The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. by Various
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Various >> The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No.
'Twas the battle field, and the cold pale moon
Look'd down on the dead and dying,
And the wind pass'd o'er with a dirge and a wail,
Where the young and the brave were lying.
With his father's sword in his red right hand.
And the hostile dead around him,
Lay a youthful chief: but his bed was the ground,
And the grave's icy sleep had bound him.
A reckless Rover, 'mid death and doom,
Pass'd a soldier, his plunder seeking:
Careless he stept where friend and foe
Lay alike in their life-blood reeking.
Drawn by the shine of the warrior's sword,
The soldier paused beside it:
He wrench'd the hand with a giant's strength,
But the grasp of the dead defied it.
He loosed his hold, and his English heart
Took part with the dead before him,
And he honour'd the brave who died sword in hand,
As with soften'd brow he leant o'er him.
"A soldier's death thou hast boldly died,
A soldier's grave won by it:
Before I would take that sword from thine hand,
My own life's blood should dye it.
"Thou shalt not be left for the carrion crow,
Or the wolf to batten o'er thee:
Or the coward insult the gallant dead,
Who in life had trembled before thee."
Then dug he a grave in the crimson earth
Where his warrior foe was sleeping,
And he laid him there in honour and rest,
With his sword in his own brave keeping.
* * * * *
As a relief, we quote the following characteristic sketch by Miss
Mitford:--
A COUNTRY APOTHECARY.
One of the most important personages in a small country town is the
apothecary. He takes rank next after the rector and the attorney, and
before the curate; and could be much less easily dispensed with than
either of those worthies, not merely as holding "fate and physic" in his
hand, but as the general, and as it were official, associate, adviser,
comforter, and friend, of all ranks and all ages, of high and low, rich
and poor, sick and well. I am no despiser of dignities; but twenty
emperors shall be less intensely missed in their wide dominions, than
such a man as my friend John Hallett in his own small sphere.
The spot which was favoured with the residence of this excellent person
was the small town of Hazelby, in Dorsetshire; a pretty little place,
where every thing seems at a stand-still. It was originally built in
the shape of the letter T; a long broad market-place (still so called,
although the market be gone) serving for the perpendicular stem, traversed
by a straight, narrow, horizontal street, to answer for the top line.
Not one addition has occurred to interrupt this architectural regularity,
since, fifty years ago, a rich London tradesman built, at the west end
of the horizontal street, a wide-fronted single house, with two low
wings, iron palisades before, and a fish-pond opposite, which still
goes by the name of New Place, and is balanced, at the east end of
the street, by an erection of nearly the same date, a large square
dingy mansion enclosed within high walls, inhabited by three maiden
sisters, and called, probably by way of nickname, the Nunnery. New Place
being on the left of the road, and the Nunnery on the right, the T has
now something of the air of the italic capital T, turned up at one end
and down at the other. The latest improvements are the bow-window in the
market-place, commanding the pavement both ways, which the late brewer,
Andrews, threw out in his snug parlour some twenty years back, and where
he used to sit smoking, with the sash up, in summer afternoons, enjoying
himself, good man; and the great room, at the Swan, originally built by
the speculative publican, Joseph Allwright, for an assembly-room. That
speculation did not answer. The assembly, in spite of canvassing and
patronage, and the active exertions of all the young ladies in the
neighbourhood, dwindled away, and died at the end of two winters:
then it became a club-room for the hunt; but the hunt quarrelled with
Joseph's cookery: then a market-room for the farmers; but the farmers
(it was in the high-price time) quarrelled with Joseph's wine: then it
was converted into the magistrate's room--the bench; but the bench and
the market went away together, and there was an end of justicing: then
Joseph tried the novel attraction (to borrow a theatrical phrase) of a
billiard-table; but, alas! that novelty succeeded as ill as if it had
been theatrical; there were not customers enough to pay the marker: at
last, it has merged finally in that unconscious receptacle of pleasure
and pain, a post-office; although Hazelby has so little to do with
traffic of any sort--even the traffic of correspondence--that a saucy
mail-coach will often carry on its small bag, and as often forget to
call for the London bag in return.
In short, Hazelby is an insignificant place;--my readers will look
for it in vain in the map of Dorsetshire;--it is omitted, poor dear
town!--left out by the map-maker with as little remorse as a dropped
letter!--and it is also an old-fashioned place. It has not even a cheap
shop for female gear. Every thing in the one store which it boasts,
kept by Martha Deane, linen-draper and haberdasher, is dear and good,
as things were wont to be. You may actually get there thread made of
flax, from the gouty, uneven, clumsy, shiny fabric, ycleped whited-brown,
to the delicate commodity of Lisle, used for darning muslin. I think
I was never more astonished, from the mere force of habit, than when,
on asking for thread, I was presented, instead of the pretty lattice-wound
balls, or snowy reels of cotton, with which that demand is usually
answered, with a whole drawerful of skeins peeping from their blue papers
--such skeins as in my youth a thrifty maiden would draw into the
nicely-stitched compartments of that silken repository, a housewife, or
fold into a congeries of graduated thread-papers, "fine by degrees, and
beautifully less." The very literature of Hazelby is doled out at the
pastry cook's, in a little one-windowed shop kept by Matthew Wise. Tarts
occupy one end of the counter, and reviews the other; whilst the shelves
are parcelled out between books, and dolls, and ginger, bread. It is a
question, by which of his trades poor Matthew gains least; he is so
shabby, so threadbare, and so starved.
Such a town would hardly have known what to do with a highly informed and
educated surgeon, such as one now generally sees in that most liberal
profession. My friend, John Hallett, suited it exactly. His predecessor,
Mr. Simon Saunders, had been a small, wrinkled, spare old gentleman,
with a short cough and a thin voice, who always seemed as if he needed
an apothecary himself. He wore generally a full suit of drab, a flaxen
wig of the sort called a Bob Jerom, and a very tight muslin stock; a
costume which he had adopted in his younger days in imitation of the
most eminent physician of the next city, and continued to the time of
his death. Perhaps the cough might have been originally an imitation
also, ingrafted on the system by habit. It had a most unsatisfactory
sound, and seemed more like a trick than a real effort of nature. His
talk was civil, prosy, and fidgetty: much addicted to small scandal,
and that kind of news which passes under the denomination of
tittle-tattle, he was sure to tell one half of the town where the
other drank tea, and recollected the blancmanges and jellies on a
supper-table, or described a new gown, with as much science and
unction as if he had been used to make jellies and wear gowns in
his own person. Certain professional peculiarities might have
favoured the supposition. His mode of practice was exactly that
popularly attributed to old women. He delighted in innocent
remedies--manna, magnesia, and camphor julep; never put on a
blister in his life; and would sooner, from pure complaisance,
let a patient die, than administer an unpalatable prescription.
So qualified, to say nothing of his gifts in tea-drinking, cassino,
and quadrille (whist was too many for him), his popularity could not
be questioned. When he expired, all Hazelby mourned. The lamentation
was general. The women of every degree (to borrow a phrase from that
great phrase-monger, Horace Walpole) "cried quarts;" and the procession
to the churchyard--that very churchyard to which he had himself attended
so many of his patients--was now followed by all of them that remained
alive.
It was felt that the successor of Mr. Simon Saunders would have many
difficulties to encounter. My friend, John Hallett, "came, and saw, and
overcame." John was what is usually called a rough diamond. Imagine a
short, clumsy, stout-built figure, almost as broad as it is long,
crowned by a bullet head, covered with shaggy brown hair, sticking out
in every direction; the face round and solid, with a complexion originally
fair, but dyed one red by exposure to all sorts of weather; open
good-humoured eyes, of a greenish cast, his admirers called them hazel;
a wide mouth, full of large white teeth; a cocked-up nose, and a double
chin; bearing altogether a strong resemblance to a print which I once
saw hanging up in an alehouse parlour, of "the celebrated divine (to use
the identical words of the legend) Dr. Martin Luther."
The condition of a country apothecary being peculiarly liable to the
inclemency of the season, John's dress was generally such as might bid
defiance to wind, or rain, or snow, or hail. If any thing, he wrapt up
most in the summer, having a theory that people were never so apt to
take cold as in hot weather. He usually wore a bearskin great-coat, a
silk handkerchief over his cravat, top boots on those sturdy pillars his
legs, a huge pair of overalls, and a hat, which, from, the day in which
it first came into his possession to that in which it was thrown aside,
never knew the comfort of being freed from its oilskin--never was allowed
to display the glossy freshness of its sable youth. Poor dear hat! how its
vanity (if hats have vanity) must have suffered! For certain its owner
had none, unless a lurking pride in his own bluffness and bluntness
may be termed such. He piqued himself on being a plain downright
Englishman, and on a voice and address pretty much like his apparel,
rough, strong, and warm, fit for all weathers. A heartier person never
lived.
In his profession he was eminently skilful, bold, confident, and
successful. The neighbouring physicians liked to come after Mr. Hallett;
they were sure to find nothing to undo. And blunt and abrupt as was
his general manner, he was kind and gentle in a sick-room; only nervous
disorders, the pet diseases of Mr. Simon Saunders, he could not abide.
He made short work with them; frightened them away as one does by
children when they have the hiccough; or if the malady were pertinacious
and would not go, he fairly turned off the patient. Once or twice,
indeed, on such occasions, the patient got the start, and turned him
off; Mrs. Emery, for instance, the lady's maid at New Place, most
delicate and mincing of waiting-gentlewomen, motioned him from her
presence; and Miss Deane, daughter of Martha Deane, haberdasher,
who, after completing her education at a boarding-school, kept a closet
full of millinery in a little den behind her mamma's shop, and was by
many degrees the finest lady in Hazelby, was so provoked at being told
by him that nothing ailed her, that, to prove her weakly condition, she
pushed him by main force out of doors.
With these exceptions Mr. Hallett was the delight of the whole town, as
well as of all the farm-houses within six miles round. He just suited
the rich yeomanry, cured their diseases, and partook of their feasts;
was constant at christenings, and a man of prime importance at weddings.
A country merry-making was nothing without "the Doctor." He was "the
very prince of good fellows;" had a touch of epicurism, which, without
causing any distaste of his own homely fare, made dainties acceptable
when they fell in his way; was a most absolute carver; prided himself
upon a sauce of his own invention, for fish and game--"Hazelby sauce"
he called it; and was universally admitted to be the best compounder
of a bowl of punch in the county.
Besides these rare convivial accomplishments, his gay and jovial temper
rendered him the life of the table. There was no resisting his droll
faces, his droll stories, his jokes, his tricks, or his laugh--the most
contagious cachination that ever was heard. Nothing in the shape of fun
came amiss to him. He would join in a catch or roar out a solo, which
might be heard a mile off; would play at hunt the slipper or blind man's
buff; was a great man in a country dance, and upon very extraordinary
occasions would treat the company to a certain remarkable hornpipe,
which put the walls in danger of tumbling about their ears, and belonged
to him as exclusively as the Hazelby sauce. It was a sort of parody on a
pas seul which he had once seen at the Opera-house, in which his face,
his figure, his costume, his rich humour, and his strange, awkward,
unexpected activity, told amazingly. "The force of _frolic_ could no
farther go" than "the Doctor's hornpipe," It was the climax of jollity.
* * * * *
In his shop and his household he had no need either of partner or of
wife: the one was excellently managed by an old rheumatic journeyman,
slow in speech, and of vinegar aspect, who had been a pedagogue in
his youth, and now used to limp about with his Livy in his pocket,
and growl as he compounded the medicines over the bad latinity of the
prescriptions; the other was equally well conducted by an equally
ancient housekeeper and a cherry-cheeked niece, the orphan-daughter of
his only sister, who kept every thing within doors in the bright and
shining order in which he delighted. John Hallett, notwithstanding the
roughness of his aspect, was rather knick-knacky in his tastes; a great
patron of small inventions, such as the _improved_ ne plus ultra
cork-screw, and the latest patent snuffers. He also trifled with
horticulture, dabbled in tulips, was a connoisseur in pinks, and had
gained a prize for polyanthuses. The garden was under the especial care
of his pretty niece, Miss Susan, a grateful warm-hearted girl, who
thought she never could do enough to please her good uncle, and prove
her sense of his kindness. He was indeed as fond of her as if he had
been her father, and as kind.
Perhaps there was nothing very extraordinary in his goodness to the
gentle and cheerful little girl who kept his walks so trim and his
parlour so neat, who always met him with a smile, and who (last and
strongest tie to a generous mind) was wholly dependent on him--had no
friend on earth but himself. There was nothing very uncommon in that.
But John Hallett was kind to every one, even where the sturdy old English
prejudices, which he cherished as virtues, might seem most likely to
counteract his gentler feelings.
* * * * *
"_The Evening Song of the Tyrolese Peasants_" by Mrs. Hemans, must close
our extracts from the present volume:--
Come to the Sun-set Tree!
The day is past and gone;
The woodman's axe lies free,
And the reaper's work is done.
The twilight-star to Heaven,
And the summer-dew to flowers,
And rest to us is given
By the cool soft evening hours.
Sweet is the hour of rest!
Pleasant the wind's low sigh,
And the gleaming of the west,
And the turf whereon we lie.
When the burden and the heat
Of labour's task are o'er,
And kindly voices greet
The tired one at his door.
Come to the Sun-set Tree!
The day is past and gone;
The woodman's axe lies free,
And the reaper's work is done.
Yes: tuneful is the sound
That dwells in whispering boughs:
Welcome the freshness round,
And the gale that fans our brows.
But rest more sweet and still
Than ever night-fall gave,
Our longing hearts shall fill,
In the world beyond the grave.
There shall no tempest blow,
No scorching noon-tide heat;
There shall be no more snow,
No weary wandering feet.
And we lift our trusting eyes,
From the hills our fathers trod.
To the quiet of the skies,
To the sabbath of our God.
Come to the Sun-set Tree!
The day is past and gone:
The woodman's axe lies free,
And the reaper's work is done.
We have only room to particularize the _Boroom Slave_, by Mrs. Bowditch;
the _Magician's Visiter_, by Neele; and _Scenes in the Life of a
Favourite_; all which possess very powerful interest. Mr. Hood, too,
has two oddities--_Death in the Kitchen_, after Sterne, and the
_Logicians_, accompanied by engravings. Indeed, the literary variety
of the present _Forget Me Not_ is highly creditable to the editor, Mr.
Shoberl.
* * * * *
_Friendship's Offering_.
To begin with the exterior, which is somewhat novel in taste, the
proprietors seem to have united the _utile cum dulci,_ by substituting
for the usual paper covering, an elegantly embossed leather binding.
This is altogether an improvement on the original plan, since the slight
coverings of silk or paper is scarcely safe out of the drawing-room or
boudoir, and some of the contributions to the "annuals" entitle them to
a higher stand. The presentation plate of the present _Offering_ is a
chaste and classical specimen of a kind of gold enamel engraving;
_The Sylph_, engraved by Humphreys, is a pleasing picture; _Virginia
Water_, from a picture by Daniell, is a delightful scene of rural
repose; a _Sculpture Group_, by Fry; a _View of Bombay_; and the
_Captive Slave_, by Finden; among the embellishments, are entitled
to our commendatory notice.
The present editor is Mr. Charles Knight, who, according to his preface,
succeeded "at an advanced period of the year to the duties which had
previously been performed by a gentleman of acknowledged taste and
ability." This may account for the imperfect state of some of the
engravings; but the apology is not so requisite for the execution of the
literary portion of the present volume. Our extracts must be short, for
we have other claimants to our attention. The _Housekeepers_, a Shandean
extract, is from one of the best prose contributors:--
There were two heavy, middle-aged merchants; they were either Dutch or
German, I know not which, but their name was Vanderclump. Most decided
old bachelors they were, with large, leathern, hanging cheeks, sleepy
grey eyes, and round shoulders. They were men not given to much speech,
but great feeders; and, when waited upon, would point clumsily to what
they wanted, and make a sort of low growl, rather than be at the trouble
to speak. These Messrs. Vanderclump were served by two tall, smooth-faced
dawdles; I never could discover which held the superior station in
the _menage_. Each has been seen trotting home from market with a basket
on her arm; each might be observed to shake a duster out of the upper
windows; each would, occasionally, carry a huge bunch of keys, or wait at
table during dinner; and, in the summer evenings, when it was not post-day,
both of them would appear, dressed alike, sitting at work at the lower
counting-house window, with the blinds thrown wide open. Both, I suppose,
were housekeepers.
It happened, one cold, foggy spring, that the younger brother, Mr. Peter
Vanderclump, left London to transact some business of importance with a
correspondent at Hamburgh, leaving his brother Anthony to the loneliness
of their gloomy house in St. Mary Axe. Week after week passed away, and
Mr. Peter was still detained at Hamburgh. Who would have supposed that
his society could have been missed? that the parlour could have seemed
more dismally dull by the absence of one of those from whom it chiefly
derived its character of dulness? Mr. Anthony took up his largest
meerchaum, and enveloped himself in its smoke by the hour; but the
volumes of smoke cleared away, and no Peter Vanderclump appeared emerging
from the mist. Mr. Anthony brought some of his heavy folios from below;
and, in their pages of interest, (no common, but often compound, interest,)
lost, for awhile, the dreary sense of loneliness. But, a question
was to be asked! Peter's solemn "yah" or "nien" was waited for in
vain. Forgetful, and almost impatient, Anthony looked up--the chair
was unoccupied which his brother had constantly filled.
Mr. Anthony began to sigh--he got into a habit of sighing. Betty and
Molly (they were soft-hearted baggages) felt for their master--pitied
their poor master! Betty was placing the supper on the table one evening,
when her master sighed very heavily. Betty sighed also, and the corners
of her mouth fell--their eyes met--something like a blush crimsoned
Betty's sleek, shining cheek, when, on raising her eyes again, her master
was still staring at her. Betty simpered, and, in her very soft, very
demure voice ventured to say, "Was there any thing she could do?" Mr.
Vanderclump rose up from his chair. Betty, for the first time, felt
awed by his approach. "Batee!" he said, "my poor Batee! Hah! you are
a goot girl!" He chucked her under the chin with his large hand. Betty
looked meek, and blushed, and simpered again. There was a pause--Mr.
Vanderclump was the first to disturb it. "Hah! hah!" he exclaimed,
gruffly, as if suddenly recollecting himself; and, thrusting both hands
into his capacious breeches-pockets, he sat down to supper, and took no
further notice of Betty that night.
The next morning, the sun seemed to have made a successful struggle with
the dense London atmosphere, and shone full in Mr. Vanderclump's face
while he was at breakfast, and set a piping bullfinch singing a tune,
which his master loved rather for the sake of old associations, than
from any delight in music. Then Lloyd's List was full of arrivals,
and the Price Current had that morning some unusual charm about it,
which I cannot even guess at. Mr. Vanderclump looked upon the bright
and blazing fire; his eye rested, with a calm and musing satisfaction,
on the light volumes of steam rising from the spout of the tea-kettle,
as it stood, rather murmuring drowsily, than hissing, upon the hob. There
was, he might have felt, a sympathy between them. They were both placidly
puffing out the warm and wreathing smoke.
He laid down his pipe, and took half a well-buttered muffin into his
capacious mouth at a bite; he washed the mouthful down, with a large
dish of tea, and he felt in better spirits. That morning he entered the
counting-house rubbing his hands.
Within an hour a crowd of huge, dusky clouds shut out the merry sunshine,
and the Hamburgh mail brought no tidings whatever of Mr. Peter. Mr.
Anthony worked himself up into a thorough ill-humour again, and swore
at his clerks, because they asked him questions. When he entered his
apartment that evening he felt more desolate than ever. Betty placed
a barrel of oysters on the table--he heeded her not;--a large German
sausage--his eyes were fixed on the ground;--a piece of Hamburgh beef
--Mr. Vanderclump looked up for an instant, and, Europa-like, his
thoughts crossed the sea, upon that beef, to Hamburgh. Gradually,
however, a genial warmth spread throughout the room, for Betty stirred
up the fire, and let down the curtains, and snuffed the dim candles;
while Molly loaded the table with bottles of divers shapes and sizes,
a basin of snow-white sugar, and a little basket of limes, of well-known
and exquisite flavour; placing, at the same time, a very small kettle of
boiling water on the fire.--"Why, Mollee! my goot girl!" said Mr.
Vanderclump, in a low and somewhat melancholy tone, (his eyes had
mechanically followed these latter proceedings,) "Mollee! that is ponch!"
--"La, sir! and why not?" replied the damsel, almost playfully. "Why
not be comfortable and cheery? I am sure"--and here she meant to look
encouraging, her usual simper spreading to a smile--"I am sure Betty and
I would do our best to make you so."
"Goot girls, goot girls!" said Mr. Vanderclump, his eyes fixed all the
while upon the supper-table--he sat down to it. "My goot girls!" said
he, soon after, "you may go down; I do not want you; you need not wait."
The two timid, gentle creatures instantly obeyed. More than an hour
elapsed, and then Mr. Vanderclump's bell rang. The two matronly maidens
were very busily employed in making a new cap. Betty rose at once; but
suddenly recollecting that she had been trying on her new and unfinished
cap, and had then only a small brown cotton skull-cap on her head, she
raised both her hands to her head to be certain of this, and then said,
"Do, Molly, there's a dear! answer the bell; for such a figure as I am,
I could not go before master, no how. See, I have unpicked this old cap
for a little bit of French edging at the back." Molly looked a little
peevish; but _her_ cap was on her head, and up stairs she went. Mr.
Vanderclump was sitting before the fire, puffing lustily from his
eternal pipe. "Take away," he said abruptly, "and put the leetle table
here." He pointed and growled, and the sagacious Molly understood. She
placed the table beside him, and upon it the punch, which he had been
drinking. "Batee, my poor Batee!" said Mr. Vanderclump, who had not yet
noticed that Betty was absent. "It is not Betty, but Molly, sir!"
replied the latter damsel, in a voice of childlike simplicity. "Hah!"
said he, apparently considering for a moment, "Hah! Batee, Mollee, all
the same! Mollee, my poor Mollee, you are a goot girl! Get up to-morrow
morning, my poor Mollee, and put on your best gown, and I will marry
you!" Molly, was, as she afterwards declared, struck all of a heap. She
gaped, and gasped with astonishment; and then a power of words were
rushing and racing up her throat to her tongue's end: a glance at her
master stopped their explosion. His hands were in his pockets, his face
towards the fire, his pipe in his mouth. "Yes, sir," she replied, humbly
and distinctly. A few tears trickled down her cheeks, as she curtseyed
low at the door, and disappeared. She knew his ways, she thought within
herself, as she walked very slowly down the stairs, and she
congratulated herself that she had not risked another word in reply.
"And now, Betty," she said, as she entered the kitchen, "I'll put the
finishing stitch to my cap, and go to bed, for master will want nothing
more to-night." She sat down quietly to work, and conversed quietly with
Betty, not disclosing a word of her new prospects, Betty, however,
observed that she took off the trimming with which her new cap had been
already half-adorned. "Why, bless me, Molly!" she cried, "you are not
going to put on that handsome white satin bow, are you?"--"Why, yes! I
think I shall," replied Molly, "for now I look at your cap, with that
there yellow riband upon it, mine seems to me quite old-maidish."