SINGULAR ESCAPE.

The following curious anecdote is taken from Archdeacon Coxe’s Historical Tour in Monmouthshire, vol. i., p. 101-2:—“The frame of the wooden bridge over the Usk, at Caerleon, is not unlike the carpentry of Cæsar’s bridge over the Rhine, as described by him in his Commentaries. The floor, supported by ten lofty piers, is level, and divided by posts and rails into rooms or beds of boards, each twelve feet in length; the apparently loose and disjointed state of the planks, and the clattering noise which they make under the pressure of a heavy weight, have not unfrequently occasioned alarm to those who are unused to them. Some travellers, from a superficial view of the structure, have asserted that the planks are placed loose, to admit the tide through their interstices when it rises above the bridge, and which would, if they were fixed, force them from the frame, and carry them away. But, in fact, the tide has never been known to rise above the bridge, nor was the flooring constructed to obviate this inconvenience. Formerly the planks were fastened to each extremity by iron nails; but the wood being liable to split, and the nails frequently forced up by the elastic agitation of the beams under the pressure of heavy carriages, the planks were secured from rising by horizontal rails, fastened to the posts, and prevented from slipping side-ways by a peg at each end within the rail.

“The height of the water, at extraordinary tides, exceeds thirty feet; but though it has never risen above the floor, yet the united body of a high tide, and the floods to which the Usk is subject, have been known to carry away parts of the bridge. An accident of this kind, which happened on the 29th of October, 1772, occasioned a singular event, to which I should not have given credit, had it not been authenticated by the most respectable testimony.

“As Mrs. Williams, wife of Mr. Edward Williams, brazier, was returning from the village on the other side of the bridge to the town of Caerleon, at eleven o’clock at night, with a candle and lantern, the violence of the current forced away four piers and a considerable part of the bridge. On a fragment of this mass, consisting of an entire room, with the beams, posts, and flooring, she was hurried down the river; but preserved sufficient presence of mind to support herself by the railing. After having been carried down about a mile and a half the candle was extinguished: on passing some houses at St. Julian’s, near the river-side, she screamed for help, and was heard by several persons, who started out of their beds to assist her; but the violence of the stream had already hurried her beyond their reach. During this time she felt but little apprehension, as she entertained hopes of being delivered by the boatmen at Newport; her expectations were increased by the numerous lights which she discerned in the houses, and she accordingly redoubled her cries for assistance, though without effect. On arriving at Newport, which is more than three miles from Caerleon, the fragment on which she stood being broken to pieces against a pier of the bridge, she fortunately bestrode a beam, and, after being detained for some minutes by the eddies at the bridge, was rapidly hurried along towards the sea. In this perilous situation she at length gave up all hope of deliverance, and resigned herself to her approaching fate.

“About a mile from Newport she discerned a glimmering light, in a barge which was moored near the shore, and, redoubling her cries, was heard by the master of the vessel. After hailing her, and learning her situation, he cried out, ‘Keep up your spirits, and you will be soon out of danger;’ then leaping into the boat with one of his men, rowed towards the place from whence the screams proceeded; but some time elapsed before he overtook her, at a considerable distance from the anchorage of the barge. The night was so dark that they could not discern each other, and the surf swelling violently, the master repeated his exhortations, charged her to be calm, and not attempt to quit her station. Fortunately, a sudden dispersion of the clouds enabled him to lash the beam fore and aft to the boat. At this moment, however, her presence of mind forsook her, and eagerly attempting to throw herself forward, she was checked by the oaths of the seamen, who were at length enabled to heave her into the boat, but could not disengage themselves from the beam till they almost reached the mouth of the Usk. This being effected, not without great difficulty, they rowed to the shore, and embayed themselves till the first dawn of the morning, when they conveyed her in the boat to Newport.”

Mr. Coxe gives the names of several respectable persons residing in the neighbourhood, who expressly confirmed to his satisfaction the truth of this narrative: he especially refers to a clergyman, to whom Mrs. Williams often repeated the story, and confirmed it on her death-bed with the most solemn asseverations.

Disturbed Times unfavourable to Lawyers.—In Stow’s Chronicles, p. 631, the following lively picture is drawn of the state of the courts of law during the performance of the tragedies of religious persecution and tyranny under Queen Mary in 1557:—“This yeere, in Michaelmas terme, men might have seen in Westminster Hall, at the King’s Bench bar, not two men of law before the justices. There was one named Fostar, who looked about, and had nothing to do; the judges likewise looking about them. In the Common Pleas no more serjeants but one, which was Serjeant Benlowes, who looked about him: there was elbow-room enough; which made the lawyers to complain of their injuries in that terme.”

As the Italian poet, Tasso, whose misfortunes were as great as his genius, was on one of his journeys between Rome and Naples, he fell into the hands of banditti, who immediately proceeded to plunder him and his fellow-travellers. But no sooner did the captain of the band, the celebrated Marco Sciarra, of Abruzzi, hear the poet pronounce his name, than, with tokens of admiration and respect, he set him at liberty; nor would he even permit his followers to plunder Tasso’s companions. A prince of royal or imperial birth confined the poet in a mad-house for more than seven years; the great and wealthy left him to a precarious life, which was often a life of absolute want; the servile men of letters of the day loaded him with abusive and most unjust criticism; but a mountain robber, by the road’s side, controlled in his favour the very instinct of his gang, and kissed the hand of the author of the ‘Gerusalemme!’

Parini, a native of Milan, was not only one of the first poets of modern Italy, but a dignified, philanthropic, and most amiable man. When the government of his country was changed, and a republic first instituted under the protection of the French arms, Milan became the scene of very natural excitement, and occasionally of violence. The people had been too long deprived of liberty to be able to bear their new condition with moderation. Things even went so far that a young and beautiful girl was seen to ascend the republican tribune, and to promise her virgin-love to the man who should bring in the head of that foe to liberty—the poor old Pope; and the father of this virago was seen to embrace her with transport and tears excited by this heroic virtue! It was at this time that some violent demagogue tried to force Parini, one night at the theatre, to join the mob in crying “death to the aristocrats!” “Long live the Republic,” exclaimed the poet. “Life to the Republic, but death to no one!” In an instant tranquillity was restored.

A Savoyard got his livelihood by exhibiting a monkey and a bear. He gained so much applause from his tricks with the monkey, that he was encouraged to practise some of them upon the bear: he was dreadfully lacerated, and on being rescued, with great difficulty, from the gripe of Bruin, he exclaimed: “What a fool was I, not to distinguish between a monkey and a bear! A bear, my friends, is a very grave kind of personage, and, as you plainly see, does not understand a joke.”

Evelyn truly remarked, that all is vanity which is not honest, and there is no solid wisdom but in real piety.

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