THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.

Vol.  XX, No. 577.] Saturday, November 24, 1832. [Price 2d.

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[Illustration:  Domestic antiquities.]

Domestic antiquities.

The first of these archaeological rarities is a pair of Snuffers, found in Dorsetshire sixty-four years since, and engraved in Hutchins’s history of that county.  They were discovered, says the historian, “in the year 1768, in digging the foundation of a granary, at the foot of a hill adjoining to Corton mansion house (formerly the seat of the respectable family of the Mohuns), in the parish of St. Peter, Portisham.  They are of brass, and weigh six ounces:  the great difference between these and the modern utensils of the same nature and use is, that these are in shape like a heart fluted, and consequently terminate in a point.  They consist of two equal lateral cavities, by the edges of which the snuff is cut off, and received into the cavities, from which it is not got out without particular application and trouble.”

“There are two circumstances attending this little utensil which seem to bespeak it of considerable age:  the roughness of the workmanship, which is in all respects as crude and course as can be well imagined, and the awkwardness of the form.”

So little is known of the comparatively recent introduction of snuffers into this country, that the above illustration will be acceptable to the observer of domestic origins and antiquities.  See also Mirror, vol. xi. p. 74.

The key, annexed, was the property of Mr. Gough, the eminent topographer, and is supposed to have been used as a passport by some of the family of Stawel, whose arms it bears.

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LINES

Addressed to A party of young ladies visiting the CATACOMBS at Paris.

(From the French of M. Emanuel Dupaty.)

By E.B.  IMPEY, Esq.

  While life is young and pleasure new,
    Ah! why the shades of Death explore? 
    Better, ere May’s sweet prime is o’er,
  The primrose path of joy pursue: 
  The torch, the lamps’ sepulchral fire,
    Their paleness on your charms impress,
    And glaring on your loveliness,
  Death mocks what living eyes desire. 
    Approach! the music of your tread
  No longer bids the cold heart beat: 
  For ruling Beauty boasts no seat
    Of empire o’er the senseless dead! 
  Yet, if their lessons profit aught,
    Ponder, or ere ye speed away,
    Those feet o’er flowers were form’d to stray,
  No death-wrought causeway, grimly wrought,
    Of ghastly bones and mould’ring clay. 
  To gayer thoughts and scenes arise;
  Nor ever veil those sun-bright eyes
    From sight of bliss and light of day—­
  Save when in pity to mankind
  Love’s fillet o’er their lids ye bind.