Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

as might bring his common sense, which seemed to be unimpaired, so strongly into the field, as might combat successfully the fantastic disorder which produced such fatal effects. "The skeleton, then," said the doctor, "seems to you to be always present to your eyes?" "It is my fate, unhappily," answered the invalid, "always to see it." "Then I understand," continued the physician, "it is now present to your imagination?" "To my imagination it certainly is so," replied the sick man. "And in what part of the chamber do you now conceive the apparition to appear?" the physician inquired. "Immediately at the foot of my bed; when the curtains are left a little open," answered the invalid, "the skeleton, to my thinking, is placed between them, and fills the vacant space." "You say you are sensible of the delusion," said his friend; "have you firmness to convince yourself of the truth of this? Can you take courage enough to rise and place your self in the spot so seeming to be occupied, and convince yourself of the illusion ?" The poor man sighed, and shook his head negatively. "Well," said the doctor, "we will try the experiment otherwise." Accordingly, he rose from his chair by the bedside, and placing himself between the two half-drawn curtains at the foot of the bed, indicated as the place occupied by the apparition, asked if the spectre was still visible? "Not entirely so," replied the patient, "because your person is betwixt him and me; but I observe his skull peering above your shoulder." It is alleged, the man of science started on the instant, despite philosophy, on receiving an answer ascertaining, with such mi nuteness, that the ideal spectre was close to his own person. He resorted to other means of investigation and cure, but with equally indifferent success. The patient sunk into deeper and deeper dejection, and died in the same distress of mind in which he had spent the latter months of his life; and his case remains a melancholy instance of the power of imagination to kill the body, even when its fantastic terrors cannot overcome the intellect, of the unfortunate persons who suffer under them. The patient, in the present case, sunk under his malady; and the circumstances of his singular disorder remaining concealed, he did not, by his death and last illness, lose any of the well merited reputation for prudence and sagacity which had attended him during the whole course of his life.

The next is

A VISION AT ABBOTSFORD. ANOTHER illusion of the same nature we have the best reason for vouching as a fact, though, for certain reasons, we do not give the names of the parties. Not long after the death of a late illustrious poet, who had filled, while living, a great station in the eye of the public, a literary friend, to whom the deceased had been well known, was engaged, during the darkening twilight of an autumn evening, in perusing one of the publications which professed to detail the habits and opinions of the distin guished individual who was now no more. As the reader had enjoyed the intimacy of the deceased to a considerable degree, he was deeply interested in the publication, which contained some particulars relating to himself and other friends. A visiter was sitting in the apartment, who was also engaged in reading. Their sitting-r -room opened into an entrance-hall, rather fantastially fitted up with articles of armour, skins of wild animals, and the like. It was when laying down his book, and passing into this hall, through which the moon was beginning to shine, that the individual of whom I speak saw, right before him, and in a standing posture, the exact representation of his departed friend, whose recollection had been so strongly brought to his imagination. He stopped for a single moment, so as to notice the wonderful accuracy with which fancy had impressed upon the bodily eye the peculiarities of dress and posture of the illustrious poet. Sensible, however, of the delusion, he felt no sentiment save that of wonder at the extraordinary accuracy of the resemblance, and stepped onwards towards the figure, which resolved itself, as he approached, into the various materials of which it was composed. These were merely a screen, occupied by greatcoats, shawls, plaids, and such other articles as usually are found in a country entrance-hall. The spectator returned to the spot from which he had seen the illusion, and endeavoured with all his power to recall the image which had been so singularly vivid. But this was beyond his capacity; and the person who had witnessed the apparition, or, more properly, whose excited state had been the means of raising it, had only to return into the apartment, and tell his young friend under what a striking hallucination he had for a moment laboured. There is every reason to believe that instances of this kind are frequent among persons of a certain tem

[merged small][ocr errors]

MONS. DE FONTENELLE, who lived till within one month of 100, was singular in his conduct; for it was remarked of him that he was never known either to laugh or to cry, and he even boasted of his insensibility. One day a certain bon vivant Abbé, with whom he was particularly intimate, came unexpectedly to dinner. The Abbé was fond of asparagus dressed with butter (for which also Fontenelle had a great goût, but liked it dressed with oil.) Fontenelle said, that for such a friend, there was no sacrifice of which he did not feel himself capable; and that he should have half the dish of asparagus which he had ordered for himself, and that half, moreover, should be done with butter. While they were conversing together thus friendly, the poor Abbé fell suddenly down in an apoplectic fit; upon which his friend, Fontenelle, instantly scampered down stairs, and bawled out to his cook, with eagerness, "The whole with oil! the whole with oil as at first."-The Age. (This is we should call the "ruling passion strong in" mouth.)

[blocks in formation]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

REGAL WINE.

BERNARD tells us that Sir John Danvers had a humorous knack of bestowing upon wine a regal appellation, and making its various species represent, when placed upon the table, the sovereigns of the countries that produced them: thus, a bottle of port stood for the King of Portugal, champagne for that of France, Madeira for his Spanish Majesty, while a bottle of porter represented our beloved monarch. If he turned, therefore, from one wine to another, he would exclaim" Now we have bled the King of Spain to death, what if we decapitate the King of France!" (What a kingkiller! This was making "Flow thou regal purple stream" a sort of mild Marseilles hymn.)

[ocr errors]

QUIN used to say that every king in Europe would rise with a crick in his neck on the 30th of January, (King Charles's Martyrdom, 1730.)

FAMILIAR SCIENCE.

With several Engravings, price 5s.
ARCANA OF SCIENCE AND ART;

OR ANNUAL REGISTER OF POPULAR INVENTIONS
AND IMPROVEMENTS, FOR THE PRESENT YEAR.

"An annual register of new inventions and improvements in a popular form, like this, cannot fail to be useful. The mass of information

in this little volume is most interesting; and while the philosopher will really find something new in it, the general reader will reap instruc tion from every page "-Lit. Gaz. March 20,

JOHN LIMBIRD, 143, Strand, near Somerset House.

Printed and Published by J LIMBIRD, 143, Strand, (near Somerset House.) London; sold by ERNEST FLEISCHER, 626, New Market, Leipsic; and by all Newsmen and Bookseliers.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed]

end of what is now called the Highstreet, and just verges on the New Road. The removal of the church from the Oxford-street site to place it out of harm's way is not the least curious part of its history.

We must turn again to Lysons, where we find it stated that "In the year 1741, Marybone Church being in a very ruinous condition, it was necessary to take it down; when the present structure, which is very small and ill-suited to the population of the parish, was erected on the same site. The inside of the old church is shown in one of Hogarth's plates of the Rake's Progress. The monuments are represented as they then existed, and some ill-spelt verses, pointing out the vault of the Forset family, were accurately copied from the originals. The inscription denoting the church to have been beautified when Thomas Sice and Thomas Horn were churchwardens, was not fabricated for the purpose of ridicule (though it might have served that purpose, when contrasted with the ruinous appearance of the church,) but proves to have been genuine.† The present church is a small oblong square, and has a gallery on the north, south, and west sides." The exterior is represented in our Engraving.

Mr. Lysons contiues :"The church of Marybone (orTybourn, as it was then called) was appropriated, in the reign of King John, by William de Sancta Maria, Bishop of London, to the priory of St. Lawrence de Blakemore, in Essex, a competent maintenance being reserved to the vicar. On the suppression of that priory, which took place in the year 1525, the King gave the rectory to Cardinal Wolsey, with license to appropriate it to the dean and canons of Christchurch; who, at his request, granted it to the masters and scholars of his college at Ipswich.

"When the cardinal fell into disgrace, the king seized this rectory as part of his property; and it continued in the crown till the year 1552, when it was granted to Thomas Reeve and George Cotton, in common socage. It then came into the Forset family, then proprietors of the manor before the year 1560, and they have since passed through the same hands. The rectory still con

* «These pewes unsound, and tane in sundir,

In stone there's graven what is under : To wit a valt for burial there is, Which Forset made for him and his." These two first lines are preserved in one of the galleries; they are raised in wood on the panel of a pew.

+ Nichols's Life of Hogarth.

tinues inappropriated; the benefice has been considered as a donative from a very early period. The Duke of Portland, as rector, nominates the curate, who is licensed by the Bishop of London. In the year 1511, the curate's stipend was only 13s. per annum, paid by Thomas Hobson, then lessee under the priory of Blakemore. In 1650, the impropriation was valued at 807. per annum ; at that time the whole of his emoluments could be scarcely double. From the prodigious increase of buildings and popula tion, its contingencies are now such as to make it a very valuable benefice."

The earliest date of any parish register now extant at Marybone, observes Mr. Lysons, is 1668. The entries for several years subsequent to that date are copied from a book damaged by fire, and rendered in many instances imperfect. An abstract of the baptisms and burials within five years of the present century is subjoined:

[merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

173 798 4-5 1775-1779 1008 1-5 1780-1784 .. 1119 3-5 1785-1789 1334 4-5 1790-1794.. 1693 1-5 In the register, too, we find several names of literary and artistical note. Thus, among the registered burials, are Humphrey Wanley, an indefatigable bibliographer, and son of the author of "The Wonders of the Little World:" James Figg, of more questionable notoriety, who kept a boarded house in Marybone Fields, where

swains

Long lived the great Figg, by the prize-fighting Sole monarch acknowledged of Marybone plains Here also are John Vandrebank, a portrait painter of celebrity, in the reigns of George I. and II.: James Gibbs, who built St. Martin's in the Fields (the. facade of which is his chef d'œuvre), the church of St. Mary-le-Strand, the Redcliffe Library, at Oxford, &c.: Edmund Hoyle, aged 90, who played the game of life as adroitly as he would a rubber of whist: Rysbrach, the eminent statuary: William Guthrie, a pains-taking editor: James Ferguson, a self-educated genius, who rose from poverty, step by step, to the fellowship of the Royal Society: Allan Ramsay, a portrait painter, and

Parliamentary Survey, Lamb. MSS. Lib. Richard Bonner was then curate.

SA portrait of Figg is introduced by Hogarth, in his second plate of The Rake's Progress.

son of the author of " The Gentle Shepherd:" the Rev. C. Wesley, younger brother of the pious John: Baretti, the friend of Dr. Johnson; and many others. The registers of right honourable rank and fortune are also very numerous.

The vast increase of Marybone parish fof which we shall speak presently), naturally led to the erection of several chapels of ease, besides many sectarian meeting-houses. Mr. Lysons notices one of the latter, belonging to Huntington, in good set orthodox terms:

"In Little Titchfield-street is a chapel (called Providence Chapel) belonging to a congregation who profess the doctrines of the late Mr. Whitfield, and style themselves Independents. Their minister is a man who was a coal-heaver, and for some whimsical reasons changed his name from Hunt to Huntington."

Indeed, the church in the Engraving resembles one of these conventicles.Moreover, it is a parish chapel, which is explained as follows: A private chapel (that is to say, built by a private individual, on speculation) being nearly completed in 1817, on a very capacious plan, the inhabitants purchased the building, and converted it into a handsome church, at the expense of 60,000. This magnificent structure faces the New Road, in the immediate vicinity of the original church, which is now used for a chapel, as is denoted by the following memorandum, on a stone tablet :

CONVERTED INTO A PARISH CHAPEL, BY ACT OF PARLIAMENT, LI. GEORGE III. ON THE IV. OF FEBRUARY, A.D. MDCCCXVII.

THE DAY OF CONSECRATION OF THE NEW CHURCH.

Above this tablet is another bearing the date of the rebuilding :

"Rebuilt in ye year 1741. Walter Lee Church

John Deschamps wardens." The situation of the old church will assist the reader in forming some idea of the rapid increase of Mary-le-bone parish. We have shown that the first church was removed from the spot now occupied by the Court-House, in Oxford Street, on account of its being "a lonely place, near the highway, subject to the depredations of robbers." Starting from this point, Mary-le-bone Lane intersects the streets in the vicinity of Cavendish-square till we reach Highstreet, at its junction with Thayerstreet. The line of street from hence to the New Road has all the appearance of a thickly peopled and established neighbourhood. On each side are well

appointed shops, till we reach the old church; beyond which is the line of the New Road, and the picturesque domain of the Regent's Park, itself urbs in

rure.

In Vertue's Plan of London, (the date about 1560,) the last houses seen are those of the village of St. Giles's, then indeed in the Fields; and the only building between this spot and Primrose Hill is the little solitary church of Marybone."

By way of supplementary conclusion, we subjoin a few notes on the increase of the parish, partly abridged from Lysons.

At the beginning of the last century, Marybone was a small village nearly a mile distant from any part of the metropolis. In 1715, a plan was formed for building Cavendish Square, and several streets on the north side of Tybourn-road, and in 1718, the ground was laid out, and the circle in the centre enclosed; in which a gilt lead statue of William Duke of Cumberland, was set up 1770. The Duke of Chandos, and Lords Harcourt and Bingley took portions of the ground, and the rest was let to builders; but the failures of the South Sea put a stop to the improvements for some time, and it was several years before the square was completed. The row of houses on the north side of Tybourn Road was finished in 1792, and it was then called Oxford Street. About the same time, most of the streets leading to Cavendish Square and Oxford-market + were built, and the ground was laid out for several others. Maitland, whose History of London was published in 1739, says there were then 577 houses in the parish of Marybone, and thirty-five persons who kept coaches. Still there remained a considerable void between the new buildings and the village of Marybone, which consisted of pasture fields. Portman Square was begun in 1764, but it was nearly twenty years before it was completed. In 1770, the continuation of Harley-street was begun. Portland Place was built soon afterwards; and Manchester Square in 1776. The number of houses in the parish of Marybone in the year 1795, was 6,200; in 1801-7,664; in 1811-8,330; and in 1821-9,761. The population at the last census, (1821,) was 96,040.

* A friend of ours, about fifty years of age, remembers hearing his father and mother speak of walking out through the fields, to be married

at Marybone Church.

t Henrietta, Vere, Holles, Margaret, Caven- ̈ dish, Welbeck, Wimpole, Princes, Castle, John, Market, streets, &c.

Lower Harley Street, Wigmore, Mortimer

Street, &c.

« НазадПродовжити »