Led by the steady taper, I'll explore The clay-cold mansions on this lonely spot: Where blended lie what once were rich and poor, Alike return'd to dust, alike forgot. How solemn is the scene! beneath this sod Perhaps some good old Whitehead rests below, In vain is innocence and virtue vain! Hail! great respected names! with fearful eye Tho' arm'd in terror by a lawless power. And oft, when nature scarce the load sustain'd, In bonds, and stripes, and death's alarming hour, Ye found him still your teacher and your guide; Kept firm in faith by his almighty power, When strong temptations press'd on every side. Ye now from bonds, and stripes, and death remov'd, May we, your children, born in happier time, When now no longer 'tis esteem'd a crime May we, like you, be ever faithful found, Like yon, devoted to the will of heaven, And shew, when ease and affluence surround, We're not unworthy of the blessings given." A Tyneside Anecdote. PON the occasion of the visit paid by the allied sovereigns of Russia and Prussia to London, after the overthrow of the man to whom they had so long cringed, a distinguished individual, in the suite of the Emperor Alexander, proceeded to the north of England, for the purpose of having ocular proof of the subterranean wonders of the far-famed collieries of the Tyne. Being provided with letters to the head viewer of the Wallsend colliery, a gentleman of the name of Buddle, who had instructions to take the necessary measures to ensure the prince's object being safely and satisfactorily accomplished, the illustrious stranger was conducted to the residence of the viewer, situated in the immediate vicinity of the principal pit. Before descending to the coal seams in the bowels of the earth, it is necessary to throw off every article of usual dress, and to put on, instead, the attire worn by the pitmen or miners, consisting of thick flannel trousers and jacket. This metamorphosis the Russian prince underwent, and casting aside his glittering uniform and orders, he appeared in the uncouth and soiled garments of a common collier. In this garb he was escorted to the mouth of the pit, down which he was to be lowered, followed by a considerable number of the sooty denizens of the place. It will be known to almost all our readers, that pits are round holes, of about ten feet in diameter, sunk into the earth to the depth in some cases of three hundred fathoms, nearly one third of a mile, and divided by a wooden partition the whole way down, so as to form two shafts. The mode of descending a shaft is either by entering a large basket used for hauling up the coals, or by putting one leg through a large iron hook at the end of the rope, and clinging by the hands to the chain to which it is appended. The latter mode, contrary to what might be imagined, is the best and safest, and for this reason, that the basket is liable to catch the sides of the pit, and be thus turned upside down. Each person is provided with a short stick to keep himself from grazing the black and dripping walls as he proceeds downwards, and the rapidity of the descent is such as to render this precaution highly expedient. To a person who views this dark hole, and the rough apparatus for a dive down it, for the first time, nothing can be perhaps more frightful; and when, to the contemplation of the actual horrors, is added the recollection of all the disasters of which pits have been so frequently the scene, the whole is doubtless sufficient to appal a very stout heart. So much so indeed is this the case, that hundreds of the inhabitants of the coal districts, with that daily exhibition before them which renders the mind careless and indifferent to danger, have never summoned up the requisite quantity of courage to encounter the perils of a coal mine, or if piqued by shame or curiosity to advance to the margin of the gloomy cavern, and cast an eye down its grim jaws, they have recoiled with a shudder from prosecuting their design of entering. The pit to which the Russian magnate was led at Wallsend, was one of the deepest and narrowest on the Tyne. It was at that period in the full enjoyment of its fame as sending up the finest coals in the world, and offered certainly good cause of astonishment, that out of such a small black hole an individual was reaping an income of £50,000 a-year. On this account the Wallsend colliery was generally visited by the curious, although the mode of working the mine was not at all different from the one adopted in all the other collieries. What idea the prince had formed in his own mind of a coal-pit, it is impossible to say, but it is to be presumed that he had either thought little about the matter, or been very wrongly informed upon the subject. When Mr. Buddle, the viewer, conducted him up the ladder leading to the platform of the pit mouth, and introduced him to the scene of operations, he stopped suddenly short, and asked with alarm whether that was really the place to which he had been recommended to come. Upon being assured that such was actually the case, he went forward to the very edge of the pit, at sight of which, however, he stepped precipitately back, and holding up his hands, exclaimed in French, "Ah! my God, it is the mouth of hell!-none but a madman would venture into it! Upon uttering these words, he hastily retreated, and, slipping off his flannels as quickly as he could, again assumed his splendid uniform of a Russian general, and soon left the Wallsend colliery far behind him. The person who thus displayed so infirm a purpose, or a mind so easily cowed at sight of an unexpected hazard, was one upon whose impulses for good or bad it pleases providence at this present moment to rest the destinies of a large proportion of the whole human race. It was Nicholas the First, Autocrat of all the Russias.--From Chambers's Journal, No. 399. Stanzas ON THE DEATH OF MR. GEO. COUGHRON. AN INCOMPARABLE MATHEMATICIAN, LATE OF NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE. Published in the Town and Country Magazine for June, 1774. E lovers of science lament, No longer must COUGHRON impart; A worthy acquaintance to all, His passions were gen'rous and free; Nor saw more than years twenty-three. On banks of meandering TWEED, To rifle her stores on the TYNE. Each artist his aid would implore; Affirming him prince of the train; His PHILLIS was heard in the groves, The King of all Kings to adore. His judgment, his genius how great! A lawyer, an artist compleat, And worthy, thrice worthy, my song. See Vol. I. p. 65. 1 His answer to the prize question in the Gentleman's Diary for 1772, which, could only be effected by himself. His praise, future ages will ring, Yea myriads of Coughron will tell; J. RICHARDSON, Yarm. The Worme* of Lambton. FROM SIR C. SHARP'S COLLECTIONS. HE young heir of Lambton led a dissolute and evil course of life, equally regardless of the obligations of his high estate, and the sacred duties of religion. According to his profane custom, he was fishing on a Sunday, and threw his line into the river to catch fish, at a time when all good men should have been engaged in the solemn observance of the day. After having toiled in vain for some time, he vented his disappointment at his ill success, in curses "loud and deep," to the great * This story, "full of plot and incident, certainly ranks amongst the most popular traditions of this country." "Orme, or Worme, is, in the antient Norse, the generic name for Serpents ;" and Mr. Brockett, in his amusing and elaborate "Glossary of North Country words," describes a worm to be " A serpent of great magnitude, and of terrific description-a hideous monster in the shape of a worm or dragon. The Italian poetst call the infernal serpent of old, Il gran Verme,' and Milton's Adam is made to reproach Eve with having lent an ear to that false worm.' Shakspeare, too, speaks of slander's tongue as outvenoming 'all the worms of Nile.' Popular tradition has handed down to us, through successive generations, with very little variation, the most romantic details of the ravages committed by these all-devouring worms, and of the valour and chivalry displayed by their destroyers. Without attempting to account for the origin of such tales, or pretending in any manner to vouch for the matters of fact contained in them, it cannot be disguised, that many of † Dante-Inferno-cant. 6. 22. "Quando ci scorse Cerbero il gran vermo Le bocche aperse, e mostrocci le sanne; Ariosto Orlando Furioso-Cant. 46. 78. "O Eve, in evil hour did'st thou give ear To that false worm."Millon. And Cowper adopts the same figure in various passages.-See Progress of Error, and the Task. VOL. III. No foe to man Lurks in the Serpent now; the mother sees, R |