At length, however, I obtained from mine host himself the sum and substance of the united discords. His professional eye had been acute, even in the midst of the hurlyburly, to discern that a new and respecta ble-looking guest was located in his house; and I was accordingly favoured with his account of the recent adventure. They had watched, he said, two good hours at the churchyard hatch, in full view of Andrew Cleaves's grave, the exact spot of which was discernible, even after perfect nightfall. And they had taken every possible precaution to satisfy them selves before dark that no living creature, Christian or brute, was lurking within the churchyard,-that there was nothing within it but the green graves, and the white tombstones, and the old yew tree in the north-east angle. "Well, sir," said mine host, "we watched there, as I made mention, two mortal hours; and though some fancied one thing, and some another, they were nothing but fancies, for nothing better nor worse than we ourselves was stirring all that time; and I for one began to think we were making fools of ourselves, and had best sneak home quietly, and say nothing more about the matter. But just then, sir," quavered mine host, glancing fearfully round, and lowering his tone to a whisper; "just then, sir! we did see something. We seed the tall, white thing, rise up out of the earth, right at the head of the old man's grave; and then, sir, if you'll believe me, as I am a sinful man, it rose and rose, and spread, till it was as big and high as the gaswork tower-though, for shape, we could not make it much out,-only the head of it seemed to shoot up in a kind of forked fashion; and there must have been some sort of unna tural light about it, for my eyes got quite dazzled and dizzy like, and there was a ringing in my ears; and then -Lord, sir!-while we were all looking quite steadfast, and standing as steady as a rock, sir!-quite cool 18 ATHENEUM, Vol. 9, 2d series. and composed-the thing gives a kind of a heave up-so, sir !—and down again; and then there was a terrible noise, just as if the old church tower was tumbling about our ears, and then, we thought, it would be presumptuous to stay any longer, (for rashness is not courage you know, sir,) and so we came back home again, sir, to talk the matter over quietly." But neither mine host nor his adherents were in a state to talk the matter over very quietly just then; and all shrank back with uequivocal dismay, when I proposed to head them for a fresh enterprise,-myself and two or three others provided with lanterns, not to flare about the outskirts of the burying-ground, but to make strict search within its haunted precincts-even upon the very grave itself-of which, they could not hear without a shudder. By degrees, however, what with shaming their pusillanimity, and patting their courage, and plying them well with mine host's strong beer,I succeeded in enlisting a band of desperate heroes, prepared to brave all dangers, and swearing to go with me through fire and water. And off we set, at a good round pace, (for some sort of courage is apt to cool if it marches to slow time,) and so reached the churchyard hatch; and dashing through, without a moment's pause, made straight towards the haunted grave. But when we had neared it by a few yards, my doughty heroes made a sudden stop; and I held out my lantern far and high, to throw forward its rays on the strange object which indisputably lay (a long, white heap) on Andrew's grave. Just then I struck my foot against a stone; and one behind me stumbled over another great rough stone, like those piled together, without masonry, that formed the churchyard wall, close to which lay the three graves of the Cleaves's. "Oh, ho!" I cheeringly cried out to my trembling followers, "here has been a downfall; but ghosts do not break down stone-walls, my 146 Spring Song.-On the Ruins of Walberswick Church. the remains of his old master; certain it is, he must have stationed himself in the gap when first observed by the frightened villagers; and no doubt might have been seen there by daylight, had any one then bethought himself of looking beyond the grave toward the adjoining inclosure. And it is equally certain, that on the memorable night of the catastrophe, the old animal having raised himself by his forelegs on the lowest part of the breach, the loose stones had given way under his hoofs, and falling forward with them, a helpless, heavy weight, he had breathed out the last feeble remnant of his almost extinguished life, on the scarcely closed grave of his aged master, whose words were verified almost to the letter-" We shall last out one another's time." ON THE RUINS OF WALBERSWICK CHURCH, IN SUFFOLK. "WHAT, in the olden time, hast thou seen, Dark ruin, lone and grey?" "I've seen the strong man, a wailing child, I've seen him a warrior fierce and wild, "I've seen the stern reformer scorn I've seen the silken banners wave, And the sculptur'd stone adorn the grave "I've seen the youth in his tameless glee, To read the sacred page; I've seen the maid with her sunny brow, "Here thousands find a resting-place, Who bent before this shrine; Their dust is here-their name and race, Oblivion, now are thine! The prince, the peer, the peasant sleeps Alike beneath the sod; Time o'er their dust short record keeps, "I've seen the face of nature change, But hill, and dale, and forest fair, Are whelm'd beneath the tideThey slumber here, that could declare Who owned these manors wide! "All thou hast felt-these sleepers knew ; For human hearts are still, In every age, to nature true, But thou must sleep, like them, to know JOHN MASON GOOD.* JOHN MASON GOOD was born of reputable parents at Epping, on the 25th of May, 1764. At the age of fifteen he was apprenticed to a surgeon-apothecary at Gosport, where, with an activity peculiar to himself, he set himself immediately to pound medicines, play cricket and the German flute, practise fencing and poetry, study Italian, and compose a Dictionary of Poetic Endings, besides sundry other literary pieces. In 1783 and 1784 he attended Lectures in London, and wrote a treatise on the Theory of Earthquakes, containing a great deal of reasoning as elaborate as it was erroneous. In 1784 he entered into partnership with a surgeon at Sudbury, and in the following year into the still more intimate one-that of matrimony, with Miss Godfrey, a young lady of nineteen. The latter was dissolved by death in little more than six months. Four years after, he married a Miss Fenn, and in due time became the father of six children, two of whom, daughters, still survive. Agreeably to the wishes of these ladies, however, who found that Dr. Gregory could not write of them without praise, the biographer determined reluctantly to mention their names as little as possible in the course of their father's history. In 1792 Mr. Good, either owing to "suretyship," or the imprudent prac tice of lending money to his friends, became embarrassed in his pecuniary affairs. This had the happy effect of stimulating him to literary exer tion: he wrote plays, translations and poetry, but without the desired effect; he then tried philosophy, but without discovering the secret of transmutation; and at last, to somewhat more purpose, opened a correspondence with a metropolitan newspaper and review. In 1793 he removed, with his family, to London, and entered into partnership with a Mr. W. by whose misconduct the business soon after failed. "His character," says Dr. Gregory, "soon began to be duly appreciated among medical men; and, on the 7th of November he was admitted a Member of the College of Surgeons." We do not understand the conjunction here; perhaps there is a typographical mistake. However, he obtained a less questionable honour in becoming an active Member of the Medical Society, and of the General Pharmaceutic Association; and, at the suggestion of some of his colleagues in the latter, wrote a "History of Medicine, so far as it relates to the profession of the Apothecary," which was published in 1795. In 1797 he began a translation of Lucretius; and, two years after, set himself to study the German language, having previously made con * Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Character, Literary, Professional, and Religious, of the late John Mason Good, M.D. By Olinthus Gregory, LL.D. London, 1828. siderable progress in the French, it is recollected that his bodily exer Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. The Arabic and Persian he afterwards added to his acquisitions. In 1799, he finished his translation of Lucretius, which was composed in the streets of London during the translator's walks to visit his patients. This is not so extraordinary a circumstance as Dr. Gregory imagines; if the business of literature stood still except when the artists are in their workshops, a weekly reviewer would not require a two-inch thick table like this before us, to support the subjects for his hebdomadal dissec tion. Mr. Good's literary productions now followed each other in rapid succession till 1812. Of these, his "Song of Songs," "Translation of the book of Job," and his contributions to the " Pantalogia," are the best known. In 1810 he began to deliver Lectures at the Surrey Institution, the first course of which treated of the nature of the Material World, the second of that of the Animate World, and the third of that of the Mind; the whole of which were afterwards published under the general title of "The Book of Nature." In 1820, by authority of a diploma, dated from the ancient and anti-mercenary university of Aberdeen, he began to practise as a physician; and, from the extraordinary success that attended his career from this moment, had reason to regret that he had not aspired at an earlier period to the highest branch of his profession. In the same year he published "A Physiological System of Nosology," and, in 1822, "The Study of Medicine," one of the most successful of his works. Up to this period, and indeed for some time after, his health had been almost uniformly good, which will not be deemed so extraordinary even in a man who read, wrote, and thought so much as Dr. Good, when tions were, of necessity, almost equal to those of his mind. Even in London, when visiting his patients on foot, he must have walked enough to counterbalance the effects of more than one sheet per diem : and when the lazy luxury of a coach was substituted for this healthful exercise, it is not wonderful that the mental pressure of study should have increased, even to the extinction of life. On the 2nd of January, 1827, in the 63rd year of his age, John Mason Good died of a carriage, a disease of fatal, and, we believe, not very unfrequent recurrence in the history of physicians. Dr. Good was a man of great and versatile talents. As a medical writer his name stands high; and as a physician his practice was extensive and successful. He was not, and, from his education and opportunities, could not be, profoundly learned; but the stores of knowledge, collected by unwearied industry, carried on with a kind of enthusiasm in research, were in him as valuable, for all practical purposes, as abstruse learning. In religion, he began by being a Trinitarian, in the sequel he was a Socinian, and in conclusion, a strict christian according to the doctrines of the Church of England. It is not known at what precise period his mind reverted to this persuasion; but, in 1807, he intimated by letter to the minister he had been in the habit of attending, that he could no longer countenance by his presence a system which, even admitting it to be right, was at least repugnant to his own heart and his own understanding." The terms in which this renunciation was made are, at the least, ill-chosen, and among verbal critics might be made the subject of some controversy. In private life he was a good husband, a good father, and a good man. 66 ISMAEL GIBRALTER. SMAEL GIBRALTER, an officer of the Pacha of Egypt, received his appellation as an honourable distinction accorded by his master, in consequence of the extraordinary nautical skill and science displayed by him in completing the first voy age ever undertaken by an Egyptian vessel of war to the walls of London, at the time the Pacha first meditated the establishment of the fleet which he has more recently collected to be destroyed. If report speak true, and Ismael was little disposed to contradict the assertion, he was far more favored by accident than knowledge in the conduct of his distant expedition; but his predestinarian principles were of no common advantage to him and, trusting to Alla and the Prophet, a bad Greek pilot and a worse chart, with a compass, quadrant, and other appliances, (which Ismael was assured were always used as ornaments on board a vessel,) and devoutly repeating, in pure Arabic, the motto of the house of Russel, “Che sarâ sarâ,' ," he left Alexandria and put to sea, fully confident that he would arrive-where chance and fate might decree-with the aid of wind and currents, sails and rudder, a stock of gold, and a still larger stock of Moslem patience and apathy. His "Navarchus," Panajotti, had travelled far and seen much; and, having now boldly launched forth on their enterprise, to him would Ismael listen, as reposing on the deck he calmly smoked his argillé, while the pilot recounted to him the many wonders he had encountered, and the dangers he had braved; but, what was better than Panajotti's stories, the wind was fair as they left the shores of Mesr, and wrapping himself in his white and ample albornoz, to shield him from the effects of the blighting and humid sirocco, in exclaiming Mortadi, (or loved of God) he betook himself to Al Moshaf, or the book, caring about little else than the ship's being on her course, as Panajotti, with sundry oaths and multiplied crossings, earnestly assured him. Shortly they arrived off the Island of Candia, which Panajotti had the hardihood to pronounce as having been inhabited even before the Hegira, while Ismael laughed within himself at the credulity of the false Nazarene. spoke, too, of its delicious wines to the sneering Moslem; and told how St. Paul had preached there, and had represented its people as subject to idleness, lying and debauchery, which induced Ismael calmly to demand if it were not the place of Panajotti's birth; and this gave the pilot considerable offence. He Still held the breeze "so fair and foul," for, while it filled the canvass, it relaxed every fibre of the system; nor did it cease until it brought Ismael into the Port of Malta, and there did he piously praise Alla for his success-salute the town-and wish God might darken the face of him who had invented quarantine; for predestination made the plague endurable, but with the quarantine it had nothing to do. When the moon arose and shed not soft, but rich, warm, and glowing light on that white rock, and whiter edifices which it supported, so forcibly contrasting their hue with the deep azure of the Mediterranean;-when the gentle land breeze wafted on its wings the grateful perfume of the orange and citron groves, and the fragrant odour of jessamine, rose, myrtle, and geranium-when the bells of the Island near him sounded the evening Angelus, and pious Christians spoke the heavenly Salutation, or chaunted the Litany of the Queen of heaven ;when the air was cool and pleasant, and the distant tinkling of the man What will be, will be. The Egyptian pipe. + Africa. § A large white mantle. |