LETTER FROM THE GENTLEMAN PRESERVED IN ICE.

To the Editor of the New Monthly Magazine.

SIR,-The journals have expressed so surprising a degree of incredulity respecting my story, as related by the French papers, and have spoken so contemptuously of the mendacity of their Continental colleagues, that I feel myself called upon, as a lover of truth, to come forward in their defence; and at the same time to assert my own claims to life, from which the inconceivable scepticism of the age is but too much inclined to oust me. I throw myself, therefore, upon your generosity to give insertion to this letter in your valuable miscellany, in order that I may not, after having taken so much trouble to come back into the world, be driven again out of it by a set of puny dialectitians, who take their own narrow conceptions as a measure of the universe and its powers, and hardily deny every thing which they have not wit enough to comprehend. That a man, after lying one hundred and seventy and odd years, preserved in ice, should, on being thawed, come to life again, was not, I admit, very common at the period of my ante-glacial existence; and I am inclined to believe that it is an event by no means usual in this present more enlightened age,-if, at least, I may judge from the foolish wonder my recent adventure seems to have excited. But the rarity of an event is a very poor argument against its absolute possibility; and I humbly presume to express a hope that as soon as I shall have run the rounds of London, as the reigning lion of the ensuing winter-an event upon which I think I may count, unless superseded by some new musical composer or New Zealand cannibal-I may thenceforward be believed on my word, and that none will be so presumptuous as to deny to my face that I am alive, or dispute the possibility of a fact, of which they have my most satisfactory testimony. To those esprits forts, however, who would doubt even the evidence of their senses, who admit nothing which cannot be proved, and who prefer an analogy to an experimental demonstration, I would recall the numerous well-authenticated toads, which have passed through much longer periods in a state of suspended animation,-imbedded in rocks,-to say nothing of the tena city of life exhibited by seeds and eggs and surely it is not arrogating too much to myself, to presume that a man can do as much as a toad. To those of a more religious turn of mind, I might mention the legend of the Seven Sleepers; but that was a miracle, and I pretend to nothing more than is in the course of nature. Really, it is very hard that some folks may be permitted to live in an oven, and superintend the baking of their own dinner, while others are denied the right to survive a short nap in the snow. Not, however, that it signifies very much. Let the newspapers say what they please, they shall not talk me out of an adventure, which I feel much too agreeable to resign for the pelting of such " paper bullets of the brain:" and now that I am once more well warmed to the subject, it is not, I can assure them, their cool impudence that will freeze me back into my avalanche. Only, once for all, I should be glad to set the matter right with the judicious, at whose head I willingly place the editor of the New Monthly Magazine. You, Mr. Editor, who are, I dare say, of too philosophical

a turn of mind to be startled at a man's being preserved in ice, more than a salmon, merely because you had never heard of such a thing before-are, no doubt, very curious to learn some particulars of the phænomena which accompanied my thaw. Although, therefore, I mean to publish a detailed narrative of this part of my auto-biography, or rather authi-biography, in two volumes quarto, hot-pressed, with views taken on the spot, yet I will not grudge to put down for your satisfaction some "reminiscences," which, while they amuse you, will assist in dissipating the reluctance of the incredulous in believing that I am I. You must know then, that when I first sank into the avalanche, I found the circumstance perfectly overwhelming; and I was by no means satisfied with " the nature of things," which coupled a fall of snow, with my fall down a precipice. However, having had my education in a public school, I was tolerably used to cool tricks; and so, as is usual with frost-bitten persons, I soon felt an irresistible tendency to sleep come over me, and I lost all consciousness of surrounding circumstances. My next recollection is of a vague and obscure sense of being, accompanied by an intolerable prickling heat of the skin, analogous to the well-known sensation of the foot being asleep. By-andby succeeded pains in the ears and eyes, a sound of rushing waters, and a flashing of lights; then a general stiffness and soreness of the joints, from which, as the newspapers have truly informed you, I have not yet quite recovered. At last, my intellectual faculties returning, my consciousness became thoroughly awakened, and I found myself in bed, in the back one-pair-of-stairs room of a Swiss cottage, whereof the hangings were green, and the counterpane of patch-work,-as any body may witness who will take the pains to go so far and inspect them. To the return of my thorough self-possession, nothing contributed more than an intense and painful sense of hunger, which now supervened. Considering how long it was since my last meal, this did not afterwards so much surprise me; but at the time I could not but think it odd for my sleep, long as it was, having been perfect and dreamless, I could not of course take any count of the lapse of time; and, on awakening, concluded that I had slept only for a few hours. In this notion I was confirmed by the familiarity of the objects with which I was surrounded; for I need not tell you, Mr. Editor, that the honest inhabitants of the Swiss valleys have made no changes, either in their houses or clothing, since the time of my unlucky-or shall I call it lucky?-tumble. Judge, then, of my astonishment when I afterwards was made acquainted with my real position, which happened on the second day of my palimbiosis. The physician had strictly ordered that I should not be allowed to speak, or to be spoken to; partly from apprehension of the effects of a surprise, and partly because this is the routine practice in all interesting cases, as laid down in the most approved novels. So, as the good woman of the cottage was occupied in preparing chocolate for my breakfast, and moreover had been dumb from birth, I had leisure to throw my eyes round the room; where, close to my bedside, on a small table, I discovered a French newspaper, which the worthy son of Hippocrates had accidentally left behind him. I took it up, and, glancing my eye over the first page, read the date 1826! "Oh! a false print," quoth I, hurrying on to the column headed "Angleterre," with the most intense curiosity to learn how Cromwell had been getting on, since the

last post, with his newly-founded republic. The paragraph commenced with-" His Majesty the King of England is gone this day to Virginia Water:" or, if my memory does not deceive it ran me, 66 à l'Eau de Virginie." Nothing could be more perplexing. Next followed a speech on some project for a corn-law, by a "Sur Leather Breech," as the ignorant French journalist travestied the name. This was more puzzling still for while the allusions were all new and unintelligible to me, the ideas were precisely those most in vogue with statesmen and economists at the time of the avalanche. In the speeches of several other members, mixed up with some inexplicable references to a sort of raw-head and bloody-bones, called O'Connell, blazed forth a zeal against Popery, precisely similar to that which maddened my quondam contemporaries of 1640; insomuch that, while I was in an entire new world as to the facts debated, I seemed capable of assigning each speech to some particular advocate" of the good old times" in the long parliament. One thing only was strange-that I knew none of the names of the speakers; and, therefore, I concluded that an election had occurred since the last post; though I wondered that my letters had said nothing on the subject, more especially as my father, who was a good churchman, was, as in duty bound, too apt to interfere on similar occasions, and to call out "the church is in danger," till the hustings rang again. Of all the speakers, no one pleased me more than a member of the Upper House, who was described as speaking from a woolsack; for there was not one novelty of thought in all his discourse, nor a single idea to which I was not perfectly au fait ;--for any thing that appeared to the contrary, he might have lived two hundred years ago. "What a clever fellow this must be !" thought I.-Turning at length from these debates to certain passages of real life, I was at once lost and bewildered in a succession of events, of which I could make neither head nor tail, and which made me doubt of my very identity. The ascent of a balloon and a meeting of the Institute; the South American republics and the destruction of power-looms; a letter from the United States, and the progress of a steam-boat up the Rapids, the sum-total of the debt of England, and the details of a crim. con. action, confirmed me in the notion either that I was mad, or that the French had hit upon a new species of mystification, in the form of a journal, in which I knew not whether to admire the ingenuity of the inventions, or the absurdity of the trick. By degrees, the truth at length burst upon me; though, to say the truth, it required all the gravity of the doctor, and all the solemnity of his assertion, to make me believe the story; and to convince me "how much more elder" was I " than my years." The position, you will own, was embarrassing; for, however useful I might have been to Mr. Godwin in sparing him much tedious research for his "History of the Commonwealth," I was perfectly unfit to converse with any other rational being, from my ignorance of subsequent events. When I asked about Cromwell, people answered about Bonaparte; when I was anxious to know something of Bradshaw, the papers were full of Baron Seguier; and when I was curious concerning the fate of Charles, no one could talk of any thing but the trial of Ouvrard. Fortunately the patience of my kind physician was equal to his humanity; and in the course of a few weeks conversation, he gave me such a sketch of modern history, as served, if not to place me on a level

with the present generation, at least to make me understand why I understood so little. In addition to these instructions, I have to acknowledge my obligations to the multitude of "abridgments," "systems," and "short methods," both for history and science, by the assistance of which, grown gentlemen, whose education, like my own, has been somewhat neglected, are enabled to make a show, and by dint of an imposing manner, and a loud authoritative voice, to pass current in society as men of infinite information. The vast variety of novel objects, by which I was surrounded during my journey to Paris, and my residence in that city, have furnished incessant matter for occupation; and they have been very instrumental in banishing a natural melancholy, which at first crept over me on reflecting that all my contemporaries were dead, and that I was alive in the world. Not but that I have been much assisted in this matter by an observation of society, in which I find the mass of mankind living and moving with great contentment under much the same circumstances. Nobody loves, nobody respects any body, or any thing. Every body makes use of every body; acquaintances meet without inquiry when it suits, and part without regret when circumstances change; and the death of one half a city would not prevent the other from making as good a dinner as they could procure. What could the survivor of an avalanche do worse? Often, however, in spite of myself, memory will recur to the last century but one, and fancy will fondly turn to the image of my poor father, with his straight hair and broad bands-that worthy and honest antiquarian, Mr. Dodsworth. Nor can I help smiling through my tears, to think how the old man would have delighted in his son, could he have possessed in him such a curiosity as I now am. Thus encouraged, doubtless he would have made a voyage to the Polar ice in search of a frozen megatherion, or a preserved mammoth, to be thawed by the burning of a Norway forest, and turned loose into the national menagerie; besides adding ten more volumes to the one hundred and sixty he has already made of MS. compilations. But not to dwell longer upon myself, however agreeable the theme, 1 must remark that England is much changed since my youthful days. London, in particular, is grown out of all knowledge, insomuch that I cannot find my way about any part of the town west of Temple-bar; and even in the city the great fire has so altered its external appearance, that I am often posed to know where I am. One thing I cannot but admire; and that is the ill taste of those who have swept away the handsome portly signs, which used to swing across the streets in glorious pageantry, displaying golden dragons, red lions, radiant suns, cerulean mermaids, and gilt-horned rams. Cruel also was the fault of him who abated the improving projection of the upper stories of houses, which at once showed the skill of the architect in rearing inverted pyramids, and gave increase of accommodation to the tenant. Your theatres, it must be confessed, are wonderfully improved in amplitude, and in their decorations and machinery; but I cannot say so much for your actors! In tragedy especially, there is a lamentable falling off. Your actors take no pains, as ours did, to raise their voices to the highest pitch: they neither move with a stiff but imposing formality, nor stamp their feet, nor flourish their arms; and in the most violent bursts of passion, they do not express themselves with much more vehemence, than might be

expected in real life;-so that they do not in the least look like actors. Still I hear your critics complain of ranting, which shows how much the judgment of the moderns is fallen off in this particular.

From the popularity of some of your books, lately published, called Historical Novels, I conclude that the present generation are very curious in investigating the private and public history of my own times. The covenanters, for example, are made to figure bravely, and with singular verisimilitude, in some of these works of imagination. There is no such great wonder, after all, in this; for, some trifling changes of habiliment and outward manner excepted,-nothing can more resemble a saint of one generation than a saint of another. Our independents and presby. terians were more learned than your modern polemics, whose writings are advertised in strings in your newspapers; but for the rest, they were not a whit more intolerant, nor more presumptuous. I was lately incog. at one of your meeting-houses, near Holborn-hill, where I heard a man hold forth, the very antitype in matter, and in manner too, of my old acquaintance Praisegod Barebones. One thing in these novels gave me great pleasure; and that was to learn that Charles the Second was so amiable a monarch, never wreaking revenge on his political opponents, but, with a Christian forbearance and charity not sufficiently to be admired, granting them pensions;-a method of quieting troublesome politicians, which, I am told, has succeeded "usque ad delicias votorum," in this latter time. Writing of politics and religion, the pen readily digresses to the third great subject of orthodoxy,-dress: and in no respect has poor Old England more derogated from the ancient and chartered liberties of the land, than in this. In my young days, fancy had a far wider field to range in. Neither men nor women were tied down servilely to imitate each other, from the peer to the attorney's prentice and a free-born Englishwoman would have died before she copied the deformities of French costume; though this independence, I hear, was lost in the succeeding reign. When I recollect the variety of costume that distinguished the round-head and the cavalier, the man of peace and the man of the sword, the youthful beau and the ancient justice, and when I look upon the dull sameness of deformity, which encompasses the outward man in the present day, I am lost in wonder how social order is maintained, and how all the different ranks of society are prevented from amalgamating in one chaotic equality, to the entire overthrow of good government and of sound religion. I went last Saturday night to the Opera, when-but I beg pardon: I forget how little experience I have yet had in this new world into which I have come; and that I am prating without book, according to the old-fashioned notions of my own times. I dare say you will think all this very absurd. However, I mean to study hard and prepare myself for the composition of an hundred volumes or so, of comparative observations on men and things, which, I doubt not, will entitle me to share in that praise bestowed upon my father of happy memory, by Hearne, "who, in a transport of antiquarian enthusiasm, blesses God that he was pleased, out of his infinite goodness and mercy, to raise up so pious and diligent a person, that should by his blessing so effectually discover and preserve such a noble treasure as is contained in

* Biographical Dict. article Dodsworth.

Nov.-VOL. XVII. NO. LXXI,

2 H