Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

perfumers. The leaves of all pelargoniums have also the property of quickly healing cuts, places where the skin has been rubbed off, and other sores of that kind. You take one leaf or more of the pelargonium, which you bruise upon a piece of linen; you then apply it to the sore place, and it often happens that one leaf is sufficient to heal the wound. It sticks closely to the surrounding skin, and helps to close the flesh, and heals the wound in a short time.

ar

Cultivation of Onions by the Tartars.The Tartars, who bring all sorts of vegetables to Wilna, the capital of the grand duchy of Lithuania, have a particular method of cultivating onions. Instead of raising them from seeds, in which they do not succeed, or which appears to them too long a process, they dry and smoke in a chimney those which they wish to propagate, and in spring, when the time to plant them is rived, they cut them diagonally into quarters, but so as not to separate the pieces entirely one from the other. They set these onions in rows, when thus prepared, in good soil well dug, but not freshly manured, at about ten inches from each other, and two inches deep. These onions increase extraordinarily, and grow large and strong.-Rev. Hort., 1843, p. 449. Musical Treat withdrawn.—The performance in St Paul's cathedral, for the benefit of the Sons of the Clergy, given annually for a century past, will not take place this year; objections having been made to the erection of scaffolding, on the ground of its interruption of the daily service, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, acting on the advice of the Bishop of London, has determined that the festival shall be confined to the performance of one of the old services, with some increase of the

choir.

Eyes not to be Damned.-Mahomet wrote, "There are two eyes which hell-fire does not reach one which has wept for fear of God's punishment, and another which has remained awake to guard combatants for the faith."

Snewing. In some parts of the country snew and snewing are used for snow and snowing, but are deemed merely local corruptions. They were not always so considered. Holinshed, under the year 1583, describing the performance of a tragedy, says that among other devices, "it snew an artificial kind of snow." Dr Wallis, in his English Grammar,' published in 1653, mentions that snew was used as the perfect tense of the verb to snow, "sed et utrobique, snowed." Chaucer has "it snewed."

The Best Drinking Water." The purest water with which we are acquainted," says Sir Humphry Davy, "is undoubtedly that

which falls from the atmosphere; having touched air alone, it can contain nothing but what it gains from the atmosphere; and all artificial contact, even from the vessels in which it may be collected, gives more or less of contamination." In descending through the atmosphere, however, the rain-drops absorb a certain quantity of carbonic acid, for which water has a great avidity, and which gives it its fresh and sparkling character, so that water deprived of its carbonic acid is always peculiarly flat and insipid.

B and V.-In several languages these letters are often confounded with each other. The Parisian jokers tell that a Gascon gentleman, wishing to ingratiate himself with a fair widow, whose jointure had kindled in his heart a Hudibrastic flame, effectually ruined himself in her estimation by designating her children as "de veaux enfans." Scaliger's hit at the

[ocr errors]

Gascons is well known

"Felices populi, quibus Bibere est Vivere !" live are the same thing!" "Happy people, to whom to drink and to

Peers and their Associations. — Lord

Brougham, a few nights back, replying to a rumour, that in the course he took he be astonished at a story trumped up and was seeking office, said he ought not to invented by Malice and her bastard_sister Falsehood,-begotton both by the Father of Lies, upon the weakness of human nature. He believed that all of their Lordships had formed rather an intimate acquaintance with that family.

named will shortly appear, edited by Mr The Library of Travel.-A periodical so W. K. Kelly. "It is called for," we are told, confined to the English people; other "as the mania for wandering is no longer nations have caught the infection, and the symptoms find utterance in all the tongues

of the West. The earnest German carries far abroad his patient spirit of research, and his old-world thoughtfulness and depth of feeling; the fluent Frenchman, in canary-coloured gloves, rhapsodises about la belle France' amidst the awful relics and the living glories of the East; and our American cousin cries Go ahead !' to all the echoes of the earth."

[ocr errors]

TO CORRESPONDENTS. Kalid cannot be gratified. We owe it to others not to let that of which we cannot approve appear, and if his effusions were admitted we know not what could with fairness be refused. Every one might claim insertion as a matter of course.

T. T.-We did not know that the Mirror' song on The Shirtmaking,' had been reprinted. The alteration pointed out is hardly worth mentioning.

LONDON: Published by JOHN MORTIMER, Adelaide Street, Trafalgar Square; and sold by all Booksellers and Newsmen. Printed by REYNELL and WEIGHT, Little Pulteney street, and at the Royal Polytechnic Institution.

[merged small][subsumed][merged small][merged small][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][ocr errors][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][merged small][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][merged small][merged small][merged small][subsumed][merged small][merged small][subsumed][subsumed][merged small][graphic][subsumed][subsumed]

Original Communications.

MARCH OF RAILROADS. RAILROADS seem everywhere on the increase, at home and abroad. Those places which have them not, find themselves so differently situated from their neighbours, that in nine cases out of ten the cry is, they must be had. Plans have been formed for completely surrounding this vast metropolis with chemins de fer. Both Essex and Kent are to be traversed in new directions. In the former county, it is proposed to form a line to Tilbury; in the latter, several lines have been planned to connect Gravesend and Chatham, and one is announced to be actually in progress, and likely to be open to the public within six months from this date.

But by far the grandest undertaking of this kind of which we have lately heard, is that which we learn the French government have resolved on, namely, the formation of "a railway from Paris to Strasburg, the land for which will be purchased, and the earthworks, tunnels, bridges, stations, &c., executed by the government at their own expense and risk." This undoubtedly sounds well. It must be borne in mind that we quote the prospectus put forth, in order to form a French and English company, but it will not be very difficult to verify what is thus advanced, or, if false, to disprove it. Names of high respectability appear in the committees which have been formed. In the Paris committee we find those of Le Comte de Molé, President, and Le Marechal Comte Gerard, Peers of France.

On the ultimate prospects of this speculation we offer no opinion; but regarding it as that which is likely to strengthen the amicable relations now subsisting between France and England, our wishes are in favour of its success. From the map which we have given, it will at once be seen that its course will run through or near a great number of populous places, and it is announced that "the agricultural, commercial, and manufacturing resources of the provinces bordering or within easy distance of the line, are those of fifteen of the richest provinces in France, viz.: Seine, Seine et Oise, Seine et Marne, Aisne, Ardennes, Marne, Aube, Haute-Marne, Meuse, Moselle, Meurthe, Vosges, Haute-Saone, Haut Rhin, and BasRhin, abounding in forests, mines, collieries, iron works, mills, and factories, as well as in rich vineyards and various agricultural productions. The intermediate traffic on this route is considered to be greater than in any other part of France, the total annual trade being estimated at 100,000 French tons between Strasburg and Paris, while that between and among the various localities enumerated embraces

double this amount. The total population is about six millions and a quarter, and the total land revenue 320,000,000f., or 12,800,000l., double that of the whole kingdom of Belgium."

Such are the representations made by the projectors of this great work. Like all who adventure on a large scale, they are, perhaps, over sanguine. The discreet will take their statements cum grano salis, but some of the facts promulgated are important, not merely with reference to the large or small profits which the shareholders in the proposed company may eventually divide, but on account of the increased facilities which the people of England and France will have for communicating with each other. In this view of the case the scheme is one of the most important that has been brought on the tapis since the peace. At the moment when but too many sordid and mad-headed visionaries, on the other side of the water, are labouring to get up a new war (they gained so much by the last!), with the mountebank Thiers at their head, such an undertaking may possibly better occupy their minds, and by engaging them in that which is really for their interest, make them postpone the foolish strife they contemplate in the cause of "glory."

ENGLISH LIFE IN THE EIGHTEENTH

CENTURY.

CHAPTER II.-LITERATURE. THE literature of the eighteenth century was of a more refined and elevated character than that of any period preceding it. Essays, histories, and poems, the productions of rightly and justly-thinking men, infused a healthy tone into the opinions of the age; and even the lighter works-the fictions of the novelist and the playwright-did not exhibit so utter an abandonment of every moral principle as unhappily characterizes too many of the novels and the dramas of our time. Pope and Tickell, as poets; Johnson, Goldsmith, Addison, and Steele, as essayists; Goldsmith, Hume, and Tindall, as historians; Fielding, Smollett, and Richardson, as novelists; Burke and "Junius," as political economists; and Swift and Sterne, as general writers; with the hereditary talent of the Sheridans, and the Colmans, and the Walpoles, have combined to render the eighteenth century peculiarly a literary age-and the volumes which own those writers as their authors are still the most esteemed and valued works upon our shelves. The Spectator,' the Tatler,' and the Guardian,' of Steele and Addison; the 'Rambler' and the Idler' of Johnson; the 'Bee' and 'Citizen of the World' of Goldsmith, although, perhaps, depreciated by occasional frivolities and absurdities, may be considered the most valuable, as

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

they were almost the earliest of our periodical publications. The quality of the higher literature of the time must, indeed, have been extraordinarily good, that the works of such writers as Locke, Cowper, and Shenstone, should have been reckoned second-rate. Yet so it was; and the beauties of Parnell and Hervey, Blair and Collins, were inferior to these. They must have been, indeed, the palmy days of literature, when a revised report from the 'Newgate Calendar' was not considered a first-rate novel, or an amended version of that revised report, a first-rate drama.

Yet the progress of letters was fettered and restrained to a degree which it does not suffer now. The law of libel, which was frequently stretched to its very utmost extent to reach some enemy of the government, silenced, in a measure, the voice of truth; the somewhat primitive processes of typography seriously retarded the publication of works of magnitude; and, though last not least, the almost consecutive recurrence of foreign wars throughout the century, distracted the attention of the nation from literary pursuits. Such were the difficulties against which the literature of the eighteenth century had to contend, and, although it rose superior to these impediments, their effects are visible in every volume and on every page. It is curious to observe the wholesome respect which the publishers entertained for the law of libel. The lists of bankrupts in the magazines and newspapers of the time are simply headed "B- -pts," lest the full expression of the epithet might give offence; nay, even the houses of parliament are denominated "the Political Club Rooms," and the several speakers represented only by Roman names. In the 'London Magazine' for 1750 we find P. Ventidius, Q. Maximus, M. Cato, Cn. Domitius,Calvinus, and A. Posthumius, engaged in a debate on the English Mutiny Bill. Sometimes they were indicated by the external letters of their names enclosing the necessary number of stars. Thus we find Burke reported as " Mr B***e,” Fox as "Mr F*x," &c.; whilst acting, we presume, on the principle that to majesty is due the most respect, the editors of the newspapers did not dare to mention, even thus hieroglyphically, the name of the King, but invariably denominated him, "A certain illustrious personage," or "A great person of state." For these reasons, it is a rare occurrence to find a newspaper of the eighteenth century exposing the crimes of a corrupt minister, or deprecating the conduct of an impolitic one; but measures of the most contrary nature, provided they but emanated from the powers that were, were praised and lauded indiscriminately; and Walpole, Fox, Pitt, and North, alternately declared the "Saviours of their country," and the "Guardian

spirits of our land." But if the press were not so bold and free as at present, the fear of the law of libel and sanatory respect of its statutes acted advantageously in one manner-the privacy of domestic life was less frequently assailed; the veriest pennya-liner for the paltriest journal seldom dared to penetrate into the secrets of private life, or to infuse bitterness and pain among the social circle by libellous attacks on any of its members.

Occasionally, I will not deny, there were found satirists daring enough, under the shelter of initial and final letters, to indulge in very uncivil personalities. A prime minister of to-day would hardly be dealt with less ceremoniously than was a former premier in 1768, in the subjoined paragraph, which appears in the 'Political Register' for May in that year:

e was

"Towards the close of the last session, the ft L-d of the T-y was missing. In a day or two it came out, that his Ggone down to the sea coast with Miss Ny Ps, to attend her on board a vessel for France. About the end of March an express arrived at Dover, ordering one of the packets to be got ready for the confidential Sy of

the T- -y. He came in the evening, and embarqued for Calais: various were the speculations of the people at Dover on the purport of this embassy in such a busy time. Lo! the S-y returned with his errand, Miss N- -y P -s in his hand. On Wednesday, the 14th of April, his G-eattended Mrs H-n, commonly called Miss Ny Ps, to Ranelagh; and the Saturday following, he introduced her into the opera, and sat behind her in waiting. I pass over his setting her at the head of his table, respect to her; his airings with her in a and entertaining no company who don't pay phaeton, and her appearance at Newmarket; because other profligates do the like: but it is only the prerogative of a ft m-r to appear with his win public, and to shew her more respect than he ever shewed to his wife."

The style of attack, however, which was more prevalent will be better seen in an extract from the November number of the same publication:

"INTERROGATORIES,

Exhibited to a certain little great man, &c. A fragment-never before made public,and, now, offered to any and all parties. "Quest.-Who made you P―e M―r? "Ans. Some little assurance, and a great deal of B- -gh interest.

"Quest.-First let me know what kind of assurance is necessary that I may follow your righteous example; and secondly, what you mean by B- -gh interest?

"Ans. A full confidence of abilities you small one, of those which are called the proper are an entire stranger to is a part, though a requisites to figure in any public department; but the surest is blacking the boot of a cer

*The Duke of Grafton. † Nancy Parsons.

tain invisible agent, and, with the right German ball, for that of the English composition will fail, and not give the right polish; and now, as to what I mean by B-gh interest, turn over any leaf of memoirs, and you hear my opinion in folio. "Quest.-I never heard of that book-is it in print, or MS.?

"Ans. In neither 'tis all a blank, and never, perhaps, will be wrote upon,-but 'tis gilded and lettered, well bound, and opens easily at any place.

"Quest.-What did your patron promise for you?

"Ans. He promised and vowed four, or five, things in my name,-first, that I should believe every article in the treaty of Fontainbleau; secondly, that I should rail at all Gn connexions in public-however in private might set my hand to them; thirdly, that I should with all my might and main-right or wrong, run down constitutional measures; and, in short, as to the rest, should do everything becoming a man in my sta

tion.

"Quest.-How come you to be accessary (for I know the principal to be another sort of man) in making such a blundering and infamous peace?

"Ans.-Why, I'll tell you. There was no chance of a farthing of revenue from a certain corner of G-y during such a war,and as we all of the P- -y C-1 (by our emissaries) had spread abroad, and made it believed, that the tenderness of a certain great man made him wish for the sheathing of each sword, we set about it. But, between friends, the primum mobile was self-interest, for we wanted money to build children's houses, raise vallies, sink hills, and, in short, raise a girl from obscurity to eminence and degree; when, in fact, one of equal merit, and more money (it could not have been less) would have been the proper step for one whose estate was already mortgaged.

"Quest.-But, what?

"Ans.-May I be d―n'd if I answer any more questions.

"[Exit grumbling."

The comparatively tardy process of publication, when the powers of steam were yet unapplied to the printing press, and when, what is now the work of a few minutes, could scarcely be performed in as many hours, was another serious impediment in the way of literary progression. The newspapers of the eighteenth century were small and badly printed; the size not a fourth of that in which they glory in the present day; and the type scarcely superior to the most worn-out machinery of one of our humblest printers. There are still, no doubt, many persons living who remember the small sheets of the London Journal' or the 'Public Ledger,' with their large and roughly-formed type, their brown ink, and coarse paper. Let them compare these with some of our modern journals-the 'Times' and its double supplements, for instance-and it will appear incredible that so great a change in size,

typography, ink, and paper, could have occurred in so short a time. But the change which had previously occurred between the newspapers of the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries-between the 'English Mercurie' and the 'Postboy,' was equally complete and equally progressive, and it is more than probable that, ere another century has passed, the "colossal journals' " of our time will form pigmy objects of surprise and ridicule to our children's children.

DUELS.

(For the Mirror.)

IN the earlier ages, when legal redress was uncertain or not always procurable, disputes and grievances were commonly decided by duel; but in our more enlightened age, when there are laws to punish aggressions and to settle contentions, the duel has not the apology which countenanced it at a remote and barbaric period. Yet, without one really sound and rational argument to advance in its favour, there are persons professing to be reflecting, civilized, and refined beings, who are ever ready to have resort to the duel, in utter heedlessness of the laws of God and man. In this they display a double disobedience-impiety and disloyalty. The object sought is said to be vindication and satisfaction; but will blowing the brains out of a skull prove the truth or falsity of anything that has been asserted? and is not death too severe a punishment for most of the acts and words which suggest a recourse to this absurd mode of redress? Should an apology be extorted by this display of pistols, the sincerity and value of it is about as questionable and unsatisfactory as a confession squeezed out by the use of the thumb-screw.

The duel being a hap-hazard proceeding, uncertain in its results, the offended person is as liable to receive the bullet as the offender. It is strange satisfaction for one whose honour is wounded to have the body wounded too. If the law is not to be appealed to, we think a useful hint might be taken from the reply which Professor Vince, the mathematician, gave to an advocate for duels:-" If a man said I had told a lie I would'nt try to kill him, but I'd tell him to prove it. If he could'nt he'd be the liar, and there I should have him; but if he did mathematically prove that I'd lied, there he'd have me, and I should pocket the affront, for after that conviction of me the less fuss I should make so much the better."

Both in a moral and political point of view it is greatly to be lamented that eminent persons should ever be found seeking to redress their grievances by the pistol, thus spurning those christian and social

« AnteriorContinuar »