custom, upon the return of life, shut in the clay cold prison !---he lifts! ah, no !---his trembling hands to procure him that relief he feels so much the need of; and though before, grown feeble by disease, made desperate now, by the maddening sense of his hapless situation and lost estate! But yet the attempt is stopt !---the coffin lid is shut, shut for ever! screwed down ---loaded with unrelenting earth! Terror, ---despair,--horror,--torments, unknown before, seize on him! Madness,---rage,--all! all!---no power to live! no power to die! no power, alas, to cry for aid! but pent, barricaded, and pressed by accumulating condensation! The brain distracted! the eyes starting from their sockets! the lungs ruptured! the heart rent a sunder by unusual impulses! the ducts and glands suffused, the emuactories choked by surcharge of fæces, rendered viscid by incalescence and external resistance; and every vein and artery bursting in the super-human conflict! The office of inosculation (baffled) tries in vain to force its valves, and runs retrograde, bathes the poor grappling victim in extravasated blood without, and forms new channels within, in this dreadful scuffle, which knows no cessation or abatement, till coagulation's influence stagnates and deprives him of all thought, and he becomes a fermentable mass of murdered, senseless, decomposing matter ! ! !"'' This is very fine and fearful certainly-and it is no empty declaration, we assure you; for Mr. Snart is, with all his oratory, a matter of fact man, and he brings forward his proofs. About eighty years since, the son of a Mr. Cornish, silk-mercer and milliner, and twice Mayor of Bath, had a son who was buried alive. "A Mr. Cornish, who was twice mayor of Bath, about eighty years since, and whose grave-stone the great-grandson and writer of this article, remembers to have been shewn to him in the abbey-church there, was a silk-mercer and milliner of some emi neuce, had a son, who seemed to die of a malignant fever. The shop being the resort of people of fashion, it was considered necessary to inter the body as speedily as possible. While the grave, upon this occasion, was but half filled with the earth, the gravedigger (like his predecessor in Hamlet) had occasion to retire for a "stoop of liquor," when some persons, who were walking in the abbey, which is always open to gratify the curiosity of strangers, were alarmed by some deep but stifled groans which appeared to issue from the nearly half-filled grave!--a more attentive consideration of the sounds confirmed the heart-appalling apprehensions, that the person just intefred had been buried alive! Immediate assistance was procured; the earth thrown up; and the coffin wrenched open; when, horrible to relate, the poor victim of premature interment was discover ed with his knees and elbows beaten raw, and the tears standing, in large drops, upon his cheeks! But the discovery was unhappily too late to be availing; he had drunk the bitter cup of superlative misery to the dregs! Nothing we fondly imagined, could be much worse than this-but Mr. Snart has explored the charnel-house to still greater purpose, and the son of the silk-mercer and milliner and Mayor of Bath may be looked on as a happy man, in comparison with the more obscure tenant in his cell at Bermondsey. "But this example is but preparatory to the following case of consummate horror! which was discovered about the same time in Bermondsey churchyard, Surrey! In digging a grave then about to be occupied, the operator came to a previously interred coffin, whose cover, or side, by a cause (hereafter the removal of that part entirely; perhaps to be explained), gave way, which induced to examine whether the bones were fit to be taken out, as is usual, to be deposited in the charnel or bone house! when a spectacle presented itself to view, the relation only of which turns the course of nature, and makes her crimson tide run retrograde toward its own original source for protection! A spectacle! that must appal the heart of any being who is not more or less than man ! We cannot think so ill of our readers as to suspect, for a moment, that they stand in need of any more anecdotes of this sort else we would give them a very striking account of premature înterment which Mr. Snart maintains oc curred about a year ago in Edinburgh. "The next case that has transpired within the writer's knowledge is not a twelve-month back, and, according to newspaper reports, is well authenticated. It happened at Edinburgh, and teems with similar horrors to those cases at Bath and Bermondsey." We recollect something of the circumstance. The old lady died in the High Street, and, at her own especial request, was buried in a blue gown. But we believe Mr. Snart to be misinformed as to the prematurity of her interment, for she was dead enough in all conscience; and the idle rumour of her having been restored to life, though asserted by a few, was believed by none, and has now wholly died away. Soart then adds: Mr. "Reader, here is a matchless tragedy indeed! not founded upon fiction, but upon facts! a subject of supreme misery and superlative distress! one that will justify ang mode of expression, and for which, instead of suppressing the exuberance of thought and intensity of description, it requires a pen dipped in liquid fire to depict.---No language can be adequate to the immensity of the horrors! and even hyperbole itself, which distorts and exaggerates all other things be yond their natural size and dimension, fails here, and cannot produce a metaphor equivalent to the plain matter of fact; and, if dramatic writers want a transcendant figure for their future fictions, to harrow up the soul! let them find the motive to it in the untimely grave!!!" Having thus established the existence of the evil, and depicted it in such fearful colours, Mr. Snart proposes the remedy. "Let not," says he, "men rest, till they see the ultimate issue of it reduced into a permanent law, established by Act of parliament, enacting, that no person shall, upon pain of death, bury their relatives or friends under a month," &c. He even goes so far as to recommend torture in addition to death, as the punishment for this heinous crime; "death in the common way is too lenient a punishment for so great a crime as smothering another in the grave!" We had intended to indulge in a few reflections and speculations on premature interment, but our limits forbid. If we are to believe Mr. Snart, and his reasoning seems unanswerable, a vast number of worthy people are at this very moment in no enviable situation; and though before this article has gone to press, all will be over with them, we do trust that the bill hinted at by him will be brought on during the present meeting of Parliament. It may seem invidious to mention names; but we seriously beseech Mr. Colburn to consider what he is about, and that he will infallibly get the character of a most notorious quack, if he suffers any more of his poor patients to suffer premature interment, during a syncope, like Dr. Polidori. NATURAL HISTORY.-VARIATION OF FLOWERS. MR. URBAN, From the Gentleman's Magazine. June 25. I HAVE of late paid particular attention to the variation produced in Flowers by planting them in gardens, in a richer soil than what they are accustomed to in a wild state; and I am convinced many popular errors yet remain to be eradicated respecting the causes and extent of this variety in the colour and multiplication of the petals of plants. I shall not, at present, enter into any discussion respecting the causes, but merely state a few facts which have fallen under my notice. In two borders contiguous to each other, some common garden poppyseeds were scattered. In one of these borders, in which grew an abundance of white flowers, all the poppies (which were double) acquired a whitish colour, and were only tinged with red, while in the other border, containing none but red flowers, all the seeds scattered produced poppies, which, though doubled, produced red flowers. The vulgar opinion is, that the poppies acquired their colours from the other flowers which grew immediately about them, This, however, I disbelieve; but I propose a question: could the soils be so different, from some accidental mixture, as to produce the variety in colour, while the soil which produced the whitish-coloured poppies was so favourable to the growth of certain plants with white flowers as to induce them to flourish there? Another popular notion, which I should be glad to see cleared up, is, that by planting many single or wild flowers near double ones, the former will become double? If this be true, it must be by the accidental mixture of the farina. I should like to know, through the medium of your Miscellany, what is the opinion of botanists generally with regard to the garden-poppy. Is it merely a variety of the white poppy, papaver somniferum? I am inclined to think not; for the white poppy has some essential characteristics, among others the bigness of the capsule, and colour of the seed. It is urged on the other hand, that the white poppies sown in gardens become variegated, that is, they do not go on sowing themselves as white poppies. But may not this be owing to the white kind not bearing the TH HERE is perhaps no triumph of human genius so instantaneous, so unrivalled, and so splendid, as that of the Preacher. It is more peculiar than that of the General, for he shares his glory with multitudes, and there is not one in all his army who would consent to give him the undivided praise. The eloquence of the Lawyer is corrupted by our knowledge that he has received a fee, and that of the Politician is fettered by the details of business, and the certainty of a reply. The Poet is the only one whose art can boast of producing an equal effect on the human passions; but then the days of solemn recitation and choral accompaniments have long since gone by, and the enthusiasm excited in a closet must always be inferior to that which is kindled in an assembly. The Dramatic poet, indeed, who should be present at the representation of his own tragedy, must be supposed to have attained the summit of literary enjoyment. But even bere the triumph is neither instantaneous nor entire. The Parisians, it is true, used to call for the poet when the curtain fell; and they crowned Voltaire with garlands, and carried him in procession about the stage. But all this was an after thought; and the first and most hearty of their acclamations fell to the share of Clermont and Le Kain. The sacred preacher is elevated above his audience; he speaks as one having authority; and the honour, if bonour there be, is entirely and indisputably his own. He is furnished, indeed, with no inconsiderable advantage by the character of the scene, the audi ence, and the subject. The sanctity of the place, the very spectacle of a We multitude assembled to unite in the worship of their Creator, is sufficient to still every unworthy passion, and to exclude every debasing thought. are in the house of God, and we cannot enter it without having our attention carried away from the business, the amusements, the passions of the world, and fixed upon the great concerns of the nobler part of man-death, judgment, and eternity. We invoke the pity of a pure and compassionate Creator, in the merits of a divine, a gentle, a suffering, Redeemer. look around us, and we see the old and the young, the rich, the poor, the noble, and the menial, all gathered together for one purpose, and confessing before the throne of God that they are equal in his sight, all children of Adam, all sinful dust and ashes. When we enter the church we have the same sense of our degraded condition and immortal destiny with which we walk over the graves. If we have the power of thought, we must be serious; if we have the feelings of men, we must be humble, kindly, and composed. The preacher has no occasion to create a disposition in his hearers. They who are ever likely to listen, are already before him in all the calmness of reflection. The proud are humbled into the sense of human weakness; the lowest are partakers in the sublimest of contemplations. We come not as critics but as sinners-prepared to scrutinize, not the faults of the preacher's rhetoric, but the mazes, perplexities, and errors of our own mysterious lives. Our predominant feelings are those of shame, sorrow, and awe; and we are there with the unsuspecting confidence and reposing simplicity of children, it would be more easy to elevate them : were our feelings less excited,the preacher might have it more in his power to mould them to his. will. He has the delicate task of supporting enthusiasm, which is already great; and when the fire is in its brilliancy, it is scarcely possible to feed its flames without diminishing its lustre. It is, besides, of the nature of all powerful emotions, either to become stronger or to become weaker; there is no stedfastness in passion. The incantation must become more awful as it proceeds, and there is fear, when once the deep charm is upon us, that a single hasty word or unhallowed motion may dissolve the mystery. The least vulgarity of expression, the least meanness of thought, the least obtuseness of feeling, seems as out of place in the pulpit, as a profane jest would be on the scaffold or the deathbed. The more majestic the character of the preacher, the more painful would be to us the imperfections of the man. our thoughts would begin to flow inte another channel, and the meditations with which we departed, might be more earthly than those with which we came. waiting to have our faith confirmed, our hopes exalted, and our love kindled, by the voice of the messenger of God. We stand drooping and silent among the gloomy columns and tombstones of the choir-it is his to open the gates of the sanctuary, and reveal the redoubled height and splendour of the aërial dome. A portion of that reverence which we feel for our God, mingles insensibly with our ideas of those who have devoted themselves to his service. We think of the lowly, and affectionate, and and cheering offices in which the minister spends his days. We see the man whose business it is to comfort the broken-hearted, and to bind up the wounds of the afflicted spirit,-who sits by the sick-bed of the Christian, and composes the fainting soul to meet without horror the agonies of death. We cannot look without love and admiration on the godlike devotion of that man who has forfeited all hopes of worldly preferment and worldly fame, and given his undivided strength to benevolence, which is its own reward, and piety, which holds its communion with the heavens, and look for its recompence upon high. He is the type of all that is kind, and pure, and lovely, in our There are indeed some favoured mature. He is the martyr of humanity. spirits which are exempted from all such His watchings have been not for him- fear. The aged saint, whose soul is self but for his brethren. If the veteran weaned from all the thoughts and vansoldier be at all times entitled to res-ities of the world, whose only book is pect, surely the gray hairs of the aged priest are worthy of a yet more melting veneration; and in these moments of silent contemplation, when our thoughts turn not on the comparative strength of human intellects, but on the more awful and eternal relations between God and man, we are willing to confess that he has chosen the better part,-that all other occupations are mean when compared with his, and that the internal peace and conscious heroism of a mind devoted to employments such as these, must in themselves be a treasure far beyond all the riches, power, and honour, to which other men attain, It is perhaps from the very excellence of this preparation that the main difficulties of sacred eloquence arise. Were Our thoughts of a more ordinary cast, his Bible, whose sole delight is in contemplation ;-the innocent and unquestioning piety of childhood;—the tender and submissive sanctity of woman : these may bid defiance to all the inabilities of the preacher. Their thoughts are so simple, their affections so lovely, their religion so habitual, that to destroy the tenor of their holy reflections and humble hopes would be to shake their existence to its centre, and convulse the very essence of their souls. Many,very many, such spirits are in every Christian land; it is their purity which redeems our nature from its reproach, and testifies that man was not originally made to be a sinner. They form the link between ordinary men and angels; their divine thoughts are the steps of that ladder which preserves unbroken FOL. 6.] Pulpit Eloquence-Dr. Chalmers. the communication between earth and heaven. But with the young, the gay, the busy, the ambitious spirits of the earth, the case is widely different. They have endeavoured to lay aside their usual thoughts, and they would fain be pious for a season; but the weight of worldly corruption hangs close about them, and their unwilling spirits are but too prone to sink back into the ordinary level of their desires. Their passions are strong, their pursuits industrious, their holiness a struggle, their religion a violence; and it requires all the art of a consummate master, to preserve alive that faint spark of devotion which has been kindled in their souls. To the truly devout and godly of his audience, and to the minister himself, a few simple ejaculations, a few heavenly breatbings of confidence, a few words of unaffected tenderness, might be a sufficient homily. But the preacher must address, not the few, but the many; and it is this which renders it necessary that sacred eloquence should be an art. Like every other great and dignified art-like painting, sculpture, or poetry, its most perfect performances appear, indeed, to be the work of inspiration or enchantment. Who ever represented to himself Raphael touching the divine lineaments of his Madonna ? or Phidias shaping a rude mass of stone into the countenance of his Olympic Jove? or Milton seeking for rhymes in Lycidas, or balancing similes for the speeches of Satan? or who that quakes beneath the unfettered eloquence of Chalmers remembers that pages were blotted, and the midnight oil consumed in search of images which seem to be the easy suggestions of an overflowing fancy, or sentences which come upon his ear like the first and natural language of a commanding soul? Yet it is most true, that he who is the best preacher of the day is also the most la borious, and that it would be as impossible for a careless extemporist to utter a sermon like one of his, as it would be for a player of voluntaries to strike off the dead march in Saul, or a Neapolitan improvisatore to thunder out THE GIAOUR. 55 But if it be true that there is no art more difficult than that of the preacher, it is at least certain that no other theine contains so many elements of inspiration as that upon which he has chosen to dilate. We, indeed, are very sel dom able to appreciate that to which we are accustomed. The majesty of the Christian Religion is familiar to us ;-its lofty images are ever before us;-its mysterious truths are revealed to us in our childhood ;the spirit of its tenderness is diffused over all our feelings, and the sublimity of its promises over all our hopes ;-we may call ourselves what we will, but it is as impossible for us not to be Christians, as it is for us not to be men. The hardiest infidel owes the boasted purity of his morality, and dignity of his conceptions, to those scriptures at which he scoffs, and that faith which he would undermine. The oracles of God were not uttered in vain; and they who are the most unconscious of their influence, cannot write a line in their disparagement, without bearing witness to their power. Voltaire, who spent a long life ni wilful mockery of our religion, was not aware that the most noble of his productions is a mere cento from the Bible, and that it was only his intimacy with Isaiah which could ever have enabled his light spirit to dictate such a poem as Zaïre. If we look back to the most splendid ages of Greece and Rome, and examine the writings of their profoundest philosophers and most elevated poets, we shall see no confidence in immortality, no sense of deity, no purity of affection,-no gentleness of love, which can sustain a comparison with what we may find in the treacherous writings of that scoffing Frenchman. In Homer we see a melancholy dread of dissolution, and an undisguised belief that the true happiness of man is inseparable from the possession of his senses,-in Eschylus, a dark and mysterious impression of fatality,-in Sophocles, a vague presentiment of retribution,-in Euripides, a restless and sophistical scepticism,-in Plato, mystic and undefinable aspirings,-in Cicero, doubts which would fain be sat |
