A CHAPTER ON BIRTHS AND BIRTH-PLACES;

BEING HINTS FOR BIOGRAPHERS.

By W. LAW GANE.

A VAST debt of gratitude is due to the author of "Homes and Haunts of the Poets." In his sketch of Burns, he not only very prettily describes the dwelling in which the poet was born, but takes us into the room in which the immortal ploughboy first saw the light; he speaks as artistically as a cabinet maker of the bedstead, gives us the colour of the curtains and the texture of the coverlet. This is as it should be. It is greatly to be lamented that biographers of all sorts and sizes, should so frequently omit, forget, or slur over one all-important portion of their labours. This melancholy deficiency may be traced alike in the penny ballad lines of George Barnwell, and the costly quartos of Moore's Byron. Biographers erect their structures and the key-stone is wanting. Alas! how frequently do they forget to name, or rest satisfied with some slight allusion to the birth-place of the subjects of their memoirs. They appear to think they have done well and quite enough if they bury a man respectably-that is, if they convey him to the church in a hearse with plumes and six horses, followed by mourning coaches and the private carriages of the nobility, and care nothing at all about the more important affair of his birth. What an immense amount of labour, of critical, analytical, and polemical disquisition would have been spared had that particular been properly attended to; what an awful waste of ink and good paper has resulted from its infraction. A vast load of this sin of omission rests on Plutarch: the historians of Joseph Ady and Peregrine Pickle have indeed much to answer for. In the one case there is yet time: Joseph lives; let us know all of the early hours of this illustrious personage; let not a thousand unsolved enigmas remain for the confusion of posterity. Forward a guinea, or a post-office order for that amount, and ten to one the necessary information will be sent by return of post. Nor allow his friend and referee, the adorable Sir Peter, to descend to the shades of night, and the fact unknown beneath what roof-tree the great sayer of wise saws and wholesome precepts first beamed on the world. We must have full particulars of that bright incident of his early childhood, his gallant effort to prevent a self-willed and suicidically-bent mouse from smothering itself in his mother's treacle-pot; and how he took his first magisterial lesson, sitting on a bench and deciding judicially in the matter of the desperate shindy between his father's terrier and his mother's tabby for the possession of a bone of beef. Let nothing be forgotten.

Dear Lord Brougham, for heaven's sake set the often-mooted question of your birth-place at rest; you have always been so near the Border, and so frequently skipping from one side to t'other, that future generations, if left in ignorance, will be sure to quarrel as to the pivot upon which your lordship is to be placed. And tell us, did nurse say, "little darling was a beauty and a sweettempered dear ?" or did you show teeth early, and scratch in the mouth, and doat on pap flavoured with vinegar? Leave us not in the dark, we humbly beseech thee.

Kings, and princes, and potentates are generally born in palaces, and their birth-places are easily ascertainable: it is otherwise with nature's royalty; the out-of-the-way corners in which they are ushered into being frequently defying all the researches of antiquarianism. Their monuments may be land-marks for the world, but, alas! all relating to the nurse, the napkin, and the caudlecup is forgotten.

Seven cities disputed the honour of giving birth to a Homer: how much better their time would have been employed in anathematising his biographers, which would have been a lesson and a warning to the race for ever after. Let us implore, before it is too late, that the point be at once settled, that a similar

result may not ensue in the case of Giles Scroggins. Fortunately, we know the dwelling in which the Swan of Avon squealed his first notes, but plague on the life writers, commentators and all, they have not pointed out the room-it might have been the attic for aught we know: his wit was such, and early impressions are apt to be permanent. It might have been the cellar, for the lad was tarnation deep. Might not his genius have been singed by the objects around him? but of these we know nothing. Immense research has presented us with one interesting fact: the doctor's boy was a black; need we search further for the inspiration which drew Othello? Some doubtful chroniclers have asserted that the weird sisters were suggested by his three spinster aunts, who ruled the roast at his birth, much to the terror of his mother's maid-of-allwork. The same suggest that Juliet came from an interesting and distressed damsel, in berlin wool, which, on their very doubtful authority, hung over the mantel-piece in his mother's bed-room. The omissions in his better-informed contemporaries are much to be lamented.

The house still stands in Ajaccio in which Napoleon the great made his entree, which we are told occurred in a parlour; but the thousand loons who have written upon the subject have one and all omitted to state whether it was the back or the front. We may fairly infer that Mrs. Buonaparte had two parlours, one for every-day use, the other for Sundays and tea parties; therefore the Napoleonic historians ought to have been more particular. It is well known that Mrs. B. remained to the latest moment at her prayers; this fully accounts for the piety and devotion of her son. Some of the more philosophic of Napoleon's biographers attribute great effects to the particular pattern of his mother's parlour carpet; but how can we pay attention to such idle gossip, when the varlets have not even stated whether it was a Brussels or a Kidderminster ?

The precise situation in which an illustrious individual is born, is a point of allengrossing interest. To say that a man was born in England, in Tipperary, in Yorkshire, in Siberia, in Alleghany, or in Kabul, is vague in the extreme; to mention a particular house-No. 5, for instance-in some street a mile long, or a mansion, or mud hut in some unheard-of parish, is scarcely less so. But when I not only know the parish, the street, the house, but the floor, whether first, second, or third, and the identical room, whether back, front, or between the two, whether it has a southerly or northerly aspect, and am able to point out how the head of the bed stood, and how nurse made her gruel, then, indeed, I begin to consider that I know something. To ascertain the influence collateral attendants on a man's first appearance are likely to exert on his after career, would be an exceedingly interesting subject of inquiry, and as such is most earnestly recommended to the attention of the Statistical Society. It may reasonably be inferred that a person whose first hold upon the world occurred in a ditch, would grow up with rural tastes, would love the quiet pleasures of the country, exhibiting most probably extraordinary affection for the squire's hares, and the farmers' sheep, and much given to making ducks and drakes, and more to stealing them. A youth born in barracks, or èn route in a baggage-waggon, will assuredly be soldierly inclined, and the chances are that his boyhood will be spent in company with the drumsticks, and that, eventually, he will march while others beat. Sir Robert was born beside a jenny; Debret may dispute, and Burke deny the fact, still we maintain the truth of the statement. The why and wherefore? He's such a capital hand at spinning a yarn.

The respected progenitor of Guy Fawkes was lord of a coal-shed. Does not this most naturally account for the son's infatuated attachment for coals, coke, and bundles of wood? His regard for gunpowder may indisputably be traced back to his mother, who was rather remarkable for "blowing up." It is quite true that Jenny Lind,

Nachtergallen af den nora

Zamla Swerige's schonste stjerna,

exhibited in her infancy none of the usual infantine fondness for cakes, and invariably made wry faces at the tender of a bun. It is generally supposed that these dislikes have grown with her growth and strengthened with her strength. The house in which Nelson fired his first gun, was known in the neighbourhood as the spice-box; after this, can we feel surprised at the infernal pepperings he gave the Mounseers? Dietrich Klooptenhausen might have spared himself the labour of writing ten folio volumes, to prove that Bacon was born in a pig-sty—no reasonable being ever doubted the fact; in order to have completed his work, he ought to have done as much for that illustrious individual, the learned pig. We have been assured, and on no less authority than that of nurse Swaddle, that Grimaldi's first cry bore an astonishing resemblance to Hot Codlings. It is a well-known fact that Tim Bobbin came into the world with a grin, which convulsed the doctor, and caused Mrs. Fatsydes, the attendant dame, to roar out lustily for a cooper. The first object which excited the attention of that celebrated martinet, Col. Cuttemup, was a cat. Enough-our proposition is carried, nem. con.

We have before observed that royalty did not invariably display its earliest glories in a palace; witness that potent potentate le Monarque de Chemins de fer. Libellers have asserted that a horse trampled upon the innocent babe, whence his determination to extirpate the race. Nor was he born in a gold mine; equally foundationless is the rumour that his babyhood resembled that of Romulus and Co., inasmuch as they were suckled by a wolf and he by a stag. The naked truth-certainly the best attire in which truth can appear-is this, King Hudson's nativity may be dated from Share Hall, in the parish of Stockcum-scrip, and from his earliest hour he evinced a decided tendency to get everybody into a line. He also was rather remarkable for what is vulgarly called grabbing; his boyhood much resembled that of Dickey Johnson, immortal in song, who, when everything attainable had been given him for which he cried,

"Wanted the sun and moon beside."

We have good grounds for believing that he didn't get them; but what his great prototype may do, who will assume the responsibility of saying? These stupendous facts are supplied, gratis, for the especial benefit of the future biographers of Hudson le grand.

Another great power who saw his first dawn in a doubtful position, may be instanced in the case of the King of the Gipsies. Who can stand upon the hilltop, or thread the mazy vale and point out the spot where Melchior of the swarthy brow tumbled on life? Alas! for humanity, this classic spot shall never grace the epic, or gild the pages of the historian of the ring. It would be as futile to

"Summon up him who left half told

The story of Cambuscan bold,"

as to put the question to Screechy Ned the knife-grinder. In vain have we journeyed to the forest-in vain have we silvered the palms on Blackheath. This perplexing enigma must be interred between Junius and the Iron Mask. Who would not give a hundred for the fee simple of the identical ditch? what streams would flow along it, perhaps at a penny, certainly at half that per head. Who but would cut his stick from the bush that shaded the monarch's early infancy? O! that we could find the very frog that croaked a jubilate at his birth, to encase it in granite, that it might be found by an admiring posterity after the lapse of fifty thousand years; but as these are only sad instances of the vanity of human wishes, we hereby offer to_the_antiquarian world and the rural nobility and gentry, the reward of six Pickwicks, and two pots of the best (sixpenny) commingled, for the first tin-kettle soldered, patched, or plugged by the royal hand.

Royalty, avaunt! we turn to genius. At the birth of a certain celebrated author-still living and writing—the donkeys for ten miles round brayed incessantly the live-long night; and this, the malicious clodpoles asserted, they did

because they knew that a near relative had, or was about to make his appearance. Apparently, the result did not falsify their prediction.

It is a sad, sad thing not to know one's birth-place; as bad, nay worse, than not knowing one's father. The rich, in this predicament, give huge oceans of trouble to the musty fictitionists at Heralds' College; for the poor, there is neither peace, nor rest, nor settlement. In the first case, towns or villages are as anxious to claim as they are in the second to disclaim. We might dictate long and eloquently upon the fierce wars engendered between loving parishes through this lamentable ignorance, on the fearful inroads it causes on good-will and gold. We say nothing of the frequent changes of air to which it subjects poor Hodge, who applies in his need to parish A, and is relieved by being bundled off to parish B, which summarily relieves itself, and packs the wanderer off to C; thus he goes through the alphabet, sees a great deal of the country, and luxuriates on a remarkably fine and attenuated dietary, but like a comet or woman's tongue, never rests. More cash is spent in driving poor Hodge about like a mad dog, than would have kept him a pack of hounds, with hunters, &c., en suite. Beware of the man who does not know where he was born; he is a dangerous character, some degrees worse than a punster.

It is vastly pleasant to reflect that so many end life where they commenced it. The individual who bursts on life in Newgate, will, in all probability, hover around the sweet scene of his birth, unable to tear himself away, and end his career where it began, although in a more elevated position; thus falling a victim to his love of home. The lad who started from his native hamlet with a wallet which by no means fatigued him to carry, and some fractional parts of a sixpence in his pocket, after he has grown wealthy in commerce, perhaps eaten turtle in right of the aldermanic toga, or sat in the civic chair of state, flies in his age back to the spot whence he sprang. He raises his own cabbages and cures his own bacon. At last he rests inside the village church, lulled to sleep with a marble monument and gilt inscription; while his fathers, who never roamed, moulder outside in the yew-shaded churchyard with nothing but the green grass and the blue skies above them. Oysters and Scotchmen are remarkably fond of home. They never roam unless money is to be made by it: and they resemble each other in never returning.

We shall conclude this part of our labours with a hint or two to a certain class of bo-peep auto-biographers, fellows who show enough of their noses to make you believe that something tangible is coming, when they suddenly dowse the glim, and leave us where the prophet was when the candle went out. One specimen will suffice. We take the well-known character who tells us

"On the stormy ocean I was born."

Who would have supposed the solar goose would have broken off here? Yet so it is. In the name of all that's watery what ocean did he mean? We have no clue to lead us to a conclusion; certainly he says something about the seamews' scream, but the sea-mews scream in Chelsea reach. He also tells us of porpoises baring their backs of gold; we never saw them performing this glittering operation, but we know they occasionally show their noses at Gravesend. My fine fellow, this won't do: there's nothing at all in it. Should you again present yourself to the public let us know the whole truth. Now just see what your unpardonable obscurity leads to; we know several respectable City gentlemen who maintain you were born on the Paddington canal! We bid you farewell, with a sigh at such genius fatally perverted; such gorgeous opportunities thrown away. In your ear: pray be more particular; it really won't do, even for the marines.

Ye biographers, for whose especial benefit this immortal labour has been done, think, oh! think of the midnight oil that has burned in your service; forget not the hairs grown prematurely grey in your cause; we are not greedy, a reward equal to that bestowed on Cobden by the League will be deemed perfectly satisfactory.

PAUL

PEVENSEY;

OR, THE MAN FROM BELOW.*

CHAP. XXX.-THE MURDERER'S GRAVE.

OPINION exercises in all cases a powerful influence on the mind, and perhaps tends more than anything else to render us happy or miserable. One chief delight in this world arises from triumph, the triumph of action, of success; to fail in our designs is to be weak, and to be weak is to be wretched. Success, therefore, of some kind or another is necessary to impart that sense of exaltation, without which there can be nothing of that tumultuous joy which the fiery and the impassioned experience at the accomplishment of their purposes.

The truth of this position the colliers experienced, when, through the instrumentality of Paul Pevensey, they gained a victory over the law which had previously prided itself on having defeated them. Never reflecting on the fact that the body of which they had obtained possession was that of a murderer, who, whatever might be his connection with their cause, had deserved his fate, they yielded themselves up to the intoxication of success, and laughed and shouted as though life had returned to their lost companion. When the first burst of excitement had subsided they began to deliberate among themselves respecting the choice of a grave. Some advised that they should bury the corpse upon the centre of the moor, and raise over it with stones an enormous cairn, such as our ancestors bestowed upon chiefs of renown; but then came the obvious suggestion that the public authorities would speedily demolish it and replace the body on the gibbet; next the idea presented itself of selecting some secluded spot where the dead might rest in peace in defiance of the law's myrmidons until the vengeance of justice should have subsided. But whatever precautions they might take discovery was still possible, if not probable, and they wished to provide for the deceased a narrow home which neither treachery nor accident could disturb. They were delivered from their difficulties by some one mentioning the sea, upon which a loud shout burst from the bystanders, in which the whole mass gradually joined as the idea radiated through the multitude, and ultimately embraced its whole circle. From nearly two thousand lips at once arose the words "the sea, the sea."

A rude bier was immediately constructed, upon which the body with its encumbering chains was placed, after which the colliers put themselves in motion and directed their march towards the coast. Ere they had advanced a mile the solemn nature of the service in which they had been engaged produced its effect upon their minds; so that from having been talkative and boisterous they gradually became quiet, and then so completely silent that they resembled those strange apparitions, which, according to the aboriginal belief of these islands, often proceed with shadowy biers and corpses to the locality of unmade graves. The mother of the malefactor, old as she was, walked close behind the bier, and by her Paul placed himself, that he might assist her whenever the unevenness of the ground, or a ditch or a stile, rendered his aid necessary.

Absorbed as she was by her sorrow, the old woman could not without astonishment behold the kindness of this lad, an utter stranger to her, whose sympathies seemed to be awakened merely by her sorrow.

66

Mother," said he, when they had advanced some miles, "I am afraid you can't hold out. Shall I tell 'em not to bowl along at such a rate ?"

"No, my child,” replied she; "let them go on, they are carrying my son to his grave, and I must not hinder them."

"True, ma'am," said Paul; " but shouldn't you like to see the end of it? And

* Continued from page 115.