Part 2

Frantz did not at all like his new benefice; his parishioners were evidently idle, ill-disposed people, doing no credit to the ministry of the deceased incumbent; and looking with eyes any thing but respectful and affectionate upon their new pastor. In short, he foresaw a host of troubles; although he had not taken possession of his living for more than two days. Neither did he admire the lonely situation of his house, which, gloomy and old fashioned, needed (at least so thought the polished Frantz, just emerged from the puny restraints and unlimited licenses of college) nothing less than a total rebuilding to render it inhabitable. His own sleeping apartment he liked less than all; but what could be done? It was decidedly the only decent dormitory in the house--had been that of the late pastor--and there was no help for it--could not but be his own. The young minister was wretched--lamented without ceasing the enjoyments of Leipzig--missed the society of his fellow students, and actually began to meditate taking a wife. But upon whom should his election fall? He caused all his female acquaintances to pass in mental review before him; some were fair--some wealthy--some altogether angelic; but Frantz was not Grand Seignior, and he allowed himself to be puzzled in a matter where every sentiment of love and honour ought to have, without hesitation, determined his choice; for in his rainbow visions of bright beauty and ethereal perfection, appeared the lonely and lovely Adelinda. Adelinda, the poor, the fond, the devoted, and, but for him, the innocent. No; beautiful and loving as she was, connected with her were the brooding shadows of guilt, and the lurid clouds of fiery vengeance; and Frantz had rather not think of Adelinda.

On the morning of the third day of his residence at Steingart, he happened to awake very early; being summertime it was broad daylight, and a bright sun was endeavouring to beam upon his countenance through the small lozenges of almost opaque glass which filled the high, narrow, and many paned window. Not feeling inclined to sleep, nor for the present to rise, Frantz laid for some time in deep reverie, with his eyes fixed, as some would have deemed, upon the door; and as others, more justly, would have thought upon vacancy. As he gazed, however, he was suddenly conscious that the door slowly and sullenly swung open, and admitted three strangers; a man of tall and graceful figure, and of a comely but melancholy aspect, arrayed in a long, loose and dark morning gown; he led two young and lovely children, whose burnished golden hair, pale, clear, tranquil countenances and snow-white garments gave them the appearance of celestial intelligences. Frantz, terrified and confounded, followed with his eyes those whom he could but fancy to be apparitions, as with noiseless steps they walked, or rather glided, towards a table which stood near the fireplace; upon this laid the parish register, coming in front of which, the man opened it with a solemn air, and turning over a few pages, pointed with his finger to some record, upon which the fair children seemed to gaze with interest and attention. The trio smiled mournfully at each other, then moving so that they stood upon the hearth immediately opposite the foot of Frantz's bed, and facing the affrighted young minister, he had full leisure to contemplate his strange visiters. That they were of a superhuman nature, he was warranted in concluding from their appearance in so solitary a place as Steingart--from their unceremonious _entrée_ at that unusual hour into his dormitory, and from their movements, actions, and awful silence. Frantz endeavoured to recollect the form of adjuration, and also that of exorcism, commonly employed to tranquillize the turbulent departed, but vainly; his brain was giddy; his thoughts distracted; his heart throbbed to agony with terror, and his tongue refused its office. With a violent effort he sprang up in his bed, and in his address to the speechless trio, had proceeded as far as--"In the name of--" when the children sank down into the very hearthstone upon which they stood, and the man--Frantz saw not whither _he_ went--perhaps up the chimney--but go he certainly did.

The terrified young man leapt in a state of desperation from his bed, and searched the apartment narrowly, as people commonly, but foolishly, are wont to do in similar cases. His search, as might have been expected, was useless; but not liking at present to alarm his domestics with a report of the house being haunted, he resolved to await further evidences of the supernatural visitation. Next morning at about the same hour, the apparitions again entered his apartment; and acting as they had previously done, gazed earnestly at him for some seconds ere they vanished. On the morning of the third day the trio appeared again, when the gentleman of the long robe, looking most earnestly at Frantz, pointed to the register, the children, and the hearthstone; and then, as usual, disappeared under the same circumstances as before.

Frantz was much distressed; he could not exactly comprehend the meaning of this dumb show; and yet felt that some dire mystery was connected with these phantoms, which he was called upon to unravel. After breakfast he wandered out, and lost in the maze of thought, sauntered, ere he was aware of it, into the churchyard. Shortly afterwards the church-door was opened by the sexton, who kept his pickaxe and mattock in a corner of the belfry, and Frantz remembering that as yet he had not entered the church, followed him in, and was struck with the appearance of many portraits which hung round the walls.

"What are these?" said he.

"The pictures, sir, of all your predecessors; know you not, that in some of our country churches it is the custom to hang up the likenesses of all the gentlemen who ever held the living?"

Frantz, in a tone of indifference, replied, that he fancied he had heard of such a thing.

"'Tis, sir," continued the man, "a custom with which you must comply at any rate. Why, bad as was our last pastor Herr Von Weetzer, he honoured us so far, that there hangs _his_ picture."

Frantz advanced to view a newly painted portrait, which hung last in the line of his predecessors; and then the young man started back, changed colour, and the deadly faintness of terror seized his relaxing frame; for in it he recognised, exact in costume and features, the perfect likeness of his adult spectral visiter!

"Good God!" cried Frantz, "how very extraordinary!"

"A nice looking man, sir," said the sexton, not noticing his emotion; "pity 'tis that he was so wicked."

"Wicked!" exclaimed Frantz, almost unconscious of what he said; "how wicked?"

"Oh, sir, I can't exactly say how wicked; but a bad gentleman was Mr. Von Weetzer, that's certain."

"Wicked! well--was he married?" asked Frantz, with apparent unconcern.

"Why, no, sir;" replied the sexton, with a significant look; "people do say he was not; but if all tales be true that are rife about him, 'tis a sure thing he ought to have been."

"Hah! hum!" muttered Frantz, and a slight blush tinged his fine countenance. "His children you say--"

"Lord, sir! I said nothing about them--who told you? Few folks at Steingart, I guess, knew he had any but myself. 'Tis thought the poor things did not come fairly by their ends; and for certain, I never buried them!"

Frantz stood for some minutes absorbed in thought; at length he said-- "were they baptized? I have a reason for asking."

"Perhaps sir, it is, that you are thinking if the poor, little, innocent creatures were not christened, they'd no right to be laid in consecrated ground."

"No matter what I think; I believe I have the register."

"You have, sir; please then to look at page 197, line 19, and I fancy you'll find the names of Gertrude and Erhard Dow, ('twas their poor _misfortunate_ mother's sirname,) down as baptized."

"I have," interrupted Frantz, with an air of extreme solemnity, "seen, as I believe, those children and their father!"

"Mein Gott!" cried the sexton in excessive alarm--"_seen_ them?--Seen _Herr Von Weetzer!_ They do say he walks--dear, dear!--and after the shocking unchristian death that he died too! Where, sir? Where and when?"

"No matter, I also have my suspicions."

"He murdered them himself, sir--the wicked man! 'Twasn't their mother, my poor niece, God rest her soul! She died as easy as a lamb. Indeed, indeed, it wasn't her."

"Bring your tools," said Frantz, "and come with me."

He led the sexton to his chamber--desired him to raise the mysterious hearthstone, and dig up the ground beneath it. This was accordingly done, and in a few minutes, with sentiments of unspeakable pity and horror, Frantz beheld the fleshless remains of two children, who apparently from the size of the bones must have been about the age and figure, when deposited there, of the little phantoms. He found also upon turning to the register, that it laid open at the very page named by the sexton; and on the very spot which the apparition of the wretched Von Weetzer had indicated by his finger, was duly entered the baptism of the murdered children; and the sexton readily turned to the entries of their birth in other parts of the volume. Frantz interred the remains of these unfortunate beings in consecrated ground--immediately quitted Steingart-- resigned a preferment which had (from the singularly terrible incident thus connected with his possession of it) equally alarmed and disgusted him--_married Adelinda_ upon his return to Leipzig--and gradually became an exemplary member of Society.

M.L.B.

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Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.--_Swift_.

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THE NATURALIST.

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NEST OF THE TAYLOR BIRD.

This is one of the most interesting objects in the whole compass of Natural History. The little architect is called the _Taylor Bird, Taylor Wren_, or _Taylor Warbler_, from the art with which it makes its nest, sewing some dry leaves to a green one at the extremity of a twig, and thus forming a hollow cone, which it afterwards lines. The general construction of the nest, as well as a description of a specimen in Dr. Latham's collection, will be found at page 180, of vol. xiii. of the MIRROR.

The Taylor Bird is only about three and a half inches in length, and weighs, it is said, three-sixteenths of an ounce; the plumage above is pale olive yellow; chin and throat yellow; breast and belly dusky white. It inhabits India, and particularly the Islands of Ceylon. The eggs are white, and not much larger than what are called ant's eggs.[1]

In constructing the nest, the beak performs the office of drilling in the leaves the necessary holes, and passing the fibres through them with the dexterity of a tailor. Even such parts in the rear as are not sufficiently firm are sewed in like manner.

[20] Notes to Jennings's _Ornithologia_, p. 324.

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IVY.

Mr. Gilbert Burnett thus beautifully illustrates the transitorial metamorphosis of ivy:--

"The ivy, in its infant or very young state, has stalks trailing upon the ground, and protruding rootlets throughout their whole extent; its leaves are spear-shaped, and it bears neither flower nor fruit; this is termed _ivy creeping on the ground_. The same plant, when more advanced, quits the ground, and climbs on walls and trees, its rootlets becoming holdfasts only; its leaves are generally three or five lobed, and it is still barren; this is the _greater barren ivy_. In its next, or more mature state, it disdains all props, and rising by its own strength above the walls on which it grew, occasionally puts on the appearance of a tree; in this the flower of its age, the branches are smooth, devoid of radicles and holdfasts; and it is loaded with blossoms and with fruit; the lobulations of the leaves are likewise less; this is the _war-poet's ivy_. But when old, the ivy again becomes barren, again the suckers appear upon the stem, and the leaves are no longer lobed, but egg-shaped; this is the _Bacchanalian ivy_."

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MICROSCOPIC AMUSEMENT.

Mr. Carpenter, in _Gill's Repository_, speaking of the fine displays of anatomy and wonderful construction of insects, creatures so much "despised, and which are, indeed, but too often made the subject of wanton sport by many persons, who amuse their children by passing a pin through the bottom of their abdomen, in order to excite pain and long-suffering in the insect, and thus making them spin, as they ignorantly term it," has the following most humane and benevolent observations:--"Many of these cruel sports might undoubtedly be effectively checked, if the teachers of schools were occasionally to exhibit to their pupils, under the microscope, the various parts of an insect with which they are familiar; and, by interesting lectures of instruction, to point out the uses to which those parts are applied by the insect, for its preservation and comfort; and that, when they are deprived of them, or they are even injured, a degree of suffering takes place in the creature, which the children at present seem to be wholly uninformed of. I certainly think that, if the abovementioned useful lessons were inculcated, they would afford a check to those cruel propensities in many children, which they at present indulge in, for want of being better instructed."

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NOTES OF A READER.

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ROYAL PROGRESSES, OR VISITS.

The celebrity attendant on a royal visit adhered long to places as well as persons. A chamber in the decayed tower of Hoghton, in Lancashire, still bears the name of James the First's room. Elizabeth's apartment, and that of her maids of honour, are still known at Weston House, in Warwickshire; her walk "marked by old thorn-bushes," at Hengrave, in Norfolk; near Harefield, the farm-house where she was welcomed by allegorical personages; at Bisham Abbey, the well in which she bathed; and at Beddington, in Surrey, her favourite oak. She often shot with a cross-bow in the paddock at Oatlands. At Hawsted, in Suffolk, she is reported to have dropped a silver-handled fan into the moat; and an old approach to Kenninghall Place, in Norfolk, is called Queen Bess's Lane, because she was scratched by the brambles in riding through it.--_Quarterly Review_.

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SHAKSPEARE'S MACBETH.

During one of the progresses of James I. on passing the gate of St. John's College, at Oxford, his majesty was saluted by three youths, representing the weird sisters (sibyllae,) who, in Latin hexameters, bade the descendant of Banquo hail, as king of Scotland, king of England, and king of Ireland; and his queen as daughter, sister, wife, and mother of kings. The occasion is memorable in dramatic history, if it be true that this address, or a translation of it, led Shakspeare to write on the story of Macbeth. Much has been said for the probability of this supposition; but surely the legend of Macbeth and Banquo must have been abundantly discoursed of in England between James's accession and the year when this pageant was exhibited; and Shakspeare could find every circumstance alluded to by the Oxford speakers, and many more in Holinshed's Chronicle, which, through a great part of Macbeth, he has undoubtedly taken for his guide.--_Ibid_.

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CHINESE DRAMA.

The Chinese themselves make no technical distinctions between _tragedy_ and _comedy_ in their stage pieces;--the dialogue of which is composed in ordinary prose, while the principal performer now and then chants forth, in unison with music, a species of song or vaudeville, and the name of the tune or air is always inserted at the top of the passage to be sung.-- _Quarterly Review_.

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THE HAWTHORN.

The trunk of an old hawthorn is more gnarled and rough than, perhaps, that of any other tree; and this, with its hoary appearance, and its fragrance, renders it a favourite tree with pastoral and rustic poets, and with those to whom they address their songs. Milton, in his L'Allegro, has not forgotten this favourite of the village:--

"Every shepherd tells his tale Under the hawthorn in the dale."

When Burns, with equal force and delicacy, delineates the pure and unsophisticated affection of young, intelligent, and innocent country people, as the most enchanting of human feelings, he gives additional sweetness to the picture by placing his lovers

"Beneath the milk-white thorn, that scents the evening gale."

There is something about the tree, which one bred in the country cannot soon forget, and which a visiter learns, perhaps, sooner than any association of placid delight connected with rural scenery. When, too, the traveller, or the man of the world, after a life spent in other pursuits, returns to the village of his nativity, the old hawthorn is the only playfellow of his boyhood that has not changed. His seniors are in the grave; his contemporaries are scattered; the hearths at which he found a welcome are in the possession of those who know him not; the roads are altered; the houses rebuilt; and the common trees have grown out of his knowledge: but be it half a century or more, if man spare the old hawthorn, it is just the same--not a limb, hardly a twig, has altered from, the picture that memory traces of his early years.--_Library of Entertaining Knowledge_.

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TURKISH JOKE.

When the Caliph Haroun el Raschid (who was the friend of the great Charlemagne,) entertained Ebn Oaz at his court in the quality of jester, he desired him one day, in the presence of the Sultana and all her followers, to make an excuse worse than the crime it was intended to extenuate: the Caliph walked about, waiting for a reply. Alter a long pause, Ebn Oaz skulked behind the throne, and pinched his highness in the rear. The rage of the Caliph was unbounded. "I beg a thousand pardons of your Majesty," said Ebn Oaz, "but I thought it was her Highness the Sultana." This was the excuse worse than the crime; and of course the jester was pardoned.

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FUND AND REFUND.

Disappointment at the theatre is a bad thing: but the manager returning admission money is worse. Sheridan, who understood professional feelings on this subject in the most acute degree, was in the habit of saying that he could give words to the chagrin of a conqueror, on seeing the fruit of his victories snatched from him; or the miseries of a broken down minister, turned out in the moment when he thought the cabinet at his mercy; or a felon listening to a long winded sermon from the ordinary; or a debtor just fallen into the claws of a dun; but that he never could find words to express the sensibilities of a manager compelled to disgorge money once taken at his doors. "_Fund_," says this experienced ornament of the art of living by one's wits, "_fund_ is an excellent word; but _re-fund_ is the very worst in the language."_Monthly Magazine_.

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COURT SQUABBLES.

Mr. Crawfurd, in his _Embassy_, describes the following ludicrous scene arising from a misunderstanding between the sovereign of Birmah and his ministers:--"The ministers last night reported to the king the progress of the negotiation. His majesty was highly indignant, said his confidence had been abused, and that now, for the first time, he was made acquainted with the real state of affairs. He accused the ministers of falsehoods, malversations, and all kinds of offences. His displeasure did not end in mere words; he drew his Dà, or sword, and sallied forth in pursuit of the offending courtiers. These took to immediate flight, some leaping over the balustrades which rail in the front of the Hall of Audience, but the greater number escaping by the stair which leads to it; and in the confusion which attended their endeavours, (tumbling head over heels,) one on top of another. Such royal paroxysms are pretty frequent, and, although attended with considerable sacrifices of the kingly dignity, are always bloodless. The late king was less subject to these fits of anger than his present majesty, but he also occasionally forgot himself. Towards the close of his reign, and when on a pilgrimage to the great temple of Mengwan, a circumstance of this description took place, which was described by an European gentleman, himself present, and one of the courtiers. The king had detected something flagitious, which would not have been very difficult. His anger rose; he seized his spear, and attacked the false ministers. These, with the exception of the European, who was not a party to the offence, fled tumultuously. One hapless courtier had his heels tripped up in his flight; the king overtook him, and wounded him slightly in the calf of the leg with his spear, but took no farther vengeance."

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LULLABY.

SHAKSPEARE, in _Titus Andronicus_, says,

"Be unto us, as is a nurse's song Of _Lullaby_ to bring her babe to sleep."

A learned commentator gives us what he facetiously calls a lullaby note on this.

"The verb _to lull_, means to sing Gently, and it is connected with the Greek [Greek: laleo], loquor, or [Greek: lala], the sound made by the beach of the sea. The Roman nurses used the word _lalla_, to quiet their children, and they feigned a deity called _Lullus_, whom they invoked on that occasion; the lullaby, or tune itself was called by the same name."-- _Douce_.

_Lullaby_ is supposed a contraction for _Lull-a-baby_. The Welsh are celebrated for their Lullaby songs, and a good Welsh nurse, with a pleasing voice, has been sometimes found more soporific in the nursery, than the midwife's anodyne. The contrary effects of Swift's song, "Here we go up, up, up," and the smile-provoking melody of "Hey diddle, diddle," _cum multis aliis_, are too well known to be enumerated or disputed. "The Good Nurse" give us a chapter on the advantage of employing music in certain stages of protracted illness.

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GOOD NIGHT.

In northern Europe we may, without impropriety, say good night! to departing friends at any hour of darkness; but the Italians utter their Felicissima Notte only once. The arrival of candles marks the division between day and night, and when they are brought in, the Italians thus salute each other. How impossible it is to convey the exact properties of a foreign language by translation! Every word, from the highest to the lowest, has a peculiar significance, determinable only by an accurate knowledge of national and local attributes and peculiarites.

GOETHE.--_Blackwood's Magazine_.

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THE ANECDOTE GALLERY.

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THE EDDYSTONE LIGHTHOUSE.

(_For The Mirror_.)