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dreadful to him, than those securities which I had entered into for Mr. Samuel were to my peace of mind."

She speaks of all the processes that had to be gone through before she could be formally committed to the Fleet, which she calls her "old habitation," with a degree of knowledge implying much familiarity with insolvent transactions. "On entering the prison," she says, "a foreboding of some misfortune hung over me, which the long, dark galleries rather heightened than allayed. My heart, the faithful thermometer of my feelings, misgave me. I was once more obliged to regard the troubles of this world as a bubble which would not burst till the silent mazes of a tomb would receive me in its cold embrace. The friends I had in the sunshine of my prosperity had dropped off, one by one, and I was left almost destitute."

This is a very affecting picture; but the impression it is calculated to create is soon dispelled by her description of the comfortable life she led in prison. Her forebodings were realised by her introduction to her second husband, Mr. Sumbel-the Moor, to whom she was tied like a second Desdemona. She endeavours to hold up this eccentric gentleman as a monster of cruelty, but she scarcely succeeds. We give her narrative in her own words, because no literary tinkering can improve it; and the inference we draw from it is, that the Moor loved, not wisely, but too well:

The

"Mr. Sumbel," she 66 says, was born in the capital of the dominions of the Emperor of Morocco, to whom his father had been prime minister upwards of thirty years, from whence he was sent to France for his education. numerous remittances sent to him by his father being discovered by the emperor, the old man was thrown into prison, whence he contrived to make his escape to Gibraltar, to which garrison he sent considerable supplies from Mogadore, when it was defeated by the brave Eliott; this eventually occasioned his death, as he was afterwards poisoned by the intrigues of the emperor.

"Mr. Sumbel being a Jew, his two brothers I went over to France to him to claim their share of their paternal inheritance, which they were entitled to do by the Mosaic law; but, to avoid coming to a settlement, he went into Holland, and from thence came over into England, where one of them followed him. On his arrival in this country he waited on Lord William Bentinck, with whom he had been acquainted on the continent, and was by his lordship introduced to his brother, the Duke of Portland. Shortly after his coming to town

he heard his brother had come over in pursuit of him; and to avoid such a disagreeable visitor he retired to the woods near Willesdengreen, where he concealed himself by day, and at night got into some barn, or any place he could find, to sleep. He concealed Indiabonds to the amount of five thousand pounds in the hollow of an old tree, which he was never after able to find out. The oddity of his appearance and the quantity of diamonds he had about him, which he often showed to the peasants to induce them to let him sleep in their cottages, at last created a suspicion in their minds that he must be the man who had robbed the Turkish ambassador. They accordingly determined to seize him, and give information of him at the Duke of Portland's office, which, with the assistance of the constable of the parish, they did, and tied him to a post in a stable. In this situation he remained till the duke sent a Mr. Walsh with a chaise-and-four for him. He no sooner heard the description of him than it immediately struck him it must be the same Mr. Sumbel who had been introduced to him so lately by his brother.

"The duke could not extract one word from him in answer to all the questions that were put to him. He gave written answers. Nor did he utter a syllable for three months, for some private reason which he never disclosed.

He

"The circumstance of his being at the duke's office reached the ears of the person who had the chancellor's writ against him, at the suit of his brother; he set off instantly, arrested him as he was coming out, and conveyed him to Wright's lock-up house in Carey-street. continued there about six weeks; nor could they, by any means, prevail on him to speak one word. The hearing before the chancellor at length took place, and the only answer he made to the many questions put to him by his lordship was, 'My lord, I wish you would send me to the Fleet, for that is one damned rascal' (pointing to Wright). His lordship used every argument in his power to make him come to a settlement with his brothers; but finding he was determined to the contrary, committed him to the Fleet.

"I was in the prison at this time. He came in with all the pomp and splendour of an eastern monarch, attended by a number of Moorish servants. A report had run through the prison that some foreign ambassador had been committed for contempt of court; and as curiosity is not the most dormant passion in the female breast, mine (you must naturally suppose) must be gratified, or peace I could not have."

Desdemona, accompanied by a lady-a

fellow-prisoner-lost no time in placing herself in the way of the Moor as he walked along the gallery. The result may be anticipated. "On the following Saturday," says Desdemona, "being his Sabbath, he sent a polite invitation for me to dine with him, and bring with me any ladies I thought proper." The invitation was accepted. "On our entering the room," she continues, "which was fancifully hung with pink satin, we found there several of the Turkish ambassador's suite, and several gentlemen of that nation. One old man, of the name of Abbo, took a fancy to me, and made formal proposals of marriage; but I rejected them with disdain, which afterwards nearly cost Mr. Sumbel and me our lives, as the old wretch actually returned to the prison to assassinate us; but timely notice enabled us to frustrate his design, and he was never afterwards permitted to enter the gates."

Deserted as Mrs. Wells-Sumbel delights to picture herself, she appears to have had many friends, particularly of the male sex; and one gentleman at this period offered to pay all her debts and release her from prison. This circumstance came, or was purposely brought, to the knowledge of Mr. Sumbel, the unhappy Moor, and it hurried him into a proposal of marriage, which was, of course, accepted. An insolvent Act, which was passed about this time, gave Desdemona her liberty; but she remained in the Fleet, to wed the Moor. "An obstacle," she says, "however, still stood between us, which was requisite to be got over before we could be lawfully united. My former husband, Mr. Wells, I had reason to suppose was still living, although I had neither seen nor heard from him for upwards of twenty years. Every advice was taken; and it was at last decided I must turn Jewess, which I accordingly did, and we were married agreeably to the rites of the Jewish church."

We have Desdemona's assertion for it that the Moor was haughty, irascible, and jealous in the extreme-bad qualities, which were counterbalanced by his youth, wealth, and handsome appearance. He was fond of display; and Desdemona, who was equally fond of it, tells us with secret pride that the marriage ceremony, though performed in a prison, was conducted with all the profusion of eastern magnificence. "It took place," she says, "in the week of the great Jewish Feast of Tabernacles, and lasted throughout the festival. The genteel prisoners were invited to partake of the fare; and the poor were not forgotten. Four rooms were lighted up on the occasion, and a large lustre was placed in the middle of the long gallery, which cost twentyfive pounds. The sum total of the extraor

dinaries for that week alone came to five hundred pounds.”

Desdemona, according to her own showing, prevailed upon the Moor to heal all differences with his brother by giving him twenty thousand pounds, and then to live in a style which she thought suitable to his wealth and position. They began housekeeping in Orchard Street, Portman Square, to be near the Turkish ambassador; but soon removed to Pall Mall, to a larger mansion, next door to the Duke of Gloucester's. Desdemona was not happy, in spite of her splendour. The Moor would not allow her to sleep in the diamonds of immense value which she wore on state-days and bonfire nights, but would insist upon locking them up in an iron chest. This was one grievance. Another was that he objected to allow her that excessive freedom of action which she had always been accustomed to. This she considered unkind; and as she could not plunge unfettered into all the gaieties of London, she thought she would indulge her maternal feelings by visiting her children—the TophamWells children, as we must call them for the sake of distinction-in the Wolds of Yorkshire. Though the unhappy Moor could hardly be expected to feel much interest in these tender beings, he consented to accompany her in this journey to the Wolds. The incidents," says Desdemona, "that occurred in that short period are so numerous, I hope I shall be excused entering into the different minutiae of them. If there be any comfort on this earth, it is to relate our griefs to a friend, which a generous public has ever been to me.

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"We set out in an elegant vehicle, commonly called a one-horse chaise, without a servant; but my bosom beat with maternal feeling and hope, while it presented their image, and wholly obliterated every sensation of timidity and every conscious blush for my humiliating appearance.

Though wedded to a man whose wealth was estimated at nearly half a million—a man for whom I changed my religion, and with all the forms and solemnities of that which I adopted, in conformity to his will, because the received and accepted partner of his fortune— I was obliged to commence my journey without even the attendants which were necessary to my safety, and which my state of health at that period demanded.

"We lived for some time previous to our setting out in a small cottage near the Hyde, in Middlesex, in order to screen my illustrious husband from the penalty of a prosecution, which had been given against him for having assaulted a citizen. This cottage had been hired by a respectable lady, through friendship

for me, and we resided with her under the denomination of lodgers. From thence I departed, accompanied by my husband. The irritability of his temper became evident before we had proceeded ten miles on our journey. The consciousness that he had none of his usual pompous attendants-no turbaned lacqueys to watch his eyes and tremble at his frownrendered him so peevishly insupportable, that I began to anticipate the unpleasing circumstances which but too rapidly followed. I found him sullen, restless, impatient, and wavering in his determinations; for constancy was not one of his perfections.

happy' Cowslip,' and the next I knew, to my inexpressible sorrow, that I was the wife of a Moorish nobleman. At the second inn where we rested, if rest may be supposed to have attended our progress, an unlucky tear, which maternal tenderness extracted from my heart, so ruffled the serenity of my noble spouse that he instantly demanded to know the cause of its appearance. This tear did not long offend him, for his tone of voice so startled me that it fell from my cheek and became invisible. But the memory of it did not so easily evaporate. He deemed it an insult to his ideas of wedded love to entertain the feelings of a mother; to be worthy of so rich a prize, he thought it necessary that I should abjure all the sensibilities of nature.

"He knew that my heart panted to embrace my children. He therefore kindly proposed remaining some time at a pleasant inn on our journey. Again his passion for parade sugim-gested the idea of sending for his turbaned attendants; till I-rather mal-apropos-reminded him, with all due respect, that he had humanely driven them from their post of dignity, and that they were at that moment selling rhubarb about the streets of the metropolis. Nor was the Moorish consequence a little degraded by their exhibiting the very liveries in which they had borne the Morocco standard when his most Gracious Majesty went in state to St. Paul's cathedral."

"At the first inn where we stopped, his manner spread dismay through the bosoms of all those that witnessed it. The graces of his person were not visible in the European habits. This circumstance augmented his chagrin ; and he did not recover any portion of his placidity till he sat cross-legged in all the magnificence of his Moorish paraphernalia. For this portant metamorphosis his trunks were at every stage unpacked; and I had the supreme felicity of seeing my illustrious partner, once during every twelve hours, decked in the splendours of a second Othello. Even his Moorish habit did not tranquillise his mind; domestics were still wanting. He therefore informed me that he would proceed no further, but return to town, and recommence his journey like himself. This promise did not exhilarate my hopes, or enliven my prospects; for to travel like himself afforded me no chance of credit or consolation.

"After much persuasion he consented to drop the incognito, and, by paying the penalty of his lawsuit, resume his native character. This thought delighted me; for it has ever been repugnant to my feelings to appear mean or degraded. Unhappily, my gratification was the source of his instability. Again he changed his mind, and we proceeded in demi-pomp on this journey of disasters. My Moorish lord proposed driving the one-horsed car in all his Turkish magnificence; but as there would have been some difficulty in sitting cross-legged on the narrow seat, and as an idea might have suggested itself that he would have been mistaken for the renowned Flockton,* of puppetshow memory, the plan was not adopted. The forty pounds, likewise, preponderated in the scale of reflection; and he knew that he must pay the penalty of his lawsuit by an attempt to assert the dignity of his character.

"On we went, half the twenty-four hours in British simplicity, the other half in African grandeur.

One hour I fancied myself the once

A man who carried a ridiculous puppet-show round the country. His people were dressed in Turkish habits.

Desdemona's real or fancied troubles continued, according to her own statement, all the way to Stamford. A landlord, whom she calls an honest Boniface, handed her out of her carriage, at which the impetuous Moor was highly enraged; and when she seemed to be ill at an inn, and the hostess suggested that a doctor should be sent for, the sable tyrant refused his consent, and ordered a chaise and four. As Desdemona elegantly puts it" the car of wedded love, which Cupid had now abandoned, was to be led home, and the oncehonoured reins consigned to plebeian hands.”

The Moor went to sleep on the journey, which afforded Desdemona a temporary relief from her troubles; but when he woke up he accused her of robbing him. When he found that his strong box was safe, like one of the bad genii in the fairy tales, he asked his victim to sing, to amuse him, in her old professional style. She complied with the request, but complained of her audience. He next accused her of witchcraft, and said she had used some potent charm to win a heart of such inestimable value. At a village on the borders of Lincolnshire he inquired for a stage-coach to convey him back to London, while the deserted Desdemona―obstinately bent upon going on to drop

a tear over her Topham children—accepted a place in the stage-coach, given her on credit by the landlord of the inn, as she was without money. "The vehicle," she says, "had no other passengers; therefore, with the Moor's concurrence, after tearing from my shoulders a shawl which he called his property, I was permitted to depart. The joy of escaping from this watchful lynx-whose eyes, like those of the basilisk, never ceased to annoy me-is not to be described."

Her unprotected situation, and probably her levity, encouraged the coachman to patronise her in too friendly a manner; but she repulsed his offer of brandy-and-water by threatening him with the Moor's vengeance. "On my commanding him to proceed," she says, "he drove on six miles farther, frequently honouring me with a familiar knock at the window, with How are you now?' at the same time knowingly pressing his finger on his nose, and desiring me not to be unhappy."

After some little difficulties, which are made the most of in the memoir, she arrived at Stilton, driven by the same coachman, and found that the Moor had arrived by some other conveyance. The quarrel was made up, and they journeyed together from this point to Stamford, visiting some friends at Gretford, on the way, where the Moor was induced to buy a horse, to travel handsomely with.

At Stamford the Moor hired lodgings, and said that he would send for Desdemona's mother and children. "Ihinted," says the lady, "that he should send a draft to pay the expenses of their journey; but this unlucky proposition proved a new source of irritability. fused to comply, and upbraided me for the expenses already incurred on our adventurous journey.

He re

"At Stamford the splendours of Moorish decoration were again exhibited. The whole town was roused to consternation. A great prince-a grand Turk !—supposed by some to be insane, by others considered as only ridiculous."

At a banquet given to many of Desdemona's friends in that part of the country, a young lady appeared, who strikingly resembled the eldest of the Topham-Wells children. The resemblance revived all the motherly feelings of Desdemona, and she tried to prevail upon the Moor to allow her to depart for Yorkshire immediately. Failing to gain his consent, she started clandestinely, to travel one hundred and thirty miles, with two guineas in her pocket. She had hardly proceeded one stage when her determination to fight the journey out on this sum broke down, and she wrote to the Moor for more money. She received no answer to

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this request, owing to the miscarriage of the letters; and her further progress was consequently attended by nearly all the mishaps which usually afflict people who travel without money. Her theatrical instinct, however, appears to have led her to seek the right people, and, like Romeo, she was befriended by an apothecary. After seeing the Topham children, and Major Topham also, for the matter of that, she returned to the Moor at Stamford. During her absence he had exhibited more Eastern magnificence, and had grown a little more jealous and excited.

66

says, on The honest

"We met a poor shepherd," she our journey back to Stamford. fellow bowed as he passed me. My husband called to him, and demanded, 'How long have you known my wife?' The shepherd, rather surprised at the question, hesitatingly, and with simple honesty, replied, 'About five years ago madam was on a visit here.' 'I'll sell her to you for twopence !' vociferated my husband. The shepherd looked aghast. My daughter burst into tears, and begged the groom to take her back to grandinamma. I now foresaw all that would happen; while the honest countryman wisely took advantage of the confusion, and bade us 'good night!'"

They removed to London together, and the Moor seems to have pined after his native land. Desdemona's narrative still continues:

"As his father always intended that he should succeed him in his situation as premier to the emperor, he determined to go to Morocco and present himself at Court; and to make his visit the more acceptable he laid out large sums of money in presents, among the items of which there was twenty thousand pounds' worth of brass cannon. It had long been his darling theme that I should go with him, and, in person, supplicate the young emperor to receive him, as they had been boys together. The necessary forms to be observed on the occasion were regularly rehearsed at our house in Pall Mall, under the direction of my husband, and several Moors and Turks who attended for the purpose, himself always filling the imperial chair."

They went on board a vessel lying in the river, bound for Mogadore; but when Desdemona found that he had engaged the whole ship her fears were excited, and she escaped in a boat. The Moor followed her to Pall Mall, where he appears to have acted Othello, to the extent of firing off a pistol over his wife's head in their bedchamber. Of course he was taken to Bow Street in the most prosaic manner, and bound over with two substantial sureties to keep the peace. Badgered and defeated on all sides, he fled to Denmark about the beginning

of 1799; and his end, as recorded, is somewhat peculiar.

He settled down at Altona, where he built a large street at his own expense. For the last few years of his life his sole amusement was fishing, though he broke through every rule of sport in following his hobby. He had a large room built, containing a reservoir of water that contained fish of different kinds. If these fish did not bite quick enough to suit his Moorish temper, the water was let off, and they and the attendants were soundly beaten with sticks. The reason that he gave for deserting Desdemona were almost as eccentric as his conduct. "First," he said, "the ceremony was not a legal Jewish marriage; secondly, Mrs. Wells was not capable of becoming a Jewess, without which no marriage could take place; and thirdly, she broke the Sabbath and the holy feast by running away from me in a postchaise, and eating forbidden-fruit-namely, pork griskin and rabbits."

THE POOR WOMAN. (FROM BÉRANGER.)

Ir snows, it snows, and yonder, at God's porch,
Upon her knees, a woman old doth pray;
While through her rags the north-east cold doth scorch,
It is for bread she prayeth, day by day.
Groping alone through the cathedral-yard,
Winter and summer season cometh she.
Poor woman! she is blind. O Fortune hard!—
Let us bestow on her our charity!
Remember ye what this old wretch has been,
With her poor cheeks so meagre and so white?
Once was she of our theatre the queen,

Her songs the town enraptured with delight.
The young, amid their laughter and their tears,
Of her great beauty raved enthusiastly;
And all their charmèd dreams reflected hers:-
Let us bestow on her our charity!

How many times, along the homeward street,
Her chariot's speed could scarce outrun the crowd;
Above the clatter of her horses' feet

She heard the echoes of applauses loud.

To hand her from her carriage to her door,
To tend her every pace voluptuously,

How many rivals watch'd her steps before !-
Let us bestow on her our charity !

When all the Arts were wreathing crowns for her,
How full of pomp was her high dwelling-place;
How many crystals, bronzes, columns, were

As loving tribute brought, her love to grace!
How many poet-lovers, at her feasts,

Quaff'd of the cup of her prosperity : Your palaces have all their swallow-nests !— Let us bestow on her our charity!

Oh sad reverse! an illness bow'd her head, Broke her sweet voice, and dimm'd her beauty's sheen ;

And soon, alone and poor, she begg'd her bread, Where for these twenty years her place hath been. No hand knew better how to scatter gold,

Or with more goodness, than this hand which she So hesitatingly to us doth hold.

Let us bestow on her our charity!

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As the monthly changes in the appearance of vegetation are the result of the ever-varying conditions of heat, light, moisture, and electricity, throughout each month in the year, so also the organisation of plants has its daily changes from the variability during the different hours of the day of the same physical agents.

Heat, light, moisture, and electricity are the principal stimulants of vegetation. Now the amount of heat and light received from the sun during the day, as also the quantity of moisture and electricity in the air, is continually varying with the elevation of the sun above the horizon; consequently the active vitality of plants must have its diurnal variations, and plants must necessarily enter, to some extent, upon a state of torpor and inactivity during the night, when these grand stimulants to vegetation are withdrawn. Hence we have produced, at the close of each day, that well-marked change in the appearance of the plant-creation which has been very properly called vegetable sleep.

Each

It follows that the vegetable world has its daily, as well as monthly and annual life, and that vegetation oscillates daily as well as annually between a state of activity and one of comparative repose. In this respect a day is like a year in miniature, a space of time during which the earth runs through nearly one degree, or theth part of its annual orbit. hour, each minute, from the moment that he shows himself above the horizon, the sun exercises a new influence on the plant covering; for the peculiarities of the solar rays, their illuminating, chemical, and heating influences vary continually, increasing until the sun is on the meridian, and then decreasing until sunset. When the last rays of solar light have been reflected from the evening sky, it is only then that these influences cease, and a new life is necessarily called forth in the plant world.

These daily changes of nature are less marked in their effects on vegetation, than those monthly changes which have been so frequently described, because extending over a much shorter period of time; yet nevertheless their effects are sufficiently well marked and perceptible to be deserving of the most.

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