereof:—

"Upon Wednesday last (being the 20th of this instant, June 1649), Richard Brandon, the late executioner and hangman, who beheaded his late majesty, king of Great Britain, departed this life; but during the time of his sicknesse his conscience was much troubled, and exceedingly perplexed in mind, yet little shew of repentance for remission of his sins, and by past transgressions, which had so much power and influence upon him, that he seemed to live in them, and they in him. And on Sunday last, a young man of his acquaintance going to visit him, fell into discourse, asked him how he did, and whether he was not troubled in conscience for cutting off the king's head. He replyed, 'yes, by reason that (upon the time of his tryall, and at the denouncing of sentence against him,) he had taken a vow and protestation, wishing God to punish him body and soul, if ever he appeared on the scaffold to do the act, or lift up his hand against him.'

"He likewise confessed that he had thirty pounds for his pains, all paid him in half-crowns, within an hour after the blow was given; and that he had an orange stuck full of cloves, and a handkircher out of the king's pocket, so soon as he was carried off from the scaffold, for which orange he was proffered twenty shillings by a gentleman in Whitehall, but refused the same, and afterwards sold it for ten shillings in Rosemary-lane. About six of the clock at night, he returned home to his wife living in Rosemary-lane, and gave her the money, saying, that it was the deerest money that ever he earned in his life, for it would cost him his life; which prophetical words were soon made manifest, for it appeared, that ever since he hath been in a most sad condition, and upon the Almightie's first scourging of him with the rod of sicknesse, and the friendly admonition of divers friends for the calling of him to repentance, yet he persisted on in his vicious vices, and would not hearken thereunto, but lay raging and swearing, and still pointing at one thing or another, which he conceived to be still visible before him."

"About three days before he dy'd, he lay speechlesse, uttering many a sigh and heavy groan, and so in a most desperate manner departed from his bed of sorrow. For the buriall whereof great store of wines were sent in by the sheriff of the city of London, and a great multitude of people stood wayting to see his corpse carryed to the church-yard, some crying act, 'Hang him, rogue!' 'Bury him in the dunghill;' others pressing upon him, saying, they would quarter him for executing of the king: insomuch that the churchwardens and masters of the parish were fain to come for the suppressing of them, and (with great difficulty) he was at last carryed to White Chappell church-yard, having (as it is said) a bunch of rosemary at each end of the coffin, on the top thereof, with a rope tyed crosse from one end to the other.

"And a merry conceited cook living at the sign of the Crown, having a black fan (worth the value of thirty shillings), took a resolution to rent the same in pieces, and to every feather tied a piece of pack-thread dyed in black ink, and gave them to divers persons, who (in derision) for a while wore them in their hats.

"Thus have I given thee an exact account and perfect relation of the life and death of Richard Brandon, to the end that the world may be convinced of those calumnious speeches and erroneous suggestions which are dayly spit from the mouth of envy against divers persons of great worth and eminency, by casting an odium upon them for the executing of the king; it being now made manifest that the aforesaid executioner was the only man who gave the fatal blow, and his man that wayted upon him, was a ragman (of the name of Ralph Jones) living in Rosemary-lane."—Ellis's Historical Inquiries.

A MIDNIGHT ADVENTURE

The night was rather dark, and we had not seen the figure of our postilion, or even heard his voice; but we suspected, by the slowness of his movements, that he was some old crony of his master. On arriving towards the end of the relay, he began to blow a bugle with all his might, surprising us with a number of flourishes. Mr. Koch informed me that we were going to cross a small river, and that the blast with which we had been regaled was a warning for the bargeman. Our vehicle then stopped before the door of an inn, which stood on an elevated spot, and the postilion, alighting, asked Mr. Koch's permission to enter the inn to drink a glass of brandy, whilst the bargeman answered his sign. It was midnight, and we expected soon to cross the river; but after waiting a quarter of an hour for his return, and seeing that the fellow did not come out, I alighted, and proceeded towards a window, where a light was perceivable. As I looked through it, I saw what I certainly did not expect, but what convinced me that the flourishes of his bugle were addressed to a very different person from the bargeman. Our postilion was sitting near a table, with a huge flagon beside him, and a wench on his knee. Provoked beyond expression at this unseasonable courtship, I shook the window till it flew open, and, before my companion had time to alight and witness the scene, both the hero and the heroine came to the door of the inn, the latter holding a lantern in her hand, by which I observed she was an ugly kitchen wench of about eighteen, and he a young man of five-and-twenty. Displeased with my interruption, he muttered something at my impatience, and at the unseasonableness of my call, and again blew his bugle, though by no means so vigorously as he had before done; after which we gained the barge, and continued our way without farther interruption.—Van Halen's Narrative.

BARBARISM OF THE CAUCASIAN TRIBES

Opposite to our encampment, on the other side of the Alazann, and at a distance of eighteen or twenty wersts, is the city of Belohakan, situated at the foot of the Caucasus, and inhabited by the Eingalos, a people whom the Lesghis keep in the most horrible state of slavery, and who formerly belonged to Georgia; but who being too industrious, and attached to their native soil, would never abandon it, during the different revolutions which that country has undergone, and became subject to their present masters. That city carries on a great trade with Teflis, principally in bourkas, which are manufactured there; and as the traders pass through Karakhach, our colonel, who was the commandant of this district, and from whom they must obtain a passport for Georgia, was obliged to have near him an Eingalo, who understood the Russian language, and served as interpreter. This man had become so familiarized with the officers, that the colonel allowed him to sit at our table. One day we remarked that the interpreter was absent, a circumstance which seldom occurred; but, as we were finishing our dessert, he entered the dining-room in high spirits, bringing under his arm a bundle, carefully tied, which, he said, contained a fine water melon for our dessert. This fruit, in the middle of December, is considered a great delicacy, and we all expressed a wish that he should produce it, when he immediately untied the bundle, and, to our great Horror, we beheld the head of a Lesghi, whom he had killed in fight on the other side of the Alazann during a sporting expedition, roll on the table. Disgusted at this action, which among these barbarous mountaineers would pass as an excellent joke, we all rose from table, and retired to another apartment, whilst the Eingalo sat down to dinner, and, at every mouthful he took, amused himself with turning the head, which he kept close to his plate, first one way and then another.—Ibid.

MISCELLANIES

RELIGIOUS FORTUNE TELLING

The Sortes Sanctorum, or Sortes Sacrae, of the Christians, has been illustrated in the Classical Journal.

These, the writer observes, were a species of divination practised in the earlier ages of Christianity, and consisted in casually opening the Holy Scriptures, and from the words which first presented themselves deducing the future lot of the inquirer. They were evidently derived from the Sortes Homerica and Sortes Virgilanae of the Pagans, but accommodated to their own circumstances by the Christians.

Complete copies of the Old and New Testaments being rarely met with prior to the invention of printing, the Psalms, the Prophets, or the four Gospels, were the parts of holy writ principally made use of in these consultations, which were sometimes accompanied with various ceremonies, and conducted with great solemnity, especially on public occasions. Thus the emperor Heraclius in the war against the Persians, being at a loss whether to advance or retreat, commanded a public fast for three days, at the end of which he applied to the four Gospels, and opened upon a text which he regarded as an oracular intimation to winter in Albania. Gregory, of Tours, also relates that Meroveus, being desirous of obtaining the kingdom of Chilperic, his father consulted a female fortune-teller, who promised him the possession of royal estates; but to prevent deception and to try the truth of her prognostications, he caused the Psalter, the Book of Kings, and the four Gospels to be laid upon the shrine of St. Martin, and after fasting and solemn prayer, opened upon passages which not only destroyed his former hopes, but seemed to predict the unfortunate events which afterwards befel him.

A French writer, in 506, says, "this abuse was introduced by the superstition of the people, and afterwards gained ground by the ignorance of the bishops." This appears evident from Pithon's Collection of Canons, containing some forms under the title of The Lot of the Apostles. These were found at the end of the Canons of the Apostles in the Abbey of Marmousier. Afterwards, various canons were made in the different councils and synods against this superstition; these continued to be framed in the councils of London under Archbishop Lanfranc in 1075, and Corboyl in 1126.

The founder of the Francisians, it seems, having denied himself the possession of any thing but coats and a cord, and still having doubts whether he might not possess books, first prayed, and then casually opened upon Mark, chapter iv, "Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables;" from which he drew the conclusion, that books were not necessary for him.

One Peter of Thoulouse being accused of heresy, and having denied it upon oath, one of those who stood by, in order to judge of the truth of his oath, seized the book upon which he had sworn, and opening it hastily, met with the words of the devil to our Saviour, "What have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth?" and from thence concluded that the accused was guilty, and had nothing to do with Christ!

The extraordinary case also of King Charles I. and Lord Falkland, as applicable to divination of this kind, is related. Being together at Oxford, they went one day to see the public library, and were shown, among other books, a Virgil, finely printed and exquisitely bound. Lord Falkland, to divert the king, proposed that he should make a trial of his fortune by the Sortes Virgilanae. The king opening the book, the passage he happened to light upon was part of Dido's imprecation against Aeneas in lib. iv. l. 615. King Charles seeming concerned at the accident, Lord Falkland would likewise try his own fortune, hoping he might fall upon some passage that could have no relation to his case, and thus divert the king's thoughts from any impression the other might have upon him; but the place Lord Falkland stumbled upon was still more suited to his destiny, being the expressions of Evander upon the untimely death of his son Pallas, lib. xi. Lord Falkland fell in the battle of Newbury, in 1644, and Charles was beheaded in 1649.

The kind of divination among the Jews, termed by them Bath Kol, or the daughter of the voice, was not very dissimilar to the Sortes Sanctorum of the Christians. The mode of practising it was by appealing to the first words accidentally heard from any one speaking or reading. The following is an instance from the Talmud:—Rabbi Jochanau and Rabbi Simeon. Ben Lachish, desiring to see the face of R. Samuel, a Babylonish doctor: "Let us follow," said they, "the hearing of Bath Kol." Travelling, therefore, near a school, they heard the voice of a boy: reading these words out of the First Book of Samuel, "And Samuel died." They observed this, and inferred from hence that their friend Samuel was dead, and so they found it. Some of the ancient Christians too, it seems, used to go to church with a purpose of receiving as the will of heaven the words of scripture that were singing at their entrance.

To pay a very great deference in opening upon a place of scripture, as to its affording an assurance of salvation, used to be a very common practice amongst the people called Methodists, but chiefly those of the Calvinistic persuasion; this, it is probable, has declined in proportion with the earnestness of these people in other respects. They had also another opinion, viz. that if the recollection of any particular text of scripture happened to arise in their minds, this was likewise looked upon as a kind of immediate revelation from heaven. This they call being presented or brought home to them!

THE GATHERER

"I am but a Gatherer and disposer of other men's stuff."—Wotton.

Whoever the following story may be fathered on, Sir John Hamilton was certainly its parent. The duke of Rutland, at one of his levees, being at a loss (as probably most kings, princes, and viceroys occasionally are) for something to say to every person he was bound in etiquette to notice, remarked to Sir John Hamilton that there was "a prospect of an excellent crop:—the timely rain," observed the duke, "will bring every thing above ground." "God forbid, your excellency!" exclaimed the courtier. His excellency stared, whilst Sir John continued, sighing heavily as he spoke:—"yes, God forbid! for I have got three wives under it."—Barrington's Sketches.

It is a singular circumstance that Italia, or, as it is called in English, Italy, has, under all the changes and revolutions to which it has been subjected, always preserved its name. Every other country in Europe is now known to its inhabitants by other names than were given to it by their ancestors in the time of the Romans; but Italia continues to be the name of the country at the present day, and we have no authentic records by which we can ascertain that it ever bore any other.

SINGULAR INSCRIPTION

Written over the Ten Commandments in a church in Wales.

PRSVRYPRFCTMNVRKPTHSPRCPTSTN

The meaning can only be developed by adding the vowel E, which makes the sense thus—

Persevere ye perfect menEver keep these precepts ten.

In a new farce, supposed to have been written by Maddocks, was the following curious pun:—A large party of soldiers surprising two resurrection men in a church-yard, the officer seized one of them, and asked him what he had to say for himself. "Say, sir! why, that we came here to raise a corpse, and not a regiment!"

1

Monsieur Monge has drawn much from our countryman, Hamilton's work on Stereography but he has not mentioned his work.

2

Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xxx.

3

By Bacchus! what a worthy man is the Vice Chancellor, the Chevalier Leach! gods! what a taste for music; i' faith he has gained the hearts of all the Neapolitan ladies.

4

Our blessed Saviour chose the garden sometime for his oratory, and, dying, for the place of his sepulture; and we also do avouch, for many weighty causes, that there are none more fit to bury our dead in than in our gardens and groves where our beds may he decked with verdant and fragrant flowers. Trees and perennial plants, the most natural and instructive hieroglyphics of our expected resurrection and immortality, besides what they might conduce to the meditation of the living, and the taking off our cogitations from dwelling too intently upon more vain and sensual objects: that custom of burying in churches, and near about them, especially in great and populous cities, being both a novel presumption, indecent, and very prejudicial to health.—Evelyn's Discourse on Forest Trees.