Read Ebook: The Mirror of Literature Amusement and Instruction. Volume 10 No. 283 November 17 1827 by Various

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 90 lines and 16061 words, and 2 pages

THE AUBERGE.

THE PAINTER.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

ROMEO COATES.

What was Kemble, Cooke, Kean, or Young, to the celebrated Diamond Coates, who, about twenty years since, shared with little Betty the admiration of the town? Never shall I forget his representation of Lothario at the Haymarket Theatre, for his own pleasure, as he accurately termed it; and certainly the then rising fame of Liston was greatly endangered by his Barbadoes rival. Never had Garrick or Kemble, in their best times, so largely excited the public attention and curiosity. The very remotest nooks of the galleries were filled by fashion, while in a stage-box sat the performer's notorious friend, the Baron Ferdinand Geramb.

THE VOICE OF NATURE.

I heard a bird on the linden tree, From which November leaves were falling, Sweet were its notes, and wild their tone; And pensive there as I paused alone, They spake with a mystical voice to me, The sunlight of vanish'd years recalling From out the mazy past.

I turned to the cloud-bedappled sky, To bare-shorn field and gleaming water; To frost-night herbage, and perishing flower; While the Robin haunted the yellow bower; With his faery plumage and jet-black eye, Like an unlaid ghost some scene of slaughter: All mournful was the sight.

Then I thought of seasons, when, long ago, Ere Hope's clear sky was dimm'd by sorrow, How bright seem'd the flowers, and the trees how green, How lengthen'd the blue summer days had been; And what pure delight the young spirit's glow, From the bosom of earth and air, could borrow Out of all lovely things.

Then my heart leapt to days, when, a careless boy, 'Mid scenes of ambrosial Autumn roaming, The diamond gem of the Evening Star, Twinkling amid the pure South afar, Was gazed on with gushes of holy joy, As the cherub spirit that ruled the gloaming With glittering, golden eye.

And oh! with what rapture of silent bliss. With what breathless deep devotion, Have I watch'd, like spectre from swathing shroud, The white moon peer o'er the shadowy cloud, Illumine the mantled Earth, and kiss The meekly murmuring lips of Ocean, As a mother doth her child.

But now I can feel how Time hath changed My thoughts within, the prospect round us-- How boyish companions have thinn'd away; How the sun hath grown cloudier, ray by ray; How loved scenes of childhood are now estranged; And the chilling tempests of Care have bound us Within their icy folds.

'Tis no vain dream of moody mind, That lists a dirge i' the blackbird's singing; That in gusts hears Nature's own voice complain, And beholds her tears in the gushing rain; When low clouds congregate blank and blind, And Winter's snow-muffled arms are clinging Round Autumn's faded urn.

DELTA.

CALAIS

Calais will merit to be described by every Englishman who visits it, and to be read of by every one who does not--so long as Hogarth, and "Oh! the Roast Beef of Old England!" shall be remembered, and--which will be longer still--till the French and English become one people, merely by dint of living, within three hours' journey of each other. Calais has been treated much too cavalierly by the flocks of English, who owe to it their first, and consequently most fixed impressions of French manners, and the English want of them. Calais is, in fact, one of the most agreeable and characteristic little towns in France. It is "lively, audible, and full of vent"--as gay as a fair, and as busy as a bee-hive--and its form and construction as compact.

CURIOSITY.

If I were to enumerate all the great and venerable personages who indulge in an extensive curiosity, I should never arrive at the end of my subject. Lawyers and physicians are eternal questionists; the clergy are curious, especially on agricultural affairs; the first nobles in the land take in the "John Bull" and the "Age" to gratify the most prurient curiosity. The gentlemen of the Stock Exchange live only from one story to another, and are miserable if a "great man's butler looks grave," without their knowing why. So general indeed is this passion, that one half of every Englishman's time is spent in inquiring after the health of his acquaintance, and the rest in asking "what news?" There is a very respectable knot of persons who go up and down the country asking people their opinion of the pope's infallibility, and what they think of the Virgin Mary; and when they do not get an answer to their mind, they fall to shouting, "The Church is in danger," like a parcel of lunatics. Another set, equally respectable, are chiefly solicitous for your notions concerning the Apocalypse; and to learn whether you read your Bible at all, or whether with or without note or comment. Then again, a third set of the curious are to be seen, mounted upon lamp-posts, and peeping into their neighbours' windows, to learn whether they shave themselves, or employ a barber on a Sunday morning; and a fourth, who cannot find time to go to church, in their anxiety to know that their neighbours do not smoke pipes and drink ale in the time of divine service. In short, society may be considered as one great system of espionage; and the business of every man is not only with the actions, but with the very thoughts of all his neighbours.

THE SELECTOR.

AND

CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE.

I may, however, before dismissing the subject, allude to the various localities which have been affixed to some of the, scenery introduced into these novels, by which, for example, Wolf's-Hope is identified with Fast Castle, in Berwickshire; Tillietudlem with Draphane, in Clydesdale; and the valley in the "Monastery," called Glendearg, with the dale of the Allan, above Lord Somerville's villa, near Melrose. I can only say, that, in these and other instances, I had no purpose of describing any particular local spot; and the resemblance must therefore be of that general kind which necessarily exists betwixt scenes of the same character. The iron-bound coast of Scotland affords upon its headlands and promontories fifty such castles as Wolf's-Hope; every country has a valley more or less resembling Glendearg; and if castles like Tillietudlem. or mansions like the Baron of Bradwardine's, are now less frequently to be met with, it is owing to the rage of indiscriminate destruction, which has removed or ruined so many monuments of antiquity, when they were not protected by their inaccessible situation.--The scraps of poetry which have been in most cases tacked to the beginning of chapters in these novels, are sometimes quoted either from reading or from memory, but, in the general case, are pure invention. I found it too troublesome to turn to the collection of the British poets to discover apposite mottos, and, in the situation of the theatrical mechanist, who, when the white paper which represented his shower of snow was exhausted, continued the storm by snowing brown, I drew on my memory as long as I could, and when that failed, eked it out with invention. I believe that, in some cases, where actual names are affixed to the supposed quotations, it would be to little purpose to seek them in the works, of the authors referred to.--And now the reader may expect me, while in the confessional, to explain the motives why I have so long persisted in disclaiming the works of which I am now writing. To this it would be difficult to give any other reply, save that of Corporal Nym--It was the humour or caprice of the time.

WALTER SCOTT.

THE GATHERER.

NEGRO PUN.

"SPIRITS" OF THE MAGAZINES.

Is it not diverting to see a periodical supported, not by the spirits of the age, but by the small beers, with now and then a few ales and porters? Yet we doubt not that one and all of the people employed about the concern may be, in their way, very respectable schoolmasters, who, in small villages, cannot support themselves entirely on their own bottoms,--ushers in metropolitan academies, whose annual salary rarely exceeds twenty pounds, with some board, and a little washing--third-rate actors on the boards of the Surrey or Adelphi, who have generally a literary turn--a player on the hautboy in some orchestra or other--unfortunate men of talent in the King's Bench--a precocious boy or two in Christ's hospital--an occasional apprentice run away from the row, and most probably cousin of Tims.

After this specimen of "Contributors" who would be an Editor? It is a fair sample of more than one "paralytic periodical:" our readers must bear in mind a certain point of etiquette about "present company."

FRAMEWORK OF SOCIETY.

"What can ennoble sots, or fools, or cowards, Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards"

SEEING IS BELIEVING.

In South America, the whole population is equestrian. No man goes to visit his next door neighbour on foot; and even the beggars in the street ask alms on horseback. A French traveller being solicited for charity by one of these mounted petitioners, at Buenos Ayres, makes the following entry in his note-book.--"16th November. Saw a beggar this morning, who asked alms of me, mounted on a tall grey horse. The English have a proverb, that says--'Set a beggar on horseback, and he'll ride to the devil!' I had often heard this mentioned, but never saw one upon his way before."

SHADOW CATCHER.

I was present, some years ago, at the trial of a notorious obeah-man, driven on an estate in the parish of St. David, who, by the overwhelming influence he had acquired over the minds of his deluded victims, and the more potent means he had at command to accomplish his ends, had done great injury among the slaves on the property before it was discovered. One of the witnesses, a negro belonging to the same estate, was asked--"Do you know the prisoner to be an obeah-man?"--"Ees, massa, shadow-catcher, true." "What do you mean by a shadow-catcher?"--"Him ha coffin, him set for catch dem shadow." "What shadow do you mean?"--"When him set obeah for summary, him catch dem shadow and dem go dead;" and too surely they were soon dead, when he pretended to have caught their shadows, by whatever means it was effected.

THE FUNDS.

John Kemble being present at the sale of the books of Isaac Reed, the commentator on Shakspeare, when "a Treatise on the Public Securities" was knocked down at the humble price of sixpence--the great tragedian observed, "that he had never known the funds so low before."

TEMPUS EDAX RERUM.

ON JACK STRAW'S CASTLE, HAMPSTEAD HEATH, BEING REPAIRED.

With best of food--of beer and wines, Here may you pass a merry day; So shall "mine host," while Phoebus shines, Instead of straw, make good his hay.

J. R.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet