Читать книгу: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 269, August 18, 1827», страница 2

THE SKETCH-BOOK

NO. XLIV

THE BLUE BOTTLE

"A fly your honour."—Brighton Cliff

Talk of musquitoes!—a musquito is a gentleman who honourably runs you through with a small sword, and from whom (as from a mad dog) we may easily seek a defence in—muslin.

But your rory-tory, hurly-burly blue-bottle, is no better than a bully. His head is a humming-top, and his tight blue little body like a tomahawk, cased in glittering steel, which he takes a delight in whirling against your head. I really believe, that to confine a nervous man in a room with one of these winged tormentors, on a July day, would inevitably destroy him in less than an hour.

He rudely and unceremoniously bumps away all sober reflection,—(I wonder whether the phrenological Spurzheim ever felt the bumps of a blue-bottle!) then his whimsical vagaries effectually defy repose; now settling with his tickling bandy legs upon your nose, and industriously insinuating his sharp proboscis, and anon abruptly buzzing in your ear—no secret—off he shoots again to his own music.

Now, truly, his hum-drum puts me in mind of the whirring tone of the hurdy-gurdy, while his ad libitum bumping against the booming window-panes sounds, to my fancy, like the unskilful accompaniment of a double drum, beaten by some unmusical urchin.

The house spider who spreads with so much care his beautiful nets for gnats, and moths, and smaller flies, finds alike his labour and his toils in vain to secure this rampaging rogue; and, indeed, when the turbulent blue-bottle chances, in his bouncing random flight, to get entangled in the glutinous meshes, he shakes and roars, and blusters so loudly, until he breaks away, that the spider affrighted, invariably takes advantage of his long legs to scamper off to his sanctum in the cracked wainscot—like some imbecile watchman, who fearing to encounter a tall inebriated bruiser, sneaks away with admirable discretion to the security of his snug box, praying the drunkard may speedily reel into another beat.

Your noisy people generally grow taciturn in their cups—but Sir Blue-bottle, though he drinks deep draughts of your wine, particularly if it abound in sweetness, is never changed. He is naturally giddy, and according to entomologists, always sees more than double, while his head was never made to be turned. So may you hope for peace—only in his flight or death!—Absurdities: in Prose and Verse.

LAW AND LAWYERS

(For the Mirror.)

William the Conqueror entertained the difficult project of totally abolishing the English language, and for that purpose, he ordered that in all schools throughout the kingdom, the youth should be instructed in the French tongue. Until the reign of Edward III. the pleadings in the supreme courts of judicature were performed in French, when it was appointed that the pleas should be pleaded in English; but that they should be entered or recorded in Latin. The deeds were drawn in the same language; the laws were composed in that idiom, and no other tongue was used at court. It became, says Hume, the language of all fashionable company; and the English themselves ashamed of their own country, affected to excel in that foreign dialect. At Athens, and even in France and England, formal and prepared pleadings were prohibited, and it was unlawful to amuse the court with long, artful harangues; only it was the settled custom here, in important matters, to begin the pleadings with a text out of the holy scriptures. It is of late years that eloquence was admitted to the bar.

The account which the learned judge Hale gives of the lawyers, who pleaded in the 15th century, does them little honour. He condemns the reports during the reigns of Henry IV. and V. as inferior to those of the last twelve years of Edward III. and he speaks but coolly of those which the reign of Henry VI. produces. Yet this deficiency of progressive improvement in the common law arose not from a want of application to the science; since we learn from Fortescue that there were no fewer than two thousand students attending on the inns of chancery and of court, in the time of its writer. Gray's-inn, in the time of Henry VIII. was so incommodious, that "the ancients of this house were necessitated to lodge double." Indeed until the beginning of the last century the lawyers lived mostly in their inns of court, or about Westminster-hall. But a great change has been effected; they are all now removed to higher ground, squares and genteel neighbourhoods, no matter how far distant from their chambers.

The number of judges in the courts of Westminster was by no means certain. Under Henry VI. there were at one time eight judges in the court of common pleas. Each judge took a solemn oath that "he would take no fee, pension, gift, reward, or bribe, from any suitor, saving meat and drink, which should be of no great value." In 1402, the salary of the chief justice of the king's bench was forty pounds per annum. In 1408, the chief justice of the common pleas had fifty-five marks per annum. In 1549, the chief justice of the king's bench had an addition of thirty pounds to his salary, and each justice of the same bench and common pleas, twenty pounds. At this time, a felony under the value of twelve pence, was not a capital offence; and twelve pence then was equal to sixty shillings at the present day.

To Richard III. on whom history has cast innumerable stains, England has considerable obligations as a legislator. Barrington thus speaks of him: "Not to mention his causing each act of parliament to be written in English and to be printed, he was the first prince on the English throne who enabled the justices of the peace to take bail; and he caused to be enacted a law against raising money by 'benevolence' which when pleaded by the citizens of London against Cardinal Wolsey, could only be answered by an averment, that Richard being a usurper and a murderer of his nephews, the laws of so wicked a man ought not to be forced." And a noble biographer, (Bacon's Henry VII.) says, "He was a good lawgiver for the ease and solace of the common people." Cardinal Wolsey to terrify the citizens of London into the general loan exacted in 1525, told them plainly, that it were better that some should suffer indigence than that the king at this time should lack, and therefore beware and resist not, nor ruffle not in the case, for it may fortune to cost some people their heads. And says Hume, when Henry VIII. heard that the commons made a great difficulty of granting the required supply, he was so provoked that he sent for Edward Montague, one of the members who had a considerable influence on the house; and he being introduced to his majesty, had the mortification to hear him speak in these words: Ho! man! will they not suffer my bill to pass? And laying his hand on Montague's head, who was then on his knees before him, get my bill passed by to-morrow, or else to-morrow this head of yours shall be off. This cavalier manner of Henry's succeeded; for next day the bill passed. Another instance of arbitrary power is worth relating. In Strype's life of Stow we find, a garden house belonging to an honest citizen of London, (which chanced to obstruct the improvement of a powerful favourite. Thomas Cromwell,) "loosed from the foundation, borne on rollers, and replaced two and twenty feet within the garden," without the owner's leave being required; nay without his knowledge. The persons employed, being asked their authority for this extraordinary proceeding, made only this reply, "That Sir Thomas Cromwell had commanded them to do it," and none durst argue the matter. The father of the antiquary, Stow, (for it was he that was thus trampled upon,) "was fain to continue to pay his old rent, without any abatement, for his garden; though half of it was in this manner taken away."

TRIAL AND EXECUTION

In days of yore, (says Aubrey) lords and gentlemen lived in the country like petty kings, had jura regalia belonging to the seignories, had castles and boroughs, had gallows within their liberties, where they would try, condemn, and execute; never went to London but in parliament time, or once a year to do homage to the king. Justice was administered with great expedition, and too often with vindictive severity. Pennant informs us that "originally the time of trial and execution was to be within three suns!" About the latter end of the seventeenth century the period was extended to nine days after sentence; but since a rapid and unjust execution in a petty Scottish town, 1720, the execution has been ordered to be deferred for forty days on the south, and sixty on the north side of the Tay, that time may be allowed for an application to the king for mercy. Stealing was first capital in the reign of Henry I. False coining, which was then a very common crime, was severely punished. Near fifty criminals of this kind were at one time hanged or mutilated. Laws were passed in Henry VIIth's reign ordaining the king's suit for murder to be carried on within a year and a day. Formerly it did not usually commence till after, and as the friends of the person murdered often in the interval compounded matters with the criminal, the crime frequently passed unpunished. In 1503, an act was passed prohibiting the king from pardoning those convicted of wilful and premeditated murder; but this appears to have been done at the monarch's own request, and was liable to be rescinded at pleasure. In Henry the Eighth's reign, Harrison asserts that 73,000 criminals were executed for theft and robbery, which was nearly 2,000 a year. He adds, that in Elizabeth's reign, there were only between three and four hundred a year hanged for theft and robbery. It is said that the earliest law enacted in any country for the promotion of anatomical knowledge, was passed in 1540. It allowed the united companies of Barbers and Surgeons to have yearly the bodies of four criminals for dissection. In the year 1749, were executed at Tyburn, Usher Gahagan, Terence O'Connor, and Joseph Mapham, for filing gold money. Gahagan and Connor were papists of considerable families in Ireland; the former was a very good Latin scholar, and editor of Brindley's edition of the Classics; he translated Pope's Essay on Criticism, in Latin verse, and after his confinement, the Temple of Fame, and the Messiah, which he dedicated to the Duke of Newcastle, in hopes of a pardon; he also wrote verses in English to prince George (George III.) and to Mr. Adams, the recorder, which are published in the ordinary's account, together with a poetical address to the Duchess of Queensbury, by Connor. In 1752, it was enacted that every criminal convicted of wilful murder should be executed on the day next but one after sentence was passed, unless that happens to be on a Sunday: and in that case, they are to be executed on the Monday following. The judge may direct the body to be hung in chains, or to be delivered to the surgeons in order to its being dissected and anatomized; but in no case whatsoever is it to be buried till after it is dissected. The first punishment of hanging, drawing, and quartering, occurred in the year 1241. The form of our gallows was adopted by the Roman Furca, when Constantine abolished crucifixion. In France it had either a single, double, or treble frame, denoting the rank of the territorial seigneur, whether gentleman, knight, or baron. The ancient gallows near London, had hooks for eviscerating, quartering, &c. the bodies of criminals. In the 15th century, the top, like the beam of a pair of scales, was made to move up and down; at one end hung a halter, at the other a large weight, the halter was drawn down, and being put round the criminal's neck, the weight at the other end lifted him from the ground.

F.R.Y.