Kitabı oku: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 19, No. 534, February 18, 1832», sayfa 6

"Very different from this quieter scene, was the one that presented itself, on my getting through the last street, and reaching the water-side. The comet itself seemed to have come to earth, and to be burning and waving in one's face, the whole city being its countenance, and its hair flowing towards Whitehall in a volume of fiery smoke. The river was of a bloodish colour like the flame, and the sky over head was like the top of a pandemonium. From the Tower to St. Paul's there was one mass of fire and devastation, the heat striking in your eyes, and the air being filled with burning sparkles, and with the cries of people flying, or removing goods on the river. Ever and anon distant houses fell in, with a sort of gigantic shuffling noise, very terrible. I saw a steeple give way, like some ghastly idol, its long white head toppling, and going sideways, as if it were drunk. A poor girl near me, who paced a few yards up and down, holding her sides as if with agony, turned and hid her eyes at this spectacle, crying out, 'Oh, the poor people! oh the mothers and babies!' She was one of the lowest of an unfortunate class of females. She thought, as I did, that there must be a dreadful loss of lives; but it was the most miraculous circumstance of that miraculous time, that the fire killed nobody, except some women and infirm persons with fright.

"I took boat, and got to Whitehall, where I found the King in a more serious and stirring humour than ever I saw him. Mr. Pepys, begging God to forgive him for having an appetite at such a crisis, and interrupting his laughter at the supper they gave him, with tears of pity and terror, had brought word to his Majesty that the whole city would be destroyed, if some of the houses were not blown up. The King accordingly not only dispatched myself and many others to assist, but went in person with his brother, and did a world of good. I never saw him look so grim, or say so many kind things. Wherever he went, he gave the people a new life, for they seemed dead with fright. Those who had not fled, (which they did by thousands into the fields where they slept all night,) seemed only to have been prevented from doing so, by not knowing what steps to take. The Lord Mayor, a very different one from his predecessor, who showed a great deal of courage during the plague, went about like a mad cook with his handkerchief, perspiring, and lamenting himself; and nobody would have taken the citizens for the same men who settled my court friends at the battle of Naseby. The court, however, for that matter, was as frightened as the city, with the exception of the King and one or two others; so terrible is a new face of danger, unless there is some peculiar reason for meeting it. The sight indeed of the interior of the burning city, was more perilous, though not so awful, as its appearance outside. Many streets consisted of nothing but avenues between heaps of roaring ruins; the sound of the fire being nothing less than that of hundreds of furnaces, mixed up with splittings, rattlings, and thunderous falls; and the flame blowing frightfully one way, with a wind like a tempest. The pavement was hot under one's feet; and if you did not proceed with caution, the fire singed your hair. All the water that could be got seemed like a ridiculous dabbling in a basin, while the world was burning around you. The blowing up of the houses marked out by the King, was the ultimate salvation of some of the streets that remained; but as a whole, the city might be looked upon as destroyed. I observed the King, as he sat on his horse at the beginning of Cheapside, and cast his eyes up that noble thoroughfare; and certainly I had never seen such an expression in his countenance before.

"The fire raged four days and nights; and on the fifth of September, London, from the Tower to Fleet-street, was as if a volcano had burst in the midst of it, and destroyed it, the very ruins being calcined, and nothing remaining in the most populous part, to show the inhabitants where they had lived, except a church here and there, or an old statue. I looked into it, three days afterwards, when the air was still so hot, that it was impossible to breathe; and the pavement absolutely scorched the soles of my shoes.

"The loss of property by the fire was of course far greater than that by the plague, and yet assuredly it was not felt a thousandth part so much, even in the city; for money, even with the lovers of it, is not so great a thing, after all, as their old habits and affections. The wits at court never chose to say much about the plague; but the fire, after the fright was over, was a standing joke. And the beneficial consequences to the city itself soon became manifest, in the widening and better building of the streets, an improvement which came in aid of the cleanliness that was resorted to against the plague; so that instead of a judgment against the King and his government, Rochester said, in his profane way, that heaven never showed a judgment of a better sort."

We need scarcely add our commendation of these delightful volumes. Each page teems with life, and everywhere to use an expression of the writer, his "soul rises with springy freshness." The portraits, and to use a familiar term of artists, the bits of painting, have the touches of a master-hand, and they are interwoven with genius which enlivens art and embellishes nature.

THE GATHERER

AN ODD STORY

About 150 years since, there was in France one Captain Coney, a gallant gentleman of ancient extraction, and Governor of Coney Castle. He fell in love with a young gentlewoman and courted her for his wife. There was reciprocal love between them, but her parents, understanding it, by way of prevention, shuffled up a forced match between her and one Mr. Fayel, who was heir to a great estate. Hereupon Captain Coney quitted France in discontent, and went to the wars in Hungary against the Turks, where he received a mortal wound, near Buda. Being carried to his quarters he languished four days, but a little before his death, he spoke to an old servant, of whose fidelity and truth he had ample experience, and told him he had a great business to trust him with, which he conjured him to perform; that after his death he should cause his body to be opened, take out his heart, put it in an earthen pot, and bake it to a powder, then put the powder into a handsome box, with the bracelet of hair he had long worn about his left wrist, (which was a lock of Madame Fayel's hair,) and put it amongst the powder with a little note he had written to her with his own blood, and after he had given him the rites of burial, to make all speed to France and deliver the box to Madame Fayel. The old servant did as his master had commanded him, and so went to France; and coming one day to Monsieur Fayel's house, he suddenly met him with one of his servants, who knowing him to be Captain Coney's servant, examined him; and finding him timorous, and to falter in his speech, he searched him, and found the said box in his pocket, with the note which expressed what it contained; then he dismissed the bearer, with injunction that he should come no more thither. Monsieur Fayel, going in, sent for his cook, and delivered him the powder, charging him to make a well relished dish of it, without losing a jot, for it was a very costly thing, and enjoined him to bring it in himself, after the last course at supper. The cook bringing in his dish accordingly, Monsieur Fayel commanded all to leave the room, and began a serious discourse with his wife. That ever since he had married her, he observed she was always melancholy, and he feared she was inclining to consumption, wherefore he had provided a very precious cordial, which he was well assured would cure her, and for that reason obliged her to eat up the whole dish: she afterwards much importuned him to know what it was, when he told her she had eaten Coney's heart, and drew the box out of his pocket, and showed her the note and the bracelet. After a sudden shout of joy, she with a deep-fetched sigh said, "This is a precious cordial indeed," and so licked the dish, adding, "it is so precious that it is a pity ever to eat anything after it." She then went to bed, where in the morning she was found dead.

SWAINE.

A Singing Paganini.—In the year 1760, La Paganini, an admirable singer and actress, came to London from Berlin. Her reputation was so great, that when she had her benefit at the Opera, such a crowd assembled as was never before witnessed on a like occasion, not one third of the company that presented themselves at the Opera House doors being able to obtain admission. Caps were lost, and gowns torn to pieces, without number or mercy, in the struggle to get in. Ladies in full dress, who had sent away their servants and carriages were obliged to appear in the streets, and walk home in great numbers without caps or attendants. Luckily the weather was fine, and did not add to their distress by rain or wind, though their confusion was greatly augmented by its being broad daylight, and the streets full of spectators, who (says her biographer) could neither refrain from looking nor laughing at such splendid and uncommon street-walkers.

P.T.W.

The old Teutonic word rick is still preserved in the termination of our English bishoprick. Stubbs, in his libel, The Discovery of a Gaping Gulf, &. imprinted 1579, says, "The queen has the kingrick in her own power."—Notes to Pennie's Britain's Historical Drama.

On Friendship.

 
"I love a friend that's frank and just,
To whom a tale I can entrust,
But when a man's to slander given,
From such a friend protect me heaven."
 

J.J.

Sea Coal.—In the reign of Edward the First, dyers and brewers began to use sea coal. In consequence of an application from the nobility, &. he published a proclamation against it, as a public nuisance. And afterwards, under a commission of Oyer and Terminer, the commission ordered that all who had "contumaceously" disobeyed the proclamation, should be punished by "pecuniary mulcts." P.T.W.

Witty Optics.—A Jew went into a coffee-house to offer some spectacles for sale: one of the company, after trying several pairs, wishing to amuse himself at the Jew's expense, exclaimed, "Oh, these suit me very well; I see through them very well, and through you too, friend, and discern that you are a rogue." The Jew taking them from him and clapping them on his own nose, very composedly replied, "then our eyes are alike, for I see that you are the same."

Cromwell's Fun.—Before the trial of Charles I., the chiefs of the Republican party and the general officers met to concert the model of the intended new government. One day, after the debates on this most interesting and important subject, Ludlow informs us, that Cromwell, by way of frolic, threw a cushion at his head, and even in the high court of justice, in that solemn moment when he took the pen to sign the warrant for the unhappy monarch's execution, he could not forbear the levity of daubing the face of his neighbour with the ink. G.M.

The Conclusion of "Brighton in 1743," in our next.