Читать книгу: «The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction. Volume 14, No. 391, September 26, 1829», страница 2

PUNNING SATIRE ON AN INCONSTANT LOVER

 
You are as faithless as a Carthaginian,
To love at once, Kate, Nell, Doll, Martha, Jenny, Anne.
 

SWIFT.

BRIMHAM ROCKS ³ BY MOONLIGHT

(For the Mirror.)

 
The sun hath set, but yet I linger still,
Gazing with rapture on the face of night;
And mountain wild, deep vale, and heathy hill,
Lay like a lovely vision, mellow, bright,
Bathed in the glory of the sunset light,
Whose changing hues in flick'ring radiance play,
Faint and yet fainter on the outstretch'd sight,
Until at length they wane and die away,
And all th' horizon round fades into twilight gray.
 
 
But, slowly rising up the vaulted sky,
Forth comes the moon, night's joyous, sylvan queen,
With one lone, silent star, attendant by
Her side, all sparkling in its glorious sheen;
And, floating swan-like, stately, and serene,
A few light fleecy clouds, the drapery of heav'n,
Throw their pale shadows o'er this witching scene,
Deep'ning its mystic grandeur—and seem driven
Round these all shapeless piles like Time's wan spectres risen
 
 
From out the tombs of ages. All around
Lies hushed and still, save with large, dusky wing
The bird of night makes its ill-omened sound;
Or moor-game, nestling 'neath th' flowery ling
Low chuckle to their mates—or startled, spring
Away on rustling pinions to the sky,
Wheel round and round in many an airy ring,
Then swooping downward to their covert hie,
And, lodged beneath the heath again securely lie.
 
 
Ascend yon hoary rock's impending brow,
And on its windy summit take your stand—
Lo! Wilsill's lovely vale extends below,
And long, long heathy moors on either hand
Stretch dark and misty—a bleak tract of land,
Whereon but seldom human footsteps come;
Save when with dog, obedient at command,
And gun, the sportsman quits his city home,
And brushing through the ling in quest of game doth roam.
 
 
And lo! in wild confusion scattered round,
Huge, shapeless, naked, massy piles of stone
Rise, proudly towering o'er this barren ground,
Scowling in mutual hate—apart, alone,
Stern, desolate they stand—and seeming thrown
By some dire, dread convulsion of the earth
From her deep, silent caves, and hoary grown
With age and storms that Boreas issues forth
Replete with ire from his wild regions in the north.
 
 
How beautiful! yet wildly beautiful,
As group on group comes glim'ring on the eye,
Making the heart, soul, mind, and spirit full
Of holy rapture and sweet imagery;
Till o'er the lip escapes th' unconscious sigh,
And heaves the breast with feeling, too too deep
For words t' express the awful sympathy,
That like a dream doth o'er the senses creep,
Chaining the gazer's eye—and yet he cannot weep.
 
 
But stands entranced and rooted to the spot,
While grows the scene upon him vast, sublime,
Like some gigantic city's ruin, not
Inhabited by men, but Titans—Time
Here rests upon his scythe and fears to climb,
Spent by th' unceasing toil of ages past,
Musing he stands and listens to the chime
Of rock-born spirits howling in the blast,
While gloomily around night's sable shades are cast.
 
 
Well deemed I ween the Druid sage of old
In making this his dwelling place on high;
Where all that's huge and great from Nature's mould,
Spoke this the temple of his deity;
Whose walls and roof were the o'erhanging sky,
His altar th' unhewn rock, all bleak and bare,
Where superstition with red, phrensied eye
And look all wild, poured forth her idol prayer,
As rose the dying wail,⁴ and blazed the pile in air.
 
 
Lost in the lapse of time, the Druid's lore
Hath ceased to echo these rude rocks among;
No altar new is stained with human gore;
No hoary bard now weaves the mystic song;
Nor thrust in wicker hurdles, throng on throng,
Whole multitudes are offered to appease
Some angry god, whose will and power of wrong
Vainly they thus essayed to soothe and please—
Alas! that thoughts so gross man's noblest powers should seize.
 
 
But, bowed beneath the cross, see! prostrate fall
The mummeries that long enthralled our isle;
So perish error! and wide over all
Let reason, truth, religion ever smile:
And let not man, vain, impious man defile
The spark heaven lighted in the human breast;
Let no enthusiastic rage, no sophist's wile
Lull the poor victim into careless rest,
Since the pure gospel page can teach him to be blest.
 
 
Weak, trifling man, O! come and ponder here
Upon the nothingness of human things—
How vain, how very vain doth then appear
The city's hum, the pomp and pride of kings;
All that from wealth, power, grandeur, beauty springs,
Alike must fade, die, perish, be forgot;
E'en he whose feeble hand now strikes the strings
Soon, soon within the silent grave must rot—
Yet Nature's still the same, though we see, we hear her not.
 

J. HORNER.

Wilsill, near Pateley Bridge, Sept. 1829.

MANNERS & CUSTOMS OF ALL NATIONS

PLEDGING HEALTHS

The origin of the very common expression, to pledge one drinking, is curious: it is thus related by a very celebrated antiquarian of the fifteenth century. "When the Danes bore sway in this land, if a native did drink, they would sometimes stab him with a dagger or knife; hereupon people would not drink in company unless some one present would be their pledge or surety, that they should receive no hurt, whilst they were in their draught; hence that usual phrase, I'll pledge you, or be a pledge for you." Others affirm the true sense of the word was, that if the party drank to, were not disposed to drink himself, he would put another for a pledge to do it for him, else the party who began would take it ill.

J.W.

RUSSIAN SUPERSTITION

The extreme superstition of the Greek church, the national one of Russia, seems to exceed that of the Roman Catholic devotees, even in Spain and Portugal. The following instance will show the absurdity of it even among the higher classes:—

A Russian princess, some few years since, had always a large silver crucifix following her in a separate carriage, and which was placed in her chamber. When any thing fortunate happened to her in the course of the day, and she was satisfied with all that had occurred, she had lighted tapers placed around the crucifix, and said to it in a familiar style, "See, now, as you have been very good to me to-day, you shall be treated well; you shall have candles all night; I will love you; I will pray to you." If on the contrary, any thing happened to vex the lady, she had the candles put out, ordered her servants not to pay any homage to the poor image, and loaded it herself with the bitterest reproaches.

INA.

THE SELECTOR; AND LITERARY NOTICES OF NEW WORKS

LIBRARY OF ENTERTAINING KNOWLEDGE

Fruits

This Part (5) completes the volume of "Vegetable Substances used in the Arts and in Domestic Economy." The first portion—Timber Trees was noticed at some length in our last volume (page 309,) and received our almost unqualified commendation, which we are induced to extend to the Part now before us. Still, we do not recollect to have pointed out to our readers that which appears to us the great recommendatory feature of this series of works—we mean the arrangement of the volumes—their subdivisions and exemplifications—and these evince a master-hand in compilation.

Every general reader must be aware that little novelty could be expected in a brief History and Description of Timber Trees and Fruits, and that the object of the Useful Knowledge Society was not merely to furnish the public with new views, but to present in the most attractive form the most entertaining facts of established writers, and illustrate their views with the observations of contemporary authors as well as their own personal acquaintance with the subjects. In this manner, the Editor has taken "a general and rapid view of fruits," and, considering the great hold their description possesses on all readers, we are disposed to think almost too rapid. We should have enjoyed a volume or two more than half a volume of such reading as the present; but as we are not purchasers, and are unacquainted with the number to which the Society propose to extend their works, we ought not perhaps to raise this objection, which, to say the truth, is a sort of negative commendation. Hitherto, we have been accustomed to see compilations of pretensions similar to the present, executed with little regard to neatness or unity, or weight or consideration. Whole pages and long extracts have been stripped and sliced off books, with little rule or arrangement, and what is still worse, without any acknowledgment of the sources. The last defect is certainly the greatest, since, in spite of ill-arrangement, an intelligent inquirer may with much trouble, avail himself of further reference to the authors quoted, and thus complete in his own mind what the compiler had so indifferently begun. The work before us is, however, altogether of a much higher order than general compilations. The introductions and inferences are pointed and judicious, and the facts themselves of the most interesting character, are narrated in a condensed but perspicuous style; while the slightest reference will prove that the best and latest authorities have been appreciated. Thus, in the History and Description of Fruits, the Transactions of the Horticultural Society are frequently and pertinently quoted to establish disputed points, as well as the journals of intelligent travellers and naturalists; with occasional poetical embellishments, which lend a charm even to this attractive species of reading.

To quote the history of either Fruit entire, would not so well denote the character of the work as would a few of the most striking passages in the descriptions. In the introductory chapter we are pleased with the following passage on Monastic Gardens.

"The monks, after the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity, appear to have been the only gardeners. As early as 674, we have a record, describing a pleasant and fruit-bearing close at Ely, then cultivated by Brithnoth, the first Abbot of that place. The ecclesiastics subsequently carried their cultivation of fruits as tar as was compatible with the nature of the climate, and the horticultural knowledge of the middle ages. Whoever has seen an old abbey, where for generations destruction only has been at work, must have almost invariably found it situated in one of the choicest spots, both as to soil and aspect; and if the hand of injudicious improvement has not swept it away, there is still the 'Abbey-garden.' Even though it has been wholly neglected—though its walls be in ruins, covered with stone-crop and wall-flower, and its area produce but the rankest weeds—there are still the remains of the aged fruit trees—the venerable pears, the delicate little apples, and the luscious black cherries. The chestnuts and the walnuts may have yielded to the axe, and the fig trees and vines died away;—but sometimes the mulberry is left, and the strawberry and the raspberry struggle among the ruins. There is a moral lesson in these memorials of the monastic ages. The monks, with all their faults, were generally men of peace and study; and these monuments show that they were improving the world, while the warriors were spending their lives to spoil it. In many parts of Italy and France, which had lain in desolation and ruin from the time of the Goths, the monks restored the whole surface to fertility; and in Scotland and Ireland there probably would not have been a fruit tree till the sixteenth century, if it had not been for their peaceful labours. It is generally supposed that the monastic orchards were in their greatest perfection from the twelfth to the fifteenth century."

Again, the

Naturalization of Plants

"The large number of our native plants (for we call those native which have adapted themselves to our climate) mark the gradual progress of our civilization through the long period of two thousand years; whilst the almost infinite diversity of exotics which a botanical garden offers, attest the triumphs of that industry which has carried us as merchants or as colonists over every region of the earth, and has brought from every region whatever can administer to our comforts and our luxuries,—to the tastes and the needful desires of the humblest as well as the highest amongst us. To the same commerce we owe the potato and the pine-apple; the China rose, whose flowers cluster round the cottage-porch, and the Camellia which blooms in the conservatory. The addition even of a flower, or an ornamental shrub, to those which we already possess, is not to be regarded as a matter below the care of industry and science. The more we extend our acquaintance with the productions of nature, the more are our minds elevated by contemplating the variety, as well as the exceeding beauty, of the works of the Creator. The highest understanding does not stoop when occupied in observing the brilliant colour of a blossom, or the graceful form of a leaf. Hogarth, the great moral painter, a man in all respects of real and original genius, writes thus to his friend Ellis, a distinguished traveller and naturalist:—'As for your pretty little seed-cups, or vases, they are a sweet confirmation of the pleasure Nature seems to take in superadding an elegance of form to most of her works, wherever you find them. How poor and bungling are all the imitations of Art! When I have the pleasure of seeing you next, we will sit down, nay, kneel down if you will, and admire these things.'