The Knave of Hearts Here attention is awakened; and our whole souls are intent upon the first appearance of the hero. Some readers may perhaps be offended at his making his entré in so disadvantageous a character as that of a thief. To this I plead precedent. The hero of the Iliad is made to lament very pathetically,-that "life is not like all other possessions, to be acquired by theft."-A reflection, in my opinion, evidently shewing, that if he did refrain from this ingenious art, it was not from want of an inclination that way. We may remember, too, that in Virgil's poem, almost the first light in which the pious Æneas appears to us, is a deer-stealer; nor is it much excuse for him, that the deer were wandering without keepers; for however he might, from this circumstance, have been unable to ascertain whose property they were, he might, I think, have been pretty well assured that they were not his. Having thus acquitted our hero of misconduct, by the example of his betters, I proceed to what I think the master-stroke of the poet. The Knave of Hearts He stole those tarts, And-took them-quite away!! Here, whoever has an ear for harmony, and a heart for feeling, must be touched! There is a desponding melancholy in the run of the last line! an air of tender regret in the addition of "quite away!" a something so expressive of irrecoverable loss! "They never can return !” In short, such a union of sound and sense, as we rarely, if ever, meet with in any author, ancient or modern. Our feelings are all alive; but the poet, wisely dreading that our sympathy with the injured queen might alienate our affections from this hero, contrives immediately to awaken our fears for him, by telling us, that The King of Hearts Call'd for those tarts hero, and all tremble, with him, for the punishment which the enraged monarch may inflict :- . And beat the Knave-full sore! The fatal blow is struck! We cannot but rejoice that guilt is justly punished, though we sympathize with the guilty object of punishment. And here is another great proof of the genius of the poet: by leaving the quantity of beating indeterminate, he gives every reader the liberty to administer it, in exact proportion to the sum of indignation which he may have conceived against his hero; that, by thus amply satisfying their resentment, they may be the more easily reconciled to him afterwards. The King of Hearts And beat the Knave full sore! So far the second part, or middle of the poem, in which we see the character and exploits of the hero portrayed with the hand of a master. Nothing now remains to be examined, The Knave of Hearts Here every thing is at length settled; the theft is compensated; the tarts restored to their right owner; and poetical justice, in every respect, strictly and impartially administered. We may observe, that there is nothing in which our poet has better succeeded, than in keeping up an unremitted attention in his readers to the main instruments, the machinery of his poem, viz. the tarts. We are now come to the denouement, the setting all to rights; and our poet, in the management of his moral, is certainly superior to his great ancient predecessors. The moral of their fables, if any they have, is so interwoven with the main body of the work, that in endeavouring to unravel it, we should tear the whole. Our We are all conscious of the fault of our author has very properly preserved his, the several parts of this wonderful work; and clearly proved it, in every one of these parts, and in all of them together, to be a due and proper epic poem; and to have as good a right to that title, from its adherence to prescribed rules, as any of the celebrated master-pieces of antiquity. And here I cannot help again lamenting, that in my ignorance of the name of the author, I am unable to intertwine our laurels, or in a proper and becoming manner to transmit to posterity the mingled praises of genius and judgment, of the poet and his commentator. ON THE ILLUMINATION OF STREETS. As early as the year 1414, we find an order issued for hanging out lanthorns in the streets of London; and in 1417, it appears, that Mayor Sir Henry Barton, skinner, ordained lanthorns with lights to be exhibited on winter evenings, betwixt the seasons of Hallowtide and Candlemas. In the year 1668, when regulations were made for improving the streets of the metropolis, the Londoners were reminded that they should hang out lanthorns during the accustomed time. In the year 1690 this order was renewed, and every housekeeper was ordered to bring out a light or lamp every night between Michaelmas and Lady Day, and to keep it burning till the hour of twelve at night. In the year 1716, it was ordered, by an act of the Common Council of the city, that all housekeepers, whose houses fronted any street, lane, or public passage, should, on every dark night, set or hang out one or more lights, with cotton wicks, that should continue to burn from six o'clock at night till eleven, under the penalty of one shilling. Eventually the city was lighted by contract, and the contractors were obliged to pay annually to the city six thousand pounds sterling, and they only received six shillings per annum of every housekeeper whose rent exceeded ten pounds. All housekeepers who brought out a light || or candle themselves, were exempt from paying towards the public lamps. The streets, however, were only lighted during 117 nights in the year; and as many robberies and depredations were committed in the night time, the Lord Mayor and Common Council judged proper, in 1736, to apply to Parliament to enable them to light the streets of the city in a better manner. An act was in consequence passed, by which they were empowered to erect glass lamps, in such number as they should judge proper, and to keep them burning from the setting to the rising of the sun, throughout the whole year. If London be excepted, Paris appears to have been the earliest modern city which adopted the regulation of their police in lighting the streets. Street robberies and incendiaries having been found to infest the city of Paris, the inhabitants were ordered to keep lights burning after nine in the evening, before the windows of their houses which fronted the street. This order was issued in 1524, and renewed in 1526, but in October 1588, fallots were directed to be set up at the corners of the streets, and when the street was so long that it could not be lighted by one, three were erected in different parts of it. These lights consisted of a vase filled with pitch, resin, and other combustible matter. In the month of November in the same year, these lights were changed for lanthorns, somewhat similar to those in present use in France. In the year 1667 regulations began to be adopted for illuminating the French capital, from which time the police has undertaken the regulation of that metropolis, both as to watching and lighting. When De Sartines held the office of lieutenant de police, a premium was offered to whoever should discover the most advantageous means of improving the mode of lighting the public streets. In consequence of this offer, a journeyman glazier received a premium of 200 livres, and Messrs. Builly, Le Rey, and Bourgeois de Chateaublanc, 2000 livres. To the last-mentioned gentleman is ascribed the invention of the present reverberating lamps, which were introduced in 1766. The streets of Amsterdam were lighted as early as 1669. At the Hague, an order was made in 1553 for the inhabitants to place lights before their doors during dark nights: afterwards, small stone buildings were erected at the corners of the principal streets, in which lights were kept burning. In 1678 lamps were fixed up in all the streets. Copenhagen was first lighted in 1681: this illumination has been much improved from time to time. ON THE PAVING OF STRreets. THE custom of paving cities is of undoubted antiquity; the streets of Pompeii and Herculaneum being paved with lava. Among modern cities, the first that was paved in Europe, was Cordova, in the year 850, when Abdorrahman II. the fourth Spanish caliph, made it the seat of his empire. In the twelfth century the city of Paris was not paved. The physician of Philip II. relates, that the king being at a window of his palace, on the banks of the Seine, and observing that the carriages in passing threw up so much dirt as to cause a very disagreeable odour, his majesty resolved to remedy it, by causing the streets to be paved, which was effected in the year 1184: the city had before this derived its appellation from its dirt, but it was now changed to that of Paris, by Philip. Other French cities soon followed this example. London was not paved at the close of the eleventh century; and in 1090, when the church of St. Mary le Bow, in Cheapside, was under repair, four large beams of twenty-six feet in length, being blown down by the wind, sunk so deep into the ground, that scarcely four feet of them remained above the surface, for the streets then consisted of soft earth. The principal streets in Holborn were paved for the first time in 1417; the highway of Holborn was then so deep and miry, that many perils were thereby occasioned to the king's car The streets of Rome are not uniformly lighted even to the present day. Pope Sixtus V. was desirous of introducing this improvement, but met with too many serious obstacles to persist. In order, how-riages passing that way, as well as to those ever, to obviate the inconvenience as much as possible, he very ingeniously availed himself of his pontifical authority, in ordering an additional number of lamps to be placed before the images of the saints. The city of Venice is lighted by three thousand lamps. Both Messina and Palermo, in Sicily, are well lighted. In a future paper we shall continue this account, with a descriptive consideration of the modern improvements in this important custom. of his subjects. Other streets were paved under Henry VIII. some of them being described as "very foul, full of pits and sloughs, perilous and noisome." Some streets in the suburbs of the metropolis were paved in 1544, 1571, and 1605. The great cattle market at Smithfield was first paved in 1614. The great extension of street paving in modern times, with its improvements, and a consideration of the famous roads of antiquity, will form a sequel to this sketch. SKETCHES OF PUBLIC CHARACTERS. JOHN BERNARD TROTTER, ESQ. THIS unfortunate gentleman was the author of several very excellent literary works, but was most advantageously known to the public, as the author of the Life || and Memoirs of the Right Honourable Charles James Fox, to whom Mr. Trotter | was private secretary, and had many years enjoyed his friendly confidence. Mr. Trotter was a native of Ireland, but was descended from the Earls of Gowry, in Scotland. His father was a clergyman of the Church of England, and his uncle, by the mother's side, was Bishop of Down and Connor. Mr. Trotter was originally designed for the church, and accordingly received his education at Trinity College, Dublin; but he was afterwards called to the Irish bar, and his acquaintance with Mr. Fox commenced while keeping his professional terms in England. Mr. Trotter afterwards accompanied his friend and patron to France, where he assisted him in obtaining the information relative to the Stuart family, which Mr. Fox required, to complete the history he had undertaken of "the Reign of James II." From France Mr. Trotter returned to Ireland, whence he was called to England by Mr. Fox, on that gentleman's elevation to the situation of prime minister. All hope of future advantage, however, unfortunately expired with the death of Mr. Fox; and while want and obscurity seemed to lie in ambush for poor Trotter, he retreated to Dublin, and there commenced a political course of authorship. After writing several pamphlets and other literary works of this nature, he continued to live in a style of expense but ill suited to his means. Embarrassments, as may well be imagined, grew fast upon him, and ultimately compelled him to quit Dublin. He wandered over other parts of Ireland without any settled plan, and was at length arrested for debt in the county of Wexford, and removed to the Marshalsea prison in Dublin. He there married a young woman, who had been the faithful companion of his changeful fortunes, and when he obtained his liberation, he retired to Cork, whence he took his "Walks through Ireland," a work creditable to his talents as a tourist. He proceeded on foot through the counties of Cork, Limerick, Clare, Galway, and Mayo, exploring the wild districts of Erris, Conemarra, and Joyce's county, a solitary and sequestered track along the Western Ocean, but little known, and scarcely ever visited. Here, after the confiscation of Cromwell, were the native Irish driven, and there they still retain that energetic and unmixed character that has ever distinguished them. In this tour, Mr. Trotter often took up his abode with the poorest peasants, where his only bed was a little straw shaken on the ground, his food potatoes and salt, which the hospitable Irishman, however wretched his condition, always most cheerfully shares with his in mate. From Connaught Mr. Trotter returned to Cork, having walked, in three months, more than a thousand miles. We have now the painful task of recording the close of this extraordinary man's life; but the picture though melancholy is interesting, and rouses feelings which ought not to be suppressed. While he was engaged in composing his "Walks through Ireland," his hopes were supported, and his spirits kept from sinking by his efforts and exertion: his resignation and his equanimity were indeed truly laudable, for he submitted to privations of every kind, with the most cheerful forti tude. At this time all his means were ex hausted, and even common food was at length supplied in a very precarious and irregular manner. When the hour of dinner arrived, he frequently attended his family to an empty table! and took up the work of some author to read aloud for their entertainment, during the time generally allotted to the meal; and the unfortunates arose from this mental repast with what resignation they might, with the hope that some relief might arrive on the morrow! When his tour was completed, as if body and mind were totallyexhausted, he suddenly sunk into dejection and despondency; his only complaining, an occa. sional communication of his feelings and situation to the only friend the world had left him. These letters indicated but too distinctly, the wreck of a mind borne down by incessant anxiety and hopeless affliction: indeed, the circumstances under which he supported existence at that period, might serve to excuse his despondency. He occupied some bare and desolate apartments of a decayed house in Hammond's Marsh: the abode was dreary.and comfortless as the most squalid poverty might be supposed to choose for its horrible retirement. His only food was potatoes, salt, and water, with such other cheap vegetables as he could occasionally procure. The addition of milk and tea were now but rare luxuries, and to provide them, it was generally requisite to pawn a remaining shirt or garment. His habiliments now were the worn-out remnants of better days, and he seldom stirred from his wretched abode, where no one sought him his only solace was to remain in his bed for whole days, and there to brood over misfortune. On those occasions he was accustomed to read those books that accorded with his own sad situation. He dwelt with melancholy fondness on the lives of Chatterton, Savage, Otway, and such literary characters who had prematurely perished from indigence and want; drawing from their end a gloomy presage of his own fate. In this state he was at length visited by an epidemic disorder, then raging amongthe poor of the neighbourhood, and which is always found most fatal in its attacks upon the distressed, who are predisposed, both in body and mind, for its ravages. He had, on this occasion, eaten, after a long abstinence,a quantity of crude vegetables, the only food he could then procure, and the next day was seized with the distemper. He was visited by the physicians of a dispensary in the vicinity, and received gra tuitously the medicines they prescribed; but his heart was broken, and medicine could do little to arrest his malady, increased as it was by scanty, crude, and unwholesome diet. In a short time his case became utterly hopeless. The learned and accomplished Dean of Cork, the present Bishop of Raphoe, came to offer him the last consolations of religion, and he kindly and sedulously attended him, as long a his sacred functions could confer comfort on the heart of the dying man. The powers of his mind soon gave way, and deprived him of this best of consolation. Strange to relate, he imagined he saw a phantom walking across his room, in the form of a man, and enter a closet; and he earnestly requested Mrs. Trotter to follow the apparition. She complied, but could not persuade him it was but a delusion of his fancy: he insisted that another person should be called to make further search, and not satisfied even with this assurance, he himself rose from his bed, tottered across the room, and closely examined the closet. Shortly after this he called for writing materials: he made a vain and ineffectual effort to write; the pen fell from his hand, and uttering a deep groan, he sunk back exhausted on his pillow. In a short time after, his sufferings had ceased; he expired, on the 29th of September, 1818, in the forty-third year of his age. He had expressed a wish during his ill ness, that his remains should be placed near the elm trees which shade the churchyard of the cathedral at Cork, and this A few has been piously attended to. friends, it is said, propose to erect a monument over his remains. In the agony of feeling which arises when we see a fellow-creature perish from inanition, to say nothing of his celebrity and descent, we are forcibly reminded of the observation made on another unfortunate: "He asked for bread, and he received a stone.” |