of a brownish tint, as became a Sicilian; but at a later date he became very stout, without counting that he squinted. But, for all that, he had a splendid head, which might have served an artist as a model to represent the poet under the power of inspiration. His language was not free from the idioms of the Sicilian dialect: his tone, his features, and his manners were those of a pompous, presumptuous, and troublesome charlatan, and usually people ended by recognising him as such. It is said that his conversation in private circles was rather agreeable. His wife declared that the speeches he pronounced, sword in hand, were a gallimaufry of high-sounding and ridiculous tirades. But it is possible that she could not understand him; and besides, she found a way of purifying herself, when the crash came, by blackening her husband as much as she could.
The financial resources he had at his disposal, or really employed, were at various periods so extraordinary, that it is impossible to discover how he procured the money. When he travelled, his suite was always composed of six Berlines, each drawn by four horses. Following the usual tactics of medical charlatans, he sent in no bill to his patients, and claimed no fees from them: he merely accepted from their gratitude presents, or loans. It is said that he spared neither trouble nor care with his patients: and if some cases may be mentioned in which he was not successful, it is indubitable that he performed a great number of extraordinary cures. He distributed all his medicaments gratis, and he only demanded a small fee for his pills, through a chemist in his service. His pretended Egyptian wine was a powerfully spiced and stimulating beverage; while lettuce, and other plants of the same nature, were the components of his “refreshing powder.” He also employed arum maculatum, a very poisonous material, and large doses of sugar of lead for external use.[1]
A RUN FOR LIFE.
A RAILROAD ADVENTURE.
My business frequently leads me out of town, and as time is an object to me, I have got into a habit of travelling by the night mail trains. Usually, I arrange myself for sleep immediately on entering the carriage, and long practice at dozing under difficulties permits me to calculate with tolerable certainty upon a good night’s rest on my journey; but, occasionally, the presence of a more than commonly agreeable companion will tempt me from my custom and lead to a night vigil spent in pleasant talk. These indulgences are however rare, for I cannot afford to incur the weariness which follows on want of sleep very often, and I have therefore grown discriminating in my choice of the man or conversation which I count worthy to have the honour of my wakefulness. On the last occasion when I thus yielded to the temptation the circumstances were somewhat peculiar, and the story to which I listened so strange, that I propose to repeat it here for the reader’s benefit. In doing this I can scarcely hope the narrative will make the same impression upon him it did on me, since I cannot surround it with the actual incidents of the night in question which lent it peculiar fascination; still I believe, that even without the accompaniments of darkness and possible danger, it will prove to possess considerable interest of its own:
I took my sent one wild wet and wretched evening during this late winter, in a first-class carriage of the mail train leaving a London terminus for the north. No other passenger besides myself occupied the compartment, and I was soon wrapped up comfortably warm and meditating a snooze, when the train started.
The whistle sounded, the blurred images of the station lights began to move slowly past the windows, and we were fairly off.
In a few minutes I was sound asleep, and an hour or two of perfect forgetfulness must have ensued, when I was suddenly wakened by a shock which sent me flying, a confused mass of humanity and wrappers, into the arms of an opposite passenger whom I then saw for the first time, and who had probably entered the carriage at one of the intermediate stations from town without disturbing my slumbers. For a few moments the violence of the blow, together with the confusion of ideas consequent on being newly wakened out of a sound sleep, left me in a very nervous condition; but on presently observing that the train had come to a standstill, I became somewhat calmer, and listened with tolerable composure to the quieting assurances of my companion.
“It is a mere nothing,” he remarked, “probably a break down of some goods’ train before us. Suppose we get out and hear all about it.”
We left the carriage, and soon discovered the cause of the mishap, which was but slight. Just as my new friend supposed; a luggage-engine had broken down on the line, and had sent back her guard to warn us of the fact. Our driver had seen the signals, but had not been able quite to pull up before reaching the luggage vans, hence we had run into the hindmost of them at a speed of from three to four miles an hour. Slow as this rate appears, it was sufficient to pitch me, as I have described, right into my neighbour’s arms, and in my half-sleeping state seriously to alarm me. Half an hour’s delay put everything straight again; the goods’ engine was patched up, and we resumed our seats, glad enough that matters were no worse, and not at all sorry to escape from the damp and bitter air outside.
This slight contretemps led the way naturally to a general conversation on accidents, in the course of which I found that Mr. Berkeley (for such I learnt was my companion’s name), was well acquainted with railway matters, in which he appeared to have had considerable experience. I had been not a little surprised at the violence of the shock which was communicated to our train by a collision at so low a speed as four miles an hour, and on my expressing this feeling he said:
“You are quite right, no one would believe until he has actually felt it how apparently tremendous a blow can be given by a train moving so slowly, and I am quite sure it would be impossible- ↑ Those who wish to know more of this arch impostor can consult “Compendio della Vita e delle geste di Giuseppe Balsamo, denominato el Conte Cagliostro” (Rome, 1791); Göthe’s “Reisen in Italien;” and the “Memoirs of Baron Henry Von Gleichen” (Leipzig, 1847).
