The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 14, No. 389, September 12, 1829

"Whilst uttering these lamentations, he endeavoured to go in the direction whence the sound had proceeded, to get his watch as he expected and hoped to do. He came close up to Molin, who, under cover of the dense fog, put his hand with the watch in it close to the old gentleman's ear, and pushing the spring again, said, whilst the watch was striking—'Listen then to its sounds for the last time;' and with this cruel advice the two thieves then went away, leaving the worthy undone elderly to bewail his loss.

"The ancient voleurs à la tire cite still, as amongst the celebrated personages of their profession, two Italians, the brothers Verdure, the eldest of whom, convicted of forming one of a band of chauffeurs, was sentenced to death. On the day of execution, the younger, who was at liberty, wished to see his brother as he left the prison, and with several of his comrades took his station on the road. When thieves go out in the evening into a crowd they generally have a preconcerted word of alarm or summons, by which to call or distinguish their accomplices. Young Verdure, on seeing the fatal car, uttered his, which was lorge, to which the criminal, looking about him, replied lorge. This singular salute given and returned, it may be imagined that young Verdure retired. On his road he had already stolen two watches; he saw his brother's head fall from the block, and either before or afterwards he was determined to carry matters to their utmost.

"The crowd having dispersed he returned to the cabaret with his comrades. 'Well, well,' said he, laying down on the table four watches and a purse, 'I think I have not played my cards amiss. I never thought to have made such a haul at my frater's death; I am only sorry he's not here to have his share of the swag.'"

Ring-droppers, and Emporteurs ("gentlemen who lose themselves") are next shown up: to the latter class belong the fellows who, under pretence of inquiring their road, fall into conversation with you, invite you to billiards, and cheat you.[2 - A ruse of this description will be found in the MIRROR, vol. X. page. 305, prefixed to a paper on French Gaming Houses.] Ring-droppers are very troublesome in Paris, especially in the Champs Elyseés, where you may be teazed to buy a copper-framed eye-glass which they have just "found."

Riffaudeurs, or Chauffeurs,

Were thieves assuming the garb of country dealers, or travelling hawkers; and they sought to wring from their victims a confession of where they had concealed their treasure, by applying fire to the soles of their feet.

The Fourth Volume closes abruptly with a story of a gang of them, which has all the horrors of rack and torture. In the Translator's sequel we find the following:—

"Since the commencement of these Memoirs, M. Vidocq has given up his paper manufactory at St. Mandé, and has been subsequently confined in Sainte Pelagie for debt. His embarrassments are stated to have arisen from a passion for gambling, a propensity which, once indulged, takes deep root in the human mind; and few indeed, lamentably few, are those who can effectually eradicate the fatal passion. Vidocq, who could assume all shapes like a second Proteus, who underwent bitter hardships, and unsparingly jeopardized his life at any time, could not resist the fell temptation which has brought him to distress and a prison.

"It has been stated in some of the Journals that Vidocq has a son named Julius, who was condemned to the galleys, and when liberated was employed by his father at Sainte Mandé. This must be another bitter in his life's cup, which Vidocq seems condemned to drain to the very dregs."

We need hardly be told why Vidocq has withheld the information respecting the state of crime in France, which he promised, and made a grand parade of possessing. The length to which his Memoirs have been spun out is tedious, and the air of romance which he has given to some scenes in the concluding volume, almost invalidates its forerunners. Still we are bound to confess that his adventures are equal in interest to any work of fact or fiction that has appeared for several years. We omit the translations of some slang songs, one of which appeared recently in Blackwood's Magazine; still, they are exceedingly clever in their way.

The present volume has a portrait of Vidocq, upon which we hope the physiognomists will speculate; for with all his peccadilloes, (and a hard set of features which the engraver has probably hardened) the author must be a clever and a very pleasant fellow; and we wish some myrmidon of our police—some English Vidocq—would write four pretty pocket volumes like those of the French policeman. Perhaps some of the new appointed will take this hint.

To conclude, after what we have said, our readers need not be recommended to turn to Vidocq's Memoirs. They will find the translation generally well executed, although we have detected several slips in the last volume.

SOUTHWELL CHURCH

SOUTHWELL CHURCH

The town of Southwell, in the county of Nottingham, is situated in the midst of an amphitheatre of well-wooded hills; the soil is rich, and the air, from the vicinity of the River Trent, is remarkably pure. It is fourteen miles north-east of Nottingham, about as many south-east of Mansfield, and eight south-west from Newark; the River Greet, famous for red trout, runs by the side of the town, falling into the Trent, at about three miles distance.

The most ancient part of the church is of the order usually called Saxon, and from tradition is said to have been built in the time of Harold, predecessor of William I. But there is no history or written instrument of any kind now extant, concerning the origin of this structure. The two side aisles are of pure Norman architecture. The choir was built in the reign of Edward III. as appears by a license of the eleventh year of that king's reign, to the chapter, to get stones from a quarry in Shirewood Forest for building the choir. The chapter-house is a detached building, connected by a cloister with the north aisle of the choir, and is on the model of that at York. The arch of entrance from the aisle, is said to exceed in elegance and correctness of execution, almost every thing of the kind in the kingdom; the chapter-house is of Gothic architecture, and the arch forming the approach is considered of modern insertion, the sculpture being finer and more delicate than any thing near it. This church and Ripon are said to be the only parochial, as well as collegiate, churches now in England, the rest having been dissolved by Henry VIII. or his successors.

At the Reformation, its chantries were dissolved, and the order of priests expelled about the year 1536. In 1542, Lee, then Archbishop of York, granted, by indenture to the king, the manor of Southwell. In the thirty-fourth year of his reign, Henry VIII., by act of parliament, declared Southwell the head and mother church of the town and county of Nottingham, and soon afterwards re-founded and re-endowed it, probably at the instance of Cranmer, at that time in the height of favour, who was a native of Nottinghamshire, not far from Southwell. Soon after the accession of Edward VI. the chapter was again dissolved, and its prebendal, and other estates granted to John, Earl of Warwick, afterwards made Duke of Northumberland; by him they were sold to John Beaumont, Master of the Rolls, and coming soon afterwards to the crown, by escheat, were granted to the favourite Northumberland, who retained them until his attainder in 1553, when they again reverted to the crown; and by Queen Mary were restored to the Archbishop of York, in as ample manner as they had before been holden. It appears from the Registrum Album, a register of the church, that in the latter end of the reign of William I. there were at least ten prebends. In the office of augmentation, an estimate of Southwell College, in the first of Edward VI. states King Edgar to have been the founder of the church, which consisted of sixteen prebends, and sixteen vicars. There are now sixteen prebends, of which the Archbishop of York is sole patron, a vicar-general appointed out of the prebendaries by the chapter, six vicars, and six choristers. Alfric, appointed to the See of York in 1023, gave two large bells to the church of Southwell (William of Malmsbury.) This was about the time of bells coming generally into use. King Stephen granted that the canons of Southwell should hold the woods of their prebends, in their own hands, which succeeding monarchs, Henry II. Richard, John, and Henry III. confirmed. There are two fellowships, and two scholarships, founded in St. John's College, Cambridge, by Dr. Keton, canon of Sarum, twenty-second Henry VI. to be presented by the master, fellows, and scholars of that college, to persons having served as choristers in the chapter of Southwell. In the civil wars nearly all the records of Southwell Church were destroyed, the Registrum Album escaping, which contains grants of most of the revenues belonging to the church, from soon after the conquest, nearly to the end of Henry VIII. Southwell is supposed by antiquarians to be the "Ad Pontem" of the Romans, one of the stations on the Roman Way from London to Lincoln, situated at a distance from any route of importance between the most frequented part of the kingdom. For many centuries it was hardly known by name—and, till within thirty years there was no turnpike road to it in any direction. Thus denied access to the rest of the world, the people of Southwell lived a separate and distinct society, retaining their own manners untainted by the world; and among them traditions were handed down pure and unadulterated by the speculations of the learned, or the discoveries of antiquarians.

    NEMO.

THE SKETCH-BOOK

SIGHMON DUMPS

Anthony Dumps, the father of my hero (the subject matter of a story being always called the hero, however little heroic he may personally have been) married Dora Coffin on St. Swithin's day in the first year of the last reign.

Anthony was then comfortably off, but through a combination of adverse circumstances he went rapidly down in the world, became a bankrupt, and being obliged to vacate his residence in St. Paul's Churchyard, he removed to No. 3, Burying Ground Buildings, Paddington Road, where Mrs. Dumps was delivered of a son.

The depressed pair agreed to christen their babe Simon, but the name was registered in the parish book with the first syllable spelt "S—I—G—H;"—whether the trembling hand of the afflicted parent orthographically erred, or whether a bungling clerk caused the error I know not; but certain it is that the infant Dumps was registered SIGHMON.

Sighmon sighed away his infancy like other babes and sucklings, and when he grew to be a hobedy-hoy, there was a seriousness in his visage, and a much-ado-about-nothing-ness in his eye, which were proclaimed by good natured people to be indications of deep thought and profundity; while others less "flattering sweet," declared they indicated naught but want of comprehension, and the dulness of stupidity.

As he grew older he grew graver, sad was his look, sombre the tone of his voice, and half an hour's conversation with him was a very serious affair indeed.

Burying Ground Buildings, Paddington Road, was the scene of his infant sports. Since his failure, his father had earned his livelyhood, by letting himself out as a mute, or mourner, to a furnisher of funerals.

"Mute" and "voluntary woe" were his stock in trade.

Often did Mrs. Dumps ink the seams of his small-clothes, and darken his elbows with a blacking brush, ere he sallied forth to follow borrowed plumes; and when he returned from his public performance (oft rehearsed) Master Sighmon did innocently crumple his crapes, and sport with his weepers.

His melancholy outgoings at length were rewarded by some pecuniary incomings. The demise of others secured a living for him, and after a few unusually propitious sickly seasons, he grimly smiled as he counted his gains: the mourner exulted, and, in praise of his profession, the mute became eloquent.

Another event occurred: after burying so many people professionally, he at length buried Mrs. Dumps; that, of course, was by no means a matter of business. I have before remarked that she was descended from the Coffins; she was now gathered to her ancestors.

Dumps had long been proud of gentility of appearance, a suit of black had been his working day costume, nothing therefore could be more easy than for Dumps to turn gentleman. He did so; took a villa at Gravesend, chose for his own sitting room a chamber that looked against a dead wall, and whilst he was lying in state upon the squabs of his sofa, he thought seriously of the education of his son, and resolved that he should be instantly taught the dead languages.

Sighmon Dumps was decidedly a young man of a serious turn of mind. The metropolis had few attractions for him, he loved to linger near the monument; and if ever he thought of a continental excursion, the Catacombs and Père la Chaise were his seducers.

His father died, his old employer furnished him with a funeral; the mute was silenced, and the mourner was mourned.

Sighmon Dumps became more serious than ever; he had a decided nervous malady, an abhorrence of society, and a sensitive shrinking when he felt that any body was looking at him. He had heard of the invisible girl; he would have given worlds to have been an invisible young gentleman, and to have glided in and out of rooms, unheeded and unseen, like a draft through a keyhole. This, however, was not to be his lot; like a man cursed with creaking shoes, stepping lightly, and tiptoeing availed not; a creak always betrayed him when he was most anxious to creep into a corner.

At his father's death he found himself possessed of a competency and a villa; but he was unhappy, he was known in the neighbourhood, people called on him, and he was expected to call on them, and these calls and recalls bored him. He never, in his life, could abide looking any one straight in the face; a pair of human eyes meeting his own was actually painful to him. It was not to be endured. He sold his villa, and determined to go to some place where, being a total stranger, he might pass unnoticed and unknown, attracting no attention, no remarks.

He went to Cheltenham and consulted Boisragon about his nerves, was recommended a course of the waters, and horse exercise.

The son of the weeper very naturally thought he had already "too much of water;" he, however, hired a nag, took a small suburban lodging, and as nobody spoke to him, nor seemed to care about him, he grew better, and felt sedately happy. This blest seclusion, "the world forgetting, by the world forgot," was not the predestined fate of Sighmon: odd circumstances always brought him into notice. The horse he had hired was a piebald, a sweet, quiet animal, warranted a safe support for a timid invalid. On this piebald did Dumps jog through the green lanes in brown studies.

One day as he passed a cottage, a face peered at him through an open window; he heard an exclamation of delight, the door opened, and an elderly female ran after him, entreating him to stop; much against the grain he complied.

"'Twas heaven sent you, sir," said his pursuer, out of breath; "give me for the love of mercy the cure for the rhumatiz."

"The what?" said Dumps.

"The rhumatiz, sir; I've the pains and the aches in my back and my bones—give me the dose that will cure me."

In vain Dumps declared his ignorance of the virtues of "medicinal gums." The more he protested, the more the old woman sued; when to his horror a reinforcement joined her from the cottage, and men, women, and children implored him to cure the good dame's malady. At length watching a favourable opportunity, he insinuated his heel into the side of the piebald, and trotted off, while entreaties mingled with words of anger were borne to him on the wind.

He determined to avoid that green lane in future, and rode out the next day in an opposite direction: as he trotted through a village a girl ran after him, shouting for a cure for the hooping cough, a dame with a low curtsey solicited a remedy for the colic, and an old man asked him what was good for the palsy. These unforeseen, these unaccountable attacks were fearful annoyances to so retiring a personage as Dumps. Day after day, go where he would, the same things happened. He was solicited to cure "all the ills that flesh is heir to." He was not aware (any more than the reader very possibly may be) that in some parts of England the country people have an idea that a quack doctor rides a piebald horse; why, I cannot explain, but so it is, and that poor Dumps felt to his cost. Life became a burthen to him; he was a marked man; he, whose only wish was to pass unnoticed, unheard, unseen; he, who of all the creeping things on the earth, pitied the glowworm most, because the spark in its tail attracted observation. He gave up his lodgings and his piebald, and went "in his angry mood to Tewksbury."

I ought ere this to have described my hero. He was rather embonpoint, but fat was not with him, as it sometimes is, twin brother to fun; his fat was weighty, he was inclined to blubber. He wore a wig, and carried in his countenance an expression indicative of the seriousness of his turn of mind.

He alighted from the coach at the principal inn at Tewksbury; the landlady met him in the hall, started, smiled, and escorted him into a room with much civility. He took her aside, and briefly explained that retirement, quiet, and a back room to himself were the accommodations he sought.

"I understand you sir," replied the landlady, with a knowing wink, "a little quiet will be agreeable by way of change; I hope you'll find every thing here to your liking." She then curtseyed and withdrew.

"Frank," said the hostess to the head waiter, "who do you think we've got in the blue parlour? you'll never guess! I knew him the minute I clapped eyes on him; dressed just as I saw him at the Haymarket Theatre, the only night I ever was at a London stage play. The gray coat, and the striped trousers, and the hessian boots over them, and the straw hat out of all shape, and the gingham umbrella!"

"Who is he, ma'am?" said Frank. "Why, the great comedy actor, Mr. Liston," replied the landlady, "come down for a holiday; he wants to be quiet, so we must not blab, or the whole town will be after him."

This brief dialogue will account for much disquietude which subsequently befell our ill fated Dumps. People met him, he could not imagine why, with a broad grin on their features. As they passed they whispered to each other, and the words "inimitable," "clever creature," "irresistibly comic," evidently applied to himself, reached his ears.

Dumps looked more serious than ever; but the greater his gravity, the more the people smiled, and one young lady actually laughed in his face as she said aloud, "Oh, that mock heroic tragedy look is so like him!"