The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 19, No. 540, March 31, 1832

"Again a hymn was sung, and while it continued, one of the three was employed in clearing one or two long benches that went across the rail, sending the people back to the lower part of the church. The singing ceased, and again the people were invited, and exhorted not to be ashamed of Jesus, but to put themselves upon 'the anxious benches,' and lay their heads on his bosom. 'Once more we will sing,' he concluded, 'that we may give you time.' And again they sung a hymn.

"And now in every part of the church a movement was perceptible, slight at first, but by degrees becoming more decided. Young girls arose, and sat down, and rose again; and then the pews opened, and several came tottering out, their hands clasped, their heads hanging on their bosoms, and every limb trembling, and still the hymn went on; but as the poor creatures approached the rail their sobs and groans became audible. They seated themselves on the 'anxious benches;' the hymn ceased, and two of the three priests walked down from the tribune, and going, one to the right, and the other to the left, began whispering to the poor tremblers seated there. These whispers were inaudible to us, but the sobs and groans increased to a frightful excess. Young creatures, with features pale and distorted, fell on their knees on the pavement, and soon sunk forward on their faces; the most violent cries and shrieks followed, while from time to time a voice was heard in convulsive accents, exclaiming, 'Oh Lord!' 'Oh Lord Jesus!' 'Help me, Jesus!' and the like. Meanwhile the two priests continued to walk among them; they repeatedly mounted on the benches, and trumpet-mouthed proclaimed to the whole congregation 'the tidings of salvation;' and then from every corner of the building arose in reply, short sharp cries of 'Amen!' 'Glory!' 'Amen!' while the prostrate penitents continued to receive whispered comfortings, and from time to time a mystic caress. More than once I saw a young neck encircled by a reverend arm. Violent hysterics and convulsions seized many of them, and when the tumult was at the highest, the priest who remained above, again gave out a hymn as if to drown it. It was a frightful sight to behold innocent young creatures, in the gay morning of existence, thus seized upon, horror-struck, and rendered feeble and enervated for ever. One young girl, apparently not more than fourteen, was supported in the arms of another, some years older; her face was pale as death; her eyes wide open, and perfectly devoid of meaning; her chin and bosom wet with slaver; she had every appearance of idiotism. I saw a priest approach her, he took her delicate hand, 'Jesus is with her! Bless the Lord!' he said, and passed on. Did the men of America value their women as men ought to value their wives and daughters, would such scenes be permitted among them?

"It is hardly necessary to say that all who obeyed the call to place themselves on the 'anxious benches' were women, and by far the greater number very young women. The congregration was in general, extremely well dressed, and the smartest and most fashionable ladies of the town were there; during the whole revival the churches and meeting-houses were every day crowded with well-dressed people."

"It is thus the ladies of Cincinnati amuse themselves; to attend the theatre is forbidden; to play cards is unlawful; but they work hard in their families and must have some relaxation. For myself, I confess that I think the coarsest comedy ever written would be a less detestable exhibition for the eyes of youth and innocence than such a scene."

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

THE COFFIN-MAKER

The paper in the New Monthly Magazine, under this title, occupies a sheet or sixteen pages, and is stated to be from the pen of the Hon. Mrs. Norton. It is written in an almost breathless, and purposely hurried, style, and the narrative of feelings and incidents flows with such rapidity, that the reader is carried onward, nolens volens, vi et verbis through the adventures. The writer is the son of a carpenter: his father dies; unable to obtain any other employment, he obtains that of a coffin-maker. His aversion to the trade, and the state of his feelings is thus naturally described:

"The first few weeks of my employment passed pleasantly enough; my master was satisfied with me, and on Sunday evenings I was able occasionally to enjoy a walk. But my spirits soon became less buoyant, and even my health began to suffer; I entirely lost the florid look which was my poor mother's admiration; my very step grew slower, and there were Sundays when I declined the evening walk, which had been my only recreation, merely because the happy laugh and continued jests of (my friend) Henry Richards annoyed and distressed me while contrasted with my own heaviness of heart. Evening after evening, sometimes through a whole dismal night, I worked at my melancholy employment; and as my master was poor, and employed no other journey-man, I worked most commonly alone. Frequently as the heavy hammer descended, breaking at regular intervals the peaceful silence of night, I recalled some scene of sorrow and agony that I had witnessed in the day; and as the echo of some shriek or stifled moan struck in fancy on my ear, I would pause to wipe the dew from my brow and curse the trade of a coffin-maker. Every day some fresh cause appeared to arise for loathing my occupation; whilst all were alike strangers to me in the town where my master lived, I worked cheerfully and wrote merrily home; but now that I began to know every one, to be acquainted with the number of members which composed different families, to hear of their sicknesses and misfortunes; now that link after link bound me as it were by a spell, to feel for those round me, and to belong to them, my cheerfulness was over. The mother turned her eyes from me with a shuddering sigh, and gazed on the dear circle of little ones as if she sought to penetrate futurity and guess which of the young things, now rosy in health, was to follow her long lost and still lamented one. The doting father pressed the arm of his pale consumptive girl nearer to his heart, as he passed me: friends who were yet sorrowing for their bereavement, gave up the attempt at cheerfulness, and relapsed into melancholy silence at my approach. If I attempted (as I often did at first) to converse gaily with such of the townspeople as were of my master's rank in life, I was checked by a bitter smile, or a sudden sigh, which told me that while I was giving way to levity, the thoughts of my hearers had wandered back to the heavy hours when their houses were last darkened by the shadow of death. I carried about with me an unceasing curse; an imaginary barrier separated me from my fellow men. I felt like an executioner, from whose bloody touch men shrink, not so much from loathing of the man, who is but the instrument of death, as from horror at the image of that death itself—death, sudden, appalling, and inevitable. Like him, I brought the presence of death too vividly before them; like him, I was connected with the infliction of a doom I had no power to avert. Men withheld from me their affection, refused me their sympathy, as if I were not like themselves. My very mortality seemed less obvious to their imaginations when contrasted with the hundreds for whom my hand prepared the last narrow dwelling-house, which was to shroud for ever their altered faces from sorrowful eyes. Where I came, there came heaviness of heart, mournfulness, and weeping. Laughter was hushed at my approach; conversation ceased; darkness and silence fell around my steps—the darkness and the silence of death. Gradually I became awake to my situation. I no longer attempted to hold free converse with my fellow men. I suffered the gloom of their hearts to overshadow mine. My step crept slowly and stealthily into their dwellings; my voice lowered itself to sadness and monotony; I pressed no hand in token of companionship; no hand pressed mine, except when wrung with agony, some wretch, whose burden was more than he could bear restrained me for a few moments of maddened and convulsive grief, from putting the last finishing stroke to my work, and held me back to gaze yet again on features which I was about to cover from his sight. It is well that God, in his unsearchable wisdom, hath made death loathsome to us. It is well that an undefined and instinctive shrinking within us, makes what we have loved for long years, in a few hours

"That lifeless thing, the living fear."

It is well that the soul hath scarcely quitted the body ere the work of corruption is begun. For if, even thus, mortality clings to the remnants of mortality, with 'love stronger than death;' if, as I have seen it, warm and living lips are pressed to features where the gradually sinking eye and hollow cheek speak horribly of departed life; what would it be if the winged soul left its tenement of clay, to be resolved only into a marble death; to remain cold, beautiful, and imperishable; every day to greet our eyes; every night to be watered with our tears? The bonds which hold men together would be broken; the future would lose its interest in our minds; we should remain sinfully mourning the idols of departed love, whose presence forbade oblivion of their loveliness; and a thin and scattered population would wander through the world as through the valley of the shadow of death! How often have I been interrupted when about to nail down a coffin, by the agonized entreaties of some wretch to whom the discoloured clay bore yet the trace of beauty, and the darkened lid seemed only closed in slumber! How often have I said, 'Surely that heart will break with its woe!' and yet, in a little while, the bowed spirit rose again, the eye sparkled, and the lip smiled, because the dead were covered from their sight; and that which is present to man's senses is destined to affect him far more powerfully than the dreams of his imagination or memory. How often, too, have I seen the reverse of the picture I have just drawn; when the pale unconscious corse has lain abandoned in its loveliness, and grudging hands have scantily dealt out a portion of their superfluity, to obtain the last rites for one who so lately moved, spoke, smiled, and walked amongst them! And I have felt, even then, that there were those to whom that neglected being had been far more precious than heaps of gold, and I have mourned for them who perished among strangers. One horrible scene has chased another from my mind through a succession of years; and some of those which, perhaps, deeply affected me at the time, are, by the mercy of Heaven, forgotten. But enough remains to enable me to give a faint outline of the causes which have changed me from what I was, to the gloomy joyless being I am at length become. There is one scene indelibly impressed upon my memory."

A scene of domestic tragedy follows, which is wrought up with great effect:

"I was summoned late at night to the house of a respectable merchant, who had been reduced, in a great measure, by the wilful extravagance of his only son, from comparative wealth to ruin and distress. I was met by the widow, on whose worn and weary face the calm of despair had settled. She spoke to me for a few moments, and begged me to use dispatch and caution in the exercise of my calling:—'for indeed,' said she, 'I have watched my living son with a sorrow that has almost made me forget grief for the departed. For five days and five nights I have watched, and his bloodshot eye has not closed, no, not for a moment, from its horrible task of gazing on the dead face of the father that cursed him. He sleeps now, if sleep it can be called, that is rather the torpor of exhaustion; but his rest is taken on that father's death-bed. Oh! young man, feel for me! Do your task in such a manner, that my wretched boy may not awake till it is over, and the blessing of the widow be on you for ever!' To this strange prayer I could only offer a solemn assurance that I would do my utmost to obey her; and with slow creeping steps we ascended the narrow stairs which led to the chamber of death. It was a dark, wretched-looking, ill-furnished room, and a drizzling November rain pattered unceasingly at the latticed window, which was shaken from time to time by the fitful gusts of a moaning wind. A damp chillness pervaded the atmosphere, and rotted the falling paper from the walls; and, as I looked towards the hearth, (for there was no grate,) I felt painfully convinced that the old man had died without the common comforts his situation imperiously demanded. The white-washed sides of the narrow fire-place were encrusted with a green damp, and the chimney-vent was stuffed with straw and fragments of old carpet, to prevent the cold wind from whistling through the aperture. The common expression, 'He has seen better days,' never so forcibly occurred to me as at that moment. He had seen better days: he had toiled cheerfully through the day, and sat down to a comfortable evening meal. The wine-cup had gone round; and the voice of laughter had been heard at his table for many a year, and yet here he had crept to die like a beggar! I looked at the flock bed, and felt my heart grow sick within me. The corpse of a man, apparently about sixty, lay stretched upon it, and on his hollow and emaciated features the hand of death had printed the ravages of many days. The veins had ceased to give even the appearance of life to the discoloured skin; the eyelids were deep sunken, and the whole countenance was (and none but those accustomed to gaze on the face of the dead can understand me) utterly expressionless. But if a sight like this was sickening and horrible, what shall I say of the miserable being to whom a temporary oblivion was giving strength for renewed agony? He had apparently been sitting at the foot of the corpse, and, as the torpor of heavy slumber stole over him, had sunk forward, his hand still retaining the hand of the dead man. His face was hid; but his figure, and the thick curls of dark hair, bespoke early youth. I judged him at most, to be two-and-twenty. I began my task of measuring the body, and few can tell the shudder which thrilled my frame as the carpenter's rule passed those locked hands—the vain effort of the living still to claim kindred with the dead! It was over, and I stole from the room, cautiously and silently as I entered. Once, and only once, I turned to gaze at the melancholy group. There lay the corpse, stiff and unconscious; there sat the son, in an unconsciousness yet more terrible, since it could not last. There, pale and tearless, stood the wife of him, who, in his dying hour, cursed her child and his. How little she dreamed of such a scene when her meek lips first replied to his vows of affection! How little she dreamed of such a scene when she first led that father to the cradle of his sleeping boy! when they bent together with smiles of affection, to watch his quiet slumber, and catch the gentle breathing of his parted lips! I had scarcely reached the landing-place before the wretched woman's hand was laid lightly on my arm to arrest my progress. Her noiseless step had followed me without my being aware of it. 'How soon will your work be done?' said she, in a suffocated voice. 'To-morrow I could be here again,' answered I. 'To-morrow! and what am I to do, if my boy wakes before that time?' and her voice became louder and hoarse with fear. 'He will go mad, I am sure he will; his brain will not hold against these horrors. Oh! that God would hear me!—that God would hear me! and let that slumber sit on his senses till the sight of the father that cursed him is no longer present to us! Heaven be merciful to me!' and with the last words she clasped her hands convulsively, and gazed upwards. I had known opiates administered to sufferers whose grief for their bereavement almost amounted to madness. I mentioned this hesitatingly to the widow, and she eagerly caught at it. 'Yes! that would do,' exclaimed she; 'that would do, if I could but get him past that horrible moment! But stay; I dare not leave him alone as he is, even for a little while:—what will become of me!' I offered to procure the medicine for her, and soon returned with it. I gave it into her hands, and her vehement expressions of thankfulness wrung my heart. I had attempted to move the pity of the apothecary at whose shop I obtained the drug, by an account of the scene I had witnessed, in order to induce him to pay a visit to the house of mourning; but in vain. To him, who had not witnessed it, it was nothing but a tale of every-day distress. All that long night I worked at the merchant's coffin, and the dim grey light of the wintry morning found me still toiling on. Often, during the hours passed thus heavily, that picture of wretchedness rose before me. Again I saw the leaning and exhausted form of the young man, buried in slumber, on his father's death-bed: again my carpenter's rule almost touched the clasped hands of the dead and the living, and a cold shudder mingled with the chill of the dawning day, and froze my blood."

"As I passed up one of the streets which led to the merchant's lodgings, my head bending under the weight of the coffin I was carrying, at every step I took, the air seemed to grow more thick around me, and at length, overcome by weariness, both of body and mind, I stopped, loosed the straps which steadied my melancholy burden, and placing it in an upright position against the wall, wiped the dew from my forehead, and (shall I confess it?) the tears from my eyes. I was endeavouring to combat the depression of my feelings by the reflection that I was the support and comfort of my poor old mother's life, when my attention was roused by the evident compassion of a young lady, who, after passing me with a hesitating step, withdrew her arm from that of her more elderly companion, and pausing for an instant, put a shilling into my hand, saying, 'You look very weary, my poor man; pray get something to drink with that.' A more lovely countenance (if by lovely be meant that which engages love) was never moulded by nature; the sweetness and compassion of her pale face and soft innocent eyes; the kindness of her gentle voice, made an impression on my memory too strong to be effaced. I saw her once again! I reached the merchant's lodgings and my knock was answered as on the former occasion, by the widow herself. She sighed heavily as she saw me, and after one or two attempts to speak, informed me that her son was awake, but that it was impossible for her to administer the opiate, as he refused to let the smallest nourishment pass his lips; but that he was quite quiet, indeed had never spoken since he woke, except to ask her how she felt; and she thought I might proceed without fear of his interruption. I entered accordingly, followed by a lad, son to the landlady who kept the lodgings, and with his assistance I proceeded to lift the corpse, and lay it in the coffin. The widow's son remained motionless, and, as it were, stupified during this operation: but the moment he saw me prepare the lid of the coffin so as to be screwed down, he started up with the energy and gestures of a madman. His glazed eyes seemed bursting from their sockets, and his upper lip, leaving his teeth bare, gave his mouth the appearance of a horrible and convulsive smile. He seized my arm with his whole strength; and, as I felt his grasp, and saw him struggling for words, I expected to hear curses and execrations, or the wild howl of an infuriated madman. I was mistaken. The wail of a sickly child, who dreads its mother's departure, was the only sound to which I could compare that wretched man's voice. He held me with a force almost supernatural; but his tongue uttered supplications in a feeble monotonous tone, and with the most humble and beseeching manner. 'Leave him,' exclaimed he, 'leave him a little while longer. He will forgive me; I know he will. He spoke that horrible word to rouse my conscience. But I heard him and came back to him. I would have toiled and bled for him; he knows that well. Hush! hush! I cannot hear his voice for my mother's sobs; but I know he will forgive me. Oh! father, do not refuse! I am humble—I am penitent. Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before thee—father, I have sinned! Oh! mother, he is cursing me again. He is lifting his hand to curse me—his right hand. Look, mother, look! Save me, O God! my father curses me on his dying bed! Save me, oh!–' The unfinished word resolved itself into a low hollow groan, and he fell back insensible. I would have assisted him, but his mother waved me back. 'Better so, better so,' she repeated hurriedly; 'it is the mercy of God which has caused this—do you do your duty, and I will do mine,' and she continued to kneel and support the head of her son, while we fastened and secured down the coffin. At length all was finished, and then and not till then we carried the wretched youth from the chamber of death, to one as dark, as gloomy, and as scantily furnished, but having a wood fire burning in the grate, and a bed with ragged curtains at one end of it. And here, in comparative comfort, the landlady allowed him to be placed, even though she saw little chance of her lodgers being able to pay for the change. Into the glass of water held to his parched lips, as he recovered his senses, I poured a sufficient quantity of the opiate to produce slumber, and had the satisfaction of hearing his mother fervently thank God, as still half unconscious, he swallowed the draught. I thought he would not have survived the shock he had received; but I was mistaken. The merchant was buried and forgotten; the son lived, and we met again in a far, far different scene."

THE GATHERER

NOBLES OF JOHANNA

We had long been aware that the potentates of the Guinea coast not only assume English titles, but wear under, or in place of, diadems, the cast-off wigs of our Lord Chancellors—but we were not prepared for what follows in the latitude of the Mozambique Channel, as related by Captain Basil Hall.

"We proceeded to our guide's house, where he introduced us, not indeed to his wives, for all these ladies were stowed away behind a screen of mats, but to some of the males of his family, and, amongst others, to a queer copper-coloured gentleman, who styled himself, in his communications with us, 'the Duke of Devonshire,' and begged very hard to be allowed the honour of having our linen to wash. His Grace was a little dumpy fellow, who stooped considerably, wore neither shoes nor stockings, and exhibited so little of a nose, that when you caught his countenance in profile, the facial line, as the physiognomists call it, suffered no interruption when drawn from the brow to the lips. The poor Duke little knew the cause of the laughter which his occupation, title, and the contrast of looks, excited in those of our party who had seen his grace's noble namesake in the opposite hemisphere."

"Most of the natives of Johanna, even the negro slaves, talk a little English; but the best examples of such acquirements were found, where they ought to be, amongst the grandees of the island. The following is a fair specimen of the conversation of the dukes and earls at the capital of the Comoros.—'How do you do, sir? Very glad see you. D—n your eyes! Johanna man like English very much. God d—n! That very good? Eh? Devilish hot, sir! What news? Hope your ship stay too long while, very. D—n my eye! Very fine day.' After which, in a sort of whisper, accompanied by a most insinuating smile, his lordship, or his grace, as the rank of the party might be, would add:—'You want orange? You want goat? Cheap! I got good, very. You send me you clothes; I wash with my own hand—clean! fine! very! I got every thing, plenty, great, much! God d—n!' And then, as if to clench the favourable opinion which these eloquent appeals had made, the speaker was sure to produce a handful of certificates from mates of Indiamen, masters of Yankee brigs, and middies of men-of-war; some written in solemn earnest, some quizzically, but all declaring his lordship, the bearer, to be a pretty good washerman, but the sort of person not to be trusted far out of sight, as he would certainly walk off with your clothes-bag if he could safely do so."—Autobiography, Second Series.

Bed of Leaves.—In some countries the leaves of the beech tree are collected in autumn, before they have been injured by the frost, and are used instead of feathers for beds; and mattresses formed of them are said to be preferable to those either of straw or chaff.

Pure Style.—Cardinal Bembo was so rigorous with regard to purity of style, that he is said to have had forty different partitions, through which his writings, as he polished them by degrees, successively passed; nor did he publish them till they had sustained these forty examinations. How would the cardinal have acted with the editorship of a daily newspaper.

To lie at the Pool of Bethesda is used proverbially in Germany, in speaking of the theological candidates who are waiting for a benefice.

Court Pun.—The witty Marquess de Bièvre was asked by Louis XV. for a pun. "Give me a subject, sire,'" said B. "Make it on myself," said Louis. "Sire, the king is not a subject," was the pleasant reply.

History.—The first page of Thucydides is, in my opinion, the commencement of real history. All preceding narrations are so intermixed with fable, that philosophers ought to abandon them in a great measure, to the embellishment of the poet and orator.—Hume.

Old Squibs.—Richard Bentley and Charles Boyle (Earl of Orrery,) had a warm dispute relative to the genuineness of the Greek Epistles of Phalaris, an edition of which was published by the latter. Bentley was victorious, though he was kept in hot water with the critics and wits of the age. Dr. Garth assailed him thus:

So diamonds owe a lustre to their foil,
And to a Bentley 'tis we owe a Boyle.

Conyers Middleton was a sad thorn in Bentley's side, from the latter having called the former, when a young student in the university, fiddling Conyers, because he played on the violin. A punning caricature represented B. about to be thrust into the brazen bull of Phalaris, and exclaiming, "I had rather be roasted than Boyled."

Hip, Hip, Hurra!—During the stirring times of the Crusades, the chivalry of Europe was excited to arms by the inflammatory appeals of the well-known Peter the Hermit. While preaching the Crusade, this furious zealot was accustomed to exhibit a banner emblazoned with the following letters, H.E.P., the initials of the Latin words, "Hierosolyma Est Perdita," Jerusalem is destroyed. The people in some of the countries which he visited, not being acquainted with the Latin, read and pronounced the inscription as if one word—HEP. The followers of the Hermit were accustomed, whenever an unfortunate Jew appeared in the streets, to raise the cry, "Hep, hep, hurra," to hunt him down, and flash upon the defenceless Israelite their maiden swords, before they essayed their temper with the scimetar of the Saracen.—Tatler.

Wool-gathering.—A very patriotic landlord, Squire Henry, of Straffan, county of Kildare, had hit on an expedient to benefit the wool-growers in general, and his numerous tenantry in particular. Knowing that market value is in the direct ratio of demand and scarcity, he annually buried the wool shorn from his own sheep, lest it might interfere with the profitable sale of his tenants' fleeces. But, alas! this generous system of self-sacrifice did not "work well." The result was—though Squire Henry never suspected the existence of such turpitude in the human heart—the ungrateful tenantry dug up by night what he buried by day, wool never rose in price, and they never were able to pay up their arrears of rent.—Fraser's Magazine.

One day, a physician alighted from his carriage, and entering the shop of a medical bookseller, inquired of its sleek-faced master, "whether he had a copy of Heberden's Commentaries?" "No, sir," replied the man of letters, "but we have Caesar's Commentaries, and they are by far the best."—Metropolitan.

Mortality in the reign of William IV.—Since the accession of King William not less, we are told, than twenty-four generals and twenty-six admirals, have found their way into Westminster Abbey, or elsewhere. Considering that his majesty continues to receive the most friendly assurances from all foreign powers, this attack upon the army and navy list is rather prodigious. Napoleon himself could scarcely have made greater gaps in the United Service Club in the time. To be sure they were not all Nelsons and Marlboroughs, or we should have marked them as they dropped off; whereas one can hardly name, five of the fifty great warriors. —Ibid.

Origin of Black Monday.—Black Monday—Easter Monday, in the year 1359, when hail stones killed both men and horses in the army of our King Edward the Third, in France. He was on his march, within two leagues of Chartres, when there happened a storm of piercing wind, that swelled to a tempest of rain, lightning, and hail stones, so prodigious, as instantly to kill 6,000 of his horses, and 1,000 of his best troops. P.T.W.

notes

1

Hist. and Antiq. St. Saviour, Southwark, 1795.

2

The first we read of Bear-baiting in England, was in the reign of King John, at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, where "thyss straynge passtyme was introduced by some Italyans for his highness' amusement, wherewith he and his court were highly delighted."

3

Reliq. Wotton, p. 425. Edit. 1685

4

Winwood's Memorials, vol. iii. p. 469.

5

Annals of the Stage. By J.P. Collyer, Esq. F.S.A. Vol. I.