T - < t 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 How delightful the task of gleaning the flowers of literature — of 
 tracing the motives of actions to their original source — of portraying 
 characters — of exploring the beauties of Mature, and investigating 
 the ingenuity of Man ! and thus to form a Treasury of the Mind, 
 from whence such sweets may be extracted as tend to enlarge the 
 intellectual powers, and render life useful and happy. Such has 
 been the humble but zealous aim of the Editor in compiling these, 
 the pages of The Mirror. 
 
 In the Antiquarian and Topographical departments, we trust, 
 our pages have been illustrated with notices and views of objects 
 of much interest ; embracing, also, the manners and customs of 
 Society, not only in England, but in all parts of the civilized world; 
 and we need not remind our readers what a mass of materials are 
 yet to be found, in the chronicles, local annals, sports, and amuse- 
 ments of society — developing traits of national character as nume- 
 rous as they are interesting and important, but which have hitherto 
 been uncollected, owing to their being almost solely in private 
 libraries of rare and curious literary treasures. Having the ad- 
 vantage of availing ourselves of many such precious depositories, 
 we fondly hope to enrich our future columns with numerous 
 valuable, rare, and curious notices. Among the Engravings, 
 we call the attention of our readers to the following, nearly the 
 whole of them from Original Drawings, taken expressly for The 
 Mirror, and which are not to be found in any other work : Inte- 
 rior and Exterior of the New Synagogue, Great St. Helen’s — 
 Grey Street, Newcastle — Albert Durer’s Residence — Interior and 
 Exterior of Linton Church — Linton Free-School — The Eastern 
 Institution — Two Views of Old Chelsea Bun-House — Entrance to 
 St. Olave’s Grammar-School — Southwark Tradesmen’s Tokens — 
 and the New East End of the Guildhall, London. 
 
 Fully impressed with the truth, that “ the noblest employment of 
 Man is to study the works of his Creator,” we have been rather 
 prodigal of our original papers and copious extracts, relative to 
 Natural History ; feeling assured they would be acceptable to our 
 readers, and also enable us to keep pace with the present thirst for 
 Botanical knowledge, which, to the advantage of society, now forms 
 a prominent study in our seminaries, particularly in those for the 
 
 a 2 
 
IV 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 instruction of the female sex. This endearing branch of science will 
 always form a prominent feature in our work. On the discovery 
 of the Photogenic Drawing, we lost no time in producing a fac- 
 simile of the effects of this very pleasing and astonishing art, and 
 which called forth such undivided approbation. Copious instruc- 
 tions for attaining that accomplishment were also given, in a 
 manner, we trust, perspicuous and satisfactory. 
 
 It would be an idle waste of time to dilate on the vital import- 
 ance of Arts and Manufactures to England ; we have, therefore, to 
 as great an extent as our limits would allow, given such notices, 
 not only of their progress at home, but also in other countries. 
 Among the Engravings devoted to Scientific Purposes, we may 
 mention those of the Aellopodes and the Accelerator, both furnished 
 by the respective ingenious Inventors; as also the Six Views of Mr. 
 Hampton’s Balloon and Parachute ; the Fac-simile of Photogenic 
 Drawing ; and that ingenious specimen of science and mechanical 
 art, the Modelled View of Hecla. 
 
 To such of our readers w 7 ho have not leisure, or perhaps inclina- 
 tion, for studying lengthened chapters, we have devoted many of our 
 columns to short, but w T e ardently trust, amusing pieces of information 
 — agreeable to the original plan cf The Mirror. 
 
 The Editor cannot, injustice to himself, refrain from thus acknow- 
 ledging the very kind assistance proffered him by numerous lite- 
 rary friends, not only in valuable communications, but also by the 
 liberal offer of the use of their various private libraries ; and he 
 earnestly begs to assure them, he highly appreciates such powerful 
 support. To the numerous and increased Correspondents, also, his 
 sincere thanks are due, and which he begs of them to accept. 
 
 In conclusion, the Proprietor wishes to remark, that The Mirror 
 will continue to be conducted on the same plan that it has been from 
 its commencement; and he also assures his patrons, that no ex- 
 pense or trouble will be spared, in order that the work may keep 
 pace with the greatly increased patronage of its friends, and the 
 advancing state of Literature in England. Among the many in- 
 tended improvements, the next Volume will be printed off an entire 
 new type, from the foundry of Messrs. Miller and Co., of Edin- 
 burgh. 
 
 Mirror Office, Strand, 
 June 26, 1839. 
 
SIR EDWARD EARLE LYTTON BULWER, BART., 
 
 M.P. FOR LINCOLN. 
 
 This clever and accomplished writer, is the son of General Bulwer, and 
 descended from an ancient and wealthy family in Norfolk, in which county 
 he was horn in 1803. His father dying in 1806, the care of his early 
 youth devolved upon his mother, who sent him to complete his education at 
 the University of Cambridge, where he gained a prize for a poem on sculp- 
 ture. His first production was entitled Weeds and Wild Flowers , a collec- 
 tion of poems, published in 1826 ; and was succeeded, in 1827, by another 
 metrical attempt, O l Neil, or the Rebel. Neither these, nor his first prose 
 work, a novel, entitled Falkland , which appeared in 1827, attracted parti- 
 cular notice. 
 
 The life of an author is to be found in his works ; for it is from them we 
 can form a pretty good estimate of his private feelings, his virtues, or his 
 foibles : few other materials in general do the memoirs of authors contain, 
 unless it be a heart-rending recital of disappointment and want. But 
 the life of Sir E. L. Bulwer, Bart., fortunately presents none of these 
 points. Born in the lap of affluence — nurtured with all the care concomi- 
 tant with the life of a gentleman ; blessed with a bountiful and classical 
 education ; and endowed with wealth — he came forth as an author, not 
 in the hopes of gaining a competency, but for fame, and love of the 
 Muses. It is, therefore, solely as an author that we mean to speak of Sir 
 Edward : for it is as such that he will live in the page of English history. 
 
 It has been well observed, that “ no one can deny to Mr. Bulwer a fore- 
 most place among the names which do honour to modern literature. His 
 readers may vary in their preferences — one may like the lively and actual 
 satire of Pelham; a second prefer the poetic imagination of the Disowned ; 
 a third, the deeper conception and dramatic effect of Paul Clifford, ; but 
 the very fact of these preferences shows how much there is from which to 
 choose.” 
 
 His Pelham, in 1828, was much read, and gained the author great cele- 
 brity : in the preface to the second edition of which, he thus explains the 
 grounds whereon he founded his work : — “ It is a beautiful part in the 
 economy of this world, that nothing is without its use ; every weed in the 
 great thoroughfares of life has a honey, which observation can easily extract ; 
 and we may glean no unimportant wisdom from folly itself, if we distin- 
 guish while we survey, and satirize while we share it. It is in this belief, 
 that these volumes have their origin. I have not been willing that even 
 the common-places of society should afford neither a record nor a moral ; 
 and it is, therefore, from the common-places of society that the materials of 
 this novel have been wrought. By treating trifles naturally they may be 
 rendered amusing, and that which adherence to Nature renders amusing, 
 the same cause also may render instructive : for Nature is the source of all 
 morals, and the enchanted well, from which not a single drop can be taken 
 that has not the power of curing some of our diseases. * * * * I have 
 drawn for the hero of my work, such a person as seemed to me best fitted 
 to retail the opinions and customs of the class and age to which he belongs ; 
 
vi SIR EDWARD E. LYTTON BULWliR, BART., M.P. 
 
 a personal combination of antitheses — a fop and a philosopher, a voluptuary 
 and a moralist — a trifler in appearance, but rather one to whom trifles are 
 instructive, than one to whom trifles are natural — an Aristippus on a limited 
 scale, accustomed to draw sage conclusions from the follies he adopts, and 
 while professing himself a votary of Pleasure, in reality a disciple of Wis- 
 dom.” 
 
 In 1833, his England and the English appeared : a work rather poli- 
 tical, and in which he was severe on the aristocracy of our country ; 
 yet it contained many excellent remarks devoid of that pestiferous subject — 
 politics. In speaking of amusement, he gives the following just and sen- 
 sible opinion : — “ Amusement keeps men cheerful and contented — it en- 
 genders a spirit of urbanity — it reconciles the poor to the pleasures of then- 
 superiors, which are of the same sort, though in another sphere ; it removes 
 the sense of hardship — it brings men together in those genial moments 
 when the heart opens and care is forgotten. Deprived of more gentle re- 
 laxations, men are driven to the alehouse, — they talk over the actions of 
 their superiors.” 
 
 On the character of the English people, Mr. Bulwer has the following- 
 judicious remarks : — “ l think I need take no pains to prove the charac- 
 teristic of the English people — a characteristic that. I shall just touch upon, 
 viz., their wonderful spirit of industry. This has been the saving principle 
 of the nation, counteracting the errors of our laws, and the imperfections of 
 our constitution. We have been a great people, because Ave have always 
 been active ; and a moral people, because we have not left ourselves time 
 to be vicious. Industry is, in a word, the distinguishing quality of our 
 nation, the pervading genius of our riches, our grandeur, and our power. 
 Every great people has its main principle of greatness, some one quality, 
 the developing, the tracing, and feeding, and watching of which, has made 
 it great. It must be remembered how finely Montesquieu has proved this 
 important truth, in the Grandeur et Decadence des Romains. With France, 
 that principle is the love of glory ; with America, it is the love [name] of 
 liberty ; with England, it is the love of action — the safest., and most com- 
 prehensive principle of the three, for it gains glory without seeking it too 
 madly, and it requires liberty in order to exist.” 
 
 On Detraction, Mr. Bulwer thus expresses himself: — “ Shakspeare has 
 spoken of detraction as less excusable than theft ; but there is yet a nobler 
 fancy among certain uncivilized tribes, viz., that slander is a greater moral 
 offence than even murder itself ; for, say they, with an admirable shrewd- 
 ness of distinction, when you take a man’s life you take only what he must, 
 at one time or the other, have lost ; but when you take a man’s reputation, 
 you take that which he might otherwise have retained for ever • nay, what 
 is yet more important, your offence in the one is bounded and definite. 
 Murder cannot travel beyond the grave — the deed imposes at once a boun- 
 dary to its own effects ; but in slander the tomb itself does not limit the 
 malice of your wrong : your lie may pass onward to posterity, and continue, 
 generation after generation, to blacken the memory of your victim. The 
 people of the Sandw-ich Islands murdered Captain Cook ; but they pay his 
 memory the highest honour which their customs acknowledge : they retain 
 the bones, (those returned Avere suppositions,) which are considered sacred; 
 and the priest thanks the gods for having sent them so great a man. Are 
 you surprised at this seeming inconsistency? Alas! it is the manner in 
 which w-e treat the great ! We murder them by the Aveapons of calumny 
 and persecution, and then we declare the relics of our victim to be sacred !” 
 
Sill EDWARD E. LYTTON BUI.WKR, BART., M.P. vii 
 
 In 1831, his Eugene Aram appeared, in 3 vols. It is decidedly the 
 most finished of Mr. Bulwer’s productions. An admirably wrought-out 
 story, of which we never lose sight, gradually rises in interest, till the 
 feeling becomes equally intense and painful. There are scenes, in the 
 thii’d volume especially, superior in power and effect to any thing he has yet 
 done. Eugene Aram is a fine, and most original conception. In this graphi- 
 cally-told novel are many papers displaying great pathos, and powerful 
 imagination. Amidst the display of guilty actions, the author has checkered 
 the melancholy scene with the following description of Autumn : — “ Along the 
 sere and melancholy wood, the autumnal winds creep, with a lowly but 
 gathering moan. Where the water held its course, a damp and ghostly 
 mist clogged the air ; but the skies were calm, and checkered only by a few 
 clouds that swept in long, white, spectral streaks over the solemn stars. 
 Now and then, the bat wheeled swiftly round, almost touching the figure of 
 the student, as he walked musingly onward. And the owl, that before the 
 month waned many many days, would be seen no more in that region, came 
 heavily from the trees, like a guilty thought that deserts its shade. It was 
 one of those nights, half dim, half glorious, which mark the early decline of 
 the year. Nature seemed restless and instinct with change ; there were 
 those signs in the atmosphere which leave the most experienced in doubt 
 whether the morning may rise in storm or sunshine. And in this particular 
 period the skie’s influences seemed to tincture the animal life with their own 
 mysterious and wayward spirit of change. The birds desert their summer 
 haunts, an unaccountable inquietude pervades the brute creation, even men 
 in this unsettled season have considered themselves more (than at others) 
 stirred by the motion and whisperings of their genius. And every creature 
 that flows upon the tide of the universal life of things, feels upon the ruffled 
 surface, the mighty and solemn change which is at work within its depths.” 
 
 How deliciously beautiful is our next extract : 
 
 “ If there be any thing lovely in the human heart, it is affection ! All 
 that makes hope elevated, or fear generous, belongs to the capacity of loving. 
 For my own part, I do not wonder, in looking over the thousand creeds and 
 sects of men, that so many religionists have traced their theology, — that so 
 many moralists have wrought their system from love. The errors thus ori- 
 ginated have something in them that charms us, even while we smile at the 
 theology, or while we neglect the system. What a beautiful fabric would 
 be human nature — what a divine guide would be human reason — if Love 
 were indeed the stratum of the one, and the inspiration of the other ! what 
 a world of reasonings, not immediately obvious, did the sage of old open to 
 our inquiry, when he said the pathetic was the truest part of the sublime ! 
 Aristides, the painter, created a picture in which an infant is represented 
 sucking a mother wounded to the death, who, even in that agony, strives to 
 prevent the child from injuring itself by imbibing the blood mingled with 
 the milk. How many emotions, that might have made us permanently 
 wiser and better, have we lost in losing that picture !” 
 
 Mr. Bulwer published his Last Days of Pompeii, in 3 vols. in the year 
 1 834. Like most of this gentleman’s productions, it is replete with fine 
 imaginings ; but perhaps the most interesting character in the work, is the 
 Blind Flower Girl — a personification worked up with heart-rending inci- 
 dents, displaying the greatest intensity of feeling. Amidst many pleasing 
 ideas, is the following, on Natural Loveliness. — “ Is nature ordinarily so 
 unattractive?’ asked the Greek, — ‘to the dissipated — yes.’ — ‘an austere 
 
Vlll SIR EDWARD E. LVTTON BULWEIl, BART., M.P. 
 
 reply, but scarcely a wise one. Pleasure delights in contrasts ; it is from 
 dissipation that we learn to enjoy solitude, and from solitude, dissipation.’ 
 ‘ So think the young philosophers of the garden,’ replied the Egyptian ; 
 £ they mistake lassitude for meditation, and imagine that, because they are 
 seated with others, they know the delight of loneliness. But not in such 
 jaded bosoms can nature awaken that enthusiasm which alone draws from 
 her chaste reserves all her unspeakable beauty ; she demands from you, not 
 the exhaustion of passion, but all that fervour from which you only seek, in 
 adoring her, a release. When, young Athenian, the moon revealed herself 
 in visions of light to Endymion, it was after a day passed, not amongst the 
 feverish haunts of men, but on the still mountains, and in the solitary valleys 
 of the hunter.’ ” 
 
 Rienzi, the last of the Tribunes, was published in 1836. In vol. xxvii. 
 of the Mirror, will be found copious notices of this work. 
 
 Mr. Bulwer came before the public as a dramatic author in 1836, in the 
 production of a play, The Duchess de la Valliere. It was not well re- 
 ceived by the critics, who described the plot as devoid of dramatic interest, 
 and the language deficient in imagination and effect. 
 
 In 1837 appeared his Ernest Maltr avers, in 3 vols. This work con- 
 tains a few fine thoughts — original ideas; but it is also festered with 
 language that we grieve to think came from the pen of the subject of this 
 memoir. 
 
 Exclusive of the above enumerated works, Sir Edward has produced se- 
 veral others, particularly the dramas of the Lady of Lyons , and Richelieu , 
 both successful productions. 
 
 In 1838 the Queen was pleased to create Mr. Bulwer a baronet of the 
 United Kingdom. 
 
 It is rather strange that a gentleman of Sir Edward’s literary attainments 
 can find time to attend his parliamentary duties, he being member for 
 Lincoln. With politics (thank Heaven ! ) we have nothing to do ; but it may 
 be as well just to notice that Sir E. Bulwer is what is termed a Liberal. 
 In the Senate he does not form a prominent character, seldom ad- 
 dressing the house. 
 
 His lady has lately given a specimen of her literary acquirements, in a 
 novel, called Cheveley, or the Man of Honour, which the reader may 
 perhaps recollect called forth some epistolary correspondence. We are 
 ignorant as to whether Sir Edward has any family by this lady. 
 
 His brother, Mr. H. L. Bulwer, who was formerly member for the bo- 
 rough of Marylebone, is now .Secretary of Embassy at Paris. 
 
Qft)C JWtnm* 
 
 OF 
 
 LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION. 
 
 . No. 930. J SATURDAY, JANUARY 5, I839L f Prick 2d. 
 
 l/f® S3 SS 
 
 
 INTERIOR OF THE NEW SYNAGOGUE, GREAT ST. HELEN’S. 
 
 Vol. XXXIII. 
 
2 
 
 THK MIRROR. 
 
 THE NEW SYNAGOGUE, GREAT 
 ST. HELEN’S. 
 
 The profound and philosophical Montesque 
 remarks — “All civilized nations dwell in 
 houses ; thence the idea naturally arose in 
 the minds of men to build a house for God, 
 in which they might adore Him, anu seek 
 Him ; both in their fears and their hopes. 
 Nothing, indeed, can be more consoling to 
 the hearts of men, than to assemble in one 
 place, where they all, with one accord, give 
 utterance to those supplications which their 
 wants, and a sense of their weakness, dic- 
 tate.’’ This observation is subjected to the 
 correction of a divine, who says, “ It would 
 be more true, and also more becoming, to 
 state, that the necessity of instructing man- 
 kind, of recalling them to a sense of their 
 duties and obligations, and of preaching to 
 them the doctrines of their creed, first gave 
 rise to the idea of building a house for God.” 
 Here are the opinions of a philosopher and 
 a divine, respecting the cause which has led 
 mankind to build a house for God. We do 
 not intend to examine the merits of either. 
 Suppose it was revealed and declared to 
 the chosen people of God, as contained in 
 those solemn writings of which they have 
 been the chosen depositories, “ Let them 
 make me a sanctuary that I may dwell 
 among them.” (Exodus, xxv. 8.) This sets 
 the question at rest, and disposes at once of 
 the opinions of the philosopher and the 
 divine. It was not because the Israelites 
 dwelt in tabernacles ; nor because they stood 
 in need of instruction, that a sanctuary was 
 erected ; but it was at the express command 
 of God, that manifesting there, as He was 
 wont, the visible symbols of hi3 presence 
 and his power, a standing miracle might 
 declare the uncontrovertible evidence of the 
 truth of their religion and its history. When 
 Jerusalem’s lofty temple was laid low, and 
 the plough turned up the holy ground on 
 which it once stood, and the Jews were 
 driven forth a nation “ scattered and peeled,” 
 his synagogue became to the son of Abra- 
 ham what his temple had been heretofore. 
 The following are the reflections of a pious 
 Jew on the subject* “ When the Jew en- 
 ters the portals of the synagogue, the feel- 
 ings that take possession of him are those 
 of awe and veneration for that invisible 
 Sovereign, whose presence he is permitted 
 to approach. While performing his devo- 
 tions, he is penetrated with humility and 
 gratitude, and bows with resignation to that 
 just doom, which has exiled him and his 
 fathers from that sanctuary which had been 
 the glory of his nation. His stay in the 
 synagogue is marked by that decorum, 
 which becomes him who stands in the pre- 
 sence of Omnipotence. No idle talk, no 
 mundane ideas interrupt and disturb the 
 
 * Hebrew Review, ’ October, 1835. 
 
 train of his thought, by which he strives to 
 elevate his soul unto contemplation of the 
 Deity. He feels and knows that the place 
 is sacred ; and that it is his duty not to vio- 
 late its sanctity : and though banished, a 
 wanderer, and perhaps despised, his mind is 
 imbued with sacred feelings, analogous to 
 that of those who worshipped of old on 
 Moriah’s brow ; and the place of his wor- 
 ship becomes to the Jew, though mean in 
 comparison to the temple, the “sanctuary 
 of the Lord.” 
 
 There are in London about eleven syna- 
 gogues ; the chief one, the German, is in 
 Duke’s Place, Hounsditch, in the midst of 
 the Jewish population. The approaches 
 are rather uninviting ; but when once 
 reached, the place, the worship, the people, 
 and all the associations connected with their 
 awful and sublime history, more than repay 
 the visit. The Sabbath commences at sun- 
 set on Friday, when the synagogue is 
 opened ; and again at ten o’clock on Satur- 
 day morning. The singing, handed down 
 from the temple-service, and the chanting of 
 the luw,.said to be the manner in which it 
 was revealed to Moses, is deeply affecting 
 and interesting. The Jews, and the officers 
 in attendance, are most kind and polite to 
 strangers. The interest of the visit is en- 
 hanced, by procuring a Jewish prayer-book, 
 with the English translation on the opposite 
 page. Strangers are reminded not to take 
 of! their hats as they enter : it is an abo- 
 mination to the Jews, who worship with 
 their heads covered. Surely no one, on de- 
 parting from such a scene, but will evince a 
 holy impatience for the return of this people 
 to their own land, and their exaltation 
 amongst the nations ; which will be fraught 
 with the most eventful and glorious conse- 
 quences to the whole world. 
 
 The preceding Engraving is a faithful 
 representation of the lnterior\ of the New 
 Synagogue,]: Great St. Helen’s : the cere- 
 mony of consecrating this edifice sacred to the 
 Jewish religion, took place on Thursday, 
 September 13, 1838; about 1,000 persons 
 being present. At a few minutes after two 
 o’clock, the chief rabbi (Dr. Hirschel,) and 
 the officiating rabbins having taken their 
 places, the consecration anthem was given. 
 The introductory symphony was performed 
 very skilfully by the instrumental band, 
 accompanied by the choruses. The high 
 priest then entered the door of the synagogue, 
 followed by the wardens and other honorary 
 officers of the congregation, carrying the 
 sacred scrolls of the law. The doors having 
 been opened, the chief rtibbi and the bearers 
 
 f A view of the Exterior, with description, will ap- 
 pear in our next number. 
 
 J The congregation located for several years past 
 in Leadenhail Street, where they had been estab- 
 lished about eighty years, and was always known as 
 the “ New Synagogue.” 
 
Til K MIRROR. 
 
 3 
 
 entered, and proceeded along the aisle to the 
 ark, which, with respect to the cardinal 
 points and relation to other objects, occupies 
 a position similar to our high altar or com- 
 munion table. During this time the choris- 
 ters sung an impressive hymn, and at the 
 conclusion of the chorus the procession pro- 
 ceeded to circumambulate the synagogue 
 seven times, and during each circuit a psalm 
 was chanted by the reader and the congre- 
 gation with great effect. 
 
 When the last circuit was completed, the 
 persons in the procession separated into two 
 lines, one on each side of the ark, when the 
 readers, the principal singers, and chorus, 
 sung a psalm of David ; after which the 
 chief rabbi, standing before the ark, delivered, 
 in Hebrew and English, an appropriate 
 address on this occasion, so interesting to 
 the Jewish people ; after which the venerable 
 man read a long prayer in behalf of the 
 people of Israel ; after which the consecra- 
 tion anthem was given, the words by the late 
 Dr. H. Hirschel (father of the present chief 
 rabbi). Then the secretary read a list of the 
 donations bestowed towards defraying the 
 expense of the synagogue ; after this a hymn, 
 composed by Professor Hurwitz, was sung 
 with choruses. This was followed by an 
 impressive prayer for the Queen and royal 
 family, sung by the whole congregation. 
 The finale was a Hallelujah Chorus, which 
 was equally effective. The whole closed by 
 the performance of the afternoon and evening 
 service. On ordinary occasions the daugh- 
 ters of Zion are kept out of view, in the 
 Asiatic fashion, but on this occasion, al- 
 though the ladies were all in the galleries, 
 yet the ingenuity of the architect has con- 
 trived a handsome screen, so tastefully perfo- 
 rated that the fair sex could see clearly all 
 that was passing below, and at the same 
 time those below could easily discover that 
 the Jewish females of our time might vie 
 with those so much admired in ancient times. 
 
 The interior of the synagogue is characte- 
 rized by considerable lightness and loftiness ; 
 the height from floor to ceiling of centre 
 nave being 45 feet ; the entire length from 
 the entrance to the back of the ark is 72 feet ; 
 the extreme width 54 feet; the width of the 
 centre nave 32 feet. 
 
 The ark consists of a semi-circular recess 
 and domed head, decorated with Corinthian 
 columns and painted glass windows. This 
 part is designed with especial reference to 
 the Jewish worship, and is intended to form 
 the chief attraction of the interior. The 
 steps, paving, and pedestals are of marble ; 
 the latter supporting rich brass candelabra. 
 Light Doric piers and pilasters, in imitation 
 of porphyry and verd antique, sustain an 
 appropriate entablature of light Italian Doric 
 with dentils, the metopes enriched with 
 pateras and stars alternately, richly gilt ; this 
 
 ' B 2 
 
 order, which goes round the circular purt of 
 the ark, sustains a light Corinthian order. 
 The recesses for the law are inclosed with 
 massy circular mahogany doors, and are fitted 
 up in the interior with crimson silk; a rich 
 velvet curtain, with gold fringe, is drawn over 
 and partly conceals the doors and recesses. 
 The Corinthian columns and three-quarter 
 columns are in imitation of Sienna marble ; 
 the capitals, white and relieved in gold, with 
 festoous of fruit and flowers, connecting, the 
 same ; the ornaments of the Corinthian enta- 
 blature are also enriched in gold ; there are 
 three semi-circular windows of richly-painted 
 glass, by Mr. James Nixon ; the centre win- 
 dow containing the name Jehovah in He- 
 brew characters, also the tables of the law. 
 The windows are painted with rich ara- 
 besques, any sort of figure being inconsistent 
 with the Hebrew worship. On the frieze of 
 the Corinthian order, in large Hebrew cha- 
 racters, is an inscription, importing, “ Know 
 in whose presence thou standest !” and on 
 each side of the ark are panels containing a 
 prayer for the Queen and royal family, in 
 Hebrew and in English. The whole com- 
 position of the ark, which is 44 feet high by 
 about 25 feet wide, is crowned with a semi- 
 dome, panelled with five rows of octagon 
 panels, with rosettes in each. The ladies’ 
 galleries are supported by Portland-stone piers 
 of a novel design, combining strength with 
 lightness; these support alight Doric enta- 
 blature with a Corinthian order above, of the 
 same description and proportions as decorate 
 the ark, only without the decoration of 
 painting or gilding ; above the Corin- 
 thian order is a lofty attic, with semicircular 
 windows. All the windows are of ground- 
 glass, with coloured margins and appropriate 
 dressings. The ceiling is divided ir.to 30 
 central panels, having each a massy flower. 
 At the north end is a semi- circular arch cor- 
 responding with that of the south end, in 
 which is a large painted glass fan with rich 
 border, also painted by Nixon. 
 
 Between the columns of the ladies’ gal- 
 lery is a rich and light railing of wrought 
 brass work. All the seats throughout the 
 building are of wainscot varnished. There 
 are no pews, as in churches, but benches 
 with lockers. Each seat is numbered, and a 
 moveable flap is provided for the books. 
 
 The platform is also of wainscot, and is 
 raised four steps at the four angles, and 
 pedestals supporting four rich brass cande- 
 labra, similar to those at the ark ; in the front 
 of the platform are the seats of the principal 
 officers of the synagogue. There are no 
 other seats between the platform and the 
 marble steps of the ark. 
 
4 
 
 THK MIRROR. 
 
 MAB’S CROSS. 
 
 A LEGEND OF I.ANCA8HIRE. 
 
 (For the Mirror.') 
 
 Come forth, — come forth — ye vassals all, 
 
 Sir William’s banner streams afar ; 
 
 And rouse you up at honour's call. 
 
 To seek the Holy war. 
 
 And on they troop, both squire and knigtit. 
 And serf, and vassal low. 
 
 To dare the Saracen to fight. 
 
 The Infidel to bow. 
 
 Weep, Lady Mabel, weep no more. 
 
 In safety soon returning. 
 
 From distant Syria's palmy shore 
 The crescent proudly spurning. 
 
 Again shall Bradclraigh’s banner float. 
 
 Wide waiving from the turret high ; 
 
 And echo from some haunt remote. 
 
 To his shrill bugle’s note reply. 
 
 Far o’er the bounding waters bourne. 
 
 They go from Haigh’s sequestered bowers, 
 Where' Lady Mabel long did mourn. 
 
 While slowly crept the laggiug hours. 
 
 For there no more at dawn of day, 
 
 Did the hoarse stag-hounds’ bark foretell; 
 That wending to the woods away. 
 
 Sir William sought the forest dell. 
 
 Nor when still evening’s gathering veil. 
 
 Was ou the dark old woods reposing, 
 
 Where the sweet night-bird told her tale. 
 
 As the long summer day was closing. 
 
 His well-known step no longer falls. 
 
 His stately step no more is seen ; 
 
 But round his own ancestral walls. 
 
 The veiy path-way now is green. 
 
 And years pass’d by — from Holy land 
 
 He comes not — came not, — wherefore tell, — 
 The bravest of that gallant band. 
 
 They told her that Sir William fell. 
 
 And bitterly did Mabel sigh. 
 
 And loug the silent tear did flow, 1 
 From her lov’d home condemned to fly, 
 
 Or smile upon Sir William’s foe. 
 
 Sir Osmund wed, and ’scape the storm. 
 
 That threatened on her house to fall ; 
 
 Oh, how unlike the stately form. 
 
 That once was ruler in that Hall ! 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 And she is now Sir Osmund’s bride, 
 
 A tearful melancholy thing ; 
 
 Seeking her broken peace to hide. 
 
 Her wounded heart's corroding sting. 
 
 Her suffering meekly borne, subdued, 
 
 Her alms, her piety, her woe, — 
 
 From vassal and from soldier rude. 
 
 The tear of pity forc’d to flow. 
 
 It was a summer holiday. 
 
 Bright on old Haigh the sunbeams shine ; 
 But Mabel’s thoughts are far away. 
 
 With her dead lord, in Palestine. 
 
 To ’scape awhile from goading thought, 
 
 She calls the weary wanderer near. 
 
 Her alms the poor and wretched sought. 
 
 And bless’d her bounty with a tear. 
 
 Among them stands a Palmer grey. 
 
 Lonely and travel-toil’d was he ; 
 
 A wanderer for many a day. 
 
 From regions o’er the billowy sea. 
 
 He ask’d not alms, lie only pray’d, 
 
 A message for her ear to bring ; 
 
 And Mabel, trembling and afraid. 
 
 Saw on his hand a silver ring. 
 
 The ring — it was Sir William’s token. 
 
 The voice, thrilled to her heart with pain ; — 
 “ Mabel!” — the magic word was spoken, 
 
 “ Bradchaigh returns to thee again !” 
 
 Now from the tower his banner flies. 
 
 And merrily, merrily, peal the bells ; 
 
 Away the base oue. distant flies, 
 
 And gladness iu each bosom swells. 
 
 And Mabel hailed her banish’d one. 
 
 And smiles were chasing tears away ; — 
 
 Still expiation must be done. 
 
 For broken faith, these legends say. 
 
 Her peace of mind again to bring. 
 
 To lull remorse, the worst of foes. 
 
 From conscience take its venomed sting, — 
 
 A daily pilgrimage she goes. 
 
 And where yon mouldering cross is seen. 
 
 Still bearing Mab’s forgotten name. 
 
 There have her weary footsteps been. 
 
 For daily there the pilgrim came. 
 
 Go seek their tomb, an effigy, — 
 
 Of cold grey stone two forms recline ; 
 
 Their names alone you there may see, — 
 
 Such dark oblivion waits on timel* 
 
 Kirton-Lindsey. Anne R — . 
 
 Why think that of misfoi tunes past 
 The cank’ring sore will ever last ? 
 
 Oh no 1 when past affiictiou’s hour. 
 
 More softly falls blest hope’s sweet sliow’r ; 
 Of angry storms the course wlieu run, 
 
 More gaily shines the setting sun. 
 
 OLD ENGLISH WASSAIL SONG. 
 
 In the ancient play of Kynge Johan, recently 
 published by the Camden Society, from a 
 MS. discovered among the municipal papers 
 of the town of Ipswich, the following curious 
 relic occurs. It is probably the oldest Was- 
 sail song in our language, and was of course 
 unknown to Ritson, who (Ancient Songs, 
 vol. i. xlvii. edit. 1829,) gives a sort of dis- 
 sertation on Wassail and drinking songs. 
 Kynge Johan was the production of John 
 Bale, Bishop of Ossory, and the M.S. which 
 is in his autograph, may be referred to the 
 middle of the sixteenth century. The song 
 is as follows : — 
 
 Wassayle wassayle, out of the mylke payle, 
 Wassayle wassayle, as whyte as my nayle, 
 Wassayle wassayle, in snow frost and liayle, 
 Wassayle wassayle, with patriche and rayle, 
 Wassayle wassayle, that muche doth avayle, 
 Wassayle wassayle, that never will fayle. 
 
 Ii. E. B. 
 
 • The incidents of the foregoing tale are to be found 
 in an old tradition of Lancashire, which further states , 
 that “ Sir William pursued Sir Osmund Neville, and 
 slew him at a place called Newton, iu single combat. ” 
 Returning in safety, he lived with his lady at Haigh 
 Hall to a good old age. They Ire buried in the chancel 
 of All Saints, Wigan, where, carved on the tomb, their 
 effigies still exist, the rarest of the monumental an- 
 tiquities in that ancient edifice. • * * The 
 
 Lady Mabel’s hurt spirit was too sorely wounded to 
 be at rest. For the purpose of what was then deemed 
 an expiation of her unintentional offence, she per- 
 formed a weekly peuauce, going barefooted from 
 Haigh, to a place outside the walls at Wigan, where 
 a stone cross was erected, which bears to this day 
 the name of “ Mab’s Cross.” 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 MOTION AFTER DEATH, 
 
 A work of great interest to the medical 
 profession, is about to issue from the press. 
 It consists of a complete course of Lectures 
 on Medicine, by one of the most celebrated 
 physicians and popular lecturers of the me- 
 tropolis ; — Dr. Elliotson. Hitherto his 
 lectures have been known to his professional 
 brethren only through the medium of imper- 
 fect reports in the medical journals ; but, — 
 thanks to Mr. Butler, the enterprising me- 
 dical bookseller and publisher,— they are at 
 length about to appear, for the first time, in 
 a dress corresponding with their merit. The 
 editing of the work has been confined to Dr. 
 Rogers ; — a gentleman everyway qualified 
 to do it justice. Having had an opportunity 
 of inspecting the work in sheets, we have 
 made some extracts, which we think likely 
 to prove of general interest to our readers. 
 The following relate to that malignant pes- 
 tilence, — Cholera Morbus. 
 
 “After death from Cholera, one very 
 remarkable phenomenon presented itself; 
 which was, that the temperature of the body 
 was higher than during life. Another very 
 remarkable circumstance, was a twitching 
 of the different muscles of the body, after 
 the person was completely dead. The fin- 
 gers, the toes, and every part of the face, 
 were seen to move. Observations of this 
 description were made on two persons ; — 
 the one a CaftVe, and the other a Malay. 
 The former died twenty hours after the first 
 seizure; — the complaint baffling the most 
 powerful remedies. In fifteen minutes after 
 he expired, the fingers of the left hand were 
 observed to move ; then the muscles of 
 the left arm were contracted in a convul- 
 sive manner ; and similar motions were 
 slowly propagated to the muscles of the 
 chest. The muscles of the calves of the 
 legs contracted in like manner ; bundles of 
 their fibres being drawn together in a tre- 
 mulous knot. The muscles of the inside 
 of the lower extremities were forcibly con- 
 tracted, in u vermicular manner. 1 he mus- 
 cles of the face and lower jaw were similarly 
 affected ; and, finally, those of the right 
 arm, and right side of the chest. These mo- 
 tions increased in extent and activity for ten 
 minutes; after which they gradually de- 
 clined, and ceased twenty minutes after they 
 began. 
 
 “ With regard to the Malay, about fifteen 
 minutes after he expired, the toes began to 
 move in various directions ; and the feet were 
 made to approach each other. Muscular 
 contractions were speedily propagated up- 
 wards, along the limbs ; which were turned 
 slowly inward, so as to approach each other, 
 and again outward ; — the whole of the lower 
 extremities moving on the heels, as on pivots. 
 These motions proceeded upwards ; — pro- 
 ducing a quiveringin the muscles. In five 
 
 minutes the upper limbs began to^be'simi- 
 larly affected. The fingers were extended, 
 and often rigidly bent inwards ; and pro- 
 nation and supination of the hand were stea- 
 dily, though slowly, performed. The same 
 quiverings w r ere observed as in the lower 
 limbs, and extended to the muscles of the 
 chest and back. The muscles ot the face 
 moved ; and the head was observed to shake. 
 The total duration of these appearances 
 was half an hour. By moving or prick- 
 ing the arms or limbs, these contractions 
 were rendered stronger, and were again 
 renewed when they had ceased. 
 
 “ I have noticed the temperature rise be- 
 fore death ; and still more alter it. I may 
 . also mention that, in a case in which there 
 was very great blueness of the skin, no sooner 
 had the patient expired, than the blueness 
 diminished ; and, in an hour, there was no- 
 thing of the colour to be seen. There was 
 a twitching of the muscles alter death ; so 
 that one finger would be drawn in, and then 
 another ; and the lower jaw would move up 
 and down ; and you might see a quivering of 
 the muscles of the lower limbs.” 
 
 Our readers will no doubt he reminded, 
 by the foregoing details, of those motions 
 produced in bodies recently dead, by the 
 agency of galvanism. We shall add a few 
 more particulars respecting this fearful dis- 
 ease. 
 
 “ It was thought, in India, that the na- 
 tives suffered from it more than the Euro- 
 peans. Thousands of natives perished near 
 Bombay ; while of the Europeans, who had 
 good food, and good clothing, only six were 
 affected. It was found to attack those who 
 had the worst diet, were the worst clothed, 
 and were worst off in all respects. It was 
 found to prevail at all temperatures and all 
 seasons; in healthy and in unhealthy situa- 
 tions ; both in dry and in moist places. It 
 prevailed in spite of the monsoons ; and not 
 only in every direction of the wind, but like- 
 wise in all hydrometric states of the atmos- 
 phere. There was great doubt whether it 
 was contagious or not. Some thought it 
 proceeded where there was no communica- 
 tion, just as well as where there was. It 
 was found to stop suddenly, without any 
 apparent reason, and then to go on again. 
 It was said to have broken out in the Mau- 
 ritius, three thousand miles from a place 
 where it had prevailed ; but it w r as after a 
 vessel had arrived from that spot. It turned, 
 at last, towards Europe ; and proceeded, 
 pursuing a north-westerly direction, till it 
 reached this country. The particulars ob- 
 served here and on the Continent, perfectly 
 agree with those observed in India ; — 
 namely, that the poor have been affected 
 much more than the rich ; and that those 
 who are the worst fed, clothed, and lodged, 
 have all suffered in the greatest degree. We 
 have a striking example of this, when we 
 
6 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 contrast its ravages in London, with those it 
 made in Paris. Here the greater part of 
 the people are well-fed ; — better fed than 
 in any other part of the world. They eat 
 more flesh ; and that flesh is of such a qua- 
 lity, as is scarcely to be found in any other 
 country. Besides this, they are better 
 clothed, and more comfortable ; and instead 
 of trashy wines, they have good sound ale 
 and porter, and malt-liquor of all kinds. 
 But in Paris the air is bad ; the people 
 have very little water ; and the water, for 
 the purposes of consumption, is very bad. 
 The inhabitants are crowded together (I 
 know not how many familes in a house) with 
 little ventilation. The streets are narrow ; 
 and, together with this, the houses are dirty. 
 The people live on what we, Englishmen, 
 consider to be “ trash not roast-beef and 
 mutton ; but all sorts of dishes made up of 
 bread and vegetables, with a little meat 
 boiled in water to colour it, or to give it a 
 flavour; and they drink, not good beer, but 
 thin wine ; and we all know that this dis- 
 ease has committed infinitely greater ravages 
 there, than it has here. 
 
 “ With regard to the fatality of the dis- 
 ease, it was observed, in India, that much 
 good was done by medical treatment. It is 
 said that, at Bombay, there were fifteen 
 thousand nine hundred cases. Of these 
 one thousand two hundred took no medicine ; 
 and all died ; but where medicine "was em- 
 ployed, the deaths were much reduced. 
 With respect to the treatment in this coun- 
 try, I cannot but think that if all the patients 
 had been left alone, the mortality would have 
 been the same as it has been. If all the 
 persons attacked with cholera had been put 
 into warm beds, made comfortable, and left 
 alone, — although many would have died 
 who have been saved, — yet, on the whole, 
 I think the mortality would not have been 
 greater than after all that has been done. 
 No doubt many poor creatures have died 
 uncomfortably, who would have died tran- 
 quilly if nothing had been done for them. 
 1 tried two or three kinds of treatment. It 
 was found vain to attempt to warm patients 
 by hot air applied externally ; and I got two 
 of them to breathe hot air. I had a tube 
 passed through boiling water ; so that they 
 might inhale hot air ; but they both died.” 
 
 We conclude', with a fact for the Tem- 
 perance-Society. It was well ascertained 
 in London, that not only those who were 
 badly off, and in bad health from some other 
 disease, but those who were in the habit of 
 drinking spirits, were very liable to the dis- 
 ease. I do not know that such an observa- 
 tion was made in India ; but I presume that 
 drunkards suffered there, as well as here. 
 In Europe, however, it is an undoubted fact, 
 that that portion of the lower order who had 
 everything calculated to keep them in good 
 health, but who indulged in spirit-drinking, 
 
 were sure to suffer ; and this has been ob- 
 served with regard to other diseases. How- 
 ever well persons may be off, yetif their body 
 be enfeebled by drinking, they are rendered 
 increasingly liable to the disease . ’’ 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF FINGER-NAPKINS. 
 
 From the French. 
 
 The Celts used to wipe their fingers on the 
 bundles of hay which served them for seats ; 
 and the Spartans placed on the table, by the 
 side of each guest, a piece of crumb, that he 
 might wipe his fingers thereon. The first 
 finger-napkins that were made in France, 
 were manufactured atRheims, and presented 
 to Charles VII. on the occasion of his coro- 
 nation. They did not become common till 
 the reign of Charles Quint ; and Montesquieu 
 assures us, that it was but in his time that 
 finger-napkins were brought into general use 
 by the gentry. “ Finger-napkins,” says 
 Venekelmann, ‘‘ were not known at Rome; 
 they were not introduced till much later ; and 
 then it was the custom for every one to 
 bring his own cloth.” “ No one,” says 
 Martial, “ brought a napkin for fear of hav- 
 ing it stolen ; but, what did Hermogene ? 
 He absconded with the table-cloth.” Before 
 Rheims manufactured linen napkins, they 
 used to wipe their hands with a sort of wor- 
 sted cloth. Travellers of the last century, 
 who have visited the country of the Sa- 
 moyedes, report that the use of cloths and of 
 finger-napkins was unknown to them, also 
 that of handkerchiefs, and that, as a substi- 
 tute, they always had by them a provision of 
 the scrapings of birch trees, when they ate 
 or perspired; these scrapings were used to 
 wipe themselves with, “ and,” says Bruin, 
 “ they consider it a filthy habit to omit the 
 frequent use of them.” M. D. M. 
 
 COAL MINES. 
 
 Formation, Working, and Ventilation. 
 
 Seated around the bright hearths of Eng- 
 land, fed as they are with huge blocks of 
 coal, how few of her merry people trouble 
 themselves to imagine what depths have 
 been delved, what labour has been under- 
 gone, what dark places of the earth have 
 been routed and ransacked, to furnish their 
 quiet homesteads with the warmth and blaze 
 of this invaluable commodity. Presuming 
 therefore to guide them through these gloomy 
 abodes, and to acquaint them with the won- 
 ders of these subterranean caverns, we shall 
 proceed to show how stratum heaped upon 
 ponderous stratum is perforated by the skil- 
 fulness and activity of man, and how, in situ- 
 ations so perilous, that little animated being 
 contrives to live and move, and have his 
 being. Coal is generally found to lie in 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 7 
 
 seams varying from three to six feet in thick- 
 ness; these seams consist of different va- 
 rieties of coal, the two principal of which are 
 the bituminous, or caky coal, and slaty, or coal 
 which does not cake. The bituminous coal 
 moreover generates much greater quantities of 
 carburetted hydrogen than the argillaceous 
 coal. These seams or stratifications, instead 
 of being smooth and continuous, are liable to 
 great dislocations and interruptions. The 
 number and extent of these dikes or slips 
 affect in a great degree the generation of the 
 carburetted hydrogen. In the operation of 
 working the coal, there issues from it a con- 
 tinual sort of hissing noise, especially where 
 it abounds with inflammable gas. The coal 
 on being split is found to be very porous, 
 which is the more easily perceived on its 
 being magnified : in these pores the bitumen 
 is secreted, and in those pores also it is sup- 
 posed the gas is contained, either in a statp of 
 very high compression, or else in a liquid 
 stale, which contains a still greater quantity 
 of gas in a smaller bulk. It is generally 
 found that the quantities of gas are in pro- 
 portion to the size and number of the cavities. 
 The gas emitted in consequence of the poro- 
 sity of the coal, the slip-dikes, or cracks in the 
 strata act as tubes or pipes to collect and 
 convey the extricated gas to different parts 
 of the coal-field. These divisions of coal 
 have also the name of backs, and these backs 
 form magazines of gas of larger or smaller 
 extent. In these places the coal is more 
 easily separated than the solid coal, for ap- 
 proaching one of these backs, the pressure of 
 the internal gas throws off by its sudden 
 outburst a great portion of the coal adjoining 
 it, but it is far more dangerous to the work- 
 men. Now the grand object of the superin- 
 tendent of these works, is to preserve the 
 lives and health of the workmen from the 
 dreadful effects of these gaseous disruptions. 
 The most serious attention is therefore to be 
 paid to the proper ventilation of the mines. 
 This is the most important feature of the 
 whole. On this point we shall therefore en- 
 gage the notice of the reader, and show how 
 the combination of gas and water is overcome 
 by one or two methods of ventilation. The 
 first case gives us proof of a master-mind. 
 The mines in question were more surcharged 
 with gas than any ever known ; when the 
 coal was first struck, at a depth of 180 feet, 
 it was highly charged with water, which flew 
 out in all directions immediately. A large 
 river which passed near the coal-pit was 
 crossed by the outburst of the gas. From 
 this the water boiled similarly to that of a 
 steam-engine boiler, and if flame had been 
 put to it would have spread over the river 
 like what is commonly called setting the 
 Thames on fire. If unquenched, a river thus 
 ignited would burn for weeks and months. 
 So terribly was this coal charged with gas, 
 
 that no sooner was it struck than it appeared 
 to throw the whole mine into a regular state 
 of mineral fermentation. The gas roared 
 directly it was freed, going off like the report 
 of a pistol, and bursting pieces of coal off the 
 solid wall. The noise which the gas and 
 water made in issuing from the coal was like 
 a hundred thousand snakes hissing at each 
 other. The working of such inflammable 
 mines was no unalarming thing, but its 
 terrors were thus counteracted. Two pits 
 were first sunk, one was called the engine 
 pit, and was employed for lifting up water 
 and drainage : the other for the raising of 
 coal. These pits were united with a head- 
 way at the bottom, and a hogshead was 
 placed nearly at the top of the engine pit, 
 with holes bored at the bottom of it. The 
 water lifted up by the engine was then 
 turned into this hogshead : it ran oiit again 
 as it were from a cullender in all directions 
 about the shaft, and thus created a regular 
 water- blast : the air ascended the engine-shaft 
 with the water, and returned rapidly up the 
 upcast shaft. Having sunk to the bottom of 
 the coal, the next object was to drive a way- 
 gate in a right line to the outbreak of the 
 coal in the crop : to ventilate it an air-course 
 was cut in the side of the waygate, in the 
 solid coal, about two feet high and about two 
 feet wide, and the front was built up with 
 bricks and mortar very tightly. The fresh 
 air consequently went up the air-course and 
 formed a current over the men ; it blew on 
 them, and mixing up with the gas, diluted 
 it sufficiently to prevent its being explosive. 
 At the outburst a little shaft was sunk eight 
 or ten yards deep, and thus the ventilation 
 of this formidable pit was completed. This 
 was, in its day, a very fair expedient, hit upon 
 at the spur of the moment : though it is one 
 which would not suit many other cases. 
 Better organized and more improved systems 
 have now come into use, which we shall 
 examine and explain. There are one or two 
 technicalities which we beforehand elucidate. 
 There are the terms “ the upcast ” and “ the 
 downcast-shaft the down-cast shaft is that 
 by which the currents of atmospheric air arp 
 introduced into the mine : the upcast-shaft is 
 that by which the vitiated current makes its 
 exit. The “ air-course ” is a general term, 
 and means that the current of air is circula- 
 ting : the remaining thing is called “ split- 
 ting the air ” or dividing the current of air, 
 which may be done to any extent. Up to 
 the year 1760 a system was in vogue, which 
 though good in some respects, was very faulty 
 in others. Its great objection was that it 
 ventilated very inadequately the pits, leaving 
 the central part of the works, which was 
 thencefrom called the “ dead waste,” totally 
 unventilated. This defect has now ceased. 
 The western district is then supposed to 
 discharge so much inflammable air as to 
 
8 
 
 TMK MIRROR, 
 
 render the circulating current explosive ; it 
 is therefore discharged into the upcast-shaft, 
 while the other current passes through the 
 eastern division, which is supposed not to 
 discharge so much inflammable air as to load 
 the circulating current to the firing point, 
 and is carried to the upcast-shaft. Such is 
 ihe method which is characterized by the 
 latest improvements, and which required no 
 uncommon degree, of sagacity and perse- 
 verance to finally accomplish and perfectuate. 
 
 W. Akchek. 
 
 THE CHINESE MANDARIN & THE 
 CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES. 
 
 Translated from the Italian. 
 
 In the early part of the reign of the Empe- 
 ror Cam-Hi the Great, a mandarin of the 
 city of Canton, hearing a great noise in a 
 neighbouring house, sent to inquire the cause 
 of it, and was informed that the uproar was 
 occasioned by a Dutch chaplain, a Danish 
 missionary, and a jesuit, who were arguing 
 with great vehemence. The mandarin re- 
 quested the favour of their company, and 
 ordering tea and sweetmeats to be set before 
 ihem, begged to know the cause of such 
 wrangling, so unbecoming their characters as 
 teachers of religion. 
 
 The jesuit replied, that to him, who was 
 always in the right, nothing could he more 
 painful than to argue with persons who were 
 so perverse and obstinate as not to listen to 
 reason ; that, at first, he argued with the 
 greatest coolness, but that, finally provoked 
 by their perversity, he had lost all patience. 
 The mandarin gently hinted the necessity of 
 restraining argument by the rules of good 
 breeding ; remarked that, in China, men 
 reasoned calmly; and requested to know the 
 subject of their dispute. 
 
 “ I appeal to your excellency,” replied the 
 jesuit ; — “ these two gentlemen refused to 
 submit to the decision of the Council of 
 Trent.” — “ 1 am surprised at that,” said the 
 mandarin ; and turning to the two refractory 
 disputants, addressed them thus : — “ It ap- 
 pears to me, gentlemen, that you ought to 
 respect the opinion of a great assembly ; I 
 am quite ignorant of the Council of Trent, 
 but the collective wisdom of many must be 
 superior to that of an individual ; nobody 
 should be so presumptuous as to suppose that 
 in his head alone dwells universal wisdom — 
 at least this is what our great Confucius 
 teaches, and if you follow my advice you will 
 submit to the Council of Trent.” 
 
 The Danish missionary readily admitted 
 the force of the mandarin’s reasoning, and 
 informed him that he and the Dutch chap- 
 lain had adopted the opinions of various coun- 
 cils held before the Council of Trent. 
 
 “ Oh ! if tliat is the case,” said his excel- 
 lency, “ I beg your pardon, — “ you may pos- 
 sibly be right.” 
 
 “ Well, then, are you two of the same 
 opinion, and against this poor jesuit ?” — 
 “ Not at all,” exclaimed the Dutchman, “he 
 holds opinions as absurd and extravagant as 
 the jesuit.” 
 
 “ I don’t exactly understand you,” replied 
 the mandarin, “ are you not all three Chris- 
 tians ? Have you not conte here to teach the 
 Christian religion ? How is it that you are 
 not unanimous in your opinions ?” — “ These 
 two are mortal enemies,” siid the jesuit, 
 “ and yet they agree in opposing me ; it is 
 therefore evident, that the one or the other 
 must be wrong, and that I alone am right.” 
 — “ That ‘does not follow, my friend,” re- 
 turned the mandarin, “ it is just possible 
 that all three might be wrong. — I should 
 mftch like to hear you one by one.” 
 
 The jesuit delivered a long discourse, 
 during which the other two exhibited, by 
 their gestures, evident^ symptoms of compas- 
 sion for his ignorance. The logic of the holy 
 brother was completely thrown away on the 
 good mandarin, who understood it not. After 
 him the Dutchman took up the subject, and 
 was regarded by his adversaries with pity and 
 scorn. His reasoning, whieh, to himself, 
 appeared as clear as any problem in mathe- 
 matics, failed to enlighten the darkness of the 
 mandarin’s understanding. — The Danish 
 missionary was not more successful. 
 
 The three disputants at length spoke toge- 
 ther, and loaded each other with abuse. 
 The honest mandarin could hardly pacify 
 them, — he urged the necessity of toleration 
 towards each other’s opinions, upon the same 
 principle that it had been extended to all of 
 them by the religion of his country. 
 
 After leaving the house of the mandarin, 
 the jesuit met a Dominican friar; he in- 
 formed him that he had gained the victory, 
 assuring him that truth would always tri- 
 umph. — “ If I had been there,’’ replied the 
 Dominican, “ you should not have been vic- 
 torious ; I would have convicted you of false- 
 hood and idolatry.” The jesuit retorted, till, 
 from words they came to blows. The man- 
 darin, Informed of their scandalous proceed- 
 ings, committed them both to prison. An 
 under-mandarin asked his excellency how 
 long he wished to detain them in confine- 
 ment ? — “ Until they agree,” was the answer. 
 “ Ah ! then,’’ said the under-mandarin, 
 “ they must remain in prison for life — they 
 never will forgive each other, I know them 
 well.” — :: Let it be, then,” concluded the good 
 mandarin, “ until they pretend to be recon- 
 ciled.” Jtt. 
 
THE RUINS OF KILCOLMAN, 
 spenseh's residence. 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 « The- Castle of Buttevant, now modernized 
 nnd fitted up as the residence of Sir John 
 Anderson, is built on a cliff above the river 
 Awbeg, on which the town is situated. On 
 this stream, about four miles further down, 
 are the ruins of Kilcolman, the residence of 
 Edmund Spenser, the poet. Of this truly inte- 
 resting ruin, in which Spenser composed his 
 “ Faerie Queen,” and where he received the 
 visits of Sir Walter Raleigh, little now re- 
 mains, save a single turret, and a few lonely 
 walls upon a little elevation, beneath which 
 flow the neglected waters of the Awbeg, or, 
 as Spenser has named it, the 
 « Mulla, mine, where waves I whilome taught to 
 weep 
 
 and where he describes himself as wandering 
 in 
 
 " The coolly shade 
 
 Of the green alders by the Mulla’s shore.” 
 
 Kilcolman, with its castle, and .'{,000 acres of 
 the forfeited Desmond Territory, were con- 
 ferred on Spenser, by Elizabeth ; and here, 
 having married (as he himself described her,) 
 “ a country girl of low degree,” he conti- 
 nued to reside for near ten years, in compli- 
 ance with the terms of the grant, which en- 
 joined residence on his estates: this being 
 one of Elizabeth's favourite schemes for tran- 
 quilizing Ireland by the location of English 
 settlers. But the turbulent spirit of the Irish 
 regarded little the peaceful pursuits of the 
 gentle poet. In one of these wild commo- 
 tions, excited by the Earl of Tyrone, his cas- 
 tle was fired by the Irish, and his infant child 
 perished in the flames ; when Spenser left 
 Ireland. His name and his reputation seem 
 now alike forgotten amidst the many scenes 
 which he had contributed to immortalize. 
 We sounded several of the peasantry to dis- 
 cover whether they knew anything of the 
 poet, but in vain ; the only answer in the af- 
 
 firmative was a characterictic one from our 
 postilion, who, in return to our inquiry whe- 
 ther he had ever heard of Spenser, at Kilcol- 
 man, replied, “ Is it Mr. Spenser, of Kilcol- 
 man, your honour ? Troth, then, I cau’t just 
 say that I ever tell of him ; but I suppose he 
 goes round by Doneraile way, for he never 
 took horses at Mallow in my time, sir.*” 
 Spenser was bom in London, near the 
 Tower, about 1553: he was of Pembroke- 
 hall, Cambridge, where he graduated M.A. in 
 1576. His first publication, the “Shepherd’s 
 Calendar,” appeared in 1576. In 1580, he 
 accompanied Lord Grey de Wilton, Lord 
 Lieutenant of Ireland, as his secretary. In 
 1594, he married, being then in the forty-first 
 year. This unfortunate poet arrived in Eng- 
 land with a heart broken by misfortunes, 
 and died in an obscure lodging in King- 
 street, Westminster, lith January, 1598-9, 
 in the forty-sixth year of his age. He was 
 buried in Westminster- Abbey, when several 
 brother poets attended, and threw copies of 
 verses into his grave ; and a monument was 
 afterwards erected over his remains by the 
 celebrated Anne, Countess of Dorset. 
 
 (« L. E. L.”) 
 
 Ws cannot refrain deploring, with our 
 readers, the loss of that charming and in- 
 spired writer, Mrs. Maclean (L. E. L.) 
 As it is our intention to give a memoir of 
 this gifted lady in our next, we shall now 
 merely state, that about a year since, she 
 married Mr. George Maclean, the present 
 governor of Cape Coast Castle, whither she 
 accompanied him ; and fell a sacrifice to the 
 pestilential climate of Sierra Leone, on the 
 1 5th of October last, a short time after her 
 arrival on that fatal shore. 
 
 • Letters of the North. 
 
10 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 $efo JSoofts. 
 
 MEMOIRS OF CHARLES MATHEWS.* 
 
 By Mrs. Mathews. 
 
 [These are the first two volumes of Mr. 
 Mathews’s biography, and extend to the year 
 1818: two more, we presume, are intended 
 to make the work complete. Although this 
 rather inordinate measure may seem to im- 
 ply an extent of adventure, little short of that 
 which won the love of Desdemona, the reader 
 must look for his gratification in something 
 very different ; and if he had the pleasure of 
 knowing the subject of these memoirs in 
 private or in public, he will be best pleased 
 in proportion as he finds here reflected the 
 memory of his past enjoyments. The bio- 
 graphy of Charles Mathews, indeed, differed 
 not materially from that of many in the same 
 profession, and might have been told in a 
 very short compass. He was born in 1776, 
 of respectable and religious parents. His 
 father was a bookseller in the Strand, who 
 added to that vocation, the occasional labours 
 of a Calvinist preacher : his mother was a 
 member of the Church of England. Young 
 Mathew's was intended for the shop, but on 
 quitting Merchant Tailors’ School, his thea- 
 trical tendencies soon developed themselves, 
 and accordingly we trace him, by the usual 
 steps, up to the point at which he settles 
 into the regular actor. There were times in 
 his career, when darkness veiled his pros- 
 pects, in which the eligibility of receding 
 was impressed upon him, but he had made 
 up his mind, and the event proved that he 
 was right in treating the discouragements 
 he met with as incident to his profession, 
 and not consequent on his own deficiencies. 
 
 The beginning of the work is autobiogra- 
 phical, and there are many letters. Mathews’ 
 character upon the w'holp was an estimable 
 one. He had no serious faults that we have 
 discovered, and thrown as he was into very 
 miscellaneous society, it is to his credit that 
 lie kept his moral principles pure, and his 
 conduct irreproachable. His temper is said 
 to have been irritable, but that was mere sur- 
 face. We see no evidence of the petty 
 jealousy so common among actors ; on the 
 contrary, he seems always to have felt the 
 merits of others, and to have been sincerely 
 pleased to acknowledge them. The extracts 
 v’e shall make will better show the character 
 of the work than any description ; there is 
 some evidence of * making up,’ so as to 
 make anecdotes ‘ tell,’ but this, if it be an 
 objection, is characteristic of all theatrical 
 biography.] 
 
 Mathews in infancy . — For a more exact 
 description of my person, I have referred to 
 my nurse, who was alive to tell the tale with- 
 in ten years of the date hereof. She assured 
 me that I was a long, thin, skewer of a 
 * Published by Bentley. 
 
 child ; of a restless, fidgetty temperament, 
 and by no means regular features — quite the 
 contrary ; and as if Nature herself suspected 
 she had not formed me in one of her hap- 
 piest moments, the Fates combined with her 
 to render me more remarkable, and finding 
 there was not the least chance of my being a 
 beauty, conspired to make me comical. 
 
 The agreeable twist of my would-be fea- 
 tures was occasioned, as the above-named 
 lady assured me, — indeed I have heard my 
 mother with great tenderness and delicacy 
 confirm it, — by a species of hysteric fits to 
 which I was subject in infancy, one of 
 which distorted my mouth and eyebrows to 
 such a degree, as to render me almost hi- 
 deous for a time; though my partial nurse 
 declared my “ eyes made up for all, they 
 were so bright and lively.” Be this as it 
 may, certain it is, that after the recovery 
 from this attack, folks laughed the moment 
 they saw me, and said, “ Bless the dear little 
 dear ! it is not a beauty, to be sure ; but 
 what a funny face it has !” The “ off-side” 
 of my mouth, as a coachman would say, took 
 such an affection for my ear, that it seemed 
 to make a perpetual struggle to form a 
 closer communication with it ; and one eye- 
 brow became fixed as a rusty weathercock, 
 while the other popped up an inch appa- 
 rently beyond its proper position. The ef- 
 fects remain to this day, though moderated. 
 “Wry-mouth” was a nickname applied to 
 me when at school ; and for the first seven 
 years of my life, I was in the habit of hold- 
 ing my hand to my cheek to hide the ble- 
 mish. What good or evil “ was here wrapt 
 up in countenance,” or how. far this may 
 have interfered to direct my future pur- 
 suits, I do not attempt to say. 
 
 His first visit to the Theatre. — [It was 
 an act of disobedience : he had taken advan- 
 tage of his father’s absence to accompany 
 his friend Lichfield.] My companion and I 
 have frequently laughed over the recollection 
 of my frantic behaviour. He could not pa- 
 cify me. He had long been initiated into 
 the mysteries ol the scenic art ; but here 
 was I at fourteen, at my “ first play,” which 
 Charles Lamb has so beautifully described. 
 The very curtain filled me with anticipa- 
 tions of delight the scenery, the dresses, 
 the feathers, the russet boots, the very smell 
 of the theatre, that mixture of orange-peel 
 and oil, the applause in which I joined so 
 heartily, as to bring all eyes and many re- 
 marks upon me, to the great scandal of my 
 cicerone, filled my senses with delight. 
 From that night my mind was in a state of 
 spendid irritation ; I could scarcely walk 
 the streets without offering “ my kingdom 
 for a horse,” to every pedestrian I met. At 
 night I could not rest, Macbeth did “mur- 
 der sleep and I recited Lear up three pair 
 of stairs to a four-legged bedstead. 
 
 George Frederick Cooke. — Cooke, of whom 
 
THE MIRROR 
 
 II 
 
 you have heard so much, has been here, 
 (Dublin) these three weeks, and his merit 
 has not been at all exaggerated ; for I think 
 him a most excellent actor, and one of the 
 finest declaimers I ever heard. He came out 
 in Othello, and was received with a vast deal 
 of applause, though Othello was not his 
 choice for a first appearance. He played it 
 most delightfully, but I do not think it by 
 any means one of his best characters. 
 Othello was dressed in a modern suit of 
 scarlet and gold, which I do not think has 
 half so handsome an appearance with a 
 black face as a Moorish dress. His address 
 to the senate was spoken in a different man- 
 ner from what I have heard it before, being 
 more familiar, and indeed more natural, than 
 the customary mode of delivering it. The 
 more impassioned parts were wonderfully 
 fine ; nor do I think the second scene with 
 [ago was ever better played. His second 
 character was Macbeth, which is certainly 
 superior to his Othello. He has played Co- 
 lumbus ; Ghost, in “Hamlet;’’ Friar, in 
 “ Romeo Eustace De St. Pierre, and 
 Richard , which is certainly his masterpiece. 
 His figure and manner are much more 
 adapted to the villain than the lover. His 
 countenance, particularly when dressed for 
 Richard, is somewhat like Kemble’s, the 
 nose and chin being very prominent fea- 
 tures, but the face is not so long. He has a 
 finely marked eye, and upon the whole, I 
 think, a very fine face. His voice is ex- 
 tremely powerful, and h6 has one of the 
 clearest rants I ever heard. The lower 
 tones are somewhat like Holman’s, but 
 much harsher, and considerably stronger. 
 The most striking fault in his figure are his 
 arms, which are remarkably short, and ill- 
 proportioned to the rest of his body, and in 
 his walk this gives him a very ungraceful ap- 
 
 f iearance. * * * I have the pleasure of 
 
 iving in the same house with him. He is 
 one of the most intelligent men and agree- 
 able companions I ever met with. 
 
 [The above critical portrait is of that sort 
 which one feels to be a correct likeness, with- 
 out having seen the original. In a subse- 
 quent letter, Cooke is again alluded to.] 
 
 I am extremely sorry to inform you that 
 Cooke has enlisted. The regiment went to 
 the Isle of Man about a week past. Daly 
 (the Dublin manager, with whom he had 
 had a quarrel,) would have been glad to re- 
 engage him, but such was his pride, that he 
 would rather turn soldier from real want 
 than come to terms. If he does not get out 
 of that situation, he certainly will be a great 
 loss to the stage, for he is really an excel- 
 lent actor. Many of the performers saw 
 hitn in his military garb when he was going 
 off; but he seemed to wish rather to avoid 
 speaking to them, appearing quite melan- 
 choly. lie was drunk when he enlisted. 
 [Mr. M ai hews adds.] The above circum- 
 
 stance in the history of this extraordinary 
 man is not generally known. Such was his 
 madness at all times while under the influ- 
 ence of drink, that no extravagance was too 
 great for him to commit. Mr. Mathews 
 once witnessed a quarrel he fell into during 
 one of his excesses, with a low man in 
 some public place ; whom he at last invited 
 to fight. The man declined, under the pre- 
 tence that Cooke insulted him because he 
 (Cooke,) possessed more money than him-, 
 self. Upon which Cooke indignantly emptied 
 his pockets, and threw all the money he 
 probably had in the world into the fire, ex- 
 claimjng, as he resumed his boxing attitude, 
 
 “ Now', you vulgar scoundrel, we are upon 
 equal terms !” 
 
 Mathews's first marriage. — In the summer 
 of 1797, Mr. Mathews met at the house of a 
 mutual friend, a young lady about his own 
 age, of very prepossessing manners, and of 
 superior mind. It was said that the “ gods 
 had made her poetical,” and that she was 
 otherwise a person of elegant attainments. 
 These young people became very intimate ; 
 and though friendship in such cases is not 
 believed in by people of experience, I have 
 been assured by both of the parties that their 
 acquaintance begun and continued upon that 
 basis alone, for some time. One day, how- 
 ever, the young man, in a tete a tete with the 
 interesting orphan, (for such she was,) in a 
 pensive mood, was drawn into a hearing of 
 her history. She was the daughter of a phy- 
 sician, Dr. Strong, of Exeter, who, by a con- 
 currence of wayward events, became embar- 
 rassed, and died almost pennyless, leaving his 
 only child upon the compassion of friends. 
 She, however, was too proud to lead a life of 
 dependence, and settled herself in a school, 
 instructing a limited number of young ladies 
 from the stores acquired by her education, 
 laid up by her parents as resources for her 
 own happiness in the position in society she 
 was originally intended to take. With this 
 best dowry that a child can boast of, she was 
 enubled to obtain some of the comforts which 
 it was at first hoped she might enjoy, without 
 using her mental gains for their purchase ; 
 and at this period she was labouring in her 
 vocation, and highly esteemed by all who 
 knew her. The story of her helpless youth, 
 and her honourable struggles, which allowed 
 her a bare support, made an impression upon 
 the somewhat romantic youth. He was not 
 in any degree heart-touched ; but pity is con- 
 fessedly akin to love, if not nearly related. 
 He had merely called upon Miss Strong for 
 art hour’s lounge on a day of non rehearsal, 
 without more intention or expectation than 
 civility and kindness created ; but after an 
 hour’s stay, he left her presence as her affi- 
 anced husband l As he walked towards his 
 lodging, he asked himself what could have ii - 
 duced the offer he had made to this amiable 
 
12 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 girl ? — and he found no answer in his heart. 
 He was neither “ in love,” nor “ pleased with 
 ruin;” and yet he had plunged into the one 
 Without any of the sweet inducements of the 
 other. Well, what was done could not be un- 
 done. He had listened to her woes, and ad- 
 mired her character ; and in the enthusiasm 
 of youth and the moment, he had offered to 
 protect the young creature against further toil 
 and care. He had settled to marry a person 
 without sixpence, and undertaken to provide 
 for her upon the splendid expectancy of 
 twelve shillings per week ! and this without 
 what is called being in love ! 
 
 That his intended wife was at that period 
 deeply attached to him, every moment of her 
 after-life indisputably evinced ; and it is no 
 mean praise of her husband, under the cir- 
 cumstances of their union, that he not only 
 never divulged the delicate secret of his hav- 
 ing inconsiderately and inadvertently made 
 her the oiler of his hand, but throughout her 
 married life he treated her with every kind- 
 ness and attention. Nor do I believe that, 
 except to his second wife, (whom he really 
 loved.) he ever committed the truths of his 
 dispassionate feelings towards his devoted 
 Eliza. [This is very well told, but there is 
 something assumed. Mr. Mathews might 
 not have been in love, and there are theories 
 about loving twice, into which we shall not 
 enter ; but certainly he entered into the en- 
 gagement, not upon the splendid expectancy 
 of twelve shillings a-week, but upon a well- 
 grounded expectation of rising in his profes- 
 sion. We shall resume our extracts in a 
 future number.] 
 
 THE MURDEROUS BATTLE OF 
 GROKOW, 
 
 BETWEEN THE POLES AND RUSSIANS. 
 
 The battle of Grokow, the greatest in Europe 
 since that of Waterloo, was fought on the 
 25th of February, 1831, and the place where 
 I stood commanded a view of the whole 
 ground. The Russian army was under the 
 command of Deibitsch, and consisted of one 
 hundred and forty thousand infantry, forty 
 thousand cavalry, and three hundred and 
 twelve pieces of cannon. This enormous 
 force was arranged in two lines of combatants, 
 and a third of reserve. * * Against this 
 immense army the Poles opposed less than 
 fifty thousand men and a hundred pieces of 
 cannon, under the command of General 
 Skrzynecki. At break of day, the whole 
 force of the Russian right wing, with a ter- 
 rible fire of fifty pieces of artillery, and co- 
 lumns of infantry, charged the Polish left, 
 with the determination of carrying it by a 
 single and overpowering effort. The Poles, 
 with six thousand five hundred men, and 
 twelve pieces of artillery, not yielding a foot 
 of ground, and knowing they could hope for 
 
 no succour, resisted this attack for several 
 hours, until the Russians slackened their fire. 
 About ten o’clock, the plain was suddenly co- 
 vered with the Russian forces issuing from 
 the cover of the forest, seeming one undivided 
 mass of troops. Two hundred pieces of can- 
 non, posted on a single line, commenced a 
 fire which made the earth tremble, and was 
 more terrible than the oldest officers, many of 
 whom had fought at Marengo and Auster- 
 litz, had ever beheld. The Russians now 
 made an attack upon the right wing ; but 
 foiled in this, as upon the left, Diebitsch di- 
 rected the strength of his army against the 
 Forest of Elders, hoping to divide the Poles 
 into two parts. One hundred and twenty 
 pieces of cannon were brought to bear on this 
 one point, and fifty battalions, incessantly 
 pushed to the attack, kept up a scene of mas- 
 sacre unheard of in the annals of war. A 
 Polish officer who was in the battle told me 
 that the small streams which intersected the 
 forest were so choked with dead, that the in- 
 fantry marched directly over their bodies. 
 The heroic Poles, with twelve battalions, for 
 four hours defended the forest against the tre- 
 mendous attack. Nine times they were driven 
 out, and nine times, by a series of admirably- 
 executed manoeuvres, they repulsed the Rus- 
 sians with immense loss. Batteries/ now 
 concentrated in one point, were in a moment 
 hurried to another, and the artillery advanced 
 to the charge like cavalry, sometimes within 
 a hundred feet of the enemy’s columns, and 
 there opened a murderous fire of grape. At 
 three o’clock the generals, many of whom were 
 wounded, and most of whom had their horses 
 shot under them, and fought on foot at the 
 head of their divisions, resolved upon a retro- 
 grade movement, so as to draw the Russians 
 on the open plain. Diebitsch, supposing it 
 to be a flight, looked over to the city and ex- 
 claimed, “ Well, then, it appears that, after 
 this bloody day, I shall take tea in the Bel- 
 videre Palace.’’ The Russian troops de- 
 bouched from the forest. A cloud of Rus- 
 sian cavalry, with several regiments of heavy 
 cuirassiers at their head, advanced to the at- 
 tack. Colonel Pientka, who had kept up an 
 unremitting fire from his battery for five 
 hours, seated with perfect sang froid upon a 
 disabled piece of cannon, remained to give 
 another effective fire, then left at full gallop 
 a post which he had so long occupied under 
 the terrible fire of the enemy’s artillery. This 
 rapid movement of his battery animated the 
 Russian forces. The cavalry advanced on a 
 trot upon the line of a battery of rockets. A 
 terrible discharge was poured into their ranks, 
 and the horses, galled to madness by the 
 flakes of fire, became wholly ungovernable, 
 and broke away, spreading disorder in every 
 direction ; the whole body swept helplessly 
 along the fire of the Polish infantry, and in a 
 few minutes was so completely ^annihilated* 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 13 
 
 that, of a regiment of cuirassiers who bore in- 
 scribed on their helmits the “ Invincibles,” 
 not a man escaped. The wreck of the routed 
 cavalry, pursued by the lancers, carried along 
 in its flight the columns of infantry ; a gene- 
 ral retreat commenced, and the cry of “ Poland 
 for ever” reached the walls of Warsaw to 
 cheer the hearts of its anxious inhabitants. 
 So terrible was the fire of that day, that in 
 the Polish army there was not a single gene- 
 ral or staff' officer who had not his horse 
 killed or wounded under him ; two-thirds of 
 the officers, and, perhaps, of the soldiers, had 
 their clothes pierced with balls, and more 
 than a tenth part of the army were wounded. 
 Thirty thousand Russians aud ten thousand 
 Poles were left on the field of battle ; rank 
 upon rank lay prostrate on the earth, and the 
 Forest of Elders was so strewed with bodies, 
 that it received from that day the name of 
 the “Forest of the dead.” The Czar heard 
 with dismay, and all Europe with astonish- 
 ment, that the crosser of the Balkan had 
 been foiled under the walls of Warsaw. All 
 day, my companion said, the cannonading 
 was terrible. Crowds of citizens, of both 
 sexes, and all ages, were assembled on the 
 spot where we stood, earnestly watching the 
 progress of the battle, sharing in all its vicis- 
 situdes, in the highest state of excitement, as 
 the clearing up of the columns of smoke 
 showed when the Russians or the Poles had 
 fled ; and he described the entry of the rem- 
 nant of the Polish army into Warsaw as sub- 
 lime and terrible ; their hair and faces were 
 begrimed with powder and blood ; their ar- 
 mour shattered and broken, and all, even dy- 
 ing men, were singing patriotic songs ; and 
 when the fourth regiment, among whom was 
 a brother of my companion, and who had par- 
 ticularly distinguished themselves in the bat- 
 tle, crossed the bridge, and filed slowly 
 through the streets, their lances shivered 
 against the cuirasses of the guards, their hel- 
 mits broken, their faces black and spotted 
 with blood, some erect, some tottering, and 
 some barely able to sustain themselves in the 
 saddle, above the stern chorus of patriotic 
 songs rose the distracted cries of mothers, 
 wives, daughters, and lovers, seeking among 
 this broken band for forms dearer than life, 
 many of whom were then sleeping on the bat- 
 tle-field. — Stephens's Travels. 
 
 CURE OF THE WOUNDS IN CATTLE. 
 
 A portion of the yolk of an egg, mixed 
 with the spirit of turpentine of Florence, will 
 cure the most aggravated wounds of domestic 
 animals. The part affected must be bathed 
 several times with the mixture each day, 
 when a perfect cure will be effected in lorty- 
 eiglit hours . — Liverpool Mercury. 
 
 Cije public journals. 
 
 JACK SHEPPARD. 
 
 [We have read, with great pleasure, the first 
 part of Mr. Ainsworth’s new romance of 
 Jack Sheppard* It displays much graphic 
 truth and beautiful sentiment ; told in ner- 
 vous language, pleasingly delineating the 
 mysteries of life. The following extracts are 
 from the admirable and powerfully-written 
 tide of 
 
 The JVidow and Child."] 
 
 On the night of Friday, the 26th of No- 
 vember, 1703, and at the hour of eleven, 
 the door of a miserable tenement, situated 
 in an obscure quarter of the Borough ot 
 Southwark, known ns the Old Mint, was 
 opened ; and a man, with a lantern in his 
 hand, appeared at the threshold. This 
 
 E erson, whose age might be about forty, 
 iid something of the air of a mechanic, 
 though he, also, looked like one well-to-do 
 in the world. In stature he was short and 
 stumpy ; in person corpulent ; and in coun- 
 tenance, (so far us it could be discerned,) 
 sleek, snub-nosed, and demure. 
 
 Immediately behind the individual answer- 
 ing to the above description stood a 
 
 { •ale, poverty-stricken woman, whose for- 
 orn aspect contrasted strongly with the 
 man’s plump and comfortable physiognomy. 
 Dressed in a tattered black stuff gown, dis- 
 coloured by various stains, and intended, it 
 would seem, from the remnants of rusty 
 crape with which it was here and there 
 tricked out, to represent the garb of widow- 
 hood— this pitiable creature held in her arms 
 a sleeping infant, swathed in the folds ot a 
 linsey-woolsey shawl. 
 
 “ Well, good night, Mr. Wood,” said 
 she, in the deep, hoarse accents of consump- 
 tion ; “ and may fiod Almighty bless and 
 reward you for your kindness! You were 
 always the best of masters to my poor hus- 
 band ; and now you’ve proved the best of 
 friends to his widow and orphan boy.” 
 
 “ Poh ! poh ! say no more about it,” 
 rejoined the man hastily. “ I’ve done no 
 more than my duty, Mrs. Sheppard, and 
 neither deserve, nor desire your thanks. 
 And such slight relief as I can afford should 
 have been offered earlier, if I’d known 
 where you’d taken refuge after your unfor- 
 tunate husband’s — ” 
 
 “ Execution, you would say, sir,” added 
 Mrs. Sheppard, with a deep sigh, perceiving 
 that her benefactor hesitated to pronounce 
 the word. *• Y<.u show more consideration 
 to the feelings of a hempen widow, than 
 there is any need to show. I’m used to 
 insult as I am to misfortune, and am jgrown 
 callous to both ; but I’m not used to com- 
 passion, and know not how to take it. My 
 
 * In Bentley's Miscellany. No. 25. 
 
14 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 heart would speak if it could, for it is very 
 full. There was a time, long, long ago, 
 when the tears would have rushed to my 
 eyes unbidden at the bare mention of gene- 
 rosity like yours, Mr. Wood ; but they never 
 come now. I have never wept since that 
 day.” 
 
 And I trust you will never have occasion 
 to weep again, my poor soul,” replied Wood, 
 setting down his lantern, and brushing a few 
 drops from his eyes, “ unless it be tears of 
 joy. Pshaw !” added he, making an effort 
 to subdue his emotion, “ I can’t leave you 
 in this way. 1 must stay a minute longer, 
 if only to see you smile.” 
 
 So saying, he re-entered the house, closed 
 the door, and, followed by the widow, pro- 
 ceeded to the fire-place, where a handful of 
 chips, apparently just lighted, crackled 
 within the rusty grate. 
 
 “ You’ve but a sorry lodging, Mrs. Shep- 
 pard,” said Wood, glancing round the cham- 
 ber, as he expanded his palms before the 
 scanty flame. 
 
 “ It’s wretched enough, indeed, sir,” 
 rejoined the widow ; “ but, poor as it is, 
 it’s better than the cold stones and open 
 streets.” 
 
 “ Ot course — of course,” returned Wood, 
 hastily; “ anything’s better than that. But, 
 take a drop of wine,” urged he, filling a 
 drinking-horn, and presenting it to her ; 
 
 “ it’s choice canary, and ’ll do you good. 
 And now, come and sit by me, my dear, 
 and let’s have a little quiet chat together. 
 When things are at the worst they’ll mend. 
 Take my word for it, your troubles are 
 over.” 
 
 “ I hope they are, sir,” answered Mrs. 
 Sheppard, with a faint smile and a doubtful 
 shake of the head, as Wood drew her to a 
 seat beside him, “ for I’ve had my full share 
 of misery. But I don’t look for peace on 
 this side the grave.” 
 
 “ Nonsense!” cried Wood: “ while 
 
 there’s life there’s hope. Never be down- 
 hearted. Besides,” added he, opening the 
 shawl in which the infant was wrapped, and 
 throwing the light of the candle full upon its 
 sickly but placid features, “ it’s sinful to 
 repine while you’ve a child like this to com- 
 fort you. Lord help him! he’s the very 
 image of his father. Like carpenter, like 
 chips.” 
 
 “ That likeness is the chief cause of my 
 misery,” replied the widow, shuddering. 
 
 “ Were it not for that, he would indeed be 
 a blessing and a comfort to me. He never 
 cries nor frets, as children generally do, but 
 lies at my bosom, or on my knee, as quiet 
 und us gentle as jou see him now. But, 
 when 1 look upon his innocent face, and 
 see how like he is to his father,— when I 
 think of that father’s shameful ending, and 
 recollect how free from guilt he once was, 
 —at such times, Mr. Wood, despair will 
 
 come over me; and, dear as this babe is to 
 me, fur dearer than my own wretched life, 
 which I would lay down for him any minute, 
 I have prayed to heaven to remove him, 
 rather than he should grow up to be a man, 
 and be exposed to his father’s temptations — 
 rather than he should live as wickedly and 
 die as disgracefully as his father. And, 
 when I have seen him pining away before 
 my eyes, getting thinner and thinner every 
 day, I have sometimes thought my prayers 
 were heard.” 
 
 “ Marriage and hanging go by destiny,” 
 observed Wood, after a pause ; “ but 1 trust 
 your child is reserved for a better fute than 
 either, Mrs. Sheppard.” 
 
 “ Goodness only knows what he’s reserved 
 for,” rejoined the widow in a desponding 
 tone; “ but if Mynheer Van Galgebrok, 
 whom I met last night at the Cross Shovels, 
 spoke the truth, little Jack will never die in 
 his bed.” 
 
 “ Save us!” exclaimed Wood. “And who 
 is this Van Gal — Gal — what’s his outlandish 
 name ?” 
 
 “ Van Galgebrok,” replied the w'idow. 
 
 “ He’s the famous Dutch conjurer who 
 foretold King William’s accident and death, 
 last February but one, a month before either 
 event happened, and gave out that another 
 prince over the water would soon enjoy his 
 own again ; for which he was committed to 
 Newgate, and whipped at the cart’s tail. He 
 went by another name then, — Rykhart 
 Scherprechter I think he called himself. 
 His fellow-prisoners nicknamed him the gal- 
 lows-provider, from a habit he had of pick- 
 ing out all those who were destined to the 
 gibbet. He was never known to err, and 
 was as much dreaded as the gaol-fever in 
 consequence. He singled out my poor hus- 
 band from a crowd of other felons ; and you 
 know how right he was in that case, 
 sir.” 
 
 “ Ay, marry,” replied Wood, with a look 
 that seemed to ’say that he did not think it 
 required any surprising skill in the art of 
 divination to predict the doom of the indivi- 
 dual in question ; but whatever opinion he 
 might entertain, he contented himself with 
 inquiring into the grounds of the conjurer’s 
 evil augury respecting the infant. “ What 
 did the old fellow judge from, eh, Joan?’’ 
 asked he. 
 
 “ From a black mole under the child’s 
 right ear, shaped like a coffin, which is a 
 bad sign ; and a deep line just above the 
 middle ot the left thumb, meeting round 
 about in the form ot a noose, which is a 
 worse,” replied Mrs. Sheppard. 
 
 “You may see the marks on the child 
 yourself, if you choose, sir,” urged the 
 widow. 
 
 “ See the devil!— not I,” cried Wood im- 
 patiently. “ I didn’t think you’d been so 
 easily fooled, Joan.” 
 
15 
 
 TIIK MI HUGH. 
 
 “ Fooled or not,” returned Mrs. Shep- 
 pard mysteriously, “ old Van told me one 
 tiling which has come true already.” 
 
 “ What’s that?” asked Wood with some 
 curiosity. 
 
 “ He said, by way of comfort, I suppose, 
 after ihe fright he gave me at first, that the 
 child would find a friend, within twenty-four 
 hours, who would stand by him through 
 life.” 
 
 “ A friend is not so soon gained as lost/’ 
 replied Wood; “ but how has the prediction 
 been fulfilled, Joan, eh ?” 
 
 “ I thought you would have guessed, sir,” 
 replied the widow, timidly. 
 
 “ Well, my dear, I’ve a proposal to make 
 in regard to this babby of yours, which may, 
 or may not, be agreeable. All I can say is, 
 it’s well meant ; and I may add, I’d have 
 made it five minutes ago, if you’d given me 
 the opportunity.” 
 
 “ Pray come to the point, sir,” said Mrs. 
 Sheppard, somewhat alarmed by this pre- 
 amble. 
 
 “ I am, coming to the point, Joan. The 
 more haste, the worse speed — better the feet 
 slip than the tongue. However, to cut a 
 long matter short, my proposal’s this : — I’ve 
 taken a fancy to your bantling ; and, as I’ve 
 no son of my own, if it meets with your con- 
 currence and that of Mrs. Wood, (for I never 
 do any thing without consulting my better 
 half,) I’ll take the boy, educate him, and 
 bring him up to my own business of a car- 
 penter.” 
 
 The poor widow hung her head, and 
 pressed her child closer to her breast. 
 
 “ Well, Joan,” said the benevolent me- 
 chanic, after he had looked at her stedfastly 
 for a few moments, “ what say you ? — 
 silence gives consent, eh ?” 
 
 Mrs. Sheppard made an effort to speak, but 
 her voice was choked by emotion. 
 
 “ Shall’ I take the babby home with me ?” 
 persisted Wood, in a tone between jest and 
 earnest. 
 
 “ I cannot part with him,” replied the 
 widow, bursting into tears ; indeed, indeed, 
 I cannot.” 
 
 “ So, I’ve found out the way to move her,” 
 thought the carpenter; “ those tears will do 
 her some good, at all events. Not part with 
 hrm !” added he aloud. “ Why, you wouldn’t 
 stand in the way of his good fortune, surety ? 
 I’ll be a second father to him, I tell you. 
 Remember what the conjurer said.” 
 
 “ I do remember it, sir,” replied Mrs. 
 Sheppard, “ and am most grateful for your 
 offer. But I dare not accept it.’’ 
 
 “ Dare not !” echoed the carpenter ; “ I 
 don’t understand you, Joan.” 
 
 “ I mean to say, sir,” answered Mrs. 
 Sheppard in a troubled voice, “ that if I lost 
 my child, I should lose all 1 have left in the 
 world. I have neither father, mother, bro- 
 ther, sister, nor husband — I have only him." 
 
 “ Give me till to-morrow,” implored she, 
 “ and if I can bring myself to part with him, 
 you shall have him without another word.” 
 
 “ I don’t think he would leave me, even if 
 I could part with him,” observed Mrs. Shep- 
 pard, smiling through her tears. 
 
 “ I don’t think he would,’’ acquiesced the 
 carpenter. “ No friend like the mother, for 
 the babby knows no other.” 
 
 “ And that’s true,” rejoined Mrs. Shep- 
 pard ; for if I had not been a mother, I would 
 not have survived the day on which I became 
 a widow.” 
 
 “ You mustn’t think of that, Mrs. Shep- 
 pard,” said Wood, in a soothing tone. 
 
 “ I can’t help thinking of it, sir,” an- 
 swered the widow. “ I can never get poor 
 Tom's last look out of my head, as he stood 
 in the Stone-Hall at Newgate, after his 
 irons had been knocked off, unless I manage 
 to stupify myself somehow. The dismal 
 tolling of Saint Sepulchre’s bell is for ever 
 ringing in my ears — oh !” 
 
 “If that’s the case,” observed Wood, “ I’m 
 surprised you should like to have such a fright- 
 ful picture constantly in view as that over the 
 chimney-piece.” 
 
 “ I’d good reasons for placing it there, sir ; 
 but don’t question me about them now, or 
 you'll drive me mad,” returned Mrs. Shep- 
 pard wildly. 
 
 “ Well, well, we’ll say no more about it,” 
 replied Wood ; “ and, by way of changing 
 the subject, let me advise you on no account 
 to fly to strong waters for consolation, Joan. 
 One nail drives out another, it’s true ; but the 
 worst nail you can employ is a coffin-nail. 
 Gin Lane’s the nearest road to the church- 
 yard.” 
 
 “ It may be; but if it shortens the dis- 
 tance, and lightens the journey, 1 care not,” 
 retorted the widow, who seemed by this re- 
 proach to be roused into sudden eloquence. 
 “ To those who, like me, have never been 
 able to get out of the dark and dreary paths 
 of life, the grave is indeed a refuge, and the 
 sooner they reach it the better. The spirit I 
 drink may be poison, — it may kill me, : — per- 
 haps it is killing me : — but so would hunger, 
 cold, misery, — so would my own thoughts. I 
 should have gone mad without it. Gin is 
 the poor man’s friend, — his sole set-off 
 against the rich man’s luxury. It comforts 
 him when he is most forlorn. It may be 
 treacherous, it may lay up a store of future 
 woe ; but it insures present happiness, and 
 that is sufficient. When I have traversed 
 the streets a houseless wanderer, driven with 
 curses from every door where I have solicited 
 alms, and with blows from every gate way wheie 
 1 have sought shelter, — when I have crept into 
 some deserted building, and stretched my 
 wearied limbs upon a bulk, in the vain hope 
 of repose, — or worse than all, wlien, frenzied 
 with want, I have yielded to horrible tempta- 
 tion, and earned a meal in the only way I 
 
16 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 could earn one,— when I have felt, at times 
 like these, my heart siuk within me, I have 
 drank of this drink, and have at once forgot- 
 ten my cares, my poverty, my guilt. Old 
 thoughts, old feelings, old faces, and old 
 scenes, have returned to me, and I have 
 landed myself happy, — as happy as I am 
 now.’’ And she burst into a wild hysterical 
 laugh. 
 
 “ Poor creature !’’ ejaculated Wood. “Do 
 you call this frantic glee happiness ?” 
 
 “ Its all the happiness i have known for 
 years,’’ returned the widow, becoming sud- 
 denly calm, “ and it’s short-lived enough, as 
 you perceive. I tell you wha', Mr. Wood,” 
 added she in a hollow voice, and with a 
 ghastly look, “ gin may bring ruin ; but as 
 long as poverty, vice, and ill-usage exist, it 
 will be drunk I” 
 
 “ God forbid !” exclaimed Wood fervently; 
 and, as if afraid of prolonging the interview, 
 he added, with some precipitation, “ But 1 
 must be going: I’ve stayed here too long 
 already. You shall hear from me to-mor- 
 row.” 
 
 CI)e 
 
 Curran’s Description of a speech made by 
 Serjeant Hewitt. — The learned Serjeant’s 
 speech put me exactly in mind of a familiar 
 utensil in domestic use, commonly called an 
 extinguisher : — it began at a point, and on it 
 went, widening and widening, until at last it 
 fairly put the question out altogether. 
 
 Spurtan Oath. — The following is a curious 
 specimen of the laconic manner in which 
 state business was despatched amongst the 
 Spartans (translated from the Latin) : — “ We 
 that are as good as you, constitute you our 
 king, and if you defend our liberties, we well 
 defend you ; if not, not.” 
 
 An Irish gentleman, who certainly pre- 
 served most patriotically all the lichness of his 
 original pronunciation, had visited Chel- 
 tenham, and during his stay there acquired 
 a most extraordinary hal.it of periietually 
 lolling his tongue out of bis mouth ! — What 
 can he mean by it ?” said somebody to Curran. 
 — Mean by it,” said Curran, ‘ why, he means 
 if he can, to catch the English accent.’ ’ 
 
 An observer has made the calculation, that 
 there are in France 1,700,843 doctors, and 
 that there are about 1,400,651 patients. On 
 the other hand there are 1,900,403 lawyers, 
 and 998, 0U0 clients only. So that if the odd 
 902,403 lawyers do not fall ill with grief and 
 disappointment, 900,192 doctors will have 
 to “ stand at ease.” H. M. 
 
 He who cheats the man that confides in 
 him, in a witty manner, may make us laugh 
 at his jests, and half disarm our anger; but 
 reflection soon insures him our contempt 
 and indignation. — Fry. 
 
 Sterne says, positiveness is a most absurd 
 foible; for if in the right, it lessens our vic- 
 tory; if in the wrong, it adds shame to our 
 defeat. 
 
 One night an order of Mr. Sheridan’s was 
 stopped at the box door of Drury-Lane 
 Theatre, and pronounced a forgery, because 
 the door-keeper could read it ! — Mathews. 
 
 Public Benefactors. — Every one can and 
 should do something for the public, if it be 
 only to kick a piece of orange-peel into the 
 road from the foot-pavement. 
 
 A fisherman of Valery-sur-Somme lately 
 caught in his nets one o I those strange fishes 
 called syrens. The head and the breasts 
 bear a striking affinity to those parts in the 
 human frame ; and when the creature stands 
 in the water at half length, it really looks 
 like a woman. It has been dispatched to the 
 Museum of Natural History, and will, it is 
 hoped, reach its destination alive. 
 
 H. M. 
 
 Terrible effects of Cannibalism. — At the 
 Haihunga, where many hundred families as- 
 sembled, I requested Kahika, from a feeling 
 of curiosity, to point out to me a single family 
 whose relatives had all died natural deaths ; 
 but he stated he could not even allude to a 
 party who had not a melancholy tale of can- 
 nibalism to relaie, whereby their friends had 
 suffered, or who had not also partaken of the 
 blood of their enemies ; and added, but . for 
 the frequent fires that take place in villages, 
 and consequent destruction of so many of the 
 native antiquities, scarce a family existed in 
 the country that would not possess at least the 
 bone of an enemy, worked up either as a 
 whistle or a bracelet, ear-ornament or fish- 
 hook — Polack's New Zealand. 
 
 Obstinacy of a New Zealand Chief. — I had 
 at one time a fowling-piece by me, that had 
 not been cleaned or discharged for six weeks 
 previously. A silly servant, in my absence, 
 had put an additional charge within it ; 
 Kawika, an elderly chief, saw me take up tire 
 piece, intending to extract the charges, and 
 have it cleaned, but he entreated hard that I 
 would let him discharge it. In vain I told 
 him how long since it had been loaded ; he 
 was obdurate, neither would he allow me to 
 extract a single charge ; as he had possession 
 of it, it was in vain to contest the point ; he 
 fired, the gun kicked, as it is technically 
 termed, anil knocked him down. He aro.'.e 
 bleeding, “ ’twas from the nose,” and tle- 
 tnanded payment for his hurt, and the bad 
 conduct of my piece. I gave him the price, 
 viz., a head of tobacco. — ibid. 
 
 LONDON: Printed and published by J. I, IM III Hi), 
 143, Strand, (near Somerset House); and sold »y 
 all Booksellers and Newsmen — In PARIS, by all 
 the Booksellers.— In FHANCEOlli, CHARLES 
 JUGEL. 
 
€<K Jitmt 
 
 OF 
 
 LITERATURE. AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION. 
 
 No. 931.] SATURDAY. JANUARY 12, 1839. [Prick 2 d. 
 
 THE EXTERIOR OF THE NEW SYNAGOGUE, GREAT ST. HELEN’S. 
 
 These splendid buildings occupy a site of 
 freehold ground, where formerly stood a 
 range of warehouses belonging to the East 
 India Company ; they comprise, in addition 
 to the Synagogue, a large open vestibule, 
 with offices, entrances, and staircases to the 
 ladies’ galleries, a large vestry or committee- 
 room on the one pair, 42 feet by 2 1 feet, and 
 two separate residences for the reader and 
 secretary. The first stone was laid on the 
 10th of May, 1837- 
 
 The facade is of Italian architecture, and 
 extends about 110 feet from east to west. 
 The centre is occupied by a spacious open 
 vestibule, with coupled Tuscan columns, sup- 
 porting three arches. Within ihe vestibule 
 on either side are marble lavacatories for the 
 hands, and opposite are the three doorways 
 leading to the interior of the building. 
 
 The upper part of the fafade consists of 
 seven large windows, with semi-circular 
 heads giving light to the large vestry- room 
 and staircases. On each side of the central 
 mass are the entrances to the ladies’ stair- 
 cases and galleries. The houses for the 
 
 Von. xxxm. C 
 
 officers of the Synagogue form the two wings. 
 The centre part is crowned with a bold cor- 
 nice and blocking of Portland stone, being a 
 modification of the well-known Vignola 
 cornice. 
 
 The effect, when lit up, most be particularly 
 grand and imposing; and although the light 
 will certainly detract from the splendour of 
 the painted windows in the ark, yet, as it is 
 observed in the Architect' s Journal, that if 
 a few gas-burners were placed before them 
 on the outside, they would show to even 
 greater advantage than by day, and would 
 diffuse a brilliancy and glow over the upper 
 parts of the recess. 
 
 It is owing to the kindness of Mr. Davies, 
 the architect, of Devonshire-square, that we 
 have been enabled to lay before our readers 
 the authentic particulars of the above noble 
 structure in this and the preceding number. 
 
 Mr. Davies aho lately erected the Marine 
 Insurance Company Fayade, Cornhill ; and 
 Messrs. Rothchild’s splendid Commercial 
 Buildings, St. Swithin’s Lane. 
 
18 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 THE LAND OF MY 'BIRTH. 
 
 “ England, with all thy faults I love thee still!” 
 (For the Mirror.') 
 
 Britain ! verdant, far-fam’d Isle, 
 
 How I love thy people's smile ! 
 
 Happy are thy sons, aud free. 
 
 Sons and heirs of Liberty ! 
 
 Native oaks thy forests hear, 
 
 Future " wooden walls” to rear ! 
 
 Plenty marks thy rural plains. 
 
 Honest hearts thy fleet maintains ! 
 
 Land of my forefathers I Home of my birth I 
 Fairest art thou of ttie nations of earth ! 
 
 Long may thy sons flourish, — the sons of the free ; 
 Hail, hail, far-fam'd Britain, fair isle of the sea I 
 Britain 1 Yes, I love thee still. 
 
 Memory tunes thy every rill ; 
 
 Golden’ grain thy valleys hear, 
 
 " Hearts of oak ” thy produce share 1 
 Science nerves thy people’s will, — 
 Commerce aids thy people’s skill 1 
 Public good thy laws proclaim ; — 
 
 Britain ! honour’d be thy name ! 
 
 Land of m y forefathers ! H ome of my birth . 
 Fairest art thou of the nations of earth 
 Lung may thy sous flourish ; — the sous ot the free ; 
 Hail, hail, far-fam'd Britain, fair isle of the sea ! 
 Britain ! happy, peaceful land, 
 
 Long may Heaven thy guardian stand . 
 Treasure, then, each peaceful hour, — 
 
 Rest not, but increase thy power ! 
 
 Sleep not, for the foe is nigh, — 
 
 Sleep not, while the war-whoop cry 
 Ttngles in thy people’s ear. 
 
 List ! prepare ! disdain to fear ! 
 
 Land of my forefathers ! Home ot my birth . 
 Fairest art thou of the nations of earth ! 
 
 Lon" may thv sons flourish, — the sons of the free, 
 Haif, hail’, far-fam'd Britain, fair isle of the sea ! 
 Britain ! may the demon war 
 Perish ’neath thy conquering car ! 
 
 Wasted be the hostile pow’r, — 
 
 Sacred be thy battle hour ! 
 
 Thine are sons, whose fair renown 
 Nations fear and worlds must own ! 
 
 Great art thou ! thy sous are free, — 
 Empires own their bravery ! 
 
 Laud of my forefathers ! Home of my birth ! 
 Fairest art thou of the nations of earth ! 
 
 Long may thy sons flourish,— the sons of tiie free 
 Hail, hail, far-fam'd Britain, fair isle of the sea ! 
 
 Georoe. 
 
 THE BEAUTEOUS FAIR. 
 
 ( For the Mirror.) 
 
 I saw a face — in the faint light 
 Of the moon’s pale midnight glare ; 
 
 And a tear glist’ning dim’d the sight 
 Of the eyes of “ The beauteous fair.” 
 
 I saw the smooth breast, and it heaved 
 Forth a sigh in the open air ; 
 
 And felt as it flew it relieved 
 The heart of “ The beauteous fair.” 
 
 I thought that the sweet lips did move. 
 
 And silently breathe forth a prayer 
 For him whom she dearly did love,— 
 
 The choice of “ The beauteous fair.” 
 
 I thought that a footstep approach’d, 
 
 A nd fancied another was there ; 
 
 But nought on the quiet encroach’d. 
 
 Save the sighs of “ The beauteous fair.” 
 
 Again, and a sweet gentle breath 
 Broke over the stillness of air ; 
 
 Again it was quiet as death. 
 
 But where, oh where— “ The beauteous fair”? 
 Her pure spirit had fled this earth. 
 
 And wing’d its way to regions — where 
 Her soul so pure receiv’d its birth, 
 
 In heaven now’s “ The beauteous fair 1” H.S. 
 
 THERE IS Nb SUCH THING AS 
 CHANCE. 
 
 Translated from the French. 
 
 (For the Mirror.) 
 
 As a young man of fashionable appearance 
 was turning the corner ot the Rue de Seine, 
 he suddenly stopped, and, raising his glass, 
 began to examine an old painting, hanging 
 against the wall, with the air of a connoi- 
 sieur. While thus engaged, his eye acci- 
 dentally rested on the figure of a lad respec- 
 tably dressed, standing in a dark corner — one 
 hand covered his face, while the other was 
 stretched out to receive the conti ibutions of 
 the charitable. At this moment two females 
 were passing ; one was enveloped in the 
 ample folds of a plaid cloak, and a thick 
 veil, through the latter of which one could 
 distinguish the clear blue eyes of a young 
 girl, sparkling like two brilliant stars through 
 the gloom of night ; the other had the ap- 
 pearance of a waiting-maid. 
 
 “ Lend me some money, Ninette,” said 
 the young lady who had observed the hoy, 
 “ I have forgotten my purse .” — “ Well ! 
 and so have I, mademoiselle, I have but just 
 sufficient to pay for crossing the Pout des 
 
 Arts We must give you something another 
 
 time, child,” continued the. soubrette to the 
 youthful mendicant as she passed on . — “ No, 
 no — lend me what you have,” replied her 
 young mistress, laying hold of her arm, “ we 
 can go over the Pont des Tuileries.” — “ But, 
 mademoiselle, that is so much farther, anil 
 you know how uneasy madame is when we 
 are too late — there ! it is just striking two at 
 the Institute.” — “ An additional reason that 
 you should lend me your money quickly,” 
 added the young lady, in a tone of slight im- 
 patience. The two sous were dropped into 
 the thin pale hand of the little fellow. 
 
 The young man who had been examining 
 the picture, observing this interesting scene, 
 directed his glass tuwards the lady, as she 
 hastened away to make up for lost time, and in 
 stepping over the wet pavement with the grace 
 of an elegant Parisian, exhibited a foot and an- 
 kle of faultless symmetry. But, turning the 
 corner formed by the quay at this place, she 
 was soon out of sight. He then approached 
 the little mendicant, who still held the two- 
 sous piece, and placed in his hand a five-franc. 
 
 The poor little fellow, on discovering the 
 amount of the donation, was quite overcome 
 by feelings of gratitude — “ Oh ! you are 
 very good, very kind, sir ! — this is just as 
 much as we want to pay our lodgings ; with- 
 out it our landlord would have turned us out, 
 and my father must have slept in the street 
 to-nigjit— Oh ! sir, you have saved his life.” 
 Aud t|Ffe poor fellow leant against the wall 
 for support. — “ What is your father doing, my 
 lad ?” said the young man, in a compas- 
 sionate tone . — “ Nothing, sir ; he was a 
 coachman, but was disabled by an accident, 
 
TIIE MIRROR. 
 
 19 
 
 and now he can do nothing ; while my mo- 
 ther lived she worked for him ; but since 
 her death, we have been obliged to pawn our 
 furniture, and I can do nothing. I have 
 
 come out to day in despair to beg Oh ! how 
 
 painful it has been — I can never do it again, 
 but, mon Dieu ! to-morrow will come, would 
 that I could work.” — “ And why not, my 
 lad, you express yourself well ; I suppose 
 you can read and write ?” — “ O yes, sir, and 
 cast accounts also ; my mother taught me.” 
 — “ If your father has no objection, you shall 
 be my servant, and I will provide for him 
 too.’’ The poor lad, overwhelmed with grati- 
 tude, burst into tears, and could with diffi- 
 culty express a wish that his benefactor 
 should come and see his father. They turned 
 into the Rue Mazarine. “ My name,” said 
 the little fellow, “ is Thom, I shall be four- 
 teen next Easter,” and he stood on tiptoe in 
 order to appear to the best advantage ; “ I pro- 
 mise to be very careful, attentive, and faith- 
 ful ; 1 can bear hunger without inconve- 
 nience — I am used to it. You can pay my 
 wages to my father, after deducting the five 
 francs which you gave me, and then, you 
 know, I shall not have received charity.” — 
 The young man smiled. — “ I shall thus do for 
 my poor old father, what he did for me when 
 I was helpless. Is not this right, sir?— But 
 here is the house. Excuse me if I walk first, 
 sir, the passage is dark.” He led his bene- 
 factor through a winding passage, and up 
 numerous flights of steps, until they arrived 
 at a miserable garret, where they found the 
 old coachman lying on a wretched pallet, 
 surrounded by all the appearance of extreme 
 poverty. He, of course, readily consented 
 to the proposition of M. Arnadee de Tainville, 
 to take Thom into his service, and himself to 
 the hospital of Rochefoucault. 
 
 Thom, equipped in a handsome livery, 
 waited on his master the next evening, to 
 ask if he had any further commands for him, 
 and if he had acquitted himself to his satis- 
 faction. “ Quite so,” was the reply — “ Are 
 you content with your new situation ?’*• — 
 “ Oh ! yes, sir, — there is but one thing that 
 troubles me now, — If I could but thank the 
 pretty girl that gave me the two sous yester- 
 day.” — How do you know that she was 
 pretty,” said his master eagerly . — “ It was 
 her voice, sir, — oh ! that sweet voice still 
 sounds in my ears ; I should know it a hun- 
 dred years hence, if I were to live so long. — 
 And, when I think,” continued he, “ that 
 she preferred going round the Pont des 
 Tuileries rather than refuse to assist the 
 unfortunate ! Perhaps I should not have 
 attracted your notice, if it had not been for 
 her. — But I hope to see her again.” And a 
 tear of gratitude rolled down his sunken 
 cheek. Arnadee de Tainville sighed, and 
 dismissed Thom for the night. 
 
 As the waiting-woman and her young 
 
 C 2 
 
 mistress turned the corner of the street in 
 which they resided, a post-chaise dashed by 
 them, and suddenly compelled them to draw 
 up against the wall. “ How late you are, 
 Antouine,” said M. Darblay, a grave and 
 worthy magistrate of the Cour Royale, in a 
 tone of reproach ; “ your cousin arrived unex- 
 pectedly in your absence, and the ambassador 
 with whom he travels to Naples, having only 
 allowed him time to change horses, he was 
 obliged to leave Paris without seeing you. 
 You are not yet personally acquainted with 
 him, my child, and I wished to introduce 
 you to each other before he set out for Italy, 
 where he is to remain six months.” — “ I beg 
 your pardon, my dear papa,” said Antonine, 
 breathless with running, “ but it was” * * * 
 — “ Is your aunt worse, then ?” exclaimed 
 Madame Darblay, eagerly. — “ No, dear 
 ma, she is much better, but it was * * • Oh, 
 I’il tell you another time ; at present, let us 
 talk of my cousin Gustavus.” 
 
 About six months after this, M. Darblay 
 was sitting one morning in his great arm- 
 chair at a round table, strewed with books, 
 albums, and journals of all sorts. An open 
 letter, bearing the post-mark of Naples, lay 
 before him; Madame Darblay, seated by his 
 side, held some embroidery, but her labours 
 had evidently been suspended by something 
 of greater interest. 
 
 “ So your nephew, madam, declines to 
 become my son-in-law; he has broken the 
 connexion which his father and myself were 
 so anxious to form, by marrying a stranger. 
 I wish him every happiness, but I regret his 
 marriage; the prospect of uniting him to our 
 family was the hope and consolation of my 
 old age.”— “ Antonine is still very young, 
 replied Madame Darblay, timidly, *• and your 
 rank in society, and her own inestimable 
 qualities, will procure her a better husband 
 than Gustavus ; but here comes Antonine,” 
 added Madame Darblay, hastily seizing the 
 letter, and putting it in her pocket. 
 
 Antonine approached her mother gaily, but 
 soon perceived by her countenance that some- 
 thing disagreeable had occurred ; and, al- 
 though she possessed the entire confidence of 
 her parents, she would not increase their em- 
 barrassment by unseasonable questions. She, 
 therefore, in order to withdraw their thoughts 
 from the subject, whatever it might be, sat 
 down at the piano, and, after preluding with 
 great taste and delicacy, executed a slow and 
 melancholy movement, from which she passed 
 rapidly to a gay and lively air * * *. Din. 
 ner was announced, and M. Darblay, who 
 had now recovered his habitual cheerfulness, 
 led his wife and daughter into the dining- 
 room. 
 
 During the afternoon, while M. Darblay 
 was enjoying his usual “ siesta,” Antonine 
 and her mother walked in the garden ; and 
 the latter, alter some hesitation, addressed 
 
20 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 her daughter on the subject which appeared 
 to press so heav} - on her mind. 
 
 “ Antonine, my dear, your cousin Gustavus 
 is married ! — you must think of him no more.” 
 — “ It will not be difficult to comply with 
 your request, my dear mother, as I have never 
 seen my cousin,” replied Antonine, calmly — 
 •'* I only saw the post-chaise in which he de- 
 parted for Italy.” — “ If Gustavus had known 
 your merits,” continued Madame Darblay, 
 “ he would not have renounced the engage- 
 ment his father had made for him on his 
 death-bed; therefore I excuse him. You arrived 
 ten minutes too late! Singular chance!” 
 added she. with a sigh . — “ And if you knew 
 the cause of that chance ,” said Antonine, 
 gaily. — “ My dear,” returned Madame Dar- 
 blay, recollecting herself, “ there is no such 
 thing as chance , — it is God who directs all 
 things ; and, what we call chance, is happy 
 or unhappy, according as the cause that has 
 produced it is good or bad.” — “ Oh ! make 
 yourself easy on the subject then — the cause 
 was good. It vs ill be all for the best. Who 
 knows if I should have been happy with my 
 cousin ?” 
 
 The steam-boat, “ la Ville de Corbeil,” 
 was on the point of starting from the quay de 
 la Greve ; the deck was crowded with passen- 
 gers, and the smoke ascended from its funnel 
 in a thick, black column, when a young man, 
 followed by a servant carrying a portmanteau, 
 alighted from a cabriolet, and jumped on 
 board as the bell rang. The noise and bustle 
 of starting having subsided, and each passen- 
 ger having arranged himself with a view to 
 his comfort during the short voyage, some be- 
 gan to read the poetry of de Lamartine ; 
 others were engaged with the morning pa- 
 pers ; but the greater number were leaning 
 over the side, staring vacantly at the boiling 
 foam occasioned by the wheels, as if listening 
 to the grumbling of the gently gliding wave 
 for being impeded in its course towards the 
 sea. Things were in this state when a heavy 
 splash was heard at one end of the boat, and, 
 immediately afterwards, a cry of “ My fa- 
 ther!” — My father is drowning! — Help!” 
 A voice at the other extremity responded, 
 “ That’s her voice, sir !’ Another splash was 
 heard, and, in a few seconds, two men were 
 seen in the water, one of whom, who appeared 
 to be an expert swimmer, supported the other 
 with some difficulty. The boat was stopped, 
 and the drowning man and his preserver were, 
 with the assistance of ropes, taken on board ; 
 where the former soon recovered, under the 
 tender care of his wife and daughter. 
 
 The “ Ville de Corbeil” continued its 
 voyage, and the passengers resumed their 
 former occupations. 
 
 M. Darblay had a summer retreat on the 
 banks of the Seine, not far from Corbeil, to 
 which he sometime^ retired from the active 
 duties of his office. It was to this retirement 
 
 he was going on the present occasion, when, 
 approaching incautiously too near the side, he 
 fell overboard. As soon as he could speak, he 
 eagerly asked to whom he was indebted 
 for his life P — “ To M. Amadee de Tain- 
 ville,” answered Thom, who was very officious 
 in rendering every assistance to M. Darblay. 
 — “ Amadee de Tainville !” echoed M. Dar- 
 blay, “ your father was my most intimate 
 college friend,” added he, offering his hand ; 
 “ but the military life he embraced separated 
 us, and he fell on the field of battle. I am 
 glad chance has made me indebted to his son 
 for my life.” — “ Chancel" murmured Anto- 
 nine, with her eyes full of tears . — “ Might I 
 ask the object of your voyage ?” said Madame 
 Darblay. “ This question is not prompted by 
 cold and idle curiosity, as you may readily 
 imagine, but by the most lively interest in 
 one to whom 1 owe so much.’’ — “ The truth 
 is,’’ answered de Tainville, “ that I have no 
 further object than a simple excursion in the 
 environs of Paris.” The Ville de Corbeil had, 
 by this time, arrived at her destination. Ma- 
 dame Darblay’, having first consulted her hus- 
 band’s looks, pressed de Tainville to do them 
 the honour of accepting the hospitality of their 
 country residence for a few days. Amadee 
 accepted the oiler without much hesitation : 
 and, giving his arm to Madame Darblay, he 
 led her on shore. Antonine followed, leaning 
 on the arm of her father ; and Thom and 
 the waiting-woman, carrying the band-boxes, 
 brought up the rear. 
 
 On a fine summer evening, some months after 
 the events related above, the family of the Dar- 
 blays, having ordered chairs to be carried to the 
 terrace in front of their house, which command- 
 ed a view of the Seine, were enjoying the cool 
 evening breeze, and admiring the rich land- 
 scape before them, softened by the last feeble 
 rays of the setting sun. Antonine, who was 
 sitting on her mother’s knee, appeared thought- 
 ful and melancholy ; her eyes were alternately 
 directed to her father and the river. — “ Anto- 
 nine,” said her mother, “ what is the matter 
 with you ? If you are unhappy at the thoughts 
 of your approaching marriage, say so; there 
 is still time to withdraw.” — “ Oh ! I am not 
 unhappy, hut I am always melancholy when 
 I look at the dark stream which winds along 
 so tranquilly ; I think of the frightful mo- 
 ment when it had nearly swallowed my dear 
 father, — and then I think of his preserver ! 
 Oh ! how I thank you for allowing me to love 
 Amadee de Tainville .” — “ De Tainville is a 
 noble fellow,’’ interrupted M. Darblay, ‘and 
 he is rising rapidly in his honourable profes- 
 sion ; — I should be proud of such a son ; and 
 I therefore bless the chance that has given 
 him to me as a son-in-law.” — “ Chance /” 
 repeated Antonine with an air of abstraction, 
 “ mamma says there is no such thing ; that 
 every thing is directed by the hand of God.” 
 The morrow was a joyful - a solemn day ; 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 21 
 
 it was that of the marriage of Antonine Dar- 
 blay and Amadee de Tainville. The neigh- 
 bouring peasants had been invited to partici- 
 pate in the festivities, and were assembled in 
 the court ; the domestics, dressed in their best, 
 and decorated with white favours, occupied 
 the ante-chamber, — Thom alone was absent. 
 Amadee, accompanied by his friends and re- 
 lations, anxiously awaited his affianced in the 
 drawing-room. She entered, leaning on her 
 father’s arm. The beautiful bride, enveloped 
 in the graceful folds of a white veil, and re- 
 sembling the figure of an angel surrounded 
 by clouds, was presented to the friends of the 
 bridegroom by her father, and Madame Dar- 
 blay, on her part, introduced de Tainville to 
 his new relations. The bridegroom, seizing 
 the hand of Antonine, conducted her to the 
 deep recess of a large window, the curlains of 
 which were partly drawn, and, removing them, 
 exhibited the figure of a mendicant. It was 
 Thom dressed as when he asked charity in 
 the Rue de Seine, and holding in his hand a 
 two-sous piece. Antonine, after a little hesi- 
 tation, recollected Thom, and, turning to 
 Amadee, demanded an explanation ot this 
 scene. — “ It is thus you have always appeared 
 to my imagination ; — since that day I sought 
 you every where, but without success, till the 
 fearful moment when Thom knew your voice.” 
 Madame Darblay, observing the emotion of 
 Antonine, approached to know the cause of 
 it. 
 
 “ Ah ! my dear mother !” cried Antonine, 
 hiding her face in her bosom, “ you are right, 
 — “ there is no such thing as chance /” 
 
 JH. 
 
 [In commencing, with the New Year, a new 
 volume of The Mirror, the Proprietor and 
 Editor are anxious, by giving it a new fea- 
 ture, to evince their gratitude for the un- 
 wearied patronage that has uniformly been 
 bestowed upon it ; and they conceive they 
 cannot better meet the advance of improve- 
 ment now manifesting itself in every branch 
 of publication, than by furnishing 
 
 A SERIES OF ORIGINAL ARTICLES, 
 
 both in prose and verse, on all such topics as 
 may be likely to prove most interesting and 
 entertaining to the general reader. They 
 commence with a First of a Series of Ori- 
 ginal Songs, written expressly for this work 
 by Mr. Moncrieff, whose dramatic produc- 
 tions have so long been favourably known, 
 and whose compositions of a similar nature 
 ill the Old Monthly, and other first-rate pe- 
 riodical works, some of which have been 
 lately quoted in this publication, have been 
 so much admired by the public. Other arti- 
 cles by popular writers are now in a course of 
 negociation, and will successively appear, 
 rendering the Mirror, together with its 
 
 other claims, equal to the most favoured pub- 
 lications of the day.] 
 
 THE WAITS* 
 
 WRITTEN BY MR. MONCRIEFF, 
 
 For the Mirror. 
 
 OLEE. 
 
 Come join with me, my jovial mates, 
 
 Let us sing a pleasant rhyme. 
 
 In praise of the Waits, the merry merry Waits, 
 
 Of the jolly Christmas time ! 
 
 Oil how I love, all joys above. 
 
 To be woke in the mid of night. 
 
 In my snug bed lying, 
 
 By the gay Waits playing. 
 
 Foretaste of Heaven’s delight. 
 
 While all is gloom and snow without. 
 
 And ever and anon they sing timely out, 
 
 “ Good morning my merry masters and mistresses all. 
 We hope you will uot forget the poor Waits’ call 1 
 l’ast Twelve o'Clock !’’ 
 
 • The admirers of the good old custum will be 
 pleased to know, that those “ Harmonious Blasters’* 
 of the night, The Waits, have this season been more 
 general in their visits than ordinarily. In no parisli 
 of the metropolis have the “ worthy inhabitants’* 
 had to wait for the Waits, but have, on the contrary, 
 uniformly been waited upon by them. A copy of 
 the gratifying notice subjoined was regularly left at 
 all the houses in the aristocratic parish of St. George 
 in the West, where Royalty itself, but for its ab- 
 sence at Brighton, might have bad its “ gentle 
 slumbers ” stolen upon by these “ wandering melo- 
 dists,” notes of melody awakening sweet echo, on 
 the dull, and solemn hours of the night, and again, 
 been lulled to repose witli the soothing Candanza 
 of their ‘‘Lullaby.” — It is painful, however, to re- 
 flect upou the possibility of the woithy quartetto. 
 Messieurs Violin, Trumpet, Clarionet , and Harp, 
 having been defrauded of their just rights by base 
 pretenders to the “ magic wand of Apollo;” but it 
 is to be hoped that the precaution of the card, with 
 " the seal and stamp thereon.” will put all to rights. 
 The Candanza to Rory O' More, Murphy's Weather 
 Eye, and Jenny Jones, must have been a rich treat. 
 The following is the notice referred to : 
 
 THE PARISH WAITS. 
 
 (In the origiual here the royal arms appear.) 
 
 “To the 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen Residing in this Parish, 
 
 Ladies aud Gentlemen, with sensible recollection 
 of your past patronage on your wandering melodists, 
 tile Christmas Waits, we beg to offer our best com- 
 pliments on the approaching festival, and trust to 
 merit that liberal diffusion of your favours, which has 
 enlivened and cheared our hearts for a series of years. 
 We hope our notes of melody awaking sweet echo on 
 tlie dull and solemn hours of the night has stole on 
 your gentle slumber, and again lulled you to repose 
 with the soothing Candanza of the Lullaby. 
 
 Violin 
 
 Trumpet 
 
 Clarionet 
 
 Harp 
 
 J. Pateon. 
 W. Abbot. 
 R. Moy. 
 
 T. Moy. 
 
 In respectfully taking our leave, we beg to remind 
 you, tiiat some who are pretenders to the magic wand 
 of Apollo, will attempt to impose on your liberality, 
 and defraud us of your favours, it may be necessary 
 to say that we will produce our card, containing the 
 names as above, with seal and stamp thereon. 
 
 * # * Please to have the kindness to ask for the 
 card with the seal and stamp thereon, before you 
 make any contribution.” 
 
2 -2 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 How soft, liow clear, the sounds we hear. 
 
 Through the dreamy midnight given, 
 
 So sweet they break on the ear, we wake 
 As ’t were from death to heaven ! 
 
 In some blest dream ourselves we deem. 
 
 For old tunes bring back old times, 
 
 Tlie treasured, the past. 
 
 Too dear to last, 
 
 _ In the soul-waking memory’s chimes. 
 
 Then, while to loving arms we creep. 
 
 Rejoic’d we’ve still so many hours to sleep. 
 
 They cry, — 
 
 “ Good morning my merry masters and mistresses all. 
 We hope you will not forget your poor Waits’ call 1 
 Past One o’clock 1” 
 
 As the whistling winds play a symphony, 
 
 Midst the pause of the pattering rain ; 
 
 Like an angel visit of peace and glee, 
 
 Breathes some well-remembered strain. 
 
 It comes, a joy, without alloy, 
 
 Save the fear its spell to break. 
 
 Till we huddle the clothes. 
 
 Further over our nose. 
 
 And another turn we take 1 
 With a prayer for those of less happy fates. 
 
 And dream sweet dreams of the merry merry Waits, 
 As they cry,— 
 
 “ Good morning my merry masters and mistresses all. 
 We hope you will not forget your poor Waits’ call ! 
 Past Two o'Clock 1” 
 
 Then from neighbour’s to neighbour’s house they 
 stray. 
 
 And to sleep again we bow ; 
 
 While the sounds, in the distance, die away. 
 
 And we lose them, we know not how. 
 
 As they finely depart, in the echoes of the heart. 
 How sweet breate those shadowy sounds. 
 
 At morning we deem 
 
 Them but so re pleasant dream. 
 
 To which memory joyfully bounds. 
 
 Then join with me. my jovial mates. 
 
 In praise of the Waits, the merry merry Waits, 
 
 While they cry, — 
 
 " Good morning my merry masters and mistresses all, 
 We hope you will not forgot your poor Waits’ call 1 
 Past Three o’Clock 1” 
 
 ^Manners antf Customs. 
 
 SKETCHES OF PARIS. No I. 
 
 Our Avunt-propos. 
 
 Since opposition lias so agreeably manifested 
 itself on the high seas, and steam- boats run- 
 ning between Boulogne and London at five 
 shillings a-head, have opened what the ad- 
 vertisements term a great facility of commu- 
 nication between England and France, our 
 own watering-places have become gradually 
 deserted, as those on the other side of the 
 British Channel have increased in favour. 
 This, accordingly, during the summer months, 
 leads somewhere about nine hundred people 
 per week to Calais and Boulogne, (but chiefly 
 to the latter place,) sometimes to bathe, 
 sometimes to be out of the way, but more 
 frequently to watch the oddities of foreign 
 customs, and on their return say they have 
 been in France ; during which time they 
 intend the Boulogne theatre regularly, in 
 order that if they afterwards witness in 
 Loudon an adaptation (there are no translations 
 now,) of any of the plays there represented, 
 
 they may be enabled to say “ they saw it on 
 the Continent.” 
 
 But of these same nine hundred “ travel- 
 ling English,” however, there is a large pro- 
 portion that having tarried at Boulogne a 
 week, get struck with enthusiasm when they 
 hear the conducteur's horns and postillions’ 
 whips, as the “ Aigle ” and “ Hirondelle ” 
 diligences to Paris start every morning from 
 their offices in the Rue de l’Eeu, to their 
 metropolitan stations in the Place de la 
 Bourse and Rue St. Honore ; and think, as 
 they are so far advanced on the way, and have 
 still some loose cash left, they may as well 
 see Paris, especially as such an opportunity 
 may never occur again. Accordingly, their 
 places are taken by the “ cummissionnaire ” 
 of the hotel where they are staying ; the young 
 men K° perched up in the “ banquette ” be- 
 cause they can smoke and see the country ; 
 the ladies, in the coupe , because it is genteel; 
 and the servants and children (if there are 
 any,) travel very comfortably behind in the 
 rotonde, furnished with a basket of provisions, 
 to save their dining at Abbeville at three 
 francs a-head, off’ soup resembling lamp-oil 
 and hot water shook together, sour wine, 
 meat burnt to cinders, and hard apples and 
 pears, all of which must be bolted if you do 
 not wish to be left behind. 
 
 And now having finished a tedious jour- 
 ney ol twenty-four hours, on long straight 
 broad roads, divided into three partitions, of 
 which the middle one is pavement and the 
 two outside mud, bordered by thin melancholy 
 trees, which seem to belong to the same spare 
 genus as the French pigs, (and they are more 
 like greyhounds than porkers ;) having, we 
 say, finished their journey, behold them at 
 Paris, in ail expensive hotel, and paying a 
 little more than twice as much as they ought 
 tor everything they buy. Their demeanour 
 is extremely eccentric also, and the newly- 
 come English can always be marked at Paris. 
 The first street they know the name of is the 
 Rue St. Honore, and the first shop is Galig- 
 nani’s, because they go there to buy a Paris 
 Guide — a hook of great use, it is true, to stran- 
 gers, but some of its descriptions rather over- 
 painted. Well, then, they settle to stay a 
 week at Paris, because they have read a plan 
 for seeing that city in seven days ; they 
 admire the paintings and sculptures at the 
 Louvre ; have a fiacre to the Luxembourg, 
 because they do not know the way ; walk 
 along the Boulevards to see the shops, and 
 wonder there is not the perpetual fair going 
 on there they have read of; get tilled with 
 album and firescreen sentimentality on seeing 
 the monument of Abelard and Heloi’se at 
 Pere la Chaise ; and having expressed their 
 astonishment at the Bourse, Palais Royal, 
 Arc de l’Etoile, Madelaine, Pantheon, and 
 especially the column in the Place Vendome, 
 they stietch out their excursions to St. Cloud 
 
 f 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 23 
 
 and Versailles, acknowledge we have nothing 
 like the water-works in England, and finally 
 go to the French opera, because they recollect 
 in the Drury Lane play-bills, the new ballets 
 were always described as produced at the 
 Academic Rovale de Musique. 
 
 At the Cafe's and Restaurants they are 
 equally astonished. They dare not go at 
 first by themselves, but engage a friend who 
 k nows v/hat dishes to ask for ; and afterwards, 
 when they have their demi-tasse, their wonder 
 is unbounded, because the garqon always 
 pours out the coffee so abundantly in the cup 
 as to make it run over into the saucer, and 
 performs the same curious manoeuvre with 
 the petit verre of brandy. And finally, having 
 seen all they can in the time, they buy cart- 
 loads of trumpery, most of which is seized at 
 the London Custom-house, from careless pack- 
 ing, and looking frightened on giving up their 
 keys, and return home, having seized the 
 opportunity for all their life to say they have 
 seen Paris ; and indeed they have, as far as 
 its buildings, and a rapid and superficial 
 glimpse at its manners are concerned, but 
 there is much more behind the curtain that 
 has escaped their observation. And to supply 
 this void we have taken up our pen, in the 
 humble wish of making these slight sketches 
 stand in the same relation to Galignani’s 
 Guide, as the talented pencillings of our own 
 widely-renowned Boz* have been to the Pic- 
 ture ot London — sketches of life and manners, 
 and not of bricks and mortar. And do not, 
 gentle reader, think us presumptuous or con- 
 ceited, in openly avowing our endeavour to 
 resemble the style of. the author of the Pick- 
 wick Club ; — we are well aware he stands 
 alone, but we pray thee regard us as young 
 pupils, endeavouring to imitate the work of a 
 great master — with, what success we leave 
 you to determine We shall not worry 
 you with statistics or dates: we shall not 
 tell you in what year the Louvre was built, 
 when the Tower of Nesle was pulled down, 
 when Notre Dame was whitewashed, and 
 who placed the statue of Henri IV. on the 
 Pont Neuf — all this you can find in books : 
 but we will strive to show you how our fellow- 
 creatures move and act in the gayest capital 
 in the world. And we are not writing from 
 imagination, neither are they penned in a 
 carpeted room, with a coal fire in our own 
 country, but we date them from our aparte- 
 nient nieuble , in the Rue de Vaugirard, with 
 a tiled floor, three logs of wet wood sulkily 
 burning on the hearth, refusing all the efforts 
 
 * Id applying the epithet “widely-renowned” to 
 ttiU clever writer, we have not acted without reason. 
 One afternoon in the past autumn we had an ap- 
 pointment with a friend at Milan, and while wander- 
 ing round its splendid cathedral, and beguiling the 
 time by inspecting the articles displayed on the stalls 
 against" us walls, we were much astonished at seeing 
 a large cotton handkerchief, bearing the jolly coun- 
 tenance of Old Weller, and underneath, in sound 
 E nglisli letters, “ Veil Samivel my boy, how are ye?” 
 
 of an asthmatic pair of bellows to burst into 
 flame, and a fine view of the towers of St. 
 Sulpice, crowned with their telegraphs, and 
 surrounded by innumerable chimney-pots, 
 from the windows. 
 
 And thus, gentle reader, having given you 
 an outline ot our intentions, we respectfully 
 make our bow. If you have not been to 
 Paris, we may perchance give you a little 
 idea of its wonders ; and if you have — why 
 perhaps even then we cun tell you- something 
 new. And so accept our right good wishes 
 for a happy season ; and if you are paying us 
 the compliment to be reading these outpour- 
 ings of our mind and five-sous inkstand, to a 
 Christmas circle, let me conclude, in the words 
 of old Chaucer, with the English wish of 
 “ God spede all this fayre companie.” 
 
 Knips. 
 
 COAL MINES. 
 
 Breeding- Fire. — Its Formation and Conse- 
 quences. 
 
 From the Alpha to its Omega, from the be- 
 ginning to its end, the miner’s work is 
 fraught with perils and dangers. If he but 
 approach a hitherto untouched section of 
 coal, the first stroke of his axe may perhaps 
 give vent to a turbo, or whirlwind of impri- 
 soned gas, whose pernicious effects may over- 
 power his life : and when his work is finished, 
 and he walks over ground strewn only with 
 the apparent fragments and relics of his for- 
 mer labours, he unsuspectingly treads upon 
 a floor, which, like to that on which Satan 
 trod, is of “ burning marl.” We allude to 
 that which is known to miners by the phrase 
 of “ breeding-fire,” an account of whose for- 
 mation foliows. After the side of a work has 
 been excavated, a great quantity of small and 
 refuse coal is left behind : in this it is that 
 the breeding-fire is engendered. In addition 
 to these heaps of coal and rubbish, there are 
 partings in the coal, bituminous schist, which, 
 when left, gets into the mine, and begins to 
 heat like a hot-bed, or like a new hay-rick, as 
 it presses together, till it fires by spontaneous 
 combustion. This combustion, not being so 
 immediate but that it will allow the workmen 
 time to retreat, and not being so bad as to 
 overcome vitality, nevertheless hinders them 
 from working, and indeed rather endangers 
 the mine than the men. This breeding-fire, 
 when once enkindled, is often so difficult to 
 be'extinguished, that it is sometimes obliged 
 to be drowned in water. It appears to be 
 caused chiefly by the agency of water and the 
 decomposition of the minerals. Thus, when by 
 the falling of the roof the rock presses upon 
 one of these particular heaps of refuse coal, 
 and a little water drops upon it to damp it, 
 (for decomposition goes on iar more rapidly 
 when water is admitted,) the steam first 
 
u 
 
 THE Ml KROK. 
 
 arises exactly like the steam of a hot bed. 
 From this embryo, or incipient fire, the rest 
 becomes so heated as speedily to ignite. The 
 deeper the pit in which this collection of frag- 
 mentary matter lies, the greater likelihood is 
 there of its taking lire more violently ; for it 
 is a very curious fact, agreeing with the ob- 
 servations of natural philosophers, that the 
 temperature appears to increase about one 
 degree of Fahrenheit for every twenty yards 
 in depth, and would seem to furnish at least 
 one argument in favour of the idea of a cen- 
 tral fire. At the present day, however, we are 
 glad to report that few perish by this fire, 
 since it generally gives preliminary notice of 
 its outbreak. In fact there are three who 
 perish by the after-damp to one by the fiery 
 ignition. 
 
 It would be well indeed for the workmen, 
 if all other coining evils were equally ceremo- 
 nious in apprizing them of their approach. 
 It sometimes does indeed happen that timely 
 notice is received, and the precipitation of the 
 masses is not instantaneous. At such times, 
 when a pillar of coal is about to fall, the best 
 admonisher of the danger is Nature herself. 
 When a piece of coal is on the point of fail- 
 ing, it makes a low crackling noise, just like 
 the gentle noise of breaking a stick. Little 
 pieces of coal, called the fore-runners, are ge- 
 nerally heard to fall. The person who first 
 hears the notice, (and their ears are very 
 quick,) cries out immediately, “Listen,” and 
 everything is perfectly still: there is a death- 
 like silence instantly, and upon continuance 
 of the crushing of the coal, the men with- 
 draw. This notice, however, is not in every 
 case given, for masses frequently fall down 
 without notice in the first instance, and acci- 
 dents most commonly arise from this circum- 
 stance. Notice too of danger is in many 
 cases afforded by the lamps of the miners, 
 and by particular smells and odours, apprizing 
 the miner of the existence of the pernicious 
 gases. This is the case, both with the safety 
 lamp and the naked candle, for the flame of 
 both becomes lengthened, and in cases where 
 the air is very noxious, the lamp indicates 
 proximity to the danger by going out. 
 
 It would be of infinite advantage to mines 
 if they could be lit without candles or lamps 
 at all, and several modes have been tried: 
 phosphoric lights, fish in a state of incipient 
 putrescency, and various other schemes ; but 
 none of these proved effectual. At length u 
 discovery was made by accident, which par- 
 tially removed the difficulty, bringing into 
 operation the principles of reflection. A car- 
 penter, who was working at the top of the en- 
 gine pit with a new hand-saw, turned it by 
 accident to such an angle, that it reflected a 
 pencil of the sun’s rays down the shaft. The 
 peop'e who were working there were alar med 
 beyond measure : they thought it was ano- 
 ther fire : they thought the flash of the lays 
 
 from the saw was an explosion : on investiga- 
 tion, the true cause of their alarm was disco- 
 vered ; the bright hand-saw operated as a 
 mirror, and this gave the idea of the applica- 
 tion of mirrors. Thus, supposing a shaft re- 
 quired repairing after an explosion, the me- 
 thod of proceeding to use the mirror would be 
 in this way. A person would be placed upon 
 the top always when the sun was shining, 
 and the mirror placed at a certain angle, so 
 as to throw the rays of light down the pit : 
 the light so thrown down is sufficient to do 
 the work, while the sun is shining: and the 
 inflammable air arising from the workings be- 
 low, which would not allow of lamps or lights, 
 finds the sun’s rays unexceptionable. On 
 arriving at the bottom, and progressing into 
 the dark, the experiment of reflectors is 
 adopted : small mirrors are then used, which 
 catching the pencil of rays from the surface, 
 by the first mirror, thus throws the light to 
 some distance, and this can be so governed as 
 to throw the rays of light upon even a nail- 
 head, or any munite object ot that kind, but 
 they are not got with effect beyond the first 
 angle. This is one of the methods lately 
 adopted, and is worthy of great praise- The 
 accidents in mines, by the striet cautions now 
 taken, are becoming much less frequent, 
 though great amelioration is yet needed. The 
 worst accidents are those which cannot, by 
 reason of their nature, be anticipated, o-r fore- 
 seen. Such are those arising from falling 
 portions of the roof — from the air collecting 
 in cavities out of which the coal has been 
 worked, and from unbroken fields of coal, 
 and from former wastes- Others are attri- 
 butable to carelessness on the part of the 
 miners themselves. Due circumspection and 
 rigid vigilance will greatly diminish the num- 
 ber, and indeed render them of rare occur- 
 rence. Such a consummation is most de- 
 voutly to be wished for. W. Archer. 
 
 A TRANSLATION OP 
 
 THE SONG OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS* 
 (-For the Mirror.') 
 
 1 ADIEU FLAISANT PAYS DE FRANCE. 
 
 Oh ! lov:’ly France, farewell, farewell ! j 
 My country dear, 
 
 Where many a year 
 In youthful bliss I loved to dance. 
 
 Farewell for ever happy days ; 
 
 The ship which parts our loves, conveys 
 But half of me — one half behind 
 I leave with thee, dear France, to prove 
 A token of our endless love. 
 
 To bring the other to my mind. 
 
 Wm. Toonx. 
 
 • Vide Mirror, vol. xxxii. p.324. 
 
THE MSKKCR 
 
 25 
 
 THE FABLE OF THE CAT AND THE TWO SPARROWS. 
 
 A cat lived in the greatest friendship with a 
 young sparrow, and no wonder, for they were 
 of the. same age, and had, from their birth, 
 occupied the same apartment. The bird 
 often provoked his companion by pecking her 
 with his beak, which she returned only by 
 fondling him with her paws. The cat always 
 spared her friend, never chastising him save 
 in jest ; and even then, she was very scrupu- 
 lous not to make use of her talons. The 
 sparrow, less circumspect, dealt heavy blows 
 with his beak ; but puss, like a sage and dis- 
 creet individual, made allowances for these 
 familiarities ; for one should never seriously 
 give way to anger among friends. As they 
 had been intimate from their earliest youth, 
 the force of habit maintained peace between 
 them, and their frolics never had an angry 
 ending. At length a sparrow, residing in 
 their immediate vicinity, came to visit them, 
 and was soon the inseparable companion of 
 petulant dick and of sage puss, the two 
 birds shortly fell out, and puss took part in 
 the quarrel. “ This stranger ! ” she ex- 
 claimed, “ is behaving mighty prettily, to 
 insult my friend. Is the sparrow of another 
 to be the death of our’s P No ! by all that is 
 feline !” and joining the combat, she seized 
 and devoured the intruder. “ Really !” ex- 
 claimed miss puss, “ there is a most exqui- 
 
 site and delicate flavour about these spar- 
 rows !” This profound reflection occurred to 
 her often afterwards, till, no longer able to 
 restrain her appetite, she fell upon and made 
 a meal of her friend.* 
 
 Venerable Relie . — In the very ancient 
 ecclesiastical structure called King’s Chapel, 
 at Islip, in Oxfordshire, formerly stood a 
 stone font, which was used, as tradition 
 affirms, for the baptism of Edward the Con- 
 fessor, more than 800 years ago. It has long 
 been displaced, and now occupies a far less 
 pious position in the gardens of Sir Henry 
 Brown, who resides not far oif. at Nether 
 Roddington, and affords free access to this 
 antiquarian curiosity. 
 
 * Extracted from “ Fables by the most eminent 
 British, French, German, and Spanish authors,” il- 
 lustrated by numerous engravings, after original de- 
 signs by .1. J. Grandville, now publishing by Tilt. 
 We bail this work as extremely opportune in its pro- 
 duction, possessing an affluence of tne richest efforts 
 of tire various artists employed. We have long con- 
 sidered a selection of tire best fables from the most 
 esteemed authors of all countries, a most desiiable 
 object, anil have the good fortune to see this desire 
 borne out to its fullest extent. Tire excellence of 
 the typographic portion, the fineness of tire paper, 
 and tile quantity, reuder this certainly one of tire 
 cheapest and most entertaiuiiig publication of the 
 day. 
 
26 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 33tog;tapf)j), 
 
 L. E. L. 
 
 At a time when every valley was ringing, 
 and every hill re-echoing with her minstrel- 
 sies ; when the Helot in his homestead, and 
 the lordly Archon in his gilded room, were 
 equally charmed with the melody of her 
 songs, Greece was suddenly struck with 
 panic and astonishment at hearing that the 
 enchantress of their days had, in a fit of de- 
 lirium, ended her existence ; — that, from 
 the pinnacle of a steep rock, Sappho, the 
 Poetess, had plunged, and perished in the 
 gulf below. 
 
 The gloomy and melancholy feeling which 
 spread over Greece, is repeated at this mo- 
 ment in our own land. Another Sappho, 
 the amiable Mrs. Maclean, better known in 
 the literary world as “ L. E. L ,” under dis- 
 tressing circumstances, was found dead in 
 her apartment shortly after her arrival at 
 Cape Coast. 
 
 Of this fair being, who, while she breathed 
 the breath of life, was universally admired 
 in the sphere through which she moved, en- 
 deared to every one around her by the affa- 
 bility and amiableness of her manners and 
 conversation, every incident, which is at all 
 connected with her life, cannot but be enter- 
 taining. Of those who have led literary lives, 
 the most difficult task the biographer has to 
 encounter, is the general paucity of informa- 
 tion to be collected relating to the earlier 
 period ot their lives, — a period when, as yet, 
 they were unknown to the world, and when 
 their talents were confined within the limited 
 round of their acquaintance. 
 
 To that bright quarter of the earth to 
 which we alluded above, her spirit, in its 
 early years, seems to have been much at- 
 tached. This we gather from a circumstance 
 which was told to the reminiscent by a highly 
 veracious and respectable lady of literary 
 pretensions, who was well acquainted with 
 her, and in whose family she had long been 
 a delightful visitant. Though simple in it- 
 self, we cannot but think that it evinces the 
 bent of a powerful mind, desirous of attempt- 
 ing great and noble subjects, and seeming, 
 at that premature age, already marshalling 
 itself for mighty things. 
 
 It was at the latter part of the day, when 
 the family were sitting at dessert, and dis- 
 coursing upon various subjects, that the em- 
 b jo Poetess was one of the company. She 
 h id long been observed to have been thought- 
 fully inclined, or, rather, lost in a sort of 
 abstrast mood. All on a sudden, to the no 
 inconsiderable surprize of the assembled 
 family, she sprang up instantly from her seat, 
 and, with flashing eyes and uplifted arms, 
 exclaimed, “ O that J were a Spartan.'’ 
 
 From this minute circumstance may be 
 
 traced the tendency of her mind to subjects 
 of a courageous and heroic nature ; and those 
 that are acquainted with her works well 
 know that their predominant characteristic 
 is the chivalrous or Spartanesque spirit which 
 they breathe. Her mind is ever revelling 
 amid scenes of gallantry and knighthood, — 
 plumed minstrels and harped love-songs, — 
 valorous knights and high-born ladies. 
 
 Our readers will remember, that, at the 
 appearance of her Poem, entitled “ The 
 Vow of the Peacock,” the edition was em- 
 bellished with a fair frontispiece, represen- 
 tative of the amiable Authoress herself. Her 
 appearance, indeed, was most prepossessing; 
 her figure was what might be comprehended 
 by the phrase “most lad y-like, ’ ’ and her attire 
 was altogether beautiful for its simplicity and 
 elegance. The same lady who favoured me 
 with the foregoing anecdotal reminiscence has 
 described her to me, (as she knew her in her 
 younger years of a somewhat different cast 
 of figure and style,) as being rather round 
 of figure, with a very healthy, rosy counte- 
 nance, generally full of smiles and happiness ; 
 possessing a voice, not of a musical treble, 
 but of a deep, or rather, melodious barytone. 
 In after years, however, what from studious 
 habits, and a quiet sedentary disposition na- 
 tural to a literary life, there is no wonder 
 that she should have become more delicate 
 of frame. 
 
 We have before mentioned this name, 
 dear to every lover of literature, in juxta- 
 position with that of Sappho, and, in more 
 instances than one, do we think that their 
 lives and peculiarities assimilate. The ma- 
 jectic march, observable in the Sapphic com- 
 positions, is exactly answerable to the stately 
 pace which some of the verses of L. E. L. 
 assume. Hers, too, like her impassioned 
 predecessor, are full of fire, and energy, and 
 melting sweetness. We would have given a 
 third part of a kingdom to have had any of 
 Sappho’s subjects purposely composed on by 
 L. E. L. We are convinced it would have 
 been like the reflection of a face in a mirror 
 — they would have been one and the same — 
 the similarity would have been so great. Let 
 any one first read Sappho’s fragmentary Ode 
 on the “ Extasies of a Lover,” and then 
 recall the impression which the spirited 
 poems of L. E. L. have left on his mind, and 
 we feel persuaded they will ucquiesce in our 
 opinion, the general features bear so close a 
 resemblance. 
 
 And, in the circumstances of their decease, 
 there is, indeed, a greater similitude than 
 may at first be apprehended. Both seem to 
 have anticipated I heir death. The last let- 
 ters, written by Mrs. Maclean, breathe a 
 melancholy air. The phrase which Sap- 
 pho employs at the conclusion of the Ode 
 before cited, (the Raptures of a Lover,) of 
 “ TtdvuKriv SVAryai ’ircSevtra,” indicating that 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 27 
 
 she wanted little of dying,” or, that her 
 death was bat a short way ofi‘, was exactly 
 of the same nature. 
 
 A lady of such brilliant talents, so distin- 
 guished an ornament to her country, should 
 never have quitted a soil where she had 
 passed all the flattering season of her life, 
 lor a climate so pre-eminently infested with 
 swamps, fevers, and pestilence. Her mar- 
 riage, — her love, as in the case of Sappho, 
 impelled her into that gulf in which she has 
 perished. 
 
 Meantime, blessed be her gifted spirit, 
 while the tears of regret will be the incense 
 which shall sorrowfully fall upon the altars 
 which she has raised for herself, in the bosom 
 of every intellectual son and daughter of the 
 land. W. Archer. 
 
 MEMOIR 
 
 OF 
 
 MRS. GEORGE 
 
 MACLEAN, 
 
 THE WELL-KNOWN 
 
 “ L. E. L.” 
 
 " Praising what is lost. 
 
 Makes the rememb’rance more dear.” 
 
 This ‘‘richly-gifted being” was the daughter 
 of an army-agent, and niece of the late Dr. 
 Whittington Landon, Dean of Exeter, and 
 Provost of Worcester College, Oxford, (who 
 took a sincere interest in the welfare and 
 fame of his matchless relative.) Having had 
 the misfortune to lose her father when very 
 young, and her brilliant talent soon becom- 
 ing manifest, she appeared before the world, 
 while little more than a child, as an enthusi- 
 astic and delight ful literary labourer. Her 
 earliest efforts were made in the pages of the 
 Literary Gazette. “ To her honour, it must 
 be added,” says the Editor of the Athenceum, 
 “ that the fruits of her incessant exertion 
 were neither selfishly hoarded, nor foolishly 
 trifled away, but applied to the maintenance 
 and advancement of her family. ” In an ex- 
 istence so devoted to literary pursuits as that 
 of Mrs. Maclean, few incidents can be ex- 
 pected that will interest the general reader, 
 — her life is to be found in her writings, — 
 they are the best evidence of the glorious 
 use she made of the invaluable time that was 
 allotted her Among her principal poetical 
 works, were — “ The Vow of the Peacock,” 
 — “ The Troubadour,’’ — “ The Golden Vio- 
 let,” — “ The Improvisatrice,” and “ The 
 Golden Bracelet.” Her latest published 
 lyric, “The Polar Star,” written while at 
 sea, appears in the current Number of the 
 New Monthly Magazine ; and this beauteous 
 composition is a splendid proof of what she 
 was capable of, and doubtless would have 
 accomplished in the new scenes of life upon 
 which she was entering, had it pleased God 
 to have prolonged her life. 
 
 The three novels, by Miss Landon, — 
 “ Francesca Carrara,’’— “ Ethel Churchill,” 
 
 — and “ Romance and Reality,” are delightful 
 stories of sentiment and gay life, and attest 
 her powers as a prose writer. 
 
 In the year 1838, Miss Landon having 
 married Mr. George Maclean, governor of 
 Cape Coast Castle, sailed for that pestilential 
 climate in the month of July, and reached her 
 destination some time in October, and her 
 decease, as we have stated, (vide p. 9,) took 
 place on the fifteenth of the same month. A 
 few days before her dissolution, Mrs. Maclean 
 addressed several communications to private 
 friends and to persons connected with litera- 
 ture in England, briefly descriptive of her 
 new position, and touching on her future 
 plans for the acquisition of fame. Of these, 
 the last she was ever permitted to sign, and 
 which was actually conveyed by the same 
 vessel that brought the melancholy intelli- 
 gence of her sudden death, is full of hope 
 and feeling. 
 
 The following extract of a letter from the 
 Rev. Thomas Freeman, Westleyan misssonary 
 at Cape Coast, conveyed to the public the 
 first intelligence of the melancholy cause, 
 which deprived England of one of its bright- 
 est literary characters. 
 
 “ Cape-Coast Town, October 16, 1838. 
 
 “ Here I would gladly close my letter, but, 
 alas! alas! I feel it my painful duty to 
 record the awfully sudden death of poor Mrs. 
 Maclean — not occasioned by any sickness 
 peculiar to this climate, her general health 
 having been very good from the day she 
 landed until yesterday morning, when she 
 was found dead in her room, lying close'to 
 the door, having in her hand a bottle which 
 had contained prussic acid, a portion of 
 which she had taken, (as was proved by the 
 surgeon,) the remainder being spilled on the 
 floor. She had been seen, a short time before, 
 in apparent good health and spirits. A letter 
 was found, which she had written to a friend 
 in Scotland, dated the same morning, in 
 which she expresses herself as satisfied and 
 pleased with Cape Coast and its inhabitants, 
 and as finding every thing here much better 
 than she had expected. (She told me the 
 same eight or ten days ago, or thereabouts.) 
 On the body being thus found, a jury was 
 immediately summoned, composed of tire 
 European merchants of the town, (I was not 
 among them,) and the nature of the evidence 
 given was such as they considered would 
 authorize them to give a verdict to the follow- 
 ing effect : — ‘ It is thought that she was 
 seized with spasms in toe stomach, (with 
 which she was often troubled, being subject 
 to them,) and took an over dose of prussic 
 acid, as she was found dead on the floor of 
 her bed-room, close to the dour, with the 
 small bottle in her hand. It is supposed 
 that she took an over dose, which killed her.’ 
 Mr. Maclean had been very ill with the same 
 complaint, (the spasms,) while she only felt 
 
•28 
 
 THK MIRROR 
 
 them for a short time at once, not enough to 
 make her ill. Indeed, whenever I have seen 
 her, (which was often,) she always appeared 
 in high health and spirits. We all deeply 
 deplore the event.” 
 
 We cannot more appropriately close this brief 
 sketch, than in the following words of the edi- 
 tor of the Literary Gazette — they are written 
 with a feeling of the deepest and most sincere 
 regret — the pure outpourings of a wounded 
 heart — and do alike honour to the writer and 
 the lamented object of his grief-- “ To ex- 
 press what we feel on her loss is impossible 
 — and private sorrows of so deep a kind are 
 not for public display : — her name will de- 
 scend to the most distant times, as one of 
 the brightest in the annals of English litera- 
 ture ; and whether after ages look at the 
 ■glowing purity and nature of her first poems, 
 or the more sustained thoughtfulness and 
 vigour of her later works, in prose or in verse, 
 they will cherish her memory as that of one 
 of the most beloved of female authors, the 
 
 J iride and glory of our country while she 
 ived, and the undying delight of succeeding 
 generations. Then, as in our day, young 
 hearts will beat tesponsive to the thrilling 
 touch of her music ; her song of love will 
 find a sacred home in many a fair and inge- 
 nuous bosom ; her numbers, which breathed 
 of the finest humanities, her playfulness of 
 spirit, and her wonderful delineation of cha- 
 racter and society — all — all will be admired, 
 but not lamented as now. She is gone ; and, 
 oh, what a light of mind is extinguished : 
 what an amount of friendship and of love has 
 gone down into the grave !” 
 
 GALLUS ;* OR THE DOMESTIC MAN- 
 NERS OF THE ROMANS, 
 
 IN THE AGE OF AUGUSTUS. 
 
 The above work, by Professor Becker, of the 
 University of Leipsic, was lately published in 
 that city, by Fleischer : it is a production of 
 vast research and learning; illustrative of the 
 “ Life” of the Roman People. As the woik 
 will shortly appear in London, we shall 
 merely, for the present, quote a few extracts 
 from those parts which treat of the Libraries, 
 Books, and Booksellers. 
 
 THE LIBRARIES. 
 
 “ That an extensive library should form 
 part of the house of a learned and eminent 
 Roman poet, is what might be naturally ex- 
 pected, and to take no notice of it would be 
 
 * Cornelius Gallos, a Roman poet, was born 
 about 69 B.C. at Forum Julii, but whether in Gaul 
 or Italy is uncertain. He was intimate with Virgil. 
 Augustus employed him in his war against Anthony, 
 and rewarded his services with the government of 
 Egypt. This elevation proved unfortunate; for 
 being charged with peculation and conspiracy, his 
 property was confiscated, and he was condemned to 
 exile ; in consequence of which he put an end to his 
 existence in his forty-third year. 
 
 rather an extraordinary omission. However, 
 we should doubtless make a great mistake 
 were we, either with reference to ancient or 
 modern times, to draw from the presence of a 
 costly collection of books a favourable conclu- 
 sion as to the scientific knowledge or literary 
 acquirements of the owner. What in the early 
 periods of Roman history was felt to be a 
 want only by a few learned individuals and 
 patrons of learning, became gradually an ob- 
 ject of luxury and fashion. The most igno- 
 rant then wished to appear learned, and every 
 man of ton aspired to the possession of a rich 
 library, though he might never look into a 
 Greek poet or philosopher, perhaps never 
 read even the titles on the rolls, and derived 
 all his gratification from the outward appear- 
 ance of his collection. 
 
 “ A very different use was certainly made 
 of their libraries by Cicero, Atticus, Horace, 
 the elder and the younger Pliny, and the same 
 may be presumed of Gallus. At all events, 
 that a library was in his time regarded as a 
 necessary sort of furniture, may be inferred 
 from what is stated by Vitruvius, who treats 
 of it as of any other division of a house. Ac- 
 cording to his direction, libraries should look 
 towards the east. With respect to their ar- 
 rangement in other respects, we have obtained 
 further means of forming a judgment by the 
 excavation of Herculaneum, which led to the 
 discovery of a library with its rolls. Around 
 the walls of this apartment were cupboards 
 of little more height than a man, in which 
 the rolls were deposited. There was besides 
 in the middle another row of cupboards, 
 which divided the room into two parts, so 
 that the sides only formed passages. The 
 apartment was therefore tolerably well suited 
 to the preservation of books, but not to the 
 perusal of them on the spot. A small room 
 might thus be made to contain a considerable 
 number of rolls, and accordingly it appears 
 that in general the ancient libraries did not 
 occupy much space. That discovered in 
 Herculaneum was so small, that a man with 
 extended arms could almost reach from the 
 one wall to the other. 
 
 It is uncertain whether the Romans kept 
 their books in open repositories, close wall 
 cupboards, or armarium (a press, or locker.) 
 Juvenal expresses the word foruli (shelves;) 
 while others say columbarium, (literally a 
 pigeon-house : what we now designate pi- 
 geon holes. Indeed some authors assert the 
 books were deposited in what were called 
 scrinia (caskets wherein jewels were kept.) 
 
 “ After Asinins, Pollio placed the portraits 
 and busts of celebrated men in the library, 
 which he made public ; the example began to 
 be followed in private libraries. Of this there 
 is an interesting confirmation in Mart, ix., 
 where the poet in the first epigram sends the 
 inscription for his portrait to Avitus, who 
 wished to give it a place in his library. 
 
TIIE MIRROR. 
 
 £9 
 
 “ A great number of slaves of the elass 
 lihrurii (transcribers) were employed in va- 
 rious bibliothetic services. The term indi- 
 cates in a general sense every thing which has 
 relation to the act of writing and MSS. and 
 they were therefore also merely called scribes. 
 Under this name, however, they are to be dis- 
 tinguished from the scribes publicce, who 
 were liberi (amanuensis,) — (free,) and formed 
 a particular order of their own ; and next 
 from the bibliopoles , (a bookseller,) who were 
 also called librarii, and who had with the 
 librarii of the libraries a sort of business in- 
 tercourse, whence naturally arises the idea of 
 the sale of works transcribed on their account. 
 Among the transcribers were some whose oc- 
 cupation was to relieve library students from 
 the burden of making extracts, the fittest for 
 the business were short-hand writers — those 
 stenographists of antiquity whose dexterity is 
 perhaps unsurpassed by the moderns: they 
 had a method also of secret writing by 
 changes and transpositions of letters. 
 
 “ It appears that, when the old Roman 
 text began to be converted into a running 
 hand, those who adhered to the ancient for- 
 mal uncial character were called antiquarii, 
 with as much propriety as that name was 
 given to the writers who designedly selected 
 antique, or abstruse and profound subjects. 
 
 “ The librarii were, however, not only 
 transcribers, but also bookbinders, if that 
 word can he applied to rolls. Respecting 
 their occupations, see the following disserta- 
 tion on 
 
 BOOKS. 
 
 “ The material on which works were chiefly 
 written was the fine bark of the Egyptian 
 papyrus. By manipulation and bleaching it 
 was brought to such perfection in the age of 
 Augustus, that the fabric which had before 
 been the best, became only the third in 
 quality, while the first rank was then occu- 
 pied by that which was named Augustus, 
 after the Emperor; and to the next sort was 
 assigned the name of Livia. There were se- 
 veral manufactories of the article in Rome. 
 Pliny enumerates altogether eight sorts, the 
 lowest of which, the emporetica, (brown, or 
 packing paper,) could not be used as writing- 
 paper, and was only fit for packing. 
 
 “ The narrow strips of paper, only about 
 the width of six fingers, as found in Hercu- 
 laneum rolls, pasted together, became pagincs , 
 schedcs, (a page, or leaf of a book ; but, ac- 
 cording to Martial, it signifies the last strip 
 of the roll.) The rolls varied in breadth, as, 
 of course, they did in length. The Hercu- 
 laneum rolls are in general the width of a 
 Neapolitan palm, (three inches,) but some are 
 narrower. 
 
 “ After the discovery of Eumenes of Per- 
 gamus, the most practical material, next to 
 papyrus, was parchmeut ; the use of which, 
 however, was very limited, as it was probably 
 
 much the dearest. Though writings on lea- 
 ther, or even on silk, are mentioned, they 
 must be regarded os belonging either to the 
 imperfections of the more early, or to the sin- 
 gularities of the latter times, or perhaps no- 
 thing of the nature of books is meant. 
 
 “ The ink used in writing was a kind of 
 Indian ink prepared from lampblack. What 
 Winkelman says agrees pretty well with this 
 — ‘ The Herculaneum manuscripts are writ- 
 ten with a kind of black pigment, very much 
 resembling Chinese ink, but which has more 
 body than the common ink. When the ma- 
 nuscript is held against the light, the charac- 
 ter appears somewhat elevated. That such 
 was the nature of the ink is proved by some 
 found in an inkstand.’ We must also con- 
 clude from what appears in Persius, though 
 the scholiast denies it, that the fluid secreted 
 by the sepia was used for writing. 
 
 “ The ancients do not seem to have been 
 acquainted with any artificial sympathetic 
 ink, by which the writing might be made to 
 appear alter a particular treatment, known 
 only to those instructed in the secret. How- 
 ever, they were no strangers to the use of 
 some natural substances, sucli as milk or 
 vegetable juices, in effecting the same object. 
 
 “ A reed, the best kinds of which are 
 brought from Egypt, Guidus, and the Anai- 
 tian Lake, was used instead of the pen now 
 commonly employed, and it was cut in much 
 the same manner. 
 
 “ In one of the frescos discovered in Her- 
 culaneum, there is such a calamus (a reed) 
 lying across an inkstand. 
 
 “ The writing was, frequently at least, 
 divided into columns, between which lines 
 were drawn, probably with a red colouring 
 matter. In the Herculaneum rolls these 
 lines appear white, for which the circum- 
 stances under which they were found will 
 readily account. A book had its title both 
 at the commencement and the end. 
 
 “According to the regular practice, the 
 charta or membrana, (paper, or thin skin.) 
 had writing on one side only. 
 
 “The custom with regard to unimportant 
 or valueless writing, as for instance that 
 consumed by children tor practice in the 
 course of their education, was to use no new 
 material. 
 
 “These opisthographa (paper, &c., writ- 
 ten on both sides) were besides used for 
 notes, memorandums, selections, or even 
 essays, of which clean copies were afterwards 
 to be made. When a book was held to be 
 of no value, its contents were washed en- 
 tirely out, and the paper served for a new 
 manuscript, which was then called palimp- 
 sestus. The back or blank side of books 
 were stained with cedrus or saffron colour, 
 doubtless to protect them from moths and 
 worms. 
 
 “ On the book being completely filled with 
 
30 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 writing to the end, it is probable that the 
 stick or reed on which it was to be rolled, 
 was then usually attached to the last page or 
 strip. These reeds, which are to be seen in 
 the Herculaneum rolls, do not stand out from 
 either end, but have their extremities within 
 the superfices of the cylinder’s base. They 
 are supposed to be the umbilici (middle) of 
 the ancients. 
 
 “ A small stick was passed through the 
 tube, which formed, as it were, the axis of 
 the cylinder, and to the two ends which pro- 
 jected beyond the disk, ivory, gilt, or 
 painted knobs were affixed. These knobs are 
 precisely the cornua or umbilici (corner and 
 middle.) 
 
 “ Previously, however, the bases of the 
 roll were carefully cut, smoothed with 
 umice-stone, and coloured black. It is 
 ere worthy of remark that the pictures dis- 
 covered in Herculaneum and Pompeii present 
 nothing that can be considered as properly 
 resembling these knobs, and that even no 
 trace of them is found in the Herculaneum 
 manuscripts. 
 
 “ For the better preservation of the rolls, 
 they were wrapped in parchment, which was 
 coloured externally with the fine yellow of 
 the lutum lutea. 
 
 “ Finally, the title, titulus, index, was ap- 
 pended ; and it was written on a narrow slip 
 of papyrus or parchment, with a deep red 
 colour, coccum or minium (scarlet or Ver- 
 million.) It is, however, not so easy to deter- 
 mine where this ticket was placed. YVinkel- 
 mann’s reference to a ticket hanging from 
 the roll, as in Herculaneum paintings, is not 
 satisfactory ; for this circumstance does not 
 correspond with the citation to be made 
 from Tibullus. What appears to be most 
 reasonable is to suppose with Schwartz that 
 the ticket was placed upon the top of the 
 roll. 
 
 “Winkelmann doesnot admitthat the rolls 
 were bound, at least there was no trace of 
 any fastening to be found in Herculaneum. 
 
 “ To conclude, I must not omit to men- 
 tion, that it was usual to have the author’s 
 portrait painted on the first page. 
 
 THE BOOKSELLERS, 
 
 “ When a decided taste for domestic and 
 foreign literature began to spread, and the 
 possession of a library became indispensable 
 to the learned, or those who affected to ap- 
 pear learned, it was in the natural course of 
 things that some individuals should make it 
 their business to satisfy the new want. Co- 
 pies of the laws were sold by the librarii. 
 Under Augustus, the relations of the trade 
 became still more palpable, and Horace 
 names the brothers Sosii, by whom his 
 poems were sold. These librarii transcribed 
 books themselves, and kept assistants for 
 the more rapid multiplication of copies. 
 They were also called bibliopoles, iv. 71. 
 
 xiii. Their business appears to have been 
 considered entirely mercantile ; wherefore 
 requisites for the labour were valued more 
 than correctness. 
 
 “ Authors, therefore, who wished to fa- 
 vour their friends, read the copies which 
 were made for them, and corrected the 
 blunders of the transcribers. Mars. vi. 2. 
 
 “ In Martial’s time these librarii or 
 bibliopoles, had their shops ( taberna ) for the 
 most part round the Argiletuin. There 
 were, however, some in other places — 
 namely, in the Vicus Sandalarius. There 
 the titles of the books for sale were hung up 
 at the shop-doors, or, if the taberna was 
 under a portico, on the adjoining pillars. 
 
 “ The price at which books were sold ap- 
 pears really moderate, especially as the ex- 
 penses of external ornaments must be 
 included in the charge. 
 
 “ In what relation the bookseller stood to 
 the author is not one of the least interesting 
 of the questions connected with this subject. 
 An opinion has prevailed that the ancients 
 wrote only for honour and reputation, and 
 never thought of obtaining any pecuniary 
 reward for their literary labours. If, how- 
 ever, this may be regarded as in general 
 true, more particularly in the earlier times, 
 still there is no reason to doubt that in cer- 
 tain cases authors obtained a positive profit 
 from their works. If Plautus and Terence 
 sold their comedies to the ASdiles, it cannot 
 be regarded as extraordinary that other 
 authors should accept remuneration for their 
 labours. The elder Pliny was offered by a 
 private individual 40,000 sesterces (80,000 
 francs) for his Comrnentarii Electorum. 
 This, it is true, was not the offer of a book- 
 seller, but such transactions between them 
 and authors are often indicated by Martial ; 
 as, for example, when he directs those who 
 wished to obtain his poems by presents or 
 by loan, to go to the bookseller and buy 
 them ; and elsewhere he speaks of poetry 
 as a miserable occupation, and of the scan- 
 tiness of the remuneration compared with 
 that obtained by other productive employ- 
 ments ; and complains that he was nothing 
 the richer for his epigrams. This, how- 
 ever, does not exclude the idea of somejsort 
 of bargain with a bookseller ; and it, indeed, 
 is not conceivable that Martial should, 
 without obtaining any advantage to himself, 
 look on like an indifferent spectator, while 
 Tryphon, or Secundus, or Pollius, was driv- 
 ing a thriving trade with his poems, for 
 many books could not fail to prove very pro- 
 ductive articles of commerce. Besides, 
 there were booksellers, not ony in Rome or 
 Greece, and wherever Grecian learning had 
 found a home, but Roman literature was 
 spread through the few civilized provinces. 
 On this account Horace says of a good book, 
 
 ‘ trans mare curret and for the same reason 
 Martial found readers in Gaul and Britain.” 
 
TIIK MIRROR. 
 
 31 
 
 Clje public -Journals. 
 
 LONDON. 
 
 [The following graphically-written tableau 
 is extracted from the last number of Nicholas 
 Nickleby, wherein the hero of the tale is en- 
 tering “ The Great Metropolis” on the top 
 of a stage-coach ] 
 
 “ They rattled on through the noisy, hust- 
 ling, crowded streets of London, now displa}'- 
 ing long double row's of brightly- burning 
 lamps, dotted here and there with the che- 
 mists’ glaring lights, and illuminated besides 
 with the brilliant flood that streamed from the 
 windows of the shops, where sparkling jew- 
 ellery, silks and velvets of the richest colours, 
 the most inviting delicacies, and most sump- 
 tuous articles of luxurious ornament, succeed- 
 ed each other in rich and glittering profusion. 
 Streams of people, apparently without end, 
 poured on and on, jostling each other in the 
 crowd, and hurrying forward, scarcely seem- 
 ing to notice the riches that surrounded them 
 on every side ; while vehicles of all shapes 
 and makes, mingled up together in one mov- 
 ing mass, like running water, lent their 
 ceaseless roar to swell the noise and tumult. 
 
 “ As they dashed by the quickly-changing 
 and ever-varying objects, it was curious to ob- 
 serve in what a strange procession they passed 
 before the eye. Emporiums of splendid 
 dresses, the materials brought from every 
 quarter of the world; tempting stores of every 
 thing to stimulate and pamper the sated ap- 
 petite, and give new relish to the oft-repeated 
 feast ; vessels of burnished gold and silver, 
 wrought' into every exquisite form of vase, 
 and dish, and goblet ; guns, swords, pistols, 
 and patent engines of destruction ; screws 
 and irons for the crooked, clothes for the 
 newly-born, drugs for the sick, coffins for 
 the dead, and churchyards for the buried— 
 all these jumbled each with the other, and 
 flocking side by side, seemed to flit by in 
 motley dance like the fantastic groups of the 
 old Dutch painter, and with the same stern 
 moral for the unheeding restless crowd. 
 
 “ Nor were there wanting objects in the 
 crowd itself to give new point and purpose to 
 the shifting scene. The rags of the squalid 
 ballad-singer fluttered in the rich light that 
 showed the goldsmith’s treasures, pale and 
 pinched-up faces hovered about the windows 
 where was tempting food, hungry eyes wan- 
 dered over the profusion guarded by one thin 
 sheet of brittle glass — an iron wall to them ; 
 half-naked shivering figures stopped to gaze 
 at Chinese shawls and golden stuffs of India. 
 There was a christening party at the largest 
 coffin-maker’s, and a funeral hatchment had 
 stopped some great improvements in the 
 bravest mansion. Life and death ^ent hand 
 in hand ; wealth and poverty stood side by 
 side; repletion and starvation laid them 
 down together. ” 
 
 WESTMINSTER HALL, DURING THK 
 TRIAL OF WARREN HASTINGS. 
 
 On the 13th of February, 1788, a day which 
 will be ever memorable in English annals, 
 Mr. Burke appeared in Westminster Hall, 
 at the bar of the House of Lords, as 
 the appointed organ of the Flouse of Com- 
 mons, to open the articles of impeach- 
 ment ; and the accounts of all cotempora- 
 neous narrators concur in the representa- 
 tions of splendour and interest which were 
 presented by that important occasion. Let 
 us imagine that august scene ! Let us sup- 
 pose ourselves in that noble Hall, on which 
 the lapse of centuries has conferred an addi- 
 tional interest to what is derived from its 
 architectural magnificence, crowded with 
 all that was illustrious by rank, power, and 
 intellect ; with the delegated and concen- 
 trated greatness, as it were, of the empire, 
 there assembled, to hear the complaints of a 
 people, separated from us by thousands of 
 leagues, and by every conceivable variety of 
 language, manners, and religion, and whose 
 only claim to the attention of the congregated 
 judges, arose from their dependent weak- 
 ness, and their supposed miseries and op- 
 pressions ! Let us imagine that assembly, 
 listening with breathless silence to the lawful 
 eloquence of Sheridan and Burke, while 
 denouncing the crimes of tyranny, depicting 
 its horrors, and exposing its consequences 
 with such searching power, that the ga- 
 thered multitudes shook with sympathetic 
 terror, and trembled at imaginary spoliations 
 and visionary murders, as if committed under 
 their eyes ; — the greatest efforts of those 
 great men, thu< concentrating their mighty 
 talents to the cause of Liberty, and laying 
 them as a votive offering on the sacred altar 1 
 of justice ! 
 
 It is in vain to look at the whole compass 
 of history for a spectacle more imposing. 
 The prosecution of Verres, on the com- 
 plaint of the people of Sicily, like that of 
 Lord Strafford, for his government in Ire- 
 land, (which are the only proceedings in an- 
 cient or modern annals that I know of at 
 all analogous to it,) referred to tyrannies 
 of a much less extensive kind ; to miscon- 
 duct of delegated rulers over neighbouring 
 islands of the mother state, and over a peo- 
 ple whose complaints could easily reach the 
 seat of imperial government. The prosecu- 
 tion of Verres was soon discontinued; and 
 the orations of Cicero, which remain for the 
 pleasure of mankind, are full of invectives 
 which were never pronounced, and may be 
 regarded as merely rhetorical compositions. 
 The impeachment of Lord Strafford, indeed, 
 was carried to a complete and successful 
 termination, and the great Wentworth ex- 
 piated his apostacy on the scaffold, while af- 
 fording an additional proof of the little faith 
 that “should be placed in Princes.” Bat 
 
32 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 the charges against him, though weight}-, 
 were few ; the evidence was not complicated 
 or multitudinous, and the trial was of ma- 
 nageable extent, and was concluded in a rea- 
 sonable period. — From an admirable Lec- 
 ture on the Writings and Character of 
 Burke , by A. A. Fry, Esq. of Lincoln's Inn. 
 
 Ci;e 45atljcm\ 
 
 Funeral of the Pretender. — The following 
 account of the funeral of the Pretender, who 
 died December 30, 1765, is extracted 
 
 from a letter, dated Rome, January 30, 1766: 
 — The pretender being dressed in royal robes, 
 with the crown upon his head, the sceptre in 
 his hand, and upon his breast the arms of 
 Great Britain, in gold and jewels, was carried 
 in private to his own parish church, and laid 
 upon a bed of state, above which was a throne 
 suspended from the ceiling: on the top of 
 the throne were the figures of four angels 
 holding the crown and sceptre; and at each 
 corner a figure of death looking down. From 
 the canopy were suspended four large pieces 
 of drapery of purple silk, on which, at the 
 distance of every six inches, was a row of 
 gold lace, lined with white fringe ; this 
 drapery was parted, and hung to the capitals 
 of four columns on each side of the church, 
 which was hung with black cloth, enriched 
 with ornaments of gold. The church was 
 full of chandeliers, with skeletons holding 
 wax tapers. After laying three days in state, 
 during which period none were allowed to 
 enter except the Italian princes and the 
 English, he was carried, upon the same bed 
 of state, to St. Peter’s, to be buried. The 
 procession proceeded in the following order : 
 the children of the different schools ; twelve 
 companies, of fifty men each, in aucieut and 
 different dresses, with tapers ; about one 
 thousand friars of different orders, with 
 torches ; the singing boys of St. Peter’s, 
 dressed in purple silk gowns : and about fifty 
 canons, singing hymns. Round the body 
 was the English College, and four cardinals 
 upon mules, covered with purple velvet trap- 
 pings ; the chevalier’s servants, in twelve 
 coaches, lined with black velvet, closing the 
 procession. W. G. C. 
 
 A Florentine, of the name of Carletti, in- 
 troduced the use of chocolate into Italy: it 
 passed from Spain into France with Anne of 
 Austria, queen of Louis XIII., and it was 
 not till the latter end of the 17th century, 
 that the manufacture of it became at all ge- 
 neral in France. H. JV1. 
 
 Character of the people of Berlin, by a 
 Prussian. — “ Berlin is u scene of constant in- 
 trigue. We don’t nil drink, we don’t all 
 pray — but we all intrigue. From the prince 
 to the peasant, each has his affaire d' amour 
 in hand, and we care very little if all the 
 world know it.” — G/eig. 
 
 A hardy seaman, who had escaped one of 
 the recent shipwrecks upon the coast, was 
 asked by a good lady how he felt when the 
 waves dashed over him. He replied, “ Wet, 
 madam, very wet.” 
 
 The following legend, relating to the statue 
 of St. Jauuarius, at Pozzoli, near Naples, is 
 given by a modern traveller: — Tbe Saracens, 
 in one of their expeditions to the kingdom of 
 Naples, having wantonly defaced the statue, 
 by breaking off its nose and carrying it away, 
 the wind began to blow so violently that they 
 found it impossible to put to sea. At last 
 some of them said that they thought it was 
 owing to the resentment of the image, which 
 would not be appeased as long as its nose was 
 in their possession ; whereupon a council was 
 held, at which it was determined to throw it 
 into the sea, which they had no sooner accom- 
 plished than fine weather inmediately suc- 
 ceeded, and they set sail for their own country. 
 In the meantime a number of artists had en- 
 deavoured to repair the image with a new 
 nose, but neither art nor force could fasten 
 one on ; at length some fishermen took up 
 the original nose in their nets, but not know. 
 ir,g what it was, they threw it again into the 
 sea; nevertheless, the nose continued to offer 
 itself to their nets in whatever place they 
 were fishing. At last, one of the fishermen 
 having suggested that it might be the nose of 
 the saint, they applied it to the statue, to exa- 
 mine whether it fitted, when it immediately, 
 without any cement, united so exactly, as 
 scarcely to leave any appearance of its having 
 been detached. W. G. C. 
 
 The original mode practised of Advertis- 
 ing- — In the early part of the reign of Eli- 
 zabeth, it was customary, when any person 
 had lost any property, or in want of any, or 
 had articles lor sale, to affix a bill on one of 
 the doors of St. Paul’s church. The adver- 
 tisements were always headed with the word 
 “ Siquis,” (from Scil. invenerit, to find.) 
 
 " Sawst thou ere Siquis patch'd on Paul’s church 
 dure. 
 
 To gaiue some vacant vicarage before r” 
 
 Decker, in his Guls Horne Booke, says, 
 “ The first time that you enter into Paules, 
 pass through the body of the church like a 
 porter ; yet presume not to fetch so much 
 as one whole turne in the middle ile, nor to 
 cast an eye on Siquis doore, pasted arid plas- 
 tered up with serving mens supplications, 
 
 It is not perhaps generally known, that the 
 first house ever numbered in London was the 
 one abutting east ot Northumberland House, 
 Strand. 
 
 LONDON : Printed and published by J. IAMBI llD, 
 143, Strand, (a ear Somerset House ) . and sold In/ 
 all Booksellers and Neo--„en. — In PARIS, by all 
 the ( Booksellers, —In PRANCFURP, OH Alii, H§ 
 
Zi)C fHtvvov 
 
 OP 
 
 LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION. 
 
 ox,, xxxm. 
 
 GREY STREET, NEWCASTLE. 
 
34 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 GREY STREET, NEWCASTLE, 
 Owes its present magnificent appearance, 
 principally to the splendid talents of the ar- 
 chitect, Mr. Grainger, who, by his exertions, 
 has produced a street, certainly not inferior, 
 in point of architectural beauties, to any in 
 England : indeed it is by many persons con- 
 sidered to be without a rival in the world ; a3 
 a street of business, surpassing Regent- 
 street, London, for the classical richness and 
 diversity of its architecture ; but what may 
 tend to give it a decided advantage, is that the 
 fronts of the houses are of solid stone, and 
 not of brick faced with stucco. 
 
 The Central Exchange, with its rich Co- 
 rinthian front, and splendid cupolas, with the 
 gorgeous bronze plumes sculptured on their 
 summits, form objects worthy of great admi- 
 ration ; but, however rich the outside of this 
 building may be, it is eclipsed by its magni- 
 ficent interior, presenting a semicircle sur- 
 rounded by twelve pillars of the Ionic order : 
 the light of this immense building is obtained 
 through rather more than ten thousand 
 square feet of glass in the sides of the roof, 
 and the crown of the dome, which has an 
 exceeding striking effect when viewed from 
 below. During the recent assemblage of the 
 British Association at Newcastle, the meet- 
 ing was held in this Exchange, which fur- 
 nished accommodation for nearly six thou- 
 sand persons. Here also are the exhibition 
 rooms and offices of the North of England 
 Society for the Promotion of the Fine Arts ; 
 and to the honour of the Newcastle people, 
 as liberal patrons of those arts which tend 
 to harmonize the mind, and soften down the 
 asperities of man, numerous fine specimens 
 of painting and sculpture, many of them 
 being the works of native artists, have here 
 been exhibited ; together with a rich display 
 of models for steam machinery, and for the 
 construction of bridges on railways. The 
 
 { )ile of building, known as the Northumber- 
 and District Bank, and the Branch Bank of 
 England, also in Grey-street, has all the ap- 
 pearance of a grand palace. And as a beau- 
 tiful and appropriate termination to this 
 magnificent street, is the colossal statue of 
 Earl Grey, erected at the point of entrance 
 to Grey-street and Grainger-street.* 
 
 Sykes, in his “ Local Records,” says, under 
 date 1580, that an ancient house, now called 
 Anderson-place, in Pilgrim-street, New- 
 castle, was built by Robert Andersun, mer- 
 chant, (out of the offices, and nearly upon 
 the site of the Franciscan Priory.) Iu this 
 house King Charles I.f was confined, after 
 having surrendered himself to the Scots, at 
 Newark ; and on its site part of Grey-street 
 was built. 
 
 * An engraving of this statue is given in the 32ud 
 vol. of the Mirror, page 305. 
 
 + 1646 (May 13.) “ The king was no where 
 
 treated witli more honour tha#&fc Newcastle, as him- 
 -setf confessed. His - majest^-K' said to have lodged 
 
 Newcastle has been distinguished as the 
 birth-place of many eminent characters : 
 among whom, are the celebrated Dr. John 
 Scot, usually called “ Duns Scotus,” who re- 
 ceived his education in the Franciscan priory 
 just spoken of; Dr. Nicholas Durham, the 
 zealous opponent of Wickliff: he resided in 
 the priory, in 13G0; Eistob, a learned Saxon 
 antiquary and divine, born 1673, died 1714; 
 and his sister, Eliz. Eistob, born 1663, who 
 was also eminent for great knowledge of Saxon 
 literature ; she died 1 756. Dr. Grey, born 
 1694, died 1771- Mark Akenside, poet and 
 physician, born 1721, died 1770. Bourne, 
 historian, died 1733. The Rev. J. Brand, 
 born 1743, died 1806. Dr. C. Hutton, the 
 celebrated mathematician, born 1737, died 
 1823. John Scott, Earl of Eldon, Chancellor 
 of England, born 1751 ; and William Scott, 
 his brother, Lord Stowell, born 1745. Lord 
 Collingwood, born 1748, died March, 1810. 
 Bewick, the engraver, resided in Newcastle 
 from 1767, till his decease, December, 1795. 
 
 at the house now the property and residence of Ma- 
 jor George Aniierson, a room in which retained the 
 name of the king’s bedchamber. In tins stood a 
 bed of very antiquated fashion, said to have been tire 
 identical one upon which the unfortunate monarch 
 had passed several anxious nights ; this was pre- 
 served until tin incurious domestic removed and sold 
 it as lumber, whilst the present proprietor, who is 
 passionately fond of the antique, was abroad on iiis 
 travels. Every exertion was used to recover this 
 ancient and stately bed, but without effect. Whilst 
 the king was here his coachman died, as appears by 
 tlie following entry in St. Andrew’s register : — “ De- 
 cember 6, 1646— Hugh Brown, buried the 6 day, iu 
 the church, the king’s kouchman, i. e. coachman.” 
 There is a popular tradition, that the king attempted 
 his escape from this house by the passage of Loch 
 Burn, which runs through the centre of the town, 
 and that lie had got down as far as the middle of the 
 side, when lie was caught in his attempt to force the 
 iron grate at its outlet. A ship was said to have 
 been in readiness to receive bis majesty. In conse- 
 quence of tire above attempt at escape, a guard of 
 soldiers was placed at the door of Ids majesty’s cham- 
 bers, botli within and without, that deprived him not 
 only of Ids formal liberty, but also destroyed Ids fu- 
 ture quiet and repose. That the king meditated an 
 escape, receives confirmation from the following, 
 quoted by Chambers iu his History of the Rebellions 
 in Scotland, from a memoir of the Sutherland family. 
 About the middle ol December, Robert Leslie, bro- 
 ther to Lieuteuant general Leslie, came from the king 
 out of Newcastle, with letters and a private commis- 
 sion to the Marquis of Huntley, showing that his ma- 
 jeslie had a mind to free himself from the Scots 
 armie at Newcastle ; and if he might escape, lie would 
 come to him iu some part of the north of Scotland; 
 and therefore, desired him to have in readiness what 
 force he could make.” hi 1647, an agreement was 
 made between the parliament of England aud the 
 Scottish army, that the former should have possession 
 of tlie king’s person, and that the latler, on the re- 
 cept of £200,000, should quit the kingdom of Eng- 
 land ; commissioners were deputed from London 
 to receive the king, aud convey him from Newcastle. 
 On the 28th of January, the Scottish army having re- 
 ceived the price of tlie king in six-aud-thirty covered 
 waggons, delivered his person to tlie Englisti com- 
 missioners, and immediately returned to their own 
 country, where they were disbanded. Tlie commis- 
 sioners, with his majesty, set out from Newcastle on 
 the 3rd of February.” — Syhe's Local Records, pages 
 99—101. Edition 1833. 
 
TIIK MIRROR. 
 
 3J 
 
 SONG FOR THE NEW YEAR. 
 
 ( For the Mirror .) 
 
 Let’s merrily sing the New Year in. 
 
 And have no thought of sadness ; 
 
 ’Tis light we should a year begin 
 In jovousness and gladness. 
 
 Oh, let us not refuse to smile. 
 
 Hut with a gladsome feeling, 
 
 Let’s welcome in the New Year, while 
 The Old Year’s knell is pealing ! 
 
 So merrily sing the New Year in. 
 
 And have no thought of 9aaness ; 
 
 ’Tis right we should a year begin 
 In jovousness and gladuess. 
 
 What though we may lurve tasted grief 
 In the year that’s just departed ; 
 
 That is no cause in my belief 
 To make us now sad-liearted. 
 
 We cannot o'er life's changeful way 
 Pass without knowing sorrow, 
 
 And though we may be sad one day, 
 
 We rarely are the morrow. 
 
 So merrily sing the New Year in, 
 
 And have no thought of sadness ; 
 
 ’Tis right we should a year begin 
 In joyousness and gladness. 
 
 Yes, thanks to the all-gracious Pow’r 
 Who our live’s length doth measure. 
 
 Care doth uot always on us lour. 
 
 We sometimes clasp sweet pleasure. 
 
 And so the year whose birth this night 
 So cheerily we’re singing, 
 
 To most of men joy and delight 
 As well as care is bringing. 
 
 So merrily sing the New’ Year in. 
 
 And have no thought of sadness ; 
 
 ’Tis right we should a year begin 
 
 In joyousness and gladness. S. H. 
 
 LIFE IN DEATH. 
 
 Indeed you do me wrong, — I merit uot 
 Those hard censorious eyes and dull regards. 
 Because I have uot wept, or sighed, or raved, 
 
 Or sat in a mute madness, though I knew 
 That she, whom we so loved, is gone away. 
 
 I have lost nothing, why then should I weep ? 
 She is to me the same she ever was, 
 
 A never-ceasing presence, a life-light. 
 
 In the dark watches of the pleasant night. 
 
 Or some far darker passages of day. 
 
 If I would weep, or mourn her fancied loss. 
 
 The azure fire, that swells from her calm eyes. 
 Laps up mv tears, and tells me she is here : 
 
 If I am sick at heart, she sits beside me. 
 
 And lays the velvet back of her white hand 
 Upon my cheek, to ask if all be well. 
 
 Or parts the hair upon my heated brows. 
 
 Since that one instant, in itself a life. 
 
 When, as commissioned messengers, my eyes 
 Went to her, and brought back into my soul 
 A gift, tlie greatest of all possible gifts 
 Which God-empowered man ean give to man, 
 
 A notion of the absolute beautiful : 
 
 Since then, all nature has been one to me. 
 
 One form impregnated with her sole spirit ; 
 
 I feel the ambient sweetness of her breath 
 In flowering rosiers and the woods of spring ; 
 
 Her voice is gushing from the nightingale ; 
 There’s not a cloud that walks the unsullied air. 
 But takes from her its majesty of gait. 
 
 For space was made to show how she could move. 
 I do not say, that when I saw her lie 
 Hushed to cold sleep by nature’s lullabies, 
 
 (The same that plaintive nurse eternally 
 Sings as she rocks to rest her dearly loved,) 
 
 I did not for one moment stare aghast, 
 
 And know the blood stood still about my heart ; 
 But soon the waiters left me there alone. 
 
 And in the quiet of tlie gloom I saw 
 
 The blessed image, moving, ministering, 
 
 By me, about me,— just as heretofore- 
 
 Oh ye who talk of death, and mourn for death, 
 
 Why do yon raise a phantom of your weakness. 
 
 And then shriek loud to see what ye have made ? 
 There is no death to those who kuow of lile — 
 
 No time to those who see eternity. 
 
 [From Mr. Monckton Milnes' Poems* — a string of 
 pure and sparkling gems of English poesy.] 
 
 The warrior lies down in the grave, and the peaceful 
 man seeks his repose in the bosom of the earth." 
 Why stiffen those features ! why cold is that brow ! 
 Bright soul of the hero 1 where, where art thou now ? 
 Thou art past, like the wild wave that lashes the 
 shore. 
 
 One moment tremendous, oue moment no more. 
 
 In silence departed, thou meek sou of peace. 
 
 Thy labours are o'er, and thy troubles shall cease ; 
 To worth and to virtue the tribute is paid. 
 
 And sorrow no more shall thy slumbers invade. 
 
 Blest, blest are ye both, for the struggle is pa3t,' 
 
 Ye have reach’d the bright haven of safety at last ; 
 And the place of your future rest ever will be 
 The abode of the Seraph, the spotless and free. 
 
 C. S. 
 
 GEORGE II. AND HIS SON FREDE- 
 RICK, PRINCE OF WALES. 
 
 (To the Editor of the Mirror.') 
 
 The quarrel between the sovereign and his 
 son, is supposed to have originated in . the 
 countenance which tire latter gave to the 
 party in opposition to the measures of govern- 
 ment ; it was carried on by the king with a 
 rancour (descending to personality) unknpwa 
 to the modern disputes of royalty. The 
 prince had a separate establishment at Nor- 
 folk-House, which was the chief resort of 
 the disaffected to the party in power: no 
 persons visiting the prince were allowed to 
 come to the court of the sovereign. It is 
 stated as a fact that, when the prince died, 
 a messenger was sent to inform the king of 
 the circumstance, who was at the time play- 
 ing at cards with a large party at the palace; 
 with true German sangfroid he continued 
 the game to the end, and then communicated 
 the intelligence to his mistress, the Duchess 
 of Kendal, who was playing at another 
 table, by calmly telling her that “ Fritz was 
 deadf but made no motion to inter; upt 
 the amusements ; the duchess, with more 
 feeling and delicacy, immediately broke up 
 the assembly. The following letter was 
 given to me as one in the handwriting of the 
 king, but I have reason to doubt the truth 
 of the allegation : nevertheless, it bears the 
 marks of being a rough draft of it, being 
 altered and interlined, and from its apparent 
 age, there is no doubt of its being written at 
 the time of its date, 1737 ; there are some 
 grammatical errors in it, which may possibly 
 arise from its being the production of a 
 foreigner, the king was known to be hut 
 indifferently skilled in the English language. 
 
 * Moxon, London. 
 
36 
 
 TI1E MIRROR. 
 
 1 have transcribed it verbatim et literatim , 
 if you think it worthy a place in your en- 
 tertaining miscellany. W m. Toone. 
 
 “ The professions you have lately made 
 in your letters of your particular regard to 
 me, are so contradictory to all your actions, 
 that I cannot suffer myself to be imposed 
 upon by them. You know very well you did 
 not give the least intimation to me or to the 
 Queen that the Princess was with child, till 
 within less than a month of the birth of the 
 young Princess ; you removed the Princess 
 twice in the week, and immediately preceding 
 the day of her delivery, from the place of my 
 residence, in expectation, as you voluntarily 
 declared, of her labour ; and both times, upon 
 your return, you industriously concealed from 
 me and the Queen every circumstance relat- 
 ing to this important affair; and you at last, 
 without giving any notice to me or the 
 Queen, precipitately hurried the Princess 
 from Hampton Court in a condition not to 
 be named; after having thus, in execution of 
 your own determined measures, exposed 
 both the Princess and the child to the 
 greatest perils, you now plead surprise, 
 and your tenderness for the Princess, as 
 the only motive that occasioned these re- 
 peated indignities offered to me and the 
 Queen, your mother. This extravagant and 
 undutiful behaviour, in so essential a point as 
 the birth of an heir to my crown, is such an 
 evidence of your premeditated defiance of 
 me, and such a contempt of my authority, 
 and of the natural right belonging to your 
 parents, as cannot be excused by the pre- 
 tended innocence of your intentions, nor pal- 
 liated or disguised by specious words only ; 
 but the whole tenour ol your conduct for a 
 considerable time has been so entirely void 
 to all real duty to me, that I have long had 
 reason to be offended with you, and until 
 you withdraw your regard and confidence 
 from those by whose instigation and advice 
 you are directed and encouraged in your un- 
 warrantable behaviour to me and the Queen, 
 and until you return to your duty, you shall 
 not reside in my palace, which I will not 
 suffer to be made the resort of them who, 
 under the appearance of attachment to you, 
 foment the division you have made in my 
 family, and thereby weaken the common 
 interest of the whole ; in this situation I 
 will receive no reply ; but when your actions 
 manifest a just sense of your duty and sub- 
 mission, that may induce me to pardon what 
 I at present most justly resent. In the mean 
 time, it is my pleasure that you leave St. 
 James’s, with all jour familj', when it can 
 be done without prejudice or ill-convenience 
 to the Princess. I shall for the present 
 leave to the Princess the care of my grand- 
 daughter, until a proper time calls on me to 
 consider on her education. G. R. 
 
 Hampton Court , Sept. 10 th, 1737- 
 
 N.B. The Princess was delivered of a fe- 
 male, named Augusta, at St. James’s, on the 
 31st July, and the Prince and his family, in 
 consequence of this letter, removed on the 
 14th September to Kew. The Prince died 
 20th March, 1751 • 
 
 JWanmttf an& Customs. 
 
 SKETCHES OF PARIS. No. II. 
 
 A Fete. 
 
 Wf. had been some few weeks at Paris, and 
 gone the round of all the usual sights, when 
 our attention was arrested one morning, on 
 our way to breakfast in the Rue de la Harpe, 
 (where we regaled ourselves every morning 
 with a basin of cafe au lait, petit pain, and 
 a boiled egg, for ten sous,) by a large placard 
 upon the wall where the play-bills were gene- 
 rally pasted up, headed Fete de I’Etoile, 
 and followed by the announcement that on 
 the Sunday’, Monday, and Thursday following, 
 a fete would be held on the grass-plot beyond 
 the Triumphal Arch, at the end of the 
 Champs Elysees, when various games would 
 take place, and there would be a ball in the 
 evening. Now, as our idea of a fete had 
 always been confined to a race between two 
 balloons, a hundred thousand additional 
 lamps, the Ravel family, and other attractions 
 to be “ more fully announced in the bills of 
 the day,” we were anxious to see what sort of 
 amusement this would turn out to be ; so 
 taking our station in an omnibus, about six 
 o’clock in the evening of one of the appointed 
 days, we were put down at the Barriere de 
 1’Etoile, and marched up the slopes to a scene 
 of gaiety which fully answered our fondest 
 anticipations of what Paris was. 
 
 It will not do to say it resembled an Eng- 
 lish fair, because there were neither farmers, 
 pigs, nor charity-boys, among the gay and 
 really happy-looking throng; neither were there 
 the tin boxes on the top of sticks to be thrown 
 at ; but there were shows, stalls, and games 
 going on in all directions, so novel and so 
 different to aught we had seen before, that our 
 attention was arrested at every step. The 
 first thing that struck us on entering the 
 ground was a stand about five feet high, on 
 which were arranged divers little images 
 of plaster of Paris, and at the top was a re- 
 volving piece of machinery, embellished with 
 birds of the same material. We were allowed 
 to fire pellets of clay from a cross-how, at the 
 aforesaid images, at the rate of four shots for 
 a sou, and from a distance of about twelve or 
 fourteen feet ; ar.d having had the satisfac- 
 tion of knocking off the head of a giraffe, 
 and seriously damaging a parrot, we passed 
 on to the next game, which had another piece 
 of mechanism displayed for the same end. 
 Here was a figure of a soldier on horseback, 
 as large as life, and on hitting a small target 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 37 
 
 on his breast with the pellet, a grim Bedouin 
 rose from behind, and appeared .to be threat- 
 ening him. Others were fashioned like 
 castles and forts ; but the most amusing, and 
 that which attracted most customers, was a 
 representation ot the city of Constantine, 
 where, on hitting the great gates, a number 
 of Arabs rushed out, hotly pursued by French 
 soldiers. We next came to a miniature canal, 
 along which a small steam-boat was plying 
 by clock-work ; on arriving at the end, its 
 prow struck a lever, which released a ball 
 placed on the top of a castle, and this ball, 
 after performing various evolutions in and 
 out the windows and doors, finally descended 
 into a large round tray, having holes ot various 
 colours on its surface, in one of which it rested. 
 You had the privilege of setting the steam- 
 boat off yourself, by payment of a sou, ( for the 
 games are all the same price,) and during 
 its voyage you named your colour. If, by 
 luck, the ball took the right one, you became 
 the fortunate possessor ot six cakes : if not, 
 of course you lost. This game was varied at the 
 different stalls, but all had the same end, viz., 
 the six cakes, which were very deceptive in 
 their appearance, having certainly more air in 
 their composition than flour and sugar. 
 Gambling in any way for money is strictly 
 forbidden by the police ; you may, however, 
 pay lor your chances at these games, and lose 
 it equally fast. But the drollest game of all, 
 and one which drew a hearty laugh from us, 
 was a sort of tilting match, taking place under 
 the trees at the side of the ground. A large 
 mask, with most ludicrous features, and 
 nearly three feet long, was tied before you, to 
 prevent your seeing; and furnished with a 
 lance, you had to walk forward from a given 
 point, and hit a large target placed at the 
 extremity of the lists. It appeared exces- 
 sively easy, but there were few who suc- 
 ceeded ; and their endeavours, added to their 
 odd appearance, were exceedingly ridiculous. 
 Some shot off at once to the right, amongst 
 the trees ; others to the left ; but the majority, 
 after getting on very well for a little way, 
 became confused, wavered, and generally 
 returned nearly to where they set off from. 
 The only person who seemed to understand it 
 was the man himself, who kept the lists, and 
 when the mask was placed on him, (which it 
 often was, to incite others,) he contrived to 
 walk straight up to the target. If you suc- 
 ceeded in hitting it, the prize was a small 
 whip, a knife, three metal spoons, or a picture 
 representing some imaginary incident in the 
 life of Napoleon, that never happened, framed 
 and glazed. But the shows were the chief 
 attraction, and certainly an odd assemblage 
 of strong men, fencing-ladies in Roman 
 dresses, large snakes, and savage Indians, 
 had collected together. We paid to go into 
 one which promised amusement from the 
 pictures outside, and we were certainly not 
 
 disappointed. First we »ome very excel- 
 lent conjuring, that beat our conjectures alto- 
 gether : next was the performance of a French 
 Hercules, who suffered himself to be tied up 
 by his heels, and then held heavy weights in 
 his teeth, until his face became quite purple ; 
 and the exhibition concluded by the manoeu- 
 vres of some learned birds. These poor 
 objects were all asleep in a cage when we 
 entered, but on being awakened, they pre- 
 sented a most ragged assemblage of feather- 
 less little bullfinches, in cocked hats and small 
 red coats, with swords and guns tied round 
 them. They drew carts, marched, fired 
 cannon, and sat down to dinner ; and when 
 they had finished, walked very orderly into 
 their cage one after another. This was 
 enough, we thought, for two sous. Thera 
 were also “ ups and downs ” and “ round- 
 abouts” on the same model as in England ; 
 but the only difference was, that grown-up 
 people were revolving in the chairs, and on 
 the hobby-horses, instead of children, but 
 evidently with the most intense spirit of en- 
 joyment. 
 
 And now we turned towards the ball, which 
 was gradually being illuminated by handsome 
 lamps suspended all round. Five sous was 
 charged for entrance, and on gaining the 
 salon we were indeed astonished. So taste- 
 fully fitted up, such order, and so different to 
 the vulgar jostling of the “ Crown and An- 
 chor,” at Greenwich fair. Figure to yourself, 
 reader, an enormous tent, say one hundred 
 feet long, supported by gilt pillars, and sur- 
 rounded by trophies and tri-coloured flags, 
 with pretty festoons of red, blue, and white 
 calico all round. The floor was neatly 
 boarded, and in the centre an excellent or- 
 chestra of a dozen musicians, was performing 
 all the favourite and most popular waltzes 
 and quadrilles of Paris. An extra demand 
 of five sous was made for each time you 
 danced, and you were at liberty to ask any 
 fair one your choice might fall upon. The 
 utmost order prevailed ; indeed, if any one 
 transgressed the rules of politeness, he was 
 immediately shouldered off by the municipal 
 guards in attendance. It is true, this was all 
 very proper for the sake of order, but we must 
 confess we did not like the appearance of so 
 many grim soldiers in a ball-room. There 
 are no public amusements of any kind in 
 France without them, and their fierce musta- 
 chios and tiger-skin helmets, contrast oddly 
 with the gaiety around. 
 
 The refreshment department of the ball 
 was well arranged. There was not the im- 
 mense bar which we see at the Greenwich fair 
 and Egham Race-course dancing assemblies, 
 covered with cold boiled beef, ham, fowls, 
 bottled porter, pipes, and crockery ; but then 
 there was a small tent aside from the grand 
 one for lemonade, strop de groseilles, wine, 
 coffee, and ^Rheims biscuits, which had an 
 
38 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 air of refinement never met with in England 
 at meetings of this kind. Dancing was the 
 so'le object of the evening, and dance they 
 did, and so did we too, (as soon as v/e had got 
 over our thorough English idea that every 
 body was looking at us,) and we can safely 
 say, we enjoyed ourselves much more that 
 evening than we had done at many parties in 
 London. And then the practice in French 
 conversation which it affords. You can 
 speak so easily, so fluently to a pretty grisette, 
 in the middle of a dance, and under the influ- 
 ence of a bottle of Vin Ordinaire at fifteen 
 sous — it beats all the masters, believe us, on 
 onr honour, for we speak from experience. 
 After every four quadrilles we had a wait*, 
 extremely well executed by most of the parties 
 concerned ; indeed every species of dancing 
 seems natural to them ; and they have the 
 politeness not to laugh at a stranger whose 
 style is different, or what appears to them 
 awkward, which indeed is often the case. 
 
 We amused ourselves here for about two 
 hours ; and then, finding all the omni- 
 buses quite full, determined to walk home 
 down the Champs Ely, sees, and we were well 
 repaid. It was a lovely summer evening, and 
 the distant lamps of the marchands among 
 the trees gave a pretiy effect to this favourite 
 rendezvous of the Parisians. The nsphalte 
 promenades of the Place de la Concorde 
 Were quietly gleaming in the moonlight, and 
 the last band of noisy students was returning 
 from the Chaumiere, as we reached home, 
 much delighted with our fete. Knifs. 
 
 WIT OF THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 PROM THE ORIGINAL AUTHORS ; WITH 
 REFERENCES. 
 
 (For the Mirror.') 
 
 Ennius, the poet, used to say that it was 
 easier for men of wit to keep burning coals 
 within their teeth, than good sayings Cic. 
 de Orat. ii. 54. [In the original bona dicta, 
 which was applied among the Romans, as 
 good things m among us, to facetiae or 
 witticisms 
 
 A man once said to Aristippus, “In what 
 respect will my son be the better for being 
 instructed ?” “At least, ” replied Aris- 
 tippus, “ he will gain this advantage, that he 
 will not sit in the theatre us a stone upon a 
 stone.” — Dioj. Laert. ii. 72. [It appears 
 that the seats in the Greek theatre were of 
 stone.J 
 
 PhilippuS) a greedy and unprincipled 
 fellow at Rome, being attacked by Catulus 
 the orator, asked him why he barked? 
 “Because,” replied Catulus, “I see a 
 thief.” — Cic. de Orat. ii. 54. 
 
 As Diogenes was one day washing herbs 
 for his dinner, Aristippus passed by, “ Ah,” 
 cried Diogenes, “if you knew how to wash 
 
 herbs, you would not be a dependant on 
 kings.” “ And if you,” replied Aristippus, 
 “knew how to be a dependant on kings, 
 you would not w r ash herbs.” — Dioj. Laert. 
 ii. 68, compared with Hor. Ep. i. 17- 
 
 Aristippus, being asked what he had 
 gained by the study of philosophy, replied, 
 “ To be able to converse readily with all 
 men.” — Dioj. Laert. ii. 68. 
 
 Antisthenes, being asked the same ques- 
 tion, replied, “ To be able to converse with 
 myself.” — Dioj. Laert. vi. 6. 
 
 Brutus, an orator, who had squandered 
 his patrimony, and sold, among other things, 
 some valuable baths left him by his father, was 
 one day pleading against a man defended 
 by Crassus. Brutus, in the course of his 
 speech, said that he was sweating without 
 reason ; meaning that he was labouring to 
 prove what was already plain. “No won- 
 der that you sweat,” retorted Crassus, “ for 
 you have but just quitted your bath.” — Cic. 
 de Orat. ii. 55. 
 
 Largius had a mistress at Terrucina, with 
 whom Memmius took liberties. Memmius 
 was of a character so morose, and at the 
 same time so violent and passionate, as to 
 give occasion to Crassus to spread a report 
 that he had torn her in pieces. This report 
 he spread in the following manner : — 
 Coming from Taracina to Rome, he was 
 asked “ what news ?” “ None,” said he, 
 
 smiling, “ but that I observed the walls of the 
 city chalked with the letters M.M. L. L. L.” 
 “ And whut do they mean ?” inquired his 
 hearers. “ Why I asked a man of the city,” 
 said he, “ and he told me that they meant 
 Morose Memmius Lacerated Lurgius's 
 Limbs.'” — Cic. de Orat. ii 59. [The words 
 in the original form an Iambic verse : 
 
 Lucerat Lacertum Largii Mordax Memmius .] 
 
 THE PHILANTHROPIST. 
 
 (From the Russian.) 
 
 Nicholas Stepanowitsch Ischorski, is a 
 wealthy nobleman, living in the environs of 
 Moscow, who, desirous of distinguishing 
 himself, and handing down his name to pos- 
 terity, lately erected an hospital for the benefit 
 of the poor of the land. The governor of the 
 province, not long ago, intimated to him his 
 intention to spend the day at his mansion, 
 and Ischorski, as may be supposed, delighted 
 with this signal mark of deference, hastened 
 to get everything in readiness to receive his 
 guest. 
 
 “ What a time I am kept waiting for this 
 doctor !” said Tschorski, “ Trosehka, do you 
 go and tell him I have been expecting him 
 these two hours. . . . Oh ! here he comes — 
 My dear Jergei Iwanowitsch, what in the 
 world has detained you so long ?”. 
 
 “ My Lord, I crave your forgiveness,” an- 
 
39 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 swered the doctor, bowing to Rosslawlew 
 and Surski, “ I have been visiting the hos- 
 pital.” 
 
 “ That is what I wanted to see you 
 about. Well, is all in right order ?” 
 
 . “ I believe so.” 
 
 “That’s well; that’s well. My estab- 
 lishment, you know, has been much talked 
 of, and we must not commit ourselves be- 
 fore his Excellency. Is the surgery clean 
 and tidy ?” 
 
 “ Every thing is, as it always is, my lord.” 
 
 “ As it always is 1 There you go ... . 
 now, did not I tell you clearly enough ? my 
 dear fellow, did not I explain myself? To- 
 day the governor will be here, and we must — 
 do you hear me, my good fellow P — we must 
 show the thing in its best light.” 
 
 “ 1 have had the honour of telling your lord- 
 ship that every thing is in proper order.” 
 
 “ But, how is it in the hospital ?” 
 
 “ The floors and passages are washed — the 
 linen is as white as snow . . . .” 
 
 “ But, has care been taken to place over 
 each bed, a ticket, indicating the kind of 
 complaint ?” 
 
 “ Although that, my lord, is not very ne- 
 cessary, as the hospital contains but ten beds ; 
 yet, to please you, I have suspended three 
 tickets.” 
 
 “ And are the inscriptions in Latin ?’’ 
 
 “ Both in Latin and Russian.” 
 
 “ Very well ; and now how many patients 
 have we ?” 
 
 “ At present, thank God, we have not one.” 
 
 “ Not one 1 not a single patient !” cried 
 Ischorski, in the greatest consternation. 
 
 “ No, my lord ; the last one was dismissed 
 the day before yesterday ; it was Hias, the 
 coachman.” 
 
 “ And what did you dismiss him for, eh ?” 
 
 “ Because he was cured of his disorder.” 
 
 “ And who told you he was cured P How 
 did you know that ? Bless me ! not a single 
 patient ! Erect hospitals after that ! come, 
 that is very encouraging!” 
 
 “ Well,” said Surski, “ what harm is there 
 in that ?” 
 
 “ Harm ! now, only just listen to him ! 
 
 You hear him Not a single patient ! 
 
 Am I to show the bare walls to his Excel- 
 lency ? Well done, good doctor Jerzei 
 Iwanowitsch, capital ! upon my word, you 
 have given me great satisfaction ! Not one 
 patient 1” 
 
 “ My lord, my lord, how can I help it ?” 
 
 “ How can you help it ? Now just allow 
 me to put you this question, ‘ What do you 
 receive your salary for ?’ A thousand rubles 
 per annum, board and lodging, and an equi- 
 page, and . . . not one patient, not a single 
 one 1 Is that your behaviour ? After all, I 
 must say my sister was right when she ad- 
 vised me not to have a Russian doctor — doc- 
 tor, indeed ! not a single patient ; dear, dear, 
 
 oh dear ! Upon my word you are a fine fel- 
 low ; well done, Mr. Russian doctor 1 But, 
 cost what it may, I’ll have a German doctor, 
 
 — yes, sir, a German ! We shall not want 
 for patients then. Good gracious ! not one 
 patient ! Gentlemen, you may laugh ; it is 
 nothing to you, you havn’t an hospital, you 
 havn’t ; and not a patient in it, dear, dear !” 
 
 “ Well, Rosslawlew,” said Surski, “ I 
 don’t know what you will think of it; but 
 don’t you think vve might as well sham sick- 
 ness ?” 
 
 “ Brother, I beg you will desist from jest- 
 ing upou this important subject.” 
 
 “ I mean it seriously though ; I do indeed. 
 The governor will certainly not think of feel- 
 ing the pulse of the patients ; the great point 
 is, that the beds be not empty.” 
 
 “ The idea is not bad . . . stop, yes . . . 
 Troschka, send Parfen to me directly.” 
 
 Parfen made his appearance in less than 
 two minutes. “ I say, Parfen,’’ continued 
 the unfortunate Ischorski, “ it is then true 
 that we have not one single patient in the 
 hospital ?” 
 
 “ Thanks to heaven, my lord, there’s not 
 one.’’ 
 
 “ Thanks to heaven, you blockhead ! Par- 
 fen, you area donkey', an ass ?” 
 
 “ Very good, my lord.” 
 
 “ Am 1 to go and show nil the beds 
 empty ? Patients I must have and will have, 
 — do you hear ?” 
 
 “ But, my lord, where am I to find them ?” 
 
 “ That’s not my business— but I must have 
 some, — so be quick.” 
 
 “ Very good, my lord.” 
 
 “ I say, though, Parfen, you do look really 
 very much altered. Are you quite well ?” 
 
 “ Oh, yes, I’m quite well, my lord.” 
 
 “ You had better not neglect yourself, Par- 
 fen. Indeed, Parfen, you are not well.” 
 
 “ My lord, / am well— have mercy on me !” 
 
 “ Very well, then ; now don’t lose any 
 time — go, and be quick.” 
 
 “ But, my lord, suppose I find none 
 willing ?” 
 
 “You are not going to ask them, you stu- 
 pid blockhead. Go, run all over the village, 
 bring the first you meet with, whether he 
 will or no. I suppose I am not master on my 
 own grounds.” 
 
 “ No doubt of that, my lord ; but would it 
 not be better to bribe some one ?” 
 
 “ Oh ! that is not a bad idea. But at all 
 events, don’t you go and take any but those 
 of a sickly appearance. For the action of 
 the dropsical we shall want a good, fat, stout 
 fellow.” 
 
 “ Allow me, my lord ; I could not propose 
 a more fitting individual than the sexton: 
 he is of a very respectable size.’’ 
 
 “ That’s right, Parfen. Try to persuade 
 him.” 
 
 “ For a rouble and a half, my lord, he will 
 
40 
 
 TIIE MIRROR. 
 
 sham sick, and even dead, if you pleuse, for 
 more than four and twenty hours.” 
 
 “ Give him a silver rouble then . . . but, 
 I say, don’t you know any one thin, spare, 
 and gaunt, fora consumptive patient ?” 
 
 Somebody thin ? let me see. Oh ! the 
 cobbler, Audios, lias nothing but skin and 
 bones ; he will be just the thing. You would 
 not find such another man in the whole 
 country.” 
 
 Very well, Parfen; come, you are a capital 
 fellow ; I am much obliged to you ; only, get 
 everything ready as soon as possible. Come, 
 we have got two patients already ; as for the 
 others, you may choose them yourself. By- 
 the-bye, don’t forget to tell them to be as si- 
 lent as possible whilst the governor is in the 
 room.” 
 
 “ Very good, my lord.” 
 
 “ They must not move ; and mind they 
 huve their nightcaps on ; — tell them to groan 
 pretty audibly. ” 
 
 “ Very good, my lord.” 
 
 “ Now things and God speed you 
 
 You are laughing, Surski, I know it is ridi- 
 culous. But what would you have me do; 
 I can’t show empty rooms, — and I am 
 extremely desirous of doing something to 
 distinguish myself. To have erected an hos- 
 pital. — that is something. When his Ex- 
 cellency will have seen it, who knows but he 
 may not talk of it in higher circles ; and what 
 if the Emp. .... don’t you see P now only 
 fancy if I showed my rooms empty !” 
 
 (The company having arrived, after dinner 
 the following scene took place.) 
 
 *• Rosslawlew, only just look at Nicholas 
 Stepauowisch, what a flurry he is in ! What 
 can he the matter with him P Ischorski, 
 pray what is the matter with you ?” 
 
 “ The matter with me ?” answered Is- 
 chorski, in a voice of despair, “ nothing, no- 
 thing at all . . . unless it be indeed, that 1 
 am dishonoured, vilified for ever.” 
 
 “ What do you mean ?” 
 
 “ Well you may ask it ! Saints in Paradise, 
 suffer me to breathe ! the fools ! the scoun- 
 drels ! the dogs ! the ...” 
 
 “ You frighten me. What has happened ?’’ 
 “ A trifle, I told you, a mere trifle ! all my 
 pains, my expenses, my trouble, gone to the 
 devil ! The fool of a doctor, doctor indeed ! 
 he shall leave me this very day !” 
 
 “ Ah, ah ! it is all about your hospital, I see.” 
 “ My hospital ! what hospital ? I have 
 not got any hospital . . . To-morrow I 
 will have it pulled down, the cursed thing !” 
 “ But, brother, do tell us the cause of all 
 this auger.” 
 
 “ The cause ? they have mortally grieved 
 me, that’s all. Only fancy then, I show my 
 guests over the establishment ; the hospital 
 came in its turn, and we first visited the sur- 
 gery ; the company, of course, admired the 
 order and cleanliness of the place. I was 
 
 overwhelmed with compliments, ‘ I was/ 
 they said, ‘ the benefactor of my country, an 
 enlightened proprietor, and that the estab- 
 lishment did me the greatest honour, as well 
 as to the empire, and so on. By-the-bye, 
 we went into room No. 1, dropsical patients, 
 “ I introduce the gentlemen ; good gracious, 
 there lay comsumptive Andros. I hastened 
 them out, and then came room No. 2. The 
 governor himself reads the inscription, 
 “ Consumptive patients.” We entered, every 
 body followed me ; really, if I did not think 
 I should have fallen, so struck was I with 
 amazement ; there lay that big, fat brute, 
 Burkheim, the sexton. “How long have 
 you been consumptive,” asked his Excellency, 
 “ My lord, for more that two years,” an- 
 swered the donkey. “ Poor fellow, you look 
 very suffering, very.’’ Every body hurst out 
 a laughing ; I could no longer stand it, 
 and here I am : what in the world am I to 
 do P can you tell me ?” 
 
 “ Well, but what harm is there done ?” 
 
 “ What harm is there done ? Suppose this 
 should discover us ?” 
 
 “ Who will go and fancy that you hired 
 patients at so much a day: say that the 
 tickets were misplaced — that is all.” 
 
 “ Do you think then, that I could say . . ” 
 “ Certainly, and laugh louder than all the 
 rest put together.” H. M. 
 
 PREPARATION OF NEW ZEALAND FLAX. 
 
 Flax is prepared in New Zealand by the 
 females and slaves. The separating of the 
 silky fibre from the flag-like leaf is thus per- 
 formed : the apex is held between the toes ; 
 a transverse section is then made through 
 the succulent matter at that end with a com- 
 mon muscle-shell, which is inserter! between 
 that substance and the fibre, which readily 
 effects its separation by drawing the shell 
 through the whole of the leaf. It has been 
 attempted in Sydney to withdraw the fila- 
 ments from the leaves by maceration ; but 
 the large proportion of succulent matter ren- 
 dered it impossible to effect the separation by 
 decomposition in water, without materially 
 injuring the strength of the fibre. Leaves 
 of this plant are generally scraped as early as 
 cut, as the thick gum is inclosed at the lower 
 part of the leaf, rising from either side in a 
 pyramidal form, and adheres strongly when 
 drying. — Polack’s New Zealand. 
 
 Potato Cheese. — In Germany great quan- 
 tities of this article are made, which will 
 retain its freshness for several years, if kept 
 in close vessels. It is prepared by boiling 
 the potatoes, and reducing them, when cold, 
 to a pulp, rejecting skins. Sour milk is 
 added, or else sweet curd, with the whey 
 pressed out, in the proportion of a pint to five 
 pounds of pulp, it is kneaded several times, 
 drained in small baskets, and simply dried in 
 the shade. 
 
TI1E MIRROR. 
 
 41 
 
 SJrts anti $cixn(t&. 
 
 EXPERIMENTAL PAVEMENT OF OXFORD- 
 STREET, LONDON. 
 
 This, doubtless the most extraordinary and 
 novel undertaking which has ever been at- 
 tempted in the annals of road-nlaking, has 
 lately been completed in Oxord-street. On 
 Friday, January the 5th, the line of this 
 great thoroughfare occupied by the various 
 specimens of paving, extending from Charles- 
 street to Tottenham-court-road, presented a 
 most animated spectacle. Shortly after two 
 o’clock, the Paving Committee, appointed by 
 the Mary-le-bone Vestry, to superintend the 
 arrangement of this work of art, headed by 
 the parish beadles, passed over theground, fol- 
 lowed by twenty-one omnibuses, after which 
 the road was thrown open to the public. 
 The whole space between Charles-street 
 and Tottenham-court-road is occupied by 
 twelve different specimens, which are com- 
 pleted in the following order, commencing 
 at Charles-street, viz., 40 feet of Robinson’s 
 Parisian bitumen, 24 feet laid in straight 
 courses, and 16 feet diagonally; 74 feet of 
 parish slone paving, 54 feet of which is Jaid 
 in straight courses, the stones nine inches 
 deep, and the interstices filled up with Cla- 
 ridge’s Asphalte, the remaining 20 feet con- 
 sisting of stones only 4| inches deep, but 
 laid diagonally, and filled up with the same 
 composition; 60 feet of the Bastenne Gau- 
 jac bitumen, part laid in straight courses, 
 and part diagonally ; 135 feet of parish stone 
 
 f laving, divided into three sections in the fol- 
 owing order, — 1st, 70 feet of dressed Aber- 
 deen granite, with concrete bottom, and the 
 joints grouted with lime and sand ; 2nd, 40 
 feet of the same laid diagonally ; and 3rd, 
 25 feet of dressed Aberdeen granite, without 
 concrete hottoin, the joints filled in with fine 
 gravel ; this is followed by 50 feet of the 
 Scotch asphnlturr, which is entirely the pro- 
 duce of this country, laid down in straight 
 courses; 60 feet of Mr. Stead’s pavement 
 of wooden blocks of a sextagonal form. 12 
 inches deep, divided into three compart- 
 ments— one prepared with Ky nil’s patent, 
 part dipped in, and joints run with asphalte, 
 and part without any preparation whatever ; 
 the last specimen, at Tottenham-court-road, 
 is 60 feet of the Val de Travers bitumen, a 
 
 J iortion of which consists of square blocks 
 aid in straight courses, and the remainder 
 consisting of a layer of clean Guernsey chip- 
 pings, cemented together by boiling asphalte, 
 run among them nearlj to the surface, a face 
 made with asphalte, merely showing the chip- 
 pings here and there in patches. The whole 
 work presented a most even and heau'iful 
 road. 'I he portion, however, to which atten- 
 tion was more particularly directed, was that 
 of the wooden blicks, the noiseless tendency 
 of which made the vehicles passing along ap- 
 pear to be rolling over a thick carpet, or rug. 
 
 REPRESENTATION OF THE VARIOUS SPECI- 
 MENS OF THE PAVING. 
 
 Charles Street. 
 
 Tottenham - Cowrt- Road. 
 
 OXFORD STREET. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 $efo 
 
 MEMOIRS OF CHARLES MATHEWS, COMEDIAN- 
 BY MRS. MATHEWS.* 
 
 (Continued from, page 12.) 
 
 Mathews’s engagement with Tate Wilkin- 
 son, the eccentric manager of the York thea- 
 tre, was an important event in his career. 
 There are many notices of this oddity, scat- 
 tered through these volumes, and they are all 
 more or less amusing. The introductory 
 visit is as good as any. Tate’s habitual 
 confounding of names is in pleasant contrast 
 with his accurate remembrance of whatever 
 bore upon the object of the interview ; and 
 the wits of the young aspirant seem to have got 
 gradually sharpened by the rubs of his uncouth 
 cross-questioner. “ Tate was shuffling about 
 the room with a small ivory-handled brush in 
 one hand, and a silver buckle in the other, in 
 pretended industry, whistling during his 
 employment, after the fashion of a groom 
 while currying and rubbing down a horse. 
 His coat- collar was thrown down upon his 
 shoulders, and his Brown George (a wig, so 
 called, in compliment, I believe, to King 
 George the Third, who set the fashion,) on 
 one side, exposing the ear on the other, and 
 cocked up behind so as to leave the bare 
 nape of the neck open to observation. His 
 hat was put on, side foremost, and as forward 
 and awry as his wig; both were perched on 
 his head very insecurely, as it seemed to the 
 observer. He presented altogether what 
 might be called an uncomfortable appear- 
 ance. — “ Good morning, sir,” said Mr. 
 Mathews. — “ Oh ! good morning, Mr. 
 Meadows,” replied Tate very doggedly.— 
 “ My name is Mathews , sir.”— “ Ay, I 
 know,” winking his eyes and lifting his 
 brows rapidly up and down, a habit with him 
 when not pleased ; then, wheeling suddenly 
 round, and looking at him, for the first time, 
 with scrutinizing earnestness, from head to 
 foot, he uttered a long-drawn “ ugh !” and 
 exclaimed, “ What a maypole; sir, you’re too 
 tall for low comedy.” — “ I’m sorry, sir,” said 
 the poor disconcerted youth ; but Tate did 
 not seem to hear him, for, dropping his eyes 
 and resuming the brushing of his buckles, he 
 continued as if in soliloquy : “ But, I don’t 
 know why a tall man shouldn’t be a very 
 comical fellow.” Then, again turning sharply 
 for a reinvestigation of the slender figure 
 before him, he added, with gathering discon- 
 tent, “ you’re too thin , sir, for anything but 
 the apothecary in ‘ Romeo and Juliet and 
 yo» would want stuffing for that.” — “ I am 
 very sorry, sir,” rejoined the mortified actor, 
 who was immediately interrupted by the 
 growing distaste and manifest ill-humour of 
 the disappointed manager. — “ What's the 
 use of being sorry ! you speak too quick.” 
 * Published by Bentley. 
 
 The accused anxiously assured him that 
 he would endeavour to mend that habit. 
 
 “ What,” said Tate, snappishly, “ by speak- 
 ing quicker , I suppose.” Then, looking at 
 Mr. Mathews, he, as if again in soliloquy, 
 added, “ I never saw anybody so thin to be 
 alive ! ! Why, sir, one hiss would blow you 
 off the stage.’’ This remark sounding more 
 like good humour than anything he had 
 uttered, the comedian ventured, with a faint 
 smile, to observe, that he hoped he should 
 not get that one — when Tate, with affected or 
 real anger, replied, “ You'd get a great many, 
 sir. Why, sir, I’ve been hissed ; the great Mr. 
 Garrick has been hissed ; it’s not very modest 
 in you to hope to escape, Mr. Mountain.” — 
 
 “ Mathews, sir,” interposed the miscalled. — 
 
 “ Well, Mathew Mountain .” — “ No, sir, — ” 
 
 “ Have you a quick study, Mr. Maddox ? ’ 
 asked Tate, interrupting once more. Ma- 
 thews gave up the ineffectual attempt to 
 preserve his proper name, and replied at once 
 to the last question, “ I hope so, sir.” — 
 
 “ Why, (in a voice of thunder,) ar’n’t you 
 sure ?” — “ Ye-e-es, sir,” asserted his terri- 
 fied and harassed victim. Tate shuffled up 
 and down the room, whistling and brushing 
 rapidly, looking from time to time with evi- 
 dent dissatisfaction, if not disgust, at the 
 object of his scrutiny: at last he seemed to 
 have collected all his moral force, and after 
 another pause, he demanded, “ Pray, when 
 did you have that paralytic stroke, Mr. Mad- 
 dox ?” — “ I— I never had one at all, sir,” 
 said the now completely mortified youth ; 
 with difficulty restraining the tears which 
 were making their way to his eyes ; when 
 Tate, giving him another earnest look, and, 
 as if unconsciously drawing his own mouth 
 awry, in imitation of the one which had sug- 
 gested the last question, answered drily and 
 significantly, in Mr. Mathews’s tone of voice, 
 as he turned away, “ Oh, I thought you 
 hud.” All this was inauspicious, and after 
 the interview had lasted a few minutes longer, 
 Tate strongly recommended the young 
 man’s return to his father and an “ honest 
 trade,” as he said. All that could be gained 
 by Mr. Mathews, was the manager’s slow 
 leave to let him enter upon his probation, and 
 at least have a trial before final condem- 
 nation.” 
 
 This was an unpromising commencement, 
 nor were his early performances at this 
 theatre, productive of much satisfaction to 
 him; but time and perseverance at length 
 overcame all obstructions. Our next extract is 
 not strictly biographical, but, having shown 
 Mathews in an embarassing position, we may 
 as well introduce here Mrs. Siddons, under 
 circumstances equally novel to that queen of 
 tragedy and decorum. 
 
 “ On one memorable night, during her 
 engagement at Leeds, a centre terns of a lu- 
 dicrous nature occurred, for which no part of 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 43 
 
 the audience was answerable. [The Leeds 
 audiences were answerable for several.] The 
 evening was excessively hot, and Mrs. Sid- 
 dons was tempted, by a torturing thirst, to 
 consent to avail herself of the only obtainable 
 relief proposed to her at the moment. Her 
 dresser, therefore, despatched a boy in great 
 haste to ‘ fetch a pint of beer for Mrs. Sid- 
 dons,’ at the same time charging him to be 
 quick, as Mrs. Siddons was in a hurry for it. 
 Meanvvhile the play proceeded ; and on the 
 boy’s return with the frothed pitcher, he looked 
 about for the person who had sent him on 
 his errand ; and not seeing her, inquired, 
 
 ‘ where is Mrs. Siddons.’ The scene- shifter, 
 whom he questioned, pointing his finger to 
 the stage, where she was performing the 
 sleeping scene of Lady Macbeth, replied, 
 
 ‘ There she is.’ To the surprise and horror 
 of all the performers, the boy promptly walked 
 on the stage, close up to Mrs. Siddons, and, 
 with a total unconsciousness of the impro- 
 priety he was committing, presented the 
 porter ! Her distress may be imagined ; she 
 w;aved the boy away in her grand manner 
 several times, without effect ; at last the 
 people behind the scenes, by dint of beckon- 
 ing, stamping, and calling in half-audible 
 whispers, succeeded in getting him off with 
 the beer, part of which, in his exit, he spilled 
 on the stage ; while the audience were in an 
 uproar of laughter, which the dignity of the 
 actress was unable to quell for several mi- 
 nutes.” 
 
 Mr. Mathews’s first marriage, we have 
 seen, is supposed to have been the result more 
 of pity than love ; his second, if it did not 
 originate, was cer’ainly coupled with circum- 
 stances, which, though perfectly consistent 
 with love, were dashed with an unusual mix- 
 ture of the marvellous, some will say, the 
 superstitious. The passages on this subject 
 are too long for transcription ; suffice it to 
 state, that during the last illness of the first 
 Mrs. Mathews, that lady took occasion to 
 request the presence, at her bedside, of her 
 husband and of a particular friend, a Miss 
 Jackson, a young lady then performing at the 
 York Theatre. After the usual civilities, the 
 sick lady led the discourse to the probability 
 of her approaching dissolution, and concluded 
 some very suitable and grave reflections upon 
 the state of isolation in which her husband 
 would be left, by calling upon the two invited 
 parties to pledge themselves to become man 
 and wife when that event should take place. 
 The proposition produced surprise, embarrass- 
 ment, and distress, upon both ; to consent to 
 the proposition was, of course, out of the 
 question ; and the consequence was, very na- 
 turally, a greater degree of reserve and es- 
 trangement, than would have ensued if so 
 strange a proposal had never been uttered. 
 The lady, however, lived some months after ; 
 and when at last the patient sunk under her 
 
 malady, the grief of her husband Was as over- 
 whelming as his regard for her had been 
 sincere, and her devotion to him deep and 
 anxious. But the desired second marriage — 
 was that thought of P Not at all. But mark 
 the influence of Queen Mab. About eight 
 months after — on the same night — Mr. Ma- 
 thews and Miss Jackson, they being far 
 apart, dream, or have a vision— in the course 
 of which, the departed lady appears, and 
 sweetly smiling, holds forth her hand to each. 
 The effect is irresistible — of Mr. Mathews it 
 is said — “ in shrinking from the contact 
 with the figure he beheld, he threw himself 
 out of bed upon the floor, where (the fall hav- 
 ing alarmed his landlord,) he was found in one 
 of those dreadful fits to which I have alluded. 
 On his recovery from it he related the cause 
 of the accident, and the whole of the follow- 
 ing day he remained extremely ill, and unable 
 to quit his room and Mrs. Mathews says 
 that with respect to herself. “ My impres- 
 sions of this visitation (as I persisted it was,) 
 were exactly similar to those of Mr. Mathews. 
 The same sleepless effect, the same cause of 
 terror, had occasioned me to seize the bell- 
 rope, in order to summon the people of the 
 house, which giving (way at the moment, I 
 fell with it in my hand upon the ground. 
 The parties with whom we resided at the 
 time, were perfect strangers to each other, 
 and living widely apart, and they recounted 
 severally to those, about them the extraordi- 
 nary dream, for such I must call it, though 
 my entire belief will never be shaken that 1 
 was as perfectly awake as at this moment. 
 These persons repeated the story to many be- 
 fore they were requested to meet and compare 
 accounts/’ 
 
 In the following February Mr. Mathews 
 made a profitable engagement with Mr. 
 Colman, of the Haymurket Theatre, and in a 
 letter to that gentleman, Mr. Mathews con- 
 fides the secret of his intended marriage to 
 Miss Jackson, for whom also he solicits an 
 engagement. This marriage took place on 
 the 28th of March, 1804 — and shortly alter 
 Mr. and Mrs. Mathews made their appear- 
 ance, for the first time, at a London theatre. 
 
 OOETHE, AS A PATRIOT. 
 
 Goethk might have rendered himself as 
 strong as Hercules in freeing his country 
 from the filth it contains, but he merely pro- 
 cured for himself the golden apples of the 
 Hesperides, of which he retained possession ; 
 and, satisfied with that, he placed himself at 
 the feet of Omphale, where he remained sta- 
 tionary. How completely opposite was the 
 course pursued by the great poets and orators 
 of Italy, France, and England ! Dante, a 
 warrior, statesman, and diplomatist, beloved 
 and hated , protected and persecuted, by 
 mighty princes, remained withal unaffected 
 
44 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 by either, and sang and fought in the cause of 
 justice. Jlfieri was a nobleman, haughty 
 and rich, and yet he panted up the hili of 
 Parnassu-, to proclaim from its summit uni- 
 versal freedom. Montesquieu was a servant 
 of the state, and yet he sent forth his “ Per- 
 sian Letters,’’ in which he mocked at courts, 
 and his Spirit of the Laws,'’’ wherein he 
 exposed the defects of the French government. 
 Voltaire was a courtier, but he only courted 
 the great in smooth words, and never sacri- 
 ficed his principles to them. He wore, it is 
 true, a well-powdered wig, and was lond of 
 lace ruffles, silk coats, and stockings; but 
 when he heard the cry of the persecuted, he 
 did not hesitate to wade through the mud 
 to their rescue, and with his own ennobled 
 hands snatch from the scaffold the unjustly 
 condemned victim. Rosseau was a poor, 
 sickly beggar, and needed aid, but he was not 
 seduced by tender care ; neither could friend- 
 ship, even from the great, produce a change 
 in his principles. He continued proud and 
 free, and died in poverty. Milton, whilst 
 engaged in the composition of his divine 
 poetry, forgot not, though in poverty, the 
 necessities of his fellow-citizens, but laboured 
 for liberty and right. Such men were also 
 Swift, Byron, fyc. ; and such are, at the pre- 
 fent moment, Moore, Campbell, and others. 
 But how has Goethe exhibited himself to his 
 countrymen and to the world P As the citizen 
 of a free city , he merely recollected that he 
 was the grandson of a mayor, who, at the 
 coronation of the Emperor of Germany, was 
 allowed to hold the temporary office of Cham- 
 berlain. As the child of honest and respectable 
 parents, he was de'ighted when once a dirty 
 boy in the street called him a bastard, and 
 wandered forth in imagination (the imagina- 
 tion of a future poe/,) the son of some prince, 
 questioning himself as to which lie might per- 
 chance belong. Thus he was. and thus he 
 remained. Not once did he ever advance a 
 poor solitary word in his country’s cause — he, 
 who from the lofty height which he had 
 attained, might have spoken out what none 
 other but himself could dare to pronounce. 
 Some few years since, he petitioned their 
 « high and highest Mightinesses ” of the 
 German Confederation, to grant his writings 
 their all-powerful protection against piracy ; 
 but he did not remember to include in his 
 prayer an extension of the same privilege to 
 his literary contemporaries. Ere I would 
 have allowed my fingers to pen such a prayer 
 for my individual right, and that only, I 
 would have permitted them to be lamed and 
 maimed by the ruler’s edge, like a school- 
 boy l Borne. 
 
 [ From a collection of interesting Romantic 
 and Historical Tales, under the title of 
 “ Gleanings from Germany ;” by ./ 1). 
 Haas.~\ 
 
 €\)t public journal*. 
 
 DESCENDING THE RAPIDS OP AMERICA. 
 
 In the various modes of water-conveyance to 
 which the traveller on this globe is subjected, 
 there is perhaps no one more curious than 
 that of descending one ol the great rapids of 
 America, in a small bark canoe, under the 
 command, as is customary, ol two Indians; 
 and the anxiety to witness this spectacle is, 
 perhaps, not at all disagreeably spiced by 
 that still warning voice of reason, which 
 gravely admonishes the traveller that his 
 undertaking, interesting as it may be, is not 
 altogether divested of danger. 
 
 Besides the rocks, shoals, and snags, which 
 are to be avoided, unceasing attention must 
 be given to the innumerable logs of hewn 
 timber, which, having been wafted by the 
 lumberers to the commencement of the rapid, 
 are then left to be hurried for eight or nine 
 miles towards their market, — sometimes 
 separately, sometimes hustling each other, 
 sometimes floundering, and sometimes, if 
 anything irritates or obstructs their passage, 
 rearing up into the water until they almost 
 reel over. As soon as a berth or clear place 
 is observed between these masses of floating 
 timber, the elder Indian, who is seated at the 
 head of his canoe, his younger comrade 
 being at the stern, and the passenger in the 
 middle, calmly lets go his hold ot the bank, 
 and the two Indians, each furnished with a 
 single paddle, immediately standing up, the 
 frail band-box which contains them indolently 
 floats until it reaches the edge or crest of 
 the rapid, which is no sooner passed, than 
 the truth rushes upon the mind of the tra- 
 veller, that all possibility of stopping has 
 ceased, and that this ‘ hubble-bubble, 
 toil and trouble' must continue until the 
 eight or nine miles of the rapids shall be 
 passed. 
 
 In the apparent turmoil of this scene, in 
 which the canoe is preceded, as well as fol- 
 lowed by huge masses of timber, the slightest 
 touch of which would annihilate it — the icy- 
 cold judgment of the old Indian — his col- 
 lected, but lightning-like decision— the sim- 
 plicity and tranquillity of his red, beardless 
 face; thatched over by his bluff- cut, black, 
 lank hair — his total absence ol fear or bra- 
 vado — his immutable presence ol mind — 
 and, in places of the greatest possible noise 
 and confusion in the waters, the mild tone of 
 voice with which he softly utters to his 
 young comrade the monosyllable that directs 
 him to steer the stern of the canoe in the 
 direction opposite to that which he gives to 
 its head— form altogether a most striking con- 
 trast with the boisterous scene, the sudden 
 kaleidoscope changes of which it is utterly 
 impossible to describe — for one danger has 
 no sooner been avoided than, instead of re- 
 flecting on it for a moment, the eye is at- 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 45 
 
 tracted to a second, as suddenly passed and 
 succeeded by a third. Sometimes the canoe 
 rapidly dashes over a sunken rock, or between 
 two barely-covered fragments, which to have 
 touched would have been ruin — in avoiding 
 them a snag is passed, which would have 
 spilled the canoe had it inpinged on it — 
 sometimes the middle of the stream is the 
 safest — sometimes the Indian steers close to 
 the steep, rocky bank, where it becomes evi- 
 dent the velocity of the current is so great, that 
 if the canoe were to be upset, its passengers, 
 even if they could snatch hold of the bough of 
 a tree, could not hang on to it, without being 
 suffocated by the resistance which in that po- 
 sition they would offer to the rustling waters. 
 Sometimes, at a moment when all is appa- 
 rently prosperous, and the water on account 
 of its greater depth or breadth, has become com- 
 paratively tranquil, some of the timber a head, 
 going down end-foremost, strikes either 
 against the side, or some sunken rock in the 
 middle of the stream, in which case the tree 
 suddenly halts, and, veering round, impedes 
 the rest of the timber, until the congregated 
 mass, forcing its way, thus clears the passage, 
 perhaps just before the canoe reaches it. At 
 other times, in traversing the stream to avoid 
 difficulties, the pursuing timber approaches 
 the canoe nearer than is agreeable. In some 
 places the river suddenly narrows, and here, 
 it is said, the waves are not only tremendous, 
 but the whole character of the torrent seems 
 to be changed, for the water apparently ceases 
 altogether to descend the channel, doing no- 
 thing but as it were boiling and bubbling up 
 from the bottom. In approaching this caul- 
 dron, the case seems hopeless, and often con- 
 tinues so until the canoe is close upon it, 
 when the Indian’s eagle eye searches out 
 some little aqueous furrow, through which his 
 nutshell vessel can pass, and, though his coun- 
 tenance is as tranquil as ever, yet the muscu- 
 lar exertion he makes to attain this passage 
 will not, it is said, easily be forgotten by any 
 passenger whose fortune it has ever been to 
 observe it. As soon as the declivity of the 
 rapids has ended, the water instantly becomes 
 tranquil, the Indians sit down in the canoe, 
 and on reaching the shore, one of them car- 
 ries it on his shoulders during the remainder 
 of the day. 
 
 It would, of course, be impossible for any 
 vessel to ascend a torrent similar to that down 
 which, by a digression not uncommon to the 
 traveller in America, our readers have just un- 
 expectedly been precipitated ; yet on the St. 
 Lawrence it is not unusual to see a steamer 
 climb a rapid of very considerable violence. 
 From the deck of a vessel in this situation it is 
 very curious to determine, by the relative 
 bearing of fixed objects on shore, the slow but 
 sure conquest which the power of steam makes 
 over the two elements of wind and Water, 
 both of which are occasionally seen combining 
 
 to oppose its progress. In places where the 
 current is the strongest, the ascent for a time 
 is almost imperceptible ; every moment it is 
 expected that the vigorous strength of the 
 steam will be exhausted by the untiring force 
 of its adversaries ; but no — the hot water in 
 the long run beats the cold — the fire con- 
 quers the wind — and, though the liquid ele- 
 ment is continuously slipping from under- 
 neath the vessel, aud though the air in close 
 column is unceasingly charging to oppose it, 
 yet — ‘ tit spes inlracta’ — in spite of all these 
 difficulties, the steamer triumphantly reaches 
 the summit of the rapids, and then merrily 
 glides forward on its course. [From an ar- 
 ticle in the number of the Quarterly Review, 
 just published, nominally, ‘ on Railroads in 
 Ireland,’ but really upon the general effects, 
 present state, and probable consequences of 
 steam-travelling, whether by land or water. 
 The whole article is highly deserving of pub- 
 lic attention ; the mere reader will be amused 
 by it, and the practical man, in its facts and 
 suggestions, will find much valuable data by 
 which to regulate his patronage of particular 
 schemes, with a view to the general benefit.] 
 
 THE EDINBURGH REVIEW. 
 
 Luther. — Peacock. — Southey. 
 
 There is a good deal to interest the general 
 reader in the number just published. The 
 article on “ D’ Aubigne' s History of the Re- 
 formation in Germany, &c.” places the cha- 
 racter of the great reformer, Luther, in a very 
 favourable light, at the same time making no 
 attempt to veil either his faults or failings. 
 Many little incidents in the biography of 
 eminent men, highly illustrative of character, 
 are often passed over by historians, and even 
 biographers, as too trivial for the dignity of 
 their vocation. M. D’Aubigne and his re- 
 viewer are of a different opinion, and bring 
 before the reader a variety of details of this 
 nature. We shall give an extract from a 
 letter of Luther’s, respecting the dismissal of 
 a servant. He is addressing his wife : “ We 
 must dismiss old John with honour. We 
 know that he has always served us faithfully 
 and zealously, and as became a Christian 
 servant. What have we not given to vaga- 
 bonds and thankless students, who have made 
 a bad use of our momey ? Sc we will not 
 be niggardly to so worthy a servant, on 
 whom our money will be bestowed in a man- 
 ner pleasing to God. You need not remind 
 me that we are not rich. I would gladly 
 give him ten florins if I had them, but do 
 not let it be less than five. He is not 
 able to do much for himself. Pray help him 
 in any other way you can. Think how this 
 money can be raised. There is a silver cup 
 which might be pawned. Sure I am that 
 God will not desert us. Adieu.” “Lu- 
 ther’s pleasures (continues the Reviewer) 
 
46 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 were hs simple as his domestic affections 
 were pure. He wrote metrical versions of 
 the Psalms, well described by Mr. Hallam, 
 as holding a middle place between the dog- 
 grel of Sternhold and Hopkins, and the 
 meretricious ornaments of the late versifiers 
 of the Songs of David. He wedded to them 
 music of his own, to which the most obtuse 
 ear cannot listen without emotion. The 
 greatest of the sons of Germany was in this 
 respect, a true child of that vocal land for 
 such was his enthusiasm for the art, that he 
 assigned to it a place second only to that of 
 theology. He was also an ardent lover 
 of painting, and yielded to Albert Durer the 
 homage which he denied to Cajetan and 
 Erasmus. His are among the earliest works 
 embellished by the uid of the engraver. With 
 the birds of his native country he had es- 
 tablished a strict intimacy, watching, smiling, 
 and moralizing over their habits. “ That 
 little fellow,” he said, of a bird going to 
 roost,” has chosen his shelter, and is quietly 
 rocking himself to sleep without a care 
 for to-morrow’s lodging, calmly holding 
 by his little twig, and leaving God to think 
 for him.” 
 
 Articles follow on “ Wilkinson’s Manners 
 of the Ancient Egyptians ” — “ Southey’s Po- 
 etical Works’’ — “Prescott’s History of Fer- 
 dinand and Isabella.’’ — “Tales by the Au- 
 thor of Headlong Hall.’’ {Peacock .) — “ Lis- 
 ter’s Life of Clarendon’’ — “ Reid on Storms,” 
 <fcc. The article on Peacock is a masterly 
 and successful attempt to describe the cha- 
 racteristics of one of the wittiest and most 
 original writers of the present time, and yet, 
 strange to say, hitherto appreciated by but 
 a comparatively small, though we need not 
 scruple to add, discerning circle. The Edin- 
 burgh notice cannot fail greatly to extend it. 
 
 The article on Southey, written, we pre- 
 sume, by Lord Jeffery, is introduced by a 
 retrospective reference to the period, — forty 
 years ago — when the poet and his critic, 
 then young enthusiasts in behalf of opposite 
 poetic theories, first came into literary contact. 
 Old asperities are now treated as obliterated 
 by accessions of wisdom on both sides ; and 
 accordingly, not a grain of party feeling is 
 suffered to alloy the honest expression of 
 the reviewer’s opinions, which, on the whole, 
 manifest a strong sense of the poet’s various 
 talents. Southey’s poem on the Holly-tree, 
 written in 1798, has long been the delight of 
 every body acquainted with them. The de- 
 sire expressed in the concluding lines in an- 
 ticipation of age : 
 
 " So would I seem amidst the young and gay 
 More gra\e than they. 
 
 That in my age as cheerful I might be 
 
 A 8 the green winter of the liolly-tree,” 
 
 is suitably and beautifully companioned by 
 a poem in the late re-publication, written in 
 1829. Our readers will be glad to see it. 
 
 1829. 
 
 “ That sense which held me back in youth 
 From all intemperate gladness. 
 
 That same good instinct bids me shun 
 Unprofitable sadness. 
 
 " Nor marvel you, if 1 prefer 
 Of playful themes to sing : 
 
 The October glade hath brighter tints 
 Than summer or than spring. 
 
 " For o’er the leaves before thev fall 
 Such hues hath nature thrown. 
 
 That the woods wear in sunless days 
 A sunshine of their own. 
 
 “ Why should I seek to call forth tears ? 
 The source from whence we weep 
 Too near the surface lies in youth, 
 
 In age it lies too deep. 
 
 “ Enough of foresight sad, too much 
 Of retrospect have I : 
 
 And well for me that I sometimes 
 Can put those feelings by. 
 
 “ From public ills, and thoughts that else 
 Might weigh me down to earth, 
 
 That I can gain some intervals 
 For healthful, hopeful mirth. 
 
 " That I*can sport in tales that suit 
 Young auditors like these ; 
 
 Yet, if I err not, may content 
 The few I seek to please. 
 
 “ I know in what responsive mind 
 My lightest lay will wake, 
 
 A sense of pleasure for its own 
 And for its author’s sake. 
 
 “ I know the eyes in which the light 
 Of memory will appear ; 
 
 I know the lips which, while they read 
 Will wear a smile sincere : 
 
 " The heart to which my sportive song 
 The thought of days will bring, 
 
 When they and 1, w hose winter now 
 Comes on, were in our spring. 
 
 " And J their well known voices, too. 
 Though far away, can hear 
 Distinctly, even as when in dreams 
 They reach the inward ear. 
 
 " ' There speaks the man we knew of yore,’ 
 Well pleased I hear them say, 
 
 ‘ Such was he in his brighter moods 
 Before our heads were grey. 
 
 “ ' Buoyant he w'as in spirit, quick 
 Of fancy, blithe of heart, 
 
 And care and time, and change have left 
 Untouched his better part.’ 
 
 “ Thus say my morning friends, who now 
 Are in the vale of years. 
 
 And I, save such as thus may rise 
 Would draw no other tears.” 
 
 CI)e flaturalisst. 
 
 One of the most . singular appearances of the 
 forest at Tucacas, arose from the number of 
 a species of plant called Bejucas. These are 
 everywhere seen stretching from the earth to 
 the tops of the highest trees, like stays to 
 the mast of a ship. Sometimes stretched 
 perfectly tight, and twisted round each other 
 in pairs, they resemble hempen cables, being 
 quite regular as to thickness, and without a 
 leaf or branch. They were of various thick- 
 nesses, from the smallest twine to six and 
 seven inches in diameter. When young, they 
 are applied to all purposes for which cordage 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 *7 
 
 is used in England ; in the woods the natives 
 lash the beams and rafters of their houses 
 with them ; on the coast, the fishermen use 
 them as ropes for their fish-crawls, which 
 they sink many fathoms deep. I have seen 
 trees of large diameter, when cut through 
 with the axe, remain perfectly stationary, 
 until these natural stays, which were sup- 
 porting them on all sides, were cut away ; 
 and not unfrequently have riders been pulled 
 from their horses by riding against one, 
 which, from its tendril-like appearance, be- 
 ing not thicker perhaps than a quill, they ex- 
 pected to break .—Hawks haw’s Reminiscences 
 of South America. 
 
 Lichens. — Many lichens, which fix them- 
 selves on calcareous rocks, such as the Pa- 
 tellaria immersa, are observed, in process of 
 time, to sink deeper and deeper beneath the 
 surface of the rock, as if they had some 
 mode of penerating into its substance, ana- 
 lagous to that which many marine worms 
 are known to possess. The agent appears 
 in both instances to be an acid, which here is 
 probably the oxalic, acting upon the car- 
 bonate of lime, and producing the gradual 
 excavation of the rock. This view is con- 
 firmed by the observation, that the same 
 species of lichens, when attached to rocks 
 which are not calcareous, remains always 
 at the surface, and does not penetrate be- 
 low it. 
 
 THE LAPACHO-TREE, 
 
 One of the natural productions of Paraguay. 
 
 The lapacho is not only the finest, but the 
 most magnificent of all trees. English oak 
 is very fine, but never to be compared to la- 
 pacho. From the solid trunk of one of these 
 trees a Portuguese scooped out at Villa Real 
 a canoe, which brought down to Assumption 
 a hundred bales of yerba (that is, 22,5001b. 
 of Paraguay tea,) several hides made up into 
 balls and filled with molasses, a load of deals, 
 seventy packages of tobacco, and eight Para- 
 guay sailors, to manage the three masts and 
 sails of the large, but yet elegantly scooped- 
 out trunk of the lapacho-tree. Of this tree 
 are constructed vessels which, when fifty 
 years old, may still be called young. Their 
 frame is not shaken, nor is their constitution 
 debilitated by all the bumps they have on the 
 sand-banks of the Purand, nor by the search- 
 ing rays of a tropical sun, nor by the “ even 
 down pours,” as the Scotch have it, of tro- 
 pical rains. * * * Of this lapacho, the 
 
 grain is so close, that neither worm nor rot 
 can assail it. The carts in Buenos Ayres, 
 and all the rafters of the houses there, are 
 constructed of it. 
 
 AN HIGHLAND FREEBOOTER. 
 
 John More, who lived in Durness, and 
 rented a small farm near Dirrie-more, neither 
 had, nor cared to have, permission to kill 
 deer and game ; but his whole time was de- 
 voted to poaching, and his wild mode of life 
 rendered him an uncouth, but tolerated plun- 
 derer of the forest. Donald Lord Reay hap- 
 pening to pass near John More’s residence 
 one summer morning, determined to call and 
 endeavour to reclaim him from his lawless 
 propensities. He left his attendants at some 
 distance, that he might ensure confidence on 
 the part of his rude host. He found John 
 at home, and told him that he called to get 
 some breakfast. John was evidently proud 
 of this visit, and pleased with the frank man- 
 ner in which he was accosted, having been 
 usually threatened by those in authority with 
 imprisonment and the gallows. “ Come in, 
 Donald,” said John, in Gaelic, “ and sit on 
 my stool, and you will get to eat what cost 
 me some trouble in collecting.” His lord- 
 ship entered the hut, and was soon seated in 
 a dismal corner ; but John opened a wooden 
 shutter that had filled up a hole in the wall, 
 through which day-light entered, and re- 
 vealed a tall black looking box, which was 
 the only article in the house that could be 
 used as a table. John bustled about with 
 great activity, and, to his lordship’s surprise, 
 pulled out from the box two or three beau- 
 tifully white dinner napkins. One of them 
 was placed on the top of the box as a table- 
 cloth, and the other spread on his lordship’s 
 knees. The fire, which glimmered in the 
 centre of the room, was then roused, and 
 made to burn more freely. This proceeding 
 denoted that John had some provisions to 
 cook ; — from a dark mysterious recess lie 
 drew forth a fine gilse, already split open 
 and ready for being dressed. By means of 
 two long wooden spigots, which skewered 
 the fish, and the points of which were stuck 
 into the earthen hearth, the gilse was placed 
 before the burning peats, and turned occa- 
 sionally. Soon after a Suspicious-looking 
 piece of meat was placed over the embers ; 
 and when all was cooked, John placed it 
 upon the box before his chief, saying, — 
 ‘* John More’s fattest dish is ready — add- 
 ing, that the salmon was from one of his 
 lordship’s rivers, and the meat the breast of 
 a deer. Lord Reay asked for a knife and 
 some salt; but John replied — “that teeth 
 and hands were of little use, if they could 
 not master dead fish and flesh ; that the 
 deer seasoned their flesh with salt on the 
 hill, whilst the herring could not do so in 
 the sea ; and that the salmon, like the Dur- 
 ness butter, was better without salt. John 
 produced also some smuggled brandy; and 
 pressed his lordship to eat and drink hear- 
 tily, making many remarks on the manliness 
 of eating a good breakfast. The chief 
 
43 
 
 TI1E MIRROR. 
 
 thought this a good opportunity to endea- 
 vour to make a proper impression upon his 
 lawless host ; and, after having been hand- 
 somely regaled by plunder from his own 
 forest, determined to act with such gene- 
 rosity towards More, as would keep him 
 within reasonable bounds in future. “ I am 
 well pleased John, (said he.) that although 
 you invade the property of others, you do 
 not conceal the truth, and that you have 
 freely given me the best entertainment 
 that your depredations on my property have 
 enabled you to bestow. I will, therefore, 
 allow you to go occasionally to Fionavon iri 
 search of a deer, if you will engage not to 
 interfere with deer or any sort of game 
 in any other part of my forest.’’ More 
 could never tolerate any restraint, and his 
 answer was begun almost before Lord Reay 
 had finished his handsome offer. ‘ Donald, 
 (said he,) you may put Fionavon in your 
 paunch, — for wherever the deer are, there 
 will John More be found.” — Scrope’s Art 
 of Dear Stalking. 
 
 Cl )e (featljmr. 
 
 In July, 1766, a man having laid a wager 
 that he would cross the Thames in a butcher’s 
 tray without any other assistance than his 
 hands, set out from Somerset-stairs, and 
 reached the Surrey shore in safety : he had 
 on a cork jacket, in case of any accident. It 
 is said that there were £ 14,000 depending 
 on this feat, and that upwards of seventy boats 
 full of spectators were present. W. G. C # 
 
 Unforeseen Cause of JVar. — The least 
 foreseen causes of wars, has broken out 
 within the last three years, nothing less than 
 a schismatic difference between the natives 
 in their religious opinions, between those 
 who have placed themselves under the ban- 
 ners of the Westleyan Missionaries, and some 
 new idolators, who term themselves disciples 
 of Papahurihia. The Sabbath is fixed by 
 these modern luminaries on the seventh day 
 or Saturday. This novel credenda consists 
 in a God of fire or Wero being president, 
 and he has sent forth a prophet to work mira- 
 cles, teach the people that the missionaries 
 are cheats, and other similar silly tales. 
 
 This fiction, it is said, was invented by 
 the master of a whale ship, which, if true, he 
 must have been contemptibly wicked, to at- 
 tempt to delude these people from the know- 
 ledge of a true God. That the prophet is a 
 New Zealander there can be no mistake, as 
 his affections are said to be equally affected 
 towards discussing food, as polemics. — Po- 
 lack's New Zealand. 
 
 A letter dated near the mouth of White 
 River, in Arkansas, gives the following pain- 
 ful account of a remarkable conflict with a 
 bear, Nov. 1838 : — 
 
 “ There was one of the deepest tragedies 
 here two evenings ago that 1 ever heard ot. 
 Mr. Harris, the landlord in whose house I 
 am now staying, went up the river to drive 
 some cattle to a Mr. Kean’s ; on the way he 
 and Kean saw a very large bear, which they 
 shot twice, wounding him mortally, but not 
 killinghim. They then followed him with their 
 dogs, and when they came to where he was, 
 Mr. Harris went into the cave to get another 
 chance to shoot him. The bear was behind 
 a tree, and Mr. Harris and the animal met. 
 Harris shot him the third time, but did not 
 kill him. The bear caught him by the ham- 
 string, and bit the large artery in two. 
 Kean, who was loading another gun, ran to 
 him, not being more than ten steps off, with 
 his butcher-knife, to stab the bear, that now 
 had Harris under him, but when he was 
 aiming the blow, the bear saw him, and 
 leaped at him. Kean sprung back, and 
 Harris jumped from under the bear, ran 
 fifteen or twenty feet, and fell. Kean said, 
 
 ‘ Are your hurt?’ ‘ Yes, 1 am killed,’ was 
 his answer. Kean then jumped between 
 Harris and the bear, as the latter was rush- 
 ing to another attack, and luckily shot him 
 the fourth time through the body, which 
 weakened the animal much, though he still 
 fought with the dogs for some time. Kean 
 ran next to Harris, saw his haggard coun- 
 tenance, begged him to speak, but the pros- 
 trate man expired in an instant.” 
 
 Hatton Garden. — “ 1659, 7 June. To see 
 y e foundations laying for a streete and build- 
 ings in Hatton Garden, design'd for a little 
 towne, lately an ample garden.’’— Evelyn's 
 Memoirs, vol. i. p. 306. 
 
 The first play- bill issued from Drury- Lane 
 Theatre, was April 8, (Thursday,) 1663, with 
 the Humorous Lieutenant. The play to be- 
 gin at 3 o’clock precisely. 
 
 The actors’ names were affixed to the cha- 
 racters they represented, for the first time, iu 
 1663. 
 
 Some time ago (says the Courier de Lyon) 
 a poor labouring man discovered in a block 
 of wood from the Levant, a diamond of con- 
 siderable size, valued at more than 150,000 
 francs. It should appear, that this diamond 
 had been concealed in an opening made by 
 incision in the tree when no more than five 
 or six years of age ; and that, by the rules 
 observed in calculating the ages of trees, it 
 had numbered about 35 or 36 years ; so that 
 this tree had held in its bosom this costly 
 treasure more than a quarter of a century. 
 
 H.M. 
 
 LONDON: Printed and published by J. LI M BIRD, 
 143 , Strand, ( near Somerset House ) ; and sold by 
 all Booksellers and Neu"-men. — In PARIS, by all 
 the Booksellers.— In FRANCFORT, CHARLES 
 JUGEL . 
 
Zi)C ffluTOV 
 
 OF 
 
 LITERATURE. AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION. 
 
 SATURDAY. JANUARY 26, 183 9. 
 
 THE CASTLE IN WHICH “LE.L ” DIED. 
 
 The above engraving is a correct representa- 
 tion of Cape Coast Castle— the dreary abode, 
 the strange and dismal place of sojourn, and 
 the fatal spot wherein that gilted being, 
 
 L. E. L ,” so melancholy closed her valua- 
 ble life. As we feel assured every memento 
 of that unfortunate lady possesses much in- 
 terest, a fac-simile of her autograph is also 
 subjoined. 
 
 A short time previous to her death, “ L.E L.” 
 wrote her friends a description of her new 
 abode ; making, poor lady 1 the best of her 
 gloomy habitation : she says, “ the castle is 
 a building surrounded on three sides by the 
 
 sea. I like the perpetual dash on the rocks 
 — one wave comes up after another, and is 
 for ever dashed in pieces, like human hopes , 
 that only swell to be disappointed. We ad- 
 vance — up springs the shining froth of love 
 or hope ; ‘ a moment white, and gone for 
 ever.’ The land-view, with its cocoa and palm- 
 trees, is very striking — it is like the scene in 
 the Arabian Nights. The native huts I first 
 took for ricks of hay, but those of the better 
 sort are pretty white houses, with green blinds. 
 The English gentlemen resident here have 
 very large houses, quite mansions, with gal- 
 leries running round. Generally speaking. 
 
 
 
 
 Voi.. xxxnr. 
 
50 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 the vegetation is so thick, that the growth of 
 the shrubs rather resembles a wall. The 
 solitude here is very Robinson Crusoeish. 
 The hills are covered to the top with what we 
 should call calf-weed, but here is called bush ; 
 on two of these hills are small forts built by 
 Mr. Maclean. The natives seem obliging 
 and intelligent, and look very picturesque, 
 with their fine dark figures, with pieces of 
 the country cloth flung round them ; they 
 seem to have an excellent ear for music. 
 The servants are very tolerable, but they take 
 so many to work. The prisoners do the 
 scouring, and faucy three men cleansing a 
 room that an old woman in England would 
 do in an hour ! besides, the soldier who 
 stands by, has his bayonet drawn in his 
 hand. Of a night, the beauty of the sce- 
 nery is remarkable : the sea is of a silvery 
 purple, and the moon deserves all that has 
 been said in her favour. The salt lakes were 
 first dyed a deep crimson by the setting sun, 
 and as we returned, they seemed a faint 
 violet in the twilight, just broken by a thou- 
 sand stars, while before us was the red-light 
 beacon.” 
 
 Mr. Joseph Dupuis, in his “ Journal of a 
 Residence in Ashantee,” 1814, says, the 
 effects of the sunbeams are here oppressive to 
 Europeans, and the absence of the sea breeze, 
 which seldom sets in before ten o’clock, con- 
 tributes much to exhaustion and indisposi- 
 tion, attended with fever ; that they are 
 obliged, so languid does the heat render them, 
 to drink cold infusions of bark, and add the 
 refreshing application to restore them. Is 
 it any wonder that so gentle and frail a 
 creature as “ L. E. L.” should sink beneath 
 the vapours of such a soil of swamps, fe- 
 vers, and pestilence P liable as she was to 
 “ All the maladies 
 
 Of ghastly spasm, or racking torture, qualms 
 
 Of heart-sick agouy.” 
 
 Cape Coast Castle is the principal British 
 settlement on the Gold Coast of the Gulf of 
 Guinea: and is near the powerful kingdom 
 of the Ashantees. The British trade with 
 the Gold Coast of Africa was placed by char- 
 ter, in the reign of Charles II., under the 
 controul of the African Company, whose 
 governor-general (the governor of Cape Coast 
 Castle,) and couucil, managed the affairs of 
 the settlement. It is well-known, when Sir 
 Charles Macarthy was governor of Cape 
 Coast Castle, he attacked the armies of 
 the Ashantees, by whom he was killed, 
 and his army totally defeated. They now, 
 however, for the present, live on friendly 
 terms with the British authorities. 
 
 A correspondent, in the Times of January 
 22, says, “ ‘ L. E. L.’ was subject to the most 
 violent spasms iu the head and stomach ; 
 and when on a visit four years ago, she used 
 
 laudanum so very carelessly, that Mrs. 
 
 told her she would certainly poison herself. 
 During the same visit, she received a letter 
 
 from a gentleman, subject to similar attacks, 
 telling her, “ he had received great benefit 
 from taking minute portions of prussic acid.” 
 Hence she determined to.fly to it for relief; 
 and there is no doubt she died through her 
 carelessness. She was not a melancholy sen- 
 timentalist ; she was a joyous creature, with 
 a countenance radiant, of smiles, and that 
 looked as if trouble had never come near 
 her.” 
 
 SONG. 
 
 l’vE HOPED IN VAIN TO MEET WITH THEE ! 
 
 BY ANDREW PARK, 
 
 Author of “ The Queen of Merry England ." — “ The 
 Rocky Deep,” fyc. fyc. fyc. 
 f For the Mirror.') 
 
 I’ve hoped iu vain to meet witli tliee. 
 
 Thro’ years that seem’d a lifetime each ; 
 
 But, ah ! I fear that ne’er shall be, 
 
 Unless I first the bliss beseech ! 
 
 I could not own my ardent flame, 
 
 Tho’ wildly it consumed my breast ; 
 
 Nor have I ever breathed thy name, 
 
 Tho’ looks have all my soul express’d ! 
 
 When first we caught each other’s glance. 
 
 Our hearts enjoyed youth’s sunuiest year; 
 
 But tho’ our number’d days advance. 
 
 At least, I feel not less sincere 1 
 
 Matured in thought — inured to care — 
 
 More fitted for the world’s soft guile ; 
 
 A long-admired and faithful fair. 
 
 Can better trust her lover’s smile ! 
 
 Then, geutle maiden ! blame me not 
 If Fate has thus prolong’d our woe; 
 
 One hour thou hast not been forgot. 
 
 And there are reasons noue can know ! 
 
 Still do I live to think of thee, — 
 
 Witli longings for the blissful hour. 
 
 When thou slialt meet and smile with me. 
 
 Till death destroys affection’s power ! 
 
 A MORNING SALUTATION BETWEEN 
 SOUL AND BODY. 
 
 BODY. 
 
 Txi.r, me, my Soul, where hast thou been 
 Wand’ring the live long night ? 
 
 What hast thou done, what hast thou seen. 
 In the course of thy silent flight ? 
 
 SOUL. 
 
 I have been o’er the wide wide sea. 
 
 Have o’er the waters crost ; 
 
 Seeking for ever so mournfully. 
 
 Her whom I have lost. 
 
 I have heen to visit the silent tomb. 
 
 Where my hopes all buried lie ; 
 
 Fairer flowers in my pathway bloom, 
 
 But dearer to me, tho’ lost in gloom. 
 
 Are those that have pass'd me by. 
 
 I have been wand’ring all alone, 
 
 ’Mid the ruins of happier days ; 
 
 Fairy palaces overthrown — 
 
 Shining visions all scatter’d and gone, 
 Losi in tjiedsSolate maze. 
 
 I have bhen’ Vj$ud’ring I know not where. 
 Seeking for something that was not there. 
 Comfortless, void, and vain — 
 
 But I heard from afar the distant hum 
 'Of the ’wakening multitude, and I come, 
 
 I come to thee again. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 .H 
 
 THE KINGDOMS OF NATURE. 
 
 The origin of Natural History may be re- 
 ferred to the infancy of the human species ; 
 for some knowledge of the kind was neces- 
 sary for the preservation of life. Man, placed 
 in the world naked and defenceless, was im- 
 pelled by necessity, no less than by choice, to 
 examine surrounding objects ; anil knowledge 
 accumulated as society advanced. The know- 
 ledge of Nature may be regarded as the stem 
 from which shoot, as branches, all the other 
 kinds of human knowledge. 
 
 Natural objects are divided into two great 
 classes ; — organic , and inorganic. Organ- 
 ized bodies consist both of solid and of fluid 
 parts ; contain cells filled with fluid ; inhale 
 fluids and exhale others ; are covered with a 
 skin, called epidermis ; and ate produced by 
 other bodies of the same kind ; — so that they 
 form part of a chain, reaching from the very 
 origin of animals. They grow by taking 
 food internally ; and this, together with the 
 function of reproduction, supposes an inter- 
 nal structure ; consisting of organs adapted 
 for their several purposes, animated by a vital 
 power. Some organic beings live only a few 
 minutes ; others for centuries ; but eventually 
 all die. Inorganic bodies do not grow from 
 internal deposition, or produce others; though 
 they increase in size, and have a determinate 
 form. They do not die; have no general 
 covering; and their structure is arranged in 
 plates (laminated). If the plates (or la- 
 mellae) cross each other, cells are produced ; 
 but they are empty. 
 
 Organic bodies are divided into plants and 
 animals ; — the first having the power of being 
 nourished by food, as well as the last ; and 
 also of producing other bodies like their own ; 
 but they do not possess sensation, or the 
 power of moving at will. One great charac- 
 teristic of animals is the possession of a sto- 
 mach. This organ has been found in every 
 animal which has yet been carefully exa- 
 mined ; — even in those of which five millions 
 exist in a drop of water. It has been the 
 fashion to deny a stomach to animalculse ; 
 but this is founded on mistake. 
 
 Here, then, we have the Three Kingdoms 
 of Nature ; — the Animal , the Vegetable , and 
 the Mineral; — the two first being included 
 in organic bodies, and the latter consisting of 
 inorganic. The study of these kingdoms 
 constitutes Natural History. It has been 
 divided into five parts; comprehended in the 
 sciences of Meteorology, Hydrography, Mi- 
 neralogy, Botany, and Zoology. The variety 
 of objects in nature is so great, that the stu- 
 dent is distracted when he attempts to grasp 
 the whole. The globe is the result of a great 
 process of oxidization and crystallization ; 
 and contains an extinct world of animals and 
 plants, different from those which are at pre- 
 sent living on its surface. In order to com- 
 municate their observations to others, natu- 
 
 E 2 
 
 ralists began to class objects according to 
 their resemblances ; and, after dividing them 
 into Kingdoms, they have subdivided them 
 into Classes, Orders, Genera, Species, and 
 Varieties. Two arrangements have been 
 adopted ; one called natural , and the other 
 artificial. The latter is useful only for ascer- 
 taining the name of any object ; for it gives 
 no information respecting its nature and pro- 
 perties. Cuvier's is a beautiful natural sys- 
 tem of the Animal Kingdom ; and the foun- 
 dation of a natural arrangement of the Vege- 
 table Kingdom has been laid by Jussieu and 
 others. The best artificial system is that of 
 Linnaeus. In Mineralogy (an infant science) 
 both the natural and the artificial systems are 
 yet imperfect. 
 
 That description of events which is called 
 “ history,” is erroneous as applied to our 
 present subject. The latter has two branches; 
 one of which acquaints us with the various 
 objects in nature, as they really exist ; and is 
 called “Natural Description;’' while the 
 other (or “ Natural History ,” properly so 
 called) comprehends the original state of 
 natural objects, and the various changes they 
 have undergone to the present time. Natural 
 History is not to be regarded as a matter of 
 idle curiosity ; or merely as an elegant pas- 
 time, to be pursued as a relaxation after other 
 pursuits. It is an elegant pastime, certainly; 
 but it is much more ; for to study it fully and. 
 deeply, requires active and attentive exereise 
 of the mind. It furnishes a rich source of 
 ideas for the poet. Witness Hesiod, Theo- 
 critus, Virgil, Lucretius, and, in later times, 
 Milton, Thomson, and others. It is indis- 
 pensable to agriculture and mining. The 
 chemist ought to possess some knowledge of 
 it, to enable him to discriminate the various 
 substances that come under his examination. 
 Much is yet to be done ; for New Holland, 
 Asia, and Africa, are almost unknown. 
 We are but imperfectly acquainted with our 
 own little kingdom ; and we have no com- 
 plete mineralogical or geological system. A 
 knowledge of geology is often of great use to 
 military officers. Even the great maps pub- 
 lished by Government, are declared by Pro- 
 fessor Jameson to be faulty; owing to the 
 surveyors being ignorant of Geology. We 
 take this opportunity of acknowledging our 
 obligations to the unpublished lectures of 
 this distinguished Naturalist, in the prepara- 
 tion of the present sketch ; and we intend to 
 borrow largely from the same source, in 
 future communications on Natural History. 
 By a knowledge of this interesting science, a 
 traveller is enabled to seize and tot commu- 
 nicate a more distinct view of the countries he 
 visits, than he who, ignorant of the subject, 
 has spent a whole life in them. The latter 
 will find all waste and wearisome ; where 
 the former finds, — 
 
 " Tongues in the trees ; books in the running brooks ; 
 
 Sermons in stones ; and good in everything !” 
 
52 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 Organic are distinguished from inorganic 
 bodies by certain phenomena which are called 
 vital. It is not one of these phenomena, 
 but the assemblage of the whole that is called 
 “ life.” One of them is the property of resist- 
 ing, within certain limits, the ordinary laws of 
 matter. The next is that of changing other 
 bodies into their own substance. This assi- 
 milation is termed, in vegetables, absorption ; 
 and, in animals, digestion. Another distin- 
 guishing phenomenon is the mode in which 
 the constituent materials of organized bodies 
 are disposed ; — giving rise to different tissues 
 or textures. Another relates to their origin 
 and termination. They descend from other 
 living beings ; and all formed, at one period, 
 part of other bodies ; before they became 
 capable of an independent existence. Their 
 production is veiled in mystery ; but their 
 first appearance is in germs. It was once 
 thought there was no exception to these rules ; 
 but the microscope, in the opinion of some 
 philosophers, has lately rendered it doubtful 
 in some cases. Once more, it is characte- 
 ristic ot organized beings (as we have already 
 intimated) that their existence is terminated 
 by death. They perish from the operation of 
 internal and inherent causes. 
 
 All these characters are common both to 
 animals and vegetables ; but there are some 
 by which they may be distinguished from 
 each other. To animals are added sensation 
 and voluntary motion ; which are called 
 animal functions ; while the others are styled 
 vegetative. It is true that motions appa- 
 rently voluntary exist in the Vegetable King- 
 dom. The sensitive plant, for instance, 
 shrinks from the touch; but all the motions 
 of vegetables are to be explained on the prin- 
 ciple of contraction from the application of a 
 stimulus, without consciousness, and therefore 
 without volition. In man, both the vegeta- 
 tive and the animal processes go on ; but of 
 the former (such as the formation of blood) 
 we are not conscious. The same thing 
 occurs in the reparation of an injury. If loss 
 of substance be caused by a wound, it is 
 repaired ; — a new substance being arranged, 
 without our beiug sensible of how it is done ; 
 or, frequently, whether it is done at all. 
 
 N. R. 
 
 f&amm-g antf Customs. 
 
 SKETCHES OF PARIS. — No. III. 
 
 The Omnibuses. 
 
 Decidedly the omnibuses are the most con- 
 venient things in Paris. They are very agree- 
 able in London, where you have a good trot- 
 toir to walk upon, and do not run the risk 
 every instant of being mashed like a flea 
 against the wall, but they are far more agree- 
 able in Paris, with its large and perpetually 
 flowing gutters, its uneven pavement, its nar- 
 
 row streets, its perplexing intricacies, and its 
 loitering cabs and coaches. Since you may 
 travel for threepence from Tivoli to Bercy, 
 and from Belleville to Vaugirard, beating our 
 long course between the Bank and Lisson 
 Grove hollow, who would make such a jour- 
 ney on foot, especially in wet weather, when 
 the forest of umbrellas in Paris quite bewil- 
 ders you ? Bourgeois, artists, merchants, nur- 
 sery-maids, and even soldiers— in fact, all the 
 world is to be found in the French omnibus. 
 You only want six sous in your pocket at pre- 
 sent to be able to ride from one end of Paris 
 to the other. 
 
 One of the great advantages in these ve- 
 hicles, decidedly superior to any arrangement 
 we have with our own, is the following. 
 There is a kind of understanding between 
 the different companies, by which means you 
 can get out of one omnibus and into another, 
 without paying again, presuming the first 
 does not go to the poiut you wish, and this is 
 called correspondance. We will give a pa- 
 rallel instance of what would take place in 
 London, if we followed the same plan. Sup- 
 pose you want to go from Regent-street to the 
 Elephant and Castle. There is perhaps no 
 omnibus on this line, but you could go as far 
 as New Bridge-street, and then quitting this, 
 enter another coming from Islington, which 
 would take you to the desired spot. 
 
 Do not think, however, that you gain much 
 time by riding in Paris ; there are always 
 plenty of obstacles to a speedy journey. The 
 perpetual getting in and out, the crowded 
 streets, the stations of the correspondance — 
 all lose many minutes in every hour. In the 
 inside also you will meet with many disagree- 
 ables. You are sometimes much crowded ; 
 your fellow-passengers lean on you while they 
 dispose of their eternal umbrellas ; you will 
 have a dirty foot placed on your boot, which 
 you have just had polished on the Pont Neuf, 
 at an expense of two sous ; and if you have 
 not unfortunately any small change, you will 
 get for your nice five franc piece a perfect 
 pile of copper coins, of those eccentric varia- 
 tions in dirt, figure, and dimension, which 
 only French sous are capable of displaying. 
 
 Like the inhabitants of different countries, 
 the internal physiognomy of these voitures 
 vary according to the quartier which they tra- 
 verse. In the omnibus which follows the line 
 of the Boulvurts, you will generally find very 
 nicely dressed companions, both gentlemen 
 and ladies. Several females, and by no means 
 the least pretty, will quit you at the Passage 
 de L’Opera, to join the rehearsal at the Aca- 
 demic Royale de Musique, of Les Huguenots , 
 or Le Diable Boiteux, according as their ta- 
 lents are for the chorus or ballet. If you push 
 your journey as far as the Faubourg duRoule, 
 divers grave persons will seat themselves by 
 you. Old men of proud air and haughty car- 
 riage, with little bits of red ribbon in their 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 53 
 
 button-holes, showing that they are of the 
 Legion of Honour, (which is well named, they 
 being many,) do not disdain riding in an om- 
 nibus. You will likewise observe that all the 
 passengers have gloves, and pass their fare 
 to the conducteur with a cold salute. There 
 is no noise, no conversation in these vehicles, 
 nor are there many grisettes, or students — it 
 is not exactly their quarter. 
 
 If you enter an omnibus running from the 
 Porte St. Martin to the Chamber of Deputies, 
 the picture varies much. In the middle of 
 Paris, the travellers are of all stations. There 
 are tradesmen, merchants, clerks, lingeres, 
 and now and then an actress or two. They 
 regard and examine each other closely as 
 they enter, and give place with more com- 
 plaisance. It is also a rare occurrence not to 
 have a conversation established between two 
 persons, even if there are five or six others be- 
 tween them. Their toilet is less carefully 
 made, and there is more of the never mind in 
 their manners. You will still see gloves, but 
 they are not in the majority, and generally of 
 that inferior order which you buy under the 
 passages of the Palais Royal, and at the door 
 of the Opera Comique, for twenty- nine sous 
 a pair. 
 
 In the omnibus which goes to Pere La 
 Chaise from the foot of the Pont Neuf, you 
 will meet many of our own nation — perhaps 
 more than on any other line in Paris. You 
 may know them at once by their square-toed 
 boots, and by their not touching their hat on 
 entering the voiture. They are much asto- 
 nished at being requested to pay as soon as 
 they are seated, and do not understand the 
 correspondance at all, so that when they get 
 out at the Place de la Bastille, where you 
 change your omnibus, instead of entering the 
 other at once, they are lost in admiration of 
 the great model of the elephant, (which will 
 form a fountain one of these days, when the 
 French ships come in,) and thus lose their 
 place, and so have to walk on to the cemetery, 
 up a long narrow street, composed entirely of 
 wine-shops, and tomb-stone cutters. On re- 
 turning, they have different souvenirs of the 
 cemetery. Some have the Letters of Abelard 
 and Heloise, purchased at the porter’s lodge 
 — others have a guide to the monuments, 
 which they intend to read for practice in 
 French ; but the greater number buy wreaths 
 and garlands of everlasting flowers, which only 
 being used in Paris to hang on the graves of 
 dead relations, the French wonder what they 
 can be going to do with. 
 
 But if you patronize one of the Dailies 
 Blanches, which run from La Villette to the 
 Place St. Sulpice, there is again another 
 chauge in the passengers. For your compa- 
 nions you now have carmen, dames de la 
 halle, or market-women, artisans, and inha- 
 bitants of some of the wild regions without the 
 barrier. As you approach the Rue St. Martin, 
 
 several grisettes will enter, but they ge- 
 nerally quit you on approaching the Quai St. 
 Michel — doubtless to go towards the Rue de 
 la Harpe. The chances are, you will be in- 
 commoded in this omnibus by parcels, bas- 
 kets, plants, and provisions ; and since the Ita- 
 lians have played at the Odeon, on account of 
 the destruction of their own opera-house, 
 more than once we have encountered a huge 
 fiddle, or a trumpet in a green bag, especially 
 towards evening. Nay, you may be placed 
 between two fellow-travellers, one of whom 
 will carry a goose, or some rabbits, on her 
 knees, and the other a basket of oysters. Here 
 you must place yourself as you can, keeping 
 a tight hold of the strap which runs along the 
 roof of the omnibus until you are seated, or 
 you may plump down on some butter or eggs 
 with the next jolt of the vehicle. We need 
 scarcely add, there are few gloves to be seen in 
 these omnibuses, but the loss of them is coun- 
 terbalanced by divers pairs of wooden shoes ; 
 and caps appear to enjoy a great superiority 
 over hats and bonnets. Knips. 
 
 LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC 
 INSTITUTIONS. 
 
 One of the distinguishing features of the 
 present age is the formation of associations 
 either for the attainment or diffusion of 
 knowledge, each object giving Birth to its 
 peculiar kind of institution. Thus we have 
 for the attainment of knowledge (by this 
 term we wish to convey to our readers the 
 idea of original research,) such societies as 
 the “ Royal,” the “ Royal Astronomical,” 
 the “ Geological,” and others of a similar 
 character, which are composed principally 
 of members who devote themselves to the 
 arduous task of investigating Nature, un- 
 folding her laws, and contributing their share 
 towards the erection of the vast pyramid of 
 knowledge. On the other hand, we have 
 various “Literary and Scientific Institutions,” 
 which are the means of diffusing the know- 
 ledge obtained by the industrious investi- 
 gator of nature, among those individuals in 
 whose minds a thirst for knowledge has been 
 excited — indeed the Literary Institution both 
 excites the mind to inquiry, and satisfies the 
 thirst thus produced. We hail the estab- 
 lishment and increase of these institutions as 
 a marked indication of the “ change” that 
 society is undergoing. A change that will 
 introduce (as a beautiful writer remarks,) 
 “ pleasures of a higher order, and more akin 
 to genuine happiness — social pleasures, and 
 pleasures of the intellect that will open 
 upon, and grow upon our brethren of the 
 operative class. They will find pleasures in 
 books — boundless, unimagined, inexhaus- 
 tible, inexpressible pleasures.” This is the 
 direct tendency of such institutions, and 
 they point out to jts in a manner not to be 
 
54 
 
 THK MIRROR. 
 
 mistaken the growing desire fo • knowledge 
 that is every where discovering itselt. 
 
 We have been led into these reflections in 
 consequence of attending the opening ot the 
 M etrofolitan Institution, now holding 
 at Salvador House, Bishopngate-street. The 
 manner in which the Conversazione was ar- 
 ranged, showed that the great object which 
 the managers have in view, is to meet the 
 wants of the inhabitants of the neighbour- 
 hood —the literary wants that have been 
 created by the “ advancement’’ of society — 
 the scientific wants that have been produced 
 by the great exertions made during past 
 years for the advancement of science by the 
 British nation. Literature, the Fine Arts, 
 and Science, formed prominent features in 
 the exhibition ; thus each class of members 
 found their peculiar tastes gratified. A por- 
 tion ot the literature of Egypt, consisting of 
 copies of the inscriptions on the Rosetta 
 Stone, and impressions from various Egyp- 
 tian tombs, attracted considerable attention. 
 Several of the paintings were very splendid, 
 the original portrait of the Queen, painted by 
 the express command of her Majesty, was a 
 most interesting object ; also Grace Darling 
 and her father proceeding to the wreck cf 
 the Forfarshire ; we also observed some 
 beautiful sketches from nature, which were 
 well executed. 
 
 The contents of the tables carried us back 
 in imagination to periods “ when man dwelt 
 not upon the earth.” Several geological 
 specimens from the secondary and tertiary 
 formations commended scientific research to 
 the inquiring mind ; and we have little doubt 
 that the exhibition of the evening excited 
 some ardent mind to pursue investigation ; 
 and it may not be too much to hope, that 
 some future Humboldt may date his first 
 aspirations for scientific fame from the open- 
 ing of the Metropolitan Institution, as did 
 the celebrated traveller observe, “ that he 
 was excited to scientific research by one 
 George Wood.” While the Geological re- 
 ceived delight, the Entomological was gra- 
 tified by some very splendid insects from 
 Brazil, and the searcher into the minute in 
 nature experienced high gratification Irom 
 the exhibition of three very powerful micros- 
 copes thus the Institution, as before ob- 
 served, |showed its readiness to meet the 
 wants of society. 
 
 We should, however, be much wanting in 
 our duty, were we to pass over the very ex- 
 cellent inaugural address, delivered in the 
 theatre, by the President, Thomas Bell, Esq. 
 F.R.S. F.L.S. <fec. &c. ; he dilated on the 
 importance ot the youth of the metropolis 
 joining such an institution, and adverted to 
 the frivolous, and even hurtful nature of 
 many places of amusement which they would 
 thus be prevented from attending : he also 
 spoke of the library, and particularly urged 
 the attention of the managers to the careful 
 
 selection of works ; he hoped it would not 
 be a mere circulating library, but one that 
 would be found of great advantage to the 
 members, in consequence of the selection, 
 which he was anxious should be made with 
 judgment and ability ; he was also desirous 
 that it should be augmented by donations, 
 and observed, that he had that evening set 
 the example. The address was well received ; 
 and from its suitability to the occasion, we 
 have little doubt of its proving of lasting be- 
 nefit to the members. 
 
 The institution possesses reading and 
 news-rooms, which are open from eight in 
 the morning until eleven at night ; the read- 
 ing-room is well supplied with the quarterly, 
 monthly, and weekly periodicals, also with 
 new works, and the news-room with the 
 morning and evening papers. Lectures are 
 delivered weekly in the theatre of the Insti- 
 tution. On the 10th instant, Professor 
 Vaughan delivered the first lecture “ on the 
 connection between literature and the state 
 of society in ancient and modern times.” 
 The Doctor very lucidly showed that litera- 
 ture is an index to the character of the so- 
 ciety that produces it ; that the literature of 
 a nation gives it a lasting existence, while a 
 nation without literature is doomed to be 
 forgotten — he remarked, that oriental litera- 
 ture is particularly characterized by its en- 
 forcing the requirements of religion ; and 
 that however absurd the religious systems of 
 the East might have been, yet through the 
 medium of literature, they had a beneficial 
 effect upon mankind. The Professor then 
 passed on to the literature of Greece, and 
 spoke of Homer as choosing for his parti- 
 cular subject, “Man;’’ he contrasted the 
 literature of Greece with the oriental on the 
 one hand, and the Roman on the other, and 
 particularly expatiated on the theatrical 
 exhibitions of Greece, as compared with the 
 exhibitions in the amphitheatre of Rome, the 
 former being of a character more consonant 
 with humanity than the latter, which exhi- 
 bited the condition of the public mind, that 
 could not be satisfied unless it feasted itself 
 on the groans and agonies uf the dying. He 
 then took occasion to show the influence 
 which these distinct characters exerted on 
 the literature of the two nations. In the 
 same way he contrasted the oratory and his- 
 tory of Greece and Rome, and then passed on 
 to modern literature. Here the Doctor di- 
 lated on the influence which Christianity had 
 exerted on society, and remarked that neither 
 Greece nor Rome ever witnessed such a 
 spectacle as his audience witnessed that 
 evening. A number of persons of both sexes 
 assembled to seek that intellectual gratifica- 
 tion which is to be derived from literature ; 
 and he traced this to the bland and human- 
 izing spirit of Christianity, which elevates 
 the female mind to its just level in society. 
 He then proceeded to make some observa- 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 lions on literary patronage, and remarked, 
 that there had been three distinct kinds ot 
 patronage afforded to literary men. The 
 patronage of the great and wealthy, which 
 was prevalent previous to the days ot Dryden 
 and Pope. The patronage of the booksellers, 
 which extended from the times of Dryden 
 and Pope to our own boyhood ; and lastly, 
 the patronage of the public, which was the 
 most important, as the growing taste for lite- 
 rature was now becoming so extensive, that 
 a worthless book was soon forgotten, while 
 one that commended itself to the teelings 
 and sympathies of mankind lived in their es- 
 timation ; therefore, if the audience wished 
 to know the character of a book, the best 
 way was to read it. The Doctor closed the 
 lecture with some very appropriate remarks 
 relative to the Institution, as a means tor the 
 further cultivation of literature ; and referred 
 his audience to a large map of Europe and 
 Asia, on which he pointed out the various 
 spots where literature had flourished : he 
 particularly directed the attention of his 
 auditory to Greece, a spot that could scarcely 
 be seen on the map ; yet by its literature, 
 that country had raised for itself an impe- 
 rishable monument of greatness, and by this 
 means far eclipsed the surrounding nations. 
 He then briefly adverted to the evils that 
 had been associated wilh literature, and put 
 the inquiry, that if the case could be made 
 out that more evil than good had resulted 
 from literature, should we abandon it ? No : 
 let us rather increase the good, that it may 
 overcome the evil. But it was well known 
 that it could not be made out, and therefore 
 we should go on increasing the good, and 
 diminishing the evil; yea, using the weapons 
 of the enemy against himself, and in this 
 respect, as well as every other, “ England 
 expects every man to do his duty.” 
 
 COAL MINES. 
 
 Every trade and profession has certain sig- 
 nificant technicalities belonging to itself, 
 which students find to constitute their chief 
 difficulty on entering upon the study of them. 
 The terms employed in music are at this day 
 so numerous, that a volume has of late been 
 published explanatory of its hundreds of 
 phrases. If the law has its thousand, physic 
 is embarrassed with its ten thousand. De- 
 scending from profession, we find every trade 
 in like manner furnished with its own pecu- 
 liar phrases and words. The miner has, 
 perhaps, if not so great a multitude, yet as 
 great a singularity in the phrases employed 
 by him, as any of the foregoing. As soon as 
 you enter a pit, your ear is assailed by 
 volleys of words, which till then had never 
 fallen on the auscultatory nerve. — '* Blowers,” 
 and “ brattices,” “ drifts dam-doors,” “ in- 
 take,” along with a hundred other mining 
 terms, constantly salute you ; so that, were it 
 
 55 
 
 not for the plain English words interspersed 
 between, you might imagine yourself amongst 
 a modern tribe of unintelligible Troglodytes. 
 Yet there are some phrases of this modus 
 loquendi which are more comprehensive, if 
 not more poetical than the preceding. One 
 phrase certainly flavours of refinement, and 
 resembles the Greek method of personifying 
 inanimate objects, and enduing stock and 
 stone with powers of utterance and vocabi- 
 lity. Thus, sometimes when the free circu- 
 lation of the air is stopped, it naturally at 
 such times passes by the nearest passage to 
 the furnace, seeking to relieve itself at every 
 crevice it can find. These stoppages are 
 termed “ callings,” because if an interruption 
 has taken place anywhere, the stopping be- 
 gins to sing or call, that is, gives indication 
 of an interruption in the air-course, and so 
 does every stopping in the same line, all of 
 them making a whistling noise ; and the 
 instant such an effect is discovered, the party 
 discovering it, calls, “ Holloa, there is some- 
 thing wrong, the doors are ‘ calling.’ ” 
 Many other instances might be adduced of 
 similar verbal peculiarities, the foregoing 
 however serves as a specimen. 
 
 It appears that in some coal-mines the 
 labour is unusually difficult, and instances 
 have been known where men have rather 
 thrust themselves where danger was momen- 
 tarily impending, so that they might work 
 with comparative ease. What are termed the 
 “ fiery pits,” are those where danger is immi- 
 nent, and where in five minutes the breath of 
 life may be remedilessly taken away. Thus 
 a workman has been known to go from a pit 
 that was not fiery into one that was fiery ; 
 exclaiming at the same time, “ I would 
 rather be working at the other pit than at 
 this, for it is such hard work” : the coal being 
 hard and gritty, and dreadfully difficult to 
 work : but it was far less dangerous than the 
 other, in consequence of being bad coal : he 
 said, therefore, he would rather work in the 
 fiery pit on account of the ease with which 
 he worked than in the safe pit. 
 
 One of the most dangerous things atten- 
 dant on an explosion in a mine, is the great 
 quantity of carbonic acid gas which is left 
 behind. It is rarely that a light can be kept 
 in on its approach. Sometimes too it is so 
 abundant, that, in the course of an hour, 
 thousands of yards of space are filled with 
 this gas. In parts of a mine strongly venti- 
 lated, black damp may be seen running in a 
 parallel line close by the air-course, whore it 
 travels so rapidly, that no workman can keep, 
 a candle in. If a workman accidentally place 
 his head less than a yard from the free cur- 
 rent, he is almost sure to fall a victim to it, if 
 not immediately removed. When a miner 
 has been struck by the black-damp, they im- 
 mediately run him to the air-pit or shaft, 
 place him in the basket, and have him wound 
 
56 
 
 THE Mirror. 
 
 up to the bank. The mode they then adopt 
 to revive him is to cut a hole out of the earth 
 at the surface, and place him with his face 
 downwards : this generally, though not in 
 every case, restores the checked animation. 
 
 Owing to the escape of inflammable gas, 
 and the noxious state of the water, a stream 
 underground in these pits may be caused to 
 boil like hot water. At such times it is 
 common for the females, the workmen’s 
 wives and daughters, to go down to the 
 stream with the washing they have to per- 
 form for their families. After digging a 
 hole in the side of the stream, about ten or 
 twelve inches deep, they fill it with pebbles, 
 stones, <fcc., and then put a candle to it t by 
 this means they have plenty of boiling water 
 without further trouble, or the expense of 
 fuel. 
 
 It is a remarkable fact, affirmed by miners, 
 that coal at the pit’s mouth burns a great 
 deal more freely and brilliantly, and the com- 
 bustion is much better, than after they have 
 had sea- voyages, as is the case wiih coals 
 brought for instance from the North of Eng- 
 land to this metropolis. This arises from 
 the moisture of the coal. If all coal were to 
 be dried in ovens, it would exhaust much the 
 bitumen which it contains ; it does not burn 
 so freely and powerfully unless there is a 
 bulk of it. One single coal will not burn at 
 all ; put two together and they assist each 
 other; they reflect their own heat, and give 
 it out to each other ; but if these two coals 
 are perfectly dry they will not burn so well. 
 If coal for domestic use is put partly into a 
 damp cellar and partly into a dry cellar, it 
 will burn very differently in the same house, 
 and the bitumen of the coal is best preserved 
 by water or dampness. This fact is worthy 
 of being noted by housekeepers. 
 
 It is curious to observe, how even in the 
 subterranean recesses of these mines, the 
 scale of" rank and precedencies goes. The 
 lowest grade are the trap-door keepers : boys 
 who attend to the doors, to open and shut 
 them to let the workmen in and out. The next 
 in class and age are the “ rolley drivey,” 
 who are stouter boys, about twelve or fourteen 
 years of age ; there are drivers of horses, 
 which convey coals from the crane to the 
 bottom of the shaft. The next grade is that 
 of boys called “ putters,” who fill the coal 
 from the hewers ; their ages vary from fifteen 
 to twenty-three years. To these follow the 
 miners themselves. Then comes the “ de- 
 puty,” who acts under the direction of the 
 •• overman.” Then comes the “ under- 
 viewer ” who descends the mine daily to see 
 that the mine everywhere is rightly attended 
 to, and over him is the “ viewer,” or chief 
 superintendant or manager. These together 
 constitute the administration of a well-ordered 
 and regularly-conducted coal-mine. 
 
 W. Archer. 
 
 STfje lEnglted) Utjou almanack, foe 183.9. 
 The press have been so lavish in their praises 
 of the English Bijou Almanack, that we are 
 left without words to express our admiration 
 of that interesting literary and pictorial Mor- 
 Qeau. All that is left for us to say is, that 
 it is a Gem, although “ no bigger than au 
 agate-stone on the fore- finger of an alder- 
 man,” is nevertheless embellished with por- 
 traits of the Duchess of Kent, Lady Bles- 
 sington, Madame Pasta, Duke of Wellington 
 Sir Thomas Lawrence, and Beethoven, with 
 poetical effusions from the pen of our la- 
 mented “ L. K. L together with a com- 
 plete almanack. Really this little chronicle 
 is a great curiosity, and not unworthy of 
 being placed in the library along with the 
 mighty folio ; for we must remember, that 
 N ullam virtus respuit statuiam ; 
 besides, the poet also tells us 
 
 To prize little tilings, nor think it ill 
 That men small things preserve. 
 
 We shall transcribe the words of The 
 Farewell , which L. E. L. wrote for this 
 tome a short time previous to her leaving the 
 “ Home of her Fathers 
 
 Farewell. 
 
 My little fairy ehronielp. 
 
 The prettiest of my tasks, farewell ! 
 
 Ere other eyes shall meet this line. 
 
 Far other records will be mine; 
 
 How many miles of trackless sea 
 Will roll between my land and me ! 
 
 I said thine elfin almanack 
 Should call all pleasant hours back ; 
 
 Amid those pleasant hours will none 
 Think kindly ou what I have done ? 
 
 Then, fairy page, I leave witli thee. 
 
 Some memory of my songs and me. 
 
 KAVA TREE. 
 
 Thh piirt of the valley which we visited, was 
 densely covered with the celebrated tree, 
 known in the South Sea Islands by the name 
 of Kava, here also called, from its ungrateful 
 taste, kauakaua, or bitter : its height is about 
 twenty feet, with a leaf of bright green, similar 
 to the laurel tribe ; its leaves, when crushe , 
 yield an aromatic fragrance. Several of the 
 palm tribe raised their tall heads above the 
 surrounding foliage. 
 
 One tree was pointed out tome as peculiar 
 to this spot, and stated by the natives, who 
 accompanied me. and whose residences were 
 at f.ir distant settlements on the coast, as 
 growing only in this valley ; it was in height 
 thirty-five feet, with spreading branches, 
 frondiferous, and of a similar colour to a 
 species of phillanthus, that is found in large 
 quantities near the beech. The tree is nu- 
 ciferous, and bore at the time clusters of 
 early berries, which, when in a mature state, 
 are dried by the natives, and used as beatls. 
 — Folack's New Zealand. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 57 
 
 '1 HE PORTCULLIS IN ROCHESTER CASTLE. 
 
 The raised portcullis' arch they pass ; 
 
 The wicket with its bars of brass. 
 
 The entrance h.ng and low ; 
 
 Flanked at each turn by loopholes strait. 
 
 Where bowmen might in ambush wait, 
 
 (If force or fraud should burst the gate,) 
 
 To gall an eutering foe. 
 
 Lord of the Isles. 
 
 The figure of this ancient engine of military 
 defence is rendered familiar to every inhabi- 
 tant of the metropolis as the armorial emblem 
 of the City of Westminster ; and from its con 
 stant occurrence among the decorations of 
 edifices built or repaired by the Lancastrian 
 monarchs, (whose badge it also formed, in 
 allusion to the sovereignty of Castile, assumed 
 by John of Gaunt,) as at Henry the Seventh’s 
 Chapel. 
 
 Its existence may be traced from a very re- 
 mote period ; and so extensively was it em- 
 ployed in the middle ages, down to the latest 
 period of the feudal system, that most of the 
 castles remaining in this country, and other 
 parts of Europe, furnish instances of its 
 use. The name is a mere corruption of the 
 
 French parte coulisse, signifying a door 
 sliding in a glove.* of which tile Tower of 
 London affords more than one example, where 
 the ponderous frame, with its teeth of j igged 
 iron, may be partly seen below the arch in 
 the manner shown in the accompanying cut, 
 which represents the portal of Rochester 
 Castle, sketched during a recent visit to that 
 august and venerable ruin. It is viewed from 
 the interior of a smaller tower on the north 
 side of the keep, “ forming,” says Mr. Britton, 
 “ a sort of vestibule to the chief entrance 
 doorway to the first floor, and this is ap- 
 proached by a flight of steps, commencing at 
 the western side, and returning round the 
 corner. This part, as well as every otl er por- 
 tion of the tower, was calculated to afford 
 advantage and security to its inhabitants : for 
 at the time of its erection, kings, bi-hops, 
 barons, and all classes of society, were per-, 
 petually engaged in warfare, either foreign or 
 domes! ic. Thus we find, on a careful exami- 
 
 * Vide Britton’s Dictionary, a most valuable work 
 on the etymology and application of ancient terms. 
 
58 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 nation of this fortress, that its walls, doors, 
 windows, as well as the external stairs of ap- 
 proach, were designed and constructed to 
 repel assailants, and to protect the inha- 
 bitants. 
 
 The first ascent was by a flight of twelve 
 or thirteen steps, leading round the north-west 
 angle, to an arched doorway, beneath which 
 a flight of seven steps led forward to a draw- 
 bridge, that connected with the arched gate- 
 way to the entrance tower : this opened into 
 the vestibule, between which and the keep 
 there were no other avenues of communication 
 than by a third arched passage in the thick- 
 ness of the wall. This latter inlet to the body 
 of the keep, was defended by a massive door 
 and portcullis, the hinges and grooves of 
 which remain ; and in the roof are openings 
 for the purpose of showering missiles on the 
 heads of assailants. The portcullis, of which 
 the windlass and attendants were concealed, 
 seems to have been applicable ratheV as a pre- 
 cautionary device against surprise, (as the 
 entrance could be thus closed when it might 
 have been impossible to shut the gates,) than 
 as a permanent barrier, it being inferior, in 
 point of resistance to external force, to the 
 solid studded gate, with its “ beam, and bolt, 
 and chain. ” which is in most instances found 
 in connection with it. The ruse-de-guerre 
 by Which the castle of Linlithgow was 
 forced by Biunock, a partizan of Bruce, in 
 the early part of the fourteenth century, af- 
 fords, in the language of Sir Walter Scott, a 
 well-drawn portrait of the warfare of the 
 period. “ Accustomed to supply the gar- 
 rison with forage, Biunock concealed eight 
 armed Scots in his wain, which was appa- 
 rently loaded with hay. He employed a 
 strong-bodied bondsman to drive the waggon, 
 and he himself walked beside it, as if to see 
 his commodity safely delivered. When the 
 cart was in the gateway, beneath the port- 
 cullis, Binnock, with a sudden blow of an 
 axe which he held in his hand, severed the 
 harness which secured the horses to the wain. 
 Finding themselves relieved from the draught, 
 the horses sprang forward, Binnock shouted 
 a signal word, and at the same time struck 
 down the porter with his axe. The armed 
 men started from their concealment among 
 the hay — the English attempted to drop the 
 portcullis, or shut the gate ; but the loaded 
 wain prevented alike the fall of the one and 
 the closing of the other. A party of armed 
 Scots, who lay in ambush waiting the event, 
 rushed in at the shout of their companions, 
 and the castle was theirs.” 
 
 Still further ingenuity would, however, have 
 been required in some cases, as at Warwick 
 Castle, which had two portcullises, at a con- 
 siderable distance from each other; and at 
 Carnarvon there were four. 
 
 Coningsbro’ Castle has been remarked as a 
 singular instance of the omission of the port- 
 
 cullis ; but Hurstmonceaux, and perhaps some 
 others, are equally unprovided, the protection 
 of a draw-bridge beiug probably deemed suf- 
 ficient. 
 
 Hnccttote (Salient. 
 
 THE LATE MR. DELPINI, THE CLOWN OF 
 COVENT-GARDEN THEATRE. 
 
 Many anecdotes are told of this celebrated 
 master of posture and grimace, but none ex- 
 hibits his eccentricity in a more ludicrous 
 point of view than the following, which was 
 one evening related at Brooks’s by Mr. 
 Sheridan, when the Prince and Duke of 
 York, who knew Delpini well, were pre- 
 sent. 
 
 It should be premised, that several mem- 
 bers of the royal family, and particularly the 
 Prince of Wales, had pressed Sheridan to 
 procure the insertion of Delpini’s name in 
 the books of the Theatrical Fund, in order 
 to secure a provision for his old age. Mr. 
 Sheridan did all in his power to promote the 
 object in question ; but one grand difficulty 
 was started in the course of the negociation, 
 which even his influence could not well re- 
 move : — this was, that as Mr. Delpini was 
 merely a clown, he could not be admitted; 
 for the laws of the society forbade relief to 
 any but such as were accustomed to speak 
 on the stage. A remedy, however, was at 
 length suggested, viz.: — that a few words 
 should he written in the forthcoming pan- 
 tomime, for Delpini to repeat; and thus he 
 was to rank among the Garricks and the 
 Kembles of the day. 
 
 The words in question were only three in 
 number ; and they were to be uttered by 
 Delpini in the character of a Magician, at 
 the instant that Harlequin and Columbine 
 were in the act of embracing : they were — 
 “ Pluck them asunder !’’ 
 
 Big with the expectation of his pension, 
 but more so with the importance of his new 
 character, Delpini repeated the above short 
 sentence on every occasion, for several 
 weeks, and with every possible variety of 
 accent and intonation. 
 
 There was not a performer in the theatre 
 whom he did not apply to to hear him re- 
 hearse his part ; so that, at length, every one 
 voted him a complete bore. 
 
 The gentleman whose applause he was 
 most anxious to obtain was Mr. Kemble; 
 and, whenever he met him behind the scenes, 
 in the passages, or in the green-room, he 
 caught hold of him by the arm, or by a 
 button, and held him fast, until he hud re- 
 peated the important words with suitable 
 gesture and action. 
 
 One night, as Kemble was standing beside 
 the wing, helmeted and buskined as Corio- 
 lanus, and, with truncheon in hand, prepar- 
 ing to lead the Volsci lorth to battle, Del- 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 59 
 
 pini made his appearance, and thus addressed 
 the Roman hero : — 
 
 “ Mistare Kembel, I am very glad I av 
 found you, sare : you sal see me rehearsal 
 my part.” 
 
 “ Not now,” answered Kemble, “ it is 
 impossible, Mr. Delpini, do not you see that 
 I am just going on the stage ?” — “ But,” 
 persisted Delpini, “ I sal not detain you 
 sare un moment, you sal see dat I pro- 
 nounce mon charactere, proprement, and vid 
 de propere emphasis on de last voard.” 
 
 “ Well, well 1” replied Kemble, pettishly, 
 “ begin, begin ; I must go on the stage di- 
 rectly.” — “ I sal not detain you, sare,” re- 
 turned Delpini, as he leaned on his right 
 leg, and threw out his arm at an angle of 
 forty-five degrees. Then infusing into his 
 countenance all the imitative rage which it 
 was capable of expressing, he bellowed out, 
 “ Plock dem assondere !” Poor Kemble, 
 the muscles of whose face had been screwed 
 up to the most heroic pitch, felt his risible 
 chord so tickled by Delpini’s ludicrous pro- 
 nunciation and manner, that, at that instant 
 receiving his cue of entrance, he was forced 
 to turn his head aside from the audience for 
 nearly a minute, before he could address his 
 troops without laughing. 
 
 *• On the night when Delpini had to per- 
 form his part on the stage, it was worse and 
 worse, he roared out, “ Massondere, ploc/c 
 et !” 
 
 This ludicrous termination of his arduous 
 labours , made the theatre echo with laugh- 
 ter, both behind and before the curtain ; and 
 poor Delpini retired behind the scenes in a 
 state of discomfiture. However, being a 
 little recovered, he said to several of the per- 
 formers who caine up to condole him, their 
 sides shaking with laughter — “ Nevere mind , 
 ladies and gentlemens : dose may laugh dat 
 lose ; I av win , and sal laugh to myself. I 
 av gain de pension, by Gar ! and I care no - 
 ting at all for nobody!” — The Clubs of 
 London. 
 
 girts' fintJ Sciences. 
 
 ON CONSTRUCTION, AND THE USE OF IRON. 
 Head before the Architectural Society, on Tuesday, 
 Dec. 4 , 1838 , by R. E. Philips. Esq , Member. 
 The great end of all the arts is that ot making 
 an impression on the imagination and feel- 
 ing. That imitation of nature frequently 
 does this, I believe will be readily admitted ; 
 but that on some occasions it fails, 1 conceive 
 will also be conceded ; the true tests of the 
 arts, therefore, does not rest solely upon the 
 production of a true copy of nature, but whe- 
 ther it answers the end of art, which is to 
 produce a pleasing effect on the mind. Ar- 
 chiteetuie does not rank itself under the 
 banners of an imitative art ; but, like music 
 and poetry, appeals directly to t fie imagina- 
 tion. There is in architecture an inferior 
 
 branch of art, in which the imagination has 
 no concern ; it does not lay claim to its appel- 
 lation as a polite and liberal art from its 
 usefulness, or as an accessory to our wants 
 and necessities; but from higher and loftier 
 principles, we are convinced that a man of 
 genius would render it capable of inspiring 
 sentiment, and of filling the mind with great 
 and sublime ideas. The influence of the fine 
 arts upon the intellectual and moral character 
 of a people, their utility and their value, as 
 conferring upon a state in which they are 
 justly appreciated as the highest proof of 
 civilization, are considerations which cannot 
 be too much entertained. Persons are too 
 apt to regard the art of design as a mere 
 elegance, as the sign of wealth rather than 
 the production of wisdom, and as more the 
 effect of pleasure than utility. It may be 
 well for the members of our profession to con- 
 sider what means and materials are in their 
 hands, that may prove conducive to these 
 ends, and whether this art has not in its 
 power to address itself to the imagination by 
 more ways than those usually adopted by 
 architects. That the mere theoretical archi- 
 tect combines those qualifieatii ns, has not, 
 
 I think, been proved in the buildings of the 
 ancients, for I imagine that many of the 
 deformities observable in the buildings of 
 Greece and Rome have arisen from their 
 ignorance of construction, and the modes 
 adopted to supply that deficiency, some of 
 which have been contrary to every rule of 
 beauty and convenience. The strength and 
 d" >tion of their erections may, I think, be 
 a i .buted to the goodness of the materials, 
 and the quantity used, rather than any prac- 
 tical display of mechanical skill: and, at the 
 same time, I cannot help regretting that at 
 the present day, when the flourishing ap- 
 pearance of the arts would lead us to look for 
 a display both of the one and the other, a sad 
 deficiency exhibits itself, and especially when 
 we are continually hearing the former decried, 
 the latter so much commended. 
 
 To the Gothic architects we are consi- 
 derably indebted for the unity of both, for in 
 their works they exhibit a lightness, an art 
 and boldness of execution, clearly proving 
 that neither the singly practical or theoretical 
 architect will ever exhibit to the mind a 
 pleasing object for its contemplation, unless 
 the union of the two becomes apparent to the 
 imagination by the working of its effects. 
 
 England, perhaps, exhibits more than any 
 other nation magnificent examples of these 
 qualifications, equally admirable for the art 
 with which they are executed, and the taste 
 and ingenuity with which they are composed. 
 I cannot here refrain from expressing a feel- 
 ing of regret, that these stiuctures, sacred to 
 the soil, are not more considered, better 
 understood, and held in higher estimation, 
 and more encouragement given to our anti- 
 
60 
 
 THK MIRROR 
 
 quarians in that peculiar branch, to undertake 
 a correct publication of our ecclesiastical and 
 domestic architecture, before ruin spreads its 
 extending mantle, and preserve to after ages 
 the remembrance of an extraordinary style, 
 now fast sinking into oblivion, at the same 
 time publishing to the world the riches of a 
 great nation in the splendour of her ancient 
 structures, and rendering a real service to the 
 art of design. 
 
 That some of our modern architects have 
 developed great skill and considerable know- 
 ledge in their erections, 1 candidly and joy- 
 fully confess ; for instance, St. Paul’s, and 
 many other works of Sir Christopher Wren, 
 present us with a display of numerous exam- 
 ples of admirable works, executed with so 
 much art, that they are, and ever will be, 
 studied and admired by all intelligent and 
 researching observers. 
 
 “ Those m issy columns in a circle rise. 
 
 O’er which a pompous dome invades the skies ; 
 
 Scarce lothe top 1 stretched my aching sight. 
 
 So large it spread, and swelled to such a height.” 
 
 To him and many others we owe great 
 improvements in practice, especially in car- 
 pentry, which has been carried to a much 
 higher state of perfection than by any other 
 nation ; and we are considerably indebted to 
 many of our countrymen for several valuable 
 books which have been published, explaining 
 the various modes of conducting the several 
 works, and enumerating the apparatus used, 
 together with the properties and nature of 
 materials adopted ; and let me here bear an 
 humble tribute to the periodicals which now 
 monthly add to our store ; to these, then, the 
 various structures to be found in the United 
 Kingdom, and elsewhere, must the architect 
 devote much of his attention, in order to 
 acquire and collect the rudiments of con- 
 struction, and other branches of his profession, 
 which practice, experience, and attentive ob- 
 servation alone will render him consummately 
 skilled in. 
 
 Perhaps there is no material so much in 
 requisition in buildings as iron ; but yet so 
 little attention is devoted to the parts thereof, 
 that although capable of being converted to 
 the most ornamental purposes, at the same 
 time uniting stability with utility, it is made 
 au eyesore, or, in many instances, a severe 
 reproach on the skill and ingenuity of the 
 architect. The use and advantage of a 
 thorough knowledge of the material will be 
 best appreciated by those who seriously con- 
 sider the dread effects of a failure in its appli- 
 cation, as it would happen most likely when 
 the consequences would be most serious ; and, 
 perhaps, there is no material which requires 
 more the aid and assistance of science m its 
 use, therefore the greater necessity fora con- 
 stant study of its properties and capabilities. 
 That very great improvements have been 
 made in its application is every day more 
 
 apparent, and which may he chiefly attributed 
 to its great acquisition in manufacturing dis- 
 tricts, and thereby produces additional -easons 
 for a more minute cultivation of a thorough 
 knowledge of its utility and value. Another 
 reason for its adoption is on the score of eco- 
 nomy, for although the opulence of the nation 
 might warrant a supposition of prodigality in 
 its public buildings, yet where thousands and 
 tens of thousands are squandered in the most 
 trifling, contemptible, and ridiculous modes, 
 yet, in respect to the arts, especially archi- 
 tecture, the public liberality has yet been seen 
 only to extend to almost a mere nothing, a 
 foundation certainly much too weak to sustain 
 an edifice either creditable to the national 
 tas'e or native genius. 
 
 The existence of pure iron was formerly 
 questioned ; of the fact that such pieces have 
 been found, I believe there remains little 
 doubt, indeed none at all, if we rely on highly 
 respectable authorities. A large piece of 
 native iron was found in South America, in 
 1783, by a Spaniard, which was found to be 
 pure and soft iron, easily cut, and capable of 
 being wrought without difficulty when heated, 
 some portions of which are deposited in the 
 British Museum, us specimens of the block. 
 It has been likewise a matter of doubt whether 
 the ancient Greeks, towards whom we gene- 
 rally look for authorities as to the early pro- 
 gress in the arts, were acquainted with the use 
 of iron. 
 
 In the description of the games instituted 
 by Achilles, on the death of Patroclus, trans- 
 lated by Cowper, we find the following : — 
 
 “ The hero next an iron clod produced 
 
 Rough from the forge, and wont to task the mi“ht 
 
 Of King jEtion ; but when him lie slew 
 
 Pelides’ glorious chief, witli other spoils. 
 
 From Thebes conveyed it in his fleet to Troy.” 
 
 Iliad. 
 
 If iron had been common among the 
 Greeks, we may assume that a lump of the 
 metal of the size described by the poet or his 
 translator would have been no unworthy prize 
 of heroic contention ; but as it is by no means 
 clear that the knowledge of iron for military 
 purposes really existed, much less that the 
 art of subjugating so stubborn a material, was 
 at that time known. 
 
 At what period the smelting of iron ore 
 so abundant in this country, was first under- 
 taken, does not, I believe, appear. It will 
 be readily admitted by those conversant in 
 eai ly histoiy, as well as by those who respect 
 traditional probability, that the earliest uses 
 to which it was devoted were probably wea- 
 pons ot warfare. Although a considerable 
 degree of perfection appears to have been 
 attained at a very early period in the working 
 of iron, the art of casting articles in sand 
 from the metal in its elude state, seems to have 
 been either unknown or not practised till a 
 comparatively late period. That it is fitted 
 for every purpose in building is not asserted, 
 
THK M JUROR 61 
 
 especially considering the climate of England ; 
 but its usefulness for the support of great 
 weights, exposed in situations subject to 
 rapid decay, and for the prevention of fire, 
 must be self-evident, as, in the latter case, 
 we have seen several instances lately, which 
 fully bear testimony to the correctness of this 
 observation, where there is every reason to 
 suppose, that, had not the brestummer sup- 
 porting the front wall of the house been of 
 iron, the same would have been precipitated 
 into the street, and thereby, perhaps, a sacri- 
 fice of many lives. There have been instances 
 of failures in the use of this material, which, 
 perhaps, has much prejudiced the public 
 mind against its adoption more generally in 
 buildings ; but yet these may have been cases 
 where it has arisen from a want of a proper 
 knowledge of its properties, and not from any 
 defect in the material itself. 
 
 Persons are too apt to imagine that a large 
 piece of iron must possess infinite strength, 
 and the dimensions of the most important 
 parts of structures are frequently fixed upon 
 by guess, and from such causes ensues un- 
 pleasant consequences. l'he chief and prin- 
 cipal object is to regard the fitness, strength, 
 and durability, at the same time endeavouring 
 to produce, with those qualifications, a pleas- 
 ing effect, correctness of design, and light- 
 ness of parts, yet at no sacrifice to the stability 
 of the erection. When it is considered that 
 the parts of a building should assume any 
 particular form or position, as well as stress, 
 it will becomfe obvious that something more 
 than mere resistance to fracture should be 
 calculated. In the evidence given before the 
 jury on the failure of the Royal Brunswick 
 Theatre, the archietcts examined on that 
 occasion differed materially as to the appli- 
 cation of iron for the purposes of roofs ; yet 
 there are many recent instances where iron 
 roofs have been adopted with complete success. 
 I might mention the roof over the fruit mar- 
 ket at Covent-garden, where it is composed of 
 iron and wood, that has a very light and 
 agreeable effect ; the fish-market at the 
 Hungerford-market is wholly of iron, with 
 sheet iron (P zinc) covering. In chapels 
 lately erected, the cluster columns have been 
 made of iron six inches diameter, cast hollow, 
 with a stone core for their reception, and the 
 height of which, I believe, are twenty-five 
 feet; but yet, for the want of a little atten- 
 tion to these matters, every body must regret 
 the bad effect which is produced by the in- 
 troduction of iron girders, in chapels and 
 elsewhere, without combining a spirit of de- 
 sign with that of utility, and perhaps eco- 
 nomy ; little or no attention is paid to the 
 adoption of iron columns in shop windows, 
 where they become necessary for the stabi- 
 lity of the building, which, if properly con- 
 sidered, instead of forming a blot in the 
 design, might be made conducive to its 
 
 general good i fflct, and that without detri- 
 ment to its stability or usefulness. 
 
 As regards the qualities of iron, we find 
 the following recommendations: — White 
 cast iron is less subject to be destroyed by 
 rusting than the gray kind ; and it is also less 
 soluble in acids ; therefore it may be usefully 
 employed where hardness is necessary, and 
 where its brittleness is not a defect ; but it 
 should not be chosen for purposes where 
 strength is necessary. When cast smooth, 
 it makes excellent bearings for gudgeons or 
 pivots to run upon, and is very durable, having 
 little friction; white cast iron, in a recent 
 fracture, has a white and radiated appearance, 
 indicating a crystaline structure, it is very 
 brittle and hard ; gray cast iron has a granu- 
 lated fracture of a gray colour, with some 
 metallic lustre : it is much softer and tougher 
 than the white cast iron, but between these 
 kinds there are varieties of cast iron having 
 various shades of these qualities, those should 
 be esteemed the best which approach nearest 
 to the gray cast iron. Gray cast iron is used 
 for artillery, and is sometimes termed gun- 
 metal. 
 
 The utmost care should be employed to 
 render the iron in each casting of an uni- 
 form quality, because in iron of different qua- 
 lities the contraction is different, which 
 causes an unequal tension among the parts of 
 the metal, impairs its strength, and renders 
 it liable to sudden and unexpected failures. 
 When the texture is not uniform, the surface 
 of the casting is usually uneven where it 
 ought to have been even. This unevenness, 
 or the irregular swells and hollows on the 
 surface of a casting, is caused by the unequal 
 
 contraction of the iron of different qualities. 
 
 [Extracted from the Civil Engineer and 
 Architect's Journal , No. 16, — a work of 
 great merit and utility.] 
 
 CURIOUS BEQUESTS. 
 
 (From the Reports of the Commissioners on Charities .) 
 blagrave ’ s charity. 
 
 John Blagrave, by will, dated 30th June, 
 1611, devised to Joseph Blagrave, and his 
 heirs, a mansion-house, in Swallowfield, and 
 all other his lands and messuages in the 
 parishes of Swallowfield, Eversley, and 
 Reading, in the counties of Berks, Wilts, 
 and Hants, under condition that the said 
 Joseph Blagrave, and his heirs, should 
 yearly and for ever, upon Good- Friday, be- 
 tween the hours of six and nine in the 
 morning, pay 1 0/., in a new purse of leather, 
 to the Mayor and Burgesses of Reading, to 
 the intent that they should provide that the 
 same should be yearly bestowed, in the fore- 
 noon of the same day in manner following, 
 viz. : twenty noble> to one poor maiden ser- 
 vant who should have served, dwelt, and 
 continued in any one service within any of 
 
62 
 
 THK MIRROR. 
 
 the three parishes of Reading, in good name 
 and fame, five years at the. least, for her pre- 
 ferment in marriage ; and to avoid partiality 
 in the chance, he ordained that there should 
 be every Good-Friday three such maidens in 
 election, to cast and try by lot whose fortune 
 should be: that of those three, one should be 
 taken out of each parish, if it could be ; and 
 that every fifth year one of the three should 
 be chosen from Southcote, if any there should 
 have lived so long ; and that there should 
 be special choice of such maids as had served 
 longest in any one place, and whose friends 
 were of least ability to help them. That 10s. 
 should be given on the same day to the 
 preacher of St. Lawrence’s, for a sermon ; and 
 that after sermon there should be 20s. 
 given to threescore of the poorest house- 
 holders of the said parish, who should accom- 
 pany the maiden, to whom the lot had fallen, 
 home to her dwelling-place, and there leave 
 her, with her purse of 20 nobles. That the 
 ringers should have 3s. 4 d. to ring a peal till 
 the said maiden reach home. That 20s., 
 parcel of the 10/, be sent to the threescore 
 poor people of the parish of St. Mavy, and 6s. 
 to 24 poor people of St. Giles’s parish, 3d. 
 a piece ; and that the clerk of St. Lawrence 
 and the youngest churchwarden should have 
 each 3s. Ad. : with liberty to the said Mayor 
 and Burgesses to enter in case of non- 
 payment, and receive the rents for one whole 
 year upon every such default. 
 
 The testator also gave certain interests in 
 leasehold premises and annuities for years, to 
 the said Mayor and Burgesses, for them to 
 make provision for certain persons of tes- 
 tator’s family ; with directions to them to 
 retain 200/., to be bestowed in buying and 
 pulling down the middle row of houses in the 
 market-place at Reading, standing between 
 the pump and the cage, to the intent that the 
 market-place should be enlarged ; and if they 
 should purchase, and pull down the same, 
 within two years after his disease, that they 
 should retain another 100/., to build a covered 
 walk on the south side of St. Lawrence’s 
 Church, 10 feet broad at the least, from the 
 church porch to the west end of bellry, for 
 the mayor and burgesses, and other people, 
 to walk and sit dry. 
 
 The premises in the market-place were 
 pulled down, and the middle row of houses 
 removed, and the covered walk was erected in 
 the place pointed out, and is still kept in re- 
 pair by the corporation. 
 
 In respect of the first bequest, the sum of 
 10/. is yearly received from Sir Henry Russell, 
 Bart., of Swallowfield Park, the owner of a 
 considerable estate in that parish, which 
 comprises the property formerly belonging to 
 the testator. 
 
 Three girls are selected by the mayor and 
 aldermen on Good-Friday morning, one from 
 each of the three parishes in Reading. The 
 
 applicants produce a certificate of a continued 
 service, in one family, for five years at least. 
 They each throw three dice, and the one who 
 gains the highest number is announced as the 
 “ lucky maiden,” and receives a purse con- 
 taining the 20 trobles, 6/. 13s. Ad. The per- 
 son gaining this prize is not considered eligi- 
 ble tc be elected tc stand for either of the 
 other charities of the same description- 
 
 The girl who throws the second highest 
 number receives 4/., and the third 3/. lrom 
 Mr. Annesley’s Charity hereafter mentioned. 
 Every fifth year the Hamlet of Southcote is 
 entitled, to supply a candidate, and in that 
 year the parish of St. Mary is excluded. 
 The proceedings of the day are entered in 
 the diary of the corporation. 
 
 At the same time 20s. is paid to the 
 churchwardens of St. Lawrence, for the use 
 of the preacher, the clerk, the ringers, and 
 younger churchwarden, and Is. is paid for 
 the purse, and 8 d. paid to the clerk of the 
 Hall, (Town Clerk,) and 2/. 5s. is paid to 
 the poor of the three parishes, 20s. to St. 
 Mary’s, 20s. to St Lawrence’s, and 5s. to 
 St. Giles’s, which is distributed at Easter, 
 according to the directions of the will. The 
 latter parish appears to be deprived of Is. 
 yearly, which is applied in the purchase of 
 a purse, which ought to be furnished by_the 
 payer of the rent charge. 
 
 The form of procession and ringing home 
 is now discontinued. 
 
 annesley’s charity. 
 
 Martin Annesley, Esq., a very old member 
 of the corporation, 18th August, 1809, ad- 
 dressed a letter to the mayor and aldermen, 
 wherein, in allusion to the preceding chari- 
 ties, he stated, that from motives of kindness 
 for the unsuccessful candidates on Good- 
 Friday, he had, about twenty years before, 
 been induced to make a small donation to 
 alleviate their disappointment, and that it 
 was his wish to make the same more secure 
 and permanent than it then was ; and also 
 another benefaction of the same kind, which 
 had been disposed of at the election of the 
 mayor, but had lately been discontinued. 
 
 And he added, for those purposes, and to 
 show his gratitude to the corporation, from 
 whom he had received many marks of re- 
 spect, it was his particular wish that they 
 would accept the trust of this small bene- 
 faction, and permit him to transfer into their 
 names the sum of 350/, stock, to be disposed 
 of in the same proportions as his mite was 
 on Good-Friday. 
 
 In another letter, dated 10th August, 
 1820, entered in the diary of the corporation, 
 Mr. Annesley, after stating that Mr. Bondry 
 and Mr. Richards, by their deed, 10th April, 
 1755, had directed, that as the parish of St. 
 Lawrence was much larger, and likely to 
 produce a greater number of candidates than 
 the parish of St. Giles, therefore every fifth 
 
Till- MIRROR. 
 
 63 
 
 year no maid should be elected out of Hie 
 parish of St. Giles, but two of the said three 
 should be taken out of the parish of St. 
 Lawrence, and one from St. Mary, expressed 
 his opinion, that by the alterations in the 
 population, the inhabitants of St. Giles, and 
 consequently the servants, had become nu- 
 merous as the parish of St. Lawrence, for 
 which reason he wished, in every such fifth 
 year, wherein by the above directions the 
 parish of St. Giles would be excluded, that 
 three inaids should be elected out ot the 
 parish of St. Giles’ only, to throw for his 
 addition ; and he particularly wished that no 
 servant who should obtain, or even throw for 
 hisdonat’on, should be precluded from the 
 benefit they might be entitled to at any fu- 
 ture election. Mr. Annesley died in 1822, 
 having added to the amount of stock at first 
 given ; and there is now, in respect of this 
 charity, the sum of 500/. three per cent, 
 consols, standing in the names ol the mayor, 
 aldermen, and burgesses of Reading, and 
 producing an annual dividend of 15/., which 
 is disposed of by the chamberlain, according 
 to the directions of the donor. 
 
 On Good-Friday the sum of 4/. is paid to 
 the second lucky maid who throws for Bla- 
 grave’s Charity, and 3/. to the third. And 
 on the last Monday in August, the same 
 sums are paid in the same way to the second 
 and third candidates, for the gift of Bondry 
 and Richards ; and the sum of 6s. is paid an- 
 nually for four purses to contain the money 
 given to the candidates. This disposition 
 leaves the sum of 14s. a-year unappropriated ; 
 on which account, and in consequence ot 
 the temporary suspension of Bondry’s and 
 Richards’s Gift during the time that charity 
 was in debt, there is now a balance in hand 
 in favour of this charity of 19/. Ijs. 6rf. 
 
 The balance may easily be reduced by 
 making a small addition to each ot the prizes 
 for two or three succeeding years. P. Q. 
 
 TREACHERY OF A NEW ZEALAND 
 CHIEF. 
 
 Mr. S. jun., a partner in a respectable firm in 
 Sidney, engaged in the flax trade, established 
 a settlement at Touranga, in the Bay of Plenty, 
 and a branch station on the island in the Ro- 
 torua Lake, situated in the elevated plains in 
 the interior. He had commissioned a Euro- 
 pean to purchase the dressed article from the 
 natives. Mr. S., on arriving at one period at 
 the station, "was requested by the principal 
 chief of the district to remove the trade to 
 another village outside the lake, as the natives 
 intended to change their residence near some 
 plantations, at a distance from the island, and 
 to carry flax to that isolated place, he added, 
 would be too burthensome. Mr. S. complied, 
 and on the following day superintended the 
 removal. 
 
 A large canoe was brought expressly to re- 
 move the goods. About one-half the trading 
 materials was disposed of in the canoe, when 
 a scuffle ensued between the natives and the 
 Englishman in the canoe. Mr, S., together 
 with another respectable trader, hastened to 
 his assistance, and perceived the natives 
 around began to be troublesome. A powerful 
 native attempted to drag Mr. S. into the ca- 
 noe, and would have succeeded, if that gen- 
 tleman had not hastily drawn a dirk to defend 
 himself ; this was wrested away, and the na- 
 tive would have overpowered him had not 
 Mr. S. fortunately drawn forth a pistol and 
 presented it ; the ruffian then hastened 
 away. 
 
 The poor man who was first assaulted in 
 the canoe, was soon overpowered and thrown 
 into the lake, when several muscular fellows 
 threw themselves in after him, kept his head 
 under water, and ripped up his stomach 
 with knives. Mr. S. and his companion 
 seeing his blood crimson the water, ran to the 
 house, determined to sell their lives as dearly 
 as possible. A crowd assembled of upwards 
 of three hundred natives, who were infu- 
 riated, and attempted to draw them from 
 the house, and tear them to pieces. The 
 two traders presented their pieces, which 
 kept for a few seconds these furies at bay, 
 when about a dozen young chiefs rallied, 
 and attempted to interfere and save them. 
 This the savage multitude were not disposed 
 to grant, when these protectors environed 
 the hut, and determined to guard the Eng- 
 lishmen with their lives. The din and cla- 
 mour was terrific, sufficient to appal the 
 stoutest hearts. This lasted for full twenty 
 minutes, during which the Europeans were 
 kept in dreadful suspense; the hut they had 
 taken shelter in was small, made of dried 
 rushes, and the barbarians without, threw 
 firebrands to burn them within the place, 
 but they were as quickly plucked away by 
 their young friends. These gentlemen heard 
 the tumult among the savages arising from 
 the distribution of the body of their mur- 
 dered comrade, and heard the promises of 
 the head chief, that all should participate in 
 human flesh as soon as the white men were 
 taken from the house. 
 
 After some time, the fury of the savages 
 subsided in some degree, and the young 
 protectors entered the hut, and brought the 
 Englishmen forth. Mr. S. inquired why 
 they had acted so unaccountably ; he was 
 told in answer, that he had no business to 
 remove the trade from the island. On Mr. 
 S. demanding from the principal chief if he 
 had not done so at his request, no answer 
 was given. He next requested to know 
 what they required him to do ; he was 
 answered, “ remove your goods when you 
 please, we repent of what we have done, 
 our anger is past,” on which several chiefs 
 
64 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 ran into the house and carried every thing 
 that was left into the canoe. The goods 
 that had been previously placed there had 
 all been stolen ; these were now mostly re- 
 turned, and the natives deported themselves 
 us if nothing had happened, except the prin- 
 cipal chief, who approached the gentlemen, 
 and cried the lament over them. This hypo- 
 critical wretch had been the sole cause of 
 the disturbance. Mr. S. now demanded the 
 body of his unfortunate countryman, but a 
 very small portion of the viscera and an arm, 
 was all he could recover. These remains 
 were placed on the wretched hut, which was 
 set fire to, and were speedily consumed , the 
 trade was then taken to the mainland, and 
 carried by the natives to the new plantation, 
 but as early as an opportunity offered, the 
 station was abandoned by the Europeans. — 
 Polac/c's New Zealand. 
 
 Cije ©atijcrer. 
 
 A monk, who was a very ingenious man, 
 and a good preacher, (says M. tie Bernitz.) 
 being at commons with the rest of his confra- 
 ternity, among the different meats served at 
 table, were a dish of cray-fish. The monk, 
 who was telling some story, which he always 
 did agreeably, and with many witty reflections, 
 became silent all of a sudden, changed colour, 
 grew pale, stared prodigiously, while the 
 perspiration poured down all parts of his face, 
 and he appeared in so languid a state, that he 
 seemed ready to fall from his chair ; but the 
 superior had no sooner thrown upon his plate 
 a large handful of cray-fish, than he recovered 
 from his fauting fit, his spirits revived as if 
 he had awoke from a profound sleep, and he 
 commenced devouring with a surprising avi- 
 dity the cray-fish, with their shells and claws, 
 fetching at the same time deep sighs, and 
 having a tremour in all his limbs, particularly 
 in his hands. After he had thus satisfied 
 his appetite, and was entirely come to him- 
 self, he declared that he had no idea of any- 
 thing that had happened ; but at the same 
 time stated, that as he was one day preaching 
 in a church that was common to the Catholics 
 and Lutherans, he perceived a little boy at 
 the church-door with a cray-fish in his hand, 
 on which, he instantly felt the strongest 
 emotion, and that he should have become 
 speechless, if he had not quickly turned his 
 eyes from the object, and ordered the door to 
 be shut. He also said, that he could eat a 
 hundred cray-fish, that he had even eaten 
 more; and that he always experienced the 
 same symptoms on seeing any, if he was not 
 immediately desired to eat of them. 
 
 W. G. C. 
 
 Irish Canoes . — A short time ago, when the 
 water was drawn off for the purpose of deep- 
 ening a part of Lough Reavy, nearest the dis- 
 charge pipes, three old canoes, of very an- 
 
 tique appearance and construction, being 
 apparently hollowed out of a single tree, 
 were discovered imbedded in the mud. 
 
 The earliest supposed specimen of a royal 
 letter, is a short note from Henry V. to the 
 Bishop of Durham, 10th February, 1418. It 
 is in the Cott. Coll. Brit. Mus. 
 
 In the minor correspondence of the Gen- 
 tleman’s Magazine, we find the following, 
 amongst oilier etymologies: — Alkoran, Arab 
 al, the, and /coran, reading: the reading (like 
 biblios, the book, the Bible) — Austria, a La- 
 tinised shape of the German, Osterreich ; 
 oster, east, and reich, kingdom. — Caravan- 
 sera, Persian ; carwan, a company of travel- 
 lers, and sura, a house, or an inn. — Hindos- 
 tan, Persian : Hitidoo, black, and stan, 
 
 place ; the place of the blacks Mahommed, 
 
 properly Mohammed ; Mohammadan, the 
 blessed, or praised, from Hamadu, to bless, 
 or praise. — Otter of roses, Persian ; atar, per- 
 fume. Silk, first wrought in the East, Arab ; 
 sil/cen, a thread. 
 
 A man should be in the world what a good 
 book is in a library, an object always seen 
 with interest and pleasure, and from whose 
 acquaintance we never fail to gain something. 
 — Madame Campan. 
 
 The Lamentation of a Mother.— Peter 
 Hein, a Dutchman, rose from a cabin-boy to 
 the rank of an Admiral. In the moment of 
 victory, in an action ’.vith the Spaniards, 
 he was slain. Their high mightinesses 
 sent a deputation to Delft, to condole with 
 his moiher upon the loss of her son. The 
 simple old woman, who still remained in 
 her original obscurity, answered the deputies, 
 “ I always foretold that Peter would perish 
 like a miserable wretch that he was ; he loved 
 nothing but rambling from one country to 
 another, and now he has received the reward 
 of his folly.” 
 
 Sleep. — Sleep suspends our misfortunes, 
 and strengthens us, that we may the better 
 support them when awake. It also refreshes 
 the powers of both body and mind. It con- 
 tributes to health when we are in sickness. 
 When afflictions press upon us, those mo- 
 ments given up to sleep are the most happy 
 of our existence. 
 
 A Secret is like silence ; you cannot 
 talk about it and keep it. It is like money ; 
 when once you know there is any concealed, 
 it is half discovered. “ My dear Murphy,” 
 said an Irishman to his friend, “ why did you 
 betray the secret I told you ?” “ Is it be- 
 traying you call it ? Sure, when 1 found I 
 was’nt able to keep it myself, didn’t I do 
 well to tell it to somebody that could ?” 
 
 LONDON : Printed and published, by J. L1MBIRD, 
 143, Strand, (near Somerset House ) ; and sold hu 
 all BoiUtsellers and Newsmen. — In PARIS, by all 
 the Booksellers.— In b'RANCFORT, CHARLES 
 JUG EL. 
 
Zifc Jfltvror 
 
 OF 
 
 LITERATURE. AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION. 
 
 No. 934] SATURDAY. FEBRUARY 2, 1839. [Pkicb 2d. 
 
 THE RESIDENCE OF ALBERT DURER, AT NUREMBERG. 
 
 Ai.bert Duher, the eminent engraver and 
 painter, was born at Nuremberg, in Germany, 
 May 20, 1471. Having, while with his 
 father, who was a goldsmith, made some pro- 
 gress with his pencil, he, at the age of twenty- 
 six, exhibited splendid proofs of his great 
 talent in engraving and painting ; and the 
 Dictionnaire Historique also says, “ 11 savoir 
 la Gravure, In Dessein, la Peinture, la Geo- 
 metric, la Perspective, les Fortifications ,” 
 &c. 
 
 Durer must be ranked as the most emi- 
 nent of the early engravers on wood ; which, 
 in his time, was quite in its infancy, for the 
 first engravings on blocks of wood ap- 
 peared in 1376. it is uncertain who was 
 the inventor of this ingenious art, and indeed 
 it is probable that many of the specimens ge- 
 nerally esteemed to have been on wood, were 
 engraved on metal plates. But, if the honour 
 of this invention is not due to Durer, certainly 
 that of etching on copper is. Some of the 
 very earliest specimens on wood are without 
 the name of the artist; but as the art improved, 
 
 Vol. XXXIII. F 
 
 the engravers placed their monograms, (being 
 marks composed of their initials blended 
 together,) on them. One Maro Antonio 
 Raimondi, finding the great estimation in 
 which Albert Durer’s works were held in 
 Italy, engraved a whole set of beautifully ex- 
 ecuted wood-cuts of Durer’s, on copper, and 
 forged his monogram, for which piece of 
 
 roguery he was punished, and obliged to 
 efface the mark. — This incident in Durer’s 
 life gained him the acquaintance and friend- 
 ship of Raphael. 
 
 Wealth and fame now flowed on Albert 
 Durer : his works being eagerly purchased, at 
 very high prices. His painting of St. Bar- 
 tholomew was bought by Rudolph the Second, 
 Emperor of Germany ; and so highly did this 
 monarch value it, that to prevent its taking 
 harm, he had it brought from Venice to 
 Prague on men’s shoulders. 
 
66 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 The engravings of Durer are very nume- 
 rous ; the two finest collections in the country 
 being those in the British Museum, and in 
 the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge : 
 the most admired productions are those of 
 St. Hubert at the Chase , and Melancholy , 
 which conveys the idea of her being the pa- 
 rent of Invention : in this, it is said, the 
 .“painter paints himself!’’ alluding to his 
 melancholy state of mind, owing to his having 
 such a termagant for a wife. 
 
 From the great regard in which he was 
 held, for his genius and his natural eloquence, 
 he was elected a member of the council of 
 the city of Nuremberg, which office he filled, 
 to the honour of himself and to the satisfac- 
 tion of his countrymen. About this time, the 
 Emperor Maximilian also conferred on him a 
 pension, as a mark of his high regard arid 
 consideration. But, amidst all the public 
 esteem, and his increasing wealth and fame, 
 poor Durer had much private woe, that im- 
 bittered his cup of honour — he had a shrew for 
 a wife. He bore his domestic troubles for some 
 time ; but the bitterness of his wife’s tem- 
 per rendered life insupportable; broke up his 
 constitution; and hurried him to a premature 
 grave. He died in his native city in 1528, in 
 the 57th year* of his age ; and was buried in 
 the cemetery of St. John at Nuremberg.* 
 
 A statue of Albert Durer, by the Prussian 
 artist, M. Rauch, has lately been erected at 
 Nuremberg. 
 
 THE OFFICE OF CORONER. 
 
 Thk Coroner is an ancient officer by the 
 common law of England, being said, in one 
 of the earliest treatises, to have been ordained, 
 together with the sheriffs, to keep the peace 
 of counties when the Earls gave up their 
 wardship. By the statute 3 Edw. I., c. 10, 
 they are required to be knights ; and by the 
 28 Edw. III., c. 6, they must be “ of the most 
 meet and most lawful men of the county.” 
 By the 14th Edw. III., “ no coroner can be 
 chosen unless he have land in fee sufficient 
 for the county, whereof he may answer to all 
 manner of people.” No peculiar qualification 
 is now required. Coroners of counties are 
 elected under the statute 28 Edw. III., by 
 the freeholders in the county court ; the 
 election takes place by virtue of an ancient 
 king’s writ, returnable to Chancery. If the 
 election is not determined upon by the free- 
 holders present, the sheriff shall take a poll, 
 which may continue open for ten days, (Sun- 
 day excepted.) The expenses of the sheriff 
 at the election are to be paid, in equal pro- 
 portions, by the candidates. After the elec- 
 tion is declared, the coroner takes an oath of 
 office before the sheriff. 
 
 Coroners, although elected for life, are 
 
 * There is an engraving of his tomb in the Mirror, 
 vol. iv. p. 401. 
 
 liable to be removed, either by being incom- 
 petent to perform the duties of the office, or 
 by age or infirmity ; they are liable also to 
 be removed on conviction of extortion, mis- 
 demenour in their office, or wilful neglect of 
 duty. The coroner has authority to assemble 
 a jury, to inquire how parties came by their 
 death. If a coroner makes an inquisition of 
 death, without himself and the jury viewing 
 the body, the inquisition is wholly void. 
 Previous to the Magna Charta, coroners had 
 power to hear and determine felonies. For 
 every inquisition taken in any place contri- 
 buting to the county rates, the coroner is 
 entitled to a fee of twenty shillings, and also 
 to ninepence for every mile he is obliged to 
 travel from his usual place of residence for 
 the purpose of taking it. By the act, 6 and 7 
 Will. IV., the coroner is empowered to order 
 the attendance of legally-qualified medical 
 practitioners, and to order payment to such 
 practitioners. The borough coroners are to 
 make an annual return to the Secretary of 
 State of all inquests of death taken by them. 
 
 A SOLDIER'S FAREWELL. 
 
 {For the Mirror.') 
 
 Farewell 1 Ab ! speak the parting wold 
 Farewell ! vve meet again ; 
 
 Tho’ it’s a word that’s often heard, 
 
 When souls depart for Heav’n. 
 
 Yet think not, love, that I no more 
 Shall see thy dear sweet face ; . 
 
 For when the battle’s rage is o’er. 
 
 Thy footsteps, love. I’ll trace. 
 
 Farewell ! my love, again, — Farewell 1 
 Why heave that bitter sigh ; 
 
 For who the coming day can tell, 
 
 Save God alone on high. 
 
 The day will come, and with it bring. 
 
 Its thousand joys or cares ; 
 
 An eye may weep, a voice may sing. 
 
 Or muse itself in prayers. 
 
 Remember not the parting tear, — 
 
 Forget the parting sigh ; 
 
 Nov let sad grief the lustre tear 
 From off thy deep blue eye. 
 
 Then say “ farewell,” and speed thy way. 
 Beneath the tranquil sky ; 
 
 For bright and calm will be the day. 
 
 When vve, love, meet on high. 
 
 Rosa-Silva. 
 
 HYMN TO LOVE. 
 
 Sweetest source of earthly joy, 
 
 Solace kind of human care, 
 
 Love, thou smiling, wanton boy, 
 
 Hear, 0 I 1 , hear, a votary’s prayer 1 
 To cheer a poet’s humble cot. 
 
 Oh, quit thy blissful seats above ; 
 Haste to bless my lowly lot. 
 
 For what is life, without thee, Love ? 
 
 Cheeks that mock the morning rose. 
 Smiling lips and eyes of liie. 
 
 Bosoms white as mountain snows, 
 Hearts that burn with pure desire — 
 Bless with these, my longing arms. 
 
 I’ll envy not the powers ubovr ; 
 
 ’Tis these that give to life its clurms. 
 For what is life, without thee, Love ? 
 
THK MIRROR. 
 
 67 
 
 53tograp!;j). 
 
 WILLIAM OF WYKEHAM. 
 
 ( From authentic Sources ■) 
 
 William of Wykeham was bom at Wyke- 
 ham, in Hampshire, in 1324, in the 18th 
 yeai of the reign of Edward II. It is gene- 
 rally supposed that he took his name from 
 the place of his birth, according to a custom 
 much in use in those times, of not appropri- 
 ating surnames to families, so as to descend 
 regularly from father to son ; but as several of 
 his kinsmen bore the same name, it is very 
 probable that he derived his name from some 
 member of his family. His parents were 
 persons of good reputation and character, but 
 in mean circumstances ; though we are in- 
 formed that his mother was well born, and 
 of a gentleman’s family. Not being able to 
 give their son a liberal education, the defi- 
 ciency was supplied by some generous patron, 
 supposed to have been Nicholas Uvedale, 
 Lord of the Manor of Wykeham, and Gover- 
 nor of Winchester Castle, who maintained 
 him at school, at Winchester, where he was 
 instructed in grammatical learning. Here 
 he gave early proofs of his piety and dili- 
 gence ; and, when he had gone through his 
 school education, he was taken into his 
 patron’s family, and became his secretary. 
 He is said to have been afterwards recom- 
 mended by Uvedale, to Edyngdon, Bishop of 
 Winchester ; and by both to have been made 
 known to Edward III. Later writers of 
 Wykeham’s life, have generally mentioned 
 his removing from Winchester to Oxford, to 
 prosecute his studies, and that he continued 
 there almost six years ; but it does not ap- 
 pear that he ever had any academical degree, 
 nor is there the least mention made of his 
 having belonged to any particular society 
 there. He is said to have been brought to 
 court, and placed there in the service of Ed- 
 ward III., when he was about three-aud- 
 twenty years of age. The first office which 
 he appears to have borne, was that of Clerk 
 of the King’s Works, in his manors of Henle 
 and Yeshampsted ; the patent conferring 
 this office on him, is dated May 10, 1356; 
 on October 30, in the same year, he was 
 made Surveyor of the king’s works, at the 
 castle, and in the park, of Windsor. It is 
 stated that it was by his advice that the king 
 was induced to pull down a great part of the 
 castle of Windsor, and to rebuild it in the 
 magnificent manner in which, upon the 
 whole, it now appears. The execution of 
 this great work was committed entirely to 
 Wykeham, who had likewise the sole direc- 
 tion of the building of Queenborough Castle. 
 The difficulties arising from the nature of the 
 ground, and the lowness of the situation, did 
 not discourage him from undertaking this 
 work ; and in the event they only served to dis- 
 
 F 2 
 
 play the skill and ability of the architect. It 
 appears that Wykeham, in the execution of 
 these employments, acquitted himself much 
 to the satisfaction of his sovereign ; for, 
 from henceforth, we find the king continually 
 heaping upon him preferments, both civil 
 and ecclesiastical. It seems to have been all 
 along his design to take upon him holy 
 orders ; but as yet he had only the clerical 
 tonsure, or some of the lower orders ; nor was 
 he ordained priest, till June 12, 1362. In 
 June, 1363, he was made warden and justi- 
 cary of the king’s forests on this side the 
 Trent; and, on March 14, 1364, the king 
 granted him an assignment of twenty shil- 
 lings a-day, out of the Exchequer ; he was 
 made keeper of the privy seal on May 11, in 
 the same year; and, within two years after, 
 secretary to the king. In May, 1365, he was 
 commissioned by the king, together with the 
 chancellor, treasurer, and the Earl of Arundel, 
 to treat of the ransom of the King of Scotland, 
 and the prolonging of the truce with the 
 Scots. A short time after this, he is called 
 chief of the privy-council, and governor of the 
 great council ; which terms may be supposed 
 not as titles of office, but expressive of the 
 great influence and authority he had in those 
 assemblies. The yearly value, partly taxed 
 and partly real, of the benefices which he had 
 for some years held all together, was eight 
 hundred and seventy-three pounds, six shil- 
 lings and eightpence, and of those which he 
 remained in possession of, and continued to 
 hold till he became Bishop of Winchester, was 
 eight hundred and forty-two pounds. The 
 king having raised him to some of the high- 
 est offices in the state, and intending to carry 
 him still higher, it was necessary that his 
 station in the church should be proportionable; 
 doubtless the king might have procured him 
 a bishopric before this time ; but, as the 
 bishoprics were not absolutely in his disposal, 
 nor were the bishops at that period translated 
 from one bishopric to another, as the means 
 of advancement in the church, he seems to 
 have reserved Wykeham for the bishopric of 
 Winchester, which, in point of honour and 
 revenue, would be a proper station for his 
 favourite minister, and which was expected 
 shortly to become vacant. He probably had 
 it in his power to place him in the see of 
 Canterbury, which became vacant a few 
 months before that of Winchester ; but Wyke- 
 ham was perhaps desirous of being settled in 
 his native county. In the meantime the 
 king conferred upon him as many ecclesiasti- 
 cal preferments, of a lower degree, as he could 
 legally be possessed of, as marks of royal 
 favour, and in support of his state and 
 dignity. 
 
 William de Edyngdon, Bishop of Win* 
 Chester, having died October 8, 1366, Wyke- 
 ham was, upon the king’s earnest recom- 
 mendation, unanimously elected by the prior 
 
68 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 and convent to succeed him ; and he was 
 consecrated in St. Paul’s, London, on Octo- 
 ber 10, 1367, by the Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, assisted by the Bishops of London and 
 Salisbury : two days after he received from 
 the king the grant of the temporalities of 
 the bishopric. Thus it was a whole year 
 from the time of the vacancy, and even from 
 the time of his election, before he could get 
 into full possession of his new dignity ; this 
 delay was occasioned by the Pope’s reserv- 
 ing to himself, for this turn, the disposal of 
 the bishopric, and his bulls of provision in 
 reality took place, whereby the preferred 
 person was obliged to renounce in form all 
 manner of right to the temporalities, till he 
 had leave from him to be consecrated ; 
 which was the cause of perpetual disputes 
 between the king and the pope. Wykeham 
 was, however, enthroned in the cathedral 
 church of Winchester, on July 9, 1368, and 
 acknowledged to be Bishop of Winchester, 
 by election, confirmation, and consecration, 
 without any mention being made of the 
 ope’s provision. As soon as the dispute 
 etween the king and the pope was accom- 
 modated, Wykeham was advanced to the 
 highest dignity in the state, by being consti- 
 tuted Chancellor of England ; but it appears 
 that he was possessed of this high office 
 while he was only bishop elect, having been 
 confirmed in it, September 17, 1367. 
 
 Wykeham did not long enjoy this honour, 
 for the Parliament that assembled in the 
 beginning of 1371 , being jealous of the im- 
 mense power that the clergy possessed in 
 the councils of the state, petitioned the king 
 that he would dismiss the clergy, and that 
 none but secular men might be principal 
 officers of his court and household. Though 
 the king declined to make a law to that effect, 
 yet he resolved to comply, for the present, 
 with their request. Accordingly, we find, 
 that on the 14th of March, the Bishop of 
 Winchester delivered to the king the great 
 seal, which the king, two days ufter, gave to 
 Sir Robert de Thorp. The bishop was 
 present at the ceremony of constituting the 
 new chancellor, and afterwards at that of 
 his first opening the great seal in Westmin- 
 ster-hall ; from which circumstance it ap- 
 pears, that he was not dismissed with any 
 marks of the king’s displeasure ; it may 
 likewise be observed that the two great, and 
 two privy seals, one of each of which wus 
 made the year before, on the king’s resuming 
 the title and arms of France, remained, by 
 commission from the king, in his custody, 
 till the j!8lh of the same month, at which 
 time he delivered them to the king ; ' and 
 that, soon after, he received the king’s writ 
 of summons to attend the great council, 
 which was held at Winchester, to consider 
 of a proper method of levying the fifty thou- 
 sand pounds, granted by Parliament. To 
 thi* great council were summoned four 
 
 bishops, four abbots, and thirteen tempera 
 lords, with whom were joined some of the 
 Commons, named by the king. In 1373, the 
 Commons petitioned that Wykeham, and 
 seven other lords whom they named, might 
 be appointed as a committee to confer with 
 them on the supplies to be granted to the 
 king. But it appears that the laity in gene- 
 ral looked with suspicion upon the clergy, 
 who had for some time filled most of the 
 principal posts of honour and profit in the 
 state. This practice seems to have taken its 
 rise from the difficulty of finding persons 
 among the laity properly qualified, in point 
 of knowledge and letters, to undertake the 
 highest offices ; most of those who possessed 
 the necessary abilities having been for a 
 long time chiefly employed abroad in the 
 wars, the most open road to riches and 
 honours. Although Wykeham was so 
 deeply engaged in affairs of state, he did 
 not, in the meantime, neglect the care of 
 his diocess. The buildings belonging to the 
 Bishops of Winchester, were at this time 
 very large and numerous : besides a great 
 many granges, parks, and warrens, they had 
 ten or twelve castles, manor-houses, or 
 palaces of residence, properly accommodated 
 for the reception of themselves and their 
 retinue, to all of which they resorted by turns, 
 living, according to the custom of those 
 times, chiefly upon the produce of their own 
 estates. In repairing of the episcopal 
 houses, and erecting several new buildings 
 upon the estates of the bishopric, he is said 
 to have expended upwards of twenty thou- 
 sand marks. During the year 1373, he held 
 a visitation of his whole diocess ; not only of 
 the secular clergy through the several dean- 
 eries, but also of the different monasteries 
 and religious houses, all of which he visited 
 in person. The next year he sent commis- 
 sioners, with powers to correct and reform 
 the several irregularities and abuses, which 
 he had discovered in the course of his visi- 
 tation. During the time that Wykeham was 
 engaged in the reformation of these charita- 
 ble institutions, he formed the resolve to 
 appropriate his wealth to the foundation of 
 a much more noble institution of his own. 
 But he appears to have been greatly embar- 
 rassed in fixing his choice upon some design, 
 that, while it bestowed the greatest benefit, 
 might, at the same time, be least liable to 
 abuse. He tells us, that upon this occasion 
 he diligently examined and considered the 
 various rules of the religious orders, and 
 compared them with the lives of their seve- 
 ral possessors ; but was obliged, with grief, 
 to declare, that he could not any where find 
 that the ordinances of their founders, accord- 
 ing to their true design and attention, were 
 observed by any of them. 
 
 W. G. C. 
 
 (To be continued.') 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 ON THE LANGUAGE OF UNTU- 
 TORED MEN. 
 
 Yet to such heights is all ihe plainness wrought, 
 
 "Wit may admire, and letter’d pride be taught. 
 
 Prior. 
 
 Language participates of the passions and 
 emotions which it describes. In the early 
 periods of society the human mind was al- 
 ternately agitated with violent emotions, or 
 depressed with sullen despondency: silence 
 is the usual attendant of the one, ardent, 
 hold, and figurative language that of the 
 other. Strong and bold language is neces- 
 sary to express violent feelings and impe- 
 tuous passions. The strong passions dis- 
 played in the uncultivated state of society, or 
 among the rude and ignorant, have produced 
 that lively and picturesque description, that 
 splendid and bold imagery with which the 
 songs and orations of ancient poets and 
 orators abound. The effusions of fancy, 
 the sallies of the imagination, and the war 
 of the passions, unchecked by the improve- 
 ment of reason, and the acquisition of know- 
 ledge. 
 
 The uncultivated nations carried on their 
 public transactions, and mediated their trea- 
 ties with greater pomp, and with bolder me- 
 taphors, than the moderns employ in their 
 poetical compositions. A treaty of peace 
 between Great Britain and the five nations 
 of Canada, afford an instance of this kind, 
 which is expressed in the following lan- 
 guage - : “ We are happy in having buried 
 
 under the ground the red axe that has so 
 often been dyed with the blood of our bre- 
 thren. Now in this manner we inter the 
 axe, and plant the tree of peace. We plant 
 a tree, whose tops will reach the sun, and its 
 branches*spread abroad, so that it shall be 
 seen afar off. May its growth never be 
 stifled and choked ; but may it shade both 
 your country and ours with its leaves ! Let 
 us make fast his roots, and extend them to 
 the utmost of your colonies. If the enemy 
 should come to shake this tree, we would 
 know it by the motion of its roots reaching 
 into our country. May the Great Spirit al- 
 low us to rest in tranquillity upon our mats, 
 and never again dig up the axe to cut down 
 the tree of peace ! Let the earth be trode 
 hard over it, where it lies buried. Let a 
 strong stream run under the pit, to wash 
 the evil away out of our sight and remem- 
 brance. The fire that has long burned in 
 Albany is extinguished. The blood that has 
 bedewed the ground is washed clean away, 
 and the tears are wiped from our eyes. We 
 now renew the covenant claim of friendship. 
 Let it be kept bright and clean as silver, and 
 not suffered to contract any rust. Let not 
 any one pull away his arm from it.” Such 
 was the language in which these untutored 
 nations expressed their national treaties. 
 
 The general principle formerly mentioned, 
 
 6{L 
 
 that language corresponds to the degree of 
 mental cultivation, is farther confirmed by 
 the style of the Old Testament, which is the 
 most ancient composition in existence. It 
 is stored with the boldest metaphors, and the 
 most poetical expressions. The figurative 
 descriptions, and the violent expressions of 
 passion with which the writings of Ossiari 
 abound, are proofs both of their antiquity, 
 and of the complexion of the character of 
 the poet. The untaught Shakspeare is un- 
 rivalled in the sphere in which he moved. 
 And to the same cause may be attributed 
 the excellence and the popularities of Burns 
 and Hogg, the two Scottish poets. 
 
 ANECDOTES OF THE INSANE* 
 
 A wrong sensation does not constitute a person 
 insane. He may have “ double vision — 
 he may see two fingers, when only one is 
 held up ; yet he is not on that account insane. 
 Neither if a person see images, — figures, — 
 spectres, is he insane, if he do not believe 
 their existence is real. Some persons see 
 images of objects which have no existence ; 
 and they knutv that such things do not exist ; 
 and therefore they are not insane. They are 
 aware that it is a mere deception. Some 
 see appearances of human beings, brutes, and 
 various animals ; but they are perfectly aware 
 that it is entirely the effect of disease. One 
 of the most remarkable instances of this des- 
 cription occurred at Berlin ; in the person of 
 a bookseller named Nicolai. He saw, at 
 certain times, an immense number of living 
 objects ; but he was aware that it was all the 
 effect of unhealthy excitement. He had gone 
 through considerable mental application ; 
 and being aware that this was all a delusion, 
 he was no more insane for seeing them, than 
 a person would be for thinking he saw two, 
 fingers, when you held up but one. You 
 know that Brutus and Socrates are said to 
 have seen, — the one the shade of Csesar, and 
 the other the “ familiar spirit,” as he called 
 it ; but if neither the one nor the other be- 
 lieved this, or if they merely believed it in 
 accordance with the belief of the day, they 
 were not mad ; but if they knew better, and 
 yet believed these things, then they were 
 deranged. But in a great number of cases of 
 insanity, you find an absurd belief. Persons 
 may believe something so preposterous, that 
 everybody will consider them mad for so 
 doing. A case is recorded of a butcher, who 
 firmly believed he saw a leg of mutton hang- 
 ing from his nose. He was certainly mad. 
 Another is told of a baker, who fancied him- 
 self butter ; and refused to go into the sun- 
 shine, lest he should melt. A painter 
 thought he was transformed into putty ; and 
 that he could not walk without being com- 
 
 • Condensed from the forthcoming Lectures / of 
 Dr. Elliotsou, 'edited by Dr. Rogers. 
 
70 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 pressed. Others have fancied themselves 
 glass ; and would not sit down lest they 
 should crack. Luther furnished an instance 
 of an absurd opinion of this description ; for, 
 though so able a man, he was mad on some 
 points. He fancied himself possessetl by the 
 devil, — as did also the Roman Catholics; 
 and that he heard him speak. In Hudibras 
 there is the following couplet in reference to 
 this circumstance : — 
 
 “ Did not tire ilev’l appear to Martin 
 Luther in Germany, for certain ? ” 
 
 Luther, in his woiks, speaks of the devil 
 appearing to him frequently ; and says he 
 used to drive him away by scoffing and jeer- 
 ing; — observing that the devil, being a proud 
 spirit, cannot bear to be contemned and 
 scoffed. Some popish writers affirmed that 
 Luther was the offspring of “ an incubus,” — 
 a kind of young devil; and that at length, 
 when he died, he was strangled by the devil. 
 Dr. Ferriday, of Manchester, had a patient of 
 the same persuasion as Luther. He fancied 
 he had swallowed the devil. Many persons 
 fancy that there are frogs and serpents 
 within them ; and one woman fancied that a 
 whole regiment of soldiers was within her. 
 One man fancied he was too large to go 
 through a door-way ; and on being pulled 
 through he screamed, and fancied he was 
 being lacerated ; and actually died of the 
 fright. A woman fancied she had been 
 dead, and had been sent back to the world 
 without a heart, and was the most miserable 
 of God’s creatures. At the Friends’ “ Re- 
 treat,” near York, one patient writes , — “ I 
 have no soul. I have neither heart, liver, 
 nor lungs ; nor a drop of blood in my veins. 
 My bones are all burnt to a cinder. 1 have 
 no brain ; and my head is sometimes as hard 
 as iron, and sometimes as soft as a pud- 
 ding.” Auother patient in the “ Retreat ” 
 wrote the following verses in reference to this 
 hypochondriac : — 
 
 “ A miracle, my friends, come view ! — 
 
 A man (admit tiis own words true) 
 
 Who lives without a soul. 
 
 Nor liver, lungs, nor heart has he ; 
 
 Yet sometimes can as cheerful be 
 As if he had the whole. 
 
 His head (take his own words along) 
 
 Now hard as iron, yet ere loug 
 Is soft as any jelly. 
 
 All burnt his sinews and his lungs ; 
 
 Of his complaints not fifty tongues 
 Could find enough to tell ye ! 
 
 Yet he who paints his likeness here. 
 
 Has just as much himself to fear 
 He’s wrong from top to toe. 
 
 Ah, friends, pray help us, if you can! 
 
 And make us each again a man ; 
 
 That we from hence may go !” 
 
 One man, in the time of the first French 
 Revolution, thought lie had not got his own 
 head. He is described in Moore’s “ Fudge 
 Family at Paris.” Mr. Fudge says : — 
 
 " Went to the mad-house. Saw the man ' 
 
 Who thinks, — poor wretch! — that (while the fiend 
 Of discord here full riot ran) 
 
 He, like the rest, was guillotined ; 
 
 15u1 that when, under Bouey’s reign, 
 
 (A more discreet, though quite as strong one) 
 
 The heads were all restored again. 
 
 He, in the scramble, got a wrong oue. 
 
 Accordingly, he still cries out, — 
 
 This strange head (its him most unpleasantly ! 
 
 And always runs, — poor dev’l ! — about. 
 
 Inquiring for his own incessantly.” 
 
 Bishop Warburton, in a note to one of his 
 works, speaks of a person who thought he 
 was converted into a goose-pie. Pope, in his 
 “ Rape of the Lock,” describes many of 
 these fancies. He says, in giving a sketch 
 of hypochondriacal persons, — 
 
 " Unnumber’d throngs on every side are seen. 
 
 Of bodies changed to various forms by spleen. 
 
 Here living tea-pots stand ; one arm held out. 
 
 One bent : — the handle this, and that the spont. 
 
 A pipkin here, like Homer’s tripod, walks ; 
 
 Here sighs ajar, and there a goose-pie talks.” 
 
 A man in the University of Oxford fancied 
 himself dead , and lay in bed, waiting for the 
 tolling of the bell ; but not hearing it at the 
 time he expected, he fell into a violent pas- 
 sion, and ran and tolled it himself. He was 
 then spoken to on the absurdity of a dead 
 man tolling his own bell ; and it is said that 
 he returned, and was afterwards sound ..in his 
 intellect. Simon Brown, a dissenting minis- 
 ter, wrote the best answer to Findal’s work, 
 entitled, “ Christianity as Old as the Crea- 
 tion;” but, notwithstanding the great pow- 
 ers of mind displayed in his work, he thought 
 that, by the judgment of God, his rational 
 soul had perished ; and that he had only 
 biute-iife. He absolutely inserted this in the 
 dedication of his work to the Queen. This 
 dedication, however, was afterwards sup- 
 pressed. Baron Swedenborg, a very learned 
 and able man, thought that he had had com- 
 munications with God for thirty years ; and 
 that he had been shown by the Almighty, 
 the mysteries of naiure. Many think he was 
 right ; but no one could have that idea with- 
 out insanity. It is similar to the case of the 
 celebrated Pascal ; who, while he was work- 
 ing the problem of the cycloid curve, with 
 great powers of intellect, was tied (by bis 
 own desire) in a chair ; lest he should fall 
 into a yawning gulf, which he imagined to be 
 before him. 
 
 HIGHLAND FREEDOM. 
 
 It is a singular fact, that the Gaelic is 
 perhaps the only European language in which 
 there is no word to express slavery : it has 
 no word synonymous to slave. The lowest 
 clans- man was of the blood of the chief, or 
 was admitted to the same right as that re- 
 lationship would have procured him. His 
 attachment arid obedience to the chief were 
 most devoted ; but they were exalted by that 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 71 
 
 noble 'spirit which the feeling of a commu- 
 nity in blood and in honour must always 
 inspire. 
 
 fHamierS anil Customs. 
 
 SKETCHES OF PARIS. 
 
 The Quartier Latin. 
 
 Situated on the unfashionable side of the 
 Seine, in the eleventh arrondissement, and 
 comprising in its limits the llue St. Jacques, 
 Rue de la Harpe, and the Rue l’Ecole de 
 Medicine, is the Quartier Latin. It is a 
 part of Paris little known to the English 
 visitors. They approach its boundaries when 
 they visit the Luxembourg, and penetrate into 
 its very heart at the Pantheon and Sorbonne, 
 but beyond this they know no more of it. 
 The aristocratical inhabitant of the Chassee 
 D ’An tin has heard of such a place, and that 
 is all ; but he would be as great a stranger 
 in its localities, and feel as much at ease, as 
 a West End exquisite would among the stalls 
 and sheds of the New Cut. And yet there 
 are things worth seeing there, and we would 
 make bold to affirm that one-half of the pro- 
 moters of the real gaiety of Paris reside 
 within its limits. Nor is sport the only mat- 
 ter of interest to be found there ; for the 
 student, there is the Sorbonne and its quiet 
 halls ; for the sight-seeker, the Pantheon, with 
 its ambitious monuments and gloomy vaults, 
 that even the torch starting from the tomb of 
 Jean Jacques Rousseau cannot illumine; 
 for the antiquary, the remains of the Roman 
 baths in the Rue de la Harpe, and their cu- 
 riously suspended floors ; and for every 
 body, the venerable and highly interesting 
 Hotel de Cluny, with its ancient architecture 
 of the moyen age, its still bright armour, its 
 curiously-fashioned windows breaking the 
 sunbeams into one hundred different forms 
 upon its oaken floors, and its almost affect- 
 ing domestic relics of other dajs, recalling, 
 with mute eloquence, their owners, long since 
 released from all care and passions, whose 
 very names even have passed away. 
 
 But it is not about these edifices that we 
 wish to talk — the Quartier Latin derives its 
 interest to us from other sources — from the 
 present instead of the past. In a word, it 
 is the abode, the hive, perhaps, would be a 
 better term, leaving industry alone, of almost 
 all the students of law and medicine in Paris. 
 
 Much has been written, and more promul- 
 gated, about the medical students of London, 
 and wild legends of harmonic meetings, 
 half-and-half, gossamer hats, and unpaid 
 lodgings, have been whispered in their praise 
 or dishonour, (whichever you like,) but they 
 are nothing to their brethren of France. We 
 think it is very lucky that there is a quartier 
 for them, especially in Paris, or we do not 
 suppose the walls of that city would contain 
 them, to say nothing of the iron gates at the 
 
 barriers. And yet their fun is peculiar — 
 they have none of the lamp-breaking, 
 knocker-stealing, sign-destroying, pranks of 
 the English ; but at the public balls and 
 fetes they shine pre-eminent. You may 
 soon know them, for they can be mistaken 
 for nothing else. Look at these three com- 
 ing arm-and-arin along the Rue de l’Ecole 
 de Medicine. They are well dressed in their 
 way, but seem to have a sovereign contempt 
 for hats — caps are the reigning fashion of the 
 Quartier Latin. One has a scarlet waistcoat 
 and lavender pantaloons ; another has a cap 
 of the same bright colour, worn on the back 
 of his head, and bagging down behind ; and 
 the third has a garment something between 
 a blouse and a shooting-jacket, denominated 
 a paletot. All have pipes in their mouths, 
 which they doggedly keep there, removing 
 them only to address some bright-eyed little 
 grisette, who happens to pass at the mo- 
 ment. Their long hair is well arranged, (for 
 they take out cachets with M. Etienne in 
 the same street, “ pour la coiffure ou la 
 barbe ,” at the rate of twelve tickets for two 
 francs and a half,) and they all wear mus- 
 tachios, which meet their pointed beards like 
 the old portraits at Versailles and Windsor 
 Castle. They are going to the Cafe Du* 
 puytren to have a glass of absinthe before 
 dinner, and then we wager they will turn 
 round the corner to dine at Viot’s, or Rous- 
 seau’s, at the expense of one franc each, 
 including a sou for the waiter. 
 
 But it is not only the students that favour 
 the Quartier Latin with their patronage— 
 the grisettes of Paris have likewise made it 
 their home. And w'hat is a grisette ? Why, 
 courteous reader, (as Francis Moore says,) 
 we are almost as much puzzled as you would 
 be to explain, and yet we always know them 
 when we meet them. Do you see that little 
 girl whom the student just bowed to — she is 
 a grisette. She is about eighteen, small 
 figure, but perfectly shaped, with dark eyes, 
 brown hair, and tolerably small feet. Her 
 dress consists of a dark gown, fitting tight at 
 the arms, from the shoulder to the wrist, in 
 the style of Louis XV. ; a striped shawl put 
 on in a style that only Frenchwomen can ac- 
 complish ; a little apron, with pockets, and 
 a pretty black net cap, with crimson ribbons. 
 She carries a little square basket, and an 
 umbrella, and although the streets are very 
 dirty, there is not a splash on her neat 
 chaussure. She is a brocheuse, i. e. she 
 makes up the paper-covered French books, 
 and her pay is thirty sous a-day. She works 
 hard all the week, and goes to the balls at 
 the barriers on Sundays, Mondays, and 
 Thursdays, in the evening, when she displays 
 a smarter dress than ordinary, and has, 
 moreover, a pair of black net gloves. How 
 all this is done out of thirty sous a-day, we 
 do not ask — it is her business, not ours ; but 
 we have met them at the markets in th$ 
 
72 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 morning, buying certainly more provisions 
 than would suffice for their own meals ; anil 
 we have seen them walking in the gardens of 
 the Luxembourg with students of our ac- 
 quaintance, whose menage we always thought 
 particularly neat and well arranged ; and we 
 have strong doubts as to whether these young 
 housekeepers do not sometimes look after 
 other domestic economy, besides their own. 
 Mind, reader, we say we have only suspected 
 it — no more. 
 
 The respectable and sentimental old gen- 
 tleman whojourneyed to France with a pair 
 of silk culottes and the coat he had on, has 
 left us an account of his adventure with a 
 grisette who looked him into buying a pair 
 of gloves ; perhaps those of the present day 
 look their admirers into buying caps and 
 shawls for them — it is not improbable. 
 They are, moreover, very attractive, those 
 little grisettes ; “ elles sont si fraiches, si 
 gentiUe," as Paul de Kock says, and ihey 
 waltz delight fully, to make no mention of 
 galops and quadrilles. 
 
 But these are not the only characteristics 
 of the Quartier Latin. It is a great resort 
 of the Marchands d' habits, or old clothes- 
 men, as we impolitely term them in England. 
 One would think they have a great business 
 amongst the students, since they possess an 
 astonishing prediliction for the streets about 
 the Ecole d'e Medicine and Pantheon ; and 
 the garments they carry are not gene- 
 rally of that peculiar threadbare and ragged 
 fashion which we see in England. Then 
 there are also perambulating sellers of almost 
 every thing at a certain price, and a strange 
 collection of articles their long barrows pre- 
 sent, all or any of which may be bought for 
 five sous each. Plates, knives, whips, de- 
 canters, whistles, pins, brushes, lucifers, 
 looking-glasses, almanacks, pencils ; in fact, 
 an endless variety of wares. It is needless 
 to add, that all are of inferior manufacture, 
 or more or less damaged, but they do for the 
 housekeepers of the Quartier Latin. 
 
 The shops of this part of the world are ge- 
 nerally in keeping with the inhabitants. We 
 often wondered why there were so many stores 
 for little jean boots and net gloves so near the 
 Mus^e Dupuytren, and dissecfing-rooms there- 
 to attached, but that was during our early days 
 at Paris, when every thing was a source of 
 astonishment. Nevertheless, there are inuny 
 shops for such gear, in spite of the dreary 
 locality, and these are only exceeded by hair- 
 dressers at fifty centimes, (five pence,) and 
 tobacco shops, whose windows display a 
 dazzling array of bowls and sticks for pipes 
 of all possible shapes and forms, generally, 
 however, bearing the image of an Indian’s 
 head, with glass eyes let into the clay, so 
 that when the pipe is well “ culottee,” i. e. 
 blackened by constant smoking, an occupa- 
 tion of which the students are immensely 
 fond, the head looks very fierce and imposing, 
 
 with ils while eyeballs. Cheap restaura- 
 teurs abound here also, where you can dine 
 at any price you like under thirty sous ; we 
 say under, for you would find a difficulty in 
 eating more than you could purchase for 
 that sum, unless you had the stomach of 
 M. Bikin, the Belgian giant of Franconi’s, 
 who stands eight feet in his tinsel sandals, 
 and fights twelve men at once. Fortune be- 
 friend him at the Adelphi — we have not seen 
 him there, but we are sure he must resemble 
 the dwarfs in the little houses outside the 
 shows at our fairs, which formerly, in the 
 innocence of our imagination, we believed to 
 be divided into parlours and bedrooms tor 
 their wonderful occupant. If you prefer 
 eating at home, you can purchuse cold fowls 
 in some of the shops, and sausages of every 
 manufacture in the world. Lodgings are 
 also to be obtained at low rates in the Quar- 
 tier Latin, the price diminishing from twenty- 
 five to ten francs a-month, us you ascend the 
 stairs — “ in inverse proportion,” as we used 
 to say of the radiation of caloric, when we 
 studied Turner’s Chemistry. The rooms are 
 always the same in appearance. A tiled 
 floor, a French bed, a good looking-glass, 
 with drawers, secretary and table, all fur- 
 nished with dark marble slabs, and sometimes 
 a vase of artificial flowers, or an alabaster 
 clock, with a gilt dial, on the mnntel.piece. 
 From this picture you may imagine all the 
 rest, for they are all alike, except that in 
 winter a stove is added, being a curious com- 
 pound of iron and crockery-ware, with a tin 
 chimney. And we have passed very happy 
 evenings in those little rooms — happier, per- 
 chance, than we may see again, for we were 
 entirely our own masters, and had little to 
 annoy or worry us. At that time we could 
 cook beefsteaks over small earthenware fur- 
 naces ; we could also boil peas, make onie- 
 lettos, and fry potatoes, when pecuniary em- 
 barrassments compelled us to dine at home — 
 a circumstance not uncommon among the 
 students of Paris ; nay, more, we have set 
 out to purchase our own charcoal, and 
 brought it home in a basket, for you must 
 not live in the Quartier Latin, unless you 
 can do every thing for yourself. In fine, it 
 is a little world of its own creating — a spirit 
 of laisser-aller and independence reigns in 
 it, and you may walk about all day in a cap 
 and blouse, without losing caste. Knips. 
 
 WINTER. 
 
 Gather around your blazing hearths, and toll 
 Dread stories of my power, for, lo ! I come 
 To howl above your happy roof — recount 
 To the young prattler how I split the bark 
 On the dark ocean’s breast, and yell a dirge 
 O’er the young sea-boy’s grave ; tell of the blights 
 I cast upon the flowery fields, of all 
 The dazzling splendour of the rising sun, 
 
 When on my frosty robes he looks, and darts 
 His golden beams upon my coronal. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 73 
 
 BENLOMOND. 
 
 Benlomond is justly admired «3 one of the 
 most beautiful and interesting mountains in 
 the kingdom. It is inferior to several in 
 height, but its locality renders it more con- 
 spicuous than the lofty summits of the neigh- 
 bouring mountains : the gradual acclivity, 
 from the extended base of the mountain to 
 the cloud-capt peak, gives a pleasant and 
 beautiful outline, and the extensive and 
 awfully sublime prospect commanded from 
 the summit, awaken sensations of grandeur 
 and sublimity. Situated in Stirlingshire, at 
 the south-west extremity of the Grampian 
 mountains, and forming, on this side, the 
 frontier of the West Highlands, whose ser- 
 rated mountain tops, viewed from the east 
 and south, in the distance recede from the 
 view, and Benlomond, touting in the front 
 like a giant stands, 
 
 " To sentinel enchanted laud.” 
 
 The gradual acclivity, which, at a distance, 
 gives the beautiful outline to the figure of 
 the mountain, affords, comparatively, an 
 agreeable ascent to the traveller, to whom 
 the horizon extends at every step, and pre- 
 sents an infinite variety of landscape, till he 
 reaches the top, and then comes the reward 
 of his toil. The highest point of Benlo- 
 mond is 3,250 feet above the level of the 
 lake, which is 32 above the level of the sea. 
 
 Benlomond has this remarkable merit 
 as a hill, that it is not overcrowned or 
 crowded up with surrounding hills. It seems 
 to be sole monarch of a vast undisputed ter- 
 ritory. Nowhere, therefore, is there a better 
 idea to be obtained of the Highland country 
 than on its summit. The mountain itself, 
 besides, affords a great variety of scenery. 
 To the south it stretches out into a slope of 
 a very gentle declivity. The north side is 
 awfully abrupt, and presents a concave pre- 
 
 cipice of many hundred yards in depth. He 
 must possess firm nerves who can approach 
 the brink and look down unmoved. The 
 rock is said to be 2,000 feet in sheer descent. 
 The stranger, with all his very natural and 
 allowable terrors for his person, on coming 
 within a few yards of the edge, will be asto- 
 nished, and almost pained to learn, that a 
 celebrated Highland hero of yore, supposed 
 to be described in the Lady of the Lake un- 
 der the name of Malcolm Graeme, used to 
 attest his fearlessness of character, by stand- 
 ing on the brink of this steep-down gulf, 
 sustained only by the heel of one of his feet, 
 the rest of the foot projecting over ! 
 
 Among this group of mountains, Ben 
 Crouachan looks conspicuous, and farther 
 north, Ben Nevis raises its loftier head. On 
 the north-east, the valleys of the Grampian 
 hills, studded with silvery lakes, gradually 
 relieve the mind from the awfully deep sen- 
 sations, inspired by the dark hills of the 
 north. The level country on the east and 
 south, interspersed with wood and lawn, and 
 meandering streams, while everywhere the 
 smoke, rising in fleecy clouds, marks an en- 
 creasing town or village, and the populous 
 cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow gleam in 
 the sunshine, brings the mind back to an 
 equilibrium, — to the contemplation of objects 
 of humanity, and the arts of civilization. 
 Here the eye revels in the richness of the 
 objects spread before it, till the mind is de- 
 lightfully awakened, by the termination of 
 the view between the landscape and sky, to 
 contemplate the vast expanse of heaven, and 
 with fervent and sublime feelings, 
 
 “ Look through Natuie up to Nature’s God.” 
 
 In the west, the counties of Renfrew are 
 seen stretched along the west shores of the 
 Frith of Clyde— the Islands of Arran and 
 
74 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 Bute guard the entrance to the Clyde, — 
 beyond these the coast of Ireland lies 
 shrouded in a hazy point of the horizon, and 
 the view is lost by the blue sky merging in 
 the depths of the Atlantic. Immediately 
 below this side of Benlomond, lies an ex- 
 tensive and beautiful lake, which takes the 
 name of Loch Lomond from the mountain. 
 The glassy surface of the water is enchant- 
 ingly relieved with numerous wooded 
 islands. 
 
 TWO NIGHTS IN ROME. 
 
 (Translated from the French.') 
 
 For the Mirror. 
 
 (first night.) 
 
 Among the numerous paintings exhibited at 
 the Royal Academy of Arts, at Paris, in 1820, 
 there was one which attracted particular at- 
 tention. The impression produced on the 
 spectators by this picture is still fresh in the 
 recollection of many ; the crowd regarded it 
 with mute astonishment, and artists of all de- 
 grees in the scale of excellence, bestowed 
 upon it the most unqualified praise. It was 
 only a rough draft, hastily sketched off, but 
 evidently traced by a master-hand, an original 
 idea powerfully pourtrayed — an effort of genius 
 that could hardly fail to arrest the attention of 
 the most indifferent observer. 
 
 Near this point of general attraction, stood 
 a young man, who appeared embarrassed by 
 the universal admiration. “ Is this your per- 
 formance, my friend ?” said M. de G , 
 
 tapping him gently on the shoulder. “Yes, 
 sir,” replied the young man, “ but I had not 
 time to” * * * “ What does it signify P — it 
 is better than all the rest. You shall go to 
 Rome, my friend !” and he offered him his 
 hand. “ I thank you, sir,” faltered the young 
 artist, “ this is more than I could dare to 
 hope” * * * 
 
 Eight days afterwards he departed for 
 Rome. Rome ! the dream of painters and 
 poets — the sublime book of ages, where each, 
 in sailing down the stream of time, has left 
 its mark — that immense ruin of the world, 
 where genius searches for imperishable traces 
 of its former glory and power ; that Rome 
 which he had studied at a distance, he was 
 now about to visit. 
 
 Our young artist, absorbed in the most en- 
 thusiastic anticipations, viewed with indif- 
 ference the woody declivities and fertile val- 
 leys of France. Its broad meandering rivers 
 gently gliding through its highly cultivated 
 plains; its animated and bustling cities ; the 
 rich fields of Provence ; Marseilles, with its 
 active and enterprising citizens, ever busy in 
 the pursuit of commerce ; the Mediterranean, 
 sparkling in the glorious rays of a southern 
 sun ; and finally, the balmy coast of Italy, pre- 
 sented themselves to his unobservant eye 
 without exciting emotion. It was for Rome 
 
 that he treasured up the admiration of his 
 soul, in order to be poured forth in all its fresh- 
 ness. Rome, which he expected to see at 
 each turn of the road, — which be fancied he 
 descried, as the old steeples of some Italian 
 city appeared in the distant horizon. 
 
 He entered the “• eternal city” by thePortu 
 del Papolo, as the softened rays of the setting 
 sun shed their last feeble light over its ruined 
 grandeur. 
 
 The youthful artist, whose enthusiasm was 
 excited to the highest degree, determined to 
 gratify his eager curiosity that very evening; 
 lie therefore engaged a guide to conduct him 
 to the Coliseum, by torch- light. After wan- 
 dering some time amidst the gloom of this 
 immense ruin, whose circular and fantastical 
 outline almost overhanging them, stood out 
 distinctly against the blue sky of Italy, he 
 proceeded to view the modern palaces. 
 
 The “ great world” of Rome appeared to 
 be concentrated on one point — the Theatre de 
 Argentina. The marble palaces reflected the 
 light of the torches, and vibrated to the rolling 
 equipages of Roman princes and strangers, 
 who crowded to hear the favourite singer of 
 the day. 
 
 “ This is the Theatre de Argentina, sir,” 
 said his guide, “ Signora Caronari sings 
 to-night — Signora Caronari, the glory of 
 Rome, Milan, Naples, the prima donna of 
 Italy !” He entered the theatre. A species 
 of intoxication at first seized him, as perfumes, 
 flowers, harmony, and the dazzling brilliancy 
 of the chandeliers burst upon him ; but reco- 
 vering himself, he warmly applauded the 
 beautiful prima donna, whose melodious voice 
 was just dying away in the last thrilling ca- 
 dence of one of Rosini’s favourite songs. 
 
 As the charming cantatrice was displaying 
 the resources of her rich voice in the execu- 
 tion of a brilliant Cavatina, the wandering 
 eyes of the young Frenchman happened to 
 rest on a female figure in one of the opposite 
 boxes. Rome, the theatre, the prima donna 
 and her harmonious notes, had all vanished 
 from his mind the moment his eye was ar- 
 rested by this beautiful image, the varied ex- 
 pressions of whose noble countenance, seemed 
 to convey a new and strange emotion to the 
 heart of our young artist. He observed her 
 at one time, smiling, gay, and happy as the 
 harmony of Rosini ; and, at another, as a 
 melancholy note ascended from the orchestra, 
 or a chromatic modulation trembled on the 
 lips of the accomplished singer, a sort of in- 
 voluntary shudder pervaded her whole frame, 
 and strong symptoms of terror and apprehen- 
 sion were visible in her expressive counte- 
 nance, and, as the last vibration of the har- 
 mony that had produced the effect had ceased, 
 it again varied under a thousand other rapid 
 sensations. 
 
 But when the music had ceased, and the 
 curtain had dropped over the scene like the 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 6 
 
 waking reality that dissipates a delightful 
 dream, she, as it were, fell back upon herself, 
 and her dull, lustreless eyes, and pallid coun- 
 tenance, occasionally impressed with an ex- 
 pression of profound terror, sufficiently indi- 
 cated that she was labouring under the ap- 
 prehension of some dreadful inevitable cala- 
 mity. And as she rose to depart, leaning on 
 the arm of a man who sat in the shade at the 
 back of the box, she turned a last look on the 
 sympathising artist, in which was strikingly 
 pourtrayed the gratitude of an unfortunate 
 heart towards those who feel for it. He hur- 
 ried through the crowd, and as he arrived 
 breathless at the steps where the carriages 
 were drawn up, he fancied he saw the pale 
 figure that had so much interested him, through 
 the glass of a splendid equipage that was ra 
 pidly driving off to make way for another. 
 He rushed after it, and when the vehicle dis- 
 appeared at the corner of a street, he fol- 
 lowed the sound of the wheels for a consider- 
 able distance through the dark and deserted 
 streets, until, smiling at his folly, he paused, 
 and found himself alone and astray in a 
 strange city. After wandering for more than 
 an hour, he at last, in utter despair, sat down 
 among some ruins, where he expected to find 
 shelter for the remainder of the night. Hav- 
 ing seated himself on a fragment of a marble 
 column, with his back resting against the 
 wall, he soon began to feel the gradual influ- 
 ence of sleep steal over his exhausted frame, 
 when a low voice whispered in his ear, “ Is 
 that you?” — “ Yes,” replied he, mechani- 
 cally ; and before he had time for reflection, 
 or indeed was quite awake, his eyes were ban- 
 daged, and his hands firmly secured. He 
 was then carried by two men, and put into a 
 vehicle, which was driven rapidly for about 
 half an hour, during which brief space the 
 young artist's reflections were not of the most 
 pleasing description. When the carriage 
 stopped, the two men, who assisted him to 
 alight, carried him through a garden, as he 
 discovered by the perfumes of flowers, and 
 the grinding of the gravel-walks under his 
 bearers’ feet — then along cold marble galle- 
 ries, and across several apartments, through 
 which they passed with noiseless steps. 
 
 Having set him down, and removed the 
 bandage from his eyes, he perceived that he 
 was in a large room, hung with sombre dra- 
 pery, and dimly lighted by one small lamp 
 placed on a marble table near the fire-place. 
 Standing at the table was a man of a tall 
 commanding figure, whose face was concealed 
 by a mask of black velvet. At the distance 
 of a few paces from him, on a sofa, reclined 
 a female dressed in black, with a thick veil 
 thrown round her head, and leaning over a 
 child, whose slumbers were disturbed by oc- 
 casional sobs. The irregular breathing of 
 the child, and the measured beat of a pen- 
 dulum, were the only sounds that disturbed 
 
 the solemn silence that reigned in this 
 gloomy chamber. The two men who had 
 carried the trembling painter, stood behind 
 him, and were also masked. 
 
 “ Here he is,” said one of them, softly, ns 
 soon as they had set down their burden. The 
 tall figure advanced slowly towards the 
 Frenchman, and taking his hand, led him to 
 the sola. “ This woman must die,” said he, 
 turning towards him ; but just at this instant 
 the feeble light of the solitary lamp fell upon 
 the artist’s face, and his conductor, uttering 
 a dreadful imprecation, pushed him away 
 rudely. His eyes flashed through his mask. 
 “ What have you done ?” cried he to his men, 
 “ this is not the priest.” They rushed upon 
 the terrified artist, and, throwing him down, 
 held the points of their daggers to his breast, 
 and in this position waited their master’s 
 commands. The veiled female made a slight 
 movement, and clasped the child to her 
 breast. There was a moment of silence and 
 fearful suspense, during which the masked 
 figure arrested by a gesture the poignards 
 ready to strike, and so near the breast of the 
 intended victim, as to graze his clothes at 
 each pulsation of the heart. All resistance, 
 all complaint, was useless. “ Who are you ?” 
 said the mask, hurriedly, in a deep voice. — 
 “ A Frenchman — a painter.” — “ What has 
 brought you here ?” — “ Having lost my way 
 in the streets of Rome, I heard some one ask 
 ‘ Is that you ?’ and, in hopes of finding it, 
 answered, ‘ Yes.’ — “ You are then a stranger 
 in Rome ? How long have you been here ?"’ 
 — “ Since yesterday evening.” — “ Good !” 
 muttered his interrogator — and he seemed to 
 breathe more freely. “ Sir,” continued he, 
 “you must die.” — “May God comfort my 
 poor mother,’’ ejaculated the artist. “ Listen ! 
 if you will swear to me on your honour — on 
 your life, and on that of your mother, to de- 
 part from Rome and Italy at day-break — 
 never to return — if you will swear never to 
 divulge to a living soul, what you have seen 
 to-night, I may perhaps spare your life. Do 
 you swear?” The painter sighed at the 
 thought of leaving Rome. “ Quick, quick,” 
 uttered the tall figure, in a tone of impatience. 
 “ I swear then.” — “ Bandage his eyes. If 
 you ever violate your oath, 1 swear — and I 
 never fail to keep my oaths, (pointing to the 
 dying female,) to punish you.” 
 
 Three hours after this the artist was on his 
 way to Paris. M. 
 
 THE DUKE OF LUXEMBURGH. 
 
 That great man declared upon his death- 
 bed, that “ he would rather have had to re- 
 flect upon that he had administered a cup of 
 cold water to a worthy poor creature in dis- 
 tress, than that he had gained so many bat- 
 tles in which he had triumphed. 
 
7C 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 JSoo&g. 
 
 WINTER STUDIES AND SUMMER RAMBLES IN 
 CANADA. 
 
 By Mrs. Jamesun.* 
 
 [There is nothing in these volumes to dis- 
 turb the political tendencies of anybody. 
 They describe ‘ summer rambles’ over various 
 parts of Canada, before the late rebellion, and 
 ‘ winter studies,’ while in Canada, but very 
 often with no reference whatever to the loca- 
 lity in which they were wiitten. The work, 
 in short, is desultory in an unusual degree, 
 mingling together reflection, description — 
 poetical, musical, and pictorial criticism — 
 sketches of character, anecdote and narrative, 
 without any attempt at system. The matter 
 is good in its various kinds, and therefore, to 
 persons in whom the bump of order is not 
 unduly developed, we can safely promise con- 
 siderable entertainment and instruction. We 
 shall proceed at once to our extracts, merely 
 affixing ‘ head-lines’.] 
 
 London Society contrasted with Canadian. 
 — New Year’s Day — colder than ever. This 
 morning the thermometer stood at eighteen 
 
 degrees below zero, and Dr. R told me 
 
 that some chemical compounds in his labo- 
 ratory had frozen in the night, and burst the 
 phials in which they were contained. 
 
 They have here at Toronto the custom 
 which prevails in France, Germany, the 
 United States, (more or less everywhere, I 
 believe, but in England,) of paying visits of 
 congratulation on the first day of the year. 
 This custom, which does not apparently har- 
 monise with the manners of the people, has 
 been borrowed from the French inhabitants of 
 Lower Canada. 
 
 I received this morning about thirty gen- 
 tlemen — to gentlemen luckily for me the ob- 
 ligation is confined — two-thirds of whom I 
 had never seen nor heard of before, nor was 
 there any one to introduce them. Some of 
 them, on being ushered into the room, bowed, 
 sat down, and after the lapse of two minutes, 
 rose and bowed themselves out of the room 
 again without uttering a syllable : all were too 
 much in a hurry, and apparently far too cold 
 to converse. Those who did speak, com- 
 plained, sensibly enough, on the unmeaning 
 duty imposed on them, and the danger in- 
 curred by running in and out from over- 
 heated rooms into the fierce biting air, and 
 prophesied to themselves and others sore 
 throats, and agues, and fevers, and every ill 
 that flesh is heir to. I could but believe and 
 condole. These strange faces appeared and 
 disappeared in succession so rapidly, that I 
 was almost giddy, but there were one or two 
 among the number, whom even in five mi- 
 nutes’ conversation I distinguished at once as 
 
 * Published by Sauuders and Otley. 
 
 superior to the rest, and original minded, 
 thinking men. 
 
 In London society I met with many men 
 whose real material of mind it was difficult 
 to discover — either they had been smoothed 
 and polished down by society, or education 
 had overlaid their understanding with stuc- 
 coed ornaments, and figures historical and 
 poetical — very pretty to look at — but the 
 coarse brick-work, or the rotten lath and 
 plaster, lay underneath : there being in this 
 new country far less of conventional manner, 
 it was so much the easier to tell at once the 
 brick from the granite and the marble. 
 
 The town of Niagara — low state of mo- 
 rals.— The land all round Niagara is parti- 
 cularly fine and fertile, and it has been longer 
 cleared and cultivated than in other parts of 
 the province. The country, they say, is most 
 beautiful in summer, taxes are trifling, 
 scarcely felt, and there are no poor-rates ; yet 
 ignorance, recklessness, despondency, and. 
 
 inebriety, seem to ptevail. A , who has 
 
 been settled here five years, and B , him- 
 
 self a Canadian, rate the morality of the Ca- 
 nadian population frightfully low ; lying and 
 drunkenness they spoke of as nearly uni- 
 versal; men who come here with sober habits 
 quickly fall info the vice of the country ; and 
 those who have the least propensity to drink- 
 ing, find the means of gratification compara- 
 tively cheap, and little check from public 
 opinion. 
 
 Men learn to drink, who never drank before ; 
 
 And those who always drank, now drink the more. 
 
 Though I parody, I do not jest ; for in truth, 
 if all, or even half, of what I heard to-day be 
 true, this is a horrible state of things. I 
 asked for a bookseller’s shop ; there is not one 
 in the town, but plenty' of taverns. There is 
 a duty of thirty per cent, on books imported 
 from the United States, and the expense on 
 books imported from England adds at least 
 one-third to their price ; but there is no duty 
 
 on whiskey. “ If government,” said B ,. 
 
 “ were to lay a duty on whiskey, we should 
 only have the province overrun with illicit 
 stills, and another source of crime and depra- 
 vity added to the main one.” 
 
 Sir Francis Head recommended to me, 
 playfully, to get up a grievance, that I might 
 have an excuse for paying him a visit. I 
 think I will represent to his Excellency the 
 dearness of books, and the cheapness of whis- 
 key. I could not invent a worse grievance, 
 either in earnest or in jest. 
 
 Coleridge. — Hazlitt. — Lamb. — Of all our 
 modern authors, Coleridge best understood the 
 essential nature of women, and has said the 
 truest and most beautiful things of our sex 
 generally; and of all our modern authors, 
 Hazlitt was most remarkable for his utter ig- 
 norance of women, generally and individually. 
 
 Charles Lamb, of all the men I ever talked 
 
TIIK MIRROR. 
 
 77 
 
 to, had the most kindly, the most compas- 
 sionate, the most reverential feelings towards 
 woman; but he did not, like Coleridge, set 
 forth these feelings with elaborate eloquence 
 — they came gushing out of his heart, and 
 stammering from his tongue — clothed some- 
 times in the quaintest disguise of ironical 
 abuse, and sometimes in words which made 
 the tears spring to one’s eyes. He seemed 
 to understand us not as a poet, nor yet as a 
 man of the world ; but by the unerring in- 
 stinct of the most loving and benevolent of 
 hearts. 
 
 When Coleridge said antithetically, “ that 
 it was the beauty of a woman’s character to 
 be characterless,” I suppose it is as if he had 
 said, “ It is the beauty of the diamond to be 
 colourless for he instances Ophelia and 
 Desdemona ; and though they are colourless 
 in their pure, transparent simplicity, they are 
 as far us possible from characterless, for in 
 the very quality of being colourless consists 
 the character. 
 
 Speaking of Coleridge, reminds me that it 
 was from Ludwig Tieck I first learned the 
 death of this wonderful man ; and as I, too, 
 had “ sat at the feet of Gamaliel, and heard 
 his words,” the news struck me with a solemn 
 sorrow. I remember that Tieck, in announc- 
 ing the death of Coleridge, said, in his im- 
 pressive manner, “ A great spirit has passed 
 from the world, and the world knew him not.” 
 
 Sir Francis Head. — As an official repre- 
 sentative, Sir Francis has not the advantage 
 of the height, fine person, and military bear- 
 ing of Sir John Colborne. He is a little man, 
 with a neat, active figure, a small but intel- 
 ligent head, grave and rather acute features ; 
 his bright blue eye is shrewd and quick, with 
 an expression of mingled humour and bene- 
 volence, and his whole deportment in the 
 highest degree unaffected and pleasing. 
 
 Dr. Johnson. — Of a very great, and at the 
 same time complex mind, we should be careful 
 not to trust entirely to any one portrait, even 
 though from the life, and of undoubted truth. 
 Johnson, as he appears in Boswell, is, I think, 
 the only perfectly individualised portrait I 
 remember ; and heuce the various and often 
 inconsistent effect it produces. One moment 
 he is an object of awe, the next of ridicule : 
 we love, we venerate him on this page — on 
 the next we despise, we abhor him. Here he 
 gives out oracles and lessons of wisdom, sur- 
 passing those of the sages of old ; and there 
 we see him grunting over his favourite dish, 
 and “ trundling ” the meat down his throat, 
 like a Hottentot. But, in the end, such is 
 the influence of truth, when we can have the 
 whole of it, that we dismiss Johnson like a 
 friend to whose disagreeable habits and pe- 
 culiarities we had become accustomed, while 
 his sterling virtues had won our respect and 
 confidence. If I had seen. John"''" - I 
 
 should probably have no impression but that 
 made on my imagination by his fame and his 
 austere wisdom, and should remain awe- 
 struck ; at the second interview I might have 
 disliked him. But Boswell has given me a 
 friend, and I love the old fellow, though I 
 cannot love his bull-dog manners, and worse 
 than bull-dog prejudices. 
 
 Sensibility an element of Wisdom. — “ A 
 man may be as much a fool from the want of 
 sensibility as the want of sense.” 
 
 Theatricals at Buffalo. — In the evening I 
 went to the theatre, to a private box, a lux- 
 ury which I had not expected to find in this 
 most democratical of cities. The theatre is 
 small, of course, but very neat, and prettily 
 decorated. They had an actress from New 
 York starring it here for a few nights — the 
 tallest, handsomest woman I ever saw on the 
 stage, who looked over the head of her di- 
 minutive Romeo, or down upon him — the 
 said Romeo being dressed in the costume of 
 Othello, turban and all. When in the bal- 
 cony, the rail did not reach up to Juliet’s 
 knees, and I was in perpetual horror lest she 
 should topple down headlong. This would 
 have been the more fatal, as she was the 
 only one who knew anything of her part. 
 The other actors and actresses favoured us 
 with a sort of gabble, in which not only 
 Shakspeare, but numbers, sense, and gram- 
 mar, w'ere equally put to confusion. Mer- 
 cutio was an enormously corpulent man, 
 with a red nose, who swaggered about, and 
 filled up every hiatus of memory with a good 
 round oath. — The whole exhibition was so 
 inexpressibly ludicrous, that 1 was forced to 
 give way to fits of uncontrolable laughter — 
 whereat my companions looked not well 
 pleased. Nor was the audience less amus- 
 ing than the dramatis personae : the pit was 
 filled by artisans of the lowest grade, and 
 lake mariners sitting in their straw hats and 
 shirt-sleeves — for few had either coats or 
 waistcoats. They were most devoutly at- 
 tentive to the story in their own way, eating 
 cakes, and drinking whiskey between the 
 acts ; and whenever anything especially 
 pleased them, they uttered a loud whoop and 
 halloo, which reverberated through the 
 theatre, at the same time slapping their 
 thighs and snapping their fingers. In their 
 eyes, Peter and the nurse were evidently the 
 hero and heroine of the piece, and never ap- 
 peared without calling forth the most bois- 
 terous applause. The actor and actress had 
 enriched the humour of Shakspeare by add- 
 ing several Yankee witticisms and allusions, 
 the exact import of which I could not com- 
 prehend ; but they gave unqualified delight 
 to the merry parterre. I did not wait for 
 the second entertainment, having some fear 
 that as the tragedy had proved a farce, the 
 farce might prove a tragedy. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 7 * 
 
 WIT OF THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 FROM THE ORIGIN AT, AUTHORS J WITH 
 REFERENCES. 
 
 (For the Mirror.') 
 
 Thales used to say that the oldest of all 
 things is God, for he is unborn ; that the 
 most beautiful of all things is the world, for 
 it was made by God ; that the greatest of all 
 things is space, for it contains all things ; 
 that the swiftest of all things is thought, for 
 it runs over all things ; that the strongest of 
 all things is necessity, for it conquers all; 
 that the wisest of all things is time, for it 
 discovers nil — Diog. Laert. i. 35. 
 
 When Philippus, a Roman orator, was 
 pleading on a certain occasion, a witness was 
 brought forward who was quite a dwarf. 
 “ May I question this witness?” said he to 
 the magistrate who presided. — “ Yes,” replied 
 the magistrate, who was in a hurry, “ but let 
 him be short .” — “ No fear,” rejoined Philip- 
 pus, “ for he is already very short.” — Cic. 
 De. Orat. ii. 60. 
 
 A good repartee is related of Cains Sextius, 
 who had but one eye. Appius, a man of 
 wit, but of no great purity of morals, said to 
 him, “ I will sup with you to-night, for I 
 see,” he added, looking in Sextius’s face, 
 “ that there is room for one.”— “ You must 
 have clean hands, however,” retorted Sextius, 
 “ before you sit down.” — Ibid. 
 
 Thales, on a certain occasion, observed that 
 death differed little from life. “ And why do 
 you not die then ?” asked one of his hearers. 
 — “ Because it would make little difference,” 
 was the reply. — Diog. Laert. i. 35. 
 
 Thales being asked which was the elder 
 of the two, night or day, “ Night,” replied 
 he, “ by one day.” — Diog. Laert. i. 36. 
 
 Being asked whether a mau could escape 
 the knowledge of the gods when doing ill, 
 “ Not even,” replied he, “ when thinking ill.” 
 
 — Ibid. Et. Val. Max. vii. 2. 
 
 Being asked by one who had committed 
 adultery, whether he might swear that he 
 had not committed it, “ Is not perjury,” re- 
 plied he, “ worse than adultery ?” — Ibid. 
 
 Being asked what vras most difficult, he 
 said, “To know one’s self.” — Ibid. 
 
 Being asked what was most easy, he said, 
 
 “ To give advice to another.” — Ibid. 
 
 Being asked what was most pleasant, he 
 said, “ For a man to obtain what he desires.” 
 
 — Ibid. 
 
 Being asked what God is, he said, “ That 
 which has neither beginning nor end.” — Ibid. 
 
 Being asked what was the most extraor- 
 dinary thing that he had seen, he said, “ An 
 old tyrant.” [He meant that it was wonder- 
 ful that tyrants were not assassinated before 
 they reached old age. 
 
 Ad geiieium Cereiis sine ccede et vulnere pauci, 
 
 Descemluut reges et sicca morte tyranni. — Juv. 
 
 Ibid. Compare Phut, de Deem. Soc. et 
 Cotiviv. Sap. 
 
 Being asked what makes us bear affliction 
 most easily, he said, “ To see our enemies in 
 greater affliction.” — Ibid. 
 
 Being asked how a man may lead the best 
 life, he said, “ By forbearing to do what he 
 blames in other men.” — Ibid. 
 
 Being asked who might be considered 
 happy, he said, “ He who has good health, 
 is at ease in his circumstances, and of an 
 intelligent and cultivated mind.” — Diog. 
 Laert. i. 37. 
 
 “ Do not strive,” said Thales to one of his 
 friends, “ to get riches unlawfully ; and do 
 not be ready to listen to accu-ations against 
 those whom you have taken under your pa- 
 tronage.” — Ibid. 
 
 “ Whatever treatment you have shown 
 your parents,” said he to another, “ expect a 
 like return from your children.” — Ibid. 
 
 He used also to say, that we should be as 
 mindful of our friends in their absence as in 
 their presence ; and that we should not he 
 anxious to adorn our person with dress, but 
 our minds with wisdom. — Ibid. 
 
 Aldus Sempronius was candidate for an 
 office, and went, accompanied by his brother 
 Marcus, to a certain Vargula, who had a vote. ' 
 The brother saluted Vargula, and offered to 
 embrace him, “ Boy,” cried Vargula, calling 
 to a slave, “ drive away the flies.” — Cic. De 
 Orat. ii. 60. 
 
 Nero, having a thievish slave, who pried 
 into every thing about the house, said of him 
 that he w r as the only servant in his family 
 from whom nothing was either sealed or 
 hidden. The same words might have been 
 used of a good servant, — Cic. De Orut. ii. 61. 
 
 Spurius Carrilius, in fighting for his coun- 
 try, had received a severe wound, which made 
 him halt so much that he was unwilling to 
 go abroad. “ Do not shrink,” said his mo- 
 ther, “ from showing yourself to your coun- 
 trymen, for every step you take will remind 
 them of what you deserve from them.” — Ibid, 
 
 When Scipio Africanus was adjusting a 
 crown on his head at an entertainment, it 
 burst several times. “ No wonder,” said 
 Licimus Varus, “ that it does not fit, for it 
 is a great head that it has to cover.” [Mag- 
 num enim caput est.]— Ibid. 
 
 Quintus Cicero, the brother of the orator, 
 was a men of diminutive stature. Cicero, 
 seeing a gigantic half-length of him painted 
 on a shield, remarked, “ The half of my bro- 
 ther is greater than the whole.” — Macrob. 
 Sat. ii. 3. 
 
 Vatinius, during the civil war, was elected 
 consul, but was deprived of his office a few 
 days afterwards. “ The year of Vatinius,” 
 observed Cicero, on his deposition, “ has been 
 an extraordinary one; for it has contained 
 neither spring, summer, autumn, nor winter.” 
 And on another occasion, when Vatinius 
 complained that Cicero had not visited him 
 when he was sick, “ I set out,” said Cicero, 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 79 
 
 “ to call on you during your consulship, but 
 night overtook me on the road.” — Ibid. 
 
 Revilius Caninius, during the same period, 
 was consul but one day. “ Revilius,” ob- 
 served Cicero, “ has gained something by his 
 election ; namely, that it may be inquired 
 under what consuls he was consul.” — Ibid. 
 
 He also remarked, on the same occasion, 
 
 “ We have had a wakeful consul, for he has 
 taken no sleep during his whole consulate.” 
 — Ibid. 
 
 Calvus heard a bad orator make a short 
 speech. “ He has said little,” said he, “ but 
 enough for his cause.” [An ambiguity, 
 like the remark of Nero on his slave ; for the 
 same might be said of the short speech ot a 
 good orator.] — Cic. De Orat. ii. 61. 
 
 Titius, a constant player at ball, was sus- 
 pected of mutilating the statues in the tem- 
 ples of the gods at night. One day he did 
 not come to play as usual, when his compa- 
 nions inquired what was become of him. 
 
 “ He may be excused for not attending,” 
 said Vespa Terentius, “ for he has broken an 
 arm.” — Cic. De Orat. ii. 62. 
 
 One of Crassus, the orator’s, clients said to 
 him, that he hoped not to be troublesome if 
 he came to him in the morning before day- 
 light. “ Very well,” replied Crassus. — “ Will 
 you order yourself, then,” said the man, “ to 
 be called ?” — “ I understood,” retorted Cras- 
 sus, “ that you hoped not to be troublesome.” 
 — Ibid. c. 64. 
 
 Cato the censor, in discharging the duties 
 of his office, asking Lucius Porcius Nasica 
 whether he was married, put to him the 
 usual question, “ Ex tui animi sententici 
 have you a wife ?” — “ No,” replied he, “ I 
 have not a wife ex animi mei sentential’ — 
 Ibid. c. 65. 
 
 In a certain cause, Crassus the orator was 
 engaged on one side, and Helvius Lama on 
 the other. Lama, who was very deformed, 
 interrupted Crassus several times whilst he 
 was speaking. Crassus, at last, provoked by 
 his impertinence, stopped, and said, “ Let us 
 hear what the handsome youth has to say.” 
 The audience laughing, “ 1 could not,” says 
 Lama, “ improve my figure, though I could 
 my understanding .” — “ Let us here then,” 
 rejoined Crassus, “ the man of improved 
 understanding.” This retort caused a greater 
 laugh. — Ibid. 
 
 In the civil war between Caesar and Pom- 
 pey, Cicero adhered to the latter, though he 
 greatly disliked his irresolution and want of 
 activity. Wishing to let Pompey know what 
 he thought of his supineness, he one day said 
 to him, “ I know from whom I should flee, 
 but I know not whom 1 should follow.” — 
 Macrob. Sat. ii. 3. 
 
 When he joined the camp of Pompey, he 
 was reproached with coming late. “ I can- 
 not think that I am late,” said he, “ for I 
 see nothing ready ?” — Ibid. 
 
 Pompey having presented a Gaul with the 
 freedom of the city of Rome, “ The worthy 
 man,” said Cicero, “ gives the freedom of a 
 foreign city to Gauls, when he cannot secure 
 his countrymen the freedom of their own.”— - 
 Ibid. 
 
 It was on account of such jokes as this, 
 that Pompey said of Cicero, “ 1 wish that he 
 would go over to the enemy, for he would 
 perhaps then have some fear of me.” — Ibid. 
 
 A soldier of Augustus, who had been 
 struck with a stone on the forehead, and had 
 a large scar on the place, was one day boasting 
 immoderately of bis exploits against the 
 enemy: “But when you run away,” said 
 Augustus, who overheard him, “ you should 
 remember not to look behind you.” — Macrob. 
 Sat. ii. 4. 
 
 anti J?ctmctS. 
 
 NEW PROCESS OF EMBALMING AND PRE- 
 SERVING SUBJECTS FOR DISSECTION. 
 
 At a meeting of the Royal Medical and Chi- 
 rurgical Society , on the 8th January last, a 
 letter was read, stating that Mr. G. Smith, 
 of John-street, Oxford-street, had obtained 
 a patent for an improved process for em- 
 balming and preserving subjects for anato- 
 mical purposes ; for which M. Gannal, the 
 eminent French chymist, has also taken one 
 out in Paris. It went on to detail some cu- 
 rious experiments which had been made by 
 Mr. G. Smith, at his theatre of anatomy in 
 Little Windmill-street, to show the preserva- 
 tive qualities of a fluid which he believed en- 
 tirely prevented the ordinary effects of putre- 
 faction in animal bodies after death, and in- 
 vited the fellowato view the body of a man, 
 who died on the 5th, and was embalmed on 
 the 9th of November. This communication 
 was accompanied by several specimens of 
 birds — a large Dorking fowl, a pheasant, and 
 a pigeon — which had been subjected to the 
 process, and which were found, at the end of 
 more than two months, in a very extraordi- 
 nary state of preservation, the flesh being 
 perfectly soft and elastic, and not the slight- 
 est smell or taint discoverable, although no 
 care had been taken to empty the crops of 
 half digested food, nor the intestines of fe- 
 culent matter ; nor had the birds been kept 
 otherwise than freely exposed to the air of 
 a common room with a fire in it. 
 
 Mr. G. Smith detailed the particulars of 
 the embalment, and invited the fellows to in- 
 spect the body and the preserved birds. He 
 stated, that in about half an hour a great 
 change came over the body ; that parts which 
 had previously been soft and relaxed became 
 firm and hard, and that the whole body re- 
 sembled wax in appearance, and was nearly 
 as firm: no perceptible change, he said, took 
 place, in the following three days, excepting 
 
80 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 that certain green marks on the neck and 
 abdomen gradually disappeared. 
 
 Dr. Merriman staled that he had seen the 
 body, and expressed his satisfaction at the 
 great eil'ect, and the simplicity of the pro- 
 cess. He said he had also examined the 
 birds at Mr. Smith’s house in John-street, 
 and that no particular precaution had been 
 taken in respect to temperature , but, on the 
 contrary, they were kept hanging in a room 
 with a fire in it. 
 
 Several other fellows expressed their ad- 
 miration at the appearance of the body, and 
 were of opinion that the discovery deserved 
 the immediate attention of the faculty. — 
 Times Journal. 
 
 WRECK OF THE FORFARSHIRE 
 STEAMER. 
 
 We witnessed with great pleasure an inter- 
 esting Pictorial and Mechanical Exhibition, at 
 the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, representing 
 that terrific storm at sea, in which the For- 
 farshire Steamer was wrecked, anct when 
 Grace Darling and her father so gallantly 
 rescued the sufferers from the ill-fated vessel, 
 and landed them at the Fern Lighthouse. 
 This exhibition is on the plan of De Lou- 
 therbourg’s Eidophusicon, or a Representa- 
 tion of Nature, and consequently cannot be 
 exhibited by daylight. When the" curtain 
 draws up, a view of the rugged coast is pre- 
 sented, with the Fern Light-house; various 
 vessels are seen riding through the storm, 
 and one, after firing signals of distress, 
 sinks : at length comes the Forfarshire 
 steamer, who, after struggling in the storm, 
 strikes against a rock, and becomes a com- 
 plete wreck. It would be impossible to 
 speak too highly of the representation of 
 the sea, for the undulating and troubled 
 motion of the waves are given with a fidelity 
 never yet excelled in a mechunical exhibi- 
 tion : the thunder and lightning are also well 
 managed ; and the howling of the wind was 
 astonishingly true to nature. The puppets 
 also worked well, and performed their parts 
 with great accuracy. Indeed the tout en- 
 semble presented as faithful a picture of a 
 storm at sea, as it is possible to be repre- 
 sented by pictorial mechanism. It certainly 
 is well worth seeing, especially by our young 
 friends, who will then have an idea of the 
 perils of a sailor’s life— so little heeded by 
 landsmen ; as Dibdin sings, 
 
 " Ye gentlemen of England, that live at home at ease. 
 Ah ! little do you think upon the dangers of the 
 seas.” 
 
 Cijc i&atijmr. 
 
 Modesty unhurt in receiving a favour . — 
 It is related of the celebrated artist, Canova, 
 that informed of the indigence of a poor, 
 
 proud, starving, but a bad painter, that he 
 called upon him and described a certain pic- 
 ture which he wished him to paint, adding, 
 that he would give tin hundred pounds for 
 said picture, fifty of which lie would advance 
 at the commencement. This method he 
 adopted to supply the wants of a starving 
 family, because he knew that the painter was 
 so proud, that he would not have accepted of 
 the money as a charitable donation. Un- 
 questionably, the charity was enhanced in 
 value by the mode in which it was granted. 
 An example worthy of imitation. 
 
 The perfection of Wisdom. — The great 
 physician Galen , merely upon the contem- 
 plation of so exact and so perfect a structure 
 as the human body, challenged any one upon 
 an hundred years’ study, to find how any of 
 the least fibre, or the most minute particle, 
 might be more commodiously placed either 
 for the advantage of use or of comeliness. 
 
 Revolutions of human life. — Indigence and 
 obscurity are the parents of vigilance and 
 economy — vigilance and economy, of riches 
 and honour— riches and honour, of pride 
 and luxury — pride and luxury, of impurity 
 and idleness — impurity and idleness, of indi- 
 gence and obscurity. 
 
 Royal Cock-crower. — There was an officer 
 whose employment it was to go the rounds 
 ns a watchman, but to crow like a cock. 
 Upon the accession of George the Second, 
 the cock ceased to crow, for his majesty dis- 
 liked the practice. 
 
 Elder Brother. — An elder brother is one 
 who makes haste. to come into the world, to 
 bring his parents the first news of male 
 posterity, and is well rewarded for his joyful 
 tidings. 
 
 A Sword. — A Quaker happening to be in 
 a stage-coach along .with, an officer, observed, 
 that his sword was very troublesome. All 
 mine enemies are of the same opinion, replied 
 the officer. 
 
 A prudent hint.— The celebrated Fonte- 
 nelle lived to the advanced age of near an 
 hundred years, and even at that age could 
 give singular ebullitions of wit. A lady of 
 nearly the same age said to him one day, in 
 a large company, “ Monsieur, you and I 
 stay here so long, I have a notion death has 
 forgotten us .” — “ Speak as softly as you can, 
 madam,” replied the veteran, “ lest you 
 should remind him of us.” 
 
 Intemperance. — The vine produces three 
 kinds ot grapes. The first pleasure, the se- 
 cond intoxication, and the third repentance. 
 
 f' ONDON; Printed and published by J.J.IMBIRD, 
 143, Strand, ( near Somerset Bouse) ; and sold t.y 
 all Booksellers and Newsmen —In PAMS, by al 
 the Booksellers.— In FRANCFORT, (JiiARLJiS 
 J L (ihL, 
 
Zi)t Jffltrtor 
 
 OK 
 
 LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION. 
 
 No. 935 ] SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9, JS39. [p ItlCE 2 d. 
 
 Xjrterfor of Hutton Cfjurri). 
 
 iFntetrtotr of Hinton C^urtf). 
 
 Htnton dTW'^c^ool. 
 
 Vol. XXXIII. 
 
82 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 WHARF DALE, IN YORKSHIRE. 
 
 To the Editor of the Mirror. 
 
 Sir, — Much has been said and written of 
 the Valley of the Wye, in Monmouthshire. I 
 have visited it, and explored every nook and 
 corner there ; and though it is well deserving 
 of all the praises that have been lavished 
 upon it, still, in my opinion, it is in every 
 respect inferior, in picturesque beauty and 
 sublimity, to Wharfdale. The Valley of Wye 
 has certainly in one part of it a fine sea-view, 
 which Wharfdale has not; but, with this excep- 
 tion, what is there in the one that the other 
 does not possess, and in a superior degree ? 
 Wye has its hills — its beautiful green-wooded 
 hills — s0 has Wharf, and its mountains too ! 
 Wye has its Windcliff wood— Wharf has its 
 old ancestral forest of Bolton, and its Grass- 
 wood. Wye has its Tiutern — Wharf has its 
 Bolton and Barden. Then look at the two 
 streams ! Wye, a dull sluggish stream, resem- 
 bling a Dutch canal— Wharf, a wild-foaming 
 mountain torrent, now dashing amid rocks, 
 now flowing on with waves of proverbial 
 crystal. 
 
 Now that railway communication is so 
 increasing the facility of access, let me in- 
 dulge the hope that Wharfdale will attract 
 more tourists than it has hitherto done — one 
 particular portion has certainly had its fair 
 share of visiters, I allude to Bolton, (an 
 account of which 1 perceive in your number 
 923 ;) but visiting Bolton, its abbey, and 
 woods, is not seeing Wharfdale. 
 
 I intend this communication more for the 
 pedestrian, than any other description of 
 tourist ; and my recommendation to him is, 
 if he has travelled from the south, to see the 
 lakes of Westmoreland, <fcc., to proceed from 
 Leeds to Otley, and there commence the tour 
 of Wharfdale, taking care not to quit the 
 valley till he has reached its termination at 
 Hubberholme. 
 
 Several works have been published on the 
 scenery of Wharfdale ; and there is one in 
 particular, published at Otley, which gives a 
 
 stitute the chief charms of the place ; they 
 are of great extent, and kept in excellent order 
 by his Grace the Duke of Devonshire. — 
 Fourteen lithographic views, published by 
 J. Scarlett Davis, and which may be had at 
 any of the booksellers in Leeds, give a good 
 idea of Bolton and its woodland walks. As 
 it is my present intention to direct the tourist 
 to the scenes beyond Bolton, I shall content 
 myself with referring to Mr. Davis’s views, 
 and the accompanying letter-press, rather 
 than attempt a fresh account of what has 
 been so often described by abler hands. 
 
 After quitting the woods of Bolton, the next 
 object in Wharfdale is BardenTower,afinespe- 
 cimen of the style of domestic architecture that 
 prevailed in the time of the Tudors. It was 
 at this venerable fortress, that the tenth Lord 
 de Clifford passed the greatest portion of his 
 life ; and although it may be but a vain 
 imagining, still there is something pleasant 
 in the idea that, probably beneath the shade 
 of some of the still existing venerable trees of 
 the neighbouring forest, that “ peasant lord ” 
 wooed his “ nut-brown maid.” It was in 
 the deep solitude of Barden that he, of whom 
 it is truly said in the old ballad, “ Westmor- 
 land was his heritage,” learned to despise 
 the pomp of greatness : here it was that he 
 lived during the whole reign of Henry VII., 
 devoting his time to the study of astronomy 
 and alchemy , (for in those days the one was 
 considered as much a science as the other,) 
 and such lore as was then chiefly confined to 
 the cloister ; as Kennedy sings — 
 
 " Some said lie might have been 
 (Soclerkly learned, and fraught with bookmen’s arts,) 
 A brother of the cell ; but others thought 
 He scorned their lives obscure, unloved, unknown,] 
 For day-dreams in the woods, aud converse sweet 
 Of forms ideal — visionary hopes. 
 
 And fond imaginings of airy worlds.” 
 
 The residence of the peasant lord is now a 
 dismantled ruin — the wild flowers bloom and 
 the ivy waves in the study of the astronomer ; 
 and of his secluded abode nothing remains 
 entire but the little domestic chapel, where 
 
 good description of the country between Otley lie worshiped that glorious Being, whose 
 
 and Bolton Abbey. I may here remark, that 
 1 have lately met with a work by Mr. Mon- 
 tague, (a son of good old Basil Montague,) 
 on the scenery of Craven ; this is an inter- 
 esting miscellany enough — what the author 
 describes he does well, but his sins of omis- 
 sion are very great ; and if he had submitted 
 his MS. to some experienced datesman, a 
 more perfect work would have been in the 
 hinds of fhe public; however, the traveller 
 will find it very useful, and superior to many 
 attempts of the same kind, some ofrwhich, 
 and especially one called “ Scenes in ^Craven,” 
 are most irresistibly ludicrous. 
 
 The correspondent who has favoured you 
 with the account of Bolton, has been sileut on 
 the beauties of its adjacent woods, which con- 
 
 wonders of creation were his daily study. 
 The chapel is still used for divine worship. 
 
 After leaving Barden, nature wears a some- 
 what forbidden aspect; but the uninteresting- 
 ness of the road does not continue long — 
 therefore the tourist must not turn back, as I 
 dare say many have done, but make for the 
 village of Applet reewick, or, as the country 
 folks call it, Apptrick. Near this place is the 
 “ Trollek’s Gill,” a scene as worthy of a 
 visit as any in the dale, but which is not 
 qoticed in any of the Guide-Books that I have 
 4een ; in fact, it is a little out of the direct road ; 
 and compilers of these sort of publications are 
 too often just enough lovers of the picturesque 
 and romantic to visit what lies close to the 
 turnpike-road, which they will not leave, 
 
THK MIRROR. 
 
 83 
 
 though, by so doing, they might meet with 
 one of Nature's grandest works. 
 
 The Trailer's Gill is in the Skyram pas- 
 tures, and is a wild rocky hollow in the hills, 
 through which a noisy brawling torrent foams 
 and dashes along ; horror and savageness are 
 the characteristics of this stupendous scene, 
 and it is not every traveller who, if alone* 
 would dare to explore so awful a place. The 
 writer, whose earliest years had been passed 
 amidst wild mountain scenery, once paid a 
 solitary visit to the Gill ; and though he ex- 
 plored it from beginning to end, he must 
 confess that his heart felt lighter when he 
 was no longer amidst the gloom of its over- 
 hanging crags, and the roar of its waters. 
 
 The road from Appletreewick, up the dale 
 to Hartlington, abounds with fine mountain 
 views — at every step there is something to 
 arrest the attention. At Hartlington I should 
 advise the tourist to cross the river to Burn- 
 sail, where there is a venerable church, of the 
 perpendicular style of architecture. It was in 
 tills village that the founder of the noble 
 family of Craven was born : he was the son of 
 a peasant, who rose, by dint of honourable 
 industry, from a parish apprentice to a res- 
 pectable London merchant ; whilst in the 
 latter capacity, he became Lord Mayor, and 
 received at the hands of his sovereign the 
 order of knighthood ; and his son John 
 was the first Lord Craven. The good 
 fortune of Sir William Craven did not 
 cause him to 
 
 " Forget the little ploughboy that whistled o’er the 
 lea.” 
 
 His native village was still dear to him ; and 
 the parish school which he founded, and the 
 church, which he restored at his sole cost, still 
 remain monuments of his benevolent spirit. 
 
 No less a personage than Eugene Aram 
 was once master of the above school. I am 
 not aware whether this fact has been alluded 
 to in any of the biographies of that extraor- 
 dinary mail. 
 
 While standing in the green church-yard of 
 Burnsall, the tourist will hear a noise as if he 
 were close to some mighty cataract. This 
 is from Loupscar’s troubled Linn," a vor- 
 tex in the Wharf, where the river is confined 
 within a narrow rocky channel, similar to the 
 Strid at Bolton, and forms, as Dr. Whitta- 
 ker says, a scene more dreadful than pleasing. 
 
 From Burnsall the traveller can proceed 
 through Hebden ; or, instead of crossing the 
 river, he can keep on the left bank, which 
 will bring him to the parish church of Linton. 
 The churches in Craven are, with some ex- 
 ceptions, of the reign of Henry VII those 
 
 exceptions, however, are very ancient edifices, 
 and referable to the earliest Norman , if not 
 to the Saxon era. Linton church, though 
 evidently erected at very different periods, is 
 partly an edifice of great antiquity — some of 
 the arches are early Norman, ami as plain, 
 
 rude, undecorated specimens of that style as 
 are to be met with ; other arches appear to 
 have been erected at an early period, of the 
 pointed style. R. B. Rampling, Esq., of 
 Liverpool, a well-known architect, who fur- 
 nished me with a drawing of the interior, 
 remarked, in a conversation I once had with 
 him on the antiquity of Linton church, that 
 the existence of Norman architecture by no 
 means proved that the edifice, or any portion 
 of it, was of Norman erection ; as, in so re- 
 mote and out-of-the-way a part of the country, 
 the style of architecture introduced by the 
 Normans might prevail long after the Nor- 
 man era— long after it was disused in more 
 frequented places. To this remark l would 
 merely in reply beg to say, that there is every 
 historical reason for believing that Linton and 
 the other churches of Wharfdale, were origi- 
 nally chantries or cures connected with either 
 Embsay, Bolton, Fountains, or some other 
 abbey, and built and kept in repair by the 
 monks of those places, (and not by the inha- 
 bitants of the adjoining villages,) who, in 
 such erections and repairs, would adopt the 
 style of the age iu which the work was com- 
 menced ; and, therefore, I cannot entertain a 
 doubt that Linton is ot very ancient founda- 
 tion. Prefixed are two views of the church, one 
 of the exterior, from a drawing by the late 
 Edward Dixon, Esq , of Hartlepool ; the 
 other, Mr. Rampling’s view of the interior, 
 looking west : this was choseii in preference 
 to a view of the eastern end, where some Van- 
 dal of a churchwarden has inserted above the 
 altar a Venetian window ! 
 
 Of late years many churches have been 
 built iu places, and under circumstances, 
 which rendered it desirable that economy 
 should be studied — some of these are very 
 strange-looking nondescript things, and show 
 that cheapness has been procured by the 
 sacrifice of good taste and architectural 
 beauty. For a small village church, Linton, 
 so far as the exterior is concerned, (save and 
 except the Venetian window,) is a good 
 model; and a building having such an ap- 
 pearance could be erected at a trifling ex- 
 pense. The interior would not be exactly 
 the thing for a modem ecclesiastical structure ; 
 but a building, having the same exterior 
 appearance, might easily be constructed, with 
 a totally different arrangement of the interior. 
 
 After leaving Linton church, there is a very 
 unsightly object, in a huge worsted mill. 
 Many beautiful scenes are spoilt by such ugly 
 erections; however, I hope the time will 
 arrive when the principles of ornamental 
 architecture will be applied to mills, as they 
 have already been to warehouses in London, 
 and other large towns. There is no reason 
 why a mill should not have as elegant an 
 appearance as a gentleman’s seat, especially 
 as a tew pounds is no object with those who 
 build them. A few yards dista it from tho 
 
84 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 mill is the Linton Free-School, a building of 
 ,the Elizabethan order. This was once a 
 fashionable seminary, with classical masters ; 
 and many have received education within its 
 walls, who afterwards, attained considerable 
 literary eminence. From some cause or other, 
 the endowment grew less and less, and the 
 celebrity of the school declined ; masters of 
 inferior attainments became appointed, till 
 at last it was only equalled in respectability 
 by an Irish hedge - school. However, a 
 change for the better has taken place, and it 
 is now a flourishing school, where the children 
 of the poor (for whom no doubt the school 
 was originally founded,) are taught useful 
 knowledge, on a plan in which the excellencies 
 of the Bell and Lancasterian systems are com- 
 bined. Near the Free-School is a sacred 
 spring, dedicated to the Virgin, and called 
 “ Our Lady’s Well;” whatever miraculous 
 powers its waters once possessed, have now 
 ceased ; but its sweet pellucid waters are still 
 in high repute for culinary purposes; and 
 there are few inhabitants in Grassington who 
 will tolerate any water but that from Lady 
 Well. 
 
 After crossing the bridge beyond the well, 
 and ascending a steep bank, we arrive at the 
 little town of Grassington, most romantically 
 built on the side of a lofty mountain. Of 
 this place I gave an account in a former 
 volume of the Mirror, and alluded to the 
 lead mines in its vicinity. These mines are 
 on the summit of a mountain, and extend 
 over a large tract of ground. The gentlemen 
 who have the management pay the greatest 
 attention, and show every civility to a stranger. 
 These gentlemen are called captains; a title 
 which, in all countries where there are mines, 
 seems to be given to those who have the 
 management; in Germany, in Norway, in 
 Russia, in Sweden, we find the same term 
 similarly applied ; and looking at the deri- 
 vation of the word captain , there seems no 
 good reason for applying it exclusively to 
 naval and military officers. When the 
 Grassington mines were first worked, is a 
 matter in dispute ; it has been asserted that 
 they were worked in the time of the Romans, 
 but no antiquities have been found to warrant 
 the conclusion. From the puritanic names 
 which many of them have, such as Glory 
 Mine, one might suppose that several were 
 first worked during the Protectorate. The 
 tourist ought to visit the mines, not only for 
 the sake of their subterranean wonders, but 
 also for an inspection of the machinery; in 
 addition to which they are on every side 
 surrounded by the finest mountain scenery 
 imaginable. There is in the midst of these 
 mines an interesting little valley, called Moss- 
 dale; as also a small lake or tarn, called 
 Priest’s Tarn, supposed to derive its name 
 J'roin having, in the days of old, been one of 
 the haunts of the monks of Fountains. 
 
 Having inspected the mines, the tourist 
 may proceed from Grassington, up the valley 
 of Wharf, towards Coniston, &c. ; the road 
 is carried through Grass-wood: this forest is 
 several miles in extent ; and if the walks in it 
 were kept in proper order, and a few rustic 
 seats erected, after the manner of Bolton, 
 might be rendered an object of equal attrac- 
 tion. Who that has wandered amidst its 
 moss-grown walks, now almost impenetrable 
 — who that has looked down its quiet glades 
 --who that has penetrated to its wild gloomy 
 dells and rocky nooks and chasms, (such as 
 Dibscar,) — who that has climbed its heights, 
 and gazed on the alpine-like character of the 
 surrounding country, and does not regret that 
 its noble proprietor, the Duke of Devonshire, 
 should not expend a trifle in keeping its 
 walks in proper order. I have been told that 
 the Duke never saw the wood ; if so, would 
 that I were at his side, to whisper in his ear 
 that he has nothing at Chatsworth or Bolton 
 superior to it. If Grass-wood could be put 
 into a proper state for tourists to visit, great 
 benefit would accrue to the neighbourhood. 
 Should the noble proprietor ever think of 
 what I have suggested, I have no doubt that 
 about Bolton might be found interested indi- 
 viduals, who would endeavour to thwart his 
 intentions. I have heard it said, that if Grass- 
 wood became a “ show place,” Bolton would 
 be injured — why or wherefore I caunot tell — 
 those who never see beyond their noses, may, 
 perhaps, be able to inform me. 
 
 The tourist having scrambled through 
 Grass- wood, may, after visiting the Ghaist- 
 rills, (another vortex in the Wharf,) return 
 to Grassington ; why I bring him back, I 
 shall inform you in my next communication, 
 which will conclude the description of Wharf- 
 dale. D. 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF ST. ANDREW’S 
 UNIVERSITY, SCOTLAND. 
 
 The University of St. Andrew’s was founded 
 by Archbishop Stewart, natural son to James 
 the Fourth, and was called the college of 
 poor Charles. It appears from the founda- 
 tion-charter, that there had been an hospital 
 in the same place for the reception and enter- 
 tainment of pilgrims of different nations, who 
 crowded to St. Andrew’s to pay their devotion 
 to the arm of St. Andrew, which wrought 
 many miracles. At length, however, the arm 
 of St. Andrew being tired with that laborious 
 kind of work, or thinking that he had done 
 enough, the miracles and the conflux of pil- 
 grims ceased, and the hospital was deserted. 
 The prior and the convent, who had been the 
 founders, and were the patrons of the hospital, 
 then filled it with old women. But these 
 producing few of the fruits of devotion, were 
 dismissed. The proprietors next formed it 
 into an University, where the different 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 branches of literature were to be taught. 
 Though there are several revenues belonging 
 to this university, yet it has never arrived at 
 equal celebrity with the other three univer- 
 sities. 
 
 VERSES, 
 
 king, “ the truth is, I have asked my subjects 
 so often for so much money, that I am really 
 ashamed to look them in the face.’’ 
 
 THE CHARACTER OF THE FIRST 
 CENTURY. 
 
 on being defied to write a poem on a SMALL At the commencement of the Christian aera. 
 
 CRUMB OF BREAD. 
 
 By an eminent Barrister. 
 
 [For the Mirror.) 
 
 Thou little fragment of Man’s daily food, 
 
 Tlio’ small, yet useful — Iho’ despised, yet good ! 
 Poor lonely traction of a severed loaf, 
 
 I scorn thee not ! nor join another’s scoff : 
 
 What tho’ more' dainty man’s luxurious pride 
 Disdainful sweep thee o’er the table’s side, 
 
 Still, when ejected from the w indow’s height. 
 Thou draw’st the little redbreast's wistful sight j 
 Elate with joy he leaves the quivering spray. 
 Hops to the spot, and pecks thee from the way. 
 Then seeks his callow brood in neighb’ring tree. 
 And strives to hush their infant wants with thee. 
 That done, he flies where just before he stood, 
 And carols the sweet song of gratitude ! 
 
 Or if perchance thou ’scap’st the robin’s eye, 
 
 A little care-fraught ant may wander nigh : 
 
 At sight of thee, what raptures fill her heart ; 
 
 She views thee round and round, to find a part 
 Where fast’ning firmly she by force may trail 
 The massy blessing to her distant cell ! 
 
 In vain she toils to drag the pond’rous weight. 
 And hastens homeward to procure her mate ; 
 
 Now both with puny prowess slowly drill 
 The joyful burthen to the swarming hill. 
 Assembling crowds the prize with pleasure eye. 
 And help to [dace thee in their granary ; 
 
 Where busy groups, with wisdom-teaching care. 
 Lay up, while summer lasts, the w inter’s fare. 
 Instructive lesson for unheeding man. 
 
 Who pines in penury, yet rejects their plan. 
 
 Thou little morsel of man’s daily food ! 
 
 Tho’ small, thou blessest ; tho’ contemn’d, thou’i 
 good ; 
 
 Things which the proud despise, will oft impart 
 A deep-felt blessing to a grateful heart. 
 
 " SUNNY STREAM, SUNNY STREAM.” 
 Sunny stream, sunny stream. 
 Disporting on thy way. 
 
 From these lovely regions. 
 
 What teiupteth thee to stray ? 
 
 In quest of roses brighter, 
 
 Meand’ring dost thou flow ? 
 
 In quest of lilies whiter. 
 
 Capricious dost thou go ? 
 
 Can’st find a happier sky. 
 
 Mirror’d iu thy breast. 
 
 Or smiling meads of summer 
 Greener for thy rest ? 
 
 Sunny stream, sunny stream. 
 
 Disporting on thy way. 
 
 From these lovely regions 
 
 Ah ! whither would ye stray ? 
 
 W. Archer. 
 
 ROYAL MODESTY. 
 
 Charles the Second one day asked Dr. 
 Stillingfieet why he read his sermons before 
 him, and preached out of book elsewhere ? 
 The Doctor replied, that preaching before so 
 great an audience made him distrust his own 
 abilites. But in return, how is it that your 
 Majesty reads your speeches in Parliament, 
 having no such- reason ? Why,” said the 
 
 the greater part of the habitable globe was 
 subject to the Roman Empire. The minor 
 nations were governed either by Roman go- 
 vernors, or by their own princes in subordi- 
 nation to the Roman senate. The ambition 
 of Augustus Caesar had, however, deprived 
 the people of all liberty but the name. The 
 form of government, and the laws of the Ro- 
 mans, were mild and equitable, but the in- 
 justice and avarice of the Praetas and Pro- 
 consuls were intolerable. The universal 
 dominion, and the general peace which then 
 reigned, gave to that century the appellation 
 of the Pacific Age. The want of records 
 renders it impossible to ascertain, with any 
 degree of precision, what was the state of the 
 other nations who were not subject to the 
 Roman yoke. The eastern regions were 
 strangers to the sweets of freedom, but the 
 northern, in their frozen dwellings, enjoyed 
 the blessings of freedom which their forms of 
 government, their religious systems, and ro- 
 bust constitution united to preserve and 
 maintain. 
 
 These nations were all sunk into super- 
 stitious idolatry of a varied form, the deities 
 of every nation being different, and by con- 
 sequence their rites of worship. This dif- 
 ference, however, produced no wars or reli- 
 gious contentions, but harmony reigned in 
 the region of idolatry. The general tendency 
 of all these religious systems was to encou- 
 rage vice and profligacy of manners, by the 
 examples of the actions they attributed to 
 their deities. 
 
 The Jews, who alone had been favoured 
 with the knowledge of the true God, had also 
 in their period become exceedingly corrupted, 
 erroneous in their principles, and immoral in 
 their lives. Thus the general situation of the 
 nations loudly called for the interposition of 
 God to convey to the human mind true and 
 certain principles of virtue and wisdom, and 
 to recall wandering mortals to the sublime 
 path of virtue. In such circumstances the 
 Saviour of the world appeared, to introduce a 
 new, sublime, and heavenly system of reli- 
 gion, adapted to all the human race, and cal- 
 culated to produce universal felicity. And 
 though that century is denominated the pa- 
 cific age , yet if we contemplate the political 
 character of the Romans in the political, and 
 the first teachers of Christianity in the moral 
 world, and reflect upon the boldness, intre- 
 pidity, and clemency exhibited by both, that 
 period may with no small degree of propriety, 
 claim the appellation of The LionPeriod.\ 
 
86 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 JJiograp^i?. 
 
 WII.I.1AM OK WYKEHAM. 
 
 ( Concluded from page f>7-) 
 
 Aftek much deliberation, and devout invo- 
 cation of the Divine assistance, considering 
 how greatly the number of the clergy had 
 been reduced by continual wars and frequent 
 pestilences, he determined to remedy, as far as 
 he was able, this desolation of the church, by 
 relieving poor scholars in their clerical educa- 
 tion ; and to establish two colleges of students, 
 for the honour of God and the increase of his 
 worship, for the support and exaltation of the 
 Christian faith, and for the improvement of 
 the liberal arts and sciences. Wykeham 
 appears to have come to this resolution soon 
 after his becoming Bishop of Winchester ; 
 for, shortly after that period, he made pur- 
 chases of several parcels of ground in the 
 city of Oxford, which make the chief part of 
 the site of his college there. His college at 
 Winchester, was part of his original plan ; 
 for, as early as the year 1373, before he pro- 
 ceeded any farther in his plan for the latter, 
 lie established a -school at Winchester, of the 
 same kind as the former, and for the same 
 purpose. He accordingly entered into an 
 agreement with Richard de Herton, for ten 
 years, commencing at Michaelmas, 1373, by 
 which he agreed to instruct in grammatical 
 learning, as many poor scholars as the bishop 
 should send to him, and no others without 
 lvis consent ; that the bishop should provide 
 and allow him a proper assistant ; and that 
 Herton, in case of his own illness, or neces- 
 sary absence, should substitute a proper 
 master to supply his place. While Wyke- 
 ham was preparing to carry these generous 
 designs into execution, a party was formed 
 against him at Court, which obliged him to 
 lay them aside for the present. At the head 
 of this party was the Duke of Lancaster, who, 
 ip resentment for Wykeham’s opposition to 
 his party in the Parliament of J376, procured 
 eight separate articles of impeachment to be 
 brought against him by certain persons, for 
 divers crimes committed during his adminis- 
 tration of the public affairs ; of the first seven 
 of these articles no proof was ever made, 
 judgment being given solely and separately 
 upon the last, which runs thus : “ That the 
 said bishop, when he was chancellor, by his 
 own authority, often caused fines, after they 
 were enrolled, to be lessened, and the rolls to 
 be erased ; and in particular, that of John 
 Grey of Betherfield, who made a fine with 
 the king, in the forty-first year of his reign, of 
 eighty pounds, for licence of feoffments of 
 certain lands and tenements, which was paid 
 into the Hanaper; but the said bishop, on 
 the pretence of some bargain between him 
 and the said John Grey, caused the first 
 writing to be cancelled, by making another 
 
 writing of the same tenor and date, for a fine 
 of forty pounds, and made the clerk of the 
 Hanaper repay the other forty pounds to the 
 said John Grey, to the defrauding of the 
 king.’ 5 The bishop was heard upon thes 
 articles before a certain number of bishop 
 and lords, and others of the privy-council, 
 assigned by the king for that purpose about 
 the middle of November ; and, in conse- 
 quence of the judgment given by them upon 
 the last article, writs were issued f.ora the 
 Exchequer, dated the seventeenth of the same 
 month, to the sheriff's of the several counties 
 concerned, ordering them to seize, into the 
 king’s hand, the temporalities of the Bishop 
 of Winchester. The bishop was also forbid- 
 den by the Duke of Lancaster, in the king’s 
 name, to come within twenty miles of the 
 court. The clergy, however, looked upon 
 these proceedings, not so much in regard to 
 the injury they did Wykeham, as their in- 
 fringement of the liberty of the church ; and, 
 the people considering him as a person un- 
 justly oppressed by the exorbitant power of 
 the Duke of Lancaster, a tumult insued in 
 his behalf, by which means he was restored 
 to the temporalities of his see, and to the 
 king’s favour, a few days before the death of 
 that monarch; which took place June 21, 
 1377- Soon after this event, he commenced 
 the erection of his college at Oxford ; the 
 king’s patent for the building of which is 
 dated November 26, 1379, by which it is en- 
 titled Seinte Maria College of fVynehester 
 '‘in Oxenford. Daring the building of this 
 foundation, which was begun March, 1380, 
 and finished April, 1386, he established in 
 proper form his society at Winchester, to 
 which, in the charter of incorporation, dated 
 October 20, 1382, he gives the same title as 
 the college at Oxford. As soon as he had 
 completed his building at Oxford, he com- 
 menced that at Winchester, which he finished 
 in 1393. About this period he determined 
 to rebuild a great part of his cathedral church, 
 the whole of which had been erected by 
 Bishop Walkelin, who began it in 1079. It 
 was of Saxon architecture, with round pillars, 
 or square piers, adorned with small pillars ; 
 round-headed arches and windows, and plain 
 walls on the outside, without buttresses ; the 
 nave had been for some time in a bad condi- 
 tion. Wykeham, upon a due survey, deter- 
 mined to take the whole down, from the tower 
 westward, and to rebuild it in a more magni- 
 ficent manner. He commenced this great 
 work in 1395, upon certain conditions, stipu- 
 lated between him, the prior, and convent, 
 and finished it in the style commonly called 
 gothic, with pointed arches and windows, 
 without key-stones, and pillars consisting of 
 an assemblage of many small ones, closely 
 connected together. This great pile, which 
 took about ten years in erecting, was just 
 finished when the bishop died. He had pro- 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 87 
 
 vjded in his willYor the entire completion of his title to the said estates, to be kept by 
 his design by his executors, in case of his them, and to be applied to no other use what- 
 death, and allotted two thousand live hundred ever, for twenty years after his decease ; after 
 
 marks for what then remained to be done, 
 apd five hundred marks for the glass windows. 
 Besides this great benefaction to his cathe- 
 dral, he purchased estates to the value of two 
 hundred marks a-year, in addition to the 
 lands of the bishopric. While he was re- 
 building his cathedral, he was engaged in 
 several great trusts and offices under Richard 
 the Second. The Parliament summoned by 
 Henry IV., a few days after his accession to 
 the throne, was the last he attended in per- 
 son ; he ever after sent procurators to excuse 
 his absence, on account of his age and infir- 
 mities. Being blessed with an excellent 
 constitution, he had enjoyed an uncommon 
 share of health, having been Bishop of Win- 
 chester thirty years, and in all that period 
 had only once been interrupted by illness, in 
 the attendance upon his duty in every capa- 
 city. At the end of the year 1401, he retired 
 to South Waltham, and, on the January fol- 
 lowing, he appointed Dr. Nicholas Wakeham 
 and Dr. John Elner, to be his coadjutors in 
 the bishopric. But although he had taken 
 coadjutors to his assistance, he still personally 
 attended and directed his affairs, both public 
 and private, admitting all persons who had 
 any business to transact with him, to his 
 upper chamber. This practice he was able 
 to continue until within a few days of his 
 death, which took place, September 27, 1404. 
 He was buried, according to his directions, in* 
 his own oratory, in the cathedral church of 
 Winchester. His funeral was attended by a 
 great concourse of people, many of whom, 
 doubtless, attended out of regard to his me- 
 mory, but a great number of the poorer sort 
 came to partake of the alms which were to be 
 distributed : having ordered by his will, that 
 in whatever place he should happen to die, 
 and through whatever places his body should 
 be carried, between the place of his death and 
 the cathedral church of Winchester, in all 
 these places, to every poor tenant, that had 
 held of him there as Bishop of Winchester, 
 shoidd be given, to pray for his soul, four 
 pence ; and to every other poor person, ask- 
 ing alms, two pence, or one penny at least, 
 according to the discretion of his executors ; 
 and that on the day of his burial, to every 
 poor person coming to Winchester, and ask- 
 ing alms for the love of God, and for the 
 health of his soul, should be given four pence. 
 He appointed his grand-nephew, the Reverend 
 Thomas Wykeham, to be his heir, and one 
 of his executors, with six others, to whom he 
 bequeathed a thousand pounds for their trou- 
 ble. He had before put him in possession of 
 his manors and estates, to the value of six 
 hundred marks a-year, and he deposited in 
 the hands of the warden and scholars of new 
 college, a hundred pounds for the defence of 
 
 which term the whole, or remainder not so 
 applied, was to be freely delivered to Sir 
 Thomas Wykeham or his heirs. 
 
 It may be truly said of the subject of this 
 memoir, that few men ever exceeded him in 
 acts of munificence and charity, among seve- 
 ral of which may be mentioned the following : 
 — At his first entrance upon the bishopric of 
 Winchester, he remitted to his poor tenants 
 certain acknowledgments usually paid, and 
 due by custom, to the amount of five hundred 
 and two pounds, one shilling, and sevenpence. 
 To several officers of the bishopric, who had 
 become poor, he at different times remitted 
 sums due to him to the amount of two thou- 
 sand marks. He paid for his tenants, three 
 several times, the subsidies granted . to the 
 king by Parliament. In 1377, he discharged 
 the whole of the debts of the prior and con- 
 vent of Shelborne, to the amount of a hun- 
 dred and ten marks, eleven shillings, and four- 
 pence ; besides making the convent a free 
 gift of a hundred marks. From the time of 
 his being made bishop of Winchester, he pro- 
 vided for, at least, twenty- four poor persons 
 every day, not only in victuals, but also in 
 distributing money among them. He con- 
 tinually employed his friends and attendants 
 to search after those whose modesty would 
 not suffer them to make their distresses 
 known ; and to go to the houses of the sick 
 and needy, and inform themselves of their 
 particular calamities. To such as were in 
 prison for debt, he was attentive and com- 
 passionate; inquiring into their circumstances, 
 compounding with their creditors, and pro- 
 curing their release. He expended vast 
 sums in repairing the roads, making cause- 
 ways, and buildiug bridges, between London 
 and Winchester, and many other places. 
 He likewise repaired a number of churches 
 that were gone to decay, besides furnishing 
 them with books, a hundred pair of vest- 
 ments, a hundred and thirteen silver chalices, 
 and other ornaments. W. G. C. 
 
 THE ONLY MEANS OF ENJOYING 
 LIFE. 
 
 The whole structure of our nature, and the 
 whole condition of our being, prove that our 
 Maker intended us not for a life of indolence, 
 but of active exertion. All the organs of the 
 body, and all the faculties of the mind, are 
 instruments of action, and it is only by con- 
 stant exercise that these powers can be re- 
 tained in a healthful state, and man enjoy 
 any tolerable degree of felicity. If the body 
 be suffered to remain long inactive, it will 
 lose its strength, and become a prey . to disease, 
 at the same time the mental faculties will be 
 gradually enfeebled, and the whole fabric of 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 £8 
 
 human happiness be undermined by fretful- 
 ness and spleen. It is, on the contrary, a 
 matter of constant experience, that a regular 
 course of bodily exercise is conducive to 
 health, exhilirates the spirits, and contributes 
 to the easy and successful employment of the 
 intellectual powers. 
 
 The frequent application of the mind to 
 study establishes a habit of thinking, which 
 renders it easy and pleasing to engage in any 
 kind of scientific or literary pursuit ; but a 
 mind which remains long unemployed, loses 
 its delicacy and vigour, and degenerates into 
 languor and stupidity. 
 
 As the earth, if it be industriously culti- 
 vated, will produce fruits in rich abundance ; 
 so if it be permitted to remain long unculti- 
 vated, it will be covered with weeds, which 
 will be rank in proportion to the richness of 
 the soil. In like manner the human mind, 
 if cultivated with great assiduity, will yield a 
 plentiful harvest of knowledge and wisdom ; 
 on the contrary, if neglected, it will gradually 
 be corrupted with the seeds of error and folly, 
 hnd the noxious weeds will grow up in the 
 greatest abundance in those minds which are 
 by nature capable of producing the most 
 excellent fruits. The obvious and the unde- 
 niable fact is, that man was made for action, 
 and not for indolence. 
 
 jKanmrd anti Ctuitomti. 
 
 SKETCHES OF PARIS. 
 
 An Execution. 
 
 We were beguiling our time one evening at 
 a small but comfortable caf£, in the Rue de 
 Vangirard, sipping our demi-tasse, and read- 
 ing Galignani’s Messenger, to see how 
 things were going on at home, when the 
 proprietor, a civil and intelligent man, in- 
 formed us, in an under tone, that an execution 
 was to take place the next morning at the 
 Barriere d’Arcueil, but that it was not gene- 
 rally known, as the time and place of the 
 fatal operation of the guillotine are always 
 kept secret. Now this struck us as a sin- 
 gular contradiction. The executions in 
 Paris, as everywhere else, are for the avowed 
 purpose of example, in consequence of 
 which they are generally quite private, in 
 order that nobody may witness them. 
 Anxious to behold so terrible, yet. at the 
 same time so novel a spectacle to an English- 
 man, we rose early the next morning, und by 
 seven o’clock were on our way to the barrier, 
 where the executions are generally held, 
 since the removal of the scene of blood from 
 the Place de Greve, in front of the Hotel de 
 Ville. The inhabitants of Paris are an early 
 eople, and business was quite alive at this 
 our ; but we did not see that tide ol spec- 
 tators pressing towards the spot, as we 
 should nav* observed in England, until we 
 
 had passed the Val- de-Grace, when several' 
 were evidently bending their steps in that 
 direction ; for in the immediate neighbour- 
 hood, the erection of the guillotine is a suf- 
 ficient signal of what is to follow. On 
 arriving at the Place St. Jacques, in the 
 centre of which the scaffold was erected, a 
 moderate crowd had assembled, forming a 
 large semicircle, commencing from the barrier 
 on each side. They were chiefly composed, 
 it is true, of the lower orders, but several 
 very respectable-looking females were 
 amongst them ; and we observed three or 
 four decent-looking voitures, drawn up under 
 the trees of the boulvards, and outside the 
 ring of people, filled with spectators. Of 
 course, all the windows commanding a 
 glimpse of the area were fully occupied ; and 
 we were surprised to observe, at many of 
 them, several young girls of seventeen or 
 eighteen, whose dress and demeanour be- 
 tokened them to belong to a respectable sphere 
 of life, anxiously gazing on the fearful pre- 
 parations of bloodshed. The crowd were 
 certainly amusing themselves in a most hila- 
 rious manner ; itinerant venders of cakes 
 and marchands de coco were perambulating 
 amongst them ; and a stranger would have 
 thought they were waiting during the entr'- 
 acte of an exhibition of mountebanks, 
 instead of being collected together to see a 
 fellow-creature deprived of life. We recog- 
 nised a municipal guard among the soldiers, 
 with whom we were slightly acquainted, and 
 with his permission we were allowed to ap- 
 proach the scaffold. The guillotine was 
 erected on a platform about seven feet from 
 the ground, resting on an open framework of 
 timber, all of which was painted red. By 
 the side of the plank on which the criminal 
 was to be confined, was a long basket of 
 coarse work, filled, we presume, with sand 
 or sawdust, and the box for the reception of 
 the head was strapped to the uprights be- 
 tween which the ponderous knife was to fall. 
 On one side of the scaffold was a common 
 market cart, in which two men were calmly 
 sitting and smoking their pipes — this was 
 to convey the body away ; and* on the other 
 we observed a light waggon to carry off" the 
 machine itselt. The circle of spectators was 
 preserved by the municipal guard stationed 
 in pairs at short distances, and the gens 
 d’arnies were conversing in different little 
 knots in the centre. About a quarter to 
 eight the cloud of dust at the end of the 
 Boulvard d’Enler, proclaimed the approach 
 o( the cavalcade, a circumstance which 
 seemed to be hailed with much glee by the 
 mob. A large detachment of horse-soldiers 
 came first ; then, we presume, some of the 
 city functionaries, in a lutecienne ;* and lastly, 
 the criminal van, in which we were informed 
 
 * A small four-wheeled fly for one horse, contain- 
 ing three persons. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 89 
 
 were the prisoner, the chaplain of the prison, 
 and the executioner. We ought to state, that 
 the van opened behind, so that it was ex- 
 actly like uncarting a deer, the driver having 
 backed it against the steps of the guillotine. 
 The culprit was a fine muscular man, about 
 thirty ; we thought he shuddered lor an 
 instant, as he caught the first glance of the 
 scaffold, but it was only for an instant ; and 
 then resuming his self-possession, he shook 
 his head two or three times, when his cap 
 was removed, and stared with apparent un- 
 concern at the multitude. The morning 
 was clear and beautiful — too fair, we thought, 
 for a human being to leave the world by so 
 violent a death, but we had little time al- 
 lowed for moralizing. He ascended the 
 steps unaided, and took his place on the 
 plank, which was directly tipped up, and slid 
 horizontally under the knife. A piece of 
 wood, having a notch to correspond to the 
 neck of the prisoner, was then pushed down, 
 to prevent his drawing back his head ; and as 
 he was lying on his face, he was literally 
 looking into the box where his head was 
 to fall. All was now still as death ; and on 
 the ciitch being loosened, the knife fell swiftly 
 and heavily, but we could distinctly hear the 
 momentary stop as it cut through the vertebrae 
 ol the ueck. An immense jet of blood imme- 
 diately spouted out from the divided arteries, 
 but in an instant the body was pushed over 
 into the basket, as well as the box containing 
 the head. The scaffold was then washed 
 down with pailsfull of water, and the bloody 
 stream poured down in torrents on the pave- 
 ment of the road. Next to this, the basket 
 containing the body and head were placed in 
 the cart, which drove quickly off, and then 
 the crowd dispersed by degrees, appearing 
 much gratified with the sight they had wit- 
 nessed. 
 
 In the evening we visited the barrier again. 
 All the apparatus was removed, and the ever- 
 gay population of Paris were passing outside 
 the gates, to enjoy themselves at the guin- 
 guettes, for it was a fete evening. But the 
 stain of blood was still in the road, and we 
 became disgusted with the recollection of the 
 morning’s tragedy, and returned home, think- 
 ing that a sight like that we had witnessed, 
 inured the people to deeds of cruelty, rather 
 than exerted any beneficial influence over 
 them. 
 
 [The execution here described took place 
 in July, 18iJ8. The name of the culprit was 
 Jadin, and he had been committed for mur- 
 dering a servant girl in the Rue Croix des 
 petits Champs, under very aggravated circum- 
 stances. Since then there has been but one 
 other execution in Paris, and that was in 
 December last.] Knips. 
 
 A GLIMPSE OF ELIZABETHAN 
 MANNERS. 
 
 Thehb is, perhaps, no work which throws 
 more curious and circumstantial light on the 
 manners of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, especially 
 at the concluding portion of it, than a rare 
 volume, by Thomas Decker , called “ The 
 Guls Horne Book,” which appeared in the 
 year 1609. We shall occasionally lay before 
 our readers a few passages, illustrative of a 
 state of manners which cannot but be of the 
 highest interest to every Englishman. And 
 selecting our example at random, will make 
 our first extract from a chapter, entitled, 
 
 “ How a Gallant should behave himself in 
 an Ordinary 
 
 “ First, having diligently inquired out an 
 ordinary of the largest reckoning, whithir 
 most of your courtly gallants do resort, let it 
 be your use to repair thither some half hour 
 after eleven ; for then you shall find most of 
 your fashion-mongers planted in the room 
 waiting for meat. Ride thither upon your 
 Galloway nag, or your Spanish jennet, a swift 
 ambling pace, in your hose and doublet, gilt 
 rapier and poignard bestowed in their places, 
 and your French lackey carrying your cloak, 
 and running before you ; or rather in a coach, 
 for that will both hide you from the basilisk 
 eyes of your creditors, and outrun a whole ken- 
 nel of bitter-mouthed sergeants. Being ar- 
 rived in the room, salute not any but those of 
 your acquaintance : walk up and down by the 
 rest as scornfully and as carelessly as a gen- 
 tleman-usher : select some friend, having first 
 thrown off your cloak, to walk up and down 
 the room with you; let him be suited, if you 
 can, worse by far than yourself ; he will be a 
 foil to you; and this will be a means to pub- 
 lish your clothes better than Paul's, a tennis- 
 court, or a playhouse : discourse as loud as you 
 can, no matter to what purpose ; if you but 
 make a noise, and laugh in fashion, and have 
 a good sour face to promise quarrelling, you 
 shall be much observed. If you be a soldier, 
 talk how often you have been in action ; as 
 the Portugal voyage, the Cales voyage, the 
 Island voyage ; besides some eight or nine em- 
 ployments in Ireland and the Low Countries: 
 then you may discourse how honourably your 
 Grave used you, (observe that you call your 
 Grave Maurice “ your Grave ;”) how often you 
 have drunk with count such-a-one, and such 
 a count on your knees to your Grave’s health ; 
 and let it be your virtue to give place neither 
 to S. Kynock, nor to any Dutchman whatsoever 
 in the seventeen provinces, for that soldier’s 
 complement of drinking. And, if you perceive 
 that the untravelled company about you take 
 this down well, ply them with more such stuffj 
 as, how you have interpieted between the 
 French king and a great lord of Barbary, when 
 they have been drinking healths together: 
 that will be an excellent occasion to publish 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 90 
 
 your languages, if you have them ; if not, .get 
 some fragments of French, or small parcels of 
 Italian, to thug about the table ; but beware 
 how you speak any Latin there: your ordinary 
 most commonly hath no more to do with Latin 
 than a desperate town of garrison hath.” 
 
 H. E. B. 
 
 TWO NIGHTS IN ROME. 
 
 {Translated from the French.') 
 
 For the Mirror. 
 
 (second NIGHT.) 
 
 On the last day of the exhibition of 1 835, a 
 triple row of equipages was ranged in front 
 of the unfinished Museum of Painting in 
 Paris. The privileged crowd — the artists, 
 their noble patrons, and above all, the ladies, 
 smiling, gay, and happy, thronged the door 
 reserved for the bearers of the blue ticket, the 
 precious favour of the Directors of the Royal 
 Museum. On the steps under the colonade 
 stood two artists engaged in conversation, and 
 observing the carriages file oft" before them. 
 The elder of the two, whose tall thin figure, 
 high forehead, and mustachios, a la Louis 
 XIII., resembled the Buckingham of Van- 
 dyke, bore in his countenance traces of that 
 indescribable expression of suffering, which 
 deep thought and superior genius are apt to 
 leave; when a smile played on his lips, an 
 expression of melancholy sadness was blended 
 with it ; and his full dark eye betrayed some 
 secret sorrow, which he was denied the con- 
 solation of imparting to his bosom friend. 
 
 “ You deserve our reproaches,” said his 
 friend, a young artist, from whose button-hole 
 dangled a medal of merit, decorated with a 
 new riband shining in all its freshness. 
 
 “ 1 deserve your reproaches !” 
 j *' Yes, you, whose first youthful effort pro- 
 mised so much ; you, in whose study I have 
 seen such masterly sketches ; such great de- 
 signs, such exquisite copies, as to deceive the 
 eye ol" a master, all covered with dust, and 
 neglected. And what have you exhibited ? 
 only a portrait, beautiful indeed, as one of 
 Lawrence’s, but still only a portrait ; and after 
 all, we are indebted to the vanity of a pretty 
 woman for it. Ah ! Raymond, you have 
 robbed us of our share of your glory.” 
 Glory !” replied the painter, slowly ; “ I 
 never cared for glory, I love the art for its own 
 sake ; mon Dieu, if I had but seen Italy 1 if 
 it had been my lot to wander among the trea- 
 sures of the Vatican ! O Rome! O Rome !” 
 “ But if you regret Rome, why did you leave 
 it ?"’■ — •* I am a native of the cold north,” an- 
 swered he, smiling bitterly ; “ the burning 
 sun of Italy would kill me.” 
 
 The carriage that was passing at this in- 
 stant, an open landau, stopped just before 
 them. It was occupied by a man advanced 
 in years, and a young female, the latter of 
 
 whom was, at the moment, leaning gracefully 
 on the opposite panel, and conversing with 
 some persons she had recognised in the 
 crowd. “ Good morning, c here ■ be lie, ” said 
 a pretty, but vain-looking lady, to the female 
 who was leaning over the side of the carriage, 
 “ have you seen my portrait ?”— “ Yes, it is 
 very beautiful, indeed : it is not more so than 
 you, madam, — it is you.” 
 
 4 ‘ I beg to recommend you the artist. He 
 is a charming young man — a little odd — ec- 
 centric.” — “ His name “ Raymond. 
 
 Adieu ! — Eh ! there he is, that tall man on the 
 steps of the colonade.” 
 
 As the carriage was driving off", the young 
 lady turned for an instant to survey the ob- 
 ject to which her attention had been directed, 
 and Raymond saw, through a profusion of 
 glossy ringlets, the most angelic face that 
 ever met his eyes, or that his glowing imagi- 
 nation had conceived ; it realized all of the 
 beautiful, that the divine Raphael, bis great 
 model, had embodied in his master-pieces. 
 “ Camille,” said he, pressing his friend’s 
 arm, “ I am positive this is the first time in 
 my life that I have seen this beautiful crea- 
 ture ; and yet her glance seemed to convey to 
 me a most strange and undefinable sensation, 
 — fin electric shock, as it were. And what is 
 most strange, I seem to have experienced all 
 this before. This young girl, her look, the 
 carriage, and myself standing on the steps — 
 all this has surely occurred before ! But, no, 
 it must be one of those moments when the 
 remembrance of some past dream haunts the 
 soul — some idle fancy of the imagination that 
 never existed.” 
 
 About nine o’clock next morning, a car- 
 riage drew up before the artist’s house, in the 
 Rue de la Rochefoucault. Raymond, in his 
 morning gown, and velvet cap in hand, re- 
 ceived, with some embarrassment, the elderly 
 gentleman whom he had seen with the beau- 
 tiful girl in the open carriage on the preceding 
 day. The stranger, evidently a man of dis- 
 tinction, appeared to have studied the art of 
 painting ; he readily recognised several pic- 
 tures by the old masters hanging round the 
 walls of the studio ; and glancing over some of 
 our artist’s unfinished sketches, pointed out 
 their beauties. 
 
 The painter, observing the impression pro- 
 duced on the old man by his works, dusted 
 some of the frameless portraits lying about 
 the room in most artist-like confusion; opened 
 old portfolios long time forgotten, and, with 
 a timid deference, and vanity hitherto a 
 stranger to his mind, anxiously awaited his 
 visitor’s opinion. “ As far as I can judge,” 
 said the old man, in an Italian accent, “ these 
 beautiful sketches appear to be formed more 
 on the model of the old Spanish school, than 
 our great Italian masters. Have you ever been 
 in Rome ?” — “ I have never been in Rome or 
 Italy,” was the reply. “ Ah ! you are still 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 91 
 
 young enough to come to see us some (lay ; 
 you must see the Vatican, Florence, Venice. 
 In the meantime I offer you a model, such as 
 our Raphael himself never had. I wish you 
 to take a likeness of my daughter. I reside 
 in the neighbourhood of Paris,— you will find 
 a studio at my house ; I shall be in town to- 
 morrow, and if you are disengaged, I will take 
 you with me.” After the old man had taken 
 his leave, the artist, read on the card which he 
 gave him, “Prince Barberini.” The French 
 villa of the Roman prince was situated near 
 the small village of Issy, and with its terraces 
 and white statues, partially seen through the 
 sombre verdure of a grove of linden trees, in 
 which it was embowered, resembled an Italian 
 villa transported to the woody banks of the 
 Seine. 
 
 The portrait, after a considerable time, was 
 finished — it was a chef d' oeuvre. The painter 
 had first admired, and then loved his model ; 
 he had exerted all his powers to do justice to 
 the original, and succeeded in producing a 
 master-piece. It was oniy under the impres- 
 sion of the look — the indescribable glance 
 with which his beautiful model thanked him, 
 upon receiving the portrait, that the bitter 
 conviction of the impotence of art to express 
 that heavenly beam, forced itself upon his 
 mind. 
 
 He also discovered that another sort of ad- 
 miration besides that of art had taken pos- 
 session of his soul — he discovered that he 
 was in love. 
 
 Raymond loved without even dreaming of 
 love. The prince, whose forehead, shaded 
 by premature grey hairs, and lustreless eyes, 
 exhibited traces of violent passions, became 
 accustomed to the presence of the painter. 
 Sometimes, tormented by a nervous suscepti- 
 bility — a mental suffering, which was only 
 irritated by attentions, he withdrew entirely 
 from the artist and his model. 
 
 Thus left to themselves, they spent hours 
 together — hours of unmixed happiness, when 
 they felt themselves isolated from all the 
 world ; and neither thought of, nor cared for 
 aught it contained besides each other. 
 
 Leontia was, like most young girls who, 
 deprived in early life of the kind protection of 
 a mother, and unable to fiud a kindred bosom 
 into which they cau pour their young and 
 timid emotions, fall back upon their own re- 
 sources, and learn to think and reflect ; she 
 was conscious that she loved Raymond, and 
 she abandoned herself to the pleasing en- 
 chantment. “ Leontia,” said the prince, after 
 dinner, on the day subsequent to the comple- 
 tion of the portrait, “ we must be in Rome 
 before the end of ten days. I intend giving 
 an entertainment at the palace of Barberiui 
 on the 25th ; we must therefore depart to- 
 morrow, and travel by easy stages.” — “Ray- 
 mond,” continued he, “ you have never been 
 at Rome —you will go with us ?” — “ I thank 
 
 you, prince,” replied the painter, turning pale, 
 “but I cannot go--at present.” — “What! 
 you an admirer of art ! of Raphael ! and cannot 
 go to Rome 1 Let us see, — what can detain 
 you in Paris?” — oh, nothing, you must go 
 with us, that is decided.” — “ Excuse me. sir, 
 but the thing is impossible.” returned Ray- 
 mond, with firmness. “ Raymond,” insisted 
 the prince, “ your presence is necessary to us. 
 We shall only remain a short time at Rome, 
 aud then we shall return to Paris to resume 
 our occupations.” A beseeching glance from 
 Leontia decided the artist. He consented to 
 accompany them to Rome. 
 
 The villa was deserted next morning. * • 
 
 * * * * * “ It is the Porta del Popolo, 
 God forgive me,” exclaimed the artist, as the 
 travelling carriage of the prince Barberini en- 
 tered Rome. “ What 1 do you know it, then ?” 
 said the prince, in surprise . — “ Yes,” an- 
 swered Raymond, with a slight tremor of the 
 voice, “ thanks to the engravers who send us 
 poor Frenchmen such excellent views of your 
 city.” The prince was expected to dinner, 
 and he arrived just in time to receive his 
 noble and princely guests in the galleries and 
 gardens ol the palace of Barberini, on this 
 occasion sparkling with lights, and resounding 
 with the most enchanting music. It was an 
 aristocratic ffete, worthy of the last representa- 
 tive of one of the most high and powerful 
 families of Rome. After the first pressure of 
 the crowd had subsided, and the guests began 
 to circulate more freely through the marble 
 galleries, aud the mu-ic had ceased, the 
 artist, intoxicated by the fairy scene with 
 which he was surrounded, found himself be- 
 fore the portrait of Leontia. by the side of the 
 prince, who presented him to his friends as 
 the author ot this master-piece of art. The 
 painter, bewildered by a powerful hallucina- 
 tion— a sort of mental intoxicat ion, lost his pre- 
 sence of mind. “Raymond,” said the prince, 
 “ how is it that an artist should never have 
 come to Rome once in his life ? But you recog- 
 nised the Porta del Popolo ! did you ever see it 
 before ?” “ Yes, prince,” replied he, mecha- 
 
 nically, “ once — only once ; and with that 
 once is connected a mysterious tale.” “ Let 
 us hear it,” they all exclaimed, eagerly. “ It 
 is a long time since,” replied Raymond, he- 
 sitating ; “ but in case of danger, I should 
 be protected by you. 1 have been in Rome 
 before.” “Ah! I knew it,” exclaimed the 
 prince. “ I was at that time very young, a 
 mere boy. I arrived in the evening, and was 
 conducted by some fatality to the theatre 
 d’Argentina, — Coronari sung * * * * 
 
 Leontia entered the room at this moment, 
 and observing an expression of intense suffer- 
 ing on her father’s countenance, who was 
 leaning airainst the marble mantel-piece, she 
 turned an imploring look on the painter. The 
 look was the same as that of the pale figure 
 he had seen at the theatre d’Argentino. 
 
92 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 Raymond proceeded to repeat the story, of 
 which the reader is already aware, describing 
 every circumstance with the most minute ex- 
 actness. “ The walls," continued he, “ were 
 hung with dark tapestry and as he raised 
 his head, his eyes expanded with terror, as he 
 recognised the same drapery ; “ on the mantel- 
 piece was a clock.” It was’the same that stood 
 before him. “ The eyes of the masked figure 
 flashed fire." He shuddered, as he encoun- 
 tered the prince’s fiery glance. “ Eh ! then,” 
 cried the latter. There was a moment of si- 
 lence, and Leontia, pale and trembling, slightly 
 pushed the gilded frame of the portrait, which 
 falling on the pedestal of a marble column, 
 was torn by a sharp angle. This incident 
 turned the attention of the party from Ray- 
 mond, and put an end to the embarrassment 
 of all. The unfortunate artist saw that he 
 was lost. As one hour after midnight tolled 
 from the lofty dome of St. Peters, Raymond 
 was standing before the window of his cham- 
 ber. musing on the events of the evening, when 
 he heard a slight rustling of the tapestry. — 
 “ Raymond,” whispered a low voice. “ Leon- 
 tia 1” and he clasped her to his bosom for the 
 first time “ You must fly, Raymond — come !" 
 and she led him through a uarrovv corridor, 
 towards a small door opening into the gardens, 
 from which he could ascend the terrace wall, 
 and from thence jump into the street. •* Fly," 
 said she, “ there is no time to lose 1" “ Alone !" 
 whispered Raymond. “ I must remain here,” 
 continued she, “ now I know all : — Oh ! I re- 
 member the last tears of my mother; but he 
 is my father, — I must remain." “ Then I re- 
 main also, there is a fatality attending my visits 
 to Rome, to which I must submit. I was com- 
 pelled the first time, after a few hours, to bid 
 adieu to my dreams of future fame ; and ten 
 years after, am I compelled to leave all 1 value 
 on earth ! No, I shall not go alone." “ For 
 heaven's sake, not so loud, or you will be lost — 
 farewell 1” A light was seen at this moment 
 in the chamber that Raymond had quitted, 
 and Leontia, throwing her arms round his 
 neck, whispered — ‘ If you love me, Raymond, 
 go," He precipitated himself into the street ; 
 and when he had disappeared, Leontia, utter- 
 ing a piercing shriek, fell into a swoon. Three 
 days after, at Naples, Raymond read the fol- 
 lowing, in the “ Diario diRoma 
 
 “ At the conclusion of a splendid fete given 
 at the villa of Barberini, on the 25th, an en- 
 tire wing of the palace was burnt to the ground. 
 We regret to add that his excellency the Prince 
 Barberini, and several of his suite, fell a prey 
 to the devouring element." 
 ****** 
 Six months after this melancholy accident, 
 C itnillo met his friend driving an elegant 
 cabriolet in the Champs Elysees. 
 
 “ What 1 in Paris ?" cried he. “ Yes, I 
 returned eight days since ; shall I drive you ?” 
 
 “ I have not the least objection — your horse is 
 
 such a beautiful animal. Where do you reside 
 now ?” 
 
 “ Come to dinner, and you shall see.” ’ 
 
 “ Well now ! what of Rome, Art, Raphael ?? 
 * * * The cabriolet was rapidly 
 
 traversing the Champ de Mars Vaugirigard, 
 Issy, and stopped at a villa on the road to 
 Fleury. “ Art !” exclaimed Raymond, “ I have 
 proved faithless to it at Rome. Yes, Camillo, 
 I am no longer a painter, I love the art no 
 more — I love” * * * u y«u love 
 
 this beautiful creature ?” interrupted his friend, 
 who observed a young lady of extraordinary 
 beauty running to meet them, as a footman 
 opened the gate. “Yes, my wife!" said 
 Raymond. JJd. 
 
 DESTRUCTION OF THE EARLY 
 ENGLISH LIBRARIES. 
 
 This article is inserted to show the vast ac- 
 cumulation of literature which existed at the 
 commencement of the Reformation in Eng- 
 land, evincing the industry of the monks, the 
 great loss sustained, and from the style and 
 orthography of the quotation, the state of 
 the English language at that period. 
 
 It is a circumstance well known to those 
 at all conversant in the History of England, 
 in the year one thousand five hundred and 
 thirty-six, the suppression of the lesser mo- 
 nasteries took place, by Henry the Eighth. 
 When the abolition was first proposed in 
 the Convention, Bishop Fisher strenuously 
 opposed it, and told his brethren that this 
 was fairly showing the king how he might 
 come at the great monasteries. “ And so, my 
 Lords,” concluded he, “ if you grant the 
 king these smaller monasteries, you do but 
 make him an handle whereby he may cut 
 down all the cedars within your Lebanon.” 
 
 The bishop’s fears were realized by the 
 subsequent acts of Henry; after having 
 quelled a commotion raised on account of 
 the suppression of the lesser monasteries, im- 
 mediately abolished the remainder, and in the 
 whole, suppressed six hundred and forty-five 
 monasteries, of which twenty-eight had 
 abbots who had seats in Parliament. Ninety 
 colleges were demolished, two thousand five 
 hundred and seventy-five chanteries and free- 
 chapels, with an hundred and ten hospitals. 
 The havock that was made among the libra- 
 ries cannot be better described than in the 
 words of Bayle, Bishop of Ossory, in the 
 preface to Leland’s “ New Year’s Gift to 
 King Henry the Eighth." 
 
 “ A greate nombre of them whiche pur- 
 chased those superslycyouse rr.ansyons re- 
 served of those librarye bookes some to serve 
 theyr jokes, some to scoure theyr candle- 
 styckes, and some to rubbe theyr bootes. 
 Some they sold to the grossers and sope- 
 sellers, and some they sent over see to y« 
 booke bynders, not in small numbre, but at 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 93 
 
 tymes whole shyppes full, to ye wonderinge 
 of foren nacyons.” 
 
 “ Yea, je universytees of thys realme are 
 not alle clere in thys detestable fact. But 
 cursed is that bellye whyche seketh to be 
 fedde with suche ungodlye gaynes, and so 
 depely shameth hys natural conterye. I 
 knowe a merchant manne, whyche shall at 
 thys tyme be namelesse, that boughte y e con- 
 tentes of two noble lybraryes for forty shyl- 
 lynges pryce, a shame it is to be spoken ! 
 Thys stuffe hathe he occupyed in y® stede of 
 greye paper by y® space of more than these 
 ten yeares, and yet he hathe store ynoughe 
 for as manye yeares to come. A prody- 
 gyouse example is thys, and to be abhorred 
 of all men whyche love theyr nacyon as they 
 shoulde do. The monkes kepte them undre 
 dust jt ydle-headed prestes regarded them 
 not, their latter owners have most shame- 
 fully abused them, and y t covetouse mer- 
 chantes have solde them awaye into foren 
 nacyons for moneye.” 
 
 THE FIRST POET LAUREATE. 
 
 The father of all Laureates, was named Ca- 
 Mii.i.o : he was a plain countryman of Apulia, 
 whether a shepherd or thresher is not material. 
 
 t his man (says Jovius) excited by the fame 
 of the great encouragement given to poets at 
 court, and the high honour in which the} were 
 held, came to the city, bringing with him a 
 strange ljre in his hand, and at least some 
 twenty thousand of verses. All the wits and 
 critics of the court flocked about him, delighted 
 to see a clown, with a ruddy, hale complexion, 
 and in his own longhair, so top full of poetry ; 
 und at the first sight of him all agreed he was 
 born to be Poet Laureate. He had a most 
 hearty welcome in an island of the river Tiber, 
 (an agreeable place, not unlike our Richmond,) 
 where he was first made to eat and drink plen- 
 tifully, and to repeat his verses to everybody. 
 Then they adorned him with a new and ele- 
 gant garland, composed of vine leaves, laurel, 
 and brassica. He was then saluted, by com- 
 mon consent, with the title of archipoeta, or 
 arch-poet, in the style of those days ; in ours, 
 Poet Laureate. This honour the poor man re- 
 ceived with the most sensible demonstrations 
 of joy, his eyes drunk with tears and gladness. 
 Next, the public acclamation was expressed in 
 u canticle, which is transmitted to us as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 " Salve, brassicea virens eorana, 
 
 Et lauro, archipoeta, pampmoque ! 
 
 Diynus principis auribus Leouis.” 
 
 “ All hail, arch-poet, without peer ! 
 
 Vine, bay, or cabbage fit to wear. 
 
 And worthy of the prince’s ear." 
 
 From hence he was conducted in pomp to the 
 capital of Rome, mounted on an elephant, 
 through the shouts of the populace, where the 
 ceremony ended. 
 
 The historian tell us farther, “ That at his 
 introduction to Leu, he not only poured forth 
 verses innumerable, like a torrent, but also 
 sung them with open mouth. Nor was he 
 only once introduced, or on stated days (like 
 our Laureates,) but made a companion to his 
 master, and entertained as one of the instru- 
 ments of his most elegant pleasures. When 
 the prince was at table, the poet had his place 
 at the window. When the prince had half 
 eaten his meat, he gave with his own hands 
 the rest to the poet. When the poet drank, it 
 was out of the prince’s own flagon, insomuch 
 (says the historian) that through so great good 
 eating and drinking he contracted a most ter- 
 rible gout.” Sorry I am to relate what follows, 
 but that I cannot leave my reader’s curiosity 
 unsatisfied in the catastrophe of this extraordi- 
 nary man. To use my author’s words, which 
 are remarkable, mortuo Leone profligatisque 
 poetis, & re. “ When Leo died, and poets were 
 no more,” (for I would not understand profii- 
 gatis literally, as if poets then were profligate,) 
 this unhappy Laureate was forthwith reduced 
 to return to his country, where, oppressed with 
 old age and want, he miserably perished in a 
 common hospital. 
 
 We see from this sad conclusion (which 
 may be of example to the poets of our time,) 
 that it were happier to meet with no encou- 
 ragement at all, to remain at the plough, or 
 other lawful occupation, than to be elevated 
 above their condition, and taken out of the 
 common means of life, without a surer support 
 than the temporary, or, at best, mortal favours 
 of the great. It was doubtless for this consider- 
 ation, that when the royal bounty was extended 
 to our Poet Laureates, care was taken to settle 
 it upon him for life. And it was the practice 
 of our princes, never to remove from the station 
 of Poet Laureate any man who had once been 
 chosen, though never so much geniuses might 
 arise in his time. 
 
 John Kaye was the first Poet Laureate in 
 England ; temp. Edward IV. He has left us 
 none of his poems ; but he has given to pos- 
 terity a translation of the siege of Rhodes, from 
 the Latin ; this he dedicates to the king, and 
 calls himself, “ hys humble Poete Laureate.” 
 
 Mr. Southey is the present Poet Laureate. 
 
 CHARACTER OF CHARLES II. 
 
 The tall and swarthy grandson of Henry IV. 
 of France, was naturally possessed of a dispo- 
 sition which, had he preserved purity of mo- 
 rals, had made him one of the most amiable of 
 men. It was his misfortune, in very early 
 life, to have become thoroughly debauched in 
 mind and heart ; and adversity, usually the 
 rugged nurse of virtue, made the selfish liber- 
 tine but the more reckless in his profligacy. 
 He did not merely indulge his passions ; his 
 neck bowed to the yoke of lewdness. He was 
 attached to women, not from love, for he had 
 
94 
 
 TI1K WIRIiOH. 
 
 * 
 
 no jealousy, and wns regardless of infidelities ; 
 nor entirely from debauch, but from the plea- 
 sure of living near them, and sauntering in 
 their company. His delight — such is the re- 
 cord of the royalist Evelyn — ‘ was in concu- 
 bines, and cattle of that sort ;’and up to the last 
 week of his life, he spent his time in dissolute- 
 ness, toying with his mistresses, and listening 
 to love-songs. If decision ever broke through 
 his abject vices, it was but a momentary flash ; 
 a life of pleasure sapped his moral courage, 
 and left him imbecile, fit only to be the tool 
 of courtiers, and the dupe of mistresses. Did 
 the English Commons impeach Clarendon ? 
 Charles II. could think of nothing but how 
 to get the duchess of Richmond to court 
 again. Was the Dutch war signalized by 
 disasters P “ the king did still follow his 
 women as much as ever;” and took more 
 pains to reconcile the chambermaids of Lady 
 Castlt-maine. or make friends of the rival 
 beauties of his court, than to save his king- 
 dom. He was “ governed by his lust, and the 
 women, and the rogues about him.” 
 
 The natural abilities of Charles II. were 
 probably overrated. He was incapable of a 
 strong purpose, or steady application. He 
 read imperfectly, and ill. W hen drunk, he 
 was a silly, good-natured, subservient fool. 
 In the council of state he played with his 
 dog, never minding the business, or making 
 a speech memorable only for its silliness ; and 
 if he visited the naval magazines, “ his talk 
 was equally idle and frothy.” 
 
 The best trait in his character was his na- 
 tural kindliness. Yet his benevolence was in 
 part a weakness ; his bounty was that of fa- 
 cility ; and his placable temper, incapable of 
 strong revenge, was equally incapable of affec- 
 tion. He so loved his present tranquillity, 
 that he signed the death-warrants of innocent 
 men, rather than risk disquiet ; but of him- 
 self he was merciful, and was reluctant to 
 haug any but republicans. His love of placid 
 enjoyments ar.d of ease continued to the end. 
 On the last morning of his life, he bade his 
 attendants open the curtains of his bed, and 
 the windows of his bed-chamber, that he 
 might once more see the sun. He desired 
 absolution ; “ For God’s sake, send for 
 
 a Catholic priest;” but checked himself, 
 adding, “ it may expose the Duke of York to 
 danger.” He pardoned all his enemies, no 
 doubt, sincerely. The queen sent to beg for- 
 giveness for any offences. “ Alas, poor 
 womau, she beg my pardon !” he replied ; “ I 
 beg hers wiih all my heart; take hack to her 
 that answer.” He expressed some regard for 
 his brother, his children, his mistresses. — 
 Bancroft's History of the United States . — 
 Krnnett. 
 
 ON THE USE OF THE WORD “ OBEY,” 
 
 IN THE MARRIAGE CEREMONY, &C. 
 
 That awkward word “ obey,” which has been 
 so ungallantly intruded into our marriage cere- 
 mony, and enforced by male legislators on the 
 unresisting weakness of the softer sex, was 
 actually pronounced in Egypt by lordly man, 
 and was even stipulated in the marriage con- 
 tract. The husband, in addition to the article 
 in the contract of dowry, that the lady should 
 be lord of the husband, pledged himself that 
 in all things (no exception or limitation was 
 permitted, no honest man after such an oath 
 could make any mental reservation) he would 
 be obedient to his wife — Diod. Sic. i. 27. 
 We must make the sad confession, that some- 
 times this freedom was abused : a memorable 
 occasion in the Book of Genesis will occur to 
 every one.* 
 
 But, it should seem, by the following ex- 
 tract from Caxton’s ‘ Buoke of th’ enseygne- 
 ments and techyuge that the Knyght of the 
 Tower made to his daughter,’ translated in 
 J4fci3, that the Saxon wives were obliged to 
 be obedient to their husbands. 
 
 “ How a woman ought to obeye her husbond 
 in all thynge honest.'” 
 
 “ I wold ye knewe wel the tale and ex- 
 ample of the ladje, which daygntd not to 
 come to her dyner for ony commauudemerit 
 that her lord coud make to her ; and so many 
 tyme he sent for her, that at the last, whanne 
 he sawe she wold not come at his commaunde- 
 ment, he made to com before hym his swine- 
 herd, he that kept his swynes, which was 
 foule and overmoche hydous, and bade hym 
 fetche the clothe of the kechyn wherwith 
 men wype dysshes and platers. And thenne 
 he made a table or bord to be dressyd before 
 hys wyf, and made it to be couerd with the 
 sayde clothe, and commaunded to his swyne- 
 herd to sytte besyde her, and thenne he sayd 
 thus to her, ‘ Lady, yf ye ne wylle ete with 
 me, ne come at me, ne come at my com- 
 maundement, ye shalle have the kaper of my 
 swyne to hold you company and good felau- 
 ship, and this clothe to wype your handes 
 withal. And whenne she that thenne was 
 sore ashamed, and more wrothe than she was 
 before, sawe and knewe that her lord mocked 
 her, refreyned her proude herte, and knewe 
 her foly. Therfor a woman ought not in no 
 wyse to refuse to come at the commaunde- 
 ment of her lord yf she wylle haue his love 
 and pees. And also by good reason humy- 
 lyte ought to come fyrste to the woman, for 
 euer she ought to shewe herself meke and 
 humble toward her lord.” 
 
 Is it improbable, that the plot of the 
 Taming of the Shrew, was founded on the 
 above instructions ? 
 
 • Vide Wilkinson’s Manueis and Customs of tlia 
 Ancient Egyptians. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 95 
 
 Clje public journals. 
 
 [We are pleased to observe Mr. Bentley com- 
 mencing the literary campaign of 1839, in 
 ‘ right good earnest,’ with Memoirs of John 
 Bannister, Comedian, by John Adolphus , 
 Esq. From many highly interesting anecdotes, 
 we extract the following :] 
 
 John Kemble’s Marriage. 
 
 One evening Mrs. Breretou addressed Mrs. 
 Hopkins; '• My dear mother,’’ she said, “ 1 
 cannot guess what Mr. Kemble means ; he 
 passed me just now, going up to his dressing- 
 room, and chucking me under the chin, said, 
 
 ‘ Ha, Pop ! I should not wonder if you were 
 soon to hear of something very much to your 
 advantage.’ What could he mean ?” “ Mean,” 
 the sensible mother answered, *■ why, he means 
 to propose marriage ; and, if he does, I ad- 
 vise you not to refuse him, you will not meet 
 with a better offer.” Thus the matrimonial 
 galley was launched ; and the voyage pro- 
 ceeded rapidly, merrily, and to a joyous con- 
 clusion, although not unmarked with some 
 peculiar circumstances. When the lady’s con- 
 sent was obtained, and the happy day fixed, Mr. 
 Kemble was living purely en garcon, the ele- 
 gancies of female life never thought on, in a 
 lodging in Caroline-street, Bedford-square. 
 His intimacy with Jack Bannister, and the 
 true regard he felt for him, rendered it natu- 
 ral and easy to request Mr. Bannister’s atten- 
 dance at the ceremony. This was readily 
 agreed to, and on the appointed morning, the 
 8th of December, Mrs. Hopkins and Mrs. 
 Brereton, presenting themselves at Bannis- 
 ter’s abode in Frith-street, they all repaired 
 to the bridegroom’s dwelling. Whether he 
 had been late over-night, or whether, 
 “ dreaming of golden joys,” he had been un- 
 willing to shorten his morning slumber, cer- 
 tain it is, that when the ladies arrived, there 
 was not the slightest sign of preparation for 
 breakfast. A number — they could not be 
 termed a set — of tea-things at length appear- 
 ed, the meal was discussed, the parties reached 
 the church in proper time, and the ceremony 
 was completed by an intimate friend of Kem- 
 ble, the well known Parson Este. They were 
 departing in separate coaches, the gentlemen 
 iu one, the ladies in auother, when Mrs. 
 Bannister said, £i as you do not seem to have 
 made any preparations, suppose you dine with 
 us ; but as both Mrs. Kemble and Mr. Ban- 
 nister play to-night, the dinner must be early 
 and punctual.” This good-natured and con- 
 siderate offer was readily accepted ; the ladies 
 went to Frith-street, and, having waited to 
 the utmost extremity of time, were obliged to 
 dine without the newly- married man. Bau- 
 uister and Mrs. Kemble had departed before 
 his arrival ; dinner was served up again, and 
 at a proper hour Mrs. Bannister left him to 
 
 his wine, expecting continually that he would 
 appear at the tea-table; at last be did come, but 
 not until it was full time that he should escort 
 his wife home from the theatre. Thither he 
 repaired in a hackney-coach ; his wife popped 
 in, and from that moment was installed mis- 
 tress of a new abode. 
 
 Bannister’s opinion of London. 
 
 T have lived too long (he observes) in London 
 from early life to the present time, to like the 
 country much : you cannot shake off old habits 
 and acquire new ones. I must die (please 
 God !) where I have lived so long. Kemble 
 once said to me, “ Depend on it, Jack, when 
 you pass Hyde-park-corner, you leave your 
 comforts behind you.” Experientia do- 
 cet ! London for beef, fish, poultry, ve- 
 getables, too; in the country you get ewe- 
 mutton, cow-beef, and in geuerul very indif- 
 ferent veal. London is the great market of 
 England. Why ? Because it abounds in cus- 
 tomers ; and I believe you may live as cheap in 
 London, and nobody know anything about 
 you, as anywhere else ; London is your best 
 retirement, after loug industry and labour. I 
 delight in the country occasionally. 
 
 APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 A generous soul never loses the remem- 
 brance of the benefits it has received, but 
 easily forgets those its hand dispenses. — 
 Chilo. 
 
 The felicity of the body consists in health, 
 and that of the mind in knowledge. — Thales. 
 
 Riches do not consist in the possession of 
 wealth, but in the good use made of them. — 
 Democritus. 
 
 Hope is the last thing that dies in man. — 
 Diogenes. 
 
 Let us honour old age, since it is what we 
 all tend to — Bion. 
 
 There is nothing so fearful as a bad con- 
 science. — Pythagoras. 
 
 The too great desire of speaking is a sign 
 of folly. — Thales. 
 
 The three most difficult things are, to 
 keep a secret, to forget un injury, and to 
 well employ one’s leisure time. — Chilo. 
 
 Do not divulge your designs ; that, if they 
 prove abortive, you may not be exposed to 
 scorn. — Pittacus. 
 
 Of all accidents of life, the most difficult 
 to be supported is the change of fortune. — 
 Bias. 
 
 We are not to judge any man happy be- 
 fore his death. — Solon. 
 
 Age and sleep teach us insensibly the way 
 of death. — Anaxagoras. 
 
 Benefits are the trophies that are erected 
 in the heart of men. — Xenophon. 
 
 The only thing that cunnot be taken from 
 us, is the pleasure of having done a good 
 action . — Antisthenes. 
 
96 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 Laws are the bulwark of liberty, and con- 
 sequently of the state. — Heraclitus. 
 
 An empire is in a tottering condition, if 
 the magistracy do not obey the laws, and 
 the people the magistracy. — Solon. 
 
 . The roots of sciences ure bitter, but their 
 fruit is sweet. — Aristotle. 
 
 The most necessary of all sciences, is to 
 learn to preserve ourselves from the con- 
 tagion of bad example. — Atisthenes. 
 
 The friend thut hides from us our faults, 
 is of less service to us than the enemy that 
 upbraids us with them — Pythagoras. 
 
 There are two things to be dreaded ; the 
 envy of friends, and the hatred of enemies. — 
 Cleobulus. 
 
 We have only one mouth, but two ears ; 
 whereby nature teaches us that we should 
 speak little, but hear much. — Zeno. 
 
 W. G. C. 
 
 Clje t&atljcrer. 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Crabb, of Hill, near South- 
 ampton, the benevolent reclaimer of the gip- 
 sies, calculates that there are in this country 
 upwards of 18,000 of this wandering race, 
 and in other parts of the world 700,000. — 
 January, 1839. 
 
 Pliny states, that acorns, beaten to powder, 
 and mixed with hogs’ lard and salt, heal all 
 hard swellings and cancerous ulcers. John 
 Ellice, Ksq. discovered that acorns can be 
 preserved in a state fit for vegetation for a 
 whole year, by enveloping them in bees’- 
 wax ; other seeds may be conveyed from 
 distant countries by the same means. 
 
 The Religious Tract Society, during the 
 last year, (1838,) distributed more than 
 15,000,000 of their publications. 
 
 At the court leet of the Crown manor of 
 Presteign, the niece of the late bellman and 
 crier proposed to become a candidate for the 
 office. The steward of the manor objected 
 to her because she was a woman ; to which 
 she replied. “ God bless you, sir, that’s no 
 reason ; haven’t we a woman for a king?” 
 The simplicity and readiness of this reply 
 induced the steward to admit her as a can- 
 didate, and, on a show of hands, she was 
 unanimously elected. — fVorcester Journal . 
 
 The first flint-glass was manufactured 
 at Savoy-House, in the Strand. 
 
 Poetry of Ancient Burial. — It was among 
 the loveliest customs of the ancients to bury 
 the young at morning twilight ; for, as they 
 strove to give the softest interpretation to 
 death, so they imagined that Aurora, who 
 loved the young, had stolen them to her em- 
 brace. 
 
 I am sent to the ant, to learn industry ; 
 to the dove, to learn innocence ; to the ser- 
 pent to learn wisdom ; and why not to 
 the robin-redbreast, who chants it us cheer- 
 
 fully in winter as in summer, to learn equa- 
 nimity and patience. — JVarwick. 
 
 Inquietudes of mind cannot be prevented 
 without first eradicating all your inclinations 
 and passions, the winds and tide that pre- 
 serve the great ocean of human life from 
 perpetual stagnation. 
 
 It is one of God's blessings that we can- 
 not foreknow the hour of our death ; for a 
 time fixed, even beyond the possibility of 
 living, would trouble us more than doth 
 this uncertainty. — King James. 
 
 Conversation augments pleasure, and di- 
 minishes pain, by our having shares in either; 
 for silent woes are greatest, as silent satis- 
 faction least ; since sometimes our pleasure 
 would be none but for telling of it, and our 
 grief insupportable but for participation. — 
 tPycherly. 
 
 The master of superstition is 'the people ; 
 and in all superstitions wise men follow fools. 
 — Bacon. 
 
 We can behold with coldness the stupen- 
 dous displays of Omnipotence, and be in 
 transports at the puny essays of human 
 skill ; throw aside speculations of the sub- 
 limest nature and vastest importance into 
 some obscure corner of the mind, to make 
 room for new notions of no conse- 
 quence at all ; and prefer the first reading 
 of an indifferent author, to the second or 
 third perusal of one whose merit and repu- 
 tation are established. — Grove. 
 
 Among the writers of all ages, some de- 
 serve fame, and have it ; others neither have, 
 nor deserve it ; some have it, not deserving ; 
 others, though deserving, yet totally miss it, 
 or have it not equal to their deserts. — Milton. 
 
 Age will superciliously censure all who 
 are younger than themselves, and the vices 
 of the present time as new and unheard of, 
 when in truth they are the very same they 
 practised, and practised, as long as they 
 were able. They die in an opinion that 
 they huve left some wiser behind them, 
 though they leave none behind them who 
 ever had any esteem of their wisdom and 
 judgment. — Clarendon. 
 
 Make a point never so clear, it is great 
 odds that a man whose habits, and the be- 
 nefits of whose mind lie a contrary way, 
 shall be unable to comprehend it. So weak 
 a thing is reason in competition with incli- 
 nation. — Berkeley. 
 
 Scarcely have I ever heard or rend the 
 introductory phrase, “ I may say without va- 
 nity,” but some striking and characteristic 
 vanity has immediately followed. — Franklin. 
 
 LONDON : Printed and published by J.L1MUIRD 
 143, Strand, (near Somerset House) ; and sold bt/ 
 all Boohsellrrs and Newsmen. —In PARIS, by all 
 the Booksellers.— ,'n IRANCFORT, CHARLES 
 JOG EL, , 
 
£f)c jntmt 
 
 OK 
 
 LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION. 
 
 No. 936. J SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1839. | Puicb 2rf. 
 
 ST. ANDREW’S HALL, NORWICH, 
 
 Is a neat, grand, and beautiful building; 
 the six pillars on each side which support 
 the nave, are very uniform, being covered with 
 lead; it is about fifty yards long, and thirty 
 wide, the two aisles are of the same length 
 with the nave, each being exactly half as wide 
 as the nave is. There are fourteen upper 
 windows, and six lower ones, on a side; and 
 the whole was new paved in 1646. It hath 
 been used as an Exchange, for the merchants 
 and tradesmen to meet in, but that is now 
 disused. The assizes for the city a:e held 
 here, and the mayor's feasts, <fcc. 
 
 Formerly, all the several companies of 
 tradesmen held their feasts here, and several 
 
 Voi.. XXXIII. PJ 
 
 of them had the arms of their companies 
 put up, some of which still remain. The 
 Courts of Conscience, of the Guardians 
 of the Poor, &c., are constantly held here. 
 
 This noble fabric was built by Sir Thomas 
 Erpingham, Knt ,* and bis arms, carved in 
 freestone, remain between every window of 
 the nave on the outside ; he died in 1428, 
 
 * Sir Thomas Erpingham was knight of the garter. 
 temp. Henry IV. and Lord Warden of the Cinque 
 Ports, in the reign of Henry V. He distinguished 
 himself at the battle of Agincourt, and built the 
 beautiful gate facing the western end of the Cathe- 
 dral, which is still called Erpingham Gate. He lies 
 buried in the Cathedral, together with his two 
 wives. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 98 
 
 before it was completely finished ; but the 
 plazinj', &c., was continued by Sir Rob. de 
 Erpingham, his son, rector of Brakene, a 
 friar, whose arms were in the late fine-painted 
 glass windows, all of which are demolished, 
 except the six most western ones in the nave. 
 In the west window are the arms of England, 
 and those of the Prince of Wales. At the 
 upper end of the aisle was formerly an altar of 
 St. Barbara, which, before 1459, was enclosed 
 in a neat chapel there, made by Ralf Skeet, 
 from whom it was afterwards called Skeet’s 
 Chapel; and opposite was another chapel, on 
 the S. aisle, the altar of which was dedicated 
 to the Virgin Mary ; and in the nave at the 
 upper end, stood the Great Rood, with the 
 altar of the Holy Cross, before which Holy 
 Rood Gild was kept. 
 
 At the east end is a clock, with the effigies 
 of Justice at the top, and the arms of England 
 carved beneath ; on the right hand, is a pic- 
 ture of Queen Anne ; and opposite, another 
 of Prince' George, her sou ; both given by St. 
 George’s Company. 
 
 On the right hand also is the Earl of Or- 
 ford at length, in his robes ; and this under 
 him — “ The Right Hon ble ’ Robert Earl of 
 Orford, presented this portrait to the Consti- 
 tution Club, 1743.” 
 
 At his right hand, is, 
 
 The pprtrait of the Right Hon. Horatio 
 Walpole, Esq., member of parliament for this 
 city; presented by himself, A.D. 1741. 
 
 On the south side, opposite to the Karl of 
 Orford, is, 
 
 A portrait, in his robes, of John Lord 
 Hobart, lord-lieutenant of this county; who 
 presented it to the corporation in 1743. 
 
 By him, in a black coat, with a sword by 
 his side, is, 
 
 A portrait of Thomas Vere, Esq., member 
 of parliament for this city, and mayor, 1735 ; 
 presented by a society of gentlemen, 1736. 
 
 In the north aisle are the Weaver’s arms, and 
 other companies, as Carpenters, Bakers, &c., 
 and two pictures of aldermen, in their proper 
 habit, viz. 
 
 Robert Marsh, Esq., mayor, 1731 ; being 
 alderman of the Grocer’s Company, was pre- 
 sented by them, 1732. 
 
 Francis Arnam, Esq., mayor ; also presented 
 by the Grocer’s Company, 1732. 
 
 In the south aisle, beginning at the east 
 end. are the following portraits, viz. 
 
 William Clarke, Esq., mayor, 1739, (in his 
 proper habit ;) presented by a society of gen- 
 tlemen, 1740. 
 
 ■ Timothy Balderstone, Esq., mayor, 1736, 
 and captain of the Hon. Artillery Company, 
 (in his regimentals.) by whom this picture 
 was presented, 1736. 
 
 Benjamin Nuthall, Esq., mayor, 1721, (in 
 his proper habit ;) presented by a society of 
 gentlemen, 1738. 
 
 In gratitude to William Wigget, Esq., 
 
 mayor, the citizens presented this portrait, 
 1743. He is in his proper habit. 
 
 Thomas Emerson, who, in 1739, gave two 
 gold chains, to be worn by the sheriffs of this 
 city, for a perpetual memorial of which gene- 
 rosity, this picture was presented by the cor- 
 poration of the city, A.D. 1741. 
 
 Over the south door is -a portrait, in his 
 proper habit, of 
 
 Thomas Harwood, Esq., mayor, 1728. — 
 Vide Blomejield’s History of the City and 
 County of Norwich, 1745. 
 
 [We are indebted to Mr. Musket for the 
 view at the head of this article : it is from 
 one of a set of four beautifully-executed views 
 of Norwich and its vicinity.] 
 
 LINES 
 
 TO MY BOY PLAYING WITH MY WATCH. 
 When time shall no longer be noted by me. 
 
 That watch, my dear infant, may note it to thee : 
 And, oil ! may those hours, as onward they roll. 
 Bring peace to thy bosom, and joy to thy soul 1 
 
 May the dawn of each morning that breaks on thine 
 eyes 
 
 Arouse thy devotion, in prayer to the skies ; 
 
 And as eveniug shall close o’er thy beautiful head. 
 May a band of the angels be guards of thy bed. 
 
 And gentle by nature, and harmless in life. 
 
 Toy years passing on without turmoil or strife. 
 
 When thy spirit shall bow to the summons divine, 
 May’st thou enter Eternity, honoured by time 1 
 
 c. s. 
 
 THE BETRAYED. 
 
 BY ANDREW PARK ; 
 
 Author of " the Bridegroom and the Bride,”—" The 
 Vision of Mankind” fyc. fyc. fyc. 
 
 I saw her cheek grow pale witli grief. 
 
 Her thoughtful eye grow dim, 
 
 Aud melting sorrow drop relief 
 From off its fringed brim ! — 
 
 I saw her snowy bosom swell 
 With fond sensation high, 
 
 And heard its pulse too plainly tell 
 Her grief in each reply ! 
 
 Yet she was sileut in her love. 
 
 And strived to hide the flame ; 
 
 Though oft she cast her eyes above. 
 
 As if she breathed his name ; 
 
 And then she gazed in deepest thought. 
 
 As one who views despair ; 
 
 For anguish in her bosom wrought 
 Its wildest workings there ! 
 
 No smile lit her transparent face ; 
 
 No hope sat. on her brow. 
 
 The only feeling left to trace. 
 
 Bespoke a broken vow. 
 
 Yet in her sad forsaken eye, 
 
 A beacou’s lingering ray, 
 
 Show’d how a soul of purity 
 
 Possessed that frame of clay ! 
 
 The vital spark was flying 
 
 With each sigh the bosom gave ; 
 
 The eye’s soft light was dying. 
 
 As the foam upon the wave. 
 
 And her end came as the balmy sleep 
 Of one who breathes repose ; 
 
 When slumbers throw a silence deep. 
 
 O’er his oblivious woes 1 
 
the mirror. 
 
 m 
 
 THE KINGDOMS OF NATURE.* 
 
 Life depends on certain conditions ; and 
 these conditions depend on a certain ar- 
 rangement ot substances ; which arrange- 
 ment is called “ organization.” In an 
 organ we observe, first, a peculiar arrange- 
 ment ; and, secondly, a specific lunction 
 performed by it. The body is an aggregate 
 of organs, formed of various textures ; each 
 texture being more or less common to all 
 the organs. The textures, or tissues, are 
 bone, cartilage, ligaments, muscles, tendons, 
 vessels, and nervous matter There is no 
 solid, even in the most perfect animal, 
 which cannot be ranged under one oi these 
 heads ; and they are all reducible to the 
 cellular, the muscular , and the nervous. 
 The cellular is the most simple, and the 
 most abundant ; for the enamel of the 
 teeth is said to be the only solid in the body, 
 in which it has not been discovered. If all 
 the earthy part of the bones, all the mus- 
 cular fibre, all the fat, <fec., were removed 
 from the body, the latter would still retain 
 its general shape, if the cellular tissue were 
 left ; whence the latter may be considered 
 as the basis of the whole. It is composed 
 of an infinite number of small globules, 
 about the eight-thousandth part of an inch 
 in diameter ; and arranged in lines, which 
 cross each other in every direction. The 
 muscular tissue is arranged in two different 
 modes ; — in masses, and in membraneous 
 expansions, or muscular coats ; but there is 
 no essential difference between them. The 
 muscular tissue is formed ol filaments, which 
 compose fibres, which (in their turn) are 
 made up into fasciculi; — each filament 
 (which is the smallest division) having an 
 investment of cellular membrane. By the 
 microscope, the muscular tissue, like the 
 cellular, is found to be composed of globules ; 
 as are also many of the animal fluids. 
 
 With regard to the structure of vegeta- 
 bles , our information is less satisfactory. 
 The study is in its infancy; and no two 
 authors agree respecting it. They are fur- 
 nished with fibres, vessels. &c. ; and appear 
 to be composed of globules. For further 
 information, we may refer to a series ot ar- 
 ticles on Botany, in our last volume. In 
 animals, the globules vary in different spe- 
 cies, and even in different parts of the same 
 animal. The elementary particles of inor- 
 ganic matter are found to be angular. Even 
 water and mercury, when in a state of crys- 
 talization, exhibit an angular form. Dr. 
 Brown, of Edinburgh, found that small par- 
 ticles of inorganic matter, put into water, 
 moved about like infusory animals ; from 
 which it has been concluded, by speculative 
 men, that organic and inorganic matters are 
 of the same description. Some say that 
 
 * Concluded from page 5$. 
 
 H2 
 
 these particles, floating in the water, are 
 round ; but this form is adventitious - 
 being produced by the triturution in the 
 mortar ; for if the substance be only broken 
 with a hammer, the particles are found to 
 be angular. If you pour an acid, or suit, or 
 laudanum, into the water, no effect is pro- 
 duced on the motion of these inorganic par- 
 ticles ; but if infusory animals be so treated, 
 their motion is quickened at first, but they 
 are soon killed. The cause of this motion 
 of inorganic particles, has not been ascer- 
 tained in all cases ; but in some it is owing 
 to currents in the water; in others, to the 
 attraction of different particles for each 
 other ; and in others it is apparently mag- 
 netic, or electrical. 
 
 Animals are divided into two great classes ; 
 those without an internal skeleton,— called 
 invertebrated animals ; and those with an 
 internal skeleton, — called vertebrated (from 
 vertebra , — the bones of which the spine is 
 composed). The invertebt'ated animals are 
 subdivided into the following classes: — I. 
 Zoophytes. These stand at the bottom of 
 the scale ; and include corals, sea-eggs, in- 
 fusory animals, <fec. They have a stomach, 
 something which resembles a nervous sys- 
 tem, and an imperfect apparatus for the cir- 
 culation of the fluids;— that is, “imper- 
 fect,” when judged by the standard of higher 
 animals ; but quite complete as regards 
 their own organization. Corals are produced 
 by polypi ; which have numerous genera and 
 species. Near Edinburgh there are lime- 
 stones filled with corals, though the latter 
 live only in tropical climates; from which, 
 and from many analogous facts, it is evident 
 that our climate must once have been tro- 
 pical. 2. Articulate. These animals are 
 so called from having their body and limbs 
 variously jointed ; as the beetle , &c. Si- 
 milar animals are found in the sea ; as the 
 sea mouse, &c. 3. Mollusca. The animals 
 comprised in this division are so called from 
 their being generally very soft. All animals 
 furnished with shells, whether they inhabit 
 the land or the water, belong to this class ; 
 such as snails, muscles, oysters, the cuttle- 
 fish, &c. Shells are either univalve, bivalve, 
 or multivalve ; and their study constitutes 
 the science of conchology. 
 
 The vertebrated animals consist of four 
 classes. I. Pisces, or fishes ; including all 
 animals which breathe by gills; and ex- 
 cluding what we call “ shell-fish.” Whales, 
 and animals of that tribe, are also excluded; 
 for they are not fish, but breathe by lungs ; 
 and, instead of spawning, bring forth their 
 young alive. 2. Amphibia ; including all 
 animals that can live both in water and in 
 air ; as crocodiles, turtles, tortoises, ser- 
 pents, frogs, lizards, &c. 3. Aves, or birds. 
 
 4. Mammalia; comprisingall animals which 
 suckle their young ; and including, therefore, 
 
100 
 
 THE MIRROR* 
 
 whales, dolphins, porpoises, &c. The mam- 
 malia stand at the summit of the zoological 
 series ; and man stands at the head of the 
 mammalia ; — having only one genus, and one 
 species ; but divided into races, suh-races, 
 families, and varieties. The ape is considered 
 to come nearest to man in perfection of struc- 
 ture. 
 
 Animals, like plants, are found in all parts 
 of the globe ; except in tracts which are 
 always covered with snow. Above the snow- 
 line, animals and plants are not found ; and 
 their number increases as we descend from 
 this. It is supposed that, below a certain 
 depth from the surface, both the land and 
 the sea are destitute of living creatures. 
 There are sandy tracts on the surface of the 
 earth, in which animals and plants are very 
 rare ; and the same state of things occurs 
 near volcanoes ; for it is often centuries be- 
 fore streams of lava admit of vegetation ; 
 and before that time no animals can exist on 
 them. Animals are most abundant under 
 the equator ; and lessen in number towards 
 the poles. In the latter situation, their 
 tints are most simple ; being often white. 
 The hare and the ptarmigan are quite white 
 in the arctic regions ; and hawks are some- 
 times found white below, and black above. 
 The Museum in the University of Edinburgh 
 contains a white hare, which was killed by 
 Captan Parry, in 82° north latitude ; — the 
 highest point which had then been reached 
 by man. Tropical birds have very beautiful 
 plumage ; and one bird found in temperate 
 regions (the kingfisher) resembles them. 
 
 With respect to the size of animals, there 
 is great diversity ; — from the whale, which 
 is sometimes nearly a hundred feet long, 
 down to animals so small, that five millions 
 would not fill a cubic line ;* or of which 
 (as it has been otherwiseexpressed) hundreds 
 might play on the point of a pin. It would 
 require eight hundred millions of these to fill 
 a cubic inch ; and nine hundred billions to 
 fill a cubic foot. All water contains these 
 animals. In general, the largest animals are 
 found in the warmest countries, whether 
 on the land, or in the sea ; but the whale is 
 a well-known exception to this rule. N. R. 
 
 # A “ line ” is a convenient measure, much used 
 by the French. It is the twelfth part of an inch. 
 
 ftftaunera an* Customs. 
 
 SKETCHES OF PARIS. 
 
 A French School. 
 
 The continual minor annoyances and ludi- 
 crous mistakes to which our knowledge of 
 school, French perpetually subjected us, in- 
 duced us to think about some means of ac- 
 quiring the language, not as we learn it in 
 England, but as they speak it in France. We 
 applied to several friends, touching the best 
 
 means of attaining this end, and every body 
 said, “ Go into a school for a short time, it is 
 your only way.” Thinking of the old adage, 
 which teaches us, what every one says must 
 be right, we accordingly made up our minds 
 to become a schoolboy once more, and started 
 one morning in quest of an “ institution" 
 likely to suit our purpose. We called at 
 several, but none had the least idea of what a 
 parlour-boarder meant, at least, in our sense of 
 of the word ; and after splitting our boots to 
 pieces in running up and down the Rue 
 D’Enfer, (whose miserably unpaved state en- 
 tirely contradicts the statement, that the “ des- 
 census Averni” is so easy, and shows Virgil 
 had not Paris in his eye when he wrote the 
 ALneid), we at length settled with one in the 
 Faubourg St. Jacques, where we stipulated to 
 have a bedroom to ourselves, to dine with the 
 principal, and to be instructed in the French 
 language, for one hundred francs per month. 
 Now, we had three reasons for going here. 
 Firstly, it was cheap ; secondly, it was near 
 the Barriere Mont Parnasse, to whose amuse- 
 ment on fete days we had a great predilection ; 
 and, lastly, (we blush to own our cowardice) 
 the eleves were all “ small boys,” whom we 
 could thrash into subjection, if they were im- 
 pudent, or halloo’d after us, “ Rosbif Anglais" 
 “ Goddem," or any other entertaining polyglot 
 witticisms, that the said “ small boys” of Paris, 
 there called gamins, were apt to indulge in at 
 our expense. 
 
 It was a wet dirty day, in the beginning of 
 Nevember, that we left our lodgings at the 
 Hotel Corneille, Place de l’Odeon, and hiring 
 a porter at the corner of the Rue Racine, 
 paddled up the never-ending, and always 
 dirty, Rue St. Jacques, to our new abode. On 
 arriving, we entered the great gates, with 
 which all French schools are embellished, and 
 immediately carried our effects to our bedroom, 
 which was a closet with a tiled floor, about 
 eight feet square, and whose sole furniture was 
 comprised in a little wooden bedstead without 
 curtains, a deal chair, and a corresponding 
 table, on which was a pie-dish to wash in, 
 and a pint white jug for water. Had we been 
 astronomers, the room would have had many 
 advantages, since it was ingeniously lighted 
 by a window in the ceiling, which, in fine 
 weather, illuminated our chamber very well, 
 but in the event of a heavy fall of snow, left 
 us nearly in totul darkness. It was late in the 
 evening when we arrived, so we went to bed 
 at once, supplying the want of sufficient bed- 
 furniture by an English great-coat spread over 
 the counterpane, and a carpet-bag, emptied 
 of its contents, made a sort of mat to lay on 
 the ground, and stand upon while we un- 
 dressed. 
 
 Long before daylight the next morning we 
 were aroused from our slumbers by a bell 
 ringing, to summon the poor devils of eleves 
 to the commsncement of their studies. We 
 
101 
 
 the mirror. 
 
 heard much yawning and scrambling after 
 clothes, and then a silent and measured step 
 as the usher assembled them, two and two, to 
 march down stairs to school. About seven, the 
 cook of the establishment, adirty fellow, inadir- 
 tier white night-cap, brought us a cup of milk 
 and a piece of bread, which we were infoimed 
 was to be our first breakfast, the other was at 
 half-past eleven. Unfortunately for us, weal- 
 ways had a great aversion to bread and milk — 
 we think it is neither one thing nor the other, 
 and appears to hold an inter mediate rank be- 
 tween tea and water. Although we remem- 
 bered in our infancy to have possessed a book 
 of nursery rhymes, written by some anony- 
 mous poet of the dark ages, of infantile litera- 
 ture, where there was a picture of a little child, 
 with very curly hair, dragging a respectable 
 female, who looked something between a Sun- 
 day-school teacher and a baimaid, towards a 
 cow feeding in a romantic meadow; and, 
 moreover, some lines, which commenced, as 
 far as our memory selves us : 
 
 " Thank you, jiretty cow, that made. 
 Pleasant milk to soak my bread 
 
 and followed by some well-founded cautions to 
 the animal not to chew hemlock and other 
 rank weeds; still, we repeat, in spite of all 
 these associations, we do not like bread and 
 milk. Accordingly, when we found this was 
 all we vi ere to be allowed before noon, we 
 were out of temper, and getting up very 
 cross, we sauntered down into the play- 
 ground to inspect our new residence. The 
 reader must imagine a large court, enclosed 
 on three sides by buildings and walls, and on 
 the fourth by some palings communicating 
 with the garden. The edifices on the right 
 hand were divided into numerous little cells, 
 each having a door, and those were dignified 
 by titles placed over the said doors. The 
 first was called, “ Salle de musique,’’ and, in 
 consequence, was fitted up with a cistern and 
 leaden trough, where the e/eves performed 
 Iheir morning ablutions, when there hap- 
 pened to be any water. Next to this, was the 
 “ Salle du dessin,” or drawing academy, and 
 seme empty easils, with a very ricketty form 
 or two, showed a great deal went on there. 
 Then came the “ classe or school-room, 
 w here th eelcves studied under the surveillance 
 ol two ushers, who ordained a rigid silence 
 amongst Iheir pupils, save and except such 
 times as the said ushers were on duty as na- 
 tional guards. On the other side the court 
 was the dwelling-house and bed-rooms, with 
 the “ re/ectoire ’’ of the pupils, where they 
 fed ; and in the middle of the playground, 
 which, from having two trees in it, was de- 
 nominated the park, were divers gymnastic 
 poles and bars, and a deep well, which sup- 
 plied the establishment with water, when any- 
 body was at leisure to wind it up — an opera- 
 tion oi hall an hour. We were tolerably 
 hungry by eleven o’clock, and w ere not sorry 
 
 to hear ihe bell for the boys’ breakfast, as 
 we knew ours came after. The pupils si- 
 lently marched two and two into their room, 
 and took their places at two long tables, 
 where each boy had a fork, cup, and napkin 
 laid for him — table-cloths and knives were 
 unknown. An allowance of- potage, seem- 
 ingly composed of cabbage- water, and bits of 
 bread, w as first served out to each ; after that 
 they had some vin ordinaire and water, but 
 such wine — the only thing we could compare 
 it to, was ink and small beer mixed together; 
 and when this was well diluted with water, 
 we could imagine how delicious it was. A 
 course of boiled spinach came next, and 
 the breakfast concluded by a dab of curraut 
 jam being distributed to each, which was 
 eaten with their bread, of which, however, 
 there was an unlimited supply. This meal w'as 
 repeated at five o’clock, with such agreeable 
 variations as the taste of the cook directed ; 
 but bey ond small pieces of hard boiled beef, 
 and little bits of calf’s liver, we did not see 
 much meat. Potatoe sallads, cold artichokes, 
 boiled lentils, and sorrel soup, appeared to be 
 the staple articles of refreshment. The meals 
 which we partook with the master and his fa- 
 mily were about the same standard, except 
 that the wine was superior, and seme cotelcttes 
 of mutton and veal were occasionally dis- 
 played. The eleves themselves had none of 
 the spirit of English school-boys, and indeed 
 it was not to be wondered at. We could not 
 help often contrasting the washy mess they 
 were eating to the wholesome roast and boiled 
 joints of our schools. They appeared to have 
 no regular games or toys of their own, and 
 all their play-time was spent in running after 
 one another, with no other end that we could 
 perceive but to warm themselves, for although 
 the weather was desperately cold, there were 
 no fires, or even fire-places in several of the 
 rooms. They never inflicted corporal punish- 
 ment, but offenders were ordered to stand 
 against a particular tree for half an hour, or 
 be deprived of a dish at dinner. We thought 
 it would have had a better effect, to thrush 
 them well, and feed them well. 
 
 As we may imagine, from their early rising, 
 they were generally pretty well fatigued at 
 night, and they were always in a deep sleep 
 when we went to bed. As the way to our 
 chamber lay through that of the eleves , we 
 had frequent opportunities of inspecting it. 
 It was a large bare room, with the beds ar- 
 ranged round it, and down the middle, like 
 Ronx’s ward, at the Hotel Dieu, only the 
 beds had no curtains. Some of the boys had 
 little round mats by the beds to stand upon, 
 but the majority, who could not afford to hire 
 these luxuries of the master of the school, 
 had Ihe gratification of planting their naked 
 feet on a tiled floor every morning. A dim 
 and solitary lamp burnt all night in the cham- 
 ber, barely lighting its extreme ends ; not an 
 article of furniture but the beds themselves, 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 m 
 
 and one chair fcr the usher, was in the room, 
 and the windows all closed with that unat- 
 tractive irreconcilability which is only known 
 to the windows of the Continent. 
 
 We contrived to get through a month at 
 our institution, and then we left. We had, 
 it is true, picked up a good deal of French, 
 but in point of expense, it had not saved us 
 much, for — the truth must out — vve never got 
 enough to eat, and in consequence, generally 
 dined again at the nearest restaurant ; nay, 
 more than once we delected ourselves eating 
 broiled herrings at a wine-shop outside the 
 Barriere d’Arcueil. Knips. 
 
 THE SEDUCER. 
 
 Pierre Marcel was the cultivator of a small 
 but profitable vineyard, on the banks of the 
 Garonne, a few leagues from Toulouse, where 
 the principal part of his life had been passed 
 in the almost daily occupation of tending his 
 vines, and rendering his little plot of ground 
 the fairest for many a mile around. In 
 early life his wife, whom he had passionately 
 adored, had fallen the victim of a lingering 
 illness, leaving him an only child, a daughter, 
 whom he cherished both for its own and 
 mother’s sake, with unusual tenderness. The 
 little Louise was the solace of his days, and 
 the prattle of her infant tongue sounded to 
 him the sweetest music nature could invent ; 
 hut when her growing years gave token of 
 equalling her mother’s beauty and symmetry 
 of form, his satisfaction was unbounded to 
 think that he alone, without a mother’s fos- 
 tering hand, had reared a flower so lovely. 
 Oft, when working- in his vineyard, would he 
 pause as his daughter tript by with fawn-like 
 step, and gaze with true affection on his 
 heart’s dearest object, whilst in his mind he 
 conjured up blight dreams of the future, aud 
 tried to trace her coming years. 
 
 A short distance from Marcel’s house was 
 the chateau of the Marquis de St. Brie, who 
 was usually resident there with his daughter. 
 The family of the Marquis consisted only of 
 his daughter and a son, an officer in a light 
 cavalry regiment. A friendship more strong 
 than those usually subsisting between persons 
 pf different stations in life, had grown up be- 
 twixt Louise and Emile de St. Brie; and it had 
 been one of the chief amusements of the latter 
 to instruct Louise in those accomplishments 
 she herself so much excelled in, often remark- 
 ing, that her pupil was so apt that she should 
 sopn have little left to teach her. 
 
 The notice taken of his daughter by Main’- 
 §elle St. Brie, was most gratifying to the feel- 
 ings of Marcel, who daily saw her gaining 
 those accomplishments he so much coveted 
 for her, but which he had feared he should 
 be unable to obtain. But few pleasures are 
 unalloyed, and however great might have been 
 the satisfaction he felt at the notice taken of 
 
 Emily, yet there was but little in the reported 
 attentions of Henri St. Brie, who was staying 
 at the chateau. 
 
 Henri was by nature formed for woman’s 
 admiration. He was of that manly dashing 
 cast which so often takes the heart by storm, 
 ere reason has time to bring its tardy succours, 
 and show that the advantages of a handsome 
 person and fascinating manners are totally 
 eclipsed by the blackness of a heart formed 
 in total contrast to the rest. He had been 
 but a tew days at the chateau before Louise 
 was marked as the victim of his seductive 
 arts. He foresaw that her simple and 
 confiding disposition would render the ac- 
 quirement of her affections an easy task ; but 
 with all her simplicity, she entertained such 
 high notions of honour, as to make his suc- 
 cess rather doubtful ; but still he thought that 
 one who had seen but the fairest side of life, 
 could but ill combat against the wiles of one 
 versed in all its deadliest ways. 
 
 He sought every opportunity of being in 
 her company, and by a thousand assiduous 
 attentions won his way, imperceptibly, in her 
 affections. He pretended his passion vvas of 
 that fervent kind which drove every object but 
 respect from his imagination ; and vowed, 
 could he but gain her reluctant consent, to 
 make her the future Marchioness de St. Brie. 
 There was but one thing he stipulated ; and 
 that was, for the marriage to be performed in 
 private, since he feared his father’s anger, 
 unless he could, by degrees, break the cir- 
 cumstance to him. There was so much plau- 
 sibility in this, that she could not believe he 
 spoke other than the language of truth. The 
 cloven foot had in no one instance as yet 
 shown itself, and she felt convinced his affec- 
 tions were as pure, and as fervent, as her own. 
 She yielded her consent to a private marriage. 
 
 Henri protested she had made him the 
 happiest of men, by her consent; but still 
 there was one thing more, the marriage could 
 not be periormed with that secrecy which 
 was so necessary, elsewhere than in Paris. 
 Would she go there? To this she demurred 
 that the absence from her father, without any 
 reasonable excuse, would be the cause of so 
 much anguish to him, that she would not for 
 the world he should feel ; hut even this scru- 
 ple was overcome by the promise of Henri, 
 that ou their return her father should he in- 
 formed of all that had taken place, when the 
 few hours of uneasiness would be more than 
 compensated by the pleasure he would receive 
 on hearing of her happy marriage. 
 
 Paris, with all its charms, had less attrac- 
 tion for Louise than her simple home on the 
 Garonne’s bauks. She lived in the most 
 studied seclusion ; passing her melancholy 
 hours in thinking of her father, and what 
 must be his feelings concerning her long- 
 continued absence. She felt she had made 
 but a poor return for all the care and soliei- 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 103 
 
 lode bestowed upon her. Henri, it was true, 
 had been unremitting in his attentions, and 
 his love appeared still as fervent as ever ; but 
 he always evaded the conversation when she 
 pressed him concerning their marriage, and 
 she found hersell in a fair way to be a mother, 
 ere she was a wife. 
 
 “ Henri,” said she, one day, “ will you fix 
 the day for our marriage ? When you consider 
 my situation, your delay is ciuel in the ex- 
 treme.” 
 
 “ Yes, yes, dearest, next week. By-the- 
 bye, has Madanre Girau sent home the beau- 
 tiful shawl I ordered for you ?” 
 
 “ Some time ago; but I have not looked at 
 it; I have been thinking of something else.” 
 
 “ Of what, dearest ?” 
 
 “ Of the time when you mean to fulfil your 
 promise.” 
 
 “ Just look out of the window, dearest, and 
 tell me what you think of the horse I pur- 
 chased yesterday ?” 
 
 “ Oh, Henri ! if you love me, I beseech 
 you name the day ; I have been unhappy, 
 very unhappy.” 
 
 “ Now you are beginning to teaze me 
 again.” 
 
 “ Nay, do not say 1 teaze you ; I ask you 
 but to keep your faith with me.” 
 
 “ Really, you are more pertinacious than 
 .ever; but I cannot stop now, I have an ap- 
 pointment with — ” 
 
 “ Henri, answer me ! Am I to be your 
 wife or not ?’’ 
 
 “ My wife! why are you not my wife as 
 firmly as you can be such? What are the 
 cold formalities of the world that would give 
 you the right of being called my wife ? 
 Would they bring affection ? No ; they would 
 •rather bring abhorrence and disgust. As 
 Louise Marcel, you will ever be to me the 
 dearest object of my heart ; but as my wife I 
 could not love you, and will not do that 
 which would make me hate you for ever.” 
 
 Louise was almost motionless with sur- 
 prise ; it was so different from all he had 
 ever said. These then were his true feelings. 
 
 “ I thank you, sir,” she at length replied, 
 “ at least for your frankness. I will be 
 equally so; and since I am not to be the 
 wile, I will not submit to the dishonour of 
 -remaining another day as the mistress of 
 -Monsieur de St. Brie. We part, sir, this 
 instant, for ever.” 
 
 *f Stay, Louise, where ate you going ?” but 
 •ere he had time to stop her, she descended 
 the stairs, and reaching the street, contrived 
 to evade his pursuit. 
 
 “ Psha !” he exclaimed, what a fool the 
 girl is ; but she'll soon come to her senses, so 
 I’ll leave her to herself.” 
 
 Marcel would not at first give any credence 
 to the report that his daughter had gone with 
 Henri St. Brie. No, no ; he was convinced 
 some accident had happened which prevented 
 
 her return. She was too amiable — too good 
 to listen to such a villain. Bad even as St. 
 Brie was, he would not rob him of such a 
 daughter, the only hope of his declining years. 
 Could he have the heart to dishonour one so 
 beautiful, so fair ? No, no ; it was not in 
 human nature to be so black. But months 
 rolled on, and his dear Louise came not ; 
 every search and every endeavour to obtain 
 tidings of her had proved fruitless ; but 
 amidst all his complaints he never uttered one 
 word of reproach against her. He became 
 altogether an altered man ; neglectful of 
 everything, avoiding the society of his former 
 friends and associates, and scarcely ever going 
 beyond the limits of his own dwelling. It 
 was a cold and bitter morning, in the middle 
 of an unusually severe winter, that he went, 
 more by lire force of habit than otherwise, to 
 look after the inmates of his stable. He had 
 his hand upon the stable door, and was enter- 
 ing, when he thought he heard a low moan ; 
 he turned round to look from whence it pro- 
 ceeded, and a few steps before him saw a 
 woman lying on the ground, partly covered by 
 the falling snow. 
 
 “ Poor creature,” said he, “ hast thou lain 
 here during this bitter night ; hadst thou 
 been my worst enemy I could not have refused 
 you shelter. Here, let me lift you in my 
 arms, and carry you into the house. Eh ! 
 what do I see ! Merciful heavens ! it is my 
 poor Louise. She is dying fast, and there is 
 no help at hand. Oh ! speak to me, Louise! 
 for heaven’s sake, speak ! Not a look ! not a 
 word !” 
 
 The distracted father carried her into the 
 house, and by the aid of some warm cordials 
 brought her to herself; it was but to hear 
 the recital of her sufferings, and her prayers 
 tor forgiveness. She had arrived at her fa- 
 ther’s house on the preceding evening, but 
 had not dared to enter, and overcome by 
 fatigue and cold, she had fallen where he 
 found her. Her delicate frame was unable to 
 withstand the shock she had sustained, and 
 after lingering a few days, closed her eyes for 
 ever on the world, happy in the assurance of 
 her father’s true forgiveness. 
 
 Marcel had attended his daughter day and 
 night, indulging to the last in the vain hope 
 of her recovery ; and even when life was no 
 more, watched her cold corpse with the utmost 
 anxiety, to see if it were not death’s semblance. 
 But when the last worldly offices were per- 
 formed, and he found that he was then alone 
 in the world, for weeks he shut himself up 
 in the chamber where she died, refusing to 
 see or speak with any one. 
 
 It was some months after the death of 
 Louise that I was sitting in the Tuileries’ 
 Gardens, watching the crowd of loungers 
 passing to and fro along the principal avenue; 
 amongst those who seemed to attract most 
 attention was Henri St. Brie, upon whose 
 
104 
 
 THK MIRROR. 
 
 arm Was leaning a lady nf most exquisite 
 beauty, whom I could not fail to recognise as 
 his wife, to whom he had been married only 
 a few clays. He appeared to be relating 
 something which seemed the sourse of much 
 amu-emeiit to both, when suddenly the smile 
 forsook his- face, his countenance assumed an 
 air of contusion, and he seemed Striving to 
 ovoid the sight of something which flashed 
 across him. I turned in the direction in 
 which he had been looking, and perceiving 
 nothing hut a poor haggard and emaciated- 
 looking man, whose dress bespoke him a 
 native of one of the distant provinces, 
 leaning against one of the trees. His gaze 
 Seemed fixed on St. Brie; but though there 
 was a wildness in his look, 1 could not at the 
 moment divine why St. Brie seemed so agi- 
 tated by it. 
 
 In a short time the man moved away, and 
 I had forgotten the circumstance, when my 
 attention was attracted to another part of the 
 gardens, by a confused noise and gathered 
 crowd. I hastened towards the spot, and 
 perceived St. Brie lying on the ground, 
 covered with blood, and near him stood the 
 man I had before remarked ; he bad been 
 seized by the bystanders, one of whom had 
 wrenched from his hand a bloody knife. 
 He appeared the most unmoved of all around, 
 gazing with pleasure on the dying agonies of 
 his victim. St. Brie was raised from the 
 ground, but it was clear that a few moments 
 were all that remained to him of life. 
 
 “ Marcel,” faltered out the dying man, 
 “ you have indeed avenged your daughter’s 
 wrongs. ’ t'is true I deeply wronged her, 
 but this—” 
 
 The throes of death prevented the comple- 
 tion of the sentence ; but ere life was quite 
 extinct, the loud mad laugh of the man rung 
 in his ears. 
 
 “ Ah ! ah ! ah ! I have avenged her ! 
 Look ! look ! lie sleeps now with my poor 
 Louise. No. no, ’tis false : for she’s in 
 heaven, — and he — he has gone to join his 
 master.” 
 
 It would have been a mockery of justice to 
 have tried Marcel for the murder, for it was 
 clear the light of reason had for ever been 
 shut out from him. In his confinement his 
 incoherent ravings were ever of his daughter, 
 whom he fancied near him, but was prevented 
 by the attendants from seeing, and were only 
 ended by death removing him from all his 
 wurdly sufferings. 
 
 ELECTRICITY. 
 
 (/'row the French.') 
 
 M. Fayoj,, Prolessor of Natural Philosophy 
 in the seminary of Sulpicians, at St. Andeol, 
 Vivarais, W'as in the habit of making elec- 
 trical experiments with a glass tube, four 
 feet long, filled with iron filings, the extre- 
 
 mity of which was armed with a small wire 
 of the same metal, implanted in the cork that 
 stopped its aperture. Abont nine o’clock, 
 one evening in June, 1 754, whilst he was 
 rubbing and electrifying the tube, a semi- 
 narist who resided in the chamber above 
 him, chanced, at the same time, to water a 
 box of sweet basil that stood on his window. 
 As soon as he sprinkled the water on the 
 box, it appeared to him covered all over 
 with little sparks of fire, which appearance 
 lasted until the earth had imbibed the water ; 
 but whenever the water was sprinkled, the 
 sparks were again seen. Struck with this 
 phenomenon, he related it the next day to 
 Father Conrat, who, having been present 
 the evening before, whilst the professor was 
 rubbing the tube, suspected that this phe- 
 nomenon was the effect of electricity ; but 
 the professor could not conceive how there 
 could be a communication between his tube 
 and the box of basil, which was near eight 
 (eet distant from it. The professor, how- 
 ever, repeated the experiment, having been 
 earnestly requested by the friar, who re- 
 paired to the seminarist’s chamber to water 
 the basil ; the event was exactly ns he had 
 conjectured, the sparks of fire having ap- 
 peared again. Soon after, the professor, 
 willing to be assured himself of the pheno- 
 menon, went up to the seminarist’s chamber, 
 whilst Father Conrat was employed in rub- 
 bing the tube in his ; and, as 'soon as he 
 watered the box, the sparks of fire appeared 
 on the basil the only difference was, thut 
 those sparks were not so brilliant as when 
 he rubbed the tube himself, the friar not 
 having been so dextrous in producing a 
 strong electricity : the next day the whole 
 seminary was witness of the same pheno- 
 menon. By examining a little into these 
 circumstances, the following appears to have 
 been the cause of the phenomenon. The 
 glass tube being filled with iron filings, the 
 greatest part of the electricity which passed 
 in cculd issue out, and dart in tufts through 
 the extremity of the iron wire that passed 
 through the cork. Besides electricity is- 
 suing out by tufts, communicates itself to 
 great distances ; it might therefore reach 
 the ceiling and the wall ; and when the box 
 of basil was being watered, the water run- 
 ning on all sides, and wetting the stones un- 
 derneath, and perhaps the floor, the mois- 
 ture, by that means, became a kind of con- 
 ductor, which, perhaps, transmitted to the 
 basil a part of the weak electricity which 
 the ceiling or wall received ; the electricity 
 being therein retained by the dry stone of 
 the environs. W. Cf. C. 
 
 The way to cure our prejudices is this, 
 that every man should let alone those that 
 he complains of in others, and examine his 
 own.— Locke. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 BUNYAN'S BIRTH-PLACE AT ELSTOW, NEAR BEDFOKD. 
 
 Elstow is not more remarkable for anythin)' 
 than for being the birth-place of one of the 
 most celebrated characters that this country 
 ever produced, John Bunyan, who was born 
 here in the year J 628. His descent, as him- 
 self expresses it, “ was of a low and inconsi- 
 derable generation, his father being an itine- 
 rant tinker, and his mother of the like rank : 
 they gave him the best education in their 
 power, which was reading and writing, of 
 which he afterwards made an excellent use : 
 his early years were spent in the practice of 
 almost every vice, particularly swearing and 
 blaspheming the name of God. He after- 
 wards became a preacher among the dissen- 
 ters, aurl no sooner was it known that Bunyan, 
 the profane tinker, had commenced preacher, 
 than he was attended by many hundreds, 
 and from distant parts. While thus engaged, 
 he was apprehended for non-conformity, and 
 thrown into prison ; he was tried at Bedford 
 quarter sessions, I860. The indictment 
 stated, that John Bunyan, of the town of 
 Bedford, labourer, had devilishly and perni- 
 ciously absented himself from church, and 
 was a common upholder of unlawful meetings 
 and conventicles, to the great disturbance and 
 distraction of the good subjects of this king- 
 dom. Not to animadvert upon the ridiculous 
 language of this indictment, or the intolerant 
 bigotry that suggested such a prosecution, 
 the facts were not legally proved, but some 
 part of his examination was taken for a con- 
 fession, and recorded; and his sentence was 
 perpetual banishment, for persisting to preach 
 ami reiusing to conform -, the sentence was 
 not executed, but he was very illegally detained 
 twelve years and a-half in Bedford jail ; dur- 
 ing his confinement he wrote his Pilgrim’s 
 Progress, and other valuable tracts : part of 
 Lis time was employed in preaching to his 
 fellow-prisoners, and in making tagged laces 
 
 for the support of his family. In the course 
 of his imprisonment his wife once applied to 
 the judges on his behalf, but was opposed by 
 the magistrates, who did ull in their power 
 to prejudice the judges against him. Sir 
 Matthew Hale, who was present, appeared 
 desirous of relieving him, if the matter had 
 been brought judicially before him, and tor 
 this purpose advised his wife to bring a writ 
 of error ; but whether they were too poor and 
 friendless, or too ignorant how to proceed, 
 no steps were taken of this nature. At 
 length Bishop Barlow and some other 
 churchmen, from motives of compassion, 
 interested themselves in his behalf, and pro- 
 cured his liberty. After this he travelled 
 through various parts of the kingdom, and 
 at length acquired the name of Bishop Bun- 
 yan. James II. having declared for liberty 
 of conscience only with a view to favour 
 popery, Bunyan’s friends availed themselves 
 of this opportunity to build a meeting-house, 
 where he preached to large congregations, 
 and was sometimes honoured with the 
 attendance and approbation of the learned 
 Dr. Owen. So popular was he at this time, 
 that if only one day’s notice was given, the 
 meeting-house would not hold half the peo- 
 ple that assembled. His valuable life, worn 
 out with labour and sufferings, closed at the 
 age of threescore, with a memorable act of 
 Christian charity — his conduct in his own 
 neighbourhood had procured him the cha- 
 racter of a peace-maker, he was therefore 
 sent to, while on a visit in London, by a 
 young gentleman at Bedford, to mediate 
 with his offended father, residing at Reading, 
 in Berkshire ; he succeeded ; but his re- 
 turning wet to the metropolis, produced a 
 fever, which he bore with great patience and 
 resignation ; and after laying about ten days, 
 on the 31st of August, 1688, he crossed the 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 JOS 
 
 mystical Jordan, following his Christian Pil- 
 grim to the Celestial city. 1 ’ 
 
 In vol. xiii., p. 296, of the Mirror , the 
 reader will find an engruving of Banyan’s 
 Drinking Vessel ; and in vol. xv. p. 121, a 
 view of his Vestry Chair. 
 
 SIB WILLIAM BEECHKY, R.A. 
 
 Was born at Burford, in Oxfordshire, in the 
 year 1753, and at the proper age was placed 
 under an eminent conveyancer at Stow. He 
 afterwards repaired to London, and finally 
 made an engagement with Mr. Owen, of 
 Took’s Court. His taste was not for por- 
 ing over deeds and leases; and having pre- 
 vailed on Mr. Owen to allow him to leave his 
 employ, he, in 1772, was admitted a student 
 of the Royal Academy, where he studied the 
 works of Sir Joshua, and soon applied him- 
 self to nature ; the portrait of Dr. Strachey, 
 the chevalier Ruspini, and Duke and Duchess 
 of Cumberland, being among the earliest of 
 his productions. Having attracted the no- 
 tice of the Royal Family, he was appointed 
 portrait-painter to Queen Charlotte. Sir 
 William was elected an associate of the 
 Royal Academy, in 1793, and a Royal Aca- 
 demician in 1797. He was the first member 
 of the Royal Academy on whom the honour of 
 knighthood was conferred, after the death of 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds. <! His superior talents 
 as a painter,” to use the words of the Literary 
 Gazette, “ are best evinced by the innume- 
 rable productions of his easel, in which 
 colour the most beautiful and stable, taste the 
 most easy and refined, execution of the high- 
 est order, and in short, everything which 
 could rank him with the most distinguished 
 competitors of his age, were perpetuated with 
 his master’s hand.” 
 
 Sir William was as happy in his family as 
 in his fame. His lady, as an artist, produced 
 many delightful miniatures : his youngest 
 daughter married Lord Grantley ; and Cap- 
 tain Beec.hey, and his brother, the traveller, 
 “ have reflected back on him reputation and 
 public honours similar to his own.” 
 
 This excellent, man died at Hampstead, on 
 Monday, 24th January, 1S39, aged 86. 
 
 JOHN MACPHEKSON. 
 
 In the month of January, 1839, John Mac- 
 yherson , a venerable and independent high- 
 lander, died near Kingussie, in Badenoch, at 
 the age of 103 years. He was a poor man, 
 but honest and industrious. Latterly some 
 of his neighbours assisted John with small 
 sums of money and provisions, but he received 
 them with evident reluctance ; and no consi 
 deration could induce him to solicit public 
 charity. The only luxury in which the old 
 .man indulged, was tobacco ; and it is well- 
 
 known that h« sometimes had recourse to 
 roots and other substitutes, when his money 
 and his tobacco failed, rather than ask a 
 penny to purchase another supply of his 
 favourite narcotic. This independent, noble- 
 spirited, old clansman, had witnessed many 
 changes among his native mountains, from 
 the time that the feudal system was in full 
 vigour, till the introduction of agricultural 
 improvement, and commercial enterprise. 
 He had seen the gascrome, or crooked spade of 
 the Highlanders, superseded by the plough — 
 sheep-farming introduced — roads and bridges 
 constructed in place of the old fords and 
 bridle-tracts — the mail-coach daily driving 
 through scenes that in his youth only echoed 
 to the hunter and the wild deer — and even 
 steam-boats sailing where grew broom and 
 heather, in the Great Glen of Albyn, now the 
 line of the Caledonian Canal. 
 
 A POPULAR VIEW OF NATURAL 
 HISTORY. 
 
 BY JAMES H. FENNELL. 
 
 What is the use of Natural History ? This 
 every-day question seldom receives such an 
 answer us will satisfy the querist of the use 
 of this popular study. Naturalists generally 
 reply by insisting upon its utility in informing 
 us of the specific differences, habits, and 
 qualities of the objects of nature, — in re- 
 minding 11 s of the existence of an omnipotent 
 and bountiful Creator ; in enticing us into 
 the fresh air of the woods and fields ; and in 
 diverting our attention from such other pur- 
 suits us are pernicious to the mind and body. 
 These are certainly true attributes of Natural 
 History ; but they do not comprise those pe- 
 culiar uses of which the querist desires to be 
 informed. The question is one which, I 
 think, is entitled to a fair answer, and which 
 I propose to give it, by adducing several 
 instances of the loss of life and property 
 which have ensued from an ignorance of this 
 subject, and the benefits which have arisen 
 to those who have possessed an acquaintance 
 with it. 
 
 Agriculturalists, horticultural! sts , garden- 
 ers, and all others who are. interested in the 
 earth’s productions, ought surely to possesB 
 some knowledge of their Natural History. 
 It has been justly observed, by Professor Bur- 
 nett, that “ the scientific culture of plants is 
 founded on a knowledge of their structure 
 and functions ; and vast have been the im- 
 provements in both horticulture and agricul- 
 ture, empirical practice having, in some 
 measure, been superseded by scientific prin- 
 ciples. The system of assolements, or the 
 rotation of crops, by which the produce of our 
 land has been quadrupled, and the acclima- 
 tion of plants by hybridization, or engrafting, 
 by which means the fruits and flowers of 
 more southern regions are reconciled to our 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 IO7 
 
 climate, are a tew among the many examples 
 which might be given of the benefits con- 
 ferred by botany upon some of the most 
 useful arts.” The observation that a vine 
 shouted more vigorously alter a goat had 
 browsed on it, is said to have suggested the 
 valuable art ol pruning fruit trees ; and it is 
 thought that the occasional natural union of 
 the boughs of distinct trees demonstrated the 
 practicability of grafting. 
 
 Dur ng a civil war in Persia, the troops 
 wishing to deprive the people oi their chief 
 article of food, cut down all the male date- 
 trees ; but the cultivators, possessing some 
 botanical knowledge, had the foresight to 
 collect the pollen, and preserve it in close ves- 
 sels, so that when peace was restored, they 
 were enabled, by means of this pollen, to 
 impregnate the remaining female date-trees, 
 which would otherwise have remained unpro- 
 ductive. 
 
 Matthew Aphonin, a Russian author, ob- 
 serves, that “ as the raising of plants is faci- 
 litated by a knowledge of their native soils, 
 those who are desirous of adorning their gar- 
 dens with exotic trees, ought to be well 
 versed in natural history, that they may be 
 acquainted with their native country, earth, 
 and gemmation ; and learn from thence, what 
 tree will thrive in this place, and what in that, 
 and not see great trouble and expense termi- 
 nate in disappointment.” (Amcenitates Acade- 
 mics, vol. 7, P- 409.) In illustration of this 
 remark, it may be mentioned, that the Swe- 
 dish gardeners, several years ago, were very 
 anxious to cultivate the Artemesia dracuucu- 
 lus, but not knowing that its proper and na- 
 tural soil is one which is flooded in winter, 
 many of them planted it 00 ground, where that 
 event could never occur, and the consequence 
 was that all their plants died. Before Linnaeus, 
 by studying the nature of the Rubas arcticus, 
 discovered the proper mode of cultivating it, 
 the many persons who had attempted its 
 cultivation had done so unsuccessfully. 
 
 But “ it is not only necessary to be well 
 acquainted with the different vegetels grown 
 or reared, for economic purposes, but to 
 understand the cause of the injuries they are 
 subject to ; and then to devise efficient reme- 
 dies for those injuries. Here also is a wide 
 field open lor improvement and discovery, 
 and in which no information is so practically 
 useful, as that afforded by Natural History. 
 We are continually hearing of the failure of 
 crops, and of attendant ruin. Now, in nine 
 instances out of ten, these devastations have 
 Originated in the unusual abundance of some 
 particular insect, which, from unknown causes, 
 has appeared in great numbers. We contend 
 not that the knowledge or ingenuity of man 
 could foresee such evils, or could totally coun- 
 teract them ; but experience has shown how 
 much may be done in many cases, both in 
 the way of prevention, and of cure. To do 
 this effectually, however, recourse must be 
 
 had to Natural History. The cause of the in- 
 jury being ascertained, the habits of the insect 
 must be studied in all its different stages. What 
 will prove more or less effectual in one of these 
 stages, will be totally useless, or will increase 
 the evil in another. Hence arises the neces- 
 sity ot ascertaining names and species, with- 
 out which, no effectual steps can be taken. 
 A striking fact to show the intimate connec- 
 tion between Agriculture and Natural His- 
 tory is found in the circumstances which 
 attended the supposed appearance of the 
 Hessian-fly ; thus mentioned by Kirby and 
 Spence : — ‘ In 1788 an alarm was excited 
 in this country by the probability of import- 
 ing in cargoes of wheat from North America, 
 the insect known b) the name of the Hessian- 
 fly. The privy-council sat day after day, 
 anxiously debating what measures should be 
 adopted to ward off the danger of a cala- 
 mity more to be dreaded, as they well knew, 
 than the plague or the pestilence. Expresses 
 were sent off in all directions to the officers 
 of the customs at the different out-posts, 
 respecting the examination of the cargoes; 
 dispatches were written to the ambassadors 
 in France, Austria, Prussia, and America, to 
 gain that information, of the want of which 
 they were now so sensible ; and so impor- 
 tant was the business deemed, that the 
 minutes of council, and the documents col- 
 lected from all quarters, fill upwards of 200 
 octavo pages. Fortunately, at that time, 
 England contained one illustrious Naturalist, 
 to whom the privy council had the wisdom 
 to apply ; and it was by Sir Joseph Banks’s 
 entomological knowledge, and through his 
 suggestions, that they were at length enabled 
 to form some kind of judgment on the sub- 
 ject. This judgment was, after all, however, 
 very imperfect. As Sir Joseph had never 
 seen the Hessian-fly, nor was it described in 
 any entomological work, he called for facts 
 respecting its nature, propagation, and eco- 
 nomy, which could be had only from America. 
 These were obtained as speedily as possible, 
 and consisted of numerous letters from indi- 
 viduals, essays from Magazines, the reports 
 of the British minister there, &c. One 
 would have supposed that, from these state- 
 ments, many of them drawn up by farmers 
 who had lost entire crops by the insect, 
 which they professed to have examined in 
 every stage, the requisite information might 
 have been acquired. So far, however, was 
 this from being the case, that many of the 
 writers seemed ignorant, whether the insect 
 was a moth, a fly, or what they termed a bug. 
 Though from the concurrent testimony of 
 several persons, its being a two-winged fly, 
 seemed pretty accurately ascertained, no intel- 
 ligible description was given, from which any 
 Naturalist could infer to what genius it be- 
 longed, or whether it was a known or an 
 unknown species. With regard to the his- 
 tory of its propagation and economy, the 
 
108 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 statements were so various and contradictory, 
 that, although he had such a mass of mate- 
 rials before him, Sir Joseph was unable to 
 reach any satisfactory conclusion.' 5 ( Intro- 
 duction to Entomology, i. 51.) Nothing can 
 more incontrovertibly demonstrate the impor- 
 tance of entomology as a science, than this 
 fact. Those ob.-enations to which thousands 
 of unscientific sufferers proved themselves in- 
 competent, would have been readily made by 
 one entomologist well versed in his science. 
 He would at once have determined the order 
 and genus of his insect ; and in a twelve- 
 month, at furthest, he would have ascertained 
 in what manner it made its attacks, and whe- 
 ther it were possible to be transmitted with 
 grain into a foreign country. On data like 
 these, he cculd have pointed out the best mode 
 of eradicating the pest, and of preventing 
 the extension of its ravages. It is surely not 
 too much to expect that a gardener should 
 be able to tell the difference between a bee- 
 tle and a fly ; between an insect with four 
 wings, and one without any. Yet so little 
 has this information been thought of among 
 the generality of this profession, that not one 
 in twenty has any knowledge of the subject.” 
 ( Swainson’s Discourse on Nat. Hist. p. 142.) 
 
 The importance of a knowledge of Natu- 
 ral History, especially entomology, to the 
 planter, may also be strikingly shown by 
 narrating the proceedings connected with 
 the injuries sustained by the elm-trees in 
 St. James’s, and in Hyde Park, about seven- 
 teen years ago. These elm-trees were ob- 
 served to die in consequence of their being 
 entirely stripped of their bark ; and rewards 
 were, therefore, offered for the apprehen- 
 sion of the offenders. Someone made the 
 curious remaik, that the extent of the da- 
 mage was confined within the reach of a sol- 
 dier’s bayonet, and suspicion, therefore, fell 
 upon some recruits, several of whom were ar- 
 rested, but the mischief still went on un- 
 diminished. Men were employed to sit up 
 all night long, W'atching in vain for the 
 offenders. Fresh portions of bark con- 
 tinued to be found every morning at the foot 
 of the trees, and the park-keepers, after all 
 their vigilance, could only come to the sapient 
 conclusion, “ that the bark fell off’ in conse- 
 quence of something being put on the trunks 
 of the trees in the daytime.” At about the 
 same time the elms in Camberwell-grove 
 were attacked in a similarly destructive man- 
 ner, and the proprietors being ignorant of 
 the cause, ascribed the injury to the effects 
 of gas escaped from the pipes which had just 
 been laid dowm for lighting the road, and an 
 indictment for a nuisance was therefore insti- 
 tuted against the gas company. That this great 
 destruction was entirely produced by the ope- 
 rations of insects, was known all along to ento- 
 mologists, who, however, w ere not believed un- 
 til the mischief had reached the most alarming 
 height. Mac Leay, the celebrated entomolo- 
 
 gist, was then consulted, and he at onCe 
 show ed that small beetles ( Scolytus destruc- 
 tor ) were quietly and incessantly burrowing 
 beneath the bark, and causing its fall. Hav- 
 ing given satisfactory proof of the cause of 
 the evil, Mac Leay directed the application 
 of a remedy, which at once stopped its fur- 
 ther progress, removed suspicion from the 
 poor recruits, and stopped the proceedings 
 against the gas company. 
 
 In 1735, the caterpillars of the gamma- 
 moth ( Plusia gamma) were so abundant in 
 France, that they produced a very serious 
 and extensive destruction, for which the gar- 
 deners assigned the most ridiculous causes, 
 some assuring Reaumer, the naturalist, that 
 they had seen an old soldier throw a spell, 
 and others, that all the mischief was done by 
 an ugly old witch ! 
 
 The grub of the capricorn-beetle ( C'allidium 
 viotaceum) is verj destructive to fir and other 
 kinds of timber, but is noticed only to attack 
 such timber as has been felled and not 
 stripped of its bark, which is an encourage- 
 ment to this and many other insects. The 
 owners of limber would, therefore, do well 
 if they had the bark ordered to be stripped oft’ 
 the trees as soon as they are felled. 
 
 THE LIVING TALKING CANARY 
 BIRD. 
 
 Weu! what will Lord Brougham say to 
 this ? a Canary bird uttering words as arti- 
 culate as any human being can — not merely 
 one or two, as the parrot, but a continuity of 
 words. It is true, the little warbler was first 
 under instruction. “ Instinct, 55 says Lord 
 Brougham, “ is acting without teaching, 
 either from others, that is instruction, or 
 from the animal itself, that is experience : 5 ‘ 
 but here there is a seeming connexion of 
 ideas ; for, on an evening, after its daily toil, 
 it appears to rehearse to itself any particular 
 sound of voices it might have heard in the 
 course of the morning ; does not this seem 
 like judgment or reasoning, which is intelli- 
 gence P and again, the beauteous performer 
 utters words today it did not yesterday! 
 — The following are some of its sentences: 
 — “ Sweet pretty dear !” — “ Sweet pretty 
 dear Dicky!’’ — “ Mary. 5 ’— “ Sweet pretty 
 little Dicky dear !” and often in the course of 
 the day, heard to utter “ Pretty Queen,” — 
 “ Sweet Pretty Queen;” and from its often 
 articulating single woids, no doubt it will 
 soon increase its vocabulary. It also imitates 
 the jaring of a wire, or ringing of a bell. 
 Strange as this may appear, all we have to 
 say is, to those of our readers who may have 
 doubts on the subject, to witness this truly 
 astonishing exhibition.^ 
 
 The bird, which may be seer, at the Cos- 
 morara, Regent-street, is three years old, and 
 was bred by a lady, who never allowed it 
 to be in the company of other birds. . 
 
THK MIRROR. 
 
 109 
 
 THE NECESSITY OF UNION AMONG 
 THE PROFESSORS OF THE FINE 
 ARTS. 
 
 The painter, the sculptor, or the architect, 
 errs when he imagines that it is in his studio 
 only he can be useful ; far otherwise is the 
 fact : for the varied discoveries of each 
 should be brought, as it were, into one focus, 
 that all may be fairly examined, and bene- 
 ficially discussed. Shall he whose fine ima- 
 gination presents before him the lightning’s 
 flash, as it glances from the mountain top, 
 and whose ear listens, mentally, to the thun- 
 ders ns they roll through the vallies beneath 
 — shall the man whose chisel can express 
 from the shapeless marble an image which 
 wants nothing but Promethean fire to make 
 it a perfect being — or he whose chastened 
 art can design the gorgeous temples of 
 Greece and Italy, or frame “ the long-drawn 
 aisle and fretted vault,” be content to wrap 
 such splendid talents, comparatively, up in 
 a napkin ? Certainly not ; neither man nor 
 any of his attributes were ever intended to 
 be completely isolated ; and though, unfor- 
 tunately, self be the predominating feature 
 in our natures, and a desire for our own 
 aggrandizement, leaving far in the back 
 ground all solicitation for that of others, be 
 natural to us as the air by which we live, yet 
 let the truly generous mind remember the 
 duties which he owes to society, and reflect 
 on this irrefutable fact — that excellence in 
 any thing has been given only to a few, 
 in order that the many may be benefited hy 
 their examples. C. S. 
 
 &rtsi antf Sciences. 
 
 THE ART OF MEZZOTINTO SCRAPING. 
 
 To Prince Rupert the invention of engraving 
 in mezzotinto has been usually attributed ; 
 and according to the general account, it owed 
 its origin to a very trifling accident. The 
 Prince one morning, observing a soldier 
 employed in cleaning his musket from the 
 rust, occasioned by the fall of the night 
 dew, perceived upon examination, some re- 
 semblance of a figure corroded upon the 
 barrel ; and hence he conceived, that some 
 method might be discovered to cover a plate 
 all over with such a grained ground, so that 
 by scraping away those parts which re- 
 quired to be white, the effect of a drawing 
 might be produced. This hint he after- 
 wards improved on ; and assisted by Wal- 
 lerant Vaillant, to whom he had communi- 
 cated his thoughts upon the subject, a steel 
 roller was constructed with sharp teeth, 
 channelled out like a rasp, or file, which 
 answered, in some degree, the intended pur- 
 ose. Thus far our own authors inform us ; 
 ut Baron Heinekan, a very judicious and 
 accurate writer upon the subject of engrav- 
 ing, asserts in a note, page 208 of his “ Idee 
 
 Generale d’une Collection d’Eslampes,” 
 published at Leipsic, 1771, that li it was not 
 Prince Rupert who invented the art of en- 
 graving in mezzotinto, as Vertueand several 
 other authors pretend to say, but it was 
 Lieutenant Colonel de Siegen, an officer in 
 the service of the Landgrave of Hesse, who 
 first engraved in this manner, and the print 
 which he produced, was a portrait of the 
 Princess Amelia Elizabeth of Hesse, en- 
 graved as early as the year 1643, and from 
 this gentleman Prince Rupert learned the 
 secret, and brought it into England, when 
 he came over the second time with Charles 
 the Second.” 
 
 H. W. Dimond, Esq., F.S.A.,in exhibiting 
 some early specimens of mezzotinto engrav- 
 ing before the Society of Antiquaries, Fe- 
 bruary II, 1836, proved that Siegen also 
 engraved in mezzotint a large portrait of 
 the Queen of France, from a painting by 
 Honthurst, also a portrait in mezzotint of 
 Leopold, William Duke of Burgundy, thus 
 inscribed, “Theodoras Casparus a Fursten- 
 bergh, Canonicus Capitularis Moguntiae et 
 Spirae. Colonellus, ad uiuum pinxit et 
 fecit 1656,” which is two years before 
 Rupert's. 
 
 Prince Rupert scraped a large whole plate, 
 representing an executioner holding a sword 
 in one hand, and a head in the other, a half- 
 length figure from Spagnoletto, dated 1658. 
 He engraved the head of the executioner a 
 second time, on a smaller scale, for Mr. 
 Evelyn’s sculptura, who therein assures us 
 it was given to him as a specimen of the 
 new invented art, by Prince Rupert himself. 
 He also engraved his own portrait, with date 
 on a shield, 1658, and Rupert, Prince, fecit. 
 
 ON THE ANTIQUITY OF THE * 
 BAGPIPES. 
 
 (From Dauney's Ancient Scottish Melodies .) 
 
 In Scotland, the use of the bagpipe seems to 
 have gradually superseded that of the harp ; 
 but this process, we should think, must have 
 taken place chiefly within the lust two hundred 
 years, — previous to which, we doubt very much 
 whether the natives of Norlh Britain were 
 more distinguished for their partiality for the 
 bagpipe than their southern neighbours. Even 
 Shakspeare, although he talks of the “ drone of 
 a Lincolnshire bagpipe,” and of “ a Yorkshire 
 bagpiper,” has nowhere associated that in- 
 strument with the Scots ; and when we go 
 back several centuries anterior to this, we find 
 it used in both countries by the same class of 
 persons. Chaucer’s miller played upon it, — 
 “ A bagpipe well couth he blowe and sowne 
 and “ Wdl Swane,” “ the meikle miller man,” 
 in our “ Peblis to the Play,” calls for it to 
 assist in the festivities of the day, — 
 
 “ Giff I sail dance, have doune, lat se 
 Blaw up the bagpyp than.'’ 
 
no 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 Indeed, although we are justly proud of our 
 ancient proficiency on the harp, and adhere 
 unhesitatingly to our claims to supremacy on 
 that head, we are much disposed, upon a 
 candid consideration of the facts, to resign to 
 the English the palm of superiority in this 
 less refined description of music, about the 
 time to which we refer. The pipers who are 
 mentioned in the lord high treasurer’s accounts 
 seem almost uniformly to have been natives 
 of England. Thus, 10th of July, 14S9, there 
 is a payment of eight pounds eight shillings 
 “ to lnglis pyparis that com to the castel yet 
 and play it to the king.” Again, in 1605, there 
 is another payment to “ the lnglis pipar with 
 the drone.” It should be added, that, while 
 the “ bagpiper,” formed part of the musical 
 establishment of the English sovereigns and 
 noblemen, during the sixteenth century, we 
 find no such musician retained at the Scottish 
 court. Our monarchs had probably not much 
 relish for this sort of pipe-music, and although 
 the result of our investigation of the word 
 “ chorus,” has had the effect of clearly con- 
 victing our first James of being a performer 
 upon that most unprincely instrument, (for 
 which, the only precedent we can find in 
 history is that of the Emperor Nero.) we 
 should remember that he had most probably 
 acquired tnat, as well as his other accom- 
 plishments, in England, where he received 
 the rest of his education. We do not conceive 
 upon the whole, that the bagpipe has ever 
 been a very popular instrument in Scotland, 
 except in the Highland districts ; and we 
 may state this with some confidence, as to 
 one part of the country, — a royal burgh, 
 which we have already had occasion to name, 
 and where the magistrates actually prohibited 
 the common piper from going his rounds, in 
 terms by no means complimentary of the 
 instrument. Our readers will be the less sur- 
 prised at the superior refinement here exhi- 
 bited, when they are informed that these 
 were the “ musical magistrates ” of the city 
 of Aberdeen, whose praises have been so 
 loudly trumpeted by Forbes, the publisher of 
 the “ Cantus.” in his dedication of that work. 
 
 “ 26th of May, 1630. The magistrates dis- 
 charge the common piper of all going through 
 the toun at nycht, or in the morning, in tyme 
 coming, with his pype, — it being an incivill 
 forme to be usit within sic a famous burglie, 
 and being often fund fault with, als weill be 
 sundrie nichtbouris of the toune as be 
 strangeris.” 
 
 CANADA IN 1838. 
 
 BY HAUL DURHAM. 
 
 [Under the above title, we intend present- 
 ing our readers with extracts from the recent 
 highly interesting Report of Earl Durham on 
 the State of Canada, most carefully rejecting 
 such parts as may have the least political ten- 
 
 dency— introducing only those portions which 
 depicture the habits, manners, and customs of 
 the Canadians, at the present eventful pe- 
 riod.] 
 
 The want , and the influence , of Education . 
 
 It is impossible to exaggerate the want of 
 education among the habitans ; no means of 
 instruction have ever been provided for them, 
 and they are almost universally destitute of 
 the qualifications even of reading and writing. 
 It came to my knowledge, that out of a great 
 number of boys and girls assembled at the 
 school-house door of St. Thomas, all hut three 
 admitted, on inquiry, that they could not 
 read. Yet the children of this large parish 
 attend school regularly, and actually make 
 use of books. They hold the catechism book 
 in their hand, as if they were reading, while 
 they only repeat its contents, which they 
 know by rote. The common assertion, how- 
 ever, that all classes of the Canadians are 
 equally ignorant, is perfectly erroneous ; for 
 I know of no people among whom a larger 
 provision exists for the higher kinds of ele- 
 mentary education, or among whom such 
 education is really extended to a larger pro- 
 portion of the population. The piety and 
 benevolence of the early possessors of the 
 country founded, in the seminaries that exist 
 indifferent parts of the province, institutions, 
 of which the funds and activity have long 
 been directed to the promotion of education. 
 Seminaries and colleges have been by ihese 
 bodies established in the cities and in other 
 central points. The education given in these 
 establishments greatly resembles the kind 
 given in the English public schools, though 
 it is rather more varied. It is entirely in 
 the hands of the Catholic clergy. The num- 
 ber of pupils in these establishments is esti- 
 mated altogether at about 1,000; and they 
 turn out every year, as far as I could ascer- 
 tain, between 200 and 300 young men thus 
 educated. Almost all these are members of 
 the lamily of some habitant, whom the pos- 
 session of greater quickness than his bro- 
 thers has induced the father or the curate of 
 the parish to select and send to the seminary. 
 These young men, possessing a degree of 
 information immeasurably superior to that 
 ol their families, are naturally averse to what 
 they regard as descending to the humble oc- 
 cupations of their parents. A few become 
 priests; hut, as the military and naval pro- 
 fessions are closed against the colonist, the 
 greater part can only find a position suited to 
 their notions of their own qualifications in 
 the learned professions of advocate, notary, 
 and surgeon. As from this cause these pro- 
 fessions are greatly overstocked, we find every 
 village in Lower Canada filled with notaries 
 and surgeons, with little practice to occupy 
 their attention, and living among their own 
 families, or at any rate among exactly the 
 same class. Thus the persons of most edn- 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 Ill 
 
 dation in every village belong to the same 
 families, and the same original station in life, 
 as the illiterate habitans whom I have de- 
 scribed. They are connected with them by all 
 the associations of early youth and the ties of 
 blood. The most perfect equality always 
 marks their intercourse, and the superior in 
 education is separated by no barrier of man- 
 ners, or pride, or distinct interests, from the 
 singularly ignorant peasantry by which he is 
 surrounded. He combines, therefore, the in- 
 fluence of superior knowledge and social 
 equality, and wields a power over the mass, 
 which I do not believe that the educated class 
 of any other portion of the world possess. 
 
 No common education has served to remove 
 and soften the differences of origin and lan- 
 guage. The associations of youth, the sports 
 of childhood, and the studies by which the 
 character of manhood is modified, are distinct 
 and totally different. In Montreal and Que- 
 bec there are English schools and French 
 schools; the children in these are accustomed 
 to fight nation against nation, and the quar- 
 rels that arise among boys in the streets usually 
 exhibit a division into English on one side, 
 and French on the other. 
 
 As they are taught apart, so are their stu- 
 dies different. The literature with which each 
 is the most conversant is that of the peculiar 
 language of each ; and all the ideas which men 
 derive from books come to each of them from 
 perfectly different sources. The difference of 
 language, in this respect, produces effects quite 
 apart from those which it has on the mere in- 
 tercourse of the two races. 
 
 State of Literature. 
 
 ' Those who have reflected on the powerful 
 influence of language on thought, will perceive 
 in how different a manner people who speak 
 in different languages are apt to think ; and 
 those who are familiar with the literature of 
 France know that the same opinion will be 
 expressed by an English and French writer of 
 the present day, not merely in different words, 
 but in a style so different, as to mark utterly 
 different habits of thought. This difference 
 is very striking in Lower Canada ; it exists 
 not merely in the books of most influence and 
 repute, which are of course those of the great 
 writers of France and England, and by which 
 the minds of the respective races are formed, 
 but it is observable in the writings which now 
 issue from the colonial press. The articles 
 in the newspapers of each race are written in 
 a style as widely different as those of France 
 and England at present, and the arguments 
 which convince the one are calculated to ap- 
 pear utterly unintelligible to the other. 
 
 On the Religion. 
 
 Religion forms no bond of intercourse and 
 union. It is, indeed, an admirable feature of 
 Canadian society, that it is entirely devoid of 
 any religious dissentions. Sectarian intoler- 
 
 ance is not merely not avowed, lm ! it hardly 
 seems to influence men’s feelings. Bur, though 
 the prudence and liberality of both parties has 
 prevented this fruitful source of animosity from 
 embittering their quarrels the difference of reli- 
 gion has, in fact, tended to keep them asunder. 
 Their priests have been distinct ; they have 
 net met even in the same church. 
 
 The jealousy., hatred , and mistrust existing 
 
 between the French Canadians and the 
 
 English. 
 
 The difference of language of the French 
 and the English from the first kept them asun- 
 der. It is not anywhere a virtue of the English 
 race to look with complacency on any manners, 
 customs, or laws, which appear strange to them; 
 accustomed to form a high estimate of their 
 own superiority, they take no pains to conceal 
 from others their contempt and intolerance of 
 their usages. They found the French Cana- 
 dians filled with an equal amount of national 
 pride ; a sensitive, but inactive pride, which 
 disposes that people not to resent insult, but 
 rather to keep aloof from those who would 
 keep them under. The French could not but 
 feel the superiority of English enterprise ; 
 they could not shut their eyes to their success 
 in every undertaking in which they came into 
 contact, and to the constant superiority which 
 they were acquiring. They looked upon their 
 rivals with alarm, with jealousy, and finally, 
 with hatred. The English repaid them with 
 a scorn, which soon also assumed the same form 
 of hatred. The French complained of the 
 arrogance and injustice of the English ; the 
 English accused the French of the vices of a 
 weak and conquered people, and charged them 
 with meanness and perfidy. The entire mis- 
 trust which the two races have thus learned to 
 conceive of each other’s intentions, induces 
 them to put the worst construction on the most 
 innocent conduct ; to judge every word, every 
 act, and every intention unfairly ; to attribute 
 the most odious designs, and reject every 
 overture of kindness or fairness, as covering 
 secret designs of treachery and malignity. 
 
 THE ART AND MYSTERY OF QUACK 
 DOCTORING. 
 
 {From Dr. Ticfcnor's Treatise on Medical 
 Philosophy .) 
 
 An empiric of the first water, not many years 
 ago, had made himself famous for the cure of 
 all human maladies, by the administration of 
 peculiarly large pills of his own invention. 
 What contributed not alittle to the increase and 
 spread of his reputation was the fact, that he 
 used frequently to tell his patients, that, from 
 their symptoms, he was confident some parti- 
 cular substances were lodged in a portion of 
 the alimentary canal. At one time he would 
 tell a patient that he had apple seeds retained 
 in his bowels : and again he would tell ano- 
 
112 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 ther, that he had kernels of different fruits, 
 and grains in his stomach ; and it i>y question- 
 ing gentlemen he could ascertain they were 
 fond of shooting, it was not seldom that he 
 attributed their complaints to having acci- 
 dentally swallowed a few shot. As nothing 
 could so conclusively prove his prognostics cor- 
 rect, as the simple fact of finding the articles 
 named, so the old gentleman’s character for 
 wisdom and skill became more and more firmly 
 established ; for the identical causes of mis- 
 chief were invariably discovered after taking 
 a dose of the “ big pills.” At length, a lady 
 of the first respectability, having suffered a 
 long time from deranged digestion, applied 
 to the celebrated doctor for assistance. After 
 a few questions, he told her very promptly that 
 he understood her complaint, that he knew 
 what ailed her, and more than all that, her 
 doctor was a fool, and assured her that his big 
 pills would effect a cure. Neither of these as- 
 sertions she exactly credited, but nevertheless, 
 concluded to try his remedy if he would make 
 known to her the complaint. “Why,” says 
 he, “ you have got lemon seeds in you — you 
 must take some of my big pills and get rid of 
 them, and you’ll be perfectly well again.” 
 “ Why, doctor,” said the lady in amazement, 
 “ I have not eaten a lemon for six years ; and 
 what you say is altogether impossible.” “ No 
 matter, madam, if you have not eaten a lemon for 
 twenty years, the fact is just as I tell you, and 
 if you will take the pills you can be satisfied 
 of it.” The pills were taken, and to the utter 
 astonishment of the patient, the lemon seeds 
 were found ; a second dose was taken, and still 
 more seeds made their appearance. A thought 
 now flashed upon the lady’s mind. One pill 
 was yet left, which she examined, and behold ! 
 a lemon seed in its centre — the secret, truly, 
 of the doctor’s astonishing wisdom, and suc- 
 cessful practice. 
 
 Cfje ©atfjmr. 
 
 How wrong is man when discontented with 
 his station ! His will be done who best knows 
 what is for our good ! What are we that we 
 should murmur at his dispensations, or expect 
 exemption from participating in any of those 
 miseries, with which, for some wise purpose, 
 he has thought proper to invest the paths of 
 mankind ? 
 
 How sweet in the hour of trouble is the 
 influence of religion ! The man whose trust is 
 in his God may view, without concern, the 
 dark tide of adversity rolling around him, and 
 like the steel-nerved geuius of the storm, dash 
 aside its spray with coolness and disdain. 
 
 Fine are the feelings with which we kneel 
 down to prayer, hoping that past errors are 
 forgiven, and that tyrace may be granted for 
 future amendment of life. 
 
 Confirmation. — It was a beautiful sight to 
 see the females arrayed in. white, going, like 
 angels of purity, to rank themselves for ever 
 and ever under the banners of that being 
 whose name shall last with eternity. I knelt 
 down at the altar with feelings of stifling 
 emotion ; I knew that I had been, in a great 
 degree, the child of error — J felt that day still 
 continued to glide on after day, ieaving on 
 me an accumulation of crime, but still all 
 was not darkness within me, and when the 
 bishop pronounced that beautiful prayer, 
 beseeching the Lord that we might continue 
 his for ever and ever, and be defended by his 
 heavenly grace, I wept— but it was not the 
 tear of sorrow that mantled in my eye, oh, 
 no ! it proceeded from a sensation too refined, 
 too unutterable, for description ! C. S. 
 
 The following curious advertisement ap- 
 peared, a short time since, in the Pottery 
 Gazette : — “ James Scott, whitesmith, gar- 
 dener, fishmonger, schoolmaster, and watch- 
 man ; teeth drawn occasionally ; shoemaker, 
 chapel clerk, crier of the town, running foot- 
 man, groom, and organ-blower ; keeper of 
 the town-hall, letter-carrier, brewer, winder of 
 the clock, toller of the eight o’clock bell, 
 waiter, and bill-poster ; fire-bucket maker to 
 the Protector Fire-office, street-springer, as- 
 sistant to a Staffordshire potter, fire-lighter 
 to the dancing-master, sheriff’s officer’s de- 
 puty, ringer of the market bell, toll-taker to 
 the bailiff’ of the hundred, and keeper and 
 deliverer of the fair standings, returns his 
 most grateful acknowledgments to the inhabi- 
 tants of Stoke and it’s vicinity, for the many 
 favours already received, and begs to assure 
 them that it shall be his constant study to 
 merit their patronage ” W. G. C. 
 
 Curious inscription, in old French, over one 
 of the doors of the eastern cloister at Canter- 
 bury : — 
 
 Ou tu passe, I ay passe ; 
 
 Et par ou jay passe, tu passerus. 
 
 Au monde comme toi jay este 
 
 Et mort comme moi tu seras. 
 
 The foregoing is thus Englished at the 
 upper end of the same cloister : — 
 
 Where now thou passest I have often passed ; 
 
 And where I have once, thou must also pass. 
 
 Now thou art ill tiie world, and so was 1 : 
 
 But yet, as 1 have done, so thou must die. 
 
 Curious instance of consecutive Latin 
 cases : — 
 
 Mors, mortis, morti mortem, nisi morte dedisset, 
 
 jEtei nae vitae jauua clausa foret. 
 
 A November’s sun looks like the smile of 
 a person in affliction. C. S. 
 
 LONDON: Printed and published by J, I.I Mill III), 
 143, Strand, (near Somerset House ) ; and sold by 
 all Booksellers and Newsmen — In PARIS, by all 
 the Booksellers.— In FRANCFORT, CHARLES 
 J VO EL. 
 
Zi)C 0ltmov 
 
 OF 
 
 LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION. 
 
 No. 9.37.1 SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1839. [Price 2<t. 
 
 SOUTH VIEW OF ST. JAMES'S CEMETERY, LIVERPOOL. 
 
 About the year 1823, the inconvenient and 
 pernicious custom of burying in confined 
 church-yards, began to engage the attention 
 of many people in Liverpool. At that time, 
 many ot the burial-places were so crowded, 
 that it was no unusual circumstance in 
 digging a grave to break through the cof- 
 fins which had already been placed there. 
 To abolish this appalling practice, and to in- 
 troduce a better system, the present establish- 
 ment was commenced, and was consecrated, 
 12th January, 1829. 
 
 The spot chosen was a large tract of 
 ground, at the top of Duke-street, excavated 
 as a quarry for stone used in the buildings of 
 the docks, and converted into a depository for 
 the dead, at an expense of 2 1 ,0004 : it con- 
 tains twenty-four thousand square yards, en- 
 closed by a stone wall and handsome iron 
 palisades, having four stately entrances : the 
 interior is intersected by roads wide enough 
 to admit a carriage, which lead to catacombs 
 excavated in the rock ; the oratory, or cha- 
 pel, in which the funeral service is per- 
 formed, is an elegant edifice, in the Grecian 
 
 Voi,. xxxm. I 
 
 style of architecture, and of the Doric order, 
 forty-six feet in length, and twenty-nine 
 wide ; at the west-end is a noble portico of 
 six massive columns, supporting a rich en- 
 tablature, which is carried round the building, 
 and surmounted by a triangular pediment : 
 it was built after a design by Mr. Foster 
 and forms art elegant specimen of purity of 
 style, and of tasteful embellishment : near it 
 is a house for the officiating minister, a 
 handsome edifice of stone; and at the south 
 end of the cemetery is the porter’s lodge, also 
 built of stone. 
 
 The mortal remains of the late lamented 
 Mr. Huskisson, lie interred near the centre 
 of the grounds ; his funeral taking place on 
 the 24th September, 1830. The monument 
 which covers his remains, is constructed of 
 fine masonry, by Messrs. Tomkinson and 
 Sons, in a circular form (as shown in our en- 
 graving :) ten columns resting on a rusticated 
 basement support the dome : it is said to be 
 a near copy of the lantern of Demosthenes, 
 at Athens. 
 
114 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 ALL MUST LOVE. 
 {Written by Mr. Moncrieff, for the Mirror .) 
 
 The high-crown’d Queen on her canopied throne, 
 Of love must ttie anguish hear ; 
 
 She feels it a sadness to reign alone. 
 
 And her kingdom fain would share. 
 
 The noble fair, in her warded tower 
 Must passion’s votary prove ; 
 
 And the jewelled dame, in her courtly bower, 
 Resigns her gold for love ! 
 
 Can then a simple heart go free ? 
 
 No ! ’twas decreed by heaven above, 
 
 That high or low, whoe’er they be. 
 
 All must love ! 
 
 The mailed knight, from the armed throng. 
 
 Must to love, a vassal bow; 
 
 The minstrel, most renown’ d in song, 
 
 Must to beauty pay his vow I 
 The solemn judge, and the schoolman grave. 
 
 Can neither exist alone. 
 
 The pedant sage, yields woman’s slave ; 
 
 Love's power they all must own ! 
 
 Can then a simple heart go free ? 
 
 No 1 ’twas decreed by heaven above, 
 
 That high or low, whoe’er they be. 
 
 All must love ! 
 
 COM FORT. 
 
 {Written by Mr. Moncrieff] for the Mirror . ) 
 
 Comfort 1 truly English feeling. 
 
 Other lauds know not thy name. 
 
 All that’s precious still revealing, 
 
 I, for thee, a carol claim ! 
 
 Transport is too fierce a joy. 
 
 Rapture is too brief a bliss. 
 
 While love has still doubt’s dark alloy 
 Mingled with his sweetest kiss : 
 
 Rut, Comfort! tliou st, for all a balm, 
 Thou art blessing still, and blest. 
 Pure and constant, glad and calm. 
 Then be still my bosom’s guest. 
 
 Comfort! this with thee we win. 
 
 To sit our own fire-sides about. 
 
 With wife and children, friends and kin. 
 Whilst loud the tempest roars without. 
 Peace and plenty at our board. 
 
 Circling rouud the sparkling wine. 
 Whilst song and tale at will are pour’d. 
 Comfort ! thou’rt a thiug divine. 
 
 Comfort ! thou’st, for all, a balm, 
 Thou art blessing, still, and blest. 
 Pure and constant, glad and calm. 
 Then be still my bosom’s guest. 
 
 ’Tis thine to keep old customs up. 
 
 Nor in the world a foeman fear. 
 
 To give the poor the welcome cup. 
 
 And make it wassail all the year. 
 
 Let France for glory play her part. 
 
 Let pride the Spaniard's bosom thrill, 
 Let Italy reign first in art, 
 
 Give us our English comfort, still. 
 Comfort ! sweetest household word. 
 Domestic idol, lov’d the most. 
 
 In other lands, unknown, unheard, 
 Comfort ! still be England's boast. 
 
 TO A LADY WEEPING. 
 
 Ah, lady, why that tear ! — can thy young heart 
 Know sorrow or regret for others’ woe ! 
 
 Or can’st thou not to other breasts impart 
 The sympathies ’tis only thine to know I 
 
 Ah, weep no move ! the world heeds not thy care ; 
 
 Calm, calm thy breast — cease those gentle sighs, 
 Turn thy pure hallowed thoughts to heaven, where 
 Thy soul should meet the love that never dies ! 
 
 ANECDOTES OF THE INSANE* 
 
 In insanity, all the faculties are not deranged. 
 There may be merely an absurd belief upon 
 someone point; — the patient being in his 
 senses with respect to other subjects. Many 
 who are deranged will read, and understand 
 what they read. They will paint, exhibit 
 skill in mechanical contrivances, work, and 
 talk rationally on many subjects ; and some 
 will even shew extreme sagacity in accom- 
 plishing their mad purposes, in concealing 
 their mad impressions, and convincing others 
 of the truth of their mad notions. In a case 
 of insanity tried at Chester, before Lord 
 Mansfield, the patient was so clever, that 
 he evaded questions in court the whole of 
 the day ; and seemed to every body per- 
 fectly sane. Dr. Batty, however, came into 
 court ; and, knowing the point of the man’s 
 derangement, asked what had become of 
 the princess, with whom he had been in 
 the habit of corresponding in cherry-juice. 
 The man instantly forgot himself ; and said 
 it was true he had been confined in a castle ; 
 where, for want of pen and ink, he had writ- 
 ten his letters in cherry-juice, and thrown 
 them into the stream below ; where the 
 princess received them in a boat. 
 
 This, however, is not all ; for patients 
 often have some of their mental faculties in- 
 creased by insanity. Dr. Rush says he had 
 a deranged female patient, who composed 
 and sang hymns and songs delightfully; 
 although she had previously shewn no talent 
 for music or poetry. There was here an ex- 
 citement of one part of the brain ; while 
 another part was going wrong. Dr. Rush 
 also knew two cases of insanity, in which 
 great talent was shewn for drawing. Dr. 
 Willis had a patient, who, in the paroxysms 
 of insanity, remembered long passages of 
 Latin authors, and took extreme delight in 
 repeating them ; but not at other times. Dr. 
 Cox mentions a musician, who talked madly 
 on all subjects but music ; for which his 
 talent appeared increased. His performances 
 on the violin were strikingly singular and 
 original. Dr. Rush mentions the case of a 
 gentleman who was deranged ; but who often 
 delighted and astonished the rest of the 
 patients, and the officers of the Institution, 
 by his displays of oratory when preaching. 
 Pinel, a celebrated French physician, men- 
 tions the case of a man who was very vulgar 
 at other times; but who, in his paroxysms of 
 insanity, while standing upon a table in the 
 Hospital, discoursed very eloquently upon the 
 French Revolution ; and with the dignity and 
 propriety of language of the best educated 
 man. Circumstances similar to these have 
 been seen in fever. When the brain is ia- 
 
 * Continued from page 70 ; and extracted from 
 Dr. Elliotson's Lectures on Medicine, edited bv Dr. 
 Rogers. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 115 
 
 bouring under the excitement of fever, a 
 person who has previously shewn but little 
 talent for singing, may sing very correctly ; 
 and sometimes, although an individual may 
 he delirious, he will speak very eloquently on 
 certain subjects. This is a state which does 
 not last long. 
 
 So much with respect to the intellectual 
 faculties : But the propensities and senti- 
 ments are frequently disturbed in insanity. 
 Some are so far disturbed as to be very 
 superstitious ; some are very respectful ; 
 while some, again, are very impious. Some 
 are thievish ; some are modest ; some are 
 quite the opposite ; some are very silly ; 
 some are very cheerful ; some are melancholy ; 
 some are fearful. Some have felt an impulse 
 to kill themselves ; and some to kill others. 
 When I was at the University (Cambridge), 
 there was a person who was said to have at- 
 tempted, three times, to set the College on 
 fire. It was ascertained that, when he was 
 young, he had attempted to drown a child ; 
 yet nobody ever suspected him of being mad. 
 You may recollect the instance of a man, who 
 murdered a very excellent gentleman and his 
 lady (Mr. and Mrs. Bonar) at Chiselhurst, 
 in Kent. The murderer was a footman in 
 the family; and, one night, he left his room, 
 went up stairs to the apartment of his master 
 and mistress, and beat their brains out with 
 a poker. He was asked his reason ; but 
 could give none. He said he had always 
 been treated by them with the greatest kind- 
 ness ; but he felt suddenly in the night a de- 
 sire to kill them ; and he supposed the devil 
 had prompted him to the act. No other 
 symptom of insanity was detected in him ; 
 and he was hanged. Dr. Gall mentions the 
 case of a person at Vienna, who went to wit- 
 ness an execution ; and was seized with a 
 propensity to kill. At the same time, he had 
 a clear consciousness of his situation. He 
 expressed the greatest aversion to such a 
 crime. He wept bitterly ; struck his head ; 
 wrung his hands ; and cried to his friends to 
 take care, and get out of the way. He felt 
 the inclination ; regretted it ; and entreated 
 every one to prevent his doing mischief, by 
 putting him into prison. Pinel mentions the 
 case of a man, who exhibited no unsoundness 
 of intellect ; but who confessed he had a pro- 
 pensity, in spite of himself, to commit mur- 
 der ; and his wife, notwithstanding the ten- 
 derness he really felt for her, was near being 
 murdered by him ; — for he had only time to 
 warn her to fly. In the interval he expressed 
 the same remorse ; felt disgusted with life ; 
 and attempted, several times, to put an end 
 to his existence. In a work by Mr. Hill, you 
 will read of a man who was tried at Norwich, 
 in 1805, for wounding his wife, and cutting 
 his child’s throat. He had been known to 
 tie himself with ropes for a week, to prevent 
 his doing mischief to others. One of the 
 
 members of a family in London, is said 
 to have used these words : — “ Do, for God’s 
 sake, get me confined ; for if I am at liberty, 
 I shall destroy myself and wife! I shall do 
 it unless all means of destruction are removed ; 
 and therefore do have me put uuder restraint ! 
 Something from above tells me I must do it ; 
 and I shall !” Arsenic was put into a pud- 
 ding; and the maid-servant was executed for 
 it ; but many persons were perfectly convinced 
 of her innocence. 
 
 Dr. Gall mentions having seen a person in 
 prison at Friburg, who had set fire to his 
 house four times in succession ; and who, 
 after he had set fire to it, tried to put it out. 
 Some have an irresistible desire to steal ; — 
 without any other mark of insanity. Gall 
 says, that the first king of Sweden was 
 always stealing trifles. Instances are men- 
 tioned of a German, who was constantly pil- 
 fering ; and of another who, having the de- 
 sire to steal, entered the army ; — hoping that 
 the severe discipline there would restrain him. 
 But he gave way to the propensity even 
 there ; and was very near being hanged. 
 He then became a friar, with the same hope ; 
 but he still felt the same desire, and carried 
 all the things he could to his cell; but as he 
 could get only trifles, he was not noticed. Gail 
 also mentions that a person at Vienna, in the 
 habit of stealing, hired a lodging in which 
 to deposit his thefts ; and when he got a 
 stock, he sold them. He stole only household 
 matters. The wife of a celebrated physician 
 at Leyden, never went into a shop to buy 
 anything without stealing ; and a countess 
 at Frankfort had the same propensity. Ano- 
 ther lady, notwithstanding all the care with 
 which she had been brought up, had the 
 same desire to pilfer. You will find it re- 
 lated of a physician, that his wife was always 
 obliged to examine his pockets in the even- 
 ing, and restore to his patients the things 
 she found there. He always took something, 
 as well as his fee. Meritz speaks of a crimi- 
 nal who, at the moment he was about to be 
 executed, stole the confessor’s snuff-box. Dr. 
 Burner, who was one of the physicians to the 
 king of Bavaria, speaks of a person who en- 
 joyed abundance, and had been well educated ; 
 but who, notwithstanding, was always steal- 
 ing ; and was made a soldier by his father, 
 and at last got hanged. The son of a cele- 
 brated and learned man, — himself very clever, 
 and respectably connected in every respect, — 
 could not resist this propensity ; and I could 
 go on to furnish you with instances without 
 end, of individuals who acted thus (as it 
 would appear) from insanity ; — not from any 
 criminal motives; but from a blind desire too 
 strong for them to resist. 
 
] 16 
 
 THK MIRROR. 
 
 THE MAID OF RONA. 
 
 About the beginning of September, 1746, 
 some months after the final overthrow of the 
 brave, but unfortunate Prince Charles Ed- 
 ward, and his devoted adherents at the bat- 
 tle of Culloden, a French ship was hovering 
 round the Western Isles, in order to carry 
 oft' to France such of the unfortunate in- 
 surgents, as were still hunted by their mer- 
 ciless enemies among the fastnesses of their 
 native mountains. 
 
 At this period, the small and barren island 
 of Rona was the hiding-place of Captain 
 M’Donald, a younger brother of the chief of 
 Moidart, and one of those daring spirits who 
 had rendered themselves particularly ob- 
 noxious to the government, by their activity in 
 fomenting the rebellion, and afterwards, in 
 facilitating the escape of the prince. He had 
 been some weeks on the island, under the pro- 
 tection of Rory M’Allister, his foster-father, 
 who, with his wife, was the only inhabitant of 
 this barren rock, when, to his great joy, he one 
 evening descried a ship, carrying the private 
 signal of his party, standing off to the west- 
 ward. He immediately answered the signal, 
 and anxiously awaited the approach of night. 
 
 The day was closing with every appear- 
 ance of a coming storm ; and RoryM’Allis- 
 ter’s practised eye could discover, that the 
 brave bark, which had ventured into the 
 very jaws, as it were, of the British ships of 
 war, was closely reefed, as it passed between 
 him and the fiery disk of the sun just disap- 
 pearing in the western waters. 
 
 At any other time, Captain M’Donald 
 would have hailed the approach of a storm 
 with pleasure, as it would have afforded him 
 an opportunity of leaving his cold, desolate 
 retreat, to enjoy in security the comparative 
 comfort of his humble friend’s fire-side — a 
 luxury he dared not venture upon, while the 
 little island was accessible to the boats from 
 the men of war. Two parties had been al- 
 ready despatched on different occasions to 
 pay domiciliary visits to Rory, on suspicion 
 of his harbouring his foster-son ; but a very 
 slight search sufficed to convince the pursuers 
 that no human being could be concealed on 
 the premises, viz., a mud cabin, containing 
 one apartment ; and the barren rock, sur- 
 rounded, for the most part, by perpendicular 
 cliff's, appeared very little better calculated to 
 afford shelter. 
 
 Rory hud, however, discovered a place of 
 concealment which he thought would defy 
 the most active vigilance of his foster-son’s 
 enemies, and had accordingly carried him 
 thither from the main-land, ft was a cave 
 opening into the face of the rock, a little above 
 low-water mark, and rising in numerous 
 shelves and compartments to the very brow 
 of the cliff, where it ended in an aperture 
 sufficiently large to admit light and air, but 
 not ingress or egress to a full-grown person. 
 
 In this cave, then, did Captain M’Donald 
 pass the three weeks previous to the com- 
 mencement of the present narrative, except 
 such intervals of stormy weather as secured 
 hinCfrom all chance of a surprise. He some- 
 times descended, with the assistance of his 
 faithful Iriend, by ropes let down the face of 
 the rock, and at other times, when the wea- 
 ther permitted, was carried round the island 
 in Rory’s skiff. It will be observed that the 
 refugee’s hiding-place became a prison dur- 
 ing a portion of the time, owing to the rising 
 of the tide, and, on such occasions, he re- 
 ceived his scanty sustenance through the 
 aperture at the top. Captain M’Donald 
 was too much excited by the hope of escape, 
 to retire to his strong-hold on the evening in 
 question ; but as the storm increased, his 
 hopes began to vanish. Towards midnight 
 it blew a hurricane, and, although it was im- 
 possible for any boat to effect a landing, yet 
 he continued to look out at intervals, through 
 the pitchy darkness, in the forlorn hope of 
 seeing or hearing a friendly signal. Soon 
 after midnight, a gun was heard to wind- 
 ward, and, notwithstanding the apparent 
 uselessness of such a step, he proceeded in 
 the direction of the cave, which was at the 
 western extremity of the island. He had 
 not been long there, when he distinctly heard 
 another report, and saw a flash at no great 
 distance. It was now evident that those guns 
 were fired by a ship in distress, and as it was 
 to windward, and probably not aware of the 
 dangerous vicinity, its fate was but too likely 
 to be soon decided. It was impossible to 
 warn the ill-fated vessel of its danger; Cap- 
 tain M’Donald, therefore, could only await 
 in painful anxiety the fearful catastrophe 
 which, in all human probability, must inevi- 
 tably occur. 
 
 There was every reason to fear that the 
 distressed ship was that which had been seen 
 on the previous evening, a circumstance 
 which greatly added to the intensity of his 
 anxiety, as not only was his own escape ren- 
 dered impossible for the present, but the lives 
 of the brave men who had attempted to save 
 him were likely to be sacrificed. The storm 
 still raged with unabated fury, when Rory 
 observed to his foster-son, that he fancied he 
 could distinguish the sound of voices amidst 
 the raging of the elements. Just at this in- 
 stant a vivid flash of lightning burst through 
 the surrounding gloom, and exhibited to 
 their view for a moment a ship within an 
 hundred yards of the cliff In a few seconds 
 a crash was heard — it had struck on a ledge 
 of low rocks, about a cable’s-length from the 
 island. A confused cry of wild despair, rose 
 for a moment above the warring elements, 
 and then all was silent, save the thundering 
 roar of the breakers dashing against the rock, 
 which shook to its foundation. 
 
 As the tide was low at the time, M’Donald 
 determined to descend the face of the cliff, in 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 117 
 
 the hope of rendering assistance, much against 
 the advice of his friend, who remonstrated 
 on the folly and madness of such an attempt, 
 but in vain. He reached the mouth of the 
 cave in safety, and, advancing to the edge of 
 the lower rock, observed a dark mass left by 
 the receding wave within a few feet of the 
 spot where he stood. 
 
 He made a dash at the object, and, pulling 
 it beyond reach of the breakers, discovered a 
 large dog, much exhausted, but still holding 
 in its teeth the clothes of a child which he 
 had evidently brought ashore. 
 
 The brave Highlander carried the child — 
 a girl, as appeared from her garments, into 
 the cave, and returned to the beach, but with- 
 out further success. 
 
 It was impossible to ascend with the child, 
 which now gave signs of returning animation, 
 by the same way he had descended ; he 
 therefore proceeded to the aperture at the top 
 of the cavern, and succeeded, after some diffi- 
 culty, in handing it to Rory M’Allister, en- 
 joining him, at the same time, to hasten 
 with it to his hut, and use every means to 
 restore life. 
 
 Before he could return, the advancing tide 
 had driven the faithful dog into the cave, 
 and cut off his own retreat for the pre- 
 sent. 
 
 Rory and his wife, having used every 
 means in their power to restore warmth to 
 the frozen limbs of the child so providen- 
 tially saved from the waves, had the satis- 
 faction of seeing her open her large dark 
 eyes — fixed and meaningless, indeed, but 
 still beautiful ; they only wanted the familiar 
 objects that were wont to meet their waking 
 gaze, to light them up with conscious ex- 
 pression. But, alas ! she had been rudely 
 separated from those objects— from all, ex- 
 cept the faithful dog, probably, the last of 
 her old friends — and left floating on the wild 
 ocean, from which she was only saved to 
 float on the ocean of life, the more danger- 
 ous of the two to a beautiful, but friendless 
 orphan girl. 
 
 Her scattered senses were, by degrees, 
 recalled, and she began to speak, but in a lan- 
 guage unknown to her kind attendants ; no- 
 thing, therefore, could be learnt from her, 
 concerning the ill-fated ship. 
 
 By the time the tide had receded so far as 
 to allow Captain M'Donald to leave his hiding- 
 place, the morning was far advanced, and 
 the storm had entirely subsided. As he 
 approached the mouth of the cavern, a melan- 
 choly scene presented itself: several human 
 bodies, horribly disfigured, were lying on 
 ledges of the rock, or jammed into crevices ; 
 a considerable portion of the fore part of the 
 wreck was still to be seen on the rock on 
 which it first struck, and the remainder 
 floated about in the little bay in front of the 
 cave. He was roused from the contemplation 
 of this heart-sickening scene, by the appear- 
 
 ance of one of the government cruizers round- 
 ing the island a little to the southward. He 
 immediately retreated to his place of conceal- 
 ment, where he had not been long when 
 he became seriously alarmed for his safety- 
 on seeing a boat put off from the man-of-war 
 towards the wreck, which had attracted its 
 attention. As the boat, in which were five 
 persons, boarded the wreck, the noise roused 
 the dog which had hitherto remained in the 
 cave, and dashing into the water, he made for 
 the rock. The unfortunate rebel's situation 
 now appeared desperate ; he had no doubt 
 his hiding-place would be explored ; to fly 
 was impossible, and to offer resistance mad- 
 ness ; he had, therefore, almost made up his 
 mind to submit quietly, when he recollected 
 a large fragment of rock which had frequently 
 attracted his notice, in his descents into his 
 stronghold. It was a huge mass, which some 
 convulsion had deposited on a projecting 
 point of the rock, on the southern verge of 
 the cavern, about twenty feet above low water 
 mark, and immediately overhanging the nar- 
 row passage which led to the only landing- 
 place, which was on the opposite side. Al- 
 though this fragment had been accidentally 
 poised with such mathematical exactness as 
 to resist the violence of the frequent storms 
 to which it was exposed, yet a little mecha- 
 nical force judiciously applied was capable of 
 dislodging it. 
 
 The idea of overwhelming his enemies 
 by the removal of this rock, no sooner occurred 
 to Captain M‘Donald, than, with that prompt- 
 ness peculiar to minds familiarized to danger, 
 he seized a handspike belonging to the wreck, 
 and, clambering along the side of the cave, 
 took his station behind it. The boat was, by 
 this time, rapidly approaching him, and had 
 reached the fatal point just as the powerful 
 Highlander had applied his lever to the frag- 
 ment, and concentrated all his strength for 
 one desperate effort. The brave soldier felt 
 a momentary pang of regret at the stem 
 necessity that impelled him to such an act, 
 even towards those who would have shown 
 him no mercy. 
 
 It was but for a moment — in the next in- 
 stant the rock fell with a tremendous crash, 
 scattering the boat and its devoted crew into 
 a thousand pieces. Turning with pain from 
 this scene of destruction, he ascended the 
 cliff by the rope, which had not been removed 
 since the previous night, and, hastening to 
 join his friend, proposed, as the only course 
 left open, that they should all leave the island 
 immediately. This was readily agreed to by 
 Rory, who had every reason to fear the ven- 
 geance of the enemy for the part he had taken 
 in the affair. 
 
 They reached the mainland in safety; and 
 Captain M‘Donald soon afterwards escaped to 
 France, and Rory continued to evade the 
 vigilance of his pursuers among the wilds of 
 
118 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 his native mountains, till his offences had 
 been forgotten ; while his wife, and the child 
 that had been saved from the wreck, found 
 shelter and protection with the Lady of 
 Moidart. 
 
 This child, whose parentage could never be 
 traced, afterwards became the grand daughter 
 of the Lady of Moidart ; and, on the restora- 
 tion of the family estates, was the honoured 
 mistress of those halls which she had entered 
 a friendless orphan, and where she had been 
 long known by the title of the beautiful 
 “ Maid of Rona,” JfcT. 
 
 JSfamtmf airtf Customs. 
 
 SKETCHES OF PARIS. 
 
 The Morgue. 
 
 As the visitor crosses the Pont St. Michel, he 
 will perceive, in the centre of the Marche Neuf, 
 a small square building, with stuccoed walls, 
 and about the size and shape of the station- 
 houses on our rail-roads. It is called the 
 Morgue, and it serves as a receptacle for the 
 bodies of unknown persons, who are found 
 drowned, or have met with accidental or sud- 
 den death in the streets. On entering, he 
 will find on his left hand three large windows, 
 guarded by a rail, and looking into a cham- 
 ber where the bodies are exposed to public 
 view, in order that they may be claimed. 
 There are eight marble slabs in the room, on 
 which they are deposited, furnished with brass 
 tablets to raise the head and shoulders upon. 
 They are arranged in two rows, the first of which 
 is for those whose death has been recent, and 
 the second for any who may have arrived at a 
 later stage of decomposition, and over these 
 last, a stream of water is constantly playing. 
 The clothes belonging to each are hung round 
 the room, as a further means of recognition. 
 Altogether, it is a sad mournful place, and 
 few can look unmoved at the melancholy 
 spectacle it presents. The gloomy and fear- 
 ful days ol the middle ages have passed away. 
 The Tour de Nesle no longer overhangs the 
 river, with its blood-stained walls, nor are the 
 mangled corpses of all the brave and beauti- 
 ful of “ la jeune France” found beneath its 
 windows — the infamous Marguerite, the dark 
 Buridan, and the too confiding Philippe, and 
 Gaulthier Daulnay, are no more, and their 
 memory lives only in the traditions of the 
 present age ; but the Seine still gives up its 
 daily victims, to the curious gaze of the people 
 of Paris. It is not, however, the mere sight 
 of the dead body which touches you, but there 
 is some sad history, some fearful struggle, be- 
 tween the angels of good and evil, connected 
 with most of those, whose remains are exposed 
 there. It is presumed the majority are 
 suicides, and a gloomy image of long-borne 
 sorrow, and lonely misery, is awakened in us 
 
 by" that thought. Let us picture to ourselves 
 the death of that poor creature, whose body 
 they have just brought in, followed by a gaping 
 crowd of idlers from the market. The corpse 
 is that of a man, whose care-worn visage, and 
 emaciated limbs, betoken much suffering, 
 mental and bodily, while his decent apparel 
 shows that he belonged to the better classes. 
 Let us imagine the night he left his home 
 for the last time : he has, perhaps, quitted 
 the dwelling of years, and he will not enter it 
 again, but cold and dead. It is a clear and 
 bright evening, and the moon is calmly 
 shining over the great city, and throwing a 
 mellow and soothing light upon its noble edi- 
 fices, but he heeds it not, for misery has so 
 changed and warped all his better feelings, 
 that the world has little to move him now, 
 either by its beauty, or its sorrow. He has 
 gone through fearful trials, and long ago en- 
 rolled himself among the number of sad and 
 lonely hearts that are daily breaking around us ; 
 but his griefs have become too much for him 
 to strive against, and he cannot bear up against 
 them as formerly, for his mind has lost its 
 elasticity’, like the spring-toy which we destroy 
 by overstraining. He crosses the Pont Neuf, 
 and descending the staircase, near the statue 
 of Henri IV., arrives at the edge of the 
 river beneath the arches. He has not been ob- 
 served, and it he had, there is little sympathy 
 to be found in the crowded thoroughfare of a 
 great city', where each moves in the world of 
 his own affairs, and is too much engaged with 
 his own difficulties to notice those of others. 
 He does not hesitate or quail in his fatal 
 purpose, but he delays an instant, while he 
 places his hat on the bank, and deposits in it a 
 pocket-book, containing a few lines addressed 
 to some former friend. He has untied a black 
 ribbon from his neck, to which the portrait of 
 one whom he had deeply loved in early life 
 is attached. They had been engaged for 
 some time, but cold and calculating interest 
 broke the tie, and when all the presents oa 
 either side were returned, he kept that por- 
 trait as a remembrance of past and happier 
 days. He has run on a wild and sad career 
 since then, and there are few degrees of vice 
 and debauchery that he has not arrived at ; 
 but as he looks, for the last time, at the pic- 
 ture, a train of long-slumbering ideas are con- 
 jured up, and scenes rise up of times long since 
 past away, and sensations that he has long 
 been a stranger to. Sad and heavy years have 
 rolled on since that period, but he sees again 
 the green trees and pastures of his home ; the 
 smooth tuif of the forest, and its fair and 
 leafy coverts, where they were accustomed to 
 wile away the summer days together : the 
 little village, and its modest church — and he 
 stands absorbed in these reveries, until the 
 hoarse tones ot the great bell of Notre Dame 
 booming heavily over the river, recall him from 
 his visions, and they give place again to the 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 119 
 
 cold and lushing Seine, the dark and grinning 
 heads upon the arch above him, and his own 
 wretched and unseen end. But he cannot 
 bear, even in death, to quit the portrait — he 
 would not have it gazed at by the vulgar eyes 
 that shall first find the memorials he has left 
 behind, and he returns it once more under his 
 vest. He turns his glassy and sunken eyes 
 along the illuminated quays, now alive with 
 pleasure-seekers, and giving one last look at 
 the world he is about to quit, plunges, with- 
 out a shudder, into the rapid current beneath 
 him. The waters are troubled for an in- 
 stant, and then roll on as swiftly, and evenlj’, 
 as before. 
 
 In a few days his body is found entangled 
 in the nets which are stretched across the 
 Seine, at St. Cloud, and it is conveyed to the 
 Morgue. The garments are displayed above 
 it for recognition, and amongst them is a 
 portrait, but the water has destroyed and mixed 
 the colours, and few traces of the original de- 
 sign can be made out. Before long, the body 
 is claimed and interred — its place, in this 
 public channel, is soon supplied by another — 
 the same idle crowd assembles to gaze on the 
 remains, and fire Morgue continues to sustain 
 its melancholy interest, appalling to all its 
 visitors but the Parisians. 
 
 Knips. 
 
 TEA-DRINKING IN RUSSIA. 
 
 Thk Russians* are the most inveterate tea- 
 drinkers out of China ; and with such excel- 
 lent tea as they have, the passion is quite ex- 
 cusable. Tea in Russia and tea in England 
 are as ‘different as peppermint-water and 
 senna. * With us it is a dull, flavourless dose ; 
 in Russia it is a fresh, invigorating draught. 
 They account for the difference by stating 
 that, as the sea-air injures tea, we get only 
 the leaves, but none of the aroma of the 
 plant which left Canton ; while they, on the 
 other hand, receiving all their tea over-land, 
 have it just as good as when it left the celes- 
 tial empire. Be the cause what it may, there 
 can be no doubt of the fact, that tea in Rus- 
 sia is infinitely superior to any ever found in 
 other parts of Europe. Englishmen are taken 
 by surprise on tasting it ; even those who 
 never cared for tea before, drink on during 
 the whole of their stay in Russia. Like every 
 thing else here, however, it is very expensive : 
 the cheapest we saw, even at Nishnei-Nov- 
 gorod, which is the greatest mart in the em- 
 pire, cost from 11 to 12 roubles (about 10 
 shillings) a pound ; and when a bearded 
 Russian wants to give a feast, he will pay as 
 high as 50 roubles (2/.) for a pound of some 
 high-flavoured kind of bohea. The differ- 
 ence between these and English prices, arises 
 from the same cause as the difference in the 
 quality — the long land-carriage, which is te- 
 
 dious and very expensive, through regions 
 where there are neither roads nor resting- 
 places. It should be stated, however, that, in 
 travelling especially, no price will be thought 
 too high for this, the only comfort of the 
 wanderer in Russia. It banishes many a 
 headache, and cheers under all the annoy- 
 ances of a country, which, by universal con- 
 sent, is the most troublesome and fatiguing 
 to travel in that can be visited. Tea may 
 always be had at the inns in large towns, but 
 being too dear an article for most of the 
 country post-houses, everybody should carry 
 a stock for himself : we once paid 6s. 8</. for 
 the tea necessary to make breakfast for four ; 
 but such a charge is rare. The Russian 
 seldom eats with his tea; he never adds 
 cream to it like the English; nor does he 
 disgust people by making tea-drinking an ex- 
 cuse for tippling, like the Germans, who half 
 fill their cup with brandy when they can get 
 it. The only thing the Muscovite mingles 
 with his tea is sugar, and sometimes a thin 
 slice of lemon ; and these being duly added, 
 he sips the brown draught, not from a cup, 
 but from a common drinking glass, slowly 
 and seriously, with all the solemnity of a liba- 
 tion. — Bremner’s Excursion in Russia. 
 
 ANCIENT ATTITUDE AT TABLE. 
 
 In the Assemblies of Divines, after the Re- 
 formation was completed, the great heads of 
 the Episcopalian and Presbyterian bodies dis- 
 played as determined an opposition each to 
 the other, in their explanation and settlement 
 of non essentials, as they had in contending 
 against spiritual error for those truths which 
 many by their martyrdom showed to be 
 dearer to them than life. In few things was 
 there more ink shed than as to the posture in 
 which the eucharist was to be received. Each 
 contended for the primitive and scriptural po- 
 sition of sitting over kneeling, and kneeling 
 over sitting. A reference to early engravings 
 will show that neither church adopts the ori- 
 ginal manner, namely, the oriental ; and hap- 
 pily for us, for it is lazy, luxurious, and ener- 
 vating ; also extremely inconvenient. Some 
 of the engraved sketches show the con- 
 struction of the table ; i. e. three tables so 
 set together as to form but one. Around 
 these tables are placed, not seats, but, as it 
 were, couches, or beds, one to each table : 
 each of these beds being called elinium ; three 
 of these elinia united, to surround the three 
 tables, formed the triclinium (three beds.) 
 At the end of each elinium was a footstool for 
 the convenience of mounting up to it. These 
 beds were formed of mattresses, stuffed, &c., 
 and were supported on frames of wood, often 
 highly ornamented. The guests reclined on 
 these, on their left elbows, leaving the right 
 hand free for use. Observe, too, that the feet 
 
1-20 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 of the person reclining being towards the ex- 
 ternal edge of the bed. they were much more 
 readily reached by anybody passing, than 
 any other part of the person so reclining. 
 
 Other engravings show a dining-table 
 clear from guests ; with the manuer of form- 
 ing a circular table : the cushions laid around 
 it. In these beds, crescent-formed, the right 
 extremity was the first place of honour ; and 
 the left extremity was the second place of 
 honour. 
 
 In very early times, the attitude at table 
 was sitting : so in Homer, when Ulysses ar- 
 rives at the palace of Alciuous, the king dis- 
 places his son Laodamas, in order to seat 
 Ulysses in n magnificent chair. The Egyp- 
 tians sat at table anciently, says Appolodorus, 
 in Athenseus ; so did the Romans till towards 
 the end of the second Punic war, when they 
 began to recline at table. 
 
 The office and duty of the Architricli- 
 nius, (chief of the triclinium,) the master or 
 superintendant of a feast, were not unlike 
 that of a chairman of a company, among 
 ourselves. He gave directions to the servants, 
 superintended every thing, commanded the 
 tables to be covered, &c. He tasted the 
 wine, and distributed it to the guests. This 
 office is mentioned in John ii. 8, 9, in the 
 beginning of Miracles which our Saviour 
 wrought. This office among the Greeks, 
 when presiding over the Greeks, was called 
 King. The youths who served the tables were 
 called tsiaaovoi, Deacons, and oirxooi, wine 
 pourers ; in modern language, wine-coopers. 
 There is a manifest allusion to servants of the 
 tables (Deacons,) in our Lord’s rebuke of his 
 disciples, (Luke xxii. 25.) The Kings of the 
 Geutiles exercise lordship over them : and 
 those possessing authority over them are 
 called benefactors. But among you it shall 
 not be so : but he who is greatest among you, 
 let him be as the youngest ; and he who 
 takes place as a ruler as he who serveth, 
 (a Deacon.) For whether is greater, he who 
 reclines at table, or he who serveth, (the Dea- 
 con P Whereas I am among you as he who 
 serveth, (the Deacon.) 
 
 For want of proper description and discri- 
 mination in respect to the attitude at table, 
 several passages of the Gospel are not merely 
 injured as to their true sense, but are abso- 
 lutely divested of sense in our translation. 
 Refer to the exquisite and touching parable 
 recorded in Luke vii. 36, which the said en- 
 gravings render inttlligible. The same ob- 
 servation applies to John xii. 3. Lazarus was 
 one who reclined at table, araKeiperoov, with 
 Jesus ; and Mary anointed the feet of Jesus. 
 Likewise, John’s reclining on the Lord’s 
 bosom at the Last Supper, is simply explained 
 by these. 
 
 MOUNT ETNA. 
 
 During the eruption of Mount Etna, in 1669, 
 the lava, after overflowing fourteen towns and 
 villages, some of which had a population of 
 between three and four thousand inhabitants, 
 arrived at length at the walls of Catania. 
 Thtfse walls, (observes a recent writer,) had 
 been purposely raised to protect the city; but 
 the burning flood accumulated until it rose to 
 the top of the rampart, which was sixty feet 
 in height, and then fell in a fiery cascade, 
 and overwhelmed part of the city. The wall, 
 however, was not thrown down, being disco- 
 vered long afterwards by Prince Biscari, when 
 making excavations in the rock, by means of 
 which the solid lava may be seen curling 
 over the top of the rampart. This great cur- 
 rent, when it entered the sea, after performing 
 a course of fifteen miles, was one thousand 
 eight hundred feet broad, and forty deep: 
 it covered some territories in the environs of 
 Catania, which had never before been visited 
 by the lavas of Etna. Its surface was, in 
 general, a mass of solid rock, and its mode of 
 advancing, as is usual with lava streams, 
 was by the occasional Assuring of solid walls. 
 M. Pappalardo, a gentleman of Catania, be- 
 ing desirous of securing the city from the ap- 
 proach of the threatening torrent, went out 
 with a party of fifty men, dressed in skins, 
 to protect them from the heat, and armed with 
 iron crows and hooks. Having broken open 
 one of the solid walls which flanked the cur- 
 rent near Belpasso, a river of melted matter 
 issued forth, which took the direction of Pa- 
 terno ; but the inhabitants of that town, being 
 alarmed for their safety, took up arms, and 
 prevented them from carrying on their opera- 
 tions. It is related by M. Recupero, that in 
 1766, having ascended a small hill formed of 
 ancient volcanic matter, to behold the slow 
 and gradual approach of a fiery current, two 
 miles and a half broad, two small threads of 
 liquid matter suddenly issued from a crevice, 
 and having detached themselves from the 
 main stream, ran rapidly towaids the hill, 
 from which M. Recupero and his guide had 
 just time to escape. They had scarcely left 
 the hill, which was fifty feet in height, before 
 it was surrounded with liquid lava, and in a 
 quarter of an hour, was melted down into the 
 burning mass. This complete fusion of 
 rocky matter, when coming in contact with 
 lava, is not of universal, or even common oc- 
 currence. On the site of Mompiliere, one of 
 the towns overflowed in the great eruption, 
 in 1669, an excavation was made in 1704; 
 and after an immense deal of labour, the 
 workmen reached, at the depth of thirty-five 
 feet, the gate of the principal church, w'here 
 there were three statues, held in high vene- 
 ration ; when one of these statues, a bell, 
 some money, and other articles, in a good 
 state of preservation, were extracted from be- 
 neath a great arch formed by the lava. 
 
 W. G. C. 
 
THE MIRROR 
 
 J21 
 
 This pillar is erected on the summit of 
 a lofty hill, called Moel y Golfa, in Montgo- 
 meryshire, by a subscription of the gentlemen 
 of the county, as a mark of their gratitude to 
 the brave Rodney, for the c ” : "ent services 
 he rendered his country. It has the - 'owing 
 inscriptions on the pedestul : — “ Summse pe- 
 reunt Column®, Georgii Brydges Rodney 
 Baronetti viget nomen et vigebit.” — “ Erected 
 in honour of Sir George Brydges Rodney, 
 Admiral of the White, by a subscription of 
 the gentlemen of the county:” and these 
 lines in Welsh — 
 
 '• Y Colofnan ucliaf a fyrthiant 
 Ar Tyrau cadamaf annuliarant 
 Ond Clod Syr Brydges Rodney. 
 
 Agyrnnydda bennydd 
 Ai Emw da ef ni ddileuir.” 
 
 Certainly, if any warrior was entitled to 
 such a memorial of his country’s regard, it 
 was the invincible Rodney — a man whose life 
 gave the denial to that assertion, generally 
 ascribed to the Lord Bute, “ that every man 
 was to be bought.’’ For this hero, when 
 living in retirement on the Continent, being 
 in embarrassed circumstances, on account of 
 an election contest for the borough of North- 
 ampton, the French government, aware of his 
 necessities, and knowing his prowess, made 
 overtures which would have immediately re- 
 lieved him from his difficulties ; but the ho- 
 nest sailor rejected them, not only without 
 hesitation, but in such terms as marked his 
 sense of the insult offered him by the pro- 
 posal ; and the fact having come to the ears 
 of Lord Sandwich, then first Lord of the Ad- 
 miralty, he immediately invited him to take 
 the command of a squadron in the Mediterra- 
 nean ; and on the 12th of August, 17^2, the 
 gallant Rodney had an opportunity of resent- 
 ing the affront he received from the French 
 government, by defeating their celebrated 
 Count De Grasse, and gaining a complete 
 victory over the fleet under his command. In 
 1780, he also defeated Admiral Langara, off 
 Cape St. Vincent, bringing home five ships 
 of the line as the fruits of his victory. For 
 these and other services rendered his country, 
 abarony and a pension oftwo thousand pounds 
 were the rewards of his bravery ; and a mo- 
 nument voted to his memory, to be erected in 
 the north transept of St. Paul’s Cathedral. 
 
 Rodney was born in Somersetshire, in 
 1717 5 and died in the spring of 1792. 
 
 Lord Rodney is described, by some writers 
 on naval affairs, as the first who put in prac- 
 tice the system of tactics afterwards adopted 
 with such success by Nelson and other com- 
 manders, the principal feature of which con- 
 sists in breaking through the centre of the 
 enemy’s line. 
 
 .RODNEY’S PILLAR. 
 
122 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 Uoofes. 
 
 MEMOIRS OF JOHN BANNISTER, COMEDIAN. 
 By John Adolphus, Esq.* 
 
 [In these volumes Mr. Adolphus has managed 
 to present a faithful, and, therefore, a very 
 agreeable portrait of a man whose character, 
 both public and private, cannot be contem- 
 plated without admiration, and even affection. 
 What the reader will seek for in vain is any- 
 thing like kindred liveliness between the 
 subject and his biographer ; and he will be 
 at a loss to conceive, how, out of such an 
 atmosphere of animal spirits and pleasant 
 badinage, should issue a production so 
 merely judicious. To those who recollect 
 Bannister on the stage, the analytical descrip- 
 tions of plays and characters in which the 
 comedian appeared, will not be without a 
 peculiar interest, but to the mass of readers 
 the effect must necessarily be in a serious 
 degree wearisome. 
 
 Even when an actor’s life is diversified by 
 many incidents, it will be found that the 
 incidents of one are generally similar to those 
 of all his class ; and therefore it is that the 
 reader takes up a theatrical biography, pre- 
 pared to read that the late Mr. So-and-so, at 
 an early age, became stage-stricken, that his 
 friends had strong objections, that he braved 
 them all, and made his debut at a private 
 theatre, afterwards plunged into the thick of 
 country “ business,” had to contend with the 
 caprices of country managers and country 
 audiences, and at length attained the goal of 
 an actor’s ambition — a London engagement. 
 
 Bannister’s ascent to histrionic greatness, 
 was different from this, in being easier. His 
 father, Charles Bannister, enjoyed a high 
 reputation as a singer at the London theatres, 
 and through his influence, young John early 
 became initiated into theatrical mysteries, 
 and without difficulty stepped into a town 
 engagement. He was born in 1760 ; at the 
 age of 23 he married a Miss Harper, a young 
 lady in the vocal department of his own pro- 
 fession, and related to Mr. Rundell, the cele- 
 brated goldsmith. This marriage, contrary 
 to the predictions of some persons less wise 
 than they supposed themselves, was a singu- 
 larly happy one. Bannister settled at once 
 into the regular habits of good domestic life, 
 without the sacrifice of a spark of that natu- 
 ral gaiety and boyish cheerfulness, which, 
 throughout his career, made him the delight 
 of ail his acquaintance. 
 
 Much has been said and written on the 
 fleeting nature of an actor’s fame ; but, after 
 all, the successful actor has little reason to 
 complain ; for, once established in public 
 estimation, he creates in the breasts of many 
 who witness his public exhibitions, feelings 
 * rublislied 4 l>y Bentley. 
 
 which have all the tenderness of private 
 regard, and are not less permanent. It was 
 the good fortune of Bannister, beyond, per- 
 haps, any of his contemporaries, to excite 
 those feelings. When you saw him repre- 
 sent those characters which, from their unaf- 
 fected generosity, spontaneous outpourings 
 of the affections, the joys or the sorrows of 
 the heart, seemed to be not acting, but the 
 natural following out of his own impulses ; 
 you could not restrict your admiration merely 
 to the powers of the actor, but felt yourself 
 impelled to extend your regard to the man. 
 Such a man you feel cannot, oil’ the stage, be 
 essentially different from what he here appears, 
 and your sympathies follow him accordingly. 
 If such were the impressions excited by 
 Bannister on the stage, happily there was 
 nothing to contradict them when you were 
 admitted to his home. He stood out a living 
 exemplar of the respectability consistent with 
 a profession admitted to be often perilous to 
 strict principles, and he leaves behind him a 
 character estimable in all the relations of life, 
 conspicuous for companionable qualities, pru- 
 dent habits, and the liberal exercise of the 
 heart’s best impulses. We proceed to give a 
 few extracts.] 
 
 Bannister's Opinion of Kean . 
 
 “ Having introduced the name of that cele- 
 brated performer, Kean, candour requires I 
 should state Bannister’s judgment on his 
 merits, which I derive from memorandums 
 to which I have already conferred my obli- 
 gations, written by the author of ‘ Wine and 
 Walnuts.’ Standing at the. first-floor window, 
 he says, of a house in Cecil-street, in the 
 Strand, nearly opposite the residence of Mr. 
 Kean, the tragedian, and seeing him and the 
 late Mr. Whitbread go out from the street 
 door, arm-in-arm, Bannister observed, ‘ How 
 grateful to Providence that young man ought 
 to be for his sudden elevation, when con- 
 trasted with what he has experienced.’ I 
 asked Bannister what he thought of Kean as 
 an actor, particularly as to the manner of his 
 playing Richard the Third, in comparison 
 with the performance of the same character 
 by Garrick, asking at the same time whether 
 he could recollect Garrick’s Richard. He 
 answered, ‘ Yes, very distinctly. For some 
 time,’ he said, ‘ I could not form a judgment, 
 and yet was unable to account for it. I had 
 only seen Kean from behind the scenes, so 
 one night I seated myself rather beyond the 
 centre of the pit, and there he appeared to 
 me another man. You think this strange, 
 but it is true. In this new, and, as I sup- 
 pose, proper station, 1 seemed at once to dis- 
 cover his merits, which grew upon my imagi- 
 nation, first to approbation of his powers, 
 and ended in surprise and admiration ! 
 Indeed, 1 found his conception of the cha- 
 racter so entirely original, and so excellent. 
 
TIIK MIllKOR. 
 
 123 
 
 that I almost forgot my old master, Davy 
 Garrick.’ ” 
 
 Characteristics of Bannister'' s style of Acting. 
 
 “ Tragedy was his first aim, and in that 
 he was encouraged by the best critics, and 
 the most admired performer of the day. But 
 soon after Bannister’s appearance, the tone 
 and mode of tragic exhibition were totally 
 changed. The unforced, natural, and almost 
 comic manner of delivering the mere cursory 
 dialogue, was changed for one, in which it 
 seemed to be assumed, that no sentence, how- 
 ever ordinary, or even unimportant, could 
 have been written without an occult meaning; 
 no phrase could have been penned without a 
 concealed point. ‘ Will you play upon this 
 instrument ?’ was delivered as if it had been 
 a declaration of hostility, or the announce- 
 ment of a detected conspiracy ; and the very 
 little which Cibber has left of the rich spor- 
 tive sarcasm with which Shakspeare endued 
 the character of Richard, is so suppressed, 
 . that when the tyrant banters his mother, he 
 may almost be expected to aim his dagger at 
 her heart. 
 
 “ Garrick’s agile movement and elegant le- 
 vity, in which Bannister might have been a 
 valuable follower, were utterly superseded ; a 
 dignified and super-majestic manner was 
 thrown around every character, from Shaks- 
 j * peare’s murderous Thane to Rowe’s gay rake. 
 This taste descended through all the perform- 
 ers in tragedy ; and he who had to deliver a 
 message of no more importance than ‘ Caesar 
 sends health to Cato,’ would well have earned 
 Quin’s indignant reproof, ‘ I wish he had 
 sent it by some other messenger.’ 
 
 “ Mrs. Siddons and Kemble, by the lofty 
 grace of their persons, and the refined dignity 
 of their manners, put to flight, for their day 
 at least, all hopes that could be entertained 
 by those who, without all the perfections of 
 Garrick, struggled against the disadvantages 
 which result from the want of a stately eleva- 
 tion of form. When Mrs. Siddons appeared 
 and acted, the effect was similar to that 
 which might have been expected, if one of 
 the sublimest conceptions of Michael Angelo 
 had been animated for the occasion, and 
 Kemble gave us everything that could be 
 achieved if the same miracle had been per- 
 formed on the most perfect production of 
 the chisel or the pencil, employed in the 
 representation of Roman or Grecian life, 
 person, and manners. In them these per- 
 fections were gifts of nature, improved to 
 their highest pitch by art and study ; in them 
 they were becoming and captivating ; but 
 they who attempted to form themselves, by 
 imitating those incomparable models, would 
 soon become monotonous mannerists, mere 
 plaster casts, humbly representing the noble 
 statues ; lame, clumsy wood-cuts, engraved 
 after the inimitable picture. 
 
 “ From such a degraded position — educa- 
 tion, taste, and ambition, rescued Bannister ; 
 and whatever he might have been in the 
 school of Garrick, he never could have been 
 deemed a proficient in the school of Kemble. 
 It is not meant to be asserted that he would 
 ever, under any circumstances, have been a 
 first-rate tragedian, but certainly the altered 
 state of dramatic performance was adverse to 
 his attempts. 
 
 “ What he was in comedy and in comic 
 opera, has been so much described that 
 addition is unnecessary ; but there is a sort 
 of midway character, uniting the pathos of 
 tragedy with the hilarity of comedy, in which 
 he was peculiarly great, and if the expression 
 may be used without offence, unrivalled. 
 Let those, and they are still many, who recol- 
 lect him in a long line of characters — in Sadi, 
 for example, La Gloire, Shacabac, or Walter, 
 — speak their feelings, and I am certain they 
 must accord with mine on this subject. 
 
 “ His power over the audience was derived 
 from the simple, though not very usual, 
 means of appearing to be quite unconscious 
 of their presence. He not only laid no traps 
 for applause and no gestures, looks, or efforts, 
 to obtain it, but when it was given sponta- 
 neously, and even tumultuously, he was never 
 driven from the business of the scene ; if his 
 voice could not for a time be heard, his action 
 never was suspended, and the character in 
 the play was never for a moment set aside to 
 show the contented, overjoyed, the elate indi- 
 vidual Bannister. 
 
 “ He acquired fame by deserving, not by 
 courting it ; and while he enjoyed the public 
 approbation with all the susceptibility of his 
 excellent heart, he never, in public or in pri- 
 vate, showed an affected complacency or an 
 overweening pride.” 
 
 Bannister at the time of his retirement. 
 
 “ In retiring when he did from the profes- 
 sion he had never ceased to adorn, Bannister 
 evinced that solid judgment and unperverted 
 taste which had distinguished him throughout 
 his life. His absence had never been desired. 
 The public witnessed with regret the attacks 
 made upon him by illness, but they never had 
 reason to think that his infirmity infected his 
 playing ; unless the Archbishop of Granada 
 in ‘ Gil Bias,’ whose sermons smell of the 
 apoplexy, the acting of Bannister never was 
 in the slightest degree ‘ redolent’ of gout. 
 The graceful and animated vigour of his 
 motion, the silver tone and deep feeling of 
 his voice, the enlivening play of his smile, 
 and the animated lustre of his eye, had not 
 only remained to him, but were undimi- 
 uished and unenfeebled; nor was eulogy ever 
 more true and justly applied, than one which 
 declared that his first performance of Walter 
 did not exceed, in any dramatic requisite, his 
 last personation of the character, a character 
 
124 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 for which no successor has made compensa- 
 tion to those who remember it, or afforded 
 commensurate gratification to those who had 
 not that advantage.” 
 
 Sir George Rose and Bannister. 
 
 “ Sir George Rose, not less known for his 
 wit anu vivacity than for those talents which 
 gave such conspicuous success in that arduous 
 profession, the law, was a near neighbour of 
 Bannister, living on the opposite side of 
 Gower-street. One day as he was walking 
 he was hailed by Bannister, who said, ‘ Stop 
 a moment, Sir George, and I will go over to 
 you.’ — ‘ No,’ said the good-humoured punster, 
 < I never made you cross yet, and I will not 
 begin now.’ He joined the valetudinarian, 
 and held a short conversation, and imme- 
 diately after his return home wrote — 
 
 ‘ On meeting the “ Young V 2 ter an ” toddling 
 up Gower-street , when he told me he was 
 seventy .’ 
 
 ‘ With seventy years upou his back 
 Still is my honest friend “ young Jack,” 
 
 Nor spirits checked, nor fancy slack. 
 
 But fresh os any daisy. 
 
 Though time has knocked his stumps about. 
 
 He caunot bowl his temper out. 
 
 And all the Bannister is stout 
 Although the steps be crazy.’ 
 
 This good-natured Jen d’ esprit was left by its 
 author almost immediately at Bannister’s 
 door. 
 
 Concluding passages of the Memoir. 
 
 “ Of Bannister’s great predecessor, Garrick, 
 it was said, — 
 
 * On the etage he was natural, simple, affecting ; 
 
 ’Twas only that when he was off he was acting 
 
 but Bannister, whether on or off the stage, 
 was always the same. In the drama he was 
 affecting, because he was natural and simple; 
 in society he was distinguished by the same 
 characteristics. His unaffected hilarity in 
 conversation, the flexibility of his mind in 
 adapting itself to every subject which arose, 
 and the almost puerile good humour with 
 which he recalled and recited the incidents of 
 his earliest life and observation, formed alto- 
 gether a picture equally singular and inter- 
 esting. In these moments he showed him- 
 self to the greatest advantage ; his animated 
 countenance displayed at once the intelligence 
 of a man, the sweetness of a woman, and the 
 innocent spovtiveness of a child. 
 
 His social virtues will never be forgotten ; 
 they assured to him the respect and the 
 esteem of all ; he enjoyed upon earth the full 
 reward of his talents and good qualities, while 
 his hopes of an hereafter were cherished with 
 the warmth and confidence resulting from a 
 true and lively faith. 
 
 His example presents an useful lesson. 
 He was famous, but never indulged in pride 
 or presumption ; prosperous, yet never har- 
 dened his heart or closed his ears against the 
 
 appeals of friendship, or the cries of necessity ; 
 and as the crown of these good qualities, 
 
 And to add greater honour to his age 
 
 Than man could give him, he died, fearing God.” 
 
 CANADA IN 1838. 
 
 BY LORD DURHAM. 
 
 ( Continued from page 111.) 
 
 Competition of the English with the French 
 Farmer. 
 
 The English farmer carried with him the ex- 
 perience and habits of the most improved 
 agriculture in the world. He settled himself 
 in the townships bordering on the seignories, 
 and brought a fresh soil and improved culti- 
 vation to compete with the worn-out and slo- 
 venly farm of the habitant. He often took 
 the very farm which the Canadian settler 
 had abandoned, and by superior management 
 made that a source of profit which had only 
 impoverished his predecessor. The ascen- 
 dancy which an unjust favouritism had con- 
 tributed to give to the English race in the 
 government and the legal profession, their 
 own superior energy, skill, and capital, se- 
 cured to them in every branch of industry. 
 They have developed the resources of the 
 country ; they have constructed or improved 
 its means of communicatioon ; they have 
 created its internal and foreign commerce. 
 The entire wholesale, and a large portion of 
 the retail, trade of the province, with the most 
 profitable and flourishing farms, are now in 
 the hands of this numerical minority of the 
 population. 
 
 A singular instance of national incompa- 
 tibility was brought before my notice in an 
 attempt which I made to promote an under- 
 taking in which the French were said to take 
 a great deal of interest. I accepted the office 
 of President of the Agricultural Association 
 of the district of Quebec, and attended the 
 show previousto the distribution of the prizes. 
 I then found that the French farmers would 
 not compete even on this neutral ground with 
 the English; distinct prizes were given in 
 almost every department to the two races ; 
 and the national ploughing matches were 
 carried on in separate and even distant fields. 
 
 The Labouring Population. 
 
 In Lower Canada, the mere working class, 
 which depends on wages, though proportion- 
 ally large in comparison with that to be found 
 in any other portion of the American conti- 
 nent, is, according to our ideas, very small. 
 Competition between persons of different 
 origin in this class has not exhibited itself till 
 very recently, and is even now almost confined 
 to the cities. The large mass of the labour- 
 ing population are French, in the employ of 
 English capitalists. The more skilled class 
 of artisans are generally English ; but in the 
 general run of the more laborious employ. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 125 
 
 ments, the French Canadians fully hold their 
 ground against English rivalry. The emi- 
 gration which took place a few years ago, 
 brought in a class which entered into more 
 direct competition with the French in some 
 kinds of employment in the towns; but the 
 individuals affected by this competition were 
 not very many. I do not believe that the 
 animosity which exists between the working 
 classes of the two origins is the necessary re- 
 sult of a collision of interests, or of a jealousy 
 of Ihe superior success of English labour. 
 But national prejudices naturally exercise the 
 greatest influence over the most uneducated ; 
 the difference of language is less easily over- 
 come ; the difference of manners and cus- 
 toms less easily appreciated. The labourers 
 whom the emigration introduced, contained 
 a number of very ignorant, turbulent, and de- 
 moralized persons, whose conduct and man- 
 ners alike revolted the well-ordered and cour- 
 ^ teous natives of the same class. The working 
 men naturally ranged themselves 011 the side 
 of the educated and wealthy of their own 
 countrymen. When once engaged in the 
 conflict, their passions were less restrained 
 by education and prudence; and the national 
 hostility now rages most fiercely between 
 , those whose interests in reality bring them 
 the least in collision. 
 
 Effects of the introduction of English 
 people. 
 
 English capital was attracted to Canada by 
 the vast quantity and valuable nature of the 
 exportable produce of the country, and the 
 great facilities for commerce presented by the 
 natural means of internal intercourse. The 
 ancient trade of the country was conducted 
 on a much larger, and more profitable scale, 
 and new branches of industry were explored. 
 The active and regular habits of the English 
 capitalist drove out of all the more profitable 
 kinds of industry their inert and careless com- 
 petitors of the French race; but in respect 
 of the greater part (almost the whole) of the 
 commerce and manufactures of the country, 
 the English cannot be said to have encroached 
 on the French ; for, in fact, they created em- 
 ployments and profits which had not pre- 
 viously existed. A few of the ancient race 
 smarted under the loss occasioned by the 
 success of English competition ; but all felt 
 yet more acutely the gradual increase of a 
 class of strangers in whose hands the wealth 
 of the country appeared to centre, and whose 
 expenditure and influence eclipsed those of 
 the class which had previously occupied the 
 first position in the country. Nor was the 
 intrusion of the Euglish limited to commer- 
 cial enterprises. By degrees, large portions 
 of land were occupied by them ; nor did they 
 confine themselves to the unsettled and dis- 
 tant country of the townships. The wealthy 
 capitalist invested his money in the purchase 
 
 of seignorial properties; and it is estimated 
 that at the present moment full half of the 
 more valuable seignories are actually owned 
 by English proprietors. The seignorial tenure 
 is one so little adapted to our notions of pro- 
 priatory rights, that the new seigneur, with- 
 out any consciousness or intention of injus- 
 tice, in many instances exercised his rights in 
 a manner which would appear perfectly fair 
 in this country, but which the Canadian set- 
 tler reasonably regarded as oppressive. The 
 English purchaser found an equally unex- 
 pected and just cause of complaint in that 
 uncertainty of the laws, which rendered his 
 possession of property precarious, and in those 
 incidents of the tenure which rendered its 
 alienation or improvement difficult. 
 
 Character , Manners, and Government of the 
 original French Settlers. 
 
 The institutions of France during the period 
 of the colonization of Canada were, perhaps, 
 more than those of any other European na- 
 tion, calculated to repress the intelligence 
 and freedom of the great mass of the people. 
 These institutions followed the Canadian co- 
 lonist across the Atlantic. The same central, 
 ill-organised, unimproving, and repressive 
 despotism extended over him. Not merely 
 was he allowed no voice in the government of 
 his province, or the choice of his rulers, but 
 he was not even permitted to associate with 
 his neighbours for the regulation of those 
 municipal affairs, which the central autho- 
 rity neglected, under the pretext of manag- 
 ing. He obtained his land on a tenure sin- 
 gularly calculated to promote his immediate 
 comfort, and to check his desire to better his 
 condition ; he was placed at once in a life of 
 constant and unvarying labour, of great ma- 
 terial comfort, and feudal dependence. The 
 ecclesiastical authority to which he had been 
 accustomed, established its institutions around 
 him, and the priest continued to exercise 
 over him his ancient influence. No general 
 provision was made for education ; and, as 
 its necessity was not appreciated, the colonist 
 made no attempt to repair the negligence of 
 his government. It need not surprise us 
 that, under such circumstances, a race of 
 men habituated to the incessant labour of 
 a rude and unskilled agriculture, and habi- 
 tually fond of social enjoyments, congre- 
 gated together in rural communities, occupy- 
 ing portions of the wholly unappropriated 
 soil, sufficient to provide each family with 
 material comforts far beyond their ancient 
 means, or almost their conceptions ; that 
 they made little advance beyond the first pro- 
 gress in comfort, which the bounty of the 
 soil absolutely forced upon them ; that under 
 the same institutions they remained the 
 same uninstructed, inactive, unprogressive 
 people. Along the alluvial banks of the St. 
 Lawrence and its tributaries, they have 
 
12(5 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 cleared two or three strips of land, cultivated 
 them in the worst method of small farming, 
 and established a series of continuous vil- 
 lages, which give the country of the seignories 
 the appearance of a never-ending street. 
 Besides the cities which were the seats of 
 govornment, no towns were established, the 
 rude manufactures of the country were, and 
 still are, carried on in the cottage by the 
 family of the habitant ; and an insignificant 
 proportion of the population derived their sub- 
 sistence from the scarcely discernible com- 
 merce of the province. Whatever energy ex- 
 isted among the population, was employed in 
 the fur trade, and the occupations of hunting, 
 which they, and their descendants, have car- 
 ried beyond the Rocky Mountains, and still, 
 in great measure, monopolize in the whole 
 valley of the Mississippi. The mass of the 
 community exhibited in the New World the 
 characteristics of the peasantry of Europe. 
 Society was dense ; and even the wants and 
 the poverty which the pressure of population 
 occasions in the Old World became not to be 
 wholly unknown. They clung to ancient pre- 
 judices, ancient customs, and ancient laws, 
 not from any strong sense of their beneficial 
 effects, but with the unreasoning tenacity of 
 an uneducated and unprogressive people. Nor 
 were they wanting in the virtues of a simple 
 and industrious life, or in those which com- 
 mon consent attributes to the nation from 
 which they spring. The temptations which, 
 in other states of society, lead to offences 
 against property, and the passions which 
 prompt to violence, were little known among 
 them. They are mild and kindly, frugal, in- 
 dustrious, and honest, very sociable, cheerful, 
 and hospitable, and distinguished for a cour- 
 tesy and real politeness, which pervades every 
 class of society. The conquest has changed 
 them but little. The higher classes, and the 
 inhabitants of the towns, have adopted some 
 English customs and feelings, but continued 
 negligence has left the mass of the people 
 without any of the institutions which would 
 have elevated them in freedom and civiliza- 
 tion. It has left them without the education 
 and without the institutions of local self- 
 government, that would have assimilated 
 their character and habits, in the easiest and 
 best way, to those of the empire of which 
 they became a part. They remain an old and 
 stationary society in a new and progressive 
 world. In all essentials they are still French, 
 but French in every respect dissimilar to 
 those of France in the present day. They 
 resemble rather the French of the provinces 
 under the old regime. 
 
 Truth and reason are common to every 
 one, and are no more his who spoke them 
 first, than his who speaks them after. — 
 Montaigne. 
 
 $ul)lt£atton£f. 
 
 The Quarantine Laws ; their Abuses and 
 Inconsistencies. By Arthur T. Holroyd, 
 Esq. (Simpkin and Co.) 
 
 Our attention has again been called to the 
 above subject, inferior to none in vast im- 
 portance to the public ; and Mr. Holroyd de- 
 serves the thanks of society for thus having 
 so forcibly and clearly laid open the folly and 
 injustice of these Quarantine Laws. We had 
 recently occasion to lay before our readers ex- 
 tracts from Mr. Bowring’s Treatise on the 
 Plague (vide Mirror , pp. 362, 378, 395, vol. 
 xxxii ;) and the above Pamphlet fully corro- 
 borates the declaration of Mr. Bowring, that 
 “ the Plague is not contagious,” and that 
 performing Quarantine is mischievous, unjust, 
 and inefficient. Our limits preclude us from 
 quoting the many startling facts adduced by 
 Mr. Holroyd; we can therefore only refer our 
 readers to them ; being fully assured they 
 will be found pregnant with the most im- 
 portant and convincing facts. 
 
 Home ; or the Months ; a Poem for Domestic 
 Life. By John Player. (Ward and Co.) 
 The aim of the author of the above instruc- 
 tive poem has been “ to combine devotional 
 sentiment with picturesque imagery and 
 most pleasingly has he performed his task. 
 To those persons who love to dwell on the 
 beauties of nature, and to pour forth their 
 adoration to the Giver of All, this unpre- 
 tending work will be an invaluable compa- 
 nion ; for its reflexions speak to the heart, in 
 strains simple, yet nervous, breathing grati- 
 tude, contentment, virtue, and serenity of 
 mind — endearments that tend to render life 
 truly blissful. Every one, after perusing this 
 Poem, will become wiser, better, and happier. 
 We most heartily commend it to the notice 
 of our readers. 
 
 The Life and Times of the late Countess of 
 Huntingdon. Part 1. (Simpkin and Co.) 
 This Memoir is not, strictly speaking, the life 
 of the late Countess of Huntingdon, but of 
 ‘ Selina,’ Countess of Huntingdon. The first 
 part is before us ; and if the remainder of 
 the work be conducted in the same pleasing 
 anecdotical manner, it will form an interest- 
 ing piece of Biography. It seems written 
 with great care, and adherence to truth, pro- 
 digal of notices relative to Wesley, White- 
 field, and other eminent early methodist co- 
 temporaries of the noble subject of the me- 
 moir. It is very clearly and neatly printed, 
 and embellished with a portrait of the Coun- 
 tess, which would have been the more ac- 
 ceptable, had greater judgment and labour 
 been bestowed upon it. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 127 
 
 i MRS. HOPWOOD AND THE HARE S 
 FOOT.* 
 
 ******* With a sort of mincing 
 step, and with many a profound curtsey, did 
 Mrs. Hopwood enter the presence. She had 
 heen some few minutes in her chamber, 
 for the purpose of adornment ; but such had 
 been her haste, that she had hardly time to 
 | do justice to her taste. She determined, how- 
 
 I ever, to cover all deficiencies in style by pro- 
 fusion of ornament, and, after having touched 
 her cheek with the slightest possible tint of 
 the “ hare’s-foot,” (for cheeks will fade with 
 years,) she pinned a bunch of flowers here, and 
 another there, till her head resembled a huge 
 bouquet, when unfortunately, as she was 
 about to give the finishing touch, she heard 
 her husband’s excited voice to Susan ; snatch- 
 ing, therefore, a bunch of full-blown roses, 
 she pinned them hurriedly in their place, and 
 casting but too cursory a glance, the general 
 . effect seemed so undeniable, that she rushed 
 down stairs, fearful of driving her husband to 
 despair, by her continued absence. Lord 
 Walgrave rose to receive her, and taking her 
 hand, led her to a seat. “ I need not say 
 how happy I am to make the acquaintance of 
 the wife of my most estimable friend, Hop- 
 wood,” commenced the nobleman ; but, be- 
 i fore he could proceed, he was seized with 
 such a fit of coughing, that he was forced to 
 resume his seat on the sofa, and cover his 
 face with his handkerchief. The fact was, 
 that though Lord Walgrave was a man of 
 fashion, and consequently had his feelings 
 , and countenance under great control, yet there 
 sometimes occur such unforeseen, such sud- 
 den attacks upon our risible muscles, that 
 even the well-trained habits of a man of so- 
 ciety find it impossible to resist them. Un- 
 fortunately, as Mrs. Hopwood took her seat, 
 the eyes of Lord Walgrave came upon a level 
 with her head-dress, and there, erect, amidst 
 a profusion of roses and geraniums, stood the 
 identical “ hare’s-foot” which had created 
 the bloom upon her cheek, and which, having 
 become entangled amongst the wires of the 
 last bunch of roses, was with them transferred 
 to its present unlucky position, producing, it 
 must be confessed, a most extraordinary and 
 startling effect. “ Dear me ! dear me ! what 
 a cold your lordship has taken,” said Hop- 
 wood, agitated beyond measure, and fidget- 
 ing about with the poker in his hand ; “ this 
 room is so cold, I’m afraid your lordship did 
 wrong in removing from the fire ;”and here he 
 emptied the scuttle upon the blazing contents 
 of the grate. “ I should never forgive myself, 
 if 1 thought — ” — u Now, do not disturb your- 
 self, Hopwood,” interposed Lord Walgrave, 
 somewhat recovering from the effects of his 
 surprise, but not daring to turn his eyes in the 
 direction of the lady of the house ; “ I must 
 
 * From the novel of " Horace Vernon.” Colborn. 
 
 have taken a little cold coming down, but it 
 will pass.” — “ Will you let me get you a 
 little broth, my lord ?” asked Mrs. Hopwood, 
 “ a little broth with some chopped parsley in 
 it — chopped parsley is a most excellent thing 
 for a cold.” — “ No, my dear madam, thank 
 you, it may pass off' directly ; I am subject — ” 
 but here his lordship’s cough again became 
 so violent, that he was obliged to take refuge 
 in the folds of his handkerchief. “ Do, my 
 dear, pray fetch the cough-drops we take in 
 treacle,” said Hopwood ; “ what can we do ? 
 If your lordship would but come a little 
 nearer the fire;” and the more his lordship 
 coughed, the more did Mr. Hopwood stir the 
 fire, and the more did Mrs. Hopwood, in her 
 anxiety to aid his lordship, parade before his 
 vision the apparition of the *• hare’s-foot,” 
 which was the exciting cause of the mischief. 
 At length his lordship’s paroxysms were 
 checked by the opportune arrival of Georgina, 
 who advanced just within the door, half ti- 
 midly, yet without the slightest approach to 
 awkwardness, and bowing gracefully to Lord 
 Walgrave, went to her mother. “ Ah ! 
 Georgina, my love, you are come at last ; let 
 me present you to Lord Walgrave,” said her 
 father. “Really;” said Lord Walgrave, 
 rising, “ and is this young lady your daughter, 
 Hopwood ?” — “ Our only child, my lord,” an- 
 swered the proud parent. “ Then, indeed, I 
 may say sincerely, that I congratulate you 
 upon your good fortune, in calling so very 
 charming a young lady your own,” said Lord 
 W algrave, advancing towards her in his usually 
 graceful manner, to offer his hand. Georgina, 
 before she received or acknowledged the com- 
 pliment of his lordship, had detected the ano- 
 maly of her mother’s head-dress, and with a 
 rapid and almost imperceptible movement, 
 transferred it from its singular position to the 
 fire ; while Mrs. Hopwood, thinking she had 
 only arranged a stray flower, smiled her ap- 
 probation.” 
 
 AFRICAN MONEY. 
 
 Among the many highly interesting speci- 
 mens presented to the Numismatic Society, 
 January 24, 1839, Mr. Holroyd exhibited 
 three curious iron coins of African money, 
 from Cordovan, and read an interesting paper 
 upon them. The form of these was very rude, 
 being not unlike the section of a mushroom, 
 and they were but of recent introduction ; 
 for, when the country was under the domi- 
 nion of Darfour, the only medium of barter 
 or exchange was grain. On its conquest by 
 Ali Pasha, he introduced the Egyptian coins ; 
 but, on account of the low rate at which every 
 article of life was sold, they soon found it ne- 
 cessary to procure some lower medium of cir- 
 culation. Iron ore being very plentiful in the 
 neighbourhood, was employed in the fabrica- 
 tion of these coins, forty of which were worth 
 
128 
 
 THK MIRROR. 
 
 one Egyptian piastre, or 2 \d. sterling. A 
 similar instance of this coinage is recorded 
 by Major Denham, at a village in Africa, 
 where the value of the coin, however, varies, 
 and is settled by the proclamation of the 
 chief. This excites considerable stir and ex- 
 citement, which the bulls and bears take 
 every advantage of ; but a very ‘great cause 
 of its fluctuation is when the chief gives a 
 feast. 
 
 Cije 4Satijmr. 
 
 Titles of the Emperor of Austria. — The 
 following description of the numerous titles 
 of the Emperor of Austria, appeared a short 
 time since in the Journal de Vienne : — Em- 
 peror of Austria ; King of Hungary, Bohe- 
 mia, Lombardy, Venice, Dalmatia, Croatia, 
 Selnvonia, Galicia, Lodonatia, and Illyria; 
 Archduke of Austria ; Grand Duke of Tus- 
 cany ; Duke of Lorraine, Saltzburg, Syria, 
 Carinthia, and the Ukraine; Grand Prince of 
 Transylvania ; Margrave of Moravia ; Duke 
 of Upper and Lower Silesia, Modena, Parma, 
 Placentia, Guastalla, Auschwitz, Zator, Stes- 
 chein, Frioul, Ragusa, and Zara ; sovereign 
 Count of Hapsburg, and the Tyrol, Kiburg, 
 Gorz, and Gradiska ; Prince of Trente and 
 Brienne ; Margrave of Upper and Lower 
 Lusace, and Istria ; Count of Hohnements, 
 Feldkirch, Bregentz, and Sonnenberg, Lord 
 of Trieste, Cattaro, and the March of Vendes. 
 
 W. G. C. 
 
 Solon used to say, that laws are like spider’s 
 webs, which catch whatever is weak and 
 light, but suffer what is strong or weighty to 
 burst through and escape. 
 
 The Zoological Society have purchased a 
 male chimpanzee ; he is from eighteen 
 months to two years old. The last report also 
 States, that the female giraffe is with young. 
 
 Sneerers. — The most insignificant people 
 are the most apt to sneer at others. They are 
 safe from reprisals, and have no hope of rising 
 in their own esteem, but by lowering their 
 neighbours. The severest critics are always 
 those who have either never attempted, or 
 who have failed in original composition — 
 Hazlitt. 
 
 Augustus, hearing that a Roman knight, 
 who had lived extravagantly, had died over- 
 whelmed with debt, and that his goods were 
 to be sold by auction, gave orders to purchase 
 his bedstead. Some of the courtiers express- 
 ing their surprise, “ I should like,” said he, 
 “ to have the bedstead on which a man could 
 sleep, who owed so much.” 
 
 Set Dinners and Suppers. — It is certain 
 the Goths first brought in the custom of set 
 dinners and suppers ; that is, of eating two 
 full meals a-day ; whereas the ancients used 
 to make a light dinner, eating only to prevent 
 the gnawing of the stomach, but at supper 
 
 they would take as much as was fit to main- 
 tain and nourish them. — Rabelais. 
 
 The certain way to be cheated, is to fancy 
 oneself more cunning than others. — Charron. 
 
 Rising and Falling. — Lord Lovat, who 
 was beheaded for the part he took in the re- 
 bellion of 1745, had not risen from bed for 
 the two preceding years. When the news of 
 the Prince’s landing was communicated to 
 him, he started up and cried — ‘ Lassie, bring 
 me my brogues — I’ll rise noo .’ 
 
 Ansivering Letters The best time to 
 
 frame an answer to the letter of a friend, is 
 the moment you receive them : and then the 
 warmth of friendship, and the intelligence re- 
 ceived, most forcibly co-operate. — Temple. 
 
 A young officer of the police, who was sta- 
 tioned on the quay at the Neva, at the setting 
 in of the winter, to prevent any one from at- 
 tempting the passage of the river until it was 
 sufficiently frozen, discovered a person on the 
 ice, who had escaped the notice of the guard 
 on the opposite side. Being apprehensive of 
 his danger, he called to him to return; but 
 the other, heedless of his entreaties and his 
 threats, kept advancing, until the ice gave 
 way under his feet, and he sunk. The guard 
 called for assistance ; but perceiving that 
 none of the spectators attempted to succour 
 the unhappy man, he threw off his coat and 
 plunged in, regardless of his own danger, and 
 by his strength and courage brought the man 
 to the shore, who, two minutes later, must 
 have lost his life. The Emperor Alexander 
 having ai rived on the spot at this interesting 
 moment, addressed the officer in the most 
 flattering terms ; and, giving him a ring from 
 his finger, promoted him to a station greatly 
 superior to the one he filled. W. G. C. 
 
 There is a fine remark recorded of Bet- 
 terton, the actor, who was asked by a cler- 
 gyman, “ How is it that you actors, who 
 speak of imaginary things, produce more 
 effect on your auditors than we do, who dis- 
 course of realities,?” — “ It is because we on 
 the stage, speak of imaginary things as if 
 they were real, while you in the pulpit, 
 speak of real things as if they were ima- 
 ginary.” 
 
 Two coffins, of a rectangular shape, made 
 of oak planks about three inches thick, 
 roughly hewn and nailed together, were 
 lately found on the line of the Bristol and 
 Exeter railway, the locality being that of a 
 Roman station : the skeletons within the 
 coffins were of gigantic size ; one was seven 
 feet long, and the other upwards, of six feet 
 five inches. They crumbled into dust shortly 
 after exposure to the air. 
 
 IjONDON : Printed and published by J.LIMBIRD 
 143, Strand, ( near Somerset Rouse) ; and sold by 
 all Booksellers and Newsmen. — In PARIS, by all 
 the Booksellers.— In FRANCFURT, CHARLES, 
 JUOEL. 
 
Z\)t iWtrvov 
 
 OF 
 
 LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION. 
 
 No. 938.] SATURDAY, MARCH 2, 1839. ( Prick 2rf. 
 
 EASTERN INSTITUTION, COMMERCIAL ROAD. 
 
 Among the many literary and scientific in- 
 stitutions that have of late years been esta- 
 blished in the metropolis for the develop- 
 ment of the human mind, none is more ap- 
 propriately located, than the Eastern Insti- 
 tution in the Commercial Road ; and it 
 has already proved itself a place of great at- 
 traction, particularly on the evenings of the 
 musical performances. 
 
 The architects, Messrs. Hopkins and Gray, 
 have here produced a very commodious struc- 
 ture, although sparingly embellished exter- 
 nally, possesses great degree of dignity. The 
 south end, or front, retires a little distance 
 from the road, and consists chiefly of a Doric 
 tetrastyle, with fluted columns ; there being 
 no windows either within or externally of the 
 portico, which circumstance is in itself fa- 
 vourable to the style adopted for the facade, 
 and stamps it as a public building. The 
 general plan is a parellelogram, about one- 
 half of which is occupied by the great room 
 at the rear, or north end. This apartment, 
 which measures 80 feet by 50, and is 36 
 high, has a segmental arched ceiling, and the 
 wall at the farther end forms a similar curve. 
 
 Vol. XXXIII. K 
 
 It is lighted by a single range of five win- 
 dows on each side, placed at a considerable 
 height from the floor, and dressed with archi- 
 traves and cornices. But, independently of 
 this degree of architectural decoration, the 
 trusses which support the ceiling, and the 
 enrichments of the last-mentioned part, the 
 whole is quite bare, owing to its being at 
 present in an unfinished state, and without 
 any colour whatever to relieve its mouoto- 
 nousness and blankness. On this account, 
 likewise, the two splendid chandeliers with 
 gas-burners, which are of wood, richly carved 
 and gilt, now form too great a contrast with 
 all the rest. Probably some gilding will be 
 applied to the ceiling, and, were it also to be 
 extended to the chain brailles, or dressings of 
 the windows, it would teud greatly to archi- 
 tectural keeping as well as embellishment. 
 In fact, the room requires only to be judi- 
 ciously coloured and decorated to become a very 
 striking one ; its dimensions being noble, and 
 it being admirably fitted in itself to receive 
 embellishment from the pencil, whether of 
 colouring alone, or of design likewise, espe- 
 cially the curved end, in front of which is the 
 
130 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 orchestra. As a concert-noom it is said to be 
 unrivalled, and to be allowed by all the pro- 
 fessionalists who have attended the musical 
 performances that have from time to time 
 been given in it, to be most admirably con- 
 trived for sound — indeed, to be superior in 
 that respect to any other concert-room in the 
 metropolis. The benches have handsome 
 stuffed cushions and mahogany backs, both 
 which can be removed, so that, when the 
 room is required for public meetings, or 
 similar purposes, the seats are transformed 
 into mere forms, which cannot be damaged 
 by persons stepping over them, or standing 
 upon them. Whenever the room comes to 
 be decorated, some additional dressings and 
 embellishments ought to be bestowed upon 
 the door, in order to give it that architectural 
 importance which will make it accord with 
 the size and character of the apartment. 
 
 PETRARCH AND LAURA. 
 
 I sat beside tier, and she seem’d 
 A being betwixt man and angel form'd. 
 
 So lovely was her presence ! — 
 
 I gaz’d on her, and thought, oh, that thine heart 
 Were mine 1 or mine so closely wove 
 Amid the fibres of thine own, that both 
 Might beat in one ! 
 
 For thou art good, art beautiful, and fair. 
 
 And I will love thee with such holy love 
 As angels feel, when to their harps’ high sounds. 
 They chaunt, responsive, melody in heaven. 
 
 INSCRIPTIONS FROM THE BELLS OF 
 KINVER, STAFFORDSHIRE. 
 
 For the Mirror. 
 
 ( Transmitted by Mr. Allen.) 
 
 1 Bell. Cui Dens Pater Ecelesia est Mater.* 
 
 2 ditto. In Christo solo spem meam repouo.f 
 
 3 ditto. In suo templo Numen adoro.f 
 
 4 ditto. Opem petentibus subveuit Deus.§ 
 
 Translations. 
 
 * Whom God is Father to the church is mother to. 
 + In Christ alone I rest my hope, 
 i I adore the Deity in his own temple. 
 
 § God grants help to those who ask for it. 
 
 The above-named bells were cast at Gloucester, by 
 Abel Rudhall, 1746. 
 
 T o **•»#_ 
 
 {For the Mirror.) 
 
 I novicn thee I e’er I knew the meaning of the word, 
 And when as children, we did play. 
 
 And shared each little pleasure. 
 
 Whose voice delighted, or whose praise 
 Sounded so sweet unto mine ears as thine ? 
 
 But years passed on. 
 
 And then, a strange and awkward shyness, 
 
 Came in place of that fond welcome 
 Which in earlier days of childhood, 
 
 I was wont to give thee. 
 
 When the first dawu of womanhood 
 
 Was bursting o’er me, I began to think 
 
 More ou thee, to ponder o’er thy every word and loojc 
 
 Each slight was keenly felt, each kindness 
 
 Made my heart to bound with joy. 
 
 Thy tone, thy touch, would send 
 The tell-tale blood rushing in torrents 
 Over brow and neck. 
 
 And why ? I asked myself should it be thus. 
 
 It was not so with others, nor did I feel 
 
 That pleasure in another’s company I did in thine. 
 
 I had not need to questiou long, it was soon answered. 
 Did I not learn and read from others ? — it was Love I 
 And could I longer hide from my ownself 
 That all my heart was thine, and thine aloue. 
 
 And is my love to thee now chang’d ? 
 Is the tie broken, which then bound me ? 
 
 Nay ! — rather it has strengthened with my yeais. 
 
 And it will last till death, — unless 
 
 Thine own inconstancy shall break the chain. 
 
 M. S-k. 
 
 AN AMERICAN IN ENGLAND. 
 
 In the year 1831, Mr. Maclellan, an Ame- 
 rican student of divinity, came over to Edin- 
 burgh, in order to complete his studies at 
 the University there. Accordingly, he at- 
 tended the lectures of Dr. Chalmers, Profes- 
 sor Wilson, and others, during the session of 
 that, and of the following year ; — devoting 
 the intermediate summer to a tour on the 
 Continent. During the whole of his travels 
 he kept a journal ; and as we had the pleasure 
 of his personal acquaintance while in Edin- 
 burgh, and mingled with him in many of the 
 scenes he describes, we can vouch for the 
 general accuracy of his sketches. His pro- 
 mising career was cut short by death, three 
 months after he reached home ; but his jour- 
 nal, in a condensed form, has been published 
 since ; and may be procured at Mr. Hodson’s 
 “ Depot for American Publications,” Fleet- 
 Street. We intend to extract a few of the 
 graphic descriptions with which the work 
 abounds. They will give our readers an 
 accurate notion of the first impressions pro- 
 duced on a stranger, on visiting our island. 
 
 First View of England. 
 
 After a voyage of twenty days, our ship 
 dropped anchor in the Mersey. Green 
 hedges of hawthorn, supplied the place of our 
 wooden fences and stone-walls. The fields 
 are not planted with apple orchards so thickly 
 as in our land ; but the regular furrows 
 with which nearly the whole landscape was 
 sketched over, indicated a high state of culti- 
 vation. The undulations were soft ; and if, 
 therefore, less striking than the steep hill- 
 sides, retired valleys, and melting lines of 
 beauty which distinguish our scenery, they 
 at least communicated a spirit of unity and 
 studied proportion to the whole view. The 
 houses in the villages stood side by side, in 
 undeviating lines ; and instead of our lovely 
 white cots and villas, a few prominent man- 
 sions reigned over the whole scene. 
 
 Ladies in Hats. 
 
 We were near enough to one of the man- 
 sions to see a servant in livery leading up a 
 pair of saddle-horses ; on which a gentleman 
 and lady mounted, and rode gracefully off, 
 until we lost sight of them behind a grove of 
 trees. *• ] declare,” said a fellow-countryman 
 on board, *• that lady wears her husband's hat 
 capitally.” I afterwards remarked that this 
 was the usual head-dress of ladies when on 
 
THK MIRROR 
 
 131 
 
 horseback. It was singular to iny eyes; but 
 it certainly had an air of security. 
 
 Picture of Liverpool. 
 
 In the midst of the transparent air, there 
 was a dense cloud ; which rose up among a 
 forest of masts, lines of houses, turrets, and 
 steeples. It was the smoke; which, like an 
 evil spirit, hangs day and night over the great 
 city of Liverpool. A little black steamer 
 now came briskly up to us. It was a custom- 
 house boat. It received our letters, and the 
 cabin passengers ; and, in a few minutes, we 
 were running rapidly by the docks ; the mas- 
 sive stone- walls of which shut up the ship- 
 ping of this commercial metropolis. Here 
 and there the large basins communicated, by 
 tide- gates, with the water of the river. The 
 regular character of these docks, and the 
 peculiar slope given to the yards of all the 
 vessels which fill them, have an imposing 
 appearance. Perhaps this unity made its 
 commerce appear to me more extensive than 
 it really is ; for my impression was, that the 
 shipping in the harbour, at that time, did 
 not fall much short of that of New York and 
 Boston combined. I was disappointed with 
 the appearances of the stores [warehouses] 
 along the docks. They were built of brick ; 
 but the brick was not only irregular in shape, 
 when compared with ours ; but its face was 
 rough, and much soiled with dust and coal- 
 smoke. A dark piazza ran along their front ; 
 the face of the buildings resting on square 
 pillars. As far as we could see, all was 
 bustle. Heavy drays, and large wagons drawn 
 by huge horses and loaded with cotton, thun- 
 dered over the pavements. Three things 
 struck me in particular, as soon as I entered 
 Liverpool ; — the large size and powerful 
 appearance of the dray-horses ; the vast ex- 
 tent and prison-like aspect of the warehouses ; 
 and the convenience and stability of the 
 docks. But while the warehouses were so 
 immense, the streets were narrow and choked 
 up; — the side-walks by men, women, and 
 children (nearly all of whom were clothed in 
 wretched garments) ; and the rest of the 
 street by carts loaded with merchandize. A 
 narrow strip of sky, grey with smoke, shone 
 dimly above ; lighting up the street, it is 
 tme ; but not with that transparent bright- 
 ness which cheers our towns. The shops in 
 these streets had a contracted and indigent 
 air. After breakfast, I walked with my 
 American companion to the upper part of the 
 town. In this direction the city had more 
 the air of Boston, or New York, than the 
 streets which I had hitherto seen. In gene- 
 ral, however, the houses (which were arranged 
 like our own, in connected streets or retired 
 “ courts,”) were not so elegant as the ranges 
 which distinguish our cities. They were 
 not so much adorned by beautiful porticoes, 
 piazzas, and blinds, as our habitations. The 
 
 K 2 
 
 brick was not so smooth ; it was rarely 
 painted white ; it was not sustained on gra- 
 nite-bases, as is almost always the case with 
 us ; nor were the handles of the doors, and 
 the bell knobs, so often plaited with silver as 
 is usual in our cities. Yet if, in general, 
 the houses fell beneath our own in brightness 
 and beauty, nevertheless there were, here and 
 there, houses of uncommon splendour ; which 
 would have surpassed our most expensive 
 buildings. I expected this. Wealth is mo- 
 nopolized by the few ; hence there is not that 
 beautiful gradation of style which characte- 
 rizes everything at home. You would look, 
 therefore, tor shoeless beggars and brilliant 
 equipages; and you fiud them. The society 
 ot Liverpool, so far as I came into contact 
 with it, I found refined and agreeable. An 
 American who goes to Liverpool expecting to 
 find beauty, brilliaucy, and life impressed on 
 everything, will be disappointed. It un- 
 doubtedly possesses a vast amount of wealth ; 
 but this must be seen in its costly docks, and 
 extensive warehouses, and the canals which 
 glide into its deep treasure-houses, and its 
 path-way of iron, with its cars laden with 
 precious merchandize. Of its politeness and 
 affability, he must not take the first outward 
 appearance as the measure ; for behind the 
 dark and unprepossessing appearances which 
 strike him at first, he will find there all th e 
 sweet courtesies which give a charm to life. 
 
 An English Equipage. 
 
 Here comes a splendid carriage ! How it 
 whirls along ! It has four horses. Two 
 “jockeys ” bestride them; — bobbing up and 
 down, as they kick and spur along at a furi- 
 ous rate. They are a singular genus ; — much 
 the same all over England. They are accou- 
 tred in a round riding-cap, a short blue pea- 
 coat, tight buckskin breeches, white-top- 
 boots, spurs, and a short whip ; and have a 
 round red face, just suited to their habili- 
 ments. The footman peers up proudly be- 
 hind. He looks with elevated disdain on all 
 beneath his conspicuous station. In his 
 gold-laced hat, his new blue coat profusely 
 decorated with the same, his red velvet- 
 breeches, his white silk-stockings, his po- 
 lished shoes, and his unsullied wash-leather 
 gloves, behold the man of place and dignity ! 
 The carriage stopped at a splendid house we 
 were passing. One “ jockey ” sprung from 
 his horse ; the footman tripped down from 
 behind ; pulled the bell ; and a kindred spirit 
 opened the door, bowing his powdered head 
 most complacently. The carriage-door was 
 opened ; and a very beautiful, graceful, and 
 elegantly-dressed young lady was handed out. 
 She entered, and we passed on ; while the 
 uvo lacqueys exchanged compliments toge- 
 ther on the steps. We admired the beautiful 
 complexion of the lady; and the elegant sim- 
 plicity of her dress. An elegant simplicity 
 
132 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 of taste seemed to me always a pleasing 
 characteristic of English ladies of the first 
 rank. There is not so much of the French 
 diversity of dress. Beauty is never so attrac- 
 tive, as when simply, yet elegantly adorned. 
 It shines like the diamond out of the chaste 
 gold which it decorates. N. R. 
 
 jRSannettf anfc Customs. 
 
 loud Auckland’s visit to maharajah 
 
 RANJEET SINGH. 
 
 This imposing interview took place, Nov. 
 30, 1838. The Governor-general, (Lord Auck- 
 land) and his suite, having nearly approached 
 the camp of Maharajah, a discharge of artil- 
 lery announced that he had left his tents, and 
 in a few minutes afterwards, his highness 
 might be seen coming to meet his noble 
 visitors, in all the ‘ pomp and circumstance’ 
 peculiar to an oriental procession. 
 
 The scene which now presented itself is 
 utterly beyond description. All that the ima- 
 gination can conceive of human grandeur, all 
 that the most exuberant fancy can devise in 
 its endeavours to portray the scene of royal 
 splendour, was here bodied forth. Adown 
 the avenue formed by the serried ranks of 
 hundreds of steady horsemen, whose steel 
 casques and gay appointments glittered in the 
 sun, moved two masses of elephants, bearing 
 on their lofty backs the mightiest potentates 
 of the Orient, seated in their gorgeous how- 
 dahs, and attended by the chief officers of 
 their respective courts, sumptuously attired. 
 Beyond were seen columns upon columns of 
 scarlet-clad and helmeted troops, “ all fur- 
 nished, all in arms, 1 ’ arrayed with a precision 
 and preserving a steadiness worthy of the best 
 European discipline; while behind and about 
 their ranks, stretching to the east and to the 
 west, was an extensive encampment, in the 
 centre of which were numerous tents of crim- 
 son and gold, indicating the chosen abode of 
 a powerful military chieftain. Crowded to- 
 gether, at viewing distance from the legions, 
 thousands of spectators of the humbler classes 
 stood in ranks, preserving a silence, a deco- 
 rum, and an immobility, which proved the ex- 
 istence of a severe military discipline, even in 
 the walks of civil life. No shouts rent the 
 air, save the licensed clamours of some rude 
 faqueer; no vociferous cheers manifested 
 the exuberant joyousness of a happy popula- 
 tion. The admiration of the people — if ad- 
 miration it were--was only depicted in their 
 silent awe and breathless astonishment, or 
 kept in check by the apprehension of high 
 displeasure. Not many minutes elapsed be- 
 fore the transient view here attempted to be 
 described was interrupted by the rencontre 
 of the two stately processions. It was not 
 difficult to distinguish the Maharajah from 
 his proud and gallant Sirdars, seated on a 
 
 ponderous elephant iti the centre of fhe line, 
 and habited, as the day before, in his dark 
 crimson shawl-cloth tunic, trousers, and tur- 
 ban. without any tinsel or trinkets — in short, 
 without any relief to the uniformity of his 
 exterior than that presented by a flowing 
 white beard; the sagacious old man came 
 out in strong contrast with his richly-clad at- 
 tendants and chieftains. On closing with the 
 Governor-general, who, dressed in the blue 
 and gold uniform of a minister of state, bore 
 himself throughout as a nobleman might be 
 expected to do on such an occasion, the 
 Makarajah saluted his lordship, and received 
 him into his howdah, upon which the cannon 
 again “ spoke to the trumpet,” and the 
 columns of elephants, now united, proceeded 
 to the durbar tents. The arrival at the desti- 
 nation was the signal for another salute from 
 the batteries of Runjeet Singh’s horse ar- 
 tillery, while bands of music, uncommonly 
 well trained, played our national anthem, and 
 loud clarions proclaimed the glory of the 
 Maharajah. The tents were enclosed within 
 a vast area of crimson cloth walls, about nine 
 feet high, and decorated with yellow lace. 
 Within the enclosure, in well-arranged ranks, 
 forming numerous allies and guards of honour, 
 stood some 2,000 or 3 000 of the household 
 troops of the Maharajah, clad, for the most 
 part, in crimson silk, or elegant kincaub, and 
 armed with highly-polished matchlocks and 
 shields. The most perfect order, the most 
 profound silence prevailed, broken only by 
 the royal band (formerly in the service of the 
 Begum Sumroo,) and the murmurs of appro- 
 bation proceeding from European lips. Alight- 
 ing within this splendid enclosure, the Maha- 
 rajah conducted Lord Auckland, the Com- 
 mander-in-chief, and their suite, to the durbar 
 tent, which consisted of a splendidly-carpeted 
 floor, provided with numerous gold and silver 
 chairs, and covered in'by a spacious surmeeaun, 
 lined with shawl cloth, placed in front of the 
 Maharajah’s principal pavilion. Here the 
 whole assembly took their seats, and the 
 ceremony of the introductions took place, 
 Major Wade, and Mr. W. H. Macnaghten, 
 who sat on Lord Auckland’s right, acting as 
 interpreters on the behalf of the English 
 visitors. As the British officers were severally 
 introduced to Runjeet Singh, he addressed a 
 few words to them, and rallied Colonel Skin- 
 ner upou their old acquaintanceship. The 
 principal Sirdars then presented themselves, 
 and severally did homage to their chief, re- 
 ceiving a few complimentary salaams, and 
 now and then an expression of good will. 
 When the presentations were over, a band of 
 Nautch girls, bedizened with jewellery, and 
 beautified after their fashion with missee, 
 silver-dust, &e. were called in, and formed a 
 little circle, while the most celebrated baya- 
 dere treated the company to a few of those 
 singular movements, which here pass for 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 133 
 
 dancing. The shawls, tiinkets, cloths, &c., 
 which constituted the presents on these occa- 
 sions, were now brought in, exhibited, and 
 then appropriated by the officers of the Go- 
 vernor-general’s suite after the ordinary sys- 
 tem. The horses, &c., were then inspected ; 
 and here terminated the ceremonials of the 
 meeting on the modern “ Field of the Cloth 
 of Gold.” Some little time was passed in 
 visiting the different tents, inspecting the fur- 
 niture and other paraphernalia, and con- 
 versing with the chief sirdars; and the Go- 
 vernor-general then offered his adieus to the 
 Maharajah, resumed his seat in the howdah, 
 and departed in the order of his coming, the 
 horse artillery, as before, honouring the event 
 by a royal salute. 
 
 HUNGER AND GOLD. 
 
 Pitiiius, a Lydian prince, had many gold 
 mines in his small dominions. His poor 
 subjects were used like slaves, and he con- 
 strained them to work in his mines, by day and 
 night, without giving them the least respite. 
 His princess, who had a large portion of 
 good sense and humanity, was desirous to re- 
 form this inordinate passion in her husband, 
 for though he possessed such large quantities 
 of gold, he was reluctant to purchase even 
 the necessaries of life, and his only pleasure 
 was to hoard it up, and the beholding of it 
 with his insatiable eyes. 
 
 Seeing a favourable opportunity, when he 
 returned one day from the amusements of 
 the chase, exceedingly hungry, she took care 
 to have large chargers full of massy wedges 
 of gold served in for dinner. The prince was, 
 at first, much pleased with the spectacle, and 
 gazed upon the gold with peculiar affection ; 
 but this delightful and brilliant sight did not 
 remove the urgent cravings of hunger, and 
 he begged of his princess that he might have 
 something to eat. 
 
 The prudent princess then addressed her 
 husband with a smiling countenance, “Now 
 is not this what you like best.’’ “ You 
 jest,” said the prince, “ I cannot feed upon 
 gold; and I might starve, though I had in 
 possession all the treasures of that rich metal 
 which the world can afford.” The princess 
 replied, (f it must, therefore, be a great fault, 
 and the extreme of folly, to have so great a 
 passion for a thing that lies useless in your 
 chests. Be persuaded, my dear prince, that 
 sums locked up are not wealth, and are only 
 valuable when they are exchanged for the 
 necessaries and comforts of life.” Pithius 
 took the hint given by his prudent and hu- 
 mane princess. He was quickly so altered 
 in his dispositions, that he became as gene- 
 rous as he had formerly been covetous. 
 
 HOROLOGIA HISTORIA. 
 
 THE CLOCK-SPHERES OF THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 ( For the Mirror.') 
 
 It is probable, that from the most remote 
 times there have been methods of different 
 kinds, and instruments of various forms and 
 principles, used to keep some kind of an ac- 
 count of time ; the variation of the lengths 
 and different positions of the shadows cast 
 by vertical objects, would, doubtless, be the 
 first observations made for determining the 
 different times of the day ; for the shadows of 
 objects, as is well known, follow in an oppo- 
 site direction of the sun ; thus, in all coun- 
 tries, and at all times, when the sun is 
 rising in the east, the shadows of objects 
 cast on any plane will be towards the west; 
 and on the contrary, when the sun is westerly, 
 the shadow falls eastward ; and at the time of 
 the sun’s coming to the meridian, the shadows 
 east will tall in a line at right angles to the 
 equator, or due north and south. All these 
 remarkable changes could, I should imagine, 
 not fail to arrest the attention of man, 
 even in the most rude and uncivilized state — 
 for the patriarchs of old, accustomed as they 
 were to seek the shelter afforded by the fine 
 trees of their climate, must have observed, 
 and, perhaps, with astonishment, the con- 
 tinual motion of the shade under which they 
 delighted to sit, whilst enjoying their meals, 
 or sheltering themselves, during repose, from 
 the noontide heat — from which it is easy to 
 imagine that the first instrument used to 
 keep an account of time, would be some 
 sort of machine, so constructed, as to imi- 
 tate the motions of the shadows cast by ver- 
 tical objects; and the idea derives considerable 
 support from the curious fact, that the very 
 first instrument recorded, is precisely of this 
 nature, namely, the famous dial of Flhaz, of 
 which we learn, from biblical history, that 
 about seven hundred and thirteen years before 
 the birth of Christ, the King Hezekiah re- 
 volted against the Assyrian King Sennacharib, 
 to whom he was tributary, but was overpowered 
 by Sennacherib, who took from him several 
 of his fortified cities, and ultimately threat- 
 ened Jerusalem ; and Hezekiah finding that 
 he was in danger of losing both his life and 
 kingdom, made his peace as he could with 
 the Assyrian conqueror ; and about this time 
 he was taken seriously ill, and warned by the 
 Prophet Isaiah of his approaching end, but, 
 by his prayers and entreaties, he induced the 
 Lord to order the prophet to return to him, 
 and promise that not only should he recover, 
 but also that his life should be prolonged fifteen 
 years, and his kingdom saved from the im- 
 pending danger of Syrian invasion ; but He- 
 zekiah scarcely crediting these contradictory 
 communications from the prophet, he asked 
 for some signal proof, which the prophet ob- 
 tained for him by his prayers ; and this proof 
 
134 
 
 TIIK MIRROR. 
 
 was the recession of the shadow on the dial 
 ten degrees. The literal meaning of the origi- 
 nal words are, “ And the Lord brought back 
 the shadow of the steps, or degrees which 
 was gone down by the dial, or degrees of 
 Ahaz, ten degrees or steps.’’ It is extremely 
 difficult either to understand the nature or 
 form of this dial, or the literal meaning of 
 the text ; but in regard to the former, per- 
 haps the nearest conclusion is, that it was 
 nothing more than the pannels of the steps 
 or stairs leading to the palace; for the origi- 
 ginal Hebrew word ‘‘ Megaloth’’ means no- 
 thing more than “ steps, stairs, degrees, or 
 ascents;” and this is the version of the Sep- 
 tuagint, and also, as such it has been trans- 
 lated by the Chaldiac Pharaphrasts, which 
 they rendered by the Greek word “ ava€aO - 
 /i vg,” which is of the same meaning and sig- 
 nification ; it has also been called the “ stone 
 of time.” And most of the various transla- 
 tions make “ Maloth’’ of Ahaz, either 
 “ fl aO/Avg” or “ avaSad/zvg ;’’ and it may not 
 he uninteresting to know that the Syriac, 
 Arabic, and other versions, give it the same 
 meaning. There are some who have endea- 
 voured to give an account and description of 
 this dial, but their attempts are but guess 
 work, and unsatisfactory, and not to be de- 
 pended upon ; because, from the paucity of 
 the information we have of it, and the length 
 of time elapsed since the miracle happened, we 
 have no means of verifying their assertions. 
 
 It has also been a point of controversy, 
 whether the retrogradalion of the shadow 
 was occasioned by the actual recession ot the 
 sun, or merely of the shadow on the diul alone; 
 the general opinion appears to be that it was 
 confined to the mere recession of the sun’s 
 rays on the dial ; and this, it is argued, is sup- 
 ported by the fact, that some of the neigh- 
 bouring kings actually sent ambassadors to 
 Hezekiah to know whether this was really the 
 case or not, because no such phenomena had 
 been observed by them, which would have been 
 the case, undoubtedly, had the sun himself 
 gone back ten degrees, and it is therefore con- 
 cluded, that this effect was produced by the 
 recession of the sun’s rays onl)' ; but this 
 does not form any part of our inquiry ; it is 
 sufficient for our purpose to know that this 
 is the first time-measuring instrument oi 
 which we have any records, and which is 
 brought forward as an illustration ol the asser- 
 tion, that the'idea probably originated lrom 
 observing the variations of the lengths of 
 shadows cast by vertical objects. 
 
 And it may be observed here, once for all, 
 that I do not profess to give a detailed ac- 
 count of all the instruments, but only a rapid 
 glance of the progress made towards perfec- 
 tion, omitting many instruments that partake 
 of time-measurers, but are not noticed here, 
 as not coming within the precise nature of 
 the views of this dissertation. 
 
 Among the Greeks and Romans, there were 
 
 principally two methods of measuring their 
 time, which they had already divided into 
 hours, each being of very different principles, 
 the first of which is the solaria,” or sun-dial, 
 and the second, the instrument called the 
 “ r)Aeir\pudgia” or the Clepsydrae, commonly 
 termed hour-glasses ; and they were some- 
 times also called “ Clepsammidium,’’ which 
 is derived from <f tjAinJ/a/i./uSioj',” and they are 
 defined as being horologium quo metimur 
 floras ejjdetu arena; that is, a clock mea- 
 suring time or the hours by the running of 
 sand ; but this appears to have been a later 
 mode of making them ; for we find, “ nam 
 antiquii aquarn in clepsydris ponebant sicut 
 nunc arenas from which we evidently 
 learn that water wcs the first thing they em- 
 ployed in making their hour-glasses, and they 
 are defined “ est etiam astronomicum orga- 
 num, sydera dimentients from which we 
 find that they employed them in their astrono- 
 mical operations. Suidas and Phavorinus also 
 mention that they were employed for this 
 purpose ; and we are farther informed by 
 Phavorinus, that it was “ a vessel having a 
 little hole in the bottom, which was set in the 
 courts of judicature, full of water, by which 
 the orators pleaded and this, according to 
 the same authority, was to prevent a useless 
 waste of time, by long and unnecessary speak- 
 ing, a fault, it appears, to which the ancient 
 pleaders were addicted, as well as our modern 
 orators. This mode of speaking by time, 
 was an old custom of the ancient Greeks, and 
 was introduced at Rome by Pompey, the third 
 time he was consul. It is plain that there are 
 many sources of error in the construction of 
 these hour-glasses ; for if we allow the time to 
 have been counted or measured by the spout- 
 ing of the fluid, it will be plain that it will 
 
 * Hour-glasses were made use of by the preachers 
 in the da>s of Cromwell, who, on their first getting 
 into the pulpit, and flaming the text, turned up the 
 glass, and if the sermon did not last till the glass 
 was out. it was said by the congregation that the 
 preacher was lazy ; and if he continued to preach 
 much longer, they would yawn, and stretch ; and by 
 these signs signify to the preacher, that they begau 
 to be weary of Ids discourse, and wanted to be dis- 
 missed.* 
 
 Hogarth, in his “ Sleeping Congregation,” has 
 introduced an hour-glass. Ireland, in describing the 
 above print, f gives the following anecdote : 
 
 “ Daniel Burgess, of whimsical memory, never 
 preached without an hour glass, and lie frequently 
 saw it out three times during one sermon. In a dis- 
 course which lie once delivered at the conventicle in 
 Kussel-court, Drury-lane, against drunkenness., some 
 of his hearers began to yawn at the end of the second 
 glass ; hut Daniel was not to he silenced by a yawn; 
 he turned Ids time-keeper, and altering the tone of 
 his voice, desired they would be patient a while longer, 
 for lie had a much more to say upon the sin of drunk- 
 enness ; * therefore,’ added he, * my frieudls and 
 brethren, we will have another glass— and them !' ” 
 
 Hour-glasses are now very rarely to be met with in 
 our churches, but there .s one on the right of the 
 reading-desk of the church of St. Alban, Wood-street, 
 London. — Ed. M. 
 
 * Gent. Mag. vol. 74, p. 201. 
 
 f See Hogarth illustrated, vol. 1, p. 110. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 135 
 
 continually decrease in velocity, according as 
 the head of water decreases, — therefore they 
 must either have had some mechanical means 
 of graduating them, or of having them main- 
 tained at constantly the same head of water;— 
 but whatever may have been the exact mode 
 of regulating them, I have not been able to 
 find in any authority. 
 
 Ancient sculpture has, in some instances, 
 given us a slight knowledge of their form, 
 •which appear mostly to be in shape similar 
 to what we now call minute-glasses : if the 
 instrument was of this nature, it would, as 
 an inevitable consequence, have required a 
 constant attendant to have inverted it 
 when run out ; but the previous description 
 expressly states, that they had a hole in the 
 •bottom, whence we must certainly infer that 
 this was not the form of the clepsydrae here 
 alluded to. Who was the actual inventor of 
 them is not easy, at this distance of time, to 
 infer; but Censorinus, in his De die Nat, 
 attributes the invention to P. Cornelius Nas- 
 cia, or, as Pliny calls him, the Censor 
 Scipio Nascia, in the following words : — 
 
 “ Primus aqua divisit koras atque noc - 
 tium ac dierum idque horologium sub lecto 
 decavit, anno Urbis 595 i” that is, ‘‘Scipio 
 Nascio was the first that measured the hours 
 by water, by night as well as by day, and 
 that clock he dedicated within doors, in the 
 year U. C. 595,” which time would be about 
 the era of Judas Maccabeus, or about 150 
 years before the birth of Christ. It is rather 
 difficult to understand the exact meaning of 
 the latter part of the sentence used by Pliny, 
 namely, “sub lecto decavit ’ the literal mean- 
 ing of lecto is to cover, or under shelter or roof; 
 hence, sub lecto may be read, as in the text, 
 
 “ within doors.” 
 
 This short account would lead us to con- 
 clude that there was some contrivance or other 
 to maintain the clock in a constant state of 
 action, and also to regulate it, by means not 
 handed down to us ; for this was a water-clock. 
 In modern times, we have had several in- 
 stances of water-clocks being made ; amongst 
 many of which, we cite the clock made by 
 Newton, when a boy, which, however, like 
 the rest, was not of much service, either for 
 common use, or the more exact purpose of 
 astronomical observations. But, however, all 
 this vagueness, which characterises the ac- 
 counts and descriptions that have reached us, 
 will give us some idea of the great difficulty 
 the ancients must have had to combat in their 
 astronomy ; and as so much depends upon 
 the accuracy of the time in astronomy, we 
 may wonder however they made so many dis- 
 coveries in this beautiful and difficult science 
 as they did, and cannot fail to admire their 
 patience and industry, which alone could 
 surmount so many difficulties. We may here 
 observe, that the ancients did not reckon their 
 time as we do, but from sun- rising, and their 
 
 method of counting the dimensions of the 
 day, differed from ours ; the modern day is 
 divided into 24 equal hours, or parts, but the 
 ancient hour was equal to a twelfth part of 
 the day, let what might be the length of the 
 day ; and it must therefore be plain, that the 
 hours were longer in summer than in win- 
 ter. It is not difficult to find the ratio of one 
 of these ancient hours to a modern one ; 
 and amongst the Babylonians, Grecians and 
 Romans, three of these hours constituted a 
 “ Vigilia,”or watch, and amongst most of the 
 ancients generally. 
 
 The other method of measuring time, namely, 
 by the solaria, or sun-dial, appears from all 
 the accounts to be of prior date to the clepsy- 
 drae, as stated at the beginning of this paper. 
 Pliny, in the second book of his Natural His- 
 tory, states, that “ Anaximenes Milesius, the 
 pupil of Anaximander, invented dialing, and 
 was the first that showed a sun-dial at Lace- 
 demon.” 
 
 Vitruvius calls him Milesius Anaximan- 
 der, in his well-known book (De Architeo, 
 &c.) Anaximander was one of the ancient 
 philosophers who supported the famous opinion 
 of Pythagoras, that the earth revolved round 
 the sun, and that the sun, and not the earth, 
 was the centre of the world ; and according to 
 some, it is believed that they even taught the 
 doctrine of the plurality of worlds. 
 
 Having now given a rapid sketch of the 
 early history and opinions as to the origin of 
 the method of time-measuring, &c., previous 
 to the introduction of clock-work, or, more 
 properly speaking, wheel-work, 1 shall pass at 
 once to a summary description of such ma- 
 chines as are to be found mentioned in the 
 works of the ancients, at all worth noticing. M 
 
 And the first of these, is that of Dionysius, 
 which is mentioned by the historian and 
 biographer Plutarch, in his life of Diony- 
 sius, in which he speaks of a remarkable 
 piece of mechanism, but what it was he 
 does not expressly state ; it appears to 
 have been nothing more than a sun dial of 
 some kind ; and therefore, as well as for want 
 of more precise information respecting it, we 
 shall say no more about it. 
 
 There is also one mentioned by Eusebius, 
 which belonged to Sapor, one of the kings of 
 Persia; but whether this king was contempo- 
 rary with that of Constantine the Great, 
 does not sufficiently appear ; so inexact are 
 the chronicles of the ancient historians. Car- 
 dan, an illustrious mathematician of the mid- 
 dle of the lfith century, and author of the 
 well-known Algebraic Formulas that are 
 called by his name, says, that Sapor could sit 
 in the middle of it, and see its stars rise and 
 set, and that it was made of glass ; according 
 to this account, it would appear to have been 
 a large and peculiarly-constructed sphere ; 
 but how the king could possibly contrive to 
 sit in the centre of it, is not easy to be con- 
 
THK MIRROR. 
 
 136 
 
 ceived ; neither does the account state whether 
 this curious machine was moved by clock- 
 work, or whether it had any regular motion 
 at all ; but the account stating that the stars 
 in it appeared to rise and set, we therefore 
 infer that it must have had a motion of some 
 sort ; but it is extremely difficult to reconcile 
 its motion with the statement of the king 
 being able to sit in the middle of it. 
 
 Vitruvius gives a description of another 
 machine of this nature, which is too long 
 to quote here, it appears to have been a 
 piece of clock-work moved by water — the 
 French edition of Vitruvius gives an engrav- 
 ing of it ; this instrument performed a great 
 variety of feats, such as blowing trumpets; 
 according to some accounts, which the words 
 of Vitruvius in no way states, it showed the 
 hours through every month of the year, and 
 was capable of projecting stones ; the original 
 words relating to this feat are, “ Calculi aut 
 tona projecitur and this also refers to its 
 power of sounding trumpets. And it is 
 not a little curious, that from these three 
 words nearly all the musical historians have 
 laid claim to it as being an hydraulicon, or 
 water-organ ; whether they are justified in so 
 doing depends upon the extension they give 
 to the meaning of “ tona,” for Vitruvius 
 himself appears to be somewhat at a loss 
 here, for lie uses the indefinite “ aut ,” in- 
 stead of the positive (L et.” The maker of 
 this curious machine, according to Vitruvius, 
 was one Ctesibius, the sou of a barber of 
 Alexandria, and a philosopher of some note, 
 who flourished under Ptolemy Evergetes, ac- 
 cording to Athenseus ; if so, he lived about one 
 hundred and forty years before the birth of 
 Christ. Dalby Lockwood. 
 
 (To be concluded in our next.') 
 
 MONK FISH. 
 
 The following description of a curious fish is 
 given in the History and Memoirs of the 
 Royal Academy of Sciences, at Paris, for the 
 year 1759 Some fishermen, who had been 
 out to catch tunny, near the port Cette, on 
 finding their nets heavier than usual, dragged 
 them to shore, when they discovered a mon- 
 strous fish, having, between the head and the 
 thickest part of the body, five large mem- 
 branes, in the form of a monk’s hood, which 
 occasioned them to give it the name of monk 
 fish. Under those membranes were holes, 
 through which the water passed in and out 
 with impetuosity ; its skin was rough, scaly, 
 and cutting or sharp like the sea-dog. It 
 was twenty-two feet in length, and seventeen 
 in circumference in the largest part of its 
 body ; its head was four feet long, with a 
 snout that advanced upwards of a foot beyond 
 the mouth, which was very wide, and of the 
 form of a crescent underneath : it was lur- 
 uished with very small and sharp teeth, 
 which jutted out a little : the nostrils were 
 
 under the extremity of the snout: the eyes 
 were little in proportion to its size, being not 
 much more than an inch in diameier : the 
 breadth of the five detached and floating 
 membranes was upwards of two feet ; and 
 the organs of hearing, which were concealed 
 under them, were garnished with flexible 
 barbs, that formed a kind of grate work : 
 there were three fins on each side, and two 
 eminences on the back. It weighed nearly 
 fifty quintals. A dozen of lampreys were 
 found adhering to its sides when the fishermen 
 disengaged it from their nets. — W. G. C. 
 
 THE MAGNIFICENT TRIUMPHAL 
 ARCH AT DJ1MMILAH. 
 
 The most remarkable object in all Africa, is 
 a splendid triumphal arch, in perfect preserva- 
 tion, at Djimmilah. The sculpture of the 
 cornices, capitals, aud freezes, which are of 
 the Corinthian order, remind me of the finest 
 works of Rome. The inscription, which re- 
 mains entire, informs us that it was dedicated 
 to Caracalla, and Julia, his mother, in the 
 thftd century of the Christian era. A few 
 paces from this are the remains of a temple, 
 with four pedestals, each supporting a statue, 
 one of Severus, and one of Venus, but the 
 other two are. unknown. Opposite to the 
 triumphal arch is a circus, still in good con- 
 dition. Sepulchral inscriptions abound here, 
 as in all parts, and every thing concurs in 
 proving that Djimmilah, the ancient Culcu- 
 lum Colonia, was an important Roman station, 
 and in fact a capital city. Near the ruins at 
 Mons was found a fragment of sculpture, re- 
 presenting Roman soldiers, wrought in a pure 
 style. Not far from this were observed a 
 number of tombs, close to each other, four or 
 five of which appear to have been perfectly 
 uninjured. The upper stones alone have been 
 removed, merely to admit of a search for the 
 contents, the Arabs having been satisfied 
 with opening without destroying them. On 
 arriving at Serif, our notice was first attracted 
 by the ruins of a citadel, forming a rec- 
 tangle, abou: 200 yards by 150 yards. We 
 counted ten towers on the walls, placed at un- 
 equal distances, and in positions to flank each 
 other. The stones with which this citadel 
 was built, were evidently taken from some 
 more ancient structure, and we hence infer 
 that it was not erected by the Romans. 
 Among the ruins we turned up several ca- 
 pitals of a rude and irregular order. There 
 were, in fact, three generations of ruins. 
 Some of the towers have been converted by 
 the Beys into silos. Every opening in the 
 sides is carefully closed up, and the corn is 
 let down from an aperture in the roof, which, 
 when the silo is full, is also closed up, and 
 when the corn is wanted for consumption, a 
 new opening is made at the bottom, by which 
 it is taken out — Correspondent of the Debats ; 
 inserted in the Times Journal , 1839. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 137 
 
 NORTH-EASTERN ANGLE OF THE CITY WALLS AT ROCHESTER. 
 
 The above engraving will convey to the 
 reader not only a representation of the vene- 
 rable relic named above, but also enable him 
 to form some idea of those propugnacula, 
 or bulwarks, by which our civic forefathers 
 were erst defended. The wall, which is 
 about thirty feet high, is remarkably entire 
 near this point, and still retains its ancient 
 form and embrasures, but the circular tower 
 at the angle was probably of greater altitude. 
 It consists, at present, of three stages ; the 
 second having long narrow windows, at once 
 affording light, and the means of annoying 
 an enemy : the third, or upper stage, was, 
 no doubt, crowned with embrasures similar 
 to the wall. Within this tower is a winding 
 staircase. The walls of Rochester, of which 
 there are considerable remains, are of great 
 antiquity, having been mentioned so far 
 back as the time of Ethelbert, A. D. 600, 
 in a grant which he made to the neighbour- 
 ing cathedral ; and from the Roman bricks 
 now, or until lately, to be seen in them, 
 there is very little doubt of its having been a 
 fenced city, though the general appearance 
 of the present relics only allow us to con- 
 sider them coeval with the walls of the ad- 
 joining castle, which they exactly resemble ; 
 both having been repaired by Edward the 
 Fourth, in or about 1472. C. S. 
 
 dFtiu &rt£l. 
 
 THOUGHTS OCCASIONED BY THE APPEAR- 
 ANCE OF PREMATURE DECAY IN THE 
 PAINTINGS OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 There is not perhaps a more humiliating 
 sensation in the breast of the man who really 
 loves his country, and rejoices in the pro- 
 gress of her arts, than the sad conviction 
 
 that some of her brightest ornaments are 
 sinking into premature oblivion. Such have 
 been my feelings both in the public reposi- 
 tory and private gallery, when the works of 
 this illustrious artist have been presented to 
 my view ; and I have lamented that while 
 Titian and Rembrandt ramained in unsul- 
 lied purity of colour, and the sunshine of 
 Claude illuminated every landscape with its 
 fascination and glory, many of the produc- 
 tions of the man who could raise by his 
 transcendent talents, the degraded and fal- 
 len English School of Art, and at the same 
 time elevate himself to the highest point of 
 pictorial greatness, should show but too evi- 
 dent symptoms of decay. I would that I 
 were mistaken, and that others might con- 
 vince me of erroneous judgment 1 But alas ! 
 there are not a few who will be inclined to 
 agree with me, and think, that even as the 
 shades of night fall thickly upon and obscure 
 the beautiful landscape, which during the day 
 we have been delighted to contemplate, so 
 is there reason to fear that the nullifying 
 spirit of obscuration is covering the splendid 
 works of Sir Joshua with its wings. Nor 
 need we go far for proofs of this regretted fact : 
 for both at Dulwich and the National Gal- 
 lery are instances at. once painful to the 
 artist and the Englishman. Who can re- 
 gard any of the beautiful pictures of Claude 
 in the Angerstein Collection, magnificent in 
 composition, glowing in all the beauty of their 
 magic lights, and faultless in perspective ; 
 or study the stupendous painting of the Rape 
 of Ganymede by the matchless Titian, and 
 Lazarus again revivified , if I may use such 
 a pleonasm, by the pencil of Sebastiano del 
 Piombo — who, I repeat, can look upon these 
 exquisite gems, their colours all rich, all 
 biightly glowing, as it were, in the garments 
 
133 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 of yesterday, though ages have elapsed since 
 the hand that painted became motionless 
 and cold, and then turn to the Banished 
 Lord, or the Holy Family, in the same col- 
 lection, without exclaiming, in the anguish 
 of his heart, Ichabod ! Ichabod ! the glory is 
 departing from among us ? It would be 
 well, if while sympathising in an exile’s 
 fate, which the melancholy countenance 
 pourtrayed in this matchless painting never 
 fails to bring vividly on the speculum of the 
 mind, or regretting the sad discoloration 
 which has taken place in the latter-mentioned 
 beautiful picture, which has been con- 
 sidered as one of the first productions that 
 ever emanated from Sir Joshua’s pencil, we 
 could console ourselves with the reflection 
 that these were the only instances. But no, 
 the same lamentable contrast is visible else- 
 where ; the picture at Dulwich, of “ Mrs. Sid- 
 dons, in the character of the Tragic Muse,” is 
 fast fading away; and 1 fear that no great 
 period will elapse ere it will become to us, 
 even as the form it was intended to represent, 
 lost and irrecoverable. The “ Death of 
 Beaufort” is another proof of the declination 
 1 deplore ; though perhaps the composition 
 of this picture will enable many to say, that 
 it might be better spared than any other of 
 his works; for notwithstanding the eulogium 
 of Opie, who professes to know of “ none 
 in modern times who availed himselt of 
 poetic license with more address than Sir 
 Joshua did in this instance,” and who de- 
 clares, what possibly may be the fact, with 
 one exception, that “ the varied beauties of 
 this work might well employ a great part of 
 a lecture,” though he passed them over, and 
 discussed only the effect of the “ visionary 
 devil crouched close, and listening eagerly 
 behind the pillow of the dying wretch ;” 
 which he considers as invigorating “ the sub- 
 ject with appropriate interest and terror,” and 
 clearing up all ambiguity, by informing us, 
 “ that the sufferings” so torcibly delineated 
 “ did not originate in the mere pang of 
 death,” but in “ the overwhelming horrors of 
 a guilty ai d awakened conscience.” Opie 
 insists most energetically on the absolute 
 necessity for the presence of the demon, and 
 declares it to be an accessory “ so completely 
 successful, that far from being regarded an 
 unwarrantable license, it is justified by all 
 rules of sound criticism,” and ought to be 
 considered a signal example of artistical in- 
 vention. Such was the opinion of Opie on 
 this subject ; but I rather agree with Allan 
 Cunningham, in decrying this hideous and 
 shapeless supernumerary “ as foreign to any 
 just perception of the poet, and consider 
 it as offensive to the feelings of charity 
 in man. Do we need any stronger proof in 
 the poet to express the utter hopeless state 
 of the departing sinner, than the words, 
 
 “ Lord Cardinal, if thou think’st on heaven’s bliss. 
 Hold up thine hand, make signal of thy hope — 
 
 He dies, and makes no sigu.” 
 
 Or can any attribute in the painting be 
 necessary beyond the agonized countenance, 
 the firmly- closed teeth, the horribly-fixed 
 and dying eye, together with the distorted 
 position of the head upon the piliow, to prove 
 that the wretched being before us 
 “ Died not the death of the righteous, neither was his 
 end like his.” 
 
 But however opinion may be divided re- 
 specting this picture, it partakes largely of 
 the appearance of decay which seems to per- 
 vade the generality of the paintings by Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds. Many commentators have 
 spoken respecting the cause of this decline ; 
 by some he has been accused of using colours 
 liable to speedy volition, though perhaps the 
 most likely point to which it may be referred 
 was a mania for discovery, which induced 
 him 1o enter the wide, and (to an artist) 
 dangerous region of chemical experiment. 
 Whatever the cause may have been, we are 
 told by Cunningham, that this great painter 
 Was at length convinced of its dangerous 
 effect by the appearances of decay in those 
 very works which he doubtless hoped would 
 have become monuments of art for the imi- 
 tation of posterity. Poor Sir Joshua, what 
 must have been thy feelings at the discovery 
 of the nascent symptoms which have now be- 
 come so alarmingly apparent ! you had taken 
 Titian for your prototype ; to be a Titian 
 was the supreme object of your great ambi- 
 tion. An object which you nobly attained ; 
 for your productions have shown an admiring 
 world the glories of the Venetian School, 
 combined with all that is good and excellent 
 in the practice and colouring of others ; and 
 whenever art shall be encouraged, or science 
 esteemed, then will thy name and memory 
 be held forth for honourable distinction. 
 
 C. S. 
 
 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER THE BE- 
 GINNING OF THE WORLD. 
 
 I was the only son of Athenian parents, who 
 bestowed on me the name of Ctesias. 
 Brought up under the care of a mother, who 
 was known by the title of “ the Beautiful 
 Cinyra,” I became, in my younger years, 
 skilful in most of the elegant accomplish- 
 ments of the day. I arrived at some excel- 
 lence in touching the strings of the harp, and 
 could sing many a national melody, either to 
 tones Ionian or Doric. But as I advanced to 
 maturer years, the elegancies of life gave way 
 to the pursuit of manlier studies ; and without 
 mingling in the affairs of the state, I conse- 
 crated my days to the study of philosophy. 
 The celebrated masters who attended me, 
 perpetually enlightened me by their counsels, 
 and with them 1 re-ascended to the principles 
 
TillS MIKltOlt. 
 
 of morality and natural physics. The pro- 
 fundity of their wisdom, the abundance of 
 their entertaining information, enhanced by 
 a forcible style and pleasant mode of con- 
 veyance, altogether enraptured me, and made 
 me surrender up myself totally to them. It 
 was through these conversations, and under 
 the imposing majesty of the discourses de- 
 livered to me by my chief tutor, the Philo- 
 sopher Anaxagoras, who delighted to de- 
 velop to me the principles of being, and the 
 phenomena of nature, that my mind, (though 
 naturally elevated,) seemed to have become 
 imperceptibly aggrandized. 
 
 Happy indeed was the climate I inhabited : 
 the spring-tide of it is like the morning of 
 a beautiful day : one not only enjoys the 
 blessings which it brings, but those also 
 which it promises. The day of which I speak 
 was one of the loveliest of which the clime is 
 Capable : a pure and equal light, reposing 
 sweetly upon all objects, seemed like the light 
 with which the gods are crowned on Olympus. 
 I became insensibly lulled into a kind of 
 dreamy existence by the sound of trees agi. 
 tatiug their leafy tops — the borders of Ilyssus, 
 resonant with the melody of birds, and 
 swarms of “ the children of the golden hive,” 
 busily humming about thymy Hymettus. I 
 was aroLsed from my reverie by the sound of 
 many approaching footsteps, and the mur- 
 mur of many glad voices. I waited expect- 
 ingly, and at length a troop of youthful 
 Athenians, crowned with flowers, and redolent 
 of perfumes, passed by me, on their way to 
 offer their festal gifts at a neighbouring altar, 
 pouring as they went, sweet hymns on the 
 fragrant winds. The clear light, while it 
 illuminated their white vestures, brought out 
 more conspicuously than all the rest of their 
 attire, a golden “ lettix,” or grasshopper, 
 which the whole company bore upon their 
 heads. Though I had made myself ac- 
 quainted with most of the mysteries and 
 modes of worship of my own and of other 
 nations, yet this symbol had escaped my no- 
 tice. Upon making inquiry as to the signi- 
 fication of this insect, I was informed that 
 they carried it in remembrance of their race 
 having had its beginning in the soil : that 
 they considered themselves as the Autoch- 
 thons, or Aborigines of the world, and that 
 they therefore wore it, in testimony of their 
 origin. This explanation led me into a new 
 truin of thought: there seemed to me some- 
 thing repugnant to philosophy in the idea 
 that my forefathers should have had their 
 beginning in the soil, and indignant that my 
 fellow-countrymen should assume or receive 
 appellations conformable to such a conceit. 
 This doctrine indeed afforded me very slender 
 satisfaction, aud appeared to me to affix a 
 very improbable point to the beginning of the 
 world. 
 
 At this time a great sensation was created 
 
 139 
 
 in the literary world of Greece, by a report 
 spread abroad that the ablest philosopher of 
 the day was about to produce a new book, 
 (Aristotle de Coelo,) treating on the consti- 
 tution of the heavens. I was hereupon 
 anxious indeed to know what the wisest of 
 the philosophers determined about the begin- 
 ning of the world, since it had escaped that 
 a branch of his work touched upon this sin- 
 gular question. Judge how cruelly I was 
 perplexed by the new hypothesis started by 
 him — one which seemed to plunge me into 
 much deeper gloom and darkness than the 
 former grovelling opinion, when 1 found him 
 maintaining that the world never had any 
 beginning at all : an opinion which he endea- 
 voured to confirm with arguments of reason, 
 and those apparently demonstrative, and 
 wherein it seemed, upon the grounds)assumed 
 by him, (that of physical generation, and a 
 primary or first matter, beyond which there 
 was no band apprehended,) that his labours 
 were rational, and even uncontroulable. 
 
 Zealous on this point, I penetrated still 
 further into metaphysical subtleties, aud en- 
 gaged myself in forming new theories on 
 this intricate subject : but I at length gave 
 up the search bewildered, and found myself 
 at the conclusion little wiser Ilian at the 
 outset. 
 
 Still it was a point on which I was re- 
 solved to know something more. From tra- 
 vellers who had visited Egypt, and others who 
 had penetrated into the inhospitable Scythia, 
 great accounts had been from time to time 
 brought, of the wisdom of the priests of the 
 one, and of the magi of the other country. 
 I was rich and wealthy — what impediment 
 was there then to my travelling in those re- 
 gions. 1 determined finally to visit Egypt, — 
 to contemplate the enormous Pyramids, 
 which had already stood for ages, aud which 
 promised to last for the coming eternity. 
 Surely I should there find an account to my 
 satisfaction. Whether or not I would ven- 
 ture ; and if unsuccessful there, I would then 
 wrap my cloak around me, and set out iu 
 search of Scythia and her wisdom. 
 
 1 accordingly departed for Egypt. I need 
 not tell of my emotions, as I sought this 
 land of wonders; for they have often been 
 expressed by abler tongues than mine. On 
 inquiring of the dark-cowled priests of Ombos, 
 I found that they also referred to their soil 
 for their origin and antiquity. Not from 
 chronology, or the records of time, did they 
 attempt to deduce the origin of things, or 
 deliver their own beginning, but they betook 
 themselves to probabilities, and the conjec- 
 tures of philosophy. I found that they were 
 quite at a loss to .account for the origin of 
 men, but they were vehemently eloquent in 
 pleading their antiquity from the fertility of 
 their soil, showing that men must have first 
 inhabited, where they were with most facility 
 
140 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 sustained, and such a land they conceived 
 their own to be. Bat this argument, deduced 
 from the fertility of the soil, when I came to 
 duly inquire into it, seemed to me rather to 
 overthrow, than promote fheir antiquity : for 
 their own country, whose fertility they so 
 haughtily advanced, was in elder arid ancient 
 times neither firm or open land ; but rather a 
 vast lake, or part of the sea ; and indeed, ac- 
 cording to their own tradition, became a 
 gained ground by the mud and alluvial 
 matter brought down by the river, which 
 settled by degrees into a firm land, and was 
 in reality an accession of the earth, or tract 
 of land acquired by the river. 
 
 But the Egyptians invented also another 
 way of trial to prove which was the elder 
 nation, and which had consequently the pri- 
 ority of beginning. Psamnitichus, their king, 
 attempted this decision by a new and un- 
 known experiment. He determined upon 
 bringing up two infants with goats, in a 
 place where they had never heard the voice 
 of man, concluding that to be the ancientest 
 nation, whose language should be first spoken. 
 But king Psamnitichus did not go far enough 
 back, for herein he forgot, that speech came 
 by instruction, not by instinct — by imitation, 
 not by nature. 
 
 Such then were the unsatisfactory reasons 
 which 1 obtained from Egy pt, concerning the 
 beginning of the world. One resource was 
 now only left me. There was another nation 
 famed as highly for its learning as the Egyp- 
 tian, and who maintained their point with 
 the same violence and prejudice as did the 
 descendants of Mizraim. 
 
 Transporting myself, therefore, to the bleak 
 latitudes of Scythia, I addressed myself to 
 those who were most distinguished for the 
 profoundness of their attainments, and the 
 sagacity of their understanding. 
 
 The Scythians, although a colder and a 
 heavier nation, yet urged more acutely than 
 the Egyptians, that theirs was the greater 
 antiquity — that they were the beginners of 
 the world. They deduced their arguments 
 from the two active elements and principles 
 of all things, fire and water : for, reasoned 
 they, if of all things there was first an union, 
 and that afterwards fire over-ruled the rest, 
 surely that portion of earth which was coldest 
 would first get free, and afford a place of 
 habitation : but if, on the other hand, all the 
 earth were first involved in the opposite 
 power, namely, water, still those parts would 
 surely first appear, which were most high and 
 of most elevated situation : and such was 
 theirs. 
 
 I must confess, that this plausible exposi- 
 tion pleased me wonderfully at first : they 
 were reasons which carried the palm of an- 
 tiquity from the Egyptians: but yet it con- 
 firmed it not to the Scythians. But on 
 graver consideration afterwards, I saw that 
 
 I was still no wiser than before, and that the 
 beginning of the world was still to me a 
 marvel, and a hidden mystery. 
 
 I once again returned to my native country. 
 Walking again over the fields of Greece, 
 sporting in its vallies, enjoying its brilliant 
 days and its delicious nights, I lost the sense 
 of mortification and disappointment which 
 the failure in my search had occasioned. 
 Yet when at times the recollections of this 
 theme come across my mind, the subject 
 seemed to me so veiled and lost in such an 
 authentic obscurity, that unless some super- 
 natural power scatter the darkness, and lay 
 open the yet concealed truth, men will still 
 come to the end without having arrived at the 
 beginning. W. Archer. 
 
 INGRATITUDE PUNISHED. 
 
 In the renowned city of Athens there were 
 judges appointed to punish ingratitude, but 
 the case happened so seldom, that they had 
 no employment. They deemed it very irk- 
 some to go to court without having any cause 
 laid before them, and at last suspended a 
 bell, to be rung by those who had any em- 
 ployment for them. The bell hung a long 
 time before any person had occasion to ring, 
 so long, indeed, that some grass upon the 
 side of the wall had entwined around the 
 bell-rope. It happened about this time, that 
 a man had an horse become so feeble by 
 age, that he was unable any longer to work 
 for his meat, therefore he turned him out of 
 the stall to die, or to seek his food where he 
 could find it. 
 
 The poor horse walked in a very discon- 
 solate manner through the streets, as if he 
 had foreseen that he would soon be starved 
 to death. During his painful wanderings, 
 he, by chance, approached the court-house 
 of these judges, and perceiving the grass 
 growing upon the side of the wall, he ex- 
 erted his whole remaining strength to seize 
 it. He raised himself upon his hinder feet, 
 but it was in vain. He could not reach the 
 grass, but only the rope, which, by pulling, 
 he rung several times. 
 
 Thejudges coming, and seeing no person, 
 were convinced that the horse had rung the 
 bell. They inquired to whom he belonged, 
 and were informed by the neighbours, that 
 he belonged to no person, because his master 
 had turned him off, being unable to work. 
 Thejudges said, this is really a case which 
 comes properly before us. It is cruel in- 
 gratitude for this man to cast away a poor 
 animal worn out in his service — it must not 
 be permitted. They accordingly sent for the 
 master, and made him pay a sum of money 
 sufficient to maintain the horse during the 
 evening of his days. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 141 
 
 ANECDOTES OF CELEBRATED 
 PERSONS. 
 
 From German IForks. 
 
 Louis XIV. — The grand monnrque was 
 noted for his imposing look. On one occa- 
 sion, however, as he was reviewing some of 
 his troops, he was unable to put a soldier out 
 of countenance, so stern and unbending was 
 the man’s gaze. “ How is it,’’ said the 
 king, “ that you dare thus look at me ?” 
 “ Sire,” replied the undaunted son of Mars, 
 “ none but the eagle can fix his eyes on the 
 sun.” This man, from the fixed nature of 
 his gaze, was surnamed “ the Eagle.” 
 
 Fontenelle. — This celebrated man lived to 
 be a hundred years of age. A few months 
 before his death he was at the theatre, 
 when being accosted by an English noble- 
 man, who professed to have come all the 
 way from England on purpose to see him, 
 he replied : “ My lord, I have left you 
 plenty of time ” 
 
 Frederick II. — His majesty, looking out 
 of the window one day, saw a number of 
 people reading a paper stuck against a wall. 
 “ Go and see,” said the king to a page in 
 waiting, “ what those people are reading.” 
 “ Sire,” said the page, on his return, trem- 
 bling with tear, “ it is a satire on your 
 person.” “ Indeed,” replied his majesty, 
 coolly; “just step down again, and put the 
 paper more on a level with their visual or- 
 gans, I am afraid it is rather too high.” 
 
 This monarch was of an exceedingly fa- 
 miliar turn of mind : “ Come,” said he, one 
 day to the Abbe Raynal, who was presented 
 to him, whilst surrounded by his generals, 
 “ Come, my good fellow, we are both old, 
 let us sit down and have a chat.” 
 
 Reuchlin. — The celebrated author of “ De 
 Arte Cabalistica,” having reached a village 
 where he was obliged to wait for his car- 
 riage at an inn, filled with drunken obstrepe- 
 rous peasants, hit upon one of the strangest 
 plans for silencing such an assemblage, as 
 was ever heard of. He called for a glass of 
 water and a piece of chalk. With the latter 
 he described on the table a circle surmounted 
 by a small cross ; on the right of this circle 
 he placed the glass, on the left a knife, and 
 in the very middle his book, and so began to 
 read, at times uttering strange sounds. The 
 peasants taking him for nothing less than a 
 sorcerer, held their tongues in amazement, 
 and Reuchlin was thus enabled to read for a 
 good half hour in peace, when at length his 
 carriage came. 
 
 Montesquieu. — On leaving Rome, Montes- 
 quieu waited on the Pope, Benedict XI V,, 
 with the intention of taking leave. His ho- 
 liness, desirous of conferring on the Savan 
 some signal^mark of his favour, said to him, 
 “ We grant you the permission to eat flesh 
 on all fast days, and of our goodness extend 
 
 this favour to your posterity for ever.” Mon- 
 tesquieu tendered his thanks to his| holiness, 
 and took his leave. The bishop who acted 
 the part of chamberlain, conducted the 
 author to an adjoining apartment, where the 
 Pope’s bull of dispensation was handed over 
 to him, accompanied with the demand of a 
 pretty considerable fee. Montesquieu hav- 
 ing cast his eyes on the document, returned 
 it to the donor, observing, that as the Pope 
 was so righteous a man, he would not think 
 of doubting his word, which he certainly 
 would do, in taking the bull of dispensation. 
 
 Frederick II. was, on the occasiou of his 
 passage, through a small town, accosted by 
 several of the dignitaries of the place. One 
 of these, stepping forward to deliver his 
 speech, was most unceremoniously interrupted 
 by a donkey a few feet off, which began to 
 bray in a most unmusical strain. The king 
 was unable to restrain his merriment, and 
 laughing outright, exclaimed, “ Do, I beg of 
 you, each speak in your turn ; it is impos- 
 sible for me to understand you, if you will 
 both talk together.” 
 
 Philip the Good. — As Philip, Duke of 
 Burgundy, was walkmg through the streets 
 of Bruges, he found on his path a drunken 
 man, sound asleep. He had him removed 
 aud carried to the ducal palace, where having 
 caused him to be stript of his rags, he was 
 placed in one of the richest beds, with a 
 costly night-shirt on his body, and a per- 
 fumed night- cap on his head. As may be 
 supposed, the poor drunkard was not a little 
 amazed when he awoke, to find himself in 
 such strange circumstances — he was much 
 more so when he saw several fine gentlemen 
 approach him with low bows, inquiring what 
 dress his highness would be graciously 
 pleased to wear on that day. This question, 
 of course, completed the poor fellow’s asto- 
 nishment ; he was, he said, nothing more 
 than a wretched cobbler — but it was all to no 
 purpose, the attentions paid to him were re- 
 doubled, and he at length found himself com- 
 pelled to submit to all their officiousness. 
 When he was dressed, the transformed cob- 
 bler was conducted in state to the chapel, to 
 hear mass ; at the end of which ceremony, he 
 goodnaturedly allowed his hand to be kissed, 
 which, however, as may be supposed, was 
 not one of the fairest. After this pantomime, 
 he was sumptuously fared, then taken for an 
 airing in a superb chariot, then to the opera, 
 and to wind up all, to a magnificent ball, 
 where the most lovely creatures he ever be- 
 held, vied with each other to please and to 
 amuse him. A substantial supper followed 
 the dance ; bottle after bottle passed before 
 the eyes of the enraptured cobbler, glassfulls 
 after glassfulls followed each other in rapid 
 succession down his throat; till at length, 
 completely overwhelmed by liquor and ex. 
 citement, he dropped off into a sound sleep, 
 
142 
 
 THK MIRROR. 
 
 (luting which he was once more reinvested in 
 his old clothes, and carried to the spot whence 
 he was conveyed to the Duke’s palace. The 
 next morning he could not find words enough 
 to relate to his wife with sufficient effect, the 
 delightful dream he had had. H. M. 
 
 ON THE INSTINCT AND INTELLI- 
 GENCE OF ANIMALS. 
 
 By Lord Brougham.* 
 
 “ Beginning with laying aside those actions 
 of animals which are either ambiguous, or 
 are referable properly to reason, and which, 
 almost all philosophers allow, show a glim- 
 mering of reason; and confining ourselves to 
 what are purely instinctive, as the bee form- 
 ing a hexagon, without knowing what it is, 
 or why she forms it ; my proof of this, not 
 being reason, but something else, and some- 
 thing not only differing from reason in de- 
 gree, but in kind, is from a comparison of the 
 facts, an examination of the phenomena in 
 each case — in a word, from induction. I 
 perceive a certain thing done by this insect, 
 without any instruction, which we could not 
 do without much instruction. I see her work- 
 ing most accurately without any experience, in 
 that which we could only be able to do by the 
 expertness gathered from much experience. 
 I see her doing certain things which are ma- 
 nifestly to produce an effect she can know 
 nothing about ; for example, making a cell, 
 and furnishing it with carpets, and with 
 liquid, fit to hold and to cherish safely a 
 tender grub, she never having seen any grub, 
 and knowing nothing, of course, about grubs, 
 or that any grub is ever to come, or that any 
 such use — perhaps, any use at all— is ever to 
 be made of the work she is about. Indeed, 
 I see another insect, the solitary wasp, bring 
 a given number of small grubs, and deposit 
 them in a hole which she has made, over her 
 e gg__just grubs enough to maintain the 
 worm that egg will produce when hatched ; 
 and yet this wasp never saw an egg produce 
 a worm, nor ever saw a worm — nay, is to 
 be dead long before the worm can be in ex- 
 istence; and, moreover, she never has in any 
 way tasted or used these grubs, or used the 
 hole she made, except for the prospective be- 
 nefit of the unknown worm she is never to 
 see. In all these cases, then, the animal 
 works positively without knowledge, and in 
 the dark. She also works without designing 
 any thing ; and yet she works to a certain de- 
 fined and important purpose. Lastly, she 
 works to a perfection in her way ; and yet she 
 works without any teaching or experience. 
 Now, in all this she differs entirely from man, 
 who only works well, perhaps at all, after be- 
 ing taught— who works with knowledge of 
 what he is about— and who works, intending 
 and meaning, and, in a word, designing to 
 • Dissertation on Subjects of Science Connected 
 with Natural Theologij ; H vols. Knight and Co. 
 
 do what he accomplishes. To all which may 
 be added, though it is rather, perhaps, the 
 consequence of this difference, than a separate 
 and substantive head of diversity, the animal 
 works always uniformly and alike, and all his 
 kind work alike ; whereas no two men work 
 alike, nor any man always, nay, any two times, 
 alike. Of all this I cannot, indeed, be quite 
 certain, as I am of what passes within my 
 own mind, because it is barely possible that 
 the insect may have some plan or notion in 
 her head, implanted as the intelligent facul- 
 ties are : all I know is the extreme improba- 
 bility of it being so ; and that I see facts, as 
 her necessary ignorance of the existence and 
 nature of her worm, and her working without 
 experience ; and I know that, if 1 did the 
 same things, I should be acting without hav- 
 ing learned mathematics, and should be 
 planning in ignorance of unborn issue ; and 
 I therefore draw my inference accordingly as 
 to her proceedings.” 
 
 We shall now quote a few facts relative 
 to the sagacity of animals. 
 
 “ In the forests of Tartary and of South 
 America, where the wild horse is gregarious, 
 there are herds of 500 or 600, which, being 
 ill prepared for fighting, or indeed for any 
 resistance, and knowing that their safety is 
 in flight, when they sleep, appoint one in 
 rotation who acts as sentinel, while the rest 
 are asleep. If a man approaches, the sen- 
 tinel walks towards him, as if to reconnoitre 
 or see whether he rnay be deterred from 
 coming near — if the man continues, he 
 neighs aloud, and in a peculiar tone, which 
 rouses the herd, and all gallop away, the 
 sentinel bringing up the rear. Nothing can 
 be more judicious or rational than this ar- 
 rangement, simple as it is. So a horse, be- 
 longing to a smuggler at Dover, used to be 
 laden with run spirits, and sent on the road 
 unattended to reach the rendezvous. When 
 he descried a soldier, he would jump off the 
 highway, and hide himself in a ditch, and 
 when discovered, would fight for his load. 
 The cunning of foxes is proverbial ; but I 
 know not if it was ever more remarkably 
 displayed than in the Duke of Beaufort’s 
 country ; where Reynard, being hard pressed, 
 disappeared suddenly, and wus, after strict 
 search, found immersed in a water-pool up 
 to the very snout, by which he held a willow 
 bow hanging over the pond. The cunning 
 of a dog, which Serjeant Wilde tells me of 
 as known to him, is at least equal. He 
 used to be tied up as a precaution against 
 hunting sheep. At night he slipped his 
 head out of the collar, and returning before 
 dawn, put on the collar again, in order to 
 conceal his nocturnal excursions.* Nobody 
 has more familiarity with various animals 
 
 * [Tlieie are numerous instances of similar 
 sagacity in clogs : one will suffice : — A farmer, of 
 Presteign, in Radnorshire, having had a number of 
 sheep killed, was resolved on discovering the tie's- 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 143 
 
 (besides his great knowledge of his own 
 species) than my excellent, learned, and inge- 
 nious friend, the Serjeant ; and he possesses 
 many curious ones himself. His anecdote 
 of a drover’s dog is striking, as he gave it 
 me, when we happened, near this place, to 
 meet a d rove. The man had brought seven- 
 teen out of twenty oxen from a field, leaving 
 the remaining three there mixed with ano- 
 ther herd. He then said to the dog, “ Go, 
 fetch them;’’ and he went and singled out 
 those very three. The serjeant’s brother, 
 however, a highly respectable man, lately 
 sheriff of London, has a dog that distin- 
 guishes Saturday night, from the practice of 
 tying him up for the Sunday, which he dis- 
 likes. He will escape on Saturday night, 
 and return on Monday morning. The Ser- 
 jeant himself had a gander which was at a 
 distance from the goose, and hearing her 
 make an extraordinary noise, ran back and 
 put his head into the cage — then brought 
 back all the goslings, one by one, and put 
 them into it with the mother, whose sepa- 
 ration from her brood had occasioned her 
 clamour. He then returned to the place 
 whence her cries had called him.” 
 
 THE ABOLITION OF THE GLA- 
 DIATORS AT ROME. 
 
 An historian informs us, that “ the first 
 Christian emperor may claim the honour of 
 the first edict which condemned the art and 
 amusement of shedding human blood, but 
 this benevolent law expressed the wishes of 
 the prince with reforming an inveterate 
 abuse, which degraded a civilized nation be- 
 low the condition of savage cannibals. Several 
 hundreds, or thousands of victims were an- 
 nually slaughtered in the great cities of the 
 empire ; and the month of December more 
 particularly devoted to the combats of gladia- 
 tors, still exhibited to the eyes of the Ro- 
 man people, a grateful spectacle of blood and 
 cruelty. 
 
 Amidst the general joy of the victory of 
 Pollentia, a Christian poet entreated the em- 
 peror to extirpate, by his authority, the horrid 
 custom which had so long resisted the voice 
 of humanity, and of religion. The pathetic 
 representations of Prudentius, the Christian 
 
 troyer ; and, accordingly, having secreted himself so 
 as not to be seen by the enemy, yet to have a full 
 view of the field , he took his station ; and before 
 morn had scarcely dawned, he saw Boxer enter the 
 field, stealing alongside the hedge, and presently 
 seiziug one of the sheep by the throat, began to suck 
 its blood: having satisfied himself, he returned home, 
 cautiously followed by his master, who perceived him 
 enter his kennel, place his fore feet on the collar to 
 steady it, and then thrust his head in. This creature 
 was a. great favourite, being an invaluable yard dog, 
 for, like some bibeds, although himself a culprit, he 
 would allow no one else to rob within his domain. 
 The farmer hesitated for some time ; at length public 
 justice overcame private friendship; and Boxer was 
 condemned to be shot. — Ed. A/.] 
 
 poet, were less effectual than the generous 
 boldness of Telemachus, an Asiatic master, 
 whose death was more useful to mankind 
 than his life. The rash master descended 
 into the arena to separate the gladiators ; but 
 the Romans were enraged with the interrup- 
 tion of their pleasures, and overwhelmed the 
 master with a shower of stones. The mad- 
 ness of the people, however, soon subsided ; 
 they respected the memory of Telemachus, 
 who had deserved the honours of martyrdom, 
 and, without a murmur, they submitted to 
 the laws of Honorius, which for ever abo- 
 lished the human sacrifices of the amphi- 
 theatre. 
 
 THE EMPEROR OP CHINA AND THE MERCHANT- 
 During the reign of an emperor of China, 
 who was celebrated for the vigour and strict- 
 ness of his justice, a viceroy of one of the 
 provinces of that vast empire, that lay most 
 remote from the imperial city, having wrong- 
 fully confiscated the estate of an honest mer- 
 chant, and reduced his family to poverty ; 
 the poor man found means to travel as far as 
 the emperor’s court, where he obtained a let- 
 ter to the viceroy, commanding him to restore 
 the goods which he had taken so illegally. 
 Far from obeying this command, the viceroy 
 put the merchant into prison ; but having the 
 good fortune to escape, he went again to the 
 capital, and threw himself at the emperor’s 
 feet, who treated him with great humanity, 
 and gave orders that he should have another 
 letter. The merchant wept at this resolu- 
 tion, and represented how ineffectual the 
 first had proved ; and the reasons he had to 
 fear that the second would be as little re- 
 garded. The emperor, who had been stop- 
 ped by this complaint, as he was going in 
 great haste to dine in .the apartment of one 
 of his favourites, became a little discom- 
 posed, and answered with some emotion, 
 that he could do no more than send his com- 
 mands, and that if the viceroy refused to 
 obey them, he told the merchant to put his 
 foot upon the viceroy’s neck. “ I implore 
 your majesty’s compassion,” replied the mer- 
 chant, at the same time holding fast the em- 
 peror’s robe, “ his power is too mighty for 
 my weakness ; and your justice prescribes a 
 remedy, which your wisdom has never exa- 
 mined.” The emperor had, by this time, 
 recollected himself; and, raising the mer- 
 chant from the ground, said, “ you are in 
 the right: to complain of him was your 
 part, but it is mine to see him punished. I 
 will appoint commissioners to go back with 
 you, and make search into the grounds of 
 his proceeding; with power, if they find 
 him guilty, to deliver him into your hands, 
 and leave you viceroy in his stead ; for, since 
 you have taught me how to govern, you 
 must be able to govern for me.”-- W. G. C. 
 
144 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 R. BUKFORD'S PANORAMAS OF 
 
 ROME, AMD THE COLISEUM. 
 
 We were invited to a private view of Mr. 
 Burford’s Panoramas of Rome, and the 
 Coliseum, on Monday last ; and a real intel- 
 lectual treat it was. 
 
 The painting m the Upper Circle, repre- 
 sents the Ruins of the Coliseum, taken Irom 
 the third tier of arches ; thus enabling the 
 spectator to obtain a comprehensive view of 
 the magnificent remains of this celebrated 
 amphitheatre, he seems standing 
 
 “ Within the Coliseum’s wall, 
 
 ’Midst the chief relics of almighty Rome 
 and while gazing on this splendid wreck of 
 “ ruinous perfection,” the mind is lost 
 in awe and admiration. What a lesson it 
 presents to the philosopher, the poet, and 
 the historian ! how forcibly it tells us, that 
 “ nations and empires rise and fall, flourish 
 and decay not alone by Time, but as much 
 perhaps by the ambition and mischievousness 
 of Man ! It is indeed difficult to describe 
 this truly brilliant picture, so replete with 
 faithful scenes of sublime interest. The 
 colouring is vivid — the effect of the whole 
 enchanting. 
 
 In the Lower Circle is the View of Rome ; 
 taken from the Tower of the Capitol. This 
 is also a painting that reflects the highest 
 credit on Mr. Burford. We know not which 
 to admire most — the gigantic fragments, and 
 splendid monuments, telling us so forcibly 
 of mighty Rome’s former grandeur ; or the 
 defaced triumphal arches ; its prostrate 
 columns ; or its porticos ; all are so power- 
 fully impressive, blended as they are with 
 the architectural beauties of the magnificent 
 palaces and other stupendous structures of 
 this once Mistress of the World ! — The 
 “ Eternal City !” — Imperial Rome ! 
 
 The above two panoramas are, certainly, 
 Mr. Burford’s chef d'aeures ; and ought to 
 be seen by every one ; presenting, as they 
 do, scenes of such vital interest. Doubtless 
 they will prove great favourites with the 
 Public ; as they richly deserve to be. 
 
 Clje <©atfjcm\ 
 
 Inland Navigation . — The navigable canals 
 used for the transport of goods and produce 
 in England alone, are estimated now to ex- 
 ceed 2,200 miles in length, while the naviga- 
 ble rivers exceed 1,800 miles, making toge- 
 ther more than 4,000 miles of inland navi- 
 gation, the greater part of which has been 
 created or rendered available during the last 
 80 years. The whole extent of navigable 
 canals at this moment available in Ireland, 
 does not amount to 300 miles ; and, includ- 
 ing navigable fivers, the entire water com- 
 munication does not exceed 400 miles for the 
 whole island. 
 
 Extraordinary Egyptian Stone Coffin . — 
 There is now on board of the brig Elizabeth 
 Ann, Captain Ellis, lying at the north end of 
 the Q ueen’s-dock, a remarkably ancient Egyp- 
 tian stone coffin, recently imported from Alex- 
 andria, in the vessel called the Hope, whence 
 it has been transshipped, to be taken to the 
 British Museum. It is eight feet six inches in 
 length, measured outside, and three feet six 
 inches in width, ft is covered with curious 
 carvings of human figures, hieroglyphics, 
 and emblematical devices. It was discovered 
 far in the interior of Egypt, and has been 
 sent to England by our consul at Alexandria. 
 The cost of its conveyance it is supposed 
 will reach 1,000/., owing to the want of 
 roads in Egypt, and the necessity of em- 
 ploying men, chiefly as carriers. — Liverpool 
 paper. 
 
 Society.— No one living thing in society 
 can be independent. The world is like a 
 wutch-dog, which fawns on you or tears 
 you to pieces. 
 
 The strong and growing disposition of the 
 working-classes to provide against the ca- 
 sualties of life, is evidenced in the rapid in- 
 crease of deposits in the various Saving 
 Banks. In the St. Mary-le-bone Bank, 
 2,888 new deposits were made in the last 
 year : 11,278 deposit accounts remuined 
 
 open in November last ; when upwards of 
 .£196,200 was invested with the Commis- 
 sioners for the Reduction of the National 
 Debt ; and the amount has since risen to 
 .£205,000, and is rapidly advancing. 
 
 Augustus, having ordered a purple robe, 
 complained to the maker, when he brought 
 it, of the dullness of the colour. “ You 
 will not think it dull,’’ said the man, “if 
 you will hold it up to a bright light.” — 
 “ What, then,” said the emperor, “ will it 
 be always necessary for me to sit in a bright 
 light when I wish to appear well dressed ?” 
 Macrob. Sat. II. 4. 
 
 Edward Moore. — (Author of a periodical 
 paper called The World.) — It is rather ex- 
 traordinary, that though this gentlemam 
 was totally ignorunt of every language but 
 his own, it has been universally allowed, 
 that few men wrote better in prose or verse, 
 or showed more knowledge ef the classics 
 in applications and allusions to them. 
 
 Napoleon. — A stranger having entered the 
 apartment where the Emperor Napoleon 
 was shaving himself, when in a little town 
 . in Italy, he said, “ I want to see your great 
 Emperor — what are you to him ?” The 
 Emperor replied, “ I shave him." 
 
 LONDON: Printed and published by J. LIMBIRD, 
 143, Strand, (near Somerset House) ; and sold by 
 all Booksellers and Neumnen. — In PARIS, by till 
 the Booksellers. — In FRANCFORT, CHARLES 
 JUG EL. 
 
JBtvtot 
 
 OF 
 
 LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION. 
 
 No. 939 ] 
 
 SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 1839. 
 
 [Piuck 2 d. 
 
 Voi xxxiit. 
 
 LONDON AND CROYDON RAILWAY, FROM NEW CROSS, DEPTFORD. 
 
146 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 THE LONDON AND CROYDON 
 RAILWAY. 
 
 “ When we look upon the many and im- 
 portant changes which have been wrought 
 upon the externals of the world, and consider 
 the mighty elements of power and know- 
 ledge which are rifely active in their exist- 
 ence, and extensively engaged in modifying 
 the face of society, we are almost compelled 
 to reflect upon the means by which they act, 
 and the amount of good which they have 
 already accomplished. However great the 
 ridicule maybe which has been thrown upon 
 the hackneyed expression of the “ march of 
 mind,” we cannot observe these changes, or 
 think upon these elements, without allowing 
 it to possess much meaning, and to represent 
 that which is always amazing, and some- 
 times astounding, in its effects. To inquire 
 into the principles by which it has been im- 
 pelled, is not our present business, we have 
 now only to contemplate one of its results. 
 One, it is true, but one so fraught with 
 important consequences, and so necessary to 
 the general advancement, as almost to^ be 
 looked upon as a cause, rather than an effect, 
 of national greatness. And, indeed, what 
 is so likely to exalt a people collectively in 
 acquirement and virtue, as that frequent, nay, 
 almost constant attrition of mind, which is 
 invariably produced by facility of intercourse. 
 Man is naturally gregarious ; he is made 
 for community and fellowship ; and experi- 
 ence has proved, that wherever there is con- 
 stant or continual association, there, just in 
 un equal proportion, will high and noble, 
 and valuable qualities, prevail. 
 
 Never were these observations more strik- 
 ingly illustrated, than by the progress made 
 in this country and in America during the 
 last twenty years, by the introduction of 
 railways and steam carriages. So rapid has 
 been the advance within that period, that we 
 can with difficulty suppose what is the fact, 
 that it is nearly two hundred years since the 
 principle, thus influential, was first brought 
 into notice, and applied to the purposes of life. 
 
 When once the impetus had been given to 
 the public mind, and the advantage of transit 
 by railways made apparent, schemes for their 
 construction almost inundated the public 
 press. The activity which had been excited 
 in commercial enterprise, by the over-trad- 
 ing of theyears 1823-4 and 5, doubtless con- 
 tributed very much to awaken a desire to 
 promote these novel plans of conveyance, by 
 apparently providing the means for their 
 execution ; and, though the matter was cer- 
 tainly not nearly so well understood as it was 
 soon afterwards, yet sufficient was known of 
 it to enable practical men to calculate the 
 results and depend upon the profit. That 
 railways would early become remunerative in- 
 vestments, was readily believed ; for it was a 
 common conviction, and not un founded in 
 
 fact, that those ways which had been insti- 
 tuted for the convenience of private concerns 
 had paid a high rate of per centage. 
 
 At length the idea of forming railways of 
 considerable extent was seriously taken up, 
 and, in 1825, the first result appeared in the 
 Stockton and Darlington Railway. On the 
 17th of September, in that year, this great 
 undertaking was opened to the public, and, 
 after a few months, sufficient indication was 
 given, that the experiment was likely to 
 prove in every way satisfactory. The ex- 
 cessive cost wus counted as nothing, for the 
 intercourse which had existed between the 
 two towns prior to the opening of the rail- 
 way was more than quadrupled. The bene- 
 fit which the successful termination of this 
 undertaking occasioned was soon felt, and 
 its influence became perceptible in the in- 
 creased activity of those who were maturing 
 even far more extensive schemes. 
 
 The wild propositions which were put 
 forth for public approval were, doubtless, 
 both injudicious and injurious; and many a 
 broken heart, while mourning in secret, bore 
 testimony to the fatal worship of the moloch 
 of wealth. Yet were they, nevertheless, pro- 
 ductive of this great good, that they turned 
 the powers of intellect to the concoction of 
 plans of public good, which were speedily 
 brought into effect. 
 
 The object of railways was the easier con- 
 veyance of weighty goods, and, for the period 
 we have named, the facility afforded by the 
 use of the plain way of a wood or iron rail, 
 instead of the rough friction of a bad road, 
 had sufficiently answered the purpose. Ex- 
 pedition, as well as facility, however, or ra- 
 ther a higher degree of facility, was now 
 required, and it was discovered that if the 
 railway were laid upon, a sufficient descent, 
 the use of animal power might be altogether 
 dispensed with.”* 
 
 The first act which passed for the forming 
 of a railway, was carried through parliament 
 in 1801, and, with the exception of a very 
 few sessions, one act or more has been passed 
 every year since, progressively increasing in 
 number up to 1838. 
 
 Our embellishment to this Number is a 
 View of that part of the London and Croydon 
 Railway, from the deep cutting made through 
 the hill at New Cross, Deptford, looking 
 towards Greenwich Railway, with its unpa- 
 ralleled viaduct, composed of upwards of a 
 thousand arches ; with part of the mighty 
 metropolis of England in the distance ; form- 
 ing, upon the whole, a picturesque and ani- 
 mated scene. It is taken from a large and 
 beautifully lithographed view, published in 
 Leadenhall-street, London. 
 
 It is expected that the London and Croy- 
 don Railway, of which Mr. J. Gibbs is the 
 engineer, will be opened in May next. 
 
 * " From “ Gilbert’s Railways of England and 
 Wales.” 1838. 
 
THE 
 
 SUPERSTITION AND CRUELTY. 
 
 In noticing Dr. Rogers’s second lecture on 
 the Mythology of the Ancients, (comprising 
 the Religious System of the Greeks and 
 Romans,) we referred to a previous lecture, 
 which related to the mythology of the earlier 
 nations.* Both of these lectures have since 
 been repeated at the Marylebone Institution, 
 Edward-street, Portman-square ; and have 
 called forth the following testimonial from 
 the secretary ; a testimonial which confirms 
 the remarks we made on the occasion alluded 
 to : — “ I have the pleasure of informing you 
 that, at a meeting of the committee held last 
 evening, a vote of thanks was unanimously- 
 passed to you, for your highly-interesting 
 lectures on the Mythology of the Ancients, 
 delivered at this Institution.” From the first 
 of these lectures we have culled some passages, 
 which we think wiil interest our readers. 
 
 Human Sacrifices. 
 
 The most ancient of the Canaanitish idols, 
 was Aglibolus, or Baal. The meaning of the 
 word “ Baal,” is Lord ;” and refers to 
 the sun. Another idol was Malachbolus, or 
 Moloch ; a male personification of the moon. 
 
 I To both these idols human sacrifices were 
 offered. Before entering Canaan, the Israel- 
 ites received the strongest possible injunc- 
 tions, to preserve them from adopting these 
 abominations. Death was denounced against 
 those who should imitate the idolators by 
 offering their children. But notwithstand- 
 ing these threatenings, the kings of Israel 
 set their people the example of conforming 
 to these horrid rites. Solomon built a temple 
 to Moloch on the Mount of Olives ; and 
 Manasseh reared altars to Baal, and “ made 
 his son pass through the fire.” It is believed 
 that the children were sometimes obliged 
 only to pass between fires, or to leap over 
 them. Generally, however, there can be no 
 doubt they were really sacrificed. So infa- 
 mous did the valley of Tophet become, on 
 account of these barbarities, that the prophet 
 Jeremiah declared it should be called “ the 
 valley of slaughter.” 
 
 Mr. Croker, in his “ Fairy Tales and 
 Legends of the South of Ireland , ’’ gives an 
 account of some curious relics of the ancient 
 worship of this deity. He says that May-day 
 
 I is called “ the day of Beal’s fire and May- 
 eve, “ the eve of Beal’s fire;” — from having 
 been, in heathen times, consecrated to the 
 god Beal, or Belus ; whence, also, the month 
 of May is termed, in Irish, “ Mina Beal- 
 tine.” He goes on to observe that the cere- 
 mony practised on May-eve, of making the 
 cows leap over lighted straw, or faggots, has 
 been generally traced to the worship of that 
 deity. It is now vulgarly used in order to 
 
 * See "The Mirrou” for December 1, 1838, 
 (No. 923, Vol. 32, page 355.) 
 
 L 2 
 
 MIRROR. 147 
 
 save the milk from being pilfered by “ the 
 good people,” as the fairies are called. 
 
 Moloch, according to the Jewish Rabbies, 
 was an idol of brass, with a calf’s head, and 
 seated on a brazen throne. It was hollow, 
 and divided into seven compartments. In 
 the first compartment was placed meal ; in 
 the second, a turtle ; in the third, an ewe ; 
 in the fourth, a ram; in the fifth, a calf; in 
 the sixth, an ox ; anil in the seventh, a child. 
 The idol was then heated ; and the whole of 
 its contents were consumed together, amid 
 the noise of shouts, and warlike instruments. 
 Milton thus notices some of the particulars 
 we have mentioned : — 
 
 "First, Moloch! — horrid king! — -besmeared with 
 blood 
 
 Of human sacrifice, and parents’ tears ; 
 
 Though (for the noise of drums and timbrels loud) 
 
 Their children's cries unheard, that pass’d through 
 fire 
 
 To this grim idol. 
 
 The wisest heart 
 
 Of Solomon he led, by fraud, to build 
 
 His temple, right against the temple of God, 
 
 On that opprobrious hill; and made his grove 
 
 The pleasant vale of Hinnom Tophet, thence, 
 
 And black Gehama called, — the type of hell !” 
 
 The grand object of worship among the 
 Carthaginians, was Saturn ; and the rites 
 performed to his honour were of the same 
 horrid character as those of Moloch. The 
 statue of this idol was of brass ; with its 
 arms extended, and so inclined, that what- 
 ever was placed on them rolled into a fire. 
 The most respectable authors of antiquity 
 unite to assure us, that to this deity infants 
 were sacrificed ; and those who had no chil- 
 dren of their own, purchased those of the 
 poor for this dreadful purpose. The atten- 
 dant priests were clothed in scarlet ; — fit 
 emblem of their bloody office ! Their sacri- 
 fices were always attended ty drums, and 
 other noisy instruments ; in the same manner 
 as those of Moloch previously, and of the 
 Hindoos to this day. When Agathocles was 
 approaching to beseige Carthage, the inha- 
 bitants imagined they had offended Saturn, 
 by neglecting the proper sacrifices ; and two 
 hundred children, of the first families in the 
 city, were publicly immolated. 
 
 JVorship of Animals. 
 
 One of the most remarkable features of the 
 Egyptian Mythology, was the worship of 
 animals. They imagined that some animals 
 partook of the nature of their celestial deities ; 
 anil were therefore entitled to divine honours! 
 Thus when the worship of the moon had 
 become established, and her increase and 
 diminution superstitiously considered, it was 
 thought to bear some analogy to the dilating 
 and contracting pupil of the cat's eye ; and 
 puss was accordingly- deified. In the same 
 manner, the asp and the beetle became 
 sacred ; because they were supposed to 
 exhibit some faint images of particular 
 
148 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 deities. The h iwk was dedicated to Osiris ; 
 the ass, the crocodile, and the hippopotamus, 
 to Typho ; the serpent, or dragon, to Neph- 
 the. Every element was laid under contri- 
 bution ; and men, women, bulls, cows, rams, 
 goats, dogs, cats, snakes, crocodiles, frogs, 
 beetles, and innumerable others, were all 
 included in the sacred catalogue. Ophilatria, 
 or serpent-worship, was very famous ; and 
 was celebrated with the most horrid rites. 
 To this animal human victims were im- 
 molated. Richardson, in his researches in 
 Egypt, discovered a tomb at Biban al Me- 
 look, in which there is a representation of six 
 men sacrificed at one time. The walls of 
 their tombs are frequently covered with repre- 
 sentations of this idol ; as may be seen by 
 consulting the volumes of the “ Library of 
 Entertaining Knowledge ” devoted to “ Egyp- 
 tian Antiquities,” and Dr. Taylor’s recently 
 published work on the subject. 
 
 The bull was sacred to Osiris ; and was 
 called Apis. It was to be black, with a 
 square piece of white on the forehead. Many 
 years sometimes elapsed, before an animal 
 could be found exactly answering this des- 
 cription. When Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, 
 (called, in Scripture, Ahasuerus,) invaded 
 Egypt, he desired the priest to show him 
 their god. They immediately, with much 
 pomp, led Apis before him. Cambyses, 
 enraged at their stupidity, drew his dagger, 
 and thrust it into the animal’s thigh of 
 which wound poor Apis died. The priests 
 were shocked at his prolanity ; and predicted 
 the most direful calamities in consequence. 
 Some time afterwards, Cambyses, in drawing 
 his sword, wounded his own thigh ; and, 
 like the bull, died of the injury. The priests, 
 of course, did not fail to represent it as a 
 judgment on his daring crime. Dr. Prideaux, 
 in relating this occurrence, actually coincides 
 with the priests ; atul thinks that God 
 punished the king for his contempt of their 
 religion, though that religion was idolatrous. 
 For so eminent a man, and a Dean of the 
 Church of England, such an opinion appears 
 a little extraordinary. N. R. 
 
 APOPHTHEGMS. 
 
 ( From the Persian .) 
 
 A sage, whose eyes and hands were lifted 
 up towards heaven, offered up this prayer to 
 the throue of mercy : — “ Great God, have 
 pity on the wicked ; for thou hast done all 
 for the good, when thou hast made them 
 good.” 
 
 A man is born, he begins to build, and 
 dies; another is born, who also begins to 
 build, and dies likewise. Thus generations 
 succeed each other; everything is begun: 
 nothing is finished. Happy the man who 
 has gained on earth the prize of goodness : 
 his reward awaits him in the other life. 
 
 W. G. C. 
 
 MODE OF EMPLOYING SERVANTS 
 THROUGHOUT THE WORLD. 
 
 (Par the Mirror.') 
 
 The Azamoglans, in Turkey. 
 Azamoglans, Agemoglans, or Agiamoglans, 
 are under-o’fficers, or servants destined for 
 the meaner uses of the seraglio. They are 
 sometimes captives taken in war, or bought 
 of the Tartars, but more commonly the sons 
 of Christians, taken from their purents at the 
 age of ten or twelve years, being seldom the 
 sons of natural Turks, but yeurly collected 
 from the increase of the poor Christians in the 
 Morea of A lbania : the yearly number of those 
 thus collected, amounts to about 20.000, — 
 who are brought to Constantinople, presented 
 before the vizier, and by him placed in divers 
 situations, either in the seraglio’s of Galatae, 
 Okmedon, or Adrianople; others are put 
 forth to learn different trades in the city, 
 brought up as seamen, and many are placed 
 in the great seraglio at Constantinople, 
 where they are made to serve in the- stables 
 and kitchen, to dig in the gardens, to cleave 
 wood, and to do whatever service they are 
 commanded by the superiors set over them, 
 who are called the odabaschees. 
 
 Those of the Azamoglans, who are de- 
 signed for the grand signior’s seraglio, are 
 the choicest of the whole number, possessing 
 the strongest bodies, and most promising as- 
 pects. The discipline they undergo is very 
 severe ; so that they are taught obedience and 
 readiness to serve ; with watching, fasting, and 
 other peuances. Their clothing is of coarse 
 blue cloth, made at Salonica — their capsof felt, 
 after the form of a sugar-loaf, of hair colour. 
 Some of them are taught to read and write, 
 who are esteemed as the most acute, and fit 
 for instruction ; but the greater part are ex- 
 ercised in running, leaping, wrestling, 
 throwing the iron bar, or other agilities. 
 Their lodgings are pent-houses, or sheds 
 built under the walls of the seraglio — their 
 diet flesh and rice, sufficient, though not 
 luxurious. Out of those belonging to the 
 seraglio, none are drawn out for jannissaries. 
 but are sometimes preferred for the service 
 of bashaws, according to their fidelity or 
 good conduct. The Azamoglans who are 
 distributed into other quarters than the se- 
 raglio, are principally designed, ns they grow 
 up, for jannissaries in the place of those de- 
 ceased of that body. Their names, with 
 the places where they are distributed, and 
 their pay, which is from two to five aspers 
 a day, are written in a book, which book is 
 signed by the grand signiorand teftendar, who 
 pays their salaries every three months, being 
 obliged at that time to inquire who is dead 
 or removed, and to make a true report to the 
 grand signior. 
 
 C. P. S. 
 
THE MIRROR. 149 
 
 HOROLOGIA HISTOR1A. 
 
 THE CLOCK-SPHERES OF THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 [For'Jke Mirror .) 
 
 [Concluded from page 136.] 
 
 But the most celebrated of all the ancient 
 clock spheres ot the ancients, is that of the 
 famous Archimedes, the well-known philoso- 
 pher and delender of Syracuse, against the 
 Roman Legions, under Marcellus ; and what 
 is not a little remarkable is, that it is not 
 mentioned in any of the extant works of 
 Archimedes; we are, therefore, as usual, com* 
 pelled to have resort to contemporary histo- 
 rians; and what is more to be regretted, these 
 authors do not give any clear account of them, 
 being, in many instances, nothing but mere 
 passing mention of them, as in the present 
 case. Cicero speaks of this more than once ; 
 and in the second book, “ De Natura Deo- 
 rum,” are the following curious words : 
 
 ‘‘ Archtmedem arbitrantur plus valuisse 
 injmitandis Sphcera conversionibus, quant 
 Naturam tn efficiendis And again, in his 
 “ Tusculane’’ questions, “ Nani cum 
 Archimedes Lunee, '[Solis, quinque erran- 
 ttum motus tn spherum illigavit efficit from 
 which last we gather, that Archimedes had 
 constructed a sphere which combined in it 
 the motion of the moon, sun, and the five 
 wandering stars, or planets. Though these 
 brief and imperfect descriptions are suffi- 
 cient to let us know that such a machine 
 had been made by^Archimedes, yet they 
 convey but little information that is at all 
 satisfactory. And in regard to the nature 
 ot its construction, and the purposes to 
 which he may have applied it, we learn 
 nothing — and indeed this barren kind of 
 notice is all that is to be found in the greater 
 part of the accounts handed down to us — 
 but by far the most accurate description is 
 that^of the old, poet, Claudian, which has 
 been translated in the following words :— 
 When Jove espied in glass liis heaven’s made. 
 
 He smiled, and to the other gods thus said : 
 
 T is strange that human art so far proceeds 
 To ape in brittle orbs my greatest deeds, 
 
 I he heavenly motions, nature’s constant course. 
 
 Lo here old Archimede to art transfers 
 1 lie enclosed spirit, here each star doth drive, 
 
 And to the living work some motions give. 
 
 Ihij sun in counterfeit his year doth run, 
 
 And Cynthia to her monthly circle turn. 
 
 Since now bold man, worlds of his own descryd. 
 
 He joys, and the stars by human art can guide. 
 Why should we so admire proud Solomon’s cheats. 
 When one poor hand, nature’s chief work repeats.” 
 
 From the concluding lines of this long 
 epigram, as well as Irom the previous re- 
 marks ol Cicero, we may conclude that this 
 contrivance ol Archimedes, or as the ori- 
 ginal styles him, “ Syracusus senex,” had 
 made no little noise amongst his cotempo- 
 raries, who appear by their inordinate ad- 
 miration to have made themselves the butt 
 of the poetical writers of the day, or why 
 
 all these satirical remarks of Cicero and 
 Claudian. 
 
 And here again, although we have quoted 
 at much length, we have derived but little 
 information respecting the mechanism of the 
 sphere ; however, we learn that in it the sun, 
 moon, and the other heavenly bodies, had 
 each of them their proper motions and po- 
 sitions assigned to them ; and this motion, 
 curiously enough, is assigned by Claudian 
 as the work of some kind spirit, for he says, 
 “ Indus us variis famulator spirit us astris.” 
 What this enclosed spirit really was, will 
 not take us much time to discover, for from 
 the great mechanical celebrity of Archimedes, 
 we may presume it, without much liability 
 to error, to have been neither more nor less 
 than a w T ell-contrived combination of wheels, 
 weights, springs, pullies, or some such kind 
 ol clock-work, which being artfully concealed 
 from the public view, would, in those times, 
 be readily accounted as the agency' of some 
 spirit, or divine power; but we must not 
 suppose the epigrammatist himself to have 
 been ignorant of its action, for he states, 
 “ Oaudet, humand sidera mente regit,’’ or 
 that his stars are governed by human art. 
 
 There is little doubt but that the machine, 
 or whatever it may be termed, was of very 
 superior construction, for the time in which 
 it was made ; especially when we bear in 
 mind that no less a person than Archimedes 
 was its author, unquestionably one of the 
 greatest geniuses of the age in which he 
 lived, and who, as his w’orks now extant 
 amply testify, was deeply versed in all the 
 mechanism then known, and which his tran- 
 scendant genius greatly improved and ex- 
 tended. Both friend and foe bear testimony to 
 his greiit mechanical skill, as more especially 
 exemplified in his glorious but unfortunate 
 defence of Syracuse, in which he unfortu- 
 nately perished by the hand of a barbarian 
 Roman : he has left behind him a name that 
 will be perpetual, whilst the sphere and 
 cylinder exist in form or figure. 
 
 All these great qualifications being duly 
 considered, we need not be surprised at the 
 admiration excited amongst his cotempo- 
 raries by this performance. 
 
 There is another of these ancient clock- 
 spheres mentioned by Cicero, in his work, 
 “ De Natura Deorum ,” and which, cu- 
 riously enough, is brought in to prove, 
 
 “ That there is some intelligent, divine, 
 and wise Being that inhubiteth, ruleth in, 
 and is as an architect of so great a work as the 
 World but as we have nothing to do with 
 any such argument, we shall pass on to the 
 words of Cicero himself, which bear more 
 directly upon the question in hand: he 
 states, “ Cum solarium vel description aut 
 et aqua contemp/ore, intelligere declarari 
 horas arte from which brief and curious 
 passage we learn that “ there were sun- 
 
150 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 dials drawn and described, and some made 
 with water.” And again, a little farther on, 
 in the same work, he states more at length, 
 “ Quod si in Scythiam, aut in Brittanium 
 Sphcerum aliquis tulerit hanc, quam nul'er 
 familiaris noster efficit Posidonius, cujus 
 singulse convevsiones idem efficiunt in Sole 
 ct in Lunae, in quinquime stellis errantibus 
 quod efficitur, in Cselo singulis diebus et 
 noctibus;” from which, with a slight alte- 
 ration, we learn that “ Posidonius had lately 
 contrived a sphere, whose motions were the 
 same in the sun, moon, and five planets, as 
 were performed in the heavens each day 
 and night.” 
 
 In the former of these quotations, we must 
 observe that the sun-dials here mentioned 
 were made very similar to those now used, 
 by lines drawn according to the kind and 
 position of the solaria itself, and the words 
 “ aut et aqua,” do not refer to sun-dials 
 made by water, as might be supposed, but 
 to the clepsydrae already mentioned, which 
 were different both in form and principle 
 from the solaria. This sphere of Posido- 
 nius was invented about the time of Cicero, 
 whose account we have given in the above 
 extract ; and, consequently, its age will be 
 about eighty years before the birth of Christ. 
 
 This sphere, it is generally believed, imi- 
 tated the annual us well as the diurnal mo- 
 tion of the heavens, though the words “ er- 
 rantibus quod efficitur en ccelo singulis die- 
 bus et noctibus ,” scarcely seem to mention 
 such a compound motion ; it does not speak 
 of any annual motion, unless we conceive 
 tc Singulis diebus ,” to be more expressive 
 than usual, and stand for an equivalent to 
 every day through the year. 
 
 If this is admitted, then I think such a 
 machine could not possibly have been re- 
 gulated by any other means than u combi- 
 nation of wheel-work, as in the different 
 artificial spheres, and instruments of a similar 
 nature, now used ; but, by whatever method 
 motion and regularity were given to these 
 instruments, it undoubtedly implies great 
 mechanical skill and contrivance, as well as 
 very considerable constructive perfection, 
 for upon the regularity of these instruments 
 depends their beauty. 
 
 After the foregoing brief and rapid de- 
 scription of some of the most curious and 
 interesting of the early specimens of time- 
 measuring instruments, it may not be un- 
 interesting to make some remarks upon 
 their probable application to the more prac- 
 tical and useful purposes of life ; and to 
 inquire whether they were used as mere cu- 
 riosities, or specimens of the inventor’s me- 
 chanical ingenuity ; undoubtedly, in regard 
 to the latter case, they may have been ex- 
 hibited as illustrations of their system of 
 astronomy, as I should imagine is suffi- 
 ciently evident from the instances already 
 quoted of their having imitations of the. 
 
 annual and diurnal motions of the sun, 
 moon, and planets then known, included in 
 their construction, as well as being able to 
 show the hours through every day of the 
 month, and in some instances through the 
 year. 
 
 Suppose we admit with Cardan, in the 
 case of the sphere just mentioned, as be- 
 longing to Sapor, the king of Persia, that it 
 was made of glass, and also, that the king 
 could sit in the middle of it, and see its stars 
 rise and set. 
 
 How are we to reconcile the statement of 
 the king’s being able to sit in its centre, with 
 the actual motion of the sphere, which un- 
 doubtedly it must have had, for by this mo- 
 tion alone could the stars have been made to 
 rise and set ; from this, I presume, we may 
 infer, with some appearance of truth, that it 
 could not have been of the nature of our 
 modern celestial spheres which are made of 
 glass ; and it is equally difficult to conceive 
 how Sapor could have sat in the middle of 
 it, if it had been of the nature of an armil- 
 lary sphere. We are aware, from fragments 
 of ancient astronomical history, that the 
 ancient observers used an instrument for fix- 
 ing the positions of the heavenly bodies, 
 something of the nature of an armillary 
 sphere, being made up of circles, &c., which 
 were placed in the planes of the different 
 astronomical circles, as the meridian, equa- 
 tor, ecliptic, &c., by which the required ob- 
 servations were made. 
 
 This leads me to doubt the assertion of 
 Cardan, and to imagine that they must have 
 been either a skeleton celestial sphere, in 
 which the planetary paths were represented 
 by circles, or else on the principles of those 
 little instruments which are used by lec- 
 turers on astronomy, in the present time, to 
 illustrate the relative motions and positions 
 of the suu and planets through one revo- 
 lution. 
 
 And therefore, we may conclude that these 
 spheres were looked upon more as mecha- 
 nical or astronomical curiosities than as use- 
 ful domestic instruments ; though we must 
 not deny that it is extremely probable, that 
 some modification of them may have been 
 made, so as to unswer some of the ordinary 
 purposes required ; this idea is strengthened 
 by the accounts already given of the spheres 
 of Archimedes and Posidonius showing the 
 hours, though we are not aware that they 
 were commonly employed for such pur- 
 poses ; indeed the nature of the construction 
 of these clock-spheres is plainly of too com- 
 plex and intricate principle ever to have 
 been of much use for such purposes as those 
 mentioned. But in the case of the Solaria 
 and Clepsydrae, it is very different, because 
 they are neither so complex in their construc- 
 tion, nor so difficult of comprehension as the 
 spheres. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 151 
 
 A solaria might be placed in the centre of 
 a court-yard, or entrance to a building, and be 
 exposed for years to all the fluctuations of 
 the weather, without being deranged, or sub- 
 ject to irregularity : and indeed we know that 
 large sun-dials have been made with the an- 
 cient Egyptian obelisks, as for instance, the 
 one erected by the Emperor Augustus, in the 
 Campus Martins, at Rome, the obelisk, which 
 is one of Cleopatra’s needles, I believe, was 
 the gnomon, or stile, and the hours were 
 marked in a large circle on the pavement 
 round the obelisk ; and the astronomer 
 Manlius also used it for finding the sun’s alti- 
 tude, which, as is well known, was the ancient 
 method, the shadow of the obelisk being the 
 radius, the obelisk will be the tangent of the 
 angle of the sun’s elevation. 
 
 And evidently the simplest case of these 
 solaria is that of the vertical gnomon and ho- 
 rizontal dial, precisely as takes place on a 
 grander scale in nature, as mentioned at th£ 
 beginning of this paper. 
 
 After these times, the clock- in its most 
 primitive form was introduced ; but as this 
 does not form any part of the object of this 
 present paper, I shall here conclude the sub- 
 ject. Dalby Lockwood. 
 
 itfHamtcrsi antf CusitomS. 
 
 SKETCHES OF PARIS. 
 
 The Gardens of the Tuileries. 
 Unless you have witnessed it, you can have 
 no possible idea how fond the Parisians are 
 of walking about. Wet or fine, warm or 
 cold, winter or summer, they turn out just the 
 same, to wander up and down the public 
 promenades of their adored city, or dream 
 away the day upon those eternal little rush- 
 bottomed chairs which they hire at two sous 
 each, reading the newspapers, or tapping the 
 pointed toes of their well-polished boots with 
 their umbrellas. How or when they find 
 time for business, or the common domestic 
 affairs of their establishments, we never yet 
 could make out. It is lucky the English 
 words home and comfort have no synonyms 
 in their language, for we are convinced 
 they would not understand the meaning of 
 them. 
 
 The chief resort of the outdoor people of 
 Paris is the garden of the Tuileries. You 
 will find almost equal multitudes at the same 
 time in the Jardin des Plantes, the Luxem- 
 bourg, the Palais Royal, and the Champs 
 Elysees, but the Tuileries appears to be the 
 most favoured spot. Its population varies 
 naturally according to the hours of the da)’, 
 the seasons of the year, and the state of the 
 temperature. During the morning, you will 
 see only persons who take it in their way 
 from one place to another ; soon, however, 
 the reading of the journals, which are let out 
 
 here, attracts numerous grave and sedentary 
 groups. Towards noon, a fresh movement of 
 laughing mirth and noise commences, by the 
 arrival of the children and their bonnes ; 
 after this the mothers of the said children 
 appear, and then gradually ‘ all the world,’ 
 to adopt their translation of ‘ everybody.’ 
 
 But there is a marvellous lack of intelli- 
 gence displayed by the groups who collect in 
 the different parts of the gardens of the Tuile- 
 ries, for all do not arrive with the same end. 
 Upon the terrace, on the borders of the Seine, 
 for example, where the view is so agreeable, 
 the air so pure, the walk so smooth, and the 
 sun so warm even in winter, you will be 
 almost certain not to find a soul. You may 
 perhaps encounter a student, deeply engaged 
 in ‘ grinding' the preparations for his ap- 
 proaching examination, which he expects 
 in eight or ten days, or an actor who is 
 threatening the lower houghs of the chestnut- 
 trees with his stick, (all actors carry sticks,) 
 while he is rehearsing his part in some tre- 
 mendous melo-drama for the Theatre de 
 l’Ambigu Comique ; but beyond these, and a 
 few old men who have walked there for the 
 last twenty years, the place is quite desolate. 
 
 And yet, solitary as it is, and half deserted, 
 it is never chosen for the purpose of tender 
 declarations, avowals, promises, oaths, quar- 
 rels, and ail the other usual accompaniments 
 of courtship. No, in this respect the French 
 show their wit — the world with its broad day- 
 light, its tumultuous noise, and its distracted 
 eyes, (and heads too very often,) is far more 
 adapted for secrecy than the shade and the 
 retreat ; and more than this, society will 
 always lend itself as an accomplice of things 
 which are not sought to be concealed. 
 
 When you have descended the slope that 
 terminates the raised walk which overlooks 
 the Place de la Concorde, you.will see in face 
 of you, at the other side ot the octagonal 
 basin, a perfect living border to the wall. It 
 is there that the worship of the sun is fol- 
 lowed with as much ardour as in Peru. A 
 crowd of old men, chiefly invalides, children 
 and nursery-maids from Normandy, with 
 their clear healthy faces, and high towering 
 lace caps, are there waiting to bask in the 
 warm sunbeams, and watch the passers by. 
 It is there that a generous foresight has mul- 
 tiplied the stone benches, and there also are 
 chairs to let upon speculation, which, how- 
 ever, do not find occupants until the benches 
 are filled. And how droll it is to see chairs 
 let at a penny each in the gardens of a 
 palace ; to say nothing of its very hall being 
 a thoroughfare ! 
 
 At the turn of the wall begins the grand 
 resort of the loiterers, irrevocably fixed by 
 usage between the long rows of orange trees 
 which run parallel with the Rue de Rivoli. 
 Entire families turn out and sit. here nearly 
 the whole day, some talking, others working, 
 
152 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 more readit.g, and ad occasionally quizzing 
 their neighbours. There exists a certain 
 class of society in Paris which has made the 
 Tuileries its theatre — its world. You will 
 rarely see those who compose it anywhere 
 else, but you will always find them there, 
 and there they direct all their thoughts and 
 ambition, it is there that the newest inven- 
 tion of the toilette is published ; it is there 
 that the last dress, with all its lustre of no- 
 velty, is displayed, or the debut of a bonnet is 
 risked. There thev invent half the scandal 
 and daily rumours of Paris. Each day, at the 
 fixed time, the same groups assemble, and 
 each day its promenaders approach each other 
 to ofier compliments, and retire to find lault 
 with the dress, manners, or reputation of the 
 friend they have just been adulating. 
 
 But of all those who resort here, at least in 
 our opinion, the great attraction lies in the 
 children — we mean those who have not yet 
 numbered ei^lit years, and whose limbs have 
 still all the smooth roundness of infancy. In 
 spite of the monkey-jacket style of dress, with 
 which the French delight to trick out their 
 children, there is something very pleasing in 
 their graceful movements, their fresh cheeks 
 and their beautiful hair ; and a perfect charm 
 in their gaiety ; — in the innocent joy spark- 
 liug in their eyes, and in the pure and living 
 blood colouring their cheeks, which even the 
 belles of Paris cannot imitate. It is almost 
 enough to make you a convert in favour of 
 matrimony. We might perhaps add, that 
 this attraction belongs only to those who can 
 run about; — the infants are not so pleasing ; 
 indeed it would take a great deal to beat the 
 saucy beauty of an English baby — we saw 
 few like them in either France. Switzeiland, 
 or Italy. But, mothers of Paris, do not 
 clothe your children in such bryurres dis- 
 guises. Abolish all their mimic uniforms, 
 and foraging-caps, aud epaulettes, and other 
 military trappings for little rogues who are 
 so fond of rolling about in the dust, and 
 giving their hair to the winds to play with. 
 Let their necks be naked, their limbs free, 
 and their tresses falling down their backs, lor 
 they ought to fall. There are enough grown 
 up infants in the National Guard without 
 adding to the number. Let them laugh, and 
 tumble and ruu as they like, while they can. 
 The only pity is, they should ever be des- 
 tined to become men. Knips. 
 
 THE TRUE PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 Instead of shutting himself up in an island, 
 and abusing the rest of mankind, the philoso- 
 pher should make the world his country, and 
 should trample beneath his feet those preju- 
 dices which the vulgar so fondly hug to their 
 bosoms. — //^. Lawrence. 
 
 JStograpljg. 
 
 MEMOIRS OP MRS. TROI.I.OPE. 
 
 This lady is the youngest daughter of the 
 Rev. William Milton, vicar of Heckfield, 
 Hants — a new college living, of which so- 
 ciety he was for some years a fellow. He was 
 an able mathematician and mechanician, and 
 was well known among the scientific men of 
 his day. 
 
 In 1809 Miss Milton was married at Heck- 
 field, to Thomas Anthony Trollope, barrister- 
 at-law, of Lincoln’s Inn, Esq., son of the Rev. 
 Anthony Trollope, and grandson of Sir Tho- 
 mas Trollope, Bart., of Casewick, Lincoln- 
 shire. He lived to witness the decisive suc- 
 cess of Mrs. Trollope’s first work, and the 
 commencement only of the brilliant lift rary 
 career, of which that was the opening. He 
 died in 1835. 
 
 It was in 1827 that Mrs. Trollope left Eng- 
 land for A.uerica; and in 1831 that she re- 
 turned to her native country. In the following 
 year she published her two volumes on the 
 “ D imestic Manners of the Americans ;” and 
 from that time to the present, a rapid succes- 
 sion of popular and successful works has con- 
 firmed and extended the reputation which her 
 first book achieved ; and have won for her 
 au undisputed place amid the principal fa- 
 vourites of the public. 
 
 Such are the leading facts and general out- 
 line of Mrs. Trollope’s history. Of the details 
 of her domestic life, which should complete 
 the sketch, we know but little ; but we would 
 make a few remarks on one peculiarity in the 
 reception which her works have met with from 
 the public. 
 
 That Mrs. Trollope has, from the first com- 
 mencement of her career up to the present 
 time, been uniformly and eminently success- 
 (ul as an author, no one can gainsay or doubt. 
 But on the other hand it is equally dear, that 
 scarcely any of her works — the charming 
 “ Widow Barnaby,” perhaps, excepted — have 
 escaped the vehement and angry censure of 
 some portion or other of the press. Certainly 
 no other author of the present day has been 
 at once so much read, so much admired, and 
 so much abused. Now how is this to be ac- 
 counted lor ? Does it not arise from the bold, 
 and uncompromising expression of her own 
 honestly- formed convictions and opinions, on 
 every subject, whatever they may be, on the 
 one hand ; and from the intrinsic talent, 
 and charming style of her works on the 
 other P We can trace the circumstance to 
 no other cause. — (Extracted from Wo. 219 
 of Colburn's New Monthly Magazine , which 
 is embellished with a portrait of Mrs. 
 Trollope.) 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 163 
 
 dfuu Srt$. 
 
 NELSON MEMORIAL. 
 
 The Committee of Taste have recommended 
 the three following designs for the approba- 
 tion of the General Committee. The descrip- 
 tion of them we have quoted from The Civil 
 Engineer and Architect's Journal, No>. 18 ; 
 which work is this month replete with more 
 than its usual valuable statistical and other 
 useful information. As it is generally ima- 
 gined, the whole of the models and drawings 
 will shortly be publicly exhibited, care will 
 then he taken to give our readers a succinct 
 account of the most admired among the various 
 designs. 
 
 Design by JV. Railton, Architect. 
 
 To which the first premium is proposed to 
 be adjudged by the Committee. 
 
 The design makes no pretension whatever 
 to originality, being no more than a fluted 
 Corinthian column, 174 feet high, on a 
 pedestal ornamented with reliefs, and sur- 
 mounted by a statue 17 feet high; conse- 
 quently, for want of some basement or 
 substructure, will be apt to look too small, 
 except as merely a lofty central ornament in 
 the square. 
 
 The following description of the two other 
 prizes are by their respective authors : — 
 
 Design by E. H. Daily, R. A. 
 
 To which the Committee propose to award 
 the second prize. 
 
 Description. — An Obelisk raised to the 
 memory of Nelson, by his grateful country. 
 At the base, our great Naval Commander is 
 represented supporting the Imperial Standard; 
 on his left stands the Genius of Britain, 
 hailing with affection the Hero of Trafalgar; 
 his attendant, Victory, being seated on his 
 right. At the back of the Obelisk rests the 
 Nile — Neptune, with the subordinate Deities 
 of the Ocean, form a Triumphal Procession 
 round the Rock on which the Monument is 
 placed, thereby indicating that the Victories 
 of Nelson were as extensive as the Element 
 on which he fought. 
 
 Dimensions.— T he height of the monu- 
 ment is intended to be 60 feet ; the diameter 
 of the steps the same extent ; and the height 
 of Nelson to be nine feet, the other figures 
 in proportion, as in the sketch. 
 
 Estimate. — To execute the whole monu- 
 ment in Ravaccioni Marble, (the same as the 
 arch before Buckingham Palace is built of,) 
 22,000/ — if executed in Bronze, 30,000/. 
 
 Drawings and Model by Charles Fowler, 
 
 Architect, and R. IV. Siever, Sculptor. 
 
 To which the Committee propose to award 
 the third prize. 
 
 This design has been composed upon the 
 
 principle of combining Architecture and 
 Sculpture ; with a view to obtain a more 
 striking effect from their union than either 
 is calculated to produce separately ; the one 
 by its forms and mass, to arrest the attention 
 and make a general impression, which may 
 be heightened and perfected by the more 
 refined and interesting details of the other. 
 It would appear from the result of existing 
 instances, that a mere structure cannot pro- 
 perly convey the feeling or produce the effect 
 intended by a Monument, designed to com- 
 memorate any celebrated character or event. 
 On the other hand, a Statue or Sculpture 
 Group is inefficient for want of mass and 
 general form ; the former is appreciated as a 
 distant object, and the latter only on close 
 inspection. The desideratum, therefore, lies 
 in avoiding these objections, or rather in 
 combining the advantages which peculiarly 
 belong to each art, so that the many who 
 pass by may be struck with the general 
 aspect of the Monument, and the few who 
 may pause to examine its details may find 
 their first impressions carried forward and 
 perfected by the beauty and significance of 
 its historical illustrations. 
 
 With respect to the design now submitted, 
 the endeavour has been to render it charac- 
 teristic and appropriate to the occasion, 
 avoiding plagiarism, but without affecting 
 novelty. The rostrated decorations of the 
 pededul, and its accessories, proclaim it at 
 once to be a naval trophy ; and the hero to 
 he commemorated will be not less plainly 
 indicated ; whilst the sculpture and other 
 details will set forth his achievements. 
 
 In regard to the structure, simplicity and 
 strength are the distinguishing qualities of 
 the basement, which is proposed to be con- 
 structed of granite, in large blocks, so as to 
 be striking for their massiveness, solidity, 
 and giving dignity to the superstructure. 
 The pedestals at the angles of the platform 
 are to be surmounted with piles of trophies, 
 executed in bronze, and crowned with lamps, 
 to light both the area and mouument ; mas- 
 sive granite basins are set to receive the 
 running fountains on three sides, the fourth 
 being reserved for an entrance to the struc- 
 ture within. The colossal figures seated 
 against the four fronts of the pedestal, are 
 designed to represent Britannia, Caledonia, 
 Hibernia, and Neptune, distinguished by 
 their appropriate insignia and attributes. 
 
 On the south front of the pedestal, and at 
 a legible distance from the spectator, is pro- 
 posed to be inscribed a brief euloginm of the 
 hero, — some attempt at which, by way of 
 illustration, is made in the drawing, without 
 presuming to anticipate that delicate task, 
 which will properly devolve upon other and 
 more able hands. The opposite side is 
 iniended to contain the historical or matter- 
 of-fact inscription, comprising also a record 
 
154 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 of the erection of the monument. The other 
 two sides are to have each a shield of arms 
 in relief, encircled by a wreath. The cap or 
 cornice of the lower pedestal is decorated by 
 antique prows of vessels, to give the rostrated 
 character, enriched with festoons of oak and 
 marine ornaments. 
 
 The middle compartment of the structure 
 contains on the four faces of the dado simply 
 the names of tire four principal actions in 
 which Nelson was engaged ; and in the 
 panel over each is a representation, in Basso 
 relievo , of some striking incident in each 
 battle — the front being distinguished by the 
 grand catastrophe, which formed at once the 
 climax of his achievements, and the termi- 
 nation of his brilliant career. 
 
 In order to give character, as well as to 
 provide for an unusually bold projeeture, the 
 Gallery above is supported on Cannons, in 
 lieu of the usual architectural consoles : and 
 the intervals in the soffite are enriched with 
 bombs and grenades. The railing of the 
 gallery is composed of decorations and em- 
 blems, having reference to the occasion, so 
 as to combine ornament with characteristic 
 expression. 
 
 The upper compartment of the monument 
 is distinguished by its circular form, and is 
 more completely charged with decoration, 
 illustrative of the honours which Nelson had 
 achieved. The four large wreaths, embracing 
 the entire circuit of the pedestal, contain res- 
 pectively the Naval Crown, the Viscount’s 
 Coronet, the Mural Crown, and the Ducal 
 Coronet. From these wreaths are suspended 
 the decorations of the four Orders ” to 
 which he belonged. 
 
 The frieze of this pedestal is entirely occu- 
 pied by the heraldic motto, which happens 
 to be peculiarly appropriate to the occasion. 
 The ornaments surmounting the cornice, 
 which are analogous in form and application 
 to the Grecian antefixse, are composed of 
 escallop shells, and the cupola is to be of 
 copper gilt. 
 
 The statue of Nelson crowns the whole, 
 and is to be executed in bronze, about sixteen 
 feet in height, and the entire height of the 
 structure and statue will be 120 feet from the 
 area of the square — viz : — eleven feet more 
 that the Column of the Duke of York. 
 
 The monument, with all its decorations and 
 accessories, to be completed in the most per- 
 fect style for the sum of twenty -five thousand 
 pounds. 
 
 Let whoever may be the fortunate artist, 
 we ardently hope such a design will be 
 chosen that will be worthy of the subject; 
 for, as the Times justly remarks: “ It is a 
 ‘ national ’ monument that is wanted — a 
 monument to the memory of the greatest 
 naval commander that the history of the 
 world can recoid.”^ 
 
 CIjc }9ubltc Sotmtals. 
 
 THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF MICHAEL 
 ARMSTRONG, THE FACTORY BOY. 
 
 (By Mrs Trollope. — Part 1. — Colburn.) 
 
 [We think it impossible Mrs. Trollope could 
 have chosen a theme better adapted for a dis- 
 play of her peculiar talent, than the one she 
 has here selected ; and we feel assured, this 
 lady will portray scenes of the greatest in- 
 terest, for it is a field abounding in heart- 
 stirring materials, which only want gather- 
 ing to produce a picture of such sordid 
 avarice and appalling misery that will aston- 
 ish her readers ; and, if the author should 
 from such prolific sources draw an instruct- 
 ive and moral essay, rich indeed will be 
 her harvest. 
 
 The work opens favourably, giving a lively 
 and graphic description of the family of Sir 
 Matthew Dowling, a wealthy cotton-spinner, 
 and of his company invited to a grand dinner 
 given by him at Dowling-lodge. Among the 
 party assembled on that occasion, Lady Cla- 
 rissa Skrimpton forms a prominent character ; 
 who, to avoid the heat of the drawing-room 
 after dinner, walks out with Sir Matthew, 
 when they are met by a cow, to the great 
 horror of Lady Clarissa; at this critical junc- 
 ture our little hero makes his appearance, and 
 is the means of driving the animal away from 
 the affrighted lady, who, to show her gratitude 
 for his services, induces Sir Matthew to take 
 him under his care, which he benevolently 
 agrees to do ; and accordingly orders his gar- 
 dener, a Mr. Macnab, to show him into the 
 servants’ hall ; and thus is the 
 
 Introduction of Michael Armstrong to the 
 Servants at Dowling-lodge. 
 
 “ When Mr. Macnab and his little companion 
 entered the kitchen, in their way to the ser- 
 vants’ hall, to which place of honour the 
 wondering Scotchman remembered he had 
 been commanded to conduct his charge, the 
 first person they encountered was Mr. Sim- 
 kins, the butler, whom some accidental wish 
 or want had led to enter a region but rarely 
 honoured by the sunshine of his presence. 
 
 “ Good morning, Macnab. What ! empty- 
 handed P I am afraid you have forgotten the 
 little basket of peaches I desired to have ; 
 and upon my word, sir, if you leave it much 
 longer, I shall not consider them worth pre- 
 senting to the lady for whom I desired to have 
 them. Be pleased to recollect, good Mr. 
 Sawney, that when every garden-wall is hung 
 with ripe fruit, a bottle of comfort will be ra- 
 ther too high a price fora dozen.” 
 
 “ A factory-boy, certainly,” Mrs. Thompson 
 replied, with the dignity that was peculiar 
 to her, “ nobody is likely to doubt that, Mr. 
 Macnab ; one might know his calling at half 
 a mile’s distance. The vulgar factory itself, 
 
THE MIltROH. 
 
 155 
 
 with its millions of windows, is not move 
 easily known than the things that crawl out 
 of it, with their millions of cotton specks — 
 that is not the main point of the question, 
 Mr. Macnab : it is not what the hoy is, but 
 who he is, and for what reason any one has 
 dared to say that he was to sup in the ser- 
 vants’ hall.” 
 
 “ Oh ! dear me, ma’am,” replied the gar- 
 dener, endeavouring to look very grave, “ that 
 wasn’t one half of it. To you, ma’am, it’s 
 my duty to repeat Sir Mathew’s words exact, 
 and this is what he said. ‘ Macnab,’ or ‘ Mr. 
 Macnab,’ for he calls me both at times , e take 
 this little boy,’ says he, ‘ into the servants’ 
 hall, and tell every body there to take care of 
 him— every body to take care of him’ — that 
 was it, Mrs. Thompson, word for word. And 
 then he went on : ‘ He is to have a bed,’ says 
 he, ‘ made up on purpose for him, and he is 
 to be waited upon with supper and breakfast,’ 
 and a great deal more, that Mr. Parsons is to 
 make known to-morrow. But you have not 
 heard all yet, ma’am,” continued Macnab, 
 raising his voice, on perceiving that the 
 stately housekeeper was putting herself in 
 act to speak. “ Sir Matthew went on, raising 
 his arm like one of his own steam-engines, 
 ‘ Observe, Mr. Macnab,’ says he, * and take 
 care that all the servants, little and great, 
 know it, that this boy is to be the object of 
 the greatest benevolence That’s something 
 new for you, Mrs. Thompson, isn't it ?” 
 
 “ Sir Matthew may settle about his bene- 
 volence with himself when he is in his own 
 pew at church,” replied Mrs. Thompson, with 
 a very satirical sort of smile ; “ but most cer- 
 tainly it shall not be brought to dirty my pre- 
 mises ; so let me hear no more about it, gar- 
 dener, if you please.” And with these words, 
 she turned haughtily away. 
 
 “ I have done my share of the benevolent 
 job, so 1 will wish you good night, Mrs. 
 Thompson ; and whether this little fellow 
 eats his supper and breakfast in the kitchen 
 or the hall, it will be much the same to him, 
 I fancy.” So saying, the gardener rose, and 
 giving a sort of general nod to the company, 
 left the kitchen. 
 
 “ Look up in my face, little boy,” said the 
 housekeeper, as soon as she had seated her- 
 self, and saw that those around her stood 
 still, as if they had taken their places, and 
 were prepared to listen. 
 
 Michael did not move ; he was probably 
 ashamed to show that he was weeping, before 
 the face of a lady who spoke so very grandly. 
 
 The kitchen-maid gave him a nudge, but a 
 gentle one, whispering at the same time — 
 “ Look up, my boy. What be you ’leard of? 
 There’s nobody as wants to hurt you here.” 
 
 Thus encouraged, Michael let his arm drop 
 by his side, and discovered a face that was 
 indeed sallow, and by no means very plump, 
 but with features and expression which, 
 
 whatever Sir Matthew Dowling’s men and 
 maids might think of it, might have sufficed 
 to make the fortune of an able painter. 
 
 <■ Whose child are you?” demanded the 
 housekeeper. “ Mothers,” replied the boy. 
 
 “ I suspected as much,” rejoined the in- 
 quisitor, half aside to Mr. Jennings. 
 
 “ And I beant no ways surprised to hear 
 it, I promise you,” he replied. 
 
 Mrs. Thompson sighed deeply. “ It is 
 dreadful 1” said she. Then, after taking a 
 moment to recover herself, she resumed, 
 “ And where does the unhappy person live ?” 
 
 “ Please, ma’am, who ?” said the puzzled 
 boy. 
 
 “ The — your mother, child. — Shame upon 
 you for forcing me to name her!” 
 
 Michael gave a little shake of the head, 
 which seemed to the merciful kitchen-maid 
 to say, that he did not know what the great 
 lady meant; but he presently replied, as if 
 discreetly determined to mind only what he 
 did understand, “ Mother lives in Hoxley 
 Lane, ma’am.” 
 
 “ The most deplorable situation in the 
 whole parish ! inhabited only by the very 
 lowest 1” observed the housekeeper, with ano- 
 ther indiguant sigh. 
 
 “ So much the worse for she,” muttered 
 the kitchen-maid ; but not loud enough to be 
 heard by her in whose hands rested the ap- 
 pointment of kitchen-maids as well as cooks. 
 
 “ And why does such as you come here ?” 
 resumed the housekeeper. 
 
 Because the squire ordered t’other man 
 to bring me,” answered Michael. 
 
 “ I suspect that the boy is a natural fool,” 
 observed Mrs. Thompson, addressing the 
 butler. “ It is a sure fact, and a great dis- 
 pensation-bad parents have almost always 
 children out of shape, both mind and body. 
 You may take my word for that, all of you,” 
 she added, looking rouud her; “ and you 
 will do well to teach it to your children after 
 you.” 
 
 “ I’ll be burnt if I don’t think it very 
 likely that it was his own father sent him 
 here, and no one else,” said Mr. Jennings, 
 chuckling. 
 
 “ Fie ! Jennings, fie 1” returned Mrs. 
 Thompson, with a frown. “ God in heaven 
 only knows what may have been the cause of 
 it ! — Not but what it does look strange, there’s 
 no denying that.” 
 
 “ Do you know any thing about your fa- 
 ther, child ?” said Mr. Simkins in a magis- 
 terial tone. 
 
 “ Father’s in heaven,” replied the child. 
 
 “ Mercy on me 1 do you hear him ? Is 
 not that like mucking the Lord’s prayer ?” 
 exclaimed the lady’s-maid. 
 
 “ No, it is not)!” said Michael, while a 
 flash of youthful indignation rushed into his 
 face. “ My father is in heaven along with 
 God.” 
 
156 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 “ I dare say he means that his father is 
 dead,” observed the butler, with an air of 
 great sagacity; “and if what has been 
 jealoused at is correct,” he added, winking 
 his eye at Mr. Jennings, “ it is very natural 
 that he should have been told to say so.” 
 
 “ That’s very true,” said the housekeeper, 
 “ and it may be, certainly, that the child 
 knows nothing about it whatever, either one 
 •way or t’other — indeed I think it’s a good 
 deal the most likely that he does not ; — but, 
 any how, it’s a very shocking business, and, 
 as far as I am concerned, I’ll neither make 
 nor meddle in the matter. — Of course, the 
 men-servants may do just as they like about 
 taking notice of him — for here he is, and 
 here he will abide, I dare say ; but I recom- 
 mend the maids to follow my example, and 
 not to injure their characters, nor to corrupt 
 their morals, by having any thing to do with 
 
 the offspring of- It is more decent not to 
 
 finish what I was going to say for your goods, 
 young women, — and lucky it is that there is 
 no need. You must all understand me with- 
 out it.” 
 
 Mrs. Thompson then rose, from her chair, 
 and turning her eyes, and indeed her head, 
 aside, to prevent herself from again seeing 
 Michael, she walked with a degree of state- 
 liness and majesty that few housekeepers ever 
 attained, through the kitchen, along the pas- 
 sage, across the servants’ hall, into the sacred 
 shelter of her own parlour, where she gave 
 way to emotions which rendered a glass of 
 prime London Madeira absolutely necessary. 
 
 [The author thus depictures the benevo- 
 lence of the factory lord, in the following 
 conversation between Sir Mutthew and his 
 head over- looker.] 
 
 “ Have you heard any thing of this meet- 
 ing at the Weavers’ Arms, Parsons ?” in- 
 quired Sir Matthew. 
 
 “ As much as a man was likely to hear, 
 Sir Matthew, who, as you will easily believe, 
 was not intended to hear any thing,” replied 
 the confidential servant. 
 
 “ And how much was that, Parsons ? Sit 
 down, Parsons — sit down, and let us hear all 
 about it.” 
 
 “ I was a coming, sir, if you hadn’t a sent 
 for me,” rejoined the overlooker ; “ for to say 
 truth, my mind misgives me, that there’s 
 mischief brewing.” 
 
 “ I have heard as much,” said the master ; 
 but it can hardly have gone very far yet, if 
 such a sharp-sighted fellow as you only sus- 
 pect.” 
 
 “ That’s true, sir,” said the man, with a 
 grim smile, in acknowledgment of the com- 
 pliment ; “ and I’ve not been idle, I promise 
 you. But all I know for certain is, that the 
 people, old and young, our own people I 
 mean, have, one and all, taken dudgeon about 
 that girl Stephens, that died the week before 
 last, just after leaving the mill. She had 
 
 been at work all day in the spinning-mill, and 
 who was to guess that she was that low ?” 
 “It was a d — d stupid thing though. Par- 
 sons, to have a girl go on working, and not 
 know whether she was dying or not.” 
 
 “ And how is one to know, sir? I’ll defy 
 any man to find out, what with their tricks, 
 and what with their real faintings.” 
 
 “ You won’t tell me, Parsons, that if you 
 set your wits to work, you can’t tell whether 
 they are shamming or not?” 
 
 “ That's not the question, Sir Matthew, 
 asking your pardon. There’s no great diffi- 
 culty in finding out whether they are in a 
 real faint, or only making the most of being 
 a little sickish from standing, and want of 
 air. That’s not the difficulty. The thing is 
 to know, when they really take to the down- 
 right faintings, whether they are likely to 
 live through it or not.’’ 
 
 “ And where is the great difficulty of that ? 
 You know Dr. Crockley would come at a 
 moment’s warning at any time, and feel their 
 pulses.” 
 
 “ And he does do it, sir. But, in the first 
 place, I doubt if any man can justly tell whe- 
 ther girls are likely to go on fainting, and up 
 again, as lots and lots of ’em do for years, or 
 drop down and die, as Nancy Stephens did. 
 That’s one thing ; and another is, that Dr. 
 Crockley is so fond of a joke, that ’tis rarely 
 one knows when he speaks earnest, and when 
 he does not. He did see Nancy Stephens, 
 about a month ago, and all he said was, ‘ she 
 do look a little pale in the gills, to be sure, 
 but a dance would cure her, I have no doubt,’ 
 A dance 1 says I, doctor. And please to tell 
 me, says I, how the work is to get on, if the 
 factory boys and girls sets off dancing?” 
 “‘Maybe you haven’t got a fiddle?’^’ 
 said he. 
 
 “ Maybe 1 haven't,” said f. 
 
 “ ‘ Well, then,’ says he, ‘ if it don’t suit 
 you to let them dance to the fiddle, I’ll bet 
 ten to one you’ll be after making them dance 
 to the strap.’ And with that, if you’ll be- 
 lieve me, sir, he set off capering, and making 
 antics, just as if there had been somebody 
 behind a-strapping him. To be sure, it was 
 fit to make one die of laughing to see him ; 
 but that’s not the way you know, sir, to do 
 one any good as to finding out the real con- 
 dition of the people.” 
 
 [There is no doubt that these * Adven- 
 tures’, so pregnant with subjects for deli- 
 neating the workings of the human mini!, 
 it told in such graphic and vigorous lan- 
 guage as the above extracts are, will 
 become one of the most favourite pub- 
 lications of the present day; at the same 
 time, it grieves us to see it accompanied by 
 two engravings, representing neither Eng- 
 lish persons uor English manners ; they are 
 indeed purely French ; and, we think, the 
 spits and lances, with the carrot, celery, pine- 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 157 
 
 apple, ami strawberry pottles, or Cupid’s 
 torches, whichever they are meant to represent, 
 with an infant Satyr balancing on a rope of 
 flowers, catching butterflies with a hand fish- 
 net, form curious, and not very appropriate 
 borders : we would advise the spirited pub- 
 lisher to ‘ reform them, altogether.’] 
 
 ENGLISH NAMES. 
 
 Names were first used amongst men for dis- 
 tinction. The Jews gave names at their cir- 
 cumcision, the Romans on the ninth day 
 after their children’s birth, and the Christians 
 at their baptism ; which names were gene- 
 rally intended to denote the future good 
 wishes or hope of parents towards their chil- 
 dren. 
 
 English names of baptism are generally 
 either Saxon, as Edmund, Edward, Edwin, 
 Gilbert, Henry, Leonard, Robert, Richard, 
 Walter, William, &c. ; or from the Bible and 
 Testament, as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, John, 
 Thomas, James, &c.; or it sometimes consists 
 of the mother’s surname, or occasionally of 
 two Christian names, which is still customary 
 in other countries, especially in Germany. 
 
 The French called names superadded to 
 the Christian names, surnames, i. e. super 
 nomina. 
 
 The Hebrews, Greeks, and other nations 
 of antiquity, did not affix surnames to their 
 families, but counted thus; for example, the 
 Hebrews, Melc/ii Ben Addi — Addi Ben Ca - 
 sam, &c. ; the Welsh, Hugh ap Owen, Owen 
 ap Rhese ; the Irish, Neal mac Con — Con 
 mac Dermoti, &c. 
 
 As Christian names were given to distin- 
 guish persons, so surnames were used for the 
 distinction of families. 
 
 About A.l). 1000, the French began to 
 take surnames, with de prefixed for a place, 
 and le prefixed for some other qualifications. 
 The English also adopted the use of surnames, 
 hut it was not until the reign of Edward the 
 First that they became general. 
 
 Offices of honour have given rise to many 
 surnames ; for example, the Duke of Ormond 
 and his descendant took the surname of But- 
 ler, their ancestor, Edward Fitz Theobald, hav- 
 ing been made Butler of Ireland ; — and again, 
 John, Count Tanquerville, of Normandy, be- 
 ing made chamberlain to the king of Eng- 
 land about 600 years since, his descendants 
 still bear the same coat of arms, by the name 
 of Chamberlain. 
 
 At first the English gentry took the names 
 of their birthplaces, or habitations, for sur- 
 names, as Thomas of As{on, or East-town. 
 John of Sutton, or South-town; and, as they 
 altered their habitation, so they changed 
 their surname. When they afterwards became 
 the lords of manors, they styled themselves 
 Thomas Aston of Aston, John Sutton ol 
 Sutton. 
 
 Among the Saxons, the common people 
 
 added for surname their fathers’ names, with 
 son at the end thereof, as Thomas Johnson, 
 Robert Richardson. They often took their 
 fathers’ nick-name, or abbreviated name, 
 with the addition of an s, as Gibs, the nick- 
 name of Gilbert, Hobs, of Robert, Nick, of 
 Nicholas, Bates, of Bartholomew, Sams, of 
 Samuel, Hodges, of Roger; whence Gibson, 
 Hobson, Nickson, Batson, Sampson, Hodson, 
 <fcc. Many were surnamed from their trades, 
 as Smith, Joyner, Weaver, Walker,* Guff.f 
 <fec. ; or from their employments, as Porter, 
 Steward, Shepherd, Carter, Spencer, J Cook, 
 Butler, Kemp;§ or from their places of abode, 
 asUnderwood, Underhill, also Atwood, Atwell, 
 Athill; or from their colours or complexions, 
 as Fairfax, || Pigot IT Blunt,** or Bland ; and 
 from Birds and Beasts, as Arundel, tf Cor- 
 bet, || Wren, Finch, Woodcock, Lamb, Fox, 
 Moyle, §§ &c. 
 
 The Norman descendants in this country, 
 about 200 years after the Conquest, also took 
 their fathers’ Christian names for surnames, 
 with Fitz or Fils prefixed, as Robert Fitz- 
 William, Henry Fitz-Gerard, afterwards Wil- 
 liamson, Gerardson, &c. 
 
 The Welsh were the last to adopt sumames, 
 which they did chiefly by dropping the a in 
 ap, and annexing the consonant to their 
 fathers’ Christian names ; as, instead of Evan 
 ap Rice, Evan Price ; and for ap Howel, 
 Powel ; ap Hughe, Pughe ; ap Rogers, Pro- 
 gers, &c. 
 
 The most ancient families in this country 
 are such as have taken their surnames from 
 places in Normandy, or England, and Scot- 
 land, as Evreng, Chaworth, Seymour, Nevil, 
 Montague, Mohun, Biroa, Bruges, Clifford, 
 Berkley, Arcy, Stouiton, Morley, Courtney, 
 Grandison, Hastings, &c., which formerly had 
 de prefixed, but now made one word, as 
 Bevereux, Darcy, &c. J. L. S. 
 
 ANECDOTES OF EMINENT 
 PERSONS. 
 
 (From French Works.') 
 
 The Empress Catherine . — At the time of 
 Jegur’s embassy at the Russian imperial 
 court, in the reign of Catherine II., a 
 stranger of the name of Suderland filled 
 the office of treasurer to the empress. One 
 morning he was informed that his house was 
 surrounded by soldiers, and that the com- 
 manding officer requested an audience. 
 
 This officer, whose name was Relieu, came 
 in then with an appearance of the utmost 
 consternation; “ Mr. Suderland,” said he, 
 “ it is with indescribable grief that I see 
 myself called upon to perform on you an 
 execution of a most horrible nature, oh ! 
 
 * Fuller in old English. -f Smith in Welsh, 
 
 t t. e. Steward. § Soldier in old Eui>lish. 
 
 || Fair locks. f Speckled. •* Flaxen hair, 
 ft Swallow. Xt Haven. Mule. 
 
158 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 horrible in the extreme! and I am totally igno- 
 rant of what crime you can have been guilty, 
 to have incurred the mighty displeasure of 
 her most gracious majesty.” “ I ! what 
 have I done ?” replied the treasurer, in 
 amazement, “ What in the world do you 
 mean ? I know no more than you do, what 
 I can have done. And what is that dreadful 
 execution you speak of ?” “ Sir,” answered 
 the officer, fetching his breath,” I really have 
 not courage to mention it — it is fearful.” 
 
 “ Have I then lost the confidence her ma- 
 jesty trusted in me ?’’ 
 
 “ Oh, if that were all, you would not see 
 me so afflicted. Confidence may be reguined : 
 an office may be restored.” 
 
 “ Well,” usked Sutherland, “am I to be 
 banished — banished to Siberia; oh, tell me, is 
 that my dreadful fate ?” 
 
 “It might be possible for you to return 
 from there. That is not it.” 
 
 “ Am I then to be cust in a dungeon ?” 
 
 “ That were preferable.” 
 
 “ Gracious Heavens ! am I then to suffer 
 the knout f” 
 
 “ It is a dreadful torture ; but you might 
 recover — it is not that.” 
 
 “ Oh ! for the mercy of heaven, no longer 
 keep me in doubt — am I then to die ?” 
 
 “ My gracious sovereign,” replied the 
 officer, trembling with emotion, “ ordered 
 me to have you — good heavens ! how dread- 
 ful— to have you — stuffed !”* 
 
 “ To be stuffed !” exclaimed the asto- 
 nished treasurer, “ to be stuffed ! Either you 
 must have lost your senses, or her majesty 
 must be in a dream. Surely, you never re- 
 ceived this order without remonstrating on 
 its barbarity ?” 
 
 “ Alas ! my poor friend, it was all to no 
 purpose, ‘ Go,’ said her majesty, ‘ and re- 
 collect that it. is your duty to execute what 
 orders I deign to give you !’ ” 
 
 It would be impossible to depict the 
 amazement, the anger, the fear, the despair 
 of the poor treasurer, that one short quarter 
 of an hour was granted him to put his 
 affairs in order; and it was with extreme 
 difficulty that permission was given him to 
 write a short note to Earl Bruce. His 
 lordship having read this note, stood trans- 
 fixed, as may be supposed, with astonish- 
 ment ; he lost no time in requesting an au- 
 dience of the empress, to whom he revealed 
 the contents of Suderland’s note. 
 
 Catherine, hearing this strange recital, 
 was at a loss to imagine what it could be 
 that could have given rise to this extraordi- 
 nary circumstance. “ Good heavens !” she 
 exclaimed, “ run, run, my lord, and be in 
 time to deliver my poor treasurer from his 
 terror.” 
 
 The earl hastened to Suderland’s house, 
 
 • To impale and to stuff are expressed by the 
 same word 111 the Russian. 
 
 fortunately, in time to save him ; and on his 
 return, found the empress laughing to her 
 heart’s content ; her majesty had discovered 
 the cause of this estrangement, “ I see 
 now,” said she, “ how it is ; my poor little 
 favourite dog, that I had christened Suder- 
 land , after my treasurer, who had made me 
 a present of it, lately died, and I gave orders 
 to have it stuffed this morning.” 
 
 Rembrandt. — His strength began to fail 
 him, and he was now unable to leave his 
 bed. One evening, he awoke his sister, 
 who had fallen asleep in an arm-chair by his 
 side. She was weary, poor Louise ; many 
 had been the nights she had watched by his 
 couch. 
 
 “ Sister,” said he, “ I am now at length 
 dying. I am going to ask you a favour, don’t 
 refuse it me.” 
 
 “ What is it, my brother, speak ?” 
 
 “ Do not refuse it me, or you will make 
 me die miserable — lift that little trap- 
 door up, that I may once more behold my 
 gold — my gold — my treasures.” 
 
 Louise did her brother’s biddance; and 
 when the hoarded treasures met the eyes of 
 the dying painter, they glistened, and tears 
 started from their sockets. A mother, taking 
 leave of her cherished offspring, would not 
 have testified greater sorrow. 
 
 “ Farewell ! farewell ! he murmured in 
 a faltering tone ; “ farewell, my life, my 
 soul ! farewell, for ever, farewell ! And I 
 must leave you ! No longer possess you ! — 
 Louise, I must be buried in the midst of 
 these treasures. Tell no one that I am 
 dead. Tell no one that there lies my gold — 
 not even my son. He is an ingrate, he 
 neglects me ! Do what your brother asks 
 you on his death-bed, and I will for ever 
 bless you. I will pray God, Louise, that you 
 may join me in heaven.” 
 
 He wept, he sobbed, and he made an 
 effort, a useless one, to go to his treasures — 
 never was grief more expressive, never was 
 despair more frightful. 
 
 A long period of insensibility followed 
 this burst of emotion ; and when he recovered, 
 a strunge alteration had taken place ; his 
 countenance now shone with a majestic so- 
 lemnity. Death, at this awful moment, had 
 divested the spirit of its terrestrial dross, 
 and it now appeared in all its grand sub- 
 limity. 
 
 “ Louise,” said he, “ my eyes behold a 
 new and celestial light, that I sometimes 
 have dreamt of. It makes me happy, it fills 
 my soul with gladness. Angels are calling 
 me, 1 Brother, come !’ they cry. Oh, Louise, 
 let me go and join them, I will pray to God, 
 that you may soon follow me ; angels, my 
 brothers, I come, I come ; oh 1 1 go to 
 heaven !” 
 
 H is body fell back — Louise now held but 
 the hand of a corpse. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 Louis XV III.— A celebrated musician 
 had the misfortune to be too fond of Ma- 
 deira and Bordeaux. One day that he had 
 perlormed at St. Cloud a piece of music, 
 that had excited the admiration of the court, 
 Louis XVIIl. had him called in about two 
 hours afterwards, when it happened that 
 the performer was in a state little worthy of 
 such talents. “ Where do you come from 
 in such a miserable state ?” — “ Sire, 1 have 
 been dining .” — “ Often dining in this fa- 
 shion will ruin you.” — “ Not at all, your 
 majesty; besides, I was very thirsty.” — 
 “ Mind what you are about, “ observed 
 the king, “ that thirst may starve you.” 
 
 H. M. 
 
 THE GRECIAN MONUMENTS. 
 Among the numerous monuments of Athens, 
 (observes a modern traveller,) the first thing 
 which attracts the admiration of the beholder, 
 is their lovely colour ; the clear sky, and bril- 
 liant sun ot Greece, having shed over the mar- 
 bles of Paros and Pentilicus, a golden hue, 
 comparable only to the finest and most fleeting 
 tints of autumn. The Athenians, who were 
 a people far from rich, and few in number, have 
 succeeded in moving gigantic masses; the 
 blocks of stone in the Pynx and the Propy- 
 leutn being literally quarters of rock ; the slabs 
 which stretch from pillar to pillar are of enor- 
 mous dimensions. The columns of the tem- 
 ple oi Jupiter Olympius are above sixty feet 
 in height, and the walls of Athens, including 
 those which stretched to the Pirseus, extended 
 over nine leagues, and were of that width, 
 that two chariots could drive on them abreast. 
 These chets d'oeuvre of antiquity, which tra- 
 vellers go so far to admire, owe their destruc- 
 tion chiefly to the moderns. The Parthenon 
 was entire in J687, the Christians at first con- 
 verted it into a church, after which the Turks 
 used it as a mosque. The Venetians, in the 
 middle of the seventeenth century, having 
 bombarded the Acropo'is with red-hot shot, 
 a shell fell on the Parthenon, which pierced 
 the roof, and blew up some barrels of gun- 
 powder, by which means a great part of the 
 edifice was destroyed. As soon as the town 
 was captured, Morosini, in the design of em- 
 bellishing Venice with its spoils, took down 
 the statues from the front of the Parthenon ; 
 and another modern has completed that which 
 the Venetian had begun. The invention of 
 fire-arms has been fatal to the monuments of 
 antiquity. And the barbarians who overrun 
 the Roman empire, been acquainted with the 
 use of gunpowder, not a Greek or Roman 
 edifice would have survived their invasion : 
 they would have blown up the pyramids in 
 the^search for hidden treasures. 
 
 W. G. C. 
 
 159 
 
 Sports anfc Ragtimes!. 
 
 DEATH OF THE FOX.-* 
 
 Now, when every startling sound is hushed in 
 silence, when every hostile eye is closed in 
 heavy sleep, “ The Fox” steals forth from his 
 earthy den. In the broad glare of day invisi- 
 ble, he lives but for the night. Creeping 
 through the still covert, when no chattering 
 pie nor screaming jay give notice of his 
 whereabout, and the wood-pigeon sleeps un- 
 disturbed on the bough above his path, he 
 leaves the wood — he creeps along the shadow 
 of the dark fence down the hill, into the 
 home-field, close to the very house — under 
 the very nose of Farmer Dobbins ; and then, 
 woe 1 to the feathered slumberers of the hen- 
 roost ! — woe! to the quacking, cackling, 
 waddlers of the farm-yard— to the well- fur- 
 nished larder, woe ! woe ! woe ! 
 
 “ A good fat hen, and away she goes.” 
 
 Reynard ! thine is a devoted race — thine is, 
 indeed, a sorry tale of sad injustice and unre- 
 lenting persecution. Bom in a burrow, — 
 nursled in a drain — hunted through the world 
 until thou art hunted out of it ; thou hast no 
 peace on earth. Abused, reviled, unfriended 
 —surrounded on all sides by foes, fierce, 
 restless, and implacable ; thy many talents 
 can avail thee nought ; they are exerted but 
 to fail thee at thine utmost need. 
 
 The morning mist is rising with the sun, 
 curling in heavy wreaths from close and co- 
 vert, upward around the early rays. The 
 frosted dew-drop glistens on the withered 
 leaf, but hangs in the still air motionless over 
 the footway or the fox, as he comes stealthily 
 creeping through the crispened glade. Above 
 the deep silence of that woodland scene, a 
 faint sound floats in the heavy air. He stops; 
 his ears erect— his fore-foOt raised — he listens 
 anxiously. Again it comes— nearer — and now 
 he knows the hated cry of the hounds. Ano- 
 ther moment, — and, assured that they are on 
 his trail, with swift, but cautious step, he 
 turns to flight. First, hastening forward- 
 then doubling on Ins track — stopping awhile, 
 — springing in a few efforts to a vast dis- 
 tance, he tries to foil them ; but they follow 
 still. Long and wistfully heelings for safety 
 to the covert, but they are closing on him ; 
 and, beset by foes on every side, he bursts 
 into the open. 
 
 Now ring the shouts of the excited hunters 
 in echo to the music of the hounds ; but 
 both soon weaken on his ear, for he has left 
 them far behind. Again he seeks the covert, 
 there to stop and breathe awhile in fancied 
 safety. Again the hounds are near, and 
 once again he flies for life. 
 
 But flight is vain ; he is out-numbered 
 
 * Extracted from that entertaining periodical, 
 “ The Sporting Review No. 3. 
 
160 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 they press him, and he once more crosses the 
 open country. His covert and his native 
 earth are now in sight, but he is headed by 
 old Farmer Dobbins's shepherd's dog, and 
 forced to take another line. The dogs are 
 close upon his brush. Each cunning shift is 
 tried, — each nervous sinew strained to the 
 very utmost ; but in vain. His strength is 
 failing fast, and every moment now his sa- 
 vage enemies draw nearer to him. One last 
 resource remains. He turns toward Farmer 
 Dobbins's homestead, — the very sanctuary 
 which last night himself had violated ; and, 
 like the persecuted heroes of antiquity, seeks 
 shelter in the stronghold of his bitterest 
 enemy. The fowls run screaming to and fro, 
 as their crest-fallen foe now totters panting 
 past them; but Reynard's thoughts are not 
 of dainty feasting now. A broken window 
 catches his quick eye, and in a moment he is 
 housed within the sacred precincts of the 
 dairy; but here he meets no welcome of a 
 generous enemy. The door is locked, and 
 pots and pans afford him no concealment 
 from the angry eyes which glare upon him 
 from the hole by which he entered, and cut 
 off retreat. Shortly the place is filled with 
 eager foes. He grapples with the foremost. 
 There is a fearful clattering of copper-pans — 
 a crash of fallen pottery,— cries of a death- 
 struggle, which last but for a moment, and 
 then the ringing horn and echoing “ war- 
 whoop,” proclaim The Death of the Fox. 
 
 NATURAL ELOQUENCE AND TRUE 
 MAGNANIMITY. 
 
 When Ireton, the commander of the Par- 
 liamentary forces, tnade large oilers to James 
 Stanley, Earl of Derby, in order to induce 
 him to surrender the Isle of Man, which he 
 retained for the king, he sent him the follow- 
 ing spirited answer, “ I have received your 
 letter with indignation, and with scorn return 
 you this answer : that I cannot but wonder 
 whence you gather any hopes that I shall 
 prove, like you, treacherous to my sovereign ; 
 since you cannot be ignorant of my former 
 actings in his late majesty’s service, from 
 which principles of loyalty I am no whit de- 
 
 f »arted. I scorn your offers : J disdain your 
 avour : I abhor your treason : and am so far 
 from delivering up this island to your advan- 
 tage, that I shall keep it to the utmost of 
 my power to your destruction. Take this for 
 your final answer, and forbear any farther 
 solicitations, for if you trouble me with any 
 more messages of this nature, I will burn the 
 paper, and hang up the bearer. This is my 
 immutable resolution, and shall be the un- 
 doubted practice of him who accounts it his 
 chiefest glory to be his majesty's most loyal 
 and obedient subject.” 
 
 Clje (©atljevcr. 
 
 The method used by the Tartars, for the 
 preservation of butter, consists in fusing it in 
 a water-bath, at a temparature of a hundred 
 and ninety degrees of Fahrenheit; retaining 
 it quiescent in that state, until the gaseous 
 matter has settled, and the butter become 
 clear ; it is then decanted, passed through a 
 cloth, and cooled in a mixture of salt and ice, 
 or spring water ; after which it is put in 
 close vessels, and kept in a cool place. It is 
 stated that butter prepared in this manner, 
 will keep for six months as good as when first 
 made. W. G. C. 
 
 The base ^measure all men’s marches by 
 their own pace. — Sir Philip Sidney. 
 
 In Venice they have a law relating to 
 bankrupts which is singularly severe — “ If a 
 member, of either council, become a bankrupt, 
 he is immediately degraded, and from that 
 moment is rendered incapable of holding any 
 post under government, until he shall have 
 discharged all the just demands of his credi- 
 tors ; even his children are subjected to the 
 same disgrace, and no citizen can exercise 
 any public employment whatsoever, while 
 the debts of his father remain unpaid.” — 
 Sketches of the Natural, Civil, and Political 
 State of Switzerland. By fVm. Coxe , M.A. 
 
 “ At Basil, one of the Swiss cantons, they 
 have a very singular custom, of keeping their 
 clocks always an hour too fast — and so tena- 
 cious are they in maintaining this prejudice, 
 that notwithstanding some of the inhabitants 
 have more than once attempted to set them 
 right, the magistrates were compelled to have 
 the clocks set again as usual.”-- Ibid. 
 
 A Sharp Frost in Holland, and the Effect 
 of a sudden Thaw. 
 
 'Tis said at a Kermes — or Dutch country-fair. 
 
 Once the shouts of the populace froze in the air ; 
 Their screams, cries, and curses, “ Godt Dander en 
 bli.rem !’’ 
 
 With their oaths mix’d their prayers, that go always 
 betwixt ’em. 
 
 Of men. women, children, so horrid a gabble 
 Had never been heard since the building of Babel. 
 Like swallows at Christmas their words, strung 
 together, 
 
 In icicles hung, 'till the change of the weather ; 
 When suddenly thawing, they all burst asunder. 
 
 And rushed on the ear like a nigh clap of thunder. 
 
 Macgreggor’s Battle among the Busts. 
 
 Man is a foolish and a short-sighted crea- 
 ture, frequently wandering to a fearful dis- 
 tance from the path of rectitude before he is 
 even aware of having departed from it. 
 
 C. S. 
 
 LONDON: Printed and published by J.LIMBIRD 
 143, Strand, ( near Somerset House') : and sold bo 
 all Booksellers and Newsmen. — In PARIS, by all 
 the Booksellers.— !n FRANCFORT, CHARLES, 
 JVC, EL. 
 
(©rantfjam, UmcotnsSfytre 
 
 
 C ''jB^ .'vV 5 ^' * 
 
 Stnirg-Oon, JScrfe^tte, 
 
 lEbesIjam, Wovcc^tci^uc. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 Zi)C ffltvvov 
 
 OK 
 
 LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION. 
 
 No. 940.] SATURDAY, MARCH 16, I83R [Pkicb <2d. 
 
 FREE GRAMMAR-SCHOOLS. 
 
162 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 THE FllEE GRAMMAR-SCHOOL, AT GRANTHAM, 
 
 Lincolnshire, 
 
 Was founded in 1528, by Richard Fox,* 
 Bishop of Winchester, who endowed it with 
 the revenues of two chantries, which, prior to 
 the dissolution, belonged to the church of 
 St. Peter, the endowment having been subse- 
 quently augmented by Edward VI. : the 
 annual income exceeds £700, the surplus of 
 which, after payment of the salaries to the 
 masters, is appropriated to the establishment 
 of exhibitions to Oxford and Cambridge, to 
 which all scholars who have been two years 
 in the school are eligible. Sir Isaac Newton, 
 (who was born on Christmas-day, O. S. 1642, 
 at the manor-house of Woolstrope or Wools- 
 thorpe, about eight miles from Grantham,) 
 received the rudiments of his education in 
 this school. 
 
 THE FREE GRAMMAR-SCHOOL, AT ABINGDON, 
 
 Berkshire, 
 
 Was founded by John Royse, citizen of 
 London, in 1563, and endowed with a house 
 and premises in Birchin-lane, London. The 
 master, in addition to his salary, receives one 
 guinea per quarter for each pupil instructed 
 in writing and arithmetic, and is allowed to 
 receive ten private pupils. William Bennet, 
 in 1 608, bequeathed lauds which now produce 
 <£100 per annum, for instructing, clothing, 
 and apprenticing six boys on this foundation. 
 Thomas Teasdale, formerly a scholar here, 
 bequeathed the glebe and tythes of the 
 rectory of Ratley in Warwickshire, for the 
 maintenance of an usher, whose duties are 
 confined to the classical instruction of Ben- 
 net’s six boys. The school is entitled to 
 four fellowships and six scholarships of 
 Pembroke College, Oxford, under the res- 
 pective endowments of Thomas Teasdale 
 and Richard Wightwick. Bennet’s scholars 
 have the preference, and in default of appli- 
 cations from free boys, the master’s private 
 pupils are eligible. Many eminent characters 
 have been educated in this school. Among 
 them are : Clement Barksdale ;f Job Roys, 
 a Presbyterian writer ; and Sir Edward 
 
 * This eminent prelate was horn at Ropesley, 
 near Grantham, about the latter err l of the reign, of 
 Henry VI. He was promoted to the see ot Exeter 
 in 1487 ; translated successively to the sees of Bath 
 and Wells, Winchester and Durham, and died in 
 1528, after having employed the greater part of his 
 ublic life in the service of Henry VIE, by whom 
 e was sent on almost every mission of any import- 
 ance into France, Germany, and Scotland. 
 
 + A uative of Winchcombe, in Gloucestershire, and 
 bom in 1609. He graduated at Oxford, and suc- 
 ceeded to the head-mastership of Hereford grammar- 
 school; and died rector of Nauntou, 1687-8. His 
 works are, a “ Life of Hugo Grotius,” in 12mo. 
 " Memorials of Worthy Persons,” 12mo., 1661 ; 
 •• Nympha Libcethris, or the Cotswold Muse,” 12mo., 
 1651 ; and “ Monumenla Literavia, sive obitus et 
 elogia doctorum vivorum,” 4to., 1640. 
 
 Tumour, Speaker of the Irish House of 
 Commons in Ireland, in 1661 ; and Lord 
 Chief Baron of the Exchequer, 1671. 
 
 THE FREE GRAMMAR-SCHOOL, AT EVESHAM, 
 
 TV orces ter shire, 
 
 Was endowed originally by abbot Lichfield. + 
 Henry VIII., after the dissolution of the 
 abbey at Evesham, for Benedictine monks, 
 retounded this school, restoring only a part of 
 its previous revenue. The charter which 
 James I. granted to the inhabitants, remo- 
 delled the institution, when it was called the 
 Free- School of Prince Henry. The master 
 receives £\0 annually from the crown, with 
 a house, rent-free, and some minor emolu- 
 ments. 
 
 THE VARIETY OF THE PASSIONS. 
 
 An elegant writer remarks, “ The variety of 
 the passions is great and worthy ; and every 
 branch of that variety is worthy of the most 
 diligent investigation. The more accurately 
 we search into the human mind, the stronger 
 traces we every where find of his wisdom 
 who made it. If a discourse upon the use 
 of the different parts of the body may be 
 considered as a hymn to the Creator, the use 
 of the passions, which are the organs of the 
 mind, cannot be barren of praise to him, 
 nor unproductive to ourselves of that noble 
 and uncommon union of science and admira- 
 tion, which a contemplation of the works 
 of infinite wisdom alone can afford to a 
 rational mind ; while refering to him what- 
 ever we find of right, or good, or fair in 
 ourselves, discovering his strength and wis- 
 dom, even in our own weakness and imper- 
 fection, honouring them where we discover 
 them clearly, and adoring their profundity 
 where we are lost in our search. We may be 
 inquisitive without impertinence, and elevated 
 without pride; we may he admitted, if I 
 may dare to say so, into the counsels of the 
 Almighty, by a consideration of his works. 
 This elevation of the mind ought to be the 
 principal end of all our studies, which if they 
 do not in some measure effect, they are of 
 very little service to us.” 
 
 | Tlie last English abbot but one. The handsome 
 isolated tower of the couvent at Evesham, was 
 erected by abbot Lichfield; it is a beautiful speci- 
 men of the later English style, and is one hundred 
 and ten feet high, and about twenty-eight square at 
 the base ; the north side is plain, the other three 
 sides adorned with tracery ; strengthened with 
 panelled buttresses, and crowned with open battle- 
 ments and pinnacles. At the general demolition, it 
 was purchased by the inhabitants. It is unknown 
 when abbot Lichfield died ; but he was buried in 
 the convent here. His tomb was opetted in 1817, 
 but without furnishing any corroborative proofs, or 
 supplying the means of enlarging the little informa- 
 tion we have of this public-spirited abbot. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 163 
 
 C For the Mirror.') 
 
 SeeSc me not in renowned halls, 
 
 Nor at the gay and festive board ; 
 
 But meet me ere the pale moon falls, 
 
 In twilight shades, the trees ulford. 
 
 Seek me not in the boist’ring crowd. 
 
 But singly — find ine out alone; 
 
 Nor mixed with gallants or the proud. 
 
 But where the birds their young ones moan. 
 
 Seek me not out where beauty dwells. 
 
 Nor where the gay and thoughtless smile ; 
 
 But seek me where the blue stream swells. 
 
 At night — when all is hushed awhile. 
 
 Oh seek me not in garden bowers. 
 
 Where wanton beauty idly talks ; 
 
 But meet me where the cypress flower's. 
 
 Or by the yew’s sad shady walks. 
 
 But if you seek me let it be. 
 
 When uune are by my vows to hear ; 
 
 Then seek me near the dark blue sea. 
 
 And there “ for me let fall a tear.” 
 
 Or seek me w lien the day is past, 
 
 When winds stir not a single breath ; 
 
 But if you find me not at last. 
 
 Believe me gone, aud lost in death. 
 
 H. B. S. 
 
 ON MAN’S MORTALITY. 
 
 " Like as the damask rose you see, 
 
 Or like the blossom on the tree. 
 
 Or like the dainty flower of May, 
 
 Or like the morning to the day. 
 
 Or like the sun, or like the shade. 
 
 Or like the gourd which Jonas had — 
 
 Even such is man, whose thread is spun, 
 
 Drawn out, and cut, and so is done. 
 
 The rose withers, the blossom blasteth. 
 
 The flower fades, the morning liastetli. 
 
 The sun sets, the shadow flies. 
 
 The gourd consumes, — and man he dies. 
 
 “ Like to the grass that’s newly sprung, 
 
 Or like a tale that’s new begun. 
 
 Or like the bird that’s here to-day. 
 
 Or like the pearled dew of May, 
 
 Or like an hour, or like a span. 
 
 Or like the singing of a swan — 
 
 Even such is man, who lives by breath. 
 
 Is here, now there, iu life and death. 
 
 The grass withers, the tale is ended, 
 
 The bird is flown, the dew’s ascended. 
 
 The hour is short, the span not long. 
 
 The swan’s near death,— man’s life is done 1” 
 
 Attributed tu Quarles. 
 
 THE ADVANTAGES OF GEOMETRY. 
 A Geometer is a man who labours accord- 
 ing to rule. He is always with a plummet 
 and rule in his hands ; he measures, he cal- 
 culates, he draws lines, he acquires the habit 
 of doing all things by rule ; he looks upon 
 nothing as clear that he has not calculated ; 
 and in as far as possible, proceeds with the 
 same exactness in all other sciences. Geo- 
 metry accustoms the mind to a regular pro- 
 cess, to an exact calculation ; and geometrical 
 truths are always evident, as there is no rule 
 without a clear proof. It is, therefore, highly 
 proper for all young persons to endeavour to 
 acquire a geometrical understanding, to make 
 the best use of that natural geometry which 
 God has implanted in the minds of all men, 
 even to act upon certain and undoubted prin- 
 ciples. 
 
 M 2 
 
 THE ATMOSPHERE. 
 
 A great quantity of air, when looked through, 
 has a coloured tinge ; although a small quan- 
 tity appears to be colourless ; just as, in a 
 pane of window-glass, we see no colour, un- 
 less we look at it edgewise ; when, from the 
 great thickness seen through, it has a blue 
 tinge. Hence “the sky” (meaning the 
 atmosphere ) is said to be blue. The atmos- 
 phere, in its elevated regions, is much more 
 transparent than near the earth ; on which 
 account, when we ascend mountains, distant 
 objects seem to be very near. 
 
 It is of great importance to know precisely 
 the constitution of the atmosphere ; in order 
 that subsequent observers may ascertain whe- 
 ther it degenerates in the lapse of ages. It 
 consists principally of two gases,— oxygen 
 and nitrogen ; in the proportion of about 
 twenty parts of the former, to eighty of the 
 latter. It also contains carbonic acid (or 
 “fixed-air,” as it is called), and water, in the 
 form of vapour. The quantity of the latter 
 varies, at different times and places being 
 greatest in hot countries at hot seasons, and 
 least in cold countries at cold seasons. It 
 was once thought that the presence of the 
 carbonic acid (which forms only about a thou- 
 sandth part of the whole) was accidental; 
 but it is found in the air taken from the 
 greatest heights to which men have attained ; 
 as in some which was brought by M. Gay 
 Lussac, from the greatest height which he 
 attained in his balloon, which height was 
 more than four miles. The air which is 
 over a wet soil, contains less carbonic acid 
 than air which is over a dry one ; and 
 contains more at night, when plants give 
 it out, than during the day. Although car- 
 bonic acid is much heavier than the other 
 gases which compose the atmosphere, yet 
 rather more of it is found in the upper regions 
 of the latter, than in the lower. This may 
 be owing to much of it being absorbed by 
 damp soil ; for water has a great avidity for 
 it. In some districts of the globe, the air is 
 highly impregnated with it ; owing, probably, 
 to subterranean fires being at work there. 
 If, when thus given out, it is confined in a 
 cave, instead of being dispersed through the 
 atmosphere generally, it is fatal to animals 
 which enter. This is the case with a cave 
 near Naples, called the Grotto del Cano, or 
 “ Grotto of the Dog” ; because if this animal 
 (or any other of a similar height) enters, it 
 is suffocated. It is customary for guides to 
 thrust into it fowls, tied to the end of a stick. 
 They are soon stupified ; and unless drawn 
 out, would perish. A man may enter with 
 impunity ; because the foul air does not reach 
 so high as his head. A traveller in India has 
 lately given a graphic description of a valley, 
 filled with similar deadly exhalations ; iu 
 which he saw a great number of skeletons of 
 
164 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 birds, tigers, anil other animals, which hail 
 perished from breathing ihe poisonous air ; 
 and even of men, who had unwittingly taken 
 refuge within its fatal precincts. 
 
 There are various accidental substances, 
 which are found in the atmosphere, in dif- 
 ferent situations. One of these is carburetted 
 hydrogen, which constitutes the “ fire-damp” 
 of coal-mines, and is similar to the gas which 
 is burned in our streets. It has been found, 
 in great quantity near volcanoes, and over 
 fissures in the earth, and often in the neigh- 
 bourhood of marshes in hot weather. The 
 boiling appearance which some lakes present, 
 is probably owing to this gas being formed 
 at the bottom, and rising through the water 
 in bubbles. Pure hydrogen is sometimes 
 found in the atmosphere. Then there are 
 various miasmata (as they are called) ; which 
 exist in the air, in particular regions, and at 
 particular times ; thotigh they cannot be de- 
 tected by any chemical means we have yet 
 been able to employ. One of the principal 
 of these, is marsh-miasma ; consisting of the 
 exhalations from marshes, and producing 
 agues. We know nothing of its chemical 
 nature ; for air taken from over the foulest 
 marshes, has not been found to differ chemi- 
 cally (so far as science at present enables us 
 to ascertain) from air taken from the most 
 healthy regions. It is this miasma which 
 renders the fens of Lincolnshire so unhealthy, 
 and which reigns, on a still greater scale, 
 over the Pontine marshes near Rome ; so that 
 to sleep a night in them, is at the imminent 
 risk of being attacked by ague. In the un- 
 fortunate expedition to Walcheren, during 
 the last war, our army lost ten thousand men, 
 in a few months, from sickness chiefly in- 
 duced by this cause. This pestilential ex- 
 halation never ascends above a particular level 
 over the district in which it is generated. 
 Among these miasmata, should be reckoned 
 those which produce various epidemic dis- 
 eases ; — such as measles, hooping-cough, 
 small-pox, fevers of various kinds, and those 
 awfully frightful visitations, — the plague 
 and cholera. Notwithstanding, however, the 
 high state of advancement (we had almost 
 said perfection') to which chemical analysis 
 has been brought, and by which the ten 
 thousandth part of a grain of many substances 
 can be ascertained, it has not been able to 
 detect any difference in air impregnated with 
 these various forms of “ the pestilence that 
 wulkelh in darkness,” and “the destruction 
 that wasteth at noon day.” 
 
 It has been a question whether the oxygen 
 and nitrogen gases which compose the atmos- 
 phere, are simply mixed, or are chemically 
 combined. We consider the former to be the 
 true state of the case. It might, indeed, 
 have been expected that, if they were only 
 mixed, the oxygen (being the heavier) would 
 collect in the lower part of the atmosphere. 
 
 But gases have a natural tendency to mix 
 with each other, however they may differ in 
 weight. Thus, if oxygen and nitrogen be 
 put into a tube together, and confined for 
 years, no separation takes place. Nay, if 
 oxygen be put into the lower part of the tube, 
 and nitrogen into the upper, they become 
 intimately mixed in a few hours. The air, 
 too, has all the properties which should 
 belong to a mere mixture of the two gases 
 which compose it. No change of volume, 
 form, or temperature is occasioned by the 
 mixture ; though we should expect some 
 change in one or other of these particulars, 
 if any chemical combination took place. 
 Bodies, likewise, which have an affinity for 
 oxygen, abstract it from atmospheric air, as 
 easily as if there were no nitrogen present. 
 This is the case even with water; for the air 
 which is expelled from rain-water by boiling, 
 has more than the usual proportion of oxygen ; 
 which the rain must have imbibed in its pas- 
 sage through the atmosphere. 
 
 In order to show the tendency which gases 
 have to mix with each other, Dr. Dalton, of 
 Manchester, put carbonic acid (a very heavy 
 gas) into a vessel and over it, connected 
 by a narrow tube, a vessel containing hydro- 
 gen (the lightest gas known) ; and after a few 
 hours, the two gases were found to be inter- 
 mixed ; although the one is more than twenty 
 times heavier than the other. This mixture 
 is not to be attributed to any chemical affinity 
 between them ; for carbonic acid and hydro- 
 gen cannot be made to combine with each 
 other. Dalton says that the particles of the 
 same gas repel, while those of different gases 
 attract each other ; so that one gas acts as a 
 vacuum to another ; only that, from the me- 
 chanical obstacle which the particles of one 
 gas present to those of the other, the gas 
 from one vessel does not pervade the other 
 vessel so quickly as it. would if there were a 
 real vacuum. 
 
 It has often been asked why the quantity 
 of oxygen in the atmosphere always remains 
 the same, notwithstanding the constant de- 
 mands which are made upon it, by the respira- 
 tion of animals, the burning of fires, &c. It 
 has been supposed to be kept up by the 
 respiration of plants; which are said to give 
 out more oxygen than they consume. But 
 the quantity furnished in this way, is not 
 sufficient to account for the whole ; and a 
 satisfactory explanation has not yet been 
 given. N. R. 
 
 LOSS OF MEMORY. 
 
 In December, 1765, an Echevin* of New- 
 bourg, about 60 years of age, being at table, 
 and without having felt any previous head- 
 ache, or pain in any part of his body, began, 
 for the first time, to talk without any con- 
 # Alderman. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 165 
 
 nexion. His wife, perceiving that he conti- 
 nued to speak in an unconnected manner, 
 sent for the assistance of Dr. G. Legerus, 
 from whose account the following particulars 
 ate extracted : — Having well examined the 
 patient, 1 judged that his condition was 
 occasioned by a loss of memory ; for, so soon 
 as he began a phrase, he remained for an 
 instant thoughtful, and then began another, 
 which he did not finish any more than the 
 first ; and sometimes he complained that he 
 did not know what answer to give to the 
 questions put to him. Having asked him 
 if he had a head-ache, or felt pain in any 
 part of his body, he answered that he did 
 not; after which he continued to talk for 
 some days in the same manner. His situa- 
 tion was without any alteration during a 
 fortnight, at the expiration of which, he was 
 seized with a fit of the gout, a disease that 
 was habitual to him. In about another fort- 
 night he recovered his memory so as to be 
 able to converse on different subjects ; and 
 nothing remained of his indisposition except 
 a total forgetfulness of characters ; which 
 continued for about six weeks, when he 
 found himself perfectly recovered, and able 
 to read with as much facility as before. 
 
 W. G. C. 
 
 PROVERBS. 
 
 (For the Mirror.') 
 
 Proverbs are said to be the condensed wis- 
 dom of ages : the wise sayings of our own 
 country are probably more in number, and 
 at least equal in terseness and point to those 
 of any other nation. Ray’s collection is the 
 largest, but he has left several unexplained, 
 and given in many instances wrong elucida- 
 tions. The lapse of time has undoubtedly 
 rendered some of them totally inexplicable, 
 particularly the local ones alluding to customs 
 long obsolete, or persons now forgotten ; but 
 those of a more general application from the 
 use of words which have long ceased to form 
 part of our English vocabulary, require now 
 ' the aid of a glossary. The following have 
 been wholly unexplained both by Ray and the 
 Gnomologia of Fuller. 
 
 “ Two slips for a tester.” 
 
 A slip was formerly a cant word for a coun- 
 terfeit piece of the current coin, it was com- 
 monly made of brass, and silvered over ; 
 tester is not yet obsolete for sixpence. Shakes- 
 peare alludes to the slip in Romeo and Juliet. 
 
 “ Rom. What counterfeit did I give you ?” 
 
 “ Mer. Tlie slip, sir, the slip l” 
 
 The obvious meaning of this adage is, that 
 quantity should not be preferred to quality. 
 
 “ What is gotten over the devil’s bac/c is 
 spent under his belly.” 
 
 This proverb is derived from the Welsh, “ A 
 
 gasgler ar farch Mulen dan ei dorr ydd a.” 
 Malaen, according to the legendary tales of 
 the ancient Britons, signified an evil spirit, 
 or devil, who was supposed to be in possession 
 of a magic horse, on which witches were 
 carried to any place for evil purposes ; hence 
 the origin of the proverb, indicating that 
 what is got dishonestly is generally spent in 
 riot and extravagance. 
 
 “ Essex stiles, Kentish miles, Norfolk wiles, 
 many men beguiles.’’ 
 
 What reason our ancestors had for complain- 
 ing of the Essex stiles, or the extraordinary 
 length of Kentish miles, is now a vain con- 
 jecture, but the Norfolk wiles can be better 
 understood. The Norfolk men were said to 
 be notoriously given to legal litigation ; this 
 is manifested by the statute, 33 Henry VI., 
 which limits the number of attornies allowed 
 to exercise their profession in that county. 
 
 “ A man's a man, though he hath but a hose 
 on his head’’ 
 
 Caps made of woollen were anciently 
 worn in England by the lower classes, long 
 after the introduction of hats, which were 
 chiefly worn by the nobility, and other men 
 of rank. Breeches were formerly called hose, 
 from the Saxon hosa, and were generally made 
 of woollen. I consider the term was applied 
 to the cap, or covering for the head, because 
 made of that material, the covering for the 
 leg is now called hose, and that article in the 
 great manufacturing counties of Leicester and 
 Nottingham, is still distinguished by that 
 name, viz., Jersey hose, which are made of 
 wool, but those made of cotton are usually 
 called stockings. 
 
 “ He is in his better blue clothes.” 
 
 Blue was of old the prevailing colour of 
 the clothes of servants in livery, and the re- 
 tainers of great men ; the city of Coventry 
 was at one time famous Cor its blue dye, and 
 hence, perhaps, the universality of the colour; 
 the custom of wearing blue is retained to this 
 day in the almost general costume of charity 
 children, and the jackets of watermen. Pliny 
 states that blue was the colour in which the 
 Gauls clothed their slaves, and the bedesman, 
 a privileged beggar, wore a blue gown ; but 
 probably the custom in England derived its 
 origin from the facility of getting the article 
 of home manufacture, and as far as regarded 
 the colour, not to be obtained elsewhere. Co- 
 ventry blue was for centuries distinguished for 
 its beauty and durability. The proverb 
 alludes to a person dressed extraordinary fine, 
 and beyond his grade in society. 
 
 “ The black ox never trod on his foot." 
 
 This proverb is said to be founded on an 
 historical fact : it is applied to a person to 
 whom misfortune has never happened ; the 
 ancient Britons had a custom of ploughing 
 their land in partnership, each person finding 
 
166 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 one draught ox ; if either of the oxen died, 
 or became disabled during the process of 
 ploughing, the owner of the land (if not his 
 own beast) was compelled to find another 
 animal of equal value, or at his option to give 
 an acre of land to the owner of the dead or 
 disabled animal ; this acre was called “ erw 
 yr uch ddu, K i. e. “ ihe acre of the black 
 ox,” and many acres in Wales are at this day 
 known by that title ; without this explanation 
 the words convey no conceivable meaning. 
 
 Wm. Toone. 
 
 ORIGIN OF NAPOLEON’S 
 GENERALS. 
 
 The age of Napoleon was an age of wonders ; 
 only witness the following account of the 
 origin of his most celebrated generals. We 
 see Avgereau, the hot, the sanguine Au- 
 gereau, the son of a poor fruiterer, struggling 
 for his livelihood ; we see him urging on his 
 course, and at the age of thirty-five, still a 
 private soldier, not despairing of success ; we 
 see him at last, in four years, rise from the 
 lowest rank to the highest grade of military 
 command, and created a duke. Then comes 
 Bernadotte, who was destined to be one of 
 the greatest, and by far the most fortunate of 
 Napoleon’s lieutenants; he was born at Pan, 
 the capital of Berne, January 26th, 1764. 
 In his sixteenlh year, he enlisted as a private 
 soldier into the Royal Marines. In 1792, he 
 was a colonel. In 1806 he was created Prince 
 of Ponte Corvo, and lastly, was elected King 
 of Sweden. Then follows Berthier, the son 
 of a porter of the Hotel de la Querre, who for 
 his signal services was created Marshal of the 
 Empire, Grand Huntsman, and Prince, first 
 of the Neufchatel, then of Wagram. The 
 next in succession is, Bcssieres, born at 
 Preissar, August 6th, 1768. He was a private 
 soldier in 1792. In the north of Spain, 
 through his exemplary conduct, he rose to the 
 station of captain in 1796; was created Mar- 
 shal in 1809, and afterwards Duke of Istria. 
 Kcllermunn, the son of a citizen of Strasburg, 
 next follows; he rose from the rank of a 
 private soldier to that of Duke of Valmy. 
 The impetuous and valiant Lannes now ex- 
 cites our admiration and wonder; born at 
 Lectonre, April 11th, 1769, of indigent pa- 
 rents. He at an early age enlisted into the 
 army. He was sent ambassador into Por- 
 tugal, and on his return became Marshal of 
 France, and ere long Duke of Montebello. 
 Macdonald, whom we shall next cite, was born 
 in the little town of Sancerre, November 17th, 
 1765. At an early age he entered into the 
 army as lieutenant ; he was created marshal, 
 and after Duke of Tarentum. Lefebvre 
 was born of humble parents, on the 25th of 
 October, 1755. We see him in September 
 1793 raised to the rank of captain; in De- 
 cember, the same year, to the rank of general, 
 
 and lastly to the dukedom of Dantzic. 
 Massena, one of the ablest of Napoleon’s 
 generals, was born at Nice, May 6th, 1758. 
 At an early age, he was, by a relative, intro- 
 duced to a maritime life, but soon becoming 
 disgusted with the sea, he subsequently en- 
 tered the army as a private soldier. His pro- 
 motion at first was not at all rapid ; and 
 having lost all hopes, retired to his own 
 nation, and married. The stirring affairs of 
 the revolution called his attention once more 
 to a soldier’s life; his promotion was now 
 astonishingly rapid, for in 1793 he became 
 general, soon after, Duke of Rivoli ; and to 
 close his career, was created Prince of Essling. 
 Moncey was born at Besanjon, July 31st, 
 1754. The education he received was good, 
 as his father was a lawyer. He enlisted as 
 a private soldier, of his own accord ; his pa- 
 rents, however, obtained his discharge. But 
 at last, in 1 790, when at the age of forty-six, 
 he became a sub-lieutenant of the dragoons, 
 and in 1804 was created Duke of Conegliano. 
 Mortier was born at Cambrai, 1768. In the 
 year 1791 he was captain, and lastly, received 
 the title of Duke of Steriso. The great 
 Murat next engages our attention ; he was 
 born March 25th, i767, of humble parents, 
 his father being only an inn-keeper, of 
 Bastide, near Cahors. When he was in his 
 twentieth year he enlisted into a regiment of 
 chasseurs, and shortly after, for his gallantry 
 and bravery, was made general of division ; in 
 1805 created Grand Duke of Berg and 
 Cleves; and in 1808 had the crown of Naples 
 conferred on him. The end of this extraor- 
 dinary man, whose life must have appeared 
 to him a dream, was, as is well known, tra- 
 gical ; he was shot, and himself gave the 
 word to the soldiers to fire, saying, “ Save 
 my face — aim at my heart— fire!” The 
 errors of Murat may be ascribed to a bad 
 education ; he wanted moral energy, reflec- 
 tion, and patience. 
 
 Ney, the “ bravest of the brave,” was born 
 at Sarre Louis, January 10th, 1769. His 
 father was a poor tradesman. In 1 787 be 
 filled the inferior station of private soldier, 
 and in 1793 was lieutenant. The year fol- 
 lowing he was brought under the notice of 
 General Kleber, and in 1 796 received the 
 title of general himself. He was also created 
 Prince of Moskwa. A miserable and un- 
 timely end, however, awaited this prodigy of 
 military genius ; like Murat, he was shot, 
 and when at the place of execution, in a firm 
 voice, gave the word, saying, “Soldiers, fire !” 
 His father died in 1826, aged nearly 100 
 years. His love for) his son was so great, 
 that at his death, in 1815, his family fearing 
 the effect which the sad event might pro- 
 duce on him, kept it a secret amongst them- 
 selves. By the mourning of his daughter, 
 however, he understood that some tragical 
 event had taken place ; but he never made 
 
 
THE MIRROR. 1 6 7 
 
 any inquiries, and seldom pronounced the 
 name of his son. He lived till 1826, and 
 expired without ever being acquainted with 
 his son’s death. Oudinot now claims our 
 notice; he was born April 2nd, 1767, and 
 distinguished himself so much as a private 
 soldier, that he was created Count of the Em- 
 pire in 1804, and for his brave valour at 
 Wa grain , Duke of Reggio. Soult, this dating 
 and enterprising soldier, was born Match 
 29th, 1769, at St. Antan’s. His origin was 
 mean. In his sixteenth year he entered the 
 army' as a private soldier, and rose gradually 
 from rank to rank, till the year 1794, when he 
 was made general ; he was afterwards ho- 
 noured with the title of Duke of Dalmatia. 
 Sachet, who was the son a silk manufacturer 
 of Lyons, was born March 2nd, 1772. In 
 1792 he enlisted as a private soldier ; his pro- 
 motion was rapid, though not perhaps so 
 much so as some others. In 1798 he gained 
 the rank of general; and in 1812 the title of 
 Duke of Albufera. These are the principal 
 and most celebrated of Napoleon’s lieute- 
 nauts, nearly’ all of whom rose from the rank 
 of private soldiers, to the possession of the 
 sword of a general, the staff of a marshal, 
 and even the sceptre of a king. 
 
 M. D. M. 
 
 jKamm-fS anK Customs. 
 
 SKETCHES OF PARIS. 
 
 A Masked Ball. 
 
 “ Le vin ! le vin ! le vin, lejeu, les belles 1 
 Voild I voitd ! voild nos seuls amours I” 
 
 Such was the joyous refrain to the opening 
 chorus of the magnificent Robert Le Diable, 
 which we were lustily singing to the great 
 amazement of all the quiet coffee-drinking 
 members of the Legion of Honour, as we en- 
 tered the glittering Brasserie Anglaise in 
 the Palais Royal, on the evening of the first 
 masked ball of the season at the Theatre de 
 1‘Opera Comique. We were en costume, and 
 anywhere but in Paris the circumstance of 
 three masks entering a public coffee-room 
 would have attracted a crowd of gazers after 
 them, “ but they manage these things better 
 in France.” Imagine the sensation we 
 should have caused at Evans s, in Covent 
 Garden, under similar circumstances. Slo- 
 man’s improvisatorial sketches would have 
 been suspended — the glee-singers would have 
 forgotten how, when, or where “ Willie 
 brew’d a peck of malt,” — Herr Von Joel 
 would have stopped his “ Lur-lie-ty” in 
 dumb amazement, and Evans himself would 
 have hindered the return of the admiral, and 
 probably requested the gentlemen to leave 
 the room. But we marched in here without 
 the least disarrangement of the parties as- 
 sembled. The only ones who stared at us 
 
 were the English, and those we didn’t care 
 about. 
 
 The ball in question was under the direc- 
 tion of M. Magnus, the chief of the orchestra 
 at the Prado ; and as the Prado is the grand 
 winter resort of all the dancing students of 
 Paris, and moreover, as Magnus is very po- 
 pular in that rational and well-conducted 
 circle, we were aware we should meet many 
 of our friends, and be certain of good ar- 
 rangements for the evening. Accordingly, 
 two days before we sought out a Magazin 
 des Costutnes, near Galignani’s, in the Rue 
 Vivienne ; and having, with our friends, sti- 
 pulated for the loan of such habits as became 
 a Postillion, a Lancer, and a Debardeur, 
 (characters much in vogue at the masked 
 balls of Paris,) by a payment of eight francs 
 each, and a deposit of a sum equivalent to 
 the value of the dresses, we had them sent 
 home to us on the morning of the day, and 
 amused ourselves until evening by looking at 
 them, and disputing which was the hand- 
 somest. As the Opera Comique does not 
 finish its performances until eleven o’clock, 
 and after that the pit had to be boarded over 
 level with the stage, as they do for the mas- 
 querades at our London theatres, the doors 
 did not open for the ball until twelve ; it was, 
 in fact, as stated in the bills, a “ bal de nuit 
 In our anxiety, however, to behold ourselves 
 in our new costumes, we were all dressed, 
 and perfectly ready by nine ; and when we 
 had skipped about* the room a little, to try 
 our pumps, and thrown ourselves*, in melo- 
 dramatic attitudes, and looked at ourselves in 
 the glass, over one another’s shoulders, until 
 we knew every stud and buckle in the dress, 
 we began naturally to think what we could 
 do with ourselves until midnight. “ Let us 
 go and sup at a cafe in the Palais Roy al,” 
 said one of our friends, inspired by a sudden 
 happy thought. “ We shall get refreshments 
 cheaper there than in the theatre, and cer- 
 tainly much better and acting on the im- 
 pulse, a fiacre was called, we jumped in, and 
 in a quarter of an hour were established at 
 the Brasserie Anglaise, in the divan, on the 
 “ troisieme.” It is a nice and comfortable 
 place, that elegant cate, which they have 
 been pleased to think resembles an English 
 brewery. The waiters are civil, the accom- 
 modations first rate, the beer passable for 
 France, the coffee delicious, and moreover, 
 they take in the Morning Pqst. Well, then, 
 here we remained until twelve o’clock, and 
 as soon as that hour had sounded, we started 
 off to the doors of the handsome theatre of the 
 Place de la Bourse. We shall never forget 
 our first start at entering the salle— it was 
 only exceeded by our feelings the first time 
 we went to Vauxhall, where we have an im- 
 perfect remembrance of having got slightly 
 elevated, and dancing with one of the red- 
 coated waiters in front of the supper-box. 
 
168 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 We still think it must have 1 een the pro- 
 fusion of lamps that upset our stomach — our 
 friends said it was the “ rack punch.’’ 
 
 The whole area of the theatre was covered 
 with the most animated medley of costumes 
 possible to conceive. We were not overrun 
 by Greeks, field-officers, and Swiss peasants, 
 as in London ; but the gayest and most pic- 
 turesque dresses were everywhere to be seen. 
 It was the ball scene in Gustavus realized. 
 Twelve splendid chandeliers depended from 
 the ceiling, and at the end of the stage was 
 Magnus, in all the glory of a leader, with a 
 white waistcoat on, surrounded by nearly 
 eighty musicians, who were playing the qua- 
 drilles, as if their life and soul was in them, 
 as well as the dancers. Crowds of other 
 masks were likewise in the boxes as mere 
 spectators of the scene, but there was quite 
 enough to attract our attention below, without 
 seeking amusement up stairs. The order of 
 dancing was a waltz and galoppe alternately, 
 after every two quadrilles; but the galoppe 
 was the fun. Oh! what a stirring chase it 
 was. Down the declivity of the stage, as 
 hard as we could tear, to the boarded pit, and 
 then whirling wildly round underneath the 
 boxes, and up again to the back of the theatre. 
 It was indeed a galoppe d'enfer, as our 
 partner observed, and to Clapisvon’s inspiring 
 
 Postilion de Ma'm Ab/ou,” we thought 
 everybody would have gone mad. Not only 
 was the air of that favourite song introduced, 
 but we had the accompaniments of the crack 
 of the postillion’s whip, and the jangling of 
 the diligence bells. We must have them in 
 London for our approaching season, for they 
 are a delicious set. Then came the galoppe 
 from “ Le Domino Noir then the galoppe 
 from “ La file dw Danube," and a dozen 
 others equally spirited, and waltzes by La- 
 bitsky, Strauss, and Julian, without end. The 
 quadrilles were mostly too crowded, but all 
 made way for the other dancers. 
 
 As the refreshments in the foyer of the 
 theatre were enormously dear, at least for 
 Paris, we fed at the Ca!6 de l’Opera Comique, 
 next door to the theatre, and opposite the 
 Bourse. It was open all night long, as may 
 be supposed, and an occasional bottle of 
 “ lima node gayeuse" was very refreshing, es- 
 pecially when half choked with dust; 
 
 In the sal/e, as usual, the municipal 
 guard and gens d’armes were in attendance, 
 and more than one unfortunate wight was 
 condemned to the solitude of the caehot helow 
 the. box staircase for the rest of the evening, 
 for transgressing the known and established 
 rules of the ball-room. As the females alone 
 covered their faces, we recognized, as we had 
 anticipated, many fellow students amidst the 
 throng with whom we were acquainted, and 
 were at no lack for introductions to partners ; 
 indeed we completely danced a pair of patent 
 prettily polished pumps to pieces — we like 
 alliteration. 
 
 We think it is not often that the English 
 attend these balls as dancers-, although many 
 of our countrymen were in the boxes as spec- 
 tators, for we heard “ Tiens ! e'est vn Anglais ” 
 in a tone of surprise often repeated behind us. 
 Be this as it may, if they do not go to these 
 balls when in Paris, and enter into the spirit 
 of them, as our foreign brethren do, they lose 
 a great deal of amusement. 
 
 The worst part of the story was turning nrrt 
 at six in the morning to come home. The 
 half-deserted streets look cokl, dark, and 
 cheerless, and we were not sorry to tumble 
 into bed, where we had a most confused 
 dream of chandeliers, music, paysannes, 
 municipal guards, and fairy-like forms flitting 
 before us, with brigands’ hats, and postillions’ 
 boots. Knips. 
 
 A POPULAR VIEW OF NATURAL 
 HISTORY. 
 
 BY JAMES H. FENNELL. 
 
 ( For the Mirror. ~) 
 
 [Continued from page 108.] 
 
 Those husbandmen who have possessed some 
 knowledge of natural history, have not only 
 been better enabled to cultivate their plants, 
 and protect them from the attacks of destruc- 
 tive animals, but they have learnt thereby to 
 know what creatures are harmless and usefid, 
 and ought to be protected and encouraged, 
 either for the pleasing sight and sounds they 
 afford, or the good that they do. But many, 
 yet ignorantly supposing that all wild animals 
 that presume to peck about theirgrounds must 
 be foes, destroy even those which on closer ob- 
 servation will be found to be harmless, or, 
 perhaps, useful. Thus the very creatures 
 that come to relieve them from those which 
 are really injurious, are wilfully and remorse- 
 lessly killed, notwithstanding their innocence 
 and utility. Rooks, for example, are killed 
 by many persons. It is certainly true that, 
 in harvest and seed-time, rooks do some mis- 
 chief, but it is a very little in comparison to 
 the great good they do in spring, when their 
 food, and apparently their only food, is the 
 grubs of insects, chiefly those of the cock- 
 chafer, ( melolontha vulgaris .) and of other 
 destructive species, to procure which they are 
 so eager, that they will even follow the 
 plough; and, moreover, it is well known to 
 practical entomologists that the neighbour- 
 hood of a rookery is not the place where 
 many, if any, insects are to be found. Some 
 years ago, the proprietors of some extensive 
 farms in Devonshire paid large sums of 
 money to those who destroyed the rooks ; but 
 what was the consequence ? During the three 
 following years, destructive insects multiplied 
 to a greater extent than ever, and caused the 
 failure of almost the whole of the crops; — a 
 circumstance which made the farmers so sen- 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 16.9 
 
 sible of their ignorance and folly, that they 
 actually introduced a supply of rooks on to 
 their estates again. Benjamin Franklin says, 
 in a letter to Peter Collinson, (hat “ whenever 
 we attempt to interfere with the [natural] 
 government of the world, we had better be 
 very circumspect, lest we do more harm than 
 good. In New England they once thought 
 blackbirds useless and mischievous to the 
 corn. They made efforts to destroy them. 
 The consequence was, the blackbirds were 
 diminished ; but a kind of worm which de- 
 voured their grass, and which the blackbirds 
 used to feed on, increased prodigiously ; then, 
 finding their loss in grass much greater than 
 their saving in corn, they wished again for 
 their blackbirds.” 
 
 The gardeners in America are in the habit 
 of destroying the mocking-bird, ( mnscicapa 
 tyr annus,') and they thus unwittingly deprive 
 themselves of the benefits it would concur 
 upon them by protecting their crops and 
 cattle from troublesome insects, and their 
 poultry from predacious birds. The celebrated 
 Alexander Wilson thus humanely expostu- 
 lates with those who so cruelly requite the 
 valuable services of this useful bird : — 
 
 Kill not thy friend, who thy whole harvest shields 
 And sweeps ten thousand vermin from thy fields : 
 Think how this daunth ss bird, thy poultry’s guard. 
 Drove every hawk and eagle from thy yard ; 
 
 Watched round thy cattle as they fed, and slew 
 Tiie hungry black’ning swarms that round them flew ; 
 Some small return, some little right resign. 
 
 And spare his life, whose services are thine ! 
 
 “ It behoves every one,” says Swainson, “ to 
 show humanity to animals, although we are 
 authorized and justified in destroying such as 
 are found, by experience, to injure our pro- 
 perty. Under this head, however, we are 
 committing so many mistakes that, ere long, 
 some of the most elegant and interesting of 
 our native animals will probably be extirpated. 
 Country gentlemen give orders to their game- 
 keepers to destroy all vermin on their pre- 
 mises ; and these men, equally ignorant with 
 their masters, of what animals are really 
 injurious, commence an indiscriminate attack 
 upon all. Thu jay, the woodpecker , and the 
 s»uiirel-r- three of the most elegant and inno- 
 cent inhabitants of our woods — are doomed to 
 the same destruction as the stoat, the polecat, 
 and the hawk. Nothing in our native orni- 
 thology can be more beautiful than the plu- 
 mage of the jay; while its very wildness and 
 discordance is in harmony with the loneliness 
 of the tangled woods it loves to frequent. 
 The sudden and sharp cry of the green-wood- 
 pecker, (picus viridis,) is a similar character ; 
 and the sound of its bill ‘ tapping the hollow 
 beech-tree,’ is interesting and poetical. The 
 squirrel, again, is the gayest and prettiest 
 eulivener of our woodland scenery; and in 
 its amazing leaps shows us an example — un- 
 rivalled among our native quadrupeds — of 
 agility and gracefulness. Yet these peaceful 
 
 denizens of oar woods are destroyed and ex- 
 terminated from sheer ignorance of the most 
 unquestionable facts in their history. The 
 jay, indeed is said to suck eggs ; but this is 
 never done except in a scarcity of insect food, 
 which rarely, if ever, happens. The wood- 
 pecker lives entirely upon those insects which 
 destroy trees, and is, therefore, one of the 
 most efficient preservers of our plantations ; 
 while the squirrel feeds exclusively on fruits 
 and nuts. To suppose that either of these is 
 prejudicial to the eggs or the young of par- 
 tridges and pheasants, would be just as un- 
 reasonable as to believe that nightjars, com- 
 monly called goatsuckers, milk goats and 
 cows, or that hedgehogs devoured poultry. It 
 is surely desirable that right notions should 
 be bad on such things, and that by an ac- 
 quaintance with the most common facts of 
 natural history, our few remaining native 
 quadrupeds and birds should be preserved 
 from wanton and useless destruction. If na- 
 tural history can teach us nothing more than 
 humanity towards such inoffensive creatures, 
 a little attention to it would not be mis- 
 placed.” 
 
 Many species of insects are execrated and 
 destroyed, as being injurious to agricultural 
 welfare, but which upon a little patient ob- 
 servation of their habits, would soon be found 
 to be harmless. Natural history has taught 
 most of the gardeners of the present day to 
 refrain from killing those pretty little beetles, 
 called lady birds, ( coccinella, ) which are so 
 very useful in devouring the plant-lice, 
 (aphides,') that infest and injure the hop and 
 other plants. 
 
 Yet. how many hundred species of insects 
 are daily destroyed, as the supposed cause of 
 all the injuries which crops sustain from the 
 various sudden calamities included under the 
 one vague, and therefore useless name of 
 blight. 
 
 If it be admitted that it is important that 
 the husbandman should be rightly informed 
 of the natural history of his native country, 
 how much more important must it be deemed 
 that he should acquire some knowledge of 
 the natural history of any foreign country to 
 which he may have determined to emigrate. 
 A knowledge of this kind acquired previous 
 to his setting his foot on a land whose pro- 
 ductions are new to him, may be the means 
 of saving him from being poisoned by fruits 
 or vegetables which he might otherwise be 
 tempted to eat, in ignorance of their noxious 
 qualities, attacked by peculiar diseases, as- 
 sailed by ferocious and venemous animals, 
 and from being exposed to the effects of 
 raging storms. To emigrants, an elementary 
 knowledge of natural history is, as Swainson 
 justly remarks, “ of much more consequence 
 than to the English farmer, who frequently 
 learns, from the experience of others, what is 
 to be done in cases of emergency ; or who 
 
170 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 can, at least, apply for such information to 
 scientific advisers. But the agricultural emi- 
 grant has not these resources ; he has, for the 
 most part, to learn every thing himself: he 
 has to study soils, and try experiments as to 
 the crops best adapted to them. These crops 
 will frequently be attacked and destroyed by 
 a host of new enemies of the insect world, the 
 species of which he has never before seen, 
 and against which, in consequence, he knows 
 not how to proceed. He is, in tact, thrown 
 upon his own resources ; and if he has not a 
 sufficient knowledge of natural history to 
 enable him to reason upon the facts before 
 him, or to direct him how to proceed, he 
 suffers the full extent of evils which might 
 otherwise have been mitigated or prevent, d. 
 
 We hear of the worn-out state of the West 
 India plantations ; that the soil will no longer 
 repay the expenses of cultivation ; and that 
 the introduction of sugar, rum, &c., from 
 other countries, has brought ruin upon these. 
 1 know not how far these statements may be 
 correct ; but admitting them to be so, it may 
 be fairly inquired, what efforts have been 
 made to" remedy them P Why could not the 
 aromatic spices of the East be equally well 
 grown in the West Indies P and why has not 
 the cultivation of the silk-worm been under- 
 taken in the Antilles, instead of leaving this 
 enormous trade in the hands of the Asiatics ? 
 Why, again, are not efficient and scientific 
 trials made for rearing the tea-plant either in 
 the West Indies or on the neighbouring con- 
 tinent ? What obstacles exist against the 
 cultivation of the vine and the olive, — plants 
 which will flourish in every possible variety 
 of soil, — in these ill-fated islands; and thus 
 establishing in them new and important 
 sources of commerce and of wealth. In de- 
 ciding these and similar questions, natural 
 history becomes of the first importance, since 
 the only data upon which operations can be 
 properly conducted, must be furnished by 
 persons well versed in that science, and ac- 
 customed to inquire into, and reflect upon, 
 those kinds of facts which none but a natu- 
 ralist would ever think of. 
 
 33oo&:s>. 
 
 SEI.F-CUI.TURE. 
 
 (JBy William E- Channing.') 
 
 [Dr. Channing, the author of the eloquent 
 address presented to the public under the 
 above title, while he shows himself fully 
 sensible of the immense advantages derived 
 by the existing generation from the “ school- 
 master” being “ abroad/’ takes occasion to 
 impress upon his audience at Boston, — com- 
 posed chiefly of the working classes, — the 
 even-superior importance of that vigilant 
 personage being also found “ at home.” In 
 other words, he clearly points out the futility 
 
 of mere external instruction, however obtained, 
 apart from habits of reflection, a deep sense 
 of the capabilities of the human intellect, 
 and an ever-active endeavour to make the 
 most of them. The subject is worthy of the 
 brilliant powers of the author, and every 
 page of the address sparkles with evidence 
 that the author is worthy of the subject. 
 We proceed at once to justify our praise 
 by extracts.] 
 
 Extension of good through individual 
 instances. 
 
 Influence is to be measured, not by the 
 extent of surface it covers, but by its hind. 
 A man may spread his mind, his feelings, 
 and opinions through a great extent ; but if 
 his mind be a low one, he manifests no 
 greatness. A wretched artist may fill a city 
 with daubs, and by a false showy style 
 achieve a reputation ; but the man of genius, 
 who leaves behind him one grand picture, in 
 which immortal beauty is embodied, and 
 which is silently to spread a true taste in 
 his art, exerts an incomparably higher influ- 
 ence. Now the noblest influence on earth 
 is that exerted on character ; and he who 
 puts forth this, does a great work, no matter 
 how narrow or obscure his sphere. The 
 father and mother of an unnoticed family 
 who, in their seclusion, awaken the mind of 
 one child to the idea and love of perfect 
 goodness, who awaken in him a strength of 
 will to repel all temptation, and who send 
 him out prepared to profit by the conflicts of 
 life, surpass in influence a Napoleon breaking 
 the world to his sway. And not only is their 
 work higher in kind. Who knows, but that 
 they are doing a greater work even as to 
 extent or surface than the conqueror P Who 
 knows, but that the being, whom they inspire 
 with holy and disinterested principles, may 
 communicate himself to others ; and that by 
 a spreading agency, of which they were 
 the silent origin, improvements may spread 
 through a nation, through the world ? 
 
 Intellectual and moral culture. 
 
 The intellect being the great instrument 
 by which men compass their wishes, it draws 
 more attention than any of our other powers. 
 When we speak to men of improving them- 
 selves, the first thought which occurs to 
 them is, that they must cultivate their under- 
 standing, and get knowledge and skill. By 
 education men mean almost exclusively in- 
 tellectual training. For this schools and 
 colleges aie instituted ; and to this the moral 
 and religious discipline of the young is sacri- 
 ficed. Now, I reverence as much as any 
 man, the intellect ; but let us never exalt it 
 above the moral principle. With this it is 
 most intimately connected. In this its cul- 
 ture is founded, and to exalt this is its 
 highest aim. Whoever desires that his 
 intellect may grow up to soundness, to 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 171 
 
 healthy vigour, must begin with moral 
 discipline. Reading and study, are not 
 enough to perfect the power of thought. 
 One thing, above all, is needful ; and that 
 is, the disinterestedness which is the very 
 soul of virtue. To gain truth, which is the 
 great object of the understanding, I must 
 seek it disinterestedly. Here is the first and 
 grand condition of intellectual progress. I 
 must choose to receive the truth, no matter 
 how it bears on myself. I must follow it no 
 matter where it leads, what interests it op- 
 poses, to what persecution or loss it lays me 
 open, from what party it severs me, or to 
 what party it allies. Without this fairness 
 of mind, which is only another phrase for 
 disinterested love of truth, great native 
 powers of understanding are perverted and 
 led astray ; genius runs wild ; “ the light 
 within us becomes darkness.” The subtlest 
 reasoners, for want of this, cheat themselves 
 as well as others, and become entangled in 
 the web of their own sophistry. It is a fact 
 well-known in the history of science and 
 philosophy, that men, gifted by nature with 
 singular intelligence, have broached the 
 grossest errors, and even sought to under- 
 mine the grand primitive truths on which 
 human virtue, dignity, and hope, depend. 
 And, on the other hand, 1 have known 
 instances of men of naturally moderate 
 powers of mind, who, by a disinterested 
 love of truth and their fellow-creatures, have 
 gradually' risen to no small force and en- 
 largement of thought. Some of the most 
 useful teachers in the pulpit and in schools, 
 have owed their power of enlightening others, 
 not so much to any natural superiority, as to 
 the simplicity, impartiality, and disinterest- 
 edness of their minds, to their readiness to 
 live and die for the truth. A man who 
 rises above himself, looks from an eminence 
 on nature and Providence, on society and 
 life. Thought expands, as by a natural 
 elasticity, when the pressure of selfishness is 
 removed. The moral and religious princi- 
 ples of the soul, generously cultivated, fer- 
 tilize the intellect. Duty faithfully performed 
 opens the mind to truth, both being of one 
 family, alike immutable, universal, and ever- 
 lasting. 
 
 I have enlarged on this subject, because 
 the connexion between moral and intellectual 
 culture 'is often overlooked, and because the 
 former is often sacrificed to the latter. The 
 exaltation of talent, as it is called, above 
 virtue and religion, is the curse of the age. 
 Education is now chiefly a stimulus to learn- 
 ing ; and thus men acquire the power 
 without the principles which alone make 
 it good. Talent is worshipped ; but if 
 divorced from rectitude, it will prove more 
 of a demon than a god. 
 
 Books. 
 
 It is chiefly through books that we enjoy 
 
 intercourse with superior minds ; and these 
 invaluable means of communication are 
 within the reach of all. In the best books 
 great men talk to us, give us their most 
 precious thoughts, and pour their souls into 
 ours. God be thanked for books ! They 
 are the voices of the distant and the dead, 
 and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past 
 ages. Books are the true levellers. They 
 give to all who will faithfully use them, the 
 society, the spiritual presence of the best and 
 greatest of our race. No matter how poor I 
 am ; no matter though the prosperous of my 
 own time will not enter my obscure dwelling; 
 if the sacred writers will enter and take up 
 their abode under my roof — if Milton will 
 cross my threshold to sing to me of Paradise: 
 and Shakspeare to open to me the worlds of 
 imagination and the workings of the human 
 heart ; and Franklin to enrich me with his 
 practical wisdom — I shall not pine for want 
 of intellectual companionship ; and I may 
 become a cultivated man, though excluded 
 from what is called the best society in the 
 place where I live. 
 
 ****** 
 
 At a small expense, a man can now possess 
 himself of the most precious treasures of 
 English literature. Books, once confined 
 to a few by their costliness, are now acces- 
 sible to the multitude; and in this way a 
 change of habits is going on in society, 
 highly favourable to the culture of the people. 
 Instead of depending on casual rumour and 
 loose conversation for most of their know- 
 ledge and objects of thought ; instead of 
 forming their judgments in crowds, and 
 receiving their chief excitement from the 
 voice of neighbours, men are now learning 
 to study and reflect alone, to follow out 
 subjects continuously, to determine for them- 
 selves what shall engage their minds, and 
 to call to their aid the knowledge, original 
 views, and reasonings of men of all countries 
 and ages; ar.d the results must be, a deliber- 
 ateness and independence of judgment, and 
 a thoroughness and extent of information, 
 unknown in former times. The diffusion of 
 these silent teachers, books, through the 
 whole community, is to work greater effects 
 than artillery, machinery, and legislation. 
 Its peaceful agency is to supersede stormy 
 revolutions. The culture, which it is to 
 spread, whilst an unspeakable good to the 
 individual, is also to become the stability of 
 nations. 
 
 [From a pamphlet of 60 or 70 pages it 
 would be hardly fair to quote, more : enough 
 has been given to show that a noble subject is 
 treated in a noble manner; and as the lecture 
 may be procured at various prices, none of 
 them high, we are persuaded that few readers 
 interested in the subject will be willing to be 
 without it.] 
 
172 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 Richelieu; or the Conspiracy. A Play, in 
 five Acts : to which are added , Historical 
 Odes of the last Days of Elizabeth ; 
 Cromwell's Dream ; and the Death of 
 Nelson. 8vo. London, 1839. Saunders 
 and Otley. 
 
 [In these our patronizing days of lions, 
 tigers, monkeys, and panthers, whose exhi- 
 bition tends to vitiate the public taste, and 
 bring the British stage into contempt — how 
 refreshing, to turn from scenes so repulsive 
 to good taste, and feast on an elevating, 
 rational, and moral legitimate drama like 
 that of Richelieu ! This historical play, so 
 full of poetical beauties and fine touches 
 of nature, with a consummate knowledge 
 of the workings of the human mind, is 
 the production of Sir E. Lylton Bulwer. 
 — It was produced on Thursday, the 7th 
 inst., at Covent Garden Theatre, to the 
 honour of Mr. Macready, whose strenuous 
 and praiseworthy exertion to raise ihe Na- 
 tional Drama to that high station its vital 
 importance so pre-eminently demands, cannot 
 be too highly appreciated. 
 
 We have selected a few passages as speci- 
 mens of the gifted author’s nervous deli- 
 neations.] 
 
 Love and Poetry. 
 
 Why, man. 
 
 The thoughts of lovets stir with poetry 
 
 As leaves with summer-wind. — The heart that loves 
 
 Dwells in an Eden, hearing angel-lutes, 
 
 As Eve in the First Garden. Hast thou seen 
 My Julie, and not felt it henceforth dull 
 To live in the common world — and talk in words 
 That clothe the feelings of the frigid herd? — 
 
 Upon the perfumed pillow of her lips — 
 
 As on his native bed of roses flush’d 
 With Paphian skies — Love smiling sleeps: — Her voice 
 The blest interpreter of thoughts us pure 
 As virgin wells where Dian takes delight. 
 
 Or Fairies dip their changelings ! — In the maze 
 Other harmonious beauties — Modesty 
 (Like some severer Grace that leads the choir 
 Of her sweet sisters} every airy mot ion 
 Attunes to such chaste charm, that Passion holds 
 Ilis burning breath, and will not w ith a sigh 
 Dissolve the spell that binds him !— Oh those eyes 
 That woo the earth — shadowing more soul than lurks 
 Under the lids of Psyche ! — Go ! — thy lip 
 Curls at tire purfted phrases of a lover — 
 
 Love thou, and if thy love be deep as mine. 
 
 Thou wilt not laugh at poets. 
 
 Deeds of War. 
 
 Deeds ! 
 
 0 miserable delusion of man’s pride ! 
 
 Deeds ! cities sack'd, fields ravaged, hearths profaned. 
 Men butcher’d ! In your hour of doom behold 
 The deeds you boast of 1 From rank showers of blood. 
 And the red light of blaziug roofs, you build 
 The Rainbow Glory, and to shuddering Conscience 
 Cty, — Lo, the Bridge to Heaven ! 
 
 Character of a Trickster. 
 
 You have outiuu your fortune ; — 
 
 1 blame you not, that you would be a beggar — 
 
 Each to his taste ! — But 1 do charge you, Sir, 
 
 That, being beggar'd, you would coin false monies 
 Out of that crucible, called debt. — To live 
 
 On m> airs not youis — be brave in silks and laces. 
 Gallant in steeds — splendid in banquets ; — all 
 Not yours — ongiveu — unherited — unpaid for; — 
 
 This is to be a trickster ; and to filch 
 Men's art and labour, which to them is wealth. 
 
 Life, daily bread,— quitting all scores with — “ Friend, 
 
 You’re troublesome 1”— Why this, forgive me. 
 
 Is what, when done with a less dainty grace — 
 
 Plain folks call “ Theft I” — You ow e eight thousand 
 pistoles. 
 
 Minus one crown, two liards ! 
 
 [The words of the following quotation are 
 beautifully written ; they are uttered by 
 Richelieu, who has seated himself as to 
 write, lifting a pen :] 
 
 True, — this ! 
 
 Beneath the rule of men entirely great 
 
 The pen is mightier thau the sword. Behold 
 
 The arch-enchanter’s wand ! — itself a nothing ! — 
 
 But taking sorcery from the master-hand 
 
 To paralyse the Caesars — and to stiike 
 
 The loud earth breathless! — Take away the sword — 
 
 States can be saved without it 1 
 
 [We now give a finely-drawn picture of 
 Richelieu's love of fame, and his devotedness 
 to Fiance.] 
 
 I love my native laud 
 Not as Venetian, Englisher, or Swiss, 
 
 But as a Noble aud a Priest of France ; 
 
 “ All things for France ” — lo, my eternal maxim ! 
 The vital axle of the restless wheels 
 That bear me on 1 With her, 1 have entwined 
 My passions and my fate — my crimes, my virtues — 
 Hated and loved, and schemed, and shed men’s blood. 
 As the calm crafts of Tuscan Sages teach 
 Those who would make their country great. Beyond 
 The Map of France — my heart can travel not. 
 
 But fills that limit to its farthest verge ; 
 
 And while I live — Richelieu aud France are one. 
 
 We Priests, to whom the Church forbids in youth 
 The plighted one — to manhood’s toil denies 
 The soother helpmate — from our wither’d age 
 Shuts the sweet blossoms of the second spring 
 That smiles in the name of Father — We are yet 
 Not holier than Humanity, and must 
 Fulfil Humanity’s condition — Love 1 
 Debarred the Actual, we but breathe a life 
 To the cidll Marble of the Ideal — Thus, 
 
 In thy unseen and abstract Majesty, 
 
 My France — my Country, I have bodied forth 
 A thing to love. What are these robes of state. 
 
 This pomp, this palace ? perishable baubles 1 
 In this world two tilings only are immortal — 
 
 Fame aud a People ! 
 
 Richelieu's Soliloquy. 
 
 “ In silence, and at night, the Conscience feels 
 That life should soar to nobler ends than Power,” 
 
 So sayest thou, sage and sober moralist 1 
 But weit thou tried? — Sublime Philosophy, 
 
 Thou art the Pa triarch's ladder, reaching heaven. 
 
 And blight w'itli beck'ning angels — but, alasl 
 We see thee, like the Patriarch, but in dreams, 
 
 By the first step — dull-slumberiug on the earth. 
 
 I am not happy ! — with the Titan’s lust 
 I woo’d a goddess, aud I clasp a cloud. 
 
 When 1 am dust, my name shall, like a star. 
 
 Shine through wan space, a glory— and a prophet 
 Whereby pale seers shall from their aery towers 
 Con all the ominous signs, benign or evil. 
 
 That make the potent astrologue of kings. 
 
 But shall the Future judge me by the ends 
 That I have wrought— or by the dubious means 
 Through which the stream of my renown hath run 
 Into t lie many voiced unfathomed Time? 
 
 Foul in its bed lie weeds — and heaps of slime. 
 
 And with its waves — when sparkling in the sun. 
 
 Oft times the secret rivulets that swell 
 Ds might of waters — blend the hues of blood. 
 
 Yet are my sins not those of cikcumstance. 
 
 That ail-pervading atmosphere, wherein 
 
 Our spirits, like the unsteady lizard, take 
 
 The tints that colour, aud the food that nurtures? 
 
 O ! ye, whose hour-glass shifts its tranquil sands 
 In the unvex’d silence of a student's cell : 
 
 Ye, whose untempted hearts have never toss’d 
 Upon the daik and stormy tides where life 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 173 
 
 ; Gives battle to the elements, and man 
 
 Wrestles with man for some slight plank, whose 
 weight 
 
 Will bear but one — while round the desperate wretch 
 The hungry billows roar — and the fierce Fate, 
 
 Like some huge monster, dim-seen through the surf. 
 Waits him who drops ; — ye safe and formal men. 
 Who write the deeds, and with unfeverish hand 
 Weigli in nice scales the motives of the Great, 
 
 Ye cannot know what ye have never tried ! 
 
 History preserves only the fleshless bones 
 Of what we are — and by the mocking skull 
 The would- be wise pretend to guess the features ! 
 Without the rouiulness and the glow of life 
 How hideous is the skeleton ! Without 
 The colourings and humanities that clothe 
 Our errors, the anatomists of schools 
 Can make our memory hideous I 
 
 [Iii the following extract we have Julie's 
 defence of her honour — it is a fine burst of 
 female purity, vigorously told ; portraying 
 the irresistible power and resolution of a vir- 
 tuous woman.] 
 
 Richel eu. 
 
 Ha!— 
 
 You did obey the summons ; and the king 
 Reproach'd your hasty nuptials. — 
 
 Julie- 
 
 Were that all ! 
 
 He frown’d and chid ; — proclaim'd the bond un- 
 lawful : 
 
 Bade me not quit my chamber in the palace. 
 
 And there at night — alone — this night — all still — 
 He sought my presence — dared! thou lead'st the 
 heart. 
 
 Read mine 1 — I cannot speak it ! 
 
 Richelieu. 
 
 He a king, — 1 
 
 1 You — woman ; well,— you yielded ! 
 
 Julie. 
 
 Cardinal — 
 
 Dare you say “ yielded ?” — H ambled and abash'd. 
 He from the chamber crept — this mighty Louis ! 
 
 | Crept like a baffled felon ! — yielded ! Ab ! 
 
 ! More royalty in woman’s honest heart 
 I Than dwells within ttie crowned majesty 
 And sceptred anger of a hundred kings 1 
 Yielded! — Heavens !— yielded ! 
 
 Richelieu. 
 
 To my breast, — close — close ! 
 The world would never need a Richelieu, if 
 Men — bearded, mailed men — the Lords of Earth — 
 Resisted flattery, falsehood, avarice, pride. 
 
 As this poor child with the dove’s innocent scorn 
 Her sex’s tempters. Vanity and Power ! 
 
 [The following ejaculation, as uttered 
 by Richelieu, closes this truly classical 
 drama.] 
 
 No — let us own it : — there is One above 
 Sways the harmonious mystery of the world 
 Ev’n better than prime ministers : — 
 
 Alas ! 
 
 Our gloties float between the earth and heaven 
 Like clouds which seem pavilions of the sun. 
 
 And are ttie playthings of the casual wind ; 
 
 Still, like the cloud which drops on unseen crags 
 The dews the wild flower feeds on, our ambition 
 May from its airy height drop gladness down 
 On unsuspected virtue ; — aud the flower 
 May bless the cloud when it hath pass’d away ! 
 
 [The play has the rare merit of having 
 copious and elucidatory notes, which en- 
 hances the value of the work. The Odes 
 are finely conceived ; probably we may refer, 
 in a future number, to the one of “ Crom- 
 well’s Dream.”] 
 
 MEMOIR OF CHARI.ES ROSSI, R. A. 
 
 This distinguished artist was born in Not- 
 tingham ; but his early years were mostly 
 passed at Mount Sorrel, in Leicestershire, 
 where his father was established as a medi- 
 cal man. Young Rossi was placed in the 
 atelier of Lucatelli, an Italian sculptor, in 
 London ; and after the expiration of his ap- 
 prenticeship he was for some time in the 
 employment of Messrs. Coad and Seeley, then 
 in Lambeth. When here he got admitted a 
 student of the Royal Academy, and in a 
 short time obtained the gold medal for the 
 best specimen of a work in sculpture. Shortly 
 after this he was sent to Rome for three 
 years, at the expense of the Royal Academy. 
 He studied closely, and with judgment, so 
 that on his return so great improvement had 
 taken place in his taste and executive power, 
 that he was immediately employed on works 
 of high art, and in a few years he was elected 
 an associate, and in 1802, a member of the 
 Royal Academy. In a few years afterwards 
 he was appointed one of the sculptors to 
 King George IV., and was employed upon 
 some of the finest sculpture-work at Buck- 
 ingham Palace, particularly one of the pedi- 
 ments, and “ the sessons” on the frieze under 
 the pediment, which pleased the King so 
 much that he directed Mr. Nash, the archi- 
 tect, to give him any part of the sculpture he 
 pleased, but he only selected as much as came 
 to .£3,000. He was also appointed sculptor 
 in ordinary to his late Majesty William IV. 
 Besides these works there is a fine group of 
 Queen Eleanor sucking the poison out of 
 King Edward’s wound, and a group of Cela- 
 don and Amelia, now at Lord Egremont’s, 
 besides his Zephyrus and Aurora. There tire 
 some fine monumental compositions, by Mr. 
 Rossi, in St. Paul’s Church ; the chief of 
 these is one erected to the memory of Gen. 
 Le Merchant. The execution of this work 
 had been awarded to Mr. Smith, but he died 
 before he had made any progress in the work, 
 and it was then given to Mr. Rossi, who 
 finished it, and on being paid sent a check 
 tor .£200 to the widow of Mr. Smith. His 
 other monumental works here, are those to 
 Captains Moss and Riou — to Marquis Corn- 
 wallis, Captain Faulkner, and that to General 
 Elliot (Lord Heathfield), all of which are 
 not equal in point of design aud execution, 
 but some of the single figures and groups are 
 designed in a grand and tasteful style, parti- 
 cularly the Cornwallis testimonial, and that 
 of Gen. Le Merchant. The Surgeons’ Hall, 
 and other public buildings, have also been 
 decorated with his sculptured works, and all 
 the figures, capitals of columns, and other 
 ornamental stone-work, were all directed by 
 this artist . — Morning Herald. 
 
174 
 
 THK MIRROR. 
 
 Mr. Rossi was twice married, and had a 
 large family. He died on Thursday, Febru- 
 ary 21, 1839, at his residence in Lisson Green, 
 aged 77 * 
 
 BALLOONS IN 1648. 
 
 Letter written from Warsovia, by a gentle- 
 man of that city, concerning a proposition 
 made unto the king of Poland, about the 
 rare invention of 
 
 FLYING IN THE AIR* 
 
 Noble Sir, — Did I not know full how 
 earnest you are after finding out of rare in- 
 ventions, and other curious things worthy of 
 a noble and heroic spirit, I should not be so 
 ready to impart to you any thing that cometh 
 to my knowledge worthy of your observation, 
 and also knowing your many and great em- 
 ployments, yet do now make bold to represent 
 unto you, the strangest and never heard of 
 before invention of flying in the air, which I 
 doubt not, will, for its curiosity, and fine- 
 ness of conceit, be a matter of delight and 
 pleasure unto those who are learned, espe- 
 cially who have studied the mathematics; 
 and although this subject may be a matter of 
 laughter, and be despised amongst them, 
 being a rule among the vulgar, as not to be- 
 lieve any thing whatsoever, any further than 
 they can apprehend the same, never consi- 
 dering what likelihood or probabilily there is 
 for the effecting thereof. The thing is thus : — 
 There is at present in this court, a certain 
 man come from Arabia, who is come hither 
 to the King of Poland, to whom he proffereth 
 his head for security of that which he pro- 
 poundeth, which is, that he hath brought 
 from that country the invention of a machine, 
 being airy, and of a construction so light, ne- 
 vertheless so sound and firm, that the same 
 is able to bear two men, and hold them up in 
 the air, and one of them shall be able to 
 sleep, while the other maketh the machine to 
 move, which thing is much after the same 
 manner as you see represented in the old 
 tapestry hangings, the dragons flying, 
 whereof this same takes its name : I do give 
 you them for pattern, or model of this in- 
 vention, being a thing much in question, and 
 to be doubted concerning these flying dragons, 
 whether any be alive; likewise, it is ques- 
 tioned by many of the truth of there being 
 any unicorns, griffins, phcenix, and many 
 other like things, which by many wise un- 
 derstanding men, are deemed to have little or 
 no reality in them, but all imaginary ; never- 
 theless, we believe this upon the credit of 
 
 * The Moderate, a weekly newspaper ; December 
 12 — 19, 1648; King’s Pampfilets, vol. 401, in Museo. 
 
 antiquity, and the report of many who know 
 more. There are few in this court but 
 have got a pattern of this machiner, and do 
 hope to send you one likewise, in case this 
 project takes some good effect, and proves to 
 be as true, as rare in its invention. The forms 
 of it which he hath made, and after- 
 wards presented, with the many reasons he 
 gives to maintain his proposition, seems to 
 be so strong, and so likely to be true, that 
 great hopes are conceived thereof ; and al- 
 though he undertakes the celerity or swiftness 
 of this airy post shall be far beyond that of 
 our ordinary posts, seeing he promises to go 
 with the same in twenty-four hours, forty 
 leagues of this his country, which will make 
 of English miles, near two hundred and 
 forty, a thing which seemeth so strange to 
 many, that therefore they fall off - from him, 
 and so give little credit to it. although he hath 
 brought with him good certificates how it 
 hath been approved by many in other places, 
 where he hath made experiment thereof, to 
 his great honour and credit, and the admira- 
 tion and amazement of the beholders; be- 
 sides, it may well be thought, that a man of 
 honour as he seems to be, would not set so 
 little by his life, as to lay it at stake about a 
 business of that nature, except he had some 
 good ground first, and had some experi- 
 mental knowledge of the same, seeing he 
 must hazard his life, two several ways, the 
 one in case he did not make trial of what he 
 had promised, and to be proved to have come 
 hither as an impostor, to have cheated this 
 court, who upon discoveries of like businesses, 
 will not make it a jest, or a thing of small 
 moment; and the other time of danger is, 
 when he begins to take his flight, which he 
 is to do, above the highest towers or steeples 
 that are, and without his dexterity and certain 
 knowledge therein, would run into an utter 
 ruin and destruction. 
 
 Whether it be true or no, there are com- 
 missioners appointed, who are to examine 
 the business, and so according as they find it, 
 to make their report, and he is appointed to 
 make an essay, and show a piece of his skill in 
 their presence, before he is to be suffered to act 
 it publicly, that if in case his business doth 
 not prove according to expectation, they who 
 have given credit to it, and him, may not be 
 exposed to open shame and derision, even as 
 it happened once in the city of Paris, where 
 a stranger having gathered near the Louvre 
 many thousands of spectators, in whose sight, 
 as a man void of sense and reason, having 
 taken his flight from the top of the highest 
 tower thereabouts, which is between the 
 Louvre and the Seine, this miserable wretch 
 fell to the ground, broke his neck, and his 
 body torn in pieces. 
 
 Whilst every one is expecting the issue of 
 this, there are many great wagers laid about 
 it, yet take this by the way, there hath been 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 175 
 
 several great consultations made with the 
 mathematicians, who have all declared, the 
 putting it into operation is very difficult, but 
 for the thing itself, do not count it impossible, 
 and to this purpose, there was a true infor- 
 mation brought of a prisoner, who having 
 tied very fast about his collar, and under his 
 arms, a long cloak, whereunto was made fast 
 a hoop, to keep the spread out and round, 
 casting himself from the top of a high tower, 
 he thought to have fallen into a small river 
 which ran at the foot thereof, but it hap- 
 pened otherwise, for he was carried on the 
 further side of the water, safe and sound ; the 
 cloak which stood instead of a sail, dub bear 
 up the weight of his body, and so parted the 
 air by degrees, that he had time to descend 
 easily to the ground, without receiving any 
 hurt by the fall. 
 
 Not to bring here the fabulous history of 
 Dedalus, Archites Tarentin, the most famous 
 artist of his time, made a wooden pigeon, 
 which fled very high into the air; as also, at 
 Nuremberg, at the great and magnificent 
 reception made by that city unto Maximilian 
 the emperor, an artificial eagle, although both 
 of them were much heavier, and yet not so 
 big as a child’s bauble, these two things were 
 raised into the air, being held only with a 
 packthread ; but another engineer had not 
 so good success ; for having raised himself 
 into the air, by means of an engine, much 
 like to this we speak of, the wires broke be- 
 fore he had raised himself so high as he 
 intended, whereby he fell to the ground sooner 
 than he was willing, and by the fall broke his 
 thigh, and was in great danger of his life ; 
 yet by this, thus much may be gathered — the 
 thing may possibly be done : moreover, ex- 
 perience daily shews us, nothing is impos- 
 sible to man, but that through labour and 
 industry, the most difficult things may at 
 length be obtained ; only in this point con- 
 cerning the possibility, or impossibility of 
 things, wise men do seem to be most slow in 
 giving their opinion about it; there ate also 
 examples of birds, and those that swim, 
 whereby we may judge by their swiftness, 
 that the air may do the same operation upon 
 other subjects, according as the artist can ac- 
 commodate itself to it. 
 
 ^nectfote Salieri). 
 
 CHARACTERISTIC ANECDOTES OF BYRON 
 AND SHE I. LEY. 
 
 (By the Countess of Blessington,*') 
 
 ‘ I LIKE music,’ said Lord Byron, ‘ but do 
 not know the least of it, as a science ; indeed, 
 1 am glad that I do not, for a perfect know- 
 ledge might rob it of half its charms. At 
 present I only know, that a plaintive air sof- 
 
 * Extracted from her ladyship’s highly interesting 
 work, the Idler in Italy ; published by Colburn. 
 
 tens, and a lively one cheers me. Martial mu- 
 sic renders me brave, and voluptuous music 
 disposes me to be luxurious, even effeminate. 
 Now, were I skilled in the science, I should 
 become fastidious ; and instead of yielding to 
 the fascinations of sweet sounds, I should be 
 analysing, or criticising, or connoisseurshin- 
 ising (to use a word of my own makiug), 
 instead of simply enjoying them as at present. 
 In the same way, I never would study botany. 
 1 don’t want to know why certain flowers 
 please me ; enough for me that they do, and 
 I leave it to those who have no better occu- 
 pation, the analysis of the sources of their 
 pleasure, which I can enjoy without the use- 
 less trouble.’ Byron (adds Lady Blessing- 
 ton) has little taste for the fine arts ; and 
 when they are the subject of conversation, 
 betrays an ignorance very surprising in a 
 man who has travelled so much. He says, 
 that he feels art, while others prate about it ; 
 but his neglect of the beautiful specimens of 
 it here, goes far to prove the contrary. 
 
 “ Maurice, the boatman employed by Lord 
 Byron, during his residence here, speaks of 
 the noble poet with enthusiam, and loves to 
 relate anecdotes of him. He told us, that 
 Lord Byron never entered his boat without a 
 case of pistols, which he always kept by him ; 
 a very superfluous ceremony, as Maurice 
 seemed to think. He represented him as 
 generally silent and abstracted, passing whole 
 hours on the lake absorbed in reflection, and 
 then suddenly writing, with extreme rapid ityr, 
 in a book he always had with him. He 
 described his countenance, to use his own 
 phrase, as ‘ ?na gnifique and different from 
 that of all other men, by its pride ( Jierte 
 was the word he used). — ‘He passed whole 
 nights on the lake, always selecting the most 
 boisterous weather for such expeditions. I 
 never saw a rough evening set in, while his 
 lordship was at Diodati,’ continued Maurice, 
 
 ‘ without being sure that he would send for 
 me ; and the higher the wind, and the more 
 agitated the lake, the more he enjoyed it. 
 We have often remained out eighteen hours 
 at a time, and in very bad weather. — Lord 
 Byron is so good a swimmer, that he has 
 little to dread from the water. — Poor Mr. 
 Shelley,’ resumed Maurice, ‘ ah ! we were 
 all sorry for him ! — He was a different sort of 
 man : so gentle, so affectionate, so generous ; 
 he looked as if he loved the sky over his 
 head, and the water on which his boat floated. 
 He would not hurt a fly, nay, he would save 
 everything that had life ; so tender and mer- 
 ciful was his nature. He was too good for 
 this woild ; and yet, lady, would you believe 
 it, some of his countrymen, whom I have 
 rowed in this very boat, have tried to make 
 me think ill of him ; but they never could 
 succeed, for we plain people judge by what 
 we see, and not by what we hear.' This 
 was, in language somewhat different, the 
 
176 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 sentiment of our boatman’s account of Byron 
 and Shelley, two of the most remarkable 
 spirits of our age. He seemed to admire the 
 first, but it is evident he loved the second. 
 
 “ He [Byron] has a passion for flowers, and 
 purchases bouquets from the venders on the 
 road, who have tables piled with them. He 
 bestows charity on every mendicant who asks 
 it ; and his manner in giving is gentle and 
 kind. The people seem all to know his face, 
 and to like him ; and many recount their 
 affairs, as if they were sure of his sympathy. 
 Though now but in his thirty-sixth year, 
 Byron talks of himself as if he were at least 
 fifty, nay, likes to be considered old. It sur- 
 prises me to witness the tenacity with which 
 his memory retains every trivial occurrence 
 connected with lus sojourn in England, and 
 his London life. Persons and circumstances, 
 that I should have supposed could never have 
 made any impression on his mind, are re- 
 membered as freshly as if recently seen.” 
 
 THE GREAT WESTERN STEAM 
 SHIP. 
 
 At a recent meeting of the proprietors of 
 the above steam ship, it appeared by the re- 
 port, that the vessel, after having run 35,000 
 nautical miles, and encountered thirty-six 
 days of heavy gales, her seams required no 
 caulking. The average of her passages out 
 was fifteen days and a half, and home thir- 
 teen days ; the shortest passage out was 
 fourteen days and a half, and the shortest 
 time home twelve and a quarter. About 
 1,000 passengers had gone in the ship. 
 ^1,000 per annum would be saved to the 
 proprietors, by the American congress hav- 
 ing liberally given up the duty of 2 d. per 
 bushel on coals. After deducting for ex- 
 penses, and setting apart 2,000/. for a reserve- 
 fund, there remained a sufficiency for a di- 
 vidend of 5 per cent., making, with the 4 per 
 cent, already received, 9 per cent, for the 
 year. Their next vessel is to be constructed 
 of iron. 
 
 Clje <&atijevcr. 
 
 The Nelson Memorial — At a meeting of 
 the general committee of management on 
 Saturday last, it was agreed, that the artists 
 be permitted to remove their respective mo- 
 dels, after the 31st day of March, and to have 
 the liberty of again sending them in, or of pro- 
 ducing fresh ones on or before the last Sa- 
 turday in May— the committee remarking, 
 “ that although the models and drawings 
 possess considerable merit, yet they might 
 be much improved on reconsideration.” 
 
 The British Museum . — By the annual 
 account laid before parliament, it appears 
 that the income of the British Museum dur- 
 
 ing the past year, (including parliamentary 
 grants,) amounted to 33,447/. 12a'., and the 
 expenditure to 30,808/. 13s 9d. The esti- 
 mated expenditure for the present year is 
 32,390/. It appears front this return that 
 the number of visiters who have been ad- 
 mitted to visit the British Museum during 
 the year 1838, as compared with the three I 
 previous years, has considerably diminished. 1 
 In 1837 the number of visiters admitted to 
 view the general collections in the Museum, 
 amounted to 321,151; in 1838 to 266,008. 
 The number of visits to the reading-rooms 
 for the purpose of study and research was 
 69,936 in 1837, and only 54,843 in 1838. 
 The number of visits by students and artists 
 to the galleries of sculpture for the purpose 
 of study, was 5,570 in 1837, and 5,015 in 
 1838. The reading-room closed for a short 
 period last September, which may partly ac- 
 count for the falling off in the number of 
 visiters. 
 
 Chart of Health. — Love. — A complaint 
 of the heart growing out of an inordinate 
 longing after something difficult to obtain. 
 
 It attacks persons of both sexes, generally 
 between the ages of fifteen and thirty ; some 
 have been known to have it at the age of 
 sixty. Symptoms. — Absence of mind : giv- 
 ing things wrong names ; calling tears nectar, 
 and sighs.zepbyrs ; a fondness of poetry and 
 music ; gazing on the moon and stars ; loss 
 of appetite; neglect of business ; loathing for 
 all things — save one; blood-shot eyes, and 
 a constant desire to sigh. Effect. — A strong 
 heart-burn ; pulse high ; stupidly eloquent 
 eyes ; sleeplessness, and all that sort of thing. 
 
 At times, imaginations bright — bowers of 
 roses, winged cupids, and buttered peas ; 
 and then again, oceans of despair, racks, 
 torments, and pistols. Cure. — Get married. 
 
 Friendship. — W hen the late King of Den- 
 mark was in England, he Very frequently 
 honoured Sir Thomas Robinson with his com- 
 pany, though the knight spoke French in a 
 very imperfect manner, and the king had 
 scarcely any knowledge of English. One day, 
 when Sir Thomas was in company with ti e 
 late Lord Chesterfield, he boasted much of 
 his intimacy with the king, and added “ that 
 he believed the monarch had a greater friend- 
 ship for him than any man in England.” 
 
 “ How report lies,” exclaimed Lord Chester- , 
 field ; “ I heard no later than this day, that 
 you never met, but a great deal of bad lan- 
 guage passed between you.” 
 
 Genius — “ I know of no such thing as 
 genius,” said Hogarth to Mr. Gilbert Cooper; 
 
 “ genius is nothing but labour and diligence.” 
 
 LONDON : Printed and published by J. IAMBI RD , 
 143, Strand, ( near Somerset House) ; and sold by 
 all Booksellers and A eu'smen. — In PARIS, by all 
 the Booksellers.— In FRANCFORT, CHARLES 
 Jl (i EL. 
 
Zi)C fRtnot* 
 
 LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT. AND INSTRUCTION. 
 
 You xxxiii. N 
 
 I 
 
 THE AELLOPODES. 
 
178 
 
 TIIE MIRROR. 
 
 THE AELLOPODES, 
 
 INVENTED BY MR. REVIS, OF CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 We have been permitted a close inspection of 
 this very ingenious machine, which is being 
 exhibited at the George Hall, Aldermanbury ; 
 and its simplicity of construction, power, and 
 loco-motive rapidity, will, we think, tend to 
 promote its general adoption. It is a carriage, 
 light and elegant in form, which the traveller 
 moves by stepping ; first with one foot, and 
 then with the other, — the treddles being im- 
 mediately behind him. 
 
 The axle forms a quadruple crank, so that 
 the circumvolution is as complete as can be 
 obtained ; and the treddles connected there- 
 with are four in number. Attached to the 
 above axle are two large wheels, of the dia- 
 meter of six feet; and, in front, the smaller 
 guide-wheel is about half the size. 
 
 The extreme length of the machine is 
 twelve feet : and the. cost about thirty 
 pounds. 
 
 On common roads this machine may be 
 propelled at the rate of from twenty to thirty 
 miles an hour ; and we learn that many 
 gentlemen of the University of Cambridge 
 have adopted it as a means of exercise. In- 
 deed, with reference to gymnastics, it can 
 scarcely be too highly appreciated, as the 
 retrograde action (very easily acquired) must 
 be greatly conducive to muscular develop- 
 ment and to physical improvement generally. 
 
 The inventor is Mr. Revis, of Cambridge, 
 well-known as a talented mechanician, who 
 has made offers to the heads of the post- 
 office department, with a view to a speedier 
 and more economical transmission of the 
 cross-mails. It is to be hoped that on the 
 present occasion there will be less of that 
 official delay which so frequently mars the 
 true interests of the public, when mechanical 
 novelty is in question. 
 
 With four wheels, and upon rail-roads, the 
 velocity would of course be augmented in a 
 vast progressive ratio. Surmises having been 
 thrown out with reference to the difficulty of 
 moving up inclined planes, Mr. Revis has 
 constructed a most ingenious piece of mecha- 
 nism, wherein a lever, whether by elevation 
 or depression, assures an onward progvess 
 without the possibility of the wheels turning 
 laek. Considered per se, this last machine 
 is a very striking effort of mechanical skill — 
 simple, — and occupying little space. By 
 affixing paddles, it becomes admirably adap- 
 ted for pleasure-boats, with a view to increase 
 their motorify at the very least expense of 
 manual labour. 
 
 There have been many similar vehicles 
 for accelerating travelling without the aid of 
 either horses or steam; but, certainly, the 
 Aeli.opodes bids fair to be by far the most 
 useful machine for such u purpose hitherto 
 invented. 
 
 THE MANAGER AND THE 
 FRENCHMAN. 
 
 The late Charles Gilfert, the manager of 
 the Bowery Theatre, New York, was a 
 peculiar fellow, and one of the most fasci- 
 nating men of his day. At Albany be met 
 with a Mr. Lemair, a Frenchman, of whom 
 he borrowed money until he nearly ruined 
 him. Lemair was one day in a towering 
 rage at the cause of his misfortunes, and 
 used to tell the following characteristic 
 story of his friend : — “ Monsieur Charles 
 Gilfert, he come to Albany. He have ruin 
 me in my business — mes affaires. He bor- 
 row de V argent from me to large amount. 
 
 He go to New York, and promise to send 
 him, right away, ver quick. But, voyez- 
 vous, when I write to him, he return me 
 von response inconvenante, von impudent 
 answer, and say, I may go to the devil for 
 look for him. I leave Albany instantly, de- I 
 termined to have the grand personal satis- I 
 faction for the affront he put upon me. I 
 walk straight avay from de bateau a vapeur, - 
 de steam-boat. I go to my boarding-house. j 
 I procure von large stick, and rush out of j 
 depension to meet him. By-and-by, beintot, j 
 I see him von large vay off, very remotely. 
 
 I immediately button up my coat vith strong j 
 determination, and bold my stick fierce in 
 my hand, to break his neck several times. I 
 Ven he come near, my indignation rise. Fie 
 put out his hand. I reject him. He smile, 1 
 and look over his spectacles at me. I say, | 
 you von scoundrel, coquin infume. He 
 smile de more, and make un grand effort , 
 a great trial, to pacify my grand indignation, 
 and before he leave me, he borrow twenty 
 dollars from me once more, by gar. A ver 
 pleasant man was Monsieur Charles Gilfert ; | 
 ver nice man to borrow l' argent, ma foi.” 
 
 DECREASE OF THE BALTIC. 
 
 The waters of the Baltic are certainly un- 
 dergoing a gradual decrease, which seems 
 to arise from some elevation of the surface 
 ol the bottom and coasts of the sea. An- 
 cient marks are traced upon the rocks, 
 which indicate the former level of the waters, 
 and these are now considerably above the 
 surface of the sea. The Academy of Sci- 
 ences at St. Petersburgh has culled to this 
 subject the attention of Prince Menzekoff, 
 minister of marine, and instructions have 
 accordingly been given to Captain Lieutenant 
 Reinecke, who is charged with a survey of 
 the coast of Finland, to observe with accu- 
 racy the present elevation of the existing 
 mark above the level of the sea, and to make 
 new marks in rocks at known heights to 
 serve for future observation. 
 
THK MIRROR. 
 
 I7& 
 
 THE GRAVE OF L.K.L. 
 
 (For the Mirror.') 
 
 “ Peace to the lovely spirit Sown ! 
 
 It. was not form'd for earth. 
 
 Thou wert a sunbeam iu thy race, 
 
 Which brightly past and left no trace. 
 
 Sleep ! tin y are closed at length for thee. 
 
 Life’s few and evil days !” — “ The Abencerrago." 
 
 And thou hast found an early grave, 
 Bright spirit ! To return no more ; 
 Where sultry Afric’s distant wave, 
 
 Beats the lone shore. 
 
 No kindred dust beside thee sleepeth, 
 
 No native scenes around thee lie ; 
 
 The billowy surge for ever vveepetb, 
 
 Sad lullaby ! 
 
 And tropic suns above thee shine, 
 
 And strangers bore thee to thy rest : 
 
 No “ dear familiar ” spot was thine, 
 
 On thy land’s breast. 
 
 No grave beneath o’er-arching shade, 
 
 By some old church with ivy'd tower, 
 The fan-like cocoa shelter made 
 For thee, sweet flower ! 
 
 No more,— no more — thy tender song. 
 Shall thrill our hearts with joy or woe ; 
 No more thy harp’s mute strings along, 
 Shall music flow. 
 
 No more across the wide lone sea, 
 
 Will words of thine affection tell : 
 
 No trace remains — but yet on thee, 
 
 Will memory dwell ! 
 
 Too “ wildly spiritually bright,” 
 
 Long on this dreary earth to stay, 
 
 Like to some star, that from our sight, 
 Shoots swift away ! 
 
 Kirton-Lindse.y. Anne R- — , 
 
 ALONE BENEATH YON DROOPING 
 TREE.* 
 
 A POPULAR SPANISH ROMANCE. 
 
 Translated from the Orginal, bg Desmond 
 Jii/dn, hsq. 
 
 Alqne beneath yon drooping tree, 
 
 Its mournful branches weeping ; 
 
 A maiden, once the light and free, 
 
 In death’s cold shadows sleeping. 
 
 Deep in that lonely shrine. 
 
 Affection, youth, and gladness, 
 
 Lie unrecalled, around us twine, 
 
 Memorial dreams of sadness. 
 
 Alas ! for her whose early heart 
 Its boundless loye bestowing, 
 
 Who loves and lives but to impart 
 The bosom’s overflowing ; 
 
 Alas ! soon sorrows wave 
 Around her waking pillow, 
 
 And treachery fills the peaceful grave 
 Beneath yon drooping willow ! 
 
 * Extracted, by permission, from Thk Harmo- 
 nist — a cheap musical work, now publishing in 
 tnuaibers. 
 
 N 2 
 
 TENACITY OF LIFE IN THE 
 INFERIOR CREATION. 
 
 (Fur the Mirror.) 
 
 Many persons must have observed how long 
 and apparently unaffected an insect can 
 live, being deprived of some of its limbs. 
 We see, lor instance, a mischievous child 
 catch a fly, pull two or three of its limbs oil', 
 and set the crippled insect again at liberty ; 
 we see the poor thing, notwithstanding this 
 mutilation, fly and buzz about, seemingly as 
 briskly as before, and yet, surely, it must feel 
 the loss ol those limbs, and suffer pain. 
 Now perform, or rather fancy performed, a 
 mutilation of the same kind on a mammi- 
 ferous animal, and the result will be very 
 different — the creature lies panting and ex- 
 hausted. It would seem as if Providence, 
 ever foreseeing, had, considering the nume- 
 rous dangers insects and the inferior animals 
 are subjected to, endowed them with a degree 
 of energy and fortitude pre-eminent to the 
 stronger and superior classes, able to defend 
 themselves, and more competent to guard 
 against contingencies. So, indeed, it must 
 appear, lor there is no other satisfactory 
 mode yet produced, of accounting for the cir- 
 cumstance. We are not, for all that, let it be 
 borne in mind, authorized to refine cruelty, 
 and to put perhaps the most admirable and 
 delicate ot the Almighty’s productions to the 
 test; far from us should ever be such a 
 thought, and carefully ought we to abstain 
 lrom putting creatures, however minute, to 
 any torture. 
 
 The tenacity with which life clings to the 
 inferior creatures, is a circumstance which 
 has awakened the attention, and excited the 
 wonder of (he most eminent naturalists. 
 They have performed experiments on them, 
 and have preserved notes, recording the ob- 
 servations they have made — let them suffice, 
 j only hope that the instances I here pro- 
 duce will not induce any of my readers to 
 repeat the experiments — they are barbarous 
 — they must be sinful. 
 
 There is, first, this peculiarity I would 
 bi'ing under notice. Decapitation in insects 
 kills the head, and leaves the body for sonye 
 time alive — decapitation in the human spe- 
 cies totally deprives the body of life, and 
 leaves the head yet partly conscious and ca- 
 pable ot feeling pain. This last assenion 
 •nay startle, it is nevertheless true. We 
 have the investigations of Professor Mojou 
 on the subject ; lie observed that the head 
 of a guillotined man closed its eyes on a 
 light being suddenly presented to it; he 
 further declares, that the head of a man of 
 the name of Tellier, who was guillotined, 
 turned in whatever direction it was called by 
 name, as it lay on the table ; in another in- 
 stance, he asserts, that a quarter of an hour 
 after decapitation, a head was so far sen- 
 sible of pain, as to make the most horrible 
 
ISO 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 contortions, on the implication of the point 
 of a needle to the spinal marrow. From 
 these and other equally startling observa- 
 tions, he deduces, that death by decapitation 
 is one of the most cruel of deaths, as it is 
 altogether impossible to set any limits as to 
 the time the head may remain sensible. 
 Now, in insects, the reverse takes place ; 
 the head of a fly being nipped oft' the body, 
 will continue for some time briskly alive; 
 nay, in the instance of a beetle, even con- 
 sciousness of danger seems to exist. It is 
 a well-known fact, that a decapitated beetle, 
 being placed on a table, will walk across it, 
 and suddenly stop on reaching the edge. 
 Where, then, let me now ask, can lie the 
 seat of instinct ? Within the sphere of my own 
 observation, I have had occasion to witness 
 perhaps one of the most extraordinary in- 
 stances of the tenacity of life in insects, 
 though certainly not the most extraordinary, 
 as wdl hereafter appear. 
 
 A friend of mine, who had caught a death’s- 
 head moth, being somewhat frightened at 
 the doleful though faint shrieks it is the pe- 
 culiarity of this strange insect to utter, 
 nipped its head off, along w’ith the two fore- 
 most legs attached to it. The noise then 
 ceased, but not life — the head ran hither and 
 thither, as though mad with pain, and the 
 wings of the decapitated body fluttered with 
 amazing velocity. This continued for some 
 time, till both parts seemed exhausted, or 
 probably dead — they were then enclosed in 
 separate boxes, and left untouched till the 
 next morning. An extraordinary surprise 
 was then in store. The box containing the 
 body was first opened, when out it flew, with 
 a buzz as violent and vigorous, as if it had 
 never been mutilated ; it, however, fell a few 
 feet off to the ground, und never again moved. 
 The box containing the head being then 
 opened, it was found to be full of life, and 
 apparently not the least weakened ; it had 
 to undergo the usual process of destruction 
 prior to its insertion in the entomological ca- 
 binet. This, I assert, is a fact, and not stated 
 here for the sake of appearing to have some- 
 thing wonderful to say. Lenwenhoek had a 
 mite that lived eleven weeks on the point of 
 a needle, whereon it had been fixed for mi- 
 croscopical investigation. This circumstunce 
 may perhaps shake the incredulity of those 
 who feel disposed to entertain any doubt as 
 to the veracity of the case narrated by myself, 
 when they consider the authority from which 
 the assertion proceeds. It certainly is wonder- 
 ful, and may justly excite our utmost astonish- 
 ment. It is impossible to suppose that this 
 insect can have suffered such pain during 
 that lnegthened period, as from experience 
 we should be ready to believe ; long before 
 the stated time, the poor thing must have 
 died of the complication of tortures to which 
 it was exposed — hunger, bodily pain, depri- 
 vatioa of any degree of exertion, perhaps 
 
 cold, and numerous other contingencies. 
 What then are we to conclude ? was the 
 creature void of feeling ? When Vaillaint, 
 at the Cape of Good Hope, caught a locust, 
 whose abdomen he excavated, and then 
 filled with cotton, asserts that it nevertheless 
 moved its antennae for more than the incre- 
 dible space of five months, is not our amaze- 
 ment still greater ? Colonel Pringle deca- 
 pitated several dragon-flies, one of which 
 afterwards lived four months, and another 
 for six; and what is most strange is, that he 
 was never able to keep any of the unmutilated 
 specimens for more than a few days. Here, 
 then, we have insects living without heads ; 
 und here we have also a most curious in- 
 stance of a deviation from the usual course 
 of nature ; the Colonel was unable to keep 
 the specimens in a perfect stale more than u 
 few days, whilst those that were decapitated 
 he could preserve as much as four and six 
 months 1 A dragon-fly, it is well known, 
 when fiercely engaged in the devouring of 
 its food, will, with increased fury, proceed in 
 its occupation, although the abdomen be se- 
 parated from the thorax — it will live in that 
 mutilated state an extraordinary length of 
 time. 
 
 The manner in which the caterpillar di- 
 vests itself of its skin, prior to its metamor- 
 phosis into the chrysalis state, must have 
 fallen under the notice of most people. For 
 several days the insect rejects all food, un- 
 dergoes many changes, and at last strips itself 
 of its skin, tearing it off from the tail up- 
 wards. This operation, to judge from our 
 own feelings, we should consider extremely 
 painful ; such self-inflictions, however, do 
 not stand solitary in the annals of natural 
 history. The female ant at a particular season 
 forcibly rids herself of her wings ; they do 
 not drop ofli for the creature is at no little 
 pains to wrench them off— how her little tiny 
 frame must quiver under such an operation ! 
 
 We have had, hitherto, but insects brought 
 under our notice; the inferior classes of the 
 animal creation will afford us evidences 
 equally astonishing. Redi opened the skull 
 of a land-tortoise, and removed the whole of 
 the brain ; a fleshy integument was then ob- 
 served to form over the opening, and the 
 animal lived for six months. This experi- 
 ment was truly barbarous, and how the poor 
 creature could survive such treatment, must 
 appear altogether unaccountable. Spallan- 
 zani cut out the breasts of three mews, which, 
 notwithstanding the mutilation, immediately 
 took to flight, leapt, swam, and executed their 
 usual functions for forty-eight hours. Again 
 Redi cut off the head of a tortoise, which sur- 
 vived eighteen days. The circumstance of 
 toads having been found alive in blocks of 
 stone, is well known. Not long ago, in 
 France, one was discovered in a block of hard 
 rock ; the creature was full of life, and, 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 1*1 
 
 strange to say, had a thick coating of crystals 
 on its back. In 1743, at Wisbeach, in the 
 I Isle of Ely, another was discovered. It lay 
 entombed in a large block of marble, was con- 
 siderably larger than the generality of toads, 
 and the cavity which had for so many hun- 
 dreds of years been its solitary habitation, 
 was of the shape of the toad, but somewhat 
 larger, and of a dusky yellow. Again, at 
 Great-Yarmouth, a toad was discovered in a 
 mass of free-stone of considerable dimensions. 
 When the stone had been sawed asunder, a 
 hole was observed al. out six inches from the 
 surface, in which lay a toad ; “ I took the 
 toad out of the hole with my compass,” says 
 a correspondent of the Gentleman s Maga- 
 zine, “ I did not observe that I anyways hurt 
 it in taking it out of the hole. When it was 
 on the ground, it hopped about, and died in 
 less than one hour. There was a yellow list 
 on the back, which changed its colour soon 
 after the toad died. The hole was about three 
 inches long, and about as deep. I strictly 
 viewed the stone, and could not perceive any 
 flaw or crack in it; the inside of the hole was 
 smooth, and looked as if it had been polished. 
 Witness my hand this 25th day of July, 
 1756. John Malpas.” 
 
 Various theories have been broached to ac- 
 count for these strange phenomena, none, how- 
 ever, as yet by any means satisfactory ; what 
 is a well- attested fact is, that the toad and 
 the frog will, for an extraordinarily lengthened 
 period, live on nothing but moisture ; but to 
 suppose that the specimens above cited can 
 date their incarceration from the same period 
 that the stone can date its formation, seems 
 almost too absurd. Under such a supposition 
 the toads must average from two to three 
 thousand years of age, and probably more. 
 Worms have also been found in blocks of 
 marble ; Don Antonio de lllloa, Fellow of the 
 Royal Society of London, in 1750, tells us, 
 that at Madrid he saw two worms discovered 
 in a mass of marble, by the King of Spain’s 
 statuary. Misson makes mention of a cray- 
 fish being found alive in a piece of marble, at 
 Tivoli ; and Mr. Peysonnel, who hail caused a 
 well to be sunk near his house, found num- 
 bers of living frogs in the petrified strata. 
 
 These instances surely are wonderful, and 
 infinitely more unaccountable. So, however, 
 the thing is ; and till a satisfactory and in- 
 contestible explanation can be given, the cir- 
 cumstance must remain one of the most 
 curious and extraordinary in the annals of 
 natural history. With regard to the results 
 given of the dreadful mutilations inflicted on 
 insects, we must confess them to be truly 
 startling. Unaccountable as they must ever 
 be, till we can feel as these creatures do, it 
 were highly blameable in us, acting on the 
 presumption that they are void of feeling, 
 and so incapable of appreciating torture, to 
 
 put any of them to the cruel tests enumerated. 
 My intention is to bring the circumstances 
 under notice, not to incite to further inquiry. 
 
 H. M. 
 
 To the Editor of the Mirror . 
 
 Sir, — A lounger along Bedford Row, theother 
 morning at early dawn,” picked up the fol- 
 lowing scrap, without a signature ; whether 
 likely to be a stray-leaf from poor Abernethy’s 
 study (for Bedford Row still “ whispers of his 
 whereabouts,”) must be left to others to deter- 
 mine. — As no reference to a certain page in 
 that “• great functionary’s” book is observable, 
 it may rather be concluded to have emanated 
 from one of his pupils. 
 
 LOVE 
 
 Is a dose which, if not administered with 
 judgment, speedily becomes somewhat sick- 
 ening. Where one particular ingredient is 
 allowed to predominate, physic soon nauseates 
 on the- palate. 
 
 Some practitioners recommend it in the form 
 of a powder, mingled with a certain portion 
 of the golden ointment : this no doubt ren- 
 ders it more agreeable to the eye ; — but I am 
 not aware that the golden ointment in the 
 present day has any very material advantage 
 over the Draft. 
 
 For myself, I give the preference to the 
 mixture, where the soothing qualities are 
 better preserved, and a scruple more or less 
 is never of serious moment. An infusion of 
 a few grains of common sense, though some- 
 what bitter, adds to its strengthening powers, 
 and improves its taste. 
 
 Nature is no doubt a subtle chemist, but 
 yet she too frequently leaves the preparation 
 of this medicine to boys, who, unaware of the 
 rapid effects of ardent spirits, place it on too 
 fierce a fire, and consequently suffer the 
 strength to evaporate before it acquires the 
 requisite consistency to keep through all sea- 
 sons and in all climates. This geuuine Love, 
 and genuine Love only, will do ; and any 
 other kind I should say, however puffed and 
 labelled, however attractive its outside, and 
 seductive its appearance, is little better than 
 a quack medicine. 
 
 Another mistake is that of having it ad- 
 ministered by the old ; — for when the hand 
 trembles, and the nerves become feeble, it ia 
 time that the physician leaves off practice. 
 
 Too much caution cannot be shown in the 
 recommendation of this powerful stimulant, 
 for there have been instances in which an 
 improper application has affected the brain, 
 and some lamentable cases, where neglect 
 and bad treatment have been followed by 
 suicide ; — such a melancholy result as the 
 latter, proceeding, I am convinced, from the 
 weak patient having unexpectedly been de- 
 prived of that on which the system fed. The 
 symptoms attending such deplorable cases 
 are these : — The eye becomes jaundiced — 
 
1K2 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 the hea<l giddy — a sinking at the heart — 
 great irritation and heat of temper — loss of 
 appetite — depression of spirits, and an in- 
 creased liking for water , which clearly proves 
 that the wisearces who pretend to say that 
 “ Love is like the bite of a mad dog,'’ are 
 wrong. There appears not to be the least 
 affinity. 
 
 The precise period at which Love may be 
 safely discontinued, it is difficult to deter- 
 mine. — Many men of advanced age have an 
 inclination for it ; but it then dwindles into 
 dotage, and they themselves (for they seldom 
 think of taking it but as a night-cap) are 
 rapidly verging into old women. 
 
 I have sometimes thought, that as the dis- 
 ease for which Love is prescribed, is inva- 
 riably seated in the heart, no safer remedy 
 can be adopted than that of applying it to 
 the part affected in the form of a Bosom- 
 Friend, which keeps up an equable and 
 kindly glow, and never grows cold. The 
 fair patient, therefore, who will condescend to 
 consult me, may depend on secrecy ; and 
 though I may not be borne out in prophecy- 
 ing a speedy or a certain cure, I pledge my- 
 self she shall have the benefit of my best 
 advice gratis. P. 
 
 ANECDOTES OF THE INSANE.* 
 
 ' (Continued from page 115.) 
 
 If, in this country, a woman were to insist 
 on burning herself to death after the decease 
 of her husband, we should consider her in- 
 sane. But in India she is not insane ; be- 
 cause the people there have been educated 
 in the belief of its propriety. It was men- 
 tioned in the House of Commons by Mr. 
 Buxton, in 1821, that in the presidency of 
 Fort William, two thousand three hundred 
 and sixty-six widows had destroyed them- 
 selves in the previous four years. Some of 
 these were only twelve or thirteen years of 
 age ; one was only eight ; and one woman, 
 only eleven, was so obstinate, when not al- 
 lowed to burn herself to death, that she ab- 
 stained from food for four or five days ; and 
 although the local authorities prevented her 
 trom immolating herself on her husband’s 
 grave, she saved some of his bones, in order 
 that, when the first opportunity should occur, 
 she might destroy herself. Such an act as 
 this, in our country, could scarcely arise from 
 any thing but insanity. The ignorant have 
 pronounced philosophers mad, over and over 
 
 * Extracted from " The Principles and Practice of 
 Medicine, founded on the most extensive Expeiience 
 in Public Hospitals and Private Practice ; and 
 developed in a course of Lectures delivered at Uni- 
 veisity College, London ; by John Elliotson, M.D. ; 
 F.lt.S. ; President of the Royal Medical and Chiiur- 
 gienl Society, &c. With notes and illustrations; 
 by Nathaniel Rogers, M.D. ; Member, and late 
 President, of the Hunterian Society of Edinburgh ; 
 corresponding Member of the Mtdico-Chimrgical 
 Society of Dublin.” 
 
 again. Detnocrates was pronounced mad; 
 by the common people ; because he dissected 
 a human bod}’, with the view of discovering 
 the causes of insanity ; but Hippocrates told 
 the people that they were mad, and not De- 
 mocrates. A madman once complained that 
 he was “ as much in his senses as the rest 
 of the world ; but the majority was against 
 him, and therefore he was placed in custody.” 
 
 Bellingham, who murdered Mr. Perceval, 
 was a man of weak intellect; and you will 
 see, in the cast of his head, that the anterior 
 parts of the brain are miserably defective ; 
 whereas the lateral parts are largely deve- 
 loped. That man was executed, because there 
 was no proof at all of his being insane ; but 
 if any one look at his head, he will incline to 
 a favourable opinion ; and though he would 
 not set him at large, to do such mischief 
 again, yet he would not deprive him of life. 
 When a person has committed suicide, we 
 say that he is mad, on ten thousand times 
 slighter ground than if he were alive. I huve 
 no doubt that thousands, whose crimes were 
 the result of insanity, and who were there- 
 fore not responsible agents, have been ex- 
 ecuted unjustly ; and that thousands more 
 w ill be executed. 
 
 Occasionally it is almost impossible to 
 ascertain whether a person is mad, owing to 
 the cunning of the insane. “ I well re- 
 member,’’ says Lord Erskine, “ that I ex- 
 amined, for the greater part of a day, an 
 unfortunate gentleman, who had indicted a 
 most affectionate brother, together with the 
 keeper of a madhouse at Hoxton, for having 
 imprisoned him as u lunatic ; while, ac- 
 cording to his evidence, he was in his perfect 
 senses. I was, unfortunately, not instructed 
 in what his lunacy consisted ; although my 
 instructions left me no doubt of the fact; 
 but not having the clue, he completely foiled 
 me in every attempt to expose his infirmity. 
 You may believe that I left unemployed no 
 means which experience dictated ; but with- 
 out the smallest effect. The day was wasted ; 
 and the prosecutor, by the most affecting 
 history of unmerited suffering, appeared to 
 the judges and jury, and to a humane Eng- ' 
 lish audience, as the victim of a most wanton ’ 
 and barbarous oppression. At last, Dr. 
 Sims, who had been prevented by business ; 
 from an earlier attendance, came into court. 
 From him I soon learned that the very man 
 ■whom 1 had been above an hour examining, 
 with every possible effort which counsel are 
 so much in the habit of exerting, believed 
 himself to be the Lord and Saviour of man- 
 kind ; — not merely at the time of his con- 
 finement, but during the w'hole time that he 
 had been triumphing over every attempt to 
 surprise him in the concealment of his dis- 
 ease. I then affected to lament the inde- 
 cency of my ignorant examination ; when he 
 expressed his forgiveness, and said, with the ■ 
 utmost gravity and emphasis, in the face of” 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 183 
 
 i the whole court, ‘ I am the Christ !’ and so 
 ! the cause ended.” 
 
 | Deulness is the most common disturbance 
 of |he external senses iri madmen. Some- 
 ; times there is a depravation of smell. They 
 will Imagine there is some disagreeable 
 ; odour around them, and will speak with the 
 nostrils closed. I believe mad people are 
 generally very lond of snuff. You will some- 
 times observe extreme hunger, and extreme 
 thirst ; but sometimes there is an absence 
 both of hunger and thirst. Sometimes you 
 observe great muscular strength ; so that 
 an exertion is made far beyond what is pos- 
 sible in health. Sometimes insane people 
 scarcely sleep at all. They will pass many 
 days, perhaps weeks, without any sleep of 
 consequence. Occasionally, too, there is 
 great resistance to external cold ; but this is 
 by no means universal ; for many insane per- 
 sons having, in consequence of this notion, 
 been leit to themselves, have died from mor- 
 tification of the extremities. Now and then, 
 however, insane persons have exposed them- 
 selves to frost and snow, without suffering 
 from them in the least. Some are extremely 
 civil. They will beg you to stop and dine, 
 when you have dined already ; or they will 
 beg you to stop to supper, and then to take 
 a bed. I have been astonished at them; 
 and have afterwards learned that these good 
 : people were in a madhouse. 
 
 You will find, even in sound writers, an 
 r account of insanity being produced by the 
 devil. Till modern times, the chief treat- 
 ment of insanity consisted in cruelty ; but no 
 corporeal punishment ought ever to be al- 
 lowed. Rliazes, an Arabian physician, or- 
 ders that when persons labour under “ love- 
 madness,” and nothing else will do, they 
 must be tied up, and beat well with the fists ; 
 and this again and again. Another writer 
 says that, if the patient be a young man, he 
 must be well flogged ; and if not quiet then, 
 must be put into the bottom of a tower, with 
 bread and water, till he begs pardon for 
 being mad, and becomes sane. This “love- 
 madness” is certainly the only kind of in- 
 sanity in which such treatment should be 
 adopted ; — if adopted at all. 
 
 A gentleman, from great anxiety of mind, 
 became deranged ; but his insanity subsided 
 to a great extent ; and he told me he should 
 like to see his wife, for it was very hard he 
 should be kept from seeing his family. I 
 stopped with him two hours, and satisfied 
 myself it would do him good. He wished to 
 leave his bed-room, and to see different parts 
 of the house. I took off his jacket, and led 
 him down stairs, and gratified him by letting 
 him see, first one part of the house, and then 
 another. I watched the effects ; and found 
 that it did not throw him off his balance, but 
 that he seemed to gain intellect and power 
 
 for, and which I let him have. One curious 
 thing was to kill a bantam-cock, which he 
 saw from a window, and which he took for 
 a spectre, or a fiend. The colours, he said, 
 had been terrific to him, aud he should not 
 be happy till it was killed. I gratified him 
 with it, and he was exceedingly thankful. 
 I watched him carefully for some time after 
 this, and at last I satisfied myself that the 
 sight of his wife would not be dangerous. I 
 brought her from a neighbour’s house, and 
 the interview was most affecting. From that 
 moment to this he has been in his perfect 
 senses. 
 
 VAUCLUSE, 
 
 THE RETREAT OF PETRARCH. 
 
 (From Lady Blessington’s ‘Idler in Italy.") 
 “The valley of Vaucluse is extremely nar- 
 row, and bounded by high rocks of a browu- 
 ish grey tint : their sombre hue is iu some 
 places relieved by olive aud fig trees, with 
 scattered vines, but there is still a great want 
 of wood to break the dull uniformity of the 
 cliffs : the colour of which is cold, and not 
 sufficiently varied to produce a fine effect. 
 In the time of Petrarch, those gigantic rocks 
 were only seen at intervals, breaking out of 
 large masses of wood, with which the valley 
 was nearly covered ; and which softened the 
 character of the scenery that now presents a 
 wild and savage aspect. After winding for 
 some way among the crags, the road termi- 
 nates at the village of Vaucluse, which is 
 most romantically situated ; and a broad path 
 formed on the ledge of the rocky chain that 
 bound the river, which here fills the centre of 
 the valley, leads to the celebrated fountain 
 which was the Helicon of Petrarch. Tile val- 
 ley is here closed by a perpendicular crag of 
 immense height ; within which, is the cavern 
 whence springs the fountain. The entrance 
 to this cavern is above sixty feet high ; and 
 it is screened by rocks which intercept all view 
 of it until it is neared. The fountain fills a 
 vast basin of a circular form, at the base of 
 the perpendicular cliff that terminates this 
 part of the valley. At a short distance from 
 its source the stream falls rapidly over huge 
 fragments of rocks, covered with a vivid greeu 
 mass of aquatic plants and herbs ; which 
 gives to this limpid and sparkling water, the 
 appearance of a river of emeralds. After 
 precipitating itself with impetuous force over 
 the rocks, it is formed into a river, which 
 rushes along the vale with exceeding velocity. 
 The borders of the fountain abound with wild 
 thyme of a delicious fragrance ; and it only 
 requires a little of the poetic fancy which 
 gives to Italian 'poetry so many of its con- 
 cetti, to imagine that it owes its odour to the 
 tears with which the love-lorn Petrarch, that 
 phoenix of lovers, so frequently bedewed this 
 jpot, when bewailing the inexorable cruelty 
 »f his Laura. 
 
184 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 “ The ruins now shown by the peasants as 
 the site of the chateau of ‘ Madame Lame,’ as 
 they call her, were those of the castle, in 
 which the Bishop of Cavaillon, the dear 
 friend of Petrarch, resided. They stand to 
 the right of the fountain, boldly placed on a 
 pile of stupendous rocks, and command a 
 magnificent view. The walls are on the very 
 verge of the precipice, which overlooks a vast 
 expanse of mountains, rocks, groves of olive 
 trees, and vineyards ; while, in the immediate 
 foreground, the fountain, with its sparkling 
 Waters and snowy foam, reflecting innumer- 
 able prismatic hues as the rays of the sun 
 play on it, forms a magical picture. The 
 cataract created by the rocks over which the 
 water rushes from the fountain, is, when the 
 fountain is filled, truly grand. The spray rises 
 in huge masses, resembling immense flakes 
 of snow. As they are impelled into the air, 
 and descend again with surprising velocity, 
 they are tinged with the brightest tints of a 
 rainbow, and mingling with the snowy foam 
 and vivid green water, have a beautiful effect. 
 
 * * “ In the village of Vaucluse is a small 
 inn, called the Hotel of Petrarch and Laura. 
 Here sentimental tourists stop to regale them- 
 selves on the delicious trout which the river 
 furnishes ; giving, between every morsel of 
 the luscious fare, a sigh to the memory of 
 the celebrated lovers, whose busts decorate 
 the mantel-piece of the chamber where the 
 refection is served. Those travellers who 
 command the most luxurious repasts are con- 
 sidered by the inmates to possess the most 
 sensibility ; and those who submit without 
 resistance to extortion, are esteemed to be 
 mirrors of sentimentality : a regulation of 
 which our worthy hostess made us aware, by 
 the warmth of her praises of those who ex- 
 pended what she considers a proper sum, 
 and the severity of her strictures against the 
 more economical or less wealthy visitors. 
 The English, she vowed, were the most sen- 
 timental people alive. It was delightful, she 
 said, to see them sit for hours at table, with 
 their eyes turned towards the busts of Petrarch 
 and Laura, and sighing, while they washed 
 down their repast with bumpers to the 
 memory of the lovers. They (the English) 
 never squabbled about the items in the bill. 
 No ! they were too noble-minded for that : 
 they were wholly engrossed by tender recol- 
 lections. Of the Germans, Russians, Italians, 
 and even of her compatriots, the French, she 
 spoke less kindly. ‘ Would you believe it, 
 madam, continued she, ‘ many of them pass 
 tii is inn — yes, the inn— sacred to the memory 
 of Petrarch and L iura, without ever crossing 
 its threshold : and the few who do, draw from 
 their pockets biscuits, and demand only a 
 glass of eau sacree.' * * Our hostess be- 
 came so animated in her eulogium of the 
 English, that she heeded not the reproving 
 looks of her husband ; who, observing that 
 
 two of our party were French, was fearful of her 
 giving them offence. At last, somewhat 
 piqued by her obstinate continuation of this 
 apparently impolitic praise malgre his glances, 
 he said — ‘You forget, ma chere, when you 
 talk of the English never passing any tuau- 
 vaises plaisanteries on the respectable coun- 
 tenances of Monsieur Petrarch and Madame 
 Laure, the two mauvais svjets, that, with a 
 burnt cork, gave a pair of large black mus- 
 tachios to Madame Laure, and, with a red 
 chalk, made the nose of Monsieur Petrarch 
 red ler than a tomato ; aye, and guve him a 
 pair of spectacles too. Why, it took nie 
 full two hours to get them clean again !’ " 
 
 ARABIC NUMERALS OVER THE 
 GATEWAY, AT NEW PLACE, 
 SUSSEX. 
 
 To the Editor of the Mirror, 
 
 Sir, — The above being a very curious 
 specimen of the manner in which the Arabic 
 numerals* were fashioned at the time of 
 their first public use in this country, about 
 the 13th century, I forward to you a drawing 
 of the same, entertaining no doubt but that 
 they will awaken the interest of your readers. 
 They may be seen over the gateway at New 
 Place, a mile or two from Pulborough, 
 Sussex. H. Mi 
 
 • [Antiquarians are undecided as to the exact pe- 
 riod when Arabic numerals were brought to England. 
 Mr. Amos says they were fiist introduced by Richard 
 I. on his return from the holy wars ( 1 194) ; hut that 
 it was a long time after, that they were received 
 among ns, or that people were convinced of their 
 utility. Mr. David Casley in his *• Specimens of 
 various Manners of Writing,” gives the date IgSH, 
 which some read one thousand two hundred and 
 ninety-seven, from the similitude of the last figure to 
 our present 7, though Mr. Ames thinks it like 
 enough to stand for one thousand two hundred 
 ninety-two. In an old folio MS. formerly in the 
 collection of William Jones, Esq., F.R.S., wiitten by 
 Richard Wallingford, monk, and afterwards abbot of 
 St. Alban’s, and finished in 1326, entitled ‘ Albion,’ 
 are many astronomical canons, nud tables, tire figures 
 much resemtdiug the Arabic or Indian numerals. 
 We have iu the Bodleian Library an Arabic MS. of 
 Ibn Younis, a fa me us astronomer, wherein all the 
 calculations are in Arabic figures ; and what is very 
 remarkable, wherever any number is expressed by 
 them, it is immediately alter explained iu words at 
 length ; thus, if 123 is set down, one hundred twenty 
 and three immediately follows. — Ed. M.~\ 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 A POPULAR VIEW OF NATURAL 
 HISTORY. 
 
 BY JAMES H. FENNELL. 
 
 (For the Mirror.') 
 
 [Continued from page 170.] 
 
 A merchant who trades to a distant country 
 must first inform himself of the nature of its 
 productions — whether animal, vegetal, or mi- 
 neral,— that he may know what to send, and 
 what he can receive. When, .as in these 
 times, new countries are continually opening 
 as marts of traffic, and new channels of com- 
 merce are making their way even into the 
 heart of Africa, the man who possesses this 
 sort of information, and turns it to advantage, 
 not unfrequently realizes a fortune ; while he,' 
 who like the Sheffield cutler, sent a large con- 
 signment of patent skates to Buenos Ayres,* 
 thinking they would, in a new country, sell 
 for an enormous sum, may very likely be 
 ruined. Every one knows the importance of 
 our fisheries, particularly those for the whale 
 and the seal. Had laws been made by our 
 legislature for the preservation of the former, 
 on the same principle that they so sedulously 
 preserve their own game, we should not hear 
 of the Greenland fisheries being almost 
 ruined ; no one, indeed, could have drawn 
 up a parliamentary bill for this purpose, 
 without a competent knowledge of the na- 
 tural history of the animal whose race was to 
 be preserved while in regard to the seal- 
 fisheries, they might be extended, beyond 
 all doubt, in parts of the southern hemis- 
 phere hitherto entirely neglected. The fur 
 trade, again, opens a field for the practical 
 use of natural history : lor, independent of 
 the necessity of accurately discriminating the 
 different species whose skins form an article 
 of commerce, how much might this trade be 
 extended and benefited, by a merchant well 
 acquainted with the geographical range of 
 these animals, the peculiar times when their 
 furs are in tire finest condition, and what 
 countries are destitute of such resources ! 
 We need not insist that such knowledge, 
 properly and judiciously made use ol, will not 
 only be useful, but lucrative. The first 
 traders who supplied China with the furs of 
 America, realized large fortunes; and the 
 same results will always attend every such 
 enterprise, however irregular it may appear, 
 if it is only founded on knowledge, and con- 
 ducted with prudence. People go on trading 
 in the beaten track, not because there are no 
 others, but because the traders are generally 
 quite uninformed on those circumstances 
 which lead to their discovery. The produce 
 of the animal kingdom, in our commercial 
 lists, is much more limited than that ot the 
 vegetal and the mineral. Yet how tew of the 
 valuable exotic drugs, dyes, and medicines, do 
 we know more ot than their ordinary names ! 
 
 • A fact which occurred in L806. 
 
 185 
 
 Some that, from being produced in smul 
 quantities, and in a limited district, bear a 
 high price, may very possibly be abundant in 
 adjacent countries, or might be transplanted 
 and cultivated in other situations less remote, 
 and more convenient. It is the business of 
 the merchant, if he aims at wealth, to dis- 
 cover new sources of commerce ot which he 
 can reap the first fruits ; but this will never 
 be done, unless by accident, without he is 
 well informed respecting the productions, — 
 whether natural or artificial — of other na- 
 tions; in order that he may supply their 
 wants, or import their produce. The truth 
 is, that the profession of commerce embraces 
 many branches of information, and even of 
 science, which at first sight appear totally 
 unconnected with it, and among these, natural 
 history holds no inconsiderable station.” 
 
 The late Professor Burnett, endeavouring 
 to show the utility of topographical botany 
 to the traveller, says, that he “ should never 
 bivouac nor fix his residence where th <t Arun- 
 do phragmites, or common reed, flourishes ; 
 ns it and the reed meadow-grass ( Glycerin 
 aquatica ) and the floating meadow-grass, 
 (G. fluitahs ) are infallible indications of 
 swampy, marshy districts, and of the proba- 
 ble presence ot malaria, even, although the 
 tract, as in summer, may seem dry, and be 
 apparently salubrious. A late traveller in 
 Syria, thus was warned by the natives not to 
 pitch his tent on the spot that he had selected, 
 o'n account of the luxuriance of the herbage, 
 if he valued his life, or wished to escape a 
 severe attack of fever ; this malign influence, 
 however, they seemed erroneously to attri- 
 bute to the growth of the plants, but of 
 which, in truth, the luxuriant herbage was 
 the index only.” 
 
 How usefully the knowledge of some little 
 facts in natural history, may occasionally be 
 applied, although regarded previously as 
 merely singular and amusing trifles, is well 
 shown in the following narrative, mentioned 
 by the same excellent botanist : — “ The 
 Lichens never grows submerged : the Fuci 
 never grow emerged. The same may be said 
 of other plants which are the living demar- 
 cations of land and sea ; for example, the 
 samphire (crithmum maritimum ) never grows 
 but on the sea-shore, and yet it never grows 
 within reach of the waves ; that is to say, it 
 is never so near as to be covered by the 
 water. It happened, some time since, that 
 a knowledge of this fact was useful in a way 
 and at a time when botanical knowledge 
 might at first have been expected to be of 
 little practical importance. During a violent 
 storm, in November 1821, a vessel passing 
 through the English Channel, was driven on 
 shore, near Beachy Head, and the whole 
 crew being washed overboard, four escaped 
 from the wreck, only to be delivered, as 
 they thought, to a more lingering and fear- 
 
THE MiRliOR. 
 
 1 % 
 
 ful (from its being more gradual and equally 
 inevitable) death ; for having, in the dark- 
 ness of the night, been cast upon the 
 breakers, they found, when they had climbed 
 up those low rocks, that the waves were ra- 
 pidly encroaching, and they doubted not that 
 when the tide should be at its height, the 
 whole range wouid be entirely submerged. 
 The darkness of the night prevented anything 
 being seen beyond the spot upon which they 
 stood, and which was continually decreasing 
 by the encroachments of each successive 
 wave. The violence of the storm left no 
 hope that their feeble voices, even if raised 
 to the uttermost, could be heard on shore ; 
 and they knew that amidst the howling of 
 the blast, they could reach no other ear, than 
 that of God. Man could afford them no as- 
 sistance in such a situation, even if their dis- 
 tress were known. The circle of their exist- 
 ence here seemed gradually lessening before 
 their eyes, their little span of earth gradually 
 contracting to their destruction ; already they 
 had reached to the highest points, and al- 
 ready the infuriated waters followed them, 
 flinging over their devoted heads the fore- 
 most waves, as heralds of their speedily ap- 
 proaching dissolution. At this moment, one 
 of these wretched men,— while they were de- 
 bating whether they should not, in this ex- 
 tremity, throw themselves upon the mercy of 
 the waves, hoping to be cast upon some 
 higher ground, as, even if they failed to reach 
 it, a sudden would be better than a lingering 
 death, — in this extremity, one of these de- 
 spairing creatures, to hold himself more 
 firmly to the rock, grasped a weed, which, 
 even wet as it was, he well knew, as the light- 
 ning’s sudden flash afforded a momentary 
 glare, was not a fucus, but a root of sam- 
 phire ; — a plant which never grows sub- 
 merged. This, then, became more than an 
 olive-branch of peace, a messenger of mercy ; 
 they knew that He who alone can calm the 
 raging of the setts, at whose voice alone the 
 winds and the waves are still, had planted his 
 landmark here ; and by this sign, they were 
 assured that he htid said to the wide waste of 
 waters, hither shalt thou come, and no fur- 
 ther. Trusting, then, to the promise ol' this 
 child of earth, they remained stationary, 
 during a dreadful, yet comparatively happy 
 night, and in the morning, they were seen 
 from the cliffs above, and conveyed in safely 
 to shore.” 
 
 Southey, in his History of Brazil, describes 
 the perilous situation of Cabeza de Vaca 
 when sailing towards that country ; and how 
 he was preserved from shipwreck, by a grillo, 
 or ground cricket : — “ When they had crossed 
 the line, the state of the water was inquired 
 into; and it was found that of d hundred 
 casks, there remained but three to supply 
 four hundred men and thirty horses : upon 
 this, the Adelantando gave orders to make 
 for the nearest land. Three days they stood 
 
 towards it. A soldier who set out in ill health, 
 had brought a grillo, or ground cricket, with 
 him from Cadiz, thinking to be amused by the 
 insect’s voice ; but it hud been silent the whole 
 way, to his no little disappointment. Now 
 on the fourth morning, tire cricket began its 
 shrill noise, scenting, as was immediately sup- 
 posed, the land. Such was the miserable 
 watch which had been kept, that upon look- 
 ing out at this warning, they perceived high 
 rocks within bow-shot; against which, had 
 it not been for the insect, they must in- 
 evitably have been lost. They had just time 
 to drop anchor. From hence they coasted 
 along, the cricket singing every night as if it 
 had been on shore, till they reached the island 
 of St. Catalina.” 
 
 The Portuguese made most of their dis- 
 coveries of foreign land, by observing the 
 flight and species of birds they met with at 
 sea. Columbus, in this way, when in quest 
 of America, happening to notice that the 
 flocks of birds which passed him at sea, flew 
 from the north to the south-west, suspected, 
 and rightly, as it turned out, that land was in 
 the latter quarter. He is, also, said to have 
 been strengthened in this suspicion by his 
 smelling, while on the waters, the aromatic 
 odours of the sassafras tree. 
 
 The sap which exudes from the broken or 
 cut branches of the manchineel-tree is so 
 very acrid, that it blisters the skin, and causes 
 severe pain, if it falls on it, and even produces 
 death when it enters a wound. A traveller 
 who reposed under a tree of the kind, re- 
 ceived some of its exuded drops on his face, 
 which immediately blistered, and became 
 pitted, ns in a case of small-pox. It is said 
 that Lord Nelson, in one of his earliest ex- 
 peditions, having drunk the waters of a 
 spring, in which some boughs of this tree 
 had been thrown, suffered so severely, in 
 consequence, as to produce a lasting injury 
 on his constitution. 
 
 Scoresby says, that those sailors who, 
 while in the arctic regions, have been obliged 
 to eat the flesh of bears, and have not taken 
 the precaution of rejecting the liver, have al- 
 most always been attacked with sickness, a 
 peeling off of the skin, and, sometimes, have 
 died from its effects. The same conse- 
 quences happened to some of Ross’s party, 
 who had partaken of it during their stay at 
 Fury Beach. 
 
 DEFINITION OF THE WORD ‘MIND.’ 
 What is the precise meaning of the word 
 mind, so commonly employed ? By the mind 
 of a man is understood, that in him, which 
 is capable of thinking, remembering, reason- 
 ing, or willing. The real essence, both of 
 body and mind, is known. Certain proper- 
 ties of the former, and certain operations of 
 the latter, are known, and by those only, can 
 they be defined. In defining what is meant 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 187 
 
 by body, we say it is that which is extended, 
 solid, moveable, and divisible. In like man- 
 ner, we define mind, to be that which thinks, 
 remembers, reasons, and wills. We know, 
 or are conscious of these various thoughts, 
 and we are, by nature, taught to attribute 
 them to the principle of thought, called the 
 mind or the soul of man. 
 
 THE HERMIT. 
 
 ( From Haas's Gleanings in Germany ) 
 
 With a feeling of silent admiration, and 
 with that submission with which weak man 
 depicts to himself the throne of his Almighty 
 Creator, I contemplated the horizon adorned 
 by the setting sun. In the foreground arose 
 to my view, gloomy and silent, Mount Rigi; 
 on its summit, that seemed to touch the 
 heavens, I beheld the great cross by which 
 it is surmounted, still faintly gilded by the 
 rays of the setting sun concealed behind the 
 mighty Alps, while at the foot of the moun- 
 tain, all was night and darkness. My heart 
 felt oppressed by painful emotion, and aban- 
 doned thus to my own reflections, and excited 
 by some secret feeling, I turned my steps 
 towards Siti, where, to the eastward, the 
 rock of Fallenflue, and westward Mount 
 Shoenbucherberg, together with the Froh- 
 nalp, veiled by the grey clouds, served me 
 as guides ; these were not, however, the 
 objects which could satisfy the feelings by 
 which I was so agitated. Their high and 
 ancient summits seemed to indicate their 
 close affinity with the higher celestial world 
 above ; and thus, feeling how I was en- 
 chained to the earth beneath, I shuddered at 
 their frightfully awful elevation. 
 
 At the end of the grand avenue of trees 
 near Siti, there stands a summer-house. 
 Eastward a beaten path leads towards a her- 
 mitage, situated deep within the bosom of 
 the wood : here I wished to take up my 
 abode for the night, should the hermit and 
 myself prove mutually pleased with each 
 other. In my juvenile years I had read 
 much of such hermitages, and with all the 
 romantic imagination of youth, pictured to 
 myself, in the most picturesque and seducing 
 colours, these happy calm retreats and their 
 holy inhabitants. As yet I had never had 
 an opportunity of beholding such a spot, and 
 now, therefore, wished to gratify my curiosity. 
 Accordingly, I was proceeding down a decli- 
 vity of the mountain, through the thickets 
 and young brambles which opposed my 
 descent, when my progress was suddenly 
 arrested by the appearance of a venerable 
 man ; it was the hermit himself, who had 
 just come from having offered his evening 
 prayers in the chapel, some hundred paces 
 distant from his hermitage, to which solitary 
 dwelling he was now returning. I greeted 
 him with silent respect and veneration, to 
 which he as silently replied. 
 
 “ May I, venerable father, be allowed to 
 enter your holy dwelling ?” I inquired 
 modestly. 
 
 “ What is your object in making lhat 
 request ?” he replied, in a tone not altogether 
 repulsive, though neither was it friendly. 
 
 “ W hy, I have no particular motive to 
 satisfy,’’ 1 replied, with a good-natured 
 smile ; “ I am a native of the north, travelling 
 through your beautiful country ; I havre never 
 as yet beheld either hermit or hermitage, 
 though both have often been the subjects of 
 my youthful fancy and meditation ; I feel 
 desirous, therefore, holy father, of now satis- 
 fying my curiosity, by passing a short and 
 instructive hour in your society. You are 
 more wise and pious than we children of the 
 world ; you live in solitude and seclusion ; 
 you pass your time in acts of devotion ; your 
 silent prayers are not disturbed by these 
 guilty agitations of mind to which we un- 
 happily are too often exposed, and God is 
 nearer to you, because you are more pure and 
 guiltless of those misdeeds with which we 
 too often have to reproach ourselves. Are 
 you not here completely happy, holy father, 
 in your retreat ?” 
 
 “Happy!” — replied he, slowly, stopping 
 of a sudden, and casting an expressive look 
 of grave severity towards the pale-purpled 
 sky, which still faintly gilded the cross on 
 the peak of Mount Rigi. “ My son,” he 
 continued, after a silent pause, “ hast thou 
 ever, in thy life, beheld one happy mortal ?” 
 
 “ Yes, holy father, I myself am happy. I 
 have nothing to reproach myself with, I am 
 young and healthy, and at home I have a 
 beloved family and dear and valued friends ; 
 
 I have what I require, and even more than 
 sufficient to satisfy my wants. Nothing 
 pains or disquiets my mind, travelling de- 
 lights me, and 1 am now in your beautiful 
 country, where, at every step, nature unfolds 
 new charms, and where God has manifested 
 his great and ever-reigning glory, in so 
 wonderful a manner.” 
 
 “ Happy !” replied the venerable man, 
 doubtfully shaking his hoary head, “ hast 
 thou no share in the afflictions of others ?” 
 
 To this question, which sounded so 
 strangely in my ears, I could only reply by 
 casting down my eyes in confusion. 
 
 “ And I too,” continued he, “ have np 
 reproaches to make myself. I likewise 
 enjoy the blessing of health ; I also have my 
 family and friends, if not here, yet in the 
 eternal home of peace above ; I too have all 
 that I require; I also, like thee, enjoy plea- 
 sure in the survey of God’s beauteous crea- 
 tion, and yet — I am not happy. The pains, 
 the wants of my moie unhappy neighbours 
 too often oppress and overcome my feelings ; 
 for to me come only such unhappy beings as 
 seek to pour into my heart those troubles and 
 afflictions with which they are so heavy laden. 
 
188 
 
 THK MIRROR. 
 
 and under which they would otherwise sink. 
 But thou, who livest within the wide range 
 of this world, hast thou never yet beheld the 
 flow of bitter tears descending down the 
 cheek of sorrow P Hast thou never heard the 
 troubled sigh, when issuing from the breast 
 of affliction ? Hast thou never yet expe- 
 rienced the painful sensation which follows 
 the wish to help misfortune’s child, and yet 
 the want of power to effect it ?” 
 
 H is discourse fell upon my conscience- 
 stricken breast like a burning weight of 
 fire, and my eyes were so chained to the 
 earth, that 1 neither dared nor could look 
 up. “ Who can help all,” I exclaimed, 
 wishing to excuse myself ; “ were one a 
 very Croesus, it would ruin and impoverish 
 at last ?” 
 
 “ You do not comprehend my meaning,” 
 replied he, sternly, “ and only prove how 
 little till now you have participated in the 
 sufferings of your fellow-creatures. It is 
 not gold that always serves to alleviate afflic- 
 tion, for often is the beggar far happier than 
 he who aids, and who yet himself endures 
 anguish of mind ; it is consolation, counsel, 
 mildness, patience, which you owe to your 
 neighbour, and until you can fulfil these 
 duties with all your zeal and strength, you 
 cannot call yourself happy. Delay not with 
 your help till it be demanded; as soon as 
 you know it is required step forward with 
 a zealous alacrity, but reckon not upon 
 reward, you do only your duty, and cannot 
 require thanks. The feeling, the conscious- 
 ness of having done our duty, is the highest 
 recompense we can wish to enjoy here below. 
 — God be with you 1” — With these words 
 this singular being left me; and thus I had 
 for once beheld a hermit. 
 
 The venerable man proceeded silently 
 towards his cell, and I saw myself forced to 
 return again to Shwytz, or to pass the night 
 under the canopy of heaven. 
 
 PROVINCIALISMS. 
 
 ( For the Mirror . ) 
 
 On looking over one of the early volumes of 
 the Mirror, (1818,) I find an article entitled 
 Cockneyisms, which, I think, is taken from 
 Pegge ; but among many, undoubtedly pecu- 
 liar to the inhabitants of London, I find seve- 
 ral to which they have no claim, many which 
 are provincials, and a few genuine old Eng- 
 lish words, corrupted by modern affectation, 
 which, much to the credit of the Cockneys , 
 are still retained in the vernacular tongue : — 
 
 Kiver for Cover . — No doubt kiver is the 
 legitimate word. Kiverchef was the word 
 for a cover for the neck, in ancient authors. 
 
 Schol/ard . — This is provincial, and not a 
 Cockney word. 
 
 Margent for Margin . — This word is a com- 
 paratively recent corruption. The old word, 
 
 margent, was used so late as Queen Anne's 
 time, and probably later. Swift is good 
 authority on this point. His Satirical Epi- 
 gram on Seijeant Bettesworth is well 
 known : — 
 
 So, at the bar, the booty Beltswortli, 
 
 Though lialf-a-cvown o’erpays his sweat’s worth, 
 
 Who knows of law, nor text, tier margent, 
 
 Calls Singleton his Brother Serjeant. 
 
 Colloguing for Co lieaging. — These are not 
 the same, and have different meanings. I 
 find in our dictionaries, to collogue , is to 
 weedle or flatter ; but colleague, as a sub- 
 stantive only, a partner in office, &c. 
 
 P oticary for Apothecary. — A manifest 
 corruption. Poticury is derived from the 
 Spanish, boticario, a shop kept by a vender of 
 medicine ; and not, as Johnson and others 
 suppose, from the Greek apotheca , a reposi- 
 tory. Every author, from Chaucer to Shakes- 
 peare, spells the word poticury.' n 
 
 Forth lie goth, ne longer wold he tarry. 
 
 Into the loun unto a potecary. — Chaucer. 
 
 A-dry , A-cold. — These are not Cockney- 
 isms, but legitimate prefixes; a hundred 
 instances might be adduced to warrant their 
 use, some of which are not obsolete at this 
 day, as, aboard, ameliorate, abroach, amidst, 
 aback, &c. 
 
 I gin to be aweary of the sun. — S hakespeare. 
 
 Moral for Model. — A provincial word, uni- 
 formly used in the midland counties. 
 
 Af eared for Afraid. — To be afeared, is 
 from the Saxon afferan ; and, consequently, 
 the word afraid is a corruption, without 
 authority or excuse : — 
 
 Were thou afered of her eie. — G ower. 
 
 Of her visage children were sore afeared: — Chaucer. 
 Benotn$y.Yird, the isle is full of noises,— S hakespeare. 
 
 Musicianer, Physicianer. — There is good 
 authority in all our old authors for this spel- 
 ling, and there seems no reason why these 
 should not be retained, as well as in the word 
 poulterer, and many others. 
 
 Obstacle for Obelisk. — This has never been 
 used but in burlesque, and therefore cannot ; 
 be considered as a Cockneyism. 
 
 Wm. Toonb. 
 
 A SPECIMEN OF WELSH 
 LITERATURE. 
 
 The Welsh poetical triads are part of a 
 literature with which the reader may not be 
 acquainted. The following specimen con- 
 tains many valuable observations expressed 
 with singular brevity : — 
 
 The three foundations of genius are — the 
 gift of God, human exertion, and the events 
 of life. 
 
 The three first questions of genius — an 
 eye to see nature, a heart to feel it, and a 
 resolution that dares to follow it. 
 
THK MIRROR. 
 
 1M 
 
 The three things indispensable to genius 
 —understanding, meditation, and perseve- 
 rance. 
 
 The three things that ennoble genius — 
 vigour, discretion, and knowledge. 
 
 The three tokens of genius — extraordinary 
 understanding, extraordinary conduct, and 
 extraordinary exertions. 
 
 The three things that improve genius — 
 proper exertion, frequent exertion, and suc- 
 cessful exertion. 
 
 The three things that support genius- 
 prosperity, social qualifications, and ap- 
 plause. 
 
 The three qualifications of poetry — en- 
 dowment of genius, judgment from expe- 
 rience, and felicity of thought. 
 
 The three pillars of learning —seeing much, 
 offering much, and writing much. 
 
 Jiefo 23ookS. 
 
 Emigration Fields. North America , the 
 Cape, Australia, and New Zealand By 
 Patrick Matthew. 3vo. Black. Edin- 
 burgh. Longman, and Co., London. 
 1839. 
 
 [This work was at first intended to treat 
 only of New Zealand ; but, at the entreaty 
 of friends, the author included the neigh- 
 bouring country of Australia. It contains 
 much useful advice, proceeding from a mind 
 stored with sound practical knowledge of the 
 various matters on which it treats. The 
 author’s grand panacea for all the ills of the 
 working classes is Emiguation ; and cer- 
 tainly he adduces such cogent reasonings 
 in support of his argument that cannot 
 easily be controverted. The work, which is 
 divided into fifteen chapters, treats, firstly, of 
 Upper and Lower Canada, and America; 
 then of Mexico, the Cape, Australia, Tasma- 
 nia; and finally, New Zealand ; his remarks 
 on which comprise nearly half the work.] 
 u The mind is almost overwhelmed,’’ says 
 Mr. Matthew, “ iu contemplating the pros- 
 pects of improvement in the general condition 
 of humanity, now opening through the 
 medium of British colonization, and the 
 consequent diffusion of the elevating and 
 meliorating influences of British liberty, 
 knowledge, and civilization. One great free 
 naval people, aided by all the discoveries of 
 modern science, and united under the attrac- 
 tions of a common literature, and the reci- 
 procal advantage of the exchange of staple 
 products, increasing rapidly in numbers, and 
 ramifying extensively over numerous maritime 
 regions, will soon overshadow continental 
 despotisms, and render them innocuous. 
 
 {> From the unlimited supply of new land, 
 colonies are especially fitted for a connection 
 w.th Britain. Being in the opposite ex- 
 tremes of condition, they are in the highest 
 degree mutually beneficial, the lormei afford- 
 
 ing the raw material in exchange for the 
 more laboured products of industry of the 
 latter, while at the same time the colonists 
 are by habit great consumers of British 
 manufactures. What is required is, that 
 the extension of colonization should go hand 
 in hand with the extension of manufactures, 
 thus generating new markets in proportion to 
 the increase of fabrics. 
 
 “ But, at the present moment, it is as a 
 salutary drain to our overstocked labour- 
 market, that colonization is so vitally neces- 
 sary. To bring things to a healthy state, 
 a vast exportation of working- population 
 must in the first place be effected, and to 
 keep them so, a constant great stream of 
 emigration must be afterwards kept up. 
 And in proportion as this efflux is pro- 
 perly regulated, will, at the same time, 
 the condition of the people at home and 
 abroad be prosperous, and the population 
 progressive.” 
 
 In speaking of the heat in New South 
 Wales, the author give the following quota- 
 tion from the Edinburgh New Philosophical 
 Journal. 
 
 “ Mr. Martin observes, that it is only during 
 the summer months that the hot winds occa- 
 sionally blow, and raise the mercury to 120° 
 F., when exposed to the wind. When these 
 siroccos are about to occur, the sky assumes 
 a lurid appearance, the sun is hid from the 
 view, the wind suddenly shifts to the north- 
 west, and blows with tremendous violence, 
 and can only be compared to a fiery blast 
 issuing from an immense furnace ; the dust 
 is whirled with rapidity, and distant thunder 
 is heard. At night the flashes of stream 
 lightning present a continually illuminated 
 horizon ; vast forests become a universal 
 blaze of fire, and the flames, borne along 
 with the blast, readily find fresh fuel, carry- 
 ing terror before, and leaving ruin and deso- 
 lation behind. Not only does tire field of 
 corn, ready for the sickle, become a charred 
 stubble, but houses and domestic animals 
 are reduced to a heap of ashes Fortu- 
 
 nately these winds seldom last long, rarely 
 
 more than two days at a time Collins 
 
 speaks of these siroccos as killing birds, 
 beasts, and men.” 
 
 “ This picture of the effects of extreme 
 heat, which occurring at a critical period of 
 the crop, must entirely blast the promise of 
 a season, independent of the lasting perio- 
 dical extreme droughts, is enough to ren- 
 der precaution, especially in the case of a 
 greatly increased population, highly neces- 
 sary. Perhaps no country has a more steady 
 climate than the British Isles, or is more 
 regular in production, a consequence of the 
 insular position and mountain ranges pre- 
 venting great droughts, or any extreme 
 being so general — west winds commonly 
 bringing rain on the 'west, and east winds on 
 
190 
 
 TI1K MIRROR. 
 
 the east side of the country. This disposi- 
 tion of things at home has an effect to ren- 
 der the British not sufficiently alive k to 
 the danger to be apprehended from 
 droughts in other regions, and which 
 seem to be most prevalent in localities si- 
 tuated from 15° to 35° of Lat. It is, there- 
 fore, probable that sufficient precautionary 
 means will not be taken in Australia and 
 the South of Africa till some terrible visita- 
 tion of famine and consequential disease be 
 our fatal instructor, such as sometimes 
 occurs in the East Indies, but which only 
 affecting a people far out of view, and with 
 whom we have little sympathy, our Indian 
 Government is allowed to treat with neglect. 
 The following (abridged) quotation of the 
 account of a famine in Guzerat in 1811, by 
 Captain James Rivett Garnac, Political Re- 
 sident at the Court of Guicawar, may serve 
 to give some idea of a calamity of this na- 
 ture. The superstitious Hindoos attributed 
 the famine to the wrath of an offended 
 Deity because of the sins of that portion of 
 India, as some of our established clergy in 
 Britain did the yellow fever, which was so 
 prevalent at New Y r ork about the same time, 
 not, however, because of the immorality of 
 the Americans, but because they had eman- 
 cipated themselves from British sway. The 
 fumine at least was a consequence of sin, 
 not of commission but of omission, not of 
 the direct sins of the sufferers, but of their 
 remiss government, which, in a country lia- 
 ble to these visitations, makes no provision 
 against them. 
 
 “ It has often been remarked that the 
 appearance of locusts is a prognostic of other 
 evils. In 1811, the annual fall of rain failed 
 at Marwar, and when every vestige of vegi- 
 tation had disappeared the locusts made their 
 way into the north-west district of Guzerat, 
 and from thence scoured Kattiwar. The 
 failure of grain in Marwar, and the ruin by 
 the loeusts of the products of the land, drove 
 the inhabitants into the bosom of Guzerat, 
 where the same causes had begun to operate, 
 thus augmenting the demand on its resources 
 in a twofold degree, and the pressing wants 
 of the people soon reducing the half-famished 
 new comers to the greatest privations. The 
 mortality which ensued among those who 
 had sought refuge after the sufferings of 
 famine in their own district, covered with 
 disease, regardless of every consideration but 
 that promoted by the calls of hunger, almost 
 surpasses my own belief, though an unhappy 
 witness of such horrid events. 
 
 “ In the vicinity of every large town, you 
 perceived suburbs surrounded by these crea- 
 tures. Their residence was usually taken 
 up on the main road under the cover of 
 trees ; men, women, and children promis- 
 cuously scattered, some furnished with a 
 scanty covering, others almost reduced to a 
 
 state of nudity, while at the same moment 
 the spectator witnessed, within the Tange of 
 his own observation, the famished looks of a 
 fellow-creature, aggravated by the pain of 
 sickness ; the desponding cries of the multi- 
 tude, mingled with the thoughtless playful- 
 ness of children, and the unavailing strug- 
 gles of the infant to draw sustenance from 
 the exhausted breasts of its parent. To con- 
 summate this scene of human misery, a life- 
 less corpse was at intervals brought to notice 
 by the bewailings of a near relative ; its im- 
 mediate neighbourhood displaying the impa- 
 tience and wildness excited in the fortunate 
 few who had obtained a pittance of grain, 
 and was devouring it with desperate satis- 
 faction. The hourly recurrence of mi- 
 series had familiarized the minds of these 
 poor people, as well as of people in ge- 
 neral, to every ex'remity which nature 
 could inflict. In a short time, these emana- 
 tions of individual feeling among themselves, 
 which distinguished the first commencement 
 of their sufferings, gradually abated, and the 
 utmost indifference universally predominated . 
 
 “ During the progress of these miseries, I 
 have seen a few Marwarees sitting in a 
 cluster, denying a little water to sustain her 
 drooping spirits, to a woman stretched beside 
 them, with a dead infant reposing on her 
 breast. In a few huurs this woman had also 
 expired, and her dead body, as well as that 
 of the child, remaining close by them, 
 situated as before described without a single 
 attempt to remove them, until the Govern- 
 ment peons had performed that office. I 
 have seen a child, not quite dead, torn away 
 by a pack of dogs from its mother, who was 
 unable to speak or move, but lay with anxious 
 eyes directed to the object of its food affection. 
 I have witnessed those animals watching the 
 famished creatures, who were verging on the 
 point of dissolution, to feast on their bodies ; 
 and this spectacle was repealed every succes- 
 sive day in the environs of the town. Th£ 
 number of the Marwarees who died in a sin- 
 gle day at Baroda could scarcely be counted, 
 and the return of the burials in twenty-iouv 
 hours often exceeded 500 bodies. It would 
 be doing an act of injustice, however, to the 
 natives of opulence in Guzerat, to pass over 
 their exertions to alleviate the surrounding 
 distress. The charity of the Hindoos is pro- 
 verbial ; it constitutes one of the print ajy 
 tenets of their morality (religion), anil is 
 generally unaffectedly dispensed. On the 
 occurrence of the distress and famine, large 
 subscriptions were made, aided by a liberal 
 sum from the native government, and the 
 objects of the institution were obtained by 
 proper regulations devised for the purpose. ! 
 cannot say what numbers were relieved, but 
 the monthly expense of feeding the poor in 
 this town, amounted to some thousands of 
 rupees. It was a cruel sight to witness tire 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 191 
 
 struggles, when the doors were opened to ap- 
 portion their victuals, and it was no unusual 
 thing for a number to fall a sacrifice to their 
 precipitate voracity. Many also whose wants 
 had been supplied, continued to devour until 
 the means intended tor their relief proved in 
 the end their destruction in a few hours. 
 Children were often crushed to death under 
 the feet of their parents. The establish- 
 ment of which I have been speaking was 
 imitated in most of the principal towns of 
 Guzerat, and added a few months of life to a 
 class of beings reserved for greater miseries ; 
 indeed, subsequent events would seem to 
 shew that these people were marked for total 
 annihilation. * * * The mortality at 
 
 Ahmedabad is computed at 100,000 persons, 
 a number nearly equal to one-half of its po- 
 pulation, The demand for wood to burn the 
 Hindoo portion of the sufferers, called for the 
 destruction of the houses — even this was 
 barely sufficient for the performance of the 
 rites required by the Hindoo faith, and the 
 half-consumed bodies on the banks of the 
 Pabiermuttee evince, at this hour, to what 
 straits the Hindoos were reduced in fulfilling 
 the last duties to their kindred.” 
 
 [We shall again return to this highly in- 
 teresting work.] 
 
 KILKENNY PEASANTRY. 
 
 The peasantry of the neighbourhood of the 
 coal-pits in Kilkenny,* are among the most 
 miserable of the human race ; we have seen 
 whole families in summer — and we fear that 
 the same deficiency may be experienced there 
 in winter too — without any covering except 
 the fragment of a shirt or petticoat : the men 
 expend much of their earnings on whiskey, and 
 leave their wives and little ones no other com- 
 fort save what they derive from huddling to- 
 gether on the wet mud floor of a miserable 
 cabin, built of stones put together without 
 lime-mortar and pervious to wind, and in- 
 haling the sulphureous coal-gases until their 
 faces assume a very squalid and unhealthy 
 hue. Pulmonary diseases are the result of 
 the contaminated atmosphere, and strange to 
 say, the most healthy portion of the neigh- 
 bourhood is that employed in the cold wet 
 mines, where the effluvia from ignited coals 
 is not among their calamities. 
 
 By the way, every Kilkenny man has heard 
 of Captain H., who went into the regi- 
 
 ment of the line from the Kilkenny regiment, 
 and charged most gallantly — we believe at 
 
 * In 1309, a parliament assembled in the town of 
 Kilkenny, in which severe laws were enacted against 
 such of the Euglish settlers as should adopt the 
 Irish costumes and anathemas against all who 
 should infringe them were denounced in the cathe- 
 dral by the Archbishop of Cashel, and other prelates 
 who assisted on the occasion. The last parliament 
 held here was in 1536 : but this place continued for 
 some time to be the occasional residence of tile lords 
 lieutenants, and the chief seat of their government. 
 
 Waterloo — with his company at a critical mo- 
 ment, when they were wavering under fearful 
 odds. The magic words, “ hurrah for Kil- 
 kenny,” uttered by ibis gallant young man, 
 as he waved his hat and cheered on his men, 
 made all those “ Boys of Kilkenny,” who 
 had volunteered with him into the same regi- 
 ment, tush nobly to the contest in support of 
 their officer. So much did the magic influ- 
 ence of this single sentence avail in recalling 
 to their minds the remembrance of that home 
 to which they would feel an honest shame in 
 returning as recreants. Finer men, indeed, 
 can hardly be imagined, as to animal organi- 
 zation, than the lower orders of the Kilkenny 
 population, but truth obliges us to add that, 
 comparatively with the peasantry of Carlow, 
 and the Queen’s County, and still more with 
 those of the county of Wexford, they are ex- 
 ceedingly unamiable ; their ferocity of con- 
 duct, and doggedness ol countenance, with 
 their peculiar dress, blue frieze coats and cor- 
 duroy breeches (which are generally open at 
 the knee,) with grey stockings, distinguish 
 them at once from the Wexford peasantry, 
 except ing that portion resident in the barony of 
 Bantry, separated from the county of Kil- 
 kenny by the river Barrow, but not so readily, 
 so far as countenance is concerned, from those 
 of the other contiguous counties. The open 
 violence and secret villany of many of those 
 men is easily accounted for. The county of 
 Tipperary bounds this county on the south, 
 and there is a sufficiency of the leaven of 
 diabolism there, to disturb not only. the con- 
 tiguous counties, but even those at the nor- 
 thern extremities of the islaud . — Quarterly 
 Journal of Agriculture, No. 44. 
 
 IMPORTANT DISCOVERY 
 
 OF AN ABOUIUINAI. RACE OF NATIVES, 
 NEW SOUTH WALES. 
 
 We learn by the Tasmanian and Austral- 
 A static Review, of October 19, 18.38, that 
 “ a most interesting discovery has just been 
 made, by a gentleman belonging to Sydney, 
 of a race of natives inhabiting the banks of 
 Thorn’s river, (a river lying between the Big 
 River and Moreton Bay, navigable upwards 
 of sixty miles inland,) incomparably superior 
 to the Aborigines of other parts of the terri- 
 tory, both in intellect and personal appear- 
 ance, and much further advanced in civiliza- 
 tion. Our informant, who visited the place 
 in search of good cedar-grounds, informs os 
 that they inhabit villages of from twenty to 
 fifty houses in extent, each house capable of 
 containing from twelve to fifteen individuals. 
 Three of these villages our informant encoun- 
 tered in his progress, the largest of which 
 must have contained 400 inhabitants. The 
 houses, which are very ingeniously con- 
 structed, are in the form of a horse-shoe, with 
 a low porch in front of each ; the walls are 
 
192 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 constructed of slabs driven into the earth, 
 and so ingeniously interwoven with wattles, 
 as to be impervious to the rain; the roofs 
 of the houses are covered with tea-tree bark, 
 and so strongly is the whole fabric put toge- 
 ther, that the weight of several individuals 
 on the roof is insufficient to injure it ” As 
 we anticipate being shortly in possession of 
 interesting particulars relative to the above 
 discovery, we shall not fail to lay them before 
 our readers. 
 
 VIEWS OF MOSCOW. 
 
 In approaching the city from the north west, 
 by the Petersburgh-road, or from the east, 
 by the Kolomna-road, Moscow appears to be 
 placed on an immense plain, gently rising 
 towards the Kremlin. I have remarked 
 from the Kolomna-road, (says a modern tra- 
 veller,) that in the twilight, or in gloomy 
 weather, the ancient metropolis resembled a 
 capacious harbour ; the innumerable towers 
 and spires of different heights, having the 
 appearance of the masts of a great assem- 
 blage of ships. When approached from tire 
 north, through the Dmetrovskaya, or the 
 Troctskaya barrier, Moscow also appears 
 as on a plain, or rather a gentle declivity, 
 stretching from the north to the south and 
 east : on arriving near the capital from the 
 south-east, the south, and the west, the city 
 appears low, and occupying a portion of an 
 immense level surface. W. G. C. 
 
 Cljc ©atljtrcr. 
 
 A New Member of Parliament . — Lord 
 North, one day, in the House of Commons, 
 was interrupted in the most important part 
 of his speech by a dog who had taken shelter 
 and concealed himself under the table 
 of the house, and then making his escape, 
 ran directly across the floor, barking with a 
 violent howl. A burst of laughter ensued, 
 which would have disconcerted any ordinary 
 speaker. But North, who knew how to turn 
 any occurrence, however ludicrous, to his 
 own advantage, having waited with all gra- 
 vity until the roar was subsided, then ad- 
 dressed the chair, saying, “ Sir, I have been 
 interrupted by a new member, but as he has 
 concluded his argument, I will resume mine.” 
 
 T. Majer, in his “ History of Trials by 
 Ordeal,” 1795, asserts, that on weighing 
 some witches and magicians in Hungary in 
 172S, a tall jolly dame weighed only a drachm 
 and a half— -her husband, not by any means 
 a diminutive man, five drachms— the others, 
 three or four drachms, or less ! H. M. 
 
 Turkish Literature . — Rosini wrote the 
 history of the war between Turkey and 
 Russia. The king of the latter having 
 made war successfully against the former, 
 he, according to the religion of the Turks, 
 thought that he had better astrologers than 
 
 he. As all wars were commenced under the 
 auspices of astrology, the Turkish king sent 
 Rosini as his ambassador to the Russian 
 court, with the request that Frederick would I 
 send him three of his best astrologers. The ' 
 ambassador was led to a window overlooking 
 a large square filled with soldiers, and point- | 
 ing to them, he said, “ that his three advisers I 
 in peace and in war, were experience, disci- I 
 pline, and economy. These, and these only, | 
 are my three chief astrologers : go and tell ? 
 this secret to your master. 
 
 Foote’s Mistake. — Foote dining out one ■ 
 day, took up by mistake the bread of the ■ 
 gentlemen who sat next to him, which hap- I 
 pened to be larger than usual. The gentle- f 
 man politely said, ‘ That is my bread;’ on 
 which Foote rejoined, ‘ I beg pardon, I 
 mistook it for the loaf.’ 
 
 The following is a literal translation of a 
 Russian wedding-song : 
 
 From a high mountain, covered with dark 
 forests, have arisen a troop of swans, (young 
 women,) and a troop of grey geese, (young 
 men) ; a young swan quitted her troop to 
 pass into that of the geese ; then the troop 
 began to peck at and expel the stranger. 
 
 Upon this the swan exclaimed : “ Do not 
 maltreat me, grey geese, I am not come 
 among you of my own accord, but am forced 
 by the tempest.” Thus the amiable Nini- 
 lu'ska, finding herself separated from her com- 
 panions in a storm, was brought into the 
 midst ol a party of wedding folks : when 
 they began to maltreat her and scold her, 
 she cried : “ Don’t use me harshly, good 
 people. I have not come among you of 
 myself, but the horses of Austin have 
 brought me.” H. M. 
 
 In doing good, we are generally cold, and 
 languid, and sluggish ; and of all things 1 
 afraid of being too much in the right. But 
 the works of malice and injustice are quite 
 in another style. They are finished with a 
 bold masterly hand ; touched as they ure 
 with the spirit of those vehement passion* 
 that call lorth all our energies. — Burke. 
 
 ' Goldsmith. — Goldsmith read so slovenly, | 
 and with such an Irish brogue, that it wa» 
 sometimes difficult to distinguish his poetry f 
 from his prose. He was sensible of this J 
 himself, and used to say , — ‘ I leave the ] 
 reading of my pieces , and the punctuation 1 
 of them, to the players and printers ; for, 
 in truth, I know little of either.’ — Cooke's 
 Life of Foote. 
 
 The common ingredients of health and 
 long life are, 
 
 Great temp’ ranee, open air, 
 
 E:isy labour, little care. — Sir Philip Sidney. 
 
 LONDON: Printed and published by J. LIMB! RD 
 143, Strand, ( near Somerset House) : and sold by 
 all Booksellers and Newsmen. — In PARIS, by aU 
 the Booksellers.— In FRANCFORT, CHARLES, 
 JUOKL. 
 
Zi)C iWtvvot* 
 
 OF 
 
 LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION. 
 
 No. 942.] SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 1839. ~~ [Prick 2d. 
 
 V OL. XXXIII. 
 
 THE ACCELERATOR. 
 
194 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 THE ACCELERATOR. 
 
 We this week present to our readers a 
 newly- invented machine, of more gigantic 
 proportions than the Aellopodes, given in our 
 last number. It is called the Accelerator ; 
 and is intended for the transit of goods and 
 passengers on common roads, at a speed equal 
 to that attained by the railway engine, and 
 at u less expense. The inventor intends to 
 offer it to the notice of Government, for the 
 conveyance of the royal mails. It started 
 from the Bull-and-Mouth Inn, on Monday 
 last, and from the speed and easy manage- 
 ment of a machine which at first sight ap- 
 pears so gigantic, we are rather sanguine in 
 our expectations of its ultimate success. The 
 machine is about twenty- five feet in length, 
 and six and a half in width. The fore-wheels 
 are thirteen feet in diameter, and thirty- 
 nine in circumference. They are divided 
 into two circles, the outer one containing 
 sixty spokes, the inner ninety. The hind- 
 wheels are nine feet in diameter, and 
 are also divided into two circles. A strong 
 perch runs from the axle-tree of the front- 
 wheels, and is also supported by the axle- 
 tree of the hind-wheels : from this perch a 
 carriage is suspended for the conveyance of 
 passengers ; that attached to the machine in 
 its present state will contain three persons, 
 and there is a place for the attaching of an 
 omnibus, to contain twelve persons more, to 
 be conveyed with the same power. Imme- 
 diately beneath the axle-tree of the fore- 
 wheels, are shafts for two horses. The ani- 
 mals are in some degree suspended by bands 
 passing under their bodies to the axle-tree : 
 these bands were of India rubber, but being 
 not found to answer, are now changed for 
 canvass. Their feet barely touch the ground, 
 as the slightest movement of the horses 
 will set the large wheels in motion. The 
 conductor is seated between the fore-wheels, 
 and by means of pullies connected with two 
 small wheels, which he can work with either 
 hand, he can support or lower the horses at 
 pleasure. The labour for the horses will be 
 very trifling on a level road ; their great use 
 is to propel the machine in going up-hill : 
 the reins pass through an aperture of the 
 foot-board, for their guidance. 
 
 An apparatus is now being fitted, by 
 which the driver will turn the fore-axle at the 
 same time he guides the horses. 
 
 THE CAGED NIGHTINGALE. 
 (For the Mirror .) 
 
 Ye friends of song, attend my tale, — 
 
 I sing a lovely nightingale ; 
 
 Plain, unadorned. — but I’ll engage 
 A fairer never grac’d a cage ; 
 
 Of plumage brown — eyes black as jet— 
 And of his mistress quite the pet : 
 
 A lucky fellow be, — his doom 
 To bang within a paper’d room ; 
 
 To eat and drink of choicest fare. 
 
 And live a happy prisoner there ; 
 
 To dwell within a cage of wire. 
 
 And ga/.e upon a cheerful lire ; 
 
 To hop upon his perch at night. 
 
 And sit and sup by candle-light ; 
 
 To hear the sound of fife or ttute. 
 
 And listen with attention mute ; 
 
 While other songsters cut the air 
 Iu search of hard and winfTy fare : 
 
 Thus is he daily, duly, fed. 
 
 And treated gratis— hoard and bed. 
 Methinks I hear the prisoner say, — 
 
 How shall I all your pains repay ? — 
 
 “ I’ll sing a song another day 1” 
 
 Then soon as Flora decks the bowers, 
 
 And ev’ry bank is clothed with flowers ; 
 Then, iu the days of charming spring,— 
 When many a bird is heard to sing, 
 
 And Philomela fills the grove 
 With music, such as poets love, — 
 
 Then shall our waibler swell his throat, , 
 And mingle a delightful note ; 
 
 Then shall he add a cheerful sound. 
 
 With ev’ry bird that sings around ; 
 
 No little songster on the spray 
 Shall warble out a sweeter lay, — 
 
 Thus shall he all your care repay ! 
 
 But some may ask me, — prithee tell 
 How came he in a cage to dwell ? 5 
 Know then, that on a summer’s day. 
 
 When truant boys are known to stray ,r 
 And thus beguile the summer hours 
 “ In finding nests, in culling flow’rs,” — 
 
 A noted bird-man, in his round. 
 
 The eggs of Philomela found : 
 
 Nor would he leave the treasures there, — 
 But placed them ’neath a robin’s care ; 
 
 In little time the eggs were hatch’d. 
 
 The birds weve duly fed and watch'd. 
 
 And cag’d within an ivy nigh, 
 
 ’Till they could twitter, peck, and fly ; 
 Thence, from their hold, the ivied wall, 
 Translerr’d to deck the castle-hall : 
 
 But there they did not sojourn long, — 
 Since he, the hero of my song. 
 
 Was meant a tenant next to be 
 Of a near neat menagery ; 
 
 Or such, l might have said before. 
 
 It used to be in days of yore : 
 
 There may he warble many a-day, — 
 
 And may I, when I pass that way. 
 
 Step iu and hear him chant a lay ! 
 
 Castle Ashby. T. S. A. 
 
 (For the Mirror .) 
 
 And is it so? wilt thou indeed depart 
 To seek for wealth, on India’s burning shores. 
 
 Where thy fond fancy paints success, and marks 
 Thy anxious efforts crown’d with golden stores ? 
 Can’st thou still vow thou lov'st, and yet desert 
 Her jvho but.lives — exists upon thy smile ? 
 
 Can’st thou forsake thy kindred, friends and home. 
 And all the blessings of fair Britain’s isle ? 
 
 In my lone moments will thy image still 
 Linger around in many a pleasant dream. 
 
 And sweet remembrum-e of our early love 
 Oft gild my sorrow with a sunny beam. 
 
 For though you speak with hopes of swift return, 
 Not lightly thus to me, appears Farewell ! 
 
 But cold and joyless", fill’d with darkening gloom, 
 
 To peace a blight — to happiness a knell. 
 
 Full well I know thou’lt deem these idle fears. 
 
 And fain with hope would buoy my sinking heart ; 
 But my sad spirit can no vision know. 
 
 Only the sad reality — that we must parti 
 
 Westminster. M. S.* 
 
 * Be assured there is no need of any apology. 
 We shall be happy at all times to hear from you ; 
 and if we discover errors, we will strive to rec- 
 tify them ; not witii the coldness of a stern critic, but 
 with the sinceril y of an ardent friend. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 im 
 
 AN AMERICAN IN ENGLAND 
 
 [Continued, from page 132.] 
 
 Bustle at Landing. 
 
 Athousand blended sounds assailed our ears 
 as we reached the landing-place. A grim 
 crowd awaited us there. Forty or fifty drivers 
 held up their whip-handles, to engage our at- 
 tention. “ Coach, your honour 1” — “ Coach, 
 sir!” were reiterated by persons whose dirty 
 hands and faces, and ragged garb, did not 
 promise much for their vehicles. Their claim 
 to our notice was disputed by a hundred or two 
 hundred other persons, ranging far beneath 
 them in personal cleanliness. Such a set of 
 characters were perhaps never collected in our 
 country. A dozen thrust themselves forward, 
 with, — “ Shall I carry your baggage, your 
 honour ?” — “ Shall I show you to the Adel- 
 phi, — to the Mersey Hotel!” cried others. 
 Here were women ready to sell the “ gemmen” 
 oranges ; and here the suspicious children of 
 the wandering nation, ready to buy “ old 
 clothes;” — in all a motley group. This was 
 not so painful ; but the group of ragged, 
 wretched, lame, and miserable creatures, that 
 had collected round us, as if we had been the 
 last resource on which their hopes rested, was 
 enough to break one’s heart. Such piteous 
 tones, and such fearful accounts of their fa- 
 mishing condition, I never before heard fal- 
 tered forth from the tongues of human beings. 
 It was the first phalanx of a large class that 
 I afterwards found eating the bread of bitter- 
 ness, in all the cities of Great Britain. 
 
 Mendicity in England. 
 
 Framed as our eyes are to see only well-fed, 
 decent, and comfortable persons, even in the 
 lowest rank in America, when walking through 
 the grim assemblage of an English crowd, 
 even what is really elegant and neat, is, for a 
 period, almost unnoticed ; until the first shock 
 which so much distress and poverty make on 
 the feelings, has subsided. An Englishman, so 
 far as respects his enjoyment of what is beau- 
 tiful, is disciplined into an entire disregard 
 for those elements, which enter into the tex- 
 ture of the social system in his country, and 
 dim its glory. He sees only what is splen- 
 did. All the meanness thrown over it, by 
 surrounding want, he is accustomed to dis- 
 regard, as much as if it did not exist. If it 
 were not so, he would be continually mise- 
 rable. But it stares an American in the face, 
 in every street. This dark veil hides, for a 
 period, all the grandeur that stands towering 
 behind it. I found it precisely so in my 
 case. We succeeded in separating ourselves 
 from nearly all the rabble that at first sur- 
 rounded us ; though one or two of the more 
 professional, or more hungry beggars, har- 
 rassed our march ^through several of the 
 shelter streets. 
 
 0 2 
 
 An English Hotel 
 
 There is no place where one is more inde- 
 pendent than in an English hotel, if he has 
 money enough, he can command everything. 
 We might have such houses if we desired 
 them ; and perhaps they would be frequented 
 and profitable ; but they are not suited to, or 
 at least they do not grow out of, our national 
 character. They are the legitimate fruit of 
 English feeling. In England, condition, 
 title, and wealth, are everything ; character, 
 person, and humanity, are comparatively no- 
 thing. All yields to the dazzle of wealth and 
 hereditary influence. This aristocracy pre- 
 dominates everywhere ; and communicates 
 itself to everything. See its genius in a 
 hotel ! You are met at the door by a waiter ; 
 who measures your condition at a glance. He 
 looks out to see whether you have come in 
 your own carriage with livery, or whether you 
 post it in style. He watches the postilions, 
 in order to estimate the height of your dig- 
 nity by the profoundness of their obeisance ; 
 and they do not leave the house till they have 
 told him what you paid them, and everything 
 else they know about you. In short, he 
 looks at the hack you have come in ; at the 
 silver you pay for it ; at your baggage, dress, 
 and deportment ; and scores you down ac- 
 cordingly ; or, in the pithy language of an 
 Englishman , — “ he sets you down as a porter, 
 wine-and-water, or champagne customer at 
 once ; and treats you at that rate, till you 
 have fixed your own standard by what you 
 call for.” If you do not immediately ask for 
 the “travellers’ room,” or for the “coffee- 
 room,” he inquires, “ Will you see your 
 chamber, sir?” The bell is pulled; the 
 chamber-maid appears ; and you are con- 
 ducted to an apartment suited to their esti- 
 mate of your rank. If you do not like it, you 
 are shown to another of higher price; and 
 you are sure to get a very complaisant smile 
 from the chamber-maid, if you move like one 
 that intends to pay well. They do not like too 
 many “thank you’s;” — thinking that when 
 courtesy is too current, coin is rare. If you 
 have many wants, — coats to be dusted, shoes 
 to be cleaned, and trifles to be done, — even 
 if you pay no more for it, it purchases their 
 respect, and satisfies them that you intend 
 giving them their fees. Of such a person 
 their opinion is, — “ He’s a gentleman, and 
 will pay us for our services.” 
 
 After seeing my chamber, I descended to 
 the coffee-room. It was a large, handsome 
 apartment, with about ten or twelve tables, 
 capable of accommodating four persons each. 
 They were all covered with elegant white 
 cloths ; with knives, and silver forks, and 
 spoons. At some of them, parties of gentler 
 men were sitting ; — each group apparently as 
 much alone, as if only themselves occupied 
 the room. At others was seen but a single 
 
196 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 individual. I sat down at one of the fables. 
 “ Waiter, I’ll thank you to bring me break- 
 fast.” “ What will you have, Sir ?” said he 
 in reply ; for the price of breakfast, and par- 
 ticularly other meals, is regulated by what 
 one calls for. There are no fixed hours ; 
 come in when you may, and call for what 
 you choose, if it is to be obtained in the 
 market, it is immediately provided. You are 
 perfectly independent. You may have all, if 
 you are rich enough to pay for all. There you 
 sit alone; eat your dinner; pick over your 
 nuts and raisins ; and read the newspaper. 
 No one thinks of you, speaks to you, or even 
 looks at you. All keep aloof. They don’t 
 know you. They would esteem it almost the 
 compromise of their dignity to speak. Both 
 the English and Americans are generous by 
 nature ; but English laws and institutions 
 very naturally confine their courtesy to the 
 circle of their acquaintance ; while ours, on 
 the contrary, gives us a freedom of manner 
 towards all men, which no circumstances 
 ever disturb. 
 
 LOVE OF COUNTRY. 
 
 Wherever, O man, God’s first sun beamed 
 upon thee — where the stars of heaven first 
 shone above thee — where his lightenings first 
 declared his omnipotence, and his storm-wind 
 shook thy soul with pious awe — there are thy 
 affections — there is thy country. 
 
 Where the first human eye bent lovingly 
 over thy cradle — where thy mother first bore 
 thee joyfully or. her bosom — where thy fa- 
 ther engraved the words of wisdom on thy 
 heart — there are thy affections — there is thy 
 country. 
 
 And though it be among bare rocks and 
 desert islands, and though poverty and care 
 dwell there with thee, thou mayest love that 
 land for ever ; for thou art man, and thou 
 canst not forget it, but it must abide in thine 
 inmost heart. 
 
 And freedom is no empty dream — no bar- 
 ren imagination — but in her dwells thy cou- 
 rage, and thy pride, and the certainty that 
 thou art of high and heavenly race. 
 
 There is freedom where thou canst live in 
 the customs, and fashions, and laws, of thy 
 fathers; where that which rejoiced their 
 hearts rejoiced thine ; where no foreign op- 
 pressor can command thee, no foreign ruler 
 drive thee according to his will, as cattle are 
 driven at the will of their drivers. 
 
 This thy country — thy free country — is a 
 treasure which contains within itself inde- 
 structible love and faith ; the noblest good, 
 (excepting religion ; in which dwells a still 
 higher freedom,) which a virtuous man can 
 possess, or can covet. — Arndt. ^ 
 
 flaturalult. 
 
 FUNGI. 
 
 The fungi (observes Dr. Glendining) con- 
 stitute a numerous class of plants, amount- 
 ing, the different sorts included, to some 
 hundreds. They are very extensively diffused, 
 being met with in every quarter of the globe, 
 'The reddish mushroom ( agaricus musca - 
 riiis,) is a common poisonous species in Eng- 
 land, while the mucho more of Kamtschatka, 
 described by Krachenninnikow, Langsdortf, 
 and other travellers, is but a variety of our 
 indigenous noxious fungus, which is com- 
 mon in every country between the Atlantic 
 and Behring’s Straits. Pallas informs us, 
 that in many forest districts of Asiatic Rus- 
 sia, in which fungi abound, the people feed, 
 during Lent, exclusively, on bread and fungi, 
 and that they eat all kinds, except the aga- 
 ricus muscarius, the fetid dunghill mush- 
 room, and some other juiceless sorts ; and it is 
 stated by recent travellers, that therearemany 
 different species offered for sale in the Tus- 
 can markets. Although a great many sorts 
 are used as food, there can be no doubt, but 
 that a large portion of the mushrooms may 
 be numbered amongst the most virulent of 
 vegetable poisons. The mucho more ( amanita 
 muscaria ) of Kamtschatka, seems to differ 
 in some minute points from the European 
 amanita muscaria, having the pileus more 
 convex towards the centre, the stalk thicker, 
 and the gills probably less white and more 
 yellowish. This fungus is found principally 
 in the vicinity of Wischna, Kamtschatka, 
 and Melkowa Derewna : it varies from one 
 and a half to five or six inches in diameter ; 
 they are gathered in July and August, and 
 dried in the air. They are used in various 
 ways, but principally dried, in which state 
 they are rolled up singly into a bolus, and 
 swallowed entire without chewing. One 
 large fungus, or two small ones, are as much 
 as are taken in one day. Within two hours 
 after the dose, a species of drunkenness 
 commences, accompanied by hilarity, flushed 
 face, delirium, disposition to bodily exertion, 
 and if the dose be very large, spasms ; there 
 is often great increase of muscular energy. 
 Some, who are labouring under its effects, 
 are observed to stride or leap over a straw, as 
 if it were a beam ; while others are unable to 
 stop themselves, or avoid plunging into any 
 ditch, pit, or river, which may be in their 
 way. A Kamtschatkadale, while labouring 
 under this influence, has been known to 
 carry a bag of flour, weighing a hundred and 
 twenty pounds fifteen wersts, although he 
 could scarcely lift it when sober. 
 
 W. G. C. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 197 
 
 iWamiera ants Customs. 
 
 ! SKETCHES OF PARIS. 
 
 A Stroll in the Champs Elysees, 
 
 We left the reader in our last sketch in the 
 aristocratic gardens of the Tuileries, if indeed 
 we can call anything in France aristocratic : 
 — we will now beg him to take our arm, and, 
 passing out of the western gates, enter the 
 Place de la Concorde. Do not hesitate, fair 
 sir or lady ; (“ as the case may be,” as the 
 catechism says of those mysterious person- 
 ages M or N ;) we trust that the pages of 
 the Mirror have taken the place of a mutual 
 friend of us both, and given us the necessary 
 introduction. Well, then, here we are, on the 
 Place de la Concorde, which we should think 
 is the finest promenade in the world. The 
 pavement is twenty or thirty feet broad, and is 
 laid down in chequered squares of black and 
 white asphalte, and there are eight statues 
 placed round it on stone pedestals. In the 
 centre is the great Theban Obelisque, which 
 was presented to Charles X. by the viceroy 
 of Egypt. This very ancient affair had its 
 unintelligible illustrations engraved on it 
 during the reign of Rhamses III., (Sesostris,) 
 about 1640 years before Christ, so that, as 
 fashions and ideas have altered a little since 
 then, it is no wonder the Parisians think 
 its birds, beasts, and black-beetles thorough 
 “ l/etise.” We will pass the obelisk, and 
 enter the Champs Elysees, on the other side 
 the Place. Have you ever seen Windsor 
 Park ? If you have, you must remember the 
 Long Walk, and this will give you a very fair 
 idea of the style of the Champs Elysees, 
 with the exception that the Parisian prome- 
 nade is not more than a mile in length, with 
 the road continued right across from the 
 trees on one side to those of the other, with- 
 out the deep border of grass which we have 
 at Windsor. Why they are called fields we 
 
 ! do not know, unless it be because there is no 
 grass in them, from the principle of the old 
 adage, “ lucus a non lucendo.” 
 
 We will seat ourselves, if you please, 
 on the rails at the entrance, and see what is 
 going on around us, for the Champs Elysees 
 is the grand resort of all the street exhibitions 
 of Paris. In front of us is a shabby four- 
 wheeled carriage, with one horse, drawn up 
 under the trees. A middle-aged man is 
 seated in it, busily employed in unfolding 
 various little paper packages from a box 
 which he holds on his knees, and his female 
 companion, a woman about forty, painted 
 up, and gaudily dressed, with a flaunting 
 feather in her bonnet, is standing on the seat 
 of the chaise, playing lustily on the trumpet 
 f (being a very feminine instrument,) in order 
 to attract a crowd. When she has finished, 
 and the concern is surrounded by a sufficient 
 
 number of gazers, the man rises, and tells the 
 “ Messieurs et Dames” around him that he 
 is the first physician in the world ; that he 
 has travelled in every known country on the 
 face of the globe, and searched the origin of 
 every disease to its very roots ; but in grati- 
 tude to the people of Paris, he has returned 
 to give gratuitous advice to all the sick 
 and ailing. This harangue lasts about 
 twenty minutes, being delivered in that grand 
 and pompous style with which nobody but the 
 French invest the most ordinary incidents of 
 life. Whenever he flags for want of brea h, 
 a boy at the horse’s head, wearing an old 
 foraging cap, gives the most extraordinary 
 roll upon a cracked drum you ever heard, to 
 fill up time. When he has concluded his 
 oration there is no lack of patients, to whom, 
 as promised, he gives his advice free, which 
 is to the effect that nothing will benefit the 
 case but his own pills and compounds, so that 
 he makes it pay pretty well. This man is 
 well known at Paris — he attends all the fetes 
 in its vicinity, and is generally to be found 
 every fine afternoon where you now see him. 
 
 But there is one peculiar feature in the 
 multitude that people the Champs Elysees, 
 which we cannot overlook— it is the im- 
 mense number of soldiers that throng its 
 promenades. There they are, always strolling 
 about in two’s and three’s, with their blue 
 coats and red trousers and little white gaiters. 
 They are all undersized mean-looking men, 
 with an ignorant stolid expression of counte- 
 nance. As their pay amounts nearly to two 
 sous a-day, (more or less,) they cannot afford 
 to spend much in amusements, so they prefer 
 all that are gratuitous. Towards afternoon 
 the Champs Elysees are perfectly crowded 
 with them ; and they take the front places 
 in all the gaping circles of idlers round a 
 fantoccini, and never contribute anything. 
 
 A little further on, amidst the trees, you 
 will see a perambulating lecturer on electri- 
 city. He has set up his apparatus in the 
 centre of four large trees, and wound some 
 red cord round them to form a kind of 
 barrier. His jars and flasks are displayed 
 upon a tube covered with a fine painted 
 cloth, and the machine, which has been a 
 very large one, but the plate is cracked in 
 various places, is guarded from rain by an 
 enormous umbrella of red cotton. He is at 
 present astonishing his audience by discharg- 
 ing bottles of gas, and blowing their corks 
 into the air, by means of the spark ; and he 
 furthermore electrifies invalids for four sous 
 each, to the great admiration of the sur- 
 rounding populace, who look upon him as a 
 species of magician. 
 
 We will now walk on a little towards the 
 splendid and unequalled Arc de Triomphe 
 del’Etoile,* which forms a grand termination 
 to the Champs Elysees. Passing a great 
 • See Mirror, No. 804. p. 305. 
 
198 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 many conjurors, cake- stalls, and perambu- 
 lating lemonade carts, we pass by several 
 little cafes. Here are again crowds of 
 loungers, sitting at the little round tables 
 under the trees, drinking coffee, beer, and 
 eau sacree, and listening to a band of nine 
 or ten male and female performers, both 
 vocal and instrumental, who play here on 
 raised platforms every afternoon. In front 
 of us several grown-up babies are gravely 
 circling in the roundabouts at the jeu de 
 lague, a remnant of the old sport of tilting at 
 the ring; and others are taking a flight in four 
 ships which go up and down as they revolve. 
 The French are indignant at being called a 
 trifling nation— what do you think of this P 
 
 Beyond this spot is the elegant Cirque 
 Olympique — the summer theatre of the Fran- 
 conis’, lor the display of their unrivalled 
 equestrian performances. It is a species of 
 vast circular tent, capable of accommodating 
 from four to five thousand persons, perhaps 
 more, with an arena in the centre about the 
 size of the one at Astley’s, and a splendid 
 orchestra of fifty musicians erected over the 
 passage by which the horses enter the ring. 
 Let us turn in and see it — we shall be sure 
 of good amusement for our franc. We will 
 pay the old lady who takes the money in that 
 little box. “ Deux pour V amphitheatre, 
 Madame, s'il vous plait.” Now, take your 
 billet, and follow me up stairs. We see just 
 as well here instead of paying double to go 
 below for the privilege of being covered with 
 sawdust every time the horses pass. 
 
 The arena is rapidly filling, and they are 
 lowering the handsome chandeliers to light 
 them, while the grooms, dressed in our own 
 fashion, are raking the circus level, but not 
 so quicldy as our old friend in the red jacket 
 and top-boots at Astley’s : — his “ rake’s pro- 
 gress ” is literally like a rail-road. At half- 
 past seven the orchestra begins to perform 
 several popular pieces of music in first-rate 
 style. This continues until eight, when 
 Victor Franconi enters with a whip and two 
 servants, and directly afterwards a gentleman 
 in flesh coloured tights, and a white ribbond 
 
 sphere, succeeds him, mounted on a spirited 
 horse, without either saddle or bridle. Her 
 boldness and self-command is astonishing, 
 and her sweet face and finely-turned limbs 
 attract the admiration of everybody. She 
 is at present not much more than nineteen, 
 and she has learnt a little English, and says, 
 
 “ come up l” to the horse, instead of the 
 more general “ allume ! hue! hue!” of 
 the other ecuyers. The qext scene is a 
 pas de deux on horseback, by the pretty 
 Virginie Kenebel, (or rather Madame V . 
 Franconi, for she is murried,) and M. 
 Auguste, a fine young man, and capital 
 rider. The subject is Bacchus and Erigone, 
 and the uttitudes are graceful and classical 
 in the extreme. Then comes Les deux 
 Chinois, one of the most dare-devil neck-or- 
 nothing performances you ever saw, per- 
 formed on one stout horse by the two bro- 
 thers Lalanne. They quarrel, fight, creep 
 round the horse’s neck and under his belly, 
 sutler themselves to be pulled along, holding 
 to his tail, and all the time the animal is 
 going at the swiftest speed. After this we 
 have Mademoiselle Caroline, on her beau- 
 tiful horse Mammoth, in a scene of haute 
 equitation ; and next, two English clowns, 
 Messrs. Lawrence and Redisha, a3 they are 
 called in the programme of the V ert-vert . 
 They are clever tumblers, but they look 
 unnatural here, for beyond what few English 
 there may chance to be in the house, there 
 is no one to appreciate their “ Here we are, 
 how ore you ?’’ on entering the circle; and 
 they cannot cut their jokes upon Victor 
 Franconi, like our old friends Widdicomb, 
 Fellingham, and West, at our own Amphi- 
 theatre. The evening’s performance con- 
 cludes by a “ grand relai sur six chevaux 
 by Paul Cuzent, dressed as a French postil- 
 lion, and which is an excellent imitation of 
 Ducrow’s Courier of St. Petersburgh. The 
 entertainments conclude always by half-past 
 ten, and in half an hour afterwards the 
 Champs Elystes are as quiet as the grave. 
 At the fete in celebration of the “ three 
 
 days,” a magnificent illumination extends in 
 festoons from tree to tree, the whole length 
 round his head, who jumps through hoops jjj e av enue. Large theatres are built for 
 and over his steed’s bridle, by way of com- gratuitous military pantomimes ; and shows, 
 
 mencement we suppose, for his feats are not 
 generally very difficult. 
 
 Next come the performances of Le petit 
 Fortune, a young Greek, who rides and 
 jumps over flags backwards. When he has 
 finished, an odd noise is heard without, 
 and Auriol, the favourite clown of the circus, 
 comes rolling in, first head over heels, and 
 then jumping and throwing somersets back- 
 wards and forwards in a most extraordinary 
 manner. We have nothing like him as a 
 posture-master in England— he comes very 
 close to the Bedouin Arabs, if he does not 
 equal them. The beautiful Madame Lejars, 
 one of the fuirest comets of Franconi’s 
 
 gratuitous military pantomimes; 
 stalls, ball-rooms, and exhibitions of every 
 sort and kind fill its walks. A splendid 
 display of fireworks also takes place from 
 the Pont de la Concorde ; and all these 
 expenses are defrayed by government. Fri- 
 volous and childish, indeed, is the whole set- 
 out, and many hundreds of francs are blown 
 away in rockets and maroons to amuse a 
 gaping crowd of infants of forty years old, 
 while the costly Louvre is encircled by a 
 paling of dirty planks that would disgrace a 
 railroad excavation in England, and the tar- 
 nished dome of the Hotel des Invalids looks 
 like a child’s toy, with the Dutch metal 
 half sucked off. Knips. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 199 
 
 VALUABLE STATISTICAL TABLES; 
 
 BY MB. CALEY, M. P. * 
 
 National Debt of England and other Coun- 
 tries ; with the proportion of such debt 
 which falls on each individual. 
 
 Proportion o 
 Debt per Head. 
 
 England 
 
 ^800,000,000 32 
 
 0 
 
 0 
 
 France 
 
 194,400,000 
 
 5 
 
 19 
 
 7 
 
 Russia 
 
 35.550.000 
 
 78.100.000 
 
 0 
 
 11 
 
 9 
 
 Austria 
 
 2 
 
 7 
 
 6 
 
 Prussia . 
 
 29,701,000 
 
 2 
 
 7 
 
 7 
 
 Netherlands 
 
 148,500,000 23 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 Spain 
 
 United States 
 
 70,000,000 
 
 5 
 
 0 
 
 8 
 
 Sicilies . • 
 
 18,974,000 
 
 2 
 
 11 
 
 2 
 
 Bavaria 
 
 11.311,000 
 
 2 
 
 16 
 
 0 
 
 Sardinia 
 
 4.584.000 
 
 3.667.000 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 Turkey 
 Sweden . 
 
 0 
 
 7 
 
 8 
 
 Portugal 
 
 5,649,000 
 
 3,729000 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 6 
 
 Denmark 
 
 1 
 
 18 
 
 4 
 
 Rome 
 
 17,142,000 
 
 7 
 
 9 
 
 0 
 
 Poland 
 
 5,740,000 
 
 1 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 Saxony 
 
 3,300,000 
 
 2 
 
 9 
 
 1 
 
 Hanover 
 
 2.284.000 
 
 1.670.000 
 
 1 
 
 11 
 
 0 
 
 Baden 
 
 1 
 
 9 
 
 2 
 
 Wirtemberg 
 
 2,505,000 
 
 1 
 
 12 
 
 7 
 
 Tuscany 
 
 1,384,000 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 
 11 
 
 Hesse (Darmstadt) 
 
 1,184,000 
 
 1 
 
 3 
 
 11 
 
 Hesse (Electorate) 
 Switzerland . 
 
 220,000 
 
 0 
 
 6 
 
 1 
 
 Norway 
 
 East India Compa- 
 
 252,000 
 
 0 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 ny’s territories . 
 
 47,609,000 
 
 0 
 
 9 
 
 0 
 
 Comparative Wages of English and 
 Foreign Operatives. 
 
 Operatives are paid in 
 
 France . . 5s. 6d. per week of 72 hrs. 
 
 Switzerland . 5s. 5d. — 82 
 
 Austria . . 4s. 0 d. — 76 
 
 Tyrol . . 3s. 9 d. — 88 
 
 Saxony . . 3s. 6d. — 72 
 
 Bona, on the Rhine 2s. 6d. — 84 
 
 The average wages being a fraction under 
 4s. per week. The average wages paid to 
 hands similarly employed in England, but 
 for fewer hours, being 1 2s. a week. 
 
 Number of the Cotton , W ool, Silk , and Flax 
 Factories in the United Kingdom ; with 
 the Number and Ages of the Persons em- 
 ployed therein , in the year 1835 : — 
 
 “ Cotton Factories, 1,262 — viz., in Eng- 
 land, 1,070; Wales, 5; Scotland, 159 ; Ire- 
 land, 28. In England there are 42 factories 
 empty, all the others are employed. There 
 are 220,134 persons employed in these fac 
 tories, viz., males, 100,495 ; females, 119,639 
 Of these, between 8 and 12 years, 8,197, viz. 
 males, 4,528 ; females, 3,669. Between 1 2 
 and 13 years, 20,574, viz., males 10,663 
 females, 9,911. Between 13 and 18 years, 
 65,486, viz., males, 27,251 ; females, 38,235. 
 
 • Extracted from his speech iu tire House of 
 Commons, on the debate relative to the Corn Laws, 
 March 12th, 1839. , 
 
 Above IS years, 125,877, viz males, 58,053 ; 
 females, 67,824. 
 
 “ Wool factories, 1,313, viz., in England, 
 
 I, 102; Wales, 85; Scotland, 90; Ireland, 
 36. In England there are 9 factories empty, 
 all the others are employed. There are 
 71,274 persons employed in these factories, 
 viz., males, 37,477 ; females, 33,797. Of 
 these, between 8 and 12 years, 4,764, viz., 
 males, 2,481 ; females, 2,283. Between 12 
 and 13 years, 8,558, viz., males, 4,290 ; fe- 
 males, 4,268. Between 13 and 18 years, 
 21,250, viz., males, 10,138; females, 11,112. 
 Above 18 years, 36,702, viz., males, 20,568 ; 
 females, 16,134. 
 
 “ Silk factories, 238, viz , in England, 221 ; 
 Wales, 0 ; Scotland, 6 ; Ireland, 1. In Eng- 
 land there are 25 factories empty ; all the 
 others are employed. There are 30,682 per- 
 sons employed in these factories, viz., males, 
 10,188 ; females, 20,494. Of these, between 
 8 and 12 years, 6,411, viz., males, 2,486; 
 females, 3,925. Between 12 and 13 years, 
 2,663, viz., males, 952; females, 1,711. Be- 
 tween 13 and 18 years, 9,451, viz., males, 
 2,636; females, 6,815. Above 18 years, 
 12,457, viz., males, 4,1 14 ; females, 8,043. 
 
 “ Flax factories, 347, viz., in England, 
 152; Wales, 0; Scotland, 170; Ireland, 25. 
 There are 33,283 persons employed in these 
 factories, viz., males, 10,305; females, 22,888, 
 Between 8 and 12 years, 12,216, viz., males, 
 592; females, 624. Between 12 and 13 
 years, 4,072, viz., males, 1,782; females, 
 2,290. Between 13 and 18 years, 10,021, 
 viz., males, 3,457 ; females, 8,564. Above 
 18 years, 15,974, viz., males, 4,564 ; females, 
 
 II, 410. 
 
 Total of the four manufactures, 3,236 (in- 
 cluding seventy-six empty.)— Persons em- 
 ployed, 355,373, viz., males, 158,555 ; females, 
 196,818. 
 
 Comparative Condition of the Farmer, on the 
 
 same Land, in 1790 and 1834; with re- 
 gard to Labour, Expenses, and Rates : — 
 
 1834 higher than 1790. 
 
 Per Cent. 
 
 Agricultural labour 
 
 . 46 
 
 Carpenters’ work 
 
 . 77 
 
 Smiths’ work 
 
 . 66 
 
 Sadlers’ work 
 
 . 63 
 
 Thatchers’ work 
 
 . 58 
 
 Masons’ work . . . 
 
 . 66 
 
 HOUSEHOLD EXPENSES. 
 
 Tea, sugar, candles, malt, &c. 
 
 . 30 
 
 Shoemakers’ work 
 
 . 64 
 
 Tailors’ work 
 
 . 55 
 
 Coopers’ work 
 
 . 73 
 
 Domestic servants and education 
 
 . 66 
 
 LOCAL TAXES. 
 
 Poor rates .... 
 
 116 
 
 Highway rates 
 
 200 
 
 County rates 
 
 550 
 
 Church rates . . 
 
 700 
 
200 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 ANTONIO LIONELLI. 
 
 ( Fur the Mirror .) 
 
 Whoever has visited Naples, must have 
 temarked a class of people (if he conde- 
 scended to pay attention to anything so 
 much beneath the notice of a fashionable 
 traveller as the people ,) entirely unknown in 
 this, and other countries, which occupy the 
 van in the, “ march of intellect'’ — I mean 
 the scrivani, or public letter-writers. They 
 are to be met with in all parts of the city ; 
 but more particularly in a narrow lane by 
 the side of the Post Office. This spot is 
 selected for the convenience of their custom- 
 ers, whether they require their aid in reducing 
 the intelligence drawn from that receptacle 
 of hopes, fears, joys, and sorrows, to the 
 capacity of the only organ, viz., the ear, 
 through which it can be conveyed to their 
 understanding; or in putting their thoughts 
 into a visible shape, to be transmitted through 
 the same channel, and to be afterwards re- 
 solved into their original element by some 
 learned brother of the quill. 
 
 The stock in trade of the letter-writers 
 consists of an old table, a chair, and a stool 
 for the use of their employers, besides the 
 requisite writing materials. Thus equipped, 
 they select an eligible situation, and lucky is 
 the poor scrivano considered, who acquires a 
 sort of “ de facto” claim, through the for- 
 bearance or benevolence of some wealthier 
 fellow-citizen, to some sheltered nook, where 
 he is protected from the scorching sun of 
 summer, or the chilling rain of winter ; for 
 the sky of Italy is not always blue, nor its 
 climate warm always and sunny. 
 
 The letter- writers are employed on an 
 infinite variety of subjects — on all matters, 
 indeed, that concern the lower order of the 
 people — and, consequently, become cognizant 
 of secrets which, if divulged, would some- 
 times involve the ruin of their employers. 
 But, to the credit of the scrivani be it told, 
 this professional confidence is rarely abused ; 
 for, besidis the high sense of honour which 
 they derive from their comparative superiority 
 over their less educated fellow-countrymen, 
 their success in the profession depends greatly 
 on their character for secrecy. It is only, 
 therefore, when some violent passion, which 
 had perhaps slumbered for years, bursts forth 
 afresh — when some chord, which had long 
 ceased to vibrate, is suddenly and rudely 
 touched, that the scrivano’s sense of honour 
 and prudence forsakes him. 
 
 It was after a day of unusual literary toil 
 that Antonio Lionelli, a venerable scribe, who 
 enjoyed no inconsiderable share of public 
 patronage, was preparing to remove himself 
 and his establishment from the noise and 
 bustle of the Strada Toledo, to the quiet 
 retirement of his own home in the Napoli 
 Senza Sole. He had already counted Ihe 
 produce of his labour, and determined in his 
 
 own mind how much ol it should be laid out 
 in maccaroni for his evening repast, and how 
 much should be laid aside to buy a new dress 
 for his daughter Berta, in honour of the ap- 
 proaching carnival. “ I am almost too late, 
 Antonio, and yet I would not have had any 
 other scrivano read this for the world.” — 
 
 “ Ah! Bianca, is it you?’’ said Antonio, 
 turning round, — some love affair, I sup- 
 pose .” — “ Read ! read, for the Virgin’s sake ! 
 good Antonio!” said Bianca, without answer- 
 ing his questions, “ and take heed no one 
 hears you.” 
 
 The speaker was a young and beautiful 
 contadina ; and as she bent over Antonio, 
 watching the first movement of his lips, with 
 that intense and painful anxiety which fixes 
 every muscle of the human frame as if sud- 
 denly petrified, a beholder would cease to 
 wonder, that the artists of a country, which 
 produces such models of perfection in the 
 persons of its very peasants, should excel in 
 representing the human figure. 
 
 Antonio read ; — 
 
 “ Dearest Bianca, 
 
 “ Meet me to-morrow evening, as the vesper 
 bell tolls, at the church of San Martino. Be 
 careful that your steps are not traced by 
 those who would be glad to receive the reward 
 offered for the head of your “ Carlo.” 
 
 “ It is from him, then, and he is safe !” 
 ejaculated Bianca. “ Here are five gram, 
 (about twopence English,) it is all I have,” 
 and she hurried away. 
 
 “ It is from him , then,” repeated Antonio, 
 giving utterance to the powerful feelings 
 which had agitated him during the reading 
 of Bianca’s letter, and which her presence 
 had hardly been able to suppress . — “ Yes, 
 the villain ! — the robber, Carlo Bettoni !” 
 continued he, soliloquizing, “ he seduced my 
 innocent daughter, and afterwards spurned 
 her. Poor Berta, that was wont to be the 
 gayest of the gay, now pines in solitude ; her 
 affections have been laid waste, her heart 
 broken, and all through the villainy of this 
 ungrateful scoundrel ; but, by the Holy Virgin, 
 and all the saints, she shall be revenged !” ex- 
 claimed Antonio, striking hisdesk vehemently'. 
 
 * * * * “ I have discovered him, 
 
 Berta !” said Antonio, as he entered his 
 humble dwelling ; “ he is now in my power, 
 and you shall be revenged, my child !” 
 
 As those words, uttered with unwonted 
 vehemence, fell upon the dull ear of Berta, 
 they suddenly recalled her from the scenes of 
 imaginary happiness, into which her abstracted 
 mind was wont to wauder, to the cold reality 
 by which she was surrounded ; and her na- 
 turally pale cheek assumed even a deadlier 
 hue, as she beheld her father’s eyes flashing 
 fire, and his whole frame convulsed with pas- 
 sion. — “ The villain, Carlo Bettoni, for whose 
 head a reward of five hundred crowns is 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 201 
 
 I offered,” continued Antonio, “ will he at the 
 church of San Martino to-morrow as the vesper 
 bell tolls; and so shall Antonio L'onelli and the 
 officers of justice. Not a scudo of the reward 
 shall pollute my hands ; but I shall have re- 
 venge ; I shall laugh in his face, and remind 
 him of his villainy and ingratitude, as the exe- 
 cutioner is preparing his head for the block. 
 
 Berta had now entirely recovered her self- 
 possession, and having been informed by her 
 father of the manner in which he had ac- 
 quired a knowledge of the important secret, 
 she seemed to hesitate as to the propriety of 
 taking advantage of information obtained in 
 his professional character. Antonio applauded 
 her sense of honour, but would listen to 
 nothing that could baulk his revenge. 
 
 Notwithstanding that Berta had been 
 cruelly and basely deceived by the man who 
 had gained her affections, still he was her 
 
 first — her only love, and she was a woman. 
 
 She had, therefore, never thoroughly hated 
 
 I him ; and now that he was threatened with 
 imminent danger, he only appeared to her 
 partial imagination as the ardent and de- 
 voted lover who first won her young heart, 
 then as gay and happy as the joyous lark 
 that carrolled in her own native valley. 
 
 All this, however, she dared not avow to 
 Antonio, well knowing his desire of revenge 
 was too deep-rooted to be eradicated by any 
 thing short of the utter destruction of the in- 
 vader of his domestic peace — the base deserter 
 ofhis deluded daughter; she, therefore, offered 
 no further objection to her father’s scheme 
 of delivering up the notorious robber, Carlo 
 
 Bettoni, into the hands of justice. 
 
 * * * * * “ Are you mad, Carlo P 
 
 to venture into the city, where placards, offer- 
 ing a reward for your head, will meet your 
 eye at the corner of every street ! ! Profit by 
 your late narrow escape, and let us be off into 
 the mountains at once.’’ 
 
 “ 1 believe I am mad, Francesco, for I 
 must and will go ; I feel it is impossible for 
 me to abandon this girl; she must be in- 
 formed of the place of our rendezvous. You 
 must go with me, Francesco, to assist in case 
 
 of need, and, if I should be taken No, I 
 
 will never be taken ; but, if I should fall, 
 you shall supply my place, and lead our brave 
 band into the mountains.” 
 
 The foregoing conversation took place 
 between Carlo Bettoni and one of his daring 
 band, among some ruins in the neighbour- 
 hood of Naples, on the morning of the day 
 on which the former was to meet Bianca at 
 the church of San Martino. 
 
 The golden tinge of the sun’s departed 
 rays was fast disappearing from the glorious 
 and far-famed, but not over-rated, Bay of 
 Naples, and its surrounding scenery ; and 
 the noble outline of the towering Vesuvius 
 was becoming more and more faint against 
 the cloudless sky of Italy ; while the approach- 
 
 ing darkness was gradually changing the 
 column of smoke, that ascended from its 
 summit, into volumes of flame, as Carlo 
 Bettoni and his companion issued from their 
 hiding place, habited as Dominican friars. Bi- 
 anca had taken her station at the place of assig- 
 nation five minutes before the appointed time. 
 
 “ Bianca,” whispered a friar who was 
 advancing slowly towards the spot. — “ Carlo,” 
 replied Bianca, softly. It was her lover. 
 
 Just as Carlo had partly thrown back his 
 friar’s cowl, a female suddenly turned the 
 corner of the church, and, before he could 
 avert his face, met his full gaze. Carlo started. 
 It was Berta ! — “ Fly Carlo !” said she in a 
 suppressed tone, “ fly for your life ! My father 
 is coming with the officers of justice !” 
 
 Before Carlo could reply, Antonio’s voice 
 was heard, exclaiming, “There he is! Take 
 him alive if you can.’’ And one of the 
 officers seized hold of his gown ; but, disen- 
 gaging himself from his long dress by a 
 dexterous movement, he laid his assailant 
 dead at his feet with one plunge of his dag- 
 ger, and, drawing a pistol from his belt, shot 
 another through the heart. Francesco had, 
 by this t ; me, come up to his friend’s assist- 
 ance ; and, as there were now only two officers 
 to contend with, the contest was pretty equal. 
 But Antonio, fearing his enemy might escape 
 him, snatched a dagger from the belt of one 
 of the fallen men, and threw himself upon 
 his foe with the fury of a tiger, at the instant 
 that Carlo had disabled the third assailant. 
 Francesco, having dispatched his opponent, 
 turned round, and saw that his friend had 
 closed with the only remaining enemy. The 
 next moment a bullet from his pistol passed 
 through Antonio’s brain ; but it was too late; 
 the old man’s dagger had already been buried 
 in Carlo’s heart they both fell together. 
 
 The noise of this short, but sanguinary 
 conflict, soon attracted several persons to the 
 spot ; and all the actors in the tragic scene, 
 except Francesco, who had escaped, were 
 carried into the neighbouring convent of 
 Santa Maddalena. It was then discovered 
 that Berta had been severely wounded in the 
 side by a random shot, and that two of the 
 officers were still living, and likely to recover. 
 
 Bianca was restored, after much difficulty, 
 from the successive fainting fits into which 
 terror had thrown her; but the two mortal 
 foes, Carlo and Antonio, were beyond the 
 reach of human aid. 
 
 Bianca attended Berta during her illness 
 with unwearied assiduity, a common calamity 
 having cemented the strongest friendship 
 between them ; and, upon the recovery of the 
 latter, they were both admitted as novices 
 into the convent. They subsequently took 
 the veil, and were no less remarkable for 
 their charity and benevolence towards their 
 fellow-creatures, than for their devoted attach- 
 ment to each other. jUff. 
 
202 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO 
 VEGETABLES. 
 
 [Although the injuries which our cattle and 
 provisions suffer from various species of in- 
 sects, are often attended with most serious con- 
 sequences, yet it is only within the last few 
 years that entomologists have bestowed any 
 considerable degree of attention upon this 
 ready important subject. Some years ago, 
 Mr. Major, a gardener, published a book upon 
 those species which injure the garden plants ; 
 but, however laudable the intentions of the 
 author, his descriptions of the insects were so 
 vague, and his acquaintance with their habits 
 so imperfect and uncertain, that his work was 
 not calculated to be of much use. But the 
 subject has at last attracted the particular at- 
 tention of those both in this country and 
 abroad, who possess a more familiar know- 
 ledge of their natural history, and who there- 
 fore are better qualified to decide upon the 
 best remedies against their ravages. In 1837, 
 Dr. llatzeburg published a quarto volume con- 
 taining 202 pages of descriptions, and twenty- 
 one plates of such beetles as are obnoxious or 
 beneficial to forest trees in Prussia ; Dr. 
 Dahlom published an octavo containing 340 
 pages, and two plates of various noxious and 
 beneficial insects found in Scandinavia, and 
 M. Kollar, a natural history of the injurious 
 insects of Austria, containing as many as 421 
 octavo pages. At home we find one series 
 of articles, having the same useful object, 
 publishing in the Gardener's Magazine, by 
 Mr. J. O. Westwood, another in the Gar - 
 dener’s Gazette, by Mr. J. H. Fennell, and a 
 third in the Quarterly Journal of Agricul- 
 ture, by Mr. James Duncan, and much good 
 may reasonably be expected from their inves- 
 tigations and suggestions. We select a few 
 of Mr. Duncan’s interesting remarks from the 
 last number of the latter valuable publication 
 — which must be to the agriculturist what 
 Blackwood and the Westminster are to the 
 politician.] 
 
 « Longicorn-heetles. The beetles known by 
 this name are very numerous, and distin- 
 guished for the gracefulness of their forms, 
 the body being generally elongated, limbs 
 slender, the antennae (vulgarly called the 
 horns) delicately constructed, almost always 
 as long as the body, and in many instances 
 two or three times its length. The great ma- 
 jority of them, however, are peculiar to tro- 
 pical countries, and the warmer regions of the 
 temperate zones, where they are found of a 
 size not surpassed by any other insects. Of 
 the species indigenous to Britain, which do not 
 amount to a hundred, the greater proportion 
 are confined to the more southern counties of 
 England, a few only of the smaller kinds ex- 
 tending to the northern quarters of the island. 
 This is owing both to the higher latitude, 
 which every where limits their increase, and 
 
 to the local accident of there being a defi- 
 ciency of wood in Scotland ; for the larvae, 
 or grubs, in almost all cases are strictly lig- 
 nivorous, and do much harm to trees, piercing 
 them often to a great depth, and riddling 
 them with holes. The havoc which some 
 of the exotic larvae of this family produce in 
 a beam of timber, may be conceived, when it 
 is mentioned that they are sometimes nearly 
 half a foot in length, and of correspond- 
 ing thickness, with mandibles, or jaws, that 
 can readily gnaw a passage for their owner 
 through a sheet of lead.* The small size and 
 comparatively limited numbers of our native 
 kinds, prevent them doing much injury here ; 
 their operations, indeed, considered by them- 
 selves, are scarcely ever on so extensive a 
 scale as to demand attention ; it is only when 
 combined with other hostile influences that 
 they can act with any momentum. It may 
 be safely affirmed, that in Scotland our forest 
 trees never suffer any injury from them at all 
 deserving of notice. The largest species we 
 possess on the north side of the Tweed, is the 
 Acanthocinus aedilis, but it has been ob- 
 served only in two or three localities. f The 
 largest of the English species is Prionus 
 coriarius, but it in like manner is by no 
 means generally distributed. Wasp-beetles, 
 
 ( Clytus ,) some of which are rather com- 
 mon, and easily recognised by the beauti- 
 ful curved yellow bands across the elytra, 
 or wing-cases, feed on the alder and other 
 trees. The genus Callidium is one of the 
 most obnoxious to the forester. C. bajulus 
 inhabits the Abies excelsa, and the larvae 
 often takes up its abode in the interior 
 of a beam, where it remains long after the 
 beam has been converted into a rafter, and 
 then works its way out, (materially impairing 
 in its progress the strength of the plank,) 
 even through the leaden sheeting by which 
 the roofs of houses are frequently protected. 
 The purple capricorn-beetle, (6'. violaceum,') 
 feeds principally on fir timber which has been 
 long felled, without having the bark stripped 
 off". The paths formed by the larvae are ser- 
 pentine, and as it proceeds it fills up the space 
 behind it with the excrementitious residue of 
 the saw-dust from which it has extracted the 
 nutritious principle. These galleries are 
 chiefly in the wood immediately beneath the 
 bark ; but before assuming the pupa, or chry- 
 
 * These larvae are often used by the natives of 
 the countries where they occur as articles of food. 
 This is the case iu particular with that of Macro- 
 dontia cervicornis, a large and remarkable looking 
 species, known throughout Brazil and Cayenne by 
 the name of Mouche Scieur de long. 
 
 + This is the insect which is so well known to the 
 natives of Sweden and Lapland by the name of 
 Timermann, and which they regard with a kind of 
 superstitious veneration. Its presence is thought to 
 be the presage of good fortune, and it is as carefully 
 protected and cherished as storks are by the pea- 
 santry of the Low-countries, fit is figured iu Rennie’s 
 Insect Miscellanies, p. 110.] 
 
TIIK MIRROR. 
 
 203 
 
 salis sta'e, the larvae penetrates nearly into the 
 heart of the trunk, that it may be in greater 
 security during its temporary inactivity. It 
 becomes a beetle in the month of May or 
 June, when it effects its escape by gnawing a 
 passage opposite to the hole by which it en- 
 tered. This insect would probably not attack 
 timber which had been barked ; and it may 
 be mentioned generally, that whenever it be- 
 comes an object to protect felled trees from 
 such assailants, it is a good precaution to have 
 it stripped of the bark, as the latter attracts 
 many insects, and affords them a rendezvous, 
 from which they make inroads into the solid 
 wood. 
 
 The larvae of these insects are mostly without 
 feet, but they are furnished with means of loco- 
 motion much better adapted to the cylindrical 
 excavations in which they dwell. The upper 
 and under sides of most of the segments are 
 covered with small prominences. When about 
 to advance, the larva draws the two extremi- 
 ties towards each other, and fixing its hinder 
 end to the walls of its hole, by means of the 
 warty prominences mentioned, it extends the 
 anterior part of its body forwards ; an opera- 
 tion repeated at each successive advancement. 
 The cocoon is composed chiefly of saw-dust 
 and gnawed portions of wood. 
 
 “ CriocerislAsparagi . — Asparagus Beetle. 
 This pretty insect belongs to a section en- 
 tirely different from the foregoing, both in 
 structure and habits. The generic name 
 (signifying having horns like a ram) refers to 
 the appearance of the antennae, which are 
 thick and rigid, and usually project forwards 
 in a direct line from the forehead, (fig. 2.) 
 The head is rather wider than the thorax, and 
 is contracted into a short neck behind, the 
 
 eyes globular and prominent. Its colours are 
 very beautiful, and it is often on that account 
 made choice of as an interesting object for a 
 microscope. The head is blue-black, rather 
 strongly punctured ; the thorax bright red, 
 more faintly punctured. The wing-cases are 
 light yellow, with a blue-black band along 
 the suture, united to a quadrate transverse 
 mark of the same colour near the middle, and 
 another towards the hinder extremity; be- 
 sides these there is a longitudinal one on each 
 shoulder ; the outer margin is reddish, the 
 
 whole surface glossy and marked with punc- 
 tured lines. The underside and legs are 
 shining blue-black. Length about a quarter 
 of an inch (fig. 1.) 
 
 “ The female lays her eggs on the asparagus 
 plants, shortly after they appear in spring. 
 These eggs are long and oval, attached by 
 the end, by means of a dark viscid substance 
 which is extruded along with them ; not un- 
 frequently one adheres to the top of another : 
 their colour is a dull slate tint. The larva; 
 (fig. 3) are nearly of a similar hue, with a 
 tinge of dark green. They are composed of 
 thirteen segments, and move by means of six 
 peetoral legs. The body is without hairs, 
 the head black, the second segment with two 
 shining black dorsal spots. These larvse at- 
 tain their full growth in about a fortnight, 
 when they descend into the earth, and become 
 pupae. They prevail from the beginning of 
 June to September, and it is entirely through 
 their agency that the asparagus plants suffer, 
 the perfect beetle being comparatively in- 
 noxious. They select the tenderest and most 
 delicate shoots for their consumption, and 
 render unpalatable what they do not consume, 
 by communicating to it a fetid and disagree- 
 able odour, which seems to reside in a black 
 matter which they occasionally discharge 
 from their mouths. The market gardens 
 around London are much infested with this 
 larvse; but in Scotland we have met with the 
 insect so seldom, that we are inclined to be- 
 lieve it never increases there to a hurtful ex- 
 tent. Picking off’ the insects with the hand, 
 will be most effectual when the females first 
 appear on the plants, and their bright colours 
 render them so conspicuous, that a little care 
 will prevent any considerable number from 
 escaping. 
 
 Phaedon Vitellince is a small beetle about 
 two lines long, of a uniform shining brassy- 
 black colour, occasionally tinted with violet- 
 blue. The shape of the body is oblong, the 
 
 head and thorax punctured ; elytra with 
 closely punctured lines, and the punctures 
 irregularly scattered towards the sides and 
 apex ; underside of the body and legs brassy- 
 black, and almost free from punctures, the 
 tarsi thickly clothed on the underside with 
 short light grey hairs (fig. 2. antenna;.) 1 he 
 
204 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 grubs, or larvae, are of u yellowish colour. 
 When feeding on the leaves of the willow, 
 they arrange themselves in rows side by side, 
 and advance in regular order, the succeeding 
 file consuming what has been left by their 
 predecessors, so that nothing is left but the 
 reticulated tissue of the leaf, resembling a 
 piece of net-work, the whole of the paren- 
 chyma or pulpy substance being extracted, 
 {fig. .3.) The beetles likewise consume the 
 parenchyma alone, and they may be some- 
 times observed feeding side by side like the 
 larvae, but their lines are never so regular or 
 well preserved. This insect was named 
 Chrysomela vulgutissima by Linnaeus, and 
 it certainly on some occasions appears in ex- 
 treme profusion. During the last autumn, 
 the willows along the banks of the Teviot 
 were in many places literally covered with 
 them. The consequence was, that the leaves 
 were almost entirely brown and shrivelled, 
 and vegetation nearly at a stand. They 
 likewise frequent poplars, but instances of 
 their inflicting material injury on these trees 
 are comparatively rare.” 
 
 CALLING OF THE QUEEN BEES. 
 “ I have never been able to see what was 
 going on at the time this calling took place 
 but once. As our bees are not very near 
 the house, it is my practice, in swarming 
 time (when I have any reason to expect a 
 swarm), to walk to the apiary about 10 
 o’clock, to ascertain if any hives are getting 
 very busy, in which case I place some one 
 to work near the spot. Going one morning 
 to a hive I expected to send forth a swarm, 
 I was amused at the sound of “ peep, peep.’’ 
 Feeling interested in what might be the re- 
 sult, I continued my observations till the 
 swarm came out, but I think it is probable 
 it had been going on for a considerable time 
 before. This sound of “peep, peep,” came 
 from an old queen, whom I could plainly see 
 going from one part of the hive to the other ; 
 running in a hurried manner, ns though 
 anxious to escape, and uttering the call in a 
 hoarse kind of way every time she stopped. 
 During the time this was going on, there 
 was another sound of “peep, peep,” of a 
 shriller kind, from a fixed point; but it was 
 in the interior of the hive, and, consequently, 
 out of the reach of my observation. This 
 continued about an hour, when the swarm 
 issued forth ; but, whether the queen who 
 ought to have accompanied it was destroyed 
 in the hive, or lost after she came out, I 
 cannot say ; but, almost as soon as the bees 
 were out they returned to the parent stock, 
 and never after made an attempt to swarm, 
 neither was there any more confusion in the 
 hive, nor sound of “ peep” from either old 
 or young queens, but all went on as peace- 
 ably as though nothing had happened.— 
 Gardener's Magazine. 
 
 Cijc -puttfc StouriiaLS. 
 
 INTERESTING FACTS CONNECTED WITH' 
 MODERN GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 Rawlinson's March from Zohab to Khuzistan. — Mea- 
 sures of distance, of the Ancients 
 The ‘march’ of Major Rawlinson (of the 
 Bombay army) from Zohab, at the foot of 
 Zagross, to Khuzistan, (Susiana,) is replete 
 with information of a most important kind, 
 as affects historical tradition, and the real 
 state of countries, viewed but too often through 
 the medium of a hear-say or romantic estimate. 
 
 “ Zohifb formed one of the ten pdshaliks 
 dependent upon Bagdad, until about thirty 
 years ago, when Mohammed ’All Mlrza, 
 prince of Kirmanshah, annexed it to the 
 crown of Persia. At the treaty concluded 
 between Persia and the Porte, in 1823, it was 
 stipulated that the districts acquired by either 
 parly during the war should be respectively 
 surrendered, and that the ancient frontier- 
 line should be restored, which had been esta- 
 blished in the time of the Safavl monarchs. 
 According to a subsequent treaty, Zohab 
 ought certainly to have been given up to the 
 Turkish authorities, but Persia had neither 
 the will to render this act of justice, nor had 
 the pashfi of Baghdad the power to enforce 
 it ; and Zohab, although still claimed by the 
 Porte, has thus remained to the present day in 
 possession of the government of Kirmanshah.” 
 
 Corn and rice are the principal productions 
 of Zohab, and are disposed of to traders from 
 Baghdad. 
 
 “ The town of Zohab was built about a 
 hundred years ago by a Turkish pasha, and 
 the government continued to be hereditary in 
 his family till the conquest of the pashalik by 
 the Persians. The capital was surrounded by 
 a mud wall, and may have at first contained 
 about 1,000 houses. From its frontier posi- 
 tion, however, it has been exposed to constant 
 spoliation in the wars between Turkey and 
 Persia, and is now a mass of ruins, with 
 scarcely 200 inhabited houses. There are 
 about twenty families of Jews here, and the 
 remainder are Kurds of the Sunni sect. 
 
 “ The geography of the district of Zoh^b 
 will be best understood by a reference to the 
 accompanying map. At the northern extre- 
 mity of the district of Zohab is the little plain 
 of Semiram, a natural fastness of the most 
 extraordinary strength, which is formed by a 
 range of lofty and precipitous mountains, ex- 
 tending in a semicircle.’’ 
 
 Semiram would of course interest our tra- 
 veller by its many associations ; and he thus 
 refers to it : — 
 
 “ The name could not fail to call to my re- 
 collection the Assyrian queen, Semiramis, 
 whom the ancients believed to have adorned 
 Persia with many magnificent works of art. 
 
 I therefore searched eagerly for ancient mo- 
 numents; and though I failed to discover 
 
 
 
TIIK MIRROR. 
 
 205 
 
 I any in the plain itself, yet across the river, at 
 the distance of about three farsakhs, on the 
 road to Sulei'maniyah, I heard of sculptures 
 and statues which would well merit the atten- 
 tion ot any future travellers in this country.” 
 The Major now enters upon a territory rife 
 of interest to the Biblical scholar. lie says : 
 
 I “ The series of valleys which extend along 
 | the great chain of Zagros to the confines of 
 I Sustana, and are divided by a line of parallel 
 ridges from the plains of Assyria, form one of 
 the least-known, and at the same time one of 
 the most interesting countries of tire East. 
 Here was the original seat of the Elamites, 
 when they migrated from Babylon ; and from 
 hence they spread their conquests over Su- 
 siana, and the adjoining districts to the east- 
 ward, which thus assumed the title of Ely- 
 mais. The Elymseans are distinctly spe- 
 cified by Strabo, in numerous passages, as 
 inhabiting along Mount Zagros, on the sou- 
 thern coufiues of Media, and overhanging 
 Babylonia and Susiana. The most ancient 
 name of the country appears to have been the 
 plain of Anoch, from whence the king of the 
 Elymseans came to the assistance of the As- 
 syrian monarch at Nineveh. His capital I 
 believe to have been the very city of Zarnah, 
 the ruins of which I have just described ; for 
 I have discovered that as late as the thir- 
 j teenth century of Christ, it actually retained 
 the name of Aryuhan. I also suspect that 
 this same place represents the Hura of the 
 captivity, which must certainly be looked for 
 in this vicinity.” 
 
 Between Kirmansliah and Susiana is situ- 
 ated the Lesser Luhstan, (Pushti-kuh,) where 
 j the chief of a tribe of Kurds received him 
 | very kindly : — 
 
 “ I was much pleased with the frank and 
 open demeanour of my host, so strikingly at 
 variance with the mean und cringing cour- 
 tesy of the Persians, and even, though in a 
 less degree, of the Kirmanshah Kurds. He 
 welcomed me to his tent with every evidence 
 of disinterested kindness, and seemed to tax 
 his powers to the utmost to do honour to his 
 Firingi guest. These black goals’- hair tents 
 are of all sizes, from the petty cabin of the 
 ra’yat to the spacious and commodious abode 
 of the Aakem. The size of the tent is com- 
 puted according to the number of poles, which 
 often extend to ten or twelve, at the distance 
 of about twenty feet from each other. A 
 large apartment is thus formed, which is di- 
 vided into a number of different chambers by 
 means of matting ; and the Diwcin-Khanah, 
 Anderun, place for servants, kitchen, stable, 
 and sheep-fold, are thus all included under 
 the same roof. Around the Diwan-Khanah 
 are spread coarse carpets of l'liyat manufac- 
 ture, and in the centre is dug a deep square 
 I hole for the fire ; in the tent of Jemshld Beg, 
 the hole was filled with chips and logs of 
 wood, and above were piled huge branches 
 
 of trees, to the height of several feet, and the 
 mass of combustibles, when ignited, threw 
 out, as may be supposed, sucli a heat, that it 
 was with difficulty 1 could remain in the 
 tent.” 
 
 it appears that the piince of Luristan is a 
 fVali, and of most intolerant spirit, and that 
 it would be perilous for any European to at- 
 tempt a survey of that country, unless accom- 
 panied, as was Major Rawliuson, by a body 
 
 of armed men. On his route Major R 
 
 visited the lesser Stis, or Susa. 
 
 “ I had been very anxious, on visiting Sus, 
 to obtain a correct copy of the famous bilin- 
 gual inscription upon the black stone, which 
 was said to be preserved at the tomb of Daniel, 
 und which had always appeared to me of the 
 greatest importance to verify the recent dis 
 coveries regarding the cuneiform character : 
 I was extremely disappointed, therefore, to 
 find that this most precious relic no longer 
 existed. It is well known that the inha- 
 bitants of Susiana attached the most profound 
 reverence to this extraordinary stone, aud 
 fiercely resented any attempt to rob them of 
 it, believing that the prosperity of the pro- 
 vince depended upon its remaining in their 
 hands. After the failure of Sir Robert Gor 
 don to obtain possession of it, in 1812, it re- 
 mained buried for some years to secure it 
 from observation, but having been disinterred 
 by the guardians of the tomb, it appears that 
 in 1832 it was wantonly destroyed by a 
 stranger Sayyid, in the hope of discovering 
 within it some hidden treasure : the whole 
 story is very curious : the fragments (for it 
 was blown to pieces with powder) were care- 
 lully collected, and re-interred within the pre- 
 cincts of the tomb ; but immediately after- 
 wards the province was almost depopulated by 
 the plague : the bridge of Shuster suddenly 
 broke, and the famous dam at Hawizah was 
 carried away; all which disasters were, of 
 course, ascribed to he destruction of the 
 talisman : and as this Sayyid, also, was ge- 
 nerally believed to have been a Firingi in 
 disguise, 1 found the raucour against Euro- 
 peans, in connexion with the black stone, 
 bitter and extensive. The tomb of Daniel 
 has been often described : it is a modern 
 building, ou the banks ot the Snapur river, 
 tor Sliawer, as it is generally called,) imme- 
 diately below the great mound : several bricks, 
 stamped with arrow-headed characters, which 
 have been brought from the ruins, are built 
 into it ; in the court is preserved a capital of 
 whiie marble, also brought from the great 
 mound ; and outside, on the banks ot the 
 stream, are found two blocks, one covered 
 with a mutilated cuneiform iiisciiption, and 
 tire other sculptured with the figures of 
 a man and two lions. 11 
 
 * Among tlie numerous stories relative to this 
 shrine. Major Rawliuson relates the following 
 
 " When Abii Miisa Ash’ari took possession of 
 Sus, in tlie i7tli year of the Uijrali, he dug a canal 
 
206 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 After travelling for a considerable distance 
 along the road Iahadi-Atabeg, (formerly tra- 
 versed by Milhridates,) he arrives at the true 
 Susa— the Shushan of Scripture. 
 
 “ The most interesting spot in all this 
 country, perhaps even in all Persia, is the 
 town of Susan, upon the banks of the Kuran, 
 four farsakhs* to the N.W. of Mai Armir: 
 here also are the ruins of a great city, and 
 from the accounts which I have received of 
 it, it cannot be other than a sister capital of 
 Ecbatana and Persepolis. The city of Susan 
 was principally built upon the right bank of 
 the Kuran, at a point where the course of the 
 river was due W. Forming a semi-circle 
 from the river, and thus enclosing the city, is 
 a range of steep and abrupt hills, through 
 which there is no passage, either along the 
 banks of the river or at other points : a once 
 noble bridge, now almost destroyed, connects 
 this impregnable position with a large mass 
 of ruins upon the left bank of the river, which 
 are again bounded to the S. by another range 
 of hills, extending at both points to the pre- 
 cipitous banks of the Kuran, and traversed 
 by two solitaray passes. On the right bank of 
 the river, near the bridge, are said to be the 
 remains of a magnificent palace ; the ground 
 all around is now planted with orchards, but 
 the general design of the building is to be 
 traced, and many pillars still remain entire. 
 At a short distance from hence, to the N.E. 
 and at the foot of the hills, is the tomb of 
 Daniel ; called Daniayali Akbar, the greater 
 Daniel, in contradistinction to the other tomb 
 at Sus, which is called Dani'yali Asghar, or 
 the lesser Daniel. The building is said to be 
 composed of massive blocks of white marble ; 
 and a large reservoir, formed of the same ma- 
 terials, is in front of the tomb. This is fed 
 by a small stream, which here descends from 
 the hills, and it contains a vast quantity of 
 sacred fish, that are regarded with the most 
 superstitious attachment. Adjoining the tomb 
 is a large slab of marble, engraved with a 
 perfect cuneiform inscription, and many other 
 broken slabs, similarly sculptured, are said 
 lo be found among the ruins.” 
 
 Further on (and with this extract we con- 
 clude the subject,) the Major says : — 
 
 “ I believe that in ancient times, there 
 were two cities of the name of Susan, or Susa, 
 in the province of Susiana — the more an- 
 
 fvom the river of Sliapur. and deposited in a grave at 
 tile bottom of it the coffin which was said to contain 
 the bones of the prophet Daniel, whicli was there 
 held in great veneration, and afterwards letting the 
 water into the artificial bed, effectually secured the 
 grave from profanation. All authors, indeed, agree 
 that the grave was in the lied of the stream, yet 
 Beujamin of Tudela pretends, that in his day, the 
 coffin was suspended over the river to pacify the 
 Jews, upon either side, who were contending for the 
 holy relic. 
 
 * The farsakh is a very uncertain measurement ; 
 but in this part of Persia it may be reckoned at 
 three English miles and three quarters. 
 
 cient, which is the Shushan of Scripture, be- 
 ing situated at Susau on the Kuran, or 
 Elicits ; the other, the Susa of the Greeks, 
 at Sus, near the Kerkhah, or Choaspes. The 
 river of Dizful I consider to be the Coprates ; 
 the A'oi-Zard, and its continuation the Jer- 
 rahi, the Hedyphon, or Hedypnus ; and the 
 united arms of the Kuran and Dizful river, 
 the real Pasitigris. 
 
 “ And firstly, with regard to Susan — the 
 very expression of Scripture, ‘ Shusan, the 
 palace,’ would appear indicative of a dis- 
 tinction from some other city of the same \ 
 name. Daniel, be it remembered, was in the j. 
 palace, yet he saw the vision on the borders 
 of the U'iai, and heard the voice between 
 the hanks of the river. From the mound of 
 Sus the Kerkhah is 1£ mile distant, but at 
 Susan the river does actually lave the base of 
 the great ruin .” — Geographical Journal. 
 
 ON THE ORIGIN OF “ OLD NICK.” 
 
 The application of this term to the swarthy 
 father of evil has never yet been satisfactorily 
 accounted for ; it is doubtful whether it ever 
 will, and what can be produced as likely to 
 settle all controversy, may yet be questioned 
 and doubted. Some authors are for carrying 
 the origin up to the celebrated Nicholas 
 Machiavel, whose cunning policy in the six- 
 teenth century, was noted and proverbial, 
 “ He is as cunning as Old Nick,” was then 
 a common saying, but how it ever came to be 
 transferred to his Satanic majesty is left in 
 mystery. 
 
 The following remarks on the probable 
 origin of the expression, may perhaps ap- 
 pear more apposite, and though I will by 
 no means undertake to vouch for their ve- 
 racity, yet feel inclined to defend their pro- 
 bability. 
 
 According to Keysler, in his “ de Dea 
 Nebateunia,” the ancient Germans and 
 Danes were in the habit of worshipping a 
 deity, by name Nocca, or Nicken, and which 
 name he derives from the German nugen, sy- 
 nonymous with the Latin necare, to kill. 
 This deity presided in some way over the 
 water ; and were it not for Warnius, who 
 makes mention of the same deity, we should 
 be at a loss to know whether the god were 
 propitious, or the reverse. In the course 
 of his notice, however, Wornius alludes to 
 the popular belief then prevalent, that the red- 
 ness in the face peculiar to drowned persons 
 was occasioned by this god, who sucked the 
 breath out of the body of the struggling 
 victim. 
 
 This circumstance seems to be a corrobo- 
 ration of my belief, that such is the origin of 
 the term. The Daqes invaded England, — - 
 with them they brought their language and 
 peculiarities ; what more probable then, that 
 this appellation is handed down to us, like 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 207 
 
 many others of their words, and that as 
 Christianity dispelled the absurdities of su- 
 perstition, it was at length applied to the 
 monarch of the infernal regions. H. M. 
 
 dftne !Ertsf. 
 
 THE SUFFOLK STREET GALLERY. 
 
 The private view of the sixteenth exhi- 
 bition of the works of “ The Society of 
 British Artists,” was on Saturday last ; and 
 with inexpressible pleasure we then beheld a 
 rich display of native talent that only wants 
 fostering to render it superior to any other 
 school of the present day. The catalogue 
 contains 766 specimens of art : and among 
 the numerous examples of inventive genius, 
 we noticed : — 
 
 113. The Prodigal's Return. E. Pren- 
 tis. — An interior, representing the spend- 
 thrift’s return to his parents : he is seen 
 kneeling before them, and conscious of his 
 misconduct, hides his face with his hands, 
 whilst his sister is supplicating her father’s 
 forgiveness; he stands with his hand in his 
 bosom, ‘ looking unutterable tilings’, yet 
 his features clearly tell that he feels half 
 inclined to yield to the intreaties of his dar- 
 ling girl. On his left sits the mother, with 
 stretched-out arms to receive her truant 
 son ; her sickened appearance clearly indi- 
 cates the suffering she has undergone through 
 his misconduct : but she has already par- 
 doned him, for like a mother — she is ail love 
 — all forgiveness ! The painter has also 
 thrown into the countenance of the aged 
 nurse, who stands at the door, looks of 
 earnest anxiety. In this beautiful and truly 
 sentimental picture, Woman shines forth 
 in all her purity, — displaying the divine 
 attributes of God — mercy and forgiveness ! 
 It is a painting of intense feeling and deep 
 interest. 
 
 128. Folkstone, Kent. J. Wilson. A 
 pleasing and refreshing view from the sea, 
 of this ancient and once celebrated, but 
 now neglected, town ; its picturesque loca- 
 lities, however, must at all times render it an 
 object worthy of an artist’s study. 
 
 143. Scene near ffeybridge, Surrey. 
 R. Hilder. — A cabinet picture, handled with 
 great delicacy of touch, and truth of nature. 
 
 184. A Light Breeze. J. Wilson. — A 
 sweet brilliant silvery gem. 
 
 189. Portrait of G. He?ieage, Esq. Mrs. 
 J. Robertson. — Whole length, with his 
 arm on a charger. The attitudes extremely 
 graceful. In the manner of Vandyke. 
 
 207. J- Allen. — A delightful composition: 
 woody scenery, with cows in the foreground, 
 fording a brook, whose pellucid stream 
 seems inviting the cattle to allay their thirst; 
 the undulating background shows great 
 
 power of handling, whilst the rich autumnal 
 tints, blending delightfully with the young 
 rich foliage, reminds the spectator of Ruys- 
 dael’s magic touches. A truly splendid gal- 
 lery picture. 
 
 449. A Fresh Breeze. J. Wilson. — 
 Equal in genius to Mr. Wilson’s “ light 
 breeze,” No. 184. 
 
 461. Deer Stealer in his bothie. C. Han- 
 cock. — We here perceive the wily trespasser 
 safely ensconced within his retreat, about to 
 slake his thirst with a soop of drink ; whilst 
 his countenance forcibly portrays the work- 
 ings of a guilty conscience, brooding over his 
 unlawful calling : his grateful and sincere 
 friend, the dog, is looking with glee on his 
 master, who affectionately grasps his foot : 
 the deer and dogs in the foreground are 
 well grouped ; and the children in the back- 
 ground in true perspective. In this, as it 
 ought to be in all paintings, the mind of the 
 master is pre-eminent : the colouring chaste, 
 and the effect natural. 
 
 478. The Gamblers. T. Clater. — An 
 humble interior : two men — a flat and a 
 sharp — playing at cards ; the vacant look, 
 nay even the throwing out of the leg of the 
 simpleton, tells you how ignorant he is of the 
 games of chance, whilst the roguish counte- 
 nance of his opponent — his attitude, the 
 intense anxiety and interest he displays, 
 — his cheatingly handing a card to a boy 
 behind his chair, forcibly tell the story, and of 
 the evils of gambling, which, however inno- 
 cent they may at first appear, too often end 
 in the most horrid and deadly crimes. The 
 primitive innocence of the naked infant in 
 its nurse's lap, forms a fine contrast with the 
 troubled features of the gamblers in the fore- 
 ground. There is much to admire in this 
 specimen. 
 
 433. Gipsies — moonlight. E. Williams* 
 sen. — A difficult subject, handled with con- 
 summate skill and effect. 
 
 450. Group of Children. 
 
 451. Group of Children. V H. Biefield. 
 
 452. Children riding. y 
 
 Three spirited miniature representations 
 of happy juvenile amusements ; highly and 
 tenderly coloured. 
 
 There are very many other attractive 
 views, landscapes, and domestic scenes, in the 
 Gallery, which we shall reserve for future 
 notice. 
 
 The society has made an excellent arrange- 
 ment for a night exhibition, between 8 and 
 10 o’clock, for the accommodation of those 
 who cannot encroach upon their day’s time 
 to gratify their taste. 5; 
 
 THE DRAWINGS OF THE MUSEE ROYAL. 
 
 The above drawings, from which the engra- 
 vings were made for the “Mustie Royal’’ — 
 
208 
 
 THE MIlJltOK. 
 
 that celebrated work which has elevated the 
 fine arts in Paris, were exhibited on Satur- 
 day last, at Messrs. Hodgson and Gra'-es’ 
 spacious rooms in Pall Mall. They consist 
 of 150 copies of the great masters, the ori- 
 ginals of which formerly embellished the 
 walls of the Louvre. It is impossible to 
 speak too highly of the almost magic deli- 
 cacy of touch of these really wonderful Draw- 
 ings : the exhibition was a rich treat to the 
 lovers of art. 
 
 Near the Ghorde (a hunting seat of the 
 Electors of Hanover,) is the corner of a 
 forest called the “ Jammen Holy,” or Wood 
 of Groans. George II. once hunting near it, 
 is said to have heaid at a small distance a 
 dismal cry, and directing his horse to the 
 spot, found a Vendee peasant, who was bury- 
 ing his father alive. The monarch shud- 
 dered with horror.; but the Vendee assured 
 him he was only complying with the practice 
 of his country, which, however, required 
 secrecy for fear of the Germans amongst 
 whom he lived. H. M. 
 
 The mistakes of a layman are like the er- 
 rors of a pocket watch, which affects oniy an 
 individual ; but when a clergyman errs, it is 
 like the town-clock going wrong — he misleads 
 a multitude. 
 
 It is said that the year 1839 will cut a 
 greater figure in the world than any of its 
 predecessors. 
 
 Friendship, the wine of life, should, like a 
 well-stocked cellar, be continually renewed ; 
 and it is consolatory to think, that although 
 we can seldom add what will equal the gene- 
 rous first growth of our youth, yet friendship 
 becomes insensibly old in much less time 
 than is commonly imagined, and not many 
 years are required to make it mellow and plea- 
 sant: warmth will no doubt make a veiy con- 
 siderable difference ; men of affectionate 
 temper and bright fancy, will coalesce a great 
 deal sooner than those who are dull and 
 cold. — Boswell. 
 
 The torrent and the blast can mar the 
 loveliest scenes in nature. War, with bis 
 ruthless hand, may rival the elements in then- 
 work of destruction ; but it is passion alone 
 that can lay waste the human heart : the 
 whirlwind and the flood have duration in 
 their existence, and have bounds for their fury ; 
 the earth recovers from the devastation of the 
 conflict with a fertility that seems enriched by 
 the blood of its victims ; but there are feelings 
 that no human agency can limit, and mental 
 wounds which are beyond the art of mar, to 
 heal. — Cooper. 
 
 At a sale at Mr. Sotheby's rooms, on 
 Monday, 18th inst., of the miscellaneous 
 library of the late Edmund Lodge, Esq., 
 
 Clarenceux King-at-Arms, the following cu- 
 rious itiul unique volume was purchased by 
 Mr. Bent, of the Aldine Chambers, Pater- 
 noster-row, for the sum of £ )3 . 10s-. : — 
 “ The Mirour of Maiestie, or the Badges of 
 Honour conceitedly emblazoned, with em- 
 blems annexed, poetically unfolded, by H. G., 
 remarkably fine copy, in half morocco. — Lon- 
 don, printed by W. ]., 1618. — 1 he only other 
 impression of it which has occurred for sale, 
 or even known, was in the White Knight 
 collection, where it sold lor r£18. It was 
 resold at Perry’s sale for £\7 1 7-s ; and 
 again in Heber’s collection for £7 10s. Ihe 
 title of that copy was reprinted, and the 
 imprint was different from the present, inde- 
 pendent of the date being altered to 1619.” 
 
 The New Art. — Mr. J. F. Huvell and Mr. 
 Willmore (the engravers) have, by covering 
 glass with etching ground and smoke, 
 sketched designs upon it. Through the glass 
 thus exposed by the scratches, the photogenic 
 paper receives the light, and the design, 
 which the sun may be said to print, may be 
 multiplied with perfect identity tor ever ! 
 Designs thus produced will probably become 
 much more common, and even more- gene- 
 rally applicable, than lithography, because 
 all the means are more readily accessible, 
 whilst it wilt receive its rank as an art, and 
 be excellent in proportion to the skill of the 
 artist, as a draftsman, with the etching 
 needle. The size need no longer be kept 
 down by that of the printing-press, as the 
 size of the glass can alone limit the size of 
 the design. This is u real and valuable dis- 
 covery, applicable to a thousand purposes. 
 It is reported that Mr. Havell, and his bro- 
 ther, the well-known painters, have suc- 
 ceeded in giving some true colours, also, to 
 their productions, by the action ot light. 
 Beautiful imitations of washed bistre draw- 
 ings may be produced, by stopping out the 
 light on the glass by black varnish, which 
 will obstruct the transmission of light in pro- 
 portion to the thickness with which the var- 
 nish is laid on ; and specimens like tine 
 mezzotinto prints have been produced by 
 this process. — Literary Gazette. 
 
 The revolution of France, and the total 
 destruction of the names of men, all_ titles ot 
 nobility, and all the religious orders, was an 
 event so manifestly predicted by St. John in 
 the Revelations, that a hundred ^ears beJore 
 its occurrence, a Frenchman, of -the name ot 
 Pierre Jurieu, wrote a book, positively men- 
 tioning the French revolution and all conco- 
 mitant circumstances, and even, by calcula- 
 tion, fixed the year, only claiming a latitude 
 often years, from 1780 to 1790. H. M. 
 
 
 
 
 LONDON : Printed and published by J. LIMBlllD, 
 143. Strand, (near Somerset House) ; and sold by 
 all Booksellers and A t ubmen — In P/1HJS, by all 
 the Booksellers . — In TRAACtUH l , CiiV-i isl.HS 
 JKihL. 
 
€i)C ffttrm 
 
 ov 
 
 LITERATURE. AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION. 
 
 No. 543.] SATURDAY, APRIL 6, 1839. [Prick 2 d . 
 
 Voi.. xxxin. 
 
210 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 CHELSEA BUN-HOUSE. 
 
 This Bun-House, whose fame has extended 
 throughout the land, was first established 
 about the beginning of the last century ; for, 
 as early as 1712, it is thus mentioned by the 
 celebrated Dean Swift : — “ Pray are not the 
 fine buns sold here in our town, as the rare 
 Chelsea buns ? I bought one to-day in my 
 walk,” &c. 
 
 The building consists of one story, fifty 
 feet long, and fourteen feet wide. It pro- 
 jects into the high-way in an unsightly man- 
 ner, in form of a colonade, affording a very 
 agreeable shelter to the passenger in un- 
 favourable weather. 
 
 The whole premises are condemned to be 
 pulled down immediately, to make way for 
 the proposed improvements of Chelsea and 
 its neighbourhood, the bill for which is in 
 committee of the House of Commons, under 
 the superintendance of that most active 
 member, Sir Matthew Wood. 
 
 It was the fashion formerly for the royal 
 family, and the nobility and gentry, to visit 
 Chelsea Bun-House in the morning. His 
 Majesty King George the Second, Queen 
 Caroline, and the Princesses, frequently ho- 
 noured the elder Mrs. Hand with their 
 company. 
 
 Their late Majesties King George III. 
 and Queen Charlotte, were also much in the 
 habit of frequenting the Bun-House when 
 their children were young, and used to 
 alight and sit to look around and admire the 
 place and passing scene. The Queen pre- 
 sented Mrs. Hand with a silver half-gallon 
 mug, richly enchaced, with five guineas in 
 it, as a mark of her approbation for the 
 attentions bestowed upon her during these 
 visits : this testimonial was kept a long time 
 in the family. 
 
 On the morning of Good Friday, the Bun- 
 house used to present a scene of great bustle ; 
 it was opened as early as four o’clock ; and 
 the concourse of people was so great, that 
 it was difficult to approach the house ; it has 
 been estimated that more than fifty thousand 
 persons have assembled in the neighbourhood 
 before eight in the morning ; at length it 
 was found necessary to shut it up partially, 
 in order to prevent the disturbances and 
 excesses of the immense unruly and riotous 
 London mob which congregated on those 
 occasions. Hand-bills were printed, and 
 constables stationed to prevent a recurrence 
 of these scenes. 
 
 Whilst Ranelagh was in fashion, the Bun- 
 House was much frequented by the visitors 
 of that celebrated temple of pleasure ; but 
 after the failure of Ranelagh, the business 
 fell off in a great degree, and dwindled into 
 insignificance. 
 
 INTERIOR OF CHELSEA BUN-HOUSE. 
 
 The interior was formerly fitted up in a 
 very singular and grotesque style, being fur- 
 
 nished with fore'gu clocks, and many na- 
 tural and artificial curiosities from abroad ; 
 but most of these articles have disappeared 
 since the decease of Mrs. Hand. 
 
 At the upper end of the shop is placed, in 
 a large glass-case, a model of Radcliffe 
 Church, at Bristol, cut out very curiously 
 and elaborately in paste-board ; but the 
 upper towers, pinnacles, &e. resemble more an 
 eastern mosque than a Christian church. 
 
 Over the parlour door is placed an eques- 
 trian coloured statue, in lead, of William, the 
 great Duke of Cumberland, in the military 
 costume of the year 1745, taken just after the 
 celebrated battle of Culloden : it is eighteen 
 inches in height. 
 
 On each side stand two grenadier guards, 
 presenting arms, and in the military dress 
 of the above period, with their high sugar- 
 loaf-caps, long-flap coats, and broad gerilles, 
 and old-fashioned muskets, presenting a 
 grotesque appearance, when compared with 
 the neat short-cut military trim of the present 
 day. These figures are also cast in lead, 
 and coloured ; are near four feet high, and 
 weigh each about two hundred weight. 
 
 Underneath, on the wall, is suspended 
 a whole-length portrait, much admired by 
 connoisseurs, of Aurengzebe, Emperor of 
 Persia. This is probably the work of an 
 Italian artist, but his name is unknown. 
 
 After the death of Mrs. Hand, the business 
 was carried on by her son, who was an 
 eccentric character, and used to dress in a 
 very peculiar manner, ; he dealt largely in 
 butter which he carried about the streets in 
 a basket on his head ; hot or cold, wet or 
 dry, throughout the year, the punctual but- 
 terman made his appearance at the door, and 
 gained the esteem of every one by his cheer- 
 ful aspect and entertaining conversation ; for 
 he was rich in village anecdote, and could 
 relate all the vicissitudes of the neighbour- 
 hood for more than half a century. 
 
 After his decease, his elder brother came 
 into the possession of the business : he had 
 been bred a soldier, and was at that time 
 one of the poor knights of Windsor, and was 
 remarkable for his eccentric manners and 
 costume. He left no family, nor relations, in 
 consequence of which his property reverted 
 to the crown. 
 
 ON THE ORIGIN OF BUNS. 
 
 Hutchinson, in his History of Northum- 
 berland, following Mr. Bryant’s Analysis, 
 derives the Good Friday Bun from the sacred 
 cakes which were offered at the Arkite Tem- 
 ples, styled Bonn, and presented every 
 seventh day. “ The offerings,” says Mr. 
 Bryant, “ which people in ancient times used 
 to present to the Gods, were generally pur- 
 chased at the entrance of the Temple ; espe- 
 cially every species of consecrated bread, 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 211 
 
 which was denominated accordingly. One 
 species of sacred bread which used to be 
 offered to the Gods was of great antiquity, 
 and called Bonn. Hesychius speaks of the 
 Boun, and describes it a kind of cake, with 
 a representation of two horns. Julius Pol- 
 lux mentions it after the same manner, a 
 sort of cakes with horns. Diogenes Laertius, 
 speaking of the same offering being made by 
 Empedocles, describes the chief ingredients 
 of which it was composed. “ He offered one 
 of the sacred Liba, called a Bouse, which 
 was made of fine flour and honey.” It is 
 said of Cecrops, (1556 years before Christ,) 
 that he first offered up this sort of sweet bread. 
 
 Hence we may judge of the antiquity of 
 the custom, from the times to which Cecrops 
 is referred. The prophet Jeremiah takes 
 notice of this kind of offering, when he is 
 speaking of the Jewish women at Pathros, 
 in Egypt, and of their base idolatry ; in all 
 which their husbands had encouraged them. 
 The women, in their expostulation upon his 
 rebuke, tell him : “ Did we make her cakes to 
 worship her ?” Jerern. xliv. 18, 19 ; vii. 18. 
 “ Small loaves of bread,” Mr. Hutchinson ob- 
 serves, “ peculiar in their form, being long 
 and sharp at both ends, are called Buns.” 
 These he derives as above, and concludes : 
 “ We only retain the name and form of the 
 Bonn, the sacred uses are no more.”* 
 
 A writer in the Gentleman’s Magazine, 
 vol. liii. for July 1783, p. 578, speaking of 
 Cross Buns , f in Passion week, observes, that 
 “ these being, formerly at least, unleavened, 
 may have a retrospect to the unleavened bread 
 of the Jews, in the same manner as Lamb at 
 Easter to the Pascal Lamb. ” 
 
 SHE’S LAID IN THE EARTH! 
 
 She’s laid iu the earth ! but her bright spirit soars 
 To the regions of bliss, from these sorrowful shores ; 
 She moved, in her beauty, an angel while here. 
 
 And 1 saw she was form’d for a happier sphere. 
 
 Oh, sad are the sighs for her absence I heave. 
 
 And sad are my tears— though ’tis fruitless to grieve; 
 Yet oft, through the dark mists of sorrow, 1 see 
 In fancy, my Mary still smiling on me ! 
 
 Wherever I go, there’s no object I trace 
 
 Can tear from my mind her loved form or her face ; 
 
 Nor time can my soul in forgetfulness steep ; 
 
 Her dream- wafted image still smiles on my sleep. 
 
 In nights calm and clear, ’mid the bright orbs I try 
 To trace her blest home in the beautiful sky ; 
 
 And 1 gaze ou some star, till in fancy I see 
 Her far-shining spirit still smiling on me ! 
 
 * Brand’s Popular Antiquities, vol- 1, pp. 132-3. 
 4lo. 1813 
 
 f Tiiese are constantly marked with the form of 
 a cross. Indeed the country people iu many parts 
 of England make, with a knife, many little cross 
 marks on their cakes, before they put them into the 
 oven. I have no doubt but that this too, trifling as 
 the remark may appear, is a remain of Popery. Thus, 
 also, persons who cannot write, instead of signing 
 their names, are directed to make their marks, which 
 is generally done in tire form of a cross. From ttie 
 form of a cross at the beginning of a horn-book, the 
 alphabet is called the Christ-Cross Row. — Brand. 
 
 CURIOSITY.’ 
 
 Who hath not felt 
 
 Its spirit, and before its altar knelt ? 
 
 In the pleased infant, see its power expand. 
 
 When first the coral fills its little liana ; 
 
 Throned in its mother’s lap, it dries each tear. 
 
 As her sweet legertd falls upon his eav ; 
 
 * # * » * 
 
 Nor yet alone to toys and tales confined. 
 
 It sits dark brooding o’er his embryo mind : 
 
 Take him between your knees, peruse his face, 
 While all you know, or think you know, you trace; 
 Tell him who spoke creation into birth. 
 
 Arched the broad heavens, and spread the rolling 
 earth ; 
 
 Who formed a pathway for the obedient sun. 
 
 And bade the seasons in their circle run ; 
 
 Who filled the air, the forest, and the flood ; 
 
 And gave man all, for comfort, or for food. 
 
 SpRAOttE. 
 
 THE MOATED HOUSE. 
 
 (For the Mirror .) 
 
 " The rudest remnant of a feudal tower, — even the 
 obscure and almost undistinguisliable vestige of an 
 almost, unknown edifice ; has power to awaken trains 
 of fancy. We have a fellow interest with the ‘ son 
 of the winged days,’ over whose fallen habitation we 
 tread .” — Sir (Valter Scott. 
 
 “ The massy stones, though hewn most roughly, show 
 
 The hand of man had once at least been there.’’ 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 “ And here,” said Mr. , “ was the Moat, 
 
 extending round these green hillocks ; they 
 plainly here divide where a gateway has 
 been.” A few twisted willows, which for 
 many generations have braved the changing 
 seasons, there drop their branches over what 
 has now dwindled to a rivulet, not seen, but 
 heard to murmur, underneath the long grass, 
 now and then glittering in the sunbeam, and 
 even in winter scarcely visible, is all that 
 now remains of the “Moat.” Some three 
 or four hundred years ago, it was deep and 
 dangerous, fenced by precipitous banks, und 
 only passable by a draw-bridge, which was 
 solemnly lowered by the warder to give ac- 
 cess to the knight or baron bold, who sought 
 audience of the then lord of the domain. Of 
 their deeds tradition is silent, their very 
 names are forgotten, — rumour only tells, that 
 here a Moated House has been. No mo- 
 nument in the village church exists to point 
 out their final resting-place, except it be one 
 in an obscure corner, which tells in almost 
 illegible characters, that about “ Ye year 
 1600, Peter and Eleanor Baldwin departed 
 this life.” These Baldwins were, in ages 
 past, the hereditary possessors of the Moated 
 House, so “grey tradition” tells, “and 
 doubtless were renowned in their day,” 
 whispered Fancy, showing the tip of her 
 magic wand, which, as I pursued my way 
 to the dry Moat, and the green hillocks 
 which it surrounded, was fast changing them 
 into a peopled domain of other times and 
 manners, and giving to dim phantasies a 
 “ local habitation and a name.” Musing on 
 what might have been the state of things in 
 this place, some three or four centuries back, 
 P 2 
 
212 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 one dreamy day, in the “leafy month of 
 June,” when the mounds were clothed with 
 h carpet of daisies, and the long grass at the 
 Moat’s edge waved to the gentle air, — when 
 sights and sounds combined — the faint sing- 
 ing of birds, the whispering willows, and 
 the murmuring brook, to induce that state of 
 mind which shuts out present things, and 
 sends the “ lonely wandering thoughts” to 
 speculate on the deeds of other days, even 
 then, as by the touch of an enchanter’s wand, 
 did my waking dream transform the grassy 
 hollow before me into a veritable Moat, 
 broad and dark, with a heavy gateway on 
 one side, which was flanked by two small 
 towers, with portcullis and draw bridge. In- 
 stead of the meadow, a huge gothic mansion 
 filled up the space which it enclosed. It was 
 a building partly of grey stone, and part of 
 brick — at one corner were the decayed re- 
 mains of a tower of still more remote origin. 
 There was a battlemented roof— the windows 
 were high and narrow, and in many of them 
 the red rose of the house of Lancaster was 
 emblazoned with the arms of the family of 
 Baldwin, — an eagle shielding a dove, in a 
 field azure. There were emblems of the 
 same regal flower combined with the crest 
 carved on many of the thick window-frames, 
 from which an inference might be drawn, 
 that a Baldwin had, during the wars of the 
 Rival Roses, been zealous for proud Boling- 
 broke, or for brave Harry of Agincourt. 
 The principal entrance was a broad stone 
 porch, with carved oaken benches ; ivy and 
 woodbine, mingled with wall-flower, spread 
 over the pointed archway. The heavy door 
 stood open, and gave to view beyond, a hall 
 paved with black and white marble ; the light 
 fell dimlyupon this pavement, through narrow 
 Gothic windows in deep recesses. There were 
 the oaken stairs, shining brightly, with broad 
 banisters ; dark figures of by- gone members 
 of the house of Baldwin adorned the walls; 
 The grim features of Sir Hugh, attired as a 
 judge ; next to him hung a print of the Bat- 
 tle of Bosworth Field ; in it were depicted a 
 troop of soldiers bearing off the dead body 
 of the royal homicide ; still further in, an 
 open door gave a dim view of a low-browed 
 apartment, in which, from a window shaded 
 by tall trees, the light fell on a picture of 
 Mary Queen of Scots, at the side of which 
 hung a green curtain for the purpose of 
 concealment. 
 
 By one of those sudden changes which 
 characterize the world of dreams, I found 
 myself standing before the porch or en- 
 trance. A porter’s lodge was on the right, 
 and, on a stone seat at the door, reclined this 
 functionary, in earnest whispered colloquy 
 with a serving-man, attired in the stiff doublet 
 and hose of Elizabeth’s reign. A large mas- 
 tiff and two other dogs lay basking in the 
 sun at their feet. “ It cannot be Ralph ! — 
 it cannot be,” quoth the porter, with a look 
 
 of horror, “ that her highness, our sovereign 
 Lady Elizabeth, should give her consent to 
 so cruel a deed. I tell you, Ralph, we live 
 too far out of the world to know what is 
 doing there. The deeds now acting at 
 Fotheringay are not likely to be known to 
 such as we are. For my own part, I make 
 it a rule to abstain from prying too narrowly 
 into the secrets of my betters ; still, I did 
 remark, that my master, Sir Peter Baldwin, 
 (heaven prosper him!) added to the prayers 
 last night, that her majesty might be kept 
 from further shedding of blood.” — “ Amen ! 
 say I to that,” responded Ralph, “ there 
 hath been too much already ; there was, first, 
 that sweet innocent, Lady Jane Grey, and 
 her youthful husband ; there was Essex, the 
 noblest and the bravest gentleman that ever 
 fell beneath the murderous axe ; and, now, 
 this fearful trial at Fotheringay. — I fear it will 
 go hard with the poor captive there. My lady 
 and Mrs. Beatrice are sorely distressed ; for, 
 you know,” said Ralph, lowering to a 
 whisper, “ my lady is of the Popish persua- 
 sion, and came to England with the poor 
 queen as one of her attendants.” The con- 
 versation here suddenly ceased ; the speakers 
 rose, and doff’d their caps with much reve- 
 rence ; for, issuing from the porch, appeared 
 two ladies, one young, the other elderly, with 
 an expression of intense anxiety on her still 
 fine features: she had a cross and rosary 
 suspended from her girdle, and partially con- 
 cealed by her dress. They passed with hur- 
 ried steps out of the porch, and along a 
 terrace which led to the moat. They looked 
 anxiously in the direction of a road which 
 wound away amongst woods and wild moors 
 until it was lost in the distance. They gazed 
 until the curfew bell sounded its melan- 
 choly chimes from the church tower hard 
 by. Suddenly two horsemen came in view ; 
 the draw-bridge was lowered ; the elder lady 
 hastened to meet them. “ What news ? — 
 What news ? delay not to tell me, I conjure 
 you, Sir Peter !”— “ So perish all the enemies 
 of Queen Elizabeth, and of our holy and 
 reformed faith !” said the knight, solemnly. 
 “ What mean you ?” said the lady, with 
 clasped hands and pale lips. “ I mean, 
 Eleanor,’’ said her husband, “ that though 
 all manly and feeling hearts do grieve that 
 royalty and beauty should have so dire a 
 departure, still every loyal subject, and every 
 friend to true religion, must rejoice that the 
 plotting heads, who would have filled the 
 land with anarchy and blood, are laid low. 
 For Scotland’s ill-starred queen my heart 
 cannot but bleed. She died, Eleanor, with 
 regal dignity ; and, oh ! more than that, with 
 Christian resignation ; and may heaven re- 
 ceive her soul !” The grief of his auditress 
 here became so painful to witness, that I 
 felt a sympathetic rising of emotion in my 
 own breast, but in the effort to address the 
 stately lady the spell was broken. The 
 
THE MIRROR, 
 
 213 
 
 breeze was still waving the long grass, and 
 gighing amongst the willows ; but where, in the 
 world of phantasy, the old mansion stood, a 
 milkmaid was pursuing her task and singing 
 a plaintive ballad, all unconscious of the 
 loves and hatreds, the joys and sorrows, felt 
 here in long-gone years by those who have 
 passed from the scene, and, like the “ base- 
 less fiibric of my dream, left not a wreck 
 behind !” {To be continued.) 
 
 Kirton, Lindsey. Anne R — . 
 
 PROGRESS OF SCIENCE AND PRO- 
 CEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
 
 Mr. A. II. Davis, writing from Adelaide, 
 South Australia, mentions his seeing there 
 an extraordinary procession of caterpillars. 
 They somewhat resembled in form the cater- 
 pillars of the great tigermoth, ( Arctia Caja,) 
 had a profusion of white hairs, and the body 
 about 2^ inches in length, of a dark brown 
 colour, with paler lines. These caterpillars 
 were seen on the third of last May, crossing 
 a road in single file, each so close to its pre- 
 decessor as to convey the idea that they were 
 united together, moving like a living cord in 
 a continuous undulating line. At about fifty 
 from the end of the line, Mr. Davis having 
 ejected one from its station, the caterpillar 
 immediately before it suddenly stood still, 
 then the next, and then the next, and so on 
 to the leader ; the same result took place to 
 the other extremity. After a pause of a few 
 moments, the first after the break in the line 
 attempted to recover the communication ; 
 this was a work of time and difficulty, but the 
 moment it was accomplished by its touching 
 the one before it, this one communicated the 
 fact to the next in advance, and so on till the 
 information reached the leader, when the 
 whole line was again put in motion. On 
 counting the number of caterpillars, he found 
 it to be 164, and the length of the line twenty- 
 seven feet. He next took the one which he had 
 abstracted from the line, and which remained 
 coiled up, across the line ; it immediately un- 
 rolled itself, and made every attempt to get 
 into the procession ; after many endeavours 
 it succeeded, and crawled in, the one below 
 falling into the rear of the interloper. He 
 subsequently took out two caterpillars, about 
 the fiftieth from the head of the procession ; 
 by his watch he found the intelligence was 
 conveyed to the leader in thirty seconds, each 
 caterpillar stopping at the signal of the one 
 in its rear : the same effect was observable 
 behind the break, each stopping at a signal 
 from the one in advance ; the leader of the 
 second division then attempted to recover the 
 lost connection. That they are unprovided 
 with the senses of sight and smell appeared 
 evident, since the leader turned right and 
 left, and often in a wrong direction when 
 within half an inch of the one immediately 
 before it : when it at last touched the object 
 
 of its search, the fact was communicated 
 again by signal, and in thirty seconds the 
 whole line was in quick march, leaving the 
 two unfortunates behind, who remained per- 
 fectly quiet, without making any attempt to 
 unroll themselves. Mr. Davis was informed 
 that these caterpillars feed on the Eucalyptus, 
 and that when they have completely stripped a 
 tree of its leaves, they congregate on the trunk, 
 and proceed, in procession, to another tree. 
 
 At the Asiatic Society's meeting" on the 
 2nd of March, Dr. Royle and Mr. E. Solly 
 read two distinct papers on the Vegetable 
 Tallow Tree {Valeria Indica) of the Malabar 
 and Canary coasts. This tree, which has 
 been figured and , described by Rheede, is 
 found in the Wynaad and Bednore districts, 
 growing abundantly both in the interior and 
 along the coasts, where it is called the Piney, 
 or Dammar-tree. It grows to a great size, 
 and supplies excellent wood. It also supplies 
 a varnish which is used on the coast in a liquid 
 state ; but, when dry, is commercially termed 
 copal and anime. By boiling the seeds a 
 fatty matter is obtained, which floats on the 
 surface, becomes solid, and somewhat resem- 
 bles tallow, being in its most important cha- 
 racters intermediate between wax and tallow, 
 and well adapted in its properties, as a sub- 
 stitute for common tallow, both in the manu- 
 facture of candles, and likewise for many 
 other purposes to which the latter substance 
 is now exclusively applied. This vegetal 
 tallow emits no disagreeable smell at any 
 time, and, therefore, when candles are made 
 of it, they have not that offensive smell 
 which attends common tallow candles. Dr. 
 Babington placed a portion of this vegetal 
 tallow in the hands of a candle manufacturer, 
 who praised it very highly, he having sue ■ 
 ceeded in making good candles of it, which 
 came freely from the mould. In 1825 it 
 sold at Mangalore, at twopence-halfpenny 
 per pound. Some brought from India, in 
 January 1838, sold for £2 4s. &d. per hun- 
 dred weight — nearly the price given for good 
 Russian tallow. Mr. Solly thought that if 
 it could be obtained at such a price as to 
 admit of its being imported as a substitute 
 for common tallow, its valuable and superior 
 properties would soon obtain it a market. 
 Mr. S. Dyer, of the Madras Medical Service, 
 who had long resided at Tellicherry, states, 
 that the tree will grow readily, even when 
 the branches are put into the ground ; and 
 many of the trees were planted on the road- 
 sides in Malabar, about twenty years since, 
 a greater period than is necessary to bring 
 them to perfection. 
 
 At the same meeting, Mr. F. C. Brown 
 stated that he had seen the tea-plant flou- 
 rishing in the district of Wynaad, on the 
 western ghauts of the peninsular of India. 
 In February, 1834, the late Colonel Crewe 
 gave two Chinese tea-plants to Captain F. 
 
214 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 M inchin, at Manantoddy, the chief place in 
 the Wyuaad district. Here, the two plants, 
 though small and unhealthy, began, in a 
 week or two, to improve; and during the 
 rains between June and September, they 
 produced fresh shoots, and became most 
 healthy plants. On the following year they 
 were fine and bushy, and were in full bloom 
 when the rains set in, in June. Captain 
 Evans found that a cutting from the tea- 
 plant throve equally well at Manantoddy ; 
 and he therefore infers that the soil and 
 climate of the Wynaad district are adapted 
 to its cultivation, as well as a great portion 
 of the tract of land in south-western India, 
 ceded by Tippoo Sultan, having as fertile a 
 soil, of about the same elevation, with a 
 similar climate and temperature. 
 
 Botany . — At the meeting of the Botanical 
 Society, on the I5th of March, a paper was 
 read “ On the species of Tilia, natives of 
 Eyland.” The author, Mr. E. Leas, con- 
 siders the lime-tree is indigenous to Worces- 
 tershire, the borders of Herefordshire, Glou- 
 cestershire, Monmouthshire, and South 
 Wales. At Hamford, near Worcester, on 
 the banks of the Severn, about the western 
 base of the Barrow Hill, near Hartley, on 
 Akenside Hill, near Kuightsford Bridge, on 
 the Tene, as well as among the rocky glens 
 about Pont Nedd Vechan, Glamorganshire, 
 and in various other localities, many very re- 
 markable old lime trees occur, in wild un- 
 cultivated spots. 
 
 Meteorology . — At the meeting of the 
 Boyal Society, on the 21st of March, a letter 
 was read from Sir John Herschell, giving 
 an account of the fall of a meteoric stone, 
 on the 13th of last October. Some time 
 previous to its falling the air was hot and 
 sultry ; a noise like the firing of artillery was 
 heard, and which was followed by the 
 descent of the stone, which, when it fell, was 
 so soft that it could be cut with a knife. 
 Another account of a similar stone, in a 
 letter from Professor Faraday to Sir John 
 Herschell, was likewise read. We may add, 
 that Mr. George Thompson, of Cape Town, 
 has given an account of the same shower of 
 meteoric stones as that during which the 
 specimen referred to by Sir John Herschell 
 tell. 
 
 NEW DISCOVERY. 
 
 We learn from the French journals that M. 
 Colas, the inventor of medallion- imitative- 
 engraving, has recently brought to perfection 
 a means purely mechanical, by which a 
 statue may be copied in any given materia), 
 (and of any dimensions, from the original 
 size down to six lines,) with the most ex- 
 quisite truth and nicety. It is peculiarly 
 fitted for producing fac-similes of ancient and 
 complicated basso-relievos, deviation in any 
 respect from the original being impossible. 
 
 JSoofcsi. 
 
 Births, Deaths, and Marriages . — By Theo- 
 dore Hook. Bentley. 
 
 [Mr. Hook has not the reputation of writing 
 with any deep moral purpose ; but he is a 
 shrewd observer, sees the springs by which the 
 mass of mankind are moved in their inter- 
 course with one another,— and, not disdaining 
 a dash of the caricaturist, — knows how to bring 
 before his readers characters sufficiently true 
 to general nature to invest them with an in- 
 terest ; and by the aid of no ordinary dra- 
 matic tact, and a light easy style, he rarely 
 fails to construct a piquant and amusing nar- 
 rative. In the novel before us the characters 
 of two brothers, the one aiming at success in 
 life through manoeuvring and conformity to 
 the ‘ world the other a rich, selfish, cy- 
 nical old fellow, professing and feeling a tho- 
 rough contempt for anything but himself, are 
 brought into strong relief, and the peculiari- 
 ties of each exhibited in the author’s happiest 
 manner. We shall attempt no sketch of the 
 story, the extract we shall give will show 
 something of its materiel . ] 
 
 The dill’erent courses which the brothers 
 had pursued, had naturally produced a wide 
 and striking difference in their habits and 
 manners, their modes of thinking and acting. 
 Jacob, who had stuck to the shop till it 
 grew into a warehouse — and he himselt was 
 transformed from a trader into a merchant, 
 was one of those men who are coiled, as it 
 were, within themselves, and like that little 
 animal which is classically known, and de- 
 licately called the 07uscus armadillo, roll 
 themselves up out of harm’s way, the mo- 
 ment anything like trouble or danger ap- 
 proaches. 
 
 John, on the contrary, was polished, po- 
 lite, and plausible : he could promise with 
 fluency, and refuse with grace and elegance. 
 He had flirted, and loved, and married a 
 beauty, who had left him a widower with 
 one daughter. All he had to live upon was 
 the well-merited pension which his services 
 [in a government office] had secured him ; 
 nor had he in more profitable times done 
 anything in the way of what Jacob called 
 “ laying by something for a rainy day so 
 that his beautiful and accomplished child, 
 besides her face, figure, and accomplish- 
 ments, had nothing in the way of fortune ex- 
 cept that which her uncle Jacob at his death 
 might bequeath her. 
 
 Hence the frequent invitations of Jacob to 
 John’s house; hence the passive submission 
 with which John heard the lectures of his 
 wealthy relative, feeling at the same time for 
 all his worldly maxims and prudential re- 
 commendations the most sovereign contempt. 
 
 Jacob was perfectly aware of the induce- 
 ments which actuated John in all his pro- 
 ceedings towards him, and chuckled at his 
 own perception, and perhaps at the antici- 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 215 
 
 pation of the disappointment of his brother’s 
 expectations, which after all, might occur. 
 
 “ I tell you, Jack,” continued Jacob, “that 
 you are wrong : — it is nothing to me ; but 
 it’s all nonsense filling the girl’s head with 
 notions of high connexions and titles, and all 
 such trumpery — your carriages and your 
 horses, and your dinners — psha ! you can’t 
 afford it; and what’s worse, you sin with, 
 your eyes open — you know you can’t afford 
 it.” 
 
 “ My dear brother,” said John, who sel- 
 dom ventured to call his impracticable re- 
 lation by his Christian name, “ I really do 
 nothing more than is expected of a man 
 holding a certain place in society.” 
 
 “ Expected by whom ?” said Jacob. 
 
 “ The world,” replied John. 
 
 “ The world !’’ said Jacob. “ Umph ! You 
 mean the two or three hundred families that 
 live up in this part of the town, not one of 
 whom would care if you and your daughter 
 were barred up in Newgate. The world ! — 
 what would the world do for your child if you 
 were to die in debt, as you will ? You are 
 insolvent now, and you know it. All these 
 trumpery things about your rooms, that 
 have cost you mints of money, would ’nt 
 fetch five-and-twenty per cent, of their prime 
 cost at auction, whenever you break up, or 
 die.” 
 
 “ Nay, but — ’’ 
 
 “ Nay but,” said Jacob, “ that’s it: you 
 won’t hear reason. Have you insured your 
 life ?” 
 
 “ Why there’s a difficulty,” said John. 
 
 “ To be sure,” interrupted Jacob : “ you 
 have ruined your constitution by early dis- 
 sipation, and now your life’s not worth a 
 farthing.” 
 
 “ But, my dear brother,” said John, “ it 
 would be impossible to bring Helen forward 
 if I did not indulge a little in the gaieties of 
 the world.” 
 
 “ There goes ‘ the world,’ again,” said 
 Jacob: “ I’m sick of the word.” 
 
 “ When my girl is established,” said John, 
 “ I shall, of course, alter the whole estab- 
 lishment, and live quietly.” 
 
 “ But how is she to be established ?” 
 said Jacob. “She has no money; and 
 where are you to find the man who will take 
 her as he would buy a doll, without a 
 dump ?” 
 
 [The father has two lovers in view — Lord 
 Ellesmere, and Colonel Mortimer, to either 
 of whom he would assign his daughter — (she 
 prefers the Colonel) — the uncle is an advo- 
 cate for an old alderman.] 
 
 “ Colonel Mortimer,” said Jacob, “ is 
 the man, I think, who ran away with some- 
 body’s wife — plays a good deal, runs horses, 
 sails yachts, and all that sort of thing, eh ?” 
 
 “ It is the same Colonel Mortimer,” said 
 John, “ who did all these things, but so en- 
 tirely changed, that not a vestige of his for- 
 
 mer .character remains. He married the 
 lady, who, in point of fact, ran away with 
 him : they subsequently lived happily toge- 
 ther, in the most domestic manner, and he 
 nearly died of an illness brought on by the 
 loss of her.” 
 
 “ Very fine — very fine, indeed !” said 
 Jacob : “ that’s your version of the history, 
 is it ? He runs away with his friend’s wile ; 
 they live domestically — that is, because ‘ the 
 world’ won’t visit her ; 3he dies — perhaps ot 
 a broken heart— and he is near going off the 
 same way from remorse : may’nt that be 
 true ? It’s all nothing to me ; nothing will 
 ever break my heart ; and I never mean to 
 run away with anybody’s wife ; only, if / 
 had a daughter, 1 would sooner cut her legs 
 off than let her marry such a man.” 
 
 “ I assure you,” said John, “ that I have 
 spoken upon this very subject to one or two 
 women of the world.” 
 
 “ The world ! there you go again.” 
 
 “ Well, but what I mean is, women who 
 really understand the ways of society, and 
 they all agree in the eligibility ol the match, 
 and since you doubt the possibility of Helen, 
 without a fortune, marrying a rich man, I 
 may as well say at once that Mortimer has 
 at least ten thousand a-year unencumbered.” 
 « That’s it,” said Jacob — “ there it is. 
 Now I see ; you sell your daughter for her 
 share of ten thousand a-year.” 
 
 “ Nay, but,” said John, “ if Helen is at- 
 tached to him, if the affection be mutual, 
 surely the ten thousand a-year are not ob- 
 jections to her marrying the man who has 
 them.” 
 
 “ Not if the man were what a girl ought 
 to love,” said Jacob. “ Now, Alderman 
 Haddock is a man.” 
 
 “ My dear brother,” said John, “ if you 
 are not joking, do not talk of such a thing.” 
 “ A quiet, comfortable establishment, — 
 every thing her own way,” said Jacob; “ a 
 capital house in Bedford-square, with a nice 
 garden behind, and a beautiful villa close by 
 Hornsey Wood.” 
 
 “ Your picture is tempting, I admit,” said 
 John ; “ but I fear the pursuits of such a 
 life would not be congenial.” 
 
 “ Congenial, — pah !” said Jacob, “ I’ve 
 done. / can’t marry a rake, and have my 
 heart broken : of course, it’s nothing to me. 
 I don’t care for anybody in the world ; only, 
 if I could have got the girl out of harm’s 
 way, and settled her snug and comfortable, 
 it would have been a good job. However, 
 that’s over ; let her marry the Colonel. I 
 know no ill of him ; he never cheated me 
 out of my money — never shall : not to be 
 had. I have no daughter — that’s another 
 good thing : however, I’ll tell Haddock ho 
 has no chance.” 
 
 “ What !” said John, “ did he ever think 
 he had ?” 
 
 “ Think !” said Jacob ; “ what should 
 
216 
 
 THK MIRROR. 
 
 an alderman who has passed the chair, think ? 
 — why exactly as I do — that she would not 
 have hesitated a moment. However, it’s 
 nothing to me : /can’t marry an alderman, 
 so I don’t care; only — ” 
 
 [Subsequently, after some skilful diplo- 
 macy on the part of John Batly, and no 
 small misgiving that the game had slipped 
 through his fingers, the marriage of Helen 
 and the Colonel is effected: by-and-bye 
 John once more turned his thoughts towards 
 matrimony for himself.] 
 
 “ That John Batly should feel disposed 
 to marry again does not seem so extraordi- 
 nary. John had married young, — was a 
 young father, — and as he truly said, the re- 
 lative ages of himself and Helen had, in 
 some degree, alleviated the grief which he 
 felt for the loss of her mother, by placing 
 her in the position of mistress of his house 
 at a somewhat premature age, perhaps, — 
 but there she was,— -and as he vainly endea- 
 voured to impress upon Jacob’s mind, — 
 there was female society : he had been a sort 
 of male coquette all his life, and loved 
 dangling at fifty-four as much as he did 
 when he was less than half that age ; and 
 it is astonishing (perhaps not because the 
 case is so common) that a habit of that sort 
 does not wear off with time as might be ex- 
 pected. The man of fifty- four flirts, and 
 is not ill received ; but he does not appre- 
 ciate the mode of his reception ; he does 
 not fee) himself much older than he was 
 five-and-twenty years before : he scarcely 
 sees an alteration in his own person ; all that 
 he wonders at is, the extraordinary flippancy 
 and forwardness of boys of five-and-twenty, 
 forgetting that when he was of that age he 
 considered an old fellow of fifty-four a “ re- 
 gular nuisance.’’ Wonderful, however, have 
 been the changes in society within the last 
 half century : the march and influence of 
 age have been neutralized to an extent which 
 our grandfathers could not have believed, 
 and certainly never anticipated. Fifty years 
 ago, the idea of a man of sixty in a black 
 neckcloth, with curls and trousers, and a 
 fancy waistcoat, with amethyst studs in his 
 shirt bosom, dancing quadrilles, never would 
 have entered into the head of a human be- 
 ing. The dress might have been as gay or 
 gayer, but it would have been made up of 
 pomatum and powder, and a bag or a club, 
 with shorts, and shoes and buckles. At 
 one period, the pig-tail, which superseded 
 the club-knob which had previously suc- 
 ceeded to the bag, would have been indis- 
 pensable ; nay, there are at this moment 
 half a score matured gentlemen, who thirty 
 years since sported tails, knobs and pigs, 
 with powder and pomatum, aforesaid, walk- 
 ing the assemblies of London in picturesque 
 coloured wigs, fancy waistcoats, and sym- 
 metrically-cut pantaloons. 
 
 Songs and Ballads. By Samuel Lover.— 
 Chapman and Hall. 
 
 [The lyrics which form the present graceful 
 little volume, have hitherto been obtainable 
 only in connexion with their music; and 
 their separate publication it seems is more 
 in compliance with the judgment of the 
 author’s friends than with his own. His 
 friends were perfectly in the right, and we 
 doubt not that all lovers of genuine lyric 
 poetry will agree with them that many of 
 the pieces here presented to them are enti- 
 tled to take rank among the sweetest and 
 wittiest of modern compositions. For the 
 present we shall content ourselves with two 
 specimens, different in their style, and both 
 of superior merit.] 
 
 BEAUTY AND TIME. 
 
 Time met Be:iuty one day in her garden. 
 
 Where loses were blooming fair ; 
 
 Time and Beauty were never good friends. 
 
 So she wondered what brought him there. 
 
 Poor Beauty exclaimed, with a sorrowful air, 
 
 " I request, father Time, my sweet roses you’ll spare 
 For Time was going to mow them all down. 
 
 While Beauty exclaimed, with her prettiest frown, 
 
 “ Fie ! father Time ! Oh I what a crime ! 
 
 “ Fie 1 father Time 1” 
 
 “ Well,” said Time, “ at least let me gather 
 A few of your roses here, 
 
 ’Tis part of my pride to be always supplied 
 With such roses the whole of the year.” 
 
 Poor Beauty consented, tlio’ half in despair. 
 
 And Time, as he went, asked a lock of her hair ; 
 
 And, as he stole the soft ringlet so bright. 
 
 He vow'd ’twas for love, but she knew ’twas for spite, 
 Fiel father Time! Oh! what a crime ! 
 
 Fie ! father Time ! 
 
 Time went on and left Beauty in tears ; 
 
 He’s a tell-tale the world well knows. 
 
 So he boasted to all of the fair lady’s fall. 
 
 And show’d the lost ringlet and rose. 
 
 So shocked was poor Beauty to think that her fame 
 Was ruin’d, though she was' in no wise to blame. 
 That she droop’d like some flower that is torn from 
 its clime. 
 
 And her friends all mysterously said “ it was Time /” 
 Fie ! father Time ! Oh ! what a crime ! 
 
 Fie ! father Time ! 
 
 MEMORY AND HOPE. 
 
 Oft have I mark’d, as o’er the sea 
 We’ve swept before the wind, 
 
 That those whose hearts were on the shore 
 Cast lunging looks behind ; 
 
 While they, whose hopes have elsewhere been 
 Have watch’d with anxious eyes, 
 
 To see the hills that lay before. 
 
 Faint o’er the waters rise. 
 
 ’Tis thus as o’er the sea of life 
 Our onward course we track. 
 
 That anxious sadness looks before. 
 
 The happy still look back. 
 
 Still smiling on the course they’ve past 
 As earnest of the rest, — 
 
 ’Tis Hope’s the charm of wretchedness 
 While memory wooes the blest. 
 
THK MIRROR. 
 
 •217 
 
 Historical Sketches of Statesmen who flou- 
 rished in the Time of George III. First 
 
 Series. By Henry Lord Brougham. 
 
 Knight and Co. 
 
 [We have just “ dipped ” into the above 
 important volume, not having sufficient time 
 for fully investigating it. 
 
 Several of the sketches have already ap- 
 peared in print, but as parts scattered 
 through other and much larger works. Yet 
 great additions have been made to some 
 of them ; while the following are entirely 
 new : Lords North ; Mansfield ; Thurlow ; 
 Loughbourough ; Lord Chief Justice Gibbs ; 
 Sir William Grant ; Franklin ; Joseph II. ; 
 Chatherine II. ; Gustavus III. ; and the 
 Remarks on Party. It is embellished with 
 eleven portraits ; which we think we have 
 seen elsewhere. The selection for our first 
 notice, is from the sketch of the American 
 Printer, Philosopher, and Statesman — ] 
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 In this truly great man everything seems 
 to concur that goes towards the constitution 
 of exalted merit. First he was the architect 
 of his own fortune. Born in the humblest 
 station, he raised himself by his talents and 
 his industry, first to the place of society 
 which may be attained with the help only of 
 ordinary abilities, great application, and good 
 luck ; but next to the loftiest heights which 
 a daring and happy genius alone can scale ; 
 and the poor Printer’s boy — who at one 
 period of his life had no covering to shelter 
 his head from the dews of night, rent in 
 twain the proud dominion of England, and 
 lived to he the Ambassador of a Common- 
 wealth which he had formed, at the court of 
 the haughty monarchs of France who had 
 been his allies. 
 
 Then, he had been tried by prosperity as 
 well as adverse fortune, and had passed 
 unhurt through the perils of both. No ordi- 
 nary ’prentice, no commonplace journeyman, 
 ever laid the foundations of his independence 
 in habits of industry and temperance more 
 deep than he did, whose genius was after- 
 wards to rank him with the Galileos and the 
 Newtons of the old world. 
 
 Again, he was self-taught in all he knew. 
 His hours of study were stolen from those of 
 sleep and of meals, or gained by some inge- 
 nious contrivance for reading while the work 
 of his daily calling went on. 
 
 His whole course, both in acting and in 
 speculation, was simple and plain, ever pre- 
 ferring the easiest and the shortest road, nor 
 ever having recourse to any but the simplest 
 means to compass the end. His language 
 was unadorned, and used as the medium of 
 communicating his thoughts, not of raising 
 admiration ; but it was pure, expressive, racy. 
 His manuer of reasoning was manly and 
 cogent, the address of a rational being to 
 others of the same order; and so concise, 
 that preferring decision to discussion, he never 
 
 exceeded a quarter of an hour in any public 
 address. His correspondence upon business, 
 whether private or on state affairs, is a model 
 of clearness and compendious shortness ; nor 
 can any state papers surpass in dignity and 
 impression, those of which he is believed to 
 have been the author in the earlier part of 
 the American war. 
 
 But of all this great man’s scientific ex- 
 cellencies, the most remarkable is the small- 
 ness, the simplicity, the apparent inadequacy, 
 of the means which he employed in his ex- 
 perimental researches. His discoveries were 
 made with hardly any apparatus at all ; and 
 if, at any time, he had been led to employ 
 instruments of a somewhat less ordinary 
 description, he never rested satisfied until he 
 had, as it were, afterwards translated the pro- 
 cess, by resolving the problem with such 
 simple machinery, that you might say he had 
 done it wholly unaided by apparatus. The 
 experiments by which the identity of light- 
 ning and electricity was demonstrated, were 
 made with a sheet of brown paper, a bit of 
 twine, a silk thread, and an iron key. 
 
 Upon the integrity of this great man, 
 whether in public or in private life, there rests 
 no stain. Strictly honest, and even scrupu- 
 lously punctual in all his dealings, he pre- 
 served in the highest fortune that regularity 
 which he had practised as well as inculcated 
 in the lowest. 
 
 In domestic life he was faultless, and in 
 the intercourse of society, delightful. There 
 was a constant good humour and a playful 
 wit, easy and of high relish, without any 
 ambition to shine, the natural fruit of his 
 lively fancy, his solid, natural good sense, 
 and his cheerful temper, that gave his con- 
 versation an unspeakable charm, and alike 
 suited every circle, from the humblest to the 
 most elevated. In religion, it is certain that 
 his mind was imbued with a deep sense of 
 the Divine perfections, a constant impression 
 of our accountable nature, and a lively hope 
 of future enjoyment. Accordingly, his death- 
 bed, the test of both faith and works, was 
 easy and placid, resigned and devout, and in- 
 dicated at once an unflinching retrospect of 
 the past, and a comfortable assurance of the 
 future. 
 
 [To the above £ sketch,’ Lord Brougham has 
 appended the following remarks :] 
 
 If we turn from the truly great man 
 whom we have been contemplating, to his 
 celebrated contemporary in the Old World, 
 who only affected the philosophy that Franklin 
 possessed, and employed his talents for civil 
 and military affairs, in extinguishing that in- 
 dependence which Franklin’s life was conse- 
 crated to establish, the contrast is marvel, 
 lous indeed between the monarch and the 
 printer. 
 
213 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 Clje -Public Souvitals. 
 
 Blackwood’s — 
 
 [Unquestionably the most splendid periodi- 
 cal of thfe day — is this month more than usually 
 rich in its intellectual treasures : we shall ex- 
 tract a few morsels from a jeud’ esprit, called] 
 
 My After-Dinner Adventures with Peter 
 Schlemihl.” 
 
 “ Feeling myself,” says the narrator, “ a 
 little out of sorts, with flying pains about 
 my ancles and toes, I retired for relief to 
 Seacombe, on the banks of the Mersey, 
 opposite to Liverpool. After dinner, one 
 day, whilst cogitating on the delicious savour 
 of mock-turtle soup, and whether it was 
 known to the ancients, when a tall, gentle- 
 manly-looking man, entered his room, and, 
 familarly helping himself to a glass of wine, 
 exclaimed, “ Do you know me? — I am 
 Peter Schlemihl ; — I am come to take a 
 walk with you. Do you knowXiverpuol ?” 
 “ No,” said I, bolting out a lie at once. 
 “ I thought so, and for that reason I have 
 called upon you to go there : as, I believe, 
 you like turtle, there are several houses in 
 Liverpool where turtle is dressed to a per- 
 fection that would raise a chuckle in the 
 gullet of an expiring alderman. So, come 
 along.” I felt no power to resist , but al- 
 most instantly found myself on board the 
 steam-packet, sailing on my way to Liver- 
 pool, in company with Peter Schlemihl. 
 
 Jn a few Seconds we were across the river 
 and landed on the parade ; but, in ascending 
 the steps, some villain, with an iron heel to 
 his boot, gave my toes such a squeeze, that 
 I almost screamed with agony. Peter saw 
 my distress, and putting an arm through one 
 of mine, “ Never mind,” said he, “ I’ll pro- 
 vide you with consolation;” and almost be- 
 fore 1 had time to ask whither we were 
 going, I found myself seated with him in a 
 room in the Mersey Hotel. 
 
 “ I have dined,” said I, as I almost me- 
 chanically took a spoonful ; but that spoon- 
 ful sufficed to drive away all remembrance of 
 my pain, and all recollection of my dinner. 
 It was delectable; and we ladled away with 
 the gusto of men tasting turtle for the lust 
 time. 
 
 “ How do you like it ?” said Peter, when 
 I had finished. 
 
 “ It is admirable,” I replied; “who could 
 help liking it ?” 
 
 “ Well, said he, “ if you are satisfied, 
 put the spoon in your pocket, and let us 
 march.” 
 
 “ The spoon in my pocket !” I answered ; 
 “ do you wish me to be taken up as a 
 thief ?” 
 
 “ Quite a matter of taste,” said Peter 
 Schlemihl ; “ suppose you had swallowed it 
 by accident — and you opened a mouth wide 
 
 enough to have admitted a soup-ladle, put- 
 ting a simple spoon out of the question— 
 suppose you had swallowed it by accident, 
 could you heve been successfully accused of 
 theft ? And where is the difference to Mr 
 Horne, the landlord, betw'ixt your putting 
 his spoon in your stomach by accident, and 
 putting it in your pocket by design ? In 
 either case, I take it, the loss to him would 
 be pretty much the same ; so the differ- 
 ence, you see, is but in words ; but, come 
 along.” 
 
 So saying, he again put my hat on my head, 
 giving it a thump, and putting my gloves in 
 my hand, I was presently walking in his 
 company, at a quick rate, towards the Ex- 
 change, without having any clear idea of the 
 way in which we left the tuitle-room in the 
 Mersey Hotel. 
 
 “ Is it net a handsome pile of building ?” 
 said Peter Schlemihl, after he had walked 
 me round the Town Hall, and pointed out 
 its beauties — its portico — its frieze — its 
 dome — and, after he had led me round the 
 area of the Exchange buildings, and pointed 
 out each and every part worth notice, 
 
 “ Is it not a handsome pile of building ?” 
 said he. 
 
 “ It is, undoubtedly, very handsome,” I 
 replied, “ and does great credit to the place ; 
 but, as a piece of architecture, it is by no 
 means perfect ; and ” — ■— 
 
 “ For mercy’s sake,” said Peter, “ don’t 
 turn critical ! if you do, I will desert you. I 
 have known many critics in my time, but 
 I never knew but one sensible man of the 
 craft; and he lived to regret his taste as a 
 misfortune. No, no! rules are very neces- 
 sary in every art, and every science ; but 
 never do you imbibe the notion, that nothing 
 can be pleasing or beautiful that is not 
 strictly according to rule. Now, there is a 
 monument to Nelson —the glorious Nelson — 
 before you ; but, handsome as it is, and suit- 
 able as it is to a naval hero, in an important 
 sea-port town, and standing on the high mart 
 of foreign commerce, yet I will not allow you 
 to look at it, for it is not strictly correct 
 according to the code critical. By the by, 
 did you ever see that funny affair that the 
 Birmingham gentlemen put up in memory 
 of the same great man ? Living so far in- 
 land, they did not perfectly understand what 
 a sailor was like, but they made a little gen- 
 tleman in black, and having heard of the 
 green sea, they set him up in business in 
 their market-place as a green-grocer, being 
 the nearest approach to the green sea that 
 their imagination could suggest — what the 
 devil business had Nelson in a market-place ? 
 — they might as well have made him a but- 
 ton-maker ! — but, come along to the Zoolo- 
 gical Gardens ;” and again taking my arm, 
 and before I was aware whither we were 
 going, Peter and I w’ere tete-a-tete with a 
 lion. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 219 
 
 “ He is a noble animal !’’ said I. 
 
 “ He’s up to snuff,’’ said Pater. 
 
 He then insinuated his box of Lundy Foot, 
 without the lid, cautiously into the lion’s 
 cage, gently obtruding it upon the lion’s notice 
 with the end of his stick. 
 
 The lion, on seeing it, went leisurely to it, 
 and took a hearty snuff - , as if he had been a 
 snuff-taker from his infancy ; the cage echoed 
 with a tremendous sneeze, and presently with 
 another, and a third ; and he then shook his 
 head, and his eyes watered, and he looked 
 very like an old gentleman maudlin drunk. 
 Again he sneezed ; und being impatient at 
 the pungency and inconvenience, he gave 
 vent to his anger in a fearful roar, which 
 attracted the attention of the keepers and 
 visitors, and induced them to come towards 
 us. 
 
 Peter Schlemihl observed their movement, 
 and, again taking me by the arm, we were 
 once more on the pave, and strolling up 
 Bold Street,, on our way, as Peter said, to 
 St. James’s Cemetery !* 
 
 “ Rather a solemn place for a lounge?” 
 said I. 
 
 “ That’s all you know of the matter!” 
 replied Peter ; “ really, you men that live 
 in the country and eat vegetables have ex- 
 traordinary notions ! Why, some people con- 
 sider it a very interesting and agreeable 
 scene. By the by, I met a friend one day 
 last summer, who excused himself for not 
 taking a walk, by saying that his brother-in- 
 law was come to Liverpool in the last stage 
 of consumption, and he was going to take 
 him a ride by way of amusing him. ‘ And 
 where are you going to take the poor gentle- 
 man ?’ I enquired. * To the cemetery,’ 
 answered he, 1 it is as agreeable a place as 
 any I know.’ I was amused at the idea of 
 taking a dying man to the cemetery by way 
 of amusing him, and was at the trouble to 
 go there myself to see if the fact would be 
 as stated ; and sure enough my friend and 
 his brother-in-law made their appearance, 
 the latter more dead than alive. He, how- 
 ever, said he was much amused, and he 
 seemed to take such a fancy to the place, 
 that, in a fortnight afterwards, he was pro- 
 vided with permanent lodgings there. So 
 you see,” added Peter, “ every body is not 
 exactly of your opinion.” 
 
 We walked round, and, in the course of 
 the lounge, met thirteen incipient Byrons, 
 aged from fifteen to nineteen, each with a 
 broad shirt-collar turned down, and open at 
 the front, to show the throttle, with a black 
 bandana tied sailor-wise. 
 
 Four were smoking cigars — real lighted 
 cigars — the puppies 1 five held between their 
 teeth imitation cigars, coloured brown, and 
 painted red at the end to appear like fire, 
 and white to appear like ashes — the greater 
 
 * See Minor, No. 937, vol. xxxiii. 
 
 puppies ! The remainder were innocent of 
 cigar, either real or imitative. 
 
 They all looked melancholy, bilious, and 
 saffron-coloured, and appeared to have been 
 picking out their respective situations in the 
 cemetery. 
 
 “ This beautiful cemetery,” said I, “ is 
 an admirable adaptation of the old stone 
 quarry, und some of the inscriptions on the 
 stones are very affecting.” 
 
 “ No doubt they are,” replied Peter 
 Schlemihl, “ to such a spoon as you ; but 
 have you yet to learn that in a church- 
 yard no person is allowed to have any other 
 than a good character ? Death connects the 
 most contemptible animals that ever blood 
 warmed into tender fathers — affectionate 
 husbands— faithful wives — dutiful children, 
 and such like. The church and the church- 
 yard is the only place to acquire a good cha- 
 racter graven in stone. Try your hand at 
 giving some scoundrel his due in his epitaph 
 — venture to write upon a gravestone that on 
 such a day such a person died, well known 
 to all his triends and acquaintances as the 
 greatest rascal that his parish contained; 
 excelling all men in his several vocations of 
 swindler, perjurer, and thief. Try your hand 
 at that, and see how many will step for- 
 ward to prevent your telling the truth. 
 It you persist in your experiment, you will 
 very soon find yourself doing penance in a 
 white sheet, my gentleman ! for saying any 
 thing but good of the dead.” 
 
 Peter’s morality appeared to evaporate 
 with the last sentence ; and, slipping his 
 arm in mine, we left the cemetery, and went 
 the shortest way to the Custom-house. 
 
 Business was in its heyday, and the rooms 
 were consequently crowded ; and I was 
 horrified almost to fainting when I heard Pe- 
 ter Schlemihl, very calmly and deliberately, 
 and with great distinctness of voice, ask me 
 to reach a great spring clock, which was 
 suspended against a wall, and put it in his 
 pocket ! 
 
 I. looked at him to see if I could discover 
 whether he really was in earnest, but he re- 
 peated his request in a tone that seemed to 
 say that he would be obeyed, and muttered 
 something about a policeman, and I felt that 
 I had no alternative but to comply. I got 
 upon a desk and reached down the abomin- 
 able clock, and to my surprise it slipped 
 easily into his pocket, and to my greater sur- 
 prise, no one in the room took notice of the 
 transaction ! 
 
 I hastened out of the place, determined to 
 get away and return to Seacombe, when, 
 turning my head, I found, to my grief and 
 amazement, that I was accompanied by 
 Peter Schlemihl ! 
 
 He gave me a knowing look ; and as we 
 trudged on, shoulder to shoulder, “ This is 
 a nice clock we’ve got,” said he. 
 
 I was ready to drop with vexation, but it 
 
220 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 was of no use — it did not in the least disturb 
 the equanimity of Peter Schlemihl. 
 
 “ Stop !’’ said he, at length, seizing me 
 by the shoulder — “ it is worse than useless 
 to waste our wind in this way. I am going to 
 smoke a cigar — will you have one ? it is a 
 real good one.” 
 
 I was grown desperate, and was glad of 
 any thing for a change ; so I took a cigar 
 and began to smoke furiously. 
 
 In this mood we went on together, both 
 smoking ; but, in my confusion of mind, I 
 was led by Peter Schlemihl past the proper 
 place of embarkation for Seacombe, and as 
 we were proceeding along Bath Street, he 
 put the finish to my distress and rage, by 
 sticking his lighted cigar into a cart-load of 
 hemp that was being discharged at a ware- 
 house. 
 
 Instantly the whole was in a blaze — the 
 warehouse took fire — the fire-engines were 
 called for — a crowd collected — a body of 
 police appeared — search commenced for the 
 incendiary — and, to escape from the conse- 
 quences of this diabolical act of my com- 
 panion, I made the best of my way to the 
 river side, and jumped into the first thing I 
 came to in the shape of a boat, trembling 
 from head to foot, and seeing nothing but the 
 gallows before me. 
 
 “Are you ready to start again ?” said Peter. 
 
 “ Start again ! where ?” I replied. 
 
 “ On our walk,’’ said Peter, “ surely it is 
 not over yet ?” 
 
 “ Not over yet ?” I answered : “ if ever 
 any man catches me again walking with you, 
 Peter Schlemihl, I’ll give him leave to call 
 me the wandering Jew !” 
 
 “ Oh ! that is your determination, is it ?” 
 said he ; “ very well, be it so, my fine fellow. 
 In that case I will take my departure, leav- 
 ing you this token of remembrance,” — say- 
 ing which, he got up and jumped full five 
 feet high, alighting with his two heavy heels 
 immediately upon my toes, and then delibe- 
 rately walked out of the room, impudently 
 winking his eye at me as he went through 
 the door-way. 
 
 The cruel agony of that jump made me 
 roar out, and roll off my chair upon the 
 ground from very pain ; and my wife, awak- 
 ing at the noise, raised me up, and inquired 
 what was the matter. 
 
 “ That, Peter Schlemihl !” said I, — “ that 
 infernal Peter Schlemihl ! he has lamed me 
 for life 1” 
 
 “ Peter Schlemihl!” exclaimed my wife, 
 “ you are dreaming !” 
 
 I, however, knew better, and rang the 
 bell, and enquired for Peter Schlemihl ; but 
 whether the waiter was in his confidence, or 
 whether Peter Schlemihl had managed to 
 make his entrance and his exit without being 
 perceived, I do not know, but the waiter 
 certainly denied all knowledge of Peter 
 Schlemihl i 
 
 I then detailed the whole of my adventures 
 to my wife, commencing with the first ob- 
 trusion of Peter Schlemihl into the room, 
 and ending with his jumping upon my toes 
 when he took his final departure. 
 
 Still she said it was but a dream ! 
 
 I then rang the bell, and requested the 
 attendance of Mr. Parry, and every man and 
 woman servant in the house. I described 
 Peter Schlemihl. and I begged of Mr. Parry 
 that he would search about the premises for 
 him, and desire that stout gentleman, Mr. 
 Smith, to prevent his going away by any of 
 the packets. “ You will be sure to find him,” 
 said I, “ and he has got the Custom-house 
 clock in his pocket.” But stout Mr. Smith 
 avers that he has not yet received three- 
 pence from him, and to this hour he remains 
 undiscovered, which is to me very remark- 
 able. 
 
 I suffered such torment in my feet, that 
 I soon afterwards went to bed, but not to 
 sleep. 
 
 A surgeon (a medical gentleman, the cant 
 phrases for one of those bundles of cruelly) 
 was immediately called in, and, in looking at 
 my toes, he significantly said, “ It is the 
 gout !” 
 
 Wishing to undeceive him, I gave him a 
 minute narrative of all I had endured — told 
 him the various stampings and squeezings 
 to which I had been a martyr, and the savage 
 jump with which the brute treated me when 
 he took himself away ! 
 
 “ It is all a dream !” said my wife. 
 
 “ It is dispepsia and night-mare,” said 
 the doctor, “ and the result is the gout !” 
 
 Whilst I contend, with all the confidence 
 of truth, that my ramble with Peter Schle- 
 mihl was a real and bond fide ramble 1 
 
 Which do you think is right ?” 
 
 r 
 
 Nicholas nickleby. — No. 13. Chapman 
 and Hall. 
 
 [The never-tiring and ever-fascinating Boz 
 seems determined to convince the world the 
 resources of his inventive genius are inex- 
 haustible by the 13th number of his “ Nicho- 
 las Nickleby,” which is full of the most amu- 
 sing and exhilarating incidents : we here 
 select two or three rich “ bits,” told in the 
 author’s peculiar manner.] 
 
 Mrs. Nickleby and the Roast Pig. 
 
 “ Kate, my dear,’’ said Mrs. Nickleby ; 
 “ I don’t know how it is, but a fine warm 
 summer day like this, with the birds singing 
 in every direction, always puts me in mind 
 of roast pig, with sage and onion sauce and 
 made gravy.” 
 
 “ That’s a curious association of ideas, is 
 it not, mamma ?” 
 
 “ Upon my word, my dear, I don’t know,” 
 replied Mrs. Nickleby. “ Roast pig — let 
 me see. On the day five weeks after you 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 were christened, we had a roast — no that 
 couldn’t have been a pig either, because I 
 recollect there were a pair of them to carve, 
 and your poor papa and I could never have 
 thought of sitting down to two pigs — they 
 must have been partridges. Roast pig ! I 
 hardly think we ever could have had one, 
 now I come to remember, for your papa could 
 never bear the sight of them in the shops, 
 and used to say that they always put him in 
 mind of very little babies, only the pigs had 
 much fairer complexions ; and he had a 
 horror of little babies, too, because he couldn’t 
 very well afford any increase to his family, 
 and had a natural dislike to the subject, it’s 
 very odd now, what can put that in my head. 
 I recollect dining once at Mrs. Bevan’s, in 
 that broad street, round the corner by the 
 coach-maker’s, where the tipsy man fell 
 through the cellar-flap of an empty house, 
 nearly a week before quarter-day, and wasn’t 
 found ’till the new tenant went in — and we 
 had roast pig there. It must be that, 1 
 think, that reminds me of it, especially as 
 there was a little bird in the room that would 
 keep on singing all the time of dinner — at 
 least, not a little bird, for it was a parrot, 
 and he didn’t sing exactly, for he talked and 
 swore dreadfully; but I think it must be 
 that. Indeed I am sure it must. Shouldn’t 
 you say so, my dear ?” 
 
 “ I should say there was not a doubt about 
 it, mamma,” returned Kate, with a cheerful 
 smile. 
 
 “ No ; but do you think so, Kate,” said 
 Mrs. Nickleby, with as much gravity as if it 
 were a question of the most imminent and 
 thrilling interest. “If you don’t, say so at 
 once, you know ; because it’s just as well to 
 be correct, particularly on a point of this 
 kind, which is very curious and worth settling 
 while one thinks about it.” 
 
 Mrs. Nickleby's Suitors. 
 
 “ Oh yes !” said Kate, “ I remember. I 
 was going to ask, mamma, before you were 
 married, had you many suitors ?” 
 
 “ Suitors, my dear !” cried Mrs. Nickleby, 
 with a smile of wonderful complacency. 
 “ First and last, Kate, I must have had a 
 dozen at least.” 
 
 “ Mamma !” returned Kate, in a tone of 
 remonstrance. 
 
 “ 1 had indeed, my dear,” said Mrs. 
 Nickleby ; “ not including your poor papa, 
 or a young gentleman who used to go at that 
 time to the same dancing-school, and who 
 would send gold watches and bracelets to 
 our house in gilt-edged paper, (which were 
 always returned,) and who afterwards unfor- 
 tunately went out to Botany Bay in a cadet 
 ship — a convict ship I mean — and escaped 
 into a bush and killed sheep, ( I don’t know 
 how they got there,) and was going to be 
 hung, only he accidentally choked himself, 
 
 221 
 
 and the government pardoned him. Then 
 there was young Lukin,” said Mrs. Nickleby, 
 beginning with her left thumb, and checking 
 off" the names on her fingers — “ Mogley — 
 
 Tipslark — Cabbery — Smifser ” 
 
 Having now reached her little finger, Mrs. 
 Nickleby was carrying the account over to 
 the other hand, when a loud “ Hem 1” which 
 appeared to come from the very foundation of 
 the garden wall, gave both herself and her 
 daughter a violent start. 
 
 Declaration of love by the gentleman next 
 door to Mrs. Nickleby. 
 
 As Kate rose from her seat in some alarm, 
 and caught her mother’s hand to run with 
 her into the house, she felt herself rather re- 
 tarded than assisted in her intention ; and, 
 following the direction of Mrs. Nickleby’s 
 eyes, was quite terrified by the apparition of 
 an old black velvet cap, which, by slow de- 
 grees, as if its wearer were ascending a 
 ladder or pair of steps, rose above the wall 
 dividing their garden from that of the next 
 cottage, (which, like their own, was a de- 
 tached building,) and was gradually followed 
 by a very large head, and an old face, in 
 which were a pair of most extraordinary grey 
 eyes, very wild, very wide open, and rolling 
 in their sockets with a dull, languishing, and 
 leering look, most ugly to behold. 
 
 “ Mamma !” cried Kate, really terrified for 
 the moment, “ why do you stop, why do you 
 lose an instant P — Mamma, pray come in !” 
 
 “ What do you want, sir?” said Mrs. 
 Nickleby, addressing the intruder with a 
 sort of simpering displeasure. “ How dare 
 you look into this garden ?” 
 
 “ Queen of my soul,” replied the stranger, 
 folding his hands together, “ this goblet sip.” 
 “ Nonsense, sir,” said Mrs. Nickleby. 
 “ Kate, my love, pray be quiet.” 
 
 “ Won’t you sip the goblet?” urged the 
 stranger, with his head imploringly on one 
 side, and his right hand on his breast. 
 “ Oh, do sip the goblet !’’ 
 
 “ I shall not consent to do anything of 
 the kind, sir,” said Mrs. Nickleby, with a 
 haughty air. “ Pray, begone.” 
 
 “ Why is it,” said the old gentleman, 
 coming up a step higher, and leaning his 
 elbows on the wall, with as much compla- 
 cency as if he were looking out of window, 
 “ why is it that beauty is always obdurate, 
 even when admiration is as honourable and 
 respectful as mine ?” Here he smiled, kissed 
 his hand, and made several low bows. “ Is 
 it owing to the bees, who, when the honey 
 season is over, and they are supposed to have 
 been killed with brimstone, in reality fly to 
 Barbary and lull the captive Moors to sleep 
 with their drowsy songs ? Or is it,” he added, 
 dropping his voice almost to a whisper, “ in 
 consequence of the statue at Charing Cross 
 having been lately seen on the Stock Ex- 
 
222 
 
 THE MIRROR 
 
 change at midnight, walk arm-in-arm with 
 the Pump from Aldgate, in a riding habit ?” 
 
 “ Mamma,” murmured Kate, “ do you hear 
 him ?” 
 
 “ Hush, my dear !” replied Mrs. Nicklehy, 
 in the same tone of voice, “ he is very polite, 
 and I think that was a quotation from the 
 poets. Pray, don’t worry me so — you’ll 
 pinch my arm black and blue. Go away, 
 sir.” 
 
 “ Quite away ?” said the gentleman, with 
 a languishing look, “ Oh! quite away ?” 
 
 “ Yes,” returned Mrs. Nickleby, “ cer- 
 tainly. You have no business here. This 
 is private property, sir; you ought to know 
 that.” 
 
 “ I do know,” said the old gentleman, 
 laying his finger on his nose with an air of 
 familiarity most reprehensible, “ that this is 
 a sacred and enchanted spot, where the most 
 divine charms ” — here he kissed his hand 
 and bowed again — “ waft mellifluousness 
 over the neighbours’ gardens, and force the 
 fruit and vegetables into premature existence. 
 That fact 1 am acquainted with. But will 
 you permit me, fairest creature, to ask you 
 one question, in the absence of the planet 
 Venus, who has gone on business to the 
 Horse Guards, and would otherwise — -jealous 
 of your superior charms— interpose between 
 us ?” 
 
 “ If you will conduct yourself, sir, like 
 the gentleman which 1 should imagine you 
 to be from your language and — and — appear- 
 ance, (quite the counterpart of your grand- 
 papa, Kate, my dear, in his best days,) and 
 will put your question to me in plain words, 
 I will answer it.” 
 
 If Mrs. Nickleby’s excellent papa had 
 borne, in his best days, a resemblance to the 
 neighbour now looking over the wall, he must 
 have been, to say the least, a very queer-look- 
 ing old gentleman in his prime. Perhaps 
 Kate thought so, for she ventured to glance 
 at his living portrait with some attention, as 
 he took off' his black velvet cap, and, exhi- 
 biting a perfectly bald head, made a long 
 series of bows, each accompanied with a 
 fresh kiss of the hand. After exhausting 
 himself, to all appearance, with this fatiguing 
 performance, he covered his head once more, 
 pulled the cap very carefully over the tips of 
 his ears, and resuming his former attitude, 
 said, 
 
 “ The question is — ” 
 
 Here he broke off to look round in every 
 direction, and satisfy himself beyond all 
 doubt that there were no listeners near. As- 
 sured that there were not, he tapped his nose 
 several times, accompanying the action with 
 a cunning look, as though congratulating 
 himself on his caution ; and stretching out 
 his neck, said in a loud whisper, 
 
 “ Are you a princess ?” 
 
 “ You are mocking me, sir,” replied Mrs. 
 
 Nicklehy, making a feint of retreating 
 towards the house. 
 
 “ No, but are you ?” said the old gentleman. 
 
 “ You know I am not, sir,” replied Mrs. 
 Nickleby. 
 
 “ Then are you any relation to the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury ?” inquired the old 
 gentleman with great anxiety, “ or. to the 
 Pope of Rome ? or the Speaker of the House 
 of Commons P Forgive me, if I am wrong, 
 but I was told you were niece to the Com- 
 missioners of Paving, and daughter-in-law to 
 the Lord Mayor and Court of Common 
 Council, which would account for your rela- 
 tionship to all three.” 
 
 “ Whoever has spread such reports, sir,” 
 returned Mrs. Nickleby, with some warmth, 
 
 “ has taken great liberties with my name, 
 and one which I am sure my son Nicholas, 
 if he was aware of it, would not allow for an 
 instant. The idea !” said Mrs. Nickleby, 
 drawing herself up, “ niece to the Commis- 
 sioners of Paving !” 
 
 “ Pray, mamma, come away !” whispered 
 Kate. 
 
 “ ‘ Pray, mamma !’ Nonsense, Kate,” said 
 Mrs. Nickleby, angrily, “ but that’s just the 
 way. If they had said I was niece to a 
 piping bullfinch, what would you care ? But 
 I have no sympathy” — whimpered Mrs. 
 Nickleby, “ 1 don’t expect it, that’s one 
 thing.” 
 
 “Tears!” cried the old gentleman, with 
 such an energetic jump, that he fell down 
 two or three steps, and grated his chin against 
 the wall. “ Catch the crystal globules — 
 catch ’em — bottle ’em up — cork ’em tight — ; 
 put sealing wax on the top — seal ’em with a 
 cupid — label ’em ‘ Best quality ’ — and stow 
 ’em away in the fourteen binn, with a bar of 
 iron on the top to keep the thunder off!” 
 
 Issuing these commands, as if there were . 
 a dozen attendants all actively engaged in j 
 their execution, he turned his velvet cap in- j 
 side out, put it on with great dignity so as to 
 obscure his right eye and three- fourths of his 
 nose, and sticking his arms a-kimbo, looked 
 very fiercely at a sparrow hard by, till the 
 bird flew away, when he put his cap in his \ 
 pocket with an air of great satisfaction, and 
 addressed himself with a respectful demeanour 
 to Mrs. Nickleby. 
 
 “ Beautiful madam,” such were his words 
 — “ if I have made any mistake with regard 
 to your family or connexions, I humbly be- 
 seech you to pardon me. — If I supposed you 
 to be related to Foreign Powers or Native 
 Boards, it is because you have a manner, a 
 carriage, a dignity, which you will excuse 
 my saying that none but yourself (with the 
 single exception perhaps of the tragic muse, 
 when playing extemporaneously on the barrel 
 organ before the East India company) can 
 parallel. I am not a youth, ma’am, as you 
 see ; and although beings like you can never 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 223 
 
 wtovY old, I venture to presume that we are 
 fitted for each other.” 
 
 “ Really, Kate, my love !” said Mrs. 
 Nickleby faintly, and looking another way. 
 
 “ I have estates, ma’am,” said the old gen- 
 tleman, flourishing his right hand negli- 
 gently, as if he made very light of such mat- 
 ters, and speaking very fast; “jewels, light- 
 houses, fish-ponds, a whalery of my own in 
 the North Sea, and several oyster-beds of 
 great profit in the Pacific Ocean. If you 
 will have the kindness to step down to the 
 Royal Exchange and to take the cocked hat 
 off the stoutest beadle’s head, you will find 
 my card in the lining of the crown, wrapped 
 up in a piece of blue paper. My walking- 
 stick is also to be seen on application to the 
 chaplain of the House of Commons, who is 
 strictly forbidden to take any money for show- 
 ing it. I have enemies about me, ma’am,” 
 he looked towards his house and spoke very 
 low, “ who'attack me on all occasions, and 
 wish to secure my property. If you bless me 
 with your hand and heart, you can apply to 
 the Lord Chancellor or call out the military 
 if necessary — sending my toothpick to the 
 commauder-in-chief will be sufficient — and 
 so clear the house of them before the 
 ceremony is performed. After that, love, 
 bliss and rapture ; rapture, love and bliss. 
 Be mine, be mine.” 
 
 Repeating these last words with great rap- 
 ture and enthusiasm, the old gentleman put 
 on his black velvet cap again, and looking 
 up into the sky in a hasty manner, said 
 something that was not quite intelligible 
 concerning a balloon he expected, and which 
 was rather after its time. 
 
 “ Be mine, be mine,” cried the old gen- 
 tleman. “ Gog and Magog, Gog and 
 Magog. Be mine, be mine !” 
 
 “ It will be sufficient for me to say, sir,” 
 resumed Mrs. Nickleby, with perfect serious- 
 ness — “ and I am sure you’ll see the pro- 
 priety of taking an answer and going away — 
 that I have made up mind to remain a wi- 
 dow, and to devote myself to my children. You 
 may may not suppose I am the mother of 
 two children — indeed many people have 
 doubted it, and said that nothing on earth 
 could ever make ’em believe it possible — but 
 it is the case, and they are both grown up. 
 We shall be very glad to have you for a 
 neighbour — very glad ; delighted, I’m sure — 
 but in any other character it’s quite impos- 
 sible, quite. As to my being young enough 
 to marry again, that perhaps may be so, or it 
 may not be ; but I couldn’t think of it for an 
 instant, not on any account whatever. I 
 said I never would, and I never will. It’s 
 a very painful thing to have to reject proposals, 
 and I would much raiher that none were 
 made ; at the same time this is the answer 
 that I determined long ago to make, and this 
 is the answer I shall always give.” 
 
 the Asiatic journal. April 1839 ; 
 
 No. clcii. W. II. Allan & Co. 
 
 [The number for this month contains many 
 important notices of the progress of society in 
 the East, together with several highly inter- 
 esting translations ; among them the follow- 
 ing tale, abounding in that beautiful allegory, 
 pathos and sentiment, so predominent in the 
 works of Asiatic writers. — it is entitled :] 
 
 The Famine : a tale from the Bostan. 
 
 There raged, one year, such a famine* 
 in Damascus, that friends forgot the ties of 
 friendship. 
 
 So niggardly had the heavens become to- 
 wards earth, that neither sown-field nor palm- 
 tree had their lips refreshed with moisture. 
 
 The ancient fountains were dried up, and 
 no water remained save the orphans’ tears ! 
 
 If any smoke arose from a chimney, it was 
 but the widow’s sigh ! 
 
 I saw the trees stript and bare, like the 
 destitute Darwesh : the strong-of-arm relaxed, 
 and the vigorous reduced to distress. 
 
 No verdure on the mountain — no green 
 shoot in the garden : the locust had devoured 
 the orchard, and man the locust.f 
 
 In this state, a friend appeared before me, 
 with nothing but skin left upon his bones. 
 
 I was struck with amazement, inasmuch 
 as he was a person of rank, and ample means, 
 and substance. 
 
 To him I said, “ Oh, worthy friend, tell 
 me what calamity has befallen thee ?” 
 
 He was offended, and replied, “ Whither 
 is thy reason fled ? When thou knowest, and 
 yet askest, thy question is to be blamed. 
 
 “ Seest thou not that distress has come to 
 its height — that calamity has reached its 
 summit ? 
 
 “ Neither does the rain fall from heaven, 
 nor the sigh of him who crieth for help mount 
 up thither.” 
 
 I said to him, “At the worst, cause for 
 anxiety you have none : the poison is mortal 
 only there , where the antidote is not at hand. 
 
 “ Though others are perishing of inanition, 
 you are wealthy. What has a duck to fear 
 from a deluge ?”J 
 
 The enlighteded man gazed on me with 
 that look of pity and concern which a sage 
 bestows upon a simpleton. 
 
 “ O my friend,” said he, “although a man 
 be on shore, he reposes not at ease while his 
 comrades are sinking in the wave. 
 
 “ It is not on account of my own destitu- 
 
 • Strictly “ drought,” which, however, scarcely 
 comeys, with sufficient force, to an English reader, 
 an idea of the miseries occasioned by such a visitation 
 in Eastern countries. 
 
 | Locusts are eaten in the east : they are generally 
 fried in butter, like fish, which they are said closely 
 to resemble inj taste. Several species of locusts are 
 expressly mentioned in Levit., ch 4 xi., v. 22, among 
 the things permitted to be eaten, under the Mosaic 
 dispensation. See also Mat., ch. iii., v. 4. 
 
 | This seems to be a proverbial expression. 
 
224 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 tion that my face is sallow : it is sympathy 
 with the destitute that has blanched my 
 cheek. 
 
 “ The man of feeling likes not to behold a 
 sore on the body of a fellow-creature, any 
 more than on his own. 
 
 “ Praised be God, that although I am my- 
 self unscathed, my frame trembles with emo- 
 tion when I behold a wound upon my neighr 
 hour 1 
 
 “ The enjoyment of him that is sound in 
 health is troubled, by whose side is stretched 
 the enfeebled victim of disease. 
 
 “ When I see that the poor Darwesh has 
 not eaten, the morsel turns, on my own pa- 
 late, to poison and pain. 
 
 “ How can he, whose friends are in a dun- 
 geon, any longer find enjoyment in his gar- 
 den ?” 
 
 dft'm flits. 
 
 MR. E. T. PARRIS’S PICTURE OF THE 
 CORONATION. 
 
 Mr. Parris having just finished his picture 
 of the Coronation of the Queen, we were in- 
 vited to a private view or. Tuesday last. It 
 is a specimen of great merit, not only as a 
 brilliant display of British art, but also as a 
 critically -correct representation of a great his- 
 torical event. 
 
 It is a ; remarkable circumstance, that the 
 sun did not ‘ shine forth’ on that memorable 
 day, until Howell, Lord Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury, was about to place the crown of Eng- 
 land upon the head of our youthful Queen: 
 and this was the auspicious moment happily 
 chosen by Mr. Parris. 
 
 Her Majesty is seated in King Edward’s 
 chair, in her splendid Dalmatic robes : on her 
 right stands the graceful and lovely-looking 
 Duchess of Sutherland ; behind whom may 
 joe noticed Her Majesty’s train-bearers ; and 
 further on to the right, Lord Melbourne and 
 other ministers of state ; Dukes of Sussex 
 and Cambridge, Duchess of Kent, <fec. On 
 the left the Archbishop of Canterbury is seen, 
 whose purple robe, richly embroidered with 
 gold, harmonizing delightfully with the im- 
 posing dress of the Bishop of Bath and 
 Wells, and the splendid robes of the Duke of 
 Richmond. In addition to the above illus- 
 trious characters, ' are those of the various 
 foreign ambassadors, and many of the female 
 nobility ; in all there are seventy-seven por- 
 traits. 1 
 
 The. judicious grouping of the figures^ — 
 the splendour of the gorgeous scene — the 
 vividness of the colouring ; the fidelity of 
 the portraits.; and the representation of the 
 vapour arising from the healed state of the 
 Abbey, are all worthy of the highest com- 
 mendation : but what renders this picture 
 truly valuable, and gives it an irresistible 
 charm, s is; the extreme correctness that hps 
 
 been observed throughout, even in the most 
 minute particulars : the various dresses ; the 
 shapes and Colours of the numerous jewels, 
 are given with faithful adherence ; being 
 all drawn from those worn by the illustrious 
 personages on that occasion ; the original 
 sketches of which we have had the pleasure 
 of witnessing. 
 
 This splendid work of art was painted for 
 Mr. Moon, the spirited printseller, who has 
 engaged an artist of the first talent, to engrave 
 a print from it, on a^very large scale, which 
 we have no doubt will amply repay him, for 
 it is a subject that will engrave well. 
 
 In the year 1457, a proclamation was issued 
 by Henry the Eighth, “that women should not 
 meet together to babble and talk, and that all 
 mien should keep their wives in their house.” 
 
 Aaron ^Burr’s Opinion of the English. — In 
 England you see no expression painted on 
 the visage at a concert. All is sombre and 
 grim. They cry bravo ! bravissimo ! with 
 the same countenance as they curse their 
 servants and their government. 
 
 A cube of gold, of little m.ore than five 
 inches on each side, contains the value of 
 .£10,000. sterling. t 
 
 Apples marked with the impression of a 
 leaf are sold in the bazaars of Persia. To 
 produce this impression, a leaf of some flower- 
 or shrub is glued or fastened with a thread 
 on several parts of the fruit, while yet grow- 
 ing; the apple gradually ripens, and all that 
 the sun reaches becomes red ; the parts covered 
 by the leaves remaining of a pale green or 
 yellow colour. 
 
 Poetry often the Precursor and Nurse of 
 Science.— To them that, professing learning, 
 inveigh against poetry, may justly be objected , 
 that they go very near to ungratefulness, to ; 
 Seek to deface that, which in the noblest na- 
 tions and languages that are known, hath 
 been the first light given to ignorance, and 
 first nurse, whose milk, by little and little, 
 enabled them to feed afterwards of tougher 
 knowledge. — Sir Philip Sydney. 
 
 A narrow Come-off. — Sheridan having de- 
 clined walking out with an elderly maiden 
 lady, on the pretence of bad weather, was met 
 by the lady afterwards walking by himself. 
 *• So Mr Sheridan,” said she, “ it has cleared 
 up.” “Yes, madam,” said he, “ enough for 
 one, but not enough for two.” ‘ 
 
 Pleasure a Cheat. — We should have a 
 care of drinking too much : for pleasure, to 
 deceive us, marches before, and conceals her 
 train. —Montaigne. 
 
 LONDON : Printed and published, by J. LIMBIRD 
 143. Strand, (near Somerset House') : and sold by. 
 all Booksellers and Newshnn — In PAIIIS, by all 
 the Booksellers. — In PRANCFORT, OR ARLES, 
 JUOEL. . . d 
 
Vi)c fflUmov 
 
 OF 
 
 LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION. 
 
 No. 944. J 
 
 SATURDAY, APRIL 13, 1839. 
 
 [Price 2 d . 
 
 THE RESIDENCE OF THE LATE JAMES WOOD, ESQ., 
 
 THE WEALTHY BANKER, OF GLOUCESTER. 
 
 Places of abode of remarkable persons, have 
 at all times been objects of much interest; 
 for they give evidence of the character of 
 the occupants ; showing their taste, their 
 eccentricities, meanness, or prodigality. And 
 certainly among the numerous Remarkables 
 of late years, no residence has gained more 
 notoriety than the abode of the late James 
 Wood, Esq., of Gloucester ; the application 
 of whose property has recently given the 
 gentlemen of the long robe so much employ- 
 ment : with that, we have nothing to do ; 
 all that falls within our province, is to present 
 a faithful view of the “ Gloucester City Old 
 Bank,” the house wherein the celebrated 
 “ Jemmy Wood,” amassed such immense 
 wealth ; and of whose peculiarities the public 
 have become acquainted, by the numerous 
 curious traditions that have issued from the 
 press ; we have, therefore, little left to per- 
 Vol. xxxiii. Q 
 
 form, than to state, that Mr. Wood was bora 
 in the city of Gloucester, on the 7th of 
 October, 1756 : he descended from the 
 
 ancient and highly respectable family of 
 the Woods of Brockthrop Court, in the 
 county of Gloucester, who at all times dis- 
 tinguished themselves for their loyalty. Cer- 
 tain it also is, that the family have, to the 
 death of the subject of this memoir, been 
 eminent for their high respectability and 
 wealth. 
 
 The “ Gloucester City Old Bank ” was 
 founded by James Wood, Esq., grandfather 
 of its late proprietor, in the year 1716, and 
 was the most ancient private bank in Eng- 
 land, with the) exception of Messrs. Childs’, 
 of Fleet-street, London. 
 
 Mr. Wood died at his above residence, 
 April 20, 1836, in the 80th year of his age. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 226 
 
 A DAUGHTER’S GIFT TO HER FATHER, 
 ON HIS BIRTH-DAY. 
 
 WRITTEN BY ANDREW PARK, 
 
 Author of“ The Bridegroom and the Bride," — " Vision 
 of Mankind" fyc. fyc. §c. 
 
 ( For the Mirror. ) 
 
 Respectfully Dedicated to Mrs. Thomas Littlewood. 
 
 She loved lier father, and look’d up to him. 
 
 Even as the flower looks up in loveliness 
 To him who reared it in the cultured bower : — 
 
 Who water'd its young germ, and inly sighed. 
 
 When the loud blast, unmindful of its bloom,— 
 
 Blew all unkindly on its fragile form. 
 
 So did she love her father ; for she knew 
 He was the guardian of her infant years ; 
 
 And thus again, like the fair flower pourtray’d. 
 
 Gave beauty for his kindness ! 
 
 Not alone 
 
 That outward beauty, which all flowers disclose, 
 While opening first the freshness of their hues. 
 
 To smile with rapture in the radiant sun. 
 
 And with external loveliness entice 
 
 The passing throng to linger and admire 1 — 
 
 But that sweet love, which look’d minutely on, 
 
 But smiles the more intrinsically sweet, 
 
 Diffusing inuate worth with bashful ness, 
 
 Like the chaste rose-bud in the dew-bright morn ! 
 She heard her father of his birth-day speak. 
 
 While in kind converse with a faithful friend ; 
 
 Heard him, in joyful sadness, too, relate 
 His boyish feuds ; his playfulness and mirth, 
 
 And, at each pause, remember some one lost 
 In the dark shadows of an early grave 1 
 Whose buoyant spirit added joy and life 
 To every ramble o’er the verdant lawn ; 
 
 Who also roused him in the balmy morn, 
 
 When shade and sunshine fall like bliss aroUDd; 
 Thus fond recalling, from oblivion’s womb. 
 
 The long-lost gems that sleep unnoticed there ; 
 Musing with retrospection ou the past, — 
 
 When youth walk’d like a sunbeam among flowers ! 
 ’Twas thus she watch’d him, though he knew it not, 
 With an inquiring glance that deeply scans 
 The latent language of the loving breast ; 
 
 Learning that lie who laugh’d at boyish sports, — 
 
 At all the sinless mischiefs of that age. 
 
 Had uot forgot, he was himself a child, 
 
 And, therefore, could forgive her little faults. 
 
 And smile on them, as now upon his own 1 
 She form’d a wish, a secret of her own ! 
 
 The life of which lay in concealing it ! 
 
 And, as the youthful bosom soon expands, — 
 
 The warm idea, as it sprung to birth. 
 
 Was almost too puissant for her soul, — 
 
 So wing'd it was with gladness and with love ! 
 
 Yet, did she struggle with its eager wings, 
 
 Until she bound each golden pinion down ! 
 
 Slow wander’d aged Time with feeble step, 
 
 As though, grown weary of his ancient reign — 
 
 He ne’er would bring the happy birth-day round! 
 Meantime the tiny purse was valued o’er 
 Day after day, and as the sum increased, 
 
 So also magnified the glowing wish. 
 
 To make the offering greater, and when night 
 With soothing fingers closed her starry eyes, 
 
 Bright visions filled the palace of her mind, 
 
 Too pure, too fleet, too exquisite to leave 
 A meteor-memory of their passive bliss. 
 
 All blazing forth the gift of gratitude — • 
 
 Sweet gratitude I The noblest love the soul 
 Can give for its salvation 1 
 
 Now each day 
 
 Her gentle thoughts dwelt on the great result, 
 
 And as she walk’d abroad inquiringly. 
 
 Too many objects met her longing look, 
 
 Above her measured means 1 
 
 At last she fixed, — 
 
 Fix’d at the extent of all her treasure, too, — 
 Purchased the gift, conceal’d it carefully. 
 
 And when the birth-day of her father came. 
 
 Rush’d to him, with the ardour of a child. 
 
 And placed the priceless present in his hands. 
 ’Twas uot the intrinsic value of the gift. 
 
 That made it princely, precious and esteem’d ' 
 
 But the endear’d affection of his child, 
 
 Which trill’d the silver strings around the heart ! — 
 Theu roll’d a tear of gladness from his eye, 
 
 Which wash’d away each care she e’er incuvr’d ! 
 
 THE TWENTIETH ODE OF ANACREON. 
 “ At Movaai tov Epwra.” 
 
 ( For the Mirror.') 
 
 Once the Muses caught a rover. 
 
 Love — that universal lover. 
 
 With garlands bound, a prisoner made, 
 
 T o Beauty’s care their prize conveyed ; 
 
 Then Venus came, suffused in tears, 
 
 The goddess all o'ercome appears, 
 
 With offerings sweet to ransom Love ; 
 
 But lo 1 the urchin will not move. 
 
 Teach me, he cries, to serve and live. 
 Obedient to the laws you give ; 
 
 But not from Beauty will I part. 
 
 For any ransom of the heart. 
 
 ©€Ta. 
 
 THE HAREBELL. 
 
 (For the Mirror ) 
 
 Beside the church-yard’s grassy tombs. 
 Waving aloft in summer air ; 
 
 A little azure flow’r there blooms, 
 
 To me most fair. 
 
 It watches fondly o’er the dead 
 Who calmly sleep in peace below. 
 
 And gracefully it bends its head. 
 
 In morning’s glow. 
 
 It is the Harebell : and I pray. 
 
 That it’s blue flow'ers may o’er me wave, 
 When parted from this life — I lay 
 
 Within my grave. 
 
 * Henry Raymond. 
 
 THE PILGRIM CHILD.* 
 
 A stranger child, one winter eve. 
 
 Knocked at a cottage maiden’s door ; 
 
 " A pilgrim at your hearth receive — 
 
 Hark 1 how the mountain-torrents roar !” 
 
 But ere the latch was raised, “ Forbear 1” 
 
 Cried the pale parent from above ; 
 
 ” The pilgrim child, that’s weeping there, 
 
 Is Love !” 
 
 The spring-tide came, and once again, 
 
 With garlands crown’d, a laughing child 
 
 Knock d at the maiden’s casement paue. 
 
 And whispered “ Let me in,” and smiled. 
 
 The casement soon was opened wide — 
 
 The stars shone bright the bower above ; 
 
 And lo 1 the maiden’s couch beside 
 Stood Love ! 
 
 And smiles, and sighs, and kisses sw r eet, 
 Beguiled brief Summer’s careless hours; 
 
 And Autumn, Labour’s sons to greet. 
 
 Came forth, with corn, and fruit, and flowers. 
 
 But why crew pale her cheek with grief? 
 
 Why walched she the bright stars above ? 
 
 Some one had stole her heart — the thief 
 Was Love! 
 
 And Winter came, and hopes, and fears. 
 Alternate swelled her viigin breast ; 
 
 But none were there lo dry her tears. 
 
 Or hush her anxious cares to rest. 
 
 And often as she oped the door, 
 
 Roared the wild torrent from above ; 
 
 But never to her cottage more 
 Came Love ! 
 
 * From Minstrel Melodies . Longman & Co. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 227 
 
 
 PHENOMENA OF NATURE. 
 
 THEORIES OF THE EARTH’S SUBSTANCE. 
 
 The opinions of the ancients regarding the 
 form and substance of the earth, were various; 
 and, as might be naturally expected, in their 
 ignorance and excited imagination, many of 
 their hypotheses were of a wild and fancitul 
 description. The Eastern philosophers, and 
 those of Greece, were foud of speculating as 
 to the primary qualities and ultimate agglo- 
 meration of the elementary atoms or parti- 
 cles of which the globe is composed. Some 
 of our modern philosophers have been equally 
 erratic in their conceptions of it. By some 
 this material ball is considered to be a solid, 
 dull, inert mass, surrounded by a luminous 
 atmosphere ; by others it is conceived to be a 
 hollow sphere, filled with light, pure and 
 etherial ; while a third class suppose it to be 
 a cooling star, still molten at the centre. This 
 lust is the theory of M. Cordier, a celebrated 
 French Scavan ; and not a few, particularly 
 in France, have adopted his views on the 
 subject. Kepler at one time entertained the 
 extravagant idea that the earth is a living 
 animal, and that the ebbing and flowing of the 
 sea are merely the effect of its respiration ! 
 
 So conflicting and curious, indeed, are the 
 theories respecting the substance of which 
 the earth is composed, that Dr. Buckland was 
 induced to quote some of them in his Bridge- 
 water Treatise ; and we may extract the fol- 
 lowing four as the least whimsical of the 
 series : — 
 
 “ The earth,” says Bnrnet, “was first in- 
 vested with an uniform light crust, which co- 
 vered the abyss of the sea, and which being 
 broken up for the production of the deluge, 
 formed the mountains by its fragments.” — 
 Theoria Sacra. 
 
 “ The earth is an extinguished sun, a vi- 
 trified globe, on which the vapours falling 
 down again, after it had cooled, tormed seas, 
 which afterwards deposited the limestone for- 
 mation .” — Leibnitz Protogce. 
 
 “ The earth was a fragment of the sun, 
 struck off red-hot by the blow of a comet, 
 together with all the other planets, which were 
 also red-hot fragments. The age of the 
 world, then, can be calculated from the num- 
 ber of years which it would take to cool so 
 large a mass from a red-hot, down to its pre- 
 sent temperature. But it is of course grow- 
 ing colder every year, and, as well as the 
 other planets, must finally be a globe of ice.” 
 — Buff'on Theorie. 
 
 “ All things were originally fluid. The 
 waters gave birth to microscopic insects ; the 
 insects, in the course of ages, magnified 
 themselves into the larger animals; the ani- 
 mals, in the course of ages, converted another 
 portion into clay ! These two substances, in 
 the course of ages, converted themselves into 
 silex, and thus the silicious mountains are the 
 
 oldest of all. All the solid parts of the earth, 
 therefore, owe their existence to life, and 
 without life the globe would still be entirely 
 liquid.” — Lamar/c. This, too, is the favou- 
 rite mode among the German philosophers, 
 of accounting for the formation and filling of 
 the world. 
 
 As to the form of the earth, there can be 
 now very little difference of opinion. Its 
 true figure is that of an oblate spheroid — that 
 is, a body approaching to the form of a 
 sphere, or globe, but not exactly round. This 
 has been long since satisfactorily ascertained, 
 and is now universally recognised. 
 
 The discovery of a h igh temperature in the 
 interior of the* earth no doubt suggested the 
 idea that the ground on which we tread is 
 but the crust of a cooling star ; and many 
 circumstances tend to give countenance to 
 the theory ; particularly the existence of 
 thermal springs, the eruptions of volcanos, 
 and the occurrence of earthquakes. 
 
 Thermal, or warm-water springs, are found 
 in almost every latitude. They abound on 
 the continent of Europe ; they occur also in 
 Asia, Africa, and North and South America; 
 but the most remarkable of these phenomena 
 are the boiling fountains of Iceland. Ther- 
 mal waters are very various in their compo- 
 sition ; in the greater part saline substances 
 predominate; some are gaseous, others te- 
 rrigenous, others sulphureous, and a few have, 
 on analysis, been discovered to be highly im- 
 pregnated with iodine. They are also very 
 different in their temperatures ; varying from 
 a few degrees above the surrounding atmos- 
 phere to the boiling point. Their distinctive 
 composition is acquired from the particular 
 substances through which they have perco- 
 lated, or over which they have passed in their 
 descent through the mineral strata of the 
 earth ; minute particles of which they hold 
 in solution. The cause of their increased 
 temperature has long been a contested point 
 in physical science. Many intelligent na- 
 tural philosophers ascribe it to beds of lime- 
 stone over which the waters had run, others, 
 and amongst the rest, the ingenious Borden, 
 to the agency of subterrene fire. 
 
 Undoubtedly, the theory which attributes 
 the increase of temperature to subterrane- 
 ous fire, is the most philosophical of all the 
 theories that have been broached on this 
 point; and the recent experiments of Da- 
 buisson and Cordier, for ascertaining the 
 temperature of mines of various depths, hav- 
 ing proved that the farther we descend into 
 the interior of the earth the higher is the 
 temperature ; and that the water, which has 
 filtered to these depths, is uniformly found to 
 be of a like increased heat, would seem to 
 corroborate this theory. 
 
 Volcanos, with a few exceptions, are 
 found to take place in those mountainous 
 groups which are situated^ in the neigh- 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 bourhood of seas, or extensive sheets of salt 
 water. Volcanic mountains, standing in the 
 interior of the European continent, at a dis- 
 tance from the influence of the present ocean 
 or lakes, such as those scattered over the cen- 
 tral regions of France, Silesia, Bohemia, Hun- 
 gary, and Transylvania, have long been in a 
 state of inactivity ; but taking into calculation 
 the changes which may have been effected 
 upon the surface of the earth since the period 
 at which they were in action, it is probable 
 that they were then either within a short 
 distance of the sea, or in the vicinity of 
 lakes or other masses of water. From the 
 striking similarity which subsists between 
 the lavas and substances ejected from the 
 craters of volcanos, and the rocks of the pri- 
 mitive and transition series, it is conjectured 
 that the focus of volcanic action must be at 
 a great depth below the surface, and near to, 
 if not at, the nucleus of the globe. It is 
 certain, that if these ejected materials were 
 situated near the surface, the enormous 
 quantities which have been discharged would, 
 long ere this time, have levelled the moun- 
 tain with the plain. But the volcanic pro- 
 ducts of Vesuvius, altogether, far exceed the 
 magnitude of the mountain ; and several of 
 the Coulees ofMountEtnu measure four miles 
 in breadth by sixteen in length, and one is from 
 .fifty to a hundred feet in thickness ; and yet 
 these mountains have suffered no visible dimi- 
 nution. The earlier writers on geology sup- 
 pose the mighty cause of these powerful and 
 wonderful effects to be the spontaneous igni- 
 tion of beds of coal, sulphur, and other in- 
 flammable substances, which are found among 
 the secondary or superficial strata. This, 
 however, is a cause which is utterly inade- 
 quate to produce effects so great and extra- 
 ordinary, and can in no way account for the 
 concomitant awfully disastrous phenomena of 
 earthquakes. 
 
 Dr. Charles Daubeny, of Oxford, and Sir 
 Humphrey Davy, were of opinion, that the 
 volcanic heat depends upon the oxydation of 
 the metals of the earth on an extensive scale, 
 in immense subterranean cavities, to which 
 water or atmospheric air may gain access ; 
 but the latter candidly acknowledged that 
 the hypothesis, of the nucleus of the globe 
 being composed of matter liquified by heat, 
 offers a far more simple solution of volcanic 
 phenomena. This, as we have stated, is the 
 theory of M. Cordier ; who, having devoted 
 much time and attention to the investigation 
 of the rival theories, concerning the aqueous 
 and igneous original fluidity of the earth, is 
 considered to have made, after numerous 
 experiments in deep mines, the discovery of 
 the fact, of the existence of a subterranean 
 heat peculiar to the terrestrial globe, and 
 which has belonged to it since the begin- 
 ning, totally independent of the solar rays, 
 and increasing rapidly with the depth. 
 
 M. Cordier embodied his opinions and 
 
 demonstrations in a treatise, which was read, 
 for the first time, before the Royal Society 
 of Sciences at Paris, in the year 1827, when 
 it excited great interest, and was received 
 with unusual applause; but although his 
 hypothesis has been approved by several able 
 philosophers and men of science, it has not 
 yet been received as the only authentic theory 
 of the earth. In the valuable and highly 
 illustrating Treatise on Climate, which was 
 contributed by the late Sir John Leslie, of 
 Edinburgh, to the Supplement of the Ency- 
 clopaedia Britannica, there occurs the fol- 
 lowing passage, with which, as it bears on 
 the question in dispute, we shall conclude ! 
 the present article : — 
 
 “ If we dig into the ground,” says Sir 
 John Leslie, “ we find the temperature to i 
 become gradually more steady, till we reach i 
 a depth of perhaps forty or fifty feet, below | 
 which it continues unchanged. When this 
 perforation is made during winter, the 
 ground gets sensibly warmer till the limit is 
 attained ; but in summer, on the contrary, 
 it grows always colder, till it has reached the 
 same limit. At a certain depth, therefore, ! 
 under the surface, the temperature of the 
 ground remains quite permanent. Nor 
 is there any indication whatever of the 
 supposed existence of a central fire, since 
 the alleged increase of heat near the bottom 
 of the proloundest excavations is merely 
 accidental, being occasioned by the multi- 
 tude of burning tapers consumed in conduct- 
 ing the operations of mining. Accordingly, 
 while the air of those confined chambers 
 .feels often oppressively warm, the water 
 which flows along the floors seems compara- j 
 tively cold, or rather preserves the medium 
 heat. It would be a hasty conclusion, how- 
 ever, to regard this limit of temperature as 
 the natural and absolute heat of our globe. 
 
 If we dig on the summit of a mountain, or 
 any very elevated spot, we shall discover the 
 ground to be considerably colder than in 
 the plain below ; or, if we make a similar 
 perforation on the same level, but in a 
 more southern latitude, we shall find greater 
 warmth than before. The heat thus ob- 
 tained, at some moderate depth, is, hence, 
 only the mean result of all the various im- 
 pressions which the surface of the earth re- 
 ceives from the sun and the atmosphere.” 
 
 In the gardens of Chapultepec, near 
 Mexico, (says a modern traveller,) is a mag- 
 nificent cypress, called the cypress of Monte- 
 zuma. It had attained its full growth when 
 that monarch was on the throne, in 1520 ; 
 yet it retains all the vigour of youthful vege- 
 tation : the trunk is forty-one feet in cir- 
 cumference. At Santa Maria de Tula, in 
 Oaxaca, there is a cypress, the trunk of 
 which is ninety-three feet in circumference; 
 and yet does not show the slightest symptom 
 of decay. 
 
THE MJRROR. 
 
 229 
 
 ^ntcfcot* 4§aller». 
 
 ANECDOTES OF CELEBRATED PERSONS. 
 
 (Translated from French Works.} 
 
 Henri IV. — As his majesty was one day 
 hunting in the Vendomois, he lost sight of 
 his retinue, and was about to return alone, 
 when he saw a peasant seated under a tree ; 
 “ Well, and what are you doing here, my 
 good man ?.” said the king. “ Faith, I am 
 waiting to see the king go by, sir/’ — “ Oh, 
 is that all,” replied Henri, “ then get up 
 behind me, and I will take you somewhere 
 where you will be able to see the king at 
 your ease.” The boor mounted, and held 
 himself on the horse, by twining his arms 
 round the monarch. “ But, I say, sir, how 
 shall I be able to know the king from 
 the others ?” — “Very easily ; he will be the 
 only one who will not take his hat off.” 
 Presently they were discovered by the gen- 
 tlemen of the suite, who all uncovered them- 
 selves, and paid their respects to the monarch. 
 “ Well, and who now is the king?” said 
 Henri, mildly. “ Why,” replied the peasant, 
 “ it must be either you or 1 ; for I don’t see 
 any but we two with our hats on.” 
 
 At the time of the war with Spain, Henri 
 thus wrote to Sully : “lam close upon the 
 enemy, and yet I have not a horse worth 
 mounting. My shirts are all gone to rags, 
 and my doublets are out at elbows. For the 
 last four or five days, I have dined here and 
 there, for 1 have nothing wherewith to pur- 
 chase food.” 
 
 Gibbon. — This celebrated man’s prodi- 
 gious bulkiness was no hinderance to his 
 gallantry. One day, as he sat enjoying a 
 most comfortable tete-a-tete with Mad.de 
 Cronzas, it suddenly occurred to him, that 
 the opportunity was one of the most favour- 
 able he could ever meet with, to make a 
 declaration. Acting accordingly, the his- 
 torian threw himself on his knees before the 
 lady, and expressed his feelings in most 
 glowing language. Mad. de Cronzas, some- 
 what surprised, replied in such terms as 
 were, she thought, calculated at once to 
 put an end to a scene so ridiculous. But 
 no, ’twas unavailing ; and Gibbon remained 
 on his knees, regardless of all injunctions. 
 “ Sir,” said the baffled lady, “ I beg you will 
 rise.” — “ Alas ! madam,” replied the un- 
 wieldy suitor, “ I cannot.” His corpulency 
 utterly prevented him from rising without 
 assistance ; Mad. de Cronzas, therefore, rang 
 the bell, and upon its being answered, said, 
 “ Lift up Mr. Gibbon !” * 
 
 Voltaire.— The philosopher was exceed- 
 ingly disagreeable at table. He seemed to 
 be in a continual passion, and called out to 
 the servants at the top of his voice, which 
 
 * Colman the Younger wrote some humorous 
 verses upon the above incident. 
 
 was so loud as to repeatedly startle his 
 guests. — An Englishman, who was on his 
 way to Italy, could in no wise prevail upon 
 himself to pass Ferney without visiting 
 him. He luckily chose a fortunate mo- 
 ment, and was received by the philosopher 
 with every possible demonstration of respect 
 and pleasure. This reception so highly de- 
 lighted our Englishman, that in his exulta- 
 tion the next day, he declared his intention 
 to spend six weeks at the castle. “ You are 
 not quite like Don Quixote,” remarked Vol- 
 taire, “ he mistook inns for castles, you mis- 
 take castles for inns.” 
 
 Klopstoc/c. — The celebrated author of 
 the “ Messiah” desired to be introduced to 
 me, and came. I was alone with my niece, 
 when in came a little, lame, ugly man ; I 
 rose, and conducted him a to chair, in which 
 he sat at first as if absorbed in deep thought ; 
 he then thrust himself comfortably into it, 
 and assumed the appearance of one who was 
 determined to make a stay of no short dura 
 tion. With a loud, high-pitched voice, he 
 then suddenly put me the question, “ Which, 
 madam, in your opinion, is the best prose 
 writer, Voltaire or Bufton ?” 
 
 Scarron. — The wit thus addressed the 
 king, in his preface to Don Japhet : “ I 
 
 will prove to your majesty, that far from 
 doing yourself any injury by doing me more 
 good, you will, on the contrary, much con- 
 duce to your happiness, likewise to that of 
 the country at large. For then I should be 
 a deal more light-hearted, and consequently 
 write better plays. And if I wrote good 
 plays, your majesty would be well enter- 
 tained ; so that, by being entertained, 
 your majesty’s money will not be wasted. 
 By good plays, too, the people’s admiration 
 will be excited, and cause hosts of them to 
 frequent the theatres ; money will thus circu- 
 late, and there is no telling where the mat- 
 ter may not end.” 
 
 Mezeray. — This celebrated old French 
 historian was excessively susceptible of cold. 
 A friend meeting him on a very frosty 
 day, asked him how he fared in this 
 weather. “ I am come to L,” answered 
 Mezeray, running home as fast ns his legs 
 could well carry him, that he might enjoy 
 the delights of his fire-side. This riddle was 
 for a long time inexplicable ; till at last it 
 was one day solved by a friend, who lived 
 on the most intimate terms with the eccen- 
 tric historian. It appears that Mezeray had 
 always a dozen pairs of stockings behind his 
 chair, severally labelled from A to M. Ac- 
 cording to the number of degrees indicated 
 by the thermometer, he put on a corres- 
 ponding number of pairs of stockings ; so 
 that having this key to the enigma, it was evi- 
 dent that on the day above mentioned, the 
 poor chilly Mezeray had come to the last 
 degree. 
 
230 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 Louis XIV . — A robber, who had ma-i 
 naged to effect his way into one of the royal 
 apartments of Versailles, was in the act of 
 placing a small ladder against the wall, 
 to possess himself of a beautiful time- 
 piece, when the king came in and disturbed 
 iiis plans. The robber, however, undaunted, 
 made a low bow, saying, “ I was going to 
 take that time-piece down, but I am afraid 
 the ladder will slip.” His majesty, thinking 
 the man had orders to repair the clock, offered 
 his assistance, and held the foot of the lad- 
 der, while the fellow took it down. A few 
 hours afterwards the general talk was of a 
 most beautiful time-piece having been stolen, 
 which the king happening to overhear, said, 
 “ Hush ! 1 am one of the parties, I held 
 the ladder to help the man to get it.” 
 
 Napoleon . — He was in the habit of play- 
 ing with his son as childishly as if he him- 
 self were no more than a mere child six or 
 seven years of age. Sometimes he would 
 take the young king under the arms, and toss 
 him up in the air, exciting his little ma- 
 jesty’s delight to such a degree as to make 
 him shed tears. Then he would carry him 
 before a glass, making the most ridiculous 
 grimaces imaginable ; often, too, the poor 
 little fellow would shed tears of actual pain, 
 for the game became sometimes too rough ; 
 the emperor would then exclaim : “ Oh ! oh ! 
 a king crying ! fie, fie ! that is very ugly, 
 very ugly !” 
 
 One day, when the prince was but a 
 twelvemonth old, the emperor took off his 
 sword, and fastened it on his son, completing 
 the child’s toilette by placing his three-cor- 
 nered hat on its head ; thus equipped, it 
 may be supposed it found no little difficulty 
 in keeping itself on its legs, and the care 
 with which the emperor watched his every 
 step, would have delighted any one to witness. 
 
 At breakfast, the emperor made it a prac- 
 tice to dip his finger in wine, and make his 
 son suck it; sometimes he would dip his 
 finger in sauce, and spot the young king’s 
 chin and nose with it : this amusement was 
 among the most pleasing to the child. 
 
 H. M. 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE GRESHAM 
 LECTURES. 
 
 The following account of the origin of the 
 Gresham Lectures, is extracted from the in- 
 troductory lecture of Mr. Palmer, who was 
 appointed, in 1837, to the office of lecturer 
 on Law, at this ancient foundation : — 
 
 Sir Thomas Gresham, the founder of these 
 lectures, was a merchant, who, with several 
 others of the same name and kindred, be- 
 longed to the Mercer’s Company ; and his 
 father and an uncle were successively She- 
 riffs and Lord Mayors of London. His 
 father, Sir Richard Gresham, was foreign 
 
 agent to Henry VIII.; and Sir Thomas 
 Gresham held that office under the three 
 succeeding sovereigns, being received into 
 especial favour by Queen Elizabeth, whom 
 he chiefly served ; and was often consulted 
 by her, in political as well as commercial 
 matters. Ey successful application to com- 
 merce, he amassed an ample fortune ; and 
 his family being well provided for, he re- 
 solved that his country should share his 
 wealth. Having the benefit of a university 
 education, which he received at Gonville 
 Hall, in the University of Cambridge, and 
 seeing no repugnance between the pursuits 
 of enlightened commerce and the liberal arts, 
 he determined to faciliate the obtaining of a 
 similar benefit by the citizens of London, by 
 establishing a college for the profession of 
 the several sciences within the city. 
 
 On the news of his intentions reaching 
 the University of Cambridge, who previously 
 seem to have heard that Cambridge would 
 be the seat of his bounty, a letter was writ- 
 ten to him by the Vice-Chancellor and 
 Senate, urging him to establish his college 
 there. This letter, the original of which is 
 written in elegant Latin, is dated March 25, 
 1575, and is addressed “ To the most accom- 
 plished Sir Thomas Gresham, the best Mae- 
 cenas of good learning ;” and, after various 
 preliminary compliments, explains its ob- 
 jects in the following terms : — “ A constant 
 report, O most illustrious Gresham, has 
 prevailed amongst us, that thou hast vowed 
 to dedicate to the seven liberal sciences (as 
 they are called) an excellent domicile, and 
 one worthy of thyself, having promised the 
 most illustrious wife of Cecil to erect a col- 
 lege for these arts, and to liberally endow it 
 with most ample stipends. And we doubt 
 not, indeed, but what thou hast sincerely pro- 
 mised thou wilt, with the utmost faith, per- 
 form ; nor do we labour unnecessarily to spur 
 thee on, who art already willing; we are 
 only anxious to persuade thee to make Cam- 
 bridge the seat of thy great bounty, of this 
 excellent record, and most ample theatre for 
 display of thy virtue. Nor would we pre- 
 scribe the fashion of the building or the 
 measure of the cost ; let either of these rest 
 with thy sovereign will and pleasure. One 
 thing alone would we have of our choice : 
 we would persuade thee to enrich the Uni- 
 versity of Cambridge with thy expenditure, 
 rendering it famous by thy liberality, and 
 blessed by thy work and bounty. In urging 
 this alone, we would not so strongly, or so 
 long contend, unless for the convenient fit- 
 ness of the place, and for the wholesome 
 state of the air, and usefully for the dignity 
 of the state, and piously for the defence of 
 religion, and fruitfully for the progress of 
 virtue, and happily and fortunately for the 
 advancement of learning, and splendidly as 
 well as gloriously for thine own everlasting 
 fame, thou mayest erect this college here, 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 231 
 
 rather than any other place. But, perhaps, 
 of thy own accord thou mayst incline, or, 
 not without show of reason, mayst be per- 
 snaded by others, to fix upon London, where 
 thou wert born and bred ; or upon Oxford, 
 where the arts and sciences no less flourish, 
 for the establishment of this most famous 
 memorial of thy excellence and probity. 
 
 I Good indeed, and useful and magnificent will 
 it be, wherever placed ; but thou wilt not, 
 we trust, establish it at London, to the detri- 
 ment or almost ruin of either university ; 
 thou oughtest not to establish it at Oxford, 
 for thou art ours, and a Cantabrigian, and 
 every one must serve his own rather than a 
 stranger university ; and in any other place 
 than these, thou neither wilt or ought to 
 fix it, lest the fruit which thou desirest to be 
 most ample, be lost to the state by the ob- 
 scurity of the place ; and thou thyself be 
 dishonestly robbed of the praise and glory 
 due to thy merit, and which is wont to at- 
 tend upon actions rightly performed.” 
 
 At the same time they wrote to Lady 
 Burghley, the wife Lord Burghley, who 
 was then their Chancellor, requesting her 
 influence with Sir Thomas Gresham, for 
 the same purpose, observing, that at her 
 solicitation he had promised to found a col- 
 lege at London for the seven liberal sciences, 
 and endow it with a rental exceeding six 
 hundred pounds a year. 
 
 But all the rhetoric and compliments of 
 the University of Cambridge could not divert 
 Sir Thomas Gresham from his purpose of 
 benefiting his fellow-citizens. After appro- 
 priating his own mansion in Bishopsgate 
 Street to the uses of the intended college, 
 he resolved to provide for its maintainance, 
 as well as the salaries of the professors, 
 from the rents of the Royal Exchange. 
 According, by his will, which bears date 
 the 5th of July, 1575, he gave the Royal 
 Exchange, with all its shops and other build- 
 ings, on the determination of certain uses, 
 which happened on the death of his widow, 
 to the mayor and commonalty of the city of 
 London, and to the wardens and commonalty 
 of the mystery of mercers, in equal moieties, 
 for fifty years, upon trust and confidence, 
 and to the intent that they should perform 
 the payments and other intents therein after 
 limited. And he thereby declared that, so 
 soon as the premises should come into their 
 possession, and thenceforth, so long as by 
 any title they should hold the same, the 
 said mayor and commonalty of the city 
 should yearly give, for the sustentation, 
 maintainance, and finding of four persons 
 from time to time, to be by them appointed, 
 meet to read the lectures of divinity, astro- 
 nomy, music, and geometry, within his own 
 dwelling-house in St. Helen’s, the sum of 
 two hundred pounds, or fifty pounds to each, 
 for their salaries and stipends, meet for four 
 sufficiently learned to read the said lectures. 
 
 And as to the wardens and commonalty of 
 mercers, he declared that, so soon as they 
 should come into possession of the premises, 
 and thenceforth so long as by any title they 
 should hold the same, they should yearly 
 pay for the finding, sustentation, and main- 
 tainance of three persons, by them to be cho- 
 sen, meet to read the lectures of law, physic, 
 and rhetoric, within the said dwelling-house, 
 the sum of one hundred and fifty pounds, 
 or fifty pounds each, for their salaries and 
 stipends, meet for three sufficiently learned ; 
 that they should yearly expend on four quar- 
 terly dinners, for the whole company, the 
 sum of one hundred pounds, or twenty-five 
 pounds on each dinner. He gave his dwel- 
 ling-house or mansion in the parishes of St. 
 Helen, Bishopsgate Street, and St. Peter- 
 le-Poor, to the City and Mercer’s Company 
 in equal moieties, for fifty years, upon trust 
 and confidence that they should observe and 
 perform his will and intent thereinafter ex- 
 pressed. And he thereby declared, that so 
 soon as the premises should come into their 
 possession, and thenceforth, so long as by 
 any title they should hold the same, they 
 should permit and suffer the seven persons 
 to be appointed by them, meet and sufficiently 
 learned to read the said lectures ; to have 
 the occupation of the said mansion-house, 
 with all its gardens and other appurtenances, 
 there to inhabit, study, and daily to read the 
 said lectures ; and further declaring, that 
 no person being married should be chosen 
 to read the said lectures ; nor, after marry- 
 ing, be suffered to read them, or to receive 
 any fee or stipend for so doing. He also en- 
 joined the said city and company, that be- 
 fore the fifty years were expired, they should 
 obtain proper licences, to hold the premises 
 in perpetuity, on the above trusts ; using 
 no delay, as they would answer for the same 
 before Almighty God ; for should they neg- 
 lect to obtain such licences, which could 
 not be so chargeable, but that the overplus 
 of the rents, would soon recompense them ; 
 nor so difficult, because to such good pur- 
 pose in the Commonwealth, no prince nor 
 council in any age, would deny or defeat 
 the same, then the premises would revert to 
 his heirs, whereas he intended them for the 
 common weal. W. G. C. 
 
 (To be concluded in our next .) 
 
 THE UTILITY OF PENITENCE* 
 
 Quem poenitet, necesse poene est innocens. — Seneca. 
 
 A repentance of our misdeeds is half-way 
 towards an amendment of conduct, and 
 greatly diminishes the cause which set in 
 jeopardy our innocence. And to manifest 
 a real sorrow for our errors, is the tokeu of 
 
 * From the Freemason' s Quarterly Review , No. 21. 
 Sherwood and Co. 
 
THK MIRROR. 
 
 232 
 
 a broken and contrite spirit, declaratory of 
 our desire to make some reparation for any 
 injury inflicted, and reinstate our names 
 among the ranks of the innocent. 
 
 Because, as in the case of effects resulting 
 from sudden anger, the truly elevated mind, 
 when roused by some provocation to infringe 
 the rules of propriety, on returning to cool 
 reflection, justly reprobates its own indis- 
 creetness as severely as the sternest moral 
 censor ; and anxiously desires to offer every 
 becoming concession that might ameliorate 
 the displeasure of the aggrieved party. Thus 
 displaying a disposition that exhibits an 
 innocence of natural character on the part 
 of him who has been seduced to offer an 
 offence of a more trivial description ; and a 
 justice of character on the part of him, who 
 haying committed a more serious and griev- 
 ous wrong, seals the sincerity of his penitence 
 by an act of retribution. 
 
 Whereas, on the contrary, an unprincipled 
 and ill-regulated mind will oftentimes rather 
 endeavour to aggravate an injury or offence, 
 by some fresh accession to a former fault or 
 crime, than seek to redress the calamity it 
 has occasioned, or restore the reputation it 
 has lost or destroyed, by the confession of a 
 penitent admission of guilt. This moral 
 axiom distinguishes the utterly depraved from 
 the accidental and unhardened offender. 
 
 A great mind, under circumstances of in- 
 citement or irritation, is like the expansive 
 ocean, ruffled and swelled hy a sudden tem- 
 pest. When the storm has subsided, it again 
 resumes its usual calmness and dignity of 
 motion. 
 
 The little mind is like a dirty puddle, 
 collecting every rain-drop of the paltry pas- 
 sions of a party, and always continues a 
 nuisance on the highway of society, till the 
 advancement of the sun of science and mental 
 culture absorbs its insignificant contents, and 
 men, rejoicing in the progress of useful 
 knowledge and sound morals, just remember 
 that such things were. 
 
 " Repentance of an evil done 
 Implies, we will that evil shun." 
 
 One of the most remarkable instances of 
 the utility of penitence, is that recorded in 
 the Sacred Volume of the disciple Peter. 
 Although for the moment seduced to renounce 
 his divine Master by impious oaths, yet, at 
 the simple crowing of the cock, he was 
 warned of his error, and, with tears, imme- 
 diately repented. The sincerity of his repen- 
 tance, foolish and profane as his previous 
 action was, restored him to his divine Mas- 
 ter’s love and favour. Truly says the elegant 
 Piiny in that trite apothegm — 
 
 " Nemo mortalium, omnibus lioris sapit.” 
 
 J3tograpi)j>. 
 
 SIR HERBERT TAYLOR, Q. C. B. AND G. C. H. 
 
 This well-known gentleman entered the army 
 at a very early period of his life ; and was 
 present at the sieges of Valenciennes and 
 Dunkirk; also with the Duke of York dur- 
 ing the whole of the campaign in Holland. 
 In May, 1795, he was appointed secretary to 
 the commander of the British forces on the 
 continent ; and continued in the situation of 
 Private Secretary and Aide-de-Camp to the 
 Duke of York until June, 1805, when he was 
 appointed Private Secretary to his Majesty 
 George III. ; he received the rank of Colonel 
 July 25, 1810. In March, 1812, he was 
 nominated one of the trustees of the king’s 
 private property, and soon after (in conse- 
 quence of the Regency,) Private Secretary to 
 the Queen; the 4th of June, 1813, he ob- 
 tained the rank of Major-General. In 
 November, 1813, he was ordered on special 
 service to Holland ; and a few days after his 
 return from the army under Sir T. Graham ; 
 in March, 1814, was sent on a military mis- 
 sion to the Crown Prince of Sweden, to Sir 
 Thomas Graham, and to the Hague. In 
 December, 1818, he was appointed Master of 
 Katherine’s Hospital, Regent’s Park, a situ- 
 ation he held till his death, which happened 
 at Rome, March 20tli, 1839. 
 
 EDMUND LODGE, ESQ., K. H. 
 
 Clarenceux , King of Arms, F. S. A. 
 
 This eminent biographer was born in Poland- 
 street, London, on the 13th of June, 1756. 
 He became a cornet in the king’s own regi- 
 ment of dragoons, in 1772 ; having a pure 
 taste for antiquities and literature, he left the 
 army, and obtained the situation of Blue 
 Mantle Pursuivant at-Arms, 22d of February, 
 1782. He was promoted to be Lancaster 
 Herald, on the 29th of October, 1793 ; Nor- 
 roy, on the 11th of June, 1822; and Claren- 
 ceux, on the 30th of July, 1838. — Among 
 his literary productions may be mentioned, 
 “ Illustrations of British History — “ The 
 Life of Sir Julius Csesar — “ Memoirs of 
 Illustrious Personages of Great Britain and 
 many others of the greatest merit, learning, 
 and research. 
 
 Mr. Lodge died at his house in Blooms- 
 bury-square, January 16, 1839, in his eighty- 
 third year. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 233 
 
 YEW TREE AT HARDHAMj SUSSEX. 
 This beautiful specimen of an ancient Eng- 
 lish yew tree, stands in the church-yard of 
 Hardham Church. Few trees of the kind 
 have reached the gigantic dimensions this 
 venerable relic has attained. Its trunk is ca- 
 pable of containing twenty-seven people — 
 its girth is twenty- three feet, and supposing 
 the trunk were yet solid, it would contain 
 not less that five hundred cubic feet of wood. 
 About eighteen years ago the top of this 
 tree was unfortunately blown down, and it is 
 to be feared that in a very few years scarcely 
 anything of this wonder of the vegetable 
 creation will remain, so old and worn is the 
 wood. No doubt can exist as to its being 
 more than two thousand years old. H. M. 
 
 SEPULCHRAL MONUMENTS IN 
 PERSIA. 
 
 The reverence for tombs, or memorials of 
 the dead, is common throughout Persia. In 
 the plains of Sahra'i-Sirwan — are many white- 
 washed obelisks of brick-work, varying from 
 JO to 15 feet in height, to be seen in all 
 directions upon the skirts of the hills, the 
 sepulchral monuments of the Lurish chiefs : 
 
 an interesting story attaches to one of tall 
 graceful form and recent erection. — A chief 
 from Pish- kuh was betrothed to the daughter 
 of one of the Tushmdls ( a master of a 
 house) ; he came to celebrate his nuptials, 
 but sickened upon the road, and died before 
 he reached the encampment of his bride. 
 The maiden raised this pillar to his memory, 
 and, shaving her long tresses, hung them 
 round the obelisk in token of her grief. 
 Most of the pillars are thus decked with a 
 coronal of woman’s tresses, for it is a custom 
 among the Lurish I’liyat, on the death of a 
 chieftain, for all his female relations to cut 
 off their hair, and hang their locks, woven 
 into a funeral wreath, upon the tomb of their 
 departed lord. A custom also prevails among 
 the Lurish tribes, and iudeed throughout 
 Persia, of representing symbolically upon the 
 gravestone, the sex, character, and occupa- 
 tion of the deceased ; upon one tomb-stone, 
 the following designs, all very rudely engraven, 
 but sufficiently marked to denote their true 
 signification. First — a chief, attended by a 
 lew followers, shooting a lion that has fas- 
 tened on the haunches of a deer ; secondly — 
 hounds pursuing in full chase a herd of aute- 
 lopes ; thirdly — a falconer flying his hawk at 
 
234 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 a partridge ; fourthly— a company of horse- 
 men armed as if for battle; fifthly — a band 
 of women dancing the favourite dance chupi ; 
 and the elogy of glyphs (incisions cut by way 
 of ornament) wa3 closed by a ring, a rosary 
 and a comb, toothed upon one side, such as 
 is used by men- in Persia ; this last being the 
 distinctive mark of the male sex ; as the 
 double-toothed comb is of the female.”* 
 
 Emigration Fields. By Patrick Matthew. 
 
 (Concluded from page 191.) 
 
 Salubrity of the Air in New South Wales . 
 The climate of New South Wales, and in- 
 deed of all the southern half of Australia, 
 notwithstanding the great heat, is salubrious 
 and suitable for Europeans, and especially in 
 the more elevated country, and to the west of 
 the Blue Mountains at Bathurst. Those 
 born in the country, — the Australian British, 
 — are generally of a good tall size, to which 
 the plenty of animal food will no doubt con- 
 duce. But notwithstanding of the salubrity, 
 the infirmities of age and wrinkles approach 
 sooner than in Britain, the teeth also, accor- 
 ding to Cunningham, decay at a very early 
 period, which would augur some deficiency 
 in the digestive functions. As in all new 
 countries, even though a little warmer than 
 the parent country, light-coloured hair is 
 more frequent than in the parent country, the 
 complexion is also inclining to a brick-red 
 cast, without the rose-bloom cheek. 
 
 It is said that the births in the imported 
 races, as well in man as the lower animals, 
 are considerably more productive of females 
 than of males, which some of the native 
 writers, without attempting to point out the 
 proximate cause, say is providential. The 
 population has not increased (naturally), but 
 has considerably diminished since the foun- 
 dation of the colony, — the deaths greatly ex- 
 ceeding the births, — the increase of numbers 
 being entirely owing to immigration. This, 
 however, is not the fault of the climate ; 
 marriages are sufficiently prolific. The great 
 predominance of males in the colony, and the 
 condition of at least the one half of these 
 (military or convicts without wives), accounts 
 sufficiently for the defect. Perhaps no colony 
 in the world has been so absurdly conducted 
 as New South Wales. It is not long since 
 the proportion of males to females was as ten 
 to one, while there was still a greater dispa- 
 rity between the grown up of both sexes. 
 
 [In speaking of Tasmania, or Van JDiemun’s 
 Laud, the author says ;] 
 
 The greater part of Tasmania is very 
 thickly timbered with large tall trees (ever- 
 
 * Extracted from Major Rawlinson’s Notes ; in 
 tlie Journal ol' the Royal Geographical Society of 
 Eeudoii. 
 
 greens), some of them of extraordinary size. 
 One is stated to have measured, when cut 
 down, in length upwards of 150 feet of stem, 
 clear of branches, and so thick that a com- 
 mon stage-coach could have been easily dri- 
 ven along the stem for this distance. The 
 heavy nature of the forest, which covers 
 nearly the whole face of the country, indepen- 
 dent of the common agricultural work, causes 
 the business of the Tasmanian husbandman 
 to be attended with much hard labour, and 
 the tenor of his life is as opposed as well may 
 be to that of the lounging shepherd of Aus- 
 tralia Felix, who has nought to do but ‘‘tend 
 his flocks on green declivities,” and which 
 must give rise to a very different condition of 
 society in the neighbouring countries. The 
 labour of the husbandman in Tasmania is, 
 however, well compensated by the abundance 
 and the greater security of the return. It is 
 said that every fruit, and vegatable, and 
 flower that thrives well in England, thrives 
 better in Tasmania, while several, such as 
 the grape, not productive in England, are 
 very productive here. The clover and sown 
 grasses, which are fully of as much conse- 
 quence as fruits and flowers of any kind, are 
 also grown in great perfection, and are very 
 much superior to the native herbage in pro- 
 ductiveness and nutritive power. 
 
 Some drawback to Tasmania as an emigra- 
 tion-field, in addition to its being a penal 
 colony, is,' that the greater portion of the 
 good land, at least in the fine central basin, 
 is already appropriated, and the new comers 
 can only purchase at a comparative high rate, 
 or have their location in the inferior part of 
 the country. But the advantage resulting 
 from a more condensed, mutually-assisting 
 population, may over-balance the greater 
 cost of the land. 
 
 In all the British emigration-fields, North 
 America, the Cape, Australia, Tasmania, 
 there is some drawback in the number 
 of poisonous reptilia and insects. Children 
 are not entirely safe playing in the brakes ; no 
 person can sit down upon a grassy seat, or 
 recline on a flowery bed, without some dread 
 of the deadly snake or the scorpion. Serious 
 accidents are occurring at all these places 
 from these pests ; and owing to their great 
 prolific powers, their extirpation cannot be 
 effected, at least while the country remains 
 uncleared. In Australia, a dog who is a 
 snake-hunter (which some of them are) has 
 a short life. The pigs are found to be the 
 best extirpators, their thick skin either pro- 
 tects them, or the exterior layer of oily fat 
 neutralises the poison, and t >ey grub out 
 from their lurking places, and devour the 
 most venomous serpents with great alacrity. 
 The great number of serpents are very des- 
 tructive to the small singing birds, not only 
 catching them on the perch, but devouring 
 their nestlings, as well upon the trees as on 
 
THK MIRROR. 
 
 235 
 
 the ground ; and as a provision for their pro- 
 tection, the birds who are not large enouth 
 to give battle, form pendulous nests attached 
 to the tips of the branches where no snake 
 can reach. It is, therefore, not probable 
 that the sky-laik and linuet, and other beau- 
 tiful songsters of Britain, can be successfully 
 introduced into these serpent-abounding coun- 
 tries, as it is not likely they would adopt this 
 provision for the security ot their nestlings,— 
 a loss, as the melody of the sky and grove of 
 Britain is awanting there. 
 
 It is a curious fact that serpents are not 
 found in New Zealand, and the melody of 
 the grove at break of day is described to be 
 altogether enchanting. Can it be that the 
 birds of lengthened steady song are not so 
 common in the serpent-abounding countries, 
 because their note and melody attract these 
 destroyers, while those which only give out 
 sudden discordant sounds, as they leap from 
 bough to bough, are comparatively safe P 
 
 [Chap. vin. to chap. xvi. treat entirely 
 of New Zealand, full of interesting matter to 
 the legislature as well as to the emigrant. We 
 must suffice with the following remarks on 
 
 The Advantages of New Zealand .] 
 
 Estimating the advantages of position, ex- 
 tent, climate, fertility, adaptation for trade— 
 allthe causeswhich have tended to render Bri- 
 tain the emporium of the world, we can observe 
 only one other spot on the earth equally, if 
 not more favoured by nature, and that is New 
 Zealand. Serrated with harbours, securely 
 insulated, having a climate temperated by the 
 surrounding ocean, of such extent and fer- 
 tility as to support a population sufficiently 
 numerous to defend its shores against any 
 possible invading force, it, like Great Britain, 
 also possesses a large neighbouring continent 
 (Australia), from which it will draw re- 
 sources, and to which it bears the relation 
 of a rich homestead, with a vast extent of 
 outfield pasturage. In these advantages, it 
 equals Britain, while it is superior to Britain 
 in having the weather-gage of an immense 
 commercial field, — the innumerable rich 
 islands of the Pacific,— the gold and silver 
 producing countries of Western America (by 
 far the richest in the precious metals ol any 
 Of the world), — the vast accumulations ot 
 man in China and Japan, — all these lie 
 within a few weeks’ sail. 
 
 The south temperate zone, from the 
 excess of ocean, has a much more equable 
 temperature throughout the year than the 
 north. New Zealand, considering its terri- 
 torial extent, participates in this oceanic 
 equality in an extraordinary degree, by rea- 
 son of its insularity and oblong narrow 
 figure, stretching across the course of the 
 prevalent winds from lat. 34° to 48° south, 
 the most enviable of latitudes. On this ac- 
 count, it enjoys a finer, more temperate cli- 
 
 mate than any other region in the world ; 
 and, in consequence, the trees, from the 
 principle of adaptation, are only biennially 
 deciduous, and present, as well as the her- 
 bage, a never-failing verdure. 
 
 The small portion of New Zealand al- 
 ready under cultivation, yields, in luxuriant 
 abundance and perfection, all the valuable 
 fruits and grain of Europe; and stock of all 
 descriptions fatten in this favoured region, 
 at all seasons, upon the spontaneous pro- 
 duce of the wilderness. The climate is also 
 the most favourable to the development of the 
 human species, producing a race of natives 
 of surpassing strength and energy. From 
 the mountainous interior, the country is, in 
 a wonderful degree, permeated by never- 
 failing streams and rivers of the purest wa- 
 ter, affording innumerable falls, suited to 
 machinery, adjacent to the finest harbours. 
 The forests abound in timber of gigantic 
 size, peculiarly adapted for naval purposes 
 and for house-building, and, lrom its mild 
 workable quality, much more economically 
 convertable and serviceable than the timber 
 of any other country in the southern hemis- 
 phere ; most of which, from extreme hard- 
 ness, is almost unmanageable. Millions of 
 acres, it is said, are covered with the famed 
 New Zealand flax (the great value of which 
 is now coming to be appreciated) ; and 
 around the shores are the most valuable 
 fisheries, from the mackerel to the whale ; 
 in the pursuit of which latter, many of our 
 vessels resort, though at the other extremity 
 of the earth. Combining all these natural 
 internal advantages with the most favoured 
 position for trade, New Zealand must ulti- 
 mately reign the Maritime Queen of the 
 South-eastern hemisphere. 
 
 Estimating the surpassing natural advan- 
 tages in their peculiar adaptation to the 
 energetic maritime British race, it is some- 
 what remarkable that no regular attempt has 
 been made by Britain to colonize New Zea- 
 land. This must have arisen from the num- 
 bers and barbarous character of the native 
 population ; a population so small, however, 
 reduced as it now is, as to be quite out of all 
 proportion to the extent of territory, and 
 which exists only around some of the shel- 
 terd bays of the coast, and in a few of the 
 rich valleys of the interior. 
 
 According to Mr. Yate, and the other 
 missionaries who have had the best means 
 of estimating their numbers, the whole 
 amount may be about 110,000. Another 
 writer states : “ The inhabitants, in fact, have 
 not, in any sense of the word, taken possession 
 of the country which they call their own. 
 It is still the undivided domain of nature, 
 and they are merely a handful of stragglers 
 who wander about the outskirts.” Thus, 
 densely populated Britain, with the means 
 of effectual relief, is allowed to remain 
 
236 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 writhing under the preventive and destruc- 
 tive checks, while a region, the finest in the 
 world, — a region which, beyond all others, 
 can lay claim to the name of Paradise, is 
 lying an untenanted wilderness. 
 
 Songs and Ballads. By Samuel Lover. 
 
 (Continued from page 216.) 
 
 [Some of the sweetest of Mr. Lover’s songs 
 are founded on the superstitions of his 
 country — a beautiful effect from a state of 
 the human mind in which the imagination 
 exercises a more potent sway than the reason. 
 The origin of many of these influential 
 notions it is not very easy to trace, but in 
 many there is such an inherent tenderness, 
 and so intimate a connexion with all that is 
 most estimable in feeling, that we cannot 
 but view them as the dictates of unperverted 
 reason veiled. We do not give the following 
 as better than its companions ; but it is not 
 unworthy of them, and it will remind some 
 of our readers of Cotton’s fine verses on 
 drinking healths.] 
 
 THE FOUR-LEAVED SHAMROCK. 
 
 A four-leaved shamrock is of such rarity that it is supposed 
 to endue the finder with magic power. 
 
 I’li. seek a four-leaved shamrock 
 In all the fairy dells. 
 
 And if I find the charmed leaves. 
 
 Oh how I’ll weave my spells ! 
 
 I would not waste my magic might 
 On diamond, pearl, or gold. 
 
 For treasure tires the weaiy sense, — 
 
 Such triumph is but cold ; 
 
 But I would play the enchanter’s part. 
 
 In casting bliss around, — 
 
 Oh uot a tear nor aching heart. 
 
 Should in the world be found. 
 
 To worth I would give houour ! — 
 
 I’d dry the mourner’s tears. 
 
 And to the pallid lip recall 
 The smile of happier years ; 
 
 And hearts that had been long estranged. 
 
 And friends that had grown cold. 
 
 Should meet agaiu — like parted streams. 
 
 And mingle as of old 1 
 Oh ! thus I’d play the enchanter’s part. 
 
 Thus scatter bliss around. 
 
 And not a tear, nor aching heart. 
 
 Should in the world be found ! 
 
 The heart that had been mourning 
 O’er vanished dreams of love, 
 
 Should see them all returning, — 
 
 Like Noah’s faithful dove ; 
 
 And Hope should launch her blessed bark 
 On Sorrow’s dark’ning sea, 
 
 And misery’s children have an ark. 
 
 And saved from sinking be ; 
 
 Oh ! thus I’d play the enchanter’s part. 
 
 Thus scatter bliss around. 
 
 And uot a tear nor aching heart. 
 
 Should in the world be found. 
 
 [We would fain extract the genuine Irish 
 love ditty, “ Molly Carew,” but it is too long 
 for our present purpose : it is a matchless 
 and most characteristic bit of genuine hu- 
 mour, and endurable distress. As we may 
 even yet return to this delightful little volume, 
 “Yes and No” shall suffice lor this number.] 
 
 YES AND NO. 
 
 There are two little words that we use 
 
 Without thinking from whence they both came, 
 But if you will list to my muse. 
 
 The birth-place of each I will name : 
 
 The one came from Heaven to bless. 
 
 The other was sent from below : 
 
 What a sweet little angel is “ Yes!” 
 
 What a demon-like dwarf is that " No 1” 
 
 And “ No,” has a friend he can bid 
 To aid all his doings as well. 
 
 In the delicate arch it lies hid 
 That adorns the bright eye of the belle ; 
 
 Beware ot the shadowy Fbown 
 Which darkens her bright brow of snow, 
 
 As bent like a bow to strike down. 
 
 Her lip gives you death with a “ No.” 
 
 But “ Yf.s ” has a twin-sister sprite — 
 
 ’Tis a Smii.e you will easily guess, — 
 
 That sheds a more heavenly light 
 On the doings of dear little “ Yes 
 Increasing the charm of the lip 
 That is going some lover to bless ; 
 
 Oh sweet is the exquisite smile 
 That dimples and plays around “ Yes.” 
 
 THE NEW PLANTATIONS IN HYDE 
 PARK. 
 
 In Hyde Park, during the spring of 1838, 
 an avenue of elm-trees, and a number of scat- 
 tered single trees, were planted; and we have 
 nothing to object to them, unless it be, that 
 they would have made much more vigorous 
 growths during the summer, had they been 
 planted in the proceeding autumn. When 
 trees are planted in October, the roots begin 
 growing immediately ; and the tree, being 
 established before winter, is ready to shoot 
 out branches with the first approach of 
 spring. A tree planted in spring, say in 
 February or March, has the whole of its sap 
 speedily put in motion; and, being thus 
 forced to develop its buds, while its roots 
 are not yet in a state to imbibe nourishment 
 from the soil, its shoots are comparatively 
 weak and inefficient. In autumn, when the 
 top of the tree is in a dormant state, and when 
 the temperature of the atmosphere is below 
 that of the soil, the whole of the energies of 
 the tree are directed to the formation of roots. 
 In spring, on the contrary, when the tempera- 
 ture of the atmosphere is greater than that of 
 the soil, the energies of the tree are directed to 
 the development of the buds, in the form of 
 leaves and shoots, while very little addition is 
 made to the roots till the return of the sap 
 after midsummer. Hence are deduced, from 
 a knowledge of vegetable physiolgy, as well 
 as from experience, the immense advantages 
 of planting trees, and especially large trees, 
 in autumn rather than in spring. Planting 
 in mid-winter is scarcely, if at all, better than 
 planting in spring; because both the. roots 
 and the top of the tree are then completely 
 in a dormant state, and the soil much too 
 cold to excite the roots into action. 
 
 In Hyde Park, a number of roundish or 
 oval clumps, and some irregular and continu- 
 ous belt-like masses, have been formed during 
 the last year and present spring, which, in 
 
THE MIRROR* 
 
 237 
 
 our opinion, greatly disfigure the Park, and 
 will do so more and more every year, as they 
 advance in growth. This mode of planting 
 appears to us like going back a hundred 
 years, in point of taste ; and, in point of prac- 
 tical knowledge, as supposing the soil and 
 climate of Hyde Park to be similar to that of 
 some bleak district in Derbyshire or Scot- 
 land. The trees in some of the clumps, 
 though from 5 ft. to 10 ft. in height, are put 
 in at the rate of from 3000 to 4000 plants 
 per acre ; and (which, we are sure, will 
 astonish every planter, whether in the north 
 or the south), on the north side of Hyde 
 Park, in a plantation consisting of deciduous 
 trees, many of them 15 ft. in height, made 
 last spring, Scotch pines are planted through- 
 out, not more than one foot in height ! We 
 must confess that we do not know anything, 
 in the whole history of planting, on a par 
 with this specimen. What can the Scotch 
 pines possibly be intended for ? They can- 
 not be meant for nurses to plants more than 
 ten times higher than themselves, and not 
 more than 5 or 6 feet apart ; and Scotch 
 pines can never be intended for undergrowth. 
 Relatively to the trees which are to remain, 
 they, as well as the others which are to be 
 thinned out, can only be regarded as weeds ; 
 which not only deprive the other trees of a 
 great part of their nourishment, but exclude 
 from them a considerable portion of the air 
 and light which are essential to their growth. 
 There never was a plantation less in want 
 of shelter and protection than that to which 
 we allude, east of the Victoria gate. Inde- 
 pendently altogether of the excellence of the 
 soil and climate, it is sheltered on the west 
 by the high trees of Kensington Gardens, 
 and on the north not only by a narrow strip 
 of trees, of from 20 to 30 years’ growth, 
 close to it, but by a lofty range of buildings 
 (Hyde Park Gardens) at 200 ft. distance. 
 Shelter, however, is no more required for 
 these trees than if they had been planted in 
 St. Paul’s Churchyard ; and, as we shall here- 
 after show, it can only do them harm ; 
 indeed, it may be safely asserted, that in no 
 part of the vale of London can any hardy 
 forest tree require artificial shelter, at any 
 period of its growth. 
 
 The main object of all these plantations 
 can only be to produce ultimately a few sin- 
 gle trees, with the exception of one mass at 
 the Cumberland Gate, which, we have been 
 informed, is intended to direct pedestrians 
 along the newly-formed gravel-path there, 
 leading across the Park. This object, we 
 contend, might have been effected by single 
 trees; or, supposing that this could not 
 have been done, then we contend that the 
 remedy is much worse than the disease. 
 But why should not a few iron hurdles be 
 sufficient for the object in view here, as it is 
 in every gentleman’s park, and as it is in 
 Kensington Gardens ? Of all the deformi- 
 
 ties in the way of new plantations put down 
 in the Park, this, in our opinion, is decidedly 
 the greatest, if it is suffered to remain, it 
 will, in three or four years, completely spoil 
 the view on entering the Park by the Cum- 
 berland Gate, by destroying all breadth of 
 effect, by shutting out the whole of that fine 
 expanse of turf which constitutes the mid- 
 dle distance, and by completely excluding 
 the Surrey hills and other objects which now 
 form the background. This is a subject 
 that may be readily judged of by any person 
 accustomed to sketch landscape, and those 
 who doubt the validity of our opinion on 
 this point have only to ask that of any land- 
 scape painter. 
 
 Supposing that the object of the other 
 plantations is that of producing ultimately a 
 few scattered trees and small groups, we 
 contend that these may be produced much 
 sooner, much more effectually, at much less 
 expense, and with much less deformity in 
 the meantime, by planting them at once 
 where they are finally to remain, instead of 
 surrounding them by other trees in masses 
 or belts. — Gardener’s Magazine, No. 108. 
 
 dftite &rt$. 
 
 THE SUFFOLK STREET GALLERY. 
 
 ( Second Notice.') 
 
 236. The Aged Captive. D. Cowper. — 
 The sight of this pleasingly-painted melan- 
 choly picture forcibly brings to our me- 
 mory Sterne’s immortal description of the 
 Captive, the horrors of imprisonment, and 
 the blessings of liberty. In the speci- 
 men before us, the aged sufferer is seen 
 seated, waiting with resignation for the time 
 when he shall throw off his mortal coil, 
 which seems not far distant, his countenance 
 clearly indicating that life’s fretful fever has 
 nearly done its work, sharp misery having 
 worn him to the bone. The light is judi- 
 ciously thrown on the worn-out limbs of the 
 captive ; and his venerable head forms a 
 fine study. — Sold. 
 
 223. The Two Mills — Moonlight. J. B. 
 Crome. — A still, solemn scene; certainly a 
 work of promise. 
 
 238. Still Life. G. Stevens. — A display 
 of lobsters, wild rabbits, and shell fish : 
 closely copied after nature ; particularly the 
 opened oyster in the fore-ground, which is 
 almost reality itself. 
 
 127- Niagara Fall. J. Wilson. — A cor- 
 rect representation of this extraordinary and 
 appalling wonder of nature. The surf is 
 most particularly worthy of contemplation. 
 
 426. Mil/cing-time. J. Wilson, jun. — A 
 charming ‘ bit’ of nature. 
 
 432. Cattle. Evening. E. Childe. — The 
 attitudes and drawing of the cows, and in- 
 deed the tout ensemble , remind us of Cuyp. 
 
 407. The Christmas Present. T. Clater. 
 
238 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 — A pleasing heart- cheering interior of a 
 cottage ; wherein the kind welcome of the 
 old dame contrasts well with the reserved 
 behaviour of the daughter, yet anxious to hear 
 all the messenger’s news. It is one of those 
 scenes which tend to make men happy. 
 
 489. Coast View. G. W. Butiand. — A 
 fresh breezy morning. We have seen even 
 some of Backhuysen’s works, wherein the 
 waves were not more closely allied to nature. 
 — Sold. 
 
 506. A Philosopher at his Studies. J. 
 Spencer. — In the style of Rembrandt. 
 
 583. Hollyhocks , from nature. V. Bar- 
 tholomew. — This production we think ra- 
 ther goes to disprove the remark made by 
 foreign artists,— “ As for flower-painting, 
 English artists are not worthy to grind up 
 the colours and prepare pallets of the 
 French; and there is the truth:” but we 
 do not exactly think it is the truth. 
 
 Our limited columns preclude us noticing 
 many other works of the highest promise : 
 all we can do, is to wish the society and 
 the artists every success. 
 
 NEW HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Antiquarian Discoveries. — The excava- 
 tion that it was necessary to make in order 
 to lay the foundation of the river embank- 
 ment wall to the new houses of parliament, 
 has been the means of bringing to light a 
 great number of relics of antiquity which 
 were dug up from time to time by the work- 
 men as the excavation proceeded. The. most 
 remarkable feature of the discovery is the 
 great number of daggers and swords, espe- 
 cially the former, that have been lound, and 
 which, from their variety of make and ap- 
 pearance, are evidently the collection of 
 ages. They are of all shapes, sizes, and 
 sorts of workmanship, from the richly-made 
 hunting-knife or dirk, to the costly and 
 highly-finished stiletto. There are no han- 
 dles to any of them, which is easily accounted 
 for, as that part being generally composed 
 .of a less durable material, has, consequently, 
 long since decayed. Some of the blades are 
 in high preservation, and a lew, which are 
 inlaid with gold, seem almost as perfect as 
 when first wrought. The circumstance of 
 so many weapons of this description being 
 found in this locality is certainly somewhat 
 singular, but, perhaps, the lords and com- 
 mons in byegone days warred with the knife,” 
 instead of with words, as in the nineteenth 
 century. The next singular discovery is a 
 quantity of keys, which are of various sizes, 
 and some of them of very curious workman- 
 ship. One key especially is a gigantic fel- 
 low, in excellent preservation, with curiously- 
 formed wards, at the end ot which is a dog’s 
 head, most admirably executed. His ap- 
 pearance put us strongly in ndnd of the 
 
 keys used in pantomimes. A variety of old 
 coins, (principally copper,) together witlt 
 two or three small Roman earthen pots, 
 some fossils of an ordinary class, one or two 
 cannon balls, and several human skulls, (the 
 latter being remarkably large and thick ;) 
 these make up the collection, which is the 
 property of Mr. Barry, the architect, who, 
 previous to the excavation, made an agree- 
 ment that all curiosities, &c. found, were 
 to be given up to him. It is supposed, how- 
 ever, that that gentleman has not all the an- 
 tiquities, the labourers having, no doubt, 
 disposed of many. — Herald, March 30, 1839. 
 
 SUBTERRANEOUS CHAPELS, 
 
 IN THE CHURCH OF SANTA CHIARA. 
 
 “ I yesterday, ’’ says Lady Blessington, 
 “ witnessed an exhibition of an extraordi- 
 nary nature, one to be seen only in a coun- 
 try like this, where superstition mingles in 
 even the most sacred and solemn things. 
 A community is formed at Naples, each 
 member of which, during his life, subscribes 
 an annual sum, in order that, after death, 
 his remains should be deposited in one of 
 certain vaults, the earth conveyed into which 
 has the peculiar quality of preventing de- 
 composition, and of preserving bodies as if 
 dried by some chemical process. But the 
 preservation of what was intended to decay, 
 is not the only object of this institution, nor 
 the only mode of applying its funds. The 
 exposure, on a certain day of the year, of 
 the frail wreck of mortality, thus strangely 
 rescued from corruption, attired in the habi- 
 liments worn by the deceased when living, 
 is secured by the subscription ; the number of 
 annual exhibitions being dependent on the 
 amount of the sums received. Can anything 
 more preposterous be imagined ? — nothing, 
 I am quite sure, more disgusting can be be- 
 held. Three or four subterraneous chapels, 
 in the Church of Santa Chiara, divided only 
 by partitions, are dedicated to this extraor- 
 dinary exhibition, which presents one of the 
 most ghastly scenes ever disclosed. All the 
 sublimity of death disappears, when the 
 poor remains of his victims are thus ex- 
 posed ; and instead of an appalling sight, 
 they offer only so grotesque a one, that it is 
 difficult to believe that the figures before 
 one ever were instinct with life, or that 
 they are not images formed of brown paper, 
 or russia leather, dressed up to imitate hu- 
 manity. The subterraneous chapels are 
 guarded by soldiers. The altars are ar- 
 ranged in the usual style of those in Catholic 
 chapels ; innumerable torches illuminate the 
 place ; and an abundance of flowers and re- 
 ligious emblems decorate it. Ranged around 
 the walls, stand the deceased unhappily dis- 
 interred for the occasion, and clothed in 
 dresses so little suited to their present ap- 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 pearance, that they render death still more 
 hideous. Their bodies are supported round 
 the waist by cords, concealed beneath the 
 outward dress ; but this partial support, 
 while it precludes the corse from falling to 
 the earth, does not prevent its assuming the 
 most grotesque attitudes. Old and young, 
 male and female, are here brought in juxta- 
 position. The octogenarian, with his white 
 locks still flowing from his temples, stands 
 next a boy of six years old, whose ringlets 
 have been curled for the occasion, and 
 whose einbroided shirt-collar, and jacket 
 with well-polished buttons, indicates the 
 pains bestowed on his toilette. Those ring- 
 lets twine round u face resembling nothing 
 human, a sort of mask of discoloured lea- 
 ther, with fallen jaws and distended lips; and 
 the embroidered collar leaves disclosed the 
 shrunken dark brown chest, once fair and 
 full, where, perhaps, a fond mother’s lips 
 often were impressed, but which now looks 
 fearful, contrasted with the snowy texture 
 of this bit of finery. This faded image of 
 what was once a fair child, has tied to its 
 skeleton fingers a top, probably the last gift 
 of atfeetion ; the hand, fallen on one side, 
 leans towards the next disinterred corpse, 
 whose head also, no longer capable of main- 
 taining a perpendicular position, is turned, 
 as if to ogle a female figure, whose ghastly 
 and withered brow, wreathed with roses, 
 looks still more fearful from the contrast 
 with their bright hue. Here the mature 
 matron, her once voluminous person reduced 
 to a sylph-like slightness, stands enveloped 
 in the ample folds of the gaudy garb she 
 wore in life. The youthful wife is attired 
 in the delicate tinted drapery put on in 
 happy days, to charm a husband’s eye : the 
 virgin wears the robe of pure white, leaving 
 only her throat bare : and the young men 
 are clothed in the holiday suits of which 
 they were vain in life ; some with riding- 
 whips, and others with canes attached to 
 their bony hands. A figure I shall never 
 forget, was that of a young woman, who 
 died on the day of her wedding. Robed in 
 her bridal vest, with the chaplet of orange 
 flowers still twined round her head, her hair 
 fell in masses over her face and shadowy form, 
 half veiling the discoloured hue of the visage 
 and neck, and sweeping over her, as if to 
 conceal the fearful triumph of death over 
 beauty. Each figure had a large card placed 
 on the wall above the places they occupied ; 
 on which was inscribed the names, date of 
 their ages, and death, with some affectionate 
 epigraph, written by surviving friends. It 
 would be impossible to convey the impres- 
 sion produced by this scene : the glare of 
 the torches falling on the hideous faces of 
 the dead, who seemed to grin, as if in de- 
 rision of the living, who were passing and 
 repassing in groups around them. Not a 
 single face among the ghastly crew presented 
 
 2 39 
 
 the solemn countenance we behold in the 
 departed, during the first days of death ; a 
 countenance more touching and eloquent 
 than life ever possessed : no, here every face, 
 owing to the work of time, wore a grin that 
 was appalling; and which, combined with 
 the postures into which the bodies had fallen, 
 presented a mixture of the horrible and the 
 grotesque, never to be forgotten. Around 
 several of the defunct, knelt friends, to whom 
 in life they were dear, offering up prayers 
 for the repose of their souls : while groups 
 of persons, attracted merely by curiosity, 
 sauntered through this motly assemblage of 
 the deceased, pausing to comment on the 
 appearance they presented.” — From Lady 
 Blessington's “ Idler in Italy." 
 
 BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 
 
 Every reader of the Bible must have ob^ 
 served the frequent recurrence of the num- 
 ber forty in the text, in cases where no ma- 
 terial reason appears for preferring that 
 number to another. Thus, at the flood, 
 the rain fell forty days, and when the waters 
 abated, Noah opened the window of the ark 
 after forty days. Moses was forty days in 
 the Mount ; forty days without eating or 
 drinking. Elijah travelled forty days from 
 Beersheba to Mount Horeb. Jonah pro- 
 phesied that Nineveh should be destroyed in 
 forty days. Our Saviour was forty days in 
 the Wilderness, and appeared on earth 
 forty days after the resurrection. The Is- 
 raelites lived forty years in the Wilderness ; 
 Ezekiel prophesied that Egypt should be 
 desolated for forty years, &c. Now, it is a 
 curious fact that the modern Arabs, Persians, 
 and Turks, employ the word forty to express 
 an indefinite number, in a manner analogous 
 to the use of the term dozen or a score with 
 us in familiar conversation. Chardin de- 
 scribes Erivan as standing between two 
 rivers, one of which has an Armenian name, 
 signifying forty springs. A rivulet in the 
 Iroad, which has been the subject of much 
 controversy, bears the Turkish name of 
 Kirke Jos, or forty springs, though it has 
 only sixteen or eighteen. Instances of this 
 kind are innumerable. The Hebrew, it is 
 well known, is a sister dialect of the Arabic, 
 and from frequency of intercourse the Jews 
 and Arabs must have had many idioms and 
 forms of speech in common, Is it not pro- 
 bable, that the term alluded to may some- 
 times have the same value in the Hebrew 
 Scriptures as among the modern Turks, 
 Arabs, and Persians ? Much light has been 
 thrown on the text of the Bible in a thou- 
 sand instances from the examination of ori- 
 ental customs and idioms, and great additions, 
 in fact, have been made from this source to 
 the evidence we possess of the genuineness 
 of the holy "Volume. 
 
240 
 
 THK MIRROR. 
 
 Cije 
 
 Celebrated Oaks . — The oldest oak in En- 
 gland is supposed to be the Parliament Oak 
 (so called from the tradition of Edward I. 
 holding a Parliament under its branches), in 
 Clipstone-park, belonging to the Duke of 
 Portland, this park being also the most an- 
 cient in the island : it was a park before the 
 conquest, and was seized as such by the con- 
 queror. The tree is supposed to be 1,500 
 years old. The tallest oak in England was 
 the property of the same nobleman ; it was 
 called the “ Duke’s walking-stick, '* was 
 higher than Westminster Abbey, and stood 
 till of late years. The largest oak in England 
 is called the Calthorpe Oak, Yorkshire ; it 
 measures 78 feet in circumference where the 
 trunk meets the ground. The “ Three-Shire 
 Oak,” at Worksop, was so called from cover- 
 ing parts of the counties of York, Nottingham, 
 and Derby. It had the greatest expanse of 
 any recorded in this island, dropping over 777 
 square yards. The most productive oak was 
 that of Gelonos, in Monmouthshire, felled 
 in 1810. Its bark brought 200/., and its tim- 
 ber 670/. In the mansion of Tredegar- park, 
 Monmouthshire, there is said to be a room 
 42 feet long and 27 feet broad, the floor and 
 wainscoat of which were the produce of a sin- 
 gle oak tree grown on the estate. 
 
 A curious and remarkably rare case of 
 complete transposition of the organs of res- 
 piration, circulation, and digestion was re- 
 cently witnessed at the School of Medicine 
 at Nancy. On opening the body of a patient 
 about 38 years of age, who died in the esta- 
 blishment of consumption, it was found that 
 his heart was on the right side, and that the 
 whole system of circulation corresponded 
 with this extraordinary disposition ; the lungs 
 presenting but one lobe, instead of three on the 
 right and two on the left ; the liver being on 
 the left, the spleen on the right, the cardia, 
 or entrance of the stomach, on the right, and 
 its lower orifice or pylorus, the duodenum 
 and coecum, on the left. — Galignani — 
 March, 1839. 
 
 Remarkable Longevity . — In a small town 
 in Massachusetts, containing less than 1,000 
 inhabitants, there are living almost within a 
 stone’s throw of each other, no less than 13 
 persons whose united ages amount to 1,071 
 years, making an average of 82 years to each 
 person, the youngest 79, the oldest 92. For 
 a series of years a very large proportion of the 
 deaths in this town has been of persons whose 
 ages averaged about 83 years. In one year 
 there were 14 deaths in the town, and of 
 these 1 1 were of persons whose ages averaged 
 over 83 years. 
 
 A Curious Fact . — There is a pauper in 
 Farringdon union work-house, named Mary 
 Stanby, aged about 24 years, who has already 
 
 had 132 needles extracted from her person, 
 the greatest number of which has been taken 
 from the breast. It is conjectured by the 
 medical officer that she must have swallowed 
 the needles, but she positively denies having 
 any knowledge of the circumstance. — Read- 
 ing Mercury. 
 
 An apt Proposal. — A Gascon having been 
 ordered for some offence to jump from a con- 
 siderable height, showed great reluctance, and 
 twice retreated when at the brink. The offi- 
 cer in command threatened him with a se- 
 verer punishment, on which the Gascon ab- 
 ruptly addressing him, said, ‘ I will lay you a 
 wager you do not do it in four times.’ 
 
 The earliest herbal was printed for Peter 
 Treveris, in Southwark, 1529 — a thin folio: 
 the next, printed by Jhon King, 1561 : but 
 there was a book called “ The vertuose Boke 
 of Distillacion,” by Jerom of Brunswick, 
 containing a large herbal, [printed by Lau- 
 rence Andrew, 1 527. 
 
 Remarkable Fatality. — The Rev. George 
 Vance, died lately at Hampstead, by being 
 thrown from his horse : the death of his 
 father, (Dr. Vance, of Sackville-street,) was 
 occasioned by being pushed down stairs by 
 a lunatic ; his brother was also killed at 
 "Oxford, by being thrown from a gig ; and 
 his sister fractured her skull, and ultimately 
 died, in consequence of falling over the ban- 
 nisters in her father’s house. — Gentleman’s 
 Magazine. 
 
 The first Greek musicians were gods ; the 
 second heroes ; the third bards ; the fourth 
 beggars. — Dr. Burney. 
 
 Laughable Gravity. — The men in Persia 
 have not the same gaiety as the French have : 
 they discover none of that freedom of mind, 
 that satisfied air, which are here [in Paris] 
 found in all degrees and conditions of life. 
 It is much worse in Turkey. There you may 
 find families wherein from father to son no 
 one has laughed since the foundation of the 
 monarchy Montesquieu. 
 
 fVisdom of Candour. — A man should never 
 be shamed to own he has been in the wrong, 
 which is but saying, in other words, that he 
 is wiser to-day than he was yesterday. — Pope. 
 
 If any one can convince me of an error, I 
 shall be very glad to change my opinion, for 
 truth is my business ; and right information 
 hurts nobody. No : he that continues in ig- 
 norance and mistake, ’tis he that receives the 
 mischief. — Marcus Antoninus. 
 
 Uncandid people forget that they are not 
 judged by what they admit but what they do. 
 
 LONDON: Printed and published by J. LIMBIRD, 
 143 , Strand, (near Somerset House}; and sold by 
 all Booksellers and Newsmen. — Agent in PARIS, 
 O. JP , M. REYNOLDS, French, English, and Ame- 
 rican Library, 55 , Rue Neuve St. Augustin. — In 
 FRANC FORT, CHARLES JUOEL. 
 
Zi)t 
 
 OF 
 
 LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION. 
 
 No. 945.] SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 1839. [Price 2d. 
 
 FAC-SIMILE OF A PHOTOGENIC DRAWING. 
 Vor.. xxxiii. R 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 243 
 
 A TREATISE ON PHOTOGENIC 
 DRAWING. 
 
 Our prefixed engraving is a fac-simile of a 
 photogenic drawing, for which we are indebted 
 to the kindness of Dr. Golding Bird, a dis- 
 tinguished botanist, who has published the 
 following very interesting paper on the appli- 
 cation of the photogenic art to botanical 
 purposes, in that excellent periodical, the 
 Magazine of Natural History. 
 
 “ The mode of fixing the images of the 
 camera obscura, and copying engravings, 
 by means of the chemical action of light on 
 paper prepared with a solution of chloride 
 of silver, has attracted so much notice, and 
 produced so much popular excitement, that a 
 few observations on this interesting process 
 will not, perhaps, be considered out of place 
 in your Magazine. I venture to occupy your 
 pages with the less reluctance, because I feel 
 that the application of this heliographic or 
 photogenic art will be of immense service to 
 the botanist, by enabling him to procure 
 beautiful outline drawings of many plants, 
 w r ith a degree of accuracy which, otherwise, 
 he could not hope to obtain. 
 
 “ That light will act on chloride of silver 
 is by no means a novel discovery, and paper 
 prepared with it was long ago used by Ritter 
 and Wollaston, in testing the chemical action 
 of the rays of the solar spectrum ; still, in 
 this country it was not, I believe, applied to 
 any purpose likely to be of use to the natu- 
 ralist and traveller, until brought into notice 
 by the researches of Mr. Talbot. It is not a 
 little amusing to observe how many preten- 
 ders to the discovery have started up since 
 the announcement of Mr. Talbot’s discovery, 
 and that of M. Daguerre in France. The 
 latter gentleman has, through M. Arago, 
 at a late meeting of the French Institute, 
 announced his mode of preparing a sensitive 
 paper, far exceeding that of Mr. Talbot in 
 delicacy, but otherwise possessing the same 
 property of indicating intensity of light by 
 depth of colour, and consequently differing 
 from that marvellous preparation which he is 
 said to possess, and which represents sha- 
 dows by depth of colour, precisely as in 
 nature. 
 
 “ M. Daguerre prepares his heliographic 
 paper by immersing a sheet of thin paper 
 in hydrochloric ether, which has been kept 
 sufficiently long to be acid ; the paper is 
 then carefully and completely dried, as this is 
 stated to be essential to its proper preparation. 
 The paper is next dipped into a solution of 
 nitrate of silver, (the degree of concentration 
 ot which is not mentioned,) and dried with- 
 out artificial heat in a room from which every 
 ray of light is carefully excluded. By this 
 process it acquires a very remarkable facility 
 in being blackened on a very slight exposure 
 to light, even when the latter is by no means 
 
 R 2 
 
 intense, indeed by (he diffused daylight of 
 early evening in the month of February. 
 This prepared paper rapidly loses its extreme 
 sensitiveness to light, and finally becomes 
 not more readily acted upon by the solar 
 beams than paper dipped in nitrate of silver 
 only. M. Daguerre renders his drawings 
 permanent by dipping them in water, so 
 as to dissolve all the undecomposed salt of 
 silver. 
 
 “ This process is very inconvenient, for 
 many reasons, among which are the diffi- 
 culty of procuring, as well as the expense of, 
 hydrochloric ether : on this account I prefer 
 Mr. Talbot’s process, although it is to be 
 regretted that this gentleman has not stated 
 more explicitly the proportions in which he 
 uses the ingredients employed in the prepa- 
 ration of his sensitive paper. I have per- 
 formed a set of experiments on this subject, 
 and can recommend the following proportions 
 as the most effective and economical : — 200 
 grains of common salt are to be dissolved in 
 a pint of water, and sheets of thin blue wove 
 post paper saturated with the solution, which, 
 for this purpose, should be poured into a dish, 
 and, the paper being immersed, the appli- 
 cation of the solution to every part should be 
 ensured by the use of a sponge. The paper 
 is then to be removed, drained of its super- 
 fluous moisture, and nearly dried by pressure 
 between folds of linen or bibulous paper. 
 
 “ 240 grains of fused nitrate of silver are 
 then to be dissolved in 12 fluid ounces of 
 water, and this solution is to be applied by 
 means of a sponge to one side of each sheet 
 of the previously- prepared paper, which side 
 should be marked with a pencil, so that 
 when the paper is fit for use the prepared 
 side may be distinguished. The sheets of 
 paper are then to be hung upon lines in a 
 dark room to dry. and when nearly free from 
 moisture, their marked sides are to be once 
 more sponged over with the solution of silver, 
 and finally dried ; they are then to be cut 
 into pieces of convenient size, and preserved 
 from light, or even too much exposure to 
 air, by being wrapped up in several folds of 
 brown paper, and kept in a portfolio. 
 
 “ The proportions above recommended are 
 sufficient for the preparation of a quire of the 
 kind of paper alluded to; if more of the salt 
 of silver were used, the paper would indeed 
 become darker by the action of light, but its 
 expense would be proportionally increased : 
 and when prepared in the manner directed, 
 it assumes, by less than a minute’s exposure 
 to the rays of the sun. a rich mulberry brown 
 tint, of sufficient intensity to define an out- 
 line very beautifully, which indeed is all that 
 is required. 
 
 “ To use this paper, the specimen of which 
 a drawing is required, is removed from the 
 herbarium, placed on a piece of the paper, 
 and kept in situ by a pane of common glass 
 
244 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 pressed by weights : a piece of plate glass, 
 however, is preferable, as it is sufficiently 
 heavy to press the plant close to the paper. 
 The whole is then placed in the sunshine, 
 and in less than a minute all the uncovered 
 parts of the paper will assumd a rich brown 
 tint. The paper should then be removed 
 from the direct influence of the sun, and 
 placed in a book until the drawing be ren- 
 dered permanent : the specimen, quite unin- 
 jured by the process, may then be replaced 
 in the herbarium, and the drawing of another 
 be taken, and so on. So rapidly is this pro- 
 cess executed, that twenty-five or thirty draw- 
 ings may be obtained in an hour, providing 
 we are favoured with a direct sun-beam ; if', 
 however, we have only the diffused day-light, 
 five or ten minutes, and sometimes even more, 
 are required to produce a drawing with well- 
 defined outlines. 
 
 “If drawings of recent plants be required, 
 specimens of proper size should be cut, and 
 if not too rigid, placed on a piece of the 
 paper, and kept in a proper position by 
 means of a pane of glass, as in the case of 
 dried specimens ; but if the plant be rigid, 
 the specimens should be placed for twenty- 
 four hours between folds of blotting-paper, 
 under a heavy weight, before placing them 
 on the sensitive paper. 
 
 “ Having obtained as many drawings as are 
 required, the next thing is to fix them, so 
 that their otherwise evanescent character may 
 not deprive them of their value. For this 
 purpose place them in a dish, and pour cold 
 water over them ; allow them to soak for 
 ten minutes, and then transfer them to, or 
 sponge them over with, a solution, made by 
 dissolving an ounce of common salt in half a 
 pint of watei, to which half a fluid ounce of 
 the tincture of the sesqui-chloride of iron has 
 been added. The drawings thus prepared 
 may be dried by pressure between folds of 
 linen, and exposure to the air; and may then 
 be examined without danger. On looking 
 at them every one must be struck with the 
 extreme accuracy with which every scale, 
 nay, every projecting hair, is preserved on the 
 paper ; the character and habit of the plant 
 is most beautifully delineated, and if the 
 leaves be not too opake, the venation is most 
 exquisitely represented ; (this is particularly 
 the case with the more delicate ferns, as 
 Polypodium Dryopteris.) Among those 
 classes of plants which appear to be more 
 fitted than others for representation by this 
 process, may be ranked the ferns, grasses, 
 and umbelliferous plants ; the photogenic 
 drawings of the former, are indeed of exqui- 
 site beauty. 
 
 “ The fact of the object being white on a 
 brown ground does not affect the utility of 
 this mode of making botanic drawings ; 
 indeed, I almost fancy that their character is 
 better preserved by this contrast of tint, than 
 
 by a coloured outline on a white ground. 
 Every one will be fully aware of the value of 
 this process to the botanist, in obtaining draw- 
 ings of rare plants preserved in the herbaria 
 ot others, and which he would otherwise have 
 probably no means of obtaining. 
 
 “ If the drawing of a tree or large shrub 
 be required, a box, blackened inside, having 
 a hole at one end about 1^ inch in diameter, 
 must be provided ; in this hole should be 
 placed a lens of five or six inches focus; if 
 one of longer focus be used, the dispersion of 
 light becomes too great to ensure an accurate 
 representation. When the tree or shrub is 
 well illuminated by the solar beams, the lens 
 should be presented towards it, at a distance 
 varying of course with the height of the 
 object. A piece of card-board should then 
 be placed in the box, a little beyond the true 
 focus of the lens, and the former moved until 
 a well-defined bright image of the tree, &c., is 
 formed on the card, of course in an inverted 
 direction. The box is then to be placed on 
 any convenient support in this position, and a 
 piece of the prepared paper fixed on the card, 
 the lid of the box is then to be closed, and 
 the whole left for half an hour, at the end of 
 which time a beautifully-accurate outline of 
 the object will be found on the paper, which 
 is then to be rendered permanent in the usual 
 manner. It is obvious that this plan is una- 
 vailable on a windy day, on account of the 
 branches of the tree, &c. being continually 
 moving, so that it is of far less use to the 
 botanist than the above-described process for 
 obtaining drawings of small specimens. 
 
 “ Various other applications of this paper 
 will suggest themselves to the minds of natu- 
 ralists.” 
 
 [We shall return to this subject in a future 
 number.] 
 
 (for the Mirror ') 
 
 ’Tis pleasing to the heart to mark when love’s first 
 ray 
 
 Rich in delight, wakes in the soul, and paints with 
 hope the way ; 
 
 When the frail vista of our term, with joyous hue 
 appears. 
 
 And seems to bear no trace of grief, no likelihood of 
 tears. 
 
 Then fancy, too luxuriant, investetli worldly things, 
 
 Witli garbings of happiness — untrue imaginings. 
 
 Rears a new state, unknown to cave, in purity benign. 
 
 Fair as the flower, amidst whose folds envaried 
 beauties sliiue. 
 
 Oh, that such love so found in youth, would e’er pre- 
 side in age. 
 
 Hallow the eve, as well as morn of mankind’s pil- 
 grimage ; 
 
 Love, hope, and innocence, triune, restore the bliss 
 erst given, 
 
 And render every joy of life, akin to those of heaven, 
 
 R. J. L. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 245 
 
 Cije flaturaltet. 
 
 DEW. 
 
 Aqueous meteors, such as dew, fogs, 
 clouds, &c., are produced from water raised 
 from the earth and sea by evaporation. 
 Dew appears only on calm and serene 
 nights ; and more falls during wet, than 
 during dry winds. In cloudy nights, the 
 quantity is small ; and the same if they be 
 windy ; and if both together, none at all is 
 deposited. Everything that prevents access 
 to the sky, hinders the deposition of dew. 
 If you put a quantity of wool on a table, and 
 an equal quantity under it, the quantity of 
 dew acquired by the former, will be more 
 than three times that of the latter. More 
 dew falls on grass than on a gravel-walk ; 
 and more on the latter than on polished 
 metals. If clouds come over the sky during 
 a night which has been previously clear, 
 the temperature of the grass has been 
 known to rise ten degrees ; and proportion- 
 ably less dew has been deposited. Grass 
 has been known to be at forty degrees, and 
 gravel at fifty-six, at the same time ; and 
 therefore more dew was deposited on the 
 first. The amount of dew depends, not only 
 on the temperature of bodies, but also on 
 the quantity of moisture in the earth. 
 Aristotle looked upon dew as a kind of rain, 
 formed in the lower part of the air, from 
 condensed vapour. As it was discovered 
 that more dew was formed on our bodies, 
 than on a naked sword, it was thought to 
 be of electrical origin ; but it has been proved 
 that any electrical phenomenon connected 
 with it, is the effect and not the cause of 
 dew. Sir John Leslie says, that all bodies 
 radiate heat; and that, during the day, 
 more heat is received by the atmosphere 
 from the sun, than is sent away ; and there- 
 fore the heat rises ; while the contrary takes 
 place at night. In this country, dew is said 
 to fall to the depth of five inches, in the 
 course of the year ; but in tropical countries 
 much more. Water obtained from con- 
 densed dew, is generally very pure ; but 
 sometimes it contains impurities; such as 
 common salt, and in some countries even 
 salt-petre. It sometimes contains carbonic 
 acid ; and Dr. Duncan, of Edinburgh, gives 
 an account of an acid dew, obtained from a 
 tree in the East Indies. 
 
 FOG. 
 
 In this country, it is rare to see the atmos- 
 phere quite clear. There are generally 
 clouds, which occasionally sink to the earth, 
 and form mists and fogs. These do not 
 consist of solid drops of water ; but of 
 vesicles of water containing air. If they 
 were not hollow drops, they would be pre- 
 cipitated rapidly, and not remain suspended. 
 Snussure, during his ascent of Mont Blanc, 
 
 was surprised to observe in a mist large 
 drops, — some of them larger than peas; 
 but on catching them in his hand, he found 
 they were bladders. It is not easy to tell 
 how the vesicles are formed ; or why they 
 are sometimes lighter, and at other times 
 heavier than the atmosphere. Their forma- 
 tion seems to be connected with electricity ; 
 but how, we know not. They seem to be 
 charged with similar electricity, — being 
 either all positive or all negative ; so that 
 they repel each other. Clouds, fogs, or 
 mists, are formed whenever two strata of 
 air, charged with moisture and of different 
 temperature, are mixed. An iceberg mov- 
 ing through warmer air charged with mois- 
 ture, causes a deposition of it in the form 
 of mist. Some writers mention a dry fog, 
 having the same general characters as an 
 aqueous one ; but not affecting the hygro- 
 meter. The sun and moon appear red 
 through it. In the year 1753, when there 
 were such severe eruptions in Iceland, and 
 earthquakes in Calabria, a fog spread over 
 all Europe, the north of Africa, and for three 
 or four hundred miles over the Atlantic. 
 In many parts it deposited sulphureous and 
 carbonaceous matters. It may be considered 
 to have escaped from the earth ; where a 
 great quantity exists, daily increasing or 
 decreasing. In some countries, diseases are 
 connected as much with subterranean action, 
 as with atmospheric changes, occasioned 
 by the escape of noxious vapours from the 
 earth. 
 
 SLEET. 
 
 When the lower stratum of the atmos- 
 phere is warmer than the higher, snow, in 
 passing through it, becomes sleet ; and this 
 soon cools the air ; so that snow falls. 
 
 AVALANCHES. 
 
 Enormous masses of ice and snow some- 
 times roll down the sides of mountains. 
 These masses, which are called “ ava- 
 lanches,” are of two kinds ; one, which is 
 the most frequent, consisting of light snow, 
 and separating from the part of the moun- 
 tain above the snow-line. The other kind 
 consists of more solid materials, and is de- 
 rived from the lower edge of the snow-line ; 
 where partial thawings and freezings have 
 produced ice. Sixty soldiers were once 
 killed by an avalanche ; and so were a hun- 
 dred men at St. Bernard’s. In the year 
 1624, three hundred men were buried by 
 an avalanche ; and many of them killed ; 
 and numerous other instances will be found 
 in modern books of travels. 
 
 THE RAINBOW. 
 
 The Romans looked upon the rainbow as 
 a syphon, by which water was carried up 
 into the clouds. It only appears when a 
 cloud opposite the sun is letting fall rain ; 
 and depends on reflection and refraction of 
 
246 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 the rays of light, in passing through the 
 drops of water. Captain Parry once ob- 
 served a rainbow, in which there were five 
 complete arches. If when the sun is in the 
 horizon, the spectator is placed forty- two 
 degrees above it, the rainbow makes a com- 
 plete circle. In travelling along the side of 
 a hill, in Ireland, I once observed a rainbow, 
 which formed much more than half a circle ; 
 — owing to the height at which I was placed, 
 and its position over the valley giving it 
 plenty of room to develop itself. Lunar 
 rainbows are of frequent occurrence ; and 
 (as might be expected) are not so brilliant 
 as solar ones. There is a nautical rainbow, 
 which is seen in stormy seus, where the 
 spray is carried up by the wind ; and, in 
 falling, gives rise to a rainbow. For the 
 same reason, a rainbow is sometimes seen 
 near cascades ; and sometimes when waves 
 beat on a rocky shore. I observed a rain- 
 bow in the spray of the Powerscourt water- 
 fall, Sometimes only fragments of rainbows 
 are seen ; and these are considered by sailors 
 to be signs of unsettled weather. In the 
 second, or outer bow r , the rays are twice 
 refracted in the same drops of rain ; and the 
 last refraction inverts the order of the 
 colours. N. R. 
 
 THE BEAR AND THE FOX AT 
 BERNE. 
 
 ( From the French of Dumas.') 
 
 The first pear I threw to the bears was 
 swallowed up by one of them without the 
 least opposition ; it was not so, however, 
 with the second. The bear w r as lazily pre- 
 paring himself to move to the place where 
 had fallen his dessert, when suddenly out 
 pounced some strange animal, whose form I 
 was altogether unable to discern, from the 
 nimbleness and amazing swiftness of its 
 movements ; this animal, without the slight- 
 est hesitation, seized upon the pear, close to 
 the bear’s nose, and ran off with it into a 
 hole of small dimensions in the wall. A few 
 moments after, I saw the pointed, black 
 nose of a fox, protruding from the hole; his 
 eyes were peering with all the vivacity ima- 
 ginable around, in expectation of some other 
 feast, to be made at the expense of poor 
 Bruin. 
 
 This strange scene excited my curiosily, 
 and I felt a desire to repeat the experiment. 
 For this purpose I bought a few cakes — the 
 fox evidently saw my intention, his eyes were 
 stedfastly fixed on me, and he did not remove 
 them as long as I stayed there. Having 
 then made this purchase, I put the cakes 
 in my left hand, and held one in the other, 
 ready to throw when I saw a fit opportunity. 
 The sly fellow seemed to understand me, 
 and shook his head, as if to enable him to 
 watch my movements with fresh vigour ; he 
 then licked his lips, and prepared himself for 
 
 a leap. I meant, however, to put his agility 
 to a severer test than I had at first done, 
 The bear, on his side, saw all my preparations, 
 and evidently looked upon them with a kind 
 of lazy anticipation of success, holding his 
 mouth wide open, and swinging himself to 
 and fro as he sat on his hind quarters. In 
 the mean time the fox, creeping stealthily 
 along, by this time had entirely come forth 
 from his place of refuge; and then it was I 
 saw the reason why I hud not in the first 
 instance recognised the unimal ; the poor 
 fellow had no tail ! 
 
 I at length threw the cake ; the bear fol- 
 lowed the course it took with his eyes, let 
 himself fall on his paws, and prepared him- 
 self to fetch it; but he had ho sooner made 
 one step towards it, than at a single leap, 
 the fox cleared him ; and so correct was his 
 aim, that he fell with his nose exactly upon 
 the cake. 1’he cunning animal, on his way 
 to his retreat, then described an arc of con- 
 siderable extent ; but the bear, furious at 
 the loss he had sustained, and the still 
 greater disappointment he had met with, to 
 defeat his antagonist’s purpose, put what 
 principles of geometry he was acquainted 
 with in practice, and flew off in a diametri- 
 cal trim towards the fox ; he was, however, 
 a little too late, and his ponderous jaws 
 met each other with a fearful noise as he 
 reached the hole. I then understood how 
 it was that Master Reynard had lost his 
 tail. _____ H. M. 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE GRESHAM 
 LECTURES. 
 
 (Concluded from page 231.) 
 
 In the terms of the foundation of Gresham 
 College, as given in our last paper, a basis 
 seems to have been laid for a metropolitan 
 university. His will, soon after his death, 
 was confirmed by a private act of Parliament ; 
 by which the Royal Exchange, subject to 
 the life-estate of his widow, was vested in 
 the City and Mercer’s Company for ever, to 
 the good uses and intents of his will : and, 
 on the death of Lady Gresham, in 1596, the 
 City and the Mercer’s Company, coming 
 into possession of the estates, proceeded to 
 execute the trusts of the will; for this 
 purpose they appointed committees of per- 
 sons selected from their respective bodies ; 
 and, for the better discharge of their duties, 
 in the appointment of the first lecturers, 
 they wrote to the Universities of Oxford and 
 Cambridge to nominate two persons in every 
 faculty. The following letter was sent by 
 the Mercer’s Company to the University of 
 Oxford: — “To the Right Worshipful our 
 very loving friends the Vice Chancellor, the 
 Masters, and Scholars, of the University of 
 Oxford. 
 
 “ Right Worshipful. — Where by the late 
 death of the Lady Gresham, certain rents 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 247 
 
 out of the Royal Exchange, and the dwel- 
 ling-house of Sir Thomas Gresham, within 
 this city, were by his last will committed in 
 trust to the mayor and commonalty of this 
 city, and to the wardens and corporation 
 of the mystery of Mercers, for the main- 
 taining of divers lectures in sundry faculties, 
 to be publicly read within the said house, 
 whereof certain (to wit) of divinity, astro- 
 
 ! nomy, geometry, and music, were by his 
 said will referred to the ordering and dis- 
 position of the mayor and commonalty ; the 
 other three (to wit) law, physic, and rhe- 
 toric, to the bestowing of the said wardens 
 and corporation of the Company of Mer- 
 cers ; with a sufficient stipend of fifty pounds 
 the year, for the maintaining of every one 
 
 } of the said lectures : we have thought good, 
 for the better discharge of so great a trust 
 committed unto us, and for the avoiding of 
 all error which otherwise might happen to 
 be made by us in our said election, to crave 
 the direction of your learned judgments, and 
 heartily to pray you to name unto us two 
 meet persons (being unmarried, as the will 
 requireth) of best ability in every faculty of 
 those three, that are committed unto us, 
 (to wit) law, physic, and rhetoric; being 
 also furnished with good parts for the pro- 
 fession of the said arts in so public a place, 
 whereof, no doubt, is great expectation 
 throughout this whole realm, with what 
 sufficiency and good dexterity the same is 
 performed ; whose names we likewise desire 
 may be set down, and sent unto us, under 
 the seal of that University : that being as- 
 sisted by your grave directions, we may pro- 
 ceed to make election of the fittest persons 
 in every faculty. Wherein as you shall do 
 a very good work, in furthering a matter of 
 so good importance to the church of God, 
 and this commonwealth; so you shall bind 
 ourselves in like respect, to do any office 
 that shall lie in us, which may conduce to 
 the public good of that university. And we 
 praying your answer with all convenient 
 speed, we commend you right heartily to 
 the protection of God’s Holy Spirit. From 
 London, the 24th of January, 1596. Your 
 very assured loving friends, the Master and 
 Wardens of the Mystery of Mercers, in the 
 name of the whole Corporation. Baldwin 
 Derhame, William Quarles, Baptiste 
 Hicks, Per me Holliband.’’ 
 
 On the receipt of this, and a similar let- 
 ter from the city, a convocation of the Uni- 
 versity of Oxford was held, at which a com- 
 mittee, consisting of twenty-one persons, 
 with the Vice Chancellor and Proctors, was 
 appointed to select the candidates. This 
 committee accordingly nominated two per- 
 sons in every faculty ; and their nominations 
 having been confirmed by a subsequent con- 
 vocation, were communicated to the City 
 and the Mercer’s Company, in letters drawn 
 . up by the public orator. A similar applica- 
 
 tion being at the same time made to the Uni- 
 versity of Cambridge ; they fearing the new 
 establishment might prejudice the Universi- 
 ties, after consulting with their Chancellor, 
 Lord Burghley, likewise nominated two can- 
 didates in every faculty. In the election, 
 the trustees showed equal regard to the re- 
 commendation of either University ; taking 
 three of the lecturers from Oxford, three 
 from Cambridge, and the other one on the 
 queen’s recommendation. The lecturers, 
 thus chosen, were immediately let into pos- 
 session of Sir Thomas Gresham’s mansion, 
 and commenced their readings in the Mi- 
 chaelmas term of 1597, or 1598. At the com- 
 mencement of these lectures, it^ppears that 
 the order in which they are at present read, 
 was established by the mutual consent of the 
 lecturers and trustees ; being copied from 
 the practice of the Universities, except as to 
 the English readings, these being specially 
 introduced, for the benefit of the citizens 
 not understanding Latin. About the same 
 time, for the more particular direction of 
 the lecturers, certain ordinances, dated Ja- 
 nuary 16, 1597, in the form of an indenture, 
 between the trustees and the lecturers, ap- 
 pear to have been drawn up by the trustees. 
 These ordinances were never executed or 
 adopted by the lecturers. The following is 
 the provision regarding the lecture on Law : 
 The solemn lectures of law, are to be read 
 twice every week in the term time for one 
 whole hour, in the manner following; namely, 
 for three quarters of the hour in the Latin 
 tongue, and for the other quarter, in the 
 English tongue, which shall be a brief col- 
 lection or recapitulation of that which was 
 read in the Latin of the same lecture. The 
 times appointed for the solemn law lectures, 
 are every Tuesday of the same terms, in the 
 forenoon, between eight and nine, and, in 
 the afternoon of the same days, from two 
 of the clock until three of the clock. Touch- 
 ing the course to be observed by the law 
 reader in these solemn lectures, it is thought 
 meet, in respect of the end of ordaining this 
 lecture, and for the quality of the hearers, 
 who, for the most part, are like to be mer- 
 chants and other citizens, that the said law 
 lecture be not read after the manner of the 
 universities, but that the reader cull out 
 such titles and heads of law that may best 
 serve to the good liking and capacity of the 
 said auditory, and are more usual in com- 
 mon practice, which may be handled after 
 the order of Wesenbecius, and certain others, 
 by definition, division ; causes, material, 
 formal, efficient, final ; effects, contraries ; 
 and for that this method being first laid out 
 and judiciously handled, will be most per- 
 spicuous, and leave nothing that is material 
 in the whole law, concerning that matter 
 obscure and untouched. The heads and 
 titles of such matters, as seem fittest for 
 this place and auditory, in those solemn 
 
248 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 lectures, are these that follow, namely ; — 
 De justitia et jure ; de jurisprudentia ; de 
 jure personarum ; de legibus et consuetu- 
 dine ; de acquirenda rerum dominio ; de 
 acquirenda, amittenda, recuperanda posses- 
 sione ; de usurpationibus et usucapionibus ; 
 de servitutibus urbanorum et rusticorum 
 praediorum ; de usufructu ; de usu et habi- 
 tatione ; de rei vindicatione, jure sistendi 
 vel arestandi bona vel personas ; de ratiha- 
 bitione ; de testamentis ; de heredibus sive 
 executoribus; delagatis; de fedeicommisso ; 
 de veborum et literarum obligationibus ; de 
 sponsionibus ; de fidejussoribus et mandato- 
 ribus ; de solutionibus et liberationibus ; de 
 acceptilationibus ; de donationibus ; de usu- 
 ris, et eo quod interest, et mora ; de emp- 
 tione et venditione ; de locatione et conduc- 
 tione : de societate ; de nupttis et sponsali- 
 bus ; de polygamia ; de mandato ; de nego- 
 tiorum gestorum actione ; de actionibus ex 
 contractu vel delicto ; de ludis illicitis ; de 
 injures et famosis libellis ; de dolo malo ; de 
 contraclibus innominatis ; de prsescription- 
 ibus ; de testibus ; de fide instrumentorum ; 
 de juris et facti ignorantia ; de publicis no- 
 taries sive tabellionibus ; de termino moto ; 
 de vi et vi armata ; so mensor falsum modum 
 dixerit ; de operibus publicis ; quod metus 
 causa ; de via publica ; de itinere publico ; 
 de damno infecto, suggrundis, et projectis ; 
 de exerciloria actione vel magistro navis ; 
 de nautis cauponibus, et stabulariis ; de 
 nautis, navibus, et navigatione ; de commer- 
 ciis et mercatoribus ; de proxene icis ; de 
 nautico faenore ; de monopolies aliisque con- 
 ventionibus illicitis ; de jactu et contribu- 
 tione fienda ; de reprisaliis ; de publicanis et 
 vectigalibus ; de nundinis ; de dardanariis 
 et annonse flagellatoribus ; de bello ; de re 
 et jure militari ; de prrnda bellica ; de trans- 
 fugis et emansoribus ; de paenaeorum, qui 
 res vetitas ad hostes deferunt ; de piratis ; 
 de publico commeatu vel salvo conductu ; 
 de captivis et postliminio reversis ; de duello 
 probibito ; de principum confsederationibus, 
 fsederibus, et induc'us ; de lagatis princi- 
 puin ; de legationibus obeundis ; de jure 
 regaliorum ; de nobilitate utraque ; de in- 
 signibus et armis ; de regulis juris utriusque. 
 The mansion of Sir Thomas Gresham, where 
 these lectures were first delivered, extended 
 from Bishopsgate Street to Broad Street : it 
 was a spacious and convenient building, 
 with open courts, covered walks, gardens, 
 stables, and other offices. In an essay, by 
 Sir George Buck, it is styled “ a little uni- 
 versitie or ncademise epitome and would 
 probably have been chartered, but from a 
 regard to the Universities of Oxford and 
 Cambridge. At the great fire of London, 
 Gresham College having escaped from its 
 devastating effects, became the Chamber, 
 Guildhall, Common-hall, and the Exchange of 
 the remaining city. On which occasion, the 
 lodgings of the Astronomy Lecturer were 
 
 appropriated to the Lecturers and the Royal 
 Society ; the lodgings of the Divinity Pro- 
 fessor were given up to the Lord Mayor ; 
 those ot the Law Professor were resigned to 
 the use of the Mercer's Company ; and the 
 other apartments, with the reading-rooms, 
 were appropriated to the City Courts and 
 officers. Small shops were erected in the 
 galleries, the piazza and other parts, and 
 the quadrangle was allotted to the merchants, 
 for an Exchange. W. G. C. 
 
 THE INVISIBLE GIRL 
 
 Having become an object of great attrac- 
 tion, at the Adelaide Gallery , we here give 
 a description of this highly ingenious decep- 
 tion, extracted from that popular and pleas- 
 ing work, “ Philosophy in Sport, made Sci- 
 ence in Earnest.” 
 
 “ As sound radiates in all directions, it 
 follows, that, if such radiation be prevented 
 by confining it in tubes, it may be carried to 
 a great distance, with very little diminution 
 of its effect ; and hence the use and applica- 
 tion of those trumpets, or tin speaking-pipes, 
 which are commonly used for conveying in- 
 telligence from one part of a house to another. 
 The trumpet used by deaf persons acts on 
 the same principle ; but as the voice enters 
 the trumpet at the large, instead of the small 
 end of the instrument, it is not so much con- 
 fined, nor is the sound so much increased. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 249 
 
 The experiment now exhibiting in London, 
 and which was before the public some thirty 
 years ago, under the title of the Invisible 
 Girl, and which now, as then, excites general 
 curiosity, depends upon an arrangement of 
 this kind. 
 
 We shall now proceed to describe the visi- 
 ble mechanism, of which the preceding en- 
 graving is a true representation. 
 
 It consists of a wooden frame, not very 
 unlike a bedstead, having four upright posts, 
 and a cross rail at top and bottom to 
 strengthen them. The frame thus constructed, 
 stands upon a low table, and from the top of 
 each of the four pillars, spring four bent 
 brass wires, which converge at the point o. 
 From these wires a hollow copper-ball is sus- 
 pended by ribands, so as to cut ofl' all possible 
 communication with the frame. The globe 
 is supposed to contain the invisible being, as 
 the voice apparently proceeds from the inte- 
 rior of it ; and for this purpose it is equipped 
 with the mouths of four trumpets, placed 
 round it in a horizontal direction, and at right 
 angles to each other, as shown in the annexed 
 section : 
 
 in which the glohe is represented in the cen- 
 tre, d d d d are the trumpets, and b b b b the 
 frame surrounding them, at the distance of 
 about half au inch from their mouths. If 
 any person asks a question, by directing the 
 voice into one of the trumpets, an answer is 
 immediately returned from the ball, by some 
 one whose ear is near the mouth of the trum- 
 pet, in a voice so distant and feeble, that it 
 appears as if coming from a very diminutive 
 being, and thus heightens the deception. A 
 person may examine, and yet be unable to 
 unravel the mystery. 
 
 The mechanism owes its effects to the 
 combined operation of two principals ; the 
 concentration and conveyance of sound by 
 means of a speaking pipe, and its reflection 
 from an appropriate surface so as to change 
 its apparent direction, by producing an arti- 
 ficial echo. The pipe is concealed in one 
 c<f the legs of the frame, and the voice of the 
 person answering (and who is stationed in 
 an adjoining room,) is conveyed to the mouth 
 of the trumpet, and thence reflected to the 
 ear of the observer. The annexed section 
 will render this subject intelligible to the 
 reader. 
 
 b b represent two of the legs of the frame, 
 one of which, as well as half the rail, is 
 made into a tube, the end of which opens 
 immediately opposite to the centre of the 
 trumpet. This hole is very small, and is 
 concealed by mouldings ; the other end com- 
 municates by a tin pipe, p p, which passes, 
 in a concealed manner, along the floor of the 
 room, into an adjoining closet, where the 
 confederate is concealed. It is evident, that 
 any sound, directed into the mouth of the 
 trumpet, will be immediately reflected back 
 to the orifice of the tube, and distinctly 
 heard by a person who places his ear to the 
 mouth of the funnel m ; while the answer 
 returned by him, travelling along the tin- 
 funnel, p p, will issue from its concealed 
 orifice, and striking upon the concave sur- 
 face of the trumpet, be returned to the ear 
 as an echo, and thus appear as if it had 
 proceeded from the interior of the ball/ 
 
 This deception of the Invisible Girl is 
 upon the plan of the old and well-known 
 mechanism of the speaking-bust, which con- 
 sisted of a tube, from the mouth of a bust, 
 leading to a confederate in an adjoining 
 room, and of another tube to the same 
 place, ending in the ear of the figure ; by 
 the latter of which, a sound whispered in 
 the ear of the bust was immediately carried 
 to the confederate, who instantly returned 
 an answer by the other tube, ending in the 
 mouth of the figure, which therefore ap- 
 peared to utter it. The Invisible Girl evi- 
 dently only differs from that contrivance in 
 this single circumstance, that an artificial 
 echo is produced by means of a trumpet, 
 and thus the sound no longer appears to 
 proceed in its original direction.” 
 
 THE ECCALEOBION. 
 
 An exhibition, under the above name, has 
 been opened in Pall Mall, for the purpose of 
 hatching birds, from a wren to an eagle, by 
 means of steam and machinery. The ma- 
 chine wherein the eggs are deposited, is a 
 wooden cabinet, about nine feet long, three 
 feet in breadth, and three feet and a half in 
 height, covered, except the fall-down glazed 
 doors, with cloth ; it has eight divisions, 
 capable in the whole of containing upwards 
 of 2,000 eggs, which are merely laid on 
 flannel, and the heat imparted by gas, con- 
 
250 
 
 THE MIRROil. 
 
 veyed by pipes placed under the machine, 
 in the course of twenty-one days brings the 
 chick into existence ; from this machine 
 they are removed the day after being hatched 
 into a large square glazed case, or box, 
 under which also the gas is conveyed : in a 
 short time they are again removed to a con- 
 venient and capacious enclosed place in three 
 divisions, on the floor of the room; the 
 bottom being covered with gravel. Here 
 they have plenty of room for exercise ; and 
 here they remain until sold. The room is 
 warmed by gas, kept to an equal degree 
 of temperature. 
 
 We saw several of the chicks just emerged 
 from the shell, and beautiful, healthy, and 
 extremely strong they seemed ; pecking, 
 almost instantly, the groats strewed for 
 them : in fact, nothing can exceed the liveli- 
 ness of their appearance : they seem not in 
 the least to feel the want of their natural 
 parent. 
 
 On the table, in the centre of the room, 
 are several specimens of the various states 
 of incubation, from the embryo to the perfect 
 formation. 
 
 Certainly, it is impossible a more magni- 
 ficent or astounding exhibition can be offered 
 to the notice of the public : for it fills the 
 mind of the spectator with the most profound 
 awe, wonder, and admiration, of the wisdom 
 and goodness of the Creator. It presents a 
 field of pleasing contemplation : it is a sight 
 of intense interest, that must be witnessed to 
 be duly appreciated ; and we are rejoiced to 
 hear that it enjoys the greatest patronage, 
 which it most justly deserves ; for it is an 
 exhibition every person ought to witness. 
 
 It would be idle to dilate on the various 
 means resorted to, for producing chickens 
 and other birds by artificial means, from the 
 time of the Egyptians to the present day, 
 their modes of proceeding being so well 
 known ; but it is necessary to notice, that 
 the first partially-successfui effort in England, 
 was that of Mr. Barlow, who, in 1824, had a 
 somewhat similar exhibition to that of the 
 Eccaleobion , at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, 
 consisting of a building called an Improved 
 Grapery, heated by steam, sixty feet long, 
 eighteen feet high, and eighteen feet wide : 
 it comprised forty ovens, each containing 
 1,5(J0 eggs ; and he calculated that the 
 building would produce 640,000 chickens 
 annually. We are unable to state the final 
 results of this gentleman’s experiments. 
 
 In vol. xxxii. of the Mirror, pp. 201-2, an 
 account is given of Mr. Warboy’s successful 
 experiment of hatching chickens in a tin 
 oven, of his own construction ; and we learn 
 by our respected correspondent, Mr. Scul- 
 thorpe, that the hen which was reared had 
 been presented to the London Zoological 
 Society, in whose gardens it now remains, in 
 the healthiest state imaginable. 
 
 DISCOVERY OF THE TEA-PLANT 
 IN BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 The project of the cultivation of tea within 
 the vast extent of territory held by Great 
 Britain in India, occurred to the Government 
 at a comparatively early period. In 1793, 
 Lord Macartney despatched some plants from 
 China to Bengal, in various parts of which, his 
 excellency had been informed, were districts 
 adapted for their cultivation. From this 
 period till very lately, when a Committee of 
 tea-culture was instituted, no further steps 
 seem to have been taken. On March 3, 1834, 
 the Committee issued a circular, calling for 
 information on a considerable number of 
 points, the questions being prefaced by a 
 sketch of the information then possessed by 
 the Committee regarding the climate and soil 
 most congenial to the tea-plant, as it exists 
 in China. Yet in the face of the evidence 
 given in the circular, the questions mostly 
 rested on the idea that the plant was a native 
 of hilly countries, in which snow falls during 
 the winter ; and in accordance with this idea, 
 the Committee subsequently concluded that 
 the requisite considerations were to be met 
 with on the Himalaya mountains, and that 
 Kimoun appeared to be the most eligible 
 spot. Dr. Falconer was, therefore, requested 
 to report on the localities which appeared to 
 him advantageous for nurseries; and Mr. 
 Gordon, Secretary to the Committee, was 
 despatched to China, to procure seeds and 
 plants for stocking the nurseries. In order 
 to render Mr. Gordon’s mission more success- 
 ful, Dr. Wallich was requested to draw up 
 instructions, both as to choice of stock, and 
 their transmission, as well as that of seeds, 
 to Bengal. 
 
 Mr. Gordon succeeded in transmitting a 
 great number of seeds to Calcutta, of which 
 one half germinated. While Mr. Gordon 
 was engaged in China collecting seeds and 
 plants, the discovery of the tea-plant in Upper 
 Assam, and that to a great extent, was 
 brought before the notice of the Committee, 
 who apprised the Government of the fact, in 
 a letter dated December 24, 1834, observing 
 that they were not altogether unprepared for 
 this highly interesting event, they being 
 acquainted with the fact, that, so far back as 
 J826, Mr. David Scott sent down specimens 
 of the leaves of a shrub which he insisted 
 upon was real tea. Now, although reasons 
 certainly existed why the alleged tea might 
 have proved, as the Committee suggested, 
 nothing but a Camellia, yet the very fact of 
 a Camellia being reported to exist, should 
 at once have pointed out the immediate ne- 
 cessity of a proper examination of the plant 
 on the spot, because it was known in May 
 1834, that the plant in question was used by 
 the Singphos as tea, and it is not certain 
 whether some species of Camellia do not 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 251 
 
 produce tea.* Dr. Liudley says, “ the tea 
 which is extensively consumed by Europeans 
 is produced by the Thea, and different species 
 of Camellia 
 
 “The Assam discovery,” Dr. Wallich ob- 
 serves, “ has placed the labours of the Com- 
 mittee on quite a different footing from that 
 on which they commenced. Who can say 
 what may be the effect of that truly magnifi- 
 cent discovery P The question is now no lon- 
 ger, whether the tea will grow in Hindostan, 
 or whether it produces leaves fit for use (the 
 Assamese and their neighbours, not to men- 
 tion the Yunamese, consume vast quantities 
 of them), scarcely whether or not the leaf 
 admits of being prepared in the same man- 
 ner as is done in China for infusion, but 
 simply whether the shrub can be exten- 
 sively cultivated for commercial purposes, 
 and whether it admits of being introduced 
 into Kumaon, Sirmore, and the like north- 
 west parts of the country.” 
 
 Mr. Bruce says, that “the tea-plants in 
 Assam have in general been found to grow 
 and to thrive best, near small rivers and pools 
 of water, and in those places where, after 
 heavy falls of rain, large quantities of water 
 have accumulated, and in their struggle to 
 get free have cut out for themselves numer- 
 ous small channels. Every one of the small 
 islands of .the river Kahong is covered with 
 trees of various sizes, and the tea among 
 them ; the land being never wholly inundated 
 in the rains, though nearly so. I have never 
 met with the tea-plants growing in the sun, 
 but invariably under shade, in thick woods, 
 or what we call tree-jungle. It struggles for 
 existence amongst so many other trees that it 
 becomes tall and slender, with most of its 
 branches high up. The largest tea-plant I 
 ever met with was 29 cubits high, and four 
 spans round : very few, 1 should say, attain 
 that size. I have taken great numbers of 
 tea- plants from the jungles, brought them 
 four to eight days’ journey to my own house 
 [in Assam] and planted them in my garden, 
 and those that had the most shade, I find, 
 look healthier than those that had none, and 
 they throw out more leaves. f In 1836. the 
 government sent two botanists (Dr. Wal- 
 lich and Mr. Griffith) and a geologist (Mr. 
 M'Clelland) to examine the Assamese tea- 
 plant. Dr. Wallich, who conducted the de- 
 putation, requested me to accompany them, 
 being the only European who had ever visited 
 the tea- tracts, as the different localities are 
 
 * The natural group to which the tea-plant be- 
 longs compiises but two genera. The first genus 
 consists of only one species, the tea-plant, or Thea, 
 itself ; anil the second genus consists of several spe- 
 cies which, according lo Dr. Wallich, “have been 
 found wild in Japan, China, Cochin-China, and in 
 Nepaul, and on the mountains bordering on the 
 north-western frontiers of Bengal.” 
 
 f The latter observation is contrary to the state- 
 ment of the black-tea makers of China, which will 
 be given hereafter. 
 
 called. One day, after having seen some tea, 
 in company with these gentlemen, and as we 
 were returning, I was informed by some na- 
 tives, of another patch or tract of tea that 
 had been cut down. We went and examined 
 it, and found the plants just coming up, 
 about six inches high. We were told that 
 the villagers took the tea-plant to be so much 
 jungle, and therefore nearly cut all of it down 
 close to the ground, and set fire to the whole, 
 and then planted paddy or rice on the spot. 
 When we saw the plants, the shoots were 
 coming up from the roots and old stumps, 
 thick and numerous. Some tea-plants I 
 noticed had only been cut a foot, and some 
 two to four feet from the ground ; all these 
 threw out numerous shoots and leaves, an 
 inch or two below where they had been cut. 
 I afterwards converted this piece of ground 
 into a tea plantation, on account of Govern- 
 ment, and now it is one of the finest I have. 
 Where there was formerly one tea-plant, there 
 are now upwards of a dozen ; the new shoots 
 from the old cuttings forming a fine bush, 
 and greatly contrasting with some of the 
 original trees which I have permitted to stand, 
 with slender trunks, and a few branches only 
 at the top. This tract or garden yielded 
 more tea in the season of 1837, than twelve 
 times the space of ground in the jungles 
 would have done. I have found that as the 
 plants that had been cut down grew up again, 
 the leaves acquired a yellowish tinge from 
 their exposure to the sun, and were much 
 thicker than those in the jungles ; but this 
 yellow tinge has worn off, and the leaves are 
 now as green as those in the shade. No tea 
 tracts have been discovered north of the 
 Debree river, and they are all on the south 
 side of it. The Muttuck country appears to 
 be one vast tea country ; and I feel confident 
 that not one-half of its tea-tracts have been 
 yet discovered.” C To he continued .) 
 
 COINAGE OF IRELAND. 
 
 We have to congratulate our readers on the 
 recent publication of an elaborately compiled 
 volume on the Numismatic Antiquities of 
 Ireland, entitled “ A View of the Coinage 
 of Ireland, from the Invasion of the Danes 
 to the Reign of George IV. ; with copious 
 Tables, Lists, and Descriptions, of Hiberno- 
 Danish and Irish Coins ; and an Account of 
 some of the principal Discoveries of Coins 
 in Ireland ; illustrated by Engravings of up- 
 wards of one hundred and fifty unpublished 
 Coins.” The author, Mr. John Lindsay, 
 Barrister at Law, resident at Cork, has, dur- 
 ing several years past, devoted his ample 
 means and erudition to the very laudable 
 purpose of collecting every variety that 
 afforded interest in the developing the early 
 monetary history of Ireland ; and his success 
 
252 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 has been commensurate with his enthusiasm 
 in the cause. Simon’s accurate work on the 
 Coins of Ireland, printed in 1749, so tar as 
 the sources of information were known to 
 him, is yet a standard of historical inquiry. 
 Snelling’s Supplementary Additions, in 1770, 
 advanced new particulars, which emanated 
 from his experience as a coin-dealer, and 
 aided by the rich collections of Benjamin 
 Bartlett and Thomas Hollis. In , 1810, 
 Simon and Snelling were both republished, 
 with an additional plate, and descriptions by 
 Mr. George Holmes, of Dublin ; and now, 
 notwithstanding the exertions and labours of 
 these men, ardently embued with that love 
 of country which impelled the printing of 
 the volumes under notice, Mr. Lindsay has 
 directed new points of inquiry ; has illus- 
 trated what was hitherto problematical, by 
 the adducing of new facts, and embattled an 
 array of upwards of one hundred and fifty 
 newly -discovered, and hitherto unknown 
 coins, in illustration of his endeavours to 
 advance the enlargement of the numismatic 
 history of Ireland, already extensively rich, 
 far beyond the ideal conception of the unin- 
 terested observer. 
 
 The descriptions of the coins, in methodi- 
 cal tables, detail the forms, figures, legends, 
 and weights, respectively of each ; and, un- 
 sophisticated by conjecture, or falsely-con- 
 structed hypothesis, leave the simple fact for 
 the reader to conclude thereon as shall please 
 his humour : and the plates are sufficient, in 
 their manner of execution, as regards the 
 draughtsman, for all the purposes of graphic 
 illustration. 
 
 Where all is ample matter of discussion, 
 and every page is fraught with seductive lure 
 for extract, “ full to overflowing,’’ of inte- 
 resting antiquarian research, our prescribed 
 limits inhibit immediate quotation, it is suf- 
 ficient to strongly commend the “ View of 
 the Coinage of Ireland” to the notice of our 
 readers ; especially when, not only all the 
 rare coins in Mr. Lindsay’s cabinet are de- 
 scribed, but also those, pertinent to the sub- 
 ject, in the collections of the Deans of St. 
 Patrick, and Lismore ; Sir William Betham; 
 Dr. Smith, of Dublin; Lieut.- Col. Weld 
 Hartstonge ; the Rev. J. W. Martin, of Kes- 
 ton, near Bromley, Kent ; the Rev. Richard 
 Butler, of Trim ; the Rev. T. R. England ; 
 the Rev. John A. Malet, of Trinity College, 
 Dublin ; the Rev. E. Marks, of Dublin ; the 
 
 Rev. Mochler, of Fermoy ; J. L.Coxon, 
 
 Esq., Flesk Priory, Killarney ; J. D.Cuff, 
 Esq., of the Bank, London ; Redmond An- 
 thony, Esq., of Piltown, county of Water- 
 ford, the talented and public-spirited proprie- 
 tor of a very interesting collection of Irish 
 antiquities; Mr. Crofton Croker, of the 
 Admiralty ; Richard Sainthill, Esq., Cork ; 
 John Windele, Esq., of Sunday’s Well. Cork ; 
 Francis Woodley, Esq., Cork ; William 
 Leicester, Esq., Cork; Samuel Wright, 
 
 Esq., Cork ; Joseph and John Humfreys, 
 Esqrs.; Abraham Abell, Esq.; Edward Hoare, 
 Esq., of Factory Hill, Cork; and William 
 Cutter, Esq. 
 
 As a passing-word of our notice, and 
 expressive of our gratification on the inspec- 
 tion of Mr. Lindsay’s highly treasurable 
 volume, we cannot forego observing on the 
 very high esteem which it excites, when 
 the learning and property of the above-men- 
 tioned individuals are considered as employed 
 in so honourable a distinction for the fur- 
 thering the best interests of society, and 
 promoting inquiries into the almost obsolete 
 and forgotten ages of the National History of 
 Ireland. 
 
 iHHanmrS antt Customs. 
 
 SUNDAY PLAYS AND GAMES. 
 
 The following document will doubtless be 
 deemed worthy of preservation in the pages 
 of the Mirror, as it shows that in the reign 
 of Good Queen Bess, sports on Sundays, 
 a relic of Papal manners in England, was 
 then common, and were tolerated by au- 
 thority ; it further shows the methods adopted 
 by the government for rewarding the deserv- 
 ing claimants on its bounty, by immediately 
 sanctioning a voluntary contribution on the 
 people, who were in no way injured by the 
 transaction, as a many can always assist a 
 few. 
 
 “To nil Majors, Shereffes, Constables and 
 other Hed Officers, within the Countie of 
 Middlesex. 
 
 “ After our hartie commendations, whereas 
 we are enformed that one John Seconton 
 Powlter, dwellinge within the parishe of St. 
 Clements Daines, beinge a poore man, hav- 
 inge foure small children, and fallen into de- 
 caye, ys lycensed to have and use some plays 
 and games, at or uppon nyne severall Son- 
 daies, for his better relief, comfort, and sus- 
 tentacion, within the Countie of Middlesex, 
 to commense and begynne at and from the 
 xxiind. daie of Maye next comynge, after 
 the date hereof, and not to remayne in one 
 place not above thre seuerall Sondaies : 
 And we consideringe that greate resort of 
 people is lyke to come thereunto, we will 
 and require you, as well for good order, as also 
 for the preservation of the Queen’s Majes- 
 ty’s peace, that you take with you foure 
 or fyve of the discrete and substancial men 
 within your office or libertie, where the 
 games shall be put in practice, then and 
 there to forsee and doo your endevour to 
 your best in that behalf durynge the con- 
 tynuance of the games or plays, which games 
 are hereafter severallie mencyoned, that is 
 to say, the Shotinge with the Standerd, the 
 Shotynge with the Brode Arrowe, the 
 Shotynge at the twelve skore Prick, the 
 the Shotynge at the Turke, the Leppinge 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 253 
 
 for Men. the Runninge for Men, the Wrast- 
 linge, the Throwinge of the Sledge, and 
 the Pytchinge of the Barre, with all such 
 other games, as have at anye time hereto- 
 fore or now be lycensed, used or played. 
 
 “ Yeoven [Given] the xxvi th. Daie of 
 Aprill [1569] in the eleventh yere of the 
 Quene’s Majesty’s raigne.” 
 
 IkogmfS of Science. 
 
 BOTANY. 
 
 At a meeting of La Societe Royale d’Agri- 
 culture de Lyon, M. Vilmorin remarked, 
 that the artichoke was known as an edible 
 plant by the Romans, but forgotten or dis- 
 dained during the dark ages, till it came 
 into notice again in the 16th century. Al- 
 most all the parts of this plant, he says, may 
 be rendered useful. The leaves yield an 
 extract, which will serve as a substitue for 
 quinine. The leaves themselves may be 
 cooked and eaten after the fruit is gathered, 
 or used as fodder, mixed with certain grasses ; 
 they may be substituted for hops in making 
 beer ; and they contain a great quantity of 
 pot-ash. 
 
 M. Seringe argues, from physiological 
 facts, that pruning the mulberry at the same 
 time when the leaves are gathered from it, 
 will produce a handsomer and a longer-lived 
 tree, and a greater return of leaves. 
 
 CHEMISTRY. 
 
 M. Orfila has discovered a method of de- 
 tecting the smallest atoms of arsenic, even 
 when administered in solution. For this he 
 used a lamp, the hydrogen gas of which was 
 produced by a piece of zinc steeped in sul- 
 phuric acid. The arsenic, however small 
 the quantity, when exposed to the flame of 
 this gas, is carried along by it; and if a cold 
 substance be presented to the end of the nar- 
 row tube conveying the flame, the arsenic will 
 be deposited on it like a spot. — Athenaeum. 
 
 Dr. Edward Moore, with the view of sub- 
 mitting Kyanized wood to the action of the 
 Limnoria , placed the following pieces of 
 wood on the piles of the Pitch-House Jetty, 
 in Plymouth Dock-yard, at low-water, on 
 January 12, 1838 ; namely, a piece of Ame- 
 rican deal, 4 inches by 1 Of thick ; also a piece 
 of similar dimensions, which had been soaked 
 for two months iri a saturated solution of 
 arsenic'; and two others which had been pre- 
 pared with Kyan’s solution, by Mr. W. Evans, 
 the Plymouth agent of the patentee. On the 
 12th of the following August, the pieces hav- 
 ing all been under water for seven months, 
 were taken up by some of the dock-yard men. 
 It was found that the protected pieces had 
 all been acted on, though not to quite so 
 great an extent as the plain piece of deal ; 
 but the specimens were dotted with Balani 
 
 and Flustree, and all containing living Lim- 
 norice ; and it was evident that, though 
 retarded, the destruction of the wood would, 
 in a few months more, have been equally 
 as certain as where none of the above prepa- 
 rations had been employed. Dr. Moore con- 
 siders it highly improbable that any pro- 
 tection can be afforded in cases of this kind 
 from the employment of soluble substances ; 
 for in the instance of the solution of oxide 
 of arsenic, or of the bi-chloride of mercury, 
 (corrosive sublimate,) which Kyan’s solution 
 is known to be, it is evident that any addi- 
 tional quantity of fluid coming in contact 
 with it will dilute it, or redissolve any of the 
 salt which might have been deposited in the 
 pores of the wood, by drying; the continual 
 washing of the sea will effectually clear the 
 surface of the wood of any deleterious matter ; 
 and although the foremost depredators may 
 perish in making a lodgment in the interior, 
 yet myriads are ready to supply their places, 
 and to maintain the ground already gained, 
 while the continued action of the water will 
 tend to assist them in their efforts : hence 
 he is of opinion that Kyan’s solution is not a 
 certain remedy against the destruction of 
 wooden erections in any of the estuaries 
 around our island. The Lords of the Admi- 
 ralty have ordered the flooring of the south 
 building-slip in this dock-yard to be removed, 
 and replaced with stone. Two arches of the 
 wooden bridge at Teignmouth have fallen 
 down, in consequence of the piers having 
 been destroyed by the Teredo ; so that we 
 have here found another locality for this animal. 
 — Magazine of Natural History for April. 
 
 METEOROLOGY. 
 
 At the meeting of the Royal Society on the 
 21st instant, was read an account of the fall 
 of a meteoric stone in Cold Bokkeveld, Cape 
 of Good Hope, in a letter from Mr. T. 
 Maclear. In its descent, which occurred at 
 half-past nine o’clock a. m. October 13, 
 1838, it appeared like a silvery meteor, tra- 
 versing the atmosphere for a distance of 
 about sixty miles, and then loudly exploding 
 like a volley of artillery, which was heard 
 over a space of more than seventy miles in 
 diameter — the air meanwhile being calm 
 and sultry. The explosion widely dispersed 
 the stone in fragments— which were at first 
 so soft that they could be cut with a knife, 
 but they subsequently hardened spontane- 
 ously. The whole of this meteoric stone, or 
 aerolite, was considered to have been about 
 five cubic feet in bulk. Professor Faraday, 
 who has examined the stone, states, that 
 when dry it possesses a specific gravity of 
 2.94, and some small evidence of mag- 
 netic power irregularly dispersed through it. 
 He found that one hundred parts of the 
 stone yielded the following constituents, 
 namely:— water, 6.5; sulphur, 4.24.; silica 
 
•254 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 or flint, 28.9 ; protoxide of iron, 33.22 ; mag- 
 nesia, 19.2; alumina, 5.22; lime, 1.64; oxide 
 of nickel, .82 ; oxide of chromium, .7 ; cobalt 
 and soda, a trace. 
 
 ELECTRICITY. 
 
 At the Electrical Society, on the 2nd inst., 
 a paper was read from Mr. M. Roberts, 
 describing an improved Galvanic Battery. 
 The trough is a wooden box, divided into 
 cells by means of circular disks of copper 
 and zinc, in metallic connexion, fitted on a 
 wooden axle, and half immersed in dilute 
 acid. Between the copper and zinc disks, 
 in each cell, a strip of flannel or cloth is ex- 
 tended from one end of the trough to the 
 other, lightly rubbing on the sides of the 
 contiguous disks or plates, which are turned 
 slowly round, by means of a handle attached 
 to the axle. He found the production of 
 gas to be four times as rapid when the disks 
 or plates are turned, than when not, owing 
 to their constant clean surface, and from the 
 increased galvanic energy acquired by the 
 plates being exposed to the air in their revo- 
 lution, one half of the surface being always 
 so exposed. A battery of this kind is much 
 less expensive than that of DanielPs. 
 
 M. Arago has proposed a plan for dis- 
 charging clouds, in cases of storms, of the 
 electric fluid which they contain, and thus 
 preventing the frequent occurrence of hail- 
 storms, which are generally produced by 
 two currents of clouds, charged with positive 
 and negative electricity, crossing each other. 
 It consists in an improvement upon Frank- 
 lin’s experiment of the kite, with which he 
 obtained an electric spark from a cloud ; 
 and afterwards Dr. Romas, of Nerne, and 
 Messrs. Lining and Charles, of the United 
 States, produced electric flashes three and 
 four feet in length. M. Arago recommends 
 that a small balloon, properly secured, armed 
 with metallic points, and communicating 
 with the ground by a rope covered with me- 
 tallic wire, like a harp-string, should be 
 kept permanently floating in the air, at a 
 considerable height over the spot which it 
 is wished to preserve from the effects of 
 lightning or hail ; and he expects that by 
 such an apparatus as this, a cloud might 
 have its electric contents entirely drawn 
 off, without any damage being caused, or 
 that at least the intensity of a hail-storm 
 would be greatly diminished. The experi- 
 ment is so simple, that it is well deserving 
 of a trial. 
 
 IMPORTANT CHEMICAL DISCOVERY. 
 
 One of the most valuable improvements in 
 modern times has lately been achieved in the 
 manufacture of soda from common salt, by 
 the use of carbonate of ammonia, instead of 
 the pestiferous method hitherto employed in 
 
 the production of that alkali. The inhabi- 
 tants residing in the vicinity of the soda- 
 manufactories at Birmingham, Liverpool, 
 Newcastle, Glasgow, &c., owe the inventors 
 of this invaluable improvement a heavy debt 
 ol gratitude, as by this discovery they have 
 put an end to the dreadful nuisance which the 
 public have so long endured. The necessity 
 of decomposing the chloride of sodium by 
 sulphur no longer exists, the newly-discovered 
 process being perfectly free from all noxious 
 vapour. Another important advantage is also 
 secured — namely, that the improved method 
 can with little additional outlay be adapted 
 to the manufactories at present in operation, 
 and the workmen who have hitherto been fre- 
 quently thrown out of employment and subject 
 to the loss of their wages, in consequence of 
 the numerous indictments that have been laid 
 against their masters for nuisances, will no 
 longer be subjected to this evil. This process, 
 when submitted to an eminent chemical lawyer 
 for his opinion, was pronounced by him to be 
 one of the most brilliant and ingenious disco- 
 veries in modern chemistry. — From a corres- 
 pondent, in the Morning Chronicle. 
 
 EXPERIMENTAL SUBTERRANEOUS AND SUB- 
 AQUEOUS EXPLOSIONS AT CHATHAM BY 
 THE VOLTAIC BATTERY. 
 
 For several months past the Royal Engineers, 
 at Chatham, under Colonel Pasley, have 
 been trying continual experiments in firing 
 guupowder by the voltaic battery, chiefly un- 
 der water ; and after many vicissitudes of par- 
 tial success and of failure, they have at last 
 succeeded in bringing this process to as much 
 perfection as it seems cabable of ; that is, to 
 as much certainty as the former methods of 
 firing mines in dry soil. They have repeat- 
 edly fixed gunpowder at the distance of 
 500 feet, with their conducting wires either 
 buried underground or led entirely under wa- 
 ter, excepting a few feet connected with the 
 battery, which in their subaqueous explosions 
 was in a boat on the Medway, the powder 
 being lodged at the bottom of that river. Jn 
 their subterraneous explosion they blew up a 
 field-work ; and in one of their subaqueous 
 expeiiments they blew to pieces a vessel re- 
 presenting a wreck, the fragments of which 
 being of fir timber came up to the surface of 
 the Medway immediately after the column of 
 water thrown up by the explosion. On Sa- 
 turday April 6th, they applied their voltaic 
 battery to the blasting of rock under water. 
 Two very large and heavy pieces of hard 
 sand-stone were each prepared with a bole 
 three inches in diameter by a borer, after 
 which a charge of three quarters of a pound 
 of powder was put into each, and the upper 
 part of the hole was tamped by pouring in 
 small fragments of broken stone round a cone 
 fixed over each charge, in a new and ingeni- 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 255 
 
 ous manner, first suggested by Mr. Howe, 
 clerk of works of the Royal Engineer Esta- 
 blishment, more than five years ago, which 
 does not seem inferior in resistance to the 
 common mode of tamping, but is much safer, 
 and far more expeditious. The conducting 
 wires were led from each charge to the bat- 
 tery, which was placed on the gun-wharf, 
 whilst the stones thus prepared and loaded 
 were lowered down from a crane to the bottom 
 of the river opposite, where the water was 
 14 feet deep at the time. The first stone 
 being of a compact form was blown to pieces, 
 and the rope sling by which it had been 
 lowered, and which had not been removed, 
 was broken. The second stone being of a 
 more irregular shape and much thinner, so 
 that there was not sufficient resistance above 
 and below the charge, was brought up by the 
 crane after the explosion, which had only 
 blown out the solid part of the stone below 
 the bottom of the hole, apparently without 
 injuring any other part of it. Another charge 
 was, therefore, placed in the same hole, which 
 was tamped both above and below in the 
 mode before described, and the stone was 
 then again let down to the bottom of the 
 river ; and after firing this second charge, on 
 being hauled up by the crane, it was found 
 to have been broken into three parts, one of 
 which did not reach the surface, whilst the 
 other two being still held together by the 
 slings, after being raised nearly to the level 
 of the wharf, separated from each other and 
 fell to the bottom. One of these charges was 
 contained in a tin cylinder fitted to the size 
 of the hole ; the two others in canvass bags 
 of the same form, covered with waterproof 
 composition. These last experiments have 
 proved that the voltaic battery may succeed 
 for blasting rock under water, as well as for 
 blowing wrecks to pieces ; and on the former 
 supposition, the holes in the rock would be 
 formed, and the charges placed, by means of 
 the diving-bell. 
 
 Nothing can appear easier than to fire gun- 
 powder under water, by the voltaic battery, as 
 exhibited in a lecture-room or scientific insti- 
 tution ; but the mode usually adopted on such 
 occasions, of passing the conducting wires 
 into the charge through a cork coated with 
 8eaiing-wax, and of insulating the remaining 
 length of each wire by inclosing it in small 
 India rubber tubes, would be inadequate and 
 inexpedient for practical purposes in a rapid 
 tideway and in deep water. In Colonel Pas- 
 ley’s experiments at Chatham, corks and seal- 
 ing-wax were rejected, the former as being 
 too weak, the latter from being liable to crack ; 
 and India rubber or caoutchouc was also re- 
 jected as being far too expensive — instead of 
 which a composition of pitch softened by bees’- 
 wax or tallow was adopted, the remarkable 
 efficiency of which was proved by keeping one 
 of those experimental charges ten days uuder 
 
 water before it was fired, when the powder 
 was still perfectly dry. 
 
 The voltaic battery used was of Professor 
 Daniell’s improved construction, which, from 
 retaining its energy much longer than any 
 former voltaic battery, he has named the con- 
 stant voltaic battery, and which Colonel Pas- 
 ley found to be much superior to the best of 
 the former constructions, at least for the 
 peculiar purpose of firing gunpowder, either 
 under ground or under water. 
 
 ESTIMATION OF THE MARINER’S 
 COMPASS IN CHINA. 
 
 Am. the junks which are employed on 
 the ocean carry the mariner’s compass, 
 although it does not appear to give the 
 Chinese navigators confidence, as they never, 
 if they can avoid it, steer boldly out to sea, 
 but keep as much as possible within sight 
 of land. The Chinese consider that they 
 were the inventors of this inestimable little 
 instrument, and it cannot be denied that they 
 have had it in use for many centuries. Ac- 
 cording to Klaproth, the knowledge of this 
 instrument was communicated to the Arabs 
 by the Chinese, and introduced into Europe 
 by the crusades. However much they may 
 fail to rely on its virtues, they appear to be 
 sufficiently aware of its powers. It is consi- 
 dered as a deity, and they treat it as they do 
 the others, with great ceremonial. Pieces 
 of scented ghos-stick are kept constantly 
 burning around it, as in the ghos-houses ; 
 while sacrifices of the youngest flesh and 
 the finest fruits are offered to it. Here, 
 ignorance appears to be the parent of super- 
 stition ; but it is to be hoped that a know- 
 ledge of the laws of nature may open their 
 eyes to the wisdom and excellence of the 
 works of the Creator. — Fan-Qui in China, 
 by C. J. Downing , Esq. 
 
 ON THE PROCESS OF KYANISING 
 SHIP-TIMBER. 
 
 It is to be hoped that we shall have no more 
 tampering with dry-rot doctors and their nos- 
 trums for the preservation of her Majesty’s 
 ships. The steeping of large logs of timber 
 in solutions of any kind is perfectly useless : 
 the solution penetrates only skin deep, 
 whereas the real dry rot commences at the 
 centre, where the fibres, being the oldest, 
 first give way, as is the case in standing trees. 
 The only plausible and promising preserva- 
 tive of timber is the gas of the kreosote pro- 
 cured from the distillation of coal or vegeta- 
 ble tar, which, when driven off in the shape 
 of gas, will penetrate every part of the largest 
 logs, and render the wood almost as hard as 
 iron ; so hard, indeed, as not easily to be 
 worked. It is understood that, in Belgium, 
 
256 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 they are using it as blocks for the rail- 
 roads. 
 
 The worm ( Teredo navalis ), as proved at 
 Sheerness, will not touch it ; while pieces of 
 the same wood, steeped in corrosive subli- 
 mate, sulphureous acid , and other active 
 solutions, were bored through and through. 
 Let our ships be built of good sound English 
 oak, as they formerly were, well seasoned 
 under cover, and left on the stocks as long as 
 they conveniently can be allowed, and we shall 
 hear no more of dry rot, or wet either. — ( Sir 
 John Barrow's Life of Lord Anson, as 
 quoted in the Mech. Mag., vol. xxx. p. 336.) 
 
 C!je (©atljntr. 
 
 The splendid present of the Schah of Persia, 
 to her Majesty, consists of between 50 and 60 
 superb shawls, woven in the looms of Shiraz 
 and Ispahan, exhibiting proofs of skill and 
 taste with which the workmanship of Europe 
 would, perhaps, strive in vain to compete. 
 The borders in some exhibit, in all their de- 
 tails, a triumphal procession ; trains of camels 
 and Arab steeds, sumptuously caparisoned ; 
 elephants carrying palanquins, musicians 
 gathered in groups, and the countless atten- 
 dants of many mighty chiefs, being all por- 
 trayed with equal fidelity and splendour. 
 These striking and complicated objects are 
 woven in the most exquisite colours, with 
 perfect accuracy of outline, and presenting a 
 combination of forms and hues, unrivalled 
 for their brilliancy and beauty. 
 
 Rice paper is made by the Chinese from a 
 plant composed almost wholly of cellular tis- 
 sue, and is removed from the tree like the 
 unrolling of papyrus. 
 
 M. Parrot, who was ordered by the Rus- 
 sian government to explore Armenia and 
 Transcaucasia, asserts that Mount Ararat is 
 of volcanic formation. 
 
 A lieutenant on board the Recherche, in 
 speaking of the late melancholy Earthquake 
 at Martinique, says, that on the morning of 
 that dreadful visitation (the 11th of January 
 last,) the ship was shaken in every part by a 
 shock that lasted forty minutes, and the masts 
 bent like bamboos. A few seconds after, a 
 species of vapour rose from the shore, escaping 
 through the crevices of the soil, and then the 
 houses of Fort Royal began to fall. Those 
 on the beach formed clouds of dust, and in 
 the midst of the chaos a frightful cry arose 
 from the lips of thousands of unfortunate suf- 
 ferers. All the crews of the vessels, amount- 
 ing to 500 men, w r ere ashore in ten minutes 
 afterwards, and at the end of some hours, two 
 hundred persons still living, were disengaged 
 from the ruins, and by the evening, 400 
 corpses were found. — Athenaeum. 
 
 The number of merchant vessels belonging 
 to Austria at the end of 1838, was 498, with 
 
 a total of 122,844 tons ; the number of 
 steamers was 15, total 5,114 tons. Out of 
 the 498 vessels, 155 were employed in trading 
 to ports in the Adriatic, the Levant, and thq 
 Archipelago : 147 in the Black Sea, the Seal 
 of Azof, and the Danube ; 167 in the Medi-J 
 terranean ; 12 in the Atlantic ; 4 in the 
 Northern Seas and the Baltic, and 13 to' 
 America. 
 
 The Golden Eagle. — The stamping of this 
 superb coin has commenced at the Mint of 
 Philadelphia : it is 34 years since any of 
 this coin was struck, the coinage ceasing 
 in 1S04. 
 
 The zoological collection of the Garden of 
 Plants in Paris has just been enriched by the 
 present of an immense tortoise from a gentle- 
 man at Havre. It is a native of the island 
 of Ascension, and weighs 5001b. It is five 
 feet in length and three and a half broad. 
 It arrived at the gardens on Friday evening, 
 and on the following day laid four eggs. 
 
 Advice. —The wisest men easiest to hear! 
 advice, least apt to give it. — Sir TV. Temple. I 
 
 Correcting Proofs. — Hazlett, speaking of], 
 Burke, says— “ 1 have been assured by a! 
 person who had the best means of knowing, 
 that the ‘ Letter to a Noble Lord ’ (the 
 most rapid, impetuous, glowing, and sportive 
 of all his works) was printed off, and the 
 proof sent to him,’ and that it was returned 
 to the printing office with so many alterations 
 and passages interlined, that the compositors! 
 refused to correct it as it was, took the 
 whole matter to pieces, and rent the copy.”. 
 The ‘ Georgian Era ’ states, that there is 
 an instance on record, .of three volumes of 
 corrections being written to one volume of 
 proofs. jj 
 
 Falsehood. — A liar begins with making 
 falsehood appear like truth, and ends with 
 making truth appear like falsehood. — Shem 
 stone. 
 
 The Mindandthe Imagination. — The mind 
 hath over the body that command which the 
 lord hath over a bondman : but the reason 
 hath over the imagination that command 
 which a magistrate hath over a free citizen, 
 who may also rule in his turn. — Bacon. 
 
 Titles. — Titles make a greater distinction 
 than is almost tolerable to a British spirit : 
 they almost vary the species ; yet, as they are 
 oftentimes conferred, seem not so much the 
 reward as the substitutes of merit. — Shenstone. 
 
 • NOTICE. 
 
 Nos. 941 and 942 of The MIRROR having been re-printed, 
 may now be had of all Booksellers. 
 
 : The ARCANA of SCIENCE, for 1839, by a New Editor, a 
 gentleman of acknowledged scientific ability, will shortly 
 be published. 
 
 LONDON : Printed and published by J. LIMBIRD, 
 143, Strand, ( near Somerset House ; ) and sold by 
 all Booksellers and Newsmen. — Agent in PARIt>,- 
 G. JV. M. REYNOLDS, French, English, and Ante- 
 ican Library, 55, Rue Neuve St. Augustin. — In 
 FRANCFORT, CHARLES JUGEL., 
 
Zi)C 
 
 No. 946. j SATURDAY, APRIL 27, 18.39. [Ph»ck 'la. 
 
 01. XXXIII. 
 
358 
 
 THK MIRROR. 
 
 THE ENTRANCE TO T1IE TREE GRAMMAR- 
 
 SCHOOI, OK ST. OI.AVE’S AND ST. JOHN’S, 
 
 SOUTHWARK, 
 
 Is situate on the west side of the north end 
 of Bennondsey-street,* which formerly sepa- 
 rated Tooiey-street from St. Olave’s street, 
 the latter forming the eastern, and the former 
 the western part of that thoroughfare now 
 called Tooiey-street. 
 
 The above entrance is through a gate 
 between a porter’s lodge and a house for one 
 of the under- masters ; and then through one 
 of the arches into the school yard. f It is built 
 to correspond to the Tudor-style of architec- 
 ture of the schools. 
 
 “ Early in the reign of Elizabeth,” says Mr. 
 Corner, in his account of the above seminary, 
 in the Gentleman’s Magazine, January, 1836, 
 “ when the foundation of public schools was 
 promoted throughout the country, under the 
 authority of the legislature, and the patron- 
 age of the crown, the parishioners of St. Sa- 
 viour’s, Southwark, set a noble example to 
 their neighbours in the establishment of their 
 admirable Free Grammar-School: and the 
 inhabitants of the parish of St. Olave were 
 not slow to follow so enlightened and bene- 
 volent a policy. St. Olave’s School was set 
 on foot in the year 1560, and constituted 
 “ The Free Grammar-School of Queen Eli- 
 zabeth of the Parishioners of the parish of 
 St. Olave, by letters patent issued in 1571.” 
 
 It was intended to have built the grammar- 
 school nearly on the same spot as the old 
 school, viz., on the south side of Duke-street, 
 leading from Tooiey-street to London-bridge ; 
 but unfortunately that ground being required 
 for the London and Greenwich Railway Com- 
 pany, a fresh site was obliged to be found ; 
 and after a considerable delay, and with a 
 view to satisfy the inhabitants of St. John’s, 
 who were desirous that the new school should 
 be erected in or near that parish, and on that 
 account, the present wretched site was unfor- 
 tunately chosen ; for doubtless one more 
 uncongenial for a classical school,— which 
 ought to be all quiet and retirement, — 
 could not possibly have been selected ; and 
 it is also grievous in the extreme to wit- 
 ness so much taste as the above buildings 
 display, completely lost, by being united with 
 such vile associates. 
 
 We are indebted to Mr. James Field, the 
 architect, for the accuracy of our view ; for 
 which kindness we beg thus publicly to 
 tender him our warmest thanks. 
 
 * In the maps of the Metropolis, 1765, it is called 
 Burnaby, or Bermondsey street : doubtless it took 
 its uame from two Suxou-words, signifying Sermund's 
 isle, *• so called,” gays fpi^Koyos Bailey, “ from the 
 abb y erected in Southwark by Bermund, either 
 Li rd or Abbot of that place.” Many useful and 
 instructive chapters might be written on the origin 
 of the names of streets in London. 
 
 t For a view of this school, see Mirror, No. 761. 
 
 SOUTHWARK TRADESMEN’S TOKENS. 
 
 (Engraved from the Originals in the possession of the 
 Editor .) # 
 
 On the old St. Olave’s Grammar-School, 
 which was situate in Church Passage, Tooiey- 
 street, being sold in 1830, and taken down to 
 make the approaches to New London Bridge, 
 many antiquities were found amidst the 
 ruins; and among them, the Southwark 
 Tradesmen’s Tokens, represented on our first 
 page. 
 
 It appears in history, that from and during 
 the reign of Queen Elizabeth, to that of j 
 King Charles II., the tradesmen, victuallers 1 
 in particular, and indeed ail that pleased, ^ 
 coined small money or tokens, for the benefit ' 
 and convenience of trade. This small money, | 
 halfpence and farthings, was also coined by | 
 the incorporation of cities and boroughs. It 
 was struck for necessary change ; the figure ' 
 and devices being emblematical of the vari- ’ 
 ous trades. Every company, tradesman, or 
 tradeswoman that issued this useful kind of 
 specie, was obliged to take it again when : 
 brought to them; and, therefore, in cities ’ 
 and larger towns, where many sorts of them 
 were current, a tradesman kept a sorting-box, ’ 
 into the partitions of which he put the money 
 of the respective coiners ; and at proper times, 
 when he had a large quantity of any one 
 person’s money, he sent it to him, and got it 
 changed into silver: and in this manner they 
 proceeded until the year 1672, when, King 
 Chavles the Second having struck a sufficient 
 quantity of halfpence and farthings, for the ’ 
 intention and exigencies of commerce, the 
 nummorum famuli were superseded, aud an I 
 end was put to these shifts and practices of [ 
 the victuallers and shop- keepers, as being no ' 
 longer either necessary or useful. 
 
 Some forty years since there were again in- 
 numerable Tradesmen’s Tokens in general ‘ 
 circulation, not only in the metropolis, but in ; 
 all parts of the country ; some of them were i 
 specimens of fine workmanship, and were 
 made the vehicle by tradesmen of advertising 
 their various professions ; and also of perpe- 
 tuating the stirring events of the times, and 
 giving the portraits of public men ; they have 
 also been the means of preserving Views of 
 Places, and Notices of Entertainments, which 
 otherwise would have been lost. A complete 
 series of them now would be very valuable ; 
 and indeed so eagerly were they sought after 
 by collectors, that eight volumes of eugra- j 
 vings from them were published ; and 
 many cabinets made for them. They also! 
 formed a circulating medium, until the splen- 
 did new copper coinage of George III. from ; 
 the foundry of Mr. Watt’s, of Birmingham,] 
 gave the public a more wholesome anil 
 valuable national coinage : when they soon 
 entirely disappeared ; and are now only to be 
 found but in the cabinets of the curious. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 EPISTI, 15 TO TIME. 
 
 <d Time ! thou rude relentless power, 
 
 Why from the dreams of youth awake me? 
 
 Why darkeoest thou the future hour. 
 
 Thou heartless churl ! perdition take thee! 
 Why, tyrant, quench that glorious flame 
 That once with such intenseness burned? 
 
 Why leave the light of Myra’s name 
 To blaze o'er blighted charms inurned ? 
 
 Why her once magic form divest. 
 
 Of sceptred love's lieart-thrilling power ? 
 
 And why, 0 Time ! with scythe noblest, 
 
 Cropp’st thou life’s passion-flower ? 
 
 Why from the throbbing bosom take 
 The aspiring hopes that revell’d there. 
 
 And in their purple palace wake 
 
 Pale thought and heart-corroding care ? 
 
 Wliy in thy reckless flight invade 
 Youth’s towering strength and beauty’s bloom. 
 And east, while yet in light arrayed. 
 
 The shadows of their coming doom ? 
 
 And is it thine, stern power, to wake 
 The slumbering heart from dreams of bliss. 
 
 And ere to other worlds we take, 
 
 Blight every joy that beams on this ? 
 
 And tell me, tyrant, can it be 
 That love’s soft light on Ellen’s brow, 
 
 Shall ere like Myra’s beauty, flee. 
 
 Or wax as dim as that is now ? 
 
 Must disappointment’s cruel sting. 
 
 And sorrow be the lot of all ? 
 
 If so, swift speed thy withering wing, 
 
 And cast o’er thought oblivion’s pall ! 
 
 TIME’S ANSWER. 
 
 Vain mortal ! cease thy idle strain ; 
 
 ’Tis worse than folly to complain 
 Of my resistless power. 
 
 Tliis world is but a passing show — 
 
 A scene of trouble, joy, and woe. 
 
 Where clouds and darkness lower. 
 
 Then turn from this dim spot thine eye, 
 Nor iieave one unavailing sigh. 
 
 At my unceasing flight : 
 
 A flight which e’en to thee may bring, 
 That faitli which soars on radiant wing, 
 From darkness up to light ! 
 
 Man’s mortal race to Time must yield— 
 No prayer can save, no power can shield 
 From pre-ordained decay. 
 
 It is life s dark inglorious lot. 
 
 To fade, to die, and lie forgot, 
 
 A nd pass unfelt away. 
 
 Earth s dreams of bliss, love, glory, power. 
 What are they ? pageants of an hour, 
 
 W hich touch’d, dissolve in gloom. 
 
 Thus human hopes and human fears. 
 Borne ou the silent stream of years. 
 
 Sink to oblivion’s tomb ! 
 
 All cower beneath mv withering wings — 
 The imperial chief of scepter'll kings, 
 
 Tiie beautiful, the brave ; 
 
 And mingling in one common nrn, 
 
 Alike to vulgar dust return. 
 
 The despot and the slave. 
 
 O er rolling worlds to man unknown ; 
 
 O’er all beneath the eternal throne. 
 
 My ehast’uiug power extends : 
 
 The vast infinitude of space. 
 
 The multitudinous abyss. 
 
 E’en death before me bends ! 
 
 Yet shall my course in heaven be run. 
 
 Tile years dissolved, the glorious sun 
 In final darkuess close 1 
 This world shall press the funeral pyre. 
 And nature, through all space, expire, 
 fn agonizing throes ! 
 
 But o’er creation’s smouldering pile, 
 
 Shall man’s immortal spirit smile 
 Serene, and fearless soar, 
 
 ’Mid fading worlds to its abode. 
 
 Its native home, the throne of God, 
 
 When Time shall he uo more 1 
 
 New York Mirror. 
 
 REMARKABLE DREAMS. 
 
 There are various classes of dreams, which 
 present interesting subjects of observation. 
 One class includes those in which a strong 
 propensity ot character, or a strong mental 
 emotion, is embodied into a dream ; and by 
 some natural coincidence is fulfilled. A 
 murderer, mentioned by Mr. Combe, had 
 dreamt of committing murder, some years 
 before the event happened ; and Dr. Aber- 
 crombie received from a distinguished officer ' 
 to whom it occurred, the following history ; ' 
 in which a dreatn ol a very improbable kind 
 was fulfilled, ten years after it took place, 
 and when the dream was entirely forgotten. 
 At the age of between fourteen and fifteen, 
 being then living in England, he dreamt' 
 that he had ascended the crater of Mount 
 Etna ; that, not contented with what he saw 
 on the outside, he determined to descend 
 into the interior; and proceeded accordingly. 
 About the top, there seemed to be a good 
 deal ol flame and smoke ; but a short way 
 down, all was quiet; and he managed to de- 
 scend by means of steps, like the holes in a 
 pigeon-house. His footing, however, soon 
 gave way ; and he awoke in all the horrors of 
 having nearly suffered the fate of the philo- ’ 
 sopher Empedocles. In the year 1811, being 
 then a. captain in the British army, and 
 stationed at Messina, lie made one of a party 
 of British officers, who proceeded to visit 
 the top of Mount Etna. By tire time they 
 reached the bottom of the cone, several of the 
 party became so unwell, that they could pro- , 
 eeed no farther; but this gentleman, accom- 
 panied by two other officers, and- two guides, • 
 proceeded upwards ; and, after a severe 
 scramble of several hours, they reached the 
 summit, in time to witm-ss the rising of the 
 sun. “ After having rested for an” hour,’’ 
 said the officer, “ anil had something to eat, 
 
 I said to my companions — 1 We are now on 
 the top of this famous crater; why should 
 we not pay a visit to the bottom ?’ I was of 
 course laughed at ; and on applying to the 
 guides to know if they would accompany me, 
 they said — 1 We have always heard that the 
 English are mad ; but now we know it.’ I 
 was not, however, to be put off; and, being 
 strong and active, determined to go alone; 
 but Captain M. at last agreed to go with me. 
 
 1 he guides would not assist in any way. 
 The circumference of the crater is about three 
 miles outside ; the interior is like a large 
 amphitheatre ; with an area of about ail 
 acre, I should say, at the bottom. It is 
 only towards the upper lips of the crater, that 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 im 
 
 •moke now issues ; no eruption having taken 
 place from the bottom for very many years. 
 At one particular part of the crater the matter 
 harl given way, and slid down ; so as to form 
 a sloping bank to the very bottom. To this 
 point we proceeded, and found our descent 
 easy enough ; and without much difficulty, 
 or any great danger, we stood in the course 
 of an hour, to the no small astonishment of 
 the guides, on the very lowest stone on the 
 inside of the crater of Mount Etna. In the 
 centre is a lage hole, like an old draw-well ; 
 partly filled up with large stones and ashes. 
 Our ascent was tremendous, and the fatigue 
 excessive. I suppose we were at least five 
 hundred feet below the lowest part of the 
 upper mouth of the crater; and as our footing 
 was entirely on ashes, and stuff which gave 
 way, the struggle upwards was a trial of 
 bottom, which I believe very few would have 
 gone through. We reached the top much 
 exhausted, but very proud of our achievement; 
 and we had the satisfaction to learn at Ca- 
 tania, that we were not only the first that ever 
 went down, but the first who had ever 
 thought of it. When in bed that Dight, but 
 not asleep, the dream of ten years back came 
 to my recollection for the first time; and it 
 does appear to me remarkable, that I should 
 have dreamt of what I never could have 
 heard of as possible ; and that ten years 
 afierward, I should accomplish what no one 
 ever had attempted, and what was looked 
 upon by the natives as an impossibility.” 
 
 To this part of the subject we are to refer 
 those instances, many of them authentic, in 
 which a dream has given notice of an event 
 which was occurring at the time, or occurred 
 soon afterward. The following story has 
 been long mentioned in Edinburgh ; and 
 there seems no reason to doubt its authen- 
 ticity. A clergyman had come to this city, 
 from a short distance in the country, and 
 was sleeping at an inn; when he dreamt of 
 seeing a fire, and one of his children in the 
 midst of it. He awoke with the impression, 
 and instantly left town on his return home. 
 When he arrived within sight of his house, 
 he found it on fire ; and got there in time to 
 assist in saving one of his children ; who, in 
 the alarm and confusion, had been left in a 
 situation of danger. Without calling in 
 question the possibility of a supernatural 
 communication in such cases, this striking 
 occurrence may perhaps be accounted for 
 on simple and natural principles. Let us 
 suppose that the gentleman had a ser- 
 vant, who had shown great carelessness in 
 regard to fire, and had often given rise in 
 his mind to a strong apprehension that he 
 might set fire to the house. His anxiety 
 might be increased by being from home ; 
 and the same circumstance might make the 
 servant still more careless. Let us farther 
 suppose that the gentleman, before going to 
 
 bed, had in addition to his anxiety suddenly 
 recollected, that there was on that day, in 
 the neighbourhood of his house, some fair or 
 periodical merry-making, from which the 
 servant was very likely to return home in a 
 state of intoxication. It was most natural that 
 these impressions should be embodied into a 
 dream of a house being on fire ; and that the 
 same circumstances might lead to the dream 
 being fulfilled. 
 
 For further information on this interesting 
 subject, we refer to Dr. Abercrombie’s able 
 work on the “ Intellectual Powers from 
 which we have extracted the preceding anec- 
 dotes ; and which we shall lay under contri- 
 bution in our future remarks on this interest- 
 ing department of science. N. R. 
 
 jffianmr* anti Custom*. 
 
 SKETCHES OF PARIS. 
 
 The Theatres. 
 
 It is no wonder that the French are for the 
 most part poor, and astonished at our wealth 
 and luxury. Their whole minds are so wrapt 
 up in an endless untiring pursuit of pleasure, 
 that they make this the first occupation of 
 their life ; and if they earn enough in the 
 morning to carry them to a cafe or a theatre 
 in the evening, they are thought to be doing 
 well, and think so themselves. The uncom- 
 fortable arrangements, and unsettled state of 
 their own houses, drives them to places of 
 public resort, and hence every species of 
 amusement thrives at Paris, no matter how 
 great the number of attractions for its idlers. 
 There is likewise a frivolity in the generality 
 of their pleasures which accords well with 
 their light careless temperament — you could 
 imagine that omelette soufflee and meringue 
 d la creme were favourite dishes with them. 
 They have little thought of to-morrow, but as 
 long as they can dance and sing, and ride in 
 roundabouts on the Sunday, that constitutes 
 their happiness, and they think Monday may 
 look after itself. 
 
 This is the principal reason why there are 
 so many theatres in Paris — why they all fill, 
 and all pay. The French have little idea of 
 amusement within themselves, and no domes- 
 tic concerns to engage them : they require 
 constant excitement, or their vivid spirits, 
 which always seem up in balloons in their 
 brains, react upon themselves, and engender 
 a gloomy mood of sentiment, that finishes in 
 the Seine or the Morgue. Something in 
 Paris must be the rage — if the Opera does 
 not produce a grand spectacle, with glittering 
 processions and incidental ballets, they must 
 have a revolution, which has the advantage 
 of real horses, combats, and conflagrations ; 
 and if the Theatre Fran^ais does not give 
 birth to some new star to glitter in the dra- 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 261 
 
 mafic hemisphere, fhey make a lion of their 
 own in the first criminal that attempts to 
 shoot the king, or declare himself to be the 
 rightful heir to the throne of France. A new 
 play with them is a matter of serious import, 
 the newspapers fill their Jeuilleton for days 
 with comments concerning it, and anecdotes 
 connected with its representation and author- 
 ship ; and the people forget their dinners, 
 and go in shoals to wait hours at the doors, 
 in order to obtain even standing room. 
 There is no fuss about “ the legitimate 
 drama ” at Paris. The same crowd will sit 
 with breathless attention during the perform- 
 ance of one of Moliere’s comedies at the 
 Theatre Franyais, and when it has finished, 
 applaud it to the skies, (at least they 
 would do so if the roof of the theatre did not 
 intervene,) and then go and literally scream 
 with delight and admiration at a feerie at 
 the Porte St. Martin, wherein a wicked 
 knight is turned into a cockchafer, and the 
 good prince sticks a gigantic pin through 
 him and sets him flying, to the air of 
 Hanneton vole ! vole ! vole ! the French 
 version of our “ Ladybird, ladybird, fly 
 away home !” 
 
 There are, however, many arrangements in 
 the manner of conducting the French theatres, 
 which would be beneficially transferred to 
 our own. In ‘the first place there is no 
 pushing and crowding at the opening of the 
 doors. All as they arrive are marshalled in 
 pairs behind one another, by the Municipal 
 Guard in attendance, and they sometimes 
 form a tail of most imposing length. Then 
 again, you may leave the theatre whenever 
 you please during the performance, and your 
 seat is sacred until your return ; a glove or a 
 handkerchief placed on it shows it to be 
 engaged, and no one would think of occupy- 
 ing it, or appropriating what you have left to 
 their own use. We do not think this cus- 
 tom is general in the continental theatres, at 
 least we recollect having a serious riot with 
 some Italians, in the pit of the great theatre 
 La Scala, at Milan, who took the seats of 
 some friends of ours during the interval 
 between the opera and ballet, and on their 
 return refused to give them up. So far, 
 however, the French are honest — they will 
 cheat you in dealing every way they possibly 
 can, but they will not rob in the downright 
 pick- pocket style of England. 
 
 The finest theatre in Paris is the Opera — 
 we know it better by name in England, as 
 the Academie Royale de Musique. It has 
 long been famed for its costly decorations, and 
 the superb style in which its pieces are 
 brought out. La Muette de Portici, La 
 | Juive, Robert le Diable, Les Huguenots, 
 Guido and Genevra, and Guillaume Tell, 
 have been, and still are, amongst their most 
 favourite operas, and Le Diable Boiteux, and 
 La fille du Danube, are played as ballets. 
 
 The scenery is also of the most exquisite kind, 
 — the views of the Chateau of Chanonceaux, 
 in les Huguenots, and the Ruined Convent, 
 with the rising of the nuns in Robert le 
 Diable, are admirable. But while we are 
 writing, a gloom has been cast over the 
 opera which will not easily be dispelled. 
 Adolphe Nounit, its most favoured singer, 
 la plus belle voix de France, has committed 
 suicide at Naples. Annoyed at the oppo- 
 sition which the authorities ottered to Poly - 
 encte, an opera composed expressly for his 
 fine powers by Donnizetti, and hissed after 
 performing Pollio in Norma, he returned 
 home and threw himself out of window. 
 He was only six - and - thirty, handsome, 
 accomplished, and amiable ; beloved and 
 admired by all who enjoyed the pleasure of 
 his acquaintance. 
 
 To give the reader an idea of the perplexity 
 of choosing your place as a stranger in a 
 French theatre, we add the name of the 
 different parts of the house at the Opera, 
 with the expenses of each — most of the other 
 theatres of Paris follow the same plan. 
 
 . Frank*. Centim** 
 
 Avant-scene 9 0 
 
 Premieres de face 9 0 
 
 Stalles „ 7 do 
 
 Balcon 7 50 
 
 Secondes de face 7 50 
 
 Amphitheatre 6 0 
 
 Galerie 6 0 
 
 Premieres de cote 6 0 
 
 Baiguoires 6 0 
 
 Secondes de cole 5 0 
 
 Troisiemes de face 5 0 
 
 Rez-de-chaussee 9 0 
 
 Troisiemes de cote 4 .50 
 
 Quatrieines de lace 3 50 
 
 Parterre 3 60 
 
 Amphitheatre des quatrieines . . 2 50 
 
 Quatrieines de col 6 2 50 
 
 Cinquiemes loges 2 50 
 
 We are sure the French have no proper 
 idea of Shakspeare, although they have 
 translations and adaptations of his plays. 
 A French gentleman, whom we were ac- 
 quainted with in Paris, a talented and well- 
 read man, who spoke English fluently, said 
 to us one day, “ You should go to the Am- 
 bigu-Comique ; there is a play acting there 
 now, quite in the style of your Shakspeare.” 
 Acting on his recommendation we went, but 
 we will confess we did not see where the 
 analogy lay. The name of the piece to 
 begin with was not thoroughly legitimate: 
 Les Chiens du Mont Saint- Bernard — a regu- 
 lar Adelphi melodrama, with real dogs of 
 the Convent. The plot was very meagre, 
 hut the machinery extremely well arranged. 
 The scenery was likewise good — the awful 
 Govffre du Diable on the Alps, and the 
 Hospice itself, were the most effective we 
 ever saw, and when, ten days afterwards, we 
 
262 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 stopd amongst the eternal snows of the real 
 Convent, we were forcibly struck with the 
 fidelity of their views. 
 
 There has been lately a singular number 
 of plays performed in Paris founded upon 
 English subjects. Amongst them are Le 
 Sonneur de St. Paul, at the Gaite ; Lady 
 Melvil and La Popularity, at the Renais- 
 sance ; Les Trois Dimanches , at the Palais 
 Royal ; Le Crasseur de Preston, at the 
 Opera Comiqtte, and some Olliers.* Some 
 of the mistakes committed iu them are 
 ludicrous enough, for there are not many 
 French authors thoroughly conversant with 
 English manners. They think if they make 
 the principal character say “ Goddem ” two 
 or three times, and speak of “ rosbif” and 
 horse-races, they have hit off' a fine persona- 
 tion of English character. Poor fellows ! we 
 can afford to let them think so ; indeed, we 
 have laughed at their plays ourselves, quite 
 as much as our neighbours. It is, however, 
 singular how few of the inhabitants of Paris 
 speak English — the majority do not know 
 a single word, in consequence of which all 
 our actions and sentiments are seen through 
 an interpreting medium, which generally 
 casts anything but a favourite light. 
 
 In consequence of the destruction of the 
 Italian Opera-house, which was burnt down 
 about the same time as our Exchange, the 
 company of that theatre have played this 
 season at the Odepn, which is a fine house, 
 and has been newly-decorated for their recep- 
 tion, It was a new scene for the Quartier 
 Latin the first night the Opera opened — 
 such a string of carriages and lamps had 
 not been recollected in the memory of the 
 oldest student, and we doubt where the spec- 
 tacle was most attractive — inside the house 
 or out. The walls of the Luxembourg, and 
 the quiet precincts of the Rue de Vaugiraid, 
 echoed with a ceaseless roar of carriages from 
 seven to eight, which astonished even the 
 very bricks the cafes displayed their 
 choicest luxuries, and their gaiyons had 
 their heads arranged for the occasion. The 
 stalls under the piazza of the Odeon glittered 
 with attractive wares, which last preparation 
 we thought the silliest of all, because people 
 going to the play are not iu the habit of 
 stopping to buy bear’s grease and skipping- 
 rope^ ; at least not in London— in Paris they 
 do anything. Knips. 
 
 In Salzburg, nearly opposite to the Univer- 
 sity Church, is the house where Mozart was 
 born, in 1756. Neither bust, inscription, or 
 any other memorial of this great artist draws 
 the eye of the passenger upon it. 
 
 * Two of these pieces, Le Sonneur de Saint Paul, 
 and lie brusstur de Preston, have been played at the 
 Victoria and Olympic theatres lately, under the 
 names of The Bellringer of St. Paul’s, and the 
 Queen’s Ilorse. 
 
 THE NEW ART.-PIIOTOGRAPHY. 
 
 [The fac-simile of the photographic drawing 
 in our last number has produced a much 
 greater sensation than we had anticipated ; 
 but still we are not surprised at this excite- 
 ment, for the engraving gave a most accurate 
 idea of the photogenic picture, which repre- 
 sents the fern with such extreme fidelity that 
 not only its veins, but the imperfections, and 
 accidental foldings of the leaves of the speci- 
 men are copied, — the greater opacity on the 
 folded parts being represented by tlie large ivhite 
 patches on our facsimile. 
 
 Photography, or Lucigraphy , is the art of ob- 
 taining views from nature, copies of drawings, 
 fac-si miles of writings, &c., by the unassisted 
 action of solar light upon paper which has 
 been previously saturated with certain chemi- 
 cal substances, whose nature is to change in 
 colour when exposed to it. That nitrate of 
 silver becomes discoloured on exposure to the 
 light, is a fact which has been known for 
 many years to students and amateurs of 
 experimental chemistry ; and it is also well 
 known that this metallic salt is the principal 
 ingredient in what is called indelible, or 
 marking-ink. But it is only recently that 
 the worid have been informed of that inge- 
 nious and valuable mode of applying its solar 
 sensitiveness which constitutes the art of 
 photography. 
 
 The first public announcement of the art 
 was made by M. Arago, on January 7, 1839, 
 to the Academy of Sciences at Paris, when 
 he. entered generally into the process of M. 
 Daguerre, a gentleman who has been long 
 known as the artist to whom (conjointly with 
 M. Bouton,) we owe the beautiful pictorial 
 effects ot the Diorama , and who, it appears, 
 has devoted his attention, during many years, 
 to the effects ot light upon substances ren- 
 dered sensitive to its action. 
 
 It is to be regretted that an art so well 
 deserving of immediate attention and of fur- 
 ther philosophic investigation, should have 
 elicited so much petty squabbling in the 
 English and continental journals, as to whe- 
 ther M. Daguerre or Mr. Talbot is entitled to 
 whatever merit may attach to priority of in- 
 vention. It is more in the spirit of philo- 
 sophy and philanthropy to “ do good by 
 stealth, and blush to find it tame,” than to 
 be gaping for praise or striving for a patent. 
 It seems certain, however, that the processes 
 and the results of M. Daguerre and Mr. 
 Talbot, are totally different. The former is 
 said to obtain light for light, and shadow for 
 shadow in the most perfect manner ; whereas 
 in the process of the latter, shadow is sub- 
 stituted for light, and light for shadow, — a 
 reverse effect, which he rectifies by placing 
 his first impression over another piece of 
 photographic paper, a flat plate of transparent 
 glass pressing them close together, and then 
 exposing the whole to the light. But what- 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 265 
 
 ever these gentlemen have done, neither of 
 them can he recognised as the inventor, for 
 it appears that more than twenty years ago 
 M. Niepce (who himself derived the idea 
 from a M. Charles.) made many experiments 
 on, and produced several specimens ot, the 
 .-art. ; and in 1802, Sir Humphrey Davy and 
 Wedgwood endeavoured, but unsuccessfully, 
 to apply this well known property of the 
 nitrate of silver to similar uses. The question 
 should therefore be, whether M. Charles or 
 Mr. Wedgwood are entitled to the credit of 
 priority ; but with so many claimants, and 
 the ease with which fresh claims may be 
 made and supported, it is not likely to be 
 soon settled. In the meantime, while “ the 
 lion and the unicorn are fighting for the 
 crown,” the public will avail themselves of 
 whatever benefits this modern and successful 
 application of au old fact in chemistry can 
 afford them. 
 
 Mr. Talbot prepares his photographic paper 
 by first saturating it with a solution of com- 
 mon salt, and afterwards with a solution of 
 chloride of silver. It is then dried in the 
 dark. When he wishes to obtain a view 
 from nature, he places a sheet of the photo- 
 graphic paper at the back of a camera obscura, 
 so that the reflection of the scene may fall 
 direct upon the paper, which soon acquires a 
 Correct delineation of each object presented 
 before it, however minute it may be, provided 
 that it is still. To prevent the picture from 
 being evanescent, it is again immersed in salt 
 and water, whereby it becomes indelibly fixed. 
 
 Sir John Herschell has exhibited some 
 very curious results from substituting the 
 light of the great galvanic battery of Profes- 
 sor Daniell ; and Mr. Havell has produced 
 very exquisite specimens of an unvarying 
 character from a given design, (some of them 
 tinted,) which will compete with lithography. 
 
 In justice to M. Daguerre we must mention 
 that the editor of the Athenceum , after an 
 inspection of the photographic drawings ob- 
 tained by Sir John Herschell, Messrs. Talbot 
 and Havell, and others in this country, de- 
 clares those of M. Daguerre to be far superior. 
 
 It is curious that this invention (if we 
 may so call it,) should have only excited 
 general attention in England, in consequence 
 of the announcement to the Academy in 
 France, on the seventh of last January ; for 
 during the preceding year the lollowing 
 paragraph, equally calculated to make a stir 
 among artists and experimentalists, was pub- 
 lished in the second edition of a book, enti- 
 tled Parlour Magic : “ Light— a painter. 
 Strain a piece of paper or linen upon a irame, 
 and sponge it over with a solution of nitrate 
 of silver in water : place it behind a painting 
 upon glass, or a stained window-pane, and 
 the light traversing the painting or figures, 
 will produce a copy of it upon the prepared 
 paper or linen, those parts in which the rays 
 
 were least intercepted being the shadows of 
 the picture,” (p. 58.)* And we shall have 
 occasion to quote hereafter a passage of a 
 similar nature, from a popular work published 
 several years ago. 
 
 With such facilities, almost everybody may 
 furnish himself with a collection of copies 
 fiotn the best masters, or of original views of 
 the scenery around him. The folio will be 
 seen not only on the table of the affluent, 
 but on that of the poor man, who shall no 
 longer hope in vain to carry with him 
 wherever he may go some sketch of the dear 
 scenes of his boyhood or of his early love. 
 
 (_To be continued.) 
 
 fhtbltc lEyljtbttt'ong. 
 
 THE NEW SOCIETY OF PAINTERS IN WATER- 
 COLOURS, PALI. MALL. 
 
 [The private view of the above gallery took 
 place on Siturday, the 13th inst. There 
 are many works of considerable talent, that 
 do credit to the artists, and an honour to the 
 country, — the proportion of first-rate works 
 this year, bearing a great preponderance over 
 the last; and among them we noticed : — ] 
 
 No. 224. The Happy Valley. H. War- 
 ren.— This is a most beautiful picture ; the 
 harmony is well preserved throughout, and 
 the colouring is vivid and brilliant. 
 
 No. 207. Interior of the Town Hall at 
 Courtray. L. Haghe. — We pronounce this 
 specimen a masterpiece of art ; perhaps, 
 taking it as a whole, a little too black ; 
 the architectural parta are very minutely 
 detailed, and the figures are well suited to 
 the subject. 
 
 No. 213. Granny’s Specs. A. H. Taylor. 
 — A humourous little picture. This artist has 
 many similar productions in this Exhibition. 
 
 No. j30. King Henry V. entering Lon- 
 don with his prisoners, fyc., after the Vic- 
 tory of A gincourt, 1415. VV. H. Kearney. 
 — As a subject detailing a great historical 
 event, it is highly valuable, and possesses 
 considerable talent. 
 
 No. 111. A scene taken from a window in 
 St. John Street, during Bartholomew Fair. 
 George Sidney Shepherd For a close re- 
 
 semblance to nature, and a delightful har- 
 mony of colour, we think this artist excels. 
 Mr. George Sidney Shepherd has many other 
 works of considerable merit, particularly one 
 of Berry Pomeroy Castle, No. 202. 
 
 No. 216. Romeo and Juliet. L. Hicks. 
 — A pleasing and beautiful picture, full of 
 sentiment ; and the story well told. 
 
 * The Foreign Quarterly Review observes, “ that, 
 by possibility, this art may not be altogether un- 
 known to the Indian jugglers. It is many years 
 since an offer was made, in our presence, by one of 
 them, to show any gentleman his portrait, taken by 
 a single look alone. The master of the house, how- 
 ever, deeming the proposal an insult on the credulity 
 of tire company, ordered the man to be instautly ex- 
 polled with the rattan. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 2(51 
 
 No. 278. View in the Roemer Derg, Franc- 
 fort . — A specimen that possesses some fine 
 ariel tones in the distance, and great strength 
 of colour in the foreground, and a much 
 closer resemblance to nature than vte remem- 
 ber to have seen in this artist’s former works. 
 
 No. 328. The Battle of Flodden Field. 
 C. H. Weigall and H. Warren. — This is a 
 noble picture, and does honour to the united 
 talents of these distinguished artists. 
 
 No. 53. E. Corbold. There are many 
 excellent parts in this picture ; the distance 
 is well managed, but the left corner is very 
 sombre, and the legs of the horses thick and 
 clumsy. 
 
 No. 182. The Tour de Beurre, Rouen 
 Cathedral. A. K. Penson. — A fine speci- 
 men of the ancient architecture of France ; 
 the old buildings in the centre of the picture 
 are too prominent, and do not harmonize 
 with the cathedral in the distance: but we 
 understand Mr. Penson is a very young 
 artist. 
 
 No. . The River IVye. Lindsay. — A 
 beautifully-depictured representation of ro- 
 mantic and pure British Scenery, with pea- 
 sants naturally grouped in the foreground: 
 the whole displaying great talent. 
 
 No. 241. Mackerel fishing, fishermen lay- 
 ing their nets off the Gull Stream Light : 
 sunset. Duncan. — The general tone of this 
 picture partakes too much of the colour of cop- 
 per, and the artist has not been quite so happy 
 in this as in many of his former productions. 
 
 [ We cannot help expressing our regret that 
 noblemen and gentlemen possessing large 
 galleries, do not ornament them more fre- 
 quently with this most fascinating style of 
 painting ; and we cannot devise any reason 
 why the National Gallery should not have 
 their walls embellished with some specimens 
 of this truly British mode of painting. 
 
 It is impossible to mention all the works 
 of merit in this gallery within our crowded 
 columns, but we shall pay another visit to 
 this enchanting place, and perhaps give a 
 second notice.] 
 
 DISCOVERY OF THE TEA-PLANT 
 IN BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 {Continued from page 251.) 
 
 The following is the method of making 
 Black Tea, as now practised at Sudeya, in 
 Upper Assam, by the Chinamen sent thither 
 for that purpose: — In the first place, the 
 youngest and most teuder leaves are gathered ; 
 but when there are many hands, and a great 
 quantity ofleaves to be collected, the people em- 
 ployed for the purpose nip off, with the forefin- 
 ger and thumb, the fine end of the branch with 
 about four leaves on, and sometimes even more, 
 if they look tender. These are all brought to 
 the place, where they are to be converted into 
 tea ; they are then put into a large, circular 
 
 open-worked bamboo basket, having a rim 
 all round, two fingers broad. The leaves are 
 thinly scattered in these baskets, and then 
 placed in a framework of bamboo, in all ap- 
 pearance like the side of an Indian hut, 
 without grass, resting on posts, two feet from 
 the ground, with an angle of about 25° (fig. 1.) 
 
 The baskets with leaves are put in this frame 
 to dry in the sun, and are pushed up and 
 down by a long bamboo, with a circular piece 
 of wood at the end. The leaves are permitted 
 to dry about two hours, being occasionally 
 turned ; but the time required for this pro- 
 cess depends on the heat of the sun. When 
 they begin to have a slightly withered ap- 
 pearance, they are taken down and brought 
 into the house, where they are placed on a 
 frame to cool for half an hour. They are 
 then put into smaller baskets, of the same 
 kind as the former, and placed on a stand. 
 
 People are now employed to soften the 
 leaves still more, by gently clapping them 
 between their hands, with their fingers and 
 thumb extended, and tossing them up and 
 letting them fall, for about five or ten minutes. 
 They are then again put on the frame during 
 half an hour, and brought down and clapped 
 with the hands as before. This is done three 
 successive times, until the leaves become to 
 the touch like soft leather; the beating 
 and putting away being said to give the tea 
 the black colour and bitter flavour. After 
 this the tea is put into hot cast-iron pans. 
 
 which are fixed in a circular mud fire-place, 
 so that the flame cannot ascend round the 
 pan to incommode the operator. This pan 
 is well heated, by straw or bamboo fire, to a 
 certain degree. About two pounds of the 
 leaves are then put into each hot pan, and 
 
THK MIRROR. 
 
 265 
 
 spread in such « manner that all the leaves 
 may get the same degree of heat. They 
 are every now and then briskly turned with 
 the naked hand, to prevent a leaf from being 
 burnt ; when the leaves become inconve- 
 niently hot to the hand, they are quickly 
 taken out and given to another man, with a 
 close-worked bamboo basket ready to receive 
 them. A few leaves that may have been 
 left behind are smartly brushed out with a 
 bamboo broom : all this time a brisk fire is 
 kept up under the pan. After the pan has 
 been used in this manner three or four 
 times, a bucket of cold water is thrown in, 
 and a soft brickbat and bamboo broom used, 
 to give it a good scouring out ; the water is 
 thrown out of the pan by the brush on one 
 side, the pan itself being never taken off. 
 The leaves, all hot, on the bamboo basket, 
 are laid on a table that has a narrow rim 
 on its back, to prevent these baskets from 
 slipping off when pushed against it. The 
 two pounds of hot leaves are now divided 
 into two or three parcels, and distributed to 
 
 as many men, who stand up to the table 
 with the leaves right before them, and each 
 placing his legs close together ; the leaves 
 are next collected into a ball, which he 
 gently grasps in his left hand, with the 
 thumb extended, the fingers close together, 
 and the hand resting on the little finger. 
 The right hand must be extended in the 
 same manner as the left, but with the palm 
 turned downwards, resting on the top of the 
 tea leaves. Both hands are now employed 
 to roll and propel the ball along ; the left 
 hand pushing it on, and allowing it to 
 revolve as it moves ; the right hand also 
 pushes it forward, resting on it with some 
 force, and keeping it down to express the 
 juice which the leaves contain. The art 
 lies here in giving the ball a circular motion, 
 and permitting it to turn under and in the 
 hand two or three whole revolutions, before 
 the arms are extended to their full length, 
 and drawing the ball of leaves quickly 
 back, without leaving u leaf behind, being 
 rolled for about five minutes in this way 
 
 (fig. 3). The ball of tea leaves is from time 
 to time gently and delicately opened with 
 the fingers, lifted as high as the face, and 
 then allowed to fall again. This is done 
 two or three times, to separate the leaves ; 
 and afterwards the basket with the leaves is 
 lifted up as often, and receives a circular 
 shake to bring these towards the centre. 
 The leaves are now taken back to the hot 
 ans, and spread out in them as before, 
 eing again turned with the naked hand, 
 and when hot taken out and rolled ; after 
 which they are put into the drying basket, 
 and spread on a sieve, which is in the 
 centre of the basket, and the whole placed 
 over a charcoal fire, the fire being very 
 nicely regulated. 
 
 When the fire is lighted, it is fanned until 
 it gets a fine red glare, and the smoke is all 
 gone off; being every now arid then stirred, 
 and the coals brought into the centre, so as 
 to leave the outer edge low. When the 
 leaves are put into the drying basket, they 
 are gently separated, by lifting them up with 
 the fingers of both hands extended far apart, 
 and allowing them to fall down again : they 
 are placed three or four inches deep on the 
 sieve, leaving a passage in the centre for the 
 hot air to pass. Before it is put over the 
 fire, the drying basket receives a smart slap 
 with both hands, in the act of lifting it up, 
 which is done to shake down any leaves that 
 might otherwise drop through the sieve, or 
 
 to prevent them from falling into the fire 
 and occasioning a smoke, which would affect 
 and spoil the tea. This slap on the basket 
 is invariably applied throughout the stages 
 of the tea manufacture. There is always a 
 large basket underneath to receive the small 
 leaves that fall, which are afterwards col- 
 lected, dried, and added to the other tea ; in 
 no case are the baskets or sieves permitted 
 to touch or remain on the ground, but always 
 laid on a receiver with three legs. After 
 the leaves have been half dried in the drying 
 basket, and while they are still soft, they 
 are taken off the fire and put into large 
 open-worked baskets, and then put on the 
 shelf, in order that the tea may improve in 
 colour. (To be continued.') 
 
 39o&ett$t. 
 
 THE TIGER HUNT. 
 
 The day broke over a green and luxuriant 
 valley of Hindostan, with a sudden glory pe- 
 culiar to the East. A flood of gorgeous 
 light flushed the sky and fell among the wet 
 flowers, the trees and the flowing vines, with 
 that radiant and yet balmy influence, which 
 makes the beautiful contrast between morn- 
 ing and noon, in that burning climate. 
 Never did light dawn over a more lovely 
 spot than the valley we have mentioned. 
 “ The Vale of Flowers,” it might well be 
 called. On either hand towered abrupt 
 
266 
 
 the 'Mirror. 
 
 hills, loaded with leafy trees, and broken 
 here and there by a precipice, down whose 
 sides budding vines shed their rich, heavy 
 foilage like a drapery. A forest of roses 
 spread away, wave after wave, down the 
 heart of the valley, swelling at intervals up 
 the sides to the rife green foliage on the 
 acclivity, which walled the blooming space 
 with one vast leafy rampart. Near the foot 
 of the valley the hills were cut in twain, 
 and two corresponding gorges led to the 
 open country on the east and on the west, 
 so that a man standing within the jaw of the 
 gorge, on either side, with his face turned 
 valleyvvard, might see only a high broken 
 pass, with a long strip of the adjacent coun- 
 try undulating away to a soft amber sky, 
 without dreaming of the beautiful nook to 
 which they gave an outlet. On the brow of 
 a steep hill, which formed one of these gor- 
 ges, stood a stately dwelling commanding a 
 view of the pass, the valley, and the sur- 
 rounding country. It was inhabited by a 
 native Rajah, who derived his revenues from 
 the ottar distilled from the valley of roses, 
 which at once composed his wealth and 
 made his home a paradise. 
 
 The morning breeze was sighing balmily 
 through the open blinds and lattices of this 
 dwelling, when the Rajah’s daughter lelt 
 her perfumed mattrass, and stepped out on 
 ihe veranda which overlooked the valley. 
 Beautiful was the flowery nook which lay, 
 bathed in dew and sunshine beneath her feet. 
 Myriads of roses had burst to blossom during 
 the night. Gem like insects flashed among 
 them in and out, now in the sunshine, again 
 sending their soft hum from the clustering 
 flowers, or fluttering high in the air like a 
 cloud of “ winged buds ” floating away from 
 the overburthened thickets. Gorgeous sing- 
 ing-birds ruffled their plumage in the w’arm 
 sunshine, or sent out strains of melody from 
 their nestling places in the green leaves. On 
 every hand bright and beautiful things pre- 
 sented themselves to the Hindoo maiden. 
 She girded the embroidered sash which con- 
 fined her pearampoor more tightly about her 
 slender waist, shook back the braids of her 
 redundant hair, and with a light leap sprang 
 from the veranda. A moment alter, she was 
 wandering away up the blooming heart of 
 the valley. 
 
 An hour after, the Rajah’s daughter as- 
 cended the hill which formed one wall of 
 the eastern pass. Her dwelling stood on the 
 opposite precipice, and the sunlight poured 
 hotly through the gorge. The maiden was 
 scarcely weary with her walk, but she stop- 
 
 E ed in the shadow of a clump of thorns to 
 rush away the dew which had sprinkled 
 her silken slippers, and dimmed the golden 
 border of her pearampoor. She had per- 
 formed her task, and stood leaning against 
 the trunk of a young tree, with her red lips 
 parted in a smile of pleasant enjoyment, 
 
 and her large black eyes fixed on the oppo- 
 site hill — where the sunbeams were playing 
 about her dwelling and bathing the trees 
 with a stream of silvery light — when the 
 thicket above whs agitated, and a shower of 
 snowy petals fell over her from the disturbed 
 branches. She started, gave a quick glance 
 at the thicket, and fled from the spot with 
 a wild cry of terror. A huge tiger lay 
 crouched among the matted branches of the 
 thorn, his eyes glaring upon her, and his 
 limbs gathered up for a spring. She had 
 scarcely made one desperate leap for safety, 
 when her loot became entangled in the long 
 grass, and, with another wild cry for help, 
 she fell forward upon her face. It was her 
 salvation. The claws of the ferocious beast 
 grazed her garments as lie shot over her 
 with an impetuous spring, which carried 
 him sheer over a precipice that walled a ra- 
 vine some thirty feet beneath the place where 
 she had fallen. She heard the crash of his 
 fall, and the fierce, cat-like howl which fol- 
 lowed ; then the sharp cry of an elephant, 
 the shout of many human voices, and the 
 report of a musket sounded in her ears, and 
 she became senseless. 
 
 The wounded tiger dragged himself along 
 the bottom of the ravine, leaving a trail of 
 blood in his progress, and now and then ut- 
 tering a low howl of pain, till he came to the 
 open gap in which it terminated. Here, with 
 brute instinct, he slunk together and crouched 
 down in the rank grass, for a party of Euro- 
 pean huntsmen, with elephants and native 
 attendants, had been arrested with his cries, 
 and now halted in the gap. The leading 
 elephant, an old sagacious animal, stopped 
 and drew slowly back when he entered the 
 pass. Then curling his trunk, and fixing his 
 eyes on the mouth of the ravine, he rushed 
 forward with a force that nearly dislodged 
 his riders, and uttering a cry that seemed 
 almost human, he plunged his tusks down 
 into the long grass where the wounded tiger 
 was striving to conceal himself. A howl of 
 terrible agony burst up the ravine, and the 
 goaded beast leaped up into the open space 
 with a desperate effort at escape. But the 
 elephant wheeled his ponderous frame with as- 
 tonishing dexterity, and tossing the poor crea- 
 ture on a little embankment which formed 
 the lip of the ravine, he planted his heavy 
 foot on him, and deliberately gored him 
 through the body w'ith both his tusks. The 
 death howl of the tortured animal was hor- 
 ridly mingled with the sound of crashing 
 bones, and the low fierce cries of the victor. 
 A native rushed forwaid and fired upon him ; 
 but it was a useless waste of powder : blood 
 and foam were already oozing from his open 
 jaws, and hi§ limbs lay, with the life literally 
 trodden out of them, beneath the massive 
 foot of the elephant. The huge victor stood 
 for a moment, his trunk rolled tightly under 
 his nether jaw, his hirge form swelling with 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 267 
 
 rage, und his small eyes dilated and fixed 
 with sagacious fierceness on his crushed 
 enemy, as if deliberately enjoying the' agony 
 of his death-throes. When no struggle or 
 sign of life remained, he withdrew his foot, 
 and, after slightly shaking himself, allowed 
 his riders to resume their equilibrium, with- 
 out retaining any appearance of conflict 
 save the red stain which died his tusks. 
 
 “ There was a human voice — the cry of a 
 woman in fear, I am certain,” said the leader 
 of the party to his companion, as they re- 
 sumed their seats on the victorious elephant. 
 “ It came from above the ravine, yonder — 
 here, take my gun while I dismount.” 
 
 “ You will find that it was but the moan 
 of the tiger : their cry is strongly human at 
 times,” replied his companion. 
 
 “ I will see, however ; the poor beast 
 there must have had a very musical voice, if 
 that was his.’’ 
 
 The speaker was a young English noble- 
 man, who had just entered on his station as 
 governor of the province. He had brought 
 all the fresh and vigorous feelings of his cli- 
 mate and age to India, and filled with the 
 excitement of his first hunt, was eager for 
 any new adventure that might present itself. 
 He dropped lightly down the side of his ele- 
 phant, and running up the brow of the hill, 
 disappeared among the trees on the summit. 
 A few moments elapsed, and he re-appeared, 
 bearing the Rajah’s daughter in his arms. 
 She was still insensible. One slender hand 
 hung helplessly over his shoulder, and the 
 braids of her long hair almost swept the grass 
 as he bore her rapidly down the hill. 
 
 “ Bring wine — wine — she has fainted from 
 terror,” exclaimed the young governor, as 
 he came on a level with his party, and stood 
 panting with his lovely burthen still in his 
 arms. 
 
 Wine was forced through the Hindoo 
 maiden’s lips, and at length she recovered 
 sufficiently to point out the path which led 
 up from the valley to her father’s dwelling. 
 
 The sun was getting high ; our party of 
 huntsmen had secured the slain tiger to the 
 back of an elephant, and remained in the 
 gap, impatient for the appearance of their 
 leader. They had watched the old Rajah’s 
 dwelling a full hour, when a messenger was 
 sent with word that the party might return 
 home ; and that the governor would follow 
 in the cool of the afternoon. 
 
 A few days after the tiger hunt, the same 
 old elephant which had filled so prominent 
 a part in it, knelt within the gap which 
 opened to the “Vale of Flowers.” Native 
 servants were disencumbering him of a bale 
 of rich scarlet cloths and other costly pre- 
 sents, which the young governor of the pro- 
 vince had sent to the Rajah in exchange for 
 his daughter ; and in the shudow of the old 
 man’s dwelling, four slaves supported a gor- 
 geous palanquin, ready to convey her from 
 
 the home of her nativity. Again the Hindoo 
 maiden came out upon the veranda. A bril- 
 liant expression of happiness sparkled in her 
 dark eyes, and gave a richer beauty to the 
 rare loveliness of her features. Jewels 
 glowed upon her bosom, and shed their light 
 around her arms and small naked ankles. 
 She bowed herself a moment before the old 
 Rajah, her father, and then entered the pa- 
 lanquin. Smiling one more adieu, she sunk 
 back to its cushions of damask silk, drew its 
 azure curtains about her, and was conveyed 
 away from the home which had in all things 
 been to her a “ Yale of Flowers.’’ 
 
 A feeling of bereavement was for a mo- 
 ment busy at the father’s heart, as he caught 
 a last glimpse of the palanquin, when it was 
 carried through the gorge ; but his eye fell 
 on the sack of rupees and on the princely 
 gilts for which he had sold his daughter, 
 und his heart was comforted. 
 
 ( To be continued.') 
 
 33cU) SSoo&si. 
 
 The Suburban Gardener. — By J. C. Loudon, 
 F. L. S. Longman and Co. 
 
 [The Encyclopaedia of Horticulture, the En- 
 cyclopaedia of Agriculture , the Hortus Brit- 
 tanicus, and several other works teeming 
 with useful knowledge, have already earned 
 for Mr. Loudon a distinguished place in the 
 list of literary benefactors of mankind. But 
 the present publication will render him still 
 more deserving of the gratitude and encou- 
 ragement of all classes who would wish to 
 see the gardens and plantations of Britain 
 laid out according to the rules of good 
 taste, and managed in such a way as is 
 best calculated to ensure the fullest reward 
 for the expense and labour bestowed on 
 them. Mr. Loudon, whom a recent reviewer 
 has aptly called the Evelyn of the present 
 day, has here given very valuable instruc- 
 tions and suggestions for the most judicious 
 and economical arrangement and manage- 
 ment of gardens and plantations of all di- 
 mensions, elevations, and aspects, and plans 
 for the construction of lodges, tool-houses, 
 and other buildings, the subject being fre- 
 quently elucidated by wood-cuts. The work 
 also contains several interesting observations 
 of u more general nature, as the following 
 extracts will show : — ] 
 
 Fishponds in Gardens. 
 
 The custom of keeping fish in the grounds 
 of country residences is much less common 
 now, than it was in the days when, from the 
 whole country being Catholic, fish was an 
 essential article of food two days in every 
 week ; and when the communication between 
 the interior and the sea was so slow, as to be 
 unavailable for the transport of fish. Fish- 
 ponds, wherever they can be made, are not 
 only sources of beauty in the landscape, but 
 of interest and use with reference to the fish 
 
268 
 
 THK MIRROR. 
 
 that may be reured and fed in them. In 
 every garden, however small, and even in 
 every green-house or conservatory, there 
 may be a vase or small basin for gold and 
 silver fish. These require very little care, 
 except breaking the ice in winter, to admit 
 air. Should the fish, however, be intended 
 to breed, the pond must be in a warm situ- 
 ation, fully exposed to the sun, so as to 
 raise the temperature of the water early in 
 the season ; and the margin must be shallow 
 and sandy, as it is only in shallow water on 
 a sandy bottom, or on roots or bundles of 
 sticks, that fish will deposit their spawn. 
 The carp, the tench, and the perch are the 
 most convenientlymanaged in artificial ponds; 
 and, throughout Europe, they are more used 
 for this purpose, than any other kinds. Of 
 these, the carp is the best, on account of its 
 astonishing fecundity, its large size, and the 
 rapidity with which it grows when well led, 
 notwithstanding the great age which it has 
 been known to attain. To manage carp pro- 
 perly, three ponds are requisite ; one for 
 breeding, another for rearing, and a third for 
 feeding. In the spawning or breeding pond, 
 full grown fish should be put early in spring ; 
 the season for spawning being from the latter 
 end of May till the beginning of July, the 
 time varying according to the warmth of the 
 season. After spawning, the old fish are 
 put back into the feeding-pond, and the 
 young fry left to themselves till the spawning 
 season approaches in the following year. 
 They are then removed to the nursing-pond, 
 where they remain about two years, the 
 time varying according to their growth. 
 Every season the nursing pond is drawn, and 
 ull the fish which are above 5 in. in length, 
 put into the feeding-pond ; whence the lar- 
 gest are taken out as wanted for use. When 
 wanted of extraordinary size, they may be 
 kept in stews, and fed with garbage, boiled 
 potatoes, bread, boiled rice, or any soft sub- 
 stance which does not require mastication. 
 Their natural food consists of insects, worms, 
 and soft aquatic plants. The pond in which 
 the feeding fish are kept, should be rather 
 deep, and have a soft marly or muddy bottom, 
 and a warm exposure ; the water should be 
 soft, and this it generally is on marly soils : 
 when carp are fed in stews, they should be 
 kept in rain water. A carp will usually at- 
 tain the weight of 3 lbs. in six years, and 
 6 lbs. in ten years. The largest ever caught 
 was not quite 20 lbs. weight. They are in 
 season from October to April. The whole 
 business of stocking ponds, and raising and 
 fattening carp, is reduced to a regular sys- 
 tem, which is practised extensively in the in- 
 terior of France and Germany, and more 
 particularly of Prussia. But in suburban 
 gardens, it may be tried with u single pond ; 
 taking care to reduce the number of fish by 
 using some of the largest every year in the 
 proper season. From 300 to 400 carp to an 
 
 acre, is the number allowed in the feeding- 
 ponds in Prussia ; but in these ponds very 
 little food is given, and hence the range re- 
 quired is the greater. The tench is gene- 
 rally kept in the same pond as the carp, and 
 requires the same treatment. It will, how- 
 ever, thrive, and even attain an extraordinary 
 size, in situations, and in stagnant fetid wa- 
 ter, where no other fish would live. The 
 tench is very tenacious of life, and requires 
 less oxygen than any other fish. Mr. Yarrell, 
 in his excellent work on the British Fishes, 
 says, that the tench can breathe when the 
 quantity of oxygen is reduced to the 5000th 
 part ol the bulk of the water ; ordinary river 
 water usually containing the 100th part of 
 oxygen. Hence, tench will thrive in deep 
 muddy holes, where no other fish could ex- 
 ist ; though, in this case, they should be 
 kept a week or ten days in clear water, be- 
 fore using for the table, in order that the 
 muddy taste may go oil'. The tench is co- 
 vered with a thick slimy mutter, which is 
 said to heal other fish, if they rub themselves 
 against it when they are wounded ; and, 
 hence, the tench is vulgarly called the fishes* 
 physician. 
 
 The perch requires clearer water than 
 either the carp or the tench, and will thrive 
 in rivers, where the current is not too rapid. 
 When kept in stews, there should be a 
 stream of water constantly running through 
 these. The perch eats worms, flies, and 
 young fish of its own kind, and also minnows, 
 and small roach, dace, &c. The eel thrives 
 in deep, muddy, shady ponds, where, how- 
 ever, the water must not be stagnant. Eels 
 attain the greatest size in mill-ponds, or in 
 muddy rivers, in the soft banks of which 
 they can bury themselves 12 or 16 inches 
 deep, while the stream continues constantly 
 running its course over the mud, and where 
 they are frequently tound, and dug out or 
 separated, in the winter. In stews they may 
 be fed at discretion, with snails, frogs, 
 worms, &c. ; and will attain a large size, 
 but they are seldom kept in ponds, as they 
 destroy other fish. The eel in the summer 
 season, trequently quits the water during the 
 night, and wanders among grass in search 
 of slugs, frogs, and worms ; and where there 
 is a mill-pond, or a dam between two ponds, 
 large eels may often be seen in a warm sum- 
 mer’s evening, when the meadows are wet 
 with dew, making their way, with an undu- 
 lating, or wriggling, though not very rapid 
 motion, through the long grass, in search of 
 food, or from one pond to the other. The 
 pike grows to a large size in stews or ponds, 
 where it requires clear and hard water ; but 
 its keep is very expensive, as it devours all 
 the other fish, and even all the fry of its own 
 species that come within its reach. “ Eight 
 pike,” says Mr. Jesse, “ about 5 lbs. weight 
 each, consumed nearly 800 gudgeons in three 
 w’eeks.” “ In default of other fish,’’ u says 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 269 
 
 Mr. Yarrell, “ pikes will seize moor-hens, 
 ducks, or indeed any animals of small size, 
 whether alive or dead.” They swim rapidly, 
 and dart at their prey with great fierceness. 
 The roach and dace are sometimes kept in 
 ponds, and have a beautiful appearance in 
 the water, but their flesh is insipid and 
 woolly. Gudgeons, and other common small 
 fish, are usually found in rivers ; as are 
 trout, which, however, may be kept, and 
 will uttain a large size, in ponds which have 
 a hard rocky bottom, clear water, and a con- 
 stant stream running through them. 
 
 Deerbrook. By Miss Martineau. Published 
 by Moxon. 
 
 [There is talent of no ordinary kind in 
 : Deerbrook nevertheless, whatever popu- 
 larity it may enjoy, it will owe more to the 
 just observations it contains upon the con- 
 cerns of humanity, than to anything particu- 
 larly attractive in the narrative or the cha- 
 racters. In short, it does not appear to have 
 been the intention of the authoress to repre- 
 sent either striking events or characters 
 much above common-place ; she perhaps 
 knew better where her strength lay : accord- 
 ingly, although the novel is not without ap- 
 proaches to sprightliness, the reader will sel- 
 dom be better pleased than when Miss Mar- 
 tineau drops her story in order to make 
 suitable reflections upon its events. Take 
 the following extract as an instance : — ] 
 
 Poverty, what it is, and what it is not. 
 
 What is poverty ? Not destitution, but 
 poverty ? It has many shapes, — aspects 
 almost as various as the minds and circum- 
 stances of those whom it visits. It is famine 
 to the savage in the wilds ; it is hardship to 
 the labourer in the cottage ; it is disgrace to 
 the proud ; and to the miser despair. It is 
 a spectre which “ with dread of change per- 
 plexes ” him who lives at ease. Such are 
 its aspects : but what is it ? It is a deficiency 
 of the comforts of life, — a deficiency present 
 and to come. It involves many other things; 
 but this is what it is. Is it then worth all 
 the apprehension and grief it occasions ? Is 
 it an adequate cause for the gloom of the mer- 
 chant, the discontent of the artisan, the fore- 
 boding sighs of the mother, the ghastly dreams 
 which haunt the avaricious, the conscious 
 debasement of the subservient, the humili- 
 ation of the proud ? these are severe suffer- 
 ings ; are they authorised by the nature of 
 poverty ? Certainly not, if poverty induced 
 no adventitious evils, involved nothing but a 
 deficiency of the comforts of life, leaving life 
 itselt unimpaired. “ The life is more than 
 food, and the body than raiment,” and the 
 untimely extinction of the life itself would not 
 be worth the pangs which apprehended 
 poverty excites. But poverty involves woes 
 which in their sum, are fur greater than 
 itself. To a multitude it is the loss of a 
 
 pursuit which they have yet to learn will be 
 certainly supplied. For such, alleviation or 
 compensation is in store in the rising up of 
 new objects and the creation of fresh hopes. 
 The impoverished merchant, who may no 
 longer look out for his argosies, may yet be 
 in glee when he finds it “ a rare dropping 
 morning for the early colewort.” To ano- 
 ther multitude, poverty involves loss of rank, 
 — a letting down among strangers whose 
 manners are utigenial and their thoughts 
 unfamiliar. For these there may be solace 
 in retirement, or the evil may fall short of 
 its threats. The reduced gentlewoman may 
 live in patient solitude, or may grow into 
 sympathy with her neighbours, by raising 
 some of them up to herself, and by warming 
 her heart at the great central fire of huma- 
 nity, which burns on under the crust of man- 
 ners, as rough as the storms of the tropics, 
 or us frigid as polar snows. The avaricious 
 are out of the pale of peace already, and at 
 all events. — Poverty is most seriously an evil to 
 sons and daughters, who see their parents 
 stripped of comfort at an age when comfort 
 is almost one with life itself: and to parents 
 who watch the narrowing of the capacities 
 of their children by the pressure ol poverty, 
 — the impairing of their promise, the blot- 
 ting out of their prospects. To such mourn- 
 ing children there is little comfort, but in 
 contemplating the easier life which lies be- 
 hind and (it may be hoped) the happier one 
 which stretches before their parents on the 
 other side the postern of life. If there is sun- 
 shine on the two grand reaches of their path, 
 the shadow which lies in the midst is neces- 
 sarily but a temporary gloom. To grieving 
 parents it should be a consoling truth, that 
 as the life is more that food, so is the soul 
 more than instruction and opportunity, and 
 such accomplishments as man cun adminis- 
 ter : that as the fowls are fed and the lilies 
 
 clothed by Him whose hand made the air 
 musical with the one, and dressed the fields 
 with the other, so is the human spirit nou- 
 rished and adorned by airs from heaven which 
 blow over the whole earth, and light from 
 the skies, which no hand is permitted to in- 
 tercept. Parents know not but that Provi- 
 dence may be substituting the noblest edu- 
 cation for the misteuching of intermediate 
 guardians. It may possibly be so ; but if 
 not, still there is appointed to every human 
 being much training, many privileges, which 
 capricious fortune can neither give nor take 
 away. The father may sigh to see his boy 
 condemned to the toil of the loom or the gos- 
 sip and drudgery of the shop, when he would 
 fain have beheld him theornament of a univer- 
 sity ; but he knows not whether a more sim- 
 ple integrity, a loftier disinterestedness, may 
 not come out of the humbler discipline than 
 the higher privilege. The mother’s eyes 
 may swim as she hears her little daughter 
 sing her baby' brother to sleep on the cot- 
 
2/0 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 tnge threshold, — her eyes may swim at the 
 thought how those wild and moving tones 
 might have been exalted by art. Such art 
 would have been in itself a good ; but would 
 this child then have been, as now, about her 
 father’s business, which, in ministering to 
 one of his little ones, she is as surely as the 
 archangel who suspends new systems of 
 worlds in the furthest void ? her occupation 
 is now' earnest and holy ; and what need, the 
 true mother wish for more. 
 
 Songs and Ballads. By Samuel Lover. 
 
 {Concluded from, page 236.) 
 
 [Want of space obliged us to exclude from our 
 former notice, the following very character- 
 istic, highly yet playfully wrought, effusion of 
 Irish humour. Mr. Lover may appropriate 
 this vein as exclusively his own among living 
 Irish ballad-writers, for Mr. Moore, who in 
 lyrical compositions is in general unap- 
 proachable by any competitor, has been too 
 much engaged in ministering to the drawing- 
 room, and to sympathy with the more serious 
 griefs of his countrymen, to have had leisure 
 for such humble sorrows as those of the for- 
 lorn lover of Molly Carew. We add a plea- 
 sant trifle, which turns to poetical account 
 some of those cant phrases with which from 
 time to time our ears are dinned while passing 
 along the streets of London.] 
 
 MOLLY CAREW. 
 
 Och bone ! and what will I do ? 
 
 Sure my love is all most 
 Like a bud in the frost ; 
 
 And there's no use at all in my going to bed, 
 
 For ’tis dhrames and not sleep that comes into mv 
 head ; 
 
 And 'tis all about you. 
 
 My sweet Molly Carew — 
 
 And indeed ’tis a siu and a shame ! — 
 
 You’re complater than Nature 
 In every feature. 
 
 The suow can't compare 
 With your forehead so fair. 
 
 And 1 rather would see just one blink of your eye 
 Than the prettiest star that shines out of the sky, 
 
 And by this and by that, 
 
 For the matter o’ that. 
 
 You’re more distant by far than that same ! 
 
 Och hone I weirasthru 1 
 I’m alone in this world without you. 
 
 Och hone 1 but why should I spake 
 Of your forehead and eyes. 
 
 When your nose it defies 
 
 Paddy Blake, the schoolmaster, to put it in rhyme, 
 Tho’ there’s one Burke, he says, that would call it 
 s»«61ine, — 
 
 And then for your cheek 1 
 Troth ’twould take him a week 
 It’s beauties to tell, as he’d rather. 
 
 Then your lips I oh, maehree ! 
 
 In their beautiful glow. 
 
 They a pattern might be 
 For the cherries to grow, 
 
 ’Twas an apple that tempted our mother we know. 
 
 For apples were scarce, I suppose, loDg ago. 
 
 But at this time o’ day, 
 
 ’Pon my conscience I'll say. 
 
 Such cherries might tempt a man's father ! 
 
 Och hone ! weirasthru ! 
 
 I’m alone in this world without you. 
 
 Och hone ! by the man iu the ruoou, 
 
 You taze me all ways 
 That a woman can plaze, 
 
 For you dance twice as high with that thief. Pat 
 Magee, 
 
 As when you take share of a jig, dear, with me, 
 
 Tho’ the piper 1 bate. 
 
 For fear the owld ehate 
 Wouldu't play you your favourite tuue. 
 
 And when you’re at mass. 
 
 My devotion you crass, 
 
 For ’tis thinking of you, 
 
 I am, Molly Carew, 
 
 While you wear, on purpose, a bonnet so deep, 
 
 That 1 can’t at your sweet purty face get a peep ; 
 
 Oh, have off that bonnet, 
 
 Or else I'll lave on it. 
 
 The loss of my wandherin sowl ! 
 
 Och hone 1 weirasthru I 
 Och hone ! like an owl, 
 
 Day is night, dear, to me without you 1 
 Och hone 1 don’t provoke me to do it ; 
 
 For there’s girls by the score 
 That loves me — and more. 
 
 And you'd look very quare if some morning you'd 
 meet. 
 
 My wedding all marching in pride down the street. 
 Troth, you’d open your eyes. 
 
 And you’d die with surprise 
 To think 'twasn't you was come to it ! 
 
 And faith, Kitty Nale, 
 
 And her cow, 1 go bail. 
 
 Would jump if I'd say 
 “ Kitty Naile, name the day.” 
 
 And though you're fair and fresh as a morning in 
 May, 
 
 ■While she’s short and dark like a cold winter’s day ; 
 Yet if you don’t repent 
 Before Easter, wlieu Lent 
 Is over. I'll marry for spite 1 
 Oeh hone ! weirasthru ! 
 
 And when I die for you. 
 
 My ghost will haunt you every night ! 
 
 WHO ARE YOU? 
 
 “ There are very impudent people in Lon- 
 don,” said a country cousin of mine, in 1837 . 
 “ As I walked down the Strand, a fellow 
 stared at me and shouted, “ Who are you ?” 
 Five minutes after, another passing me, cried, 
 ‘ Flare up ;’ — but a civil gentleman, close 
 to his heels, kindly asked, ‘ How is your 
 mother.’ J 
 
 " Who are you ? — who are you ? 
 
 Little boy that’s running after 
 Every one up and down. 
 
 Mingling sighing with your laughter 
 “ I am Cupid, lady belle, 
 
 I am Cupid and no other.” 
 
 " Little boy, then prithee tell. 
 
 How is Venus ? How's your Mother T 
 Little boy, little boy, 
 
 I desire you tell me true, 
 
 Cupid, oh 1 you’re altered so. 
 
 No wonder I cry * Who are you ? 
 
 Who are you ?— who are you ? 
 
 Little boy, where is your bow ? 
 
 You had a bow my little boy — ” 
 
 “ So had you, ma’am, — long ago.” 
 
 " Little boy where is your torch ?” 
 
 " Madame I have given it uji : 
 
 Torches are no use at all 
 
 Hearts will never now flare up.’’ 
 
 " Naughty boy, naughty boy, 
 
 .Such words as these I never knew : 
 
 Cupid, oh! you’re altered so. 
 
 No Wonder I say who are you f” 
 
 [No one who has a relish either for the tender 
 er the humourous, should be without this vo- 
 lume. In a small compass there is something 
 to gratify a variety of tastes.] 
 
thk mirror. 
 
 271 
 
 OWEN MACARTHY. 
 
 Among the many rich and pathetic narra- 
 tions of Irish humour and pathos, which 
 bespangle the pages of Mr. Carlton’s Traits 
 and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, is one of 
 “ Tubber Derg ; or, the Red Well,” the prin- 
 cipal character in which is Owen Macarthy, 
 a loving-hearted peasant, who, in order to 
 alleviate his distress, travels to Dublin, when 
 after a fruitless appeal to his landlord for 
 assistance, he returns to the abode of all he 
 loves on this earth ; and on knocking at his 
 cottage-door, his demand for entrance is un- 
 heeded : — 
 
 “ Mother of glory! what's this P But wait, 
 let me rap again. Kathleen, Kathleen ! are 
 you widin, avourneen P Owen ! — Alley ! — 
 
 arn’t yees widin, childhre? Alley! sure I’m 
 come back to yees all !” — and he rapped more 
 loudly than before. A dark breeze swept 
 through the bushes as he spoke, but no voice 
 nor sound proceeded from the house ; all was 
 still as death within. “ Alley !” he called 
 once more, to his little favourite ; “I’m come 
 home wid something for you, asthore ; I 
 didn't forget you, alanna; I brought it from 
 Dublin all the way ! Alley !” — but the gloomy 
 murmur of the blast was the only reply. 
 
 Perhaps the most intense of all that he 
 knew of misery was that which he then felt : 
 but this state of suspense was soon terminated, 
 by the appearance of a neighbour who was 
 passing. 
 
 “ Why thin, Owen, but yer welcome home 
 agin, my poor fellow ; and I’m sorry that I 
 hav'n’t betther news for you, and so are all 
 of us.” 
 
 He whom he addressed had almost lost the 
 power of speech. 
 
 “ Frank,” said he, and he wrung his hand. 
 “ What — what ! was death among them ? 
 For the sake of heaven spake !’’ 
 
 The severe pressure which he received in 
 return ran like a shock of paralysis to his 
 heart. 
 
 “ Owen, you must be a man ; every one 
 pities yees; and may the Almighty pity 
 and support yees! She is, indeed, Owen, 
 gone; the weeny fair-haired child, your fa- 
 vourite Alley, is gone. Yesterday she was 
 berrid ; and dacently the nabours attinded 
 the place, and sent in, as far as they had it, 
 both mate and dhrink to Kathleen and the 
 other ones. Now, Owen, you’ve heard it ; 
 trust in God, an’ be a man.” 
 
 A deep and convulsive throe shook him to 
 the heart. — “ Gone ! — the fair-haired one! — 
 Alley ! — Alley ! — the pride of both our hearts ! 
 — the sweet, the quiet, and the sorrowful 
 child , thut seldom played wid the rest , but 
 kept wid mys — ! Oh, my darlin’, my dar- 
 liu' ! — gone from my eyes for ever ! God of 
 glory! won’t you support me this night of 
 sorrow and misery!” With a sudden yet 
 
 profound sense of humility he dropped on his 
 knees ut the threshold, and, as the tears rolled 
 down his convulsed cheeks, exclaimed, in a 
 burst of sublime piety, not at all uncommon 
 among our peasantry, “ I thank you, O my 
 God ! —I thank you, an’ I put myself an’ my 
 weeny ones, my pastchee boght, into your 
 hands. — Keep me up and support me — och, 
 I want it ! You loved the weeny one, and you 
 took her : she was the light of my eyes, and 
 the pulse of my broken heart ; but you took 
 her, blessed Father of heaven ; an’ we can’t 
 be angry wid you for so doin’ P Still, if you 
 had spared her — il — if — oh, blessed Father! 
 My heart was in the very one you took ! 
 But I thank you, O God ! May she rest in 
 peace, now and for ever ! Amin !” 
 
 Necessity obliging Owen and his wife to 
 leave their abode, they gain a precarious 
 living by begging ; at length, fortune smiles 
 on him, and he returns to the resting-place of 
 his “ lair-haired one,” and thus apostrophises 
 over her grave : — 
 
 “ Alley !” he exclaimed, in Irish, “ Alley, 
 nhien machree ! your father, that loved you 
 more than he loved any other human craihur 
 brings a message to you from the mother of 
 your heart, avourneen ! She bid me call to 
 see the spot where you’re lyin’, my buried 
 flower, and to tell you that we’re not now, 
 thanks be to God, as we wor whin you lived 
 wid us. We are well to do now, acushla 
 ogn machree , an’ not in hunger, an’ sickness, 
 an’ misery, as we wor whin you suffered therrt 
 all. You will love to hear this, pulse of out 
 hearts, an’ to know that, through all we suf- 
 fered — an’ bitterly did we suffer since you 
 departed — we never let you out of our memory, 
 No, asthore villish, we thought of you, aud 
 cried afiher our poor dead flower many and 
 many’s the time. An’ she bid me tell your 
 darlin’ of my heart, that we feel nothin’ now 
 so much as that you are not wid us to share 
 our comfort an’ our happiness. Oh, what 
 wouldn’t the mother give to have you back 
 wid her: but it can’t be. An’ what wouldn’t 
 I give to have you before my eyes agin in 
 health an’ life? But it can’t be. The lovin’ 
 mother sent this message to you, Alley. 
 Take it from her. She bid me tell you that 
 we are well an’ happy ; our name is pure, 
 and, like yourself, widout spot or stain. 
 Won’t you pray for us before God, an’ get 
 Him an’ his blessed Mother to look on us 
 wid favour an’ compassion ! Farewell, Alley', 
 asthore ! May you sleep in peace, an’ rest 
 on the breast of your great Father in heaven, 
 until we all meet in happiness together. It’s 
 your father that’s spaking to you, our lost 
 flower; an’ the hand that often smoothed 
 your goelden head is now upon your grave. 
 
272 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 CI)e ^atTjerer. 
 
 Another Brute Tamer is about visitiug 
 England to illuminate and amuse the novelty- 
 seeking public. We learn by a Marseilles 
 paper, Le Semaphore, of the arrival there 
 from Columbia of the American vessel, Bus- 
 tard, bringing Senor Martin Oataya, his sou, 
 and a racer of a new descrip ion, which bids 
 fair to be a formidable rival to our aeronauts ; 
 It consists of a Condar of the Cordilleras of 
 enormous size, the two extremities of his ex- 
 tended wings is thirty-two feet, who has been 
 rendered so gentle and tractable, that Martin 
 Oataya’s son uses him like a horse, gets 
 upon his back, and to the astonishment of 
 all, flies with him to an immense height, 
 managing him by means of a little stick 
 with a steel point. The boy and bird reached 
 Florence in twelve minutes, and returned 
 in the evening. 
 
 Nature is an Eolianharp, a musical instru- 
 ment ; whose tones again are keys to higher 
 strings in us. 
 
 Every beloved object is the centre of a 
 paradise. 
 
 Surmise is the gossamer that malice blows 
 on fair reputations ; the corroding dew that 
 destroys the choice blossom. Surmise is the 
 squint of suspicion, and suspicion is esta- 
 blished before it is confirmed. 
 
 The public garden at Gibraltar. — The 
 alameda, or public walk, one of the lungs of 
 Gibraltar, is ornamented with statues and 
 geranium trees , which, indeed, they are. 
 General Elliott is surrounded with more 
 bombs than he was during the siege, while 
 Nelson forms his companion, emerging, like 
 Jonah, from two huge jaw-bones of a whale. 
 At one end is a shadowy, silent spot, where 
 the bones are laid of those who die in this 
 distant land. This alameda was kept up by 
 a small tax laid on the tickets of the Spanish 
 lottery, which were sold in the garrison. 
 
 Louisa, the last surviving daughter of the 
 great Linnaeus, died at Upsal, March 21, 
 1839, aged 90. 
 
 To the Editor of Mirror. — A few day's 
 ago, I copied the following little bit from a 
 bench in Kensington Gardens. It was writ- 
 ten with a black-lead pencil. G. W. N* 
 
 “ Drowned in the Serpentine,' 20th Octo- 
 ber, 1837. — Measure 100 yards from the 
 Bridge to the left, and about 20 yards in the 
 river — there you will find the deceased ; a 
 gold watch in his waistcoat pocket, and ‘a 
 black silk purse with two forged 100 pound 
 notes.” “Yours, 
 
 “ The deceased. 
 
 No more !” 
 
 * Will our respected Correspondent inform us 
 where we cun communicate with him ? Or will he 
 take the trouble to send to our office for a small 
 parcel ? 
 
 Mr. Stewart's Cabinet of Pictures were 
 sold by Messrs. Christie and Manson, on Sa- 
 turday the 20th inst. The Visit, by Netscher, 
 and esteemed one of his finest productions, 
 brought 190 guineas: a finished sketch by 
 Fraser, of Rembrandt in his studio, 21 gui- 
 neas : the Drummer, by the same artist, 19 
 guineas : an Interior, ditto, 20£ guineas : 
 Repose, by A. Van de Velde, 1663, one of his 
 most delightful and perfect works, 155 gui- 
 neas : Steen’s Bed chamber, by himself, 
 
 95 guineas; and his Convivial Party , 80 
 guineas : A Mid-day Calm, by W. Van de 
 Velde, 71 guineas : Cuyp’s Boy holding the 
 Bridles of three Horses, 96 guineas: A 
 Lawyer in his Cabinet, by A. Ostade, for- 
 merly, we think, in Mr. Lud gate’s collection, 
 1 05 guineas : A Landscape and Figures, 
 said by Rembrandt, bnt more brobably bv 
 Verkoom, 69 guineas : Jan Steen’s Blowing 
 Hot and Cold, 71 guineas; very cheap. 
 There were several by Etty ; his Monk, 
 brought ^£17. 5s — Cleopatra, 11^ guineas; 
 — Head of a Philosopher, 1 7 guineas — the 
 Toilette, a companion picture, 16£ guineas — 
 A Bacchante and a Girl , 22 guineas ; and 
 his Cupid entreating Venus, 55 guineas; 
 John Burnet’s Salmon fVeir, 30 guineas. 
 Our confined limits prevent enumerating the 
 whole of the collection ; all the pictures 
 brought very fair prices. 
 
 We understand Mrs. Rothschild has pur- 
 chased Wilkie’s picture of the “Pinch of 
 Snuff,” for 800 guineas : and that the same 
 artist’s “ Village Card-players,” for which 
 the late Duke of Gloucester paid ^£50. has 
 been disposed of to G. Bredel,‘Esq. for 500 
 guineas. 
 
 The Sebastiani del Piombo, was sold at 
 Foster’s rooms in Oxford-street, on Friday, 
 the 20th, for 550 guineas. 
 
 We learn by the Nottingham Review, that 
 Millhouse, the poet, died on the 13th inst. 
 We shall give a memoir of this gifted but 
 unfortunate man in a future number. 
 
 Punishment of a Tom and Jerry Boy, of 
 the olden school. — “Yesterday, one Daintry, 
 alias Wilson, a carpenter, was whipt from 
 the watch-house in Great Marlborough 
 Street to the Blue Posts in Poland Street, 
 for stealing knockers from gentlemen’s doors. 
 He had two brass knockers tied round his 
 neck.” — Post Boy, Dec. 14, 1747. 
 
 Chelsea Bun-House. — The sale of the 
 “ Ancient Relics” of this once celebrated 
 place of resort took place on the 8th inst. ; 
 a further account of which will be given in 
 the next number. 
 
 LONDON: Printed and published by J. LIMBIRD, 
 143, Strand, (near Somerset House) ; and sold bt/ 
 alt Booksellers and Newsmen. — Agent in PARIS, 
 O. IV. M. REYNOLDS, French, English, and- Ame- 
 rican Library, 55, Rue Neuee St. Augustin. — In 
 FRANC FORT, CHARLES JlJOEL. 
 
Zi)t iWU’l’Ot 
 
 OF 
 
 LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION. 
 
 No - 947 -^ SATURDAY, MAY 4, 1839. [Price 2d. 
 
 MEMOIR OF 
 
 MAHA RAJAH RUNJEET SINGH, 
 
 CHIEF OF LAHORE AND CACHMINE. 
 
 The career of this extraordinary chieftain 
 developes the character of a man, born to 
 change, or materially influence, the destinies 
 of a vast portion of mankind. Proud, rest- 
 less, ungovernable, impatient of restraint, he 
 rules with despotism over twenty millions of 
 people ; and from a licentious love of power, 
 and unbounded ambition, aided by the fer- 
 tile powers of his mighty genius, has risen 
 from a common thief to be a conqueror of 
 princes Possessed of a considerable and 
 well-disciplined army, numerous foundries 
 and arsenals, a regular government, and a 
 wealthy exchequer, he has become the friend 
 and ally of the British government in India ! 
 
 Runjeet Singh is represented as having no 
 Voi.. xxxxii. X 
 
 education in any branchof learning or science. 
 He cannot read or write in any language ; he 
 does not value knowledge for its own sake, 
 but he has the sense and discretion to appre- 
 ciate and apply for his own advantage, that 
 of others ; yet he is in the habit of hearing 
 papers read in Persian, Punjabee and Hindoo. 
 He is the chief administrator of justice in 
 his kingdom ; but each village has a judge, 
 who decides minor offences. The king is 
 easily accessible, and any one of his subjects 
 can plead his own cause before him. A 
 child without a home, or a man without 
 bread, can prefer his request to the Rajah, 
 and never fail of his application, if he should 
 appear a worthy object of his bounty. He 
 
174 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 displays perspicuity in his appreciation of 
 character, and the power of tracing the 
 motives of other’s actions, gives him a com- 
 mandand influence over all who approach 
 him. His observations and remarks are 
 given ordinarily in short, terse, incoherent 
 phrases, or in the shape of interrogatories. 
 He has great power of dissimulation, and 
 under the greatest frankness of manner, and 
 even familiarity of intercourse, can veil sub- 
 tle designs and even treachery. 
 
 In action he is personally brave and col- 
 lected ; but his plans have displayed no bold- 
 ness or adventurous hazard. His fertility in 
 expedients has been wonderful. His uniform 
 career and conduct through life prove him 
 to be selfish, sensual, and licentious in the 
 extreme, regardless of all ties of affection, 
 blood or friendship, in the pursuit of ambi- 
 tion or pleasure ; he is represented as pro- 
 fligately greedy, plundering and reducing to 
 misery, without the slightest feeling of re- 
 morse, widows, orphans, and families. But, 
 however, he is not blood-thirsty, for he has 
 never taken life, even under circumstances 
 of great aggravation. Runjeet Singh is not 
 therefore altogether a barbarian : indeed his 
 laws prohibit the punishment of death. A 
 criminal sometimes has his nose or his ears 
 cut off, but never his head. It is also not 
 uncommon to cut off the hands of criminals ; 
 but in serious cases, and where the culprit 
 has again committed the crime for which he 
 has been once alreadv punished, the tendon 
 of the Achilles [the sinew which connects the 
 heel of the foot with the leg] is cut through. 
 But even here, Runjeet Singh shews mercy ; 
 for he allows a pension to all unhappy 
 wretches whom justice has put out of a con- 
 dition of gaining a livelihood, but not at the 
 expense of others. Although this remark- 
 able man is a man of known courage, he 
 hitherto has not had sufficient to warrant 
 him in abolishing the frightful custom 
 whereby the Lahore women burn themselves 
 upon the funeral pile of their husbands. 
 
 With the aid of his confidential officer, 
 General Allard, he has brought his army 
 into the finest state of skill and subordination ; 
 but his troops still wear the turban. Duel- 
 ling is not known in his army ; the soldiers 
 settle their disputes with their fists — a far 
 better mode of adjusting differences than 
 that of stabbing, a cowardly means of revenge, 
 and which is spreading rapidly in what is 
 called refined societies ! — the fist is far more 
 manly than the stiletto. 
 
 Runjeet Singh has many expensive tastes, 
 one of which, if fully gratified, would ruin 
 any other than an immensely rich man. He 
 is attached to the chase, as conducted in the 
 East. He has an ardent passion for pre- 
 cious stones and fine horses. He learnt one 
 day that there was a very fine horse in one 
 of the neighbouring provinces, in a part of 
 the kingdom of Cabul not yet brought under 
 
 his dominion. Spies were sent out in order 
 to inform the Rajah of the existence of the 
 horse, and the exact spot where it was to be 
 found. These two points being ascertained, 
 a troop of ten thousand men were sent to 
 seize the animal : they traversed many pro- 
 vinces, spent much money, fought their way 
 to the stable of the horse, and did not rest 
 until it was added to the stud of the Rajah. 
 He also obtained possession of probably the 
 finest diamond in the world by similar means. 
 A neighbouring petty king was said to be 
 the possessor of a diamond, which had be- 
 longed to the Great Mogul, the largest and 
 purest that was ever known. This of course 
 was coveted by Runjeet Singh, and accord- 
 ingly he invited the prince to his court, and 
 being master ot his person, he demanded his 
 diamond. The king pretended to resist ; but 
 after many manoeuvres he yielded possession. 
 The delight ol Runjeet Singh was extreme ; 
 he gave it to a lapidary to mount it ; but 
 what was his surprise and fury when the 
 man informed him that this pretended dia- 
 mond was only a piece of crystal! Runjeet 
 Singh caused the palace of this king to be. 
 invested : his soldiers ransacked it from top 
 to bottom. Their researches were all in 
 vain for a long time : at length a slave of the 
 king having sold the secret of his master, 
 the diamond was found among the ashes of a 
 fire. Runjeet Singh has ever since worn it 
 as a trophy of victory, set in a bracelet of 
 gold. On state days he wears, in chaplets 
 round his head, many other diamonds of ex- 
 traordinary size and beauty. It is said that 
 the jew'els of Runjeet Singh are the richest 
 and finest in the world ; and the riches and 
 magnificence of his court and palace, the 
 splendour of his travelling equipage, and of 
 all his equipments, exceed probably all that 
 we hear of among oriental princes. 
 
 His stature is low, and the loss of an eye 
 from the small pox takes away from his ap- 
 pearance, which, however, is still far from 
 being unprepossessing ; for his countenance 
 is full of expression and animation, and is set 
 off with a handsome flowing beard, grey, at 
 fifty years of age, and tapering to a point 
 below his breast. He is now so emaciated 
 and weak as to be compelled to adopt a sin- 
 gular method of mounting the tall horses on 
 which he loves to ride : a man kneels dowri 
 before him and he throws his leg over his neck, 
 when the man rises with the Muha Rajah 
 mounted on his shoulders. He then ap- 
 proaches his horse, and Runjeet Singh put- 
 ting his right foot in the stirrup, and holding 
 by the mane, throws his left leg over the 
 man’s head and the back of the horse into 
 the stirrup on the other side. — The portrait of 
 the Maha Rajah is from Mr. Princep’s work, 
 on the Origin of the Sikh Power, &c., as 
 given in that interesting periodical, the India 
 Review , kindly transmitted to us from Cal- 
 cutta, by its talented editor, F. Corbyn, Esq. 
 
TliK MIRROR. 
 
 THE RESURRECTION- 
 
 THE ATMOSPHERE. 
 
 ( For the Mirror.)] 
 
 ** So they went iind made the sepulchre sure, seal- 
 ing the stone, and setting a watch.” — St. Matthew, 
 chap, xxvii, ver. 66. 
 
 This watch is set, — the stone is seal'd. 
 
 And thro’ the dewy night. 
 
 Wan stars their lustre have reveal'd, 
 
 In the blue concave's height. 
 
 Shining above earth’s misery, 
 
 With their unearthly light. 
 
 No sound breaks on the tranquil hour, 
 
 But in that garden lone. 
 
 All dimly on each tree and flower, 
 
 The hues of night are thrown, 
 
 Aud silence reigns, the watch is set, — 
 
 And the wild crowd are gone. 
 
 And they, with measured steps before 
 The rocky tomb pass by ; 
 
 They tread the dewy pathway o’er. 
 
 Gloomily, — silently, — 
 
 And still they see the sealed-stone. 
 
 Unmoved, — unbroken, — lie ! 
 
 Why do the strong ones turn so pale, 
 
 And to the earth fall down ? 
 
 With awe and fear their spirits quail, 
 
 The tomb is open thrown, 
 
 And all too bright to gaze upon. 
 
 Is one beside the stone. 
 
 His face as heaven’s own lightning gleams, 
 And whiter far than snow 7 , 
 
 The floating robe around liim seems, 
 
 No form of earth they know. 
 
 Is the all radiant being there, 
 
 And to the earth they bow. 
 
 Away 1 and toll your fearful tale, 
 
 To the proud ruler’s ear, 
 
 ’Ere the first streak of morning pale. 
 
 Is breaking on the air ; — 
 
 Away ! and tell an angel stands, 
 
 And watches for you there ! 
 
 “ Oh grave, where is thy victory 1” 
 
 No more thy terrors bring, 
 
 Her buried Saviour faith can see. 
 
 Rise on immortal wing. 
 
 The first fruits of a countless throng; 
 
 And “ death has now no sting !” 
 Kirton-Lindsey. Anne. 
 
 SONNET TO PUNCH, 
 
 Not Punch the ammating, but Punch the animated. 
 
 ( For the Mirror .) 
 
 Hail noble Punch ! thou of the nose and chin, 
 The penny-trumpet squeak, and oaken clump, 
 The fair round belly, and the goodly hump ! 
 
 Thy merry antics never fail to win 
 From circling wonderers the delighted grin. 
 
 When thou and Judy frisk and dance and jump. 
 And deal the kiss alternate with the bump, 
 
 And music mix with matrimonial din. 
 
 Man with his proud philosophy, but apes 
 
 Thy stoic bearing. Would I hud tliy nack 
 To parry fortune's thrusts — to creep from scrapes 
 Unscathed ! — as thou substantial forms dost 
 thwack. 
 
 So might 1 battle with aerial shapes. 
 
 And scare blue devils as thou scarest the black ! 
 
 W. L. B. 
 
 T 2 
 
 (Concluded from page 1G4.) , 
 
 Land-Animals, being surrounded by the 
 atmosphere, may be said to live in an ocean ; 
 but they cannot, like fishes, rise up in it at 
 pleasure. Birds can rise to a great height ; 
 but they cannot reach the top. The atmos- 
 phere is proved to have the common proper- 
 ties of matter, by resisting other bodies that 
 would take its place ; as may be seen by 
 putting an inverted tumbler into water ; 
 when the inclosed air prevents the tumbler 
 being filled. It is a fluid ; for bodies move 
 through it easily, and it presses equally in all 
 directions. The ancients were aware of its 
 properties ; for they had great air-guns, and 
 pearl-divers had an inverted pot on their 
 heads. Air has weight and elasticity ; and 
 the effects of these properties were formerly 
 ascribed to nature’s abhorrence of a vacuum ; 
 which is a good expression of a property. 
 As the atmosphere was found to support a 
 column of water only thirty-four feet high, 
 Toricelli thought it would support another 
 fluid only to a height containing the same 
 weight on the same base ; and this was found 
 to be the case. Hence the earth supports a 
 weight of air equal to a body of water thirty- 
 four feet deep, or of mercury twenty-nine 
 inches ; and we sustain the same weight as 
 if we were at the bottom of a lake thirty- 
 four feet deep. A man supports a weight 
 of about fourteen tons ; but as it presses in 
 all directions equally, and the air is freely 
 admitted to the lungs, and other parts in the 
 interior of the body, a man suffers no more 
 pressure than does a wet sponge on being 
 plunged into water. As the barometer chan- 
 ges, however, considerable effect is produced 
 on the human body. 
 
 Persons at unusually elevated stations, feel 
 oppression and dyspucea from the attenuated 
 atmosphere. Humboldt, on the Andes, had 
 bleeding from the eyes, gums, <fcc. Saussure 
 found that ineu bear a rarefied atmosphere 
 better than horses. Mules sometimes die 
 suddenly, when driven high up he Andes. It 
 is said that people living in elevated regions 
 are pale, and that their wounds heal slowly. 
 Guy Lussuc reached a height of twenty-three 
 thousand feet above the level of the sea ; 
 which is the greatest height ever attained 
 by man. His respiration was affected ; his 
 pulse accelerated ; and his thirst great. No 
 doubt man might be habituated to dwell at an 
 elevation equal to that of Mont Blanc. In 
 America there are cities eight thousand feet 
 above the level of the sea ; and Humboldt 
 mentions a hamlet which is placed thirteen 
 thousand feet above it. Others still higher 
 are mentioned. 
 
 Intensity of sound diminishes ns we as- 
 cend ; and a deep silence reigns at the tops 
 of mountains. On Mont Blanc, a pistol 
 
27 6 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 discharged makes no more noise than a 
 cracker in a room. 
 
 As the atmosphere surrounds the whole 
 globe, if it remained at rest, of course it 
 would settle into a sphere ; but from the 
 centrifugal force produced by the rotation of 
 the earth on its axis, the atmosphere must 
 be an oblate spheroid. The greater power 
 of the sun at the equator would assist in 
 producing this figure. Many attempts have 
 been made to ascertain the height of the 
 atmosphere ; and it would not be difficult if 
 the atmosphere had everywhere the same 
 density. If it were throughout of the same 
 density as at the surface of the earth, it 
 would be five miles high. It has been pro- 
 posed to obtain the height of the atmosphere, 
 by the length of the twilight. We see the 
 sun while it is yet eighteen degrees below 
 the horizon ; and from that circumstance it 
 is calculated that the atmosphere must be 
 between forty and fifty miles high. One of 
 our greatest living mathematicians calculates 
 that it must be at least fifty miles high. If 
 the atmosphere pervaded all space, it would 
 accumulate around the sun, moon, and other 
 celestial bodies; but Dr. Wollaston found 
 that there was no atmosphere about the sun ; 
 and thinks it ceases at a height above the 
 earth where its gravity overcomes its elas- 
 ticity. But a more effective argument is the 
 decrease of temperature as we ascend ; for 
 at a height of about fifty miles, the tempe- 
 rature must be at zero ; and there must there 
 be a limit to expansion. Other planets seem 
 to have atmospheres ; and there are argu- 
 ments tending to shew that the sun has one 
 also. The moon has one ; but it is much 
 rarer than ours. Dr. Brinkley says it is a 
 thousand times more so. 
 
 As we ascend in the atmosphere, we find 
 firs of different kinds clothing the mountains 
 at different heights. In lakes that are within 
 a thousand feet above the level of the sea, 
 pike and perch are found ; but not in lakes 
 above that height. This is called the first 
 “ zone.” The second zone reaches to four- 
 teen hundred feet ; and abounds with the 
 Scotch fir. Oats will not ripen in it; but 
 potatoes and turnips ars grown there, though 
 not to a large size. The third zone reaches 
 to two thousand two hundred feet above the 
 level of the sea. Its characteristic tree is 
 the birch ; which becomes much distorted 
 and dwarfish ; — not being, at the upper limit, 
 higher than a man. The lakes abound in 
 chard, or Alpine trout. The fourth zone 
 reaches to two thousand eight hundred feet. 
 The fifth reaches to three thousand four 
 hundred feet ; and has the dwarf birch only 
 a few inches high, and creeping. The sixth 
 zone reaches to four thousand feet ; and the 
 seventh to four thousand two hundred ; and 
 is generally covered with perpetual snow ; 
 as are all the parts above. There is a bird 
 which is sometimes found in the Alps of 
 
 Lapland above the snow-line ; and therefore 
 lives higher than any other animal. The 
 Scotch fir, in some mountains of the Pyre- 
 nees, may be traced to some thousands of 
 feet above the level of the sea. In this coun- 
 try, we have no mountain that reaches the 
 snow-line ; for in order to do that it must 
 he six thousand four hundred feet high ; 
 which is many times the height of Arthur’s 
 Seat, at Edinburgh ; — the latter being eight 
 hundred feet high. N. R. 
 
 Jiobeltet. 
 
 THE TIGER HUNT. 
 
 (Concluded from page 267.) 
 
 Twice had the old Rajah’s jars received 
 their annual tribute of ottar from the valley, 
 and its rose thickets were flushed with blos- 
 soms for the third season, when a solitary 
 woman entered the gorge, and bent her way 
 up the path which led to the old man’s dwel- 
 ling. Her features were youthful, but har- 
 dened with the impress of strong, severe, 
 and fully matured passions. There was 
 something heart-chilling in the stern, cold 
 look of resolute daring settled upon a face 
 of such transcendent beauty. She paused a 
 moment at the scene of the tiger’s death, 
 and when she resumed her course, a smile 
 was on her lips, but it was one of those 
 mocking smiles which distil a bitterness over 
 the whole face. It was fierce and painful to 
 look upon. She reached the Rajah’s dwel- 
 ling, and entered his sleeping-room through 
 ihe veranda. With a quiet, stealthy tread, 
 she moved across the room, and sat down by 
 the divan where the old man lay asleep. 
 
 “ Father,’’ she said, in a voice thrillingly 
 sweet, yet which had something in its tone 
 that fell strangely on the ear. “ Father, 
 awake — thy child would speak with thee.” 
 
 The old man started from his repose, and 
 looked with an expression of sleepy wonder 
 upon his daughter. Before he had time to 
 welcome her, she spoke again, as if careless 
 what her reception might be. 
 
 “ Thy child returns an outcast, old man 
 — her lord has thrust her forth from his 
 heart, and another, a creature beautiful as 
 the sunshine, one of his own people, has 
 taken her place. Shall she not have ven- 
 geance ?” 
 
 The old musselman folded his arms on 
 his bosom, and with his eyes half closed, sat 
 as if unconscious of her presence. “ My 
 Lord, the governor, has been very bounti- 
 ful,” he at length muttered, but without 
 looking on the pale, stern creature by his side. 
 
 “ Has my father received his usual gifts 
 since the Englishman chose a wife at Cal- 
 cutta ? Will the heart continue bountiful 
 which has wearied of that for which it 
 paid ? See, I have brought thee gifts more 
 precious than thou cans’t ever hope from 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 277 
 
 him ; they were his — why should they not 
 purchase rest to my soul ?” 
 
 She removed the jewels from her head 
 and bosom, and unclasping the golden brace- 
 lets from her arms and ankles, laid them at 
 her father’s feet. 
 
 The old miser stooped down and clutched 
 the glittering mass in his bony hand. “ My 
 daughter has but to speak and her will 
 shall be done,” he replied, thrusting the 
 jewels into his bosom, but without lifting 
 his subtle eyes from the floor. 
 
 “ There is a poison known to my father 
 which is sudden and deadly ; but which 
 kills with little pain. I would that in ex- 
 change for those gems he give me a flask of 
 this poison.” 
 
 The Rajah went to a lattice, and pointed 
 to the ravine which we have spoken of as 
 opening into the gap beneath. “ Thy father’s 
 limbs are getting old, and he dare not trust 
 his secret with a slave; in yonder hollow 
 his child will find small blue flowers, with a 
 drop of gold colour in the heart of each, 
 on stalks which droop to the earth with the 
 slightest touch— let her bring me some of 
 those flowers.” 
 
 The daughter turned away and went down 
 to the ravine. The flowers grew in small 
 delicate tufts along the crevices of the preci- 
 pice. She gathered of them, and returned 
 to her father. He received the sweet burthen 
 at her hands and, went out. In about an 
 hour he returned, bearing a small crystal 
 flask filled with a purplish liquid, and care- 
 fully sealed. 
 
 “ Put a few drops of this in his drink, 
 and his death-sleep will soon follow,’’ he 
 whispered, placing it in her hand. 
 
 “ And is there not enough for more than 
 one ?” she inquired with stern impatience. 
 
 “ For more than one ? Allah be praised ! 
 there are twenty deaths in that little flask.” 
 
 “ It is well.” 
 
 The young Hindoo bowed her pale face 
 for a moment, and left the room with the 
 vial grasped tightly in her small hand. 
 
 All was silent in the dwelling occupied 
 by the provincial governor. Master and 
 slave were asleep, when a female form might 
 have been seen stealing cautiously through 
 the shrubbery of the garden toward a pri- 
 vate entrance. A poor travel-worn creature 
 she appear 'd in the dim light ; her long hair 
 fell in disordered braids over her soiled gar- 
 ments ; her silken slippers were torn, and 
 hung in damp tatters from her small feet, 
 and every thing about her spoke of the long 
 and weary road which she had travelled. 
 As she entered the dwelling her step became 
 firmer, but more cautious of sound, and she 
 paused to listen more than once as she 
 traversed the sumptuous apartments. She 
 found the door of the governor’s sleeping 
 chamber. Her hand lingered for a moment 
 on the latch, and then she entered. Her 
 
 face looked stern and strangely corpse- like, 
 and her eyes had a deadly gleam in their 
 black depths, as she passed by a night-lamp 
 which shed its faint rays through the apart- 
 ment. She glided with a noiseless step over 
 the snowy matting to a large divan which 
 stood in the centre of the room. A cloud of 
 silvery gauze fell from a canopy over it, and 
 through its transparent folds, the outlines of 
 two recumbent persons were discernible as 
 in a mist. On a small table at the head of 
 the divan, stood a cup of gilded chrystal, 
 containing a night-draught for the sleepers. 
 The midnight intruder drew back the cur- 
 tain, and with her pale, steady hand emptied 
 a small vial into the goblet. She did not 
 look upon the two persons whose mingled 
 breath floated over her hand, but a shiver 
 ran through her frame as the drapery fell 
 back. The heavy golden fringe and bullion 
 tassels which weighed it to the floor, swept 
 with a grating noise over the matting. It 
 was the only sound that had marked her 
 deadly progress. 
 
 The murderess moved to a dark corner, 
 and there, with her pale lips motionless and 
 partly open, and her hands clasped tightly 
 in her lap, sat watching the divan. An hour 
 of intense stillness reigned through the build- 
 ing ; then a soft murmur stole from the 
 divan. A delicate form half rose from the 
 pile of cushions — a little hand was extended, 
 and the lifted goblet gleamed through the 
 curtains. The Hindoo clasped her hands 
 till the blood started to the nails, and bent 
 more earnestly forward as the deadly draught 
 was swallowed. 
 
 “ Will you not drink, love, the sherbet is 
 very cool ?” breathed a soft, sweet voice 
 from beneath the drapery. Another form 
 started from the cushions, and the goblet 
 again flashed before the distended eyes of 
 the wretched watcher. She started up, then 
 sunk back with a faint gasp, and all was 
 still again. 
 
 A solemn hour swept on, and then a deep 
 groan arose from the couch. A faint, shud- 
 dering cry followed, as if heart and limb 
 were rent in twain by a fierce fang. The 
 snowy covering was tossed about among the 
 cushions, and the whole mass of drapery 
 shivered, as in a high wind, from the con- 
 vulsed writhings of a stout form in its death 
 agony. The large black eyes of the Hindoo 
 dilated fearfully ; her lips grew deathly pale, 
 and her face gleamed out in the dim light 
 like the head of a Judith. She neither 
 moved nor seemed to breathe. Another 
 moment of intense stillness, and then death 
 again began its ravages. A small hand 
 clutched the curtain — its fingers worked 
 among the gauzy folds a moment, and then 
 fell heavily down. A sob — one quick, deep 
 gasp — another — and silence reigned asbefore. 
 
 A few minutes passed, and then the Hin- 
 doo went to the divan and lifted the drapery 
 
27S 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 from the scene of death. She gazed on the 
 murdered pair for the space of a moment, 
 and then grasped the goblet and drained it 
 to the dregs, resolutely, and without the least 
 sign of hesitation. 
 
 When the attendants entered their master’s 
 room late in the morning, they found him 
 lying upon the divan, composed as if in 
 sleep, but dead. A pale, lifeless form lay 
 by his side ; one arm was flung over his 
 bosom, and a muss of golden hair gleamed 
 with painful contrast against his ashy cheek. 
 The drapery was rent away from the canopy, 
 and there on the floor, entangled in its folds, 
 as the agonies of death had left her, lay the 
 Rajah’s daughter. 
 
 LAUREL HILL CEMETERY, 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 It has hitherto (observes an American writer,) 
 been the custom among us to bury the dead 
 out of ouv sight, in the damp vaults of church- 
 yards which the spirit of speculation or im- 
 provement may invade in a day ; separating 
 the remains of sisters and brothers, or parents 
 and children, from each other, and desecra- 
 ting the sacred order and decency of the tomb. 
 To prevent as far as possible such distressing 
 scenes, the Laurel Cemetery has been fa- 
 shioned and 'adorned. Art and nature will 
 render it pleasing to the most choice and deli- 
 cate mind : the verdure of spring, the calmness 
 of summer, the many-coloured gorgeousness 
 of autumn will be there ; and even the dreari- 
 ness of winter will be dispelled by the ever- 
 green. The passion for rural repose, may 
 here be indulged to the freest extent. It is 
 this passion which has bent the pious osier over 
 so many tumuli in England ; which has em- 
 balmed her hoary minsters and solemn cathe- 
 drals in perpetual verdure. There the peer, 
 the templar, and the peasant, lie near each 
 other, in the final equality of the grave ; and 
 though the mourners of the former may visit 
 them in the vaults of the abbey, beneath the 
 banners they have won, the bard of the latter, 
 as he looks at the place of his rest among his 
 lowly kindred, exclaims : — 
 
 “ Yet e’en these bones from insult to protect, 
 
 Some frail memorial still erected nigh. 
 
 With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deek’d, 
 Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. 
 
 “ Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered 
 Muse, 
 
 The place of elegy and fame supply : 
 
 And many a holy text around she strews. 
 
 That teach the rustic moralist to die.” 
 
 If such be the influences of rude and uncul- 
 tured cemeteries, how much more abiding 
 will they be, where the hand of art lifts the 
 urn or the cenotaph, while nature showers her 
 garlands over the mounds of the dead; and 
 around them 
 
 “ Unfolds lier tender mantle green. 
 
 And pranks the sod in loving mood. 
 
 Or tunes Aeolian strains between." 
 
 W. G. C. 
 
 DISCOVERY OF THE TEA-PLANT 
 IN BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 {Concluded from page 265.) 
 
 Next day the leaves aie all sorted into large, 
 middling, and small ; sometimes there are tour 
 sorts. All these, the Chinese informed me, 
 become so many different kinds of teas ; the 
 smallest leaves they called Pha-ho, and the 
 second Pow-chong, the third Su-clrong, and 
 the fourth, or the largest leaves, Tay-chong. 
 After this assortment, Ihey are again put in 
 the sieve in the drying basket (taking great 
 care not to mix the sorts) and on the fire, as on 
 the preceding day ; but now very little more 
 than will cover the bottom of the sieve is put 
 in at one time, the same care of the fire is 
 taken as before, and the same precaution of 
 tapping the drying basket every now and 
 then. The tea is taken off the fire with the 
 nicest care, for fear of any particle of the tea 
 falling into it. Whenever the drying basket 
 is taken off, it is put on the receiver, the sieve 
 in the drying basket taken out, the tea turned 
 over, the sieve replaced, the tap given, and 
 the basket placed again over the fire. As 
 the tea becomes crisp, it is taken out and 
 thrown into a large receiving basket, until all 
 the quantity on hand has become alike dried 
 and crisp ; from which basket it is again re- 
 moved into the drying basket, but now in 
 much larger quantities. It is then piled up 
 eight and ten inches high on the sieve in the 
 drying basket ; in the centre a small passage 
 is left for the hot air to ascend ; the fire, 
 that was before bright and clear, has now 
 ashes thrown on it to deaden its effect, and 
 the shakings that have been collected are put 
 on the top of all ; the tap is given, and the 
 basket with the greatest care is put over the 
 fire. Another basket is placed over the w hole, 
 to throw back any heat that may ascend. 
 Now and then it is taken offj and put on the 
 receiver, the hands, with the fingers wide 
 apart, are run down the sides of the basket 
 to the sieve, and the tea gently turned over ; 
 the passage in the centre again made, &c., 
 and the basket again placed on the fire. It 
 is from time to time examined, and when the 
 leaves have become so crisp that they break 
 with the slightest pressure of the fingers, it is 
 taken off, when the tea is ready. All the 
 different kinds of leaves underwent the same 
 operation. The tea is now, little by little, 
 put into boxes, and first pressed down with 
 the hands and then with the feet (clean stock- 
 ings having been previously put on). 
 
 There is a small room inside of the tea- 
 house, seven cubits square and five high, 
 having bamboos laid across on the top to sup- 
 port a network of bamboo, and the sides of 
 the room smeared with mud to exclude the 
 air. When there is wet weather, and the 
 leaves cannot be dried in the sun, they are 
 laid out on the top of this room on the net- 
 work, on an iron pan, the same as is used to 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 279 
 
 heat the"leaves ; some fire is put into it, 
 either of grass or bamboo, so that the flame 
 may ascend high ; the pan is put on a square 
 wooden frame, that has wooden rollers on its 
 legs, and pushed round and round this little 
 room by one man, while another feeds the 
 fire, the leaves on the top being occasionally 
 turned ; when they are a little whithered, the 
 fire is taken away, and the leaves brought 
 down and manufactured into tea, in the same 
 manner as if it had been dried in the sun. 
 
 In a conversation which Mr. C. A. Bruce 
 had with some Chinese black-tea makers, 
 the following facts were elicited respecting 
 the management of the plant in China : — 
 About a seventh portion of the tea produced 
 in that country grows on the mountains, and 
 a third portion in the valleys. It grows 
 amongst the snow, which hurts it very little. 
 Most of the plants live about fifty years ; but 
 some live only ten. They throw off' a great 
 number of leaves in the winter, but they al- 
 ways retain some. The Chinese never plant 
 from slips ; but always from seeds. The 
 seeds are sown in a hole about four fingers 
 deep and eight inches in diameter, two hand- 
 fuls of seeds being put into it, and then 
 covered up. Some are sown in November 
 and December, and some in January ; and 
 when the rain sets in they come up. If the 
 seeds are good, from a tenth to a twentieth 
 portion of them come up, in general. These 
 plants are very seldom transplanted, and then 
 only during the rains, when from four to six 
 plants are planted here and there, three or 
 four feet apart, on small ridges of earth 
 about a loot high, a hollow space being left 
 between them to allow the rain-water to run 
 off'. To prevent the plants being washed 
 away, many trenches are dug, the form of 
 them depending on the ground and situation. 
 No care is taken to shade the plants, though 
 in some plantations they are in the shade for 
 nearly half the day, The leaves of those 
 which grow in the shade have the most juice 
 when rolled, and therefore require more dry- 
 ing in the sun ; but those which grow in the 
 sun produce better and more tea than the 
 former. Some China merchants pretend to 
 be able to tell by the smell which tea was 
 grown in the shade, and which in the sun, 
 and give their preference to the latter. The 
 Chinese cultivators weed their plantations 
 twice a year, once in the rainy season, and 
 once in the cold.* The plants are fit for 
 plucking in the third or fourth year, accord- 
 ing to the soil. In the third year they are 
 from one to two cubits high, but they would 
 grow higher if it were not for the constant 
 plucking. If the weather be warm and fine, 
 and the season has not been a very cold one, 
 the Chinese commence plucking the first crop 
 of leaves in May ; the second crop about 
 seven weeks after the first ; and the third crop 
 about the same time, or, perhaps, six weeks 
 
 after the second. Some cultivators never 
 gather a third crop for fear of exhausting and 
 killing the plants. The quantity of tea which 
 a single plant will yield, varies greatly. Some 
 plants will produce each two rupees’ weight, 
 while oihers produce each a pound and a 
 half ; but in the first crop, the produce of 
 each generally averages a quarter of a pound, 
 and in the second crop a little less. Plants 
 which have been cut down and then grown 
 up again, produce twice as many leaves as 
 they would otherwise. The leaves of the 
 Chinese plants are much smaller, and seem to 
 have more juice than the Assamese, although 
 the soil is the same. Tea is manufactured 
 in the same manner in China as in Assam, 
 and in neither country do the manufacturers 
 use anything to give it a flavour. It is not 
 fit to be used until it has been kept about a 
 year ; for if drank before then, it has an un- 
 pleasant taste of the fire, and it affects the' 
 head. It will keep good for three or four 
 years in boxes, from which the air is ex- 
 cluded. 
 
 MODE OF EMPLOYING SERVANTS 
 THROUGHOUT THE WORLD. 
 
 (For the Mirror. ~) 
 
 The Janizaries . — Turkey. 
 
 The Janizaries, or Janissaries, are the 
 Turkish infantry, and they form the Grand 
 Signior’s guard ; and are the main sinew or 
 strength of the Ottoman Empire. Their 
 antiquity may be deduced from Ottoman, 
 the first king of the Turks. They were ori- 
 ginally composed only of sons of Christians, 
 who were paid as a tribute every fifth year 
 to the Grand Signior, for the liberty of con- 
 science, and were educated in the Mahome- 
 tan rites, to the end, that forgetting their 
 country and religion, they might know no 
 other parent than the Sultan. This custom 
 has been entirely abolished for many years, 
 and the Janizaries are now composed wholly 
 of Turks ; and he who wishes to become 
 one, must, before he is enrolled in the regis- 
 ter as such, perform his noviciate, in which 
 station they are called Azamoglans ; (for 
 the description of whom see the article under 
 that head, p. 148). Their pay is from one 
 to twelve aspers a day, according to their 
 behaviour. They have besides this allow- 
 ance, a daily provision, fixed by the Grand 
 Signior. Their dress comprises a linen gir- 
 dle, girt about the middle of the body, 
 variously striped with gold and silver fringe 
 at the ends ; in room of a turban they 
 usually wear a felt cap, with a long hood 
 hanging over their shoulders : on particular 
 occasions they deck their Tarcola or cap, with 
 a quill full of long feathers tied on the fore- 
 part. Their arms, in war-time, consist of a 
 sabre, and carbine, and a cartouch-box - , 
 hanging on their left side ; and at Constan- 
 
280 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 tinoj le, in the time of 'peace, they carry in 
 their hands merely a staff. In Asia, for the 
 most part, they wear a bow and arrow, with 
 a poniard, which they call a baniare : for- 
 merly they enjoyed such great privileges 
 throughout the empire, and were so highly 
 respected, that many persons prevailed on the 
 officers,, through bribes, to make them pass 
 for Janizaries, which exempted them from 
 the payment of taxes. They seldom marry, 
 though they are not prohibited from so 
 doing, being then sure never to be promoted, 
 Some years since, when they committed any 
 great crime, the offending party was either 
 privately strangled or drowned. Some of 
 them are very exemplary, and live more like 
 religious persons than warlike soldiers. 
 
 C. P. S. 
 
 ST. GEORGE. 
 
 The following ancient legend of the tutelar 
 saint and patron of England, is from the 
 Legenda Aurea, preserved in the British Mu- 
 seum : — “ Saynt George was a knyghte born 
 at Capadose. On a time he came into the 
 province of Libya, to a cyte whyche is sayd 
 Sylene, and by this cyte was a stayne or ponde 
 lyke a sea, wherein was a dragon whyche en- 
 venymed alle the contre, and the people of 
 the cyte gave to him every day two sheep to 
 fede him, and when the sheep fayled, there 
 was taken a man and a sheep. Thenne was 
 an ordaniunce made in the toune, that there 
 should be taken the chyldren and yung peple 
 of them of the toune by lotte, and that it so 
 happed the lotte fyl upon the Kynge’s daugh- 
 ter, whereof the Kyng was sory, and sayde, 
 for the love of Goddes, take golde and silver, 
 and alle that I have, and let me have my 
 daughter ; and the peple sayd, how, syr, ye 
 that have made and ordayned the lawe, and 
 our chyldren be now dead, and now ye wolde 
 do the contrarye; your daughter shall be 
 gyven, or else we shall brenne you and you 
 holdes. When the Kynge saw he might no 
 more doo, he began to weepe, and returned 
 to the peple, and demended eight dayes res- 
 pite, and when the eight dayes were passed, 
 thenne dyd the Kynge arraye his daughter 
 lyke as she should be weedded, and ledde her 
 to the place where the dragon was. When 
 she was there Saynt George passed by, and 
 demanded of the ladye what she made there ; 
 and she sayde, go ye your wayes, fayre young 
 man, that ye perish not also.” The legend 
 then relates that the dragon appeared, “ and 
 Saynt George, upon his horse, bore himself 
 against the dragon, and smote him with his 
 spere, and threw hyrn to the ground, and de- 
 livered the ladye to her fader, who was bap- 
 tized, and all his peple.” It says further, 
 
 “ that Saynt George was afterwards beheaded 
 by order of the Emperor Dacien, in the year 
 of our Lord 287,” and concludes, “ This 
 
 bleeseil holy martyr, Saint George, is patrone 
 of this roiaume of Englonde, and the crye of 
 men of warre, in the worshyp of whom is 
 founded the noble order of the garter, and 
 also a noble college in the castle of Wyndsore, 
 by Kynges of Englonde, in whyche college 
 is the harte of Saynt George, whyche Sygys- 
 munde, the Emperor of Almeyne. brought 
 and gave for a great and precious relique to 
 Kynge Harry the Fifthe ; and also the sayd 
 Sygysmunde was a hroder of the sayd garter ; 
 and also here is a heyre of hys hede ; whyche 
 college is nobly endowed to the honour and 
 worship of Almighty God and his blessed 
 martyr Saynt George.’’ 
 
 antf Jjctmccss. 
 
 THE BUDE LIGHT. 
 
 Mr. Gurney’s adaptation of the Argand 
 lamp, supplied as usual with oil, to the com- 
 bustion ol oxygen gas, is equally remarkable 
 for ingenuity, simplicity and effectiveness. 
 
 ■ Pure oxygen gas is introduced in lieu of 
 common air to feed the inner surface of the 
 flame : this is the general principle of the 
 adaptation, and in itself sufficiently simple, 
 — but the scientific arrangement of means, 
 has required indefatigable exertion during 
 three years, so as to satisfy that rigid scruti- 
 neer, Mr. Farraday. 
 
 One result of this patient course of trial, 
 deserves particular mention. To obviate the 
 perpetual choking by deposits of carbon , the 
 oxygen-feeder is formed analogously to the 
 elementary form of flame. — This form is co- 
 nical, and so also is that of the deposited 
 carbon. 
 
 A specimen of this light may be seen at 
 the Politechnic Institution , Regent Street ; 
 and it will, at once, be conceded that Mr. 
 Gurney’s aim in fitting this new disposition 
 ot flame for Light-Houses has completely 
 succeeded; for within inches by 1J in. 
 we now have a compressed light times 
 more brilliant than that of the Argand, and 
 intensely reflected to the greatest possible 
 distance. 
 
 The mere mechanical contrivances to ren- 
 der the supply of oxygen perfectly safe , are 
 not less worthy of admiration than other 
 parts of Mr. Gurney’s plan. As to the 
 cost , — the New Light has a decided advan- 
 tage — for the ox) gen reduces the consump- 
 tion of oil two-thirds, creating at the same 
 time its entire consumption. Thus, — 
 the long red flame produced by common 
 lamps, is compressed one half on the intro- 
 duction of the oxygen, and becomes an 
 intense white light. 
 
 The mariners of England, nay Englishmen 
 generally, cannot be too grateful to Mr. Gur- 
 ney tor the practical result of so many beau- 
 tiful and scientific combinations. M.* 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 281 
 
 Back View. 
 
 (an ancient powder flask. 
 
 A few years since, a chimney-sweep wasem- 
 ployed to clean a chimney in a house occupied 
 by Mr. Chipperfield, High Street, Canterbury, 
 nearly adjoining the Chequers Inn, spoken of 
 by Chaucer, as being the resort of the Pil- 
 grims on their way to the shrine of St. 
 Thomas a Becket in Canterbury Cathedral; 
 and after he had been in his sooty abode 
 for some time, fears were entertained for his 
 safety, and it was intended to break a passage 
 through into the chimney to rescue him, but 
 on this project being carried into effect, the 
 little urchin made his appearance through 
 another apartment of the house. It having 
 soon been found necessary, from the dilapi- 
 dated state of the premises alluded to, to re- 
 move the chimney, when an apartment was 
 discovered, evidently intended, from its situ- 
 ation, to contain fire-arms and other weapons 
 used in those troublesome days, which the 
 ancient City of Canterbury have formerly so 
 unfortunately witnessed ; and in this apart- 
 ment four ancient Powder Flasks were dis- 
 covered, one of them being that of which we 
 have given the above representation : it is 
 made of wood, and the ornaments of steel. 
 It is now in the possession of Richard Friend, 
 Esq. of Canterbury. 
 
 We are indebted to the kind attention of 
 Mr. Ward, bookseller, of Canterbury, for the 
 drawing and particulars of the above curious 
 antiquarian relic. 
 
 THE NEW ART.— PHOTOGRAPHY. 
 
 {Continued from, page 263.) 
 
 Having in our last number presented our 
 readers with a concise and impartial account 
 of the origin and principle of the art of pho- 
 tography, we shall now proceed to furnish 
 them with every information respecting the 
 
 several processes necessary for the various 
 applications of it. For the sake of convenient 
 reference we shall arrange the subject under 
 several different heads. 
 
 1. — How toprepare the Photographic Paper. 
 
 The photographic inks (as we may call 
 them,) required for this purpose consist 
 merely of separate solutions of common salt* 
 and of nitrate of silver.f Mr. C. T. Downing, 
 by a tabular exposition of the atomic numbers 
 of these two substances which are subse- 
 quently to be brought into contact ( on the 
 paper,) for the purpose of exact mutual de- 
 composition, shows us that the relative pro- 
 portions should be thirty grains of nitrate of 
 silver to one ounce of distilled water , and 
 ten grains of common salt to one ounce of 
 distilled water. 
 
 Sir J. Herschell observes that, in the car- 
 bonate of silver, nitrate of silver, and acetate 
 of silver, the acids ( carbonic , nitric , and 
 acetic,) being more volatile than in the chlo- 
 ride, they adhere to the metallic particles by 
 a weak affinity, and therefore impart much 
 greater sensibility to the paper on which they 
 are applied. The nitrate of silver should be 
 perfectly neutral, for the least excess of nitric 
 acid in it diminishes the susceptibility of the 
 paper in a remarkable degree. 
 
 Pour the solution of common salt into a 
 dish, and immerse each sheet of paper in it, 
 and saturate every part of it by means of a 
 sponge. The paper must then be taken out, 
 drained of its superfluous moisture, and nearly 
 dried by pressure between clean linen or 
 
 * Common salt is chloride of sodium, usually called 
 muriate of soda. 
 
 + “ Nitrate of silver is prepared by immersing 
 silver in a glass vessel containing one and a-half 
 times its weight of nitric acid, diluted with an equal 
 bulk of water, and evaporating the solution to dry- 
 ness.”— (Reid’s Elements . of Practical Chemistru, 
 1831, p. 385.) 
 
282 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 white blotting paper. When the paper is 
 dry, sponge one side of it with the solution 
 of nitrate of silver, and do not omit to have 
 the corner of that side marked with a pencil, 
 so that when the paper is fit for use the pre- 
 pared side may be distinguished. Hang the 
 sheets of paper upon lines in a dark room to 
 dry, and when they are nearly free from mois- 
 ture, let their marked sides be once more 
 sponged over with the solution of silver, and 
 then be permitted to dry thoroughly. The 
 sheets of paper must be preserved from the 
 light by being wrapped up in several sheets 
 of brown paper, or kept close in a portfolio 
 until they are wanted for use. 
 
 Note. — When too much salt has been used 
 in the solution, the paper is less sensitive, 
 and gives but a faint representation. This 
 may be rectified by silvering the paper again, 
 and drying it as before. The paper should 
 be prepared by candle or gaslight, after day- 
 light is withdrawn. “ This paper,” Mr. Talbot 
 observes, “if properly made, is very useful 
 for all ordinary photogenic purposes. For 
 example, nothing can be more perfect than 
 the images it gives of leaves and flowers, 
 especially with a summer sun : the light pas- 
 sing through the leaves delineates every rami- 
 fication of their nerves. ’’ 
 
 2 . — To prepare another kind of Photogra- 
 phic Paper. 
 
 Sponge the surface of superfine smooth 
 writing paper with the above solution of 
 nitrate of silver, and then dry it before the 
 fire ; then sponge it with bromide of potas- 
 sium, and dry it as before ; and then, again, 
 sponge it with the solution of nitrate of silver, 
 and dry it as before. The great difference 
 in this receipt is, that common salt is altoge- 
 ther dispensed with, and in its stead is used 
 the bromide of potassium. According to 
 Mr. Downing, nearly tiventy-one grains of 
 the bromide of potassium should be dissolved 
 in an ounce of distilled water, if the propor- 
 tion of the nitrate of silver to the water be, as 
 in the former receipt, thirty grains to an 
 ounce. 
 
 Mr. Talbot says that this kind of paper is 
 very sensitive to even the feeblest daylight, 
 but insensible to radiant heat, and, therefore, 
 undergoes no change in drying before the 
 five. He adds that it is first of a pale yellow 
 colour, but on exposure to the light it changes 
 to bluish green, olive green, and finally be- 
 comes almost black. Mr. Downing, however, 
 says that besides its not becoming so black 
 as the former kind of photographic paper, 
 the shadow it receives is more liable to 
 change after washing it with the iodide of 
 potassium for the purpose of fixing or retain- 
 ing it, a process of which we shall speak 
 hereafter. But so sensitive is this kind of 
 photographic paper, that, when exposed to 
 broad daylight (but not to sunshine,) the 
 
 time it took to receive a distinct impression 
 from the light was repeatedly observed with 
 a second’s watch, aud found to be sometimes 
 two seconds, and sometimes three. At five 
 o’clock in the evening, a piece of it was 
 placed perpendicularly in a camera obscura, the 
 lens being turned towards the window, and a 
 picture of the bars was obtained in six mi- 
 nutes. Shortly after sunset, when there v/as 
 even less light, a piece of this paper being 
 exposed near a window, became sensibly 
 changed in colour in from twenty to thirty 
 seconds. M. Biot, wishing to ascerlain whe- 
 ther the change of colour was in any degree 
 influenced by the paper itself, spread some 
 of the solutions of nitrate of silver and bro- 
 mide of potassium on a piece of white un- 
 glazed porcelain, taking care to operate by 
 night, and to dry it in the above manner at 
 the fire, thus obtaining a solid coating upon 
 the porcelain, which he then shut up in a 
 dark place. On the following morning he 
 took it out, and found it of a pale sulphur 
 yellow colour, and, although the weather was 
 then very cloudy, yet he had no sooner pre- 
 sented it to the daylight at an open window 
 looking north than it turned green, and it 
 soon afterwards became nearly black. Wish- 
 ing, also, to know whether the preparation 
 would succeed equally well if not dried at 
 the fire, he mixed the two solutions together 
 in a darkened room. A precipitate fell, which 
 he spread on a porcelain plate, and allowed 
 it to dry in the dark. The next day he 
 wrapped it in several folds of paper, and 
 brought it into another room, to exhibit its 
 original pale lemon yellow colour to a friend ; 
 but on removing the paper covers it instantly 
 became green, and he had hardly time to 
 present it to the light of a window looking 
 to the north, before its colour had changed 
 to dark olive green, after which it almost 
 immediately became black. 
 
 3. — To take Photographic Drawings of 
 Landscapes , Trees, Buildings, Sculp- 
 ture, Sj-c. 
 
 Provide yourself with a common camera 
 obscura,* having a lens of 5, or not more than 
 6, inches focus. Then place a piece of card- 
 board in the box, a little beyond the true 
 focus of the lens, and when you have suc- 
 ceeded in getting a well-defined bright re- 
 presentation (which will of course be upside 
 down,) upon the card, let the camera rest 
 perfectly still. Then place a piece of the 
 photographic paper immediately in front of 
 the card, close the lid, and let it remain 
 so for at furthest half an hour, but for a few 
 minutes if the sun be strong. A beautifully 
 accurate outline of the object will thus be 
 received on the photographic paper. It is 
 
 * A camera obscura quite good enough' for the 
 purpose may be purchased at almost ar>y optician’s 
 shop for three or Jour shillings. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 283 
 
 obvious that if the objects are not perfectly 
 still they cannot be copied accurately. 
 
 4. — To take Photographic Copies of Prints, 
 Manuscripts, Dried Plants, fyc. 
 
 Place the subject on the marked side of a 
 sheet of photographic paper, and put a clean 
 plate of good window glass over it to press it 
 close, and then let it lie unmoved and exposed 
 to the light until the discolouration has ceased. 
 If the subject copied be a print or a manu- 
 script,* this first copy will be a reverse repre- 
 sentation, exhibiting a transposition of the 
 lights and shades of the original picture, and 
 white letters instead of the dark ones in the 
 j manuscript. Mr. Havell having attempted 
 I to copy Rembrandt’s powerful etching of an 
 I old man reading, found that the photographic 
 proof made a most ludicrous metamorphosis, 
 tor, instead of a white man with black hair, 
 it exhibited a black man with white hair 
 and white eyes. But to obtain precise 
 copies, a very simple proceeding is requisite, 
 and which for convenience sake we shall 
 term 
 
 5. — Correcting the Shadow. 
 
 To do this, place the first photographic copy, 
 or photographic proof, over another sheet of 
 photographic paper, put the plate of glass 
 over it, and expose them, as before, to the 
 light. This second drawing, and all others 
 obtained by substituting the photographic 
 proof, will exhibit the lights and shadows 
 again transferred, but in their proper places, 
 as in the original engraving or manuscript. 
 
 (To be concluded in our next.) 
 
 GILDING OF THREAD FOR 
 EMBROIDERY. 
 
 This process is thus described by Reaumer 
 as practised in his time. A cylinder of silver, 
 360 ounces in weight, is cased with a cylinder 
 of gold at most 6 ounces in weight. This 
 cylindrical mass of 366 ounces of metal is 
 then drawn by a powerful force through a 
 series of circular holes in a plate of steel con- 
 tinually diminishing in diameter, until it 
 atta.ns the state of a wire so thin that 202 
 feet in length weigh but the sixteenth of an 
 ounce : the whole length of the wire into 
 which it is now drawn being 1,182,912 feet, or 
 about 98| leagues. This wire is then passed 
 between rollers, which in the act of flattening 
 it elongate it one-seventh, and its total length 
 thus becomes 1J2| leagues. The width of 
 * Engravings and manuscripts of which photogra- 
 phic copies are required, must have no printing, 
 writing, or other marks on the back of them, because 
 sucli marks will also be copied, and thus produce 
 confused representations on the paper. Mr. Talbot 
 observes that, to make photographic copies of manu- 
 scripts is so very easy, and each copy takes so short 
 a time, that he thinks it may prove very useful to 
 persons who wish to circulate a few* copies of any- 
 thing which they have written ; more especially 
 since, i;' they can draw, they may intersperse their 
 text with drawings, which shall have almost as good 
 an effect as some engravings. 
 
 the flattened thread is now £th of a line, or 
 th of an inch ; and supposing, with 
 Keaumer, that a cubical foot of gold weighs 
 21,220 or.uces, and a cubical foot of silver 
 11,523 ounces, it may readily be calculated 
 that the thickness of this gilded thread is 
 very nearly the ^gth part of an inch. Now 
 what is the thickness of the plate of gold 
 which envelopes it P Calculating on the same 
 principles as before, we readily arrive at the 
 conclusion, that the thickness of this plate of 
 gold is TTsT^th of an inch. Now gilded 
 threads are made by a process similar to this, 
 in which only |d the proportion of gold is 
 used. There is spread over these, therefore, 
 a continuous plate of gold less than the two- 
 millionth part of an inch in thickness. The 
 silver may be taken out of its gold case by 
 plunging the thread in nitric acid, by which 
 the silver will be attacked through the ex- 
 tremities of the gold case and dissolved, whilst 
 the gold will remain untouched by it. This 
 being done, and the hollow gold case being 
 examined, it is found to be a perfectly con- 
 tinuous plate, and to possess in this state of 
 extreme attenuation all the sensible and all 
 the chemical properties which belong to Ihe 
 metal. — Moseley's Illustrations of Science. 
 
 Biograpjig. 
 
 ROBERT MILLHOUSE. 
 
 This talented author, scarcely known to fame, 
 and not at all to fortune, was born of poor 
 parents, at Nottingham, the 14th of October, 
 1788; and was put to work, when he was 
 only six years of age ; and at ten he was set 
 to work in a stocking frame. It appears that 
 his taste for poetry was developed when he 
 was 16 years old, by reading, when at the 
 house of a friend, on a statue of Shakspeare, 
 the inscription, — 
 
 “ The cloud-capped towers, tlie gorgeous palaces,’ 
 The solemn temples,” &e. 
 
 the beauty and solemnity of which excited in 
 him the highest admiration. In 1810 he en- 
 listed into the Nottingham Militia, and had 
 not been long in that, to him, novel situation, 
 before he made an attempt at composition. 
 “ I was,” says his brother, “ agreeably sur- 
 prised one day, on opening a letter which I 
 had just received from him, at the sight of 
 his first poetical attempt, ‘ Stanzas addressed 
 to a Swallow,’ which was soon followed by a 
 small piece written ‘ On finding a Nest of 
 Robins.’ Shortly afterwards the regiment 
 embarked for Dublin, from whence, in 1812, 
 he sent his brother several of his effusions, 
 but few of which have been published. Being 
 now desirous of ascertaining whether any of 
 his productions were worthy of being printed, 
 the Review was selected for that purpose ; and 
 in this paper the productions of this ill-fated 
 Child of Genius first appeared. In 1814 the 
 regiment was disembodied, and he again re- 
 
284 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 turned to the stocking frame, and for several 
 years entirely neglected composition. In 1817 
 he was placed on the staff of his old regiment, 
 which was then called the Royal Sherwood 
 Foresters ; and in the following year he be- 
 came a married man. The cares of providing 
 for a family now increasing his necessities, he 
 turned his thoughts to publishing, and, not 
 having sufficient already written, he resolved 
 to attempt somethingof more importance than 
 he had hitherto done ; and in February, 1819, 
 he began the poem of “ Vicissitude.” By 
 the end of October, 1820, poor Millhouse com- 
 pleted his work, which was approved of by 
 Col. Cooper Gardener, who, with those kindly 
 and benevolent feelings by which he was so 
 much distinguished, exerted himself to pro- 
 mote the welfare of the poet, and succeeded 
 in procuring the valuable patronage of the 
 late Duchess of Newcastle. In 1832, he gave 
 lip the labour of the loom, and applied him- 
 self to composition ; and, his first wife dying, 
 he was left with five children ; but through the 
 kind assistance of Mr. Wakefield, some other 
 friends, and that excellent institution, the Li- 
 terary Fund, he was enabled to provide for his 
 family. The fate of the poet is now shortly 
 to be told ; he struggled hard to maintain a 
 large family, and produced several volumes 
 of poetry, which bear the impress of genius, 
 strong talent, and a reflective and discrimina- 
 ting mind. The assertion that he was for 
 some time previous to his death in a state of 
 destitution, is contradicted by the Literary 
 Gazette , which says, that he lived in a very 
 comfortable house, decently furnished ; and 
 though naturally anxious, yet he never suffered 
 privation or want. He was an eccentric man, 
 of an unbending disposition and irritable 
 temper. — He died on Saturday, April 19th, 
 1839, leaving a wife and seven children, in 
 indigent circumstances ; but, we trust, not 
 without friends, who will rescue them from 
 want and penury. 
 
 ADVICE TO THE LADIES. 
 
 A tretty hand and a pretty foot always go 
 together — when we speak of the one we al- 
 ways think of the other. For this reason, 
 stepping on a woman’s foot is equivalent to 
 squeezing her hand, and equally proper, 
 but sometimes more convenient, as it can be 
 done under the table. Be careful, however, 
 never to attempt it at a crowded table for fear 
 of making a mistake. We once saw a lady 
 very much confused, who was trying to give 
 a signal to a gentleman opposite, and instead 
 of his, slje trod and pressed on the corn-co- 
 vered toes of an old bachelor. He bore it 
 as long as he could, and then very quietly 
 remarked, “ Madam, when you wish to step 
 on a gentleman’s toes, be particular and get 
 the foot that belongs to him — for the last 
 five minutes you have been jamming my corns 
 most unmercifully.” 
 
 CADIZ. 
 
 Cadiz still bears on her shield the effigy of 
 Hercules grappling with two lions, ‘ Gadis 
 Fundator Dominatorque.’ The fancy of a 
 herald is all that remains of his substantial 
 power, while Venus his foe, the Omphale, the 
 Dalilah of strength and reputation, rules, and 
 will rule, triumphantly in Cadiz, so long as 
 the salt foam, from whence she sprung, whi- 
 tens the walls of her sea-girt city. 
 
 These walls offer the first resistance which 
 breaks the heavy swell of the vast Atlantic. 
 The waves undermine them while the Spa- 
 niards sleep. They have gained much ground 
 since the days of Pliny, and are a continual 
 source of anxiety and expense. 
 
 35oofe£. 
 
 Cheveley, or the Man of Honour . — By Lady 
 Lytton Bulwer. Edward Bull. 
 
 [‘ Cheveley ’ is the story of an amiable, ac- 
 complished, and beautiful woman, married to 
 a self-engrossed, pedantic, shallow coxcomb, 
 and of the natural consequences of such an 
 ill-assorted union. The bad treatment of the 
 wife by the husband, and her unhappiness, 
 as these are too conspicuous to escape the 
 observation of intimate acquaintances, lead 
 on the part of one of them, to commiseration 
 for the sufferer ; and commiseration under 
 such circumstances very soon merges into 
 love. But in this instance the lover is a ‘ man 
 
 of honour,’ not in the modern sense one 
 
 who first seduces his friend’s wife, and then 
 is willing to kill the said friend in a duel, by 
 way of satisfaction, — but a ‘ man of honour’ 
 properly so called, one who yields obedience 
 to a purer and sterner law than that of self- 
 gratification. And the lady, too, albeit not 
 unsusceptible of pretty compliments, still less 
 of the value of genuine affection, is withal 
 sincerely a woman of virtue. The authoress, 
 therefore, with due regard to the demands 
 of poetical justice, generously so frames her 
 story as to let the ill-natured husband break 
 his neck, at a juncture when the reader can 
 afford to part with him without any severe 
 tax on his sympathy ; and then, as a matter 
 of course, there being no other “ let or impe- 
 diment,” the ‘ man of honour’ is forthcoming, 
 and “ what oft was thought, but ne’er so 
 well expressed,” is uttered in the ear of the 
 consolable widow, and meets with the desired 
 reception in the acceptance of the usual pro- 
 posals. 
 
 As novels go, this is as good a foundation 
 for one as need be, but in the work before us, 
 the conduct of the story is evidently subordi- 
 nate to another and quite a different purpose ; 
 and, therefore, beyond the expression of our 
 opinion, that in Cheveley there is ample evi- 
 dence of smartness and general cleverness, an 
 estimate of the writer’s talent in that line 
 
THK MIRROR. 
 
 285 
 
 must be reserved until she shall devote her- 
 self bona fide to a work of fiction. 
 
 After the “ buz ” which preceded and ac- 
 companied this publication, it can be treated 
 as no longer a secret, that Lady Bulwer is 
 understood in the guise of a novel to dis- 
 close the painful realities of herown experience. 
 In law we are told that there is no wrong 
 without a remedy, and we could wish it were 
 true also in morals ; but in the case of domes- 
 tic disagreements that is notoriously other- 
 wise ; and many a wrong goes unredressed, 
 and many a sufferer uncommiserated, through 
 the [want of discovery of some principle by 
 which the truth in such cases might be ascer- 
 tained. We heartily wish that Lady Bul- 
 wer had discovered such a principle, but in 
 reading ‘Cheveley’ the conviction is forced 
 upon us, that whatever purpose that novel may 
 serve, it is wholly objectionable in regard to 
 the one professedly intended. Living cha- 
 racters very thinly disguised, figure through- 
 out the work, and often but little to their ad- 
 vantage ; but the reader’s mind knows not on 
 what to fix as truth, nor what to reject as the 
 adornment or disfigurement of fiction. There 
 are a hundred things alleged against the De 
 Clifford of this story. Is the whole true, or 
 is half, or a quarter ? or which half or which 
 quarter? No answer can be satisfactorily 
 given, and the conscientious reader is com- 
 pelled to condemn that injudicious compound 
 of the real with the fictitious, by which both 
 lose their proper attributes, and the end of 
 neither is attained. 
 
 In the following extract we steer clear of 
 the staple of the stmy, and give it merely 
 as illustrative of the authoress’s style.] 
 
 The Climate and Seasons of England. 
 
 For my own part, there is to me an indes- 
 cribable charm in the calm, the quiet, the 
 soft, the cultivated, and, above all, the home 
 look of English scenery, which neither the 
 gorgeous and Belshazzar-like splendour of 
 the East, the balmy and Sybarite softness 
 of the South, the wildness of the West, nor 
 the frozen but mighty magnificence of the 
 North, can obliterate or compensate for. 
 England (the country, not the people) is 
 merry England still. There is a youth about 
 England that no other country possesses, not 
 even the new world, for there the vast and 
 hoary forests, the rushing and stupendous 
 torrents — all seem like Nature’s legends of 
 immemorial time. It has been beautifully 
 said, that the world of a child’s imagination 
 is the creation of a far holier spell than hath 
 been ever wrought by the pride of learning 
 or the inspiration of poetic fancy. Innocence 
 that thinketh no evil ; ignorance that appre- 
 hendeth none ; hope that hath experienced 
 no blight, love that suspecteth no guile ; — 
 these are its ministering angels, these wield 
 a wand of power, making this earth a para- 
 
 dise. Time, hard, rigid teacher — reality, 
 rough, stern reality — world, cold heartless 
 world ; that ever your sad experience, your 
 sombre truths, your killing cold, your wither- 
 ing sneers, should scare those gentle spirits 
 from their holy temple : — and wherewith do 
 you replace them ? With caution, that repul- 
 seth confidence ; with doubt, that repelleth 
 love ; with reason, that dispelleth illusion ; 
 with fear, that poisoneth enjoyment; in a 
 word, with knowledge, that fatal fruit, the 
 tasting whereof, at the first onset, cost us 
 paradise. And the same almost may be said 
 figuratively of English scenery ; it has none 
 of the might and majesty of maturity, none 
 of the worn and rugged look of experience, 
 none of the deep and passionate hues of ado- 
 lescence ; all its beauties are the cared for, 
 watched over, cultivated, open, smiling, inno- 
 cent, continually progressing, and budding 
 beauties of childhood ; the very mutability of 
 its climate is a sort of childish alternation of 
 smiles and tears ; the repose of its smooth 
 and verdent lawns, is like the soft and vel- 
 vet cheek of a sleeping child ; the sweet and 
 fairy-like perfume of its green lanes and haw- 
 thorn hedges, is as pure and balmy as the 
 breath of childhood. “England, with all 
 thy faults,” and in all thy seasons, “ I love 
 thee still 
 
 When Spring from her green lap throws 
 
 The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose, 
 
 I like to hunt for those yellow cowslips, 
 and those pale primroses, till I fancy earth 
 has its stars as well as heaven ; but the year 
 soon outgrows its infancy, and the innocent 
 wild violets no longer child-like roll along 
 the green ; for when 
 
 The bee goes round to tell the flowers ’tis May, 
 then come those stately nymphs, the blooming 
 lilacs and the graceful acacias, “ waving their 
 yellow hair but they, like all beauties, alas ! 
 have but their day ; and are succeeded by rich, 
 blushing, pouting summer, making, with its 
 roses and its cherries, every boy and girl sigh 
 for love of it. After which one feels more so- 
 ber and sedate, and the golden harvests, and 
 matronly house-wifery of autumn, is more 
 attractive ; but, these too, with all earthly 
 things, must pass away — the year, like man’s 
 life, “ falls into the sear and yellow leaf,” 
 and for hoary winter’s artificial fires, we 
 must turn to the hearts of our own homes. 
 
 MUSK. 
 
 It is said that a grain of musk is capable of 
 perfuming for several years a chamber twelve 
 feet square without sustaining any sensible 
 diminution of its volume or its weight. But 
 such a chamber contains 2,985,984 cubic 
 inches, and each cubic inch cantains 1000 
 cubic tenths of inches, making, in all, nearly 
 three billions of cubic tenths of an inch. 
 Now it is probable, indeed almost certain, 
 
286 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 that each such cubic tenth of an inch of the 
 air of the room contains one or more of the 
 particles of the musk, and that this air has 
 been changed many thousands of times. 
 Imagination recoils before a computation of 
 the number of the particles thus diffused and 
 expended. Yet have they altogether no 
 appreciable weight and magnitude. — Mose- 
 ley's Illustrations of Science. 
 
 SOPHIA. TO HER LOVER. 
 
 I wish, Horatio, to discover 
 
 Whether the sweet spun;,' flowers you send 
 
 Bespeak the homage of a lover. 
 
 Or offering meet from friend to friend. 
 
 Say whether, in this wreath — your love 
 Those rose-buds blushingly disclose. 
 
 Your constancy these lilies prove. 
 
 And truth among these violets blows? 
 To-morrow — and the violels spoil, 
 
 To-monow — and the rose-buds fade. 
 To-morrow— and the lilies soil, — 
 
 Truth, love, and constancy — decay'd 1 
 Frail emblems ! never to be worn 
 Near hearts, that know not how to range. 
 
 Back to the giver, 1 return ; 
 
 Ere they are faded — thou wilt change! 
 
 HER LOVER TO SOPHIA. 
 
 When forth I went these flowers to cull. 
 Thinking, not of myself, but thee, 
 
 I gather d the most beautiful, 
 
 And this was my soliloquy : — 
 
 Spotless the lily, as her mind. 
 
 This bud, like her, lovely in youth. 
 
 These modest violets, design'd. 
 
 Fit emblems of her faith and truth, 
 
 I twined the wreath for thee. — Return’d, 
 
 The flowers lie near me in decay. 
 
 Wither’d and drooping, as they mourn’d, 
 
 All harshly to be clrid away. 
 
 New wreaths will other springs restore — 
 
 New suns bring fresher flowers to view — 
 
 But love, frail flower, despoil'd — no more 
 Will springs restore — will suns renew ? 
 
 From Blackwood's Magazine. 
 
 KYANISED WOOD. 
 
 [We have received a letter from Mr. Handley, 
 relative to the notice of the Kyanised Wood, men- 
 tioned in No. 945 of the Mirror ; and in justice to 
 that gentleman we here insert the following sub- 
 stance of it.) 
 
 To the Editor of the Mirror. 
 
 Sir, — With reference to Dr. Moore’s state- 
 ment of experiments upon Kyanised wood, 
 (see Mirror, p. 253) permit me to inform you, 
 that although Kyan’s process was never of- 
 fered as a preventive against marine animalculae, 
 yet it has most triumphantly repelled their 
 attacks. It should not be concluded that, be- 
 cause in a few places the prepared specimens 
 used in Dr. Moore’s experiment were merely 
 dotted with Limnorice, they would in a few 
 more months have destroyed the wood. Had 
 they remained exposed to the influence of the 
 salt water as well as the Balani and Flustrce, 
 for seven years, they would have been found 
 perfectly sound ; or if animalculae were found, 
 they would not have been deeper than one 
 inch, and that only where from some cause 
 
 the solution had not properly acted upon the 
 wood. 
 
 The gas of the kreosote spoken of in your 
 extract from Barrow’s Life of Lord Anson, 
 ( Mirror , p. 255) has been repeatedly tried, and 
 has always been found eventually to rot instead 
 of preserve the wood. With respect to his 
 statement that Kyan’s patent only penetrates 
 s/cin deep, I can assure you that the largest 
 log of wood can be thoroughly saturated with 
 his solution, in one day, by means of the hy- 
 draulic press. Chari.es Handley. 
 
 Lower Heath, Hampstead, 
 
 DEMOLITION OF THE CHELSEA 
 BUN-HOUSE. 
 
 We are not aware of any event that has 
 caused, of late, more regret in the antiqua- 
 rian and topographical world, than the de- 
 molition and sale of the Chelsea Bun-House, 
 which after having enjoyed the favour of the 
 public for more than a century and a half, has 
 been doomed at length to fall under the ham- 
 mer of the auctioneer, in consequence of the 
 expiration of the original lease granted to the 
 late Mrs. Margaret Hand, and to make way 
 for the projected improvements in this part of 
 Chelsea. 
 
 This event having been announced by our 
 previous publication, it became known 
 throughout London and its environs, and for 
 several days' previous to the sale, the collector 
 and antiquary might be seen vending their 
 way towards this celebrated temple of ApiciUs, 
 whose hospitable doors and colonade had for so 
 many years afforded shelter, rest, and refresh- 
 ment to the visitor and grateful traveller. 
 
 On the morning of the sale, long before 
 the auctioneer made his appearance, the room 
 became literally stopped up with collectors, 
 brokers, and amateurs, all seeming anxious 
 to get a glance of Aurengzebe, the handsome 
 grenadiers, the Duke of Cumberland, the 
 paintings, or some other ancient relique. 
 
 When the auctioneer took his station at 
 the table, the rush was so great that it resem- 
 bled the pit of Drury Lane or Covent Gar- 
 den Theatres on the first night of a new 
 performance, and there could not have been 
 less than three hundred persons assembled on 
 the spot upon this occasion. 
 
 Mr. Haines made some prefatory, pleasant, 
 and pertinent remarks upon the grotesque ap- 
 pearanceof the place and the mol ley assembly, 
 and then he called on the curious articles in 
 the following order : 
 
 No. 17- Two lead figures — grenadier 
 guards presenting arms : — sold for £4. 10s. 
 
 Upon examining these beautiful specimens 
 of ancient military costume, the white horse 
 of Hanover appears on the front of the cap, 
 which determines their date to be of the 
 time of George the First; they are admirably 
 executed. 
 
 No. 18. A figure of the Duke of Cumber- 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 28 7 
 
 laud on horseback, in proper colours, and seven 
 Plaster Casts, sold for £2. 2$. Bought by 
 J. B. Nichols, Esq. 
 
 The two preceding articles were purchased 
 by Mrs. Hand of Mr. Thompson, a celebrated 
 collector, more than a century ago. 
 
 No. 19. A whole-length portrait of Aureng- 
 aebe, second son of Cha. Gehan, Great Mo- 
 gul, who imprisoned his father, and siezed 
 the throne, in 1600. He was a very warlike 
 prince, and conquered the kingdoms ol Decan 
 and Golconda. We have no certain informa- 
 tion when this curious picture first came into 
 Chelsea; nor is the painter known. It sold 
 for £4. 4s. Bought by C. Crewe, Esq. 
 
 No. 20. An antique eight-day clock, in a 
 long Chinese case, sold for £2. 12s. 6d. 
 
 No. 24. A model of an interior, in a glazed 
 case, over the door. This was an exact mo- 
 del of the interior of the ancient Bun-house, 
 ornamented by various figures, turned by a 
 vertical movement with birds. Sold tor £1. 
 Bought by J. B. Nichols, Esq. 
 
 No. 2d. A Political Subject : very old 
 painting: 6 ft. 6 in. by 4ft. 4 in. 
 
 Upon a partial cleaning, this appeared to 
 be a highly-finished and fine picture, and 
 represented either George II. and his Queen 
 Caroline, or Frederick Prince of Wales and 
 his Princess ; among the many figures was 
 certainly Earl Bute: the figure of Time in 
 the fore ground was finely painted ; the whole 
 of what could be discerned was vigorously 
 coloured : the artist was unknown ; but cer- 
 tainly it was very Hogarth-ish. Most likely 
 it was by John Collet, who painted many 
 pictures in the manner of Hogarth : he lived 
 and died in Chelsea. It was sadly mutilated, 
 and fetched only £2. 10s. 
 
 In one of the other paintings, nailed up 
 against a door, was a portrait of Miss Chud- 
 leigh, as she appeared at Ranelagh Gardens. 
 
 No. 26. A Garden Engine, of the date 
 1742. Sold for £\ . 14s-. 
 
 No. 27. A curious and elaborate model of 
 Ratclifie Church, in a glass case. Sold for 
 £2. 2s. probably on account of the glass case. 
 
 No. 28. A small brass mortar on a car. 
 riage, very ancient. Sold for £1. 2s. 
 
 No. JO. Ten curious old wood-seat chairs. 
 Sold for £3 13s. 6rf. 
 
 No 31. A railed-back elbow garden- 
 chair, shewn in our engraving of the ulterior 
 of the Bun- House. Sold for £\ 17-s. 
 
 The whole of the curiosities and buildings 
 produced £140. 
 
 It may be observed, that a greater part of 
 the curiosities that had been collected by the 
 elder Mrs. Hand, and which ornamented the 
 interior, had, since her decease, gradually 
 disappeared ; thus, in latter times, the interior 
 of the frabric presented only the shadow of 
 what it was in its pristine state. 
 
 During the prosperous times of the late 
 Mrs. Margaret Hand, upwards of two hundred 
 
 and fifty pounds have been taken on a Good 
 Friday for buns, the making of which were 
 begun more than three weeks before the day 
 of sale, in order to prepare the necessary 
 quantity for the public demand ; they were kept 
 moist, and were re-baked before being sold. 
 
 During the palmy days of Ranelagh, the 
 neighbouring Temple ot Fashion and Plea- 
 sure, the Bun-house enjoyed a great share of 
 prosperity, which very much fell off upon the 
 termination of that institution, and it conti- 
 nued to decline while under the management 
 of the late occupier ; notwithstanding, it 
 appears that he sold on last Good Friday, 
 April 18th, 1839, upwards of 24,000 buns, 
 which consisted of the following quantities, 
 viz. : — eight sacks of fine flour, butter, sugar, 
 and new milk. The sale of which produced 
 upwards of one hundred pounds. 
 
 The old building, which has been taken 
 down and cleared away in the space of four 
 days, is not destined to lose its name, for 
 immediately upon its site a new Bun-house 
 will be erected, of a handsome elevation. The 
 lessees, who have taken the ground of the 
 Murquiss of Westminster, intend that the 
 new building shall be ready for occupation 
 in the course of a few months, and this im- 
 provement, when completed, will form a 
 handsome addition to the appearance of 
 Grosvenor Row, and will evince that the 
 lessees are determined not to be behind their 
 neighbours in the modern improvements of 
 this interesting vicinity. We hope shortly to 
 be able to present our readers with a view of 
 the Chelsea New Bun-house. 
 
 COCHIN CHINA. 
 
 It would appear that the kingdom of Cochin 
 China exhibits despotism in its worst forms. 
 The only rich man is the king ; he has fine 
 palaces, large treasures, excellent fortresses, 
 and vessels far superior to the navy of the 
 Celestial Empire. The officers share little 
 in this splendour, but are the mere puppets 
 of one man. The nation at large is in the 
 most squalid condition, poor, wretched, and 
 filthy in the extreme, and forced to give one- 
 third of its labour, or an equivalent, to the 
 king. Few have more than a bare subsis- 
 tence, and even if superior industry would 
 enable them to amass a little property, the 
 mandarins would soon take possession of 
 their trifling hoards. Yet this country pro- 
 fesses to be under the transforming influence 
 of the Celestial Empire, and to be imbued 
 with the true principles of civilization. Con- 
 fucius is there as much conned as in the 
 Celestial Empire, and, notwithstanding the 
 many radical notions of the sage, many of 
 the people labour under grinding tyranny. 
 It is really extraordinary that a monarch, 
 who, by sending down his ships to the Straits, 
 and even to Calcutta, and thereby giving a 
 practical proof that he is fond of commercial 
 
288 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 intercourse, still proves hostile to ships which 
 visit his ports. Though fear is at the bottom 
 of all this, yet, if he would only take the 
 trouble to survey the state of the world, for 
 which he has the most ample means in his 
 well-stored library, he would find little reason 
 to fear an attack upon his paltry dominions. 
 It is as if all the nations which use the Chi- 
 nese character had combined to exclude all 
 the remaining part of the world from friendly 
 intercourse, and, whilst living like spiders, 
 abhor the contaminating influence of foreign- 
 ers. Though China still professes more en- 
 larged views, especially when compared 
 with Annani (Cochin China), Japan, and 
 Corea, yet it shows its inconsistency, that, 
 whilst admitting the merchant, it forbids all 
 exchange of thought between the flowery na- 
 tive and the outside barbarian. The court of 
 Hue, however, acts more considerately, and, 
 whilst carefully keeping its subjects from all 
 contact with the far-travelled adventurers, it 
 has scrupulously collected all possible know- 
 ledge of the west in the records of the palace. 
 Thus we may find the works of Buffon, with 
 the latest treatises upon tactics, the best 
 geographical works, with maps and charts, 
 while a steam-boat anchors at the water 
 part of the royal abode. Taoukwang might 
 as well follow the example of his southern 
 brother, and give, at the same time, his sub- 
 jects the advantage of obtaining a more libe- 
 ral idea of things in general.— Canton Press, 
 Oct. 6, 1 838. 
 
 Cije 4§atf)em*. 
 
 It is an exquisite and beautiful thing in 
 our nature, that when the heart is touched 
 and softened by some tranquil happiness or 
 affectionate feeling, the memory of the dead 
 comes over it most powerfully and irresistibly. 
 It would almost seem as though our better 
 thoughts and sympathies were charms, in 
 virtue of which the soul is enabled to hold 
 some vague and mysterious intercourse with 
 the spirits of those whom we dearly loved in 
 life. Alas ! how often and how long may 
 those patient angels hover above us, watching 
 for the spell which is so seldom uttered, and 
 so soon forgotten ! — Nicholas Nickleby No.xiv. 
 
 Among the many antiquities lately disco- 
 vered in excavating the ground for the foun- 
 dation of the new Houses of Parliament, were 
 the skull of an ox of an undescribed species, 
 and also a large bough of a nut-tree, with se- 
 veral nuts upon it, in the highest state of pre- 
 servation. 
 
 The Abyssinians, (says Hasselquist,) make 
 a j ourne y to Cairo every year, for the purpose 
 of disposing of the products of their country ; 
 namely, slaves, gold, elephants, drugs, mon- 
 keys, and parrots. They had to travel during 
 these journeys, over immense deseits. In 
 1750, the Abyssinian caravan, consisting of 
 
 upwards of a thousand persons, having con- 
 sumed the whole of their provisions two 
 months before they had reached their desti- 
 nation, were compelled to search among their 
 merchandise, for something to support life in 
 this extremity ; and, having found a conside- 
 rable quantity of gum Arabic, they lived en- 
 tirely upon it until their arrival at Cario, 
 without the loss of many people, either by 
 hunger or disease. W. G. C. 
 
 In Malta, small birds, ensnared for the 
 purpose, are kept to free the houses of the 
 intolerable pest of flies, during the summer- 
 season ; and by their diligence and activity 
 they are pretty successful, affording no little 
 amusement to the frequenters of some of the 
 crowded cafe s, by the capers they cut in the 
 pursuit of their prey. 
 
 Erratic Blocks of Granite. — Mr. Laing, 
 in his tour through Sweden, Denmark, and 
 Lower Germany, observes, that insulated 
 blocks of granite, and of other primary rocks, 
 are found in immense quantities covering the 
 surface of those countries ; but that no clue 
 has yet been discovered as to their origin. — 
 On this subject the German geologists are 
 wholly at fault. 
 
 Singular JVager. — In consideration of ten 
 guineas received by me this second day of 
 July, 1771, of Francis Salvador, Esq., I pro- 
 mise for myself, my heirs and executors, to 
 pay unto the said Francis Salvador, Esq., his 
 heirs or assigns, the sum of one hundred 
 guineas, that is to say, in case John Wilkes, 
 now alderman of London, shall be bang’d. 
 
 .£105. Tho. Roche. 
 
 A Retort. — Count Soissons, one evening 
 at play in a large company, happened to cast 
 his eye up on a looking-glass opposite to him, 
 and saw a well-dressed sharper cut off the 
 diamond drop from his hat ; he took no no- 
 tice, but pretending to want something in 
 another room, desired the man to take his 
 cards, which he did. The count stole softly 
 behind him, with a sharp knife in his hand, 
 and cut off one of his ears, and holding it up 
 to the company, said, “ Return me my dia- 
 mond drop, sir, and I will return you your 
 ear.” 
 
 In London there are 227 houses for the re- 
 ception of stolen goods : 276 for the resort of 
 thieves; 1,781 houses of ill fame, and 221 
 lodging-houses for beggars. The thieves, de- 
 predators, and suspected persons, are divided 
 into three classes — it appears of the first class 
 in the Metropolitan Police district, there are 
 10,444 ; of the second, 4,653 ; of the third, 
 2,104; making altogether, 16,901. — Parlia- 
 mentary Report , 1839. 
 
 LONDON : Printed and published by J. LIMBIRI), 
 143, Strand, ( near Somerset House) ; and sold by 
 all Booksellers and Newsmen — In PARIS, by all 
 the Booksellers. — In FRANCFORT, CHARLES 
 JUGEL. 
 
zi)c 
 
 No. 948 
 
 Saturday, may n, 1839. 
 
 [Prick '2d. 
 
 THE FARM-HOUSE OF LA HAYE SAINTE 
 
 u 
 
 VOL. XXXIII. 
 
 THE TREE OF PICTON, ON THE FIELD OF WATERLOO. 
 
290 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 WELLINGTON^ AN A. 
 
 Our readers have, doubtless, in former 
 volumes of the Mirror, been interested by a 
 series of papers and notices which, from 
 time to time, have appeared in this work, 
 illustrative of the history, character, and 
 genius of that proud conqueror who over- 
 turned the power of nearly every state in 
 Europe, and sought to erect on the ruins 
 of the same an universal monarchy. We 
 purpose, from time to time, to present in 
 like manner a series of sketches and notices 
 illustrative of Buonaparte’s illustrious anta- 
 gonist and conqueror — our own Welling- 
 ton ! The relation of an incident frequently, 
 however trivial, places before us the genius 
 of the man in a way which a laboured com- 
 mentary and an aggregation of all the ele- 
 ments of character fails to effect ; like a 
 master-stroke by an artist, as the lightning, 
 sudden, but sure. Anecdotes require only 
 their proper appreciation to have their value 
 understood. A mean mind will nibble and 
 hoard them away. The man of taste and 
 genius will extract their philosophy, and 
 disencumber himself from the verbiage. in 
 which they are clothed — for it is not in- 
 tended that a man should be a walking 
 library. This quality of mind, that of sepa- 
 ration, analysis, and combination, is emi- 
 nently useful in a book-making and devour- 
 ing generation, such as we live in in the 
 present day. We are indebted to a corres- 
 pondent for a few papers on the Field of 
 Waterloo, he having recently visited it. 
 
 “ 1 send you some Sketches of JV aterloo, 
 which I visited a few weeks ago, having 
 been rather suddenly called upon to go into 
 Belgium whilst winter yet covered the land. 
 I do not hope to add anything new to the 
 chronicles and narratives which fill every 
 library on the subject of this famous field. 
 Waterloo is now an old tale, and has been 
 often told ; yet the rural associations and 
 consequences connected with the battle, 
 must give it a freshness and interest to the 
 reflecting mind, which would be unmoved 
 by its chivalry, and only horrified at the 
 recital of its carnage and slaughter. Stand- 
 ing on the summit of the pyramid which 
 now commemorates the battle, it was in 
 such a point of view that I was led both to 
 grieve and to rejoice ; — to grieve and deplore 
 the evil that is in our nature, and predomi- 
 nates in the present order ot things in the 
 world, as the bones of sixty thousand of my 
 l'ellow-creatures in the trenches below could 
 testify ; to rejoice in that long and blessed 
 peace which flowed as the blood-bought 
 trophy of this field ; a peace in which civiliza- 
 tion, education, science and religion, have had 
 an opportunity of dispensing blessings to 
 mankind ; and, in a measure, (where their 
 workings have been legitimate and effec- 
 tual,) to assist in wresting the slaughter- 
 
 weapon from the hands of man, and to con- 
 vert the sword into a ploughshare, to prun- 
 ing-hooks the warriors’ spears, securing peace 
 to future generations. 
 
 “ The two sketches which accompany 
 this paper represent the English centre and 
 front, indicated by the tombs which stand on 
 each side of the main road, (from Genappe 
 to Brussels,) and the Farm-House of La 
 Haye Sainte. As you intend giving inser- 
 tion to several engravings illustrative of the 
 principal spots of the field, an outline of the 
 battle of the 18th of June may serve to 
 bring the places before your readers in an 
 improving point of view ; and though it is 
 the last and mightiest feat of the honoured 
 instrument who gained this renowned vic- 
 tory, will, 1 feel assured, commend your 
 proposed series of papers, to be entitled 
 Wellingtoniana, to the attention of your 
 numerous readers.” 
 
 At five o’clock in the morning of the 18th 
 of June, 1815, the English army arrived at 
 its destined position, at the end of the forest 
 of Soigny. It occupied a rising ground, 
 having in its front a gentle declivity. The 
 extremity of the right wing was stationed at 
 Merbe Braine. The enclosed country and 
 deep ravines round the village protected the 
 right flank, and rendered it impossible for 
 the enemy to turn it. In the centre of the 
 right was a country-house called Plougoumont, 
 or Goumont (Le Chateau de Goumont.) 
 The house was loop-holed and strongly occu- 
 pied ; the garden and orchard were lined 
 with light troops, and the wood before the 
 house was maintained by some companies of 
 the guards. The front of the right was 
 thrown back to avoid a ravine which would 
 have exposed it, and was nearly at right 
 angles with the centre. It consisted of the 
 second and fourth English divisions, the third 
 and sixth Hanoverians, and the first of the 
 Netherlands, and was commanded by Lord 
 Hill. The centre was composed of the corps 
 of the Prince of Orange, supported by the 
 Brunswick and Nassau regiments, with the 
 guards under General Cooke on the right, 
 and the divisions of General Alten on the 
 left. In front was the farm of La Haye 
 Sainte, which was occupied in great force. 
 The road from Genappe to Brussels ran 
 through the middle of the centre. The left 
 wing, consisting of the divisions of Generals 
 Picton, Lambert, and Kempt, extended to 
 the left of La Haye, which it occupied, and 
 the defiles of which protected the extremity 
 of the left, and prevented it from being 
 turned. The cavalry was principally posted 
 in the rear of the left of the centre. 
 
 Separated by a valley varying from half to 
 three-fourths of a mile in breadth, were other 
 heights following the bending of those on 
 which the British army was posted. The 
 advanced guard of the French reached these 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 ■291 
 
 heights izi the evening of the 17<h, and some 
 skirmishes took plaee between the out-posts. 
 
 The night was dreadful. An incessant 
 rain fell in torrents. The soldiers were up to 
 their knees in mud, and many of them, 
 particularly of the officers, who had not yet 
 been able to change their ball dresses on 
 leaving Brussels, laid themselves down on 
 this comfortless bed, to rise no more. In the 
 morning their limbs were stiffened by cold 
 and wet, and they were unable to move. 
 Few places could be found sufficiently free 
 from mud to light a fire, and when the fire 
 was lighted, the storm, which continued to 
 pour pitilessly down, immediately extin- 
 guished it. Both armies equally suffered ; 
 but the day soon broke, and the soldiers 
 sprung on their feet eager for the combat. 
 
 If the night was terrible to the soldiers, 
 who were inured to the inclemency of the 
 weather, it was far more dreadful to the 
 wretched inhabitants of the villages in the 
 rear of the French army. It had always been 
 the policy of Napoleon at those critical times, 
 when so much depended on the heroism of 
 his troops, to relax the severity of his disci- 
 pline, aud to permit them to indulge in the 
 most shameful excesses. They now aban- 
 doned themselves to more than usual atro- 
 cities. Every house was pillaged. The pro- 
 perty which could not be carried away was 
 wantonly destroyed, aud the inhabitants fled 
 in despair to the woods. 
 
 Notwithstanding the torrents of rain and 
 the depth of the roads, Napoleon succeeded 
 in bringing up his whole army, in the course 
 of the night, and his numerous artillery, 
 consisting of more than three hundred pieces. 
 He had feared that the British would retire 
 in the night, and when he saw them at the 
 dawn of day occupying the position of the 
 preceding evening, he could not contain his 
 joy. “ Ah !'’ he exclaimed, “ I have them, 
 then, these English.” 
 
 A farmer, who lived near the house called 
 Belle Alliance, was seized by the French, 
 and carried to Napoleon, who, mounting him 
 on horseback, tying him to the saddle, and 
 giving the bridle into the hands of a trooper, 
 compelled him to act as guide. Before any 
 of the French troops were placed in the posi- 
 tions which they were to occupy, Napoleon 
 ascended a neighbouring eminence, and 
 acquainted himself with every feature of the 
 surrounding country. His inquisitiveness 
 knew no bounds. Not an inequality of the 
 ground, not an hedge escaped him. He was 
 employed in this preparation during four or 
 five hours, and every observation was care- 
 fully noted in a map, which he carried in his 
 hand. 
 
 The ground occupied by the two armies 
 was the smallest in extent of front, compared 
 with the numbers engaged, in the recollec- 
 tion of military men. The English line did not 
 
 extend more than a mile and a-half in length, 
 and the French line about two miles. This 
 will partly account for the unparalleled losses 
 which each party sustained, and particularly 
 for the destruction caused by the artillery. 
 
 About nine o’clock the rain began to abate, 
 and at eleven the French were in full posi- 
 tion, and ready to advance to the attack. 
 The left wing was commanded by Jerome 
 Buonaparte; the centre by Generals Reilly 
 and F.rlon, and the right by Count Lobau. 
 The imperial guard was in reserve. The 
 French army consisted of eighty thousand 
 men ; the Duke of Wellington had not more 
 than sixty-five thousand. The French regi- 
 ments were the very elite of the army ; but 
 this was the first campaign which many of 
 Wellington’s troops had seen. 
 
 THE FLOWER " FORGET-ME-NOT.” 
 (For the Mirror.) 
 
 Dearest of all the flowers that gaily gleam. 
 
 In garden, field, or on the green hill's h.east. 
 
 For link’d with thee, does fond remembrance seem, 
 Willi gentle memories round thy stem to rest ! 
 Some absent friend, in fancy hovers near. 
 
 Some form, o’er dale and hill divided far, 
 
 “ Forget-me not 1” in distant tones we hear. 
 
 Oil vain such prayers and parting wishes are ! 
 
 Yet still, forget me not ! when moonlight sleeps. 
 
 On gard, u walks where we together stray’d. 
 
 When twilight dews, each gentle floweret weeps. 
 And stars are gleaming o’er the shadowy glade. 
 Forget me not ! when midnight gales are high. 
 When voices seem to w hisper faint and low. 
 
 When clouds career along the autumn sky, 
 
 Aud winds are tossing wide the poplar bough. 
 Forget me not ! when morning breaks serene. 
 When modest spring her dewy garland wears. 
 Forget me not! — when deck’d in summer sheen, 
 With flowers all gay, thy peaceful home appears. 1 
 And think on me ! in the calm holy hour, 
 Devotion’s own, when thou in prayer art bending. 
 On thee may heaven its every blessing shower, 
 
 Still let our prayers, tho' abseut, thus be blending ! 
 Kirton-Lindsey. Anne. 
 
 STANZAS. 
 
 ( For the Mirror.) 
 
 The pigeon, carried from her peaceful nest. 
 
 Skims thro’ the ether back again to roam ; 
 Spreads her glad wings, nor closes them to rest, 
 Tho’ mountains rise between her and her home. 
 
 So, should it he my destiny to track 
 A far-off land, or cross the yielding sea ; 
 
 When freed. I'll, as the faithful bird, turn back. 
 Nor rest, my mother, ’till at home with thee ! 
 
 H. F. 
 
 EPITAPH ON SHAICSPEARE. 
 Written in 1616, by an unknown author. 
 
 Re now Nil) Spenser, lye a thought more niglie 
 To learned Chaucer ; and rare Beaumont, lye 
 A little nearer Spenser, to make roofne 
 For Sliakspear in your three-fold, four-fold tombe ; 
 To lodge all four in one bi d make a shift 
 Until doom’s day, or hardly will a Uftbe 
 Between I his day aud that, by fate be slaine 
 For w hom your curtaines may be drawn agaiue. 
 
 U 2 
 
292 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 A VISIT TO LIVERPOOL. 
 
 BY AN AMERICAN.* 
 
 Churches. 
 
 VYe passed one or two churches, built in a 
 handsome style. In general, their exterior 
 was more showy than that of our own. They 
 were also larger than our chinches ; but they 
 were not so thickly scattered through the ciiy ; 
 nor were their internal decorations so becom- 
 ing and elegant. It is very unusual, for in- 
 stance, to see a church richly carpeted ; to 
 see one or more windows hung with rich cur- 
 tains; and to find the beautiful and chaste 
 mahogany pulpits which ornament our 
 churches. It is tiue some of the pews, with 
 their rich crimson cushions and velvet lining, 
 equal our most beautiful ones ; but there is 
 a bareness over the larger part of them, that 
 makes a sad contrast with the handsome pews 
 of a church of any of our large cities or towns. 
 
 Public Buildings. 
 
 The public buildings did not strike me so 
 favorably as I had expected. Perhaps my 
 anticipations had been too high. The most 
 imposing is the Town House, with its fine 
 cupola, at the head of Castle Street. Though 
 of the Corinthian order, its elegance is still 
 of the sterner kind. Its base is of rustic 
 masonry ; and gives it a massive air ; and 
 the dark stone of which the whole is built, 
 adds to the stability, if not to the beauty of 
 the building. A colossal figure of Britannia 
 presides over its swelling dome. Its interior, 
 though chiefly occupied by the local authori- 
 ties, has a superb ball-room for public levees 
 and parties. Behind the Town Hall, is a 
 large flagged square. It is enclosed by an 
 elegant extensive building ; the three fronts 
 of which overlook this open space. These 
 form the Liverpool Exchange. The buildings 
 of the hitter concentrate, in an admirable 
 manner, all the offices and facilities which 
 commercial men have occasion for, in the 
 speedy transaction of business. The News- 
 Room is a splendid hall ; — ninety-four feet 
 by fifty-two. The middle of the room is un- 
 occupied ; while elegant tables, liberally sup- 
 plied with magazines and newspapers, are 
 ranged along the sides. Many gentlemen 
 were sitting in chairs by these tables ; or were 
 walking up and down the middle of the apart- 
 ment. The ceiling was supported by five 
 fine columns; which gave the hall a spacious 
 and noble air. The admirable arrangement 
 and great extent of this useful room, and, 
 indeed, of the whole building and its appur- 
 tenances, must communicate a fine tone to the 
 commercial consequence of the place. Such 
 buildings serve as standards of a nation's en- 
 terprise ; while they tend largely to increase 
 it. A city is deeply indebted, therefore, to 
 the individual who projects a noble institution 
 
 • See our number for March 2, 1839, Volume 33 ; 
 ;>agol30; No. 938. 
 
 in its midst; for it imparts activity and a 
 daring spirit to all kindred undertakings. 
 
 A Monument to the Memory of the illus- 
 trious Nelson occupies the middle of the 
 square. It is of bronze; but its design vio- 
 lates all the principles of correct taste. After 
 a while, out of the mass of savage figures, one 
 detects the barbarous meaning of ihe artist. 
 A fearful representation of Death triumphs 
 over the dying victor; Britannia stands weep- 
 ing behind ; while a British sailor comes up 
 to rescue or avenge the prostrate hero. Ban- 
 ners are floating desolately over them; and 
 anchors, cannon, and naval trophies lie 
 around. This is the idea, when extricated 
 from the embryo in which it is left by the 
 designer. The new Custom-House is an 
 elegant and extensive building. It is not 
 yet completed ; and, like other public as well 
 as private buildings in England, advances 
 but slowly. The celerity with which we 
 accomplish streets and squares, would be in- 
 credible in England. 
 
 Cemetery. 
 
 The Cemetery occupies a very favourable 
 situation. It stands in the highest part of 
 the city; and is removed, in a great measure, 
 from its business, bustle, dirt, and wretched- 
 ness. The houses around have a more cheer- 
 ing aspect; the air has a freer circulation; 
 and the thunder of the agitated city is softened 
 down, by distance, into a soothing hum. 
 Here stands the receptacle of the dead. It 
 is enclosed by a low granite wall, surmounted 
 by an iron railing; and the gateways are in 
 the Egyptian style. From the exterior we 
 discerned nothing else than a Grecian temple, 
 and a beautiful porter’s lodge, in excellent 
 keeping with the genius of the place. Along 
 the borders there are smooth gravel-walks, 
 shaded by trees ; and their sides are taste- 
 fully laid out and adorned with flowers of 
 the most pleasing hue. No one touches 
 these. Even the little children stooped down 
 and gazed at them, and left them uninjured. 
 “ O, how pretty!’’ — said a sweet little child 
 near me, looking up in the face of her bro- 
 ther. who was a few years older ; “ Mamma 
 loved flowers so, too!” — “ Yes,” said he; 
 “and Papa says that these are sacred to 
 Mamma’s memo.y.’’ May they rest there un- 
 harmed, thought I ; beautiful and touching 
 remembrancers of the delicate being that 
 once loved you ! I did not pass away with- 
 out feeling an interest in this unknown grave, 
 and its unknown occupant. 
 
 We stood near the temple. A deep exca- 
 vation in the solid rock lay beneath us. It 
 is five hundred feet long, and fifty-two feet in 
 depth. Inclined carriage-roads twine round 
 the sides, — passing three successive galleries 
 of catacombs, before reaching the burial- 
 ground beneath. The latter is laid out in 
 flower-beds and shrubberies : from the grate- 
 ful shade of which the white marble funeral 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 293 
 
 urns and columns rise with a sweet and 
 chastened soberness. We descended. “ How 
 suitable an entrance to the place !” — said my 
 companion ; as we passed through a gallery 
 cut in the solid rock ; the length of which 
 changed the intense light of day, into the 
 solemn obscurity of parting twilight. It 
 ushered us once more into the tight; but 
 how changed was the scene! If there are 
 flowers and shrubs on one side of the carriage- 
 way, on the other are the silent mansions of 
 the dead, hewn out of the massive rock. A 
 flat marble slab, in the lower part of the 
 Cemetery, formed the unconspictious monu- 
 ment of the illustrious Huskiason. The 
 whole scene is deeply impressive ; being at 
 once grand, simple, solemn, and beautiful * 
 
 Markets. 
 
 I visited the markets while in Liverpool. 
 Their exterior is unadorned, but their interior 
 displays great profusion. There was the 
 same admirable arrangement which is to be 
 found in the Boston market ; and the same 
 variety of comforts and luxuries, — of meats 
 and vegetables, which there greet our eyes. 
 There was more game in the market than 
 would be commonly found in our own ; but 
 not such a variety of water-fowl and fruit. 
 The profusion of the Liverpool market comes 
 all at once on the eye ; for it is square, and 
 is lighted from the roof; instead of presenting 
 that succession of necessaries and luxuries, 
 which meets the eye in passing through the 
 Boston market. In walking through an 
 English market, a stranger will often be urged 
 to buy ; — at least, by the fruit and oyster 
 women. 
 
 iWatmetrs antr Customs. 
 
 THE BELTAN, OR MAY MYSTERIES OF THE 
 HIGHLANDS. 
 
 I he month of May in all the calendars of 
 mankind, whether they be ancient or mo- 
 dern, appears universally at the period of its 
 incoming, to have been celebrated with rural, 
 and sometimes mystical rites. None, perhaps, 
 is more recondite or remarkable than that 
 which, on the first ot May, and again oi: 
 Sunday last, might have been seen enacted 
 on the bleak altitudes of the Scottish High- 
 lands. In those districts, the rural popula- 
 tion prevails, and it is natural to expect, 
 that, as such, they w’ould use every possible 
 means in their power, to supplicate a good 
 and beneficent Providence to prosper their 
 pastoral labours, and on (he other hand to 
 propitiate the evil from hurting, or injuring 
 them. In token of this, the Highlanders of 
 very recent days, according to Pennant, keep 
 up a superstitious custom called Beltan, 
 
 * A view of this spot, with some interesting parti- 
 culars respecting it, will be found iu our number for 
 February 23 ; at page 113 of our present volume. 
 
 or Bellein, which evidently had its rise in 
 very early times, when a multiplicity of 
 heathen deities was acknowledged by their 
 forefathers. 
 
 On the borders of their fields, where the 
 young green corn is just springing up in 
 promising beauty, and where seed of all 
 kinds is beginning to enamel the swart 
 mould, every herdsman of every village per- 
 forms the following sacrificial rite on the 
 first of this “ merrie moneth,” the month of 
 May ; and on the Sunday after, it is again 
 repeated and again rejoiced over, in this 
 manner : — 
 
 They cut a square trench in the ground, 
 leaving a plot of turf central in the midst 
 thereof : on this they lay large billets of 
 wood, and kindle a blazing fire : on this 
 they dress a sandell of eggs, butter, oatmeal, 
 and milk : and bring, besides the ingredients 
 of the caudle, plenty of foaming beer, and 
 bright whisky; lor each of the company 
 must contribute something. The rites begin 
 with spilling some of the caudle on the 
 ground, by way of libation ; on that, every 
 one takes a cake ol oatmeal, upon which are 
 raised nine square knobs, each of which is 
 dedicated to some particular being, the sup- 
 posed preserver of their flocks and herds, or 
 to some particular animal, the real destroyer 
 ol them : each person then turns his face 
 towards the red-flaming fire, breaks off a 
 knob, and flinging it over his shoulder, says, 
 
 " This I give to thee — preserve thou my horses. 
 
 This unto thee— preserve thou my sheep;” 
 
 and so on in this manner, from the first to 
 the ninth. 
 
 Alter this they use the same ceremony to 
 the noxious animals, thus, 
 
 Jhis I give to thee, O Fox, — spare thou my Lambs. 
 
 J Ins to thee, O hooded Crow. 
 
 Tiiis to thee, O Eagle !” 
 
 When this ceremony, of course much pro- 
 longed, and interspersed with other mystic 
 evolutions ot the body and voice, is con- 
 cluded, the whole assembly sit down and 
 commence their feasting, by dining upon 
 the caudle, and discoursing on the lelicitous 
 prospects of the forth-coming year. Such 
 is the festival of the Beltan. 
 
 ANCIENT AND MODERN FELONRY OF 
 ENGLAND. 
 
 An especial delight it is to the antiquary, to 
 spend his time in observing the customs of 
 former ages ; and as he places them in juxta- 
 position with those which exist in his own 
 day, to deduce from the parallel, those curious 
 and interesting remarks which the contrast 
 produces in his mind. Among the higher 
 walks of antiquarian lore, more especially 
 such as relate to old and obsolete laws, 
 there is no lack of sterling entertainment. 
 The subjoined passage, which is to be met 
 
294 
 
 TIIE MIRROR. 
 
 with in Rastell’s Collect, of Stat. p. 2, itself be turned on them. And so he might “ goe 
 furnishes a remarkable historical illustration every day into the sea up to his knees, and 
 of these remarks. It appears to have been assaye to pass over” ; but he might as well 
 the common form of oath or abjuration taken quietly sit down in despair, for those “ flows 
 by persons in the time of our English King and ebbs,” those tides and streams will never 
 Edward, who were adjudged to be guilty of miraculously divide for him, to let him go 
 Felony, and who having been able to flee to over dry-shod ; and to swim or ford that 
 a place of sanctuary, now engaged, in the broad water is equally impossible. Forty 
 following words, to quit the kingdom for ever, nights in addition to forty days, from the 
 « This heare thou Sir Coroner, that I, M. first sunrise to the fortieth sunset, he might 
 
 of II., am a robber of sheep, and a murderer 
 of one, and a fellow of our Lord the King of 
 England; and because I have done many 
 such euilles or robberies in his land, I do 
 abjure the land of our Lord Edward King of 
 England, and I shall haste me towards the 
 
 port of , which thou hast given me, 
 
 and that I shall not go out of the highway, 
 and if 1 doe, I will that I be taken as a rob- 
 ber and a felon of our Lorde the King. And 
 that at such a place I will diligently i-eeke 
 for passage, and I will tarrie there but one 
 flood and ebbe, if I can have passage : and 
 unlesse I can have it in such a place, I will 
 goe every day into the sea up to my knees, 
 assaying to pass over ; and unlesse I can do 
 this within fortie days, I will put myselfe 
 again into the Church, as a robber and a 
 lelon of our Lord the King : so God me helpe 
 and his holy judgment, &c.’’ 
 
 It is evident from this passage that the 
 felon was accredited by the judicature of 
 those days to entertain in his bosom some- 
 what higher notions of honour than those of 
 the present day. After this oath had been 
 taken, he was entrusted, unguarded and un- 
 chained, to depart alone to the sea- side, in 
 order to fulfil its conditions. 
 
 The felon of this day, on the other hand, 
 is fast bound hand and foot, and imprisoned 
 within four massy walls, under locks of stout 
 iron, and the strict surveillance of gaoler and 
 guards. Yet is the modern felon, when beheld 
 in other points of view, perhaps superiority situ- 
 ated to his ancient precursors. For whereas, 
 the felon of King Edward’s time had to 
 depend upon his own means and resources 
 towards his own transportation from English 
 ground, to any provinces ultra mare ; the 
 modern felon has a stately ship prepared for 
 his conveyance, which is to bear him to his 
 destination, while sufficient food and even 
 fitting livery we believe, are plentifully sup- 
 plied him. The felon of the old tune, how- 
 ever, might go to fulfil his oath at the port 
 appointed, without perchance having a single 
 sous or groat in the world wherewith to help 
 himself: he might, according to the wording 
 of his oath, “ diligently seek for passage,” 
 but who would give ship-room to a penniless 
 fellow, to one on whom the mark of reproba- 
 tion was set, and branded as an outlaw P 
 And however plaintive might be his pleadings, 
 and querulous his lamentations, be sure that 
 an ear, deaf as the adder’s, would evermore 
 
 still assaye with pain of limb and dire an- 
 guish of heart, and yet after all, might at 
 last have again to deliver up himself to the 
 iron rules of merciless laws. Should such a 
 one, however, be fortunate enough to comply 
 with the peremptory conditions, and be able 
 within the allotted space of time, to cross 
 over the water, anywhere in the world out of 
 the realm of England, (having liberty at his 
 command,) he might again start anew in 
 life, and even chance upon foreign soil, to 
 attain to comfort, and perhaps, opulence. 
 Not so with the modern felon. — Manacled 
 and in chains according to the term of his 
 condemnation, be it of years fourteen or seven, 
 he is confined within a given range ; his time, 
 his labour, and strength, are devoted to task- 
 masters, who task him hardly. At the end 
 of that period he certainly is free and absolved, 
 he has again the advantages of freedom and 
 unhampered action ; but after the dull, heavy 
 incarceration he has through that long lapse 
 of seven of fourteen years undergone, his 
 faculties are rendered torpid, insensible, and 
 obtuse, the prime part of his life, the vigour 
 of his manhood, and flower of his age, have 
 been remedilessly deadened and destroyed, 
 and he is now only as a withered trunk which 
 no “ frangrancy of water” can revive. 
 
 Such are a few of the prominent differ- 
 ences, between the state and condition of the 
 old and the modern method adopted in the 
 punishment of felony. To each are attached 
 respective hardships ; but it is certain that 
 the state and prospects of the ancient felonry 
 of England were comparatively beatitudinal 
 to those of the modern. W. Archer. 
 
 LETTERS ON STEAM NAVIGATION. 
 
 On the Use and Abuse of Masts and Suits in 
 Steam-Ships. 
 
 “ My Dear Sir, — Respecting masts for 
 steam-ships, I have, on more mature deli- 
 beration, satisfied myself that they are better 
 without any masts at all. It may be expe- 
 dient in the present stage of Allantic steam 
 navigation, to construct what may be called 
 a deck-mast, that can be thrown up upon a 
 hinge, or bolt axis, in case it should be 
 wanted. I do not doubt that more power is 
 lost by the resistance of masts and rigging 
 in steam-ships, than is gained by the use of 
 sails. I am aware that it will be said that 
 
THK MIRROR, 
 
 2»5 
 
 the sails relieve the engines ; but upon the 
 same principle, the resistance occasioned by 
 the masts and rigging, distress the engines 
 in proportion to the degree of resistance and 
 the time of its continuance. The truth is, 
 as I apprehend it, the engines, if properly 
 constructed, will perform their duty just as 
 well without the aid of sails as with it. 
 Every one at all accustomed to the seas, 
 must be aware that a steam-ship running off 
 at the rate of ten knots an hour, would so far 
 keep ahead of an ordinary breeze, that sails 
 would have no effect in propelling, whilst the 
 resistance of the masts and rigging would 
 have a constant and a considerable effect in 
 retarding her. 
 
 “ In crossing the Atlantic one way and the 
 other for twelve months, how few days out 
 of the three hundred and sixty-five would a 
 ship have so strong a wind, and that a fair 
 one, as to enable her to run ten knots an 
 hour under canvas ? And if the wind is not 
 strong enough and fair enough to do that, 
 sails can be of little or no use. If, as is 
 contended, the use of sails does relieve the 
 engines, all that can be meant by that is, 
 that you can lessen your steam-power and 
 reduce the consumption of fuel. But I 
 think that advantage will be more than 
 counterbalanced by the constantly increased 
 resistance arising from the use of masts and 
 rigging. 
 
 Your ob’dt serv’t, 
 
 “ Junius Smith.*’ 
 
 London, Sept. 19, 1838. 
 
 Remarks upo?i Steam- Ships of War. 
 
 “ Dear Sir, — In my last letter I took the 
 liberty to dismast steam-ships generally, and 
 thus to save the expense of masts, sails, 
 rigging, and top-hamper in the first place, 
 and in the second, the constant disburse- 
 ments necessary to keep them in working 
 condition. My main object, however, was 
 to show that masts in steam-ships are worse 
 than useless, because the resistance being 
 constant, and the advantage only occasional, 
 the loss by resistance exceeds the gain by 
 such power. But I do not suppose the view 
 I have taken of several particulars relating 
 to Atlantic steam navigation, will receive, at 
 present, the countenance of the public ; 
 because the erroneous opinions generally 
 entertained are both so deeply-rooted and 
 so agreeable to the minds of many, who 
 fear their craft is in danger, that they do not 
 choose to have them corrected, but rather 
 feel a secret delight in anything which has 
 the slightest tendency to strengthen and 
 confirm them. The bursting of a boiler, 
 an accidental fire, the wreck of a ship, or 
 the loss of a crew, are events hailed with 
 triumph by the class of persons of whom I 
 am speaking. 
 
 “ But if the hints that I have thrown out 
 ead the public mind from that general 
 
 mode of thinking to which the novelty of 
 Atlantic steam-navigation has given birth, 
 to a more close investigation of the subject, 
 we shall soon see our enemies disarmed, and 
 uniting with us in carrying out a system of 
 navigation which meets the wants and pro- 
 motes the welfare of mankind. 
 
 “ It is with the view of showing the 
 subject in its largest dimensions and most 
 important results, that I venture s a few re- 
 marks upon steam-ships of war. 
 
 “ It may seem premature, perhaps offi- 
 cious, to speak of the power of the sword, 
 to measure the force of nations, and to 
 weigh in our hydrostatic scales the fortunes 
 of empires. But the thing throws itself 
 upon us in such bold relief, that it seems 
 impossible to conceal it. We are compelled^ 
 whether we will or not, to trace the outlines, 
 to bring the subject under review, and to 
 anticipate the mighty effects of steam power 
 upon the destinies of nations. 
 
 “ Whatever nation, England, France , or 
 America — and I think that it will he one of 
 the three — has the largest and greatest 
 number of steamships of war, will com- 
 mand the ocean. Nothing can prevent it. 
 In estimating the relative force of antagonist 
 fleets, the inquiry will not be, how many 
 frigates, or how many line-of-battle ships 
 were engaged ? but, how many steam-ships ? 
 It will be felt at once that the power of the 
 fleet depends upon the latter. Those who 
 were spectators of the last continental war, 
 will remember that notwithstanding every 
 effort was made, and enormous expense in- 
 curred by the transport board, to meet the 
 urgent demands of the army, yet such were 
 the delays arising from head-winds, tempes- 
 tuous weather, detentions in port, and long 
 passages, that the sufferings of the army 
 were sometimes appalling, and its operations 
 crippled. 
 
 “ In war, the facility of transportation is 
 tantamount to victory. If a fleet of twenty 
 steam-ships can transport an army of twenty- 
 five thousand men to the American coast in 
 fifteen days, and to the continental ports in 
 a time less in proportion to the distance, the 
 army can land when and where it pleases. 
 There is no detention in port, no delay in 
 the passage, no hovering upon the coast, 
 with light and baffling winds, and thus 
 affording time for the enemy to collect the 
 means of defence ; but the steamers push 
 at once into port, and are in possession of 
 their object before the enemy can be aware 
 of his danger. 
 
 “ The transportation of the munitions of 
 war and the victualling stores is scarcely less 
 important than that of the army itself. The 
 great magazines will always be at home, 
 whence daily supplies will be drawn with 
 the same ease and regularity as if they were 
 in the vicinity of the camp. The celerity 
 of communication and its absolute certainty 
 
96 
 
 THK MIRROR. 
 
 supersede the necessity of accumulating 
 stores in a foreign country before they are 
 wanted. 
 
 “ But the greatest triumph of steam-power 
 will be seen in those tremendous naval en- 
 gagements which hereafter will settle and 
 establish the sovereignty of the seas. Such 
 is the locomotive power of a steam-ship, 
 that she can place herself in any position in 
 reference to the enemy, can run down from 
 the leeward or windward upon the bows or 
 stern of a sailing man-of-war, and with 
 broadside after broadside, riddle her fore 
 and aft, annihilate the crew, and leave in 
 her scattered wrecks an undeniable evidence 
 of the irresistible power of a steam-ship. 
 
 “ I know it will be said that the paddle- 
 wheels of a steam-ship are liable to be shot 
 away, and thus disabled, she may become 
 herself a prey to the enemy. But is she as 
 liable to be disabled as a sailing-ship ? Sup- 
 pose a shot were to pass through a paddle- 
 wheel, it is not destroyed, and may not be 
 materially injured ; but if it were utterly 
 destroyed, the ship is not disabled. She 
 can work with one wheel. You must 
 therefore destroy both wheels before she is 
 disabled. 
 
 “ How is it with a sailing-ship ? Dismast 
 her, and her power is gone. She is a lost 
 ship. The argument, therefore, regarding 
 the danger of being disabled is vastly in 
 favour of the steamer. She has no masts. 
 And you must imagine her rash enough to 
 expose herself unnecessarily to the enemy, 
 and that too in such a manner as to give 
 him an opportunity of carrying away both 
 paddle-wheels, whilst his own masts are 
 unscathed and entire, before she is disabled ; 
 — not a very likely thing, when we consider 
 that the steam-ship, by virtue of her loco- 
 motive power, can always approach the 
 enemy or claw off, when a sailing-ship 
 cannot do either. The power of sails is 
 perfectly useless, and the sailing-ships go 
 into battle like so many dismasted ships, 
 the sport and playthings of the lively 
 steamer. 
 
 “ If a steamer man-of-war has occasion to 
 board her enemy, she manoeuvres not, waits 
 not the favour of a wind, but darts upon her 
 
 rey at any point she pleases, and her com- 
 
 atants march over the bridge ot her own 
 deck into the camp of the enemy. 
 
 “ The boilers of a steam-ship of war 
 ought to be below the loaded water-line, 
 and therefore perfectly secure from the 
 effects of shot. The resistance of the 
 water would effectually prevent the shot 
 from penetrating, whilst the even keel of 
 the steamer would give her a point blank 
 shot at her enemy. 
 
 “ Think for a moment of a sailing-ship of 
 war, no matter how many guns, chasing a 
 steamer, no matter how few, the longer she 
 chases the further she is off', until, if it were 
 
 possible to sail on an uninterrupted circle, 
 the steamer in the very act of running away 
 would overtake, her pursuer. Reverse this 
 picture, and fancy you see the steamer 
 bearing down upon the seventy-four under 
 full sail. Can the latter quicken her speed ? 
 Can she fly in the eye of the wind ? Can 
 she escape before it ? Has she the slightest 
 chance of evading the combat ? Can there 
 be a doubt as to the result ? When we con- 
 sider steam-power in time of war carried 
 out into all its multiform ramifications, what 
 merchantman can escape capture ? What 
 harbour afford shelter ? What village resist 
 plunder ? What city destruction ? What 
 country invasion ? Steam-power alone can 
 cope with steam-power, and therefore the 
 relative naval force of nations can be mea- 
 sured by no other scale. Hence we see all 
 the maritime nations upon earth reduced to 
 the same level, and the work of destruction, 
 upon a large scale, must begin afresh. All 
 the existing navies of the earth are not worth 
 a pepper-corn. They will neither augment, 
 nor diminish the power of a nation in any 
 future maritime warfare. We may just stand 
 upon their ruins, and witness kingdoms, 
 empires, and republics, all starting anew in 
 the career of naval achievements, and pres- 
 sing forward towards those grand results 
 which wait upon superiority. 
 
 “ Nothing but a steam-power navy, in the 
 present advanced state of steam-navigation, 
 can protect itself, much more a nation, from 
 insult. It would seem, therefore, prepos- 
 terous and absurd, for any nation to exhaust 
 its resources upon so useless and lumbering 
 a thing as a sailing-ship of war. The apa- 
 thy with which this great subject is regarded 
 in high places, if indeed it be regarded at 
 all, is quite surprising. But the time is 
 hastening on when its power will be felt. 
 
 “ England, in all the spreadings of her 
 vast empire, her universal commerce, great 
 in arms, great in peace ; England, first in 
 moral excellence, in mechanics, in manu- 
 factures, in literature, in the arts, in opu- 
 lence, in everything which exalts and adorns 
 a nation, and I may be permitted, after a 
 residence of more than thirty years in her 
 metropolis, to say all this and a thousand 
 times more. England, with all this radiance 
 encircling her crown, is at this moment 
 more exposed than any other nation to the 
 ruthless hand of the invader. It is not 
 enough that she has strength to crush inva- 
 sion, she wants the power to prevent it. 
 That she can never have without a steam 
 navy. Your ob’t serv’t, 
 
 “ Junius Smith.” 
 
 London, October 19, 1838. 
 
 Sillimctn’s American Journal. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 297 
 
 fUW anK Jjcuncesf. 
 
 PNEUMATIC TELEGRAPH. 
 
 The annexed engraving represents the mo- 
 del of a Pneumatic Telegraph invented 
 by Mr. Crosley, and daily exhibited at the 
 Polytechnic Institution. It is very inge- 
 niously' constructed, and possesses a quality 
 of the highest importance — that of being 
 sure in operation. Now, as far as expe- 
 riment has hitherto been carried, the Hy- 
 draulic and Electro-Magnetic Telegraphs 
 have appeared liable to considerable inter- 
 ruption in the process of working ; frost and 
 damp , being the most formidable of their 
 enemies. Seeing these objections in their 
 full force, no Company has hitherto ventured 
 to adopt either of the last-mentioned media 
 of communication. Provided, however, that 
 at some future period, the wires of the 
 Electro-Magnetic Telegraph shall be coated 
 with a substance admitting of no external 
 influence, we think that it may reasonably 
 be expected to supersede all others, — for in 
 rapidity, and precision of indication, it has 
 many^special advantages. We make this re- 
 mark, because we are not willing to discou- 
 
 rage any attempts at improvement: at the 
 same time it must be conceded that, until 
 that hope (a remote one) be accomplished, 
 the Pneumetic Telegraph is immeasurably 
 superior to it, and to all others. — In a com- 
 mercial point of view 7 , it is always important 
 that a means of transmitting intelligence 
 quickly be at hand — to say nothing of the 
 affairs of governments which ought to be 
 communicable by night as well as by day. — 
 So, also, on rail-roads, the unparalleled 
 speed, and liability to accident by collision 
 with express trains, demand that, at all 
 hours, telegraphic signals be practicable. 
 
 In Mr. Crosley’s invention, atmospheric 
 air is the sole agent employed. — A tube 
 extends from one station to another, wherein 
 the air is isolated, one end of the tube being 
 in connexion with the gas-holder or collapsing 
 vessel, which acts as a reservoir to com- 
 pensate for loss in the tube by difference of 
 temperature or leakage. 
 
 At the opposite end of the tube is an index, 
 so that, a certain degree of compression 
 being acquired in the reservoir at the first 
 station, the same compression will extend to 
 the next station, where it will be speedily 
 visible. 
 
 Mr. Crosley proposes that ten weights, 
 producing distinct differences of pressure, 
 each numbered, and corresponding in said 
 numbers with the index alluded to above, be 
 employed. The conduit-tubes at Edinburgh, 
 the Euston-Square Station, and at Liverpool, 
 fully bear out the Inventor’s statements: they 
 are from one to two miles in length, and give 
 notice when trains aie in readiness to be 
 drawn up an inclined plane — so that they 
 may be immediately put in motion. The air 
 being subjected to pressure at one end, an 
 alarm-bell is commonly rung at the other. 
 No failure has in any instance occurred : — 
 and Mr. Crosley has further tried the poweis 
 of his instrument by causing a tube, two 
 miles in length, to return upon itself \ the 
 ends being together ; when, compression 
 (equal to a column of water of 7 in.) being 
 applied, the notice on the index was given 
 within one-fourth of a minute. 
 
 It is to be hoped that government will 
 forthwith adopt this very effective Telegraph 
 (useful as well by night as by day) in lieu 
 of the clumsy machinery now in use. 
 
 The long-armed instrument at the Admi- 
 ralty, with its jack-pudding antics, is worthy 
 only of laughter. 
 
 Laws have been propounded by eminent 
 men on the expenditure of aeriform fluids 
 through conduit pipes, strictly applicable to 
 the present question. Under all circum- 
 stances, it seems desirable that experiments 
 on a practical scale, at extended distances, 
 should be resorted to, as the most satisfactory 
 guide, for carrying into effect telegraphic 
 communications of this kind. 
 
:98 
 
 THK MIRROR. 
 
 33iogi-ap!ji). 
 
 JOHN GALT, 
 
 The author of the Ayrshire Legatees, Law- 
 rie Todd, and a number of other popular 
 works, was born at Irvine, in Ayrshire, 
 May 2, 1779 ; in which town he received 
 the rudiments of his education ; but in 
 his eleventh year, the family removing to 
 Greenock, he pursued his studies there 
 at the public school, under Mr. Colin Lu- 
 mont : while here, he manifested a turn 
 for mechanics, which, joined to a taste for 
 music, prompted him to attempt the con- 
 struction of a small piano- forte or hurdy- 
 gurdy, and likewise an iEolian harp. In 
 those early years, he also composed some 
 pieces of music, one or two of which have 
 become popular. In 1802, he contributed 
 to a newspaper, which was then started at 
 Greenock ; and from this period, Galt’s was 
 purely a literary life. We have not space to 
 enumerate all the works that this talented 
 but unfortunate man published : suffice it 
 to say, they bear evidence of resplendent and 
 pure pathos and character, and a thorough 
 knowledge of the world. 
 
 At one period of his life he was possessed 
 of vast territory in Upper Canada; and, in 
 consequence of disappointment he expe- 
 rienced in that quarter, his health became 
 affected, being frequently attacked by para- 
 lysis ; and it is to be feared his latter days 
 were clouded. Mr. Galt was agreeable and 
 frank in his manners ; and unintelligent and 
 agreeable companion. He died at Greenock, 
 on Thursday, April 11, 183ff. 
 
 THOMAS HAYNES BAYI.Y. 
 
 Death has also deprived us of another inven- 
 tive genius — in the above delightful lyrical 
 poet, who died at Cheltenham, on Monday 
 the 22nd of April last, in the 42d year of 
 his age; after a protracted and suffering ill- 
 ness, — to add to the already numerous list of 
 unfortunate literary men. This gentleman 
 was one of those on whom ‘ misfortune smiled 
 deceitful at his birth Born to good expec- 
 tations, and married to a lady, as beautiful 
 as accomplished, who brought him a good 
 fortune, he began life under the most favour- 
 able auspices, but mixing with the highest 
 company, his means were soon found insuffi- 
 cient, until at length “the pressure of circum- 
 stances impoverished him beyond a remedy.” 
 He became poor, and then of course, no one 
 knew him ; and he soon found himself in- 
 volved in sad pecuniary difficulties, at times 
 being obliged to sacrifice his brilliant talent 
 to supyly some pressing want ; and whilst the 
 gay, the heedless, and the wealthy, were 
 being amused by the simple tender melodies 
 of “ I’d be a Butterfly,” — “ Oh, no, we never 
 mention her,” and laughing at “ Tom 
 
 Noddy’s Secret,” and many other popular 
 favourites, the talented author was pining in 
 misery and want ! But we must draw a veil 
 over this sad, heart-breaking picture : it is 
 too gloomy for reflection. 
 
 Mr. Baily has left a widow and two chil- 
 dren, to lament his loss. 
 
 SOCIETY OF BRITISH ARTISTS. 
 On Saturday evening last the third conver- 
 sazione of this Society was held at the Gal- 
 lery in Suft'olk-street. Besides the works of 
 art adorning the walls, several of which we 
 noticed when speaking of the Exhibition, 
 Paintings, Drawings, and Engravings, with 
 some beautiful specimens of Photography, 
 were laid on the tables ; but during the 
 early part of the evening the pictures on the 
 walls appeared to be the great attraction 
 to the numerous and elegant promenaders. 
 The rooms were brilliantly lighted, and the 
 effect of the pictures was exceedingly good. 
 At half-past nine, Eugenio LI. Latilla, Esq., 
 the Vice-President, took the chair, when 
 after a paper being read by Dr. Severn, J. 
 Cooper, Esq., Professor of Chemistry to 
 the Society, delivered a short but lucid 
 lecture on Photographic Drawing, in which 
 he illustrated — by means of artificial light 
 produced by the combustion of lime — the 
 operation of the solar rays on the sensitive 
 paper, which, under the influence of this 
 strong light, exhibited the same effects 
 (though of course in a fainter degree,) as 
 those described in our former numbers. 
 
 The lecturer also explained the manner in 
 which some of the specimens of the art on 
 the lecture-table (consisting of sketches of 
 foliage, copies of well-known engravings, 
 and original drawings,) were executed ; 
 which he stated to be by the subject being 
 first painted on glass in white-lead, the 
 lights and shades being reversed, the sensi- 
 tive paper was then placed under the painted 
 glass and exposed to the light, the parts 
 covered with the white-lead being sheltered 
 by it remained white or slightly shaded in 
 proportion to its density, and the remainder 
 assumes a rich brown tint. The lecturer 
 was greatly and deservedly applauded. 
 
 public 3E$tbt'ttou£. 
 
 THE AMERICAN MAMMOTH OX. 
 
 Among the numerous exhibitions daily ca- 
 tered for the amusement and instruction of 
 the public in the metropolis, none certainly 
 can be more worthy of patronage, or more 
 susceptible of imparting real knowledge and 
 gratifying reflection, than the works of 
 Nature ; and certainly we have seldom 
 witnessed any specimen with greater plea- 
 sure than that of the American Mammoth 
 Ox, Brother Jonathan , who has recently 
 paid a friendly, but a short, visit to his 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 2.99 
 
 brother John Bull, at the Egyptian Hall, 
 to prove that the old English breed of cattle 
 are not deteriorated, but improved, by the 
 judicious management of the agriculturists 
 ot the United States. 
 
 This immense animal, weighing 4,000 
 pounds, (500 stone,) is of beautiful sym- 
 metry', measuring in length, from nose to 
 rump, 5 feet 11 inches, in girth 10 feet 
 9 inches ; and in height over the fore shoul- 
 der, 5 feet 11 inches. On the 15th of May 
 next it will be six years old ; colour, dapple 
 bay ; and was bread by the Hon. Isaac 
 Hubbard, in the town of Claremont, State 
 of New Hampshire, New England. 
 
 Numerous have been the exhibitions of 
 extraordinary exen in the metropolis : Mr. 
 
 Evelyn makes mention of one that was seven- 
 teen feet from the length of the tail to the 
 nose. At Bartholomew Fair, 1703, there was 
 a great Lincolnshire ox exhibited ; it was 12 
 feet from the rump to the face, standing 19 
 hands high. Numerous others might be 
 mentioned : but enough has been quoted to 
 show the comparative magnitude of Brother 
 Jonathan. 
 
 The ox nearest in size to the above, was 
 the Bradwell ox; 5 years old, and weighed 
 4,320 pounds ; but then it was so fat that it 
 was difficult for the creature to move ; but 
 brother Jonathan is not so ; he is not fed 
 for effect, he is a magnificent specimen of 
 strength and majesty, nothing but bone, 
 muscle, and flesh. He is of a cross-breed, 
 we think, with our Sussex. It is a sight 
 that will amply gratify the visiter. 
 
 ^elu ISoottS. 
 
 The Hand-Book of Paris. — W. Strange. 
 
 A charming, entertaining, and extremely 
 useful work, and just such a one as every 
 person ought to have with them as a com- 
 panion while travelling through France ; for 
 it gives a lively and interesting description 
 of every object worthy of notice on all the 
 roads leading to Paris from the sea coast ; 
 and also accurate topographical elucidatory 
 remarks on the various towns ; with a his- 
 tory of their inhabitants ; their trades, plea- 
 sures, manners and customs ; and also co- 
 pious notices of important historical events. 
 Among the many other useful appendages, 
 is that most essential one, pointing out the 
 best and cheapest mode of travelling, so as 
 to prevent imposition and extortion. It is 
 written by a gentleman who usually resides 
 in Paris, and who is thoroughly acquainted 
 with the route described, by his occasionally 
 sojourning at all the places therein men- 
 tioned : he seems to have taken Truth for 
 his guide, and made Utility his main object 
 in writing this really desirable brochure, 
 which we heartily recommend to the notice 
 of our readers. 
 
 public journals. 
 
 HEADS OF THE PEOPLE. 5 '' 
 
 [The seventh Number of the above deservedly 
 popular work, contains the completion of the 
 Chapter on Tavern Heads, with the Chimney 
 Sweep, and the Undertaker. It has four in- 
 teresting engravings, particularly the one of 
 “ The Last Cfo !” which is a perfect study. 
 From Mr. Jerrold’s paper on the Undertaker, 
 we make the following extracts : — ] 
 
 “ No man (that is, no tradesman) has a 
 more exquisite notion of the outward pro- 
 prieties of life— of all its external decencies, 
 luxuries, and holiday show-making, — than 
 your Undertaker. With him, death is not 
 death, but, on the contrary, a something to 
 be handsomely appointed and provided for ; 
 to be approached with the deference paid by 
 the trader to the buyer, and treated with an 
 attention, a courtesy, commensurate with 
 the probability of profit. To the Undertaker, 
 death is not a ghastly, noisome thing; a 
 hideous object to be thrust into the earth ; 
 the companion of corruption ; the fellow of 
 the worm : not it ! Death comes to the 
 Undertaker, especially if he bury in high life, 
 a melancholy coxcomb, curious in the web 
 of his winding-sheet, in the softness of his 
 last pillow, in the crimson or purple velvet 
 that shall cover his oaken couch, and in 
 more than all, particular in the silver-gilt 
 nails, the plates, and handles, that shall de- 
 corate it. A sense of profit in the Under- 
 taker wholly neutralises the terrible proper- 
 ties of death ; for, to him, what is another 
 corpse but another customer ? 
 
 The Rich Man's Funeral. 
 
 “ Of course, sir, 5 ’ says Mandrake, taking 
 orders for a funeral, — 1 ‘ Of course, sir, you’ll 
 have feathers ?” 
 
 “ Indeed, I — I see no use in feathers,” 
 replies the bereaved party, whose means are 
 scarcely sufficient for the daily necessities of 
 the living ; “ no use at all.” 
 
 “ No feathers, sir !” says Mandrake, with 
 a look of pitying wonder. “ Why, excuse 
 me, sir, but — really— you would bury a ser- 
 vant without feathers.” 
 
 “ Well, if you think them necessary,” 
 
 “ Necessary ! No respectable person can 
 be buried without feathers,” says Mandrake ; 
 and (wise dealer!) he touches the chord of 
 worldly pride, and feathers make part of 
 the solemnity. “ Then, sir, for mutes ; you 
 have mutes, doubtless?” 
 
 “ I never could understand what service 
 they were,” is the answer. 
 
 “ Oh, dear sir !” cries Mandrake ; “ not 
 understand ! Consider the look of the thing ! 
 You would bury a pauper, sir, without 
 mutes.” 
 
 “ I merely want a plain, respectable fu- 
 neral, Mr. Mandrake.” 
 
 • Tyas 
 
300 
 
 TIIK MIRROR. 
 
 “ Very true, sir’; therelore, you must 
 have mutes. What is the expense, sir ? 
 Nothing, in comparison with the look of 
 the thing.” 
 
 “ I always thought it worse than useless 
 to lavish money upon the dead ; so, every- 
 thing very plain, Mr. Mandrake.” 
 
 “ I shall take care, sir ; depend upon me, 
 sir : everything shall be of the most com- 
 fortable kind, sir. And now, sir, for the 
 choice of ground and hereupon, Mr. Man- 
 drake lays upon the table a plan of the 
 churchyard, probably divided into three 
 separate parts for the accommodation of the 
 different ranks of the dead. “ Now, sir, for 
 the ground.” 
 
 “ Is there any choice ?’’ 
 
 “ Decidedly, sir. This is what we call the 
 first ground ; a charming, dry, gravelly soil : 
 you may go any depth in it, sir, — any depth, 
 sir ; dry, sir, dry as your bed. This is the 
 second ground : a little, damper than the first, 
 certainly ; but still, some respectable persons 
 do bury there.” On this, Mr. Mandrake folds 
 up the plan. 
 
 “ Well, but the third ground. That is, I 
 suppose, the cheapest ?’’ 
 
 “ Clay, sir ; clay ! Very damp, indeed ; 
 — you wouldn’t like it ; — in winter extremely 
 wet.” 
 
 “ Still, if the price be much lower than 
 either of the others,” — = — 
 
 “Very true, sir; it is, and properly so! or 
 how would the very poor people be able to 
 bury at all P You may, of course, sir, do as 
 you please ; but nearly all respectable families 
 bury in the first ground. If it were my own 
 case, I should say the first ground — such 
 gravel, sir !” 
 
 “ Well, I suppose it must be so.’’ 
 
 “You wouldn’t like any other; depend 
 upon it, sir, you wouldn’t. The first ground, 
 then, sir ;” and Mr. Mandrake departs, self- 
 satisfied that, for the look of the thing, — for 
 merely the sake of his customer’s respect- 
 ability, — he has induced him to order feathers, 
 mutes, and the first ground. 
 
 And in all this dealing what part of it has 
 Death ? Alack ! the feathers are not borne 
 before his cold, white face ; the mutes march 
 not with solemn step to do him reverence ; the 
 fine, dry, gravelly bed is not for the ease of 
 death’s pithless bones; they woidd rest as 
 well in the third ground as the first. No ; 
 the trappings of the defunct are but the out- 
 ward dressings of the pride of the living: the 
 Undertaker, in all his melancholy pomp, his 
 dingy bravery, waits upon the quick, and not 
 the dead. It is the living who crave for 
 plumes, for nails, double gilt,— for all the 
 outward show of wealth and finery. Pride 
 takes death, and, for its especial purpose, 
 tricks it out in the frippery of life. “ Man,” 
 says Sir Thomas Browne, “ is a noble animal, 
 splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave ; 
 
 solemnising nativities and deaths with equal 
 lustre ; nor omitting ceremonies of bravery in 
 the infamy of his nature.” Hence, the 
 Undertaker. 
 
 But we are speaking of the funerals of the 
 rich, or, at least, of those to whom death is 
 not made more ghastly, more bitter, more 
 agonising, by poverty. 
 
 The Poor Man’s Funeral. 
 
 It is the sabbath in London. Streams of 
 people pour along the streets ; everybody 
 wears a brightened face; the whole metro- 
 polis makes cheerful holiday. All things 
 move, and look, and sound of life, and 
 life’s activities. Carelees talk and youthful 
 laughter are heard as we pass: man seems 
 immortal in his very ease. Creeping 
 through the throng, comes the poor man’s 
 funeral train : look at the Undertaker mar- 
 shalling the way. Is he the same func- 
 tionary who handed cake and wine — who 
 deferentially assisted at the fitting of the 
 mourning gloves — who tied on the cloak ; or, 
 who noiselessly entered the room, and, ere 
 the screws were turned, with a face set for 
 the occasion, and a voice pitched to the sad- 
 ness of his purpose, begged to know if “ it 
 was the wish, — before — before — ” and then 
 shrunk aside, as some one or two rushed in 
 agony of heart to take a farewell look ? Is 
 it the same Undertaker — is it even a bird of 
 the same sable feather ? Scarcely ; for see 
 how he lounges along the path : his head is 
 cast aside, and there is in every feature the 
 spirit of calculation. — What is he thinking of, 
 — the train he leads P — the part he plays in 
 the festival of death ? No : he is thinking 
 of his deals at home— of the three other bury- 
 ings his men are attending for him — of his 
 chances of payment — of the people who have 
 passed their word in security for part of the 
 money for the present funeral— of the lateness 
 ot the hour — of his tea, that will be waiting 
 for him ere the burying be done. How sad, 
 how miserable the train that follows ! The 
 widow and her children : what efforts have 
 been made — what future privations entailed, 
 by the purchase of the mourning that covers 
 them ! Here is death in all his naked horror; 
 with nought to mask his unsightliness — 
 nothing to lessen the blow ; here, indeed, he 
 rends the heart-strings, and there is no medi- 
 cine in fortune, no anodyne to heal the wounds. 
 Follow the mourners from the church-yard 
 home. Home !— A place of desolation ; a 
 cold hearth, and an empty cupboard. It is 
 in the poor man’s house that the dart of 
 death is sharpest — that terror is added to the 
 king of terrors. It is there that he sets up 
 his saddest scutcheon in the haggard looks 
 of the widow — in the pallid faces of the 
 fatherless. 
 
THK MIRROR. 
 
 301 
 
 [Bentley’s Miscellany for this month is, 
 as usual, full of interesting matter. We 
 extract the two following delineations, from 
 Mr. Mackay’s Rambles among the Rivers .-] — - 
 
 Fauxhall in the time of Addison. 
 Famous is Vauxhall in all the country round 
 for snug alcoves, its comic singers, its innu- 
 merable lamps, its big balloons, its midnight 
 fire-works, its thin slices, its dear potations, 
 its greedy waiters, and its ladies fair and kind. 
 In Addison’s time, Spring Gardens, as they 
 were then called, were noted for their night- 
 ingales and their sirens ; and Sir Roger de 
 Coverley is represented as having wished 
 there were more of the former and fewer of 
 the latter, in which case he would have 
 been a better customer. But in our day 
 there are no nightingales, and the sirens 
 have it all to themselves. But let that pass. 
 If the age will not mend its manners, it is no 
 fault of ours ; and we must take Vauxhall, 
 like other things, as we find it. Sterner 
 moralists than we are, or wish to be, have 
 thought it a pleasant place, and the old 
 guide-books invariably designate it “ an 
 earthly paradise.” Addison called it a Ma- 
 hometan paradise, — choosing the epithet, 
 no doubt, from the numerous houris before 
 mentioned, and the admixture of sensual and 
 intellectual enjoyments which it afforded. 
 
 Recollections of Chelsea. 
 
 Chelsea itself abounds in reminiscences, 
 having been the residence of Sir Thomas 
 More, of Holbein, of Pym, of St Evremond, 
 of Walpole, of Sir Hans Sloane, and also of 
 Nell Gwynne, and the Duchess of Mazarin, 
 the mistresses of Charles, with a hundred 
 other personages, celebrated for their virtue, 
 their genius, their patriotism, their benevo- 
 lence, or their beauty. There is an air of 
 antiquity and sobriety about that portion of 
 it which is seen from the river that is highly 
 pleasing. The solemn, unassuming church, 
 the sedate houses, and the venerable trees 
 on Cheyne Walk, throw a charm around it 
 quite delightful to the eye, which has dwelt 
 too long upon the flaunting elegance of 
 modern buildings, and the prim precision of 
 new streets, that never by any chance afford 
 room for a tree to grow upon them, and 
 rarely within sight of them. The visitor’s 
 eye cannot fail to remark about the middle 
 of the walk a tavern, inscribed with large 
 letters along its front, “ Don Saltero’s — 
 1695.” This is the place celebrated in 
 No. 34 of the Tatler, which was opened in 
 the year above mentioned by one Salter, a 
 barber, made a don by the facetious Admiral 
 Munden, who, having cruised for a long 
 period on the coasts of Spain, had contracted 
 a habit of donning all his acquaintance, and 
 putting a final o to their names. This bar- 
 ber had a taste for natural history, and 
 adorned his coffee-room with stuffed birds, 
 reptiles, and dried beetles ; and the singu- 
 
 larity of his taste, for a person in his con- 
 dition of life, drew him many customers. 
 The Tatler describes the room as being 
 covered with “ ten thousand gimcracks on 
 the walls and ceiling,” and Don Saltero him- 
 self as a sage-looking man, of a thin and 
 meagre aspect. Its appearance is some- 
 what di fferent now. The gimcracks, the old 
 curiosities of the don, have dwindled away 
 to two which still ornament the walls, — an 
 old map of London and its environs ; a paint- 
 ing of a ferocious Welshman with a Bardol- 
 phian nose riding on a goat, and armed with 
 a leek and a red-herring, instead of sword 
 and gun ; and a label here and there about 
 ginger-beer and soda-water. Instead of the 
 meagre-looking sage, a bluff waiter enters 
 at your summons, upon whose character you 
 cannot speculate, so dull is he, and so like 
 the thousands you may daily meet. The old 
 host offered, on the contrary, a very fertile 
 subject for the theorist. <• Why,” said the 
 Tatler, “ should a barber, and Don Saltero 
 among the rest, be for ever a politician, a 
 musician, and a physician ?” Ah, why, 
 indeed ? — who can tell ? To this day the 
 barber is still the same. Go into a barber’s 
 anywhere, no matter in what district, and it 
 is ten to one you will hear the sounds either 
 of a fiddle or a guitar, or see the instru- 
 ments hanging up somewhere. You will 
 also find him a politician ; or if not a poli- 
 tician, a great friend and small critic of the 
 drama. Had we space, and it were part of 
 our subject, we could discourse upon this 
 matter lengthily if not learnedly, and also 
 upon another question equally luminous, 
 which has puzzled philosophers for many 
 ages, “ Why do all poor old women wear 
 red cloaks?” But we refrain, and continue 
 our reminiscences of Chelsea. 
 
 In a house fronting the river, resided Sir 
 Thomas More, about the year 15iJ0. Eras- 
 mus, who was his frequent guest, describes 
 it as having been “ neither mean nor subject 
 to envy, yet magnificent enough. There he 
 conversed with his wife, his son, his daughter- 
 in-law, his three daughters and their hus- 
 bands, with eleven grandchildren. There 
 was not any man living,” continues Eras- 
 mus, “ who was so affectionate to his chil- 
 dren as he ; and he loveth his old wife as well 
 as if she were a young maid.” Here Hol- 
 bein shared this great man’s hospitality for 
 three years ; and here also the royal brute 
 his master, when he was in the mood to do 
 him honour, came in regal state, and some- 
 times privately, to dine with him. Here 
 also the noble-minded daughter of the phi- 
 losopher buried the grey head of her unfor- 
 tunate father, after having, at great risk, 
 stolen it from the pike on which it was fixed 
 at London Bridge, by the order of the blood- 
 thirsty Henry VIII. If there are occasions 
 in which the insensible sod can become 
 hallowed and consecrated, an incident like 
 
30-2 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 this ought in all true hearts to render it 
 holy for evermore, — thither should pil- 
 grims resort, and there should monuments 
 be erected. Never did soil receive a more 
 affecting deposit than when the head of that 
 sage and Christian, with its long white 
 beard, was laid by filial hands in the garden 
 at Chelsea.* Pity it is that there is no 
 memorial on the spot to guide the steps 
 of the thousands who would think it a 
 labour of love to visit it. The body was 
 buried at Chelsea, in the south side of the 
 chancel. 
 
 THE WONDERS OF PALMEr’s VILLAGE, 
 WESTMINSTER. 
 
 BY THE IRISH OYSTKR-EATEU+. 
 
 “ Wonderful are the works of nature,” as 
 Mick Montague observed to me, on emerging 
 from the puppet-show. 
 
 So they are, to be sure — and so is the far- 
 famed city of Westminster. 
 
 The far-famed city of Westminster, as 
 every fool knows, has a famous abbey. Now 
 this famous abbey, in days of yore, was a 
 sanctuary for thieves, robbers, murderers, and 
 other pious reprobates, who took to their heels 
 as soon as pursued by the myrmidons of the 
 law ; and, once they laid violent hands upon 
 the hem of some old monk’s garment, or got 
 into the sanctuary, as this sink of perdition 
 was called, they were forthwith as safe as the 
 church, and snapped fingers at the constable 
 — provided always they had money wherewith 
 to fee the monks, in default of which they 
 were incontinently pushed out of the sanc- 
 turay, and delivered over to the officers of 
 justice. This refuge of atrocious criminals 
 tended, no doubt, greatly to the honour and 
 glory of God, and materially enhanced, in those 
 days, the respectability of Westminster. 
 
 There was another class of semi- clerical 
 scamps, who flourished in these days, and in 
 this neighbourhood, called Palmerius, or Pal- 
 mers, most reverend rascals, who, with a 
 scrip on their shoulders, a scallop in their 
 hats, and peas (boiled) in their shoes, went 
 blackguarding round the country, under pre- 
 tence of selling Saracen’s heads, cut off in 
 the Holy Land, and other relics — begging, 
 
 * Margaret Roper did not steal the head of her 
 father. Sir Thomas Moore ; nor dors it rest in Chel- 
 sea Church ; for, in August, 1824, while making 
 some repairs in St. Dnnstan’s Church, Canterbury, 
 4 box was found, containing tire head of that venera- 
 ble and virtuous man; it was much decayed, with 
 the exception of the teeth, and was immediately res- 
 tored to its resting place. His daughter Margaret, 
 wife of John Roper, Esq., of a distinguished family 
 long resident in the parish of St. Dunstan, having 
 privately obtained the head of her beloved parent, 
 carefully preserved it in a box; and wlieu she died, 
 it was placed on her coffin, in the soutli chancel of 
 the church, which is called the Roper chancel. — 
 Ed. M. 
 
 t From an admirable article in the last number of 
 Blackwood's Magazine. 
 
 moreover, what they could beg, borrowing 
 what they could borrow, and stealing what 
 they could steal ; and this they did, as all 
 scamps of their pttrsuasion do, for the love of 
 God. 
 
 The sanctuary has been abolished— the 
 monks have been sent to the tread-mill — the 
 most dreadful punishment that could possi- 
 bly be inflicted upon their reverences — and 
 the palmerins have gone to a tropical climate, 
 which I only indicate as the antipodes of the 
 Holy Land ; nor would any body be a whit 
 the wiser concerning the palmers, or palme- 
 rins, were not the hamlet, or collection of 
 houses appropriated peculiarly to them, called 
 and known as Palmenn’s or Palmer’s Village 
 to this very day. 
 
 Of all the human burrows in and about 
 London, there is not one comparable, in its 
 way, to Palmer’s Village, into which I fol- 
 lowed my fair little guide, under an archway 
 not much more than four feet high, close to 
 the mouth of which stood a steam-engine of 
 peculiar, and to me incomprehensible, con- 
 struction— the engineer uttering at intervals 
 a short and rapid guttural sound, which 1 
 then conceived to be a warning to passengers 
 to avoid the engine, but which move matured 
 experience has informed me is simply an an- 
 nouncement to the nobility, gentry, his friends, 
 and the public, that his steaming apparatus 
 contains “ baked taters, a halfpenny a piece 
 — all hot — all hot !” 
 
 For the information of the curious in such 
 matters, who may be induced by my descrip- 
 tion to essay the wonders of Palmer’s Village, 
 I take the liberty to observe, that, at the 
 further end of the tunnel, or archway, afore- 
 said, is a step, over which new comers are 
 apt to break either their shins or noses, which 
 accident is facetiously called by the villagers 
 paying your footing, When your footing is 
 thus paid, by your footing being lost, you 
 emerge into an alley or avenue, fifteen inches 
 wide, or thereabouts, affording room for one 
 person, and no more, to pass along, and fenced 
 on either side with old barrel staves, broken 
 iron hoops, and rotten paling of every variety 
 of scantling. Within the fence, on either 
 side this path — which, I should have observed, 
 is neither paved, nor flagged, nor bitumi- 
 nized, but simply one aboriginal puddle from 
 end to end — are arranged the gardens of the 
 respective tenements, two or three palings 
 being omitted from the line of palisade for 
 the convenience of pigs and tenantry. No 
 gardens, I am sure, from the hanging gardens 
 ol'Babylon, to those of White Conduit House, 
 can exhibit in the same space (two yards 
 square each) the variety of ingenious devices 
 that ornament the gardens of Palmet’s Vil- 
 lage. A bit of anything green is the only 
 deficiency observable, but this is supplied by 
 a curious artistical arrangement of puddle- 
 holes, dung-heaps, cabbage stalks, brick bats, 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 302 
 
 and broken bottles. The tenements attached 
 are like nothing on the face of this world but 
 themselves — a sort of half-breed between 
 hovel and wigwam, with the least trace of 
 cottage running in the blood. There are two 
 stories, with two windows to each, in the 
 face of these extraordinary village edifices — 
 the window containing, on an average, three 
 old hats, one flannel petticoat, and two 
 patched panes of glass — each ; there was also 
 to each house a doorway, and some had an 
 apology for a door. 
 
 You are not to suppose that there exists 
 only one avenue through Palmer’s Village, 
 or only one straggling street of the tenements 
 above mentioned. There are as many ave- 
 nues, lanes, holes and bores, as there used to 
 be in the catacombs — houses huddled upon 
 houses, without regard to discipline or good 
 order ; in short, were I a magistrate, I should 
 feel inclined to read the riot act, Palmer’s 
 Village being strictly within the spirit and 
 meaning of that enactment — a neighbourhood 
 tumultously assembled ! 
 
 The houses, individually, look as if they 
 deserved to be fined five shillings every man 
 jack of them, for being drunk. They had 
 evidently been up all night, and wore an 
 intoxicated and disorderly look, which no well- 
 regulated and respectable tenement would 
 disgrace himself by being seen in. Stooping 
 under the rotten paling, I was at length re- 
 ceived into one of the most taterdema) ionized 
 mansions, and, having picked my way up a 
 worn-out stair to the two-pair 'back — a mise- 
 rable place, wherein a counterpane of patch- 
 work, spread over a little straw upon the 
 ground, a broken chair, a stool, three bars of 
 nail rod stuck in the chimney by way of 
 grate, with a bit of the same material to serve 
 for poker, a frying-pan, a salt herring and a 
 half, perforated through the optics, upon a 
 nail, a tea-kettle, and a smoothing-iron, made 
 up the ostensible furniture of the apart- 
 ment. 
 
 MODES OF EMPLOYING SERVANTS 
 THROUGHOUT THE WORLD. 
 
 (for the Mirror ■) 
 
 The Ichogluns, in Turkey. 
 
 The Ichoglans are youths designed for the 
 great offices of the Turkish empire. They 
 must be of Christian parents ; either taken in 
 war, or presented from remote parts by Bassas. 
 The Sultan, to make his subjects wholly de- 
 voted to him, established the Ichoglans, who 
 are raised to the great places of the empire, 
 as he finds them deserving. The best shaped, 
 and handsomest, or those who evince any 
 degree of talent, are instructed in all sorts of 
 exercises and learning in the schools of Peru, 
 Adrianople and Constantinople. They are 
 brought up in the Mahometan faith, and 
 
 educated with great care under the severest 
 discipline. White eunuchs being their 
 Censores Morum, who treat them with ex- 
 treme rigour, severely punishing them for the 
 smallest faults, sometimes with a Falaka (a 
 sort of cudgel) upon the soles of their feet, or 
 else they have the hardest tasks to perform. 
 They pass through four several chambers, 
 called Oda , in which are 600 Ichoglans, 
 where they are taught the demeanor suitable 
 to be observed in the presence of a prince 
 (or Auglice manners). Their names, age. 
 and parents, are registered in a book, with 
 their allowance, generally four aspers a day. 
 Their chief food is rice ; their beds are ranged 
 in long rooms, where lamps are kept burning 
 every night. When the Capiaga makes his 
 general visitation, he turns out of the Seraglio 
 all those he thinks incapable of doing their 
 prince good service, and such as betray dis- 
 gust at so austere a life ; and then they lose 
 all hope of ever entering the Seraglio again, 
 and can pretend to no other office than that 
 of Spahi, with but a very poor rate of pay : 
 however, the advantages of capacitating 
 themselves for the most eminent charges of 
 the court and of the empire, make those who 
 remain take courage and suffer patiently for 
 some years, the harsh and unmerciful treat- 
 ment of the eunuchs. The Oda is divided 
 into four chambers : — in the first they are 
 taught to read and write, and are initiated in 
 the grounds of the Mahometan law ; in the 
 second, they are instructed (being now more 
 robust) in manly exercises, throwing the 
 lance, &c ; in the third, they begin to be 
 employed in the Grand Signior’s, either the 
 wardrobe or baths, &c., and are perfected in 
 their riding and exercises ; in the fourth, 
 is the highest class of Ichoglans, which is 
 limited to forty ; these always attend near 
 the Grand Signior’s person. None, however, 
 unless by special favour, are advanced from 
 the Seraglio till they have attained the age 
 of forty years, when they are considered ma- 
 ture for government offices. The latter class 
 are generally clothed in gold and silver cloth, 
 the others in meaner attire. C. P. S. 
 
 NEW CLASS OF THUGS. 
 
 The depositions made in certain recent cases 
 of Thuggee, taken by Capt. Graham, disclose 
 the existence of a hitherto distinct class of 
 these atrocious criminals. The Thugs, to 
 whom these depositions relate, differ both in 
 their habits and the technical terms they use 
 from the ordinary Thug, in whose community 
 they may be held to occupy the position the 
 Pariahs do among the people at large. They 
 are known by the term Megpunnah, and 
 prowl in small gangs over the country, mur- 
 dering the poorest travellers for their children, 
 whom they sell to courtezans, procuresses, 
 and such persons, as well as dispose of in the 
 larger cities, where slavery either exists, as in 
 
THE MIRROK. 
 
 :;<J4 
 
 those under native governments, or where it 
 is difficult to suppress the practice, as in ours. 
 While they are thus as murderous and crimi- 
 nal as the common Thug, they are more 
 successful in eluding the law, from their 
 habit of throwing the bodies of their victims 
 into rivers, which renders it a work of the 
 greatest difficulty and nicety to procure evi- 
 dence upon which to convict them The 
 strong corroboration afforded of the evidence 
 of the ordinary Thug approver, by the actual 
 bodies of the parties murdered, is entirely 
 wanting in all cases of the Megpunnah Thug ; 
 and this serious want is not made up by any 
 testimony the children obtained by these peo- 
 ple can supply, they being too young to be 
 received as evidence, even though capable of 
 narrating every circumstance of their own 
 cases. By, however, diligently comparing 
 and sifting evidence, the officers of the 
 Thuggee department have been enabled to 
 carry conviction home to many of these un- 
 natural criminals. Lieut. Mills, to whom, 
 we believe, is entirely due the high credit of 
 having discovered this very dangerous subdi- 
 vision, or rather form, of Thuggee, has al- 
 ready procured the conviction of forty before 
 the sessions judge of Meerut, and is about to 
 bring one hundred more to trial . — Agra 
 Ukhbar, Dec. 13, 1838. 
 
 €f)e <&atl)mr. 
 
 There are few anecdotes told in favour of 
 Foote’s magnanimity ; yet one deserves to 
 be told. The epilogue to his farce of The 
 Minor , contained a burlesque of the style 
 and the manner of the well-known White- 
 field, under the title of Dr. Squintem. 
 During the run of the farce, it happened 
 that Whitefield died. The epilogue was 
 withdrawn. On its being loudly called for 
 by the audience, Foote came forward, and 
 said, that he was incapable of holding up the 
 dead to ridicule. — Blackwood. 
 
 Cranmer's Bible . — A copy of Cranmer’s 
 Bible, edition 1539, in folio, wanting the title 
 page and two other leaves, was sold on Friday 
 the 3rd inst., at Mr. L. Sotheby’s rooms, for 
 j£50. The volume concludes with the fol- 
 lowing colophon : — “ The ende of the New 
 Testament, and of the whole Byble, ffynished 
 in Apryll, Anno mcccccxxxix. 
 
 When I see leaves drop from the trees in 
 the beginning of autumn, says Warwick, 
 just such, think I, is the. friendship of the 
 world. While the sap of maintenance lasts, 
 my friends swarm in abundance ; but in the 
 winter of my need they leave me naked. 
 He is a happy man who hath a true friend 
 at his need ; but he is more truly happy that 
 hath no need of his friend. 
 
 Garrick’s baptism is thus recorded in the 
 parochial Register of All Saints’ Church, 
 
 Gloucester — “Chris: David, Son of Mr. 
 Peter and Arabella Garrick — baptized ffe- 
 bruare the 28, 17 16. 
 
 The celebrated Nancy Dawson, the soul 
 and delight of the audience when she per- 
 formed, died at Haverstock Hill, near Hamp- 
 stead, on Monday, June 8, 1767. 
 
 Pleasure is a rose, near which there ever 
 grows the thorn of evil. It is wisdom’s 
 work so carefully to cull the rose as to avoid 
 the thorn, and let its rich perfume exhale to 
 heaven, in grateful adoration of Him who 
 gave the rose to blow. 
 
 The veritable physician, Francis Moore, 
 says, in his almanack for this year, in the 
 month of May, p. 11, — “ I am sorry to find 
 that, there are likely to be broils and dissen- 
 sions at home. The times are not likely, I 
 fear, to be so tranquil as might be wished.” 
 
 Benevolence . — There cannot be a more 
 glorious ohject in creation, than a human 
 being, replete with benevolence, meditating 
 in what manner he; might render himself 
 most acceptable to his Creator, by doing 
 most good to his creatures. — Fielding. 
 
 . The first person who brought the making 
 of porter to perfection, was Mr. James Har- 
 wood, an eminent brewer in Shoreditch; he 
 died in October, 1762. 
 
 The workmen are r.ow erecting a wall to 
 enclose an additional portion of ground so as 
 to enlarge the gardens of Northumberland 
 House ;* this gieat improvement has been 
 accomplished by removing a row of low old 
 houses on a line from Northumberland-street 
 to Scotland-yard ; by which means the gar- 
 den front of this noble mansion will be 
 thrown open to public view. It was near 
 this spot that the body of Sellis was 
 thrown into a hole, dug for the purpose, 
 March, 1813. 
 
 On yesterday week, the theatre of Chel- 
 tenham was totally destroyed by fire. It was 
 built in 1805, by Mr. J. Watson, a coadjutor 
 of the John Kemble and Mrs. Siddons, both 
 of whom, in the early part of their career, 
 had appeared at Cheltenham : it was while 
 acting here that the transcendent talents of 
 Mrs. Siddons was duly appreciated by a gen- 
 tleman who hastened to London, and induced 
 Garrick to engage her. 
 
 • This edifice originally formed three sides of a 
 spacious quadrangle, the fourth side remaining open 
 to the gardens and river Thames ; but alter the estate 
 became the property of Earl Algernon, who disliked 
 the noise of so public a thoroughfare, the quadrangle 
 was completed by a fourth side, towards the river, 
 under the direction of Inigo Jones. 
 
 LONDON: Printed and published by J. LIMBIRD, 
 143, Strand, (near Somerset House j ; and sold by 
 all Booksellers and Newsmen. — Agent in PARIS, 
 O. IP. M. REYNOLDS, French, English, and Ame- 
 rican Library, bo. Rue Neuve St. Augustin. — In 
 FRANCFORT, CHARLES JUGEL. 
 
Cttp iftitpro foments 
 
 Zi)C iWtn’or 
 
 OF 
 
 literature, amusement, and instruction. 
 
 SATURDAY, MAY 18, 1839. 
 
 [Price 2d. 
 
 VOL XXXI11. 
 
 OF THE CITY OF LONDON. 
 
306 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 THE NEWLY-ERECTED 
 
 EAST END OF THE GUILDHALL 
 
 OF THE CITY OF LONDON. 
 
 On the 14th of December, 1837, the Com- 
 mittee of City Lauils, in a report, recom- 
 mended that the east end of the Guildhall* 
 should be made to correspond with the west 
 end, as regards the architecture thereof, by 
 forming Gothic panelling, at an expense of 
 2301. ; and in a second report, 15th of March, 
 1838, the said committee add, “ The clerk of 
 the City Works haviug since reported that 
 the three statues, formerly in front of the 
 chapel in Guildhall-yard, were in possession 
 of the Corporation; and might, in his opi- 
 nion, be put into a state of repair at an ex- 
 pense of 60/, and he introduced at the east 
 end of the Hall, in niches and then the 
 report goes on to say, that a proposal having 
 been made “ by Messrs. Robson and Estall 
 for the execution of the said works, amounting 
 to 452/. 6s. exclusive of the expense of the 
 restoration of the said figures, the committee 
 was of opinion that the introduction of the 
 said statues would add much to the effect 
 and general character of the building; and 
 recommended therefore that they should be 
 authorized to execute the said works, and 
 to draw on the chamber for payment of the 
 expense thereof.” This last recommendation 
 was confirmed 30th of March following ; 
 when the works proceeded ; and they were 
 finished by the end of the following month 
 of October, from the drawings, and under the 
 direction of Mr. Montague,! the City arch- 
 itect, and of his highly-talented son. They 
 are erected on the hustings J at the east end of 
 the Guildhall, consisting of four arched com- 
 partments of graceful proportions, with project- 
 ing rich-pointed cornice. The splendid statue 
 of Queen Elizabeth is placed in the centre 
 niche, with Charles I. on the south side, 
 and Edward VI. on the north : the whole 
 forming a very appropriate and imposing ter- 
 mination to that end of the Hall ; reflecting 
 the highest credit on the talents of the artists, 
 and also on the improving taste of the citizens 
 of London. 
 
 • The Memoires d'Angleterre, 1693, iu speaking 
 of the Guildhall, makes the following curious remark; 
 — “ II est a croive que la grand sale etoii autrefois 
 doiee. puisque le mot de Guild, ou Gild Hall, signifie 
 sale doiee.” 
 
 f It is to the urbanity and kindness of this gen- 
 tlemau, by the liberal use of his drawings, and 
 rendeiing every facility to our artist, that we have 
 been enabled to present our readers with the accom- 
 
 pauving engraving. 
 
 J Derived from hus (a house,} and thing (causa,) 
 i . e. a house where causes are tried : it is a platform 
 of timber raised on the floor of the hall ; and was 
 formerly the supreme court of judicature within the 
 city of London — a very ancient court of record.(o) It 
 was separated from the interior by a screen with an 
 arch in the centre ; which screen was removed about 
 the time of George I. There is an engraving of it 
 extant. 
 
 (a) Privilegia Londini ; 3rd edit., p. 35. 
 
 In the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. ix. 
 n. s. p. 652, it says “ These statues, which 
 are made to travel from the Exchange to 
 the Guildhall Chapel, were Edward VI. 
 Charles I.§ and the Queen of the latter ; al- 
 though it was generally styled Queen Eliza- 
 beth, to whose portrait it bore not the least 
 resemblance &c. 
 
 We cannot surmise what grounds the wri- 
 ter had for making such assertions. The 
 statue is not that of the Queen of Charles I. ; 
 it having the crown on the head, the globe 
 in the left hand, and evidently has had the 
 sceptre in the right, could not have been 
 for any other than a crowned head ; and it 
 is well known, that Henrietta Maria teas 
 never crowned, on account of her religion. 
 
 It would be a waste of time to dilate on this 
 point ; but nevertheless it may be as well to 
 give the two following authorities in corro- j 
 boration of the fact. 
 
 In a letter from Mr. Mead to Sir Martin 
 Stuteville, announcing the king’s coronation, 
 (MS. Harl. 389,) it says : — 
 
 “ The coronation of the King was on Thursday (as 
 passengers from Londou tell us,) but private. The 
 king went to Westminster church by water. The 
 Queen was not crowned, but stood at a w indow in 
 the meantime, looking on ; and her ladies frisking 
 and dancing iu the room. God grant his Majestie a 
 happy reign. 
 
 “ Christ Col. 
 
 “ Feb. 4th, 1626." ,) 3 
 
 And in another letter from Mr. S. D’Ewes 
 to Sir Martin Stuteville, (MS. Hail. 383,) it 
 says : — 
 
 “ The Queen was neither crowned, nor at the 
 church, yet saw tiler going. 
 
 “ Middle Temple, 
 
 '* Feb. 4, 1625-6.” 
 
 And again : — we know of no statue of a 
 Queen Consort of England : they are not 
 entitled to it Henrietta Maria was never 
 Qneen of England, she was merely the 
 Queen of Charles King of England. Queen , 
 signifies a wife ; but by way of excellence, 
 the wife of the King; and in the laws of 
 England is, either she who holds the crown 
 of this realm by right of blood, or who is 1 
 married to the King: the first of which is 
 called Queen Regnant, and the last Queen 
 Consort. She who holdeth by blood is, in 
 construction of law, the same with the King, 
 and hath the like legal power in all respects ; ] 
 but a Queen Consort is inferior to the King, : 
 and his subject. Staund Praerog. J 0. 3 Inst, j 
 7. 1 Mar. Pari. 2. chap. 1. 
 
 Speaking of the inferiority of a Queen 
 Consort, William, of Malmesbury, says : — ; 
 “ Non enim JVest Saxones reginam, vel 1 
 juxta regem sedere, vel Reginae appellatione ] 
 insigniri putiuntur, (for the West Saxons do i 
 not permit the Queen to sit near the King, j 
 
 § The statue of Charles I., having his foot symbo- 
 licall yon a scorpion ; we may conclude it was not 
 erected until after the restoration of his son, the 
 second Charles. It was sculptured by W. Stone. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 30 ? 
 
 or 'be honoured with the appellation of 
 Queen). Asserius Menevensis, who lived 
 and was familiar with King Alured, from 
 whom he had this relation : “ Gens occi- 
 
 dentalium Saxonum (saith he) Reginam 
 justa regem sedere non patitur ; nee etiam 
 reginam appellari, sed regis conjugem per- 
 mitti. (The West Saxons, says he, do not 
 suffer the Queen to sit near the King ; nor 
 even to be called Queen ; but allow her the 
 name of the King’s wife.) — Hence, the rea- 
 sons why a Queen Consort is not entitled to 
 a public national statue, she not being a sove- 
 reign. 
 
 And again : Is it probable, that the Citi- 
 
 zens of London would place a statue of 
 a bigoted mischievous Roman Catholic, like 
 Henrietta Maria, in front of a Protestant 
 place of worship P The idea is preposter- 
 ous. Besides, in an account of Guildhall 
 Chapel, published by Nichols and Son, in 
 speaking of the statues, it says, “ Queen 
 Elizabeth, with a phoenix under her;’ , 
 which evidently alludes to the resuscitation, 
 in her person, of the Protestant religion. 
 With all these facts before us, together with 
 the striking resemblance which the statue of 
 Elizabeth bears to all the accredited por- 
 traits of that sovereign, by Nicholas Hilliard, 
 Oliver, and other authorised* painters, it 
 places the statue beyond the shadow of a 
 doubt to be that of Queen Elizabeth — and of 
 no other person ; and a splendid piece of 
 sculpture it is. 2 
 
 SONG. 
 
 BRING ME A BOUQUET OF ROSES! 
 
 BY ANDREW PARK, 
 
 Author of" The Superstitions of Scotland ,'' — “ What 
 is Woman t" tjc. fyc. 
 
 Bring me a bouquet of roses ! — 
 
 Let them be both fresh and gay : — 
 
 Flowers which breathing love discloses 
 To my dear one far away ! 
 
 Let them be the Sharon's) blossom, — 
 
 Fragrant as at dewy morn ; 
 
 For the one who owns this bosom. 
 
 Must have those which bear no thorn ! 
 
 He was kind when he was near me. 
 
 Even in absense still the same ; 
 
 Plant a tendril — let it rear me 
 Buds as cherished as Iris name ! 
 
 That when these sweet flowers are spreading. 
 
 In their blossoms I may kuow 
 
 Each new thought his heart o’erladiug, 
 
 Whether it be joy or woe ! 
 
 Gentle flowers ! ye charm, ye please me ! 
 
 Why were such fond love-tints given ? 
 
 Surely ye were born to ease me. 
 
 Cherished as I am, by heaven ! 
 
 This bouquet shall charm my dear one ; 
 
 'Tis as sweet as love can be 1 — 
 
 He who breathes a kind sincere one. 
 
 As the fragrant soul in thee ! 
 
 • It is well knowu Elizabeth was very vain of her 
 personal beauty and accomplishments ; and feeling 
 insulted at the incorrectness of the portraitures of 
 her, that were daily being published, a law was passed 
 prohibiting the sale of any portraits of the Queen but 
 what were duly authenticated, or licensed. 
 
 t The rose of Sharon has not a single thorn. 
 
 X 2 
 
 (For the Mirror.') 
 
 Oh Death ! how oft thy cruel shaft doth rend, 
 
 And part asunder many a loving friend ! 
 
 But none on whom thy hand has fall’u before 
 Was half so dear to me, so rich a store 
 As this sweet child, who in the bloom of youth 
 And health, has perished ! Now like sad Ruth, 
 Nought can me comfort, nought can soothe or cheer. 
 In vain I would repel the risiug tear. 
 
 In vain I check the sigh, and strive to smile, — 
 
 ’Tis but a mockery, a treach’rous wile ; 
 
 For how can I forget ? did I not to him bear 
 More than a sister’s love ? it was so dear, 
 
 So ardent an affection; for I look'd on him 
 As some fund mother on her child. ’Twas sin 
 To idolize him thus, to plan long years 
 And schemes of happiness ; having no fears 
 That death might intervene. Alas ! I woke 
 From that brief dream, to feel more keen the stroke. 
 Where are those spirits flown — so buoyant, light. 
 Which once were mine, shedding around delight ? 
 Where is the meriy laugh, the sprightly song ? 
 
 Tlie sound of music's strings are silent long ; 
 
 The world that erst seem’d like a fairy laud. 
 
 Bright with imaginary dreams, and hand in hand. 
 With flow’ry pleasures, now appears to me 
 A region dark with woe, and sad reality. 
 
 I dreamt not once of care, now o’er this breast 
 The waves of trouble roll : sorrow’s my guest ; 
 
 All things that formeily look’d bright and fair 
 Seem tinted with the nightshade of despair. 
 
 Oft I think on that gentle boy, and weep, 
 
 To know no earthly power can wake from sleep, 
 
 •So solemn and profound ; while round me spread 
 I hear low whispers, voices of the dead ! — 
 
 But this is sinful — there is One can calm. 
 
 Can heal the broken spirit, give a balm : 
 
 Methinks I hear a voice say Peace — be still 1 
 Thou murmur’r ! bow thyself unto his will. 
 
 For God in wisdom now hath taken away, 
 
 But will unite thee at a future day; 
 
 A few short years and thou shalt pierce the gloom, 
 And meet in brighter worlds beyond the tomb. 
 Westminster. M. S. 
 
 TO LOUISA. 
 
 (For the Mirror.) 
 
 Oh ! think not Love was born, sweet maid, 
 Without his eyes, as Poets say — 
 
 Altho’ he sometimes weais a shade 
 To guard them from the blaze of day. 
 
 But when the sun withdraws his beams, 
 
 That shade the little urchin raises. 
 
 And hovering o’er her, in her dreams 
 On beauty he enamoured gazes. 
 
 To J — in solitude and night. 
 
 When stars shine out and thought is free, 
 Seize fancy’s wings and take my flight 
 To dwell with happiness and thee ! 
 
 Then tho’ I seem to pass unmoved, 
 
 Thy charms, when others own their spell. 
 How dearly thou art prized and loved. 
 
 This throbbing heart alone can tell. 
 
 But not ’midst heartless crowds shalt thou. 
 Where hundreds bend, thy slaves before thee, 
 Hear me record my ardent vow. 
 
 To prove how truly 1 adore thee.' 
 
 No — but the moon — thy counterpart, 
 
 As pure, as peerless, and as lonely. 
 
 Can witness for my constant heart. 
 
 It beats for Thee and for thee only. P. 
 
 THE VIPER AND THE LEACH- 
 The viper to the leech observed one day, 
 
 “ Both of us sting — and yet, I know not why. 
 You are a favourite and a friend, they say, 
 While me they strive to kill, or from me fly.” 
 
 ” True, we both sting,” the little leach replies : 
 " But mine gives life unto the sick; and yours 
 Deatii, even to the healthiest man ensures,” 
 
THK MIRROR. 
 
 :io8 
 
 jftannntf anti Customs. 
 
 SKETCHES OF PARIS. 
 
 Musard's. 
 
 There exists in Paris a class of men that 
 their compatriots have denominated “ fla- 
 neurs.” They are persons possessing a cer- 
 tain fixed income, which is of that unfortu- 
 nate medium, that whilst it just enables them 
 to subsist without working in any way for 
 their livelihood, it gives them ideas above 
 trade, and those engaged in it. In fine wea- 
 ther, they turn out for the day, from their 
 lodgings on the sixieme, in some street that 
 nobody ever heard the name of, except the 
 man who engraved the map of Paris, and 
 walk about on the boulvards, to look at the 
 shops and the passengers ; on wet days, they 
 loiter up and down the covered Galerie 
 d’Orleans in the Palais Royal, (which aforesaid 
 gallery is a species of cross-breed between an 
 inflated Burlington Arcade and the glass 
 lion-house at the Surrey Zoological Gardens) ; 
 and in the evening they go to Musard’s, 
 having dined in the Rue de l’Arbre for 
 sixteen sous, in order to save enough to pay 
 for the billet d’ entree. They prefer Musard’s, 
 because they can cut a greater figure there for 
 their frank than at any of the theatres, where 
 the same price would oblige them to associ- 
 ate with the canaille ; for your flaneurs are 
 men of high bearing, and delight in long 
 stocks, and dark-coloured gloves. 
 
 When we first heard that concerts d la 
 Musard were about to be started in London, 
 we confess we felt a little curiosity to see 
 how they would succeed. We knew the dif- 
 ficulty in England of keeping any place 
 
 damask curtains, and the divisions in it filled 
 up with spirited characteristic paintings of 
 the different styles of music and dancing in 
 various countries. The old French brans le and 
 the whirling navarroise of the middle ages ; 
 the Spanish Cachucha, the Russian Kra- 
 koviak, the Neapolitan Tarantella, all are 
 depicted ; and the ceiling is elaborately 
 adorned with emblematical devices, from 
 the pencils of the first artists in Paris. 
 A covered rotunda projects into the garden 
 from the great room ; but the garden itself 
 we think the most beautiful part of the 
 whole affair — it is a realization of Eastern 
 splendour and Fairy-land combined ; and 
 reminds us much of the garden-scene in 
 Blue Beard, where the festival takes place, 
 as we recollect seeing it some years back. 
 Large orange-trees ranged along the smoothly- 
 gravelled walks, cast a subdued and delicious 
 perfume around them ; and the multitude 
 of lamps, with their ground-glass shades, have 
 a pleasing and softened effect. At the extre- 
 mity of the garden is a raised terrace, to 
 which you ascend by three or four steps, 
 backed by a wall of looking - glass, and 
 covered with the choicest plants, while a 
 row of elegant fountains, playing amongst 
 glittering festoons of gas, is reflected in a 
 thousand different directions over the enclo- 
 sure; and nothing can be more delightful 
 than the drip of the fountain mingling its 
 sound with the orchestra. The salle is 
 generally too crowded ; but in the garden yon 
 may walk about the whole time, or arrange 
 your own party together where you like, as 
 all the seats are chairs. It is a famous 
 rendezvous for the Parisians, and for the 
 English too, as far as that goes, for you may 
 
 thoroughly respectable, where the price of talk away, half concealed by an orange-tree, 
 
 admission was low enough to meet the pock- 
 ets of all classes; but we were happy in being 
 agreeably disappointed. To be sure there 
 were a few ready-made pilot coats and gossa- 
 mer hats, flitting amongst the crowd ; but 
 their owners conducted themselves well and 
 quietly, and what more could we desire. 
 
 Musard’s is the head concert-room in Paris — 
 the Jardin Turc ranks nearly as high, but it is 
 in a locality rather out of favour with the Pari- 
 sian exquisites, viz. the Boulvartdti Temple; 
 and it is likewise exactly opposite the little 
 house of the Marchand de Fin, from whose 
 top window Fieschi fired his twenty-barrel 
 gun. But Musard’s boasts a happier situ- 
 ation — it is at the best end of the favoured 
 Rue Vivienne, close to the Passage des Pa- 
 noramas, and is equally convenient for the 
 frequenters of the Palais Royal, and the 
 Boulvart des Italiens, and especially adapted 
 for the idlers who have read all day on the 
 old sofa that stands on the right of the time- 
 piece in Galignani’s reading-room. The salle 
 consists of a noble room, magnificently 
 adorned with pier-glasses, shaded by heavy 
 
 as long as you like. Take our word that the 
 overtures are not the only concerted arrange- 
 ments going on at Musard’s. Nearly all are 
 engaged, musically or otherwise ; and the 
 same unequalled privacy, which a crowded 
 evening party so paradoxically affords, may 
 be obtained here. 
 
 One of the most brilliant cafes in Paris 
 is attached to the concert-room, and we think 
 as much worth seeing, as far as elegance and 
 splendour are concerned. It was the leading 
 one in point of costly decoration until the 
 Cafe de Genlis opened on the boulvards last 
 autumn, and then the ever-varying French 
 all chose to drink their demi-tasse there. 
 Nevertheless, the Cafe Musard is most beau- 
 tiful, and its fretted ceiling, its stained win- 
 dows, its elegant company, and the distant 
 sound of the orchestra, form a tout ensemble , 
 which in the way of refined and cheap plea- 
 sure Paris alone can offer. 
 
 Kind and gentle reader; — the twelfth and 
 last of our Sketches is now before you, but 
 we would not finish them without giving 
 you an English good-bye. As the unknown 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 309 
 
 contributor to a London periodical, we 
 thank you for your attention during the 
 progress of our attempts to amuse you, through 
 the medium of the pages of the Mirror 
 — as the student of the Quartier Latin, we 
 offer you our hand in plain and hearty friend- 
 ship, coupled with a warm recommendation 
 to visit those scenes we have endeavoured to 
 describe. We began to write our sketches in 
 the heart of Paris — we finish them in “ Mer- 
 rie England.” Since we were last in our own 
 country, we have wandered far, and witnessed 
 many and strange scenes : new impressions 
 and sentiments have arisen in our mind ; but 
 we trust we have returned with an English 
 heart and English feelings, unbiassed by 
 prejudice or comparisons, to appreciate the 
 unequalled liberality, comfort, and civilization, 
 of our own fair land. 
 
 Albert Smith. 
 
 SICILIAN 8UPERSTITION AGAINST MAY 
 MARRIAGES. 
 
 A pleasanter or more extraordinary conceit, 
 bearing upon the merry month of May, is to 
 be found in no quaint Elizabethan writer, be 
 he Sidney, Marlowe, or Carewe, than that 
 which the vivacious wit of Leigh Hunt has 
 put forth on this occasion. In his usual 
 delightful and merry-humoured way, he spe- 
 culates for a moment on the supposed appear- 
 ance and sentiments of the human genus, 
 were it endowed with the same renascent and 
 revivificatory principle which belongs to the 
 vegetable world ; that so every human feature 
 might have the faculty of springing out afresh 
 and blossoming anew every succeeding spring, 
 making Hebes and Ganymedes to abound in 
 the land; but let the arch-poet speak for 
 himself, — 
 
 All ! friends, methinks it were a pleasant sphere 
 11 like the trees we blossomed every year : 
 
 If locks grew thick again, and rosy dyes 
 Returned in cheeks, and raciness in eyes, 
 
 And all around us, vital to the tips 
 
 The human orchard laughed with cherry lips ! 
 
 * * * # • 
 
 Lord ! what a burst of merriment and play. 
 
 Fair dames were there, and what a first of May. 
 But there is at least one merry May-time for 
 the softer sex, the gentle ladies, in that period 
 of their youthful lives, when their charms, in 
 the eyes of their enamoured lover, appear to 
 have gained new accessions of lustre and 
 brilliancy ; and this is in that happy time 
 when the spirit of love reigns over them. 
 
 Surprising, however, is it, that though at 
 this ecstatical season of the year, when nature 
 puts forth all her charms, when they are 
 burning to be one, that in Sicily, the fair 
 maidens would not in the month of May 
 enter into the bonds of wedlock, though the 
 refusal might lose Ihem a proffered dukedom: 
 nothing can overcome their firm-fixed idea, 
 that a marriage solemnized in May, would 
 ever after prove inauspicious in the extreme. 
 
 There is no accounting for so ridiculous a 
 custom, which has certainly no foundation in 
 nature, and the wonder is, therefore, that 
 this piece of superstition, which is as old, 
 perhaps older, than the time of the Romans, 
 and by whom it appears to have been trans- 
 mitted to Europe, should have stood its 
 ground so long. But so firm-grafted a piece 
 of their faith is it, that to hear a merry mar- 
 riage-peal in Sicily during the month of 
 May, would create as much astonishment, and 
 much the same feeling of expected misery, 
 as the terrible alarum of the tocsin. 
 
 We had no idea that this superstitious 
 custom was prevalent in any other country, 
 till a gentleman of our acquaintance informed 
 us that this identical superstition existed in 
 most parts of England, though at a different 
 period of the year. With us it is during 
 Lent ; a time at which the judges of the 
 land sit in black at Westminster, and every 
 pulpit and altar-piece is covered with sable 
 drapery. The appearance of the church at 
 such a minute would decidedly be excitative 
 of rather dismal feelings, and damp the glad- 
 ness of the marriage ceremony, and strangely 
 indeed would the dark drapery contrast with 
 glistening favours or snow-white bridal habi- 
 liments. Indeed, so strongly is this super- 
 stition impressed on some minds, that the 
 same gentleman knew but recently of a 
 youthful bride who resolutely refused to 
 marry during the Lent season ; in vain her 
 friends expostulated against it as a foolish 
 and groundless superstition; but in spite of 
 all it is certain that “ the bridegroom kept 
 dangling his bonnet and plume ” until that 
 period (in his opinion fully “ accursed in the 
 calendar,”) was past and gone by. 
 
 Soon, however, as May is over in Sicily, 
 and Lent-time in England, their departure is 
 the signal for the full chiming of the musical 
 marriage- bells : the plump red cushion again 
 sits cheerfully on the clerical desk : the bulky 
 form of the glorious old pulpit, looks again 
 gay and joyful in its crimson array; and 
 many a beautiful creature, relieved from tedi- 
 ous suspense and anxiety, with happiness 
 abundant at heart, glides down the sacred 
 aisles towards the holy altars. 
 
 W. Archer. 
 
 SINGULAR ANTIPATHIES. 
 
 The extraordinary antipathies some persons 
 manifest towards inanimate objects, or to 
 circumstances deemed so trivial, as to pass 
 unnoticed by others, are among the pheno- 
 mena of nature which have never been satis- 
 factorily accounted for. The following nar- 
 ratives are recorded in the acts of the Liepzic 
 Academy. — The celebrated Robert Boyle, 
 related to Dr. Borrichius, then in England, 
 that the harsh and disagreeable sound of whet- 
 ting a knife on a grind-stone, never failed 
 
310 
 
 THK MIRROR. 
 
 to cause his servant’s gums bleed. Manna- 
 getta, who had been physician to three 
 emperors, and with whom Dr. Tunguis had 
 lived some years, often spoke to him of a sin- 
 gular antipathy to music, by a man ol consi- 
 deration, who, whenever he heard the sound 
 of a lyre, had an involuntary flow of urine, 
 and could not restrain it. Scaliger also 
 relates a similar example in the person ol a 
 Gascon gentleman, the moment he heard the 
 sound of a lute. Henry of Heer, speaks of 
 a young woman of Namur, who always ap- 
 peared uneasy, and as if about to taint, eveiy 
 time she heard the sound of a bell. 
 
 John Keller, rector of Wielk, a small vil- 
 lage of Silesia, had a still more singular fancy, 
 as every time he saw served up at table, a 
 sort of pasty made of the flesh of a smoked 
 hog, a prevalent dish of meat in that coun- 
 try, and very agreeable to the taste of the 
 inhabitants, he was wont to burst out into 
 immoderate fits of laughter, and would have 
 died laughing, if the pasty was not imme- 
 diately moved from the table, or out of his 
 
 sight. „ 
 
 M. Fehr relates the case of a young woman 
 at Schelestat, in Germany, who, after being 
 accustomed to drink wine, conceived, for six- 
 teen years, such an aversion to that liquor, 
 and everything relating to it, that she could 
 take no remedies, in which were either the 
 salt or cream of tartar, spirits of wine, &c. ; 
 and if it happened without knowing of it, 
 that she had* taken anything of the like kind, 
 a sweat immediately overspread her body, 
 with anxieties, oppressions, and weakness. 
 
 A woman of Bavaria could never handle, 
 or keep in her hands, any article or utensil 
 made of iron, as nails, or needles, or any 
 thing in most general use, without being 
 bathed in sweat— otherwise, in whatsoever 
 exercise she might be employed, not the least 
 moisture appeared on her body, and was even 
 all the time cold as usual with women of her 
 country, her grandmother having been a 
 Japanese. 
 
 John Pechmann, a learned divine, could not 
 from his infancy hear the sweeping of a floor 
 without becoming immediately uneasy, fol- 
 lowed by a difficulty of breathing, continual 
 sighs, and an almost insupportable fear of 
 being suffocated. Once, deeply engaged in 
 prayers, surprised by the servant sweeping of 
 an adjoining room, he grew pale and rest- 
 less, sweated profusely, and having rushed 
 to the window, opened it, and gasped at the 
 air with extreme eagerness, heaving involun- 
 tarily at the same time deep groans. He 
 several times jumped out at the window, on 
 seeing a servant with a broom following him, 
 or impeding his way. In the street, if, con- 
 trary to his expectations, the pavement was 
 either scraped or sweeped, he was wont to 
 run off like mad ; even at public disputations, 
 if to disturb him, the floor was rubbed by 
 
 the ferril of a cane, and the distance not too 
 great, as to be beyond his hearing, he was 
 obliged to fly from it, or open the next win- 
 dow for air ; so that it is certain his aversion 
 was not in the least feigned. The cause, it 
 was supposed, arose from his dislike in child- 
 hood to the noise, as very disagreeable to him ; 
 and that afterwards, either by disturbing, 
 thwarting, threatening, or striking him, the 
 antipathy became more deeply rooted, accor- 
 ding to the axiom — we always seek after what 
 we are forbidden, and wish for what we are 
 refused. Thus, the more he was contra- 
 dicted, the more his imagination, under the 
 appearance of an evil, or of a thing contrary 
 to his nature, conceived an inordinate horror 
 of brooms. 
 
 TRUTH. 
 
 Adhere rigidly and undeviatingly to truth; 
 but while you express what is true, ex- 
 press it in a pleasing manner. Truth is 
 the picture, the manner is the frame that 
 displays it to advantage. If a man blends 
 his angry passions with his search after 
 truth, become his superior by suppressing 
 yours, and attend only to the justness and 
 force of his reasoning. Truth, conveyed in 
 austere and acrimonious language, seldom 
 has a salutary effect, since we reject the 
 truth, because we are prejudiced against the 
 mode of communication. The heart must 
 be won before the intellect can be informed. 
 A man may betray the cause of truth by his 
 unseasonable zeal, as he destroys. its salutary 
 effect by the acrimony of his manner. Who- 
 ever would be a successful instructor must 
 first become a mild and affectionate friend. 
 He who gives way to angry invective, fur- 
 nishes a strong presumption that his cause 
 is bad, since truth is best supported by dis- 
 passionate argument. The love ol truth, 
 refusing to associate itself with the selfish 
 and dissocial passions, is gentle, dignified, 
 and persuasive. The understanding may 
 not be long able to withstand demonstrative 
 evidence ; but the heart which is guarded 
 by prejudice and passion, is generally proof 
 against the argumentative reasoning ; for no 
 person will perceive truth when he is unwil- 
 ting to find it. Many of our speculative 
 opinions, ever, those which are the result of 
 laborious research, and the least liable to 
 disputation, resemble rarities in the cabinet 
 of the curious, which may be interesting 
 to the possessor, and to a few congenial 
 minds, but which are of no use to the world. 
 Many of our speculative opinions cease 
 to engage attention, not because we are 
 agreed about their truth or fallacy, but be- 
 canse we are tired of the controversy. They 
 sink into neglect, and, in a future age, their 
 futility or absurdity is acknowledged, when 
 they retain a hold no longer on the preju- 
 dices and passions of mankind. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 311 
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF EMINENT 
 PERSONS.* 
 
 OLIVER CROMWELL. 
 
 It has been justly observed by the editor of 
 tlie Athenaeum, (< tctober 27, 1838.) that 
 “ often as the portraiture of Cromwell has 
 been attempted, it has never been satisfac- 
 torily drawn.” Impressed with the truth of 
 the above remark, and in order to assist our 
 readers in forming an estimate of the charac- 
 ter of this misunderstood and wonderful man, 
 we have selected the following opinions of 
 him from the writings of various authors ; 
 adding a few elucidatory notes, and the con- 
 cluding paragraph. 
 
 Cromwell had much decision in the camp ; 
 but in the church, hypocrisy asserted her do- 
 minion, and sometimes neutralized his moral 
 courage, never his physical ; for he always 
 fought with more sincerity than he prayed. — 
 Rev. C. C. Colton , A. M. 1829. 
 
 Cromwell, by nature, was generous and 
 humane, kind and compassionate. — Harris. 
 
 A man arose, of a depth of mind truly 
 incredible ; as subtle and refined an hypo- 
 crite, as he was an able and transcendant 
 politician ; capable of enterprising everything, 
 and of concealing every enterprise. In peace 
 and in war equally active and indefatigable ; 
 he left to fortune nothing of which he could 
 deprive her, by wisdom and by foresight ; 
 and yet, vigilant and prompt, he never lost 
 an opportunity which she offered to him. 
 In fine, he was one of those bold and lestHss 
 spirits that seemed created to change the des- 
 tinies of the world. — Bossuet. 
 
 A brave wicked man. — Lord Clarendon. 
 
 Cromwell was not one of those men who 
 have appeared unworthy of empire as soon as 
 he had arrived at it. He had a genius 
 adapted to all places, all seasons, all business, 
 all parties, all governments. He was always 
 what he ought to be : at the head of the 
 army, the bravest; in council, the wisest; in 
 business, the most diligent ; in debates, the 
 most eloquent ; in enterprises, the most ac- 
 tive ; in devotion, the most fanatic ; in mis- 
 fortune, the most firm ; in an assembly of 
 divines, the most learned ; in a conspiracy, 
 the most factious. He never made any mis- 
 take ; never let slip an opportunity ; never 
 left an advantage incomplete ; never contented 
 himself with being great when he had it in 
 his power to be greater. Chance and natural 
 temper, which determine the conduct of other 
 men, did not influence the most inconsiderate 
 of his actions. Born with an absolute indif- 
 ference to all that is praiseworthy or blame- 
 able, honest or dishonest, he never considered 
 virtue as virtue, crime as crime ; he regarded 
 
 * It is intended to give a series of similar charac- 
 teristics of illustrious English persons, deduced from 
 authentic sources : in all probability the above will 
 be followed by that of King James I. 
 
 only the relation which the one or the other 
 might have to his elevation. This was his 
 idol ; he sacrificed to it his king — his coun- 
 try — his religion ; which he would have de- 
 fended with the same zeal, had he had the 
 same interest in protecting as in destroying 
 them. The system of his ambition was con- 
 ducted with an art, an order, a boldness, a 
 subtlety, and a firmness, of which I believe 
 history can furnish no examples. All sects, 
 all ranks, all nations, peace, war, negocia- 
 tions, revolutions, miracles, prophecies, all 
 advanced the fortune of this hypocritical 
 usurper. He was a man born to decide the 
 fate of empires, nations, and ages. The 
 splendour of his talents hath almost made the 
 horror of his outrages to be forgotten ; pos- 
 
 terity at least will question, whether Oliver 
 Cromwell deserved execration or admiration. 
 — Abbe Raynul. 
 
 He was a tyrant. — Alg. Sidney. 
 
 He was brave, ambitious, generous, and 
 dissembling. — Lives of great Characters. 
 
 He was a coward.— Lord Holies. 
 
 A perfect master of all the arts of simula- 
 tion, and ot dissimulation; who turning up the 
 whites of his eyes, and seeking the Lord with 
 pious gestures, will weep and pray, and cant, 
 most devoutedly, till an op; ortunity offers of 
 dealing his dupe a knock-down blow under 
 the short ribs. — George Bate ; Cromwell's 
 physician. 
 
 He left a name behind him not to be ex- 
 tinguished but with the whole world ; which, 
 as it was too little for his praise, so it might 
 have been for his conquests, if the short line 
 of his mortal life could have stretched out to 
 the extent of his immortal designs. — Cowley. 
 
 One of the nine worthies. — Maidstone . 
 
 A fortunate fool. — Card. Mazarine .* 
 
 His method of treating his enemies was 
 mild and generous. f — Harris. 
 
 Of him, therefore, I will say no more, but 
 that verily I believe he was extraordinarily 
 
 • This Cardinal was a minister of state, and a most 
 profound and contemptible hypocrite : he must have 
 given the above opinion after the death of Cromwell: 
 for he dare not have done it, had the Protector been 
 alive: indeed, the people of Frauce, knowiug his 
 terror of him, used to say that Mazarine was more 
 afraid of Cromwell than he was of the devil. For fur- 
 ther proof of the Cardinal’s fear of the Protector, 
 vide Parliamentary History ; Carte’s Collection, 
 vol. ii. p. 81. — The World’s Mistake in O. Cromwell. 
 
 Puffeudorf s Life of tue Elector of Brandenburgh ; 
 and Histoire d’Olivier Cromwel, par Raguenet ; in 
 the advertisement to which will also be found a 
 valuable list of works, relative to Cromwell and his 
 times. 
 
 t As the great — the good — the learned Jeremy 
 Taylor, in 1650, wished to exchange his residence in 
 Wales for Ireland, he applied to Cromwell tor a pass- 
 port, which was immediately granted, with < very 
 expression of personal kindness, by the Protector. 
 It we consider the very active and public part which 
 Taylor took on behalf of the Royalists, this iucident 
 is a proof ot the kindness of Cromwell’s heart, and that 
 he held in regard all virtuous and good men. It is 
 by these little incidents we become acquainted with 
 the real character of great men. 
 
312 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 designed for these extraordinary things, 
 which one, while most wickedly and faci- 
 norously he acted, and at another as success- 
 fully and greatly performed. — Mem . Sir P. 
 PVarwick, p. 247. 
 
 It was Cromwell who said, that he hoped 
 the day would come, when the name of 
 Englishman would be as sure an immunity 
 from wrong in every part of the world, as 
 that of Roman had been ; and no Englishman 
 ever did so much towards realizing that pa- 
 triotic wish. It was this magnanimous tem- 
 per that disposed the same populace which 
 had gazed in heedlessness or exultation upon 
 his remains as fastened on a gibbet in 1660, 
 to lament, in less than seven years, that he 
 could not be called from his grave to rescue 
 their country from the contempt of the mean- 
 est of her enemies. — Dr. Vaughan' s Protec- 
 torate of Oliver Cromwell, 1838. 
 
 Cromwell, with all his faults, had many 
 virtues. — Harris. 
 
 If ever there appeared in any state a chief, 
 who was at the same time both tyrant and 
 usurper, most certainly Oliver Cromwell was 
 such. — JViquefort' s Emh. 
 
 Cromwell is described as a man who was 
 an impostor all his life. I can scarcely be- 
 lieve it. I conceive that he was at first an 
 enthusiast, and that he afterwards made his 
 fanaticism instrumental to his greatness. An 
 ardent novice at twenty becomes an accom- 
 plished rogue at forty. In the great game of 
 human life, men begin with being dupes, 
 and end in becoming knaves. A statesman 
 engages as his almoner a monk, entirely 
 made up of the details of his convent, de- 
 vout, credulous, awkward, perfectly new to 
 the world ; he acquires information, polish, 
 finesse ; and supplants his master. — Voltaire. 
 
 After he returned from the short parlia- 
 ment of 1628, his too active mind preyed 
 upon itself: he had strange fancies ‘about 
 the cross,’ at Huntingdon ; starts from his 
 bed in wild horror,* and wearies out Dr. 
 Simcott with the strange phansies that made 
 him believe he was then dying; while his after 
 paroxysms of mirth, so soon to be followed by 
 the deepest mental depression, all prove how 
 nearly the hvpochondriasm of Cromwell trem- 
 bled on the verge of insanity. — Foster's Lives 
 of Eminent Statesmen, vol. vi. : as given in 
 the Athenmum, Nov. 1838. 
 
 Cromwell was an illustrious villain, who 
 cannot be praised without horror, nor des- 
 pised without injustice, whom we are forced 
 to admire and detest. — Abbe Raynal. 
 
 His face was natural buff, and his skin 
 may furnish him with a rusty coat of mail. 
 You would think he had been christened in a 
 lime-pit, and tanned alive, but that his coun- 
 tenance still continues mangy. We cry out 
 * Sir E. L. Bulwer lias attached to his historical 
 play of Richelieu, an Ode, called “ Cromwell's 
 Dream,” taken from this part of Mr. Foster's nar- 
 rative. 
 
 against superstition, and yet worship a piece 
 of wainscot, and idolize a blanched almond. 
 Certainly ’tis no human visage, but the em- 
 blem of a mandrake, one scarcely handsome 
 enough to have been the progeny of Hecuba. 
 His soul, too, is as ugly as his body ; for who 
 can expect a jewel in the head of a toad ? — 
 Hudibras in Prose, 1682. 
 
 A person rais’d 
 
 With strength sufficient, and command from heaven. 
 To free his country. — Milton. 
 
 His courage in the field was undoubtedly 
 admirable — Life of Cromwell, 1731. 
 
 With all his faults, (although he was a 
 coward at first,) he was of great courage, and 
 vastness of mind, since he raised himself up 
 from a private gentleman, to the supreme 
 height of the empire, not altogether unworthy 
 the degree he attained to, if he had not 
 acquired it by ill means. — Sir Roger Manley. 
 
 Cromwell was a vast genius, because he 
 derived his greatness not merely from his 
 deeds, but from a higher source, from a 
 principle, which, in the present instance, 
 unfolds the philosophy of a Montesquieu. 
 With Cromwell’s turn of mind, like another 
 Mahomet, he might have founded a new 
 religion. He prayed and wept, and had all 
 the unction of inspiration. He rarely dis- 
 puted on doctrinal points, but he poured 
 himself out on free grace. — D’ Israeli's Com- 
 mentaries on the Life and Reign of Charles 
 the First. 
 
 He lived desired, and died lamented. — 
 
 Sec. Thurloe. 
 
 Cromwell was a great lover of music, f and 
 a friend to musicians. — Anth. fVood. 
 
 His demeanour was so blunt as sometimes 
 might be termed clownish ; yet there was in 
 his language and manner, a force and energy 
 corresponding to his character, which im- 
 pressed awe, if it did not impose respect ; 
 and there were even times when that dark 
 and subtle spirit expanded itself so as almost 
 to conciliate affection. The turn for humour, 
 which displayed itself by fits, was broad, and 
 was sometimes of a low, and sometimes prac- 
 tical character. Something there was in his 
 disposition congenial to that of his country- 
 men ; a contempt of folly, a hatred of affec- 
 tation, and a dislike of ceremony, which, 
 joined to the strong intrinsic qualities of 
 sense and courage, made him in many res- 
 pects not an unfit representative of the demo- 
 cracy of England. — Novel of fVoodstock.\ 
 
 t Having “music in his soul,” he was not, accord- 
 ing to Shakspeare, “ fitted lor murder, stratagems, 
 and spoils.” 
 
 } The late Sir Walter Scott did incalculable mis- 
 chief in perverting historical facts, in order to render 
 his novels attractive. In the one above quoted, he 
 makes Charles II. go to Woodstock, although he 
 knew that he went no further tliau Boscobel- 
 house. In this novel of Woodstock, he has presented 
 his readers witli a most ludicrous scene, wherein 
 Oliver, in the presence of the over-loyal Wildrake, 
 is running away in horror at the accidental sight of 
 a portrait of Charles I. in Wildrake’s aparlment. It 
 
THK MIRROR. 
 
 313 
 
 A dexterous villain, an intrepid comman- 
 der, a bloody usurper, and a sovereign that 
 knew the art of governing.— Voltaire. 
 
 A man miraculously raised by God, and 
 endowed with an extraordinary spirit of wis- 
 dom and courage. — Morland. 
 
 An eminent person he was in many res- 
 pects, and even a superior genius, but une- 
 qual and irregular in his operations. And 
 though not defective in any talent, except 
 that of elocution, the abilities which in him 
 were most admirable, and which most contri- 
 buted to his marvellous success, were the 
 magnanimous resolution of his enterprises, 
 and his peculiar dexterity of discovering the 
 characters, and practising on the weakness 
 of mankind. The private deportment of 
 Cromwell, as a son, a husband, a father, a 
 friend, is exposed to no considerable censure, 
 if it does not rather merit praise. And, 
 upon the whole, his character does not appear 
 more extraordinary and unusual, by the mix- 
 ture of so much absurdity with so much pene- 
 tration, than by his tempering such violent 
 ambition, and such enraged fanaticism, with 
 so much regard to justice and humanity. — 
 Hume. 
 
 The greatest personage and instrument 
 of happiness, not only that our own, but 
 indeed any age else ever produced. — Lord 
 Fauconberg. 
 
 If he cannot be ranked among the best, 
 he undoubtedly is to be placed among the 
 greatest of princes. — Harris. 
 
 He seems to have stuck at nothing in or- 
 der to gain his point, which when obtained 
 he used most nobly . — Progress of Oliver 
 Cromwell, 1752. 
 
 A bold, cunning, and ambitious man, but 
 unjust, violent, and void of virtue : a man, in 
 fine, who had great qualities, but never a 
 good one. — Memoir of Brandenburg. 
 
 Through dark dismay 
 
 Where chaos brooded, Cromwell won his way 
 To power supreme, uplifted on the wings 
 Of a bold spirit ; nor dishonour brings 
 His rule, who taught the factious to obey. 
 
 And foes to fear us. 
 
 Blackwood’s Magazine for May, 1839. 
 
 Thus, we see, the writers attached to 
 Cromwell, make his character bear the air 
 of the most extravagant panegyric ; while 
 his enemies give a representation of his pri- 
 vate and public character, full of the most 
 virulent invective. However difficult it may 
 
 is indeed surprising that the “Author of the Waverley 
 Novels ” could have been so foolish as to suppose any 
 person the least acquainted with the determined 
 character of Cromwell, would believe that the Pro- 
 tector could be frightened at the mere effigy of 
 Charles ; for, had that monarch walked in the room 
 with his head in his hand, like St. Denis of Fiance, 
 Oliver, instead of scampering off, would have politely 
 ordered him out of the room. 
 
 be to form a correct idea of the above wonder- 
 ful man, from such clashing opinions, certain 
 it is, that during the reign of the Protector 
 — learning, the fine arts* in general, and 
 commerce, not only flourished, but soared to 
 so high a state of perfection, that but little 
 was left for future ages to achieve. Men of 
 abilities were sought for everywhere, and 
 given employment, and the benches were 
 filled with able and honest judges. f This 
 period also gave education to a Newton, who, 
 soon alterwards, with more than Promethean 
 intrepidity, ascended the heavens in search 
 of the most profound secrets of nature, and 
 brought the knowledge of light upon earth. 
 At the same time, a Milton, a Waller, and 
 several others, taught the flattering ejacula- 
 tions of love and of praise. The arts of 
 painting and engraving were fostered and 
 advanced by the encouragement given to 
 Vandyke, Kneller, Hollar, and Simon, and 
 by the admirable productions of Lely, Faith- 
 orne, Lombart, and others; whilst eminent 
 naval heroes, and undaunted circumnaviga- 
 tors, inscribing with the trident of Neptune 
 the name of Britannia round the globe, laid 
 the foundation of that immense commerce 
 
 * The following notitia manifests his great regard 
 for the fine ails ; — 
 
 When the Commonwealth authorities determined 
 on the sale of the pictures, sculpture, tapestry, and 
 articles of vertu, which had belonged to tlie decapi- 
 tated monarch ; the proceeds to be applied to the 
 purposes ot the state ; we find among the contractors, 
 a Mr. John Leigh, who, on August 1, 1649, bought 
 goods for the use of Lieutenant-General Cromwell, 
 in value 109/. 5s. ; aud.on the 15th, goods sold to the 
 Hou. Lady Cromwell, to the amount of two hundred 
 pounds. Subsequently we find, the cartoons of 
 Kaffaille bought by his Highness [Cromwell,] for 
 300/. ; he had then become Lord Protector, and no 
 sooner was he in possession of the sole power than he 
 not only prevented any farther sale, but even detained 
 from the purchasers much of what they had contracted 
 for. I his appears by a petitiou, the autograph origi- 
 nal of which we remember to have seen among the 
 Historical Manuscript Collections of Mr. J. H. Burn ; 
 addressed alter the Protector’s death to the Couucii 
 
 State, by Major Edward Bass, Emanuel de Critz, 
 William Latham, and Henry Willet, in behalf of 
 themselves, and divers others, representing, “ That in 
 the year 1651, the petitioners did buy of the con- 
 tractors for the sale of the late king’s goods, the 
 several parcels undernamed, and did accordingly 
 make satisfaction unto the treasurer for the same ; 
 but for as much, as the said goods are in Whitehall’ 
 and some part thereof iu Mr. Kiunersley’s custody in 
 keeping, the petitioners do humbly desire their 
 honour's order, whereby they may receive the said 
 goods, they having been great sufferers by the late 
 General Cromwell’s detaining thereof.” The goods 
 specified are the rich tapestry hangings in Whitehall ; 
 and the gladiator and other statues, in the gardens 
 of that palace, all of which, by the denial of the claim, 
 became again the property of the crow u, and are now 
 at Hampton Court. Kiuuersley retained the same 
 office in the Protector’s Household he hud previously 
 held in that of the fallen monarch ; on the restora- 
 tion, iu May, 1660, he was continued, and by having 
 watched the movements of these decorations of roy- 
 alty, was mainly instrumental in their recovery. 
 
 t They were as follow the lord chief justices 
 Glyn, and St. John; the justices Warburton, Atkins, 
 Hale, Windham; the barons Nicholas, Parker, Hill. 
 
314 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 and invincible navy, which still continues to 
 give our country an indisputable pre-emi- 
 nence over all other nations. 2. 
 
 ECCENTRICITIES OF HENRI-JULES, 
 
 THE FIRST OF THE HOUSE OF CONDE. 
 
 "( From the “ Memoires du Comte de Maurepas."~) 
 Henri-Jui.es de Bourbon, the last twenty 
 years of his life, was frequently subject to fits 
 of hypochondriacis. In these fits he would 
 utter the strangest things imaginable, and act 
 in every respect like an insane person. In 
 his last journey to Burgundy, for instance, 
 of which he was governor, he landed him- 
 self a hare, and ordered the hells not to be 
 rung, for fear they should frighten him, and 
 compel him to take refuge in the woods. 
 
 What was strange is, that these fits in no 
 way deprived him of his right senses, and 
 during them he would transact business with 
 the same degree of attention and presence of 
 mind as when free from their influence. 
 
 He once fancied himself a plant, and as 
 such, ordered himself to be watered. For 
 this purpose he placed himself in the garden 
 of the Hotel Conde, and insisted on being 
 watered by Mr. de Plainville, one of his pages. 
 This page, however, was unwilling to per- 
 form such a strange office, and leaving the 
 two watering pots full of water, that he had 
 brought, made his escape, and hid himself. 
 His royal highness was filled with indigna- 
 tion at the page’s disobedience, and threat- 
 ened worlds of mischief in retaliation. The 
 threats, however, died away as the fancy lost 
 its hold of his imagination. 
 
 Another followed ; and now the idea that 
 he was dead possessed him ; labouring un- 
 der this impression, he refused all nourish- 
 ment ; and had it not been for a method hit 
 upon by his valets, he certainly would have 
 made his exit from this world, from the want 
 of proper sustenance. This is the stratagem 
 they had recourse to: Girard and Richard 
 
 entered into his apartment, each completely 
 enveloped in a sheet, the former under the 
 name of the late Marshal Luxembourg, the 
 latter under that of his highness’s grandfa- 
 ther. After a curious conversation, the topic 
 of which was the country of the dead, the 
 valets invited their master to partake of a 
 dinner at Marshal Turenne’s, to whose house 
 they were going. The prince appeared sur- 
 prised at the proposition, and expressed his 
 doubt whether the dead ever ate. The fact 
 that they did eat having been satisfactorily 
 proved to him, he followed his servants 
 through a subterranean passage, in which 
 they met the “ soidisant ” Marshal Turenne. 
 This strange assemblage of men sat down, 
 and all partook largely of the food before 
 them, and none more than the already half- 
 famished prince of Bourbon. The waiters, 
 who were all shrouded in sheets, acted their 
 part remarkably well ; and as long as this 
 strange fancy of their master continued, offi- 
 ciated under the same circumstances. 
 
 One of the most frequently recurring of 
 his mental delusions, was the belief that he 
 was a bat, and he actually caused a room to 
 be hung with stuff, and wadded, for fear he 
 should fly against the boards in the day-time, 
 and do himself some injury. 
 
 He grew at last w'eaker and weaker every 
 day, and it was evident that his remaining 
 days were few. The princess, his wife, who 
 was of a serious and devout turn of mind, 
 suggested the propriety of his seeing the 
 cure de St. Sulpice, but it was out of the 
 question, he repelled all attempts. At last, 
 one evening in winter, at five o’clock, he or- 
 dered one of his servants to get a fly ; it was 
 of no use remonstrating with him, that he 
 had several carriages and horses to command, 
 a fly he would have. The vehicle was 
 brought to the door, he threw himself into it, 
 and forbidding any of his dependants to fol- 
 low, he ordered the coachman to drive with 
 the utmost speed. The princess, however, 
 who had heard of the intention of her hus- 
 band, despatched two or three servants after 
 the coach ; the speed at which the animal 
 was urged precluded all possibility of their 
 keeping it in sight, so they were obliged to 
 return as ignorant as they were on their set- 
 ting out. Henri-Jules first had himself con- 
 veyed to the Bastille, into which he did not 
 go ; then to the Temple ; and from thence to 
 the fathers of the Oiatory, where he applied 
 for an audience with the principal. The bro- 
 ther who opened the gate, seeing a person so 
 strangely habited, (for so, by-the-bye, he was) 
 gave the prince to understand that it was too 
 late to see the principal, who besides was 
 holding a consultation with a bishop. His 
 royal highness, however, insisting, the brother 
 bade him wait in the hall, till such time as 
 his superior would be disengaged. To this 
 Henri-Jules consented, and notwithstanding 
 
the mirror. 
 
 315 
 
 the severity of the cold, stood there not less 
 than an hour. At length the superior was at 
 liberty, and not little was his astonishment to 
 see the prince in the hall waiting like a me- 
 nial. After the necessary excuses and apolo- 
 gies, they sat down by the fire, and talked 
 till eleven o’clock at night, at which hour the 
 prince returned home. He ordered supper 
 to be brought in, and shortly after contracted 
 the fever which was the cause of his death. 
 An hour before his dissolution, he ordered a 
 couple of stout sticks to be brought to him. 
 At a loss to imagine what he would want 
 sticks for at such an awful hour, they were 
 tremblingly brought to him, when having 
 caused them to be placed on either side of 
 him on the bed, he called for the princess 
 and Mademoiselle de Langeron. These 
 ladies being apprised of his royal highness’s 
 wish to see them, (not, however, without being 
 first warned to beware of the two sticks,) with 
 doubtful feelings made their appearance. 
 When the prince saw them, he said, that 
 considering the shameful way in which he 
 had treated them during his lifetime, he de- 
 served that they should retaliate upon him, 
 and begged they would make him die under 
 the blows they would minister to him with 
 the two sticks. The poor prince, however, was 
 saved such a death, and died before he could 
 persuade his wife to take one of the sticks. 
 
 H. M. 
 
 A POPULAR VIEW OF NATURAL 
 HISTORY. 
 
 BY JAMES H. FENNELL. 
 
 (Continued from page 185.) 
 
 Next to agriculturalists, horticulturalists, 
 and gardeners, the persons to whom a know- 
 ledge of natural history, especially geogra- 
 phic botany and geology, is important, are 
 those who speculate in the mineral produc- 
 tions of the earth. “ To the neglect of this 
 knowledge may be traced,” says Dr. Has- 
 tings, “ the lavish expenditure of money in 
 many fruitless speculations. How many 
 persons have lost their property in searching 
 for coal in situations where the slightest 
 regard to the principles that have been 
 established, and the rules that have been 
 discovered relative to the association of coal 
 with certain stratified rocks, would have 
 saved those individuals from ruin and misery.” 
 ( Natural History of fVorcester, p. 89.) 
 “ It is not many years since an attempt was 
 made to establish a colliery at Hexhill, in 
 Sussex ; the appearance of thin seams, and 
 sheets of fossil-wood and wood-coal, with 
 some other indications similar to what oc- 
 cur in the neighbourhood of the great coal- 
 beds in the north of England, having led to 
 the sinking of a shaft, and the erection of 
 machinery, on a scale of vast expense. Not 
 less than ,£800,000 are said to have been laid 
 out in this project, which it is almost needless 
 
 to add, proved completely abortive, as every 
 geologist would at once have declured it must : 
 the whole assemblage of geological facts 
 being adverse to the existence of a regular 
 coal-bed in the Hastings’ strata ; while this, 
 on which Bexhill is situated, is separated 
 from the coal measures by a series of inter- 
 posed beds, of such enormous thickness as 
 to render all idea of penetrating through 
 them absurd. The history of mining opera- 
 tions is full of similar cases, where a very 
 moderate acquaintance with the usual order 
 of nature , to say nothing of theoretical 
 views, would have saved many a sanguine 
 adventurer from utter ruin.” — (Herschell’s 
 Discourse on the Study of Natural Philo- 
 sophy.) 
 
 To medical men , a knowledge of the quali- 
 ties of plants, and even of animals, is extremely 
 necessary, that they may have confidence in 
 the accuracy of their preparations and pre- 
 scriptions. The importance of an acquaint- 
 ance with the Jussieuian system of botany, 
 a system founded upon certain generalized 
 principles, is incalculable, as it invests the 
 scientific inquirer with the means of learn- 
 ing the medical, the wholesome, and the in- 
 jurious properties of a plant, by merely in- 
 specting a few of its outward characters. 
 The translator of Mirbel’s Observations on 
 Vegetation, when enforcing the importance 
 of medical men possessing an acquaintance 
 with the characters of medicinal and edible 
 plants, places the matter in the following 
 light : — “ Suppose that from the length of a 
 voyage, the surgeon’s stock of medicines is 
 exhausted, or that by some misfortue at sea, 
 he is deprived of it, and that he is sur- 
 rounded with a sickening and expiring crew, 
 cast away perhaps upon some uninhabited 
 shore, where though nature may be ever so 
 lavish in her gifts, yet are her offerings ren- 
 dered useless from the want of knowing how 
 to employ them. Let us now fancy the 
 medical man in possession of the almost 
 God-like power of administering to the ne- 
 cessities of his half-famished fellow-creatures, 
 arising from a knowledge of certain charac- 
 ters by which he is enabled to distinguish 
 those plants which are wholesome and bene- 
 ficial to man, from those which would prove 
 deleterious. Then might we, indeed, say 
 that — Knowledge is Power.” (p. 64.) 
 
 In the absence of this acquired means of 
 discriminating plants of different qualities 
 from one another, a knowledge of the ascer- 
 tained habits and properties of the various 
 known species is highly useful to the medi- 
 cal man. Burnett mentions that a German 
 botanist, having noticed the preference mani- 
 fested by some species of lichens for certain 
 plants, has pointed out a very useful appli- 
 cation of this simple but valuable fact, “ to 
 aid in the discrimination of the true Cinchona 
 from the spurious barks which in commerce 
 are, either from accident or fraud, frequently 
 
THK MIRROR. 
 
 316 
 
 commingled with it ; for he has shown that 
 one species of Lichen is peculiar to, and 
 only found on, the true officinal Cinchona , 
 while the false barks with which it is adul- 
 terated, although often covered with other 
 lichens, never bear any of this diagnostic 
 species. ” ( Lecture at King's College , 
 
 March 14, 1832.) 
 
 On another occasion the same learned bo- 
 tanist observed, that — “ A man presuming to 
 practice medicine without a competent know- 
 ledge of the means at his disposal, and the 
 best mode of their application, is not simply 
 a dishonest man, for he does not, like the 
 fraudulent tradesman, merely rob his fellow- 
 creatures of their property, but he injures 
 their health, and perhaps destroys their life ; 
 and if a life be lost by an ignorant practi- 
 tioner, which might have been saved by one 
 well informed, is such a death to be consi- 
 dered a naturul death ? Is it not rather one 
 of the most cruel and cold-blooded kinds of 
 murder ? If these things be so, can we 
 wonder that the study of plants, whence our 
 most valuable medicines are derived, should 
 be considered an important and essential 
 branch of medicine ? Can we any longer 
 be surprised at the labours, immense as they 
 are, which have been bestowed on the sys- 
 tematic arrangement and specific distinctions 
 of vegetals ? For a long time all our me- 
 dicines were derived from the vegetal king- 
 dom ; and even now, although some impor- 
 tant ones are of mineral origin, the majority 
 of the most valuable and useful are vegetals, 
 such, for example* as opium, cinchona, rhu- 
 barb, belladona, assafoetida, catechu, digi- 
 talis, myrrh, caster- oil, sarsaparilla, tobacco, 
 &c. &c ; and even iodine, which triumphs 
 over scrofula, and threatens to conquer can- 
 cer, and even consumption, is the produce 
 of a long-neglected plant — the Alga inutilis 
 of the ancients. What a satire on the 
 judgment of man as to the utility of the pro- 
 ductions of nature !” ( Lecture at Chelsea 
 
 Garden, April 27. 1835.) 
 
 Dr. George Johnson observes, that the 
 history of the common fox-glove ( Digitalis 
 purpurea) “ might afford a practical answer 
 to those who sneer at the pursuits of the 
 botanist, and are continually asking, Cui 
 bono? — for it grew neglected uniil Dr. 
 Withering, a botanist, made known its vir- 
 tues, and gave to medicine one of its most 
 valuable auxiliaries.’’ ( Flora of Berwick- 
 upon-Tweed.) 
 
 The knowledge of the fact that several 
 species of plants assist in purifying an un- 
 wholesome atmosphere, and in correcting its 
 humidity, thus rendering it fit for respiration, 
 has led to the judicious system of planting 
 trees in swampy districts, where ague, <fcc., 
 prevail, and the result has been that such 
 localities have become thoroughly salubrious. 
 The most remarkable instance of this utility 
 of plants in absorbing the noxious particles 
 
 from a bad and unwholesome atmosphere, 
 is the fact, that wherever the plane-tree has 
 been cultivated in Persia, but particularly 
 in the neighbourhood of Ispahan, the plague 
 has disappeared. 
 
 “ The knowledge of diaetetics,’’ says Pen- 
 nant, “is a necessary branch of medicine, 
 as by a proper attention to it, an obstinate 
 distemper may be eradicated, when common 
 remedies have failed ; but this can never be 
 attained without the study of zoology, which 
 assists us greatly in learning the different 
 qualities of animal food, and how far a dif- 
 ference of nutriment may contribute to cure 
 the disease.” ( British Zoology, vol. i. pre- 
 face. 
 
 How, too, shall a medical man possess 
 the skill of applying the proper remedies to 
 the injuries inflicted on his patients, by dif- 
 ferent animals, without possessing some de- 
 gree of knowledge with regard to their being 
 of a venomous nature or otherwise. And, 
 again, how is he to destroy such animals as 
 are parasitic to the human race, without 
 being acquainted with the history of each 
 species, as it is improbable that what may be 
 iatal to one or more species, will be so to 
 all, as the generality possess, most likely, 
 peculiar natures, and consequently require 
 different means for their destruction. Let 
 me instance the case of Mary Riordan, who 
 continued to vomit living myriads of the 
 churchyard beetle ( Blaps mortisaga,) in the 
 grub and perfect state, in spite of Doctors 
 Pickells, Herrick, and Thompson, until at 
 length, after the expiration of several years, 
 they discovered an effectual remedy in copi- 
 ous doses of turpentine. (See Rennie’s In- 
 sect Transformations). 
 
 To acquire a correct and comprehensive 
 knowledge of human anatomy, an investiga- 
 tion of the structure of the inferior animals, 
 or comparative anatomy, is almost indispen- 
 sable ; but to fully comprehend the uses of 
 the difl'erent members, some attention to 
 their voluntary motions is requisite. We 
 may form very plausible conjectures of the 
 functions performed by the singular mem- 
 bers which we may observe in some skeleton 
 or other ; but we are not justified in declar- 
 ing what are positively their functions, un- 
 less we have observed the uctions of the liv- 
 ing animal. Naturalists have made many 
 guesses respecting the use of the serrated 
 claw of the night- jar, ( Phalcenivora Euro- 
 peeus) ; but they will never arrive at any satis- 
 factory conclusion, until they have actually 
 seen how it is employed by the living bird. 
 
 Architects have drawn rather largely upon 
 nature, for models and decorations for their 
 buildings. Imitations of real shells and 
 plants are often employed, with great pro- 
 priety and effect, as architectural ornaments ; 
 and it must be pleasing to all lovers of na- 
 ture to observe that the Sphinxes, Centaurs, 
 and other fabulous monstrosities, are giving 
 
THE MIRROR. 317 
 
 way to natural objects, which, unlike those 
 ridiculous absurdities, add to the beauty of 
 a building, and gratify both the eye and the 
 mind of the beholder. “ What rational plea- 
 sure or instruction,” says a writer in the 
 Edinburgh Journal of Natural History , 
 “ can a reflecting people derive from the 
 representations of beings which never had an 
 existence, except in the imaginations of hea- 
 then nations ? Can there be any really 
 solid taste in admiring a hippograft', a pega- 
 sus, a phoenix, a griffon, a dragon, and fifty 
 more such fictitious animals, which have so 
 long held sway in the ornamental parts of 
 architecture ? To the mere student of anti- 
 quities, who knows nothing of the beauties 
 of creation, these may call up certain asso- 
 ciations ; but they are looked at, thrown 
 aside, and treated with contempt by the 
 lover of nature. As natural history consists 
 in an accumulation of facts, and as it is the 
 province and delight of the disciples of nature 
 to trace the true character of every object in 
 nature ; so everything which is detected as 
 departing from the truth, must create disgust 
 rather than pleasure in those who are ac- 
 customed to search after her beauties. 
 
 Of all architectural forms, the foliated 
 Corinthian capital is, perhaps, the most 
 elegant and natural in its appearance, and 
 for this architecture is said to be indebted 
 to the casual observance of an accidental 
 arrangement of the leaves of the plant called 
 Acanthus. Callimachus, the celebrated 
 sculptor, took the hint for it, according to 
 Vitruvius, by observing near the tomb of a 
 young lady a basket of offerings, covered 
 with a tile, and which had been placed there 
 by her nurse, over a root of Acanthus , which, 
 as it grew upwards, encompassed the basket, 
 and having reached the tile, descended 
 under the cover of it. forming a kind of 
 volute ; and thus did the basket suggest the 
 vase oi' the cupital, the tile the abacus, and 
 the leaves the volute. 
 
 It is thought that a horse-chesnut, with 
 its rind partially slit, and thus showing an 
 eliptic portion of the enclosed nut, was the 
 prototype for the echinus-moulding which 
 runs under the volutes of the Pompeian 
 specimens of Ionic architecture. (See Pom- 
 peii, in the Library of Entertaining Know- 
 ledge, p. 322.) 
 
 Doxius, who was the first to build clay- 
 houses, is said to have taken the idea for 
 them from observing the mud-built nests of 
 the swallow. (To be continued.) 
 
 The Chinese, when going on voyages, pro 
 vide themselves with a very simple means 
 of preservation in the event of a shipwreck. 
 This consists of four spars joined together so 
 as to form a square hollow frame, which 
 being put below the arms, easily supports a 
 person floating in the sea. 
 
 THE NEW ART— PHOTOGRAPHY. 
 
 (Continued from page 281.) 
 
 6. — To ta/ce a Photographic Copy on 
 Box-wood. 
 
 Place the smooth side of a block of box- 
 wood in a shallow dish or plate, containing 
 a solution of salt, twenty grains to an ounce 
 of water. When it has remained in it for 
 about five minutes, take it out and dry it, 
 and then put the same side in another plate 
 containing sixty grains of nitrate of silver, 
 dissolved in an ounce of water. After the 
 elapse of a minute, take it out, and dry it. 
 It will then, on exposure to light, assume u 
 fine brown colour. If it be again immersed 
 in each solution, for a few seconds only, it 
 will become so sensitive, as to be affected by 
 a very slight degree of light. To obtain a 
 drawing of a view, or a copy of a picture, <fcc. 
 proceed with the prepared block, precisely 
 according to the instructions already given 
 for using the photographic paper. In this 
 manner, a drawing upon a block may be 
 most expeditiously obtained, and without the 
 services of a draughtsman. It only needs 
 the wood-engraver. 
 
 7 - — To take a Photographic Copy on Ivory, 
 Horn, Sf-c. 
 
 We are not aware of this having been 
 done yet ; but as animal substances are soon 
 discoloured by the nitrate of silver, there 
 can be no doubt of the practicability of ob- 
 taining photographic drawings upon them. 
 For this purpose, proceed according to the 
 instructions in the preceding paragraph. 
 
 8 . — Photographic Engravings on Pewter, 
 Copper, Stone, and Glass. 
 
 M. Niepce, of Chklons-sur-Sa6ne, who as 
 early as 18) 4 engaged in photographic experi- 
 ments, arrived in England, in September 1824, 
 and having exhibited to Mr. Francis Bauer, 
 several interesting specimens of images, fixed 
 by the action of light, upon polished pewter 
 plates, and impressions on paper, taken from 
 those plates, after they had been prepared 
 by his chemical process, this gentleman ad- 
 vised M. Niepce to submit specimens, and 
 a memoir on the subject, to the notice of 
 the Royal Society. M. Niepce accordingly 
 wrote a memoir, bearing date December 8th, 
 J827; but some of the influential Fellows 
 being opposed to its being read before the 
 Society, without the secret of the process 
 being explained in it, returned him his spe- 
 cimens and memoir, after keeping them se- 
 veral weeks under consideration. Of this 
 memoir, Mr. Bauer has recently published a 
 translation, from which we learn the powers 
 and effects of M. Niepce’s process, but 
 nothing concerning the chemical agency em- 
 ployed. All that we can collect from the 
 memoir, is that he obtained permanent and 
 faithful images of objects on pewter, copper, 
 and stone, by means of the camera obscura 
 
318 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 and the action oflight. “My photographic 
 designs made on pewter plates and framed,” 
 he confesses, “ are much too weak in tone. 
 This defect arises from the light not con- 
 trasting sufficiently with the shades, owing 
 to the metallic reflection. It would be easy 
 to remedy this, by giving more whiteness 
 and more brightness to the parts represent- 
 ing the effects of light, and receiving the im- 
 pression of this fluid [the light] upon metal 
 plated with silver, well polished, and bur- 
 nished ; for then the contrast between the 
 white and black, would be so much more 
 marked, and the latter colour, by being ren. 
 dered more intense by means of some che- 
 mical agent, would lose that brilliant reflec- 
 tion which is disagreeable to the sight, and 
 produces even an effect of dimness.” M. 
 Niepce then mentions, that, after having 
 operated on the plate, it is sufficient to 
 blacken, slightly, the part engraved on, and 
 place it on white paper to obtain a strong 
 impression. It must be observed, that, al- 
 though M. Niepce obtained impressions on 
 his plates by the action of the light, yet this 
 was not the means employed to obtain copies 
 ofthem on paper, for at thecommencementof 
 his memoir he informs us that impressions of 
 the objects on the plates were to be produced 
 “ according to the known process of engra- 
 ving In the course of his brief memoir he 
 says, that he thinks glass would be, perhaps, 
 preferable to pewter, copper, and stone. 
 
 A French paper states that M. Niepce 
 succeeded, some years afterwards, in fixing 
 his images, so that they resisted external 
 agents. 
 
 M. Niepce has been dead some years, and 
 nothing seems distinctly known to the pub- 
 lic, concerning the kind of chemicals he used 
 in his process. But some impressions from 
 his pewter plates are still in existence, and 
 are reported to be quite as perfect as M. Da- 
 guerre’s photographic drawings are described 
 to be. Mr. Bauer still possesses several 
 specimens, which he kindly offers to show 
 to any artists or scientific gentlemen who 
 will call at his house, ( Eglantine Cottage , 
 Kew Green). Whatever secrecy may hang 
 over M. Niepce’s chemical preparation, there 
 is no doubt that engravings or etchings on 
 plates of pewter, copper, and glass, or slabs 
 of stone, may yet be copied on photographic 
 paper, placed inside a camera obscura, 
 whose lens is directed towards their engraved 
 surfaces. 
 
 Indeed, Mr. Nichol, a lithographer, exhi- 
 bited, at a meeting of the Society for the En- 
 couragement of the Useful Arts, held in 
 Edinburgh on the seventeenth of last month, 
 a stone on which he had obtained a photo- 
 graphic copy of an engraving, by coating the 
 surface of the stone with phosphate of sil- 
 ver, and then, having placed the engraving 
 upon it, exposing the whole to the light. 
 
 {To be continued .) 
 
 CAUBUL AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. 
 On looking over an outspread map, there is 
 no portion on its surface which sooner catches 
 the eye, or arrests the attention, than that of 
 the old continent of Asia. This arises partly 
 from the majestic and venerable antiquity 
 which attaches to every object that falls under 
 our observation, and partly from the impor- 
 tant historical events of which it has in all 
 ages been the theatre. There is no section 
 of that old world whose soil is not encumbered 
 with some vast relic of mysterious ancient- 
 ness — there is no quarter but is strewn with 
 remains of dislocated grandeur — nor is there 
 any which is not signally marked, as having 
 been the site of some great event in history. 
 Yet are those histories which appertain to it, 
 to the sorrow of humanity be it said, histories 
 for the most part of anarchy, cruelty, and pro- 
 fligate bloodshed. For out of these regions 
 is it, that the greatest oppressors of the human 
 race have arisen. Zenghis Khan — Bajazet 
 — Tamerlane — men who rose up and “ went 
 forth conquering and to conquer j” and who, 
 for the mere sake of territorial aggrandise- 
 ment, carried their exterminating army to such 
 extremes, and so mowed down the thousands 
 of the human race, that at those periods, ( as 
 hath been energetically observed,) “ the sun 
 of manhood seemed setting in seas of blood.” 
 And appaling indeed must it have been, (and 
 earnestly is it to be prayed that the like may 
 never again recur,) to have beheld in his day 
 such a warrior as Tamerlane, glittering in his 
 steel, with his battle-axe on his shoulder, and 
 piling up his pyramid of seventy thousand 
 human skulls 1 
 
 We have been led to this retrospect of the 
 terrible effects of Asiatic warfare, seeing that 
 at this season her broad plains are again 
 threatened, as in those days, to be deluged with 
 the blood of her children, and her otherwise 
 quiet seats and pleasant places again likely to 
 be mercilessly desolated. 
 
 But apart from political considerations — 
 apart from scenes of tribulation and war — it 
 is our present desire to direct the attention of 
 our readers more particularly to that quarter 
 of Asia on which at this moment all eyes are 
 intently fixed — to lay before them an account 
 of the kingdom of Caubul, and of the coun- 
 tries which are subject to its„sovereignty 5 and 
 that, too, as they exist in their present and 
 undisturbed condition — before the rude hand 
 of war has desecrated its dwellings, or broken 
 in upon the blessed quietude of the Affghan 
 shepherd ; while his cattle and steeds yet 
 feed uninterruptedly beside their “ green pas- 
 tures and still waters,” not having as yet 
 heard “the shouting of the captains or the 
 trumpet,” and before the borders of his land 
 shake under the drums and tramplings of con- 
 quests. 
 
 It is with no little degree of difficulty, that 
 the limits or boundaries of the great kingdom 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 319 
 
 of Caubul are to be fixed. In former time?, 
 the countries under the sovereignty of the 
 king of Caubul covered an immense cir- 
 cumference. But this once vast empire has 
 of late undergone a considerable diminution, 
 and been much shorne of its fair dimensions, 
 owing to the distracted and anarchical state 
 of the government. There is only one certain 
 method by which to form anything of a cor- 
 rect notion as to what countries are without 
 doubt under the sovereignty of the king, and 
 that is, wheresoever the king is prayed for in 
 the Mahommedan service, and where his 
 name is also inscribed on the current coin. 
 According to the latest and most accurate 
 geographical estimates, the kingdom of Cau- 
 bul comprehends the immense territories of 
 Affghanistaun and Segistan, with part of 
 Khorasan and Makran : Balk, with Tokares- 
 taun Kilan : Kuttore, Caubul, Candahar, 
 Sindy, and Cashmere; together with a portion 
 of Lahore, and the greater part of Moultan. 
 The whole population of this vast district 
 cannot be under fourteen millions, of which 
 population (putting aside the miscellaneous 
 Indian tribes) the Affghauns contribute more 
 than four millions. This people, which con- 
 stitute the most powerful and effective jart 
 of the king of Caubul’s subjects, we shall 
 notice separately, and more at large, in suc- 
 ceeding articles. At present our subject lies 
 with Caubul — the head-quarters of the king- 
 dom. 
 
 We had remarked in our outset, that no 
 part of the old Asiatic continent was wiihout 
 some relic of antiquity. With these, Caubul, 
 and the countries which encompass it, are 
 everywhere overstrown. The mystery which 
 envelopes them is as great as that which rests 
 upon the Pyramids, or the Round Towers of 
 Ireland. One of the most remarkable of 
 these altogether inexplicable buildings is that 
 which meets the traveller at Manikyala. It 
 is called by the singular name of “ a Tope,” 
 and is an immense mound of massive ma- 
 sonry, as much like Grecian architecture as any 
 building which an European in remote parts 
 of the country could now construct by the 
 hands of unpractised native builders. It was 
 some years back opened by M. Ventura, an 
 agent in Runjeet Singh’s army. By him 
 there were several relics found of value, and 
 of curious workmanship. They were most of 
 them found to consist of three cylindrical 
 boxes ; one of gold, another of pewter, (or 
 some mixed metal,) and a third of iron. 
 These were cased in one another, and placed 
 in a chamber, cut in a large block of stone, at 
 the foundation of the pile. In addition to 
 these, many coins and reliques were , also 
 found ; and the people affirmed that some 
 human bones had been disinterred. It is of 
 a doom-like shape, and standing as it does 
 almost central, on a broad, spacious plain, it 
 is to be seen at a distance of sixteen miles. — 
 
 There is doubtless much room here for anti- 
 quarian research. There is another of very 
 remarkable antiquity, which lies on the road 
 to Caubul : it is in a very decayed state ; and 
 numbers, of similar structure and dimensions, 
 are to be seen scattered over the Punjaub. 
 They are all like the one at Manikyala, and 
 all go by the name of Topes or Mounds. 
 They generally run one hundred feet high, 
 some much more. The natives can give no 
 further tradition save that they are “ Topes.” 
 Two are to be seen which are in a perfect 
 state of preservation ; one is in the Khyber 
 pass, about 18 miles distant, and another also 
 at Belur, both of which are loftier aud larger 
 than that at Manikyala. The most probable 
 conjecture is, that these buildings are the 
 cemeteries of kings ; since they are all , built 
 with a chamber in the centre of the pile. 
 
 Caubul may be approached by as many as 
 five different roads ; but that which leads by 
 the river is peihaps the best aud pleasantest. 
 Travelling across the beautiful plain of Pesha- 
 wur, you at length arrive at the river of Caubul; 
 which is crossed by a most curious kind of 
 apparatus, and which indeed affords a most 
 frail and unsafe mode of transport. This is a 
 raft, supported by inflated skins; and the 
 river, though it is not wide, is yet very rapid, 
 and merchandise is never sent by this route. 
 Travellers, as they proceed over the plains, are 
 in continual dread of the pestilential Simoom, 
 which is not unfrequently fatal in its effects. 
 The remedy adopted in such cases is remark- 
 able. With great violence, copious streams 
 of water are poured into the mouth, a plan 
 which sometimes is found successful, and a 
 fire kindled near the patient has a good effect. 
 As he is recovering, sugar and the dried 
 plums of Bokhara are beneficially adminis- 
 tered. 
 
 Caubul is a most bustling city. Imagine 
 to yourself the busiest part of London, and you 
 will have an exact notion of the noise created 
 there. One of its chief attractions is its great 
 Bazaar, which is distinguished for its painted 
 roof, and its glittering display of silk cloths 
 and embroidery. The number of shops for 
 the sale of dried fruits is noticeable ; and 
 grapes, pears, and apples, and even the melons 
 of the by-gone season, may be bought there 
 ten months old. Shops and bazaars of all 
 kinds, and of every trade, are to be met 
 with at Caubul. 
 
 The grape is converted into singular uses 
 by the people of Caubul. They use its juice 
 in roasting meat, and during meals have 
 grape-powder as a pickle. This is effected 
 by pounding the grapes while in their crude 
 unripe state, after drying them. It has, how- 
 ever, a very agreeable acid flavour. They dry 
 them also as raisins, and use much grape 
 syrup. A pound of grapes sells for a half- 
 penny. 
 
 In Caubul neither the sight nor -sound of 
 
3-20 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 a wheeled carriage is either to be seen or 
 heard. A great number ol' horses are annu- 
 ally sold in the north of India, under the 
 name of Caubul horses, but almost the whole 
 in truth come from Turchestan. No horses 
 in fact are bred at Caubul, except by men of 
 property. Those of Heraut are carried to 
 other countries. But great numbers are bred 
 at Ballk, in the Caubul dominions. The 
 country being destitute of navigable rivers, 
 and not adapted to wheeled carriages, com- 
 merce is carried on by beasts of burden: of 
 these, camels are found to be the best, from 
 their strength and endurance of thirst. The 
 country parts are much infested by predutory 
 tribes, and great precautions are obliged to be 
 taken to cover a line of march, and defend a 
 caravan. 
 
 The streets of Caubul are not very narrow, 
 and are kept in good condition during the dry 
 weather : they are intersected by small covered 
 aqueducts of water, which, to the population 
 in general, afford very great convenience. 
 Caubul is, on the whole, a compactly-built city, 
 but its houses cannot be certainly dignified by 
 the epithet “ elegant the greater part of them 
 are constructed of sun-dried bricks and wood, 
 and few of them are to be seen whose altitude 
 exceeds two stories high. It is, however, 
 densely peopled in every part, and contains a 
 population of upwards of sixty thousand souls. 
 The river of Caubul passes through the city ; 
 and Burnes learnt a tradition, which stated 
 that the city had been thrice inundated by 
 its waters. 
 
 Elphinstone says, that the principal fo- 
 reign trade of the kingdom of Caubul is with 
 India, Persia, and Toorkestan. The exports 
 to India are chiefly horses, furs, shawls, mad- 
 der, tobacco, almonds, walnuts, nuts, and 
 fruits. One of their principal exports is 
 shawls, which are worn by every man in India 
 who can afford to buy them. The principal 
 imports from India are coarse cotton cloths, 
 (worn by the common people of the whole 
 kingdom), muslins, silken cloth, and brocade 
 and indigo in great quantities. 
 
 Truly enchanting indeed are the gardens 
 about Caubul. The variety and number of 
 its fruits and trees is great. Peaches, plums, 
 and apricots, in all their bloom and ripeness ; 
 pears, apples, mulberries, and vines, are all to 
 be seen congregated in the compass of a sin- 
 gle garden. But that which is pre-eminent 
 above the rest, and is reckoned the finest in 
 Caubul, is that called the King’s Garden, 
 laid out by Timour Shah. 
 
 The tomb of the Emperor Baber is inter- 
 esting as a relic. His cemetery, with its run- 
 ning clear stream and fragrant flowers, is the 
 great holiday resort of the Caubul people. 
 His Commentaries are a description of Caubul. 
 These are his own words regarding Caubul: 
 
 “ The climate is extremely delightful, and 
 there is no such other place in the known 
 
 world.” And elsewhere he cries out in a strain 
 of delight and exultation, “ Drink wine in the 
 citadel of Caubul, and send round the cup 
 without stopping, for it is at once a mountain, 
 a sea, a town and a desert 1”— W. Archer. 
 
 Cljf ^atijcrcr. 
 
 The magnificent State Coach of Russia 
 was built in Long Acre, in 1762, by order of 
 the imbecile Emperor, Peter the Third, but 
 his deposition and death precluded his use of 
 it ; it was finished for the Empress Catherine 
 II., and excited at the time general admira- 
 tion. The harness with gilded buckles cost 
 £ 1 ,300, and the whole was finished with the 
 greatest elegance. It was first used at her 
 coronation at Moscow, November 3d, in 
 that year. 
 
 The English were contented to dedicate 
 their churches to Saint John or Saint James ; 
 not so the Welsh, the church at Llangollen 
 being dedicated to Saint Collen ap Gwyn- 
 nawg ap Clydawg ap Cowdra ap Caradog 
 Freichfras ap Lleyr Merim ap Einion Yrth 
 ap Cunedda Wledig ! 
 
 Remorse. — Let not the guilty man who 
 may now be enjoying the pleasant sunshine 
 of prosperity, flatter himself that he shall 
 escape a self-inflicted punishment for guilt. 
 When adversity comes, remorse, with its poi- 
 sonous fangs, begins to gnaw at the heart of 
 its victim. 
 
 F. J. Haydn, was born in 1732, at Rhorau, 
 a small town forty miles distant from Vienna, 
 lies buried at the foot of the steps leading up 
 from St. Rupert’s little Cathedral to the 
 chapel and cell of St. Maximus, at Salzburg ; 
 his head, enclosed in a black marble urn, is 
 placed in a monument erected to him in the 
 neighbouring church of the Benedictines. 
 
 Traffic of the Metropolis. — A statement 
 has just been published by the Marylebone 
 vestry, in connexion with the experimental 
 paving of Oxford-street, which will give the 
 reader some idea of the immense traffic in 
 the streets of London. The following is a 
 copy of the statement alluded to : — On Wed- 
 nesday, the I6th of January, from six in the 
 morning until 12 at night. — By the Pantheon, 
 347 gentlemen’s two-wheel carriages, 935 
 four-wheel, 890 omnibuses, 621 two-wheel 
 and 752 four-wheel hackney carriages, 91 
 stage coaches, 372 wnggons and drays, 1,507 
 light carts and sundries. Total, 5,515. — By 
 Stafford-place, on Friday, the 18th of Janu- 
 ary, the total is, 4,753, out of which, 1,213 
 were omnibuses ; on Tuesday, the 22nd of 
 the same month, by Newman-street, the 
 total was 6 992 ! and on Saturday, by Staf- 
 ford-place, the total is stated to be 5 943. 
 
 LONDON : Printed and published by J. LIMBI ItD, 
 143. Strand. ( near Somerset House) ; and sold by 
 all Booksellers and Newsmen —In PARIS, by alt 
 the Booksellers.— In FRANC FORT, CHARLES 
 JVtlEL. 
 

 Zi)t fHtvvot* 
 
 ov 
 
 LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION. 
 
 No. 950.] SATURDAY. MAY 25, 1839. [Price 
 
 VoL. XXXllI. 
 
 Y 
 
 THE MODELLED PANORAMIC VIEW OP MOUNT HECLA, 
 
 AT THE SURREY ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 
 
322 
 
 THK MIRROR. 
 
 T H E M A GNI FI C ENT L Y-MOD E LLED 
 PANORAMA OF MOUNT HECLA, 
 
 THE CELEBRATED BURNING MOUNTAIN OF 
 ICELAND. 
 
 Certainly, it is impossible a more grati- 
 fying or truly intellectual treat can be of- 
 fered to the notice of the public, and parti- 
 cularly of the juvenile part, than what is 
 daily to be witnessed at the Store// Zoologi- 
 cal Gardens . — The splendid collection of 
 animals — the beauty, stillness, and salubrity 
 of the gardens ; with the brilliant effect of 
 the newly-erected picture of Mount Hecla, 
 all combine to charm the eye, and enliven 
 the understanding of the astonished be- 
 holder. It is a gratifying reflection, that 
 such unexampled exertions meet with com- 
 mensurate success. 
 
 For some time after the opening of these 
 Gardens, they were confined to the exhibi- 
 tion of animals, and a display of rare and 
 beauteous shrubs and flowers. But two 
 years since, an entirely original attempt 
 was made to employ, to the utmost ad- 
 vantage, the unequalled capabilities which 
 they possess, by producing an exhibition, 
 that should unite in itself the attractions 
 of a panorama, upon a most extensive 
 scale, and executed in a peculiar manner, 
 combined with a display of pyrotechnic 
 art of the most splendid description, These 
 objects were successfully accomplished in 
 the representation of Mount Vesuvius, which 
 was then constructed, and embodied in one 
 scene the varying features presented by that 
 volcano during the periods of its fertile sere- 
 nity, and when convulsed by the devastating 
 fury of an eruption. 
 
 The universal admiration which this called 
 forth, and the continued success that at- 
 tended it for two seasons, induced the pro- 
 prietor ot the Gardens to make arrange- 
 ments for the production of a second exhibi- 
 tion of a similar character, but differing alto- 
 gether in its subject and in the mode of 
 handling. 
 
 The region fixed upon was Iceland ; and 
 the immediate site that of Mount Hecla, its 
 most famous Volcano, with several miles of 
 the savage and desolate country at its foot ; 
 a locality which has excited the astonishment 
 and curiosity of travellers for ages, and one 
 which offers as fine a vehicle for the display 
 of the artists’ powers, as any which could 
 have been selected throughout the whole 
 range of scenes of this description. 
 
 1 he representation is not a panorama, in 
 the sense in which that word is commonly 
 used, but more properly a modelled picture, 
 as each part is first constructed of the proper 
 shape, and afterwards combined so as to form 
 an harmonious whole. It is of stupendous 
 size, completely occupying one side Of the 
 lake, and covering a space of several thousand 
 
 square feet. The scale is that of a quarter of 
 an inch to a foot, and this immense tableau 
 comprehends a view of many miles in extent. 
 The sketches and models have all been made 
 from the drawings of various travellers taken 
 on the spot, and it is consequently an accu- 
 rate transcript of the scene it is intended to 
 pourtray. The artist is Mr. Danson, a gen- 
 tleman advantageously known to the public, 
 by his works in several of our metropolitan 
 theatres, but whose highest meed of fame 
 has been gained by the execution of these 
 gigantic representations. When the enor- 
 mous amount of surface is taken into consi- 
 deration, together with the difficulty of paint- 
 ing to suit the constantly-changing lights and 
 shadows of daylight in the open air, and of 
 converting the incongruous objects in the 
 vicinity into useful adjuncts to the illusion, 
 some idea may be formed of the obstacles 
 with which he has had to contend, and the 
 greatness of the artist ical triumph that has 
 been surmounted, will be then fully appre- 
 ciated. 
 
 The view first arrests the attention of the 
 visiter, on looking towards the opposite verge 
 of the ornamental lake, while standing on the 
 side of the glazed conservatory, in which the 
 beautiful collection of lions, tigers, &c., are 
 confined. The first emotion on turning 
 towards the spot, must be that of astonish- 
 ment, that such a scene of wild and rugged 
 barrenness should be existing in the midst of 
 summer, and within a mile of the city of Lon- 
 don, as it can scarcely be believed that the 
 landscape there beheld is not a stern reality, 
 or that so complete an illusion could have been 
 produced by the pencil of an ^artist, unaided 
 by the artificial light which’ so materially 
 assists similar works in every other situation. 
 When, after wandering over the whole of the 
 chilling landscape, and the eye has time atten- 
 tively to examine its minuter details, the ad- 
 mirable manner in which each has been 
 made to contribute to the general effect of 
 the whole, will be found deserving equal 
 praise with the execution of the large masses. 
 
 In the centre of the picture, the most pro- 
 minent object is, of course, Mount Hecla, 
 which rises in rugged majesty from amidst a 
 scene ofcorresponding barrenness. Itssummit 
 is crowned with perpetual snow, and is broken 
 into jugged peaks, which are the precipitous 
 sides of an immense and fearful chasm, form- 
 ing the crater. Its sides are covered with vast 
 tracts of snow and icy glaciers, here and 
 there obtruded upon by a projecting mass of 
 rock or solid lava, fearful evidence, that al- 
 though all now appears so cold and pure, 
 there lurks beneath fierce elements of com- 
 bustion, which may at any time burst forth, 
 and by their fury render even this appalling 
 region more terrible. Mount Hecla is 18 
 miles from the sea-coast, in the south-west- 
 ern part of Iceland; at the foot of the 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 323 
 
 mountain is the river Wesk, or Rangan, the 
 bed of which consists of large masses of lava. 
 Hecla has three summits, of which the cen- 
 tral is the highest. The whole consists of 
 volcanic masses, loose grit and ashes. The 
 crater is not much over 100 feet deep. Since 
 1004, 24 eruptions are said to have taken 
 place, of which the latest were those in 1766, 
 in 1818, and in 1823. A hot vapour issues 
 from various small openings near the top ; 
 and the thermometer, which in the air stands 
 below the freezing point, will rise, when set 
 on the ground, to 120, or even 150 degrees. 
 Sir Joseph Banks visited the mountain in 
 1772, and Sir George Mackenzie in 1810. 
 From the summit there is an extensive view, 
 two-fifths of the island being visible, as the 
 country is level, except where a jocul or 
 glacier intervenes. 
 
 The mountains on either side, clothed with 
 perpetual snow, are called yo/culs, and of 
 these the great one, called Snasfell, is repre- 
 sented in the extreme distance of the above 
 Painting. It is 4560 feet high ; and although 
 now extinct, was formerly a volcano of most 
 destructive force, situated on the hem of a 
 tongue of land, dividing the two great bays 
 or inlets of Braede-fiord and Faxe-fiord, and 
 from its graceful form, its height, and com- 
 manding situation, is a most remarkable fea- 
 ture of the geography of Iceland. Its base 
 is purely basaltic, and the contract of its 
 streams of lava with the columns of the basalt, 
 and the ferocity with which subterraneous 
 fires have broken and tossed about all the 
 country in its immediate neighbourhood, 
 have produced a scene of the most wild and 
 picturesque confusion. This yokul appears 
 to have been entirely formed by repeated 
 eruptions of lava, &c., from one crater ; but 
 the whole surface of the ground, near it, 
 must have been burst in many places at once, 
 as it is thrown up into innumerable little 
 pyramidical heaps of scoriae and ashes, each 
 of which has probably been the centre of a 
 distinct volcanic action, executing its force 
 at different periods of time. 
 
 The fore ground represents icebergs, with 
 broken masses of ice, projecting their hoary 
 peaks out of the water, in all sorts of fantas- 
 tic forms ; between which, a stranded ship 
 is seen wedged, which fills up the fore- 
 ground of this miiguificeutly-grand produc- 
 tion, presenting one of the most illusive efforts 
 of art ever beheld. 
 
 The Geysers, or Boiling Fountains, are 
 objects which at all times must attract 
 the attention of the observer. The Great 
 Geyser rises from a tunnel-shaped basin, 
 lined and edged with sibcious depositions. 
 The emissions generally take place at inter- 
 vals of six hours, preceded by a rumbling 
 noise or loud report, like that of artillery, 
 with an agitation of the ground. The hot 
 springs, near the habitable parts, are used 
 
 for economical purposes ; food is dressed over 
 them, and, in some places, huts are built 
 over small fountains to form steam-baths. In 
 other parts are seen caldrons of boiling mud, 
 emitting sulphureous exhalations. 
 
 To form a correct opinion of the above 
 display of scenic art, it must be seen — the 
 delusion being so masterly handled — when 
 the spectator will imperceptibly imagine him- 
 self in the midst of the grand but inhospita- 
 ble shores of Iceland. 
 
 We are indebted for some of the above 
 remarks, to a descriptive pamphlet, which 
 may be had at the doors of the Gardens. 
 
 SAY NOT THAT LOVE GROWS COLD. 
 
 BY ANDREW PARK, 
 
 Author of “ The Queen of Merry England," $c. fyc. 
 
 ( For the Mirror.) 
 
 Say not that love grows cold ; 
 
 First say, the sun looks old, 
 
 And that the planets die ! 
 
 Theu if thou art so bold ; 
 
 When the untruth is told, 
 
 Let echo answer — “ Lie !” 
 
 Love always shall endure. 
 
 If first the flame was pure. 
 
 It glows in truth for ever ! 
 
 Its hold on life is sure ; 
 
 In death it has no cure — 
 
 List 1 echo answers — “ Never !” 
 
 What stronger grows with age ? 
 
 Ask of the thought-worn sage, — 
 
 Ask saints above, — 
 
 Ask Nature’s varied page — 
 
 Ask man in every stage, 
 
 And echo answers — “ Love 1" 
 
 There is a love that dies ; 
 
 A love, the wise despise 1 
 A love — a lust for gold 1 
 It yiuts on wings and flies, 
 
 A nil echo now replies — 
 
 “ That love grows cold !” 
 
 OLD FOLKS. 
 
 TOUJOURS LB MEME CHOSE. 
 
 ( For the Mirror.) 
 
 The world one scene is e’er the same. 
 
 All but the time, the place, the name : 
 
 Let who will fall, or who may rise, 
 
 Tiie throng and bustle never dies. 
 
 The snn’s.light gleams on nothing new — 
 New ideas bring the old to view. 
 
 The mind invention but displays 
 
 The schemes and thoughts of by-gone days: 
 
 Hence sordid souls I'll let it pass. 
 
 With cheerful friend enjoy my glass, 
 
 Nor euvy those who do not know 
 They've liv’d some thousand years ago ! 
 
 Theodosius Purland. 
 
 STANZAS. 
 
 ( For the Mirror.) 
 
 When gathering clouds in diverse forms arise, 
 And close between us and the god of day, 
 Tho’ we no longer track him thro’ the skies. 
 Yet other worlds behold his yellow ray. 
 
 So, to the virtuous is their day of strife ; 
 
 Tho' clouds obscure their modest efforts here. 
 They find, when parted from the toils of life, • 
 Their worth has shoue upon a better sphere. 
 
m 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 REMARKABLE DREAMS. 
 
 ( Continued from page 2C0.) 
 
 A gentleman in Edinburgh, was affected 
 with aneurism of the popliteal artery (that 
 is, a rupture of the principal blood-vessel of 
 the ham) ; for which he was under the care, 
 of two eminent surgeons ; and the day was 
 fixed for an operation. About two days 
 before the time appointed lor it, the wife of 
 the patient dreamt that a change had taken 
 place in the disease, in consequence of which 
 the operation would not be required. On 
 examining the tumor in the morning, the 
 gentleman was astonished to find that the 
 pulsation had entirely ceased ; and, in 
 short, this turned out to be a spontaneous 
 cure. To persons not acquainted with sur- 
 gery, it may be right to mention, that the 
 cure of popliteal aneurism without an opera- 
 tion is a very uncommon occurrence ; — not 
 happening in one out of numerous instances, 
 and never to be looked upon as probable in 
 any individual case. It is likely, however, 
 that the lady had heard of the possibility of 
 such a termination ; and that her anxiety 
 had very naturally embodied this into a 
 dream. The fulfilment of the dream at the 
 very time when the event took place, is cer- 
 tainly a very remarkable coincidence. 
 
 The following anecdote also, J am enabled 
 to give (on the authority of Dr. Abercrom- 
 bie) as entirely authentic. A lady dreamt 
 that an aged female relative had been mur- 
 dered by a black servant; and the dream 
 occurred more than once. She was then so 
 impressed by it, that she went to the house 
 of the lady to whom it related ; and pre- 
 vailed upon a gentleman to watch in an ad- 
 joining room during the following night. 
 About three o’clock in the morning, the 
 gentleman, hearing footsteps on the stairs, 
 left his place of concealment, and met the 
 servant carrying up a quantity of coals. 
 Being questioned as to where he was going, 
 he replied, in a confused and hurried man- 
 ner, that he was going to mend his mistress’s 
 fire ; which, at three o’clock in the morn- 
 ing, in the middle of summer, was evidently 
 impossible ; and, on further investigation, a 
 strong knife was found concealed beneath 
 the coals. 
 
 Another lady dreamt that a boy, her 
 nephew, had been drowned along with some 
 young companions, with whom he had en- 
 gaged to go on a sailing excursion in the 
 Firth of Forth. She sent for him in the 
 morning; and with much difficulty prevailed 
 upon him to give up his engagement. His 
 companions went, and were all drowned. 
 
 A gentleman dreamt that the devil car- 
 ried him down to the bottom of a coal-pit ; 
 where he threatened to burn him, unless 
 he would agree to give himself up to his 
 service. This he refused to do; and a 
 warm altercation followed. He was at last 
 
 allowed to depart, upon condition of send- 
 ing down an individual whom the devil 
 named, — a worthless character, well known 
 in the neighbourhood. A few days after- 
 wards, this person was found drowned ; and 
 under circumstances which gave every rea- 
 son to believe that his death had been 
 voluntary. 
 
 A lady in Edinburgh had sent her watch 
 to be repaired. A long time elapsed with- 
 out her being able to recover it ; and, after 
 many excuses, she began to suspect that 
 something was wrong. She now dreamt 
 that the watch-maker’s boy, by whom the 
 watch was sent, had dropped it in the street, 
 and injured it in such a manner, that it could 
 not be repaired. She then went to the mas- 
 ter ; and, without any allusion to her dream, 
 put the question to him directly ; when he 
 confessed that it was true. 
 
 Such coincidences derive their wonderful 
 character from standing alone ; and apart 
 from those numerous instances in which such 
 dreams take place without any fulfilment. 
 An instance of a very singular kind, is men- 
 tioned by Mr. Joseph Taylor ; and is given 
 by him as an undoubted fact. A young man, 
 who was at an academy a hundred miles from 
 home, dreamt that he went to his father’s 
 house in the night-time ; tried the front door ; 
 but found it locked ; got in by a back door ; 
 and, finding nobody out of bed, went directly 
 to the bed-room of bis parents. He then 
 said to his mother, whom he found awake, 
 “Mother, I am going a long journey; and 
 am come to bid you good bye.” On this she 
 answered, under much agitation, “ O dear 
 son, thou art dead 1” He instantly awoke, 
 and thought no more of his dream; until a 
 few days afterwards, he received a letter from 
 his father, inquiring very anxiously alter 
 his health, in consequence of a frightful 
 dream his mother had had, on the same 
 night in which the dream now mentioned 
 occurred to him. She dreamt that she heard 
 some one attempt to open the front- door ; 
 then go to the back-door ; and at last come 
 into her bed-room. She then saw it was her 
 son: who came to the side of her bed, and 
 said, — “ Mother, I am going a long journey ; 
 and am come to bid you good bye ;” on which 
 she exclaimed, — “ O dear son, thou art 
 dead !” But nothing unusual happened to 
 any of the parties. The singular dream 
 must have originated in some strong mental 
 impression, which had been made on both 
 the individuals about the same time ; and to 
 have traced the source of it would have been 
 a subject of great interest. 
 
 On a similar principle we are to account 
 for some of the stories of second sight. A 
 gentleman sitting by the fire on a stormy 
 night, and anxious about some of his domes- 
 tics who are at sea in a boat, drops asleep 
 for a few seconds ; dreams very naturally of 
 
THK MIRROR. 
 
 3*5 
 
 drowning men ; and starts up with the ex- 
 clamation that his boat is lost. If the boat 
 return in safety, the vision is no more thought 
 of. If it be lost, as is very likely to happen, 
 the story passes for second sight ; and is, in 
 fact, one of the anecdotes that are given us 
 the most authentic instances of it. 
 
 It is unnecessary to multiply examples 
 of the fulfilment of dreams on the principles 
 which have now been mentioned ; but I am 
 induced to add the following, as it is cer- 
 tainly of a very interesting kind ; and as Dr. 
 Abercrombie vouches for its being entirely 
 authentic in all its particulars. A most re- 
 spectable clergyman, in a country parish of 
 Scotland, made a collection at his church for 
 an object of public benevolence, in which he 
 felt deeply interested. The amount of the 
 collection, which was received in ladles car- 
 ried through the church, fell greatly short of 
 his expectation ; and, during the evening of 
 the day, he frequently alluded to this, with 
 expressions ol much disappointment. The 
 following night he dreamt that three one- 
 pound notes had been left in one of the ladles ; 
 having been so compressed by the money 
 which had been thrown in above them, that 
 they had stuck in the corner when the ladle 
 was emptied.* He was so impressed by the 
 dream, that, at an early hour in the morning, 
 he went to the church, found the ladle which 
 he had seen in his dream, and drew from one 
 of the corners of it three one-pound notes. 
 This interesting case is perhaps capable of 
 explanation upon simple principles. The 
 possibility of the ladle not having been fully 
 emptied may have darted across his mind, 
 and this impression may then have been em- 
 bodied in a dream. N. R. 
 
 THE WORSHIP OP THE DOQ 
 
 May be traced to remote antiquity. In Egypt 
 it was prevalent; and in Bruce’s Travels we 
 find that the Kowas, or watch-dog of the 
 skies, is venerated in Abyssinia ; not only was 
 he raised by the ancients to a conspicuous 
 station in the heavens, but lie was placed as 
 the deep-mouthed guardian of the infernal 
 regions. In Hindu and Siamese mythology 
 a portion of hell is given over to his power. 
 
 This singular species of worship was once 
 openly professed by many Indo chinese tribes, 
 but now slight remnants of it alone remain. 
 Thus amongst the Siamese there are many 
 persons, who, on undertaking a journey, or 
 upon any unusual occasion, invoke the great 
 dog to avert all evil from them. The 
 people of Salang had statues of this dog, the 
 last of which was, it is said, carried off by 
 some Malays. There is little doubt that the 
 Malays also were once infected by this super- 
 stition, and it is worthy of notice, that al- 
 though so many centuries have elapsed since 
 • These ladles.are partially covered over. 
 
 they were converted to Muhammedanism, 
 yet it is curious to observe the large number 
 of their former superstitious observances, 
 which they still retain and cling to, although 
 denounced by Muhammed. 
 
 Cije J^aturaltet. 
 
 To the Editor of the Mirror. 
 
 Sir, — The commencement of the year 1834 
 was a season of unusual mildness and pre- 
 cocity. A short notice of several natural 
 phenomena, registered at Barton-under* 
 Needwood, in the county of Stafford, was, 
 at the time, inserted in one of the periodi- 
 cals, by an ingenious and amiable observer 
 now no more. The Spring of last year (1838) 
 was of directly opposite character ; it may, 
 therefore, be interesting to contrast th» 
 dates of the same occurrences, happening at 
 these two different periods, and observed in 
 the same locality. I am, Sir, 
 
 Your obedient Servant, 
 
 May , 1839. XV. L. Beynon. 
 
 1838. 
 
 1834. 
 
 
 March 2 
 
 Feb. 23 
 
 Rooks begin to build. 
 
 5 
 
 Jan. 1 
 
 Galanthus nivalis, bl. (Snow-drop.) 
 
 7 
 
 Feb. II 
 
 Draba verna, bl. (Whitlow-grass.) 
 Senecio vulgaris, bl. (Groundsel.) 
 
 8 
 
 Jan. I 
 
 
 Feb. 20 
 
 Corylus avellana, bl. (Hazel.) 
 
 9 
 
 Jan. I 
 
 Anemone hepatica, bl. 
 
 
 II 
 
 Primula polyanthus, bl. 
 
 
 Feb. II 
 
 Stellaria media, bl. (Chick-weed.) 
 
 
 Jan. I 
 
 Blackbird begins to whistle. 
 
 ii 
 
 3 
 
 Crocus vernus, bl. 
 
 
 I 
 
 Daphne mezereum, bl. 
 
 
 
 Primula vulgaris, bl. (Primrose.) 
 
 13 
 
 
 Beilis perennis, bl. (Daisy.) 
 
 
 Feb. 20 
 
 Frogs appear and croak. 
 
 20 
 
 15 
 
 Ficaria verna, bl. (Pile-wort.) 
 
 27 
 
 March 1 
 
 Bat first observed. 
 
 28 
 
 Jan. I 
 
 Viola adorata, bl. (Sweet Violet.) 
 
 
 
 Veronica agrestis, bl. (Speedwell.) 
 
 30 
 
 March 2 
 
 Mercurialis perennis, bl. (Dog’s Mer- 
 cury.) 
 
 
 
 Fragraria oterilis, bl. (Barren Straw- 
 berry.) 
 
 
 Feb. 28 
 
 Cardamine hirsuta, bl. (Land-cress.) 
 
 
 Jan. 26 
 
 Tussilago farfara, bl. (Colt’s-foot.) 
 
 
 Feb. 18 
 
 Prunus armeniaca, bl. (Apricot.) 
 
 
 Jan. I 
 
 Pyrus Japonicus, bl. 
 
 (Narcissus pseudo-narcissus, bL (Daf- 
 fodil.) 
 
 April 2 
 
 Feb. 10 
 
 9 
 
 Jan. I 
 
 Leontodon taraxaci, bl. (Dandelion.) 
 
 10 
 
 Feb. 15 
 
 Lamium purpureum, bl. (Red Dead 
 Nettle.) 
 
 11 
 
 Jan. 2 
 
 Lamium album, bl. (White Dead Net- 
 tle.) 
 
 
 I 
 
 Ulex europoeus, bl. (Gorse.) 
 
 Thlaspi bursa pastoris, bl. (Shepherd's- 
 purse.) 
 
 
 30 
 
 
 March I 
 
 Ulmus campestris, bl. (Elen.) 
 
 14 
 
 Feb. 28 
 
 Cerastium vulgatum, bl. (Mouse-ear.) 
 
 
 March I 
 
 Glechoma hederacea, bl. (Ground- ivy.) 
 
 
 14 
 
 Fussilago petasites, bl. 
 
 
 I 
 
 Hyacinthus orientals, bl.. 
 
 15 
 
 6 
 
 Anemone nemoralis, bl. (Wood-ane- 
 mone.) 
 
 18 
 
 Feb. 18 
 
 Arabis thaliana, bl. (Wall-cress.) 
 
 22 
 
 March 6 
 
 Primula veris, bl. (Primrose.) 
 Caltha palustris, bl. (Meadow-bolt.) 
 
 25 
 
 Feb. 15 
 
 30 
 
 April 22 
 
 Cookoo heard. 
 
 May 3 
 
 Jan. 20 
 
 Prunus spinosa, bl. (Blackthorn.) 
 
 5 
 
 MarchI3 
 
 Cardamine pratensis, bl. (Lady-smock.) 
 
 
 18 
 
 Scilla nutans, bl. (Blue-bell.) 
 
 
 28 
 
 Erysimum alliaria, bl. (Hedge-garlick.) 
 
 6 
 
 I 
 
 Stellario holostea, bl. (Stitch -wort.) 
 
 8 
 
 Feb. 25 
 
 Lychnis divico, bl. (Campion.) 
 
 9 
 
 April 13 
 
 Orchis morio, bl. (King-finger.y 
 
 
 March25 
 
 Erysimum barbarea., bl. (Yellow- 
 rocket.) 
 
 N. B. — Those dated Jan. 1st, may be considered as having 
 been in bloom during the month preceding, or even through- 
 out the winter.— The abbreviation, bl., is put for blossomed* 
 
TIIK MIRROR. 
 
 326 
 
 SAINT GEORGE AND THE DRAGON 
 AT TORONTO. 
 
 In the beginning of the year 1836, as I was 
 taking my morning ramble along one ol 
 the green-bordered roads of Upper Canada, 
 which led at its terminus into the city of 
 Toronto, I came suddenly at one of its angles 
 upon two men, who had ail the appearance 
 of tillers of Canadian soil ; and whose con- 
 versation, being in a key somewhat above 
 soprano, fell distinctly on my ear. From the 
 questions which they put to each other, it 
 was evident that they themselves had but just 
 met ; for, said the stouter of the two, whose 
 name I afterwards ascertained to be Wickory, 
 to his little friend on his right, most eupho- 
 niously named Hickory, “ Where are you 
 bound for, neighbour Hickory, this morning ?” 
 
 “ Oh 1 I am going,” responded Hickory, 
 “ where you, I suppose, and all the rest ot the 
 world, are going, to buy up all the shares I 
 can catch hold of in the new Coxamareca 
 company, and so make my fortune in the 
 fifth of a second.” — “ Shares and Coxama- 
 reca !” exclaimed little Wickory ; “ what new 
 bubble is afloat, friend Hickory, to take in 
 and delude ? Keep your money fast, I say, and 
 don’t give, like Frauklin, too much for your 
 whistle.” — “ Bubble afloat, indeed !” ex- 
 claimed Hickory ; “ it is one of the most sub- 
 stantial things which speculation has laid 
 hold of this ten centuries. The Coxamareca 
 company, is a company now forming, I would 
 have you know, neighbour Wickory, the 
 object of which is to fish up, by means of 
 diving-bells, the throne of pure gold of the 
 Incas, which the Peruvians threw into the 
 mineral waters of Coxamareca on the approach 
 of the Spaniards. They are diving after it 
 at this minute like crocodiles ; and before 
 sunset, I guess, we shall have despatches, 
 stating that the magnificent treasure is on 
 dry land. From that instant, Wickory, 
 Hickory’s fortune is made. If you’re a good 
 fellow, you’ll wish me my hearts desire : but 
 I suppose you are going on the self-same 
 errand as I.” — “No,’’ said Wickory, “you 
 mistake: lam not going Coxamareca gold- 
 throne hunting — I am, it’s true, where all the 
 world is going to-day, and that is to Toronto, 
 to see the grand anniversary festival of St. 
 George and the Dragon, which takes place this 
 afternoon.” Attracted by this news, though I 
 had determined in my mind to follow Hickory, 
 and hear the result of his fortune-chase, I now 
 changed my mind, and having plenty of spare 
 time on my hands, determined to follow 
 Wickory instead, and see with him what was 
 to be seen. 
 
 Proceeding the same road as the Cana- 
 dian farmers, who still carried on their con- 
 versation, we at length arrived at the market- 
 place of Toronto, where dense crowds were 
 already collected, to secure a sight of the pro- 
 cession which was destined to pass that spot; 
 
 and which was afterwards to proceed to the 
 Ontario House, where the ceremony of Saint 
 George was to take place. Shortly after our 
 arrival here, Hickory, who was all impatience 
 after his Coxamareca shares, managed to slip 
 away from Wickory, and we saw no more of 
 him. 
 
 Standing beside farmer Wickory, whom 
 I hnd seen to be of nature, good-humoured 
 and garrulous, I inquired of him the origin 
 of this observance of Saint George’s Day, in 
 these parts; whereupon he informed me, that 
 the first settlers here instituted this cere- 
 mony, when they had become sufficiently 
 located, to the honour of the titular saint of 
 merry England, and that the anniversary of 
 its institution had been carefully maintained 
 up to the present day. Wickory further in- 
 formed me, that this ceremony was under the 
 direction of a president and managing com- 
 mittee, who were elected officers of the 
 society annually, for the proper discharge of 
 the duties of the ensuing year. All prepara- 
 tory arrangements, he continued, had been 
 made for this anniversary, and on this day, 
 as previously decided on, the society would 
 meet in the City Hall, for the purpose of re- 
 ceiving a banner and two stands of colours, 
 “ with gems and golden lustre rich emblazed,” 
 by the fair hands of the English ladies at 
 Toronto, who have signified theif intention 
 of presenting them to the society. 
 
 I was intent upon examining the nature of 
 the building before me, called the Ontario 
 House, in which the ceremony was to take 
 place, when I observed standing up erect, 
 against one of the front portals, an ancient 
 clerical friend of my acquaintance, a man of 
 profound erudition, and notable beyond the 
 rest of the crowd by the quaintness of his 
 attire. Delighted at discovering one, from 
 whom I knew much information was to be 
 derived on any point, I immediately forced 
 my way through the crowd, and being des- 
 cried by his keen eye beforehand, I met with 
 a heavty salutation. 
 
 “ Well,’’ said he, “ have you so much 
 English love left in your heart, as to stray 
 three miles from your quiet home, for sight 
 of St. George killing the Dragon?” 
 
 “ Yes,’’ said I, “ if the picture should 
 prove, as it promises, to turn out better than 
 the common draughts I have heard you 
 speak of.” 
 
 “Oh!” said he, “you mean those I have 
 formerly described to you, which 1 saw ten 
 years ago in the English college at Rome, 
 where this celebrated Saint is set forth in 
 the Icons or Cuts, by Cevallerius.” 
 
 “Yes, but I understand there is a fair chance 
 of seeing brighter faces in this forth-coming 
 ceremony, than even that of the King’s 
 daughter, who is represented as standing by 
 in the picture, and viewing the exploit of the 
 knight: but have you an admission at the 
 
THE MIRROR, 
 
 327 
 
 door?” “I have not, unless a silver key 
 opens it for me, somewhat in the shape of a 
 crown.” 
 
 “ No need for that,” said my reverend 
 friend; “here is a carte blanche for you, if 
 you will.” I expressed my delight at the 
 opportunity offered, and the doors being now 
 thrown open for the entrance of all who had 
 admissive cards, we entered with celerity, 
 and took our seats in a commanding situation. 
 
 At the end of the hall, was a magnificently 
 large cartoon, representing the subject we 
 had come to see, and of which we had just 
 been holding discourse. 
 
 “ Ah !” said the divine, looking expres- 
 sively on the picture, “ on that description 
 dependeth a solemn story ; how by this 
 achievement that valorous knight redeemed 
 a king’s daughter; which story we English 
 more especially believe, and whose protector 
 he is chiefly esteemed.” 
 
 “ Yes,” answered I ; “ but of what autho- 
 rity soever this piece be among us, it is 
 received with very different belief by others. 
 I have spoken with some who believe indeed 
 both the person and the story : some the per- 
 son and not the story, and others who deny 
 the story altogether ! Do you yourself think 
 that there was ever such a person in reality ?” 
 
 “ You seem to be yourself the most scep- 
 tical of the lot, I perceive,” said he:— “that 
 such a person there was, I may not contend ; 
 I should rather say, that the indistinction of 
 many in the community of name, or the ap- 
 plication of the act of one to another, has 
 made some suppose there was no such man 
 at all.” 
 
 “ But did you ever meet with his name in 
 any accredited history ?” 
 
 “ Yes,” said the rev. schoolman, “ I have 
 met with more than one in history, and noless 
 than two of Cappadocia; the one, an Araian, 
 who was slain by the Alexandrians, in the 
 time of Julian, and the other, a valiant soldier, 
 and Christian martyr, beheaded in the reign 
 of Dioclesian. This last I consider as the 
 George conceived in the picture, who has his 
 day in the Roman Calendar, which these 
 people are now keeping.” 
 
 “ But it appears to me,” rejoined I, “ that 
 the picture was never intended as a veritable 
 history, but that some symbolical expression 
 is attached to it, which, were I scholar eru- 
 dite as you, 1 should be able to discover.” 
 
 “ You say right,” said the reverend, “ a 
 noble picture and emblem is that yonder, of 
 the soldier and true champion of Christ, 
 which this Saint and soldier is meant to im- 
 ply. Armed from greave to helm in golden 
 panoply, — that horseman saint George, is 
 intended to represent the Christian, complete 
 in his armour of light, and who combating 
 the Dragon, type of the Devil, fights bravely, 
 and to the death or conquest in defence of 
 that beautiful creature, the king’s daughter, 
 
 who is the sweet and amiable emblem of the 
 Church of Gon : and such picture,” said the 
 reverend, “if I had my will, should be 
 gloriously blazoned on every church-door in 
 the land !” 
 
 Further conversation was stopt by the arri- 
 val in the Hall of the Sister Societies of St. 
 Andrew and St. Patrick, bearing their respec- 
 tive flags, who came to witness the interest- 
 ing spectacle. The Hall was fitted up in a 
 style of splendour suited to the occasion, and 
 a temporary platform had been elevated for 
 the ladies who were to present the colours. 
 The splendid streamers of St. Patrick were 
 ranged on the left of the ladies, and the 
 dazzling pennons of St. Andrew on the right; 
 and under these, the- noble front of many a 
 Torontite distinguishediy shone. Bright and 
 brilliant were the benches made, by the 
 crowded gathering of ladies ; and in front of 
 the stage stood the members of St. George, 
 waiting to receive from the hands of their 
 fair countrywomen 
 
 Those emblems, endeared to all Englishmen’s hearts 
 1S.Y all that love values and beauty imparts : 
 
 Since the time when the sword of St. Geogre in the 
 fight, 
 
 With the dragon of Egypt first gleamed in the light : 
 Since the time when at Ascalon, Cceur de Lion, 
 
 The Red Cross of St. George as his banner bore on ; 
 Since the time when their Edward, the garter bedecked 
 With the motto, that libertine tibaldry checked. 
 
 Arrangements being completed, the lady 
 most conspicuous for her pulchritude and 
 beauty, took her seat on a throne, which was 
 placed centrally on the platform. On the right 
 and left she was supported by two ladies, of 
 eminent loveliness. Behind the throned lady, 
 high up, was reared the white silk banner, 
 bearing on one side Saint George vanquish- 
 ing the Dragon, and on the other, the Insig- 
 nia of the Order of the Garter. On her right 
 was reared the Blood-red Cross, in a field of 
 pure white, made of satin, and resplendent 
 with its silver fringes : while on the left 
 was displayed a crimson banner, emblazoned 
 with three lions, on a field of blood, encir- 
 cled with the garter, and bearing in letters 
 of gold, the well-known compliment of Kiug 
 Edward. 
 
 It was now that the throned lady rose 
 from her seat, and with an air that seemed 
 to say 
 
 “ I breathe on the roses I offer to thee,” — 
 presented the bright-flaming gonfalon to a 
 noble representative of the Order of Saint 
 George ; and with words sweetly modulated 
 as are angel-lutes, announced the following 
 address : — 
 
 “ Sons of St. George, 
 
 “ Your countrywomen have this day come 
 forward, to present to you national emblems, 
 around which to rally, calling upon the sons 
 of the Old World, and to their descendants, 
 to unite for one common purpose, and be , 
 prepared to put forth their strength when 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 32 $! 
 
 required, either to succour the distressed, 
 or to repel aggressors. 
 
 “ Let the banners of St. George, which we 
 now offer you, remind you, that though no 
 such tell monsters ravage this fair land, as 
 the champion of England is thereon repre- 
 sented to have slain, yet a dragon of discord 
 doth sometimes carry dissensions into the 
 bosom of our social family, the which you 
 are especially called on to destroy, under 
 whatever form disguised. 
 
 “ By the first — the banner of our Faith, — 
 we are taught that a spirit of charity hath 
 called upon the knight to protect that forlorn 
 damsel ; and who is there of us so void of 
 defence, as not to need this protecting 
 mantle ? 
 
 *• On the third banner, the arms of England 
 are represented by lions in a field of blood. 
 Well have the Sons of Saint George, in the 
 Old World, and their descendants here, me- 
 rited this heroic distinction ! 
 
 “ Sons of Saint George, receive our best 
 wishes for your prosperity I may you ever 
 cherish in your hearts that respect, venera- 
 tion, und love for our father-land, which 
 has brought you together on this occasion. ’’ 
 
 As soon as the last sweet syllables from 
 the lady’s lips had died away in the hall, 
 the other two banners were presented, in like 
 manner as the first ; and immediately a strain 
 of inspiring music struck up, which filled 
 the Hall with harmony. 
 
 On its subsidence, a young man, of hand- 
 some deportment, stept forth, much in form 
 and figure like Milton’s “ Azaziel, that se- 
 raph tall,” who, with becoming grace and 
 dignity, returned for answer the following 
 address : 
 
 “ On behalf of the Sons of Saint George, 
 I am deputed to acknowledge your magni- 
 ficent gift : it calls to my remembrance the 
 days of old, when the ardent aspirant for 
 chivalric honours gained the long-sought 
 object— fair hands girded his sword to his 
 side, and buckled the spur to his heels — the 
 scarf which was thrown over his armour 
 was wrought by the fingers of his lady-love ; 
 and the banner which he was to advance in 
 tourney and the field, was embroidered by 
 her, whose peerlessness, on all occasions, he 
 was eager to assert — and to the gift of whose 
 hand he looked for the reward of his fearless 
 devotion. But though the age of Chivalry 
 be over, not more grateful or more devoted 
 was he to her, the fair mistress of his 
 thoughts, than the Sons of St. George now 
 feel to you, Ladies, for the gifts with which 
 you have honoured us. 
 
 “ We should little deserve the name in 
 which we pride ourselves — the name of 
 Englishmen — did not our bosom thrill with 
 emotion at the proud recollections those 
 banners inspire. They bring back to our 
 minds our own, our loved, our native land 
 —England, merry England, with her fertile 
 
 fields, her smiling flower-decked plains. The 
 hills and heights crowned with the ancient 
 baronial castles, the spires of her churches 
 pointing to that heaven, the way to which is 
 sought within,— the manor halls of her 
 squires., and the tens of thousands of her 
 cottages, wherein was, and is, nurtured the 
 sturdy English yeomanry, who have been 
 her boast and protection, and the terror of 
 her foes. Dearer still to all of us, arise in 
 our memories the “ old familiar faces ’’ — 
 those who nursed our infancy — who tended 
 our childhood, the companions of our youth- 
 ful sports, the friends, the loved ones of our 
 early years. O, cold indeed must be our 
 hearts, and deadened our affections, when 
 we do not feel grateful to you for reviving 
 associations and recollections such as these. 
 What matter it whether we drew our first 
 breath in the castle or the cottage, the hall 
 or the ivy-decked parsonage — we are chil- 
 dren of one soil— our hearts unite in the 
 same hallowed remembrances — we have one 
 common pride in our native land — and are 
 united in one common feeling of attach- 
 ment to 
 
 The free fair home of England 1 
 And long in hut and hall 
 May hearts of native proof be found 
 To guard each hallowed wall. 
 
 And green for ever be the graves. 
 
 And bright the flowery sod. 
 
 Where first the child's glad spirit loves 
 Its couutry and its God. 
 
 “The banners given of yore ” continued 
 the eloquent speaker, “ were to be advanced 
 in the field of deadly strife- -ours, the gift 
 which you, thrice-honoured Ladies! have pre- 
 sented us with, will be displayed daily in 
 the field of charity and benevolence. They 
 will be raised as standards, around which the 
 strong may rally — beneath which the dis- 
 tressed may find shelter. Proud will the 
 Sons of St. George be to display them — as 
 they now see the banners of the Sons of St. 
 Andrew and St. Patrick displayed, in honour 
 of the patron Saint of their British brethren ; 
 and as the day of their celebration arrives, 
 we will unfurl these flags, in return of the 
 kindly feeling that has brought our Scotch 
 and Irish friends round us to-day. The 
 only struggle — the sole contest between us 
 all will be, which shall be foremost in works 
 of kindness, charity, and brotherly love — and 
 when the distressed wanderer claims the 
 shelter and protection of St. George’s ban- 
 ner, we will not fail in granting it to him, to 
 make him aware that to the Ladies he owes 
 it, that he has that banner to fly to for re- 
 fuge in this distant land. 
 
 “Once more, ladies, the Sonsof St. George 
 render you their most sincere, their most 
 grateful acknowledgments. We cannot vow 
 to destroy monsters, or to combat dragons 
 for your sake, ns our knightly forefathers 
 would have done, yet we will endeavour v to 
 associate your names with the recollee- 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 329 
 
 tion* of the olden times ; and when our liba- 
 tions are poured out, when we sit around 
 the festive board which will be spread in 
 honour of our anniversary — and when our 
 only regret will be that it is not graced by 
 your presence — we will raise in your honour 
 the ancient and spirit-stirring cry, “ For 
 God, St. George, and the Ladies.” 
 
 The manly and melodious tones of the 
 speaker now ceased — martial music rose 
 around, and the ceremony in honour of St. 
 George concluded : but its effects were good 
 and lasting on those who beheld it. 
 
 “It were well,” observed my Rev. friend 
 as we were departing, “ taking into conside- 
 ration the spirit and good impressions this 
 anniversary ceremony has evidently on the 
 mind, if it were celebrated throughout every 
 other town in Canada, for much, undoubt- 
 edly by reason of its patriotic tendency, 
 would it strengthen the cords of love, and 
 effectually confirm the affections of the Ca- 
 nadians to their Mother- Country. 
 
 W. Archer. 
 
 THE LOBISHOMENS. 
 
 Having established myself at the inn, (says 
 a recent traveller,) on going into the kitchen, 
 which was very spacious, but imperfectly 
 lighted, with a huge chimney and high 
 pointed roof, I observed among the com- 
 pany a man of singular appearance, sitting 
 apart, who was neither speaking himself, nor 
 was he spoken to by others. His face was 
 pale and haggard, his eyes deep sunk, and his 
 hair was prematurely grey. Upon asking 
 who he was, I was informed thafche was one 
 of the Lobishomens, a devoted race, who are 
 held in mingled horror and commiseration, 
 and never mentioned without emotion by the 
 Portuguese peasantry. They believe, that if 
 a woman is delivered of seven male infants 
 successively, the seventh, by an inexplicable 
 fatality, becomes subject to the powers of 
 darkness, and is compelled on every Saturday 
 evening to assume the likeness of an ass ; 
 and when so changed, is compelled to run 
 over the moors, and through the villages, fol- 
 lowed by a horrid train of dogs; nor is he 
 allowed an interval of rest, until the dawning 
 Sabbath terminates his sufferings, and re- 
 stores him to his human shape ; should, there- 
 fore, a peasant meet a pale and weary traveller 
 at an early hour on Sunday morning, he 
 shudders as he looks upon his haggard coun- 
 tenance, supposing it to have been occasi- 
 oned by the infernal chase. They declare 
 that the only means of relieving the victim 
 from this horrible bondage, is by inflicting a 
 wound upon him during the very act of 
 transformation ; a liberation supposed to be 
 seldom effected, few men having the courage 
 to behold the appalling change in progress ; 
 and still fewer having sufficient coolness to 
 strike the critical blow at the exact moment. 
 
 Such is the superstition of the Lobishomens, 
 which is diff used over the whole of Portugal ; 
 but although subject to various versions in 
 the different districts, it is only implicitly 
 accredited in the wild and lonely wastes of 
 Alentego. VV. G. G. 
 
 MODES OF ENGRAVING MAPS. 
 [The following interesting particulars of the 
 rise and progress of map engraving on wood, 
 is extracted from Mr. Jackson’s Historical 
 and Practical Treatise on Wood Engraving : a 
 work as interesting to the antiquary as to every 
 admirer of the fine arts ; and which will 
 prove a delightful companion and faithful 
 guide to all who are employed in that beautiful 
 department of the arts.] 
 
 In Ptolemy’s chronology, of the edition of 
 1482, we discover the first specimens of en- 
 graved maps on wood ; but in a previous edi- 
 tion of the same work of 1478, the maps are 
 printed from plates of copper, the names of 
 places being stamped with a punch : — 
 
 “ In the execution of the maps, the copper- 
 plate engraver possesses a decided advantage 
 over the engraver on wood, owing to the 
 greater facility and clearness with which let- 
 ters can be cut in copper than on wood. In 
 the engraving of letters on copper, the artist 
 cuts the form of the letter into the plate, the 
 character being thus in intaglio ; while in 
 engraving on a block, the wood surrounding 
 has to he cut away, and the letter left in 
 relief. On copper, using only the graver, — 
 for etching was not known in the fifteenth 
 century,— as many letters might be cut in 
 one day as could he cut on wood in three. 
 Notwithstanding the disadvantage under 
 which the ancient wood engravers laboured 
 in the execution of maps, they for many 
 years contended with the copper-plate prin- 
 ters for a share of this branch of business ; 
 and the printers, at whose presses maps en- 
 graved on wood only could be printed, were 
 well inclined to support the wood engravers. 
 In a folio edition of Ptolemy, printed at 
 Venice in 1511, by Jacobus Pontius de Leu- 
 cho, the outlines of the maps, with the indi- 
 cations of the mountains anil rivers, are cut 
 on wood, and the names of the places are 
 printed in type, of different sizes, and with 
 red and black ink. For instance, in the map 
 of Britain, — which is more correct than any 
 which had previously appeared, — the word 
 “ALBION” is printed in large capitals, 
 and the word “ gadini ” in small capitals, 
 and both with red ink. The words “ Curia V 
 and “Bremenium” are printed in small 
 Roman characters, and with black ink. The 
 names of the rivers are also in small Roman, 
 and in black ink. Such of those maps as 
 contain many names, are almost full of type. 
 The double borders surrounding them, within 
 which the degrees of latitude are marked, 
 appear to have been formed of separate pieces 
 
330 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 of metal, in the manner of wide double rules. 
 At the head of several of the maps there are 
 figures of animals emblematic of the coun- 
 try. In the first map of Africa there are two 
 parrots ; in the second, an animal like a 
 jackal, and a non-descript ; in the third, con- 
 taining Egypt, a crocodile, and a monstrous 
 kind of fish, like a dragon ; and in the fourth, 
 two parrots. In the last, the “curious ob- 
 server” will note a specimen of decorative 
 printing from two blocks of wood ; for the 
 beak, wing, and tail of one of the parrots is 
 printed in red. It the last map,— of Loraine, 
 — in an edition of Ptolemy, in folio, printed 
 at Strasburg in 1513, by John Schott, the 
 attempt to print in colours, in the manner of 
 chiaro-scuro wood-engravings, is carried yet 
 further. The hills and woods are printed 
 green ; the indications of towns and cities, 
 and the names of the most considerable places, 
 are red ; while the names of the smaller places 
 are black. For this map, executed in three 
 colours, green, red, and black, there would 
 be required two wood engravings and two 
 forms of type, each of which would have to 
 be separately printed. The arms, which 
 form a border to the map, are printed in their 
 proper heraldic colours. The only other spe- 
 cimen of armorial bearings printed in colours 
 from wood-blocks, that I am aware of, is 
 Earl Spencer’s arms in the first part of 
 Savage’s Hints on Decorative Printing, which 
 was published in 1818, upwards of three hun- 
 dred years after the first essay. At a later 
 period a new method was adopted, by which 
 the wood engraver was spared the trouble of 
 cutting the letters, while the printer was 
 enabled to obtain a perfect copy of each map 
 by a single impression. The mode in which 
 this was effected was as follows. The indica- 
 tions of mountains, rivers, cities, and villages, 
 were engraved on the wood as before, and 
 blank spaces were left for the names. Those 
 spaces were afterwards cut out by means of a 
 chisel or drill, piercing quite through the 
 block; and the names of the places being in- 
 serted in type, the whole constituted only 
 one ‘ form,’ from which an impression both 
 of the cut and the letters could be obtained 
 by its being passed once through the press. 
 Sebastian Munster’s Cosmography, folio, 
 printed at Basle in 1554, by Henrie Petri, 
 affords several examples of maps executed in 
 this manner. This may be considered as 
 one of the last efforts of the old wood engra- 
 vers and printers to secure to themselves a 
 share of the business of map engraving. 
 Their endeavours, however, were unavailing, 
 for within twenty years of that date, this 
 branch of art was almost exclusively in 
 the hands of the copper-plate engravers. 
 From the date of the maps of Ortelius, 
 Antwerp, 1570, engraved on copper by vEgi- 
 dius Diest, maps engraved on wood are rarely 
 to be seen. The practice of engraving the 
 
 outlines and rivers on wood, and then piercing 
 the block and inserting the names of the 
 places in type, has, however, lately been re- 
 vived ; and where publishers are obliged 
 either to print maps with the type, or to give 
 none at all, this mode may answer very well, 
 more especially when the object is to give the 
 relative position of a few of the principal 
 places, rather than a crowded list of names. 
 Most of the. larger maps in the Penny Cyclo- 
 paedia are executed in this manner. The 
 holes in the blocks are pierced with the 
 greatest rapidity by gouges of different sizes, 
 acting vertically, and put in motion by ma- 
 chinery contrived by Mr. Edward Cowper, to 
 whose great mechanical skill the art of steam- 
 printing chiefly owes its perfection. 
 
 33tosrapi)j>. 
 
 THE YOUNGEH SERVIN. 
 
 The following account of an extraordinary 
 union of amazing talents with the greatest 
 depravity, is extracted from the memoirs of 
 M. de Sully. An old nobleman of the court, 
 named Servin, went one morning to Sully, 
 and presented his son, begging that he would 
 use his endeavours to make him a man of 
 some worth and honesty ; although he con- 
 fessed it was what he dared not hope ; for, 
 though he had no deficiency of understanding 
 or capacity, yet he had a natural inclination 
 to all kinds of vice. What his father asserted 
 having excited in Sully a curiosity to gain a 
 thorough knowledge of young Servin, he 
 found united in him an assemblage of the 
 most excellent and the most pernicious qua- 
 lities. He was of so lively a genius, and so 
 extensive an understanding, as rendered him 
 scarcely ignorant of anything that could be 
 known ; of so vast and ready a comprehension, 
 that he immediately made himself master of 
 whatever he attempted ; and of so prodigious 
 a memory, that he never forgot what he had 
 once learned. He possessed a knowledge of 
 philosophy and mathematics, particularly for- 
 tification and drawing. He was well skilled 
 in theology, was an excellent preacher, and 
 an able disputant, either for or against the 
 reformed religion. He understood Hebrew, 
 Greek, and all the learned languages, besides 
 all the different jargons, or modern dialects, 
 which latter tongues he accented and pro- 
 nounced so naturally, and so perfectly imitated 
 the gestures and manners, both of the several 
 nations of Europe, and the particular provinces 
 of France, that he might have been taken 
 for a native of any of these countries. He 
 was a good comedian and great droll ; he had 
 a genius for poetry, and had written many 
 verses ; he played upon almost all instruments, 
 was a perfect master of music, and sung 
 agreeably and justly he likewise could say 
 mass. His body was well suited to his mind : 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 331 
 
 he was light, nimble, dexterous, and fit for 
 all exercises ; he could ride v/ell ; and in 
 dancing, wrestling, and leaping, he was 
 much admired ; there were not any recreative 
 games that he did not know, and he was 
 skilled in almost all the mechanical arts. 
 But, at the same time, he was treacherous, 
 cruel, cowardly, and deceitful ; a liar, a cheat, 
 a drunkard, and a glutton ; a sharper in play, 
 and immersed in every species of crime ; in 
 a word, in him might be found all the vices 
 contrary to honour, religion, and society. 
 
 W. G. C. 
 
 ^ClD SSoofes!. 
 
 Every Mother's Book, for judiciously treat- 
 ing herself and Children. By W. Ord, 
 
 M. D. Darton and Clark. 
 
 [This little treatise is fairly and honestly 
 written, in language very easily to be under- 
 stood — not laboured with dog-latin terms 
 “ That knaves invent, and fuols admire,” 
 but couched in such simple language, that 
 every mother may easily understand what she 
 is reading about ; and that is a very useful and 
 meritorius feature in the work. It treats of 
 the various complaints of mother and child : 
 the following extracted remarks are worthy 
 of attentive perusal.] 
 
 Occidents and Errors of Clothing, Sfc. 
 
 We have greatly improved, during the last 
 forty years, in the treatment and clothing of 
 infants ; immensely swaddled and enveloped 
 on the first dressing, infants were in former 
 times scarcely permitted to stretch their 
 limbs, or to see the light of day ; and, in 
 fact, were so little noticed, as, in familiar 
 language, to be more backward at two years 
 of age than ordinary children now are at six 
 months. 
 
 To affix rules for systematically dressing 
 them would be as absurd in our ideas as to 
 diet them by some pragmatic principle of ar- 
 tificial life; but, while we must condemn the 
 absurd notion of washing or dressing so as 
 to harden them — (a thing somewhat pro- 
 blematic where the frame is naturally feeble, 
 and in attempting which, we feel assured, 
 some thousands die from cold, water of the 
 brain, paralysis, &c.) ; still must we avoid 
 the opposite extreme of a pampered, luxuri- 
 ous state, capable of enervating even the stout- 
 est frame. 
 
 Cleanliness is a virtue of civilized life, and 
 must never be forgotten ; next to this, the 
 rule of an old physician of great celebrity, 
 to “ keep the feet warm, the head cool, and 
 the bowels regular, ’’ must be strictly re- 
 membered ; and, as a child advances in years, 
 he must be taught that the first is best ac- 
 complished by exercise, the second by tem- 
 perance, and the last by a prudent regulation 
 of his diet. It will be self-evident that the 
 warming of the feet only by fleecy hosiery, 
 
 and the cooling of the head by bleeding and 
 refrigerants, are neither natural nor of much 
 hope. 
 
 Tight bandages are always improper ; 
 and, no material can be appropriate, how- 
 ever costly or elegant, which is not both in 
 its nature and substance adapted to the sea- 
 son. Furs in summer, or gauze in winter, 
 can never lengthen life. Colds, consump- 
 tions, diarrhoeas, dysenteries, and colic, are 
 easily produced in such a climate as this ; 
 and down beds, and the once great necessary 
 of a nursery, warm curtains, are equally im- 
 proper. The skin of the horse may be ren- 
 dered more delicate and showy by hot sta- 
 bles and extra clothing, added to high diet, 
 but he thereby becomes the child of disease ; 
 and rest assured, however much vanity may 
 startle, or puritanical feeling shrink, the 
 same physical laws which govern the habi- 
 tudes of the lower world, govern man ; and 
 in as far as the grade or class of animal in- 
 dicates the treatment and kind of food re- 
 quired, so precisely must man be treated. 
 The child of aristocracy could no more exist 
 on the peasant’s diet, than he could perform 
 the peasant’s task ; and vice versa, the food 
 of the child of fortune would be as much too 
 light for the digestive powers of the one to 
 work upon, as the peasant’s shoes would be 
 too heavy for the feet of the other. 
 
 Flannel is of great value in this climate ; 
 but, if once adopted, should never be cast 
 off. Stays with hard busks, should never be 
 permitted, and certainly no busks at all be- 
 fore twelve or fourteen years of age. 
 
 The present system of school routine is 
 as absurd and dangerous as that of factories ; 
 in truth, seminaries for young ladies and 
 gentlemen are, eight out of ten, but factories 
 under another designation ; but assuredly 
 union schools and workhouse asylums among 
 the poor are infinitely worse ; and I much 
 question whether large assemblies of this 
 kind are, at any time, practically more moral , 
 than they are healthy. Man is a social ani- 
 mal ; but, neither mentally nor bodily, is he 
 to be treated as a mere machine. I allude 
 obviously to close sitting, impure vitiated 
 atmosphere, insufficient exercise, limited 
 and non-selected diet. 
 
 Diseases of the spine often originate in 
 the use of stays ; from the same cause the 
 viscera of the belly are first deranged in func- 
 tion, and ultimately [become diseased. So 
 also are the feet crippled by the ridiculous 
 adoption of shoes no more adapted to the 
 human foot than to the toes of a lap-dog. 
 More than one half of society pays this pe- 
 nalty to fashion without the slighest return, 
 for a high instep becomes a deformity in a 
 very low shoe, as much as the foot of a car- 
 man would be in Bond-street pumps : if the 
 Athenians were wise in pointing out drunk- 
 enness in its most brutal forms to the youths 
 of that day, we might be no .less so in show- 
 
33-1 
 
 THK MIRROR. 
 
 ing the difference between the graceful 
 tread of men with healthy feet, and that of 
 the crippled monkey who ambles from Bond- 
 street shoe bazaars. And if the folly be 
 great, nay criminal in man, what is it in the 
 female, whose gait and gesture should be 
 grace itself? The corn-cutter, like the 
 worm doctor, is either an ignorant knave or 
 dangerous impostor, and in either character 
 should be avoided. Very sensitive corns are 
 generally deadened by touching every night 
 with copperas (sulphate of iron) slightly 
 damped ; and rasping will ulways supersede 
 cutting. 
 
 Whenever the feet are chilled from walk- 
 ing in wet weather, the warm bath and dry 
 stockings generally prevent injury; we are 
 somewhat epicurean with our feet, and add 
 to this bath a little mustard. 
 
 In cold or foggy weather the secret of 
 safety and comfort consists of two precau- 
 tionary measures, motion to circulate the 
 blood, and protecting the lungs by breathing 
 through any gauze like texture. 
 
 I cannot conclude the present chapter 
 without quoting some of the excellent re- 
 marks as to the nursing of children, given by 
 my friend Dr. Hume Weatherhead, in his 
 admirable “ Treatise on Rickets.” He says, 
 p. Ill, “ Children by nature are more help- 
 less than the young of other animals, and 
 hence, remain longer in a state of tutelage. 
 Before their infant limbs have attained 
 strength sufficient for locomotion, frequent 
 exercise in and by the arms of the nurse, is 
 therefore a salutary and necessary part of 
 her duty. The perspiration of an infant is 
 much more abundant than in the adult, and 
 exercise promotes this; hence, also, the 
 benefit and propriety of suitable clothing.” 
 
 Further on, at p. 114, he says that which 
 ought above all things to receive the care- 
 ful attention of the mother. “ One great 
 and prevalent cause of distortion in the 
 figure and position of the lower limbs of 
 children, arises from the idle anxiety of 
 nurses to teach them to walk too soon. No 
 maxim ought to be more inculcated than 
 that children walk of themselves when they 
 have attained competent strength for it. 
 Children are naturally active, and as soon 
 as the bones have gained sufficient solidity, 
 and the muscles sufficient strength, their little 
 mischievous curiosity will quickly prompt 
 them to walk ; this inherent bias may be 
 assisted and encouraged, but ought never to 
 be prematurely forced. Indeed, while lazi- 
 ness is at bottom the main reason for the 
 nurse’s conduct, she deceitfully flatters the 
 vain and confiding mother by a false repre- 
 sentation of the willingness and ability of the 
 really reluctant infant.” 
 
 Again he says, p. 115, “ It imports us to 
 note the impropriety of seating children on 
 soft cushions, cfec. ; they sink into them, 
 their body bends forward, and the back con- 
 
 sequently becomes curved. The same ob- 
 jection applies to chairs hollowed in the 
 middle ; they perhaps sit more secure in 
 them, and with more comfort for the mo- 
 ment, but these considerations ought to be 
 disregarded. The height of the arms of 
 their litile chairs is another matter of some 
 importance; they naturally lean upon them, 
 and if too high, this elevates their shoulders ; 
 if too low, they lean only upon one, the evil 
 consequences of which are too obvious to 
 require indication : perhaps it were better, 
 were they without elbows at all.” 
 
 [It appears admirably adapted for all young 
 mothers ; and to such we recommend it.] 
 
 MERIT OF A FORGIVING 
 TEMPER. 
 
 To forgive an injury is an indication of an 
 exalted mind, displaying in its exercise one 
 ol the noblest qualities of the human heart. 
 It is likewise a duty enjoined by the divine 
 invocation, “ forgive us our trespasses (or 
 debts) as we forgive them who trespass 
 against us,” (or our debtors) ; and, unless 
 a man has attained sufficient self-command 
 over his choleric passions habitually to re- 
 strain them, and coolly disregard the provo- 
 cations of malice or ire, he knows not how 
 to forgive, nor can he merit forgiveness. 
 
 It is the act of a devout, a rational, and 
 enlightened mind, to pardon. For, he who 
 takes revenge for any affront, makes him- 
 self equal with his adversary, and betrays a 
 little mind ; but he who passes it over, ren- 
 ders himself the superior, and commands the 
 applause of Virtue. It is the attribute of 
 Virtue to forgive, but of Folly to resent. 
 
 Mercy is an amiable goddess, who sits 
 smiling benevolence and charity upon all her 
 suppliants ; while Revenge is a bloodthirsty 
 demon, who infuses nothing but relentless 
 fury into the imagination of all who submit 
 themselves to her fiendish rule. 
 
 History, out of numerous examples illus- 
 trative of the admiration which a generous 
 remission of offences excites, mentions that 
 of Cn. Domitius, a Tribune at Rome, who 
 burning to ruin his enemy, M. Laurus, pub- 
 licly accused him of certain high crimes and 
 misdemeanors. His zeal in the prosecution 
 incited a slave of Laurus, through the hope 
 of a reward, privately to otter himself as a 
 witness against his master. But justice pre- 
 vailed over revenge. As Domitius, without 
 hearing a word, ordered him to be put in 
 fetters and carried to his master — an action 
 that deservedly gained Domitius the highest 
 honours. 
 
 " To err is human, — to forgive divine.” 
 Consequently, all who aim after a celestial 
 perfection of character, must make the at- 
 tempt at least to imitate that which is truly 
 an attribute of the angelic nature. If no 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 3.13 
 
 other and greater merit attended our exer- 
 cise of the virtue of forgiveness, certainly 
 the peace and harmony of society would be 
 promoted. But it has infinitely higher 
 claims to our adoption. The Supreme 
 Being is represented to us as incapable ot 
 beholding iniquity unmoved by a holy indig- 
 nation, and that no mortal is guiltless in his 
 sight. Yet we presume to seek and expect his 
 forgiveness of our faults. How can we, with 
 any pretension to humility and a knowledge of 
 ourselves, dare to prefer our request for the 
 pardon of the Omnipotent if we forgive not 
 our brother his trespasses P — Free?nason , s 
 Quarterly Review, No. xxi. 
 
 THE NEW ART.— PHOTOGRAPHY. 
 
 (Concluded from page 317.) 
 
 9. — To obtain Photographic Copies of Ob- 
 jects larger or smaller than the Originals. 
 By altering the focus or distance of the 
 lens of a camera obscura, placed opposite to 
 an object, a copy of any required proportion 
 can be obtained on the photographic paper. 
 Sir. J Herschell says, that a copy of an 
 etching reduced to any required scale, may 
 be got by placing the etching on a smoked 
 glass, (not having a resinous ground,) behind 
 an aplanatic lens, the smoked side towards 
 the focus. “ By exposure to a solar beam 
 radiating from the focus of a lens, the scale,” 
 says Mr. Talbot, “ may be enlarged. The 
 reducing process, on trial, succeeded per- 
 fectly, only a little care is required to follow 
 the sun. By the use of highly sensitive 
 paper, this inconvenience would be much 
 diminished ; and by attaching the whole 
 apparatus to an equatorial with a clock, it 
 would be entirely removed. If a resinous 
 ground is used, the etching must be after- 
 wards varnished or gummed, to destroy the 
 loose light refracted obliquely by the thin 
 edges of the cut-up ground, which is never 
 quite opaque.” 
 
 10. — To obtain Photographic Copies , requir- 
 
 ing no correcting of the Shadow. 
 
 Cover a plate of glass with a solution of 
 resin in turpentine, or with opaque varnish, 
 or with etching ground, and then hold it 
 over the smoke of a candle. Sketch designs 
 upon the blackened side with an etching 
 needle, scratching away the composition 
 wherever you wish shadow to be represented 
 on the copies — the design itself being the 
 reverse of the effect which it is intended to 
 introduce. If the solution of resin, or the 
 opaque varnish be used, the design must be 
 sketched before the surface is quite dry. 
 
 You may also transfer a print or picture 
 on to the glass from which you mean to 
 take photographic copies requiring no cor- 
 rection, by proceeding in the following man- 
 ner. Put a square of thin glass over a pic- 
 
 ture, and paint on the high lights[(or lighter 
 parts of the scene) with thick white lead, 
 mixed with wax, copal varnish, and sugar of 
 lead, to make it dry quickly ; for the half 
 tints, make the white less opaque with the 
 varnish, and graduate the tints off for the 
 deep shadows. When it is dry, retouch 
 the whole, by removing, with the point of a 
 knife, the white ground, to represent the 
 darkened lines of the original. Place a sheet 
 of photographic paper upon the painted 
 surface, and to make the contact perfect, 
 put three layers of flannel at the back, and 
 tie the whole down to a board. Through 
 the cleared parts of the glass, the light will 
 penetrate, and produce, in about ten mi- 
 nutes, if there be a bright sun, deep purplish 
 black marks, corresponding in shape to 
 those parts. If the half tints have absorbed 
 too much of the violet ray, paint them over 
 with black on the other side of the glass, 
 and this may be wiped off or renewed until 
 it lays accurately over the particular spot. 
 Mr. Havell, who, in this manner copied the 
 well-known etching by Rembrandt, of Paust 
 conjuring Mepnistophiles to appear in the 
 form of a bright star, says “ There is no 
 advantage in letting the glass remain too 
 long in the light, as it deepens the middle 
 tints, and does not blacken the shadows in 
 the same proportion. The fixation [of the 
 shadow,] with salt entirely failed ; with the 
 iodide of potassium it succeeded very well. 
 The effect of the drawing may be heightened, 
 at pleasure, by touching the lights with 
 strong iodide of potassium, and the darks 
 with a strong solution of the nitrate of silver 
 dropped upon tin with a camel's-hair pencil : 
 this instantly turns black. With these, the 
 drawing may be invigorated, and the whole 
 will resemble a mezzotint print, or a rich 
 sepia drawing. I preferred a white ground 
 made of white lead, sugar of lead, mixed 
 with wax and copal varnish : this may be 
 laid on very thin, with a silk dabber, or thick 
 by repeating the process, or the various 
 opacities may be introduced, according to 
 the subject and effect proposed. Transfer 
 the outline in soft pencil, by rubbing on the 
 back of the paper, and proceed to etch with 
 the etching-point, a knife or any hard point, 
 to make the bolder lines ; thus, with the 
 glass placed on black paper, the work will 
 look like a spirited drawing in pen and 
 ink ; or, under the hands of the engraver, a 
 highly-finished engraving. If the seini- 
 opaque ground be preferred, vurious middle 
 tints will readily be obtained ; and by touch- 
 ing the high lights with opaque white, or 
 with black at the back, a variety of effects 
 may be produced, similar to the double 
 lithography. 
 
 These processes may be applied to original 
 designs, copies from paintings, portraits, 
 and figures. At present I have found the 
 bank-note post-paper the best. Probably it 
 
334 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 inay be worth while to join two pages 
 together, as the paper is very thin. As the 
 preparation on the glasses never wears out, 
 causes no dirt, may be altered, improved, and 
 retouched at any time, and only requires the 
 care not to break them, it may be the means 
 of employing women and children. It will 
 give rise to new employment to the artist, 
 in making original designs on glass, as weli 
 as copies from pictures ; it will be a source 
 of amusement to the amateur ; and an elegant 
 employment for ladies, particularly to those 
 who can paint or draw. It is perfectly avail- 
 able to those who wish to publish a limited 
 number of illustrations, with manuscripts, 
 where it would not be worth the expense of 
 employing engraving, or printing. Every 
 pane of glass in ihe windows of a house may 
 be occupied, by having a back-board to fit 
 the frames, and layers of flannel, or wadding, 
 to make the contact perfect, and the house 
 being darkened is the more favourable for the 
 preparation of the paper, and fixation of the 
 photographic drawings.” 
 
 Mr. Talbot remarks, that photographic draw- 
 ings obtained in this way “ resemble more 
 than any others the productions of the artist’s 
 pencil ; and for such they have been generally 
 mistaken, because they give, not mere outlines 
 only, but all the details of the figures perfectly 
 well shaded .’’ — “ Designs thus produced will 
 become much more common, .and even more 
 generally applicable than lithography, because 
 all the means are more readily accessible, 
 whilst it will receive its rank as an art, and 
 be excellent in proportion to the skill of the 
 artist, as a draftsman with the etching needle. 
 The size need no longer be kept down by 
 that of the printing-press, as the size of the 
 glass can alone limit the size of the design. 
 This is a real and valuable discovery, appli- 
 cable to a thousand purposes. Beautiful 
 imitations of washed bistre drawings may be 
 produced by stopping out the light on the 
 glass by black varnish, which will obstruct 
 the transmission of light in proportion to the 
 thickness with which the varnish is laid on ; 
 and specimens like fine mezzo-tinto prints 
 have been produced by this process. — Lite- 
 rary Gazette. 
 
 11. Dr. Fyfe’s mode of obtaining Photogra- 
 phic copies requiring no correction of the 
 Shadow. 
 
 At a meeting of the Society for the En- 
 couragement of the Useful Arts, held at 
 the Royal Hotel, Princes-street, Edinburgh, 
 Dr. Fyfe described a process for obtaining 
 photographic drawings requiring no correc- 
 tion of the shadow, or having the lights and 
 shadows untransposed. The paper is first 
 saturated with phosphate of silver instead of 
 nitrate. When a drawing is required, this 
 phosphate-paper is immersed in a solution of 
 the iodide of potass, and while still moist 
 exposed to the light, with the object, the 
 
 impression of which is to be taken, placed on 
 it, and left till the whole of the paper exposed 
 becomes yellow, and when removed it exhi- 
 bits a distinct representation of the object. 
 In this process there is a tendency of the 
 iodide to convert the dark phosphate to 
 yellow iodide of silver, which it does in- 
 stantly when the solution is strong, but very 
 slowly when it is weak, unless it is exposed 
 to light, and then the action goes on rapidly. 
 It was observing this that induced Dr. Fyfe 
 to try the influence of light on phosphate- 
 paper besmeared with iodide of potass, by 
 which he was led to the discovery. Of course 
 when an object which allows the light to pass 
 through it differently, is put on the paper, 
 those parts on which the denser portions of 
 the object are placed still retain their darker 
 colour, the other parts are tinged, just accord- 
 ing to the transmission of the light. When 
 impressions thus prepared are kept, they 
 gradually begin to fade, owing to the conti- 
 nued action of the iodide of potass, and hence 
 the necessity of submitting them to a preser- 
 vative process. After numerous trials, that 
 which seemed to answer best was merely 
 immersing them in water for a few minutes, 
 and in some cases even allowing a stream 
 of water to flow gently on them, so as to 
 wash out the whole of the iodide of potassium 
 not acted on — in this way the agent which 
 tends to discolour the blackened phosphate, 
 seems to be removed. 
 
 12. Fidelity of the Photographs. 
 
 To give some idea of the fidelity of the 
 photographic copies, we shall mention a few 
 examples : — “ It is so natural,” says Mr. 
 Talbot, “ to associate the idea of labour with 
 great complexity and elaborate detail of exe- 
 cution, that one is more struck at seeing the 
 thousand florets of an agrostis, (bent-grass,) 
 depicted with all its capillary branchlets, (and 
 so accurately, that none of all this multitude 
 shall want its little bivalve calyx, requiring to 
 be examined through a lens,) than one is by 
 the picture of the large and simple leaf of an 
 oak or a chesnut. But in truth the difficulty 
 is in both cases the same. The one of these 
 takes no more time to execute than the other; 
 for the object which would take the most 
 skilful artist days or weeks of labour to trace 
 or to copy, is effected by the boundless pow- 
 ers of natural chemistry in the space of a few 
 seconds.” 
 
 Mr. Talbot having held a photographic 
 copy of a piece of beautiful lace-work, at 
 the distance of a few feet from some per- 
 sons whom he asked whether it was not a 
 good representation, they replied that they 
 were “ not to be so easily deceived, for it 
 was evidently no picture, but a real piece of 
 lace.” 
 
 We have seen so true a photographic copy 
 of a small-toothed comb, that we at first 
 supposed it was a real one. A wag indeed 
 
TI1K MIRROR. 
 
 335 
 
 might find frequent sport in observing the 
 surprise created whenever he has slyly placed 
 a photograph of this sort upon the table- 
 cloth or plate of an acquaintance. This 
 would indeed put the fidelity of the photo- 
 graph to as good a test as could be devised. 
 Objects the most minute are obtained, — the 
 delicate hairs on the leaves of plants, — the 
 most minute and tiny bivalve calyx, — nay 
 even a shadow, the emblem of all that is 
 most fleeting in this world, is fettered by 
 the spell of the invention, and remains per- 
 fect and permanent long after it has been 
 given back to the sunbeam which produced 
 it. Mr. Talbot’s photographic copies of 
 engravings and manuscripts are so accurate 
 that they have been mistaken for the ori- 
 ginals. 
 
 DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 On the difficulty of ascertaining the precise 
 Date of the Erection of Ancient Domes- 
 tic Edifices constructed of Timber and 
 Plaster. 
 
 England cannot be said to have possessed 
 any distinct and national style of architecture 
 since the period of the earlier half of the six- 
 teenth century, when the perpendicular 
 English began to give way to the strangest 
 anomalies and absurdities ; nor have we 
 many examples of the private habitations of 
 that age which have come down to us un- 
 altered. There can be no doubt that the 
 Reformation gave a death-blow, for a time, 
 to the cause of architecture. The riches of 
 the dissolved monastaries were then appro- 
 priated or squandered, and the channel for 
 the dispensation of money, which had once 
 flowed through the piety of the devotee, and 
 had been mostly employed in architectural 
 embellishment and design, took a different 
 and far less laudable course. Architecture, 
 therefore, became debased, and sculpture 
 bowed her diminished head, to assume a 
 stiffness of character alike foreign to feeling 
 and to judgment. When such was the lot of 
 the palace and the temple , the lower grades 
 of buildings partook proportionately of their 
 revolution, and the artistical vagaries which 
 have left us gothic canopies supported by 
 ionic columns, and a knight in plate armour, 
 reposing on a shelf, above the effigy of his 
 wife under a Corinthian entablature, may 
 also have played such similar pranks in the 
 construction of* the cottage or the hall, as 
 would tend to baffle the keenest inquiry of 
 the most zealous antiquary. C. S. 
 
 “ While brooding over our misfortunes, let us look around, and 
 rve shall find many far more wretched than ourselves 
 
 It is a world of woe that we inhabit. I am 
 in trouble; and think, perhaps, that I am 
 more to be pitied than any one of my fellow- 
 mortals I My eye falls on a map of the 
 
 world — I pass to the smallest quarter of it, 
 then to a remote corner, a little island— I 
 look in vain for the town, or even the county, 
 in which I dwell. The frozen waste of Si- 
 beria, the arid plains of Africa, contain mil- 
 lions far more wretched than I. Thousands 
 of ships are ploughing the ocean, bearing 
 their human freight all for a time, many for 
 ever, from home and kindred : some, outcasts 
 from their country, doomed to end their days 
 as exiles to a foreign clime — others, victims 
 of avarice and oppression, torn from their 
 dear, though humble home, fated to labour 
 worse than death for another’s gain. To 
 return to my own couutry— the mighty me- 
 tropolis — what thousands of miserable beings 
 are therein ! Many, immersed in dungeons,, 
 perhaps condemned to die on the scaffold : 
 countless numbers existing in hovels, or even 
 in the streets, in the most abject misery and 
 wretchedness. Shall I, seeing all this, — and 
 while brooding over mine own affliction, — say 
 — “ It is greater ?” AX<pa. 
 
 Cfje ©atljerer. 
 
 Mr. Stewart’s Autographs were brought 
 before the public for sale, on Friday and Sa- 
 turday last, by Mr. S. Leigh Sotheby, at his 
 house, in Wellington street, Strand. As the 
 collection was well known to contain many 
 excessively rare and important State Papers, 
 Letters, &e., the sale was attended by some 
 of the most eminent collectors ; among them 
 we noticed Mr. Upcott, Sir Frederick Mad- 
 den, Mr. Baker, &c. & c. Under the ma- 
 
 nagement of Mr. Sotheby, the various lots 
 brought very good prices, the different speci- 
 mens being in general in the highest state of 
 preservation. In a sale, consisting of 370 
 lots, it is not to be expected we can enume- 
 rate anything like a tithe of them. The fol- 
 lowing are the prices at which some of the 
 most interesting documents were sold : — An 
 entire autograph letter of Mary D’Este, 
 21. 6s . — A valuable letter of Prince Rupert, 
 31. 4 s . — State Papers, signed by Richard 
 Cromwell, 31. 13s. 6d . — An original letter, in 
 French, from Oliver Cromwell to his agent at 
 Versailles, dated fVestmonastery. June 1654; 
 an extraordinary and characteristic specimen 
 of Cromwell’s diplomatic genius, 51 . — A 
 letter of Henrietta Maria, addressed to the 
 Prince of Orange, 31. 16s. — Royal Letters 
 Missive, with the autograph of Queen Eliza- 
 beth, 4/. 6s. — Autograph of King Edward 
 VI. 41. 6s. — Original letters signed by Napo- 
 leon, written on paper water-marked with his 
 profile, 61. 2s. 6d . — Autograph of James IR 
 of Scotland, attached to a letter, in Latin, 
 41. 2s . — A letter in French, addressed to 
 Marmontel, the author of Belisarius, inform- 
 ing him of a translation of his romance into 
 Russian ; among many signatures attached, 
 is that of the Empress Catherine, dated Sept. 
 
336 
 
 THK MIRROR. 
 
 II, 1768, 3/. 6s. — A melancholy relic of the 
 gifted end generous Mrs. Jordan, being a 
 letter of hers in humble acknowledgment of 
 a creditor’s forbearance, dated Paris, 22 Feb. 
 1816, a few weeks before her death, 1/. Is. 
 — Two letters by Thomas Chatterton, en- 
 tirely in his hand-writing : these interesting 
 documents revealed the fact of his attempting 
 to impose the Rowley MSS. on Dodsiey, 
 before he addressed Walpole, 31. 3s. — An 
 autograph letter of Dr. S. Johnson, 31. 10s. — 
 A ditto of Grahame, of Claver house, after- 
 wards Viscount Dundee, 31. 5s. — A letter of 
 the infamous Judge Jeffreys, with his rare 
 autograph, spelled Geo. Geffreys , 2 l. 11s. — 
 A splendid state paper, signed by nearly all 
 the eminent statesmen of the time of Charles 
 II. almost immediately after his restoration, 
 51. 17s. 6d. — An original letter from Arch- 
 bishop Laud to the Lord Clifford, 21. 12s. 6<l. 
 — A ditto from the Earl of Strafford to Loid 
 Cromwell, 21. 10s. — A signature of Henry 
 Darnley, husband of Mary Queen of Scots, 
 in an Italian Grammar, both at the begin- 
 ning and end, brought 21. 6s. 
 
 Oxford Street Experimental Paving. — The 
 following is the state of the experiments, as 
 reported by the committee on Saturday last : 
 the bitumen laid down by the Bastenne and 
 Gaujac Bitumen Company, stood the wear 
 and tear of the vehicles passing over it, 
 without any materiul alteration. The por- 
 tion laid down by the Val de Travers Com- 
 pany, had stood, but that portion of it in 
 which the broken granite had been set in 
 their liquid had totally failed, and must be 
 removed immediately. The Aberdeen gra- 
 nite cubes proved to be in excellent condi- 
 tion, and more particularly those set in 
 Claridge's asphalte. Robinson’s bitumen 
 had proved a complete failure. The Scotch 
 asphaltum had nearly proved useless. Mr. 
 Stead’s wooden block pavement was found 
 to form a road of a most even surface, and 
 of the. 12 inches, the length of the blocks, it 
 was found they had not been diminished one 
 quarter of an inch ; but the bottom of the 
 blocks appeared discoloured by a blue stain. 
 A diversity of opinion existing among the 
 committee, it wus resolved, that a further 
 trial was necessary ; and that they ought 
 not to come to a final decision until Septem- 
 ber next. A Mr. Geary has obtained per- 
 mission to lay down a wooden pavement on 
 a new principle. 
 
 A Charter granted by Mateo me Kenmure, 
 King of Scotland. — I, Malcome Kenmure, 
 King, the first of my reign, give to thee, 
 Baron Hunter, Upper and Nether Powmode, 
 with all the bounds within the floods, with 
 the Hoope and Hoopetown, and all the 
 bounds up and down, above the earth to 
 heaven, and all below tbe earth to hell, as 
 free to thee and thine, as ever Goo gave to 
 me and mine, and that for a bow and bioad 
 
 arrow when I came to hunt upon Yarrow ; 
 and for the more sooth of this, I byte the 
 white wax with my teeth, before Margaret, 
 my wife, and Maule, my nurse. 
 
 Sic Subscribitur. 
 
 MALCOME KENMURE, King. 
 
 Margaret, witness. 
 
 Maule, witness. 
 
 J057. 
 
 Oglander, in his Memoirs of the Isle of 
 Wight, written in 1700, gives us tbe follow- 
 ing record of a blessing formerly enjoyed by 
 that favoured spot. *■ I have heard,’’ says 
 our author, ‘‘ and partly know it to be true, 
 that not only heretofore was there no lawyer 
 nor attorney in the Wight, but in Sir George 
 Cary’s time, 1588, an attorney coming to 
 settle there was, by his command, and with 
 a pound of candles hanging at his side, 
 lighted, with bells about his legs, hunted out 
 of the island.” 
 
 Australia . — In the library of the Carthu- 
 sian friars at Evora, in Portugal, there is a 
 manuscript atlas of the different countries 
 in the world, with richly illuminated maps, 
 made by Turnao Vaz Dourado, cosmogra- 
 pher at Goa, in 1570. In one of the mups 
 there is laid down the northern coast of Aus- 
 tralia, with the following note : — This coast 
 was discovered by Ternao de Magathuens, a 
 native of Portugal, in 1520. From this ac- 
 count it appears that the Portuguese visited 
 it many years before the Dutch, who have 
 claimed the merit of the discovery. 
 
 W. G. C. 
 
 Fortitude under Pain . — In the course of 
 an inquest taken before Mr. Wakley, that 
 gentleman said it was surprising what forti- 
 tude was displayed by women whilst under- 
 going any surgical operation, as compared 
 with men The latter he had seen quiver at 
 the slightest touch, whilst women would sub- 
 mit to the most painful operation without a 
 shudder. He, however, once witnessed a 
 most surprising instance of fortitude in a man, 
 who having had the misfortune to break his 
 leg, amputation was deemed necessary, which 
 was accordingly performed by Sir Astley 
 Cooper. Some time after, the man called upon 
 Sir Astley, and begged him to cut some more 
 off - the stump, as it incommoded him very 
 much! Sir Astley tried to dissuade him from 
 having it done, but without avail. The man 
 then sat down in a chair, and refused to be 
 strapped to it, saying, he well knew what the 
 pain was, and that he would not move. Sir 
 Astley thereupon cut off' three or four inches 
 more from the stump, the man, according to 
 promise, not moving a muscle. — 1839. 
 
 LONDON: Printed and published by J. LIMBIRD, 
 143, Strand, (near Somerset House'); and sold by 
 all Booksellers and Newsmen . — In PARIS, by all 
 the Booksellers. — In FRANCFORT, CHARLES 
 JVOEL. 
 
Zi)e ftUvtmv 
 
 OF 
 
 LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION. 
 
 No. 951.] SATURDAY, JUNE 1, 1839. [Price 2d. 
 
 REPRESENTATION OF CAPTAIN HUNTLEY’S_MODEL OF A SLAVE-SHIP. 
 
THK MIRROR 
 
 338 
 
 -Public iEvljibittonS. 
 
 captain huntley’s model of a sfanish 
 
 , SLAVE-SHIP. 
 
 An elaborate model of one of those horrid 
 and pestilential receptacles — a slave-ship ! — is 
 now being exhibited at the Cosmorama, Re- 
 gent-street; affording a frightful illustration 
 of the manner in which the slave-trade is 
 carried on. It is a beautiful specimen of 
 workmanship, and a perfect representation, 
 on a scale of half an inch to a foot ; the vessel, 
 called the Semiramis, alias the Regulo, of 
 about 180 Spanish tons : she is represented 
 retreating from a ship of war. When she 
 sailed from the river Bonny, she mustered 
 600 slaves, with a Spanish crew of between 
 70 and 80 men; being in company with 
 another slave-ship, called the Rapido : both 
 these vessels had been narrowly watched by 
 the Fair Rosamond, Lieut. Huntley, and the 
 Black Joke, Lieut. Ramsey, tenders to her 
 Majesty’s frigate, the Dryad ; and on the 
 10th of September, 1831, they fell in with 
 the slavers, and captured them ; the Regulo 
 having upwards of 200 slaves on board ; but 
 the Rapido displayed a frightful scene of the 
 horrors to which the African is a victim, 
 when the safety of the slave ship is threat- 
 ened. Being in advance of the Regulo, she 
 was beyond the reach of the Fair Rosamond’s 
 shot, and thinking that if no slaves were 
 found on board, she would not be detained, 
 she re-landed about half her cargo ; but the 
 canoes not coming to her in sufficient num- 
 bers to take out the slaves, they were hurried 
 into the river, chained together, either to be 
 drowned, or literally torn to pieces alive, 
 by the innumerable sharks allured to that 
 river by the constant supply of food which 
 they find in the dead slaves daily thrown into 
 tt. Both the vessels were carried by the Fair 
 Rosamond to Sierra Leone, and condemned. 
 
 The above admirably-executed model re- 
 presents the manner in which the slave-ships 
 are fitted up : it shows the captain’s cabin ; 
 with the slave-room for women, and the 
 slave-room for men : the upper-deck of which 
 wo-last mentioned places are left open for 
 the purpose of showing the spectator the 
 frightful manner the kidnapped negro is 
 stowed away ; then — 
 
 He^makes his heart a prey to fell despair : 
 
 He eats Dot, drinks not, sleeps not, has no use 
 Of anything but thought ; or, if he talks, 
 
 ’Tis to himself, and then ’tis perfect raving : 
 
 Then he defies the world, and bids it pass ; 
 Sometimes he gnaws his lips, then draws his mouth 
 Into a scornful smile.” 
 
 The height between the decks, and where 
 upwards of 650 slaves are thus placed, is 
 only 3 feet 6 inches ! 
 
 It is in the above dreadful manner, the 
 wretched slaves are inhumanly huddled to- 
 gether. 
 
 The grating-hatchways, for the admission 
 of fresh air, or rather the escape of foul air, 
 are covered over during wet weather. 
 
 The mess-places for the crew, &c., are 
 also faithfully represented in the model. 
 
 Captain Huntley, to whom we are indebted 
 for the following particulars, observes : — 
 “ That at least 130,000 natives of Africa are 
 annually torn from their homes; the deaths 
 during the voyage average about 33 in the 
 hundred ; and the survivors are sold into 
 bondage principally in the Brazils and Cuba; 
 from which latter place they are conveyed 
 into Florida, Louisiana, and other states of 
 the North American Union. It is painful,” 
 he says, “ to assert that this enterprising and 
 civilized republic is extensively connected 
 with the slave trade, by building the vessels 
 peculiarly adapted for the purpose, selling 
 them to the Spanish slave-dealers in Cuba, 
 and then, sailing still under the American 
 flag, to some of the Portuguese colonies upon 
 the coast of Africa. A fictitious sale of the 
 vessel then takes place to a Portuguese, and 
 she saih immediately under her new flag 
 upon her demoniacal intent ; it is also but 
 too certain, that as the cultivation has ad- 
 vanced in the Brazils, or as any new state, 
 such as the Texas, has started up, so a fresh 
 call has been made, and as readily answered, 
 by more negroes from Africa.” 
 
 “ The efforts of Great Britain to suppress 
 this inhuman trade have been rendered in a 
 great measure unavailable, first, by the deter- 
 mination of Portugal to retain the original 
 treaty signed by the two governments, and 
 which gave the latter the right to continue 
 the slave trade to the south of the equatoi*', 
 Portugal demanding this right because she 
 then had the Brazils for her colonies ; she 
 now has no colonies at all in that quarter, 
 aud, therefore, as the cause for slaving no lon- 
 ger exists, it is to be hoped that the British 
 government will insist upon that right be- 
 ing given up, or seize Portuguese ships found 
 exercising it, without farther reference. The 
 next cause of the continuation of success 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 339 
 
 to so many engaged in this execrable voca- 
 tion, may be found in the refusal of the 
 American government to become a pavty to 
 the treaties signed between England and every 
 other European nation (Portugal excepted), 
 giving the mutual right of search upon the 
 coast of Africa, and within certain latitudes 
 and longitudes, by which vessels are seized, 
 if fitted for slaves, equally as if slaves are 
 on board.” 
 
 “The trade,” he says, “ is carried on with 
 impunity in the very neighbourhood of the 
 British colonies of Gambia and Sierra Leone. 
 Within 150 miles of the latter place, indeed, 
 is the river Gallinas, from whence not less 
 than fifteen or twenty thousand are every 
 year exported, and this through the scanda- 
 lous prostitution of the Portuguese flag. 
 
 “ The slavers proceed to the Gallinas, 
 Bonna, Cameroons, and other rivers on the 
 coast of Africa, near the entrance of which 
 are large establishments for the reception of 
 slaves when brought from the interior, and 
 in general, for facilitating the slave trade. 
 The chiefs in the vicinity of these stations 
 make sudden incursions into the interior, 
 laying waste the country, and carrying off 
 all such of the inhabitants as may suit their 
 purpose, and have been unable to conceal 
 themselves. On the required number being 
 obtained, they are put on board, as shown 
 in the model. For these, cloth, beads, gun- 
 powder, muskets, &c., are exchanged, at the 
 rate ol about 51. sterling per head. The 
 profit derived may be imagined from the 
 fact of the slaves being sold at from 50 1. 
 to 701. per head on the other side of the 
 Atlantic. 
 
 “ Every device is resorted to in order to 
 escape the British cruiser; and the vessel 
 loaded in some cases to absolute suffocation, 
 the whole voyage being in the tropics, the 
 sufferings of the negroes defy description ; 
 nor would these poor wretches escape the 
 fate ot the prisoners confined in the Calcutta 
 ‘ black hole,’ but for their being permitted 
 about one-third at a time to take the air on 
 deck. 
 
 “During the voyage, the slaves are fed 
 upon ‘ farina,’ the root of the casava scraped 
 and dried, a little yam or rice, wilh about a 
 pint of water to drink daily. A short time pre- 
 viously to reaching the place of disembarka- 
 tion, they are fed up with palm oil, indeed 
 rubbed over with it, in order to give them a 
 fat and glossy appearance, and thus expedite 
 their sale.’’ 
 
 “ With all these humiliating facts,” says 
 the Times journal, “ it is clear to demonstra- 
 tion, that our abandonment of the slave-trade 
 has not materially diminished the amount, 
 and that it is carried on at ten times the cost 
 of human suffering inflicted when it was a 
 traffic carried on by all nations, and subject 
 to regulation. It appears by commercial 
 
 Z 2 
 
 letters from Rio de Janeiro, that in that port 
 alone, 1,042 slaves were brought in three 
 ships; and that in the month of February 
 last, 6,137 slaves were brought in ten ships. 
 As the destruction of life in these voyages, 
 owing to the strict precautions used against 
 capture, is seldom less than one half, these 
 transactions for one Brizilian port, and during 
 two months only, involve the sacrifice of 
 more than 14,000 human beings!” 
 
 How grievous to reflect, thou Citizens 
 of America ! that thou, with the word of 
 Freedom everlastingly hanging on thy lips, 
 should countenance the slavery of thy fel- 
 low-creatures, and be the prime cause of 
 rivetting the chains of the enslaved Africans. 
 Shame on thee ! 
 
 However painful it may be even to write 
 on this most wretched and heart-sinking of 
 all subjects, there is yet one proud reflection, 
 that Britain has to boast of such men as 
 Clarkson — Wilberforce — Brougham — the 
 glorious triumvirate, that have, by their bril- 
 liant talents, so nobly and so successfully 
 crushed the demon of sluvery throughout 
 the British dominions ! 
 
 “ They that fight for freedom, undertake 
 The noblest cause mankind can have at stake ; 
 Religion, virtue, truth, wliute’er we call 
 A blessing — freedom is the pledge of all. 
 
 Oil liberty ! the prisoner’s pleasing dream, 
 
 Tire poet’s muse, his passion, and Iris theme ; 
 Place me where winter breathes his keenest air, 
 And I will sing, if liberty be there; 
 
 And I will sing at liberty’s dear feet. 
 
 In Afric’s torrid roue, or India’s burning heat.” 
 
 CHARITY NEVER FAILETH. 
 
 Charity is an emanation from the choicest 
 attribute of the Deity; it is, as it were, a 
 portion of the divinity engrafted upon the 
 human stock : it cancels a multitude of 
 transgressions in the possessor, end gives 
 him a foretaste of celestial joys. It whetted 
 the pious Martin’s sword, when he divided 
 his garment with the beggar, and swelled 
 the royal Alfred’s bosom, while a pilgrim 
 was the partner of his meal. It influenced 
 the sorrowing widow to cast her mite into 
 the treasury, and held a Saviour on the 
 Cross, when he could have summoned Hea- 
 ven to his rescue. Its practice was dictated 
 by the law, its neglect has been censured by 
 the prophets ; and when the Lord of the 
 vineyard sent his only Son, he came not to 
 destroy the law, but to fulfil it. Other vir- 
 tues may have a limit here ; but Charity 
 extends beyond the grave. Faith may be 
 lost in endless certainty, and hope may 
 perish in the fruition of its object ; but 
 Charity shall live for countless ages, for 
 ever blessing, and for ever blessed. 
 
340 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 A CRUISE IN THE ATLANTIC. 
 
 Some fifty or sixty years ago, before steam- 
 boats, tourists, excisemen, et hoc genus 
 omtie, (translated into cockney dialect ‘‘ and 
 all that sort of thing,”) had penetrated into 
 the most wild and remote creek and corner 
 of that ultima thule of her Majesty’s British 
 dominions —the Highlands and Islands of 
 Scotland — the inhabitants carried on what 
 they, in their simplicity and ignorance, called 
 an honest trade in rum and brandy with the 
 Faro Islands. Since that period, however, 
 the “ schoolmaster has been among them,” 
 and, supported by the strong arm of the law, 
 has at length convinced them, that to ex- 
 change their fish, oil, and seal-skins, for rum 
 and brandy, or even to convert the scanty 
 crop of grain raised under their inhospitable 
 sky, into ardent spirits, is a crime against 
 society and morality. 
 
 However sound and unanswerable the logic 
 might be by which the “ schoolmaster ” 
 himself had arrived at the above conclusion, 
 it could hardly be expected that a simple, 
 primitive people, whose perception of right 
 and wrong must necessarily have been very 
 imperfect, from their total ignorance of the 
 world, could at first be made to comprehend 
 the enormity of their crime, in exchanging 
 their own property for something else they 
 preferred; or, in drinking the produce of 
 their soil instead of eating it. It was there- 
 fore frequently necessary to resort to another 
 species of argument; and all those whose 
 craniums did not unfortunately admit of 
 their being convinced, were convicted , and 
 forthwith sent to some penal settlement, or 
 on board of a man-of-war, to learn morality. 
 But the simple islanders were so blind to 
 their own interests as not to appreciate this 
 paternal solicitude for their welfare on the 
 part of their rulers, — those among them 
 whose inclinations led them to “ do what 
 they liked with their own,” still evading, as 
 far as in their power, the revenue laws, and 
 the discipline consequent on their infringe- 
 ment ; and, at the same time, possessing the 
 sympathy of such of their fellow-countrymen 
 as were not directly engaged in this contra- 
 band trade. The active exercise of this sym- 
 pathy frequently frustrated the ends of justice, 
 and, on one occasion, led to the following 
 adventure. 
 
 John M'Kenzie, or, as he was commonly 
 called, Jan Dhu Mor, one of the most daring 
 smugglers of the Hebrides, was, after innu- 
 merable hair-breadth escapes, at last betrayed 
 into the hands of a party from a revenue 
 cutter, by one of his own men, and carried 
 to Stornaway, in the island of Lewis, where 
 he was offered by the authorities, who, under 
 the circumstances, were not guided in their 
 proceedings by the strict letter of the law, 
 the option of being sent to the county town 
 for trial, or to enter on board his Majesty’s 
 
 sloop of war, Revenge, of eighteen guns, then 
 lying in the harbour of Stornaway. Jan 
 Dhu Mor knew very well, if he went to prison 
 he should be transported, unless he could 
 effect his escape; and he did not feel the 
 slightest inclination to serve his Majesty ; he 
 therefore begged, as a favour, to be allowed 
 until the next morning to decide. 
 
 This boon was readily granted, for Jan 
 Dhu Mor was highly respected ; and his 
 character was not only beyond reproach, 
 except on the single point which led him 
 into his present dilemma, but his notions of 
 honour were of a superior order. He was 
 never known to take an unfair advantage 
 even of the revenue officers ; on the contrary, 
 he treated them with marked civility when 
 he happened to be stronger, and never on any 
 occasion used unnecessary violence. 
 
 Jan was confined for the night in the only 
 inn in the town, which, unfortunately, could 
 not boast of a prison, (a fact strongly indica- 
 tive of the barbarism of its inhabitants,) and 
 a marine from the ship of war stationed at 
 the door of his chamber. 
 
 Among those whose sympathy for the pri- 
 soner was strongly excited on this occasion, 
 was a young midshipman belonging to the 
 Revenge, of the name of Norman M‘Leod, 
 the son of a gentleman of landed property on 
 the island. This youth was well acquainted 
 with Jan, and had been first inspired with a 
 love for a seafaring life by the romantic 
 legends of the bold smuggler ; he therefore 
 conceived the bold design of liberating him. 
 For this purpose he asked leave of absence 
 till the next day. 
 
 The room in which Jan Mor was confined 
 was over the cellar, and the flooring consisted 
 of rough planks, clumsily put together. This 
 circumstance was well known to our midship- 
 man ; he therefore contrived to abstract the 
 key of Jan’s room from the place in which it 
 had been deposited by the landlord, to whose 
 care it had been entrusted, and, stealing into 
 the cellar, he made himself known to the 
 prisoner. He then thrust the key through 
 one of the crevices in the floor, and bade him 
 make the best use of it he could. 
 
 The sentinel was found on his post next 
 morning ; but gagged, and tied hand and 
 foot. It appeared that the smuggler’s hand 
 was on his throat before he could give the 
 alarm, and that he was, without much diffi- 
 culty, reduced to the helplessness in which 
 he was found by the superior strength of his 
 antagonist. Jan took the precaution to carry 
 off the marine’s' firelock and cartouch-box. 
 
 Our smuggler, without having any parti- 
 cular object in view, except putting the 
 greatest possible distance between himself 
 and the Itevenge, retreated to the other side 
 of the island. Having reached the point 
 nearest Barnera, he found one of the long 
 skiffs, in use among the islanders on the 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 341 
 
 shore, and containing a quantity of straw 
 just imported from the mainland. Into this 
 boat he threw himself, and soon fell asleep. 
 When he awoke, the day was far advanced, 
 and he found himself on the “ broad At- 
 lantic,” with the “ sky above, and the sea 
 below,” and one of the small native cattle of 
 the island as his Compagnon du voyage. He 
 then recollected having observed some cattle 
 near the boat when he entered it, and immedi- 
 ately concluded that they had surrounded it 
 for the sake of the straw, and that his fellow- 
 voyager being more adventurous than his 
 companions, had got into it when the tide 
 had receded. The rope by which the boat 
 had been fastened, which was made front a 
 species of long grass peculiar to the island, 
 had been eaten away. It was therefore evi- 
 dent ihat the returning tide had carried him- 
 self and his present companion to sea, in 
 consequence of the destruction of the rope. 
 Jan Dhu Mor would gladly have exchanged 
 his present ship and crew for a place before 
 the mast in the Revenge, much as he dis- 
 liked the strict discipline on board of her; 
 but there was no choice left for him now, 
 and he was not a man to waste time in use- 
 less repinings. He therefore took his place 
 at the helm, and kept the boat steadily 
 before a fresh easterly breeze, in the expec- 
 tation of hailing some ship ere he should 
 reach the other side of the Atlantic. For 
 he thought, and rightly too, that, if he could 
 not return, he might as well use all the 
 means in his power to go forward, and that 
 he had as much chance of being picked up 
 while traversing the pathless ocean in one 
 direction as another. There was not a mor- 
 se) of food (except the live stock) on board, 
 nor, what was of greater consequence, a 
 single drop of water. 
 
 For two days, our smuggler ran steadily 
 before the wind, without seeing a solitary 
 sail. He now began to suffer from intense 
 thirst ; and the only means by which he could 
 allay this most dreadful of all sensations, was 
 the blood of the unfortunate quadruped, 
 which, upon the whole, fared much better 
 than its superior, having abundance of straw 
 moistened by occasional showers. 
 
 But to kill the animal under the present 
 circumstances, would be like destroying the 
 goose that laid the golden eggs, as it pre- 
 sented the only prospect of prolonging his 
 life. Our smuggler, therefore, had recourse 
 to a practice sometimes resorted to by his 
 poor countrymen during seasons of scarcity, 
 viz. bleeding the cattle at stated periods, for 
 the sake of the blood, which they mixed 
 with a small portion of oatmeal. 
 
 Having quenched his thirst, and bound up 
 the wound, he continued his course. On 
 the evening of the third day it became a 
 dead calm. 
 
 Jan Dhu Mor could no longer withstand 
 the cravings of hunger ; he therefore com- 
 
 menced with his stock of beef, after the 
 Abyssinian fashion — by cutting off the tail ! 
 
 Next morning a ship hove in sight. It 
 appeared at first to take no notice of him ; 
 but having struck a light with the marine’s 
 musket, and set fire to some of the dry straw, 
 he soon attracted its attention, and a boat 
 was sent off to take him on board. 
 
 The ship proved to be the “ Franklin,’’ of 
 New York, an American privateer, carrying 
 twelve guns, owned and commanded by Cap- 
 tain Jenks. The smuggler had no sooner 
 been taken on board the Franklin, than the 
 man at the mast-head sung out “ a sail,” 
 and soon afterwards “ English colours.” 
 All was bustle on board the privateer. On 
 the nearer approach of the strange sail, it 
 was discovered to be a British ship of war, 
 carrying six guns more than the Franklin. 
 Captain Jenks, on this discovery, deemed it 
 advisable to set every stitch of canvass, a 
 slight breeze having sprung up, and sheer 
 off with all possible speed. 
 
 The Englishman, however, proved to be 
 much the better sailer before the wind ; and, 
 after a chase and running fight of several 
 hours, in which the American suffered se- 
 verely, the latter struck her colours. 
 
 Three boats were immediately sent to 
 take possession of the prize. As the un- 
 suspecting boarders were in the act of pour- 
 ing into the privateer, the American captain, 
 forgetting all sense of honour, and mad for 
 the loss of his ship, ordered his men to 
 attack them. Jan Dhu Mor, who had 
 fought bravely till the Franklin struck, was 
 standing at a short distance from the captain 
 when the order for this cowardly attack was 
 given, and, before he could recover from his 
 astonishment at an act so totally repugnant 
 to his own sense of honour, he observed 
 Captain Jenks levelling a pistol at the head 
 of an English midshipman, who was coming 
 over the side. Before he could bring the 
 deadly weapon to bear upon his enemy, one 
 blow from the smuggler’s cutlass severed 
 three of his fingers, striking sparks of fire 
 from the pistol, as it glanced on its shining 
 barrel ; and another cleft his skull. The 
 midshipman was Norman M'Leod, of his 
 Majesty’s ship Revenge. 
 
 The first lieutenant of the Franklin, a 
 brave and humane man, seeing his captain 
 killed, surrendered the ship into the hands 
 of the captors. 
 
 Jan Dhu Mor was, through the interest 
 of his friend Norman, promoted to be a 
 etty officer on board the Revenge, in which 
 e served until the close of the war, when 
 he was, on the recommendation of Captain 
 Norman M'Leod, appointed to the com- 
 mand of one of the Revenue cutters, for the 
 suppression of smuggling in the Highlands 
 and Islands of Scotland ; and thus ended 
 Jan Dhu Mor’s Cruise in the Atlantic. 
 
 Jftt. 
 
342 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 PLAYS WRITTEN BY DIVINES. 
 [Mr. J. W. Calcraft, lessee and manager 
 of the Theatre Royal, Dublin, has lately pub- 
 lished a very interesting Defence, of the Stage * 
 displaying great research and knowledge of 
 his subject. It is in answer to a Sermon 
 preached by the Rev. J. B. Bennett, (Wes- 
 leyan,) in Dublin. We shall not go into the 
 controversy, but merely extract a summary, 
 not less interesting than curious, of the num- 
 ber of plays written by divinity-men.) 
 
 “ Gammer Gurton’s Needle/’ was written 
 by the Rev. J. Still, afterwards bishop of 
 Bath and Wells. * * * 
 
 Dr. John Bale, bishop of Ossory, called 
 bilious Bale, from the acrimony of his con- 
 troversial writings, is the author of above 
 twenty dramatic pieces, four of which were 
 published.! — Dr. Nicholas Brady, the co- 
 adjutor of Tate (who was also a dramatist) 
 in the version of the Psalms, is the author of 
 a tragedy called “ The Rape, or the Inno- 
 cent Impostors.” — The Rev. Thos. Brough- 
 ton, prebendary of Salisbury Cathedral, is 
 the author of a tragedy called “ Hercules.” 
 — The Rev. William Cartwright, who died 
 in 1643, is the author of the “ Royal Slave,” 
 “ The Lady Errant,” “ The Ordinary,” and 
 “ The Siege.” He was an eminent preacher. 
 The learned and pious Dr. Fell, Bishop of 
 Oxford, said of him, “ Cartwright was the 
 utmost man could come to.” — Dr. Samuel 
 Coxall, archdeacon of Salop, is the author 
 of the “ Fair Circassian.”— Dr. John Dal- 
 ton altered and adapted to the stage Mil- 
 ton’s “ Comus.” — Dr. Dodd, who, though 
 his end was unfortunate, was an able divine 
 and a religious man, wrote the oratorios ot 
 “ Ruth” and “ Balaam,” the tragedy of 
 the “ Syracusan,” and edited the “ Beau- 
 ties of Shnkspeare,” with notes and annota- 
 tions. — Dr. Warburton, bishop of Glouces- 
 ter, bestowed much time on an edition of 
 Shakspeare, and in writing notes to his 
 
 works Dr. Percy, bishop of Dromore, 
 
 wrote an essay on the English stage, and 
 contributed many notes to the various edi- 
 tions of Shakspeare. * * * 
 
 The Rev. Thomas Goff, who was esteemed 
 as an excellent preacher, wrote the trage- 
 dies of the “ Raging Turk,” “ Orestes,” 
 and the “ Courageous Turk,” and a tragi- 
 comedy called the “ Careless Shepherdess.” 
 He died in 1627- — Dr. Zachary Grey wrote 
 critical, historical, and explanatory Notes to 
 Shakspeare.— The Rev. John Upton, pre- 
 bendary of Rochester, wrote critical obser- 
 
 * Milliken and Son, Dublin, 1839. 
 
 | The Camden Society have lately published 
 •> Kynge Johan, a Play, in Two Parts, by John 
 Bale printed from the original manuscript, in (lie 
 library of the Duke of Devonshire. The date when 
 “ Kynge Johan” was originally written, cannot be 
 clearly ascertained : perhaps before Bale was made 
 an Irish prelate by Edward VI., in 1552- Bale was 
 originally a Roman Catholic ; became a Protestant; 
 made a Prebendary of Canterbury; and died in 
 1503, 
 
 vations on Shakspeare — The Rev. Stephen 
 Gosson, who afterwards became a noted per- 
 secutor of the theatre, and wrote “ The 
 School of Abuse,” an invective against 
 poets and players, is the author of a tragedy 
 called “ Catiline’s Conspiracies,” the comedy 
 of “ Captain Mario,” and a morality called 
 “ Praise at Parting.” — Dr. John Hackett, 
 bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, is the au- 
 thor of “ Loyola,” a comedy acted before 
 James the First. — The Rev. Samuel Hard- 
 ing wrote the tragedy of “ Sicily and Na- 
 ples, or the Fatal Union.” — Dr. Peter 
 Hausted, chaplain to the Earl of Northamp- 
 ton in the civil wars, wrote the comedies 
 culled “Rival Friends,” and “ Senile Odi- 
 um.” — Dr. John Hoadly, prebendary of 
 Winchester, is supposed to have materially 
 assisted his brother in the celebrated comedy 
 of the “ Suspicious Husband,” and is the 
 author of the following dramatic pieces : — 
 “ The Contrast,” “ Jephtha,” Love’s Re- 
 venge,” “ The Force of Truth,” and “Phoebe,” 
 and left several dramatic works in manu- 
 script behind him. — The Rev. John Home 
 is the author of “ Douglas,” a play that 
 will keep possession of the stage as long as 
 any taste for true natural poetry remains ; 
 and also of “Agis,” “ The Siege of Acqui- 
 leia,” “ The Fatal Discovery,” “ Alonza,” 
 and “Alfred.” The rigid principles of the 
 synod of Scotland were shocked at the idea 
 of a member of the kirk becoming a drama- 
 tist ; they, accordingly, in a public convoca- 
 tion, expelled him, and disqualified him from 
 the ministry ; in consequence of which he 
 resigned a good living, and withdrew from 
 the jurisdiction of the presbytery. The opi- 
 nion of mankind has amply vindicated him, 
 and condemned the harsh bigotry by which 
 he suffered; and the late King George III., 
 then Prince of Wales, afforded him a sub- 
 stantial recompense, in the form of a hand- 
 some pension, which placed him beyond the 
 effects of further persecution. — Dr. James 
 Hurdis is the author of “ Panthea,” and 
 “ SirT. More,” J tragedies, and “Cursory 
 Remarks on the Arrangement of the Plays 
 of Shakspeare.” — The Rev. W. Mason, 
 chaplain to the king, rector of Aston, and 
 canon-residentiary of York, and prebendary of 
 
 X Cowper, a pious, and in some respects severe 
 Christian, in a letter to Dr. Hunter, speaking of tiie 
 tragedy of “ Sir Thomas More,” says, “ I wish to 
 know what you mean to do with ‘ Sir Thomas,’ for 
 though I expressed doubts about his theatrical possi- 
 bilities, I tli ink him a very respectable person, and, 
 ■with some improvement, well worthy of being intro- 
 duced to the public . — Hay ley's Life of Cowper, Let- 
 ter cxxxviii. See also “ The Task,” hook vi. p. 2.14, 
 in which he eulogises Garrick, and, in speaking of 
 the Jubilee at Stratford, in 1769, in honour of Shak- 
 speare, says ; — 
 
 “ ’Twas a hallowed time ; decorum reigned. 
 
 And mirth without offence. No few returned. 
 Doubtless much edified, and all refreshed.” 
 
 Jt is evident from this, Cowper had t o horror of the 
 theatre ; yet his character and conduct are often quoted 
 by tiie most rigid. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 343 
 
 Driffield, is one of the authors entitled to the 
 applause of the world, as well for the vir- 
 tues of the heart, as the excellence of their 
 writings. He is the author of the celebrated 
 dramatic pieces, “ Charactacus” and “ El- 
 frida,” two tragedies still in MS., and 
 finished a tragedy left by Whitehead, called 
 “ ASdipus.” — The Rev. Dr. Brown is the 
 author of the tragedies of “ Barbarossa” 
 and “ Athelstan.” * * * 
 
 The Rev. James Townley is the author of 
 the popular farce of “ High Life below 
 Stairs,” so often attributed to the pen of 
 Garrick, and many others. — Dr. John Wat- 
 son, bishop of Winchester in 1583, is the 
 author of “ Absalom,” a tragedy, in Latin. 
 — Dr. Welch, bishop of Derry, in 1670, 
 wrote two comedies, called “ Hermophus,” 
 (in Latin,) and “Love’s Hospital.”— Dr. 
 Francis Wrangham, archdeacon of York, is 
 the author of a farce called “ Reform,” 
 written in 1792. — Dr. James Plumptre is 
 the author of a comedy called the “ Coven- 
 try Act,” the tragedy of “ Osway,” “ Ob- 
 servations on Hamlet, with an Appendix,” 
 and “ Four Sermons on Subjects relating to 
 the Stage,” preached in St. Mary’s Church, 
 Cambridge. In these discourses Dr. Plump- 
 tre takes the middle course, and points out 
 the distinction between the uses and abuses 
 of the stage. He says, “ this powerful en- 
 gine can be made to promote the cause of 
 virtue and religion, and to become, not only 
 an innocent amusement, but a highly rational 
 and pleasing source of instruction.” These 
 discourses were written under the sanction 
 of the Rev. Dr. Pearson, vice-chancellor of 
 the University of Cambridge, to whom they 
 are dedicated. The reader would do well to 
 peruse them entire, and not draw his opinion 
 of Dr. Plumptre ’s object, or the mode in 
 which he enforces it, by the summary ac- 
 count included in Dr. Bennett’s Appendix. 
 The book is reasonable and moderate, and 
 the notes abound with highly entertaining 
 information. This production Dr. Bennett 
 regards as “ a curiosity in theological litera- 
 ture.” It may be so. That a clergyman 
 should say a word or two in defence of the 
 stage, may appear to him curious, but I 
 think I have shown that, at all events, it is 
 not singular. — Dr. Edward Young, the au- 
 thor of “ Night Thoughts,” wrote the tra- 
 gedies of the “ Revenge,” “ Busiris,” and 
 “ The Brothers the last of which (a fact, 
 I believe, not generally known) was written 
 and acted for the express purpose of adding 
 to the fund for the Propagation of the Gospel 
 in Foreign Parts. — In more modern times, 
 the Rev. C. Maturin, who is remembered in 
 this city as an eloquent preacher, is the au- 
 thor of the tragedies of “ Bertram,” “ Ma- 
 nuel,” “Fredolfo,” and “ Osmyn the Rene- 
 gade.” — The Rev. H. Millman is the author 
 of “Fazio,” which was eminently successful 
 on the stage when produced at Covent Gar- 
 
 den for Miss O’Neill, “ Belshazzar’s Feast,” 
 the “ The Fall of Jerusalem,” and the “ Mar- 
 tyr of Antioch.” — The Rev. C. Croly is the 
 author of “ Catiline,’’ and a very successful 
 corned)-, called “ Pride shall have a Fall.” 
 
 Cfjt ^aturaltsit. 
 
 BOTANY. 
 
 Leaves of Plants. 
 
 In whatever way absorption takes place in 
 plants, no doubt the leaves are the agents of 
 it ; for if you put into water two branches, — 
 one with leaves, and the other without 
 them,— the water will rise in the formei', but 
 not in the latter. But leaves have also a di- 
 rectly absorbing power. In summer, plants 
 are revived more by watering the leaves, than 
 by watering the roots. In this way we ac- 
 count for plants growing in arid soils, and on 
 rocks, where no rain falls for months together. 
 The water-melon, though in hot countries, 
 sometimes grows to the weight of fifty 
 pounds ; and the water must have been de- 
 rived from the leaves. Experiments have been 
 made to determine by which of their two 
 surfaces it is, that absorption takes place. 
 A leaf of the white-mulberry, when laid on 
 its upper surface on water, died in five days ; 
 but if laid on its lower surface, it lived many 
 months. With the leaves of other trees, it 
 seemed of little consequence on which surface 
 they were laid. In some plants which have 
 no roots ( as the fuel ) the leaves are the sole 
 organs of absorption. 
 
 The cooling power of leaves should also be 
 mentioned. This is accomplished by the 
 evaporation of the fluid they transpire ; and 
 the transpiration and consequent evaporation 
 are always greater on a hot day. If you 
 place your hand on a growing vegetable, or on 
 a grass-plot, in hot weather, you will feel it 
 very cool. This is seen well in the ice-plant. 
 We here see another reason for the large 
 leaves of tropical plants ; — their affording a 
 large space for transpiration. Coolness is 
 also promoted by heat being reflected, instead 
 of absorbed ; and many tropical plants have 
 smooth leaves, which are well adapted for re- 
 flection. Plants, from being colder than the 
 surrounding atmosphere, often create a dew 
 around them. Drops of dew are often seen 
 on plants after a cold night. Even in the 
 day-time, if a fog should happen to arise, 
 trees arrest it in its progress, condense it, and 
 let it fall in an abundant shower of rain ; — 
 even though all around may be parched with 
 drought. In one of the Canary Islands, the 
 inhabitants were said to be chiefly dependent 
 on this source for a supply. A large tree, of 
 the laurel kind, condensed the fog which 
 daily rose from the sea ; the water was col- 
 lected in a large basin underneath ; and was 
 distributed to the natives by a superintendent. 
 This account was once rejected by philosophi- 
 
344 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 cnl scepticism ; but was found to be true. 
 Provided there were a sufficient number of 
 such trees, there seems nothing improbable 
 in the statement. 
 
 Plants, being organized beings, require air 
 to support them in life. They die if placed 
 in a vacuum. They require that some 
 oxygen (one of the two great constituents of 
 the atmosphere) should be present. It has 
 been said that they can live in nitrogen (the 
 other constituent of the atmosphere) alone ; 
 but that is not the case. Carbonic acid (of 
 which the atmosphere contains one part in a 
 thousand) is hurtful to them if too abundant. 
 If you put a plant into a jar of air inverted 
 over water, the latter will continue to rise 
 during the whole night. This shews that the 
 plant has absorbed some of the aii; and the 
 part absorbed is oxygen. Thus plants perform 
 only one inspiration during the night. When 
 exposed tothe sun, they oxygen, — give it 
 out again. If they were entirely excluded from 
 the sun, they would probably continually vitiate 
 the air, by absorbing oxygen, and giving off ear- 
 bonicacid. It seems that some portion of carbo- 
 nic acid is necessary for their existence) for they 
 will die, if enclosed in air deprived of carbo- 
 nic acid ; and if rather more than the usual 
 proportion of that gas be present, they grow 
 more vigorously. Plants which grow in wa- 
 ter, are observed to have bubbles of air around 
 them. This air consists of oxygen. The 
 green conferva , on the inside of troughs, 
 keeps the water from putrefaction, by conti- 
 nually giving out oxygen. Sir Humphrey 
 Davy, in his *• Consolations in Travel, ” says 
 that this little plant and others grow very 
 abundantly round lakes in Italy, which exhale 
 much carbonic acid. The agent in decompo- 
 sing the carbonic acid, seems to be the 
 chlorophel (as the green colouring matter of 
 plants is called) ; for the white and the co- 
 loured parts of plants, — such as the root, the 
 flowers, and the fruit, — do not decompose car- 
 bonic acid. It seems that the violet rays of 
 light have a peculiar power in producing 
 green. Senebier made plants grow under 
 glasses of different colours ; and the plants in 
 that glass which transmitted only violet rays, 
 grew best. Generally, the upper surface of 
 leaves is the greenest ; for the light falls more 
 directly on that surface. In the long leaves 
 which grow upright in lilies and other plants, 
 both sides are equally green. In rushes, 
 the leaves are rolled up ; so that their upper 
 surface is concealed from the light, and is 
 white ; while their lower surface is outside, 
 and is green. Leaves have a power of spon- 
 taneously turning to the light ; and it is ge- 
 nerally their upper surface that they present 
 to it. In a field of trefoil, the leaves are seen 
 to move round with the sun. The same 
 thing is seen in vine-leaves. The sun-flower 
 has acquired an undeserved reputation on 
 this head. It is no doubt with a view to 
 
 this exposure to light, that the leaves of 
 plants have a peculiar arrangement on the 
 stem. If you examine a plant, you find the 
 leaves so arranged (by the different length of 
 their leaf stalks, &c.) that no one leaf com- 
 pletely shuts out another from the sun’s light. 
 Plants which grow in the dark, are found to 
 contain very little carbon (pure charcoal), 
 Dutrochet found, that if he exhausted the irri- 
 tability of the sensitive-plant, if put iwo the 
 shade, it never recovered ; but it did if ex- 
 posed to the light of the sun. It appears pro- 
 bable, from this, that light is the source of 
 vitality, as well as of the power of gaining 
 carbon. Light is also the source of the for- 
 mation of aromatic oils, &c. Some have 
 supposed that light itself is an ingredient in 
 some of these substances ; as in agreeable 
 scents, and beautiful colours. But if it form 
 part of otto of roses, it must also form part 
 of assafeetida. Bishop Berkely treats of it, 
 when writing on tar-water. 
 
 Plants regulate the distribution of water; 
 for they raise it by means of their roots ; give 
 it out by their leaves ; and condense it again, 
 as dew. Wherever there are forests, springs 
 and rivulets abound. This will remind many 
 of our readers of the Indians’ finding water 
 in the woods, in “ The Last of the Mohicans.” 
 Plants are very useful to animals as food ; as 
 in the case of the mulberry-tree and the silk- 
 worm. The mulberry bears to lose its leaves, 
 better than any other plant. The cactus, 
 again, is adapted for cochineal, which is an 
 insect. Many trees afford habitations for in- 
 sects. Sometimes the insects which infest 
 plants, perform an office which is useful to 
 man ; as in the case of the insect which by 
 piercing the bark of the oak, causes the 
 excrescence to form which is called a gall-nut ; 
 and which is so useful in the manufacture of 
 ink. We once heard a lecturer inform his 
 audience, that gall-nuts were the fruit of the 
 oak ; and when we ventured, after lecture, to 
 state the impression under which we had lain, 
 that the acorn was the fruit of the oak, he 
 replied that such was the case with English 
 oaks, but he had spoken of foreign ones 1 
 Our readers must have seen the little hole in 
 the nut, by which the young insect makes his 
 escape when the proper time arrives ; but our 
 learned friend informed us that this hole was 
 made by the old insect trying to get in to eat 
 the fruit ! Some insects are very pernicious ; 
 as is the case with the catepillar, the turnip- 
 fly, &c. The leaves of plants are often very 
 useful to man ; as in the case of tea, vegeta- 
 bles, condiments, &c. Vine-leaves, as well as 
 grapes, will make wine. Many leaves, such 
 as those of the palm, are made use of for pa- 
 per in the East. Mosses keep up bogs, and 
 afford fuel. Many of the inconveniences 
 which we now suffer from the ravages of the 
 caterpillar, would be obviated if we knew more 
 of its habits. N. R. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 345 
 
 CAUBUL AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. 
 
 [Continued from page 320.) 
 
 AFFGHANISTAN. 
 
 Caubul, according to the evidence of recent 
 travellers, is a compact and picturesque city : 
 it abounds in all the necessaries, and no small 
 part of the luxuries, of civilized life. Its 
 houses are fair of appearance, its religion is 
 carried on with propriety and becoming so- 
 lemnity ; and at those seasons when its state 
 is pacific, and its government judicious, it is 
 a happy and desirable place. 
 
 But, as regards the physical appearance of 
 the territory without its boundaries, subject 
 to its jurisdiction and sovereignty, scenes of 
 another kind appear. No longer, when be- 
 yond what are strictly termed the limits of 
 the city r , is level pathway or trim street, in- 
 tersected by water-streams, to be trodden by 
 the foot ; no longer does the brilliant bazaar, 
 glittering with its rainbow-hued fabrics, de- 
 light or dazzle the eye, these give way to 
 scenes of another nature. Instead of those 
 mountains, rugged of surface, and sublime 
 of height, at whose bases stretch out plains 
 mantled with rich and fertile verdure, at one 
 time overpower, and at another, please the 
 eye of the beholder. And not untenanted 
 are these varied sceneries. Thickly studded 
 are they everywhere by the tents of various 
 nomude tribes — here the Dooraunce abides 
 — there the Affghan shepherd fixes for a 
 while his moveable habitation. This last- 
 mentioned nation, by far the most consider- 
 able of all which are tributary to the king 
 ot Caubul, is that which above all demands 
 and deserves notice. From a faithful de- 
 scription, indeed, of this large nation, a cor- 
 rect notion may be formed as to the modes 
 and habits of most of the other tribes spread 
 over the kingdom. These, though they may 
 indeed differ in trifling points, will, however, 
 in their broad and general characteristics, 
 be found to very closely assimilate. Of that 
 immense country, known by the name of 
 Affghanistan, we propose to speak — a coun- 
 try whose population is dense, and the te- 
 nants of whose soil, though they be entirely 
 pastoral in the manner of their lives, yet, 
 than whom, in the event of war, there exists 
 not a more courageous or bellicose people. 
 
 Upon the north of this great country, ex- 
 tend chains of mountains, covered with per- 
 petual snow, from which issue many rivers. 
 Round the eastern boundary, the great 
 waters of the Indus roll as long as that river 
 continues near the hills. The southern limits 
 of the country are again bounded by hills, 
 while plains and deserts make up the rest of 
 its irregular botindary. Multitudinous are the 
 countries which it comprehends, various in 
 their level, climate, soil, and productions. 
 These all bear certain names, for the Af- 
 ghans have in truth no general name for 
 their country: but that of Affghanistan, 
 which was, most likely, first employed in 
 
 Persia, is frequently used in books, and is 
 not, by this time, unknown to the inhabitants 
 of the country to which it applies. Nothing 
 can be more imposing than the appearance 
 of the loftier mountains surrounding Aff- 
 ghanistan, and indescribable are they for the 
 magnificence and variety of their towering 
 summits. A peculiar beauty, too, belongs to 
 the lower hills. From their summits, down 
 to their bases, the different gradations of ve- 
 getation are remarkable. Snows lie for three 
 or four months on their tops, which are almost 
 treeless, and desolate, but their sides are em- 
 bellished with forests of dark pines, oaks, and 
 flourishing olires ; lower down, enjoying a 
 delicious clime, are many charming little val- 
 leys, irrigated by clear and beautiful waters. 
 In this degree of latitude, the plants and 
 flowers which adorn the gardens of Europe 
 grow in profusion, and the ground is gaily 
 variegated with the rich verdure of many- 
 coloured mosses. 
 
 For a country of such capacious extent, 
 Affghanistan has few large rivers. With the 
 exception of the river Indus, there is none 
 which can be forded during the greater por- 
 tion of the year. The largest rush from their 
 sources with the impetuosity of torrents. 
 One chief cause of the diminution of their 
 importance, is the practice in vogue among 
 the people, of draining off their waters for 
 the purpose of irrigating the fields which lie 
 upon their borders. A river of magnitude 
 is by this means consumed, before it cun 
 reach any other. 
 
 It is according to the fall of the rains, that 
 the husbandry of these parts flourishes or 
 withers, indeed, it altogether depends upon 
 the seasonableness and quantity of the rains. 
 The rainy season, productive of the most ca- 
 lamitous effects, is that which is called the 
 S. W. monsoon. Its effects are diffused over 
 a wide space, and for a third part of the year, 
 it absolutely floods all the countries over 
 which it extends. Heavy masses of cloud, ac- 
 companied by a darkening of the air, are the 
 general harbingers of its advent, and during 
 the silence of the night is it that it sets in 
 with the roll of thunder-storms, the rush of 
 hurricanes, and the downfall of huge rain- 
 floods. But out of this seeming evil mar- 
 vellous good is educed ; for no sooner has its 
 intemperate fury ceased, than the whole 
 length and breadth of the land, which was 
 before arid and verdureless, sparkles with all 
 the freshness and brilliancy of spring. Dur- 
 ing the first month, these rains descend only 
 at intervals ; for one month only they are 
 at their height; during the third month they 
 gradually lessen, and during September they 
 almost entirely suspend their force, departing, 
 as they came, in thunders and tempests. 
 
 During the depth and severity of the win- 
 ter season, there falls also a second rain, and 
 which, according to the temperature of the 
 place, assumes the form of rain or snow : 
 
346 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 tliis second rain, by those who study agricul- 
 tural pursuits, is held to be of much greater 
 importance to husbandry than the south- 
 western monsoon. 
 
 From the fluctuating nature of the climate, 
 which is sometimes consumed by intense 
 heats, at others, devoured by cold or devas- 
 tating rains, fevers and agues are very com- 
 mon in Afghanistan ; colds are very trou- 
 blesome, and are, in winter, not unfrequently 
 fatal. Many are carried oil' by the ravages 
 of the small-pox, though inoculation has 
 been long in vogue, even in the most remote 
 quarters of the kingdom. Weakness of the 
 eyes, and opthalmic complaints, are also very 
 frequent of occurrence. 
 
 Of the characteristics of some animals 
 which are indigenous to the country, there 
 are some facts which are not uninteresting. 
 
 During winter the wolves are particularly 
 formidable; they gather together in nume- 
 rous troops, and man himself is oftentimes 
 attacked by them. It is remarkable, on the 
 other hand, that the hyaenas never assemble 
 in bodies, but will oftentimes, with ferocious 
 courage, attack a bullock singly. 
 
 There is also a remarkable species of deer, 
 noticeable for the size of its branching horns ; 
 the uneducated Affghan people entertain 
 very curious notions relative to the means of 
 its subsistence. They assert that it feeds 
 wholly on snakes, and that within it is found 
 a hard green substance, and this, by them, is 
 reckoned an infallible remedy for the poi- 
 sonous bite of the serpent. 
 
 The furnishing of the armies of the king 
 of Caubul with cavalry, depends much on 
 Afghanistan. Numbers are bred in the A Af- 
 ghan dominions, and those brought up at 
 Heraut are superb creatures. The fine grace- 
 ful shape, peculiar to the Arab charger, is 
 frequently to be seen among them, united 
 with superior strength. Though, indeed, the 
 horses of the Aft'ghan dominions are not, 
 when taken collectively, to be considered as 
 remarkably good, yet, in the province of 
 Bulkh, they are very excellent and numerous. 
 There is a kind of gad-fly, which makes con- 
 tinual inroads upon these animals, and, in- 
 deed, so violently harassed are they by them 
 that they have been known, in many in- 
 stances, to pine away and die. Mosquito, 
 too, that everlasting plague of hot countries, 
 swarms in these parts, and the natives are 
 obliged to have mosquito curtains, as in 
 Bengal. 
 
 In the vegetable kingdom there exists an 
 infinite number of trees, which are altogether 
 unknown in Europe. Among others is the 
 selgoozeh, whose branches are clustered with 
 cones, larger than artichokes, and containing 
 seeds resembling pistachio nuts. Here, also, 
 flourish two species of oaks, the botanical 
 name given to one of which is quercus beloot; 
 and these, together with a sort of gigantic 
 cypress, tower on the tops and sides of the 
 
 mountains. There are other trees, which go 
 by the names of secahcobb, puna, bulkhuke 
 and zurung, which few truvellors have met 
 with. 
 
 There are, however, many parts of the 
 Aft'ghan country which present a very desti- 
 tute and forlorn appearance. There are con- 
 tinually to be met with, hills and waste, which 
 are unmarked by any enclosures, unadorned 
 by any trees or natural productions, unim- 
 proved by either navigable canal or public 
 road, or distinguished by any single refine- 
 ment of human industry. Neither again is 
 the mere outward aspect of the people more 
 prepossessing. Their features ure high and 
 harsh, their countenances dark and swarthy, 
 from constant exposure to the sun, their 
 beards are suffered to grow to a great length ; 
 and these, together with their loose clothing, 
 and the shaggy skins which mantle their 
 shoulders, strike the traveller with no little 
 surprise. 
 
 But, on entering their society, these sensa- 
 tions speedily give way to others of an agree- 
 able and pleasant nature. He beholds their 
 martial and lofty spirit, and he at once yields 
 the tribute of admiration : he partakes of 
 their generous hospitality, and experiences 
 deep-felt gratification ; and while in those 
 bold and simple manners which at first ex- 
 cited his displeasure, he begins to perceive 
 many noble qualities, and the rudiments of 
 many virtues. W. Archer. 
 
 (To be concluded in our next.) 
 
 ;Pf)tnomena of fiatutr. 
 
 WILL WITH A WISP. 
 
 The following letter from Mr. R. Overton, 
 of Grimstone, appears in the Nonvick Mer- 
 cury, of Saturday, May 18, 1839: — “ On re- 
 turning home from Tatterford, on the 8th of 
 May, at half- past 11 o’clock p.m., when 
 within half-a-mile of Rudham, I observed 
 two lights, apparently 200 yards distant, 
 passing rapidly about two feet from the sur- 
 face of the earth, through a dense fog, which 
 covered a circumscribed spot of meadow-land 
 to the extent of an acre : the adjoining land 
 appeared perfectly free from that vapour. At 
 first sight I supposed the lights to proceed 
 from lanterns. I was, therefore, induced to 
 stop and observe their movements, but was 
 rather surprised to see them disappear ; after 
 travelling in a straight direction about 100 
 yards, another, much larger and more bril- 
 liant one, made its appearance, and in a 
 short time disappeared. It was a beautiful 
 starlight night, and the sky frequently illu- 
 mined with flashes of vivid silent lightning, 
 and the wind blowing briskly from the north- 
 east. Several lights sprung up in different 
 parts of the meadow, and moved about in 
 various directions — and one, as if more bold 
 than the rest, advanced in a straight direc- 
 tion to within about 90 yards of the place 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 347 
 
 where I stood, remained perfectly still for a 
 few seconds, described a half-circle, as if 
 about to return, and instantly disappeared. 
 Feeling fully satisfied that the phenomenon 
 above described was an ignis fatuus, I re- 
 mained a full hour to observe its gambols, 
 which at times were truly ridiculous— and as 
 I am not aware that it has been before 
 noticed that these midnight luminaries are 
 immediately connected with electricity, I beg 
 leave to request you will do me the favour of 
 giving a place in your valuable journal to the 
 preceding phenomena. I particularly ob- 
 served two or three of these lights instantly 
 appeared with each flash of lightning, more 
 or less brilliant, according to the degree of 
 light caused by the lightning.” 
 
 LAW OF STORMS. 
 
 A lecture on this interesting subject was 
 delivered on Thursday evening, the 16'th nit., 
 at the Metropolitan Institution, Salvador 
 House, Bishopsgate, by Mr. W. R. Birt, 
 the librarian. After controverting the gene- 
 rally received opinion that the trade winds 
 blow from the north and south, at the limits 
 of the torrid zone, becoming due east at the 
 equator, by showing that they first commence 
 from the eastward, and gradually become 
 north and south near the equator, the lecturer 
 explained the theory so ably put forth by 
 Colonel Reid, and, with the help of diagrams 
 and maps, showed the phenomena that would 
 arise from a cylinder of air rapidly rotating, 
 possessing at the same time a progressive 
 motion. He also showed the agreement of 
 facts with theory, by a diagram, constructed 
 from the published accounts of a storm that 
 passed round the north off Scotland and along 
 the eastern shores of England during the 
 night, between the Uth and 12th of October 
 last. In concluding, the lecturer endea- 
 voured to show the vast importance of the 
 inquiry, particularly to those individuals 
 whose occupations are connected with the sea. 
 
 anti sciences. 
 
 ACCIDENTAL DISCOVERY OF PRUSSIAN 
 BLUE. 
 
 This colour takes its name from the coun- 
 try wherein it was discovered by accident, in 
 1704. It happened that a manufacturer, 
 named Diesbach, was engaged in precipi- 
 tating a solution of alum, to prepare the 
 white body (as the basis of lake,) to be co- 
 loured with a decoction of cochineal, em- 
 ployed for that purpose some potass which 
 had been given him by Dippel, and upon 
 which the latter had several times rectified 
 animal oil ; but, to the astonishment of the 
 operator, the precipitate, which! should have 
 been white, became blue. Dippel being 
 made acquainted with the phenomena, ap- 
 plied himself to examine all the circumstances 
 
 connected with this strange appearance, and 
 at last he succeeded in reproducing the new 
 colour at his pleasure. The method of pre- 
 paring the colour, which was kept secret by 
 the inventors, was an object of research for 
 many years among the chemists. In 1724, 
 Woodward, who was a member of the Royal 
 Society of London, published the following 
 process, which has been for a long time the 
 only one in use : — Some dried ox-blood and 
 potass are mixed together and calcined ; as 
 soon as the vapours have ceased, and the 
 substance has become of a dark red, it is 
 thrown into water and boiled, to hasten the 
 solution of the salts it contains. With this 
 liquid, clarified by rest or filtration, is pre- 
 cipitated a solution of sulphate of iron and 
 alum ; the precipitate is then purified by 
 hydrochloric acid and repeated washings. At 
 the present time, instead of the Prussian lye, 
 the crystals drawn from it, and called prus- 
 siat of potass, are used. The salt is a triple 
 combination of Prussic acid, potass, and a 
 little iron : the solution being much more 
 pure than the lye in which it crystallises, the 
 blue should be, and is in fact, much more 
 brilliant. If this colour possessed solidity, 
 it would be one of the greatest utility : it has 
 intensity, flows freely in the pencil, and is a 
 good dryer ; but it loses its brightness, be- 
 comes greenish and gray when exposed to a 
 strong light : therefore, it never can be used 
 to make green tints of a brilliant and durable 
 nature. In the article on browns we shall 
 show, that Prussian blue, exposed to a strong 
 heat, becomes an excellent brown. When 
 Prussian blue is prepared with proto sulphate 
 of iron, the precipitate is first of a dirty green, 
 and only becomes blue by contact with the 
 air. It must, therefore, be well stirred ; and 
 when the blue is developed, it is washed by 
 decanting or filtration. When the sulphate of 
 potass is carried off by washing, the colour is 
 soluble in water, and holds the same quality 
 when dry ; but this will not be the case if 
 alum has been added to the sulphate of iron, 
 or is contained in it. — Sarsfield Taylor's 
 Translation of Merimee’s Art of Painting 
 in Oil and in Fresco, fyc. 
 
 QUALITIES OF WOOD AS A MATERIAL 
 OF CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 Such is the form which, guided by experi- 
 ment and such other resources of science as 
 we possess, we find ourselves led to give to 
 the substance, iron, which, forming part of 
 the solid materials of the earth, and minister- 
 ing there to some wholly different use, we 
 dig up and apply to our purposes of construc- 
 tion. Now let us turn to the architecture of 
 trees, and examine Nature’s material, and let 
 us consider whether, guided by the light 
 which our efforts to economise this artificial 
 material of construction may have given us, 
 we may not discover, in the material which 
 
348 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 has been elaborated wherewith to build up 
 those stately structures, some feeble traces of 
 that mighty and all-perfect wisdom of which 
 ours, feeble as it is, is yet an emanation. 
 And let the principle first of all be stated, as 
 one observable throughout all nature, that 
 creative power, infinite in its development, 
 is infinitely economised it its operation. 
 Were wood but as durable as iron and stone, 
 it would supersede their use as a material of 
 construction. If other evidence were wanting, 
 the unparalleled boldness of the structures 
 erected with wood would, for itself, speak to 
 the fact. What have we to compare with 
 the structures erected in wood ? There is no 
 arch of iron or stone, for example, that ap- 
 proaches to the span of the wooden arches 
 which have been erected by Weibeking in 
 Germany, or to that arch at Philadelphia, 
 which, with one vast span of 350 feet, crosses 
 the Schuylkill. The superiority of wood to 
 iron or stone, as a material of construction, 
 results from the extraordinary lightness which 
 it unites with its strength. Thus deal has 
 only one-fifteenth the weight of cast-iron, 
 although it has considerably more than one 
 half the tenacity, and sixteen bars of it would 
 weigh only the same as one bar of the same 
 dimensions of wrought-iron, although they 
 would have together more than the strength 
 of three. Now it is evident that a building 
 erected with a material, however strong, 
 which was in the same proportion heavy, 
 might, and probably would, be a weak build- 
 ing. Such a structure, notwithstanding the 
 great strength of its material, might load itself 
 with its own mass to the utmost that it would 
 bear, so that the slightest additional pressure 
 would cause it to yield, as it is the last ounce 
 which breaks the camel's back. Many, and 
 memorable, are the instances of this weak- 
 ness in artificial structures. The case of the 
 Brunswick Theatre, whose iron roof fell in by 
 the pressure of its own weight, and that of 
 Mr. Maudeslay’s manufactory in London, and 
 of the Conservatory at Brighton, are in every- 
 body’s recollection. But wood falls short of 
 other materials in durability. The food of 
 living vegetation is extracted from decayed 
 vegetation ; decay was thus, for the great 
 purposes of nature, made its inseparable con- 
 c >mitant. This decay — which was a neces- 
 sary property then of timber, as a material of 
 nature’s architecture — unfitted it for that of 
 man ; who, reserved for immortality, and 
 struggling, even here, in an unceasing com- 
 bat with the fleeting and transitory charac- 
 ter of all that surrounds him, would construct 
 for himself an abode whose durability may 
 laugh to scorn the shortness of his tenure, 
 and digs its material from among those 
 mineral substances out of which the mass of 
 the earth itself is builded up, and whose 
 duration is coeval with it. — Moseley’s Illus- 
 trations of Science. 
 
 $clu 33ooft$. 
 
 THE GIFT FOR ALL SEASONS. 
 
 A little volume, most appropriately named, 
 for its main object appears to be the promo- 
 tion of that which, in all times and at all sea- 
 sons, should be the lantern of our paths, and 
 which, in the hours of adversity or death, can 
 alone afford us real support — Religion. There 
 are amid its pages many pieces of great 
 merit, particularly the Valley of Abourna, by 
 Miss Pardoe, and a paper on the Jews, by 
 Henry Innes, Esq. We subjoin the follow- 
 ing beautiful poem as a general specimen of 
 its contents. 
 
 MY MOTHER. 
 
 BV D. ROSS LIETCH, M.D. 
 
 Dark is the night and wild the sea, 
 
 -<The tempest round me gathers. 
 
 And I must wander far from thee, 
 
 Sweet island of my fathers ! 
 
 But soft dreams in my soul arise. 
 
 Nor storm nor fear can smother 
 
 And clothed in love, before mine eyes. 
 
 Thy image glides, my Mother 1 
 
 The sable garb — the widow's cap 
 Thy sweet cheek simply shading; 
 
 And, oh! that pensive look of love. 
 
 Unspeakable — unfading! 
 
 Bright thoughts lie brooding or, that brow/ 
 Where Grief hath left his furrow ; 
 
 For Faitli and Love have brightened now. 
 
 The lines engraved by Sorrow. 
 
 Oh, Mother ! thou art blent with all 
 That to my heart is nearest ; 
 
 Even Heaven to me is doubly dear. 
 
 Because to thee ’tis dearest. 
 
 If virtue burns within my breast. 
 
 To thee that bliss is owing ! 
 
 ’Twas thou that lit the sacred flame, 
 
 ’Tis thou that keep’st it glowing. 
 
 When the wild waves of passion roll. 
 
 Like starbeams o’er the oceau ; 
 
 Thine image glides athwart my soul, 
 
 And calms each fierce emotion. 
 
 Au angel atmosphere of peace 
 Breathes from thy spirit o’er me : 
 
 The gloom retires, — the tempests cease, ’ 
 
 And all is bright before me. 
 
 Thy love is like a light divine, 
 
 A lustre rich aud holy ; 
 
 Hate lives not in that heart of thine, 
 
 ’Tis pitying melancholy ! 
 
 Thy gentle chiding, even move dear 
 Than kindness from another ; 
 
 Reproof is Love, when from thy lips 
 ’Tis breathed, my angel Mother ! 
 
 To bask beneath thy holy smile — 
 
 To feel thy kiss upon me ; 
 
 To hear those gentle tones that oft 
 From worldly thoughts hath won me; 
 
 To live beside thee, and to touch, — 
 
 To talk of loved ones perish’d ; 
 
 Ye, Sacred Powers ! can tell how much 
 This lot by me is cherish’d ! 
 
 The bounding heart of Youth is gone. 
 
 The flowers have left the wildwood ; 
 
 And dim, dim now the dreams have grown 
 I cherish’d in my childhood. 
 
 But, mother, oh ! whilst thou art left. 
 
 The true, the angel-hearted, 
 
 Not all of boyhood’s bliss is reft. 
 
 Not all of youth departed ! 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 349 
 
 Oh I may the Power who gave us thee 
 Awhile on earth to blossom. 
 
 To show how much of heaven may be. 
 Within a human bosom ; 
 
 Long with thee bless our loving eyes, 
 A beam of glory given ; 
 
 The polar star of Paradise, 
 
 To guide our souls to Heaven. 
 
 CROMWELL’S PARENTAGE. 
 
 To the Editor of the Mirror. 
 
 Sir, — The interesting notitia of the opi- 
 nions of Cromwell, as emanating from vari- 
 ous writers, recorded in number 949 of 
 the Mirror, induces me to forward some par- 
 ticulars of his family, not generally known. 
 Cromwell’s mother was daughter to Stewart 
 of Rothsyth, in the Shire of Fife, in Scotland, 
 — the situation of Rothsyth Castle is almost 
 opposite to Hopeton House, on a rock near 
 the sea. The family of Rothsyth passed 
 into England, at the time of the accession of 
 James VI., and the barony of Rothsyth be- 
 came the property of the Earl of Hopeton. 
 
 Robert Cromwell, the father of the Protec- 
 tor, although, by the means of his elder bro- 
 ther, Sir Oliver, made a Justice of the Peace, 
 in Huntingdonshire, was possessed of a very 
 slender estate, much of his support being 
 derived from a brewhouse in Huntingdon, 
 managed chiefly by his wife, sister to Sir 
 Robert Stewart, of the city of Ely, Knt., who 
 bequeathed to his nephew, afterwards Lieu- 
 tenant-General and Protector of the Common- 
 wealth of England, his estate of about five 
 hundred pounds per annum, in the Isle of 
 Ely. An Anglo-Scot. 
 
 EARLY ENGLISH MUSIC-PRINTERS. 
 
 BY EDWARD F. R1MBAULT, 
 
 ORGANIST OF EGLISSE SUISSE. 
 
 (For the Mirror.) 
 
 The subject of this paper, as the above title 
 indicates, is to treat of the old music-printers, 
 as distinguished from the ordinary printers of 
 the periods to which, in the course of the fol- 
 lowing pages, we shall have occasion to refer ; 
 for although most of the pi inters of the time, 
 as a matter of course, would in the routine of 
 business be called upon to print and publish 
 musical works, as well as others of a different 
 description, yet, as it is well known, most of 
 our early musical literature was mainly issued 
 from the presses of printers who devoted 
 themselves more exclusively to the publication 
 of musical compositions ; not that they ever 
 debarred themselves from printing other works, 
 but because this constituted the greater part 
 of their occupations, insomuch that most of 
 this class of publishers, more especially at a 
 later period, distinguished their shops from 
 those of the more general publishers, by signs, 
 as was then the common custom, which had 
 immediate reference to their occupations and 
 
 common employment, as will sufficiently ap- 
 pear from the two following, copied from 
 the title-pages of different publications; thus 
 we have the “ Bass Viol and Flute ” in one 
 instance; and in another, the “ Golden Viol;” 
 these instances might of course be readily 
 multiplied, but as they are all of somewhat 
 the same nature, the two given are sufficient 
 for our present purpose. 
 
 It is a fact, perhaps as interesting as any 
 in the whole range of Typographical his- 
 tory, that our early music-printers did not, as 
 might have been supposed from the imper- 
 fect date of the art at such an early period 
 of its existence, print from stamped or en- 
 graved plates, in imitation of the mode of 
 printing from cut blocks, but actually from 
 moveable type ; so that the music type could 
 be put up and printed at the same time, and 
 nearly with as little trouble, as the com- 
 mon letter-press type itself ; and this must 
 have been a very considerable advantage at 
 this early period of the art of music-printing, 
 as may readily be conceived. 
 
 This method of printing musical composi- 
 tions was introduced about the latter end of 
 the fifteenth century, and continued to be 
 used as the ordinary mode of printing music 
 till the commencement of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury ; about which period a very considerable 
 alteration was made, as will be subsequently 
 explained. 
 
 The first musical characters (according to 
 Mr. Ames) that issued from the press in 
 England, are to be found in an exceedingly cu- 
 rious work, by Ralph Higden, which is known 
 to the antiquarian portion of the literary world 
 under the name of the “ Polychronicon.”* 
 This interesting work was translated by 
 Treviso, and given to the world about the 
 year 1495, from the press of the celebrated 
 “ Wynken de Worde,” who was a man of 
 remarkable character, and one to whose exer- 
 tions the pressowes many of its improvements ; 
 he was then settled in Westminster. It is 
 not known whether Wynken de Worde 
 printed any other work besides this in which 
 musical characters were used ; I have not seen 
 any other, nor either am I aware of any musi- 
 cal author mentioning to the contrary ; and 
 this I think may be regarded as a curious 
 circumstance, because he was one of the 
 most extensive as well as one of the best 
 printers of his time ; and it may be imagined 
 that if any other musical work had been issued 
 from his press, it would have been known 
 to some of the musical historians, who are, 
 however, quite silent on this point. 
 
 There appears to be a blank in the 
 
 * The series of our modern English Chronicles 
 may, perhaps, be considered as commencing with 
 John de Trevesa's translation of Hegdon’s Polycho- 
 nicon, first printed by Caxton in 1482 — but the mu- 
 sical characters do not occur in Caxton’s edition, 
 Wynken de Worde's reprint being, in many respects, 
 very different. 
 
350 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 history of music-printing for a consider- 
 able period, namely, from the year 1495, 
 which was the date of the publication of the 
 “ Polychronicon” of Wynken de Worde, up 
 to the year 1550 ; in which year a printer, of 
 the name of Richard Grafton, published a 
 very curious and interesting work, entitled, 
 •* A Boke of Common Prater, noted, during 
 this interval, however, some few books are 
 known to have been published ; but as they 
 are both few, and of a very trifling nature, 
 and not from the press of any printer of note, 
 we may look upon this period as blank. 
 
 This ‘ Boke of Common Praier’ is the com- 
 position of John Marbeck, organist of the 
 Chapel Royal, Windsor, and is considered 
 valuable on several accounts, as it is nearly 
 one of the earliest books of the kind printed 
 in England, in which musical notes are intro- 
 duced ; and it contains the rudiments of our 
 present cathedral service, so that we are able 
 to trace, with considerable ease and precision, 
 the various changes that have been intro- 
 duced into the religious ceremonies and ser- 
 vices of this country, from the period just men- 
 tioned, through all its gradations and improve- 
 ments, up to the present time. The title- 
 page of this work contains the following 
 statement of its content and meaning . — “ In 
 this boke is contuyned so much of the order 
 
 of Common Praier as is to be sunge in the 
 Churches, wherein are used only four sortes 
 of notes.” Of the notes contained in this book, 
 the annexed diagram is a specimen, taken 
 
 from a copy in the British Museum ; and, as 
 it will be perceived, they are different from 
 those now in use, indeed they differed consi- 
 derably from those that had preceded them ; 
 so much so, that at the time of the publica- 
 tion of the work, the author thought it neces- 
 sary to append the following brief but inter- 
 esting explanation, which is taken verbatim 
 from his work : — “ The first is a strene 
 note, and is a breve ; the second is a square 
 note, and is a semy -breve ; the third, is a 
 pry eke, and is a mynyme ; and when there 
 is a prycke by the square note , that prycke 
 is half as much as the note that goeth be- 
 fore it ; and the fourth is a close, and is only 
 used at the end of a versed’ 
 
 We can therefore readily perceive that the 
 notes or characters used in this book had 
 not long been introduced, insomuch that 
 they were, at the time of its publication, not 
 commonly known, or otherwise there would 
 not have been any necessity for this explana- 
 tory note ; so that even these few words of 
 themselves, without any further evidence, tends 
 to prove that this book was unquestionably 
 one of the earliest in which musical charac- 
 
 ters occur, which, indeed, is clearly demon- 
 stratied from other sources. 
 
 The next printer who appears to have em- 
 ployed himself in printing musical composi- 
 tions, is one William Serres, of whom, how- 
 ever, little is known ; in the year 1553, he 
 published the work of Dr Tye’s, which was 
 of a religious cast, as most of the musical 
 works of this period were, under the singular- 
 title of the “ Actes of the Apostles, trans- 
 lated into English metre, and dedicated to 
 the Kinges most excellent Majestie, with 
 notes to each Chapter to synge , and also to 
 play upon the lute, very necessary for stu- 
 dents after their studie to fyle their wittes ; 
 and also for all Christians that cannot synge, 
 to read the good and godly storyes of the 
 lives of Christ and his Apostles.” 
 
 Dr. Christopher Tye, the author of the 
 above work, was tutor to the young king, 
 Edward the Sixth, to whom the book is de- 
 dicated ; it was composed expressly for the 
 Royal Chapel, it being well known that both 
 Henry the Eighth, his son Edward, and 
 Queen Elizabeth, were lovers of music, which 
 they patronised to a very considerable extent 
 during their respective reigns. That such a 
 curious title should have been given to a 
 book of a serious character, may perhaps 
 appear strange to the people of a more re- 
 fined age, who are accustomed to the brief 
 but elegant titles which are now given to 
 such works, in lieu of the quaint titles of our 
 forefathers. 
 
 The curious phrase used in the text, 
 namely, to “fyle their wittes ,” will be un- 
 derstood to mean, that they should learn 
 music as an extra accomplishment, which it 
 was desirable all students should know after- 
 having passed through their college studies.* 
 This accomplishment, and dancing, at one 
 period being of as much use and importance 
 to the youth of the higher classes as the ru- 
 diments of their ordinary education. 
 
 The idea of recommending a book of music 
 to “ all Christians that cannot synge,” will 
 be considered as a specimen of the mode in 
 which the writers a few centuries ago in- 
 dulged themselves in making puns, even 
 concerning the most grave and severe topics ; 
 and doubtless this curious phrase would now 
 
 * Mr. Reeves, in his History of English Law, quo- 
 ting from Fortescue, has llie following curious ex- 
 tract, concerning Law students of the time of Henry 
 the Sixth, viz. : “ A Student could not reside in the 
 Inns of Court for less than twenty-eight pounds per 
 annum, and proportionally more if he had a servant, 
 as most of them had. For this reason the students 
 of the law were generally sons of persons of quality. 
 Knights, barons, and the greatest nobility of the 
 kingdom, often placed their children here, not so 
 much to make the laws their study, as to form their 
 manners, and to preserve them from the contagion of 
 vicious habits ; for, says the same author, all vice 
 was there discountenanced and banished, and every 
 thing good and virtuous was taught there— music, 
 dancing, singing, history, sacred and profane, and 
 other accomplishments,” 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 351 
 
 be regarded as a good piece of pious humour, 
 but which at that period no doubt recom- 
 mended the sale of the work, precisely as in 
 our own times a well-chosen motto or title con- 
 duces to the same end; for it is well known 
 to be an old fancy of authors, that they invari- 
 ably write the best, when they have fallen 
 upon some title that suits their fancy.* 
 
 After these works had been issued from 
 the press, and had become common, we find 
 that they were the means of increasing the 
 demand for musical works of different kinds ; 
 for within a very few years from the date of 
 the last-mentioned work, others were printed 
 and circulated ; but not being of any parti- 
 cular importance, it is unnecessary to mention 
 them in this brief article. 
 
 (To be continued .) 
 
 TRANSIT OF LETTERS IN 
 ENGLAND. 
 
 The post-office system of England, perfected 
 as it has been of late years, is vastly superior 
 to that of any other country. 
 
 The mention of the office of chief post- 
 master of England, occurs in 1581 . In 1635, 
 Charles I. directed his “ post-master of 
 England for foreign parts ” to open a commu- 
 nication by running posts, between London 
 and Edinburgh, Holyhead, Exeter, Ireland, 
 <fcc. In 1653-4, the post-office revenues were 
 farmed by the council of state and Protector 
 at 10,000/. per annum. In 1656, the parli- 
 ament made some enactments for the erec- 
 tion of a new General Post-office, which was 
 established at the Restoration in 1660, and 
 trom that period has only changed by a 
 perpetual growth of activity and usefulness. 
 The mail for letters was first conveyed by 
 stage-coaches; on the 2nd August, 1785, 
 and in 1789, by royal mail coaches.f 
 
 In order to form some idea of the magni- 
 tude, and great facility of transacting busi- 
 ness at the General Post-office at the present 
 time, we give the following extract from a 
 recent parliamentary report : — 
 
 “ There are employed at present at the 
 Inlaud-office of the General Post-office in 
 London, 84 clerks, 50 sub-sorters, 241 letter- 
 carriers, and about 30 messengers — in all, 
 405 persons. 
 
 “ The operations of the Post-office, be- 
 
 * It is a well-known fact, that one of our principal 
 booksellers always stipulated, while purchasing a 
 copytight, that he should write the title. 
 
 t The procession of the mail-coaches which took 
 place annually on the Sovereign’s birthday, forming, 
 perhaps, the most pleasing exhibition of the day, was 
 dispensed with ou Thursday, the 23rd inst. for the first 
 time since the mail-coaches were established. The 
 omission is accounted for by the great diminution in 
 their numbers, occasioned by the transmission of mauy 
 of the mails by rail-road, aud the altered hours of con- 
 veyance, in consequence of which the evening display 
 of the splendidly-horsed coaches would have been 
 exceedingly meagre compared with foimer years. 
 
 longing to the despatch of letters, or the 
 evening work, as it is called, consist in — 
 
 “ 1st. Facing the letters, and stamping 
 them, to show the date of their receipt. 
 Stamping is performed with a hand-stamp, 
 at the rate of 200 letters per minute. 
 
 “ 2. Sorting, according to the different 
 mail routes ; in doing which 54 persons are 
 employed. Mr. Bokenham states, that 
 sorting is done at the rate of 30 letters a 
 minute. Sir Edward Lees says, that 60 is 
 the lowest number that a sorter ought to 
 sort. 
 
 “ 3. Examining and taxing the letters ; 
 in which business 21 persons are employed 
 for one hour and a quarter each. Taxing is 
 performed at the rate of 33 in a minute. 
 
 “ 4. Re-sorting, according to the different 
 post towns. 
 
 “5. Telling; that is, making out the 
 bills for the unpaid letters, against the dif- 
 ferent deputy- postmasters. Twenty tellers 
 are thus employed for somewhat less than 
 one hour and a quarter each. 
 
 “ In the evening there are also the news- 
 papers to sort. The first step is to put the 
 directions all one way, the second is to sort. 
 The 241 letter-carriers, and the 50 sub- 
 sorters, in all about 290, are employed upon 
 this duty. 
 
 “ The morning duty of the Post-office 
 consists in unloading the mails, and deliver- 
 ing the letters, that is to say, in 
 
 “ L Opening the bags, of which there 
 are 700, and in checking the Deputy-post- 
 masters’ accounts for paid letters ; 15 per- 
 sons are thus employed ; one person exa- 
 mines a bag in one minute and a half ; 10 
 clerks are employed in examining the tax- 
 ings of unpaid letters, made by the deputy- 
 postmasters. 
 
 “ 2. Sorting ; 50 sorters are thus em- 
 ployed for two hours. 
 
 “ 3. Telling, that is, making out bills 
 against every letter-carrier. Ten tellers, as- 
 sisted by three check-clerks, are employed 
 in this business during an hour. 
 
 “4. Delivering; the letter-carriers, of 
 whom there are 241, are to return by a 
 certain time, and are to pay the money 
 charged against them to the receiver-gene- 
 ral ; also 50 sub-sorters, who are in a situa- 
 tion between clerks and letter-carriers, assist 
 in the early delivery of general-post letters.” 
 
 Cfje 
 
 The River Thames . — The Parks have been 
 fitly called the lungs of the Metropolis ; be- 
 cause they afford opportunity to our over- 
 grown population “ in crowded city pent,” 
 to breathe the fresh air, and recruit their 
 health. But the Thames is as much enti- 
 tled to the appellation as the Parks; because, 
 in consequence of the current created in it, 
 
352 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 twice a (lay, by 'the flux and reflux of the 
 tide, the river is thoroughly washed out 
 every twelve hours, the back-going current 
 as often carrying with it to the open sea, all 
 the drainage of a population of a million and 
 a half of people, and twice every twenty- 
 four hours bringing up fresh air and clear 
 water. 
 
 The funeral obsequies of a great Chancel- 
 lor of Venice, were performed in the after- 
 noon of January 22, 1766, with the same 
 pomp and ceremony as observed for a Doge. 
 The secular clergy of Venice walked in pro- 
 cession, carrying in their hands lighted wax- 
 candles, from St. Mark’s church, through St. 
 Mark’s place, to the church of St.John and 
 St. Paul ; these were followed by the school, 
 or confraternity of St. Mark, who carried 
 large wax-tapers upon single stands of im- 
 mense size. There was carried instead of 
 the corpse, an image of the deceased, taken 
 in wax, and exposed upon a bier, attended 
 by the mourners dressed in long black cloaks, 
 ending in the point of a cone, high above 
 their heads. The Vice-Doge, accompanied 
 by the six counsellors, and the three Capidi 
 Quaranta, and all the Secretaries, each with 
 a noble Venetian upon his right hand, 
 closed the procession. The image was de- 
 posited upon a magnificent catafalco, or 
 scaffold, which extended from the bottom to 
 the top of the church, and was illuminated 
 with wax candles. The solemnity concluded 
 with an oration in Latin in praise of the de- 
 ceased. W. G. C. 
 
 Players in 1580. — The following curious 
 document is, we hear, among the modern 
 discoveries of the State Paper Office : — 
 “ Warrant to the treasurer of her Majestes 
 chamber to pay unto ye Kile of Sussex men 
 for a play exhibited before her Majestie on 
 St. Johues day at night, 10/. The like 
 summes to Erie of Leycester’s servaunts for 
 a playe on St. Stephens daie. To the Erie 
 of Derbyes men for a playe on New Yeres 
 daie. To the master of the children of 
 Powles for a playe on Twelfe daye at night, 
 33 Jan. 1580 1 .” — “ Warrant to the trea- 
 surer of her Majestes chamber to paie unto 
 the servauntes of the Erie of Leicester, for 
 a play by them presented before the Queen 
 upon Shrove Tuesday at night, 51. 13$. 4 d. ; 
 and for their atteudaunce otherwise by waie of 
 reward, 31. 6s. 8d. Like sommes to ser- 
 vauntes of the Lord Chamberlaine for a 
 a play by them presented before the Queen 
 uppon Candlemas daie at night. Like sommes 
 to be payed the master of the children of the 
 chappels for a playe presented before the 
 Queen upon Shrove Sunday last at night. 
 13 Feb. 1580-1.” 
 
 A Frenchmans Opinion of the Duke . — 
 “ Wellington is an isolated character in 
 England ; — no one can determine his posi- 
 tion— no one is able to assign to him his actual 
 
 place among the nobility. He is the poli- 
 tical hero of the Tories, as he is the military 
 hero of the age. With the Whigs (to whom 
 he causes great embarrassment) he is a man 
 that cannot be attacked — a person whom 
 they neither can nor will touch ; they fear 
 him, but honour and respect him.” — Perig- 
 non’s Twenty Days in London. 
 
 Macklin. in December, 1774, made Foote 
 an offer of his services for the ensuing sum- 
 mer, by telling him — “ I think, Sam, I have 
 yet abilities to entertain the public.” — “ It 
 may be so, Charles,’’ said Foote, “ but not 
 at my expense.” 
 
 The Trustees of the National Gallery 
 have directed that the Gallery should con- 
 tinue open till six o’clock, during the months 
 of June, July', and August. Three splendid 
 paintings have been purchased of Mr. Beck- 
 lord, and placed in this Gallery : they are 
 St. Catherine, by Raffael ; the infant Bap- 
 tist presented to the infant Christ, by Garo- 
 falo ; and St. Francis adoring the infant 
 Saviour, said to be by Mazzolino di Ferrara. 
 
 At Aberconway, Caernarvonshire, there is 
 a tomb-stone, with the following curious in- 
 scription. — “Here lieth the body of Nicho- 
 las Hookes, of Conway, Gent., who was 
 the one-and-fortieth child of his father, Wil- 
 liam Hookes, Esq. by Alice his wife, and 
 the father of seven-and-tw'enty children. He 
 died the twentieth day of March, 1 637-” 
 
 Court of Chancery.— The tapestry, with 
 the armorial insignia of Charles the Second, 
 put up in the Court of Chancery in West- 
 minster Hall, on the restoration, in 1660, 
 continued there till November, 1762, when 
 it was taken down, and new tapestry, with 
 the arms of George III. placed there in its 
 stead. 
 
 Amongst the Egyptian curiosities, exhi- 
 bited by Mr. Williams, in his late lecture ut 
 the Society of Arts, on the ‘ Ancient Agri- 
 culture of the Egyptians,’ was one of a bird- 
 flapper, two or three thousand years old ; 
 with such instruments the Egyptian boys, 
 like our own in many parts of the country, 
 went out in the morning, and by the clack 
 of the simple instrument alluded to, they 
 frightened the feathered depredators Irom 
 the fields and fruit gardens. 
 
 A True Prophet.- — An Hibernian, who 
 was tried and convicted during the last 
 Western Circuit for a burglary, on being 
 asked his age, as usual, by the Clerk of the 
 Court, replied, he believed he was pretty 
 well as old as ever he'd be! and declined 
 giving any other answer. — He was executed 
 on the following Wednesday. 
 
 LONDON : Printed and published by J. LIMB RID, 
 143, Strand, (near Sumersct Hnuse) ; and sold l-y 
 all Booksellers and Newsmen — In PARIS, by all 
 the Booksellers. — In FRANC FORT, CHARLES 
 Jl’GEL. 
 
Ci)c jnittot 
 
 OF 
 
 LITERATURE. AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION. 
 Nn - 9J “-] SATURDAY, TuNE^7^83r! 
 
 Vol. xxxin. 
 
 THE NEW GRAND STAND ON ASCOT HEATH. 
 
354 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 THE GRAND STAND ON ASCOT- 
 HEATH. 
 
 Tt has long been a subject of surprise and 
 regret, that while Epsom, and almost every 
 other provincial race-course in the kingdom, 
 was provided with a grand stand, Ascot — 
 (he fashionable, the Royal Ascot — should 
 have been until now without one. How- 
 ever, “better late than never;” the Stand 
 is now erected, and a very handsome and 
 commodious building it is. The funds 
 were raised by 100 shares, of ] 00/. each, of 
 which 5/. are to be paid oft' every year, so 
 that at the end of 20 years it will be free of 
 all charge, and will be appropriated solely 
 to the benefit of the races, under the trustee- 
 ship of Lord Errol, Captain Seymour, Mr. 
 T. R. Ward, and Mr. M. Gilbertson. In 
 the mean time the shareholders will re- 
 ceive five per cent., in addition to a bonus 
 out of the profits ; the remainder will be 
 applicable to the purpose of the race-fund. 
 It stands between the Queen’s and the old 
 betting-stand, occupying the site formerly 
 appropriated to six or seven wooden stands. 
 Its elevation from the ground is 52 feet, its 
 length 97£ feet, or, including the balcony, 
 which extends beyond the building, 121 feet. 
 The drawing-room, or grand floor, is 90 feet 
 in length, and is provided with ten rows of 
 benches, placed above each other ; both in 
 front and at the ends of the room the win- 
 dows extend from the ceiling to the floor, 
 and slide up and down at pleusure. The 
 roof is leaded, and will accommodate nearly 
 1,800 persons. We should have stated that 
 the ground-floor will hold 1,000 or 1,200. 
 There are several refreshment, retiring, 
 and play-rooms ; in fact, the conveniences 
 are more numerous than at any other build- 
 ing of the kind we have yet seen. A very 
 handsome balcony, supported by Corinthian 
 pillars, extends the whole length of the 
 building, the colonnade beneath it affording 
 shelter from damp, rain, or heat, to those 
 who, for the convenience of betting, prefer 
 the basement. The only entrance is at the 
 back of the building, under an elegant colon- 
 nade, the carriage approach to which is 
 by the great Reading-road. To prevent 
 confusion, there are distinct stair-cases to 
 the grand floor and the roof. The building 
 is thrown well back, and as the straight 
 course in front has been curried out about 
 30 feet, the turn from the old mile into the 
 straight running is vastly improved. There 
 is another improvement connected with it, 
 which ought not to be passed over. Those 
 who have been in the habit of attending these 
 races must have noticed, and perhaps felt, the 
 annoyance occasioned by the formation of 
 the belting-ring right in the centre of the 
 course. To remedy this, and accommodate 
 the speculators themselves, a space of 55 
 feet from the railing to the colonnade has 
 
 been enclosed in front of the Grand Stand, 
 for the use of betting-men and others who 
 have paid for admission to the latter ; 
 the ring is formed here, and business is car- 
 ried on without requiring the services of the 
 police to disperse them, as was the case 
 when they were driven to the sorry accom- 
 modation of the old betting-stand. There 
 is also a spacious room appropriated to their 
 use on the basement floor, should the wea- 
 ther render shelter desirable. The general 
 appearance of the stand is light and elegant 
 in the extreme ; but there is one grand 
 fault — the seats in the principal floor and 
 on the roof are not sufficiently elevated 
 above each other to permit a good view to 
 all ; this, we hear, will be altered by next 
 season. 
 
 Description of the Interior . — The Draw- 
 ing-Room . — Within the folding-doors at the 
 back, the money-takers are stationed; and 
 immediately in front on entering, is a magni- 
 ficent staircase leading to the drawing-room. 
 The first flight leads to a landing-place ; and 
 from thence, right and left, other flights ap- 
 proach the lobby above, from which admis- 
 sion is at once obtained, by folding-doors, to 
 the room in question ; and on entering which, 
 a splendid view of the course, the heath, and 
 the wide-extended country beyond, bursts 
 upon the sight. This room extends nearly 
 ninety feet in length, and is lit from end to 
 end, as will be seen by our sketch, by win- 
 dows reaching from the ceiling to the floor, 
 which slide up and down at pleasure, so as to 
 admit or exclude the external air, in case of 
 unfavourable weather. The end windows 
 are similarly constructed, and from those ends 
 an uninterrupted view of the course is obtained 
 as well as in the front. Withiu the drawing room 
 are ten rows of benches, with backs, descend- 
 ing amphitheatrically to the windows, from 
 which immediate egress may be obtained to 
 the balcony by those who may be desirous of 
 taking that location. This floor, it is calcu- 
 lated, will accommodate 1,200 persons. On 
 the lobby, previous to entering the drawing- 
 room, right and left, are two doors, the one 
 leading to “ the Ladies’ Apartments, ’’ clearly 
 indicated, the other to the “ Refreshment 
 Rooms,” in which cold collations, wine, &c., 
 may be procured. 
 
 The Roof is gained by stone staircases at 
 each end of the building, without interference 
 with the company in the drawing-room ; and 
 on reaching which, through other refresh- 
 ment rooms, the panoramic view for miles 
 round which is obtained, is very magnificent. 
 This portion of the building it is estimated is 
 calculated to receive 1,800 persons — the view 
 in the back or the front being equally de- 
 sirable. 
 
 The Ground Floor possesses attributes pe- 
 culiarly desirable for sporting men. On en- 
 tering the door of admission, there is on the 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 355 
 
 right a refreshment-room, and on (he left a 
 series of water-closets. Advancing, you enter 
 a spacious saloon, communicating directly 
 with the colonnade and lawn in front. On 
 the right of this saloon is “ the Betting- 
 room” a species of accommodation peculiarly 
 desirable for betting-men, and altogether su- 
 perseding the old and inconvenient system of 
 forming a “ betting-ring ” on the course, 
 under every vicissitude of weather. This room 
 is surrounded with oaken benches, and in the 
 centre is a round oaken table ; and here, in 
 fact, all the betting business of the races may 
 be admirably and securely conducted. On 
 the opposite side of the saloon is another room, 
 corresponding in size with “ the betting- 
 room,” set apart for “ play,” another room of 
 a similar character being at the back. 
 
 The Colonnade and Lawn . — The colon- 
 nade is paved, and not gravelled as at Good- 
 wood ; and here benches are placed between 
 the windows ; the latter opening to the floor. 
 From this spot, as well ,as from the lawn 
 iu front, from its great elevation, a perfect 
 view of the course is still preserved ; and for 
 the convenience of those who do not wish to 
 ascend to the “ upper regions,” garden benches 
 are liberally dispersed; so that, in fact, all 
 tastes are carefully and effectually consulted. 
 
 In the basement story there is an excellent 
 kitchen, with every culinary apparatus and 
 accommodation ; wine cellars, and other use- 
 fid apartments in abundance — all dry, well 
 lighted, and ventilated. The building is pro- 
 fusely supplied with water by force-pumps 
 and cisterns, and there are fire-places in every 
 apartment, to secure the advantage of a warm 
 atmosphere, should the inclemency of the 
 season require it. 
 
 INTERIOR OF SANTA CROCE, FLORENCE, 
 
 NOW EXHIBITING AT THE DIORAMA. 
 
 ( From the Album Wrentli of 1833.} 
 
 Bright gorgeous shrine of rich and golden light. 
 Where silver lamps their fragrant incense shed ; 
 Where altars starred witli gems and fretted tombs, 
 Enclose the ashes of the sleeping dead. 
 
 Where music pours her sweet melodious strain 
 Iu holy murmurs through the lofty fane. 
 
 Look round and gaze, above that oriel, beams 
 The radiant lustre of our Saviour's death ; 
 
 Say does the canvass live, those looks how bright, 
 The quivering lips bear mercy on their breatti. 
 Tears mixed with blood, bedew the mournful eyes. 
 Tile heaving heart expires with dying sighs. 
 
 Then let me kneel before thy sacred form. 
 
 Thou Lamb of God, and gaze upon thy brow. 
 Those cruel thorns have pressed thy blessed head ; 
 
 And crimson drops have stained thy neck of snow. 
 And yet that look of love — oh 1 Heaven, how pure, 
 ’Twas thine to pity, suffer, and endure ! 
 
 Flash* from the cloistered aisle, a sound awakes ! 
 
 First, low and dim the gentle echo’s steal ; 
 
 Now, in soft harmony it streams along. 
 
 Now, thunders in the organ’s loudest peal ! 
 
 Then one rich voice, in tones of lofty fire, 
 
 Bursts forth impassioned notes above the quire. 
 
 * The organ at the Diorama destroys the idea of 
 a picture, as the rolling peal is heard the whole time. 
 
 There shines a Magdalene, her eyes like stars 
 Molt with fond glances from each lustrous lid ; 
 The brow of marble, raven ringlets bind. 
 
 The queenly cheek her small white hand hath hid. 
 Ah. why should sin and sorrow leave one trace 
 Of mortal anguish on that lovely face. 
 
 The quire hatli ceased ; the gothic aisle is still, 
 
 ’Tis even song, and darkened shadows fall. 
 
 The moon has risen from her azure throne. 
 
 And rays of silver light the antique wall ; 
 
 Through the high window steals the softened air, 
 And silence consecrates this House of Prayer. 
 
 CURIOUS BEQUESTS. 
 
 (From the Reports of the Charity Commissioners.) 
 
 BANCKs’s CHARITY. 
 
 Thomas Bancks, by will, dated in 1600, 
 {rave 20s. per annum to the Company of 
 Barbers, on condition that they should, on 
 the 11th day of May in every year, give to 
 twelve poor people of the company, amongst 
 them equally to be divided, six stone of beef, 
 each of them a twopenny loaf a-piece, two- 
 pence a-piece in money, and every one a 
 wooden platter. 
 
 By indenture, bearing date 12th of May, 
 1619, an abstract of which is given in the 
 Report of the Charities of the Mercer’s Com- 
 pany, sixth Report, p. 305, John Bancks, son 
 of the donor, conveyed to Sir Baptist Hicks, 
 and others, and their heirs, a messuage and 
 appurtenances, situate in Holloway, in the 
 parish of Islington, in the county of Middle- 
 sex, and three closes adjoining, containing by 
 estimation six acres; and by deed of the 
 same date it was declared, that the said con- 
 veyance was made upon trust, that the yearly 
 rent of 175, for which the premises were then 
 let, and all other rents and profits thereof to 
 grow due, should yearly be paid by the said 
 Trustees to the Renter Warden of the Com- 
 pany of Mercers; and that all the said monies 
 should be from time to time applied by the 
 said Company, as therein specified. Among 
 the different objects to which the rent is 
 appropriated, is mentioned the Company of 
 Barber Surgeons, to which 20s. yearly is 
 given, to be distributed on the llthof May 
 to twelve poor householders or widows of the 
 said Company, in beef, bread, and twopence 
 a-piece in money, and each of them a wooden 
 platter, and to the clerk of the same Com- 
 pany, 2s. 
 
 The .sum of 20s. was received yearly from 
 the Mercer’s Company up to the year 1822, 
 and in respect thereof poor persons belonging 
 to the Company, freemen, or widows of free- 
 men, have long received, on the first court- 
 day in May, four pounds of beef, s a three- 
 penny loaf, and twopence in money each, 
 the total cost of which varies from 45 to 51. 
 
 The entire rents of the premises conveyed 
 by John Bancks having been appropriated 
 by him to the different charitable objects 
 enumerated ip the Report, it appeared that all 
 were entitled to participate proportionally in 
 2 A 2 
 
356 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 the increased rents — which, in the year 1822, 
 were 84/. per annum. — An information was 
 accordingly filed in the Court of Exchequer 
 to effect this object, and a decree was made, 
 affirming the right to such participation in 
 the increased rents. From this decree the 
 Mercer’s Company appealed to the House of 
 Lords, where upon argument the opinion of 
 the Lord Chief Baron was upheld. The 
 costs of these proceedings having been or- 
 dered to be paid from the Estate of the Cha- 
 rity, the increase to which the respective ob- 
 jects are entitled, and for the application of 
 which a scheme has been settled by the 
 Court, has not yet^come into operation. 
 
 samuel hawkins’s charity. 
 
 Samuel Hawkins, by will, dated the 8th of 
 November, 1804, and proved in the Preroga- 
 tive Court of Canterbury, the 27th of January, 
 1806, in addition to the donation to the school 
 already mentioned in the Report of Dave- 
 nant’s school, gave 300/. to his executors on 
 trust, to lay out the same within two years 
 after decease, in the names of the rector and 
 churchwardens, for the time being, on Govern- 
 ment or other good securities, to be applied 
 for performing divine worship in the parish 
 church on every new-year’s day for ever, viz. — 
 
 To the Rector or his Curate anuually for 
 the time being, who should preach a 
 sermon on that day in the parish 
 church from the text therein named £2 2 0 
 To the pavish clerk annually, for singing 
 
 the 100th Psalm, old version - - 0 10 6 
 
 To the organist annnally, for playing the 
 
 tune thereof ---- - 0 10 6 
 
 To the sexton annually, if he attended on 
 
 that occasion - - - - - 0 10 6 
 
 And to the master and mistress of the J 
 Free-school annually, for attending 
 the charity children, 10s. 6 d. each - 110 
 
 And to the trustees of the schools an- 
 nually, towards their refreshment on 
 this occasion ---- - 330 
 
 And the like sum annually for refresh- 
 ments for the children - - - 3 3 0 
 
 £11 0 6 
 
 And to supply the churchwardens with so 
 many quartern loaves to be distributed to 
 such poor people as should attend divine ser- 
 vice on that day, and to be distributed at 
 their discretion, and the overplus interest (if 
 any,) to be distributed in bread to such and 
 so many other poor persons belonging to the 
 parish as they should think proper objects of 
 relief. This legacy was invested in the pur- 
 chase of 426/. 17*. 5d., 3 per cents, reduced, 
 and stands in the names of the Rev. D. Ma- 
 thias and John Burnell, producing 12/. 16*. 
 a-year dividend. A sermon is preached every 
 year, on the required text, by the Rector, on 
 new-year’s day, who retains 21. 2s. for him- 
 self, pays 10*. 6d. each to the parish clerk, 
 organist, sexton, and master and mistress of 
 the Free Schools, and 31. 3*. to the trustees 
 
 for their refreshment, and the remaining sum 
 of 41. 18*. 6d. is distributed in bread to de- 
 serving poor belonging to the parish, and in 
 refreshment to the children. P. Q. 
 
 SECRECY. 
 
 Owen Feltham says : — When a man hath 
 the project of a course in his mind, digested 
 and fixed by consideration, it is good wisdom 
 to resolve of secrecy, till the time our designs 
 arrive at their dispatch and perfection : he 
 shall be allowed to have enough of the unad- 
 vised, that brags much either of what he will 
 do, or of what he shall have ; for, if what he 
 speaks of falls not out accordingly, instead of 
 applause, a mock and scorn will strike him. 
 They seldom thrive in business that cannot 
 but proclaim their intentions. When Quintus 
 Metellus could not compass his couquests in 
 Spain, he seemed to neglect the principal 
 city, and with a rowliug army flew to other 
 parts ; and, when in regard to so wild a war, 
 a friend asked him what thereby he intended, 
 he answered, “If my shirt were to know my 
 mind, I would order it to be destroyed imme- 
 diately.” We see that which carries on, even 
 evil actions to their prosperity, and is, indeed, 
 the main of their success, and without which 
 they would certainly come to nothing, is then- 
 secrecy, and clandestine creeping along ; and 
 if secrecy can promote designs that are to be 
 abhorred, certainly it will be as advantageous 
 to what we intend for good. He that before 
 lay still, when he sees another running for a 
 prize, will use his best endeavours to outspeed 
 him ; and, indeed, he is not likely to speed 
 well, that cannot keep his own counsel. That 
 mind which cannot keep its own determina- 
 tions private, is not to be trusted either with 
 his own, or others’ business. If the business 
 be of what is yet to come, it is vanity to boast 
 of it ; for we boast of that, which not being 
 in our power, is none of our own : he digs in 
 sand and lays his beams in water, that builds 
 upon events which no man can be master of ; 
 bewraying even a kind of greediness, while 
 he catches at that which is not yet in his 
 reach : he seems to unfold but an uncom- 
 pacted mind, that is not so wise as to subsist 
 well with what he hath in present ; and then, 
 if after his boasting he comes to be disap- 
 pointed, the defeat is made more visible. 
 Secrecy is a most necessary part, not only of 
 policy, but prudence ; for, things untold, are 
 as things undone ; and if they succeed well, 
 they are gratefuller by being sudden : if ill, 
 they may be dispensed with, as, for aught 
 any knows, they being no other than casual, 
 so not at all in intention. I would first be 
 so wise as to be my own counsellor ; next, so 
 secret, as to be my own counsel-keeper. 
 
 W. G. C. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 357 
 
 : POPULAR VIEW OF NATURAL 
 HISTORY. 
 
 BY JAMES H. FENNELL. 
 
 (Continued from page 317.) 
 
 To various classes of mechanics a knowledge 
 of natural history might be serviceable. The 
 beautiful mechanism displayed in the orga- 
 nization of animals, and also, indeed, of 
 plants, might frequently suggest most im- 
 portant hints for the construction of new, or 
 the improvement of old machinery. Man, be- 
 ing naturally an observer of the works of crea- 
 tion, many writers have asserted that it is most 
 probable that the examination of the structure 
 and of the habits of different natural objects 
 suggested the application of similar mecha- 
 nisms and actions to the purposes of human 
 life. Democritus, Drayton, Pope, and other 
 writers, have endeavoured to show that all our 
 arts and inventions were originally obtained 
 from the observation of the animal creation ; 
 and, although this may not be entirely correct, 
 yet there are many reasons for our enter- 
 taining that opinion to a certain extent, for 
 nature is, doubtlessly, the source from which 
 we have derived these things, however mo- 
 dified and complicated they may appear. 
 While we have no direct evidence to prove 
 that the spider taught us to weave, the 
 swallow or the bee to build, the mole to 
 plough, or 
 
 " The little nautilus to sail. 
 
 Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale,” 
 
 yet we have authentic confessions that the 
 principles of several inventions, even of some 
 of modern times, were derived from the con- 
 templation of natural objects. 
 
 Mr. Brunei, the eminent engineer, is said 
 to have “ taken the idea of his new plan of 
 tunnelling, (namely, by the frame-work or 
 shield, as used under the Thames,) from the 
 operation of the Teredo nivalis, a testaceous 
 worm, which is covered with a cylindrical 
 shell, and which bores through the hardest 
 timber ; hence Linnaeus called it Calamitas 
 navium. The accidental sight of the trunk 
 of an old oak, which had been sawn across, 
 suggested to Mr. Smeaton the idea of dove- 
 tailing each course of masonry in the Eddy- 
 stone Lighthouse. The same happy obser- 
 vation of the wisdom displayed in the works 
 of Nature, led Mr. Watt to deduce the con- 
 struction of the flexible water-main, from 
 the mechanism of the lobster’s tail. From 
 a close consideration of the curious structure 
 of the eye, Mr. Dolland contrived his achro- 
 matic telescope ; and from a minute inspec- 
 tion of the horse’s hoof, Mr. Bracy Clark 
 constructed an expanding shoe, by which 
 the elasticity of the foot is preserved, and 
 lameness prevented. Many other instances 
 might be mentioned, where mechanical con- 
 trivances have been suggested from the con- 
 sideration of animated nature.’’ ( The Na- 
 turalist's Poetical Companion ; note, p. 241.) 
 
 “ In ship building , the ancients took their 
 patterns from fish ; the carina (there being 
 no keel,) from the back, the prow from the 
 head, the helm from the tail, and the oars 
 from the fins.” ( Arts of the Greeks and 
 Romans, p. 350.) So says Dryden, 
 
 “ By viewing Nature, Nature’s haudmaid. Art, 
 
 Makes mighty tilings from small beginnings grow ; 
 Thus Jishes first to shipping did impart 
 
 Their tail the rudder, and their head the prow'' 
 Dr. Bowring, in his evidence before a se- 
 lect Committee of the House of Commons 
 on the Silk Trade, says, that he was much 
 surprised at finding, in France, among 
 everybody connected with the production 
 of patterns, including weavers and their 
 children, attention directed to everything 
 which was at all beautiful in arrangement 
 or in colour. He mentions having repeat- 
 edly seen the weavers gathering flowers in 
 the fields, and arranging them in the most 
 attractive groups. These artisans are con- 
 stantly suggesting to their masters, improve- 
 ments in their designs ; and it is said that 
 in almost every case where the manufacturer 
 has been very successful, there is always 
 some person in the factory who is the in- 
 ventor of beautiful patterns. The invention 
 of patterns for fancy silks is there treated 
 as an object of so great importance, that a 
 School of Art is established in Lyons for that 
 purpose, and placed immediately under the 
 protection of the government, as well as of 
 the municipal authorities of the city. A bo- 
 tanical garden is attached to the school, and 
 a professor of botany has thirty or forty ju- 
 venile pupils engaged in copying the most 
 beautiful flowers, and great attention is paid 
 to the most tasteful grouping of them. Ano- 
 ther professor’s duty is, to show the young 
 men how their productions may be rendered 
 applicable to the manufactures, — that is to 
 say, how, by machinery, they can produce 
 on a piece of silk cloth that which they 
 have drawn on paper. 
 
 To military men, even, a knowledge of 
 natural history may be very useful on par- 
 ticular occasions, especially during their 
 marches in foreign countries. 
 
 When Antony led his army into Medea, 
 a considerable number died, in consequence 
 of their ignorance of its vegetable produc- 
 tions. After suffering for some time under 
 the effects of a famine, they were at length 
 reduced to the necessity of endeavouring to 
 subsist on the herbs and roots which the 
 sandy desert yielded. Few of these, how- 
 ever, did they find, that were known to be 
 eatable ; therefore they were obliged to 
 venture upon eating those with whose 
 properties they were in utter ignorance. 
 Amongst the vegetables thus indiscrimi- 
 nately chosen, there was one which proved 
 fatal to all that had eaten of it. (See Plu- 
 tarch’s Life of Antony .) 
 
 Xenophon records, that during the cele- 
 
358 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 brated retreat of the ten thousand Greeks 
 from Persia, the soldiers, when they came 
 to a place near Trebizontle, found many bee- 
 hives, the combs of which they sucked ; 
 the result of which was that they became as 
 though intoxicated, and were soon attacked 
 with a virulent cholera-morbus. Tournelort, 
 when at Trebizonde, made some observa- 
 tions on purpose to explain this occurrence, 
 and was induced to suspect that it arose 
 from the bees collecting their honey from a 
 plant there, very abundant, and the very 
 blossoms of which exhale a sweet, but in- 
 toxicating perfume. Either the rose-laurel, 
 
 ( Rhododendron Ponticum ,) or the yellow aza- 
 lea, ( Azalea Pontica ,) was the plant noticed 
 by Tournefort, as Father Lumberti found 
 the same poisonous plants and poisonous 
 honey, in Mingrelia. Colonel Rottiers states 
 that he observed, in 1816, the Rhododendron 
 ponticuin growing on all the mountains of 
 Trebizonde ; and the inhabitants assert, that 
 the honey which the bees extract from it, 
 when mixed with that of other flowers, is a 
 kind of poison, causing stupor, in a greater 
 or less degree, according to the season of the 
 year. M. Dupre, the French consul, as- 
 sured Colonel Rottiers that he had experi- 
 enced this effect himself. Several other 
 cases are recorded of the ill effects produced 
 by eating honey that bees had collected from 
 poisonous plants : a fact which ought to in- 
 duce the cultivators to consider what species 
 chiefly grow in the vicinity of their bee-hives. 
 The Greeks and Romans were careful to 
 eradicate all bitter-tasting herbs that were 
 to be found near their apiaries, lest they 
 should impart a bad quality to the honey. 
 The people of Languedoc, according to De 
 Lille, pay great attention to this point.* 
 
 “ Beverley, in his History of Virginia, tells 
 us that some soldiers, who were sent to 
 James Town to quell the rebellion of Bacon, 
 mistaking Stramonium for a spinach herb, 
 gathered some of its leaves in a very young 
 state, and, after boiling, ate plentifully of 
 them ; the effect of which, he adds, was “ a 
 very pleasant comedy, for they turned natural 
 fools upon it for several days. One would 
 
 * The oleander ( Neriurn Oleander ,) yields a honey 
 that pvoves fatal to thousands of flies; but our bees 
 avoid it. Occasionally, perhaps, in particular sea- 
 sons, when flowers are less numerous than usual, 
 this instinct of the bees appears to fail them, or to be 
 overpowered by their desire to collect a sufficient 
 store of honey for their purposes, and they suffer for 
 their want of self-denial. Sometimes whole swarms 
 have beer, destroyed by merely alighting upon poi- 
 sonous trees. This happened to one iu the county 
 of West Chester, in the province ol New York, which 
 settled upon the branches of the poison-ash, ( Rhus 
 vernixi) On the following morning they were all 
 found dead, and swelled to more than double their 
 usual size. Whether the honey extracted from 
 plants of the genus Kalmia, Andromeda, Rhododen- 
 dron, See., be hurtful to the bees themselves, is not 
 ascertained ; but, as lias been before observed, it is 
 often poisonous to mau. — ( Introduction to Entomo- 
 logy, ii. 180 .) 
 
 blow up a feather into the air ; another 
 would dart straws at it with fury ; another, 
 stark naked, was seen sitting up in a corner 
 like a monkey, grinning and making mouths ; 
 a fourth would fondly kiss and paw his com- 
 panions, and sneer in their faces with a 
 countenance more antic than a Dutch droll. 
 In this frantic condition they were confined, 
 lest in their folly they should destroy them- 
 selves. A thousand simple tricks they played, 
 but, after eleven days, returned to themselves 
 again, not remembering anything that had 
 passed.’’ Beverley might call it a very plea - 
 sant comedy, but to be deprived of one’s rea- 
 son for eleven days, and to be daring that 
 time not only a fool, but in danger of des- 
 troying one’self, could be anything but plea- 
 sant to the sufferers, however comic their 
 antics might be to by-standers : and in 
 other cases where this plant has been taken, 
 death has ensued. 
 
 “ Such an accident could not have occur- 
 red if the surgeon of the regiment had pos- 
 sessed a very slight portion of botanical 
 knowledge. It contrasts well with another 
 case, in which a ship’s crew, suffering much 
 in health, from the deprivation of vegetable 
 food, touched at a place where there were 
 found abundance, of plants, but none of them 
 such as they had been accustomed to eat ; 
 but the surgeon recognising in an unknown 
 plant those essential characters of a natural 
 order of known harmless qualities, at once, 
 for confidence, selected it for food, and thus 
 restored the crew to health, avoiding, by the 
 means of science, the misfortune of rendering 
 his companions madmen for a fortnight or of 
 poisoning them.” (Burnett’s Lecture at 
 Chelsea Garden, April 27, 1835.) 
 
 The horse and the elephant are not very 
 easily reconciled to each other’s presence, 
 unless habituated to it at an early age. 
 When the Romans, under Julian, assailed 
 the Persians on the plains of Assyria, the 
 horses and elephants that were employed by 
 the contending parties on the occasion, not 
 being accustomed to the sight of each other, 
 became so frantic and unmanageable, that in 
 their rage they inflicted great injury on even 
 the armies to which they belonged. The 
 same thing happened at the siege of Nisibis. 
 
 In the invasion of Scythia by the Persians, 
 Darius brought with him into Scythia seve- 
 ral asses, animals which were previously 
 quite unknown in that country, which Hero- 
 dotus says, contains no asses nor mules, ow- 
 ing to the coldness of the climate. The 
 Scythian cavalry, unused to such animals, 
 were, as might have been anticipated, af- 
 frighted every time that the asses chanced to 
 bray ; and frequently, when they attempted a 
 charge on the Persians, the horses started, 
 and fled away in fear : and thus, by the want 
 of knowledge and precaution on the part of 
 the invaded, did Darius, for a while, gain 
 
THK MIRROR. 
 
 359 
 
 advantage. The horse, it may be observed, 
 lias a similar antipathy to the camel, unless 
 accustomed to its presence at an early age. 
 
 The elephant has a great aversion to pigs ; 
 and it is related by Procopius, that, at the 
 siege of Edessa, by Chosroes, king of Persia, 
 the besieged Greeks employed the cry of a 
 pig to frighten from their walls the enemy’s 
 elephants. 
 
 Lysander told his men, when they lay 
 before Corinth, to be of good courage, be- 
 cause he saw a hare running upon the walls; 
 for he concluded that it would not be there if 
 any military exercise were frequent upon 
 them. 
 
 In the war with Spain, in 1762, the horses 
 of the British cavalry were all docked ; and 
 the consequence was, that, not having their 
 long switchy tails to protect themselves from 
 the swarms of insects which annoyed them, 
 they became very restive and untractable. 
 The cause of this being soon obvious, orders 
 were subsequently issued for the abolition of 
 the practice of docking them in future. 
 
 “ Quartremere d’lsjonval was a state pri- 
 soner in Holland in the latter part of 1 794, 
 when the French army, under Pichegru, in- 
 vaded that country. He found means to 
 carry on a correspondence with the French 
 general, and having carefully watched the 
 operations of some spiders, he wrote to Piche- 
 gru that he was there, and that he believed, 
 from his observations upon his spiders, that a 
 severe winter was at hand, which would, of 
 course, facilitate the operations of the invad- 
 ing army. The French general, who had al- 
 ready thought of retreating, acted upon this 
 hint, and, in a few days after, took possession 
 of the whole country, which would have 
 been inaccessible to him, had it not been for 
 the ice, which was soon sufficiently strong to 
 allow the French army to cross the rivers.” — 
 ( Goldsmith’s Natural History, by Innis, ii. 
 359. 
 
 The ancient Romans appear to have learned 
 their cuneus, or the arrangement of their bat- 
 talions into the shape of a wedge, as a more 
 secure mode of attack and defence, from the 
 herds of swine, which are observed, when 
 wolves appear amongst them, to arrange 
 themselves, instinctively, in the same wedge- 
 shaped figure, which they very dexterously 
 preserve during the engagement. 
 
 The sharp iron instruments, called caltrops, 
 which in time of war are thrown or fixed in 
 such parts of the field as the enemy are ex- 
 pected to pass, and which are intended, by 
 their sticking in the feet, to interrupt or pre- 
 vent their passage, are said to have been sug- 
 gested by observing the form of the prickles 
 of the plant called the water •caltrops. 
 
 (To be continued.) 
 
 EARLY ENGLISH MUSIC-PRINTERS. 
 
 BY EDWARD F. R1MBAULT, 
 
 ORGANIST OF E8LI8E SUISSE, 
 
 (For the Mirror.) 
 
 , (Continued from page 351.) 
 
 The next printer, in the order of time, who 
 appears from the evidence of his works to 
 have made music-printing partly his trade, 
 is a person known as “ Old John Day,”* as 
 early as the year 1560, or about seven years 
 after the publication of Dr. Tye’s book: he 
 printed a work, entitled, “ The Church Ser- 
 vice in three and four parts.” And again, 
 soon after this, we find his press once more 
 at work ; for in the year 1 562, he published 
 another work, entitled, “ The whole Book of 
 Psalms, with apt notes to sing them withal 
 Both these works, like that of Dr. Tye’s, were 
 religious, as their titles sufficiently show ; 
 indeed, most of the productions that had been 
 printed in this country up to the above time, 
 appear, with very slight exceptions, to have 
 been of a religious character ; the general 
 demand for works of a more miscellaneous 
 nature not being so great ; as may readily be 
 perceived from the nature of the music-books 
 which were published to meet the demand ; 
 for had books of songs, and such kind, been 
 demanded more extensively, we are aware, 
 from the spirit of enterprise and commerce 
 that pervades most trades, that a supply 
 would have been prepared, as will be sub- 
 sequently seen. 
 
 After a lapse of about nine years, or in the 
 year 1571, “ Old John Day ” published a 
 collection of songs, with the following quaint 
 and curious title, namely, “ Songs of three, 
 four, and five, voyces, composed by Thomas 
 fVythorne, Gent. ; the which songs be of sun- 
 drie sortes, that is to say , some long, some 
 short, some hard, some easie, to be sunge, 
 and some between both ; also some sotemne, 
 and some pleasante, or mery, so that accor- 
 ding to the skill of the singer ( not being 
 musitians) and disposition or delite of the 
 hearers, they may here find songes to their 
 contention and liking.” And this book, 
 with few exceptions, may be regarded as one 
 of the earliest works of the kind that was 
 published, and therefore it is upon that 
 account valuable, in comparison to some of 
 the books already enumerated. All books of 
 songs set to music of an early period, must be 
 valuable, not only to the musician himself, 
 but to the antiquarian, and the lover of our 
 old national songs and ballads. 
 
 A short analysis of the songs contained in 
 
 • Wynken de Worde chose for the sign of his shop 
 iu Fleet-street, the suu, as emblematical of the light 
 the art of printing was to shed on the world ; and 
 John Day, who had a printing-house in Aldersgate- 
 s tree I, with yet greater felicity of invention, took for 
 his motto a form of words, which at once proclaimed 
 the great discovery, and connected his own name 
 with its promulgation — Arise, for it is Day 1 
 
360 
 
 THK MIRROR. 
 
 this book would undoubtedly be interesting 
 to most readers; but as this is not the subject 
 of the present dissertation, I will reserve it 
 for a subsequent paper, and at present con’ 
 fine myself to the music-printers. 
 
 About the beginning of the reign of Queen 
 Elizabeth, two celebrated musicians, of the 
 names of Tallis and Byrd, applied jointly 
 for a patent to enable them to print music ; 
 letters patent were granted to them ; and 
 their assignees giving them the sole power of 
 printing and publishing all kinds of musical 
 compositions. They were not printers, so 
 that they employed strangers, under the 
 patent: and the chief person who printed 
 their compositions was one Thomas Vantrol- 
 lier, then established at Blackfriars; he 
 printed in the year 1575, a work entitled the 
 ‘* Cantiones Sacra”, which book was the 
 joint composition of the two patentees above- 
 mentioned. The custom of granting letters 
 patent for printers continued in force up to a 
 comparatively late period, as also a custom of 
 granting similar patents for type-founding ; 
 at one time, four founders of this description 
 were deemed quite sufficient to manufacture 
 all the type that the trade then required. 
 
 In the year 15.98, another patent was 
 granted to Thomas Motley, with considerably 
 more extensive powers than the patent en- 
 joyed by Tallis and Byrd. This Thomas 
 Morley, as the title of one of the most famous 
 of the books which he published informs us, 
 was “ one of the gents, of her majesties 
 Royall Chapel l,” and also a “ Batchelor of 
 Music.” 
 
 The former circumstance no doubt enabled 
 him to obtain this patent, as he was in much 
 favour at court, and the latter shows that he 
 had gone through a regular course of musical 
 study ; he appears to have been a man of 
 very considerable talent, and of good taste. 
 
 The books which he published are mostly 
 very highly embellished, and ornamented 
 with ingenious designs ; the title-pages are, 
 indeed, very rich, and often exuberantly 
 covered with a fine broad arabesque marginal 
 border. All the initial letters at the begin- 
 ing of each song were generally in imitation 
 of some of the old illuminated manuscripts, 
 and always rich and fanciful. One of the 
 works which he published, under the title of 
 “ A plaine and easie Introduction to prac- 
 tical Music,” has been deservedly praised 
 and admired for the superior elegance and 
 beauty of the type, as well as the frontis- 
 piece, which is an elaborate, and altogether 
 a very fine specimen of the art of engraving 
 at the period of its publication. 
 
 The notes which he used are the open 
 lozenge-shaped, which are printed with re- 
 markable neatness, and possess the property 
 of being both clear and distinct, which most 
 of the earlier specimens do not. 
 
 The artists whom Thomas Morley employed 
 
 under his patent, in printing his works, we re 
 two of the names of William Barley and 
 Thomas Este, but principally the latter, who 
 at that period carried on an extensive busi- 
 ness, as the numerous works which bear his 
 name, amply testify ; and he is also known 
 by the name of Snodham, as the following 
 title, and many others of his publications, 
 show : '"Lessons for Consert, made by sun- 
 drie excellent authors, and set to six several 
 instruments, namely , the treble Viol, Base 
 Viol, Bandora Citterne, and the Flute. 
 Now newly set forth by Phillip Rosseter, 
 one of his majesties Musitians . London : 
 Printed by Thomas Este, alias Snodham, 
 and are to be sould at his Shop in St. Dun- 
 stans Church Yard in Fleet Street, 1609.” 
 This is a very curious book, for several rea- 
 sons, but chiefly valuable from its showing 
 the kind of instruments, and consequently 
 the nature of the music, which was princi- 
 pally used in concerts in the reigns of Eliza- 
 beth and James the First. 
 
 The patent continued in force for some 
 time after the date of the above book ; but 
 as most of the numerous works which were 
 issued are nor so curious nor so intrinsically 
 valuable as the preceding, we shall omit 
 them, and pass on without alluding to any 
 cotemporary printers, with the exception of 
 John Winder and William tiodbid, who 
 printed several musical works, but as none 
 of them are of much importance, they are 
 not worth particularly mentioning ; these 
 printers followed the foreign method which 
 De Worde had introduced, and did not, that 
 I am aware of, make any improvement in 
 the processes of printing ; and from this 
 period up to the time of “ honest John Play- 
 ford,” there did not appear any printer of 
 note, and therefore 1 shall confine myself to 
 him and his productions. 
 
 To the unceasing endeavours of this man, 
 the musical word is much indebted, both for 
 the extensive improvements which he sug- 
 gested and practically carried into effect, in 
 the art of music-printing, and to the number 
 and value of the works which he issued from 
 his press. 
 
 (To be continued.') 
 
 Sfrtfi anfc Jpctmcea. 
 
 EXHIBITION OF ARTS AND MANUFACTURES 
 IN PARIS : MAY MDCCCXXXIX. 
 
 The most inattentive observer will be con- 
 vinced, after witnessing the many rare speci- 
 mens of Foreign genius, at the Exhibition of 
 Arts and Manufactures, now to be seen in 
 Paris, that unless John Bull “ goes-a-head,” 
 he will most assuredly be not much longer 
 ‘ Lord-Paramount’ in the mechanical arts : 
 but we have nothing to fear ; it is a glorious 
 emulation. In sincerely wishing our friends 
 in Paris every possible success, we are fully 
 
THK MIRROR. 
 
 361 
 
 assured, that the greater their discoveries, 
 the more the spirit of enterprise and rivalry 
 will predominate in the breasts of the British 
 mechanic. 
 
 Without farther preface, we beg to intro- 
 duce our readers to the First Gallery, which 
 is on the left-hand on entering; it is in a 
 court, and contains the machinery, the agri- 
 cultural, architectural, hydraulic, and other 
 mechanical apparatus, which is exhibited in 
 great abundance, and which forms, to the 
 scientific ami practical observer, the most 
 interesting part of the whole collection. The 
 Jong transversal gallery, into which the visi- 
 ter first sets foot, however striking and beau- 
 tiful may be its contents, principally objects 
 of furniture, we shall leave to the last. 
 
 The names of the exhibitors, and of each 
 article or class of articles, are, however, 
 affixed to each standing in the galleries, and 
 the persons in charge of the objects are very 
 willing and intelligent in their explanations. 
 This is fortunate; otherwise, the visiter would 
 be lost in such an immense bazaar, and his 
 inspection would prove comparatively un- 
 fruitful. 
 
 At the top of this first gallery, and in the 
 middle of the room, stands a large beet-root 
 sugar apparatus, No. 3,026, the system of 
 which is one of great simplicity, and the cost 
 comparatively low. On the left-hand against 
 the wall, under No. 1,644, will be found a 
 fine collection of tools of all kinds, with 
 many ingenious works for large clocks. Some 
 of the clock-movements of the famous Wag- 
 ner, of Paris, will be observed in this gallery, 
 and, from the long established fame of that 
 house, are worthy of inspection. The ellip- 
 tical clock, with hands extending or shrink- 
 ing as they revolve, is very ingenious, and a 
 large circular clock-face for Constant ina should 
 he remarked. In the middle of the room 
 will be found No. 821, a model of a manu- 
 factory for carriage-wheels, where one steam- 
 engine or water- wheel, of 14-horse power, sets 
 in motion an infinity of others, and enables 
 the workmen to effect five-times as much as 
 they could do were they working separately. 
 Close to this is a large cylinder, No. 786, for 
 storing and drying corn, and for preserving 
 it from insects. It deserves the notice of all 
 practical agriculturists. Messrs. Kcechlin 
 and Co., of Mtilhausen, have got here some 
 very large and very important machines for 
 cotton-spinning and for paper-making, which, 
 from the space they occupy, cannot escape 
 notice, and which might excite jealousy even 
 in a Lancashire manufacturer. One of the 
 principles introduced into a fine machine of 
 the former class, due to one of the partners 
 of this extensive house, is that of the self- 
 acting spinning-jennies, similar to those in- 
 vented by Roberts, of Manchester. In this 
 gallery there are other machines for similar 
 purposes ; to which the attention of manu- 
 
 facturers should be especially directed, and 
 by whom their respective merits will be 
 readily understood. We may observe at 
 once that the high degree of finish given 4o 
 these and several other large machines of the 
 same kind, is what will principally attract 
 attention, next to their size, with an ordinary 
 observer ; and that, in reality, it is a very 
 conclusive evidence of advance in mechanical 
 art. To the left-hand of the room, No. 1,976, 
 indicates a new and elegantly-constructed or- 
 rery, of great simplicity ; and near it is a new 
 wine-press of peculiar construction. A lit- 
 tle beyond, on the same side, if so humble 
 an object cun attract attention, we would 
 recommend the visiter to examine some spe- 
 cimens of iron, copper, and brass wire, re- 
 markable for their fineness and high finish. 
 He will understand the value of these arti- 
 cles when he turns to the beautiful wool- 
 cards and cotton-cards, several exquisite 
 specimens of which may be perceived in the 
 middle of the room, and on the excellence 
 of which the wool and cotton manufacturers 
 greatly depend. Few persons have an idea 
 of the great difficulty and expense of forming 
 these delicate instruments. No. 1,321 is a 
 highly-ingenious kind of lantern for a light- 
 house, formed of a series of cylindrical 
 layers of glass, so constructed as to form an 
 immense lens of high refracting power, at 
 a comparatively cheap rate. This apparatus 
 is intended for the United States, and its 
 maker is Lepante, of Paris. 
 
 Against the walls of this, as well as of 
 the other side of the gallery, hangs an im- 
 mense collection of varnished leather of all 
 kinds, and prepared by various methods : 
 large pieces of a very beautiful and useful 
 manufacture, white felt, will be observed ; 
 the immense size of which, and the imper- 
 meability of their texture, are remarkable. 
 We may add, that the tissus metalliques 
 (wire canvasses) seem to be brought to a 
 wonderful degree of perfection in France, 
 there being no limits to the size of the sheet, 
 or the fineness of its texture. Various beau- 
 tiful specimens of oil-cloths, and of stained 
 papers, of many different methods of pre- 
 paration, can hardly escape the eye of the 
 visiter. These objects, though they do not 
 bear on themselves the stamp of so much 
 ingenuity as a complicated machine, often 
 call into play the very machines that are so 
 difficult to be made, and they may all be 
 looked on as owing much of their improve- 
 ment to the great strides made by the em- 
 ployment of steam-power. We have been 
 much pleased at an ingenious and beauti- 
 fully-executed series of moulds for stamping 
 the leaves of artificial flowers, No. 1,073, 
 in the middle of the room : the exactness 
 with which the moulds have been taken 
 from nature constitute their excellence, and 
 account for the great superiority of this 
 
TI1E MIRROR. 
 
 manufacture, in which Paris stands quite 
 unrivalled. Near to them the famous Pari- 
 sian cutler, Sirhenry, has exhibited some of 
 his beautiful products in their rough state : 
 they will at first puzzle the visiter to make 
 out what they are. A little above this place, 
 towards the entrance of the gallery, is a 
 remarkably ingenious anti-friction wheel, 
 applicable to all purposes of machinery or 
 agricultural instruments, the axle being 
 surrounded by four small cylinders, revolving 
 like satellites round it in a case, either hori- 
 zontally or vertically. No. 1,589 is a splen- 
 did wool-combing machine, by Collier, one 
 of the great lions of the gallery ; and No. 
 1,706, a large flax- spinning machine, by 
 Schlumberger, of Guebwiller, close by it, 
 will strike the visiter’s eye. No. 3,149, a 
 printing machine, and No. 791, a paper- 
 making ditto, are beautiful models of inge- 
 nuity, especially the latter. 
 
 On approaching the lower end of the first 
 gallery, there will be perceived a complicated 
 condenser in vacuo, looking like a house with 
 a roof, and an immense series of copper tubes, 
 rather too cumbersome, we should apprehend, 
 not to require further improvement. Behind 
 it is a new kind of carriage, drawn by the 
 hand, a most elegant little chariot or coupe 
 on wheels, putting one in mind of a bath 
 chair, but fitted up with all the luxury that 
 the most exquisite petite maitresse of the 
 faubourg St. Honore could desire. 
 
 Returning up the gallery towards where it 
 was entered, and against the western wall, the 
 visiter will observe some very beautiful metal- 
 lic castings of ornaments, statuettes, &c., in 
 iron, lead, and other metals, which are of im- 
 portance, as showing that these metals are 
 likely to supersede bronze and other more ex- 
 pensive compounds in the lubrication of orna- 
 mental articles. The exquisite diminutive 
 models of steam-engines, cotton-spinning 
 machines, &c., exhibited along this side ot 
 the gallery, and especially some by the pupils 
 of the Eeoles Royales des Arts et Metiers at 
 Angers and Chalons, should not tail to be 
 examined and admired. The larger steam- 
 eugines which form part of this exhibition 
 will be peculiar objects of attraction to all 
 who understand machinery ol that sort. No. 
 284, a rotatory steam-engine, by Pecqueur, of 
 Paris; No. 1,099, an inexplosible boiler, by 
 Beslay, of Paris ; No. 1,411, some very splen- 
 didly-finished steam-engines by Pauwels, of 
 the faubourg Poissonniere ; No. 816, ditto, 
 ditto, by Alexandre, of the faubourg St. 
 Denis ; and a very curious one by Deitz, 
 No. 304. All these will give excellent in- 
 stances of the actual state ot French art in 
 this important branch of industry. Compe- 
 tent judges state that the finish ot these ma- 
 chines is highly beautiful — equal, in tact, to 
 those of English manufacture ; and that their 
 power of working with economy of combus- 
 
 tible matter is not one of the least recom- 
 mendations they possess. 
 
 The supplementary gallery belonging to 
 the division of machines is formed out of the 
 court between the galleries Nos. 1 and 2, and 
 which we will enter from the northern or 
 nearest end. Here are placed the agricul- 
 tural machines, the specimens of cast iron, 
 pottery, &c., the larger kinds of hardware 
 products, carriages, &c. ; and, though this 
 division may not appear very inviting to the 
 general examiner, we assure our readers that 
 they will not repent a careful inspection of 
 its contents. Immediately in front of the 
 entrance are some baked stucco preparations, 
 for pavements of halls, passages, <fec., in imi- 
 tation of ancient mosaic, highly durable, beau- 
 tiful, and ingenious, but likely to be super- 
 seded by the application of bitumen to similar 
 purposes. No. 2,732 is a clever, but, we fear, 
 not very useful kind of tower, applicable to 
 fire-escapes ; it may be propelled along a 
 street, if there be a sufficient power to move 
 it, and it throws out bridges up to a seventh 
 or eighth story of a house, if required. Close 
 to it will be observed the valuable apparatus 
 of Colonel Paulin, for enabling firemen to 
 enter apartments full ot flames and smoke, 
 being perfectly air and smoke proof, and al- 
 ready brought into general use in the capital, 
 where its value is fully appreciated. In the 
 side gallery, to the left hand, will be found 
 the wood-sawing machine used at the Chan- 
 tier d’Austerlitz, for cutting up fire-wood to 
 any requisite length ; it is very simple in 
 construction, presents the wood to a well- 
 constructed circular saw, and is apparently 
 of little cost in formation. No. 2,032 is the 
 expression of a very curious idea, being nothing 
 more nor less than the utilising every move- 
 ment of a tree, when shaken to and fro by 
 the wind, towards the obtaining of mecha- 
 nical power. An apparatus is fitted to a 
 tree, half-way up the turnk, consisting of a 
 certain number of ropes or chains, attached 
 to cranks or wheels in a building below, so 
 that, whichever way the tree inclines, it sets 
 in motion one of the wheels, and thus com- 
 municates force to a system of machinery. 
 If this be always practicable, adieu to wind- 
 mills ! On pursuing this gallery, which sur- 
 rounds an open court, to the further or south- 
 ern end, the visiter will find a most formidable 
 display of all sorts of economical stoves and 
 cooking apparatus, many of which are not 
 only highly ingenious, but exceedingly pretty. 
 With one in particular, No. 3,308, we have 
 been greatly struck, and we think all lovers 
 of a good dinner will be of our opinion, when 
 they see in a smart brass fire-place, over two 
 or three logs of wood, a nice little sucking-pig 
 in full roast ; in a hot cupboard by the side 
 a goose baking, half a dozen cutlets, a dozen 
 larks, no end of kidneys, plenty of potatoes, 
 &c., all in full stew and fry — not in reality, 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 363 
 
 liut in pasteboard ; altogether a plan much to 
 be longed for, if economical and practicable. 
 1 here are more than a dozen other stoves of 
 similar kinds at the same part of the gallery ; 
 in fact, you may now cook a dinner for twelve 
 in a common-sized tea-kettle, and put all your 
 larder into a band-box. After the culinary 
 apparatus come some inventions for curing 
 smokey chimneys, sure to be prized by all 
 housekeepers. The great lion of this part of 
 the exhibition is the veal, identical, “genuine,” 
 coronation carriage of Marshal Soult ; round 
 which the loyal subjects of her Britannic Ma- 
 jesty thronged with inexpressible delight, and 
 at which the aimables badauds of Paris ap- 
 pear disposed to open all their eyes. 
 
 [To be concluded in our next .] 
 
 THE KINGDOM OF CAUBUL. 
 manners and customs of the affghan 
 
 PEOPLE. 
 
 Throughout the whole range of the coun- 
 tries tributary to Caubul, the same customs, 
 and the same habits of dress, pervade the 
 whole people. Be it at Candahur or Lahore, 
 or Segistan, the people will not be found 
 fluttering about in white muslins, or half- 
 naked like the Indians, but as at Affghanis- 
 tan, soberly and decently attired in dark-co- 
 loured woollen vestments, wrapt up in capa- 
 cious brown mantles, and covered with large 
 sheep-skin clothes. 
 
 The Aflghan community is parcelled out 
 into tribes or Oolooses, each under the com- 
 mand of the head chief, and in this manner 
 the Dooraunees, and all other nations of con- 
 sequence in these parts, divide themselves. 
 1 he troops, too, ol most ot them, are generally 
 foot. In Afghanistan, the fighting men re- 
 ceive no pay ; but in some tribes there exists 
 a rule, that if a horse be slain, the owner of 
 the animal shall receive the price from a fund 
 formed by fines, and by a tax on the tribe. 
 Taxes are, in fact, however, very rarely im- 
 posed, save at those times when for purposes of 
 public utility, money is imperatively needed ; 
 but there is a regular infidel tax on Hindoos, 
 and the customs collected on merchandise, 
 are in several cases, when they pass through 
 the hands of the Ooloss, appropriated, by the 
 Khan. 
 
 It is a singular fact, that not a court of 
 judicature is anywhere established through- 
 out the country. There is one broad rule 
 on which the Affghans act, which is, that it is 
 every man’s right and duty to do himself 
 justice; and to revenge one’s own injuries 
 is almost the prevailing custom. “ In some 
 Ooloosses, the adjustment of disputes, ” says 
 Elphinstone, il is left to mediation and per- 
 suasion, to which the chiefs and elders lend 
 their weight; but if these means are insuffi- 
 cient to compose the quarrel, the society 
 leaves the injured person to pursue his re- 
 venge.” The practice of duelling, peculiar 
 
 to our own nation, well illustrates the Aff- 
 glmn notions on this subject, our own system 
 being only a generous and well-regulated 
 mode of private revenge. 
 
 The Aflghan nation is, in truth, an assem- 
 blage of petty commonwealths ; and the 
 whole, or nearly the whole, is formed into a 
 state by the supreme authority of a common 
 sovereign. 
 
 It will doubtless sound strange to Euro- 
 pean ears, to hear that it is the established 
 custom of the Affghans to purchase their 
 wives ; a practice which the Mahommedan 
 law sanctions and recognises. The price 
 of course rises or tails according to the cir- 
 cumstances and condition of the bridegroom. 
 The necessary result of this practice is, that 
 the women, though they are in general 
 treated with all becoming kindness and affec- 
 tion, are in some measure unavoidably consi- 
 dered as property. Another modification of 
 this practice is, that if the husband chance 
 to depart before the wife, his relatives re- 
 ceive the price which is paid for her, in case 
 a second bridegroom takes her in marriage ; 
 but it is thought incumbent on the brother 
 of the deceased to marry his widow ; and it 
 is a mortal affront to the brother for any 
 other person to marry her, without his espe- 
 cial sanction and consent. 
 
 Education has not yet spread its blessings 
 or refinements very liberally over this quar- 
 ter of the earth. The ladies of the upper 
 classes frequently learn to read : but on ac- 
 count ot a strange and unaccountable pre- 
 judice which prevails, it is thought immo- 
 dest for a woman to write, as she might 
 avail herself of her talent, to correspond with 
 a lover ! Valentine’s Day, in their eyes, 
 instead of being a Saint’s day, as with us, 
 would be with them “ aye accursed in the 
 calendar.”— “ O Tempora, O Mores!” 
 
 Women of the poorer orders are always 
 seen in the streets, when walking, wrapped 
 up in a large white sheet, which falls down 
 in iolds, covering them to their feet, and 
 completely enveloping and concealing all 
 shape, comeliness, and figure. The only 
 method by which they see abroad, is by 
 peering through a net-work in the white 
 hood which covers their head. Women of 
 condition also wear this dress on going out, 
 but being generally on horseback at such 
 times, they wear in addition a pair of large 
 white cotton boots. They travel in what 
 are called cajawas, which are hampers or 
 wicker baskets on each side of the camel, 
 long enough to allow them to recline at 
 length ; but as they are covered with a case 
 of broad-cloth, they are insufferably hot, and 
 almost suffocated in hot weather. 
 
 Their funerals do not differ from those of 
 the Mahommedans : the only remarkable 
 circumstance is, that if the deceased were 
 an opulent or rich man, moollahs or priests 
 
364 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 are employed (o read the Korun for some 
 days over his grave. 
 
 With regard to the education of the Af- 
 ghans, the rich keep moollahs or Mahom- 
 medan clergymen in their houses, to teach 
 their children, but allow them all the power 
 appertaining to the office of a didaskalos or 
 schoolmaster. One of these schoolmasters 
 is to be found in every village and camp, 
 who is maintained by a piece of land allotted 
 to him, and by a small contribution which he 
 receives from his scholars. In the towns 
 there, are regular schools, like those in Euro- 
 pean countries, where, the master is main- 
 tained by his scholars alone. The sum 
 commonly paid to the schoolmaster is about 
 fifteen-pence a month, but the payments are 
 in proportion to the circumstances of the 
 boy’s father. The course of study pursued, 
 it is pleasing to know. A child begins his 
 letters when he is four years and four days 
 old ; but its studies after this are immedi- 
 ately laid aside, and not resumed till it has 
 attained the age of six years. It then learns 
 a-new its alphabet, and is taught to read a 
 little Persian poem of Hafiz ; this incipient 
 course takes from four months to a year, ac- 
 cording to the capacity of the infant tyro. 
 After this, the Koran is opened before him, 
 and he begins to scan its marvellous pages. 
 He then concludes his educational course by 
 reading portions of the Persian classics, and 
 is happy if he can acquire a smattering of 
 the Arabic grammar. If the youth be in- 
 tended for the sacerdotal order, and is des- 
 tined to be a moollah or priest, he is placed 
 at some place famous for its moollahs, such 
 as Peshawur, Hushtinggur, <fec. ; and he 
 there proceeds to the abstruse studies of 
 logic, law', and theology. 
 
 In these parts, the old cabalistical and oc- 
 cult sciences of alchymy, magic and divi- 
 nation, are carried to a great extent. Su- 
 perstition, too, has no confined sway. They 
 believe each of the numerous solitudes in the 
 mountains and deserts of their country to be 
 inhabited by a lonely demon, whom they 
 call the Goule, or spirit of the waste, and 
 whom they represent as a gigantic and 
 frightful spectre, who devours any passenger 
 whom chance may bring within his haunts. 
 
 They also place great belief in dreams, 
 and pry into futurity by astrological and 
 geomantic calculations. Their commonest 
 method of divination is by examining the 
 marks in the blade-bone of a sheep, held up 
 to the light — by the drawing of lots from the 
 position assumed by arrows, poured care- 
 lessly out of a quiver, and by touching their 
 rosaries after a peculiar fashion. They place 
 implicit belief also in the Sortes Virgilancce. 
 For this purpose the Koran and the poems 
 of Hafiz are used. And a happy coinci- 
 dence is related to have occurred to a person 
 at Lahore, who consulted Hafiz at the be- 
 ginning of the troubles produced by the de- 
 
 position of Shah Zemaun. His object w'as 
 to ascertain which of the sons of Timour 
 Shah would obtain the throne, the contest 
 for it being at that time waging; and the 
 verse that met his eye was to this effect : 
 
 At the dawn a voice from the invisible world, 
 Brought these glad tidings to my ear ; 
 
 It is the reign of Shah Soojah, 
 
 Drink wine, aud be bold I 
 
 Our readers will immediately call to mind 
 the remarkable fulfilment of the words. 
 
 W. Arch eh. 
 
 Ctje iPubltc jjouvnals. 
 
 Blackwood’s Edinburgh magazine, 
 
 [Of this month, is enriched with many pure 
 literary articles ; and among them, a series 
 of Poems called “ Hymns to the Gods,” writ- 
 ten by Albert Pike, an American gentleman : 
 they display poetical talent of the very highest 
 order : it is from this source we cull the fol- 
 lowing pleasing morjeau :] 
 
 TO CERES. 
 
 GodBfss of bounty 1 at whose spring-time call. 
 
 When on the dewy earth thy first tones fall. 
 
 Pierces the ground eacli young and tender blade, 
 
 And wonders at the sun ; each dull grey glade 
 Is shining with uew grass ; from each chill hole, 
 Where they had lain enchain’d and dull of soul. 
 
 The birds come forth, aud sing for joy to thee 
 Among the springing leaves : and, fast and free. 
 
 The rivers toss their chains up to the sun. 
 
 And through their grassy banks leapingly run 
 When thou hast touch’d them : thou wtio ever art 
 The Goddess of all Beauty : thou whose heart 
 Is ever in the sunny meails and fields ; 
 
 To whom tlie laughing earth looks up aud yields 
 Her waving treasures : thou that iu thy car. 
 
 With winged dragons, when the morning star 
 Sheds his cold light, touchest the morning trees 
 Until they spread their blossoms to the breeze; — 
 Oh, pour thy light 
 
 Ot truth and joy upon our souls this night. 
 
 And grant to us all plenty and good ease I 
 
 Oh thou, the Goddess of the rustling Com ! 
 
 Thou to whom reapers sing, and on the lawn 
 Pile up their baskets with the full-ear’d wheat ; 
 While maidens come with little dancing feet. 
 
 And bring thee poppies, weaving thee a crown 
 Of simple beauty, bending their heads down 
 To garland thy full baskets : at whose side 
 Among the sheaves of wheat, doth Bacchus ride 
 With bright and sparkling eyes, and feet and mouth. 
 All wine-stain’d from the warm and sunny south ; 
 Perhaps one arm about thy neck he twines. 
 
 While in his car ye ride amoug tire vines. 
 
 And with the other hand he gathers up 
 
 The ricli full grapes, and holds the glowing cup 
 
 Unto thy lips — aud then ire throws it by, 
 
 And crowns thee with bright leaves to shade thine eye. 
 So it may gaze with richer love and light 
 Upon his beaming blow ; if thy swift flight 
 Be on some hill 
 
 Of vine-hung Thrace — oh, come, while night is still. 
 And greet with heaping arms our gladden’d sight ! 
 
 Lo ! the small stars, above the silver wave. 
 
 Come wandering up the sky, and kindly lave 
 The thin clouds with their light, like floating sparks 
 Of diamonds in the air ; or spirit barks, 
 
 With unseen riders, wheeling in the sky. 
 
 Lo 1 a soft mist of light is vising high, 
 
 Like silver shining through a tint of red. 
 
 And soon the queened moon her love will shed. 
 
TUB MIRROR. 
 
 365 
 
 Like pearl-mist, on the earth and on the sea. 
 Where thou slialt cross to view our mystery. 
 
 Lo ! we have torches here for thee, and urns. 
 Where incense with a floating odour burns. 
 
 And altars piled with various fruits and flowers. 
 And ears of corn gather’d at early hours, 
 
 Ami odours fresh from India, with a heap 
 Of many-coloured poppies ; — Lo 1 we keep 
 Our silent watcli for thee, sitting before 
 Thy ready altars, ’till to our loue shore 
 
 Thy chariot-wheels 
 
 Shall come, while Ocean to the burden reels 
 And utters to the sky a stifled roar. 
 
 LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF NICHOLAS 
 NICKLEBY. NO. XV. 
 
 [Boz has herein shown great knowledge of 
 mankind, particularly in depicturing the 
 knavish machinations of Ralph Nickleby and 
 Arthur Gride, which contrasts finely with 
 the virtuous character of the innocent and 
 dutiful Madeline Bray, who forms a promi- 
 nent feature in this 
 
 Scene in the Rules of the King’s Bench. \ 
 
 The place to which Mr. Cheeryble had 
 directed him was a row of mean, and not 
 over-cleanly houses, situated within “ the 
 rules ” of the King’s Bench Prison, and not 
 many hundred paces distant from the obelisk 
 in Saint George’s Fields. The Rules are a 
 certain liberty adjoining the prison, and com- 
 prising some dozen streets, in which debtors, 
 who can raise money to pay large fees, from 
 which their creditors do not derive any bene- 
 fit, are permitted to reside by the wise provi- 
 sions of the same enlightened laws which 
 leave the debtor who can raise no money to 
 starve in jail, without the food, clothing, 
 lodging, or warmth, which are provided for 
 felons convicted of the most atrocious crimes 
 that can disgrace humanity. 
 
 To the row of houses indicated to him by 
 Mr. Charles Cheeryble, Nicholas directed his 
 steps, without much troubling his head with 
 such matters as these ; and at this row of 
 houses — after traversing a very dirty and 
 dusty suburb, of which minor theatricals, 
 shell-fish, ginger-heer, spring-vans, green- 
 grocery, and broker’s-shops, appeared to com- 
 pose the main and most prominent features 
 — he at length arrived with a palpitating 
 heart. There were small gardens in front, 
 which, being wholly neglected in all other 
 respects, served as little pens for the dust to 
 collect in, until the wind came round the 
 corner and blew it down the road. Opening 
 the rickety gate which, dangling on its 
 broken hinges before one of these, half ad- 
 mitted and half repulsed the visiter, Nicholas 
 knocked at the street-door with a faltering 
 hand. 
 
 It was, in truth, a shabby house outside, 
 with very dim parlour-windows, and very 
 small show of blinds, and very dirty muslin 
 curtains dangling across the lower panes on 
 very loose and limp strings. Neither, when 
 the door was opened, did the inside appear to 
 Belie the outward promise, as there was faded 
 
 carpeting on the stairs, and faded oil-cloth in 
 the passage; in addition to which discom- 
 forts, a gentleman Ruler was smoking hard 
 in the front parlour, (though it was not yet 
 noon,) while the lady of the house was busily 
 engaged in turpentining the disjointed frag- 
 ments of a tent-bedstead at the door of the 
 back parlour, as if in preparation for the re- 
 ception of some new lodger who had been 
 fortunate enough to engage it. 
 
 Nicholas had ample time to make these 
 observations while the little boy, who went 
 on errands for the lodgers, clattered down the 
 kitchen-stairs, and was heard to scream, as in 
 some remote cellar, for Miss Bray’s servant, 
 who, presently appearing, and requesting him 
 to follow her, caused him to evince greater 
 symptoms of nervousness and disorder than 
 so natural a consequence of his having in- 
 quired for that young lady would seem calcu- 
 lated to occasion. 
 
 Up stairs he went, however, and into a frout 
 room he was shown, and there, seated at a 
 little table by the window, on which were 
 drawing-materials with which she was occu- 
 pied, sat the beautiful girl who had so en- 
 grossed his thoughts, and who, surrounded 
 by all the new and strong interest which 
 Nicholas attached to her story, seemed now, 
 in his eyes, a thousand times more beautiful 
 than he had ever yet supposed her. 
 
 But how the graces and elegaucies which 
 she had dispersed about the poorly-furnished 
 room, went to the heart of Nicholas ! Flow- 
 ers, plants, birds, the harp, the old piano, 
 whose notes had sounded so much sweeter in 
 by-gone times — how many struggles had it 
 cost her to keep these two last links of that 
 broken chain which bound her yet to home ! 
 With every slender ornament, the occupation 
 of her leisure hours, replete with that graceful 
 charm which lingers in every little tasteful 
 work of woman’s hands, how much patient 
 endurance, and how many gentle affections 
 were entwined ! He felt as though the smile 
 of Heaven were on the little chamber ; as 
 though the beautiful devotion of so young 
 and weak a creature, had shed a ray of its 
 own on the inanimate things around, and 
 made them beautiful as itself; as though the 
 halo with which old painters surround the 
 bright angels of a sinless world played about 
 a being akin in spirit to them, and its light 
 were visibly before him. 
 
 And yet Nicholas was in the rules of the 
 King’s Bench Prison ! If he had been in 
 Italy indeed, and the time had been sunset, 
 and the scene a stately terrace ; — but, there 
 is one broad sky over all the world, and whe- 
 ther it be blue or cloudy, the same heaven 
 beyond it, so, perhaps, he had no need of 
 compunction for thinking as he did. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that he took in 
 everything at one glance, for he had as yet 
 been Unconscious of the presence of a sick 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 
 man propped up with pillows in an easy- 
 chair, who moving restlessly and impatiently 
 in his seat, attracted his attention. 
 
 He was scarce fifty, perhaps, but so ema- 
 ciated as to appear much older. His features 
 presented the remains of a handsome coun- 
 tenance, but one in which the embers of 
 strong and impetuous passions were easier to 
 be traced than any expression which would 
 have rendered a far plainer face much more 
 prepossessing. His looks were very haggard, 
 and his limbs and body literally worn to the 
 bone, but there was something of the old fire 
 in the large sunken eye notwithstanding, and 
 it seemed to kindle afresh as he struck a thick 
 stick, with which he seemed to have sup- 
 ported himself in his seat, impatiently on the 
 floor twice or thrice, and called his daughter 
 by her name. 
 
 “ Madeline, who is this — what does any- 
 body want here — who told a stranger we 
 could be seen P What is it P 
 
 “ I believe — ’’.the young lady began, as 
 she inclined her head with an air of some 
 confusion in reply to the salutation of Ni- 
 cholas. 
 
 “ You always believe,” returned her father, 
 petulantly. “ What is it ?” 
 
 By this time Nicholas had recovered suffi- 
 cient presence of mind to speak lor himself, 
 so he said (as it had been agreed he should 
 say,) that he called about a pair of hand- 
 screens, and some painted velvet for an otto- 
 man, both of which were required to be of the 
 most elegant design possible, neither time 
 nor expense being of the smallest considera- 
 tion. He had also to pay for the two draw- 
 ings, with many thanks, and, advancing to 
 the little table, he laid upon it a bank note, 
 folded in an envelope and sealed. 
 
 “ See that the money is right, Madeline,” 
 said the father, “ open the paper, my dear.” 
 
 “ It’s quite right, papa, I am sure.” 
 
 “ Here !” said Mr. Bray, putting out his 
 hand, and opening and shutting his bony 
 fingers with irritable impatience. “ Let me 
 see. What are you talking about, Madeline 
 — you’re sure — how can you be sure of 
 nny such thing — five pounds — well, is that 
 right ?” 
 
 “ Quite,” said Madeline, bending over him. 
 She was so busily employed in arranging the 
 pillows that Nicholas could not see her face, 
 but as she stooped he thought he saw a tear 
 fall. 
 
 “ Ring the bell, ring the bell,” said the 
 sick man, with the same nervous eagerness, 
 and motioning towards it with such a qui- 
 vering hand that the bank note rustled in the 
 air. “ Tell her to get it changed — to get me 
 a newspaper — to buy me some grapes — ano- 
 ther bottle of the wine that I had last week 
 —and — and — I forget half I want just now, 
 but she can go out again. ' Let her get those 
 first— those first. Now, Madeline, my love, 
 
 quick, quick 1 Good God, how slow you 
 are !” 
 
 “ He remembers nothing that she wants!” 
 thought Nicholas. Perhaps something of 
 what he thought was expressed in his coun- 
 tenance, for the sick man turning towards 
 him with great asperity, demanded to know 
 if he waited for a receipt. 
 
 “ It is no matter at all,” said Nicholas. 
 
 Nicholas bowed to the young lady, and 
 retired. 
 
 HEADS OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 [This popular work maintains the high cha- 
 racter it has so deservedly earned by its faith- 
 ful delineation of living characters. In the 
 8th number is concluded the chapter on ‘Ta- 
 vern Heads,’ with two characteristic portraits : 
 it gives also the Old Housekeeper, with her por- 
 trait, and the Postman — true to life : — ] 
 
 Herald of joy — 'messenger of evil ' Daily 
 terror— hourly hope ! Now, one deputed 
 from the gods ; and now, the envoy of pain, 
 and poverty, and death. Each and all of 
 these is the unconscious Postman. In the 
 round of one morning he may stand at fifty 
 thresholds, the welcome bringer of blessed 
 news, — the long-hoped, long-prayed for car- 
 rier of good tidings, — and the dismal tale- 
 bearer, the ambassador of woe. The Postman 
 deals his short, imperative knock, and the 
 sound shall, like a fairy spell, as quickly call 
 a face of hopeful gladness to the door ; he 
 passes to the next house, and his summons 
 makes the anxious soul within quail and 
 quake with apprehension. He is, indeed, a 
 stout, a happy man, whose heait has uever 
 shrunk at the knock of the Postman. 
 
 We meet the Postman in his early walk ; 
 he is a familiar object — a social common- 
 place, tramping through mud, and snow, and 
 drenching rain, and withering cold, the 
 drudge of all weathers ; and we scarcely 
 heed the value of his toil, — rarely consider 
 the daily treasure of which he is the deposi- 
 tory and the dealer forth. We speak of trea- 
 sure in its highest meaning ; eschewing all 
 notice of bank notes, and bills, and cheques, 
 wherewith the Postman is daily trusted ; we 
 confine ourselves to the more precious records 
 of the heart ; to the written communings of 
 affection; the kind remembrances, the yearn- 
 ings of the absent ; the hopes of the happy ; 
 and the more sacred sorrows of the unfortu- 
 nate. Look at that little bundle of letters 
 grasped by the Postman. Who shall guess 
 the histories that are there ! — histories more 
 deep, more touching, than many on the 
 shelves of libraries; writing, albeit the au- 
 thorship of the poor and ignorant, that in its 
 homely truth shall shame the laboured pe- 
 riods of fashionable quill-cutters. 
 
 The letter-carrier himself may be said to 
 be deficient of any very striking character* 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 367 
 
 istic, any peculiar recommendation as a na- 
 tional portrait ; in himself he is, indeed, a 
 common-place : he is only for the time 
 being 1 elevated by our hopes and fears ; only 
 for the nonce the creature of our associa- 
 tions. We suffer the fever of anxiety tor a 
 letter, and the approaching Postman comes 
 upon us a very different person from him 
 who passed our window a week ago. In 
 the intensity of our expectation, we almost 
 make him a party to our gladness or our 
 suffering : he has nothing for us, and 
 
 inwardly we almost chide him for the 
 disappointment ; he seems leagued against 
 us, and in our thoughts we reproach him 
 for his unkindness. “ Are you sure you 
 have nothing ?’’ we ask, as if almost peti- 
 tioning his will to delight us ; for a time, we 
 seem to ourselves dependent upon his cour- 
 tesy alone for a satisfying answer. 
 
 We have said the Postman was with us a 
 common-place ; and yet, in the very regula- 
 rity of his calls may we see the highest tri- 
 umphs of civilization. How he keeps man 
 knit to man ; what interests he upholds ; 
 how he connects, and makes voluble, absent 
 hearts ; how, through him all the corners of 
 the earth hold discourse with one another ! 
 The Postman with us is a daily fate : nought 
 stops him ; he walks, and walks, and for 
 ever walks, knocking and dealing forth his 
 many missives, in fair weather and in tem- 
 pest, in scorching sun and nipping frost. 
 In the remote habitations of man, the Post- 
 man is, indeed, invested with more romantic 
 attributes ; he is not a dweller among the 
 people, but a fitful and uncertain visitor. The 
 letter-carrier to the few denizens of a Cana- 
 dian forest, is of far higher mark than the 
 Postman in Cheapside. 
 
 Though his calling be, in truth, of the 
 humblest sort, we do not look upon it as 
 altogether menial. The cause of this is 
 probably to be found in the various feelings 
 of hope and fear which it is his function at 
 times to awaken in us. Though, indeed, 
 nothing more than a light porter, still, the 
 precious things revealed to us by the little 
 ackets he is charged with for us, endow 
 iin with a consequence independent of his 
 mere employment. He is, we know, with 
 his masters a man of trust ; but he is some- 
 thing more to us ; he is so mingled with our 
 happy and fearful expectations, that we 
 wholly forget the money-letters every day 
 entrusted to him, in our thoughts of the 
 missives beyond all purchase which he some- 
 times brings us. If we may here say a word 
 for the Twopenny Postman, we will denounce 
 his livery : it is more a badge of mere servi- 
 tude, than a uniform denoting office. We 
 would have him thought a more gallantly 
 appointed, or at once relieve him of the 
 scurvy cuffs and collar with which, in either 
 the bad taste or the worse economy of the 
 Post Office, he is now branded. The suit 
 
 of scarlet, we own, befits a Postman : there 
 is an importance, a blazonry in it, in proper 
 harmony with the bringer of news. 
 
 Postmen (we speak particularly of Two- 
 penny) are happy in their vocation : it se- 
 cures them against all the manifold ills of a 
 sedentary life ; and their minds, continually 
 engaged in the light, though sometimes dif- 
 ficult, reading of superscriptions, must ne- 
 cessarily be at once enlarged and strength- 
 ened by the practice. Cobblers and tailors 
 are said to be addicted to politics, and, con- 
 sequently, treason : this disposition has, by 
 some philosophers, been traced to the in- 
 door habits of the craftsmen, to their seden- 
 tary and cross-legged positions, all favourable 
 to inward brooding, and, thereby, to discon- 
 tent. Far different is the Postman : he lite- 
 rally walks through life ; absolutely knocks 
 through a whole existence, transacting small 
 government bargains, with no time to sit or 
 stand and think of the iniquities, real or ima- 
 ginary, of his political masters. We never 
 heard of a Postman being concerned in a 
 conspiracy ; whilst what tongue has strength 
 enough to count the cobblers ? Again, if the 
 Postman start in life with a dapper figure, 
 shall he not be slim and elegant to the last P 
 Is he not certain of carrying to the grave 
 his original greyhound outline ? Gout shuns 
 him ; corpulency visits him not ; whilst ex- 
 ercise crowns him with all its gifts, and 
 claims the Postman as its own. 
 
 The Postman rarely knocks at the doors 
 of the very poor; and when, perchance, he 
 stands at the threshold of the indigent, it is 
 too often to demand a sacrifice. The letter 
 that he proffers, must, perhaps, be purchased 
 at the price of a dinner: at any cost, how- 
 ever, the letter must be possessed ; for it 
 comes from one who, it may be, has been 
 silent for years ; a far-off son, a married 
 daughter. To thousands, a letter is a for- 
 bidden luxury; an enjoyment not to be 
 bought by those who daily struggle with 
 the dearest necessities, and who, once se- 
 vered from a long distant home, are mute 
 because they cannot fee the post, and will 
 not, must not, lay the tax on others wretched 
 as themselves. How much seeming neglect 
 may have originated in the want of the post 
 office shilling ! 
 
 THE ASIATIC JOURNAL, NO. CXIV. 
 
 [Contains information of the greatest import- 
 ance to all persons interested in the political 
 and domestic affairs of India ; besides nume- 
 rous highly entertaining papers, chiefly on 
 Oriental subjects ; and, among them, the fol- 
 lowing figurative moral “ Tale from the Bos- 
 tan,” translated from the Arabic, entitled 
 
 The Found Treasure .] 
 
 A certain athlete had no provision for his 
 daily wants, neither wherewithal to piocure 
 his evening or morning meal. 
 
;J6H 
 
 THK MIRROR. 
 
 To appease the tyranny of hunger, he car- 
 ried mortar on his back — for a subsistence is 
 not to be earned by violence. 
 
 At the desolation of his fortunes, his heart 
 was continually fraught with sighs, and his 
 head aching with sorrow. 
 
 At one time he was waging war with the 
 world, that oppresses the helpless; at another, 
 kuitting his brows at his desperate fortunes. 
 
 Now, bitter tears would choke him at the 
 sight of others revelling in pleasure ; 
 
 And, anon, he would weep at the fiustra- 
 tion of his plans, and say, “ Did ever wight 
 endure life of greater hardship than mine ? 
 
 “ Others feast on honey — and fowl — and 
 lamb ; / have not even herbs to my bread ! 
 
 “ If you talk of justice, surely this is not 
 right, that I should go unclad while the cat 
 has its warm coat of fur. 
 
 “ Ah ! would heaven but deal more kindly 
 with me, and throw a treasure in my way; 
 
 “ Haply I might yet for a while gratify 
 my desires, and shake off the dust of sor- 
 row !” 
 
 I have heard that, on a time, he was dig- 
 ging in the field, and found — a decayed jaw- 
 bone ; 
 
 The clasps loosened in the earth — the 
 pearls of the teeth scattered. 
 
 The mouth — albeit tongueless — imparted 
 a counsel and a mystery, saying, “ Resign 
 thyself, O mortal, to disappointment! 
 
 “ Reflect ! is not this the plight of the 
 mouth under Ihe ground, whether it hath fed 
 on sugar or tire heart’s blood P 
 
 “ Murmur not at the vicissitudes of fortune, 
 for her muiations are perpetual, and beyond 
 our control !” 
 
 The moment that this truth dawned upon 
 his mind, care ceased to be the tenant of iris 
 bosom ; 
 
 And he said, “ Oh, unreflecting, erring, 
 senseless appetite, bear the fardel of thy suf- 
 ferings, and destroy not thine own self! 
 
 “ Whether man, the vassal of his Maker, 
 hath his head bowed beneath the burden, or 
 exalted to the cope of heaven ; 
 
 “ The instant that his condition is changed 
 by death, both states fade alike from his re- 
 membrance. 
 
 “ Grief and gladness then remain not; 
 but the recompense of virtuous deeds, and the 
 memorial of a good name — they remain 
 
 Cije (©atijcver. 
 
 Palestine. — The following masterly view 
 of the impression made on the mind of a 
 Christian visiting the Holy Land is from the 
 pen of Chateaubriand. Extraordinary ap- 
 pearances (says he,) everywhere proclaim a 
 land teeming with miracles. The burning 
 sun, the towering eagle, the barren fig-tree, 
 all the poetry, all the pictures of Scripture 
 are here. Every name commemorates a mys- 
 tery— every grotto announces a prediction — 
 
 every hill re echoes the accents of a prophet. 
 Gon himself has spoken in these regions, 
 dried up rivers, rent the rocks, and opened 
 the grave. The desert still appears mute 
 with terror ; and you would imagine that it 
 had never presumed to interrupt the silence 
 since it heard the awful voice of the Eternal. 
 
 In the Saxon times each borough sent but 
 one Deputy ; yet the number was consi- 
 derable — for any town or village that chose 
 to send one was at liberty ; but the King’s 
 purpose was better served by halving two 
 Deputies only from places under his influence. 
 The Barons also took care those dependent 
 on them should send Deputies also ; whilst 
 the independent boroughs sent none, although 
 their right to do so was not then disputed. 
 Such was the origin of that partiality in the 
 representation so much complained of. 
 
 Iron Ship . — The largest iron sailing ship 
 in the world is now building in Messrs. J. 
 Ronald and Co.’s yard, Footdee, Aberdeen. 
 This stupendous vessel is of the following 
 dimensions: — Length of keel, 130 feet; 
 breadth of frame, 30 feet ; depth of hold, 20 
 feet; length over all, 137 feet; tons register, 
 537. Judging from her appearance, she is a 
 beautiful model, and will carry an immense 
 cargo on a small draft of water. She is in- 
 tended for a company in Liverpool. — Aber- 
 deen Herald. 
 
 The Danish watchmen, as they go their 
 rounds at bed-time, address a prayer to the 
 Almighty to preserve the city from’fire, and 
 warn the inhabitants to be careful in extin- 
 guishing their candles and fires. H. M. 
 
 ^ Love and Death , a Fragment from a 
 French JVriter . — Love and Death resemble 
 each other in many points. Both of them 
 are blind, both are armed with darts, and 
 both are equally cruel. Death strikes the 
 prince and the peasant, levels the sceptre 
 with the spade; and Love exercises the same 
 empire. Both despise honours and riches ; 
 they acknowledge no distinction among 
 mortals. True Love, like Death, never dies. 
 These two tyrants of human life leave us no 
 consolation but sighs and tears ; they are 
 equally insensible to intreaties and to bribes. 
 The principal difference between them is, 
 that Death at last triumphs over everything, 
 but Love cannot overcome virtue. 
 
 Sweden has, at present, 102 journals, and 
 other periodical publications; of these, 20 
 are printed at Stockholm, 7 at Gottenburg, 5 
 at Upsal, and 4 at Lund : 17 were commenced 
 in 1838, and 3 at the beginning of this year. 
 
 Part V., (of Vol. I. for 1839,) of Ihe MIRROR, 
 with Ten Engravings, is now published, price 8d. 
 
 LONDON : Printed and published by J. LIMBIRD, 
 U3, Strand, (near Somerset House); and sold by 
 all Booksellers and Newsmen. — In PARIS, by all 
 the Booksellers. — In FRANCFORT, CHARLES 
 J UOEL. 
 
€i)C iHtvvov 
 
 OP 
 
 literature, amusement, and instruction. 
 
 No - 953 -3 SATURDAY, JUNE 15, 1839. [Price 2d. 
 
 
 
 Voj.. 
 
 MR. HAMPTON’S ASCENT FROM CREMORNE HOUSE, CHELSEA. 
 THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 1839. 
 
 xxxiii, 2 B 
 
370 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 HOPE. 
 
 (For the Mirror .) 
 
 "Tis hope that cheers us through the ills of life, 
 
 And animates us when with cares opprest ; 
 
 It soothes the mind, and sweetly softens strife. 
 
 And bids the weary from his sorrows rest. 
 
 And is the future dark, and fraught with cares. 
 
 Are deep forebodings pressing on the mind ? 
 
 ’Tis hope that smooths the path and calms our fears, 
 And by its presence can e’en comfort find. 
 
 How like a sunbeam on the soul it glows. 
 
 Sheds a soft balm and speaks a sweeter peace ; 
 
 Dispels the gloom and dissipates our woes. 
 
 And joys arise, and sorrows quickly cease. 
 
 Wafted on wings of hope the soul doth rise, 
 
 Above the transitory joys of earth ; 
 
 Beyond the present, far beyond she flies, 
 
 And seeks for pleasures of celestial birth. 
 
 Oh on my soul sweet hope then brightly shine. 
 
 Nor prove to me an evanescent ray ; 
 
 Make happiness and peace for ever mine, 
 
 Light up my morn and gild my closing day. P. 
 
 MIGNON’S SONG, 
 
 FROM GOETHE. 
 
 " Kennst du das Land wo die citronen bl'uhen." 
 Know’st thou the land where bright the citron 
 blooms ? 
 
 Where clustering gold the orange grove illumes ? — 
 Beneath the genial azure of whose sky 
 The myrtle thrives — the laurel shoots up high ? 
 Know’st thou that land ? 
 
 ’Tis there, ’tis there 
 
 That I, with thee, beloved, would repair. 
 
 Know'st thou the house ? — on pillars rests its roof. 
 Gay sheen adorn its halls, and tapestry woof. 
 
 There marble faces fix on me their look 
 Serene ; but here I chilling frowns must brook. 
 Know’st thou the place ? 
 
 'Tis there, ’tis there 
 
 With thee, my guide, I gladly would repair. 
 
 Know’st thou the path that climbs amid the clouds ? 
 While thickening mist the traveller’s mule enshrouds ; 
 There haunt of wolves the gaunt and famished brood ; 
 Theie falls the crag: there roars the mountain flood. 
 Thou know'st it well ! 
 
 Ah, thither, thither 
 
 Let us, my father, wend our steps together. 
 
 W. H. L. 
 
 PEACE OF MIND. 
 
 Tell me on what magic ground 
 May sweet peace of mind be found. 
 
 Is it in the sunbeam bright? 
 
 Is it in the moon's pale light ? 
 
 Is it where the violets grow ? 
 
 Is it where the roses blow ? 
 
 In sweet friendship or in love. 
 
 Natives of the world above ? 
 
 Dwells it in the palace gay, 
 
 Or in the lowly cottage ? — Say ! 
 
 O, mortal ! it is not in any of these. 
 
 For they all pass away like the leaf from the trees. 
 The sunbeam is lost in the frown of the storm. 
 
 And the moonlight retreats from the presence of morn. 
 The scent of the violet is wafted away 
 By the zephyr that loves in her fragrance to play. 
 The rose in her beauty which gladd ns our eyes 
 Is plucked by the spoiler, then withers and dies : 
 While friendship and love, though they brighten our 
 way. 
 
 Fail to yield us that peace even brighter than they. 
 In splendour’s gay palace, or poverty's cot. 
 
 It dwells not alone; then there seek it not, 
 
 But seek it where Faith, Hope, and Charity fair, 
 Hold Religion’s bright torch, for its dwelling is there. 
 
 L. S. 
 
 ESSAY ON MAGUILPS ; 
 
 OR, MATERIALS FOR PAINTING. 
 
 BY MB. LATILLA. 
 
 BEAD AT THE LAST MEETING OF THE SOCIETY OF 
 BRITISH ARTISTS. 
 
 ( For the Mirror. ) 
 
 Matter is the medium through which mind 
 is expressed. The poet, by the most incon- 
 siderable means, transmits his glowing ideas 
 to thousands ; conveying them, as on eagle’s 
 wings, into the regions of spirits, or to the 
 perception of darkness visible. 
 
 In like manner, - through materials insig- 
 nificant in themselves, the artist is enabled 
 to present the illusion of space — height — 
 depth — cultivation — barrenness — beauty — 
 deformity; but, beyond these, to depict man 
 — his person — his virtues — his vices — his 
 passions — in all their varied forms. The 
 painter can also touch the chord of our sym- 
 pathies, by the delineation of the relation- 
 ships of social life. He can make the ab- 
 sent present, and retain to view the form and 
 features of the worthy, the intellectual, and 
 the beloved, when the bright originals have 
 passed away. 
 
 To do all this with success, it is true, 
 requires the three-fold combination of intel- 
 lect, manipulation, and material. The latter 
 forms the theme of this essay; namely, the 
 simple medium by which painters lay on their 
 colours ; such as maguilps, oils, varnishes, 
 and all those mixtures or compositions which 
 are denominated vehicles. 
 
 These are indispensable to the artist ; 
 and, being adopted to produce beauty, are, 
 consequently, of considerable importance, 
 as, by knowledge in these peculiarites, and 
 being master of their wide range, he is en- 
 abled to vary the mode of using them, 
 according to his subject, compass, and taste, 
 and to dare effects that exhibit originality 
 and power. 
 
 By the frequent intercourse of artists with 
 each other, or painting together in galleries 
 where there is mutual observation and com- 
 munication, much benefit is derivable ; and 
 matter is often imparted in this simple way, 
 that men in their studies may for years strive 
 in vain to acquire. 
 
 At these meetings, if artists would but 
 contribute a little of their experience in art, 
 I feel confident that the library of the So- 
 ciety would some day afford a fund of inform- 
 ation, that would considerably smooth the 
 rugged path, and obviate the difficulties that 
 obstruct, not only artists individually, but 
 the art generally. 
 
 Many a precept, that would be valuable to 
 the profession at large, is often circumscribed, 
 to the narrow practice of one man ; whereas, 
 if all contributed, each would be likely to 
 receive some addition to his own from the 
 general store. I do not mean to say that, 
 because an artist is in possession of a certain 
 
TIIE MIRROR. 
 
 371 
 
 valuable medium, or vehicle, he will neces- 
 sarily become a Titian, or a Rubens ; but I 
 do say, that, trilling- as these means may ap- 
 pear, they are, nevertheless, essential to the 
 perfection of art. They have their proper 
 place, and are neither to be overrated as the 
 chief excellence, nor despised and overlooked, 
 any more than the words by which the poet 
 expresses his idea, or the historian his fact. 
 The characteristics of each school are shown 
 by their peculiar mode of painting, as well 
 as by their invention, drawing, colour, and 
 chiaro scuro. 
 
 In the management of material, the 
 Venetian School was pre-eminent, though 
 inferior to the Roman and Florentine in 
 drawing and power of invention. 
 
 The Roman painters, estimating colour 
 as a secondary object, never attained the 
 highest excellence, in it. 
 
 Michael Angelo, after visiting Titian, 
 expressed to Vasari his unbounded admira- 
 tion of that master’s painting ; at the same 
 time regretting his neglect of drawing. 
 
 Titian and Correggio, through being mas- 
 ters of their material, infused a charm into 
 their works which has baffled the efforts of 
 succeeding ages. 
 
 The Spanish, Flemish, and English, are 
 justly celebrated for brilliancy of colour, dex- 
 terity of pencilling, and use of the oleaginous 
 mediums; but in neither of these schools do 
 the maguilp in anywise approach to the per- 
 fection of the medium used by the Venetians, 
 and which, though used by Bellini, Georgi- 
 one, Moroni, Titian, Paul Veronese, Boni- 
 facio, and Bassano, is unknown to us. This 
 exquisite vehicle possessed the power of 
 rendering the pigments remarkably bril- 
 liant, produced a line iinpasto, and a depth 
 of tone to the glazings, rivalling the beauties 
 of precious stones, and to these qualities a 
 hardness, rendering it exceedingly durable, 
 and upon which the light and atmosphere of 
 three centuries have made little impression. 
 
 If line pictures of the Flemish School be 
 placed in juxta-position with those of the 
 Venetian, the superiority of the latter will 
 be seen at once, where the tints are com- 
 parable to the lucid gleam immerging from 
 the deep hues of the lapis-lazuli, ruby, eme- 
 rald, and topaz : the striking lustre of Ru- 
 bens, and the charming delicacy of Vandyke, 
 fade before them, as the aqua-marine in the 
 presence of the diamond. 
 
 The Flemish imitated these masters, who 
 have rendered Venice so celebrated, and 
 though they succeeded in improving their 
 own system, they never attained the object 
 of their fond pursuit. 
 
 The Venetian method has also occupied 
 much of the attention of the English School ; 
 Reynolds even destroyed several valuable 
 pictures in order to discover their principle 
 of colour, and the vehicle used by them. 
 There is no record of his discoveries in 
 
 2 B 2 
 
 these analyzations ; but it is certain he suc- 
 ceeded, beyond any other artist, in obtaining 
 the depth and richness of tone, so remarkable 
 in Georgione, Titian, and Correggio : it is 
 to be regretted that, with this, he did not 
 acquire their permanency and durability. 
 
 Many English artists successfully imitate 
 the Venetian principle of colour and chiaro 
 scuro ; but the medium by which our pig- 
 ments are used, tend rather to render our 
 deep tones opaque and black. The same 
 appearance is obvious in Roman, Florentine, 
 and Spanish pictures. The Flemings avoided 
 this blackness, by letting the ground or can- 
 vass appear through the dark glazings. 
 
 It was a principle with Rubens, never to 
 introduce white into the shadows. With 
 his vehicle he acted wisely ; but the superior 
 medium of the Venetians rendered their 
 opaque bodies transparent; and thus, with 
 the very opposite principle to Rubens, they 
 shone forth with eclipsing splendour. 
 
 The medium of the Flemish School ap- 
 pears to possess the same properties as our 
 maguilp ; which is a gelatin ; produced by 
 the mixture of drying oil and mastic varnish. 
 
 Ibbetson, the cattle painter, discovered a 
 medium, by dissolving gum-mastic in drying 
 oil, and mixing it up with sugar of lead and 
 water. This also forms a thick gelatin, 
 and is well adapted for small pictures it 
 retains the brilliancy of the colours, and dries 
 very hard without cracking. By grinding 
 the gum-mastic, in lieu of dissolving it in 
 drying oil with sugar of lead and water,'. it 
 forms a stiff paste, which, in effect, resembles 
 nearer the Venetian medium than any with 
 which I am acquainted : it has their impasto, 
 and retains the lustre of the colours without 
 making them black. In referring to expe- 
 riments I made some years ago, 1 find even 
 colours, evanescent in their nature, fixed and 
 perfect by this vehicle. 
 
 Let it not be thought, because this sub- 
 ject is brought forward, that 1 would place 
 a medium, a material, as the all-important 
 subject of a painter’s study, like the specific 
 of an empiric. 
 
 The palette of Titian, in other hands, 
 would not produce similar effects, without 
 an equal power of mind. With all advan- 
 tages of material and models, the artist, 
 without a profundity of philosophic re- 
 search, can never rise to eminence in the 
 higher walks of art. The student who as- 
 pires to the fame of the great men of anti- 
 quity, must adopt the same course, tread tl e 
 same path, and encounter the same diffi- 
 culties ; at no lesser cost cun the end be 
 achieved. 
 
 Art is perfected by the manifold unity of 
 the sciences ; and in this Institution, where 
 are associated the literati, dilletanti, and sci- 
 entific, art generally will derive the benefits 
 which foreign academies enjoy ; and means, 
 however simple, and apparently insignifi- 
 
372 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 cant in themselves, as forming a portion 
 of a perfect whole, merits consideration ; 
 especially when it is remembered, that the 
 transmission to posterity of the artistic talent 
 of an age depends on the medium used, or 
 the varnish, which if it does not preserve, 
 may eventually destroy. 
 
 iiobeltSt. 
 
 F HUBERT A MADRUZZO. 
 
 One evening, in the year 1650, towards the 
 close of October, when the trees begin to 
 lose their foliage, then “ sere and yellow,” in 
 the lowly cell of a convent of the order of 
 Saratico, in the city of Trento, lay a young 
 girl, upon whose countenance, by the dim 
 light of a solitary lamp, were discovered the 
 hues of death. A dense film was gathered 
 over her large blue eyes ; the coral had long 
 since deserted those lips, once so smiling and 
 so lovely; the cold whiteness of the pearl 
 had usurped the dominion of the rose. Her 
 shrunk and hollow cheeks, her pale brow, 
 worn with grief and suffering, bore testimony 
 to the anguish of an afflicted and sorrowing 
 mind: her bosom heaved with a convulsive 
 motion ; and if occasionally a feverish move- 
 ment roused the expiring sufferer, if her ima- 
 gination wandered in the illusion of a griev- 
 ing spirit, or strayed to the innocent pleasures 
 of her childhood, it was only the last gasp- 
 ings, the closing agonies, and after a short 
 struggle she relapsed into the calm of death. 
 
 No indications of grandeur distinguished 
 this bed of death ; all was simple, humble, 
 monastic ; one would in vain have sought in 
 so lowly a chamber the heiress of twenty 
 castles, the Lady of Madruzzo, of Narro, of 
 Pergina, the noble mistress of the four ham- 
 lets of the Val Lagarina, the Countess of 
 Chalant, the niece of the prince bishop of 
 Trento. This fair young creature, aban- 
 doned by her family, spoiled of the splen- 
 dour and pomp of her rank, was on the point 
 of closing her eyes in their last long slumber, 
 like a rose withering on the first opening of 
 its beautiful petals ; — her soul was about to 
 take refuge in heaven from the vicissitudes of 
 fortune, and the perfidy of man, and to taste, 
 amid the angelic choirs, that happiness which 
 on earth had been denied her. 
 
 By her bedside stood a Jesuit priest ; dos- 
 ing in a corner of the cell was a nun, who 
 from time to time raised her eyes to see if 
 life were yet extin ;t. The stillness of the 
 room was disturbed by a distant sound of 
 bustle in the convent, and, after a few mo- 
 ments, a venerable old man entered the cell ; 
 his white, open, and placid brow was shaded 
 by silvery hair ; his rich and elegant dress, 
 his dignified and noble bearing, bespoke his 
 high rank; he was the Austrian councillor, 
 Carlo Filippo de Mohr. 
 
 As he advanced into the little room, he 
 glanced around, and turned with a look of 
 surprise and anger to the lady abbess who 
 followed him ; the meaning of his look was 
 easily understood, and she hastily endea. 
 voured to justify the meanness of the apart- 
 ment, urging the rules of the convent. Shak- 
 ing his head in disapprobation, the councillor 
 approached the bed of the invalid, and, re- 
 moving his glove, passed his wrinkled but 
 snow-white hand over the pallid face of the 
 maiden, parted the hair that was clustered 
 about her forehead, and with tender care 
 smoothed the disordered pillow. After a 
 brief pause, he turned to the by-standers, 
 saying — <• Poor child, she seems very ill.” 
 
 The friar, inclining his head, confirmed 
 the observation, and continued his prayers. 
 
 “ Be comforted, Fdiberta,” said the coun- 
 cillor ; “ I am sent by her most serene high- 
 ness the Archduchess Claudia, your guar- 
 dian ; yes, unfortunate countess, I will be to 
 you a father.” 
 
 Roused by this address, Fdiberta fixed her 
 eyes upon the speaker; her lips moved con- 
 vulsively, in a vain effort to articulate some 
 few words. 
 
 “ Gracious heaven !” exclaimed the com- 
 passionating councillor, she is, indeed, dread- 
 fully feeble. Poor Fdiberta, sacrificed to 
 ambition and interest, robbed of all the inno- 
 cent pleasures of thy youth, who shall tell all 
 the sufferings of thy heart ! who know all the 
 anguish of thy spirit ! ” 
 
 The astonished friar looked first at the 
 councillor, then at the abbess. 
 
 “ Fdiberta,” he interrupted, “ has ever 
 been gentle, submissive, and devout ; her 
 wishes have been in everything obeyed.” 
 
 “ And yet,” replied the councillor, “ I have 
 reason to believe that this maiden has been 
 compelled to languish away the brightest 
 years of her youth in the gloom of this clois- 
 ter; the sweetest moments of her life have 
 been turned to bitterness ; her fondest hopes 
 have been blighted — you have brought her to 
 this — you have plunged her into this abyss of 
 sorrow. ’’ 
 
 “ She delighted only in solitude,” added 
 the nun : “ she shunned our society, remain- 
 ing constantly shut within her cell, nor could 
 we ever suppose that her seclusion from the 
 world occasioned her one single pang.” 
 
 “ It is,” resumed the councillor, “ because 
 her spirit was already oppressed with sorrow, 
 because in solitude alone she could indulge 
 her grief, and pour forth the anguish of her 
 heart, or dwell upon the idols of her imagi- 
 nation ; this young creature has been vio- 
 lently torn from the object of her love.” 
 
 The lady abbess reverently signed herself 
 with the cross, and replied that, during the 
 two years in which Filiberta had been an 
 inmate of the convent, she had had commu- 
 nication with her own sex only. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 373 
 
 c< In the heart of a young girl,” continued 
 the Austrian, “ first impressions are deep, 
 and leave there characters effaced but by 
 death. Filiberta loved that young Piedmon- 
 tese ; their attachment was disapproved, and 
 she doomed to die here.” 
 
 “ The prince, her uncle, ’’ said the nun, 
 c< could never have assented to an alliance 
 that disgraced his illustrious house, and one 
 so ill suited to the last representative of the 
 Madruzzi.” 
 
 “ Alfonzo was not an alliance to be so 
 condemned,” answered the councillor; “ my 
 lady, the Archduchess, would never have in- 
 terested herself, had he not been of an 
 honourable house.” 
 
 A deep sigh from the invalid interrupted 
 the kind old man ; in a sepulchral voice, the 
 hollow tone of the dying, she with difficulty 
 articulated the name of Alfonzo. 
 
 “ Great God, she hears us 1” cried the 
 councillor, and, softly stroking her cheek, he 
 continued : “ Alfonzo loves you, Filiberta ; 
 the Archduchess Claudia takes deep interest 
 in your happiness, and your union will yet 
 be accomplished.” 
 
 A transient ray of animation crossed the 
 death-like features of the maiden : her eyes 
 beamed for an instant with a brighter light ; 
 her lips relapsed into a sweet smile ; and, 
 uttering more distinctly the name of Alfonzo, 
 she breathed a gentle sigh, then turned in 
 apparent ease upon her side, and closed her 
 eyes for ever. 
 
 “ She is gone !” exclaimed the abbess and 
 the nun ; the councillor threw himself into a 
 chair, and grasped the already cold hand of 
 Filiberta. 
 
 The following day, attended by a long 
 train bearing tapers, the last descendant of 
 the Madruzzi was consigned to the tomb.* 
 
 EARLY ENGLISH MUSIC-PRINTERS. 
 
 BY EDWARD F. R1MBAULT, 
 
 ORGANIST OF EGLISE SUISSE. 
 
 {For the Mirror.) 
 
 {Concluded from page 360.) 
 
 John Playford was born in the year 1613, 
 and brought up to the trade of a stationer 
 and music-seller; and, as we learn from the 
 title-pages of some of the books which he 
 published, he lived “ in the Temple neare the 
 Church door■' , A very interesting MS. in 
 the Ashnrolean Library, states that he held 
 the situation of clerk of the Temple Church, 
 which is very probable, and derives some 
 support from the above ftict of his residing 
 within the Temple. The first book that I 
 know of which was printed by him, bears the 
 date of 1650; and his productions extend 
 
 * Extracted from No. 2 of the Foreign Monthly 
 Review. We hail this new periodical with great plea- 
 sure, lor it displays talent and research of no Ordinary 
 nature. 
 
 from the above date to about the year 1698, 
 being nearly forty years, during which time 
 his press was in active operation. 
 
 Playford was a man remarkable for his 
 industry and constant application to business, 
 insomuch that it gave him the familiar but 
 honourable appellation of “ honest John Play- 
 ford." 
 
 He was also fond of the study of music, 
 which is proved from some works of his own 
 composition, the first of which he published 
 in 1665, under the title of u Vin Introduction 
 to the Skill of Music."* This book was 
 written in a very clear and distinct style, so 
 that it very soon became popular, and had 
 such an exteusive sale, that, in the short 
 space of fourteen years, it ran through no less 
 than ten editions, — at once a proof of its po- 
 pularity. The preface to this work is valu- 
 able, as it gives a good idea of the state 
 of music and musicians at that period. In- 
 deed, if a well-digested collection was made 
 of historical fragments and notices that are 
 to be found in the prefaces of such works, 
 it would throw much light on these inter- 
 esting subjects. 
 
 Playford also published some other minor 
 works, and of a miscellaneous character. 
 He printed some songs, in parts, which were 
 set to music by himself, in a work called 
 the “ Musical Companion ,” and also some 
 “ Psalms and Hymns in solemn Music.” 
 
 Although his skill in music, as might be 
 anticipated from the nature of his common 
 employment, was not so great as to entitle 
 him to the name of a master, for he knew but 
 little of the more difficult parts of the theory ; 
 yet, notwithstanding this, he might be called 
 a good judge, and was, undoubtedly, well 
 acquainted with the practical part, and with 
 a tolerable knowledge of the rudiments of 
 composition. 
 
 He was a man of aspiring character, and 
 contributed materially to the improvement 
 of the art of printing music from moveable 
 types, by the introduction of what he, in 
 some of his publications, calls, the “ new- 
 tied note." It may be observed, that the 
 musical characters, or notes, first used by the 
 English printers, were distinct from each 
 other, and not, as in the present time, joined 
 by lines, so that the quaver and semiquaver 
 were signified only by single or double tails, 
 without any connexion whatever; this im- 
 provement added much to the beauty and 
 
 * The following curious lines by “ Thomas Jordan, 
 gent.,” the Poet Laureate, and writer of the City 
 Pageants, are to be found in the introduction to 
 Playford’s Musical Companion, viz., — 
 
 “ The Parish Cleiks, who never knew before 
 Any Right Key, but that of the Church Dore, 
 
 Are now by tl.ee instructed, so that they 
 
 Have Rules to Tune each Psalm in the proper key. 
 
 Thou liav'st of Art, Music so expresst. 
 
 That it was never made more manilest 
 
 Thy Books have made each Reader a Disputor, 
 
 Thy Introduction, is both Guide and Tutor. 
 
374 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 appearance of printed music, and gave it a 
 more connected and uniform character than 
 the separate notes could admit of. Matthew 
 Lock, in his “ Melotheria,” which was 
 printed by John Carr, in 1673, from copper- 
 plates, joined the notes together ; and from 
 this specimen it is supposed that Playford 
 took the idea, and transferred the same im- 
 provement to letter-press printing, as above- 
 mentioned. The practice of printing from 
 copper-plates began in Rome, about the 
 year 1636 ; this the Germans and French 
 quickly adopted, and the English followed 
 the same method, as appears from a collection 
 of lessons by Dr. Bull, Byrd, and Orlando 
 Gibbons, entitled “ Parthenia ! or the May - 
 denhead of the first Music ever printed for 
 the Virginals, 1659.” 
 
 Playford lived to the prdriarchal age of 
 fourscore, and died, as he had lived, beloved 
 and honoured by all who knew him. It has 
 generally been supposed that he died about 
 the year 1693, but on examining some old 
 newspapers a short time since, I saw the 
 following advertisement in the “ London 
 Gazette, May 3, 1686 — 
 
 An antient printing house in Little 
 Britain, late in the possession of Mr. John 
 Playford, deceased, well known , and ready 
 fitted and accommodated with good presses 
 and all manner of Letters for Choice Work 
 of Music, Mathematics, Navigation, and all 
 Greek and Latin Books, with fair and con- 
 venient dwelling house, and convenient 
 rooms for warehouses, all which are to be 
 sold as they are ready standing, or let by 
 lease, or yearly rent. Enquire of Mrs. Ellen 
 Playford, at the said house over against the 
 Globe in Little Britain.” 
 
 This advertisement, therefore, proves the 
 period of his death to have been a few years 
 prior to the date usually assigned ; and it is 
 curious also in another point of view, because 
 it shows us, from the brief enumeration of 
 his different type, that no kind of printing 
 came amiss to him, he being amply provided 
 with a sufficient variety (then a desideratum,) 
 of letters to enable him to print any kind of 
 works that might be required. 
 
 Playford was not only industrious himself 
 in his trade, but also his wife, who appears 
 to have been a shrewd sensible woman, and 
 equally persevering with her husband, and 
 evidently superior to her station in life, as we 
 may conclude from the following advertise- 
 ment, printed at the end of one of his publi- 
 cations : — “ At Islington, over against the 
 church, Mrs. Playford notv keeps a boarding 
 school, where young gentlewomen may be 
 instructed in all manner of curious work, 
 and also reading, writing , music, dancing, 
 and the French tongue .” 
 
 Such an industrious couple could not fail 
 of succeeding in business ; and through life 
 
 they possessed the friendship and esteem 
 of all the eminent musicians of the period, 
 for they fully appreciated the merits of 
 “ honest John Playford .” 
 
 He was succeeded in the business by his 
 son Henry ; but as there are no works that 
 bear his name subsequent to the year 17)0, 
 it is conjectured that he did not long survive 
 his respected parent. 
 
 The music published in the early part of 
 the eighteenth centuiyq began to make a 
 different appearance, being principally collec- 
 tions of songs ; and the music itself was 
 printed from copper-plates instead of the old 
 moveable-type system, which, after the death 
 of Playford, rapidly declined, insomuch that 
 it became quite obsolete ; and it is only 
 within these very few years, since the exten- 
 sive improvements made in type-founding, 
 that it has been revived. 
 
 Most of the musical works of this period 
 are embellished with copper-plate engravings 
 at the head of each subject, generally repre- 
 senting the burden or principal incidents of 
 the songs. The music of them were chiefly 
 engraved by one Thomas Cross, who lived in 
 Catherine-Wheel-court, near Holborn, or as 
 it was then more generally called, the Snow- 
 hill Conduit : he appears to have been well 
 known to the music printers of that time, and 
 likewise to the wits about town, as appears 
 from the following couplet, which originally 
 appeared in the “ Orpheus Britlanicus,” 
 1701. 
 
 “ JVhile at the shops we daily dangling view 
 False concord, by Tom Cross engraven true." 
 
 This is a short compliment to Tom, but not 
 so to those writers of false concord. 
 
 The most extensive printer of music that 
 may be said to have filled the place of Play- 
 ford, was one Walsh, who lived in Cathe- 
 rine-street, Strand; his publications range 
 through a long series of years, commencing 
 from 1700, being nearly half a century ; the 
 books which he published are of course too 
 numerous to be detailed here. There were 
 other music printers of the period, one of 
 whom was “ John Simpson at the base viol 
 and flute, in Sweetingsalley, opposite the 
 cast door of the Royal Exchange and a 
 second was “ D. Wright , next the Sun 
 Tavern, neare Holborn Bars ; ” but as it is 
 scarcely worth while, in a short dissertation 
 like this, to mention the names of all the 
 music-printers of the period that are known, 
 we shall conclude with the two following, 
 viz., “ J. Hare, at the Golden Viol,” and 
 “ John Young, at the Dolphin and Crown 
 both of whom lived in St. Paul’s Church- 
 yard. 
 
 I have already briefly adverted to the 
 fact of the music being printed from engraved 
 copper-plates ; it also appears that the music 
 of the popular operas of the time were also 
 engraved on copper-plates, as is evident from 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 375 
 
 the following title, copied from the original 
 work ; viz., “ The Beggar’s Opera, as it is 
 acted at the Theatre Royal, Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields , written by Mr. Gay : the third edition, 
 with the overture in score, and the songs and 
 the busses ( the overture and basses composed 
 by Dr. Pepusch,) curiously engraved on cop- 
 per-plates, 17^9.” 
 
 This tedious method of engraving the 
 notes on copper-plates was gradually super- 
 ceded by the method of stamping them on 
 pewter-plates, but it did not, however, be- 
 come commonly used until about the middle 
 of the last century ; and the first editions of 
 the works of Correlli, and the immortal 
 Handel, may be looked upon as some of the 
 earliest specimens of this style, which in 
 appearance, however, do not materially differ 
 from the copper- plates. 
 
 The great improvements that were made 
 in this art in England, is due to the exertions 
 of a man of the name of Phillips, who pro- 
 duced some very fine specimens ; so much 
 so, indeed, that they challenge compari- 
 son with the best productions of any other 
 artist of the day, whether English or foreign : 
 although he certainly did make very great 
 improvements, yet he has been accused of 
 having derived his principles from one Fortier, 
 a French watchmaker of some celebrity, and 
 also a stamper of music plates. 
 
 About the year 1769, an attempt was 
 made in England to revive the old and origi- 
 nal method of printing music from moveable 
 types, by one Fought, a native of Lapland, 
 who settled in London about that time, and 
 took a shop in St. Martin’s Lane, and there 
 commenced the business of printing music 
 from type which he himself had made; but 
 he did not succeed, for the Metropolitan 
 music-sellers copied his productions, and by 
 stamping them on pewter-plates, they were 
 enabled to undersell him. 
 
 The method of printing music from stamped 
 pewter-plates has continued in practice almost 
 ever since the time just mentioned ; within 
 these few years the old method of print- 
 ing from moveable type has been again re- 
 vived, and which will most like soon super- 
 cede the common method. To those who 
 are not exactly aware of the difference in the 
 appearance of a stamped and a type-printed 
 sheet, it may be necessary to refer them to 
 some example which may be commonly seen, 
 and as such we may mention the “ Harmo- 
 nist a new work now publishing periodi- 
 cally, and which is a very good specimen of 
 moveable-type printing : — this may be com- 
 pared with some of the stamped works now 
 printing, and the difference will be seen not 
 
 * From the eminent press of Messrs. Clowes and 
 Sons. These celebrated typographers have, most 
 undeniably, in the above, and other publications, 
 produced the finest and most correct specimens of 
 music-printing, from moveable-t j pe, that ever ema- 
 nated from the English press. — Ed. M. 
 
 to be very great in point of appearance, 
 though quite sufficient to show the difference 
 of the two systems, when the advantages of 
 moveable-type printing will become manifest; 
 besides, type-printing is far more expeditious 
 than the mode of stamping. 
 
 Another and very obvious advantage is, 
 that the music-type may be readily incorpo- 
 rated in any required way with the letter-press 
 type itself, so that it is an easy matter in 
 this system to give letter-press remarks or 
 notes after any line of music, such as are 
 essentially necessary, and always used in 
 books of instruction, and elementary works 
 on the theory of music ; and as this is known 
 to be a very difficult branch of the art, it is 
 necessary that the remarks and explanations 
 should follow the music itself in the same 
 page, which the moveable-type enables us to 
 effect without any difficulty ; and it is there- 
 fore hoped by these means, that in the course 
 of a very few years, cheap and abundant sup- 
 plies of good elementary works on the theory 
 and practice of music will be easily attain- 
 able, by being vended at such a price as will 
 place them within the means of all classes : 
 doubtless it will be acknowledged, that the 
 principal reason why this delightful science 
 is not So extensively cultivated as might be 
 wished, is, that musical works are too highly 
 priced, indeed so much so, that they cannot 
 be compared with anything else in the whole 
 range of typography. 
 
 ftflamurs antJ Customs. 
 
 ROYAL MASQUE. 
 
 The following description of a royal masque, 
 which was exhibited by the Inns of Court, 
 before Charles I., his queen, and the court 
 at Whitehall, in February 1633, is extracted 
 from the Memoirs of Bulstrode Whitelocke, 
 who was one of the principal managers of 
 this magnificent entertainment; — The first 
 that marched were twenty footmen in scar- 
 let liveries with silver lace, each one having 
 his sword by his side, a batoon in one hand, 
 and a torch lighted in the other ; these were 
 the marshal’s men, who cleared the streets, 
 made way, and were all about the marshal, 
 waiting his commands. After these, and 
 sometimes in the midst of them, came the 
 marshal, Mr. Darrell, who was afterwards 
 knighted by the king. He was mounted 
 ■upon one of the king’s best horses, and 
 richest saddles, and his own habit was ex- 
 ceeding rich and glorious ; horsemanship 
 very gallant. After him followed one hun- 
 dred gentlemen of the Inns of Court, five 
 and twenty chosen out of each house ; every 
 one of whom were in very rich clothes, scarce 
 any thing but gold and silver lace to be seen 
 of them ; and each gentleman had a page 
 and two lackeys, waiting on him in his livery 
 by his horse’s side ; the lackeys carried 
 
37fi 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 torches, and the page his master’s cloak. 
 The richness of their apparel and furniture, 
 glittering by the light of a multitude of 
 torches attending on them, with the motion 
 and stirring of their mettled horses, and the 
 many and various gay liveries of their ser- 
 vants, but especially the personal beauty and 
 gallantry of the handsome young gentlemen, 
 made the most glorious and splendid shew 
 that ever was beheld in England. The 
 torches and flaming huge flambeaus, borne 
 by the sides of each chariot, made it seem 
 lightsome as noon-day, but more glitter- 
 ing, and gave a lull and clear light to all 
 the streets and windows as they passed by. 
 The queen did the honour to some of the 
 masquers to dance with them, and to judge 
 them as good dancers as ever she saw ; and 
 the great ladies were very free and civil 
 in dancing with all the masquers as they 
 were taken out by them. The persons em- 
 ployed in this mask were paid justly and li- 
 berally ; some of the music had one hun- 
 dred pounds a piece ; so that the whole 
 charge of the music came to about a thousand 
 pounds the clothes of the horsemen, and 
 the liveries of their pages and lackeys, which 
 were at their own particular charge, were 
 reckoned, one with another, at a hundred 
 pounds a suit, at least. The charges of all 
 the rest of the masque, and matters belong- 
 ing to it were reckoned to be full as much as 
 the value of the clothes ; and so the charge 
 of the whole masque, which was borne by 
 the societies, and by the particular members 
 of it, was accounted to be above one and 
 twenty thousand pounds. W. G. C. 
 
 ORIGIN OF LORD KINGSALE HAVING THE 
 
 PRIVILEGE OF WEARING HIS HAT IN THE 
 
 ROYAL PRESENCE.* 
 
 Sir John de Courgy, earl of Ulster, per- 
 formed prodigies of valour in Ireland : but 
 upon the accession of King John, his splen- 
 dour and rank having excited the envy of 
 Hugh de Lacie, appointed governor of Ire- 
 land by that monarch, the Earl of Ulster 
 was treacherously seized while performing 
 penance unarmed and barefooted in the 
 churchyard of Down-Patrick, on Good Fri- 
 day, anno 1203, and sent over to England, 
 where the king condemned him to perpetual 
 imprisonment in the Tower, and granted to 
 Lacie all the earl’s possessions in Ireland. 
 After his lordship had been in confinement 
 about a year, a dispute happening to arise 
 between King John, and Philip-Augustus of 
 France, concerning the Duchy of Normandy, 
 the decision of which being referred to single 
 combat, King John, more hasty than advised, 
 appointed the day, against which, the King 
 of France provided his champion ; but the 
 
 * From Burke's Peerage. (1839. Chnrton.) 
 
 King of England, less fortunate, could find 
 no one of his subjects willing to take up the 
 gauntlet, until his captive in the Tower, the 
 gallant Earl of Ulster, was prevailed upon 
 to accept the challenge. But when every 
 thing was prepared for the contest, and the 
 champions had entered the lists, in presence 
 of the monarchs of England, France, ar.d 
 Spain, the opponent of the earl, seized with 
 a sudden panic, put spurs to his horse, and 
 fled the arena ; whereupon the victory was 
 adjudged with acclamation to the champion 
 of England. The French king being in- 
 formed, however, of the earl’s powerful 
 strength, and wishing to witness some exhi- 
 bition of it, his lordship, at the desire of 
 King John, cleft a massive helmet in twain 
 at a single blow. The king was so well sa- 
 tisfied with this signal performance, that he 
 not only restored the earl to his estates and 
 effects, but desired him to ask any thing 
 within his gift, and it should be granted. To 
 which Ulster replied, that having estates and 
 titles enough, he desired that his successors 
 might have the privilege (their first obeisance 
 being paid) to remain covered in the presence 
 of his majesty, and all future kings of Eng- 
 land, which request was immediately con- 
 ceded. 
 
 MR. HAMPTON’S DESCENT IN A 
 PARACHUTE, 
 
 AT CREMORNE nOUSE, KING’S ROAD, CHELSEA. 
 
 Mr. Hampton commenced his career as an 
 aeronaut at the Eyre Arms Tavern, St.John’s 
 Wood, on the 7th of June last, where he met 
 with great difficulties, but his judgment and 
 intrepidity soon overcame them. It was on 
 his ascent afterwards at Rochester, that he 
 particularly displayed great presence of mind, 
 and determined spirit, for, on that occasion, 
 shortly after he had left the earth, the wind 
 shifting, drove his balloon sea- ward, and it 
 descended on the ocean, some miles from the 
 coast ; while in this perilous situation, he 
 clung to his balloon, until rescued by a 
 trading vessel, which landed the aeronaut, 
 with his Albion balloon, at Whitstable. He 
 ascended next at Canterbury, when the bal- 
 loon, not being sufficiently buoyant, from a 
 want of gas, the intrepid Hampton cut away 
 the car to lighten the balloon, and he as- 
 cended standing on the hoop to which the 
 ropes that passed over the balloon were at- 
 tached, and descended safely. In the course 
 of last summer, Mr. Hampton ascended from 
 Cremorne House, and also at other places, 
 with the greatest facility, and descended 
 without accident. At length, he determined 
 to outstrip all competition, by descending 
 from his balloon, by means of a newly con- 
 structed Parachute : the Montpelier Gardens, 
 at Cheltenham, was the place chosen for this 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 377 
 
 daring exploit ; but the sad fate of Mr. Cock- 
 ing,* and the censure which the proprietors of 
 Vauxhall Gardens incurred, by permitting 
 the descent from the Nassau balloon, in- 
 duced the owner of Montpelier Gardens to 
 withhold his consent to Mr. Hampton’s expe- 
 riment ; but in order to gratify the curiosity 
 of the immense concourse of spectators that 
 were assembled upon that occasion, he con- 
 sented that the balloon and parachute should 
 be exhibited, but to ascend no higher than 
 sixty feet from the earth, for fear of accident ; 
 when Mr. Hampton had reached this altitude, 
 he could not resist the desire he had of put- 
 ting his parachute to the test, and accordingly 
 severed the rope which passed over his bal- 
 loon, the two ends being held by men, sta- 
 tioned in the gardens for that purpose. The 
 astonishment of the spectators may be ima- 
 gined, when they beheld the intrepid aero- 
 naut majestically soaring towards the clouds. 
 When about two miles from the earth, he de- 
 termined upon descending ; but, unlike Gar- 
 nerin, who depended upon the atmospheric 
 pressure, Mr. Hampton opened his parachute 
 before he separated it from the balloon. The 
 wind was very high. It appeared, when 
 viewed from below, to be driven along at a 
 great rate ; and w^.s, perhaps, the most bois- 
 terous Mr. H. ever experienced, the wind 
 carrying him over the Leckhampton hills 
 with great violence. He was not up more 
 than twenty minutes, and descended at Cob- 
 berley. This ascent was in May, 1839. 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF THE PARACHUTE. 
 
 The above engraving shows the admirable 
 construction of the parachute : the upper 
 part is in the form of an umbrella, and about 
 fifteen feet in diameter, with an ornamented 
 border. The ribs are eight feet long, and ex- 
 pand from the top of the parachute to its ex- 
 tremities ; they are formed of very thick 
 * See Mirror, p. 66, vol. xxx. 
 
 whale-bone, strongly fastened by brass clamps : 
 the ribs are connected to the copper-tube by 
 stretchers, made of bamboo. At the ends of 
 the ribs, curtains are suspended, 2| feet 
 deep ; and by an admirable contrivance, Mr. 
 Hampton, when in his seat in the parachute, 
 can by a rope which runs from the car to the 
 curtains, either contract or enlarge them, in 
 the same manner us the sailor furls his sails. 
 In order to guard against every possible acci- 
 dent, the car of the parachute is strongly 
 guarded by iron hoops, to prevent the possi- 
 bility of its receiving injury on its reaching 
 the earth. Mr. Hampton, while in the car, 
 can, by a pulley which runs through the cop- 
 per tube, (connecting the balloon to the para- 
 chute,) open a small valve in the balloon, by 
 which means he can let as much gas escape 
 as he may think necessary immediately pre- 
 vious to his descending. When Mr. H. 
 imagines enough gas is let off, he severs 
 the rope which holds the parachute to the bal- 
 loon ; (this rope also is conveyed to the bal- 
 loon through the tube, which is II feet high, 
 the altitude of the parachute); and he de- 
 scends. 
 
 The engraving on our first page represents 
 the manner of Mr. Hampton’s ascending, 
 with the top of the parachute closed, and 
 also as it appears when expanded ; with the 
 mode the gas escapes from the balloon ; and 
 his mode of descending, as also that of his 
 balloon ; and his reaching the earth at Cob- 
 berley. 
 
 The ascent at Cremorne House on Thurs- 
 day last, was a pleasiug sight, not so repulsive 
 to the feelings as that of the ascent of Mons. 
 Garnerin, some years since. 
 
 Shortly before the ascent, the rain impeded 
 the progress of making the necessary prepa- 
 ration : indeed, for some time, it was ima- 
 gined no ascent would take place: at length, 
 between eight and nine o’clock in the evening, 
 the car was affixed to the balloon, and every- 
 thing being ready, the undaunted aeronaut 
 gently ascended, amidst the cheers of the 
 assembled company. When he had been up 
 a short time, he severed the rope which con- 
 nected the parachute with the balloon, and 
 descended in fine style, alighting on the 
 Fulham-road, in perfect safety. 
 
 He was conducted back to the Gardens, 
 accompanied by an immense concourse of 
 people, who were not sparing of their appro- 
 bation of his daring exploit. 
 
 The gardens, unfortunately, were very 
 thinly attended, the admittance money being 
 considered too high, which was, doubtless, 
 the cause. 
 
 It is now certain, that Mr. Hampton has 
 proved to the public, he can descend with 
 perfect safety in his parachute. 
 
 He will shoitly make another experi- 
 ment. 
 
378 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 antf 
 
 EXHIBITION OF ARTS AND MANUFACTURES 
 IN PARIS I MAY MDCCCXXXIX. 
 
 {Concluded from page 363.) 
 
 Quite in the corner of the right-hand 
 gallery are the beautiful products of Messrs. 
 Virbente, brothers, of Toulouse, under No. 
 2,098, consisting of all kinds of architectural 
 ornaments, capitals of Corinthian columns, 
 fretted mouldings, rich cornices, statuettes, 
 &c., all in baked clay, in fact, in brick-work. 
 The lightness, the durability, and the very 
 low prices of these articles are remarkable. 
 Above them is a large group of figures, “ An 
 Entombment of Christ,” in the same mate- 
 rial. Next to this is a curious model of the 
 gymnastic apparatus of Colonel Amoros, 
 well known for his establishment in the 
 Champs Elysees ; the swimming round- 
 about is amusing enough, but, we appre- 
 hend, perfectly useless. Of the carriages 
 and vehicles in this court we may observe 
 a steam-carriage for common roads ; — a 
 fine locomotive engine, No. 1,736, by Ste- 
 helin and Huber, of Bitschwiller, in the 
 Haut-Rhin, which, being entirely of French 
 manufacture, should be carefully examined by 
 all persons acquainted with similar products 
 of British industry : — a travelling-barouch, 
 with an ingenious system of double hori- 
 zontal springs; — and No. 3,019, a gig, with 
 air springs, light as a zephyr ! There is a 
 curious piece of marine artillery, No. 1,203, 
 in this gallery, with a horizontally-revolving 
 circular breech, perforated with a dozen 
 charging-holes or more ; into one of which 
 a ball, with the requisite cartridge, is intro- 
 duced ; the breech is worked round by a 
 screw, till the aperture comes into a line with 
 the bore of the piece, and the shot is then 
 fired. If the gun would stand the heat 
 thereby occasioned, 12 or 15 shots of any 
 calibre might be fired in a minute by this 
 contrivance. Close by it is a large anchor, 
 which, we understand, is a very remarkable 
 instance of improvement in French ironwork ! 
 and in the same gallery there are some cu- 
 rious specimens of fine grained tough iron, 
 made at the foundry of Grenelle, a suburb 
 of this capital, entirely from old nails, old 
 rusty iron, &c. 
 
 In the court itself will be observed two of 
 the cast-iron statues that are to adorn one of 
 the fountains on the place de la Concorde ; 
 their effect can hardly be judged of, because 
 they are colossal, and are not intended to be 
 seen quite so close. Behind them is a pen, 
 with some real Merino sheep in it — the only 
 living things except a few gold fish, of which 
 more by and bye — that are classed among 
 the things exhibited. In the middle of the 
 court stand two military figures with a capote 
 and cloak, that serve either for coverings to 
 the body or else as tents. We suspect that 
 
 the exhibitor has been trying to invent a 
 Mackintosh ! Still further on will be found 
 a clever circular pump, a large number of 
 ploughs, and various other agricultural imple- 
 ments. 
 
 e must beg pardon of our readers for 
 haying kept them so long among the ma- 
 chines, but we must repeat, that though not 
 outwardly attractive, yet they form the bone 
 and sinew of national progress in all manu- 
 fuctures — that but for them France could not 
 produce her splendid silks and cachemires, 
 her feathers, her jewellery, her sculptured 
 steel work, nor any of her other best pro- 
 ducts ; and that, unless her progress in me- 
 chanical ingenuity continues to be great, her 
 advance in manufactured products cannot be 
 considerable. The riches of all the other 
 galleries of the exhibition are entirely depen- 
 dent upon the excellence of this, the first 
 and the ground-work of the whole. 
 
 On entering the gallery No. 2, and proceed- 
 ing down the left-hand, or eastern side, we 
 are struck with some uncommonly ingenious 
 automaton figures, No. 1,023, one of which 
 in particular, a conjuror, is really a first-rate 
 thing of the kind. Two singing figures, 
 standing on small organ works, that imitate 
 the human voice, are also exhibited under the 
 same number. No. 1,504 comprises some 
 clever anatomical models, &c., in wax ; and a 
 little further on will be observed, various collec- 
 tions of othopedic apparatus, surgical corsets 
 and instruments, all of which possess their se- 
 veral claims to merit. At Nos. 666 and 1,564 
 will be found some urns, coffee pots, &c., in 
 brown metal, the classic forms of which, with 
 their beautifully-executed ornaments, will 
 enable them to stand a comparison with any 
 of the products of Birmingham. In the mere 
 mechanical part of the fabrication of articles 
 of this kind, the progress of France has 
 of late years been immense ; and, however 
 the question may be decided as to the excel- 
 lence of the material, there is no doubt that, 
 in form and design, English manufacturers 
 are behind their French competitors. Nearly 
 opposite to these standings, against one of 
 the pillars on the left-hand, will be observed 
 the caoutchouc tubes for bell-ropes, check- 
 strings of carriages, &c., by means of which, 
 you may “ waft a sigh from Indus to the 
 Pole” — if you can get a tube long enough. 
 They are really very ingenious useful things. 
 
 Whoever wishes to make a dash with a 
 magnificent, — we beg the ladies’ pardon, but 
 really we cannot mention the word, — piece 
 of linen investiture, should stop at No. 2,862, 
 where Longueville, of the rue Vivienne, 
 boasts, and not unjustly, that he is the first 
 artiste in this way in the “ universal world.” 
 —A series of articles is exhibited in this par- 
 ticular part of the gallery, highly held in 
 estimation by gentlemen of 60, who have not 
 given over their dancing days, and tender 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 379 
 
 maidens of a certain age, “'whose hopes of 
 connubial felicity, are not yet extinct ; — we 
 mean, kind reader, the perruques, formerly 
 called wigs. After seeing what is displayed 
 here, and in a proper spirit of encouragement 
 to that worthy body of industrials called 
 garqons perruquiers, we would propose — had 
 we a seat in the legislative chamber — that all 
 persons showing a bald pate or gray hairs, 
 should in future be clapped up in the prefec- 
 ture of police, and forthwith condemned as 
 disaffected to the capital interest of the coun- 
 try. And, indeed, after looking at the pha- 
 lanx of corset-manufacturers, or, as we vul- 
 garly call them in England, stay-makers, 
 who have taken up a formidable position in 
 this gallery, we would also be particularly 
 severe, if we could ever be so to the fair sex, 
 against all ladies presuming henceforth to 
 exceed from eight to twelve inches in diame- 
 ter at the waist. No husband should take 
 his wife down this part of the gallery, for, if 
 he does, to a dead certainty he will have an 
 extra stay-maker’s bill in his pocket-book 
 before the year is out. 
 
 All Englishmen, and especially lovers of 
 field sports, will have a high treat in examin- 
 ing the gunsmiths’ stalls that stand at the 
 bottom of this division of the gallery. The 
 gun- manufacture is that in which, more 
 perhaps than in any other of her hardware 
 produces, England is supposed to exceed the 
 rest of the worl d ; and, therefore, the articles 
 here exhibited deserve the more carefully to 
 be inspected. We may at once remark, that 
 the persons in charge of the guns are very 
 intelligent and civil, and seem to take a plea- 
 sure in explaining, with the greatest patience, 
 all the merits of their several inventions. 
 The point at which French gunsmiths seem 
 all to be aiming is, that of effecting the 
 charging at the breach with safety and con- 
 venience : most of the new models relate to 
 this desideratum, and, as far as we are capa- 
 ble of forming an opinion, highly ingenious 
 as are the rest, the new fowling-piece of 
 Messrs. Lepage, which works on the hinge 
 principle, has no nipples for caps, and both 
 fastens the breech back again to the stock 
 after loading, and cocks the hammer at the 
 same time, is by far the best. Another ex- 
 hibitor, Michel, No. 2,155, has a very inge- 
 nious horizontal piston applied to his locks, 
 well worthy of examination, and, we think, 
 of trial. At No. 616 the well-known gun. 
 smith Lefaucheux, of the rue de la Bourse, 
 has a large display of his fowling-pieces. 
 Just beyond this is No. 3,260, Cessier, of 
 St. Etienne, the great gun-manufactory of 
 France. Here the carved work of the stocks 
 is particularly worthy of remark, as well as 
 the lowness of the prices, lOOf. seeming to 
 be the average price of a very tolerable arti- 
 cle ; one is marked at only 12f, but we had 
 rather be excused the honour of discharging 
 
 any “ murderous tube ” of such a suspi- 
 ciously low cipher. At Nos. 617 and 614 
 will be found some armes de luxe, the sculp- 
 tured work of which is really beautiful ; and 
 one case in particular, a fowling-piece mounted 
 in rhinoceros-horn, must make any sportsman 
 long to possess so fine an object of art. At 
 Lepage’s, No. 618, may be seen, as we have 
 belore-mentioned, the newly-invented fowling- 
 piece. In the glass cases will be observed a 
 curious carbine, of two barrels, with only one 
 trigger and four locks, together with a long 
 rapier, of beautifully-chased steel and gold 
 work ; a damascened poniard, and various 
 other exquisite products of his workshops. 
 The chief object of this sub-division of the 
 exhibition is a case of arms, made by Lepage 
 for the Duke of Orleans, and, without any ex- 
 ception, it is the most splendid thing of the 
 kind we ever saw. It contains a fowling- 
 piece, a pair of pistols, a sword, a couteau 
 de chasse, powder-boxes, shot-cases, bullet- 
 moulds, &c. The whole of the steel-work is 
 sculptured or damascened in the most rich 
 and masterly style ; the wood-work is all 
 sculptured, and inlaid with steel and ivory, 
 all chased and engraved ; the case itself is 
 oak, of the finest quality, sculptured in high 
 relief, the edges inlaid with chased steel, and 
 the whole lined with the richest velvet. Such 
 an exquisite piece of steel work we never saw 
 before. 
 
 The other objects worthy of notice in this 
 left-hand division of the gallery are the para- 
 sols, umbrellas, and ornamental canes of all 
 kinds, the newest patterns of which are to be 
 found here : we find nothing very remarkable 
 among them, except a large gold-headed cane, 
 fit for a dandy of the Tuileries or the Bois de 
 Boulogne, the top of which opens, and dis- 
 plays a small parasol, which, when pulled 
 out, the beau may have the pleasure of offer- 
 ing to the belle that graces his arm. There 
 is an interesting stall here of the works of 
 the Blind Institution, some of the knitted 
 articles being beautifully executed. Some 
 wax-work figures, especially a Parisian V enus, 
 in a gauze temple, will attract notice. Among 
 other miscellaneous articles which we ought 
 to have pointed out before to all brothers of 
 the angle, is a monstrous fishing-rod, about 
 30 feet long ; and a complete dress for lion- 
 hunting ! think of that, ye Nimrods ! An 
 iron helmet and a leathern suit, all bristling 
 with sharp spikes, like the back of a porcu- 
 pine. Dressed in this, a man might walk in 
 safety through the thickest jungle in India, 
 or might go across Africa, from Sennaar to 
 Timbuctoo, without a single bone being 
 broken — always barring the heat of the 
 leathern cuticle, and the imminent danger 
 of suffocation. 
 
3S0 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 3300&S. 
 
 THE GIFT FOR ALL SEASONS. 
 
 ( Continued from page 349.) 
 
 THE CHARACTER AND POETRY OF SHELLEY. 
 The enigma in the character of Shelley is 
 this, that his sense of virtue was high and 
 delicate, while his principle was erratic; that 
 the tone of his mind was evidently religious, 
 while his creed was infidelity. What might 
 have been the early treatment which his tem- 
 per met with, we cannot say, so much depends 
 upon such little things, and so difficult is it 
 for man to manage the disposition of another, 
 especially ol untutored youth, so as to train 
 up the early and generous aspirations after 
 virtue, which rise in youthful minds, without 
 disgusting them by the revolting idea that 
 you are weaning the unsuspecting impulses 
 of their unpractised hearts to the selfish pur- 
 poses of age, and that you are, as it were, 
 revelling in the delights of virtues, of which 
 you leave to those on whom you enjoin them, 
 only the self-denial and the restraint. Some 
 such process as this, however, it would seem, 
 or the susceptibility of it, occurred to the 
 poet, whose character is at present passing 
 under review. 
 
 Like a high-mettled steed, in the first 
 buoyancy of untrammelled youth, when he 
 would range apart, and choose his pasture as 
 suited best the bent of his genius, he brooked 
 not imaginary restraint, but bounded with 
 the vigour of an eagle's wing over the paling 
 that encircled the fellows of his herd, back- 
 ward rolling his indignant eye, and swallow- 
 ing the earth and air before him with elastic 
 bound, his dishevelled main streaming in the 
 wind : 
 
 " Like the bright hair uplifted from the head 
 
 Of some tierce moenad, even from the dim verge 
 
 Of the horizon, to the zenith's height. 
 
 The locks of the approaching storm.” 
 
 He dashed into the wild recesses of the forest, 
 where he might compass, without limit or 
 curtailment, regions of space forbid to others, 
 and heights to which access had been denied ; 
 and there surely he cropped some of the 
 sweetest morsels which fancy can ever pic- 
 ture, or energy possibly attain. 
 
 It is most interesting to observe, with 
 what care he cherished the highest aspira- 
 tions of virtuous and noble sentiment, and 
 what refinement of mind he carried into the 
 solitude of nature, apart from the rules of 
 society, which experience has established as 
 essential to its coherence and consistency. 
 Unhinged from connexion with the church, 
 he could not throw off' his own nature, or dis- 
 embody the spirit which was in him ; and 
 with all the glory of man about him, and 
 more than falls to the lot of most men, he 
 renounced communion with the body whence 
 that glory was derived ! and his wandering 
 spirit gleamed in the dark precincts of illu- 
 
 mination, like a lost comet on the borders of 
 some collateral hemisphere. 
 
 it was impossible for him to divest himself 
 of the high chivalric sentiments, which the 
 revelation of Christ has stamped upon the 
 human mind ; or to abandon the romance of 
 nature, with which the God of nature has 
 clothed the prolific energies of creation. And 
 so, having quitted the Temple of Revelation, 
 he would fain build himself another temple 
 in the uncultured wilderness, and worship 
 apart the object of his adoration, as he 
 caught glimpses of the shifting light on the 
 mountain side and in the retired glen. 
 
 Any one conversant with his writings 
 cannot but observe that his poetic faith gave 
 birth to a wild theology of his own, which, 
 fugitive and unsettled as it was, was forming 
 itself into a system, we should say, of dog- 
 matic doctrine, were it not that his ideas, as 
 they came from his mird, were ever emanating 
 from the higher faculties, and refined by the 
 transforming passage through a tuneful and 
 a noble spirit. He differed from other men 
 who place themselves in the position of unbe- 
 lievers, inasmuch as his was the poetry of 
 philosophy, (I use the word as admitted by 
 conventional license ;) theirs, philosophy to 
 the exclusion of imagination. Shelley aimed 
 at Faith in Infidelity ; other men have been 
 too cold to do so. Lucretius was the poetical 
 historian of self-taught notions, and a sceptic 
 rather than an unbeliever; Shelley was more 
 than either. Lucretius is indefinite ; Shelley 
 was ever figuring to himself an airy reality', 
 and longing to believe something : he is an 
 extraordinary anomaly in the variety of mind; 
 his creed was the Pantheism of notion and 
 of nature. 
 
 This it is which forms the danger of his 
 writings, because in this consists their fasci- 
 nation to the unwary. 
 
 A more striking attestation, however, has 
 perhaps never been given, the more powerful 
 because unwitting, to the reality of the 
 Christian religion, than the result of his 
 experiment ; for it has shown, side by side 
 with the exhibition of divine truth, that if 
 man has not revelation as his guide, he must 
 have its image and reflection ; if his eye daz- 
 zles at the rainbow’s brightness, it must 
 repose on its refracted and attenuated like- 
 ness in adjacent air. 
 
 We may say, therefore, with truth and 
 reason, that this is the very essence of infi- 
 delity : I will be my own slave, rather than 
 submit, that I may revel in fancied freedom. 
 
 But our present object is not to convict, 
 but to observe. 
 
 The Poetry of Shelley', speaking of its 
 clothing, and the nature of the materials 
 whence it is fabricated — I might, perhaps, 
 say his diction, but that this would be an 
 inadequate expression for something so spi- 
 ritual and imaginative — was a wild inspira- 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 *31 
 
 tion, caught from the genius of the Greek 
 language and the tints of an Italian sky ; 
 the graphic sculpture of the one and the ethe- 
 real expression of the other. 
 
 His Gods are spirits, and his spirits are 
 flames of fire. 
 
 The admirers of his genius must reflect 
 with painful anxiety upon his tragic and 
 awful end ; more particularly because melan- 
 choly, indeed, as is the non-humanity of his 
 system, he has more the merit of consistency 
 in acting up to it, than many who profess to 
 receive the established doctrine. 
 
 It is, therefore, that having closely watched 
 the travail of his mind in disenthralling itself 
 from the influence of the commonly-received 
 and traditionary dogmas of infidelity — for in 
 later years he evidently thought himself out 
 of the errors of such of his earlier works, as 
 are most repugnant to the sentiments of a 
 Christian — we turn with eager anxiety to the 
 last of his poetical productions, finished only 
 ten days before the lamented catastrophe 
 which hurried on his fate, to behold there, 
 as in a glass, the state of his mind at the 
 close of his career. Consistently with his 
 natural character, nothing can be more inter- 
 esting than the sympathies which it exhibits. 
 
 The name itself, Epipsychidion, is one 
 which indicates a sublimed and etherealized 
 state of mind, in him who could choose it as 
 the title of a poem, in behalf of such a sub- 
 ject as formed the burden of “ Verses ad- 
 dressed to the noble and unfortunate Lady 
 Emelia V , now imprisoned in the con- 
 vent of .” At such a shrine Shelley 
 
 seems unaffectedly to kneel for forgiveness, 
 at any rate, for whatever pain and misery he 
 had caused to the first object of his early 
 passion. 
 
 " I pray tliee that thou blot from this sad song, 
 
 All of its much mortality and wrong, 
 
 With those clear drops which start like sacred dew 
 From the twin lights thy sweet soul darkens through. 
 Weeping, ’till sorrow becomes eestacy : 
 
 Then smile on it, so that it may not die.” 
 
 There may be some who can see nothing 
 but consummate vanity and conceit in this ; 
 I confess that I am not of the number. 
 
 In unison with what better sentiments 
 could a man, situated as Shelley, die, than 
 those so feelingly expressed towards the 
 saintly object of his sympathy : 
 
 " Our breath shall intermix, our bosoms bound, 
 
 And our veins beat together; and our lips, 
 
 Witii other eloquence than words, eclipse 
 
 The soul that bums between them ; and the wells 
 
 Which boil under our being’s inmost cells. 
 
 The fountains of our deepest life, shall be 
 Confused in passion’s golden purity. 
 
 As mountain-springs under the morning suu. 
 
 We shall become the same, we shall be one 
 Spirit within two frames. Oh ! wherefore two ? 
 
 One passion in twin hearts which grows and grew. 
 Till, like two meteors of expanding flame, 
 
 Those spheres iustinct with it become the same. 
 Touch, mingle, are transfigured ; ever still 
 Buiniug, yet ever inconsumable ; 
 
 In one another’s substance finding food. 
 
 Like flames too pure, and light, and unimbued. 
 
 To nourish their bright lives w ith baser prey. 
 
 Which point to Heaven and cannot pass away. 
 
 One Hope within two wills, one will beneath 
 Two over-hadowing minds, one life, one death. 
 
 One Heaven, one Hell, one Immortality, , 
 
 And one Annihilation.” — 
 
 Seem to admit of but one commentary, that, 
 so far as theory was concerned, Shelley had 
 thought or poetized himself, at last, into dis- 
 belief in his own infidel system ; and it 
 seems as if, when it was a question whether, 
 in default of something to fill and occupy his 
 mind, he should not stumble upon pure 
 Christianity, as it were, in the dark, Provi- 
 dence threw in his way, and exactly in the 
 light in which he might be prepared to 
 appreciate it, the crucificial altar. 
 
 “ Woe is me ! 
 
 The winged words on which my soul would pierce 
 Into the height of love’s rare universe. 
 
 Are chains of lead around its flight of fire ; — 
 
 I paut, I siuk, I tremble, I expire 1” 
 
 Within a fortnight after, by the visitation 
 of the Most High, amid the lone waters of 
 the deep, “ he sank and he expired !” 
 
 Elje public Soumals. 
 
 TAIt’s EDINBURGH JOURNAL, NO. LXVI. 
 
 [Mr. Howitt has some highly-interesting 
 papers in the above popular periodical, en- 
 titled “ Visits to Remarkable Places,” the 
 second portion treating of Bolton Priory and 
 its immediate vicinity, most romantically, 
 pleasingly, and graphically told. While di- 
 lating on the scenery of “ The White Doe of 
 Rylston,” the author treats his readers with 
 the following notice of the Barden Tower,* 
 blending its history with interesting memoirs 
 of the heroic and once celebrated family of 
 the Cliffords.] 
 
 It is a singular circumstance, says the 
 talented author, out of what peaceful, pro- 
 found, old-fashioned nooks, have gone forth 
 some of the stormiest, sternest, and most 
 ambitious characters in history. Whitta- 
 ker says — “ The shattered remains of Bar- 
 den Tower stand shrouded in ancient woods, 
 and backed by the purple distances of the 
 highest fells. An antiquarian eye rests with 
 pleasure on a scene of thatched houses and 
 barns, which, in the last two centuries, have 
 undergone as little change as the simple and 
 pastoral manners of the inhabitants.” The 
 place, in fact, seems to belong to a past age 
 of English history; to make no part of bust- 
 ling, swarming, steam-engine, and railroad 
 England ; but of England in the days of 
 solemn forests, far-off towns, and the most 
 peaceful and rustic existence. The tower 
 stands a mere shell ; but the cottages about 
 it are those which stood there in the days of 
 its glory, and are peopled with a race as 
 
 * Vide page 82 of the preaent volume. 
 
382 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 primitive and quiet as they were then. W e 
 inquired for a public-house to get a lunch ; 
 there was no such thing ; but we procured 
 bread and butter, and milk, at one of the 
 cottages ; and, as we sate looking out of its 
 door, the profound tranquillity of the scene 
 was most impressive. It was a sultry and 
 basking noon ; around were lofty, ancient 
 woods ; on the opposite slope, a few cottages 
 half-buried in old orchards and gardens, with 
 their rows of bee-hives ; and an old man at 
 work in one of them, as slowly and gravely 
 as an object in a dream, or a hermit in his 
 unpartaken seclusion. Yet, from this place, 
 and such as this, issued 
 
 " The stout Lord Cliffords that did fight in France” — 
 
 ay, and in Scotland and England too — 
 conspicuous in all the wars, from the time 
 of the Conqueror to that of Cromwell ; the 
 “Old Clifford,” and the “ Bloody Clifford,” 
 who slew the young Duke of Rutland, and 
 afterwards the Duke of York, his father — of 
 Shakspeare’s “ Henry VI.” Thence, too, 
 went out the great seafaring Lord Clifford, 
 George, third Earl of Cumberland, of Eliza- 
 beth’s time, who made eleven expeditions, 
 chiefly against the Spaniards and Dutch, 
 and chiefly, too, at his own expense, to the 
 West Indies, Spanish America, and Sierra 
 Leone. But the most remarkable characters 
 connected with this place are, — the Shep- 
 herd Lord Clifford ; the heroic Countess of 
 Derby, daughter of Henry, second Earl of 
 Cumberland, and grand-daughter of Charles 
 Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and the Dowa- 
 ger Queen of France, sister of Henry the 
 Seventh, whose romantic history is known 
 to all readers of English history ; and 
 especially Anne Clifford, Dowager Countess 
 of Pembroke and Montgomery, of famous 
 memory ; for the others made only occa- 
 sional visits hither, from their more fre- 
 quent residence of Skipton Castle, to enjoy 
 field sports at their lodge here ; but Anne 
 Clifford has placed her memorial on the very 
 front of the house, as its restorer ; and the 
 Shepherd Lord constituted it his principal 
 abode. 
 
 Anne Clifford has justly been termed one 
 of the most extraordinary women which this 
 country has produced. She was a woman 
 of a high spirit, a determined will, of many 
 good and magnificent qualities, and of a very 
 commensurate consciousness of them. She 
 did great works, and took good care to 
 commemorate them. Two such builders of 
 houses and of families, perhaps no noble- 
 man of the present day can reckon amongst 
 his female ancestry, as the Duke of Devon- 
 shire — Anne Clifford, and Bess of Hard- 
 wicke. The first thing which strikes your 
 attention in front of Barden Tower, is this 
 singular inscription 
 
 This Barden Tower was repayred 
 By the Ladie Anne Clifford Counte 
 sse Dowager of Pf.mbrokee Dorsett 
 and Montgomery Baroness Clifford 
 Westmerland and Vercie Lady of the 
 Honor of Skipton in Craven and High 
 Sherifesse by inheritance of the 
 Countie of Westmerland in the Yearss 
 1658 and 1659 after it had layne 
 Ruinous ever since about 1589 when 
 Her mother then lay in itt and was 
 Great with child -with her till 
 No we that it was repayred by 
 The said Lady. Is. chapt. 58. v. 12.* 
 God’s name be praised ! 
 
 When she came to her ancestral estates, 
 she found six castles in ruins, and the church 
 ol Skipton in a similar condition, from the 
 ravages of the Civil War. She restored them 
 all ; and upon all set this emblazonment of 
 the fact. One of the first things which she 
 built was a work of filial piety — a pillar in 
 the highway, at the place where she and 
 her unhappy mother last parted, and took 
 their final farewell. She erected monuments 
 to her tutor, Daniell, the poetic historian, 
 and to Spenser — the latter in Westminster 
 Abbey. She wrote her own life — of which 
 the title-page is indeed a title-page, being a 
 whole page of the most vain-glorious enume- 
 ration of the titles and honours derived from 
 her ancestors. Spite of her vain-glory, she 
 was, nevertheless, a fine old creature. She 
 had been an independent courtier in the 
 court of Queen Elizabeth, possessing a spi- 
 rit as lofty and daring as old Bess herself. 
 She personally resisted a most iniquitous 
 award of her family property by King James, 
 and suffered grievously on that account. She 
 rebuilt her dismantled castles in defiance of 
 Cromwell, and repelled with disdain the as- 
 sumption of the minister of Charles II. “ She 
 patronised,” says her historian, “ the poets 
 of her youth, and the distressed loyalists of 
 her maturer age ; she enabled her aged ser- 
 vants to end their days in ease and indepen- 
 dence ; and, above all, she educated and por- 
 tioned the illegitimate children of her first 
 husband, the Earl of Dorset. Removing 
 from castle to castle, she diffused plenty and 
 happiness around her, by consuming on the 
 spot the produce other vast domains in hos- 
 pitality and charity. Equally remote from 
 the undistinguishing profusion of ancient 
 times, and the parsimonious elegance of mo- 
 dern habits, her house was a school for the 
 young and a retreat for the aged ; an asylum 
 for the persecuted ; a college for the learned ; 
 and a pattern for all.” To this it should be 
 added, that, during that age when such firm- 
 ness was most meritorious, she withstood 
 all the arts, persuasions, and all but actual 
 compulsion, of her two husbands, to oblige 
 her to change the course, and injure the pro- 
 
 * " Thou shalt build up the foundations of many 
 generations, and thou shalt be called the repairer of 
 the breach, and the restorer of paths to dwell in.” 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 383 
 
 perty of her descendants ; and, therefore, it 
 must be confessed, that she was a brave wo- 
 man, and one whose like does not often ap- 
 pear. It is, however, her celebrated letter 
 to Sir Joseph Williamson, the secretary of 
 Charles II., who had written to name a can- 
 didate for her borough of Appleby, that has 
 given her name a Spartan immortality : — 
 
 “ I have been bullied by an usurper ; I have 
 been neglected by a court ; but I will not be 
 dictated to by a subject— your man shan’t 
 stand. “ Anne, Dorset, Pembroke, 
 
 and Montgomery.” 
 
 The history of the Shepherd Lord is one 
 of the most singular in the peerage. When 
 his father, Lord John Clifford — the bloody 
 or black-faced Clifford — fell at the battle of 
 Towton, which overthrew the house of Lan- 
 caster, and placed Edward IV. on the throne, 
 his mother was obliged to fly with, him for 
 safety into the wildest recesses of Yorkshire 
 and Cumberland. She afterwards married Sir 
 Launcelot Threlkeld, of the latter county', 
 who assisted to keep him concealed from the 
 knowledge of the York family — to whom the 
 Clifford blood was, for notorious reasons, 
 most especially odious ; but, to effect this, 
 he was obliged to be brought up as a shep- 
 herd, and so lived for twenty-four years. On 
 the ascension of Henry VII. to the throne, 
 the attainder against his father was reversed, 
 and he succeeded to his ancestral honours 
 and estates. At this period, it appears that 
 he was as uneducated as his fellow shep- 
 herds ; but he was a man of strong natural 
 understanding, and had, it would seem, 
 learned much true wisdom in his lowly habit, 
 up amongst the hills. 
 
 Some of his verses allude to the studies for 
 which he became remarkable; for he resorted 
 to this Barden Tower, and put himself under 
 the tuition of some of the monks of Bolton. 
 With these he appears to have contracted a 
 strong friendship, and to have passed a life 
 of what must have been a very delightful 
 prosecution of the popular studies of the 
 time. They applied themselves to astrono- 
 my ; and, it seems equally certain, to astro- 
 logy. In the archives of the Cliffords have 
 been found manuscripts of this period, and 
 supposed to belong to the Shepherd, which 
 make it more than probable that alchemy 
 was another of the fascinating pursuits of 
 Lord Henry and his monkish companions. 
 Some of these verses conclude with the usual 
 declaration, that the writer could not disclose 
 the grand secret. 
 
 There is matter for a fine romance in the 
 life of this Lord ; the stirring nature of the 
 times when he was born ; the flight of his 
 family ; his concealment ; his life on the 
 mountains ; his restoration ; his secluded 
 mode of existence, and mysterious labours ; 
 and then, his emerging as he did, after he 
 had so spent the whole of the reign of 
 
 Henry’ the Seventh, and the first years of 
 Henry the Eighth, at the age of nearly sixty, 
 as a principal commander of the victorious 
 army of Flodden ; showing, that the military 
 genius of the Cliffords merely slumbered 
 beneath the philosophic gown. There is 
 something very picturesque in the descrip- 
 tion of his followers, in the old metrical his- 
 tory of Flodden Field. 
 
 Before leaving Barden Tower, we must 
 just notice the singular old chapel which 
 bounds one corner of the court-yard. You 
 enter at a door from the court, and find your- 
 self in a dwelling-house ; another door is 
 opened, and you find yourself in the loft of 
 a very old chapel, which remains in the state 
 in which it was centuries ago, except for the 
 effects of time, and where service is still 
 performed by the clergyman of Bolton. 
 
 Cfye 
 
 “ I was much delighted,” says Pratt, in 
 his Gleanings, 1794, “on walking over these 
 grounds with the generous master of them, 
 (Howard the philanthropist,) to see twenty 
 or thirty worn-out horses enjoying themselves, 
 in perfect freedom from labour, and in full 
 supply of all that old age requires. Each of 
 the fields has a comfortable shed, where the 
 inhabitants can resort to in hard weather, 
 and are sure of finding the rigours of the 
 season softened by a well-furnished crib of 
 the best hay, and a manger either of bran or 
 corn ground, or some other nourishing food. 
 Chelsea Hospital is not better accommodated; 
 the day on which I made the circuit of the 
 pastures was one of the finest of August ; 
 some of the pensioners were renovating in 
 the sun, others reposing in the shade ; but 
 on the approach of their benefactor, all of 
 them, actuated by a feeling of gratitude 
 worthy of admiration, that could move with 
 ease, came towards him, invited his attention, 
 and seemed very sensible of their situation. 
 Some, whose limbs almost refused their 
 offices, put themselves to no small difficulties 
 to limp towards him, and even those, who 
 being confined to their hovels, might be 
 fairly said to be bed- ridden, turned their 
 languid eyes to him and appeared sensible of 
 his pity and caressings.” H. M. 
 
 Liquid Leather . — A Dr. Bernland, of 
 Larria, in Germany, is said to have dis- 
 covered a method of making leather out of 
 certain refuse and waste animal substances. 
 A manufactory of this nature has been esta- 
 blished near Vienna. No part of the process 
 is explained, only it is said that the sub- 
 stance is at one time in a complete state of 
 fluidity, and may then be cast into shoes, 
 boots, &c . — Bristol Mirror. 
 
 Count Potoeki, in his travels in Lower 
 Saxony, had a manuscript of the Lord’s 
 Prayer, such as it was used in the early times 
 
384 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 of Christianity in that country, presented to 
 him ; the following is a correct copy of it : 
 
 Nesse | wader, | tu | toy | Jiss, | wa | nebiss | hay, 
 siungta | Woarda | Tigi | Cheyma | tujae | Rick | 
 Kommse. 
 
 Tia | willise | szymweh | Rok | wa | nebiss | hay | 
 kak | no | zymie. | 
 
 Un | wi I by | doy | nam | nesse 1 clirech | kak | 
 moy | Wy | by | dayne | nessen | Chresmavim | 
 
 Ny | briugwa | nass | na | Wasskonie | day | 
 lizway | ness | wit | Wyskak | chaudak. Amen. 
 
 H. M. 
 
 In excavating for the line of the Great Wes- 
 tern Railway a few days since, a remarkably 
 fine tusk of the mammoth was discovered 
 lying in a bed of new red sand-stone, about 
 seven feet below the surface. 
 
 Happiness. — Such is our pride and weak- 
 ness, that we consider happiness as our right, 
 and misfortune as an injustice. A wise man, 
 on the contrary, will consider a happy condi- 
 tion as a prize drawn in the lottery, which he 
 had no right to expect, but which his good 
 fortune secured for him. — Lady Blessington. 
 
 French Harbours. — It appears from a 
 statement drawn up by the administration of 
 Bridges and Roads, that there are in France 
 no less than 400 harbours and landing- 
 places. 
 
 Photography. — The Literary Gazette 
 mentions, that M. Bonafons, of Turin, has 
 found in a catalogue of old Italian works : — 
 “ Descrizione di un nuovo Modo di Trans- 
 portare, qual si sia Figura Disegnata in 
 Carta Medianti i Raggi Salari ; di Antonio 
 Cellio. Roma, 1686. In 4to. fig. — Thus 
 truly verifying the old adage, “ that there is 
 nothing new under the sun.” 
 
 A New Method of preserving Iron work 
 from Rust, communicated by M. Paymen to 
 the French Institute, consists in plunging 
 the pieces to be preserved in a mixture of 
 one part concentrated solution of impure soda 
 (soda of commerce) and three parts water. 
 Pieces of iron left for three months in this 
 liquid had lost neither weight nor polish ; 
 whilst similar pieces immersed for five days 
 in simple water, were covered with rust. — 
 Liverpool Mercury. 
 
 The chief objects of interest in the ancient 
 town of Antiphellus, are the tombs ; the cliff, 
 overhanging the town, is full of them, many 
 being highly ornamented with architectural 
 designs, and have some resemblance to the 
 windows of the Elizabethan age, with their 
 stone mullions, and are in imitation of build- 
 ings of wood, the joints representing wedged 
 ties or dovetails, and the overhanging cor- 
 nices being formed like the ends of beams of 
 round trees, producing a picturesque archi- 
 tectural ornament. — Fellowes's Journal. 
 
 There is no greater satire upon man than 
 man himself. Inconsistency and absurdity 
 seem in many the leading features of their 
 composition ; they run heedlessly on, confi- 
 
 dent in the supposed safety of their purblind 
 course, until some overwhelming storm, 
 which a very small portion of common sense 
 might have averted, comes on them unawares, 
 and crushes them, probably for ever. 
 
 Oh, Time ! time ! how rapid are thine 
 approaches to eternity ! Of the past, there 
 is nothing left but remembrance. A few 
 brief years will render us insensible to every 
 thing earthly : care, trouble, and anxiety, will 
 then have ceased to agitate our bosoms, and 
 God grant that the memory of the pleasures 
 of this life may be lost in the enjoyment of 
 that happiness which is the attribute of a 
 blessed immortality. 
 
 How happy is he who can look upon the 
 past with pleasureable regret, and forward 
 with the hope that his days may be days of 
 peace, and his exit the passage of the blest ! 
 
 C. S. 
 
 The pulsation of the heart takes places 
 100,000 times a day ; so that the pulse beats 
 about 70 times in a minute. — Curtis on 
 Health. 
 
 Constancy . — The constant man looks up 
 to heaven in full hope, even when it is dark- 
 ened ; as flowers, that open with the sun, 
 close not, though they be hidden by clouds. 
 
 Cheerfulness . — David Hume declared he 
 would rather possess a cheerful disposition, 
 inclined always to look on the bright side, 
 than, with a gloomy mind, be master of an 
 estate of ten thousand a-year. 
 
 The Lords of the Admiralty have sent a 
 ship of war to the south-western corner of 
 Asia Minor, for the purpose of transporting 
 from thence to this country, a large collec- 
 tion of most valuable ancient sculptures and 
 bas-reliefs, which have been described by 
 Mr. Fellowes, in his account of Asia Minor, 
 where many towns and cities, and a remark- 
 able and nearly perfect ancient theatre, 
 hitherto quite unknown, have likewise been 
 found. 
 
 An edition of the Classics, published about 
 sixty years since, on the Continent, has this 
 curious frontispiece. It represents on one 
 side, Christ upon the cross, and on the other, 
 a figure of the author, from whose mouth 
 issues a label with these words ; “ Lord 
 Jesus! lovest thou me P” His question is 
 answered by another label, affixed to the 
 mouth of the figure, addressed : “ Highly 
 famed, excellent and most learned rector of 
 Seger, imperial poet, and well-deserving mas- 
 ter of the school at Wirtemberg, yes, thou 
 knowest I love thee !” H. M. 
 
 LONDON: Printed and published by J. LIMB RTD, 
 143, Strand, (near Somerset House) ; and sold by 
 all Booksellers and New, men — In PARIS, by all 
 the Booksellers.— In FRANGFORT, CHARLES 
 JVOEL. 
 
Z\)t fHtutov 
 
 OH 
 
 LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION. 
 
 No. .954.] SATURDAY, JUNE 22, 1839. [Prick 2rf. 
 
 Mfltuigtomana. — N° n. 
 
 THE HOUSE OP DE COSTA, NAPOLEON’S GUIDE. 
 
 It stood behind the centre of the Enemy, on the high road. 
 
 THE INN AT MONT ST. JEAN. 
 
 The English Centra »'« jn frost of the Farm of Mont 9t. Jean, in the roar of which the above Inn stood. 
 
 Vd. xxxin. 2 C 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 386 
 
 WELLINGTON I ANA N°. II. 
 
 [We cannot do better, on our first publication 
 after another Anniversary of Waterloo, 
 than continue the subject taken up in a recent 
 Number of the Mirror , (see No. 948,) and pre- 
 sent our readers with further illustrations of 
 that remarkable and decisive battle commemo- 
 rated last Tuesday. It is a subject of congra- 
 tulation that the honoured instrument who was 
 the hero of that day is yet amongst us, to give 
 that event still a domestic and contemporary 
 character ; although, in respect of the carnage 
 of the field, and its consequences on nations and 
 dynasties, Waterloo is a matter of history ; 
 one of the most emphatic pages in the chroni- 
 cles of England ; aye, of Europe and the world. 
 
 General Mu ffirnghns published some remarks 
 on this battle, which combine many elements 
 of deep interest connected with the strategy 
 and fate of the day, interesting not merely to 
 the military, but to the general reader.] 
 
 “The position of the British army was good, 
 but would have been much stronger, had the 
 farm-house of Hugomont been situated in 
 front of the centre, that is, on the high road of 
 Genappe, instead ol fronting the right wing. 
 The buildings of the farm of La Haye Sainte 
 were too small, and even had there been time 
 sufficient to break loop-holes into the walls, 
 the farm could contain only from two to three 
 hundred men, and consequently could not 
 have been made a point of moment. 
 
 “ Buonaparte commenced the battle by ad- 
 vancing with the 1st corps from La Belle- 
 Alliance upon the left wing of the British 
 army — as it is generally believed by the 
 French, in order to attack it; but this is 
 highly improbable, because otherwise lie 
 could not at the same time have directed the 
 2nd corps upon the farm of Hugomont. It 
 is much more probable that Buonaparte had 
 originally intended to attack Ihe centre, and 
 that he directed the 1st corps upon Papeiolte, 
 in order that, by a movement with it to the 
 left, he might deploy his force. 
 
 “ When, about five o’clock, i>. m., the bat- 
 tle appeared to be lost, by the inconceivable 
 negligence of not detaching upon Lasne, to 
 protect the right wing, which would have re- 
 quired no more than two battalion*, Buona- 
 parte grew silent and pensive. From the 
 height on which he stood, the ridge is visible 
 which runs along the Djle of Wavre : one of 
 his suit discovered the smoke of Marshal 
 Grouchy’s artillery. This cheered Buona- 
 parte : calling for an experienced general near 
 him, lie asked what, in his opinion, was the 
 distance of Grouchy’s tire? The general 
 replied, he could not precisely tell, but he be- 
 lieved it a league and a hall. 
 
 “ Buonaparte then exclaimed, ‘ La bataille 
 est gagi 6e, il laut forcer 1’aile droite, et jeter 
 es Anglais dans les ddlilees de Wavre : 
 Allons, la garde en avant !’ 
 
 “ This was another wild idea, and it was the 
 last. From every quarter aides-de-camp 
 brought orders to advance, and Marshal Ney 
 
 relates, in his letter to the Duke d'Otrante, 
 how General Labedoyere rode through the 
 line, to spread the intelligence of Marshal 
 Grouchy’s arrival in the rear of the British 
 and Prussian armies. By this time Count 
 Bulovv had attacked the village of Planche- 
 noit, and part of it was taken ; when rein- 
 forcements arrived, with orders from Buona- 
 parte to attack. The French troops retook 
 that part of the village which was lost, and 
 advanced even beyond it. 
 
 “Had Count Bulow then been able to have 
 maintained the village of Plancheuoit, the 
 French army had not got off with the loss of 
 its artillery only, but part of the troops would 
 have been compelled to lay down their arms. 
 Both parties were aware ol the importance of 
 the post, and the struggle for it grew ex- 
 tremely violent. 
 
 “During the battle of Waterloo, or La 
 Belle- Alliance, Marshal Blueher received in- 
 telligence of Marshal Grouchy’s attack in his 
 rear; notwithstanding which, he did not for 
 a moment waver in his resolution to continue 
 his attack upon Buonaparte. Perhaps the 
 greatness of this determination has not been 
 duly appreciated ; what a common general 
 would have done is not the question ; but such 
 a report might have induced the most distin- 
 guished commander to measures of precaution, 
 nay, to convert a powerful attack into a demon- 
 stration ; and in both cases the fate of the 
 battle would have been extremely precarious. 
 
 “ May not Buonaparte, after discovering 
 Grouchy’s fire, have calculated, that the move- 
 ment of that general, by paralizing the Prus- 
 sians, would enable him, unmolested, to fall 
 upon the British ? 
 
 “ On the supposition that the Duke of 
 Wellington had been beaten, and that during 
 the battle (which was certainly not impossible) 
 Marshal Grouchy had arrived by Limale, at 
 Chapelle St. Lambert, the situation of the 
 Prussian army, it will not be denied, could 
 not easily have been more hazardous. In 
 that case, defiles separated the 1st corps from 
 the 2nd, the latter from the 4th, and this 
 again from the first, and the enemy stood 
 between all the three, and the 3rd. By the 
 incessant rains during two days, the by-roads 
 through the forest of Soignie were almost im- 
 practicable for artillery, and would, perhaps, 
 have been in the enemy’s hands. From 
 all this, an experienced general would infer, 
 that the safest operation was, to collect the 
 strength of the three corps on the platform of 
 La Belle Alliance, and to attack Buonaparte. 
 
 “ The Duke of Wellington’s perseverance 
 and unshaken heroism on this great day merit 
 the admiration of his cotemporaries and of 
 posterity. It had been concerted, that the 
 Prussian army should attack about two 
 o’clock, but it was not till half-past four that 
 the first cannon shot was fired.” 
 
 \_Gemral Muffling enters into a consideration 
 of certain charges brought against the allied 
 
THE MIRROR. 387 
 
 field marshals, which he analyzes under eight 
 heads. One of the most serious, involving a 
 consideration of the skill and forethought of 
 the Duke of Wellington in the choice of the 
 field, and the disposition of the allied troops 
 in the seat of war, is thus disposed of :— ] 
 
 “It is imputed to the Duke of Wellington 
 ns a great fault, that on the 18th he allowed 
 Prince Frederick of Holland to remain at 
 Ilulle ; thus depriving himself of 18.000 men, 
 who might have been so great a use to him 
 in the battle.* 
 
 “ The Duke of Wellington having resolved, 
 on the 17th, to retire to the position of Mont 
 St. Jean, was yet uncertain whether he should 
 be able there to accept a battle against Buona- 
 parte, or to be compelled to retreat still fur- 
 ther. 
 
 “This arrangement included the following 
 considerations : — 
 
 1. The covering of Brussels. 
 
 2. The basis of a farther retreat 
 
 3. Such dispositions as afforded a field of 
 battle, not indispensably requiring that the 
 whole army should be assembled in the posi- 
 tion, but its simply retaining possession of 
 the field, because it yet remained to be decided 
 whether a battle would take place or not. 
 
 “ F tom the maps of that part of the Nether- 
 lands, it appears that three principal roads 
 lead from Quatre-Bras to Brussels ; that of 
 Genappe and Waterloo ; that of Nivelles, 
 Braine-la Leud, and Alsemberg ; that of 
 Nivelles and Halle. 
 
 “ The necessity of occupying the great high 
 road by Halle, on the retreat of the 17th, 
 cannot be questioned ; and thus, if it should 
 become necessary, a farther retreat was pro- 
 vided for, in three columns, upon Brussels. 
 Here the question is, what road could the 
 enemy take with his left, to advance by Halle 
 upon Brussels ? 
 
 “ At all events, he must go by Nivelles : 
 thence three roads lead to Halle ; the first, 
 by Braine-le-Compte and Tubize, four Ger- 
 man miles ; the second, by Tubize, two miles 
 and a-half ; the third, by Braine-le-Chateau, 
 two miles. 
 
 “ Now Tubize lies at an hour’s distance 
 from Braine-lejChateau. A corps of 18,000 
 men, with its right upon the heights along 
 the Vale of the Senne, so as to be able to 
 cannonade Tubize, and with its left upon the 
 heights behind Braine-le Chateau, will fill 
 up this position. In front runs the brook, 
 taking its origin near the farm of Hugomout, 
 in a deep valley. Here, it would appear, 
 that Prince Frederick of Holland might have 
 stood better, because he was only two hours’ 
 march from Braine-la-Lcud, and by Wautier- 
 
 * The Duke’s foresight, it is said, was fully jus- 
 tified by the event ; for on the morning of the 18th, 
 one B.itish brigade, and the Hanoverian brigade of 
 Colville’s division, were ordered to occupy the road 
 from Bruine-la-Compte to Halle, the enemy having 
 actually moved a force in that direction, 
 
 2 C 2 
 
 braine had a road as good as any by-road 
 to be met with in this country. 
 
 “ The high road of Braine-le-Compte, by 
 Tubize and Halle, crosses the Senne at Tu- 
 bize. Preparations, therefore, were necessary 
 for blowing up the bridge, and every mea- 
 sure was to be taken to detain the enemy, 
 should he attempt here to Hank the right wing. 
 
 “ The motive for placing Prince Frederick 
 at Halle, perhaps was, it being already known 
 to be a good position, and because three high 
 roads united at Halle ; it was thus meant to 
 secure the enemy’s inability of undertaking 
 anythingagainst Brussels. In regard toHulle, 
 the following calculations may he made : — ■ 
 
 “ Halle is at four hours’ distance from 
 Braine-la- Leud ; of course the Prince must 
 have arrived at the latter place seven hours 
 after the Duke’s despatching orders from the 
 position at Waterloo. 
 
 “ It being decided on the evening of the 
 17th, in the first place, that the Duke would 
 accept the battle ; in the second, that the 
 enemy was not advancing upon our extreme 
 right, because he had not at all pursued us 
 on the high road of Nivelles ; why did not 
 the Duke of Wellington in the night trans- 
 mit orders to Prince Frederick, who in that 
 case could easily arrive in the position on the 
 18th at noon P 
 
 “ Granting all this, nay, even more, grant- 
 ing that this measure was dictated by every 
 military principle, let us not forget the follow- 
 ing considerations : — 
 
 “ In the first place, as has been already 
 observed in the narrative of the preparations 
 for the battle of the 18th, that the Duke of 
 Wellington had pledged himself to Marshal 
 Blucher to accept the battle, if the Prince 
 would approach with two corps to support him. 
 
 “Whether the Duke of Wellington, in 
 computing the force necessary to oppose 
 the enem}', had reckoned on the possibility 
 of calling Prince Frederick to the battle, is 
 not known ; but this much is certain, that, 
 conformably to Prince Blucher’s answer, 
 more troops must have appeared at the battle 
 than the Duke originally expected; and this 
 possibly may have decided him to let Prince 
 Frederick remain at Halle, as his presence 
 was less necessary at Mont St. Jean, from 
 the hopes there were of great aid from the 
 Prussian army. 
 
 “ In the second place, how important it 
 was for the King of Holland to preserve 
 Brussels, it is unnecessary here to discuss. 
 The political importance of that possession 
 may be collected from the confidence with 
 which, while lie advanced, Buonaparte re- 
 lied on his friends in the Low Countries, 
 The King of Holland having 30,000 men 
 with the army, it may easily be imagined, 
 that the Duke of Wellington would make 
 every effort to cover Brussels, in order to avoid 
 the reproach of having neglected anything 
 contributing to the protection of the capital,’’ 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 Return of the Killed, JVounded, and Missing, of the British and Hanoverian 
 Army under the Command of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington, K. G., 
 in the Battle fought at Qua t re Bras on the 1 6th June, 1815. 
 
 [From Col. Garwood's “ Dispatches of the Duke of Wellington."'] 
 
 
 Officers. 
 
 1 
 
 Serjeants. | 
 
 i 
 
 Rank and File. 
 
 Total loss of Offi- 
 cers, 7 s * on - com- 
 mission ed Offi- 
 cers, and Rank 
 and File. 
 
 British. 
 
 Hanoverians. 
 
 Horses. 
 
 Killed . . 
 
 29 
 
 19 
 
 302 
 
 350 
 
 316 
 
 34 
 
 19 
 
 Wounded . 
 
 126 
 
 111 
 
 2143 
 
 2380 
 
 2156 
 
 224 
 
 14 
 
 Missing . . 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 171 
 
 181 
 
 32 
 
 149 
 
 1 
 
 On the Retreat from Quatre Bras to Waterloo, on the \1th June, 18)5. 
 
 
 Officers. 
 
 Serjeants. 
 
 Rank and File. 
 
 Total loss of Offi- 
 cers, Non-com- 
 missioned Offi- 
 cers, and Rank 
 and File. 
 
 British. 
 
 Hanoverians. 
 
 Horses. 
 
 Killed . . 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 33 
 
 35 
 
 26 
 
 9 
 
 45 
 
 Wounded . 
 
 7 
 
 13 
 
 112 
 
 132 
 
 52 
 
 80 
 
 20 
 
 Missing . . 
 
 4 
 
 3 
 
 64 
 
 71 
 
 30 
 
 32 
 
 33 
 
 In the Battle fought at Waterloo on the 18^A June, 1815. 
 
 
 Officers. 
 
 Serjeants. 
 
 Rank and File. 
 
 Total loss of Offi- 
 cer , Non-com- 
 missioned Offi- 
 cers, and Rank 
 and File. 
 
 British. 
 
 Hanoverians. 
 
 £ 
 
 e 
 
 o 
 
 H 
 
 Killed . . 
 
 116 
 
 109 
 
 1822 
 
 2047 
 
 1759 
 
 288 
 
 1495 
 
 Wounded . 
 
 504 
 
 364 
 
 6148 
 
 7016 
 
 5892 
 
 1124 
 
 891 
 
 Missing . . 
 
 20 
 
 29 
 
 1574 
 
 1623 
 
 807 
 
 816 
 
 773 
 
 Killed. Wounded. Missing. 
 
 Total . 2432 9528 1875 
 
 The greater number of the men returned missing had gone to the rear with 
 wounded officers and soldiers, and joined afterwards. The officers are supposed 
 killed. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 389 
 
 -CHARACTER OF THE ENGLISH. 
 
 The following remarks on the English cha- 
 racter, are extracted from A Constitutional 
 English Catechism, published in 1786: — 
 What kind of people are the English ? A 
 nation generous, brave, free, and restless — 
 Are they happy ? Excessively : and most so 
 when they think they are on the brink of 
 ru j n , — How do you class them? The most 
 general and natural division is into rich and 
 poor, wise men and tools. — Is England !er- 
 tile in statesmen ? No country is more so 
 
 Where do they inhabit ? In the day-time 
 
 behind a counter; in the evening, at a cof- 
 fee-house, tavern, or ale-house. — Are there 
 many patriots in England ? Man) pretended 
 ones. — How many real ones ? One in a cen- 
 tury —What is fashion ? An agreeable ty- 
 rant.— What is its pi ogress ? It begins with 
 the vain, is improved by the silly, and stops 
 with the wise.— What does it regulate ? 
 The dresses ol the ladies; the philosophical 
 and political tenets of the men ; the hour of 
 meals ; and the value of toys. Besides 
 which, it regulates and fixes the taste of 
 the town.— Are there many laws in this 
 country ? So mttny that they serve to per- 
 plex one another.— What is the duty and 
 business of an officer in the army ? In time 
 of peace to saunter from tavern to tavern, 
 and from coffee-house to coffee-house ; from 
 the court to the play, from the play to Vaux- 
 hall, from Vauxhall to Ranelagh, and from 
 Kanelagh to Hyde Park.— What is their 
 duty in time of war ? To be ready to go to 
 the freezing regions of Newfoundland or 
 Hudson’s Bay, or to the burning climes of 
 Senegal or Granada ; and, when there, for 
 a certain daily stipend, to stand patiently as 
 a mark to be shot at, until he is bid to move, 
 and then to kill as many people, whose faces 
 he never saw before, as he possibly can. 
 What is good nature? Squandering fine's 
 fortune on gamblers, and intimate friends 
 of half a day's standing ; and finally reducing 
 one’s self from a state of ease and affluence, 
 to one of indigence and beggary - What is 
 good fellowship ? Being drunk every night, 
 and shortening one’s small portion of lile, 
 at least a dozen years, by various excesses.— 
 What profit does it bring to a man ? He is 
 called a jolly dog, an honest fellow, and has 
 not the trouble of thinking, — What is po- 
 liteness ? Swearing with a good grace; 
 never giving the lie ; forgetting one s old 
 acquaintance: and spending twice one’s in- 
 come— What are the chief curiosities in 
 England ? An author with a second suit of 
 clothes, an economical theatrical hero, an 
 honest lawyer, and a man ol parts, wit, and 
 learning, with a thousand a-year. 
 
 CURIOUS BEQUESTS. 
 
 From the Reports of the Charity Commissioners. ' 
 buck’s charity. 
 
 Robert Buck, by his will, bearing date 17th 
 November, 1620, gave to Maitiu Luinley, 
 and 16 others, members of the Diaper’s Com- 
 pany, his messuage called Caring, in the 
 parish of Leeds, or Langley, in Kent, and 
 eight acres of land there in trust, to permit 
 the company of Drapers to receive the rents, 
 and apply the same as follows, viz. — that the 
 renter- warden should yearly, within 40 days 
 after Michaelmas, pay to the twoyoungermus- 
 ter-wardens, 20/. at the least, who should there- 
 with purchase 13 yards of broad Kentish cloth, 
 of decent mingled colour, at 10s. a yard, or 
 thereabouts ; 16 yards ot Devonshire kersey, 
 of mingled colour, of 6s. a yard, or there- 
 abouts ; 15 yards of btoad baize, black, of 
 2s. 6d. a yard ; 15 yards of black cotton, of 
 8 d. a yard ; 9 leather sheepskins, dressed in 
 oil, of the price of 12 d. a piece ; 6 yards of 
 slac cloth, of the price of J6r/. a yard ; 4| ells 
 of brown hoilaud, of 3s. 4 d. per yard ; 2| ells 
 of roan canvass of 10 d. ail ell ; 3 Monmouth 
 caps, of 2s. 6</. each, and 3 felt hats for wo- 
 men, of 6s. 8rf. each, or thereabouts ; all which 
 cloth, & c. with 3/. in money, he directed the 
 two jounger master- wardens should bestow 
 as follows; namely, that they should send 
 the said cloth, &c. and money from London, to 
 Boliington Hall, in the parish of Ugley, in 
 Essex, where he was born, there to be deli- 
 vered to such of the surname of Buck as 
 should be owners of, and inhabit the said 
 Hall; and that he or they, with the church- 
 wardens of Ugley, should divide the same in 
 six parts, and bestow the same the first year 
 to the three poor men, and three poor women, 
 ol the parish of Ugley, who should have dwelt 
 there for four years preceding ; namely, to each 
 of the said three men yard of broad cloth, 
 and one for lining for coats, 2£ yards of De- 
 vonshire kersey, lo make long slops or breeches, 
 and 4) aids of black co-ton, and 3 sheepskins, 
 to line the same, li ell of brown holland, to 
 make them doublets, and 3 yards of Jean 
 fustian, and £ of an ell of roan canvass, to line 
 the same; one Monmouth cap, and 10s a piece 
 to make up their apparel, and to buy them 
 hose and shoes ; anti to each of the said three 
 poor women the residue of the said clothing, 
 in the manner therein particularly specified, 
 together with 10s. each in money ; and he 
 directed that the same should be given the 
 second year by persons of the surname of 
 Buck, with the assistance oft he churchwardens 
 and overseers of the patish of Manendine, in 
 Essex, to three poor men and three poor women 
 who should have dwelt there for four years 
 preceding, in the same manner as directed 
 to the parish of Ugley ; the third year to the 
 three poor men and 3 poor women of Stans- 
 tead Mountfitchett, in Essex, and so in suq- 
 
.ism 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 cession yearly forever. And it was provided, 
 that in case there should be no person of 
 the name of Buck at Bollington Hall, the 
 persons ot that name dwelling in a messuage 
 called Wardes, in the parish of Ugley, with 
 the churchwardens of the parish whose turn 
 it should be to receive the same, should choose 
 the men and women, and divide the gifts 
 amongst them ; and that when the name of 
 Buck should cease there also, then that the 
 churchwardens of the respective parishes, to- 
 gether with the four of the most ancient free- 
 holders or copyholders in each, should nomi- 
 nate the poor men and women, and distribute 
 the cloth amongst them ; and he further di- 
 rected, that out of the rents of the said lands, 
 the renter of the said company should, monthly, 
 on the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd of every month, pay 
 to eight poor widows inhabiting in the com- 
 pany’s almshouse in Beech Lane, 2s. 6d. each ; 
 and further, that the said trustees should, out 
 of the rents, pay yearly to the two younger 
 master-wardens for their pains, 10s. a piece, 
 to the clerk of the company, (is. 8 d., to him- 
 self, 6s. 8 d., to the beadles, 3s. 4 d.\ and that 
 the remainder, whatever it should happen to 
 be, should be yearly paid over to the four 
 master-wardens, to be locked up in the com- 
 pany’s chest, for the repairs of the said estate, 
 when necessary, or to such other charitable 
 uses as to the said master-wardens and as- 
 sistants should seem expedient. And it was 
 provided, that when the trustees should be 
 reduced to four or five, the survivors should 
 convey the lands to 20 other free drapers, to 
 be nominated by the master-wardens and 
 assistants on the trusts aforesaid, with course, 
 should be holden until the master-wardens 
 and assistants should be pleased to procure 
 the same to be amortized to the said Corpo- 
 ration of Drapers by their proper style of cor- 
 poration. 
 
 A copy of a Deed of Feoffment is entered 
 in the minutes of the Court of Assistants, 
 bearing date 24th December, 1644, whereby 
 Sir Henry Garway, one of the trustees named 
 in the donor’s will, conveyed the devised pre- 
 mises to Thomas Adams and 19 others, their 
 heirs and assigns, on the trusts of the said 
 will. It does not appear that there has been 
 any subsequent conveyance, but the company 
 have acted as trustees. 
 
 The farm at Caring consists of a large old 
 Mansion-house, in a very dilapidated state, 
 and 98 acres of land, let to George Catt, as 
 yearly tenant, at the rent of 140/., at which 
 rent he has held it from 1827- 
 
 Out of the rent, cloth and other articles 
 are provided annually, under the direction of 
 the wardens for the three parishes of Ugley, 
 Maridendine, and Stansted Mountfitchett, in 
 rotation, and precise articles prescribed by the 
 testator being provided as nearly as possible. 
 
 On the 5th of November annually the ar- 
 ticles are packed up at a meeting of the war- 
 
 dens, with 3/. in money, and sent for distrf'- 
 bulion to the churchwardens of the parish 
 which may be entitled to the charity in that 
 year. 
 
 The following payments are also made on 
 account of the almspeople in Beech Lane •, 
 viz. towards the stipends of the almspeople 
 12/. a year, which is carried to the account of 
 the charities general, the expense of the re- 
 pairs of the almshouses, the yearly sum of 
 21. 8s. for water rate, and the cost of the four 
 chaldron of coals. 
 
 There is also paid 21. a year, in the propor- 
 tions directed by the donor, to the several ac- 
 counts of the wardens, clerk, beadle, and por- 
 ter. The residue of the rents, if any, after 
 these several payments, is carried to the ac- 
 count ot “ The Company’s Income and if 
 the balance is against the charity, it is carried 
 on to the charity account for the year ensuing. 
 
 In the six years ending 31st December, 
 1835, the average cost of the clothing pro- 
 vided (or the three parishes in Essex, was 
 31/. 2s. 6d. per annum ; of the repairs of the 
 almshouses and the farm, including insurance 
 (but exclusive of about 480/. lately expended 
 in building an oasthouse on the farm), 22/. 2s. 
 &d.‘, and the average of coals for the alms- 
 houses, 7 1. 8s. 5d. In the 10 years from 1820 
 to 1829, the amount carried to the company’s 
 income was 972/. 9s. 9d.\ and from 1830 to 
 1835 (six years,) 282/. 6s. 5d. P. Q. 
 
 POPULAR VIEW OF NATURAL 
 HISTORY. 
 
 BY JAMES H. FENNELL. 
 
 {Continued from page 357.) 
 
 To persons engaged in the Fisheries, a know- 
 ledge of not only the habits of fish, but of 
 other creatures, is necessary to ensure better 
 success. 
 
 The fulmar petrels ( Proccllaria glacialis,) 
 are watched in their flight by the whalers, 
 for those birds indicate the spot where the 
 whales are most numerous, by their crowd- 
 ing to the spot where they first rise on (lie 
 surface of the water. 
 
 “ In the Isle of Man,” says the Rev. W. 
 B. Clarke, “ the gull is looked upon as sacred; 
 and there used to be, so late as 1820, when 
 I remember an instance of the kind, a fine of 
 ten shillings levied on all persons who killed 
 one. This protection of the bird arose from 
 self-interest ; for herrings are the staple com- 
 modity ot the island ; and the sea-gulls, who 
 are the pilots ot the herring fleet, invariably 
 hover over a shoal of herrings, and so direct 
 the fishermen where to cast their nets.” — 
 {Magazine of Natural History , vi., 148.) 
 
 “ The Fine Arts owe their choicest beau- 
 ties to a taste for the contemplation of nature. 
 Painting and sculpture are express imitations 
 of visible objects ; and where would be the 
 charms of poetry if divested of the imagery 
 
THK MIRROR. 
 
 3f)l 
 
 and embellishments which she borrows from 
 rural scenes ? Painters, statuaries, and poets, 
 therefore, are always ambitious to acknow- 
 ledge themselves the pupils of nature; and 
 as their skill increases they grow more and 
 more delighted with every view of the animal 
 and vegetal world.”— (Dr. Perceval's Moral 
 and Literary Dissertations .) 
 
 To painters of landscapes, animals, or of 
 plants, a knowledge of Natural History and 
 a habit of observation, would be highly useful. 
 
 “ There is no defect so common,” observes 
 Mr. Loudon, “ in painted or engraved land- 
 scapes, as the want of distinctive characters 
 in the representation of trees. With the 
 exception of Constable, Nasmyth, Robson, 
 Strutt, and a few others, most artists appear 
 to content themselves with producing varia- 
 tions of a few general and vague forms of 
 masses of foliage, trunks, branches, and 
 spray ; it seems to be enough for them to 
 produce a tree, without attempting to repie- 
 sent any particular species, or considering 
 that to give a true idea of nature, the spec- 
 tator ought to be able to distinguish the sort 
 of tree in the picture with the same facility 
 with which he distinguishes it in reality. 
 Why trees should not he represented with 
 the same truth and fidelity as animals, 
 buildings, or other objects, there can be no 
 good reason assigned ; and the only way ot 
 accounting for it is, by the general residence 
 of the landscape-painter in cities, and the 
 very little attention paid by most of them to 
 Natural History as a science. Were this 
 study to enter into the education ot the 
 landscape-painter, as much as that of general 
 history enters into that of the historical- 
 painter, we should not so frequently have to 
 regret, in the works of our first artists, not 
 only violations of truth and nature in the 
 kind of trees, but in their situations in regard 
 to soil, surface, water, and other trees or 
 plants. A little knowledge of botany would 
 prevent artists putting spring and autumnal 
 plants in flower or fruit in the same picture, 
 placing the plants of woods and shady places 
 in open sunshine, and committing a number 
 of similar violations of nature. 11 he com- 
 bined knowledge of indigenous zoology, geo- 
 logy, and botany, ought to be considered as 
 essential to the landscape-painter as it is to 
 the cultivator.” — ( Magazine of Natural His- 
 tory. i., 37.) Another excellent writer, when 
 speaking of the importance of botany to 
 artists who give pictorial representations of 
 trees, well observes, that, “ As every genus, 
 and even every species of tree, has its pecu- 
 liar port or general aspect, it is highly desir- 
 able that artists, and young persous who have 
 a taste for sketching from nature, should 
 make themselves acquainted with the especial 
 characters by which trees are distinguished 
 from each other, so as to he enabled to recog- 
 nise them at a distance. This is best attained 
 
 by making an individual tree of each genus, 
 most likely to be met with in the scenery in 
 which the artist is placed, the subject ot a par- 
 ticular study, not only when in full leaf, but 
 when entirely deprived of foliage. Let us, lor 
 instance, contrast the port ot the elegant birch, 
 
 ‘ the Lady of the Woods,’ with that of the 
 horse-chesnut ; what a difference do we ob- 
 serve between the slender and graceful twigs 
 of the former, and the stout, but beautifully- 
 arranged branches of the latter ! Paintings 
 which in other respects may be considered as 
 excellent productions, are often deprived of 
 much of their beauty and perfection from 
 the artist not having been able to convey, 
 with accuracy, the different characters of the 
 trees which he has introduced.” — ( Mirhel’s 
 General Observations on Vegetation, p. 91, 
 note.) 
 
 When the elephant walks, it does not 
 simultaneously move its right fore-leg and 
 left hind-leg, or its left fore-leg and right 
 hind-leg, as the horse and most other quadru- 
 peds do when they walk; but it advances the 
 left fore and hind legs, or the right fore and 
 hind-legs together at each step. Thus, in 
 short, it moves both legs on the same side at 
 once. This is one among many lacts ill 
 natural history which should be remembered 
 by the sculptor and the painter From an 
 ignorance of this fact the artists employed to 
 illustrate Daniell’s Oriental Annual, and 
 Jardine’s Naturalist's Library, (plate 3,) 
 have represented the elephant in the attitude 
 of trotting like a horse. 
 
 Artists unacquainted with the forms and 
 habits of living creatures may, in spite of 
 these arguments, continue to draw para- 
 doxical beings existing only in their crude 
 imaginations ; but such productions, they 
 may be assured, will ever be unpleasing and 
 disgusting to those who admire things that 
 exist in nature. It is only by a caretul exa- 
 mination of animated beings in their native 
 haunts, and the entertainment of a laudable 
 desire to pourtray them with strict fidelity, 
 that artists can ever expect to gain such high 
 praise, such warm encouragement, as is be- 
 stowed on an Audubon, and on other aitists 
 who, after attentively and closely observing 
 Nature, represent her with the utmost adhe- 
 rence to truth* It is so common to see paint- 
 ings of small birds and insects nowhere to be 
 found in nature, though bearing some slight 
 resemblance to existing species, disgracing 
 public exhibitions and private collections, 
 that one would almost believe that the de- 
 signers of them ignorantly supposed that 
 
 * A flippant writer in ttie Library of the Fine Arts 
 thus speaks of those who would have fidelity in 
 zoological drawings: — “ To paint to please the mul- 
 titude,— namely, ‘ the senseless little and the igno- 
 rant great,’ it is encumbent 011 the painter to repre- 
 sent nature so ably, that if the picture pourtray a cat, 
 a dog will snarl at it ; or if it represent a dish ot hsli, 
 a cat will pounce upon it.” 
 
392 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 the colours and forms of real humming- birds, 
 real butterflies, <fcc., are accidental rather 
 than alike and hereditary in the offspring of 
 every species. Drawings of ideal beings, 
 possessing no attractions whatever, save 
 their gaudy colours, dishonour the designer, 
 who can thus abuse his noble art by paint- 
 ing imaginary monstrosities, while Nature 
 is everywhere displaying pleasing and beau- 
 tiful realities. These remarks, which I 
 trust will not be deemed offensive, lor though 
 they censure they convey advice, are equally 
 applicable to the productions of the sculptor 
 and others, who would evince more taste 
 were they to endeavour to transmit to pos- 
 terity, accurate models of beings co-existent 
 with themselves, than of brain-born things, 
 likely to elicit in future ages, much idle and 
 profitless discussion on the probability of 
 their having once existed.* 
 
 Poets who would attempt descriptive 
 sketches of nature, or to decorate their 
 pieces with similes derived from, or allusions 
 to, natural objects and occurrences, should 
 most certainly possess a knowledge of na- 
 tural history, or a habit of correctly obser- 
 ving for themselves the objects on which 
 it treats. 
 
 It is strange that the grand and beautiful 
 objects of nature everywhere surrounding 
 them, and the most obvious to their senses, 
 have been so neglected by the poets. I say 
 it is strange, because things which Nature 
 herself has made poetical, are surely those 
 which are the most appropriate for the pen 
 of the poet, certainly more so than the art of 
 gardening, which Darwin and Mason have 
 treated of in poetry, or agriculture, and 
 agricultural implements, which are the sub- 
 jects of Virgil’s Georgies. The mere sight 
 of the beauties of Nature and of natural 
 scenery, while it creates a feeling of wonder 
 and delight, imparts to us a desire of giving 
 utterance to our enraptured feelings ; and if 
 they be happily expressed, we have poetry, 
 though perhaps not verse. If such things 
 are to be described in poetry, they must be 
 seen, they must be enjoyed ; for though 
 scenery, and the sensations it might create, 
 may be imagined, and described from the 
 imagination, yet how poor and insignificant 
 they are when compared to the real scenes of 
 Nature, and the real enjoyment of them ! 
 
 Some of those poets, whose minds have 
 not been attuned to the enjoyment ot nature, 
 and have, therefore, been mote successful 
 in compositions relating to very different sub- 
 jects, have asserted that natural descriptions 
 are not best adapted to poetry. But one of 
 the best and most original poems in our 
 language, — Thomson’s Seasons , — proves 
 that a good poet, who is also an original 
 
 * I learn that at the congress of the German natu- 
 ralists. at Bonn, in Sept. 1835, Dr. Froriep read a 
 memoir on Natural History as applicable to the fine 
 arts.— J. H. F. 
 
 observer, can treat such subjects with the 
 utmost felicity. But there can be little 
 doubt that Thomson, when we consider 
 his almost unexceptionable accuracy, had 
 actually observed and studied the works of 
 nature in her own woods and fields. 
 
 Dr. Aikin observes, that “The animal 
 race, who, in common with man, have 
 almost universally somewhat of moral and 
 intellectual character; whose motions, habi- 
 tations, and pursuits, are so infinitely and cu- 
 riously varied; and whose connection with 
 man arises to a sort of companionship and 
 mututd attachment, seem on these accounts 
 peculiarly adapted to the purposes of poetry. 
 Separately considered, they afford matter 
 for pleasing and even sublime speculation ; 
 in the rural landscape they give animation 
 to the objects around them ; and viewed 
 in comparison with human kind, they 
 suggest amusing and instructive lessons."’ 
 ( Essay on the Application of Natural His- 
 tory to Poetry , 1777> p 33.) Many animals 
 and plants are hardly ever noticed in poetry, 
 while the nightingale, the lark, the rose, 
 and the lily, and some few others, are fre- 
 quently the subjects of poetry, and afford it 
 many similes, — so frequently, indeed, as to 
 sicken the reader. This sameness of sub- 
 ject, and this monotony of simile, can only 
 be ascribed to the circumstance of the poets 
 not being original observers of nature, but 
 servile copyists of the descriptions of their 
 predecessors. 
 
 “ If poets have been inattentive to the real 
 state of nature in their own country, it can- 
 not be expected that their pictures of foreign 
 regions should be accurate and characteristic. 
 Yet were they sufficiently qualified by their 
 own observation, or the authentic accounts 
 ot others, for the attempt, it is obvious that 
 no source could be so productive of novelty, 
 as the description of countries where almost 
 every object is new. Such to the inhabitant 
 ot a temperate climate, are the polar and 
 tropical parts of the globe. It is highly to 
 the credit of Virgil’s genius, that he first 
 among the ancient poets ventured to trans- 
 port his reader into a new world, and place 
 the soft Italian amid the rigours of a 
 Scythian winter.* His description of this 
 dreary scene has been thought so just and 
 lively, as to be very closely imitated by the 
 natural Thomson ; who has, however, 
 according to his usual manner, greatly im- 
 proved upon it, by the addition of new cir- 
 cumstances. * * * * # * * Every 
 
 scene of nature, foreign or domestic, affords 
 objects from whence an accurate survey muy 
 derive new ideas of grandeur or beauty. 
 Where a careless eye only beholds an or- 
 dinary and indistinct landscape, one accus- 
 tomed to examine, compare, and discrimi- 
 nate, will discern figures and groups, which, 
 
 * Georgir. iii. v. 349. et seq. 
 
THK MIRROR. 
 
 393 
 
 judiciously brought forward, may be wrought 
 into the most striking pictures.” ( Aikin's . 
 Essay, p. 139.— 154.) 
 
 if it be true that several poets have done 
 much to increase our love of nature, it is 
 equally so that they have been instrumen- 
 tal to the propagation of superstition and 
 error, not always easy to eradicate, particu- 
 larly when contained in celebrated poems. 
 The productions of some of the best poets, 
 ancient and modern, want much of the 
 force and beauty which it was intended they 
 should possess, owing to a want of truth in 
 their zoological and botanical allusions and 
 similes. The poems of Shakspeare, Spencer, 
 Milton, Pope, Byron, and other bards now 
 at rest in their tombs, though beautifully 
 and minutely true to nature in most instances, 
 do often fail from this cause to make that 
 impression upon the mind ol the naturalist, 
 which they make upon the mind of the or- 
 dinary reader, unacquainted with natural 
 history, and not in the habit ot observing, 
 and who, therefore, is incapable of detecting 
 such errors. Some of our present poets, as 
 Wordsworth, Howitt, and others, appear to 
 be shrewd observers of nature, and their 
 productions consequently obtain the admira- 
 tion and praise of not only the worldly many, 
 but the philosophic few — the lovers and 
 students of nature. 
 
 “As it is the business of every figure of 
 comparison either to illustrate or to enforce 
 the simple idea, it is certainly requisite that 
 it should be founded upon circumstances 
 to which the mind of the reader can assent ; 
 otherwise it can produce little effect. The 
 writer of the Scribleriud [Mr. Cambridge] 
 gives a ludicrous example ot a simile built 
 upon fiction : — 
 
 Thus have I seen in Araby the blest 
 A phoenix couch’d upon tier funeral nest; 
 
 a sight which neither the author, nor any 
 one else, ever did see. Obvious as the ab- 
 surdity here is, the following passage in 
 Milton’s Paradise Lost, though written quite 
 in the spirit of that divine poet, stands upon 
 the very same ground ol censure 
 
 * As when a "lyffon thro' the wilderness 
 With winged course, o’er hill or rooury dale 
 Pursues tlie Arim.ispiati, who by stealth 
 Has from his wakeful custody purloined 
 The guarded gold.’ ” 
 
 Aikin's Essay, p. 29. 
 
 Poets who commit these violations of 
 truth and nature, endeavour to defend thern- 
 selves from censure by relerring to what is 
 termed poetic license ; “ but if we reflect,'” 
 as Dr. Aikin observes, “ on the danger of 
 suffering falsehood and error habitually to 
 intrude even in matters of the slightest im- 
 portance, we shall scarcely give our assent 
 to a license, as unnecessary us it is hazard- 
 ous.” (Essay, p. 25.) But in these days, 
 when natural history is being so much dis- 
 seminated, particularly through the medium 
 of perdioicals, from the Magazine of Natural 
 
 History, the Magazine of Zoology and Botany, 
 the Analyst, and the Naturalist, down to the 
 cheaper works, as the Mirror, the Penny Ma- 
 gazine, the /Fee/cly Visiter, and numerous 
 others, there can be no excuse for the poet 
 who repeats the various errors which are so 
 great a blen»i<h in the poetry of the ancients. 
 The repetition of such errors must either 
 arise from an incapacity for original observa- 
 tion, or the existence of a bad taste, — a taste 
 that delights in ignorance and therelore, 
 despises truth. 
 
 “To a poet,” says Dr. Johnson, “no- 
 thing can be useless. Whatever is beautiful, 
 and whatever is dreadful, must be familiar to 
 his imagination : he must be conversant with 
 till that is awfully vast, or elegantly little. 
 The plants of the garden, the animals of the 
 wood, the minerals of the earth, and the 
 meteors of the sky, must all concur to store 
 his mind with inexhaustible variety ; for 
 every idea is useful for the enforcement or 
 decoration of moral or religious truth ; and 
 he who knows most will have most power of 
 diversifying his scenes, and gratilying his 
 reader with remote allusions and unexpected 
 instruction.” 
 
 Pennant very justly observes, that the pur- 
 suit of natural history “ would become no 
 order of men better than our Clergy, as they 
 are (or ought to be) the best qualified, and 
 the most stationary part of the community ; 
 and as this is a mixed species of study, (when 
 considered its physico-lheology,) it is there- 
 fore particularly pertinent to their profes- 
 sion.” And Mr Loudon says, “it would 
 be altogether superfluous to insist on the 
 suitableness of the study of natural history 
 for a clergyman residing in the country ; or 
 to draw a comparison between the effects 
 which this taste, and that for sporting, 
 which was formerly prevalent among this 
 class, are likely to have on the happiness of 
 the parishioners. Compared even with a 
 taste for classical studies, for drawing, paint- 
 ing, or any other branch of the fine arts, a 
 taste for natural history in a clergyman has 
 great advantages, both as respects himself 
 and others. It is superior in a social point 
 of view, even to a taste for gardening. The 
 sportsman often follows his amusements to 
 the great annoyance of his parishioners ; 
 the horticulturist exercises his gentler pur- 
 suit within his garden ; and the classical or 
 in-door student of any kind, secludes himself 
 in his closet or his laboratory ; but the natu- 
 ralist is abroad in the fields, investigating 
 the habits of birds, insects, or plants, not 
 only invigorating his health, but affording 
 ample opportunity for frequent intercourse 
 with his parishioners. In this way, their 
 reciprocal acquaintance is cultivated, and 
 the clergyman at last becomes an adviser and 
 friend, as well as a spiritual teacher.” — Ma- 
 gazine of Natural History, vol. viii . — Preface. 
 
394 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 EX TRACIS 04 LE1IERSBT MADAME temptation, and finally temper his mind so 
 CAMPAN TO HER SON. as to give it the strength and solidity of the 
 
 t* * * * * hardest metal. All this cannot be effected 
 
 When first a beloved child, releasing itself in a sedentary life. It is a man’s business 
 
 Irom its nurse s arms, ventures its little tot- 
 tering steps on the softest carpet, or the 
 smoothest grassplot, the poor mother scarcely 
 breathes; she imagines that these first efforts 
 of nature are attended with every danger to 
 the object most dear to her. Fond mother, 
 calm your anxious fears ! Your infant cun, 
 at the worst, receive only a slight hurt, 
 which, under your tender care, will speedily 
 be healed. Reserve your alarms, your heart- 
 beatings, your prayers to Providence, for 
 the moment when your son enters upon the 
 scene of the world to select a character, 
 which, if sustained with dignity, judgment, 
 and feeling, will render him universally es- 
 teemed and approved ; or to degrade himself 
 by filling one of these low and contemptible 
 parts fit for the vilest actors in the drama of 
 life. Tremble at the moment when your 
 child has to choose between the nigged road 
 of industry and integrity, leading straight to 
 honour and happiness, and the smooth and 
 flowery path which descends, through indo- 
 lence and pleasure, to the gulph of vice and 
 misery. It is then that the voice of a parent, 
 or of some faithful friend, must direct him 
 to the right course. But good counsel, 
 reiterated constantly in the same tone, may 
 prove wearisome to his ear ; while a thousand 
 varied voices, melodious as those of the syrens, 
 are tempting him to launch into the career 
 which must prove fatal to his happiness. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 Learn to know the value of money. This 
 is a most essential point. The want of eco- 
 nomy leads to the decay of powerful empires, 
 as well as of private families. Louis XVI. 
 perished on the scaffold, for a deficit of fifty 
 millions. There would have been no debt, 
 no assemblies of the people, no revolution, 
 no loss of the sovereign authority, no tragical 
 death, but for this fatal deficit. States are 
 ruined through the mismanagement of mil- 
 lions, and private persons become bankrupts, 
 and end their lives in misery, through the 
 mismanagement of crowns worth six livres. 
 
 * * * Render me an account 
 
 of the expenditure of your money, not view- 
 ing me iu the light of a rigid preceptress, 
 but as a friend who wishes to accustom you 
 to the useful habit of accounting to yourself. 
 
 * * * * * * 
 Happy the woman, who in old age can 
 
 say: “ I am the mother of a worthy man, a 
 useful member of society ; and he, in his 
 turn, will be the parent of a line of offspring 
 who will never disgrace the honourable name 
 they inherit.” * =1= * 
 
 A man should seek to gain information by 
 travelling ; he must encounter and endure 
 misfortune ; contend against danger and 
 
 to direct, to form, and to defend his fortune ; 
 it is a woman’s task to obey, and to attend 
 to her family and domestic affairs. The 
 qualities suited to the female sex are so un- 
 fitted to men, that their utter condemnation 
 is pronounced by the term effeminate. 
 ****** 
 Praise God, my dear, instead of uttering 
 complaints : for without any feeling of bigotry, 
 this habit of addresing our prayers and thanks- 
 givings to a Power superior to any on earth, 
 tends to elevate and enlarge the mind, to 
 support us under affliction, and to render us 
 humble and unassuming in prosperity. 
 
 Let me impress upon you the importance 
 of attentive application to business ; for that 
 affords certain consolation, and is a security 
 against lassitude, and the vices which idle- 
 ness creates. * * * 
 
 It is my intention to send you to England, 
 where new manners, a new country, and a 
 language which you cannot fail to admire, 
 will afford inexhaustible sources of pleasure 
 to you. * * * * 
 
 Be cautious how you form connexions ; 
 and hesitate not to break them off' on the 
 first proposition to adopt any course which 
 your affectionate mother warns you to avoid, 
 as fatal to your real happiness, and to the 
 attainment of that respect and esteem which 
 it should be your ambition to enjoy. 
 
 My dear son, be a man, and steadily pur- 
 sue the straight and certain course which leads 
 to honour and happiness. Itis not a smiling 
 path; but at the journey’s end every reward 
 and indemnity will await you. On the other 
 hand, the career of vice is full of seductive 
 charms. It is strewed with flowers, and 
 smoothed by the fatal illusions of indolence 
 and luxury ; while the smiles of beauty, and 
 the deceitful favours of fortune, combine to 
 intoxicate the unwary victim, and to impel 
 him onward to the brink of the precipice 
 whence he is hurled headlong, never to rise 
 again. * * * * 
 
 Great fortunes are amassed by little sav- 
 ings ; and poverty, as well as ignorance, are 
 occasioned by the extravagant waste of money 
 and time. * * * * 
 
 My affection for you, my dear Henry, is 
 still as actively alive as when, in your infancy, 
 
 I patiently removed every little stone from a 
 certain space in my garden, lest, when yon 
 first ran alone, you might fall and hurt your 
 face on the pebbles. But the snares now 
 spread beneath your steps are far more dan- 
 gerous. * * * * 
 
 Probably, my dear Henry, I am the first 
 governess who ever ventured to say to a young 
 girl of fifteen, Miss, you are handsome, 
 very handsome. I choose to be the first to 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 395 
 
 address ibis complement to 'you, because I 
 shnll add to it the assurauce your beauty will 
 soon decay. In the duration of human life, 
 beauty lasts no longer than the bloom ot the 
 rose, which we see fading in the evening, 
 while vve regret that we did not pluck it in the 
 morning. You are handsome, I say again, 
 but 1 add, with equal truth, that you are silly, 
 vain, giddy, ignorant, and sumewhat unfeel- 
 ing. Remember that all these faults, instead 
 of vanishing in a few years, like your beauty, 
 will increase with age, and be a torment to 
 yourself, and to all connected with you, when 
 your face will not retain a single handsome 
 feature.” 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 “ You are clever, my dear Henry, very cle- 
 ver. But let not this flatter you. Talent is 
 almost always a fatal gift, when unguided 
 by prudence and industry. When it escapes 
 from the controul of reason and virtue, it is a 
 flame which, destroying every thing within 
 its reach, and the thick smoke which it emits, 
 distorts every object, and prevents us from 
 seeing the road to happiness, it the flame be 
 not employed to kindle the torch ot reason, 
 which can alone guide and direct us. Liber- 
 tines, spendthrifts and gamesters, are almost 
 all clever. My father used to say, that in 
 France, talent was to be found every where ; 
 hut that, like a bill of exchange, it was of no 
 value unless indorsed by reason.” 
 
 Conscience is one of the most extraordinary 
 circumstances of our moral existence ; and the 
 attentive consideration of it, is alone sufficient 
 to check impiety. It is a divine sentiment, 
 which always acts in a way distinct and 
 separate from our passions : it cannot sub- 
 due them, unaided by reason ; but it never 
 fails to appeal to man, even at the moment 
 when he is influenced by the delirium ot 
 * * * 
 
 passion. . . 
 
 The pious moralist contents himselt with 
 exhorting us to listen to the voice of con- 
 science: thus we say, conscience speaks, 
 and the expression is perfectly correct. W hat 
 must he the power of that inward voice, 
 when it is heard by the murderer, about to 
 imbrue his hands in the blood ot his “fellow- 
 creature; or, when it appeals to the profligate, 
 who, with the help of a few pieces ot ivory, 
 would sacrifice his own and his wife’s for- 
 tune, and deprive himself of the means of 
 educating and maintaining his young family. 
 Conscience never leaves the guilty at rest, 
 though their crimes be unknown to all, save 
 themselves. It banishes sleep from the down 
 pillow of the tyrant ; and not even the still- 
 ness of his curtained couch and carpeted 
 chamber, can lull him to repose. Tranquillity 
 of conscience eases the anguish of the mail 
 unjustly accused, and gives him fortitude to 
 bear unmerited punishment. 
 
 * ... -l. -I* ok 
 
 |2clu 
 
 The Translations of Goethe’s Faust. — With 
 twenty-nine Engravings on Steel, by 
 Moritz Retszch. Black and Armstrong. 
 
 A new translation of this literary miracle 
 has just appeared, which will, we think, throw 
 into partial or complete oblivion most of the 
 attempts to depicture the mind of Goethe. 
 
 The author of the recent version is Mr. J . 
 Birch, well known as a profound German 
 scholar. So far, the author has no mean 
 advantage, we opine, over those who, in order 
 to translate, have begun by studying the 
 language ! Such school-boy exercises can at 
 no time lay claim to any sustained reputation. 
 But, then, German is so little known in this 
 country, that he who is best entitled to en- 
 comium is by no means sure of his reward. 
 It is fitting, then, that those who can appre- 
 ciate, should speak out boldly, and with an 
 entire absence of prejudiced reserve, when a 
 new attempt at developing the mind ot the 
 might/magician is undertaken by one whom 
 a “ foregone conclusion” would shadow forth 
 as competent to his task. 
 
 Mr. Birch, we are informed from good 
 authority, spent the earlier part of his life in 
 Germany ; so that, in translating, he feels 
 like a native of that country, while he speaks 
 like an Englishman. He is, moreover, an. 
 elegant classic, and, what is of greater value, 
 (because, in the present instance, move essen- 
 tial than all the rest,)— a Poet. 
 
 We are not among the number of those 
 who, willing to conceal an incompetency to 
 the task of criticism, pick out level passages 
 in a work rife of sublimity and pathos, in order 
 to obtrude with a sneer some rhythmical de- 
 formity; no, we despise the soul which can 
 lend itself to such malignant evasion. How 
 easy would it be to degrade Shakspeave, (were 
 he an aspirant,) by holding up as ample cha- 
 racteristics of his style, the common-life pas- 
 sages of the Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, 
 Troilus’, Anthony, &c. ! 
 
 We can assert that, wherever such passages 
 occur in Goethe, Mr. Birch has rendered them 
 word for word and measure for measure : a 
 remark which will apply equally to the lyrical 
 portions, and those ot sustained and magnifi- 
 cent soliloquy. He is, in truth, most deeply 
 imbued with Goethe’s mode of thought ; and 
 therefore it is that, in this translation, is ex- 
 cited all that varied and intense interest 
 which so charms in the original. 
 
 We do not intend entering into a critical 
 analysis of a poem second to none, for this 
 labour has fallen into more accomplished 
 hands; but we may, without presumption, 
 assert, that iho-^e who would behold “ Faust” 
 made intelligibly English, will do well to 
 consult the translation under review. We 
 
396 
 
 THK MIRROR. 
 
 can further observe, that the work is superbly 
 printed and “ got up,” and is embellished 
 with a set of designs by the celebrated 
 Retszch, charming in character, and engraven 
 with wonderful delicacy and spirit by Mr. 
 John Brain. 
 
 In confirmation generally of what we have 
 said, we quote, first, a few lines from the 
 he oitiful soliloquy of Faust, after the meeting 
 with Margaret in the summer-house : — 
 
 A WOOD AND CAVEliN. 
 faust. (Alone.) 
 
 “ Great Spirit ! thou guv’st me, — gav’st me all 
 That I did ask of thee. — ’Twas not without result 
 That thou in flame did'st manifest thy presence. 
 Thou gav'st me, splendid Nature, for a kingdom, 
 With power to feel and to enjoy her beauties. 
 
 No cold astounding view did st thou vouchsafe ; 
 
 But kind indulgence, to dive deeply 
 Into the recesses of her treasury. 
 
 As into 
 
 The bosom of a friend, to gaze and all behold 1" 
 
 Kow exquisitely tender, how prodigal of 
 the true poetry of the heart, is the last line of 
 the above passage ! — The simplicity of Mar- 
 garet's character is most felicitously preserved. 
 — That moment of passion in the garden after 
 she has plucked oft’ the petals of a flower to 
 discover whether he loves her, 
 
 “ He loves me, — loves me not." 
 is purely Goethe; and, need we say, most 
 subduitigly sweet. 
 
 FAUST. 
 
 Dost understand the meaning of, — He loves thee ? — 
 (He takes both her hands in his ) 
 maroaret. (With tremour.) 
 
 I fear to understand ! , 
 
 FAUST. 
 
 Oh tremble not ! but let this look, this pressure 
 Of my hands more truly and eloquently say. 
 
 What is.that passion which is beyond the power 
 Of words to convey ! — 
 
 That languishing sensibility ! — that holy rapture 1 
 
 • # « * * 
 
 Whose end would be madd’ning dismay. 
 
 No, — no end! — no end!’ — 
 
 We now conclude with one brief remark, 
 which we make only after very mature con- 
 sideration: — Mr. Birch lias done lor Gog. he, 
 in English, what Schlegel, in German, has 
 done tor William Shakspeare — lie has given 
 us the honest translation of a brother Poet. 
 
 anif Helenas. 
 
 MR. N. DUNN’S MUSEUM OF CHINESE 
 CURIOSITIES, AT PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 [We gave in the two last numbers, a des- 
 scription of the Museum of French Arts and 
 Manufactures at Paris ; and we have now 
 the pleasure of presenting our readers with 
 interesting particulars of the Museum of Arts 
 and Manufactures of the Chinese, at Phila- 
 delphia, which we trust will be acceptable to 
 them, developing, as they do, much hidden 
 knowledge of those extraordinary people.] 
 
 Europeans have never succeeded in trans- 
 porting a perfect or even a very respectable 
 collection of Chinese curiosities. Those 
 impressions which would be received by a 
 resident who had enjoyed the rare privilege 
 of unrestrained intercourse with the better 
 classes of Chinamen, have been denied to 
 foreigners. It has been too much the cus- 
 tom of the natives and their visitors, mutu- 
 ally to despise each other, and for both to 
 seek lor little further communication than 
 that which the nature of their commercial 
 transactions demands. The consequence has 
 been, that the articles exported have con- 
 tinued to be principally those only which 
 European and American every-day life have 
 required ; while strangers have limited their 
 purchases to the common articles made to 
 suit a foreign demand and taste, and their 
 intercourse to the classes of natives who are 
 appointed by government to serve or to 
 watch over them. A few streets of the 
 "outside” city of Canton are generally 
 visited, and the stores in the vicinity of 
 “ Hog-lane,” a place frequented by foreign 
 sailors, are ransacked for the well-known 
 manufactures ol gew-gaws, successively car- 
 ried oft’ by every new comer, but possessing 
 little novelty in any sett-port. The interior 
 of the City of Canton even is a sealed hook ; 
 how much more then lhe interior of China 
 itself. This being the case, it became an 
 interesting problem, as the Chinamen refuse 
 to admit, us in, how it would be possible to 
 bring out what it wtts so difficult to get a 
 sight of; in oilier words, as foreigners were 
 not permitted to inspect the workshops, the 
 houses, private apartments, and manufac- 
 tories of the empire, what was the next best 
 thing lhat could be done to enable those out- 
 side lhe walls, and tit home, to become ac- 
 quainted with the domestic affairs and tastes 
 of these recluses. Certainly little could be 
 expected from the natives, unless other me- 
 thods than those heretofore practiced could 
 be adopted. 
 
 Nathan Dunn, Esq., of Philadelphia, who 
 had reflected much upon this subject, and 
 who, in the course of the very successful 
 prosecution of his business at Canton, had 
 learned to respect the ingenuity, and when 
 called forth, the intelligence of the numerous 
 Chinese with whom he was daily in contact, 
 happily conceived the idea of transporting 
 to his native shores, every thing that wtts 
 characteristic or rare, whether in the natural 
 history, or the natural and artificial curiosi- 
 ties and manufactures, no matter how costly 
 they might be. And now came efficiently 
 to his aid, those requisites that had been 
 but too frequently wanting in the officers of 
 the East India Company, or their agents, 
 who had made the attempt to procure such 
 a collection, hut had failed. Mr. Dunn, who, 
 it will be admitted by every one on the spot, 
 had conducted himself toward all classes in 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 397 
 
 a manner to win their esteem and confidence, 
 and to whose house and table were intro- 
 duced so many of the most distinguished 
 officers of government, either temporarily or 
 permanently at Canton, soon discovered that 
 it was in his power to obtain favours not 
 usually granted to strangers. One after 
 another he procured, either by purchase or 
 as presents, those rare and costly articles 
 constituting his collection : how many of 
 these -Are perfect novelties even to thousands 
 who have visited China, let those decide 
 who have an opportunity of doing so. For 
 one, Mr. Dunri is free to say, that but lor 
 the insight thus obtained, he should have 
 remained us ignorant of the subject as other 
 travellers. It is with a view of imparting a 
 portion of this satisfaction, that we venture to 
 extract the following interesting particulars, 
 as given in Dr. Si /liman's American Journal 
 of Science anil Arts, No. 72. 
 
 Without further preface, we shall proceed 
 to notice very briefly some of the peculiar 
 features of this novel exhibition, enumerating 
 a very small portion of the contents ot the 
 three hundred cases from which it has been 
 now for the first time unpacked. The lollow- 
 ing are the principal groups. 
 
 The Entrance Saloon, of China work, 
 forms a vestibule, through the centre ol which 
 you enter the great saloon, one hundred and 
 sixty feet in leng h, by sixty-three in width, 
 and twenty-four feet in height, with a dou- 
 ble colonnade; to the right and left of which 
 are the numerous cases containing specimens 
 of all that is rare, curious, or common, to be 
 procured in the celestial empire. This screen 
 is such as is common among the wealthy 
 Chinese, in partitioning off a very large sa- 
 loon from the remainder of the great ground 
 floor of their houses. It is richly gilt, and 
 ornamented with Chinese paintings on silk, 
 inserted in the panels ; and is mounted above 
 with small square gilt apertures; in these lat- 
 ter are inserted paintings of boats and gor- 
 geous flowers. The screen forms a beautilul 
 termination to this end of the room ; the full 
 effect bursts upon the eye of the visitor alter 
 passing the folding door. Hours, nay, days 
 and weeks, may be profitably employed in 
 examining the details within this magnifi- 
 cent saloon, which brings the most populous 
 nation of Asia at once before the view of the 
 spectator. 
 
 Accurate Likenesses in Clay. — The visiter 
 is first attracted by the accurate and charac- 
 teristic whole size Chinese figures of various 
 rank, from the mandarins to the cooleys, 
 from women of distinction, to those sculling 
 their boats on the rivers. These are in num- 
 ber seventy or eighty, and were made by a 
 very experienced artist in this line, from liv- 
 ing subjects. The material of the faces and 
 hands is a prepared substance, so well adapted 
 
 to the operation of moulding, as to take the 
 impression perfectly and retain it perma- 
 nently ; the faces are coloured to nature, 
 mounted with hair, &c , and each presents a 
 speaking countenance in a style of art per- 
 fectly novel in this country or Europe. These 
 figures are neatly ai ranged in groups, arrayed 
 in their appropriate costumes, some of them 
 extremely rich, while others exhibit the 
 working and every-day dress of the lower 
 orders. 
 
 The effect of this department is to exhibit 
 to the spectator the inhabitants of China as 
 they really exist. Great care was taken in 
 procuring the likenesses, and about three 
 years of the time of the proprietor were occu- 
 pied in bringing them to perfection ; his head 
 carpenter, and other workmen about the fac- 
 tories, were pointed out to Mr. D., and many 
 conspicuous characters of China street, &c., 
 will be recognized at once by those who have 
 been to Canton. Bearers of a sedan chair, 
 itself a perfect specimen in all its parts of 
 ornament and utility, are in the act of carry- 
 ing a native gentleman, accompanied by his 
 pipe-bearer and footman. 
 
 Porcelain and Earthenware Manufac- 
 ture. — In this department, endeavours have 
 been successfully made to procure the best 
 specimens of all the most expensive manu- 
 factures of the country, embracing several 
 very ancient and highly esteemed articles. 
 There are also those articles in common use 
 for domestic purposes, to ornament grounds, 
 fish ponds, or used as flower stands, seats, &c. 
 A very interesting fact will be developed by 
 this section, showing that the art of porce- 
 lain manufacture lias been on the retrograde 
 for the last century or two; it will also serve 
 to show, that many of the most ornamental 
 and beautiful specimens are rarely, if ever, 
 exported. Formerly, the emperors patronized 
 the porcelain manufacture by very high pre- 
 miums and extensive orders ; the art has now 
 dwindled to supplying commercial and do- 
 mestic wants. There are here many hundred 
 jars, vases, pipe-stands, and various services 
 used by the Chinese, differing materially 
 from those exported. The specimens of ware 
 cracked on the surface by age, are interesting 
 and costly. There must be several thousand 
 pieces of fine China, including the thin egg- 
 shell cup with its lettered inscriptions, octa- 
 gon pipe-stands, three or four feet in height, 
 inscribed landmarks, tile work, screens, &c. 
 &c., in very numerous patterns ; affording us 
 “ barbarians” new ideas on the subject of 
 their manufactures, and probably new pat- 
 terns for our artists. 
 
 Agricultural and other Instruments. — We 
 notice among the agricultural instruments 
 the very crude plough, that is drawn by the 
 buffalo with his simple yoke and rope traces ; 
 the harrow, differing very materially from 
 that of our country, is one of the accompani- 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 398 
 
 ments. There are forks, rakes, hoes, axes, 
 shovels, spades of wood faced with iron for 
 the sake of economy, &c. ; a complete set of 
 carpenter’s and joiner’s, or cabinet maker’s 
 tools ; of the superiority of these over our 
 own, we cannot say much. There is a na- 
 tive shoe-maker’s shop complete; a black- 
 smith’s anvil, his curious bellows, &c., com- 
 prising the complete accoutrements of the 
 travelling smith : the entire shop of the am- 
 bulatory barbar, his clumsy, short razor, 
 cases, &c. &c. The musical instruments of 
 the Chinese, also figure in full among the 
 curiosities. Castings of iron of very great 
 beauty, consisting of pots, kettles, and other 
 cooking utensils of universal use, and which, 
 unlike our own of the same metal, may be 
 mended at pleasure as easily as our own tin 
 vessels. 
 
 Here is a study of Chinese manufactures 
 perfectly novel to an American, who will be 
 surprised to find that the most simple opera- 
 tion which lie has been taught to believe can 
 be performed only by an instrument of a cer- 
 tain form, is equally well executed by another 
 of a totally different figure ; the flat-iron, for 
 instance, is more like our chafing-dish than 
 what we employ for smoothing linen. We 
 are amused to see the New England patent 
 mouse-trap, that has been used in China for 
 ages. There are gongs, bells, metallic mir- 
 rors, and articles under this head which no- 
 thing short of a most copious descriptive 
 catalogue would embrace. 
 
 Models of Boats. — The models of boats 
 forma striking feature of the scene; first, 
 we have the gorgeous flower boat with its 
 numerous decorations, various furnished 
 apartments of comfort and luxury, and 
 painted and adorned in the peculiar style of 
 the Asiatics. 
 
 Of the canal boat there are three models of 
 different sizes, of such as are used in convey- 
 ing the articles of their produce, tea, salt, grain, 
 and manufactured articles, to and from the dis- 
 tant pointsof the extensive empire, and inload- 
 ing and unloading foreign ships. They are 
 remarkable for strength and durability. 
 
 The man-of-war boat. — These tidewaiters’ 
 boats, or cutlers, are always cruising about 
 with the police-officers, to keep order among 
 the numerous residents on the water, and to 
 enforce the revenue laws. 
 
 The san-pans, or family boats, in which 
 it is computed about 200,000 persons con- 
 stantly reside on the waters before the city of 
 Canton and its suburbs ; they are kept as 
 clean as a milk-pail, and contain entire fami- 
 lies, who are born and live to the end of their 
 days on the river. This great city of boats 
 presents a remarkable aspect ; through them 
 it would be difficult to navigate, were it not 
 that the fleet is arranged in streets, and at 
 night lighted up. There are also other boats ; 
 each has been made by reducing the dimen- 
 
 sions to the propel - scale ; in every particular, 
 even to the employment of the same descrip- 
 tions of wood, the oars, sculls, rudders, set- 
 ting-poles, cordage, &c., are fac-similes of those 
 in actual use. We are not sure that a Chinese 
 canal boat, of a thousand years ago, might 
 not be advantageously transferred to our own 
 recently introduced water-ways. 
 
 [To be concluded in our next .] 
 
 BRITISH INSTITUTION 
 
 FOR PROMOTING THE FINE ARTS IN THE 
 UNITED KINGDOM. 
 
 The British Institution was first opened 
 to the public on the 18th of January, 1806; 
 and the liberal patronage bestowed upon the 
 exhibition of painting and sculpture, encou- 
 raged the founders to persevere in their laud- 
 able efforts to establish an annual display of 
 the works of living artists. 
 
 In 1807 the number of exhibitors amounted 
 to one hundred and seventeen, and included 
 most of the best artists of the time : among 
 them appeared the names of Sir William 
 Beechy, Northcote, Nollekens, Opie, Flax- 
 man, Benjamin West, P. R A., Shee, West- 
 all, Stothard, Lawrence, Reinagle, &c. Three 
 hundred and ten works were exhibited, and 
 ninety-three were sold. The sum total re- 
 ceived from purchasers was 3,924/. 14s. 
 Among the names of the purchasers were 
 those of the Marquis of Stafford, the Earl of 
 Dartmouth, Lord Kinnaird, the Earl of Car- 
 lisle, the Right Hon. Charles Long, the 
 Duke ol Beaufort, Thomas Hope, Esq., &c. 
 The Marquis of Stafford alone bought fifteen 
 works of art. 
 
 From 1806 up to the present time the 
 Institution has met with almost unvaried 
 success, and may be considered to have 
 advanced, in an eminent degree, the inter- 
 ests of the fine arts in the United Kingdom. 
 During the last thirty years, public taste has 
 improved, and a love for refinement, emana- 
 ting from the contemplation of pictorial ex- 
 cellence, has become widely diffused through- 
 out the country. 
 
 The directors have, for some years past, 
 formed annual exhibitions of the works of 
 the old masters, judiciously selected from 
 most of the private collections in England. 
 These grand displays of continental art com- 
 mence after the close of the modern exhibi- 
 tions, and generally afford the highest grati- 
 fication to connoisseurs and men of taste. 
 Some interesting collections have been offered 
 to public inspection, consisting entirely of the 
 productions of distinguished English masters. 
 
 In (813 an exhibition was formed, from the 
 collections of the nobility, of the works of Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds. The number amounted to 
 one hundred and forty-one, and comprised 
 most of the finest productions of that great 
 artist. Ti e directors, however, regretted that 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 399 
 
 there were some other very fine specimens of 
 the master which, from distance or other 
 circumstances, they had not been able to 
 obtain. They were exhibited in honour of 
 the memory of Sir Joshua, and for the im- 
 provement of British art. 
 
 In the following year a fine collection of 
 the works of Hogarth, Richard Wilson, 
 Gainsborough, and Zoffani, was exhibited at 
 the Institution. The Rake’s Progress in 
 eight pictures, Marriage-d-la - mode in six, 
 and several others by Hogarth. There were 
 seventy-three portraits and landscapes by 
 Gainsborough, and eighty-seven pictures by 
 Wilson. 
 
 An exhibition, formed exclusively from the 
 works of Sir Thomas Lawrence, was opened 
 in 1830, soon after his lamented decease. 
 
 G. W. N. 
 
 EASTERN PENITENTIARY, 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 The Eastern Penitentiary, which is situated 
 about two miles from the city of Philadel- 
 phia, stands upon an elevated site, and occu- 
 pies an area of ten acres, which are en- 
 closed by a quadrangular wall, thirty ieet in 
 height, at each angle of which there is a 
 tower, erected originally to overlook the 
 establishment ; but, although they are not at 
 present used, they add greatly to the beauty 
 of the structure. The front is six hundred 
 and seventy feet in length, and rests on an 
 elevated basement, or terrace. ; the principal 
 building in which is two hundred ieet in 
 length, with two projecting towers, fifty feet 
 in height, that are connected by a curtain, 
 surmounted by parapets, which is supported 
 by pointed arches, and finished with embra- 
 sures. The entrance is an enormous gate- 
 way, at the top of which is a portcullis of 
 massive grated bars of iron. The door is 
 twenty-seven feet high, fifteen feet wide, and 
 studded with large rivets : the entrance is 
 surmounted by an octagonal tower eighty feet 
 in height. On each side of the principal 
 building are wing walls, which appear to be 
 poitions of the main edifice, being pierced 
 with blank windows, narrow, and pointed at 
 the top; the top of the walls are likewise 
 finished in a castellated manner. — On enter- 
 ing through the gate there is a paved way for 
 carriages, three hundred feet wide, with a 
 trottoir on each side that leads to the centre 
 building, forty feet in diameter, which is 
 situated in the middle of the area, and is the 
 converging point fur each radius of cells: 
 from the centre point of this building may be 
 seen the whole range of the building appro- 
 priated for the prisoners. — Under the centre 
 building is a place that was formerly used as 
 a reservoir for supplying the establishment 
 with water; but the ground-floor being of 
 nearly an equal height with Fair Mount, from 
 
 whence the water was derived, it was aban- 
 doned, and is at present applied to the pur- 
 pose of warming the prison. — The cells of 
 the three radii on the eastern side, containing 
 a hundred each, are one story high, eleven 
 feet nine inches long, and seven feet six 
 inches wide; and have a yard attached, eigh- 
 teen feet long and eight feet wide, surrounded 
 by a wall twelve feet high : the other four 
 radii are of an improved construction, being 
 two stories in height, and about three feet 
 larger. The partition-walls between the cells 
 are eighteen inches thick. The walls next to 
 the corridor, or passage, are of the same 
 thickness, and the external walls are two feet 
 three inches. The entrance to the cells, in 
 the three ranges first erected, is through the 
 yard ; but this being found inconvenient, the 
 entrance to the four blocks last built is 
 through a double door, one of which is of 
 grated iron and the other of wood, and are of 
 the thickness of the wall from each other, 
 and open into the corridor. The establish- 
 ment is warmed by means of hpt water circu- 
 lating through small pipes, which extend to 
 the different parts of the building. 
 
 W. G. C. 
 
 THE BAROMETER. 
 
 We cannot reach the higher regions of the 
 atmosphere, but the barometer, in some re- 
 spects, tells us what goes on to the very top ; 
 for it is like having in a balance a column of 
 air the whole height of the atmosphere. As 
 to currents in the atmosphere, we can judge 
 of their direction only as high as the clouds 
 reach. A low state of the barometer por- 
 tends a storm or an earthquake. Before the 
 great earthquake at Lisbon, the barometer 
 sunk nearly an inch below the mean height. 
 When the barometer is very low, the tides are 
 unusually high. If the barometer fall during 
 a frost, a thaw generally comes on ; and if 
 during a great heat in summer, we may ex- 
 pect a thunder-storm. In every well-regulated 
 ship, there is a thermometer ; and it has saved 
 many a vessel. In the tropics, at a distance 
 from land, a fall of one-eighth of an inch in- 
 dicates a change of weather. Dr. Arnott 
 relates an interesting case on this subject. 
 The barometer on board a ship fell at a time 
 when there was no other sign of a storm ; 
 and had it not been for the little tube of mer- 
 cury, not one person on board the vessel 
 would have survived to tell the tale. 
 
 A rise of the barometer generally announces 
 fair weather. If the latter take place imme- 
 diately, it is probable it will not continue 
 long. The theory of the barometer is very far 
 from being well understood. Some say its 
 hourly changes are owing to the influence of 
 the sun on the atmosphere ; but these changes 
 take place during the whole twenty-four hours. 
 It has been observed that, in many countries, 
 
THK MIRROR. 
 
 400 
 
 great quantities of carbonic acid are given out 
 from chasms in the earth. At one place, more 
 than six hundred thousand gallons are given 
 out iu the course of the day. These variable 
 quantities of carbonic acid (which is a very 
 heavy gas) must cause the weight of the at- 
 mosphere to vary at different times. In order 
 to get the mean height of the barometer for 
 a day, take the height at nine o’clock in the 
 morning, and tit three in the afternoon; add 
 the heights together ; and divide by two. If 
 not particular, you need take it only once a 
 day, — at noon. N. II. 
 
 Cfjc ^atijerer. 
 
 When the body of Major Andifc was taken 
 up, a few years since, from its place of inter- 
 ment near the Hudson, for the purpose of be- 
 ing removed to England, it was found that 
 the skull was closely encircled by a net-work, 
 formed by the roots of a small tree, which 
 had been planted near his head. H. M. 
 
 The Times journal says, — There is a great 
 deal of poetry in the butter trade, as we learn 
 from a Providence grocer, who advertises a 
 lot of a prepossessing colour, and sweet as 
 morning roses newly washed with dew.” 
 
 Best Jge for Mutton— The sheep is in its 
 best condition, as food, when about tive years 
 old ; an age which it is almost never allowed 
 to attain unless when intended for the private 
 use of the owner, and not for market. It is 
 then sapid, full-flavoured, and firm, without 
 being tough ; and the fat has become hard. 
 At three years old, as commonly procured from 
 the butcher, it is well tasted, but is by no 
 means comparable to that of five years. It 
 younger than three years, it is deficient in 
 flavour, and its flesh is pale. Meat which is 
 half mutton and half lamb is very unpalatable 
 food. M. Ude says, “ Always choose mutton 
 of a dark colour and marble-like appearance.” 
 
 Women.— Women, with their bright ima- 
 ginations, tender hearts, and pure minds, 
 create for themselves idols, on whom they 
 lavish their worship, making their hearts 
 temples, in which the false god is adored. 
 But, alas ! the object of their best and fondest 
 feelings generally too soon prove to be of base 
 clay, instead of pure gold ; and though pity 
 would fain intervene, to vail its defects, or 
 even to cherish it in despite of them, virtue, 
 reason, and justice, combine finally to destroy 
 it ; but in the dead, too often injure the fame in 
 which it was enshrined . — Lady Blessingtoti. 
 
 Judge's Salary . — In 1466, the salary of 
 Thos. Littleton, judge of the King’s Bench, 
 amounted to 138/. 13s. 4 d. modern money, be- 
 sides about 17/. 7s. for his fur gown, robes, &c. 
 
 Fraternal Liberality .— An orator at a recent 
 political meeting, is said to have thundered 
 forth this “ noble sentiment :” — “ Mr. Chair- 
 man, if I was a Siamese twin, and my brother 
 
 was ’totherside. I’d cut the rascal off.” — Over- 
 whelming applause. 
 
 Happiness.— Oar life, it is true, has its 
 bright and its dark hours, yet none are wholly 
 obscured, for when the sun of happiness is set, 
 the reflected moonlight of hope and memory 
 are still around us. 
 
 Zoological Gardens. — The gardens of the 
 Zoological Society in the Regent’s Park have 
 sustained another loss, in the fine female 
 ouran, which has been in their possession 
 upwards of eighteen months, and died on 
 Wednesday morning, June 8, 1839. 
 
 Magnanimity. — Of all virtues, magnani- 
 mity is the rarest. There are a hundred per- 
 sons for one who willingly acknowledges it 
 in another. When a man misses anything, 
 his first idea is that somebody has stolen it ; 
 though he ascertains, ninety-nine times in a 
 hundred, that the loss is from his own care- 
 lessness. 
 
 Money is so scarce in New Orleans that 
 when two dollars meet, their owners are 
 obliged to introduce them to each other, they 
 are such strangers. — New York Paper. 
 
 Chudleigh. — A curious discovery of a 
 range of caverns was made last week, in 
 Chudleigh Kock, inconsequence of a terrier 
 dog getting into a fissure in pursuit of a rab- 
 bit. The dog was heard at various times to 
 bark for more than a week, and as it was 
 almost impossible to extricate him, it was 
 attempted to destroy him by burning brim- 
 stone. On the 15th day after the dog’s 
 entombment, his moans were plainly heard 
 by many persons, when a further endeavour 
 was made in vain to extricate him. A lad, 
 on the following day had the courage, with 
 a rope affixed to him, and two lanterns, to 
 enter the chasms, and, after two hours, work- 
 ing a passage of 20 feet, he descended into a 
 dry chamber about 30 feet square, and 63 feet 
 below the opening, where he found the dog 
 dead, but still warm. From an aperture in 
 this cavern gushed a stream of air leading 
 into another cavern, which is supposed to be 
 still deeper, as the boy had not rope enough 
 to descend. This range of caverns is be- 
 neath those where Professor Buckland many 
 years since discovered some extraordinary 
 untedeluvian remains Exeter Gazette. 
 
 SOUND versus SENSE : 
 
 ( Fur the Mirror .) 
 
 ( Written beneath a portrait of Pope Pius VI .) 
 
 Alt popes should pious be — this pope is said 
 
 To have been pius botli alive and dead : 
 
 But, had he pious been, we could not hope, 
 
 Though pius living, he’d die pious pope ! 
 
 LONDON: Printed and published by J. LIMBIRD, 
 143, Strand, (near Somerset House) ; and sold by 
 all Boohsellers and Newsmen. — In PARIS, bn all 
 the Boohsellers. — In FRANCFORT, CHARLES 
 JUG EL. 
 
SOUTH METROPOLITAN CEMETERY, NORWOOD, SURREY. 
 
4f)2 THE MIRROR. 
 
 SOUTH METROPOLITAN CEMETERY, 
 
 NORWOOD, SURREY. 
 
 The circumstance of the public attention 
 having of late years been painfully excited 
 by the disclosures which have been made in 
 reference to the disgraceful state of the burial- 
 grounds of the metropolis and its vicinity, 
 gave rise to the establishment of the above 
 cemetery by the projectors, whose objects were 
 to correct the evil. 
 
 In carrying out these designs, their prin- 
 cipal aim has been to put within the reach of 
 the entire metropolitan and suburban popu- 
 lation, the power of availing themselves of 
 the proposed benefit ; and to the accomplish- 
 ment of this, they have felt that two impor- 
 tant objects were to be obtained, viz., to afford 
 the public space within an easy distance of 
 town, yet removed from a crowded population, 
 sufficient to meet their wants; and, secondly, 
 a reasonable rate of charge — both these ob- 
 jects the projectors may confidently say they 
 have effected. 
 
 As regards the space, the cemetery occu- 
 pies an area of 40 acres, and the act of Incor- 
 poration authorizes the proprietors to extend 
 it to 40 additional acres, if occasion should re- 
 quire. In selecting the present site the com- 
 pany have been singularly fortunate ; and it 
 may be safely stated, that no spot within so 
 short a distance from the metropolis could be 
 fixed upon in every way so well adapted for 
 the purpose. 
 
 In reference to the scale of charges, it will 
 be found on comparison with the generality 
 of the charges for interment in existing burial- 
 grounds, to be upon a reduced scale, and par- 
 ticularly it should be observed, that the exor- 
 bitant charges usually termed non parochial 
 dues will be altogether avoided. 
 
 While, however, utility, and the necessary 
 requisites of an undertaking of this descrip- 
 tion, have chiefly occupied the attention of 
 the proprietors, they have not exclusively 
 done so; from the commencement of the 
 works to their completion, no expense has 
 been spared in rendering this cemetery attrac- 
 tive as a work of art; and it is gratifying to 
 the projectors to learn, that the attention of 
 the public has already been arrested by the 
 skill and taste di-played by the artist in the 
 general arrangement of the grounds, and the 
 chaste and beautiful character of the archi- 
 tecture of the chapels and buildings. 
 
 The easy distance of tiiis cemetery from 
 the metropolis and its suburbs, renders it 
 acceptable to all their inhabitants. The na- 
 ture of the soil is such, that graves have been 
 dug to the depth of twenty-five feet without 
 the appearance of moisture. 
 
 A portion of the ground has been conse- 
 crated by the Bishop of the Diocese for the 
 use of the members ol the Established Church, 
 and an Episcopalian chaplain appointed ; — 
 another part has been allotted for persons 
 
 dissenting from the Establishment, and a dis- 
 senting minister has been appointed to offi- 
 ciate on their behalf— parties may, however, 
 have their own clergyman or minister. 
 
 We cannot close these remarks without 
 making the gratifying observation, that the 
 boundary-line, which distinguishes the con- 
 secrated from the unconsecrated portions of 
 the cemetery, is merely a pathway ; thus, 
 every invidious distinction has been avoided, 
 while the religious feeliugs of all have been 
 consulted. 
 
 THE SUN. 
 
 POETRY WRITTEN AND MELODY COMPOSED BY 
 ANDREW PARK. 
 
 ( For the Mirror.') 
 
 A glorious orb is tlie suu! 
 
 Who shall describe his flame? 
 
 Bright as when first from clians sprung, — 
 
 When all the new-born planets sung. 
 
 And gloom hid his head in shame ! 
 
 Ilis throne the empyrean sky ; — 
 
 His robes the red clouds furl’d. 
 
 The quenchless light of his eye 
 
 Is the soul of eacli mystic world. 
 
 A glorious orb is the suu ! — A glorious orb is the sun 1 
 Lo I in the crimson west 
 A molten sea lies there. 
 
 Purpling deep the vapoury breast 
 Of the travell'd clouds that calmly rest 
 On the wings of the dreaming air ! 
 
 Far in the East away— 
 
 Worlds their lamps may trim ; 
 
 What were their gloom if they 
 
 Received not their light from ? 
 
 A glorious orb is the sun 1 — A glorious orb is the sun ! 
 O with his rays to rise ! 
 
 One dazzling day for me. 
 
 In his chariot through ihe star-deck skies. 
 
 Where world after w oild flies, 
 
 In endless legions free ! 
 
 Away to lauds unknown. 
 
 Where mortal ue . r hatli been. 
 
 And sin hath never sown 
 
 Those seeds which grow so green ! 
 
 A glorious orb is the suu ! — A glorious orb is the sun ! 
 
 LOVE’S VISIONS. 
 
 (For the Mirror.) 
 
 How often do I, weary of tiie din and noise 
 Of this great city and its empty joys. 
 
 Sigh for some sequestered quiet vale. 
 
 Where peace abounds, and pleasures never fail. 
 
 But not alone would I retired da ell, 
 
 Like some stern anchorite, in gloomy cell. 
 
 But thou should be my temple— vision'd shrine ! 
 For, without iliee, no happiness is mine. 
 
 Oft times, when musing, do 1 seem to hear 
 Tlie melody of birds, as if tuere near ; 
 
 And while they tuneful sing, methiuks I rove, 
 
 With thee, through shelter'd wood, or fairy grove : 
 And the bright sun glitters through many a bough 
 With soften'd beams, and gentle zephyrs blow. 
 
 To waft the precious perfume of the flower 
 That blooms in many a hedge and cottage-bower. 
 Or, perhaps, I fancy, o'er the verdant mead, 
 
 Witii hearts elate, with joy our way we speed. 
 Sweeping tlie dew from thence, and only pause 
 New wonders to admire, ami praise the Cause, 
 
 Tlie great Creator, who hath blessed tlie earth 
 With all those beauties that atiest its birth. 
 
 And when tis eve, — we wander forth again. 
 
 But not to tread ilie gay enamell'd plain : 
 
 Ah, no! — but in our fairy bark, to glide 
 O’er some smooth river, wafted by the tide, 
 
THK MIRROR. 
 
 While silver moonbeams on the waters play, 
 
 Aud through the bending willows pierce their way. 
 Then, to complete the charm, upon the wind 
 Sweet music steals, which seems of heav'nly kind, 
 liut, lol the dream is o’er, the spell is broke. 
 
 And London’s noisy cries, and London's smoke. 
 Dispel the illusion, roughly does destroy 
 My ideal happiness, my landed joy ; 
 
 And all my pleasant visions take to flight, 
 
 No more imagination can delight. 
 
 And I, perchance, must join some giddy throng, 
 And, with the multitude, impelled along, 
 
 May seem to those who knoiv me not, to love 
 Those heartless follies which I feel above. 
 
 But e’en in scenes like these I’d always be 
 Than forced to part or separate from thee ; 
 
 And grove, and bower, lake, and rural bhade, 
 
 For thee adjure, if by thy love repaid. 
 
 Westminster. M. S. 
 
 ASCENT OF MONT BLANC. 
 Saussure, the celebrated philosopher, reached 
 the top of this mountain ; and others went 
 up soon afterwards. They tied themselves 
 together with ropes; so that if any should 
 happen to fall into a chasm, they might be 
 saved. Some of these chasms were so deep, 
 that when ice was thrown into them, the 
 sound produced by its reaching the bottom 
 was not heard. One chasm was found so 
 wide, that the ladder which they laid across 
 it, reached only one inch over each side ; and 
 that only in one place. They learned that 
 this chasm had opened only a few days ; so 
 that if they passed over, there was a dan- 
 ger of their not being able to get back, from 
 its opening wider before their return. They 
 ventured over, however, and got safely back. 
 Their thirst was very great. When near the 
 top, they became very weak, felt dispirited, 
 and were troubled with vomiting, &c. ; ow- 
 ing to the air being very thin (the rarity of 
 the atmosphere, as it is called). At last 
 they reached the summit. In 1827, Mr. 
 Ferrars, an English gentleman, ascended to 
 the top. He also experienced great effects 
 from the rarity of the air. His guides had 
 bleeding from the nose, great difficulty of 
 breathing, and intense thirst. Their eyes 
 were bloodshot, and their faces blistered. 
 Some had vomiting of blood. Mr. Auldjo 
 likewise reached the top ; and gives an inte- 
 resting account of his journey. One of his 
 guides sunk up to his arm-pits in a chasm ; 
 but saved himself by stretching out his arms, 
 and by his pole falling across the chasm like 
 a bridge. As they got towards the highest 
 point, they were obliged to rest every three or 
 four steps, and to turn their faces towards the 
 north-wind ; which assisted respiration. Mr. 
 Auldjo was partly dragged, and partly carried 
 to the summit. The sun was shining brightly 
 on the snow-topped peaks around; but it was 
 very cold ; and he soon fell asleep. He had 
 with him a bottle of champagne ; of which, 
 the cork flew out to a great distance, but with 
 little noise. We have mentioned elsewhere* 
 
 See No. 947 of the Mirror ; May 4, 1839; page 
 275 of the present volume. 
 
 40,1 
 
 that, owing to the rarity of the atmosphere, a 
 pistol fired there makes no more noise than a 
 cracker in a room ; — noise being occasioned 
 by percussions of the air. The champagne 
 frothed to the last drop ; and our traveller 
 partook of it ; but the fixed air (carbonic acid) 
 being given out very abundantly after being 
 drunk, gave him much uneasiness. There 
 have been about fifteen successful ascents of 
 this mountain ; and about, twenty persons (of 
 whom about twelve were English), besides 
 guides, have reached the top. Among the 
 successful travellers was a female. One of 
 the latest to ascend, was Dr. Martin Barry, a 
 highly intelligent and accomplished member 
 of the Society of Friends ; whom we had the 
 pleasure of knowing in Edinburgh. He gave 
 a very interesting account of his journey, in 
 two lectures, illustrated by drawings; and 
 also in a little work on the subject. Napoleon 
 caused the guides to fix a cross on the top ; but 
 it was blown down in a day or two. N. R. 
 
 WOMAN’S LOVE. 
 
 Poor Joanna La Loca, Crazy Jane, the 
 heiress of Isabella, was born to vast domi- 
 nions and slender intellect. Her cloying 
 fondness for her handsome husband defeated 
 itself ; Philip had married for her kingdoms, 
 not her personal charms, and (like her niece, 
 our Mary) she was by nature melancholy and 
 ungracious. He became wearied, neglectful, 
 aud, by insensible degrees, unfeeling: his 
 undisguised infidelities alienated her affec- 
 tions, without destroying the abstract remem- 
 brance of her former love. She shed no tear 
 at his untimely death ; but sank into a moody 
 imbecility. Soothed by music alone, all her 
 occupations were merged in watching the re- 
 mains of her husband. She had formed a 
 vague idea, trom some monkish tale, that he 
 would be restored to life — and fed on a hope 
 which, if realized, would have converted pas- 
 sive sorrow into active misery. She travelled 
 by night, in order that no female eye might 
 behold the coffin. On one occasion, having 
 entered a monastery, as she supposed, upon 
 finding it to be a nunnery, she hurried out 
 into the open country, encamped, and during 
 a storm, when the torches were extinguished, 
 opened the coffin to verify the existence of the 
 mouldering corpse — jealous as when, full of 
 beauty, it was her life and joy — 
 
 ' A sad remembrance fondly kept.’ 
 
 She obstinately declined all state affairs, which 
 were carried on in her name. She pined sul- 
 lenly, and, never telling her gnef, for forty- 
 seven long years immured herself in a con- 
 vent, dead to the world, watching from her 
 window the coffin of her husband, which was 
 purposely so placed in a chapel.* 
 
 * From a Keview of Prescott's History of Ferdi- 
 naud and Isabella, in the Quarterly Review, No. 
 exxvii., June, 1839. 
 
 2 D 2 
 
404 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 A BORE. 
 
 (For the Mirror.') 
 
 ’Twas on a Wednesday evening, as I lay 
 listlessly reclining on the sofa, a universal 
 cry of “tell me a story,” resounded in my 
 ears ; do tell me a story, oh, do tell us one of 
 your amusing stories,” escaped from every 
 pair of fair lips around me. The supper had 
 just been removed ; it lay heavy on my chest, 
 and very unfit was I to undertake the rela- 
 tion of a story, especially considering that I 
 had to invent one altogether. But I sum- 
 moned my energies, and affectionately, and 
 with an affected parental look, gazing on the 
 group around me, I turned on my side, and 
 put my finger on my forehead in intent, medi- 
 tation. My senses, however, were confused ; 
 there was one, too, by my side, who had fixed 
 a pair of the fondest eyes imaginable on me 
 for a long time. I felt undecided-, my limbs 
 yearned for a comfortable stretch in bed, and 
 my eyes grew dim with the profusion of dust 
 the inexorable Morpheus did not desist from 
 throwing into them. ’ Twas of no avail ! my 
 efforts were useless ; the candles burnt fit- 
 fully ; the tokens of impatience manifested by 
 my fair expectants died on my dull ears, they 
 sounded as so many strange voices at an im- 
 measurable distance. Oue, however, suddenly 
 appeared to me more distinct ; it breathed 
 in my ears ; “ Come, Harry,” it whispered in 
 soft tones ; and mechanically letting my head 
 fall back, I opened my mouth. 
 
 “ Rosalie was with us ; we had every thing 
 in preparation ; the dark lantern, the ropes, 
 the bag to put our findings in, the sticks to 
 sweep down the cobwebs, and our hearts 
 steeled with courage and resolution to carry 
 us through our undertaking. The castle* 
 was for the present untenanted ; the whole 
 had gone on a long, long excursion, and no 
 one but I, Adolphus, and his sister, remained. 
 The clock had but just struck nine, the whole 
 day was before us. The key of the high 
 tower was in our possession, and our anti- 
 quarian enthusiasm having now reached its 
 highest pitch, regardless of consequences and 
 obstacles, the massive oaken door was un- 
 locked. It creaked on its rusty hinges with 
 an ominous sound, and us it admitted us, a 
 gust of wind burst forth from the space it had 
 enclosed, it smelt damp and mildewy ; it ap- 
 peared to us as if it had lain there without 
 means of egress, for whole centuries ; we trem- 
 bled with fear, the very tainted air had filled 
 ,our minds with the most incoherent and im- 
 probable apprehensions ; but our zeal gained 
 the ascendancy, and musteringour courage, we 
 determined to prosecute our hardly yet begun 
 researches. The door was accordingly closed, 
 and locked on the inside ; we descended a 
 few steps, our hearts quaked, they beat with 
 awe and consciousness of guilt ; repeated had 
 Ses Mirror, Vol 30, p. 168. 
 
 been the injunctions given to us ; various and 
 fearful had been the punishments denounced 
 against transgressors ; but we were alone, no 
 one knew anything about it, no one would 
 know anything about it, r.o one could know 
 anything about it. 
 
 ’ Twas now dark, but anon darker, and as 
 we reached the last step ’twas indeed fear- 
 fully dark. Our lantern cast a strong, vigo- 
 rous light ; but it was only in one direction ; 
 all around, and even in the immediate vicinity 
 of the enlightened object, remained dark and 
 impenetrable to our visual organs. We had 
 then reached the last step, but lower, much 
 lower, had we yet to descend ere we reached 
 our final destination. Here 1 had several 
 times before been, ’twas as it were familiar 
 to me, but in the nether regions of these sub- 
 terranean dungeons my foot had never yet 
 trod. Our youthful fancies pictured dreadful 
 instruments of torture, skeletons, old rotten 
 coffins, perhaps hidden treasures ! Till our 
 curiosity was satisfied we could enjoy no peace, 
 and Rosalie, whose soul had become fixed 
 with our glowing surmises, was unable to 
 resist the temptation ; her wish tremblingly 
 expressed to be one of our party was eagerly 
 acceded to, perhaps more eagerly than she in- 
 ternally desired. 
 
 A large oaken door, lying flat on the stones, 
 covered a square aperture— ’twas this was the 
 entrance to the gloomy dungeons under our 
 feet. With our united strength, we suc- 
 ceeded in moving it aside ; the light was di- 
 rected to its interior, but all there was dark, 
 fearfully dark ! on one of the sides, however, 
 we discovered a ladder. I placed my foot on 
 it, and it seemed strong and sound. Congra- 
 tulating myself on this lucky occurrence, I in- 
 vited Adolphus to descend first, but he had 
 no sooner placed the whole weight of his body 
 on the treacherous wood, than it gave way, it 
 snapped, and in his endeavours to save him- 
 self, the ladder was precipitated with a loud 
 and terrifying crash to the floor of the dun- 
 geon beneath. 
 
 ’Twas, however, but the destruction of a 
 resource we had not expected to find ; we 
 were provided, and as we thought, fully so, 
 against all contingencies. The rope we had 
 with us was now then brought into use. Se- 
 veral hooks, we discovered, were fastened in 
 the walls around ; to one of these the rope 
 was secured, and Adolphus was the first to 
 descend. As he effected his descent, 1 held 
 and guided the rope ; at the same time, as 
 far as lay in my power, preventing too great 
 a trial on the old rusty hook in the wall oppo- 
 site. Having safely reached his destination, 
 Adolphus bade me assist his sister ; poor 
 Rosalie recoiled, her heart began to misgive 
 her ; but on our remonstrances and promises 
 of protection, she rallied, and consented at 
 last to be let down. The rope was of great 
 length, and admitted of being passed several 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 405 
 
 times round her body — after much difficulty 
 her descent was safely effected, and she stood 
 clinging by the side of her brother, in a dun- 
 geon which our minds filled with a greater 
 share of horrors, than is even generally at- 
 tached to such places. And now came my 
 turn. Having first carefully let down the 
 lantern, I seized the rope, but oh ! treache- 
 rous hook ! no one was there to lighten the 
 weight, and the latter half of my descent was 
 as swift as the first had been slow and cau- 
 tious ! and as I fell, the rope, with the hook 
 at its end, followed me. We gazed at each 
 other in blank amazement and terror — the 
 height was more than ten feet — how were we 
 to find our way out again ! Rosalie’s courage 
 at once forsook her, and bitter tears did the 
 poor girl shed at her rashness, and foolish 
 zeal for curious researches. “ Oh, Adolphus, 
 Adolphus !” she cried, “ what will become of 
 us down here, in this fearful place ; ’tis all dark 
 around me, but there where the lantern shines 
 — and oh, oh look !” She shrieked, and 
 covering her eyes with her hands, as if to hide 
 some hideous, loathsome object from them, 
 she sobbed aloud, and uttered screams of hor- 
 ror and disgust. We turned our eyes in the 
 direction, and our blood ran cold in our veins, 
 as we beheld a tall, gaunt skeleton ! Its arms 
 were outstretched, as though it would fain 
 embrace us, and a band of iron passing round 
 the waist and under the arm-pits, seemed the 
 only support to this frightful mass of bones. 
 Not a foot durst we move — we dared not even 
 look on the ground. Adolphus stood rivetted 
 to the spot whereon he stood, holding the 
 lantern still fixed on the ghastly object — had 
 he moved the light in another direction, other 
 objects, perhaps more fearfully revolting, might 
 have fallen under our eyes — this he felt, and 
 it seemed as though he would never, move 
 from that spot. 
 
 Rosalie still wept : her handkerchief was 
 before her eyes — she shrieked no more, but 
 her limbs trembled violently. Many minutes 
 elapsed in this fearful manner — all was pro- 
 foundly silent, awfully still. At length I 
 mustered courage, and suddenly recollecting 
 the ladder, I uttered but that word. It acted 
 as a spell. We unanimously looked on the 
 ground ; and on the light being turned on it, 
 — what a sight then met our eyes ! skulls, 
 arm-bones, thigh-bones, and ribs, strewed the 
 floor ; all lay in the most horrifying confusion. 
 Gradually, however, we got accustomed to 
 this sight — we heard no noise save that caused 
 by our own feet crushing these moulder- 
 ing remnants of mortality ; and increasing in 
 boldness and indifference, we cheerily turned 
 our efforts to the raising of the ladder. 
 Many of the steps were broken, more still 
 were decayed — but, said we, could one of 
 us but climb up its sides, all would end well — 
 this resource completely rekindled our energy, 
 and we set all fears aside. 
 
 Rosalie’s eyes once again brightened with 
 enthusiasm, and, with a comparatively light 
 heart, gathering our implements, we set about 
 exploring the place. Skeleton upon skeleton 
 met our searching eyes ; nothing but skele- 
 tons on all sides. Many a time did we put a 
 foot on some damp decayed skull, and crush 
 it in with an ominous crunching — bones 
 snapped under our steps as so many twigs. 
 An object now attracted our particular atten- 
 tion. Two upright planks stood against the 
 wall ; we drew near, and looking between 
 them, we beheld a skeleton jammed in the 
 narrow space they afforded. Could this mi- 
 serable object have died thus ! we shuddered, 
 and holding each other by the hand in mute 
 compassion and fear, stood for some time 
 transfixed. A slight shriek, however, accom- 
 panied by a loud noise, as of some one violently 
 disturbing the bones on the floor, recalled us 
 to our senses, or rather, perhaps, deprived us 
 of what little we had left. The blood rushed 
 to our cheeks, and anon left them — shudders 
 then ran through our frames ; we shivered 
 with the excess of our terror. Once more 
 were we as 'twere spell-bound — ’twas the first 
 noise or sound of any kind, except what we 
 had ourselves caused, that had yet greeted our 
 ears. What could it be ? and a shriek, too ! 
 ’Twas heard again — several shrill notes fol- 
 lowed ; we stood there utterly amazed ! Ro- 
 salie once more caught alarm, and whispering 
 in a tremulous voice, begged us to assist her 
 out of the horrible place. The shrill notes 
 were again heard — they proceeded from as 
 it were close to our feet ; we felt the bones 
 disturbed, and almost involuntarily directing 
 the light to the spot, we saw before us a 
 number of large, disgusting looking rats. 
 
 Rosalie held me with a convulsive grasp. 
 “ Heavens !” she cried, “ protect me. Oh, I 
 am giddy ! where am I going P hold me, 
 hold me !” but ’twas too late — she fell — she 
 fell against the boards ! A loud crash suc- 
 ceeded ; the skeleton had crumbled to pieces 
 over her as she lay on the ground ! What was 
 our confusion, our horror ! oh, let me not 
 think of that moment. There lay the fair 
 Rosalie, insensible ; not a drop of water was 
 at hand — all was damp here, nothing could 
 we touch but ’twas loathsome remains of 
 what had once been actuated by the princi- 
 ple of life. She lay there, too, covered with 
 the scattered bones of a dusty skeleton ! The 
 rats uttered their shrill notes, and dazzled by 
 the light, ran heedlessly over her body. Oh, 
 ’twas horrible ! With difficulty Adolphus 
 managed to raise his senseless sister in his 
 arms — but where now were we to lay her, 
 where to place her beyond the reach of the 
 detestable vermin that infested this dungeon ? 
 But a minute and I had raised one of the 
 planks and laid it across a couple of ledges 
 that we discovered in the walls — here, then, 
 we deposited the unfortunate and too-zealons 
 
406 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 Rosalie. All was silent as death — we gazed 
 on each other in blank astonishment and ter- 
 ror, utterly at a loss how to proceed. Adol- 
 phus, we at length concluded, must first 
 climb the ladder, and bring some assistance, 
 but we had no sooner turned our backs, than 
 a loud laugh rang through the dungeon, and 
 made its dreary echoes reverberate again with 
 the hideous sounds. Such was the sudden- 
 ness of this unexpected disturbance in these 
 gloomy, miserable regions, that we started 
 with terror, and throwing ourselves on the 
 ground in despair, called loudly for assistance. 
 “ Oh, come, come !” we cried, “ we are lost, 
 we are dying, have mercy ! have mercy I” But 
 none answered, none heard. We raised our 
 heads again, and looked around us — alas ! 
 all was darkness ! our lantern was extin- 
 guished ! 
 
 The demoniacal laugh sounded again in 
 our ears, with painful noise. Oh, how wild 
 were its peals, how they jarred our feelings ! 
 moans followed ; then it seemed as though 
 the place were haunted with frenzied devils, 
 *o hideously did they hiss. 
 
 We stood at length on our feet ; oh, how 
 horrible and frightful was every thing ! 
 Our hands were fast clasped in each other’s 
 grasp — we durst not separate them, nor 
 could we prevail upon ourselves to move an 
 inch. Moans were still heard, which we 
 recognised as proceeding from poor Rosa- 
 lie — Her brother’s heart was rent with an- 
 guish ; he approached the board whereon 
 she lay, and muttered her name : “ Ah, ha !” 
 she cried, in frantic tones, “ do you want 
 me too ? No, no, — that skeleton said he 
 would have me, and so he shall ; no, no, no !” 
 and she laughed again — ’twas more and 
 more hideous ; then she moaned, and called 
 for Adolphus, — ’twas more and more heart- 
 rending ! I was desperate, and it seemed to 
 me as though my strength could overcome 
 any thing. I rushed headlong towards the 
 spot where I judged the ladder to be, but in 
 my heedless course, came full upon the ske- 
 leton that had first met our eyes — that with 
 the outstretched arms ; ’twas shattered to 
 pieces, and I felt myself covered with the 
 clammy dust. At length I reached the lad- 
 der ; with the grasp of a madman, I seized 
 it, and giving myself a violent jerk, I began 
 to climb it. But my haste was my ruin — 
 my vigorous efforts proved my destruction — 
 it snapped, and I fell back into the dungeon ! 
 Oh, what was my horror I . my fright, my in- 
 describable vexation ! A loud laugh at that 
 moment rang through the vault — a hand, 
 with a deadly grasp, seized ine by the head, 
 and the cries of : “ Why, Harry, what are 
 
 you doing ?’’ recalled me to my senses, and 
 proved the whole to be a dream ! 
 
 H. M. 
 
 HAWKESWORTH’S ADVENTURER. 
 The secret history of any popular work, 
 periodicals more especially, as to who were 
 the contributors, and in reference to the ap- 
 propriation of the papers to their respective 
 authors, has always been matter of interest 
 and moment with the public. The Rambler, 
 by Dr. Johnson, revigorated the taste for that 
 species of reading, which had been dormant 
 since the period of the Spectator, the Tatler, 
 and the Guardian ; but the Adventurer, as 
 started by Dr. Hawkesworth, from its pleasing 
 variety, became at once more popular than 
 the Rambler; the sale in numbers was consi- 
 derable, and four large editions were published 
 in less than nine years. The elegance, in- 
 deed, of the composition, the charms of the 
 narrative part, and its evident tendency to 
 promote piety and virtue, are recommen- 
 dations which, it is hoped, can never lose 
 their effect. 
 
 To the Adventurer, Dr. Hawkesworth is 
 chiefly indebted for his high literary cha- 
 racter and fame ; among his early associates 
 in this paper, the first number of which 
 appeared on Tuesday, November 7, 1752, 
 continued on Saturdays and Tuesdays, to the 
 one hundred and fortieth number, was Bon- 
 nell Thornton, whose contributions are 
 marked with the signature A ; but his accus- 
 tomed indolence occasioned irregularity in 
 his communications ; and we find but eight 
 papers, Nos. 3, 6, 9, 19, 23, 25, 35, and 43, 
 bearing that signature ; the last being dated 
 April 3, 1753, refutes the assertion of Mr. 
 Alexander Chalmers, that Thornton quitted 
 the Adventurer to become a joint-partner with 
 Colman, in the Connoisseur, which did not 
 appear till February, 1754. Hawkesworth 
 has himself stated, the contributions from 
 this channel “ soon failed,” and its causes 
 have here been given on good grounds. 
 
 The stipulated price which all the authors 
 received from Payne, the publisher, was two 
 guineas for each paper ; — this was advanced 
 by the bookseller, who risked all expenses, 
 and was soon amply remunerated by a more 
 rapid and extensive sale than the Rambler 
 ever obtained. Another of Hawkesworth ’s 
 associates, was Dr. Richard Bathurst, a phy- 
 sician of considerable skill, but without much 
 practice; and a member of the Johnsonian 
 Ivy-lane Club of Literati. He was the son of 
 Colonel Bathurst, a West India planter, 
 from whom Johnson received Francis Barber, 
 his black servant. The colonel left his affairs 
 on his death in absolute ruin ; and the doctor’s 
 emolument arising from his contributions to 
 these papers, were of considerable service to 
 him, it is believed, in a pecuniary view — his 
 papers have no distinctive marks, those with 
 the signature A are, in the late editions of the 
 British Essayists, improperly appropriated to 
 him — these were, indisputably, from style and 
 subject, Thornton’s ; nor is there any memo- 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 4(>7 
 
 random extant by which those of Bathurst’s 
 can be separated from those given to Dr. 
 Hawkesworth. Employment abroad in his 
 profession being proffered him, Dr. Bathurst 
 readily accepted it, and he fell a sacrifice to 
 the climate, in the expedition against the 
 Havannah. Dr. Johnson, by whom he was, 
 by reason of his amiable manners, highly 
 esteemed, thus tenderly lamented his demise 
 in a letter to Bennet Langton — “ The Ha- 
 vannah is taken, a conquest too dearly ob- 
 tained, for Bathurst died before it — 
 
 Vix Priamus tanti totaque Trojafuit.” 
 
 Chalmers, quoting Boswell, says — “ It 
 cannot be known how much Dr. Bathurst 
 actually contributed — we have, however, 
 the express authority of Sir John Hawkins, 
 that Dr. Bathurst wrote the papers signed A; 
 and without depending implicitly on this au- 
 thority, which is certainly wrong, we may 
 safely assert, that if Dr. Bathurst did not 
 write these papers, he did not write any part 
 of the work, for all the other papers are appro- 
 priated, upon undoubted authority, to Drs. 
 Hawkesworth, Johnson, and Warton, with 
 the exception of two or three, the authors of 
 which were unknown to the Editor, are 
 pointed out in this edition.* * 
 
 That Boswell blundered egregiously cannot 
 be questioned, both in this matter, and the 
 part Dr. Johnson took in the Adventurer, 
 when, by the loss of Bathurst, and the uncer- 
 tainty of Thornton, Johnson and Joseph 
 Warton became Hawkesworth’s coadjutors. 
 Boswell, says Johnson, began to write in the 
 Adventurer, on April 10, 1753; but the thirty- 
 fourth paper, printed on Saturday, March S, 
 was certainly the production of his pen ; and 
 an unpublished letter ot Payne, the pub- 
 lisher’s, to Dr. Warton, furnishes data and 
 facts connected with the progress of the 
 Adventurer, which show that no certainty of 
 appropriation of the papers to Hawkesworth 
 previous to that junction can be established — 
 at least as regards those which have no dis- 
 tinctive signature. Dr. Johnson asserted that 
 the Hon. Hamilton Boyle wtote in the Ad- 
 venturer; probably No. 33, that with the ***, 
 in Chalmer’s edition, given to Hawkesworth, 
 or one of the earlier papers which remain 
 without assignment. Payne’s letter is as 
 follows : — 
 
 Rev. Sir, — As your paper [on what arts 
 the moderns excel the ancients,] will not be 
 printed till Tuesday se’nnight, I was wil- 
 ling to gratify your curiosity by sending The 
 Connoisseur to-night.f It is full of dull 
 commonplace stuff', and is, I think, not wor- 
 thy of Thornton. It is disgusting, I own, to 
 give such imperfect translations of passages 
 selected for the peculiar purposes of our 
 
 * British Essayists, 1817- duod. Vol. xxiii. p. 24. 
 
 t The first paper of the Connoisseur, written by 
 
 Bonnell Thornton, was published on Saturday, 
 February 2, 17&4. 
 
 papers ; but the Spectator, &c. began it, 
 the unlettered expect the continuance of it, 
 and we must gratify that expectation. The 
 translation of the passage from Dr. M[us- 
 grave ?] which I sent you, is radically bad, 
 and cannot be mended by alteration. We 
 must take our chance for a translation from 
 Mr. Johnson, which you must help me to 
 procure, and which I will print after the con- 
 tents of the volume in which it occurs. Last 
 Saturday Mr. Hawkesworth got T. [John, 
 son] to supply his place; he has begged 
 the same favour of him for Tuesday, on 
 account of a violent pain in his face ; but he 
 does not mean that T. should lose his own 
 turn ; the state of our affairs, therefore, from 
 last Tuesday se’nnight, stands thus : 
 
 { 127 Z. 
 
 129 Z. f ° r H ‘ 
 
 130 H. Saturday, Feb. 2 
 131 T. 
 
 132 H. 
 
 133 Z. The paper I received 
 134 H. [yesterday 
 
 135 T. 
 
 136 H. 
 
 137 Z. 
 
 138 H. 
 
 139 T. 
 
 HO H. 
 
 By this disposition, which H. has given 
 me, you will not have room for your criticism 
 on Othello, unless you can include it in one 
 paper, which is hardly possible. It may, 
 therefore, be useful to wind up your papers 
 of that kind by some general subject ; for 
 Johnson says each must wind up his bottom, 
 and not leave the world in ignorance of our 
 design till the last paper. 
 
 Of ninety-two numbers, since you began 
 [amending the whole] supposing the whole 
 to be finished — 
 
 Hawkesworth will have written 39 ) 
 
 The three signed Y were substituted for liis 3 >• 43 
 And one signed &. 15 
 
 T. will have written for his own share 23 \ 
 
 And lor Hawkesworth 2 / " , 
 
 Which is two above his number. 
 
 Z. will have written 24 
 
 Which is one above his number, for 92 
 
 f Himself 39 
 \ Y. 3 
 
 Hawkesworth should have written 46 -< &. 1 
 
 V r. 2 
 
 r z. i 
 
 T. [Johnson] 23 
 
 And Z. [Warton] 23 
 
 92 
 
 I have had no contents, since No. 105. 
 
 I am, your’s sincerely, 
 
 Feb. 2, [1754]. J. Payne. 
 
 The words enclosed within a bracket 
 [amending the whole], scored over by a pen 
 in the letter, induces a supposition that 
 Hawkesworth was fullering, and that to War- 
 ton was confided the strict revision of the 
 whole ; certain it is, that to him, in the con- 
 
Till. MIRROR 
 
 4,)M 
 
 duet of the Adventurer, the province of cri- 
 ticism and literature was consigned ; and 
 most ably lias YVarton taught us how the 
 brow of criticism may be smoothed, and how 
 she may be directed, notwithstanding her 
 seventy, to attract and to delight. 
 
 Johnson’s letter to Warton, dated March 8, 
 1753, apprising him of the partin The Ad- 
 venturer that would be assigned to him, if 
 he would accept of it, states, “ I have no part 
 in the paper beyond now and then a motto,’’ 
 — ques. what was meaned by part P The 
 thirty-fourth paper, with his signature, T., 
 had been printed on the third of that month; 
 and a conjecture arises that that paper, the 
 thirty-ninth and forty-first, were really John- 
 son's, but contributed by Dr. Bathurst, as 
 Boswell, in explanation, asserts, ‘ Mrs. Wil- 
 liams told me that as he had given those 
 essays to Dr. Bathurst, who sold them at two 
 guineas each, he never would own them, nay, 
 he used to say he did not write them ; but 
 the fact was, he dictated them, while Ba- 
 thurst wrote.’ I read to him Mrs. Williams’s 
 account ; he smiled and said nothing.” 
 Payne’s letter speaks but of the twenty-three 
 Johnson had written under the signature T. 
 for his own share; but there are twenty-eight 
 papers with that distinctive mark, two having 
 been written to assist Hawkesworth ; Boswell 
 was, therefore, possibly correct when he stated 
 Johnson commenced with the forty-fifth num- 
 ber, on April 10th, for his own share; the 
 three previous papers being sold to Payne 
 for Dr. Bathurst’s personal advantage, and, 
 perhaps, all the share he had in any way in 
 the Adventurer. 
 
 Chalmers’s assertion, — “ Dr. Hawkes- 
 worth’s share of the Adventurer amounts 
 exactly to a half, or seventy papers,” — is, by 
 this letter, proved to be a flourish upon 
 fancy ; it is not sufficiently clear what por- 
 tion of the first thirty-eight were really from 
 his pen ; as by Payne’s letter it appears of 
 the remaining one hundred and two papers 
 Hawkesworth wrote only thirty-nine. Nos. 
 77 , 78, and 79, subscribed Fidelia, and 
 bearing the mark Y, were written by Miss 
 Mulso, who, in 1760, became Mrs. Chapone. 
 No. 90, printed Saturday, Sept. 15, 1753, with 
 the signature &, was contributed by Colmau, 
 afterwards the conductor of the Connoisseur ; 
 it displays an erudite knowledge of literary 
 history and criticism : and was, in fact, no 
 mean merit to have produced such a paper at 
 the early age of twenty. 
 
 The arrangements spoken of by Payne, as 
 to the completion, were ultimately otherwise, 
 as Hawkesworth contributed Nos. 135 and 
 136; Johnson, Nos. 137 and 138; and War- 
 ton, in No. 139, undertook to explain the 
 design of the critical papers in the Adven- 
 turer ; Hawkesworth, in the last, giving an 
 account of the general plan and conclusion of 
 the work — in this he pathetically concludes — 
 
 “ Time, who is impatient to date my last 
 paper, will shortly moulder the hand that is now 
 writing it in the dust, and still the breast that 
 now throbs at the reflection : but let not this be 
 read as something that relates only to another; 
 for a few years only can divide the eye that 
 is now reading, from the hand that has writ- 
 ten. This awful truth, however obvious, and 
 however reiterated, is yet frequently forgotten ; 
 for, surely, if we did not lose our remem- 
 brance, or at least our sensibility, that view 
 would always predominate in our lives, which 
 alone can comfort us when we die.’’ B. 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF COLOURS 5 
 
 OH, 
 
 A SKETCH OF THEIR ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES J 
 
 Being the Substance of a Paper read by Mr. Stephens, 
 
 of Stamford Street, before the Society of British 
 
 Artists, Suffolk Street, Pall Mall, Mag 18, 1839. 
 
 Colours are derived from three principal 
 sources— the animal, the vegetable, and the 
 mineral kingdom. A brief consideration of 
 the elementary sources from which colours 
 are derived, and the elementary principles 
 upon which they depend, will lead to a pro- 
 per estimate ol their permanence and cha- 
 racter. 
 
 Colours derived from the animal and vege- 
 table kingdom depend upon principles per- 
 fectly distinct and apart from those of mi- 
 neral colours. The colours of animal or 
 vegetable bodies do not belong to the ele- 
 ments, or any combination of the elements, 
 of which those bodies are composed — it is a 
 property which becomes developed in the 
 animal or vegetable during its growth ; it may 
 be dissolved, diffused, applied to surfaces 
 or substances combined with other sub- 
 stances ; heightened or weakened by chemi- 
 cals, but it is a principal which can be des- 
 troyed by art, and which has a natural ten- 
 dency to decay, and to become extinct ; but 
 the colour produced by mineral substances 
 is an essential property of their elements, 
 inherent in them, always to be developed 
 by chemical combinations, a property ne- 
 ver becoming extinct, but capable of be- 
 ing continually reproduced upon the revi- 
 val of the chemical affinity. To illustrate 
 this, I have here some pieces of pigment, 
 the one a vegetable, the other of a mineral 
 colour ; if I examine the elementary compo- 
 sition of this substance, which is indigo, I 
 shall find that it is composed of hydrogen, 
 oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen : but there is no 
 human means by which hydrogen, oxygen, 
 carbon, and nitrogen, can be put together, 
 so as to manufacture indigo. If I examine 
 the elementary nature of this mineral sub- 
 stance, I find that it contains iron, united 
 to a peculiar acid, the elements of which 
 are carbon, nitrogen, and hydrogen ; I find 
 that I cun chemically combine hydrogen, 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 409 
 
 carbon, and nitrogen, so us to torm this 
 peculitir snbstance, and that I can unite this 
 acid so formed, with iron, so ns to make 
 ferro-cyannte of iron, or Prussian blue. I 
 find also that I can separate this peculiar 
 substance from the iron so ns to destroy the 
 colour, and that I can re-unite them, and 
 revive it interminably. I will now, with 
 your permission, show this effect by a little 
 experiment. Here are two bottles of liquid 
 colour, the one a solution of indigo, well 
 known, the other a solution of Prussian 
 blue. I may he permitted to mention that 
 Prussian blue was for a long time known 
 only as a pigment, it being considered inso- 
 luble. About two years since I obtained a 
 patent for a method of dissolving it, so as to 
 render it available to many purposes, to 
 which, as a pigment, it could not well be 
 applied. 
 
 If I pour into this solution ot indigo 
 some of the contents of this bottle, which 
 is a liquid chlorine, the colour will fade, 
 and in a short time become extinct. 
 There is no method by which I can re- 
 vive or reproduce indigo in this liquid, be- 
 cause its colour was rather a quality, and 
 not an inherent property of ils elements ; 
 but if I take this solution of Prussian blue, I 
 may decompose the colour, and apparently 
 extinguish it ; but as the property which 
 produced the colour is still inherent in the 
 materials, I can revive the colour by reviving 
 the chemical affinities. By pouring a little 
 solution of caustic soda into this blue solu- 
 tion, I form a prussiate of soda, which has 
 only a slight yellow tinge, the iron being 
 left free. If I now pour into this apparently 
 colourless solution some acid, which has a 
 stronger affinity to the soda than the lerro- 
 prussiate, I set the latter free, when it in- 
 stantly unites by attraction to the iron, and 
 the blue colour is revived. From this expe- 
 riment it is easy to deduce the fact that the 
 fading of the colour of indigo or vegetable 
 colours, is un approach to a gradual extinc- 
 tion, but the fading of pure mineral colours 
 is a change in their chemical affinities, but 
 no dissipation or extinction ot the property 
 of their elements. 
 
 To give you a further idea of the elemen- 
 tary nature of bodies and their inherent pro- 
 perties, I shall beg to exhibit one other 
 experiment. These two bottles contain, as 
 you see, two colourless liquids, yet one of 
 them contains a black elementary matter, 
 known as carbon; if I mix these two together, 
 a decomposition will take place, and the 
 black elementary matter will appear, proving 
 that a colour, being an inherent property of 
 matter, or combinations of mutter, cun never 
 become extinct. J do not here intend to 
 enter into the connexion and relation of 
 colours to light, and 1 am aware that in 
 calling black a colour, I may be considered 
 to be in error, black being considered to be an 
 
 absence of colour. I beg to be understood 
 to be speaking of the relative appearance of 
 bodies. 
 
 From what I have now briefly stated, an 
 inference may be readily drawn, that it is not 
 to the vegetable or animal kingdom, although 
 affording some of the most beautiful colours, 
 that the painter must look for materials with 
 which to perpetuate or reflect to posterity the 
 genius and the works of art. It is to the 
 mineral kingdom chiefly that he must turn 
 for his most permanent colours. 
 
 Without detaining you long, I will endea- 
 vour to lay before you as brief a sketch or 
 outline as possible, of the nature of mineral 
 colours, and the causes which influence their 
 permanence. 
 
 All mineral colours have metals for their 
 base; and it is the union of this metal with 
 some other element or elements which pro- 
 duces a colour. Oxygen, one of the compo- 
 nents of the atmosphere, is the primary agent 
 which combines with metals to produce mi- 
 neral colours hence they are called metal- 
 lic oxides ; but as oxygen combines with 
 metals in different proportions, different co- 
 lours are produced. I have in these bottles 
 various metals in different states of oxigena- 
 tion, producing, as you see, different colours. 
 That state of oxigenation which a metal is 
 disposed under ordinary states of exposure to 
 acquire, and which it is disposed perma- 
 nently to retain, unless artificial means are 
 used to reduce it, is its most permanent^ co- 
 lour. Metals are influenced in their states of 
 oxigenation by many external circumstances ; 
 some of them readily part with oxygen by 
 light, heat, and moisture ; and in proportion 
 as they are more or less readily affected by 
 these agents, are they more or les3 perma- 
 nent as colours. The combination of a me- 
 tallic acid with a metallic oxide gives a 
 fixed compound, which is a permanent co- 
 lour. If I pour into this tube, which con- 
 tains acetate of lead, a little of this bi- 
 chromate of potass, the acetic acid in the 
 acetate of lead combines with the potass, and 
 the metal chrome, which is in an acid state, 
 unites with the lead, and you have thrown 
 down the chromate of lead, or chrome yellow 
 of the painters. If I put some of this, which 
 is a solution of copper, I form the chromate 
 of copper, which is a fine brown colour. 
 Metals, in combination with sulphur, afford 
 permanent colours, as vermillion, which is 
 a sulphuret of mercury, and orpiment, which 
 is a fine yellow colour — a sulphuret of 
 arsenic. Metals also combine with carbon 
 in two states, with carbonic acid it forms a 
 carbonate ; this is an example — the carbonate 
 of iron. The direct combination of carbon 
 with metals form carburets ; this is a carburet 
 of iron, commonly called black lead. These 
 two bottles contain different preparations of 
 manganese, the one a carbonate, the other 
 
410 
 
 THK MIRROR. 
 
 an oxide, in which the different co'ours are 
 well observed, — this is a carbonate of copper. 
 Carbonate of lead, is the common white lead. 
 
 An abundant source of permanent colours 
 is to be found in the combination of metallic 
 oxides, with earthy bases,— as alumine or clay, 
 and silex. Iron, which is the most abundant 
 and generally diffused of ali the metals, 
 is the most universal colouring material in 
 the world. You can scarcely pick up a piece 
 of dirt from the road, or sand or clay from 
 a bank, but you will find with it, an ad- 
 mixture of iron. In travelling through the 
 different districts of a country, you will ob- 
 serve the different colour of the earths com- 
 posing the soil. In some you will find a 
 red sand, as at Red Hill, in Surrey ; in others 
 a red clay, — oxide of iron is the colouring 
 material. In another district you will find 
 a yellow clay, it is iron in a different state of 
 oxigenation, and less abundant. 
 
 Red and yellow ochre owe their colour to iron 
 in combination with aluminous earths. The 
 colouring matter of the Umbers is iron, of the 
 Sienna, and the Terra Sienna. The red bricks 
 and tiles of houses owe their colour to oxide 
 ot iron. Buildings which have been erected 
 centuries since with red brick, and which 
 are crumbling into dust with age, will be 
 found to exhibit, comparatively unchanged, 
 the per-oxide of iron. Iron is the colouring 
 material of many of the gems and precious 
 stones. Metallic oxides have the property 
 of combining with vegetable and animal 
 colours, and of prolonging their durability, 
 and in this combination they are called the 
 base. Thus, the beautiful colour extracted 
 from the cochineal insect, has its colour 
 heightened and preserved by being combined 
 with the oxide ot tin, which combination is 
 the beautiful scarlet of the dyers, and forms 
 the carmine of the shops, better known to 
 some under the name of rouge. Iron, in com- 
 bination with vegetable matter, is the source 
 ot most ot the black colours of the dyers ; 
 most vegetable matters are darkened by con- 
 tact with iron. If you were to stir your tea 
 with an iron spoon, you would convert it into 
 an inky fluid. If you saw a piece of green 
 oak-wood with a rusty iron saw, you will leave 
 a dark stain upon it. In combination with the 
 vegetable acid of galls, it forms the black 
 dye of the dyers ; and is the basis of black 
 ink. Iron is, in fact, so abundant, that it 
 prevails where it is little suspected, and 
 where the commercial name of the article 
 would lead to a different supposition of its 
 nature. Those who are not acquainted with 
 the fact, would scarcely suppose from the 
 name, that the article known as black lead 
 does not contain a particle of lead, but is, as 
 I have before stated, a carburet of iron. The 
 copperas of commerce contains no copper, 
 but is a sulphate of iron. The black oxide 
 ot manganese also, is a mixed ore of iron and 
 
 manganese. The crude oxide of manganese, 
 if dissolved and mixed with galls or vegeta- 
 ble astringents, will make a black colour, 
 which might induce a belief, that an ink 
 could be made from manganese ; but if the 
 iron is separated from the manganese, the 
 latter will give no colour at all with galls, or 
 oniy a dirty yellow. 
 
 £Trt$ anU Jjrienm;. 
 
 mr. n. dunn’s museum of chinesb 
 
 CURIOSITIES, AT PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 ( Concluded from page 398.) 
 
 Budges . — There are four accurate models 
 of granite bridges, from one to four arches ; 
 the workmanship of the originals is of great 
 beauty and durability, and really in them we 
 discover the perfect arch, the most approved 
 piers of the present day, and yet their bridges 
 are so ancient, that the date of their erection 
 is almost, if not entirely, lost. Having no 
 carriages, they are merely used for foot pas- 
 sengers, loaded cooleys, and an occasional 
 horse or buffalo. 
 
 Summer-houses . — Four models of sum- 
 mer-houses exhibit the peculiar taste of the 
 Chinese ; some are plain, and others very 
 ornamental, with their scalloped roof, bells, 
 gilding, painting, &c., and furnished with 
 miniature chairs, tables, &e., models of real 
 things, every part being complete for the 
 luxuries ot tea and the pipe. Tea is the uni- 
 versal beverage ; this is sold from eight cents 
 the pound up to many dollars, and is an article 
 on which some of their citizens expend a very 
 large income. The working man carries it 
 in his rude tea-pot to the fields, and drinks 
 it cold to quench his thirst, while the more 
 wealthy sip it on every occasion of ceremony, 
 business, or familiar intercourse. 
 
 Paintings . — The pictures and paintings 
 are very numerous, and probably occupy the 
 gieatest surface in the collection. — Many of 
 them were presented by distinguished men of 
 China, and many were painted by the most 
 celebrated artists of the principal inland cities, 
 including the capital. They represent in the 
 first place, all those scenes which are charac- 
 teiistic of Chinese life in its detail, including 
 a series showing every process of the tea 
 manufacture, from the planting to the pack- 
 ing up. There are large and handsome views 
 ot Macao, Boeca Tigris, Whampoa, Canton, 
 and Honan, with its remarkable temples, &c. 
 The por traits will astonish those who have seen 
 only the paltry daubs usually brought as speci- 
 mens of the art in China. There is one of 
 the high priest of the Honan temple, and 
 others ot distinguished men well known in 
 Canton, worked with the minuteness of minia- 
 ture painting. This department comprises 
 also a variety of paintings on glass, an art 
 much practiced by the natives ; pictures of 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 411 
 
 all the boats peculiar to the country ; of rooms, 
 their domestic arrangements ; of all the cos- 
 tumes of people of rank ; the furniture, lan- 
 terns, and, in short, of every variety of 
 Chinese life, from the most degraded class 
 to the emperor. The flowers embroidered on 
 satin, &c., will attract the eye of female 
 visitors. 
 
 A Chinese Room . — At the east end, faced 
 by a very superb alcove brought from China, 
 is a Chinese room. The alcove itselt consists 
 of wood deeply carved out of solid blocks; 
 the carving represents figures of men, animals, 
 birds, flowers, &c. The cutting penetrates 
 through the whole of each piece, and forms 
 a net work, the front being painted and gilt 
 in the Asiatic taste, with the rich colours 
 for which the nation is so celebrated. The 
 screen is a fac-simile of those put up in the 
 houses of the wealthy, to form an ante-room 
 in their large establishments. This vestibule 
 will be decorated with furniture, such as 
 chairs, tables, stands, stools, vases, maxims, 
 scrolls, &c., and in every respect will repre- 
 sent a room as actually occupied by the rich. 
 This screen-work extends over the tops of the 
 cases the entire length of the north side of 
 the room, and its effect, as seen by the writer, 
 is extremely gorgeous, reminding him of the 
 representations made in old illuminated manu- 
 scripts, before the invention of printing in 
 Europe. The colours, violet, blue, crimson, 
 scarlet, &c., are those employed by the illu- 
 minators, and lead one to believe that they 
 imitated the Chinese. 
 
 Furniture , Books, fyc . — In addition to the 
 furniture contained in this beautiful pavilion, 
 there will be also distributed in the saloon, a 
 variety of Chinese domestic articles and uten- 
 sils. Two dark coloured and extremely rich 
 book-cases, which might serve to ornament 
 any library, will display copious specimens 
 of the books of the Chinese, in their peculiar 
 and safe binding, so rarely seen in this coun- 
 try. Specimens of their blocks or stereotyped 
 wood, are also in the collection. The book- 
 cases are made in excellent taste, of a dark 
 wood susceptible of a beautiful polish, and 
 in some respects they may be considered an 
 improvement on our own. The chairs of dif- 
 ferent forms, large and capacious, made of 
 wood resembling mahogany, with their appro- 
 priate cushions and footstools, are in a taste 
 of refinement and comfort, which would have 
 been creditable to some of our forefathers of 
 New England, into whose parlours they might 
 have been introduced without differing much 
 from the fashion of fifty years since. The 
 stools without backs exhibit their adaptation 
 to a southern climate, in being partly com- 
 posed of China ware, marble, and wood. 
 
 There are also tables, such as ornament 
 the rooms of the wealthy, gilt, and richly 
 carved and painted ; stands, inlaid with mar- 
 ble or precious wood, such as are placed be- 
 
 tween every two chairs to hold the tea appa- 
 ratus, or those various little ornaments or 
 flower pots, of which the Chinese it will be 
 seen, are so remarkably fond. There is also a 
 common table, such as is in universal use, 
 and has been for centuries, which will be 
 recognized by our present generation as a 
 fac-simile of the favourite eight-legged table 
 of our great grandfathers, now thrust by mo- 
 dern fashion into the kitchen or garret. It 
 folds up as those do, and the legs are turned 
 in rings ; this, like a thousand things in the 
 saloon, proves that our common usages have 
 been derived from China, where we are ac- 
 customed to believe they are centuries behind 
 us. The vases and seats of porcelain are 
 particularly rich and unique. 
 
 Natural History— The brevity we have 
 been obliged to use in the foregoing enumer- 
 ation, has prevented the mention of much 
 that would have interested the readers of this 
 Journal, and we have to regret that the de- 
 partment of natural history must be also 
 merely touched upon. It evinces the com- 
 prehensiveness of Mr. Dunn’s plan to find, 
 that even in this particular, nothing has been 
 omitted which time, trouble, and expense 
 could accomplish, and as one evidence among 
 many, of the laborious nature of the occupa- 
 tion of bringing these things together, we 
 may mention the care bestowed upon the nu- 
 merous objects of science here concentrated. 
 
 A young gentleman of Philadelphia, well 
 known there as an enthusiastic naturalist, 
 Mr. William W. Wood, son of Mr. William 
 Wood, made his way to Canton in search of 
 objects of interest, in the reasonable expecta- 
 tion of bettering his condition. Mr. Dunn 
 at once sought his aid to perfect his collec- 
 tion, and employed his valuable time for a 
 very considerable period. He had a carte 
 blanche to procure objects in natural history, 
 yet some art and no little subterfuge were 
 necessary, to persuade the Chinamen to col- 
 lect articles of a kind in which they take no 
 interest ; prejudice and national feelings were 
 to be overcome before they could be induced 
 to make the necessary excursions by land and 
 water, to spots where no foreigner could 
 penetrate. By industry, money, flattery, and 
 kindness, he succeeded, however, in amassing 
 a great variety of birds, fishes, reptiles, shells, 
 &c., and a few animals. Of these, all have 
 arrived in good condition, with the exception 
 of the insects; the butterflies, moths, &c., 
 which when last seen in Canton were particu- 
 larly rich and curious, have suffered most by 
 the delay in unpacking, and by natural causes. 
 
 Mr. Wood was indefatigable for many 
 months in completing the herpetology of 
 China; the conchology is fully represented 
 in many rich and rare specimens ; and one 
 of the rarest birds, the mandarin duck, with 
 its very peculiar plumage, will be new to 
 many : the China partridge, and many beau- 
 
412 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 tiful song birds, add variety and interest to 
 the whole. 
 
 The fishes were procured principally at the 
 famous fishing stations at Macao, where Mr. 
 Wood resided for several months for this ex- 
 press purpose ; the specimens are very numer- 
 ous and rare. There has also been procured 
 a great number of very fine drawings of fish 
 from life, in the accurate style of the Chinese, 
 and in fine colours. The stuffed specimens 
 will be neatly and appropriately arranged, to 
 afford a study for the naturalist. 
 
 In the department of botany, attention 
 has been paid to procuring accurate drawings 
 of many plants and flowers. These will be 
 exhibited in frames. 
 
 The Minerals in this collection are few in 
 number, and together with the primitive 
 rocks of China, embrace some remarkably 
 fine carbonates of copper, both nodular and 
 radiated. 
 
 The Shells include the well-known species 
 of the China sea and the Canton river ; the 
 former, however, are of remarkable size and 
 beauty, while a multiplicity of specimens 
 illustrates all their varieties. 
 
 The writer regrets his want of acquaint- 
 ance with the science of mineralogy, which 
 prevents his more than alluding to the speci- 
 mens, said to be highly interesting. 
 
 Miscellanies. — The jos-houses, pagodas, 
 articles of virtu, of ornament, of stone, of 
 }ade, of ivory, bamboo, wood, metal, rice, &c., 
 are so numerous that we can only allude to 
 them. A case of shoes, in all their clumsy 
 or ornamental variety, exhibit the form of 
 the compressed female feet, and the clumsy 
 shape of those of the male ; another of caps 
 fresh from their makers, with the button of 
 office, and the cheaper kinds of the poor; 
 theatrical dresses, known to be those of the 
 very ancient Chinese, spectacles, opium and 
 other pipes, fans, the compass in great va- 
 riety, models of fruits, coins, exquisite speci- 
 mens of carving in ivory, metal, stone, and 
 bamboo, very numerous and grotesque car- 
 vings from roots of trees, in which they ex- 
 hibit a peculiar taste, singular brushes, combs, 
 beautiful vessels of oderiferous wood for their 
 altars and temples, of which latter there are 
 models; very numerous ornamental stands 
 carved with good taste ; huge cameos in 
 stone of great cost ; fine specimens of their 
 lacquered ware, as well as their common 
 ware ; a silk embroidered saddle ; a water- 
 wheel worked like our modern tread-mill;* 
 a fan for cleaning rice, resembling our own ; 
 lanterns of every possible shape, size, and 
 ornament, will be suspended from various 
 points, with their rich and tasteful paintings; 
 there is a model of their very singular coffin, 
 which few would even guess was designed 
 to contain the last relics of humanity. 
 
 Space is wauting to perfect this notice of 
 # See Mirror, vol. i. p. 45. 
 
 a collection highly creditable to the taste and 
 liberality of the proprietor, and valuable to 
 our country. No where else can be seen so 
 complete an exhibition of this interesting 
 nation. 
 
 39eU) 33ooks. 
 
 History oj the American Navy. By 
 J. Fenimore Cooper. (Bentley.) 
 
 [The author of the above history is already 
 well known as a pleasing writer in romance ; 
 and, in this work, he equally maintains his 
 character as a faithful delineator of facts, 
 displaying, in the most vivid colours, heart- 
 stirring accounts of the various sea-fights in 
 which the infant navy of America have been 
 concerned. The details are faithfully given, 
 devoid of prejudice, and with the greatest 
 liberality. Among the many narratives, none 
 is more powerfully and romantically written, 
 than — 
 
 The Battle hetiveen the Serapis and the 
 Bon Homme Richard : — ] 
 
 It was now getting dark, and Commodore 
 Jones was compelled to follow the movements 
 of the enemy by the aid of a night-glass. The 
 Richard, however, stood steadily on, and about 
 half-past seven came up with the Serapis. 
 The American ship was to windward, and as 
 she drew slowly near, Captain Pearson hailed. 
 The answer was equivocal, and both ships 
 delivered their entire broadsides simulta- 
 neously. The water being so smooth, Com- 
 modore Jones had relied materially on the 
 eighteens that were in the gun-room, but at 
 the first discharge two of the six that were 
 fired burst, blowing up the deck above, and 
 killing or wounding a large proportion of 
 the people who were stationed below. This 
 disaster caused all the heavy guns to be in- 
 stantly deserted, for the men had no longer 
 sufficient confidence in their goodness to use 
 them. It at once reduced the broadside of 
 the Richard to about a third less than that of 
 her opponent, not to include the disadvantage 
 of the manner in which the metal that re- 
 mained was distributed among light guns. 
 In short, the contest was now between a 12- 
 pounder and an 18-pounder frigate, a species 
 of contest in which it has been said, we know 
 not with what truth, the former has never 
 been known to prevail. 
 
 Commodore Jones informs us himself that 
 all his hopes after this accident, rested on 
 the 12-pounders that were under the com- 
 mand of the first lieutenant. 
 
 The Richard, having backed her topsails, 
 exchanged several broadsides, when she filled 
 again and went ahead of the Serapis, which 
 ship luffed across her stern, and came up on 
 the weather quarter of her antagonist, taking 
 the wind out of her sails, and in her turn 
 passing ahead. All this time, which con- 
 sumed half an hour, the cannonading was 
 close and furious. As the Serapis kept her 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 41J 
 
 luff sailing and working better than the Rich- 
 ard, it was the intention of Captain Pearson 
 to pay broad off' across the latter’s forefoot 
 as soon as he had got far enough ahead ; but 
 making the attempt, and finding that he had 
 no room, he put his helm hard down to keep 
 clear of his adversary, when the double move- 
 ment brought the two ships nearly in a line, 
 the Serapis leading. By these uncertain evo- 
 lutions the English ship lost some of her 
 way, while the American, having kept her 
 sails trimmed, not only closed, but actually 
 ran aboard of her antagonist bows on, a 
 little on her weather quarter. The wind 
 being light, much time was consumed by these 
 manmuvres, and near an hour had elapsed 
 between the firing of the first gun and the 
 moment when the vessels got foul of each 
 other in the manner described. 
 
 The English now thought that it was the 
 intention of the Americans to board them, 
 and a few moments passed in the uncertainty 
 which such an expectation would create ; but 
 the position of the vessels was not favourable 
 for either party to pass into the opposing ship. 
 There being at the moment a perfect cessation 
 of the firing, Captain Pearson demanded 
 “ Have you struck your colours ?” “ I have 
 
 not begun to fight” was the answer. The 
 yards of the Richard were braced back, and 
 the sails of the Serapis being full, the ships 
 separated. As soon as far enough asunder, 
 the Serapis put her helm hard down, laid all 
 aback far forward, shivered her after sails, and 
 wore short round on her heel, or was box- 
 hauled, with a view, most probably, of luffing 
 up athwart the bow of her enemy, in order 
 again to rake her. In this position the Rich- 
 ard would have been fightiug her starboard, 
 and the Serapis her larboard guns, but Com- 
 modore Jones, by this time, was conscious of 
 the hopelessness of success against so much 
 heavier metal, and after backing astern some 
 distance, he filled on the other tack, luffing 
 up, with the intention of meeting the enemy 
 as she came to the wind, and of laying her 
 ath wart-hawse. 
 
 In the smoke, one party or the other mis- 
 calculated the distance, for the two vessels 
 came foul again, the bowsprit of the English 
 ship passing over the poop of the American. 
 As neither had much way, the collision did 
 but little injury ; and Commodore Jones 
 with his own hands immediately lashed the 
 enemy’s head gear to his mizenmast. 
 
 The pressure on the after sails ot the Se- 
 rapis, which vessel was nearly before the wind 
 at the time, brought her hull round, and the 
 two ships gradually fell close alongside of 
 each other, head and stern, the jib-boom of 
 the Serapis giving way with the strain. A 
 spare anchor of the English ship now hooked 
 in the quarter of the American, and additional 
 lashings were got on board the latter to se- 
 cure her in this position. 
 
 Captain Pearson, who was as much aware 
 of his advantage in a regular combat as his 
 opponent could be of his own disadvantage, 
 no sooner perceived the vessels foul, than he 
 dropped an anchor, in the hope that the Rich- 
 ard would drift clear of him. But such an 
 expectation was perfectly futile, as the yards 
 were interlocked ; the hulls were pressed close 
 against each other ; there were lashings fore 
 and aft, and even the ornamental work aided 
 in holding the ships together. When the 
 cable of the Serapis took the strain, the ves- 
 sels slowly tended, with the bows of the 
 Richard and the stern of the Serapis to the 
 tide. At this instant the English made an 
 attempt to board, but were repulsed without 
 loss. 
 
 All this time the battle raged. The lower 
 ports of the Serapis having been closed, as 
 the vessel swung to prevent boarding, they 
 were now blown off in order to allow the guns 
 to run out, and cases actually occurred in 
 which the rammers had to be thrust into the 
 ports of the opposite ship, in order to be en- 
 tered into the muzzles of their proper guns. 
 It is evident that such a conflict must be of 
 short duration. In effect the heavy metal of 
 the Serapis, in one or two discharges, cleared 
 all before it, and the main deck guns of the 
 Richard were in great measure abandoned. 
 Most of the people went to the upper deck, 
 and a great number collected on the forecastle, 
 where they were safe from the fire of the 
 enemy, continuing to fight by throwing gre- 
 nades and using muskets. 
 
 In this stage of the combat, the Serapis 
 was tearing her enemy to pieces below, 
 almost without resistance from her antago- 
 nist’s batteries — only two guns on the quar- 
 ter deck, and three or four of the twelves 
 being worked at all. To the former, by 
 shifting a gun from the larboard side, Com- 
 modore Jones succeeded in adding a third, 
 all of which were used with effect, under his 
 immediate inspection, to the close of the ac- 
 tion. He could not muster force enough to 
 get over another gun. But the combat would 
 soon have been terminated had it not been 
 for the courage and activity of the people 
 aloft. Strong parties had been placed in the 
 tops, and at the end of a short contest the 
 Americans had driven every man belonging 
 to the enemy below. After which they kept 
 up so animated a fire on the quarter-deck of 
 the Serapis, in particular, as to drive every 
 man off’ of it, who was not shot down. 
 
 Thus, while the English had the battle 
 nearly all to themselves below, the Americans 
 had the controul of the upper-deck. Having 
 cleared the tops of the Serapis, some Ameri- 
 can seamen lay out on the Richard’s main- 
 yard, and began to throw hand-grenades on 
 the two upper-decks of the English ship, the 
 men on the forecastle of their own ship 
 seconding those efforts, by casting the same 
 
414 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 combustibles through the ports of the Sernpis. 
 At length one man, in particular, became so 
 hardy as to take his post at the extreme end 
 of the yard, when, provided with a bucket 
 filled with combustibles, and a match, he 
 dropped the grenades with so much precision 
 that one dropped through the main hatchway. 
 
 The powder boys of the Serapis had got 
 more cartridges up than were wanted, and in 
 their hurry they had carelessly laid a low of 
 them on the main deck in a line with the 
 guns. The grenade just mentiomed set fire 
 to some loose powder that was lying near, 
 and the flash passed from cartridge to car- 
 tridge, beginning abreast of the main-mast 
 and running quite aft. 
 
 The effect of this explosion was awful. More 
 than 20 men were instantly killed, many of 
 them being left with nothing on them but 
 the collars and wristbands of their shirts, and 
 the waist-bands of their duck trousers, whilst 
 the official returns of the ship a week after 
 the action, show that there were no less than 
 38 wounded on board still alive, who had 
 been injured in this manner, and of whom 30 
 were then said to be in great danger. Cap- 
 tain Pearson described the explosion as hav- 
 ing destroyed nearly all the men at the five 
 aftermost guns. On the whole, nearly 60 of 
 the Serapis’s people must have been instantly 
 disabled by this sudden blow. 
 
 The advantage thus obtained by the cool- 
 ness and intrepidity of the top-men, in a 
 great measure restored the chances of the 
 combat, and by lessening the fire of the 
 enemy, enabled Commodore Jones to increase 
 his. In the same degree that it encouraged 
 the crew of the Richard, it diminished the 
 hopes of the people of the Serapis. One of 
 the guns, under the immediate inspection of 
 Commodore Jones, had been pointed some 
 time against the mainmast of his enemy, 
 while the two others had seconded the fire 
 of the tops with grape and canister. Kept 
 below deck by this double attack, where a 
 scene of frightful horror was presented in the 
 agonies of the wounded and the effects of the 
 explosion, the spirits of the English began to 
 droop, and there was a moment when a trifle 
 would have induced them to submit. From 
 this despondency they were temporarily raised 
 by one of those unlooked-for events that ac- 
 company the vicissitudes of battle. 
 
 Let the injuries be from what quarter they 
 might, soon after the Alliance had run to lee- 
 ward. an alarm was spread in the Richard 
 that the ship was sinking. Both vessels had 
 been on fire several times, and some diffi- 
 culty had been experience! in extinguishing 
 the flames, but here was a new enemy to 
 contend with, and as the information came 
 from the carpenter, whose duty in was to 
 sound the pump-wells, it produced a great 
 deal of consternation. The Richard had 
 more than 100 English prisoners on board, 
 
 and the master-at-arms, in the hurry of the 
 moment, let them up from below in order to 
 save their lives. In the confusion of such a 
 scene, at night, the master of a letter-of- 
 marque that had been taken off the north 
 ot Scotland, passed through a port of the 
 Richard into one of the Serapis, when he 
 reported to Captain Pearson, that a few mi- 
 nutes would probably decide the battle in his 
 favour, or carry his enemy down, he himself 
 having been liberated in order to save his 
 life. 
 
 J ust at this instant, the gunner, who had 
 little to occupy him at his quarters, came on 
 deck, and not perceiving Commodore Jones 
 or Mr. Dale, both of whom were occupied 
 with the liberated prisoners, and believing 
 the mate, the only superior officer he had in 
 the ship, to be dead, he ran up the poop to 
 haul down the colours. Fortunately, the flag- 
 staff had been shot away, and the ensign 
 already hanging in the water, he had no 
 other means of letting his intentions be 
 known, than by calling out for quarter. Cap- 
 tain Pearson now hailed to know if the 
 Richard demanded quarter, and was answered 
 by Commodore Jones himself in the negative. 
 It is possible that the reply was not heard, 
 or if heard, supposed to come from an autho- 
 rised source, for encouraged by what he heard 
 from the liberated prisoner, and by the con- 
 tusion that prevailed in the Richard, the 
 English captain directed his hoarders to be 
 called away, and as soon as mustered, they 
 were ordered to take possession of the 
 prize. Some of the men actually got on the 
 gunwale of the latter ship; but finding 
 boarders ready to repel boarders, they made 
 a precipitate retreat. All this time the top- 
 men were not idle, and the enemy were soon 
 again driven below with loss. 
 
 In the meanwhile, Mr. Dale, who no lon- 
 ger held a gun that could be fought, mus- 
 tered the prisoners at the pumps, turning 
 their consternation to account, and probably 
 keeping the Richard afloat by the very blun- 
 der that had been so near losing her. The 
 ships were now on fire again, and both 
 parties, with the exception of a few guns at 
 each side, ceased firing in order to subdue 
 this dangerous enemy. In the course of the 
 combat, the Serapis is said to have been set 
 on fire no less than twelve times, while towards 
 its close, as will be seen in the sequel, the 
 Richard was burning all the time. 
 
 As soon as order was restored in the Rich- 
 ard, after the call for quarter, her chance of 
 success began to increase, while the English, 
 driven under cover almost to a man, appear 
 to have lost, in a great degree, the hope of 
 victory. Their fire, materially slackened, 
 while the Richard again brought a few more 
 guns to bear. The mainmast of the Serapis 
 began to totter, and her resistance in general to 
 lessen. About an hour after the explosion, or 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 415 
 
 between three and three hours and a-lialf after 
 the first gun was fired, and between two hours 
 and two hours and a-lialf after the ships were 
 lashed together, Captain Pearson hauled down 
 the colours of the Serapis with his own hand, 
 the men refusing to expose themselves to the 
 fire of the Richard's tops. 
 
 As soon as it was known that the colours 
 of the English had been lowered, Mr. Dale 
 got upon the gunwale of the Richard, and, 
 laying hold of the main brace pendant, he 
 swung himself on board of the Serapis. On 
 the quarter-deck of the latter, he found Cap- 
 tain Pearson almost alone, that gallant officer 
 having maintained his post throughout the 
 whole of this dire and murderous conflict. 
 Just as Mr. Dale addressed the British cap- 
 tain, the first lieutenant of the Serapis came 
 up from below, to inquire if the Richard had 
 struck — the fire having entirely ceased. Mr. 
 Dale gave the English officer to understand 
 that he was mistaken in the position of 
 things, the Serapis having struck to the 
 Richard, and not the Richard to the Serapis. 
 Captain Pearson confirming this account, his 
 subordinate acquiesced, offering to go below 
 and silence the guns that were still playing 
 on the American ship. To this Mr. Dale 
 would not consent ; both the officers were 
 immediately passed on board the Richard, 
 and the firing was then stopped below. Mr. 
 Dale had been closely followed to the quarter- 
 deck of the Serapis by Mr. Myrant, a mid- 
 shipman, and a party of boarders, and as the 
 former reached the quarter-deck of the prize, 
 he was run through the thigh by a boarding- 
 pike in the hands of a man in the waist, who 
 was ignorant of the surrender. Thus did the 
 close of this remarkable combat resemble its 
 other features in singularity, blood being 
 shed and shot fired while the boarding-officer 
 was in amicable discourse with his prisoner. 
 
 Although the protracted and bloody combat 
 had now ended, the danger nor the labour of 
 the victor were not over.. The Richard was 
 both sinking and on fire. 
 
 Cije public ^Journals. 
 
 SKETCHES IN POIiTUGAL, 
 
 BY AN OFFICER OF THE BENGAL ENGINEERS.* 
 
 The Castle of Oporto , 
 
 Which is in a very dilapidated condition, is 
 a high building, completely commanding the 
 town, being situated on the top of a high 
 hill on the inner side or farthest from the 
 landing place. The statue in bronze, of Don 
 Juan or John P which greets you on the top 
 of the steps, or rather, in the middle of the 
 grand square, is a beautiful and picturesque 
 piece of architecture. The designs right and 
 left of, and attached to, the equestrian figure, 
 are well carved, hut I forget their description, 
 
 • From No. xxxi. Indian Review. Calcutta. 
 
 excepting that I think they were allegorical. 
 The houses are lofty, large, and cool, some 
 with ice-rooms, which are still cooler, billiard- 
 rooms, cafes, and shops of all descriptions. 
 Few of the shop-keepers speak French, En- 
 glish, Spanish, Italiau, or any other language 
 than their own beautiful nasal twang. They 
 are the ugliest set of people I have ever seen. 
 There was, however, one exception, those at 
 the opera being not only pretty, or at least 
 they appeared so, and passable, but possessed 
 of very good understandings, both of the body 
 and mind. 
 
 The Church of San Roque, 
 
 Is a beautiful church, not exteriorly, but in- 
 teriorly, having some of the most beautiful 
 Mosaic stone paintings I ever saw : one of 
 the altar-pieces, and some candelabras, are of 
 the most elaborate workmanship, and are 
 stated to be of immense value, by reason of 
 the quantity of precious metal contained in 
 their composition. Leaving this, we next 
 proceeded a considerable distance, by boat, 
 to visit the old Monastery, of which I forget 
 the name : near the entrance of the liver, on 
 entering it, one is much struck with the 
 great extent and amazing height of the roof, 
 when contrasted with the extraordinary small 
 pillars which support it ; their tenuity is re- 
 markable : they seem hardly capable of sup- 
 porting the great weight of the roof at so 
 great a height above ground : they present, 
 however, a beautiful effect, especially as they 
 are partly carved in ail elegaut and chaste 
 style. The pulpit is costly in appearance, 
 and not unlike those seen in the cloisters of 
 Belgium, France, or Spain, in fact, in all 
 Roman Catholic countries. We were here 
 favoured with a sight of the remains of Don 
 Alphonso, a skeleton which is kept in a coypt, 
 behind the organ, and I cannot say it was 
 the most agreeeable I had seen. He was 
 celebrated for having a beautiful wife, who 
 so inflamed the passions of his younger bro- 
 ther, that that brother was induced to raise 
 the standard of rebellion against him, and to 
 dethrone and imprison him, and afterwards 
 marry his wife ; this was pretty well for a 
 brother; but this is not all ; he kept him in 
 close confinement for 18 years, until his 
 death — a fine lesson for posterity. The or- 
 gan, which is a double one, is particularly 
 grand ; its tones are as fine as any I have 
 ever heard, the shape of the building no 
 doubt added to its euphonious chords. 
 
 The Squares of Lisbon, 
 
 Are capacious, the streets generally long and 
 wide, excepting the “ Goldsmith’s Street,” 
 (which has a row of thick square posts on 
 either side of the way, put up, possibly, to 
 assist in covering assassinating parties), and 
 one or two others ; they are generally narrow, 
 and all exceedingly filthy and stinking, (I ad- 
 
416 
 
 THE MI IUIO It. 
 
 here to this term, because it is not at all an 
 exaggeration). The “ gardez l’eau ” of Edin- 
 burgh, (see Humphry Clinker,) I think was 
 nothing to it. The people appear clean, but 
 I only saw one woman with whom I would 
 with pleasure have gone to the antipodes, but 
 not have married. The palace of the Ajudea 
 is only the half part of a very large building 
 which was to have been finished, but funds 
 were not forthcoming for the purpose ; nor 
 does there seem to be any likelihood of the 
 completion of this grand and extensive struc- 
 ture. The paintings inside are executed, 
 however, in a most disgraceful manner, more 
 fit for the ornaments to a barn theatre, than 
 for a palace belonging to the Royal Family 
 of Portugal. The rooms are large, lofty, and 
 well arranged, with some furniture in them, 
 and with exception to the paintings, are 
 fairly adapted, as receiving or waiting-rooms 
 for foreign ambassadors, or others requiring 
 to be presented to the Queen. Tapestries 
 are numerous on the walls, and three thrones 
 to be met with in one of the rooms, viz. one 
 for the Queen, one for the King consort, on 
 her left, and the third for the Queen Dowa- 
 ger, on his left. Of course we sat down on 
 each of them in succession ! The statues in 
 the courts below are not badly chiselled, re- 
 presenting mercy, justice, and all the attri- 
 butes of the being they profess to worship. 
 
 The Royal Sepulchre , 
 
 Leads out of one of the exits from a monas- 
 tery, appropriated solely to noblemen's sons 
 in former days, but now tenantless ; our guide 
 lighted a taper or two, and ushered us in — we 
 were startled with the stillness that reigned 
 around, as well as with a certain impression 
 of the confined state of the atmosphere, which 
 was by no means agreeable or healthy to 
 breathe for any length of time. We saw a 
 splendid array, indeed, but for what purpose is 
 it employed ? The most interesting sight was 
 a coffin, covered with a black velvet cloth, 
 embossed with gold thread-work and lace, 
 with a description of the rank and title of the 
 late young husband of the present Queen, 
 who died of quinsy in the throat, at the 
 early age of 22, I think. A gilt crown and 
 sceptre were lying on the top of the struc- 
 ture, but these were only placed there as a 
 compliment to the Queen, because none but 
 such as the deceased that had formerly been 
 kings in their own right, were allowed this 
 last mark of their former exalted rank. Some 
 of the inscriptions were of considerable age, 
 and mostly in the Portuguese language, but 
 a few were of Latin. 
 
 Ci)t <Satf)em\ 
 
 White Race of Africans. — M. Guyon, 
 chief surgeon of the African army, writes to 
 M. Dureau de la Mal'e, that at Bougia there 
 is now living a woman, originally from the 
 
 interior, supposed to be descended from the 
 white tribe of Mount Aureps. She is at 
 most twenty-six or twenty-eight years of age, 
 of very agreeable physiognomy, blue eyes, 
 fair hair, beautiful teeth, and has a vtry 
 delicate white skin. She is married to the 
 Imaun of the mosques, Sidi Hamed, by 
 whom she has had three children, bearing a 
 strong resemblance to herself. M. Arago 
 observes, that these white people are r.ot 
 rare in that part of the world, as might be 
 supposed ; for, when he was going frcm 
 Bougia to Algiers, in 1S08, by land, he saw 
 woman of all ages in the different villages, 
 who were quite white, had blue eyes and fair 
 hair, but that the nature of his journey did 
 not permit him to stop and ask if they came 
 from any peculiar tribe. 
 
 Estimate of the average value of the mine- 
 ral product of Cornwall and Devon annually 
 raised and exported. — If we estimate the 
 value of the metals annually raised in Great 
 Britain and Ireland at about 10,597,00(7., 
 and consider that of this sum the iron amcurts 
 to 8,000,000/., the value of the remaining 
 metals would be, 2,597,000 1., of which 
 Cornwall and Devon would furnish about 
 l,340.000/i, or more than one-half, leaving 
 1 ,257,000/. for the value of all the metals, 
 with the exception of iron, raised in other 
 parts of the United Kingdom. The two 
 great metallic products of the district are 
 copper and tin : of the former it yields one- 
 third, and of the latter nine-tenths, of the 
 whole supply of copper and tin furnished by 
 the British Islands and all the countries of 
 the continent of Europe. — Geological Re- 
 port, 1839. 
 
 Mr. De la Beche, who, with Mr. Barry, and 
 the eminent geologist Mr. W. Smith, were 
 entrusted to select the material of which the 
 new Houses of Parliament are to be con- 
 structed, have made choice of the magnesian 
 limestone of Yorkshire. 
 
 The Nelson Testimonial. — Mr. Railton is 
 the successful artist. His design was No. 65 
 in the list. It is to be a fluted Corinthian 
 column, 162 feet to the top of capital. The 
 cost will be 30,000/. 
 
 VOL. XXXIII. OF THE MIRROR, 
 
 With a Steel-plate Portrait and Memoir of 
 
 Sit iEbtoarb Eptton Uttltoer, 
 
 and upwards of 400 closely-printed pages, price 
 5s. lids., will be published on the 29lh iust. 
 
 Part 220, price Is., completing the Volume, will 
 also be ready on the same day. 
 
 The Supplementary Number, containing the 
 Portrait and Memoir, with Title-page, Preface, and 
 Index to the Volume, will be published, with No. 1. 
 of a new Volume, ou Satuiday next, July 6. 
 
 LONDON: Printed and published by J.LIMBllIV, 
 143, Strand, (near Somerset House ) ; and sold by 
 all Booksellers and Newsmen — In PARIS, by all 
 the Booksellers.— In FRANCFORT, CHARLES 
 JVOEL. 
 
GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 Abolition of the Gladiators at Rome, 143 
 Abingdon, view and description of the 
 Grammar-school at, 1 62 
 A Bore, 404 
 
 Account of the magnificent Triumphal Arch 
 at Djimmilah, 136 
 Account of the Lapacho-tree, 47 
 Actors’ names, when first affixed to the cha- 
 raters they represented, 48 
 Account of a Famine in Guzerat, in 1811, 
 190 
 
 the Longicorn-beetles, 202 
 the Asparagus-beetle, 203 
 Accidental discovery of Prussian-blue, 347 
 Advertising, original mode of, 32 
 Adventurer, names of contributors to Dr. 
 
 Hawksworth’s, 406 
 Adventures with Peter Schlemihl, 218 
 Advice to Ladies, 284 
 Adaptation of the Bude Light, 280 
 Advantages of Geometry, 163 
 Aellopodes, the, description and view of, 178 
 A French school, 100 
 African money, account of, 127 
 Africans, white race of, 416 
 A glimpse of Elizabethan manners, 89 
 Albert Durer’s residence at Nuremberg, 
 account of, 65 
 
 America, descending the Rapids of, 44 
 American in England, 130—195 
 Andrew’s, St., Hall, Norwich, 97 
 Animals, Lord Brougham’s remarks on the 
 intelligence of, 142 
 Antiquity of the bagpipes, 109 
 Ancient attitude at table, 119 
 Animals, worship of, 147 
 A soldier’s farewell, 66 
 Anecdote of Delpini, 58 
 Annesley’s charity, account of, 62 
 Ancients, wit of the, 38 — 78 
 Anecdotes of the insane, 69 — 114 
 
 the Duke of Luxemburg, 75 
 celebrated persons, 141, 157 
 Rembrandt, 158 
 Louis XVIII., 159 
 
 Vol. XXXIII. 
 
 Antiquarian discoveries, 238 
 Anecdote Gallery, 229 
 
 of Ireton and the Earl of Derby, 
 160 
 
 Ancient powder-flask, description and view 
 of, 280 
 
 Antipathies, singular, 309 
 Ancient legend of St. George, 280 
 Antonio Lionelli, 200 
 Apophthegms, 95 
 
 Persian, 148 
 
 Art and mystery of quack doctoring, 111 
 Arsenic, mode of detecting, 253 
 Artichoke, the, notice of, 253 
 Arabic numerals, view and description of, 
 134 
 
 Artists, knowledge of botany requisite to all, 
 391 
 
 Arts and manufactures in Paris, exhibition 
 of, 360 
 
 Architecture, domestic, 335 
 A Secret, 64 
 
 Ascent of Mont Blanc, 403 
 Ascot Heath, the grand stand at, 350 
 Atmosphere, remarks on the, 163—275 
 Atlantic, cruise in the, 340 
 Austria, titles of the Emperor of, 128 
 Autographs, sale of Mr. Stewart’s, 335 
 of Oliver Cromwell, 314 
 Avalanches, remarks on, 245 
 Azamoglans in Turkey, account of, 148 
 Bagpipes, on the antiquity of, 109 
 Barksdale, Clement, mention of, 162 
 Baltic, decrease of the, 178 
 Balloons in 1648, mention of, 174 
 Mr. Hampton’s, 376 
 Bancks, Thomas, his charity, 355 
 Barometer, history of the, 399 
 Bardon Tower, account of, 82 
 Banister, John, memoir of, 94 — 122 
 Battle between the Serapis, and the Bon 
 Homme .Richard, 412 
 Bear, dreadful conflict with, 48 
 Beechey, Sir W., memoir of, 106 
 Bees, calling of the Queen, 204 
 2 E 
 
418 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Bejucas-plant, description of, 46 
 Bells, inscription on, 130 
 Benlomond, view and description of, 73 
 Berne, the bear and the fox at, 246 
 Biblical criticism, 239 
 Bird, Dr. Golding, his paper on the applica- 
 tion of the photogenic art, 243 
 Blessington's, Lady, description of Vaucluse, 
 the retreat of Petrarch, 183 
 Blagrave's charity, account of, 61 
 Books, on the worth of, 171 
 of the Romans, 29 
 
 Botanical Society, proceedings of the, 214 
 description of Lichens, 46 
 Borne’s opinion of Goethe, 44 
 Botany, remarks on, 343 
 Bolton Priory, history of, 381 
 Brougham, Lord, his sketch of Beniamin 
 Franklin, 217 
 
 British Museum, expenditure, &c., of, in 
 1837, 176 
 
 British Institution, account of, 398 
 Burford’s Panoramas of Rome, &c., account 
 of, 144 
 
 Bunyan’s Birth-place, 105 
 Burnsall, description of, 83 
 Buffalo, theatricals at, 77 
 Bude-light, adaptation of the, 280 
 Byron, Lord, characteristic anecdotes of, 1 75 
 Cadiz, effigy of Hercules at, 284 
 Calling of the Queen Bees, 204 
 Cape Coast Castle, account and view of, 49 
 Camillo, the first poet laureate, 93 
 Canary Bird, account of the talking, 108 
 Campan, Mad., her letters to her son, 394 
 Cannibalism, terrible effects of, 16- 
 Canada, in 1838, want and influence of Edu- 
 cation in, 110 
 
 state of Literature, 111 
 religion in, 111 
 
 mistrust between the Canadians and 
 the English, 111 
 
 competition of the English and 
 French Farmers, 124 
 the labouring population, 124 
 effects of the introduction of English 
 people, 1 25 
 
 character of the French settlers, 125 
 Cartoons, Raffaell’s, preservation of, 313 
 Cattle, cure of wounds in, 13 
 Cat and the two Sparrows, Fable of, 25 
 Caubul, history of, 318 — 320 — 363 
 Celebrated Oaks, 240 
 Ceres, poem to, 364 
 
 Chatham, experimental explosions at, 255 
 Chapels, subterraneous, 238 
 Character of the first century, 85 
 Charles II., 93 
 
 Chance, there is no such thing as, 18 
 Characteristic anecdotes of Byron and Shel- 
 ley, 175 
 
 Charles I., narrative of his detention at New- 
 castle, 34 
 
 Character of Dr. Johnson, 77 
 Chart of Health, 176 
 
 Characters of Oliver Cromwell, 31 1 
 Charity never faileth, 339 
 Character of the English, 389 
 Chelsea, recollections of, 301 
 Chelsea Bun-house ; sale of, 272 
 
 demolition of, 286 
 description and views 
 of, 209—210 
 
 Chinese Curiosities at Philadelphia, 396 
 China, estimate of the compass in, 255 
 Chinese tea-plants in India, 213 
 Chinese Mandarin and Christian Mission- 
 aries, 8 
 
 Clergy, knowledge of Botany essential to 
 the, 393 
 
 Cheveley, novel of, 284 
 Clifford, Lady Anne, memoirs of, 382 
 Climate and Seasons of England, 284 
 Clothing, accidents and errors in, 331 
 Clock Spheres of the Ancients, remarks on, 
 133 
 
 Coal Mines, remarks on, 6 — 23 — 55 
 Cochin China, remarks on, 287 
 Colours, the philosophy of, 408 
 Comparative state of the weather, 325 
 Conflict with a bear, 48 
 Construction and use of iron, 59 
 Coroner, the office of, 66 
 Country, love of, 196 
 Cranmer’s bible, sale of, 304 
 Cremorne House, ascent of Mr. Hampton 
 from, 376 
 
 Criticism, Biblical, 239 
 Cromwell, Oliver, his autographs, 314 
 parentage of, 349 
 Cross-buns, on the origin of, 21 1 
 Cruise in the Atlantic, 340 
 Curious Bequests, 61 — 355 — 389 
 Culture, intellectual and moral, 1/0 
 Cypress-tree, a magnificent, 228 
 Death, motion after, 5 
 Death of the Fox, 159 
 Decrease of the Baltic, J78 
 Definition of the word * Mind,’ 186 
 
 several words, falsely styled 
 Cockneyisms, 188 
 Delpini, anecdote of, 58 
 Descending the Rapids of America, 44 
 Description of the grand Stand at Ascot 
 Heath, 354 
 
 Bejucas plant, 46 
 and Views of Linton Church, 
 81-83 
 
 Destruction of the early English Libraries, 
 92 
 
 Description and view of the experimental 
 pavement in Oxford-street, 41 
 
 of the Eastern Institution, Com- 
 mercial Road, 129 
 of the newly-invented machine, 
 the Accelerator, 194 
 of Grey-street, Newcastle 34 
 Dew, remarks on, 245 
 Directions for making Photographic paper, 
 and to take drawings, 282 
 
INDEX, 
 
 419 
 
 Directions for taking Photographic MSS., 
 283 
 
 Discovery of the tea-plant in India, 250 — 278 
 important chemical, 254 
 Discoveries, antiquarian, 238 
 Discovery of a new. Aboriginal race of na- 
 tives in New South Wales, 19J 
 of some Irish Canoes, 64 
 Dissection, new process of preserving sub- 
 jects for, 79 
 
 Divines, plays written by, 342 
 Dog, worship of the, 325 
 Domestic manners of the Romans, 28 
 Domestic architecture, 335 
 Drawings and models for the intended Nel- 
 son memorial: account of, 153 
 Dreams, remarkable, 259 
 Drury lane Theatre, first play-hill at, 48 
 Dunn’s Museum, 410 
 Durer, Albert, his residence, 65 
 Early English Music Printers, account of, 
 349—359—373 
 
 Earth’s substance, theories of the, 227 
 Earl Dirham’s account of Canada, 110 
 Eastern Penitentiary, Philadelphia, 399 
 Eastern Institution, Commercial Road, view 
 and description of, 129 
 Eccaleobion, the, exhibition of, 249 
 Eccentricities of Henri Jules, 314 
 1829, lines on the year, 46 
 Electricity, singular effects of, 104 
 Elizabethan manners, a glimpse of, 89 
 Elizabeth, Queen, statue of, 306 
 Embroidery, gilding of thread for, 283 
 Emigration, remarks on, 189 — 234 
 Emperor of China, and the Merchant, story 
 of, 143 
 
 Empress Catherine, anecdote of, 157 
 English, Aaron Burr’s opinion of the, 224 
 equipage, 131 
 
 names, on the origin of, 157 
 character of the, 389 
 Libraries, destruction of the early, 
 92 
 
 Bijou Almanac, 56 
 England, an American in, 130 
 
 climate and seasons of, 284 
 felonry in, 293 
 
 Erpingham, Sir T., notice of, 97 
 Essay oil Maguilps, 370 
 Eugene Aram, where schoolmaster, 83 
 Evesham, description and view of the gram- 
 mar-school at, 162 
 
 Execution in France, account of one, 88 
 Exhibition of Arts and Manufactures in Paris, 
 360-378 
 
 of the living talking Canary-bird, 
 108 
 
 Experimental explosions at. Chatham, 254 
 Fable of the Cat and the two Sparrows, 25 
 Fact, a curious, 240 
 Fall of a meteoric Stone, 253 
 Famine, account of the, in Guzerat, 190 
 the, a tale from the Arabian, 223 
 Felonry of England, ancient and modern, 293 
 
 Feltham’s remarks on secrecy, 354 
 Field of Waterloo, 290 
 Filiberta Madruzzo, the tale of, 370 
 First view of England, 130 
 First century, character of the, 85 
 Fine Arts, the necessity of union among the 
 professors of, 109 
 
 Suffolk Street Gallery, 207 — 237 
 Drawings of the Musee Royal, 207 
 Mr. Parris’s picture of the corono- 
 tion of Queen Victoria, 224 
 Burford’s panoramas of Rome, &c. 
 144 
 
 Nelson memorial, 153 
 Water-colour Paintings, 263 
 Society of British artists, 298 
 Fish-ponds in Gardens, management of, 267 
 Fog, remarks on, 245 
 
 Formation, working and ventilation of coal- 
 mines, 6 
 
 Fortitude under pain, 336 
 Fox, bishop of Winchester, mention of, 162 
 Flint glass where first made in London, 96 
 Flying in the air, remarks on, 174 
 Freebooter, interview with an Highland, 47 
 Freedom, Highland, 76 
 Free-school at Linton, view and description 
 of, 81—84 
 
 Funeral of the pretender, 32 
 the rich man’s, 299 
 the poor man’s, 300 
 
 Fungi, Dr. Glendining’s remarks on, 196 
 Galvanic Battery, an improved, 254 
 Gallus ; or, Domestic Manners of the Ro- 
 mans, 28 
 
 Gardens, fish-ponds in, 267 
 Garrick’s Baptism, 304 
 Grey-street, Newcastle, view of, 34 
 George, (St.), and the Dragon, at Toronto, 
 326 
 
 George III. and Family visit Chelsea Bun- 
 House, 219 
 
 Geometry, on the advantages of, 1 63 
 George II., Letter of, to his son, 35 
 Gibraltar, public gardens at, 272 
 Gilding of Thread for Embroidery, 282 
 Gladiators at Rome, on the abolition of, 143 
 Goethe as a Patriot, 43 
 Grantham, history and view of the free Gram- 
 mar-School at, 162 
 
 Great Western Steam ship, voyage of, 176 
 Grecian Monuments, remarks on, 159 
 Gresham Lectures, origin of the, 230 — 246 
 Grocow, murderous battle of, 12 
 Guildhall, London, east end of, 306 
 Hampton’s Ascent from Cremorne House, 
 375 
 
 Hardham, venerable yew-tree at, 233 
 Hatton-garden, when built, 48 
 Hawkins. Samuel, his Charity, 356 
 Haydn, F. J., memoir of, 320 
 Heads of the People, 299 
 Health, chart of, 176 
 
 Henrietta-Maria, remarks on her non-corona- 
 tion, 306 
 
420 
 
 index. 
 
 Hermit, an interview with, 187 
 
 Highlands, May mysteries of the, 293 
 
 Highland Freedom, 70 
 
 History of Caubul, 318 
 
 History of the British Institution, 398 
 
 Horologia Historia, 133 — 149 
 
 Hopwood, (Mrs.), and the Hare’s Foot, 127 
 
 Hour-glasses, remarks on, 134 
 
 How a Gallant should behave himself, 89 
 
 Human Life, revolutions of, 80 
 
 Sacrifices, account of, 147 
 Hunger and Gold, 133 
 Huntley, Captain, his model of a slave-ship, 
 337 
 
 Hyde-Park, new plantation in, 236 
 Hymn to Love, 66 
 Ichoglans, account of the, 303 
 Important Chemical Discovery, 254 
 Improved Galvanic Battery, 254 
 India, discovery of the tea-plant in, 250 
 Chinese tea-plants in, 213 
 Institutions, literary and scientific, 53 
 Interview between Lord Reay and an High- 
 land freebooter, 47 
 
 Irish Canoes, discovery of antique, 64 
 Iron Work, new mode of preserving from 
 rust, 384 
 
 on the construction and use of, 59 
 Insane, anecdotes of the, 69 — 182 
 Insects injurious to Vegetables, 202 
 Instances of Tenacity of Life in the infe- 
 rior Creation, 179 
 Ingratitude punished, 140 
 Instinct and Intelligence of Animals, Lord 
 Brougham’s remarks on, 142 
 Interior of Santa Croce, Florence, lines on, 
 355 
 
 Invisible Girl, exhibition of, 248 
 Inventor of the Art of Mezzotinto Scraping, 
 109 
 
 Johnson, Dr., character of, 77 
 Judge, salary of a, 400 
 Jules, Henri, anecdotes of, 314 
 Kava Tree, description of, 56 
 Kaye, John, the first English laureate, 93 
 Kean, Bannister’s opinion of, 122 
 Kemble, John, account of his marriage, 95 
 Kilcolman, view and description of, 9 
 Kilkenny Peasantry, remarks on, 191 
 King Charles’s Royal Masque, 37 5 
 King’s Bench, scene in the rules of, 365 
 Kinsale, Lord, anecdote relative to, 376 
 Kyanised Wood, remarks on, 253 — 255 — 286 
 Ladies in Hats, 130 
 Advice to, 284 
 Lapacho-tree, account of, 47 
 Language of Untutored Men, 69 
 Land of my Birth, lines on, 18 
 Laurel hill Cemetery, Philadelphia, 278 
 Legend, a most extraordinary, 32 
 L. E. L., death of, 9 
 
 remarks on, 26 
 life of, 27 
 
 the castle in which she died, 49 
 her autograph, 49 
 
 L. E. L., lines on the grave of, 178 
 Letter of George II. to Frederick Prince of 
 Wales, 35 
 
 Letters on Steam Navigation, 294 
 transit of, 351 
 Libraries of the Romans, 28 
 Lichens, botanical description of, 47 
 Life of William of Wykeham, 67 
 
 on the only means of enjoying, 87 
 and Adventures of Michael Armstrong, 
 154 
 
 Linnaeus, death of his daughter Louisa, 272 
 Linton, parish church of, views und descrip- 
 tion of, 81 — 83 
 
 Free-School, 81 — 84 
 Lionelli, Antonio, 200 
 Lisbon, the squares of, 415 
 Literary and Scientific Institutions, 53 
 Literature, specimen of Welsh, 188 
 Liquid Leather, newly invented, 383 
 Liverpool, a visit to, 292 
 picture of, 131 
 
 Living Talking Canary Bird, account of, 108 
 Lobishomens, The, 329 
 London and Croydon Railway, view of, 145 
 Lodge, Edmund, sale of his books, 208 
 London, Boz’s tableau of, 31 
 
 Bannister’s opinion of, 95 
 Society contrasted with the Cana- 
 dians, 76 
 
 number of houses for resort of thieves 
 in, 288 
 
 Longevity, remarkable, 240 
 Longicorn-beetles, account of, 202 
 Lord Brougham’s Remarks on the Instinct of 
 Animals, 142 
 
 Auckland’s Visit to Maharajah Run- 
 jeet Singh, 132 
 Love, hymn to, 66 
 
 of Country, 196 
 the diseases of, 181 
 Luther, character of, 45 
 Luxemburgh, anecdote of the Duke of, 75 
 Mab’s Cross ; a Legend of Lancashire, 4 
 Maclean, (Mrs.) death of, 9 
 memoirs of, 27 
 
 Madame Campan’s Letters to her Son, 394 
 Madruzzo Filiberta ; a pathetic Tale, 372 
 Magnificent Triumphal Arch at Djimmilah, 
 136 
 
 Mnguilps, essay on, 370 
 Man's Mortality, lines on, 163 
 Manager and the Frenchman, 178 
 Maps, modes of engraving, 329 
 Mariner’s Compass in China, 255 
 Mary Queen of Scot’s, song of, 24 
 Masked-ball in Paris, account of, 167 
 Mathews, Mr. Charles, Memoirs of, 10 
 in infancy, 9 
 first visit to the thea- 
 tre, 9 
 
 first mariage, 10 
 interview with Tate 
 Wilkinson, 42 
 second marriage, 43 
 
INDEX. 
 
 421 
 
 Mathews, Mr., Charles, remarkable dream, 43 
 May Marriages, superstitions against, 309 
 Medallion-imitative-engraving, discovery of 
 a new invention of, 214 
 Memoir of Sir W. Beechey, 106 
 John Macpherson, 106 
 Mrs. Trollope, 152 
 Charles Rossi, R. A., 173 
 Sir Herbert Taylor, 232 
 Edmund Lodge, Esq., 232 
 Runjeet Singh, 273 
 Robert Millhouse, 233 
 John Galt, 298 
 Thomas Haynes Bayley, 298 
 the Younger Servin, 330 
 Memory, on the loss of, 164 
 Mendicity in England, 195 
 Merit of a forgiving Temper, 332 
 Meteoric Stone, account of the fall of a, 214 
 —253 
 
 Metropolis, traffic of the, 320 
 Mezzotinto Scraping, the discovery of the 
 art of, 1 09 
 
 Mind, definition of the word, 186 
 Moated House, The, 211 
 Mode of detecting Arsenic, 253 
 Modern Geography, interesting facts con- 
 nected with, 204 
 
 Mode of employing Servants throughout the 
 World, 148, 27 9 
 
 Modes of Manufacturing Tea, 264 
 Moel y Golfa, Rodney’s pillar at, 121 
 Monk-fish, description of, 136 
 Money, account of African, 127 
 Moscow, views of, 192 
 Morgue at Paris, account of, 118 
 Mother, lamentations of a, 64 
 Motion after Death, 5 
 Mount Hecla, account and view of, 322 
 Mrs. Hopwood and the Hare’s Foot, 127 
 My Mother, poem on, 348 
 Murderous Battle of Gracow, 12 
 Museum of Chinese Curiosities, 396 
 Music-printing, account of the early, 349 — 
 359—373 
 
 Musk, powers of, 285 
 Mutton, best age of, 400 
 Napolean’s generals, origin of, 166 
 Natural eloquence and true magnanimity, 160 
 Nature, the kingdoms of, 51 — 99 
 phenomena of, 227 
 
 Natural history, popular view of, 106 — 168 — 
 185— 315— 357— 390 
 
 Necessity of union among the professors of the 
 Fine Arts, 109 
 Nelson memorial, 153 — 176 
 Newly-erected east end of the Guildhall, Lon- 
 don, 306 
 
 Newcastle, eminent natives of, 34 
 New publications, account of, 126 
 New South Wales, salubrity of the air in, 
 234 
 
 discovery of a new abori- 
 ginal race of natives 
 in, 192 
 
 New Year, song for the, 35 
 New Zealand flax, mode of preparing, 40 
 the advantages of, 235 
 chief, treachery of a, 63 
 New Synagogue, description and view of inte- 
 rior, *2 
 
 exterior, 17 
 
 New process of embalming subjects for dis- 
 section, 79 
 
 New class of Thugs, 303 
 New discovery of medallion imitative engra- 
 ving, 214 
 
 New plantation in Hyde Park, 236 
 New Books, noticed and quoted : 
 
 Adventures of Michael Armstrong, 154 
 Births, deaths, and marriages, 214 
 Cheveley, by Lady Bulwer, 284 
 Cooper’s History of the American Navy, 
 412 
 
 Deerbrook, by Miss Martineau, 269 
 Every Mother’s Book, 331 
 Emigration Fields, by P. Matthew, 188 
 —234 
 
 The Gift tor all Seasons, 348 — 380 
 Goethe’s Faust, 395 
 
 Historical Sketches of Statesmen, by 
 Lord Brougham, 217 
 Hand-Book of Paris, 299 
 Mr. Jameson’s Winter Studies in Canada, 
 76 
 
 Lindsay’s Coinage of Ireland, 251 
 Loudon’s Suburban Gardener, 267 
 Lover’s Songs and Ballads, 270 
 Mathew’s Life, 10, 42 
 Memoirs of Bannister, 95 
 Richelieu, or the Conspiracy, 172 
 Songs and Ballads, by Samuel Lover, 
 216 
 
 Self Culture, 170 
 
 Nickleby (Mrs.) and the roast pig, 220 
 Oaks, celebrated, 240 
 Obey, on the use of the word, 94 
 Obstinacy of a New Zealand chief, 16 
 Olave, (St.) grammar-school, 257 
 Old English Wassail song, 4 
 Old Nick, on the origin of, 206 
 Oliver Cromwell, characters of, 311 
 Omnibuses in Paris, description of, 52 
 Oporto, castle of, 415 
 Original mode of advertising, 32 
 Origin of finger napkins, 6 
 
 St. Andrew’s university, 84 
 English names, 157 — 246 
 Napoleon’s generals, 166 
 the Gresham Lectures, 230 
 Owen Macarthy, tale of, 271 
 Oxford street, experimental pavement in, 41 
 —336 
 
 Pain, fortitude under, 336 
 Palmer’s Village, wonders of, 302 
 Parachute, Mr. Hampton’s, 376 
 Paris, a fete in, 36 
 
 the omnibuses of, 52 
 the quartier Latin, 7 1 
 an execution in, 88 
 
422 
 
 INDEX, 
 
 Paris, the Morgue, 118 
 
 a French school, 100 
 Garden of the Tuileries, 151 
 a masked ball, 167 
 a stroll in the Champs Elys6es, 197 
 the theatres in, 260 
 Musard’s, 308 
 
 Museum of Manufactures in, 360 — 
 378 
 
 Passions, on the variety of the, 162 
 Patronage of Cromwell, 349 
 Peasantry, history of the Kilkenny, 191 
 Penitence, on the utility of, 231 
 Persia, sepulchral monuments in, 233 
 Petrarch and Laura, lines on, 130 
 Phenomena of the will with a wisp, 346 
 Law of Storms, 347 
 
 Philadelphia, remarks on the Laurel Hill 
 Cemetery at, 278 
 
 Eastern Penitentiary at, 399 
 Philip the Good, anecdote of, 141 
 Photogenic drawing, fac-simile of, 241 
 
 treatise on, 243 — 262 — 
 281—317—331 
 
 Photographic paper, modes of preparing, 282 
 Pictures at the Suffolk-street Gallery, 207 
 sale of Mr. Stewart’s, 272 
 of Liverpool, 131 
 
 Pictorial Exhibition of the wreck of the For- 
 farshire steamer, 80 
 Pierre Marcel, the Seducer, tale of, 102 
 Plants, leaves of, 343 
 Plays and Pastimes, Sunday, 252 
 written by divines, 342 
 Players in 1580, 352 
 Pneumatic telegraph, 297 
 Poets, knowledge of botany necessary for all, 
 393 
 
 Poet Laureat, the first, 93 
 Poor man’s funeral, 300 
 Popular view of Natural History, 106— 168 — 
 185— 315-357— 390 
 Portcullis, view and description of, 57 
 Portugal, sketches in, 415 
 Postman, the. description of, 366 
 Poverty, what it is, 269 
 Pretender, funeral of the, 32 
 Process of the kyanised timber, 255 
 Proverbs, remarks on several popular, 165 
 Provincialisms, remarks on, 188 
 Prussian-blue, accidental discovery of, 347 
 Public Exhibitions— Wreck of the Forfarshire 
 steamer, 80 
 
 Living talking Canary-bird, 108 
 Invisible girl, 248 
 the Eccaleobion, 249 
 Water-colour paintings, 263 
 Mammoth Ox, 298 
 Model of a slave-ship, 337 
 Balloon and Parachute, 376 
 Punch, sonnet to, 275 
 
 Quack doctoring, the art and mystery of, III 
 Qualities of wood as a material of construc- 
 tion, 347 
 
 Quartier Latin in Paris, account of, 71 
 
 Queen-regnant, and Queen consort, distinc- 
 tions of, 306 
 
 Riifiaell’s Cartoons, preservation of, 313 
 Railway, London and Croydon ; view rf, 
 from New Cross, 146 
 Rainbow, remarks on the, 245 
 Runjeet Singh, Lord Aukland’s visit to, 132 
 memoirs of, 2/3 
 Recollections of Chelsea, 301 
 Remarks on the Barometer, 399 
 
 Cruelty and Superstition 147 
 Grecian monuments, 159 
 the Atmosphere, 163 
 Coal Mines, 23 
 Truth, 310 
 Arabic numerals, 134 
 Remarkable effects of Electricity, 104 
 Wager, 48 
 Longevity, 240 
 Dreams, 259 — 324 
 Resurrection, the, lines on, 27 5 
 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, thoughts on the decsy 
 of the paintings by, 137 
 Richelieu, or the Conspiracy, review of the 
 play of, 172 
 Relic, a venerable, 25 
 Rochester Castle, the Portcullis in, 57 
 Rochester, view ol the north-eastern angle 
 of the city walls at, 137 
 Rodney’s Pillar, in Montgomeryshire, 121 
 Romance of Jack Sheppard, 13 
 Rome, two nights in, 74 — 90 
 Roman Booksellers, account of, 29 
 Rona, the Maid of, 1J6 
 Rose, Sir George and Bannister, 124 
 Royal Modesty, 85 
 Royal cock-crower, account of, 80 
 Royal Masque at Whitehall, 375 
 Russia, tea-drinking in, 119 
 Ruins of Kilcolman, 9 
 Sale of Mr. Stewart’s autographs, 335 
 pictures, 272 
 
 Salubrity of the air in New South Wales, 234 
 
 San Roque, the church of, 415 
 
 Say not that love grows cold, lines on, 323 
 
 Scene in the rides of the King's Bench, 365 
 
 Schlemihl, adventures with Peter, 218 
 
 Science, progress of, 213 
 
 Secrecy, Owen Feltham’s remarks on, 354 
 
 Seducer, the, 102 
 
 Sepulchral monuments in Persia, 233 
 Sepulchre, the Royal, at Lisbon, 416 
 Servants, modes of employing, 303 
 Shakspeare, epitaph on. 291 
 Shelley, anecdotes of, 175 
 Sheppard (Jack) romance of, 13 
 Siddons, Mrs. and the pot-boy, 42 
 Singular antipathies, 309 
 
 instance of the loss of memory, 164 
 discovery of a diamond, 48 
 Sketches of Paris, 22 — 36 — 52 — 7 1 — 88 — 100 
 -118-151— 197— 260— 308 
 Slave trade, atrocities of the, 339 
 ship, model of a, 338 
 Sleet, remarks on, 245 
 
INDEX. 
 
 423 
 
 Songs and Ballads, by Lover, 216 — 236 
 Southey, character of, 46 
 Southwark tradesmen’s tokens, account of, 
 258 
 
 South Metropolitan Cemetery, Norwood, 402 
 Spencer’s residence, history of, 9 
 Steam navigation, letters on, 294 
 Stephens, Mr. his lecture on the philosophy 
 of colours, 408 
 
 Stone coffin, extraordinary Egyptian, 144 
 St. James’s cemetery, Liverpool, account of, 
 113 
 
 St. Andrew's University, origin of, 84 
 St. George, the ancient legend of, 2S0 
 Subterraneous chapels, 238 
 Suffolk street gallery, pictures at, 207 — 237 
 Sunday plays and pastimes, 252 
 Superstition and cruelty, remarks on, 147 
 against May Marriages, 309 
 Surrey Zoological Gardens, account of Mount 
 Heclu at, 321 
 Synagogues, remarks on, 2 
 Tea-plant in British India, discovery of, 
 250—278 
 
 modes of manufacturing, 264 
 Tea-drinking in Russia, 119 
 Telegraph, the pneumatic, 297 
 Temper, merits of a forgiving, 332 
 Tenacity of life in the inferior Creation, in- 
 stances of, 179 
 
 The Philanthropist, a Russian story, 38 
 The only means of enjoying life, 87 
 Theatricals at Buffalo, 77 
 The Beauteous Fair, lines on, 17 
 The Tiger Hunt, 265 — 276 
 The Moated-house, a tale, 21 1 
 The Betrayed, lines on, 98 
 The Maid of Rona, 116 
 Theories of the Earth’s substance, 227 
 The first Poet Laureat, 93 
 Thoughts on the decay of Sir J. Reynolds’s 
 paintings, 137 
 Thugs, new class of, 303 
 Toronto, St. George and the Dragon at, 326 
 Town of Niagara, low stale of morals in, 
 
 67 
 
 Tradesmen’s Tokens, account of, 258 
 
 Traffic of the Metropolis, 320 
 
 Transit of Letters, 351 
 
 Translation of Mary Queen of Scot’s Song, 
 
 Travels to discover the beginning of the 
 World, 138 
 
 Treasure, the found, 367 
 
 Treachery of a New Zealand Chief, 63 
 
 Trial of Warren Hastings, remarks on, 31 
 
 Trickster, character of a, 172 
 Trailer’s Gill, description of, 83 
 Truth, thoughts on, 310 
 Two nights in Rome, 74 — 90 
 Untutored men, on the language of, 69 
 Use of the word Obey, 94 
 Utility of Penitence, 231 
 Valuable statistical tables, 199 
 Vaucluse, the retreat of Petrarch, description 
 of, 183 
 
 Vauxhall in the time of Addison, 301 
 Vegetable tallow-tree, account of, 213 
 Vegetables, insects injurious to, 202 
 View of the residence of the late J. Wood, 
 Esq, the wealthy banker of Gloucester, 
 225 
 
 View of St. James’s Cemetery, Liverpool, 113 
 and history of Banyan’s birth-place, 106 
 and description of an ancient powder- 
 flask, 281 
 of Moscow, 192 
 
 Victoria, Queen, Mr. Parris’s painting of her 
 coronation, 224 
 Visit to Liverpool, 292 
 Wager, a remarkable, 48 
 Waits, the poem of, 21 
 War, unforeseen causes of, 48 
 deeds of, 172 
 
 Waterloo, the field of, 290 
 
 killed and wounded in the battle of, 
 388 
 
 Weather, comparative state of the, 325 
 Wellingtoniana, 290 — 386 
 Wellington, a Frenchman’s opinion of the 
 Duke of, 352 
 
 Welsh literature, specimen of, 188 
 Westminster Hall during the trial of Warren 
 Hastings, 31 
 
 Wharfdale, account of, 82 
 What poverty is, and what it is not, 269 
 What is the use of Natural History ? 106 
 William of Wykeham, life of, 67—86 
 Wilkie’s picture of the Pinch of Snuff, sale 
 of, 272 
 
 Winter, lines on, 72 
 Wisdom, the perfection of, 80 
 Wits of the ancients, 38 — 78 
 Wood, James, Esq , memoir of, 225 
 Woman’s love, purity of, 403 
 Wonders of Palmer’s Village, 302 
 Worship of animals, 147 
 Worship of the dog, 325 
 Wreck of the Forfarshire-steamer, Pictorial 
 Exhibition of, 80 
 
 Wynken de Worde, his shop, 359 
 Yew-tree, venerable one, at Hardham, 233 
 
ENGRAVINGS. 
 
 STEEL-PLATE PORTRAIT OF SIR EDWARD LYTTON BULWER, BART. M. P. 
 
 Albert Durer’s residence at Nuremberg, 65 
 Benlomond, 73 
 Bunyan’s Birth-place, 105 
 Captain Huntley’s Model of a Slave ship, 
 337 
 
 Cape Coast Castle, 49 
 
 Entrance to St. Olave and St. John’s gram- 
 mar-school, 257 
 
 Exterior of Chelsea Bun-House, 209 
 Interior of ditto, 209 
 East End of the Guildhall, City, 305 
 Exterior of Linton Church, 81 
 Interior of ditto, 81 
 
 Eastern Institution, Commercial Road, 129 
 Exterior of the New Synagogue, Great St. 
 Helen’s, 17 
 
 Fac simile of a Photogenic Drawing, 241 
 Grammar-school at Grantham, 161 
 Abingdon, 161 
 Evesham, 161 
 
 Grey Street, Newcastle, 33 
 Interior of the New Synagogue, Great St. 
 Helen’s, 1 
 
 Linton Free-School, 81 
 London and Croydon Railway, from New- 
 Cross, Deptford, 145 
 Lord Rodney’s Pillar, 120 
 Modes of manufacturing Tea, 264-5 
 Mr. Hampton’s ascent from Cremorne House, 
 Chelsea, 369 
 
 North-Eastern angle of the City-walls at Ro- 
 chester, 137 
 
 Panoramic View of Mount-Hecla, 321 
 
 Portrait of Maha Rajah Runjeet Singh, 273 
 Pneumatic Telegraph, 297 
 Ruins of Kilcolman, 9 
 Southwark Tradesmen’s Tokens, 257 
 Sketch of Mr. Hampton’s Parachute, 377 
 St. Andrew’s Hall, Norwich, 98 
 Specimens of the experimental Pavement in 
 Oxford-street, 41 
 
 South view of St. James’s Cemetery, Liver- 
 pool, 113 
 
 South Metropolitan Cemetery, Norwood, Sur- 
 rey, 401 
 
 The residence of the late James Wood, Esq. 
 
 at Gloucester, 225 
 Two engravings of beetles, 203 
 Three engravings of the machinery of the 
 Invisible Girl, 248 
 
 Two views of an ancient Powder-Flask, 281 
 The Tree of Picton, on the Field of Waterloo, 
 289 
 
 The Farm-House of La Haye Sainte, 289 
 Two autographs of Oliver Cromwell, 314 
 The Inn at Mont St. Jean, Waterloo, 385 
 The house of De Costa, Waterloo, 385 
 The Accelerator, 193 
 
 The newly-invented travelling machine, cal- 
 led the Aellopodes, 1 77 
 The Cat and the two Sparrows, 25 
 The Portcullis in Rochester Castle, 57 
 Venerable Yew-tree at Hardham, Sussex, 
 233 
 
 View of the New Grand Stand on Ascot 
 Heath, 353 
 
 J. I.1MBIRD, PRINTER, 143, STRAND.