The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 284, November 24, 1827

There was not even room for one!
They crowded by degrees—
Ay, closer yet, till elbows met,
And knees were jogging knees.

"Good sir, you must not sit a-stern.
The wave will else come in!"
Without a word he gravely stirr'd,
Another seat to win.

"Good sir, the boat has lost her trim,
You must not sit a-lee!"
With smiling face and courteous grace
The middle seat took he.

But still by constant quiet growth,
His back became so wide.
Each neighbour wight, to left and right,
Was thrust against the side.

Lord! how they chided with themselves,
That they had let him in;
To see him grow so monstrous now,
That came so small and thin.

On every brow a dew-drop stood,
They grew so scared and hot,—
"I' the name of all that's great and tall,
Who are ye, sir, and what?"

Loud laugh'd the Gogmagog, a laugh
As loud as giant's roar—
"When first I came, my proper name
Was Little—now I'm Moore!"

    Hood's Whims and Oddities Second series.

Manners & Customs of all Nations

No. XV. LIVING AT CALAIS

Calais may, for various reasons, be looked upon as one of the dearest towns in France. An excellent suite of furnished apartments may be had in one of the most respectable private houses in Calais, consisting of a sitting-room, three bedrooms, and a kitchen, for twenty shillings a week, and smaller ones in proportion, down to five shillings a week for a bachelor's apartment. This, however, does not include attendance of any kind; and, with few exceptions, the apartments can only be taken by the month. The price of meat is fixed by a tarif, at a maximum of sixpence per pound for the very best. It varies, therefore, between that price and fourpence; and this pound contains something more than ours. Poultry is still cheaper, in proportion, or rather in fact. My dinner to-day consists, in part, of an excellent fowl, which cost 8d. and a pair of delicate ducks, which cost 1s. 6d. The price of bread is also fixed by law, and amounts to about two-thirds of the present price of ours in London. Butter and eggs are excellent, and always fresh: the first costs from 9d. to 10d. the pound of 18 ounces; and the latter 10d. the quarter of a hundred. Vegetables and fruit, which are all of the finest quality, and fresh from the gardens of the adjacent villages, are as follow:—asparagus, at the rate of 8d. or 9d. the hundred, peas (the picked young ones,) 3d. per quart; new potatoes (better than any we can get in England, except what they call the framed ones,) three pounds far a penny; cherries and currants (picked for the table,) 2d. per pound; strawberries (the high flavoured wood-strawberry, which is so fine with sugar and cream,) 4d. for a full quart, the stocks being picked off. (This latter is a delicacy that can scarcely be procured in England for any price.) The above may serve as an indication of all the rest, as all are in proportion. The finest pure milk is 2d. per quart; good black or green teas, 4s. 6d. per pound; and the finest green gunpowder tea, 7s.; coffee, from 1s. 3d. to 2s.; good brandy, 1s. 3d. per quart, and the very best, 2s. (I do not mean the very finest old Cogniac, which costs 3s. 6d.) Wine is dearer in Calais than, perhaps, in any other town in France, that could be named; but still you may have an excellent table wine for 1s. per quart bottle; and they make a very palatable and wholesome beer, for 1-1/2d. and 2-1/2d. per bottle—the latter of which has all the good qualities of our porter, and none of its bad. Fish is not plentiful at Calais, except the skate, which you may have for almost nothing, as indeed you may at many of our own sea-port towns. But you may always have good sized turbot (enough for six persons for 3s. and a cod weighing from twelve to fifteen pounds,) for half that sum. As to the wages of female servants, they can scarcely be considered as much cheaper, nominally, than they are with us. But then the habits of the servants, and the cost of what they eat, make their keep and wages together amount to not more than half what they do with us.

It only remains to tell you of what is dearer here than it is in England, I have tried all I can to find out items belonging to this latter head, and have succeeded in two alone—namely, sugar and fuel. You cannot have brown sugar under 8d. and indifferent loaf sugar costs 1s. 3d. And as to firing, it is dearer, nominally alone, and in point of fact, does not cost, to a well regulated family, near so much, in the course of the year, as coals do in our houses.—Monthly Magazine.

ROMAN FUNERALS

The ceremonial of the funeral of a cardinal is considered as one of the most imposing at Rome, which is a city of ceremonies, and yielding only in magnificence to the obsequies of royal personages. The burial of the Mezzo-ceto classes is conducted rather differently. The body is exposed much in the same manner, at home; but the convoi, or passage from the habitation to the sepulchre, is generally considered as an occasion which calls for the utmost display. Torches, priests, psalmody, are sought for with a spirit of rivalry which easily explains the sumptuary laws of the Florentine and Roman statute-books, and which, unnoticed but not extinguished in the present age, in a poorer must have been highly offensive to the frugality and jealousies of a republic. The religious orders, the Capucins particularly, are in constant requisition; not a day that you may not meet two or three of their detachments in various parts of the city:–the religious or charitable fraternities, such as the Fratelli della Misericordia, of which the deceased is generally a brother or a benefactor, or both, think it also a point of duty and gratitude to swell the cortège, and in the greatest numbers they can muster to attend. Their costume, which is highly picturesque, is always a striking feature, and adds much to the brilliancy of the display. They wear a sort of sack robe or tunic, which covers the whole body, girt with a rope round the waist, and with holes pierced in the capuchon for the eyes; their large grey slouched hat is thrown back, much in the manner in which it appears on the statues of Mercury, on their shoulders; their feet are often in zoccoli, or sandals of wood, and sometimes, though rarely, bare. The colour of their dress varies according to the rule of their society; at Rome, I have noticed white, blue, and grey: at Florence they prefer black. The corpse is dressed up with great care, and often with a degree of luxury which would become a wedding; the best linen, the richest ornaments, are lavished; garlands are placed on the head; the hands crossed, with a crucifix between them, on the bosom, and the face and feet left quite bare. Sometimes, through a capricious fit of piety, all this is studiously dispensed with, and the body appears clad in the habit of some religious order, to which the deceased was especially addicted during life. In this manner the procession begins to move after sunset, preceded by a tall silver cross, beadles, &c.; friars, priests, &c. chanting the De Profundis through the principal streets to the church where it is intended it should be interred.

The effect, with some abatements for boys following to pick up the drippings of the torches, and the perfect indifference of the assistants, for neither friends nor relatives attend, is certainly very solemn. The deep hoarse recitative of the psalm, the strange phantom-like appearance of the fraternities, the flash and glare of the torches which they carry, on the face of the dead; the dead body itself, in all the appalling nakedness of mortality, but still mocked with the tawdry images of this world, in the flowers and tinsel and gilding which surround it; the quick swinging motion with which it is hurried along, and with which it comes trenching, when one least expects it, on all the gaieties and busy interests of existence (for at this hour the Corso and the Caffés are most crowded)—all this, without any reference to the intrinsic solemnity of such a scene, is calculated, as mere stage effect, powerfully to stir up the sympathies and imagination of a stranger. On the inhabitants, as might be apprehended, such pageants have long since lost all their influence; and I have seen a line extending down a whole street, without deranging a single lounger from his seat, or interrupting for an instant the pleasures of ice-eating and punch-drinking, which generally takes place in the open air. Whether this passion for bringing into coarse contact, as is often the case, both life and death, the gloomy and the gay, be constitutional or traditional, I know not; but a traveller can scarcely fail of being struck with the prevalence of the feeling and practice amongst southern nations at all periods of their history, and finding in the modern inhabitants of those favoured regions, frequent resemblances to that strange spirit of melancholy voluptuousness, which travelled onward from Egypt to Greece, and from Greece, together with the other refinements of her philosophy, into the greater part of Italy. On reaching the church, unless the wealth and situation of the departed can permit the consolation or the vanity of a high mass, the body is immediately committed to the tomb. Such at least is the practice at Rome; and there are few who have not witnessed with disgust the indecent haste of the few attendants by whom this portion of the last rites is usually despatched. In the country, and in smaller towns, the corpse is usually exposed for at least a day: I know few exceptions, from Trent to Naples. It is generally an affecting ceremony. One of the most touching instances of the kind I can remember, was the exposure of a young girl, who had just died in the flush of beauty in a small village in Tuscany. I was passing through at the time, and stepped by chance into the church. The corpse was lying on a low bier before the altar; a small lamp burnt above. Her two younger sisters were kneeling at her side, and from time to time cast flowers upon her head. Scarcely a peasant entered but immediately came up and touched the bier, and, after kneeling for a few moments, rose and murmured a prayer or two for the spiritual rest of the departed. All this was done very naturally, and with a kindliness which spoke highly for the warmth and purity of their affections. A similar custom still continues at Rome. The day after the execution of the conspirator Targioni, who suffered in the late affair of the Prince Spada, flowers and chaplets, notwithstanding every precaution on the part of the police, were found scattered on his tomb. He has been refused, for his contumacy in his last moments, Christian sepulture, and was buried in a field outside the Porta del Popolo. It is remarkable that, very nearly in the same place, the freedmen of Nero paid a similar tribute of affection to the mortal remains of their master. Garlands and flowers, the morning after his death, were also found upon his tomb.

    New Monthly Magazine.

SLAVERY IN THE EAST

The slave in eastern countries, after he is trained to serve, attains the condition of a favoured domestic; his adoption of the religion of his master is usually the first step which conciliates the latter. Except at a few seaports, he is seldom put to hard labour. In Asia these are no fields tilled by slaves, no manufactories in which they are doomed to toil; their occupations are all of a domestic nature, and good behaviour is rewarded by kindness and confidence, which raises them in the community to which they belong. The term gholam, or slave, in Mahomedan countries, is not one of opprobrium, nor does it even convey the idea of a degraded condition. The Georgians, Nubians, and Abyssinians, and even the Seedee, or Caffree, as the woolly-headed Africans are called, are usually married, and their children, who are termed house-born, become, in a manner, part of their master's family. They are deemed the most attached of his adherents: they often inherit a considerable portion of his wealth; and not unfrequently (with the exception of the woolly-headed Caffree) lose, by a marriage in his family, or by some other equally respectable connexion, all trace of their origin.

According to the Mahomedan law, the state of slavery is divided into two conditions—the perfect and absolute, or imperfect and privileged. Those who belong to the first class are, with all their property, at the disposal of their masters. The second, though they cannot, before emancipation, inherit or acquire property, have many privileges, and cannot be sold or transferred. A female, who has a child to her master, belongs to the privileged class; as does a slave, to whom his master has promised his liberty, on the payment of a certain sum, or on his death.—Sir J. Malcolm's Sketches of Persia.

The Gatherer

"I am but a Gatherer and disposer of other men's stuff."—Wotton.

LEVEES

Secretaries of state, presidents of the council, and generals of an army, have crowds of visitants in a morning, all soliciting of past promises; which are but a civiller sort of duns, that lay claim to voluntary debts.—CONGREVE.

PERVERSE PUN

The other day as Kenny was dining at a friend's house, after dinner wine being introduced and Kenny partaking of it, was on the instant observed to cough immoderately, when one of the company inquired if the cause was not owing to a bit of cork getting into the glass; to which Kenny replied, "I should think it was Cork, for it went far to Kill Kenny."

    P.K.R.

AUTHORS AND EDITORS

"Do you hear, let them be well used."

    SHAKSPEARE.

Accustomed as our readers are to the quips, quirks, and quibbles, of the Gatherer, we doubt whether the following loose reflections will not be received as egotistical, or out of place. But we are induced to the hazard by the recent appearance of "The Tale of a Modern Genius," (stated to be by Mr. Pennie,) and an interesting paper in the last London Magazine, entitled "Memoirs of a Young Peasant:" in which productions the fates and fortunes of genius are set forth with very powerful claims to the sympathy of readers. Indeed, we recommend their perusal to many of our "neglected" correspondents, in the hope of their becoming more reconciled to the justice with which their contributions are rejected. In the comparison, their works will be as "the labours of idleness," listlessly penned under first impressions, or, at best, with the fond anticipation of appearing in print. Vexatious as the disappointment may appear, what is it compared with the bare fate of genius, stripped of the bare means of sustenance by the unsuccessful result of a literary engagement, or the non-completion of a purchase, on which probably depended the very day's existence. The subject is trite and hacknied; but all that has been written about the illusions and misgivings of genius will not alter its complexion. It is true that such details have raised a spirit of sympathetic forbearance towards the distresses of men of letters, except in the breasts of the most barbarous and vulgar. But their sufferings are doubly acute, and their perceptions doubly tender. In their intercourse with mankind, they become flattered by associates, and it not unfrequently happens that men who are the most ready to quote such ascendancy or superiority in society, are the first to break the charm they have created, by some act of extreme rigour. Such conduct is cruel and unchristian.

Again, the sufferings of men of genius are increased by their own reflection on them, and in addition to real woes they thus inflict on themselves thousands of imaginary ones. A loss in trade may be repaired by the profits of the succeeding day, and all be set right, where gain is the sole idol; but when fame is mixed up in the pursuit, there is a suffering beyond the hour, the day, or the year—mixed up in the defeat. Hope is crushed; and after her flittering shade spring up misanthropy and despair.

Light and fickle as is the public taste for literature, we are disposed to think that, (barring the influence of great names) the chances of success are as frequent in this as in any other field of human ingenuity; and we can assure the public that our repose has not always been on a bed of roses. But it seems to be with certain literary candidates as with nations: there is a certain point of fame which men seem content to reach, after which, in return for the darling caresses of the world, they kick at their patrons; and if the maxim work true, that the fame of authors suffers by our known contact and conversation with them, Sir Walter Scott's recent avowal is a dangerous step, unless he was tired of his fame. Of course, we have not yet arrived at the above point, so that our readers need not fear our ingratitude; and we are willing to abide by the condition, that when we forget our patrons, may they forget us.

CURE FOR ENVY

Bishop Berkeley (that acute reasoner) contrived a lucky antidote, for the suffering of envy. "When I walk the streets," says he, "I use the following natural maxim, (viz. that he is the true possessor of a thing who enjoys it, and not he that owns it without the enjoyment of it,) to convince myself that I have a property in the gay part of all the gilt chariots that I meet, which I regard as amusement to delight my eyes, and the imagination of those kind people who sit in them gaily attired only to please me;" by which maxim he fancied himself one of the richest men in Great Britain.

LIMBIRD'S EDITION OF THE BRITISH NOVELIST, Publishing in Monthly Parts, price 6d. each.—Each Novel will be complete in itself, and may be purchased separately.

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notes

1

Fleet from the Saxon flere, is cremon lactu, hence we have flett or flit, milk.