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Read Ebook: The Mirror of Literature Amusement and Instruction. Volume 10 No. 287 December 15 1827 by Various
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THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.
Explanation of the References.
The vehicle resembles the ordinary stage-coaches, but is rather larger and higher. Coke or charcoal are to form the fuel, by which means smoke will be avoided; the flues will be above the level of the seated passenger, and it is calculated that the motion of the carriage will always disperse the heated rarefied air from the flues.
The weight of the carriage and its apparatus is estimated at 1-1/2 tons, and its wear and tear of the road, as compared with a carriage drawn by four horses, is as one to six. When the carriage is in progress the machinery is not heard, nor is there so much vibration as in an ordinary vehicle, from the superior solidity of the structure. The engine has a twelve-horse power, but may be increased to sixteen; while the actual power in use, except in ascending a hill, is but eight-horse.
The success of the present improved invention is stated to be decided; but the public will shortly have an opportunity of judging for themselves, as several experimental journeys are projected. If it should attain its anticipated perfection, the contrivance will indeed be a proud triumph of human ingenuity, which, aided by its economy, will doubtless recommend it to universal patronage. Mr. Gurney has already secured a patent for his invention; and he has our best wishes for his permanent success.
HISTORICAL FACTS RELATIVE TO THE EARLY CONDITION OF THE ENGLISH.
This excessive love for eating was not, however, confined to Henry's time, for about two centuries previous to this, feasting was endeavoured to be restrained by a law, though Edward himself did not follow his own law, for when his "son, Lionel, of Clarence, married Violentes, of Milant there were thirty courses, and the fragments fed 1,500 persons."
A.B.C.
It was reckoned an extraordinary luxury for Thomas ? Becket to have his parlour strewed every day with clean rushes.
A PORTRAIT.
Sed mihi vel tellus optem prius ima dehiscat, Vel Pater omnipotens adigat me fulmine ad umbras, Pallentes umbras Erebi, noctemque profundum, Ante, pudor, quam te violem, aut tua jure resolvam.
VIRGIL.
ANECDOTES, ROYAL AND NOBLE.
Speaker of the House of Commons, was one day coming to his duty, when his coach happening to break down, he ordered the beadle to stop the first gentleman's coach they met, and bring it to him. The owner felt much surprised to be turned out of his own coach; but Sir Edward told him it was much more proper for him to walk in the streets than the speaker of the House of Commons; and accordingly left him to do so without farther apology.--This arbitrary exercise of authority is perhaps without a parallel.
Of France used to say that a king should have the heart of a child towards God, but the heart of a father towards his subjects.
His late majesty was very partial to Mr. Carbonel, the wine-merchant, and frequently admitted him to the royal hunts. Returning from the chase one day, the king entered affably into conversation with his wine-merchant, and rode with him side by side a considerable distance. Lord Walsingham was in attendance, and watching an opportunity, called Mr. C. aside, and whispered something to him. "What's that? what has Walsingham been saying to you?" inquired the good-humoured monarch. "I find, sire, I have been unintentionally guilty of disrespect by not taking off my hat when I address your majesty; but you will please to observe, that whenever I hunt my hat is fastened to my wig, and my wig to my head; and as I am mounted on a very spirited horse, if any thing goes off, we must all go off together." The king laughed heartily at the whimsical apology.
An artist named Brendel, possessed with the folly of the "philosopher's stone," proposed to Rubens to join him in the discovery of that mystery. He replied, "Your application is too late; for these twenty years past my pencils and pallet have revealed to me the secret about which you are so anxious."
Was remarkable in his youth for piety; entering a little village, the better sort of inhabitants wished to attend him with a canopy. He answered, "I hear you have no church here. I cannot suffer a canopy of state to be borne over my head in a place where God hath not a consecrated roof to dwell under."
JACOBUS.
ARCANA OF SCIENCE.
A crane for raising weights, on an entirely new principle--that of the application of the lever, assisted by wedges, instead of the usual plan of wheel and pinion, for multiplying power--has recently been constructed at the West India Docks. The power of two men, with the patent crane, is stated to be capable of lifting from 2-1/2 to 3 times the weight lifted through the same space in a given time, by the best constructed cranes on the old principle of wheel machinery.
THE MONTHS.
The characteristics of November, for the most part, extend through the present month. Wind, rain, and gloom are its attributes; the sun
Scarce spreads through ether the dejected day, Faint are his gleams, and ineffectual shoot His struggling rays, in horizontal lines, Through the thick air; as clothed in cloudy storm, Weak, wan, and broad, he skirts the southern sky; And soon descending, to the long dark night. Wide-shading all, the prostrate world resigns.
To the contemplatist, and the man who has
the rural walk at this season is equally inviting with any of its predecessors; whilst he who can "suck melancholy from a song," will find melody in its storms and music in its wind. What are more beautiful than the fretwork frostings of rime and hoar spread on the hedges, glistening in the broad sun-beam, and in brilliancy and variety of colours vying with the richest display of oriental splendour--with here and there berries clustering on evergreens, or pendent in solitary beauty, like the "rich jewel in the Aethiop's ear." The winter stillness of animal life is a sublime subject for our meditation. Insects which floated on the gay sunshine of summer and autumn have now retired to their winter quarters, there to remain dormant till regenerated in the enlivening warmth of spring; and even the labours of husbandry are in a state of torpidity.
Within the circuit of gardens and shrubberies Nature, however, reserves the evergreen pride of firs and pines; and even flowers are left to gladden the eye of the winter observer; and the rose, that sweet emblem of our fragile and transitory state, will live and prosper during this month. In the forest, the oak, beech, and hornbeam in part retain their leaves; there, too, is the endless variety of mosses, and lichens, and ivy, spreading and clinging round aged trunks, as if to protect them with their fond warmth, or mantling over the neglected labours of human art, and mocking their proud import.
At this season, too, the social economy of man is wont to ripen into mirth; and in olden time, winter was the summer of hospitality, when the sunshine of Christmas shed its holy light on the hearts and faces of young and old. What the present generation have gained in head, they have lost in heart, and Christmas is almost the only surviving holiday of the calendar. But now, alas! "we live too late in time."
If knowledge be valuable only in the proportion in which it conduces to our happiness, then we have cause to deplore the loss of the wassail-bowl, the sports and wrestlings of the town green, the evening tales, and the elegant pastimes of masque, song, and dance, of our ancestors, which the taste of our times has narrowed into a commercial channel, or pared down to a few formal visits and their insipid returns; and friends, families, and fortunes are often sacrificed in this exchange.
But there are minds so attuned as not to be shut out from
"The gayest, happiest attitudes of things,"
"Awed by the progress of time, winter, ushered into existence by the howling of storms, and the rushing of impetuous torrents, and contemplating, with the satisfaction of a giant, the ruins of the year, still affords ample food for enjoyments, which the vulgar never dream of, if sympathy and association diffuse their attractive spells around us! In the bosom of retirement, how delightful is it to feel exempt from the mean intrigues, the endless difficulties and tumults, which active life ensures, and which retirement enables us so well to contemplate through the telescope of recollection. When seated by the cheerful fire among friends, loving and beloved, our hopes, our wishes, and our pleasures are concentrated; the soul seems imparadised in an enchanted circle; and the world, vain, idle, and offensive as it is, presents nothing to the judgment, and little to the imagination, that can induce the enlightened or the good to regret, that the knowledge they possess of it is chiefly from the report of others, or from the tumultuous murmur, which from a distance invades the tranquillity of their retreat, and operates as a discord in a soft sonata. These are the moments which affect us more than all the harmony of Italy, or all the melody of Scotland--moments, in which we appear almost to emulate the gods in happiness."
THE MONTHS MORALIZED.
The fyrst six yeres of mannesbyrth and aege May well be compared to Janyere, For in this moneth, is no strengeth nor courage More than in a chylde of the aege of six yere.
The other six yeres is like February, In the end thereof beguyneth the Sprynge, That tyme chyldren is moost asst and redy To receyve chastysement, nurture and lernynge.
March betokeneth the six yeres followynge, Arayeng the erthe with pleasaunt verdure; That season youth thought for nothynge, And wothout thought dooth his sporte and pleasure.
The next six yere maketh four-and-twenty, And figured is to jolly Aprill That tyme of pleasures man hath most plenty Fresh, and louying his lustes tofulfyll.
As in the moneth of Maye all thing in mygth So at thirty yeres man is in chief lyking, Pleasaunt and lustie to every mannes sygth, In beauti and strengthe to women pleasynge.
In June, all thyns falleth to rypenesse, And so dooth man at Ihirty-six yere old, And studyetli for to acquyre rychesse. And taketh a wyfe, to keepe his householde.
At forty yere of aege, or elles never Is ony man endewed with wysdome For than forgth his mygth fayleth ever As in July doth every blossome.
The goodes of the erthe is gadered evermore In August, so at forty-eight yere Man ought to gather some goodes in store To susteyne aege that then draweth nere.
Let no man thynke, for to gather plenty Yf, at fifty-four yere he have none No more than yf his barne were empty In September when all the come is gone.
When man is at sixty-six yere olde Which lykened is to bareyne Novembre He waxeth unweldy, sekely and cold Than his soule helth is time to remember.
The yere by Decembre takelh his ende, And so dooth man at three-score and twelve, Nature with aege wyll hym on message sende Tho tyme is come that he must go hymselve.
A few words at parting, or rather in closing our calendar. Whilst we have endeavoured to attract by the little emblematic display of art at the head of each month, we have not neglected to direct the attention of our readers to "the good in every thing" which is scattered through each season of the year, by constantly recurring to the beneficence of the OMNIPOTENT BEING--thus enabling them to look
"Through Nature up to Nature's God."
Her study will moderate our joys and griefs, and enable us to carry the principle of "good in every thing" into every relation of social life. Let us learn to cherish in our remembrance that "God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb;" and that the storms of the world, like those of nature, will at length clear off, and open to us a prospect unclouded and eternal.
THE SKETCH-BOOK.
THE UNKNOWN REGION.
"The conditions of our enterprise having been finally arranged, and our instructions delivered, sealed by the Lords of the Admiralty, after a few months' preparation we were enabled to commence our adventurous career. Prayers having been put up for our safe return, our, wills having been made, and, in case of our never returning from
"'That undiscovered country , From whence no traveller returns,'
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