hair in her mouth. There was a slight scar on her shoulder,-the rabid des pair of famine had produced no farther outrage. He lay extended at his length, his hand was between his lips; it seemed as if he had not strength to execute the purpose for which he had brought it there. The bodies were brought out for interment. As we removed them into the light, the long hair of the female, falling over a face no longer disguised by the novice's dress, recalled a likeness I thought I could remember. I looked closer, she was my own sister, my only one, and I had heard her voice grow fainter and fainter. I had heard- -" and his own voice grew fainter-it ceased." Of this horrible complexion are Mr. Maturin's scenes: it is with difficulty one can read another page of such abomination. But he luxuriates in them. Only read the particulars of the murder of an obnoxious individual by a mob. "This tranquillity of resolved vengeance was the most direful indication of its never desisting till its purpose was accomplished. The last ring was broken-the last resister overcome. Amid yells like those of a thousand tigers, the victim was seized and dragged forth, grasping in both hands fragments of the robes of those he had clung to in vain, and holding them up in the impotence of despair. "The cry was hushed for a moment, as they felt him in their talons, and gazed on him with thirsty eyes. Then it was renewed, and the work of blood began. They dashed him to the earthtore him up again-flung him into the air-tossed him from hand to hand, as a bull gores the howling mastiff with horns right and left. Bloody, defaced, blackened with earth and battered with stones, he struggled and roared among them, tilla loud cry announced the hope 22 ATHENEUM VOL. 8. of a scene alike horrible to humanity, and disgraceful to civilization. The military strongly reinforced, came galloping on, and all the ecclesiastics, with torn habits and broken crucifixes, following fast in the rear, all eager in the cause of human nature-all on fire to prevent this base and barbarous disgrace to the name of Christianity and of human nature. "Alas! this interference only hastened the horrible catastrophe. There was but a shorter space for the multitude to work their furious will. I saw, I felt, but I cannot describe, the last moments of this horrible scene. Dragged from the mud and stones, they dashed a mangled lump of flesh right against the door of the house where I was. With his tongue hanging from his lacerated mouth like that of a baited bull; with one eye torn from the socket, and dangling on his bloody cheek; with a fracture in every limb, and a wound for every pore, he still howled for "life-life life-mercy!" till a stone, aimed by some pitying hand, struck him down. He fell, trodden in one moment into sanguine and discoloured mud by a thousand feet. The cavalry came on, charged with fury. The crowd, saturated with cruelty and blood, gave way in grim silence. But they had not left a joint in his little finger-a bair of his head-a slip of his skin. Had Spain mortgaged all her reliques from Madrid to Monserrat, from the Pyrenees to Gibralter, she could not have recovered the paring of a nail to canonize. The officer who headed the troop dashed his horse's hoofs into a bloody formless mass, and demanded, "Where was the victim?" He was answered, "Beneath your horse's feet:" and they departed." But we will defile our pages no more: our loathing is only increased by the consideration of the author's abilities. H THE PERCY ANECDOTES. ENTRANCING. From the Literary Gazette, Nov. 1820. IERONYMUS CARDANUS, of Milan, writes of himself, that he could pass as often as he pleased into such an ecstacy, as only to have a soft hearing of the words of such as spoke to him, but not any understanding of them. Nor at such times was he in the least sensible of any bodily pain; though troubled with the gout, he felt none of its twitches or pullings. The beginning of the transition was first in the head, and thence it spread all down to the back bone. At first be could find a sort of separation from the heart, as if the soul was departing; and this was communicated to the whole body, "as if a door opened." He adds, that he saw all that he desired with his eyes, and that images of whatever he wished to summon before him, woods, mountains, living creatures, &c. appeared distinctly.* Cardanus ascribes this extraordinary faculty to an extreme vivacity of imagination; but something more seems required to account for it. He had probably, in his physical organization, some share of the same transitive power which has, in later times, "been so memorably exemplified in the case of Colonel Townshend, thus related by Dr. Cheyne. "Colonel Townshend, a gentleman of honour and integrity, had for many years been afflicted with a nephritic complaint. His illness increasing, and his strength decaying, he came from Bristol to Bath in a litter, in autumn, and lay at the Bell Inn. Dr. Baynard and I (Dr. Cheyne) were called to him, and attended him twice a day; but his vomitings continuing still incessant and obstinate against all remedies, we despaired of his recovery. While he was in this condition, he sent for us one morning; we waited on him with Mr. Skrine, his apothecary. We found his senses clear, and his mind calm; his nurse and several servants were about him. He told us he had sent for us, to give him some account of an odd sensation he had for some time observ ed and felt in himself; which was, that, composing himself, he could die or expire when he pleased, and yet by an effort, or some how, he could come to life again: which he had sometimes tried before he sent for us. We heard this with surprise; but as it was not to be accounted for from common principles, we could hardly believe the fact as he related it, much less give any account of it; unless he should please to make the experiment before us, which we were unwilling he should do, lest, in his weak condition, he might carry it too far. He continued to talk very distinctly and sensibly, above a quarter of an hour, about this surprising sensation, and insisted so much on our seeing the trial made, that we were at last forced to comply. We all three felt his pulse first; it was distinct, though small and thready; and his heart had its usual beating. He composed himself on his back, and lay in a still posture some time; while I held his right hand, Dr. Baynard laid his hand on his heart, and Mr. Skrine held a clean looking glass to his mouth. I found his pulse sink gradually, till at, last I could not feel any, by the most exact and nice touch. Dr. Baynard could not feel the least motion in his heart, nor Mr.Skrine see the least soil of breath on the bright mirror he held to his mouth; then each of us, by turns, examined his arm, heart, and breath, but could not, by the nicest scrutiny, discov er the least symptom of life in him. We reasoned a long time about this odd appearance as well as we could, and all of us judging it inexplicable and unaccountable, and finding he still • We are acquainted with a remarkable living instance of this phenomenon, in the person of a not undistinguished artist.-Ed. continued in that condition, we began to conclude that he had indeed carried the experiment too far, and at last were satisfied he was actually dead, and were just ready to leave him. This continued about half an hour. As we were going away, we observed some motion about the body, and upon examination, found his pulse and the motion of his heart gradually return; he began to breathe gently, and speak softly; we were all astonished to the last degree at this unexpected change, and after some further conversation with him among ourselves, went away fully satisfied as to all the particulars of this fact, but confounded and puzzled, and not able to form any rational scheme that might account for it." PETER THE GREAT. Nothing was so much an object of antipathy to Peter the Great, as a black insect of the scarabeus, or beetle kind, which breeds in houses that are not kept clean, and especially in places where meal and other provisions are deposited. In the country, the walls and ceilings of the peasants' houses are covered with them, particularly in Russia, where they abound more than in any other part of the world. They are there called tarucan; but our naturalists give them the name of dissecting scarabeus. Although the Russian monarch was far from being subject to childish fears, or womanish fancies, one of these insects sufficed to drive him out of an apartment, nay, even out of the house. In his frequent journies in his own dominions, he never went into a house without having the apartments carefully swept by one of his own servants, and being assured that there were no taracans to fear. One day he paid a visit to an officer who stood pretty high in his esteem, at his country house, which was built of wood, at a little distance from Moscow. The Czar expressed his satisfaction at what was offered him, and with the or 66 The At the der he observed in the house. company sat down at table, and dinner was already begun, when he asked his If there were taracans in landlord, "Not many," replied the his house?" "and the officer, without reflecting; better to get rid of them, I have pinned a living one to the wall." same time he pointed to the place where the insect was pinned, and still continued to palpitate. Unfortunately it was just beside the Czar, in whom the unexpected sight of this object of his aversion produced so much emotion, that he rose instantly from table, gave the officer a violent blow, and left his house with all his attendants, A LEARNED DISCOVERY. Among the discoveries of the learned which have amused mankind, the following instance merits a conspicuous rank. Some years ago there were several large elin trees, in the College Garden, behind the Ecclesiastical Court, Doctor's Commons, in which a number of rooks had taken up their abode, forming in appearance a sort of convocation of aerial ecclesiastics. A young gentleman who lodged in an attic, and was their close neighbour, frequently entertained himself with thinning this covey of black game, by means of a cross-bow. On the opposite side lived a curious old civilian, who, observing from his study that the rooks often dropt senseless from their perch, no sign being made to his vision to account for the phenomenon, set his wits to work It was proba to consider the cause. bly during a profitless time of peace, and the doctor having plenty of leisure, weighed the matter over, till he was at length satisfied that he had made a great ornithological discovery. He actually wrote a treatise, stating circumstantially what he himself had seen, and in conclusion giving it as the settled conviction of his mind, that rooks were subject to epilepsy. IN MR. KEAN.* From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. N our last we promised to attempt a sketch of this actor. We now redeem our pledge. It either wells and murmurs forth in a continuous and musical stream of love, as in the milder parts of Othello,—or gushes out in interrupted sobs of grief and disappointment, as in Richard II. -or boils, and bursts, and thunders along in one overwhelming torrent of rage and revenge, as in the last act of Sir Giles Overreach, or alternately, and almost coincidently, takes all these forms, as in the third act of Othello,or more terrible than all, becomes fixed and frozen up by remorse, as immediately after the murder of Macbeth. Never was so entire a revolution wrought in so short a space of time, by one person, as that which has just been effected by Mr. Kean in the art of acting. A revolution which is the more extraordinary, from its having happened quite unconsciously and unintentionally on the part of its creator, and quite unexpectedly to every one else; and yet one, the foundations of which cannot but be laid in the immutable truth of nature, because it has been instantly, and at once, hailed with an universal burst of delight and sympathy, from all sorts and conditions of people,-all, except the insignificant few, whose petty interests, or still pettier envies, prevent them from feeling rightly,or from choos ing to express their right feelings. We speak of this revolution as already brought about, for it is so in fact, though not in effect. The school of acting which Mr. Kean has established, exists at present in his own person on-is ly; but its practice and principles are now so firmly fixed in the feelings and understandings of those who are its judges, that they cannot, at least in the present generation, be very far departed from. Any attempt to supersede that practice, or those principles by such as obtained seven years ago, would be received now, just as an attempt to supersede the plays of Shakspeare would, by translations from those of Racine. To come more immediately to the characteristics of Mr. Kean's genius, the most remarkable feature of it is Passion -Passion in all its power and in all its weakness-in its heights and its depths -its temples and its dungeons. In his breast there seems to exist an inexhaustible spring of passion, which adapts itself in a most extraordinary manner to all the calls that are made upon it. Passion seems to be the very food, the breath, the vital principle, of his mental existence. He adapts himself to all its forms, detects its most delicate shades, follows it through all its windings and blendings, pierces to its most secret recesses. In his mind's kingdom passion holds "sovereign sway and mastery." It commands all the powers it finds there, and compels them to its bidding. It "reigns there and revels.” Mr. Kean's passion is as various as it natural and true. It shapes itself to all forms and characters, and shapes all forms and characters to itself; and yet always preserves its own. It delights in contrasts, and flies from one to another with marvellous rapidity; yet never loses itself by the way. It seems also to have no predilection for one form or condition more than another, but whatever it is at the moment, it is that wholly and exclusively. If he has to express love, his whole soul seems to cling to the being on whom he gazes-his eye swims-his voice melts and trembles-his very existence seems concentrated, and ready to be breathed forth in one full sigh of silent delight; and when at last he speaks, the words fall from his lips as if they were the smallest part of what he would express. And in all this there is no shew no endeavour no pretence; for [This well-written article will be found interesting at the present moment, and perhaps contribute to a due appreciation of the talents of Mr. Kean on the American boards, although some little time has elapsed since its publication at Edinburgh.] real love is the most unpretending thing in the world, the most quiet, the most able to repose upon itself, and the most willing to do so. On the other hand, if it is his cue to hate, it is scarcely possible to imagine yourself looking at and listening to the same person. His eyes glare-his teeth grind against each other -his voice is broken and hoarse-his hands clench and open alternately, as if they were revelling in the blood of his enemy-and his whole frame seems to have imbibed the will and the powers of a demon. This extraordinary actor's delineation of all the other passions possess alike a force, a truth, and a distinctness, which render them absolutely perfect. He lays before us a portrait of the human heart, in all its beauty, and in all its deformity; and the picture must be a likeness, because it is instantly recognised. Next to Mr. Kean's unrivalled power of expressing passion, is that which he possesses in an almost equal degree, of depicting those extraordinary exhibitions of mental force-of moral will almost entirely dissevered from the bodily senses, which Shakspeare alone has given us. Such, for instance, as Richard III. and Iago. In these he becomes, as the characters themselves are, almost wholly mind ;-and yet so mysteriously connected with, and symbolized by, bodily expression, as never to become too attenuated for our touch -never too rarefied for our sight. We perpetually feel its operations to be those of a power to which we have a certain degree of kindred, but not a sufficiently near one to make us painfully interested in its joys or sorrows-its success or failure. We watch its movements, inore as a matter of curiosity than of sympathy, for we are satisfied, that whatever may be the causes or the consequences of those movements we are beyond their reach, if not out of their sphere. The manner in which Mr. Kean gives these kind of characters is very striking. Into most of his parts he is apt to throw a superabundance of intellect, so that they are sometimes thinking, when they ought to be feeling, -but in these there cannot be too much. His conceptions, too, with whatever rapidity they may follow each other, are embodied with such vividness and precision, that they cannot be mistaken or overlooked; and they never seem strained or superfluous, on account of their perpetual variety, and the perfect ease and unconsciousness which always accompany them. It is in these characters, more than in any others (and we allude particularly to Richard III.), that Mr. Kean displays that sustained and sustaining vigour of thought, —that intense mental energy, which is another of his characteristics; and which pervades all his performances, in a greater or less degree. This it is which enables him to point a home truth with such cutting severity, and steep a sarcasm in such alloyed bitterness. This it is which makes his eyes strike like basilisks, and his words pierce like daggers. This it is which gives such endless variety, and appropriateness, and beauty, to the expression of his face and action. Indeed, Mr. Kean's look and attitude are at all times precisely such as a consummate painter would assign to the particular situation and character in which they occur; and this, not because he studies to make them so, but because the operation of the mind and senses, when they are real and intense, are always accompanied by correspondent bodily expression. It is a law of our nature that this should be the case; and, accordingly, look and action are among the certain criteria by which to judge of the truth and strength of a performer's feelings and conceptions. Another remarkable feature of Mr. Kean's acting is, that notwithstanding the immense variety of his powers, there is always a perfect unity of purpose among them, there is, if we may use the expression, an understanding between them. They always preserve their distinctness and identity, yet never jostle and disturb each other, but blend with, and adapt themselves to, that one among them, which circumstances require to take the lead. He reads a character over-forms a certain conception of it-and then throws his |