did not prevent his being "given to understand by the clerk of the crown" at the summer assizes for his native county, that he stood indicted in No. 15, for that he on a certain night and at a certain place, feloniously and burglariously entered a certain dwelling-house, and then and there committed the usual misdeeds against his Majesty's peace and the statute; and in No. 16, that he stood capitally indicted under the Ellenborough act; and in No. 18, for a common assault. I was present at his trial, and still retain a vivid recollection of the fortitude and address with which he made his stand against the law; and yet there were objects around him quite sufficient to unnerve the boldest heart-a wife, a sister, and an aged mother, for such I found to be the three females that clung to the side bars of the dock, and awaited in silent agony the issue of his fate. But the prisoner, unsoftened and undismayed, appeared unconscious of their presence. Every faculty of his soul was on the alert to prove to his friends and the county at large, that he was not a man to be hanged without a struggle. He had used the precaution to come down to the dock that morning in his best attire, for he knew that with an Irish jury the next best thing to a general good character, is a respectable suit of clothes. It struck me that his new silk neck-handkerchief, so bright and glossy, almost betokened innocence; for who would have gone to the unnecessary expense if he apprehended that its place was so soon to be supplied by the rope? His countenance bore no marks of his previous imprisonment. He was as fresh and healthy, and his eye as bright, as if he had all the time been out on bail. When his case was called on, instead of shrinking under the general buz that his appearance excited, or turning pale at the plurality of crimes of which he was arraigned, he manfully looked the danger in the face, and put in action every resource within his reach to avert it. Having despatched a messenger to bring in O'Connell from the other court, and beckoned to his at- ' torney to approach the dock side, and keep within whispering distance while the jury were swearing, he "looked steadily to his challengers," and manifested no ordinary powers of physiognomy in putting by every juror that had any thing of "a dead, dull, hang look." He had even the sagacity, though against the opinion of the attorney, to strike off one country gentleman from his own barony, a friend of his in other respects, but who owed him a balance of three pounds for illicit whiskey. Two or three sets of alibi witnesses, to watch the evidence for the crown, and lay the venue of his absence from the felony according to circumstances, were in waiting, and, what was equally material, all tolerably sober. The most formidable witness for the prosecution had been that morning bought off. The consideration was a first cousin of Larry's in marriage, a forty-shilling freehold upon Larry's farm, with a pig and a plough to set the young couple going. Thus prepared, and his counsel now arrived, and the bustle of his final instructions to his attorney and circumstanding friends being over, the prisoner calmly committed the rest to fortune, resembling in this particular the intrepid mariner, who, perceiving a storm at hand, is all energy and alertness to provide against its fury, until, having done all that skill and forethought can effect, and made his vessel as "snug and tight" as the occasion will permit, he looks tranquilly on as she drifts before the gale, assured that her final safety is now in other hands than his. The trial went on after the usual fashion of trials of the kind. Abundance of hard swearing on the direct; retractions and contradictions on the cross-examinations. The defence was a masterpiece. Three several times the rope seemed irrevocably entwined round poor Larry's neck-as many times the dexterity of his counsel untied the Gordian knot. From some of the witnesses he extracted that they were unworthy of all credit, being notorious knaves or process-servers. Others he inveigled into a metaphysical puzzle touching the prisoner's identity others he stunned by repeated blows with the butt-end of an Irish joke. For minutes together the court and jury and galleries and dock were in a roar. However the law or the facts of the case might turn out, it was clear that the laugh at least was all on Larry's side. In this perilous conjuncture, amidst all the rapid alternations of his case-now the prospect of a triumphant return to his home and friends, now the sweet vision abruptly dispelled, and the gibbet and executioner staring him in the face-Larry's countenance exhibited a picture of heroical immobility. Once and once only, when the evidence was rushing in a full tide against him, some signs of mortal trepidation overcast his visage. The blood in his cheeks took fright and fled-a cold perspiration burst from his brow. His lips became glued together. His sister, whose eyes were riveted upon him, as she hung from the dock-side, extended her arm and applied a piece of orange to his mouth. He accepted the relief, but, like an exhausted patient, without turning aside to see by whose hands it was administered. At this crisis of his courage, a home thrust from O'Connell floored the witness who had so discomposed his client; the public buzzed their admiration, and Larry was himself again. The case for the crown having closed, the prisoner's counsel announced that he would call no witnesses. Larry's friends pressed hard to have one at least of the alibi's proved. The counsel was inflexible, and they reluctantly submitted. The case went to the jury loaded with hanging matter, but still not without a saving doubt. After long deliberation, the doubt prevailed. The jury came out, and the glorious sound of "not guilty," announced to Larry Cronan that for this time he had miraculously escaped the gallows. He bowed with undissembled gratitude to the verdict. He thanked the jury. He thanked "his lordship's honour." He thanked his counsel shook hands with the gaoler-sprung at a bound over the dock, was caught as he descended in the arms of his friends, and hurried away in triumph to the precincts of the court. I saw him a few minutes after, as he was paraded through the main street of the town on his return to his barony. The sight was enough to make 、one almost long to have been on the point of being hanged. The principal figure was Larry himself advancing with a firm and buoyant step, and occasionally giving a responsive flourish of his cudgel, which he had already resumed, to the cheerings and congratulations amidst which he moved along. At his sides were his wife and sister, each of whom held the collar of his coat firmly grasped, and, dragging him to and fro, interrupted his progress every moment, as they threw themselves upon him, and gave vent to their joy in another and another convulsive hug. A few yards in front, his old mother bustled along in a strange sort of a pace, between a trot and a canter, and every now and then, discovering that she had shot too far a head, pirouetted round, and stood in the centre of the street, clapping her withered VOL. X. No. 59.-1825. 51 hands and shouting out her ecstasy in native Irish until the group came up, and again propelled her forward. A cavalcade of neighbours, and among them the intended alibi witnesses, talking as loud and looking as important as if their perjury had been put to the test, brought up the rear. And such was the manner and form in which Larry Cronan was reconducted to his household gods, who saw him that night celebrating in the best of whiskey and bacon the splendid issue of his morning's pitched battle with the law. (To be continued.) THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS IN NEW ENGLAND. "Their dauntless hearts no meteor led In terror o'er the ocean; From fortune and from fame they fled THE breaking waves dash'd high And the woods, against a stormy sky, And the heavy night hung dark The hills and waters o'er, When a band of exiles moor'd their bark On the wild New-England shore. Not as the conqueror comes, They, the true-hearted, came; Not with the roll of the stirring drums, And the trumpet that sings of fame : Not as the flying come, In silence and in fear; An American Poet. They shook the depths of the desert's gloom With their hymns of lofty cheer. Amidst the storm they sang, And the stars heard, and the sca; And the surrounding aisles of the dim woods rang To the anthem of the free. The ocean-eagle soar'd From his nest by the white-wave's foam, There were men with hoary hair Away from their childhood's land? There was woman's fearless eye, Lit by her deep love's truth; There was manhood's brow serenely high, What sought they thus afar? Bright jewels of the mine? The wealth of seas, the spoils of war? They sought a faith's pure shrine ! Ay, call it holy ground, The soil where first they trod! They have left undimm'd what there they found Freedom to worship God! F. H.em aus GRIMM'S GHOST.-LETTER XXVIII. Dignum and his Times. THE luminous and voluminous Gibbon, in his Memoirs, "hesitates, from an apprehension of ridicule, in detailing the particulars of his early love." My attachment to Charles Dignum excites not any such bashfulness. "Come along with me, young gentleman, to Drury-lane Theatre this evening," said my French and Italian tutor, "and I will shew you what acting is." It was Garrick's theatre, and Dignum played Captain Sightly, in Bickerstaff's afterpiece, "The Romp." We entered the house at the pit-door, in Catherine Street, under what was then the Rose Tavern. I have a distinct recollection of the sign of that interesting flower, with the motto "Sub Rosa," beneath it. The play, if I recollect rightly, was "The Gamester;" an actor, named John Kemble, performed Beverly, and one Mrs. Siddons personated the Gamester's wife. The house was indifferent, until half price, when the attraction of Captain Sightly began to create an overflow. My tutor and I took our places about the centre of the pit, and a little boy on my left was seated upon a thick quarto volume, to enable him to see the buckles of the actors. John Palmer wore a pair of diamond ones, that were worth looking at, not to mention his brown hair-powder and black satin breeches. When the little boy stood on his feet, to rest himself by a change of position, between the second and third acts, I opened his printed prop, and found it to be a family Bible. The little boy's father, who sat beside him, observed a look of surprise in my countenance at finding such a book in such a place, and told me that he was acquainted with Billings, the pit-checque taker, who allowed him to deposit the volume at the foot of his desk. "I come here pretty frequently," said the little boy's father, "and always bring either Charles or Mary with me; there is no book in my possession that answers their purpose but this." This happened five and thirty years ago I hope the distribution societies have since "ordered these things better." The green curtain now rose majestically to exhibit the opening scene of Bickerstaff's farce. Let the reader fancy a grocer's shop with the glass windows in the back scene, looking as towards the street; an actress named Jordan played Priscilla Tomboy, and sat upon a stool working at her needle and singing "Hail London, noblest mart on earth," in chorus with the shopmen: Young Cockney, the son of the head of the firm, "In love with her but not beloved in return," was acted by a man named Dodd--not habited in Wellingtons and white ducks, like the modern mind-improving race, but dressed in brown powder, a scarlet coat, black satin shorts, blue silk stockings, and paste knee and shoe buckles, as a shopman should be. Old Cockney was acted by Fawcett, the father of the present acting manager of Covent-Garden Theatre; and Barnacle, the money-saving uncle, was performed by a man whose name I think was Suett. The grand feature of the piece, Captain Sightly, (the feature I inay say, speaking as a copyist, "upon which the whole question hinged,") fell to the lot of Dignum. When he entered you might have heard a pin drop. Every body heard every body's watch tick. Priscilla Tomboy, to 1 avoid marrying a man she detests, determines on an elopement with She thus lyrically expresses her own aversion to her the captain. friend Penelope, Young Cockney's sister, "I'm sick when I think of your brother; And were there on earth ne'er another, The phrase "I'm sick," was well calculated to express the feelings of a high-spirited young woman sent home in a merchantman from Jamaica to Gracechurch-street, for polite education; and the determination subsequently expressed to cause "Chaos to come again," by a non-continuation of the human species, in the event therein predicated, could only drop from the pen of a true poet. I must own that I am sufficiently a "laudator temporis acti," to dislike the modern mode of dressing military men on the stage in overalls, boots and spurs. It betokens disrespect to the audience. Dignum knew better. Captain Sightly is a gentleman by profession: he is a captain in the trainbands, occasionally exercising in the Artillery-ground, at the back of Moor-place, which now forms the west-side of Finsbury-square, and should therefore not hide his leg under a bushel. Dignum dressed the character in a scarlet coat, cocked hat, white kerseymere waistcoat and breeches, and blue silk stockings and shoes, the latter twain of which habiliments shewed his leg and foot to great advantage, and to the proportionate detriment of John Palmer. Priscilla meets her lover by appointment at the eastern corner of St. Paul's Church-yard, near the trunk-maker's, whose hammering I hope and trust does not disturb the young gentlemen in their study of the bonas literas, five doors lower down on the coach side of that majestic cathedral. Young Cockney comes pop upon the lovers: Miss La Blonde, a French milliner, Old Cockney, Barnacle, and Penelope, happen to drop in at the time, and a sestette is the consequence. Let me indulge myself in an extract. Priscilla. Young C. Penelope. They may lock me up in prison But I don't mind that a straw. Her'n the fault is more than his'n. Uncle, brother, pray withdraw. Priscilla (to Young C.)-If that here you longer tarry, Young C. Priscilla. You may chance away to carry, What you will not like to bear, You'll well be beaten. What! you threaten? Captain, draw your sword and swearCaptain S. (drawing.) 'S blood and thunder! Young C. Let him touch me if he dare! All the Captain Sightly's that I have seen, since Dignum, when they exclaim "'S blood and thunder!" assume a look of real rage. Dignum only smiled and half drew his sword from the scabbard. He felt the situation as described by the poet to be one of peculiar delicacy it was not for him to assassinate the son of his mistress's guardian: he was only to appear in earnest. Indeed, Young Cockney's rejoinder, "Let him touch me if he dare!" shews that he did not conceive himself to be in any very imminent peril. I owe my introduction to our great vocalist to a happy chance. 1 sat next to him at an anniversary dinner of the Deaf and Dumb. |