He A deep groan burst from Vivenzio. over what was to come, or talking aloud stood, like one transfixed, with dilated eyes, in disordered speech, of his wrongs, of his expanded nostrils, and quivering lips, gazing friends, of his home, and of those he loved, at this fatal inscription. It was as if a voice with a confused mingling of all. In this from the sepulchre had sounded in his ears, pitiable condition, the sixth and last morning "Prepare!" Hope forsook him. There dawned upon Vivenzio, if dawn it might be was his sentence, recorded in those dismal called-the dim, obscure light which faintly words. The future stood unveiled before struggled through the one solitary window of him, ghastly and appalling. His brain his dungeon. He could hardly be said to already feels the descending horror-his notice the melancholy token. And yet he bones seem to crack and crumble in the did notice it; for as he raised his eyes and saw mighty grasp of the iron walls! Unknow the portentous sign, there was a slight coning what it is he does, he fumbles in his vulsive distortion of his countenance. But garment for some weapon of self-destruction. what did attract his notice, and at the sight He clenches his throat in his convulsive of which his agitation was excessive, was gripe, as though he would strangle himself the change his iron bed had undergone. at once. He stares upon the walls, and his It was a bed no longer. It stood before warring spirit demands, "Will they not him, the visible semblance of a funeral couch anticipate their office if I dash my head or bier! When he beheld this, he started against them?" An hysterical laugh chokes from the ground; and, in raising himself, him as he exclaims, "Why should I? He suddenly struck his head against the roof, was but a man who died first in their fierce which was now so low that he could no embrace; and I should be less than man longer stand upright. "God's will be not to do as much!" done!" was all he said, as he crouched his body, and placed his hand upon the bier; for such it was. The iron bedstead had been so contrived, by the mechanical art of Ludovico Sforza, that as the advancing walls came in contact with its head and feet, a pressure was produced upon concealed springs, which, when made to play, set in motion a very simple though ingeniously contrived machinery, that effected the transformation. The object was, of course, to heighten, in the closing scene of this horrible drama, all the feelings of despair and anguish, which the preceding ones had aroused. The evening sun was descending, and Vivenzio beheld its golden beams streaming through one of the windows. As he gazed, long and earnestly, it seemed as if the windows had lowered sufficiently for him to reach them. With one bound he was beneath them-with one wild spring he clung to the bars. Whether it was so contrived, purposely to madden with delight the wretch who looked, he knew not; but, at the extremity of a long vista, cut through the solid rocks, the ocean, the sky, the setting sun, olive groves, shady walks, and, in the farthest distance, delicious glimpses of magnificent Sicily, burst upon his sight. How exquisite was the cool breeze as it swept across his cheek, loaded with fragrance! He inhaled it as though it were the breath of continued life. And there was a freshness in the landscape, and in the rippling of the calm green sea, that fell upon his withering heart like dew upon the parched earth. How he gazed, and panted, and still clung to his hold! sometimes hanging by one hand, sometimes by the other, and then grasping the bars with both, as loath to quit the smiling paradise outstretched before him; till exhausted, and his hands swollen and benumbed, he dropped helpless down, and lay stunned for a considerable time by the fall. Vivenzio seated himself on his bier. Then he knelt and prayed fervently; and sometimes tears would gush from him. The air seemed thick, and he breathed with difficulty; or it might be that he fancied it was so, from the hot and narrow limits of his dungeon, which were now so diminished that he could neither stand up nor lie down at his full length. The tolling of an enormous bell struck upon the ears of Vivenzio! He started. It beat but once. The sound was so close and stunning, that it seemed to shatter his very brain, while it echoed through the rocky passages like reverberating peals of thunder. This was followed by a sudden crash of the roof and walls, as if they were When he recovered, the glorious vision about to fall upon and close around him had vanished. He was in darkness. During at once. Vivenzio screamed, and inthe whole night, his mind was sunk in a stinctively spread forth his arms, as though stupor like one who had been drugged with he had a giant's strength to hold them back. opium. He was equally insensible to the They had moved nearer to him, and were calls of hunger and of thirst, though the third now motionless. Vivenzio looked up, and day was now commencing since even a drop saw the roof almost touching his head, even of water had passed his lips. He remained as he sat cowering beneath it; and he felt on the ground, sometimes sitting, some- that a farther contraction of but a few times lying; at intervals, sleeping heavily; inches only must commence the frightful and when not sleeping, silently brooding operation. Roused as he had been, he now now so gasped for breath. His body shook violently -he was bent nearly double. His hands rested on either wall, and his feet were drawn under him to avoid the pressure in front. Thus he remained for more than an hour, when that deafening bell beat again, and again there came the crash of horrid death. But the concussion was great that it struck Vivenzio down. As he lay gathered up in lessened bulk, the bell tolled loud and frequent-crash succeeded crash-and on, and on, and ou came the mysterious engine of death, till Vivenzio's smothered groans were heard no more ! He was horribly crushed by the ponderous roof and collapsing sides—and the flattened bier was his Iron Shroud. He'd find another pun, Hid in the small and secret cells Of most impracticable syllables, Just like a nun ! And when he wished to give us raps, He put his puns, like children, in SMALL CAPS! To him no dactyle ever came amiss, And spondees were his bliss. For every joke a plot was laid That of itself appeared the work of ages; And for each pun a train was laid That, like a king's, employed a dozen pages. Yet ah! with all his weight of worth, His witty things he seldom spoke, From the British Magazine-No. VII. On Messrs. Longman and Co. "Under this slab, the largest Stonehenge could afford, Are deposited the multitudinous remains of Messis. Longman, Rees, Orme, and Green, once of Paternoster Row Distance alone prevented their interment in the Cathedral at Rheims. Linked together during life, there has been no dissolution of partnership in death, all being sleeping partners in the same concern. In an age renowned for frequent prosecutions, no attorney-general ever ventured to attack them, on account of their numbers. After publishing a list of volumes sufficient to have educated all the negroes, and the Common Council of London, More than a milliou Scotts could have written, or an unlimited number of Parrs and Porsons could have read, they fell victims to a monster (whose march was more extraordinary than Na paleon's) named Intellect, by whose means so much intuitive knowledge was speedily disseminated, that men became too wise to read, literature was voted unfashionable, and books were no longer required. These voluminous aud distinguished persons died of a broken heart each, in the year 1850." On Rogers. "By Plutus and Apollo taught to soar, And in mellifluous notes his hoarsest thunder rolled." On Sir H. Halford. "Pause! for a knight is mouldering here, Without whom thrones could scarcely thrive; Who felt the pulse of every peer, Yet hath not left his peer alive. "No vulgar patient e'er had he, He lulled no low-born sufferer's woe; Kings were his subjects; and his fee Provoked a 'fie' from every foe. ""Twas his to stand by royal beds And rob the fever of its fuel; To raise right honourable heads, And strengthen dukes with water gruel. "Yet sure must he have had some trials "How could he say, with sober mien, 'Your Grace,' to one who had the gout? Or call his highness still Serene,' Who in a fever writhed about? t "His bulletins, most sad and serious, Begot in learned consultation, Were samples of the style mysterious, So innocent of information. "And often when-while out of sight Was kept the patients' true conditionHe spoke of an indifferent night,' It meant (some fancied) the physician. "He might have been a peer, retrieving SEDATIVE EFFECTS OF THE excitement kept unabated for twenty-four hours, the second night passed in constant vigilance, locomotion, and mental excitement, and it seemed probable that excitation so intense, protracted, and unremitting, must soon lapse into delirium or convulsions. At this time, the morning of the third day (the second of my attendance), he began the use of the fresh web in pills of five grains every hour. Its effect was prompt and unequivocal. The patient spoke emphatically, both the first and second day, of the soothing influence produced by the pills. He was not at the time informed of their composition. THE GENTLE STREAM! THE HAPPY the greenwood strays! How many thoughts are link'd with it, of early golden days! When by its winding course I roam'd, and twined its simple flowers, A joyous, thoughtless, merry heart, in childhood's rosy hours! O! what would I not give once more upon its bank to be, THE web of the black spider has received commendation from many respectable sources, as a sedative agent, capable of calming, with peculiar ease and certainty; THE gentle stream! the happy stream! that through morbid excitability of the cerebral and nervous systems. On the credit of those qualities it has been employed in the various forms of temulence, and not without a share of reputed success sufficient to entitle it to consideration in that state of constitutional irritation. In the summer of 1827 we tried this article in many cases, and in full doses. To test its qualities it was given, where the state of the patient admitted, uncombined with opiates. When thus used, its effects were generally partial or doubtful, and its powers inadequate to the production of tranquillity or sleep. In one case only have I found this substance to exert great or decided sedative attributes. This was the case of an intelligent young man (in private practice), who, after consuming, by his own report, three quarts of brandy in thirty-six hours, fell into a state of temulent excitation so excessive, that he was incapable of keeping a recumbent or even a sitting posture for more than a minute, but paced his chamber with a ceaseless step for two days and nights. He was not delirious: on the contrary, his conversation was rational, though hurried and vehement. But he was so far under the influence of spectral hallucination, that if he closed his eyes for a moment, day or night, he was instantly visited by a host of phantoms of frightful aspect; hence chiefly his aversion to lie down, or make any voluntary effort to sleep. This patient took opium, opium with camphor, and black drop, at short intervals, and in full doses, until the quantum of opiate approached the utmost limit of probable safe administration, without even partial relief of constitutional irritation, or any apparent proneness to sleep. The temulent From the London Medical Gazette.. A wanderer by its waters blue, as careless and as free! The gentle stream! the happy stream! that through How many a tear has dimm'd my eye, how many a Across my brow, since on its breast I fondly look'd my last! How many rainbows youth calls forth, how many hopes I burst, Like bells that float upon its tide, have glanced since then and burst! |