Read Ebook: The Mirror of Literature Amusement and Instruction. Volume 17 No. 489 May 14 1831 by Various

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THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.

All who enjoy the luxury of doing good will be happy to learn that the above is the elevation of the new St. George's Hospital, at Hyde Park Corner. It is already a splendid monument of British benevolence; but is only a portion of the original plan, which is to complete another front towards Hyde Park; this will extend even further than the old hospital.

St. George's Hospital, we learn from a printed "Account," "was set on foot soon after Michaelmas, 1733, by some gentlemen who were before concerned in a charity of the like kind, in the lower part of Westminster. They judged this house convenient for their purpose, on account of its air, situation, and nearness to town; procured a lease of it, and opened a subscription for carrying on the charity here. The subscriptions increased so fast, that on the nineteenth of October they were formed into a regular society, and actually began to receive patients on the first of January following." The Establishment was, therefore, prosperous at its commencement, and the same good fortune has subsequently attended its progress. It is supported by Voluntary Contributions. The resources are considerable in property, and have been greatly enriched by legacies. Indeed, the legacies which fell to the Hospital during last year, exceeded 11,000l.

The building of the new Hospital, in the Engraving, was first proposed at a meeting held in the year 1827, at which the open-hearted Duke of York was chairman; and at a subsequent meeting, the Archbishop of Canterbury presided. A "Building Fund" was raised, to which the late King munificently contributed ?1,000. This Fund is entirely separate from the General Funds of the Hospital: "the sums already subscribed" says the Report of 1830, "have been expended in erecting a part of the building which is now occupied by 140 patients, and the public are earnestly requested to keep in view the importance of continuing their benevolent contributions, until the great object of re-building the entire Hospital has been effected." It is well known that the closeness of the wards in the old building has long been a subject of the deepest regret to the physicians and surgeons, who have observed its effect in preventing or retarding the cure of their patients; and this evil must, in some degree, be increased by the new building partially obstructing the ventilation of the old.

From the Report of 1829, we also learn that the subscriptions were ?3,439. the Dividends ?3,798. and the Legacies ?1,781. and the expenses of the year ?9,731. including ?709. for bedding, &c. for the new building.

The new building is from the designs of W. Wilkins, Esq. R.A. architect of the London University, &c. The Engraving represents the grand front which faces the Green Park, and consists of a centre and two wings, in all 200 feet in length. Part of the north wing, which we have referred to as facing Hyde Park, or stretching towards Knightsbridge, is also erected. The south wing is finished, and occupied by patients, as is also the south end of the east front. The theatre for lectures on surgery and medicine will accommodate 150 students. Immediately adjoining it is the museum of anatomical preparations. The entire edifice is faced with compost, coloured and checkered in imitation of stone. The hospital, when complete, will contain 29 wards, and 460 beds. The contracts for building the whole amount to about ?41,000.

The grand front, seen from the Green Park, has a handsome appearance, and the architecture is simply elegant. Viewed in association with the costly arch entrance to the Gardens of Buckingham Palace, and the classic screen and gates to Hyde Park--the New Hospital gives rise to a grateful recollection of national benevolence as well as cultivation of fine art--of soothing life's ills as well as embellishing its enjoyments--in short, of nurturing the first and best feelings of our nature as well as encouraging taste and talent. May England never halt in raising such monuments of her real greatness!

SUNSET THOUGHTS.

I've stood to gaze on the sunset hill, When the winds were hush'd and the waves were still; As the sun sank slowly down the west, I thought of the good man dropping to rest, When his race is run--he yields his breath, And softly sinks in the slumber of death.

When I gazed on the gorgeous western sky, I thought of those blissful bowers on high, Whose brightness--blessedness serene, Ear hath not heard--eye hath not seen.

COLBOURNE.

THE NOVELIST.

THE GOLDEN BODKIN.

It was the vesper-hour when the lovely Lady Victorine entered the church of St. Genevieve with her liege lord the Marquess de Montespan, and proceeding slowly down a side aisle of that magnificent fane, prostrated herself upon the steps of an altar of black marble, upon which burned in silver cassolettes, two small glimmering fires, sparingly fed with frankincense, and serving rather to render visible, than to illumine the gloom of the niche in which the altar stood; whilst the tapers which twinkled like glow-worms here and there in the body of the spacious temple, indicated the presence of worshippers, who, in the uncertain and vasty darkness, were scarcely beheld. The Marquess de Montespan kneeled beside his fair lady, and a couple of domestics at a respectful distance from the noble pair, whilst the solemn pealing of the organ intermingled with the low murmurings of human voices, and the sweet, full-toned responses of the choir, aided and attested the devotion of those who now attended vespers in the church of St. Genevieve. The sacred service was nearly concluded, when the attention of the congregation was painfully diverted from the solemn duty in which they were engaged, by thrilling shrieks proceeding from one of the side aisles, and an uncommon stir and tumult about the dark oratory of the Montespans, to which, therefore, a crowd was presently attracted. Alas! for the brevity and vanity of human life! The marquess, who had but so short a time since entered the church in manly prime, health, and strength, and in the full flush of happiness and hope, now suddenly, ay, even as he knelt beside his beautiful wife, and even as their spirits mingled in the same acts of devotion, the marquess now, struck by the angel of death, laid cold, senseless, and motionless, in the arms of his servants, who were vainly endeavouring to recall that vital spark which was totally extinct. Victorine, the young and lovely marchioness, thus suddenly and awfully reduced to widowhood, had fallen into such violent hysterics, as to render the task of supporting her almost dangerous to a noble youth who had voluntarily undertaken it. The consternation of the spectators at this tragical spectacle may be well imagined; but some two or three of them had, nevertheless, presence of mind sufficient to fetch a physician, and after medical aid had somewhat restored to composure the unhappy Victorine, she, with her deceased husband, upon whom, alas, all efforts of art had been bestowed in vain, was carefully conveyed to the Hotel de Montespan. Upon the breast of the Comte de Villeroi had the head of the afflicted marchioness rested, in the eventful hour of her sad bereavement, and in less than six months did he supply to her the place of her departed lord. This event occurred, it was then deemed, prematurely, and the precise and censorious blamed the indelicate haste with which Victorine had exchanged her weeds for bridal attire; but the kind-hearted observed, "Poor young creature, all Paris knows that Villeroi was the elected of her heart, long ere she was forced into a marriage with Montespan; no wonder therefore is it, that the first act of her recovered liberty should be, that of throwing herself into his arms;" so, "all Paris," after this appeal to its knowledge of private history, and best sympathies, could do no less than take the charitable side of the question, and Madame la Comtesse de Villeroi was allowed, unmolested by the voice of public censure, to reign awhile as bride and belle in the high circles which her beauty and agreeable qualities so well fitted her to adorn. Ere long, however, it was surmised that Victorine found herself not quite so happy in her union with the object of her first affection as she had anticipated she should be; she was pale, spiritless, and absent; sometimes started when addressed, as if only accustomed to the accents of authority unmingled with kindness; her cheeks were hollow, her eyes sunken and ray-less, and her smile was the very mockery of mirth; evidently she was not happy, and the apparently affectionate attentions lavished upon her by the comte, tended not to diminish suspicions that he was not altogether so amiable at home, as he took pains to appear in society. However, balls and f?tes followed the union of the young couple very gaily for some months, and everybody said that the Comtesse de Villeroi, rich, beautiful, and beloved, ought to be the happiest creature in existence.

Something more than a year after the demise of the Marquess de Montespan, Paris was thrown into considerable consternation by a report originating with some of the petty officers of the sacred establishment, that the church of St. Genevieve was haunted; old Albert Morel, the sexton, protesting upon the faith of a good Catholic, that he had heard, when occasionally in the church, alone, a strange rattling noise proceed from the vaults beneath it. "What this could be," he remarked, "was past comprehension, unless it were ghosts playing at skittles with their own dead bones." Some people laughed at this idea, and some sapiently shaking their heads, declared with ominous looks, that Morel was no fool, but knew what he knew, whilst every one agreed that some foundation, at least there must be, for the fearful tale. At length, in the church of St. Genevieve, it became necessary for the interment of some individual of rank, to open the very vault from whence seemed chiefly or entirely to proceed the strange and alarming sounds, and this happened to be that, in which were deposited the mortal remains of the Marquess de Montespan; from his coffin, it was now ascertained that the rattling proceeded, and as upon inspection, a hole was observed to have been drilled in the wood, as if by the teeth of some animal, it was judged expedient to open and examine it further. The remains of the marquess were discovered in a state of dry decomposition, with his head as completely severed from his body as if by the stroke of the axe; but, horror of horrors! that head, that skeleton skull, moved, as those who opened the coffin stood to gaze on its revolting contents, and rolled to and fro by itself! Dismay seized the spectators, who were about to rush in disorder from the spot, when one more courageous than the rest, laying hold of the skull, shook it violently for some moments, when, from one of the eye-sockets dangled the tail of a rat! The cause of the strange sounds heard by Morel and others, connected with the church of St. Genevieve, was now obvious; the voracious animal had entered when lean and small, into the head of the deceased marquess, by the eye, but after revelling upon the brain of the unfortunate defunct for some time, had increased to a size which rendered its exit by the same passage impossible, and its efforts at extrication from horrible thraldom, caused the rattling of the disjoined head in the coffin. It was proposed to saw asunder the skull, in order to free the creature, and the advice of Albert Morel, that the operation should be performed by one of the medical fraternity, who might be glad to witness the fact of a rat being imprisoned in a human head, was cheerfully taken. Some, however, objected to its being done, without application for leave having been first made to the Comtesse de Villeroi, as one to whom the proprietorship of her deceased husband's remains naturally and solely appertained, and who might feel it as a cruel insult towards herself, and a sacrilegious violation of the grave of her first lord, the consigning without her knowledge and permission, any part of his body to the hands of a surgeon. "Tush!" quoth old Morel, "all nonsense that! for if one may believe what has long been town-talk, 'tis little that madame will care for her dead husband now she has a living one who pleases her better than ever he could do, poor man!" The sexton's arguments were conclusive, and it was agreed at last, that the skull should be carried to Monsieur Nicolais, the celebrated surgeon, who had unavailingly attempted by bleeding, to recover the late marquess from the apoplexy which carried him off.

M.L.B.

POLAND.

"Thus the army, both in its numbers and management, was entirely at the mercy and under the direction of Muscovite despotism; the resources of the state were employed, without the legal control of the diet, to strengthen Russian tyranny, the press was enslaved, that no remonstrance might be made against Russian oppression; the citizens were arrested, imprisoned, and punished by a Russian military chieftain, without being brought to trial before the proper native tribunals; the legislative chambers were deprived of their just prerogatives; the national customs, habits, and feelings were hourly insulted; the citizens were beset with an infamous police, an deprived even of the melancholy consolation of complaint; thus, in short, every Polish right was violated--every article of the charter broken--and the whole efforts of an imperial savage, at the head of a strong military force, directed to efface from the countrymen of the Sobieskis and Kosciuszkos all the remains of the Polish character.

"The following statement of facts on this head, to which we have seen no allusion made in the public prints, but the authenticity of which may be relied on, will give a better idea of the system of Russian government in Poland than any general description could convey. We have received it from the quarter to which we have above alluded:--

The Editor's Conclusion, or Summary of the Year is likewise worthy of extract:

"The curtain of the year 1830 dropped on Europe in a state of ferment and agitation, of which it was impossible to check the progress or to foretell the result. The masses of the population had been stirred up from the bottom by the concussion of the French and Belgic revolutions, and could not be expected for a long time to subside into order, or resume a determinate arrangement according to their weight and affinities. The partition wall of privilege, rank, or subordination, interposed between different classes of the European community, had in some cases been forcibly broken down, and in others had been more silently undermined. Antiquity, custom, usage, or legitimacy, which formerly became a shelter to abuses, could not now protect justice and right from threatened innovation. Everywhere power was challenged on its rounds, and compelled to give the popular watchword before it could be allowed to pass. Whether it was a nation that demanded its independence from a foreign power, as in Belgium and Poland; or a people that cashiered their dynasty, as in France and Saxony; or a parliament that changed its administration for a more popular party, as in England; or republics that liberalized their institutions, as in Switzerland,--all was movement and change. The breath of revolution sometimes blew from the suburbs of a capital, as in France; sometimes from the cottages of the peasant, as in the Swiss mountains; but it was every where powerful. No institution was held venerable, no authority sacred, that stood in the way of the popular will. The people had every where got a purchase against their rulers, and had fixed their engines for a further pull. The power of domestic military protection had diminished, in proportion as rulers required its aid; while, at the same time, all Europe seemed arming for a general trial of strength, or a recommencement of conquest. Every kind of reform was the order of the day; financial reform, legal reform, ecclesiastical reform, and parliamentary reform. The year that has just commenced must resolve the character of many of those vague tendencies to change, to war, and confusion, which alarmed some and inspired hope into others at the close of 1830."

NOTES OF A READER.

THE DRAMATIC ANNUAL.

Mr. Reynolds seems to hold with Swift, that the merriest faces are in mourning coaches, for his hero at a funeral introduces one of the best cuts. Thus--

Vivid could not help remarking to a brother mourner, that, in his opinion, the profession of a painter was as much overrated as that of an engraver was underrated: "for," he added, "what real and unprejudiced connoisseur, while contemplating Woollett's Roman Edifices from Claude, and Sir Robert Strange's Titian's Mistress from Titian, with many others, would not acknowledge, that the copy in many instances so rivalled, if not surpassed, the original, that it became a decided question, which artist ought to carry off the palm?"

"Or, at any rate," cried an odd accordant theatrical companion, "the connoisseur might say, with Shakspeare--

'Which is the merchant here, and which the Jew?'"

TRIAL BY BATTLE.

KICKING THE WORLD.

Every one has heard of kicking the world before them, though, comparatively, so few succeed in the task. The wights in the cut are in an enviable condition.

"Obvious, my dear Blase; or, as a late premier used to say, 'It can't be missed,' 'Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia:' and, besides, your wet ghost is a mere crib from yourself; for whenever you go hunting in cloudy weather, don't you regularly ride with a smart silver parasol over your dear little head?"

Soon growing tired of lounging in the library, loitering on the pier, and of all the rest of the usual dull sea-side routine, he literally knew so little what to do with himself, that, to kill an hour or two before dinner, he would frequently be seen seated on a tombstone in the churchyard, yawning; staring at the church clock, and comparing it with his own watch;--in short, in some degree resembling

"Patience on a monument."

THE FAMILY CABINET ATLAS

Is completed with the Twelfth Part, in the same style of excellence as it was commenced. In this portion are two plates, exhibiting a comparative view of Inland Seas and Principal Lakes of the Eastern and Western Hemispheres--which alone are worth the price of the Part. Altogether, the uniformity and elegance of this work reflect high credit on the taste and talent of every one concerned in its production; and it really deserves a place on every writing-table not already provided with an Atlas. For constant reference, too, it is well calculated, by its convenient size, and is preferable to the cumbrous folio, as well as the varnished, rustling, roller map.

THE KING'S SECRET.

Nevertheless, there is a vividness--a freshness--and altogether a superior interest, in all the details which must render "The King's Secret" a favourite work with the fiction-and-fact-reading public. The scenes are so complicated in their interest, that it is scarcely possible to detach an extract.

In the early part of the first volume occurs a passage relative to the resistance of the people of Ghent to the oppression of their rulers, which smacks strongly of the enthusiasm of liberty.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TWENTY YEARS.

BY THOMAS HAYNES BAYLY.

They tell me twenty years are past Since I have look'd upon thee last, And thought thee fairest of the fair, With thy sylph-like form and light-brown hair! I can remember every word That from those smiling lips I heard: Oh! how little it appears Like the lapse of twenty years.

Thou art changed! in thee I find Beauty of another kind; Those rich curls lie on thy brow In a darker cluster now; And the sylph hath given place To the matron's form of grace.-- Yet how little it appears Like the lapse of twenty years.

Still thy cheek is round and fair; 'Mid thy curls not one grey hair; Not one lurking sorrow lies In the lustre of those eyes: Thou hast felt, since last we met, No affliction, no regret! Wonderful! to shed no tears In the lapse of twenty years.

Thou hast been a happy bride, Kneeling by a lover's side; And unclouded was thy life, As his loved and loving wife;-- Thou hast worn the garb of gloom, Kneeling by that husband's tomb;-- Thou hast wept a widow's tears In the lapse of twenty years.

Where's the hope that can abate The grief of hearts thus desolate That can Youth's keenest pangs assuage, And mitigate the gloom of Age? Religion bids the tempest cease, And, leads her to a port of peace; And on, the lonely pilot steers Through the lapse of future years.

MEMOIRS OF THE MACAW OF A LADY OF QUALITY.

Meantime Father Flynn, with a Jesuit's adroitness, was endeavouring to gain his object, as I afterwards learned; but on alluding to his works and celebrity, he discovered that the ambassador had never so much as heard of him, though he had heard wonders of his parrot, which he requested might be sent for. I was immediately ushered into the cabinet, as the superior went out, and I never saw my dear master more. Perhaps he could "bear no rival near the throne;" perhaps, in his preoccupation, he forgot to reclaim me. Be that as it may, he sailed that night, in a Portuguese merchantman, for Lisbon; and I became the property of the representative of his British Majesty. After the first few days of favouritism, I sensibly lost ground with his excellency; for he was too deeply occupied, and had too many resources of his own, to find his amusement in my society. During the few days I sat at his table, I entertained his diplomatic guests with cracking nuts, extracting the kernels, peeling oranges, talking broad Scotch and Parisian French, chanting the "Gloria," dancing "Gai Coco," and, in fact, exhibiting all my accomplishments. I was, however, soon sent to the secretary's office to be taught a new jargon, and to be subjected to tricks from the underlings of the embassy.

LONDON LYRICS,

PROVERBS.

My good Aunt Bridget, spite of age, Versed in Valerian, Dock, and Sage, Well knew the Virtues of herbs; But Proverbs gain'd her chief applause, "Child," she exclaimed, "respect old saws, And pin your faith on Proverbs."

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