Chapter 3

My tale would scarcely have an end, were I to repeat but the one half of what during two brief days (two centuries in suffering) I experienced from this derangement of the nervous system. My readers may fancy that I have exaggerated my state of mind: far from it, I have purposely softened down the more distressing particulars, apprehensive, if not of being discredited, at least of incurring ridicule. Towards the close of the third day my fever began to abate, I became more sobered in my turn of thought, could contrive to answer questions, and listen with tolerable composure to my landlord's details of my miraculous preservation. The storm was slowly rolling off my mind, but the swell was still left behind it. The fourth day found me so far recovered, that I was enabled to quit my chamber, sit beside an open window, and derive amusement from the uncouth appearance of a Dutch crew, whose brig was lying at anchor in the harbour. From this time forward, every hour brought fresh accession to my strength, until at the expiration of the tenth day--so sudden is recovery in cases of violent fever when once the crisis is passed--I was sufficiently restored to take my place by a night-coach for London. The first few stages I endured tolerably well, notwithstanding that I had somewhat rashly ventured upon an outside place; but as midnight drew on, the wind became so piercingly keen, accompanied every now and then by a squally shower of sleet, that I was glad to bargain for an inside berth. By good luck, there was just room enough left for one, which I instantly appropriated, in spite of sundry hints _hemmed_ forth by a crusty old gentleman, that the coach was full already. I took my place in the coach, to the dissatisfaction of those already seated there. Not a word was spoken for miles: for the circumstance of its being dark increased the distrust of all, and, in the firm conviction that I was an adventurer, they had already, I make no doubt, buttoned up their pockets, and diligently adjusted their watch-chains. In a short time, this reserve wore away. From this moment the conversation became general. Each individual had some invalid story to relate, and I too, so far forgot my usual taciturnity as to indulge my hearers with a detail of my late indisposition--of its origin in the Mysterious Tailor--of the wretch's inconceivable persecution--of the fiendish peculiarities of his appearance--of his astonishing ubiquity, and lastly, of my conviction that he was either more or less than man. Scarcely had the very uncourteous laughter that accompanied this narrative concluded, when a low, intermittent snore, proceeding from a person close at my elbow, challenged my most serious notice. The sound was peculiar--original--unearthly--and reminded me of the same music which had so harrowed my nerves at Bologne. Yet it could not surely be he--he, the very thoughts of whom now sent a thrill through every vein. Oh, no! it must be some one else--there were other harmonious sternutators beside him, he could not be the only nasal nightingale in the three kingdoms. While I thus argued the matter, silently, yet suspiciously, a wandering gleam of day, streaming in at the coach windows, faintly lit up a nose the penultimate peculiarities of which gave a very ominous turn to my reflections. In due time this light became more vivid; and beneath its encouraging influence, first, a pair of eyes--then two sallow, juiceless cheeks, then an upper lip, then a projecting chin; and lastly, the entire figure of the Mysterious Tailor himself, whose head, it seems, had hitherto been folded, bird-like, upon his breast, grew into atrocious distinctness, while from the depths of the creature's throat came forth the strangely-solemn whisper, "touching that little account." For this once, indignation got the better of affright. "Go where I will," I exclaimed, passionately interrupting him, "I find I cannot avoid you, you have a supernatural gift of omnipresence, but be you fiend or mortal I will now grapple with you;" and accordingly snatching at that obnoxious feature which, like the tail of the rattle-snake, had twice warned me of its master's fatal presence, I grasped it with such zealous good will, that had it been of mortal manufacture it must assuredly have come off in my hands. Aroused by the laughter of my fellow passengers, the coachman--who was just preparing to mount, after having changed horses at Dartford--abruptly opened the door, on which I as abruptly jumped out; and after paying my fare the whole way to town, and casting on the fiend a look of "inextinguishable hatred," made an instant retreat into the inn. About the middle of the next day I reached London, and without a moment's pause hurried to the lodgings of my beforementioned friend C----. Luckily he was at home, but started at the strange forlorn figure that presented itself. And well indeed he might. My eye-balls were glazed and bloody, my cheeks white as a shroud, my mouth a-jar, my lips blue and quivering. "For God's sake, C----," I began, vouchsafing no further explanation, "lend me--(I specified the sum)--or I am ruined; that infernal, inconceivable Tailor has--." C----smilingly interrupted me by an instant compliance with my demand; on which, without a moment's delay, I bounded off, breathless and semi-frantic, towards my arch fiend's Pandaemonium at High Holborn. I cannot--cannot say what I felt as I crossed over from Drury-lane towards his den, more particularly when, on entering, I beheld the demon himself behind his counter--calm, moveless, and sepulchral, as if nothing of moment had occurred; as if he were an every-day dun, or I an every-day debtor. The instant he espied me, a sardonic smile, together with that appalling dissyllable, "touching" (which I never to this day hear, see, or write without a shudder) escaped him; but before he could close his oration, I had approached, trembling with rage and reverence, towards him, and, thrusting forth the exact sum, was rushing from his presence, when he beckoned me back for a receipt. A receipt, and from him too! It was like taking a receipt for one's soul from Satan!!

The reader will doubtless conclude that, now at least, having satisfactorily settled his demands, I had done with my Tormentor for ever. This inference is in part correct. I followed up my vocation with an energy strangely contrasted with my recent indifference, was early and late in the schools, and for three months pursued this course with such ardour, that my adventures with the Mysterious Tailor, though not forgotten, were yet gradually losing their once powerful hold on my imagination. This was precisely the state of my feelings, when early one autumnal morning, just seven months from the date of my last visit to High Holborn, I chanced to be turning down Saint Giles's Church, on my way to--Hospital. I had nothing to render me more than usually pensive; no new vexations, no sudden pecuniary embarrassment; yet it so happened, that on this particular morning I felt a weight at my heart, and a cloud on my brain, for which I could in no way account. As I passed along Broad Street, I made one or two bold attempts to rally. I stared inquisitively at the different passers by, endeavouring, by a snatch at the expression of their faces, to speculate on the turn of their minds, and the nature of their occupations; I then began to whistle and hum some lively air, at the same time twirling my glove with affected unconcern; but nothing would do; every exertion I made to appear cheerful, not only found no answering sympathy from within, but even exaggerated by constrast my despondency. In this condition I reached Saint Giles's Church. A crowd was assembled at the gate opposite its entrance, and presently the long surly toll of the death-bell--that solemn and oracular memento--announced that a funeral was on the eve of taking place. The funeral halted at the entrance gate, where the coffin was taken from the hearse, and and thence borne into the chancel. This ceremony concluded, the procession again set forth towards the home appointed for the departed in a remote quarter of the church-yard. And now the interest began in reality to deepen. As the necessary preparations were making for lowering the coffin into earth, the mourners--even those who had hitherto looked unmoved--pressed gradually nearer, and with a momentary show of interest, to the grave. Such is the ennobling character of death.

The preparations were by this time concluded, and nothing now remained but the last summons of the sexton. At this juncture, while the coffin was being lowered into its resting place, my eyes, accidentally, it may be said, but in reality by some fatal instinct, fell full upon the lid, on which I instantly recognised a name, long and fearfully known to me--the name of the Mysterious Tailor of High Holborn. Oh, how many thrilling recollections did this one name recal? The rencontre in the streets of London--the scene at the masquerade--the meeting at Bologne--the storm--the shipwreck--the sinking vessel--the appearance at that moment of _the man_ himself--the subsequent visions of mingled fever and insanity: all, all now swept across my mind, as for the last time I gazed on the remains of him who was powerless henceforth for ever. In a few minutes one little span of earth would keep down that strange form which seemed once endowed with ubiquity. That wild unearthly voice was mute; that wandering glance was fixed; a seal was set upon those lips which eternity itself could not remove. Yes, my Tormentor--my mysterious--omnipresent Tormentor was indeed gone; and in that one word, how much of vengeance was forgotten! I was roused from this reverie by the hollow sound of the clay as it fell dull and heavy on the coffin-lid. The poor sleeper beneath could not hear it, it is true; his slumber, henceforth, was sound; the full tide of human population pressing fast beside the spot where he lay buried, should never wake him more: no human sorrow should rack his breast, no dream disturb his repose; yet cold, changed, and senseless as he was, the first sound of the falling clods jarred strange and harsh upon my ear, as if it must perforce awake him. In this feverish state of mind I quitted the church-yard, and, on my road home, passed by the shop where I had first met with the deceased. It was altered--strangely altered--to my mind, revoltingly so. Its quaint antique character, its dingy spectral look were gone, and there was even a studied air of cheerfulness about it, as if the present proprietor were anxious to obliterate every association, however slight, that might possibly remind him of the past. The former owner had but just passed out, his ashes were scarcely cold, and already his name was on the wane. Yet this is human nature. So trifling, in fact, is the gap caused by our absence in society, that there needs no patriotic Curtius to leap into it; it closes without a miracle the instant it is made, and none but a disinterested Undertaker knows or cares for whom tolls our passing bell.

_Monthly Magazine._

* * * * *

SPIRIT OF THE

+PUBLIC JOURNALS.+

THE TOUR OF DULNESS.

From her throne of clouds, as Dulness look'd On her foggy and favour'd nation, She sleepily nodded her poppy-crown'd head, And gently waved her sceptre of lead, In token of approbation.

For the north-west wind brought clouds and gloom, Blue devils on earth, and mists in the air; Of parliamentary prose some died, Some perpetrated suicide, And her empire flourish'd there.

The Goddess look'd with a gracious eye On her ministers great and small; But most she regarded with tenderness Her darling shrine, the Minerva Press, In the street of Leadenhall.

This was her sacred haunt, and here Her name was most adored, Her chosen here officiated. And hence her oracles emanated, And breathed the Goddess in every word.

She pass'd from the east to the west, and paused In New Burlington-street awhile, To inspire a few puffs for Colburn and Co. And indite some dozen novels or so In the fashionable style.

* * * * *

Then turning her own Magazine to inspect, She was rather at fault, as of late The colour and series both were new; But the Goddess, with discernment true, Detected it by the weight.

She cross'd the Channel next, and peep'd At Dublin; but the zeal Of the liberty boys soon put her to flight. And she dropp'd her mantle in her fright, Which fell on Orator Shiel.

Thence sped she to the Land of Cakes, The land she loves and its possessors; She loves its Craniologists, Political Economists, And all Scotch _mists_ and Scotch Professors.

And chiefly she on McCulloch smiled, As a mother smiles on her darling child, Or a lady on her lover; Then, bethinking her of Parliament, She hasten'd South, but ere she went, She promised if nothing occurr'd to prevent, To return when the Session was over.

_Blackwood's Magazine._

* * * * *

CANNIBALISM.

In great cities, cannibalism takes an infinite variety of shapes. In the neighbourhood of St. James's-street there are numerous slaughter-houses, where men are daily consumed by the operation of cards and dice; and where they are caught by the same bait, at which Quin said he should have infallibly bitten. A similar process is likewise carried on in 'Change Alley, on a great scale; not to speak of that snare especially set for widows and children, called a "joint stock speculation." But your cannibal of cannibals is a parliament patron. Here, a great borough proprietor swallows a regiment at a single gulp; and there, the younger son of a lord ruminates over a colony till the very crows cannot find a dinner in it; and there again, a duke or a minister, himself and his family, having first "supped full of horrors," casts a diocese to the side-table, to be mumbled at leisure by his son's tutor. The town is occasionally very indignant and very noisy against the gouls of Surgeons' Hall, because they live upon the dead carcasses of their fellow-creatures; while, strange to say, it takes but little account of the hordes of wretches who openly, and in the face of day, hunt down living men in their nefarious dealings as porter brewers, quack doctors, informers, attorneys, manufacturers of bean flour, alum, and Portland stone; and torture their subjects like so many barbacued pigs, in the complicated processes of their cookery.--_New Month. Mag._

* * * * *

SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

"They say this town is full of cozenage, As nimble jugglers that deceive the eye, Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks, And many such like libertines of sin." SHAKSPEARE.

+Caveat emptor+! This is the age of fraud, imposture, substitution, transmutation, adulteration, abomination, contamination, and many others of the same sinister ending, always excepting purification. Every thing is debased and sophisticated, and "nothing is but what is not." All things are mixed, lowered, debased, deteriorated, by our cozening dealers and shopkeepers; and, bad as they are, there is every reason to fear that they are "mox daturos progeniem vitiosiorem." We wonder at the increase of bilious and dyspeptic patients, at the number of new books upon stomach complaints, at the rapid fortunes made by practitioners who undertake (the very word is ominous) to cure indigestion; but how can it be otherwise, when Accum, before he took to quoting with his scissors, assured us there was "poison in the pot;" when a recent writer has shown that there are still more deleterious ingredients in the wine-bottle; and when we ourselves have all had dismal intestine evidence that our bread is partly made of ground bones, alum, plaster of Paris; our tea, of aloe-leaves; our beer, of injurious drugs; our milk, of snails and chalk; and that even the water supplied to us by our companies is any thing rather than the real Simon Pure it professes to be. Not less earnestly than benevolently do our quack doctors implore us to beware of spurious articles; Day and Martin exhort us not to take our polish from counterfeit blacking: every advertiser beseeches the "pensive public" to be upon its guard against supposititious articles--all, in short, is knavery, juggling, cheating, and deception.--_Ibid._

* * * * *

Retrospective Gleanings

SONNET

BY HENRY TEONOE, A SEA CHAPLAIN IN THE REIGN OF CHARLES II.

_Composed October the First, over against the East part of Candia._

O! Ginnee was a bony lasse, Which maks the world to woonder How ever it should com to passe That wee did part a sunder.

The driven snow, the rose so rare, The glorious sunne above thee, Can not with my Ginnee compare, She was so wonderous lovely.

Her merry lookes, her forhead high, Her hayre like golden-wyer, Her hand and foote, her lipe or eye, Would set a saint on fyre.

And for to give Giunee her due, Thers no ill part about her; The turtle-dove's not half so true; Then whoe can live without her?

King Solomon, where ere he lay, Did nere unbrace a kinder; O! why should Ginnee gang away, And I be left behind her?

Then will I search each place and roome From London to Virginny, From Dover-peere to Scanderoone, But I will finde my Ginny.

But Ginny's turned back I feare, When that I did not mind her; Then back to England will I steare, To see where I can find her.

And haveing Ginnee once againe, If sheed doe her indeavour, The world shall never make us twaine-- Weel live and dye together.

* * * * *

SONG BY KING CHARLES II.

_On the Duchess of Portsmouth leaving England._

_(For the Mirror.)_

Bright was the morning, cool the air, Serene was all the skies; When on the waves I left my dear, The center of my joys; Heav'n and nature smiling were. And nothing sad but I.

Each rosy field their odours spread, All fragrant was the shore; Each river God rose from his bed, And sighing own'd her pow'r; Curling the waves they deck'd their heads, As proud of what they bore.

Glide on ye waves, bear these lines, And tell her my distress; Bear all these sighs, ye gentle winds, And waft them to her breast; Tell her if e'er she prove unkind, I never shall have rest.

* * * * *

The Anecdote Gallery

VOLTAIRE.

_(From various Authorities.)_

The Chateau of Ferney, the celebrated residence of Voltaire, six miles from Geneva, is a place of very little picturesque beauty: its broad front is turned to the high road, without any regard to the prospect, and the garden is adorned with cut trees, parapet walls with flower-pots, jets d'eaux, &c. Voltaire's bed-room is shown in its pristine state, just as he left it in 1777, when, after a residence of twenty years, he went to Paris to enjoy a short triumph and die. Time and travellers have much impaired the furniture of light-blue silk, and the Austrians, quartered in the house during the late war, have not improved it; the bed-curtains especially, which for the last forty years have supplied each traveller with a precious little bit, hastily torn off, are of course in tatters. The bedstead is of common deal, coarsely put together; a miserable portrait of Le Kain, in crayons, hangs inside of the bed, and two others, equally bad, on each side, Frederic and Voltaire himself. Round the room are bad prints of Washington, Franklin, Sir Isaac Newton, and several other celebrated personages; the ante-chamber is decorated with naked figures, in bad taste; each of these rooms may be 12 feet by 15.

Such is the narrative of an intelligent traveller, who recently visited Ferney. "Very few," says he, "remain alive, of those who saw the poet: a gardener who conducted us about the grounds had that advantage; he showed us the place where the theatre stood, filling the space on the left-hand side in entering, between the chateau and the chapel, but the inscription on the last, _Voltaire à Dieu_, was removed during the reign of terror. The _old_ gardener spoke favourably of his _old_ master, who was, he said, _bon homme tout-a-fait, bien charitable,_ and took an airing every morning in his coach and four."

In the sitting-room, adjoining the bedroom, which he was accustomed to occupy, besides some good ancient paintings, is a very singular picture, which was painted according to Voltaire's direction. The principal personages are Voltaire, holding in his hand a roll of paper inscribed La Henriade; next him is a female personification of this favourite poem, whom he is presenting to Apollo crowned with rays of glory; Louis XIV. with his queen and court, are observing these chief figures. In another part, the Muses are crowning the burst of Voltaire with wreaths of flowers, and proposing to place it with those of other immortal authors in the Temple of Fame. The bottom of the picture is occupied by his enemies, who are being torn to pieces by wild beasts, or burning in flames of fire.

In the bed-room is a marble cenotaph, on which is an urn that formerly contained the heart of Voltaire, which was removed several years ago, and placed in the church of Les Invalides at Paris. In this room also is an engraving of Voltaire's monument in the church-yard of Ferney. In this, four figures, representing the four quarters of the world, are preparing to honour his bust with wreaths of laurel and palms. Ignorance, meanwhile, with the wings of a fiend, armed with rods, is driving them away in the midst of their pacific employment, and extinguishing a lamp which burns above the tomb. It is a singular circumstance that Voltaire caused the church of Ferney to be built, as well as several houses in the village, and on an iron vane on the top of the former is inscribed, "_Deo erexit Voltaire_."

After his escape from the court of Frederic, Voltaire went first to Lausanne, were he resided some years, and where he fitted up a private theatre; his acquaintances there supplied him with performers, of whom it seems he was proud, and who acted for him Zaire, Alzira, and several other plays. Some spirited drawings of Huber represent him behind the scene teaching, scolding, encouraging the actors; you might have thought you heard his loud _bravo_! The part of Lusignan was frequently filled by the poet himself, who was so much taken with it as to be seen in the morning at the door of his house already dressed for the stage. Voltaire had a hollow wooden voice, and his declamation had more pomp in it than nature; yet in the part of Trissotin, in the Femmes Savantes, he performed very well.

From Lausanne, where he quarrelled with several persons, he went, in 1755, to St. Jean, close to Geneva, and gave to the house he occupied the name of _Les Dèlices_, which it retains to this day. Ferney, which he bought soon after, became his permanent residence for twenty years.