Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

222

Sketches of Society-Religious Prejudices in India, &c.

upon, and killed beneath the fire. This sport finished, the Marshal, an officer so called, who, with many other different appellations, was created for the purpose of conducting the revels, placeth them in their several appointed places. "After the second course, the ancientest of the Masters of the Revels singeth a song, with the assistance of others there present;' and after some repose and revels, supper, consisting of two courses, is then served in the hall, and being ended, the Marshal presenteth himself with drums afore him, mounted upon a scaffold, borne by four men; and goeth three times round about the harthe, crying out aloud, Lord, a Lord,' &c. then he descendeth, and goeth to dance."

[blocks in formation]

' a

[ocr errors]
[blocks in formation]

The merry pastime, cried-Avaunt to care!
All-while cach slip a torfeit would incur,
(A slip that hardly left a lasting slur!)
With the same ardour as when childhood dawns,
Survey'd the accumulating store of pawns;
And all enjoy'd, with eyes that rapture beam'd,
The frolic penance that each pawn redeem'd-
Perhaps, self-doom'd to ply the gipsy's trade,
or through the gridiron kiss the kitchen maid,
Or, by a gentle metaphoric trick,
With cleaner lips salute the candlestick,
Or catch the elusive apple with a bound,
As with its taper it flew whizzing round,
Or, with the mouth half-diving to the neck,
Or, into wildness as the spirits work,
The splendid shilling' in a meal-tub seek,
Display a visage blacken'd o'er with cork,
Meantime, the geese-dance gains upon the sight
In all the pride of mimic splendour bright;
As urchin bands affect the pageant show,
In tinsel glitter, and in ribbons glow;

And pigmy kings with carnage stain their path,
Shake their cock-plumes, and lift their swords of
lath;

And great St George struts, valorous, o'er the
plain,

And boasts the trophies of the dragon slain;
And little dames their favouring smiles bestow
And father Christmas' bends his head of snow!
See Polwhele's Poems.

Which answers to the morris-dance.

From Buchanan's View of Religious

Prejudices in India.

[February 7. 1818,

and truly laudable exertions of some of our countrymen, who, although they pleaded in favour of humanity, their pleadings were at first not only disregarded, but received through prejudice as an insult: but the persevering character of Britons was not to be discouraged by obstacles: Colonel Walker did not desist from his humane purposes; he sought opportunities of informing the understandings of the people, in respect to the nature of the crime; when he discovered, it was generated by pride, avarice, and the alleged inferiority of woman: but by discussing the subject frequently in the Cutcherry (Court of Justice) and exposing the enormity of the practice, as contrary to religion and nature, every cast, at length, came to express an abhorrence of infanticide; and the obstinate principles of the Jarejahs began to be shaken. What was the result?

In the course of twelve months, several of the chiefs formally abjured the practices of infanticide, and were soon followed by the Jarejah tribes in general; shortly after, in 1808, these chiefs bound themselves, by a solemn engagement, so discontinue the prac

tice.

About the end of the year 1809, many of the Jarejah fathers brought AMONG the Hindoos (a people by their infant daughters to Col. Walker's no means ferocious, but rather of mild tent, and exhibited them with pride and and inoffensive habits) a shocking prac- fondness, their mothers and nurses also tice has prevailed during time immemo- attending on this interesting occasion. rial, of murdering their female infants, as The emotions of nature here exhibited, soon as they come into the world. The were extremely moving; the mothers number of females thus sacrificed, ac-placed their infants in the hands of cording to Buchanan, in the provinces Colonel Walker, calling on him to proof Cutch and Gazera, alone, was cal-tect what he alone had taught them to culated in 1807, at the lowest, to a-preserve. These infants they emphatimount to 3000 annually. The mother cally called his children. A Jarejah is generally the executioner, except chief, by name Huttajee, who had, conamong women of rank, whose slaves or trary to general practice, preserved his attendants perform the horrid office. daughters, brought them to the British Several methods are practised, one of camp to be vaccinated. They were which is, immediately after the birth then six or eight years of age, but they of a female, they put some opium into wore turbans, and were habited like its mouth; The destruction of so ten- boys, to avoid the taunts and reproaches der and helpless a subject, is effected of the people!As if afraid or ashamed without difficulty or without struggle. to acknowledge their sex, they assured In defence of this inhuman act, these the English," that they were not girls," tribes allege, that the education of and with infinite simplicity appealed to daughters is expensive-that it is diffi- their father to corrobate their assertion. cult to procure a suitable settlement of So strong have been the prejudices, them in marriage; and the preservation of female honour is a charge of solicitude to a family; and that when they want wives, it is more convenient to buy them, or solicit them from another cast, than to breed them themselves. This atrocity was brought to light by the benevolent

and so great the mental debasement of this people, that if, by any means, a female infant escaped a few years, she has been contemplated as a reproach to her cast. Another practice of barbarity, founded on the darkest superstition, is also noticed, that of sacrificing

February 7, 1818.]

Penal Laws against Dissenters-Perfectability of Man,

children in consequence of vows, or to appease the wrath of their deities-by drowning them in the fiver Ganges! or exposing them to sharks, crocodiles, &c. -In China and some other parts, infanticide is countenanced by the Government, on principles of wretched policy, to avoid the horrors of famine.

Sketch of the Penal Laws against the
Dissenters.

THE first law by which any person was bound to receive the sacrament according to the rites of the Anglican church, is that of the 3d James I. ch. 4. This was only intended against Papists; for Protestant dissenters did not then separate themselves from the established church, but occasionally conformed to her ritual. Bishop Stillingfleet dates the separation of the dissenters from the church, only from the time of Charles II's declaration of indulgence, issued 1691-2, when they began to build meeting-houses for themselves. The king's indulgence was granted to protect the Roman Catholics; but when parliament met, it opposed the tolerant spirit of Charles, and tacked to the bill of supplies the existing Test act. In the parliament were many dissenters; but their antipathy to Popery was so strong, that they consented to suspend their own rights, in order to prevent any restoration of the papal power.

The Test act provides, that every person who shall take any office, civil, or military, or shall receive any salary, pay, fee, or wages, by reason of any patent of his majesty, or shall be admitted into the family of his majesty, shall receive the sacrament of the Lord's Supper after the manner of the church of England, within three months after their admittance into the said office.

Any person convicted of offending against this act, is disabled from ever after suing in any court-from becoming guardian, executor, or administrator-from profiting by any legacy or deed of gift, or from bearing any office within England or Wales-and in addition to these incapacities, is to forfeit L.500. Non-commissioned officers in the navy, petty constables, overseers of the poor, and such like small offices, are exempted from the operation of the

bill.

After this act came the act of Uniformity, which compelled two thousand ministers, who could not comply with the tests it required, to quit their livings.

223

In 1673, a bill was brought in to dis- and expansion. The public mind can tinguish between Protestants and Ca- bear but one crop at a time, and the tholics, but was lost by the prorogation production best suited to the season of parliament. In 1678-9, a test was and immediate state of the soil springs provided, which admitted Protestant up spontaneously from seeds long before dissenters into parliament, but excluded deposited on the surface. Catholics. Next year the same bill was lost by the same means. Two other bills of the same nature were lost by the same means in 1680.

The high authority of King William a repeal of the Corporation and Test was unsuccessfully employed to procure

acts.

We are led to make these reflections by meeting with an anticipation of a very remarkable modern opinion. The doctrine of the perfectability of human society, as supported by Godwin, Conschool, in a political author of the last dorcet, and other writers of the same century, in whose peaceful pages it has lain till now, unnoticed. The passage in which it is found, is contained in a tract by Sir William Petty, entitled, after showing how much the nation "Verbum Sapienti," where the author, might be enriched by a small addition to the industry of the labouring class, House of Commons for the repeal of" When should we rest from this great In 1735 a motion was made in the proceeds to ask himself the question, the Tests, and was lost by 251 to 123. industry ?" To which he answers,

In 1711 an act passed requiring all persons who should accept of offices, not only to take the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, but to conform strictly to the worship of the church of England during all the time they held them. In 1718 this act was repealed.

In 1739, on the same motion being renewed, the numbers were 188 to 89. In 1787, the majority against the dissenters was 78; in 1789, only 20; but in 1790 they were repulsed by a great majority, and since that period no stir has been made by the Protestants to recover their former privileges.

" When we have certainly more money than any of our neighbour's states, (though never so little) both in arithmetical and geometrical proportion, i.e. when we have more years provision aforehand, and more present effects."

"What then, (he again enquires) shall we busy ourselves about? I answer, in ratiocinations upon the works and will of God, to be supported not

Origin of the Doctrine of the Perfecta-only by the indolency, but also by the

bility of Man.

There is no species of research more amusing, or indeed more instructive, than to trace the origin and progress of those great leading ideas which successively engage the attention of mankind at different periods, and pass from à merely speculative existence, to a state of practical influence on the concerns of life. The usual effect of this exercise is greatly to diminish the sense of novelty in regard to opinions, and alis no such thing as pure invention, either most to produce a conviction that there in art or science.

pleasure of the body; and not only by the tranquillity, but serenity of the mind; and this exercise is the natural end of man in this world, and that which best disposeth him for his spiritual happiness in that which is to come. of the mind being the quickest of all The motions others, afford most variety, wherein is the very form and being of pleasure; and by how much the more we have of this pleasure, by so much the more we are capable of it, even ad infinitum."

cal Justice," it is unnecessary to point To those who have read the "Politistances of what are called new doctrines tion bears to the fundamental proposiWe find so many in-out the close affinity which this quotadistinctly stated by old writers, that we tions of that work; but it must be alare apt at last to call in question the best lowed, that Mr Godwin greatly outdoes founded claims to the merit of discovery. Sir William in the length to which he The fact seems to be, that the germs of carries his principle, as he conceives all kinds of ideas are at all times to be that one half hour's labour in the day, found in the human mind, if not indi- faithfully performed by each individual, vidually, at least collectively, much in would suffice for the supply of all our the same way as the seeds of vegetable bodily wants, and consequently leaves and animal life exist invisibly in the us more ample leisure for intellectual atmosphere; and that only a favour-occupation and enjoyment. To make able conjunction of circumstances is any remark on the absurdity of a whole wanted to call them forth into vigour nation retiring from the world, either to

224

Perfectability of Man-Case of Harriet Sadler. religious or philosophical contempla- | Curran and Phillips, and the eloquence tion, is happily now superfluous, al- of the Irish bar, the following speech, though but a few years have elapsed which was some time ago delivered by since it was necessary to treat it as a Counsellor North, in the Court of Comserious question. In the age of Sir mon Pleas, Dublin, will be read with William Petty, the speculation seems to great interest, not less on account of the have been equally harmless, as it does subject, than from the strength and not appear that any attention was paid feeling displayed by the speaker in his to it by his contemporaries, or by him- eloquent address. self in his subsequent writings.

The action was brought by a Mrs Plowman, to recover compensation from a veteran in vice," of the name of Watson, for the maintenance of a young woman, Harriet Sadler, whom he had clandestinely married, and afterwards deserted.

It is a much more pleasant task, how ever, to follow the progress of truth" than of error, and when a new and important principle has been discovered, to look back, and observe the brilliant light which it throws round it, illuminating the obscure places of science, and "The plaintiff in this action is a wimaking that plain to the meanest which dow lady of advanced years; of that once perplexed the most exalted under- middle station of life, which, upon the standings. In regard to the science of confines of both conditions, while it is political economy, to which the fanci- not entirely exempted from those ruder ful notion abovementioned properly be- wants that assail the lowest orders of longs, one of those dark corners cer- the community, is also keenly susceptitainly was all that concerns the doctrine ble of those profounder injuries, that, of population, before the appearance of in the upper walks of society, are susMr Malthus's work; and it affords a cu- tained by highly cultivated affections rious instance of the disposition before and a refined sensibility. In the year mentioned, that the originality of that 1805, this respectable woman resided author's views has been denied by some in the Crescent, on the Clontarf road, of his opponents, upon the ground of and, for the purpose of increasing the the various scattered hints on the sub-resources of her narrow income, resortject which are to be met with in pre-ed to the expedient of letting lodgings. ceding writers."

Her daughter lived within a few doors of her in the same buildings-a widow, also the mother of a numerous family, happy till their acquaintance with the defendant. It was in the summer of the year 1805, that the defendant was received into the house of the plaintiff in the capacity of a lodger;-a gentleman of more than 60 years of age, of considerable property, it has been stated to be full L.1500 a-year, a father, and I believe, too, a father of daughters. There was at this time in the plaintiff's family another inmate, to whom I must now introduce you, the foremost figure in this pathetic picture

To men of philosophical habits, how ever, the wonder is, how any thing approaching so nearly to a perfect disco very could have been produced on a subject relating so immediately to the first concerns of society; and, perhaps, in the whole compass of human knowledge there is not such another instance to be found. But the true criterion of the degree of praise due to Mr Malthus, is to observe the manner in which the ablest writers before his time treated questions connected with that principle, of which it is said they were in such complete possession. Examined by this test, his merits will be found to the principal character in this melanbe of the first order; and they are the choly tragedy,-a young creature,-a more remarkable on this account, that woman I can scarcely call her,-17 the subject on which he has displayed years of age, then Harriet Sadler, since such high philosophical powers, is one Mrs Watson, the defendant's victim and apparently little adapted to the genius his wife. At this period she presented of the English nation, which has always to every well constituted mind an obabounded in the shallow race of politi-ject of pleasing and benevolent interest, cal arithmeticians, but never before produced a political economist.

E.

Case of Miss Harriet Sadler. As a great deal of discussion has lately taken place about Counsellors

growing up to womanhood in the shade and protection of her aged guardian, whom she relieved in the decline of life from the anxiety of household cares, by the ready and diligent performance of those small domestic duties, in which a young person of her sex and station is

[February 7. 1818.

ever most becomingly employed. Under another aspect, and it appears to have been that in which the defendant beheld her, she was yet more profoundly interesting. Arrived at that critical season of life, when a young woman holds forth to the spoiler the double temptation of her beauty and her weakness; when she is most inviting and most unprotected; when the fearless, unsuspecting heart gives a ready admission of affection and regard, ere it has learned the difficult lesson of distrust, and, judging from its own innocence, is all incredulous of iniquity,surrendered with a youthful, yielding ardour, to every fine enchantment, and folded in the golden tresses of each lovely hope! This beautiful and affecting scene of domestic happiness seems not to have been lost on the defendant. He appears to have had a full taste and relish for all the various prospects it afforded,-it happy views of felicity in every gradation of human existence ! He saw and admired, as Satan admir. ed our first parents in paradise,-he congratulated himself on the discovery he had made of a singular instance of sublunary enjoyment! A grandmother, a mother, and a daughter, mingling in their race and happy union all the sour ces of tenderness and regard, indulging in the exercises of all the offices of kin dred love; imparting to each other the beams of kindly affection; interchanging, communicating, multiplying, the effluxes of bliss! He saw, and he conceived the resolution of tearing asunder this fine tissue of love, and blasting in one common ruin the happiness of three generations! With every member of this interesting family the defendant cultivated a close and intimate friendship. The reverence of the plaintiff he commanded by the repeated lessons of piety, and he obtained her respect by the perpetual maxims of prudence that were ever flowing from his lips. These lessons and these maxims he had but too frequent opportunities of inculcating on the mind of his young pupil. This young housekeeper was in the habit of repairing to town three or four times in the week, to purchase neces saries for the family. The defendant found it convenient that his occasions should call him there also. He gave her what is called his protection on the way, and availed himself of the advan tages this intercourse afforded. How a man of his years contrived to recom mend himself to a young girl of seven

January 7. 1818.[

Case of Heriot Sadler.

223

teen, the Author of our being only, the marriage will be established in evi-¡ his answer in his ear as evidence of the who has given it to us with all its sin- dence. The first of these is of an inte- marriage-conjured up the inquirer, gularities, weaknesses, and capacities, is resting nature. The oppressive secret, bearing testimony on this table; figured able to determine. Suffice it to say, already revealed to her mother, was to his apprehensive imagination the acthat he inflamed a quarrel between this now to be broken to Mrs Plowman. It cusing witness and the scrutinizing jury; poor child and her grandmother; and, was a Sunday morning. The old lady he shifted and evaded the question; he taking advantage of the irritation he had assembled her family at breakfast. scrupled and stammered; he did not had excited, while her kind and respect- The defendant was there by invitation. dare to say she was his wife;-" she able guardian was confined to the bed His wife in tears. The scene, which was a virtuous woman." I confidently of sickness, he persuaded her to a clan- you may imagine, I cannot describe. call this his second acknowledgment. destine marriage with himself! On the Mr Watson, (said the benevolent wo- The next is more decisive.- A direct subject of this marriage he enjoined his man,) if Harriet be your wife take her admission to the brother of his wife. wife to secrecy, as he asserts, by the to your own house,-if she be not your When a publication of the marriage sanction of an oath. To the fact of this wife, I shall not cease to cherish and was demanded from him, he pleaded marriage we shall offer you indubitable protect her!" What was the answer the fear of his family, entreated for posttestimony. But you naturally inquire of the defendant to this affecting ap. ponement, and solicited delay. "Why!" why it was to be kept secret? Gentle- peal? Attend, I beseech you, to his said the irritated brother," why did men, you shall hear. The defendant, reply. He took his wife under the you marry my sister?"-Marry her!" it seems, had other objects than the idle arm, and led her out from her former said the monster, "I married her to be pursuit of love,-objects more conson- home. This I beg leave to call his first my nurse! O God! there is something ant to his age. His amorous intrigue acknowledgment. Thus, then, he con- shocking in the disgusting contrast beturns out to have been but a mere un- ducted her from this dear and early tween the vigour of this man's vices, derplot in the vulgar drama of his ava- home, where she had conversed with and the feeblennss of his frame! It was rice. It is curious to observe how he propriety and prudence, where cheer- at this very moment that the poor vichad marshalled and disciplined his vices, fulness and young hope had been her tim bore to him a son,-the child of submitting each to each in bad subor- playmates, and innocence had led her misery, but, praised be God, not the dination, teaching his lust to minister onward in the easy paths of peace! child of sin! The admissions of the marto his cupidity, and sending out the ob- he led her forth, young pupil of adver- riage follow now in rapid succession ;scene jackall of the one to fetch in sity, to try her tender feet upon the notes upon notes directed to Mrs Watprey for the more voracious appetite of thorny ways of suffering and shame! son; letters upon letters signed "her the other! From the intimate know- unacquainted with sorrow, unpractised loving husband." At one time, he even ledge he had acquired of the plaintiff's in pain: new to the throes of a first la- promised to her uncle a sight of the affairs, he discovered that she possessed bour, struggling with "the mind's im- certificate. But this is not all. Long the power of making a liberal settlement patience and the body's need," nature after, when his wife had returned to on her grand-daughter. On this settle-began to sink under the accumulated the arms of her grandmother, ever open ment the defendant set his heart, and to receive her darling child, by her painsisted on the concealment of the marthetic solicitations she procured from riage for the purpose of its accomplishthe defendant, in some lucid interval of ment, which he feared might be defeatfeeling and nature, an avowal of the ed by a disclosure. Accordingly, he marriage, addressed to the plaintiff, and now earnestly laboured to effect his fato be communicated to her alone. vourite project. Professing a parent's be sure it is not conceived in the spirit anxiety for the welfare of Miss Sadler, of peace and conciliation; to be sure it (the undiscovered Mrs Watson,) he is rude and laconic, and has the impress enlarged on the advantages of a liberal of that savage disposition, rough even portion, painted in fascinating colours in its relentings;-but such as it is, it the crowd of suitors who would be atshall be shewn to you. There is a cirtracted by the report of fortune, amongst cumstance which, I am aware, will be whom the young lady and her friends brought forward on the opposite side, might select the character best adapted with studied and elaborate display, as to insure her future felicity! At this great matter of confidence and triumph, time he left the Crescent for Nenagh, and which I shall state to you, therewhere his property lay, and continued fore, as broadly and as nakedly as the to press the important point of the setcounsel for the defendant can require. tlement by letters. At Nenagh he reIt is simply this. When this unfortumained till recalled by the pressing sonate victim, stricken beneath this double lícitations of his wife, who was now in and returning stroke of calamity, was the last stage of her pregnancy, and in a state of slow convalescence, her could no longer conceal from her friends husband presented to her a written disher afflicting situation. In April 1807, avowal of the marriage, which he prethe defendant returned to town. Here vailed upon her to subscribe. I am will commence the long series of acpersuaded there is no occasion to comknowledgments on his part, by which mune with you on this subject. I do

distress, and was ready prematurely to
disengage her from that burthen---to
the honoured and admired matron so
pleasing even in her pangs, and which
is yet more her pride than it is her pain!
In this state a humane tradesman re-
ceived her, while her husband sought a
lodging and a midwife. I am brought
now to what I do not hesitate to call
his second acknowledgment. The good
lady who let him the lodgings, a Mrs
Montague, I think, inquired, as I sup-
pose is the ceremony upon these occa-
sions, the character of her intended
guest. Now, I ask you the question,
as men who are not without the frailties
and errors of our common nature; sup-
posing there had existed between the
defendant and this unhappy woman, no
more sacred tie than the bad bond of
their own mutual vices,-do you ima-
gine that he would have hesitated for a
moment to smooth for her the bed of
travail by a direct assertion, whether
true or false, that she was his wife?
Indeed he made no such assertion. His
guilty conscience dared not to make it.
It took the alarm at the inquiry-rung

To

226

Thoughts on Various Subjects.

[February 7. 1818.

not believe that it is necessary to press | no! it is not the poor pittance of dama- in the lowest state, has no pleasure but you on this point. I am here a young ges you may award her this day that those of sense, and no wants but those and unexperienced advocate-I am, the plaintiff solicits at your hands! She of appetite; afterwards, when society above all things, apprehensive that I demands at this tribunal the honour of is divided into different ranks, and some should not do justice to my client; but her child-she calls upon justice to re- are appointed to labour for the support } declare to God I do not think it ne- buke, once more, this veteran in vice, of others, those whom their superiority cessary. Why, the approved wisdom as his crimes have brought down her sets free from labour, begin to look for of our law refuses all authority to the grey hairs in sorrow to the grave! Per- intellectual entertainments. Thus, while acts of the honoured and acknowled-haps he may yet understand this rebuke; the shepherds were attending their ged wife, living in the sunshine of her perhaps he may yet regard this second flocks, their masters made the first ashusband's affection, and who has wit- admonition! He may obey the au- tronomical observations; so music is nessed no anger but "the graver coun-thoritative mandate of the law, though said to have had its origin from a man at tenance of love," because it is humane- he has not listened to the gentle whis- leisure, listening to the strokes of a hamly jealous even of his amiable and hon-perings of nature. He may yield from mer. ourable influence. What credit then his churlish hoards the means of sub- It is an old observation that there is would you give to the forced disavowal sistence to the child he has deserted nothing new under the sun; and those of this poor victim-extorted from her and the wife he has betrayed, and sup- who are accustomed to regard slight by the tyrant who seemed to hold the ply at least the necessities of life, building as an offence of very recent strings of her destiny in his hands where he has for ever destroyed its date, are corrected by the following who appeared commissioned from heav comfort and its consolation! When extract from "A brief and merry Hisen to deal out to her, her lot of suffer- this case was first committed to my tory of Great Britain," published many ing-who at 17 years of age had snat care, I felt grieved as for a national dis- years ago. Speaking of the metropolis, ched her from her mother's lap, and grace. In this land I had conceived the author says,- The ground is exfrom her grandmother's embrace, and its occurrence scarcely possible. I had tremely dear, so that people make the hurried her away to sorrow, to suffer-imagined that cruelty and avarice at most of it. They take it commonly for ing, and to shame! Why, he had broken least were excluded from the catalogue a time certain, ten, twenty, or thirty her mind as well as her heart! She was of Irish vices. I had flattered myself, years, perhaps, and calculate things as much an involuntary agent in his that, however we might have made our- with so much exactness that the buildhand, as the mere material pen with selves the scorn and contempt of sur-ings seldom stand much longer. But which she scrawled the disavowal. She rounding nations by our weak and wick- they are sometimes out in their calculastood before him a poor subdued maniac ed party animosities, still within the do- tions, and 'tis common to see some of in the presence of her keeper! O yes! mestic circle all was peace, and purity, these daring accomptants crushed to give him all the benefit of this disavow- and confidence, and honour! I had pieces by houses that drop before the al!--Bear with me a little longer, hoped that if my country could not end of the time limited. The buildings are while I present this case to you in boast of commercial greatness, or liter-spacious, have fair outsides, and are another point of view. Suppose that ary honours, or national pre-eminence goodly to look into; but, at the latter the defendant should establish his case: still it was her glory that her gener- end of the year, when the weather --suppose that he should fully disprove the fact of the marriage-how then stands his defence?-What is it? It is this.Foul and abominable seduction --seduction of a young girl of 17! The defendant pleads, that at 60 years of age, like a canker in the blossom of the spring, he ate away this young and tender heart-that he coiled this pure and spotless child, just fresh from the hands of her Creator, into the folds of his Sir James Mackintosh, in one of his own loathsome and languid lusts-and addresses, has stated the following fact, endeavoured to unite her, whom heaven on the authority of a clergyman at Manhad separated from him by the interval chester:-Examining the registers of of half a century, in the dreadful part- the collegiate church for the last six nership of eternal perdition! This is years, viz. from January 1st, 1807, to his defence, if it should avail him! And the 31st of December 1812, it was found if it should not, what say you to the from the signatures, that so many as wretch who comes into a court of jus-9756 persons had been married within tice, in the open day, and in the face of that period, who were not able to write an indignant world, to blast the reputa- their own names. tion of his wedded wife-to tarnish and slander that honour that should be cherished in the recesses of his heart, and in the vindication of which he should be ready to pour forth his blood! No,

ous children married not for avarice, or
vanity, or lust-that she had amply
merited the milder or the happier fame,
that all her wives were chaste, and all
her husbands were affectionate !"
It is scarcely necessary to mention, that the
jury found a verdict for the plaintiff.

Thoughts on Various Subjects,
Anecdotes, &c.

proves tempestuous, as in the months of November and December, the most wary and prudent of the inhabitants generally quit their dwellings, whilst others, more daring and presumptuous, even continue in them at that season!"

In DUGDALE'S Monasticon Anglicanum, of which an edition of only 350 subscribed copies was lately published by the Rev. B. BANDINEL, we find this curious item in an account of the Glastonbury Monastery." Item, paid to Barnes, a goldsmith, for newe trymynge of an image of golde ofthe Faither of Heven. withoute a backe and a foote, garnished with course stones, lackinge one stone upon his breest, weing xxvi. unces. Signed by Henry VIII. of whose writing a fac simile is given.

"One

Taylor, the water poet, says, Sir Joshua Reynolds beautifully takes William Boonen, a Dutchman, brought advantage of a classical tradition, to il-first the use of coaches hither, and the lustrate and enforce the doctrine he was said Boonen was Queen Elizabeth's laying down. He observes that " Man, coachman, for indeed a coach was a

« AnteriorContinuar »