The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 17, No. 482, March 26, 1831

"Nothing, sir."

"Nothing!—how is that?"

"Because," replied the old man, with characteristic simplicity, "I know nothing myself."

"Why, then, were you instituted schoolmaster?"

"Why, sir, I had been taking care of the Waldbach pigs for a great number of years, and when I got too old and infirm for that employment, they sent me here to take care of the children."

PLANTING

A custom prevailed in the neighbouring parts of Germany, where no farmer was allowed to marry till he had planted and was "father of a stated number of walnut trees, that law being inviolably observed," says Evelyn, "for the extraordinary benefit which the trees afford the inhabitants." What the Germans thus provided for by a wise law, Oberlin, a pious pastor of Waldbach, required as an act of religious duty, bringing that great principle into action on all occasions. Late in autumn he addressed his parishioners thus:—

"Dear Friends—Satan, the enemy of mankind, rejoices when we demolish and destroy; our Lord Jesus Christ, on the contrary, rejoices when we labour for the public good.

"You all desire to be saved by Him, and hope to become partakers of His glory. Please him, then, by every possible means, during the remainder of the time you may have to live in this world.

"He is pleased when, from the principle of love, you plant trees for the public benefit. Be willing, then to plant them. Plant them in the best possible manner. Remember, you do it to please Him.

"Put all your roads into good condition; ornament them; employ some of your trees for this purpose, and attend to their growth."

EPITAPH

In the churchyard at Waldbach was formerly a monument, which bore this epitaph:—

During three years of marriage
Margaret Salomé, wife of G. Stouber,
Minister of this parish,
Found at the Ban de la Roche, in the simplicity
of a peaceable
And useful life,
The delight of her benevolent heart;
and in her first confinement.
The grave of her youth and beauty,
She died, August 9, 1764, aged 20 years.
Near this spot
Her husband has sown for immortality all that was mortal;
Uncertain whether he is more sensible of the
grief of having lost,
Or the glory of having possessed her.

MURDER OF THE LAIRD OF WARRISTON, BY HIS OWN WIFE

This is the subject of a Scottish ballad, well known to collectors in that department; and the history of the conversion of the murderess, and of her carriage at her execution, compiled apparently by one of the clergymen of Edinburgh, has been lately printed by Mr. Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, whose merits as an author, antiquary, and draughtsman, stand in no need of our testimony.

The story of the young lady is short and melancholy. She was a daughter of Livingston of Dunipace, a courtier, and a favourite of James VI.; an ill-assorted marriage united her at an early age with the Laird of Warriston, a gentleman whom she did not love, and who apparently used her with brutal harshness. The Lady Warriston accused her husband of having struck her several blows, besides biting her in the arm; and conspired with her nurse, Janet Murdo, to murder him. The confidante, inspired by that half-savage attachment which in those days animated the connexion between the foster-child and the nurse, entered into all the injuries of which her dalt (i.e. foster daughter) complained, encouraged her in her fatal purpose, and promised to procure the assistance of a person fitted to act the part of actual murderer, or else to do the deed with her own hands. In Scotland, such a character as the two wicked women desired for their associate was soon found in a groom, called Robert Weir, who appears, for a very small hire, to have undertaken the task of murdering the gentleman. He was ushered privately into Warriston's sleeping apartment, where he struck him severely upon the flank-vein, and completed his crime by strangling him. The lady in the meantime fled from the nuptial apartment into the hall, where she remained during the perpetration of the murder. The assassin took flight when the deed was done; but he was afterwards seized, and executed. The lady was tried, and condemned to death, on the 16th of June, 1600. The nurse was at the same time condemned to be burnt alive, and suffered her sentence accordingly; but Lady Warriston, in respect of her gentle descent, was appointed to die by the Maiden, a sort of rude guillotine, imported, it is said, from Halifax, by the Earl of Morton, while regent, who was himself the first that suffered by it.

The printed account of this beautiful murderess contains a pathetic narrative of the exertions of the worthy clergyman (its author) to bring her to repentance. At first, his ghostly comfort was very ill received, and she returned with taunts and derision his exhortations to penitence. But this humour only lasted while she had hopes of obtaining pardon through the interest of her family. When these vanished, it was no longer difficult to bring her, in all human appearance, to a just sense of her condition; her thoughts were easily directed towards heaven, so soon as she saw there was no comfort upon earth.

The pride of Lady Warriston's parents suggested a petition that she might be executed betwixt five and six in the morning; but both the clergyman and magistrates seem to have consented unwillingly to this arrangement. The clergyman was particularly offended that the display of her penitence should not be as public as that of her guilt had been, and we may forgive the good man if there was any slight regret for a diminished display of his own success, as a religious assistant, mixed with this avowed dissatisfaction.—Quarterly Rev.

SOUND

The difficulty of transmitting sounds to a great distance arises from the sound spreading and losing itself in the surrounding air; so that if we could confine it on one side, as along a well—on two sides, as in a narrow street—or on all sides, as in a tube or pipe—we should be able to convey it to great distances. In the cast-iron water-pipe of Paris, which formed a continuous tube with only two bendings near its middle, the lowest whisper at one end was distinctly heard at the other, through a distance of 3,120 feet. A pistol fired at one end actually blew out a candle at the other end, and drove out light substances with great violence. Hence we see the operation of speaking tubes which pass from one part of a building to another, and of the new kind of bell which is formed of a wooden or tin tube, with a small piston at each end. By pushing in one piston, the air in the tube conveys the effect to the piston at the other end, which strikes against the bell—this piston being, as it were, the clapper on the outside of the bell. The intensity of confined sounds is finely exhibited at Carisbrook Castle, in the Isle of Wight. There is here a well 210 feet deep, of twelve feet in diameter, and lined with smooth masonry; and when a pin is dropped into it, the sound of its striking the surface of the water is distinctly heard.—Ibid.

ECHOES

Various remarkable echoes, and some not very credible, have been described by different authors. Dr. Plott mentions an echo in Woodstock Park, which repeats seventeen syllables by day and twenty by night. The famous echo at the Marquess Simonetta's villa, near Milan, has been described both by Addison and Keysler. According to the last of these travellers, it is occasioned by the reflection of the voice between the opposite parallel wings of the building, which are fifty-eight paces from each other, without any windows or doors, and perpendicularly to the main body of the building. The repetition of the sound dwells chiefly on the last syllable. A man's voice is repeated about forty times, and the report of a pistol about sixty times; but the repetitions are so rapid, that it is difficult to number them, unless it be early in the morning, or in a calm, still evening.

A curious example of an oblique echo, not heard by the person who emits the sound, is described in the "Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences" as existing at Genefay, near Rouen. A person singing hears only his own direct voice, while those who listen hear only the echo, which sometimes seems to approach, and at other times to recede from, the ear; one person hears a single voice, another several voices; one hears the echo on the right, and another on the left—the effect constantly changing with the position of the observer.

One of the most remarkable echoes of which we have read is that which Dr. Birch describes as existing at Roseneath, in Argyllshire. When a person at a proper distance played eight or ten notes on a trumpet, they were correctly repeated, but a third lower; after a short silence, another repetition was heard in a yet lower tone, and alter another short interval, they were repeated a third time in a tone lower still.

We extract the following account of two very interesting echoes from Mr. Herschell's work:—

"In the cathedral of Girgenti, in Sicily, the slightest whisper is borne with perfect distinctness from the great western door to the cornice behind the high altar, a distance of 250 feet. By a most unlucky coincidence, the precise focus of divergence at the former station was chosen for the place of the confessional. Secrets never intended for the public ear thus became known, to the dismay of the confessors and the scandal of the people, by the resort of the curious to the opposite point (which seems to have been discovered accidentally), till at length one listener, having had his curiosity somewhat overgratified by hearing his wife's avowal of her own infidelity, this tell-tale peculiarity became generally known, and the confessional was removed.[2 - Travels through Sicily and the Lipari Islands in the month of December, 1824. By a Naval Officer. 1 vol. 8vo. London, 1827.]

"Beneath the Suspension Bridge across the Menai Strait in Wales, close to one of the main piers, is a remarkably fine echo. The sound of a blow on the pier with a hammer is returned in succession from each of the cross-beams which support the road-way, and from the opposite pier at a distance of 576 feet; and in addition to this, the sound is many times repeated between the water and the road-way. The effect is a series of sounds which may be thus described:—The first return is sharp and strong from the road-way overhead; the rattling which succeeds dies away rapidly, but the single repercussion from the opposite pier is very strong, and is succeeded by a faint palpitation, repeating the sound at the rate of twenty-eight times in five seconds, and which therefore corresponds to a distance of 184 feet, or very nearly the double interval from the road-way to the water. Thus it appears, that in the repercussion between the water and road-way, that from the latter only affects the ear, the line drawn from the auditor to the water being too oblique for the sound to diverge sufficiently in that direction.—Another peculiarity deserves especial notice, namely, that the echo from the opposite pier is best heard when the auditor stands precisely opposite to the middle of the breadth of the pier, and strikes just on that point. As it deviates to one or the other side, the return is proportionably fainter, and is scarcely heard by him when his station is a little beyond the extreme edge of the pier, though another person, stationed (on the same side of the water) at an equal distance from the central point, so as to have the pier between them, hears it well."

In treating the important subject of echoes in churches and public buildings, Mr. Herschell has exposed several prevailing errors, and laid down several useful principles, which merit the particular attention of the architect. In small buildings the echo is not distinguishable from the principal sound, and therefore serves only to strengthen it; but in very large buildings, where the original sound and its echo are distinctly separated, the effect is highly disagreeable. In cathedrals, this bad effect is diminished by reading the service in a monotonous chant, in consequence of which the voice is blended in the same sound with its echo. In musical performances, however, this resource is not available. When ten notes are executed in a single second, as in many pieces of modern music, the echo, in the direction of the length of a room fifty-five feet long, will exactly throw the second reverberation of each note on the principal sound of the following note, wherever the auditor is placed. Under such circumstances, therefore, the performers should be stationed in the middle of the apartment.—Ibid.

THE GATHERER

A snapper up of unconsidered trifles.

    SHAKSPEARE.

PATHETIC EPITAPH

(To the Editor.)

Among the many monumental inscriptions and epitaphs which have fallen under my notice (and I have been a "Gatherer" ever since the days of my childhood) I have seldom met with one more calculated to start the tender tear than the following, which I copied from an old and long since defunct periodical, which describes it as "placed by a Mr. Thickness on the grave of his daughter, who lies buried in his garden, at St. Catherine's Hermitage, near Bath."

At the Lady's Head is a beautiful Monument, with the following Inscription:

What tho' no sacred earth afford thee room,
Nor hallow'd dirge be mutter'd o'er thy tomb,
Yet shall thy grave with rising flowers be drest,
And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast.
Here shall the morn her earliest tears bestow—
Here the first roses of the year shall blow;
While angels with their silver wings o'ershade
The ground now sacred by thy reliques made.

At her Feet:

Reader, if YOUTH should sparkle in thine eye—
If on thy cheek the flow'r of beauty blows,
Here shed a tear, and heave the pensive sigh