The National Register. — London, England, 1822-12-02 00:00:00

THE.' HOUSEKEEPER. (Film tie Mussenn.) Home has well remarked that every thing belonging to a vain man is the best alt t is any where to be found ; his houses, equipage, lurnitnre, fltc. excel all others.— Isis wine is the best that can possibly be drank ;--his horses, dogs, and Servants are matchless. Does he change his situation voluntarily I The change is always for the bent r. Is he apivitard to fill any office I That office is themost Important and eligible that can be held. , Every thing goes well with him. Its short, your vain man is your trite optimist; he is in tile best of all pos . aible states, in this best of all possible %otitis. When any change Sit the situation of a man of this kind occurs, im as to throw him into a new light. and make him fancy litnisell invested with a new character, Itts increase of sell.conseqnetice is beyond measure lu dicrous. He is like a boy just lereectied. a young girl an a new gown, a young lawyer in a new wig, a magpie with his red boots, a recently cleard knight of the Go elphic order, or any thing clse that you can conceive superlatively ridiculous ;—tie is all pucker, fume, and fudge;—he wraps himself up in mysterious majesty. and dignity ineffable and unintelligible. My worthy .rientl. Mull liaise, was exactly a man of this character. Every one who knew Mutt could tell . the exact state of his citcanlstances by his looks and manners. His face was a batons: ter by which you might always measure the lc mperature 01 his pocket. As the latter was high or low, so was the former. His coon . teiiance rose tie fell as his purse waxed {lglu or heavy, though to do bins justste, as long as lie had a farthing, his assurance never fell below Z:ro. - Any change fur the better, ill Alun's circumstances, always threw him up an aim...siting number uts A p a i r of new boots in .tie him look three incites taller, though the heel was:es flat as a pancake. At one time, when linen was rasher a desideratum in his wardrobe, a • clean sisin wasofien wish his: tic pfUXIIIIaIe cause of no small inflation. 1-1:. 11CC/Ille es starched and stiff as h.s olli.r, lint eratits..!iy relaxed as the collar grew more bosh. • 7 o s..ts .tins take a hackney coach seas a big!, scene. .1 hr 1111:4 roll! summons to the coacs man, the pus-evil nos and autisoritative direction, the mock digitc wills whir., be ell-t red the coach, nit popping of Isis :semi nut of, , lie window, and stopping . the tinter under some fr;volous pretext, and filially his pompous are••:atiais ton, itisig the late—sall this was calf xl . Ecru Sit Ins low.st. circumetances Muss pte served satsni (kg' , e ft' cotisequence ; but this colt quence he or as:oaal.y encattinteted souse severe and rude sbocks. 7 iie eta r of his exchequer osier ren dered it ex:le:heist ti.at tie aimujil occupy the most classic aparimein of a domicile w a remelt situanott. lie tirade a fuitlii r franc ion n. pis exptlithiure, by abolish- Ang the office o; was:.erwrinsan in his establishment. (almost a sitmeitrs), and perf.irming the dunes of that post liiiiireff. Otte day win.. hi^ was thus engaged on a shirt, the stel.cati state of whim rendered its ablution nearly as ittificts!i a per( : n ice as the unrolling of an lierculanests inaisuscrip:, be cast his eyes upwards, and beheld, dieresis user inc head, his young mistress sur veying attentively, slirougl. the sky-light, the whole of this i ngen i o us opt ration. It is easier to conceive than to describe his cmilosion. The soap dropped (ruin his benumbed band, and, as lie afterwards confessed to a confidential foetid, he limpid himself sisterly incapable of wringing out the chemise I Brighter clays, however, awaited Alun. Ile was a gooti•kruking fellow, and his manners amongst w 111 l en were rather prepossessing. A widow fell in love with hilts. She was, to be sure old enough to be his mother, tall ..s a poplar, sofas a ramrod, and thin as a i p handle. The young anatomist would have found in her considerable facilities for the prosecution of his study.— Without removusg the cells, he might. by the inspec tion of such a subject, have acquanited himself with almost the entire of osteology. Add to theii, that she was an old coquette, and as lull of affectation, pomp, and vanity, as NI sin Il i 11l sel. But then she hail 3001. a year, and this to Mun was the wealth of Cicesus. Mun now shot qp most prodigiously. Though in corporal measurement he was but five feet five inches awl a half,' in soul he was thirty feet high.' I doubt notch whether, lor six weeks after his marriage, he would have given the wall to the slowest of the Grena dier Guards. Nothing WAS to be heard from him now, but • My wife, Mrs. B." 96t estate,' bank debentures,' stock,' Jife annuity,' BEr:. •in short, his sell-import. aIICC becameso excessive, that we all thought it could admit of no further increase. The event, however, proved that we were mistaken. In the course of his rambles our day his evil genius direc:ed his steps to a certain street in Westminster.— Here he saw a home to be let furnished.' 11.• imme diately pops in, and enquires the tent, which was 2801. per annum. He galloped over the whole house, from cellar to cocklult, and trout cockloft down again to the cellar. He poked his nose into etery hole and corner. gave a learned di.sertation on fixtures and aspects, talked of his own isnme.nse landed property, his wife's tremen dous fortune in die funds, the %as( antiquity of his fatuity, his own intimate connection with men of the highest rank, and coneluded with a peroration on gas, ,aspiorhicts. and dumb waiters. He left the landlady Willi the impression that he was a mous:rout clever man, as rich as Rothschild, and if nut a Loot, at the very least a Baronet. As Mutt walked home lie occupied himsclf with re. Lcting profoundly on the sast increase of consequence that would accrue to him, from being a housekeeper.- 1 lie result of his nwchtations was, that a houseeper he wat determined to be by hook or by crook. IVheti Mun irturned.lionie, lie communicated his project to Madan, Jilaise--etilarged out the importance conferred by the character of a houstkeeper. The rent, my love, said hr,' is 2801. ; we can let the lodgings, our being house. keo.pr rs will give us unlimited credit, and we may un questionably manage matters so as to increase our in ct tme, and imoke an addition to our pocket-money.' To all this ❑u:hvn; could Lao opposed; Madam 1./ :tie* ac- THE NATIONAL REGISTER quiesced of coarse ; and the house in street was immediately taken. Behold Mun now at the very summit of his ambition. —lle was at last aivousekeeper, and a housekeeper with hint was an epitonteot all human dignity. His wife was not less inflated than himself by this new honour, and they both displayed in their ordinary deportment the very essence of turkey.cockistu. Pour Alum 1 I shall never forget the fist visit I paid hint after his instalment —1 gave my name to the servant, who went up stairs, and having delayed for five minutes Caine down anJ showed me into a parlour, stating that Mr. liaise was just theta busily employed in his 'wily, but would he happy to receive me in a few minutes. Alter a while she Caine in again, and apo!ogised 'Or haying ohuwn we into a room without a fire, and requested me to walk tutu the opposite parlour. 1 complied, swilling within myself at tins ingenious piece of ostentation. Soon after she came and ushered ins up to Mr. Blaise's study.— 'I here 1 found Nluti in a red night-cap, a large account book open before him, his left hand under his jaw, and in an attitude of the most intense theatrical abstraction 'My dear friend,' said he, starting up. ' I beg ten mil lion pardons; but this business of housekeeping does so ebsorb the iniud. It is indeed a great bore; but there are relative duties in every situation in tile, which nitre be discharged with exactness. I find it necessary to its. spect my accounts daily, and balance my books myself. —This is incumbent on every housekeeper. I find my duties becoming extremely burdensome-1 have to attend a yew ry to day at one o'clock, and shall be obliged to-morrow to sit on a coroner's inquest; very unpleaswat —wish I could get off—taut can't, you know, as I ant a housekeeper. Thus he ran on, pretendaig to lament what was evidently 3 matter of the greatest triumph to his vanity. Mrs. Blaise now made her appearance, de. dared that indisposition had confined her the whole morning to her 6uudeir, , and asked us into the drawing room. There I had to undergo a long lecture on the pleasures and pains, the duties and responsibilities of housekeeping. conduct, during most part of the time he te nanted this house, nas indescribably absurd. lie talked of nothing but his house in D-- street. Ilia town house. .1 tie repairs necessary in his house, &c. If you asked him to dine at any particular hour, he could not come, :or just turn lie had an appoititment at his own house. lie would quit a party at ten o'clock, because housekeepers must set an example of keeping good hours; fur his part he alwa‘s kept his own house gene regular. Dawning with a strange gentleman at a cotlee house, he cried out Do you know, Sir, that 1 am a house keeper? end one day he dragged me into a boot.inaker's shop and called the man 01) trout his dinner to enquire his terms in dealing with housekeepers ! flowerer, pleasure cannot last—Must's Elysium was soon to vanish. The reader may easily anticipate the sequel. The rent swallowed up his income, he gained no lodgers, and the unfortunate housekeeper was con ducted to prison, for the debts lie had contracted in the lofty character he had been vainly .attempting to sustain. Thus Alto), Ike Julius Caesar, paid the penalty of his ambition ; as the one lost his ht., so the other lost his liberty. lie might have lived hapdily as a lodger. but aspiring to be a inne.ekeeper, he became a prisoner— Aspiring to be Gods if angels fell, Aspiring to be angels men rebel. Elisabeth Tomlinson, %Au was lately committed to our *minty gaol (Staffordshire), charged with the wilful murder of her husband, by poison, died on Thursday evening last (21st inst.) She was infected with jaundice, and confined to ber bed when the unnatural crime was perpetrated. During Ler short confinement, she was regularly attended by the county Surgeon, but her complaint was not to be subdued by medical skill. To the exhortations of the clergyman the wretched woman manifested great holitterence, and observed, that " she wanted neither doctors nor parsons ;" but to the last moments of her existence she asserted her innocence of the crime with which she was charged. An inquest was held oil ber body yesterday, when the Coroner's Jury came to the una nimous conclusion that she " died by the visitation of God." She was upwards of fifty years of aga—her ill-used husband nearly seventy- Awaut CATASTItoPHE.—We have been favoured with the perusal of a letter from a gentletuan near Kenmore, which gives the following accanot of a most melancholy and awful circum stance in that noighbourhood :—" I have now to give y oil an account of a most melancholy event that took place lucre to day :—I was going up to Stieem fair, (county Kerry, lielund,) about two o'clock, and just near the turn up to the Glebe met Dr. Sullivan. He passed me by, and as there was • heavy shower coining on, I ran on and got into a house at !Minim'. I had not been there more than two minutes when I saw one of the brightest flashes of lightning that I ever beheld, which was immediately followed by a most tremendous clap of thunder ; and in a few inioutes after some one passed by, saying, that a man had been killed near the Priest's Louse. I ran down there and SAW tile pour Hinter stretched on the road. At first I did not know him, I is face was so disfigured—his skull over his forehead bad been beaten in, as if he heel got • blow from a flat stick on the head ; his face was swelled, and quite red ; his lips were turned black, and the blood seemed driven through his eyes, nose, and mouth ; his whiskers and eye-brows were scorched, and lie had several marks on his body, and particu larly on the inside of the left thigh. His hat, breeches, stock ings, and shoes were torn to atoms, and scattered on the road— in short, such a spectacle was never seen. There were three or four persuaa with him at the time, but they escaped unhurt. M.e. Bream] and John were twenty yards behind him, but they were so dazzled by the Sash that they did not see him when knocked down. The body is in such • state that it will nut probably keep for 24 hours. It created such a panic at the fair that there was not an appearance of it io half an hour." DREADFUL ACCIDEVF 1.4 A NOBLE FAMILY.—A most distressing and painful event took place at Dunbar House, the residence of the Earl of Lauderdale, on Wednesday evening (20th inst.) Some time after the son of Mr. Balfour, of Whittiogliain, who is married to one of the daugluers of the Noble Earl, bad been put to bed, the bed-clothes, by some unaccountable accident, took fire ; and before it was disco vered, the pour boy, a fine infant four years of age, was so dreadfully burnt, that he expired in about two hours. The ■•happy parents were at hand ; their state of anguish and dis tress is nut to he described. It is a singular coincidence that a very short time ago. • false and most distressing report found its way into almost all the London Papers, of tbs Cowl bias of Lauderdale Lab iiig been burnt to death. The keelmen still refuse to refers to their uses! einplo)ment but the efforts of the coal-owners to eondact their business without their assistamse, have this week attained an efficiency, which must convince these misguided mem of the utter hope lesoesss of the struggle is which they are engaged. By the aid of steam-boats, and through the increasing skilfulness of the linen who hate been engaged to navigate the keels, con siderable numbers of them have each day this week been brought down from the staiths above bridge to the skips at Shields, and again conveyed back, under the escort of the boats from the ships of war at Shields. On their passage they have occasionally been assailed with showers of stones from the shore, and some of the keels which straggled behind the rest have been boarded by parties from the shore, and brought to an snehor. On Wednesday and Thursday these showers of stones were answered by a discharge of fire-arms from the men of war's boats, but without injury to any person, as the shots were fired more by way of intimidation than with intent to injure. The number of keels which were brought down on Thursday amormted to near 60, which is near the average number from the colleries above bridge. There is thus every appearance of these cutleries being tumbled to con tinue their side, without the assistance of their refractory ser vants. As to the colleries below bridge, they are fully able to meet the demand for their coals by means of their spouts, and have, in fact, shipped more than is usually done by them in ordinary times. The trade of the Tyne may thus be said to be in full activity, without the intervention of the mili tary keelmen. The present appearance of things has, it is said, made a deep impression upon these men, and it would not be surprising if we should shortly have to eusounce their return to work. A diabolical attempt was made on Thursday last to poison a &wily, io the village of Doane, near Stirling, by mixing arsenic with the potatoes they had for breakfast. A precog nition has been gone into, but no distinct clue has yet been ofund 'to lead to a discovery of the wretch who has been guilty of so base a deed. The sufferers are, a woman of middle age, her daughter of IT, and a sun of eight years of age. From prompt and judicious medical aid, the three persons are in a fair way of recovery,. CII EA P Looottens.—ln a respectable, but not very fashion able street of Glaegow, lodgings are let so cheap, that, in one, a woman has a good room for 41 per week. I asked lid." said the landlady. but she stormed, and I let her have it for tid.' It 's scarcely necessary to observe, that Louse-room is all that is got for this sum. The three individuals who were taken into custody in the Cordiner's Hall, in the Potter Row, Edinburgh, charged with endeavouring to propagate doctrines subversive of religion, were detained in charge of the sheriff's °Seers, with whom they resided until the close of the prosecution, on Wednesday night, when they were admitted to bail. A little impudent fellow, about thirty years of age, called at the house of .Ir. Barnett, surgeon, in Charter. house-square, on Saturday evening, and inquired if the foot•boy was at house ? Being answered in inc negative, he requested leave to write a note for him, which the lad allowed hint to write in his presence. The fellow, in snuffing the candle, put it out, and then desired the lad to fetch hint a light in order to seal the note, but before he could return to the room, he met the fellow in the passage, who said it was all right, as lie happened to have a wafer in his pocket, gave the lad the note, and left the house; hut shortly afterwards it was discovered that the thief took with him a valuable silver snuff-box, which happened to be on the mantle-piece. A most appalling catastrophe happened in the neigh bourhood of the Holmes' Lights, in Bristol Channel, on Friday se'imight. Captain Gill, his wife, two sisters, and a servant lad, were comitig over from Warchet to Cardiff, in one tit the pilot boats belonging to the latter place, and when about mid•chaunel, the boat was over taken by a sudden gust of wind, and instantly upset, and the above persons, together with the boatmen, were buried beneath the waves. Mrs. Gill was in an advanced state of pregnancy, and was returning to Car diff to be confined. None of the bodies have yet been found, but part of the boat and sprit sail have been picked up. When the boat felt Watchet, considerable apprehensions were entertained for the safety of the voyagers, which have b• en thus fatally realised. The newly erected Tread-mill, for the employ. meta of prisoners in the County Gaol and noose at Correction at Wading, was, for the first time, put it motion on Friday se'unight. 'Floe prisoners performed the labour apparently well till Motiday last, at one o'clock, when thirty-two mutinied and refused to go oit the wheels, stating that they must have extra provwons and leatlier-bottutned shoes, or they could not perform the labour. They considered confinement in cells was ail the punishment that awaited their disobedience, but in that idea they were deceived ; the keeper and assistants were under the necessity of having recourse to arms and bludgeons, and c pelled every man to go upon the wheel, and perform the allotted labour. Et.oPEueor.---Lieut. 1 - 1, an officer upon half-pay, lodging in Queen-street, Golden-square, on Alonday morning hired a post-chaise its Piccadilly, and left it iu Reaent-street. In a few minutes afterwards he came, and handed a young lady of considerable fortune, re siding in that tieighbourhoral, two it, and told the post. boy to drive as fast as lie could down the Kent-road. lo halt an hour afterwards the fugitives were pursued by the lady's brother, who wa• armed with pistols. He traced them to the Bricklayers Arins, when they quitted the chaise, and no limiter clue could be obtained. • Ott Thursday afternoon about three o'clock. a coil waggon, in emir:l%oonm% to pass the carri tge of Cain, BJII, near Poppm's court, Fleet-street, ran foul of the same, threw both the coachman and lootenan from the box, and drove the coact o:t the pavement, by whicn the window limits, and sevetal panes of glass belong tug to Mr. Capes, were destroyed. Fortunately there were no persons in the carria6e, which received consi derable injury. On Sittutlay last, as J. Ekless, of Bodes,lon bridge, was shooting wild fowl on tile river near to his house, his gun unfortunately burst, carrying off part 01 two fingers, and otherwise lacerating the left 11:11111. - PrOVId1:11lIally both hands were behind the breech (1 cite lance winch cannot be too strongly impressed on those who are in the habit of shooting), or tile win must have been torn oil, the barrel, stock, and lock. having been literally blue a to{aeces. IN!fo. meet loess •ney, lope. the Is of coo- been Is at the alga ones hind and base urine MOM, with sght the e is con- ler. nide , alts, hem said • sdi- t is odd lace icon Ling :0g- leeo illy ige, 1.0111 n a ion- ow, id." for ▪ is the vith lOn, day ge, the ve, la.l in lad 'ore the to ind red ;h- -op 10 (Cr cr- Ild cre all ar- !en .en hie [he I , e II led he 01l HIS rut all 111 rile n.I he lay in re- he •ed he rll 111. he he cn ag- rre al. III• Iris V