The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 19, No. 529, January 14, 1832. Various

to make my wants known, but changed my intent as quickly, and being a little excited by such neglect, determined not to be dependent upon the domestics, but make a fire of my own. Now then for the materials. Paper, as all persons know, who have "lit their own fires," is the foundation; it was also mine: sundry letters in reply to sundry unsuccessful applications written on "thick double laid post," as the advertisements say, I seized upon, and thrust their crumpled forms between the sooty bars of the grate with some wood, the model of a mechanical invention of my own, which had been rejected by a Society, and why, I knew not; I severed limb from limb, and disposed their fragments across and athwart on the letters previously mutilated. How to obtain my coal posed me for a moment; but I recollected that in a geological cabinet under my window, I was the possessor of a mass of pure Staffordshire, weighing some twenty pounds. The doors of the cabinet flew open, and out it came; I had a strong affection for this lump of coal, having extracted it myself from the mines, and carried it many a weary mile on my return home. I felt loth to commit it to the flames; but this was necessity, "stern necessity:" one or two blows of the mineralogical hammer destroyed my scruples, and produced the proper cleavages in the mass of coal. I laid the precious stratum, super stratum upon the two former, and other deposits of papyrus and lignum; such was my "coal formation." The magic touch of a Promethean elicited my "grand agent" to the thick laid post; it consumed rather sluggishly, but the dry pine wood of the broken model caught the flame and entered into fair combustion, cracking and sparkling, and now and then sending out a hiss of pyroligenous vapour; hissing yourself thought I. The fiery example was soon followed by the coal at first slowly sending up wreaths of dirty, green, yellow smoke, but as the fire waxed warmer these disappeared, and vivid hissing jets of ignited gas shot forth in abundance. The hissing annoyed me; why, I could not divine; but as the heat increased I cooled from the state of excitement produced by the testy destruction of my papers, model, and specimen. I sat down at the fire; had I not better, said I, have made my wants known to the servant, than have acted as I have done? No, I hate asking for what, as a duty should have been ready to my hands. I endeavoured to persuade myself that I did not regret the deed I had done, but could not succeed; something whispered me that I should suffer for it. I felt myself an "uncomfortable gentleman." I began to trace my fire from its origin up to its present state of perfection; the letters were of no consequence—none—the model I made myself and can make another—certainly—the coal I paid dearly for by fatigue, but I can get another lump, and send it home by coach, yes; then why am I so uncomfortable. I looked at the glowing fire which was getting insufferably hot, and gave it a passionate poke, exclaiming, I wish I could stop your draught. Draught! draft, I repeated, what has become of my draft that I received yesterday for my last paper? I began to recollect myself where I had laid it, and quickly came to the awful conclusion that I had placed it carefully between the folds of one of the sacrificed letters.

      1

      Quoted by Cunningham in his "Life of Wren," from a contemporary authority.

      2

      Wards of London.

      3

      We omitted to state that our intere

1

Quoted by Cunningham in his "Life of Wren," from a contemporary authority.

2

Wards of London.

3

We omitted to state that our interesting particulars of the Heckington Sepulchre were from Vetusta Monumenta, a splendid folio work published by the Antiquarian Society.

4

Sketches of New and Old Sleaford, County of Lincoln, and of several places in the Neighbourhood, p. 224. 8vo Baldwin and Co.