Street Images in 1826.
Height of each 16 inches and a half.
When these agreeable figures first appeared, the price obtained for them was four shillings. As the sale slackened they were sold for three shillings; now, in March, 1826, the pair may be bought for two shillings, or eighteen pence. The consequence of this cheapness is, that there is scarcely a house without them.
There can be no doubt that society is improving in every direction. As I hinted before, we have a great deal to learn, and something to unlearn. It is in many respects untrue, that “art improves nature;” while in many important respects it is certain, that “nature improves art.”
The Brothers.
There are things in nature which the human voice can scarcely trust itself to relate; which art never can represent, and the pen can only feebly describe. Such a scene occurred at Lyons, in the year 1794.
The place of confinement to which those were hurried, who had been condemned to suffer by the revolutionary tribunal, was called “the Cave of Death.” A boy not fifteen years of age was sent thither. He had been one of the foremost in a sortie made during the siege, and for this was doomed to perish. His little brother, scarcely six years old, who had been accustomed to visit him at his former prison, no longer finding him there, came and called at the iron grate of the vault. His brother heard him, and came to the grate: the poor infant passed his little hands between the vast bars to embrace him, while the elder raising himself on the points of his feet could just reach to kiss them. “My dear brother,” said the child, “art thou going to die, and shall I see thee no more? why didn’t you tell them that you are not yet fifteen?”—“I did, brother, I said all that I could say, but they would hear nothing. Carry a kiss to my mother, and try to comfort her; nothing grieves me but that I leave her ill; but don’t tell her yet, that I am going to die.” The child was drowned in tears, his little heart seemed ready to burst:—“Good-by, brother,” he repeated again and again; “but I’m afraid you didn’t say that you are not yet fifteen.”—He was at length so suffocated with sobs that he could speak no more, and went away. Every one who passed by, seeing his distress, asked him what was the matter. “’Tis the wicked men that make me cry,” said he; “they are going to kill my brother who is so good, and who is not yet fifteen.”
With any being of a human form,
Who, reading such a narrative as this
Could be unshaken to the inmost soul,
I would not share a roof, nor sit, nor stand,
Nor converse hold, by word, or look, or pen.
Well, Reader! thou hast read—hast thou no tears?
If thou wert stranger to the tale till now,
And weep’st not—go! I dare not, will not, know thee
Thy manner may be gentle, but thy heart
Is ripe for cruelty—Go hence, I say!
[76] Chambaud.