tifications he would have to suffer at the hands of wife, parents, or children, as it might be. As to the ten pounds he should disburse, on conviction, if a single man, or the twenty, if he had the misfortune to be married, that was the least item in the unfortunate business. The ordinary result of these conferences was, the handing over of a respectable sum to the Prætor, on the understanding that the visitor's weaknesses should be left in "dread repose." A story is told of a judge whose youth had given much scandal, and whose son was now following his father's evil example. He applied the thumb-screws to a poor wretch after she had denounced some sinners of the male sex, in order to make her enlarge the list of her evil acquaintance, and she at last shouted out, "there were no others but you and your son." His humiliation in his pride of place" may be supposed. There never was so rigid a censor of plays as the author of "Broad Grins." There may have been some exaggeration in the above report, which our Englishmen received from a certain gossiping acquaintance, who did not even spare the clergy. He asserted that all people going to confession to the clergymen of the city, were obliged, however poor, to make a money offering on the occasion. He said that he never could hear of any Lutheran priests, except those of Hamburg, who were liable to this reproach-the more shameful, as they were one and all in good circumstances. When some of our Continental travellers return to London, or Dublin, or Edinburgh, and find the houses of worship closed all day, they think on the numbers they used to find in the churches at all hours in Paris, and Milan, and Madrid, on their knees, and apparently absorbed in earnest devotion. During the abode of the Englishmen in Hamburg they had no reason to complain of closed temples. They found the Lutheran churches open from morning to night, and spent several hours in examining them, and the pieces of painting and carving with which most of them were enriched. They were told the following circumstance connected with a fine altar-piece. A merchant, remarkable for never having done a generous thing in his life, announced his intention of presenting a new altar-piece to a certain church, the existing one being very old and tarnished. The offer was accepted with mingled feelings of gratitude and surprise, but just as it was finished, and the generous donor was about to remove the old one to his own premises, a letter, accidentally dropped from his pocket, revealed the fact of an offer by some one in the Low Countries for the old altar-piece, much exceeding the cost (£2,000) of the new one. The elders of the church were profuse in gratitude to Herr Plutus, but would not on any account give him the trouble of removing the ancient canvas, and giving it room in his house. In fact they retained the works of art, new and old, and the avaricious hypocrite was appropriately punished. They heard an odd legend connected with a monument in the cathedral. On a stone in the south wall of this old building they found engraved an ass playing on a bagpipe, and surrounded by various whimsical inscriptions. This is the legend attached to it :-A young gentleman gave the rein to his prodigality, and on being remonstrated with, he said that it was as unlikely he should ever come to want, as it would be for an ass to play the bagpipe. However, he did come at last to the condition of the prodigal son, and while he was in one of the most dismal brown studies on record, gazing vacantly out of a window, he heard the music so dear to Highlanders and Kerry men; and, on casting his eyes downwards, his gaze was nearly blasted by the sight of a stout donkey standing on his hind legs, his fore hoofs opening and shutting the holes in the chanter, the end of the pipe between his teeth, he puffing with all his might, and chanter and drone discoursing asinine melody of a very superior description. He was so affected by the sound and sight, that he entered at once on reform, laboured, and saved, and in time became a rich man, and set up this monument for a "memory of the thing." The Hamburgers of the time affected private carriages to a point beyond what might be considered prudent; yet scarcely a proprietor within the walls was provided with coach-house or stable, for a canal generally formed the boundary of the back premises. When signor (a title affected by the burghers) or madam returned from an excursion, the horses being unharnessed, were lowered into the cellar by machinery, and the coach, by the same means, climbed up eight or nine steps, entered the passage, and rolled through it into the large hall behind. At each side of the passage was a parlour, above were offices, and warerooms soared above these to the height of three or four stories. At one side of the hall you ascended to the drawing-rooms and bed-chambers, behind was a yard, and then warehouses abutting on the canal. A portion of the hall was screened off, and served the purposes of a kitchen. The stoves, of cheerful looking white and blue tiles, rather pleased our visitors. They generally stood in the corner of the room, raised on pillars about a foot and a-half high, and were about three feet square, and adorned with pillars and a sort of crown, where they approached the ceiling. They were lighted outside the room, and retained the heat a long time. No complaints were made by our wandering pair of a want of hospitality among the senators or burghers, but they found out incidentally that the ordinary fare of families, when not under the eyes of visitors, was of a cheerless and coarse character. On this subject we produce a slip from Mentor's correspondence: "A large piece of smoaked or salted Beef, boil'd on Sunday, is served up the whole Week, with Vegetables or a Dish of Fish, which is extreamly cheap and good here; while their Servants are chiefly fed with sundry sorts of spoon Meat, made of the soop of their salt Meat and Herbs, or of sundry Groots boil'd in Milk, Water, or Beer. But as sparing as they are in their own Families, as extravagant are they when they treat Strangers. They are generally observed to act by extreams. The Sm's ruined themselves, and all who were allied to them, by a luxurious Table; while their next Neighbours, the L-s's, saved an estate by starving themselves. While the former spent the revenue of a Month in a Supper, the latter were contented with an Egg a-piece, or in Winter with an Egg between two. The Heirs of the latter, however, squandered away their Estate as extravagantly as their parents saved it ridiculously." As there were but few families in the city who were not connected with trade or professions, the degree to which ceremony was carried, would never have been suspected. An ordinary greeting, in their stereotyped fashion, could not be accomplished in less than ten minutes, and an occasion of congratulation or condolence employed half an hour. The post of honour was on the right hand of the honouring individual, and promenaders were most punctilious in showing this mark of respect. The reader must excuse another extract on this subject. "They are mighty exact in giving the Place of Honour, even in walking the Streets, to those to whom by their rules it is due. duates in Law or Physic; and among these, The fair Sex, Foreigners, Clergymen, Grathose who are married or most advanced in years, have progressively their Rank. If you are walking with a Lady, you must be sure to give her the right Hand, though in order thereunto you should be obliged to thrust your Companion into a Kennel or a Puddle, or expose her to the wipe of a Coach or cart Wheel, which in these narrow Streets, where there are neither pav'd Stones nor Posts to screen you, is often the Case. When a Company meet, who are not perfectly well acquainted with one another, or with whom Rank and Order has not been before settled, Whisperings to know their Quality and Circumstances, and Ceremonies to ascertain their stations, generally take up a Quarter of an Hour.. I had contracted a sort of intimacy with a young Merchant, and we frequently walked out together. As a Foreigner, the place of Honour was my due, and I was frequently obliged to submit to the Inconvenience of being his right-hand Man at the expence of a Pair of white silk Stockings, or the like. It happened one day that we had occasion to walk through the great English House, which is a common Thoroughfare; and truly my Companion took it in his Head, as I had let him know I was an Englishman, to imagine that in this passage of about one hundred Yards I was the native and he the Foreigner, and expected the right hand accordingly. I was so unfortunate, or so unmannerly, as to keep my Station. My friend took it in Dudgeon, spoke not a word afterwards all the way home, moped all dinner-Time, went away without taking Leave, and I expected nothing less than a Challenge next Day." The study of law and medicine occupied a large proportion of the youth of Hamburg. Nearly every respectable merchant family presented one or more of its young men to these professions. The Church did not at all possess the same attraction; and trade was generally left to the dunces of the family. Now, as there were ten times as many legal professors in the city as were wanted, inactivity and the usual incentives to which young manhood is obnoxious, did their ill work, and the industrious members of a family were weighed down and tormented by the drones. Hardly expecting the circumstance about to be related of these gentlemen to be received with implicit credulity, we prefer giving it in the original. "There is, indeed, a Custom here, which is of great Resource to the poorer Sort of these learned Gentlemen-I mean their being paid for attending public Funerals. These Processions are in the Afternoon, on foot, and they are generally very numerous, often consisting of many Hundreds, Men only, and all in black Cloaks. Every Senator, member of the College of Ober Alten, Divine, regular Physician, and graduated Lawyer, has his fee for attending these funerals-if I mistake not, that of a Senator is a Crown, and that of a Divine, Physician, and Lawyer, Half the Sum. This Money (it is said) was formerly intended for the use of the Poor of the Parish; and in the time of their Forefathers, it was customary for everyone who attended a Funeral, to put a Piece of Mony (sic.) into a bason at the church Door, for the Benefit of the Poor. But as it was deemed unreasonable that the Gentlemen invited should be put to any Expense, this Mony was put into their Hands, to be so disposed of. Be this as it will, they make no scruple now of converting it to their own Use; and as there are sometimes two or three of these Funerals in an Afternoon to be disposed of, it is, as I before observed, a great Resource to the lower Sort of these Gentlemen." Attending the court of justice on occasion of the trial of a murderer, they brought away this impression of the judicial costume of the senate : "A sort of Tabard, or loose Coat with short Sleeves, and reaching to the Calves of their Legs. This upper Garment of Silk and Velvet, adorned with monstrous large Tufts, all black, is of the most odd Shape and Make I ever saw. The Facings, six inches broad, at least, are of Sattin in the Habit of a Senator, and of dark-brown Fur in that of a Burghermaster. They all wear Ruffs of a monstrous Size, and large high-crowned Hats of Velvet, of a singular Form, and the whole very heavy and cumbersom; and yet with this sweltering Dress, they are always burthened when upon Business." The crime being murder, with revolting circumstances, the culprit was broken, not on, but by the wheel, and the mangled corpse afterwards hung in chains outside the city. Looking after this execution, they took notice that the ladies betrayed more eager ness to have a good view of the shocking spectacle than the gentlemen; so we are not surprised to learn in another part of the book, that the fair sex of Hamburg were rather subject to hysteria. Our friends, not despising any item of knowledge, paid a visit to the executioner's apartments, in the public prison, found himself an intelligent, sprightly fellow, his wife and children decently dressed, and his lodgings in good order. They ascertained that his revenue arose from his fees at executions, whippings, &c., one mark each; two-penny charges levied on visitors to criminals before sentence, and four-penny ones afterwards, fees for removing dead horses, dogs, &c., outside the walls, and presents from wise people for relics of malefactors, supposed to be efficacious in mental and bodily ailments. These latter talismans are still in request in our own enlightened islands. If any ill-advised householder disposed of a dead dog or horse without Herr Scharffreichter's (severe judge) cognizance, he left his cart before the offender's door till compensation was made. Every other year his helpers perambulated the city during the heat of summer, and put all dogs to death that were unprovided with a collar marked with master's name and the municipal brand. Next year they called at every house and demanded a recompense, the lowest figure being a halfpenny of our money. If that modest request was not granted, the visitor had the privilege of breaking a pane of glass, and he did break it accordingly. Our travellers would not be Englishmen if they felt no curiosity in this great emporium of commerce concerning its manufactures and other modes of making money. They found that in shipping their ventures to and from Spain, Portugal, and Italy, they preferred English vessels to their own, as the British ships were safer in the Mediterranean, and thus high insurance was avoided. The chief manufactures of the place were the knitting of stockings, the weaving and dressing of velvet, sugar refining and calico printing. A low rate of duties added briskness to their inward and outward trade, and discountenanced smuggling. Confidential officers made it their business to find out all the unemployed poor, furnish them with materials for stockings, call on them every Saturday, and take up and pay for all work done. If any were found unable even to knit they provided for them in asylums, so there could hardly be found a beggar in Hamburg. During their inquiries our friends called at the Custom-house, which they were surprised to find on an upper floor, and of comparatively small dimensions. Owing to a good system, and the comparative exemption from smuggling investigations, one clerk was found equivalent, in work gone through, to five English clerks of the London Docks. In a work written at least a hundred years before the period of this visit, the Hamburg women were represented as models of industry, economy, and all domestic virtues. Mentor and his pupil found them no better than the women of any other cities they had visited. They delighted in adorning their persons with jewellery, and took great care to be comfortable in church on cold days, at least as comfortable as a chafing dish of live charcoal, placed between their feet, could make them. They would be occasionally warned by their medical advisers against this practice, and they acted, with regard to the habit and the warnings, as their female descendants at this day in respect to crinoline. The mothers of Hamburg, in easy circumstances, did what many of their sisters in Paris and London were not ashamed to do, i.e., give their infants to be nursed by such young damsels as we have had to mention once or twice already, when these last had lost their own offspring by fair or foul means. Satirical people of the day insinuated that this system held out to young women an encouragement to vice. Doubtless, the senator's wife, whom God enabled to afford its natural support to her infant, and who yet handed it over to draw its nourishment from such a source, was not blameless in the sight of heaven and good men. On leaving the great city of merchants, our friends ruminated on the many advantages and disadvantages of its society and form of government. They saw the limited extent of its lands lying outside the walls, vary from one German mile (four English) to four or five, but felt no concern for the safety of the little State. If one covetous neighbour entered one of its gates, the opposite one was open to another watchful power to walk in and thrust him out. So for the endurance and well-being of burgomasters, and senators, and burghers they trusted to the mutual jealousy of their neighbours. Having now seen enough of tarry jackets, groaning warehouses, tea chests, sugar casks, and mighty wine hogsheads, they determined to vary their experience of German life by taking a peep at the King of Prussia, his Court and family, and his grenadiers; and thither, perhaps, we shall follow them at a future time. SONNET. SPIRIT. ALTHOUGH Sweet natures we have loved depart, While here it was their spirit that we loved, Beauty intrinsic, that which breathed and moved Still lives, enriching sorrows darkling night; Whose blossom drank the morning's crimson light, Sweet natures last, though time their dust destroy, BELLA DONNA; OR, THE CROSS BEFORE THE NAME. BOOK THE SECOND-continued. CHAPTER XXIII. A MEETING. JENNY was once more at her home in Chesterfield-street. Mr. Maxwell was overjoyed to see his "faithful secretary again. His whitened face lightened up, as she entered. "O, Miss Bell, I am so glad." He took both her hands in his, and welcomed her like a father receiving back a dear and long parted daughter, which was, indeed, a phrase we borrow from one of Jenny's letters, describing the scene. It was new life to him. A sagacious maid, who had noted the influence of Jenny's natural character in the house, came good-naturedly to tell her of all that had gone on in her absence. Mr. Maxwell had, indeed, moped and moped-was not the same man. It was a charity, Miss, for you to come. "And indeed, Miss," adds the sagacious maid, "you are wanted sadly. The house arn't the same since you was gone.' Jenny smiled approvingly on this well-meaning person. "Thank you, Rachel," she said; "it is very good of you to think so. "And, oh, Miss, she-she's"-this was the popular mode, below stairs, of referring to the mistress of the house"she's been dreadful bad. I don't mean, Miss, worse than ordinary-but in her ways. Her ways has got awful; and poor master, such a time as he has had of it!" "O, Rachel," said Jenny, "don't. "We must recollect how much she suffers. If you or I were tried in the same way," &c. From this confidential attendant a good many curious details were obtained, under protest, as it were, on our Jenny's side. She was busy that evening with one of M. Bernardi's novels-something about Hector and Marie. She was panting to know what shape the denouement would take, for she was naturally of a romantic turn, and loved to read of all the turns and perplexities of what is called the gentle passion. At this critical moment, a voice of earth and sheer prose broke the spell. "There is a person in the hall, Miss, as wishes to see you." Jenny let the peach-coloured tale fall on her lap. What brings her at this hour?" she said. "It is inconvenient." (She thought it was the dressmaker). "I'm sure I don't know, Miss," said Rachel, not knowing Jenny was thinking of the dressmaker; "but she wishes to see you particular." Jenny said, "very well, Rachel; thank you, Rachel"-read a little more of the curious embarrassments of Hector and Marie-got up with a sigh of deep interest, and went down. The lamp was lighted, and at the end of the hall, by the hall-door, there was standing--not a dressmaker, but a tall, dark figure, craped and veiled all over-a black marble statue. Jenny's instinct told her who it was in a second. She stepped back a little-then ran forward with a delighted cry of recognition. Charlotte raised her arm, and stopped her. She spoke in a low, hard voice, unlike the old Charlotte tones. "Stay-stay there. Don't come nearer-you have done sufficient with your acting." Jenny was wondering at the crape and the deep mourning, and did not much heed the speaker. "Won't you come in and sit down?" she said. 66 'Do, dear Charlotte; and let us talk." And she again offered to go up to Charlotte, in her old affectionate way. "Keep back," said Charlotte, with something like terror in her face, and catching the handle of the door"don't come near me, MURDERESS!" Jenny gave a start, perfectly genuine. Charlotte had spoken loudly, and Jenny turned round and closed a door that was between the two halls. "What do you mean," she said, "by this language? Are you going mad?" |