The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 20, No. 561, August 11, 1832

Who dares his impious arm to stretch
And scrawl upon the graves of those
Who gave him freedom and repose!
And can no rev'rence for the dead
Ye heartless crew, no sense of dread
To place your names on aught so high
As e'en the tombs where heroes lie,
Force you with horror to recede
From such a sacrilegious deed?
Go, spread it to the winds of heaven,
That they, who to our isle have giv'n
Their blood, their services, their breath,
Sleep in dishonoured graves in Death.

    REX.
Eccentric Physician.—When Bailly, (physician to Henry IV. of France,) perceived he was about to die, he called his servants to him singly, and gave to each of them a portion, first of his money, then of his plate and furniture, bidding them, as soon as they had taken what he had given them, to leave the house, and see him no more. When the physicians came to visit him, they told him they had found his door open, the servants and the furniture removed and gone, nothing in fact remaining, but the bed on which he lay. Then the doctor, taking leave of his physicians, said, "Since my baggage is packed up and gone, it is time that I should also go." He died the same day, November 5th, 1605.

    P.T.W.

He is described by Eginhard as "apice capitis rotundo," which roundness or fullness of the top of the head must have been very peculiar to have deserved such especial mention.

notes

1

Sir James Mackintosh.

2

Lord John Russell.

3

The theory of this artificial formation of saltpetre is detailed by Chaptal, in Annales de Chimie, tom. xx.—The bulk of saltpetre used in this country is brought from the East Indies, where, at certain seasons of the year, it is found deposited on the surface of the soil. It is swept off once or twice a week, and as often renewed. At Apulia, near Naples, there is a bed containing 40 per cent. of it; and in Switzerland the farmers extract it in abundance from the earth under the stalls of the cattle. In the reign of Charles I. great attention was paid to the making of saltpetre in England. Certain patentees were authorized by royal proclamation to dig up the floors of all dove-houses, stables, &c. In France, the plaster of old walls is washed to separate the nitrate of lime, which is a soluble salt, and this, by means of potash, or muriate of potash, is afterwards converted into nitre. Mr. Bowles, in his Introduction to the Natural History of Spain, assures us there is enough saltpetre in that country to supply all Europe for ever.

4

This was twenty-eight years since. A writer in an English journal observed three years since, "it is difficult to conceive that one half of the sugar consumed in Great Britain, or in all Europe, will not, in a few years, be home-made beet-root sugar." In France the manufacture of sugar from beet-root, like that of saltpetre, was dictated by necessity, the former through the capture of the French colonies by Great Britain, during the late war. It is now an important manufacture in that country, as well as a branch of domestic economy, the sugar being made by housewives, and requiring not more skill or trouble than cheese-making or brewing.

5

Monthly Magazine, July.

6

Published by Murray, Albemarle Street. (To a Correspondent, J.F., Lambeth Terrace.)

7

The Monk of St. Gall implies that Aix la Chapelle was the birthplace of Charlemagne. Lib. i. c. 30.

8

Eginhard, in Vit. Car. Mag. cap. xxii. Marquhard Freher, de Statura, Car. Mag. The dissertation of Marquhard Freher on the height of Charlemagne, (and on the question whether he wore a beard or not,) does not satisfy me as to his precise stature. Eginhard declares that he was in height seven times the length of his own foot, which we have every reason to believe was not very small, at least if he bore any resemblance to his mother, who was known by the name of "Bertha with the long foot."

9

Gibbon makes this observation in depreciation of the character of Charlemagne, forgetting or concealing that the great beauty of the French monarch's character appeared not from a contrast with surrounding barbarism, but from his efforts to do away that barbarism itself.

10

He is described by Eginhard as "apice capitis rotundo," which roundness or fullness of the top of the head must have been very peculiar to have deserved such especial mention.