The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, by Various
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Various >> The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14,
[5] For a notice of the application of this cement to useful
purposes, see No. 396, page 283.--ED. MIRROR.
It furnishes a subject of serious consideration, as well as an argument
for a special providence, to know, that the accurate Reaumur, and other
naturalists, have observed, that when any kind of insect has increased
inordinately, their natural enemies have increased in the same
proportion, and thus preserved the balance.--_Ibid_.
_Gnats_.
There are few insects with whose form we are better acquainted than
that of the gnat. It is to be found in all latitudes and climates; as
prolific in the Polar as in the Equatorial regions. In 1736 they were so
numerous, and were seen to rise in such clouds from Salisbury cathedral,
that they looked like columns of smoke, and frightened the people, who
thought the building was on fire. In 1766, they appeared at Oxford, in
the form of a thick black cloud; six columns were observed to ascend the
height of fifty or sixty feet. Their bite was attended with alarming
inflammation. To some appearances of this kind our great poet, Spenser,
alludes, in the following beautiful simile:--
As when a swarm of gnats at eventide,
Out of the fennes of Allan doe arise,
Their murmurring small trumpets sownden wide,
Whiles in the air their clust'ring army flies.
That as a cloud doth seem to dim the skies:
Ne man nor beast may rest or take repast,
For their sharp wounds and noyous injuries,
Till the fierce northern wind, with blustering blast,
Doth blow them quite away, and in the ocean cast.
In Lapland, their numbers have been compared to a flight of snow when
the flakes fall thickest, and the minor evil of being nearly suffocated
by smoke is endured to get rid of these little pests. Captain Stedman
says, that he and his soldiers were so tormented by gnats in America,
that they were obliged to dig holes in the ground with their bayonets,
and thrust their heads into them for protection and sleep. Humboldt
states, that "between the little harbour of Higuerote and the mouth
of the Rio-Unare, the wretched inhabitants are accustomed to stretch
themselves on the ground, and pass the night buried in the sand three
or four inches deep, exposing only the head, which they cover with a
handkerchief."
After enumerating these and other examples of the achievements of the
gnat and musquito tribe, Kirby says, "It is not therefore incredible
that Sapor, King of Persia, should have been compelled to raise the
siege of Nisibis by a plague of gnats, which attacked his elephants and
beasts of burden, and so caused the rout of his army; nor that the
inhabitants of various cities should, by an extraordinary multiplication
of this plague, have been compelled to desert them; nor that, by their
power of doing mischief, like other conquerors who have been the torment
of the human race, they should have attained to fame, and have given
their name to bays, town, and territories." _Ibid_.
_Leaf Caterpillars_.
The design of the caterpillars in rolling up the leaves is not only to
conceal themselves from birds and predatory insects, but also to protect
themselves from the cuckoo-flies, which lie in wait in every quarter to
deposit their eggs in their bodies, that their progeny may devour them.
Their mode of concealment, however, though it appear to be cunningly
contrived and skilfully executed, is not always successful, their
enemies often discovering their hiding place. We happened to see a
remarkable instance of this last summer (1828), in a case of one of the
lilac caterpillars which had changed into a chrysalis within the closely
folded leaf. A small cuckoo-fly, aware, it should seem, of the very spot
where the chrysalis lay within the leaf, was seen boring through it with
her ovipositor, and introducing her eggs through the punctures thus made
into the body of the dormant insect. We allowed her to lay all her eggs,
about six in number, and then put the leaf under an inverted glass. In a
few days the eggs of the cuckoo-fly were hatched, the grubs devoured the
lilac chrysalis, and finally changed into pupae in a case of yellow
silk, and into perfect insects like their parent.--_Library of
Entertaining Knowledge_.
The last extract, and all in the Library of Entertaining Knowledge
signed J.R. are written by Mr. J. Rennie, whose initials must be
familiar to every reader as attached to some of the most interesting
papers in Mr. Loudon's Magazines. He is a nice observer of Nature, and
one of the most popular writers on her phenomena.
As we treated the cuts of the last portion of the "Library of
Entertaining Knowledge," rather critically, we are happy to say that
the engravings of insects in the present part make ample amends for all
former imperfections in that branch of the work; some of the pupae,
insects, their nests, &c. are admirably executed, and their selection
is equally judicious and attractive.
* * * * *
SPIRITUOUS LIQUORS.
Spirit-drinking appears to have attained a _pretty considerable_ pitch
in America, where, according to the proceedings of the American
Temperance Society, half as many tuns of domestic spirits are annually
produced as of wheat and flour; and in the state of New York, in the
year 1825, there were 2,264 grist-mills, and 1,129 distilleries of
whiskey. In a communication to this society from Philadelphia, it is
calculated, that out of 4,151 deaths in that city in the year 1825, 335
are attributed solely to the abuse of ardent spirits!
* * * * *
WOOD ENGRAVING.
In early life Bewick cut a vignette for the Newcastle newspaper,
from which it is calculated that more than _nine hundred thousand
impressions_ have been worked off; yet the block is still in use, and
not perceptibly impaired.
* * * * *
AUSTRIA.
The present Emperor of Austria is a gentle, fatherly old man. We have
heard none of his subjects speak of him with anything but love and
affection. The meanest peasant has access to him; and, except on public
occasions, he leads a simpler life than any nobleman among ourselves. It
is, perhaps, less the emperor than the nobility who govern in Austria,
and less the nobility than Metternich, the prince-pattern of
prime-ministers.--_Foreign Review_.
* * * * *
HANGING.
The following letter tends to rectify an error which very generally
prevails, namely, that it costs only thirteen-pence halfpenny to be
hung. It is copied _literatim et verbatim_, from one made out by Mr.
Ketch himself, and proves that a man cannot be hung for so mere a
trifle:--
"Silvester. s. d.
Executioner's Fees............ 7 6
Stripping the Body............ 4 6
Use of Shell.................. 2 6
1813. ______
Nov. 10. 14 6"
_Blackwood's Magazine_.
* * * * *
SCOTTISH POETRY.
The passion of the Scots, from whatever race derived, for poetry
and music, developed itself in the earliest stages of their history.
They possessed a wild imagination, a dark and gloomy mythology; they
peopled the caves, the woods, the rivers, and the mountains, with
spirits, elves, giants, and dragons; and are we to wonder that the
Scots, a nation in whose veins the blood of all those remote races is
unquestionably mingled, should, at a very remote period, have evinced
an enthusiastic admiration for song and poetry; that the harper was
to be found amongst the officers who composed the personal state of
the sovereign, and that the country maintained a privileged race of
wandering minstrels, who eagerly seized on the prevailing superstitions
and romantic legends, and wove them in rude, but sometimes very
expressive versification, into their stories and ballads; who were
welcome guests at the gate of every feudal castle, and fondly beloved
by the great body of the people.--_Tytler's History of Scotland_.
* * * * *
TO CONSTANTINOPLE,
_On approaching the city about sun-rise, from the Sea of Marmora_.
A glorious form thy shining city wore,
'Mid cypress thickets of perennial green,
With minaret and golden dome between,
While thy sea softly kiss'd its grassy shore.
Darting across whose blue expanse was seen
Of sculptured barques and galleys many a score;
Whence noise was none save that of plashing oar;
Nor word was spoke, to break the calm serene.
Unhear'd is whisker'd boatman's hail or joke;
Who, mute as Sinbad's man of copper, rows,
And only intermits the sturdy stroke
When fearless gull too nigh his pinnace goes.
I, hardly conscious if I dream'd or woke,
Mark'd that strange piece of action and repose.
* * * * *
BERWICK.
In the thirteenth century Berwick enjoyed a prosperity, such as threw
every other Scottish port into the shade; the customs of this town, at
the above date, amounted to about one-fourth of all the customs of
England.
* * * * *
SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.
* * * * *
THE LORD MAYORS DAY.
"Spirit of Momus! thou'rt wandering wide.
When I would thou wert merrily perch'd by my side,
For I am sorely beset by the _blues_;
Thou fugitive elf! I adjure thee return,
By Fielding's best wig, and the ashes of Sterne,
Appear at the call of my muse."
It comes, with a laugh on its rubicund face;
Methinks, by the way, it's in pretty good case,
For a spirit unblest with a body;
"On the claret bee's-wing," says the sprite, "I regale;
But I'm ready for all--from Lafitte down to ale,
From Champagne to a tumbler of toddy.
"Then I'm not over-nice, as at least _you_ must know,
In the rank of my hosts--for the lofty or low
Are alike to the Spirit of Mirth;
I care not a straw with whom I have dined,
Though a family dinner's not much to my mind,
And a proser's a plague upon earth.
"But where, my dear sprite, for this age have you been?
Have you plunged in the Danube, or danced on the Seine?
Or have taken in Lisbon your station?
Or have flapped over Windsor your butterfly-wings,
O'er its bevy of beauties, and courtiers, and kings--
The wonders and wits of the nation?"
"No; of all climes for folly, Old England's the clime;
Of all times for fully, the present's the time;
And my game is so plentiful here,
That all months are the same, from December to May;
I can bag in a minute enough for a day--
In a day, bag enough for a year.
"My game-bag has nooks for 'Notes, Sketches, and Journeys,'
By soldiers and sailors, divines and attorneys,
Through landscapes gay, blooming, and briary;
And so, as you seem rather pensive to-night,
To dispel your blue-devils, I'll briefly recite
A specimen-leaf from my diary:--
"'THE NINTH OF NOVEMBER.
"'Through smoke-clouds as dark as a forest of rooks,
The rich contribution of blacksmiths and cooks
From the huge human oven below,
I heard old St. Paul's gaily pealing away;
Thinks I to myself, 'It is Lord Mayor's Day,
So, I'll go down and look at the Show.'
"'I spread out my pinions, and sprang on my perch--
'Twas the dragon on Bow, that odd sign of the church,
The episcopal centre of action;
All Cheapside was crowded with black, brown, and fair,
Like a harlequin's jacket, or French rocquelaire,
A legitimate Cheapside attraction.
"'Then rung through the tumult a trumpet so shrill,
That it frightened the ladies all down Ludgate Hill,
And the owlets in Ivy Lane;
Then came in their chariots, each face in full blow,
The sheriffs and aldermen, solemn and slow,
All bombazine, bag-wig and chain.
"'Then came the old tumbril-shaped city machine,
With a Lord Mayor so fat that he made the coach _lean_;
Lord Waithman was scarcely a brighter man;
The wits said the old groaning wagon of state,
Which for ages had carried Lord Mayors of such weight,
To-day would break down with a _lighter man_.
"'Then proud as a prince, at the head of the band
Rode the city field-marshal, with truncheon in hand,
Though his epaulettes lately are gone;
But he's still fine enough to astonish the cits,
And drive the economists out of their wits,
From Lords Waithman and Wood, to Lord John.
"'But I now left the pageant--wits, worthies, and all--
And flew through the smoke to the roof of Guildhall,
And perched on the grand chandelier;
The dinner was stately, the tables were full--
There sat, multiplied by three thousand, John Bull,
Resolved to make all disappear.
"'And then came the speeches; Lord Hunter was fine--
Lord Wood, finer still--Lord Thompson, divine,
The sheriffs were Ciceros a-piece;
Lord Crowther was sick, though he managed to eat
What, if races were feasts, would have won him the plate;
But he tossed off a bumper to Greece.
"'Then all was enchantment--all hubbub and smiles--
The wit of Old Jewry, the grace of St. Giles,
The force of the Billingsgate tongue:
Till the eloquent Lord Mayor demanding 'Who malts?'--
The understood sign for beginning the waltz--
In a fright through the ceiling I sprung.'"
_Monthly Magazine_.
* * * * *
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A LANDAULET.
(_Concluded from page 302_.)
It happened to be a dull time of year, and for some months my wheels
ceased to be rotatory: I got cold and damp; and the moths found their
way to my inside: one or two persons who came to inspect me declined
becoming purchasers, and peering closely at my panels, said something
about "old scratch." This hurt my feelings, for if my former possessor
was not quite so good as she might have been, it was no fault of mine.
At length, after a tedious inactivity, I was bought cheap by a young
physician, who having rashly left his provincial patients to set up in
London, took it into his head that nothing could be done there by a
medical man who did not go upon wheels; he therefore hired a house in a
good situation, and then set _me_ up, and bid my vendor put me down in
his bill.
It is quite astonishing how we flew about the streets and squares,
_acting great practice_; those who knew us by sight must have thought we
had a great deal to do, but we practised nothing but locomotion. Some
medical men thin the population, (so says Slander,) my master thinned
nothing but his horses. They were the only _good jobs_ that came in his
way, and certainly he made the most of them. He was obliged to _feed_
them, but he was very rarely _feed_ himself. It so happened that nobody
consulted us, and the unavoidable consumption of the family infected my
master's pocket, and his little resources were in a rapid decline.
Still he kept a good heart; indeed, in one respect, he resembled a
worm displayed in a bottle in a quack's shop window--he was never out of
spirits! He was deeply in debt, and his name was on every body's books,
always excepting the memorandum-books of those who wanted physicians.
Still I was daily turned out, and though nobody called him in, he was to
be seen, sitting very forward, apparently looking over notes supposed
to have been taken after numerous critical cases and eventful
consultations. Our own case was hopeless, our progress was arrested,
an execution was in the house, servants met with their deserts and were
turned off, goods were seized, my master was knocked up, and I was
knocked down for one hundred and twenty pounds.
Again my beauties blushed for a while unseen; but I was new painted,
and, like some other painted personages, looked, at a distance, almost
as good as new. Fortunately for me, an elderly country curate, just at
this period, was presented with a living, and the new incumbent thought
it incumbent upon him to present his fat lady and his thin daughter with
a leathern convenience. My life was now a rural one, and for ten long
years nothing worth recording happened to me. Slowly and surely did I
creep along green lanes, carried the respectable trio to snug, early,
neighbourly dinners, and was always under lock and key before twelve
o'clock. It must be owned I began to have rather an old-fashioned look;
my body was ridiculously small, and the rector's thin daughter, the
bodkin, or rather packing-needle of the party, sat more forward, and on
a smaller space than bodkins do now-a-days. I was perched up three feet
higher than more modern vehicles, and my two lamps began to look like
little dark lanterns. But my obsoleteness rendered me only more suited
to the service in which I was enlisted. Honest Roger, the red-haired
coachman, would have looked like a clown in a pantomime, in front of a
fashionable equipage; and Simon the footboy, who slouched at my back,
would have been mistaken for an idle urchin surreptitiously enjoying a
ride. But on my unsophisticated dickey and footboard no one could doubt
but that Roger and Simon were in their proper places. The rector died;
of course he had nothing more to do with the _living_, it passed into
other hands; and a clerical income being (alas, that it should be so!)
no inheritance, his relict suddenly plunged in widowhood and poverty,
had the aggravated misery of mourning for a deaf husband, while she was
conscious that the luxuries and almost the necessaries of life were for
ever snatched from herself and her child.
Again I found myself in London, but my beauty was gone, I had lost the
activity of youth, and when slowly I chanced to creak through Long Acre,
Houlditch, my very parent, who was standing at his door sending forth a
new-born Britska, glanced at me scornfully, and knew me not! I passed on
heavily--I thought of former days of triumph, and there was madness in
the thought I became a _crazy_ vehicle! straw was thrust into my inward
parts, I was numbered among the fallen,--yes, I was now a
hackney-chariot, and my number was one hundred!
What tongue can tell the degradations I have endured! The persons who
familiarly have _called_ me, the wretches who have sat in me--never can
this be told. Daily I take my stand in the same vile street, and nightly
am I driven to the minor theatres--to oyster-shops--to desperation!
One day, when empty and unoccupied, I was hailed by two police-officers
who were bearing between them a prisoner. It was the seducer of my
second ill-fated mistress; a first crime had done its usual work, it had
prepared the mind for a second, and a worse: the seducer had done a deed
of deeper guilt, and _I_ bore him one stage towards the gallows. Many
months after, a female called me at midnight: she was decked in tattered
finery, and what with fatigue and recent indulgence in strong liquors,
she was scarcely sensible, but she possessed dim traces of past beauty.
I can say nothing more of her, but that it was the fugitive wife whom I
had borne to Brighton so many years ago. No words of mine could paint
the living warning that I beheld. What had been the sorrows of unmerited
desertion and unkindness supported by conscious rectitude, compared with
the degraded guilt, the hopeless anguish, that I then saw?
I regret to say, I was last month nigh committing manslaughter; I broke
down in the Strand and dislocated the shoulder of a rich old maid.
I cannot help thinking that she deserved the visitation, for, as she
stepped into me in Oxford Street, she exclaimed, loud enough to be heard
by all neighbouring pedestrians, "Dear me! how dirty! I never was in
a hackney conveyance before!"--though I well remembered having been
favoured with her company very often. A medical gentleman happened to be
passing at the moment of our fall; it was my old medical master. He set
the shoulder, and so skilfully did he manage his patient, that he is
about to be married to the rich invalid, who will shoulder him into
prosperity at last.
I last night was the bearer of a real party of pleasure to Astley's:--a
bride and bridegroom, with the mother of the bride. It was the widow of
the old rector, whose thin daughter (by the by she is fattening fast)
has had the luck to marry the only son of a merchant well to do in the
world.
The voice suddenly ceased!--I awoke--the door was opened, the steps let
down--I paid the coachman double the amount of his fare, and in future,
whenever I stand in need of a jarvey, I shall certainly make a point of
calling for number One Hundred.
* * * * *
THE GATHERER
"A snapper-up of unconsidered trifles."
SHAKSPEARE.
* * * * *
BELL.--THE CRY OF THE DEER SO CALLED.
I am glad of an opportunity to describe the cry of the deer by another
name than _braying_, although the latter has been sanctioned by the use
of the Scottish metrical translation of the Psalms. Bell seems to be an
abbreviation of the word _bellow_. This sylvan sound conveyed great
delight to our ancestors chiefly, I suppose, from association. A gentle
knight in the reign of Henry VIII., Sir Thomas Wortley, built Wantley
Lodge, Warncliffe Forest, for the purpose, as the ancient inscription
testifies, of "Listening to the Harts' Bell."
C.K.W.
* * * * *
THE CURSE OF SCOTLAND.
The origin of the nine of diamonds being called the Curse of Scotland
is not generally known. It arose from the following circumstance:--The
night before the battle of Culloden, the Duke of Cumberland thought
proper to send orders to General Campbell not to give quarter; and this
order being despatched in much haste, was written on a card. This card
happened to be the nine of diamonds, from which circumstance it got the
appellation above named.
W.M.
* * * * *
POLITICAL PUNS.
Among the many expedients resorted to by the depressed party in a state
to indulge their sentiments safely, and probably at the same time,
according to situation, to sound those of their companions, puns and
other quibbles have been of notable service. The following is worthy of
notice:--The cavaliers during Cromwell's usurpation, usually put a crumb
of bread into a glass of wine, and before they drank it, would exclaim
with cautious ambiguity, "God send this Crum well down!" A royalist
divine also, during the Protectorate, did not scruple to quibble in the
following prayer, which he was accustomed to deliver:--"O Lord, who
hast put a sword into the hand of thy servant, Oliver, _put it into his
heart_ ALSO--to do according to thy word." He would drop his voice at
the word also, and, after a significant pause, repeat the concluding
sentence in an under tone.
W.M.
_Erratum_ at page 306.--For _Hemiptetera_ read HEMIPTERA.
* * * * *
ANNUALS FOR 1830.
With No. 398 was published a SUPPLEMENT, containing the first portion of
the SPIRIT OF THE ANNUALS, with a splendid Engraving of the CITY OF
VERONA, and Notices of the _Gem_, _Literary Souvenir_, _Friendship's
Offering_, and _Amulet_.
* * * * *
LIMBIRD'S EDITION OF THE
_Following Novels is already Published:_
s. d.
Mackenzie's Man of Feeling 0 6
Paul and Virginia 0 6
The Castle of Otranto 0 6
Almoran and Hamet 0 6
Elizabeth, or the Exiles of Siberia 0 6
The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne 0 6
Rasselas 0 8
The Old English Baron 0 8
Nature and Art 0 8
Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield 0 10
Sicilian Romance 1 0
The Man of the World 1 0
A Simple Story 1 4
Joseph Andrews 1 6
Humphry Clinker 1 8
The Romance of the Forest 1 8
The Italian 2 0
Zeluco, by Dr Moore 2 6
Edward, by Dr Moore 2 6
Roderick Random 2 6
The Mysteries of Udolpho 3 6
Peregrine Pickle 4 6
* * * * *
_Printed and Published by J. LIMBIRD 143, Strand, (near Somerset House,)
London; sold by ERNEST FLEISCHER, 626, New Market, Leipsic; and by all
Newsmen and Booksellers_.