brought 1838 and 1880 into more direct association. On the 5th of October an old St. Leonards tradesman, Mr. Chas. Pain, died in Guy's Hospital, whither he had gone for advice, and after it had been found necessary for him to undergo a surgical operation. Being 75 years of age the chances of recovery were naturally not in his favour, although on leaving home, two or three weeks previously, he had no apprehension of a fatal termination. In 1838 the deceased occupied one of the few houses then existent in Gensing road, where he followed the occupation of a farrier. He had previously resided in one of the small tenements now known as Market Passage, and during the year 1839 or '40 he removed, with his family, from Gensing road to Norman road, where he commenced business as a grocer, with which was combined a few ordinary drugs and mineral medicines, whilst he also pursued his calling as a veterinary surgeon. It is a noteworthy circumstance that in every case of removal, Mr. Pain was the first occupant of a new house; and this premiership of occupancy was repeated for the fourth time when, in 1850, he built himself a house and shop on the south side of Norman road for the greater convenience of carrying on his grocery business. Favoured by fortune, if not by parsimony, and not being encumbered with a large family, Mr. Pain was enabled in the course of time to build or buy four other houses, into one of which, at a later period, he retired from active life behind the counter. Mr. and Mrs. Pain had not long enjoyed their retirement, however, when the latter died, and left her bereaved husband with no family around him, and with but few friends to cheer his declining days. If Mr. Pain was not highly educated, he was also not ambitious of distinction; and, save and except that he was several times elected on the committee of the St. Leonards Mechanics' Institution, I am not aware that his three-and-forty years' residence in St. Leonards brought him either emolument or honour in what may be called a public capacity.
Another of the deaths in 1880 was that of Mrs. Potten, the respected second wife of Mr. George Potten, of the Horse-and-Groom Inn. In the year 1838, or thereabouts, Mrs. Potten was barmaid at the Swan Hotel, where Mr. Potten was also employed; and after a long period had elapsed the two persons who had thus held service together when they were in single blessedness at one of the oldest hostelries in Hastings, again held service together when they were united in marriage at the oldest house of the kind in St. Leonards. The union was, however, only of a few years' duration, and many were there who sincerely sympathised with Mr. Potten on his bereavement. The deceased lady died on the 2nd of October, after a short but severe illness, at the age of 66.
My next obituary notice is that of the nonagenarian Miss Cotton, described in the ordinary death register as Philadelphia Letitia, daughter of the late Admiral Sir Charles Cotton, Bart. Miss Cotton was not one of the oldest inhabitants, but she had been a permanent resident at St. Leonards for twenty-one years, fifteen of which were passed at 40 Marina. She had also been a regular visitor to the town for several previous years, her name appearing in Brett's Visitors' List as at 8 Grand Parade in 1856. The deceased lady was a friend to the poor and was esteemed for her amiability and kindness to those about her. Her death took place on the second of October, in the 92nd year of her age. It was thought that her remains would have been taken to the family vault at Maddingley, Cambridgeshire. where those of her sister, the Dowager Lady King, were interred, but she had expressed a wish to be buried in the Borough Cemetery at Hastings; and thither her remains were taken, the burial service being read by a clergyman from the neighbourhood of Ely. The venerable lady had been driven for seventeen years by a St. Leonards coachman named Pulford, who paid his last respects to the departed by accompanying the funeral procession to the cemetery.
Another death was that of George Gipps, Esq., of Tower house, St. Leonards. As he was an ardent politician and a Justice of the Peace, I ought not, perhaps, to have omitted an obituary notice of that gentleman, but as the columns of the contemporary did full justice to him both in his public and private capacity, I will simply and reverently say Peace be to his manes! I may, however, add that besides his mansion at St. Leonards he had property at Beakesbourne[a], near Canterbury, an outlying limb of Hastings, as the premier Cinque port, and was, I believe the only voter in that district for a parliamentary representative of Hastings. It was customary at one time for an inhabitant of Beaksbourne[a] to be appointed at Hastings as a Deputy Mayor.
With my mind reverting to the events of 1838, there is one occurrence, and that partly of a personal nature, the reminiscence of which forbids my passing over it in silence. It is connected with a death which then took place, the melancholy nature of which, together with a knowledge of the persons concerned in it, made such a deep impression on my young mind that as soon as I had developed a musical education sufficient for the purpose I set about composing, in the key of E minor, what I thought was a suitable strain to the epitaph, which (with a little liberty I took in correcting the rhyme) reads thus:-
"Here lies an only darling boy,
Who was his widowed mother's joy,
The grief of whom, all else above,
Betrays her deepest, purest love.
In childish play he teazed (sic) a mule,
At which its owner, cross and cruel,
Dealt heavy blows in angry spleen,
And soon the child a corpse was seen.
His mother now who joys hath none,
Must ever mourn her darling son;
Yet, though her tears be shed in vain,
She hopes to meet her child again."
This little dirge, as already intimated, was effected in 1838, and it has ever since been remembered as my first effort in musical composition. But, lest my readers should be wanting to know who was the "darling boy of his widowed mother," and where was the place of his interment, it behoves me to say that preceding the lines above quoted are the words, "Sacred to the memory of John Archdeacon, son of John and Ann Archdeacon, who died June 5th, 1820, aged 9 years." The memorial stone may be seen close to the north-west corner of All Saints' church. The death of this young gentleman was aggravated by the fact (so it was related to the writer) that an annuity which fell to the mother during the son's minority, reverted after his decease to another member of the family, and so left the then childless widow in straightened circumstances.
The year 1838 recalls to memory two other deaths which I will only briefly allude to, the first being of local, and the second of national, interest. On the 18th of June in that year, Mr. Edward Honiss, auctioneer, &c., drew his last breath, and he having been one of the earliest members of the Victoria Lodge of Oddfellows, his remains were followed to the cemetery of St. Mary-in-the-Castle, by the members of that order in full procession. The other death to which I have promised allusion was that of Letitia Elizabeth Landon, better known as L.E.L. She was, I need hardly say, one of the most remarkable female-poets of her time, and her sudden and melancholy end was universally regretted. She married, in 1838, Mr. G. Mc Lean, Governor of Cape-Coast Castle. She landed at that place in the month of August, and on the 16th of October she was found dead, with a bottle containing prussic acid in her hand. Little did a Hastings lady-poet, who had adopted L.E.L's initials, imagine in the month of March that the real possessor of those charmed letters would be a corpse in October. But the pseudo-L.E.L. did not claim to be Letitia Elizabeth Landon; she professed to be Louisa Eliza Lovelore; and, as some folk say, she only did it in play. This play, however, was of an innocent character, and not altogether uninstructive, as may be seen in the following "Intercepted Letter," which was published in the Brighton Guardian, of March 14, 1838. It purported to be "A Letter from Miss Louisa Eliza Lovelore, at Hastings, to Miss Georgiana Seebright, at Kensington," and it describes one of the lectures which Dr. Cooke was giving in Hastings at that time. It ran as follows :-
Oh! dear Georgiana, why, why did you leave us?
You can't think how much it continues to grieve us,
For, very soon after, we had such a lecture
From dear Doctor C- as left nought to conjecture.
But, first in your mind's eye pray bring him to view,
In pontificalibus holding a cue.
He bowed, and the learnëd Professor began
In describing the noble formation of man,
From the birth - nay, before it - ere human life dawns;
All the while my dear mother was sitting on thorns.
His theory he carries to such perfection,
I assure you, my dear, it was past all conception.
It is too much to write; but, oh dear! it was sweet,
And I'll fully explain it the next time we meet.
But this was all nothing, compared to the part
Where the Doctor showed up the inside of his heart.
You know you call Ernest cold-blooded. 'tis true,
But the fault is not his; his blood is too blue,
For do not, dear Georgy, one moment suppose
That the blood of the heart is like that of the nose.
In the heart it's sky-blue, or a little bit duller;
'Tis the oxygen only that gives the red colour.
So with Ernest, if crossed, do not warm him; between us,
His blood smacks too much - not too little - of Venus.
When the Doctor took breath, and called out for cold water,
He was so overcome that he showed the aorta.
Drawn out upon pasteboard, 'twas just like a funnel;
In short, it resembled the Thames famous Tunnel;
And sends forth the blood to - I vow and declare
I've forgotten, but - all over, heaven knows where.
Yet, this I do know, so don't treat it with scorn,
It different was quite in the born and unborn.
To the lungs he next glanced, and to new regions soaring,
Like a tour through the Tyrol, its beauties exploring.
The bronchis (sic), the thorax, the larnyx (sic) we gain,
And higher ascending, to perch on the brain.
And then, what a sight of bumps, hillocks and vales
Are fed by the blood, and whose stream never fails.
I should have remarked on this theme when I started,
I now understand what is called single hearted.
For, cold-blooded creature - it's a hint, love, for you -
Have only one ventricle, auricles two.
So put the probe well to your Ernest and see
How his auricles stand; I suspect him of three.
Here the lecturer ended. And, wasn't it fun,
Except that the ladies were twenty to one.
On Tuesday we muster again at the Swan,
The syllabus tells you what there it's upon.
I'll write you again, if you like my narration;
We plenty shall see, for he goes through creation.
But what's to be done? I'm sure I don't know;
There seems to be likely a deep fall of snow.
My mother, I'm sure, will be happy enough
To keep me from hearing that which she calls stuff.
Some folk have no souls! And what poet was this
That in spite to poor women called ignorance bliss?
I may safely declare that exceed nothing can
My delight in acquiring this knowledge of man.
So, good night, my dear cousin, your loss I deplore,
And am yours with affection, LOUISA LOVELORE.
There is a postscript to L.E.L.'s letter - ladies, of course, always have a postscript, and Louisa Eliza Lovelore's is this :-
"I hope, my dear, you got my letter,
And that it found you all much better.
We here are almost killed with cold;
I've been, you'll say, extremely bold,
In braving all this frost and snow
T' attend the Doctor; but you know
I such a mania have for science
As sets discretion at defiance.
Last week we'd lectures on the eye,
Which my descriptive powers defy.
Yet, plain they were to one and all,
Though purely anatomical.
The hist'ry of a human tear
The Doctor also rendered clear;
Which when, poor thing! too fast it flows,
Goes down a backway through the nose,
And then what magic there is hid
Beneath the self-adjusting lid,
Which I had thought at rest we keep
Until we wish to go to sleep.
But here the Doctor put us right,
And showed us how it helps the sight.
'Tis wonderful as we advance
How catch we science at a glance.
Next to the insect tribe he went,
And added as a supplement,
That those on sight whose safety lies,
Have five-and-twenty thousand eyes.
But you who see so well would blame
(I mean no pun upon your name) [Seebright]
Were I too nicely to descant
On organs you so little want;
Yet on we go, the way is clear,
As by a passage through the ear.
So hear the Doctor; who begins
"Thus, ladies, eyes and ears are twins;
That is, they have one only mother,
Yet know they nothing of each other
Until they're born when adverse fate
Entirely makes them separate.
But in this day's address to you
I've solely with the ear to do;
You will excuse me then, mayhap,
From saying much about the flap;
Because as it is visible,
Enlarging makes it risible.
Let us begin, then, where my thumb
Rests on the passage to the drum.
But here I ought my wing to poise
And something say respecting noise.
Mark then what I to you declare,
Sounds come by pressure on the air;
For without air the tolling bell
Could not be heard, or not so well,
But then we say, the air will come,
To bear the sound upon the drum;
And then by some unerring rule
It enters next the vestibule.
Thence see we, passing thought the halls,
Three semi-circular canals,
Like those at Venice. This applies
To what we'll call the Bridge of Sighs;
A bridge not made of wood or stone,
But rather of the finest bone,
Just strong enough to bear a sound,
To send it somewhere under ground,
Where reaches it a certain spot,
The lab'rinth called just where I've got."
The Doctor here took breath and drank,
(My feeling heart within me sank),
For some ill natured people think
That our dear Doctor's giv'n to drink;
And all because he gives no quarter
To glass on glass of clear cold water.
And when the merc'ry is oh dear, oh!
In thermo-tubes near down to zero,
If water seems to him so fine,
What would he do if it were wine?
Tush! ill-bred critics, those, say I,
Who wot not that a throat gets dry!
As out o' the labr'ynth now we've got,
And into air-tubes and what not,
The Doctor states that "every sound
A whispering gallery goes round,
And speeds it to the cochlen well,
Which is a sort of spiral shell;
And here we might suppose at first
The noise would make the cochlen burst;
And so it would had Nature left
No little loophole, vent or cleft
By which opposing air comes in,
And modulates the noisy din.
But here we see that from the throat
A wave of air is made to float,
Preventing echoes and to serve
As envoy to th' acoustic nerve.
Thus have we traced the nave of beauty;
So ends my lecture and my duty."
Now, like the Doctor, Georgy dear,
I ask you, have I made it clear?
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