Part 2

"The speech of George Smith, William Smith, and James Smith, who were lately executed at Longford for the murder of James Reilly, a pedlar, near Lanes-borough, has been published. It gives the following description of the inhuman crime for which they suffered:

"The discovery of this murder, as decreed by the Almighty, was made by Margaret Armstrong, the wife of Sergeant Armstrong, of the 27th regiment of foot, on the recruiting service in Athlone. She was going to her husband, when she was overtaken by this dealing man. He asked her how far she was going--she answered to Athlone, to her husband, and said as it was getting late, and being scarce of money, she would make good her way that night. He then replied, 'my poor woman, let not that hurry you, I am going to Athlone myself, and there is a lodging at the next cross at which I mean to stop, be advised, and go no farther to-night, and I will pay your expenses.' When they came to the house, he asked for a bed for himself and another for the woman, and called for supper; when that was over, he paid the bill, and taking out his pocket-book, he counted 150_l._ which he gave in charge to George Smith, and retired to bed; the woman likewise went to her's, the family sat up till twelve; after which, when the man was fast asleep and all was silent, we, (the three Smiths) went into the room where the man lay; we dragged him out of bed, and cut his throat from ear to ear; we saved his blood in a pewter dish, and put the body into a flaxseed barrel, among feathers, in which we covered it up. Take care, and do the same with the woman, _said our mother_. We accordingly went to her bedside, and saw her hands extended out of the bed; we held a candle to her eyes, but she did not stir during the whole time, as God was on her side; for had we supposed that she had seen the murder committed by us, she would have shared the same fate with the deceased man. Next morning when she arose, she asked was the man up? We made answer, that he was gone two hours before, left sixpence for her, and took her bundle with him. 'No matter,' said she, 'for I will see him in Athlone.' When she went away, I (George Smith) dressed myself in my sister's clothes, and having crossed the fields, met her, I asked her how far she was going? She said to Athlone: I then asked her where she lodged? She told me at one Smith's, a very decent house, where she met very good entertainment. 'That house bears a bad name,' said I. 'I have not that to say of them,' said she, 'for they gave me good usage.' It was not long until we saw a sergeant and two recruits coming up the road; upon which she cried out, 'here is my husband coming to meet me; he knew I was coming to him.' I immediately turned off the road, and made back to the house. When she met her husband, she fainted; and on recovering, she told him of the murder, and how she escaped with her life. The husband went immediately and got guards, and had us taken prisoners; the house was searched, and the mangled body found in the barrel." The three monsters were, it is mentioned, ordered for execution from the dock.

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ANECDOTES AND RECOLLECTIONS.

Notings, selections, Anecdote and joke: Our recollections; With gravities for graver folk.

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THE BAR--THE MASTER OF THE ROLLS.

It must be admitted (talking of the late _Vice_) that he really was enough to annoy any sober staid master, by his frolics and gambols since he has been made a judge. I remember him a quiet good sort of man enough: with a bed-room and kitchen in the area of No. 11, New-square; and his dining-room above, serving also for consultations: and his going, now and then, only to have a game of whist and glass of negus at Serle's;--but, now, he is a perfect _Monsieur Tonson_ to all continental travellers. Never can you take up the police-book at the hotels, on the road to Italy, without _Sir John Leach_ staring you in the face. The other day at the _Cloche_ at Dijon (I will never go there again, and beg Sir John to do me the favour to withdraw his patronage also,--the _Parc_ is worth twenty of it), yawning over my bottle of _Cote d'Or_, I inquired of the waiter who of my "land's language" had lately been there. "Vy, Sare, ve have de Milor Leash." "Lord Leash?"--"Oui, Monsieur;--mais, Fanchette, apportez le livre ici pour Monsieur--le voila."--"Ah, ha! Sir John Leach; I see."--"Ah qu'il est bon enfant! qu'il est gai!" exclaimed the _garcon_. "Ah! qu'il est aimable!" sighed Fanchette--Enter De Molin the banker's little bureau at Lausanne--(by the way, it is the favourite chamber of Gibbon the historian, and if you pay the house a visit from motives of curiosity respecting its former occupant, you will be happy to be allowed to remain and converse with the actual owner, for a more honourable, liberal, and better-informed man, does not exist)--there, I say, in the glass over the mantlepiece, will you see the card of _Sir John Leach_. Milan--Florence--the same. At Torlogna's the same. Then at Naples: go to San Carlos'; and if you get behind the scenes, ask for Braccini, the _poetá_ of the theatre, who has been long in England; "Cospetto di Bacco!" he will exclaim: "il degn uomo, quel Vice Cancelliere: il Cavaliere _Licci!_--Gran Dio! quale talento per la musica!-Cappari! egli ha guadagnato i cuori di tutte le donne Napolitane."[3] I certainly expect to hear him some day astonish the bar, by unwittingly striking up "O Pescator delle onde," or "Sul margine del Rio," in the Rolls Court; and, as in ancient Greece ('tis said) pleadings were chanted, let us yet hope to hear an argument preferred to the tune of "They are a' noddin, noddin, noddin;" an answer stated _andante_; a reply given in a _bravura_, and judgment pronounced _presto_. With all his faults (if they be such, which I do not admit), the present Master of the Rolls is a good judge, and an able man;--"un peu vif, peut-etre," as Fanchette might say; and it is more agreeable than otherwise, to see one who has devoted his life to the study of the law, enjoying himself in lighter pursuits, after having attained rank and dignity in the profession; and after having punctually and satisfactorily executed the important duties of the day, seeking at its close, and participating in the gaiety which society offers. It speaks a good heart and cheerful temper; whereas, when we hear a distaste declared for music, and that of the highest character, we cannot but call to mind "He who has not the concord of sweet sounds" within himself;--but I will not pursue the quotation. Besides, were there persons fools enough to blame Sir John for his social propensities, he might answer them as the Parisian coachman did.--"What was that?"--"Why, a French Jehu was tried in 1818, for some accident caused by his cabriolet, before the Criminal Court of Paris; when, having heard the evidence, the President of the Tribunal declared that he stood acquitted, but that the court felt it its duty to blame him, and that he was blamed accordingly." "Blamed!" exclaimed Jehu; "Blamed!--I don't quite understand your Honor;--but--but--will it prevent my handling the ribands, and driving the _wehicle_?"--"No!" said the judge. "Then, with all respect for your Honor, I just laugh at it," said coachee, bowing. "And so do I," said the president also, in rising to leave the court.--_New Monthly Magazine_.

[3] By Bacchus! what a worthy man is the Vice Chancellor, the Chevalier Leach! gods! what a taste for music; i' faith he has gained the hearts of all the Neapolitan ladies.

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FINE ARTS.

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THE CARTOONS OF RAPHAEL.

These _Cartoons_ were executed by the famous Raphael, while engaged in the chambers of the Vatican, under the auspices of Pope Julius II. and Leo X. As soon as they were finished, they were sent to Flanders to be copied in tapestry, for adorning the pontifical apartments; but the tapestries were not conveyed to Rome till after the decease of Raphael, and probably not before the dreadful sack of that city in 1527, under the pontificate of Clement VII; when Raphael's scholars having fled from thence, none were left to inquire after the original Cartoons, which lay neglected in the storerooms of the manufactory, the money for the tapestry having never been paid. The revolution that happened soon after in the low countries prevented their being noticed during a period in which works of art were wholly neglected. They were purchased by king Charles I. at the recommendation of Rubens, but had been much injured by the weavers. At the sale of the royal pictures in 1653, these Cartoons were purchased for 300_l_. by Oliver Cromwell, against whom no one would presume to bid. The protector pawned them to the Dutch court for upwards of 50,000_l._, and, after the revolution, King William brought them over again to England, and built a gallery for their reception in Hampton Court. Originally there were twelve of these Cartoons, but four of them have been destroyed by damps and neglect. The subjects were the adoration of the Magi, the conversion of St. Paul, the martyrdom of St. Stephen and St. Paul before Felix and Agrippa. Two of these were in the possession of the King of Sardinia, and two of Louis XIV. of France, who is said to have offered 100,000 louis d'ors for the seven, which are justly represented as "the glory of England, and the envy of all other polite nations." The twelfth, the subject of which was the murder of the innocents, belonged to a private gentleman in England, who pledged it for a sum of money; but when the person who had taken this valuable deposit found it was to be redeemed, he greatly damaged the drawing; for which the gentleman brought an action against him. A third part of it is still remaining in the possession of William Hoare, R.A., at Bath.

_Cartoon_ is derived from the Italian _cartone_, a painting or drawing upon large paper. Raphael died on the same day of the year on which he was born, Good Friday, in 1520, at the age of thirty-seven, deeply lamented by all who knew his value. His body lay for awhile in state in one of the rooms wherein he had displayed the powers of his mind, and he was honoured with a public funeral; his last produce, the _transfiguration_, being carried before him in the procession. The unrelenting hand of death (says his biographer) set a period to his labours, and deprived the world of further benefit from his talents, when he had only attained an age at which most other men are but beginning to be useful. "We see him in his cradle (said Fuseli); we hear him stammer; but propriety rocked the cradle, and character formed his lips."

P.T.W.

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TO MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. WRITTEN ON VISITING WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

My murder'd queen, as on thine image once The gaze alike of prince and peasant rested-- As if, unsated of thy thrilling glance, They never until then of beauty tasted: So I, by lonely contemplation led To muse awhile amid the silent dead-- Turn me from all around I hear or see-- From all of Shakspeare and of great to thee: And think on all thy wrongs--on all the shame That dims for ever thine oppressor's name; On all thy faults, nor few nor far between, But then thou wert--a woman and a queen. Proud titles, even in a barb'rous age, To stem th' impetuous tide of party rage; While as I gaze each well-known feature seems To stir with life, and realise my dreams That paint thee seated on the Scottish throne, With all the blaze of beauty round thee thrown; Then see thee passing from thy dungeon cell, And hear thy parting sigh--thy last farewell.

_Stray Leaves._

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ANCIENT GRECIAN SEPULCHRE

A beautiful illustration of an ancient Grecian sepulchre or funeral chamber, heads the second chapter of Mr. Britton's "Union of Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting," from which work we have copied the annexed engraved view. The interior of the chamber exhibits a skeleton and the urns containing the ashes of the dead. The combat leads us to the conclusion, that the tomb contains the remains of a chief; for it was the barbarous custom of the Greeks to sacrifice captives at the tombs of their heroes.

Of the funeral rites and ceremonies of the Greeks and other nations, we subjoin the following:--

The most simple and natural kind of funeral monuments, and therefore the most ancient and universal, consist in a mound of earth, or a heap of stones, raised over the ashes of the departed: of such monuments mention is made in the Book of Joshua, and in Homer and Virgil. Many of them still occur in various parts of this kingdom, especially in those elevated and sequestered situations where they have neither been defaced by agriculture nor inundation.

The ancients are said to have buried their dead in their own houses, whence, according to some, the original of that species of idolatry consisting in the worship of household gods.

The place of burial amongst the Jews was never particularly determined. We find that they had burial-places upon the highways, in gardens, and upon mountains. We read, that Abraham was buried with Sarah, his wife, in the cave of Macphelah, in the field of Ephron, and Uzziah, King of Judah, slept with his fathers in the field of the burial which pertained to the kings.

The primitive Greeks were buried in places prepared for that purpose in their own houses; but in after ages they adopted the judicious practice of establishing the burial grounds in desert islands, and outside the walls of towns, by that means securing them from profanation, and themselves from the liability of catching infection from those who had died of contagious disorders.

The Romans prohibited burning or burying in the city, both from a sacred and civil consideration, that the priests might not be contaminated by touching a dead body, and that houses might not be endangered by the frequency of funeral fires.

The custom of burning the dead had its foundation laid deep in nature: an anxious fondness to preserve the great and good, the dear friend and the near relative, was the sole motive that prevailed in the institution of this solemnity. "That seems to me," says Cicero, "to have been the most ancient kind of burial, which, according to Xenophon, was used by Cyrus. For the body is returned to the earth, and so placed as to be covered with the veil of its mother." Pliny also agrees with Cicero upon this point, and says the custom of burial preceded that of burning among the Romans. According to Monfauçon, the custom of burning entirely ceased at Rome about the time of Theodorius the younger. When cremation ceased on the introduction of Christianity, the believing Romans, together with the Romanized and converted Britons, would necessarily, as it is observed by Mr. Grough, "betake themselves to the use of sarcophagi (or coffins,) and probably of various kinds, stone, marble, lead," &c. They would likewise now first place the body in a position due east and west, and thus bestow an unequivocal mark of distinction between the funeral deposit of the earliest Roman inhabitants of this island, and their Christian successors. The usual places of interment were in fields or gardens,[4] near the highway, to be conspicuous, and to remind the passengers how transient everything is, that wears the garb of mortality. By this means, also, they saved the best part of their land:

--Experiar quid concedatur in illos Quorum Flaminia tegitur cinis, atque Latina. _Juv. Sat I._

The Romans commonly built tombs for themselves during their lifetime. Hence these words frequently occur in ancient inscriptions, V.F. Vivus Facit, V.S.P. Vivus Sibi Posuit. The tombs of the rich were usually constructed of marble, the ground enclosed with walls, and planted round with trees. But common sepulchres were usually built below ground, and called hypogea. There were niches cut out of the walls, in which the urns were placed: these, from their resemblance to the niche of a pigeon-house, were called columbaria.

[4] Our blessed Saviour chose the garden sometime for his oratory, and, dying, for the place of his sepulture; and we also do avouch, for many weighty causes, that there are none more fit to bury our dead in than in our gardens and groves where our beds may he decked with verdant and fragrant flowers. Trees and perennial plants, the most natural and instructive hieroglyphics of our expected resurrection and immortality, besides what they might conduce to the meditation of the living, and the taking off our cogitations from dwelling too intently upon more vain and sensual objects: that custom of burying in churches, and near about them, especially in great and populous cities, being both a novel presumption, indecent, and very prejudicial to health.--_Evelyn's Discourse on Forest Trees_.

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SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

PREPARATIONS FOR A JOURNEY.

I am fond of travelling: yet I never undertake a journey without experiencing a vague feeling of melancholy. There is to me something strangely oppressive in the preliminaries of departure. The packing of a small valise; the settlement of accounts--justly pronounced by Rabelais a _blue-devilish_ process; the regulation of books and papers;--in short, the whole routine of valedictory arrangements, are to me as a nightmare on the waking spirit. They induce a mood of last wills and testaments--a sense of dislocation, which, next to a vacuum, Nature abhors--and create a species of moral decomposition, not unlike that effected on matter by chemical agency. It is not that I have to lament the disruption of social connexions or domestic ties. This, I am aware, is a trial sometimes borne with exemplary fortitude; and I was lately edified by the magnanimous unconcern with which a married friend of mine sang the last verse of "Home! sweet home!" as the chaise which was to convey him from the _burthen_ of his song drove up to the door. It does not become a bachelor to speculate on the mysteries of matrimonial philosophy; but the feeling of pain with which _I_ enter on the task of migration has no affinity with individual sympathies, or even with domiciliary attachments. My landlady is, without exception, the ugliest woman in London; and the locality of Elbow-lane cannot be supposed absolutely to spellbind the affection of one occupying, as I do, solitary chambers on the third floor.

The case, it may be supposed, is much worse when it is my lot to take leave, after passing a few weeks at the house of a friend in the country;--a house, for instance, such as is to be met with only in England:--with about twenty acres of lawn, but no park; with a shrubbery, but no made-grounds; with well-furnished rooms, but no conservatory; and with a garden, in which dandy tulips and high-bred anemones do not disdain the fellowship of honest artichokes and laughing cauliflowers--no bad illustration of the republican union of comfort with elegance which reigns through the whole establishment. The master of the mansion, perhaps an old and valued schoolfellow:--his wife, a well-bred, accomplished, and still beautiful woman--cordial, without vulgarity--refined, without pretension--and informed, without a shade of blue! Their children!... But my reader will complete the picture, and imagine, better than I can describe, how one of my temperament must suffer at quitting such a scene. At six o'clock on the dreaded morning, the friendly old butler knocks at my room-door, to warn me that the mail will pass in half an hour at the end of the green lane. On descending to the parlour, I find that my old friend has, in spite of our over-night agreement and a slight touch of gout, come down to see me off. His amiable lady is pouring out for me a cup of tea--assuring me that she would be quite unhappy at allowing me to depart without that indispensable prelude to a journey. A gig waits at the door: my affectionate host will not permit me to walk even half a mile. The minutes pass unheeded; till, with a face of busy but cordial concern, the old butler reminds me that the mail is at hand. I bid a hasty and agitated farewell, and turn with loathing to the forced companionship of a public vehicle.

My anti-leave-taking foible is certainly not so much affected when I quit the residence of an hotel--that public home--that wearisome resting-place--that epitome of the world--that compound of gregarious incompatibilities--that bazaar of character--that proper resort of semi-social egotism and unamalgable individualities--that troublous haven, where the vessel may ride and tack, half-sheltered, but finds no anchorage. Yet even the Lilliputian ligatures of such a sojourn imperceptibly twine round my lethargic habits, and bind me, Gulliver- like, a passive fixture. Once, in particular, I remember to have _stuck_ at the Hôtel des Bons Enfants, in Paris--a place with nothing to recommend it to one of ordinary locomotive energies. But there I stuck. Business of importance called me to Bordeaux. I lingered for two months. At length, by one of those nervous efforts peculiar to weak resolutions, I made my arrangements, secured my emancipation, and found myself on the way to the starting-place of the Diligence. I well remember the day: 'twas a rainy afternoon in spring. The aspect of the gayest city in the world was dreary and comfortless. The rain dripped perpendicularly from the eves of the houses, exemplifying the axiom, that lines are composed of a succession of points. At the corners of the streets it shot a curved torrent from the projecting spouts, flooding the channels, and drenching, with a sudden drum-like sound, the passing umbrellas, whose varied tints of pink, blue, and orange, like the draggled finery of feathers and flounces beneath them, only made the scene more glaringly desolate. Then came the rush and splatter of cabriolets, scattering terror and defilement. The well-mounted English dandy shows his sense by hoisting his parapluie; the French dragoon curls his mustachio at such effeminacy, and braves the liquid bullets in the genuine spirit of Marengo; the old French count picks his elastic steps with the placid and dignified philosophy of the _ancien régime_; while the Parisian dames, of all ranks, ages, and degrees, trip along, with one leg undraped, exactly in proportion to the shapeliness of its configuration.