Read Ebook: The Mirror of Literature Amusement and Instruction. Volume 19 No. 551 June 9 1832 by Various

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And one of the minor pieces:

A RHAPSODY ON NATURE.

We are happy to find in Mr. Gough's List of Subscribers to his work, a host of royal and noble patrons, the ministers of the country, the Earl of Eldon, the Lord and Lady Mayoress, and a few of the Court of Aldermen--patronage, court and city--combining to encourage Mr. Gough's praiseworthy efforts.

CAPTAIN MUNDY'S VISIT TO THE TOMB OF NAPOLEON, AT ST. HELENA.

Having passed two hours on the spot where Napoleon lived and died, we rode onwards to the vale which contains his bones: it is about half a mile from Longwood, and within a few hundred yards of the cottage of Madame Bertrand, to whom he indicated the spot in which he desired to rest, should the English not allow his remains to lie on the banks of the Seine. Soon after leaving Bertrand's house, we caught sight of the tomb, at the bottom of the ravine called Slane's valley, and, descending a zig-zag path, we quickly reached the spot. About half an acre round the grave is railed in. At the gate we were received by an old corporal of the St. Helena corps, who has the care of the place. The tomb itself consists of a square stone, about ten feet by seven, surrounded with a plain iron-railing. Four or five weeping-willows, their stems leaning towards the grave, hang their pensile branches over it.

Who could contemplate without interest the little spot of earth which covers all that remains of mortal of the man who made Europe tremble! who carried his victorious arms from the Nile to the Elbe, from Moscow to the Pillars of Hercules; who bore his eagles triumphantly through Vienna, Rome, Berlin, Madrid! Beneath our feet lay he, who "du monde entre ses mains a vu les destin?es"--

"The desolator desolate, the victor overthrown!"

"They that see thee," saith the inspired prophet, "they that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, and did shake kingdoms; that made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners? All the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in glory every one in his own house. Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land, and slain thy people; the seed of evil-doers shall never be renowned."

Isaiah, xiv. 16, 17, 18, 20.

The willows are decaying fast, and one of them rests upon the sharp spears of the railing, which are buried in its trunk--as though it were comitting suicide for very grief! The foliage of the rest is thinned and disfigured by the frequent and almost excusable depredations of visiters. Fresh cuttings have however, been planted by the Governor, who intends, moreover, to set cypresses round the outer fence. Madame Bertrand's immortelles have proved, alas! mortal.

The fine, tall, old corporal, who came out from England with the ex-emperor, was full of his praises: "I saw the General often," said the old fellow; "he had an eye in his head like an eagle!" He described the visit of the French pilgrims to this spot--their Kibla--as most affecting. Some are extravagant beyond measure in their grief, falling on their faces round the railing , praying, weeping, and even tearing their hair. Whilst we were there, my friend of yesterday came towards the spot; but when he saw our large, and, I fear me, rather unimpressed party, he turned upwards, and disappeared. After inscribing our names in a book--into which also appropriate poetry, as well as ribald nonsense finds its way--we drank to Napoleon's immortal memory in his own favourite spring, and mounting our steeds spurred towards Plantation House.

On the road, we passed within view of "the Briars," where the chief resided during the building of Longwood; and where he,

"Whose game was kingdoms, and whose stakes were thrones! His table earth, his dice were human bones!"

ANECDOTE GALLERY.

OUR ANECDOTAGE.

The local designation of the following anecdote confirms its authenticity, which however required no other indication than the characteristic humour of Addison in his odd conception of old Montaigne.

When Mr. Addison lodged in Kensington Square, he read over some of "Montaigne's Essays," and finding little or no information in the chapters of what their titles promised, he closed the book more confused than satisfied.

"What think you of this famous French author?" said a gentleman present.

"Think!" said he, smiling. "Why that a pair of manacles, or a stone doublet would probably have been of some service to that author's infirmity."

"Would you imprison a man for singularity in writing?"

"Why let me tell you," replied Addison, "if he had been a horse he would have been pounded for straying, and why he ought to be more favoured because he is a man, I cannot understand."

A medical confession, frankly delivered by that eminent physician and wit, Sir Samuel Garth, has been fortunately preserved; perhaps the truth it reveals is as conspicuous as its humour.

Dr. Garth who was one of the Kit-Kat Club, coming there one night, declared he must soon begone, having many patients to attend; but some good wine being produced he forgot them. When Sir Richard Steele reminded him of his appointments, Garth immediately pulled out his list, which amounted to fifteen--and said, "It's no great matter whether I see them to-night or not, for nine of them have such bad constitutions, that all the physicians in the world can't save them, and the other six have so good constitutions that all the physicians in the world can't kill them."

Sir Godfrey Kneller latterly painted more for profit than for praise, and is said to have used some whimsical preparations in his colours which made them work fair and smoothly off, but not endure. A friend noticing it to him said, "What do you think posterity will say, Sir Godfrey Kneller, when they see these pictures some years hence?"

"Say!" replied the artist: "Why they'll say Sir Godfrey Kneller never painted them!"

CHAPEL OF ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST, AT HAMPTON WICK.

Hampton Wick is a cheerful little village in Middlesex, at the foot of Kingston Bridge. This Chapel occupies a prominent position on a road lately formed through the village, having its western front towards Bushy Park and the road leading to Hampton Court. The character of the building is the modern Gothic, forming an agreeable elevation, without any display of ornament. The building is faced with Suffolk brick and Bath stone. The interior dimensions are sixty-five feet by forty-three feet, with galleries on three sides, and a handsome recessed window over the altar-piece at the east end. The principal timbers of the roof are formed into Gothic perforated compartments, which give an addition of height to the Chapel, and an airy, decorative ceiling, at a small expense. The Chapel is calculated to contain eight hundred sittings, of which four hundred are free and unappropriated; and great benefit is anticipated from its erection in this populous neighbourhood, the parish church being at the distance of two miles and a half from the hamlet. The architect was Mr. Lapidge, who built Kingston Bridge, in the immediate vicinity. Mr. Lapidge generously gave the site, and inclosed one side of the ground at his own expense. The building was defrayed by a parliamentary grant from His Majesty's Church Commissioners, on an understanding with the parishioners, that the Church at Hampton should, at the same time, be enlarged by the parish. The cost of the Chapel and the inclosure of the site was about ?4,500.

The first stone was laid on the 7th of October, 1829, and the building was finished previous to the 8th of November, 1830. The Hamlet of Hampton Wick has been since made a District for Ecclesiastical purposes, whereby the Chapel has become the Church of that District.

THE TOPOGRAPHER.

TUNBRIDGE WELLS.

Upon this spot, Ye towers sublime, deserted now and drear, Ye woods deep sighing to the hollow blast! The musing wand'rer loves to linger near, While History points to all your glories past.

O sweet woods, the delight of solitariness! O how much do I like your solitariness.

We have left ourselves but space to mention in the vicinity of the Wells, Buckhurst and Knole, magnificent seats of the Sackvilles, Earls of Dorset, whose splendid details have already filled volumes. Lastly, we promise the Wells visiter some gratification, by extending his tour to Brambletye House, memorialized in Horace Smith's entertaining novel. These few traits may serve to show the picturesqueness of the environs of the Wells, and consequently of Mr. Britton's volume; and we leave the reader with their grateful impression on his memory.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TO CAROLINE, VISCOUNTESS VALLETORT.

WRITTEN AT LACOCK ABBEY, JANUARY, 1832.

Now, too, another change of light! As noble bride, still meekly bright, Thou bring'st thy Lord a dower above All earthly price, pure woman's love; And show'st what lustre Rank receives, When with his proud Corinthian leaves Her rose, too, high-bred Beauty weaves. Wonder not if, where all's so fair, To choose were more than bard can dare; Wonder not if, while every scene I've watch'd thee through so bright hath been, Th' enamour'd Muse should, in her quest Of beauty, know not where to rest, But, dazzled, at thy feet thus fall, Hailing thee beautiful in all!

PROGRESS OF CRIME.

It only needs that punishment should be sure to follow the conviction for crime, and that the judgments should be uniform and settled, to strike terror into the whole body of London criminals. Out of the 2,550 annually tried, nearly one-fourth are acquitted, leaving little short of 2,000 for sentence in each year. Of these the average transported are 800; deduct 200 for cases of an incidental nature, i.e. crimes not committed by regular offenders, and there remain 1,000 professed thieves who are again turned loose in a short period on the town, all of whom appear in due course again at the court of the Old Bailey, or at some other, many times in the revolution of one year. Here lies the mischief. An old thief will be sure to enlist others to perpetuate the race. There is no disguising the fact: the whole blame is with the court whose duty it is to take cognizance of these characters. Whilst the present system is pursued, of allowing so many old offenders to escape with trifling punishments, the evils will be increased, and the business of the court go on augmenting, by its own errors. The thief is now encouraged to speculate on his chances--in his own phraseology, "his good luck." Every escape makes him more reckless. I knew one man who was allowed a course of seventeen imprisonments and other punishments before his career was stopped by transportation; a sentence which does, however, sooner or later overtake them, and which would be better both for themselves and the country were it passed the first time they were in the hands of the court as known thieves. Observing only a certain, and nearly an equal, number transported each session, they have imbibed a notion, that the recorder cannot exceed it, and that he selects those to whom he takes a dislike at the bar, not for the magnitude of their offence, but from caprice or chance. It is under this impression they are afraid of speaking when in court, lest they should give offence, and excite petulance in the judge, which would, in their opinion, inevitably include them in the devoted batch of transports, of which their horror is inconceivable; 1st, because many have already undergone the punishment; and 2dly, all who have not are fully aware of the privations to which it subjects them. Their anxious inquiry regarding every particular relating to the treatment, is a strong manifestation of their uneasiness on this subject. Yet Mr. Wontner and Mr. Wakefield think neither transportation nor the hulks have any terrors for them. How they come to this opinion, I cannot imagine. If they draw their inference from the noise and apparent mirth of the prisoners when they leave Newgate for the hulks, I think their premises false.

SCRIPTURAL ANTIQUITIES.

"Nothing seems to be better substantiated and established than the circumfusion of the waters of the deluge. The language of the Sacred Volume is clear and decisive on this point. 'The waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth; and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered. Fifteen cubits upwards did the waters prevail, and the mountains were covered.' The attestations to this fact, in organic remains, are universal, and completely conclusive. In Italy entire skeletons of whales have been found at an elevation of not less than one thousand two hundred feet above the level of the Mediterranean. In a letter of the 5th May, 1830, to the Asiatic Society of Calcutta, M. Gerard states, that he had collected shells among the snowy mountains of the frontiers of Thibet: some of them were obtained on the crest of a pass, seventeen thousand feet above the level of the sea. Here were also found fragments of rock, bearing impressions of shells, detached from the contiguous peak rising far above the elevated level: generally, however, it would appear, that the rocks from whence these shells were collected, rise to an altitude of about sixteen thousand feet; one cliff was no less than a mile in perpendicular height above the nearest level. M. Gerard continues, 'Just before crossing the boundary of Sudak into Bassalier, I was exceedingly gratified by the discovery of a bed of fossil oysters clinging to the rock as if they had been alive.' No doubt many of the rocks are in more sublime relief now, than they were in the antediluvian world. The subsidence of the land and lower levels, and the action of submarine currents would scoop out deep valleys; and no doubt, much that is now 'dry land,' once formed the bed of the ocean. Alpine structures have emerged from the deep, and volcanoes have heaped up elevations on mountains already lofty and sublime; as Cotopaxi, Antisana, and Tunguragua, amid the range of the Cordilleras of the Andes. The Geological Society has a series of ammonites from India. These fossils are objects of adoration to the Hindoos: they fall on the S.W. side of the Himala mountains from an altitude which exceeds that of perpetual congelation: they are picked up by the natives, and religiously preserved, being concealed as much as possible from the scrutiny of Europeans. Mont Perdu, among the Appennines, which rise to an altitude of eleven thousand feet above the sea's level, encloses an innumerable multitude of testacea: and Humboldt found sea-shells among the Andes, fourteen thousand feet above the level of the ocean. At Touraine, on the Continent, is a bed of shells which extends nearly twenty-seven miles, having a depth of twenty feet. Mount Bolca contains upwards of one hundred species of fish from the four quarters of the earth, and collected together in one immense assemblage."

THE NATURALIST.

NOTES UPON NOTES.

THE GATHERER.

A French marquess having received several blows over his shoulders with a stick, which he never thought of resenting, a friend asked him how he could reconcile it with his honour, to suffer them to pass without notice. "P?h," said the marquess, "I never trouble myself with anything that passes behind my back."

Here lies one whose rest Gives me a restless life, Because I've lost a good And virtuous wyfe.

The Peerage.--The following is the number in each grade of the English peerage:--Dukes, 25; Marquesses, 34; Earls, 142; Viscounts, 22; Barons, 125; Countess, 1; Viscountess, 1; and Baronesses, 4.

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