16th January

Born: Richard Savage, poet, 1697.

Died: Edmund Spenser, poet, 1599; Edward Gibbon, historian, 1794; Sir John Moore, 1809; Edmund Lodge, herald, 1839.

Feast Day: St. Marcellus, pope, martyr, 310. St. Macarius, the elder, of Egypt, 390. St. Honoratus, archbishop of Arles, 429. St. Fursey, son of Fintan, king of part of Ireland, 650. Five Friars, minors, martyrs. St. Henry, hermit, 1127.

EDWARD GIBBON

The confessions or statements of an author regarding the composition of a great work are generally interesting. Gibbon gives an account both of the formation of the design of writing his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and of the circumstances under which that magnificent book was finished. At about twenty-seven years of age he inspected the ruins of Rome under the care of a Scotchman 'of experience and taste,' named Byers; and 'it was at Rome,' says he, 'on the 15th of October 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the bare-footed friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind.' It is to be observed that he thought only of the history of the city, not of the empire, to which his ideas finally expanded.

Gibbon commenced the writing of his history after settling in a house in London about 1772. The latter moiety of the work was composed in an elegant mansion at Lausanne, in Switzerland, to which he retreated on being disappointed in a political career in England. The whole work occupied. about fifteen years.

The historian was then fifty.

Gibbon, as is well known, spent his life in celibacy, and was thus the better fitted for undertaking and carrying through a great literary work. Partly in consequence of the sedentary life to which his task confined him, he became extremely obese. There is a story representing him as falling in love, while at Lausanne, with a young lady of great beauty and merit, and which goes on to describe him as one day throwing himself at her feet to declare his passion, when it was found impossible for him to rise again till he was extricated by the laughing damsel from his ludicrous position. George Coleman the Younger has painted the scene in verse of by no means great merit.

The falling in love with a young lady at Lausanne is undoubtedly true; but it, happens that the incident took place in Gibbon's youth, when, so far from being fat or unwieldy, he was extremely slender-for, he it observed, the illustrious historian was in reality a small-boned man, and of more than usually slight figure in his young days. He was about twenty years of age, and was dwelling in Switzerland with a Protestant pastor by his father's orders, that he might recover himself (as he ultimately did) from a tendency to Romanism which had beset him at College, when Mademoiselle, Susan Curchod, the daughter of the pastor of Grassy in Burgundy, came on a visit to some relations in Lausanne. The father of the young lady, in the solitude of his village situation, had bestowed upon her a liberal education.

The subsequent fate of Susan Curchod is worthy of being added.

Gibbon wrote:

SIR JOHN MOORE

The battle of Corunna, January 16th, 1809, was heard of with profound feeling by the British public. An army had failed in its mission: deceived by the Spanish junta and British minister, it had made au advance on Madrid:, and was forced to commence a retreat in the depth of winter. But the commander, Sir John Moore, more than redeemed himself from any censure to which he was liable, by the skill and patience with which he conducted the troops on their withdrawal to the coast. Our army was in great wretchedness, but the pursuing French were worse; and when the gallant Moore stood at bay at Corunna, he gave the pursuers a thorough repulse, though at the expense of his own life.

The handsome and regular features of Moore bear a melancholy expression, in harmony with his fate. He was in reality an admirable soldier. he, had from boyhood devoted himself to his profession with extreme ardour, and his whole career was one in which duty was never lost sight of. He perished at the too early age of forty-seven, survived by his mother, at the mention of whose name, on his death-bed, he manifested the only symptom of emotion which escaped him in that trying hour.

While a boy of eleven years old, Moore had a great advantage, for his education in matters of the world, by accompanying his father, Dr. Moore, on a tour of Europe, in company with the minor Duke of Hamilton, to whom Dr. Moore acted as governor or preceptor. The young soldier, constantly conversing with his highly enlightened parent, and introduced to many scenes calculated to awake curiosity, became a man in thoughts and manners while still a mere boy. At thirteen he danced, fenced, and rode with uncommon address. His character was a fine compound of intelligence, gentleness, and courage.

The connection with the Duke of Hamilton had very nearly cost Moore his life. The Duke, though only sixteen, was allowed to wear a sword. One day, 'in an idle humour, he drew it, and began to amuse himself by fencing at young Moore, and laughed as he forced him to skip from side to side to shun false thrusts. The Duke continued this sport till Moore unluckily started in the line of the sword, and received it in his flank.' The elder Moore was speedily on the spot, and found his son wounded on the outside or the ribs. The incident led to the formation of a lasting friendship between the penitent young noble and his almost victim.-Life of Sir John Moore, by his brother, James Carrick Moore.

THE BOTTLE HOAX

On the 16th of January 1749, there took place in London a bubble or hoax, which has somehow become unusually well impressed upon the publicmind. 'A person advertised that he would, this evening, at the Haymarket Theatre, play on a common walking cane the music of every instrument now used, to surprising perfection; that he would, on the stage, get into a tavern quart bottle, without equivocation, and while there, sing several songs, and suffer any spectator to handle the bottle; that if any spectator should come masked, he would, if requested, declare who they were; and that in a private room he would produce the representation of any person dead, with which the person requesting it should converse some minutes, as if alive.' The prices proposed for this show were-gallery, 2s.; pit, 3s.; boxes, 5s.; stage, 7s. 6d.

At the proper time, the house was crowded with curious people, many of them of the highest rank, including no less eminent a person than the Culloden Duke of Cumberland. They sat for a little while with tolerable patience, though uncheered with music; but by and by, the performer not appearing, signs of irritation were evinced. In answer to a sounding with sticks and catcalls, a person belonging to the theatre came forward and explained that, in the event of a failure of performance, the money should be returned. A wag then cried out, that, if the ladies and gentlemen would give double prices, the conjurer would go into a pint bottle, which proved too much for the philosophy of the audience.

A young gentleman threw a lighted candle upon the stage, and a general charge upon that part of the house followed. According to a private letter, to which we have had access-(it was written by a Scotch Jacobite lady)

There is a want of explanation as to the intentions of this conjurer. The proprietor of the theatre afterwards stated that, in apprehension of failure, he had reserved all the money taken, in order to give it back, and he would have returned it to the audience if they would have stayed their hands from destroying his house. It therefore would appear that either money was not the object aimed at, or, if aimed at, was not attained, by the conjurer. Most probably he only meant to try an experiment on the credulity of the public. The bottle hoax proved an excellent subject for the wits, particularly those of the Jacobite party. The following advertisement appeared in the paper called Old England: