Chapter 3

"Near the Queen's house in this park is a very fine Spanish chestnut tree, said to have been planted by Charles II., and to have been the first which was seen in this country.

"The trees which at present form so much of the beauty of Greenwich Park were planted by Evelyn, and if he could now see them he would call them 'goodly trees,' at least some of them. The chestnuts, however, though they produce some fine fruit, have not thriven in the same proportion with the elms. In noticing this park I should not forget to mention that the only remaining part of the palace of Henry VIII. is preserved in the front of Lord Auckland's house looking into the park. It is a circular delft window of beautiful workmanship, and in a fine state of preservation. There are also a great number of small tumuli in the upper part of the park, all of which appear to have been opened."

"In addition to the herd of fallow deer, amounting to about one thousand six hundred, which are kept in Richmond Park, there is generally a stock of from forty to fifty red deer. One fine stag was so powerful, and offered so much resistance, that two of his legs were broken in endeavouring to secure him, and he was obliged to be killed. One who had shown good sport in the royal hunt, was named 'Sir Edmund,' by his late Majesty, in consequence of Sir Edmund Nagle having been in at the '_take_' after a long chase. This stag lived some years afterwards in the park; and its a curious fact that he died the very same day on which Sir Edmund Nagle died."

The volume contains some interesting antiquarian inquiries respecting Caesar's ford at Kingston, and Maxims for an Angler, by a Bungler.

* * * * *

THE SKETCH BOOK

THE ABBOT OF TEWKESBURY.

(_For the Mirror._)

"After life's fitful fever be sleeps well." _Shakspeare_.

(In opening the tomb of the founder of the Abbey at Tewkesbury, the body of the Abbot was found clothed in full canonicals. The crosier was as perfect as when, perhaps, first put in the coffin, while the body showed scarcely any symptom of decay, though it had been entombed considerably above six hundred years. On exposure to the air, the boots alone of the Abbot were seen to sink, when the tomb was ordered to be sealed up, and his holiness again committed in his darkness. On the above circumstance this sketch is founded.)

Is this to be dead? Am I not clad in all pontifical splendour? Do I not feel the crosier on my breast? The holy brethren of the Abbey surround me. That which distinguished the Abbot when alive, is even here in collected magnificence. I feel the priestly consequence of the Abbot. Is this then the Chamber of the Dead? The pious monks are weeping. The tears which have flowed before the marble shrine are recalled to weep for a departed brother. The incense is full fragrant. I enjoy the perception of its odour. It dilates in my stiffened nostrils, but it supplies me not the breath of life. I hear the loud Hosanna chanted for a soul which dies in the Lord. I will repeat the strain. No. My voice refuses to fall back upon the ear. Where is my heart that it beats not swelling to the anthem's measure? Cold! cold! cold! Nay; I will rise. I will respond unto the funeral dirge. I will shout. Oh! my trunk is hardened, and my tongue is glued. Silence! they pause. Say, do they hear me? No. Silence, horrible and awful. Hark! they mourn with lamentation on my fate. O, Heaven! must I endure all this? Must the living weep for the dead, and the conscious dead be doomed to dismal silence. Horror! horror! horror! IS THIS TO BE DEAD?

* * * * *

A convocation! Yes. The holy brothers in assembled synod to elect a brother holier than themselves. Nay, I do forbid. I, the Abbot who have loved ye all, refuse permission to your meeting. Disperse, disperse. Do ye not hear? Is there no charity alive? Who dares usurp my chair, and I not yet entombed? What! is justice driven out where heavenly men should dwell? I see it. I mark it. The leaven of pride is kneaded in the brotherhood. Intriguing hypocrites usurp the House of God. What! brother John, the fat, the corpulent, the lazy! of whom I know ten thousand heinous sins; the least sufficient to condemn a soul. An Abbot, chosen by the holy, is the elect of God. But he--no, no, no. It shall not be. God will forbid it. They put the crosier in his hand. For shame! for shame! Let not the vicious living sit in the chair of virtue that is departed. Why see! he kneels. He kneels before the shrine, where, until now, he never bent to pray. He grasps the crosier with loving firmness. It shall not be. Is there no interposing Deity to slay the sinner in his wickedness? I, I will seize the crosier from his filthy hand. No. My arm lays idly at my side. Is THIS TO BE DEAD?

* * * * *

They chant the funeral dirge. The mighty torches flash their blazing light upon the frozen features of the dead. Mine eyes are sealed. I strain to open them. No. Light gleams in upon me as through a clear veil. Ah! monster of hateful mien! demon deceitful in religious robes! avaunt! Thou shalt not touch my corpse. No. Thank God! It is a foretaste of thy love to come. He passes on. He dares not lay polluted hands upon the dead, whose becalmed face is looking up to thee. The dead, the sacred dead. The living are for the world, the dead are Thine. Incense, and prayer, and psalms for the departed. It is respectful, but what heed I? Man comes into the world only to go out thereof. What then? The grave! Horror. I have preached thereof. I have shocked others with the enormities of life until they clung unto the grave. Now, I who have bidden the virtuous look to the hopes beyond it, myself would cry to live. But no! they bear me on. He, the foul monster, grins as he looks upon my outstretched limbs. Wolf, I'll pray for thee. Breathe, breathe hardly, ye distended nostrils; it is your last pulsation with the air of earth. No. Sealed as the marble figures by which they bear me. Is this my Tomb. Is this the narrow house appointed for the living? Is this the Abbot's palace after death? Nay, I pray thee, brethren, close me not up in yon receptacle. Where the cold air might shiver on my flesh I may be happy. Yon tomb is dark and dismal, shut from the eye of day. Louder and louder grows your chant, I know its terminating cadence. It falls upon mine ear. Take off this stony lid. Nay, I will knock, knock, knock. My arms are still unraised. They hear me not. Brethren! men! christians! no, monks, monks, monks, cold as the stone ye place upon my breast! Have ye no ears? no hearts? Do I not shout? Do I not pray? Ah! my tongue is one of marble. It is cold and fixed. They will not hear me. Listen! their parting and receding steps. Nay, hasten not away. Silence. No. One step is lingering behind. Thank God! I shout. Brother! what, ho! He hears. Brother! He pauses. What ho! He goes. Brother! Silence is around, hushed as my own attempts to burst a voice. Hark! a noise. No. Silence. Is THIS TO BE DEAD?

* * * * *

Yet in the grave. Years have rolled away. Successors to my chair sleep in the stony sepulchres around me. Monks whom I have awed or blessed, slumber in death. Men, whom I have known not, walk in the cloisters I have built. I am but mentioned as a thing that was--the memory of a name. Enough. There is no communion among the dead. Methought the spirits of the other world held converse on the joys they left on earth. But all is still. I cannot hear a lament, even for a rotted bone. The dead are tongue-tied. In yonder chancel sleeps a monarch, murdered by bloody relations. Should not such a spirit shriek aloud for vengeance, or weep a wailing for his destiny? But all is still. I hear no night owl screech. Earth is the only dwelling place of noise. Death knows it not. Methinks a shriek were music, a sigh were melody, a groan a feast. But no. Time has almost used me to its sombre sameness. Is not time tired to have gone so long the same unchanging course? I cannot move. My joints are aching with continued rest. I cannot turn:--my sides are sunken in. Would I could turn and crush them into bones with my reclining weight. Is my heart sinful that it weighs down all my body. Is this the gnawing and undying worm? Is THIS TO BE DEAD.

* * * * *

Six hundred years and still I am in the tomb. So much of man has sought a refuge in the grave. I well may ask if life is yet on earth. Has man degraded or is England ruined! I hear the footsteps of those that gaze upon the stony sepulchres. I feel the glaring of their curious eyes between the crevices which time has uncemented. They make remarks. Is then a tomb a monument of wonder? They talk of monks as things that are no more. Then is the world no more. At last the time is come. They lay their iron hand upon the stone. They knock, they knock. Hark! It rings through the giant isles till the echo thrills with joy. They knock the stony cerement that enshrines me. Great Heaven! I thank thee! Used as I am become to my hollow narrowness, I shall rejoice to quit it. The lid upraises. I feel the air. I feel the air. Now, now, let me rise. I feel myself prepared. Ah! the boots fall off. I shall ascend. The boots fall off. What are there none to raise me? See, they grin. Am I not come unto the resurrection of the life? What! that horrid lid again. O, no, no. They stifle me again. They fasten me to sleep--to sleep--to sleep. THIS, THIS IS TO BE DEAD.

P.S.

* * * * *

NOTES OF A READER

WILLS,

_Abridged from Powell's Advice to Executors, (just published.)_

_Queen Consort._--An ancient perquisite belonging to the Queen Consort was, that on the taking of a _whale_ on the coasts, it should be divided between the King and Queen; the head only becoming the King's property, and the tail the Queen's. The reason of this whimsical distinction, as assigned by our ancient records, was to furnish the Queen's wardrobe with whalebone.

_A civil Death_ is where a husband has undergone transportation for life. In such case, his wife is legally entitled to make a will, and act in every other matter, as if she was unmarried, or as though her husband were dead.--_Roper's Husband and Wife_.

_Pin Money._--It has been judicially determined, that a married woman having any _pin-money_, (by which is understood an annual income settled by the husband, before marriage, on his intended wife, or allowed by him to her after marriage, gratuitously, for her personal and private expenditure during the existence of the marriage,) or any separate maintenance, may, by will, bequeath her _savings_ out of such allowance, without the license or consent of her husband.--_Clamey's Equitable Rights of Married Women._

_Compulsory Will._--So cautious is the Ecclesiastical Court in guarding against restraint of any kind, that in a case in which it was proved that a man, in his last sickness, was compelled to make his will to _procure quiet from the extreme importunity of his wife_, it was held to have been made under restraint, and was declared void.

_Wills of Criminals._--The lands and tenements of _traitors_, from the commission of the offence, and their goods and chattels, from the time of their conviction, are forfeited to the king. They have therefore no property in either; and are not merely deprived of the privilege of making any kind of will after the period of their conviction, but any will _previously_ made is rendered void by such conviction, both as respects real and personal estate. The law respecting _felons_ is the same, unless it be worth recording that a remarkable exception exists in favour of Gavelkind lands, which, even though the ancestor be hanged, are not forfeited for felony.

_Bachelors' Wills._--Without any express revocation, if a man who has made his will, afterwards _marries, and has a child or children_, his will, made while a bachelor, will be presumptively _revoked_, both as regards real and personal estate, and he will be pronounced to have died intestate. The law presumes that it must be the natural intention of every man to provide for his wife and offspring before all others, and, consequently, in such a case, apportions his property according to the Statute of Distributions. But the fact of a marriage alone, _without a child_, is no revocation; and though both facts conjoin to revoke the will, yet such revocation is only on the presumption that the testator _could not have intended_ his will to remain good. If, on the other hand, from expressions used by him, and other proof, it be made to appear unquestionable that it was his intent that his will _should_ continue in force, the marriage and birth of children will not revoke it.

_Paraphernalia of a Widow._--These are defined to be "such goods as a wife is, after her husband's death, allowed to retain in preference to all creditors and legatees; as necessary wearing apparel, and jewels, if she be of quality; and whether so or not, all such ornaments of the person, as watches, rings, and trinkets, as _she used to wear_ in her husband's life-time. Under the term 'wearing apparel' are included whatsoever articles were given to her by her husband for the purpose of being made up into clothes, although he may have died before they were made up." (_Clamey._) It should be added, however, that the jewels of the wife are, after her husband's death, liable to the payment of his debts, should his personal estate be exhausted; though her necessary wearing apparel is protected against the claim of all creditors.

* * * * *

SUPERSTITION OF SAILORS.

The following is from Messrs. Bennet and Tyerman's _Voyages and Travels_: "Our chief mate said, that on board a ship where he had served, the mute on duty ordered some of the youths to reef the main-top-sail. When the first got up, he heard a strange voice saying, '_It blows hard_.' The lud waited for no more; he was down in a trice, and telling his adventure; a second immediately ascended, laughing at the folly of his companion, but returned even more quickly declaring that he was quite sure that a voice, not of this world, had cried in his ear, 'It blows hard.' Another went, and another, but each came back with the same tale. At length the mate, having sent up the whole watch, run up the shrouds himself; and when he reached the haunted spot, heard the dreadful words distinctly uttered in his ears, 'It blows hard.' 'Ay, ay, old one; but blow it ever so hard, we must ease the earings for all that,' replied the mate undauntedly; and looking round, he spied a fine parrot perched on one of the clues--the thoughtless author of all the false alarms, which had probably escaped from some other vessel, but had not been discovered to have taken refuge on this. Another of our officers mentioned that, on one of his voyages, he remembered a boy having been sent up to clear a rope which had got foul above the mizen-top. Presently, however, he came back, trembling, and almost tumbling to the bottom, declaring that he had seen 'Old Davy,' aft the cross-trees; moreover, that the Evil One had a huge head and face, with pricked ears, and eyes as bright as fire. Two or three others were sent up in succession; to all of whom the apparition glared forth, and was identified by each to be 'Old Davy, sure enough.' The mate, in a rage, at length mounted himself; when resolutely, as in the former case, searching for the bugbear, he soon ascertained the innocent cause of so much terror to be a large horned owl, so lodged as to be out of sight to those who ascended on the other side of the vessel, but which when any one approached the cross-trees, popped up his portentous visage to see what was coming. The mate brought him down in triumph, and 'Old Davy,' the owl, became a very peaceable shipmate among the crew, who were no longer scared by his horns and eyes; for sailors turn their backs on nothing when they know what it is. Had the birds, in these two instances, departed as they came, of course they would have been deemed supernatural visitants to the respective ships, by all who had heard the one or seen the other." W.G.C.

* * * * *

THE GATHERER

* * * * *

_Hard Duty._--As a gentleman's coachman washed his master's carriage during divine service on Sunday morning, he was heard to say that "he hoped his master and mistress prayed for him, as he had no time to pray for himself." He brought his lady home from the Opera at one in the morning; then went to fetch his master from the "Hell" in St. James's-street, and by the time he had littered and rubbed down his horses, and got to his own bed, it was four o'clock; he thought after that he could not do less than sleep till nine; by half-past-ten he had got his breakfast, and at twelve his carriage was ready; at one he took his dinner; at two he was ordered to be at the door to take his lady and the young ladies to the Park; at five he returned, and was ordered out at six, to carry the family to dinner; after setting them down, he was directed to come at half-past eleven; and by two o'clock on Monday morning, the poor man was once more in his bed.

_Le Due de Bourdeaux._--It was still dark when the order was given to notify the auspicious birth of the young Duc de Bordeaux, in November, 1820, to the inhabitants of Paris. It was observed to the Duc de Richelieu, that it might perhaps be better to wait for the break of day, to fire the cannon; to which he replied, "For news so glorious, it is break of day at all times." S.H.

_Scriptural Memoranda._--Verse 18, chap. xii. of the first Book of Maccabees, will make an excellent motto for a seal. The 21st verse of the 7th chap. of Ezra, contains every letter of the alphabet. The 19th chap, of the 2nd Book of Kings, and the 37th of Isaiah, are alike, as are also the 31st chap, of the first Book of Samuel, and the 10th chap, of the 1st Chronicles. T. GILL.

"_Caviare to the Multitude_," is as good a simile as Shakspeare ever made, for where is the artisan, but after having tasted it, began to spit and splutter as though he had been poisoned, while the aristocrat, the one in a thousand, licks his lips after it, as the greatest delicacy. This article is the roe of the sturgeon, salted down and pressed, and is imported into this country from Odessa. S.H.

_Man-killing and Man-eating._--I really do not think the New Zealanders are half so barbarous as the Russians, whatever other folks may say of it, and I'll abide by what I've said too: it is true they sometimes indulge a little by eating a man for dinner, as a delicacy; but leaving eating out of the question, one Russian chief caused more bloodshed last year, than all the New Zealanders put together; and after all, it is an undoubted fact, that a couple of Russians will eat up a rein-deer at a meal! (that is, they will not give over till they have finished it,) so they do not want appetite; and if they were in New Zealand, and a man were to fall in their way, it is very likely that they would eat him. S.H.

_Generosity of Marshal Turenne._--The deputies of a great metropolis in Germany, once offered the great Turenne 100,000 crowns not to pass with his army through the city. "Gentlemen," said he, "I cannot, in conscience, accept your money, as I had no intention to pass that way." T. GILL.

_Spain._--It is remarkable that the Carthaginians having established colonies in Spain, drew their riches from that country, as the Spaniards themselves afterwards did from South America.

_Breakfast._--It has been observed, such is our luxury, that the world must be encompassed to furnish a washerwoman with breakfast: with tea from China, and sugar from the West Indies.

_Bamboo._--The largest and tallest sort of bamboo, known In India, is about half the height of the London Monument, or 100 feet.

_Brick-building_ was practised largely in Italy in the beginning of the fourteenth century; and the brick buildings erected at this period in Tuscany, and other parts of the north of Italy, exhibit at the present day the finest specimens extant of brick-work!

_Nothing Impossible._--Mirabeau's haste of temper was known, and he must be obeyed. "Monsieur Comte," said his secretary to him one day, "the thing you require is impossible." "Impossible!" exclaimed Mirabeau, starting from his chair, "never again use that _foolish word_ in my presence."--_Dumont's Mirabeau._ (This brief anecdote should never be forgotten by the reader: it is more characteristic than hundreds of pages; it is, to all men, a lesson almost in a line.)

_"Nice to a Shaving."_--When Louis VII. of France, to obey the injunctions of his bishops, cropped his hair and shaved his beard, Eleanor, his consort, found him with this unusual appearance, very ridiculous, and soon very contemptible. She revenged herself as she thought proper, and the poor shaved king obtained a divorce. She then married the Count of Anjou, afterwards our Henry II. She had for her marriage dower the rich provinces of Poitu and Guyenne; and this was the origin of those wars which for three hundred years ravaged France, and cost the French three millions of men: all which, probably, had never occurred, had Louis VII. not been so rash as to crop his head, and shave his beard, by which he became so disgustful in the eyes of our Queen Eleanor. W.A.

_American Wife._--The following advertisement for a wife appeared a few years since, in a New York paper:--"Wanted immediately, a young lady, of the following description, (as a wife,) with about 2,000 dollars as a patrimony, sweet temper, spend little, be a good housewife, and born in America; and as I am not more than twenty-five years of age, I hope it will not be difficult to find a good wife. N.B. I take my dwelling in South Second Street, No. 273. Any lady that answers the above description will please to leave her card." W.G.C.

The following is said to be an unpublished epigram of Lord Byron:--

An old phlegmatic Dutchman took A pretty Jewish wife, And what still more surprising is, He lov'd her 'bove his life-- Oh! Holland and Jerusalem, What, tell me, do you think of them?

_A Queer Library._--The eccentric physician, Dr. Radcliffe, when pursuing his studies, was content with looking into the works of Dr. Willis. He was possessed of very few books, insomuch that when Dr. Bathurst, head of Trinity College, asked him once with surprise, where his study was? he pointed to a few vials, a skeleton, and a herbal, and said, "Sir, this is Radcliffe's Library." P.T.W.

_How to detect a Thief._--A watch was stolen in the Pit of the Opera, in Paris; the loser complained in a loud voice, and said, "It is just nine; in a few minutes my watch will strike; the second is strong; and by that means we shall instantly ascertain where it is." The thief, terrified at this, endeavoured to escape, and by his agitation discovered himself. T. GILL.

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