No. 13. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1809. It were a wantonness and would demand But we have known that there is often found Ir is gratifying to me to find from my correspondents, that the homeliness of the language and metre in the Fragment of "THE THREE GRAVES," has not prevented the philosophical interest of the Tale from being felt. In that rude Ballad. I attempted to exemplify the effect, which one painful idea vividly impressed on the mind, under unusual circumstances, might have in producing an alienation of the Understanding; and in the parts hitherto published, I have endeavoured to trace the progress to madness, step by step. But though the main incidents' are facts, the detail of the circumstances is of my own' invention: that is, not what I knew, but what I conceived likely to have been the case, or at least equivalent to it. In the present Number, I present an instance of the same causes acting upon the mind, to the production of conduct as wild as that of madness, but without any positive or permanent loss of the Reason or the Understanding; and this in a real occurrence, real in all its' parts and particulars. But in truth this Tale overflows with a human interest, and needs no philosophical deduction to make it impressive. The account was published in the City in which the event took place, and in the same year I read it, when I was in Germany, and the impression made on my memory was so deep, that though relate it in my own language, and with my own feelings, and in reliance on the fidelity of my recollection, I dare vouch for the accuracy of the narration in all important particulars. The Imperial free Towns of Germany are, with only two or three exceptions, enviably distinguished by the virtuous and primitive manners of the Citizens, and by the parental character of their several Governments. As exceptions, however, we must inention Aix la Chapelle, poisoned by French manners, and the concourse of Gamesters and Sharpers; and Nuremberg, whose industrious and honest Inhabitants deserve a better fate, than to have their lives and properties under the guardianship of a wolfish and merciless Oligarchy, proud from ignorance, and remaining ignorant through pride. It is from the small States of Germany, that our Writers on political Economy, might draw their most forcible instances of actually oppressive, and even mortal taxation, and gain the clearest insight into the causes and circumstances of the injury. One other remark, and I proceed to the Story. I well remember, that the event I am about to narrate, called forth, in several of the German periodical publications, the most passionate (and in more than one instance, blasphemous) declamations, concerning the incomprehensibility of the moral Government of the World, and the seeming injustice and cruelty of the dispensations of Providence. But, assuredly, every one of my Readers, however deeply he may sympathize with the poor Sufferers, will at once answer all such declamations by the simple reflection, that no one of these awful events could possibly have taken place under a wise Police and humane Government, and that men have no right to complain of Providence for evils which they themselves are competent to remedy by mere common sense, joined with mere common humanity. MARIA ELEONORA SCHONING, was the Daughter of a Nuremberg Wire-drawer. She received her unhappy existence at the price of her Mother's Life, and at the age of seventeen she followed, as the sole Mourner, the bier of her remaining Parent. From her thirteenth year she had passed her Life at her Father's sick-bed, the gout having deprived him of the use of his limbs: and beheld the arch of Heaven only when she went to fetch food or medicines. The discharge of her filial duties occupied the whole of her time and all her thoughts. She was his only Nurse, and for the last two years they lived without a Servant. She prepared his scanty meal, she bathed his aching limbs, and though weak and delicate from constant confinement and the poison of melancholy thoughts, she If had acquired an unusual power in her arms, from the habit of lifting her old and suffering Father out of and into his bed of pain. Thus passed away her early youth in sorrow she grew up in tears, a stranger to the amusements of Youth, and its more delightful schemes and imaginations. She was not, however, unhappy: she attributed, indeed, no merit to herself for her virtues, but for that reason were they the more her reward. The peace, which passeth all understanding, disclosed itself in all her Looks and Movements. It lay on her Countenance, like a steady unshadowed Moonlight and her Voice, which was naturally at once sweet and subtle, came from her, like the fine flute-tones of a masterly performer, which still floating at some uncertain distance, seem to be created by the player, rather than to proceed from the instrument. you had listened to it in one of those brief Sabbaths of the soul, when the activity and discursiveness of the Thoughts are suspended, and the mind quietly eddies round, instead of flowing onward (as at late evening in the Spring I have seen a Bat wheel in silent circles round and round a fruit-tree in full blossom, in the midst of which, as within a close Tent of the purest White, an unseen Nightingale was piping its' sweetest notes) in such a mood you might have half-fancied, half-felt, that her Voice had a separate Being of its' own-that it was a living Something, whose mode of existence was for the Ear only so deep was her Resignation, so entirely had it become the unconscious Habit of her Nature, and in all, she did or said, so perfectly were both her movements and her utterance without effort and without the appearance of effort! Her dying Father's last words, addressed to the Clergyman who attended him, were his grateful testimony, that during his long and sore Trial, his good Maria had behaved to him like an Angel that the most disagreeable offices and the least suited to her age and sex, had never drawn an unwilling look from her, and that whenever his eye had met her's, he had been sure to see in it either the tear of pity or the sudden smile expressive of her affection and wish to cheer him. God (said he) will reward the good Girl for all her long dutifulness to me! He departed during the inward Prayer, which followed these his last words. His wish will be fulfilled in Eternity; but for this World the Prayer of the dying Man was not heard! Maria sate and wept by the Grave, which now contained her Father, her friend, the only bond by which she was linked to Life. But while yet the last sound of his death-bell was murmuring away in the air, she was obliged to return with two Revenue Officers, who demanded entrance into the house, in order to take possession of the papers of the deceased, and from them to discover whether he had always given in his income, and paid the yearly income-tax according to his Oath, and in proportion to his property.* After the few Documents had been looked through and collated with the Registers, the Officers found, or pretended to find, sufficient proofs, thrat the Deceased had not paid his Tax proportionably, which imposed on them the duty to put all the Effects under lock and seal. They therefore desired the Maiden to retire to an empty room, till the Ransom Office had decided on the Affair. Bred up in suffering, and habituated to immediate compliance, the affrighted and weeping Maiden obeyed. She hastened to the empty Garret, while the Revenue Officers placed the lock and seal upon the other doors, and finally took away the papers to the Ransom Office. Not before evening did the poor faint Maria, exhausted with weeping, rouse herself with the intention of going to her bed but she found the door of her Chamber sealed up and must pass the night on the floor of the Garret. The officers had had the humanity to place at the door the small portion of food that happened to be in the house. Thus passed several days, till the Officers returned with an order that MARIA ELEONORA SCHONING should leave the house without delay, the commission Court having confiscated the whole property to the City Treasury. The This Tax called the Losung or Ransom, in Nuremberg, was at first a voluntary contribution: every one gave according to his liking or circumstances. But in the beginning of the 15th Century the heavy contributions levied for the service of the Empire, forced the Magistrates to determine the proportions and make the payment compulsory. At the time in which this Event took place, 1787, every Citizen must yearly take what was called his Ransom Oath (Losungseid) that the sum paid by him had been in the strict determinate proportion to his property. On the death of any citizen, the Ransom Office, or commissioners for this income or property tax, possess the right to examine his books and papers, and to compare his yearly payment as found in their Registers with the property he appears to have possessed during that time. If any disproportion appeared, if the yearly declarations of the Deceas ed should have been inaccurate in the least degree, his whole Effects are con fiscated, and though he should have left Wife and Child, the state Treasury becomes his Heir. Father before he was bed-ridden had never possessed any considerable property ; but yet, by his industry, had been able not only to keep himself free from debt, but to lay up a small sum for the evil day. Three years of evil days, three whole years of sickness, had consumed the greatest part of this; yet still enough remained not only to defend his Daughter from immediate want, but likewise to maintain her till she could get into some Service or Employ, ment, and have recovered her spirits sufficiently to bear up against the hardships of Life. With this thought her' dying Father had comforted himself, and this hope too. proved vain! A timid Girl, whose past life had been made up of sorrow and privation, she went indeed to solicit the commissioners in her own behalf; but these were, as is mostly the case on the Continent, Advocates-the most hateful Class, perhaps, of human society, hardened by the frequent sight of misery, and seldom superior in moral) character to English Pettifoggers or Old Bailey Attornies. She went to them, indeed, but not a word could she say for herself. Her tears and inarticulate sounds-for these her Judges had no ears or eyes. Mute and confounded,. like an unfledged Dove fallen out from its Mother's Nest, Maria betook herself to her home, and found the house door too, now shut upon her. Her whole wealth_consisted in the clothes she wore. She had no Relations to whom she could apply, for those of her Mother had disclaimed all acquaintance with her, and her Father was a Nether Saxon by birth. She had no acquaintance, for all the Friends of old Schoning had forsaken him in the first year of his sickness. She had no Playfellow, for who was likely to have been the Companion of a Nurse in the room of a sick man? Surely, since the Creation never was a human Being more solitary and forsaken, than this innocent poor Creature, that now roamed about friendless in a populous City, to the whole of whose inhabitants her filial tenderness, her patient domestic goodness, and all her soft yet difficult virtues, might well have been the model. "But homeless near a thousand homes she stood, And near a thousand tables pin'd and wanted food!" The night came, and Maria knew not where to find a shelter. She tottered to the Church-yard of the St. |