Читать книгу: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 12, No. 332, September 20, 1828», страница 5

SUPERSTITION RELATING TO BEES

On further inquiry, it has been found that the superstitious practice, formerly mentioned,⁶ of informing the bees of a death that takes place in a family, is very well known, and still prevails among the lower orders in this country. The disastrous consequence to be apprehended from noncompliance with this strange custom is not (as before stated) that the bees will desert the hive, but that they will dwindle and die. The manner of communicating the intelligence to the little community, with due form and ceremony, is this: to take the key of the house, and knock with it three times against the hive, telling the inmates, at the same time, that their master or mistress, &c., (as the case may be,) is dead!

Mr. Loudon says, when in Bedfordshire lately, "we were informed of an old man who sung a psalm last year in front of some hives which were not doing well, but which he said would thrive in consequence of that ceremony. Our informant could not state whether this was a local or individual superstition."—Magazine of Natural History.

NOTES OF A READER

LAW REFORMS

We copy the following eloquent and impassioned paragraph from the last Edinburgh Review:—

"Thanks unto our ancestors, there is now no Star-chamber before whom may be summoned either the scholar, whose learning offends the bishops, by disproving incidentally the divine nature of tithes, or the counsellor, who gives his client an opinion against some assumed prerogative. There is no High Commission Court to throw into a gaol until his dying day, at the instigation of a Bancroft, the bencher who shall move for the discharge of an English subject from imprisonment contrary to law. It is no longer the duty of a privy councillor to seize the suspected volumes of an antiquarian, or plunder the papers of an ex-chief justice, whilst lying on his death-bed. Government licensers of the press are gone, whose infamous perversion of the writings of other lawyers will cause no future Hale to leave behind him orders expressly prohibiting the posthumous publication of his legal MSS., lest the sanctity of his name should be abused, to the destruction of those laws, of which he had been long the venerable and living image. An advocate of the present day need not absolutely withdraw (as Sir Thomas More is reported to have prudently done for a time) from his profession, because the crown had taken umbrage at his discharge of a public duty. It is, however, flattery and self-delusion to imagine that the lust of power and the weaknesses of human nature have been put down by the Bill of Rights, and that our forefathers have left nothing to be done by their descendants. The violence of former times is indeed no longer practicable; but the spirit which led to these excesses can never die; it changes its aspect and its instruments with circumstances, and takes the shape and character of its age. The risks and the temptations of the profession at the present day are quite as dangerous to its usefulness, its dignity, and its virtue, as the shears and branding-irons that frightened every barrister from signing Prynne's defence, or the writ that sent Maynard to the Tower. The public has a deep, an incalculable interest in the independence and fearless honour of its lawyers. In a system so complicated as ours, every thing must be taken at their word almost on trust; and proud as we, for the most part, justly are of the unsuspectedness of our judges, their integrity and manliness of mind are, of course, involved in that of the body out of which they must be chosen. There is not a man living whose life, liberty, and honour may not depend on the resoluteness as well as capacity of those by whom, when all may be at stake, he must be both advised and represented in a court of justice."

Our readers will easily recognise the great events in the history of the law in England, to which the reviewer alludes. Seldom have we read a more masterly page; it would even form an excellent rider to Mr. Brougham's recent speech on the same subject.

SUPPERS

It is a mere mistake to condemn suppers. All the inferior animals stuff immediately previous to sleeping; and why not man, whose stomach is so much smaller, more delicate, and more exquisite a piece of machinery? Besides, it is a well-known fact, that a sound human stomach acts upon a well-drest dish, with nearly the power of an eight-horse steam-engine; and this being the case, good heavens! why should one be afraid of a few trifling turkey-legs, a bottle of Barclay's brown-stout, a Welsh rabbit, brandy and water, and a few more such fooleries? We appeal to the common sense of our readers and of the world.

TEA

The consumption of tea is increasing every year. In 1823, the importation was 24,000,000 lb.; in 1826 it was 30,000,000 lb.; and in the year ending Jan. 5, 1828, 39,746,147 lb.—Oriental Herald.

POETS NOT BOTANISTS

Addison, who was probably unacquainted with the flower described by Virgil, represents the Italian aster as a purple bush, with yellow flowers, instead of telling us that the flower had a yellow disk and purple rays.

 
Aureus ipse; sed in foliis, quae plurima circum
Funduntur, violae sublucet purpura nigrae.
 

Virgil, Georgic iv.

 
The flower Itself is of a golden hue,
The leaves inclining to a darker blue;
The leaves shoot thick about the root, and grow
Into a bush, and shade the turf below.
 

Addison.

Dryden falls into the same error:—

 
A flower there is that grows in meadow ground,
Aurelius called, and easy to be found;
For from one root the rising stem bestows
A wood of leaves and violet purple boughs.
The flower itself is glorious to behold,
And shines on altars like refulgent gold.
 

Mag. Nat. History

RIVAL SINGERS

In 1726-7, there was a sharp warfare in London between two opera singers, La Faustina and La Cuzzoni, and their partizans. It went so far that young ladies dressed themselves a la Faustina and a la Cuzzoni. We need not wonder, therefore, at the hair à la Sontag in our days, or gentleman's whiskers à la Jocko.

SHARKS

In a recent voyage from Bombay to the Persian Gulf, an Arab sailor of a crew, who was the stoutest and strongest man in the ship on leaving Bombay, pined away by disease, and was committed to the deep by his Arab comrades on board, with greater feeling and solemnity than is usual among Indian sailors, and with the accustomed ceremonies and prayers of the Mohamedan religion. The smell of the dead body attracted several sharks round the ship, one of which, eight feet in length, was harpooned and hauled on board.—Oriental Herald.

JONAH'S "WHALE."

At a late meeting of the Wernerian Society at Edinburgh, the Rev. Dr. Scot read a paper on the great fish that swallowed up Jonah, showing that it could not be a whale, as often supposed, but was probably a white shark.

MUSHROOMS

The large horse-mushroom, except for catsup, should be very cautiously eaten. In wet seasons, or if produced on wet ground, it is very deleterious, if used in any great quantity.—Mag. Nat. Hist.

USEFUL KNOWLEDGE

The sweat of the brow is not favourable to the operations of the brain; and the leisure which follows the daily labour of the peasant and manufacturer, will, even if no other demands are made upon it, afford but little scope for the over acquisition of knowledge. Long will it be ere the English husbandman renounces for study the pleasures of his weekly holiday, and long may it be ere the Scottish peasant be withdrawn by a thirst for knowledge from the duties of his Sabbath, and from the simple rights of his morning and evening sacrifice.—Foreign Rev.

MR. CANNING

A beautiful medal in memory of this celebrated statesman, has lately been struck at Paris, under the direction of M. Girard.

NATURE AND ART

It is curious enough that people decorate their chimney-pieces with imitations of beautiful fruits, while they seem to think nothing at all of the originals hanging upon the trees, with all the elegant accompaniments of flourishing branches, buds, and leaves—Cobbet's English Gardener.

THE KING OF PRUSSIA

Lives in comparative retirement, in a small palace fitted up with the greatest simplicity, and his bed is really not better than that usually allotted to a domestic in England. His study is quite that of an official man of business. He has a large map of his own dominions; and in each town where troops are stationed he fixes a common pin, and on the head of the pin is a small bit of card, on which are written the names of the regiments, their numbers, and commanding officers, in the town. He thus, at any moment, can see the disposition of his immense army, which is very essential to such a government as Prussia, it being a mild despotic military system. He has a most excellent modern map of the Turkish provinces in Europe, and upon this is marked out every thing that can interest a military man. A number of pins, with green heads, point out the positions of the Russian army; and in the same manner, with red-and-white- headed pins, he distinguishes the stations of the different kinds of troops of the Turkish host.—Literary Gazette.