Read Ebook: The Mirror of Literature Amusement and Instruction. Volume 12 No. 324 July 26 1828 by Various

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THE MIRROR

LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.

KINGSTON NEW BRIDGE.

Through many a bridge the wealthy river roll'd. SOUTHEY.

The annexed picturesque engraving represents the new bridge from Kingston-upon-Thames to Hampton-Wick, in the royal manor of Hampton Court. It is built of Portland stone, and consists of five elliptical arches, the centre arch being 60 feet span by 19 in height, and the side arches 56 and 52 feet span respectively. The abutments are terminated by towers or bastions, and the whole is surmounted by a cornice and balustrade, with galleries projecting over the pier; which give a bold relief to the general elevation. The length of the bridge is 382 feet by 27 feet in width. It is of chaste Grecian architecture, from the design of Mr. Lapidge, to whose courtesy we are indebted for the original of our engraving. The building contract was undertaken by Mr. Herbert for ?26,800. and the extra work has not exceeded ?100. a very rare, if not an unprecedented occurrence in either public or private undertakings of this description. The first stone was laid by the Earl of Liverpool, November 7, 1825, and the bridge was opened in due form by her royal highness the Duchess of Clarence, on July 17, 1828.

Kingston formerly sent members to parliament, till, by petition, the inhabitants prayed to be relieved from the burden!

ARCHBISHOPS OF CANTERBURY.

The first Archbishop of Canterbury was Austin, appointed by King Ethelbert, on his conversion to Christianity, about the year 598. Before the coming of the Saxons into England, the Christian Britons had three Archbishops, viz. of London, York, and Caerleon, an ancient city of South Wales. The Britons being driven out of these parts, the Archbishoprick of London became extinct; and when Pope Gregory the Great had afterwards sent thither Augustine, and his fellow-labourer to preach the Gospel to the then heathen Saxons, the Archiepiscopal See was planted at Canterbury, as being the metropolis of the kingdom of Kent, where King Ethelbert had received the same St. Augustine, and with his kingdom was baptized, and embraced the doctrines of Christianity before the rest of the Heptarchy. The other Archbishoprick of Caerleon was translated to St. David's in Pembrokeshire, and afterwards wholly to the See of Canterbury; since which, all England and Wales reckon but two Archbishops, Canterbury and York. The following Archbishops have died at Lambeth Palace;--Wittlesey, in 1375; Kemp, 1453; Dean, 1504; all buried in Canterbury Cathedral: Cardinal Pole, 1558, after lying in state here 40 days was buried at Canterbury; Parker, 1575, buried in Lambeth Chapel; Whitgift, 1604, buried at Croydon; Bancroft, 1610, buried at Lambeth; Juxon, 1663, buried in the chapel of St. John's College, Oxford; Sheldon, 1667, buried at Croydon; Tillotson, 1694, buried in the church of St. Laurence Jewry, London; Tennison, 1715; and Potter, 1747, both buried at Croydon; Seeker, 1768; Cornwallis, 1783, and Moore, 1805, all buried at Lambeth. In 1381, the Archbishop, Simon of Sudbury, fell a victim to Wat Tyler and his crew, when they attacked Lambeth Palace.

P. T. W.

DAYS OF FLY FISHING.

Albeit, gentle Angler, I Delight not in thy trade, Yet in thy pages there doth lie So much of quaint simplicity, So much of mind, Of such good kind. That none need be afraid, Caught by thy cunning bait, this book, To be ensnared on thy hook.

Our hearts and senses too, we see, Rise quickly at thy master hand, And ready to be caught by thee Are lured to virtue willingly. Content and peace, With health and ease, Walk by thy side. At thy command We bid adieu to worldly care. And joy in gifts that all may share.

Gladly with thee, I pace along. And of sweet fancies dream; Waiting till some inspired song, Within my memory cherished long, Comes fairer forth. With more of worth; Because that time upon its stream Feathers and chaff will bear away, But give to gems a brighter ray.

And though the charming and intellectual author of this poem is not an angler herself, yet I can quote the example of her lovely daughters to vindicate fly fishing from the charge of cruelty, and to prove that the most delicate and refined minds can take pleasure in this innocent amusement.

Sir Humphry Davy mentions the Wandle in Surrey, as we have quoted; but he does not allude to the trout-fishing in the Mole, in the Vale of Leatherhead in the same county. There are in the course of the work a few expressions which make humanity shudder, and would drive a Pythagorean to madness, notwithstanding the ingenuity with which the author attempts to vindicate his favourite amusement.

SHROPSHIRE AND WELSH GIRLS.

PHILO.

COLEBROOK-DALE IRON-WORKS--THE REYNOLDS'.

In the interesting extract you have given in your excellent Miscellany from Bakewell's Introduction to Geology, when speaking of the exhausted or impoverished state of the iron-ore and coals in Shropshire, &c., an allusion is made in a note to that truly excellent man, the late Mr. Richard Reynolds, and to the final extinction of the furnaces at Colebrook-Dale, which is not altogether correct.

I beg leave, therefore, to point out the errors to you, and to add a fact or two more relating to that distinguished philanthropist and his family, which, perhaps, will not be unacceptable to many of your readers.

The Darbies were an old and respectable family of the Society of Friends, and a pair of the elder branches of it were the original "Darby and Joan," whose names are so well known throughout the whole kingdom. I had this anecdote from one of the sons of Mr. Reynolds, and have no doubt of its authenticity.

Your constant reader,

NOTES OF A READER.

TRAGEDY.

The inquiries of the committee appointed to devise means for the suppression of mendicity, leave us no reason to doubt that in an average of cases a London beggar made by "his trade" eighteen-pence per day, or twenty-seven pounds per annum!

Science and literature are "the nourishment of youth, the delight of age, the ornaments of prosperous life, the refuge and consolation of adversity, the companions of our weary travels, of our rural solitudes, of our sleepless nights."

THE RIVER NILE.

The Jewish children to this day celebrate the fall and death of Haman, and on that anniversary represent the blows which they would fain deal on his scull, by striking with envenomed fury on the floor with wooden hammers. This observance was but very lately forbidden in the Grand Duchy of Baden.

TRAVELLING FOLLIES.

"Many gentlemen," says an old English author, "coming to their lands sooner than to their wits, adventure themselves to see the fashion of other countries; whence they see the world, as Adam had knowledge of good and evil, with the loss or lessening of their estate in this English Paradise; and bring home a few smattering terms, flattering garbs, apish carriages, foppish fancies, foolish guises and disguises, the vanities of neighbour nations."

PAINTING.

A Chinese novelist, in describing his hero, says, "the air of the mountains and rivers had formed his body; his mind, like a rich piece of embroidery, was worthy of his handsome face!" Pity he has not been introduced among our "fashionable novels."

PHRENOLOGY.

SAVING HABITS OF THE ENGLISH.

A REAL HERO.

WORKHOUSES

Were first erected in England in the year 1723, when they had an instant and striking effect in reducing the number of poor. Indeed the aversion of the poor to workhouses was so great, that Sir F.M. Eden mentions that some proposed, by way of weakening this aversion, "to call workhouses by some softer and more inoffensive name." Previously to this date, it had been customary to relieve the able-bodied poor at their own houses.

MARRIAGES IN CHINA

Are effected through the assistance of go-betweens, who enjoy, however, a very different repute from those of Europe, inasmuch as, among the former, the employ is of the most honourable character.

HORRORS OF THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN.

COLONIZATION.

In the colonization of the West Indies, "when a city was to be founded, the first form prescribed was, with all solemnity, to erect a gallows, as the first thing needful; and in laying out the ground, a site was marked for the prison as well as for the church."

Man is not quite so manageable in the hands of science as boiling water or a fixed star.

PICTURE OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

Queen of the Morn! Sultana of the East! City of wonders, on whose sparkling breast, Fair, slight, and tall, a thousand palaces Fling their gay shadows over golden seas! Where towers and domes bestud the gorgeous land, And countless masts, a mimic forest stand; Where cypress shades the minaret's snowy hue, And gleams of gold dissolve in skies of blue, Daughter of Eastern art, the most divine-- Lovely, yet faithless bride of Constantine-- Fair Istamboul, whose tranquil mirror flings Back with delight thy thousand colourings, And who no equal in the world dost know, Save thy own image pictured thus below!

Dazzled, amazed, our eyes half-blinded, fail, While sweeps the phantasm past our gliding sail-- Like as in festive scene, some sudden light Rises in clouds of stars upon the night. Struck by a splendour never seen before, Drunk with the perfumes wafted from the shore, Approaching near these peopled groves, we deem That from enchantment rose the gorgeous dream, Day without voice, and motion without sound, Silently beautiful! The haunted ground Is paved with roofs beyond the bounds of sight, Countless, and coloured, wrapped in golden light. 'Mid groves of cypress, measureless and vast, In thousand forms of circles--crescents--cast, Gold glitters, spangling all the wide extent, And flashes back to heaven the rays it sent. Gardens and domes, bazaars begem the woods; Seraglios, harems--peopled solitudes, Where the veil'd idol kneels; and vistas, through Barr'd lattices, that give the enamoured view, Flowers, orange-trees, and waters sparkling near, And black and lovely eyes,--Alas, that Fear, At those heaven-gates, dark sentinel should stand, To scare even Fancy from her promised land!

THE SKETCH BOOK.

THE MYSTERIOUS TAILOR.

On recovering from my stupor, I found myself with a physician and two apothecaries beside me, in bed at the George Inn, Ramsgate. I had been, it seems, for two whole days delirious, during which pregnant interval I had lived over again all the horrors of the preceding hours. The wind sang in my ears, the phantom forms of the unburied flitted pale and ghastly before my eyes. I fancied that I was still on the sea; that the massive copper-coloured clouds which hovered scarcely a yard overhead, were suddenly transformed into uncouth shapes, who glared at me from between saffron chinks, made by the scudding wrack; that the waters teemed with life, cold, slimy, preternatural things of life; that their eyes after assuming a variety of awful expressions, settled down into that dull frozen character, and their voices into that low, sepulchral, indefinable tone, which marked the Mysterious Tailor. This wretch was the Abaddon of my dreamy Pandaemonium. He was ever before me; he lent an added splendour to the day, and deepened the midnight gloom. On the heights of Bologne I saw him; far away over the foaming waters he floated still and lifeless beside me, his eye never once off my face, his voice never silent in my ear.

The reader will doubtless conclude that, now at least, having satisfactorily settled his demands, I had done with my Tormentor for ever. This inference is in part correct. I followed up my vocation with an energy strangely contrasted with my recent indifference, was early and late in the schools, and for three months pursued this course with such ardour, that my adventures with the Mysterious Tailor, though not forgotten, were yet gradually losing their once powerful hold on my imagination. This was precisely the state of my feelings, when early one autumnal morning, just seven months from the date of my last visit to High Holborn, I chanced to be turning down Saint Giles's Church, on my way to--Hospital. I had nothing to render me more than usually pensive; no new vexations, no sudden pecuniary embarrassment; yet it so happened, that on this particular morning I felt a weight at my heart, and a cloud on my brain, for which I could in no way account. As I passed along Broad Street, I made one or two bold attempts to rally. I stared inquisitively at the different passers by, endeavouring, by a snatch at the expression of their faces, to speculate on the turn of their minds, and the nature of their occupations; I then began to whistle and hum some lively air, at the same time twirling my glove with affected unconcern; but nothing would do; every exertion I made to appear cheerful, not only found no answering sympathy from within, but even exaggerated by constrast my despondency. In this condition I reached Saint Giles's Church. A crowd was assembled at the gate opposite its entrance, and presently the long surly toll of the death-bell--that solemn and oracular memento--announced that a funeral was on the eve of taking place. The funeral halted at the entrance gate, where the coffin was taken from the hearse, and and thence borne into the chancel. This ceremony concluded, the procession again set forth towards the home appointed for the departed in a remote quarter of the church-yard. And now the interest began in reality to deepen. As the necessary preparations were making for lowering the coffin into earth, the mourners--even those who had hitherto looked unmoved--pressed gradually nearer, and with a momentary show of interest, to the grave. Such is the ennobling character of death.

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