The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 12, No. 339, November 8, 1828. Various

his hair till he had slain an enemy. (Tacitus.) The Lombards or Longobards, derived their Fame from the great length of their beards. When Otho the Great used to speak anything serious, he swore by his beard, which covered his breast. The Persians are fond of long beards. We read in Olearius' Travels of a king of Persia who had commanded his steward's head to be cut off, and on its being brought to him, he remarked, "what a pity it was, that a man possessing such fine mustachios, should have been executed," but added he, "Ah! it was your own fault." The Normans considered the beard as an indication of distress and misery. The Ancient Britons used always to wear the hair on the upper lip, and so strongly were they attached to this custom, that when William the Conqueror ordered them to shave their upper lip, it was so repugnant to their feelings, that many of them chose rather to abandon their country than resign their mustachios. In the 15th century, the beard was worn long. In the 16th, it was suffered to grow to an amazing length, (see the portraits of Bishop Gardiner, and Cardinal Pole, during Queen Mary's reign,) and very often made use of as a tooth-pick case. Brantome tells us that Admiral Coligny wore his tooth-pick in his beard.

C.B.Z.SINGULAR CUSTOM AT ROUEN

      (For the Mirror.)

      The chapter of Rouen, (which consists of the archbishop, a dean, fifty canons, and ten prebendaries,) have, ever since the year 1156, enjoyed the annual privilege of pardoning, on Ascension-day, some individual confined within the jurisdiction of the city for murder.

      On the morning of Ascension-day, the chapter, having heard many examinations and confessions read, proceed to the election of the criminal who is to be pardoned; and, the choice being made, his name is transmitted in writing to the parliament, which assemble on that day at the palace. The parliament then walk in procession to the great chamber, where the prisoner is brought before them in irons, and placed on a stool; he is informed that the choice has fallen upon him, and that he is entitled to the privilege of St. Romain. After this form, he is delivered into the hands of the chaplain, who, accompanied by fifty armed men, conveys him to a chamber, where the chains are taken from his legs and bound about his arms; and in this condition he is conducted to a place named the Old Tower, where he awaits the coming of the procession. After some little time has elapsed, the procession sets out from the cathedral; two of the canons bear the shrine in which the relics of St. Romain are presumed to be preserved. When they have arrived at the Old Tower, the shrine is placed in the chapel, opposite to the criminal, who appears kneeling, with the chains on his arms. Then one of the canons, having made him repeat the confession, says the prayers usual at the time of giving absolution; after which service, the prisoner kneeling still, lifts up the shrine three times, amid the acclamations of the people assembled to behold the ceremony. The procession then returns to the cathedral, followed by the criminal, wearing a chaplet of flowers on his head, and carrying the shrine of the saint. After mass has been performed, he has a very serious exhortation addressed to him by a monk; and, lastly, he is conducted to an apartment near the cathedral, and is supplied with refreshments and a bed for that night. In the morning he is dismissed.

G.W.N.THE SKETCH-BOOKABBOTSFORD,

      And Sir Walter Scott's Study.

      [The following extracts are from the private letter of a distinguished American gentleman, and form part of one of the most striking articles in "The Anniversary for 1829," edited by Allan Cunningham. We intended the whole article for our Supplementary "Spirit of the Annuals;" but as our engraving will necessarily occupy a few days longer, during which time this description of Abbotsford will be printed in fifty different forms, we are induced to take it by the forelock, and appropriate it for our present number. It is, perhaps, one of the most, if not the most, graphic paper in the whole list of "Annuals," notwithstanding there are scores of brilliant gems left for our Supplement. Certain arts must have their own pace; but, in our arduous catering for novelties for the MIRROR, we often have occasion to wish that block-machinery could be applied to engraving on wood.]

      "Stepping westward," as Wordsworth says, from the hall, you find yourself in a narrow, low, arched room, which runs quite across the house, having a blazoned window again at either extremity, and filled all over with smaller pieces of armour and weapons, such as swords, firelocks, spears, arrows, darts, daggers, &c. &c. &c. Here are the pieces, esteemed most precious by reason of their histories respectively. I saw, among the rest, Rob Roy's gun, with his initials, R.M.C. i.e. Robert Macgregor Campbell, round the touch-hole; the blunderbuss of Hofer, a present to Sir Walter from his friend Sir Humphrey Davy; a most magnificent sword, as magnificently mounted, the gift of Charles the First to the great Montrose, and having the arms of Prince Henry worked on the hilt; the hunting bottle of bonnie King Jamie; Bonaparte's pistols (found in his carriage at Waterloo, I believe), cum multis aliis. I should have mentioned that stag-horns and bulls' horns (the petrified relics of the old mountain monster, I mean), and so forth, are suspended in great abundance above all the doorways of these armories; and that, in one corner, a dark one as it ought to be, there is a complete assortment of the old Scottish instruments of torture, not forgetting the very thumbikins under which Cardinal Carstairs did not flinch, and the more terrific iron crown of Wisheart the Martyr, being a sort of barred headpiece, screwed on the victim at the stake, to prevent him from crying aloud in his agony.

      Beyond the smaller, or rather I should say, the narrower armoury, lies the dining parlour proper, however; and though there is nothing Udolphoish here, yet I can well believe that when lighted up and the curtains drawn at night, the place may give no bad notion of the private snuggery of some lofty lord abbot of the time of the Canterbury Tales. The room is a very handsome one, with a low and very richly carved roof of dark oak again; a huge projecting bow window, and the dais elevated more majorum; the ornaments of the roof, niches for lamps, &c. &c. in short, all the minor details, are, I believe, fac similes after Melrose. The walls are hung in crimson, but almost entirely covered with pictures, of which the most remarkable are—the parliamentary general, Lord Essex, a full length on horseback; the Duke of Monmouth, by Lely; a capital Hogarth, by himself; Prior and Gay, both by Jervas; and the head of Mary Queen of Scots, in a charger, painted by Amias Canrod, the day after the decapitation at Fotheringay, and sent some years ago as a present to Sir Walter from a Prussian nobleman, in whose family it had been for more than two centuries. It is a most deathlike performance, and the countenance answers well enough to the coins of the unfortunate beauty, though not at all to any of the portraits I have happened to see. I believe there is no doubt as to the authenticity of this most curious picture. Among various family pictures, I noticed particularly Sir Walter's great grandfather, the old cavalier mentioned in one of the epistles in Marmion, who let his beard grow after the execution of Charles I., and who here appears, accordingly, with a most venerable appendage of silver whiteness, reaching even unto his girdle.

      A narrower passage leads to a charming breakfast room, which looks to the Tweed on one side, and towards Yarrow and Ettricke, famed in song, on the other: a cheerful room, fitted up with novels, romances, and poetry, I could perceive, at one end; and the other walls covered thick and thicker with a most valuable and beautiful collection of watercolour drawings, chiefly by Turner and Thomson of Duddingstone, the designs, in short, for the magnificent work entitled "Provincial Antiquities of Scotland." There is one very grand oil painting over the chimney-piece, Fastcastle, by Thomson, alias the Wolf's Crag of the Bride of Lammermoor, one of the most majestic and melancholy sea-pieces I ever saw; and some large black and white drawings of the Vision of Don Roderick, by Sir James Steuart of Allanbank (whose illustrations of Marmion and Mazeppa you have seen or heard of), are at one end of the parlour. The room is crammed with queer cabinets and boxes, and in a niche there is a bust of old Henry Mackenzie, by Joseph of Edinburgh. Returning towards the armoury, you have, on one side of a most religious looking corridor, a small greenhouse, with a fountain playing before it—the very fountain that in days of yore graced the cross of Edinburgh, and used to flow with claret at the coronation of the Stuarts—a pretty design, and a standing monument of the barbarity of modern innovation. From the small armoury you pass, as I said before, into the drawing-room, a large, lofty, and splendid salon, with antique ebony furniture and crimson silk hangings, cabinets, china, and mirrors quantum suff, and some portraits; among the rest glorious John Dryden, by Sir Peter Lely, with his gray hairs floating about in a most picturesque style, eyes full of wildness, presenting the old Bard, I take it, in