Page images
PDF
EPUB

rogues and

horses over so fragite a--substance. announces the commotion, and the But, on returning from a ball or sup- commandant, in a superb barge, carper, wrapped up in a good pelisse, ries to the emperour, who, with his and in a warm carriage, we forget courtiers, is waiting in the balcony that we are on the water; particular- of the palace, a bottle of water drawn ly, when the ice is covered with snow, from the middle of the stream, which and the roads are well beaten. When then appears in all its majesty. The winter sets in, the bridges of boats people hasten to the banks, ravished are drawn ashore, and there remains at the sight of that fine river, again no other communication across the rolling its waves. The eye rests with river. The circumstance of passing delight on the vast expanse, surroundthrough rows of vessels, which ap- ed with magnificent palaces, on both pear to be lying on the ice, is remark- banks ; superb quays faced with graably striking. Those vessels serve, nite ; and ships and elegant yachts, in general, for habitations, and some- sailing in all directions. times as a retreat for

To conclude : it has often struck thieves. . If they attack any wander. me, Mr. Editor, that traîneaux, or ing passengers, they strip them and sledges, might be rendered servicethrow them into the holes in the ice able in this country. As soon as any made for the washerwomen, or the quantity of snow has fallen in Gerwater-carriers.

many, or in other parts of the north Without entering into any detail of Europe, besides the common respecting the superb palace of ice sledges, gentlemen have their carbuilt on the Neva by the empress riages taken off the wheels and put Anne, I shall just observe, that an on to a traîneau.

This winter,* parItalian architect, reflecting on the in- ticularly, when the communication tensity of ice in that country, con• was almost totally interrupted in maceived the idea of employing it as a ny parts, surely light sledges might foundation for buildings. Many ob- have been employed to forward the servations have proved, that the thaw mails. Were I an innkeeper in any does not penetrate more than six feet of the northern counties, I should be below the surface. Icehouses do not induced to try the experiment, from require even that depth in Russia ; a personal knowledge of the advanconsequently cubes of ice would form tages attendant on the use of sledges a solid foundation at that depth, which during the winter season on the conwould be of great advantage to Pe. tinent. tersburgh, as it is built on a marshy

Yours, &c. VIATOR. soil and the houses stand on piles. Our worthy correspondent, will The architect could not inspire the excuse the addition of a few words to proprietor of a house with sufficient his ingenious communication. We security to resolve on building it on understand, that other circumstances ice ; but he consented to make the beside those he has mentioned, con, trial for the portico, and for the wall tribute to abate that gloom which we of the court yard, which is twelve attribute to a polar winter. feet in height. They have stood now After the snows

are fallen, the nearly thirty years, without the least state of the atmosphere is commonly damage.

serene ; and but little troubled by The Neva is generally frozen over storms; neither is it liable to such at the beginning of November, and mists and fogs as we are well acremains in that state till about the quainted with in London. The cold end of April, when it breaks up very is intense; but the sensations consesuddenly. In a moment we see boats quent on it are cheerful, invigorating, rowing where traîneaux were before travelling. A gun from the fortress.

* 1808-9.,

:

and rather allied to hilarity than to may expand. The parents have laid suffering, especially after a few days in their stores ; they have made procontinuance of it have somewhat ac- vision for the winter's consumption; customed a person to it. The exer

the young men, under their direccise that may be taken abroad is more tion, have set their traps, and they than we generally imagine ; and tend them, to see, from time to time, those who can skate derive many ad- what further support they furnish. vantages from the frozen waters. This is, now, their chief 'occupation;

The natives of Holland, women as and the rest of their time they spend * well as men, make no difficulty of in forming those connexions which skating twenty miles to market, and are hereafter to become their conback again. They go to a distant stant enjoyments. Young women are friend's to breakfast, or return in the then engaged in kindnesses. The evening on their skates. But, a re- fact is, that these people are removed markable employment of this mode from those fascinations by which the of travelling, is the military expedi- desire of accumulation impels natives tions performed on the lakes in Ca- of more temperate climates. They nada. It would be thought in En- value the productions, the natural gland a rare spectacle to see a regi- productions of their own country: ment of soldiers, skating in military these are their wealth. Artificial array: yet this has often been done on riches, the gains arising from calculake Superiour, at the rate of about lations, and profits by means of the sixty miles per day. When, the precious metals, they are not, indeed, moon shines brightly, this exercise strangers to; but are indifferent about. is continued; and the brilliancy of They have, no doubt, among them, the lunar rays is by far superiour to different dispositions and characters : her general effulgence in our own la- the worthy and the unworthy, the titude. She is, indeed, “ Regent of generous and the selfish. They have night.” The stars, too, appear more their hard hearts, and their miserly numerous, as well as brighter, to the spirits. But these, acting within narnaked eye ; and the cerulean heavens row limits, the infelicities they occaglow with a more resplendent azure. sion are narrow also. They show, The light of the aurora borealis is indeed, that under all climates, and also extremely vivid, and sufficient seasons, man is the cause of his for the service of travellers.

own disappointments and vexations. But, to enter fully into the enjoy. Not the circumstances that surround ments of a polar winter, we should him, whether he be placed amid the pass the time with the Finlander in fervent plains of India, the sandy dehis cabin, or the Laplander in his hut. sarts of Arabia, the temperate vales Sunk into the ground some feet, by of Europe, or the snow-clad regions way of protection from the penetra. of the poles, are to blame. Man is ting power of frost; and presenting not, therefore, either happy or unbut a mere conical point to the weight happy, whether he enjoy the perof snow, and the power of wind, the petual spring of Quito, the verdant dwelling bids defiance to the rigour summer of Britain, the rich autumn of the season: while the family within of Italy, or, the winter-the long, long find themselves assembled, and alive winter of Lapland, and the Arctick to social enjoyment. This is the sea- circle. They are all equally indifferson for conversation and intercourse. ent to his real happiness. While all abroad is frozen, the mind

YORKSHIRE.

The following are the Particulars of the Execution of Mary Bateman, and Jahn

Brown. MARY BATEMAN, the aban- star's favourable to her in a sweet doned creature who was executed, heart. She carried on this religious was a follower of the principles of mummery to the last. It is a dreadJoanna Southcote-only improving ful thought, that this wretch, by the deception into robbery, harbarity, and same means, and by a complete murder, she affected the visions- knowledge of poisons, had before the trances-the thumpings--the se destroyed the lives of two innocent cond sight of that wretched sect: women, whom she robbed of every large bodies of whom, from Leeds, thing they had ; and that had Perigo attended the execution, on Monday died as well as his wife, this would se’nnight; the more simple part of have been the fourth life a victim to whom imagined that a miracle would her infernal arts. be worked in her favour, and that she The child, which had been suckwould be saved by the interpositioning for a year past, at her breast, of Heaven! Notwithstanding all the was taken from her some little time prayers and exhortations of the cler. before her execution. Strange to tell! gyman, she obstinately persisted in she gave it up without a pang-She denying that she had poisoned the parted from it without one emotion! woman, for whom she suffered, and -Brown was given to be dissected died extremely hardened and unre- and anatomized at York: and Mary penting:-Brown, the soldier of the Bateman conveyed in a cart to the York rangers, and who was one of the infirmary at Leeds. The road from worst looking fellows ever seen, ex- York to Leeds, on Nionday, was pired equally unaffected; denying, thronged the whole of the afternoon to the last, the murder he had before with foot passengers, horses, and gigs confessed, and which was clearly returning from the execution; and proved on his trial! At eleven o'clock, notwithstanding the lateness of the these two culprits were brought on hour, eleven in the evening, when the scaffold, and after praying a short the cart, with her body approached uime with the ordinary, were con- the town, it was met by a number ducted to the drop, and were launch- of people. On the following day, ed, by the instantaneous falling of Tuesday, the body was exhibited in it, into that state where repentance the surgeon's room at the infirmary, comes too late. It is a curious matter at 3d. each person, and an immense 10 state, that so ingrained and assi- number of people were admitted to milated to her disposition had become view her remains; the greater part Mary Bateman's taste for plunder of whom evinced predominant super. and witchcraft, that from the poor stition, by touching part of the body woman who had attended on herself before they left the room, to prevent and child in the prison, she con- her terrifick interference with their trived to steal a guinea, by telling the nocturnal dreams. woman's fortune, and making the April, 1809.

VOL. II.

a

THE LATE GENERAL PAOLI. Questo grand’uomo mandato per Dio a liberare la Patria.** SIGNOR PASQUALE PAOLI of colonel in the service of the king was born at Rostino, in the island of of France ; but who was publickly Corsica (as would appear from a va. poniarded in the midst of his followriety of circumstances) in the year ers, by a Genoese. The assassin ha1726. He was the second son of ving been cut in pieces by the indigHiacinte Paoli, who had always been nant multitude, the senate decreed attached to the popular cause; and that the expenses of a funeral cereconsequently was a sworn enemy to mony should be defrayed by the pubthe Genoese ; for they had attempted lick ; and at the same time proposed, to subjugate his native country, both that a statue should be erected to his by fraud and by arms; and, instead honour in the hall of the ducal palace, of endeavouring to acquire the ata by the side of that of $Andrew Dotachment of the nation, had planted ria! the seeds of an unconquerable hatred, In 1725, the Genoese having inby their rapaciousness, their cruelty, sisted that, instead of tithes in kind, and their injustice. Uniting a narrow, the full value in money should be commercial jealousy with a fondness paid by the islanders, a new revolt for fiscal tyranny, a capitation, a tithe, broke out, and the standard of liberty and a hearth-tax, three of the most was once more unfurled by those odious imposts that could be devised, hardy islanders. On this, the prewere levied with an uncommon de tensions of their oppressors, instead gree of strictness, and that too on a of being diminished, were increased. nation totally devoid of wealth ; while They insisted that all the commodities they were, at the same time, desti. of the country should be sold to them tute of the means of supporting their alone. They seized on a lake for their new burthens, by being deprived of own use, called stagno di Diana ; the trade and manufactures. But this waters of which were converted into was not all; for the poor Genoese salt by the rays of the sun, while the nobles, who had modestly appended families of the Ciaccaldi and Raffaelli the royal crown of Corsicat to the were deprived of their estates, in arms of the republick, were sent over, consequence of the most frivolous from time to time, to enrich them- pretexts. selves with the spoils of an impove- On this, Pompiliani and Fabio Firished people ; and like the Baillis of linghieri were elected the leaders of Switzerland, pay their debts, and re- the insurgents; and, although the deem their castles, by means of every latter was put to death by the poniard species of oppression.

a new war was prevented only by the An avenger was at length found, intervention of the emperour in 1732, in the person of Sampiero, a native who had sent prince Louis of WirCorsican, who had obtained the rank temberg to Corsica, with a body of

6000 men, to the assistance of the A Corsican proverb, applied to Paoli republick. by his countrymen.

Notwithstanding the concordat that † The bank of St. George had a much followed, the Genoese governed with better claim to the honour of emblazoning their usual injustice, and the Corsia crown on its paper money, as it actually cans obeyed with the same reluctance advanced the whole of the treasure for the extinction of certain claims on the part of the kings of Naples and Aragon, in this place, that the memory of this

It may not be unnecessary to observe and received in return the island of Cor. sica, by way of mortgage.

great man was never disgraced by giving him an assassin for a colleague.

[ocr errors]

a

as before. In a short time after, the eight nobles, at the head of whom former having found means to seize we find the marquis Hiacinte de on and imprison those whom they Paoli, with the rank of marshal getermed the ringleaders during the neral. late insurrection, a new war broke Soon after this, the king of France forth in consequence of so gross a ordered a body of men, under general breach of faith.

de Maillebois, to land in Corsica, for This event gave birth to the pro- the express purpose of assisting the jects of Anthony, baron de Neuhoff, Genoese. But as the natives were in one of the most extraordinary men no small degree formidable, this comrecorded in history. After having mander offered his mediation. It studied politicks under the celebrated however was refused on the part of Swedish minister, baron Goertz, and the marquis de Paoli, but accepted served during some time along with by his countrymen. On this, he imthat great warriour, Charles XII. he mediately left his native island, in entered into the service of the empe- company with his two sons, and rerour; resided during a short period paired to the continent. Having obat Florence, in the capacity of his tained the countenance of one of the imperial majesty's minister; and ha- neighbouring princes, into whose ving received an offer of the crown of service (we believe) he entered, HiaCorsica, provided he would place cinte settled at Naples. While there, himself at the head of the insurgents, he soon perceived the seeds of extrahe accordingly repaired to Aleria, on ordinary talents in his second son, board a vessel mounting 24 guns, and Pasquale ; and being determined to carrying an English flag. Soon after bestow a good education on him, he this (in March, 1736) he was con- placed his favourite child under the ducted to Corte, the capital of this Jesuits, then esteemed the best mas. island ; and, in a general assembly of ters in Europe. - Thus confided to the inhabitants, was immediately their tuition, he attained an extraorelected *king of Corsica and Capraja, dinary degree of proficiency in the under the name of Theodore I. learned languages. Active, sober,

But, as the natives have ever been never indulging idleness, or abanimpatient of superiority, they soon doning either his mind or body to the became to the full as tired of their grosser pleasures of sensuality, he, new sovereign then, as they were of at an early period of life, conceived the English about half a century af- the bold idea of placing himself at terwards; and both were accordingly the head of his nation, and becoming obliged to abdicate. The retreat of its deliverer. Meanwhile, he was the former, however, must be allow- introduced at court, obtained a comed to have been more honourable, as mission in the service of Naples, and his majesty, king Theodore, withdrew endeavoured to make himself acfor the express purpose of obtaining quainted with the art of war. supplies, after having convoked a At an early period of his life, he consulta, in which he took a solemn displayed a lofty port, and exhibited and publick leave of the nation. He what he himself was pleased to term also established a regency, and, by an “ Una superbia indicibile." edict published at Sartene, conferred His mind, at the same time, be. the provisional governmenton twenty. came deeply imbued with all the an

cient precepts relative to liberty ; Theodore I. coined money, establish- and when spoken to respecting the ed laws, instituted the Order of Deliver

dangers that must be necessarily enance, and created a number of nobles, among whom was the father of Paoli, who countered in attempting to enfranobtained the dignity of a marquis, and the

chise his country, he was accustomed post of grand treasurer,

« PreviousContinue »