But years have rolled by since he died; But of his hut there is no trace. THE HAMPSTEAD GHOST. (For the Parterre). It is seldom that, in the nineteenth century, a more curious specimen of diablerie comes to keep up the remaining traces of superstition amongst the elderly villagers of England than the following affair, which occurred at Hampstead in the vicinity of London, a short time since. To the door of a house, situated in the Vale of Health, there came on a morning in spring, a person, who inquired the particulars of the accommodation and price of the apartments, which, it was seen by a paper suspended in the window, were to be let. He was soon satisfied in his inquiries, and concluded a bargain for the rooms. In person this stranger was tall, his dress was not absolutely past the medium at which shabbiness begins, and his general appearance was what is termed debauchê, that expression which actors frequently present the result of late hours, paint, brandy, and fatigue. He proceeded to inform his new landlady, that he had long laboured under an indigestion, for the cure of which he had travelled into France and Italy, and indeed almost all over the world. Strange to say, when lately passing through a part of Italy, one day he was slumbering gently in his carriage when he saw presented to his with the surrounding scene, and that eye, Hampstead, and the Vale of Health very house, just as he saw them all now. And yet he had never been to Hampstead in his life before that day; so strongly was he impressed with the beauty of the scene, which in this vision had been presented to his eyes; the heath with its rural beauties, the mansions and hills which are spread out in the distance, the Thames glistening at intervals, and the sea itself visible at the Nore; and then, St. Paul's cathedral, rising in gloomy grandeur over the metropolis of the world; these he expatiated upon as forming so enchanting a scene, that he immediately ordered the postilion to turn round, and so he had come straight back to England to find out the spot. Now he should be happy, and his indigestion, he thought, would soon go away. Upon the following day, the gentleman came to take possession of these ready furnished rooms. He was accom panied by two females, whom he introduced as his sister and mother. They were mysterious looking people; and from their dress and address, the landlady did not think that they had travelled with the gentleman in Italy in the carriage. But still they paid their way, and that is all that the people at the Vale of Health, and indeed generally the people of other places as well, care about their lodgers. Things had gone on very well for some weeks, when one night very strange and outrageous noises were heard. It seemed as if a struggling was going on somewhere in the house, and a voice of a very demoniacal kind sounded as if in the room above the bedroom of the gentleman. In the morn ing the landlady further remarked that his appearance was singularly pale and wild, and therefore she mentioned the noises that had been heard in the night. He then said in a very dejected tone of voice, that it was too true, the demon had followed him about almost all over the world, and now had found him out at the Vale of Health; what to do, he declared he did not know. Neither did the landlady know what to do, for the lodgers had taken the apartments for a considerable time, and now it appeared that the demon must have house room too. On the following night the demon came again. When the clock struck twelve, night after night, the disturbance began; the noise of the demon threatening, pricking, and exulting over the unfortunate gentleman, regularly took place at the appointed time, and continued for an hour. During the continuance of the nightly visits, he appeared to be in agony intolerable-he heaved and groaned, and great drops of perspiration stood upon his brow; when the clock struck one, however, the demon always went away. After a few nights the landlady became alarmed, and as the lodgers could not be legally dispossessed of the apartments, she declared that she must abandon the house and leave it to themselves, if the gentleman would not at least go out for the hour at which the demon appeared. To this he at length gave his consent, and so when the clock struck twelve, he regularly sallied out upon the heath; but still the demon pursued him even there. On the first night of his perambulating the At length the unfortunate man confided to his landlady, that he was a Catholic by profession, and that the Catholic priest alone had the power to send the demon off. Presently the lady repaired to the house of the Abbé Marel, the Catholic priest of Hampstead: the Abbé is a French emigrant, a venerable old man of the ancient regime; he first thought that the affair was a joke,--but at length was persuaded to come on the following night at the midnight hour. The demon was now more rampant than before. The Abbé found him unmanageable altogether, and though he tried all the ceremonials for casting out spirits, yet would the demon not depart before his usual time, when the clock struck one. The Abbé had now done his best, and so applied to his bishop, to see what was to be done next. The bishop came; it was Dr. Poynter, who is since dead. (For the Parterre). At the right time, the bishop was ready THE PHILOSOPHY OF FAIRS. in his canonicals, and when the demon was first heard, he brandished a silver instrument similar to a butter boat, which was hung by a chain, and contained burning incense. As the fumes of the incense ascended, Dr. Poynter exclaimed, 66 Satan, I defy thee-Satan, I defy thee." But still it appeared that the demon regarded the bishop no more than he had done the Abbé before him. He continued to howl and to torment his unfortunate victim, as usual, till the clock struck one; after that night, neither the bishop nor the abbé came any more, they gave it up for a bad job. All this while, the two females were observed to pay very little attention to the demon and their unfortunate relative; they gave as a reason for their unconcern, that they were so used to the demon, that it really was nothing new, and besides, it was only for one hour in the night, and that was nothing to hurt any body. So they regularly went to bed at an early hour, and left the demon to the bishop and the abbé, and whom it might concern. The only cause that they knew of for the demon was, that the gentleman was involved in a chancery suit, and because he would not put in an answer to a bill which would dispossess him of his property, the other party had sent the demon to torment him till he did. They had the candour to acknowledge, certainly, that the property was none of his; but that whose ever it was, he would have nothing to live upon, if he put in his answer to the bill. So matters went on for some time longer; they regularly paid their landlady the rent, and one day went out for a walk, and to this day have never come back to the Vale of Health. Reader, thou now hast the whole story, and I will leave thee to judge for thyself. Some cunning fellows amongst the police, asserted that the gentleman was a ventriloquist, others said that if he was he was the most wonderful ventriloquist that ever yet appeared in this world, else how could he deceive such a highly learned man as the Catholic bishop was known to be? The women all said it was a real demon, and they say so still, and will surely continue so to say. My own notion is that he was a ventriloquist; but if thou think'st it was a real demon, why be it so, I will have my opinion, and thou shalt have thine. W. F. GENTLE reader! hast thou ever been a boy?-our inquisition is not intended to extort whether thy outward little man hath at any time been amenable to the iron rule of some uncivilized pedagogue. We desire not to know the extent of thy patronage of the old woman in a grey cloak, who, on each auspicious Saturday was wont to attend at the Academic gate, to pit (as it were) her confectionery temptations against thy potent weekly revenue. Far be it from us to intrude into the domestic sanctuary, and learn with what amaze dilated the parental orbs as they watched the aspiring progress, pair after pair, of " Kersey's inexpressibles," which lessened with thy growth and tightened with thy strength. No! we simply ask, hadst thou the unbridled spirit-the roving imagination—the everlaughing heart of puerility? Didst thou glory at the bumping of the old coppernosed beadle, by license of a beating of the bounds? Was thy passion for birds' nesting founded upon the pure disinterested risk of deranging thy incorrigible neck? With conscientious zeal hast thou maintained the privileges of a breaking up, by an energetic and painful exertion of voice-maiming of forms and an extravagant mimicry of thy liege's physical failings? And, above all, was thy conception of a fairy land realized in Hollybush Fair? Sweet dreams of boyhood! when a world of enchantment rose from a chaos of painted glass, and rapture grew at sight of that ingenious prism—the drop of a chandelier. Even now, when experience has confronted our mental vision with the cold spectacles of reality, and the snows of age lay whitening our venerable brow, we turn our fond retrospective glance to the spectre broken, that thronged the green hill of youth. Entombed are those visions in the twilight vault of memory, yet their epitaph is as legible upon our heart as though it were inscribed there but yesterday; and while we read, again expands above our head the blue summer sky, and again glows the hot noon-tide sun, and we catch the merry village bells that aforetime ushered in, the anniversary of Hollybush Fair. Reader! hast thou ever been a boy? then are we blessed; for thy lip curls not with high disdain at the prattling reminiscences of him who is now an old one. Giants What an eccentric production of intelligence is the abstract notion of a fair. An ostentation of white, scarlet and yellow, intoxicates the imagination; then comes a war of melody-the whole progeny of Jubal engaged in a reciprocal proclamation of hostilities, fills the generous bosom with feelings of martial enthusiasm, while critical taste is furnished with ample subjects of gratification in a thousand fantastic forms, to which the posture-master's flexible organization can be made subservient. All these things carry with them an ideal aspect. Then to widen the existing breach between fancy and truth, we find ourselves surrounded by a crew of the most savage abortions that an artist of celebrity is able to delineate. Pig-faced ladies become as familiar to us as a sprig of bachelor's-buttons. Deaths who, strange to behold, are not entirely devoid of bowels of compassion, walk from their charnel-houses with as much ronchalance as the beaux of Regent-street. look down upon us in scores; and Liliputians in the costume of gentlemen ushers, strut with so much importance as to make the greatest vanity of ordinary people dwindle into pitiable insignificance. Around us is a sea of headsthere an acute eye may discern a shallow, now a commotion is excited by the pur. suit of a shark-there it is very deep. Far off may be descried, replete with graphic sublimity, a band of those natural outlaws, to whom forest law is a dead letter-tigers, wolves, jackals, and bears, white, black, or both combined, seem ready to spring from the clouds and victimize their gaping admirers. Bold Robin Hood, the rightful sovereign of glen and of glade," suspends his ab. stemious jaws over a calf's head, whimsically yclept his keeper's, and while apparently wagging his regal tail, he tantalizes our anxiety with a sidelong glance of cunning complacency. And then, if. we turn our attention from the phenomena of four legs to their rivals upon two, what a wonderful people are the players!-they never die. By our hali. dom! the little man with a puffed and crying species of countenance, and a very hoarse voice, is as energetic in his appeals for public patronage as when his eloquence seduced a reluctant penny from its warm attachment to our juvenile palm, and gallantly compels us to acknowledge that the fat lady in a plaid scarf, is as beautiful a representation of a Scottish lassie as she was some five and twenty years ago. But fairs are not to be considered as affording only gratification to an imaginative mind: they take their stand on higher ground, and claim the attention of every student of natural curiosities. A player is by birth-right, a lusus naturæ. Some senatorial wag once characterized the knights of the buskin as outcasts of society. Had he gone farther (to Hollybush Fair for instance), he might with equal justice have denounced them as outcasts of humanity. Aptly may the eulogium be applied in this case, "Nature formed him, and then broke the mould." Such an incongruous combination of the physical elements can be found in no other class, productive or non-productive. It has often struck us that these singular men must have been made by contract. Eyes, noses, and arms, feet and calves, turned off by the gross, and hastily put together, with a reckless disregard of the "eternal fitness of things." Look at the pepperish Hotspur yonder, a stumpy pudding-faced fellow, with legs decidedly angular. There, parade a party of patriotic Romans, snuffing the zephyrs with a calm satisfaction of their legitimate dignity. But O! ye shades of the Cæsars! such delicate young men, with very clear skins and limbs fearfully fragile-so much so, that had they wandered into the ancient Forum, we feel persuaded that, disguised in a pile of dingy-white napkins, Cicero himself would have taken them for a bevy of immaculate vestals. One of these heroes has always attracted our particular regard. His dishevelled black tresses depending over a brow, inscribed with traits of a sentimental spirit, and telling "Of griefs that canker all the heart." while they harmonize with the pathetic wildness of his sunken optics, tend to heighten the effect of a manifestation of raw cheekbones. Poor fellow! for ten years past he has been in the last stage of a galloping-consumption; and noble Marc Anthony, in his equivocal-hued toga, still moves a sweet personification of the ghost of a chimney-sweeper's wife. Any intelligent person who wished to learn the capabilities of his corporeal machinery, should pay a visit to one of our equestrian establishments. Considered as a subject of anatomical interest, John Hunter's collection in Lincoln's-Inn-fields bears the same relation to Samwell's circus at Hollybush fair, as the board of an Italian imageman to the Statue Gallery of the British Museum. In fact, we have often wondered that medical students, in addition to walking the hospitals, have not been required to perambulate the fairs. Son of Hippocrates! if thou hast a heart of iron, look up and behold a couple of clever lads about to demonstrate the docility of human nature. Now, straddling till they make the spectators wince with a sympathetic anxiety for their well being now illustrating a spinal curvature-anon shouldering a leg with as much indifference as a soldier his arms; meanwhile ribs are so legible through their buff integument, as to warrant the presumption that these versatile gentlemen are sometimes under a painful necessity of meeting their importunate creditors in the shape of animated skeletons at some minor establishment. There is no end to the marvellous at fairs. A harlequin is seen not less remarkable for his agility than for a very conspicuous bunnion on his great toe, -leaning over a barrier, a stalwart form with an olive complexion, would make one believe he was as easy in his circumstances as he is doubtless independent in his principles. Now, how this individual contrived to get there, may be known to Governor Cope; but how he can muster up sufficient assurance to face a body of men, making the slightest pretensions to a knowledge of physiognomy, is one of those exclusive bits of information which can be known only to himself. Bow-street forefend us from this gentleman's society on Hounslow-heath after dark! Are you a connoisseur in the fine arts? At Hollybush fair you will find a splendid collection of wax work, wherein the most esteemed effigy (Harry the Eighth, of uxorious memory) may be seen, with his characteristic ferocity materially improved by a wall-eye. A thousand minor points of attraction peculiar to fairs we have not space to enumerate. We trust these desultory reflections will tend to strengthen the bonds of amity existing between our readers and these ancient legacies of our fun-loving forefathers. There is, how. ever, a pleasant little drama frequently enacted before the curtain, in which, as unprofessional persons are sometimes required to sustain a prominent part, it may be useful to give a slight description of its plot and leading incidents :→→→ A respectable middle-aged gentleman, fresh from the country, somewhat deficient in altitude, groans inwardly at be holding the partiality of nature in a couple of Life-Guardsmen, which for tune has maliciously planted between his eager organs of perception, and the amusements going forward on the outside of Richardson's show. Feeling for the moral debility of a crowd, he takes peculiar thought to secure five buttons of his bottle-green coat. "Ha, ha, ha!" exclaims a tall elegantly-made-up spark, in ecstasy at our hero's elbow. Ha, ha, ha!" iterates a parallel in gentility, pressing forward from behind to obtain a more extensive view of some laughtermoving exhibition. "What is it ?— what is it?" anxiously inquires the compressed little man from a very deep and dark abyss, exalting himself on tip-toe. A general rush, attended with lateral pressure, sufficiently intense to make mummies of mill-stones, carries the bottle-green off his legs in a vortex of consternation. One vagabond, averse to the aristocracy of hats, imprints upon our hero's a mark of plebeian disaffection, and his companion reduces it to a level with the wearer's chin. Emerging from his oppressive situation, the little gentleman naturally congratulates himself on coming off with such slight detriment to his personal property. Without question, the habit of precaution which prompted him to secure his buttons, alone prevented the abstraction of his pocket-book, and two five-pound Bank of England notes-an admirable piece of ingenuity, which has only been nullified by that purely legal process called docking an entail! The abridged retires from society with a monkey on his back, and bequeathing a cordial benediction to the author of this diabolical "Essay on Man.” |