Читать книгу: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 371, May 23, 1829», страница 2

THE BIRD OF THE TOMB

BY LEIGH CLIFFE

(For the Mirror.)

In "Lyon's attempt to reach Repulse Bay," the following passage, which suggested these verses, may be met with. "Near the large grave was a third pile of stones, covering the body of a child. A Snow-Buntin (the Red-Breast of the Arctic Regions) had found its way through the loose stones which composed this little tomb, and its now forsaken, neatly built nest, was found placed on the neck of the child."

 
Beneath the chilly Arctic clime,
Where Nature reigns severe, sublime,
Enthron'd upon eternal snows,
Or rides the waves on icy floes—
Where fierce tremendous tempests sweep
The bosom of the rolling deep,
And beating rain, and drifting hail
Swell the wild fury of the gale;
There is a little, humble tomb,
Not deckt with sculpture's pageant pride,
Nor labour'd verse to tell by whom
The habitant was lov'd who died!
No trophied 'scutcheon marks the grave—
No blazon'd banners round it wave—
'Tis but a simple pile of stones
Rais'd o'er a hapless infant's bones;
Perchance a mother's tears have dew'd
This sepulchre, so frail and rude;—
A father mourn'd in accents wild,
His offspring lost—his only child—
Who might, in after years, have spread
A ray of honour round his head,
Nor thought, as stone on stone he threw,
His child would meet a stranger's view.
 
 
But, lo! upon its clay-cold breast,
The Arctic Robin rais'd its nest,
And rear'd its little fluttering young,
Where Death in awful quiet slept,
And fearless chirp'd, and gaily sung
Around the babe its parents wept.
It was the guardian of the grave,
And thus its chirping seem'd to say:—
"Tho' naught from Death's chill grasp could save,
Tho' naught could chase his power away—
As round this humble spot I wing,
My thrilling voice shall daily sing
A requiem o'er the faded flower,
That bloom'd and wither'd in an hour,
And prov'd life is, in every view,
Naught but a rose-bud twin'd with rue.
A blossom born at day's first light,
And fading with the earliest night;
Nor stranger's step, nor shrieking loom,
Shall scare the warbler from the tomb'"
 

CURING THE "KING'S EVIL."

(To the Editor of the Mirror.)

About five miles from Sturminster Newton, and near the village of Hazlebury, resides a Dr. B–, who has attained a reputation, far extended, for curing, in a miraculous manner, the king's evil; and as the method he employs is very different from that of most modern practitioners, a short account of it may, perhaps, be acceptable to the readers of the MIRROR.

I had long known that the doctor used some particular season for his operations, but was unable to say precisely the time, until a few days since I had a conversation with a person who is well acquainted with the doctor and his yearly "fair, or feast," as it is termed. Exactly twenty-four hours before the new moon, in the month of May, every year, whether it happens by night or by day, the afflicted persons assemble at the doctor's residence, where they are supplied, by him, with the hind legs of a toad! yes, gentle reader a toad—don't start—enclosed in a small bag (accompanied, I believe, with some verbal charm, or incantation,) and also a lotion and salve of the doctor's preparation. The bag containing the legs of the reptile is worn suspended from the neck of the patient, and the lotion and salve applied in the usual manner, until the cure is completed, or until the next year's "fair."

One would think that such a mysterious routine of doctoring, would attract but few, and those the most illiterate; but I can assure my readers the case is different. The number of carts, chaises, and other conveyances laden with the afflicted which passed through this place on the 2nd instant, bore ample testimony to the number of the doctor's applicants; and the appearance of many of them corroborated the opinion that they moved in a respectable sphere of life.

The new moon happening this year on the 3rd instant, at 57 minutes past 7 o'clock in the morning, the "fair" took place at the same hour the preceding day.

My readers, no doubt, have heard of the efficacy of the stone in the toad's head, alluded to by Shakspeare,² for curing the cramp, &c. by application to the afflicted part; but it was left for Dr. B– to discover the virtues of a toad's leg. Apropos, an eccentric friend of mine, once gravely told me he intended to procure this precious Bufonian jewel; and as probably some reader may feel a wish to possess it, I will furnish him with the proper method of obtaining it, as communicated by my scientific friend. Voici—Cut off poor bufo's head and enclose it in a small box pierced with many holes; place it in an ant hill, and let it remain some ten or twelve days, in which time, or a little longer, the ants will have entered and eaten up every part except the stone. RURIS.

"THE MORNING STAR."

(For the Mirror.)

 
Queen of celestial beauty! Morning Star!
Accept a humble bard's untut'red lay;
To him, thy loveliness, surpasseth far
The silv'ry moon, and eke the God of day.
The world with all its pride cannot display
A form so fair, so beautiful as thine;
Its glories fade, its proudest beauties die;
But you fair star! as first created shine,
In never fading immortality!
Like vice, from virtue's glance, yon clouds retire,
Before the smile of one benignant ray,
Sleepless and sad, my soul would fain aspire,
Promethean like, to snatch ethereal fire,
And draw relief from thee! bright harbinger of day!
 

JNO. JONES

The Sketch-Book

SCHINDERHANNES, THE GERMAN ROBBER

At the commencement of the French Revolution, and for some time after, the two banks of the Rhine were the theatre of continual wars. Commerce was interrupted, industry destroyed, the fields ravaged, and the barns and cottages plundered; farmers and merchants became bankrupts, and journeymen and labourers thieves. Robbery was the only mechanical art which was worth pursuing, and the only exercises followed were assault and battery. These enterprises were carried on at first by individuals trading on their own capital of skill and courage; but when the French laws came into more active operation in the seat of their exploits, the desperadoes formed themselves, for mutual protection, into copartnerships, which were the terror of the country. Men soon arose among them whose talents, or prowess, attracted the confidence of their comrades, and chiefs were elected, and laws and institutions established. Different places of settlement were chosen by different societies; the famous Pickard carried his band into Belgium and Holland; while on the confines of Germany, where the wild provinces of Kirn, Simmerm, and Birkenfield offered a congenial field, the banditti were concentrated, whose last and most celebrated chief, the redoubted Schinderhannes, is the subject of this brief notice.

His predecessors, indeed, Finck, Peter the Black, Zughetto, and Seibert were long before renowned among those who square their conduct by the good old rule of clubs; they were brave men, and stout and pitiless robbers. But Schinderhannes, the boldest of the bold, young, active and subtle, converted the obscure exploits of banditti into the comparatively magnificent ravages of "the outlaw and his men;" and sometimes marched at the head of sixty or eighty of his troop to the attack of whole villages. Devoted to pleasure, no fear ever crossed him in its pursuit; he walked publicly with his mistress, a beautiful girl of nineteen, in the very place which the evening before had been the scene of one of his criminal exploits; he frequented the fairs and taverns, which were crowded with his victims; and such was the terror he had inspired, that these audacious exposures were made with perfect impunity. Free, generous, handsome, and jovial, it may even be conceived that sometime he gained the protection from love which could not have been extorted by force.

It is scarcely a wonder that with the admirable regulations of the robbers, they should have succeeded even to so great an extent as they did in that unsettled country. Not more than two or three of them were allowed to reside in the same town or village; they were scattered over the whole face of the district, and apparently connected with each other only by some mysterious free-masonry of their craft. When a blow was to be struck, a messenger was sent round by the chief to warn his followers; and at the mustering place the united band rose up, like the clan of Roderick Dhu from the heather, to disappear as suddenly again in darkness when the object was accomplished. Their clothing, names and nations were changed perpetually; a Jew broker at Cologne would figure some days after at Aix-la-Chapelle or Spa as a German baron, or a Dutch merchant, keeping open table, and playing a high game; and the next week he might be met with in a forest at the head of his troop. Young and beautiful women were always in their suite, who, particularly in the task of obtaining or falsifying passports, did more by their address than their lovers could have effected by their courage. Spies, principally Jews, were employed throughout the whole country, to give notice where a booty might be obtained. Spring and autumn were the principal seasons of their harvest; in winter the roads were almost impassable, and in summer the days were too long; the light of the moon, in particular, was always avoided, and so were the betraying foot prints in the snow. They seldom marched in a body to the place of attack, but went thither two or three in a party, some on foot, some on horseback, and some even in carriages. As soon as they had entered a village, their first care was to muffle the church bell, so as to prevent an alarm being rung; or to commence a heavy fire, to give the inhabitants an exaggerated idea of their numbers, and impress them with the feeling that it would be more prudent to stay at home than to venture out into the fray.

John Buckler, alias Schinderhannes, the worthy whose youthful arm wielded with such force a power constituted in this manner, was the son of a currier, and born at Muhlen, near Nastoeten, on the right bank of the Rhine. The family intended to emigrate to Poland, but on the way the father entered the Imperial service at Olmutz, in Moravia. He deserted, and his wife and child followed him to the frontiers of Prussia, and subsequently the travellers took up their abode again in the environs of the Rhine.

At the age of fifteen, Schinderhannes commenced his career of crime by spending a louis, with which he had been entrusted, in a tavern. Afraid to return home, he wandered about the fields till hunger compelled him to steal a horse, which he sold. Sheep stealing was his next vocation, but in this he was caught and transferred to prison. He made his escape, however, the first night, and returned in a very business-like manner to receive two crowns which were due to him on account of the sheep he had stolen. After being associated with the band as their chief, he went to buy a piece of linen, but thinking, from the situation of the premises, that it might be obtained without any exchange of coin on his part, he returned the same evening, and stealing a ladder in the neighbourhood, placed it at a window of the warehouse, and got in. A man was writing in the interior, but the robber looked at him steadily, and shouldering his booty, withdrew. He was taken a second time, but escaped as before on the same night.

His third escape was from a dark and damp vault in the prison of Schneppenbach, where, having succeeded in penetrating to the kitchen, he tore an iron bar from the window by main force, and leaped out at hazard. He broke his leg in the fall, but finding a stick, managed to drag himself along, in the course of three nights, to Birkenmuhl, without a morsel of food, but on the contrary, having left some ounces of skin and flesh of his own on the road.

Marianne Schoeffer was the first avowed mistress of Schinderhannes. She was a young girl of fourteen, of ravishing beauty, and always "se mettait avec une élégance extreme." Blacken Klos, one of the band, an unsuccessful suitor of the lady, one day, after meeting with a repulse, out of revenge carried off her clothes. When the outrage was communicated to Schinderhannes, he followed the ruffian to a cave where he had concealed himself, and slew him. It was Julia Blaesius, however, who became the permanent companion of the young chief. The account given by her of the manner in which she was united to the destiny of the robber is altogether improbable. A person came to her, she said, and mentioned that somebody wished to speak to her in the forest of Dolbach; she kept the assignation, and found there a handsome young man who told her that she must follow him—an invitation which she was obliged at length by threats to accede to. It appears sufficiently evident, however, that the personal attractions of Schinderhannes, who was then not twenty-two, had been sufficient of themselves to tempt poor Julia to her fate, and that of her own accord

"She fled to the forest to hear a love tale."

It may be, indeed, as she affirmed, that she was at first ignorant of the profession of her mysterious lover, who might address her somewhat in the words of the Scottish free-booter—