sufficiently curious for us to give them in- ., sertion here. Harder than thine own native rocks, By every hapless virgin curst: Winter blasts not more unkind, Deaf as the rugged northern wind; By some Welsh wolf in murders nurs'd. Hast thou eyes? or hast thou none ? Or are they worse than marble grown? Since marbles weep at Sylvia's moan. Rebels stiff, and supple slaves, All the frantic world divide; One must stoop, and t'other ride; Cringing fools and factious knaves: Tho' falling on the loser's part, Gently Death arrests my heart, And bas in honey dipt his dart. Life, farewell! thou gaudy dream, The prisoner suffered at Lynne, and his character is thus given us :-" "All that knew or saw him, must own Mr. Battiscomb was very much a gentleman. Not that thin sort of animal that flutters from tavern to play-house, and back again, all his life made of wig and cravat, without one dram of thought in his composition; but one who has solid worth. His body made a very handsome and creditable tenement for his mind; and 't had been pity it shou'd have liv'd in any other." Here is another instance of the judge's brutality to females. Two persons named Hewling were among the condemned at Taunton, who had two sisters, and they hung upon the state coach imploring mercy at his hands; whereupon the incensed magistrate bade his coachman lash their fingers with his whip. And he moreover refused one of these sisters a respite of two days only for her brothers, though she offered him one hundred pounds for that little favour. The miseries which were inflicted upon the inhabitants of this county, are concluded with an account of a most hor bable his name is Sir George Jeffreys, who I must say, behaved himself more like a jack-pudding, than with that gravity which beseems a judge: he was mighty witty upon the prisoners at the bar; he was very full of his jokes upon people that came to give evidence, not suffering them to declare what they had to say in their own way and method, but would in terrupt them, because they behaved them selves with more gravity than he; and in truth, the people were strangely perplexed when they were to give in their evidence; but I do not insist upon this, nor upon the late hours he kept up and down our city; it's said he was every night drinking till two o'clock, or beyond that time, and that he went to his chamber drunk; but this I have only by common fame, for I was not in his company: I bless God I am not a man of his principles or behaviour, but in the mornings he appeared with the symptoms of a man that overnight had taken a large cup. But that which I have to say is the complaint of every man, especially of them who had any law-suits. Our chief justice has a very arbitrary power, in appointing the assize when he pleases; and this man has strained it to the highest point; for whereas we were accustomed to have two assizes, the first about April or May, the latter about September; it was this year the middle (as I remember,) of August, before we had any assize; and then he dispatched business so well, that he left half the causes untried; and, to help the matter, has resolved that we shall have no more assizes this year.” rible sentence of whipping, which was pronounced upon one Tutchin, a young man of Hampshire. This fellow appeared to a charge of rebellion, under the assumed name of Thomas Pitts, and was acquitted for want of evidence. This happened at Taunton; but as Tutchin was a man of Dorset, and was to be punished in that county, we mention him here. Jeffreys soon found out his true name, and asserted, that he was never so far outwitted by a young or old rogue in his life." He then tried to fish out of Mr. Tutchin the names of some of his confederates, but failed; upon which he grew furious, and not being able to hang him, issued forth the following sentence: "Imprisonment for seven years, and once a year to be whipped through all the market towns in Dorsetshire; to be fined one hundred marks, and find security for his good behaviour during life." This was a blow indeed; and the ladies in court immediately burst into tears; but Jeffreys called out, "Ladies, if you did but know what a villain this is, as well as I do, you would say that this sentence is not half bad enough for him." And the clerk of the arraigns was so much astonished, that he could not help observing upon the number of markettowns in Dorset; he said, that "the sentence reached to whipping about once a fortnight, and that Mr. Tutchin was a very young man," Ay, he is a very young man, but an old rogue,” torted the invincible judge; " and all the interest in England shan't reverse the sentence I have passed on him." Tutchin himself had that keen regard for his bones, and was so fully sensible of the discipline intended him, that he actually petitioned the King to be hanged with his fellowprisoners. It seems that the court felt the enormity of the chastisement proposed; but all that transpired was, « Mr. Tut"We, to the number of a thousand chin must wait with patience." Then the and more, widows, and fatherless childyoung man tried to buy a pardon, but indren, of the counties of Dorset, Somerset, and then came the small-pox, a and Devon; our dear husbands and tenday or two before his first lashes were to der fathers having been so tyrannously have taken place, and reduced him so butcher'd, and some transported; low, as to occasion a reversal of the senestates sold from us, and our inheritance tence by Jeffreys himself cut off by the severe and harsh sentence of George Lord Jeffreys, now, we understand, in the Tower of London, a prisoner; who has lately, we hear, endeavoured to excuse himself from those tyrannical and illegal sentences, by laying it on information by some gentlemen who are known to us to be good Christians, true Protestants, and Englishmen. your poor petitioners, many hundreds of us, on our knees have begged mercy for our dear husbands and tender parents from his cruel hands, but his thirst for blood vain; 66 re DELAMERE'S SEVERE CHARGE AGAINST "The County for which I serve is Cheshire, which is a County Palatine, and we have two judges peculiarly as signed us by. His Majesty our puisne judge I have nothing to say against him, for he is a very honest man for aught I know; but I cannot be silent as to our chief judge, and I will name him, because what I have to say will appear more pro PETITION AGAINST THE IMPRISONED JEFFREYS. "The humble Petition of the widows and fatherless children in the west of England: our We, was so great, and his barbarism so cruel, that instead of granting mercy for some, which were made appear to be innocent, and petitioned for by the flower of the gentry of the said counties, he immediately executed; and so barbarously, that a very good gentlewoman at Dorchester, begging on her knees the life of a worthy gentleman, to marry him, and make him her husband, this vile wretch, having not common civility with him, and laying aside that honour and respect due to a person of her worth, told her, 'Come, I know your meaning; some part of your petition I will grant, which shall be, that after he is hanged and quartered, ✶✶ * * and so I will give orders to the sheriff.' These, with many hundred more tyrannical acts, are ready to be made appear in the said counties, by honest and credible persons; and therefore your petitioners desire, that the said George Jeffreys, late Lord Chancellor, the vilest of men, may be brought down to the counties aforesaid, where we, the good women in the west, shall be glad to see him, and give him another manner of welcome than he had there three years since. And your petitioners shall ever pray," &c. THE FALL OF THE ROSSBERG. By the Rev. F. A. Cox, LL.D. From an unpublished tour through France and Switzerland, in the year 1818. AMIDST all the magnificence of Switzerland, there is nothing to surpass the grandeur of the scenery which encircles the summit of the Rigi, called the Rigi Culm. This mountain, situated near the Lake of Lucerne, is not, however, so remarkable for its elevation, as for the singularity and advantage of its position. You might imagine that the Creator of all things had thrown up a standing-place for the intelligent admirers of his works, in the centre of a vast amphitheatre, which is a kind of world in miniature, where beauty and sublimity occur in endless diversities, in continued alternations, and in eternal rivalry. From this point the spectator contemplates on the one side, beneath his feet, the lakes and less mountainous regions of Switzerland, stretching like a map to the far distant horizon; and on the other a semi-circle of the Alps, with their mighty breadth and snowcovered peaks. The day which had been devoted to the ascent of the Rigi, was one of perfect serenity and clearness. Over all the azure skies not a cloud was to be seen; not a sound was to be heard; alt nature seemed to repose in sunshine and stillness: so that fancy might have deemed it a scene for angels to alight upon; a resting-place between heaven and earth! A little below the Alpine ridges was to be seen a streak of brilliant clouds, which lifted them to an apparent height far superior to their real elevation, bewildering the imagination with an indistinct impression of scenery, that partook of a kind of celestial character. What superadded to the effect was the circumstance of a small white cloud, occasionally detached from the fleecy girdle, and wafted by some gentle breeze along the pure and peaceful atmosphere. There was, however, one spot which partook of a very different character from the rest. No mind endowed even with the common sensibilities of our nature, could survey it without emotions of melancholy interest, for it was the grave of multitudes, who were suddenly precipitated into eternity by the fall of the mountain of Rossberg; an event distinctly traceable in the long strip of dusky brown, which bespoke ruin and desolation; and exhibited, as seen from the Rigi, a striking contrast with the surrounding verdure and fertility. In travelling towards the town of Art, we had previously stopped to examine the effects of the catastrophe, and to indulge in those reflections upon the uncertainty of life which are always calculated to benefit the mind, and which such a melancholy prospect was calculated to inspire. The valley, once rich and fertile, but now partly filled up with huge and scattered fragments of earth, stretched along from the southern extremity of the Lake of Zug to that of the Lake of Lowertz, a distance of five or six miles. On one side, and in immediate proximity, the Rigi ascends to the height of about four thousand three hundred and fifty-six feet above the level of the Lake of Lucerne ; on the other, the Ruffiberg, or Rossberg, (more familiarly called the Rouffi) rises to about three thousand five hundred and sixteen. Both these masses belong to a chain of mountains, which, geologically considered, seem to have been formed of the fragments or debris, and rolled flints of the primitive mountains, which, being mingled with sand, or gravel and calcareous sediment, have formed these conglomerations which are technically denominated pudding-stone. In the neighbourhood they are commonly called Nagelflue, because they assume the appearance of a cement stuck all over with the heads of nails. It is obvious that from the nature of their formation, these masses can acquire no great solidity, and must be easily operated upon by the external elements, or by internal forces. Little, if any doubt, can be entertained that the Rigi and the Rossberg, were originally one mass, which was torn asunder by some convulsion of nature, accompanied probably by an irruption of waters from the south. Convincing proofs of this pristine union were visible before the last catastrophe, both in the colour and the direction of the rocky masses; and it should seem that even the whole valley of Art, now covered with verdure, woods, and orchards, formerly constituted a part of the Lake of Zug. The distance from Art to the village of Goldau, reckoning in the continental way, is about half an hour; whence was a distinct view of the Lake of Lowertz, with its two beautiful islands. The valley then enlarges, and by travelling southward, you reach Bussingen; thence coming round to Lowertz, the road is frequently shaded with noble trees, the cottages decorated with vines, and the whole of this Arcadia with pastoral simplicity. Ruin, however, has continually been at work in this favoured region. An old manuscript mentions the village of Röthen, which was built on that part of the Rossberg from which the portion of the mountain was separated in the last catastrophe, and which was destroyed by similar means. Near the summit of the Rossberg was a solitary thatched cottage (chaumière), the inhabitant of which was alarmed by an unusual noise in the mountain, about two o'clock in the afternoon of September 2d, 1806. Superstitiously attributing it to some malignant demon, he immediately ran to Art for a clergyman to appease the evil spirit. During his absence the moment of the explosion rapidly approached. His wife in the meanti ne happily escaped with her infant child in her arms, terrified by the repeated crushing sounds she heard, which were followed by the falling of stones and fragments of rock. In a moment the cottage was swept away. Travellers, who were proceeding from Ober Art to Goldau, observed the top of the Rossberg in a state of agitation, while its trees and orchards appeared as if shook by some giant hand. The whole forest of Goldau was speedily overthrown with a tremendous crash. It was now five o'clock. The rapidity and force with which large masses of stone were driven to great distances can scarcely be imagined; we calculated that some, of no inconsiderable magnitude, were propelled at least an English mile, or perhaps half a league. Entire hills were thrown down, and others substituted in their stead by the falling and rolling fragments. The Lake of Lowertz was suddenly raised above its banks, by the displacing of a considerable portion of its waters; while houses and villages, with their peaceable inhabitants, woods, meadows, pasturages, all disappeared at once! The consternation which seized upon the whole country, and the immediate and agitated search of surviving friends after parents, children, brothers, sisters, and neighbours, can neither be described nor forgotten. The laughing valley became at once, and for ever, a gloomy sepulchre ! It has been supposed, and with great probability, that the immediate cause of this calamity was long in preparation, by the gradual accumulation of water and rubbish in the interior of the mountain. This at length burst forth in a torrent of mingled mud and stone, which overwhelmed every thing in its course, and rushed into the Lake of Lowertz; while. the woods and pastures on the surface suddenly sank into the unoccupied chasm. This opinion derives support from the statement of some shepherds, published at Schwytz, in which they speak of having discovered a cavern, at a considerable height up the mountain, the small opening of which was suddenly enlarged into the form of a prodigious arch. They add, that a collection of water was found within it, the extent of which they could neither explore nor fathom. At a greater elevation were several holes, into which, if a stone were thrown, there was found no reverberation; plainly indicating that the mountain was perforated in this manner to an unascertainable depth. The extent of the mischief cannot, perhaps, be fully determined. The villages of Goldau and Busingen, with the hamlet of Hueloch, were covered with ruin; the same may be reported of the greater part. of the village of Lowertz; while the loosened fragments rolled upon Unter and Ober-Röthen, and swept away a multitude of isolated habitations and buildings in the plain. The waters of the Lake of Lowertz, being forced in the opposite direction to the descending mass, endangered the village of Seven, on the other side of the lake, and even destroyed a few houses. On the little islet was found a vast accumulation of wrecks; and in the village of Steinen a quantity of fish had been driven with the waves, and floated about the streets. It has been calculated that nearly one thousand persons suffered by this convulsion of nature, which was rendered more melancholy by the sudden and sur prising manner of its occurrence. Several gentlemen and ladies of distinction, who were at the instant crossing the bridge of Goldau, perished; while some of their companions, who had preceded them only a short distance, were saved. One or two remarkable escapes have been narrated, which there is reason to believe are authentic. A servant at the village of Busingen, fled into a barn: but the place of refuge soon afterwards became a perfect wreck. Providentially a beam was impeded by a fragment of rock, and thrown over his head in a slanting direction, so as to afford him an effectual protection from even the slightest injury. An infant at the breast was caught and borne along the surface of the agitated lake, till it was safely deposited in the neighbouring meadow. Some persons went from Lowertz to extricate, if possible, a servant girl from a most perilous situation, in consequence of the house in which she dwelt being overwhelmed with the torrent of mingled mud and stone. She had separated and returned from the fugitive family, witn whom she was attempting to effect her escape, to search for one of the children that was missing. At the moment of en. tering the house, it seemed to be swept along with great rapidity; and scarcely had she reached the apartment where she hoped to find the object of her pursuit, ere she found herself in darkness, and, to her own apprehensions, sinking as into a deep chasm. The voice of the child was distinctly heard, but she was incapable of stirring from the place to afford assistance. Concluding that all was lost, she told the child it was the end of the world, that all aid was impossible, and nothing remained but patiently and submissively to wait for death. During this conversation they heard, indistinctly, the sound of the evening bell at the village of Steinen, which in some degree inspired the hope of deliverance. Throughout the whole night, however, they numbered every hour, which successively was deemed their last, till, at the break of day, her master, who had come to search for his wife, but only to find her a stiffened corpse buried in the mud, was enabled to extricate both servant and child from their imminent danger. From the Amulet. FAIRY GAMBOLS. Night's silver lamp ascends the skies, By myriad splendid stars impearl'd, And bids her midnight beauties rise, To light and charm a wearied world. Yon mould'ring turret's time-worn form, Now the fleet-footed fairies lave Or deck the scene that Spencer drew. On some gay flow'rets emerald stem, Or sprightly, o'er the spiral grass, With giddy graceful ease they glide; A dew-drop is their looking-glass, Their mirror is the sleeping tide. When morning opes her cloudless eye, REMINISCENCES OF DRS. JOHN SON AND GOLDSMITH. Ar the Literary Club held at the bottom of St. James Street, which was attended by most of the literary, and some of the political characters of the then period, at one of the dinners of the club, when was present Drs. Johnson and Goldsmith, Edmund Burke, Mr. Richard Burke, Dr. Percy, and a numerous company. It was remarked by one of the party that there was an offensive smell in the room, and he thought it must proceed from some dog that was under the table; but Mr. Burke, with a smile, turned to me, and said, “ Í rather fear it is from the beef-steak pie that is opposite to us, the crust of which is made with some very bad butter, that comes from my country." Just at that moment Dr. Johnson sent his plate for some of it, and Burke helped him to very little, which he soon dispatched, and returned his plate for more; Burke without thought exclaimed, "I am glad that you are able so well to relish this beefsteak-pie." Johnson, not at all pleased that what he ate should ever be noticed, immediately retorted, "There is a time of life, Sir, when a man requires the repair of a table." Before dinner was finished, Mr. Garrick came in full-dressed, made many apologies for being so much later than he intended, but he had been unexpectedly detained at the House of Lords, and Lord Camden had absolutely insisted upon setting him down at the door of the hotel in his own carriage. Johnson said nothing, but he looked a volume. |