OBITUARY CURIOSITIES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LIX, Issue 6875, 13 March 1883, Page 3

OBITUARY CURIOSITIES.

lChanA>tn , Journal.) Time was when people were content to wait a month to know how things were going in the world, and looked to the magazine, quite at much as the newspaper, for enlightenment on that head, an expectation in which they were not disappointed. A hundred years ago, the doings at Court and in Parliament, naval and military despatches, the result if not the details of criminal trials, theatrical criticisms, commercial statistics, and notifications of births, marriages, and deaths—lightened with a column or two of poetical effusions, were the staple contents of the periodical publications of the day, as represented by the Gentleman's, the Scots, and the European magazines. Announcements of births, marriages, and deaths were then aeoapted as gratuitous oontributieni, and the last mentioned were often expanded into biographioal paragraphs, much more amusing and interesting than the curt advertisements familiar to modern eyes. Dobbe, sexton of Boss, dying in 1798, aged eighty-sewn, is described as the only inhabitant of the place -baring any recollection of the persons or manners of John Eyrie, the Man of Boss. There was muoh ringing, singing, and drinking at his interment, the ceremonies commenced at noon, " and the clock bad told three in the morning before the tears of the tankard were dried up." No suoh unseemly merry-making attended the obsequies of Thomas Bond of Lichfield, "the original of Scrub in the ' Beaux Stratagem,'" or those of " Mr Psalmanazar, well known in msny ingenious performances in different parts of literature," who died in August, 1768, many years after he created a sensation by the publication of his fictitious " History of Formosa."

In the Gentleman's Magazine of July, 1799, we read: "At Bristol Hot Wells, Anthony Morris Storer, Esq., of Devonshire street, and Turley, Buoks. A man whose singular felicity it was to exoel in everything he net his hand and heart to, and who deserved in a oertain degree, if any one ever did sinoe the days of Oriohton, the epithet of Admirable. He was the best dancer, the best skater of his time, and beat all his competitors at gymnastic honours. He excelled, too, asm musioiau and a disputant, and, very early, as a Latin poet. In short, whatever he undertook, he did it eon amore, and as perfectly as if it were his only accomplishment. He was polite in his conservation, elegant in his manners, and amusing in a high degree or otherwise, in the extreme, as he felt himself and hit oompany." Twelve years afterwards, Mr Urban reoords that the world had lost a feminine paragon, by the death, " at the age of twenty-one, of Miss Anne Butters} a young lady of delightful disposition and polished manners, who was oonversant alike with ancient history and the annals of her own country and of modern Europe j had an extraordinary acquaintance with geography, biography, and chronology, was alive to the oharms of French literature, butenriohed her imagination, strengthened her judgment, and refined her taste by perusing our own classics and poets. She was proficient! at drawing, a beautiful writer, an admirable danoer> and when she played the piano, the effeots produced by her correctness of judgment, delioaoy of ear, and skilfuluess of hand, were not unfrequently heightened by the clearness and melody of her voioe. Some lucky man had won the heart and hand of this peerless maiden f 'but, alas, she had a heart too susceptible of the flue feelings of our nature.' The too eager contemplation of the supposed scenes of future happiness which had recently opened upon her mind, the powerful effect produced by the consequent ooDgratulations'of her friends, and by regret ftt leaving a parental roof, gave rise to a nervous affeotion of the mind, which speedily terminated in her death." Anticipations regarding the future had not in the same degree troubled the mind of Barbara Wilson, "a virtuous old maid," who died at Whittingham, Bast Lothian, in 1773, after enjoying single blessedness for a hundred and twenty years! She was the hen-wife of Alexander Hay, Esq.. and " was so remarkable a genealogist of her feathered nook, as to be nble to reckon to the tenth generation. In testimony of her uncommon merit her remains were conveyed to the grave by a large assembly of females, d"««».P° male creature being permitted to join in the ! P *SSm Brown, of Garstang, had «*»**• •ontempt for mankind as Barbara Wilson herself. "An occasional assistant m the kitchen of the neighbouring gentry, he could either please their tastes or «end their sole*

with any man of hi* day ," but Tom would neither mend nor male for the lords of the creation ; he would omly take the measure of • female foot. A short time before hi* demise, ho eeleoted 86 of hit feminine acquaintance! to attend hie funeral i and derived every penny he possessed to hie female relatives.

4 fermidable li*t o\' centenarians might be compiled from the obituary columns of old magaiinesi but we srfil content ounelres with mentioning two, Isabella Sharps and William Baseline. The last-named died is 1731, being titan the oldeet pensioner in Cheleea Oollege. He might well be, if he had really attained the age of 112 year* 8 month* j after fighting for the Parliament at Bdgebill, for King William in Ireland, and for Queen Anne in Flanders. There, can be no question as to his courage, since he wedded and buried two wives after passing hie century, and at the age of 110 took a third helpmate, who survived him. Besides hi* allowance from the College, this undeniable veteran had as income of 10* a wsok; one cro»n coming from the Duke of Richmond's pocket, and the otfesr from that of Bir Bobert Walpole. I.abella Sharp* was a widow, dwelling in Gateehead, where the died on August 17, 1812, and we are told that, according to the baptismal regUter °fth* paruh, «he wa* christened on August 17, 16J8—exactly a hundred and fourteen years before—having lived during part* of the seventeenth and nineteenth, and through the whole of the eighteenth century' We cannot vouoh for the ttruth of these instances of longevity} but if we must not believe in them, what are wo to think of this paragraph in a London paper of April 0,1882 ?—" Mary Simms, who would have been a hundred and eight years of ace next month, died at the workhouse at Portsmouth on Wednetday. Her husband and father were soldiers, the former being present «t Waterloo. The an. thentteity of her am lias been eitablished by War Office records." '

Mr Guy, sometime rector of Little Coat**, Lincolnshire, is credited with being the father, by two wives, of twenty-six son* and eight daughters. How many descendants the septuagenarian saw, the record sayethnot. Man* Sproutt, blessed only with two children, left behind her, at the age of ninety-five, fifteen grandchildren, forty great-grand children, and ten great-great-grandchildren; while the funeral of one Janet Cameron wa* attended by four generatione of her descendants, numbering just two hundred. Becording the death, in 1762, of the Hon John Petrs, Mr Urban inform* us that this younger brother of Lord Petre wa* the eighteenth member of the family that had died of *malipox in the space of twentyseven years. In 1793, was " executed, behind his own meeting-houso, at Grey-Abbey, near Belfast, in Ireland, for treason, the Bev James Porter, a dissenting minister. His head wu not severed from his body." In the tame year, Bergeant Mackay, of the Boyal Edinburgh Volunteers, went over to- the majority prematurely. "The cause of his death originated in the treatment he received at the barbarous amusement frequent in that city on Hi's Majesty's birthday called 'making burghers;' at which time, and from the same cause, a gentloman of the Sojal Corps of Artillery unfortunately received his death." More mysterious was the demise of the landlady of the Three Stags, in St. George's Fields, London. Indulging in an afternoon nap behind the bar, she dreamed she saw herself come into a room in which she was sitting, and that she spoke to and shook hands with her second self. Whether it was her eidolon or not, certain it is that the next morning she was taken ill and died in a quarter of an hour. A Mrs Johnson went off without even that much warning dying "suddenly as she sat in her chair, and next day her husband as suddenly." Even more of oue mind were a Yorkshire pair, who were horn on the same day, died nearly af the same hour, and—but that was a matter of course— *• were deposited in the same grave" a notification that* would have befitted the announcement: "At Preecot, Lancashire, Mrs Blakesley, aged a hundred and eight; Mrs Chorley, aged ninety-seven; and Mrs Bennet, aged seventy-five; they were intimate acquaintances, and nil died wjthin the space of twelve hours."

On the 9th of December, 1736, Basingstoke churchyard received the remain*of a zealous churshwoman, Dame Box. " WhenDrSacheTerel was cleared from hie troubles, she clothed herself in white, and kept the same clothes by her, and was buried in them. During the doctor's life, she constantly went to London once a year, and carried with her a doien larks, as a present to that high-flying priest. Her corpse was adorned with oaken boaghs, in memory of King Charles II." This loyal lady was not quitr 110 provident as a gentleman whose coffin of heart tf oak covered with red leather was made long before it was wanted. Such preparation for the end is not so unusual as one might suppose. A rector of Plympton not only bespoke his coffin six weeks bsfore he needed it, but al the same time ordered the building of a vault, visiting the workmen every day antd their work was completed. Mr Brootmau was buried in an oak chest made for the purpose four years previously. Two days before his death, he walked with the undertaker to the churchyard to show him exactly where he wished to be laid ; returning home, he had his chest out, superintended the cleansing of it, aud that accomplished to his uatisfaction, took to his bed and died. John Moody, who bred long enough to be called the father of the English stage, directed that his body should be interred in the burial-ground of St Clement's, Portugal street, and a headstone set on his grave insoribed: " Nativo of this parish, and an old member of Drury Lane Theatre. For his professional abilities, see Churchill's Sosciad j and for his memoirs, see the European Magazine," Hs did not trouble to insure a libation to hi* memory, like the ancient lumber-trooper, who served forty years in that distinguished corps, and bequeathed the troopers a crooked guinea, to be spent in punch and tobacco on the day he was laid under the turf.

There is something extraordinary in a man being successively condemned to suffer hanging, amputation, and transportation, and yet undergoing none of those penalties. Such was the fortune of George Chippendale. Sentenced to be hanged, he was wspited, in order to have his leg out off, to try the effect of a newly invented styptic For some reason, the experiment was not tried, and he was " pardoned, on oonditbn of being transported for life j" a condition he evaded by dying in Newgate in 1763. John Dodley, of Worce«tw, experienced an unexpected deliverance of another kind. Born with a contraction of the tendons on one of his legs, he was obliged to wear an artificial limb for 30 years. On 9 day, endeavouring to adjust a ohurohbell which happened to remain inverted, the rope pullod him up with such velocity as to break the bands that fastened his artificial limb, and in fthe same instant relaxed the tendon of the " came " leg, thus rendering it as useful a» its fellow for the remainder of his life, which extended to 90 years. In 1798 there died in the Borough a man known by the name of Leods. Onoe an officer in the army, he sold out to become » teadealer. Finding the occupation not to hie liking, he entered the fiussian service, but happening to kill a brother-officer in a duel, fled to England, where he was glad to earn a liviDg by keeping the books of an eminent woollen-dealer. Sent adrift again by bis employer's death, Leeds opened a chandler's shop, a venture ending in bankruptcy; and after many chances and changes, turned cobbler, and plied the awl to the last—" a melanoholv example of the vioissitudes of human lift.*