display her talents in the various capitals of Europe, | her to suggest a parallel. If in a certain sense she and to gather laurels more valuable and enduring was less popular than Jenny Lind, it is to be acthan the Stockholmers, with all their enthusiasm, could bestow. We shall not attempt to accompany Jenny Lind on her peregrinations through Germany, or to copy the exaggerated style in which her performances there are spoken of. She visited Dresden, Berlin, and Vienna, and in the dominions of the King of Prussia displayed her powers before the Queen of England. What, perhaps, was far more flattering to her, Henrietta Sontag, now Countess de Rossi, pronounced her to be the first singer of the age. Compliments like these often mean nothing, and are taken for what they are worth. But we believe the Countess Rossi is an earnest and sincere woman, and, having herself been the wonder of her day, and enjoyed her full share of praise, may be supposed to have spoken frankly of one with whom she could have no rivalry. To Mr. Alfred Bunn belongs the merit of having conceived the idea of bringing Jenny Lind to England. He entered into an engagement with her, which, as is well known, did not terminate fortunately. But into the details of their disagreement we shall not enter, since the people are already familiar with them. The career of Jenny Lind in England was that which imparted completeness to her reputation. She herself felt that she had achieved nothing till she had charmed a British audience. Berlin, Dresden, and Vienna were forgotten in the blaze of London. Here her powers grew up to maturity, and here she took her leave of the stage. To describe the effect of her singing upon the public would be impossible. But they are altogether deceived who imagine it is unlike what has taken place before in the case of other singers. Madame Catalani excited, in her day, precisely the same kind of admiration; so also did Madame Pasta. The triumphs of Malibran, as more recent, will De better remembered. We were at the opera house when this superb singer, the daughter of Garcia, made her debût, in company with her father, in the "Barber of Seville." The applause she excited was not very great, yet there were those present who, in the half-shrinking and timid girl, then foresaw what the woman would be. She was just sixteen, and her rich and animated Spanish features glowed with pride and confidence as she listened to the admiration of the house. It was genuine, and she felt it; and continually, from that day forward, rose in the estimation of the public, till she stood in Europe without a rival. Her sudden and lamented death in the midst of her fame, when public admiration was at the highest, will long be looked back to with regret. counted for by anything rather than the supposition of an inferiority. Madame Pasta was probably inferior to no one that ever sung, and her acting was incontestably superior to anything ever beheld on the opera boards. Yet in the voice and manner of Jenny Lind there is something more congenial to the taste and feelings of the English people. Her voice is altogether sui generis. Words convey no idea of tones and cadences, and cannot enable those to judge who have not themselves listened. Emotion has no lengthened vocabulary, and criticism exhausts itself in vain in the attempt to give permanence to those forms of art which are more fleeting than a summer cloud. In all other creations of genius, the type of the idea exists without the mind, and though it cannot suggest precisely the same conceptions to all, it remains to be appealed to and consulted by one generation after another. But the merit of a singer is an affair of testimony. You can embody it in nothing, not even in language. You express yourself pleased, gratified, intoxicated, if you will, with delight-when you have rung the changes a thousand times on this fact, the expression is all you have accomplished. Connected with Jenny Lind's stay in England, there is, however, something else to be observed― she filled a larger space in the public mind than any other artist of any class whatsoever. In every society her name was mentioned. While the rage continued, you never went into company without hearing discussions of her merits, which were sometimes carried on with as much vehemence and anger as a theological controversy. Much of this is to be accounted for by vanity. Those who had heard Jenny Lind fancied themselves superior in some respects to those who had not, and it was thought a great distinction to have met her in private. We remember to have seen a Swedish author who, during his visit to London, chiefly attracted attention by the fact that he was acquainted, very slightly, perhaps, with Jenny Lind. Nu But this folly by no means touches the great singer herself, who seems to have preserved altogether the balance of her mind, and never to have been puffed up for a moment by what would have sufficed to ruin a thousand other performers. merous anecdotes are related to prove the kindness and goodness of her nature, but no one is more characteristic than the following, which, we believe, has not been made public before :-During her visit to Bath, she happened to be walking with a friend, in front of some alms-houses, into one of which she entered, and sat down for a moment, ostensibly to rest herself, but in reality to find some excuse for doing an act of charity to the old woman who lived in it, and whom she had seen feeble and tottering at the door. The old woman, like the rest of her neighbors, was full of the Swedish Nightingale, whom she had heard was just then at Bath, entertaining with her voice all those who were so happy and fortunate as to be able to go to the theatre. For myself," said the old woman, "I have lived 66 Ay, "but "His wife and children, being XI. in number, X.. able to go out and one sucking on her breast, met him on the way as he went towards Smithfield." Any person inclined to scepticism as to the accuracy of the proposed correction, may perceive a slight degree of ambiguity in the language of Foxe; ton's Evangelical Biography, vol. 1, page 302, we therefore I produce another evidence. In Middle read : her breast met him by the way.' a long time in the world, and desire nothing before | the Massachusetts Sabbath School Society, the pubI die but to hear Jenny Lind." "And would it lishers have attempted to settle the matter by givmake you happy?" inquired her visitor. ing us a distinct picture, in which the spectators that it would," answered the old woman; are left out, and the wife and nine small children besides the one at the breast are plainly represented. such folks as I can't go to the play-house, and so I The earliest published history of the martyrdom shall never hear her." "Don't be so sure of that," is Foxe's "Acts and Monuments of these latter and said the good-natured Jenny; "sit down, my friend, perilous Dayes," printed in London, A. D. 1562, and listen ;" and forthwith she sang, with all her only seven years after the death of Rogers, and richest and most glorious powers, one of the finest whilst his numerous family were living. It consongs she knew. The poor old woman was beside tains the following statement :herself with delight, when, after concluding her song, her kind visitor observed, "Now you have heard Jenny Lind." If she had given the woman a hundred pounds, she could not have afforded her half so much pleasure. It was an act of noble charity, of the tenderest and most delicate kind. Money it would have been easy for her to give, and money, no doubt, she did give; but to sit down in an almshouse, and there to call up the enchantments of her voice, for the amusement of an obscure and poor old woman, was a touching proof of goodness of heart, which nothing we have heard of Jenny Lind surpasses. After this, we could readily believe of her any act of gentle and affectionate kindness, and we would be glad to see collected, for the honor of art, all the numerous proofs of sympathy and charity which she has given during her residence in England. It is a great thing to be universally admired. It is a still greater thing to be universally beloved, and we believe that the admiration of Jenny Lind's vocal powers, great and unrivalled as they are, is second to the admiration of her moral qualities. For this reason, we may be allowed to express a hope that, though she has now left us for France, England will be her future home. Her manners are already those of an Englishwoman, | and the analogy between the Swedish character years of age; the youngest, or the ELEVENTH child, and the English character is so great, that the an unconscious babe now hanging at the mother's transition from Stockholm to London would scarcely be felt, except for the change of language. JOHN ROGERS AND HIS NINE CHILDREN WITH A WRITER in the Cambridge (Mass.) Chronicle thus puts at rest the vexed question-how many children had John Rogers?-which has puzzled all readers of the Old New England Primer :— As the matter is one which has become hallowed in the minds of many by early associations, they but there among the crowd, there met him the wife, breast!" Thus it has been shown from the highest English authority-the earliest and the latest-that the true number of Mrs. Rogers' children was not nine, nor ten, but eleven. The error may at first have been merely typographical-arising from the transposition of the numerical letters XI. as originally ond hand, have helped to perpetuate the error. printed in Foxe. Later historians, copying at sec A MAN's look is the work of years. It is stamped How often have children been puzzled by the on the countenance by the events of his life: nay, ambiguity of the expression," nine small children more, by the hand of nature, and it is not to be got rid and one at the breast," not knowing whether the of easily. There is, as it has been remarked repeatlast named was intended to be included in, or added edly, something in a person's appearance, at first to, the number first mentioned. Sometimes they sight, which we do not like, and which gives an odd tried to solve the difficulty by counting the heads tinge, but which is overlooked in a multitude of of the children in the picture; but the artist, mod- other circumstances till the mask is thrown off, and estly declining to meddle with matters beyond his we see this lurking character verified in the plainbusiness, used, in the old primers, to leave the mat- est manner in the sequel. We are struck at first, ter as much in the dark as he found it. A glorious and by chance, with what is peculiar and characindistinctness in the picture renders it utterly im-teristic; also, with permanent traits and general possible to distinguish the children of the martyr effects. These afterwards go off in a set of unmeanfrom the common crowd; and thus, in obscurity ing commonplace details. This sort of prima facie the matter remained for nearly two centuries. In the recent edition-" with an historical introduction by H. Humphrey, D. D., President of Amherst College"-and in the one of which over one hundred thousand copies have lately been circulated by evidence, then, shows what a man is, better than what he says or does-for it shows us the habit of his mind, which is the same under all circumstances and disguises.-Hazlitt. From the Retrospective Review. The History of the Great Plague in London in the Year 1665; containing Observations and Memorials of the most remarkable Occurrences, both public and private, that happened during that dreadful period. By a Citizen, who lived the whole time in London. 1769. conceive how charming the retreat from duns, pur- No We believe that the most prudish critic who ever wrote never attached any moral crime to the fiction of the novel writer, or regarded his tissue of imaginary events as a deliberate violation of truth. The author who portrays characters which never existed, or describes scenes which never took place, save in his own imagination, misrepresents no real transaction, and deludes no one, but for an instant, into a belief of his veracity. Though his personages are creatures of shade, and their lives as unreal and unsubstantial as the visions of a phantasmagoria, yet, if they never did exist, they easily might have done so; and, being the absolute creatures of their inventor, are guided, without trouble, into such a course of action, as to afford excellent examples to the more obstinate subjects of real life, who are formed of materials too stubborn to be always bent to the purposes of the moralist. The fiction of the historical novelist cannot, however, be considered so entirely innocent, for he confounds real persons and real events with imaginary ones, and produces in the end an erroneous impression on the minds of his readers, inconsistent with the immaculate purity of truth. | est variation from the truth in the narrative of our The genuine novelist invents worlds of his own, and has a right to people them as he thinks proper; but the historical writer of fiction is like the geographer, who, in default of information, fills the parts of his map, which would be otherwise blank, with rivers, and towns, and mountains, which, though they may please the eye, will bewilder the traveller and deceive the student. He is still more culpable, who not only involves real persons in imaginary events, but who chooses a real time, a real event, assumes an historical style, utters repeated asseverations of veracity, mixes up true incidents and false, and when his composition is complete, conceals every trace of falsehood, and does his best to delude posterity. If there be any blame attached to such a procedure, the amount of it must, in a great measure, depend on the nature of the transactions thus imposed on the world as real, whether they are likely or not to be appealed to as evidence, and thus to produce evil consequences. He would, indeed, be a very harsh censor who would object to Robinson Crusoe; but we cannot help wishing that Defoe had chosen some other mode of recording the dreadful effects of the great plague of London than the one before us. Defoe, however, was never so happy as when he identified himself with his history, and made himself the hero of the incidents which his imagination poured forth in such abundance. His own life was of so troublous a nature, that it seems as if he delighted to lose his own identity in that of his creature, and live over his ideal adventures with nearly the intense consciousness of reality. We can easily author, but, on the contrary, every document remaining to us confirms his account, coinciding with it in most instances, and supporting it in almost every other; a fact, however, which does not diminish the blame we consider attached to the author, for pretending to be an original evidence and eye-witness of the scenes he describes. As in most of the other works of Defoe, no author's name appears to the work; but no one who knows the mannerism of Defoe, as collected from a view of all his writings, can, for a moment, hesitate to agree with the voice of common fame, which assigns it to him. As the title imports, this book contains a register of the observations and reflections of a citizen, who lived in the city from the rise to the expiration of the disorder. The writer is a respectable tradesman, residing in Whitechapel, of a religious turn of mind, inquisitive in disposition, well-informed for his rank, and anxious to transmit to posterity an account of a calamity which few appeared likely to survive, and fewer still, who, in the midst of misery and disease, would have the heart to turn their attention to recording the triumphs of the conqueror, Death. The character of this man is of that plain, downright, homely, pious description, in personating which, Defoe always appears much at home; and from the circumstance of himself residing on the spot in which he has placed the journalist, exercising the same trade as this fictitious person, and himself being born a year previous to the plague, it is not improbable that Defoe's father may be the supposed writer, from whose mouth it is not unlikely that he received many particulars, which he has interweaved in his narrative. For it will be observed, that nearly all the particulars, which are of a private nature, have their locality in the immediate neighborhood of Aldgate, the imaginary habitation of the historian of the ravages of the plague. After all, however, Defoe may not have been solely led to this subject by being in possession of peculiar information respecting it; for it has in itself those sombre charms which alone were sufficiently likely to attract him. There is no scene in the whole history of mankind which possesses a greater power of harrowing up the feelings, which affords more subjects for affecting or striking description, or gives greater scope for deep reflections on the nature of man, than a city under the visitation of the Plague. The incredulity which marks its rise; then, the panic which instantaneously follows certainty; then, the fluctuating state of hope or fear; the agitation of departure and separation; the struggling resolution to stay; and, when the bustle and hurry of those who flee have left the city still behind them, then the cold and fixed determination to abide and face the approaching enemy; then, the sweeping away of thousands before the giant strokes of the distemper, succeeded by the paroxysms of despair and the wailings of anguish, which, in a short time, sink into sullen indifference; then, the death of affection and love, and the dead calm which spreads over the whole population, undisturbed, except by the reckless revelry of crime and dissipation making the most of the short interval which is to elapse before their own doom; then, the gradual return of hope, followed by a premature rejoicing at delivery; then, a recurrence of alarm; and, at length, a well-grounded security in the flight of the pestilence, and a universal congratulation of the survivors upon each other's preservation, checked only by the recollection, that they are but a few, haunting the grave of a great city, and that too much joy would be but a mockery over the tens of thousands beneath their feet; these, and numberless topics of a similar nature, would occur to the mind of one who undertook to describe a city under this awful infliction of Providence. Defoe's genius, however, was of a description rather to produce an effect upon his reader by a careful enumeration of particulars than by general views, spirited sketches, or even by pathetic touches-and, in the present work, there is nothing which might not have been written by a respectable tradesman of some observation, common feeling, little taste or imagination, and ordinary talents, had he really witnessed the scenes he describes. Thus the reader is left with the materials of reflection, rather than a complete history. From such as it is, and from other sources, we will attempt to give an idea of the rise and progress of the great plague of London, especially availing ourselves of the more remarkable passages of Defoe, which, as we have said, it is probable were written from oral testimony, or, at least, such as are confirmed by other authorities. CCLXXII. LIVING AGE. VOL. XXII. 15 We will give the account of the first rise of the pestilence in the words of Defoe : It was about the beginning of September, 1664, that I among the rest of my neighbors, heard in ordinary discourse, that the plague was returned again into Holland; for it had been very violent there, and particularly at Amsterdam and Rotterdam, in the year 1663, whither, they say, it was brought, some said from Italy, others from the Levant, among some goods which were brought home by their Turkey fleet; others said it was brought from Candia; others from Cyprus. It mattered not from whence it came; but all agreed it was come into Holland again. We had no such thing as printed newspapers in those days, to spread rumors and reports of things; and to improve them by the inventions of men, as I have lived to see practised since. But such things as those were gathered from the letters of merchants, and others, who corresponded abroad, and from them were handed about by word of mouth only; so that things did not spread instantly over the whole nation, as they do now. But it seems that the government had a true account of it, and several councils were held, about ways to prevent its coming over; but all was kept very private. Hence it was, that this rumor died off again, and people began to forget it, as a thing we were very little concerned in, and that we hoped was not true; till the latter end of November, or the beginning of December, 1664, when two men, said to be Frenchmen, died of the plague in Long-acre, or rather at the upper end of Drury-lane. The family they were in endeavored to conceal it as much as possible; but as it had gotten some vent in the discourse of the neighborhood, the secretaries of state got knowledge of it. And concerning themselves to inquire about it, in order to be certain of the truth, two physicians and a surgeon were ordered to go to the house, and make inspection. This they did; and finding evident tokens of the sickness upon both the bodies that they died of the plague: whereupon it was that were dead, they gave their opinions publicly, given in to the parish clerk, and he also returned them to the hall; and it was printed in the weekly bill of mortality in the usual manner, thus : PLAGUE, 2. PARISHES INFECTed, 1. The people showed a great concern at this, and began to be alarmed all over the town, and the more, because in the last week in December, 1664, another man died in the same house, and of the same distemper: and then we were easy again for about six weeks, when none having died with any marks of infection, it was said the distemper was gone; but after that, I think it was about the 12th of February, another died in another house, but in the same parish, and in the same manner. This turned the people's eyes pretty much towards that end of the town; and the weekly bills showing an increase of burials in St. Giles' parish more than usual, it began to be suspected that the plague was among the people at that end of the town; and that many had died of it, though they had taken care to keep it as much from the knowledge of the public as possible: this possessed the heads of the people very much, and few cared to go through Drury-lane, or the other streets suspected, them to it. unless they had extraordinary business, that obliged From this time forward, the bills of mortality began to increase, from their usual amount of about two hundred and forty per week, to nearly five | eastward with more rapid strides, and there could hundred, and continued to fluctuate on the whole, be no doubt in believing that the whole of the but gradually to increase in the parish of St. Giles, metropolis would be visited in turn. The pas where, in the middle of June, they began to bury sengers in the streets began cautiously to keep the one hundred and twenty per week, sixty-eight of middle of the streets, to avoid one another, and which were allowed to be, but a hundred con- only cast mournful and suspicious glances at those sidered to be, cases of the plague. Till this point, whom they had been used to greet with joy; shops the infection had been confined to the parishes were closed; all trade suspended; and all manulying near the place of its origin, but now the|facturers discharged, to brood at leisure over starcity became contaminated, and a few began to vation and disease. The court was removed to drop off in different parts of its ninety-seven Oxford, the courts of justice and the inns of court parishes. Now, no doubt could be entertained were all closed, all egress out of the city was but that the disease had planted itself in London; barred by the apprehensions of the country, and, consternation spread in every direction, and all by the middle of summer, London was in a state who could leave danger behind were in the bustle of siege. of departure. I lived without Aldgate, about mid-way between Aldgate church and Whitechapel-bars, on the left hand or north side of the street; and as the distemper had not reached to that side of the city, our neighborhood continued very easy: but at the other end of the town their consternation was very great; and the richer sort of people, especially the nobility and gentry, from the west part of the city, thronged out of town, with their families and servants, in an unusual manner; and this was more particularly seen in Whitechapel; that is to say, the broad street where I lived: indeed nothing was to be seen but wagons and carts, with goods, women, servants, children, &c., coaches filled with people of the better sort, and horsemen attending them, and all hurrying away; then empty wagons and carts appeared, and spare horses with servants, who it was apparent were returning or sent from the countries to fetch more people; besides innumerable numbers of men on horseback, some alone, others with servants, and, generally speaking, all loaded with baggage and fitted out for travelling, as any one might perceive by their appearance. This was a very terrible and melancholy thing to see, and as it was a sight which I could not but look on from morning to night, for indeed there was nothing else of moment to be seen, it filled me with very serious thoughts of the misery that was coming upon the city, and the unhappy condition of those that would be left in it. This hurry of people was such for some weeks, that there was no getting at the lord mayor's door without exceeding difficulty; there was such pressing and crowding there to get passes and certificates of health, for such as travelled abroad; for, without these, there was no being admitted to pass through the towns upon the road, or to lodge in any inn now as there had none died in the city for all this time, my lord mayor gave certificates of health without any difficulty to all those who lived in the ninety-seven parishes, and to those within the liberties too for awhile. This hurry, I say, continued some weeks, that is to say, all the month of May and June, and the more, because it was rumored that an order of the government was to be issued out, to place turnpikes and barriers on the road, to prevent people's travelling; and that the towns on the road would not suffer people from London to pass, for fear of bringing the infection along with them, though neither of these rumors had any foundation but in the imagination; especially at first. The face of London was now indeed strangely altered, I mean the whole mass of buildings, city, liberties, suburbs, Westminster, Southwark, and, altogether; for as to the particular part, called the city, or within the walls, that was not yet much infected; but in the whole, the face of things, I say, was much altered; sorrow and sadness sat upon every face; and though some part were not yet overwhelmed, yet all looked deeply concerned; and as we saw it apparently coming on, so every one looked on himself and his family as in the utmost danger: were it possible to represent those times exactly to those who did not see them, and give the reader due ideas of the horror that everywhere presented itself, it must make just impressions upon their minds, and fill them with surprise. London might well be said to be all in tears; the mourners did not go about the streets indeed, for nobody put on black, or made a formal dress of mourning for their nearest friends; but the voice of mourning was truly heard in the streets; the shrieks of women and children at the windows and doors of their houses, where their dearest relations were, perhaps, dying, or just dead, were so frequent to be heard, as we passed the streets, that it was enough to pierce the stoutest heart in the world, to hear them. Tears and lamentations were seen in almost every house, especially in the first part of the visitation for towards the latter end, men's hearts were hardened, and death was so always before their eyes, that they did not so much concern themselves for the loss of their friends, expecting that themselves should be summoned the next hour. Superstition, as it always does, ushered in misfortune, and furnished another melancholy feature in the funereal aspect which the city presented. Amulets, charms, and mystical signs, were never in such request, and the brazen head of Friar Bacon, the fortune-tellers' sign, was mounted in every street. The apprehensions of the people were likewise strangely increased by the error of the times; in which, I think, the people, from what principle I cannot imagine, were more addicted to prophecies, and astrological conjurations, dreams, and old wives' tales, than ever they were before or since: whether this unhappy temper was originally raised by the follies of some people who got money by it, that is to say, by printing predictions and prognostications, I know not; but certain it is, books frighted them terribly; such as Lilly's Almanack, Gadbury's Astrological Predictions, Poor Robin's Almanack, and The ravages of the disease began now to travel the like; also several pretended religious books; |