Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

"True: but the party you blame might have been guiltless of the treachery ascribed to her; we are not to take the worst view of human nature."

He turned towards me fiercely as he replied, "Guiltless! I have ample grounds for my assertion. I know full well the sordid spirit of that heartless woman. I have proof-proof, to my heart's contentthat Fanny was the actual, though not the ostensible, informant against me; and was most liberally dealt with by those with whom she communicated. Can you wonder, then, that I chafe over my recollections of the past, that I become furious, nay frantic, when I recall my own folly and her perfidy?"

[ocr errors]

"But here," was my reply, "those feelings must be curbed. Your remorse at the past gives you no right to rebel against the regulations of the prison, or to abuse and obstruct its officers. Such outbreaks must be quelled; and therefore prepare-for it is unavoidable-for a fresh term of solitary confinement."

[ocr errors]

"Any punishment but that," said he, in an altered tone:-" a seaman's life is rarely what it should be; and when alone, hour after hour, the past becomes so hideous that-no, sir, any punishment but that; put me on the wheel; do with me what you will; but, for God's sake, place me not again in the solitary cell."

"I have not the power to prevent it."

"But try-try: you can represent, you can urge; you can explain," said the wretched man anxiously.

"The cell is cold and damp to a degree; of that I am aware; its evils in that respect admit of no-"

"For them I care not; it is thought—it is thought which MADDENS me."

His features worked convulsively as he spoke and I gladly turned away from the mental agony they pourtrayed.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

A QUITTANCE IN FULL.

How the innocent,

As in a gentle slumber, pass away!

But to cut off the knotty thread of life
In guilty men, must force stern Atropos
To use her sharp knife often.

MASSINGER.

I PROLONGED my attendance at the gaol hour after hour, in the hope that some magistrate might appear within its precincts, to whom I could venture to submit Lyppyatt's case, with a reasonable hope of obtaining mitigation of punishment. But I was disappointed. None appeared: and at four I left the dreary building, chagrined and apprehensive. Of myself I was powerless. The law, in defining the sphere of a chaplain's duty, has debarred him from all control over the internal regulations of the prison. Whether wisely or not, I care not now to argue. All I am at present concerned with is the fact. This I endeavoured to convert into matter of consolation, and did my best to persuade myself that, having no means of redressing an evil, I was guiltless of its consequences. But, after all my casuistry, the mind was ill at ease. Morning came, bright, sunny, and cheering; and by eleven I was at my post. The inmates of the hive were all astir; but a deeper frown than usual clouded the features of the chief functionary. Its cause I learnt, abruptly enough, from his own lips.

"Prisoner found insensible in the solitary cell at ten last night; had done his best to strangle himself, nearly succeeded, — all but gone!"

"Who is he?"

"That sailor-fellow, Lyppyatt,-taken to the hospital,-has never spoken to the purpose since,-don't expect he ever will,-doctor says it's up with him,-think so myself!"

"Sad indeed! But I am not surprised."

"Nor am I!" to my infinite astonishment rejoined the governor; "thought he meditated suicide, -judged it from his look, — when I put him into solitary, had my own conclusions,-ordered the turnkey to visit him every ten minutes, somewhat too shrewd and quickwitted for us,-nearly compassed it with his neckcloth,—one of a bad lot-thoroughly bad lot!"

"Poor fellow! and is it thus his career is to close ?"

"Yes; with giving the utmost trouble possible to everybody around him," was the comment of my tender-hearted companion. "An inquest will be necessary, a jury wanted, questions will be put, — nonsense talked, and time wasted; that's invariably the way with your good-for-nothings,-never will die without giving infinite trouble to everybody!"

Away, in high dudgeon, strode the governor.

But, how was it within the hospital? There, with prostrated strength and wandering intellect, lay, at two-and-thirty, the merchant-seaman. Low, feeble, earnest mutterings from time to time escaped him. None seemed to listen, or to care to detect their meaning. A callous, harsh-featured woman, with a dirty ballad in her hand, sat by his side. Courtesy called her his nurse. But her gaze rarely turned towards her dying charge; and it was only, after indignant remonstrance, that she adjusted the uneasy pillow, and wiped away the dews of death, which were gathering thick and fast upon the sufferer's brow. It was a deserted deathbed; one among the saddest of earthly spectacles. At two the struggle ceased. A jury was impanneled; the symptoms of low fever under which the prisoner eventually sank, were described; and a verdict was returned, "Died from natural causes."

I thought this issue vague enough; but even it was controverted. "He died of nothing but temper," said the gaoler; "his temper, and nought else, killed him."

"He was essentially a wicked man !" observed that cogent reasoner, Mr. Trounce," and his conscience overpowered him. We know but little of what is done upon the high seas! Many murders are huddled up there, I've not the least doubt! He was present, perhaps, at one; and now conscience has done her work. It must be so ! A case of conscience, beyond all doubt!"

"His mental struggles were great," said the surgeon. "The change of diet tried him; but, between ourselves, SOLITARY CONfineMENT finished him."

:

*

Fanny Lorraine's benefit took place the same evening. The house was crowded to the ceiling. Never," wrote the fashionable "Post," "was her by-play more perfect, or her shake more brilliant. Bouquets of flowers were thrown upon the stage; and the bracelet on her wrist was the gift of a foreign princess." "So wags the world away!"

THE DIVAN.

THE POLKA.

WHEN we wrote last month, that there was little doubt but the Polka would soon leave Paris, and come to town via Folkeston and Boulogne, we scarcely imagined that our predictions would be so rapidly fulfilled. The Polka has arrived, and its London popularity bids fair to equal its Parisian, at least for a season. But we are bound to

state our impression that this season will be a very short one.

The "Illustrated London News," with its usual active vigilance, was the first to herald the approaching furore, by giving the music of the dance, and illustrations of its execution, in which a lady with long plaited tails, and a gentleman in melodramatic costume, were throwing their limbs about in unwonted action. Then advertisements of tuition in its mysteries crept into the newspapers. Nobody as yet knew it, but all assumed the knowledge; and what they were at a loss to comprehend they invented of their own. Some announced that they had started for Paris to see how it was performed in society; others simply stated they gave lessons in it twice a-day; and one lady informed an anxious public "that she had had the honour of acquiring it from a

Bohemian nobleman." How we should like to have seen the interview! and what a subject it would have made for the pencil of Mr. Leech, who in the portrayal of "foreign gentlemen," seedy and otherwise, stands unrivalled. Bohemia must indeed be the land of dance, from the days of La Esmeralda to the present time, when its very nobles give lessons therein. Imagine our returning the compliment, and dispatching one of our peers-Lord Brougham, for instance-to teach the college-hornpipe or the double-shuffle at foreign academies!

It was left for Easter Monday to reveal the music and the dance of the Polka to public ears and eyes, the former at the Haymarket, the latter at the Lyceum and Princess's Theatres; and four days later the Opera followed their example. At the first-named house it was simply played by the orchestra, but at the others it was executed by the corps de ballet. Miss Farebrother, as a most bewitching robber, joined her band of forty very pretty thieves in its graceful evolutions at the Lyceum; and at the Princess's so many dark eyes and good legs flashed and twinkled in the figure, that the lookers-on were well nigh beside themselves. But at both these theatres young ladies in the boxes became alarmed as they watched its intricacies, and whispered to each other, or thought to themselves, "Goodness gracious! shall we be expected to go through all those positions in society?" We believe we can relieve their anxiety by replying, "Certainly not;" for in both cases the Polka is a fine fiction, as now performed. We, who from our "Divan" remove the roofs of houses at our will, and, Asmodeuslike, lay bare their secrets, know that at neither theatre was anything particularly understood about it at all. At one house, the tact of the gifted little woman who now manages therein, cleverly aided by her satellites and auxiliaries, contrived to throw additional attraction into a very clever burlesque by its apt introduction; and at the others, the evening "Fair Star" shone with increased brilliancy by the Polka, which emanated from the united heads, or heels, of Monsieur Jullien and Madame Vedy. A great man and a talented is Monsieur Jullien. You will find envious musicians, and gloomy frequenters of classical 2 P

VOL. XV.

528

concerts, who call him a humbug. This we flatly contradict. He has unequalled tact in seizing, and ability in arranging, any subject of popular interest. And, even admitting that he is one, a man who can "humbug" London for three or four consecutive years is of no ordinary mind. How many are struggling to do the same; and, in the same, miserably failing. We return to our original position: Monsieur Jullien is a great man and a talented: his quadrilles are only surpassed by his camellias.

But as yet there had only been a revelation of the Polka to Easterholiday makers. On the ensuing Thursday its name appeared in large letters on the affiches of the Italian Opera, for the benefit of those living on the entresol of society. We say the "entresol," because those above them knew it already, from their intercourse with the best Parisian circles; but the intermediate people wished to learn it,— those parvenu gentilities who go to the Opera, not to be amused, but because they imagine being constantly seen there gives them position. The "Polka" was to be danced by Perrot and Carlotta; and the announcement, no doubt, drew together a good many who had seen the others,-people of inferior station, who boldly paid their eight-andsixpence, or crept in under favour of a newspaper admission. "Now," we shall see what the Polka ought to be; for the they thought, others have been mere divertissemens.”

66

Well, the curtain rose, and discovered "an interior." It might be "a palace," "a hall of audience," "an apartment in the castle,” “a splendid saloon," or whatever sort of scene the exigencies of the piece demanded. Then entered a grand procession of ladies and gentlemen, more or less Bohemian, in costumes that had done the stage much service. These marched about, paired off, and promenaded together again, until the audience wondered what would come afterwards. Next followed a "pas de deux," in which the scantiness of drapery excited virtuous indignation; and then Carlotta and Perrot bounded in, amidst the cheers of the spectators, and the Polka commenced.

What it was cannot very well be defined: to us it appeared a species of double Cracovienne run mad. Carlotta pointed her toes upwards, and clicked her brass heels together, and Perrot did the same; then they waltzed in unequal time, and leant backwards, and forwards, and sideways, and against one another, and turned each other round, until they finally spun off amidst universal applause, and the intense bewilderment of the spectators, now greater than ever, as to what the Polka was supposed to be. For surely nobody would ever attempt all those evolutions in a ball-room!

The truth is this. The Polka is in itself as simple as the waltz: it is, in fact, a species of waltz in Cracovienne time, if we may be allowed to say so. Two people Two people can dance it as well as two dozen, beginning or leaving off whenever they please; but, as the first half minute shows completely what it is, a different arrangement was necessary for the stage, and various figures were introduced, at the option, and according to the taste of the ballet master or mistress. That it will ever become as popular in London as on the Continent we much doubt. There is, at the best, too much of the ballet about it. But creating a sensation about anything always benefits somebody; and in this instance, whether the dancing-masters, the opera-dancers, the theatres, or the music-publishers have benefited the most by its introduction, the end has been fully answered.

66

RECREATIONS IN NATURAL HISTORY.-THE DODO.

66

WE (the Divan) have received letters enough to tie into a tolerably thick bundle, thanking us for the instructions on the best mode of fitting any one joke to the greatest variety of circumstances, which appeared in our last, under the head of a "Theme, with variations." Dull-dog" tells us that, after having fired off well-tried Joe Millers for twenty years, without finding so much as a simper, he has, by following our method, produced three guffaws, two chuckles, and a giggle, since the first of April. Slow-coach," whom his friends despaired of seeing in any other capacity but that of a respectable mute, has actually set two tables in a roar; and "Horrid-bore," who was never known to go twice to the same house, really made himself so funny at the domicile of an eminent Baltic merchant, that he received an invite to dinner on the day-week of his first appearance. We thank our correspondents, and congratulate them on the solid advantages they have reaped by studying the doctrines we have put forth, not in the shape of dry precepts, but of unctuous examples.

But another class of persons claims our attention. We mean those who are, for some cause or other, constantly called upon to write verses. Now, many of these, when suddenly required to make a song to a given tune, to scribble a chorus for the end of a farce, or to jot down an impromptu on the blue leaf of an album, suddenly find themselves at a nonplus, not because they are not masters of rhyme and metre, but simply because they cannot get a subject. We purpose to show that, far from this want being a just cause for embarrassment, it is absolutely impossible not to find a subject. The first thing that catches the eye, or comes into the head, will do, and may be treated in every manner. In this age, although only a chosen few can fill the post of fiddler, opera-dancer, juggler, or clown to the ring, these occupations requiring innate genius, he who cannot become a poet is a very poor creature. But, to our task; we take the Dodo, that ugly bird, which every child knows from its picture in the books on natural history, as a subject that seems of all others the least promising, and we shall show our readers how artistically we can manage it in all sorts of styles.

I. THE DESCRIPTIVE. For this we must go to our encyclopædias, cram for the occasion, and attentively observe the picture. Our "Rees" tells us that the Latin name for the bird is "Didus," that the Dutch are said to have found it in the Mauritius, and called it " Dodaerts ;" while the French termed it "Cygne à Capuchon;" and the Portuguese, "Dodo." Its existence, it seems, has been doubted, and at all events it is now supposed to be extinct.

In the island of Mauritius once a sturdy Dutchman found
Such a curious bird as ne'er before was seen to tread the ground;
Straight he called it "Dodaerts; when a Frenchman gazed upon

Its hood of down, and said it was a "Cygne à capuchon."

French and Dutch might be content with making sorry names like these,
But they would not satisfy the proud and high-souled Portuguese;
He proclaimed the bird a "Dodo." "Dodo now each infant cries.
Pedants, they may call it "Didus ;" but such pedants we despise.

'Twas a mighty bird; those short, strong legs were never known to fail,
And he felt a glow of pride when thinking of that little tail;
And his beak was marked with vigour, curving like a wondrous hook;
Thick and ugly was his body,-such a form as made one look.

« VorigeDoorgaan »