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though many of them were saved almost miraculously, yet no one dared to hope to see his child drawn alive from under a heap of smoking ruins.

"Flames soon broke out from four different parts of the ruins, and threatened destruction to the remaining part of Leyden. The multitude seemed as it were animated with one common soul in extricating the sufferers, and stopping the progress of the flames. None with drew from the awful task, and the multitude increased every monent by people coming from the surrounding country, the explosion having been heard at the distance of fifty miles. Night set in, the darkness of which, added to the horrors of falling houses, the smothered smoke, the raging of the flames, and the roaring of the winds on a tempestuous winter night, produced a scene neither to be described nor imagined; while the heartrending cries of the sufferers, or the lamentations of those whose friends or children were under the ruins, broke upon the ear at intervals. Many were so entirely overcome with fear and astonishment, that they stared about them without taking notice of any thing, while others seemed full of activity, but incapable of directing their efforts to any particular object."

In the middle of the night, Louis Bonaparte, then king of Holland, arrived from the palace of Loo, having set out as soon as the express reached him with the dreadful tidings. Louis was much beoved by his subjects, and his name is still mentioned by them with great respect. On this occasion his presence was very useful. He encouraged the active and comforted the sufferers, and did not leave the place till he had established good order, and promised every assistance in restoring both public and private losses. He immediately gave a large sum of money to the city, and granted it many valuable privileges, besides exemption from imposts and taxes for a number of years.

to the eye an ever-varying scene of dif ferent occupations. The keel of the vessel in which the catastrophe commenced, was found buried deep in the earth at a considerable distance, together with the remains of a yacht from the Hague with a party of pleasure, which lay close to it. The anchor of the powder vessel was found in a field without the city, and a very heavy piece of lead at the foot of the mast was thrown into a street at a great distance.

Some degree of order having been restored, the inhabitants were divided into classes, not according to their rank, but the way in which they were employed about the ruins. These classes were distinguished by bands of different colours tied round their arms. The widely extended ruins now assumed the appearance of hills and valleys, covered with multitudes of workmen, producing

One of the most affecting incidents was the fate of the pupils of the different schools on the Rapenburg. A: the destructive moment, the wife of the principal of the largest of them was standing at the door with her child in her arms; she was instantly covered with the falling beams and bricks, the child was blown to atoms, and she was thrown under a tree at some distance. Part of the floor of the school-room sunk into the cellar, and twelve children were killed instantly; the rest, miserably wounded, shrieked for help, and one was heard to call," Help me, help me, I will give my watch to my deliverer." Fathers and mothers rushed from all parts of the city to seek their children, but after digging five hours they found their labour fruitless; and some were even obliged to leave the spot in dreadful suspense, to attend to other near relations dug out in other quarters. They at last succeeded, by incredible efforts, in bringing up some of the children, but in such a state that many of their parents could not recognise them, and not a few were committed to the grave without its being known who they were. Many of these children, both among the dead and those who recovered, bled profusely, while no wound could be discovered in any part of their bodies. Others were preserved in a wonderful manner, and without the least hurt. Forty children were killed. In some houses large companies were assembled, and in one, a newly married couple, from a distance, had met a numerous party of their friends. One person who was writing in a small room, was driven through a window above the door, into the staircase, and fell to the bottom without receiving much hurt. Many were preserved by the falling of the beams or rafters in a particular direction, which protected them, and they remained for many hours, some fo: a whole day and night. A remarkable

fact of this kind happened, when the city of Delft was destroyed by an explosion of gunpowder in 1654; a child, a year old, was found two days afterwards sucking an apple, and sitting under a beam, with just space left for its body. Two others at a little distance were in their cradles quite safe. At that time almost the whole of Delft was destroyed. Leyden is as large a city, but not so populous, as Rotterdam, the second city in Holland. Upwards of two hundred houses were overthrown on this occasion, besides churches and public buildings; the Stadt, or town-house, was among the latter.

One hundred and fifty-one dead bodies were taken from the ruins, besides many that died after. Upwards of two thousand were wounded more or less dangerously. It is remarkable that none of the students of the university were either killed or wounded, though they all lodge in different parts of the city, or wherever they please. Contributions were immediately began, and large sums raised. The king of Holland gave 30,000 gilders, and the queen 10,000; a very large sum was collected in London.

Leyden suffered dreadfully by siege in

1573, and by the plague in 1624 and 1635, in which year 15,000 of the inha bitants were carried off within six months. In 1415 a convent was burnt, and most of the nuns perished in the flames. An explosion of gunpowder, in 1481, destroyed the council-chamber when full of people, and killed most of the magistrates.

The misfortunes of this city have become proverbial, and its very name has given rise to a pun. "Leyden” is “ Lijden;" Leyden, the name of the city, and Lijden, (to suffer,) have the same pronunciation in the Dutch language.

The chirp of the crickets from the kitchen chimney breaks the silence of still evenings in the winter. They come from the crevices, when the house is quiet, to the warm hearth, and utter their shrill monotonous notes, to the discomfiture of the nervous, and the pleasure of those who have sound minds in sound bodies. This insect and the grasshopper are agreeably coupled in a pleasing sonnet. The

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summoning brass" it speaks of, our country readers well know, as an allusion to the sounds usually produced from some kitchen utensil of metal to assist in swarming the bees :--

To the Grasshopper and the Cricket.
Green little vaulter in the sunny grass,
Catching your heart up at the feel of June,
Sole voice that's heard amidst the lazy noon,
When ev'n the bees lag at the summoning brass;
And you, warm little housekeeper, who class
With those who think the candles come too soon,
Loving the fire, and with your tricksome tune
Nick the glad silent moments as they pass;
Oh, sweet and tiny cousins, that belong,

One to the fields, the other to the hearth,

Both have your sunshine; both, though small, are strong
At your clear hearts; and both were sent on earth

To sing in thoughtful ears this natural song,-
In doors and out, summer and winter, Mirth.

January 13.

CAMBRIDGE LENT TERM begins. St. Veronica of Milan. St. Kentigern.

St. Hilary. The festival of St. Hilary is not, at this time, observed by the Romish church until to-morrow, but it stands in old calendars, and in Randle Holmes's Heraldry, on this day, whereon it is also placed in the English calendar. Butler says, he was born at Poictiers, became bishop of that city, was a commentator on Scrip

L. Hunt.

ture, an orator, a poet, wrote against the Arians, was banished for his orthodoxy, but returned to his see, worked miracles, and died on the 13th of January, 368. Ribadeneira says, that in a certain island, uninhabitable by reason of venemous serpents, they fled from his holiness; that he put up a stake as a boundary, commanding them not to pass it, and they obeyed; that he raised a dead child to life, prayed his daughter to death, and did other astonishing things; especially after his decease. when two merchants

at their own cost and by way of venture, offered an image at his shrine, but as one be grudged the cost of his share, St. Hilary caused the image to divide from top to bottom, while being offered, keeping the one half, and rejecting the niggard's moiety. The Golden Legend says, that St. Hilary also obtained his wife's death by his prayers; and that pope Leo, who was an Arian, said to him, "Thou art Hilary the cock, and not the son of a hen;" whereat Hilary said, "I am no cock, but a bishop in France;" then said the pope, "Thou art Hilary Gallus (sigmifying a cock) and I am Leo, judge of the papal see;" whereupon Hilary replied, "If thou be Leo thou art not (a lion) of the tribe of Juaa." After this ailing the pope died, and Hilary was comforted.

St. Veronica.

She was a nun, with a desire to live always on bread and water, died in 1497, and was canonized, after her claim to sanctity was established to the satisfac tion of his holiness pope Leo X.

St. Kentigern.

He was bishop of Glasgow, with jurisdiction in Wales, and, according to Butler, "favoured with a wonderful gift of miracles." Bishop Patrick, in his "Devotions of the Romish Church," says, "St. Kentigern had a singular way of kindling fire, which I could never have hit upon." Being in haste to light candles for vigils, and some, who bore a spite to him, having put out all the fire in the monastery, he snatched the green bough of an hazel, blessed it, blew upon it, the bough produced a great flame, and he lighted his candles: "whence we may conjecture," says Patrick," that tinder-boxes are of a later invention than St. Kentigern's days."

THE LAW TERMS.

Term is derived from Terminus, the heathen god of boundaries, landmarks, and limits of time. In the early ages of Christianity the whole year was one continued term for hearing and deciding causes; but after the establishment of the Romish church, the daily dispensation of justice was prohibited by canonical authority, that the festivals might be ¡ ept holy.

Advent and Christmas occasioned the winter vacation; Lent and Easter the pring; Pentecost the third; and hay

time and harvest, the long vacation between Midsummer and Michaelmas.

Each term is denominated from the festival day immediately preceding its commencement; hence we have the terms of St. Hilary, Easter, the Holy Trinity, and St. Michael.

There are in each term stated days called dies in banco, (days in bank,) that is, days of appearance in the court of common bench. They are usually about a week from each other, and have reference to some Romish festival. All original writs are returnable on these days, and they are therefore called the return days.

The first return in every term is, properly speaking, the first day of the term. For instance, the octave of St. Hilary, or the eighth day, inclusive, after the saint's feast, falls on the 20th of January, because his feast is on the 13th of January. On the 20th, then, the court sits to take essoigns, or excuses for non-appearance to the writ ; " but," says Blackstone, "as our ancestors held it beneath the condition of a freeman to appear or to do any thing at the precise time appointed," the person summoned has three days of grace beyond the day named in the writ, and if he appear on the fourth day inclusive it is sufficient. Therefore at the beginning of each term the court does not sit for despatch of business till the fourth, or the appearance day, which is in Hilary term, for instance, on the 23d of January. In Trinity term it does not sit till the fifth day; because the fourth falls on the great Roman catholic festival of Corpus Christi. The first appearance day therefore in each term is called the first day of the term; and the court sits till the quarto die post, or appearance day of the last return, or end of

the term.

In each term there is one day whereon the courts do not transact business; namely, on Candlemas day, in Hilary term; on Ascension day, in Easter term; on Midsummer day, in Trinity term; and on All Saints' day, in Michaelmas term. These are termed Grand days in the inns of court; and Gaudy days at the two universities; they are observed as Collar days at the king's court of St. James's, for on these days, knights wear the collars of their respective orders

An old January journal contains a remarkable anecdote relative to the decease

of a M. Foscue, one of the farmers-general of the province of Languedoc He had amassed considerable wealth by means which rendered him an object of universal detestation. One day he was ordered by the governinent to raise a considerable sum: as an excuse for not

complying with the demand, he pleaded extreme poverty; and resolved on hiding his treasure in such a manner as to escape detection. He dug a kind of a cave in his wine-cellar, which he made so large and deep, that he used to go down to it with a ladder; at the entrance of it was a door with a spring lock on it, which on shutting would fasten of itself. He was suddenly missed, and diligent search made after him; ponds were drawn, and every suggestion adopted that could reasonably lead to his discovery, dead or alive. In a short time after, his house was sold; and the purchaser beginning to make some al ́erations, the workmen discovered a door in the wine-cellar with a key in the lock. On going down they found Foscue lying dead on the ground, with a candlestick near him, but no candle in it. On searching farther, they found the vast wealth that he had amassed. It is supposed, that, when he had entered his cave, the door had by some accident shut after him; and thus being out of the call of any person, he perished for want of food, in the midst of his

treasure.

SIGNS OF FOUL WEATHER.

The hollow winds begin to blow;
The clouds look black, the glass is low;
The soot falls down, the spaniels sleep;
And spiders from their cobwebs peep.
Last night the sun went pale to bed;
The moon in halos hid her head.
The boding shepherd heaves a sigh,
For, see, a rainbow spans the sky.
The walls are damp, the ditches smell,
Clos'd is the pink-ey'd pimpernel
Hark! how the chairs and tables crack,
Old Betty's joints are on the rack:
Her corns with shooting pains torment her,
And to her bed untimely send her.

Loud quack the ducks, the sea fowl cry,
The distant hills are looking nigh.
How restless are the snorting swine!
The busy flies disturb the kine.

Low o'er the grass the swallow wings
The cricket too, how sharp he sings!
Puss on the hearth, with velvet paws,
Sits wiping o'er her whisker'd jaws.
The smoke from chimneys right ascends
Then spreading, back to carth it bends.

The wind unsteady veers around,
Or settling in the South is found.
Through the clear stream the fishes rist,
And nimbly catch the incautious flies.
The glow-worms num'rous, clear and bright,
Illum'd the dewy hill last night.
At dusk the squalid toad was seen,
The whirling wind the dust obeys,
Like quadruped, stalk o'er the green.
And in the rapid eddy plays.
The frog has chang'd his yellow vest,
And in a russet coat is drest.
The sky is green, the air is still,
The mellow blackbird's voice is shrill.
The dog, so alter'd is his taste,
Quits mutton-bones, on grass to feast.
Behold the rooks, how odd their flight
They imitate the gliding kite,
And seem precipitate to fall,
As if they felt the piercing ball.
The tender colts on back do lie,
Nor heed the traveller passing by.
In fiery red the sun doth rise,
Then wades through clouds to mount the
skies.

"Twill surely rain, we see't with sorrow,
No working in the fields to-morrow.

January 14.

Darwin.

OXFORD LENT TERM begins.

St. Hilary.

Sts. Felix. Sts. Isaias and Sabbas. St. Barbasceminus, &c.

St. Felix of Nola, an exorcist, and afterwards a priest, was, according to Butler and Ribadeneira, a great miraculist. He lived under Decius, in 250; being fettered and dungeoned in a cell, covered with potsherds and broken glass, a resplendent angel, seen by the saint alone, because to him only was he sent, freed him of his chains and guided him to a mountain, where bishop Maximus, aged and frozen, lay for dead, whom Felix recovered by praying; for, straightway, he saw a bramble bear a bunch of grapes, with the juice whereof he recovered the bishop, and taking him on his back carried him home to his diocese. Being pursued by pagans, he fled to some ruins and crept through a hole in the wall, which spiders closed with their webs before the pagans got up to it, and there lay for six months miraculously supported. According to the Legend, his body, for ages after his death, distilled a liquor that cured diseases.

CHRONOLOGY.

In January, 1784, died suddenly in Macclesfield-street, Soho, aged 79, Šam.

Crisp, esq., a relation of the celebrated sir Nicholas Crisp. There was a remarkable singularity in the character of this gentleman. He was a bachelor, had been formerly a broker in 'Change-alley, and many years since had retired from business, with an easy competency. His daily amuseinent, for fourteen years before, was going from London to Greenwich, and immediately returning from thence, in the stage; for which he paid regularly £27 a year. He was a good-humoured, obliging, and facetious companion, always paying a particular attention, and a profusion of compliments, to the ladies, especially to those who were agree able. He was perpetually projecting

some little schemes for the benefit of the public, or, to use his own favourite maxim, pro bono publico; he was the institutor of the Lactarium in St. George's Fields, and selected the Latin mottoes for the facetious Mrs. Henniver, who got a little fortune there. He projected the mile and half stones round London; and teased the printers of newspapers into the plan of letter-boxes. He was remarkably humane and benevolent, and, without the least ostentation, performed many generous and charitable actions, which would have dignified a more ample fortune.

THE WINTER ROBIN

A suppliant to your window comes,

Who trusts your faith, and fears no guile : He claims admittance for your crumbs,

And reads his passport in your smile.

For cold and cheerless is the day,

And he has sought the hedges round;
No berry hangs upon the spray,
Nor worm, nor ant-egg, can be found.

Secure his suit will be preferred,

No fears his slender feet deter; For sacred is the household bird That wears the scarlet stomacher. Charlotte Smith.

January 15.

St. Paul, the first Hermit. St. Maurus. St. Main. St. John, Calybite. St. Isidore. St. Bonitus. St. Ita, or Mida St. Paul, A. D. 342.

The life of St. Paul, the first hermit, is said, by Butler, to have been written by St. Jerome in 365, who received an account of it from St. Anthony and others. According to him, when twenty-two years old, St. Paul fled from the persecution of

Decius to a cavern, near which grew a palm-tree, that supplied him with leaves for clothing, and fruit for food, till he was forty-three years of age; after which he was daily fed by a raven till he was ninety, and then died. St. Anthony, in his old age, being tempted by vanity, imagined himself the first hermit, till the contrary was revealed to him in a dream, wherefore, the next morning, he set out in search of St. Paul. "St. Jerome relates from his authors," says Butler, “that he met a centaur, or creature, not with the nature and properties, but with something of the mixt shape of man and horse; and that this monster, or phantom of the devil, (St. Jerome pretends not to determine which it was,) upon his making the sign of the cross, fled away, after pointing out the way to the saint. Our author (St. Jerome) adds, that St. Anthony soon after met a satyr, who gave him to understand that he was an inhabitant of those deserts, and one of the sort whom the deluded gentiles adored for gods." Ribadeneira describes this satyr as with writhed nostrils, two little horns on his forehead, and the feet of a goat. After two days' search, St. Anthony found St. Paul, and a raven brought a loaf, whereupon they took their corporal refection. The next morning, St. Paul told him he was going to die, and bid him fetch a cloak given to St. Anthony by St. Athanasius, and wrap his body in it. St. Anthony then knew, that St. Paul must have been informed of the cloak by revelation, and went forth from the desert to fetch it; but before his return, St. Paul had died, and St. Anthony found two lions digging his grave with their claws, wherein he buried St. Paul, first wrapping him in St. Athanasius's cloak, and preserving, as a great treasure, St. Paul's garment, made of palm-tree leaves, stitched together. How St.Jerome, in his conclusion of St. Paul's life, praises this garment, may be seen in Ribadeneira.

FLOWERS.

A writer, who signs himself "Crito" in the "Truth Teller," No. 15, introduces us to an honest enthusiast, discoursing to his hearers on the snow-drop of the season, and other offerings from Flora, to the rolling year. "Picture to your imagination, a poor, 'dirty' mendicant, of the order of St. Francis, who had long prayed and fasted in his sanctuary, and long laboured in his garden, issuing out on the morning of his first pilgrimage, without money and with

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