Читать книгу: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 350, January 3, 1829», страница 3

Late that night, Perez Donilla entered his own habitation as intoxicated and belligerent as ever. "Where's my supper?"—"Here," said his wife, trembling, as she placed before him a few heads of garlic, a piece of salted trout, a little oil, and a crust of barley bread. "What's all this, woman?" exclaimed Perez, in a voice of thunder; and with glaring eyes and demoniacal fury he dashed the fish at her head, and the rest of his supper upon the floor. "Wretch! how durst you fatten upon olios and ragouts, and set trash like this before your husband?"—"My dear," replied Juana, meekly, "I am starving; nothing have I tasted since breakfast."—"Don't lie, you jade! Where's the wild-fowl and the Bologna sausage sent you by that rogue, Gomez? Stolen were they from the canon's kitchen, and you know it! And where's the skin of excellent Calcavella, from the Caballero's overflowing vaults? Give it to me this instant, you hussy, you vixen, you—"—"Indeed, indeed," cried the unfortunate wife in deep anguish, "I take all the saints in heaven to witness—."—"That, and that, and that," interrupted the furious tyrant, lashing her severely, according to custom, with a thick thong of leather, and now and then adding a blow with his fist; "let's see if that will bring me a supper fit for a Christian, and a draught of Don Miguel's Calcavella!" Juana remembered Pedrillo's advice, and after roaring out more loudly than usual for aid from St. Jago, St. Francis, St. Benedict, and St. Nicholas, shrieked at the highest pitch of her voice, "May the three blessed Maries help me!" No sooner were the words uttered, than in rushed three apparitions, arrayed in white, but so enfolded in lined, that it was impossible to determine whether they represented men or women; of their visages, only their eyes were visible, peering frightfully from the white covering of their heads; each brandished a good stout cudgel, and each, without uttering a word, falling quick as thought upon Perez Donilla, repaid him the blows he had lavished on his unhappy wife with such interest, as would have sealed his fate indubitably, had not she interposed; but upon the entreaties of that exemplary wife, the three holy Maries remitted the remainder of their flagellation, and retired, leaving Perez senseless on the floor. Poor Juana was agonized at beholding the state to which her graceless partner was reduced, and hauling him, as well as her own exhausted strength would permit, upon his miserable pallet, washed the blood and dust from his wounds, and watched his return to consciousness with unexampled tenderness and dutiful fidelity. Perez at length opened his eyes, and said, in the mild voice which was natural to him when sober, "My poor Juana, I wish you could fetch your cousin Pedro to see me; I think I shall die." Juana was half distracted at this speech; and running to the next house, bribed a neighbour's child by the promise of a broad-brimmed straw hat, to shade his complexion from the sun, to run for Doctor Pedrillo. Pedro soon arrived, and was evidently more puzzled respecting his deportment than the case of his patient. Sundry "nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles," and sundry eloquent glances of his bright black eyes, were covertly bestowed upon his fair cousin; anon, with ludicrous solemnity, he felt the pulse of Perez, shook his head, and, in short, imitated with inimitable exactness all the technical airs and graces of a regular graduate of Salamanca.—"Cousin," cried he at length, with a sly look at Juana, "I pity your plight—from my soul I do; but your case is, I am grieved to say, desperate, unless I am informed of the cause of these monstrous weals, bruises, slashes, and chafings, in order that my prescription, may—"—"The cause of them," said Perez, almost frightened to death, "is, having to my cost a saint of a wife."—"How! that a misfortune? explain yourself, my poor fellow."—"Readily," replied Donilla, "if that will help to heal me."—He then explained minutely the circumstances of the case, concluding thus:—"Not but what I am, after all, remarkably indebted to Juana, for had she only called the eleven thousand Virgins to her assistance, their zeal would undoubtedly have divided my body amongst them; since, then, my wife has such friends in heaven; I shall henceforth be careful how I enrage them again."—Perez Donilla kept to his resolution, and the Three Maries, whom, without doubt, the intelligent reader has recognised through their disguise, lived for many years to rejoice in the blessed effects of a severe, but merited infliction. M. L. B.

RETROSPECTIVE GLEANINGS

THEATRICAL BILL

At a play acted in 1511, on the Feast of St. Margaret, the following disbursements were made as the charges of the exhibition:—

H. B. A.

ROBINSON CRUSOE'S ISLAND

The United States ship, Vincennes, visited the island of Juan Fernandez, off the coast of Chili, a few months since, and remained there three days. There were two Yankees and six Otaheitans on the island. The former had formed a settlement for the purpose of supplying whale-ships with water, poultry, and vegetables. The soil is said to be astonishingly fertile.

—New York Shipping List, 1366.

THE LETTER H

From an old History of England

 
"Not superstitiously I speak, but H his letter still
Hath been observed ominous to England's good or ill."
 
 
Humber the Hun, with foreign arms, did first the brutes invade;
Helen to Rome's imperial throne the British crown convey'd;
Hengist and Horsus first did plant the Saxons in this isle;
Hungar and Hubba first brought Danes, that sway'd here a long while;
At Harold had the Saxon end at Hardy Knute the Dane;
Henries the First and Second did restore the English reign;
Fourth Henry first for Lancaster did England's crown obtain;
Seventh Henry jarring Lancaster and York unites in peace;
Henry the Eighth did happily Rome's irreligion cease.
 

CHURCH OF AUSTIN FRIARS

The church of Austin Friars is one of the most ancient Gothic remains in the City of London. It belonged to a priory dedicated to St. Augustine, and was founded for the friars Eremites of the order of Hippo, in Africa, by Humphry Bohun, Earl of Hereford and Essex, 1253. A part of this once spacious building was granted by Edward VI. to a congregation of Germans and other strangers, who fled hither from religious persecutions. Several successive princes have confirmed it to the Dutch, by whom it has been used as a place of worship. J.M.C.

DAUPHIN OF FRANCE

The heir apparent of the crown of France derives his title of Dauphin from the following very singular circumstance. In 1349, Hubert, second Count of Dauphiny, being inconsolable for the loss of his heir and only child, who had leaped from his arms through a window of his palace at Grenoble into the river Isere, entered into a convent of jacobins, and ceded Dauphiny to Philip, a younger son of Philip of Valois (for 120,000 florins of gold each of the value of twenty sols or ten pence English,) on condition that the eldest son of the king of France should be always after styled "the Dauphin," from the name of the province thus ceded. Charles V., grandson to Philip of Valois, was the first who bore the title in 1530.

THE OLD ELEPHANT, FENCHURCH-STREET

Everything connected with the name of HOGARTH is interesting to the English reader. He was apprenticed to a silversmith, and from cutting cyphers on silver spoons, he rose to be sergeant painter to the king—and from engraving arms and shop-bills, to painting kings and queens—the very top of the artist's ladder. The soul-breathing impulses of genius enabled him to effect all this, and his example, (in support of the maxim, that "every man is the architect of his own fortune,") will be respected and cherished, at home and abroad, as long as self-advancement continues to be the great stimulus to aspiring industry.

The old Elephant public-house therefore merits the attention of all lovers of painting and genius; for in it, previous to his celebrity, lodged WILLIAM HOGARTH. It was built before the fire of London, and although so near, escaped its ravages; but the house was pulled down a short time since, and another of more commodious construction erected on its site. On the wall of the tap-room, in the old house, were four paintings by Hogarth: one representing the Hudson's Bay Company's Porters; another, his first idea for the Modern Midnight Conversation, (differing from the print in a circumstance too broad in its humour for the graver,) and another of Harlequin and Pierot seeming to be laughing at the figure in the last picture. On the first floor was a picture of Harlow Bush Fair, covered over with paint. This information is copied from an old print picked up in our "collecting" rambles, at the foot of which it is stated to have been obtained from "Mrs. Hibbert, who has kept the house between thirty and forty years, and received her information relating to Mr. Hogarth from persons at that time well acquainted with him." The paintings were, we believe, removed previous to the destruction of the old house.

To the searchers into life and manners, Hogarth's moral paintings, to which branch of art the above belong, are treasures of great prize; and whether over his originals at the gallery in Pall Mall, or their copies at the printsellers—the Elephant in Fenchurch-street, or the "painting moralist's" tomb in Chiswick churchyard—Englishmen have just cause to be proud of his name.