Читать книгу: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 351, January 10, 1829», страница 5
CHINESE NOVELS
The character of the Chinese novels is the same with that of the better parts of Don Quixote, Gil Blas, Tom Jones, and Cecilia. Their authors address themselves to the reason rather than the imagination of their readers. The other Asiatic nations, led away by a passion for the marvellous, have often disfigured the most respectable traditions, and converted history itself into romance. The Chinese, on the other hand, may be said to have given their romances the truth of history.—N. American Review.
The Canadian Indian females are described as passionately fond of their children, as submissive slaves, and at the same time affectionately attached to their husbands. This they evince by self-immolation, after the manner of eastern wives. Among the few poisonous plants of Canada, is a shrub, which yields a wholesome fruit, but contains in its roots a deadly juice, which the widow, who wishes not to survive her husband, drinks. An eye-witness describes its effects; the woman having resolved to die, chanted her death song and funeral service; she then drank off the poisonous juice, was seized with shivering and convulsions, and expired in a few minutes on the body of her husband.
SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS
TWENTY-EIGHT AND TWENTY-NINE
I heard a sick man's dying sigh,
And an infant's idle laughter;
The old Year went with mourning by,
The new came dancing after;
Let Sorrow shed her lonely tear,
Let Revelry hold her ladle;
Bring boughs of cypress for the biel.
Fling roses on the cradle;
Mates to wait on the funeral state!
Pages to pour the wine!
And a requiem for Twenty-eight,—
And a health to Twenty-nine.
Alas! for human happiness,
Alas! for human sorrow;
Our Yesterday is nothingness,
What else will be our Morrow?
Still Beauty must be stealing hearts,
And Knavery stealing purses;
Still Cooks must live by making tarts,
And Wits by making verses;
While Sages prate and Courts debate,
The same Stars set and shine;
And the World, as it roll'd through Twenty-eight,
Must roll through Twenty-nine.
Some King will come, in Heaven's good time,
To the tomb his Father came to;
Some Thief will wade through blood and crime
To a crown he has no claim to;
Some Suffering Land will rend in twain
The manacles that bound her,
And gather the links of the broken chain
To fasten them proudly round her;
The grand and great will love, and hate,
And combat, and combine;
And much where we were in Twenty-eight,
We shall be in Twenty-nine.
O'Connell will toil to raise the Rent,
And Kenyon to sink the Nation;
And Sheil will abuse the Parliament,
And Peel the Association;
And the thought of bayonets and swords
Will make ex-Chancellors merry—
And jokes will be cut in the House of Lords,
And throats in the County Kerry;
And writers of weight will speculate
On the Cabinet's design—
And just what it did in Twenty-eight,
It will do in Twenty-nine.
Mathews will be extremely gay,
And Hook extremely dirty;
And brick and mortar still will say
"Try Warren, No. 30;"
And "General Sauce" will have its puff,
And so will General Jackson—
And peasants will drink up heavy stuff,
Which they pay a heavy tax on;
And long and late, at many a fête,
Gooseberry champagne will shine—
And as old as it was in Twenty-eight,
It will be in Twenty-nine.
And the Goddess of Love will keep her smiles;
And the God of Cups his orgies;
And there'll be riots in St. Giles,
And weddings in St. George's;
And Mendicants will sup like Kings,
And Lords will swear like Lacqueys—
And black eyes oft will lead to rings,
And rings will lead to black eyes;
And pretty Kate will scold her mate.
In a dialect all divine—
Alas! they married in Twenty-eight,—
They will part in Twenty-nine!
John Thomas Mugg, on a lonely hill,
Will do a deed of mystery—
The Morning Chronicle will fill
Five columns with the history;
The Jury will be all surprise,
The Prisoner quite collected—
And Justice Park will wipe his eyes,
And be very much affected;
And folks will relate poor Corder's fate,
As they hurry home to dine,
Comparing the hangings of Twenty-eight
With the hangings of Twenty-nine.
A Curate will go from the house of prayer
To wrong his worthy neighbour,
By dint of quoting the texts of Blair,
And singing the songs of Weber;
Sir Harry will leave the Craven hounds,
To trace the guilty parties—
And ask of the Court five thousand pounds,
To prove how rack'd his heart is:
An Advocate will execrate
The spoiler of Hymen's shrine—
And the speech that did for Twenty-eight
Will do for Twenty-nine.
My Uncle will swathe his gouty limbs,
And tell of his oils and blubbers;
My Aunt, Miss Dobbs, will play longer hymns,
And rather longer rubbers;
My Cousin in Parliament will prove
How utterly ruin'd trade is—
My Brother at Eton will fall in love
With half a hundred ladies;
My Patron will sate his pride from plate.
And his thirst from Bordeaux vine—
His nose was red in Twenty-eight,—
'Twill be redder in Twenty-nine!
And oh! I shall find, how, day by day.
All thoughts and things look older—
How the laugh of Pleasure grows less gay,
And the heart of Friendship colder;
But still I shall be what I have been,
Sworn foe to Lady Reason,
And seldom troubled with the spleen,
And fond of talking treason;
I shall buckle my skait, and leap my gate,
And throw, and write, my line—
And the woman I worshipped in Twenty-eight,
I shall worship in Twenty-nine!
New Monthly Magazine.
MORAL EFFECT OF ROME UPON THE TRAVELLER
Those only who have lived in Rome can duly estimate the potent and lasting impression produced upon the mind of a thinking man, by a residence in this capital of the ancient world. The daily contemplation of so many classical and noble objects elevates and purifies the soul, and has a powerful tendency to allay the inconsiderate fervours and impetuosities of youth, to mature, and consolidate the character. I am already so altered, and, I have the vanity to think, so improved a man since my arrival here, that there are times when I almost doubt my own identity, and imagine that, by some preternatural agency, I have been born over again, and have had new blood and new vitality infused into my frame.
The gratifications of a residence in Rome are inexhaustible. At every turn I discover some new evidence of the power and magnificence of her ancient inhabitants, and vivid sensations of delight and awe rapidly succeed each other. This venerable metropolis is the tomb and monument, not of princes, but of nations; it illustrates the progressive stages of human society, and all other cities appear modern and unfinished in comparison.
Exploring this forenoon the vicinity of Monte Palatino, I discovered in an obscure corner, near the temple of Romulus, the time-hallowed spring of Juturna, rising with crystal clearness near the Cloaca maxima, into which it flows unvalued and forgotten. I refreshed myself in the mid-day heat by drinking its pure lymph from the hollow of my hand, and gazed with long and insatiable delight upon the memorable fountain. This sacred spot is surrounded and obscured by contiguous buildings, and the walls are luxuriantly fringed and mantled with mosses, lichens, and broad leaved ivy. The proud aqueducts of the expanding city diminish the value and importance of this spring, but it was unquestionably the ruling motive which determined Romulus, or possibly an earlier colony of Greeks, to take root here, as within the wide compass of the Roman walls there is no other source of pure water.—Blackwood's Magazine.
SONG, BY T. CAMPBELL
When Love came first to Earth, the SPRING
Spread rose-buds to receive him.
And back he vow'd his flight he'd wing
To Heaven, if she should leave him.
But SPRING departing, saw his faith
Pledg'd to the next new comer—
He revell'd in the warmer breath
And richer bowers of SUMMER.
Then sportive AUTUMN claim'd by rights
An Archer for her lover,
And even in WINTER'S dark, cold nights
A charm he could discover.
Her routs and balls, and fireside joy,
For this time were his reasons—
In short, Young Love's a gallant boy,
That likes all times and seasons.
New Monthly Magazine.
SCHOOL AND COLLEGE
College! how different from school! Never believe a great, broad-faced, beetle-browed Spoon, when he tells you, with a sigh that would upset a schooner, that the happiest days of a man's life are those he spends at school. Does he forget the small bed-room occupied by eighteen boys, the pump you had to run to on Sunday mornings, when decency and the usher commanded you to wash? Is he oblivious of the blue chalk and water they flooded your bowels with at breakfast, and called it milk? Has he lost the remembrance of the Yorkshire pudding, vulgarly called choke-dog, of which you were obliged to eat a pound before you were allowed a slice of beef, and of which, if you swallowed half that quantity, you thought cooks and oxen mere works of supererogation, and totally useless on the face of the earth? Has the fool lost all recollection of the prayers in yon cold, wet, clay-floored cellar, proudly denominated the chapel? has he forgot the cuffs from the senior boys, the pinches from the second master? and, in fine, has he forgot the press at the end of the school-room, where a cart-load of birch was deposited at the beginning of every half year, and not a twig left to tickle a mouse with, long before the end of it? He talks of freedom from care—what a negative kind of happiness! Let him cut off his hand, he will never hurt his nails. Let him enclose an order for all his money even unto us, and no more will he be troubled with cares about the Stocks—no more will he be teased with calculations on the price of grain. All that raving about school-boys is perfect nonsense—it is the most miserable period of a human being's life. Poor, shivering, trembling, kicked, buffetted, thumped, and starved little mortals! We never see a large school but we feel inclined to shoot them all, masters, ushers, and door-keepers included, merely to put them out of pain.
But at College, how different!—There, a man begins to feel that it is a matter of total indifference to him whether he sit on a hard wooden bench, or a soft stuffed chair; there, the short coat is discarded, and he stalks about with the air of a three-tailed bashaw, as his own two, generally, at first, are prolonged a little below the knee; there, his penny tart, which he bought on Saturdays at the door of the school, is exchanged for a dessert from Golding's; his beer, which he occasionally imbibed at the little pot-house, two miles beyond the school bounds, is exchanged for his wine from Butler's.—Books from Talboy's, the most enterprising of bibliopoles, supply the place of the tattered Dictionary he brought to the University, which, after being stolen when new, and passing, by the same process, through twenty hands, is at last, when fluttering in its last leaves, restolen by the original proprietor, who fancies he has made a very profitable "nibble." The trot he used to enjoy by stealth on the butcher's broken-kneed pony, is succeeded now by a gallop on a steed of Quartermain's; and he is delighted to find that horse and owner strive which shall be the softest-mouthed and gentlest charger. The dandy mare, we suppose, has many long years ago made fat the great-grandfathers of the present race of dogs; and old Scroggins, we imagine, has been trod to pieces in boots and shoes, the very memory of which departed long, long before they were paid for. Of old Scroggins—as Dr. Johnson says—and of his virtues, let us indulge ourself in the recollection. Though not formed in the finest mould, or endowed with the extremity of swiftness, his pace was sure and steady—equal to Hannibal in endurance of fatigue; and, like that celebrated commander, his aspect was rendered peculiarly fierce and striking by a blemish in his eye; not ignorant of the way to Woodstock was the wall-eyed veteran; not unacquainted with the covers at Ditchley; not unaccustomed to the walls at Hethrop: but Dandy and Scroggins have padded the hoof from this terrestrial and unstable world—peace to their manes!—Blackwood's Magazine.
