could anyhow be effected by that description of fire-arms.

The strongest evidence, at first, of the Captain's being the Child of Mystery and the The Theatre was extremely full. The prices Man of Crime was deducible from his boots, of admission were, to the boxes, a shilling; to which, being very high and wide, and apthe pit, sixpence; to the gallery, threepence.parently made of sticking-plaister, justified the The gallery was of enormous dimensions worst theatrical suspicions to his disadvantage. (among the company, in the front row, we And indeed he presently turned out as ill as observed Mr. Whelks); and overflowing with occupants. It required no close observation of the attentive faces, rising one above another, to the very door in the roof, and squeezed and jammed in, regardless of all discomforts, even there, to impress a stranger with a sense of its being highly desirable to lose no possible chance of effecting any mental improvement in that great audience.

The company in the pit were not very clean or sweet-savoured, but there were some goodhumoured young mechanics among them, with their wives. These were generally accompanied by the baby,' insomuch that the pit was a perfect nursery. No effect made on the stage was so curious, as the looking down on the quiet faces of these babies fast asleep, after looking up at the staring sea of heads in the gallery. There were a good many cold fried soles in the pit, besides; and a variety of flat stone bottles, of all portable sizes.

could be desired: getting into May Morning's Cottage by the window after dark; refusing to 'unhand' May Morning when required to do so by that lady; waking May Morning's only surviving parent, a blind old gentleman with a black ribbon over his eyes, whom we shall call Mr. Stars, as his name was stated in the bill thus * **** * ; and showing himself desperately bent on carrying off May Morning by force of arms. Even this was not the worst of the Captain; for, being foiled in his diabolical purpose-temporarily by means of knives and pistols, providentially caught up and directed at him by May Morning, and finally, for the time being, by the advent of Will Stanmore-he caused one Slink, his adherent, to denounce Will Stanmore as a rebel, and got that cheerful mariner carried off, and shut up in prison. At about the same period of the Captain's career, there suddenly appeared in his father's castle, a dark comThe audience in the boxes was of much the plexioned lady of the name of Manuella, ‘a same character (babies and fish excepted) as Zingara Woman from the Pyrenean mounthe audience in the pit. A private in the tains; the wild wanderer of the heath, and Foot Guards sat in the next box; and a person- the pronouncer of the prophecy,' who threw age who wore pins on his coat instead of the melancholy baronet, his supposed father, buttons, and was in such a damp habit of into the greatest confusion by asking him living as to be quite mouldy, was our nearest what he had upon his conscience, and by neighbour. In several parts of the house we pronouncing mysterious rhymes concerning noticed some young pickpockets of our ac- the Child of Mystery and the Man of Crime, quaintance; but as they were evidently there to a low trembling of fiddles. Matters were as private individuals, and not in their public in this state when the Theatre resounded capacity, we were little disturbed by their pre- with applause, and Mr. Whelks fell into a fit sence. For we consider the hours of idleness of unbounded enthusiasm, consequent on the passed by this class of society as so much gain entrance of 'Michael the Mendicant.' to society at large, and we do not join in a whimsical sort of lamentation that is generally made over them, when they are found to be unoccupied. As we made these observations the curtain rose, and we were presently in possession of the following particulars.

At first we referred something of the cordiality with which Michael the Mendicant was greeted, to the fact of his being 'made up' with an excessively dirty face, which might create a bond of union between himself and a large majority of the audience. But it soon Sir George Elmore, a melancholy Baronet came out that Michael the Mendicant had with every appearance of being in that ad- been hired in old time by Sir George Elmore, vanced stage of indigestion in which Mr. to murder his (Sir George Elmore's) elder Morrison's patients usually are, when they brother-which he had done; notwithstandhappen to hear, through Mr. Moat, of the ing which little affair of honour, Michael was surprising effects of his Vegetable Pills, was in reality a very good fellow; quite a tenderfound to be living in a very large castle, in the hearted man; who, on hearing of the Captain's society of one round table, two chairs, and determination to settle Will Stanmore, cried Captain George Elmore, his supposed son, out, 'What! more bel-ood!' and fell flat-overthe Child of Mystery, and the Man of Crime.' powered by his nice sense of humanity. In like The Captain, in addition to an undutiful manner, in describing that small error of judghabit of bullying his father on all occasions, was ment into which he had allowed himself to be a prey to many vices: foremost among which tempted by money, this gentleman exclaimed, may be mentioned his desertion of his wife,' I ster-ruck him down, and fel-ed in er-orror!" 'Estella de Neva, a Spanish lady,' and his deter- and further he remarked, with honest pride, mination unlawfully to possess himself of May 'I have liveder as a beggar—a roadersider Morning; M. M. being then on the eve of marriage to Will Stanmore, a cheerful sailor, with very loose legs.

vaigerant, but no ker-rime since then has stained these hands!' All these sentiments of the worthy man were hailed with showers of

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applause; and when, in the excitement of his feelings on one occasion, after a soliloquy, he 'went off on his back, kicking and shuffling along the ground, after the manner of bold spirits in trouble, who object to be taken to the station-house, the cheering was tremendous.

AN INCIDENT IN THE LIFE OF
MADLLE CLAIRON.

THE Occurrence related in the letter which we are about to quote, is a remarkable instance of those apparently supernatural visitations which it has been found so difficult (if not impossible) to explain and account for. It does not appear to have been known to Scott, Brewster, or any other English writer who has collected and endeavoured to expound those ghostly phenomena.

And to see how little harm he had done, after all! Sir George Elmore 's elder brother was NOT dead. Not he! He recovered, after this sensitive creature had 'fel-ed in er-orror,' and, putting a black ribbon over his eyes to disguise himself, went and lived in a modest retirement with his only child. In short, Mr. Clairon was the greatest tragedian that ever Stars was the identical individual! When appeared on the French stage; holding on it Will Stanmore turned out to be the wrongful a supremacy similar to that of Siddons on our Sir George Elmore's son, instead of the Child own. She was a woman of powerful intellect, of Mystery and Man of Crime, who turned out and had the merit of effecting a complete reto be Michael's son, (a change having been volution in the French school of tragic acting; effected, in revenge, by the lady from the substituted an easy, varied, and natural dePyrenean Mountains, who became the Wild livery for the stilted and monotonous declaWanderer of the Heath, in consequence of the mation which had till then prevailed, and Wrongful Sir George Elmore's perfidy to her being the first to consult classic taste and and desertion of her), Mr. Stars went up to propriety of costume. Her mind was cultithe Castle, and mentioned to his murdering vated by habits of intimacy with the most brother how it was. Mr. Stars said it was distinguished men of her day; and she was all right; he bore no malice; he had kept one of the most brilliant ornaments of those out of the way, in order that his murdering literary circles which the contemporary Mebrother (to whose numerous virtues he was moir writers describe in such glowing colours. no stranger) might enjoy the property; and In an age of corruption, unparalleled in now he would propose that they should make modern times, Mademoiselle Clairon was not it up and dine together. The murdering proof against the temptations to which her brother immediately consented, embraced the position exposed her. But a lofty spirit, and Wild Wanderer, and it is supposed sent instruc- some religious principles, which she retained tions to Doctors' Commons for a license to amidst a generation of infidels and scoffers, marry her. After which, they were all very saved her from degrading vices, and enabled comfortable indeed. For it is not much to her to spend an old age protracted beyond the try to murder your brother for the sake of usual period of human life, in respectability his property, if you only suborn such a deli- and honour. cate assassin as Michael the Mendicant !

All this did not tend to the satisfaction of the Child of Mystery and Man of Crime, who was so little pleased by the general happiness, that he shot Will Stanmore, now joyfully out of prison and going to be married directly to May Morning, and carried off the body, and May Morning to boot, to a lone hut. Here, Will Stanmore, laid out for dead at fifteen minutes past twelve, P.M., arose at seventeen minutes past, infinitely fresher than i most daisies, and fought two strong men single-handed. However, the Wild Wanderer, arriving with a party of male wild wanderers, who were always at her disposal-and the murdering brother arriving arm-in-arm with Mr. Stars stopped the combat, confounded the Child of Mystery and Man of Crime, and blessed the lovers.

She died in 1803, at the age of eighty. She was nearly seventy when the following letter was written. It was addressed to M. Henri Meister, a man of some eminence among the literati of that period; the associate of Diderot, Grimm, D'Holbach, M. and Madame Necker, &c., and the collaborateur of Grimm in his famous Correspondence.' This gentleman was Clairon's literary executor;' having been intrusted with her Memoirs, written by herself, and published after her death.

With this preface we give Mademoiselle Clairon's narrative, written in her old age, of an occurrence which had taken place half a century before.

'In 1743, my youth, and my success on the stage, had drawn round me a good many admirers. M. de S, the son of a merchant The adventures of 'RED RIVEN THE BAN- in Brittany, about thirty years old, handsome, DIT' concluded the moral lesson of the evening. and possessed of considerable talent, was one But, feeling by this time a little fatigued, and of those who were most strongly attached to believing that we already discerned in the me. His conversation and manners were those countenance of Mr. Whelks a sufficient confu- of a man of education and good society, and sion between right and wrong to last him for one night, we retired: the rather as we intended to meet him, shortly, at another place of dramatic entertainment for the people.

the reserve and timidity which distinguished his attention made a favourable impression on me. After a green-room acquaintance of sometime I permitted him to visit me at my

One night,

the cry broke out seemingly from something between him and me. He, like all Paris, was aware of the story; but he was so horrified, that his servants lifted him into his carriage more dead than alive.

house, but a better knowledge of his situation forth, as if in the midst of us. and character was not to his advantage. the President de B- -, at whose house I had Ashamed of being only a bourgeois, he was supped, desired to see me safe home. While squandering his fortune at Paris under an he was bidding me "good night" at my door, assumed title. His temper was severe and gloomy: he knew mankind too well, he said, not to despise and avoid them. He wished to see no one but me, and desired from me, in return, a similar sacrifice of the world. I saw, from this time, the necessity, for his own 'Another time, I asked my comrade Rosely sake as well as mine, of destroying his hopes to accompany me to the Rue St. Honoré, to by reducing our intercourse to terms of less choose some stuffs, and then to pay a visit to intimacy. My behaviour brought upon him Mademoiselle de St. P, who lived near a violent illness, during which I showed him the Porte Saint-Denis. My ghost story (as it every mark of friendly interest, but firmly was called) was the subject of our whole conrefused to deviate from the course I had versation. This intelligent young man was adopted. My steadiness only deepened his struck by my adventure, though he did not wound; and unhappily, at this time, a believe there was anything supernatural in treacherous relative, to whom he had in- it. He pressed me to evoke the phantom, trusted the management of his affairs, took promising to believe if it answered my call. advantage of his helpless condition by robbing With weak audacity I complied, and suddenly him, and leaving him so destitute that he was the cry was heard three times with fearful obliged to accept the little money I had, for loudness and rapidity. When we arrived at his subsistence, and the attendance which his our friend's door both of us were found condition required. You must feel, my dear senseless in the carriage. friend, the importance of never revealing this secret. I respect his memory, and I would not expose him to the insulting pity of the world. Preserve, then, the religious silence which after many years I now break for the first time.

'At length he recovered his property, but never his health; and thinking I was doing him a service by keeping him at a distance from me, I constantly refused to receive either his letters or his visits.

'After this scene, I remained for some months without hearing anything. I thought it was all over; but I was mistaken.

"All the public performances had been transferred to Versailles on account of the marriage of the Dauphin. We were to pass three days there, but sufficient lodgings were not provided for us. Madame Grandval had no apartment; and I offered to share with her the room with two beds which had been assigned to me in the avenue of St. Cloud. I gave her one of the beds and took the other. While my maid was undressing to lie down beside me, I said to her, "We are at the world's end here, and it is dreadful weather the cry would be somewhat puzzled to get at us." In a moment it rang through the room. Madame Grandval ran in her night-dress from top to bottom of the house, in which nobody closed an eye for the rest of the night. This, however, was the last time the cry was heard.

;

'Two years and a half elapsed between this period and that of his death. He sent to beg me to see him once more in his last moments, but I thought it necessary not to comply with his wish. He died, having with him only his domestics, and an old lady, his sole companion for a long time. He lodged at that time on the Rempart, near the Chaussée d'Antin; I resided in the Rue de Bussy, near the Abbaye St. Germain. My mother lived with me; and that night we had a little party to supper. 'Seven or eight days afterwards, while I We were very gay, and I was singing a lively was chatting with my usual evening circle, air, when the clock struck eleven, and the the sound of the clock striking eleven was sound was succeeded by a long and piercing followed by the report of a gun fired at one cry of unearthly horror. The company looked of the windows. We all heard the noise, we all aghast; I fainted, and remained for a quarter of an hour totally insensible. We then began to reason about the nature of so frightful a sound, and it was agreed to set a watch in the street in case it were repeated.

'It was repeated very often. All our servants, my friends, my neighbours, even the police, heard the same cry, always at the same hour, always proceeding from under my windows, and appearing to come from the empty air. I could not doubt that it was meant entirely for me. I rarely supped abroad; but the nights I did so, nothing was heard; and several times, when I came home, and was asking my mother and servants if they had heard anything, it suddenly burst

saw the fire, yet the window was undamaged. We concluded that some one sought my life, and that it was necessary to take precautions against another attempt. The Intendant des Menus Plaisirs, who was present, flew to the house of his friend, M. de Marville, the Lieutenant of Police. The houses opposite mine were instantly searched, and for several days were guarded from top to bottom. My house was closely examined; the street was filled with spies in all possible disguises. But, notwithstanding all this vigilance, the same explosion was heard and seen for three whole months always at the same hour, and at the same window-pane, without any one being able to discover from whence it proceeded.

This fact stands recorded in the registers of that his obstinacy proceeded less from the the police. excess of his passion than from the violence of 'Nothing was heard for some days; but, his character, I took the firm resolution to having been invited by Mademoiselle Du-separate from him entirely. I refused to see mesnil to join a little evening party at her him in his last moments, because the sight house near the Barrière blanche, I got into a would have rent my heart; because I feared hackney-coach at eleven o'clock with my to appear too barbarous if I remained inmaid. It was clear moonlight as we passed flexible, and to make myself wretched if I along the Boulevards, which were then begin-yielded. Such, madame, are the motives of ning to be studded with houses. While we my conduct,-motives for which, I think, no were looking at the half-finished buildings, my one can blame me." maid said, “Was it not in this neighbourhood ""It would indeed," said the lady, "be unthat M. de S died?" "From what I just to condemn you. My poor friend himself have heard," I answered, "I think it should in his reasonable moments acknowledged all be there"-pointing with my finger to a house that he owed you. But his passion and his before us. From that house came the same malady overcame him, and your refusal to see gunshot that I had heard before. It seemed him hastened his last moments. He was to traverse our carriage, and the coachman counting the minutes, when at half-past ten, set off at full speed, thinking we were attacked his servant came to tell him that decidedly you by robbers. We arrived at Mademoiselle Du- would not come. After a moment's silence, he mesnil's in a state of the utmost terror; a took me by the hand with a frightful exfeeling I did not get rid of for a long time.' pression of despair. Barbarous woman!' [Mademoiselle Clairon gives some further he cried; but she will gain nothing by her details similar to the above, and adds that the cruelty. As I have followed her in life, I noises finally ceased in about two years and a shall follow her in death!' I endeavoured to half. After this, intending to change her calm him ;—he was dead.” residence, she put up a bill on the house she was leaving; and many people made the pretext of looking at the apartments an excuse for gratifying their curiosity to see, in her every-day guise, the great tragedian of the Théâtre Français.]

'One day I was told that an old lady desired to see my rooms. Having always had a great respect for the aged, I went down to receive her. An unaccountable emotion seized me on seeing her, and I perceived that she was moved in a similar manner. I begged her to sit down, and we were both silent for some time. At length she spoke, and, after some preparation, came to the subject of her visit.

"I was, mademoiselle, the best friend of M. de S, and the only friend whom he would see during the last year of his life. We spoke of you incessantly; I urging him to forget you,―he protesting that he would love you beyond the tomb. Your eyes which are full of tears allow me to ask you why you made him so wretched; and how, with such a mind and such feelings as yours, you could refuse him the consolation of once more seeing and speaking to you?"

'I need scarcely tell you, my dear friend, what effect these last words had upon me. Their analogy to all my apparitions filled me with terror, but time and reflection calmed my feelings. The consideration that I was neither the better nor the worse for all that had happened to me, have led me to ascribe it all to chance. I do not, indeed, know what chance is; but it cannot be denied that the something which goes by that name has a great influence on all that passes in the world.

'Such is my story; do with it what you will. If you intend to make it public, I beg you to suppress the initial letter of the name, and the name of the province.'

This last injunction was not, as we sec, strictly complied with; but, at the distance of half a century, the suppression of a name was probably of little consequence.

There is no reason to doubt the entire truth of Mademoiselle Clairon's narrative. The incidents which she relates made such a deep and enduring impression on her mind, that it remained uneffaced during the whole course of her brilliant career, and, almost at "We cannot," I answered, "command our the close of a long life spent in the bustle and sentiments. M. de S had merit and esti- business of the world, inspired her with mable qualities; but his gloomy, bitter, and solemn and religious thoughts. Those incioverbearing temper made me equally afraid dents can scarcely be ascribed to delusions of of his company, his friendship, and his love. her imagination; for she had a strong and To make him happy, I must have renounced cultivated mind, not likely to be influenced all intercourse with society, and even the by superstitious credulity; and besides, the exercise of my talents. I was poor and proud; mysterious sounds were heard by others as I desire, and hope I shall ever desire, to owe well as herself, and had become the subject nothing to any one but myself. My friend- of general conversation in Paris. The susship for him prompted me to use every en-picion of a trick or conspiracy never seems deavour to lead him to more just and reason able sentiments: failing in this, and persuaded

The celebrated tragedian.

to have occurred to her, though such a supposition is the only way in which the circumstances can be explained; and we are convinced that this explanation, though not quite

of the spectators prevented them from detecting. The girl began these tricks to forward some love affair, and continued them for amusement when she saw the effect they produced.

satisfactory in every particular, is the real one. Several portentous occurrences, equally or more marvellous, have thus been accounted for. Our readers remember the history of the Commissioners of the Roundhead Parliament for the sequestration of the royal domains, Remembering these cases, we can have who were terrified to death, and at last fairly little doubt that Mademoiselle Clairon's maid driven out of the Palace of Woodstock, by a was the author of the noises which threw her series of diabolical sounds and sights, which mistress and her friends into such consternawere long afterwards discovered to be the tion. Her own house was generally the work of one of their own servants, Joe place where these things happened; and on Tomkins by name, a loyalist in the disguise the most remarkable occasions where they of a puritan. The famous Cock-lane Ghost,' happened elsewhere, it is expressly mentioned which kept the town in agitation for months, that the maid was present. At St. Cloud it and baffled the penetration of multitudes of was to the maid, who was her bed-fellow, the divines, philosophers, and literati of the that Clairon was congratulating herself on day, was a young girl of some eleven or twelve being out of the way of the cry, when it years old, whose mysterious knockings were suddenly was heard in the very room. produced by such simple means, that their had her maid in the carriage with her on the remaining so long undetected is the most Boulevards, and it was immediately after the marvellous part of the story. This child was the agent of a conspiracy formed by her father, with some confederates, to ruin the reputation of a gentleman by means of pretended revelations from the dead. For this conspiracy these persons were tried, and the father, the most guilty party, underwent the punishment of the pillory.

She

public race-courses can utter speeches for an imaginary person without any perceptible motion of the lips; the utterance of a mere sound in this way would be infinitely less difficult.

girl had asked her a question about the death of M. de S that the gun-shot was heard, which seemed to traverse the carriage. Had the maid a confederate-perhaps her fellowservant on the box-to whom she might have given the signal? When Mademoiselle Clairon went a-shopping to the Rue St. Honoré, she probably had her maid with her, A more recent story is that of the 'Stock- either in or outside the carriage; and, indeed, well Ghost,' which forms the subject of a in every instance the noises took place when volume published in 1772, and is shortly told the maid would most probably have been by Mr. Hone in the first volume of his 'Every present, or close at hand. In regard to the Day Book.' Mrs. Golding, an elderly lady unearthly cry, she might easily have proresiding at Stockwell, in Surrey, had her duced it herself without any great skill in house disturbed by portents, which not only ventriloquism, or the art of imitating sounds; terrified her and her family, but spread alarm a supposition which is rendered the more through the vicinity. Strange noises were probable, as its realisation was rendered the heard proceeding from empty parts of the more easy, by the fact of no words having house, and heavy articles of furniture, glass been uttered-merely a wild cry. Most of and earthenware, were thrown down and the common itinerant ventriloquists on our broken in pieces before the eyes of the family and neighbours. Mrs. Golding, driven by terror from her own dwelling, took refuge, first in one neighbouring house, and then in another, and thither the prodigies followed her. It was observed that her maid-servant, The noises resembling the report of fireAnn Robinson, was always present when these arms (very likely to have been unconsciously, things took place, either in Mrs. Golding's and in perfect good faith, exaggerated by the own house, or in those of the neighbours. This terror of the hearers) may have been progirl, who had lived only about a week with duced by a confederate fellow-servant, or a her mistress, became the subject of mistrust lover. It is to be observed, that the first and was dismissed, after which the distur-time this seeming report was heard, the bances entirely ceased. But the matter rested houses opposite were guarded by the police, on mere suspicion. Scarcely any one,' says and spies were placed in the street, but MaMr. Hone, who lived at that time listened demoiselle Clairon's own house was merely patiently to the presumption, or without attri-examined.' It is evident that these prebuting the whole to witchcraft.' At length cautions, however effectual against a plot Mr. Hone himself obtained a solution of the conducted from without, could have no effect mystery from a gentleman who had become acquainted with Ann Robinson many years after the affair happened, and to whom she bad confessed that she alone had produced all these supernatural horrors, by fixing wires or horse-hairs to different articles, according as they were heavy or light, and thus throwing them down, with other devices equally simple, which the terror and confusion

whatever against tricks played within her house by one or more of her own servants.

As to the maid-servant's motives for engaging in this series of deceptions, many may have existed and been sufficiently strong; the lightest, which we shall state last, would probably be the strongest. She may have been in communication with M. de S's relations for some hidden purpose which