Read Ebook: The Mirror of Literature Amusement and Instruction. Volume 17 No. 473 January 29 1831 by Various

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J.N.J.

THE NATURALIST.

ANECDOTES OF A TAME HAWK.

About three years since a young sparrowhawk was purchased and brought up by my brother. This was rather hazardous, as he, at the same time, had a large stock of fancy pigeons, which, in consequence of their rarity and value, he greatly prized. It seems, however, that kindness and care had softened the nature of the hawk, or the regularity with which he was fed, rendered the usual habits of his family unnecessary to his happiness; for, as he increased in age and size, his familiarity increased also, leading him to form an intimate acquaintance with a set of friends who have been seldom seen in such society. Whenever the pigeons came to feed, which they did often-times from the hand of their almoner, the hawk used also to accompany them. At first the pigeons were shy, of course; but, by degrees, they got over their fears, and ate as confidently as if the ancient enemies of their race had sent no representative to their banquet. It was curious to observe the playfulness of the hawk, and his perfect good nature during the entertainment; for he received his morsel of meat without that ferocity with which birds of prey usually take their food, and merely uttered a cry of lamentation when the carver disappeared. He would then attend the pigeons in their flight round and round the house and gardens, and perch with them on the chimney-top, or roof of the mansion; and this voyage he never failed to make early in the morning, when the pigeons always took their exercise. At night he retired with them to the dovecote: and though for some days he was the sole occupant of the place, the pigeons not having relished this intrusion at first, he was afterwards merely a guest there; for he never disturbed his hospitable friends, even when their young ones, unfledged and helpless as they were, offered a strong temptation to his appetite. He seemed unhappy at any separation from the pigeons, and invariably returned to the dovehouse, after a few days purposed confinement in another abode, during which imprisonment he would utter most melancholy cries for deliverance; but these were changed to cries of joy on the arrival of any person with whom he was familiar. All the household were on terms of acquaintance with him; and there never was a bird who seemed to have won such general admiration. He was as playful as a kitten, and, literally, as loving as a dove.

But that his nature was not altogether altered, and that notwithstanding his education, which, as Ovid says,

"Emolit mores, nec sinit esse feros,"

he was still a hawk in spirit, was proved on an occasion of almost equal interest. A neighbour had sent us a very fine specimen of the smaller horned owl which he had winged when flying in the midst of a covey of partridges; and after having tended the wounded limb, and endeavoured to make a cure, we thought of soothing the prisoner's captivity by a larger degree of freedom than he had in the hen-coop which he inhabited. No sooner, however, had our former acquaintance, the hawk, got sight of him, than he fell upon the poor owl most unmercifully; and from that instant, whenever they came in contact, a series of combats commenced, which equalled in skill and courage any of those which have so much distinguished that great hero , who to the boldness and clearness of vision of the hawk unites the wisdom of the bird of Athens. The defence of the poor little owl was admirably conducted: he would throw himself upon his back, and await the attack of his enemy with patience and preparation; and, by dint of biting and scratching, would frequently win a positive, as he often did a negative, victory. Acquaintanceship did not seem, in this case, likely to ripen into friendship; and when his wing had gained strength, taking advantage of a favourable opportunity, the owl decamped, leaving the hawk in possession of his territory.

The fate of the successful combatant was, however, soon to be accomplished; for he was shortly after found drowned in a butt of water, from which he had once or twice been extricated before, having summoned a deliverer to his assistance by cries that told he was in distress. There was great lamentation when he died, throughout the family; and it was observed by more than one person, that that portion of the dovecote in which he was wont to pass the night was for some time unoccupied by the pigeons with whom he had lived so peaceably, even during his wars with the unfortunate owl.

"Softens the manners, nor permits to be cruel."

THE NOVELIST.

NIGHT IN A TURKISH CEMETERY.

The scenery round Aleppo is varied and beautiful, and contains some of the richest objects, peculiar to a land of eastern romance. When the sunset extends its purple flush around the hills, and the city is gladdened by the sound of silver bells, announcing the return of some Turkish caravan, a landscape of more extraordinary magnificence never entranced the imagination of the traveller! At the brow of the sunny hill, on which the peaks of Aleppo glance in the stainless azure of heaven, are suspended bowers of rose and cypress trees, through whose fragrant solitudes the streamlet murmurs its liquid song; and the picturesque situation of the scattered vales is so admirably calculated to inspire the musings of a contemplative mind, that Fancy might there embody her dreams and phantasies without the fear of receiving intrusion from the world. The scenes are decidedly distinguished by such attractive beauty, that I am disposed to think with the poet--

It was a night of deep and tranquil loveliness--a night that seldom fails to soften the excitement produced by the feverish pursuits of day. The vivid glow of an eastern sunset quivered on the mountains, and the clouds that displayed their crystal forms in its western glory, seemed coloured with a tint of the richest crimson. In the azure vault above, emblazoned in the spirit of Byron's splendid, intellectual coruscation, with--

Hues that have words and speak to ye of heaven,

thousands of silver orbs sparkled and gleamed like fairy lamps of fire; and the bowers, in which the "Sultana of the Nightingale" inspired a song from her minstrel lover, assumed the dream-like repose which pervaded the surrounding scenes, and extended its influence to the city of Aleppo.

At this silent hour I wandered among the tombs that lay within the cemetery at some distance from the city: they were arranged with the most pleasing care, and the statuary exhibited on many of them formed an ornamental grace to their sepulchral beauty. Some were wholly shrouded in cypress, while others shone in the moonlight beneath a wreath of consecrated roses, designed to embalm the mementos of mouldering marble. Here a sister's affection might be traced--one who had lived long enough to lay her sacred offering upon the tomb, and bedew it with the tears of grief. Notwithstanding its solemn associations, it was withal a place adapted to the most exquisite feelings, and a sanctuary where the heart might forget its worldly aspirations. But the Turks, in selecting their cemeteries, far transcend the boasted intellectual superiority of Europeans; and the one which lay beneath the walls of Aleppo, was, in every point of view, eminently calculated to confirm me in such an opinion. Its cypress trees,

The only constant mourners o'er the dead,

when the hearts that deplored the destiny of their friends had mingled with them in the dust, appeared perfectly congenial with the natural solemnity of the place; and the vortex of succeeding events has not yet swept away the charm they impressed upon my memory.

As I stood in a state of silent abstraction, beside a tomb distinguished from the others by a sculptured turban, the sound of a lute excited my attention, and instantly averting my head from the object placed before it, I perceived the tall shadowy figure of a man, partially concealed among the cypress trees.--This nocturnal wanderer, my only companion in the "City of the Dead," dispelled my gloomy reflections at once, and inspired some vivid ideas relative to his appearance in such a place. Wishing to attain some means of elucidating the mystery, I concealed my person behind a tomb attached to that portion of the cemetery, well adapted to shield me from observation, and by the adoption of this judicious expedient, I succeeded in the accomplishment of my design; but after the "unearthly phantom" had riveted my gaze for a few minutes, he sank into a sepulchre, and left me to a series of vague and unprofitable conjectures. In a short time, however, I observed him quietly proceeding amid the mingled ranks of rose-bowers and tombs, and as he agitated the silent leaves, he accompanied the music of his lute with one of the sweetest melodies which Nature has assigned to a human voice. His manner was decidedly captivating, and his fine manly features produced in my mind a favourable impression of his urbanity. I advanced therefore from the place of concealment, and explaining the object of my intrusion, expressed my sincere regret at being obliged to witness the singular transaction in which he had been engaged. He paused awhile, but at length replied in a strain of such agreeable language, that if I had entertained any doubt of his cheerful disposition, his frank and persuasive humour would have finally removed it.

"How the devil came you here?" ejaculated the stranger, putting aside the lute, which hung suspended from his neck by a diamond chain. "You are deeply in love with the dead, cavalier, to select such a place as this for the haunt of your meditative dreams."

"Your Turkish cemeteries," I replied, "possess an indisputable superiority over the sepulchral gardens of Europe. To wander through these bowers of rose and cypress trees at this beautiful hour of night, enchants the heart with imaginings that soar above our earthly sphere. But were you inspired by the same lofty feelings when I first saw you?"

"Not absolutely; my travels would have terminated at Constantinople--at the Gem of Turkish Cities--if the Sultan had not commanded me to convey a message to the Pacha of Aleppo, relative to the punishment of some refractory rebels."

I complied; and the associate of my solitude amused me by exhibiting his humorous loquacity.

R.A.

Bernard Barton.

THE SELECTOR; AND LITERARY NOTICES OF NEW WORKS.

PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE UNDER DIFFICULTIES.

The concluding portion of this volume has lately appeared, and is entitled to equal commendation with its predecessors. Among the most important of the anecdotical lives are, Roger Bacon, Herschel, Watt, and Arkwright--names nearly and dearly allied with the triumphs of science in this country. In Arkwright's Memoir are some important as well as interesting particulars of the Cotton Manufacture in England. Our quotation is, however, from another portion of the volume, illustrating, as we conceive it does, a species of character which can scarcely be estimated in too amiable a light.

The wonderful Robert Walker, as he is still called in the district of the country where he resided, was curate of Seathwaite in Cumberland during the greater part of last century. The fullest account that has appeared of Mr. Walker is that given, in the notes to his series of sonnets entitled "The River Duddon," by Mr. Wordsworth, in whose poem of the Excursion the worthy clergyman is also noticed with the commendations due to his singular virtues. From this memoir it appears that Walker was born in the parish of Seathwaite in 1709; that being of delicate constitution, it was determined by his parents, whose youngest child he was, to breed him a scholar; and that accordingly he was taught the elements of reading, writing, and arithmetic by the clergyman of the parish, who also officiated as schoolmaster. He afterwards contrived to acquire a knowledge of the classics; and, becoming in this manner qualified for taking holy orders, was ordained, and appointed to the curacy of his native parish, which was at this time of the value of five pounds per annum. On obtaining possession of this living Walker married, his wife bringing him what he calls himself, in one of his letters, "a fortune" of forty pounds. We must refer to Mr. Wordsworth's pages, and the documents which will be found printed there, for a detail of all that the industry and economy of the curate and his wife contrived to accomplish upon these scanty resources. Suffice it to say, that about twenty years after Walker's entrance upon his living we find its value, according to his own statement, increased only to the amount in all of seventeen pounds ten shillings. At a subsequent period it received a further augmentation, to what amount is not stated; but it was not considerable. Before this Mr. Walker had declined to accept the adjoining curacy of Ulpha, to be held, as proposed by the bishop, in conjunction with that of Seathwaite, considering, as he says himself, that the annexation "would be apt to cause a general discontent among the inhabitants of both places, by either thinking themselves slighted, being only served alternately, or neglected in the duty, or attributing it to covetousness in me; all which occasions of murmuring I would willingly avoid." Yet at this time he had a family of eight or nine children. One of his sons he afterwards maintained at the college of Dublin till he was ready for taking holy orders. He was, like his predecessors in the same cure, schoolmaster as well as clergyman of his parish; but "he made no charge," says his biographer, "for teaching school; such as could afford to pay gave him what they pleased." His hospitality to his parishoners every Sunday was literally without limitation; he kept a plentiful table for all who chose to come. Economical as he was, no act of his life was chargeable with any thing in the least degree savouring of avarice; on the contrary, many parts of his conduct displayed what in any station would have been deemed extraordinary disinterestedness and generosity. Finally, at his death, in 1802, he actually left behind him no less a sum than two thousand pounds.

SACRIFICE OF A MORISCOE GIRL.

But Beatrice, with all her pride, and almost unfeminine force of character, was not proof against a fate so horrible. As the hour drew nigh when she was to be led forth to execution, the blood in her throbbing veins seemed suddenly frozen, like the hot streams of lava checked in its molten flow. Her blanched cheeks and starting eyeballs told that her fever was quenched, and her insensibility awakened to a full sense of her terror.

In less than half an hour, Beatrice's bruised and lacerated feet, felt a sudden relief that spread up refreshingly through her whole frame, on pressing a grass plot, moistened by the night dew. At the same moment, a gleam from a lantern opened by one of the men close to her, showed that she stood on the brink of a newly-dug grave. She started back at the appalling sight--and was upheld from falling by her attendants, on whose faces she saw a malignant grin; while the tones of Dom Lupo's voice seemed to hiss in her ears, like the serpent triumph of a fiend.

"Erring daughter of the only true and most merciful church," gloomed he, "unrepented sinner, on the verge of death--ere the grave close over thy living agony--ere the arm of Almighty wrath shove thee into the pit of hell, and eternal flames enfold thee--listen to the last offer of the mother thou hast outraged, of the faith thou hast defiled. Recant thy errors--renounce thy false Gods--confess thy crimes--and return into the blessed bosom of the church!"

Beatrice, rousing the whole force of her latent energy, pushed the inquisitor from her, with a look of scorn, burst from her keepers' arms, and sprang into the open grave.

"Lost and condemned for ever and ever--let the earth lie heavy on her head!" exclaimed the furious priest, stamping his foot with rage, and motioning to the familiars, who instantly commenced to shovel the earth into the grave. Not a sound was heard but the soft rustling of the leaves overhead, for this scene took place in the open ground above the Sablon, formerly mentioned as the scene of some earlier executions; and Beatrice's grave was dug at the very foot of the tree, where the Jews, in 1370, had expiated their imputed sacrilege.

Not a murmur, not a movement betrayed an instant's shrinking from her fate, as the cold heap of clay covered Beatrice to the very neck. Her face was still above ground, and the infuriated bigot, whose word was to save her or stifle her voice for ever, once more approached. He knelt beside her thrust his crucifix close to her still straining eyes, and in accents that faltered from rage, he cried out--

"Dost thou still dare refuse? Death is on thy lips--hell gapes for thee!--Wretched woman, say but one word--kiss the blessed relic, and thou art saved."

"There is but one God, and Mahomet is his prophet!" said Beatrice, in hollow and broken accents.

"It is done! Cover her quick! Let her perish in eternal fire!" cried the inquisitor.

The executioners heaped the earth still higher--the head was covered in--and only then a smothered scream burst upwards, while the struggles of natural agony shook the mound to and fro.--Still the legal and consecrated murderers went on, with trembling hands and quaking hearts; but as they hastily closed their work, a deep and heavy groan came upon the air from a not distant part of the waste ground; and the group looking round in guilty terror, saw a man close wrapped in a cloak, but struggling with another, of aged and decrepit stature, as if he would break from his hold, and rush upon their unholy labours. A weapon gleamed in his hand; and the whole group of guilt, inquisitor, familiars and guards, struck with panic, and imagining rescue and revenge from a hundred indignant arms, hastily fled from the scene with loud cries for help.

"Sacrilegious villains!" cried he, "give up your impious purpose, and resign the body of the recreant lost one. Let it rot in its earthy prison, till the last trumpet rouse it in resurged life to burn in eternal fire."

A deep and silent plunge of the Moriscoe's poignard struck the blaspheming bigot in the throat; another blow pierced his heart, as he fell into the imperfectly hollowed grave; and while he lay there, several strokes were dealt on him by the feeble hands of the old man with one of the spades, which he tremblingly seized. And then, in the instinct of terror at the deed, he shovelled the loose earth over the bleeding carcass, while the Moriscoe's pale profile looked stern and rigid in the expiring light. The work was soon complete; and the mound of earth thus hastily thrown up were long marked by shuddering superstition as "the grave of the Mahommedan girl." The fate of the inquisitor was quite unsuspected; and he might have been still believed to have disappeared supernaturally, or perished by some less awful visitation, had not unerring records thrown light on his fate.

The tottering steps of the old man quickly led the way across the thickly planted site of the little Sablon, and by many a winding lane and alley towards the hill of Caudenburgh, till the Moriscoe, with his beloved burthen, found a safe refuge in the old man's dwelling, in the narrow street on the side of the hill, not a hundred yards below the house of the Marquess of Assembourg.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

MUSICAL LITERATURE IN NORTH AMERICA.

"In regard to music, since the appearance of Weber, an almost new era has commenced. In the works of this celebrated composer, the proverb has been realized--the German Professor has given to his notes the power of language: emotions are almost imbibed from the sounds as from a visible transaction, or a well-told description. If the country which presents the highest or most generally approved attainments in singing, be demanded, perhaps the correct answer would be Italy. The contest afterwards for the highest eminence would lie between England, Germany, and France. The Scottish, Irish, and Welsh compositions, and English ballad music, must of course come under the aggregation of the English school, and availing itself of this union, and taking into view the circumstance of having for a considerable period steadily adopted, and engrafted upon its own stock, the beauty and excellence in the science manifested by the Germans and Italians, the claims of this school become formidable. And it is this which, through the medium of the same tongue, extends an immediate and irresistible influence over the United States.

"Mrs. Knight's worst ballads, aided by a drum beaten by Mr. Knight, seem to please the audience better than Mad. Feron's bravuras; indeed, we think the manager would gain more by the adoption of Mrs. K. than Madame F. We have remarked a listlessness on the part of Madame F., doubtlessly in consequence of feeling that her best efforts are not appreciated by the audience. We are not an ardent admirer of that lady's style: she has evidently studied to surmount difficulties, without sufficiently paying attention to the groundwork of singing; she fills you with admiration at the execution of a tremendous passage, and then disappoints you by singing a few sustained notes in a tremulous, uncertain manner. In making the above observations on ballads, let us not be supposed to throw discredit upon that style of composition. 'Robin Gray,' 'Oh no we never mention her,' 'The Soldier's Tear,' and such compositions, are a description of ballads, of which, with the Irish, Scotch, and Welsh melodies, we are proud; but if we admit that the drum and fife compositions of Mr. Lee and others, such as 'Bonnets of blue,' 'Blue bonnets,' 'Charley's over the water,' and 'Over the water to Charley,' are other than trash, fit only to amuse the gentlemen and ladies of colour in the gallery, we should be unworthy to be editor of the 'Euterpeiad.'"

There are thirty-two Italian operas by Handel, in MS. in his Majesty's collection, and he composed eleven others--making forty-three in all.--

How many more might the American writer have added to this solitary one, had his list of Handel's Italian songs been at hand. This great German composer was nearly as well acquainted with the Italian language as with his own, and often not only wrote letters in it, but employed it in many of his private memorandums.--

HENRY MACKENZIE, ESQ.

THE GATHERER.

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