There is in these humane and benevolent days an increasing sympathy in the public mind for a man condemned to ‘march sorrowfully up to the gallows, there to be noosed up, vibrate his hour, and await the dissecting-knife of the surgeon,’ who fits his bones into a skeleton for medical purposes. ‘There never was a public hanging,’ says a late advocate of the abolition of capital punishment, ‘that was productive of any thing but evil.’ There is an anecdote recorded of Whitfield, however, which seems to refute this position, in at least one instance. This eloquent divine, while at Edinburgh, attended a public execution. His appearance upon the ground drew the eyes of all around him, and raised a variety of opinions as to the motives which led him to join in the crowd. The next day, being Sunday, he preached to a large body of men, women and children, in a field near the city. In the course of his sermon, he adverted to the execution which had taken place the preceding day. ‘I know,’ said he, ‘that many of you will find it difficult to reconcile my appearance yesterday with my character. Many of you will say, that my moments would have been better employed in praying with the unhappy man, than in attending him to the fatal tree, and that perhaps curiosity was the only cause that converted me into a spectator on that occasion: but those who ascribe that uncharitable motive to me are under a mistake. I witnessed the conduct of almost every one present on that occasion, and I was highly pleased with it. It has given me a very favorable impression of the Scottish nation. Your sympathy was visible on your countenances, and reflected the greatest honor on your hearts: particularly when the moment arrived in which your unhappy fellow creature was to close his eyes on this world forever, you all, as if moved by one impulse, turned your heads aside and wept. Those tears were precious, and will be held in remembrance. How different was it when the Saviour of mankind was extended on the cross! The Jews, instead of sympathizing in his sorrows, triumphed in them. They reviled him with bitter expressions, with words even more bitter than the gall and vinegar which they gave him to drink. Not one of them all that witnessed his pains, turned the head aside even in the last pang. Yes, there was one; that glorious luminary, (pointing to the sun,) veiled his bright face and sailed on in tenfold night!’ This is eloquence! Would that we could have seen the beaming features, the ‘melting eye, turned toward heaven,’ which indelibly impressed these words upon the heart of every hearer! ••• Many of our readers will doubtless remember the time when Professor J——, the celebrated ‘artist in hair,’ was flourishing in his glory, and when his fame was perhaps as rife in New-York and Boston as that of any man living, in his line of art. His advertisements too, so unique in their grandiloquent phraseology, will not soon be forgotten by those who relish such things. The Professor is not now, as regards worldly prosperity, the man he used to be; but his gentlemanly feeling still clings to him, and his pride in his profession is as enthusiastic as ever. We observe by a Boston journal that he is once more trying his luck in our eastern metropolis; and this reminds us of an anecdote concerning him. A friend tells us that some months since he encountered the professor at a coffee-house, where he was rehearsing to a rather verdant customer the former glories of his professional life. Among other things, ‘At one time,’ said he, ‘I was sent for by express, to go to Philadelphia on professional business.’ ‘To do what?’ asked his listener. ‘To make wigs for the Signers of the Declaration of Independence!’ replied J——, with a pompous air. Now the professor’s comrade was not very quick-witted, as we have already hinted, and it did not occur to him at the moment whether the signers were men only of yesterday, or of the last century; and he rejoined, in a tone of wonder: ‘What! do they all wear wigs?’ ‘All?’ replied the professor, with a look of mingled piety and triumph; ‘why, Sir, did you ever know a wax-figure to wear its own hair? Men of flesh and blood, now-a-days, don’t know any better; but the man of wax, Sir, possesses a truer taste, and always consults the Perruquier!’ The relator says it would be impossible to convey an adequate idea of the superb manner in which the last word was uttered; the full round tone, and the tonsorial flourish of the right hand, as if it still grasped the magic brush and scissors. ••• The reader will have gathered from an incidental allusion in an article by Mr. George Harvey, in our last number, some idea of the fervent enthusiasm with which he has studied and copied Nature, in her every variety of season and changes of the hour, in executing his beautiful Landscape Drawings. We have neither the leisure nor space for an adequate notice of these pictures; but being solicitous that our town readers should participate in the great enjoyment which they have afforded us, we would direct them to Mr. Harvey’s exhibition-room at the old Apollo Gallery, nearly opposite the Hospital, in Broadway. ••• Here is a pleasant specimen of an ‘Unnecessary Disclaimer,’ for which we are indebted to a metropolitan friend: ‘A few evenings since, as a gentleman was walking up Broadway, and just as he was crossing the side-walk at the junction of White-street, his feet suddenly slipped from under him, his hat flew forward with the involuntary jerk, and he measured his length on the side-walk, striking his bare head on the hard ice, till all rang again. At the instant it chanced that a lady and gentleman were just emerging from White-street into Broadway, and the prostrate sufferer, lying directly across their path, interrupted for a moment their farther progress. He soon recovered his feet, however, and with one hand on his newly-developed bump, and the other on his breast, he turned to the couple whose passage he had impeded, and exclaimed with cool gravity: ‘Excuse me; I didn’t intend to do it!’ Probably he didn’t; at all events, his word was not disputed. ••• Most likely our readers have not forgotten an admirable satire upon the ‘Songs of the Troubadours,’ from which we extracted some months since the affecting story of ‘The Taylzour’s Daughter.’ Something in the same style is ‘The Doleful Lay of the Honorable I. O. Uwins,’ a gentleman who threw himself away upon a bailiff’s daughter, to escape from the restraints and pungent odors of a sponging-house. The ‘whole course of wooing’ and the result are hinted at in the ensuing lines:
‘There he sate in grief and sorrow,
Rather drunk than otherwise,
Till the golden gush of morrow
Dawned once more upon his eyes;
Till the spunging bailiff’s daughter,
Lightly tapping at the door,
Brought his draught of soda-water,
Brandy-bottomed as before.
‘Sweet Rebecca! has your father,