1827.] On Dust. 611 



to draw a load to the top. On more than one occasion, it is recorded in 

 the " lane," the load, with cart, horses, and driver, fell from the highest 

 point of acent, and were precipitated down to " bottomless perdition." 

 What a catastrophe ! [ can scarcely conceive any thing that would im- 

 press the mind with ideas of deeper sublimity: not the fall of Mulciber : 



" from morn 



To noon he fell from noon to dewy eve 

 A summer's day ; and, with the setting sun, 

 Dropt from the zenith, like a fallen star, 

 On Lemnos, th' J3gian i.-,le." 



This is too splendid the mind is lighted up with too bland an imagery 

 there is an ecstacy in which it is suffered to languish and, finally, it 

 expires in the dissolving beams of a declining sun : and, if any sensation 

 is left, it is a pleasurable one, for he falls on Lemnos. How different the 

 circumstance, the soil, the clime, from our " black Gehenna." The dark 

 and deep descent the overwhelming rush the murky cloud that fol- 

 lowed the scream the crush and the annihilation! Another catas- 

 trophe, which can be authenticated, is the following. 



The sleeping partner of a Mr. Cooke dreamed one night that her son 

 was buried in the dust a circumstance which she communicated to Mrs. 

 Garret, who, like a kind neighbour, bid her think nothing of it; and, as a 

 means of furthering her good intentions, proposed a glass of the waters of 

 oblivion ; that little wave, which overs weeps all terrors. About two years 

 after, a friend casually dropped in, and wondered Mrs. Cooke had not 

 heard of the accident. What accident? Why, the men in taking away 



the dust, undermined it so much, that ! * Enough memory, never 



treacherous in evil, rushed foremost. " She fled, and day brought back 

 her night." In two minutes she was at the fatal spot: it was, indeed, her 

 son; whom they were endeavouring to extricate ; and, in so doing, unfor- 

 tunately struck" him in the side with a pickaxe, thereby affording an 

 incident which further illustrated the dream, " making the cold reality too 

 real." Nevertheless, he was thus rescued from death, not materially in- 

 jured ; and was thus restored to his mother, " like Alcestis from the 

 grave." 



" And who is Mrs. Garret ?" said I to my informant. " My missus," 

 replied the sweep, who was her eldest apprentice, and who, if he was not 

 equal to Corporal Trim in eloquence, was equal to La Fleur in sympathy ; 

 further, he possessed authority, but disdained to shew it ; he had power, 

 but scorned to use it; and to the little blighted being he could crush, his 

 harshest mandate, given in a soote voce, was, " Come Bob, be alive, and 

 be sure you scrape the pot well out," 



These instances are but the extracts of an Iliad : not that it was all 

 terrors ; for fame has made it sacred to the muses, it having always been 

 called by the classic appellation of " Pig's Boarding School." The base 

 was a sort of Campus Martius, where the youth of Battle Bridge practised 

 the civic games of boxing, wrestling, racing, and throwing the discus 

 occasionally, a mad bullock was driven up. In short, its fame might vie 

 with that of Ida, or Olympus. When carted away, it yielded many 

 thousand chaldrons, which produced to the proprietor many thousand 

 pounds ; finally > it had stood fines, and as my informant emphatically 

 observed, " It beat all the dust-heaps that ever he'd see'd." 



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