Imatges de pàgina
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No. 99.]

OR

Monthly Journal of Fashion.

LONDON, MARCH 1, 1839.

THE KING'S BENCH INQUEST.

I HAD always a passion for the survey of external and universal nature. I have been a far traveller; my shadow has deepened among the gloomier shades of the forests of the New World, and I have seen it play at evening, lengthened by the moon, over the snows of an Appennine or an Alp; fire-flies have lighted me along my tropic path, and the mute stars have shone listening on the oars that rowed my gondola over the Venetian waters; the sunny vineyards of Italy-the fair fields of France-the bright radiance of the sparkling sands in the Arabian desert-the brighter pomp of the Indian city-the faded glories of the Alhambra-and the embrowned richness of the Spanish grove-on all these I have feasted my soul, gathering up the living beauties of one landscape and the everlasting wonders of another, as food and manna for the worship and adoration of the God who made them all! in the pursuit of nature in other lands, and in the fond contemplation of "wonders that lead to piety," I fancied, as a young man, that I was laying in a store of proper knowledge for the heart, losing myseif rashly, but perhaps pardonably, in the loveliness of the rational world, and forgetting that from my very calling-MAN, in the image of his Maker should have been my study-not as he is studied by the physician, for his bodily advantage-but in the pulses of his heart-in the promptings of his spiritin the fiery impetus of his passion- the milder suggestions of his reason-and the busy workings of his brains that I should watch all in short-not severely but in all benevolence-for the sake of the salvation of a few?

It is a confession that may not, perhaps, tell much to my advantage, that this truth first flashed upon me within the walls of a prison-that it was when I had been merged, as it were, into the pressing difficulties of poverty, and learned "how hard a thing it is to want"-when 1 had seen man fallen more in credit than humanity-- a father wondering how his children should live a mother dreading lest they should die :— yes, it was when I had seen different ages-diffirent grades-diffirent degrees of poverty, of sorrow, and of shame—that I began, for the first time, to feel that I should centre and c ncentrate all my energies in the study of the human mind

"That vast unbounded thing

That liveth in no space!
That hath a soul upon its wing!
A glory in its face!"

In a prison! Yes, reader, in a dangerous and detestable prison, I, as a young man, fond of truthfond of philosophy-fond of religion-gained an insight into the human heart-saw it in its various shades and phases--like a many-coloured glass, that,

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being broken in a thousand pieces, was shaping forth its hues and fashions in the great kaleidoscope of the world!

All prisons are dreadful, but a debtor's prison is the most dreadful of all. Ther: men who have committed no crime are criminals-for their punishment is the punish .ent of the dishonest. The poor man sits down by the side of the swindler, and yet both pay to justice the same retribution. Oh, Goldsmith! you who first sent your pious vicar into the heart of a prison where the debtor and the thief mixed in the same circlewhere the horse-stealer, prating of the" Cosmogony of the World," spouted his spurious learning to the parson, who was rich in the revelation of the Gospel ; you, Johnson, who proposed to hunt from society the harsh despoiler of a peaceful home, and to cover with obloquy the man who prevented another from earning the bread with which his children should be fed; why were not your humane doctrines as extensively practised as they were universally read, and your wisdom followed as much as it was loved?

Well-a-day! but it was in a gaol that my poor experience of what man is capable of enduring, both bodily and mentally, has been gained and garnered.

*

Towards the end of summer, or rather the beginning of autumn, in the last year, I was a prisoner in the King's Bench. My incarceration took its rise out of a bill which I had signed for a friend; the amount was considerable-he had not-1 could not-he gained time--I a prison! Upon me imprisonment would have pressed sadly and severely, but for my occupation; in the field before me the duties of the clergyman overcame the selfishness of the man. Labor omnia vincint —and what I had to perform conquered what I had to bear! Sometimes I had to cheer the honest-sometimes to endeavour to reform the unworthy-often to administer consolation to affliction-often to reprove the levity of youth-more than once too I waited and watched by the bed of sickness, and registered in my own heart the last prayer of men whose spirits; as I hoped, were fleeing above sorrow and

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I have said that I had a passion for the study of external nature. It was a bright night, and towards the end of August, that I left my dreary and desolate chamber to imbibe the air of Heaven upon the racquetground within the walls of the King's Bench. I knew that the leaves had fallen from the trees, although I could not roam upon the paths were they were scattered. Neither woods nor waters, cities nor fields, were before me or around me, or on either side, but above-yes, above me there was a glorious and cloudless Heaven, radiant with moonlight and studded with stars, and upon that I could gaze, and wonder, and rejoice-gaze on the glory of Providence-wonder at the marvellousness of its mystery-and rejoice in those shining emblems of its mercy and its love! I began to speculate-not less upon the promises and marvels which I fancied I saw recorded in the sky, than upon those bright figures and parables in revelation-each in itself as much a beacon to the human spirit as particular stars are signals to the mariner upon the deep! And I am not the only one who has drawn a moral from the stars within a prison walls-De Berenger watched them in France, through his grated bars.

Ay, and now, reflected I, in the words of the French lyrist,

"And now, what other star is that,

That shoots, and shoots, and disappears ?"

Perhaps it is emblematic of some poor fellow who, even to-day, may have been taken from a bright station in society to be thrust in this gloomy gaol; or perhaps it is indeed a type of death, and "un mortel expire!"

It was a quiet autumn night-I had ventured out because I found a greater stillness prevailed than was usual within the walls of the prison-the hour was late, and I must have been perambulating a 66 weary while" from one end to the other of the racquet-ground and back, when a shooting star, called to my mind the fanciful supposition of Berenger's un mortel expire." "If so be that a mortal dies," said I, musingly, "peace follow him to the grave."

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Men often

Several times I continued to pace backwards and forwards, dreaming awake, as it were, of death-its fit preparation and its appalling presence. familiarize with the lips a sentence that has struck suddenly upon the mind, and I, as I strode over the prison ground, in thought kept repeating to myself the words which the shooting star had awakened in my memory-" "Un mortel expire-un mortel expire.”

"My husband is dying." cried a woman who had approached me unnoticed and laid her hand upon my

arm;

"for God's sake come-come, come and administer to him the last consolations of religion!”

"Un mortel expire-there is a man dying," said I, almost mechanically, surprised in the very tenor of my thought; "Heaven save his soul."

· Holy Virgin!" exclaimed the woman, "the clergyman is mad, and my poor husband 'll die without a sacrament!" and she bounded away from me with the speed of despair.

Her words brought me to my senses, and I soon

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Papa's not well," lisped a child, who lay dreaming on the floor in one corner of the apartment. I tapped gently at the door.

"Come in, Sir; Och, come in for the love of God!" sobbed the distracted wife.

I entered. The husband, exhausted with the few words he had spoken, dozed half insensibly, and I sat myself down by his bed.

"He had better not be disturbed," whispered I.

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No, sir, not now," said the wife; but the docther 'll be here directly, and afther he's done wid him, ye'd better talk to him, Sir. Nothing can save him now."

I continued sitting by the bed; and, in the interval which elapsed before the doctor's arrival, I took note of the interior of the room. Like all the apartments of the prison, it was small in its dimensions, about twelve feet square the walls were green, here and there darkened with a spot of damp. There was no carpet on the floor, and either the fire was extinguished, or the embers were the wreck of some former day's warmth. A rushlight, twisted round with paper, and stuck in a bottle (there was no candlestick), threw a faint sad flicker over the chamber, like a meteor through mist, shedding mingled light and gloom. The bed on which the patient lay was of French make, but its curtains had long been pledged for food; the counterpane was gone too, and the upper sheet, so that the dingy and worn blankets were the invalid's only coverings. In one corner of the room, upon mattress on the floor, lay two children—a boy and girl. The girl, about eight years of age, slept soundly; the boy, younger by three years, had just awakened, and, seeing a stranger in the room, lay with his bright blue eyes fixed upon my figure in a wide inquisitive stare. The eldest daughter of the dying man, a pretty slim girl some three years older than either of the other children, nursed an infant by the window, while the mother stood near the foot of the invalid's bed, and watched his pale lips as he lay breathing away the last moments of his life.

The

For about ten minutes after I had sat down by the bed-side there was a silent stillness in the room. man continued dozing, and the poor wife, who seemed to fancy that in that short sleep her husband's suffering was lulled, controlled her sobs and tears in her intense anxiety that he should rest peacefully.

A gentle opening of the door, and a repetition of the same slight creak which I before noticed, announced the arrival of the doctor, but the patient did not move.

The medical attendant stood as he had entered, and the wife did not change her earnest listening posture: she stood like a frail vessel between the Scylla and Charybdis of human destiny-her own heart vibrating between hope and fear. The patient, too, dozed in a sort of doubt, whether he should wake to woo the fair spirit of existence, or sleep on till he became united with the darker angel of death. So pondered, the Lord Thomas of the olden ballad between his two brides!

For about two minutes this sort of awful quiet prevailed in the room; it was interrupted, and the prisoner awakened, by the faint cry of the child whom the eldest daughter was nursing. The patient, who had evidently been dreaming, seeing me as he awoke, suddenly started, and inquired, "Are you the man ?”

I

Who do you mean ?" "This is our good

thought you might

What man, William, dear? said the wife, bending over him. clergyman, and, as you were ill, like to talk to him." "Thank you, Ellen," said the prisoner faintly; "I thought it was your—”

"What William ?" asked the wife graspingly, as if fearful of what was coming.

"Oh, I must have been dreaming, dear," was the evasive answer. Ellen, did you not say this gentleman

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was a clergyman ?"

"Yes, and happy if he can afford you consolation in your sad illness," rejoined I.

"Thank you, Sir, thank you! I know I must die soon, I do stand in need of consolation. Oh, that horrid dream!"

The prisoner paused.

"Ellen, dear," resumed he, "I should like to take the sacrament. Will you receive it with me ?"

"I am a Catholic, William," said the wife with a faint smile.

"Ah, I forgot, Then, Sir, I will take it alone," said he, turning to me; "but, Ellen, bring our children to my bed-side, and do you sit by me; I would have you all see that I trusted in Christ to the last."

The woman turned away her head-the tears rolled rapidly over her cheeks-and she for a moment hid her face in her handkerchief. Then she bent over the mattress on which her children lay, and the little boy smiled, and asked, "What is it, mother ?"

The poor woman now uttered a sob, and the girl awoke. She the motioned her to approach with the infant.

The girl advanced. The doctor sat himself in her vacant chair. The prisoner watched me as I opened a small pocket Prayer-book; moved towards the cupboard for the fragment of bread upon its shelf; poured into a glass some wine which had been sent to him medicinally, and consecrated both in the customary and solemn manner.

During this time the mother had taken the infant from her daughter's hands and laid it by the side of its father. She had placed the young boy kneeling at the foot of the bed (on it); and the child, as all children are taught, closed together the palms of his little hands, and held them up towards Heaven. The wife herself knelt down by the bed, with one daughter on either side of her; and the docter raised his hat from his head, and held his hat over his face. With a tone, as solemn as I could command, I commenced the sacred

duty which I had to perform, with a short, but earnest, exhortation to the dying man. I then chose from the service a few of those passages which I thought would apply most consoling. "Godliness is great riches, if a man be content with what he hath for we brought i nothing into the world neither may we carry anything out."-1 Tim. vi.

There were one or two sentences which I avoided, fearful of raising in his mind an angry feeling towards those who had imprisoned him. Such as-" Whoso hath this world's goods, and seeth his brother in need, and shutteth up his compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him ?"-1 St. John, iii.

During the time I went through the service, there was not the slightest interruption,-from the unsleeping smiling infant by the sufferer's side, to the agonized mother by his bed, all were mute listeners; and when the Sacrament was administered, the prisoner took the bread, and drank of the wine, with the fervent ear. nestness of a Christian, who put all trust in God, and who hoped to be redeemed by his Son!

When it was all over he seemed much comforted, but his serenity was suddenly disturbed, and by an incident the most affecting I ever beheld. His little boy, who had remained kneeling with his hands clasped in most lamb-like innocence at the foot of his bed, as if glad to be released from his cramped position, let fall his arms upon the couch, and crawling over to his father, kissed him on the cheek, and asked, " Father, are you going to die ?"

The poor man pressed the boy to his bosom, and sobbed out" Yes!"

The effect was electric. The young balf-conscious child burst into tears-the mother buried her face in the bed clothes-the younger girl ran to her mattress on the floor, and flung herself upon it in hysteric grief. I found my own fortitude failing, and the doctor unable to control his emotions ran out of the room.

I followed hastily, and called him back. "What can you do for him ?" said I

"Nothing; he is dying gradually, and is beyond the reach of medicine. I would help him if I could, but he is your patient now, not mine, and such scenes I cannot stand."

The words had scarcely passed his lips, when a clap of thunder, the loudest I ever heard in this country, burst over the prison,-and went roaring round the walls with the strange strong echoes which they return to all loud sounds. A shriek followed, and we both ran back into the room. Wild fulfilment of a fearful destiny! Strange closing of a sad career! The prisoner was in loud, strong, screaming hysterics. The wife snatched the children from the bed, and laid them upon the ground-and they all huddled together upon their mattress-in silent, but deep terror.

"Oh dear! Oh mercy! It's all me," cried the woman despairingly, as she hurried to the water-jug for the usual remedy for hysterics.

The doctor held her back,-" Water will not do now,', said he, (6 you must let nature take its course."

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