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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/15935-8.txt b/15935-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9e593c2 --- /dev/null +++ b/15935-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1837 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and +Instruction, No. 276, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 276 + Volume 10, No. 276, October 6, 1827 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: May 29, 2005 [EBook #15935] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MIRROR OF LITERATURE *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, David Garcia and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + + + + + * * * * * + +THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION. + +VOL. X, NO. 276.] SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1827. [PRICE 2d. + + * * * * * + + + + +Bristol Cathedral. + +[Illustration: Bristol Cathedral.] + + + There is given + Unto the things of earth, which Time hath bent, + A spirit's feelings, and where he hath leant + His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power + And magic in the ruin'd battlement + For which the palace of the present hour + Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower. + +BYRON. + + +The cathedral of Bristol is one of the most interesting relics of +monastic splendour which have been spared from the wrecks of desolation +and decay. It is dedicated to the holy and undivided Trinity, and is the +remains of an abbey or monastery of great magnificence, which was +dedicated to St. Augustine. The erection of this monastery was begun +in 1140, and was finished and dedicated in 1148, according to the +inscription on the tomb of the founder, Robert Fitzharding, the first +lord of Berkeley, who, together with others of that illustrious family, +are enshrined within these walls. It was also denominated the monastery +of the black regular canons of the order of Saint Victor, who are +mentioned by Leland as the black canons of St. Augustine within the city +walls. By some historians, Fitzharding is represented as an opulent +citizen of Bristol; but generally as a younger son or grandson of the +king of Denmark, and as the youthful companion of Henry II., who, +betaking himself from the sunshine of royal friendship, became a canon +of the monastery he himself had founded. In this congenial solitude he +died in 1170, aged 75. Such is the outline of the foundation of this +structure, and it is one of the most attractive episodes of the early +history of England; for the circumstance of a noble exchanging the +gilded finery of a court, and the gay companionship of his prince, for +the gloomy cloisters of an abbey, and the ascetic duties of monastic +life, bespeaks a degree of resolution and self-control which was more +probably the result of sincere conviction than of momentary caprice. + +The present cathedral is represented to have been merely the church of +the monastery, which was entirely rebuilt in the commencement of the +fourteenth century. The style of architecture in the different parts of +this cathedral is accurately discriminated in the following account from +the pen of Bishop Littleton, F.S.A.:--"The lower parts of the chapter +house walls," says he, "together with the door-way and columns at the +entrance of the chapter-house, may be pronounced to be of the age of +Stephen, or rather prior to his reign, being fine Saxon architecture. +The inside walls of the chapter-house have round ornamental arches +intersecting each other. The cathedral appears to be of the same style +of building throughout, and in no part older than Edward the First's +time, though some writers suppose the present fabric was begun in king +Stephen's time; but not a single arch, pillar, or window agrees with +the mode which prevailed at that time. The great gateway leading into +the College Green is round-arched, with mouldings richly ornamented +in the Saxon taste." From this account it appears probable that the +chapter-house and gateway are all the present remains of the ancient +monastery. The mutilations which the cathedral of Bristol has undergone, +are not entirely to be referred to the era of the dissolution of the +monasteries, since this structure suffered very considerably during +the period of the civil wars. The ruthless soldiers discovered their +barbarism by violating the sacred tombs of the dead, and by offering +every indignity which they supposed would be considered a profanation of +the places which the piety of their ancestors consecrated to religion. +At such instances of the violence of civil factions, the sensitive mind +shudders with disgust. + +The cathedral of Bristol is rich in monumental tributes to departed +worth. Among them is an elegant monument, by Bacon, to Mrs. Elizabeth +Draper, the _Eliza_ of Sterne; and the classical tomb of the +Hendersons. Here, too, rests Lady Hesketh, the friend of Cowper; Powell, +of Covent Garden Theatre; besides branches of the Berkeley family, and +various abbots. + +The bishopric of Bristol is the least wealthy ecclesiastical promotion +which confers the dignity of a mitre. Its revenue is generally stated to +amount to no more than five or six hundred pounds per annum. In the list +of bishops are Fletcher, father of the celebrated dramatist, the +colleague of Beaumont; he attended Mary Queen of Scots on the Scaffold; +Lake, one of the seven bishops committed to the Tower in the time of +James I.; Trelawney, a familiar name in the events of 1688; Butler, who +materially improved the episcopal palace of Bristol; Conybeare and +Newton, names well known in literary history; with the erudite +Warburton, whose name occurs in the list of deans of Bristol. + + * * * * * + + +DEBTOR AND CREDITOR.[1] + + The time is out of joint.--_Hamlet._ + + + A man of my profession never counterfeits, till he lays hold upon a + debtor and says he _rests_ him: for then he brings him to all + manner of unrest.--_The Bailiff, in 'Every Man in his Humour.'_ + + + Run not into debt, either for wares sold or money borrowed; be content + to want things that are not of absolute necessity, rather than to run up + the score: such a man pays at the latter a third part more than the + principal comes to, and is in perpetual servitude to his creditors; + lives uncomfortably; is necessitated to increase his debts to stop his + creditors' mouths; and many times falls into desperate courses. + + SIR M. HALE. + + +"The greatest of all distinctions in civil life," says Steele, "is that +of debtor and creditor;" although no kind of slavery is so easily +endured, as that of being in debt. Luxury and expensive habits, which +are commonly thought to enlarge our liberty by increasing our +enjoyments, are thus the means of its infringement; whilst, in nine +cases out of ten, the lessons taught by this rigid experience lead to +the bending and breaking of our spirits, and the unfitting of us for the +rational pleasures of life. All ranks of mankind seem to fall into this +fatal error, from the voluptuous Cleopatra to the needy philosopher, who +doles out a mealsworth of morality for his fellow-creatures, and who +would fain live according to his own precepts, had he not exhausted his +means in the acquisition of his experience. + +I blush to confess, that I have often thought the _habit of debt_ +to be our national inheritance--from that bugbear of out-of-place men, +the Sinking Fund, to the parish-clerk, who mortgages his fees at the +chandler's; and that my countrymen seem to have resolved to increase +their own enjoyments at the expense of posterity, with whose provision, +even Swift thinks we have no concern. Again; I have thought that we are +apt to over-rate our national advancement, by supposing the present race +to be wiser than the previous one, without once looking into our +individual contributions to this state of enlightenment. Proud as we are +of this distinction in the social scale, we can record few instances of +contemporary genius, and we are bound to confess that men are not a whit +the better in the present than in the previous generation. Thus we +hoodwink each other till social outrages become every-day occurrences, +and every thing but sheer violence is protected by its frequency; and in +this manner we consent to compromise our happiness, and then affect to +be astonished at its scarcity. In the later ages of the world, men have +learned to temporize with principles, and to sacrifice, at the shrine +of passing interest, as much real virtue as would bear them harmless +throughout life. Hence, of what more avail is the virtue of the Roman +fathers, or are the amiable friendships of Scipio and Lelius, than +as so many amusing fictions to exercise the imaginations of schoolmen +in drawing outlines of character, which experience does not finish. +Friends, like certain flowers, bloom around us in the sunshine of +success; but at night-fall or at the approach of storms, they shut up +their hearts; and thus, poor victims being rifled of their mind's +content, with their little string of enjoyments broken up for ever, +are abandoned to the pity or scorn of bystanders. It is impossible to +reflect for a moment on such a crisis, without dropping a tear for the +self-created infirmities of man: but there are considerations at which +he shudders, and which he would rather varnish over with the sophistry +of his refinement, and the fallacies of self-conceit. + +I fear that I am breaking my rule in not confining myself to a few +shades of debt and conscience, with a view of determining how far they +are usually reconciled among us. The task may not prove altogether +fruitless; notwithstanding, to find honest men, would require the +lantern of Diogenes, and perhaps turn out like Gratiano's wheat. + +In our youthful days, we all remember to have read a pithy string of +Maxims by Dr. Franklin; and we are accustomed to admire the pertinence +of their wit,--but here their influence too often terminates. Since +Franklin's time, the practice of getting into debt has become more and +more easy, notwithstanding men have become more wary. Goldsmith, too, +gives us a true picture of this habit in his scene with Mr. Padusoy, the +mercer, a mode which has been found to succeed so well since his time, +that, with the exception of a few short-cuts by sharpers and other +proscribed gentry, little amendment has been made. Profuseness on the +part of the debtor will generally be found to beget confidence on that +of the creditor; and, in like manner, diffidence will create mistrust, +and mistrust an entire overthrow of the scheme. An unblushing front, and +the gift of _non chalance_, are therefore the best qualifications +for a debtor to obtain credit, while poor modesty will be starved in her +own littleness. In vain has Juvenal protested--"_Fronti nulla +fides;_" and have the world been amused with anecdotes of paupers +dying with money sewed up in their clothes: appearance and assumed +habits are still the handmaids to confidence; and so long as this system +exists, the warfare of debtor and creditor will be continued. +Procrastination will be found to be another furtherance of the system, +inasmuch as it is too evident throughout life that men are more apt to +take pleasure "by the forelock," than to calculate its consequence. In +this manner, men of irregular habits anticipate and forestal every hour +of their lives, and pleasure and pain alternate, till pain, like debt, +accumulates, and sinks its patient below the level of the world. Economy +and forecast do not enter into the composition of such men, nor are such +lessons often felt or acknowledged, till custom has rendered the heart +unfit for the reception of their counsels. It is too frequently that the +neglect of these principles strikes at the root of social happiness, and +produces those lamentable wrecks of men--those shadows of sovereignty, +which people our prisons, poor-houses, and asylums. Genius, with all her +book-knowledge, is not exempt from this failing; but, on the contrary, a +sort of fatality seems to attend her sons and daughters, which tarnishes +their fame, and often exposes them to the brutish attacks of the +ignorant and vulgar. Wits, and even philosophers, are among this number; +and we are bound to acknowledge, that, beyond the raciness of their +writings, there is but little to admire or imitate in the lives of such +men as Steele, Foote, or Sheridan. It is, however, fit that principle +should be thus recognised and upheld, and that any dereliction from its +rules should be placed against the account of such as enjoy other +degrees of superiority, and allowed to form an item in the scale of +their merits. + +(_To be concluded in our next._) + + [1] From _"Cameleon Sketches_," by the author of "_The Promenade round + Dorking_." In the press. + + * * * * * + + +AN ENGLISHMAN'S PRAYER + + + Grant, righteous Heaven, however cast my fate + On social duties or in toils of state, + Whether at home dispensing equal laws, + Or foremost struggling for the world's applause, + As neighbour, husband, brother, sire, or son, + In every work, accomplished or begun, + Grant that, by me, thy holy will be done. + When false ambition tempts my soul to rise, + Teach me her proffer'd honours to despise, + Though chains or poverty await the just, + Though villains lure me to betray my trust, + Unmoved by wealth, unawed by tyrant, might + Still let me steadily pursue the right, + Hold fast my plighted faith, nor stoop to give + For lengthen'd life, the only cause to live. + + * * * * * + + +ITALY. + +(_To the Editor of the Mirror_.) + + +SIR,--Is your correspondent (see the MIRROR of the 15th of September) +quite right in asserting that Italy has invariably retained the same +name from its first settlement? or would the fact be singular if true? +Virgil, in his first book of the _Æneid_, implies that it had at +least _two_ names before that of Italy. "_Ænotrii_ coluere viri;" +"_Hesperiam_ graii cognomine dicunt;" "Itali ducis de nomine." His +works are not at hand, so that I cannot specify the line; but the +passage is repeated three or four times in the course of the poem, and +the reference, therefore, to it is peculiarly easy. + +In other places, as you may remember, he gives it the appellation of +"Ausonia." + +Now as to the singularity of the circumstance, supposing it were +otherwise, to what does it amount but this: that when Italian power +extended over the countries of Europe, Italian names were given them; +that as this power declined, these names as naturally fell into disuse; +and the different nations, actuated severally by a spirit of +independence or of caprice, recurred to their own or foreign tongues for +the designation of their territory. While at Rome itself, which, though +often suffering from the calamities of war, still retained a +considerable share of influence, the inhabitants adhered to their native +dialect, and the same city which had been the birth-place and cradle of +the infant language was permitted to become its sanctuary at last. + +Y.M. + + * * * * * + + + + +SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS. + + * * * * * + +ELISE. + +(_By L.E.L._) + + O Let me love her! she has past + Into my inmost heart-- + A dweller on the hallowed ground + Of its least worldly part; + Where feelings and where memories dwell + Like hidden music in the shell. + + She was so like the forms that float + On twilight's hour to me, + Making of cloud-born shapes and thoughts + A dear reality; + As much a thing of light and air + As ever poet's visions were. + + I left smoke, vanities, and cares, + Just far enough behind, + To dream of fairies 'neath the moon, + Of voices on the wind, + And every fantasy of mine + Was truth in that sweet face of thine. + + Her cheek was very, very pale, + Yet it was still more fair; + Lost were one half its loveliness, + Had the red rose been there: + But now that sad and touching grace + Made her's seem like an angel's face. + + The spring, with all its breath and bloom, + Hath not so dear a flower, + As the white lily's languid head + Drooping beneath the shower; + And health hath ever waken'd less + Of deep and anxious tenderness. + + And O thy destiny was love, + Written in those soft eyes; + A creature to be met with smiles. + And to be watch'd with sighs; + A sweet and fragile blossom, made + To be within the bosom laid. + + And there are some beneath whose touch + The coldest hearts expand, + As erst the rocks gave forth their tears + Beneath the prophet's hand; + And colder than that rock must be + The heart that melted not for thee. + + Thy voice--thy poet lover's song + Has not a softer tone; + Thy dark eyes--only stars at night + Such holy light have known; + And thy smile is thy heart's sweet sign, + So gentle and so feminine. + + I feel, in gazing on thy face, + As I had known thee long; + Thy looks are like notes that recall + Some old remembered song + By all that touches and endears, + Lady, I must have loved thee years. + +_Literary Gazette._ + + * * * * * + + +COLONEL GEORGE HANGER. + + +Dining on one occasion at Carlton-house, it is said that, after the +bottle had for some time circulated, his good-humoured volubility +suddenly ceased, and he seemed for a time to be wholly lost in thought. +While he "chewed the cud" in this ruminating state, his illustrious host +remarked his very unusual quiescency, and interrupted it by inquiring +the subject of his meditation. "I have been reflecting, Sir," replied +the colonel, "on the lofty independence of my present situation. I have +compromised with my creditors, paid my washerwoman, and have three +shillings and sixpence left for the pleasures and necessities of life," +exhibiting at the same time current coin of the realm, in silver and +copper, to that amount, upon the splendid board at which he sat. + +Having occasion to express his gratitude to his friend and patron for +his nomination to a situation under government (which, had he been +prudent, might have sufficed for genteel support), it is said that the +royal personage condescended to observe, on the colonel's expatiating +on the advantages of his office, that "now he was rich, he would so +far impose upon his hospitality as to dine with him;" at the same time +insisting on the repast being any thing but extravagant. "I shall give +your royal highness a leg of mutton, and nothing more, by G----," warmly +replied the gratified colonel, in his plain and homely phrase. The day +was nominated, and the colonel had sufficient time to recur to his +budget and bring his ways and means into action. Where is the +sanguineless being whose hopes have never led him wrong? if such there +be, the colonel was not one of those. Long destitute of credit and +resources, he looked upon his appointment as the incontestable source of +instant wealth, and he hesitated not to determine upon the forestalment +of its profits to entertain the "first gentleman in England." But, alas! +agents and brokers have flinty hearts. There were doubts (not of his +word, for with creditors that he had never kept), but of the accidents +of life, either naturally, or by one of those casualties he had depicted +in the front of his book. In short, the day approached--nay, actually +arrived, and his pockets could boast little more than the once vaunted +half-crown and a shilling. Here was a state sufficient to drive one of +less strength of mind to despair. As a friend, a subject, a man of +honour, and one who prided himself upon a tenacious adherence to his +word (when the aforesaid creditors were not concerned), he felt keenly +all the horrors of his situation. + +The day arrived, and etiquette demanded that the proper officer should +examine and report upon the nature of the expected entertainment, a duty +that had been deferred until a late hour of the day. Well was it that +the confiding prince had not wholly dispensed with that form; for verily +the said officer found the colonel, with a dirty scullion for his aide +du camp, in active and zealous preparation for his royal visiter; his +shirt sleeves tucked up, while he ardently basted the identical and +solitary "leg of mutton" as it revolved upon the spit: potatoes were to +be seen delicately insinuated into the pan beneath to catch the rich +exudation of the joint; while several tankards of foaming ale, and what +the French term "bread à discretion," announced that, in quantity, if +not in quality, he had not been careless in providing for the +entertainment of his illustrious guest. Although the colonel's culinary +skill leaves no doubt that the leg of mutton would have sustained +(according to Mr. Hunt's elegant phraseology) critical discussion on its +intrinsic merits, or on its concoction; and although the dinner might +have been endured by royalty (of whose homely appetite the ample +gridiron at Alderman Combe's brewery then gave ample proof), yet his +royal highness's poodles would assuredly have perspired through every +pore at the very mention of what a certain nobleman used to term a +"jig-hot;" so the feast was dispensed with, and due acknowledgment made +for the evident proofs of hospitality which had been displayed. + +After various vicissitudes of life and fortune, in Hanger's advanced +age, a coronet became his, and it came opportunely; for he had at length +learned experience, and knowing the value of the competence he had +obtained, he resolved to enjoy it. He had had enough of fashion; and had +proved all its allurements. So he took a small house in a part of +earth's remoter regions, no great way from Somers' Town, near which +stood a public-house he was fond of visiting, and there, as the price of +his sanction, and in acknowledgment of his rank, a large chair by the +fire-side was exclusively appropriated to the peer.--_New Monthly +Magazine._ + + * * * * * + + +ANECDOTES OF UGO FOSCOLO, THE ITALIAN POET. + + +Foscolo was in person about the middle height, and somewhat thin, +remarkably clean and neat in his dress,--although on ordinary occasions, +he wore a short jacket, trousers of coarse cloth, a straw hat, and thick +heavy shoes; the least speck of dirt on his own person, or on that of +any of his attendants, seemed to give him real agony. His countenance +was of a very expressive character, his eyes very penetrating, although +they occasionally betrayed a restlessness and suspicion, which his words +denied; his mouth was large and ugly, his nose drooping, in the way that +physiognomists dislike, but his forehead was splendid in the extreme; +large, smooth, and exemplifying all the power of thought and reasoning, +for which his mind was so remarkable. It was, indeed, precisely the same +as that we see given in the prints of Michael Angelo; he has often heard +the comparison made, and by a nod assented to it. In his living, Foscolo +was remarkably abstemious. He seldom drank more than two glasses of +wine, but he was fond of having all he eat and drank of the very best +kind, and laid out with great attention to order. He always took coffee +immediately after dinner. His house,--I speak of the one he built for +himself, near the Regent's Park,--was adorned with furniture of the most +costly description; at one time he had five magnificent carpets, one +under another, on his drawing-room, and no two chairs in his house +were alike. His tables were all of rare and curious woods. Some of +the best busts and statues (in plaster) were scattered through every +apartment,--and on those he doated with a fervour scarcely short of +adoration. I remember his once sending for me in great haste, and when +I entered his library, I found him kneeling, and exclaiming, "beautiful, +beautiful." He was gazing on the Venus de Medici, which he had +discovered looked most enchanting, when the light of his lamp was made +to shine upon it from a particular direction. On this occasion, he had +summoned his whole household into his library, to witness the discovery +which gave him so much rapture. In this state, continually exclaiming, +"beautiful, beautiful," and gazing on the figure, he remained for nearly +two hours. + +He had the greatest dislike to be asked a question, which he did not +consider important, and used to say, "I have three miseries--smoke, +flies, and to be asked a foolish question." + +His memory was one of the most remarkable. He has often requested me to +copy for him (from some library) a passage, which I should find in such +a page of such a book; and appeared as if he never forgot any thing with +which he was once acquainted. + +His conversation was peculiarly eloquent and impressive, such as to +render it evident that he had not been over-rated as an orator, when in +the days of his glory, he was the admiration of his country. I remember +his once discoursing to me of language, and saying, "in every language, +there are three things to be noticed,--verbs, substantives, and the +particles; the verbs," holding out his hand, "are as the bones of these +fingers; the substantives, the flesh and blood; but the particles are +the sinews, without which the fingers could not move." + +"There are," said he to me, once, "three kinds of writing--_diplomatic_, +in which you do not come to a point, but write artfully, and not to show +what you mean; _attorney_, in which you are brief; and _enlarged_, +in which you spread and stretch your thoughts." + +I have said that his cottage, (built by himself,) near the Regent's +Park, was very beautiful. I remember his showing me a letter to a +friend, in which were the following passages:--After alluding to some +pecuniary difficulties, he says, "I can easily undergo all privations, +but my dwelling is always my workshop, and often my prison, and ought +not to distress me with the appearance of misery, and I confess, in this +respect, I cannot be acquitted of extravagance." + +Speaking afterwards of the costliness of his furniture, he observes, +"they encompass me with an air of respectability, and they give me the +illusion of not having fallen into the lowest circumstances. I must also +declare that I will die like a gentleman, on a clean bed, surrounded by +the Venus's, Apollo's, and the Graces, and the busts of great men; nay, +even among flowers, and, if possible, while music is breathing around +me. Far from courting the sympathy of posterity, I will never give +mankind the gratification of ejaculating preposterous sighs, because I +died in a hospital, like Camoens, or Tasso; and since I must be buried +in your country, I am happy in having got, for the remainder of my life, +a cottage, independent of neighbours, surrounded by flowery shrubs, and +open to the free air:--and when I can freely dispose of a hundred +pounds, I will build a small dwelling for my corpse also, under a +beautiful oriental plane tree, which I mean to plant next November, and +cultivate _con amore_, to the last year of my existence. So far, I +am, indeed an epicure, but in all other things, I am the most moderate +of men. I might vie with Pythagoras for sobriety, and even with the +great Scipio for continence."--Poor Foscolo! these dreams were far, very +far from being realized. Within a short time after, his cottage, and all +its beautiful contents, came to the hammer, and were distributed. A +wealthy gold-smith now inhabits the dwelling of the poet of Italy. It is +but justice to his friends to add, that there were circumstances which +justified them in falling away from him. + +During a great portion of the time I was acquainted with Ugo Foscolo, he +was under severe pecuniary distress, chiefly indeed brought on by his +own thoughtless extravagance, in building and decorating his house. I +have frequently in those moments seen him beat his forehead, tear his +hair, and gnash his teeth in a manner horrifying; and often left him at +night without the least hope of seeing him alive in the morning. He had +a little Italian dagger which he always kept in his bed-room, and this +he frequently told me would "drink his heart's blood in the night." "I +will die," said he, one day, "I am a stranger, and have no friends." +"Surely, sir," I replied, "a stranger may have friends." "Friends," he +answered; "I have learnt that there is nothing in the word; I assure +you, I called on W----e, to know if there was anything bad about me in +the newspapers; everybody seems to be leagued against me--friends and +enemies. I assure you, I do not think I will live after next Saturday, +unless there is some change." At another time he said, "I am surrounded +with difficulties, and must yield either life or honour; and can you ask +me which I will give up?" I have now before me a letter of Foscolo's, +which, after enumerating a long series of evils, concludes thus:--"Thus, +if I have not underwent the doom of Tasso, I owe it only to the strength +of my nerves that have preserved me." + +The following sonnet was written by Ugo Foscolo, in English, and +accompanied the Essays on Petrarch, in the edition of that work which +was printed for private circulation. It was omitted when the volume was +subsequently published, and is consequently known to very few: + + +TO CALLIRHOE, AT LAUSANNE. + + Her face was veiled; yet to my fancied sight + Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shin'd. + But, oh! I wak'd.----MILTON. + + + I twine far distant from my Tuscan grove, + The lily chaste, the rose that breathes of love, + The myrtle leaf, and Laura's hallow'd bay, + The deathless flowers that bloom o'er Sappho's clay; + For thee, Callirhoe! yet by love and years, + I learn how fancy wakes from joy to tears; + How memory, pensive, 'reft of hope, attends + The exile's path, and bids him fear new friends. + Long may the garland blend its varying hue + With thy bright tresses, and bud ever new + With all spring's odours; with spring's light be drest, + Inhale pure fragrance from thy virgin breast! + And when thou find'st that youth and beauty fly, + As heavenly meteors from our dazzled eye, + Still may the garland shed perfume, and shine, + While Laura's mind and Sappho's heart are thine. + +_Literary Chronicle._ + + * * * * * + + +ENGLISH FRUITS. + + +_The Strawberry_.--Many varieties have been imported from other +countries, and a far greater number have been obtained in this, chiefly +from seeds properly prepared by cross impregnation; by which means, the +strawberry has been wonderfully improved; instance the hautboys, +scarlet, chilli, but particularly the splendid varieties, called +"Wilmot's superb," and "Keen's seedlings." + +_The Raspberry_, is also found wild in the British isles, on its +native site, (with its companions, the bramble, and dewberry)--its +shoots and fruits are diminutive, though the flavour of the berry is +rich. No plant requires the skilful hand of the pruner more than this; +of all others, it is, perhaps, the most viviparous, throwing up, +annually, a vast redundancy of shoots, which, if not displaced at the +proper season, would impoverish not only the fruit of the present, but +also the bearing wood of the next year. The Dutch fruiterers have been +successful in obtaining two or three fine varieties from seeds; and as +this field of improvement is open, no doubt further exertions will bring +forth new and valuable sorts. + +_The Gooseberry._--No domesticated fruit sports into greater +variety than this: the endless lists of new sorts is a proof of this, +and many large and excellent sorts there are, particularly the old +Warrington red. + +_The Cherry_.--Cultivation has accomplished wonders in the +improvement of this beautiful native fruit. Instead of a lofty +forest-tree bearing small bitter fruit, it has been long introduced to +our orchards, is changed in appearance and habit, and even in its manner +of bearing; has sported into many varieties, as numerous as they are +excellent--nor is such improvement at an end: several new varieties have +lately started into existence. + +_The Plum_.--The lowest grade of this class of fruits is the almost +useless sloe in the hedge; and none but those in some degree acquainted +with the matter could, on beholding the acidous, puny sloe, and the +ample, luscious magnum bonum plum, together, readily believe that they +were kindred, or that the former was the primitive representative of the +latter. The intermediate links of this connexion are the bullace, +muscle, damacene, &c., of all which there are many varieties. In +nurserymen's lists, there are many improved sorts, not only excellent +plums, but excellent fruit,--the green gage and imperatrice are +admirable. + +_The Pear_, was originally an inhabitant of European forests: there +it grew to be a middle-sized tree, with small leaves, and hard, +crude-tasted, petty fruit: since its introduction and naturalization in +the orchard, it has well repaid the planter's care. The French gardeners +have been long celebrated for their success and indefatigable +perseverance in the cultivation of the pear; almost all our superior +sorts are from that country. The monastic institutions all over Europe, +but particularly in France, were the sources from whence flowed many +excellent horticultural rules, as well as objects. + +(_To be concluded in our next_.) + + * * * * * + + + + +THE MONTHS + + +[Illustration: OCTOBER.] + + + On the woods are hung + With many tints, the fading livery + Of life, in which it mourns the coming storms + Of winter. + + PERCIVAL. + + +Change is the characteristic of the month of October; in short, it +includes the birth and death--the Alpha and Omega--of Nature. Hence, it +is the most inviting to the contemplatist, and during a day in October, +the genius of melancholy may walk out and take her fill, in meditating +on its successive scenes of regeneration and decay. + +Dissemination, or the _sowing of seed_, is the principal business +of this month in the economy of nature; which alone is an invaluable +lesson, a "precept upon precept" to a cultivated mind. This is variously +effected, besides by the agency of man; and it is a satire on his +self-sufficiency which should teach him that Nature worketh out her way +by means that he knoweth not. + +Planting, that agreeable and patriotic art, is another of the October +labours. Here, however, the pride of man is again baffled, when he +considers how many thousand trees are annually planted by _birds_, +to whom he evinces his gratitude by destroying them, or cruelly +imprisoning them for the idle gratification of listening to their +warbling, which he may enjoy in all its native melody amidst the +delightful retreats of woods and groves. This leads us to the October +economy of birds. "Swallows are generally seen for the last time this +month, the house-martin the latest. The rooks return to the roost trees, +and the tortoise begins to bury himself for the winter. Woodcocks begin +to arrive, and keep dropping in from the Baltic singly or in pairs till +December. The snipe also comes now;" and with the month, by a kind of +savage charter, commences the destruction of the pheasant, to swell the +catalogue of the created wants and luxuries of the table. "One of the +most curious natural appearances," says Mr. L. Hunt, "is the +_gossamer_, which is an infinite multitude of little threads shot +out by minute spiders, who are thus wafted by the wind from place to +place." In this manner spiders are known to cross extents of many miles. + +The weather becomes misty, though the middle of the day is often very +fine. Hence it is the proper season for the enjoyment of forest scenery. +The leaves, which, towards the close of September, began to assume their +golden tints and gorgeous hues, now lecture us with their scenes of +falling grandeur; and nothing is more delightful than in an autumnal +walk to emerge from the pensive gloom of a thick forest, and just catch +the last glimpse of an October sun, shedding his broad glare over the +varied tints of its leaves and branches, for the sombre and silvery +barks of the latter add not a little to the picture. "The hedges," says +the author already quoted, "are now sparkling with their abundant +berries,--the wild rose with the hip, the hawthorn with the haw, the +blackthorn with the sloe, the bramble with the blackberry; and the +briony, privet, honey-suckle, elder, holly, and woody nightshade, with +their other winter feasts for the birds." + +October is the great month for _brewing_--that luxurious and +substantial branch of rural economy; and many and merry are the songs +and stories of nut-brown October to "gladden the heart of man," with the +soul-stirring influence of its regalings. Hops, too, are generally +picked this month. + +October in Italy is thus vividly described: "It was now the beginning of +the month of October; already the gales which attend upon the equinox +swept through the woods and trees; the delicate chestnut woods, which +last dare encounter the blasts of spring, and whose tender leaves do not +expand until they may become a shelter to the swallow, had already +changed their hues, and shone yellow and red, amidst the sea-green +foliage of the olives, the darker but light boughs of the cork-trees, +and the deep and heavy masses of ilexes and pines." + + * * * * * + + + + +Astronomical Occurences + +_FOR OCTOBER, 1827._ + +(_For the Mirror_.) + +Mercury is in conjunction with Jupiter on the 7th at noon: he is too +near the sun to be observed this month. + +Venus passes her superior conjunction on the 7th, at 10 h. morning, +thenceforward she sets after the sun, and becomes an evening star. This +interesting planet makes a very near appulse to Jupiter on the 16th at +1 h. morning. + +Jupiter is in conjunction with the sun on the 18th at 10-3/4 h. evening. +He is afterwards a morning star, preceding the sun in his rising. + +The Georgian planet, or Herschel, ceases from his retrograde movement on +the 4th, and appears stationary till the 11th, when he resumes a direct +motion. He is still in a favourable situation for evening observation. +Its great distance from the earth, and the long period of its revolution +round the sun prevent any rapid change in its situation among the fixed +stars; the place therefore which the Greorgium Sidus occupied in +Capricornus in July, (see MIRROR for that month) is so contiguous to +that planet's present position, that the observations then made may be a +sufficient guide for the present month. Its slow motion among the fixed +stars makes it participate in that daily change which is common to them, +hence the planet may be observed in the same place a few minutes earlier +every night. It comes to the south on the 1st at 7 h. 16 min., and on +the 31st at 5 h. 26 min. evening. + +The moon is in opposition on the 5th; in apogee on the 11th; in +conjunction on the 20th; and in perigee on the 23rd. She is in +conjunction with Saturn on the 13th at 3-1/4 h. after with Mars on the +18th at 2 h. morning; and Jupiter and Venus on the 20th, with the former +at 1-1/2 h. and the latter at 11 h. afternoon, also with Mercury on the +21st at 10-1/2 h. afternoon. + +The Solar luminary is eclipsed on the 20th at 3 h. 47 min. afternoon. He +is above the horizon during the whole time the central shade is passing +over the disc of the earth, but the moon having nearly 2 deg. southern +latitude at the time of true conjunction, in middle of the eclipse, it +will be invisible not only to us but to the whole boreal hemisphere of +the globe. He enters Scorpio on the 24th at 4 h. 36 min. morning. + +From the observations made upon the annual eclipses, it appears that the +period of the moon is now shorter, and consequently that her distance +from the earth is now less than in former ages, and this has been +considered as an argument against those who assert that the world may +have existed from eternity; for it was hence inferred that the moon +moves in a resisting medium, and therefore that her motion must by +degrees be all destroyed, in which case she must at last come to the +earth. But M. de la Place has shewn that this acceleration of the moon's +period is a necessary consequence of universal gravitation, and that it +arises from the action of the planets upon the moon. He has also shewn +that this acceleration will go on till it arrives at a certain limit, +when it will be changed into a retardation, or in other words, there are +two limits between which the lunar period fluctuates, but neither of +which it can pass. + +PASCHE. + + * * * * * + + + + +Fine Arts. + + * * * * * + +HANS HOLBEIN. + + +Holbein is the man who has been hitherto considered as the most +brilliant genius Switzerland has produced in the art of painting. He +is here universally believed to have been a native of Switzerland. His +earliest biographers, Mander and Patin, asserted that he was born at +Basel, and they have been copied by all our biographical dictionaries. +Another biographer, however, appears, himself a Swiss, and known as the +author of some other clever works, and proves, on the most satisfactory +evidence, that Holbein was born 1498, at Augsburg, in Germany; but that +his father, a painter too, came to Basel between 1504-8, probably at the +invitation of the magistrates of Basel, as they required a painter to +decorate their newly-built council-hall. + +Holbein gave early proofs of his aspiring talent. When fifteen years +old, he exhibited an oil-painting, which, though defective in colouring, +raised high expectations by its clearness and softness of execution. +This painting is still to be seen in the public library at Basel, and +bears the date of 1513. Of the same year, a sketch, with the monogram +HH, is extant, representing three watchmen with halberds. His two +brothers were also painters; only a few paintings are left of the elder, +Ambrose, and none of the younger brother Bruno; both died prematurely. +In the year 1520, Holbein was presented with the freedom of the town of +Basel. + +Switzerland held constant communications with Germany and the +Netherlands, but less with Italy. A number of painters lived at that +time in Germany, whose names have not been recorded by any German +Vasari, and their master works have been long neglected. In Holbein's +time Albrecht Durer enjoyed the primary reputation. Martin Schoen had +preceded him at Colmar, in Alsace; Manuel painted at Bern, Hans Asper at +Zurich, and at Basel itself there were other painters besides Holbein. +Half a century before him the _Dance of Death_ had been painted, +after the disaster of a plague, on the walls of a church-yard at Basel. + +The council-hall at Basel gave occupation to architects from 1508 till +1520. It is believed that Holbein painted three of the walls, only one +of which (hid behind old tapestry, and discovered again in 1817) has +escaped the ravages of time. It represents M. Curius Dentatus cooking +his dinner, whilst the Samnites offer silver plates with money. "The +last Judgment," where a pope, with priests and monks, sink into the +flames of hell, is not the work of Holbein, but was done in 1610, during +good Protestant times. + +A good number of stories are told of Holbein. Unable to pay his debts in +a tavern, he discharged the bill by decorating the walls with paintings +of flowers. Another time, for a similar purpose, he covered the walls +all over with "the merry dance of peasants;" and in order to deceive one +of his employers, he painted his own legs beneath the high scaffolding, +that the watchful citizen should not suspect his having abandoned his +work to carouse in wine-cellars. Here our biographer gravely says, "a +man of spirit could not be expected to sit quietly painting the whole +day long in the heat of the sun, or in the rain; if he saw a good friend +go to the tavern, he felt disposed to follow him." Holbein did not keep +the best company; but in this he resembled Rembrandt, who said, that +when he wished to amuse himself, he avoided the company of the great, +which put a restraint upon him; "for pleasure," he adds, "consists in +perfect liberty only." Holbein no doubt felt a contempt for the great +people of his time, as they did not understand much about his art, which +he valued above all things. + +Holbein's wife, and he married early, was a perfect Xantippe, too shrewd +to be despised, and not handsome enough to be admired. In the library at +Basel is a family picture of Holbein, in which she is introduced, almost +unconscious of the two children about her; but Holbein very shrewdly +forgot to paint himself there. But he took care of the interests of his +family, and obtained them a pension from the magistrates of Basel, +during his stay in England. This pension was paid for past services, and +in order to induce him finally to fix his residence in Switzerland. + +The absence of matrimonial felicity was probably an additional motive +for Holbein to seek employment as an itinerant painter. He visited +several Swiss towns, but certainly never saw Luther and Melancthon, so +that the portraits of Luther and Melancthon exhibited in Italy, Germany, +and England, as works of Holbein, cannot be genuine; and it is very +improbable that he should have copied the works of Lucas Cranach, who +several times painted the portraits of those lights of the reformation. +Erasmus was frequently painted by Holbein; and as those portraits were +sent as presents to the friends of Erasmus, Holbein's name became known +all over Europe. + +Holbein came to England in the year 1526, and Sir Thomas More wrote to +Erasmus that he would take care of him. Sir Thomas received him into his +own house at Chelsea, and there Henry VIII. saw him one day, when paying +a visit to the former. He took him instantly into his service, gave him +apartments in the royal palace, and a salary of 30_l_. a-year. +Holbein's long residence in the house of Sir Thomas More had a good +effect upon him; for although Erasmus describes the women of England as +"nymphae divinis vultibus, blandae, faciles," yet Holbein seems to have +resisted those temptations in London, which rendered his conduct at +Basel so reprehensible. Holbein twice revisited Switzerland, once in +1526, the second and last time in 1538: the zealots had just destroyed +all the images; and even some painters, infected with the spirit of the +age, had declared they would rather starve, than break the second +commandment. In England the same work of devastation took place; but +Henry VIII., notwithstanding, gave Holbein abundance of work, as he had +to paint all his royal consorts in succession, besides a number of +portraits for English noblemen. + +His sketches of heads, now existing at Kensington, of various people who +lived at the court of Henry VIII., and among them one of that monarch, +are exquisite productions. Imitations of the original drawings have been +published by J. Chamberlaine, fol. Lond. 1792. One picture of Holbein is +supposed to be in Surgeons' Hall. Some wood-cuts to Cranmer's Catechism +(1548) were made by Holbein. Our biographer, who had never seen the work +himself, was led by Walpole [_Anecdotes of Painting_] to believe, +that all the wood-cuts were from Holbein. + +With respect to the famous "Dance of Death," the biographer tells us, +what we have already stated, that the painting on the wall of the +church-yard at Basel is not the work of Holbein; the costumes are of a +time anterior to Holbein. There was also a "Dance of Death" painted on +the wall of a convent at Bern by Manuel, who lived a little before +Holbein. Only on the supposition that the "Dance of Death" at Basel was +Holbein's work, could that of Bern be said to be the first of its kind. +But, on comparing the costumes, it appears again, that the "Dance of +Death" at Bern must have been painted subsequently to that at Basel. No +"Dance of Death" of an earlier date was known, until another was +discovered on the wall of a convent of nuns at Klingenthal, on the right +bank of the Rhine, at Basel. This bears the date of 1312, and is +therefore a whole century prior to the other, which cannot have been +painted before the year 1439. It has been supposed, that the idea of the +"Dance of Death" was taken from certain processions very much in vogue +during the middle ages; and it is singular enough, that up to this day, +in funeral processions in Italy, long white robes are used, which wholly +cover the head, with only two holes for the eyes. But the coincidence of +another plague at Basel, which, about the year 1312, destroyed above +11,000 people, renders it more than probable that the artist availed +himself of the impression which such a dreadful mortality must have made +on the minds of all the surviving, to represent how inexorable death +drags to the grave, in terrible sport, rich and poor, high and low, +clergymen and laity. + +On the authority of Nieuhoff, a Dutchman, who came over to England with +William III., Mr. Douce asserts, that Holbein had painted the "Dance of +Death" on the walls of Whitehall. Borbonius might then have had in mind +this painting, when he mentioned the "Mors picta" of Holbein; but three +biographers of Holbein, Mander, Sandrart, and Patin, were in England +before Whitehall was destroyed by fire, and make no mention of this +painting, although Mander speaks of other paintings of Holbein, +particularly the portrait of Henry VIII., that were preserved at +Whitehall. Mander states, that he also saw at Whitehall the portraits of +Edward, Maria, and Elizabeth, by Holbein, "die oock ter selver plaetse +te sien zyn." + +Sandrart, whose work was published in 1675, also mentions the paintings +of Holbein at Whitehall. Is it credible, that three travellers, two of +whom were distinguished artists themselves, should have been at +Whitehall, and seen there the paintings of Holbein, without taking +notice of the "Dance of Death," if it had been in that place? + +Holbein died of the plague in London, 1554.--_Westminster Review_. + + * * * * * + + +When I see the spirit of liberty in action, I see a strong principle at +work; and, this for awhile, is all I can possibly know of it. The wild +gas, the fixed air, is plainly broke loose; but we ought to suspend our +judgment until the first effervescence is a little subsided, till the +liquor is cleared, and until we see something deeper than the agitation +of a troubled and frothy surface. I must be tolerably sure, before I +venture publicly to congratulate men upon a blessing, that they have +really received one.--_Burke_. + + * * * * * + + +If we must lash one another, let it be with the manly strokes of wit and +satire; for I am of the old philosopher's opinion, that if I must suffer +from one or the other, I would rather it should be from the paw of a +lion, than from the hoof of an ass.--_Addison_. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: The Central Market, Leeds.] + + + + +THE CENTRAL MARKET, LEEDS. + + +As one of the most elegant and useful buildings of the important town of +Leeds, and as characteristic of the public spirit of its inhabitants,[2] +the above engraving cannot fail to prove acceptable to our readers; +while it may serve as an excitement to similar exertions in other +districts. + +The Central Market, is erected on the site of the old post-office, at +the north-east corner of Duncan-street, the foundation stone of which +was laid in 1824. The whole site was excavated, and is divided into +cellars, arched and groined, with a spacious area round the whole, for +the convenience of access to each, and lighted by powerful convex lenses +from the interior of the building. Over these is the principal +building--an enclosed market-house, with twenty shops round the exterior +for butchers and others, and twenty others corresponding in size with +them, fronting the interior. The space within these, on the ground +floor, is fitted up with twenty single stands for fruit and vegetables. +Three sides of the square form a spacious gallery, commodiously fitted +up with thirty-six stands of convenient dimensions, as a Bazaar. The +interior is lighted and ventilated by three rows of windows, one row on +the Bazaar floor, and two rows in the roof. The roof, the carpentry of +which has been pronounced a master-piece, is supported by twelve +cast-iron columns and sixteen oak pillars, and is 34 ft. 6 in. high; the +height from the floor to the upper point of the ceiling being 54 ft. 4 +in. The size within the walls is 138 ft. by 103 ft. The principal +entrance is at the south front from Duncan-street, on each side of which +are three large shops fronting the street, with a suite of six offices +above. Over this entrance is an entablature richly embellished with fine +masonry, and supported with two Ionic columns, and two pilasters or +antaes, 30 ft. high. In the centre of the front, as well as within the +market, it is intended to place a clock. The outer boundary of the +market, which forms three sides of the square, and is separated from +the enclosed market by a carriage road, consists of twenty-five shops +devoted exclusively to butchers and fishmongers. At the south-west +corner of these is an hotel; at the south-east corner, near Call-lane, +are two shops, with offices above; and, in another part, a house for the +clerk of the market. There are four pumps on the premises, and the floor +of the interior is so contrived and fitted up with proper drains, that +it can be washed down at pleasure. The whole will be lighted with gas. + +The architect of the Central Market is Francis Goodwin, Esq., and it is +but justice to say, that it is highly creditable to his taste and skill. +The front is of the Grecian order, and perhaps the largest piece of +masonry in the county of York, with the fewest observable joints. It is +expected to prove an advantageous investment. + + [2] Too much praise cannot be conferred on this and similar instances + of provincial improvement; while it is much to be regretted + that such praise cannot be extended to the _metropolis_ of + England; for, strange to say, LONDON is still without a + market-place suitable to its commercial consequence. Hence, + Smithfield market is almost a public nuisance, while its extensive + business is settled in public-houses in the neighbourhood; and the + hay market, held in the fine broad street of that name, but ill + accords with the courtly vicinity of Pall Mall and St. James's. + It is, however, to _fruit and vegetable markets_ that this + observation is particularly applicable: for instance, what a + miserable scene is the area of _Covent Garden market_. The + non-completion of the piazza square is much to be lamented, while + splendid streets and towns are erecting on every side of the + metropolis. How unworthy, too, is the market, of association with + Inigo Jones's noble Tuscan church of St. Paul, "the handsomest + barn in Europe." To quote Sterne, we must say "they manage these + things better in France," where the _halles_, or markets are among + the noblest of the public buildings. Neither can any Englishman, + who has seen the markets of Paris, but regret the absence of + fountains from the markets of London. They are among the most + tasteful embellishments of Paris, and their presence in the + markets cannot be too much admired. Water is, unquestionably, the + most salutary and effective cleanser of vegetable filth which is + necessarily generated on the sites of markets; but in London its + useful introduction is limited to a few pumps, and its ornamental + to one or two solitary _jets d'eau_ in almost unfrequented + places. It should be added, that in Southwark, an extensive and + commodious market-place is just completed, and the tolls are + proportionally increasing. A similar improvement is much wanted in + Covent Garden, by which means many of the evils of that spot would + be abated, and instead of seeing Nature's choicest productions + huddled together, and being ourselves tortured in the scramble and + confusion of a crowd, we might then range through the avenues of + Covent Garden with all the comfort which our forefathers were wont + to enjoy on this spot, or certainly with comparative ease.--ED. + + * * * * * + + + + +_THE SELECTOR_; + +AND + +LITERARY NOTICES OF + +_NEW WORKS_. + + +RISE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. + + +With his passions, and in spite of his errors, Napoleon is, taking him +all in all, the greatest warrior of modern times. He carried into battle +a stoical courage, a profoundly calculated tenacity, a mind fertile in +sudden inspirations, which by unhopedfor resources disconcerted the +plans of the enemy. Let us beware of attributing a long series of +success to the organic power of the masses which he set in motion. The +most experienced eye could scarcely discover in them any thing but +elements of disorder. Still less let it be said that he was a successful +captain because he was a mighty monarch. Of all his campaigns, the most +memorable are,--the campaign of the Adige, where the general of +yesterday, commanding an army by no means numerous, and at first badly +appointed, placed himself at once above Turenne and on a level with +Frederick; and the campaign in France in 1814, when, reduced to a +handful of harassed troops, he combated a force of ten times their +number. The last flashes of imperial lightning still dazzled the eyes of +our enemies; and it was a fine sight to see the bounds of the old lion +tracked, hunted down, beset, presenting a lively picture of the days of +his youth, when his powers developed themselves in the fields of +carnage. + +Napoleon possessed, in an eminent degree, the faculties requisite for +the profession of arms; temperate and robust, watching and sleeping at +pleasure, appearing unawares where he was least expected, he did not +disregard details to which important results are sometimes attached. The +hand which had just traced rules for the government of many millions of +men would frequently rectify an incorrect statement of the situation of +a regiment, or write down whence two hundred conscripts were to be +obtained, and from what magazine their shoes were to be taken. A patient +and easy interlocutor, he was a home questioner, and he could listen--a +rare talent in the grandees of the earth. He carried with him into +battle a cool and impassable courage; never was mind so deeply +meditative, more fertile in rapid and sudden illuminations. On becoming +emperor he ceased not to be the soldier. If his activity decreased with +the progress of age, that was owing to the decrease of his physical +powers. + +In games of mingled calculation and hazard, the greater the advantages +which a man seeks to obtain, the greater risks he must run. It is +precisely this that renders the deceitful science of conquerors so +calamitous to nations. Napoleon, though naturally adventurous, was not +deficient in consistency or method; and he wasted neither his soldiers +nor his treasures where the authority of his name sufficed. What he +could obtain by negociations or by artifice, he required not by force of +arms. The sword, although drawn from the scabbard, was not stained with +blood, unless it was impossible to attain the end in view by a +manoeuvre. Always ready to fight, he chose habitually the occasion and +the ground. Out of fifty battles which he fought, he was the assailant +in at least forty. + +Other generals have equalled him in the art of disposing troops on the +ground. Some have given battle as well as he did; we could mention +several who have received it better; but in the manner of directing an +offensive campaign he has surpassed all. + +The wars in Spain and Russia prove nothing in disparagement of his +genius. It is not by the rules of Montecuculii and Turenne, manoeuvring +on the Renchen, that we ought to judge of such enterprises. The first +warred to secure such or such winter-quarters; the other to subdue the +world. It frequently behoved him not merely to gain a battle, but to +gain it in such a manner as to astound Europe and to produce gigantic +results. Thus political views were incessantly interfering with the +strategic genius; and to appreciate him properly we must not confine +ourselves within the limits of the art of war. This art is not composed +exclusively of technical details; it has also its philosophy. To find in +this elevated region a rival to Napoleon, we must go back to the times +when the feudal institutions had not yet broken the unity of the ancient +nations. The founders of religions alone have exercised over their +disciples an authority comparable with that which made him the absolute +master of his army. This moral power became fatal to him, because he +strove to avail himself of it even against the ascendancy of material +force, and because it led him to despise positive rules, the long +violation of which will not remain unpunished. + +When pride was hurrying Napoleon towards his fall, he happened to say, +"France has more need of me than I have of France." He spoke the truth. +But why had he become necessary? Because he had committed the destiny of +the French to the chances of an interminable war; because, in spite of +the resources of his genius, that war, rendered daily more hazardous by +his staking the whole of his force, and by the boldness of his +movements, risked in every campaign, in every battle, the fruits of +twenty years of triumph; because his government was so modelled that +with him every thing must be swept away, and that a re-action +proportioned to the violence of the action must burst forth at once both +within and without. The mania of conquest had reversed the state of +things in Europe; we, the eldest born of liberty and independence, were +spilling our blood in the service of royal passions against the cause of +nations, and outraged nations were turning round upon us, more terrible +from being armed with the principles which we had forsaken. + +At times, this immense mass of passions which he was accumulating +against him, this multitude of avenging arms ready to be raised, filled +his ambitious spirit with involuntary apprehension. Looking around him, +he was alarmed to find himself solitary, and conceived the idea of +strengthening his power by moderating it. Then it was that he thought of +creating an hereditary peerage, and reconstructing his monarchy on more +secure foundations. But Napoleon saw without illusion to the bottom of +things. The nation, wholly and continually occupied in prosecuting the +designs of its chief, had previously not had time to form any plans for +itself. The day on which it should have ceased to be stunned by the din +of arms, it would have called itself to account for its servile +obedience. It is better, thought he, for an absolute prince to fight +foreign armies, than to have to struggle against the energy of the +citizens. Despotism had been organized for making war; war was continued +to uphold despotism. The die was cast; France must either conquer +Europe, or Europe subdue France. + +Napoleon fell: he fell, because with the men of the nineteenth century +he attempted the work of an Attila and a Genghis Khan; because he gave +the reins to an imagination directly contrary to the spirit of his age, +with which nevertheless his reason was perfectly acquainted; because he +would not pause on the day when he felt conscious of his inability to +succeed. Nature has fixed a boundary, beyond which extravagant +enterprises cannot be carried with prudence. This boundary the emperor +reached in Spain, and he overleaped it in Russia. Had he then escaped +destruction, his inflexible presumption would have caused him to find +elsewhere a Baylen and a Moscow-- _History of the War in the +Peninsula, from the French of General Foy._ + + * * * * * + + +ROBINSON CRUSOES. + + +At one of the islands belonging to Juan de Ampues, the pilot ran away. +Cifuentes and his crew, all equally ignorant of navigation, made sail +for San Domingo, were dismasted in a gale of wind, and driven in the +night upon the "Serrana" shoals; the crew, a flask of powder and steel, +were saved, but nothing else. They found sea-calves and birds upon the +island, and were obliged to eat them raw, and drink their blood, for +there was no water. After some weeks, they made a raft with fragments of +the wreck, lashed together with calf-skin thongs: three men went off +upon it, and were lost. Two, and a boy, staid upon the island--one of +whom, Moreno, died four days afterwards raving mad, having gnawed the +flesh off his arms: the survivors, Master John and the boy, dug holes in +the sand with tortoise-shells, and lined them with calf-skins to catch +the rain. Where the vessel was wrecked, they found a stone which served +them for a flint; this invaluable prize enabled them to make a fire. +Two men had been living upon another island two leagues from them, in +similar distress, for five years; these saw the fire, and upon a raft +joined their fellow sufferers. They now built a boat with the fragments +of the wreck, made sails of calf-skins, and caulked her with their fat, +mixed with charcoal: one man and the boy went away in her: Master John, +and one whose name has not been preserved, would not venture in her: +they made themselves coracles with skins, and coasted round the shoals, +which they estimated at twelve leagues long. At low water there were +seventeen islands, but only five which were not sometimes overflowed. +Fish, turtle, sea-calves, birds, and a root like purslane, was their +food. The whites of turtle-eggs, when dried and buried for a fortnight, +turned to water, which they found good drink: five months in the year +these eggs were their chief food. They clothed themselves and covered +their huts with calf-skins, and made an enclosure to catch fish, +twenty-two fathoms long, with stones brought out of the sea--and raised +two towers in the same laborious way, sixteen fathoms in circumference +at the base, and four in height, at the north and south extremities of +the island: upon these they made fires as signals. To avoid the crabs +and snails which tormented them at night, they slept in the day time. + +Three years after the other went way, John's sufferings began to affect +his reason: in a fit of despair, he applied to the devil for that relief +his prayers had failed to bring; and, rising in the dark, he fancied the +devil was close to the hut. John awakened his companion, and taking a +crucifix for protection, ran praying to the other end of the island. +About a fortnight afterwards, John thought he heard his visiter again, +but did not see him. And it now pleased God to relieve them: they saw a +ship, and made a great smoke upon their tower, which was seen. John and +his companion were carried to the Havannah, where their appearance and +story attracted great attention. John was twice sick during the eight +years, both times in August, and both times bled himself.--_Southey's +Chronological History of the West Indies._ + + * * * * * + + +FIRST APPEARANCES OF MISS STEPHENS AND MR. KEAN. + + +During this memorable era of the British Stage, Mr. Hazlit was engaged +as theatrical reporter to the _Morning Chronicle_, newspaper, then +conducted by Mr. Perry, and printed on the exact site of the MIRROR +office: in his _Table Talk_ he gives the following portraiture of +their theatrical successes:-- + +What squabbles we used to have about Kean and Miss Stephens, the only +theatrical favourites I ever had! Mrs. Billington had got some notion +that Miss Stephens would never make a singer, and it was the torment of +Perry's life (as he told me in confidence) that he could not get any two +people to be of the same opinion on any one point. I shall not easily +forget bringing him my account of her first appearance in the +_Beggar's Opera_. I have reason to remember that article: it was +almost the last I ever wrote with any pleasure to myself. I had been +down on a visit to my friends near Chertsey, and, on my return, had +stopped at an inn at Kingston-upon-Thames, where I had got the +_Beggar's Opera_, and had read it overnight. The next day I walked +cheerfully to town. It was a fine sunny morning, in the end of autumn, +and as I repeated the beautiful song, "Life knows no return of spring," +I meditated my next day's criticism, trying to do all the justice I +could to so inviting a subject. I was not a little proud of it by +anticipation. I had just then begun to stammer out my sentiments on +paper, and was in a kind of honey-moon of authorship. + +I deposited my account of the play at the _Morning Chronicle_ +office in the afternoon, and went to see Miss Stephens as Polly. Those +were happy times, in which she first came out in this character, in +Mandane, where she sang the delicious air, "If o'er the cruel tyrant +Love," (so as it can never be sung again,) in _Love in a Village_, +where the scene opened with her and Miss Matthews in a painted garden of +roses and honeysuckles, and "Hope thou nurse of young Desire," thrilled +from two sweet voices in turn. Oh! may my ears sometimes still drink the +same sweet sounds, embalmed with the spirit of youth, of health, and +joy, but in the thoughts of an instant, but in a dream of fancy, and I +shall hardly need to complain! When I got back, after the play, Perry +called out, with his cordial, grating voice, "Well, how did she do?" and +on my speaking in high terms, answered, that "he had been to dine with +his friend the duke, that some conversation had passed on the subject, +he was afraid it was not the thing, it was not the true _sostenuto_ +style; but as I had written the article" (holding my peroration on the +_Beggar's Opera_ carelessly in his hand) "it might pass!" I could +perceive that the rogue licked his lips at it, and had already in +imagination "bought golden opinions of all sorts of people" by this very +criticism, and I had the satisfaction the next day to meet Miss Stephens +coming out of the editor's room, who had been to thank him for his very +flattering account of her. + +I was sent to see Kean the first night of his performance of Shylock, +when there were about a hundred people in the pit, but from his masterly +and spirited delivery of the first striking speech, "On such a day you +called me dog," &c. I perceived it was a hollow thing. So it was given +out in the _Chronicle_, but Perry was continually at me as other +people were at him, and was afraid it would not last. It was to no +purpose I said it _would last_: yet I am in the right hitherto. +It has been said, ridiculously, that Mr. Kean was written up in the +_Chronicle_. I beg leave to state my opinion that no actor can be +written up or down by a paper. An author may be puffed into notice, or +damned by criticism, because his book may not have been read. An artist +may be over-rated, or undeservedly decried, because the public is not +much accustomed to see or judge of pictures. But an actor is judged by +his peers, the play-going public, and must stand or fall by his own +merits or defects. The critic may give the tone or have a casting voice +where popular opinion is divided; but he can no more _force_ that +opinion either way, or wrest it from its base in common-sense and +feeling, than he can move Stonehenge. Mr. Kean had, however, physical +disadvantages and strong prejudices to encounter, and so far the +_liberal_ and _independent_ part of the press might have been +of service in helping him to his seat in the public favour. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE GATHERER. + + + "I am but a _Gatherer_ and disposer of other men's stuff."--Wotton. + + * * * * * + +INSANITY. + + +A French physician, in a recent work on the moral and physical causes of +insanity, noticing the influence of professions in promoting this +affliction, brings forward a curious table, showing the relative +proportion of different professions in a mass of 164 lunatics. It runs +thus:--merchants, 50; military men, 33; students, 25; administrateurs et +employés, 21; advocates, notaries, and men of business, 10; artists, 8; +chemists, 4; medical practitioners, 4; farmers, 4; sailors, 3; +engineers, 2. Total 164. + +Never were the afflictions of Insanity more vividly portrayed than in +the following lines from _Churchill's Epistle to Hogarth_:-- + + + Sure 'tis a curse which angry fates impose, + To mortify man's arrogance, that those + Who're fashioned of some better sort of clay, + Must sooner than the common herd decay. + What bitter pangs must humble genius feel, + In their last hour to view a Swift and Steele! + How must ill-boding horrors fill their breast, + When she beholds men, mark'd above the rest + For qualities most dear, plung'd from that height, + And sunk, deep sunk, in second childhood's night! + Are men indeed such things? and are the best + More subject to this evil than the rest, + To drivel out whole years of idiot breath, + And sit the monuments of living death? + O galling circumstance to human pride! + Abasing thought! but not to be deny'd. + With curious art, the brain too finely wrought, + Preys on herself, and is destroyed by thought. + Constant attention wears the active mind, + Blots out her pow'rs and leaves a blank behind. + + * * * * * + + +MACADAMIZATION. + + + The cost of converting Regent-street, + Whitehall-place, and Palace-yard, into + broken stone roads, has been £ 6,055 8_s_. 3_d_. + + Value of old pavement taken up and + broken for that purpose £ 6,787 7_s_. 0_d_. + + ------------ + £12,842 15 3 + ------------ + +_Parliamentary Papers._ + + * * * * * + + +SILK + + +According to a late statement of Mr. Huskisson, the silk manufacture of +England now reaches the enormous amount of fourteen millions sterling +per annum, and is consequently after cotton, the greatest staple of the +country. + + * * * * * + + +NEW LAMP. + + +At a recent meeting of the Royal Institution an ornamental lamp was +placed on the library table, the elegant transparent paintings and +spiral devices of which were kept in rotary motion by the action of the +current of heated air issuing from the chimneys of the lamp, which +contrivance is well adapted to a number of purposes of ornamental +illumination. + + * * * * * + + +First and last there have been 120,000 copies printed of "Domestic +Cookery, by a Lady," (Mrs. Rundell;) and 50,000 "Receipt Book," by the +same authoress. + + * * * * * + +_Printed and Published by J. LIMBIRD, 143, Strand, (near +Somerset-house,) and sold by all Newsmen and Booksellers._ + + * * * * * + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and +Instruction, No. 276, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MIRROR OF LITERATURE *** + +***** This file should be named 15935-8.txt or 15935-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/9/3/15935/ + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, David Garcia and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/15935-8.zip b/15935-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7bf0eeb --- /dev/null +++ b/15935-8.zip diff --git a/15935-h.zip b/15935-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7cf0bee --- /dev/null +++ b/15935-h.zip diff --git a/15935-h/15935-h.htm b/15935-h/15935-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4dee5ab --- /dev/null +++ b/15935-h/15935-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2111 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" /> + +<title>The Mirror of Literature, Vol. X, No. 276.</title> + + <style type="text/css"> + <!-- + body {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + p {text-align: justify;} + blockquote {text-align: justify;} + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {text-align: center;} + pre {font-size: 0.7em;} + + hr {text-align: center; width: 50%;} + html>body hr {margin-right: 25%; margin-left: 25%; width: 50%;} + hr.full {width: 100%;} + html>body hr.full {margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 0%; width: 100%;} + + .note, .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + + span.pagenum {position: absolute; left: 1%; right: 91%; font-size: 8pt;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; margin-bottom: 1em; text-align: left;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem p {margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem p.i2 {margin-left: 1em;} + .poem p.i4 {margin-left: 2em;} + .poem p.i6 {margin-left: 3em;} + .poem p.i8 {margin-left: 4em;} + + .figure {padding: 1em; margin: 0; text-align: center; font-size: 0.8em; margin: auto;} + .figure img {border: none;} + --> + </style> +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and +Instruction, No. 276, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 276 + Volume 10, No. 276, October 6, 1827 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: May 29, 2005 [EBook #15935] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MIRROR OF LITERATURE *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, David Garcia and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + +</pre> + + <hr class="full" /> + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page225" name="page225"></a>[pg 225]</span> + + <h1>THE MIRROR<br /> + OF<br /> + LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.</h1> + <hr class="full" /> + + <table width="100%" summary="Banner"> + <tr> + <td align="left"><b>VOL. X, NO. 276.]</b></td> + <td align="center"><b>SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1827.</b></td> + <td align="right"><b>[PRICE 2d.</b></td> + </tr> + </table> + <hr class="full" /> + +<h2> +BRISTOL CATHEDRAL. +</h2> + +<div class="figure" style="width: 100%;"> +<a href="images/276-1.png"><img width="100%" src="images/276-1.png" +alt="Bristol Cathedral." /></a> +</div> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i8"> There is given</p> + <p> Unto the things of earth, which Time hath bent,</p> + <p> A spirit's feelings, and where he hath leant</p> + <p> His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power</p> + <p> And magic in the ruin'd battlement</p> + <p> For which the palace of the present hour</p> + <p> Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower.</p> +<p style="text-align: right;">BYRON.</p> +</div></div> + +<p> +The cathedral of Bristol is one of the most interesting relics of +monastic splendour which have been spared from the wrecks of desolation +and decay. It is dedicated to the holy and undivided Trinity, and is the +remains of an abbey or monastery of great magnificence, which was +dedicated to St. Augustine. The erection of this monastery was begun +in 1140, and was finished and dedicated in 1148, according to the +inscription on the tomb of the founder, Robert Fitzharding, the first +lord of Berkeley, who, together with others of that illustrious family, +are enshrined within these walls. It was also denominated the monastery +of the black regular canons of the order of Saint Victor, who are +mentioned by Leland as the black canons of St. Augustine within the city +walls. By some historians, Fitzharding is represented as an opulent +citizen of Bristol; but generally as a younger son or grandson of the +king of Denmark, and as the youthful companion of Henry II., who, +betaking himself from the sunshine of royal friendship, became a canon +of the monastery he himself had founded. In this congenial solitude he +died in 1170, aged 75. Such is the outline of the foundation of this +structure, and it is one of the most attractive episodes of the early +history of England; for the circumstance of a noble exchanging the +gilded finery of a court, and the gay companionship of his prince, for +the gloomy cloisters of an abbey, and the ascetic duties of monastic +life, bespeaks a degree of resolution and self-control which was more +probably the result of sincere conviction than of momentary caprice. +</p> +<p> +The present cathedral is represented to have been merely the church of +the monastery, which was entirely rebuilt in the commencement of the +fourteenth century. The style of architecture in the different parts of +this cathedral is accurately discriminated in the following account from +the pen of Bishop Littleton, F.S.A.:—"The lower parts of the chapter +house walls," says he, "together with the door-way and + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page226" name="page226"></a>[pg 226]</span> + +columns at the entrance of the chapter-house, may be pronounced to be of +the age of Stephen, or rather prior to his reign, being fine Saxon +architecture. The inside walls of the chapter-house have round +ornamental arches intersecting each other. The cathedral appears to be +of the same style of building throughout, and in no part older than +Edward the First's time, though some writers suppose the present fabric +was begun in king Stephen's time; but not a single arch, pillar, or +window agrees with the mode which prevailed at that time. The great +gateway leading into the College Green is round-arched, with mouldings +richly ornamented in the Saxon taste." From this account it appears +probable that the chapter-house and gateway are all the present remains +of the ancient monastery. The mutilations which the cathedral of Bristol +has undergone, are not entirely to be referred to the era of the +dissolution of the monasteries, since this structure suffered very +considerably during the period of the civil wars. The ruthless soldiers +discovered their barbarism by violating the sacred tombs of the dead, +and by offering every indignity which they supposed would be considered +a profanation of the places which the piety of their ancestors +consecrated to religion. At such instances of the violence of civil +factions, the sensitive mind shudders with disgust. +</p> +<p> +The cathedral of Bristol is rich in monumental tributes to departed +worth. Among them is an elegant monument, by Bacon, to Mrs. Elizabeth +Draper, the <i>Eliza</i> of Sterne; and the classical tomb of the +Hendersons. Here, too, rests Lady Hesketh, the friend of Cowper; Powell, +of Covent Garden Theatre; besides branches of the Berkeley family, and +various abbots. +</p> +<p> +The bishopric of Bristol is the least wealthy ecclesiastical promotion +which confers the dignity of a mitre. Its revenue is generally stated to +amount to no more than five or six hundred pounds per annum. In the list +of bishops are Fletcher, father of the celebrated dramatist, the +colleague of Beaumont; he attended Mary Queen of Scots on the Scaffold; +Lake, one of the seven bishops committed to the Tower in the time of +James I.; Trelawney, a familiar name in the events of 1688; Butler, who +materially improved the episcopal palace of Bristol; Conybeare and +Newton, names well known in literary history; with the erudite +Warburton, whose name occurs in the list of deans of Bristol. +</p> + +<hr /> + + +<h3> +DEBTOR AND CREDITOR.<a id="footnotetag1" name="footnotetag1"></a><a href="#footnote1"><sup>1</sup></a> +</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> + <p> The time is out of joint.—<i>Hamlet.</i></p> +</div></div> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> + <p> A man of my profession never counterfeits, till he lays hold upon a</p> + <p> debtor and says he <i>rests</i> him: for then he brings him to all</p> + <p> manner of unrest.—<i>The Bailiff, in 'Every Man in his Humour.'</i></p> +</div></div> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> + <p> Run not into debt, either for wares sold or money borrowed; be content</p> + <p> to want things that are not of absolute necessity, rather than to run up</p> + <p> the score: such a man pays at the latter a third part more than the</p> + <p> principal comes to, and is in perpetual servitude to his creditors;</p> + <p> lives uncomfortably; is necessitated to increase his debts to stop his</p> + <p> creditors' mouths; and many times falls into desperate courses.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> + <p> SIR M. HALE.</p> +</div></div> + +<p> +"The greatest of all distinctions in civil life," says Steele, "is that +of debtor and creditor;" although no kind of slavery is so easily +endured, as that of being in debt. Luxury and expensive habits, which +are commonly thought to enlarge our liberty by increasing our +enjoyments, are thus the means of its infringement; whilst, in nine +cases out of ten, the lessons taught by this rigid experience lead to +the bending and breaking of our spirits, and the unfitting of us for the +rational pleasures of life. All ranks of mankind seem to fall into this +fatal error, from the voluptuous Cleopatra to the needy philosopher, who +doles out a mealsworth of morality for his fellow-creatures, and who +would fain live according to his own precepts, had he not exhausted his +means in the acquisition of his experience. +</p> +<p> +I blush to confess, that I have often thought the <i>habit of debt</i> +to be our national inheritance—from that bugbear of out-of-place men, +the Sinking Fund, to the parish-clerk, who mortgages his fees at the +chandler's; and that my countrymen seem to have resolved to increase +their own enjoyments at the expense of posterity, with whose provision, +even Swift thinks we have no concern. Again; I have thought that we are +apt to over-rate our national advancement, by supposing the present race +to be wiser than the previous one, without once looking into our +individual contributions to this state of enlightenment. Proud as we are +of this distinction in the social scale, we can record few instances of +contemporary genius, and we are bound to confess that men are not a whit +the better in the present than in the previous generation. Thus we +hoodwink each other till social outrages become every-day occurrences, +and every thing but sheer violence is protected by its frequency; and in +this manner we consent to compromise our happiness, and then affect to +be astonished at its scarcity. In the later ages of the world, men have + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page227" name="page227"></a>[pg 227]</span> + +learned to temporize with principles, and to sacrifice, at the shrine of +passing interest, as much real virtue as would bear them harmless +throughout life. Hence, of what more avail is the virtue of the Roman +fathers, or are the amiable friendships of Scipio and Lelius, than as so +many amusing fictions to exercise the imaginations of schoolmen in +drawing outlines of character, which experience does not finish. +Friends, like certain flowers, bloom around us in the sunshine of +success; but at night-fall or at the approach of storms, they shut up +their hearts; and thus, poor victims being rifled of their mind's +content, with their little string of enjoyments broken up for ever, are +abandoned to the pity or scorn of bystanders. It is impossible to +reflect for a moment on such a crisis, without dropping a tear for the +self-created infirmities of man: but there are considerations at which +he shudders, and which he would rather varnish over with the sophistry +of his refinement, and the fallacies of self-conceit. +</p> +<p> +I fear that I am breaking my rule in not confining myself to a few +shades of debt and conscience, with a view of determining how far they +are usually reconciled among us. The task may not prove altogether +fruitless; notwithstanding, to find honest men, would require the +lantern of Diogenes, and perhaps turn out like Gratiano's wheat. +</p> +<p> +In our youthful days, we all remember to have read a pithy string of +Maxims by Dr. Franklin; and we are accustomed to admire the pertinence +of their wit,—but here their influence too often terminates. Since +Franklin's time, the practice of getting into debt has become more and +more easy, notwithstanding men have become more wary. Goldsmith, too, +gives us a true picture of this habit in his scene with Mr. Padusoy, the +mercer, a mode which has been found to succeed so well since his time, +that, with the exception of a few short-cuts by sharpers and other +proscribed gentry, little amendment has been made. Profuseness on the +part of the debtor will generally be found to beget confidence on that +of the creditor; and, in like manner, diffidence will create mistrust, +and mistrust an entire overthrow of the scheme. An unblushing front, and +the gift of <i>non chalance</i>, are therefore the best qualifications +for a debtor to obtain credit, while poor modesty will be starved in her +own littleness. In vain has Juvenal protested—"<i>Fronti nulla +fides;</i>" and have the world been amused with anecdotes of paupers +dying with money sewed up in their clothes: appearance and assumed +habits are still the handmaids to confidence; and so long as this system +exists, the warfare of debtor and creditor will be continued. +Procrastination will be found to be another furtherance of the system, +inasmuch as it is too evident throughout life that men are more apt to +take pleasure "by the forelock," than to calculate its consequence. In +this manner, men of irregular habits anticipate and forestal every hour +of their lives, and pleasure and pain alternate, till pain, like debt, +accumulates, and sinks its patient below the level of the world. Economy +and forecast do not enter into the composition of such men, nor are such +lessons often felt or acknowledged, till custom has rendered the heart +unfit for the reception of their counsels. It is too frequently that the +neglect of these principles strikes at the root of social happiness, and +produces those lamentable wrecks of men—those shadows of sovereignty, +which people our prisons, poor-houses, and asylums. Genius, with all her +book-knowledge, is not exempt from this failing; but, on the contrary, a +sort of fatality seems to attend her sons and daughters, which tarnishes +their fame, and often exposes them to the brutish attacks of the +ignorant and vulgar. Wits, and even philosophers, are among this number; +and we are bound to acknowledge, that, beyond the raciness of their +writings, there is but little to admire or imitate in the lives of such +men as Steele, Foote, or Sheridan. It is, however, fit that principle +should be thus recognised and upheld, and that any dereliction from its +rules should be placed against the account of such as enjoy other +degrees of superiority, and allowed to form an item in the scale of +their merits. +</p> +<center> +(<i>To be concluded in our next.</i>) +</center> + +<hr /> + +<h3> + AN ENGLISHMAN'S PRAYER +</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> + <p> Grant, righteous Heaven, however cast my fate</p> + <p> On social duties or in toils of state,</p> + <p> Whether at home dispensing equal laws,</p> + <p> Or foremost struggling for the world's applause,</p> + <p> As neighbour, husband, brother, sire, or son,</p> + <p> In every work, accomplished or begun,</p> + <p> Grant that, by me, thy holy will be done.</p> + <p> When false ambition tempts my soul to rise,</p> + <p> Teach me her proffer'd honours to despise,</p> + <p> Though chains or poverty await the just,</p> + <p> Though villains lure me to betray my trust,</p> + <p> Unmoved by wealth, unawed by tyrant, might</p> + <p> Still let me steadily pursue the right,</p> + <p> Hold fast my plighted faith, nor stoop to give</p> + <p> For lengthen'd life, the only cause to live.</p> +</div></div> + +<hr /> + +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page228" name="page228"></a>[pg 228]</span> +</p> + +<h3> + ITALY. +</h3> + +<center> +(<i>To the Editor of the Mirror</i>.) +</center> + +<p> +SIR,—Is your correspondent (see the MIRROR of the 15th of September) +quite right in asserting that Italy has invariably retained the same +name from its first settlement? or would the fact be singular if true? +Virgil, in his first book of the <i>Æneid</i>, implies that it had at +least <i>two</i> names before that of Italy. "<i>Ænotrii</i> coluere viri;" +"<i>Hesperiam</i> graii cognomine dicunt;" "Itali ducis de nomine." His +works are not at hand, so that I cannot specify the line; but the +passage is repeated three or four times in the course of the poem, and +the reference, therefore, to it is peculiarly easy. +</p> +<p> +In other places, as you may remember, he gives it the appellation of +"Ausonia." +</p> +<p> +Now as to the singularity of the circumstance, supposing it were +otherwise, to what does it amount but this: that when Italian power +extended over the countries of Europe, Italian names were given them; +that as this power declined, these names as naturally fell into disuse; +and the different nations, actuated severally by a spirit of +independence or of caprice, recurred to their own or foreign tongues for +the designation of their territory. While at Rome itself, which, though +often suffering from the calamities of war, still retained a +considerable share of influence, the inhabitants adhered to their native +dialect, and the same city which had been the birth-place and cradle of +the infant language was permitted to become its sanctuary at last. +</p> +<h4> +Y.M. +</h4> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<h2> + SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS. +</h2> + +<hr /> + +<h3> +ELISE. +</h3> + +<h4> +(<i>By L.E.L.</i>) +</h4> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> + <p> O Let me love her! she has past</p> +<p class="i2"> Into my inmost heart—</p> + <p> A dweller on the hallowed ground</p> +<p class="i2"> Of its least worldly part;</p> + <p> Where feelings and where memories dwell</p> +<p class="i2"> Like hidden music in the shell.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> + <p> She was so like the forms that float</p> +<p class="i2"> On twilight's hour to me,</p> + <p> Making of cloud-born shapes and thoughts</p> +<p class="i2"> A dear reality;</p> + <p> As much a thing of light and air</p> +<p class="i2"> As ever poet's visions were.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> + <p> I left smoke, vanities, and cares,</p> +<p class="i2"> Just far enough behind,</p> + <p> To dream of fairies 'neath the moon,</p> +<p class="i2"> Of voices on the wind,</p> + <p> And every fantasy of mine</p> +<p class="i2"> Was truth in that sweet face of thine.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> + <p> Her cheek was very, very pale,</p> +<p class="i2"> Yet it was still more fair;</p> + <p> Lost were one half its loveliness,</p> +<p class="i2"> Had the red rose been there:</p> + <p> But now that sad and touching grace</p> + <p> Made her's seem like an angel's face.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> + <p> The spring, with all its breath and bloom,</p> +<p class="i2"> Hath not so dear a flower,</p> + <p> As the white lily's languid head</p> +<p class="i2"> Drooping beneath the shower;</p> + <p> And health hath ever waken'd less</p> + <p> Of deep and anxious tenderness.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> + <p> And O thy destiny was love,</p> +<p class="i2"> Written in those soft eyes;</p> + <p> A creature to be met with smiles.</p> +<p class="i2"> And to be watch'd with sighs;</p> + <p> A sweet and fragile blossom, made</p> + <p> To be within the bosom laid.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> + <p> And there are some beneath whose touch</p> +<p class="i2"> The coldest hearts expand,</p> + <p> As erst the rocks gave forth their tears</p> +<p class="i2"> Beneath the prophet's hand;</p> + <p> And colder than that rock must be</p> + <p> The heart that melted not for thee.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> + <p> Thy voice—thy poet lover's song</p> +<p class="i2"> Has not a softer tone;</p> + <p> Thy dark eyes—only stars at night</p> +<p class="i2"> Such holy light have known;</p> + <p> And thy smile is thy heart's sweet sign,</p> + <p> So gentle and so feminine.</p> +</div><div class="stanza"> + <p> I feel, in gazing on thy face,</p> +<p class="i2"> As I had known thee long;</p> + <p> Thy looks are like notes that recall</p> +<p class="i2"> Some old remembered song</p> + <p> By all that touches and endears,</p> + <p> Lady, I must have loved thee years.</p> +<p style="text-align: right;"><i>Literary Gazette.</i></p> +</div></div> + +<hr /> + +<h3> + COLONEL GEORGE HANGER. +</h3> + +<p> +Dining on one occasion at Carlton-house, it is said that, after the +bottle had for some time circulated, his good-humoured volubility +suddenly ceased, and he seemed for a time to be wholly lost in thought. +While he "chewed the cud" in this ruminating state, his illustrious host +remarked his very unusual quiescency, and interrupted it by inquiring +the subject of his meditation. "I have been reflecting, Sir," replied +the colonel, "on the lofty independence of my present situation. I have +compromised with my creditors, paid my washerwoman, and have three +shillings and sixpence left for the pleasures and necessities of life," +exhibiting at the same time current coin of the realm, in silver and +copper, to that amount, upon the splendid board at which he sat. +</p> +<p> +Having occasion to express his gratitude to his friend and patron for +his nomination to a situation under government (which, had he been +prudent, might have sufficed for genteel support), it is said that the +royal personage condescended + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page229" name="page229"></a>[pg 229]</span> + +to observe, on the colonel's expatiating on the advantages of his +office, that "now he was rich, he would so far impose upon his +hospitality as to dine with him;" at the same time insisting on the +repast being any thing but extravagant. "I shall give your royal +highness a leg of mutton, and nothing more, by G——," warmly replied +the gratified colonel, in his plain and homely phrase. The day was +nominated, and the colonel had sufficient time to recur to his budget +and bring his ways and means into action. Where is the sanguineless +being whose hopes have never led him wrong? if such there be, the +colonel was not one of those. Long destitute of credit and resources, he +looked upon his appointment as the incontestable source of instant +wealth, and he hesitated not to determine upon the forestalment of its +profits to entertain the "first gentleman in England." But, alas! agents +and brokers have flinty hearts. There were doubts (not of his word, for +with creditors that he had never kept), but of the accidents of life, +either naturally, or by one of those casualties he had depicted in the +front of his book. In short, the day approached—nay, actually arrived, +and his pockets could boast little more than the once vaunted half-crown +and a shilling. Here was a state sufficient to drive one of less +strength of mind to despair. As a friend, a subject, a man of honour, +and one who prided himself upon a tenacious adherence to his word (when +the aforesaid creditors were not concerned), he felt keenly all the +horrors of his situation. +</p> +<p> +The day arrived, and etiquette demanded that the proper officer should +examine and report upon the nature of the expected entertainment, a duty +that had been deferred until a late hour of the day. Well was it that +the confiding prince had not wholly dispensed with that form; for verily +the said officer found the colonel, with a dirty scullion for his aide +du camp, in active and zealous preparation for his royal visiter; his +shirt sleeves tucked up, while he ardently basted the identical and +solitary "leg of mutton" as it revolved upon the spit: potatoes were to +be seen delicately insinuated into the pan beneath to catch the rich +exudation of the joint; while several tankards of foaming ale, and what +the French term "bread à discretion," announced that, in quantity, if +not in quality, he had not been careless in providing for the +entertainment of his illustrious guest. Although the colonel's culinary +skill leaves no doubt that the leg of mutton would have sustained +(according to Mr. Hunt's elegant phraseology) critical discussion on its +intrinsic merits, or on its concoction; and although the dinner might +have been endured by royalty (of whose homely appetite the ample +gridiron at Alderman Combe's brewery then gave ample proof), yet his +royal highness's poodles would assuredly have perspired through every +pore at the very mention of what a certain nobleman used to term a +"jig-hot;" so the feast was dispensed with, and due acknowledgment made +for the evident proofs of hospitality which had been displayed. +</p> +<p> +After various vicissitudes of life and fortune, in Hanger's advanced +age, a coronet became his, and it came opportunely; for he had at length +learned experience, and knowing the value of the competence he had +obtained, he resolved to enjoy it. He had had enough of fashion; and had +proved all its allurements. So he took a small house in a part of +earth's remoter regions, no great way from Somers' Town, near which +stood a public-house he was fond of visiting, and there, as the price of +his sanction, and in acknowledgment of his rank, a large chair by the +fire-side was exclusively appropriated to the peer.—<i>New Monthly +Magazine.</i> +</p> + +<hr /> + +<h3> + ANECDOTES OF UGO FOSCOLO, THE ITALIAN POET. +</h3> + +<p> +Foscolo was in person about the middle height, and somewhat thin, +remarkably clean and neat in his dress,—although on ordinary occasions, +he wore a short jacket, trousers of coarse cloth, a straw hat, and thick +heavy shoes; the least speck of dirt on his own person, or on that of +any of his attendants, seemed to give him real agony. His countenance +was of a very expressive character, his eyes very penetrating, although +they occasionally betrayed a restlessness and suspicion, which his words +denied; his mouth was large and ugly, his nose drooping, in the way that +physiognomists dislike, but his forehead was splendid in the extreme; +large, smooth, and exemplifying all the power of thought and reasoning, +for which his mind was so remarkable. It was, indeed, precisely the same +as that we see given in the prints of Michael Angelo; he has often heard +the comparison made, and by a nod assented to it. In his living, Foscolo +was remarkably abstemious. He seldom drank more than two glasses of +wine, but he was fond of having all he eat and drank of the very best +kind, and laid out with great attention to order. He always took coffee +immediately after dinner. His house,—I speak of the one he built for +himself, + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page230" name="page230"></a>[pg 230]</span> + +near the Regent's Park,—was adorned with furniture of the most costly +description; at one time he had five magnificent carpets, one under +another, on his drawing-room, and no two chairs in his house were alike. +His tables were all of rare and curious woods. Some of the best busts +and statues (in plaster) were scattered through every apartment,—and on +those he doated with a fervour scarcely short of adoration. I remember +his once sending for me in great haste, and when I entered his library, +I found him kneeling, and exclaiming, "beautiful, beautiful." He was +gazing on the Venus de Medici, which he had discovered looked most +enchanting, when the light of his lamp was made to shine upon it from a +particular direction. On this occasion, he had summoned his whole +household into his library, to witness the discovery which gave him so +much rapture. In this state, continually exclaiming, "beautiful, +beautiful," and gazing on the figure, he remained for nearly two hours. +</p> +<p> +He had the greatest dislike to be asked a question, which he did not +consider important, and used to say, "I have three miseries—smoke, +flies, and to be asked a foolish question." +</p> +<p> +His memory was one of the most remarkable. He has often requested me to +copy for him (from some library) a passage, which I should find in such +a page of such a book; and appeared as if he never forgot any thing with +which he was once acquainted. +</p> +<p> +His conversation was peculiarly eloquent and impressive, such as to +render it evident that he had not been over-rated as an orator, when in +the days of his glory, he was the admiration of his country. I remember +his once discoursing to me of language, and saying, "in every language, +there are three things to be noticed,—verbs, substantives, and the +particles; the verbs," holding out his hand, "are as the bones of these +fingers; the substantives, the flesh and blood; but the particles are +the sinews, without which the fingers could not move." +</p> +<p> +"There are," said he to me, once, "three kinds of writing—<i>diplomatic</i>, +in which you do not come to a point, but write artfully, and not to show +what you mean; <i>attorney</i>, in which you are brief; and <i>enlarged</i>, +in which you spread and stretch your thoughts." +</p> +<p> +I have said that his cottage, (built by himself,) near the Regent's +Park, was very beautiful. I remember his showing me a letter to a +friend, in which were the following passages:—After alluding to some +pecuniary difficulties, he says, "I can easily undergo all privations, +but my dwelling is always my workshop, and often my prison, and ought +not to distress me with the appearance of misery, and I confess, in this +respect, I cannot be acquitted of extravagance." +</p> +<p> +Speaking afterwards of the costliness of his furniture, he observes, +"they encompass me with an air of respectability, and they give me the +illusion of not having fallen into the lowest circumstances. I must also +declare that I will die like a gentleman, on a clean bed, surrounded by +the Venus's, Apollo's, and the Graces, and the busts of great men; nay, +even among flowers, and, if possible, while music is breathing around +me. Far from courting the sympathy of posterity, I will never give +mankind the gratification of ejaculating preposterous sighs, because I +died in a hospital, like Camoens, or Tasso; and since I must be buried +in your country, I am happy in having got, for the remainder of my life, +a cottage, independent of neighbours, surrounded by flowery shrubs, and +open to the free air:—and when I can freely dispose of a hundred +pounds, I will build a small dwelling for my corpse also, under a +beautiful oriental plane tree, which I mean to plant next November, and +cultivate <i>con amore</i>, to the last year of my existence. So far, I +am, indeed an epicure, but in all other things, I am the most moderate +of men. I might vie with Pythagoras for sobriety, and even with the +great Scipio for continence."—Poor Foscolo! these dreams were far, very +far from being realized. Within a short time after, his cottage, and all +its beautiful contents, came to the hammer, and were distributed. A +wealthy gold-smith now inhabits the dwelling of the poet of Italy. It is +but justice to his friends to add, that there were circumstances which +justified them in falling away from him. +</p> +<p> +During a great portion of the time I was acquainted with Ugo Foscolo, he +was under severe pecuniary distress, chiefly indeed brought on by his +own thoughtless extravagance, in building and decorating his house. I +have frequently in those moments seen him beat his forehead, tear his +hair, and gnash his teeth in a manner horrifying; and often left him at +night without the least hope of seeing him alive in the morning. He had +a little Italian dagger which he always kept in his bed-room, and this +he frequently told me would "drink his heart's blood in the night." "I +will die," said he, one day, "I am a stranger, and have no friends." +"Surely, sir," I replied, "a stranger may have friends." "Friends," he +answered; + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page231" name="page231"></a>[pg 231]</span> + +"I have learnt that there is nothing in the word; I assure you, I called +on W——e, to know if there was anything bad about me in the newspapers; +everybody seems to be leagued against me—friends and enemies. I assure +you, I do not think I will live after next Saturday, unless there is +some change." At another time he said, "I am surrounded with +difficulties, and must yield either life or honour; and can you ask me +which I will give up?" I have now before me a letter of Foscolo's, +which, after enumerating a long series of evils, concludes thus:—"Thus, +if I have not underwent the doom of Tasso, I owe it only to the strength +of my nerves that have preserved me." +</p> +<p> +The following sonnet was written by Ugo Foscolo, in English, and +accompanied the Essays on Petrarch, in the edition of that work which +was printed for private circulation. It was omitted when the volume was +subsequently published, and is consequently known to very few: +</p> + +<h3> + TO CALLIRHOE, AT LAUSANNE. +</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> + <p> Her face was veiled; yet to my fancied sight</p> + <p> Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shin'd.</p> + <p> But, oh! I wak'd.——MILTON.</p> +</div></div> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> + <p> I twine far distant from my Tuscan grove,</p> + <p> The lily chaste, the rose that breathes of love,</p> + <p> The myrtle leaf, and Laura's hallow'd bay,</p> + <p> The deathless flowers that bloom o'er Sappho's clay;</p> + <p> For thee, Callirhoe! yet by love and years,</p> + <p> I learn how fancy wakes from joy to tears;</p> + <p> How memory, pensive, 'reft of hope, attends</p> + <p> The exile's path, and bids him fear new friends.</p> + <p> Long may the garland blend its varying hue</p> + <p> With thy bright tresses, and bud ever new</p> + <p> With all spring's odours; with spring's light be drest,</p> + <p> Inhale pure fragrance from thy virgin breast!</p> + <p> And when thou find'st that youth and beauty fly,</p> + <p> As heavenly meteors from our dazzled eye,</p> + <p> Still may the garland shed perfume, and shine,</p> + <p> While Laura's mind and Sappho's heart are thine.</p> +<p style="text-align: right;"><i>Literary Chronicle.</i></p> +</div></div> + +<hr /> + +<h3> + ENGLISH FRUITS. +</h3> + +<p> +<i>The Strawberry</i>.—Many varieties have been imported from other +countries, and a far greater number have been obtained in this, chiefly +from seeds properly prepared by cross impregnation; by which means, the +strawberry has been wonderfully improved; instance the hautboys, +scarlet, chilli, but particularly the splendid varieties, called +"Wilmot's superb," and "Keen's seedlings." +</p> +<p> +<i>The Raspberry</i>, is also found wild in the British isles, on its +native site, (with its companions, the bramble, and dewberry)—its +shoots and fruits are diminutive, though the flavour of the berry is +rich. No plant requires the skilful hand of the pruner more than this; +of all others, it is, perhaps, the most viviparous, throwing up, +annually, a vast redundancy of shoots, which, if not displaced at the +proper season, would impoverish not only the fruit of the present, but +also the bearing wood of the next year. The Dutch fruiterers have been +successful in obtaining two or three fine varieties from seeds; and as +this field of improvement is open, no doubt further exertions will bring +forth new and valuable sorts. +</p> +<p> +<i>The Gooseberry.</i>—No domesticated fruit sports into greater +variety than this: the endless lists of new sorts is a proof of this, +and many large and excellent sorts there are, particularly the old +Warrington red. +</p> +<p> +<i>The Cherry</i>.—Cultivation has accomplished wonders in the +improvement of this beautiful native fruit. Instead of a lofty +forest-tree bearing small bitter fruit, it has been long introduced to +our orchards, is changed in appearance and habit, and even in its manner +of bearing; has sported into many varieties, as numerous as they are +excellent—nor is such improvement at an end: several new varieties have +lately started into existence. +</p> +<p> +<i>The Plum</i>.—The lowest grade of this class of fruits is the almost +useless sloe in the hedge; and none but those in some degree acquainted +with the matter could, on beholding the acidous, puny sloe, and the +ample, luscious magnum bonum plum, together, readily believe that they +were kindred, or that the former was the primitive representative of the +latter. The intermediate links of this connexion are the bullace, +muscle, damacene, &c., of all which there are many varieties. In +nurserymen's lists, there are many improved sorts, not only excellent +plums, but excellent fruit,—the green gage and imperatrice are +admirable. +</p> +<p> +<i>The Pear</i>, was originally an inhabitant of European forests: there +it grew to be a middle-sized tree, with small leaves, and hard, +crude-tasted, petty fruit: since its introduction and naturalization in +the orchard, it has well repaid the planter's care. The French gardeners +have been long celebrated for their success and indefatigable +perseverance in the cultivation of the pear; almost all our superior +sorts are from that country. The monastic institutions all over Europe, +but particularly in France, were the sources from whence flowed many +excellent horticultural rules, as well as objects. +</p> +<center> +(<i>To be concluded in our next</i>.) +</center> + +<hr /> + +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page232" name="page232"></a>[pg 232]</span> +</p> + + +<h2> + THE MONTHS +</h2> + +<div class="figure" style="width: 100%;"> +<a href="images/276-2.png"><img width="100%" src="images/276-2.png" +alt="October." /></a> +</div> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> + <p> On the woods are hung</p> + <p> With many tints, the fading livery</p> + <p> Of life, in which it mourns the coming storms</p> + <p> Of winter.</p> + <p style="text-align: right;"> PERCIVAL.</p> +</div></div> + + + +<p> +Change is the characteristic of the month of October; in short, it +includes the birth and death—the Alpha and Omega—of Nature. Hence, it +is the most inviting to the contemplatist, and during a day in October, +the genius of melancholy may walk out and take her fill, in meditating +on its successive scenes of regeneration and decay. +</p> +<p> +Dissemination, or the <i>sowing of seed</i>, is the principal business +of this month in the economy of nature; which alone is an invaluable +lesson, a "precept upon precept" to a cultivated mind. This is variously +effected, besides by the agency of man; and it is a satire on his +self-sufficiency which should teach him that Nature worketh out her way +by means that he knoweth not. +</p> +<p> +Planting, that agreeable and patriotic art, is another of the October +labours. Here, however, the pride of man is again baffled, when he +considers how many thousand trees are annually planted by <i>birds</i>, +to whom he evinces his gratitude by destroying them, or cruelly +imprisoning them for the idle gratification of listening to their +warbling, which he may enjoy in all its native melody amidst the +delightful retreats of woods and groves. This leads us to the October +economy of birds. "Swallows are generally seen for the last time this +month, the house-martin the latest. The rooks return to the roost trees, +and the tortoise begins to bury himself for the winter. Woodcocks begin +to arrive, and keep dropping in from the Baltic singly or in pairs till +December. The snipe also comes now;" and with the month, by a kind of +savage charter, commences the destruction of the pheasant, to swell the +catalogue of the created wants and luxuries of the table. "One of the +most curious natural appearances," says Mr. L. Hunt, "is the +<i>gossamer</i>, which is an infinite multitude of little threads shot +out by minute spiders, who are thus wafted by the wind from place to +place." In this manner spiders are known to cross extents of many miles. +</p> +<p> +The weather becomes misty, though the middle of the day is often very +fine. Hence it is the proper season for the enjoyment of forest scenery. +The leaves, which, towards the close of September, began to assume their +golden tints and gorgeous hues, now lecture us with their scenes of +falling grandeur; and nothing is more delightful than in an autumnal +walk to emerge from the pensive gloom + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page233" name="page233"></a>[pg 233]</span> + +of a thick forest, and just catch the last glimpse of an October sun, +shedding his broad glare over the varied tints of its leaves and +branches, for the sombre and silvery barks of the latter add not a +little to the picture. "The hedges," says the author already quoted, +"are now sparkling with their abundant berries,—the wild rose with the +hip, the hawthorn with the haw, the blackthorn with the sloe, the +bramble with the blackberry; and the briony, privet, honey-suckle, +elder, holly, and woody nightshade, with their other winter feasts for +the birds." +</p> +<p> +October is the great month for <i>brewing</i>—that luxurious and +substantial branch of rural economy; and many and merry are the songs +and stories of nut-brown October to "gladden the heart of man," with the +soul-stirring influence of its regalings. Hops, too, are generally +picked this month. +</p> +<p> +October in Italy is thus vividly described: "It was now the beginning of +the month of October; already the gales which attend upon the equinox +swept through the woods and trees; the delicate chestnut woods, which +last dare encounter the blasts of spring, and whose tender leaves do not +expand until they may become a shelter to the swallow, had already +changed their hues, and shone yellow and red, amidst the sea-green +foliage of the olives, the darker but light boughs of the cork-trees, +and the deep and heavy masses of ilexes and pines." +</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<h2> +Astronomical Occurences +</h2> + +<h3> +<i>FOR OCTOBER, 1827.</i> +</h3> + +<center> +(<i>For the Mirror</i>.) +</center> + +<p> +Mercury is in conjunction with Jupiter on the 7th at noon: he is too +near the sun to be observed this month. +</p> +<p> +Venus passes her superior conjunction on the 7th, at 10 h. morning, +thenceforward she sets after the sun, and becomes an evening star. This +interesting planet makes a very near appulse to Jupiter on the 16th at 1 +h. morning. +</p> +<p> +Jupiter is in conjunction with the sun on the 18th at 10-3/4 h. evening. +He is afterwards a morning star, preceding the sun in his rising. +</p> +<p> +The Georgian planet, or Herschel, ceases from his retrograde movement on +the 4th, and appears stationary till the 11th, when he resumes a direct +motion. He is still in a favourable situation for evening observation. +Its great distance from the earth, and the long period of its revolution +round the sun prevent any rapid change in its situation among the fixed +stars; the place therefore which the Greorgium Sidus occupied in +Capricornus in July, (see MIRROR for that month) is so contiguous to +that planet's present position, that the observations then made may be a +sufficient guide for the present month. Its slow motion among the fixed +stars makes it participate in that daily change which is common to them, +hence the planet may be observed in the same place a few minutes earlier +every night. It comes to the south on the 1st at 7 h. 16 min., and on +the 31st at 5 h. 26 min. evening. +</p> +<p> +The moon is in opposition on the 5th; in apogee on the 11th; in +conjunction on the 20th; and in perigee on the 23rd. She is in +conjunction with Saturn on the 13th at 3-1/4 h. after with Mars on the +18th at 2 h. morning; and Jupiter and Venus on the 20th, with the former +at 1-1/2 h. and the latter at 11 h. afternoon, also with Mercury on the +21st at 10-1/2 h. afternoon. +</p> +<p> +The Solar luminary is eclipsed on the 20th at 3 h. 47 min. afternoon. He +is above the horizon during the whole time the central shade is passing +over the disc of the earth, but the moon having nearly 2 deg. southern +latitude at the time of true conjunction, in middle of the eclipse, it +will be invisible not only to us but to the whole boreal hemisphere of +the globe. He enters Scorpio on the 24th at 4 h. 36 min. morning. +</p> +<p> +From the observations made upon the annual eclipses, it appears that the +period of the moon is now shorter, and consequently that her distance +from the earth is now less than in former ages, and this has been +considered as an argument against those who assert that the world may +have existed from eternity; for it was hence inferred that the moon +moves in a resisting medium, and therefore that her motion must by +degrees be all destroyed, in which case she must at last come to the +earth. But M. de la Place has shewn that this acceleration of the moon's +period is a necessary consequence of universal gravitation, and that it +arises from the action of the planets upon the moon. He has also shewn +that this acceleration will go on till it arrives at a certain limit, +when it will be changed into a retardation, or in other words, there are +two limits between which the lunar period fluctuates, but neither of +which it can pass. +</p> + +<h4> +PASCHE. +</h4> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<h2> +Fine Arts. +</h2> + +<hr /> + +<h3> +HANS HOLBEIN. +</h3> + +<p> +Holbein is the man who has been hitherto considered as the most +brilliant genius Switzerland has produced in the art of painting. He is +here universally + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page234" name="page234"></a>[pg 234]</span> + +believed to have been a native of Switzerland. His earliest biographers, +Mander and Patin, asserted that he was born at Basel, and they have been +copied by all our biographical dictionaries. Another biographer, +however, appears, himself a Swiss, and known as the author of some other +clever works, and proves, on the most satisfactory evidence, that +Holbein was born 1498, at Augsburg, in Germany; but that his father, a +painter too, came to Basel between 1504-8, probably at the invitation of +the magistrates of Basel, as they required a painter to decorate their +newly-built council-hall. +</p> +<p> +Holbein gave early proofs of his aspiring talent. When fifteen years +old, he exhibited an oil-painting, which, though defective in colouring, +raised high expectations by its clearness and softness of execution. +This painting is still to be seen in the public library at Basel, and +bears the date of 1513. Of the same year, a sketch, with the monogram +HH, is extant, representing three watchmen with halberds. His two +brothers were also painters; only a few paintings are left of the elder, +Ambrose, and none of the younger brother Bruno; both died prematurely. +In the year 1520, Holbein was presented with the freedom of the town of +Basel. +</p> +<p> +Switzerland held constant communications with Germany and the +Netherlands, but less with Italy. A number of painters lived at that +time in Germany, whose names have not been recorded by any German +Vasari, and their master works have been long neglected. In Holbein's +time Albrecht Durer enjoyed the primary reputation. Martin Schoen had +preceded him at Colmar, in Alsace; Manuel painted at Bern, Hans Asper at +Zurich, and at Basel itself there were other painters besides Holbein. +Half a century before him the <i>Dance of Death</i> had been painted, +after the disaster of a plague, on the walls of a church-yard at Basel. +</p> +<p> +The council-hall at Basel gave occupation to architects from 1508 till +1520. It is believed that Holbein painted three of the walls, only one +of which (hid behind old tapestry, and discovered again in 1817) has +escaped the ravages of time. It represents M. Curius Dentatus cooking +his dinner, whilst the Samnites offer silver plates with money. "The +last Judgment," where a pope, with priests and monks, sink into the +flames of hell, is not the work of Holbein, but was done in 1610, during +good Protestant times. +</p> +<p> +A good number of stories are told of Holbein. Unable to pay his debts in +a tavern, he discharged the bill by decorating the walls with paintings +of flowers. Another time, for a similar purpose, he covered the walls +all over with "the merry dance of peasants;" and in order to deceive one +of his employers, he painted his own legs beneath the high scaffolding, +that the watchful citizen should not suspect his having abandoned his +work to carouse in wine-cellars. Here our biographer gravely says, "a +man of spirit could not be expected to sit quietly painting the whole +day long in the heat of the sun, or in the rain; if he saw a good friend +go to the tavern, he felt disposed to follow him." Holbein did not keep +the best company; but in this he resembled Rembrandt, who said, that +when he wished to amuse himself, he avoided the company of the great, +which put a restraint upon him; "for pleasure," he adds, "consists in +perfect liberty only." Holbein no doubt felt a contempt for the great +people of his time, as they did not understand much about his art, which +he valued above all things. +</p> +<p> +Holbein's wife, and he married early, was a perfect Xantippe, too shrewd +to be despised, and not handsome enough to be admired. In the library at +Basel is a family picture of Holbein, in which she is introduced, almost +unconscious of the two children about her; but Holbein very shrewdly +forgot to paint himself there. But he took care of the interests of his +family, and obtained them a pension from the magistrates of Basel, +during his stay in England. This pension was paid for past services, and +in order to induce him finally to fix his residence in Switzerland. +</p> +<p> +The absence of matrimonial felicity was probably an additional motive +for Holbein to seek employment as an itinerant painter. He visited +several Swiss towns, but certainly never saw Luther and Melancthon, so +that the portraits of Luther and Melancthon exhibited in Italy, Germany, +and England, as works of Holbein, cannot be genuine; and it is very +improbable that he should have copied the works of Lucas Cranach, who +several times painted the portraits of those lights of the reformation. +Erasmus was frequently painted by Holbein; and as those portraits were +sent as presents to the friends of Erasmus, Holbein's name became known +all over Europe. +</p> +<p> +Holbein came to England in the year 1526, and Sir Thomas More wrote to +Erasmus that he would take care of him. Sir Thomas received him into his +own house at Chelsea, and there Henry VIII. saw him one day, when paying +a visit to the former. He took him instantly into his service, gave him +apartments in the royal palace, and a salary of 30<i>l</i>. a-year. +</p> + +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page235" name="page235"></a>[pg 235]</span> +</p> + +<p> +Holbein's long residence in the house of Sir Thomas More had a good +effect upon him; for although Erasmus describes the women of England as +"nymphae divinis vultibus, blandae, faciles," yet Holbein seems to have +resisted those temptations in London, which rendered his conduct at +Basel so reprehensible. Holbein twice revisited Switzerland, once in +1526, the second and last time in 1538: the zealots had just destroyed +all the images; and even some painters, infected with the spirit of the +age, had declared they would rather starve, than break the second +commandment. In England the same work of devastation took place; but +Henry VIII., notwithstanding, gave Holbein abundance of work, as he had +to paint all his royal consorts in succession, besides a number of +portraits for English noblemen. +</p> +<p> +His sketches of heads, now existing at Kensington, of various people who +lived at the court of Henry VIII., and among them one of that monarch, +are exquisite productions. Imitations of the original drawings have been +published by J. Chamberlaine, fol. Lond. 1792. One picture of Holbein is +supposed to be in Surgeons' Hall. Some wood-cuts to Cranmer's Catechism +(1548) were made by Holbein. Our biographer, who had never seen the work +himself, was led by Walpole [<i>Anecdotes of Painting</i>] to believe, +that all the wood-cuts were from Holbein. +</p> +<p> +With respect to the famous "Dance of Death," the biographer tells us, +what we have already stated, that the painting on the wall of the +church-yard at Basel is not the work of Holbein; the costumes are of a +time anterior to Holbein. There was also a "Dance of Death" painted on +the wall of a convent at Bern by Manuel, who lived a little before +Holbein. Only on the supposition that the "Dance of Death" at Basel was +Holbein's work, could that of Bern be said to be the first of its kind. +But, on comparing the costumes, it appears again, that the "Dance of +Death" at Bern must have been painted subsequently to that at Basel. No +"Dance of Death" of an earlier date was known, until another was +discovered on the wall of a convent of nuns at Klingenthal, on the right +bank of the Rhine, at Basel. This bears the date of 1312, and is +therefore a whole century prior to the other, which cannot have been +painted before the year 1439. It has been supposed, that the idea of the +"Dance of Death" was taken from certain processions very much in vogue +during the middle ages; and it is singular enough, that up to this day, +in funeral processions in Italy, long white robes are used, which wholly +cover the head, with only two holes for the eyes. But the coincidence of +another plague at Basel, which, about the year 1312, destroyed above +11,000 people, renders it more than probable that the artist availed +himself of the impression which such a dreadful mortality must have made +on the minds of all the surviving, to represent how inexorable death +drags to the grave, in terrible sport, rich and poor, high and low, +clergymen and laity. +</p> +<p> +On the authority of Nieuhoff, a Dutchman, who came over to England with +William III., Mr. Douce asserts, that Holbein had painted the "Dance of +Death" on the walls of Whitehall. Borbonius might then have had in mind +this painting, when he mentioned the "Mors picta" of Holbein; but three +biographers of Holbein, Mander, Sandrart, and Patin, were in England +before Whitehall was destroyed by fire, and make no mention of this +painting, although Mander speaks of other paintings of Holbein, +particularly the portrait of Henry VIII., that were preserved at +Whitehall. Mander states, that he also saw at Whitehall the portraits of +Edward, Maria, and Elizabeth, by Holbein, "die oock ter selver plaetse +te sien zyn." +</p> +<p> +Sandrart, whose work was published in 1675, also mentions the paintings +of Holbein at Whitehall. Is it credible, that three travellers, two of +whom were distinguished artists themselves, should have been at +Whitehall, and seen there the paintings of Holbein, without taking +notice of the "Dance of Death," if it had been in that place? +</p> +<p> +Holbein died of the plague in London, 1554.—<i>Westminster Review</i>. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +When I see the spirit of liberty in action, I see a strong principle at +work; and, this for awhile, is all I can possibly know of it. The wild +gas, the fixed air, is plainly broke loose; but we ought to suspend our +judgment until the first effervescence is a little subsided, till the +liquor is cleared, and until we see something deeper than the agitation +of a troubled and frothy surface. I must be tolerably sure, before I +venture publicly to congratulate men upon a blessing, that they have +really received one.—<i>Burke</i>. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +If we must lash one another, let it be with the manly strokes of wit and +satire; for I am of the old philosopher's opinion, that if I must suffer +from one or the other, I would rather it should be from the paw of a +lion, than from the hoof of an ass.—<i>Addison</i>. +</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page236" name="page236"></a>[pg 236]</span> +</p> + +<div class="figure" style="width: 100%;"> +<a href="images/276-3.png"><img width="100%" src="images/276-3.png" +alt="The Central Market, Leeds." /></a> +</div> + +<h2> + THE CENTRAL MARKET, LEEDS. +</h2> + +<p> +As one of the most elegant and useful buildings of the important town of +Leeds, and as characteristic of the public spirit of its inhabitants,<a id="footnotetag2" name="footnotetag2"></a><a href="#footnote2"><sup>2</sup></a> +the above engraving cannot fail to prove acceptable to our readers; +while it may serve as an excitement to similar exertions in other +districts. +</p> +<p> +The Central Market, is erected on the site of the old post-office, at +the north-east corner of Duncan-street, the foundation stone of which +was laid in 1824. The whole site was excavated, and is divided into +cellars, arched and groined, with a spacious area round the whole, for +the convenience of access to each, and lighted by powerful convex lenses +from the interior of the building. Over these is the principal +building—an enclosed market-house, with twenty shops round the exterior +for butchers and others, and twenty others corresponding in size with +them, fronting the interior. The space within these, on the ground +floor, is fitted up with twenty single stands for fruit and vegetables. +Three sides of the square form a spacious gallery, commodiously fitted +up with thirty-six stands of convenient dimensions, as a Bazaar. The +interior is lighted and ventilated by three rows of windows, one row on +the Bazaar floor, and two rows in the roof. The roof, the carpentry of +which has been pronounced a master-piece, is supported by twelve +cast-iron columns and sixteen oak pillars, and is 34 ft. 6 in. high; the +height from the floor to the upper point of the ceiling being 54 ft. 4 +in. The size within the walls is 138 ft. by 103 ft. The principal +entrance is at the south front from Duncan-street, on each side of which +are three large shops fronting the street, with a suite of six offices +above. Over this entrance is an entablature richly embellished with fine +masonry, and supported with two Ionic columns, and two pilasters or +antaes, 30 ft. high. In the centre of the front, as well as within the +market, it is intended to place a clock. The outer boundary of the +market, which forms + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page237" name="page237"></a>[pg 237]</span> + +three sides of the square, and is separated from the enclosed market by +a carriage road, consists of twenty-five shops devoted exclusively to +butchers and fishmongers. At the south-west corner of these is an hotel; +at the south-east corner, near Call-lane, are two shops, with offices +above; and, in another part, a house for the clerk of the market. There +are four pumps on the premises, and the floor of the interior is so +contrived and fitted up with proper drains, that it can be washed down +at pleasure. The whole will be lighted with gas. +</p> +<p> +The architect of the Central Market is Francis Goodwin, Esq., and it is +but justice to say, that it is highly creditable to his taste and skill. +The front is of the Grecian order, and perhaps the largest piece of +masonry in the county of York, with the fewest observable joints. It is +expected to prove an advantageous investment. +</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<h2> +<i>THE SELECTOR</i>; +<br /> +AND +<br /> +LITERARY NOTICES OF +<br /> +<i>NEW WORKS</i>. +</h2> + +<hr /> + +<h3> + RISE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. +</h3> + +<p> +With his passions, and in spite of his errors, Napoleon is, taking him +all in all, the greatest warrior of modern times. He carried into battle +a stoical courage, a profoundly calculated tenacity, a mind fertile in +sudden inspirations, which by unhopedfor resources disconcerted the +plans of the enemy. Let us beware of attributing a long series of +success to the organic power of the masses which he set in motion. The +most experienced eye could scarcely discover in them any thing but +elements of disorder. Still less let it be said that he was a successful +captain because he was a mighty monarch. Of all his campaigns, the most +memorable are,—the campaign of the Adige, where the general of +yesterday, commanding an army by no means numerous, and at first badly +appointed, placed himself at once above Turenne and on a level with +Frederick; and the campaign in France in 1814, when, reduced to a +handful of harassed troops, he combated a force of ten times their +number. The last flashes of imperial lightning still dazzled the eyes of +our enemies; and it was a fine sight to see the bounds of the old lion +tracked, hunted down, beset, presenting a lively picture of the days of +his youth, when his powers developed themselves in the fields of +carnage. +</p> +<p> +Napoleon possessed, in an eminent degree, the faculties requisite for +the profession of arms; temperate and robust, watching and sleeping at +pleasure, appearing unawares where he was least expected, he did not +disregard details to which important results are sometimes attached. The +hand which had just traced rules for the government of many millions of +men would frequently rectify an incorrect statement of the situation of +a regiment, or write down whence two hundred conscripts were to be +obtained, and from what magazine their shoes were to be taken. A patient +and easy interlocutor, he was a home questioner, and he could listen—a +rare talent in the grandees of the earth. He carried with him into +battle a cool and impassable courage; never was mind so deeply +meditative, more fertile in rapid and sudden illuminations. On becoming +emperor he ceased not to be the soldier. If his activity decreased with +the progress of age, that was owing to the decrease of his physical +powers. +</p> +<p> +In games of mingled calculation and hazard, the greater the advantages +which a man seeks to obtain, the greater risks he must run. It is +precisely this that renders the deceitful science of conquerors so +calamitous to nations. Napoleon, though naturally adventurous, was not +deficient in consistency or method; and he wasted neither his soldiers +nor his treasures where the authority of his name sufficed. What he +could obtain by negociations or by artifice, he required not by force of +arms. The sword, although drawn from the scabbard, was not stained with +blood, unless it was impossible to attain the end in view by a +manoeuvre. Always ready to fight, he chose habitually the occasion and +the ground. Out of fifty battles which he fought, he was the assailant +in at least forty. +</p> +<p> +Other generals have equalled him in the art of disposing troops on the +ground. Some have given battle as well as he did; we could mention +several who have received it better; but in the manner of directing an +offensive campaign he has surpassed all. +</p> +<p> +The wars in Spain and Russia prove nothing in disparagement of his +genius. It is not by the rules of Montecuculii and Turenne, manoeuvring +on the Renchen, that we ought to judge of such enterprises. The first +warred to secure such or such winter-quarters; the other to subdue the +world. It frequently behoved him not merely to gain a battle, but to +gain it in such a manner as to astound Europe and to produce gigantic +results. Thus political views were incessantly interfering + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page238" name="page238"></a>[pg 238]</span> + +with the strategic genius; and to appreciate him properly we must not +confine ourselves within the limits of the art of war. This art is not +composed exclusively of technical details; it has also its philosophy. +To find in this elevated region a rival to Napoleon, we must go back to +the times when the feudal institutions had not yet broken the unity of +the ancient nations. The founders of religions alone have exercised over +their disciples an authority comparable with that which made him the +absolute master of his army. This moral power became fatal to him, +because he strove to avail himself of it even against the ascendancy of +material force, and because it led him to despise positive rules, the +long violation of which will not remain unpunished. +</p> +<p> +When pride was hurrying Napoleon towards his fall, he happened to say, +"France has more need of me than I have of France." He spoke the truth. +But why had he become necessary? Because he had committed the destiny of +the French to the chances of an interminable war; because, in spite of +the resources of his genius, that war, rendered daily more hazardous by +his staking the whole of his force, and by the boldness of his +movements, risked in every campaign, in every battle, the fruits of +twenty years of triumph; because his government was so modelled that +with him every thing must be swept away, and that a re-action +proportioned to the violence of the action must burst forth at once both +within and without. The mania of conquest had reversed the state of +things in Europe; we, the eldest born of liberty and independence, were +spilling our blood in the service of royal passions against the cause of +nations, and outraged nations were turning round upon us, more terrible +from being armed with the principles which we had forsaken. +</p> +<p> +At times, this immense mass of passions which he was accumulating +against him, this multitude of avenging arms ready to be raised, filled +his ambitious spirit with involuntary apprehension. Looking around him, +he was alarmed to find himself solitary, and conceived the idea of +strengthening his power by moderating it. Then it was that he thought of +creating an hereditary peerage, and reconstructing his monarchy on more +secure foundations. But Napoleon saw without illusion to the bottom of +things. The nation, wholly and continually occupied in prosecuting the +designs of its chief, had previously not had time to form any plans for +itself. The day on which it should have ceased to be stunned by the din +of arms, it would have called itself to account for its servile +obedience. It is better, thought he, for an absolute prince to fight +foreign armies, than to have to struggle against the energy of the +citizens. Despotism had been organized for making war; war was continued +to uphold despotism. The die was cast; France must either conquer +Europe, or Europe subdue France. +</p> +<p> +Napoleon fell: he fell, because with the men of the nineteenth century +he attempted the work of an Attila and a Genghis Khan; because he gave +the reins to an imagination directly contrary to the spirit of his age, +with which nevertheless his reason was perfectly acquainted; because he +would not pause on the day when he felt conscious of his inability to +succeed. Nature has fixed a boundary, beyond which extravagant +enterprises cannot be carried with prudence. This boundary the emperor +reached in Spain, and he overleaped it in Russia. Had he then escaped +destruction, his inflexible presumption would have caused him to find +elsewhere a Baylen and a Moscow— <i>History of the War in the +Peninsula, from the French of General Foy.</i> +</p> + +<hr /> + +<h3> + ROBINSON CRUSOES. +</h3> + +<p> +At one of the islands belonging to Juan de Ampues, the pilot ran away. +Cifuentes and his crew, all equally ignorant of navigation, made sail +for San Domingo, were dismasted in a gale of wind, and driven in the +night upon the "Serrana" shoals; the crew, a flask of powder and steel, +were saved, but nothing else. They found sea-calves and birds upon the +island, and were obliged to eat them raw, and drink their blood, for +there was no water. After some weeks, they made a raft with fragments of +the wreck, lashed together with calf-skin thongs: three men went off +upon it, and were lost. Two, and a boy, staid upon the island—one of +whom, Moreno, died four days afterwards raving mad, having gnawed the +flesh off his arms: the survivors, Master John and the boy, dug holes in +the sand with tortoise-shells, and lined them with calf-skins to catch +the rain. Where the vessel was wrecked, they found a stone which served +them for a flint; this invaluable prize enabled them to make a fire. Two +men had been living upon another island two leagues from them, in +similar distress, for five years; these saw the fire, and upon a raft +joined their fellow sufferers. They now built a boat with the fragments +of the wreck, made sails of calf-skins, and caulked her with their fat, +mixed with charcoal: one man and the boy went away in her: Master John, +and one whose name has not been + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page239" name="page239"></a>[pg 239]</span> + +preserved, would not venture in her: they made themselves coracles with +skins, and coasted round the shoals, which they estimated at twelve +leagues long. At low water there were seventeen islands, but only five +which were not sometimes overflowed. Fish, turtle, sea-calves, birds, +and a root like purslane, was their food. The whites of turtle-eggs, +when dried and buried for a fortnight, turned to water, which they found +good drink: five months in the year these eggs were their chief food. +They clothed themselves and covered their huts with calf-skins, and made +an enclosure to catch fish, twenty-two fathoms long, with stones brought +out of the sea—and raised two towers in the same laborious way, sixteen +fathoms in circumference at the base, and four in height, at the north +and south extremities of the island: upon these they made fires as +signals. To avoid the crabs and snails which tormented them at night, +they slept in the day time. +</p> +<p> +Three years after the other went way, John's sufferings began to affect +his reason: in a fit of despair, he applied to the devil for that relief +his prayers had failed to bring; and, rising in the dark, he fancied the +devil was close to the hut. John awakened his companion, and taking a +crucifix for protection, ran praying to the other end of the island. +About a fortnight afterwards, John thought he heard his visiter again, +but did not see him. And it now pleased God to relieve them: they saw a +ship, and made a great smoke upon their tower, which was seen. John and +his companion were carried to the Havannah, where their appearance and +story attracted great attention. John was twice sick during the eight +years, both times in August, and both times bled himself.—<i>Southey's +Chronological History of the West Indies.</i> +</p> + +<hr /> + +<h3> + FIRST APPEARANCES OF MISS STEPHENS AND MR. KEAN. +</h3> + +<p> +During this memorable era of the British Stage, Mr. Hazlit was engaged +as theatrical reporter to the <i>Morning Chronicle</i>, newspaper, then +conducted by Mr. Perry, and printed on the exact site of the MIRROR +office: in his <i>Table Talk</i> he gives the following portraiture of +their theatrical successes:— +</p> +<p> +What squabbles we used to have about Kean and Miss Stephens, the only +theatrical favourites I ever had! Mrs. Billington had got some notion +that Miss Stephens would never make a singer, and it was the torment of +Perry's life (as he told me in confidence) that he could not get any two +people to be of the same opinion on any one point. I shall not easily +forget bringing him my account of her first appearance in the +<i>Beggar's Opera</i>. I have reason to remember that article: it was +almost the last I ever wrote with any pleasure to myself. I had been +down on a visit to my friends near Chertsey, and, on my return, had +stopped at an inn at Kingston-upon-Thames, where I had got the +<i>Beggar's Opera</i>, and had read it overnight. The next day I walked +cheerfully to town. It was a fine sunny morning, in the end of autumn, +and as I repeated the beautiful song, "Life knows no return of spring," +I meditated my next day's criticism, trying to do all the justice I +could to so inviting a subject. I was not a little proud of it by +anticipation. I had just then begun to stammer out my sentiments on +paper, and was in a kind of honey-moon of authorship. +</p> +<p> +I deposited my account of the play at the <i>Morning Chronicle</i> +office in the afternoon, and went to see Miss Stephens as Polly. Those +were happy times, in which she first came out in this character, in +Mandane, where she sang the delicious air, "If o'er the cruel tyrant +Love," (so as it can never be sung again,) in <i>Love in a Village</i>, +where the scene opened with her and Miss Matthews in a painted garden of +roses and honeysuckles, and "Hope thou nurse of young Desire," thrilled +from two sweet voices in turn. Oh! may my ears sometimes still drink the +same sweet sounds, embalmed with the spirit of youth, of health, and +joy, but in the thoughts of an instant, but in a dream of fancy, and I +shall hardly need to complain! When I got back, after the play, Perry +called out, with his cordial, grating voice, "Well, how did she do?" and +on my speaking in high terms, answered, that "he had been to dine with +his friend the duke, that some conversation had passed on the subject, +he was afraid it was not the thing, it was not the true <i>sostenuto</i> +style; but as I had written the article" (holding my peroration on the +<i>Beggar's Opera</i> carelessly in his hand) "it might pass!" I could +perceive that the rogue licked his lips at it, and had already in +imagination "bought golden opinions of all sorts of people" by this very +criticism, and I had the satisfaction the next day to meet Miss Stephens +coming out of the editor's room, who had been to thank him for his very +flattering account of her. +</p> +<p> +I was sent to see Kean the first night of his performance of Shylock, +when there were about a hundred people in the pit, but from his masterly +and spirited delivery of the first striking speech, "On such a day you +called me dog," &c. I + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page240" name="page240"></a>[pg 240]</span> + +perceived it was a hollow thing. So it was given out in the +<i>Chronicle</i>, but Perry was continually at me as other people were +at him, and was afraid it would not last. It was to no purpose I said it +<i>would last</i>: yet I am in the right hitherto. It has been said, +ridiculously, that Mr. Kean was written up in the <i>Chronicle</i>. I +beg leave to state my opinion that no actor can be written up or down by +a paper. An author may be puffed into notice, or damned by criticism, +because his book may not have been read. An artist may be over-rated, or +undeservedly decried, because the public is not much accustomed to see +or judge of pictures. But an actor is judged by his peers, the +play-going public, and must stand or fall by his own merits or defects. +The critic may give the tone or have a casting voice where popular +opinion is divided; but he can no more <i>force</i> that opinion either +way, or wrest it from its base in common-sense and feeling, than he can +move Stonehenge. Mr. Kean had, however, physical disadvantages and +strong prejudices to encounter, and so far the <i>liberal</i> and +<i>independent</i> part of the press might have been of service in +helping him to his seat in the public favour. +</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<h2> + THE GATHERER. +</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> + <p> "I am but a <i>Gatherer</i> and disposer of other men's stuff."—Wotton.</p> +</div></div> + +<hr /> + +<h3> +INSANITY. +</h3> + +<p> +A French physician, in a recent work on the moral and physical causes of +insanity, noticing the influence of professions in promoting this +affliction, brings forward a curious table, showing the relative +proportion of different professions in a mass of 164 lunatics. It runs +thus:—merchants, 50; military men, 33; students, 25; administrateurs et +employés, 21; advocates, notaries, and men of business, 10; artists, 8; +chemists, 4; medical practitioners, 4; farmers, 4; sailors, 3; +engineers, 2. Total 164. +</p> + +<p> +Never were the afflictions of Insanity more vividly portrayed than in +the following lines from <i>Churchill's Epistle to Hogarth</i>:— +</p> + + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> + <p> Sure 'tis a curse which angry fates impose,</p> + <p> To mortify man's arrogance, that those</p> + <p> Who're fashioned of some better sort of clay,</p> + <p> Must sooner than the common herd decay.</p> + <p> What bitter pangs must humble genius feel,</p> + <p> In their last hour to view a Swift and Steele!</p> + <p> How must ill-boding horrors fill their breast,</p> + <p> When she beholds men, mark'd above the rest</p> + <p> For qualities most dear, plung'd from that height,</p> + <p> And sunk, deep sunk, in second childhood's night!</p> + <p> Are men indeed such things? and are the best</p> + <p> More subject to this evil than the rest,</p> + <p> To drivel out whole years of idiot breath,</p> + <p> And sit the monuments of living death?</p> + <p> O galling circumstance to human pride!</p> + <p> Abasing thought! but not to be deny'd.</p> + <p> With curious art, the brain too finely wrought,</p> + <p> Preys on herself, and is destroyed by thought.</p> + <p> Constant attention wears the active mind,</p> + <p> Blots out her pow'rs and leaves a blank behind.</p> +</div></div> + +<hr /> + +<h3> + MACADAMIZATION. +</h3> + + +<p> +The cost of converting Regent-street, +Whitehall-place, and Palace-yard, into +broken stone roads, has been £6,055 8<i>s</i>. 3<i>d</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Value of old pavement taken up and +broken for that purpose £6,787 7<i>s</i>. 0<i>d</i>. +</p> + +<p>Total: £12,842 15 3</p> + +<h4> +<i>Parliamentary Papers.</i> +</h4> + +<hr /> + +<h3> + SILK +</h3> + +<p> +According to a late statement of Mr. Huskisson, the silk manufacture of +England now reaches the enormous amount of fourteen millions sterling +per annum, and is consequently after cotton, the greatest staple of the +country. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<h3> + NEW LAMP. +</h3> + +<p> +At a recent meeting of the Royal Institution an ornamental lamp was +placed on the library table, the elegant transparent paintings and +spiral devices of which were kept in rotary motion by the action of the +current of heated air issuing from the chimneys of the lamp, which +contrivance is well adapted to a number of purposes of ornamental +illumination. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +First and last there have been 120,000 copies printed of "Domestic +Cookery, by a Lady," (Mrs. Rundell;) and 50,000 "Receipt Book," by the +same authoress. +</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<p> +<i>Printed and Published by J. LIMBIRD, 143, Strand, (near +Somerset-house,) and sold by all Newsmen and Booksellers.</i> +</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<blockquote class="footnote"> +<a id="footnote1" name="footnote1"></a> +<b>Footnote 1</b>: +<a href="#footnotetag1">(return)</a> +From <i>"Cameleon Sketches</i>," by the author of "<i>The +Promenade round Dorking</i>." In the press. +</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"> +<a id="footnote2" name="footnote2"></a> +<b>Footnote 2</b>: +<a href="#footnotetag2">(return)</a> +Too much praise cannot be conferred on this and similar +instances of provincial improvement; while it is much to be regretted +that such praise cannot be extended to the <i>metropolis</i> of England; +for, strange to say, LONDON is still without a market-place suitable to +its commercial consequence. Hence, Smithfield market is almost a public +nuisance, while its extensive business is settled in public-houses in +the neighbourhood; and the hay market, held in the fine broad street of +that name, but ill accords with the courtly vicinity of Pall Mall and +St. James's. It is, however, to <i>fruit and vegetable markets</i> that +this observation is particularly applicable: for instance, what a +miserable scene is the area of <i>Covent Garden market</i>. The +non-completion of the piazza square is much to be lamented, while +splendid streets and towns are erecting on every side of the metropolis. +How unworthy, too, is the market, of association with Inigo Jones's +noble Tuscan church of St. Paul, "the handsomest barn in Europe." To +quote Sterne, we must say "they manage these things better in France," +where the <i>halles</i>, or markets are among the noblest of the public +buildings. Neither can any Englishman, who has seen the markets of +Paris, but regret the absence of fountains from the markets of London. +They are among the most tasteful embellishments of Paris, and their +presence in the markets cannot be too much admired. Water is, +unquestionably, the most salutary and effective cleanser of vegetable +filth which is necessarily generated on the sites of markets; but in +London its useful introduction is limited to a few pumps, and its +ornamental to one or two solitary <i>jets d'eau</i> in almost +unfrequented places. It should be added, that in Southwark, an extensive +and commodious market-place is just completed, and the tolls are +proportionally increasing. A similar improvement is much wanted in +Covent Garden, by which means many of the evils of that spot would be +abated, and instead of seeing Nature's choicest productions huddled +together, and being ourselves tortured in the scramble and confusion of +a crowd, we might then range through the avenues of Covent Garden with +all the comfort which our forefathers were wont to enjoy on this spot, +or certainly with comparative ease.—ED. +</blockquote> + +<hr class="full" /> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and +Instruction, No. 276, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MIRROR OF LITERATURE *** + +***** This file should be named 15935-h.htm or 15935-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/9/3/15935/ + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, David Garcia and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 276 + Volume 10, No. 276, October 6, 1827 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: May 29, 2005 [EBook #15935] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MIRROR OF LITERATURE *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, David Garcia and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + + + + + * * * * * + +THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION. + +VOL. X, NO. 276.] SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1827. [PRICE 2d. + + * * * * * + + + + +Bristol Cathedral. + +[Illustration: Bristol Cathedral.] + + + There is given + Unto the things of earth, which Time hath bent, + A spirit's feelings, and where he hath leant + His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power + And magic in the ruin'd battlement + For which the palace of the present hour + Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower. + +BYRON. + + +The cathedral of Bristol is one of the most interesting relics of +monastic splendour which have been spared from the wrecks of desolation +and decay. It is dedicated to the holy and undivided Trinity, and is the +remains of an abbey or monastery of great magnificence, which was +dedicated to St. Augustine. The erection of this monastery was begun +in 1140, and was finished and dedicated in 1148, according to the +inscription on the tomb of the founder, Robert Fitzharding, the first +lord of Berkeley, who, together with others of that illustrious family, +are enshrined within these walls. It was also denominated the monastery +of the black regular canons of the order of Saint Victor, who are +mentioned by Leland as the black canons of St. Augustine within the city +walls. By some historians, Fitzharding is represented as an opulent +citizen of Bristol; but generally as a younger son or grandson of the +king of Denmark, and as the youthful companion of Henry II., who, +betaking himself from the sunshine of royal friendship, became a canon +of the monastery he himself had founded. In this congenial solitude he +died in 1170, aged 75. Such is the outline of the foundation of this +structure, and it is one of the most attractive episodes of the early +history of England; for the circumstance of a noble exchanging the +gilded finery of a court, and the gay companionship of his prince, for +the gloomy cloisters of an abbey, and the ascetic duties of monastic +life, bespeaks a degree of resolution and self-control which was more +probably the result of sincere conviction than of momentary caprice. + +The present cathedral is represented to have been merely the church of +the monastery, which was entirely rebuilt in the commencement of the +fourteenth century. The style of architecture in the different parts of +this cathedral is accurately discriminated in the following account from +the pen of Bishop Littleton, F.S.A.:--"The lower parts of the chapter +house walls," says he, "together with the door-way and columns at the +entrance of the chapter-house, may be pronounced to be of the age of +Stephen, or rather prior to his reign, being fine Saxon architecture. +The inside walls of the chapter-house have round ornamental arches +intersecting each other. The cathedral appears to be of the same style +of building throughout, and in no part older than Edward the First's +time, though some writers suppose the present fabric was begun in king +Stephen's time; but not a single arch, pillar, or window agrees with +the mode which prevailed at that time. The great gateway leading into +the College Green is round-arched, with mouldings richly ornamented +in the Saxon taste." From this account it appears probable that the +chapter-house and gateway are all the present remains of the ancient +monastery. The mutilations which the cathedral of Bristol has undergone, +are not entirely to be referred to the era of the dissolution of the +monasteries, since this structure suffered very considerably during +the period of the civil wars. The ruthless soldiers discovered their +barbarism by violating the sacred tombs of the dead, and by offering +every indignity which they supposed would be considered a profanation of +the places which the piety of their ancestors consecrated to religion. +At such instances of the violence of civil factions, the sensitive mind +shudders with disgust. + +The cathedral of Bristol is rich in monumental tributes to departed +worth. Among them is an elegant monument, by Bacon, to Mrs. Elizabeth +Draper, the _Eliza_ of Sterne; and the classical tomb of the +Hendersons. Here, too, rests Lady Hesketh, the friend of Cowper; Powell, +of Covent Garden Theatre; besides branches of the Berkeley family, and +various abbots. + +The bishopric of Bristol is the least wealthy ecclesiastical promotion +which confers the dignity of a mitre. Its revenue is generally stated to +amount to no more than five or six hundred pounds per annum. In the list +of bishops are Fletcher, father of the celebrated dramatist, the +colleague of Beaumont; he attended Mary Queen of Scots on the Scaffold; +Lake, one of the seven bishops committed to the Tower in the time of +James I.; Trelawney, a familiar name in the events of 1688; Butler, who +materially improved the episcopal palace of Bristol; Conybeare and +Newton, names well known in literary history; with the erudite +Warburton, whose name occurs in the list of deans of Bristol. + + * * * * * + + +DEBTOR AND CREDITOR.[1] + + The time is out of joint.--_Hamlet._ + + + A man of my profession never counterfeits, till he lays hold upon a + debtor and says he _rests_ him: for then he brings him to all + manner of unrest.--_The Bailiff, in 'Every Man in his Humour.'_ + + + Run not into debt, either for wares sold or money borrowed; be content + to want things that are not of absolute necessity, rather than to run up + the score: such a man pays at the latter a third part more than the + principal comes to, and is in perpetual servitude to his creditors; + lives uncomfortably; is necessitated to increase his debts to stop his + creditors' mouths; and many times falls into desperate courses. + + SIR M. HALE. + + +"The greatest of all distinctions in civil life," says Steele, "is that +of debtor and creditor;" although no kind of slavery is so easily +endured, as that of being in debt. Luxury and expensive habits, which +are commonly thought to enlarge our liberty by increasing our +enjoyments, are thus the means of its infringement; whilst, in nine +cases out of ten, the lessons taught by this rigid experience lead to +the bending and breaking of our spirits, and the unfitting of us for the +rational pleasures of life. All ranks of mankind seem to fall into this +fatal error, from the voluptuous Cleopatra to the needy philosopher, who +doles out a mealsworth of morality for his fellow-creatures, and who +would fain live according to his own precepts, had he not exhausted his +means in the acquisition of his experience. + +I blush to confess, that I have often thought the _habit of debt_ +to be our national inheritance--from that bugbear of out-of-place men, +the Sinking Fund, to the parish-clerk, who mortgages his fees at the +chandler's; and that my countrymen seem to have resolved to increase +their own enjoyments at the expense of posterity, with whose provision, +even Swift thinks we have no concern. Again; I have thought that we are +apt to over-rate our national advancement, by supposing the present race +to be wiser than the previous one, without once looking into our +individual contributions to this state of enlightenment. Proud as we are +of this distinction in the social scale, we can record few instances of +contemporary genius, and we are bound to confess that men are not a whit +the better in the present than in the previous generation. Thus we +hoodwink each other till social outrages become every-day occurrences, +and every thing but sheer violence is protected by its frequency; and in +this manner we consent to compromise our happiness, and then affect to +be astonished at its scarcity. In the later ages of the world, men have +learned to temporize with principles, and to sacrifice, at the shrine +of passing interest, as much real virtue as would bear them harmless +throughout life. Hence, of what more avail is the virtue of the Roman +fathers, or are the amiable friendships of Scipio and Lelius, than +as so many amusing fictions to exercise the imaginations of schoolmen +in drawing outlines of character, which experience does not finish. +Friends, like certain flowers, bloom around us in the sunshine of +success; but at night-fall or at the approach of storms, they shut up +their hearts; and thus, poor victims being rifled of their mind's +content, with their little string of enjoyments broken up for ever, +are abandoned to the pity or scorn of bystanders. It is impossible to +reflect for a moment on such a crisis, without dropping a tear for the +self-created infirmities of man: but there are considerations at which +he shudders, and which he would rather varnish over with the sophistry +of his refinement, and the fallacies of self-conceit. + +I fear that I am breaking my rule in not confining myself to a few +shades of debt and conscience, with a view of determining how far they +are usually reconciled among us. The task may not prove altogether +fruitless; notwithstanding, to find honest men, would require the +lantern of Diogenes, and perhaps turn out like Gratiano's wheat. + +In our youthful days, we all remember to have read a pithy string of +Maxims by Dr. Franklin; and we are accustomed to admire the pertinence +of their wit,--but here their influence too often terminates. Since +Franklin's time, the practice of getting into debt has become more and +more easy, notwithstanding men have become more wary. Goldsmith, too, +gives us a true picture of this habit in his scene with Mr. Padusoy, the +mercer, a mode which has been found to succeed so well since his time, +that, with the exception of a few short-cuts by sharpers and other +proscribed gentry, little amendment has been made. Profuseness on the +part of the debtor will generally be found to beget confidence on that +of the creditor; and, in like manner, diffidence will create mistrust, +and mistrust an entire overthrow of the scheme. An unblushing front, and +the gift of _non chalance_, are therefore the best qualifications +for a debtor to obtain credit, while poor modesty will be starved in her +own littleness. In vain has Juvenal protested--"_Fronti nulla +fides;_" and have the world been amused with anecdotes of paupers +dying with money sewed up in their clothes: appearance and assumed +habits are still the handmaids to confidence; and so long as this system +exists, the warfare of debtor and creditor will be continued. +Procrastination will be found to be another furtherance of the system, +inasmuch as it is too evident throughout life that men are more apt to +take pleasure "by the forelock," than to calculate its consequence. In +this manner, men of irregular habits anticipate and forestal every hour +of their lives, and pleasure and pain alternate, till pain, like debt, +accumulates, and sinks its patient below the level of the world. Economy +and forecast do not enter into the composition of such men, nor are such +lessons often felt or acknowledged, till custom has rendered the heart +unfit for the reception of their counsels. It is too frequently that the +neglect of these principles strikes at the root of social happiness, and +produces those lamentable wrecks of men--those shadows of sovereignty, +which people our prisons, poor-houses, and asylums. Genius, with all her +book-knowledge, is not exempt from this failing; but, on the contrary, a +sort of fatality seems to attend her sons and daughters, which tarnishes +their fame, and often exposes them to the brutish attacks of the +ignorant and vulgar. Wits, and even philosophers, are among this number; +and we are bound to acknowledge, that, beyond the raciness of their +writings, there is but little to admire or imitate in the lives of such +men as Steele, Foote, or Sheridan. It is, however, fit that principle +should be thus recognised and upheld, and that any dereliction from its +rules should be placed against the account of such as enjoy other +degrees of superiority, and allowed to form an item in the scale of +their merits. + +(_To be concluded in our next._) + + [1] From _"Cameleon Sketches_," by the author of "_The Promenade round + Dorking_." In the press. + + * * * * * + + +AN ENGLISHMAN'S PRAYER + + + Grant, righteous Heaven, however cast my fate + On social duties or in toils of state, + Whether at home dispensing equal laws, + Or foremost struggling for the world's applause, + As neighbour, husband, brother, sire, or son, + In every work, accomplished or begun, + Grant that, by me, thy holy will be done. + When false ambition tempts my soul to rise, + Teach me her proffer'd honours to despise, + Though chains or poverty await the just, + Though villains lure me to betray my trust, + Unmoved by wealth, unawed by tyrant, might + Still let me steadily pursue the right, + Hold fast my plighted faith, nor stoop to give + For lengthen'd life, the only cause to live. + + * * * * * + + +ITALY. + +(_To the Editor of the Mirror_.) + + +SIR,--Is your correspondent (see the MIRROR of the 15th of September) +quite right in asserting that Italy has invariably retained the same +name from its first settlement? or would the fact be singular if true? +Virgil, in his first book of the _AEneid_, implies that it had at +least _two_ names before that of Italy. "_AEnotrii_ coluere viri;" +"_Hesperiam_ graii cognomine dicunt;" "Itali ducis de nomine." His +works are not at hand, so that I cannot specify the line; but the +passage is repeated three or four times in the course of the poem, and +the reference, therefore, to it is peculiarly easy. + +In other places, as you may remember, he gives it the appellation of +"Ausonia." + +Now as to the singularity of the circumstance, supposing it were +otherwise, to what does it amount but this: that when Italian power +extended over the countries of Europe, Italian names were given them; +that as this power declined, these names as naturally fell into disuse; +and the different nations, actuated severally by a spirit of +independence or of caprice, recurred to their own or foreign tongues for +the designation of their territory. While at Rome itself, which, though +often suffering from the calamities of war, still retained a +considerable share of influence, the inhabitants adhered to their native +dialect, and the same city which had been the birth-place and cradle of +the infant language was permitted to become its sanctuary at last. + +Y.M. + + * * * * * + + + + +SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS. + + * * * * * + +ELISE. + +(_By L.E.L._) + + O Let me love her! she has past + Into my inmost heart-- + A dweller on the hallowed ground + Of its least worldly part; + Where feelings and where memories dwell + Like hidden music in the shell. + + She was so like the forms that float + On twilight's hour to me, + Making of cloud-born shapes and thoughts + A dear reality; + As much a thing of light and air + As ever poet's visions were. + + I left smoke, vanities, and cares, + Just far enough behind, + To dream of fairies 'neath the moon, + Of voices on the wind, + And every fantasy of mine + Was truth in that sweet face of thine. + + Her cheek was very, very pale, + Yet it was still more fair; + Lost were one half its loveliness, + Had the red rose been there: + But now that sad and touching grace + Made her's seem like an angel's face. + + The spring, with all its breath and bloom, + Hath not so dear a flower, + As the white lily's languid head + Drooping beneath the shower; + And health hath ever waken'd less + Of deep and anxious tenderness. + + And O thy destiny was love, + Written in those soft eyes; + A creature to be met with smiles. + And to be watch'd with sighs; + A sweet and fragile blossom, made + To be within the bosom laid. + + And there are some beneath whose touch + The coldest hearts expand, + As erst the rocks gave forth their tears + Beneath the prophet's hand; + And colder than that rock must be + The heart that melted not for thee. + + Thy voice--thy poet lover's song + Has not a softer tone; + Thy dark eyes--only stars at night + Such holy light have known; + And thy smile is thy heart's sweet sign, + So gentle and so feminine. + + I feel, in gazing on thy face, + As I had known thee long; + Thy looks are like notes that recall + Some old remembered song + By all that touches and endears, + Lady, I must have loved thee years. + +_Literary Gazette._ + + * * * * * + + +COLONEL GEORGE HANGER. + + +Dining on one occasion at Carlton-house, it is said that, after the +bottle had for some time circulated, his good-humoured volubility +suddenly ceased, and he seemed for a time to be wholly lost in thought. +While he "chewed the cud" in this ruminating state, his illustrious host +remarked his very unusual quiescency, and interrupted it by inquiring +the subject of his meditation. "I have been reflecting, Sir," replied +the colonel, "on the lofty independence of my present situation. I have +compromised with my creditors, paid my washerwoman, and have three +shillings and sixpence left for the pleasures and necessities of life," +exhibiting at the same time current coin of the realm, in silver and +copper, to that amount, upon the splendid board at which he sat. + +Having occasion to express his gratitude to his friend and patron for +his nomination to a situation under government (which, had he been +prudent, might have sufficed for genteel support), it is said that the +royal personage condescended to observe, on the colonel's expatiating +on the advantages of his office, that "now he was rich, he would so +far impose upon his hospitality as to dine with him;" at the same time +insisting on the repast being any thing but extravagant. "I shall give +your royal highness a leg of mutton, and nothing more, by G----," warmly +replied the gratified colonel, in his plain and homely phrase. The day +was nominated, and the colonel had sufficient time to recur to his +budget and bring his ways and means into action. Where is the +sanguineless being whose hopes have never led him wrong? if such there +be, the colonel was not one of those. Long destitute of credit and +resources, he looked upon his appointment as the incontestable source of +instant wealth, and he hesitated not to determine upon the forestalment +of its profits to entertain the "first gentleman in England." But, alas! +agents and brokers have flinty hearts. There were doubts (not of his +word, for with creditors that he had never kept), but of the accidents +of life, either naturally, or by one of those casualties he had depicted +in the front of his book. In short, the day approached--nay, actually +arrived, and his pockets could boast little more than the once vaunted +half-crown and a shilling. Here was a state sufficient to drive one of +less strength of mind to despair. As a friend, a subject, a man of +honour, and one who prided himself upon a tenacious adherence to his +word (when the aforesaid creditors were not concerned), he felt keenly +all the horrors of his situation. + +The day arrived, and etiquette demanded that the proper officer should +examine and report upon the nature of the expected entertainment, a duty +that had been deferred until a late hour of the day. Well was it that +the confiding prince had not wholly dispensed with that form; for verily +the said officer found the colonel, with a dirty scullion for his aide +du camp, in active and zealous preparation for his royal visiter; his +shirt sleeves tucked up, while he ardently basted the identical and +solitary "leg of mutton" as it revolved upon the spit: potatoes were to +be seen delicately insinuated into the pan beneath to catch the rich +exudation of the joint; while several tankards of foaming ale, and what +the French term "bread a discretion," announced that, in quantity, if +not in quality, he had not been careless in providing for the +entertainment of his illustrious guest. Although the colonel's culinary +skill leaves no doubt that the leg of mutton would have sustained +(according to Mr. Hunt's elegant phraseology) critical discussion on its +intrinsic merits, or on its concoction; and although the dinner might +have been endured by royalty (of whose homely appetite the ample +gridiron at Alderman Combe's brewery then gave ample proof), yet his +royal highness's poodles would assuredly have perspired through every +pore at the very mention of what a certain nobleman used to term a +"jig-hot;" so the feast was dispensed with, and due acknowledgment made +for the evident proofs of hospitality which had been displayed. + +After various vicissitudes of life and fortune, in Hanger's advanced +age, a coronet became his, and it came opportunely; for he had at length +learned experience, and knowing the value of the competence he had +obtained, he resolved to enjoy it. He had had enough of fashion; and had +proved all its allurements. So he took a small house in a part of +earth's remoter regions, no great way from Somers' Town, near which +stood a public-house he was fond of visiting, and there, as the price of +his sanction, and in acknowledgment of his rank, a large chair by the +fire-side was exclusively appropriated to the peer.--_New Monthly +Magazine._ + + * * * * * + + +ANECDOTES OF UGO FOSCOLO, THE ITALIAN POET. + + +Foscolo was in person about the middle height, and somewhat thin, +remarkably clean and neat in his dress,--although on ordinary occasions, +he wore a short jacket, trousers of coarse cloth, a straw hat, and thick +heavy shoes; the least speck of dirt on his own person, or on that of +any of his attendants, seemed to give him real agony. His countenance +was of a very expressive character, his eyes very penetrating, although +they occasionally betrayed a restlessness and suspicion, which his words +denied; his mouth was large and ugly, his nose drooping, in the way that +physiognomists dislike, but his forehead was splendid in the extreme; +large, smooth, and exemplifying all the power of thought and reasoning, +for which his mind was so remarkable. It was, indeed, precisely the same +as that we see given in the prints of Michael Angelo; he has often heard +the comparison made, and by a nod assented to it. In his living, Foscolo +was remarkably abstemious. He seldom drank more than two glasses of +wine, but he was fond of having all he eat and drank of the very best +kind, and laid out with great attention to order. He always took coffee +immediately after dinner. His house,--I speak of the one he built for +himself, near the Regent's Park,--was adorned with furniture of the most +costly description; at one time he had five magnificent carpets, one +under another, on his drawing-room, and no two chairs in his house +were alike. His tables were all of rare and curious woods. Some of +the best busts and statues (in plaster) were scattered through every +apartment,--and on those he doated with a fervour scarcely short of +adoration. I remember his once sending for me in great haste, and when +I entered his library, I found him kneeling, and exclaiming, "beautiful, +beautiful." He was gazing on the Venus de Medici, which he had +discovered looked most enchanting, when the light of his lamp was made +to shine upon it from a particular direction. On this occasion, he had +summoned his whole household into his library, to witness the discovery +which gave him so much rapture. In this state, continually exclaiming, +"beautiful, beautiful," and gazing on the figure, he remained for nearly +two hours. + +He had the greatest dislike to be asked a question, which he did not +consider important, and used to say, "I have three miseries--smoke, +flies, and to be asked a foolish question." + +His memory was one of the most remarkable. He has often requested me to +copy for him (from some library) a passage, which I should find in such +a page of such a book; and appeared as if he never forgot any thing with +which he was once acquainted. + +His conversation was peculiarly eloquent and impressive, such as to +render it evident that he had not been over-rated as an orator, when in +the days of his glory, he was the admiration of his country. I remember +his once discoursing to me of language, and saying, "in every language, +there are three things to be noticed,--verbs, substantives, and the +particles; the verbs," holding out his hand, "are as the bones of these +fingers; the substantives, the flesh and blood; but the particles are +the sinews, without which the fingers could not move." + +"There are," said he to me, once, "three kinds of writing--_diplomatic_, +in which you do not come to a point, but write artfully, and not to show +what you mean; _attorney_, in which you are brief; and _enlarged_, +in which you spread and stretch your thoughts." + +I have said that his cottage, (built by himself,) near the Regent's +Park, was very beautiful. I remember his showing me a letter to a +friend, in which were the following passages:--After alluding to some +pecuniary difficulties, he says, "I can easily undergo all privations, +but my dwelling is always my workshop, and often my prison, and ought +not to distress me with the appearance of misery, and I confess, in this +respect, I cannot be acquitted of extravagance." + +Speaking afterwards of the costliness of his furniture, he observes, +"they encompass me with an air of respectability, and they give me the +illusion of not having fallen into the lowest circumstances. I must also +declare that I will die like a gentleman, on a clean bed, surrounded by +the Venus's, Apollo's, and the Graces, and the busts of great men; nay, +even among flowers, and, if possible, while music is breathing around +me. Far from courting the sympathy of posterity, I will never give +mankind the gratification of ejaculating preposterous sighs, because I +died in a hospital, like Camoens, or Tasso; and since I must be buried +in your country, I am happy in having got, for the remainder of my life, +a cottage, independent of neighbours, surrounded by flowery shrubs, and +open to the free air:--and when I can freely dispose of a hundred +pounds, I will build a small dwelling for my corpse also, under a +beautiful oriental plane tree, which I mean to plant next November, and +cultivate _con amore_, to the last year of my existence. So far, I +am, indeed an epicure, but in all other things, I am the most moderate +of men. I might vie with Pythagoras for sobriety, and even with the +great Scipio for continence."--Poor Foscolo! these dreams were far, very +far from being realized. Within a short time after, his cottage, and all +its beautiful contents, came to the hammer, and were distributed. A +wealthy gold-smith now inhabits the dwelling of the poet of Italy. It is +but justice to his friends to add, that there were circumstances which +justified them in falling away from him. + +During a great portion of the time I was acquainted with Ugo Foscolo, he +was under severe pecuniary distress, chiefly indeed brought on by his +own thoughtless extravagance, in building and decorating his house. I +have frequently in those moments seen him beat his forehead, tear his +hair, and gnash his teeth in a manner horrifying; and often left him at +night without the least hope of seeing him alive in the morning. He had +a little Italian dagger which he always kept in his bed-room, and this +he frequently told me would "drink his heart's blood in the night." "I +will die," said he, one day, "I am a stranger, and have no friends." +"Surely, sir," I replied, "a stranger may have friends." "Friends," he +answered; "I have learnt that there is nothing in the word; I assure +you, I called on W----e, to know if there was anything bad about me in +the newspapers; everybody seems to be leagued against me--friends and +enemies. I assure you, I do not think I will live after next Saturday, +unless there is some change." At another time he said, "I am surrounded +with difficulties, and must yield either life or honour; and can you ask +me which I will give up?" I have now before me a letter of Foscolo's, +which, after enumerating a long series of evils, concludes thus:--"Thus, +if I have not underwent the doom of Tasso, I owe it only to the strength +of my nerves that have preserved me." + +The following sonnet was written by Ugo Foscolo, in English, and +accompanied the Essays on Petrarch, in the edition of that work which +was printed for private circulation. It was omitted when the volume was +subsequently published, and is consequently known to very few: + + +TO CALLIRHOE, AT LAUSANNE. + + Her face was veiled; yet to my fancied sight + Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shin'd. + But, oh! I wak'd.----MILTON. + + + I twine far distant from my Tuscan grove, + The lily chaste, the rose that breathes of love, + The myrtle leaf, and Laura's hallow'd bay, + The deathless flowers that bloom o'er Sappho's clay; + For thee, Callirhoe! yet by love and years, + I learn how fancy wakes from joy to tears; + How memory, pensive, 'reft of hope, attends + The exile's path, and bids him fear new friends. + Long may the garland blend its varying hue + With thy bright tresses, and bud ever new + With all spring's odours; with spring's light be drest, + Inhale pure fragrance from thy virgin breast! + And when thou find'st that youth and beauty fly, + As heavenly meteors from our dazzled eye, + Still may the garland shed perfume, and shine, + While Laura's mind and Sappho's heart are thine. + +_Literary Chronicle._ + + * * * * * + + +ENGLISH FRUITS. + + +_The Strawberry_.--Many varieties have been imported from other +countries, and a far greater number have been obtained in this, chiefly +from seeds properly prepared by cross impregnation; by which means, the +strawberry has been wonderfully improved; instance the hautboys, +scarlet, chilli, but particularly the splendid varieties, called +"Wilmot's superb," and "Keen's seedlings." + +_The Raspberry_, is also found wild in the British isles, on its +native site, (with its companions, the bramble, and dewberry)--its +shoots and fruits are diminutive, though the flavour of the berry is +rich. No plant requires the skilful hand of the pruner more than this; +of all others, it is, perhaps, the most viviparous, throwing up, +annually, a vast redundancy of shoots, which, if not displaced at the +proper season, would impoverish not only the fruit of the present, but +also the bearing wood of the next year. The Dutch fruiterers have been +successful in obtaining two or three fine varieties from seeds; and as +this field of improvement is open, no doubt further exertions will bring +forth new and valuable sorts. + +_The Gooseberry._--No domesticated fruit sports into greater +variety than this: the endless lists of new sorts is a proof of this, +and many large and excellent sorts there are, particularly the old +Warrington red. + +_The Cherry_.--Cultivation has accomplished wonders in the +improvement of this beautiful native fruit. Instead of a lofty +forest-tree bearing small bitter fruit, it has been long introduced to +our orchards, is changed in appearance and habit, and even in its manner +of bearing; has sported into many varieties, as numerous as they are +excellent--nor is such improvement at an end: several new varieties have +lately started into existence. + +_The Plum_.--The lowest grade of this class of fruits is the almost +useless sloe in the hedge; and none but those in some degree acquainted +with the matter could, on beholding the acidous, puny sloe, and the +ample, luscious magnum bonum plum, together, readily believe that they +were kindred, or that the former was the primitive representative of the +latter. The intermediate links of this connexion are the bullace, +muscle, damacene, &c., of all which there are many varieties. In +nurserymen's lists, there are many improved sorts, not only excellent +plums, but excellent fruit,--the green gage and imperatrice are +admirable. + +_The Pear_, was originally an inhabitant of European forests: there +it grew to be a middle-sized tree, with small leaves, and hard, +crude-tasted, petty fruit: since its introduction and naturalization in +the orchard, it has well repaid the planter's care. The French gardeners +have been long celebrated for their success and indefatigable +perseverance in the cultivation of the pear; almost all our superior +sorts are from that country. The monastic institutions all over Europe, +but particularly in France, were the sources from whence flowed many +excellent horticultural rules, as well as objects. + +(_To be concluded in our next_.) + + * * * * * + + + + +THE MONTHS + + +[Illustration: OCTOBER.] + + + On the woods are hung + With many tints, the fading livery + Of life, in which it mourns the coming storms + Of winter. + + PERCIVAL. + + +Change is the characteristic of the month of October; in short, it +includes the birth and death--the Alpha and Omega--of Nature. Hence, it +is the most inviting to the contemplatist, and during a day in October, +the genius of melancholy may walk out and take her fill, in meditating +on its successive scenes of regeneration and decay. + +Dissemination, or the _sowing of seed_, is the principal business +of this month in the economy of nature; which alone is an invaluable +lesson, a "precept upon precept" to a cultivated mind. This is variously +effected, besides by the agency of man; and it is a satire on his +self-sufficiency which should teach him that Nature worketh out her way +by means that he knoweth not. + +Planting, that agreeable and patriotic art, is another of the October +labours. Here, however, the pride of man is again baffled, when he +considers how many thousand trees are annually planted by _birds_, +to whom he evinces his gratitude by destroying them, or cruelly +imprisoning them for the idle gratification of listening to their +warbling, which he may enjoy in all its native melody amidst the +delightful retreats of woods and groves. This leads us to the October +economy of birds. "Swallows are generally seen for the last time this +month, the house-martin the latest. The rooks return to the roost trees, +and the tortoise begins to bury himself for the winter. Woodcocks begin +to arrive, and keep dropping in from the Baltic singly or in pairs till +December. The snipe also comes now;" and with the month, by a kind of +savage charter, commences the destruction of the pheasant, to swell the +catalogue of the created wants and luxuries of the table. "One of the +most curious natural appearances," says Mr. L. Hunt, "is the +_gossamer_, which is an infinite multitude of little threads shot +out by minute spiders, who are thus wafted by the wind from place to +place." In this manner spiders are known to cross extents of many miles. + +The weather becomes misty, though the middle of the day is often very +fine. Hence it is the proper season for the enjoyment of forest scenery. +The leaves, which, towards the close of September, began to assume their +golden tints and gorgeous hues, now lecture us with their scenes of +falling grandeur; and nothing is more delightful than in an autumnal +walk to emerge from the pensive gloom of a thick forest, and just catch +the last glimpse of an October sun, shedding his broad glare over the +varied tints of its leaves and branches, for the sombre and silvery +barks of the latter add not a little to the picture. "The hedges," says +the author already quoted, "are now sparkling with their abundant +berries,--the wild rose with the hip, the hawthorn with the haw, the +blackthorn with the sloe, the bramble with the blackberry; and the +briony, privet, honey-suckle, elder, holly, and woody nightshade, with +their other winter feasts for the birds." + +October is the great month for _brewing_--that luxurious and +substantial branch of rural economy; and many and merry are the songs +and stories of nut-brown October to "gladden the heart of man," with the +soul-stirring influence of its regalings. Hops, too, are generally +picked this month. + +October in Italy is thus vividly described: "It was now the beginning of +the month of October; already the gales which attend upon the equinox +swept through the woods and trees; the delicate chestnut woods, which +last dare encounter the blasts of spring, and whose tender leaves do not +expand until they may become a shelter to the swallow, had already +changed their hues, and shone yellow and red, amidst the sea-green +foliage of the olives, the darker but light boughs of the cork-trees, +and the deep and heavy masses of ilexes and pines." + + * * * * * + + + + +Astronomical Occurences + +_FOR OCTOBER, 1827._ + +(_For the Mirror_.) + +Mercury is in conjunction with Jupiter on the 7th at noon: he is too +near the sun to be observed this month. + +Venus passes her superior conjunction on the 7th, at 10 h. morning, +thenceforward she sets after the sun, and becomes an evening star. This +interesting planet makes a very near appulse to Jupiter on the 16th at +1 h. morning. + +Jupiter is in conjunction with the sun on the 18th at 10-3/4 h. evening. +He is afterwards a morning star, preceding the sun in his rising. + +The Georgian planet, or Herschel, ceases from his retrograde movement on +the 4th, and appears stationary till the 11th, when he resumes a direct +motion. He is still in a favourable situation for evening observation. +Its great distance from the earth, and the long period of its revolution +round the sun prevent any rapid change in its situation among the fixed +stars; the place therefore which the Greorgium Sidus occupied in +Capricornus in July, (see MIRROR for that month) is so contiguous to +that planet's present position, that the observations then made may be a +sufficient guide for the present month. Its slow motion among the fixed +stars makes it participate in that daily change which is common to them, +hence the planet may be observed in the same place a few minutes earlier +every night. It comes to the south on the 1st at 7 h. 16 min., and on +the 31st at 5 h. 26 min. evening. + +The moon is in opposition on the 5th; in apogee on the 11th; in +conjunction on the 20th; and in perigee on the 23rd. She is in +conjunction with Saturn on the 13th at 3-1/4 h. after with Mars on the +18th at 2 h. morning; and Jupiter and Venus on the 20th, with the former +at 1-1/2 h. and the latter at 11 h. afternoon, also with Mercury on the +21st at 10-1/2 h. afternoon. + +The Solar luminary is eclipsed on the 20th at 3 h. 47 min. afternoon. He +is above the horizon during the whole time the central shade is passing +over the disc of the earth, but the moon having nearly 2 deg. southern +latitude at the time of true conjunction, in middle of the eclipse, it +will be invisible not only to us but to the whole boreal hemisphere of +the globe. He enters Scorpio on the 24th at 4 h. 36 min. morning. + +From the observations made upon the annual eclipses, it appears that the +period of the moon is now shorter, and consequently that her distance +from the earth is now less than in former ages, and this has been +considered as an argument against those who assert that the world may +have existed from eternity; for it was hence inferred that the moon +moves in a resisting medium, and therefore that her motion must by +degrees be all destroyed, in which case she must at last come to the +earth. But M. de la Place has shewn that this acceleration of the moon's +period is a necessary consequence of universal gravitation, and that it +arises from the action of the planets upon the moon. He has also shewn +that this acceleration will go on till it arrives at a certain limit, +when it will be changed into a retardation, or in other words, there are +two limits between which the lunar period fluctuates, but neither of +which it can pass. + +PASCHE. + + * * * * * + + + + +Fine Arts. + + * * * * * + +HANS HOLBEIN. + + +Holbein is the man who has been hitherto considered as the most +brilliant genius Switzerland has produced in the art of painting. He +is here universally believed to have been a native of Switzerland. His +earliest biographers, Mander and Patin, asserted that he was born at +Basel, and they have been copied by all our biographical dictionaries. +Another biographer, however, appears, himself a Swiss, and known as the +author of some other clever works, and proves, on the most satisfactory +evidence, that Holbein was born 1498, at Augsburg, in Germany; but that +his father, a painter too, came to Basel between 1504-8, probably at the +invitation of the magistrates of Basel, as they required a painter to +decorate their newly-built council-hall. + +Holbein gave early proofs of his aspiring talent. When fifteen years +old, he exhibited an oil-painting, which, though defective in colouring, +raised high expectations by its clearness and softness of execution. +This painting is still to be seen in the public library at Basel, and +bears the date of 1513. Of the same year, a sketch, with the monogram +HH, is extant, representing three watchmen with halberds. His two +brothers were also painters; only a few paintings are left of the elder, +Ambrose, and none of the younger brother Bruno; both died prematurely. +In the year 1520, Holbein was presented with the freedom of the town of +Basel. + +Switzerland held constant communications with Germany and the +Netherlands, but less with Italy. A number of painters lived at that +time in Germany, whose names have not been recorded by any German +Vasari, and their master works have been long neglected. In Holbein's +time Albrecht Durer enjoyed the primary reputation. Martin Schoen had +preceded him at Colmar, in Alsace; Manuel painted at Bern, Hans Asper at +Zurich, and at Basel itself there were other painters besides Holbein. +Half a century before him the _Dance of Death_ had been painted, +after the disaster of a plague, on the walls of a church-yard at Basel. + +The council-hall at Basel gave occupation to architects from 1508 till +1520. It is believed that Holbein painted three of the walls, only one +of which (hid behind old tapestry, and discovered again in 1817) has +escaped the ravages of time. It represents M. Curius Dentatus cooking +his dinner, whilst the Samnites offer silver plates with money. "The +last Judgment," where a pope, with priests and monks, sink into the +flames of hell, is not the work of Holbein, but was done in 1610, during +good Protestant times. + +A good number of stories are told of Holbein. Unable to pay his debts in +a tavern, he discharged the bill by decorating the walls with paintings +of flowers. Another time, for a similar purpose, he covered the walls +all over with "the merry dance of peasants;" and in order to deceive one +of his employers, he painted his own legs beneath the high scaffolding, +that the watchful citizen should not suspect his having abandoned his +work to carouse in wine-cellars. Here our biographer gravely says, "a +man of spirit could not be expected to sit quietly painting the whole +day long in the heat of the sun, or in the rain; if he saw a good friend +go to the tavern, he felt disposed to follow him." Holbein did not keep +the best company; but in this he resembled Rembrandt, who said, that +when he wished to amuse himself, he avoided the company of the great, +which put a restraint upon him; "for pleasure," he adds, "consists in +perfect liberty only." Holbein no doubt felt a contempt for the great +people of his time, as they did not understand much about his art, which +he valued above all things. + +Holbein's wife, and he married early, was a perfect Xantippe, too shrewd +to be despised, and not handsome enough to be admired. In the library at +Basel is a family picture of Holbein, in which she is introduced, almost +unconscious of the two children about her; but Holbein very shrewdly +forgot to paint himself there. But he took care of the interests of his +family, and obtained them a pension from the magistrates of Basel, +during his stay in England. This pension was paid for past services, and +in order to induce him finally to fix his residence in Switzerland. + +The absence of matrimonial felicity was probably an additional motive +for Holbein to seek employment as an itinerant painter. He visited +several Swiss towns, but certainly never saw Luther and Melancthon, so +that the portraits of Luther and Melancthon exhibited in Italy, Germany, +and England, as works of Holbein, cannot be genuine; and it is very +improbable that he should have copied the works of Lucas Cranach, who +several times painted the portraits of those lights of the reformation. +Erasmus was frequently painted by Holbein; and as those portraits were +sent as presents to the friends of Erasmus, Holbein's name became known +all over Europe. + +Holbein came to England in the year 1526, and Sir Thomas More wrote to +Erasmus that he would take care of him. Sir Thomas received him into his +own house at Chelsea, and there Henry VIII. saw him one day, when paying +a visit to the former. He took him instantly into his service, gave him +apartments in the royal palace, and a salary of 30_l_. a-year. +Holbein's long residence in the house of Sir Thomas More had a good +effect upon him; for although Erasmus describes the women of England as +"nymphae divinis vultibus, blandae, faciles," yet Holbein seems to have +resisted those temptations in London, which rendered his conduct at +Basel so reprehensible. Holbein twice revisited Switzerland, once in +1526, the second and last time in 1538: the zealots had just destroyed +all the images; and even some painters, infected with the spirit of the +age, had declared they would rather starve, than break the second +commandment. In England the same work of devastation took place; but +Henry VIII., notwithstanding, gave Holbein abundance of work, as he had +to paint all his royal consorts in succession, besides a number of +portraits for English noblemen. + +His sketches of heads, now existing at Kensington, of various people who +lived at the court of Henry VIII., and among them one of that monarch, +are exquisite productions. Imitations of the original drawings have been +published by J. Chamberlaine, fol. Lond. 1792. One picture of Holbein is +supposed to be in Surgeons' Hall. Some wood-cuts to Cranmer's Catechism +(1548) were made by Holbein. Our biographer, who had never seen the work +himself, was led by Walpole [_Anecdotes of Painting_] to believe, +that all the wood-cuts were from Holbein. + +With respect to the famous "Dance of Death," the biographer tells us, +what we have already stated, that the painting on the wall of the +church-yard at Basel is not the work of Holbein; the costumes are of a +time anterior to Holbein. There was also a "Dance of Death" painted on +the wall of a convent at Bern by Manuel, who lived a little before +Holbein. Only on the supposition that the "Dance of Death" at Basel was +Holbein's work, could that of Bern be said to be the first of its kind. +But, on comparing the costumes, it appears again, that the "Dance of +Death" at Bern must have been painted subsequently to that at Basel. No +"Dance of Death" of an earlier date was known, until another was +discovered on the wall of a convent of nuns at Klingenthal, on the right +bank of the Rhine, at Basel. This bears the date of 1312, and is +therefore a whole century prior to the other, which cannot have been +painted before the year 1439. It has been supposed, that the idea of the +"Dance of Death" was taken from certain processions very much in vogue +during the middle ages; and it is singular enough, that up to this day, +in funeral processions in Italy, long white robes are used, which wholly +cover the head, with only two holes for the eyes. But the coincidence of +another plague at Basel, which, about the year 1312, destroyed above +11,000 people, renders it more than probable that the artist availed +himself of the impression which such a dreadful mortality must have made +on the minds of all the surviving, to represent how inexorable death +drags to the grave, in terrible sport, rich and poor, high and low, +clergymen and laity. + +On the authority of Nieuhoff, a Dutchman, who came over to England with +William III., Mr. Douce asserts, that Holbein had painted the "Dance of +Death" on the walls of Whitehall. Borbonius might then have had in mind +this painting, when he mentioned the "Mors picta" of Holbein; but three +biographers of Holbein, Mander, Sandrart, and Patin, were in England +before Whitehall was destroyed by fire, and make no mention of this +painting, although Mander speaks of other paintings of Holbein, +particularly the portrait of Henry VIII., that were preserved at +Whitehall. Mander states, that he also saw at Whitehall the portraits of +Edward, Maria, and Elizabeth, by Holbein, "die oock ter selver plaetse +te sien zyn." + +Sandrart, whose work was published in 1675, also mentions the paintings +of Holbein at Whitehall. Is it credible, that three travellers, two of +whom were distinguished artists themselves, should have been at +Whitehall, and seen there the paintings of Holbein, without taking +notice of the "Dance of Death," if it had been in that place? + +Holbein died of the plague in London, 1554.--_Westminster Review_. + + * * * * * + + +When I see the spirit of liberty in action, I see a strong principle at +work; and, this for awhile, is all I can possibly know of it. The wild +gas, the fixed air, is plainly broke loose; but we ought to suspend our +judgment until the first effervescence is a little subsided, till the +liquor is cleared, and until we see something deeper than the agitation +of a troubled and frothy surface. I must be tolerably sure, before I +venture publicly to congratulate men upon a blessing, that they have +really received one.--_Burke_. + + * * * * * + + +If we must lash one another, let it be with the manly strokes of wit and +satire; for I am of the old philosopher's opinion, that if I must suffer +from one or the other, I would rather it should be from the paw of a +lion, than from the hoof of an ass.--_Addison_. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: The Central Market, Leeds.] + + + + +THE CENTRAL MARKET, LEEDS. + + +As one of the most elegant and useful buildings of the important town of +Leeds, and as characteristic of the public spirit of its inhabitants,[2] +the above engraving cannot fail to prove acceptable to our readers; +while it may serve as an excitement to similar exertions in other +districts. + +The Central Market, is erected on the site of the old post-office, at +the north-east corner of Duncan-street, the foundation stone of which +was laid in 1824. The whole site was excavated, and is divided into +cellars, arched and groined, with a spacious area round the whole, for +the convenience of access to each, and lighted by powerful convex lenses +from the interior of the building. Over these is the principal +building--an enclosed market-house, with twenty shops round the exterior +for butchers and others, and twenty others corresponding in size with +them, fronting the interior. The space within these, on the ground +floor, is fitted up with twenty single stands for fruit and vegetables. +Three sides of the square form a spacious gallery, commodiously fitted +up with thirty-six stands of convenient dimensions, as a Bazaar. The +interior is lighted and ventilated by three rows of windows, one row on +the Bazaar floor, and two rows in the roof. The roof, the carpentry of +which has been pronounced a master-piece, is supported by twelve +cast-iron columns and sixteen oak pillars, and is 34 ft. 6 in. high; the +height from the floor to the upper point of the ceiling being 54 ft. 4 +in. The size within the walls is 138 ft. by 103 ft. The principal +entrance is at the south front from Duncan-street, on each side of which +are three large shops fronting the street, with a suite of six offices +above. Over this entrance is an entablature richly embellished with fine +masonry, and supported with two Ionic columns, and two pilasters or +antaes, 30 ft. high. In the centre of the front, as well as within the +market, it is intended to place a clock. The outer boundary of the +market, which forms three sides of the square, and is separated from +the enclosed market by a carriage road, consists of twenty-five shops +devoted exclusively to butchers and fishmongers. At the south-west +corner of these is an hotel; at the south-east corner, near Call-lane, +are two shops, with offices above; and, in another part, a house for the +clerk of the market. There are four pumps on the premises, and the floor +of the interior is so contrived and fitted up with proper drains, that +it can be washed down at pleasure. The whole will be lighted with gas. + +The architect of the Central Market is Francis Goodwin, Esq., and it is +but justice to say, that it is highly creditable to his taste and skill. +The front is of the Grecian order, and perhaps the largest piece of +masonry in the county of York, with the fewest observable joints. It is +expected to prove an advantageous investment. + + [2] Too much praise cannot be conferred on this and similar instances + of provincial improvement; while it is much to be regretted + that such praise cannot be extended to the _metropolis_ of + England; for, strange to say, LONDON is still without a + market-place suitable to its commercial consequence. Hence, + Smithfield market is almost a public nuisance, while its extensive + business is settled in public-houses in the neighbourhood; and the + hay market, held in the fine broad street of that name, but ill + accords with the courtly vicinity of Pall Mall and St. James's. + It is, however, to _fruit and vegetable markets_ that this + observation is particularly applicable: for instance, what a + miserable scene is the area of _Covent Garden market_. The + non-completion of the piazza square is much to be lamented, while + splendid streets and towns are erecting on every side of the + metropolis. How unworthy, too, is the market, of association with + Inigo Jones's noble Tuscan church of St. Paul, "the handsomest + barn in Europe." To quote Sterne, we must say "they manage these + things better in France," where the _halles_, or markets are among + the noblest of the public buildings. Neither can any Englishman, + who has seen the markets of Paris, but regret the absence of + fountains from the markets of London. They are among the most + tasteful embellishments of Paris, and their presence in the + markets cannot be too much admired. Water is, unquestionably, the + most salutary and effective cleanser of vegetable filth which is + necessarily generated on the sites of markets; but in London its + useful introduction is limited to a few pumps, and its ornamental + to one or two solitary _jets d'eau_ in almost unfrequented + places. It should be added, that in Southwark, an extensive and + commodious market-place is just completed, and the tolls are + proportionally increasing. A similar improvement is much wanted in + Covent Garden, by which means many of the evils of that spot would + be abated, and instead of seeing Nature's choicest productions + huddled together, and being ourselves tortured in the scramble and + confusion of a crowd, we might then range through the avenues of + Covent Garden with all the comfort which our forefathers were wont + to enjoy on this spot, or certainly with comparative ease.--ED. + + * * * * * + + + + +_THE SELECTOR_; + +AND + +LITERARY NOTICES OF + +_NEW WORKS_. + + +RISE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON. + + +With his passions, and in spite of his errors, Napoleon is, taking him +all in all, the greatest warrior of modern times. He carried into battle +a stoical courage, a profoundly calculated tenacity, a mind fertile in +sudden inspirations, which by unhopedfor resources disconcerted the +plans of the enemy. Let us beware of attributing a long series of +success to the organic power of the masses which he set in motion. The +most experienced eye could scarcely discover in them any thing but +elements of disorder. Still less let it be said that he was a successful +captain because he was a mighty monarch. Of all his campaigns, the most +memorable are,--the campaign of the Adige, where the general of +yesterday, commanding an army by no means numerous, and at first badly +appointed, placed himself at once above Turenne and on a level with +Frederick; and the campaign in France in 1814, when, reduced to a +handful of harassed troops, he combated a force of ten times their +number. The last flashes of imperial lightning still dazzled the eyes of +our enemies; and it was a fine sight to see the bounds of the old lion +tracked, hunted down, beset, presenting a lively picture of the days of +his youth, when his powers developed themselves in the fields of +carnage. + +Napoleon possessed, in an eminent degree, the faculties requisite for +the profession of arms; temperate and robust, watching and sleeping at +pleasure, appearing unawares where he was least expected, he did not +disregard details to which important results are sometimes attached. The +hand which had just traced rules for the government of many millions of +men would frequently rectify an incorrect statement of the situation of +a regiment, or write down whence two hundred conscripts were to be +obtained, and from what magazine their shoes were to be taken. A patient +and easy interlocutor, he was a home questioner, and he could listen--a +rare talent in the grandees of the earth. He carried with him into +battle a cool and impassable courage; never was mind so deeply +meditative, more fertile in rapid and sudden illuminations. On becoming +emperor he ceased not to be the soldier. If his activity decreased with +the progress of age, that was owing to the decrease of his physical +powers. + +In games of mingled calculation and hazard, the greater the advantages +which a man seeks to obtain, the greater risks he must run. It is +precisely this that renders the deceitful science of conquerors so +calamitous to nations. Napoleon, though naturally adventurous, was not +deficient in consistency or method; and he wasted neither his soldiers +nor his treasures where the authority of his name sufficed. What he +could obtain by negociations or by artifice, he required not by force of +arms. The sword, although drawn from the scabbard, was not stained with +blood, unless it was impossible to attain the end in view by a +manoeuvre. Always ready to fight, he chose habitually the occasion and +the ground. Out of fifty battles which he fought, he was the assailant +in at least forty. + +Other generals have equalled him in the art of disposing troops on the +ground. Some have given battle as well as he did; we could mention +several who have received it better; but in the manner of directing an +offensive campaign he has surpassed all. + +The wars in Spain and Russia prove nothing in disparagement of his +genius. It is not by the rules of Montecuculii and Turenne, manoeuvring +on the Renchen, that we ought to judge of such enterprises. The first +warred to secure such or such winter-quarters; the other to subdue the +world. It frequently behoved him not merely to gain a battle, but to +gain it in such a manner as to astound Europe and to produce gigantic +results. Thus political views were incessantly interfering with the +strategic genius; and to appreciate him properly we must not confine +ourselves within the limits of the art of war. This art is not composed +exclusively of technical details; it has also its philosophy. To find in +this elevated region a rival to Napoleon, we must go back to the times +when the feudal institutions had not yet broken the unity of the ancient +nations. The founders of religions alone have exercised over their +disciples an authority comparable with that which made him the absolute +master of his army. This moral power became fatal to him, because he +strove to avail himself of it even against the ascendancy of material +force, and because it led him to despise positive rules, the long +violation of which will not remain unpunished. + +When pride was hurrying Napoleon towards his fall, he happened to say, +"France has more need of me than I have of France." He spoke the truth. +But why had he become necessary? Because he had committed the destiny of +the French to the chances of an interminable war; because, in spite of +the resources of his genius, that war, rendered daily more hazardous by +his staking the whole of his force, and by the boldness of his +movements, risked in every campaign, in every battle, the fruits of +twenty years of triumph; because his government was so modelled that +with him every thing must be swept away, and that a re-action +proportioned to the violence of the action must burst forth at once both +within and without. The mania of conquest had reversed the state of +things in Europe; we, the eldest born of liberty and independence, were +spilling our blood in the service of royal passions against the cause of +nations, and outraged nations were turning round upon us, more terrible +from being armed with the principles which we had forsaken. + +At times, this immense mass of passions which he was accumulating +against him, this multitude of avenging arms ready to be raised, filled +his ambitious spirit with involuntary apprehension. Looking around him, +he was alarmed to find himself solitary, and conceived the idea of +strengthening his power by moderating it. Then it was that he thought of +creating an hereditary peerage, and reconstructing his monarchy on more +secure foundations. But Napoleon saw without illusion to the bottom of +things. The nation, wholly and continually occupied in prosecuting the +designs of its chief, had previously not had time to form any plans for +itself. The day on which it should have ceased to be stunned by the din +of arms, it would have called itself to account for its servile +obedience. It is better, thought he, for an absolute prince to fight +foreign armies, than to have to struggle against the energy of the +citizens. Despotism had been organized for making war; war was continued +to uphold despotism. The die was cast; France must either conquer +Europe, or Europe subdue France. + +Napoleon fell: he fell, because with the men of the nineteenth century +he attempted the work of an Attila and a Genghis Khan; because he gave +the reins to an imagination directly contrary to the spirit of his age, +with which nevertheless his reason was perfectly acquainted; because he +would not pause on the day when he felt conscious of his inability to +succeed. Nature has fixed a boundary, beyond which extravagant +enterprises cannot be carried with prudence. This boundary the emperor +reached in Spain, and he overleaped it in Russia. Had he then escaped +destruction, his inflexible presumption would have caused him to find +elsewhere a Baylen and a Moscow-- _History of the War in the +Peninsula, from the French of General Foy._ + + * * * * * + + +ROBINSON CRUSOES. + + +At one of the islands belonging to Juan de Ampues, the pilot ran away. +Cifuentes and his crew, all equally ignorant of navigation, made sail +for San Domingo, were dismasted in a gale of wind, and driven in the +night upon the "Serrana" shoals; the crew, a flask of powder and steel, +were saved, but nothing else. They found sea-calves and birds upon the +island, and were obliged to eat them raw, and drink their blood, for +there was no water. After some weeks, they made a raft with fragments of +the wreck, lashed together with calf-skin thongs: three men went off +upon it, and were lost. Two, and a boy, staid upon the island--one of +whom, Moreno, died four days afterwards raving mad, having gnawed the +flesh off his arms: the survivors, Master John and the boy, dug holes in +the sand with tortoise-shells, and lined them with calf-skins to catch +the rain. Where the vessel was wrecked, they found a stone which served +them for a flint; this invaluable prize enabled them to make a fire. +Two men had been living upon another island two leagues from them, in +similar distress, for five years; these saw the fire, and upon a raft +joined their fellow sufferers. They now built a boat with the fragments +of the wreck, made sails of calf-skins, and caulked her with their fat, +mixed with charcoal: one man and the boy went away in her: Master John, +and one whose name has not been preserved, would not venture in her: +they made themselves coracles with skins, and coasted round the shoals, +which they estimated at twelve leagues long. At low water there were +seventeen islands, but only five which were not sometimes overflowed. +Fish, turtle, sea-calves, birds, and a root like purslane, was their +food. The whites of turtle-eggs, when dried and buried for a fortnight, +turned to water, which they found good drink: five months in the year +these eggs were their chief food. They clothed themselves and covered +their huts with calf-skins, and made an enclosure to catch fish, +twenty-two fathoms long, with stones brought out of the sea--and raised +two towers in the same laborious way, sixteen fathoms in circumference +at the base, and four in height, at the north and south extremities of +the island: upon these they made fires as signals. To avoid the crabs +and snails which tormented them at night, they slept in the day time. + +Three years after the other went way, John's sufferings began to affect +his reason: in a fit of despair, he applied to the devil for that relief +his prayers had failed to bring; and, rising in the dark, he fancied the +devil was close to the hut. John awakened his companion, and taking a +crucifix for protection, ran praying to the other end of the island. +About a fortnight afterwards, John thought he heard his visiter again, +but did not see him. And it now pleased God to relieve them: they saw a +ship, and made a great smoke upon their tower, which was seen. John and +his companion were carried to the Havannah, where their appearance and +story attracted great attention. John was twice sick during the eight +years, both times in August, and both times bled himself.--_Southey's +Chronological History of the West Indies._ + + * * * * * + + +FIRST APPEARANCES OF MISS STEPHENS AND MR. KEAN. + + +During this memorable era of the British Stage, Mr. Hazlit was engaged +as theatrical reporter to the _Morning Chronicle_, newspaper, then +conducted by Mr. Perry, and printed on the exact site of the MIRROR +office: in his _Table Talk_ he gives the following portraiture of +their theatrical successes:-- + +What squabbles we used to have about Kean and Miss Stephens, the only +theatrical favourites I ever had! Mrs. Billington had got some notion +that Miss Stephens would never make a singer, and it was the torment of +Perry's life (as he told me in confidence) that he could not get any two +people to be of the same opinion on any one point. I shall not easily +forget bringing him my account of her first appearance in the +_Beggar's Opera_. I have reason to remember that article: it was +almost the last I ever wrote with any pleasure to myself. I had been +down on a visit to my friends near Chertsey, and, on my return, had +stopped at an inn at Kingston-upon-Thames, where I had got the +_Beggar's Opera_, and had read it overnight. The next day I walked +cheerfully to town. It was a fine sunny morning, in the end of autumn, +and as I repeated the beautiful song, "Life knows no return of spring," +I meditated my next day's criticism, trying to do all the justice I +could to so inviting a subject. I was not a little proud of it by +anticipation. I had just then begun to stammer out my sentiments on +paper, and was in a kind of honey-moon of authorship. + +I deposited my account of the play at the _Morning Chronicle_ +office in the afternoon, and went to see Miss Stephens as Polly. Those +were happy times, in which she first came out in this character, in +Mandane, where she sang the delicious air, "If o'er the cruel tyrant +Love," (so as it can never be sung again,) in _Love in a Village_, +where the scene opened with her and Miss Matthews in a painted garden of +roses and honeysuckles, and "Hope thou nurse of young Desire," thrilled +from two sweet voices in turn. Oh! may my ears sometimes still drink the +same sweet sounds, embalmed with the spirit of youth, of health, and +joy, but in the thoughts of an instant, but in a dream of fancy, and I +shall hardly need to complain! When I got back, after the play, Perry +called out, with his cordial, grating voice, "Well, how did she do?" and +on my speaking in high terms, answered, that "he had been to dine with +his friend the duke, that some conversation had passed on the subject, +he was afraid it was not the thing, it was not the true _sostenuto_ +style; but as I had written the article" (holding my peroration on the +_Beggar's Opera_ carelessly in his hand) "it might pass!" I could +perceive that the rogue licked his lips at it, and had already in +imagination "bought golden opinions of all sorts of people" by this very +criticism, and I had the satisfaction the next day to meet Miss Stephens +coming out of the editor's room, who had been to thank him for his very +flattering account of her. + +I was sent to see Kean the first night of his performance of Shylock, +when there were about a hundred people in the pit, but from his masterly +and spirited delivery of the first striking speech, "On such a day you +called me dog," &c. I perceived it was a hollow thing. So it was given +out in the _Chronicle_, but Perry was continually at me as other +people were at him, and was afraid it would not last. It was to no +purpose I said it _would last_: yet I am in the right hitherto. +It has been said, ridiculously, that Mr. Kean was written up in the +_Chronicle_. I beg leave to state my opinion that no actor can be +written up or down by a paper. An author may be puffed into notice, or +damned by criticism, because his book may not have been read. An artist +may be over-rated, or undeservedly decried, because the public is not +much accustomed to see or judge of pictures. But an actor is judged by +his peers, the play-going public, and must stand or fall by his own +merits or defects. The critic may give the tone or have a casting voice +where popular opinion is divided; but he can no more _force_ that +opinion either way, or wrest it from its base in common-sense and +feeling, than he can move Stonehenge. Mr. Kean had, however, physical +disadvantages and strong prejudices to encounter, and so far the +_liberal_ and _independent_ part of the press might have been +of service in helping him to his seat in the public favour. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE GATHERER. + + + "I am but a _Gatherer_ and disposer of other men's stuff."--Wotton. + + * * * * * + +INSANITY. + + +A French physician, in a recent work on the moral and physical causes of +insanity, noticing the influence of professions in promoting this +affliction, brings forward a curious table, showing the relative +proportion of different professions in a mass of 164 lunatics. It runs +thus:--merchants, 50; military men, 33; students, 25; administrateurs et +employes, 21; advocates, notaries, and men of business, 10; artists, 8; +chemists, 4; medical practitioners, 4; farmers, 4; sailors, 3; +engineers, 2. Total 164. + +Never were the afflictions of Insanity more vividly portrayed than in +the following lines from _Churchill's Epistle to Hogarth_:-- + + + Sure 'tis a curse which angry fates impose, + To mortify man's arrogance, that those + Who're fashioned of some better sort of clay, + Must sooner than the common herd decay. + What bitter pangs must humble genius feel, + In their last hour to view a Swift and Steele! + How must ill-boding horrors fill their breast, + When she beholds men, mark'd above the rest + For qualities most dear, plung'd from that height, + And sunk, deep sunk, in second childhood's night! + Are men indeed such things? and are the best + More subject to this evil than the rest, + To drivel out whole years of idiot breath, + And sit the monuments of living death? + O galling circumstance to human pride! + Abasing thought! but not to be deny'd. + With curious art, the brain too finely wrought, + Preys on herself, and is destroyed by thought. + Constant attention wears the active mind, + Blots out her pow'rs and leaves a blank behind. + + * * * * * + + +MACADAMIZATION. + + + The cost of converting Regent-street, + Whitehall-place, and Palace-yard, into + broken stone roads, has been L 6,055 8_s_. 3_d_. + + Value of old pavement taken up and + broken for that purpose L 6,787 7_s_. 0_d_. + + ------------ + L12,842 15 3 + ------------ + +_Parliamentary Papers._ + + * * * * * + + +SILK + + +According to a late statement of Mr. Huskisson, the silk manufacture of +England now reaches the enormous amount of fourteen millions sterling +per annum, and is consequently after cotton, the greatest staple of the +country. + + * * * * * + + +NEW LAMP. + + +At a recent meeting of the Royal Institution an ornamental lamp was +placed on the library table, the elegant transparent paintings and +spiral devices of which were kept in rotary motion by the action of the +current of heated air issuing from the chimneys of the lamp, which +contrivance is well adapted to a number of purposes of ornamental +illumination. + + * * * * * + + +First and last there have been 120,000 copies printed of "Domestic +Cookery, by a Lady," (Mrs. Rundell;) and 50,000 "Receipt Book," by the +same authoress. + + * * * * * + +_Printed and Published by J. LIMBIRD, 143, Strand, (near +Somerset-house,) and sold by all Newsmen and Booksellers._ + + * * * * * + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and +Instruction, No. 276, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MIRROR OF LITERATURE *** + +***** This file should be named 15935.txt or 15935.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/9/3/15935/ + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, David Garcia and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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