The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 358, February 28, 1829

CRIME IN PARIS

Vidocq, in his Memoires, relates, that in 1817, with twelve agents or subordinate officers, he effected in Paris the number of arrests which he thus enumerates:—

WITNESSES

The protracted proceedings of our criminal courts are productive of one serious evil, which we have never seen noticed. Domestic servants, and others who appear as witnesses, must frequently wait, day after day, in the court-yard and avenues, or in the adjacent public-houses, until the cases on which they have been subpoenaed are called for trial. During these intervals they converse and become acquainted with others in attendance, a large proportion of whom are generally friends or associates of the prisoners. It is thus that the most dangerous intimacies have been formed; and many instances have occurred where servants, who have been seen in the courts as witnesses for a prosecution, have soon afterwards appeared there as prisoners.

YOU'LL COME TO OUR BALL

"Comment! c'est lui?—que je le regarde encore!—c'est que vraiment il est bien changé; n'est pas, mon papa?"—

Les premiers Amours

.

You'll come to our Ball—since we parted,

I've thought of you, more than I'll say;

Indeed, I was half broken-hearted,

For a week, when they took you away.

Fond Fancy brought back to my slumbers

Our walks on the Ness and the Den,

And echoed the musical numbers

Which you used to sing to me then.

I know the romance, since it's over,

'Twere idle, or worse, to recall:—

I know you're a terrible rover:

But, Clarence,—you'll come to our Ball!

It's only a year, since at College

You put on your cap and your gown;

But, Clarence, you're grown out of knowledge,

And chang'd from the spur to the crown:

The voice that was best when it faltered

Is fuller and firmer in tone;

And the smile that should never have altered,—

Dear Clarence,—it is not your own:

Your cravat was badly selected,

Your coat don't become you at all;

And why is your hair so neglected?

You

must

 have it curled for our Ball.

I've often been out upon Haldon,

To look for a covey with Pup:

I've often been over to Shaldon,

To see how your boat is laid up:

In spite of the terrors of Aunty,

I've ridden the filly you broke;

And I've studied your sweet, little Dante,

In the shade of your favourite oak:

When I sat in July to Sir Lawrence,

I sat in your love of a shawl;

And I'll wear what you brought me from Florence,

Perhaps, if you'll come to our Ball.

You'll find us all changed since you vanished:

We've set up a National School,

And waltzing is utterly banished—

And Ellen has married a fool—

The Major is going to travel—

Miss Hyacinth threatens a rout—

The walk is laid down with fresh gravel—

Papa is laid up with the gout:

And Jane has gone on with her easels,

And Anne has gone off with Sir Paul;

And Fanny is sick of the measles,—

And I'll tell you the rest at the Ball.

You'll meet all your Beauties;—the Lily,

And the Fairy of Willowbrook Farm,

And Lucy, who made me so silly

At Dawlish, by taking your arm—

Miss Manners, who always abused you,

For talking so much about Hock—

And her sister who often amused you,

By raving of rebels and Rock;

And something which surely would answer,

A heiress, quite fresh from Bengal—

So, though you were seldom a dancer,

You'll dance, just for once, at our Ball.

But out on the world!—from the flowers

It shuts out the sunshine of truth;

It blights the green leaves in the bowers,

It makes an old age of our youth:

And the flow of our feeling, once in it,

Like a streamlet beginning to freeze,

Though it cannot turn ice in a minute,

Grows harder by sullen degrees—

Time treads o'er the grave of Affection;

Sweet honey is turned into gall.

Perhaps you have no recollection

That ever you danced at our Ball.

You once could be pleased with our ballads—

To-day you have critical ears:

You once could be charmed with our salads—

Alas! you've been dining with Peers—

You trifled and flirted with many–

You've forgotten the when and the how—

There was

one

 you liked better than any—

Perhaps you've forgotten

her

 now.

But of those you remember most newly,

Of those who delight or enthrall,

None love you a quarter so truly

As some you will find at our Ball.

They tell me you've many who flatter,

Because of your wit and your song—

They tell me (and what does it matter?)

You like to be praised by the throng—

They tell me you're shadowed with laurel,

They tell me you're loved by a Blue—

They tell me you're sadly immoral,

Dear Clarence,

that

 cannot be true!

But to me you are still what I found you

Before you grew clever and tall—

And you'll think of the spell that once bound you—

And you'll come—

won't

 you come?—to our Ball!

London Magazine.

PARTY

Two dogs cannot worry one another in the streets without instantly forming each his party among the crowd; much more then does the principle apply to higher contests.

The Anecdote Gallery

MOLIERE

At the town of Pezénas they still show an elbow-chair of Molière's (as at Montpelier they show the gown of Rabelais,) in which the poet, it is said, ensconced in a corner of a barber's shop, would sit for the hour together, silently watching the air, gestures, and grimaces of the village politicians, who, in those days, before coffee-houses were introduced into France, used to congregate in this place of resort. The fruits of this study may be easily discerned in those original draughts of character from the middling and lower classes with which his pieces everywhere abound.

Molière's celebrated farce of

Les Précieuses Ridicules

; a piece in only one act, but which, by its inimitable satire, effected such a revolution in the literary taste of his countrymen, as has been accomplished by few works of a more imposing form—may be considered as the basis of the dramatic glory of Molière, and the dawn of good comedy in France. The satire aimed at a coterie of wits who set themselves up as arbiters of taste and fashion, and was welcomed with enthusiastic applause, most of them being present at the first exhibition, to behold the fine fabric, which they had been so painfully constructing, brought to the ground by a single blow. "And these follies," said Ménage to Chapelin, "which you and I see so finely criticised here, are what we have been so long admiring. We must go home and burn our idols." "Courage, Molière," cried an old man from the pit; "this is genuine comedy." The price of the seats was doubled from the time of the second representation. Nor were the effects of the satire merely transitory. It converted an epithet of praise into one of reproach; and a

femme precieuse

, a

style precieux

, a

ton precieux

, once so much admired, have ever since been used only to signify the most ridiculous affectation. There was, in truth, however, quite as much luck as merit, in this success of Molière; whose production exhibits no finer raillery, or better sustained dialogue, than are to be found in many of his subsequent pieces. It assured him, however, of his own strength, and disclosed to him the mode in which he should best hit the popular taste. "I have no occasion to study Plautus or Terence any longer," said he, "I must henceforth, study the world." The world accordingly was his study; and the exquisite models of character which it furnished him, will last as long as it shall endure.

Though an habitual valetudinarian, Molière relied almost wholly on the temperance of his diet for the reestablishment of his health. "What use do you make of your physician?" said the king to him one day. "We chat together, Sire," said the poet. "He gives me his prescriptions; I never follow them; and so I get well."

In Molière's time, the profession of a comedian was but lightly esteemed in France at this period. Molière experienced the inconveniences resulting from this circumstance, even after his splendid literary career had given him undoubted claims to consideration. Most of our readers no doubt, are acquainted with the anecdote of Belloc, an agreeable poet of the court, who, on hearing one of the servants in the royal household refuse to aid the author of the

Tartuffe

 in making the king's bed, courteously requested "the poet to accept his services for that purpose." Madame Campan's anecdote of a similar courtesy, on the part of Louis the Fourteenth, is also well known; who, when several of these functionaries refused to sit at table with the comedian, kindly invited him to sit down with him, and, calling in some of his principal courtiers, remarked that "he had requested the pleasure of Molière's company at his own table, as it was not thought quite good enough for his officers." This rebuke had the desired effect.

Molière died in 1673, he had been long affected by a pulmonary complaint, and it was only by severe temperance that he was enabled to preserve even a moderate degree of health. At the commencement of the year, his malady sensibly increased. At this very season, he composed his

Malade Imaginaire

; the most whimsical, and perhaps the most amusing of the compositions, in which he has indulged his raillery against the faculty. On the 17th of February, being the day appointed for its fourth representation, his friends would have dissuaded him from appearing, in consequence of his increasing indisposition. But he persisted in his design, alleging "that more than fifty poor individuals depended for their daily bread on its performance." His life fell a sacrifice to his benevolence. The exertions which he was compelled to make in playing the principal part of

Argan

 aggravated his distemper, and as he was repeating the word

juro

, in the concluding ceremony, he fell into a convulsion, which he vainly endeavoured to disguise from the spectators under a forced smile. He was immediately carried to his house, in the

Rue de Richelieu

, now No. 34. A violent fit of coughing, on his arrival, occasioned the rupture of a blood-vessel; and seeing his end approaching, he sent for two ecclesiastics of the parish of St. Eustace, to which he belonged, to administer to him the last offices of religion. But these worthy persons having refused their assistance, before a third, who had been sent for, could arrive, Molière, suffocated with the effusion of blood, had expired in the arms of his family.

Molière died soon after entering upon his fifty-second year. He is represented to have been somewhat above the middle stature, and well proportioned; his features large, his complexion dark, and his black, bushy eye-brows so flexible, as to admit of his giving an infinitely comic expression to his physiognomy. He was the best actor of his own generation, and by his counsels, formed the celebrated Baron, the best of the succeeding. He played all the range of his own cha