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[Illustration: Harrow school.]
To lofty Harrow now.—Thomson.
Harrow-on-the-hill was a place of some consideration, even before the foundation of the scholastic establishment which now forms its principal boast. The Archbishops of Canterbury had an occasional residence here, in the centuries briefly succeeding the Norman Conquest; and they obtained for the inhabitants a weekly market, long since fallen into disuse.
The Free Grammar School of Harrow, which now ranks amongst the eight great schools of England,[1] like most foundations of a similar nature, proceeded from a small beginning. In the 14th year of Elizabeth, John Lyon, a wealthy yeoman, of Preston, in this parish, procured letters patent, and special license from the crown, for the foundation of the school, to which for many years, he only contributed the sum of 30 marks annually; but in the year 1590, he developed his full intentions, provided for their observance, and drew up a code of regulations for the foundation. Among these provisions the following are curiously characteristic of the times:—The founder expresses his intention to build “meete and convenient Roomes for the said Schoole Mr and Usher to inhabite and dwell in; as also a large and convenient Schoole House, with a chimney in it. And, alsoe, a cellar under the said Roomes and Schoole House, to lay in wood and coales;” the master’s salary he fixes at L26. 13s. 4d. per annum, besides L3. 6s. 8d. on the 1st of May, towards his provision of fuel; the usher’s at L13. 6s. 8d. with L3. 6s. 8d. for fuel. The founder declares his desire that the School shall consist of a “meete and convenient number of schollers, as well of poor, to be taught freely,” (which privilege he confines to the children of the inhabitants of Harrow;) “as of others, to be received for ye further profitt and commoditie of the schoole-master.” The regulations provide for the government of the school with curious minuteness, and describe the number of forms; the books and exercises allotted to each; the mode of correction; the hours of attendance; and the vacations and play days. They extend even to the amusements of the scholars, which are confined to “driving a top, tossing a hand-ball, running and shooting.” For the purpose of this latter exercise, all parents are required to furnish their children with “bowstrings shafts, and bresters.” In consequence of this regulation it was usual to hold an annual exhibition of Archery, on August 4, when the scholars contended for a silver arrow.[2] Within the last fifty years this custom has been abolished and in its room has been substituted the delivery of annual orations before the assembled Governors.
[1] The eight principal public
schools of the kingdom are
considered
to be those of Winchester; Westminster; Eton; Harrow;
the
Charter House; Merchant Tailor’s; St. Paul’s;
and Rugby.
[2] We have often seen an etching of this exhibition.
Such was the establishment of this celebrated seminary; and in the humble character of a parochial Free School it long remained, unknown except in its own immediate neighbourhood. The buildings appertaining to the School are not of an ornamental character. The original School-house represented in our engraving, has undergone no external alteration except the necessary repairs. It is a building of red brick having on the top a lion, the rebus of the founder’s name. In the original arrangement of the interior, the lower portions only were used as school-rooms; the middle floor formed the residence of the master and usher, then the only teachers; whilst the upper story consisted of writing schools. The whole of the building is now appropriated to the exercises of the school, the pupils studying their lessons at the houses of their tutors, and assembling here for the purpose of examination.
Harrow is consecrated ground; and we could easily select a long list of illustrious men educated within its walls. The first classical mention of Harrow as a school, is by William Baxter the learned author of the Glossary, and editor of several of the classics, who was educated here. Dr. Bennet, Bishop of Cloyne; Sir William Jones; Dr. Parr, who was born at Harrow; Rt. Hon. R.B. Sheridan; Mr. Perceval, and Lord Byron—shine forth in this list. Earl Spencer; the Marquess of Hastings; the Earl of Aberdeen; and Mr. Peel were likewise educated here.
The greatest number of scholars who have been at any one time at Harrow, was in the year 1804, when the number of students amounted to 353. The present master is the Rev. Dr. Butler.
* * * * *
(For the Mirror)
It perhaps is not generally known, that the residence of the great “leviathan of literature,” situate in Bolt-court, Fleet-street, was consumed by the fire which destroyed Messrs. Bensley’s premises a few years ago; and that there are now no ostensible traces of the doctor’s city retreat, save the site. The only vestige of the house is a piece of grotesquely carved wood, which ornamented the centre of the doorway, and which is now in possession of a gentleman in the neighbourhood. Part of the new printing-office, belonging to Messrs. Mills and Co., occupies a portion of the site, and the remainder forms a receptacle for coals. As if learning loved to linger amidst the forsaken haunts of departed genius, the place is still the scene of those efforts in propagating knowledge, without which it would be a sealed book. When looking upon the scene which has been consecrated by the presence and labours, the joys and sorrows, of such a man, how interesting are our reflections, marred as they may be by mournful impressions of “the mutability of human affairs.”
“From sire to son shall speed; from
clime to clime,
Outstripping death upon the wings of time!”
** H.
* * * * *
(To the Editor of the Mirror.)
As the columns of your mirror are a treasury of instruction, perhaps it may not be thought amiss, or unworthy its pages, to record the advances of science in the land we live in. I have long since heard of our American brethren possessing the wonderful art of “launching” as the term is, their habitations; but I was not aware that my friends on this side the water had arrived at such a height on the hill of invention, until a few weeks back, when travelling in the western part of Dorsetshire, through the small village of Pulham, in that county; a neat, comfortable-looking cottage was pointed out for my observation, and which I was assured by many creditable persons, who had witnessed the performance, was, in the year 1826, chimneys, windows, and altogether, removed, without sustaining any injury, the distance of nearly two miles. The power employed was that of ten horses. The spot where it was intended originally to stand, was pointed out to me, being a piece of waste land called Lydlinch Common. I inquired what motive could have induced the proprietor to coach it off in such a novel manner, and the following account I received “under the rose.”
The brother of the person whose ingenuity has thus exerted itself, possessed a small property bordering on the aforesaid common. But to understand my story, you must know that the peasantry of the west of England, imbibe a notion, whether erroneous or not, I am not learned enough to say, that if a person builds on waste lands, and is permitted to proceed uninterrupted by the Lord of the Manor, or any other person, until he has roofed and occupied it, or as they express it “made a smoke in it” that the builder has an indisputable right to it. Now the man willing to act on this principle, set his wits to work and constructed a house on his brother’s property beforementioned, on a movable foundation, such as I am unable to describe; and when completed, he, in the course of one night launched it over the hedge fairly into the common, and the next morning found him busily employed in making the smoke that was, according to village laws, to establish him in his newly acquired habitation; and no doubt he would have continued quietly in the same place to this day, had not a neighbouring ’squire took it into his head to teach this commentator on the law, another version of its intricacies, and finally caused him to set his house a-going once more, which it did in the manner aforesaid, to a bit of land to which he had a more legal right, and where it now stands.
Wonderful as this relation may seem, its truth may be relied on, and any reader of the mirror, travelling, or having friends in that part of the country, may easily ascertain the truth of my statement. The house at present stands near the highway leading from Sturminster to Sherborne, about five or six miles from the former, and six or seven from the latter.
RURIS.
Blandford, April 9, 1829.
* * * * *
(To the Editor of the Mirror.)
No part of the history of civilized nations is involved in such deep obscurity as the origin and progress of their names. I do not mean their names of men and women, the etymology of which are easy; for any stupid fellow can see with half an eye that Xisuthrus and Noah are one and the same person; and that Thoth can only be Hermes; nor is there any discernable difference between Pelagius and Morgan; tout cela va sans se dire, but when we come to account for the names of places or of signs, then indeed are we lost in a vast field of metaphysical disquisition and conjectural criticism. The Spectator, your worthy predecessor, threw much light upon the science, but still he left it in its infancy. To be sure, he traced the Bull and Mouth to the Boulogne Mouth, but I don’t remember that he made many other discoveries in this terra incognita. However, he hinted that the roots of most of these old saws were to be found in the French language, or rather in the jargon spoken
Vixtrix causa Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni.
Cato was faithful to the sacred cause of liberty, and disdained to survive it; and now for the fiddle. In the days of good Queen Bess, when those who had borne the iron yoke of Mary, ventured forth and gloried in that freedom of conscience which had lately been denied them, a jolly innkeeper having lately cast off the shackles of the old religion, likened himself to the old Roman, and wrote over his door l’Hostelle du Caton fidelle. The hostelle and its sign lasted longer than the worthy gentleman, and having gone shockingly to decay, was many years after re-established. But alas! the numerous French words once mixed with our language had vanished, barbarized, and ground down into a heterogeneous mass of sounds; and le Caton fidelle was no longer known to his best friends when resuscitated under the anomalous title of the Cat and Fiddle!!
* * * * *
THE BLIND GIRL.
(For the Mirror.)
As fair a thing as e’er was form’d of clay.
BYRON.
Sweet wanderer—we have known
her long!
And often on our ear,
Has gush’d the cadence of her song,
As if some stream were near.
Her path was through our tranquil dell,
When breezes kiss’d the curfew bell.
We gaz’d upon the golden hair,
That o’er her white
brow shone,
And beauty’s tinge had cluster’d
there,
A grace unlike its own.
We call’d it beautiful—that
brow!
But rayless were the eyes below.
Those pale dim eyes, we would have given
Our flowers to see them glow—
They slept, as sleeps the summer heaven,
When the sun waxeth low:
And soft her glossy lashes were,
As stars within the crystal air.
Oh, call her not a phantom form,
Of deep sepulchral spells;
Her maiden lips with life are warm,
And thought within her dwells—
Thought, holy as the light that lies
In the rapt martyr’s lifted eyes.
Her home—’tis far away
from her,
Its quiet porch is lone,
And the sunny wind no more shall stir
Its streamlet’s silver
tone.
The zephyrs there, their incense wreathe,
But, o’er her hair they shall not
breathe.
Her sire reposeth in the wave,
Beneath an Indian sky;
The violets fringe her mother’s
grave,
And there, her sisters lie!
And we will waft to heaven our prayers,
When her pure dust is mix’d with
theirs.
Deal. REGINALD AUGUSTINE.
* * * * *
(For the Mirror.)
Sir,—I am induced to send you the following, in consequence of reading an article upon wine in No. 352, page 45 of your interesting work.
The article appears to have been written with a view of inducing a more frequent use of that wholesome and invigorating beverage by adducing a host of respectable names of antiquity. But I am somewhat inclined to believe, that notwithstanding the classic lore and learned style in which the article appears, that many there are, whose adverse temper, and whom the present “march of intellect” has so far rendered callous to authoritative conviction, that they still remain sceptics of the extraordinary good qualities and virtues, which the ancients believed this beverage to contain; only because they have thought fit to adhere to the common adage, that no opinion ought to be received upon men’s authority, without a sufficient reason assigned for its correctness. It is with this view of the subject then, that I venture to make the few following observations. In the first place, we will briefly consider the nature and chemical properties of wines, and then their tendency and action upon the constitution.
The characteristic ingredient of all wines is alcohol, the proportion and quality of which, and the state and combination in which it exists, constitute the essential properties of the numerous kinds of wines. The colour of the red wines is produced from the husk of the grape, they being used during fermentation; on the contrary, the colourless wines are those where the husk of the grape is not used during the process of fermentation. The colouring matter produced from the husks is highly astringent, consequently the red and white wines are very different in their qualities, and very different in their effect on the stomach.
All wines contain more or less acid; for British wines are considered less salubrious than those of foreign, from their having an excess of malic acid, which our fruits contain. The foreign wines are reckoned superior in quality, in consequence of their containing an excess of tartaric acid, their fruit containing a greater portion of this acid than does ours. Wines during fermentation, if improperly managed, will produce acetic acid, which will greatly deteriorate their quality.
Various have been the opinions of eminent men on the effects of wine upon the constitution. It would be needless to enter into a detailed account of all those who have written for or against its utility; the following, from a modern eminent writer against the use of wines will suffice, and serve to show that the opponents to wine-drinking have at least some reason on their side. Mr. Beddoes, states, in his “Hygeia,” vol. ii, p. 35, that an ingenious surgeon tried the following experiment:—He gave two of his children for a week alternately after dinner, to the one a full glass of sherry, and to the other a large China orange; the effects that followed were sufficient to prove the injurious tendency of vinous liquors. In the one the pulse was quickened, the heat increased; whilst the other had every appearance that indicated high health; the same effect followed when the experiment was reversed. This certainly is a formidable objection, but let us before drawing a final conclusion, examine the opposite arguments.
Wines, and, indeed, all fermented liquors have an antiseptic quality. They act in direct opposition to putrefaction, and in proportion to the quantity of alcohol which they contain, so will be their value and beneficial tendency. Now the circulating fluids of our system have a continual tendency to putrefaction; and the food we take, both animal and vegetable, tends to produce this effect; if, therefore, something of an antiseptic nature, or of a nature in direct opposition to this principle be not received, the fluids would ultimately become a mass of corruption, with the extinction of life. If we meet with an individual whose habits are abstemious, as regards the drinking of wines or fermented liquors, we generally discover him to have a great predilection for that valuable commodity salt, which article being in its nature antiseptic, answers the same purpose as wine. Therefore, the labouring man, whose narrow circumstances prohibit him from the advantage of a daily use of wine, by taking with his food a sufficient quantity of salt, and his apportioned quantity of malt liquor, retains his vigour and strength of body equally with those whose more ample means render them capable of acquiring the necessary quantity of wine daily. Doctor Barry mentions an experiment made on a soldier, who was hired to live entirely for some days on wild fowl,[3] with water only to drink; he received in the beginning his reward and diet with
“Deus ille malis hominum mitescere discat.”
S.S.T.
[3] It must be recollected
that wild fowl in consequence of
their
living on animal diet, give more readily a putrid
disposition
to the fluids.
* * * * *
* * * * *
MY FIRST LOVE.
(For the Mirror.)
She was amiable, accomplished, fascinating, beautiful; yet her’s were beauties which description cannot heighten; fascinations which language were vain to embellish. There was soul in her deep hazel eye as its flashes broke through their long, dark, encircling fringe; her jetty locks waved harmoniously, contrasting with the virgin snow of the forehead they wreathed in glossy luxuriance, the unclouded smile played on her lip like the zephyr over a bed of gossamer, or a sunbeam on the cheek of Aurora.
Scarce eleven summers had passed over my head when I first saw Annette. She was by about three years my elder. Young, though I was, I was not insensible; she rivetted my gaze, I felt an emotion I could not comprehend—cannot describe—as it were love in the germ just beginning to expand, waiting but for the genial warmth of a few summer suns to nourish and bring it to maturity. We parted, still her image pursued me, the recollection was sweet, and I loved to cherish it.
Four years had elapsed; we again met. My soul thrilled with delight in beholding, in contemplating, her perfections! How was that delight increased when I saw her countenance shed its loveliest smiles, her eye pour its heavenliest beams—on me—happy presumption—I loved. We loved; but words spoke not our love. No, each read it in the burning glances that were reciprocated—in the spirit-breathing sighs that would ever and anon steal forth—spite of suppression. Let me shorten the tale of rapture. She was mine; Annette was mine—mine undividedly.
IOTA.
* * * * *
Select Biography.
* * * * *
(Concluded from page 213.)
Early in 1818, the supreme chief, after concentrating his forces, marched rapidly to Calabozo, and arrived before Morillo was aware that he had quitted Angostura. The Spanish general effected his retreat to Aragua. The supreme chief came up with him at La Usirrael, but could make but a slight impression on the enemy, on account of the strength of his position. Another rencontre occurred at Sombrero. Morillo retired to Valencia; and Bolivar took possession of the valleys of Aragua. Thence he detached a strong division to take San Fernando de Apure, in order to complete the conquest of the Llanos. Upon this the Spaniards advanced. The two armies met at Semen. Morillo was wounded, and the royalist army put to flight. The pursuit being indiscreetly conducted by the patriots, and a fresh royalist division arriving to support Morillo, the fortune of the day was changed. Each party was alternately defeated, and both rallied their dispersed corps to reengage at Ortiz.
The division which succeeded in capturing San Fernando had an indecisive affair at Cojedes. Others of the same character took place at El Rincon del Toro, and other places. At the close of this campaign, the Spaniards held Aragua, and the patriots San Fernando. Thus the former possessed the most fertile provinces of Venezuela, and all New Granada; while the latter were reduced to the Llanos and Guayana. Arms were sent to General Santander, who was endeavouring to raise a division in Casanare.
In 1819, the various corps united in San Fernando, where the supreme chief devoted his labours to the regulation of civil affairs. He invited the provinces to send deputies to Angostura, to form a general congress, and then delegated his powers to a council of government to act in his absence.
With four or five thousand men, the supreme chief opened the campaign against Morillo, who had six or seven thousand. Twelve hundred British troops arrived at Margarita from England. They had been engaged in London by Colonel English, and were equipped and sent out by Messrs. Herring and Richardson; besides these, eight hundred others also arrived at Angostura. The latter were engaged by Captain Elsom, and sent out by Messrs. Hurry, Powles, and Hurry; the greater part were disbanded soldiers from the British army, reduced on the return of the troops from France.[4] These volunteers were equipped in the most efficient manner. With these expeditions large supplies of spare arms were sent to assist the cause of independence. Bolivar, in his speech to congress, thus expresses himself on this subject:—
[4] Colonel Macirone also
sent out above two thousand men, who
were
employed in the capture of Porto Bello and Rio de la
Hacha.
This
caused a very favourable diversion for Bolivar in Venezuela,
as
it distracted the attention of the royalists, and but
for the
pusillanimous
conduct of Macgregor, who commanded the expedition,
might
have proved of lasting advantage.
“For these important advantages we are indebted to the unbounded liberality of some generous foreigners, who, hearing the groans of suffering humanity, and seeing the cause of freedom, reason, and justice ready to sink, would not remain quiet, but flew to our succour with their munificent aid and protection, and furnished the republic with every thing needful to cause their philanthropical principles to flourish. Those friends of mankind are the guardian geniuses of America, and to them we owe a debt of eternal gratitude, as well as a religious fulfilment of the several obligations contracted with them.”
Bolivar, leaving the army in command of General Paez, repaired to Angostura. As Morillo advanced, Paez, agreeable to orders, retired towards the Orinoco, detaching a few guerillas to harass the Spaniards in the rear.
General Urdaneta was appointed to command the recently arrived British legion in Margarita, which was to act on the side of Caracas, in order to draw off the attention of Morillo from the Llanos.
On the 15th of February, 1819, congress was installed at Angostura. The supreme chief pronounced an eloquent discourse, and resigned his authority. Congress immediately, and unanimously, elected him president of the republic.
Early in March, the president rejoined the army, which was very much reduced by sickness. On the 27th, he defeated the vanguard of the Spaniards. Adopting a desultory system of warfare, he obliged them to recross the Apure, having lost half their original numbers.
While Morillo remained in winter quarters, the president traversed the vast plains of the Apure and Casanare, which are rendered almost impassable by inundations from the month of May to the end of August. In Casanare, the president formed a junction with the division of Santander, two thousand strong. Santander had, from the commencement of the revolution, dedicated himself with enthusiastic constancy to the cause of his country. He now expelled the Spaniards from their formidable position of Paya, and opened the way for the president to cross the terrific Andes, in effecting which, nearly a fourth of his army perished from the effects of cold and excessive fatigue.
On the 11th of July, the president attacked the royal army at Gamarra. After a long engagement, the Spanish general Barrero retired, and did not again offer battle, except in positions almost inaccessible. Bonza was invested by the patriots for some days in sight of both armies. The president, by a flank movement, brought the Spaniards to action on the 25th of July, at Bargas. The Spaniards, though superior in numbers, and advantageously posted, gave way, and the president obtained a complete victory. His inferior forces, however, and the nature of the country, did not allow him to make the most of this glorious success; but he obtained a thousand recruits, and marched to interpose between the defeated Barrero and the viceroy Samano, who, with all the disposable force south of Bogota, was about to support Barrero. The result of the president’s daring and masterly movement was the battle of Boyaca, fought on the 7th of August, and which has been called the birth of Colombia. In this battle, the English troops, under the command of Major Mackintosh, greatly distinguished themselves. The gallant major was promoted by the liberator on the field. In three days afterwards the president entered Bogota in triumph, and, within a short period, eleven provinces of New Granada announced their adhesion to the cause of independence.
Bolivar repaired to Angostura, where he once more resigned his authority to the representatives of the people, and laid on their floor the trophies of the last campaign. On the 25th of December, 1819, congress, at the suggestion of the president, decreed that thenceforth Venezuela and New Granada should form one republic, under the denomination of COLOMBIA. At the same time it conferred upon Bolivar the title of LIBERATOR OF COLOMBIA, and re-elected him president of the republic.
In March, 1820, he arrived at Bogota, and occupied himself until August in the organization of the army cantoned at various points between Cucuta and San Fernando de Apure.
The Spanish revolution, which originated in the Isla de Leon, inspired the South Americans with new hopes. These were raised still higher by the solicitude of Morillo to negotiate an armistice; but Bolivar, refusing to treat upon any other basis than that of independence, marched to the department of the Magdalena, reviewed the besieging force before Carthagena, and reinforced the division of the south, destined to act against Popayan and Quito. The president drove the Spaniards from the provinces of Merida and Truxillo, and established his winter headquarters at the latter town. On the 26th of November, the president concluded an armistice of six months with Morillo, who engaged that, on the renewal of hostilities, the war should be carried on, conformably to the practice of civilized nations.
In the beginning of the year 1821, the liberator went to Bogota, to attend to the affairs of the south; when hearing of the arrival at Caracas of Spanish commissioners to treat for peace, he returned to Truxillo; but no terms were then agreed upon. In the meanwhile, the province of Maracaybo shook off the Spanish yoke. Morillo having departed for Europe, General La Torre, a brave and very superior man, succeeded to the command of the royal army, and made strong remonstrances against the movement in the province of Maracaybo, which he deemed an infraction of the armistice, and hostilities in consequence recommenced. The liberator concentrated his forces in Varinas; he detached a division to the coast under General Urdaneta, and another to the east, under General Bermudez, to divide the attention of the enemy, and marched himself against Caracas. On the 24th of June, the liberator attacked and defeated the Spaniards, who had taken up a strong position at Carabobo. The numbers on both sides were nearly equal. This battle decided the fate of Colombia. The victorious liberator entered Caracas on the 29th. On the 2nd of July, La Guayra also surrendered to him.
Leaving a besieging division before Puerto Cabello, the liberator went to Cucuta, where he resigned once more the office of president of the republic, which, in admiration of his disinterestedness, instantly re-elected him.
When the province of Guayaquil declared itself independent, it solicited the assistance of Bolivar against the Spaniards in Quito. A small division was accordingly sent there.
The liberator, having signed the constitution sanctioned by congress, obtained leave to direct the war in the south. In January, 1822, he put himself at the head of the army in Popayan, and sent a reinforcement to General Sucre in Guayaquil.
In the month of March, the liberator moved against the province of Pasto, the inhabitants of which country are surpassed in bravery by no people in the world, but who adhered with blind attachment to the ancient regime. The liberator, having overcome the obstacles presented by nature in the valleys of Patia, and the formidable river Guanabamba, arrived in front of Bombona. The Pastusos (inhabitants of the province of Pasto) had here taken up a strong position, supported by the Spanish troops. They were vigorously attacked; but every charge made in front was repulsed. It was not until the rifle battalion, commanded by the able Colonel Sands, outflanked the Pastusos, that victory declared for Bolivar; but his army had suffered so severely, that, instead of immediately following up the fugitives through a hostile country, it fell back a short distance.
Whilst these operations were going on, Sucre liberated the provinces of Loja and Cuenca, and, on the 24th of May, gained the victory of Pinchincha, which gave independence to Quito. In the same year Carthagena and Cumana, surrendered to the liberating forces in Venezuela.
The liberator entered Quito on the 16th of June. His attention was soon attracted to the discontents which had arisen at Guayaquil, where the Colombians had become unpopular. His excellency proceeded to that town, and, under his auspices, the provisional government annexed the province to Colombia.
One of the results of the interview which took place between the protector of Peru and the liberator of Colombia was the sending of an auxiliary force of two thousand Colombians to Lima; but the junta, which proceeded to the protectorate, ordered the Colombian troops to return to Guayaquil. The president Riva Aguero, who succeeded to the junta, applied for an auxiliary Colombian division of six thousand men, and invited Bolivar to take the command of all the military forces in Peru. The Colombian troops were sent to Lima. General Bolivar obtained leave from the congress at Bogota to go to Peru—the grand scene of his subsequent triumphs.
The person of Bolivar is thin, and somewhat below the middle size. He dresses in good taste, and has an easy military walk. He is a very bold rider, and capable of undergoing great fatigue. His manners are good, and his address unaffected, but not very prepossessing. It is said that, in his youth, he was rather handsome. His complexion is sallow; his hair, originally very black, is now mixed with gray. His eyes are dark and penetrating, but generally downcast, or turned askance, when he speaks; his nose is well formed, his forehead high and broad, the lower part of the face is sharp; the expression of the countenance is careworn, lowering, and sometimes rather fierce. His temper, spoiled by adulation, is fiery and capricious. His opinions of men and things are variable. He is rather prone to personal abuse, but makes ample amends to
—Memoirs of General Miller.
* * * * *
Fine Arts.
* * * * *
Oxford Street.
THE BRITISH DIORAMA.
On Saturday, the 11th, there was a private view of four new pictures, by Stanfield and Roberts, at this very interesting lounge. They consist of
1. The City of York, with the Minster on fire—a picturesque view of the cathedral, with a mimic display of the conflagration, the accuracy of which will make the property-man of the Opera tremble.
2. The Temple of Apollinopolis, in Egypt, a magnificent picture of Egyptian architecture—“noble in decay.” The splendid leaved capitals of the pillars reminded us of the following, which we had that morning read in the Journal of a Naturalist:—“No portion of creation,” says the author, “has been resorted to by mankind with more success for the ornament and decoration of their labours, than the vegetable world. The rites, emblems, and mysteries of religion; national achievements, eccentric marks, and the capricious visions of fancy, have all been wrought by the hand of the sculptor, on the temple, the altar, or the tomb; but plants, their foliage, flowers, or fruits, as the most graceful, varied, and pleasing objects that meet our view, have been more universally the object of design, and have supplied the most beautiful, and perhaps the earliest, embellishments of art. The pomegranate, the almond, and flowers, were selected even in the wilderness, and by divine appointment, to give form to the sacred utensils; the rewards of merit, the wreath of the victor, were arboraceous; in later periods, the acanthus, the ivy, the lotus, the vine, the palm, and the oak, flourished under the chisel, or beneath the loom of the artist; and in modern days, the vegetable world affords the almost exclusive decorations of ingenuity and art.”
3. Entrance to the Village of Virex, in Italy—a pleasing picture of what may be termed an architectural village; for some of the dwellings almost approach to palaces, and others have a conventual character, which harmonizes with the sublime beauties of nature which rise around them.
4. Interior of St. Saveur, in Normandy. As an architectural picture we are not disposed to rate this so highly as the two preceding.
The alternations of light and shade are admirably managed in all of them, among which a flood of light streaming through one of the cathedral windows will be much admired. The size of each picture is 70 feet by 50—and the four may be seen for one shilling!
Below stairs, the fine group from Reubens’s Descent from the Cross, and Albert Durer’s Carvings of the Life of the Virgin Mary, still continue open.
Another exhibition, Trepado, or Cut-Paper Work, to use a vulgar phrase, “cut out” all the work of the kind we have ever seen. We have a sister very ingenious in these matters; but her productions, compared with the cuttings of the Oxford-street Bazaar, are as John Nash with Michael Angelo. These cuttings are in imitation of Line Engraving, comprising sixteen pictures, cut with scissars, among which are the Lord’s Supper—Conversion of St. Paul—The Battle of Alexander—A Portrait of his Majesty George IV., &c. They are almost the counterfeit presentment of pencil-drawings, such as Varley and Brookman and Langdon could not excel. Yet these are cut with scissars! A greater exercise of patience, to say the least of
The Bazaar has lately been extended for a suite of rooms for the exhibition of Household Furniture, for sale. There are already several handsome specimens—many of them fit for the splendid palaces building in the Regent’s Park. If the reader be one of those who “meditate on muffineers and plan pokers,” he will enjoy this part of the Bazaar. In all the Parisian bazaars, there is an abundance of meubles and you get accommodated with a newspaper and a chair, as the Street-publishers say, “for the small charge of one penny:” might it not be so here, or is an Englishman obliged to read and drink (not think) at the same time?
The counters of the Bazaar are abundantly stocked with bijouterie and nic-nacs, the Nouveautes de Paris and Spitalfields—Canton in China, and Leatherlane in Holborn—toy-carts for children, and fleecy hosiery for old folks—puffs and pastry, and the last new song—inkstands, taper-lights, pen-wipers, perfumed sealing-wax, French hair-paper, curling-wheels—and all the fair ammunition of love and madness. If you leave your purse at home, or, what is worse, if you have left your money, you know not where, remember Bishop Berkley, and console yourself with the reflection that all these things were made for your enjoyment, and that all around are striving to please you. This will be no trifling source of pleasure—it will fill your head and fill your heart with joy—leave the pockets to grosser minds.
* * * * *
By a Correspondent.
The sixth exhibition of this society is now open to the public, and the display of talent fully equals, or, perhaps, excels, that of former seasons. The society, since its commencement, has realized twelve thousand pounds from the sale of the works of British artists, who, thus stimulated by the disposal of their performances, have exerted their utmost ability in contributing specimens of their art to the present exhibition. We can, however, only notice a few of those artists who have been particularly successful; our limits not allowing us to extend justice to all.
The most splendid painting in the gallery is No. 7, The Departure of the Israelites out of Egypt, by Mr. Roberts. In the performance of this work, the painter has evidently endeavoured to imitate Martin’s compositions. The picture, viewed at a little distance, is certainly grand and imposing; on a near inspection, however, we look in vain for the exquisite finish, and the characteristic expression so universally admired in Mr. Martin’s works. We advise Mr. Roberts, if he pursues this class of painting, to unite finish with his bold effects—for attention in this respect will prove the denouement of his pictures. No. 188, Erle Stoke Park, the seat of G. Watson Taylor, Esq. M.P. by Mr. Stanfield, is a very delightful picture, being remarkably chaste and clear in the colouring. No. 404, Mattock High Tor, by Mr. Hotland, and No. 440, A Party crossing the Alps, by Mr. Egerton, are works of high merit; as are the performances of Messrs. Wilson, Blake, Glover,[5] Knight, Nasmyth, Farrier, Gill, Novice, Stevens, Turner, Holmes, and Pidding.
[5] Apropos, three
are twenty-three pictures by this gentleman
in
the gallery.
The engravings and sculpture are likewise very creditable to the institution this season. Mr. Quilly has executed an excellent print from Stanfield’s fine picture, The Wreckers, which was exhibited last year at the British Institution.
Among the busts in the sculpture-room we notice those of Lord Eldon, Sir F. Burdett, Sir H. Davy, the late Lord Bishop of Salisbury, &c.
G.W.N.
* * * * *
* * * * *
(Concluded from, page 254.)
“N’importe!” exclaimed Stubbs, gaily; “there are more admirers, in this world, of the ridiculous than of the true, that let me tell you. But I must to my studies, for the night approaches. Next Monday—and this is Thursday—and I am by no means au fait yet in my part. So good morning—let me see you soon again—and meanwhile adieu! adieu! remember me!”
Mr. M’Crab departed; and Mr. Henry Augustus Constantine Stubbs prepared to go through the soliloquy of “To be—or not to be,” before a mirror which reflected the whole of his person.
Monday came, and oh! with what a flutter of delight Mr. Stubbs cast his eyes upon that part of the paper, where the play for the evening was announced, and where he read, “This evening will be acted the tragedy of Hamlet: the part of Hamlet by a gentleman, his first appearance on any stage.”
* * * * *
His carriage was at the door—and he told the coachman to drive down —— street, that he might see in passing along, whether the crowd at the pit and gallery doors, would obstruct his progress. It was not quite so large as to stretch across the carriage road; but he was sure there were some hundreds, though so early, and he thought they must have heard who the “gentleman” was, that was then rolling by. He would not be positive, too; but he could almost swear he heard an huzza, as he passed along. There were above a dozen persons collected round the stage door; and he plainly perceived that they drew back with respectful admiration, as the new Hamlet stepped out of his carriage.
He hastened to his dressing-room, where he found his friend, the manager, Mr. Peaess, who shook him by the hand, as he informed him that they had an excellent box-book. Stubbs smiled graciously; and the manager left him with his dresser, to attire himself in his “customary suit of solemn black.” Mr. Stubbs had kept his intention of stuffing the character a profound secret, fearful lest any technical objections should be made by Mr. Peaess, and desirous also of making the first impression in the green-room. When he entered it, therefore, in the likeness of a chubby undertaker, ready for a funeral, rather than in that of the “unmatched form and feature of blown youth”—in short, the very type and image of poor Tokely in Peter Pastoral,—his eyes and ears were on the alert to catch the look of surprise, and buzz of admiration, which he very naturally anticipated. He was a little daunted by a suppressed titter which ran round the room; but he was utterly confounded when his best and dearest friend, Mr. Peaess himself, coming up to him exclaimed,—“Why, zounds! Mr. Stubbs, what have you been doing? By ——, the audience will never stand this.”
“Stand what?” replied Henry Augustus Constantine Stubbs.
“What!” echoed the manager; “why this pot-belly, and those cherub cheeks.”
“Pooh! pooh!” replied Stubbs, “it’s Shakspeare’s, and I can prove it.”
“You may pooh! pooh! as much as you like, Mr. Stubbs,” rejoined the manager; “but, by ——, you’ve made a mere apple-dumpling of yourself.”
“Do you think so,” exclaimed Stubbs, glancing in one of the mirrors—“Well; I do assure you it is Shakspeare, and I’ll prove it. But what shall I do?” and he looked imploringly round upon the broad, grinning countenances of the other performers.
“Do?” ejaculated Mr. Peaess; “you can do nothing now—the curtain has been up these ten minutes; Horatio and Marcellus are coming off, and you must go on.”
At this moment the ghost of Hamlet’s father entered the room, but before he had time to look upon his son, the call-boy’s summons was heard for the King, Queen, Hamlet, Polonius, Laertes, &c., to be ready, and forth sallied poor Mr. Henry Augustus Constantine Stubbs, to prove, if he could, to the audience, that his rotundity was perfectly Shakspearian.
The awful flourish of drum and trumpet was sounded;—their majesties of Denmark, attended by their train of courtiers, walked on. There is a pause! All eyes are bent in eager gaze to catch the first glimpse of the new Hamlet—all hands are ready to applaud. He appears—boxes, pit, and gallery, join in the generous welcome of the unknown candidate. He revives—hastens to the foot-lights—bows—another round of applause—bows again—and again—and then falls back, to let the business of the scene proceed. He looks round, meanwhile, with the swelling consciousness that he is that moment “the observed of all observers,” and tries to rally his agitated spirits; but just as he is beginning to do so, his wandering eye rests upon the ill-omened face of M’Crab, seated in the front-row of the stage-box, who is gazing at him with a grotesque smile, which awakens an overwhelming recollection of his own prediction, that he “would be horribly laughed at, if he did make Hamlet a fat little fellow,” as well as a bewildering reminiscence of the manager’s, that, “by ——, the audience would not stand it.”
It was soon evident they would not, or rather that they could not stand it. But it was not alone his new reading in what regarded the person of Hamlet, that excited astonishment. Mr. Stubbs had so many other new readings, that before he got to the end of his first speech, beginning with, “Seems, madam! nay, it is,” they were satisfied of what was to follow. When, however, Mr. Stubbs stood alone upon the stage, in the full perfection of his figure, and concentrated upon himself the undivided attention of the house—when he gathered up his face into an indescribable aspect of woe—but, above all, when, placing his two hands upon his little round belly, he exclaimed, while looking sorrowfully at it,
“Oh, that this too, too solid flesh
would melt,
(Pat, went the
right hand,)
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew,”
(Pat, went the
left hand,)
the effect was irresistible. One roar of laughter shook the theatre, from the back row of the shilling gallery to the first row of the pit, mingled with cries of bravo! bravo! go on, my little fellow—you shall have fair play—silence—bravo! silence!—Stubbs, meanwhile, looked as if he were really wondering what they were all laughing at; and when at length silence was partially restored, he continued his soliloquy. His delivery of the lines,
“Fye on’t oh fye! ’tis
an unweeded garden
That grown to seed: things rank and
gross in nature,” &c.
was one of his new readings—for holding up his finger, and looking towards the audience with a severe expression of countenance, it appeared as though he were chiding their ill manners in laughing at him, when he said, “Fye on’t—oh, fye!”
He was allowed to proceed, however, with such interruptions only as his own original conceptions of the part provoked from time to time; or when any thing he had to say was obviously susceptible of an application to himself. Thus, for example, in the scene with Horatio and Marcellus, after his interview with the ghost:—
"Ham. And now, good
friends,
As you are friends, scholars, and soldiers,
Give me one poor request.
Hor. What is it, my lord? We will.
Ham. Never make known what you have seen to-night."
“Let him, if he likes,” exclaimed a voice from the pit—“he’ll never see such a sight again.”—Then, in his instructions to the players, his delivery of them was accompanied by something like the following running commentary:
“Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, (that is impossible!) trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, (laughter,) I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. * * * Oh, it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious, periwig-pated fellow (like yourself) tear a passion to tatters, &c.—I would have such a fellow whipped (give it him, he deserves it) for o’erdoing Termagant. * * * Oh, there be players that I have seen play, (no, we see him,) and heard others praise, and that highly, (oh! oh! oh!) not to speak it profanely, that, having neither the accent of Christians, (ha! ha! ha!) nor the gait of Christian, Pagan, nor man, have so strutted (bravo! little ’un!) and bellowed, (hit him again!) that I have thought some of nature’s journeymen had made men, (who made you?) and not made them well, (no, you are a bad fit,) they imitated humanity so abominably.” (Roars of laughter.)
It was thus Mr. Henry Augustus Constantine Stubbs enacted Hamlet; and it was not till the end of the fourth act that he suffered a single observation to escape him, which indicated he thought any thing was amiss. Then, indeed, while sitting in the green-room, and as if the idea had just struck him, he said to Mr. Peaess, “Do you know, I begin to think I have some enemies in the house, for when, in the scene with Ophelia, I said, ’What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven?’ somebody called out, loud enough for me to hear him, ’Ay! what, indeed?’ It’s very odd. Did you notice it, ma’am?” he continued addressing the lady who performed Ophelia. “I can’t say I did,” replied the lady, biting her lips most unmercifully, to preserve her gravity of countenance.
This was the only remark made by the inimitable Mr. Stubbs during the whole evening, and he went through the fifth act with unabated self-confidence. His dying scene was honoured with thunders of applause, and loud cries of encore. Stubbs raised his head, and looking at Horatio, who was bending over him, inquired, “Do you think they mean it?”
“Lie still, for God’s sake!” exclaimed Horatio, and the curtain slowly descended amid deafening roars of laughter, and shouts of hurrah! hurrah!
The next morning, at breakfast, Stubbs found all the daily papers on his table, pursuant to his directions. He took up one, and read, in large letters—“THEATRE. FIRST AND LAST APPEARANCE OF MR. HENRY AUGUSTUS CONSTANTINE STUBBS IN HAMLET.”
He read no more. The paper dropped from his hands; and Mr. Stubbs remained nothing but a GENTLEMAN all the rest of his life—Blackwood’s Mag.
* * * * *
BY CHARLES BADHAM, M.D. F.R.S.
Professor of Medicine in the University of Glasgow.
I.
I leave thee, Warwick, and thy precincts
grey,
Amidst a thousand winters
still the same,
Ere tempests rend thy last sad leaves
away,
And from thy bowers the native
rock reclaim;
Crisp dews now glitter on the joyless
field,
The gun’s red disk now
sheds no parting rays,
And through thy trophied hall the burnished
shield
Disperses wide the swiftly
mounting blaze.
II.
Thy pious paladins from Jordan’s
shore,
And all thy steel-clad barons
are at rest;
Thy turrets sound to warder’s tread
no more;
Beneath their brow the dove
hath hung her nest;
High on thy beams the harmless falchion
shines;
No stormy trumpet wakes thy
deep repose;
Past are the days that, on the serried
lines
Around thy walls, saw the
portcullis close.
III.
The bitter feud was quell’d, the
culverin
No longer flash’d, us
blighting mischief round,
But many an age was on those ivies green,
Ere Taste’s calm eye
had scann’d the gifted ground;
Bade the fair path o’er glade or
woodland stray,
Bade Avon’s swans through
new Rialtos glide,
Forced through the rock its deeply channell’d
way,
And threw, to Arts of peace,
the portals wide.
IV.
But most to Her, whose light and daring
hand
Can swiftly follow Fancy’s
wildest dream!
All times and nations in whose presence
stand,
All that creation owns, her
boundless theme!
And with her came the maid of Attic stole,
Untaught of dazzling schools
the gauds to prize,
Who breathes in purest forms her calm
control,
Heroic strength, and grace
that never dies!
V.
Ye that have linger’d o’er
each form divine,
Beneath the vault of Rome’s
unsullied sky,
Or where Bologna’s cloister’d
walls enshrine
Her martyr Saint—her
mystic Rosary—
Of Arragon the hapless daughter view!
Scan, for ye may, that fine
enamel near!
Such Catherine was, thus Leonardo drew—
Discern ye not the “Jove
of painters” here?
VI.
Discern ye not the mighty master’s
power
In yon devoted Saint’s
uplifted eye?
That clouds the brow and bids already
lour
O’er the First Charles
the shades of sorrows nigh?
That now on furrow’d front of Rembrandt
gleams,
Now breathes the rose of life
and beauty there,
In the soft eye of Henrietta dreams,
And fills with fire the glance of Gondomar?
VII.
Here to Salvator’s solemn pencil
true,
Huge oaks swing rudely in
the mountain blast;
Here grave Poussin on gloomy canvass threw
The lights that steal from
clouds of tempest past;
And see! from Canaletti’s glassy
wave,
Like Eastern mosques, patrician
Venice rise;
Or marble moles that rippling waters lave,
Where Claude’s warm
sunsets tinge Italian skies!
VIII.
Nor let the critic frown such themes arraign,
Here sleep the mellow lyre’s
enchanting keys;
Here the wrought table’s darkly
polish’d plain,
Proffers light lore to much-enduring
ease;
Enamelled clocks here strike the silver
bell;
Here Persia spreads the web
of many dies;
Around, on silken couch, soft cushions
swell,
That Stambol’s viziers
proud might not despise.
IX.
The golden lamp here sheds its pearly
light,
Within the cedar’d panels,
dusky pale;
No mirror’d walls the wandering
glance invite,
No gauzy curtains drop the
misty veil.
And there the vista leads of lessening
doors,
And there the summer sunset’s
golden gleam
Along the line of darkling portrait pours,
And warms the polish’d
oak or ponderous beam.
X.
Hark! from the depths beneath that proud
saloon
The water’s moan comes
fitful and subdued,
Where in mild glory yon triumphant moon
Smiles on the arch that nobly
spans the flood—
And here have kings and hoary statesmen
gazed,
When spring with garlands
deck’d the vale below,
Or when the waning year had lightly razed
The banks where Avon’s
lingering fountains flow.
XI.
And did no minstrel greet the courtly
throng?
Did no fair flower of English
loveliness
On timid lute sustain some artless song,
Her meek brow bound with smooth
unbraided tress?
For Music knew not yet the stately guise,
Content with simplest notes
to touch the soul,
Not from her choirs as when loud anthems
rise,
Or when she bids orchestral
thunders roll!
XII.
Here too the deep and fervent orison
Hath matron whisper’d
for her absent lord,
Peril’d in civil wars, that shook
the throne,
When every hand in England,
clench’d the sword:—
And here, as tales and chronicles agree,
If tales and chronicles be
deem’d sincere,
Fair Warwick’s heiress smiled at
many a plea
Of puissant Thane, or Norman
cavalier.
XIII.
Or dost thou sigh for theme of classic
lore
Midst arms and moats, and
battlements and towers?
Behold the Vase! that, erst on Anio’s
shore,
Hath found a splendid home
in Warwick’s bowers:
To British meads ere yet the Saxon came,
The pomp of senates swept
its pedestal,
And kings of many an Oriental name
Have seen its shadow, and
are perish’d all!
XIV.
Haply it stood on that illustrious ground
Where circling columns once,
in sculptur’d pride,
With fine volute or wreath’d acanthus
crown’d,
Rear’d some light roof
by Anio’s plunging tide;
There, in the brightness of the votive
fane
To rural or to vintage gods
addrest,
Those vine clad symbols of Pan’s
peaceful reign
Amidst dark pines their sacred
seats possess’d.
XV.
Or, did it break with soft and silvery
shower
The silence of some marble
solitude,
Where Adrian, at the fire fly’s
glittering hour,
Of rumour’d worlds to
come the doubts review’d?
Go mark his tomb!—in that sepulchral
mole
Scowls the fell bandit:—from
its towering height
Old Tiber’s flood reflects the girandole,
Midst bells, and shouts, and
rockets’ arrowy flight!
XVI.
Warwick, farewell! Long may thy fortunes
stand,
And sires of sires hold rule
within thy walls,
Thy streaming banners to the breeze expand,
And the heart’s griefs
pass lightly o’er thy halls!
May happier bards, on Avon’s sedgy
shore,
Sustain on nobler lyre thy
poet’s vow,
And all thy future lords (what can they
more?)
Wear the green laurels of
thy fame, as now!
[6] These lines will form
a beautiful pendant to the picturesque
Engraving
of WARWICK CASTLE, in No. 357 of the MIRROR—as
well as
to
the very interesting antiquarian description by our
esteemed
correspondent
L.L.
NOTES.
One of the towers of Warwick Castle is complimented with the name of Guy’s Tower; certain ponderous armour and utensils preserved in the lodge are also attributed to Guy; nobody, in short, thinks of Guy without Warwick, or of Warwick without Guy; “Arms and the Man” ought to have been emblazoned on the castle banner; and why should I hesitate to say, that one of the most amiable of children perpetuates the heroic name within its walls? Had this renowned adventurer been ambitious of patriarchal honours, his descendants might have extended the ancestral renown, and have furnished many a ballad of those good old times; but when the Saxon Ulysses had returned from his pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and made an end of Colbrand and the Dun Cow, his fancy was to take alms in disguise from his own fair lady, at his own castle gate, and then retire (tous les gouts sont respectables) to a certain hole or cave called Guy’s Cliff, where he amused himself (in the intervals of rheumatism) for the rest of his natural life in counting his beads and ruminating on his sins, which, as he was a great traveller and a hero, might have been considerable.
The following interesting passage is copied from a book of ordinary occurrence, in which it is cited without stating the authority. It is more than doubtful if any other nobleman in the kingdom, at that time or since, has projected or executed so much on his own property as the late Earl of Warwick:—
“I purchased a magnificent collection of pictures by Vandyke, Rubens, &c. The marbles are not equalled, perhaps, in the kingdom. I made a noble approach to the castle through a solid rock, built a porter’s lodge, and founded a library full of books, some valuable and scarce, all well chosen. I made an armoury, and built walls round the court and pleasure gardens. I built a noble green-house, and filled it with beautiful plants. I placed in it a vase, considered the finest remain of Grecian art, for its size and beauty. I made a noble lake, from 3 to 600 feet broad, and a mile long. I planted trees, now worth 100,000l., besides 100 acres of ash. I built a stone bridge of 105 feet in span, every stone from 2,000 to 3,800 lbs in weight. The weight of the first tier on the centre was estimated at 1,000 tons. I gave the bridge to the town with no toll on it. I will not enumerate a great many other things done by me. Let Warwick Castle speak for itself.”
STANZA X.
There is a feeling of respect inspired by ancient buildings of importance. Such a castle as Warwick, which has lodged a succession of generations of the most opposite characters—at one time the “dulcis et quieti animi vir, et qui, cougruo suis moribus studio, vitam egit et clausit;” at another by the assassin of Piers de Gaveston, the king’s favourite, “whose head he cut off upon Blacklow Hill, and gave the friars preachers the charge of his body, inasmuch as he had called the said earl the Black Dog of Arderne”—is not to be approached as one visits a handsome stone house of Palladian architecture!—such a house we know can never have been the scene either of council or conspiracy; within such walls there can never have been “latens odium inter regem et proceres, et praesecipue inter comitem de Warwick et adhaerentes ejusdem.”
As to the river and its swans. I have learned from the bard to whom it has been long since consecrated, (although he may not have had the right of fishing in it when alive,) that “discretion is the better part of valour.”
If I were to describe the walks, I should only say that they were contrived, as all walks ought to be, to let in the sun or to shut him out by turns. Here you rejoice in the fulness of his meridian strength, and here in the shadows of various depth and intensity, which a well disposed and happily contrasted sylvan population knows how to effect. The senatorial oak, the spreading sycamore, the beautiful plane, (which I never see without recollecting the channel of the Asopus and the woody sides of Oeta,) the aristocratic pine running up in solitary stateliness till it equal the castle turrets—all these, and many more, are admirably intermingled and contrasted, in plantations which establish, as every thing in and about the castle does, the consummate taste of the late earl, although it must be admitted he had the finest subjects to work upon, from the happy disposition of the ground.
STANZA XIII.
This superb work of antiquity must indeed be seen, to be sufficiently estimated: the great failure of that branch of the fine arts which is employed to represent all the rest, is in the inadequate idea of size which it must necessarily give where the objects to be represented are large.
The marble vases now extant are, of course, comparatively few in number, and this is, perhaps, excepting the Medicean, the finest of them all. The best representations of it are those in Piranesi, three in number. One great, and conspicuous beauty of this vase consists in the elegantly formed handles, and in the artful insertion of the extreme branches of the vine-stems which compose them, into its margin, where they throw off a rich embroidery of leaves and fruit. A lion’s skin, with the head and claws attached, form a sort of drapery, and the introduction of the thyrsus, the lituus, and three bacchanalian masks on each side, complete the embellishments. The capacity of this vase is 103 gallons, its diameter 9 feet, its pedestal of course modern. It was discovered in 1770, in the draining of a mephitic lake within the enclosure of the Villa Adriana, called Laga di Pantanello. Lord Warwick had reason to be proud of his vase, which had this peculiarity, that, whereas almost every other object of art in the kingdom has been catalogued and sold over and over again, this vase passed (after a sufficiently long parenthesis of time) immediately from the gardens of Adrian to his own!
Blackwood’s Magazine.
* * * * *
Manners & Customs of all Nations.
* * * * *
(For the Mirror.)
They have a ludicrous custom in Staffordshire, at Easter, which they call heaving. The males claim Easter Monday, and the females Tuesday, and on this day a group of the latter assemble, and every male they meet with they seize, and one of them salutes him with a kiss, after which they all lay hold of him and heave him up as high as they can, for this they require some donation, which, if refused, they will seize his hat, handkerchief, or any thing they can lay hold of. This lasts till twelve o’clock. Sometimes old women collect together, and then woe be to the person who does not present them with a trifle, and thus stop their proceedings; for if not, their snuffy beaks might come in contact with their prisoners’ lips. They often collect 10 or 12s. and spend it in carousing at night.
W.H.
* * * * *
The regular hours of work are from sun-rise to sun-set; but so few settlers get up to see that this time is kept, that a much shorter period is generally employed in labour. The expense of maintaining a convict is rather a difficult calculation: where there are many men, they are, of course, supported at much less per man than where there are but few, from being able to buy slop clothes, tea, and the other necessaries, at wholesale prices, of the importing merchant. The waste, also, made by the convicts in their meat, &c. is a serious consideration: the head and entrails of animals slaughtered for their use, and which an English labourer would be glad of, are thrown away as only fit for the dogs; nothing but the body and legs are deemed sufficiently good for these dainty characters. Taking all expenses into consideration, I think that from 25l. to 30l. per man may be estimated as the annual cost—Widowson’s Present State of Van Dieman’s Land.
* * * * *
On arriving at Wady Muna, each nation encamped upon the spot which custom has assigned to it, at every returning Hadj. After disposing of the baggage, the hadjys hastened to the ceremony of throwing stones at the devil. It is said that, when Abraham or Ibrahim returned from the pilgrimage to Arafat, and arrived at Wady Muna, the devil Eblys presented himself before him at the entrance of the valley, to obstruct his passage; when the angel Gabriel, who accompanied the patriarch, advised him to throw stones at him, which he did, and after pelting him seven times, Eblys retired. When Abraham reached the middle of the valley, he again appeared before him, and, for the last time, at its western extremity, and was both times repulsed by the same number of stones. According to Azraky, the Pagan Arabs, in commemoration of this tradition, used to cast stones in this valley as they returned from the pilgrimage; and setup seven idols at Muna, of which there was one in each of the three spots where the devil appeared, at each of which they cast three stones. Mohammed, who made this ceremony one of the chief duties of the hadjys, increased the number of stones to seven. At the entrance of the valley, towards Mezdelfe, stands a rude stone pillar, or rather altar, between six or seven feet high, in the midst of the street, against which the first seven stones are thrown, as the place where the devil made his first stand: towards the middle of the valley is a similar pillar, and at its western end a wall of stones, which is made to serve the same purpose. The hadjys crowded in rapid succession round the first pillar, called “Djamrat el Awla;” and every one threw seven small stones successively upon it; they then passed to the second and third spots
* * * * *
A snapper up of unconsidered trifles.
SHAKSPEARE.
* * * * *
The moment he has got his seat and made his start, you are struck at once with the perfect mastership of his art. The hand just over his left thigh, the arm without constraint, steady, and with a holding command that keeps his horses like clock-work; yet to a superficial observer quite with loose reins; so firm and compact he is, that you seldom observe any shifting, only to take a shorter purchase for a run down hill; his right hand and whip are beautifully in unison; the crop, if not in a direct line with the box, over the near wheel, raised gracefully up as it were to reward the near side horse; the thong—the thong after three twists, which appears in his hand to have been placed by the maker never to be altered or improved ...... and if the off-side horse becomes slack, to see the turn of his arm to reduce a twist, or to reverse, if necessary, is exquisite: after being placed under the rib, or upon the shoulder point, up comes the arm, and with it the thong returns to the elegant position upon the crop! I say elegant! the stick, highly polished yew—rather light—not too taper—yet elastic; a thong in clean order, pliable. All done without effort—merely a turn of the wrist!
* * * * *
At twelve o’clock at noon, on the day before Easter, the resurrection service begins at the Quirinal Chapel at Rome; when a curtain is drawn back, which conceals a picture of our Lord: bells ring, drums are beaten, guns are fired, and joy succeeds to mourning.
* * * * *
ACROSTIC ON “THE MIRROR.”
MIRROR! methinks your name indeed is true
In every other point, except that you,
Resplendent with the wisdom of mankind,
Reflect not to the sight, but to
the mind.
Oh! may success then to your pains accrue,
Rewarding all your merit with its due.
D.
* * * * *
LOVE.
Love reigns the lord of every mortal heart;
He wounds the beggar, wounds the king,
And is the fairest, falsest thing,
That e’er excited joy, or bade a
bosom smart.
Light as the wind, rough as the wave,
He’s both a tyrant and a slave;
A fire that freezes, and a frost that’s
hot,
A bitter sweet, a luscious sour,
Wretched is he who knows his pow’r,
But far more wretched still is he who
knows it not.
* * * * *
TRUTH, A FABLE.
At the gates of Sorbonne, Truth one day showed her face. The syndic met her. “What,” said he, “do you want?” “Alas! hospitality.” “Your name?” “My name is Truth.” “Flee,” said he, in anger, “flee, or I seek vengeance on your profaneness.” “You chase me away,” answered Truth; “but I live in hope to have my turn, being the spoiled child of Time, and gaining every thing by the means of my father.”
* * * * *
The initial letters of the Latin names of the kings of Bonaparte’s family form the Latin word Nihil, (nothing;) and this used to be called the genealogical acrostic:
L udovicus.
I osephus.
H ieronymus.
I oachim.
N apoleo.
T.B.
* * * * *
THE SUBTERFUGE.
“I vow, my dear Strephon,”
said Chloe one day,
While Damon lay hid in the
bower,
“Yon sun that now gazes shall see
a kiss given
To no one but thee from this
hour.”
Now Strephon is gone—and with
mournful eye
Poor Damon upbraided the fair.
“Hush! blockhead,” said Chloe,
“the sun’s now on high,
But d’ye think it will
always be there?”
* * * * *
Lately published, with a Frontispiece, and thirty other Engravings, price 5s.
THE ARCANA OF SCIENCE, AND ANNUAL REGISTER OF THE USEFUL ARTS, FOR 1829.
“This is a valuable register of the progress of science and arts during the past year. Engravings and a low price qualify it for extensive utility.”—Literary Gazette, March 21.
“An agreeable and useful little volume.”—Athenaeum, Feb. 18.
* * * * *
Printed and Published by J. LIMBIRD, 143, Strand, (near Somerset House,) London; sold by ERNEST FLEISCHER, 626, New Market, Leipsic; and by all Newsmen and Booksellers.