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Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions



by Charles Mackay



August, 1996  [Etext #636]



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MEMOIRS OF EXTRAORDINARY POPULAR DELUSIONS



BY CHARLES MACKAY



AUTHOR OF



"THE THAMES AND ITS TRIBUTARIES,"

"THE HOPE OF THE WORLD," ETC.



"Il est bon de connaitre les delires de l'esprit humain.

Chaque people a ses folies plus ou moins grossieres."

                      MILLOT



VOL I.



LONDON:

RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET.

PUBLISHER IN ORDINARY TO HER MAJESTY.

1841.





CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME



THE MISSISSIPPI SCHEME

THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE

THE TULIPOMANIA

RELICS

MODERN PROPHECIES

POPULAR ADMIRATION FOR GREAT THIEVES

INFLUENCE OF POLITICS AND RELIGION ON THE HAIR AND BEARD

DUELS AND 0RDEALS

THE LOVE OF THE MARVELOUS AND THE DISBELIEF OF THE TRUE

POPULAR FOLLIES IN GREAT CITIES

THE O. P. MANIA

THE THUGS, OR PHANSIGARS











NATIONAL DELUSIONS.



N'en deplaise a ces fous nommes sages de Grece;

En ce monde il n'est point de parfaite sagesse;

Tous les hommes sont fous, et malgre tous leurs soins,

Ne different entre eux que du plus ou du moins.



BOILEAU.





    In reading the history of nations, we find that, like individuals,

they have their whims and their peculiarities; their seasons of

excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find

that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and

go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously

impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is

caught by some new folly more captivating than the first. We see one

nation suddenly seized, from its highest to its lowest members, with a

fierce desire of military glory; another as suddenly becoming crazed

upon a religious scruple, and neither of them recovering its senses

until it has shed rivers of blood and sowed a harvest of groans and

tears, to be reaped by its posterity. At an early age in the annals of

Europe its population lost their wits about the Sepulchre of Jesus,

and crowded in frenzied multitudes to the Holy Land: another age went

mad for fear of the Devil, and offered up hundreds of thousands of

victims to the delusion of witchcraft. At another time, the many

became crazed on the subject of the Philosopher's Stone, and committed

follies till then unheard of in the pursuit. It was once thought a

venial offence in very many countries of Europe to destroy an enemy by

slow poison. Persons who would have revolted at the idea of stabbing a

man to the heart, drugged his pottage without scruple. Ladies of

gentle birth and manners caught the contagion of murder, until

poisoning, under their auspices, became quite fashionable. Some

delusions, though notorious to all the world, have subsisted for ages,

flourishing as widely among civilized and polished nations as among

the early barbarians with whom they originated, -- that of duelling, for

instance, and the belief in omens and divination of the future, which

seem to defy the progress of knowledge to eradicate entirely from the

popular mind. Money, again, has often been a cause of the delusion of

multitudes. Sober nations have all at once become desperate gamblers,

and risked almost their existence upon the turn of a piece of paper.

To trace the history of the most prominent of these delusions is the

object of the present pages. Men, it has been well said, think in

herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only

recover their senses slowly, and one by one.



    In the present state of civilization, society has often shown

itself very prone to run a career of folly from the last-mentioned

cases. This infatuation has seized upon whole nations in a most

extraordinary manner. France, with her Mississippi madness, set the

first great example, and was very soon imitated by England with her

South Sea Bubble. At an earlier period, Holland made herself still

more ridiculous in the eyes of the world, by the frenzy which came

over her people for the love of Tulips. Melancholy as all these

delusions were in their ultimate results, their history is most

amusing. A more ludicrous and yet painful spectacle, than that which

Holland presented in the years 1635 and 1636, or France in 1719 and

1720, can hardly be imagined. Taking them in the order of their

importance, we shall commence our history with John Law and the famous

Mississippi scheme of the years above mentioned.





THE MISSISSIPPI SCHEME



Some in clandestine companies combine;

Erect new stocks to trade beyond the line;

With air and empty names beguile the town,

And raise new credits first, then cry 'em down;

Divide the empty nothing into shares,

And set the crowd together by the ears.



Defoe.





    The personal character and career of one man are so intimately

connected with the great scheme of the years 1719 and 1720, that a

history of the Mississippi madness can have no fitter introduction

than a sketch of the life of its great author, John Law. Historians

are divided in opinion as to whether they should designate him a knave

or a madman. Both epithets were unsparingly applied to him in his

lifetime, and while the unhappy consequences of his projects were

still deeply felt. Posterity, however, has found reason to doubt the

justice of the accusation, and to confess that John Law was neither

knave nor madman, but one more deceived than deceiving; more sinned

against than sinning. He was thoroughly acquainted with the philosophy

and true principles of credit. He understood the monetary question

better than any man of his day; and if his system fell with a crash so

tremendous, it was not so much his fault as that of the people amongst

whom he had erected it. He did not calculate upon the avaricious

frenzy of a whole nation; he did not see that confidence, like

mistrust, could be increased, almost ad infinitum, and that hope was

as extravagant as fear. How was he to foretell that the French people,

like the man in the fable, would kill, in their frantic eagerness, the

fine goose he had brought to lay them so many golden eggs? His fate

was like that which may be supposed to have overtaken the first

adventurous boatman who rowed from Erie to Ontario. Broad and smooth

was the river on which he embarked; rapid and pleasant was his

progress; and who was to stay him in his career? Alas for him! the

cataract was nigh. He saw, when it was too late, that the tide which

wafted him so joyously along was a tide of destruction; and when he

endeavoured to retrace his way, he found that the current was too

strong for his weak efforts to stem, and that he drew nearer every

instant to the tremendous falls. Down he went over the sharp rocks,

and the waters with him. He was dashed to pieces with his bark, but

the waters, maddened and turned to foam by the rough descent, only

boiled and bubbled for a time, and then flowed on again as smoothly as

ever. Just so it was with Law and the French people. He was the

boatman and they were the waters.



    John Law was born at Edinburgh in the year 1671. His father was

the younger son of an ancient family in Fife, and carried on the

business of a goldsmith and banker. He amassed considerable wealth in

his trade, sufficient to enable him to gratify the wish, so common

among his countrymen, of adding a territorial designation to his name.

He purchased with this view the estates of Lauriston and Randleston,

on the Frith of Forth on the borders of West and Mid Lothian, and was

thenceforth known as Law of Lauriston. The subject of our memoir,

being the eldest son, was received into his father's counting-house at

the age of fourteen, and for three years laboured hard to acquire an

insight into the principles of banking, as then carried on in

Scotland. He had always manifested great love for the study of

numbers, and his proficiency in the mathematics was considered

extraordinary in one of his tender years. At the age of seventeen he

was tall, strong, and well made; and his face, although deeply scarred

with the small-pox, was agreeable in its expression, and full of

intelligence. At this time he began to neglect his business, and

becoming vain of his person, indulged in considerable extravagance of

attire. He was a great favourite with the ladies, by whom he was

called Beau Law, while the other sex, despising his foppery, nicknamed

him Jessamy John. At the death of his father, which happened in 1688,

he withdrew entirely from the desk, which had become so irksome, and

being possessed of the revenues of the paternal estate of Lauriston,

he proceeded to London, to see the world.



    He was now very young, very vain, good-looking, tolerably rich,

and quite uncontrolled. It is no wonder that, on his arrival in the

capital, he should launch out into extravagance. He soon became a

regular frequenter of the gaming-houses, and by pursuing a certain

plan, based upon some abstruse calculation of chances, he contrived to

gain considerable sums. All the gamblers envied him his luck, and many

made it a point to watch his play, and stake their money on the same

chances. In affairs of gallantry he was equally fortunate; ladies of

the first rank smiled graciously upon the handsome Scotchman -- the

young, the rich, the witty, and the obliging. But all these successes

only paved the way for reverses. After he had been for nine years

exposed to the dangerous attractions of the gay life he was leading,

he became an irrecoverable gambler. As his love of play increased in

violence, it diminished in prudence. Great losses were only to be

repaired by still greater ventures, and one unhappy day he lost more

than he could repay without mortgaging his family estate. To that step

he was driven at last. At the same time his gallantry brought him into

trouble. A love affair, or slight flirtation, with a lady of the name

of Villiers [Miss Elizabeth Villiers, afterwards Countess of Orkney]

exposed him to the resentment of a Mr. Wilson, by whom he was

challenged to fight a duel. Law accepted, and had the ill fortune to

shoot his antagonist dead upon the spot. He was arrested the same day,

and brought to trial for murder by the relatives of Mr. Wilson. He was

afterwards found guilty, and sentenced to death. The sentence was

commuted to a fine, upon the ground that the offence only amounted to

manslaughter. An appeal being lodged by a brother of the deceased, Law

was detained in the King's Bench, whence, by some means or other,

which he never explained, he contrived to escape; and an action being

instituted against the sheriffs, he was advertised in the Gazette, and

a reward offered for his apprehension. He was described as "Captain

John Law, a Scotchman, aged twenty-six; a very tall, black, lean man;

well shaped, above six feet high, with large pockholes in his face;

big nosed, and speaking broad and loud." As this was rather a

caricature than a description of him, it has been supposed that it was

drawn up with a view to favour his escape. He succeeded in reaching

the Continent, where he travelled for three years, and devoted much of

his attention to the monetary and banking affairs of the countries

through which he passed. He stayed a few months in Amsterdam, and

speculated to some extent in the funds. His mornings were devoted to

the study of finance and the principles of trade, and his evenings to

the gaming-house. It is generally believed that he returned to

Edinburgh in the year 1700. It is certain that he published in that

city his "Proposals and Reasons for constituting a Council of Trade."

This pamphlet did not excite much attention.



    In a short time afterwards he published a project for establishing

what he called a Land-bank [The wits of the day called it a sand-bank,

which would wreck the vessel of the state.], the notes issued by which

were never to exceed the value of the entire lands of the state, upon

ordinary interest, or were to be equal in value to the land, with the

right to enter into possession at a certain time. The project excited

a good deal of discussion in the Scottish parliament, and a motion for

the establishment of such a bank was brought forward by a neutral

party, called the Squadrone, whom Law had interested in his favour.

The Parliament ultimately passed a resolution to the effect, that, to

establish any kind of paper credit, so as to force it to pass, was an

improper expedient for the nation.



     Upon the failure of this project, and of his efforts to procure a

pardon for the murder of Mr. Wilson, Law withdrew to the Continent,

and resumed his old habits of gaming. For fourteen years he continued

to roam about, in Flanders, Holland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, and

France. He soon became intimately acquainted with the extent of the

trade and resources of each, and daily more confirmed in his opinion

that no country could prosper without a paper currency. During the

whole of this time he appears to have chiefly supported himself by

successful play. At every gambling-house of note in the capitals of

Europe, he was known and appreciated as one better skilled in the

intricacies of chance than any other man of the day. It is stated in

the "Biographie Universelle" that he was expelled, first from Venice,

and afterwards from Genoa, by the magistrates, who thought him a

visitor too dangerous for the youth of those cities. During his

residence in Paris he rendered himself obnoxious to D'Argenson, the

lieutenant-general of the police, by whom he was ordered to quit the

capital. This did not take place, however, before he had made the

acquaintance in the saloons, of the Duke de Vendome, the Prince de

Conti, and of the gay Duke of Orleans, the latter of whom was destined

afterwards to exercise so much influence over his fate. The Duke of

Orleans was pleased with the vivacity and good sense of the Scottish

adventurer, while the latter was no less pleased with the wit and

amiability of a prince who promised to become his patron. They were

often thrown into each other's society, and Law seized every

opportunity to instil his financial doctrines into the mind of one

whose proximity to the throne pointed him out as destined, at no very

distant date, to play an important part in the government.



    Shortly before the death of Louis XIV, or, as some say, in 1708,

Law proposed a scheme of finance to Desmarets, the Comptroller. Louis

is reported to have inquired whether the projector were a Catholic,

and, on being answered in the negative, to have declined having

anything to do with him. [This anecdote, which is related in the

correspondence of Madame de Baviere, Duchess of Orleans, and mother of

the Regent, is discredited by Lord John Russell, in his "History of

the principal States of Europe, from the Peace of Utrecht;" for what

reason he does not inform us. There is no doubt that Law proposed his

scheme to Desmarets, and that Louis refused to hear of it. The reason

given for the refusal is quite consistent with the character of that

bigoted and tyrannical monarch.]



    It was after this repulse that he visited Italy. His mind being

still occupied with schemes of finance, he proposed to Victor Amadeus,

Duke of Savoy, to establish his land-bank in that country. The Duke

replied that his dominions were too circumscribed for the execution of

so great a project, and that he was by far too poor a potentate to be

ruined. He advised him, however, to try the King of France once more;

for he was sure, if he knew anything of the French character, that the

people would be delighted with a plan, not only so new, but so

plausible.



     Louis XIV died in 1715, and the heir to the throne being an

infant only seven years of age, the Duke of Orleans assumed the reins

of government, as Regent, during his minority. Law now found himself

in a more favourable position. The tide in his affairs had come,

which, taken at the flood, was to waft him on to fortune. The Regent

was his friend, already acquainted with his theory and pretensions,

and inclined, moreover, to aid him in any efforts to restore the

wounded credit of France, bowed down to the earth by the extravagance

of the long reign of Louis XIV.



	Hardly was that monarch laid in his grave ere the popular hatred,

suppressed so long, burst forth against his memory. He who, during his

life, had been flattered with an excess of adulation, to which history

scarcely offers a parallel, was now cursed as a tyrant, a bigot, and a

plunderer. His statues were pelted and disfigured; his effigies torn

down, amid the execrations of the populace, and his name rendered

synonymous with selfishness and oppression. The glory of his arms was

forgotten, and nothing was remembered but his reverses, his

extravagance, and his cruelty.



	The finances of the country were in a state of the utmost

disorder. A profuse and corrupt monarch, whose profuseness and

corruption were imitated by almost every functionary, from the highest

to the lowest grade, had brought France to the verge of ruin. The

national debt amounted to 3000 millions of livres, the revenue to 145

millions, and the expenditure to 142 millions per annum; leaving only

three millions to pay the interest upon 3000 millions. The first care

of the Regent was to discover a remedy for an evil of such magnitude,

and a council was early summoned to take the matter into

consideration. The Duke de St. Simon was of opinion that nothing could

save the country from revolution but a remedy at once bold and

dangerous. He advised the Regent to convoke the States-General, and

declare a national bankruptcy. The Duke de Noailles, a man of

accommodating principles, an accomplished courtier, and totally averse

from giving himself any trouble or annoyance that ingenuity could

escape from, opposed the project of St. Simon with all his influence.

He represented the expedient as alike dishonest and ruinous. The

Regent was of the same opinion, and this desperate remedy fell to the

ground.



	The measures ultimately adopted, though they promised fair, only

aggravated the evil. The first, and most dishonest measure, was of no

advantage to the state. A recoinage was ordered, by which the currency

was depreciated one-fifth; those who took a thousand pieces of gold or

silver to the mint received back an amount of coin of the same nominal

value, but only four-fifths of the weight of metal. By this

contrivance the treasury gained seventy-two millions of livres, and

all the commercial operations of the country were disordered. A

trifling diminution of the taxes silenced the clamours of the people,

and for the slight present advantage the great prospective evil was

forgotten.



	A chamber of justice was next instituted, to inquire into the

malversations of the loan-contractors and the farmers of the revenues.

Tax collectors are never very popular in any country, but those of

France at this period deserved all the odium with which they were

loaded. As soon as these farmers-general, with all their hosts of

subordinate agents, called maltotiers [From maltote, an oppressive

tax.], were called to account for their misdeeds, the most extravagant

joy took possession of the nation. The Chamber of Justice, instituted

chiefly for this purpose, was endowed with very extensive powers. It

was composed of the presidents and councils of the parliament, the

judges of the Courts of Aid and of Requests, and the officers of the

Chamber of Account, under the general presidence of the minister of

finance. Informers were encouraged to give evidence against the

offenders by the promise of one-fifth part of the fines and

confiscations. A tenth of all concealed effects belonging to the

guilty was promised to such as should furnish the means of discovering

them.



	The promulgation of the edict constituting this court caused a

degree of consternation among those principally concerned which can

only be accounted for on the supposition that their peculation had

been enormous. But they met with no sympathy. The proceedings against

them justified their terror. The Bastile was soon unable to contain

the prisoners that were sent to it, and the gaols all over the country

teemed with guilty or suspected persons. An order was issued to all

innkeepers and postmasters to refuse horses to such as endeavoured to

seek safety in flight; and all persons were forbidden, under heavy

fines, to harbour them or favour their evasion. Some were condemned to

the pillory, others to the gallies, and the least guilty to fine and

imprisonment. One only, Samuel Bernard, a rich banker, and

farmer-general of a province remote from the capital, was sentenced to

death. So great had been the illegal profits of this man, -- looked

upon as the tyrant and oppressor of his district, -- that he offered

six millions of livres, or 250,000 pounds sterling, to be allowed to

escape.



	His bribe was refused, and he suffered the penalty of death.

Others, perhaps more guilty, were more fortunate. Confiscation, owing

to the concealment of their treasures by the delinquents, often

produced less money than a fine. The severity of the government

relaxed, and fines, under the denomination of taxes, were

indiscriminately levied upon all offenders. But so corrupt was every

department of the administration, that the country benefited but

little by the sums which thus flowed into the treasury. Courtiers, and

courtiers' wives and mistresses, came in for the chief share of the

spoils. One contractor had been taxed in proportion to his wealth and

guilt, at the sum of twelve millions of livres. The Count * * *, a man

of some weight in the government, called upon him, and offered to

procure a remission of the fine, if he would give him a hundred

thousand crowns. "Vous etes trop tard, mon ami," replied the

financier; "I have already made a bargain with your wife for fifty

thousand." [This anecdote is related by M. de la Hode, in his Life of

Philippe of Orleans. It would have looked more authentic if he had

given the names of the dishonest contractor and the still more

dishonest minister. But M. de la Hode's book is liable to the same

objection as most of the French memoirs of that and of subsequent

periods. It is sufficient with most of them that an anecdote be ben

trovato; the veto is but matter of secondary consideration.]



	About a hundred and eighty millions of livres were levied in this

manner, of which eighty were applied in payment of the debts

contracted by the government. The remainder found its way into the

pockets of the courtiers. Madame de Maintenon, writing on this

subject, says, "We hear every day of some new grant of the Regent; the

people murmur very much at this mode of employing the money taken from

the peculators." The people, who, after the first burst of their

resentment is over, generally express a sympathy for the weak, were

indignant that so much severity should be used to so little purpose.

They did not see the justice of robbing one set of rogues to fatten

another. In a few months all the more guilty had been brought to

punishment, and the chamber of justice looked for victims in humbler

walks of life. Charges of fraud and extortion were brought against

tradesmen of good character, in consequence of the great inducements

held out to common informers. They were compelled to lay open their

affairs before this tribunal in order to establish their innocence.

The voice of complaint resounded from every side, and at the

expiration of a year the government found it advisable to discontinue

further proceedings. The chamber of justice was suppressed, and a

general amnesty granted to all against whom no charges had yet been

preferred.



	In the midst of this financial confusion Law appeared upon the

scene. No man felt more deeply than the Regent the deplorable state of

the country, but no man could be more averse from putting his

shoulders manfully to the wheel. He disliked business; he signed

official documents without proper examination, and trusted to others

what he should have undertaken himself. The cares inseparable from his

high office were burdensome to him; he saw that something was

necessary to be done, but he lacked the energy to do it, and had not

virtue enough to sacrifice his case and his pleasures in the attempt.

No wonder that, with this character, he listened favourably to the

mighty projects, so easy of execution, of the clever adventurer whom

he had formerly known, and whose talents he appreciated.



	When Law presented himself at court, he was most cordially

received. He offered two memorials to the Regent, in which he set

forth the evils that had befallen France, owing to an insufficient

currency, at different times depreciated. He asserted that a metallic

currency, unaided by a paper money, was wholly inadequate to the wants

of a commercial country, and particularly cited the examples of Great

Britain and Holland to show the advantages of paper. He used many

sound arguments on the subject of credit, and proposed, as a means of

restoring that of France, then at so low an ebb among the nations,

that he should be allowed to set up a bank, which should have the

management of the royal revenues, and issue notes, both on that and on

landed security. He further proposed that this bank should be

administered in the King's name, but subject to the control of

commissioners, to be named by the States-General.



	While these memorials were under consideration, Law translated

into French his essay on money and trade, and used every means to

extend through the nation his renown as a financier. He soon became

talked of. The confidants of the Regent spread abroad his praise, and

every one expected great things of Monsieur Lass. [The French

pronounced his name in this manner to avoid the ungallic sound, aw.

After the failure of his scheme, the wags said the nation was lasse de

lui, and proposed that he should in future be known by the name of

Monsieur Helas!]



	On the 5th of May, 1716, a royal edict was published, by which Law

was authorised, in conjunction with his brother, to establish a bank,

under the name of Law and Company, the notes of which should be

received in payment of the taxes. The capital was fixed at six

millions of livres, in twelve thousand shares of five hundred livres

each, purchasable one-fourth in specie and the remainder in billets

d'etat. It was not thought expedient to grant him the whole of the

privileges prayed for in his memorials until experience should have

shown their safety and advantage.



	Law was now on the high road to fortune. The study of thirty years

was brought to guide him in the management of his bank. He made all

his notes payable at sight, and in the coin current at the time they

were issued. This last was a master-stroke of policy, and immediately

rendered his notes more valuable than the precious metals. The latter

were constantly liable to depreciation by the unwise tampering of the

government. A thousand livres of silver might be worth their nominal

value one day and be reduced one-sixth the next, but a note of Law's

bank retained its original value. He publicly declared at the same

time that a banker deserved death if he made issues without having

sufficient security to answer all demands. The consequence was, that

his notes advanced rapidly in public estimation, and were received at

one per cent. more than specie. It was not long before the trade of

the country felt the benefit. Languishing commerce began to lift up

her head; the taxes were paid with greater regularity and less

murmuring, and a degree of confidence was established that could not

fail, if it continued, to become still more advantageous. In the

course of a year Law's notes rose to fifteen per cent. premium, while

the billets d'etat, or notes issued by the government, as security for

the debts contracted by the extravagant Louis XIV, were at a discount

of no less than seventy-eight and a half per cent. The comparison was

too great in favour of Law not to attract the attention of the whole

kingdom, and his credit extended itself day by day. Branches of his

bank were almost simultaneously established at Lyons, Rochelle, Tours,

Amiens, and Orleans.



	The Regent appears to have been utterly astonished at his success,

and gradually to have conceived the idea, that paper, which could so

aid a metallic currency, could entirely supersede it. Upon this

fundamental error he afterwards acted. In the mean time, Law commenced

the famous project which has handed his name down to posterity. He

proposed to the Regent, who could refuse him nothing, to establish a

company, that should have the exclusive privilege of trading to the

great river Mississippi and the province of Louisiana, on its western

bank. The country was supposed to abound in the precious metals, and

the company, supported by the profits of their exclusive commerce,

were to be the sole farmers of the taxes, and sole coiners of money.

Letters patent were issued, incorporating the company, in August 1717.

The capital was divided into two hundred thousand shares of five

hundred livres each, the whole of which might be paid in billets

d'etat, at their nominal value, although worth no more than 160 livres

in the market.



    It was now that the frenzy of speculating began to seize upon the

nation. Law's bank had effected so much good, that any promises for

the future which he thought proper to make were readily believed. The

Regent every day conferred new privileges upon the fortunate

projector. The bank obtained the monopoly of the sale of tobacco; the

sole right of refinage of gold and silver, and was finally erected

into the Royal Bank of France. Amid the intoxication of success, both

Law and the Regent forgot the maxim so loudly proclaimed by the

former, that a banker deserved death who made issues of paper without

the necessary funds to provide for them. As soon as the bank, from

a private, became a public institution, the Regent caused a

fabrication of notes to the amount of one thousand millions of livres.

This was the first departure from sound principles, and one for which

Law is not justly blameable. While the affairs of the bank were under

his control, the issues had never exceeded sixty millions. Whether Law

opposed the inordinate increase is not known, but as it took place as

soon as the bank was made a royal establishment, it is but fair to lay

the blame of the change of system upon the Regent.



    Law found that he lived under a despotic government, but he was

not yet aware of the pernicious influence which such a government

could exercise upon so delicate a framework as that of credit. He

discovered it afterwards to his cost, but in the mean time suffered

himself to be impelled by the Regent into courses which his own reason

must have disapproved. With a weakness most culpable, he lent his aid

in inundating the country with paper money, which, based upon no solid

foundation, was sure to fall, sooner or later. The extraordinary

present fortune dazzled his eyes, and prevented him from seeing the

evil day that would burst over his head, when once, from any cause or

other, the alarm was sounded. The Parliament were from the first

jealous of his influence as a foreigner, and had, besides, their

misgivings as to the safety of his projects. As his influence

extended, their animosity increased. D'Aguesseau, the Chancellor, was

unceremoniously dismissed by the Regent for his opposition to the vast

increase of paper money, and the constant depreciation of the gold and

silver coin of the realm. This only served to augment the enmity of

the Parliament, and when D'Argenson, a man devoted to the interests of

the Regent, was appointed to the vacant chancellorship, and made at

the same time minister of finance, they became more violent than ever.

The first measure of the new minister caused a further depreciation of

the coin. In order to extinguish the billets d'etat, it was ordered

that persons bringing to the mint four thousand livres in specie and

one thousand livres in billets d'etat, should receive back coin to the

amount of five thousand livres. D'Argenson plumed himself mightily

upon thus creating five thousand new and smaller livres out of the

four thousand old and larger ones, being too ignorant of the true

principles of trade and credit to be aware of the immense injury he

was inflicting upon both.



    The Parliament saw at once the impolicy and danger of such a

system, and made repeated remonstrances to the Regent. The latter

refused to entertain their petitions, when the Parliament, by a bold,

and very unusual stretch of authority, commanded that no money should

be received in payment but that of the old standard. The Regent

summoned a lit de justice, and annulled the decree. The Parliament

resisted, and issued another. Again the Regent exercised his

privilege, and annulled it, till the Parliament, stung to fiercer

opposition, passed another decree, dated August 12th, 1718, by which

they forbade the bank of Law to have any concern, either direct or

indirect, in the administration of the revenue; and prohibited all

foreigners, under heavy penalties, from interfering, either in their

own names, or in that of others, in the management of the finances of

the state. The Parliament considered Law to be the author of all the

evil, and some of the counsellors, in the virulence of their enmity,

proposed that he should be brought to trial, and, if found guilty, be

hung at the gates of the Palais de Justice.



    Law, in great alarm, fled to the Palais Royal, and threw himself

on the protection of the Regent, praying that measures might be taken

to reduce the Parliament to obedience. The Regent had nothing so much

at heart, both on that account and because of the disputes that had

arisen relative to the legitimation of the Duke of Maine and the Count

of Thoulouse, the sons of the late King. The Parliament was ultimately

overawed by the arrest of their president and two of the counsellors,

who were sent to distant prisons.



    Thus the first cloud upon Law's prospects blew over: freed from

apprehension of personal danger, he devoted his attention to his

famous Mississippi project, the shares of which were rapidly rising,

in spite of the Parliament. At the commencement of the year 1719 an

edict was published, granting to the Mississippi Company the exclusive

privilege of trading to the East Indies, China, and the South Seas,

and to all the possessions of the French East India Company,

established by Colbert. The Company, in consequence of this great

increase of their business, assumed, as more appropriate, the title of

Company of the Indies, and created fifty thousand new shares. The

prospects now held out by Law were most magnificent. He promised a

yearly dividend of two hundred livres upon each share of five hundred,

which, as the shares were paid for in billets d'etat, at their nominal

value, but worth only 100 livres, was at the rate of about 120 per

cent. profit.



    The public enthusiasm, which had been so long rising, could not

resist a vision so splendid. At least three hundred thousand

applications were made for the fifty thousand new shares, and Law's

house in the Rue de Quincampoix was beset from morning to night by the

eager applicants. As it was impossible to satisfy them all, it was

several weeks before a list of the fortunate new stockholders could be

made out, during which time the public impatience rose to a pitch of

frenzy. Dukes, marquises, counts, with their duchesses, marchionesses,

and countesses, waited in the streets for hours every day before Mr.

Law's door to know the result. At last, to avoid the jostling of the

plebeian crowd, which, to the number of thousands, filled the whole

thoroughfare, they took apartments in the adjoining houses, that they

might be continually near the temple whence the new Plutus was

diffusing wealth. Every day the value of the old shares increased, and

the fresh applications, induced by the golden dreams of the whole

nation, became so numerous that it was deemed advisable to create no

less than three hundred thousand new shares, at five thousand livres

each, in order that the Regent might take advantage of the popular

enthusiasm to pay off the national debt. For this purpose, the sum of

fifteen hundred millions of livres was necessary. Such was the

eagerness of the nation, that thrice the sum would have been

subscribed if the government had authorised it.



    Law was now at the zenith of his prosperity, and the people were

rapidly approaching the zenith of their infatuation. The highest and

the lowest classes were alike filled with a vision of boundless

wealth. There was not a person of note among the aristocracy, with the

exception of the Duke of St. Simon and Marshal Villars, who was not

engaged in buying or selling stock. People of every age and sex, and

condition in life, speculated in the rise and fall of the Mississippi

bonds. The Rue de Quincampoix was the grand resort of the jobbers, and

it being a narrow, inconvenient street, accidents continually occurred

in it, from the tremendous pressure of the crowd. Houses in it, worth,

in ordinary times, a thousand livres of yearly rent, yielded as much

as twelve or sixteen thousand. A cobbler, who had a stall in it,

gained about two hundred livres a day by letting it out, and

furnishing writing materials to brokers and their clients. The story

goes, that a hump-backed man who stood in the street gained

considerable sums by lending his hump as a writing-desk to the eager

speculators! The great concourse of persons who assembled to do

business brought a still greater concourse of spectators. These again

drew all the thieves and immoral characters of Paris to the spot, and

constant riots and disturbances took place. At nightfall, it was often

found necessary to send a troop of soldiers to clear the street.



    Law, finding the inconvenience of his residence, removed to the

Place Vendome, whither the crowd of agioteurs followed him. That

spacious square soon became as thronged as the Rue de Quincampoix :

from morning to night it presented the appearance of a fair. Booths

and tents were erected for the transaction of business and the sale of

refreshments, and gamblers with their roulette tables stationed

themselves in the very middle of the place, and reaped a golden, or

rather a paper, harvest from the throng. The Boulevards and public

gardens were forsaken; parties of pleasure took their walks in

preference in the Place Vendome, which became the fashionable lounge

of the idle, as well as the general rendezvous of the busy. The noise

was so great all day, that the Chancellor, whose court was situated in

the square, complained to the Regent and the municipality, that he

could not hear the advocates. Law, when applied to, expressed his

willingness to aid in the removal of the nuisance, and for this

purpose entered into a treaty with the Prince de Carignan for the

Hotel de Soissons, which had a garden of several acres in the rear. A

bargain was concluded, by which Law became the purchaser of the hotel,

at an enormous price, the Prince reserving to himself the magnificent

gardens as a new source of profit. They contained some fine statues

and several fountains, and were altogether laid out with much taste.

As soon as Law was installed in his new abode, an edict was published,

forbidding all persons to buy or sell stock anywhere but in the

gardens of the Hotel de Soissons. In the midst among the trees, about

five hundred small tents and pavilions were erected, for the

convenience of the stock-jobbers. Their various colours, the gay

ribands and banners which floated from them, the busy crowds which

passed continually in and out--the incessant hum of voices, the noise,

the music, and the strange mixture of business and pleasure on the

countenances of the throng, all combined to give the place an air of

enchantment that quite enraptured the Parisians. The Prince de

Carignan made enormous profits while the delusion lasted. Each tent

was let at the rate of five hundred livres a month; and, as there were

at least five hundred of them, his monthly revenue from this source

alone must have amounted to 250,000 livres, or upwards of 10,000

pounds sterling.



    The honest old soldier, Marshal Villars, was so vexed to see the

folly which had smitten his countrymen, that he never could speak with

temper on the subject. Passing one day through the Place Vendome in

his carriage, the choleric gentleman was so annoyed at the infatuation

of the people, that he abruptly ordered his coachman to stop, and,

putting his head out of the carriage window, harangued them for full

half an hour on their "disgusting avarice." This was not a very wise

proceeding on his part. Hisses and shouts of laughter resounded from

every side, and jokes without number were aimed at him. There being at

last strong symptoms that something more tangible was flying through

the air in the direction of his head, Marshal was glad to drive on. He

never again repeated the experiment.



    Two sober, quiet, and philosophic men of letters, M. de la Motte

and the Abbe Terrason, congratulated each other, that they, at least,

were free from this strange infatuation. A few days afterwards, as the

worthy Abbe was coming out of the Hotel de Soissons, whither he had

gone to buy shares in the Mississippi, whom should he see but his

friend La Motte entering for the same purpose. "Ha!" said the Abbe,

smiling, "is that you?" "Yes," said La Motte, pushing past him as fast

as he was able; "and can that be you?" The next time the two scholars

met, they talked of philosophy, of science, and of religion, but

neither had courage for a long time to breathe one syllable about the

Mississippi. At last, when it was mentioned, they agreed that a man

ought never to swear against his doing any one thing, and that there

was no sort of extravagance of which even a wise man was not capable.



    During this time, Law, the new Plutus, had become all at once the

most important personage of the state. The ante-chambers of the Regent

were forsaken by the courtiers. Peers, judges, and bishops thronged to

the Hotel de Soissons; officers of the army and navy, ladies of title

and fashion, and every one to whom hereditary rank or public employ

gave a claim to precedence, were to be found waiting in his

ante-chambers to beg for a portion of his India stock. Law was so

pestered that he was unable to see one-tenth part of the applicants,

and every manoeuvre that ingenuity could suggest was employed to gain

access to him. Peers, whose dignity would have been outraged if the

Regent had made them wait half an hour for an interview, were content

to wait six hours for the chance of seeing Monsieur Law. Enormous fees

were paid to his servants, if they would merely announce their names.

Ladies of rank employed the blandishments of their smiles for the same

object; but many of them came day after day for a fortnight before

they could obtain an audience. When Law accepted an invitation, he was

sometimes so surrounded by ladies, all asking to have their names put

down in his lists as shareholders in the new stock, that, in spite of

his well-known and habitual gallantry, he was obliged to tear himself

away par force. The most ludicrous stratagems were employed to have an

opportunity of speaking to him. One lady, who had striven in vain

during several days, gave up in despair all attempts to see him at his

own house, but ordered her coachman to keep a strict watch whenever

she was out in her carriage, and if he saw Mr. Law coming, to drive

against a post, and upset her. The coachman promised obedience, and

for three days the lady was driven incessantly through the town,

praying inwardly for the opportunity to be overturned. At last she

espied Mr. Law, and, pulling the string, called out to the coachman,

"Upset us now! for God's sake, upset us now!" The coachman drove

against a post, the lady screamed, the coach was overturned, and Law,

who had seen the accident, hastened to the spot to render assistance.

The cunning dame was led into the Hotel de Soissons, where she soon

thought it advisable to recover from her fright, and, after

apologizing to Mr. Law, confessed her stratagem. Law smiled, and

entered the lady in his books as the purchaser of a quantity of India

stock. Another story is told of a Madame de Boucha, who, knowing that

Mr. Law was at dinner at a certain house, proceeded thither in her

carriage, and gave the alarm of fire. The company started from table,

and Law among the rest; but, seeing one lady making all haste into the

house towards him, while everybody else was scampering away, he

suspected the trick, and ran off in another direction.



    Many other anecdotes are related, which even, though they may be a

little exaggerated, are nevertheless worth preserving, as showing the

spirit of that singular period. [The curious reader may find an

anecdote of the eagerness of the French ladies to retain Law in their

company, which will make him blush or smile according as he happens to

be very modest or the reverse. It is related in the Letters of Madame

Charlotte Elizabeth de Baviere, Duchess of Orleans, vol. ii. p. 274.]

The Regent was one day mentioning, in the presence of D'Argenson, the

Abbe Dubois, and some other persons, that he was desirous of deputing

some lady, of the rank at least of a Duchess, to attend upon his

daughter at Modena; "but," added he, "I do not exactly know where to

find one." "No!" replied one, in affected surprise; "I can tell you

where to find every Duchess in France :--you have only to go to Mr.

Law's; you will see them every one in his ante-chamber."



    M. de Chirac, a celebrated physician, had bought stock at an

unlucky period, and was very anxious to sell out. Stock, however

continued to fall for two or three days, much to his alarm. His mind

was filled with the subject, when he was suddenly called upon to

attend a lady, who imagined herself unwell. He arrived, was shown up

stairs, and felt the lady's pulse. "It falls! it falls! good God! it

falls continually!" said he, musingly, while the lady looked up in his

face, all anxiety for his opinion. "Oh! M. de Chirac," said she,

starting to her feet, and ringing the bell for assistance; "I am

dying! I am dying! it falls! it falls! it falls!" "What falls?"

inquired the doctor, in amazement. "My pulse! my pulse!" said the

lady; "I must be dying." "Calm your apprehensions, my dear Madam,"

said M. de Chirac; "I was speaking of the stocks. The truth is, I have

been a great loser, and my mind is so disturbed, I hardly know what I

have been saying."



    The price of shares sometimes rose ten or twenty per cent. in the

course of a few hours, and many persons in the humbler walks of life,

who had risen poor in the morning, went to bed in affluence. An

extensive holder of stock, being taken ill, sent his servant to sell

two hundred and fifty shares, at eight thousand livres each, the price

at which they were then quoted. The servant went, and, on his arrival

in the Jardin de Soissons, found that in the interval the price had

risen to ten thousand livres. The difference of two thousand livres on

the two hundred and fifty shares, amounting to 500,000 livres, or

2O,000 pounds sterling, he very coolly transferred to his own use,

and, giving the remainder to his master, set out the same evening for

another country. Law's coachman in a very short time made money enough

to set up a carriage of his own, and requested permission to leave his

service. Law, who esteemed the man, begged of him as a favour, that he

would endeavour, before he went, to find a substitute as good as

himself. The coachman consented, and in the evening brought two of his

former comrades, telling Mr. Law to choose between them, and he would

take the other. Cookmaids and footmen were now and then as lucky, and,

in the full-blown pride of their easily-acquired wealth, made the most

ridiculous mistakes. Preserving the language and manners of their old,

with the finery of their new station, they afforded continual subjects

for the pity of the sensible, the contempt of the sober, and the

laughter of everybody. But the folly and meanness of the higher ranks

of society were still more disgusting. One instance alone, related by

the Duke de St. Simon, will show the unworthy avarice which infected

the whole of society. A man of the name of Andre, without character or

education, had, by a series of well-timed speculations in Mississippi

bonds, gained enormous wealth, in an incredibly short space of time.

As St. Simon expresses it, "he had amassed mountains of gold." As he

became rich, he grew ashamed of the lowness of his birth, and anxious

above all things to be allied to nobility. He had a daughter, an

infant only three years of age, and he opened a negotiation with the

aristocratic and needy family of D'Oyse, that this child should, upon

certain conditions, marry a member of that house. The Marquis d'Oyse,

to his shame, consented, and promised to marry her himself on her

attaining the age of twelve, if the father would pay him down the sum

of a hundred thousand crowns, and twenty thousand livres every year,

until the celebration of the marriage. The Marquis was himself in his

thirty-third year. This scandalous bargain was duly signed and sealed,

the stockjobber furthermore agreeing to settle upon his daughter, on

the marriage-day, a fortune of several millions. The Duke of Brancas,

the head of the family, was present throughout the negotiation, and

shared in all the profits. St. Simon, who treats the matter with the

levity becoming what he thought so good a joke, adds, "that people did

not spare their animadversions on this beautiful marriage," and

further informs us, "that the project fell to the ground some months

afterwards by the overthrow of Law, and the ruin of the ambitious

Monsieur Andre." It would appear, however, that the noble family never

had the honesty to return the hundred thousand crowns.



    Amid events like these, which, humiliating though they be, partake

largely of the ludicrous, others occurred of a more serious nature.

Robberies in the streets were of daily occurrence, in consequence of

the immense sums, in paper, which people carried about with them.

Assassinations were also frequent. One case in particular fixed the

attention of the whole of France, not only on account of the enormity

of the offence, but of the rank and high connexions of the criminal.



    The Count d'Horn, a younger brother of the Prince d'Horn, and

related to the noble families of D'Aremberg, De Ligne, and De

Montmorency, was a young man of dissipated character, extravagant to a

degree, and unprincipled as he was extravagant. In connexion with two

other young men as reckless as himself, named Mille, a Piedmontese

captain, and one Destampes, or Lestang, a Fleming, he formed a design

to rob a very rich broker, who was known, unfortunately for himself,

to carry great sums about his person. The Count pretended a desire to

purchase of him a number of shares in the Company of the Indies, and

for that purpose appointed to meet him in a cabaret, or low

public-house, in the neighbourhood of the Place Vendome. The

unsuspecting broker was punctual to his appointment; so were the Count

d'Horn and his two associates, whom he introduced as his particular

friends. After a few moments' conversation, the Count d'Horn suddenly

sprang upon his victim, and stabbed him three times in the breast with

a poniard. The man fell heavily to the ground, and, while the Count

was employed in rifling his portfolio of bonds in the Mississippi and

Indian schemes to the amount of one hundred thousand crowns, Mille,

the Piedmontese, stabbed the unfortunate broker again and again, to

make sure of his death. But the broker did not fall without a

struggle, and his cries brought the people of the cabaret to his

assistance. Lestang, the other assassin, who had been set to keep

watch at a staircase, sprang from a window and escaped; but Mille and

the Count d'Horn were seized in the very act.



    This crime, committed in open day, and in so public a place as a

cabaret, filled Paris with consternation. The trial of the assassins

commenced on the following day, and the evidence being so clear, they

were both found guilty and condemned to be broken alive on the wheel.

The noble relatives of the Count d'Horn absolutely blocked up the

ante-chambers of the Regent, praying for mercy on the misguided youth,

and alleging that he was insane. The Regent avoided them as long as

possible, being determined that, in a case so atrocious, justice

should take its course; but the importunity of these influential

suitors was not to be overcome so silently, and they at last forced

themselves into the presence of the Regent, and prayed him to save

their house the shame of a public execution. They hinted that the

Princes d'Horn were allied to the illustrious family of Orleans, and

added that the Regent himself would be disgraced if a kinsman of his

should die by the hands of a common executioner. The Regent, to his

credit, was proof against all their solicitations, and replied to

their last argument in the words of Corneille,-

       "Le crime fait la honte, et non pas l'echafaud:"

adding, that whatever shame there might be in the punishment he would

very willingly share with the other relatives. Day after day they

renewed their entreaties, but always with the same result. At last

they thought that if they could interest the Duke de St. Simon in

their layout, a man for whom the Regent felt sincere esteem, they

might succeed in their object. The Duke, a thorough aristocrat, was as

shocked as they were, that a noble assassin should die by the same

death as a plebeian felon, and represented to the Regent the impolicy

of making enemies of so numerous, wealthy, and powerful a family. He

urged, too, that in Germany, where the family of D'Aremberg had large

possessions, it was the law, that no relative of a person broken on

the wheel could succeed to any public office or employ until a whole

generation had passed away. For this reason he thought the punishment

of the guilty Count might be transmuted into beheading, which was

considered all over Europe as much less infamous. The Regent was moved

by this argument, and was about to consent, when Law, who felt

peculiarly interested in the fate of the murdered man, confirmed him

in his former resolution, to let the law take its course.



    The relatives of D'Horn were now reduced to the last extremity.

The Prince de Robec Montmorency, despairing of other methods, found

means to penetrate into the dungeon of the criminal, and offering him

a cup of poison, implored him to save them from disgrace. The Count

d'Horn turned away his head, and refused to take it. Montmorency

pressed him once more, and losing all patience at his continued

refusal, turned on his heel, and exclaiming, "Die, then, as thou wilt,

mean-spirited wretch! thou art fit only to perish by the hands of the

hangman!" left him to his fate.



    D'Horn himself petitioned the Regent that he might be beheaded,

but Law, who exercised more influence over his mind than any other

person, with the exception of the notorious Abbe Dubois, his tutor,

insisted that he could not in justice succumb to the self-interested

views of the D'Horns. The Regent had from the first been of the same

opinion, and within six days after the commission of their crime,

D'Horn and Mille were broken on the wheel in the Place de Greve. The

other assassin, Lestang, was never apprehended.



    This prompt and severe justice was highly pleasing to the populace

of Paris; even M. de Quincampoix, as they called Law, came in for a

share of their approbation for having induced the Regent to show no

favour to a patrician. But the number of robberies and assassinations

did not diminish. No sympathy was shown for rich jobbers when they

were plundered: the general laxity of public morals, conspicuous

enough before, was rendered still more so by its rapid pervasion of

the middle classes, who had hitherto remained comparatively pure,

between the open vices of the class above and the hidden crimes of the

class below them. The pernicious love of gambling diffused itself

through society, and bore all public, and nearly all private, virtue

before it.



    For a time, while confidence lasted, an impetus was given to

trade, which could not fail to be beneficial. In Paris, especially,

the good results were felt. Strangers flocked into the capital from

every part, bent, not only upon making money, but on spending it. The

Duchess of Orleans, mother of the Regent, computes the increase of the

population during this time, from the great influx of strangers from

all parts of the world, at 305,000 souls. The housekeepers were

obliged to make up beds in garrets, kitchens, and even stables, for

the accommodation of lodgers; and the town was so full of carriages

and vehicles of every description, that they were obliged in the

principal streets to drive at a foot-pace for fear of accidents. The

looms of the country worked with unusual activity, to supply rich

laces, silks, broad-cloth, and velvets, which being paid for in

abundant paper, increased in price four-fold. Provisions shared the

general advance; bread, meat, and vegetables were sold at prices

greater than had ever before been known; while the wages of labour

rose in exactly the same proportion. The artisan, who formerly gained

fifteen sous per diem, now gained sixty. New houses were built in

every direction; an illusory prosperity shone over the land, and so

dazzled the eyes of the whole nation that none could see the dark

cloud on the horizon, announcing the storm that was too rapidly

approaching.



    Law himself, the magician whose wand had wrought so surprising a

change, shared, of course, in the general prosperity. His wife and

daughter were courted by the highest nobility, and their alliance

sought by the heirs of ducal and princely houses. He bought two

splendid estates in different parts of France, and entered into a

negotiation with the family of the Duke de Sully for the purchase of

the Marquisate of Rosny. His religion being an obstacle to his

advancement, the Regent promised, if he would publicly conform to the

Catholic faith, to make him comptroller-general of the finances. Law,

who had no more real religion than any other professed gambler,

readily agreed, and was confirmed by the Abbe de Tencin in the

cathedral of Melun, in presence of a great crowd of spectators.

[The following squib was circulated on the occasion :--

    "Foin de ton zele seraphique,

      Malheureux Abbe de Tencin,

    Depuis que Law est Catholique,

      Tout le royaume est Capucin



Thus, somewhat weakly and paraphrastically rendered by Justansond, in

his translation of the "Memoirs of Louis XV:"--

    "Tencin, a curse on thy seraphic zeal,

      Which by persuasion hath contrived the means

    To make the Scotchman at our altars kneel,

      Since which we all are poor as Capucines?]

On the following day he was elected honorary churchwarden of the

parish of St. Roch, upon which occasion he made it a present of the

sum of five hundred thousand livres. His charities, always

magnificent, were not always so ostentatious. He gave away great sums

privately, and no tale of real distress ever reached his ears in vain.



    At this time, he was by far the most influential person of the

state. The Duke of Orleans had so much confidence in his sagacity, and

the success of his plans, that he always consulted him upon every

matter of moment. He was by no means unduly elevated by his

prosperity, but remained the same simple, affable, sensible man that

he had shown himself in adversity. His gallantry, which was always

delightful to the fair objects of it, was of a nature, so kind, so

gentlemanly, and so respectful, that not even a lover could have taken

offence at it. If upon any occasion he showed any symptoms of

haughtiness, it was to the cringing nobles, who lavished their

adulation upon him till it became fulsome. He often took pleasure in

seeing how long he could make them dance attendance upon him for a

single favour. To such of his own countrymen as by chance visited

Paris, and sought an interview with him, he was, on the contrary, all

politeness and attention. When Archibald Campbell, Earl of Islay, and

afterwards Duke of Argyle, called upon him in the Place Vendome, he

had to pass through an ante-chamber crowded with persons of the first

distinction, all anxious to see the great financier, and have their

names put down as first on the list of some new subscription. Law

himself was quietly sitting in his library, writing a letter to the

gardener at his paternal estate of Lauriston about the planting of

some cabbages! The Earl stayed for a considerable time, played a game

of piquet with his countryman, and left him, charmed with his ease,

good sense, and good breeding.



    Among the nobles who, by means of the public credulity at this

time, gained sums sufficient to repair their ruined fortunes, may be

mentioned the names of the Dukes de Bourbon, de Guiche, de la

Force [The Duke de la Force gained considerable sums, not only by

jobbing in the stocks, but in dealing in porcelain, spices, &c. It was

debated for a length of time in the Parliament of Paris whether he had

not, in his quality of spice-merchant, forfeited his rank in the

peerage. It was decided in the negative. A caricature of him was made,

dressed as a street porter, carrying a large bale of spices on his

back, with the inscription, "Admirez La Force."], de Chaulnes, and

d'Antin; the Marechal d'Estrees, the Princes de Rohan, de Poix, and de

Leon. The Duke de Bourbon, son of Louis XIV by Madame de Montespan,

was peculiarly fortunate in his speculations in Mississippi paper.

He rebuilt the royal residence of Chantilly in a style of unwonted

magnificence, and, being passionately fond of horses, he erected a

range of stables, which were long renowned throughout Europe, and

imported a hundred and fifty of the finest racers from England, to

improve the breed in France. He bought a large extent of country in

Picardy, and became possessed of nearly all the valuable lands lying

between the Oise and the Somme.



    When fortunes such as these were gained, it is no wonder that Law

should have been almost worshipped by the mercurial population. Never

was monarch more flattered than he was. All the small poets and

litterateurs of the day poured floods of adulation upon him. According

to them he was the saviour of the country, the tutelary divinity of

France; wit was in all his words, goodness in all his looks, and

wisdom in all his actions. So great a crowd followed his carriage

whenever he went abroad, that the Regent sent him a troop of horse as

his permanent escort, to clear the streets before him.



    It was remarked at this time, that Paris had never before been so

full of objects of elegance and luxury. Statues, pictures, and

tapestries were imported in great quantities from foreign countries,

and found a ready market. All those pretty trifles in the way of

furniture and ornament which the French excel in manufacturing, were

no longer the exclusive play-things of the aristocracy, but were to be

found in abundance in the houses of traders and the middle classes in

general. Jewellery of the most costly description was brought to Paris

as the most favourable mart. Among the rest, the famous diamond,

bought by the Regent, and called by his name, and which long adorned

the crown of France. It was purchased for the sum of two millions of

livres, under circumstances which show that the Regent was not so

great a gainer as some of his subjects, by the impetus which trade had

received. When the diamond was first offered to him, he refused to buy

it, although he desired, above all things, to possess it, alleging as

his reason, that his duty to the country he governed would not allow

him to spend so large a sum of the public money for a mere jewel. This

valid and honourable excuse threw all the ladies of the court into

alarm, and nothing was heard for some days but expressions of regret,

that so rare a gem should be allowed to go out of France; no private

individual being rich enough to buy it. The Regent was continually

importuned about it; but all in vain, until the Duke de St. Simon,

who, with all his ability, was something of a twaddler, undertook the

weighty business. His entreaties, being seconded by Law, the

good-natured Regent gave his consent, leaving to Law's ingenuity to

find the means to pay for it. The owner took security for the payment

of the sum of two millions of livres within a stated period,

receiving, in the mean time, the interest of five per cent. upon that

amount, and being allowed, besides, all the valuable clippings of the

gem. St. Simon, in his Memoirs, relates, with no little complacency,

his share in this transaction. After describing the diamond to be as

large as a greengage, of a form nearly round, perfectly white, and

without flaw, and weighing more than five hundred grains, he concludes

with a chuckle, by telling the world, "that he takes great credit to

himself for having induced the Regent to make so illustrious a

purchase." In other words, he was proud that he had induced him to

sacrifice his duty, and buy a bauble for himself, at an extravagant

price, out of the public money.



    Thus the system continued to flourish till the commencement of the

year 1720. The warnings of the Parliament, that too great a creation

of paper money would, sooner or later, bring the country to

bankruptcy, were disregarded. The Regent, who knew nothing whatever of

the philosophy of finance, thought that a system which had produced

such good effects could never be carried to excess. If five hundred

millions of paper had been of such advantage, five hundred millions

additional would be of still greater advantage. This was the grand

error of the Regent, and which Law did not attempt to dispel. The

extraordinary avidity of the people kept up the delusion; and the

higher the price of Indian and Mississippi stock, the more billets de

banque were issued to keep pace with it. The edifice thus reared might

not unaptly be compared to the gorgeous palace erected by Potemkin,

that princely barbarian of Russia, to surprise and please his imperial

mistress: huge blocks of ice were piled one upon another; ionic

pillars, of chastest workmanship, in ice, formed a noble portico; and

a dome, of the same material, shone in the sun, which had just

strength enough to gild, but not to melt it. It glittered afar, like a

palace of crystals and diamonds; but there came one warm breeze from

the south, and the stately building dissolved away, till none were

able even to gather up the fragments. So with Law and his paper

system. No sooner did the breath of popular mistrust blow steadily

upon it, than it fell to ruins, and none could raise it up again.



    The first slight alarm that was occasioned was early in 1720. The

Prince de Conti, offended that Law should have denied him fresh shares

in India stock, at his own price, sent to his bank to demand payment

in specie of so enormous a quantity of notes, that three waggons were

required for its transport. Law complained to the Regent, and urged on

his attention the mischief that would be done, if such an example

found many imitators. The Regent was but too well aware of it, and,

sending for the Prince de Conti, ordered him, under penalty of his

high displeasure, to refund to the Bank two-thirds of the specie which

he had withdrawn from it. The Prince was forced to obey the despotic

mandate. Happily for Law's credit, De Conti was an unpopular man:

everybody condemned his meanness and cupidity, and agreed that Law had

been hardly treated. It is strange, however, that so narrow an escape

should not have made both Law and the Regent more anxious to restrict

their issues. Others were soon found who imitated, from motives of

distrust, the example which had been set by De Conti in revenge. The

more acute stockjobbers imagined justly that prices could not continue

to rise for ever. Bourdon and La Richardiere, renowned for their

extensive operations in the funds, quietly and in small quantities at

a time, converted their notes into specie, and sent it away to foreign

countries. They also bought as much as they could conveniently carry

of plate and expensive jewellery, and sent it secretly away to England

or to Holland. Vermalet, a jobber, who sniffed the coming storm,

procured gold and silver coin to the amount of nearly a million of

livres, which he packed in a farmer's cart, and covered over with hay

and cow-dung. He then disguised himself in the dirty smock-frock, or

blouse, of a peasant, and drove his precious load in safety into

Belgium. From thence he soon found means to transport it to Amsterdam.



    Hitherto no difficulty had been experienced by any class in

procuring specie for their wants. But this system could not long be

carried on without causing a scarcity. The voice of complaint was

heard on every side, and inquiries being instituted, the cause was

soon discovered. The council debated long on the remedies to be taken,

and Law, being called on for his advice, was of opinion, that an edict

should be published, depreciating the value of coin five per cent.

below that of paper. The edict was published accordingly; but, failing

of its intended effect, was followed by another, in which the

depreciation was increased to ten per cent. The payments of the bank

were at the same time restricted to one hundred livres in gold, and

ten in silver. All these measures were nugatory to restore confidence

in the paper, though the restriction of cash payments within limits so

extremely narrow kept up the credit of the Bank.



    Notwithstanding every effort to the contrary, the precious metals

continued to be conveyed to England and Holland. The little coin that

was left in the country was carefully treasured, or hidden until the

scarcity became so great, that the operations of trade could no longer

be carried on. In this emergency, Law hazarded the bold experiment of

forbidding the use of specie altogether. In February 1720 an edict was

published, which, instead of restoring the credit of the paper, as was

intended, destroyed it irrecoverably, and drove the country to the

very brink of revolution. By this famous edict it was forbidden to any

person whatever to have more than five hundred livres (20 pounds

sterling) of coin in his possession, under pain of a heavy fine, and

confiscation of the sums found. It was also forbidden to buy up

jewellery, plate, and precious stones, and informers were encouraged

to make search for offenders, by the promise of one-half the amount

they might discover. The whole country sent up a cry of distress at

this unheard-of tyranny. The most odious persecution daily took place.

The privacy of families was violated by the intrusion of informers and

their agents. The most virtuous and honest were denounced for the

crime of having been seen with a louis d'or in their possession.

Servants betrayed their masters, one citizen became a spy upon his

neighbour, and arrests and confiscations so multiplied, that the

courts found a difficulty in getting through the immense increase of

business thus occasioned. It was sufficient for an informer to say

that he suspected any person of concealing money in his house, and

immediately a search-warrant was granted. Lord Stair, the English

ambassador, said, that it was now impossible to doubt of the sincerity

of Law's conversion to the Catholic religion; he had established the

inquisition, after having given abundant evidence of his faith in

transubstantiation, by turning so much gold into paper.



    Every epithet that popular hatred could suggest was showered upon

the Regent and the unhappy Law. Coin, to any amount above five hundred

livres, was an illegal tender, and nobody would take paper if he could

help it. No one knew to-day what his notes would be worth to-morrow.

"Never," says Duclos, in his Secret Memoirs of the Regency, "was seen

a more capricious government-never was a more frantic tyranny

exercised by hands less firm. It is inconceivable to those who were

witnesses of the horrors of those times, and who look back upon them

now as on a dream, that a sudden revolution did not break out--that

Law and the Regent did not perish by a tragical death. They were both

held in horror, but the people confined themselves to complaints; a

sombre and timid despair, a stupid consternation, had seized upon all,

and men's minds were too vile even to be capable of a courageous

crime." It would appear that, at one time, a movement of the people

was organised. Seditious writings were posted up against the walls,

and were sent, in hand-bills, to the houses of the most conspicuous

people. One of them, given in the "Memoires de la Regence," was to

the following effect :--" Sir and Madam,--This is to give you notice

that a St. Bartholomew's Day will be enacted again on Saturday and

Sunday, if affairs do not alter. You are desired not to stir out, nor

you, nor your servants. God preserve you from the flames! Give notice

to your neighbours. Dated Saturday, May 25th, 1720." The immense

number of spies with which the city was infested rendered the people

mistrustful of one another, and beyond some trifling disturbances made

in the evening by an insignificant group, which was soon dispersed,

the peace of the capital was not compromised.



    The value of shares in the Louisiana, or Mississippi stock, had

fallen very rapidly, and few indeed were found to believe the tales

that had once been told of the immense wealth of that region. A last

effort was therefore tried to restore the public confidence in the

Mississippi project. For this purpose, a general conscription of all

the poor wretches in Paris was made by order of government. Upwards of

six thousand of the very refuse of the population were impressed, as

if in time of war, and were provided with clothes and tools to be

embarked for New Orleans, to work in the gold mines alleged to abound

there. They were paraded day after day through the streets with their

pikes and shovels, and then sent off in small detachments to the

out-ports to be shipped for America. Two-thirds of them never reached

their destination, but dispersed themselves over the country, sold

their tools for what they could get, and returned to their old course

of life. In less than three weeks afterwards, one-half of them were to

be found again in Paris. The manoeuvre, however, caused a trifling

advance in Mississippi stock. Many persons of superabundant

gullibility believed that operations had begun in earnest in the new

Golconda, and that gold and silver ingots would again be found in

France.



    In a constitutional monarchy some surer means would have been

found for the restoration of public credit. In England, at a

subsequent period, when a similar delusion had brought on similar

distress, how different were the measures taken to repair the evil;

but in France, unfortunately, the remedy was left to the authors of

the mischief. The arbitrary will of the Regent, which endeavoured to

extricate the country, only plunged it deeper into the mire. All

payments were ordered to be made in paper, and between the 1st of

February and the end of May, notes were fabricated to the amount of

upwards of 1500 millions of livres, or 60,000,000 pounds sterling. But

the alarm once sounded, no art could make the people feel the

slightest confidence in paper which was not exchangeable into metal.

M. Lambert, the President of the Parliament of Paris, told the Regent

to his face that he would rather have a hundred thousand livres in

gold or silver than five millions in the notes of his bank. When such

was the general feeling, the superabundant issues of paper but

increased the evil, by rendering still more enormous the disparity

between the amount of specie and notes in circulation. Coin, which it

was the object of the Regent to depreciate, rose in value on every

fresh attempt to diminish it. In February, it was judged advisable

that the Royal Bank should be incorporated with the Company of the

Indies. An edict to that effect was published and registered by the

Parliament. The state remained the guarantee for the notes of the

bank, and no more were to be issued without an order in council. All

the profits of the bank, since the time it had been taken out of Law's

hands and made a national institution, were given over by the Regent

to the Company of the Indies. This measure had the effect of raising

for a short time the value of the Louisiana and other shares of the

company, but it failed in placing public credit on any permanent

basis.



    A council of state was held in the beginning of May, at which Law,

D'Argenson (his colleague in the administration of the finances), and

all the ministers were present. It was then computed that the total

amount of notes in circulation was 2600 millions of livres, while the

coin in the country was not quite equal to half that amount. It was

evident to the majority of the council that some plan must be adopted

to equalise the currency. Some proposed that the notes should be

reduced to the value of the specie, while others proposed that the

nominal value of the specie should be raised till it was on an

equality with the paper. Law is said to have opposed both these

projects, but failing in suggesting any other, it was agreed that the

notes should be depreciated one-half. On the 21st of May, an edict was

accordingly issued, by which it was decreed that the shares of the

Company of the Indies, and the notes of the bank, should gradually

diminish in value, till at the end of a year they should only pass

current for one half of their nominal worth. The Parliament refused to

register the edict--the greatest outcry was excited, and the state of

the country became so alarming, that, as the only means of preserving

tranquillity, the council of the regency was obliged to stultify its

own proceedings, by publishing within seven days another edict,

restoring the notes to their original value.



    On the same day (the 27th of May) the bank stopped payment in

specie. Law and D'Argenson were both dismissed from the ministry. The

weak, vacillating, and cowardly Regent threw the blame of all the

mischief upon Law, who, upon presenting himself at the Palais Royal,

was refused admitance. At nightfall, however, he was sent for, and

admitted into the palace by a secret door,[Duclos, Memoires Secrets de

la Regence.] when the Regent endeavoured to console him, and made all

manner of excuses for the severity with which in public he had been

compelled to treat him. So capricious was his conduct, that, two days

afterwards, he took him publicly to the opera, where he sat in the

royal box, alongside of the Regent, who treated him with marked

consideration in face of all the people. But such was the hatred

against Law that the experiment had well nigh proved fatal to him. The

mob assailed his carriage with stones just as he was entering his own

door; and if the coachman had not made a sudden jerk into the

court-yard, and the domestics closed the gate immediately, he would,

in all probability, have been dragged out and torn to pieces. On the

following day, his wife and daughter were also assailed by the mob as

they were returning in their carriage from the races. When the Regent

was informed of these occurrences he sent Law a strong detachment of

Swiss guards, who were stationed night and day in the court of his

residence. The public indignation at last increased so much, that Law,

finding his own house, even with this guard, insecure, took refuge in

the Palais Royal, in the apartments of the Regent.



    The Chancellor, D'Aguesseau, who had been dismissed in 1718 for

his opposition to the projects of Law, was now recalled to aid in the

restoration of credit. The Regent acknowledged too late, that he had

treated with unjustifiable harshness and mistrust one of the ablest,

and perhaps the sole honest public man of that corrupt period. He had

retired ever since his disgrace to his country-house at Fresnes,

where, in the midst of severe but delightful philosophic studies, he

had forgotten the intrigues of an unworthy court. Law himself, and the

Chevalier de Conflans, a gentleman of the Regent's household, were

despatched in a post-chaise, with orders to bring the ex-chancellor to

Paris along with them. D'Aguesseau consented to render what assistance

he could, contrary to the advice of his friends, who did not approve

that he should accept any recall to office of which Law was the

bearer. On his arrival in Paris, five counsellors of the Parliament

were admitted to confer with the Commissary of Finance, and on the 1st

of June an order was published, abolishing the law which made it

criminal to amass coin to the amount of more than five hundred livres.

Every one was permitted to have as much specie as he pleased. In order

that the bank-notes might be withdrawn, twenty-five millions of new

notes were created, on the security of the revenues of the city of

Paris, at two-and-a-half per cent. The bank-notes withdrawn were

publicly burned in front of the Hotel de Ville. The new notes were

principally of the value of ten livres each; and on the 10th of June

the bank was re-opened, with a sufficiency of silver coin to give in

change for them.



    These measures were productive of considerable advantage.  All the

population of Paris hastened to the bank, to get coin for their small

notes; and silver becoming scarce, they were paid in copper.  Very few

complained that this was too heavy, although poor fellows might be

continually seen toiling and sweating along the streets, laden with

more than they could comfortably carry, in the shape of change for

fifty livres. The crowds around the bank were so great, that hardly a

day passed that some one was not pressed to death.  On the 9th of

July, the multitude was so dense and clamorous that the guards

stationed at the entrance of the Mazarin Gardens closed the gate, and

refused to admit any more. The crowd became incensed, and flung stones

through the railings upon the soldiers. The latter, incensed in their

turn, threatened to fire upon the people. At that instant one of them

was hit by a stone, and, taking up his piece, he fired into the crowd.

One man fell dead immediately, and another was severely wounded. It

was every instant expected that a general attack would have been

commenced upon the bank; but the gates of the Mazarin Gardens being

opened to the crowd, who saw a whole troop of soldiers, with their

bayonets fixed, ready to receive them, they contented themselves by

giving vent to their indignation in groans and hisses.



    Eight days afterwards the concourse of people was so tremendous,

that fifteen persons were squeezed to death at the doors of the bank.

The people were so indignant that they took three of the bodies on

stretchers before them, and proceeded, to the number of seven or eight

thousand, to the gardens of the Palais Royal, that they might show the

Regent the misfortunes that he and Law had brought upon the country.

Law's coachman, who was sitting on the box of his master's carriage,

in the court-yard of the palace, happened to have more zeal than

discretion, and, not liking that the mob should abuse his master, he

said, loud enough to be overheard by several persons, that they were

all blackguards, and deserved to be hanged. The mob immediately set

upon him, and, thinking that Law was in the carriage, broke it to

pieces. The imprudent coachman narrowly escaped with his life. No

further mischief was done; a body of troops making their appearance,

the crowd quietly dispersed, after an assurance had been given by the

Regent that the three bodies they had brought to show him should be

decently buried at his own expense. The Parliament was sitting at the

time of this uproar, and the President took upon himself to go out and

see what was the matter. On his return he informed the councillors,

that Law's carriage had been broken by the mob. All the members rose

simultaneously, and expressed their joy by a loud shout, while one

man, more zealous in his hatred than the rest, exclaimed, "And Law

himself, is he torn to pieces ?"

[The Duchess of Orleans gives a different version of this story; but

whichever be the true one, the manifestation of such feeling in a

legislative assembly was not very creditable. She says, that the

President was so transported with joy, that he was seized with a

rhyming fit, and, returning into the hall, exclaimed to the members

:--



"Messieurs ! Messieurs ! bonne nouvelle !

Le carfosse de Lass est reduit en canelle !"]



    Much undoubtedly depended on the credit of the Company of the

Indies, which was answerable for so great a sum to the nation. It was,

therefore, suggested in the council of the ministry, that any

privileges which could be granted to enable it to fulfil its

engagements, would be productive of the best results. With this end in

view, it was proposed that the exclusive privilege of all maritime

commerce should be secured to it, and an edict to that effect was

published. But it was unfortunately forgotten that by such a measure

all the merchants of the country would be ruined. The idea of such an

immense privilege was generally scouted by the nation, and petition on

petition was presented to the Parliament, that they would refuse to

register the decree. They refused accordingly, and the Regent,

remarking that they did nothing but fan the flame of sedition, exiled

them to Blois. At the intercession of D'Aguesseau, the place of

banishment was changed to Pontoise, and thither accordingly the

councillors repaired, determined to set the Regent at defiance. They

made every arrangement for rendering their temporary exile as

agreeable as possible. The President gave the most elegant suppers, to

which he invited all the gayest and wittiest company of Paris. Every

night there was a concert and ball for the ladies. The usually grave

and solemn judges and councillors joined in cards and other

diversions, leading for several weeks a life of the most extravagant

pleasure, for no other purpose than to show the Regent of how little

consequence they deemed their banishment, and that when they willed

it, they could make Pontoise a pleasanter residence than Paris.



    Of all the nations in the world the French are the most renowned

for singing over their grievances. Of that country it has been

remarked with some truth, that its whole history may be traced in its

songs. When Law, by the utter failure of his best-laid plans, rendered

himself obnoxious, satire of course seized hold upon him, and, while

caricatures of his person appeared in all the shops, the streets

resounded with songs, in which neither he nor the Regent was spared.

Many of these songs were far from decent; and one of them in

particular counselled the application of all his notes to the most

ignoble use to which paper can be applied. But the following,

preserved in the letters of the Duchess of Orleans, was the best and

the most popular, and was to be heard for months in all the carrefours

of Paris. The application of the chorus is happy enough :--



Aussitot que Lass arriva

Dans notre bonne ville,

Monsieur le Regent publia

Que Lass serait utile

Pour retablir la nation.

La faridondaine! la faridondon.

Mais il nous a tous enrich!,

Biribi!

A la facon de Barbari,

Mort ami!



Ce parpaillot, pour attirer

Tout l'argent de la France,

Songea d'abord a s'assurer

De notre confiance.

Il fit son abjuration.

La faridondaine! la faridondon!

Mais le fourbe s'est converti,

Biribi!

A la facon de Barbari,

Mon ami!



Lass, le fils aine de Satan

Nous met tous a l'aumone,

Il nous a pris tout notre argent

Et n'en rend a personne.

Mais le Regent, humain et bon,

La faridondaine! la faridondon!

Nous rendra ce qu'on nous a pris,

Biribi!

A la facon de Barbari,

Mon ami!



The following smart epigram is of the same date:--



Lundi, j'achetai des actions;

Mardi, je gagnai des millions;

Mercredi, j'arrangeai mon menage,

Jeudi, je pris un equipage,

Vendredi, je m'en fus au bal,

Et Samedi, a l'Hopital.



    Among the caricatures that were abundantly published, and that

showed as plainly as graver matters, that the nation had awakened to a

sense of its folly, was one, a fac-simile of which is preserved in the

"Memoires de la Regence." It was thus described by its author: "The

'Goddess of Shares,' in her triumphal car, driven by the Goddess of

Folly. Those who are drawing the car are impersonations of the

Mississippi, with his wooden leg, the South Sea, the Bank of England,

the Company of the West of Senegal, and of various assurances. Lest

the car should not roll fast enough, the agents of these companies,

known by their long fox-tails and their cunning looks, turn round the

spokes of the wheels, upon which are marked the names of the several

stocks, and their value, sometimes high and sometimes low, according

to the turns of the wheel. Upon the ground are the merchandise,

day-books and ledgers of legitimate commerce, crushed under the

chariot of Folly. Behind is an immense crowd of persons, of all ages,

sexes, and conditions, clamoring after Fortune, and fighting with each

other to get a portion of the shares which she distributes so

bountifully among them. In the clouds sits a demon, blowing bubbles of

soap, which are also the objects of the admiration and cupidity of the

crowd, who jump upon one another's backs to reach them ere they burst.

Right in the pathway of the car, and blocking up the passage, stands a

large building, with three doors, through one of which it must pass,

if it proceeds further, and all the crowd along with it. Over the

first door are the words, "Hopital des Foux," over the second,

"Hopital des Malades," and over the third, "Hopital des Gueux."

Another caricature represented Law sitting in a large cauldron,

boiling over the flames of popular madness, surrounded by an impetuous

multitude, who were pouring all their gold and silver into it, and

receiving gladly in exchange the bits of paper which he distributed

among them by handsfull.



    While this excitement lasted, Law took good care not to expose

himself unguarded in the streets. Shut up in the apartments of the

Regent, he was secure from all attack, and, whenever he ventured

abroad, it was either incognito, or in one of the Royal carriages,

with a powerful escort. An amusing anecdote is recorded of the

detestation in which he was held by the people, and the ill treatment

he would have met, had he fallen into their hands. A gentleman, of the

name of Boursel, was passing in his carriage down the Rue St. Antoine,

when his further progress was stayed by a hackneycoach that had

blocked up the road. M. Boursel's servant called impatiently to the

hackneycoachman to get out of the way, and, on his refusal, struck him

a blow on the face. A crowd was soon drawn together by the

disturbance, and M. Boursel got out of the carriage to restore order.

The hackney-coachman, imagining that he had now another assailant,

bethought him of an expedient to rid himself of both, and called out

as loudly as he was able, "Help! help! murder! murder! Here are Law

and his servant going to kill me! Help! help!" At this cry, the people

came out of their shops, armed with sticks and other weapons, while

the mob gathered stones to inflict summary vengeance upon the supposed

financier. Happily for M. Boursel and his servant, the door of the

church of the Jesuits stood wide open, and, seeing the fearful odds

against them, they rushed towards it with all speed. They reached the

altar, pursued by the people, and would have been ill treated even

there, if, finding the door open leading to the sacristy, they had not

sprang through, and closed it after them. The mob were then persuaded

to leave the church by the alarmed and indignant priests; and, finding

M. Boursel's carriage still in the streets, they vented their ill-will

against it, and did it considerable damage.



    The twenty-five millions secured on the municipal revenues of the

city of Paris, bearing so low an interest as two and a half per cent.,

were not very popular among the large holders of Mississippi stock.

The conversion of the securities was, therefore, a work of

considerable difficulty; for many preferred to retain the falling

paper of Law's Company, in the hope that a favourable turn might take

place. On the 15th of August, with a view to hasten the conversion, an

edict was passed, declaring that all notes for sums between one

thousand and ten thousand livres; should not pass current, except for

the purchase of annuities and bank accounts, or for the payment of

instalments still due on the shares of the company.



    In October following another edict was passed, depriving these

notes of all value whatever after the month of November next ensuing.

The management of the mint, the farming of the revenue, and all the

other advantages and privileges of the India, or Mississippi Company,

were taken from them, and they were reduced to a mere private company.

This was the deathblow to the whole system, which had now got into the

hands of its enemies. Law had lost all influence in the Council of

Finance, and the company, being despoiled of its immunities, could no

longer hold out the shadow of a prospect of being able to fulfil its

engagements. All those suspected of illegal profits at the time the

public delusion was at its height, were sought out and amerced in

heavy fines. It was previously ordered that a list of the original

proprietors should be made out, and that such persons as still

retained their shares should place them in deposit with the company,

and that those who had neglected to complete the shares for which they

had put down their names, should now purchase them of the company, at

the rate of 13,500 livres for each share of 500 livres. Rather than

submit to pay this enormous sum for stock which was actually at a

discount, the shareholders packed up all their portable effects, and

endeavoured to find a refuge in foreign countries. Orders were

immediately issued to the authorities at the ports and frontiers, to

apprehend all travellers who sought to leave the kingdom, and keep

them in custody, until it was ascertained whether they had any plate

or jewellery with them, or were concerned in the late stock-jobbing.

Against such few as escaped, the punishment of death was recorded,

while the most arbitrary proceedings were instituted against those who

remained.



    Law himself, in a moment of despair, determined to leave a country

where his life was no longer secure. He at first only demanded

permission to retire from Paris to one of his country-seats; a

permission which the Regent cheerfully granted. The latter was much

affected at the unhappy turn affairs had taken, but his faith

continued unmoved in the truth and efficacy of Law's financial system.

His eyes were opened to his own errors, and during the few remaining

years of his life, he constantly longed for an opportunity of again

establishing the system upon a securer basis. At Law's last interview

with the Prince, he is reported to have said--" I confess that I have

committed many faults; I committed them because I am a man, and all

men are liable to error; but I declare to you most solemnly that none

of them proceeded from wicked or dishonest motives, and that nothing

of the kind will be found in the whole course of my conduct."



    Two or three days after his departure the Regent sent him a very

kind letter, permitting him to leave the kingdom whenever he pleased,

and stating that he had ordered his passports to be made ready. He at

the same time offered him any sum of money he might require. Law

respectfully declined the money, and set out for Brussels in a

postchaise belonging to Madame de Prie, the mistress of the Duke of

Bourbon, escorted by six horse-guards. From thence he proceeded to

Venice, where he remained for some months, the object of the greatest

curiosity to the people, who believed him to be the possessor of

enormous wealth. No opinion, however, could be more erroneous. With

more generosity than could have been expected from a man who during

the greatest part of his life had been a professed gambler, he had

refused to enrich himself at the expense of a ruined nation. During

the height of the popular frenzy for Mississippi stock, he had never

doubted of the final success of his projects, in making France the

richest and most powerful nation of Europe. He invested all his gains

in the purchase of landed property in France - a sure proof of his own

belief in the stability of his schemes. He had hoarded no plate or

jewellery, and sent no money, like the dishonest jobbers, to foreign

countries. His all, with the exception of one diamond, worth about

five or six thousand pounds sterling, was invested in the French soil;

and when he left that country, he left it almost a beggar. This fact

alone ought to rescue his memory from the charge of knavery, so often

and so unjustly brought against him.



    As soon as his departure was known, all his estates and his

valuable library were confiscated. Among the rest, an annuity of

200,000 livres, (8000 pounds sterling,) on the lives of his wife and

children, which had been purchased for five millions of livres, was

forfeited, notwithstanding that a special edict, drawn up for the

purpose in the days of his prosperity, had expressly declared that it

should never be confiscated for any cause whatever. Great discontent

existed among the people that Law had been suffered to escape. The mob

and the Parliament would have been pleased to have seen him hanged.

The few who had not suffered by the commercial revolution, rejoiced

that the quack had left the country; but all those (and they were by

far the most numerous class) whose fortunes were implicated, regretted

that his intimate knowledge of the distress of the country, and of the

causes that had led to it, had not been rendered more available in

discovering a remedy.



    At a meeting of the Council of Finance, and the general council of

the Regency, documents were laid upon the table, from which it

appeared that the amount of notes in circulation was 2700 millions.

The Regent was called upon to explain how it happened that there was a

discrepancy between the dates at which these issues were made, and

those of the edicts by which they were authorised. He might have

safely taken the whole blame upon himself, but he preferred that an

absent man should bear a share of it, and he therefore stated that

Law, upon his own authority, had issued 1200 millions of notes at

different times, and that he (the Regent) seeing that the thing had

been irrevocably done, had screened Law, by antedating the decrees of

the council, which authorised the augmentation. It would have been

more to his credit if he had told the whole truth while he was about

it, and acknowledged that it was mainly through his extravagance and

impatience that Law had been induced to overstep the bounds of safe

speculation. It was also ascertained that the national debt, on the

1st of January, 1721, amounted to upwards of $100 millions of livres,

or more than 124,000,000 pounds sterling, the interest upon which was

3,196,000 pounds. A commission, or visa, was forthwith appointed to

examine into all the securities of the state creditors, who were to be

divided into five classes, the first four comprising those who had

purchased their securities with real effects, and the latter

comprising those who could give no proofs that the transactions they

had entered into were real and bona fide. The securities of the latter

were ordered to be destroyed, while those of the first four classes

were subjected to a most rigid and jealous scrutiny. The result of the

labours of the visa was a report, in which they counselled the

reduction of the interest upon these securities to fifty-six millions

of livres. They justified this advice by a statement of the various

acts of peculation and extortion which they had discovered, and an

edict to that effect was accordingly published and duly registered by

the parliaments of the kingdom.



    Another tribunal was afterwards established, under the title of

the Chambre de l'Arsenal, which took cognizance of all the

malversations committed in the financial departments of the government

during the late unhappy period. A Master of Requests, named Falhonet,

together with the Abbe Clement, and two clerks in their employ, had

been concerned in divers acts of peculation, to the amount of upwards

of a million of livres. The first two were sentenced to be beheaded,

and the latter to be hanged; but their punishment was afterwards

commuted into imprisonment for life in the Bastile. Numerous other

acts of dishonesty were discovered, and punished by fine and

imprisonment.



    D'Argenson shared with Law and the Regent the unpopularity which

had alighted upon all those concerned in the Mississippi madness. He

was dismissed from his post of Chancellor, to make room for

D'Aguesseau; but he retained the title of Keeper of the Seals, and was

allowed to attend the councils whenever he pleased. He thought it

better, however, to withdraw from Paris, and live for a time a life of

seclusion at his country-seat. But he was not formed for retirement,

and becoming moody and discontented, he aggravated a disease under

which he had long laboured, and died in less than a twelvemonth. The

populace of of Paris so detested him, that they carried their hatred

even to his grave. As his funeral procession passed to the church of

St. Nicholas du Chardonneret, the burying-place of his family, it was

beset by a riotous mob, and his two sons, who were following as

chief-mourners, were obliged to drive as fast as they were able down a

by-street to escape personal violence.



    As regards Law, he for some time entertained a hope that he should

be recalled to France, to aid in establishing its credit upon a firmer

basis. The death of the Regent, in 1723, who expired suddenly, as he

was sitting by the fireside conversing with his mistress, the Duchess

de Phalaris, deprived him of that hope, and he was reduced to lead his

former life of gambling. He was more than once obliged to pawn his

diamond, the sole remnant of his vast wealth, but successful play

generally enabled him to redeem it. Being persecuted by his creditors

at Rome, he proceeded to Copenhagen, where he received permission from

the English ministry to reside in his native country, his pardon for

the murder of Mr. Wilson having been sent over to him in 1719. He was

brought over in the admiral's ship, a circumstance which gave occasion

for a short debate in the House of Lords. Earl Coningsby complained

that a man, who had renounced both his country and his religion,

should have been treated with such honour, and expressed his belief

that his presence in England, at a time when the people were so

bewildered by the nefarious practices of the South Sea directors,

would be attended with no little danger. He gave notice of a motion on

the subject; but it was allowed to drop, no other member of the House

having the slightest participation in his lordship's fears. Law

remained for about four years in England, and then proceeded to

Venice, where he died in 1729, in very embarrassed circumstances. The

following epitaph was written at the time :--



"Ci git cet Ecossais celebre,

Ce calculateur sans egal,

Qui, par les regles de l'algebre,

A mis la France a l'Hopital."



    His brother, William Law, who had been concerned with him in the

administration both of the Bank and the Louisiana Company, was

imprisoned in the Bastile for alleged malversation, but no guilt was

ever proved against him. He was liberated after fifteen months, and

became the founder of a family, which is still known in France under

the title of Marquises of Lauriston.



    In the next chapter will be found an account of the madness which

infected the people of England at the same time, and under very

similar circumstances, but which, thanks to the energies and good

sense of a constitutional government, was attended with results far

less disastrous than those which were seen in France.





THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE



At length corruption, like a general flood,

Did deluge all, and avarice creeping on,

Spread, like a low-born mist, and hid the sun.

Statesmen and patriots plied alike the stocks,

Peeress and butler shared alike the box;

And judges jobbed, and bishops bit the town,

And mighty dukes packed cards for half-a-crown:

Britain was sunk in lucre's sordid charms.

                                   --Pope.



    The South Sea Company was originated by the celebrated Harley,

Earl of Oxford, in the year 1711, with the view of restoring public

credit, which had suffered by the dismissal of the Whig ministry, and

of providing for the discharge of the army and navy debentures, and

other parts of the floating debt, amounting to nearly ten millions

sterling. A company of merchants, at that time without a name, took

this debt upon themselves, and the government agreed to secure them,

for a certain period, the interest of six per cent. To provide for

this interest, amounting to 600,000 pounds per annum, the duties upon

wines, vinegar, India goods, wrought silks, tobacco, whale-fins, and

some other articles, were rendered permanent. The monopoly of the

trade to the South Seas was granted, and the company, being

incorporated by Act of Parliament, assumed the title by which it has

ever since been known. The minister took great credit to himself for

his share in this transaction, and the scheme was always called by his

flatterers "the Earl of Oxford's masterpiece."



    Even at this early period of its history, the most visionary ideas

were formed by the company and the public of the immense riches of the

eastern coast of South America. Everybody had heard of the gold and

silver mines of Peru and Mexico; every one believed them to be

inexhaustible, and that it was only necessary to send the manufactures

of England to the coast, to be repaid a hundredfold in gold and silver

ingots by the natives. A report, industriously spread, that Spain was

willing to concede four ports, on the coasts of Chili and Peru, for

the purposes of traffic, increased the general confidence; and for

many years the South Sea Company's stock was in high favour.



    Philip V of Spain, however, never had any intention of admitting

the English to a free trade in the ports of Spanish America.

Negotiations were set on foot, but their only result was the assiento

contract, or the privilege of supplying the colonies with negroes for

thirty years, and of sending once a year a vessel, limited both as to

tonnage and value of cargo, to trade with Mexico, Peru, or Chili. The

latter permission was only granted upon the hard condition, that the

King of Spain should enjoy one-fourth of the profits, and a tax of

five per cent. on the remainder. This was a great disappointment to

the Earl of Oxford and his party, who were reminded much oftener than

they found agreeable of the



"Parturiunt montes, nascitur ridiculus mus,"



But the public confidence in the South Sea Company was not shaken. The

Earl of Oxford declared, that Spain would permit two ships, in

addition to the annual ship, to carry out merchandise during the first

year; and a list was published, in which all the ports and harbours of

these coasts were pompously set forth as open to the trade of Great

Britain. The first voyage of the annual ship was not made till the

year 1717, and in the following year the trade was suppressed by the

rupture with Spain.



    The King's speech, at the opening of the session of 1717, made pointed

allusion to the state of public credit, and recommended that proper

measures should be taken to reduce the national debt. The two great

monetary corporations, the South Sea Company and the Bank of England,

made proposals to Parliament on the 20th of May ensuing. The South Sea

Company prayed that their capital stock of ten millions might be

increased to twelve, by subscription or otherwise, and offered to

accept five per cent. instead of six upon the whole amount. The Bank

made proposals equally advantageous. The House debated for some time,

and finally three acts were passed, called the South Sea Act, the Bank

Act, and the General Fund Act. By the first, the proposals of the

South Sea Company were accepted, and that body held itself ready to

advance the sum of two millions towards discharging the principal and

interest of the debt due by the state for the four lottery funds of

the ninth and tenth years of Queen Anne. By the second act, the Bank

received a lower rate of interest for the sum of 1,775,027 pounds 15

shillings due to it by the state, and agreed to deliver up to be

cancelled as many Exchequer bills as amounted to two millions

sterling, and to accept of an annuity of one hundred thousand pounds,

being after the rate of five per cent, the whole redeemable at one

year's notice. They were further required to be ready to advance, in

case of need, a sum not exceeding 2,500,000 pounds upon the same terms

of five per cent interest, redeemable by Parliament. The General Fund

Act recited the various deficiencies, which were to be made good by

the aids derived from the foregoing sources.



    The name of the South Sea Company was thus continually before the

public. Though their trade with the South American States produced

little or no augmentation of their revenues, they continued to

flourish as a monetary corporation. Their stock was in high request,

and the directors, buoyed up with success, began to think of new means

for extending their influence. The Mississippi scheme of John Law,

which so dazzled and captivated the French people, inspired them with

an idea that they could carry on the same game in England. The

anticipated failure of his plans did not divert them from their

intention. Wise in their own conceit, they imagined they could avoid

his faults, carry on their schemes for ever, and stretch the cord of

credit to its extremest tension, without causing it to snap asunder.



    It was while Law's plan was at its greatest height of popularity,

while people were crowding in thousands to the Rue Quincampoix, and

ruining themselves with frantic eagerness, that the South Sea

directors laid before Parliament their famous plan for paying off the

national debt. Visions of boundless wealth floated before the

fascinated eyes of the people in the two most celebrated countries of

Europe. The English commenced their career of extravagance somewhat

later than the French; but as soon as the delirium seized them, they

were determined not to be outdone. Upon the 22nd of January 1720, the

House of Commons resolved itself into a Committee of the whole House,

to take into consideration that part of the King's speech at the

opening of the session which related to the public debts, and the

proposal of the South Sea Company towards the redemption and sinking

of the same. The proposal set forth at great length, and under several

heads, the debts of the state, amounting to 30,981,712 pounds, which

the Company were anxious to take upon themselves, upon consideration

of five per cent. per annum, secured to them until Midsummer 1727;

after which time, the whole was to become redeemable at the pleasure

of the legislature, and the interest to be reduced to four per cent.

The proposal was received with great favour; but the Bank of England

had many friends in the House of Commons, who were desirous that that

body should share in the advantages that were likely to accrue. On

behalf of this corporation it was represented, that they had performed

great and eminent services to the state, in the most difficult times,

and deserved, at least, that if any advantage was to be made by public

bargains of this nature, they should be preferred before a company

that had never done any thing for the nation. The further

consideration of the matter was accordingly postponed for five days.

In the mean time, a plan was drawn up by the Governors of the Bank.

The South Sea Company, afraid that the Bank might offer still more

advantageous terms to the government than themselves, reconsidered

their former proposal, and made some alterations in it, which they

hoped would render it more acceptable. The principal change was a

stipulation that the government might redeem these debts at the

expiration of four years, instead of seven, as at first suggested. The

Bank resolved not to be outbidden in this singular auction, and the

Governors also reconsidered their first proposal, and sent in a new

one.



    Thus, each corporation having made two proposals, the House began

to deliberate. Mr. Robert Walpole was the chief speaker in favour of

the Bank, and Mr. Aislabie, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the

principal advocate on behalf of the South Sea Company. It was

resolved, on the 2nd of February, that the proposals of the latter

were most advantageous to the country. They were accordingly received,

and leave was given to bring in a bill to that effect.



    Exchange Alley was in a fever of excitement. The Company's stock,

which had been at a hundred and thirty the previous day, gradually

rose to three hundred, and continued to rise with the most astonishing

rapidity during the whole time that the bill in its several stages was

under discussion. Mr. Walpole was almost the only statesman in the

House who spoke out boldly against it. He warned them, in eloquent and

solemn language, of the evils that would ensue. It countenanced, he

said, "the dangerous practice of stockjobbing, and would divert the

genius of the nation from trade and industry. It would hold out a

dangerous lure to decoy the unwary to their ruin, by making them part

with the earnings of their labour for a prospect of imaginary wealth.

The great principle of the project was an evil of first-rate

magnitude; it was to raise artificially the value of the stock, by

exciting and keeping up a general infatuation, and by promising

dividends out of funds which could never be adequate to the purpose.

In a prophetic spirit he added, that if the plan succeeded, the

directors would become masters of the government, form a new and

absolute aristocracy in the kingdom, and control the resolutions of

the legislature. If it failed, which he was convinced it would, the

result would bring general discontent and ruin upon the country. Such

would be the delusion, that when the evil day came, as come it would,

the people would start up, as from a dream, and ask themselves if

these things could have been true. All his eloquence was in vain. He

was looked upon as a false prophet, or compared to the hoarse raven,

croaking omens of evil. His friends, however, compared him to

Cassandra, predicting evils which would only be believed when they

came home to men's hearths, and stared them in the face at their own

boards. Although, in former times, the House had listened with the

utmost attention to every word that fell from his lips, the benches

became deserted when it was known that he would speak on the South Sea

question.



    The bill was two months in its progress through the House of

Commons. During this time every exertion was made by the directors and

their friends, and more especially by the Chairman, the noted Sir John

Blunt, to raise the price of the stock. The most extravagant rumours

were in circulation. Treaties between England and Spain were spoken

of, whereby the latter was to grant a free trade to all her colonies;

and the rich produce of the mines of Potosi-la-Paz was to be brought

to England until silver should become almost as plentiful as iron. For

cotton and woollen goods, with which we could supply them in

abundance, the dwellers in Mexico were to empty their golden mines.

The company of merchants trading to the South Seas would be the

richest the world ever saw, and every hundred pounds invested in it

would produce hundreds per annum to the stockholder. At last the stock

was raised by these means to near four hundred; but, after fluctuating

a good deal, settled at three hundred and thirty, at which price it

remained when the bill passed the Commons by a majority of 172 against

55.



    In the House of Lords the bill was hurried through all its stages with

unexampled rapidity. On the 4th of April it was read a first time; on

the 5th, it was read a second time; on the 6th, it was committed; and

on the 7th, was read a third time, and passed.



    Several peers spoke warmly against the scheme; but their warnings

fell upon dull, cold ears. A speculating frenzy had seized them as

well as the plebeians. Lord North and Grey said the bill was unjust in

its nature, and might prove fatal in its consequences, being

calculated to enrich the few and impoverish the many. The Duke of

Wharton followed; but, as he only retailed at second-hand the

arguments so eloquently stated by Walpole in the Lower House, he was

not listened to with even the same attention that had been bestowed

upon Lord North and Grey. Earl Cowper followed on the same side, and

compared the bill to the famous horse of the siege of Troy. Like that,

it was ushered in and received with great pomp and acclamations of

joy, but bore within it treachery and destruction. The Earl of

Sunderland endeavoured to answer all objections; and, on the question

being put, there appeared only seventeen peers against, and

eighty-three in favour of the project. The very same day on which it

passed the Lords, it received the Royal assent, and became the law of

the land.



    It seemed at that time as if the whole nation had turned

stockjobbers. Exchange Alley was every day blocked up by crowds, and

Cornhill was impassable for the number of carriages. Everybody came to

purchase stock. "Every fool aspired to be a knave." In the words of a

ballad, published at the time, and sung about the streets, ["A South

Sea Ballad; or, Merry Remarks upon Exchange Alley Bubbles. To a new

tune, called ' The Grand Elixir; or, the Philosopher's Stone

Discovered.'"]



Then stars and garters did appear

Among the meaner rabble;

To buy and sell, to see and hear,

The Jews and Gentiles squabble.



The greatest ladies thither came,

And plied in chariots daily,

Or pawned their jewels for a sum

To venture in the Alley.



    The inordinate thirst of gain that had afflicted all ranks of

society, was not to be slaked even in the South Sea. Other schemes, of

the most extravagant kind, were started. The share-lists were speedily

filled up, and an enormous traffic carried on in shares, while, of

course, every means were resorted to, to raise them to an artificial

value in the market.



    Contrary to all expectation, South Sea stock fell when the bill

received the Royal assent. On the 7th of April the shares were quoted

at three hundred and ten, and. on the following day, at two hundred

and ninety. Already the directors had tasted the profits of their

scheme, and it was not likely that they should quietly allow the stock

to find its natural level, without an effort to raise it. Immediately

their busy emissaries were set to work. Every person interested in the

success of the project endeavoured to draw a knot of listeners around

him, to whom he expatiated on the treasures of the South American

seas. Exchange Alley was crowded with attentive groups. One rumour

alone, asserted with the utmost confidence, had an immediate effect

upon the stock. It was said, that Earl Stanhope had received overtures

in France from the Spanish Government to exchange Gibraltar and Port

Mahon for some places on the coast of Peru, for the security and

enlargement of the trade in the South Seas. Instead of one annual ship

trading to those ports, and allowing the King of Spain twenty-five per

cent. out of the profits, the Company might build and charter as many

ships as they pleased, and pay no per centage whatever to any foreign

potentate.



Visions of ingots danced before their eyes,



and stock rose rapidly. On the 12th of April, five days after the bill

had become law, the directors opened their books for a subscription of

a million, at the rate of 300 pounds for every 100 pounds capital.

Such was the concourse of persons, of all ranks, that this first

subscription was found to amount to above two millions of original

stock. It was to be paid at five payments, of 60 pounds each for every

100 pounds. In a few days the stock advanced to three hundred and

forty, and the subscriptions were sold for double the price of the

first payment. To raise the stock still higher, it was declared, in a

general court of directors, on the 21st of April, that the midsummer

dividend should be ten per cent., and that all subscriptions should be

entitled to the same. These resolutions answering the end designed,

the directors, to improve the infatuation of the monied men, opened

their books for a second subscription of a million, at four hundred

per cent. Such was the frantic eagerness of people of every class to

speculate in these funds, that in the course of a few hours no less

than a million and a half was subscribed at that rate.



    In the mean time, innumerable joint-stock companies started up

everywhere. They soon received the name of Bubbles, the most

appropriate that imagination could devise. The populace are often most

happy in the nicknames they employ. None could be more apt than that

of Bubbles. Some of them lasted for a week, or a fortnight, and were

no more heard of, while others could not even live out that short span

of existence. Every evening produced new schemes, and every morning

new projects. The highest of the aristocracy were as eager in this hot

pursuit of gain as the most plodding jobber in Cornhill. The Prince of

Wales became governor of one company, and is said to have cleared

40,000 pounds by his speculations. [Coxe's Walpole, Correspondence

between Mr. Secretary Craggs and Earl Stanhope.] The Duke of

Bridgewater started a scheme for the improvement of London and

Westminster, and the Duke of Chandos another. There were nearly a

hundred different projects, each more extravagant and deceptive than

the other. To use the words of the "Political State," they were "set

on foot and promoted by crafty knaves, then pursued by multitudes of

covetous fools, and at last appeared to be, in effect, what their

vulgar appellation denoted them to be -- bubbles and mere

cheats." It was computed that near one million and a half sterling was

won and lost by these unwarrantable practices, to the impoverishment

of many a fool, and the enriching of many a rogue.



    Some of these schemes were plausible enough, and, had they been

undertaken at a time when the public mind was unexcited, might have

been pursued with advantage to all concerned. But they were

established merely with the view of raising the shares in the market.

The projectors took the first opportunity of a rise to sell out, and

next morning the scheme was at an end. Maitland, in his History of

London, gravely informs us, that one of the projects which received

great encouragement, was for the establishment of a company "to make

deal-boards out of saw-dust." This is, no doubt, intended as a joke;

but there is abundance of evidence to show that dozens of schemes

hardly a whir more reasonable, lived their little day, ruining

hundreds ere they fell. One of them was for a wheel for perpetual

motion -- capital, one million; another was "for encouraging the breed

of horses in England, and improving of glebe and church lands, and

repairing and rebuilding parsonage and vicarage houses." Why the

clergy, who were so mainly interested in the latter clause, should

have taken so much interest in the first, is only to be explained on

the supposition that the scheme was projected by a knot of the

foxhunting parsons, once so common in England. The shares of this

company were rapidly subscribed for. But the most absurd and

preposterous of all, and which showed, more completely than any other,

the utter madness of the people, was one, started by an unknown

adventurer, entitled "company for carrying on an undertaking of great

advantage, but nobody to know what it is." Were not the fact stated by

scores of credible witnesses, it would be impossible to believe that

any person could have been duped by such a project. The man of genius

who essayed this bold and successful inroad upon public credulity,

merely stated in his prospectus that the required capital was half a

million, in five thousand shares of 100 pounds each, deposit 2 pounds

per share. Each subscriber, paying his deposit, would be entitled to

100 pounds per annum per share. How this immense profit was to be

obtained, he did not condescend to inform them at that time, but

promised, that in a month full particulars should be duly announced,

and a call made for the remaining 98 pounds of the subscription. Next

morning, at nine o'clock, this great man opened an office in Cornhill.

Crowds of people beset his door, and when he shut up at three o'clock,

he found that no less than one thousand shares had been subscribed

for, and the deposits paid. He was thus, in five hours, the winner of

2,000 pounds. He was philosopher enough to be contented with his

venture, and set off the same evening for the Continent. He was never

heard of again.



    Well might Swift exclaim, comparing Change Alley to a gulf in the

South Sea,--



Subscribers here by thousands float,

And jostle one another down,

Each paddling in his leaky boat,

And here they fish for gold, and drown.



Now buried in the depths below,

Now mounted up to heaven again,

They reel and stagger to and fro,

At their wit's end, like drunken men



Meantime, secure on Garraway cliffs,

A savage race, by shipwrecks fed,

Lie waiting for the foundered skiffs,

And strip the bodies of the dead.



    Another fraud that was very successful, was that of the "Globe

Permits," as they were called. They were nothing more than square

pieces of playing cards, on which was the impression of a seal, in

wax, bearing the sign of the Globe Tavern, in the neighbourhood of

Exchange Alley, with the inscription of "Sail Cloth Permits." The

possessors enjoyed no other advantage from them than permission to

subscribe, at some future time, to a new sail-cloth manufactory,

projected by one who was then known to be a man of fortune, but who

was afterwards involved in the peculation and punishment of the South

Sea directors. These permits sold for as much as sixty guineas in the

Alley.



    Persons of distinction, of both sexes, were deeply engaged in all

these bubbles, those of the male sex going to taverns and

coffee-houses to meet their brokers, and the ladies resorting for the

same purpose to the shops of milliners and haberdashers. But it did

not follow that all these people believed in the feasibility of the

schemes to which they subscribed; it was enough for their purpose that

their shares would, by stock-jobbing arts, be soon raised to a

premium, when they got rid of them with all expedition to the really

credulous. So great was the confusion of the crowd in the alley, that

shares in the same bubble were known to have been sold at the same

instant ten per cent. higher at one end of the alley than at the

other. Sensible men beheld the extraordinary infatuation of the people

with sorrow and alarm. There were some, both in and out of Parliament,

who foresaw clearly the ruin that was impending. Mr. Walpole did not

cease his gloomy forebodings. His fears were shared by all the

thinking few, and impressed most forcibly upon the government. On the

11th of June, the day the Parliament rose, the King published a

proclamation, declaring that all these unlawful projects should be

deemed public nuisances, and prosecuted accordingly, and forbidding

any broker, under a penalty of five hundred pounds, from buying or

selling any shares in them. Notwithstanding this proclamation, roguish

speculators still carried them on, and the deluded people still

encouraged them. On the 12th of July, an order of the Lords Justices

assembled in privy council was published, dismissing all the petitions

that had been presented for patents and charters, and dissolving all

the bubble companies. The following copy of their lordships' order,

containing a list of all these nefarious projects, will not be deemed

uninteresting at the present day, when there is but too much tendency

in the public mind to indulge in similar practices :-



"At the Council Chamber, Whitehall, the 12th day of July, 1720.

Present, their Excellencies the Lords Justices in Council.



    "Their Excellencies, the Lords Justices in council, taking into

consideration the many inconveniences arising to the public from

several projects set on foot for raising of joint stock for various

purposes, and that a great many of his Majesty's subjects have been

drawn in to part with their money on pretence of assurances that their

petitions for patents and charters, to enable them to carry on the

same, would be granted: to prevent such impositions, their

Excellencies, this day, ordered the said several petitions, together

with such reports from the Board of Trade, and from his Majesty's

Attorney and Solicitor General, as had been obtained thereon, to be

laid before them, and after mature consideration thereof, were

pleased, by advice of his Majesty's Privy Council, to order that the

said petitions be dismissed, which are as follow :--



    "1. Petition of several persons, praying letters patent for

carrying on a fishing trade, by the name of the Grand Fishery of Great

Britain.



    "2. Petition of the Company of the Royal Fishery of England,

praying letters patent for such further powers as will effectually

contribute to carry on the said fishery.



    "3. Petition of George James, on behalf of himself and divers

persons of distinction concerned in a national fishery; praying

letters patent of incorporation to enable them to carry on the same.



    "4. Petition of several merchants, traders, and others, whose

names are thereunto subscribed, praying to be incorporated for

reviving and carrying on a whale fishery to Greenland and elsewhere.



    "5. Petition of Sir John Lambert, and others thereto subscribing,

on behalf of themselves and a great number of merchants, praying to be

incorporated for carrying on a Greenland trade, and particularly a

whale fishery in Davis's Straits.



    "6. Another petition for a Greenland trade.



    "7. Petition of several merchants, gentlemen, and citizens,

praying to be incorporated. for buying and building of ships to let or

freight.



    "8. Petition of Samuel Antrim and others, praying for letters

patent for sowing hemp and flax.



    "9. Petition of several merchants, masters of ships, sail-makers,

and manufacturers of sail-cloth, praying a charter of incorporation,

to enable them to carry on and promote the said manufactory by a joint

stock.



    "10. Petition of Thomas Boyd, and several hundred merchants,

owners and masters of ships, sailmakers, weavers, and other traders,

praying a charter of incorporation, empowering them to borrow money

for purchasing lands, in order to the manufacturing sail-cloth and

fine Holland.



    "11. Petition on behalf of several persons interested in a patent

granted by the late King William and Queen Mary, for the making of

linen and sail-cloth, praying that no charter may be granted to any

persons whatsoever for making sail-cloth, but that the privilege now

enjoyed by them may be confirmed, and likewise an additional power to

carry on the cotton and cotton-silk manufactures.



    "12. Petition of several citizens, merchants, and traders in

London, and others, subscribers to a British stock, for a general

insurance from fire in any part of England, praying to be incorporated

for carrying on the said undertaking.



    "13. Petition of several of his Majesty's loyal snbjects of the

city of London, and other parts of Great Britain, praying to be

incorporated, for carrying on a general insurance from losses by fire

within the kingdom of England.



    "14. Petition of Thomas Burges, and others his Majesty's subjects

thereto subscribing, in behalf of themselves and others, subscribers

to a fund of 1,200,000 pounds, for carrying on a trade to his

Majesty's German dominions, praying to be incorporated, by the name of

the Harburg Company.



    "15. Petition of Edward Jones, a dealer in timber, on behalf of

himself and others, praying to be incorporated for the importation of

timber from Germany.



    "16. Petition of several merchants of London, praying a charter of

incorporation for carrying on a salt-work.



    "17. Petition of Captain Macphedris, of London, merchant, on

behalf of himself and several merchants, clothiers, hatters, dyers,

and other traders, praying a charter of incorporation, empowering them

to raise a sufficient sum of money to purchase lands for planting and

rearing a wood called madder, for the use of dyers.



    "18. Petition of Joseph Galendo, of London, snuff-maker, praying a

patent for his invention to prepare and cure Virginia tobacco for

snuff in Virginia, and making it into the same in all his Majesty's

dominions."



LIST OF BUBBLES.



    The following Bubble Companies were by the same order declared to

be illegal, and abolished accordingly :--



1. For the importation of Swedish iron.



2. For supplying London with sea-coal. Capital, three millions.



3. For building and rebuilding houses throughout all England. Capital,

three millions.



4. For making of muslin.



5. For carrying on and improving the British alum works.



6. For effectually settling the island of Blanco and Sal Tartagus.



7. For supplying the town of Deal with fresh water.



8. For the importation of Flanders lace.



9. For improvement of lands in Great Britain. Capital, four millions.



10. For encouraging the breed of horses in England, and improving of

glebe and church lands, and for repairing and rebuilding parsonage and

vicarage houses.



11. For making of iron and steel in Great Britain.



12. For improving the land in the county of Flint. Capital, one

million.



13. For purchasing lands to build on. Capital, two millions.



14. For trading in hair.



15. For erecting salt-works in Holy Island. Capital, two millions.



16. For buying and selling estates, and lending money on mortgage.



17. For carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to

know what it is.



18. For paving the streets of London. Capital, two millions.



19. For furnishing funerals to any part of Great Britain.



20. For buying and selling lands and lending money at interest.

Capital, five millions.



21. For carrying on the Royal Fishery of Great Britain. Capital, ten

millions.



22. For assuring of seamen's wages.



23. For erecting loan-offices for the assistance and encouragement of

the industrious. Capital, two millions.



24. For purchasing and improving leasable lands. Capital, four

millions.



25. For importing pitch and tar, and other naval stores, from North

Britain and America.



26. For the clothing, felt, and pantile trade.



27. For purchasing and improving a manor and royalty in Essex.



28. For insuring of horses. Capital, two millions.



29. For exporting the woollen manufacture, and importing copper,

brass, and iron. Capital, four millions.



30. For a grand dispensary. Capital, three millions.



31. For erecting mills and purchasing lead mines. Capital, two

millions.



32. For improving the art of making soap.



33. For a settlement on the island of Santa Cruz.



34. For sinking pits and smelting lead ore in Derbyshire.



35. For making glass bottles and other glass.



36. For a wheel for perpetual motion. Capital, one million.



37. For improving of gardens.



38. For insuring and increasing children's fortunes.



39. For entering and loading goods at the custom-house, and for

negotiating business for merchants.



40. For carrying on a woollen manufacture in the north of England.



41. For importing walnut-trees from Virginia. Capital, two millions.



42. For making Manchester stuffs of thread and cotton.



43. For making Joppa and Castile soap.



44. For improving the wrought-iron and steel manufactures of this

kingdom. Capital, four millions.



45. For dealing in lace, Hollands, cambrics, lawns, &c. Capital, two

millions.



46. For trading in and improving certain commodities of the produce of

this kingdom, &c. Capital, three millions.



47. For supplying the London markets with cattle.



48. For making looking-glasses, coach glasses, &c. Capital, two

millions.



49. For working the tin and lead mines in Cornwall and Derbyshire.



50. For making rape-oil.



51. For importing beaver fur. Capital, two millions.



52. For making pasteboard and packing-paper.



53. For importing of oils and other materials used in the woollen

manufacture.



54. For improving and increasing the silk manufactures.



55. For lending money on stock, annuities, tallies, &c.



56. For paying pensions to widows and others, at a small discount.

Capital, two millions.



57. For improving malt liquors. Capital, four millions.



58. For a grand American fishery.



59. For purchasing and improving the fenny lands in Lincolnshire.

Capital, two millions.



60. For improving the paper manufacture of Great Britain.



61. The Bottomry Company.



62. For drying malt by hot air.



63. For carrying on a trade in the river Oronooko.



64. For the more effectual making of baize, in Colchester and other

parts of Great Britain.



65. For buying of naval stores, supplying the victualling, and paying

the wages of the workmen.



66. For employing poor artificers, and furnishing merchants and others

with watches.



67. For improvement of tillage and the breed of cattle.



68. Another for the improvement of our breed of horses.



69. Another for a horse-insurance.



70. For carrying on the corn trade of Great Britain.



71. For insuring to all masters and mistresses the losses they may

sustain by servants. Capital, three millions.



72. For erecting houses or hospitals, for taking in and maintaining

illegitimate children. Capital, two millions.



73. For bleaching coarse sugars, without the use of fire or loss of

substance.



74. For building turnpikes and wharfs in Great Britain.



75. For insuring from thefts and robberies.



76. For extracting silver from lead.



77. For making China and Delft ware. Capital, one million.



78. For importing tobacco, and exporting it again to Sweden and the

north of Europe. Capital, four millions.



79. For making iron with pit coal.



80. For furnishing the cities of London and Westminster with hay and

straw. Capital, three millions.



81. For a sail and packing cloth manufactory in Ireland.



82. For taking up ballast.



83. For buying and fitting out ships to suppress pirates.



84. For the importation of timber from Wales. Capital, two millions.



85. For rock-salt.



86. For the transmutation of quicksilver into a malleable fine metal.



    Besides these bubbles, many others sprang up daily, in spite of

the condemnation of the Government and the ridicule of the still sane

portion of the public. The print-shops teemed with caricatures, and

the newspapers with epigrams and satires, upon the prevalent folly. An

ingenious card-maker published a pack of South Sea playing-cards,

which are now extremely rare, each card containing, besides the usual

figures, of a very small size, in one corner, a caricature of a bubble

company, with appropriate verses underneath. One of the most famous

bubbles was "Puckle's Machine Company," for discharging round and

square cannon-balls and bullets, and making a total revolution in the

art of war. Its pretensions to public favour were thus summed up, on

the eight of spades :--



A rare invention to destroy the crowd

Of fools at home, instead of fools abroad.

Fear not, my friends, this terrible machine,

They're only wounded who have shares therein.



The nine of hearts was a caricature of the English Copper and Brass

Company, with the following epigram :--



The headlong fool that wants to be a swopper

Of gold and silver coin for English copper,

May, in Change Alley, prove himself an ass,

And give rich metal for adulterate brass.



The eight of diamonds celebrated the Company for the Colonization of

Acadia, with this doggrel :--



He that is rich and wants to fool away

A good round sum in North America,

Let him subscribe himself a headlong sharer,

And asses' ears shall honour him or bearer.



    And in a similar style every card of the pack exposed some knavish

scheme, and ridiculed the persons who were its dupes. It was computed

that the total amount of the sums proposed for carrying on these

projects was upwards of three hundred millions sterling, a sum so

immense that it exceeded the value of all the lands in England at

twenty years' purchase.



    It is time, however, to return to the great South Sea gulf, that

swallowed the fortunes of so many thousands of the avaricious and the

credulous. On the 29th of May, the stock had risen as high as five

hundred, and about two-thirds of the government annuitants had

exchanged the securities of the state for those of the South Sea

Company. During the whole of the month of May the stock continued to

rise, and on the 28th it was quoted at five hundred and fifty. In four

days after this it took a prodigious leap, rising suddenly from five

hundred and fifty to eight hundred and ninety. It was now the general

opinion that the stock could rise no higher, and many persons took

that opportunity of selling out, with a view of realising their

profits. Many noblemen and persons in the train of the King, and about

to accompany him to Hanover, were also anxious to sell out. So many

sellers, and so few buyers, appeared in the Alley on the 3rd of June,

that the stock fell at once from eight hundred and ninety to six

hundred and forty. The directors were alarmed, and gave their agents

orders to buy. Their efforts succeeded. Towards evening confidence was

restored, and the stock advanced to seven hundred and fifty. It

continued at this price, with some slight fluctuation, until the

company closed their books on the 22nd of June.



    It would be needless and uninteresting to detail the various arts

employed by the directors to keep up the price of stock. It will be

sufficient to state that it finally rose to one thousand per cent. It

was quoted at this price in the commencement of August. The bubble was

then full-blown, and began to quiver and shake, preparatory to its

bursting.



    Many of the government annuitants expressed dissatisfaction

against the directors. They accused them of partiality in making out

the lists for shares in each subscription. Further uneasiness was

occasioned by its being generally known that Sir John Blunt, the

chairman, and some others, had sold out. During the whole of the month

of August the stock fell, and on the 2nd of September it was quoted at

seven hundred only.



    The state of things now became alarming. To prevent, if possible,

the utter extinction of public confidence in their proceedings, the

directors summoned a general court of the whole corporation, to

meet in Merchant Tailors' Hall, on the 8th of September. By nine

o'clock in the morning, the room was filled to suffocation; Cheapside

was blocked up by a crowd unable to gain admittance, and the greatest

excitement prevailed. The directors and their friends mustered in

great. numbers. Sir John Fellowes, the sub-governor, was called to the

chair. He acquainted the assembly with the cause of their meeting,

read to them the several resolutions of the court of directors, and

gave them an account of their proceedings; of the taking in the

redeemable and unredeemable funds, and of the subscriptions in money.

Mr. Secretary Craggs then made a short speech, wherein he commended

the conduct of the directors, and urged that nothing could more

effectually contribute to the bringing this scheme to perfection than

union among themselves. He concluded with a motion for thanking the

court of directors for their prudent and skilful management, and for

desiring them to proceed in such manner as they should think most

proper for the interest and advantage of the corporation. Mr.

Hungerford, who had rendered himself very conspicuous in the House of

Commons for his zeal in behalf of the South Sea Company, and who was

shrewdly suspected to have been a considerable gainer by knowing the

right time to sell out, was very magniloquent on this occasion. He

said that he had seen the rise and fall, the decay and resurrection of

many communities of this nature, but that, in his opinion, none had

ever performed such wonderful things in so short a time as the South

Sea Company. They had done more than the crown, the pulpit, or the

bench could do. They had reconciled all parties in one common

interest; they had laid asleep, if not wholly extinguished, all the

domestic jars and animosities of the nation. By the rise of their

stock, monied men had vastly increased their fortunes;

country-gentlemen had seen the value of their lands doubled and

trebled in their hands. They had at the same time done good to the

Church, not a few of the reverend clergy having got great sums by the

project. In short, they had enriched the whole nation, and he hoped

they had not forgotten themselves. There was some hissing at the

latter part of this speech, which for the extravagance of its eulogy

was not far removed from satire; but the directors and their friends,

and all the winners in the room, applauded vehemently. The Duke of

Portland spoke in a similar strain, and expressed his great wonder why

anybody should be dissatisfied: of course, he was a winner by his

speculations, and in a condition similar to that of the fat alderman

in Joe Miller's Jests, who, whenever he had eaten a good dinner,

folded his hands upon his paunch, and expressed his doubts whether

there could be a hungry man in the world.



    Several resolutions were passed at this meeting, but they had no

effect upon the public. Upon the very same evening the stock fell to

six hundred and forty, and on the morrow to five hundred and forty.

Day after day it continued to fall, until it was as low as four

hundred. In a letter dated September 13th, from Mr. Broderick, M.P. to

Lord Chancellor Middleton, and published in Coxo's Walpole, the former

says,--"Various are the conjectures why the South Sea directors have

suffered the cloud to break so early. I made no doubt but they would

do so when they found it to their advantage. They have stretched

credit so far beyond what it would bear, that specie proves

insufficient to support it. Their most considerable men have drawn

out, securing themselves by the losses of the deluded, thoughtless

numbers, whose understandings have been overruled by avarice and the

hope of making mountains out of mole-hills. Thousands of families will

be reduced to beggary. The consternation is inexpressible-- the rage

beyond description, and the case altogether so desperate that I do not

see any plan or scheme so much as thought of for averting the blow, so

that I cannot pretend to guess what is next to be done." Ten days

afterwards, the stock still falling, he writes,--" The Company have

yet come to no determination, for they are in such a wood that they

know not which way to turn. By several gentlemen lately come to town,

I perceive the very name of a South-Sea-man grows abominable in every

country. A great many goldsmiths are already run off, and more will

daily. I question whether one-third, nay, one-fourth, of them can

stand it. From the very beginning, I founded my judgment of the whole

affair upon the unquestionable maxim, that ten millions (which is more

than our running cash) could not circulate two hundred millions,

beyond which our paper credit extended. That, therefore, whenever that

should become doubtful, be the cause what it would, our noble state

machine must inevitably fall to the ground."



    On the 12th of September, at the earnest solicitation of Mr.

Secretary Craggs, several conferences were held between the directors

of the South Sea and the directors of the Bank. A report which was

circulated, that the latter had agreed to circulate six millions of

the South Sea Company's bonds, caused the stock to rise to six hundred

and seventy; but in the afternoon, as soon as the report was known to

be groundless, the stock fell again to five hundred and eighty; the

next day to five hundred and seventy, and so gradually to four

hundred. [Gay (the poet), in that disastrous year, had a present from

young Craggs of some South Sea stock, and once supposed himself to be

master of twenty thousand pounds. His friends persuaded him to sell

his share, but he dreamed of dignity and splendour, and could not bear

to obstruct his own fortune. He was then importuned to sell as much as

would purchase a hundred a year for life, "which," says Fenton, "will

make you sure of a clean shirt and a shoulder of mutton every day."

This counsel was rejected; the profit and principal were lost, and Gay

sunk under the calamity so low that his life became in

danger.--Johnson's Lives of the Poets.]



    The ministry were seriously alarmed at the aspect of affairs. The

directors could not appear in the streets without being insulted;

dangerous riots were every moment apprehended. Despatches were sent

off to the King at Hanover, praying his immediate return. Mr. Walpole,

who was staying at his country-seat, was sent for, that he might

employ his known influence with the directors of the Bank of England

to induce them to accept the proposal made by the South Sea Company

for circulating a number of their bonds.



    The Bank was very unwilling to mix itself up with the affairs of

the Company; it dreaded being involved in calamities which it could

not relieve, and received all overtures with visible reluctance. But

the universal voice of the nation called upon it to come to the

rescue. Every person of note in commercial politics was called in to

advise in the emergency. A rough draft of a contract drawn up by Mr.

Walpole was ultimately adopted as the basis of further negotiations,

and the public alarm abated a little.



    On the following day, the 20th of September, a general court of

the South Sea Company was held at Merchant Tailors' Hall, in which

resolutions were carried, empowering the directors to agree with the

Bank of England, or any other persons, to circulate the Company's

bonds, or make any other agreement with the Bank which they should

think proper. One of the speakers, a Mr. Pulteney, said it was most

surprising to see the extraordinary panic which had seized upon the

people. Men were running to and fro in alarm and terror, their

imaginations filled with some great calamity, the form and dimensions

of which nobody knew.



"Black it stood as night--

Fierce as ten furies--terrible as hell."



    At a general court of the Bank of England held two days

afterwards, the governor informed them of the several meetings that

had been held on the affairs of the South Sea Company, adding that the

directors had not yet thought fit to come to any decision upon the

matter. A resolution was then proposed, and carried without a

dissentient voice, empowering the directors to agree with those of the

South Sea to circulate their bonds, to what sum, and upon what terms,

and for what time, they might think proper.



    Thus both parties were at liberty to act as they might judge best

for the public interest. Books were opened at the Bank for a

subscription of three millions for the support of public credit, on

the usual terms of 15 pounds per cent. deposit, per cent. premium, and

5 pounds. per cent. interest. So great was the concourse of people in

the early part of the morning, all eagerly bringing their money, that

it was thought the subscription would be filled that day; but before

noon, the tide turned. In spite of all that could be done to prevent

it, the South Sea Company's stock fell rapidly. Their bonds were in

such discredit, that a run commenced upon the most eminent goldsmiths

and bankers, some of whom having lent out great sums upon South Sea

stock were obliged to shut up their shops and abscond. The Sword-blade

Company, who had hitherto been the chief cashiers of the South Sea

Company, stopped payment. This being looked upon as but the beginning

of evil, occasioned a great run upon the Bank, who were now obliged to

pay out money much faster than they had received it upon the

subscription in the morning. The day succeeding was a holiday (the

29th of September), and the Bank had a little breathing time. They

bore up against the storm; but their former rivals, the South Sea

Company, were wrecked upon it. Their stock fell to one hundred and

fifty, and gradually, after various fluctuations, to one hundred and

thirty-five.



    The Bank, finding they were not able to restore public confidence,

and stem the tide of ruin, without running the risk of being swept

away with those they intended to save, declined to carry out the

agreement into which they had partially entered. They were under no

obligation whatever to continue; for the so called Bank contract was

nothing more than the rough draught of an agreement, in which blanks

had been left for several important particulars, and which contained

no penalty for their secession. "And thus," to use the words of the

Parliamentary History, "were seen, in the space of eight months, the

rise, progress, and fall of that mighty fabric, which, being wound up

by mysterious springs to a wonderful height, had fixed the eyes and

expectations of all Europe, but whose foundation, being fraud,

illusion, credulity, and infatuation, fell to the ground as soon as

the artful management of its directors was discovered."



    In the hey-day of its blood, during the progress of this dangerous

delusion, the manners of the nation became sensibly corrupted. The

Parliamentary inquiry, set on foot to discover the delinquents,

disclosed scenes of infamy, disgraceful alike to the morals of the

offenders and the intellects of the people among whom they had arisen.

It is a deeply interesting study to investigate all the evils

that were the result. Nations, like individuals, cannot become

desperate gamblers with impunity. Punishment is sure to overtake them

sooner or later. A celebrated writer [Smollett.] is quite wrong, when

he says, "that such an era as this is the most unfavourable for a

historian; that no reader of sentiment and imagination can be

entertained or interested by a detail of transactions such as these,

which admit of no warmth, no colouring, no embellishment; a detail of

which only serves to exhibit an inanimate picture of tasteless vice

and mean degeneracy." On the contrary, and Smollett might have

discovered it, if he had been in the humour--the subject is capable of

inspiring as much interest as even a novelist can desire. Is there no

warmth in the despair of a plundered people?--no life and animation

in the picture which might be drawn of the woes of hundreds of

impoverished and ruined families? of the wealthy of yesterday become

the beggars of to-day? of the powerful and influential changed into

exiles and outcasts, and the voice of self-reproach and imprecation

resounding from every corner of the land? Is it a dull or

uninstructive picture to see a whole people shaking suddenly off the

trammels of reason, and running wild after a golden vision, refusing

obstinately to believe that it is not real, till, like a deluded hind

running after an ignis fatuus, they are plunged into a quagmire ? But

in this false spirit has history too often been written. The intrigues

of unworthy courtiers to gain the favour of still more unworthy kings;

or the records of murderous battles and sieges have been dilated on,

and told over and over again, with all the eloquence of style and all

the charms of fancy; while the circumstances which have most deeply

affected the morals and welfare of the people, have been passed over

with but slight notice as dry and dull, and capable of neither warmth

nor colouring.



    During the progress of this famous bubble, England presented a

singular spectacle. The public mind was in a state of unwholesome

fermentation. Men were no longer satisfied with the slow but sure

profits of cautious industry. The hope of boundless wealth for the

morrow made them heedless and extravagant for to-day. A luxury, till

then unheard-of, was introduced, bringing in its train a corresponding

laxity of morals. The overbearing insolence of ignorant men, who had

arisen to sudden wealth by successful gambling, made men of true

gentility of mind and manners, blush that gold should have power to

raise the unworthy in the scale of society. The haughtiness of some of

these "cyphering cits," as they were termed by Sir Richard Steele, was

remembered against them in the day of their adversity. In the

Parliamentary inquiry, many of the directors suffered more for their

insolence than for their peculation. One of them, who, in the

full-blown pride of an ignorant rich man, had said that he would feed

his horse upon gold, was reduced almost to bread and water for

himself; every haughty look, every overbearing speech, was set down,

and repaid them a hundredfold in poverty and humiliation.



    The state of matters all over the country was so alarming, that

George I shortened his intended stay in Hanover, and returned in all

haste to England. He arrived on the 11th of November, and Parliament

was summoned to meet on the 8th of December. In the mean time, public

meetings were held in every considerable town of the empire, at which

petitions were adopted, praying the vengeance of the Legislature upon

the South Sea directors, who, by their fraudulent practices, had

brought the nation to the brink of ruin. Nobody seemed to imagine that

the nation itself was as culpable as the South Sea Company. Nobody

blamed the credulity and avarice of the people,--the degrading lust of

gain, which had swallowed up every nobler quality in the national

character, or the infatuation which had made the multitude run their

heads with such frantic eagerness into the net held out for them by

scheming projectors. These things were never mentioned. The people

were a simple, honest, hard-working people, ruined by a gang of

robbers, who were to be hanged, drawn, and quartered without mercy.



    This was the almost unanimous feeling of the country. The two

Houses of Parliament were not more reasonable. Before the guilt of the

South Sea directors was known, punishment was the only cry. The King,

in his speech from the throne, expressed his hope that they would

remember that all their prudence, temper, and resolution were

necessary to find out and apply the proper remedy for their

misfortunes. In the debate on the answer to the address, several

speakers indulged in the most violent invectives against the directors

of the South Sea project. The Lord Molesworth was particularly

vehement. "It had been said by some, that there was no law to punish

the directors of the South Sea Company, who were justly looked upon as

the authors of the present misfortunes of the state. In his opinion

they ought, upon this occasion, to follow the example of the ancient

Romans, who, having no law against parricide, because their

legislators supposed no son could be so unnaturally wicked as to

embrue his hands in his father's blood, made a law to punish this

heinous crime as soon as it was committed. They adjudged the guilty

wretch to be sown in a sack, and thrown alive into the Tyber. He

looked upon the contrivers and executors of the villanous South Sea

scheme as the parricides of their country, and should be satisfied to

see them tied in like manner in sacks, and thrown into the Thames."

Other members spoke with as much want of temper and discretion. Mr.

Walpole was more moderate. He recommended that their first care should

be to restore public credit. "If the city of London were on fire, all

wise men would aid in extinguishing the flames, and preventing the

spread of the conflagration before they inquired after the

incendiaries. Public credit had received a dangerous wound, and lay

bleeding, and they ought to apply a speedy remedy to it. It was time

enough to punish the assassin afterwards." On the 9th of December an

address, in answer to his Majesty's speech, was agreed upon, after an

amendment, which was carried without a division, that words should be

added expressive of the determination of the House not only to seek a

remedy for the national distresses, but to punish the authors of them.



    The inquiry proceeded rapidly. The directors were ordered to lay

before the House a full account of all their proceedings. Resolutions

were passed to the effect that the calamity was mainly owing to the

vile arts of stockjobbers, and that nothing could tend more to the

re-establishment of public credit than a law to prevent this infamous

practice. Mr. Walpole then rose, and said, that "as he had previously

hinted, he had spent some time upon a scheme for restoring public

credit, but that, the execution of it depending upon a position which

had been laid down as fundamental, he thought it proper, before he

opened out his scheme, to be informed whether he might rely upon that

foundation. It was, whether the subscription of public debts and

encumbrances, money subscriptions, and other contracts, made with the

South Sea Company should remain in the present state?" This question

occasioned an animated debate. It was finally agreed, by a majority of

259 against 117, that all these contracts should remain in their

present state, unless altered for the relief of the proprietors by a

general court of the South Sea Company, or set aside by due course of

law. On the following day Mr. Walpole laid before a committee of the

whole House his scheme for the restoration of public credit, which

was, in substance, to ingraft nine millions of South Sea stock into

the Bank of England, and the same sum into the East India Company,

upon certain conditions. The plan was favourably received by the

House. After some few objections, it was ordered that proposals should

be received from the two great corporations. They were both unwilling

to lend their aid, and the plan met with a warm but fruitless

opposition at the general courts summoned for the purpose of

deliberating upon it. They, however, ultimately agreed upon the terms

on which they would consent to circulate the South Sea bonds, and

their report, being presented to the committee, a bill was brought in,

under the superintendence of Mr. Walpole, and safely carried through

both Houses of Parliament.



    A bill was at the same time brought in, for restraining the South

Sea directors, governor, sub-governor, treasurer, cashier, and clerks

from leaving the kingdom for a twelvemonth, and for discovering their

estates and effects, and preventing them from transporting or

alienating the same. All the most influential members of the House

supported the bill. Mr. Shippen, seeing Mr. Secretary Craggs in his

place, and believing the injurious rumours that were afloat of that

minister's conduct in the South Sea business, determined to touch him

to the quick. He said, he was glad to see a British House of Commons

resuming its pristine vigour and spirit, and acting with so much

unanimity for the public good. It was necessary to secure the persons

and estates of the South Sea directors and their officers; "but," he

added, looking fixedly at Mr. Craggs as he spoke, "there were other

men in high station, whom, in time, he would not be afraid to name,

who were no less guilty than the directors." Mr. Craggs arose in great

wrath, and said, that if the innuendo were directed against him, he

was ready to give satisfaction to any man who questioned him, either

in the House or out of it. Loud cries of order immediately arose on

every side. In the midst of the uproar Lord Molesworth got up, and

expressed his wonder at the boldness of Mr. Craggs in challenging the

whole House of Commons. He, Lord Molesworth, though somewhat old, past

sixty, would answer Mr. Craggs whatever he had to say in the House,

and he trusted there were plenty of young men beside him, who would

not be afraid to look Mr. Craggs in the face, out of the House. The

cries of order again resounded from every side; the members arose

simultaneously; everybody seemed to be vociferating at once. The

Speaker in vain called order. The confusion lasted several minutes,

during which Lord Molesworth and Mr. Craggs were almost the only

members who kept their seats. At last the call for Mr. Craggs became

so violent that he thought proper to submit to the universal feeling

of the House, and explain his unparliamentary expression. He said,

that by giving satisfaction to the impugners of his conduct in that

House, he did not mean that he would fight, but that he would explain

his conduct. Here the matter ended, and the House proceeded to debate

in what manner they should conduct their inquiry into the affairs of

the South Sea Company, whether in a grand or a select committee.

Ultimately, a Secret Committee of thirteen was appointed, with power

to send for persons, papers, and records.



    The Lords were as zealous and as hasty as the Commons. The Bishop

of Rochester said the scheme had been like a pestilence. The Duke of

Wharton said the House ought to show no respect of persons; that, for

his part, he would give up the dearest friend he had, if he had been

engaged in the project. The nation had been plundered in a most

shameful and flagrant manner, and he would go as far as anybody in the

punishment of the offenders. Lord Stanhope said, that every farthing

possessed by the criminals, whether directors or not directors, ought

to be confiscated, to make good the public losses.



    During all this time the public excitement was extreme. We learn,

front Coxe's Walpole, that the very name of a South Sea director was

thought to be synonymous. with every species of fraud and villany.

Petitions from counties, cities, and boroughs, in all parts of the

kingdom, were presented, crying for the justice due to an injured

nation and the punishment of the villanous peculators. Those moderate

men, who would not go to extreme lengths, even in the punishment of

the guilty, were accused of being accomplices, were exposed to

repeated insults and virulent invectives, and devoted, both in

anonymous letters and public writings, to the speedy vengeance of an

injured people. The accusations against Mr. Aislabie, Chancellor of

the Exchequer, and Mr. Craggs, another member of the ministry, were so

loud, that the House of Lords resolved to proceed at once into the

investigation concerning them. It was ordered, on the 21st of January,

that all brokers concerned in the South Sea scheme should lay before

the House an account of the stock or subscriptions bought or sold by

them for any of the officers of the Treasury or Exchequer, or in trust

for any of them, since Michaelmas 1719. When this account was

delivered, it appeared that large quantities of stock had been

transferred to the use of Mr. Aislabie. Five of the South Sea

directors, ineluding Mr. Edward Gibbon, the grandfather of the

celebrated historian, were ordered into the custody of the black rod.

Upon a motion made by Earl Stanhope, it was unanimously resolved, that

the taking in or giving credit for stock without a valuable

consideration actually paid or sufficiently secured; or the purchasing

stock by any director or agent of the South Sea Company, for the use

or benefit of any member of the administration, or any member of

either House of Parliament, during such time as the South Sea Bill was

yet pending in Parliament, was a notorious and dangerous corruption.

Another resolution was passed a few days afterwards, to the effect

that several of the directors and officers of the Company having, in a

clandestine manner, sold their own stock to the Company, had been

guilty of a notorious fraud and breach of trust, and had thereby

mainly caused the unhappy turn of affairs that had so much affected

public credit. Mr. Aislabie resigned his office as Chancellor of the

Exchequer, and absented himself from Parliament until the formal

inquiry into his individual guilt was brought under the consideration

of the Legislature.



    In the mean time, Knight, the treasurer of the Company, and who

was intrusted with all the dangerous secrets of the dishonest

directors, packed up his books and documents, and made his escape from

the country. He embarked in disguise, in a small boat on the river,

and proceeding to a vessel hired for the purpose, was safely conveyed

to Calais. The Committee of Secrecy informed the House of the

circumstance, when it was resolved unanimously that two addresses

should be presented to the King; the first praying that he would issue

a proclamation, offering a reward for the apprehension of Knight; and

the second, that he would give immediate orders to stop the ports, and

to take effectual care of the coasts, to prevent the said Knight, or

any other officers of the South Sea Company, from escaping out of the

kingdom. The ink was hardly dry upon these addresses before they were

carried to the King by Mr. Methuen, deputed by the House for that

purpose. The same evening a royal proclamation was issued, offering a

reward of two thousand pounds for the apprehension of Knight. The

Commons ordered the doors of the House to be locked, and the keys to

be placed upon the table. General Ross, one of the members of the

Committee of Secrecy, acquainted them that they had already discovered

a train of the deepest villany and fraud that Hell had ever contrived

to ruin a nation, which in due time they would lay before the House.

In the mean time, in order to a further discovery, the Committee

thought it highly necessary to secure the persons of some of the

directors and principal South Sea officers, and to seize their papers.

A motion to this effect having been made, was carried unanimously. Sir

Robert Chaplin, Sir Theodore Janssen, Mr. Sawbridge, and Mr. F. Eyles,

members of the House, and directors of the South Sea Company, were

summoned to appear in their places, and answer for their corrupt

practices. Sir Theodore Janssen and Mr. Sawbridge answered to their

names, and endeavoured to exculpate themselves. The House heard them

patiently, and then ordered them to withdraw. A motion was then made,

and carried nemine contradicente, that they had been guilty of a

notorious breach of trust--had occasioned much loss to great numbers

of his Majesty's subjects, and had highly prejudiced the public

credit. It was then ordered that, for their offence, they should be

expelled the House, and taken into the custody of the

sergeant-at-arms. Sir Robert Chaplin and Mr. Eyles, attending in their

places four days afterwards, were also expelled the House. It was

resolved at the same time to address the King, to give directions to

his ministers at foreign courts to make application for Knight, that

he might be delivered up to the English authorities, in ease he took

refuge in any of their dominions. The King at once agreed, and

messengers were despatched to all parts of the Continent the same

night.



    Among the directors taken into custody, was Sir John Blunt, the man

whom popular opinion has generally accused of having been the original

author and father of the scheme. This man, we are informed by Pope, in

his epistle to Allen, Lord Bathurst, was a dissenter, of a most

religious deportment, and professed to be a great believer. He

constantly declaimed against the luxury and corruption of the age, the

partiality of parliaments, and the misery of party spirit. He was

particularly eloquent against avarice in great and noble persons. He

was originally a scrivener, and afterwards became, not only a

director, but the most active manager of the South Sea Company.

Whether it was during his career in this capacity that he first began

to declaim against the avarice of the great, we are not informed. He

certainly must have seen enough of it to justify his severest

anathema; but if the preacher had himself been free from the vice he

condemned, his declamations would have had a better effect. He was

brought up in custody to the bar of the House of Lords, and underwent

a long examination. He refused to answer several important questions.

He said he had been examined already by a committee of the House of

Commons, and as he did not remember his answers, and might contradict

himself, he refused to answer before another tribunal. This

declaration, in itself an indirect proof of guilt, occasioned some

commotion in the House. He was again asked peremptorily whether he had

ever sold any portion of the stock to any member of the

administration, or any member of either House of Parliament, to

facilitate the passing of the hill. He again declined to answer. He

was anxious, he said, to treat the House with all possible respect,

but he thought it hard to be compelled to accuse himself. After

several ineffectual attempts to refresh his memory, he was directed to

withdraw. A violent discussion ensued between the friends and

opponents of the ministry. It was asserted that the administration

were no strangers to the convenient taciturnity of Sir John Blunt. The

Duke of Wharton made a reflection upon the Earl Stanhope, which the

latter warmly resented. He spoke under great excitement, and with such

vehemence as to cause a sudden determination of blood to the head. He

felt himself so ill that he was obliged to leave the House and retire

to his chamber. He was cupped immediately, and also let blood on the

following morning, but with slight relief. The fatal result was not

anticipated. Towards evening he became drowsy, and turning himself on

his face, expired. The sudden death of this statesman caused great

grief to the nation. George I was exceedingly affected, and shut

himself up for some hours in his closet, inconsolable for his loss.



    Knight, the treasurer of the company, was apprehended at

Tirlemont, near Liege, by one of the secretaries of Mr. Leathes, the

British resident at Brussels, and lodged in the citadel of Antwerp.

Repeated applications were made to the court of Austria to deliver him

up, but in vain. Knight threw himself upon the protection of the

states of Brabant, and demanded to be tried in that country. It was a

privilege granted to the states of Brabant by one of the articles of

the Joyeuse Entree, that every criminal apprehended in that country

should be tried in that country. The states insisted on their

privilege, and refused to deliver Knight to the British authorities.

The latter did not cease their solicitations; but in the mean time,

Knight escaped from the citadel.



    On the 16th of February the Committee of Secrecy made their first

report to the House. They stated that their inquiry had been attended

with numerous difficulties and embarrassments; every one they had

examined had endeavoured, as far as in him lay, to defeat the ends of

justice. In some of the books produced before them, false and

fictitious entries had been made; in others, there were entries of

money, with blanks for the name of the stockholders. There were

frequent erasures and alterations, and in some of the books leaves

were torn out. They also found that some books of great importance had

been destroyed altogether, and that some had been taken away or

secreted. At the very entrance into their inquiry, they had observed

that the matters referred to them were of great variety and extent.

Many persons had been intrusted with various parts in the execution of

the law, and under colour thereof had acted in an unwarrantable

manner, in disposing of the properties of many thousands of persons,

amounting to many millions of money. They discovered that, before the

South Sea Act was passed, there was an entry in the Company's books of

the sum of 1,259,325 pounds, upon account of stock stated to have been

sold to the amount of 574,500 pounds. This stock was all fictitious,

and had been disposed of with a view to promote the passing of the

bill. It was noted as sold at various days, and at various prices,

from 150 to 325 per cent. Being surprised to see so large an account

disposed of, at a time when the Company were not empowered to increase

their capital, the committee determined to investigate most carefully

the whole transaction. The governor, sub-governor, and several

directors were brought before them, and examined rigidly. They found

that, at the time these entries were made, the Company was not in

possession of such a quantity of stock, having in their own right only

a small quantity, not exceeding thirty thousand pounds at the utmost.

Pursuing the inquiry, they found that this amount of stock, was to be

esteemed as taken in or holden by the Company, for the benefit of the

pretended purchasers, although no mutual agreement was made for its

delivery or acceptance at any certain time. No money was paid down,

nor any deposit or security whatever given to the Company by the

supposed purchasers; so that if the stock had fallen, as might have

been expected, had the act not passed, they would have sustained no

loss. If, on the contrary, the price of stock advanced (as it actually

did by the success of the scheme), the difference by the advanced

price was to be made good to them. Accordingly, after the passing of

the act, the account of stock was made up and adjusted with Mr.

Knight, and the pretended purchasers were paid the difference out of

the Company's cash. This fictitious stock, which had been chiefly at

the disposal of Sir John Blunt, Mr. Gibbon, and Mr. Knight, was

distributed among several members of the government and their

connexions, by way of bribe, to facilitate the passing of the bill. To

the Earl of Sunderland was assigned 50,000 pounds of this stock; to

the Duchess of Kendal 10,000 pounds; to the Countess of Platen 10,000

pounds; to her two nieces 10,000 pounds; to Mr. Secretary Craggs

30,000 pounds; to Mr. Charles Stanhope (one of the Secretaries of the

Treasury) 10,000 pounds; to the Swordblade Company 50,000 pounds. It

also appeared that Mr. Stanhope had received the enormous sum of

250,000 pounds as the difference in the price of some stock, through

the hands of Turner, Caswall, and Co., but that his name had been

partly erased from their books, and altered to Stangape. Aislabie, the

Chancellor of the Exchequer, had made profits still more abominable.

He had an account with the same firm, who were also South Sea

directors, to the amount of 794,451 pounds. He had, besides, advised

the Company to make their second subscription one million and a half,

instead of a million, by their own authority, and without any warrant.

The third subscription had been conducted in a manner as disgraceful.

Mr. Aislabie's name was down for 70,000 pounds; Mr. Craggs, senior,

for 659,000 pounds; the Earl of Sunderland's for 160,000 pounds; and

Mr. Stanhope for 47,000 pounds. This report was succeeded by six

others, less important. At the end of the last, the committee declared

that the absence of Knight, who had been principally intrusted,

prevented them from carrying on their inquiries.



    The first report was ordered to be printed, and taken into

consideration on the next day but one succeeding. After a very angry

and animated debate, a series of resolutions were agreed to,

condemnatory of the conduct of the directors, of the members of the

Parliament and of the administration concerned with them; and

declaring that they ought, each and all, to make satisfaction out of

their own estates for the injury they had done the public. Their

practices were declared to be corrupt, infamous, and dangerous; and a

bill was ordered to be brought in for the relief of the unhappy

sufferers.



    Mr. Charles Stanhope was the first person brought to account for his

share in these transactions. He urged in his defence that, for some

years past, he had lodged all the money he was possessed of in Mr.

Knight's hands, and whatever stock Mr. Knight had taken in for him, he

had paid a valuable consideration for it. As to the stock that had

been bought for him by Turner, Caswall, and Co. he knew nothing about

it. Whatever had been done in that matter was done without his

authority, and he could not be responsible for it. Turner and Co. took

the latter charge upon themselves, but it was notorious to every

unbiassed and unprejudiced person that Mr. Stanhope was a gainer of

the 250,000 pounds which lay in the hands of that firm to his credit.

He was, however, acquitted by a majority of three only. The greatest

exertions were made to screen him. Lord Stanhope, the son of the Earl

of Chesterfield, went round to the wavering members, using all the

eloquence he was possessed of to induce them either to vote for the

acquittal or to absent themselves from the house. Many weak-headed

country-gentlemen were led astray by his persuasions, and the result

was as already stated. The acquittal caused the greatest discontent

throughout the country. Mobs of a menacing character assembled in

different parts of London; fears of riots were generally entertained,

especially as the examination of a still greater delinquent was

expected by many to have a similar termination. Mr. Aislabie, whose

high office and deep responsibilities should have kept him honest,

even had native principle been insufficient, was very justly regarded

as perhaps the greatest criminal of all. His case was entered into

on the day succeeding the acquittal of Mr. Starthope. Great excitement

prevailed, and the lobbies and avenues of the house were beset by

crowds, impatient to know the result. The debate lasted the whole day.

Mr. Aislabie found few friends: his guilt was so apparent and so

heinous that nobody had courage to stand up in his favour. It was

finally resolved, without a dissentient voice, that Mr. Aislabie had

encouraged and promoted the destructive execution of the South Sea

scheme with a view to his own exorbitant profit, and had combined with

the directors in their pernicious practices to the ruin of the public

trade and credit of the kingdom: that he should for his offences be

ignominiously expelled from the House of Commons, and committed a

close prisoner to the Tower of London; that he should be restrained

from going out of the kingdom for a whole year, or till the end of the

next session of Parliament; and that he should make out a correct

account of all his estate, in order that it might be applied to the

relief of those who had suffered by his malpractices.



    This verdict caused the greatest joy. Though it was delivered at

half-past twelve at night, it soon spread over the city. Several

persons illuminated their houses in token of their joy. On the

following day, when Mr. Aislabie was conveyed to the Tower, the mob

assembled on Tower-hill with the intention of hooting and pelting him.

Not succeeding in this, they kindled a large bonfire, and danced

around it in the exuberance of their delight. Several bonfires were

made in other places; London presented the appearance of a holiday,

and people congratulated one another as if they had just escaped from

some great calamity. The rage upon the acquittal of Mr. Stanhope had

grown to such a height that none could tell where it would have ended,

had Mr. Aislabie met with the like indulgence.



    To increase the public satisfaction, Sir George Caswall, of the

firm of Turner, Caswall, & Co. was expelled the House on the following

day, and ordered to refund the sum of 250,000 pounds.



    That part of the report of the Committee of Secrecy which related

to the Earl of Sunderland was next taken into consideration. Every

effort was made to clear his Lordship from the imputation. As the case

against him rested chiefly on the evidence extorted from Sir John

Blunt, great pains were taken to make it appear that Sir John's word

was not to be believed, especially in a matter affecting the honour of

a peer and privy councillor. All the friends of the ministry rallied

around the Earl, it being generally reported that a verdict of guilty

against him would bring a Tory ministry into power. He was eventually

acquitted, by a majority of 233 against 172; but the country was

convinced of his guilt. The greatest indignation was everywhere

expressed, and menacing mobs again assembled in London. Happily no

disturbances took place.



    This was the day on which Mr. Craggs, the elder, expired. The

morrow had been appointed for the consideration of his case. It was

very generally believed that he had poisoned himself. It appeared,

however, that grief for the loss of his son, one of the Secretaries of

the Treasury, who had died five weeks previously of the small-pox,

preyed much on his mind. For this son, dearly beloved, he had been

amassing vast heaps of riches: he had been getting money, but not

honestly; and he for whose sake he had bartered his honour and sullied

his fame, was now no more. The dread of further exposure increased his

trouble of mind, and ultimately brought on an apoplectic fit, in which

he expired. He left a fortune of a million and a half, which was

afterwards confiscated for the benefit of the sufferers by the unhappy

delusion he had been so mainly instrumental in raising.



    One by one the case of every director of the Company was taken

into consideration. A sum amounting to two millions and fourteen

thousand pounds was confiscated from their estates towards repairing

the mischief they had done, each man being allowed a certain residue,

in proportion to his conduct and circumstances, with which he might

begin the world anew. Sir John Blunt was only allowed 5,000 pounds out

of his fortune of upwards of 183,000 pounds; Sir John Fellows was

allowed 10,000 pounds out of 243,000 pounds; Sir Theodore Janssen,

50,000 pounds out of 243,000 pounds; Mr. Edward Gibbon, 10,000

pounds out of 106,000 pounds.; Sir John Lambert, 5000 pounds out of

72,000 pounds. Others, less deeply involved, were treated with greater

liberality. Gibbon, the historian, whose grandfather was the Mr.

Edward Gibbon so severely mulcted, has given, in the Memoirs of his

Life and Writings, an interesting account of the proceedings in

Parliament at this time. He owns that he is not an unprejudiced

witness; but, as all the writers from which it is possible to extract

any notice of the proceedings of these disastrous years, were

prejudiced on the other side, the statements of the great historian

become of additional value. If only on the principle of audi alteram

partem, his opinion is entitled to consideration. "In the year 1716,"

he says, "my grandfather was elected one of the directors of the South

Sea Company, and his books exhibited the proof that before his

acceptance of that fatal office, he had acquired an independent

fortune of 60,000 pounds. But his fortune was overwhelmed in the

shipwreck of the year twenty, and the labours of thirty years were

blasted in a single day. Of the use or abuse of the South Sea scheme,

of the guilt or innocence of my grandfather and his brother directors,

I am neither a competent nor a disinterested judge. Yet the equity of

modern times must condemn the violent and arbitrary proceedings, which

would have disgraced the cause of justice, and rendered injustice

still more odious. No sooner had the nation awakened from its golden

dream, than a popular, and even a Parliamentary clamour, demanded its

victims; but it was acknowledged on all sides, that the directors,

however guilty, could not be touched by any known laws of the land.

The intemperate notions of Lord Molesworth were not literally acted

on; but a bill of pains and penalties was introduced -- a retro-active

statute, to punish the offences which did not exist at the time they

were committed. The Legislature restrained the persons of the

directors, imposed an exorbitant security for their appearance, and

marked their character with a previous note of ignominy. They were

compelled to deliver, upon oath, the strict value of their estates,

and were disabled from making any transfer or alienation of any part

of their property. Against a bill of pains and penalties, it is the

common right of every subject to be heard by his counsel at the bar.

They prayed to be heard. Their prayer was refused, and their

oppressors, who required no evidence, would listen to no defence. It

had been at first proposed, that one eighth of their respective

estates should be allowed for the future support of the directors; but

it was speciously urged, that in the various shades of opulence and

guilt, such a proportion would be too light for many, and for some

might possibly be too heavy. The character and conduct of each man

were separately weighed; but, instead of the calm solemnity of a

judicial inquiry, the fortune and honour of thirty-three Englishmen

were made the topics of hasty conversation, the sport of a lawless

majority; and the basest member of the committee, by a malicious word,

or a silent vote, might indulge his general spleen or personal

animosity. Injury was aggravated by insult, and insult was embittered

by pleasantry. Allowances of 20 pounds or 1 shilling were facetiously

moved. A vague report that a director had formerly been concerned in

another project, by which some unknown persons had lost their money,

was admitted as a proof of his actual guilt. One man was ruined

because he had dropped a foolish speech, that his horses should feed

upon gold; another, because he was grown so proud, that one day, at

the Treasury, he had refused a civil answer to persons much above him.

All were condemned, absent and unheard, in arbitrary fines and

forfeitures, which swept away the greatest part of their substance.

Such bold oppression can scarcely be shielded by the omnipotence of

Parliament. My grandfather could not expect to be treated with more

lenity than his companions. His Tory principles and connexions

rendered him obnoxious to the ruling powers. His name was reported in

a suspicious secret. His well-known abilities could not plead the

excuse of ignorance or error. In the first proceedings against the

South Sea directors, Mr. Gibbon was one of the first taken into

custody, and in the final sentence the measure of his fine proclaimed

him eminently guilty. The total estimate, which he delivered on oath

to the House of Commons, amounted to 106,543 pounds 5 shillings 6

pence, exclusive of antecedent settlements. Two different allowances

of 15,000 pounds and of 10,000 pounds were moved for Mr. Gibbon; but,

on the question being put, it was carried without a division for the

smaller sum. On these ruins, with the skill and credit of which

Parliament had not been able to despoil him, my grandfather, at a

mature age, erected the edifice of a new fortune. The labours of

sixteen years were amply rewarded; and I have reason to believe that

the second structure was not much inferior to the first."



    The next consideration of the Legislature, after the punishment of

the directors, was to restore public credit. The scheme of Walpole had

been found insufficient, and had fallen into disrepute. A computation

was made of the whole capital stock of the South Sea Company at the

end of the year 1720. It was found to amount to thirty-seven millions

eight hundred thousand pounds, of which the stock allotted to all the

proprietors only amounted to twenty-four millions five hundred

thousand pounds. The remainder of thirteen millions three hundred

thousand pounds belonged to the Company in their corporate capacity,

and was the profit they had made by the national delusion. Upwards of

eight millions of this were taken from the Company, and divided among

the proprietors and subscribers generally, making a dividend of about

33 pounds 6 shillings 8 pence per cent. This was a great relief. It

was further ordered, that such persons as had borrowed money from the

South Sea Company upon stock actually transferred and pledged at the

time of borrowing to or for the use of the Company, should be free

from all demands, upon payment of ten per cent. of the sums so

borrowed. They had lent about eleven millions in this manner, at a

time when prices were unnaturally raised; and they now received back

one million one hundred thousand, when prices had sunk to their

ordinary level.



    But it was a long time before public credit was thoroughly

restored. Enterprise, like Icarus, had soared too high, and melted the

wax of her wings; like Icarus, she had fallen into a sea, and learned,

while floundering in its waves, that her proper element was the solid

ground. She has never since attempted so high a flight.



    In times of great commercial prosperity there has been a tendency

to over-speculation on several occasions since then. The success of

one project generally produces others of a similar kind. Popular

imitativeness will always, in a trading nation, seize hold of such

successes, and drag a community too anxious for profits into an abyss

from which extrication is difficult. Bubble companies, of a kind

similar to those engendered by the South Sea project, lived their

little day in the famous year of the panic, 1825. On that occasion, as

in 1720, knavery gathered a rich harvest from cupidity, but both

suffered when the day of reckoning came. The schemes of the year 1836

threatened, at one time, results as disastrous; but they were happily

averted before it was too late. The South Sea project thus remains,

and, it is to be hoped, always will remain, the greatest example in

British history, of the infatuation of the people for commercial

gambling. From the bitter experience of that period, posterity may

learn how dangerous it is to let speculation riot unrestrained, and to

hope for enormous profits from inadequate causes. Degrading as were

the circumstances, there is wisdom to be gained from the lesson which

they teach.





THE TULIPOMANIA.



Quis furor o cives! -- Lucan.



    The tulip,--so named, it is said, from a Turkish word, signifying

a turban,-- was introduced into western Europe about the middle of the

sixteenth century. Conrad Gesner, who claims the merit of having

brought it into repute,--little dreaming of the extraordinary

commotion it was to make in the world,--says that he first saw it in

the year 1559, in a garden at Augsburg, belonging to the learned

Counsellor Herwart, a man very famous in his day for his collection of

rare exotics. The bulbs were sent to this gentleman by a friend at

Constantinople, where the flower had long been a favourite. In the

course of ten or eleven years after this period, tulips were much

sought after by the wealthy, especially in Holland and Germany. Rich

people at Amsterdam sent for the bulbs direct to Constantinople, and

paid the most extravagant prices for them. The first roots planted in

England were brought from Vienna in 1600. Until the year 1634 the

tulip annually increased in reputation, until it was deemed a proof of

bad taste in any man of fortune to be without a collection of them.

Many learned men, including Pompeius de Angelis and the celebrated

Lipsius of Leyden, the author of the treatise "De Constantia," were

passionately fond of tulips. The rage for possessing them soon caught

the middle classes of society, and merchants and shopkeepers, even of

moderate means, began to vie with each other in the rarity of these

flowers and the preposterous prices .they paid for them. A trader at

Harlaem was known to pay one-half of his fortune for a single

root--not with the design of selling it again at a profit, but to keep

in his own conservatory for the admiration of his acquaintance.



    One would suppose that there must have been some great virtue in

this flower to have made it so valuable in the eyes of so prudent a

people as the Dutch; but it has neither the beauty nor the perfume of

the rose--hardly the beauty of the "sweet, sweet-pea;" neither is it

as enduring as either. Cowley, it is true, is loud in its praise. He

says--



"The tulip next appeared, all over gay,

But wanton, full of pride, and full of play;

The world can't show a dye but here has place;

Nay, by new mixtures, she can change her face;

Purple and gold are both beneath her care-

The richest needlework she loves to wear;

Her only study is to please the eye,

And to outshine the rest in finery."



This, though not very poetical, is the description of a poet.

Beckmann, in his History of Inventions, paints it with more fidelity,

and in prose more pleasing than Cowley's poetry. He says, "There are

few plants which acquire, through accident, weakness, or disease, so

many variegations as the tulip. When uncultivated, and in its natural

state, it is almost of one colour, has large leaves, and an

extraordinarily long stem. When it has been weakened by cultivation,

it becomes more agreeable in the eyes of the florist. The petals are

then paler, smaller, and more diversified in hue; and the leaves

acquire a softer green colour. Thus this masterpiece of culture, the

more beautiful it turns, grows so much the weaker, so that, with the

greatest skill and most careful attention, it can scarcely be

transplanted, or even kept alive."



    Many persons grow insensibly attached to that which gives them a

great deal of trouble, as a mother often loves her sick and

ever-ailing child better than her more healthy offspring. Upon the

same principle we must account for the unmerited encomia lavished upon

these fragile blossoms. In 1634, the rage among the Dutch to possess

them was so great that the ordinary industry of the country was

neglected, and the population, even to its lowest dregs, embarked in

the tulip trade. As the mania increased, prices augmented, until, in

the year 1635, many persons were known to invest a fortune of 100,000

florins in the purchase of forty roots. It then became necessary to

sell them by their weight in perits, a small weight less than a grain.

A tulip of the species called Admiral Liefken, weighing 400 perits,

was worth 4400 florins; an Admiral Von der Eyk, weighing 446 perits,

was worth 1260 florins; a shilder of 106 perits was worth 1615

florins; a viceroy of 400 perits, 3000 florins, and, most precious of

all, a Semper Augustus, weighing 200 perits, was thought to be very

cheap at 5500 florins. The latter was much sought after, and even an

inferior bulb might command a price of 2000 florins. It is related

that, at one time, early in 1636, there were only two roots of this

description to be had in all Holland, and those not of the best. One

was in the possession of a dealer in Amsterdam, and the other in

Harlaem. So anxious were the speculators to obtain them that one

person offered the fee-simple of twelve acres of building ground for

the Harlaem tulip. That of Amsterdam was bought for 4600 florins, a

new carriage, two grey horses, and a complete suit of harness.

Munting, an industrious author of that day, who wrote a folio volume

of one thousand pages upon the tulipomania, has preserved the

following list of the various articles, and their value, which were

delivered for one single root of the rare species called the viceroy

:--

                                  florins.

Two lasts of wheat..............  448

Four lasts of rye...............  558

Four fat oxen...................  480

Eight fat swine.................  240

Twelve fat sheep................  120

Two hogsheads of wine...........   70

Four tuns of beer...............   32

Two tons of butter..............  192

One thousand lbs. of cheese.....  120

A complete bed..................  100

A suit of clothes...............   8O

A silver drinking cup...........   6O

                                -----

                                 2500

                                -----



    People who had been absent from Holland, and whose chance it was

to return when this folly was at its maximum, were sometimes led into

awkward dilemmas by their ignorance. There is an amusing instance of

the kind related in Blainville's Travels. A wealthy merchant, who

prided himself not a little on his rare tulips, received upon one

occasion a very valuable consignment of merchandise from the Levant.

Intelligence of its arrival was brought him by a sailor, who presented

himself for that purpose at the counting-house, among bales of goods

of every description. The merchant, to reward him for his news,

munificently made him a present of a fine red herring for his

breakfast. The sailor had, it appears, a great partiality for onions,

and seeing a bulb very like an onion lying upon the counter of this

liberal trader, and thinking it, no doubt, very much out of its place

among silks and velvets, he slily seized an opportunity and slipped it

into his pocket, as a relish for his herring. He got clear off with

his prize, and proceeded to the quay to eat his breakfast. Hardly was

his back turned when the merchant missed his valuable Semper Augustus,

worth three thousand florins, or about 280 pounds sterling. The whole

establishment was instantly in an uproar; search was everywhere made

for the precious root, but it was not to be found. Great was the

merchant's distress of mind. The search was renewed, but again without

success. At last some one thought of the sailor.



    The unhappy merchant sprang into the street at the bare suggestion.

His alarmed household followed him. The sailor, simple soul! had not

thought of concealment. He was found quietly sitting on a coil of

ropes, masticating the last morsel of his "onion." Little did he dream

that he had been eating a breakfast whose cost might have regaled a

whole ship's crew for a twelvemonth; or, as the plundered merchant

himself expressed it, "might have sumptuously feasted the Prince of

Orange and the whole court of the Stadtholder." Anthony caused pearls

to be dissolved in wine to drink the health of Cleopatra; Sir Richard

Whittington was as foolishly magnificent in an entertainment to King

Henry V; and Sir Thomas Gresham drank a diamond, dissolved in wine, to

the health of Queen Elizabeth, when she opened the Royal Exchange: but

the breakfast of this roguish Dutchman was as splendid as either. He

had an advantage, too, over his wasteful predecessors: their gems did

not improve the taste or the wholesomeness of their wine, while his

tulip was quite delicious with his red herring. The most unfortunate

part of the business for him was, that he remained in prison for some

months, on a charge of felony, preferred against him by the merchant.



    Another story is told of an English traveller, which is scarcely

less ludicrous. This gentleman, an amateur botanist, happened to see a

tulip-root lying in the conservatory of a wealthy Dutchman. Being

ignorant of its quality, he took out his penknife, and peeled off its

coats, with the view of making experiments upon it. When it was by

this means reduced to half its original size, he cut it into two equal

sections, making all the time many learned remarks on the singular

appearances of the unknown bulb. Suddenly the owner pounced upon him,

and, with fury in his eyes, asked him if he knew what he had been

doing? "Peeling a most extraordinary onion," replied the philosopher.

"Hundert tausend duyvel," said the Dutchman; "it's an Admiral Van der

E. yck." "Thank you," replied the traveller, taking out his note-book

to make a memorandum of the same; "are these admirals common in your

country?" "Death and the devil," said the Dutchman, seizing the

astonished man of science by the collar; "come before the

syndic, and you shall see." In spite of his remonstrances, the

traveller was led through the streets, followed by a mob of persons.

When brought into the presence of the magistrate, he learned, to his

consternation, that the root upon which he had been experimentalizing

was worth four thousand florins; and, notwithstanding all he could

urge in extenuation, he was lodged in prison until he found securities

for the payment of this sum.



    The demand for tulips of a rare species increased so much in the

year 1636, that regular marts for their sale were established on the

Stock Exchange of Amsterdam, in Rotterdam, Harlaem, Leyden, Alkmar,

Hoorn, and other towns. Symptoms of gambling now became, for the first

time, apparent. The stockjobbers, ever on the alert for a new

speculation, dealt largely in tulips, making use of all the means they

so well knew how to employ, to cause fluctuations in prices. At first,

as in all these gambling mania, confidence was at its height, and

everybody gained. The tulip-jobbers speculated in the rise and fall of

the tulip stocks, and made large profits by buying when prices fell,

and selling out when they rose. Many individuals grew suddenly rich. A

golden bait hung temptingly out before the people, and, one after the

other, they rushed to the tulip marts, like flies around a honeypot.

Every one imagined that the passion for tulips would last for ever,

and that the wealthy from every part of the world would send to

Holland, and pay whatever prices were asked for them. The riches of

Europe would be concentrated on the shores of the Zuyder Zee, and

poverty banished from the favoured clime of Holland. Nobles, citizens,

farmers, mechanics, seamen, footmen, maidservants, even chimney-sweeps

and old clotheswomen, dabbled in tulips. People of all grades

converted their property into cash, and invested it in flowers. Houses

and lands were offered for sale at ruinously low prices, or assigned

in payment of bargains made at the tulip-mart. Foreigners became

smitten with the same frenzy, and money poured into Holland from all

directions. The prices of the necessaries of life rose again by

degrees; houses and lands, horses and carriages, and luxuries of every

sort, rose in value with them, and for some months Holland seemed the

very antechamber of Plutus. The operations of the trade became so

extensive and so intricate, that it was found necessary to draw up a

code of laws for the guidance of the dealers. Notaries and clerks were

also appointed, who devoted themselves exclusively to the interests of

the trade. The designation of public notary was hardly known in some

towns, that of tulip notary usurping its place. In the smaller towns,

where there was no exchange, the principal tavern was usually selected

as the "showplace," where high and low traded in tulips, and confirmed

their bargains over sumptuous entertainments. These dinners were

sometimes attended by two or three hundred persons, and large vases of

tulips, in full bloom, were placed at regular intervals upon the

tables and sideboards, for their gratification during the repast.



    At last, however, the more prudent began to see that this folly

could not last for ever. Rich people no longer bought the flowers to

keep them in their gardens, but to sell them again at cent. per cent.

profit. It was seen that somebody must lose fearfully in the end. As

this conviction spread, prices fell, and never rose again. Confidence

was destroyed, and a universal panic seized upon the dealers. A had

agreed to purchase ten Sempers Augustines from B, at four thousand

florins each, at six weeks after the signing of the contract. B was

ready with the flowers at the appointed time; but the price had fallen

to three or four hundred florins, and A refused either to pay the

difference or receive the tulips. Defaulters were announced day after

day in all the towns of Holland. Hundreds who, a few months

previously, had begun to doubt that there was such a thing as poverty

in the land, suddenly found themselves the possessors of a few bulbs,

which nobody would buy, even though they offered them at one quarter

of the sums they had paid for them. The cry of distress resounded

everywhere, and each man accused his neighbour. The few who had

contrived to enrich themselves hid their wealth from the knowledge of

their fellow-citizens, and invested it in the English or other funds.

Many who, for a brief season, had emerged from the humbler walks of

life, were cast back into their original obscurity. Substantial

merchants were reduced almost to beggary, and many a representative of

a noble line saw the fortunes of his house ruined beyond redemption.



    When the first alarm subsided, the tulip-holders in the several

towns held public meetings to devise what measures were best to be

taken to restore public credit. It was generally agreed, that deputies

should be sent from all parts to Amsterdam, to consult with the

government upon some remedy for the evil. The Government at first

refused to interfere, but advised the tulip-holders to agree to some

plan among themselves. Several meetings were held for this purpose;

but no measure could be devised likely to give satisfaction to the

deluded people, or repair even a slight portion of the mischief that

had been done. The language of complaint and reproach was in

everybody's mouth, and all the meetings were of the most stormy

character. At last, however, after much bickering and ill-will, it was

agreed, at Amsterdam, by the assembled deputies, that all contracts

made in the height of the mania, or prior to the month of November

1636, should be declared null and void, and that, in those made after

that date, purchasers should be freed from their engagements, on

paying ten per cent. to the vendor. This decision gave no

satisfaction. The vendors who had their tulips on hand were, of

course, discontented, and those who had pledged themselves to

purchase, thought themselves hardly treated. Tulips which had, at one

time, been worth six thousand florins, were now to be procured for

five hundred; so that the composition of ten per cent. was one hundred

florins more than the actual value. Actions for breach of contract

were threatened in all the courts of the country; but the latter

refused to take cognizance of gambling transactions.



    The matter was finally referred to the Provincial Council at the

Hague, and it was confidently expected that the wisdom of this body

would invent some measure by which credit should be restored.

Expectation was on the stretch for its decision, but it never came.

The members continued to deliberate week after week, and at last,

after thinking about it for three months, declared that they could

offer no final decision until they had more information. They advised,

however, that, in the mean time, every vendor should, in the presence

of witnesses, offer the tulips in natura to the purchaser for the sums

agreed upon. If the latter refused to take them, they might be put up

for sale by public auction, and the original contractor held

responsible for the difference between the actual and the stipulated

price. This was exactly the plan recommended by the deputies, and

which was already shown to be of no avail. There was no court in

Holland which would enforce payment. The question was raised in

Amsterdam, but the judges unanimously refused to interfere, on the

ground that debts contracted in gambling were no debts in law.



    Thus the matter rested. To find a remedy was beyond the power of

the government. Those who were unlucky enough to have had stores of

tulips on hand at the time of the sudden reaction were left to bear

their ruin as philosophically as they could; those who had made

profits were allowed to keep them; but the commerce of the country

suffered a severe shock, from which it was many years ere it

recovered.



    The example of the Dutch was imitated to some extent in England.

In the year 1636 tulips were publicly sold in the Exchange of London,

and the jobbers exerted themselves to the utmost to raise them to the

fictitious value they had acquired in Amsterdam. In Paris also the

jobbers strove to create a tulipomania. In both cities they only

partially succeeded. However, the force of example brought the flowers

into great favour, and amongst a certain class of people tulips have

ever since been prized more highly than any other flowers of the

field. The Dutch are still notorious for their partiality to them, and

continue to pay higher prices for them than any other people. As the

rich Englishman boasts of his fine race-horses or his old pictures, so

does the wealthy Dutchman vaunt him of his tulips.





    In England, in our day, strange as it may appear, a tulip will

produce more money than an oak. If one could be found, rara in tetris,

and black as the black swan alluded to by Juvenal, its price would

equal that of a dozen acres of standing corn. In Scotland, towards the

close of the seventeenth century, the highest price for tulips,

according to the authority of a writer in the supplement to the third

edition of the "Encyclopedia Britannica," was ten guineas. Their value

appears to have diminished from that time till the year 1769, when the

two most valuable species in England were the Don Quevedo and the

Valentinier, the former of which was worth two guineas and the latter

two guineas and a half. These prices appear to have been the minimum.

In the year 1800, a common price was fifteen guineas for a single

bulb. In 1835, so foolish were the fanciers, that a bulb of the

species called the Miss Fanny Kemble was sold by public auction in

London for seventy-five pounds. Still more astonishing was the price

of a tulip in the possession of a gardener in the King's Road,

Chelsea. In his catalogues, it was labelled at two hundred guineas!

Thus a flower, which for beauty and perfume was surpassed by the

abundant roses of the garden,--a nosegay of which might be purchased

for a penny,--was priced at a sum which would have provided an

industrious labourer and his family with food, and clothes, and

lodging for six years! Should chickweed and groundsel ever come into

fashion, the wealthy would, no doubt, vie with each other in adorning

their gardens with them, and paying the most extravagant prices for

them. In so doing, they would hardly be more foolish than the admirers

of tulips. The common prices for these flowers at the present time

vary from five to fifteen guineas, according to the rarity of the

species.





RELICS.



A fouth o' auld knick-knackets,

Rusty airn caps and jinglin' jackets,

Wad haud the Lothians three, in tackets,

                          A towmond guid;

An' parritch pats, and auld saut backets,

                         Afore the flood.

                                         Burns.



    The love for relics is one which will never be eradicated as long

as feeling and affection are denizens of the heart. It is a love which

is most easily excited in the best and kindliest natures, and which

few are callous enough to scoff at. Who would not treasure the lock of

hair that once adorned the brow of the faithful wife, now cold in

death, or that hung down the neck of a beloved infant, now sleeping

under the sward? Not one. They are home-relics, whose sacred worth is

intelligible to all; spoils rescued from the devouring grave, which,

to the affectionate, are beyond all price. How dear to a forlorn

survivor the book over whose pages he has pored with one departed!

How much greater its value, if that hand, now cold, had written a

thought, an opinion, or a name, upon the leaf! Besides these sweet,

domestic relics, there are others, which no one can condemn; relics

sanctified by that admiration of greatness and goodness which is akin

to love; such as the copy of Montaigne's Florio, with the name of

Shakspeare upon the leaf, written by the poet of all time himself; the

chair preserved at Antwerp, in which Rubens sat when he painted the

immortal "Descent from the Cross;" or the telescope, preserved in the

Museum of Florence, which aided Galileo in his sublime discoveries.

Who would not look with veneration upon the undoubted arrow of William

Tell--the swords of Wallace or of Hampden--or the Bible whose leaves

were turned by some stern old father of the faith?



    Thus the principle of reliquism is hallowed and enshrined by love.

But from this germ of purity how numerous the progeny of errors and

superstitions! Men, in their admiration of the great, and of all that

appertained to them, have forgotten that goodness is a component part

of true greatness, and have made fools of themselves for the jaw-bone

of a saint, the toe-nail of an apostle, the handkerchief a king blew

his nose in, or the rope that hanged a criminal. Desiring to rescue

some slight token from the graves of their predecessors, they have

confounded the famous and the infamous, the renowned and the

notorious. Great saints, great sinners; great philosophers, great

quacks; great conquerors, great murderers; great ministers, great

thieves; each and all have had their admirers, ready to ransack earth,

from the equator to either pole, to find a relic of them.



    The reliquism of modern times dates its origin from the centuries

immediately preceding the Crusades. The first pilgrims to the Holy

Land brought back to Europe thousands of apocryphal relics, in the

purchase of which they had expended all their store. The greatest

favourite was the wood of the true cross, which, like the oil of the

widow, never diminished. It is generally asserted, in the traditions

of the Romish Church, that the Empress Helen, the mother of

Constantine the Great, first discovered the veritable "true cross" in

her pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The Emperor Theodosius made a present of

the greater part of it to St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, by whom it was

studded with precious stones, and deposited in the principal church of

that city. It was carried away by the Huns, by whom it was burnt,

after they had extracted the valuable jewels it contained. Fragments,

purporting to have been cut from it were, in the eleventh and twelfth

centuries, to be found in almost every church in Europe, and would, if

collected together in one place, have been almost sufficient to have

built a cathedral. Happy was the sinner who could get a sight of one

of them; happier he who possessed one! To obtain them the greatest

dangers were cheerfully braved. They were thought to preserve from all

evils, and to cure the most inveterate diseases. Annual pilgrimages

were made to the shrines that contained them, and considerable

revenues collected from the devotees.



    Next in renown were those precious relics, the tears of the

Saviour. By whom and in what manner they were preserved, the pilgrims

did not often inquire. Their genuineness was vouched by the Christians

of the Holy Land, and that was sufficient. Tears of the Virgin Mary,

and tears of St. Peter, were also to be had, carefully enclosed in

little caskets, which the pious might wear in their bosoms. After the

tears the next most precious relics were drops of the blood of Jesus

and the martyrs. Hair and toe-nails were also in great repute, and

were sold at extravagant prices. Thousands of pilgrims annually

visited Palestine in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, to purchase

pretended relics for the home market. The majority of them had no

other means of subsistence than the profits thus obtained. Many a

nail, cut from the filthy foot of some unscrupulous ecclesiastic, was

sold at a diamond's price, within six months after its severance from

its parent toe, upon the supposition that it had once belonged to a

saint. Peter's toes were uncommonly prolific, for there were nails

enough in Europe, at the time of the Council of Clermont, to have

filled a sack, all of which were devoutly believed to have grown on

the sacred feet of that great apostle. Some of them are still shown in

the cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle. The pious come from a distance of a

hundred German miles to feast their eyes upon them.



    At Port Royal, in Paris, is kept with great care a thorn, which

the priests of that seminary assert to be one of the identical thorns

that bound the holy head of the Son of God. How it came there, and by

whom it was preserved, has never been explained. This is the famous

thorn, celebrated in the long dissensions of the Jansenists and the

Molenists, and which worked the miraculous cure upon Mademoiselle

Perrier: by merely kissing it, she was cured of a disease of the eyes

of long standing. [Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XIV.]



    What traveller is unacquainted with the Santa Scala, or Holy

Stairs, at Rome? They were brought from Jerusalem along with the true

cross, by the Empress Helen, and were taken from the house which,

according to popular tradition, was inhabited by Pontius Pilate. They

are said to be the steps which Jesus ascended and descended when

brought into the presence of the Roman governor. They are held in the

greatest veneration at Rome: it is sacrilegious to walk upon them. The

knees of the faithful must alone touch them in ascending or

descending, and that only after they have reverentially kissed them.



    Europe still swarms with these religious relics. There is hardly a

Roman Catholic church in Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, or Belgium,

without one or more of them. Even the poorly endowed churches of the

villages boast the possession of miraculous thigh-bones of the

innumerable saints of the Romish calendar. Aix-la-Chapelle is proud of

the veritable chasse, or thigh-bone of Charlemagne, which cures

lameness. Halle has a thighbone of the Virgin Mary; Spain has seven or

eight, all said to be undoubted relics. Brussels at one time

preserved, and perhaps does now, the teeth of St. Gudule. The

faithful, who suffered from the tooth-ache, had only to pray, look at

them, and be cured. Some of these holy bones have been buried in

different parts of the Continent. After a certain lapse of time, water

is said to ooze from them, which soon forms a spring, and cures all

the diseases of the faithful. At a church in Halle, there is a famous

thigh-bone, which cures barrenness in women. Of this bone, which is

under the special superintendence of the Virgin, a pleasant story is

related by the incredulous. There resided at Ghent a couple who were

blessed with all the riches of this world, but whose happiness was

sore troubled by the want of children. Great was the grief of the

lady, who was both beautiful and loving, and many her lamentations to

her husband. The latter, annoyed by her unceasing sorrow, advised her

to make a pilgrimage to the celebrated chasse of the Virgin. She went,

was absent a week, and returned with a face all radiant with joy and

pleasure. Her lamentations ceased, and, in nine months afterwards, she

brought forth a son. But, oh! the instability of human joys! The babe,

so long desired and so greatly beloved, survived but a few months. Two

years passed over the heads of the disconsolate couple, and no second

child appeared to cheer their fire-side. A third year passed away with

the same result, and the lady once more began to weep. "Cheer up, my

love," said her husband, "and go to the holy chasse, at Halle; perhaps

the Virgin will again listen to your prayers." The lady took courage

at the thought, wiped away her tears, and proceeded on the morrow

towards Halle. She was absent only three days, and returned home sad,

weeping, and sorrow-stricken. "What is the matter?" said her husband;

"is the Virgin unwilling to listen to your prayers ?" "The Virgin is

willing enough," said the disconsolate wife, "and will do what she can

for me; but I shall never have any more children! The priest! the

priest!--He is gone from Halle, and nobody knows where to find him!"



    It is curious to remark the avidity manifested in all ages, and in

all countries, to obtain possession of some relic of any persons who

have been much spoken of, even for their crimes. When William

Longbeard, leader of the populace of London, in the reign of Richard

I, was hanged at Smithfield, the utmost eagerness was shown to obtain

a hair from his head, or a shred from his garments. Women came from

Essex, Kent, Suffolk, Sussex, and all the surrounding counties, to

collect the mould at the foot of his gallows. A hair of his beard was

believed to preserve from evil spirits, and a piece of his clothes

from aches and pains.



    In more modern days, a similar avidity was shown to obtain a relic

of the luckless Masaniello, the fisherman of Naples. After he had been

raised by mob favour to a height of power more despotic than monarch

ever wielded, he was shot by the same populace in the streets, as if

he had been a mad dog. His headless trunk was dragged through the mire

for several hours, and cast at night-fall into the city ditch. On the

morrow the tide of popular feeling turned once more in his favour. His

corpse was sought, arrayed in royal robes, and buried magnificently by

torch-light in the cathedral, ten thousand armed men, and as many

mourners, attending at the ceremony. The fisherman's dress which he

had worn was rent into shreds by the crowd, to be preserved as relics;

the door of his hut was pulled off its hinges by a mob of women, and

eagerly cut up into small pieces, to be made into images, caskets, and

other mementos. The scanty furniture of his poor abode became of more

value than the adornments of a palace; the ground he had walked upon

was considered sacred, and, being collected in small phials, was sold

at its weight in gold, and worn in the bosom as an amulet.



    Almost as extraordinary was the frenzy manifested by the populace

of Paris on the execution of the atrocious Marchioness de

Brinvilliers. There were grounds for the popular wonder in the case of

Masaniello, who was unstained with personal crimes. But the career of

Madame de Brinvilliers was of a nature to excite no other feelings

than disgust and abhorrence. She was convicted of poisoning several

persons, and sentenced to be burned in the Place de Greve, and to have

her ashes scattered to the winds. On the day of her execution, the

populace, struck by her gracefulness and beauty, inveighed against the

severity of her sentence. Their pity soon increased to admiration,

and, ere evening, she was considered a saint. Her ashes were

industriously collected, even the charred wood, which had aided to

consume her, was eagerly purchased by the populace. Her ashes were

thought to preserve from witchcraft.



    In England many persons have a singular love for the relics of

thieves and murderers, or other great criminals. The ropes with which

they have been hanged are very often bought by collectors at a guinea

per foot. Great sums were paid for the rope which hanged Dr. Dodd, and

for those more recently which did justice upon Mr. Fauntleroy for

forgery, and on Thurtell for the murder of Mr. Weare. The murder of

Maria Marten, by Corder, in the year 1828, excited the greatest

interest all over the country. People came from Wales and Scotland,

and even from Ireland, to visit the barn where the body of the

murdered woman was buried. Every one of them was anxious to carry away

some memorial of his visit. Pieces of the barn-door, tiles from the

roof, and, above all, the clothes of the poor victim, were eagerly

sought after. A lock of her hair was sold for two guineas, and the

purchaser thought himself fortunate in getting it so cheaply.



    So great was the concourse of people to visit the house in

Camberwell Lane, where Greenacre murdered Hannah Brown, in 1837, that

it was found necessary to station a strong detachment of police on the

spot. The crowd was so eager to obtain a relic of the house of this

atrocious criminal, that the police were obliged to employ force to

prevent the tables and chairs, and even the doors, from being carried

away.



    In earlier times, a singular superstition was attached to the hand of

a criminal who had suffered execution. It was thought that by merely

rubbing the dead hand on the body, the patient afflicted with the

king's evil would be instantly cured. The executioner at Newgate,

sixty or seventy years ago, derived no inconsiderable revenue from

this foolish practice. The possession of the hand was thought to be of

still greater efficacy in the cure of diseases and the prevention of

misfortunes. In the time of Charles II as much as ten guineas was

thought a small price for one of these disgusting relics.



    When the maniac, Thom, or Courtenay, was shot, in the spring of

1838, the relic-hunters were immediately in motion to obtain a memento

of so extraordinary an individual. His long, black beard and hair,

which were cut off by the surgeons, fell into the hands of his

disciples, by whom they are treasured with the utmost reverence. A

lock of his hair commands a great price, not only amongst his

followers, but among the more wealthy inhabitants of Canterbury and

its neighbourhood. The tree against which he fell when he was shot,

has already been stripped of all its bark by the curious, and bids

fair to be entirely demolished within a twelvemonth. A letter, with

his signature to it, is paid for in gold coins; and his favourite

horse promises to become as celebrated as his master. Parties of

ladies and gentlemen have come to Boughton from a distance of a

hundred and fifty miles, to visit the scene of that fatal affray, and

stroke on the back the horse of the "mad Knight of Malta." If a strict

watch had not been kept over his grave for months, the body would have

been disinterred, and the bones carried away as memorials.



    Among the Chinese no relics are more valued than the boots which

have been worn by an upright magistrate. In Davis's interesting

Description of the Empire of China, we are informed, that whenever a

judge of unusual integrity resigns his situation, the people all

congregate to do him honour. If he leaves the city where he has

presided, the crowd accompany him from his residence to the gates,

where his boots are drawn off with great ceremony, to be preserved in

the hall of justice. Their place is immediately supplied by a new

pair, which, in their turn, are drawn off to make room for others

before he has worn them five minutes, it being considered sufficient

to consecrate them that he should have merely drawn them on.



    Among the most favourite relics of modern times, in Europe, are

Shakspeare's mulberry-tree, Napoleon's willow, and the table at

Waterloo, on which the Emperor wrote his despatches. Snuffboxes of

Shakspeare's mulberry-tree, are comparatively rare, though there are

doubtless more of them in the market than were ever made of the wood

planted by the great bard. Many a piece of alien wood passes under

this name. The same may be said of Napoleon's table at Waterloo. The

original has long since been destroyed, and a round dozen of

counterfeits along with it. Many preserve the simple stick of wood;

others have them cut into brooches and every variety of ornament; but

by far the greater number prefer them as snuff-boxes. In France they

are made into bonbonnieres, and are much esteemed by the many

thousands whose cheeks still glow, and whose eyes still sparkle at the

name of Napoleon.



    Bullets from the field of Waterloo, and buttons from the coats of

the soldiers who fell in the fight, are still favourite relics in

Europe. But the same ingenuity which found new tables after the old

one was destroyed, has cast new bullets for the curious. Many a one

who thinks himself the possessor of a bullet which aided in giving

peace to the world on that memorable day, is the owner of a dump,

first extracted from the ore a dozen years afterwards. Let all lovers

of genuine relics look well to their money before they part with it to

the ciceroni that swarm in the village of Waterloo.



    Few travellers stop at the lonely isle of St. Helena, without

cutting a twig from the willow that droops over the grave of Napoleon.

Many of them have since been planted in different parts of Europe, and

have grown into trees as large as their parent. Relic-hunters, who are

unable to procure a twig of the original, are content with one from

these. Several of them are growing in the neighbourhood of London,

more prized by their cultivators than any other tree in their gardens.

But in relics, as in everything else, there is the use and the abuse.

The undoubted relics of great men, or great events, will always

possess attractions for the thinking and refined. There are few who

would not join with Cowley in the extravagant wish introduced in his

lines "written while sitting in a chair made of the remains of the

ship in which Sir Francis Drake sailed round the world:"--



And I myself, who now love quiet too,

Almost as much as any chair can do,

Would yet a journey take

An old wheel of that chariot to see,

Which Phaeton so rashly brake.





MODERN PROPHECIES.



    As epidemic terror of the end of the world has several times

spread over the nations. The most remarkable was that which seized

Christendom about the middle of the tenth century. Numbers of fanatics

appeared in France, Germany, and Italy at that time, preaching that

the thousand years prophesied in the Apocalypse as the term of the

world's duration, were about to expire, and that the Son of Man would

appear in the clouds to judge the godly and the ungodly. The delusion

appears to have been discouraged by the church, but it nevertheless

spread rapidly among the people. [See Gibbon and Voltaire for further

notice of this subject.]



    The scene of the last judgment was expected to be at Jerusalem. In

the year 999, the number of pilgrims proceeding eastward, to await the

coming of the Lord in that city, was so great that they were compared

to a desolating army. Most of them sold their goods and possessions

before they quitted Europe, and lived upon the proceeds in the Holy

Land. Buildings of every sort were suffered to fall into ruins. It was

thought useless to repair them, when the end of the world was so near.

Many noble edifices were deliberately pulled down. Even churches,

usually so well maintained, shared the general neglect. Knights,

citizens, and serfs, travelled eastwards in company, taking with them

their wives and children, singing psalms as they went, and looking

with fearful eyes upon the sky, which they expected each minute to

open, to let the Son of God descend in his glory.



    During the thousandth year the number of pilgrims increased. Most

of them were smitten with terror as with a plague. Every phenomenon of

nature filled them with alarm. A thunder-storm sent them all upon

their knees in mid-march. It was the opinion that thunder was the

voice of God, announcing the day of judgment. Numbers expected the

earth to open, and give up its dead at the sound. Every meteor in the

sky seen at Jerusalem brought the whole Christian population into the

streets to weep and pray. The pilgrims on the road were in the same

alarm :--



Lorsque, pendant la nuit, un globe de lumiere

  S'echappa quelquefois de la voute des cieux,

  Et traca dans sa chute un long sillon de feux,

La troupe suspendit sa marche solitaire.

[Charlemagne. Pomme Epique, par Lucien Buonaparte.]



    Fanatic preachers kept up the flame of terror. Every shooting star

furnished occasion for a sermon, in which the sublimity of the

approaching judgment was the principal topic.





    The appearance of comets has been often thought to foretell the

speedy dissolution of this world. Part of this belief still exists;

but the comet is no longer looked upon as the sign, but the agent of

destruction. So lately as in the year 1832 the greatest alarm spread

over the Continent of Europe, especially in Germany, lest the comet,

whose appearance was then foretold by astronomers, should destroy the

earth. The danger of our globe was gravely discussed. Many persons

refrained from undertaking or concluding any business during that

year, in consequence solely of their apprehension that this terrible

comet would dash us and our world to atoms.



    During seasons of great pestilence men have often believed the

prophecies of crazed fanatics, that the end of the world was come.

Credulity is always greatest in times of calamity. Prophecies of all

sorts are rife on such occasions, and are readily believed, whether

for good or evil. During the great plague, which ravaged all Europe,

between the years 1345 and 1350, it was generally considered that the

end of the world was at hand. Pretended prophets were to be found in

all the principal cities of Germany, France, and Italy, predicting

that within ten years the trump of the Archangel would sound, and the

Saviour appear in the clouds to call the earth to judgment.



    No little consternation was created in London in 1736 by the

prophecy of the famous Whiston, that the world would be destroyed in

that year, on the 13th of October. Crowds of people went out on the

appointed day to Islington, Hampstead, and the fields intervening, to

see the destruction of London, which was to be the "beginning of the

end." A satirical account of this folly is given in Swift's

Miscellanies, vol. iii. entitled, "A True and Faithful Narrative of

what passed in London on a Rumour of the Day of Judgment." An

authentic narrative of this delusion would be interesting; but this

solemn witticism of Pope and Gay is not to be depended upon.



    In the year 1761 the citizens of London were again frightened out

of their wits by two shocks of an earthquake, and the prophecy of a

third, which was to destroy them altogether. The first shock was felt

on the 8th of February, and threw down several chimneys in the

neighbourhood of Limehouse and Poplar; the second happened on the 8th

of March, and was chiefly felt in the north of London, and towards

Hampstead and Highgate. It soon became the subject of general remark,

that there was exactly an interval of a month between the shocks; and

a crack-brained fellow, named Bell, a soldier in the Life Guards, was

so impressed with the idea that there would be a third in another

month, that he lost his senses altogether, and ran about the streets

predicting the destruction of London on the 5th of April. Most people

thought that the first would have been a more appropriate day; but

there were not wanting thousands who confidently believed the

prediction, and took measures to transport themselves and families

from the scene of the impending calamity. As the awful day approached,

the excitement became intense, and great numbers of credulous people

resorted to all the villages within a circuit of twenty miles,

awaiting the doom of London. Islington, Highgate, Hampstead, Harrow,

and Blackheath, were crowded with panic-stricken fugitives, who paid

exorbitant prices for accommodation to the housekeepers of these

secure retreats. Such as could not afford to pay for lodgings at any

of those places, remained in London until two or three days before the

time, and then encamped in the surrounding fields, awaiting the

tremendous shock which was to lay their high city all level with the

dust. As happened during a similar panic in the time of Henry VIII,

the fear became contagious, and hundreds who had laughed at the

prediction a week before, packed up their goods, when they saw others

doing so, and hastened away. The river was thought to be a place of

great security, and all the merchant vessels in the port were filled

with people, who passed the night between the 4th and 5th on board,

expecting every instant to see St. Paul's totter, and the towers of

Westminster Abbey rock in the wind and fall amid a cloud of dust. The

greater part of the fugitives returned on the following day, convinced

that the prophet was a false one; but many judged it more prudent to

allow a week to elapse before they trusted their dear limbs in London.

Bell lost all credit in a short time, and was looked upon even by the

most credulous as a mere madman. He tried some other prophecies, but

nobody was deceived by them; and, in a few months afterwards, he was

confined in a lunatic asylum.



    A panic terror of the end of the world seized the good people of

Leeds and its neighbourhood in the year 1806. It arose from the

following circumstances. A hen, in a village close by, laid eggs, on

which were inscribed, in legible characters, the words "Christ is

coming." Great numbers visited the spot, and examined these wondrous

eggs, convinced that the day of judgment was near at hand. Like

sailors in a storm, expecting every instant to go to the bottom, the

believers suddenly became religious, prayed violently, and flattered

themselves that they repented them of their evil courses. But a plain

tale soon put them down, and quenched their religion entirely. Some

gentlemen, hearing of the matter, went one fine morning, and caught

the poor hen in the act of laying one of her miraculous eggs. They

soon ascertained beyond doubt that the egg had been inscribed with

some corrosive ink, and cruelly forced up again into the bird's body.

At this explanation, those who had prayed, now laughed, and the world

wagged as merrily as of yore.



    At the time of the plague in Milan, in 1630, of which so affecting

a description has been left us by Ripamonte, in his interesting work

"De Peste Mediolani", the people, in their distress, listened with

avidity to the predictions of astrologers and other impostors. It is

singular enough that the plague was foretold a year before it broke

out. A large comet appearing in 1628, the opinions of astrologers were

divided with regard to it. Some insisted that it was a forerunner of a

bloody war; others maintained that it predicted a great famine; but

the greater number, founding their judgment upon its pale colour,

thought it portended a pestilence. The fulfilment of their prediction

brought them into great repute while the plague was raging.



    Other prophecies were current, which were asserted to have been

delivered hundreds of years previously. They had a most pernicious

effect upon the mind of the vulgar, as they induced a belief in

fatalism. By taking away the hope of recovery - that greatest balm in

every malady - they increased threefold the ravages of the disease.

One singular prediction almost drove the unhappy people mad. An

ancient couplet, preserved for ages by tradition, foretold, that in

the year 1630 the devil would poison all Milan. Early one morning in

April, and before the pestilence had reached its height, the

passengers were surprised to see that all the doors in the principal

streets of the city were marked with a curious daub, or spot, as if a

sponge, filled with the purulent matter of the plague-sores,

had been pressed against them. The whole population were speedily in

movement to remark the strange appearance, and the greatest alarm

spread rapidly. Every means was taken to discover the perpetrators,

but in vain. At last the ancient prophecy was remembered, and prayers

were offered up in all the churches that the machinations of the Evil

One might be defeated. Many persons were of opinion that the

emissaries of foreign powers were employed to spread infectious poison

over the city; but by far the greater number were convinced that the

powers of hell had conspired against them, and that the infection was

spread by supernatural agencies. In the mean time the plague increased

fearfully. Distrust and alarm took possession of every mind.

Everything was believed to have been poisoned by the devil; the waters

of the wells, the standing corn in the fields, and the fruit upon the

trees. It was believed that all objects of touch were poisoned; the

walls of the houses, the pavement of the streets, and the very handles

of the doors. The populace were raised to a pitch of ungovernable

fury. A strict watch was kept for the devil's emissaries, and any man

who wanted to be rid of an enemy, had only to say that he had seen

him besmearing a door with ointment; his fate was certain death at the

hands of the mob. An old man, upwards of eighty years of age, a daily

frequenter of the church of St. Antonio, was seen, on rising from his

knees, to wipe with the skirt of his cloak the stool on which he was

about to sit down. A cry was raised immediately that he was besmearing

the seat with poison. A mob of women, by whom the church was crowded,

seized hold of the feeble old man, and dragged him out by the hair of

his head, with horrid oaths and imprecations. He was trailed in this

manner through the mire to the house of the municipal judge, that he

might be put to the rack, and forced to discover his accomplices; but

he expired on the way. Many other victims were sacrificed to the

popular fury. One Mora, who appears to have been half a chemist and

half a barber, was accused of being in league with the devil to poison

Milan. His house was surrounded, and a number of chemical preparations

were found. The poor man asserted, that they were intended as

preservatives against infection; but some physicians, to whom they

were submitted, declared they were poison. Mora was put to the rack,

where he for a long time asserted his innocence. He confessed at last,

when his courage was worn down by torture, that he was in league with

the devil and foreign powers to poison the whole city; that he had

anointed the doors, and infected the fountains of water. He named

several persons as his accomplices, who were apprehended and put to a

similar torture. They were all found guilty, and executed. Mora's

house was rased to the ground, and a column erected on the spot, with

an inscription to commemorate his guilt.



    While the public mind was filled with these marvellous

occurrences, the plague continued to increase. The crowds that were

brought together to witness the executions, spread the infection among

one another. But the fury of their passions, and the extent of their

credulity, kept pace with the violence of the plague; every wonderful

and preposterous story was believed. One, in particular, occupied them

to the exclusion, for a long time, of every other. The Devil himself

had been seen. He had taken a house in Milan, in which he prepared his

poisonous unguents, and furnished them to his emissaries for

distribution. One man had brooded over such tales till he became

firmly convinced that the wild flights of his own fancy were

realities. He stationed himself in the market-place of Milan, and

related the following story to the crowds that gathered round him. He

was standing, he said, at the door of the cathedral, late in the

evening, and when there was nobody nigh, he saw a dark-coloured

chariot, drawn by six milk-white horses, stop close beside him. The

chariot was followed by a numerous train of domestics in dark

liveries, mounted on dark-coloured steeds. In the chariot there sat a

tall stranger of a majestic aspect; his long black hair floated in the

wind--fire flashed from his large black eyes, and a curl of ineffable

scorn dwelt upon his lips. The look of the stranger was so sublime

that he was awed, and trembled with fear when he gazed upon him. His

complexion was much darker than that of any man he had ever seen, and

the atmosphere around him was hot and suffocating. He perceived

immediately that he was a being of another world. The stranger, seeing

his trepidation, asked him blandly, yet majestically, to mount beside

him. He had no power to refuse, and before he was well aware that he

had moved, he found himself in the chariot. Onwards they went, with

the rapidity of the wind, the stranger speaking no word, until they

stopped before a door in the high-street of Milan. There was a crowd

of people in the street, but, to his great surprise, no one seemed to

notice the extraordinary equipage and its numerous train. From this he

concluded that they were invisible. The house at which they stopped

appeared to be a shop, but the interior was like a vast half-ruined

palace. He went with his mysterious guide through several large and

dimly-lighted rooms. In one of them, surrounded by huge pillars of

marble, a senate of ghosts was assembled, debating on the progress of

the plague. Other parts of the building were enveloped in the thickest

darkness, illumined at intervals by flashes of lightning, which

allowed him to distinguish a number of gibing and chattering

skeletons, running about and pursuing each other, or playing at

leap-frog over one another's backs. At the rear of the mansion was a

wild, uncultivated plot of ground, in the midst of which arose a black

rock. Down its sides rushed with fearful noise a torrent of poisonous

water, which, insinuating itself through the soil, penetrated to all

the springs of the city, and rendered them unfit for use. After he had

been shown all this, the stranger led him into another large chamber,

filled with gold and precious stones, all of which he offered him if

he would kneel down and worship him, and consent to smear the doors

and houses of Milan with a pestiferous salve which he held out to him.

tie now knew him to be the Devil, and in that moment of temptation,

prayed to God to give him strength to resist. His prayer was heard -

he refused the bribe. The stranger scowled horribly upon him - a loud

clap of thunder burst over his head - the vivid lightning flashed in

his eyes, and the next moment he found himself standing alone at the

porch of the cathedral. He repeated this strange tale day after day,

without any variation, and all the populace were firm believers in its

truth. Repeated search was made to discover the mysterious house, but

all in vain. The man pointed out several as resembling it, which were

searched by the police; but the Demon of the Pestilence was not to be

found, nor the hall of ghosts, nor the poisonous fountain. But the

minds of the people were so impressed with the idea that scores of

witnesses, half crazed by disease, came forward to swear that they

also had seen the diabolical stranger, and had heard his chariot,

drawn by the milk-white steeds, rumbling over the streets at midnight

with a sound louder than thunder.



    The number of persons who confessed that they were employed by the

Devil to distribute poison is almost incredible. An epidemic frenzy

was abroad, which seemed to be as contagious as the plague.

Imagination was as disordered as the body, and day after day persons

came voluntarily forward to accuse themselves. They generally had the

marks of disease upon them, and some died in the act of confession.



    During the great plague of London, in 1665, the people listened

with similar avidity to the predictions of quacks and fanatics. Defoe

says, that at that time the people were more addicted to prophecies

and astronomical conjurations, dreams, and old wives' tales than ever

they were before or since. Almanacs, and their predictions, frightened

them terribly. Even the year before the plague broke out, they were

greatly alarmed by the comet which then appeared, and anticipated that

famine, pestilence, or fire would follow. Enthusiasts, while yet the

disease had made but little progress, ran about the streets,

predicting that in a few days London would be destroyed.



    A still more singular instance of the faith in predictions

occurred in London in the year 1524. The city swarmed at that time

with fortune-tellers and astrologers, who were consulted daily by

people of every class in society on the secrets of futurity. As early

as the month of June 1523, several of them concurred in predicting

that, on the 1st day of February, 1524, the waters of the Thames would

swell to such a height as to overflow the whole city of London, and

wash away ten thousand houses. The prophecy met implicit belief. It

was reiterated with the utmost confidence month after month, until so

much alarm was excited that many families packed up their goods, and

removed into Kent and Essex. As the time drew nigh, the number of

these emigrants increased. In January, droves of workmen might be

seen, followed by their wives and children, trudging on foot to the

villages within fifteen or twenty miles, to await the catastrophe.

People of a higher class were also to be seen, in waggons and other

vehicles, bound on a similar errand. By the middle of January, at

least twenty thousand persons had quitted the doomed city, leaving

nothing but the bare walls of their homes to be swept away by the

impending floods. Many of the richer sort took up their abode on the

heights of Highgate, Hampstead, and Blackheath; and some erected tents

as far away as Waltham Abbey, on the north, and Croydon, on the south

of the Thames. Bolton, the prior of St. Bartholomew's, was so alarmed

that he erected, at very great expense, a sort of fortress at

Harrow-on-the-Hill, which he stocked with provisions for two months.

On the 24th of January, a week before the awful day which was to see

the destruction of London, he removed thither, with the brethren and

officers of the priory and all his household. A number of boats were

conveyed in waggons to his fortress, furnished abundantly with expert

rowers, in case the flood, reaching so high as Harrow, should force

them to go further for a resting-place. Many wealthy citizens prayed

to share his retreat, but the Prior, with a prudent forethought,

admitted only his personal friends, and those who brought stores of

eatables for the blockade.



    At last the morn, big with the fate of London, appeared in the

east. The wondering crowds were astir at an early hour to watch the

rising of the waters. The inundation, it was predicted, would be

gradual, not sudden; so that they expected to have plenty of time to

escape, as soon as they saw the bosom of old Thames heave beyond the

usual mark. But the majority were too much alarmed to trust to this,

and thought themselves safer ten or twenty miles off. The Thames,

unmindful of the foolish crowds upon its banks, flowed on quietly as

of yore. The tide ebbed at its usual hour, flowed to its usual height,

and then ebbed again, just as if twenty astrologers had not pledged

their words to the contrary. Blank were their faces as evening

approached, and as blank grew the faces of the citizens to think that

they had made such fools of themselves. At last night set in, and the

obstinate river would not lift its waters to sweep away even one house

out of the ten thousand. Still, however, the people were afraid to go

to sleep. Many hundreds remained up till dawn of the next day, lest

the deluge should come upon them like a thief in the night.



    On the morrow, it was seriously discussed whether it would not be

advisable to duck the false prophets in the river. Luckily for them,

they thought of an expedient which allayed the popular fury. They

asserted that, by an error (a very slight one) of a little figure,

they had fixed the date of this awful inundation a whole century too

early. The stars were right after all, and they, erring mortals, were

wrong. The present generation of cockneys was safe, and London 'would

be washed away, not in 1524, but in 1624. At this announcement,

Bolton, the prior, dismantled his fortress, and the weary emigrants

came back.



    An eye-witness of the great fire of London, in an account

preserved among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum, and recently

published in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Antiquaries,

relates another instance of the credulity of the Londoners. The

writer, who accompanied the Duke of York day by day through the

district included between the Fleet-bridge and the Thames, states

that, in their efforts to check the progress of the flames, they were

much impeded by the superstition of the people. Mother Shipton, in one

of her prophecies, had said that London would be reduced to ashes, and

they refused to make any efforts to prevent it. [This prophecy seems

to have been that set forth at length in the popular Life of Mother

Shipton :--



"When fate to England shall restore

A king to reign as heretofore,

Great death in London shall be though,

And many houses be laid low."]



A son of the noted Sir Kenelm Digby, who was also a pretender to the

gifts of prophecy, persuaded them that no power on earth could prevent

the fulfilment of the prediction; for it was written in the great book

of fate that London was to be destroyed. Hundreds of persons, who

might have rendered valuable assistance, and saved whole parishes from

devastation, folded their arms and looked on. As many more gave

themselves up, with the less compunction, to plunder a city which they

could not save.



    The prophecies of Mother Shipton are still believed in many of the

rural districts of England. In cottages and servants' halls her

reputation is great; and she rules, the most popular of British

prophets, among all the uneducated, or half-educated, portions of the

community. She is generally supposed to have been born at

Knaresborough, in the reign of Henry VII, and to have sold her soul to

the Devil for the power of foretelling future events. Though during

her lifetime she was looked upon as a witch, she yet escaped the

witch's fate, and died peaceably in her bed at an extreme old age,

near Clifton in Yorkshire. A stone is said to have been erected to her

memory in the church-yard of that place, with the following epitaph

:--



"Here lies she who never lied;

Whose skill often has been tried:

Her prophecies shall still survive,

And ever keep her name alive."



    "Never a day passed," says her traditionary biography, "wherein

she did not relate something remarkable, and that required the most

serious consideration. People flocked to her from far and near, her

fame was so great. They went to her of all sorts, both old and young,

rich and poor, especially young maidens, to be resolved of their

doubts relating to things to come; and all returned wonderfully

satisfied in the explanations she gave to their questions." Among the

rest, went the Abbot of Beverley, to whom she foretold the suppression

of the monasteries by Henry VIII; his marriage with Anne Boleyn; the

fires for heretics in Smithfield, and the execution of Mary Queen of

Scots. She also foretold the accession of James I, adding that, with

him,



"From the cold North,

Every evil should come forth."



On a subsequent visit she uttered another prophecy, which, in the

opinion of her believers, still remains unfulfilled, but may be

expected to be realised during the present century:--

"The time shall come when seas of blood

Shall mingle with a greater flood.

Great noise there shall be heard--great shouts and cries,

And seas shall thunder louder than the skies;

Then shall three lions fight with three, and bring

Joy to a people, honour to a king.

That fiery year as soon as o'er,

Peace shall then be as before;

Plenty shall everywhere be found,

And men with swords shall plough the ground.'



But the most famous of all her prophecies is one relating to London.

Thousands of persons still shudder to think of the woes that are to

burst over this unhappy realm, when London and Highgate are joined by

one continuous line of houses. This junction, which, if the rage for

building lasts much longer, in the same proportion as heretofore, bids

fair to be soon accomplished, was predicted by her shortly before her

death. Revolutions -- the fall of mighty monarchs, and the shedding of

much blood are to signalise that event. The very angels, afflicted by

our woes, are to turn aside their heads, and weep for hapless Britain.



    But great as is the fame of Mother Shipton, she ranks but second

in the list of British prophets. Merlin, the mighty Merlin, stands

alone in his high pre-eminence -- the first and greatest. As old

Drayton sings, in his Poly-olbion :--



"Of Merlin and his skill what region doth not hear?

The world shall still be full of Merlin every year.

A thousand lingering years his prophecies have run,

And scarcely shall have end till time itself be done."



Spenser, in his divine poem, has given us a powerfid description of

this renowned seer--



".......who had in magic more insight

Than ever him before, or after, living wight.



"For he by words could call out of the sky

Both sun and moon, and make them him obey;

The land to sea, and sea to mainland dry,

And darksome night he eke could turn to day--

Huge hosts of men he could, alone, dismay.

And hosts of men and meanest things could frame,

Whenso him list his enemies to fray,

That to this day, for terror of his name,

The fiends do quake, when any him to them does name.



"And soothe men say that he was not the sonne,

Of mortal sire or other living wighte,

But wondrously begotten and begoune

By false illusion of a guileful sprite,

On a faire ladye nun."



    In these verses the poet has preserved the popular belief with

regard to Merlin, who is generally supposed to have been a

contemporary of Vortigern. Opinion is divided as to whether he were a

real personage, or a mere impersonation, formed by the poetic fancy of

a credulous people. It seems most probable that such a man did exist,

and that, possessing knowledge as much above the comprehension of his

age, as that possessed by Friar Bacon was beyond the reach of his, he

was endowed by the wondering crowd with the supernatural attributes

that Spenser has enumerated.



    Geoffrey of Monmouth translated Merlin's poetical odes, or

prophecies, into Latin prose, and he was much reverenced, not only by

Geoffrey, but by most of,the old annalists. In a "Life of Merlin, with

his Prophecies and Predictions. interpreted and made good by our

English Annals," by Thomas Heywood, published in the reign of Charles

I, we find several of these pretended prophecies. They seem, however,

to have been all written by Heywood himself. They are in terms too

plain and positive to allow any one to doubt for a moment of their

having been composed ex post facto. Speaking of Richard I, he says :--



"The Lion's heart will 'gainst the Saracen rise,

And purchase from him many a glorious prize;

The rose and lily shall at first unite,

But, parting of the prey prove opposite.

  *           *          *           *

But while abroad these great acts shall be done;

All things at home shall to disorder run.

Cooped up and caged then shall the Lion be,

But, after sufferance, ransomed and set free."



    The sapient Thomas Heywood gravely goes on to inform us, that all

these things actually came to pass. Upon Richard III he is equally

luminous. He says :--



"A hunch-backed monster, who with teeth is born,

The mockery of art and nature's scorn;

Who from the womb preposterously is hurled,

And, with feet forward, thrust into the world,

Shall, from the lower earth on which he stood,

Wade, every step he mounts, knee-deep in blood.

He shall to th' height of all his hopes aspire,

And, clothed in state, his ugly shape admire;

But, when he thinks himself most safe to stand,

From foreign parts a native whelp shall land."



    Another of these prophecies after the event tells us that Henry

VIII should take the power from Rome, "and bring it home unto his

British bower;" that he should "root out from the land all the

razored skulls;" and that he should neither spare "man in his rage

nor woman in his lust;" and that, in the time of his next successor

but one, "there should come in the fagot and the stake." Master

Heywood closes Merlin's prophecies at his own day, and does not give

even a glimpse of what was to befall England after his decease. Many

other prophecies, besides those quoted by him, were, he says,

dispersed abroad, in his day, under the name of Merlin; but he gives

his readers a taste of one only, and that is the following :--



"When hempe is ripe and ready to pull,

Then Englishman beware thy skull."



    This prophecy, which, one would think, ought to have put him in

mind of the gallows, the not unusual fate of false prophets, and

perchance his own, he explains thus:-- "In this word HEMPE be five

letters. Now, by reckoning the five successive princes from Henry

VIII, this prophecy is easily explained: H signifieth King Henry

before named; E, Edward, his son, the sixth of that name; M, Mary, who

succeeded him; P, Philip of Spain, who, by marrying Queen Mary,

participated with her in the English diadem; and, lastly, E signifieth

Queen Elizabeth, after whose death there was a great feare that some

troubles might have arisen about the crown." As this did not happen,

Heywood,. who was a sly rogue in a small way, gets out of the scrape

by saying, "Yet proved this augury true, though not according to the

former expectation; for, after the peaceful inauguration of King

James, there was great mortality, not in London only, but through the

whole kingdom, and from which the nation was not quite clean in seven

years after."



    This is not unlike the subterfuge of Peter of Pontefract, who had

prophesied the death and deposition of King John, and who was hanged

by that monarch for his pains. A very graphic and amusing account of

this pretended prophet is given by Grafton, in his Chronicles of

England. There is so much homely vigour about the style of the old

annalist, that it would be a pity to give the story in other words

than his own. [Chronicles of England, by Richard Grafton; London,

1568, p. 106.] "In the meanwhile," says he, "the priestes within

England had provided them a false and counterfeated prophet, called

Peter Wakefielde, a Yorkshire man, who was an hermite, an idle gadder

about, and a pratlyng marchant. Now to bring this Peter in credite,

and the kyng out of all credite with his people, diverse vaine persons

bruted dayly among the commons of the realme, that Christe had twice

appered unto him in the shape of a childe, betwene the prieste's

handes, once at Yorke, another tyme at Pomfret; and that he had

breathed upon him thrice, saying, 'Peace, peace, peace,' and teachyng

many things, which he anon declared to the bishops, and bid the people

amend their naughtie living. Being rapt also in spirite, they sayde he

behelde the joyes of heaven and sorowes of hell, for scant were there

three in the realme, sayde he, that lived Christainly.



    "This counterfeated soothsayer prophecied of King John, that he

should reigne no longer than the Ascension-day next followyng, which

was in the yere of our Lord 1211, and was the thirteenth yere from his

coronation; and this, he said, he had by revelation. Then it was of

him demanded, whether he should be slaine or be deposed, or should

voluntarily give over the crowne? He aunswered, that he could not

tell; but of this he was sure (he sayd), that neither he nor any of

his stock or lineage should reigne after that day.



    "The king hering of this, laughed much at it, and made but a scoff

thereat. 'Tush!' saith he, 'it is but an ideot knave, and such an one

as lacketh his right wittes.' But when this foolish prophet had so

escaped the daunger of the Kinge's displeasure, and that he made no

more of it, he gate him abroad, and prated thereof at large, as he was

a very idle vagabond, and used to trattle and talke more than ynough,

so that they which loved the King caused him anon after to be

apprehended as a malefactor, and to be throwen in prison, the King not

yet knowing thereof.



    "Anone after the fame of this phantasticall prophet went all the

realme over, and his name was knowen everywhere, as foolishnesse is

much regarded of the people, where wisdome is not in place;

specially because he was then imprisoned for the matter, the rumour

was the larger, their wonderynges were the wantoner, their practises

the foolisher, their busye talkes and other idle doinges the greater.

Continually from thence, as the rude manner of people is, olde gossyps

tales went abroade, new tales were invented, fables were added to

fables, and lyes grew upon lyes. So that every daye newe slanders were

laide upon the King, and not one of them true. Rumors arose,

blasphemyes were sprede, the enemyes rejoyced, and treasons by the

priestes were mainteyned; and what lykewise was surmised, or other

subtiltye practised, all was then lathered upon this foolish prophet,

as 'thus saith Peter Wakefield;' 'thus hath he prophecied;' ' and

thus it shall come to pass;' yea, many times, when he thought nothing

lesse. And when the Ascension-day was come, which was prophecyed of

before, King John commanded his royal tent to be spread in the open

fielde, passing that day with his noble counseyle and men of honour,

in the greatest solemnitie that ever he did before; solacing himself

with musickale instrumentes and songs, most in sight among his trustie

friendes. When that day was paste in all prosperitie and myrth, his

enemyes being confused, turned all into an allegorical understanding

to make the prophecie good, and sayde, "he is no longer King, for the

Pope reigneth, and not he." [King John was labouring under a sentence

of excommunication at the time.]



    "Then was the King by his council perswaded that this false

prophet had troubled the realme, perverted the heartes of the people,

and raysed the commons against him; for his wordes went over the sea,

by the help of his prelates, and came to the French King's care, and

gave to him a great encouragement to invade the lande. He had not else

done it so sodeinely. But he was most lowly deceived, as all they are

and shall be that put their trust in such dark drowsye dreames of

hipocrites. The King therefore commanded that he should be hanged up,

and his sonne also with him, lest any more false prophets should arise

of that race."



    Heywood, who was a great stickler for the truth of all sorts of

prophecies, gives a much more favourable account of this Peter of

Pomfret, or Pontefract, whose fate he would, in all probability, have

shared, if he had had the misfortune to have flourished in the same

age. He says, that Peter, who was not only a prophet, but a bard,

predicted divers of King John's disasters, which fell out accordingly.

On being taxed for a lying prophet in having predicted that the King

would be deposed before .he entered into the fifteenth year of his

reign, he answered him boldly, that all he had said was justifiable

and true; for that, having given up his crown to the Pope, and paying

him an annual tribute, the Pope reigned, and not he. Heywood thought

this explanation to be perfectly satisfactory, and the prophet's faith

for ever established.



    But to return to Merlin. Of him even to this day it may be said,

in the words which Burns has applied to another notorious personage,



"Great was his power and great his fame;

Far kenned and noted is his name ?



    His reputation is by no means confined to the land of his birth,

but extends through most of the nations of Europe. A very curious

volume of his Life, Prophecies, and Miracles, written, it is supposed,

by Robert de Bosron, was printed at Paris in 1498, which states, that

the Devil himself was his father, and that he spoke the instant he was

born, and assured his mother, a very virtuous young woman, that she

should not die in child-bed with him, as her ill-natured neighbours

had predicted. The judge of the district, hearing of so marvellous an

occurrence, summoned both mother and child to appear before him; and

they went accordingly the same day. To put the wisdom of the young

prophet most effectually to the test, the judge asked him if he knew

his own father? To which the infant Merlin replied, in a clear,

sonorous voice, "Yes, my father is the Devil; and I have his power,

and know all things, past, present, and to come." His worship clapped

his hands in astonishment, and took the prudent resolution of not

molesting so awful a child, or its mother either.



    Early tradition attributes the building of Stonehenge to the power

of Merlin. It was believed that those mighty stones were whirled

through the air, at his command, from Ireland to Salisbury Plain, and

that he arranged them in the form in which they now stand, to

commemorate for ever the unhappy fate of three hundred British chiefs,

who were massacred on that spot by the Saxons.



    At Abergwylly, near Caermarthen, is still shown the cave of the

prophet and the scene of his incantations. How beautiful is the

description of it given by Spenser in his "Faerie Queene." The lines

need no apology for their repetition here, and any sketch of the great

prophet of Britain would be incomplete without them :--



"There the wise Merlin, whilom wont (they say),

To make his wonne low underneath the ground,

In a deep delve far from the view of day,

That of no living wight he mote be found,

Whenso he counselled with his sprites encompassed round.



"And if thou ever happen that same way

To travel, go to see that dreadful place;

It is a hideous, hollow cave, they say,

Under a rock that lies a little space

From the swift Barry, tumbling down apace

Amongst the woody hills of Dynevoure;

But dare thou not, I charge, in any case,

To enter into that same baleful bower,

For fear the cruel fiendes should thee unwares devour!



"But, standing high aloft, low lay thine care,

And there such ghastly noise of iron chaines,

And brazen caudrons thou shalt rombling heare,

Which thousand sprites, with long-enduring paines,

Doe tosse, that it will stun thy feeble braines;

And often times great groans and grievous stownds,

When too huge toile and labour them constraines;

And often times loud strokes and ringing sounds

From under that deep rock most horribly rebounds.



"The cause, they say, is this. A little while

Before that Merlin died, he did intend

A brazen wall in compass, to compile

About Cayr Merdin, and did it commend

Unto these sprites to bring to perfect end;

During which work the Lady of the Lake,

Whom long he loved, for him in haste did send,

Who thereby forced his workmen to forsake,

Them bound till his return their labour not to slake.



"In the mean time, through that false ladie's traine,

He was surprised, and buried under biere,

Ne ever to his work returned again;

Natheless these fiendes may not their work forbeare,

So greatly his commandement they fear,

But there doe toile and travaile day and night,

Until that brazen wall they up doe reare."

[Faerie Queene, b. 3. c. 3. s. 6--13.]



    Amongst other English prophets, a belief in whose power has not

been entirely effaced by the light of advancing knowledge, is Robert

Nixon, the Cheshire idiot, a contemporary of Mother Shipton. The

popular accounts of this man say, that he was born of poor parents,

not far from Vale Royal, on the edge of the forest of Delamere. He was

brought up to the plough, but was so ignorant and stupid, that nothing

could be made of him. Everybody thought him irretrievably insane, and

paid no attention to the strange, unconnected discourses which he

held. Many of his prophecies are believed to have been lost in this

manner. But they were not always destined to be wasted upon dull and

inattentive ears. An incident occurred which brought him into notice,

and established his fame as a prophet of the first calibre. He was

ploughing in a field when he suddenly stopped from his labour, and,

with a wild look and strange gestures, exclaimed, "Now, Dick! now,

Harry! O, ill done, Dick! O, well done, Harry! Harry has gained the

day!" His fellow labourers in the field did not know what to make of

this rhapsody; but the next day cleared up the mystery. News was

brought by a messenger, in hot haste, that at the very instant when

Nixon had thus ejaculated, Richard III had been slain at the battle

of Bosworth, and Henry VII proclaimed King of England.



    It was not long before the fame of the new prophet reached the

ears of the King, who expressed a wish to see and converse with him. A

messenger was accordingly despatched to bring him to court; but long

before he reached Cheshire, Nixon knew and dreaded the honours that

awaited him. Indeed it was said, that at the very instant the King

expressed the wish, Nixon was, by supernatural means, made acquainted

with it, and that he ran about the town of Over in great distress of

mind, calling out, like a madman, that Henry had sent for him, and

that he must go to court, and be clammed; that is, starved to death.

These expressions excited no little wonder; but, on the third day, the

messenger arrived, and carried him to court, leaving on the minds of

the good people of Cheshire an impression that their prophet was one

of the greatest ever born. On his arrival King Henry appeared to be

troubled exceedingly at the loss of a valuable diamond, and asked

Nixon if he could inform him where it was to be found. Henry had

hidden the diamond himself, with a view to test the prophet's skill.

Great, therefore, was his surprise when Nixon answered him in the

words of the old proverb, "Those who hide can find." From that time

forth the King implicitly believed that he had the gift of prophecy,

and ordered all his words to be taken down.



    During all the time of his residence at court he was in constant

fear of being starved to death, and repeatedly told the King that such

would be his fate, if he were not allowed to depart, and return into

his own country. Henry would not suffer it, but gave strict orders to

all his officers and cooks to give him as much to eat as he wanted. He

lived so well, that for some time he seemed to be thriving like a

nobleman's steward, and growing as fat as an alderman. One day the

king went out hunting, when Nixon ran to the palace gate, and

entreated on his knees that he might not be left behind to be starved.

The King laughed, and, calling an officer, told him to take especial

care of the prophet during his absence, and rode away to the forest.

After his departure, the servants of the palace began to jeer at and

insult Nixon, whom they imagined to be much better treated than he

deserved. Nixon complained to the officer, who, to prevent him from

being further molested, locked him up in the King's own closet, and

brought him regularly his four meals a day. But it so happened that a

messenger arrived from the King to this officer, requiring his

immediate presence at Winchester, on a matter of life and death. So

great was his haste to obey the King's command, that he mounted on the

horse behind the messenger, and rode off, without bestowing a thought

upon poor Nixon. He did not return till three days afterwards, when,

remembering the prophet for the first time, he went to the King's

closet, and found him lying upon the floor, starved to death, as he

had predicted.



    Among the prophecies of his which are believed to have been

fulfilled, are the following, which relate to the times of the

Pretender :--



"A great man shall come into England,

But the son of a King

Shall take from him the victory."



" Crows shall drink the blood of many nobles,

And the North shall rise against the South."

"The cock of the North shall be made to flee,

And his feather be plucked for his pride,

That he shall almost curse the day that he was born,"



    All these, say his admirers, are as clear as the sun at noon-day.

The first denotes the defeat of Prince Charles Edward, at the battle

of Culloden, by the Duke of Cumberland; the second, the execution of

Lords Derwentwater, Balmerino, and Lovat; and the third, the retreat

of the Pretender from the shores of Britain. Among the prophecies that

still remain to be accomplished, are the following :--



"Between seven, eight, and nine,

In England wonders shall be seen;

Between nine and thirteen

All sorrow shall be done!"



"Through our own money and our men

Shall a dreadful war begin.

Between the sickle and the suck

All England shall have a pluck,"



"Foreign nations shall invade England with snow on their helmets, and

shall bring plague, famine, and murder in the skirts of their

garments."



"The town of Nantwich shall be swept away by a flood"



    Of the two first of these no explanation has yet been attempted;

but some event or other will doubtless be twisted into such a shape as

will fit them. The third, relative to the invasion of England by a

nation with snow on their helmets, is supposed by the old women to

foretell most clearly the coming war with Russia. As to the last,

there are not a few in the town mentioned who devoutly believe that

such will be its fate. Happily for their peace of mind, the prophet

said nothing of the year that was to witness the awful calamity; so

that they think it as likely to be two centuries hence as now.



    The popular biographers of Nixon conclude their account of him by

saying, that "his prophecies are by some persons thought fables; yet

by what has come to pass, it is now thought, and very plainly appears,

that most of them have proved, or will prove, true; for which we, on

all occasions, ought not only to exert our utmost might to repel by

force our enemies, but to refrain from our abandoned and wicked course

of life, and to make our continual prayer to God for protection and

safety." To this, though a non sequitur, every one will cry Amen!



    Besides the prophets, there have been the almanack makers, Lilly,

Poor Robin, Partridge, and Francis Moore, physician, in England, and

Matthew Laensbergh, in France and Belgium. But great as were their

pretensions, they were modesty itself in comparison with Merlin,

Shipton, and Nixon, who fixed their minds upon higher things than the

weather, and who were not so restrained in their flights of fancy as

to prophesy for only one year at a time. After such prophets as they,

the almanack makers hardly deserve to be mentioned; no, not even the

renowned Partridge, whose wonderful prognostications set all England

agog in 1708, and whose death, at a time when he was still alive and

kicking, was so pleasantly and satisfactorily proved by Isaac

Bickerstaff. The anti-climax would be too palpable, and they and their

doings must be left uncommemorated.





POPULAR ADMIRATION FOR GREAT THIEVES.



Jack. Where shall we find such another set of practical philosophers

who, to a man, are above the fear of death?



Wat. Sound men and true!



Robin. Of tried courage and indefatigable industry!



Ned. Who is there here that would not die for his friend?



Harry. Who is there here that would betray him for his interest?



Mat. Show me a gang of courtiers that could say as much!



Dialogue of thieves in the Beggars' Opera.



    Whether it be that the multitude, feeling the pangs of poverty,

sympathise with the daring and ingenious depredators who take away the

rich man's superfluity, or whether it be the interest that mankind in

general feel for the records of perilous adventures, it is certain

that the populace of all countries look with admiration upon great and

successful thieves. Perhaps both these causes combine to invest their

career with charms in the popular eye. Almost every country in Europe

has its traditional thief, whose exploits are recorded with all the

graces of poetry, and whose trespasses --



"-- are cited up in rhymes,

And sung by children in succeeding times."

[Shakspeare's Rape of Lucretia.]



    Those travellers who have made national manners and

characteristics their peculiar study, have often observed and remarked

upon this feeling. The learned Abbe le Blanc, who resided for some

time in England at the commencement of the eighteenth century, says,

in his amusing letters on the English and French nations, that he

continually met with Englishmen who were not less vain in boasting of

the success of their highwaymen than of the bravery of their troops.

Tales of their address, their cunning, or their generosity, were in

the mouths of everybody, and a noted thief was a kind of hero in high

repute. He adds that the mob, in all countries, being easily moved,

look in general with concern upon criminals going to the gallows; but

an English mob looked upon such scenes with 'extraordinary interest:

they delighted to see them go through their last trials with

resolution, and applauded those who were insensible enough to die as

they had lived, braving the justice both of God and men: such, he

might have added, as the noted robber Macpherson, of whom the old

ballad says--



"Sae rantingly, sae wantonly,

Sae dauntingly gaed he:

He played a spring, and danced it round

Beneath the gallows tree."



    Among these traditional thieves the most noted in England, or

perhaps in any country, is Robin Hood, a name which popular affection

has encircled with a peculiar halo. "He robbed the rich to give to the

poor;" and his reward has been an immortality of fame, a tithe of

which would be thought more than sufficient to recompense a benefactor

of his species. Romance and poetry have been emulous to make him all

their own; and the forest of Sherwood, in which he roamed with his

merry men, armed with their long bows, and clad in Lincoln green, has

become the resort of pilgrims, and a classic spot sacred to his

memory. The few virtues he had, which would have ensured him no praise

if he had been an honest man, have been blazoned forth by popular

renown during seven successive centuries, and will never be forgotten

while the English tongue endures. His charity to the poor, and his

gallantry and respect for women, have made him the pre-eminent thief

of all the world.



    Among English thieves of a later date, who has not heard of Claude

Duval, Dick Turpin, Jonathan Wild, and Jack Sheppard, those knights of

the road and of the town, whose peculiar chivalry formed at once the

dread and the delight of England during the eighteenth century ?

Turpin's fame is unknown to no portion of the male population of

England after they have attained the age of ten. His wondrous ride

from London to York has endeared him to the imagination of millions;

his cruelty in placing an old woman upon a fire, to force her to tell

him where she had hidden her money, is regarded as a good joke; and

his proud bearing upon the scaffold is looked upon as a virtuous

action. The Abbe le Blanc, writing in 1737, says he was continually

entertained with stories of Turpin -- how, when he robbed gentlemen,

he would generously leave them enough to continue their journey, and

exact a pledge from them never to inform against him, and how

scrupulous such gentlemen were in keeping their word. He was one day

told a story with which the relator was he the highest degree

delighted. Turpin, or some other noted robber, stopped a man whom he

knew to be very rich, with the usual salutation --" Your money or your

life!" but not finding more than five or six guineas about him, he

took the liberty of entreating him, in the most affable manner, never

to come out so ill provided; adding that, if he fell in with him, and

he had no more than such a paltry sum, he would give him a good

licking. Another story, told by one of Turpin's admirers, was of a

robbery he had committed upon a Mr. C. near Cambridge. He took from

this gentleman his watch, his snuff-box, and all his money but two

shillings, and, before he left him, required his word of honour that

he would not cause him to be pursued or brought before a justice. The

promise being given, they both parted very courteously. They

afterwards met at Newmarket, and renewed their acquaintance. Mr. C.

kept his word religiously; he not only refrained from giving Turpin

into custody, but made a boast that he had fairly won some of his

money back again in an honest way. Turpin offered to bet with him on

some favourite horse, and Mr. C. accepted the wager with as good a

grace as he could have done from the best gentleman in England. Turpin

lost his bet and paid it immediately, and was so smitten with the

generous behaviour of Mr. C. that he told him how deeply he regretted

that the trifling affair which had happened between them did not

permit them to drink together. The narrator of this anecdote was quite

proud that England was the birthplace of such a highwayman.



[The Abbe, in the second volume, in the letter No. 79, dressed to

Monsieur de Buffon, gives the following curious particulars of the

robbers of 1757, which are not without interest at this day, if it

were only to show the vast improvement which has taken place since

that period :-- "It is usual, in travelling, to put ten or a dozen

guineas in a separate pocket, as a tribute to the first that comes to

demand them: the right of passport, which custom has established here

in favour of the robbers, who are almost the only highway surveyors in

England, has made this necessary; and accordingly the English call

these fellows the 'Gentlemen of the Road,' the government letting them

exercise their jurisdiction upon travellers without giving them any

great molestation. To say the truth, they content themselves with only

taking the money of those who obey without disputing; but

notwithstanding their boasted humanity, the lives of those who

endeavour to get away are not always safe. They are very strict and

severe in levying their impost; and if a man has not wherewithal to

pay them, he may run the chance of getting himself knocked on the head

for his poverty.



"About fifteen years ago, these robbers, with the view of maintaining

their rights, fixed up papers at the doors of rich people about

London, expressly forbidding all persons, of whatsoever quality or

condition, from going out of town without ten guineas and a watch

about them, on pain of death. In bad times, when there is little or

nothing to be got on the roads, these fellows assemble in gangs, to

raise contributions even in London itself; and the watchmen seldom

trouble themselves to interfere with them in their vocation."]



    Not less familiar to the people of England is the career of Jack

Sheppard, as brutal a ruffian as ever disgraced his country, but who

has claims upon the popular admiration which are very generally

acknowledged. He did not, like Robin Hood, plunder the rich to relieve

the poor, nor rob with an uncouth sort of courtesy, like Turpin; but

he escaped from Newgate with the fetters on his limbs. This

achievement, more than once repeated, has encircled his felon brow

with the wreath of immortality, and made him quite a pattern thief

among the populace. He was no more than twenty-three years of age at

the time of his execution, and he died much pitied by the crowd. His

adventures were the sole topics of conversation for months; the

print-shops were filled with his effigies, and a fine painting of him

was made by Sir Richard Thornhill. The following complimentary verses

to the artist appeared in the "British Journal" of November 28th,

1724.



"Thornhill! 'tis thine to gild with fame

Th' obscure, and raise the humble name;

To make the form elude the grave,

And Sheppard from oblivion save!



Apelles Alexander drew--

Cesar is to Aurelius due;

Cromwell in Lilly's works doth shine,

And Sheppard, Thornhill, lives in thine!"



    So high was Jack's fame that a pantomime entertainment, called

"Harlequin Jack Sheppard," was devised by one Thurmond, and brought

out with great success at Drury Lane Theatre. All the scenes were

painted from nature, including the public-house that the robber

frequented in Claremarket, and the condemned cell from which he had

made his escape in Newgate.



    The Rev. Mr. Villette, the editor of the "Annals of Newgate,"

published in 1754, relates a curious sermon which, he says, a friend

of his heard delivered by a street-preacher about the time of Jack's

execution. The orator, after animadverting on the great care men took

of their bodies, and the little care they bestowed upon their souls,

continued as follows, by way of exemplifying the position:-- "We have

a remarkable instance of this in a notorious malefactor, well known by

the name of Jack Sheppard. What amazing difficulties has he overcome!

what astonishing things has he performed! and all for the sake of a

stinking, miserable carcass; hardly worth the hanging! How dexterously

did he pick the chain of his padlock with a crooked nail! how manfully

he burst his fetters asunder! -- climb up the chimney! -- wrench out

an iron bar! -- break his way through a stone wall! -- make the strong

door of a dark entry fly before him, till he got upon the leads of the

prison! then, fixing a blanket to the wall with a spike, he stole out

of the chapel. How intrepidly did he descend to the top of the

turner's house!  --  how cautiously pass down the stair, and make his

escape to the street door!



    "Oh! that ye were all like Jack Sheppard! Mistake me not, my

brethren; I don't mean in a carnal, but in a spiritual sense, for I

propose to spiritualise these things. What a shame it would be if we

should not think it worth our while to take as much pains, and employ

as many deep thoughts, to save our souls as he has done to preserve

his body!



    "Let me exhort ye, then, to open the locks of your hearts with the

nail of repentance! Burst asunder the fetters of your beloved lusts!

-- mount the chimney of hope! -- take from thence the bar of good

resolution! -- break through the stone wall of despair, and all the

strongholds in the dark entry of the valley of the shadow of death!

Raise yourselves to the leads of divine meditation! -- fix the

blanket of faith with the spike of the church! let yourselves down to

the turner's house of re signation, and descend the stairs of

humility! So shall you come to the door of deliverance from the prison

of iniquity, and escape the clutches of that old executioner the

Devil!"



    But popular as the name of Jack Sheppard was immediately after he

had suffered the last penalty of his crimes, it was as nothing

compared to the vast renown which he has acquired in these latter

days, after the lapse of a century and a quarter. Poets too often, are

not fully appreciated till they have been dead a hundred years, and

thieves, it would appear, share the disadvantage. But posterity is

grateful if our contemporaries are not; and Jack Sheppard, faintly

praised in his own day, shines out in ours the hero of heroes,

preeminent above all his fellows. Thornhill made but one picture of

the illustrious robber, but Cruikshank has made dozens, and the art of

the engraver has multiplied them into thousands and tens of thousands,

until the populace of England have become as familiar with Jack's

features as they are with their own. Jack, the romantic, is the hero

of three goodly volumes, and the delight of the circulating libraries;

and the theatres have been smitten with the universal enthusiasm.

Managers have set their playmongers at work, and Jack's story has been

reproduced in the shape of drama, melodrama, and farce, at half a

dozen places of entertainment at once. Never was such a display of

popular regard for a hero as was exhibited in London in 1840 for the

renowned Jack Sheppard: robbery acquired additional lustre in the

popular eye, and not only Englishmen, but foreigners, caught the

contagion; and one of the latter, fired by the example, robbed and

murdered a venerable, unoffending, and too confiding nobleman, whom it

was his especial duty to have obeyed and protected. But he was a

coward and a wretch; -- it was a solitary crime -- he had not made a

daring escape from dungeon walls, or ridden from London to York, and

he died amid the execrations of the people, affording a melancholy

exemplification of the trite remark, that every man is not great who

is desirous of being so.



    Jonathan Wild, whose name has been immortalised by Fielding, was

no favourite with the people. He had none of the virtues which,

combined with crimes, make up the character of the great thief. He was

a pitiful fellow, who informed against his comrades, and was afraid of

death. This meanness was not to be forgiven by the crowd, and they

pelted him with dirt and stones on his way to Tyburn, and expressed

their contempt by every possible means. How different was their

conduct to Turpin and Jack Sheppard, who died in their neatest attire,

with nosegays in their button-holes, and with the courage that a crowd

expects! It was anticipated that the body of Turpin would have been

delivered up to the surgeons for dissection, and the people seeing

some men very busily employed in removing it, suddenly set upon them,

rescued the body, bore it about the town in triumph, and then buried

it in a very deep grave, filled with quick-lime, to hasten the

progress of decomposition. They would not suffer the corpse of their

hero, of the man who had ridden from London to York in four-and-twenty

hours to be mangled by the rude hands of unmannerly surgeons.



    The death of Claude Duval would appear to have been no less

triumphant. Claude was a gentlemanly thief. According to Butler, in

the famous ode to his memory, he



"Taught the wild Arabs of the road

To rob in a more gentle mode;

Take prizes more obligingly than those

Who never had breen bred filous;

And how to hang in a more graceful fashion

Than e'er was known before to the dull English nation."



In fact, he was the pink of politeness, and his gallantry to the fair

sex was proverbial. When he was caught at last, pent in "stone walls

and chains and iron grates," -- their grief was in proportion to his

rare merits and his great fame. Butler says, that to his dungeon



"-- came ladies from all parts,

To offer up close prisoners their hearts,

Which he received as tribute due--

    *     *     *     *

Never did bold knight, to relieve

Distressed dames, such dreadful feats achieve,

As feeble damsels, for his sake,

Would have been proud to undertake,

And, bravely ambitious to redeem

The world's loss and their own,

Strove who should have the honour to lay down,

And change a life with him."



    Among the noted thieves of France, there is none to compare with

the famous Aimerigot Tetenoire, who flourished in the reign of Charles

VI. This fellow was at the head of four or five hundred men, and

possessed two very strong castles in Limousin and Auvergne. There was

a good deal of the feudal baron about him, although he possessed no

revenues but such as the road afforded him. At his death he left a

singular will. "I give and bequeath," said the robber, "one thousand

five hundred francs to St. George's Chapel, for such repairs as it may

need. To my sweet girl who so tenderly loved me, I give two thousand

five hundred; and the surplus I give to my companions. I hope they

will all live as brothers, and divide it amicably among them. If they

cannot agree, and the devil of contention gets among them, it is no

fault of mine; and I advise them to get a good strong, sharp axe, and

break open my strong box. Let them scramble for what it contains, and

the Devil seize the hindmost." The people of Auvergne still recount

with admiration the daring feats of this brigand.



    Of later years, the French thieves have been such unmitigated

scoundrels as to have left but little room for popular admiration. The

famous Cartouche, whose name has become synonymous with ruffian in

their language, had none of the generosity, courtesy, and devoted

bravery which are so requisite to make a robber-hero. He was born at

Paris, towards the end of the seventeenth century, and broken alive on

the wheel in November 1727. He was, however, sufficiently popular to

have been pitied at his death, and afterwards to have formed the

subject of a much admired drama, which bore his name, and was played

with great success in all the theatres of France during the years

1734, 5, and 6. In our own day the French have been more fortunate in

a robber; Vidocq bids fair to rival the fame of Turpin and Jack

Sheppard. Already he has become the hero of many an apocryphal tale --

already his compatriots boast of his manifold achievements, and

express their doubts whether any other country in Europe could produce

a thief so clever, so accomplished, so gentlemanly, as Vidocq.



    Germany has its Schinderhannes, Hungary its Schubry, and Italy and

Spain a whole host of brigands, whose names and exploits are familiar

as household words in the mouths of the children and populace of those

countries. The Italian banditti are renowned over the world; and many

of them are not only very religious (after a fashion), but very

charitable. Charity from such a source is so unexpected, that the

people dote upon them for it. One of them, when he fell into the hands

of the police, exclaimed, as they led him away, "Ho fatto pitt

carita!" -- " I have given away more in charity than any three

convents in these provinces." And the fellow spoke truth.



    In Lombardy, the people cherish the memory of two notorious

robbers, who flourished about two centuries ago under the Spanish

government. Their story, according to Macfarlane, is contained in a

little book well known to all the children of the province, and read

by them with much more gusto than their Bibles.



    Schinderhannes, the robber of the Rhine, is a great favourite on

the banks of the river which he so long kept in awe. Many amusing

stories are related by the peasantry of the scurvy tricks he played

off upon rich Jews, or too-presuming officers of justice -- of his

princely generosity, and undaunted courage. In short, they are proud

of him, and would no more consent to have the memory of his

achievements dissociated from their river than they would to have the

rock of Ehrenbreitstein blown to atoms by gunpowder.



    There is another robber-hero, of whose character and exploits the

people of Germany speak admiringly. Mausch Nadel was captain of a

considerable band that infested the Rhine, Switzerland, Alsatia, and

Lorraine during the years 1824, 5, and 6. Like Jack Sheppard, he

endeared himself to the populace by his most hazardous escape from

prison. Being confined, at Bremen, in a dungeon, on the third story of

the prison of that town, he contrived to let himself down without

exciting the vigilance of the sentinels, and to swim across the Weser,

though heavily laden with irons. When about half way over, he was

espied by a sentinel, who fired at him, and shot him in the calf of

the leg: but the undaunted robber struck out manfully, reached the

shore, and was out of sight before the officers of justice could get

ready their boats to follow him. He was captured again in 1826, tried

at Mayence, and sentenced to death. He was a tall, strong, handsome

man, and his fate, villain as he was, excited much sympathy all over

Germany. The ladies especially were loud in their regret that nothing

could be done to save a hero so good-looking, and of adventures so

romantic, from the knife of the headsman.



    Mr. Macfarlane, in speaking of Italian banditti, remarks, that the

abuses of the Catholic religion, with its confessions and absolutions,

have tended to promote crime of this description. But, he adds, more

truly, that priests and monks have not done half the mischief which

has been perpetrated by ballad-mongers and story-tellers. If he had

said play-wrights also, the list would have been complete. In fact,

the theatre, which can only expect to prosper, in a pecuniary sense,

by pandering to the tastes of the people, continually recurs to the

annals of thieves and banditti for its most favourite heroes. These

theatrical robbers; with their picturesque attire, wild haunts, jolly,

reckless, devil-may-care manners, take a wonderful hold upon the

imagination, and, whatever their advocates may say to the contrary,

exercise a very pernicious influence upon public morals. In the

Memoirs of the Duke of Guise upon the Revolution of Naples in 1647 and

1648, it is stated, that the manners, dress, and mode of life of the

Neapolitan banditti were rendered so captivating upon the stage, that

the authorities found it absolutely necessary to forbid the

representation of dramas in which they figured, and even to prohibit

their costume at the masquerades. So numerous were the banditti at

this time, that the Duke found no difficulty in raising an army of.

them, to aid him in his endeavours to seize on the throne of Naples.

He thus describes them; [See also "Foreign Quarterly Review," vol. iv.

p. 398.]



    "They were three thousand five hundred men, of whom the oldest

came short of five and forty years, and the youngest was above twenty.

They were all tall and well made, with long black hair, for the most

part curled, coats of black Spanish leather, with sleeves of velvet,

or cloth of gold, cloth breeches with gold lace, most of them scarlet;

girdles of velvet, laced with gold, with two pistols on each side; a

cutlass hanging at a belt, suitably trimmed, three fingers broad and

two feet long; a hawking-bag at their girdle, and a powder-flask hung

about their neck with a great silk riband. Some of them carried

firelocks, and others blunder-busses; they had all good shoes, with

silk stockings, and every one a cap of cloth of gold, or cloth of

silver, of different colours, on his head, which was very delightful

to the eye."



    "The Beggars' Opera," in our own country, is another instance of

the admiration that thieves excite upon the stage. Of the

extraordinary success of this piece, when first produced, the

following account is given in the notes to "The Dunciad," and quoted

by Johnson in his "Lives of the Poets." "This piece was received with

greater applause than was ever known. Besides being acted in London

sixty-three days without interruption, and renewed the next season

with equal applause, it spread into all the great towns of England;

was played in many places to the thirtieth and fortieth time; at Bath

and Bristol, &c. fifty. It made its progress into Wales, Scotland, and

Ireland, where it was performed twenty-four days successively. The

ladies carried about with them the favourite songs of it in fans, and

houses were furnished with it in screens. The fame of it was not

confined to the author only. The person who acted Polly, till then

obscure, became all at once the favourite of the town; [Lavinia

Fenton, afterwards Duchess of Bolton.] her pictures were engraved and

sold in great numbers; her life written, books of letters and verses

to her published, and pamphlets made even of her sayings and jests.

Furthermore, it drove out of England, for that season, the Italian

Opera, which had carried all before it for ten years." Dr. Johnson, in

his Life of the Author, says, that Herring, afterwards Archbishop of

Canterbury, censured the opera, as giving encouragement, not only to

vice, but to crimes, by making the highwayman the hero, and dismissing

him at last unpunished; and adds, that it was even said, that after

the exhibition the gangs of robbers were evidently multiplied. The

Doctor doubts the assertion, giving as his reason that highwaymen and

housebreakers seldom frequent the playhouse, and that it was not

possible for any one to imagine that he might rob with safety, because

he saw Macheath reprieved upon the stage. But if Johnson had wished to

be convinced, he might very easily have discovered that highwaymen and

housebreakers did frequent the theatre, and that nothing was more

probable than that a laughable representation of successful villany

should induce the young and the already vicious to imitate it.

Besides, there is the weighty authority of Sir John Fielding, the

chief magistrate of Bow Street, who asserted positively, and proved

his assertion by the records of his office, that the number of thieves

was greatly increased at the time when that opera was so popular.



    We have another instance of the same result much nearer our own

times. Schiller's "Rauber," that wonderful play, written by a green

youth, perverted the taste and imagination of all the young men in

Germany. An accomplished critic of our own country (Hazlitt), speaking

of this play, says it was the first he ever read, and such was the

effect it produced on him, that "it stunned him, like a blow." After

the lapse of five-and-twenty years he could not forget it; it was

still, to use his own words, "an old dweller in the chambers of his

brain," and he had not even then recovered enough from it, to describe

how it was. The high-minded, metaphysical thief, its hero, was so

warmly admired, that several raw students, longing to imitate a

character they thought so noble, actually abandoned their homes and

their colleges, and betook themselves to the forests and wilds to levy

contributions upon travellers. They thought they would, like Moor,

plunder the rich, and deliver eloquent soliloquies to the setting sun

or the rising moon; relieve the poor when they met them, and drink

flasks of Rhenish with their free companions in rugged mountain

passes, or in tents in the thicknesses of the forests. But a little

experience wonderfully cooled their courage; they found that real,

every-day robbers were very unlike the conventional banditti of the

stage, and that three months in prison, with bread and water for their

fare, and damp straw to lie upon, was very well to read about by their

own fire sides, but not very agreeable to undergo in their own proper

persons.



    Lord Byron, with his soliloquising, high-souled thieves, has, in a

slight degree, perverted the taste of the greenhorns and incipient

rhymesters of his country. As yet, however, they have shown more good

sense than their fellows of Germany, and have not taken to the woods

or the highways. Much as they admire Conrad the Corsair, they will not

go to sea, and hoist the black flag in emulation of him. By words

only, and not by deeds, they testify their admiration, and deluge the

periodicals and music shops of the hand with verses describing

pirates' and bandits' brides, and robber adventures of every kind.



    But it is the play-wright who does most harm; and Byron has fewer

sins of this nature to answer for than Gay or Schiller, and the modern

dramatizers of Jack Sheppard. With the aid of scenery, fine dresses,

and music, and the very false notions they convey, they vitiate the

public taste, not knowing,



"----------- vulgaires rimeurs

Quelle force ont les arts pour demolir les moeurs."



    In the penny theatres that abound in the poor and populous

districts of London, and which are chiefly frequented by striplings of

idle and dissolute habits, tales of thieves and murderers are more

admired, and draw more crowded audiences, than any other species of

representation. There the footpad, the burglar, and the highwayman are

portrayed in unnatural colours, and give pleasant lessons in crime to

their delighted listeners. There the deepest tragedy and the broadest

farce are represented in the career of the murderer and the thief, and

are applauded in proportion to their depth and their breadth. There,

whenever a crime of unusual atrocity is committed, it is brought out

afresh, with all its disgusting incidents copied from the life, for

the amusement of those who will one day become its imitators.



    With the mere reader the case is widely different; and most people

have a partiality for knowing the adventures of noted rogues. Even in

fiction they are delightful: witness the eventful story of Gil Blas de

Santillane, and of that great rascal Don Guzman d'Alfarache. Here

there is no fear of imitation. Poets, too, without doing mischief, may

sing of such heroes when they please, wakening our sympathies for the

sad fate of Gilderoy, or Macpherson the Dauntless; or celebrating in

undying verse the wrongs and the revenge of the great thief of

Scotland, Rob Roy. If, by the music of their sweet rhymes, they can

convince the world that such heroes are but mistaken philosophers,

born a few ages too late, and having both a theoretical and practical

love for



"The good old rule, the simple plan,

That they should take who have the power,

That they should keep who can,"



the world may, perhaps, become wiser, and consent to some better

distribution of its good things, by means of which thieves may become

reconciled to the age, and the age to them. The probability, however,

seems to be, that the charmers will charm in vain, charm they ever so

wisely.





INFLUENCE OF POLITICS AND RELIGION ON THE HAIR AND BEARD.



Speak with respect and honour

Both of the beard and the beard's owner.

                HUDIBRAS,



    The famous declaration of St. Paul, "that long hair was a shame

unto a man" has been made the pretext for many singular enactments,

both of civil and ecclesiastical governments. The fashion of the hair

and the cut of the beard were state questions in France and England

from the establishment of Christianity until the fifteenth century.



    We find, too, that in much earlier times men were not permitted to

do as they liked with their own hair. Alexander the Great thought that

the beards of his soldiery afforded convenient handles for the enemy

to lay hold of, preparatory to cutting off their heads; and, with the

view of depriving them of this advantage, he ordered the whole of his

army to be closely shaven. His notions of courtesy towards an enemy

were quite different from those entertained by the North American

Indians, amongst whom it is held a point of honour to allow one

"chivalrous lock" to grow, that the foe, in taking the scalp, may have

something to catch hold of.



    At one time, long hair was the symbol of sovereignty in Europe. We

learn from Gregory of Tours that, among the successors of Clovis, it

was the exclusive privilege of the royal family to have their hair

long, and curled. The nobles, equal to kings in power, would not show

any inferiority in this respect, and wore not only their hair, but

their beards, of an enormous length. This fashion lasted, with but

slight changes, till the time of Louis the Debonnaire, but his

successors, up to Hugh Capet, wore their hair short, by way of

distinction. Even the serfs had set all regulation at defiance, and

allowed their locks and beards to grow.



    At the time of the invasion of England by William the Conqueror,

the Normans wore their hair very short. Harold, in his progress

towards Hastings, sent forward spies to view the strength and number

of the enemy. They reported, amongst other things, on their return,

that "the host did almost seem to be priests, because they had all

their face and both their lips shaven." The fashion among the English

at the time was to wear the hair long upon the head and the upper lip,

but to shave the chin. When the haughty victors had divided the broad

lands of the Saxon thanes and franklins among them, when tyranny of

every kind was employed to make the English feel that they were indeed

a subdued and broken nation, the latter encouraged the growth of their

hair, that they might resemble as little as possible their cropped and

shaven masters.



    This fashion was exceedingly displeasing to the clergy, and

prevailed to a considerable extent in France and Germany. Towards the

end of the eleventh century, it was decreed by the Pope, and zealously

supported by the ecclesiastical authorities all over Europe, that such

persons as wore long hair should be excommunicated while living, and

not be prayed for when dead. William of Malmesbury relates, that the

famous St. Wulstan, Bishop of Worcester, was peculiarly indignant

whenever he saw a man with long hair. He declaimed against the

practice as one highly immoral, criminal, and beastly. He continually

carried a small knife in his pocket, and whenever anybody, offending

in this respect, knelt before him to receive his blessing, he would

whip it out slily, and cut off a handful, and then, throwing it in his

face, tell him to cut off all the rest, or he would go to hell.



    But fashion, which at times it is possible to move with a wisp,

stands firm against a lever; and men preferred to run the risk of

damnation to parting with the superfluity of their hair. In the time

of Henry I, Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, found it necessary to

republish the famous decree of excommunication and outlawry against

the offenders; but, as the court itself had begun to patronize curls,

the fulminations of the church were unavailing. Henry I and his nobles

wore their hair in long ringlets down their backs and shoulders, and

became a scandalum magnatum in the eyes of the godly. One Serlo, the

King's chaplain, was so grieved in spirit at the impiety of his

master, that he preached a sermon from the well-known text of St.

Paul, before the assembled court, in which he drew so dreadful a

picture of the torments that awaited them in the other world, that

several of them burst into tears, and wrung their hair, as if they

would have pulled it out by the roots. Henry himself was observed to

weep. The priest, seeing the impression he had made, determined to

strike while the iron was hot, and, pulling a pair of scissors from

his pocket, cut the king's hair in presence of them all. Several of

the principal courtiers consented to do the like, and, for a short

time, long hair appeared to be going out of fashion. But the courtiers

thought, after the first glow of their penitence had been cooled by

reflection, that the clerical Dalilah had shorn them of their

strength, and, in less than six months, they were as great sinners as

ever.



    Anselm, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had been a monk of Bec,

in Normandy, and who had signalized himself at Rouen by his fierce

opposition to long hair, was still anxious to work a reformation in

this matter. But his pertinacity was far from pleasing to the King,

who had finally made up his mind to wear ringlets. There were other

disputes, of a more serious nature, between them; so that when the

Archbishop died, the King was so glad to be rid of him, that he

allowed the see to remain vacant for five years. Still the cause had

other advocates, and every pulpit in the land resounded with anathemas

against that disobedient and long-haired generation. But all was of no

avail. Stowe, in writing of this period, asserts, on the authority of

some more ancient chronicler, "that men, forgetting their birth,

transformed themselves, by the length of their haires, into the

semblance of woman kind;" and that when their hair decayed from age,

or other causes, "they knit about their heads certain rolls and

braidings of false hair." At last accident turned the tide of fashion.

A knight of the court, who was exceedingly proud of his beauteous

locks, dreamed one night that, as he lay in bed, the devil sprang upon

him, and endeavoured to choke him with his own hair. He started in

affright, and actually found that he had a great quantity of hair in

his mouth. Sorely stricken in conscience, and looking upon the dream

as a warning from Heaven, he set about the work of reformation, and

cut off his luxuriant tresses the same night. The story was soon

bruited abroad; of course it was made the most of by the clergy, and

the knight, being a man of influence and consideration, and the

acknowledged leader of the fashion, his example, aided by priestly

exhortations, was very generally imitated. Men appeared almost as

decent as St. Wulstan himself could have wished, the dream of a dandy

having proved more efficacious than the entreaties of a saint. But, as

Stowe informs us, "scarcely was one year past, when all that thought

themselves courtiers fell into the former vice, and contended with

women in their long haires." Henry, the King, appears to have been

quite uninfluenced by the dreams of others, for even his own would not

induce him a second time to undergo a cropping from priestly shears.

It is said, that he was much troubled at this time by disagreeable

visions. Having offended the church in this and other respects, he

could get no sound refreshing sleep, and used to imagine that he saw

all the bishops, abbots, and monks of every degree, standing around

his bed-side, and threatening to belabour him with their pastoral

staves; which sight, we are told, so frightened him, that he often

started naked out of his bed, and attacked the phantoms sword in hand.

Grimbalde, his physician, who, like most of his fraternity at that

day, was an ecclesiastic, never hinted that his dreams were the result

of a bad digestion, but told him to shave his head, be reconciled to

the Church, and reform himself with alms and prayer. But he would not

take this good advice, and it was not until he had been nearly drowned

a year afterwards, in a violent storm at sea, that he repented of his

evil ways, cut his hair short, and paid proper deference to the wishes

of the clergy.



    In France, the thunders of the Vatican with regard to long curly

hair were hardly more respected than in England. Louis VII. however,

was more obedient than his brother-king, and cropped himself as

closely as a monk, to the great sorrow of all the gallants of his

court. His Queen, the gay, haughty, and pleasure-seeking Eleanor of

Guienne, never admired him in this trim, and continually reproached

him with imitating, not only the headdress, but the asceticism of the

monks. From this cause, a coldness arose between them. The lady

proving at last unfaithful to her shaven and indifferent lord, they

were divorced, and the Kings of France lost the rich provinces of

Guienne and Poitou, which were her dowry. She soon after bestowed her

hand and her possessions upon Henry Duke of Normandy, afterwards Henry

II of England, and thus gave the English sovereigns that strong

footing in France which was for so many centuries the cause of such

long and bloody wars between the nations.



    When the Crusades had drawn all the smart young fellows into

Palestine, the clergy did not find it so difficult to convince the

staid burghers who remained in Europe, of the enormity of long hair.

During the absence of Richard Coeur de Lion, his English subjects not

only cut their hair close, but shaved their faces. William Fitzosbert,

or Long-beard, the great demagogue of that day, reintroduced among the

people who claimed to be of Saxon origin the fashion of long hair. He

did this with the view of making them as unlike as possible to the

citizens and the Normans. He wore his own beard hanging down to his

waist, from whence the name by which he is best known to posterity.



    The Church never showed itself so great an enemy to the beard as

to long hair on the head. It generally allowed fashion to take its own

course, both with regard to the chin and the upper lip. This fashion

varied continually; for we find that, in little more than a century

after the time of Richard I, when beards were short, that they had

again become so long as to be mentioned in the famous epigram made by

the Scots who visited London in 1327, when David, son of Robert Bruce,

was married to Joan, the sister of King Edward. This epigram, which

was stuck on the church-door of St. Peter Stangate, ran as follows--



"Long beards heartlesse,

Painted hoods witlesse,

Gray coats gracelesse,

Make England thriftlesse."



    When the Emperor Charles V. ascended the throne of Spain, he had

no beard. It was not to be expected that the obsequious parasites who

always surround a monarch, could presume to look more virile than

their master. Immediately all the courtiers appeared beardless, with

the exception of such few grave old men as had outgrown the influence

of fashion, and who had determined to die bearded as they had lived.

Sober people in general saw this revolution with sorrow and alarm, and

thought that every manly virtue would be banished with the beard. It

became at the time a common saying,--



"Desde que no hay barba, no hay mas alma."

We have no longer souls since we have lost our beards.



    In France, also, the beard fell into disrepute after the death of

Henry IV, from the mere reason that his successor was too young to

have one. Some of the more immediate friends of the great Bearnais,

and his minister Sully among the rest, refused to part with their

beards, notwithstanding the jeers of the new generation.



    Who does not remember the division of England into the two great

parties of Roundheads and Cavaliers? In those days, every species of

vice and iniquity was thought by the Puritans to lurk in the long

curly tresses of the Monarchists, while the latter imagined that their

opponents were as destitute of wit, of wisdom, and of virtue, as they

were of hair. A man's locks were the symbol of his creed, both in

politics and religion. The more abundant the hair, the more scant the

faith; and the balder the head, the more sincere the piety.



    But among all the instances of the interference of governments

with men's hair, the most extraordinary, not only for its daring, but

for its success is that of Peter the Great, in 1705. By this time,

fashion had condemned the beard in every other country in Europe, and

with a voice more potent than Popes or Emperors, had banished it from

civilized society. But this only made the Russians cling more fondly

to their ancient ornament, as a mark to distinguish them from

foreigners, whom they hated. Peter, however resolved that they should

be shaven. If he had been a man deeply read in history, he might have

hesitated before he attempted so despotic an attack upon the

time-hallowed customs and prejudices of his countrymen; but he was

not. He did not know or consider the danger of the innovation; he only

listened to the promptings of his own indomitable will, and his fiat

went forth, that not only the army, but all ranks of citizens, from

the nobles to the serfs, should shave their beards. A certain time was

given, that people might get over the first throes of their

repugnance, after which every man who chose to retain his beard was to

pay a tax of one hundred roubles. The priests and the serfs were put

on a lower footing, and allowed to retain theirs upon payment of a

copeck every time they passed the gate of a city. Great discontent

existed in consequence, but the dreadful fate of the Strelitzes was

too recent to be forgotten, and thousands who had the will had not the

courage to revolt. As is well remarked by a writer in the

"Encyclopedia Britannica," they thought it wiser to cut off their

beards than to run the risk of incensing a man who would make no

scruple in cutting off their heads. Wiser, too, than the popes and

bishops of a former age, he did not threaten them with eternal

damnation, but made them pay in hard cash the penalty of their

disobedience. For many years, a very considerable revenue was

collected from this source. The collectors gave in receipt for its

payment a small copper coin, struck expressly for the purpose, and

called the "borodovaia," or "the bearded." On one side it bore the

figure of a nose, mouth, and moustachios, with a long bushy beard,

surmounted by the words," Deuyee Vyeatee," "money received;" the whole

encircled by a wreath, and stamped with the black eagle of Russia. On

the reverse, it bore the date of the year. Every man who chose to wear

a beard was obliged to produce this receipt on his entry into a town.

Those who were refractory, and refused to pay the tax, were thrown

into prison.



    Since that day, the rulers of modern Europe have endeavoured to

persuade, rather than to force, in all matters pertaining to fashion.

The Vatican troubles itself no more about beards or ringlets, and men

may become hairy as bears, if such is their fancy, without fear of

excommunication or deprivation of their political rights. Folly has

taken a new start, and cultivates the moustachio.



    Even upon this point governments will not let men alone. Religion

as yet has not meddled with it; but perhaps it will; and politics

already influence it considerably. Before the revolution of 1830,

neither the French nor Belgian citizens were remarkable for their

moustachios; but, after that event, there was hardly a shopkeeper

either in Paris or Brussels whose upper lip did not suddenly become

hairy with real or mock moustachios. During a temporary triumph gained

by the Dutch soldiers over the citizens of Louvain, in October 1830,

it became a standing joke against the patriots, that they shaved their

faces clean immediately; and the wits of the Dutch army asserted, that

they had gathered moustachios enough from the denuded lips of the

Belgians to stuff mattresses for all the sick and wounded in their

hospital.



    The last folly of this kind is still more recent. In the German

newspapers, of August 1838, appeared an ordonnance, signed by the King

of Bavaria, forbidding civilians, on any pretence whatever, to wear

moustachios, and commanding the police and other authorities to

arrest, and cause to be shaved, the offending parties. "Strange to

say," adds "Le Droit," the journal from which this account is taken,

"moustachios disappeared immediately, like leaves from the trees in

autumn; everybody made haste to obey the royal order, and not one

person was arrested.



    The King of Bavaria, a rhymester of some celebrity, has taken a

good many poetical licences in his time. His licence in this matter

appears neither poetical nor reasonable. It is to be hoped that he

will not take it into his royal head to make his subjects shave

theirs; nothing but that is wanting to complete their degradation.





DUELS AND ORDEALS



There was an ancient sage philosopher,

Who swore the world, as he could prove,

Was mad of fighting.    *    *    *



                        Hudibras,



    Most writers, in accounting for the origin of duelling, derive it

from the warlike habits of those barbarous nations who overran Europe

in the early centuries of the Christian era, and who knew no mode so

effectual for settling their differences as the point of the sword. In

fact, duelling, taken in its primitive and broadest sense, means

nothing more than combatting, and is the universal resort of all wild

animals, including man, to gain or defend their possessions, or avenge

their insults. Two dogs who tear each other for a bone, or two bantams

fighting on a dunghill for the love of some beautiful hen, or two

fools on Wimbledon Common, shooting at each other to satisfy the laws

of offended honour, stand on the same footing in this respect, and

are, each and all, mere duellists. As civilization advanced, the best

informed men naturally grew ashamed of such a mode of adjusting

disputes, and the promulgation of some sort of laws for obtaining

redress for injuries was the consequence. Still there were many cases

in which the allegations of an accuser could not be rebutted by any

positive proof on the part of the accused; and in all these, which

must have been exceedingly numerous in the early stages of European

society, the combat was resorted to. From its decision there was no

appeal. God was supposed to nerve the arm of the combatant whose cause

was just, and to grant him the victory over his opponent. As

Montesquieu well remarks, ["Esprit des Loix," liv. xxviii. chap.

xvii.] this belief was not unnatural among a people just emerging from

barbarism. Their manners being wholly warlike, the man deficient in

courage, the prime virtue of his fellows, was not unreasonably

suspected of other vices besides cowardice, which is generally found

to be co-existent with treachery. He, therefore, who showed himself

most valiant in the encounter, was absolved by public opinion from any

crime with which he might be charged. As a necessary consequence,

society would have been reduced to its original elements, if the men

of thought, as distinguished from the men of action, had not devised

some means for taming the unruly passions of their fellows. With this

view, governments commenced by restricting within the narrowest

possible limits the cases in which it was lawful to prove or deny

guilt by the single combat. By the law of Gondebaldus, King of the

Burgundians, passed in the year 501, the proof by combat was allowed

in all legal proceedings, in lieu of swearing. In the time of

Charlemagne, the Burgundian practice had spread over the empire of the

Francs, and not only the suitors for justice, but the witnesses, and

even the judges, were obliged to defend their cause, their evidence,

or their decision, at the point of the sword. Louis the Debonnaire,

his successor, endeavoured to remedy the growing evil, by permitting

the duel only in appeals of felony, in civil cases, or issue joined in

a writ of right, and in cases of the court of chivalry, or attacks

upon a man's knighthood. None were exempt from these trials, but

women, the sick and the maimed, and persons under fifteen or above

sixty years of age. Ecclesiastics were allowed to produce champions in

their stead. This practice, in the course of time, extended to all

trials of civil and criminal cases, which had to be decided by battle.



    The clergy, whose dominion was an intellectual one, never approved

of a system of jurisprudence which tended so much to bring all things

under the rule of the strongest arm. From the first they set their

faces against duelling, and endeavoured, as far as the prejudices of

their age would allow them, to curb the warlike spirit, so alien from

the principles of religion. In the Council of Valentia, and afterwards

in the Council of Trent, they excommunicated all persons engaged in

duelling, and not only them, but even the assistants and spectators,

declaring the custom to be hellish and detestable, and introduced by

the Devil for the destruction both of body and soul. They added, also,

that princes who connived at duels, should be deprived of all temporal

power, jurisdiction, and dominion over the places where they had

permitted them to be fought. It will be seen hereafter that this

clause only encouraged the practice which it was intended to prevent.



    But it was the blasphemous error of these early ages to expect

that the Almighty, whenever he was called upon, would work a miracle

in favour of a person unjustly accused. The priesthood, in condemning

the duel, did not condemn the principle on which it was founded. They

still encouraged the popular belief of Divine interference in all the

disputes or differences that might arise among nations or individuals.

It was the very same principle that regulated the ordeals, which, with

all their influence, they supported against the duel. By the former,

the power of deciding the guilt or innocence was vested wholly in

their hands, while, by the latter, they enjoyed no power or privilege

at all. It is not to be wondered at, that for this reason, if for no

other, they should have endeavoured to settle all differences by the

peaceful mode. While that prevailed, they were as they wished to be,

the first party in the state; but while the strong arm of individual

prowess was allowed to be the judge in all doubtful cases, their power

and influence became secondary to those of nobility.



    Thus, it was not the mere hatred of bloodshed which induced them

to launch the thunderbolts excommunication against the combatants; it

a desire to retain the power, which, to do them justice, they were, in

those times, the persons best qualified to wield. The germs of

knowledge and civilization lay within the bounds of their order; for

they were the representatives of the intellectual, as the nobility

were of the physical power of man. To centralize this power in the

Church, and make it the judge of the last resort in all appeals, both

in civil and criminal cases, they instituted five modes of trial, the

management of which lay wholly in their hands. These were the oath

upon the Evangelists; the ordeal of the cross, and the fire ordeal,

for persons in the higher ranks; the water ordeal, for the humbler

classes; and, lastly, the Corsned, or bread and cheese ordeal, for

members of their own body.



    The oath upon the Evangelists was taken in the following manner:

the accused who was received to this proof, says Paul Hay, Count du

Chastelet, in his Memoirs of Bertrand du Guesclin, swore upon a copy

of the New Testament, and on the relics of the holy martyrs, or on

their tombs, that he was innocent of the crime imputed to him. He was

also obliged to find twelve persons, of acknowledged probity, who

should take oath at the same time, that they believed him innocent.

This mode of trial led to very great abuses, especially in cases of

disputed inheritance, where the hardest swearer was certain of the

victory. This abuse was one of the principal causes which led to the

preference given to the trial by battle. It is not all surprising that

a feudal baron, or captain of the early ages, should have preferred

the chances of a fair fight with his opponent, to a mode by which firm

perjury would always be successful.



    The trial by, or judgment of, the cross, which Charlemagne begged

his sons to have recourse to, in case of disputes arising between

them, was performed thus:-- When a person accused of any crime had

declared his innocence upon oath, and appealed to the cross for its

judgment in his favour, he was brought into the church, before the

altar. The priests previously prepared two sticks exactly like one

another, upon one of which was carved a figure of the cross. They were

both wrapped up with great care and many ceremonies, in a quantity of

fine wool, and laid upon the altar, or on the relics of the saints. A

solemn prayer was then offered up to God, that he would be pleased to

discover, by the judgment of his holy cross, whether the accused

person were innocent or guilty. A priest then approached the altar,

and took up one of the sticks, and the assistants unswathed it

reverently. If it was marked with the cross, the accused person was

innocent; if unmarked, he was guilty. It would be unjust to assert,

that the judgments thus delivered were, in all cases, erroneous; and

it would be absurd to believe that they were left altogether to

chance. Many true judgments were doubtless given, and, in all

probability, most conscientiously; for we cannot but believe that the

priests endeavoured beforehand to convince themselves by secret

inquiry and a strict examination of the circumstances, whether the

appellant were innocent or guilty, and that they took up the crossed

or uncrossed stick accordingly. Although, to all other observers, the

sticks, as enfolded in the wool, might appear exactly similar, those

who enwrapped them could, without any difficulty, distinguish the one

from the other.



    By the fire-ordeal the power of deciding was just as unequivocally

left in their hands. It was generally believed that fire would not

burn the innocent, and the clergy, of course, took care that the

innocent, or such as it was their pleasure or interest to declare so,

should be so warned before undergoing the ordeal, as to preserve

themselves without any difficulty from the fire. One mode of ordeal

was to place red-hot ploughshares on the ground at certain distances,

and then, blindfolding the accused person, make him walk barefooted

over them. If he stepped regularly in the vacant spaces, avoiding the

fire, he was adjudged innocent; if he burned himself, he was declared

guilty. As none but the clergy interfered with the arrangement of the

ploughshares, they could always calculate beforehand the result of the

ordeal. To find a person guilty, they had only to place them at

irregular distances, and the accused was sure to tread upon one of

them. When Emma, the wife of King Ethelred, and mother of Edward the

Confessor, was accused of a guilty familiarity with Alwyn, Bishop of

Winchester, she cleared her character in this manner. The reputation,

not only of their order, but of a queen, being at stake, a verdict of

guilty was not to be apprehended from any ploughshares which priests

had the heating of. This ordeal was called the Judicium Dei, and

sometimes the Vulgaris Purgatio, and might also be tried by several

other methods. One was to hold in the hand, unhurt, a piece of red-hot

iron, of the weight of one, two, or three pounds. When we read not

only that men with hard hands, but women of softer and more delicate

skin, could do this with impunity, we must be convinced that the hands

were previously rubbed with some preservative, or that the apparently

hot iron was merely cold iron painted red. Another mode was to plunge

the naked arm into a caldron of boiling water. The priests then

enveloped it in several folds of linen and flannel, and kept the

patient confined within the church, and under their exclusive care,

for three days. If, at the end of that time, the arm appeared without

a scar, the innocence of the accused person was firmly established.

[Very similar to this is the fire-ordeal of the modern Hindoos,. which

is thus described in Forbes's "Oriental Memoirs," vol. i. c. xi.--"

When a man, accused of a capital crime, chooses to undergo the ordeal

trial, he is closely confined for several days; his right hand and arm

are covered with thick wax-cloth, tied up and sealed, in the presence

of proper officers, to prevent deceit. In the English districts the

covering was always sealed with the Company's arms, and the prisoner

placed under an European guard. At the time fixed for the ordeal, a

caldron of oil is placed over a fire; when it boils, a piece of money

is dropped into the vessel; the prisoner's arm is unsealed, and washed

in the presence of his judges and accusers. During this part of the

ceremony, the attendant Brahmins supplicate the Deity. On receiving

their benediction, the accused plunges his hand into the boiling

fluid, and takes out the coin. The arm is afterwards again Sealed up

until the time appointed for a re-examination. The seal is then

broken: if no blemish appears, the prisoner is declared innocent; if

the contrary, he suffers the punishment due to his crime."  * *  *  On

this trial the accused thus addresses the element before plunging his

hand into the boiling oil:-- "Thou, O fire! pervadest all things. O

cause of purity! who givest evidence of virtue and of sin, declare the

truth in this my hand!" If no juggling were practised, the decisions

by this ordeal would be all the same way; but, as some are by this

means declared guilty, and others innocent, it is clear that the

Brahmins, like the Christian priests of the middle ages, practise some

deception in saving those whom they wish to be thought guiltless.]



    As regards the water-ordeal, the same trouble was not taken. It

was a trial only for the poor and humble, and, whether they sank or

swam, was thought of very little consequence. Like the witches of more

modern times, the accused were thrown into a pond or river; if they

sank, and were drowned, their surviving friends had the consolation of

knowing that they were innocent; if they swam, they were guilty. In

either case society was rid of them.



    But of all the ordeals, that which the clergy reserved for

themselves was the one least likely to cause any member of their corps

to be declared guilty. The most culpable monster in existence came off

clear when tried by this method. It was called the Corsned, and was

thus performed. A piece of barley bread and a piece of cheese were

laid upon the altar, and the accused priest, in his full canonicals,

and surrounded by all the pompous adjuncts of Roman ceremony,

pronounced certain conjurations, and prayed with great fervency for

several minutes. The burden of his prayer was, that if he were guilty

of the crime laid to his charge, God would send his angel Gabriel to

stop his throat, that he might not be able to swallow the bread and

cheese. There is no instance upon record of a priest having been

choked in this manner. [An ordeal very like this is still practised in

India. Consecrated rice is the article chosen, instead of bread and

cheese. Instances are not rare in which, through the force of

imagination, guilty persons are not able to swallow a single grain.

Conscious of their crime, and fearful of the punishment of Heaven,

they feel a suffocating sensation in their throat when they attempt

it, and they fall on their knees, and confess all that is laid to

their charge. The same thing, no doubt, would have happened with the

bread and cheese of the Roman church, if it had been applied to any

others but ecclesiastics. The latter had too much wisdom to be caught

in a trap of their own setting.]



    When, under Pope Gregory VII, it was debated whether the Gregorian

chant should be introduced into Castile, instead of the Musarabic,

given by St. Isidore, of Seville, to the churches of that kingdom,

very much ill feeling was excited. The churches refused to receive the

novelty, and it was proposed that the affair should be decided by a

battle between two champions, one chosen from each side. The clergy

would not consent to a mode of settlement which they considered

impious, but had no objection to try the merits of each chant by the

fire ordeal. A great fire was accordingly made, and a book of the

Gregorian and one of the Musarabic chant were thrown into it, that the

flames might decide which was most agreeable to God by refusing to

burn it. Cardinal Baronius, who says he was an eye-witness of the

miracle, relates, that the book of the Gregorian chant was no sooner

laid upon the fire, than it leaped out uninjured, visibly, and with a

great noise. Every one present thought that the saints had decided in

favour of Pope Gregory. After a slight interval, the fire was

extinguished; but, wonderful to relate! the other book of St. Isidore

was found covered with ashes, but not injured in the slightest degree.

The flames had not even warmed it. Upon this it was resolved, that

both were alike agreeable to God, and that they should be used by

turns in all the churches of Seville? [Histoire de Messire Bertrand du

Guesclin, par Paul Hay du Chastelet. Livre i. chap. xix.]



    If the ordeals had been confined to questions like this, the laity

would have had little or no objection to them; but when they were

introduced as decisive in all the disputes that might arise between

man and man, the opposition of all those whose prime virtue was

personal bravery, was necessarily excited. In fact, the nobility, from

a very early period, began to look with jealous eyes upon them. They

were not slow to perceive their true purport, which was no other than

to make the Church the last court of appeal in all cases, both civil

and criminal: and not only did the nobility prefer the ancient mode of

single combat from this cause, in itself a sufficient one, but they

clung to it because an acquittal gained by those displays of courage

and address which the battle afforded, was more creditable in the eyes

of their compeers, than one which it required but little or none of

either to accomplish. To these causes may be added another, which was,

perhaps, more potent than either, in raising the credit of the

judicial combat at the expense of the ordeal. The noble institution of

chivalry was beginning to take root, and, notwithstanding the clamours

of the clergy, war was made the sole business of life, and the only

elegant pursuit of the aristocracy. The fine spirit of honour was

introduced, any attack upon which was only to be avenged in the lists,

within sight of applauding crowds, whose verdict of approbation was

far more gratifying than the cold and formal acquittal of the ordeal.

Lothaire, the son of Louis I, abolished that by fire and the trial of

the cross within his dominions; but in England they were allowed so

late as the time of Henry III, in the early part of whose reign they

were prohibited by an order of council. In the mean time, the Crusades

had brought the institution of chivalry to the full height of

perfection. The chivalric spirit soon achieved the downfall of the

ordeal system, and established the judicial combat on a basis too firm

to be shaken. It is true that with the fall of chivalry, as an

institution, fell the tournament, and the encounter in the lists; but

the duel, their offspring, has survived to this day, defying the

efforts of sages and philosophers to eradicate it. Among all the

errors bequeathed to us by a barbarous age, it has proved the most

pertinacious. It has put variance between men's reason and their

honour; put the man of sense on a level with the fool, and made

thousands who condemn it submit to it, or practise it. Those who are

curious to see the manner in which these combats were regulated, may

consult the learned Montesquieu, where they will find a copious

summary of the code of ancient duelling. ["Esprit des Loix," livre

xxviii. chap. xxv.] Truly does he remark, in speaking of the clearness

and excellence of the arrangements, that, as there were many wise

matters which were conducted in a very foolish manner, so there were

many foolish matters conducted very wisely. No greater exemplification

of it could be given, than the wise and religious rules of the absurd

and blasphemous trial by battle.



    In the ages that intervened between the Crusades and the new era

that was opened out by the invention of gunpowder and printing, a more

rational system of legislation took root. The inhabitants of cities,

engaged in the pursuits of trade and industry, were content to

acquiesce in the decisions of their judges and magistrates whenever

any differences arose among them. Unlike the class above them, their

habits and manners did not lead them to seek the battle-field on every

slight occasion. A dispute as to the price of a sack of corn, a bale

of broad-cloth, or a cow, could be more satisfactorily adjusted before

the mayor or bailiff of their district. Even the martial knights and

nobles, quarrelsome as they were, began to see that the trial by

battle would lose its dignity and splendour if too frequently resorted

to. Governments also shared this opinion, and on several occasions

restricted the cases in which it was legal to proceed to this

extremity. In France, before the time of Louis IX, duels were

permitted only in cases of Lese Majesty, Rape, Incendiarism,

Assassination, and Burglary. Louis IX, by taking off all restriction,

made them legal in civil eases. This was not found to work well, and,

in 1303, Philip the Fair judged it necessary to confine them, in

criminal matters, to state offences, rape, and incendiarism; and in

civil cases, to questions of disputed inheritance. Knighthood was

allowed to be the best judge of its own honour, and might defend or

avenge it as often as occasion arose.



    Among the earliest duels upon record, is a very singular one that

took place in the reign of Louis II (A.D. 878). Ingelgerius, Count of

Gastinois, was one morning discovered by his Countess dead in bed at

her side. Gontran, a relation of the Count, accused the Countess of

having murdered her husband, to whom, he asserted, she had long been

unfaithful, and challenged her to produce a champion to do battle in

her behalf, that he might establish her guilt by killing him.[Memoires

de Brantome touchant les Duels.] All the friends and relatives of the

Countess believed in her innocence; but Gontran was so stout and bold

and renowned a warrior, that no one dared to meet him, for which, as

Brantome quaintly says, "Mauvais et poltrons parens estaient." The

unhappy Countess began to despair, when a champion suddenly appeared

in the person of Ingelgerius, Count of Anjou, a boy of sixteen years

of age, who had been held by the Countess on the baptismal font, and

received her husband's name. He tenderly loved his godmother, and

offered to do battle in her cause against any and every opponent. The

King endeavoured to persuade the generous boy from his enterprise,

urging the great strength, tried skill, and invincible courage of the

challenger; but he persisted in his resolution, to the great sorrow of

all the court, who said it was a cruel thing to permit so brave and

beautiful a child to rush to such butchery and death.



    When the lists were prepared, the Countess duly acknowledged her

champion, and the combatants commenced the onset. Gontran rode so

fiercely at his antagonist, and hit him on the shield with such

impetuosity, that he lost his own balance and rolled to the ground.

The young Count, as Gontran fell, passed his lance through his body,

and then dismounting, cut off his head, which, Brantome says, "he

presented to the King, who received it most graciously, and was very

joyful, as much so as if any one had made him a present of a city."

The innocence of the Countess was then proclaimed with great

rejoicings; and she kissed her godson, and wept over his neck with

joy, in the presence of all the assembly.



    When the Earl of Essex was accused, by Robert de Montfort, before

King Henry II, in 1162, of having traitorously suffered the royal

standard of England to fall from his hands in a skirmish with the

Welsh, at Coleshill, five years previously, the latter offered to

prove the truth of the charge by single combat. The Earl of Essex

accepted the challenge, and the lists were prepared near Reading. An

immense concourse of persons assembled to witness the battle. Essex at

first fought stoutly, but, losing his temper and self-command, he gave

an advantage to his opponent, which soon decided the struggle. He was

unhorsed, and so severely wounded, that all present thought he was

dead. At the solicitation of his relatives, the monks of the Abbey of

Reading were allowed to remove the body for interment, and Montfort

was declared the victor. Essex, however, was not dead, but stunned

only, and, under the care of the monks, recovered in a few weeks from

his bodily injuries. The wounds of his mind were not so easily healed.

Though a loyal and brave subject, the whole realm believed him a

traitor and a coward because he had been vanquished. He could not

brook to return to the world deprived of the good opinion of his

fellows; he, therefore, made himself a monk, and passed the remainder

of his days within the walls of the Abbey.



    Du Chastelet relates a singular duel that was proposed in

Spain.[Histoire de Messire Bertrand du Guesclin, livre i. chap. xix.]

A Christian gentleman of Seville sent a challenge to a Moorish

cavalier, offering to prove against him, with whatever weapons he

might choose, that the religion of Jesus Christ was holy and divine,

and that of Mahomet impious and damnable. The Spanish prelates did not

choose that Christianity should be com promised within their

jurisdiction by the result of any such combat, and they commanded the

knight, under pain of excommunication, to withdraw the challenge.



    The same author relates, that under Otho I a question arose among

jurisconsults, viz. whether grandchildren, who had lost their father,

should share equally with their uncles in the property of their

grandfather, at the death of the latter. The difficulty of this

question was found so insurmountable, that none of the lawyers of that

day could resolve it. It was at last decreed, that it should be

decided by single combat. Two champions were accordingly chosen; one

for, and the other against, the claims of the little ones. After a

long struggle, the champion of the uncles was unhorsed and slain; and

it was, therefore, decided, that the right of the grandchildren was

established, and that they should enjoy the same portion of their

grandfather's possessions that their father would have done had he

been alive.



    Upon pretexts, just as frivolous as these, duels continued to be

fought in most of the countries of Europe during the whole of the

fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. A memorable instance of the

slightness of the pretext on which a man could be forced to fight a

duel to the death, occurs in the Memoirs of the brave Constable, Du

Guesclin. The advantage he had obtained, in a skirmish before Rennes,

against William Brembre, an English captain, so preyed on the spirits

of William Troussel, the chosen friend and companion of the latter,

that nothing would satisfy him but a mortal combat with the Constable.

The Duke of Lancaster, to whom Troussel applied for permission to

fight the great Frenchman, forbade the battle, as not warranted by the

circumstances. Troussel nevertheless burned with a fierce desire to

cross his weapon with Du Guesclin, and sought every occasion to pick a

quarrel with him. Having so good a will for it, of course he found a

way. A relative of his had been taken prisoner by the Constable, in

whose hands he remained till he was able to pay his ransom. Troussel

resolved to make a quarrel out of this, and despatched a messenger to

Du Guesclin, demanding the release of his prisoner, and offering a

bond, at a distant date, for the payment of the ransom. Du Guesclin,

who had received intimation of the hostile purposes of the Englishman,

sent back word, that he would not accept his bond, neither would he

release his prisoner, until the full amount of his ransom was paid. As

soon as this answer was received, Troussel sent a challenge to the

Constable, demanding reparation for the injury he had done his honour,

by refusing his bond, and offering a mortal combat, to be fought three

strokes with the lance, three with the sword, and three with the

dagger. Du Guesclin, although ill in bed with the ague, accepted the

challenge, and gave notice to the Marshal d'Andreghem, the King's

Lieutenant-General in Lower Normandy, that he might fix the day and

the place of combat. The Marshal made all necessary arrangements, upon

condition that he who was beaten should pay a hundred florins of gold

to feast the nobles and gentlemen who were witnesses of the encounter.



    The Duke of Lancaster was very angry with his captain, and told

him, that it would be a shame to his knighthood and his nation, if he

forced on a combat with the brave Du Guesclin, at a time when he was

enfeebled by disease and stretched on the couch of suffering. Upon

these representations, Troussel, ashamed of himself, sent notice to Du

Guesclin that he was willing to postpone the duel until such time as

he should be perfectly recovered. Du Guesclin replied, that he could

not think of postponing the combat, after all the nobility had

received notice of it; that he had sufficient strength left, not only

to meet, but to conquer such an opponent as he was; and that, if he

did not make his appearance in the lists at the time appointed, he

would publish him everywhere as a man unworthy to be called a knight,

or to wear an honourable sword by his side. Troussel carried this

haughty message to the Duke of Lancaster, who immediately gave

permission for the battle.



    On the day appointed, the two combatants appeared in the lists, in

the presence of several thousand spectators. Du Guesclin was attended

by the flower of the French nobility, including the Marshal de

Beaumanoir, Olivier de Mauny, Bertrand de Saint Pern, and the Viscount

de la Belliere, while the Englishman appeared with no more than the

customary retinue of two seconds, two squires, two coutilliers, or

daggermen, and two trumpeters. The first onset was unfavourable to the

Constable: he received so heavy a blow on his shield-arm, that he fell

forward to the left, upon his horse's neck, and, being weakened by his

fever, was nearly thrown to the ground. All his friends thought he

could never recover himself, and began to deplore his ill fortune; but

Du Guesclin collected his energies for a decisive effort, and, at the

second charge, aimed a blow at the shoulder of his enemy, which felled

him to the earth, mortally wounded. He then sprang from his horse,

sword in hand, with the intention of cutting off the head of his

fallen foe, when the Marshal D'Andreghem threw a golden wand into the

arena, as a signal that hostilities should cease. Du Guesclin was

proclaimed the victor, amid the joyous acclamations of the crowd, and

retiring, left the field to the meaner combatants, who were afterwards

to make sport for the people. Four English and as many French squires

fought for some time with pointless lances, when the French, gaining

the advantage, the sports were declared at an end.



    In the time of Charles VI, about the beginning of the fifteenth

century, a famous duel was ordered by the Parliament of Paris. The

Sieur de Carrouges being absent in the Holy Land, his lady was

violated by the Sieur Legris. Carrouges, on his return, challenged

Legris to mortal combat, for the twofold crime of violation and

slander, inasmuch as he had denied his guilt, by asserting that the

lady was a willing party. The lady's asseverations of innocence were

held to be no evidence by the Parliament, and the duel was commanded

with all the ceremonies. "On the day appointed," says Brantome,

[Memoires de Brantome touchant les Duels.] "the lady came to witness

the spectacle in her chariot; but the King made her descend, judging

her unworthy, because she was criminal in his eyes till her innocence

was proved, and caused her to stand upon a scaffold to await the mercy

of God and this judgment by the battle. After a short struggle, the

Sieur de Carrouges overthrew his enemy, and made him confess both the

rape and the slander. He was then taken to the gallows and hanged in

the presence of the multitude; while the innocence of the lady was

proclaimed by the heralds, and recognized by her husband, the King,

and all the spectators."



    Numerous battles, of a similar description, constantly took place,

until the unfortunate issue of one encounter of the kind led the

French King, Henry II, to declare solemnly, that he would never again

permit any such encounter, whether it related to a civil or criminal

case, or the honour of a gentleman.



    This memorable combat was fought in the year 1547. Francois de

Vivonne, Lord of La Chataigneraie, and Guy de Chabot, Lord of Jarnac,

had been friends from their early youth, and were noted at the court

of Francis I for the gallantry of their bearing and the magnificence

of their retinue. Chataigneraie, who knew that his friend's means were

not very ample, asked him one day, in confidence, how it was that he

contrived to be so well provided? Jarnac replied, that his father had

married a young and beautiful woman, who, loving the son far better

than the sire, supplied him with as much money as he desired. La

Chataigneraie betrayed the base secret to the Dauphin, the Dauphin to

the King, the King to his courtiers, and the courtiers to all their

acquaintance. In a short time it reached the ears of the old Lord de

Jarnac, who immediately sent for his son, and demanded to know in what

manner the report had originated, and whether he had been vile enough

not only to carry on such a connexion, but to boast of it? De Jarnac

indignantly denied that he had ever said so, or given reason to the

world to say so, and requested his father to accompany him to court,

and confront him with his accuser, that he might see the manner in

which he would confound him. They went accordingly, and the younger De

Jarnac, entering a room where the Dauphin, La Chataigneraie, and

several courtiers were present, exclaimed aloud, "That whoever had

asserted, that he maintained a criminal connexion with his

mother-in-law, was a liar and a coward!" Every eye was turned to the

Dauphin and La Chataigneraie, when the latter stood forward, and

asserted, that De Jarnac had himself avowed that such was the fact,

and he would extort from his lips another confession of it. A case

like this could not be met or rebutted by any legal proof, and the

royal council ordered that it should be decided by single combat. The

King, however, set his face against the duel [Although Francis showed

himself in this case an enemy to duelling, yet, in his own case, he

had not the same objection. Every reader of history must remember his

answer to the challenge of the Emperor Charles V. The Emperor wrote

that he had failed in his word, and that he would sustain their

quarrel single-handed against him. Francis replied, that he lied --

qu'il en avait menti par la gorge, and that he was ready to meet him

in single combat whenever and wherever he pleased.] and forbade them

both, under pain of his high displeasure, to proceed any further in

the matter. But Francis died in the following year, and the Dauphin,

now Henry II, who was himself compromised, resolved that the combat

should take place. The lists were prepared in the court-yard of the

chateau of St. Germain-en-Laye, and the 10th of July 1547 was

appointed for the encounter. The cartels of the combatants, which are

preserved in the "Memoires de Castelnau," were as follow:--



"Cartel of Francois de Vivonne, Lord of La Chataigneraie.



"Sire,



    "Having learned that Guy Chabot de Jarnac, being lately at

Compeigne, asserted, that whoever had said that he boasted of having

criminal intercourse with his mother-in-law, was wicked and a

wretch,-- I, Sire, with your good-will and pleasure, do answer, that

he has wickedly lied, and will lie as many times as he denies having

said that which I affirm he did say; for I repeat, that he told me

several times, and boasted of it, that he had slept with his

mother-in-law.



"Francois de Vivonne."



To this cartel De Jarnac replied :--



"Sire,



    "With your good will and permission, I say, that Francois de

Vivonne has lied in the imputation which he has cast upon me, and of

which I spoke to you at Compeigne. I, therefore, entreat you, Sire,

most humbly, that you be pleased to grant us a fair field, that we may

fight this battle to the death.



"Guy Chabot."



    The preparations were conducted on a scale of the greatest

magnificence, the King having intimated his intention of being

present. La Chataigneraie made sure of the victory, and invited the

King and a hundred and fifty of the principal personages of the court

to sup with him in the evening, after the battle, in a splendid tent,

which he had prepared at the extremity of the lists. De Jarnac was not

so confident, though perhaps more desperate. At noon, on the day

appointed, the combatants met, and each took the customary oath, that

he bore no charms or amulets about him, or made use of any magic, to

aid him against his antagonist. They then attacked each other, sword

in hand. La Chataigneraie was a strong, robust man, and over

confident; De Jarnac was nimble, supple, and prepared for the worst.

The combat lasted for some time doubtful, until De Jarnac, overpowered

by the heavy blows of his opponent, covered his head with his shield,

and, stooping down, endeavoured to make amends by his agility for his

deficiency of strength. In this crouching posture he aimed two blows

at the left thigh of La Chataigneraie, who had left it uncovered, that

the motion of his leg might not be impeded. Each blow was successful,

and, amid the astonishment of all the spectators, and to the great

regret of the King, La Chataigneraie rolled over upon the sand. He

seized his dagger, and made a last effort to strike De Jarnac; but he

was unable to support himself, and fell powerless into the arms of the

assistants. The officers now interfered, and De Jarnac being declared

the victor, fell down upon his knees, uncovered his head, and,

clasping his hands together, exclaimed:-- "O Domine, non sum dignus!"

La Chataigneraie was so mortified by the result of the encounter, that

he resolutely refused to have his wounds dressed. He tore off the

bandages which the surgeons applied, and expired two days afterwards.

Ever since that time, any sly and unforeseen attack has been called by

the French a coup de Jarnac. Henry was so grieved at the loss of his

favourite, that he made the solemn oath already alluded to, that he

would never again, so long as he lived, permit a due]. Some writers

have asserted, and among others, Mezeraie, that he issued a royal

edict forbidding them. This has been doubted by others, and, as there

appears no registry of the edict in any of the courts, it seems most

probable that it was never issued. This opinion is strengthened by the

fact, that two years afterwards, the council ordered another duel to

be fought, with similar forms, but with less magnificence, on account

of the inferior rank of the combatants. It is not anywhere stated,

that Henry interfered to prevent it, notwithstanding his solemn oath;

but that, on the contrary, he encouraged it, and appointed the Marshal

de la Marque to see that it was conducted according to the rules of

chivalry. The disputants were Fendille and D'Aguerre, two gentlemen of

the household, who, quarrelling in the King's chamber, had proceeded

from words to blows. The council, being informed of the matter,

decreed that it could only be decided in the lists. Marshal de la

Marque, with the King's permission, appointed the city of Sedan as the

place of combat. Fendille, who was a bad swordsman, was anxious to

avoid an encounter with D'Aguerre, who was one of the most expert men

of the age; but the council authoritatively commanded that he should

fight, or be degraded from all his honours. D'Aguerre appeared in the

field attended by Francois de Vendome, Count de Chartres, while

Fendille was accompanied by the Duke de Nevers. Fendille appears to

have been not only an inexpert swordsman, but a thorough coward; one

who, like Cowley, might have heaped curses on the man,



"-------(Death's factor sure), who brought

Dire swords into this peaceful world."



On the very first encounter he was thrown from his horse, and,

confessing on the ground all that his victor required of him, slunk

away ignominiously from the arena.



    One is tempted to look upon the death of Henry II as a judgment

upon him for his perjury in the matter of duelling. In a grand

tournament instituted on the occasion of the marriage of his daughter,

he broke several lances in encounters with some of the bravest knights

of the time. Ambitious of still further renown, he would not rest

satisfied until he had also engaged the young Count de Montgomeri. He

received a wound in the eye from the lance of this antagonist, and

died from its effects shortly afterwards, in the forty-first year of

his age.



    In the succeeding reigns of Francis II, Charles IX, and Henry III,

the practice of duelling increased to an alarming extent. Duels were

not rare in the other countries of Europe at the same period; but in

France they were so frequent, that historians, in speaking of that

age, designate it as "l'epoque de la fureur des duels." The Parliament

of Paris endeavoured, as far as in its power lay, to discourage the

practice. By a decree dated the 26th of June 1559, it declared all

persons who should be present at duels, or aiding and abetting in

them, to be rebels to the King, transgressors of the law, and

disturbers of the public peace.



    When Henry III was assassinated at St. Cloud, in 1589, a young

gentleman, named L'isle Marivaut, who had been much beloved by him,

took his death so much to heart, that he resolved not to survive him.

Not thinking suicide an honourable death, and wishing, as he said, to

die gloriously in revenging his King and master, he publicly expressed

his readiness to fight anybody to the death who should assert that

Henry's assassination was not a great misfortune to the community.

Another youth, of a fiery temper and tried courage, named Marolles,

took him at his word, and the day and place of the combat were

forthwith appointed. When the hour had come, and all were ready,

Marolles turned to his second, and asked whether his opponent had a

casque or helmet only, or whether he wore a sallade, or headpiece.

Being answered a helmet only, he said gaily, "So much the better; for,

sir, my second, you shall repute me the wickedest man in all the

world, if I do not thrust my lance right through the the middle of his

head and kill him." Truth to say, he did so at the very first onset,

and the unhappy L'isle Marivaut expired without a groan. Brantome, who

relates this story, adds, that the victor might have done as he

pleased with the body, cut off the head, dragged it out of the camp,

or exposed it upon an ass, but that, being a wise and very courteous

gentleman, he left it to the relatives of the deceased to be

honourably buried, contenting himself with the glory of his triumph,

by which he gained no little renown and honour among the ladies of

Paris.



    On the accession of Henry IV that monarch pretended to set his

face against duelling; but such was the influence of early education

and the prejudices of society upon him, that he never could find it in

his heart to punish a man for this offence. He thought it tended to

foster a warlike spirit among his people. When the chivalrous Crequi

demanded his permission to fight Don Philippe de Savoire, he is

reported to have said, "Go, and if I were not a King, I would be your

second." It is no wonder that when such were known to be the King's

disposition, his edicts attracted but small attention. A calculation

was made by M. de Lomenie, in the year 1607, that since the accession

of Henry, in 1589, no less than four thousand French gentlemen had

lost their lives in these conflicts, which, for the eighteen years,

would have been at the rate of four or five in a week, or eighteen per

month! Sully, who reports this fact in his Memoirs, does not throw the

slightest doubt upon its exactness, and adds, that it was chiefly

owing to the facility and ill-advised good-nature of his royal master

that the bad example had so empoisoned the court, the city, and the

whole country. This wise minister devoted much of his time and

attention to the subject; for the rage, he says, was such as to cause

him a thousand pangs, and the King also. There was hardly a man moving

in what was called good society, who had not been engaged in a duel

either as principal or second; and if there were such a man, his chief

desire was to free himself from the imputation of non-duelling, by

picking a quarrel with somebody. Sully constantly wrote letters to the

King, in which he prayed him to renew the edicts against this

barbarous custom, to aggravate the punishment against offenders, and

never, in any instance, to grant a pardon, even to a person who had

wounded another in a duel, much less to any one who had taken away

life. He also advised, that some sort of tribunal, or court of honour,

should be established, to take cognizance of injurious and slanderous

language, and of all such matters as usually led to duels; and that

the justice to be administered by this court should be sufficiently

prompt and severe to appease the complainant, and make the offender

repent of his aggression.



    Henry, being so warmly pressed by his friend and minister, called

together an extraordinary council in the gallery of the palace of

Fontainebleau, to take the matter into consideration. When all the

members were assembled, his Majesty requested that some person

conversant with the subject would make a report to him on the origin,

progress, and different forms of the duel. Sully complacently remarks,

that none of the counsllors gave the King any great reason to

felicitate them on their erudition. In fact, they all remained silent.

Sully held his peace with the rest; but he looked so knowing, that the

King turned towards him, and said:-- " Great master! by your face I

conjecture that you know more of this matter than you would have us

believe. I pray you, and indeed I command, that you tell us what you

think and what you know." The coy minister refused, as he says, out of

mere politeness to his more ignorant colleagues; but, being again

pressed by the King, he entered into a history of duelling both in

ancient and modern times. He has not preserved this history in his

Memoirs; and, as none of the ministers or counsellors present thought

proper to do so, the world is deprived of a discourse which was, no

doubt, a learned and remarkable one. The result was, that a royal

edict was issued, which Sully lost no time in transmitting to the most

distant provinces, with a distinct notification to all parties

concerned that the King was in earnest, and would exert the full

rigour of the law in punishment of the offenders. Sully himself does

not inform us what were the provisions of the new law; but Father

Matthias has been more explicit, and from him we learn, that the

Marshals of France were created judges of a court of chivalry, for the

hearing of all causes wherein the honour of a noble or gentleman was

concerned, and that such as resorted to duelling should be punished by

death and confiscation of property, and that the seconds and

assistants should lose their rank, dignity, or offices, and be

banished from the court of their sovereign. [Le Pere Matthias, tome

ii. livre iv.]



    But so strong a hold had the education and prejudice of his age

upon the mind of the King, that though his reason condemned, his

sympathies approved the duel. Notwithstanding this threatened

severity, the number of duels did not diminish, and the wise Sully had

still to lament the prevalence of an evil which menaced society with

utter disorganization. In the succeeding reign the practice prevailed,

if possible, to a still greater extent, until the Cardinal de

Richelieu, better able to grapple with it than Sully had been, made

some severe examples in the very highest classes. Lord Herbert, the

English ambassador at the court of Louis XIII repeats, in his letters,

an observation that had been previously made in the reign of Henry IV,

that it was rare to find a Frenchman moving in good society who had

not killed his man in a duel. The Abbe Millot says of this period,

that the duel madness made the most terrible ravages. Men had actually

a frenzy for combatting. Caprice and vanity, as well as the excitement

of passion, imposed the necessity of fighting. Friends were obliged to

enter into the quarrels of their friends, or be themselves called out

for their refusal, and revenge became hereditary in many families. It

was reckoned that in twenty years eight thousand letters of pardon had

been issued to persons who had killed others in single combat.

["Elemens de l'Histoire de France, vol. iii. p. 219.]



    Other writers confirm this statement. Amelot de Houssaye, in his

Memoirs, says, upon this subject, that duels were so common in the

first years of the reign of Louis XIII, that the ordinary conversation

of persons when they met in the morning was, "Do you know who fought

yesterday?" and after dinner, "Do you know who fought this morning?"

The most infamous duellist at that period was De Bouteville. It was

not at all necessary to quarrel with this assassin to be forced to

fight a duel with him. When he heard that any one was very brave, he

would go to him, and say, "People tell me that you are brave; you and

I must fight together!" Every morning the most notorious bravos and

duellists used to assemble at his house, to take a breakfast of bread

and wine, and practise fencing. M. de Valencay, who was afterwards

elevated to the rank of a cardinal, ranked very high in the estimation

of De Bouteville and his gang. Hardly a day passed but what he was

engaged in some duel or other, either as principal or second; and he

once challenged De Bouteville himself, his best friend, because De

Bouteville had fought a duel without inviting him to become his

second. This quarrel was only appeased on the promise of De Bouteville

that, in his next encounter, he would not fail to avail himself of his

services. For that purpose he went out the same day, and picked a

quarrel with the Marquis des Portes. M. de Valencay, according to

agreement, had the pleasure of serving as his second, and of running

through the body M. de Cavois, the second of the Marquis des Portes, a

man who had never done him any injury, and whom he afterwards

acknowledged he had never seen before.



    Cardinal Richelieu devoted much attention to this lamentable state

of public morals, and seems to have concurred with his great

predecessor, Sully, that nothing but the most rigorous severity could

put a stop to the evil. The subject indeed was painfully forced upon

him by his enemies. The Marquis de Themines, to whom Richelieu, then

Bishop of Lucon, had given offence by some representations he had made

to Mary of Medicis, determined, since he could not challenge an

ecclesiastic, to challenge his brother. An opportunity was soon found.

Themines, accosting the Marquis de Richelieu, complained, in an

insulting tone, that the Bishop of Lucon had broken his faith. The

Marquis resented both the manner and matter of his speech, and readily

accepted a challenge. They met in the Rue d'Angouleme, and the

unfortunate Richelieu was stabbed to the heart, and instantly expired.

From that moment the Bishop became the steady foe of the practice of

duelling. Reason and the impulse of brotherly love alike combined to

make him detest it, and when his power in France was firmly

established, he set vigorously about repressing it. In his "Testament

Politique," he has collected his thoughts upon the subject, in the

chapter entitled "Des moyens d'arreter les Duels." In spite of the

edicts that he published, the members of the nobility persisted in

fighting upon the most trivial and absurd pretences. At last Richelieu

made a terrible example. The infamous De Bouteville challenged and

fought the Marquis de Beuoron; and, although the duel itself was not

fatal to either, its consequences were fatal to both. High as they

were, Richelieu resolved that the law should reach them, and they were

both tried, found guilty, and beheaded. Thus did society get rid of

one of the most bloodthirsty scoundrels that ever polluted it.



    In 1632 two noblemen fought a duel, in which they were both

killed. The officers of justice had notice of the breach of the law,

and arrived at the scene of combat before the friends of the parties

had time to remove the bodies. In conformity with the Cardinal's

severe code upon the subject, the bodies were ignominiously stripped,

and hanged upon a gallows, with their heads downwards, for several

hours, within sight of all the people. [Mercure de France, vol. xiii.]

This severity sobered the frenzy of the nation for a time; but it was

soon forgotten. Men's minds were too deeply imbued with a false notion

of honour to be brought to a right way of thinking: by such examples,

however striking, Richelieu was unable to persuade them to walk in the

right path, though he could punish them for choosing the wrong one. He

had, with all his acuteness, miscalculated the spirit of duelling. It

was not death that a duellist feared: it was shame, and the contempt

of his fellows. As Addison remarked more than eighty years afterwards,

"Death was not sufficient to deter men who made it their glory to

despise it; but if every one who fought a duel were to stand in the

pillory, it would quickly diminish the number of those imaginary men

of honour, and put an end to so absurd a practice." Richelieu never

thought of this.



    Sully says, that in his time the Germans were also much addicted

to duelling. There were three places where it was legal to fight;

Witzburg, in Franconia, and Uspach and Halle, in Swabia. Thither, of

course, vast numbers repaired, and murdered each other under sanction

of the law. At an earlier period, in Germany, it was held highly

disgraceful to refuse to fight. Any one who surrendered to his

adversary for a simple wound that did not disable him, was reputed

infamous, and could neither cut his beard, bear arms, mount on

horseback, or hold any Office in the state. He who fell in a duel was

buried with great pomp and splendour.



    In the year 1652, just after Louis XIV had attained his majority,

a desperate duel was fought between the Dukes de Beaufort and De

Nemours, each attended by four gentlemen. Although brothers-in-law,

they had long been enemies, and their constant dissensions had

introduced much disorganization among the troops which they severally

commanded. Each had long sought an opportunity for combat, which at

last arose on a misunderstanding relative to the places they were to

occupy at the council board. They fought with pistols, and, at the

first discharge, the Duke de Nemours was shot through the body, and

almost instantly expired. Upon this the Marquis de Villars, who

seconded Nemours, challenged Hericourt, the second of the Duke de

Beaufort, a man whom he had never before seen; and the challenge being

accepted, they fought even more desperately than their principals.

This combat, being with swords, lasted longer than the first, and was

more exciting to the six remaining gentlemen who stayed to witness it.

The result was fatal to Hericourt, who fell pierced to the heart by

the sword of De Villars. Anything more savage than this can hardly be

imagined. Voltaire says such duels were frequent, and the compiler of

the "Dictionnaire d'Anecdotes" informs us, that the number of seconds

was not fixed. As many as ten, or twelve, or twenty, were not

unfrequent, and they often fought together after their principals were

disabled. The highest mark of friendship one man could manifest

towards another, was to choose him for his second; and many gentlemen

were so desirous of serving in this capacity, that they endeavoured to

raise every slight misunderstanding into a quarrel, that they might

have the pleasure of being engaged in it. The Count de Bussy Rabutin

relates an instance of this in his Memoirs. He says, that as he was

one evening coming out of the theatre, a gentleman, named Bruc, whom

he had not before known, stopped him very politely, and, drawing him

aside, asked him if it was true that the Count de Thianges had called

him (Bruc) a drunkard? Bussy replied, that he really did not know, for

he saw the Count very seldom. "Oh! he is your uncle!" replied Bruc;

"and, as I cannot have satisfaction from him, because he lives so far

off in the country, I apply to you." "I see what you are at," replied

Bussy, "and, since you wish to put me in my uncle's place, I answer,

that whoever asserted that he called you a drunkard, told a lie !" "My

brother said so," replied Bruc, "and he is a child." "Horsewhip him,

then, for his falsehood," returned De Bussy. "I will not have my

brother called a liar," returned Bruc, determined to quarrel with him;

"so draw, and defend yourself!" They both drew their swords in the

public street, but were separated by the spectators. They agreed,

however, to fight on a future occasion, and with all regular forms of

the duello. A few days afterwards, a gentleman, whom De Bussy had

never before seen, and whom he did not know, even by name, called upon

him, and asked if he might have the privilege of serving as his

second. He added, that he neither knew him nor Bruc, except by

reputation, but, having made up his mind to be second to one of them,

he had decided upon accompanying De Bussy as the braver man of the

two. De Bussy thanked him very sincerely for his politeness, but

begged to be excused, as he had already engaged four seconds to

accompany him, and he was afraid that if he took any more, the affair

would become a battle instead of a duel.



    When such quarrels as these were looked upon as mere matters of

course, the state of society must have been indeed awful. Louis XIV

very early saw the evil, and as early determined to remedy it. It was

not, however, till the year 1679, when he instituted the "Chambre

Ardente," for the trial of the slow poisoners and pretenders to

sorcery, that he published any edict against duelling. In that year

his famous edict was promulgated, in which he reiterated and confirmed

the severe enactments of his predecessors, Henry IV and Louis XIII,

and expressed his determination never to pardon any offender. By this

celebrated ordinance a supreme court of honour was established,

composed of the Marshals of France. They were bound, on taking the

office, to give to every one who brought a well-founded complaint

before them, such reparation as would satisfy the justice of the case.

Should any gentleman against whom complaint was made refuse to obey

the mandate of the court of honour, he might be punished by fine and

imprisonment; and when that was not possible, by reason of his

absenting himself from the kingdom, his estates might be confiscated

till his return.



    Every man who sent a challenge, be the cause of offence what it

might, was deprived of all redress from the court of honour--suspended

three years from the exercise of any office in the state--was further

imprisoned for two years, and sentenced to pay a fine of half his

yearly income. He who accepted a challenge, was subject to the same

punishment. Any servant, or other person, who knowingly became the

bearer of a challenge, was, if found guilty, sentenced to stand in the

pillory and be publicly whipped for the first offence, and for the

second, sent for three years to the galleys.



    Any person who actually fought, was to be held guilty of murder,

even though death did not ensue, and was to be punished accordingly.

Persons in the higher ranks of life were to be beheaded, and those of

the middle class hanged upon a gallows, and their bodies refused

Christian burial.



    At the same time that Louis published this severe edict, he

exacted a promise from his principal nobility that they would never

engage in a duel on any pretence whatever. He never swerved from his

resolution to pursue all duellists with the utmost rigour, and many

were executed in various parts of the country. A slight abatement of

the evil was the consequence, and in the course of a few years one

duel was not fought where twelve had been fought previously. A medal

was struck to commemorate the circumstance, by the express command of

the King. So much had he this object at heart, that, in his will, he

particularly recommended to his successor the care of his edict

against duelling, and warned him against any ill-judged lenity to

those who disobeyed it. A singular law formerly existed in Malta with

regard to duelling. By this law it was permitted, but only upon

condition that the parties should fight in one particular street. If

they presumed to settle their quarrel elsewhere, they were held guilty

of murder, and punished accordingly. What was also very singular, they

were bound, under heavy penalties, to put up their swords when

requested to do so by a priest, a knight, or a woman. It does not

appear, however, that the ladies or the knights exercised this mild

and beneficent privilege to any great extent; the former were too

often themselves the cause of duels, and the latter sympathised too

much in the wounded honour of the combatants to attempt to separate

them. The priests alone were the great peacemakers. Brydone says, that

a cross was always painted on the wall opposite to the spot where a

knight had been killed, and that in the "street of duels" he counted

about twenty of them. [Brydone's " Tour in Malta." 1772.]



    In England the private duel was also practised to a scandalous

extent, towards the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the

seventeenth centuries. The judicial combat now began to be more rare,

but several instances of it are mentioned in history. One was

instituted in the reign of Elizabeth, and another so late as the time

of Charles I. Sir Henry Spelman gives an account of that which took

place in Elizabeth's reign, which is curious, perhaps the more so when

we consider that it was perfectly legal, and that similar combats

remained so till the year 1819. A proceeding having been instituted in

the Court of Common Pleas for the recovery of certain manorial rights

in the county of Kent, the defendant offered to prove by single combat

his right to retain possession. The plaintiff accepted the challenge,

and the Court having no power to stay the proceedings, agreed to the

champions who were to fight in lieu of the principals. The Queen

commanded the parties to compromise; but it being represented to Her

Majesty that they were justified by law in the course they were

pursuing, she allowed them to proceed. On the day appointed, the

Justices of the Common Pleas, and all the council engaged in the

cause, appeared as umpires of the combat, at a place in

Tothill-fields, where the lists had been prepared. The champions were

ready for the encounter, and the plaintiff and defendant were publicly

called to come forward and acknowledge them. The defendant answered to

his name, and recognised his champion with the due formalities, but

the plaintiff did not appear. Without his presence and authority the

combat could not take place; and his absence being considered an

abandonment of his claim, he was declared to be nonsuited, and barred

for ever from renewing his suit before any other tribunal whatever.



    The Queen appears to have disapproved personally of this mode of

settling a disputed claim, but her judges and legal advisers made no

attempt to alter the barbarous law. The practice of private duelling

excited more indignation, from its being of every-day occurrence. In

the time of James I the English were so infected with the French

madness, that Bacon, when he was Attorney-general, lent the aid of his

powerful eloquence to effect a reformation of the evil. Informations

were exhibited in the Star Chamber against two persons, named Priest

and Wright, for being engaged, as principal and second, in a duel, on

which occasion he delivered a charge that was so highly approved of by

the Lords of the Council, that they ordered it to be printed and

circulated over the country, as a thing "very meet and worthy to be

remembered and made known unto the world." He began by considering the

nature and greatness of the mischief of duelling. "It troubleth peace

-- it disfurnisheth war -- it bringeth calamity upon private men,

peril upon the state, and contempt upon the law. Touching the causes

of it," he observed, "that the first motive of it, no doubt, is a

false and erroneous imagination of honour and credit; but then, the

seed of this mischief being such, it is nourished by vain discourses

and green and unripe conceits. Hereunto may be added, that men have

almost lost the true notion and understanding of fortitude and valour.

For fortitude distinguisheth of the grounds of quarrel whether they be

just; and not only so, but whether they be worthy, and setteth a

better price upon men's lives than to bestow them idly. Nay, it is

weakness and disesteem of a man's self to put a man's life upon such

liedger performances. A man's life is not to be trifled with: it is to

be offered up and sacrificed to honourable services, public merits,

good causes, and noble adventures. It is in expense of blood as it is

in expense of money. It is no liberality to make a profusion of money

upon every vain occasion, neither is it fortitude to make effusion of

blood, except the cause of it be worth." [See "Life and Character of

Lord Bacon," by Thomas Martin, Barrister-at-law.]



    The most remarkable event connected with duelling in this reign

was that between Lord Sanquir, a Scotch nobleman, and one Turner, a

fencing-master. In a trial of skill between them, his lordship's eye

was accidentally thrust out by the point of Turner's sword. Turner

expressed great regret at the circumstance, and Lord Sanquir bore his

loss with as much philosophy as he was master of, and forgave his

antagonist. Three years afterwards, Lord Sanquir was at Paris, where

he was a constant visitor at the court of Henry IV. One day, in the

course of conversation, the affable monarch inquired how he had lost

his eye. Sanquir, who prided himself on being the most expert

swordsman of the age, blushed as he replied that it was inflicted by

the sword of a fencing-master. Henry, forgetting his assumed character

of an antiduellist, carelessly, and as a mere matter of course,

inquired whether the man lived? Nothing more was said, but the query

sank deep into the proud heart of the Scotch baron, who returned

shortly afterwards to England, burning for revenge. His first intent

was to challenge the fencing-master to single combat, but, on further

consideration, he deemed it inconsistent with his dignity to meet him

as an equal in fair and open fight. He therefore hired two bravos, who

set upon the fencing-master, and murdered him in his own house at

Whitefriars. The assassins were taken and executed, and a reward of

one thousand pounds offered for the apprehension of their employer.

Lord Sanquir concealed himself for several days, and then surrendered

to take his trial, in the hope (happily false) that Justice would

belie her name, and be lenient to a murderer because he was a

nobleman, who, on a false point of honour, had thought fit to take

revenge into his own hands. The most powerful intercessions were

employed in his favour, but James, to his credit, was deaf to them

all. Bacon, in his character of Attorney-general, prosecuted the

prisoner to conviction; and he died the felon's death, on the 29th of

June, 1612, on a gibbet erected in front of the gate of Westminster

Hall.



    With regard to the public duel, or trial by battle, demanded under

the sanction of the law, to terminate a quarrel which the ordinary

course of justice could with difficulty decide, Bacon was equally

opposed to it, and thought that in no case should it be granted. He

suggested that there should be declared a constant and settled

resolution in the state to abolish it altogether; that care should be

taken that the evil be no more cockered, nor the humour of it fed, but

that all persons found guilty should be rigorously punished by the

Star Chamber, and these of eminent quality banished from the court.



    In the succeeding reign, when Donald Mackay, the first Lord Reay,

accused David Ramsay of treason, in being concerned with the Marquis

of Hamilton in a design upon the crown of Scotland, he was challenged

by the latter to make good his assertion by single combat. [See

"History of the House and Clan of Mackay."]  It had been at first the

intention of the government to try the case by the common law, but

Ramsay thought he would stand a better chance of escape by recurring

to the old and almost exploded custom, but which was still the right

of every man in appeals of treason. Lord Reay readily accepted the

challenge, and both were confined in the Tower until they found

security that they would appear on a certain day, appointed by the

court, to determine the question. The management of the affair was

delegated to the Marischal Court of Westminster, and the Earl of

Lindsay was created Lord Constable of England for the purpose. Shortly

before the day appointed, Ramsay confessed in substance all that Lord

Reay had laid to his charge, upon which Charles I put a stop to the

proceedings.



    But in England, about this period, sterner disputes arose among

men than those mere individual matters which generate duels. The men

of the Commonwealth encouraged no practice of the kind, and the

subdued aristocracy carried their habits and prejudices elsewhere, and

fought their duels at foreign courts. Cromwell's Parliament, however,

-- although the evil at that time was not so crying, -- published an

order, in 1654, for the prevention of duels, and the punishment of all

con cerned in them. Charles II, on his restoration, also issued a

proclamation upon the subject. In his reign an infamous duel was

fought -- infamous, not only from its own circumstances, but from the

lenity that was shown to the principal offenders.



    The worthless Duke of Buckingham, having debauched the Countess of

Shrewsbury, was challenged by her husband to mortal combat, in January

1668. Charles II endeavoured to prevent the duel, not from any regard

to public morality, but from fear for the life of his favourite. He

gave commands to the Duke of Albemarle to confine Buckingham to his

house, or take some other measures to prevent him flora fighting.

Albemarle neglected the order, thinking that the King himself might

prevent the combat by some surer means. The meeting took place at Barn

Elms, the injured Shrewsbury being attended by Sir John Talbot, his

relative, and Lord Bernard Howard, son of the Earl of Arundel.

Buckingham was accompanied by two of his dependants, Captain Holmes

and Sir John Jenkins. According to the barbarous custom of the age,

not only the principals, but the seconds, engaged each other. Jenkins

was pierced to the heart, and left dead upon the field, and Sir John

Talbot severely wounded in both arms. Buckingham himself escaping with

slight wounds, ran his unfortunate antagonist through the body, and

then left the field with the wretched woman, the cause of all the

mischief, who, in the dress of a page, awaited the issue of the

conflict in a neighbouring wood, holding her paramour's horse to avoid

suspicion. Great influence was exerted to save the guilty parties from

punishment, and the master, as base as the favourite, made little

difficulty in granting a free pardon to all concerned. In a royal

proclamation issued shortly afterwards, Charles II formally pardoned

the murderers, but declared his intention never to extend, in future,

any mercy to such offenders. It would be hard after this to say who

was the most infamous, the King, the favourite, or the courtezan.



    In the reign of Queen Anne, repeated complaints were made of the

prevalence of duelling. Addison, Swift, Steele, and other writers,

employed their powerful pens in reprobation of it. Steele especially,

in the "Tatler" and "Guardian," exposed its impiety and absurdity, and

endeavoured, both by argument and by ridicule, to bring his countrymen

to a right way of thinking. [See "Spectator," Nos. 84. 97, and 99; and

"Tatler," Nos. 25, 26, 29, 31, 38, and 39; and "Guardian," No. 20.]

His comedy of "The Conscious Lovers" contains an admirable exposure of

the abuse of the word honour, which led men into an error so

lamentable. Swift, writing upon the subject, remarked that he could

see no harm in rogues and fools shooting each other. Addison and

Steele took higher ground, and the latter, in the "Guardian," summed

up nearly all that could be said upon the subject in the following

impressive words: -- "A Christian and a gentleman are made

inconsistent appellations of the same person. You are not to expect

eternal life if you do not forgive injuries, and your mortal life is

rendered uncomfortable if you are not ready to commit a murder in

resentment of an affront; for good sense, as well as religion, is so

utterly banished the world that men glory in their very passions, and

pursue trifles with the utmost vengeance, so little do they know that

to forgive is the most arduous pitch human nature can arrive at. A

coward has often fought -- a coward has often conquered, but a coward

never forgave." Steele also published a pamphlet, in which he gave a

detailed account of the edict of Louis XIV, and the measures taken by

that monarch to cure his subjects of their murderous folly.



    On the 8th of May, 1711, Sir Cholmely Deering, M.P. for the county

of Kent, was slain in a duel by Mr. Richard Thornhill, also a member

of the House of Commons. Three days afterwards, Sir Peter King brought

the subject under the notice of the Legislature, and after dwelling at

considerable length on the alarming increase of the practice, obtained

leave to bring in a bill for the prevention and punishment of

duelling. It was read a first time that day, and ordered for a second

reading in the ensuing week.



    About the same time the attention of the Upper House of Parliament

was also drawn to the subject in the most painful manner. Two of its

most noted members would have fought, had it not been that Queen Anne

received notice of their intention, and exacted a pledge that they

would desist; while a few months afterwards, two other of its members

lost their lives in one of the most remarkable duels upon record. The

first affair, which happily terminated without a meeting, was between

the Duke of Marlborough and the Earl Pawlet. The latter, and fatal

encounter, was between the Duke of Hamilton and Lord Mohun.



    The first arose out of a debate in the Lords upon the conduct of

the Duke of Ormond, in refusing to hazard a general engagement with

the enemy, in which Earl Pawlet remarked that nobody could doubt the

courage of the Duke of Ormond. "He was not like a certain general, who

led troops to the slaughter, to cause great numbers of officers to be

knocked on the head in a battle, or against stone walls, in order to

fill his pockets by disposing of their commissions." Every one felt

that the remark was aimed at the Duke of Marlborough, but he remained

silent, though evidently suffering in mind. Soon after the House broke

up, the Earl Pawlet received a visit from Lord Mohun, who told him

that the Duke of Marlborough was anxious to come to an explanation

with him relative to some expressions he had made use of in that day's

debate, and therefore prayed him to "go and take a little air in the

country." Earl Pawlet did not affect to misunderstand the hint, but

asked him in plain terms whether he brought a challenge from the Duke.

Lord Mohun said his message needed no explanation, and that he (Lord

Mohun) would accompany the Duke of Marlborough. He then took his

leave, and Earl Pawlet returned home and told his lady that he was

going out to fight a duel with the Duke of Marlborough. His lady,

alarmed for her lord's safety, gave notice of his intention to the

Earl of Dartmouth, who immediately, in the Queen's name, sent to the

Duke of Marlborough, and commanded him not to stir abroad. He also

caused Earl Pawlet's house to be guarded by two sentinels; and having

taken these precautions, informed the Queen of the whole affair. Her

Majesty sent at once for the Duke, expressed her abhorrence of the

custom of duelling, and required his word of honour that he would

proceed no further. The Duke pledged his word accordingly, and the

affair terminated.



    The lamentable duel between the Duke of Hamilton and Lord Mohun

took place in November 1712, and sprang from the following

circumstances. A lawsuit had been pending for eleven years between

these two noblemen, and they looked upon each other in consequence

with a certain degree of coldness. They met together on the 13th of

November in the chambers of Mr. Orlebar, a Master in Chancery, when,

in the course of conversation, the Duke of Hamilton reflected upon the

conduct of one of the witnesses in the cause, saying that he was a

person who had neither truth nor justice in him. Lord Mohun, somewhat

nettled at this remark, applied to a witness favourable to his side,

made answer hastily, that Mr. Whiteworth, the person alluded to, had

quite as much truth and justice in him as the Duke of Hamilton. The

Duke made no reply, and no one present imagined that he took offence

at what was said; and when he went out, of the room, he made a low and

courteous salute to the Lord Mohun. In the evening, General Macartney

called twice upon the Duke with a challenge from Lord Mohun, and

failing in seeing him, sought him a third time at a tavern, where he

found him, and delivered his message. The Duke accepted the challenge,

and the day after the morrow, which was Sunday, the 15th of November,

at seven in the morning, was appointed for the meeting.



    At that hour they assembled in Hyde Park, the Duke being attended

by his relative, Colonel Hamilton, and the Lord Mohun by General

Macartney. They jumped over a ditch into a place called the Nursery,

and prepared for the combat. The Duke of Hamilton, turning to General

Macartney, said, "Sir, you are the cause of this, let the event be

what it will." Lord Mohun did not wish that the seconds should engage,

but the Duke insisted that "Macartney should have a share in the

dance." All being ready, the two principals took up their positions,

and fought with swords so desperately that, after a short time, they

both fell down, mortally wounded. The Lord Mohun expired upon the

spot, and the Duke of Hamilton in the arms of his servants as they

were carrying him to his coach.



    This unhappy termination caused the greatest excitement, not only

in the metropolis, but all over the country. The Tories, grieved at

the loss of the Duke of Hamilton, charged the fatal combat on the Whig

party, whose leader, the Duke of Marlborough, had so recently set the

example of political duels. They. called Lord Mohun the bully of the

Whig faction, (he had already killed three men in duels, and been

twice tried for murder), and asserted openly, that the quarrel was

concocted between him and General Macartney to rob the country of the

services of the Duke of Hamilton by murdering him. It was also

asserted, that the wound of which the Duke died was not inflicted by

Lord Mohun, but by Macartney; and every means was used to propagate

this belief. Colonel Hamilton, against whom and Macartney the

coroner's jury had returned a verdict of wilful murder, surrendered a

few days afterwards, and was examined before a privy council sitting

at the house of Lord Dartmouth. He then deposed, that seeing Lord

Mohun fall, and the Duke upon him, he ran to the Duke's assistance,

and that he might with the more ease help him, he flung down both

their swords, and, as he was raising the Duke up, he saw Macartney,

make a push at him. Upon this deposition a royal proclamation was

immediately issued, offering a reward of 500 pounds for the

apprehension of Macartney, to which the Duchess of Hamilton afterwards

added a reward of 300 pounds.



    Upon the further examination of Colonel Hamilton, it was found

that reliance could not be placed on all his statements, and that he

contradicted himself in several important particulars. He was

arraigned at the Old Bailey for the murder of Lord Mohun, the whole

political circles of London being in a fever of excitement for the

result. All the Tory party prayed for his acquittal, and a Tory mob

surrounded the doors and all the avenues leading to the court of

justice for many hours before the trial began. The examination of

witnesses lasted seven hours. The criminal still persisted in accusing

General Macartney of the murder of the Duke of Hamilton, but, in other

respects, say the newspapers of the day, prevaricated foully. He was

found guilty of manslaughter. This favourable verdict was received

with universal applause, "not only from the court and all the

gentlemen present, but the common people showed a mighty satisfaction,

which they testified by loud and repeated huzzas." ["Post Boy,"

December l3th, 1712.]



    As the popular delirium subsided, and men began to reason coolly

upon the subject, they disbelieved the assertions of Colonel Hamilton,

that Macartney had stabbed the Duke, although it was universally

admitted that he had been much too busy and presuming. Hamilton was

shunned by all his former companions, and his life rendered so irksome

to him, that he sold out of the Guards, and retired to private life,

in which he died heart-broken four years afterwards.



    General Macartney surrendered about the same time, and was tried

for murder in the Court of King's Bench. He was, however, found guilty

of manslaughter only.



    At the opening of the session of Parliament of 1713, the Queen

made pointed allusion in her speech to the frequency of duelling, and

recommended to the Legislature to devise some speedy and effectual

remedy for it. A bill to that effect was brought forward, but thrown

out on the second reading, to the very great regret of all the

sensible portion of the community.



    A famous duel was fought in 1765 between Lord Byron and Mr.

Chaworth. The dispute arose at a club-dinner, and was relative to

which of the two had the largest quantity of game on his estates.

Infuriated by wine and passion, they retired instantly into an

adjoining room, and fought with swords across a table, by the feeble

glimmer of a tallow-candle. Mr. Chaworth, who was the more expert

swordsman of the two, received a mortal wound, and shortly afterwards

expired. Lord Byron was brought to trial for the murder before the

House of Lords; and it appearing clearly, that the duel was not

premeditated, but fought at once, and in the heat of passion, he was

found guilty of manslaughter only, and ordered to be discharged upon

payment of his fees. This was a very bad example for the country, and

duelling of course fell into no disrepute after such a verdict.



    In France, more severity was exercised. In the year 1769, the

Parliament of Grenoble took cognizance of the delinquency of the Sieur

Duchelas, one of its members, who challenged and killed in a duel a

captain of the Flemish legion. The servant of Duchelas officiated as

second, and was arraigned with his master for the murder of the

captain. They were both found guilty. Duchelas was broken alive on the

wheel, and the servant condemned to the galleys for life.



    A barbarous and fiercely-contested duel was fought in November

1778, between two foreign adventurers, at Bath, named Count Rice and

the Vicomte du Barri. Some dispute arose relative to a gambling

transaction, in the course of which Du Barri contradicted an assertion

of the other, by saying, "That is not true!" Count Rice immediately

asked him if he knew the very disagreeable meaning of the words he had

employed. Du Barri said he was perfectly well aware of their meaning,

and that Rice might interpret them just as he pleased. A challenge was

immediately given and accepted. Seconds were sent for, who, arriving

with but little delay, the whole party, though it was not long after

midnight, proceeded to a place called Claverton Down, where they

remained with a surgeon until daylight. They then prepared for the

encounter, each being armed with two pistols and a sword. The ground

having been marked out by the seconds, Du Barri fired first, and

wounded his opponent in the thigh. Count Rice then levelled his

pistol, and shot Du Barri mortally in the breast. So angry were the

combatants, that they refused to desist; both stepped back a few

paces, and then rushing forward, discharged their second pistols at

each other. Neither shot took effect, and both throwing away their

pistols, prepared to finish the sanguinary struggle by the sword. They

took their places, and were advancing towards each other, when the

Vicomte du Barri suddenly staggered, grew pale, and, falling to the

ground, exclaimed, "Je vous demande ma vie." His opponent had but just

time to answer, that he granted it, when the unfortunate Du Barri

turned upon the grass, and expired with a heavy groan. The survivor of

this savage conflict was then removed to his lodgings, where he lay

for some weeks in a dangerous state. The coroner's jury, in the mean

while, sat upon the body of Du Barri, and disgraced themselves by

returning a verdict of manslaughter only. Count Rice, upon his

recovery, was indicted for the murder notwithstanding this verdict. On

his trial he entered into a long defence of his conduct, pleading the

fairness of the duel, and its unpremeditated nature; and, at the same

time, expressing his deep regret for the unfortunate death of Du

Barri, with whom for many years he had been bound in ties of the

strictest friendship. These considerations appear to have weighed with

the jury, and this fierce duellist was again found guilty of

manslaughter only, and escaped with a merely nominal punishment.



    A duel, less remarkable from its circumstances, but more so from

the rank of the parties, took place in 1789. The combatants on this

occasion were the Duke of York and Colonel Lenox, the nephew and heir

of the Duke of Richmond. The cause of offence was given by the Duke of

York, who had said, in presence of several officers of the Guards,

that words had been used to Colonel Lenox at Daubigny's to which no

gentleman ought to have submitted. Colonel Lenox went up to the Duke

on parade, and asked him publicly whether he had made such an

assertion. The Duke of York, without answering his question, coldly

ordered him to his post. When parade was over, he took an opportunity

of saying publicly in the orderly room before Colonel Lenox, that he

desired no protection from his rank as a prince and his station as

commanding officer; adding that, when he was off duty, he wore a plain

brown coat like a private gentleman, and was ready as such to give

satisfaction. Colonel Lenox desired nothing better than satisfaction;

that is to say, to run the chance of shooting the Duke through the

body, or being himself shot. He accordingly challenged his Royal

Highness, and they met on Wimbledon Common. Colonel Lenox fired first,

and the ball whizzed past the head of his opponent, so near to it as

to graze his projecting curl. The Duke refused to return the fire, and

the seconds interfering, the affair terminated.



    Colonel Lenox was very shortly afterwards engaged in another duel

arising out of this. A Mr. Swift wrote a pamphlet in reference to the

dispute between him and the Duke of York, at some expressions in which

he took so much offence, as to imagine that nothing but a shot at the

writer could atone for them. They met on the Uxbridge Road, but no

damage was done to either party.



    The Irish were for a long time renowned for their love of

duelling. The slightest offence which it is possible to imagine that

one man could offer to another, was sufficient to provoke a challenge.

Sir Jonah Barrington relates, in his Memoirs, that, previous to the

Union, during the time of a disputed election in Dublin, it was no

unusual thing for three-and-twenty duels to be fought in a day. Even

in times of less excitement, they were so common as to be deemed

unworthy of note by the regular chroniclers of events, except in cases

where one or both of the combatants were killed.



    In those days, in Ireland, it was not only the man of the

military, but of every profession, who had to work his way to eminence

with the sword or the pistol. Each political party had its regular

corps of bullies, or fire-eaters, as they were called, who qualified

themselves for being the pests of society by spending all their spare

time in firing at targets. They boasted that they could hit an

opponent in any part of his body they pleased, and made up their minds

before the encounter began whether they should kill him, disable, or

disfigure him for life -- lay him on a bed of suffering for a

twelve-month, or merely graze a limb.



    The evil had reached an alarming height, when, in the year 1808,

an opportunity was afforded to King George III of showing in a

striking manner his detestation of the practice, and of setting an

example to the Irish that such murders were not to be committed with

impunity. A dispute arose, in the month of June 1807, between Major

Campbell and Captain Boyd, officers of the 21st regiment, stationed in

Ireland, about the proper manner of giving the word of command on

parade. Hot words ensued on this slight occasion, and the result was a

challenge from Campbell to Boyd. They retired into the mess-room

shortly afterwards, and each stationed himself at a corner, the

distance obliquely being but seven paces. Here, without friends or

seconds being present, they fired at each other, and Captain Boyd fell

mortally wounded between the fourth and fifth ribs. A surgeon who came

in shortly, found him sitting in a chair, vomiting and suffering great

agony. He was led into another room, Major Campbell following, in

great distress and perturbation of mind. Boyd survived but eighteen

hours; and just before his death, said, in reply to a question from

his opponent, that the duel was not fair, and added, "You hurried me,

Campbell -- you're a bad man." --- "Good God!" replied Campbell, "will

you mention before these gentlemen, was not everything fair? Did you

not say that you were ready?" Boyd answered faintly, "Oh, no! you know

I wanted you to wait and have friends." On being again asked whether

all was fair, the dying man faintly murmured "Yes:" but in a minute

after, he said, "You're a bad man!" Campbell was now in great

agitation, and wringing his hands convulsively, he exclaimed, "Oh,

Boyd! you are the happiest man of the two! Do you forgive me?" Boyd

replied, "I forgive you -- I feel for you, as I know you do for me."

He shortly afterwards expired, and Major Campbell made his escape from

Ireland, and lived for some months with his family under an assumed

name, in the neighbourhood of Chelsea. He was, however, apprehended,

and brought to trial at Armagh, in August 1808. He said while in

prison, that, if found guilty of murder, he should suffer as an

example to duellists in Ireland; but he endeavoured to buoy himself

up, with the hope that the jury would only convict him of

manslaughter. It was proved in evidence upon the trial, that the duel

was not fought immediately after the offence was given, but that Major

Campbell went home and drank tea with his family, before he sought

Boyd for the fatal encounter. The jury returned a verdict of wilful

murder against him, but recommended him to mercy on the ground that

the duel had been a fair one. He was condemned to die on the Monday

following, but was afterwards respited for a few days longer. In the

mean time the greatest exertions were made in his behalf. His

unfortunate wife went upon her knees before the Prince of Wales, to

move him to use his influence with the King, in favour of her unhappy

husband. Everything a fond wife and a courageous woman could do, she

tried, to gain the royal clemency; but George III was inflexible, in

consequence of the representations of the Irish Viceroy that an

example was necessary. The law was therefore allowed to take its

course, and the victim of a false spirit of honour died the death of a

felon.



    The most inveterate duellists of the present day are the students

in the Universities of Germany. They fight on the most frivolous

pretences, and settle with swords and pistols the schoolboy disputes

which in other countries are arranged by the more harmless medium of

the fisticuffs. It was at one time the custom among these savage

youths to prefer the sword combat, for the facility it gave them of

cutting off the noses of their opponents. To disfigure them in this

manner was an object of ambition, and the German duellists reckoned

the number of these disgusting trophies which they had borne away,

with as much satisfaction as a successful general the provinces he had

reduced or the cities he had taken.



    But it would be wearisome to enter into the minute detail of all

the duels of modern times. If an examination were made into the

general causes which produced them, it would be found that in every

case they had been either of the most trivial or the most unworthy

nature. Parliamentary duels were at one time very common, and amongst

the names of those who have soiled a great reputation by conforming to

the practice, may be mentioned those of Warren Hastings, Sir Philip

Francis, Wilkes, Pitt, Fox, Grattan, Curran, Tierney, and Canning. So

difficult is it even for the superior mind to free itself from the

trammels with which foolish opinion has enswathed it -- not one of

these celebrated persons who did not in his secret soul condemn the

folly to which he lent himself. The bonds of reason, though

iron-strong, are easily burst through; but those of folly, though

lithe and frail as the rushes by a stream, defy the stoutest heart to

snap them asunder. Colonel Thomas, an officer of the Guards, who was

killed in a duel, added the following clause to his will the night

before he died: -- "In the first place, I commit my soul to Almighty

God, in hope of his mercy and pardon for the irreligious step I now

(in compliance with the unwarrantable customs of this wicked world)

put myself under the necessity of taking." How many have been in the

same state of mind as this wise, foolish man! He knew his error, and

abhorred it, but could not resist it, for fear of the opinion of the

prejudiced and unthinking. No other could have blamed him for refusing

to fight a duel.



    The list of duels that have sprung from the most degrading causes

might be stretched out to an almost indefinite extent. Sterne's father

fought a duel about a goose; and the great Raleigh about a tavern

bill. [Raleigh, at one period of his life, appeared to be an

inveterate duellist, and it was said of him that he had been engaged

in more encounters of the kind than any man of note among his

contemporaries. More than one fellow-creature he had deprived of life;

but he lived long enough to be convinced of the sinfulness of his

conduct, and made a solemn vow never to fight another duel. The

following anecdote of his forbearance is well known, but it will bear

repetition :--

    A dispute arose in a coffee-house between him and a young man on

some trivial point, and the latter, losing his temper, impertinently

spat in the face of the veteran. Sir Walter, instead of running him

through the body, as many would have done, or challenging him to

mortal combat, coolly took out his handkerchief, wiped his face, and

said, "Young man, if I could as easily wipe from my conscience the

stain of killing you, as I can this spittle from my face, you should

not live another minute." The young man immediately begged his

pardon.] Scores of duels (many of them fatal) have been fought from

disputes at cards, or a place at a theatre, while hundreds of

challenges, given and accepted over-night, in a fit of drunkenness,

have been fought out the next morning to the death of one or both of

the antagonists.



    Two of the most notorious duels of modern times had their origin

in causes no more worthy than the quarrel of a dog and the favour of a

prostitute: that between Macnamara and Montgomery arising from the

former; and that between Best and Lord Camelford, from the latter. The

dog of Montgomery attacked a dog belonging to Macnamara, and each

master interfering in behalf of his own animal, high words ensued. The

result was the giving and accepting a challenge to mortal combat. The

parties met on the following day, when Montgomery was shot dead, and

his antagonist severely wounded. This affair created a great sensation

at the time, and Heaviside, the surgeon who attended at the fatal

field to render his assistance, if necessary, was arrested as an

accessory to the murder, and committed to Newgate.



    In the duel between Best and Lord Camelford, two pistols were used

which were considered to be the best in England. One of them was

thought slightly superior to the other, and it was agreed that the

belligerents should toss up a piece of money to decide the choice of

weapons. Best gained it, and, at the first discharge, Lord Camelford

fell, mortally wounded. But little sympathy was expressed for his

fate; he was a confirmed duellist, had been engaged in many meetings

of the kind, and the blood of more than one fellow-creature lay at his

door. As he had sowed, so did he reap; and the violent man met an

appropriate death.



    It now only remains to notice the means that have been taken to

stay the prevalence of this madness of false honour in the various

countries of the civilized world. The efforts of the governments of

France and England have already been mentioned, and their want of

success is but too well known. The same efforts have been attended

with the same results elsewhere. In despotic countries, where the will

of the monarch has been strongly expressed and vigorously supported, a

diminution of the evil has for a while resulted, but only to be

increased again, when death relaxed the iron grasp, and a successor

appeared of less decided opinions upon the subject. This was the case

in Prussia under the great Frederick, of whose aversion to duelling a

popular anecdote is recorded. It is stated of him that he permitted

duelling in his army, but only upon the condition that the combatants

should fight in presence of a whole battalion of infantry, drawn up on

purpose, to see fair play. The latter received strict orders, when one

of the belligerents fell, to shoot the other immediately. It is added,

that the known determination of the King effectually put a stop to the

practice.



    The Emperor Joseph II of Austria was as firm as Frederick,

although the measures he adopted were not so singular. The following

letter explains his views on the subject:--



"To GENERAL * * * * *



"MY GENERAL,



    "You will immediately arrest the Count of K. and Captain W. The

Count is young, passionate, and influenced by wrong notions of birth

and a false spirit of honour. Captain W. is an old soldier, who will

adjust every dispute with the sword and pistol, and who has received

the challenge of the young Count with unbecoming warmth.



    "I will suffer no duelling in my army. I despise the principles of

those who attempt to justify the practice, and who would run each

other through the body in cold blood.



    "When I have officers who bravely expose themselves to every

danger in facing the enemy -- who at all times exhibit courage,

valour, and resolution in attack and defence, I esteem them highly.

The coolness with which they meet death on such occasions is

serviceable to their country, and at the same time redounds to their

own honour; but should there be men amongst them who are ready to

sacrifice everything to their vengeance and hatred, I despise them. I

consider such a man as no better than a Roman gladiator.



    "Order a court-martial to try the two officers. Investigate the

subject of their dispute with that impartiality which I demand from

every judge; and he that is guilty, let him be a sacrifice to his fate

and the laws.



    "Such a barbarous custom, which suits the age of the Tamerlanes

and Bajazets, and which has often had such melancholy effects on

single families, I will have suppressed and punished, even if it

should deprive me of one half of my officers. There are still men who

know how to unite the character of a hero with that of a good subject;

and he only can be so who respects the laws.

                                         " JOSEPH."

"August 1771."



[Vide the Letters of Joseph II to distinguished Princes and Statesmen,

published for the first time in England in "The Pamphleteer" for 1821.

They were originally published in Germany a few years previously, and

throw a great light upon the character of that monarch and the events

of his reign.]



    In the United States of America the code varies considerably. In

one or two of the still wild and simple States of the Far West, where

no duel has yet been fought, there is no specific law upon the subject

beyond that in the Decalogue, which says, "Thou shalt do no murder."

But duelling everywhere follows the steps of modern civilization, and

by the time the backwoodsman is transformed into the citizen, he has

imbibed the false notions of honour which are prevalent in Europe, and

around him, and is ready, like his progenitors, to settle his

differences with the pistol. In the majority of the States the

punishment for challenging, fighting, or acting as second, is solitary

imprisonment and hard labour for any period less than a year, and

disqualification for serving any public office for twenty years. In

Vermont the punishment is total disqualification for office,

deprivation of the rights of citizenship, and a fine; in fatal cases,

the same punishment as that of murderers. In Rhode Island, the

combatant, though death does not ensue, is liable to be carted to the

gallows, with a rope about his neck, and to sit in this trim for an

hour, exposed to the peltings of the mob. He may be further imprisoned

for a year, at the option of the magistrate. In Connecticut the

punishment is total disqualification for office or employ, and a fine,

varying from one hundred to a thousand dollars. The laws of Illinois

require certain officers of the state to make oath, previous to their

instalment, that they have never been, nor ever will be, concerned in

a duel. ["Encyclopedia Americana," art. Duelling.]



    Amongst the edicts against duelling promulgated at various times

in Europe, may be mentioned that of Augustus King of Poland, in 1712,

which decreed the punishment of death against principals and seconds,

and minor punishments against the bearers of a challenge. An edict was

also published at Munich, in 1773, according to which both principals

and seconds, even in duels where no one was either killed or wounded,

should be hanged, and their bodies buried at the foot of the gallows.

The King of Naples issued an ordinance against duelling in 1838, in

which the punishment of death is decreed against all concerned in a

fatal duel. The bodies of those killed, and of those who may be

executed in consequence, are to be buried in unconsecrated ground, and

without any religious ceremony; nor is any monument to be erected on

the spot. The punishment for duels in which either, or both, are

wounded, and for those in which no damage whatever is done, varies

according to the case, and consists of fine, imprisonment, loss of

rank and honours, and incapacity for filling any public situation.

Bearers of challenges may also be punished with fine and imprisonment.



    It might be imagined that enactments so severe all over the

civilized world would finally eradicate a custom, the prevalence of

which every wise and good man must deplore. But the frowns of the law

never yet have taught, and never will teach, men to desist from this

practice, as long as it is felt that the lawgiver sympathises with it

in his heart. The stern judge upon the bench may say to the

unfortunate wight who has been called a liar by some unmannerly

opponent, "If you challenge him, you meditate murder, and are guilty

of murder !" but the same judge, divested of his robes of state, and

mixing in the world with other men, would say, "If you do not

challenge him, if you do not run the risk of making yourself a

murderer, you will be looked upon as a mean-spirited wretch, unfit to

associate with your fellows, and deserving nothing but their scorn and

their contempt!" It is society, and not the duellist, who is to blame.

Female influence, too, which is so powerful in leading men either to

good or to evil, takes, in this case, the evil part. Mere animal

bravery has, unfortunately, such charms in the female eye, that a

successful duellist is but too often regarded as a sort of hero; and

the man who refuses to fight, though of truer courage, is thought a

poltroon, who may be trampled on. Mr. Graves, a member of the American

Legislature, who, early in 1838, killed a Mr. Cilley in a duel, truly

and eloquently said, on the floor of the House of Representatives,

when lamenting the unfortunate issue of that encounter, that society

was more to blame than he was. "Public opinion," said the repentant

orator, "is practically the paramount law of the land. Every other

law, both human and divine, ceases to be observed; yea, withers and

perishes in contact with it. It was this paramount law of this nation,

and of this House, that forced me, under the penalty of dishonour, to

subject myself to the code, which impelled me unwillingly into this

tragical affair. Upon the heads of this nation, and at the doors of

this House, rests the blood with which my unfortunate hands have been

stained!"



    As long as society is in this mood; as long as it thinks that the

man who refuses to resent an insult, deserved that insult, and should

be scouted accordingly, so long, it is to be feared, will duelling

exist, however severe the laws may be. Men must have redress for

injuries inflicted, and when those injuries are of such a nature that

no tribunal will take cognizance of them, the injured will take the

law into their own hands, and right themselves in the opinion of their

fellows, at the hazard of their lives. Much as the sage may affect to

despise the opinion of the world, there are few who would not rather

expose their lives a hundred times than be condemned to live on, in

society, but not of it -- a by-word of reproach to all who know their

history, and a mark for scorn to point his finger at.



    The only practicable means for diminishing the force of a custom

which is the disgrace of civilization, seems to be the establishment

of a court of honour, which should take cognizance of all those

delicate and almost intangible offences which yet wound so deeply. The

court established by Louis XIV might be taken as a model. No man now

fights a duel when a fit apology has been offered, and it should be

the duty of this court to weigh dispassionately the complaint of every

man injured in his honour, either by word or deed, and to force the

offender to make a public apology. If he refused the apology, he would

be the breaker of a second law; an offender against a high court, as

well as against the man he had injured, and might be punished with

fine and imprisonment, the latter to last until he saw the error of

his conduct, and made the concession which the court demanded.



    If, after the establishment of this tribunal, men should be found

of a nature so bloodthirsty as not to be satisfied with its peaceful

decisions, and should resort to the old and barbarous mode of an

appeal to the pistol, some means might be found of dealing with them.

To hang them as murderers would be of no avail; for to such men death

would have few terrors. Shame alone would bring them to reason. The

following code, it is humbly suggested to all future legislators upon

the subject, would, in conjunction with the establishment of a court

of honour, do much towards eradicating this blot from society. Every

man who fought a duel, even though he did not wound his opponent,

should be tried, and, upon proof of the fact, be sentenced to have his

right hand cut off. The world would then know his true character as

long as he lived. If his habits of duelling were so inveterate, and he

should learn to fire a pistol with his left hand, he should, upon

conviction of a second offence, lose that hand also. This law, which

should allow no commutation of the punishment, under any

circumstances, would lend strength and authority to the court of

honour. In the course of a few years duelling would be ranked amongst

exploded follies, and men would begin to wonder that a custom so

barbarous and so impious had ever existed amongst them.





THE LOVE OF THE MARVELLOUS AND THE DISBELIEF OF THE TRUE.



    "Well, son John," said the old woman, "and what wonderful things

did you meet with all the time you were at sea?" - " Oh! mother,"

replied John, "I saw many strange things." -- " Tell us all about

them," replied his mother, "for I long to hear your adventures." -- "

Well, then," said John, "as we were sailing over the Line, what do you

think we saw?" - "I can't imagine," replied his mother. -- " Well, we

saw a fish rise out of the sea, and fly over our ship!" "Oh! John!

John! what a liar you are!" said his mother, shaking her head, and

smiling incredulously. "True as death? said John; "and we saw still

more wonderful things than that." -- " Let us hear them," said his

mother, shaking her head again; "and tell the truth, John, if you

can." -- " Believe it, or believe it not, as you please," replied her

son; "but as we were sailing up the Red Sea, our captain thought he

should like some fish for dinner; so he told us to throw our nets, and

catch some." -- " Well," inquired his mother, seeing that he paused in

his story. "Well," rejoined her son, "we did throw them, and, at the

very first haul, we brought up a chariot-wheel, made all of gold, and

inlaid with diamonds!" "Lord bless us!" said his mother, "and what did

the captain say ?" -- " Why, he said it was one of the wheels of

Pharaoh's chariot, that had lain in the Red Sea ever since that wicked

King was drowned, with all his host, while pursuing the Israelites."

-- " Well, well," said his mother, lifting up her hands in admiration;

"now, that's very possible, and I think the captain was a very

sensible man. Tell me such stories as that, and I'll believe you; but

never talk to me of such things as flying fish! No, no, John, such

stories won't go down with me, I can assure you!"



    Such old women as the sailor's mother, in the above well-known

anecdote, are by no means rare in the world. Every age and country has

produced them. They have been found in high places, and have sat down

among the learned of the earth. Instances must be familiar to every

reader in which the same person was willing, with greedy credulity, to

swallow the most extravagant fiction, and yet refuse credence to a

philosophical fact. The same Greeks who believed readily that Jupiter

wooed Leda in the form of a swan, denied stoutly that there were any

physical causes for storms and thunder, and treated as impious those

who attempted to account for them on true philosophical principles.



    The reasons that thus lead mankind to believe the marvellously

false, and to disbelieve the marvellously true, may be easily

gathered. Of all the offspring of Time, Error is the most ancient, and

is so old and familiar an acquaintance, that Truth, when discovered,

comes upon most of us like an intruder, and meets the intruder's

welcome. We all pay an involuntary homage to antiquity -- a "blind

homage," as Bacon calls it in his "Novum Organum," which tends greatly

to the obstruction of truth. To the great majority of mortal eyes,

Time sanctifies everything that he does not destroy. The mere fact of

anything being spared by the great foe makes it a favourite with us,

who are sure to fall his victims. To call a prejudice "time-hallowed,"

is to open a way for it into hearts where it never before penetrated.

Some peculiar custom may disgrace the people amongst whom it

flourishes; yet men of a little wisdom refuse to aid in its

extirpation, merely because it is old. Thus it is with human belief,

and thus it is we bring shame upon our own intellect.



    To this cause may be added another, also mentioned by Lord Bacon

-- a misdirected zeal in matters of religion, which induces so many to

decry a newly-discovered truth, because the Divine records contain no

allusion to it, or because, at first sight, it appears to militate,

not against religion, but against some obscure passage which has never

been fairly interpreted. The old woman in the story could not believe

that there was such a creature as a flying-fish, because her Bible did

not tell her so, but she believed that her son had drawn up the golden

and bejewelled wheel from the Red Sea, because her Bible informed her

that Pharaoh was drowned there.



    Upon a similar principle the monks of the inquisition believed

that the devil appeared visibly among men, that St. Anthony pulled his

nose with a pair of red-hot pincers, and that the relics of the saints

worked miracles; yet they would not believe Galileo, when he proved

that the earth turned round the sun.



    Keppler, when he asserted the same fact, could gain no bread, and

little credence; but when he pretended to tell fortunes and cast

nativities, the whole town flocked to him, and paid him enormous fees

for his falsehood.



    When Roger Bacon invented the telescope and the magic-lantern, no

one believed that the unaided ingenuity of man could have done it; but

when some wiseacres asserted that the devil had appeared to him, and

given him the knowledge which he turned to such account, no one was

bold enough to assert that it was improbable. His hint that saltpetre,

sulphur, and charcoal, mixed in certain proportions, would produce

effects similar to thunder and lightning, was disregarded or

disbelieved; but the legend of the brazen head which delivered

oracles, was credited for many ages.



[Godwin, in his "Lives of the Necromancers," gives the following

version of this legend. Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay entertained the

project of enclosing England with a wall, so as to render it

inaccessible to any invader. They accordingly raised the devil, as the

person best able to inform them how this was to be done. The devil

advised them to make a brazen head, with all the internal structure

and organs of a human head. The construction would cost them much

time, and they must wait with patience till the faculty of speech

descended upon it. Finally, however, it would become an oracle, and,

if the question were propounded to it, would teach them the solution

of their problem. The friars spent seven years in bringing the subject

to perfection, and waited day after day in expectation that it would

utter articulate sounds. At length nature became exhausted in them,

and they lay down to sleep, having first given it strictly in charge

to a servant of theirs, clownish in nature, but of strict fidelity,

that he should awaken them the moment the image began to speak. That

period arrived. The head uttered sounds, but such as the clown judged

unworthy of notice. "Time is!" it said. No notice was taken, and a

long pause ensued. "Time was!" -- a similar pause, and no notice.

"Time is passed!" The moment these words were uttered, a tremendous

storm ensued, with thunder and lightning, and the head was shivered

into a thousand pieces. Thus the experiment of Friar Bacon and Friar

Bungay came to nothing.]



    Solomon De Cans, who, in the time of Cardinal Richelieu, conceived

the idea of a steam-engine, was shut up in the Bastille as a madman,

because the idea of such an extraordinary instrument was too

preposterous for the wise age that believed in all the absurdities of

witchcraft.



    When Harvey first proved the circulation of the blood, every

tongue was let loose against him. The thing was too obviously an

imposition, and an attempt to deceive that public who believed that a

king's touch had power to cure the scrofula. That a dead criminal's

hand, rubbed against a wen, would cure it, was reasonable enough; but

that the blood flowed through the veins was beyond all probability.



    In our own day, a similar fate awaited the beneficent discovery of

Dr. Jenner. That vaccination could abate the virulence of, or preserve

from, the smallpox, was quite incredible; none but a cheat and a quack

could assert it: but that the introduction of the vaccine matter into

the human frame could endow men with the qualities of a cow, was quite

probable. Many of the poorer people actually dreaded that their

children would grow hairy and horned as cattle, if they suffered them

to be vaccinated.



    The Jesuit, Father Labat, the shrewd and learned traveller in

South America, relates an experiment which he made upon the credulity

of some native Peruvians. Holding a powerful lens in his hand, and

concentrating the rays of the sun upon the naked arm of an admiring

savage, he soon made him roar with pain. All the tribe looked on,

first with wonder, and then with indignation and wonder both combined.

In vain the philosopher attempted to explain the cause of the

phenomenon - in vain he offered to convince them that there was

nothing devilish in the experiment - he was thought to be in league

with the infernal gods to draw down the fire from Heaven, and was

looked upon, himself, as an awful and supernatural being. Many

attempts were made to gain possession of the lens, with the view of

destroying it, and thereby robbing the Western stranger of the means

of bringing upon them the vengeance of his deities.



    Very similar was the conduct of that inquiring Brahmin, which is

related by Forbes in his Oriental Memoirs. The Brahmin had a mind

better cultivated than his fellows; he was smitten with a love for the

knowledge of Europe -- read English books -- pored over the pages of

the Encyclopedia, and profited by various philosophical instruments;

but on religious questions the Brahmin was firm to the faith of his

caste and the doctrine of the Metempsychosis. Lest he might

sacrilegiously devour his progenitors, he abstained from all animal

food; and thinking that he ate nothing which enjoyed life, he

supported himself, like his brethren, upon fruits and vegetables. All

the knowledge that did not run counter to this belief, he sought after

with avidity, and bade fair to become the wisest of his race. In an

evil hour, his English friend and instructor exhibited a very powerful

solar microscope, by means of which he showed him that every drop of

water that he drank teemed with life -- that every fruit was like a

world, covered with innumerable animalculae, each of which was fitted

by its organization for the sphere in which it moved, and had its

wants, and the capability of supplying them as completely as visible

animals millions of times its bulk. The English philosopher expected

that his Hindoo friend would be enraptured at the vast field of

knowledge thus suddenly opened out to him, but he was deceived. The

Brahmin from that time became an altered man -- thoughtful, gloomy,

reserved, and discontented. He applied repeatedly to his friend that

he would make him a present of the microscope; but as it was the only

one of its kind in India, and the owner set a value upon it for other

reasons, he constantly refused the request, but offered him the loan

of it for any period he might require. But nothing short of an

unconditional gift of the instrument would satisfy the Brahmin, who

became at last so importunate that the patience of the Englishman was

exhausted, and he gave it him. A gleam of joy shot across the

care-worn features of the Hindoo as he clutched it, and bounding with

an exulting leap into the garden, he seized a large stone, and dashed

the instrument into a thousand pieces. When called upon to explain his

extraordinary conduct, he said to his friend, "Oh that I had remained

in that happy state of ignorance wherein you first found me! Yet will

I confess that, as my knowledge increased, so did my pleasure, until I

beheld the last wonders of the microscope; from that moment I have

been tormented by doubt and perplexed by mystery: my mind, overwhelmed

by chaotic confusion, knows not where to rest, nor how to extricate

itself from such a maze. I am miserable, and must continue to be so,

until I enter on another stage of existence. I am a solitary

individual among fifty millions of people, all educated in the same

belief with myself -- all happy in their ignorance! So may they ever

remain! I shall keep the secret within my own bosom, where it will

corrode my peace and break my rest. But I shall have some satisfaction

in knowing that I alone feel those pangs which, had I not destroyed

the instrument, might have been extensively communicated, and rendered

thousands miserable! Forgive me, my valuable friend! and oh, convey no

more implements of knowledge and destruction!"



    Many a learned man may smile at the ignorance of the Peruvian and

the Hindoo, unconscious that he himself is just as ignorant and as

prejudiced. Who does not remember the outcry against the science of

geology, which has hardly yet subsided? Its professors were impiously

and absurdly accused of designing to "hurl the Creator from his

throne." They were charged with sapping the foundations of religion,

and of propping atheism by the aid of a pretended science.



    The very same principle which leads to the rejection of the true,

leads to the encouragement of the false. Thus we may account for the

success which has attended great impostors, at times when the truth,

though not half so wondrous as their impositions, has been

disregarded. as extravagant and preposterous. The man who wishes to

cheat the people, must needs found his operations upon some prejudice

or belief that already exists. Thus the philosophic pretenders who

told fortunes by the stars cured all diseases by one nostrum, and

preserved from evil by charms and amulets, ran with the current of

popular belief. Errors that were consecrated by time and long

familiarity, they heightened and embellished, and succeeded to their

hearts' content; but the preacher of truth had a foundation to make as

well as a superstructure, a difficulty which did not exist for the

preacher of error. Columbus preached a new world, but was met with

distrust and incredulity; had he preached with as much zeal and

earnestness the discovery of some valley in the old one, where

diamonds hung upon the trees, or a herb grew that cured all the ills

incidental to humanity, he would have found a warm and hearty welcome

-- might have sold dried cabbage leaves for his wonderful herb, and

made his fortune.



    In fact, it will be found in the history of every generation and

race of men, that whenever a choice of belief between the "Wondrously

False" and the "Wondrously True" is given to ignorance or prejudice,

that their choice will be fixed upon the first, for the reason that it

is most akin to their own nature. The great majority of mankind, and

even of the wisest among us, are still in the condition of the

sailor's mother -- believing and disbelieving on the same grounds that

she did -- protesting against the flying fish, but cherishing the

golden wheels. Thousands there are amongst us, who, rather than pin

their faith in the one fish, would believe not only in the wheel of

go]d, but the chariot - not only in the chariot, but in the horses and

the driver.





POPULAR FOLLIES IN GREAT CITIES



La faridondaine -- la faridondon,

Vive la faridondaine!



BERANGER.



    The popular humours of a great city are a never-failing source of

amusement to the man whose sympathies are hospitable enough to embrace

all his kind, and who, refined though he may be himself, will not

sneer at the humble wit or grotesque peculiarities of the boozing

mechanic, the squalid beggar, the vicious urchin, and all the motley

group of the idle, the reckless, and the imitative that swarm in the

alleys and broadways of a metropolis. He who walks through a great

city to find subjects for weeping, may, God knows, find plenty at

every corner to wring his heart; but let such a man walk on his

course, and enjoy his grief alone -- we are not of those who would

accompany him. The miseries of us poor earthdwellers gain no

alleviation from the sympathy of those who merely hunt them out to be

pathetic over them. The weeping philosopher too often impairs his

eyesight by his woe, and becomes unable from his tears to see the

remedies for the evils which he deplores. Thus it will often be found

that the man of no tears is the truest philanthropist, as he is the

best physician who wears a cheerful face, even in the worst of cases.



    So many pens have been employed to point out the miseries, and so

many to condemn the crimes and vices, and more serious follies of the

multitude, that our's shall not increase the number, at least in this

chapter. Our present task shall be less ungracious, and wandering

through the busy haunts of great cities, we shall seek only for

amusement, and note as we pass a few of the harmless follies and

whimsies of the poor.



    And, first of all, walk where we will, we cannot help hearing from

every side a phrase repeated with delight, and received with laughter,

by men with hard hands and dirty faces -- by saucy butcher lads and

errand-boys -- by loose women -- by hackney coachmen, cabriolet

drivers, and idle fellows who loiter at the corners of streets. Not

one utters this phrase without producing a laugh from all within

hearing. It seems applicable to every circumstance, and is the

universal answer to every question; in short, it is the favourite

slang phrase of the day, a phrase that, while its brief season of

popularity lasts, throws a dash of fun and frolicsomeness over the

existence of squalid poverty and ill-requited labour, and gives them

reason to laugh as well as their more fortunate fellows in a higher

stage of society.



    London is peculiarly fertile in this sort of phrases, which spring

up suddenly, no one knows exactly in what spot, and pervade the whole

population in a few hours, no one knows how. Many years ago the

favourite phrase (for, though but a monosyllable, it was a phrase in

itself) was Quoz. This odd word took the fancy of the multitude in an

extraordinary degree, and very soon acquired an almost boundless

meaning. When vulgar wit wished to mark its incredulity and raise a

laugh at the same time, there was no resource so sure as this popular

piece of slang. When a man was asked a favour which he did not choose

to grant, he marked his sense of the suitor's unparalleled presumption

by exclaiming Quoz! When a mischievous urchin wished to annoy a

passenger, and create mirth for his chums, he looked him in the face,

and cried out Quoz! and the exclamation never failed in its object.

When a disputant was desirous of throwing a doubt upon the veracity of

his opponent, and getting summarily rid of an argument which he could

not overturn, he uttered the word Quoz, with a contemptuous curl of

his lip and an impatient shrug of his shoulders. The universal

monosyllable conveyed all his meaning, and not only told his opponent

that he lied, but that he erred egregiously if he thought that any one

was such a nincompoop as to believe him. Every alehouse resounded with

Quoz; every street corner was noisy with it, and every wall for miles

around was chalked with it.



    But, like all other earthly things, Quoz had its season, and

passed away as suddenly as it arose, never again to be the pet and the

idol of the populace. A new claimant drove it from its place, and held

undisputed sway till, in its turn, it was hurled from its

pre-eminence, and a successor appointed in its stead.



    "What a shocking bad hat!" was the phrase that was next in vogue.

No sooner had it become universal, than thousands of idle but sharp

eyes were on the watch for the passenger whose hat showed any signs,

however slight, of ancient service. Immediately the cry arose, and,

like the what-whoop of the Indians, was repeated by a hundred

discordant throats. He was a wise man who, finding himself under these

circumstances "the observed of all observers," bore his honours

meekly. He who showed symptoms of ill-feeling at the imputations cast

upon his hat, only brought upon himself redoubled notice. The mob soon

perceive whether a man is irritable, and, if of their own class, they

love to make sport of him. When such a man, and with such a hat,

passed in those days through a crowded neighbourhood, he might think

himself fortunate if his annoyances were confined to the shouts and

cries of the populace. The obnoxious hat was often snatched from his

head, and thrown into the gutter by some practical joker, and then

raised, covered with mud, upon the end of a stick, for the admiration

of the spectators, who held their sides with laughter, and exclaimed

in the pauses of their mirth, "Oh! what a shocking bad hat! .... What

a shocking bad hat!" Many a nervous, poor man, whose purse could but

ill spare the outlay, doubtless purchased a new hat before the time,

in order to avoid exposure in this manner.



    The origin of this singular saying, which made fun for the

metropolis for months, is not involved in the same obscurity as that

which shrouds the origin of Quoz and some others. There had been a

hotly-contested election for the borough of Southwark, and one of the

candidates was an eminent hatter. This gentleman, in canvassing the

electors, adopted a somewhat professional mode of conciliating their

good-will, and of bribing them without letting them perceive that they

were bribed. Whenever he called upon or met a voter whose hat was not

of the best material, or, being so, had seen its best days, he

invariably said, "What a shocking bad hat you have got; call at my

warehouse, and you shall have a new one!" Upon the day of election

this circumstance was remembered, and his opponents made the most of

it, by inciting the crowd to keep up an incessant cry of "What a

shocking bad hat!" all the time the honourable candidate was

addressing them. From Southwark the phrase spread over all London, and

reigned, for a time, the supreme slang of the season.



    Hookey Walker, derived from the chorus of a popular ballad, was

also high in favour at one time, and served, like its predecessor,

Quoz, to answer all questions. In the course of time the latter word

alone became the favourite, and was uttered with a peculiar drawl upon

the first syllable, and a sharp turn upon the last. If a lively

servant girl was importuned for a kiss by a fellow she did not care

about, she cocked her little nose, and cried "Walker!" If a dustman

asked his friend for the loan of a shilling, and his friend was either

unable or unwilling to accommodate him, the probable answer he would

receive was "Walker!" If a drunken man was reeling along the streets,

and a boy pulled his coat-tails, or a man knocked his hat over his

eyes to make fun of him, the joke was always accompanied by the same

exclamation. This lasted for two or three months, and "Walker!" walked

off the stage, never more to be revived for the entertainment of that

or any future generation.



    The next phrase was a most preposterous one. Who invented it, how

it arose, or where it was first heard, are alike unknown. Nothing

about it is certain, but that for months it was the slang par

excellence of the Londoners, and afforded them a vast gratification.

"There he goes with his eye out!" or "There she goes with her eye

out!" as the sex of the party alluded to might be, was in the mouth of

everybody who knew the town. The sober part of the community were as

much puzzled by this unaccountable saying as the vulgar were delighted

with it. The wise thought it very foolish, but the many thought it

very funny, and the idle amused themselves by chalking it upon walls,

or scribbling it upon monuments. But, "all that's bright must fade,"

even in slang. The people grew tired of their hobby, and "There he

goes with his eye out!" was heard no more in its accustomed haunts.



    Another very odd phrase came into repute in a brief space

afterwards, in the form of the impertinent and not universally

apposite query, "Has your mother sold her mangle?" But its popularity

was not of that boisterous and cordial kind which ensures a long

continuance of favour. What tended to impede its progress was, that it

could not be well applied to the older portions of society. It

consequently ran but a brief career, and then sank into oblivion. Its

successor enjoyed a more extended fame, and laid its foundations so

deep, that years and changing fashions have not sufficed to eradicate

it. This phrase was "Flare up!" and it is, even now, a colloquialism

in common use. It took its rise in the time of the Reform riots, when

Bristol was nearly half burned by the infuriated populace. The flames

were said to have flared up in the devoted city. Whether there was

anything peculiarly captivating in the sound, or in the idea of these

words, is hard to say; but whatever was the reason, it tickled the

mob-fancy mightily, and drove all other slang out of the field before

it. Nothing was to be heard all over London but "flare up!" It

answered all questions, settled all disputes, was applied to all

persons, all things, and all circumstances, and became suddenly the

most comprehensive phrase in the English language. The man who had

overstepped the bounds of decorum in his speech was said to have

flared up; he who had paid visits too repeated to the gin-shop, and

got damaged in consequence, had flared up. To put one's-self into a

passion; to stroll out on a nocturnal frolic, and alarm a

neighbourhood, or to create a disturbance in any shape, was to flare

up. A lovers' quarrel was a fare up; so was a boxing-match between two

blackguards in the streets, and the preachers of sedition and

revolution recommended the English nation to flare up, like the

French. So great a favourite was the word, that people loved to repeat

it for its very sound. They delighted apparently in hearing their own

organs articulate it; and labouring men, when none who could respond

to the call were within hearing, would often startle the aristocratic

echoes of the West by the well-known slang phrase of the East. Even in

the dead hours of the night, the ears of those who watched late, or

who could not sleep, were saluted with the same sound. The drunkard

reeling home showed that he was still a man and a citizen, by calling

"flare up" in the pauses of his hiccough. Drink had deprived him of

the power of arranging all other ideas; his intellect was sunk to the

level of the brute's; but he clung to humanity by the one last link of

the popular cry. While he could vociferate that sound, he had rights

as an Englishman, and would not sleep in a gutter, like a dog! Onwards

he went, disturbing quiet streets and comfortable people by his whoop,

till exhausted nature could support him no more, and he rolled

powerless into the road. When, in due time afterwards, the policeman

stumbled upon him as he lay, that guardian of the peace turned the

full light of his lantern on his face, and exclaimed, "Here's a poor

devil who's been flaring up!" Then came the stretcher, on which the

victim of deep potations was carried to the watchhouse, and pitched

into a dirty cell, among a score of wretches about as far gone as

himself, who saluted their new comrade by a loud, long shout of flare

up!



    So universal was this phrase, and so enduring seemed its

popularity, that a speculator, who knew not the evanescence of slang,

established a weekly newspaper under its name. But he was like the man

who built his house upon the sand; his foundation gave way under him,

and the phrase and the newspaper were washed into the mighty sea of

the things that were. The people grew at last weary of the monotony,

and "flare up" became vulgar even among them. Gradually it was left to

little boys who did not know the world, and in process of time sank

altogether into neglect. It is now heard no more as a piece of popular

slang; but the words are still used to signify any sudden outburst

either of fire, disturbance, or ill-nature.



    The next phrase that enjoyed the favour of the million was less

concise, and seems to have been originally aimed against precocious

youths who gave themselves the airs of manhood before their time.

"Does your mother know you're out?" was the provoking query addressed

to young men of more than reasonable swagger, who smoked cigars in the

streets, and wore false whiskers to look irresistible. We have seen

many a conceited fellow who could not suffer a woman to pass him

without staring her out of countenance, reduced at once into his

natural insignificance by the mere utterance of this phrase.

Apprentice lads and shopmen in their Sunday clothes held the words in

abhorrence, and looked fierce when they were applied to them.

Altogether the phrase had a very salutary effect, and in a thousand

instances showed young Vanity, that it was not half so pretty and

engaging as it thought itself. What rendered it so provoking was the

doubt it implied as to the capability of self-guidance possessed by

the individual to whom it was addressed. "Does your mother know you're

out?" was a query of mock concern and solicitude, implying regret and

concern that one so young and inexperienced in the ways of a great

city should be allowed to wander abroad without the guidance of a

parent. Hence the great wrath of those who verged on manhood, but had

not reached it, whenever they were made the subject of it. Even older

heads did not like it; and the heir of a ducal house, and inheritor of

a warrior's name, to whom they were applied by a cabriolet driver, who

was ignorant of his rank, was so indignant at the affront, that he

summoned the offender before the magisterial bench. The fellow had

wished to impose upon his Lordship by asking double the fare he was

entitled to, and when his Lordship resisted the demand, he was

insultingly asked "if his mother knew he was out?" All the drivers on

the stand joined in the query, and his Lordship was fain to escape

their laughter by walking away with as much haste as his dignity would

allow. The man pleaded ignorance that his customer was a Lord, but

offended justice fined him for his mistake.



    When this phrase had numbered its appointed days, it died away,

like its predecessors, and "Who are you?" reigned in its stead. This

new favourite, like a mushroom, seems to have sprung up in a night,

or, like a frog in Cheapside, to have come down in a sudden shower.

One day it was unheard, unknown, uninvented; the next it pervaded

London; every alley resounded with it; every highway was musical with

it,



"And street to street, and lane to lane flung back

The one unvarying cry."



The phrase was uttered quickly, and with a sharp sound upon the first

and last words, leaving the middle one little more than an aspiration.

Like all its compeers which had been extensively popular, it was

applicable to almost every variety of circumstance. The lovers of a

plain answer to a plain question did not like it at all. Insolence

made use of it to give offence; ignorance, to avoid exposing itself;

and waggery, to create laughter. Every new comer into an alehouse

tap-room was asked unceremoniously, "Who are you?" and if he looked

foolish, scratched his head, and did not know what to reply, shouts of

boisterous merriment resounded on every side. An authoritative

disputant was not unfrequently put down, and presumption of every kind

checked by the same query. When its popularity was at its height, a

gentleman, feeling the hand of a thief in his pocket, turned suddenly

round, and caught him in the act, exclaiming, "Who are you?" The mob

which gathered round applauded to the very echo, and thought it the

most capital joke they had ever heard -- the very acme of wit -- the

very essence of humour. Another circumstance, of a similar kind, gave

an additional fillip to the phrase, and infused new life and vigour

into it, just as it was dying away. The scene occurred in the chief

criminal court of the kingdom. A prisoner stood at the bar; the

offence with which he had been charged was clearly proved against him;

his counsel had been heard, not in his defence, but in extenuation,

insisting upon his previous good life and character, as reasons for

the lenity of the court. "And where are your witnesses?" inquired the

learned judge who presided. "Please you, my Lord, I knows the prisoner

at the bar, and a more honester feller never breathed," said a rough

voice in the gallery. The officers of the court looked aghast, and the

strangers tittered with ill-suppressed laughter. "Who are you?" said

the Judge, looking suddenly up, but with imperturbable gravity. The

court was convulsed; the titter broke out into a laugh, and it was

several minutes before silence and decorum could be restored. When the

Ushers recovered their self-possession, they made diligent search for

the profane transgressor; but he was not to be found. Nobody knew him;

nobody had seen him. After a while the business of the court again

proceeded. The next prisoner brought up for trial augured favourably

of his prospects when he learned that the solemn lips of the

representative of justice had uttered the popular phrase as if he felt

and appreciated it. There was no fear that such a judge would use

undue severity; his heart was with the people; he understood their

language and their manners, and would make allowances for the

temptations which drove them into crime. So thought many of the

prisoners, if we may infer it from the fact, that the learned judge

suddenly acquired an immense increase of popularity. The praise of his

wit was in every mouth, and "Who are you?" renewed its lease, and

remained in possession of public favour for another term in

consequence.



    But it must not be supposed that there were no interregni between

the dominion of one slang phrase and another. They did not arise in

one long line of unbroken succession, but shared with song the

possession of popular favour. Thus, when the people were in the mood

for music, slang advanced its claims to no purpose, and, when they

were inclined for slang, the sweet voice of music wooed them in vain.

About twenty years ago London resounded with one chorus, with the love

of which everybody seemed to be smitten. Girls and boys, young men and

old, maidens and wives, and widows, were all alike musical. There was

an absolute mania for singing, and the worst of it was, that, like

good Father Philip, in the romance of "The Monastery," they seemed

utterly unable to change their tune. "Cherry ripe!" "Cherry ripe!" was

the universal cry of all the idle in the town. Every unmelodious voice

gave utterance to it; every crazy fiddle, every cracked flute, every

wheezy pipe, every street organ was heard in the same strain, until

studious and quiet men stopped their ears in desperation, or fled

miles away into the fields or woodlands, to be at peace. This plague

lasted for a twelvemonth, until the very name of cherries became an

abomination in the land. At last the excitement wore itself away, and

the tide of favour set in a new direction. Whether it was another song

or a slang phrase, is difficult to determine at this distance of time;

but certain it is, that very shortly afterwards, people went mad upon

a dramatic subject, and nothing was to be heard of but "Tom and

Jerry." Verbal wit had amused the multitude long enough, and they

became more practical in their recreation. Every youth on the town was

seized with the fierce desire of distinguishing himself, by knocking

down the "charlies," being locked up all night in a watchhouse, or

kicking up a row among loose women and blackguard men in the low dens

of St. Giles's. Imitative boys vied with their elders in similar

exploits, until this unworthy passion, for such it was, had lasted,

like other follies, its appointed time, and the town became merry

after another fashion. It was next thought the height of vulgar wit to

answer all questions by placing the point of the thumb upon the tip of

the nose, and twirling the fingers in the air. If one man wished to

insult or annoy another, he had only to make use of this cabalistic

sign in his face, and his object was accomplished. At every street

corner where a group was assem- bled, the spectator who was curious

enough to observe their movements, would be sure to see the fingers of

some of them at their noses, either as a mark of incredulity,

surprise, refusal, or mockery, before he had watched two minutes.

There is some remnant of this absurd custom to be seen to this day;

but it is thought low, even among the vulgar.



    About six years ago, London became again most preposterously

musical. The vox populi wore itself hoarse by singing the praises of

"The Sea, the Sea!" If a stranger (and a philosopher) had walked

through London, and listened to the universal chorus, he might have

constructed a very pretty theory upon the love of the English for the

sea-service, and our acknowledged superiority over all other nations

upon that element. "No wonder," he might have said, "that this people

is invincible upon the ocean. The love of it mixes with their daily

thoughts: they celebrate it even in the market-place: their

street-minstrels excite charity by it; and high and low, young and

old, male and female, chant Io paeans in its praise. Love is not

honoured in the national songs of this warlike race -- Bacchus is no

god to them; they are men of sterner mould, and think only of 'the

Sea, the Sea!' and the means of conquering upon it."



    Such would, doubtless, have been his impression if he had taken

the evidence only of his ears. Alas! in those days for the refined

ears that were musical! great was their torture when discord, with its

thousand diversities of tone, struck up this appalling anthem -- there

was no escape from it. The migratory minstrels of Savoy caught the

strain, and pealed it down the long vistas of quiet streets, till

their innermost and snuggest apartments re-echoed with the sound. Men

were obliged to endure this crying evil for full six months, wearied

to desperation, and made sea-sick on the dry land.



    Several other songs sprang up in due succession afterwards, but

none of them, with the exception of one, entitled "All round my Hat,"

enjoyed any extraordinary share of favour, until an American actor

introduced a vile song called "Jim Crow." The singer sang his verses

in appropriate costume, with grotesque gesticulations, and a sudden

whirl of his body at the close of each verse. It took the taste of the

town immediately, and for months the ears of orderly people were

stunned by the senseless chorus-



"Turn about and wheel about,

And do just so--

Turn about and wheel about,

And jump, Jim Crow!"



Street-minstrels blackened their faces in order to give proper effect

to the verses; and fatherless urchins, who had to choose between

thieving and singing for their livelihood, took the latter course, as

likely to be the more profitable, as long as the public taste remained

in that direction. The uncouth dance, its accompaniment, might be seen

in its full perfection on market nights in any great thoroughfare; and

the words of the song might be heard, piercing above all the din and

buzz of the ever-moving multitude. He, the calm observer, who during

the hey-day popularity of this doggrel,



"Sate beside the public way,

Thick strewn with summer dust, and saw the stream

Of people there was hurrying to and fro,

Numerous as gnats upon the evening gleam,"



might have exclaimed with Shelley, whose fine lines we quote, that



"The million, with fierce song and maniac dance,

Did rage around."



The philosophic theorist we have already supposed soliloquising upon

the English character, and forming his opinion of it from their

exceeding love for a sea-song, might, if he had again dropped suddenly

into London, have formed another very plausible theory to account for

our unremitting efforts for the abolition of the Slave Trade.

"Benevolent people!" he might have said, "how unbounded are your

sympathies! Your unhappy brethren of Africa, differing from you only

in the colour of their skins, are so dear to you, and you begrudge so

little the twenty millions you have paid on their behalf, that you

love to have a memento of them continually in your sight. Jim Crow is

the representative of that injured race, and as such is the idol of

your populace! See how they all sing his praises! -- how they imitate

his peculiarities! -- how they repeat his name in their moments of

leisure and relaxation! They even carve images of him to adorn their

hearths, that his cause and his sufferings may never be forgotten !

Oh, philanthropic England! -- oh, vanguard of civilization!"



    Such are a few of the peculiarities of the London multitude, when

no riot, no execution, no murder, no balloon, disturbs the even

current of their thoughts. These are the whimseys of the mass - the

harmless follies by which they unconsciously endeavour to lighten the

load of care which presses upon their existence. The wise man, even

though he smile at them, will not altogether withhold his sympathy,

and will say, "Let them enjoy their slang phrases and their choruses

if they will; and if they cannot be happy, at least let them be

merry." To the Englishman, as well as to the Frenchman of whom

Beranger sings, there may be some comfort in so small a thing as a

song, and we may, own with him that



"Au peuple attriste

Ce qui rendra la gaite,

C'est la GAUDRIOLE!

O gue!

C'est la GAUDRIOLE!"





THE O.P. MANIA.



And these things bred a great combustion in the town.

    Wagstaffe's "Apparition of Mother Haggis."



    The acrimonious warfare carried on for a length of time by the

playgoers of London against the proprietors of Covent-Garden Theatre,

is one of the most singular instances upon record of the small folly

which will sometimes pervade a multitude of intelligent men. Carried

on at first from mere obstinacy by a few, and afterwards for mingled

obstinacy and frolic by a greater number, it increased at last to such

a height, that the sober dwellers in the provinces held up their hands

in astonishment, and wondered that the people of London should be such

fools. As much firmness and perseverance displayed in a better cause,

might have achieved important triumphs; and we cannot but feel regret,

in recording this matter, that so much good and wholesome energy

should have been thrown away on so unworthy an object. But we will

begin with the beginning, and trace the O. P. mania from its source.



    On the night of the 20th of September, 1808, the old theatre of

Covent-Garden was totally destroyed by fire. Preparations were

immediately made for the erection of a more splendid edifice, and the

managers, Harris and the celebrated John Philip Kemble, announced that

the new theatre should be without a rival in Europe. In less than

three months, the rubbish of the old building was cleared away, and

the foundation-stone of the new one laid with all due ceremony by the

Duke of Sussex. With so much celerity were the works carried on that,

in nine months more, the edifice was completed, both without and

within. The opening night was announced for the 18th of September

1809, within two days of a twelvemonth since the destruction of the

original building.



    But the undertaking had proved more expensive than the Committee

anticipated. To render the pit entrance more commodious, it had been

deemed advisable to remove a low public-house that stood in the way.

This turned out a matter of no little difficulty, for the proprietor

was a man well skilled in driving a hard bargain. The more eager the

Committee showed themselves to come to terms with him for his

miserable pot-house, the more grasping he became in his demands for

compensation. They were ultimately obliged to pay him an exorbitant

sum. Added to this, the interior decorations were on the most costly

scale; and Mrs. Siddons, and other members of the Kemble family,

together with the celebrated Italian singer, Madame Catalani, had been

engaged at very high salaries. As the night of opening drew near, the

Committee found that they had gone a little beyond their means; and

they issued a notice, stating that, in consequence of the great

expense they had been at in building the theatre, and the large

salaries they had agreed to pay, to secure the services of the most

eminent actors, they were under the necessity of fixing the prices of

admission at seven shillings to the boxes and four shillings to the

pit, instead of six shillings and three and sixpence, as heretofore.



    This announcement created the greatest dissatisfaction. The boxes

might have borne the oppression, but the dignity of the pit was

wounded. A war-cry was raised immediately. For some weeks previous to

the opening, a continual clatter was kept up in clubs and

coffee-rooms, against what was considered a most unconstitutional

aggression on the rights of play-going man. The newspapers assiduously

kept up the excitement, and represented, day after day, to the

managers the impolicy of the proposed advance. The bitter politics of

the time were disregarded, and Kemble and Covent-Garden became as

great sources of interest as Napoleon and France. Public attention was

the more fixed upon the proceedings at Covent-Garden, since it was the

only patent theatre then in existence, Drury-Lane theatre having also

been destroyed by fire in the month of February previous. But great as

was the indignation of the lovers of the drama at that time, no one

could have anticipated the extraordinary lengths to which opposition

would be carried.



    First Night, September 20th. -- The performances announced were

the tragedy of "Macbeth" and the afterpiece of "The Quaker." The house

was excessively crowded (the pit especially) with persons who had gone

for no other purpose than to make a disturbance. They soon discovered

another grievance to add to the list. The whole of the lower, and

three-fourths of the upper tier of boxes, were let out for the season;

so that those who had paid at the door for a seat in the boxes, were

obliged to mount to a level with the gallery. Here they were stowed

into boxes which, from their size and shape, received the

contemptuous, and not inappropriate designation of pigeon-holes. This

was considered in the light of a new aggression upon established

rights; and long before the curtain drew up, the managers might have

heard in their green-room the indignant shouts of "Down with the

pigeon-holes!" -- " Old prices for ever!" Amid this din the curtain

rose, and Mr. Kemble stood forward to deliver a poetical address in

honour of the occasion. The riot now began in earnest; not a word of

the address was audible, from the stamping and groaning of the people

in the pit. This continued, almost without intermission, through the

five acts of the tragedy. Now and then, the sublime acting of Mrs.

Siddons, as "the awful woman," hushed the noisy multitude into

silence, in spite of themselves: but it was only for a moment; the

recollection of their fancied wrongs made them ashamed of their

admiration, and they shouted and hooted again more vigorously than

before. The comedy of Munden in the afterpiece met with no better

reception; not a word was listened to, and the curtain fell amid still

increasing uproar and shouts of "Old prices!" Some magistrates, who

happened to be present, zealously came to the rescue, and appeared on

the stage with copies of the Riot Act. This ill-judged proceeding made

the matter worse. The men of the pit were exasperated by the

indignity, and strained their lungs to express how deeply they felt

it. Thus remained the war till long after midnight, when the

belligerents withdrew from sheer exhaustion.



    Second Night. -- The crowd was not so great; all those who had

gone on the previous evening to listen to the performances, now stayed

away, and the rioters had it nearly all to themselves. With the

latter, "the play was not the thing," and Macheath and Polly sang in

"The Beggar's Opera" in vain. The actors and the public appeared to

have changed sides -- the audience acted, and the actors listened. A

new feature of this night's proceedings was the introduction of

placards. Several were displayed from the pit and boxes, inscribed in

large letters with the words, "Old prices." With a view of striking

terror, the constables who had been plentifully introduced into the

house, attacked the placard-bearers, and succeeded, after several

severe battles, in dragging off a few of them to the neighbouring

watch-house, in Bow Street. Confusion now became worse and worse

confounded. The pitites screamed themselves hoarse; while, to increase

the uproar, some mischievous frequenters of the upper regions squeaked

through dozens of cat-calls, till the combined noise was enough to

blister every tympanum in the house.



    Third Night.--The appearance of several gentlemen in the morning

at the bar of the Bow Street police office, to answer for their

riotous conduct, had been indignantly commented upon during the day.

All augured ill for the quiet of the night. The performances announced

were "Richard the Third" and "The Poor Soldier," but the popularity of

the tragedy could not obtain it a hearing. The pitites seemed to be

drawn into closer union by the attacks made upon them, and to act more

in concert than on the previous nights. The placards were, also, more

numerous; not only the pit, but the boxes and galleries exhibited

them. Among the most conspicuous, was one inscribed, "John Bull

against John Kemble. -- Who'll win?" Another bore "King George for

ever! but no King Kemble." A third was levelled against Madame

Catalani, whose large salary was supposed to be one of the causes of

the increased prices, and was inscribed "No foreigners to tax us --

we're taxed enough already." This last was a double-barrelled one,

expressing both dramatic and political discontent, and was received

with loud cheers by the pitites.



    The tragedy and afterpiece were concluded full two hours before

their regular time; and the cries for Mr. Kemble became so loud, that

the manager thought proper to obey the summons. Amid all these scenes

of uproar he preserved his equanimity, and was never once betrayed

into any expression of petulance or anger. With some difficulty he

obtained a hearing. He entered into a detail of the affairs of the

theatre, assuring the audience at the same time of the solicitude of

the proprietors to accommodate themselves to the public wish. This was

received with some applause, as it was thought at first to manifest a

willingness to come back to the old prices, and the pit eagerly waited

for the next sentence, that was to confirm their hopes. That sentence

was never uttered, for Mr. Kemble, folding his arms majestically,

added, in his deep tragic voice, "Ladies and Gentlemen, I wait here to

know what you want!" Immediately the uproar was renewed, and became so

tremendous and so deafening, that the manager, seeing the uselessness

of further parley, made his bow and retired.



    A gentleman then rose in the boxes and requested a hearing. He

obtained it without difficulty. He began by inveighing in severe terms

against the pretended ignorance of Mr. Kemble, in asking them so

offensively what they wanted, and concluded by exhorting the people

never to cease their opposition until they brought down the prices to

their old level. The speaker, whose name was understood to be Leigh,

then requested a cheer for the actors, to show that no disrespect was

intended them. The cheer was given immediately.



    A barrister of the name of Smythe then rose to crave another

hearing for Mr. Kemble. The manager stood forth again, calm, unmoved,

and severe. "Ladies and gentlemen," said he, "I wait here to know your

wishes." Mr. Leigh, who took upon himself, "for that night only," the

character of popular leader, said, the only reply he could give was

one in three words, "the old prices." Hereat the shouts of applause

again rose, till the building rang. Still serene amid the storm, the

manager endeavoured to enter into explanations. The men of the pit

would hear nothing of the sort. They wanted entire and absolute

acquiescence. Less would not satisfy them; and, as Mr. Kemble only

wished to explain, they would not hear a word. He finally withdrew

amid a noise to which Babel must have been comparatively silent.



    Fourth night. -- The rioters were more obstinate than ever. The

noises were increased by the addition of whistles, bugle-horns, and

watchmen's rattles, sniffling, snorting, and clattering from all parts

of the house. Human lungs were taxed to the uttermost, and the

stamping on the floor raised such a dust as to render all objects but

dimly visible. In placards, too, there was greater variety. The loose

wits of the town had all day been straining their ingenuity to invent

new ones. Among them were, "Come forth, O Kemble! come forth and

tremble!" "Foolish John Kemble, we'll make you tremble!" and "No cats!

no Catalani! English actors for ever!"



    Those who wish to oppose a mob successfully, should never lose

their temper. It is a proof of weakness which masses of people at once

perceive, and never fail to take advantage of. Thus, when the managers

unwisely resolved to fight the mob with their own weapons, it only

increased the opposition it was intended to allay. A dozen pugilists,

commanded by a notorious boxer of the day, were introduced into the

pit, to use the argumentum ad hominem to the rioters. Continual

scuffles ensued: but the invincible resolution of the playgoers would

not allow them to quail; it rather aroused them to renewed opposition,

and a determination never to submit or yield. It also strengthened

their cause, by affording them further ground of complaint against the

managers.



    The performances announced on the bills were the opera of "Love in

a Village," and "Who wins?" but the bills had it all to themselves,

for neither actors nor public were much burthened with them. The

latter, indeed, afforded some sport. The title was too apt to the

occasion to escape notice, and shouts of "Who wins? who wins?"

displaced for a time the accustomed cry of old prices.



    After the fall of the curtain, Mr. Leigh, with another gentleman,

again spoke, complaining bitterly of the introduction of the

prize-fighters, and exhorting the public never to give in. Mr. Kemble

was again called forward; but when he came, the full tide of discord

ran so strongly against him that, being totally unable to stem it, he

withdrew. Each man seemed to shout as if he had been a Stentor; and

when his lungs were wearied, took to his feet and stamped, till all

the black coats in his vicinity became grey with dust. At last the

audience were tired out, and the theatre was closed before eleven

o'clock.



    Fifth night. -- The play was Coleman's amusing comedy of" John

Bull." There was no diminution of the uproar. Every note on the

diapason of discord was run through. The prize-fighters, or hitites as

they were called, mustered in considerable numbers, and the battles

between them and the pitites were fierce and many. It was now, for the

first time, that the letters O.P. came into general use as an

abbreviation of the accustomed watchword of old prices. Several

placards were thus inscribed; and, as brevity is so desirable in

shouting, the mob adopted the emendation. As usual, the manager was

called for. After some delay he came forward, and was listened to with

considerable patience. He repeated, in respectful terms, the great

loss that would be occasioned to the proprietors by a return to the

old prices, and offered to submit a statement of their accounts to the

eminent lawyers, Sir Vicary Gibbs and Sir Thomas Plumer; the eminent

merchants, Sir Francis Baring and Mr. Angerstein; and Mr. Whitmore,

the Governor of the Bank of England. By their decision as to the

possibility of carrying on the theatre at the old prices, he would

consent to be governed, and he hoped the public would do the same.

This reasonable proposition was scouted immediately. Not even the high

and reputable names he had mentioned were thought to afford any

guarantee for impartiality. The pitites were too wrong-headed to abate

one iota of their pretensions; and they had been too much insulted by

the prize-fighters in the manager's pay, to show any consideration for

him, or agree to any terms he might propose. They wanted full

acquiescence, and nothing less. Thus the conference broke off, and the

manager retired amid a storm of hisses.



    An Irish gentleman, named O'Reilly, then stood up in one of the

boxes. With true Irish gallantry, he came to the rescue of an ill-used

lady. He said he was disgusted at the attacks made upon Madame

Catalani, the finest singer in the world, and a lady inestimable in

private life. It was unjust, unmanly, and un-English to make the

innocent suffer for the guilty; and he hoped this blot would be no

longer allowed to stain a fair cause. As to the quarrel with the

manager, he recommended them to persevere. They were not only wronged

by his increased prices, but insulted by his boxers, and he hoped,

that before they had done with him, they would teach him a lesson he

would not soon forget. The gallant Hibernian soon became a favourite,

and sat down amid loud cheers.



    Sixth night. - No signs of a cessation of hostilities on the one

side, or of a return to the old prices on the other. The playgoers

seemed to grow more united as the managers grew more obstinate. The

actors had by far the best time of it; for they were spared nearly all

the labour of their parts, and merely strutted on the stage to see how

matters went on, and then strutted off again. Notwithstanding the

remonstrance of Mr. O'Reilly on the previous night, numerous placards

reflecting upon Madame Catalani were exhibited. One was inscribed with

the following doggrel :-



"Seventeen thousand a-year goes pat,

To Kemble, his sister, and Madame Cat."



On another was displayed, in large letters, "No compromise, old

prices, and native talent!" Some of these were stuck against the front

of the boxes, and others were hoisted from the pit on long poles. The

following specimens will suffice to show the spirit of them; wit they

had none, or humour either, although when they were successively

exhibited, they elicited roars of laughter:--



"John Kemble alone is the cause of this riot;

When he lowers his prices, John Bull will be quiet."



"John Kemble be damn'd,

We will not be cramm'd."



"Squire Kemble

Begins to tremble."



    The curtain fell as early as nine o'clock, when there being loud

calls for Mr. Kemble, he stood forward. He announced that Madame

Catalani, against whom so unjustifiable a prejudice had been excited,

had thrown up her engagement rather than stand in the way of any

accommodation of existing differences. This announcement was received

with great applause. Mr. Kemble then went on to vindicate himself and

co-proprietors from the charge of despising public opinion. No

assertion, he assured them, could be more unjust. They were sincerely

anxious to bring these unhappy differences to a close, and he thought

he had acted in the most fair and reasonable manner in offering to

submit the accounts to an impartial committee, whose decision, and the

grounds for it, should be fully promulgated. This speech was received

with cheering, but interrupted at the close by some individuals, who

objected to any committee of the manager's nomination. This led to a

renewal of the uproar, and it was some time before silence could be

obtained. When, at last, he was able to make himself heard, he gave

notice, that until the decision of the committee had been drawn up,

the theatre should remain closed. Immediately every person in the pit

stood up, and a long shout of triumph resounded through the house,

which was heard at the extremity of Bow Street. As if this result had

been anticipated, a placard was at the same moment hoisted, inscribed,

"Here lies the body of NEW PRICE, an ugly brat and base born, who

expired on the 23rd of September 1809, aged six days. -- Requiescat in

pace!"



    Mr. Kemble then retired, and the pitites flung up their hats in

the air, or sprang over the benches, shouting and hallooing in the

exuberance of their joy; and thus ended the first act of this popular

farce.



    The committee ultimately chosen differed from that first named,

Alderman Sir Charles Price, Bart. and Mr. Silvester, the Recorder of

London, being substituted for Sir Francis Baring and Sir Vicary Gibbs.

In a few days they had examined the multitudinous documents of the

theatre, and agreed to a report which was published in all the

newspapers, and otherwise distributed. They stated the average profits

of the six preceding years at 6 and 3/8 per cent, being only 1 and 3/8

per cent. beyond the legal interest of money, to recompense the

proprietors for all their care and enterprise. Under the new prices

they would receive 3 and 1/2 per cent. profit; but if they returned to

the old prices, they would suffer a loss of fifteen shillings per

cent. upon their capital. Under these circumstances, they could do no

other than recommend the proprietors to continue the new prices.



    This report gave no satisfaction. It certainly convinced the

reasonable, but they, unfortunately, were in a minority of one to ten.

The managers, disregarding the outcry that it excited, advertised the

recommencement of the performances for Wednesday the 4th of October

following. They endeavoured to pack the house with their friends, but

the sturdy O.P. men were on the alert, and congregated in the pit in

great numbers. The play was "The Beggar's Opera," but, as on former

occasions, it was wholly inaudible. The noises were systematically

arranged, and the actors, seeing how useless it was to struggle

against the popular feeling, hurried over their parts as quickly as

they could, and the curtain fell shortly after nine o'clock. Once more

the manager essayed the difficult task of convincing madness by

appealing to reason. As soon as the din of the rattles and post-horns

would permit him to speak, he said, he would throw himself on the

fairness of the most enlightened metropolis in the world. He was sure,

however strongly they might feel upon the subject, they would not be

accessory to the ruin of the theatre, by insisting upon a return to

the former prices. Notwithstanding the little sop he had thrown out to

feed the vanity of this roaring Cerberus, the only answer he received

was a renewal of the noise, intermingled with shouts of "Hoax! hoax!

imposition!" Mr. O'Reilly, the gallant friend of Madame Catalani,

afterwards addressed the pit, and said no reliance could be placed on

the report of the committee. The profits of the theatre were evidently

great: they had saved the heavy salary of Madame Catalani; and by

shutting out the public from all the boxes but the pigeon-holes, they

made large sums. The first and second tiers were let at high rents to

notorious courtesans, several of whom he then saw in the house; and it

was clear that the managers preferred a large revenue from this impure

source to the reasonable profits they would receive from respectable

people. Loud cheers greeted this speech; every eye was turned towards

the boxes, and the few ladies in them immediately withdrew. At the

same moment, some inveterate pitite hoisted a large placard, on which

was inscribed,



"We lads of the pit

Will never submit."



Several others were introduced. One of them was a caricature likeness

of Mr. Kemble, asking, "What do you want?" with a pitite replying,

"The old prices, and no pigeon-holes!" Others merely bore the drawing

of a large key, in allusion to a notorious house in the neighbourhood,

the denizens of which were said to be great frequenters of the private

boxes. These appeared to give the managers more annoyance than all the

rest, and the prize-fighters made vigorous attacks upon the holders of

them. Several persons were, on this night, and indeed nearly every

night, taken into custody, and locked up in the watchhouse. On their

appearance the following morning, they were generally held to bail in

considerable sums to keep the peace. This proceeding greatly augmented

the animosity of the pit.



    It would be useless to detail the scenes of confusion which

followed night after night. For about three weeks the war continued

with unabated fury. Its characteristics were nearly always the same.

Invention was racked to discover new noises, and it was thought a

happy idea when one fellow got into the gallery with a dustman's bell,

and rang it furiously. Dogs were also brought into the boxes, to add

their sweet voices to the general uproar. The animals seemed to join

in it con amore, and one night a large mastiff growled and barked so

loudly, as to draw down upon his exertions three cheers from the

gratified pitites.



    So strong did the popular enthusiasm run in favour of the row,

that well-dressed ladies appeared in the boxes with the letters O. P.

on their bonnets. O. P. hats for the gentlemen were still more common,

and some were so zealous in the cause, as to sport waistcoats with an

O embroidered upon one flap and a P on the other. O.P. toothpicks were

also in fashion; and gentlemen and ladies carried O.P. handkerchiefs,

which they waved triumphantly whenever the row was unusually

deafening. The latter suggested the idea of O. P. flags, which were

occasionally unfurled from the gallery to the length of a dozen feet.

Sometimes the first part of the night's performances were listened to

with comparative patience, a majority of the manager's friends being

in possession of the house. But as soon as the half-price commenced,

the row began again in all its pristine glory. At the fall of the

curtain it soon became customary to sing "God save the King," the

whole of the O.P.'s joining in loyal chorus. Sometimes this was

followed by "Rule Britannia;" and, on two or three occasions, by a

parody of the national anthem, which excited great laughter. A verse

may not be uninteresting as a specimen.



"O Johnny Bull, be true,

Confound the prices new,

And make them fall!

Curse Kemble's politics,

Frustrate his knavish tricks,

On thee our hopes we fix,

T' upset them all !"



This done, they scrambled over the benches, got up sham fights in the

pit, or danced the famous O.P. dance. The latter may as well be

described here: half a dozen, or a dozen fellows formed in a ring, and

stamped alternately with the right and left foot, calling out at

regular intervals, O. P. - O. P. with a drawling and monotonous sound.

This uniformly lasted till the lights were put out, when the rioters

withdrew, generally in gangs of ten or twenty, to defend themselves

from sudden attacks on the part of the constables.



    An idea seemed about this time to break in upon them, that

notwithstanding the annoyance they caused the manager, they were

aiding to fill his coffers. This was hinted at in some of the

newspapers, and the consequence was, that many stayed away to punish

him, if possible, under the silent system. But this did not last long.

The love of mischief was as great an incentive to many of them as

enmity to the new prices. Accidental circumstances also contributed to

disturb the temporary calm. At the Westminster quarter-sessions, on

the 27th of October, bills of indictment were preferred against

forty-one persons for creating a disturbance and interrupting the

performances of the theatre. The grand jury ignored twenty-seven of

the bills, left two undecided, and found true bills against twelve.

The latter exercised their right of traverse till the ensuing

sessions. The preferment of these bills had the effect of re-awakening

the subsiding excitement. Another circumstance about the same time

gave a still greater impetus to it, and furnished the rioters with a

chief, round whom they were eager to rally. Mr. Clifford, a barrister,

appeared in the pit on the night of the 31st of October, with the

letters O. P. on his hat. Being a man of some note, he was pounced

upon by the constables, and led off to Bow Street police office, where

Brandon, the box-keeper, charged him with riotous and disorderly

conduct. This was exactly what Clifford wanted. He told the presiding

magistrate, a Mr. Read, that he had purposely displayed the letters on

his hat, in order that the question of right might be determined

before a competent tribunal. He denied that he had committed any

offence, and seemed to manifest so intimate an acquaintance with the

law upon the subject, that the magistrate, convinced by his reasoning,

ordered his immediate dismissal, and stated that he had been taken

into custody without the slightest grounds. The result was made known

in the theatre a few minutes afterwards, where Mr. Clifford, on his

appearance victorious, was received with reiterated huzzas. On his

leaving the house, he was greeted by a mob of five or six hundred

persons, who had congregated outside to do him honour as he passed.

From that night the riots may be said to have recommenced, and

"Clifford and O. P." became the rallying cry of the party. The

officious box-keeper became at the same time the object of the popular

dislike, and the contempt with which the genius and fine qualities of

Mr. Kemble would not permit them to regard him, was fastened upon his

underling. So much ill-feeling was directed towards the latter, that

at this time a return to the old prices, unaccompanied by his

dismissal, would not have made the manager's peace with the pitites.



    In the course of the few succeeding weeks, during which the riots

continued with undiminished fury, O. P. medals were struck, and worn

in great numbers in the theatre. A few of the ultra-zealous even wore

them in the streets. A new fashion also came into favour for hats,

waistcoats, and handkerchiefs, on which the mark, instead of the

separate letters O and P, was a large O, with a small P in the middle

of it: thus,



           xxxxxxxxx

           x       x

           x  xxx  x

           x  x x  x

           x  xxx  x

           x  x    x

           x  x    x

           x       x

           xxxxxxxxx



    The managers, seeing that Mr. Clifford was so identified with the

rioters, determined to make him responsible. An action was accordingly

brought against him and other defendants in the Court of King's Bench.

On the 20th of November, the Attorney-general moved, before Lord

Ellenborough, for a rule to show cause why a criminal information

should not be filed against Clifford for unlawfully conspiring with

certain others to intimidate the proprietors of Covent-Garden Theatre,

and force them, to their loss and detriment, to lower their prices of

admission. The rule was granted, and an early day fixed for the trial.

In the mean time, these proceedings kept up the acerbity of the O.

P.s, and every night at the fall of the curtain, three groans were

given for John Kemble and three cheers for John Bull.



    It was during this year that the national Jubilee was celebrated,

in honour of tile fiftieth year of the reign of George III. When the

riots had reached their fiftieth night, the O. P.s also determined to

have a jubilee. All their previous efforts in the way of roaring,

great as they were, were this night outdone, and would have continued

long after "the wee short hour," had not the managers wisely put the

extinguisher upon them and the lights about eleven o'clock.



    Pending the criminal prosecution against himself, Mr. Clifford

brought an action for false imprisonment against Brandon. The cause

was fixed for trial in the Court of Common Pleas, on the 5th of

December, before Lord Chief-Justice Mansfield. From an early hour in

the morning all the avenues leading to the court were thronged with an

eager multitude; all London was in anxiety for the resuit. So dense

was the crowd, that counsel found the greatest difficulty in making

their way into court. Mr. Sergeant Best was retained on the part of

the plaintiff, and Mr. Sergeant Shepherd for the defence. The

defendant put two pleas upon the record; first, that he was not

guilty, and secondly, that he was justified. Sergeant Best, in stating

the plaintiff's case, blamed the managers for all the disturbances

that had taken place, and contended that his client, in affixing the

letters O. P. to his hat, was not guilty of any offence. Even if he

had joined in the noises, which he had not, his so doing would not

subject him to the penalties for rioting. Several witnesses were then

called to prove the capture of Mr. Clifford, the hearing of the case

before the magistrate at Bow Street, and his ultimate dismissal.

Sergeant Shepherd was heard at great length on the other side, and

contended that his client was perfectly justified in taking into

custody a man who was inciting others to commit a breach of the peace.



    The Lord Chief-Justice summed up, with an evident bias in favour

of the defendant. He said an undue apprehension of the rights of an

audience had got abroad. Even supposing the object of the rioters to

be fair and legal, they were not authorized to carry it by unfair

means. In order to constitute a riot, it was not necessary that

personal violence should be committed, and it seemed to him that the

defendant had not acted in an improper manner in giving into custody a

person who, by the display of a symbol, was encouraging others to

commit a riot.



    The jury retired to consider their verdict. The crowd without and

within the court awaited the result in feverish suspense. Half an hour

elapsed, when the jury returned with a verdict for the plaintiff --

Damages, five pounds. The satisfaction of the spectators was evident

upon their countenances, that of the judge expressed the contrary

feeling. Turning to the foreman of the jury, his Lordship asked upon

which of the two points referred to them, namely, the broad question,

whether a riot had been committed, and, if committed, whether the

plaintiff had participated in it, they had found their verdict?



    The foreman stated, that they were all of opinion generally that

the plaintiff had been illegally arrested. This vague answer did not

satisfy his Lordship, and he repeated his question. He could not,

however, obtain a more satisfactory reply. Evidently vexed at what he

deemed the obtuseness or partiality of the jury, he turned to the bar,

and said, that a spirit of a mischievous and destructive nature was

abroad, which, if not repressed, threatened awful consequences. The

country would be lost, he said, and the government overturned, if such

a spirit were encouraged; it was impossible it could end in good.

Time, the destroyer and fulfiller of predictions, has proved that his

Lordship was a false prophet. The harmless O. P. war has been

productive of no such dire results.



    It was to be expected that after this triumph, the war in the pit

would rage with redoubled acrimony. A riot beginning at half-price

would not satisfy the excited feelings of the O. P.s on the night of

such a victory. Long before the curtain drew up, the house was filled

with them, and several placards were exhibited, which the constables

and friends of the managers strove, as usual, to tear into shreds. One

of them, which met this fate, was inscribed, "Success to O.P.! A

British jury for ever!" It was soon replaced by another of a similar

purport. It is needless to detail the uproar that ensued; the jumping,

the fighting, the roaring, and the howling. For nine nights more the

same system was continued; but the end was at hand.



    On the 14th a grand dinner was given at the Crown and Anchor

tavern, to celebrate the victory of Mr. Clifford. "The reprobators of

managerial insolence," as they called themselves, attended in

considerable numbers; and Mr. Clifford was voted to the chair. The

cloth had been removed, and a few speeches made, when the company were

surprised by a message that their arch-enemy himself solicited the

honour of an audience. It was some time ere they could believe that

Mr. Kemble had ventured to such a place. After some parley the manager

was admitted, and a conference was held. A treaty was ultimately

signed and sealed, which put an end to the long-contested wars of

O.P., and restored peace to the drama.



    All this time the disturbance proceeded at the theatre with its

usual spirit. It was now the sixty-sixth night of its continuance, and

the rioters were still untired -- still determined to resist to the

last. In the midst of it a gentleman arrived from the Crown and

Anchor, and announced to the pit that Mr. Kemble had attended the

dinner, and had yielded at last to the demand of the public. He

stated, that it had been agreed upon between him and the Committee for

defending the persons under prosecution, that the boxes should remain

at the advanced price; that the pit should be reduced to three

shillings and sixpence; that the private boxes should be done away

with; and that all prosecutions, on both sides, should be immediately

stayed. This announcement was received with deafening cheers. As soon

as the first burst of enthusiasm was over, the O. P.s became anxious

for a confirmation of the intelligence, and commenced a loud call for

Mr. Kemble. He had not then returned from the Crown and Anchor; but of

this the pitites were not aware, and for nearly half an hour they kept

up a most excruciating din. At length the great actor made his

appearance, in his walking dress, with his cane in hand, as he had

left the tavern. It was a long time before he could obtain silence.

He. apologized in the most respectful terms for appearing before them

in such unbecoming costume, which was caused solely by his ignorance

that he should have to appear before them that night. After

announcing, as well as occasional interruptions would allow, the terms

that had been agreed upon, he added, "In order that no trace or

recollection of the past differences, which had unhappily prevailed so

long, should remain, he was instructed by the proprietors to say, that

they most sincerely lamented the course that had been pursued, and

engaged that, on their parts, all legal proceedings should forthwith

be put a stop to." The cheering which greeted this speech was

interrupted at the close by loud cries from the pit of "Dismiss

Brandon," while one or two exclaimed, "We want old prices generally,

-- six shillings for the boxes." After an ineffectual attempt to

address them again upon this point, Mr. Kemble made respectful and

repeated obeisances, and withdrew. The noises still continued, until

Munden stood forward, leading by the hand the humbled box-keeper,

contrition in his looks, and in his hands a written apology, which he

endeavoured to read. The uproar was increased threefold by his

presence, and, amid cries of "We won't hear him!" "Where's his

master?" he was obliged to retire. Mr. Harris, the son of Kemble's

co-manager, afterwards endeavoured to propitiate the audience in his

favour; but it was of no avail; nothing less than his dismissal would

satisfy the offended majesty of the pit. Amid this uproar the curtain

finally fell, and the O. P. dance was danced for the last time within

the walls of Covent Garden.



    On the following night it was announced that Brandon had resigned

his situation. This turned the tide of popular ill-will. The

performances were "The Wheel of Fortune," and an afterpiece. The house

was crowded to excess; a desire to be pleased was manifest on every

countenance, and when Mr. Kemble, who took his favourite character of

Penruddock, appeared upon the stage, he was greeted with the most

vehement applause. The noises ceased entirely, and the symbols of

opposition disappeared. The audience, hushed into attention, gave vent

to no sounds but those of admiration for the genius of the actor.

When, in the course of his part, he repeated the words, "So! I am in

London again !" the aptness of the expression to the circumstances of

the night, was felt by all present, and acknowledged by a round of

boisterous and thrice repeated cheering. It was a triumphant scene for

Mr. Kemble after his long annoyances. He had achieved a double

victory. He had, not only as a manager, soothed the obstinate

opposition of the play-goers, but as an actor he had forced from one

of the largest audiences he had ever beheld, approbation more cordial

and unanimous than he had ever enjoyed before. The popular favour not

only turned towards him; it embraced everybody connected with the

theatre, except the poor victim, Brandon. Most of the favourite actors

were called before the curtain to make their bow, and receive the

acclamations of the pit. At the close of the performances, a few

individuals, implacable and stubborn, got up a feeble cry of "Old

prices for the boxes;" but they were quickly silenced by the

reiterated cheers of the majority, or by cries of "Turn them out!" A

placard, the last of its race, was at the same time exhibited in the

front of the pit, bearing, in large letters, the words "We are

satisfied."



    Thus ended the famous wars of O. P., which, for a period of nearly

three months, had kept the metropolis in an uproar.  And after all,

what was the grand result? As if the whole proceeding had been a

parody upon the more destructive, but scarcely more sensible wars

recorded in history, it was commenced in injustice, carried on in

bitterness of spirit, and ended, like the labour of the mountain, in a

mouse. The abatement of sixpence in the price of admission to the pit,

and the dismissal of an unfortunate servant, whose only fault was too

much zeal in the service of his employers, -- such were the grand

victories of the O. P.'s.





THE THUGS, or PHANSIGARS.



Orribili favelle -- parole di dolor.--DANTE.



    Among the black deeds which Superstition has imposed as duties

upon her wretched votaries, none are more horrible than the practices

of the murderers, who, under the name of Thugs, or Phansigars, have so

long been the scourge of India. For ages they have pursued their dark

and dreadful calling, moulding assassination into a science, or

extolling it as a virtue, worthy only to be practised by a race

favoured of Heaven. Of late years this atrocious delusion has excited

much attention, both in this country and in India; an attention which,

it is to be hoped, will speedily lead to the uprooting of a doctrine

so revolting and anti-human. Although the British Government has

extended over Hindostan for so long a period, it does not appear that

Europeans even suspected the existence of this mysterious sect until

the commencement of the present century. In the year 1807, a gang of

Thugs, laden with the plunder of murdered travellers, was accidentally

discovered. The inquiries then set on foot revealed to the astonished

Government a system of iniquity unparalleled in the history of man.

Subsequent investigation extended the knowledge; and by throwing light

upon the peculiar habits of the murderers, explained the reason why

their crimes had remained so long undiscovered. In the following pages

will be found an epitome of all the information which has reached

Europe concerning them, derived principally from Dr. Sherwood's

treatise upon the subject, published in 1816, and the still more

valuable and more recent work of Mr. Sleeman, entitled the

"Ramaseeana; or, Vocabulary of the peculiar Language of the Thugs."



    The followers of this sect are called Thugs, or T'hugs, and their

profession Thuggee. In the south of India they are called Phansigars:

the former word signifying "a deceiver;" and the latter, "a

strangler." They are both singularly appropriate. The profession of

Thuggee is hereditary, and embraces, it is supposed, in every part of

India, a body of at least ten thousand individuals, trained to murder

from their childhood; carrying it on in secret and in silence, yet

glorying in it, and holding the practice of it higher than any earthly

honour. During the winter months, they usually follow some reputable

calling, to elude suspicion; and in the summer, they set out in gangs

over all the roads of India, to plunder and destroy. These gangs

generally contain from ten to forty Thugs, and sometimes as many as

two hundred. Each strangler is provided with a noose, to despatch the

unfortunate victim, as the Thugs make it a point never to cause death

by any other means. When the gangs are very large, they divide into

smaller bodies; and each taking a different route, they arrive at the

same general place of rendezvous to divide the spoil. They sometimes

travel in the disguise of respectable traders; sometimes as sepoys or

native soldiers; and at others, as government officers. If they chance

to fall in with an unprotected wayfarer, his fate is certain. One Thug

approaches him from behind, and throws the end of a sash round his

neck; the other end is seized by a second at the same instant, crossed

behind the neck, and drawn tightly, while with their other hand the

two Thugs thrust his head forward to expedite the strangulation: a

third Thug seizes the traveller by the legs at the same moment, and he

is thrown to the ground, a corpse before he reaches it.



    But solitary travellers are not the prey they are anxious to seek.

A wealthy caravan of forty or fifty individuals has not unfrequently

been destroyed by them; not one soul being permitted to escape.

Indeed, there is hardly an instance upon record of any one's escape

from their hands, so surely are their measures taken, and so well do

they calculate beforehand all the risks and difficulties of the

undertaking. Each individual of the gang has his peculiar duty

allotted to him. Upon-approaching a town, or serai, two or three,

known as the Soothaes, or "inveiglers," are sent in advance to

ascertain if any travellers are there; to learn, if possible, the

amount of money or merchandize they carry with them, their hours of

starting in the morning, or any other particulars that may be of use.

If they can, they enter into conversation with them, pretend to be

travelling to the same place, and propose, for mutual security, to

travel with them. This intelligence is duly communicated to the

remainder of the gang. The. place usually chosen for the murder is

some lonely part of the road in the vicinity of a jungle, and the

time, just before dusk. At given signals, understood only by

themselves, the scouts of the party station themselves in the front,

in the rear, and on each side, to guard against surprise. A strangler

and assistant strangler, called Bhurtote and Shamshea, place

themselves, the one on the right, and the other on the left of the

victim, without exciting his suspicion. At another signal the noose is

twisted, drawn tightly by a strong hand at each extremity, and the

traveller, in a few seconds, hurried into eternity. Ten, twelve,

twenty, and in some instances, sixty persons have been thus despatched

at the same moment. Should any victim, by a rare chance, escape their

hands, he falls into those of the scouts who are stationed within

hearing, who run upon him and soon overpower him.



    Their next care is to dispose of the bodies. So cautious are they

to prevent detection, that they usually break all the joints to hasten

decomposition. They then cut open the body to prevent it swelling in

the grave and causing fissures in the soil above, by which means the

jackals might be attracted to the spot, and thereby lead to discovery.

When obliged to bury the body in a frequented district, they kindle a

fire over the grave to obliterate the traces of the newly turned

earth. Sometimes the grave-diggers of the party, whose office, like

that of all the rest, is hereditary, are despatched to make the graves

in the morning at some distant spot, by which it is known the

travellers will pass. The stranglers, in the mean time, journey

quietly with their victims, conversing with them in the most friendly

manner. Towards nightfall they approach the spot selected for their

murder; the signal is given, and they fall into the graves that have

been ready for them since day-break. On one occasion, related by

Captain Sleeman, a party of fifty-nine people, consisting of fifty-two

men and seven women, were thus simultaneously strangled, and thrown

into the graves prepared for them in the morning. Some of these

travellers were on horseback and well armed, but the Thugs, who appear

to have been upwards of two hundred in a gang, had provided against

all risk of failure. The only one left alive of all that numerous

party, was an infant four years old, who was afterwards initiated into

all the mysteries of Thuggee.



    If they cannot find a convenient opportunity for disposing of the

bodies, they carry them for many miles, until they come to a spot

secure from intrusion, and to a soil adapted to receive them. If fear

of putrefaction admonishes them to use despatch, they set up a large

screen or tent, as other travellers do, and bury the body within the

enclosure, pretending, if inquiries are made, that their women are

within. But this only happens when they fall in with a victim

unexpectedly. In murders which they have planned previously, the

finding of a place of sepulture is never left to hazard.



    Travellers who have the misfortune to lodge in the same choultry

or hostelry, as the Thugs, are often murdered during the night. It is

either against their creed to destroy a sleeper, or they find a

difficulty in placing the noose round the neck of a person in a

recumbent position. When this is the case, the slumberer is suddenly

aroused by the alarm of a snake or a scorpion. He starts to his feet,

and finds the fatal sash around his neck. -- He never escapes.



    In addition to these Thugs who frequent the highways, there are

others, who infest the rivers, and are called Pungoos. They do not

differ in creed, but only in a few of their customs, from their

brethren on shore. They go up and down the rivers in their own boats,

pretending to be travellers of consequence, or pilgrims, proceeding

to, or returning from Benares, Allahabad, or other sacred places. The

boatmen, who are also Thugs, are not different in appearance from the

ordinary boatmen on the river. The artifices used to entice victims on

board are precisely similar to those employed by the highway Thugs.

They send out their "inveiglers" to scrape acquaintance with

travellers, and find out the direction in which they are journeying.

They always pretend to be bound for the same place, and vaunt the

superior accommodation of the boat by which they are going. The

travellers fall into the snare, are led to the Thug captain, who very

often, to allay suspicion, demurs to take them, but eventually agrees

for a moderate sum. The boat strikes off into the middle of the

stream; the victims are amused and kept in conversation for hours by

their insidious foes, until three taps are given on the deck above.

This is a signal from the Thugs on the look-out that the coast is

clear. In an instant the fatal noose is ready, and the travellers are

no more. The bodies are then thrown, warm and palpitating, into the

river, from a hole in the side of the boat, contrived expressly for

the purpose.



    A river Thug, who was apprehended, turned approver, to save his

own life, and gave the following evidence relative to the practices of

his fraternity: -- "We embarked at Rajmahul. The travellers sat on one

side of the boat, and the Thugs on the other; while we three (himself

and two "stranglers,") were placed in the stern, the Thugs on our

left, and the travellers on our right. Some of the Thugs, dressed as

boatmen, were above deck, and others walking along the bank of the

river, and pulling the boat by the joon, or rope, and all, at the same

time, on the look-out. We came up with a gentleman's pinnace and two

baggage-boats, and were obliged to stop, and let them go on. The

travellers seemed anxious; but were quieted by being told that the men

at the rope were tired, and must take some refreshment. They pulled

out something, and began to eat; and when the pinnace had got on a

good way, they resumed their work, and our boat proceeded. It was now

afternoon; and, when a signal was given above, that all was clear, the

five Thugs who sat opposite the travellers sprang in upon them, and,

with the aid of others, strangled them. Having done this, they broke

their spinal bones, and then threw them out of a hole made at the

side, into the river, and kept on their course; the boat being all

this time pulled along by the men on the bank."



    That such atrocities as these should have been carried on for

nearly two centuries without exciting the attention of the British

Government, seems incredible. But our wonder will be diminished when

we reflect upon the extreme caution of the Thugs, and the ordinary

dangers of travelling in India. The Thugs never murder a man near his

own home, and they never dispose of their booty near the scene of the

murder. They also pay, in common with other and less atrocious

robbers, a portion of their gains to the Polygars, or native

authorities of the districts in which they reside, to secure

protection. The friends and relatives of the victims, perhaps a

thousand miles off, never surmise their fate till a period has elapsed

when all inquiry would be fruitless, or, at least, extremely

difficult. They have no clue to the assassins, and very often impute

to the wild beasts of the jungles the slaughter committed by that

wilder beast, man.



    There are several gradations through which every member of the

fraternity must regularly pass before he arrives at the high office of

a Bhurtote, or strangler. He is first employed as a scout -- then as a

sexton -- then as a Shumseea, or holder of hands, and lastly as a

Bhurtote. When a man who is not of Thug lineage, or who has not been

brought up from his infancy among them, wishes to become a strangler,

he solicits the oldest, and most pious and experienced Thug, to take

him under his protection and make him his disciple; and under his

guidance he is regularly initiated. When he has acquired sufficient

experience in the lower ranks of the profession, he applies to his

Gooroo, or preceptor, to give the finishing grace to his education,

and make a strangler of him. An opportunity is found when a solitary

traveller is to be murdered; and the tyro, with his preceptor, having

seen that the proposed victim is asleep, and in safe keeping till

their return, proceed to a neighbouring field and perform several

religious ceremonies, accompanied by three or four of the oldest and

steadiest members of the gang. The Gooroo first offers up a prayer to

the goddess, saying, "Oh, Kalee! Kun-kalee! Bhud-kalee! Oh, Kalee!

Maha-kalee! Calkutta Walee! if it seems fit to thee that the traveller

now at our lodging should die by the hands of this thy slave,

vouchsafe us thy good omen." They then sit down and watch for the good

omen; and if they receive it within half an hour, conclude that their

goddess is favourable to the claims of the new candidate for

admission. If they have a bad omen, or no omen at all, some other Thug

must put the traveller to death, and the aspirant must wait a more

favourable opportunity, purifying himself in the mean time by prayer

and humiliation for the favour of the goddess. If the good omen has

been obtained, they return to their quarters; and the Gooroo takes a

handkerchief and, turning his face to the west, ties a knot at one end

of it, inserting a rupee, or other piece of silver. This knot is

called the goor khat, or holy knot, and no man who has not been

properly ordained is allowed to tie it. The aspirant receives it

reverently in his right hand from his Gooroo, and stands over the

sleeping victim, with a Shumseea, or holder of hands, at his side. The

traveller is aroused, the handkerchief is passed around his neck, and,

at a signal from the Gooroo, is drawn tight till the victim is

strangled; the Shumseea holding his hands to prevent his making any

resistance. The work being now completed, the Bhurtote (no longer an

aspirant, but an admitted member) bows down reverently in the dust

before his Gooroo, and touches his feet with both his hands, and

afterwards performs the same respect to his relatives and friends who

have assembled to witness the solemn ceremony. He then waits for

another favourable omen, when he unties the knot and takes out the

rupee, which he gives to his Gooroo, with any other silver which he

may have about him. The Gooroo adds some of his own money, with which

he purchases what they call goor, or consecrated sugar, when a solemn

sacrifice is performed, to which all the gang are invited. The

relationship between the Gooroo and his disciple is accounted the most

holy that can be formed, and subsists to the latest period of life. A

Thug may betray his father, but never his Gooroo.



    Dark and forbidding as is the picture already drawn, it will

become still darker and more repulsive, when we consider the motives

which prompt these men to systematic murder. Horrible as their

practices would be, if love of plunder alone incited them, it is

infinitely more horrible to reflect that the idea of duty and religion

is joined to the hope of gain, in making them the scourges of their

fellows. If plunder were their sole object, there would be reason to

hope, that when a member of the brotherhood grew rich, he would rest

from his infernal toils; but the dismal superstition which he

cherishes tells him never to desist. He was sent into the world to be

a slayer of men, and he religiously works out his destiny. As

religiously he educates his children to pursue the same career,

instilling into their minds, at the earliest age, that Thuggee is the

noblest profession a man can follow, and that the dark goddess they

worship will always provide rich travellers for her zealous devotees.



    The following is the wild and startling legend upon which the

Thugs found the divine origin of their sect. They believe that, in the

earliest ages of the world, a gigantic demon infested the earth, and

devoured mankind as soon as they were created. He was of so tall a

stature, that when he strode through the most unfathomable depths of

the great sea, the waves, even in tempest, could not reach above his

middle. His insatiable appetite for human flesh almost unpeopled the

world, until Bhawanee, Kalee, or Davee, the goddess of the Thugs,

determined to save mankind by the destruction of the monster. Nerving

herself for the encounter, she armed herself with an immense sword;

and, meeting with the demon, she ran him through the body. His blood

flowed in torrents as he fell dead at her feet; but from every drop

there sprang up another monster, as rapacious and as terrible as the

first. Again the goddess upraised her massive sword, and hewed down

the hellish brood by hundreds; but the more she slew, the more

numerous they became. Every drop of their blood generated a demon;

and, although the goddess endeavoured to lap up the blood ere it

sprang into life, they increased upon her so rapidly, that the labour

of killing became too great for endurance. The perspiration rolled

down her arms in large drops, and she was compelled to think of some

other mode of exterminating them. In this emergency, she created two

men out of the perspiration of her body, to whom she confided the holy

task of delivering the earth from the monsters. To each of the men she

gave a handkerchief, and showed them how to kill without shedding

blood. From her they learned to tie the fatal noose; and they became,

under her tuition, such expert stranglers, that, in a very short space

of time, the race of demons became extinct.



    When there were no more to slay, the two men sought the great

goddess, in order to return the handkerchiefs. The grateful Bhawanee

desired that they would retain them, as memorials of their heroic

deeds; and in order that they might never lose the dexterity that they

had acquired in using them, she commanded that, from thenceforward,

they should strangle men. These were the two first Thugs, and from

them the whole race have descended. To the early Thugs the goddess was

more direct in her favours, than she has been to their successors. At

first, she undertook to bury the bodies of all the men they slew and

plundered, upon the condition that they should never look back to see

what she was doing. The command was religiously observed for many

ages, and the Thugs relied with implicit faith upon the promise of

Bhawanee; but as men became more corrupt, the ungovernable curiosity

of a young Thug offended the goddess, and led to the withdrawal of a

portion of her favour. This youth, burning with a desire to see how

she made her graves, looked back, and beheld her in the act, not of

burying, but of devouring, the body of a man just strangled. Half of

the still palpitating remains was dangling over her lips. She was so

highly displeased that she condemned the Thugs, from that time

forward, to bury their victims themselves. Another account states that

the goddess was merely tossing the body in the air; and that, being

naked, her anger was aggravated by the gaze of mortal eyes upon her

charms. Before taking a final leave of her devotees, she presented

them with one of her teeth for a pickaxe, one of her ribs for a knife,

and the hem of her garment for a noose. She has not since appeared to

human eyes.



    The original tooth having been lost in the lapse of ages, new

pickaxes have been constructed, with great care and many ceremonies,

by each considerable gang of Thugs, to be used in making the graves of

strangled travellers. The pickaxe is looked upon with the utmost

veneration by the tribe. A short account of the process of making it,

and the rites performed, may be interesting, as showing still further

their gloomy superstition. In the first place, it is necessary to fix

upon a lucky day. The chief Thug then instructs a smith to forge the

holy instrument: no other eye is permitted to see the operation. The

smith must engage in no other occupation until it is completed, and

the chief Thug never quits his side during the process. When the

instrument is formed, it becomes necessary to consecrate it to the

especial service of Bhawnee. Another lucky day is chosen for this

ceremony, care being had in the mean time that the shadow of no

earthly thing fall upon the pickaxe, as its efficacy would be for ever

destroyed. A learned Thug then sits down; and turning his face to the

west, receives the pickaxe in a brass dish. After muttering some

incantation, he throws it into a pit already prepared for it, where it

is washed in clear water. It is then taken out, and washed again three

times; the first time in sugar and water, the second in sour milk, and

the third in spirits. It is then dried, and marked from the head to

the point with seven red spots. This is the first part of the

ceremony: the second consists in its purification by fire. The pickaxe

is again placed upon the brass dish, along with a cocoa-nut, some

sugar, cloves, white sandal-wood, and other articles. A fire of the

mango tree, mixed with dried cow-dung, is then kindled; and the

officiating Thug, taking the pickaxe with both hands, passes it seven

times through the flames.



    It now remains to be ascertained whether the goddess is favourable

to her followers. For this purpose, the cocoa-nut is taken from the

dish and placed upon the ground. The officiating Thug, turning to the

spectators, and holding the axe uplifted, asks, "Shall I strike?"

Assent being given, he strikes the nut with the but-end of the axe,

exclaiming, "All hail! mighty Davee! great mother of us all!" The

spectators respond, "All hail! mighty Davee! and prosper thy children,

the Thugs!"



    If the nut is severed at the first blow, the goddess is

favourable; if not, she is unpropitious: all their labour is thrown

away, and the ceremony must be repeated upon some more fitting

occasion. But if the sign be favourable, the axe is tied carefully in

a white cloth and turned towards the west, all the spectators

prostrating themselves before it. It is then buried in the earth, with

its point turned in the direction the gang wishes to take on their

approaching expedition. If the goddess desires to warn them that they

will be unsuccessful, or that they have not chosen the right track,

the Thugs believe that the point of the axe will veer round, and point

to the better way. During an expedition, it is entrusted to the most

prudent and exemplary Thug of the party: it is his care to hold it

fast. If by any chance he should let it fall, consternation spreads

through the gang: the goddess is thought to be offended; the

enterprise is at once abandoned; and the Thugs return home in

humiliation and sorrow, to sacrifice to their gloomy deity, and win

back her estranged favour. So great is the reverence in which they

hold the sacred axe, that a Thug will never break an oath that he has

taken upon it. He fears that, should he perjure himself, his neck

would be so twisted by the offended Bhawanee as to make his face turn

to his back; and that, in the course of a few days, he would expire in

the most excruciating agonies.



    The Thugs are diligent observers of signs and omens. No expedition

is ever undertaken before the auspices are solemnly taken. Upon this

subject Captain Sleeman says, "Even the most sensible approvers, who

have been with me for many years, as well Hindoos as Mussulmans,

believe that their good or ill success depended upon the skill with

which the omens were discovered and interpreted, and the strictness

with which they were observed and obeyed. One of the old Sindouse

stock told me, in presence of twelve others, from Hydrabad, Behar, the

Dooah, Oude, Rajpootana, and Bundelcund, that, had they not attended

to these omens, they never could have thrived as they did. In ordinary

cases of murder, other men seldom escaped punishment, while they and

their families had, for ten generations, thrived, although they had

murdered hundreds of people. 'This,' said the Thug,' could never have

been the case had we not attended to omens, and had not omens been

intended for us. There were always signs around us to guide us to rich

booty, and warn us of danger, had we been always wise enough to

discern them and religious enough to attend to them.' Every Thug

present concurred with him from his soul."



    A Thug, of polished manners and great eloquence, being asked by a

native gentleman, in the presence of Captain Sleeman, whether he never

felt compunction in murdering innocent people, replied with a smile

that he did not. "Does any man," said he, "feel compunction in

following his trade? and are not all our trades assigned us by

Providence?" He was then asked how many people he had killed with his

own hands in the course of his life? "I have killed none," was the

reply. "What! and have you not been describing a number of murders in

which you were concerned?" "True; but do you suppose that I committed

them? Is any man killed by man's killing? Is it not the hand of God

that kills, and are we not the mere instruments in the hands of God?"



    Upon another occasion, Sahib, an approver, being asked if he had

never felt any pity or compunction at murdering old men or young

children, or persons with whom he had sat and conversed, and who had

told him, perchance, of their private affairs -- their hopes and their

fears, their wives and their little ones? replied unhesi- tatingly

that he never did. From the time that the omens were favourable, the

Thugs considered all the travellers they met as victims thrown into

their hands by their divinity to be killed. The Thugs were the mere

instruments in the hands of Bhawanee to destroy them. "If we did not

kill them," said Sahib, "the goddess would never again be propitious

to us, and we and our families would be involved in misery and want.

If we see or hear a bad omen, it is the order of the goddess not to

kill the travellers we are in pursuit of, and we dare not disobey."



    As soon as an expedition has been planned, the goddess is

consulted. On the day chosen for starting, which is never during the

unlucky months of July, September, and December, nor on a Wednesday or

Thursday; the chief Thug of the party fills a brass jug with water,

which he carries in his right hand by his side. With his left, he

holds upon his breast the sacred pickaxe, wrapped carefully in a white

cloth, along with five knots of turmeric, two copper, and one silver

coin. He then moves slowly on, followed by the whole of the gang, to

some field or retired place, where halting, with his countenance

turned in the direction they wish to pursue, he lifts up his eyes to

heaven, saying, "Great goddess! universal mother! if this, our

meditated expedition, be fitting in thy sight, vouchsafe to help us,

and give us the signs of thy approbation." All the Thugs present

solemnly repeat the prayer after their leader, and wait in silence for

the omen. If within half an hour they see Pilhaoo, or good omen on the

left, it signifies that the goddess has taken them by the left hand to

lead them on; if they see the Thibaoo, or omen on the right, it

signifies that she has taken them by the right hand also. The leader

then places the brazen pitcher on the ground and sits down beside it,

with his face turned in the same direction for seven hours, during

which time his followers make all the necessary preparations for the

journey. If, during this interval, no unfavourable signs are observed,

the expedition advances slowly, until it arrives at the bank of the

nearest stream, when they all sit down and eat of the goor, or

consecrated sugar. Any evil omens that are perceived after this

ceremony may be averted by sacrifices; but any evil omens before,

would at once put an end to the expedition.



    Among the evil omens are the following: -- If the brazen pitcher

drops from the hand of the Jemadar or leader, it threatens great evil

either to him or to the gang -- sometimes to both. If they meet a

funeral procession, a blind man, a lame man, an oil-vender, a

carpenter, a potter, or a dancing-master, the expedition will be

dangerous. In like manner it is unlucky to sneeze, to meet a woman

with an empty pail, a couple of jackals, or a hare. The crossing of

their path by the latter is considered peculiarly inauspicious. Its

cry at night on the left is sometimes a good omen, but if they hear it

on the right it is very bad; a warning sent to them from Bhawanee that

there is danger if they kill. Should they disregard this warning, and

led on by the hope of gain, strangle any traveller, they would either

find no booty on him, or such booty as would eventually lead to the

ruin and dispersion of the gang. Bhawanee would be wroth with her

children; and causing them to perish in the jungle, would send the

hares to drink water out of their skulls.



    The good omens are quite as numerous as the evil. It promises a

fortunate expedition, if, on the first day, they pass through a

village where there is a fair. It is also deemed fortunate, if they

hear wailing for the dead in any village but their own. To meet a

woman with a pitcher full of water upon her head, bodes a prosperous

journey and a safe return. The omen is still more favourable if she be

in a state of pregnancy. It is said of the Thugs of the Jumaldehee and

Lodaha tribes, that they always make the youngest Thug of the party

kick the body of the first person they strangle, five times on the

back, thinking that it will bring them good luck. This practice,

however, is not general. If they hear an ass bray on the left at the

commencement of an expedition, and an another soon afterwards on the

right, they believe that they shall be supereminently successful, that

they shall strangle a multitude of travellers, and find great booty.



    After every murder a solemn sacrifice, called the Tuponee, is

performed by all the gang. The goor, or consecrated sugar, is placed

upon a large cloth or blanket, which is spread upon the grass. Beside

it is deposited the sacred pickaxe, and a piece of silver for an

offering. The Jemadar, or chief of the party, together with all the

oldest and most prudent Thugs, take their places upon the cloth, and

turn their faces to the west. Those inferior Thugs who cannot find

room upon the privileged cloth, sit round as close to it as possible.

A pit is then dug, into which the Jemadar pours a small quantity of

the goor, praying at the same time that the goddess will always reward

her followers with abundant spoils. All the Thugs repeat the prayer

after him. He then sprinkles water upon the pickaxe, and puts a little

of the goor upon the head of every one who has obtained a seat beside

him on the cloth. A short pause ensues, when the signal for strangling

is given, as if a murder were actually about to be committed, and each

Thug eats his goor in solemn silence. So powerful is the impression

made upon their imagination by this ceremony, that it almost drives

them frantic with enthusiasm. Captain Sleeman relates, that when he

reproached a Thug for his share in a murder of great atrocity, and

asked him whether he never felt pity; the man replied, "We all feel

pity sometimes; but the goor of the Tuponee changes our nature; it

would change the nature of a horse. Let any man once taste of that

goor, and he will be a Thug, though he know all the trades and have

all the wealth in the world. I never was in want of food; my mother's

family was opulent, and her relations high in office. I have been high

in office myself, and became so great a favourite wherever I went that

I was sure of promotion; yet I was always miserable when absent from

my gang, and obliged to return to Thuggee. My father made me taste of

that fatal goor, when I was yet a mere boy; and if I were to live a

thousand years I should never be.able to follow any other trade."



    The possession of wealth, station in society, and the esteem of

his fellows, could not keep this man from murder. From his

extraordinary confession we may judge of the extreme difficulty of

exterminating a sect who are impelled to their horrid practises, not

only by the motives of self-interest which govern mankind in general,

but by a fanaticism which fills up the measure of their whole

existence. Even severity seems thrown away upon the followers of this

brutalizing creed. To them, punishment is no example; they have no

sympathy for a brother Thug who is hung at his own door by the British

Government, nor have they any dread of his fate. Their invariable idea

is, that their goddess only suffers those Thugs to fall into the hands

of the law, who have contravened the peculiar observances of Thuggee,

and who have neglected the omens she sent them for their guidance.



    To their neglect of the warnings of the goddess they attribute all

the reverses which have of late years befallen their sect. It is

expressly forbidden, in the creed of the old Thugs, to murder women or

cripples. The modern Thugs have become unscrupulous upon this point,

murdering women, and even children, with unrelenting barbarity.

Captain Sleeman reports several conversations upon this subject, which

he held at different times with Thugs, who had been taken prisoners,

or who had turned approvers. One of them, named Zolfukar, said, in

reply to the Captain, who accused him of murdering women, "Yes, and

was not the greater part of Feringeea's and my gang seized, after we

had murdered the two women and the little girl, at Manora, in 1830?

and were we not ourselves both seized soon after? How could we survive

things like that? Our ancestors never did such things." Lalmun,

another Thug, in reply to a similar question, said, "Most of our

misfortunes have come upon us for the murder of women. We all knew

that they would come upon us some day, for this and other great sins.

We were often admonished, but we did not take warning; and we deserve

our fates." In speaking of the supposed protection which their goddess

had extended to them in former times, Zolfukar said: -- "Ah! we had

some regard for religion then! We have lost it since. All kinds of men

have been made Thugs, and all classes of people murdered, without

distinction; and little attention has been paid to omens. How, after

this, could we think to escape? * * * * Davee never forsook us till we

neglected her!"



    It might be imagined that men who spoke in this manner of the

anger of the goddess, and who, even in custody, showed so much

veneration for their unhappy calling, would hesitate before they

turned informers, and laid bare the secrets and exposed the haunts of

their fellows: -- among the more civilized ruffians of Europe, we

often find the one chivalrous trait of character, which makes them

scorn a reward that must be earned by the blood of their accomplices:

but in India there is no honour among thieves. When the approvers are

asked, if they, who still believe in the power of the terrible goddess

Davee, are not afraid to incur her displeasure by informing of their

fellows, they reply, that Davee has done her worst in abandoning them.

She can inflict no severer punishment, and therefore gives herself no

further concern about her degenerate children. This cowardly doctrine

is, however, of advantage to the Government that seeks to put an end

to the sect, and has thrown a light upon their practices, which could

never have been obtained from other sources.



    Another branch of the Thug abomination has more recently been

discovered by the indefatigable Captain Sleeman. The followers of this

sect are called MEGPUNNAS, and they murder travellers, not to rob them

of their wealth, but of their children, whom they afterwards sell into

slavery. They entertain the same religious opinions as the Thugs, and

have carried on their hideous practices, and entertained their dismal

superstition, for about a dozen years with impunity. The report of

Captain Sleeman states, that the crime prevails almost exclusively in

Delhi and the native principalities, or Rajpootana of Ulwar and

Bhurtpore; and that it first spread extensively after the siege of

Bhurtpore in 1826.



    The original Thugs never or rarely travel with their wives; but

the Megpunnas invariably take their families with them, the women and

children being used to inveigle the victims. Poor travellers are

always chosen by the Megpunnas as the objects of their murderous

traffic. The females and children are sent on in advance to make

acquaintance with emigrants or beggars on the road, travelling with

their families, whom they entice to pass the night in some secluded

place, where they are afterwards set upon by the men, and strangled.

The women take care of the children. Such of them as are beautiful are

sold at a high price to the brothels of Delhi, or other large cities;

while the boys and ill-favoured girls are sold for servants at a more

moderate rate. These murders are perpetrated perhaps five hundred

miles from the homes of the unfortunate victims; and the children thus

obtained, deprived of all their relatives, are never inquired after.

Even should any of their kin be alive, they are too far off and too

poor to institute inquiries. One of the members, on being questioned,

said the Megpunnas made more money than the other Thugs; it was more

profitable to kill poor people for the sake of their children, than

rich people for their wealth. Megpunnaism is supposed by its votaries

to be, like Thuggee, under the immediate protection of the great

goddess Davee, or Kalee, whose favour is to be obtained before the

commencement of every expedition, and whose omens, whether of good or

evil, are to be diligently sought on all occasions. The first apostle

to whom she communicated her commands for the formation of the new

sect, and the rules and ordinances by which it was to be guided, was

called Kheama Jemadar. He was considered so holy a man, that the Thugs

and Megpunnas considered it an extreme felicity to gaze upon and touch

him. At the moment of his arrest by the British authorities, a fire

was raging in the village, and the inhabitants gathered round him and

implored him to intercede with his god, that the flames might be

extinguished. The Megpunna, says the tradition, stretched forth his

hand to heaven, prayed, and the fire ceased immediately.



    There now only remain to be considered the exertions that have

been made to remove from the face of India this purulent and

disgusting sore. From the year 1807 until 1826, the proceedings

against Thuggee were not carried on with any extraordinary degree of

vigour; but, in the latter year, the Government seems to have begun to

act upon a settled determination to destroy it altogether. From 1826

to 1855, both included, there were committed to prison, in the various

Presidencies, 1562 persons accused of this crime. Of these, 328 were

hanged; 999 transported; 77 imprisoned for life; 71 imprisoned for

shorter periods; 21 held to bail; and only 21 acquitted. Of the

remainder, 31 died in prison, before they were brought to trial, 11

escaped, and 49 turned approvers.



    One Feringeea, a Thug leader of great notoreity, was delivered up

to justice in the year 1830, in consequence of the reward of five

hundred rupees offered for his apprehension by the Government. He was

brought before Captain Sleeman, at Sangir, in the December of that

year, and offered, if his life were spared, to give such information

as would lead to the arrest of several extensive gangs which had

carried on their murderous practices undetected for several years. He

mentioned the place of rendezvous, for the following February, of some

well organized gangs, who were to proceed into Guzerat and Candeish.

Captain Sleeman appeared to doubt his information; but accompanied the

Thug to a mango grove, two stages from Sangir, on the road to

Seronage. They reached this place in the evening, and in the morning

Feringeea pointed out three places in which he and his gang had, at

different intervals, buried the bodies of three parties of travellers

whom they had murdered. The sward had grown over all the spots, and

not the slightest traces were to be seen that it had ever been

disturbed. Under the sod of Captain Sleeman's tent were found the

bodies of the first party, consisting of a pundit and his six

attendants, murdered in 1818. Another party of five, murdered in 1824,

were under the ground at the place where the Captain's horses had been

tied up for the night; and four Brahmin carriers of the Ganges water,

with a woman, were buried under his sleeping tent. Before the ground

was moved, Captain Sleeman expressed some doubts; but Feringeea, after

looking at the position of some neighbouring trees, said be would risk

his life on the accuracy of his remembrance. The workmen dug five feet

without discovering the bodies; but they were at length found a little

beyond that depth, exactly as the Thug had described them. With this

proof of his knowledge of the haunts of his brethren, Feringeea was

promised his liberty and pardon if he would aid in bringing to justice

the many large gangs to which he had belonged, and which were still

prowling over the country. They were arrested in the February

following, at the place of rendezvous pointed out by the approver, and

most of them condemned and executed.



    So far we learn from Captain Sleeman, who only brought down his

tables to the close of the year 1835. A writer in the "Foreign

Quarterly Review" furnishes an additional list of 241 persons,

committed to prison in 1836, for being concerned in the murder and

robbery of 474 individuals. Of these criminals, 91 were sentenced to

death, and 22 to imprisonment for life, leaving 306, who were

sentenced to transportation for life, or shorter periods of

imprisonment, or who turned approvers, or died in gaol. Not one of the

whole number was acquitted.



    Great as is this amount of criminals who have been brought to

justice, it is to be feared that many years must elapse before an evil

so deeply rooted can be eradicated. The difficulty is increased by the

utter hopelessness of reformation as regards the survivors. Their

numbers are still calculated to amount to ten thousand persons, who,

taking the average of three murders annually for each, as calculated

by Captain Sleeman and other writers, murder every year thirty

thousand of their fellow creatures. This average is said to be under

the mark; but even if we were to take it at only a third of this

calculation, what a frightful list it would be! When religion teaches

men to go astray, they go far astray indeed!



END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.



L0ND0N:

PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTLEY

Bangor House, Shoe Lane.









End of Project Gutenberg's Etext Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions



