One would think that such a mysterious routine of doctoring, would attract but few, and those the most illiterate; but I can assure my readers the case is different. The number of carts, chaises, and other conveyances laden with the afflicted which passed through this place on the 2nd instant, bore ample testimony to the number of the doctor's applicants; and the appearance of many of them corroborated the opinion that they moved in a respectable sphere of life.
The new moon happening this year on the 3rd instant, at 57 minutes past 7 o'clock in the morning, the "fair" took place at the same hour the preceding day.
My readers, no doubt, have heard of the efficacy of the stone in the toad's head, alluded to by Shakspeare,2 for curing the cramp, &c. by application to the afflicted part; but it was left for Dr. B to discover the virtues of a toad's leg. Apropos, an eccentric friend of mine, once gravely told me he intended to procure this precious Bufonian jewel; and as probably some reader may feel a wish to possess it, I will furnish him with the proper method of obtaining it, as communicated by my scientific friend. VoiciCut off poor bufo's head and enclose it in a small box pierced with many holes; place it in an ant hill, and let it remain some ten or twelve days, in which time, or a little longer, the ants will have entered and eaten up every part except the stone. RURIS.
"THE MORNING STAR."
(For the Mirror.)Queen of celestial beauty! Morning Star!
Accept a humble bard's untut'red lay;
To him, thy loveliness, surpasseth far
The silv'ry moon, and eke the God of day.
The world with all its pride cannot display
A form so fair, so beautiful as thine;
Its glories fade, its proudest beauties die;
But you fair star! as first created shine,
In never fading immortality!
Like vice, from virtue's glance, yon clouds retire,
Before the smile of one benignant ray,
Sleepless and sad, my soul would fain aspire,
Promethean like, to snatch ethereal fire,
And draw relief from thee! bright harbinger of day!
The Sketch-Book
SCHINDERHANNES, THE GERMAN ROBBER
At the commencement of the French Revolution, and for some time after, the two banks of the Rhine were the theatre of continual wars. Commerce was interrupted, industry destroyed, the fields ravaged, and the barns and cottages plundered; farmers and merchants became bankrupts, and journeymen and labourers thieves. Robbery was the only mechanical art which was worth pursuing, and the only exercises followed were assault and battery. These enterprises were carried on at first by individuals trading on their own capital of skill and courage; but when the French laws came into more active operation in the seat of their exploits, the desperadoes formed themselves, for mutual protection, into copartnerships, which were the terror of the country. Men soon arose among them whose talents, or prowess, attracted the confidence of their comrades, and chiefs were elected, and laws and institutions established. Different places of settlement were chosen by different societies; the famous Pickard carried his band into Belgium and Holland; while on the confines of Germany, where the wild provinces of Kirn, Simmerm, and Birkenfield offered a congenial field, the banditti were concentrated, whose last and most celebrated chief, the redoubted Schinderhannes, is the subject of this brief notice.