Читать книгу: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 19, No. 544, April 28, 1832», страница 5

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.