OR, Literary and Scientific Mirror. "UTILE DULCI." nillar Miscellany, from which all religious and political matters are excluded, contains a variety of original and selected Articles; comprehending Literature, CRITICISM, MEN and VERS, AMUSEMENT, elegant EXTRACTS, POETRY, ANECDOTES, BIOGRAPHY, METEOROLOGY, the DRAMA, ARTS and SCIENCES, WIT and SATIRE, Fashions, NatuRAL HISTORY, &c. forming dsome ANNUAL VOLUME, with an INDEX and TITLE-PAGE. Persons in any part of the Kingdom may obtain this Work from London through their respective Booksellers. 417.-Vol. VIII. The Kaleidoscope. BEARDS AND WHISKERS. TRIFLES LIGHT AS HAIR! LIVERPOOL, TUESDAY, JUNE 24, 1828. (Not) SHAKSPeare. and other facial excrescences. We are assured, on very respectable authority, that no fewer than 8,000 Russians were massacred in 1720, on occasion of the order of Peter I. that people should shave their beards. They were conducted into a vast inclosure, where numbers of blocks, &c. had been previously very clever and amusing article, on the subject arranged, when Peter himself, with the axe in his ards and whiskers, appeared in the last Mercury, hand, gave the example to the executioners how they vill be found appended to our editorial prefatory should chop off the heads of the victims. Who would rks. Our readers, who are in the habit of see- have thought it possible that a nation of vassals, who both of our publications, will, we presume, had surrendered their liberties to the will and caly overlook, if not highly approve, of the trans-price of a despot, should have thrown off their alleo the Kaleidoscope of an article of no ordinary giance, and braved death in defence of a "feature," t, uniting the humour of Swift and Addison. if we may so term it, in which the goat has decidedly object of the writer is to demonstrate the fallacy the advantage over the "lord of the creation?" e prevailing notion, that beards and whiskers ny evidence of the courage and manhood of the He maintains the direct reverse of this, and precedents he adduces are highly amusing, and ce a more than ordinary acquaintance with ature, and a very happy and playful knack of ging his knowledge to bear upon his argument. er. Well might Swift represent mankind as he has done in his Gulliver, recollecting the endless absurdities which prevail in the world, not less ludicrous than those we have enumerated! and well might the poet say, "What dire events from trivial causes spring!" PRICE 3 d. The following miscellaneous facts, bearing on this subject, are copied from our manuscript scrapbook. They are, we believe, chiefly gleaned from D'Israeli. "The Tartars declared the Persians infidels, and waged a long war with them, because they would not cut off their whiskers, while it was more infamous in Turkey to lose the beard than to be publicly whipped. "To touch another's beard, or cut off a little, was a token of love and protection amongst the first French; and all letters which came from the King had three hairs of his beard in the seal. "In the reign of Catharine, Queen of Portugal, the brave John de Castro took the castle of Diu, in India. He borrowed from the inhabitants of Goa 1,000 pistoles, as a security for which, he sent them one of his whiskers. "The Turks, when they comb their beards, gather the loose hairs, fold them in paper, and bury them where they bury the dead." D'Arnay, in his Private Life of the Romans, re loes not contend that the beard, per se, is indica- The weakness or caprice of a wench set the Grelates that "amongst that nation, the beard was a re of pusillanimity, or of any peculiar moral weak-cians and Trojans by the ears, and caused the mark of wisdom; and that a learned man, who aspired To maintain such a position, would be a sweep-death of so many heroes, that, if Homer tells truth, to a philosophic chair, could not possess it on account censure upon the male sex, which our author has the hairs which graced Helen's mad pate, if doubled, of being beardless." And in Goldsmith's History much sense to insinuate. The deteriorating con- would not make up the amount; although, on the of the Earth and Animated Nature, we find the foltences, which he so felicitously enumerates, arise, other hand, candour compels us to add, that this lowing particulars connected with this strange subording to his theory, from the sedulous cultivation damsel's freak has given rise to an immortal poem.ject: 1 natural excrescence, which ought rather to be There is a work, originally written in French, "The Turks shave the head, but let the beard t under, than encouraged to exhaust the animal entitled, "Great Events from Little Causes." The nors, and to deface the male countenance. A well following extract from this work, on the commotion amed chin, he shows us, has ever been the con- produced in France by an attempt to interfere with itant of bravery, while those beards which "shine beards, may amuse our readers. a meteor to the troubled air," have ever belonged poltroons. in author who maintains such a theory, will, we sume, be much more popular with the razornders and barbers than with certain of the soft , who are supposed to admire the barbarous dis urement of " the human face divine." "A beard was esteemed, formerly, in France as a It is not a little singular, that, while the ladies grow. The negroes shave their heads in figures at one time, in stars at another, like the friars; and still more commonly in alternate stripes. "The Melapours of Siam shave the heads and the eye brows of such children as are committed to their care. The Kings of Persia, and some of the early Kings of France, had their beards knotted and buttoned with gold. The Americans pluck the beard up by the roots, so that they have been thought to have no beard; a mistake which Linnæus has fallen into." Having protracted our prefatory remarks to an unexpected length, we shall now proceed with the dissertation of our correspondent. BEARDS AND MUSTACHIOS. ΚΕΙΡΕΣΘΑΙ ΤΟΝ ΜΥΣΤΑΚΑ, ΚΑΙ ΠΡΟΣΕΧΕΙΝ ΤΟΙΣ ΝΟΜΟΙΣ, ΙΝΑ ΜΗ ΧΑΛΕΠΟΙ ΩΣΙΝ ΑΥΤΟΙΣ. vilege to that of their beards, conceived their liberties There is scarcely, in the history of mankind, a part with the clergy, and have his own beard taken ANNUAL PROCLAMATION OF THE SPARTAN MAGISTRATES. may not be frightful to yourselves." An innovation in the costume of some of the regiments of the British army, by the enforcement of the wearing of mustachios, has lately excited attention. Alterations in the cut of clothes or accoutrements alter not the men; but yoke by the Samnites, having made them feel at their "Narratur et prisci Catonis SAEPE mero caulisse virtus.”—Lib. 3, ode 21. Notwithstanding the subversion of liberty, the Roman armies still proceeded in their successful career, and the empire kept on the increase, so long as the Emperors and the soldiers shaved their faces clean, as niay be seen on their coins, where no Prince, nor soldier, on obverse or reverse, is seen with a beard, until the reign of Hadrian, who let his beard grow, as Plutarch says, to cover the blemishes of his face. At the precise period of the reign of Hadrian, the boundaries of the empire reached their utmost limit. For 460 years, from the year of the city 454, when the barbers were imported, to 914, victory attended the course of the Roman eagles: but the beard of the old fusty Antoninus, Hadrian's successor, was a portent of worse omen than ever shown in the sky. It was not for nothing that the Greeks designated beards and comets by "The scene was truly tremendous. The defile is t narrow, leaving space only for the road and for t rent. The mountains rise on each side so near pendicular, that the vast forests growing on their cast a dismal shade over the road, and loaded as were with a weight of snow, seemed ready to fal bury the traveller as he passed below. "Now and then a chasm broke the uniformity of gloomy scenery, and presented an object less dar equally terrific; a torrent, arrested in its fall by the hanging from the brow of a crag in solid mass terminated in immense pointed icicles, the least of w icicles, if detached from the sheet above, would m crushed the whole party, and when contemplated suspended over our heads, jam jam lapsura c adsimilis, could not fail to excite some emotions of "Whenever the mountains receded and sloped wards, they only enabled us to discover forests rising she each other, and swelling into new regions, till they cealed their extent and elevation in the clouds." Such is the beautiful graphic manner in which E ling, in the course of a continental tour during the qu describes the scenery amongst which we were now ave 1823. "Twas in the evening of a beautiful autumnal da, that season of the year which the clear atmosphere variegated foliage render by far the most agreeable for viewing the beauties of nature. The sun, he rays bursting in glowing radiance through the leadm masses of the clouds, was setting behind the mo tinging their well defined outlines with streams and purple, which, reflected by the snows that the mountain's breast, in all probability for ages, grea all around, till "Each towering peak, and flinty spire, Was bathed in floods of liquid fire." and the whole seemed like the enchanted and enchants ing scenery of some fairy dream. The beauty of the scene, however, was not of lart continuance; the sun gradually declined behind mountains, and with him departed the glories which presence had lent to the surrounding scenery, and the gathering clouds began now to betoken a night as te pestuous as they had been beautiful. the same word. At the sight of that meteor, as Butler would have called it, the Stella Comata of Antoninus, very different from the Julian star, Victory flew off, never to return. With victory fled science and the liberal arts, and amongst the first of these the art of war. Severus, with a beard like a goat, according to Gibbon, subverted the discipline of the Roman armies, and brought ruin on Amongst the Romans, the name barbarian, that is, the empire. Europe was, for ages after, one general chaos beard-wearer, or bearer, was the designation of every thing of filth, ignorance, violence, and uproar. The first reuncouth, stupid, and ridiculous. They had, to be sure, advance towards civilization was manifested in the paring once been barbarians themselves, and had suffered severely of the beards. In France, Philip Augustus was nearly the for it. For many a year had they, with difficulty, sustained first King who shaved his chin, (see the plates and medals as to the weather by experience,) began now to lasht the attacks of the Samnites, and of their other Italian to Mezeray's History, taken from coins and other authentic neighbours, and had suffered under the repeated inroads monuments,) and by that, and other great and virtuous of the Gauls, assuredly from their neglect of shaving: for, actions, established the French monarchy in splendour. in the year of the city 488, the catastrophe of the Caudine Whilst his successors followed his example, they lived in forks, when their whole army was made to pass under the credit and power. But King John, choosing to wear a Our postillion, whose tardy motions had, ere this, b quently excited the impatience of us all, and called for the repeated execrations of the French servant who companied us, (rendered accurate in his discriminate horses into their briskest pace. Rapidity of motion, how ever, was of little avail. Ere we had proceeded far snow began to descend with an impetuous violence, knwa only in such mountainous regions, while the chill wind THE KALEIDOSCOPE. ed in gusts along the narrow way, threatening to | abstinence, yet bore the stamp of intellectual nobleness, I gazed at me for a moment, and quickly interrupting me, nor had yet ch the impending ice, and bury us in its fall. "Decay's effacing fingers Swept the lines where beauty lingers." Upon the whole, indeed, although death had robbed his e snow was gradually becoming deeper as we ad- t has been justly remarked, that no country in the "It was," says he, " on a night as tempestuous as that from the fury of which you have just escaped, that Renaldo Terino, whose mortal remains you have just seen, came first to this convent, carrying with him credentials from the father of our church. He was accompanied by no one, save the guide who had conducted him from St. John's. His dress, although plain, indicated a person of high rank, while his piercing eye, large forehead, and aquiline nose, seemed to favour the description contained Monk,' said he, I have sent for you, not that you should address to me the language of cant; not because I thought that you could alter the texture of my future fate, but that you might be able, hereafter, to testify that Giovanno died a death that became his name; a death, glorying to men; I ask not thy interference with my God.'-f in the life which he had led. Be it thy task to justify me had endeavoured, without effect, to stem the torrent of his blasphemy, and as he was now compelled to stop, from exhaustion, I attempted again to call him to a sense of and again interrupting me, exclaimed somewhat more his situation. He listened, however, but for a few minutes, coolly, Father, I am now too much exhausted, and too near the precincts of another world to argue doctrines. never receive from reason. Interrupt me not again, but Nor would I accept that hope from fear, which I could listen : I have not always been, as you may have gathered I was born and educated from my name, what I now am. in Rome. Of the first years of my life, I remember but little; they were in all probability passed in the usual I lost when young, and on my arrival at manhood, found routine of boyish pleasures and employments. My parents myself unfettered in my inclinations, and in the possession of a large estate. For some time I led the life which is led by most young men of fortune in the capital. To pass over, however, this most barren part of my existence, of my destiny. I loved, good God! how loved. "Here his feelings overpowered him, his face became livid from emotion, he sunk back on his pillow, and lay for some time almost inanimate; gradually, however, he recovered, wiped his clammy brow, drew his breath for a moment, and proceeded with his narration. ld exhibits more than Italy does, specimens both of in these letters, that he was a man of no ordinary cha- I proceed to narrate the event which cast for me the die best and worst architecture. The convent at which had now arrived was unfortunately of the latter class. "Like leaves on trees the race of men is found, In answer to our call, the gate was soon opened by one artment of the superior. The monks, at the time of our arrival, were engaged in anting the burial service over the body of a dead brother, 10, we were informed by our conductor, had died on the orning of our arrival. It was, therefore, some time ere e superior came to us, during which we employed ourIves either in pondering on our unwonted situation, or listening to the noble tones of the organ, as, accomnied by the voice of the monks, they rose and fell in ng echoes along the cloisters. On the conclusion of the service, the superior made his pearance. He was remarkable for nothing, save what as then sufficiently new to us; the black flowing robe, ith long loose sleeves, and the black cap, by which his der is distinguished. We explained to him the necessity we were under of rowing ourselves on his hospitality, and we were an wered by a brief welcome. In the course of the evening, after partaking of refreshaents, ordered for us by the superior, which, although 10t of a very dainty description, were, it may be supposed, endered extremely palatable by our long exposure to Alpine colds, we were conducted by the superior through the various parts of the building, and amongst the rest to the cell of the monk, who, as we mentioned in the preceding part of our narrative, had died on the morning of our arrival. This cell, like the rest which we had visited, was a small square room of about nine feet. At one end was a bed, or board, which served as such, on which the victim of a misapplied devotion took the rest which his tenets permitted him; while at the other end stood a table, on which were placed his desk, breviary, and crucifix: On this bed the now inanimate body of its Possessor was lying, clad in all the insignia of woe. He appeared to have been a man of above the common stasure; his countenance, though wasted by disease and I racter. These letters, however, contained nothing which over him. Desirous "It was not above, eight months after this, and not St. John's. The yet The moon, then at its full, was riding through the " Yes, Father, she was-but it matters not. I loved her with all the ardency of a first love; but she-loved another! The extent of my fortune had made me confident; I asked her hand and was rejected ;-the rejection was repeated, and I was immediately afterwards goaded by the intelligence that she was soon to be married to one, otherwise my rival; he who the companion, the confidant of my boyish years,-the partaker of my boyish pleasures, had, since we reached the years of manhood, now the only being whom Heaven could send to interpose thwarted my ambition in a thousand different ways, was betwixt me and my felicity. I was driven to distraction: from the certainty of bliss I had been plunged to misery. When I thought the cup was already at my lips, I found being to whom, of all mankind, I could have wished eternal, destruction. Canst thou wonder then that I it dashed from my hand, and appropriated by the very sought revenge?' "A groan from Terino, but which he thought had proceeded from me, caused him to pause for a moment. But "Yes, Monk, I sought, and found, sweet and bloody revenge is to a wounded, to a distracted spirit. revenge. Thy cloistered heart cannot know how sweet listen: I learned the day, the hour, the place at which the ceremony was to take place; bribed one of thy numthe keys of the private entrance to the church, and, with every thing ready for escape, concealed myself in the shade ber,-yes, one of thy number, to lend me his robes, and of the altar. My resolution, which had almost begun to relent as I gazed on her deep blue eyes, was again strengthened when I saw his almost triumph at the conclusion of the ceremony. had taken sure aim! vengeance was now complete, and I escaped in the confusion which followed its execution. I escaped to the mountains, joined a band of banditti, became their chief I fired, and, ha, ha, ha! I I saw them fall together. My and have since led that life. "Once, indeed, I heard that she had fallen a victim to my fire, but that he had recovered; I could have wished it otherwise; but 'twas well, he had felt my vengeance,-and,-ha, ha! Monster!" exclaimed Father Terino, rising from his seat, and raising his hand as if to strike the wretch,His Villain! and dost thou glory in thy wickedness! Hadst "He was a man of very singular appearance. long black hair, and thick mustachios, matted by the blood thou felt remorse, I could have left thee to the punishment which issued from a large wound in his forehead, gave to of thy God, but, and he would have struck: death, him a peculiarly wild appearance. This, however, was however, had set his seal on the sufferer's cheek, and the not all, for scarcely do think that these circumstances judgment of Heaven mocked into silence the wrath of man. would have made such an impression on my mind; there was also something fascinatingly fiendish (and the old man crossed himself as he spoke) in the glare of his clear black eye. "For sometime after we entered the room, and even apparently unconscious of our presence. Anxious to break when informed by our conductor of our arrival, he lay the silence, I began to address him; my voice seemed to rouse him from his lethargy; he started from his pillow, "Such," continued the reverend narrator, was the scene which I witnessed. We returned to the convent : had received a shock which overpowered it, and ere the Father Terino never afterwards left his cell. His mind fourth day had dawned, Father Terino was receiving, I fiend that had destroyed his earthly felicity, was enduring trust, the reward of his labours in that world, where the FACT, ME IPSO TESTE. the pains of everlasting damnation." Poetry. LINES SUGGESTED BY ACCIDENTALLY TAKING UP AN OLD NEWSPAPER. Tell me, brief chronicle of hope, and fear, Tell me, thou herald of despair, Of death, and battle-fray; Tell me, where are the myriads now, Kings, heroes, statesmen; where are they? A nameless grave;-nor helm, or spear, And Genius,-speak,-declare,- Where are they now the marriage rite Ah, where are they? and where, oh, where, Where is the pageantry and show, The cavalcade announcing woe, Life's meteor race;-youth in its prime, Where vanish'd all ?-peasant and king, The lofty and the low? Time has swept by, on noiseless wing, Is but that erst such filled the scene, Have been no more l-and this the lot To dazzle,-suffer,-be forgot, Oh, spirit-crushing creed ! Come, I will fold thee up again, For, as I lingering gaze Upon thy sombre page, a strain, See, in high places of thy land, Thy beauty, Israel! slain; The spear and shield are vain ; O tell it not in Gath, How there each high and mighty one May dews and rains make gay, For there the shield the mighty bore The shield of Saul,-the crown'd,-the fam'd,- Once, from the battle's bloody van, On hill, and plain, the sword of Saul Were they, and side by side, Their hearts did not divide: Weep, daughters, weep! for Saul, whose throne Whatever his prospects mig cannot be ascertained. have been, he appears to have abandoned them, m adopted the profession of an actor; and Kirkman an "that he not only acted himself every day, but also every day a sheet." His first play was published in a year 1601, and of his talents and industry some idea be formed from the fact that he had an entire hand, at least a main finger, in two hundred and twenty pind He translated several Latin and Italian works, wh prove him to have been a good classical scholar; and poems, although not highly thought of in his day, good as any poetry of the time. Besides his poems, plays, and translations, he publ several other works, the best of which is his Actor F dication, which displays great erudition. The da manner of his death are unrecorded. SONG. Now what is love? I will thee tell; And this is love, and this is love, as I hear tell. A prize that passeth to and fro, A thing for me, a thing for mo, And he that proves shall find it so; And this is love, and this is love, sweet friend, I trow. SONG. Pack clouds away, and welcome day, To give my love good morrow, To give my love good morrow, SONG. The Spaniard loves his ancient slop, Give me your English beaver. 7 Some love the rough, and some the smooth; The Russ drinks quass; Dutch, Lubeck beer, The French affects the Orleans grape, Scotch lass, and lovely Frow, too; Nought lives above the centre, No fashion, health, no wine, no wench, burgh architect, and that architect's reporting in the affir mative. On the afternoon of Monday, the Rev. Edward Irving was extremely desirous of, and intent upon, preaching in the churchyard, where there were several graves yawning to receive the victims of the accident-among others, one, which peculiarly fixed our attention, destined to receive the bodies of the three sisters, Misses Matheson, and a young woman who was connected with them in business; but the magistrates very properly prohibited the exhibition. Owing to the day being communion Sabbath, and the Rev. Edward Irving having been engaged to preach on the occasion, the parish church was excessively crowded for the evening service, which was to commence at six o'clock. When the tolling of the bell had ceased, but before the reverend gentleman made his appearance, the beams and flooring of the north gallery gave way, and, along with the persons in it, descended upon those beneath. The crash, and the cloud of dust, and shrieks which ensued, were indescribably appalling. In the height of their consternation, the persons occupying the south gallery rushed down stairs; and in the south passage the mass of them became so dense, and swelled so much beyond the capaciousness of the place, as to force in the partition wall which divides the staircase from the passage. A number (particularly females) before descending the staircase altogether, escaped through the windows, the glazing of which is almost entirely destroyed. In the passage, however, many were trodden down; and it was here that the greatest number of deaths occurred. Of the whole number of victims (twenty-nine) only four perished on the north side of the church. The lifeless bodies, which were afterwards removed from the south passage, had become black in the face, the consequence of suffocation. It is a remark-published a pamphlet, to prove that the great fires which able circumstance, that, among all the deaths, there were only two cases of fracture, and these any thing but fatal. Though the north gallery fell with such force as to shatter some of the pews beneath, the fall, it is believed, was the immediate cause of the death of only two, Mrs. Beveridge ressed to a young Student mightily smitten with the Muses, and David Lawson, the former of whom was rendered a and somewhat addicted to the sin of Punning. corpse in a moment, by being struck by one of the joists, while her two blind and twin sons, who were seated beside her, escaped unhurt. One man was seen, after the fall, standing in a part of the gallery which remained, and (as if fascinated by the horror of the scene) to leap down into the area, where he fell prostrate, but, springing to his feet, he again fell and expired, some inarticulate expression hanging, at the time, on his lips. The casualties, besides deaths, are so numerous that they cannot well be reckoned up. They who (instead of remaining seated, as many did) escaped from the crush, appeared in the open air, partially, and some almost wholly, divested of their clothes. Next day, in the Town-hall, (where a magistrate sat to restore articles which were lost on the occasion to their proper owners) we were struck with the immense quantity of hats, bonnets, shawls, veils, combs, bibles, psalm-books, &c. which were displayed in the place: they presented a vivid image of the disaster, in its nature and extent. DOGGEREL EPISTLE, EPLY TO THE LETTER OF E. S. W. IN THE LAST KALEIDOSCOPE; DEAR NEPHEW, On Locke ne'er waste your time and health, I hinted to your good friend D-b-y, DREADFUL ACCIDENT, AND GREAT LOSS OF LIFE, (From the Edinburgh Weekly Chronicle of June 18.) On Sunday last, one of those calamities which, from their magnitude, seem designed by Providence to rouse people from their habitual lethargy, to reflection upon the uncertain tenure by which they hold their lives, occurred at Kirkaldy. As soon as the intelligence of it reached us, we repaired to the spot, and consumed a day in collecting from authentic quarters the whole of its particulars. [Here follows the melancholy list of the sufferers, which we shall omit.] The calamity we have so faintly decribed, ought not to be imputed to the immense crowd, for every gallery ought to be capable of supporting fully as many as by any possibility can be packed into it, but to the general insufficiency of the church, which was built only about twenty years ago. And here, we cannot but reflect upon that rapaciousness of profit, which, insensible to all correct principle, and remote as are the poles asunder from all humane feeling, distinguishes modern times. The joists of the gallery ap peared to us to have been inserted scarcely more than an inch in the walls; and throughout the whole frame of it there was not a single iron bolt. It is very evident to us, at least, that the joists had been bent at their centre by the pressure upon them; and that, in consequence, their extremities resting in the wall had come out, and, as a farther consequence, their opposite extremities resting in a large beam which supported them as well as the front of the gallery (which beam and front are still standing) had come out, in like manner. It is a remarkable circumstance that the rests of the joists in that beam do not appear to be injured in a single fibre of the wood, and the rests in the walls, if we except part of the lath and plaster, are as little injured. There has all along been entertained, by many of the Kirkaldy people, a strong sense of the insufficiency of this church; and we know some who, on the day in question, reluctantly absented themselves from it, from a conviction of its insecurity, in the case of its being crowded. The great majority of deaths has justly been ascribed to the impetuous rush of people from the south gallery; but it is very questionable whether, had not that rush taken place, the calamity would not have been still greater. Before the rush took place, a cracking in the joists of the south gallery was very distinctly heard; and there is a considerable rent in the lath and plaster work of the under part of it, which took place on the occasion, between the front supporting the beam and the flooring. The history of this church, which was designed to contain 1800 people, is very brief. A Mr. Alexander Macfarlane contracted for the building of it; and he having become bankrupt, a litigation arose between the heritors and Mr. Macfarlane's creditors as to its sufficiency; which ended in that question of fact being remitted to an Edin When a calamity of this kind occurs, all angry and controversial feelings ought to be stilled by its awfulness; but, at the same time, there is any thing but reason in suppressing reflections which it may happen to give rise To do so would be to deprive, in a great measure, cato. lamity of its sanctity-of its only usefulness of that which alone can compensate for and mitigate its bitterness. In bigoted times, when there were antagonist religious parties, it was invariably the case that the one construed almost every calamity that occurred into a divine judgment upon the other. The practice still survives with a particular party; and but very lately one of that party, an excellently intentioned, and truly pious, and talented man, devastated Edinburgh in 1824, were a divine judgment upon its citizens for patronising the Musical Festival! Is this more tremendous accident at Kirkaldy, then, also to be construed into a divine judgment? and, if so, for what has it been inflicted? We have always believed, with the best of our divines, that there is, for the wisest of purposes, an impenetrability by human wisdom into the designs of Providence, in many of its dispensations; but there are some who, scarcely knowing their own minds, impudently and impiously pretend to a thorough knowledge of the mind of the Deity, and to fathom it with the utmost certainty; and to them we, in a spirit of charity which, we fear, they cannot comprehend, would suggest that, in construing what, in common parlance, are called accidents, into divine judgments, they are playing with a two-edged weapon. If what we have heard said is true, that the Rev. Edward Irving pronounced the downfal of the Brunswick Theatre to be a divine judgment upon dramatic representations, what will he say of this awful catastrophe happening in a place appointed exclusively for the worship of the Almighty? The Beauties of Chess. "Ludimus effigiem belli."-VIDA. |