each shot the comrade before him, the last shooting himself. Two sons of general Wedel, the Prussian, were among the victims. This was said to be the sole act of Napoleon; those young sol diers were subjects of Prussia, and amenable only to their own sovereign. A translation of a popular song, of which Schill is the hero, will be found in our Poetical selections. AUTHENTIC ANECDOTES of the late Rev. Dr. BARRETT, Vice-Provost of Trinity College, Dublin. The subject of this memoir was born in Dublin, in the year 1753, and was the son of a clergyman in rather confined circumstances. After receiving the usual rudiments of a classical education, he entered college about the year 1773, as a non-decremented pensioner; and passing through the usual routine of preliminary instructions, he obtained a fellowship in 1778. In 1791, he became a member of the senior board, and in 1792, librarian, having enjoyed the office of assistant during the preceding eight years. His habits, at all times retired, became decidedly cenobitical before he had passed his prime. Until the last twenty years, however, he occasionally ventured beyond the walls of the college, to dine with a gentleman of the Irish bar to whom he was much attached, but always on the express condition that there should be no ladies present. After he relinquished this antiascetic indulgence, he became a voluntary prisoner, never passing the college gate, except when he happened to be appointed one of the Lent preachers, and when he went to the Bank to receive the interest on his myriad of debentures. These were, indeed, so numerous, that the clerks, relying on his integrity, and shrinking from the Herculean task themselves, gladly allowed him to mark . them himself. One of the junior fellows (at present in the enjoy. ment of a college living) has been known to borrow a debenture, in order to have an excuse for accompanying the doctor to the Bank, and witnessing the operation. Once, and once only, was he known to undertake a long journey; and that was on the occasion of a law-suit relative to college property, which obliged him to transplant himself to the county of Kerry, one of the most remote parts of Ireland, and to him an ultima Thule. He usually walked in the Fellows' garden, the park, or the courts of the college, encumbered with the weight of his entire wardrobe, consisting of a coat, vest, and breeches (brown in reality, but by courtesy black), a shirt (black in reality, but by courtesy white), hose, and no cravat. At home he sat constantly without the coat, the waistcoat being furnished with sleeves. On the occasion of a fellowship. examination, his appearance was very remarkable, and it was no easy matter to become convinced of his identity; for he never failed to wash his hands and face on such occasions, and vacancies occur in Dublin college almost every year, or at least every two years. This phenomenon, added to the assumption of a clean gown (which, however, he always exchanged for the old and unctuous one on removing from the theatre or examination-hall to the commons'hall), improved his exterior so much, that he might actually have passed for a handsome old man. That the erudition of Dr. Barrett should be almost without a parallel might be expected from his habits of complete seclusion, added to a memory of a power little short of miraculous, even in matters the most trivial. The following anecdote was related by sir Charles Ormsby, a barrister, some years deceased:-This gentleman, having occasion to call upon him after a lapse of twenty years, during which the doctor had never seen him, was not only addressed by name, but by his college designation: "Ormsbyprimus-how-do-ye-do?" Another gentleman, who had entered college on the same day, nearly forty years ago, took occasion, although unacquainted, to visit him during his last illness, and was inmediately accosted with " Aye, you're H*******-you enthered college-the same day with meI-got-first-place, and-you-got-eleventh." Of the limited range of enjoyments to which the viceprovost was necessarily restricted from his habits of monachism those of the table were not the least prominent. In drinking he was remarkably abstemious, but his manducating propensities developed themselves in no equivocal manner. Faithful to the commons' bell, he opened his hall-door at three o'clock every day, and the ceremony of closing it was so attractive in the eyes of those disposed to gratify their risible inclinations, that groups might frequently be observed as sembled in the court for the purVOL. LXIII. pose of witnessing the complicated process. After pulling the door to, he used to swing from the handle for the space of some seconds, and then run a tilt against the pannels, almost in the manner of a battering-ram, until he became satisfied by the result of repeated ordeals that no straggler about college could gain admission without co-operation from within. He then tucked up the skirts of his gown, and, in a pace rapid for a man of his years, proceeded across the court towards the dining-hall. On one occasion, many years since, some mushrooms were served up in a very scanty quantity, as they were only just coming into season. The vice-provost devoured them all; and some of the fellow-commoners, indignant at the appropriation, were determined to punish him. A whisper accordingly began to circulate that the mushrooms had been of a rather suspicious appearance, and most probably of a deleterious nature. When the buzz, thickening as it approached the head of the table, reached the ears of the viceprovost, his agony was extreme, and his cries for assistance not to be withstood. A draught of oil was accordingly procured, which he was obliged to swallow as an emetic, and the triumph of the avengers was complete. In wit and repartee he was by no means deficient. One day, at commons, Mr. one of the junior fellows, distinguished for his classical attainments, took occasion to ask the doctor, in a bantering tone, how he would translate the opening of Cæsar's Commentaries, Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres, and instantly received the following retort:2 U "Why-I-suppose-I'd-say-All man, he walked slowly up the Gaul is quarthered into three library, the doctor turned to me halves, Misther A jib and said "See-how-slow-the(or new-comer in college), unac- rascal-comes." By this time the quainted with the person of the priest, still unrecognized, was vice-provost, dazzled his cyes one within a few paces, when Dr. day with a looking-glass, upon Barrett, looking full in his face, which the doctor having detected pronounced, in accents of castthe delinquent, fined him and his iron, or rather bell-metal :brother ten shillings each for cast- "Can't-you-conthrive-to-walk ing reflections on the heads of the a little-slower?" When convinced college. of his mistake, he made no sort of apology to the clergyman, but poked his head as before into the catalogue, which he had been consulting as it lay upon the table. His regularity in attending to college business was extreme. It is on record, that a poor soldier was once near undergoing a flogging, in consequence of the neglect of some duty while absorbed in the perusal of baron Munchausen. Tom Jones was more fatal to Jacky Barrett (the doctor's familiar designation throughout college). One baleful day, his attention was so engrossed by the adventures of the hero above-mentioned, that he actually forgot, until too late, to repair to the college chapel (where he was reader for the week), and thereby incurred the penalty of seven shillings. Although naturally shrewd, his simplicity was at times remarkable. Benson (himself a character) and the doctor were standing one day at the same side of the oblong library table, when the former was desired by the latter to put (u as in but) a book into one of the shelves in a stall at the other side of the table, and exactly opposite to the place where they were standing. The porter, being obliged to walk round, took the book with him, a To the usages of polished so heavy tome, from the vice-prociety he was of course a stranger. vost's hand, laid it upon the table, One day a contemporary of his and slowly commenced his circame into the library, and grasped cuit. The doctor, not perceiving his hand in a manner rather too the drift of his movements, vocicordial for his capacity of phy- ferated after him:-" How-cansical endurance. "Why-do-you- you-put-up-the-book-without squeeze-wan's-hand-so?" he eja- the book?"-" I'm goin, sir,” anculated-you-put-me-to-pain." swered the porter, without turning On another occasion he called his head. "But-how-can-you"Bensin," (Benson, the li- put-up-the-book-without the brary porter) at the instant in book?" bellowed the dignitary, which a venerable Roman Catho- with continually increasing choler. lic clergyman was entering the "I'm goin, sir," growled the immilibrary. From the distance, and tigable Benson, without mending the circumstance that this gen- his pace. The outcries of the tleman was uncovered, he was vice-provost, who was now almost mistaken by Dr. Barrett for the foaming with rage, were in vain. porter; and as, being an infirm Benson, with imperturbable gra vity moved on, until, having completed his orbit, he coolly lifted the volume from the table, and deposited it in its place, leaving the astonished vice-provost convinced of the practicability of putting up a book without a book. While he was once examining a class of graduates, in the Hebrew Psalter, one of them, being insufficiently prepared, was prompted by his neighbour. It was the 114th psalm that he was endeavouring to translate, and he had got as far as "the mountains skipped like rams," when the professor perceived what was going forward, and interrupted the proceeding with the following most extraordinary adversative propoEsition: "Why-the-mountainsskipped-to-be-sure-but, sir you're promptin." Not long before his death, he put the question to Mr. who was sitting with him, which of the fellows would be sorryest for him, in the event of his dying? Mr. replied, that he, for one, would be sorry, and that he was confident the feeling would be general. "Aye,-but-who'll tbe-sorryest?—I'll-tell-you-who'll be-sorryest-It'll be Tom —, for-he'll-lose-nine-hundhert - guiEneas." To explain this, it may be necessary to mention, that the situation of senior lecturer for the ensuing year (the emoluments of which are estimated at about 1,000l.) would have reverted to Dr. "" had the vice-provost survived a few days longer. In consequence of his demise it devolves upon Dr. senior fellow. the new A cause of considerable im+portance to the university of Dublin was decided against the lord primate, on the evening of last Thursday, a few hours after the death of Dr. Barrett. He was sitting in his arm chair, attended by his nurse and college-woman, and conversing with them on the subject of the law-suit, when the hand of death seized him. He hung down his head, and departed as composedly as Hervey. So little aware was he of the proximity of his decease, that he had, a short time before, ordered a beef-steak pye for dinner. His disease was a dropsy, and he died in the 69th year of his age. He left the porter of the university a handsome bequest. This was a debt of gratitude. About ten or twelve years since, some workmen conspired to murder and rob the vice-provost, and had actually removed some slates from the roof of his building, in order to gain admission by night. The plot was detected and prevented by the activity of the head porter, who ever after watched over him with unremitted vigilance, and was, in fact, notwithstanding the difference of rank, his most confidential friend up to his last moments. The bulk of his property, amounting to something between eighty and a hundred thousand pounds, he has left, as he expresses it in his will, "to feed the hungry, and clothe the naked." The published works of Dr. Barrett are three in number : 1. An Enquiry into the Origin of the Constellations that compose the Zodiac, and the Uses they were intended to promote. 2. An Essay on the Earlier Part of the Life of Swift. 3. Evangelium secundum Matthæum ex Codice Rescripto in Bibliothecâ Collegii SS Trinitatis Juxta Dublin. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF MRS. INCHBAld. Mrs. Elizabeth Inchbald was the daughter of Mr. Simpson, a respectable farmer at Staningfield, near Bury, Suffolk. She was born in 1756, and at an early age was remarkable for the beauty of her person, and a particular fondness for reading. Losing her father in her infancy, Miss Simpson was left under the care of her mother, who continued to occupy the farm. Her natural predilection for books soon induced her to form a romantic idea of visiting the metropolis, and finding that step discountenanced by her family, she eloped from them in Feb. 1772. After experiencing a variety of incidents, she attracted the notice of a performer of Drury-lane, who learning her situation, recommended her to the stage, and offered to instruct her, in spite of an impediment in her speech. She soon, however, ascertained that his designs were far from being honourable, and accordingly applied to the manager of the Bristol theatre. She next applied to Mr. Inchbald, with whom she had become acquainted, and who recommended her to a theatrical friend; her confidence in her new patron was however soon destroyed, and indignant at his dishonourable proposals, she hastened to Mr. Inchbald, who, endeavouring to soothe her sorrow, was married to her in a few days. Mr. Inchbald first introduced his wife on the stage at Edinburgh, where she continued four years. In consequence of the appearance of Mrs. Yates, she quitted Edinburgh for York; but her health declining, she and her husband went to France, where she stayed about a year, and two years after her return to England in 1779, Mr. Inchbald died. She now returned to London, and continued to act four years at Covent-garden theatre. She next visited Dublin, on quitting which place she returned to Covent-garden theatre, where she continued to perform for some time, but retiring from the stage, she devoted her attention to dramatic writing, and in 1784, produced a farce called the Mogul Tale, the success of which induced her to go on, and she soon completed a comedy called "I'll tell You What," which ultimately met with great success. The tide of Mrs. Inchbald's fortune now began to turn; and in 1789, she quitted the stage, and afterwards depended on her literary labours, which being of the first order of merit, she became a great public favourite. Her successive works obtained great popularity, and many of them yielded considerable emolument. The following is a list nearly in the order of their publication:-Appearances Against Them - the Widow's Vow-Such Things Are the Midnight Hour-All on a Summer's Day-Animal Magnetism— the Child of Nature-the Married Man-the Hue and CryNext-door Neighbours-Young Men and Old Women-Every One has His Fault-the Wedding Day-Wives as they were, and Maids as they are-Lover's Vows, altered from Kotzebue-Wise Man of the East-and, To Marry or Not to Marry, all of which appeared between 1785 and 1805. |