Read Ebook: The Mirror of Literature Amusement and Instruction. Volume 19 No. 545 May 5 1832 by Various

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THE TOWN.

Nine times in ten the town's a hollow thing, Where what things are is naught to what they show; Where merit's name laughs merit's self to scorn! Where friendship and esteem that ought to be The tenants of men's hearts, lodge in their looks And tongues alone. Where little virtue, with A costly keeper, passes for a heap; A heap for none, that has a homely one! Where fashion makes the law--your umpire which You bow to, whether it has brains or not. Where Folly taketh off his cap and bells, To clap on Wisdom, which must bear the jest! Where, to pass current you must seem the thing, The passive thing, that others think, and not Your simple, honest, independent self!

LOVE.

Say but a moment, still I say I love you. Love's not a flower that grows on the dull earth; Springs by the calendar; must wait for sun-- For rain;--matures by parts,--must take its time To stem, to leaf, to bud, to blow. It owns A richer soil, and boasts a quicker seed! You look for it, and see it not; and lo! E'en while you look, the peerless flower is up, Consumate in the birth!

In joining contrasts lieth love's delight. Complexion, stature, nature, mateth it, Not with their kinds, but with their opposites. Hence hands of snow in palms of russet lie; The form of Hercules affects the sylph's And breasts that case the lion's fear-proof heart, Find their lov'd lodge in arms where tremors dwell! Haply for this, on Afric's swarthy neck, Hath Europe's priceless pearl been seen to hang, That makes the orient poor! So with degrees, Rank passes by the circlet-graced brow Upon the forehead bare of notelessness, To print the nuptial kiss!

COUNTRY LIFE.

The life I'd lead! But fools would fly from it; for O! 'tis sweet! It finds the heart out, be there one to find; And corners in't where store of pleasures lodge, We never dream'd were there! It is to dwell 'Mid smiles that are not neighbours to deceit; Music whose melody is of the heart And gifts that are not made for interest,-- Abundantly bestow'd, by nature's cheek, And voice, and hand! It is to live on life, And husband it! It is to constant scan The handiwork of heaven! It is to con Its mercy, bounty, wisdom, power! It is To nearer see our God!

JEALOUSY.

A dreadful question is it, when we love, To ask if love's return'd! I did believe Fair Julia's heart was mine--I doubt it now. But once last night she danced with me, her hand To this gallant and that engaged, as soon As asked for! Maid that loved would scarce do this! Nor visit we together as we used, When first she came to town. She loves me less Than once she did--or loves me not at all. Misfortune liketh company: it seldom Visits its friends alone.

A MAIDEN HEART.

A young woman's heart, Is not a stone to carve a posey on! Which knows not what is writ on't--which you may buy, Exchange or sell,--keep or give away, It is a richer--yet a poorer thing! Priceless to him that owns and prizes it; Worthless when own'd, not priz'd; which makes the man That covets it, obtains it, and discards it,-- A fool, if not a villain.

A CURATE'S SON.

Better be a yeoman's son! Was it the rector's son, he might be known, Because the rector is a rising man, And may become a bishop. He goes light. The curate ever hath a loaded back. He may be called yeoman of the church That sweating does his work, and drudges on While lives the hopeful rector at his ease.

CHARACTER OF GEORGE THE FOURTH.

AN ECLIPSE AT BOOSSA.

"About ten o'clock at night, when we were sleeping on our mats, we were suddenly awoke by a great cry of distress from innumerable voices, attended by a horrid clashing and clattering noise, which the hour of the night tended to make more terrific. Before we had time to recover from our surprise, old Pascoe rushed breathless into our hut, and informed us with a trembling voice that 'the sun was dragging the moon across the heavens.' Wondering what could be the meaning of so strange and ridiculous a story, we ran out of the hut half dressed, and we discovered that the moon was totally eclipsed. A number of people were gathered together in our yard, in dreadful apprehension that the world was at an end, and that this was but the 'beginning of sorrows.' We learnt from them that the Mahomedan priests residing in the city, having personified the sun and moon, had told the king and the people that the eclipse was occasioned through the obstinacy and disobedience of the latter luminary. They said that for a long time previously the moon had been displeased with the path she had been compelled to take through the heavens, because it was filled with thorns and briers, and obstructed with a thousand other difficulties; and therefore that, having watched for a favourable opportunity, she had this evening deserted her usual track, and entered into that of the sun. She had not, however, travelled far up the sky, on the forbidden road, before the circumstance was discovered by the sun, who immediately hastened to her in his anger, and punished her dereliction by clothing her in darkness, forcing her back to her own territories, and forbidding her to shed her light upon the earth. This story, whimsical as it may seem, was received with implicit confidence in its truth by the king and queen and most of the people of Booss?; and the cause of the noises which we had heard, and which were still continuing with renewed vehemence, was explained to us by the fact that they were all 'assembled together in the hope of being able to frighten away the sun to his proper sphere, and leave the moon to enlighten the world as at other times.' This is much after the manner of many savage nations.

"While our informant was yet speaking to us, a messenger arrived at our yard from the king, to tell us the above tale, and with an invitation to come to see him immediately. Therefore, slipping on the remainder of our clothes, we followed the man to the residence of his sovereign, from outside of which the cries proceeded, and here we found the king and his timid partner sitting on the ground. Their usual good spirits and cheerful behaviour had forsaken them entirely; both appeared overwhelmed with apprehension, and trembled at every joint. Like all their subjects, in the hurry of fear and the suddenness of the alarm, they had come out of their dwellings half dressed, the head and legs, and the upper part of their persons, being entirely exposed. We soon succeeded in quelling their fears, or at least in diminishing, their apprehension. The king then observed, that neither himself nor the oldest of his subjects recollected seeing but one eclipse of the moon besides the one he was gazing at; that it had occurred exactly when the Fal?tahs began to be formidable in the country, and that it had forewarned them of all the wars, disasters, and calamities, which subsequently took place.

"We had seated ourselves opposite to the king and queen, and within two or three feet of them, where we could readily observe the moon and the people without inconvenience, and carry on the conversation at the same time. If the royal couple shuddered, with terror on beholding the darkened moon, we were scarcely less affected by the savage gestures of those within a few yards of us and by their repeated cries, so wild, so loud, and so piercing, that an indescribable sensation of horror stole over us, and rendered us almost as nervous as those whom we had come to comfort. The earlier part of the evening had been mild, serene, and remarkably pleasant; the moon had arisen with uncommon lustre, and being at the full, her appearance was extremely delightful. It was the conclusion of the holidays, and many of the people were enjoying the delicious coolness of a serene night, and resting from the laborious exertions of the day; but when the moon became gradually obscured, fear overcame every one. As the eclipse increased, they became more terrified. All ran in great distress to inform their sovereign of the circumstance, for there was not a single cloud to cause so deep a shadow, and they could not comprehend the nature or meaning of an eclipse. The king was as easily frightened as his people, being equally simple and ignorant; he would not therefore suffer them to depart. Numbers sometimes beget courage and confidence, he thought; so he commanded them to remain near his person, and to do all in their power to restore the lost glory of the moon.

SPIRIT OF DISCOVERY

POTTERY.

"Raffaello himself is said in his youth to have painted, or at least to have given designs for painting, in enamel on glazed earthenware. Such works are commonly known by the name of Raphael china, two interesting specimens of which, from the collection of R.H. Solly, Esq., are now before you. From some casual flaws in the back of these plates, it may be seen that the body of them is red earthenware in one, and grayish brown in the other, and of rather a coarse quality. Mr. Windus also has sent a plate, doubtless of Italian manufacture, bearing the date of 1533, thirteen years after the death of Raffaello. He has also sent a singular specimen of a somewhat similar ware, but with the figures in high relief, and far inferior to the former as a work of art.

"Mr. Brockedon informs me that, in his journey among the alps last year, he saw some beautiful specimens of Raphael china, in the possession of the hostess of an inn at the village of Rauris, in Carinthia. They consisted of three dishes; the subjects painted on them are, Pan and Apollo, Jupiter and Semele, and on the largest, Apollo surrounded by wreaths of nymphs and satyrs, and on the rim are entwined Cupids: this latter dish is about twenty inches in diameter, and bears an inscription, in Italian, purporting that it was made at Rome, in 1542, in the manufactory of Guido di Merlingho Vassaro, a native of Urbino. The date is twenty-two years after the death of Raphael; but, as the manufacturer was a fellow-townsman of that celebrated artist, the inscription, taken in connexion with the anecdote of Vasari already mentioned, is interesting, as throwing light on the association of the name of Raffaello with this species of ware."

"It is probably from Italy that Holland received this art. The Venetians, the Genoese, and the Florentines, had very extensive commercial dealings with the merchants of Antwerp and of other towns in the Low Countries; it is therefore extremely likely that the potters of Holland, to whom is due the first fabrication of clay tobacco-pipes of excellent quality, derived their knowledge of glazed ware from this source. The town of Delft was the centre of these potteries, in which were fabricated the tiles known in England by the name of Dutch; and the delft were employed for table services, and for other domestic purposes. Considered merely with regard to its material, the Dutch potters seem to have improved on their Italian original, being probably instigated by a comparison with the blue and white patterns of Nankin, which was now largely imported by the Dutch from China and Japan, and which is a coarse, yellowish, porcelain body, covered by an opaque white glaze. In the ornamental part, however, the Dutch fell immeasurably short of the potters of Florence; blue seems to have been the only colour employed by them; and their favourite patterns appear to have been either copies of the Chinese, or European and Scripture subjects treated in a truly Chinese manner and taste.

"It is about two hundred years ago since some Dutch potters came and established themselves in Lambeth, and by degrees a little colony was fixed in that village, possessed of about twenty manufactories, in which was made the glazed pottery and tiles consumed in London and in various other parts of the kingdom. Here they continued in a flourishing state, giving employment to many hands in the various departments of their art, till about fifty or sixty years ago; when the potters of Staffordshire, by their commercial activity, and by the great improvements introduced by them in the quality of their ware, in a short time so completely beat out of the market the Lambeth delft manufacturers, that this ware is now made only by a single house, and forms the smallest part even of their business.

"The articles of delft ware, for which there still continues to be an effective demand, are plain white tiles for dairies and for lining baths, pomatum pots, and a few jugs, and other similar articles of a pale blue colour."

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

NON-PROPOSALS, OR DOUBTS RESOLVED.

I wonder whether Bell or Bess, It is he most admires, Even Mistress Match'em cannot guess-- It really patience tires. He hung, last night, o'er Bella's chair, And things seem'd at a close-- To-day 'twas Bess was all his care, But yet he don't propose.

I often wonder what he thinks We ask him here to do-- Coolly he Cockburn's claret drinks, And wins from me at Loo. For twenty months he's dangled on, The foremost of their beaux, While half-a-dozen else have gone,-- And still he don't propose.

THE WAVERLEY NOVELS.

MEN COMPARED WITH BEES.

It may be worth while to inquire a moment into the value of this argument; not as affecting the right and title of our Sovereign Lord King William the Fourth , but for its own sake, as well as for certain little collateral deductions. And, in the first place, we cannot but remark how unfairly the animal creation are treated, with reference to the purposes of moral example. We degrade or exalt them, as it suits the lesson we desire to inculcate. If we rebuke a drunkard or a sensualist, we think we can say nothing severer to him than to recommend him not to make "a beast of himself;" which is very unfair towards the beasts, who are no drunkards, and behave themselves as nature intended. A horse has no habit of drinking; he does not get a red face with it. The stag does not go reeling home to his wives. On the other hand, we are desired to be as faithful as a dog, as bold as a lion, as tender as a dove; as if the qualities denoted by these epithets were not to be found among ourselves. But above all, the bee is the argument. Is not the honey-bee, we are asked, a wise animal?--We grant it.--"Doth he not improve each passing hour?"--He is pretty busy, it must be owned--as much occupied at eleven, twelve, and one o'clock, as if his life depended on it:--Does he not lay up stores?--He does.--Is he not social? Does he not live in communities?--There can be no doubt of it.--Well, then, he has a monarchical government; and does not that clearly show that a monarchy is the instinct of nature? Does it prove, by an unerring rule, that the only form of government in request among the obeyers of instinct, is the only one naturally fitted for man?

In answering the spirit of this question, we shall not stop to inquire how far it is right as to the letter, or how many different forms of polity are to be found among other animals, such as the crows, the beavers, the monkeys; neither shall we examine how far instinct is superior to reason, nor why the example of man himself is to go for nothing. We will take for granted, that the bee is the wisest animal of all, and that it is a judicious thing to consider his manners and customs, with reference to their adoption by his inferiors, who keep him in hives. This naturally leads us to inquire, whether we could not frame all our systems of life after the same fashion. We are busy, like the bee; we are gregarious, like him; we make provision against a rainy day; we are fond of flowers and the country; we occasionally sting, like him; and we make a great noise about what we do. Now, if we resemble the bee in so many points, and his political instinct is so admirable, let us reflect what we ought to become in other respects, in order to attain to the full benefit of his example.

But we have not yet got half through the wonders, which are to modify human conduct by the example of this wise, industrious, and monarch-loving people. Marvellous changes must be effected, before we have any general pretension to resemble them, always excepting in the aristocratic particular. For instance, the aristocrats of the hive, however unmasculine in their ordinary mode of life, are the only males. The working-classes, like the sovereign, are all females! How are we to manage this? We must convert, by one sudden meta-morphosis, the whole body of our agricultural and manufacturing population into women! Mrs. Cobbett must displace her husband, and tell us all about Indian corn. There must be not a man in Nottingham, except the Duke of Newcastle; and he trembling lest the Queen should send for him. The tailors, bakers, carpenters, gardeners, must all be Mrs. Tailors and Mrs. Bakers. The very name of John Smith must go out. The Directory must be Amazonian. This commonalty of women must also be, at one and the same time, the operatives, the soldiers, the virgins, and the legislators of the country! They must make all we want, fight all our enemies, and even get up a Queen for us when necessary; for the sovereigns of the hive are often of singular origin, being manufactured! literally "made to order," and that too by dint of their eating! They are fed and stuffed into royalty! The receipt is, to take any ordinary female bee in its infancy, put it into a royal cradle or cell, and feed it with a certain kind of jelly; upon which its shape alters into that of sovereignty, and her Majesty issues forth, royal by the grace of stomach. This is no fable, as the reader may see on consulting any good history of bees. In general, several Queen-bees are made at a time, in case of accidents; but each, on emerging from her apartment, seeks to destroy the other, and one only remains living in one hive. The others depart at the head of colonies, like Dido.

To sum up then the conditions of human society were it to be re-modelled after the example of the bee, let us conclude with drawing a picture of the state of our beloved country, so modified. Imprimis, all our working people would be females, wearing swords, never marrying, and occasionally making queens. They would grapple with their work in a prodigious manner, and make a great noise. Secondly, our aristocracy would be all males, never working, never marrying, always eating or sleeping, and annually having their throats cut. The bee-massacre takes place in July; when accordingly all our nobility and gentry would be out of town, with a vengeance! The women would draw their swords, and hunt and stab them all about the West end, till Brompton and Bayswater would be choked with slain.

Thirdly, her Majesty the Queen would either succeed to a quiet throne, or, if manufactured, would have to eat a prodigious quantity of jelly in her infancy; and so alter growing into proper sovereign condition, would issue forth, and begin her reign either with killing her royal sisters, or leading forth a colony to America or New South Wales. She would then take to husband some noble lord for the space of one calendar hour, and dismissing him to his dullness, proceed to lie in of 12,000 little royal highnesses in the course of the eight following weeks, with others too numerous to mention; all which princely generation with little exception, would forthwith give up their title, and divide themselves into lords or working-women as it happened; and so the story would go round to the end of the chapter, bustling, working, and massacring:--and here ends the sage example of the Monarchy of the Bees.

THE GATHERER.

A gentleman having frequently reproved his servant, an Irish girl, for boiling eggs too hard, requested her in future, to boil them only three minutes by the clock. "Sure, sir," replied the girl, "how shall I do that, for your honour knows the clock is always a quarter of an hour too fast." W.G.C.

"Here lies Lewis de Camoens, Prince of the Poets of his time. He lived poor and miserable, and died such, Anno Domini, 1579."

P.T.W.

Precious Salvage.

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