Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

and in a few minutes they were both walking up the High Street.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

O, yonder's my aunt,' exclaimed the boy, pointing to a young woman who was coming down the street: yonder's my mither's sister;' and away he sprung to meet her. She immediately recognised and welcomed him; and he introduced the boatman to her, as the kind friend who had rescued him from the snow-storm and the ferryman. She related in a few words the story of the boy's parents. His father had been a dissipated young man of good family, whose follies had separated him from his friends'; and the difference he had rendered irreconcilable by marrying | a low-born but industrious and virtuous young woman, who, despite of her birth, was deserving of a better husband. In a few years he had sunk into indigence and contempt; and, in the midst of a wretchedness, which would have been still more complete had it not been for the efforts of his wife, he was seized by a fever, of which he died. Two of his brothers,' said the woman, who are gentlemen of the law, were lately inquiring about the boy, and will, I hope, interest themselves in his behalf.' In this hope the boatman cordially acquiesced, and they then parted. Eighteen years elapsed before Sandy Wright again visited Edinburgh. He had quitted it a robust, powerful man of forty-seven, and he returned to it a greyheaded old man of sixty-five. His humble fortunes, too, were sadly in the wane. His son William, a gallant young fellow, who had risen in a few years, on the score of merit alone, from the forecastle to a lieutenantcy, had headed, under Admiral Vernon, some desperate enterprise, from which he never returned: and the boatman himself, when on the eve of retiring on a small pension, from his long service in the customhouse, was dismissed without a shilling, on the charge of having connived at the escape of a smuggler. He was slightly acquainted with one of the inferior clerks in the Edinburgh customhouse; and in the slender hope that this person might use his influence in his behalf, and that that influence might prove powerful enough to get him reinstated, he had now travelled from Cromarty to Edinburgh, a weary journey of nearly two hundred miles. He had visited the clerk, who had given him scarcely any encouragement, and he was now waiting for him in a street in the southern district of the city, where he had promised to meet him in less than half an hour. But more than two hours had elapsed; and Sandy Wright, fatigued and melancholy, was sauntering slowly along the street, musing on his altered circumstances, when a gentleman who had passed him with the quick hurried step of a person engaged in business, stopped abruptly a few yards away, and returning at a much slower pace, eyed him steadfastly as he repassed. He again came forward and stood. Are you not Mr Wright?' he inquired. My name, sir, is Sandy Wright, said The face of the the boatman, touching his bonnet. stranger glowed with pleasure, and grasping him by the hand, Oh, my good kind friend Sandy Wright!' he exclaimed, often, often have I inquired after you, but no one could tell me where you resided, or whether you were living or dead. Come along with me; my house is in the next street. What! not remember me; ah, but it will be ill with me when I cease to remember you. I am Hamilton, an advocate—but you will scarcely know me as that.'

[ocr errors]

getting retired on a pension for my forty years' service, I was turned aff without a shilling. I have an acquaintance in the customhouse here, Mr Scrabster, the clerk, an' I came up ance errand to Edinburgh in the hope that he might do something for me; but he's no verra able, I'm thinking, an' I'm feared no verra willing; an' so, Mr Hamilton, I just canna help it. My day, o' course o' nature, canna be verra lang, an' Providence, that has aye carried me through as yet, winna surely let me stick now.' Ah, no, my poor friend,' said the advocate. 'Make up your mind, however, to stay for a few weeks with Helen and me, and I shall try in the meantime what my little influence will do for you at the customhouse.'

·

man. Mrs Hamilton, a fascinating young creature of A fortnight passed away very agreeably to the boatvery superior mental endowments, was quite delighted with his character and his stories: the latter opened to her a new chapter in her favourite volume-the book of human life; and the advocate, a man of high talent and a benevolent heart, seemed to regard him with the feelings of an affectionate son. At length, however, he began to weary sadly of what he termed the life of a gentleman, and to sigh after his little smoky cottage, and the puir auld wife.' 'Just remain with us one week longer,' said the advocate, and I shall learn in that time the result of my application. You are not now quite so active a man as when you carried me ten miles through the snow, and frightened the tall ferryman, and so I shall secure for you a passage in one of the Leith traders.' In a few days after, when the boatman was in the middle of one of his most interesting stories, and Mrs Hamilton hugely delighted, the advocate entered the apartment, his eyes beaming with pleasure, and a packet in his hand. This is from London,' he said, as he handed it to the lady; it intimates to us that one Alexander Wright, a customhouse boatman, is to retire from the service on a pension of twenty pounds per annum.' But why dwell longer on the story? Sandy Wright parted from his kind friends, and returned to Cromarty, where he died in the spring of 1769, in the 82d year of his age. Folk hae aye to learn,' he used to say, 'an' for my own part, I was a saxty year auld scholar afore I kent the meaning o' the verse-Cast thy bread on the waters, and thou shalt find it after many days.'"

[ocr errors]

BIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES.

CHARLOTTE SMITH.

THIS eminent writer was born May 4, 1749, the eldest daughter of Nicholas Turner, Esq. of Stoke House in Surrey. Her faculties were of so lively a nature that she learned to read at a period earlier than she could afterwards remember, and was taught to dance when so mere a baby, that she received her first steps upon a dining-room table. While still at the boardingschool, her conversation was remarkable for intelligence, wit, and imagination; while she excelled all her companions at once in music, in drawing, and in dancing. She also distinguished herself at this early period by her performances in some private theatricals got up at school, and by writing verses. It would appear, however, that her education was of a superficial kind, and that the formation of her character and habits was in some measure injured by the indulgence in which she was reared by an aunt, to whose

other annoyances, to the illiberal remarks of a father. in-law and mother-in-law, whose ideas were of an entirely different character from her own. Old Mr Smith usually took his chocolate in his daughter-inlaw's dressing-room, and his approach was the signal for hurrying away every trace of elegant study, and the dismissal of every congenial visitor. The old lady at the same time exacted an almost constant attendance on account of her health, and made use of the opportunities thus obtained to lecture the young wife upon household maxims in the highest degree repugnant to her. It was like immuring an antelope introduction of a being constituted and educated 29 in a stable. Nothing can be more clear than that the she was, into a scene like what has been described,

was calculated to occasion distress both to herself and to others. Her own low health, and the loss of her first child by a malignant illness, led to her being removed to a country lodging, where she was more at her own disposal, and had leisure to pursue the studies in which she delighted. Yet every advance which her mind made towards maturity only enabled her to feel more acutely the irreconcileable difference between her own character and those of her new

friends, more especially of her husband, who speedily proved to be a frivolous and fickle young man, unfit for either business or society. To use her own em. phatic words, "the more I cultivated and improved my understanding, the more clearly I saw the horror of the abyss into which I had unconsciously plunged." But it is to be related to her honour, that, while suffering deeply under a growing sense of this great and irremediable calamity, she never suffered a complaint to escape her lips, even in the presence of her most confidential friends.

The time which her husband could not be prevailed to bestow upon business being spent chiefly in costly follies, she prevailed upon her father-in-law, in 1774, to allow of his retiring with his family to a small estate called Lys Farm, in Hampshire, where she hoped, by having him constantly under her eye, to check his extravagant career. The old gentleman parted with her with extreme regret, for he had found more benefit from her occasional services in business, than he had ever experienced from those of his son, and was so sensible of her usefulness and dexterity as to offer her a fixed allowance if she would remain. Two years after this event, the elder Mr Smith died, leaving a large fortune, confusedly distributed, by a will of his own composition, amongst his numerous descendants, and which was speedily torn to pieces amidst legal contentions. Her husband was enabled, by a lucrative contract with government, to keep himself afloat for some time; but his prodigality at length came to its appropriate conclusion, and in 1782 his co-legatees found it necessary to throw him into prison.

The conduct of Mrs Smith was never so deserving of admiration as at this time. When suffering from the calamities which her husband had brought on himself, and in which he had inextricably involved her

was so true a friend to me when I had no friend be. charge she had been chiefly entrusted after the early and her children, she made herself the companion of

The boatman accompanied him to an elegant house, and was ushered into a splendid apartment, where there sat a young lady engaged in reading. Who of all the world have I found,' said the advocate to the lady, but good Sandy Wright, the kind brave man who rescued me when perishing in the snow, and who sides.' The lady welcomed the boatman with one of her most fascinating smiles, and held out her hand. 'How happy I am,' she said, 'that we should have met with you! Often has Mr Hamilton told me of your kindness to him, and regretted that he should have no opportunity of acknowledging it.' The boatman made one of his best bows, but he had no words for so fine a lady.

.

The advocate inquired kindly after his concerns, and was told of his dismissal from the customhouse. 'I'il vouch,' he exclaimed, it was for nothing an honest man should be ashamed of.' 'Oh, only a slight matter, Mr Hamilton,' said the boatman; an' troth, I couldna weel do other than what I did, though I should hae to do't o'er again. Captain Robinson o' the Free Trade was on the coast o' Cadboll last har'st, about the time o' the equinoxal, unlading a cargo o' Hollands, whan on came the storm, an' he had to run for Cromarty to avoid shipwreck. His loading was mostly out, except a few orra kegs that might just make his lugger seizable, if folk were a wee owre strict. If he could but show, however, that he had been at the Isle o' Man, an' had been forced into the Frith

by mere stress o' weather, frae his even course to Flushing, it would set him clear out o' our danger. I had a strong liking to the captain, for he had been unco kind to my poor Willie, that's dead now; an' when he tauld our officer that he had been at Man, an' the officer asked for proof, I contrived to slide twa Manks bawbees intil his han', an' he held them out till him just in a careless way, as if he had plenty proof besides. Weel, this did, an' the puir chield wan aff; but hardly was he down the Frith, when out came the haill story. Him they couldna harm, but me they could; an', after muckle ill words (an' I had to bear thein a', for I'm an auld failed man now), instead o'

loss of her mother. At twelve she was introduced to the gaieties of fashionable life in the metropolis, and allowed to enter much too freely into them; by which she was less prepared than she might have been for

the sad reverses and distresses which clouded her latter years.

When Miss Turner was fifteen, her father having resolved upon a second marriage, the aunt just mentioned took alarm for the future comfort of her niece, which she thought could not be more effectually secured than by hurrying her into a matrimonial engagement. The gentleman selected for Miss Turner was a Mr Smith, son of a West India merchant in the city, who had taken him into partnership. He was brought into Miss Turner's society for the express purpose of forming an attachment to her, and the event justified the expectations which had been formed. On the other hand, it was no difficult matter to talk the young lady into a reciprocal feeling. Too young to be able to judge for herself respecting either her own affections or the character of her suitor, she was hurried by injudicious friends into an union with one who was destined to prove the bane of her happiThe marriage took place in February 1765, while the subject of our memoir as yet wanted three months to complete her sixteenth year.

ness.

his confinement, amidst scenes of vice, of misery, and even of terror-for, while she was in prison, two attempts were made by the inmates to obtain their libe ration by blowing up the walls of the house. Throughout one of the nights appointed for this dreadful enterprise, she remained at a window, dressed, and expecting every moment to witness contention and bloodshed, and perhaps to be overwhelmed by the projected explosion. She also made herself mistress of her husband's affairs, and submitted to many humi. liating applications on his behalf, by which her best feelings were occasionally outraged. Perhaps the severest of her trials was the necessity of employing her superior abilities in defending a conduct she could not approve of. At the end of seven months, by a resig had the satisfaction of procuring her husband's libenation of his property into the hands of trustees, she ration, and accompanying him to a house in Sussex, where her children had for some time remained under the care of their maternal uncle. "After such scenes and such apprehensions," says she, in reference to the dangers she encountered in prison, "how deliciously soothing to my wearied spirits was the soft pure air of the summer's morning, breathing over the dewy grass, as (having slept one night upon the road) we passed over the heaths of Surrey! My native hills at length where I passed my happiest days, and, amidst the per burst upon my view. I beheld once more the fields fumed turf with which one of those fields was strewn, perceived with delight the beloved group from whom I had been so long divided, and for whose fate my af. fections were ever anxious. The transports of this meeting were too much for my exhausted spirits. Af ter all my sufferings, I began to hope that I might taste content, or experience at least a respite from ca.

Young, gay, and inexperienced, she was placed in
apartments connected with the mercantile establish-
ment of her husband, in one of the narrowest and
darkest lanes in the city, and there subjected, amidst | lamity."

her m

1

During the many sorrowful years which she had der increasing infirmity, she determined on removing spent with her husband, Mrs Smith endeavoured oc- into Surrey, from a desire that her mortal remains casionally to soothe her feelings by the composition of might be laid with those of her mother, and many of sonnets, none of which she ever showed to her friends. her father's family, in Stoke Church, near Guildford. She now allowed these to be published in a thin quarto, In 1803, she removed from Frans, near Tunbridge, and was gratified to find that the mild tenderness to the village of Elsted, in the neighbourhood of Godwhich they breathed procured them admiration in the alming. In the winter of 1804, I spent some time with literary world. Having soon after retired with her her, when she was occupied in composing her charm. husband and family to an ancient chateau in Nor- ing little work for the use of young persons, entitled mandy, she was tempted to amuse herself by translat-Conversations,' which she occasionally wrote in the ing an old French novel into her native language, and common sitting-room of the family, with two or three lively grandchildren playing about her, and conversing with great cheerfulness and pleasantry, though nearly confined to her sofa, in great bodily pain, and in a mor. tifying state of dependence on the services of others, but in the full possession of all her faculties; a blessing of which she was most justly sensible, and for which she frequently expressed her gratitude to the Almighty.

In the following year she removed to Tilford, near Farnham, where her long sufferings were finally closed, on the 28th of October 1806, in her 58th year. Mr Smith's death took place the preceding March. She was buried at Stoke, in compliance with her wishes, where a neat monument, executed by Bacon, is erected to her memory, and that of two of her sons, Charles and George, both of whom perished in the West Indies, in the service of their country."

To this sketch of the life of this admirable and much injured woman, I am induced to add a delineation of her character, which, I think, has been as much misunderstood by her admirers, as it has been misrepresented by her enemies. Those who have formed their ideas of her from her works, and even from what she says, in her moments of despondency, of herself, have naturally concluded that she was of a melancholy disposition; but nothing could be more erroneous. Cheerfulness and gaiety were the natural characteristics of her mind; and though circumstances of the most depressing nature at times weighed down her spirit to the earth, yet such was its buoyancy that it quickly returned to its level.

Notwithstanding her constant literary occupations, she never adopted the affectations, the inflated language, and exaggerated expressions, which literary ladies are often distinguished by, but always expressed herself with the utmost simplicity. She composed with greater facility than others could transcribe, and never would avail herself of an amanuensis, always asserting that it was more trouble to find them in comprehension than to execute the business herself; in fact, the quickness of her conception was such, that she made no allowance for the slower faculties of others, and her impetuosity seldom allowed her time to explain herself with the precision required by less ardent minds. This hastiness of temper was one of the greatest shades in her character, and one of her greatest misfortunes.

this work was published in 1785 by Cadell of London. It did not add to her reputation. She now returned from France, where a residence of two years had saatisfied her that living was no cheaper than in her native country, and for some time she resided with her husband at Woolbeding House, near Midhurst, her eldest surviving son being in the meantime appointed to a writership in Bengal. An increasing incompati=bility of temper now determined her upon a step which she ought to have taken many years before, a separation from her husband, which she effected unfortunately without terms respecting her own fortune, but with the gratification of being accompanied by all her children. She settled in a small house in the environs of Chichester, resolving to trust to her pen for the means of supporting herself and her children; and thus was one who originally seemed destined to fortune and pleasure, condemned, after twenty-three years of constant suffering, to endure for the remainder of her life a severe and harassing toil. Mr Smith, soon after finding himself involved in fresh difficulties, retired to the Continent, after having made some ineffectual efforts to regain the society of his wife. They sometimes met after this period, and constantly corresponded, Mrs Smith never relaxing in her endea vours to afford him every assistance, and bring the family affairs to a final arrangement; but they never afterwards resided together. The summer of 1787 saw her established in a cottage at Wyke, pursuing her literary occupations with much assiduity and delight, and supplying to her children the duties of both parents. Here she began and completed, in the short space of eight months, her first and perhaps most pleasing novel of Emmeline, which was published in 1788, and met with brilliant success. The first edition of fifteen hundred sold so rapidly that a second was immediately called for; and Mr Cadell found his profits so considerable, that he had the liberality, voluntarily, to augment the price he had agreed to give for it. The continued success of her volume of sonnets was equally gratifying, and, exclusive of profit and reputation, procured her many valuable friends and estimable acquaintances, and some in the most exalted ranks in life; and it was not the least pleasing circumstance to a mother's heart, that her son in Bengal owed his promotion in the civil service to her talents. Ethelinde, Celestina, Desmond, and The Old English Manor House, were other novels published in succession by Mrs Smith, and all of which, but particularly the last, were well received by the public. They display great inventive powers, great knowledge of the human bosom, very high powers of natural descrip. tion, and a singular combination of wit and satire, with that delicacy and pathos in which the female pen so often excels. Desmond has the peculiarity of being tinged with the notions of the French revolutionists, which she had contracted from some accidental friendships, and was the more disposed to entertain through that bitterness against all fortunate things and persons which the unhappy spirit is but too readily disposed to cherish. This circumstance lost her some of her exalted friends, and contributed additional distress to a mind already sufficiently afflicted. In 1793, her third son, who was serving as an ensign in the 14th regiment of infantry, lost his leg at Dunkirk, and her own health began to sink under the pressure of so many afflictions, and the continual harassing cirIt is impossible (concludes Mrs Dormer), in clos. cumstances in which the family property was involved, ing the melancholy retrospection of a life so peculiarly in the arrangement of which her exertions were inces- and so invariably marked by adversity, not to expesant. She removed to Bath, but received no benefit rience the keenest regret, that a being with a mind from the use of the waters. An imperfect gout had so highly gifted, a heart so alive to every warm and gefixed itself on her hands, probably increased by the nerous feeling, with beauty to delight, and virtues to constant use of the pen, which nevertheless she conattach all hearts, so formed herself for happiness, and tinued to employ, though some of her fingers were beso eminently qualified to dispense it to others, should come contracted. Her second daughter had been have been, from her early youth, the devoted victim married to a gentleman of Normandy, who had emiof folly, vice, and injustice!" While we cannot but grated at the beginning of the Revolution. This echo a sentiment not more beautifully expressed than young lady fell into a decline after her first confine- it is just, it would be improper to omit the opportument, and died at Clifton in the spring of 1794. It nity of pointing to the facts of Mrs Smith's life, as would be impossible to describe an affliction which one out of many proofs that no kind of goodness or mothers only can either experience or comprehend. mental endowment will avail against circumstances in From this time she became more than ever unsettled, securing happiness. There is no such thing on earth moving from place to place in search of that tranquilas a creature depending solely upon itself for its enlity she was not destined ever to enjoy, yet continuing joyments. We are all more or less associated with her literary occupation with astonishing application. others, upon whom in great part our comfort de"The delays," says her sister and biographer, Mrspends; and there is no relation by which so much of Dormer, "in the settlement of the property, which was equally embarrassing to all parties, at length induced one of them to propose a compromise; and by the assistance of a noble friend, an adjustment of the respective claims was effected, but not without considerable loss on all sides. Still she derived great satisfaction that her family would be relieved from the difficulties she had so long contended with, although she was personally but little benefited by it. So many years of mental anxiety and exertion had completely undermined a constitution, which nature seemed to have formed to endure unimpaired to old age; and convinced that her exhausted frame was sinking un

She was always the friend of the unfortunate, and spared neither her time, her talents, nor even her purse, in the cause of those she endeavoured to serve; and with a heart so warm, it may easily be believed she was frequently the dupe of her benevolence. The poor always found in her a kind protectress, and she never left any place of residence without bearing with her their prayers and regrets.

No woman had greater trials as a wife; very few could have acquitted themselves so well! But her conduct for twenty-three years speaks for itself. She was a most tender and anxious mother, and if she carried her indulgence to her children too far, it is an error too general to be very severely reprobated. To shield them as much as possible from the mortifying consequences of loss of fortune, was the object of her indefatigable exertions. Her reward was in their affection and gratitude, and in the approval of her own heart.

it is compromised as that of man and wife. A relation of this kind imprudently entered upon, whether the imprudence rest with ourselves or others, will suffice, as shown by the case of Charlotte Turner, to embitter a whole life, otherwise calculated for happiness. From such a calamity, after the one irretrievable step, there is no escape; for its pains there is hardly any, at least no adequate, consolation. The most pure and worthy may thus be rendered miser

Of a family of twelve children, six only survived her-three sons and three daughters.

able by the most depraved. The errors of the guilty may be expiated by the gentle and the innocent. The sorrow is barbed, and will not be withdrawn. From such disasters there may be an escape by foresight, but none by subsequent ingenuity or any amount of personal excellence.

GREYFRIARS' CEMETERY, EDINBURGH. THE principal burial-ground in the Scottish capital is one situated in the southern quarter of the city, and which forms the precinct of the Greyfriars' churches. Previously to the Reformation, the greater part of this ground was a garden connected with a kind of school or college, taught by a body of Franciscan or grey friars, brought originally from Zurich; while the area around St Giles's church, in the centre of the town, was employed as a cemetery. But, in 1562, the magistrates and community petitioned Queen Mary, "that, because our town is populous, and the multitude thairof greit, your hienes will give us the yairdis of the Grey freiris, being somewhat distant from our toun, to make ane burial-place of, to burie and eird the personnis decessand thairin, sae that thairthrow the air within our said toun may be the mair pure and clene;" a request which was promptly complied with. In the course of time, additions were made to the original yards, and a church built for the accommodation of the inhabitants, since called the Greyfriars' Church. The cemetery is now of several acres in extent, and, besides the remains of countless multitudes of ordinary people, contains the ashes of many of the most distinguished men produced in Scotland during the last three centuries. It may indeed be called the metropolitan cemetery of the country-the Westminster Abbey of Scotland.

There is much of both historical and sentimental interest in a walk through this ancient place of sepulture—

Along the walls where speaking marbles show
What worthies form the hallowed mould below;
Proud names which once the reins of empire held,
In arms who triumphed, or in arts excelled;
Chiefs graced with scars, and prodigal of blood;
Stern patriots, who for sacred freedom stood;
Just men by whom impartial laws were given;

And saints who taught, and led, the way to heaven. Fashion having in some measure deserted this quarter, of the town, and the burial-ground too, (for there is a fashion even in being buried,) the place has a decayed and venerable appearance, which adds to its impressiveness, while the scenery around-the stu pendous Castle, the numerous minarets of Heriot's Hospital, and the steeples and towers of the now surrounding city-conspire still further to increase the effect. Most of the monuments are old; many even of the finest, while retaining much of their original architectural elegance, have forgot the chief aim of their erection, the commemoration of the frail beings below, and stand like empty trophies around the place. There are some in secluded and sunless situations, which present a singularly dismal aspect. Upon lofty sarcophagi, surmounted by swelling mausolea, repose figures of lordly grace, and around each is drawn a strong wall, to protect it from the rudeness of vulgar contact. But the pains taken by the immediate mourners of these great ones have not been seconded by posterity. While the area is generally found filled with rubbish and weeds, the sculpture is in most cases defaced and blackened, the inscriptions gone, and nothing left in the waste and ruin of the scene to tell to whom or by whom it was consecrated. No

thing could more emphatically show the futility of all such attempts by one generation to obtrude itself upon the notice of another.

One of the first great men interred in the Grey. friars' yard was GEORGE BUCHANAN, for whom, however, there has never been any monument. This illustrious scholar was buried here, at the expense of the city, in 1582, and in the immediately ensuing age his skull was exhumed, and was shown for many years in the college of Edinburgh, being remarkable for its exceeding thinness. On the west side of the churchyard, near the gate which leads to Heriot's Hospital, is a plain obelisk with an urn upon the top, marking the grave of ALEXANDER HENDERSON, the first great clerical leader of the Covenanters, and who died in 1646, immediately after concluding a religious controversy with Charles I. The inscriptions upon this monument, which describe him as "a diligent defender of the freedom of the church against the fraud and tyranny of prelates," were erased at the Restoration, by order of Parliament, but restored at

Tickell, on the Death of Mr Addison.

the Revolution. The Greyfriars' churchyard happens to be interestingly connected with the history of the Covenant. It was in the elder of the two churches that, on the 28th of February 1638, this celebrated document, framed for resisting the introduction of Episcopacy, and which was the means of beginning the civil war, was, after a prayer by Mr Henderson, first presented to the Scottish people. It is stated by tradition, that after being signed by the Earl of Sutherland and other persons within the church, it was brought out to the churchyard and read to a vast and rapturous crowd, who placed it upon the flat monuments, and there joyfully annexed their names. When times of a different temper arrived, and the adherents of this bond were sacrificed in multitudes by a jealous government, the greater part of one hundred noblemen, gentlemen, ministers, and others, who suffered for it in Edinburgh, were interred in the corner of this burial-ground allotted to common felons, where, in 1726, a monument was erected in their honour. It is a remarkable proof of the veneration still entertained in Scotland for the memory of these religious patriots, that, so lately as last year, their place of rest, once considered mean and vile, was put into the condition of a flower-garden.

As it is the proverbial privilege of the grave to level distinctions and reconcile enemies, there is little occasion to wonder that the same burial-ground contains the body of Sir GEORGE MACKENZIE, the legal officer whose duty it was for a considerable time to prosecute those patriots to the death. This eminent and erudite person, however, had also his panegyrists, and the inscription upon his very beautiful mausoleum describes him as an ornament of his age, and a man kind to all "except a rebellious crew, from whose violence, with tongue and pen, he defended his country and king, whose virulence he stayed by the sword of justice, and whose ferocity he by the force of reason blunted, and only did not subdue." Popular feeling, however, has taken a very different turn respecting the tomb of Mackenzie, from what it manifests regarding the lowly graves of "the martyrs." The boys till a late period entertained the idea that the sprite of this great persecutor remained restless in its superb but gloomy tenement, and used to deem themselves very heroic, if, in a still summer evening, they could venture up to the place and cry—immediately after, running away

Isaac Newton-that his son erected this stone, not to to persons of condition, whose friends appear to have advance the name of his parent, for such aid was not spared no expense in commemorating them in an ap. necessary, but that, in this unhappy scene, the pecu-propriate manner. Some of these are not only sumptu. liar region of fear and woe, there might not be want- ous, but are constructed with the greatest architectural ing some consolation to mortals-for consider, says elegance, and in some instances with sculptured figures this eloquent tribute, the productions of him who rests of no mean workmanship. One of the more splendid below, and you cannot fail to believe that a mind ca- structures on the west side of the yard, presents a pair pable of such things must survive the frail body with of busts, now somewhat defaced, but originally de erection, and disgraced by some wretched rhymes, eminent integrity (according to his epitaph) in every which it was connected. A marble slab of recent signed for GEORGE FOULIS of Ravelston, a man of marks the grave of the author of the Gentle Shepherd; relation of life, who died in 1633, in the 64th year and a similar stone, with a neat Latin inscription, de- his age; and JANET BANNATYNE, his wife, with notes the resting-place of Blair. In the same spot is whom he had lived twenty-nine years in the greatest interred, but without a monument, Dr ALEXANDER Concord." This monument derives a relative interest from the fact of the lady having been daughter to the MURRAY, the eminent philologist. celebrated George Bannatyne, to whom Scotland has been indebted for the preservation of most of her an cient poetry. The Bannatyne Club, an association of literary antiquaries who take their name from this individual, have deemed the tomb of so much import. ance, from its connection with their patron, that, in a publication referring to him, they have given a faith. ful drawing of it.

In the detached ground to the west, is a slab, "Sacred to the memory of that celebrated scholar and worthy man, THOMAS RUDDIMAN, A.M., keeper of the Advocates' Library near fifty years; born Oct. 1674, within three miles of the town of Banff; died at Edinburgh, 19th January 1757, in his eighty-third year." In the north-west angle of the principal churchyard is the mausoleum of Dr ROBERTSON, the historian of Charles V. and America; and near the same place is a little enclosure in which lies ANDREW DALZELL, eminent as a professor of Greek, and writer of books for instruction in that language. Among the later men of note who have been interred here, is one of many notes, but, alas! undistinguished by a monument, NATHANIEL GOW. He died in January 1831.

Having thus enumerated the historical names connected with the Greyfriars' cemetery, we may now advert to a few of those persons of private station whose tombs are in any respect remarkable. One of the oldest of the monuments now existing refers to JOHN MACMORAN, a bailie of the city, whose death took place in 1595, under extraordinary circumstances. The boys of the High School had rebelled against their masters, and effected what is now termed in England a barring out. The affair was deemed of so serious a nature, that one of the magistrates of the city was called upon by the masters to interfere, in order to reduce the scholars to obedience. Macmoran came for this purpose, attended by a competent body of armed men, and, fearlessly approaching the door of the school, called upon the boys to undo the fastenings, and submit to the usual authority. He was told by the ringleaders that they had no intention of obeying his command, and that it would be best for him to retire. But he only replied by making a nearer approach to the door, when he was fired upon from within, and slain by a shot through the head. It does not appear that any of the young people suffered punishment for this heinous crime: tradition represents their rank as having been in general too high to allow of an unsparing exercise of the laws. There would even appear to have been a kind of delicacy in the dietion of the epitaph placed over the worthy bailie, who is simply stated to have been "unfortunately shot with a leaden bullet, to the great grief of all good people." burgh, and father of the celebrated goldsmith to King The tomb of GEORGE HERIOT, citizen of EdinJames VI., who seems to have died in 1610, addresses the following emphatic words to those who gaze upon it: "Passenger, who art wise, hence know whence you are, what you are, and what you are to be." Another of nearly the same date informs us in Latin: The latter was the celebrated WILLIAM AIK- "Here lies JOHN NASMITH, of the family of Posso, an MAN, the painter-the friend of Ramsay and Thom-honourable family in Tweeddale; a citizen of Edinson, and the protege of the Duke of Argyle and Sir Robert Walpole. Aikman was the Kneller of the reign of George I., and excelled also in historical painting. He and his only son died at the same time, January 1731, and were buried here in the same grave, with an epitaph by Mallet

Bluidy Mackingie, come out if ye daur,
Lift the sneck and draw the bar!

It is curious to reflect, that a peculiarity of political and religions feeling should have subjected to such an epithet the most learned and polished man of his time, the friend of Dryden, and the first cultivator of polite English literature in Scotland.

The epitaph upon Mr William Aikman of Cairnie, advocate, who died December 29, 1699, states that the monument was erected by his sorrowful widow and

son.

Dear to the good and wise, dispraised by none,
Here sleep in peace the father and the son;
By virtue as by nature close allied,

The painter's genius, but without the pride;
Worth unambitious, wit afraid to shine,

Honour's clear light and friendship's warmth divine.
The son, fair-rising, knew too short a date;
But, oh! how more severe the parent's fate!
He saw him torn untimely from his side,
Felt all a father's anguish-wept, and died.

It may here be mentioned that the Greyfriars' churchyard also contains the remains of the only eminent painter produced in Scotland before the time of Aikman-GEORGE JAMESONE-but without a monument. This eminent individual died in 1644.

At the south-west angle of the church is a spot containing, within the compass of a few feet, the ashes of COLIN MACLAURIN, ALLAN RAMSAY, and HUGH BLAIR. To the first, so eminent for his mathemati cal writings, and who died in 1746, there is a Latin epitaph, composed by his son, a judge of considerable note, who rests in the same grave. It expresses that here is placed COLIN MACLAURIN, Professor of Mathematics in the University of Edinburgh, to which situation he was elected by the recommendation of Sir

[ocr errors]

As it was much admired by Dr Johnson, we shall give the original:-" Infra situs est, COLIN MACLAURIN, Mathes. olim in Acad. Edin. Prof. Electus ipso Newtono suadente. Hune lapidem posuit filius, non uɩ nomini paterno consulat, nam tali auxilio nil eget, sed ut in hoc infelici campo, ubi luctus regnant et pavor, mortalibus prorsus non absit solatium: hujus enim scripta evolve, mentemque tantarum rerum capacem, corpori caduco superstitem crede.'

burgh, chief surgeon to his most sacred majesty, and to the King of France's Scotch troop of guards; who, after having performed all the duties of a godly life, died in London, to the grief of both nations, in the exercise of his office with his majesty. His remains (such was his love to his country) he ordered to be brought to this dormitory; acquitting himself to his king, his country, and friends, to the utmost of his power and duty. He died in the 57th year of his age, September 16, 1613. Why is it grievous to return to the place whence you came ?" On a lady of the same name, there is or was to be seen the following truly poetical epitaph :

Here lies a flower, that, with the too much haste
Of fate cut down, did in her blossom waste;

In whose untimely fall fond man may see
Youth, vigour, strength, what mortal things they be.
What graver eye, contemplating thy dust,
O happy Nasmith, after thee, will trust
The smiles of nature-or presume to say
This well-set morn foresigns a hopeful day?
Oh, may thy grave, untainted like thy years,
Grow ever green, bedewed with sister's tears,
Who envies not thy good, but grieves to be,
By lingering life, so long disjoined from thee.

It seems to have been in the seventeenth century that this churchyard was in the height of its reputation, the monuments of that period referring chiefly

An old lady, the mother of one with whom the editors are acquainted, used to relate that she had had a hand in making the burial-clothes of Allan Ramsay, being then a child at a sewing

school in the Grassmarket, the mistress of which was employed

in that melancholy business. After the clothes were prepared, the mother of our informant accompanied her preceptress to the house of the deceased poet on the Castlehill, and was for some time in the room where the corpse lay. All she remembered was that the roses were blooming in at the open window, a sufficiently striking contrast with the mortality within. As Ramsay died in January, these must have been Christmas roses.

There is a handsome monument to JAMES MURRAY, merchant in Edinburgh, who died in 1649, in his 79th year: the Latin prose epitaph contains a simple and dignified recital of facts, which has, by the taste of a more recent age, been rendered into the following whimsical verses :

Stay, passenger, and shed a tear,
For good James Murray licth here:
He was of Philiphaugh descended,
And for his merchandise commended.
He was a man of a good life,
Married Bathia Mauld to's wife;
He may thank God that e'er he gat her—
She bore him three sons and a daughter.
The first he was a man of might,
For which the king made him a knight;
The second was both wise and wily,
For which the town made him a bailie;
The third a factor of renown,

Both in Campvere and in this town.
His daughter was both grave and wise,
And married was to James Elies.

The next monument in point of time, that may be considered worthy of notice, is one of JOHN MYLNE, who died in 1667, in the 56th year of his age. The epitaph describes him as having been not only convener of the trades of the city, and several times its representative in Parliament, but the sixth master. mason to the king of the race of Mylne, from father to sou-seven sovereigns having been served by six Mylnes. The monument is described as erected by his nephew, Robert Mylne, his successor in office, and who must be the same who rebuilt the palace of Holyrood, and is interred in the churchyard of the Abbey. It would appear that the architectural race of Myine did not stop even here, for the late Robert Mylne, who designed Blackfriars' Bridge, was the son of one Thomas Mylne, an architect in Edinburgh, the refive ancestors had served seven sovereigns, we are presentative of the old line of royal master-masons. If the epitaph be correct in stating that John and his presented with the singular fact of a family having pursued the same art, and that an art requiring no common mental gifts, from the reign of James IV. of Scotland to the year 1811 (the date of the death of the architect of Blackfriars' Bridge), a space of three hundred years.

One of the more magnificent monuments is to the memory of Sir David Falconer of Newtown, of the family of Halkertoun, President of the Court of Ses sion, who died in 1685, in his forty-sixth year. We are only induced to notice him by the fact of his hav ing been the maternal grandfather of David Hume. Among the more modern tombs, there are few which claim peculiar observation, either by their form or the ideas which they express. But there is one which contains a morsel of the language of genuine and yet digniñed pathos. The original purpose of the monument was to commemorate Mr WILLIAM COULTER, who died in the office of provost in 1810. After stat ing that it was erected by a widow and only son, it presents the following additional sentences:-" The widowed mother is called to inscribe this stone with a tribute to her only son, Ensign William Coulter, who lately joined in raising it. Having chosen the military profession, and served two campaigns in Portugal, daily gaining on the esteem of his equals, and confidence of his superiors, he fell on the 16th May 1811, aged 21, at the battle of Albuera, bearing the colours of the 66th regiment, and bequeathing to an afflicted parent the sweet consolation that he was worthy of his country."

It must not be supposed that any great portion of the epitaphs here quoted are still to be read in the cemetery of the Greyfriars. Most of them have long since been obliterated by the weather, or by the ruin of the fabrics on which they were inscribed, and could not have been now quoted, if they had not many years since been copied into books. The vauntings of greatall have been alike subjected, wholly or partially, to ness, the murmurs of affection, the aspirations of piety, this fate. A figure represented as springing from the grave at the last trump, is broken short by the middle; so that, every relative inscription having been effaced, its object can hardly now be even conjectured. Seve ral of the monuments erected centuries ago to dignified persons, are now furnished with new tablets, comme

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

number of sections and short paragraphs, each para

Paris does not, like London and Edinburgh, absorb

morative of men totally alien, who happen to have been placed near them; and thus have the labour and graph marked by a number, as a means of reference. almost all the civil business of the country. It has, it cost of individuals, long since forgotten, been employed to save a fresh expenditure by individuals economical of tenderness and penurious of sorrow, Of all the ancient epitaphs, there is only one which any descend. ant has thought it worth his while to re-inscribe.

FRENCH LAWS AND COURTS OF JUSTICE. [The following instructive account of the organisation of the laws and courts of justice in France is from the tenth volume of the Encyclopædia Britannica, just published.]

The Assize Courts take cognisance exclusively of criminal cases; that is, of the crimes or serious of fences referred to them by the cours royales. They consist of three, four, or five judges, members of the cours royales, but never belonging to the section that The Special Courts were confinds the indictments. stituted out of the usual course for the trial of state offences. The name of Tribunal, or court, is given in France to a committee of five merchants, or leading tradesmen, appointed by the mercantile body in every town of considerable business or population. Their competency extends to all disputes occurring in mercantile business, and falling within the provisions of the code de commerce.

The style is as concise as is compatible with clearness. is true, a cour royale on a large scale (five chambers The arrangement is minute and elaborate. The whole and fifty judges), but confined in its jurisdiction to is sold for a few shillings, in the shape of one octavo the metropolis and the seven adjacent departments. or of two duodecimo volumes; and copies of it are in There is a procureur du roi for every tribunal de prethe possession not only of all judges, pleaders, and at-mière instance, and a procureur-general for every cour tornies, but of agents, merchants, and persons in busi. d'appel. ness generally, who, without being enabled by it to dispense with the aid of lawyers in a suit, find in it a variety of useful explanations relative to questions of frequent occurrence in their respective occupations. The justices of the peace are very numerous, there In this great department France shows nothing of the being one for each canton, and consequently nearly three thousand in the kingdom. They never are, as backwardness apparent in her situation in many other in England, clergymen, and seldom country gentlerespects, but is entitled to the particular attention of other nations, and of none more than our own. men, but persons acquainted with law, and in cirLaw cumstances which make the salary, small as it is (L.30 does not rest on tradition, nor is it necessary to study to L.40), an acceptable return for a portion of their it in a never-ending accumulation of decisions. It is reduced to a compact and definite form, the result of time. They are not unfrequently provincial attor a code formed recently, and with all the benefit of the nies, or pleaders retired from business. The justice of the peace, or juge de paix, is authorised to proapplication of the knowledge of an enlightened age to nounce finally in petty questions (under fifty francs, the principles of jurisprudence. Nothing could be or L.2); and to give, in questions of somewhat greater more irregular than the administration of justice in amount (up to a hundred francs, or L.4), a decision France before the Revolution. The first stage of a process took place before judges appointed, not by subject to appeal. He takes cognisance likewise of the king, but by the seigneur or lord of the district. disputes about tenants' repairs, servants' wages, and the displacing of the landmarks of property. No acThese judges had power to impose a fine, to decree tion can be brought before a court of justice in France a short imprisonment or other correctional punish-until the plaintiff has summoned his adversary before ment, and to give, in a civil suit, a decision subject a juge de paix, with an amicable intent (cité en concito appeal. The seneschals and baillis ranked a degree higher, and were entitled to give a verdict in liation), and received from the juge a procès verbal, showing that the difference could not be adjusted. cases of importance, subject, however, to an appeal to When the justice is prevented from acting, his place one or other of the parliaments, of which there were is taken by his first, and, if necessary, by his second in all thirteen in France; and which, very different substitute. from the parliaments with which we are familiar, were composed of judges and public officers of rank. whole of this unharmonious mass was reduced into a simple and uniform system by the National Assembly in 1791; the seignoral judges being replaced by justices of the pence, and every district of importance (arrondissement) obtaining its court, or tribunal de première instance. The higher courts were not added till afterwards, but the judges of every description were elected by the inhabitants of the province, a right which continued with them until the usurpation of

Bonaparte.

The

The Court of Cassation, the highest in the kingdom, is held at Paris, and is composed of three chambere, each of sixteen members and a president, making, with the premier president, a total of fifty-two. Its province is to decide definitively in all appeals from the decrees of the cours royales; investigating not the facts of the case, but the forms of law, and or dering, wherever these have been infringed or deviated trom, a new trial before another cour royale. This revision takes place in criminal as well as in civil cases. The royal court chosen for the new trial is generally, for the convenience of the parties, the nearest in situation to the other. The Cour de Cassation has farther powers, and of the highest kind. It determines all differences as to jurisdiction between one court and another, and exercises a control over every court in the kingdom. It has power to call the judges to account before the minister of justice, and even to suspend them from their functions; acting thus as a high tribunal for the maintenance of the established order of judicature.

THE BOHEMIAN FORTUNE-TELLER. singular story in the number for February 1818, as a translation from a foreign work little known in this country.]

Of the Primary Courts there is one for every arrondissement, making above three hundred and sixty for the whole of France. Each is composed of three sistant members, and of a procureur du roi acting on or four members, or two or three suppléans or asthe part of the crown. In populous districts, cours de première instance comprehend six, seven, eight, or chambers. They are chiefly occupied with questions more members, and are divided into two or three of civil law, and hold, in the extent of their jurisdic tion, a medium between the humble limits of the juge [A correspondent of the Edinburgh Magazine gave the following But there remained for the National Assembly an de paix and the wide powers of the cour royale; their decisions being final wherever the income from a proother and a much more laborious work. Each province had its peculiar code, some founded on the Ro-perty does not exceed forty shillings, or the principal man law, others on tradition and local custom, but the whole replete with ambiguity and discrepancy. To digest a complete body of law, that might suffice for the country at large, and supersede the provincial codes, was the labour of many years, and of a number of eminent lawyers. It was not completed until the beginning of the present century, when it was promulgated under Bonaparte, and gave to the jurisprudence and judicial constitution of France nearly the form they at present bear. This body of law consists of five codes, entitled respectively, 1. Code Civil; 2. Code de Procédure Civile; 3. Code de Commerce; 4. Code d'In

struction Criminelle; 5. Code Pénal.

The Code Civil, the first and by far the most comprehensive of these divisions, defines the rights of persons in their various capacities of citizens, parents, sons, daughters, guardians, minors, married, unmarried. It next treats of property in its respective modes of acquisition and possession, as inheritances, marriage portions, sales, leases, loans, bonds, and mortgages.

forty pounds, but subject, in greater matters, to an
appeal to the cour royale. The members of these in-
ferior courts are named, like other judges, by the
crown, and hold their places for life; the salary of
each is only L.80 a-year, equal to L.120 in England;
their number throughout all France, including sup-
pléans, is not far short of three thousand.

A section of the Tribunal de Première Instance is appropriated to the trial of offences, under the name of Tribunal de Police Correctionnelle; and here the English reader must be careful to distinguish between judicial and government police; the former having no reference to state offences, such as libel or treason, but comprehending a very numerous list of another kind, namely, all offences which do not amount to crimes, or subject the offender to a punishmant afflictif ou infamant. These offences, when slight, are called contraventions de police, and are brought before a juge de paix, or the mayor of the commune; when of a graver stamp, and requiring a punishment exceeding five days' imprisonment, or a fine of fifteen francs, they are brought before the court now mentioned, The Code de Procédure Civile prescribes the manner whose sentences, in point of imprisonment, may exof proceeding before the different courts of justice, tend to the term of five years. The trespasses brought beginning with the juge de pair; also the mode of before a justice of the peace or mayor are such as dacarrying into effect sentences, whether for the payment maging standing corn, driving incautiously in the of damages, the distraining of goods, or the imprison-highway, endangering a neighbour's property by ne ing of the party condemned. It declares likewise the glecting repairs. The offences referred to the Tricourse to be followed in transactions distinct from bunal Correctionnel are such as assault and battery, those of the law courts; as in arbitration, taking pos- swindling, privately stealing, using false weights or session of an inheritance, or a separation of property measures, &c. between man and wife.

The Code de Commerce begins by defining the duties of certain officers or commercial agents, such as sworn brokers and appraisers: it next treats of partnerships; of sales and purchases; of bills of exchange; of shipping, freight, and insurance; of temporary suspensions of payment, and bankruptcies.

The Code d'Instruction Criminelle, a very different but equally important division, explains the duties of all public officers connected with the judicial police, whether mayors, assistants of mayors (adjoints), procureurs du roi, juges d'instruction, &c. After prescribing the rules regarding evidence, it regulates the manner of appointing juries, and the questions which fall within their competency. Its further dispositions relate to the mode and nature of appeals, and to the very unpopular courts authorised to try state offences, termed Cours Spéciales under Bonaparte, and Cours Prévotales under the Bourbons.

Lastly, the Code Pénal describes the punishments Awarded for offences in all the variety of gradation, from the penalties of the police correctionnelle, to te severest sentence of the law. All offences are classed under two general heads; state offences, such as counterfeiting coin, resisting police officers, sedition, rebellion; and offences against individuals, as calumny, false evidence, manslaughter, murder.

These codes, the first attempt to reduce the laws of a great nation to the compass of a volume, consist of a

We now come to the higher courts of justice, which equal in jurisdiction our courts in Westminster Hall and on the circuit, but with the material distinction, that in France the civil courts are always stationary. The Cours Royales, in number twenty-seven, are at tached to the chief provincial towns throughout the kingdom. They are all formed on the same model, and possessed of equal power, though differing materially in extent of business and number of members. The number of the latter depends on the population of the tract of country (generally three departments), subject to the jurisdiction of the court. In a populous quarter, like Normandy, a cour royale compre. hends twenty, twenty-five, or even thirty judges, and is divided into three or four chambers, of which one performs the duty of an English grand jury, in deciding on the bills of indictment (mises en accusation); another is for the trial of offences (police correctionnelle); and a third, with perhaps a fourth, is for civil suits. These courts are often called Cours d'Appel, as all the cases which come before them must have been previ. ously tried by an inferior court. The collective number of judges in these higher courts is not short of nine hundred; an aggregate hardly credible to an English reader, and which would prove a very serious charge on the public purse, were not their salaries very moderate, namely, from L.100 to L.300 a-year, according to the population of the towns where the court is held.

In the spring of the year 1788, I departed from Miclosvar, in Transylvania, with some recruits for my regiment, the hussars of Czekler, then stationed in the vicinity of Orsova in Hungary. In a village near the army, there dwelt a Bohemian, of singular and imposing appearance, who ostensibly conducted the trade of a victualler, but was much consulted in pri. vate as a fortune-teller. My raw soldiers-a very su perstitions set-besought her to reveal their destinies ; and while I ridiculed their motives, I gaily presented my hand to the prophetess. "The twentieth day of the month of August," said she to me, with a very signi ficant air, without adding another syllable. I pressed for an explanation, but she only repeated the same words with the same marked gesture; and when I went away, she called after me "the twentieth of August." It may easily be conceived that this date remained fixed in my memory.

We joined the army, and partook of its dangers and fatigues. In this war the Turks made no pri soners. Their commanders put the price of a ducat. on our heads, and Janizaries and Spahis were equally emulous to merit the reward. This measure was particularly fatal to our outposts; scarcely a night passed without the Turks coming in search of ducats; their expeditions were conducted with so much secrecy, promptitude, and intelligence, that they seldom failed; and often at break of day, a part of our camp was guarded only by lifeless trunks.

The Prince of Cobourg imagined that, by sending strong piquets of cavalry beyond the chain of sentinels, he might protect them. These night guards consisted of from one to two hundred troopers; but the Turkish generals, irritated that their men should be disturbed in their lucrative traffic, dispatched more numerons bodies against our detachments, by which means a still greater profit was reaped; and this service on our part became so fatal, that when an officer was appointed to the command, he arranged his affairs previous to setting out.

Things continued thus until the month of August.. Some skirmishing occurred, without changing the po sitions of the armies; but there was no prospect of a general engagement. About a week before the twen lieth, the Bohemian, from whom I had occasionally purchased supplies, appeared before me. She entered my tent, and requested I would bequeath her a legacy, in the event of my death happening on the day which she had pointed out as the completion of my destiny, She even offered to make me a present of a hamper of Tokay, if her prediction failed. This wine was very rare and precious. The fortune-teller seemed to me bereft of understanding. In the situation I was placed in, a proximate death was not improbable, but I had no reason to apprehend it precisely on the twentieth. I agreed, however, to pledge two chargers and fifty ducats against the Tokay; and the paymaster of the regiment, not without laughter, reduced the wager into writing.

The twentieth of August arrived, and it happened to be our turn to provide the piquet; two of my com.

rades, however, had to take the command before it

fell to me.

99

ransom. The evening advanced, and the hussars were mounted and ready to march, when the surgeon arrived to announce the sudden and dangerous illness of the officer on duty; he who succeeded the invalid, and was immediately above me, received orders to replace him he hastily armed himself and joined the detachment; but his horse, which was uncommonly gentle and docile, reared of a sudden, plunged incessantly, and dismounted his master, who, in falling, fractured his leg. Behold my time come; and I departed; but I must candidly confess, not in my usual spirits.

I commanded 80 men, who were joined by 120 from another regiment. Our position was nearly a mile in advance of the left wing, and as we were protected by a deep and extensive morass, covered with lofty reeds, we did not consider videttes necessary. No one, however, quitted his saddle, and the orders were, to remain till morning, sword in hand, and carabines loaded. All continued profoundly tranquil for an hour and three quarters, when an approaching noise was heard, and in an instant, amidst loud shouts of Alla, Alla, our front rank was charged and overthrown, partly by the fire, partly by the shock, of 700 or 800 Turks. An equal number of the enemy were dismounted by their own impetuosity and our carabines; but they were completely acquainted with the ground, and we were thrown into disorder, surrounded, and defeated. I received many wounds, and my charger fell under me, fixing my right leg immoveably to this field of blood, where, all around, scenes of the most savage butchery were partially revealed by the appalling and momentary illumination of the fire-arms. Our troops fought with the courage of despair; while the Turks, superior in number, and stimulated by opium, made a horrible slaughter; and in a little space not a single Austrian remained capable of resistance. Such was the twentieth of August.

rich; make me your prisoner; you shall have a large "That would take too much time," he rejoined; "keep thyself quiet; all will soon be over;" and he had now drawn the breast-pin from my shirt. Still I held him embraced; and whether he was proudly confident in his superior strength and the advantage of his arms, or that a fleeting remnant of pity had for an instant weighed on his heart, which the avail of a single ducat soon outbalanced, he did not seem to notice my actions. Just, however, as he took out the breast-pin, I felt something heavy near his waist; it was a steel hammer, occasionally used instead of the battle-axe in close combat. Already he held up my head with one hand, brandishing his enor mous sabre with the other, coolly repeating, "keep thyself quiet, that I may cut it off the more easily for thee." Assuredly these were the last words I should ever have heard, but that nature revolted at such a death with so irresistible an impulse, that, in the same moment, I sprung from his grasp, tore the hammer from his girdle, and dashed it, with my whole strength, full in his face. The attack was unexpected; the weapon was massive; the blow did not fail, and it was repeated with almost incredible celerity. The Arnaut reeled and fell, and his sabre escaped from his relaxed hold; I seized it, and, I need scarcely add. plunged it repeatedly into his body.

On recovering my breath, I made to the outposts, directed by the glitter of their arms in the sun; but all fled from me as a spectre, and I was the same day seized with a high fever, and carried to the hospital.

At the expiration of six weeks I recovered both of the fever and my wounds, and returned to the camp. On my arrival, the Bohemian brought me the Tokay, and I learnt from my companions, that, during my confinement, this extraordinary woman, by her predictions, which were in almost every instance accomplished to the very letter, had acquired paramount influence, obtained many legacies, and was universally consulted as to the decrees of fate. strange.

This was very

which served as a passport, being found in her possession, rendered her death indispensable.

The conquerors, having seized the horses which were still fit for service, and pillaged the dead and dying, finally began to cut off the heads, and place them in sacks which they had brought for the purpose. At length two deserters came over from the enemy, The corps of Czekler had ample means to know the and recognised our fortune-teller as well known in the ferocious disposition of the enemy, and my situation camp of the Turks, to whom, they said, by means of was consequently not very enviable, especially as I nocturnal visits, she had communicated our movements heard them urging dispatch, lest succour should arrive, and intentions." This also created much astonishment, and that the night's work ought to produce two hun- as she had often been of important service to us, and dred ducats-so very accurate was their information. we had wondered at the address and ability with which In the meantime, they passed and repassed over me; she had executed the most perilous commissions. But and while legs, arms, and bullets, flew around, my the deserters persisted in their evidence; they had horse received another wound, and his convulsive frequently been present when she communicated our struggles enabled me to extricate my leg. I instantly positions and strength, betrayed our plans, and enarose, and resolved to throw myself into the morass, abled the enemy to succeed in their attacks. The in the hope of being sheltered among the reeds. I had events which had actually happened afforded strong observed several of our people make the attempt un-presumptions against her; and a Turkish cypher, successfully, but the firing had in a great measure ceased, and the darkness gave me confidence. Although the distance was trifling, the danger of being whelmed in the waters was imminent; nevertheless, I sprung over men and horses, and overthrew more than one Turk who attempted to cut me down. My good star, and my agility, enabled me to attain the morass, into which I only ventured to the depth of my knee, crouching as I advanced among the reeds, until fatigue compelled me to pause, when I heard an exclamation that an Infidel had escaped-let us seek him." Other voices replied, "that cannot be ventured on in the I know not if the attempt was made, as loss of blood, extreme weakness, and intense anxiety, produced a faintishness which lasted several hours; and when I recovered my senses, it was broad day-light. I was buried in the mud to the middle; my hair rose erect at the horrible images of the night, and the twentieth of August was one of my first thoughts. I counted my wounds, to the number of eight, but none appeared dangerous, as they were chiefly sabre cuts on my arms and body. The evenings of autumn in that country are very chill; I had therefore worn a thick pelisse, which had materially protected me; at the same time, I was very feeble.

66

morass.

I listened to ascertain if the enemy had departed, but nothing came o'er the ear but the groans of the wounded horses. As to the riders, the Turks had rendered them quiet enough.

I exerted myself to get out of my place of concealment, which I accomplished in about an hour, the traces which I had left among the reeds forming a safe guide; but although this sanguinary warfare had peculiarly hardened the feelings, still in my lonely and defenceless state I could not subdue a movement of apprehension, when I first advanced from this asylum. My regards were naturally and immediately attracted to the scene of inassacre, where, of all my comrades, I singly stood in safety. But how shall I describe the horror and alarm of finding myself, at the very moment of supposed emancipation, rudely seized by the arm! On looking up, I saw an Arnaut of gigantic stature, armed to the teeth, who had returned to examine if there was yet any remaining plunder. Never was hope so bitterly disappointed. I addressed him in the Turkish language, Take my watch, my purse, my uniform, but do not kill me." "These," he replied, "are mine; and, what is more, thy head ;" and he deliberately began to unfasten the chin-piece of my hussar cap. I was without arms, incapable of defending myself, and, on the slightest resistance, he threatened to bury his sabre in my breast; yet I clung to his waist while he was employed in baring my neck, and continued to supplicate his compassion. "My family is

I then urged the Bohemian as to her predictions, and she avowed, in general, that, by acting alternately as a spy for each party, she had obtained double emolument, with complete personal security. By this means she learnt the secret plans of both; and she knew precisely what was to be attempted by either. Those who consulted her on their destiny confided to her all the dangers they were to encounter. The most secret projects were thus revealed to her in detail. Her calculation was almost always a demonstration; and sometimes, where she did not possess these advantages, chance befriended her.

In my particular instance, she was desirous to im. press an irresistible belief in her unerring knowledge. I was selected as a striking example of her skill; and by fixing my fate at a remote period, and in utter disregard of all ordinary hazards, even of the immediate and constant skirmishes of the cavalry, the hair. breadth 'scapes which in my situation were an everyday occurrence, she trusted to obtain unbounded confidence.

From her information, our sentinels were cut off, and our piquets overthrown; but the attacks upon our night guards were arranged so as to suit her predictions, and especially that, on the near approach of the twentieth of August, the hussars of Czekler might be on duty. From constant intercourse with the offi cers, she knew that two of my comrades preceded me in command. To the one she sold drugged wine, and he was taken dangerously ill; and, just as the other had mounted, she contrived to thrust burning tinder into the nostrils of his charger.

A FEW IRISH JESTS. [From "Scottish Jests and Anecdotes," &c. Edinburgh, 1831.] A POSTSCRIPT.The wife of an Irish gentleman being suddenly taken ill, the husband ordered a serthe doctor. By the time, however, that the horse was vant to get a horse ready to go to the next town for ready, and his letter to the doctor written, the lady recovered, on which he added the following postscript, and sent off the messenger :- "My wife being recovered, you need not come.'

[ocr errors]

THE BRICKLAYERS.-Two Irish labouring bricklayers were working at some houses near Russell Square, and one of them was boasting of the steadiness with which he could carry a load to any height that might be required. The other contested the point, and the conversation ended in a bet that he could not carry him, in his bed, up a ladder to the top

of the building. The experiment was made: Pat placed himself in the bed, and his comrade, after a great deal of care and exertion, succeeded in taking him up, and bringing him down safely. The loser, without any reflection on the danger he had escaped, observed to the winner, "Well, to be sure, I've lost; but, don't you remember, about the third story you made a slip-I was then in hopes.”

KITCHEN. "Kitchen" is a Scottish word, applied to the more delicate and palatable of two articles of fare taken together, as cheese in respect of bread, milk in respect to potatoes, and so forth. A citizen of Glas gow asked a poor Irishman, living there, what food he gave to his children: "Potatoes," was the reply. "Ay," said the Scot; "but what to kitchen the po tatoes ?" "Och," said the Irishman, on being made to understand the word, "they make the little ones kitchen the big ones!"

THE IRISH HORSEDEALER.-An Irish horsedealer

sold a mare, as sound, wind and limb, and without fault. It afterwards appeared that the poor beast could not see at all out of one eye, and was almost blind of the other. The purchaser discovering this, made heavy complaints to the dealer, and reminded him that he engaged the mare to be without fault. "To be sure," returned the other, "to be sure I did; her fault, but her misfortin." but then, my dear, the poor cratur's blindness is not

MYSTIFICATION.-The following is a genuine piece of Irish logic:-An old woman was what was termed a "general dealer," and among other things sold bread and whisky. A customer entering her shop, inquired if she had any thing to eat and drink? "To be sure," she replied; "I have got a thimbleful of the cratur, my darling, that comes only to twopence; and this big little loaf you may have for the same money!" Both twopence ?" "Both the same, as

I'm a Christian woman, and worth double the sum." "Fill me the whisky, if you plase." She did so, and he drank it; then rejoined" It comes to twopence, my jewel: I am not hungry, take back the loaf," tendering it. "Yes, honey, but what pays for the whisky?". "Why, the loaf to be sure!" "But you haven't paid for the loaf!" "Why, you wouldn't have a man pay for a thing he hasn't ate ?" A friend going by was called in by the landlady to decide this difficulty, who gave it against her; and from some deficiency in her powers of calculation, she permitted the rogue to escape.

SELF-CONVICTION.-A gentleman writing a letter in a coffee-room, was overlooked by an Irishman. He therefore closed his epistle by saying that he would have added more, if it were not that a tall impudent fellow was peeping over his shoulder, and reading every word he wrote. "You lie, you scoundrel,"

cried the self-convicted Irishman.

A NEW ILLUSTRATION OF A GREAT POLITICAL MAXIM.-An Irish traveller, who had ridden all day over a hard stony road, came at last to a piece of about a mile in length, which, having been macadam. ized, was exceedingly pleasant to ride upon. On this little tract he trotted backwards and forwards for some time, to the great astonishment of all who observed him, one of whom at last asked what he meant by such strange conduct. "Indeed," said he, "and I like to let well alone; now I have got upon a good bit of road, why, sure, I should make the best of it; from what I have seen, I don't expect to get a better bit of ground the whole way."

THE GRAVES OF A HOUSEHOLD.
[By Felicia Hemans.]
They grew in beauty, side by side,
They fill'd one house with glee-
Their graves are sever'd far and wide
By mount, and stream, and sea!
The same fond mother bent at night
O'er each fair sleeping brow,
She had each folded flower in sight-
Where are those dreamers now?
One midst the forests of the west
By a dark stream is laid;
The Indian knows his place of rest,
Far in the cedar shade.

The sea, the blue lone sea, hath one,
He lies where pearls lie deep;

He was the loved of all, yet none
O'er his low bed may weep.

One sleeps where southern vines are dress'd
Above the noble slain;

He wrapt his colours round his breast,
On a blood-red field of Spain.
And one o'er her the myrtle showers
Its leaves, by soft winds fann'd;
She faded 'midst Italian flowers,
The last of that bright band.
And parted thus, they rest who play'd
Beneath the same green tree,
Whose voices mingled as they pray'd
Around one parent knee!

They that with smiles lit up the hall,
And cheer'd with song the hearth-
Alas for love, if thou wert all,
And nought beyond, on earth!

LONDON: Published, with Permission of the Proprietors, by Org & SMITH, Paternoster Row; G. BERGER, Holywell Street, Strand; BANCKS & Co., Manchester; WRIGHTSON & WERB, Birmingham; WILLMER & SMITH, Liverpool: W. E. SONR SCALE, Leeds; C. N. WRIGHT, Nottingham; WESTLEY & Co. Bristol; S. SIMMS, Bath; J. JOHNSON, Cambridge; W. GAIN, Exeter; J. PURDON, Hull; G. RIDGE, Sheffield; H. BELLERBY, York; J. TAYLOR, Brighton; and sold by all Booksellers, Newsmen, &c. in town and country.

Stereotyped by A. Kirkwood, Edinburgh. Printed by Bradbury and Evans (late T. Davison), Whitefriars

« НазадПродовжити »