Read Ebook: The Mirror of Literature Amusement and Instruction. Volume 17 No. 485 April 16 1831 by Various

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Why should a deer-park exhibit but little artificial arrangement in its disposal?

Because the stag, by nature one of the freest denizens of the forest, can only be kept even under comparative restraint, by taking care that all around him intimates a complete state of forest and wilderness. Thus, there ought to be a variety of broken ground, of copse-wood, and of growing timber--of land, and of water. The soil and herbage must be left in its natural state; the long fern, amongst which the fawns delight to repose, must not be destroyed.

Why did the common people formerly call the forest "good," and the greenwood "merry?"

Because of the pleasure they took in the scenes themselves, as well as in the pastimes which they afforded.

Why is a short gallop called a canter?

Because of its abbreviation from Canterbury, the name of the pace used by the monks in going to that city.

Why was a certain noise called the "hunt's-up?"

Why is a small hunting horn called a bugle?

Why is the stirrup so called?

Why are sportsmen said to hunt counter?

WEATHER AT PARIS.

BEER HOUSES.

SAVINGS' BANKS.

SOAP.

AUTOGRAPHS.

LEIGH HUNT.--Leigh Hunt's writing is a good deal like the man: it is constrainedly easy, with an affectation of ornament, yet withal a good hand. The signature is copied from a letter written to a friend in Edinburgh, in 1820; and as one part of this letter is curious and interesting, we have pleasure in presenting it to our readers. We are inclined to believe that there are many good points about Leigh Hunt. We like the spirit of the following extract from his letter:--

J. SINCLAIR--the signature of the venerable Sir John Sinclair, Bart., who has written and edited upwards of 25 useful works.

ALARIC A. WATTS--an elegant hand, worthy of the editor of the most elegant of the Annuals: this, however, is not Mr. Watts's ordinary signature.

FINE ARTS.

PANORAMA OF HOBART TOWN.

Of Hobart Town we quote a brief description from Mr. Burford's pamphlet, or key to the picture:--

"The capital and seat of government of Van Dieman's Land, or Tasmania, is delightfully situated at the head of Sullivan's Cove, on the south-east side of the river Derwent, about twelve miles from its mouth. The town is built on two small hills and the intermediate valley, the whole gently sloping towards the harbour from the foot of Mount Wellington--a rock which suddenly rears its snow-clad summit to the height of 4,000 feet. Through the centre of the town a rapid stream takes its course, giving motion to several mills, and affording a constant supply of most excellent water for all domestic purposes, as well as increasing the salubrity and beauty of the neighbourhood. From the summit of one of these hills, the present panorama was taken, which, although it does not include the buildings in the lowest part of the valley, exhibits every object particularly deserving notice, as well as the broad expanse of the Derwent, covered with ships, boats, &c. Beyond the town, and on the opposite side of the river, the eye ranges over a vast extent of country, richly variegated and diversified by gently rising hills, broad and verdant slopes, farms, and pasture lands, in the highest state of cultivation, presenting the most agreeable scenes, replete with the useful product of a rich soil and fine climate; the whole bounded by lofty mountains, clothed with rich and almost impervious forests of evergreens, occasionally intermixed with high and nearly perpendicular rocks, whose summits are, for a great part of the year, covered with snow;--the whole forming one of the most agreeable, picturesque, and romantic scenes that can be conceived.

"Van Dieman's Land is, from north to south, one hundred and sixty miles in length; and from east to west, one hundred and forty-five miles in width; being separated from the main land by Bass's Straits, which are nearly one hundred miles across. The whole island, which is, almost without exception, of the most fertile and beautiful description, is divided into two counties--Buckingham and Cornwall--of which Hobart Town and Dalrymple are the capitals: the distance between them is one hundred and twenty miles.

"Hobart Town contains at present, upwards of one thousand houses, and has a resident population exceeding seven thousand persons. The town is well planned, and the streets, which intersect each other at right angles, are wide, the law compelling persons who build to leave at least sixty feet in width for carriage and foot ways: they are Macadamized, and are, as well as the numerous bridges over the stream, kept in excellent condition by the chain gangs. The houses are generally built at a short distance from each other, and are partly surrounded with gardens, which, with a very little attention, not always bestowed, become very ornamented and useful, producing, not only the many beautiful trees and shrubs of the country, but every fruit, flower, and vegetable, common in England. The houses are generally of two, sometimes of three, stories in height, well built of brick or stone, and covered with shingles of the peppermint tree; some few are still only weather boarded. The bricks are of a good and durable quality, and the free-stone of a very beautiful description, but exceedingly dear. Many buildings are formed of rough hewn stone, stuccoed with a good white cement, which keeps very clean. Macquarrie-street, running in a straight line from the Pier, contains many very handsome public buildings and private houses, being the residences of the principal settlers, merchants, &c. Rents are in general very high;--a small house of four rooms and a kitchen, will let for sixty or eighty pounds per annum; and a large one, adapted for a store, will obtain from two to three hundred. It cannot be expected at this early period, that the public buildings should display much architectural ornament; it is sufficient that they are large, substantially built, and well adapted for the several purposes for which they were erected.--Besides the church, there is a Scotch church, a neat stone building, near the barracks; a Wesleyan meeting, a stuccoed building in Bathurst-street; and a small Catholic chapel in Patrick-street. There are several excellent academies, and a seminary for young ladies, where first-rate accomplishments are taught, and every possible care taken of the health and morals of their pupils, by Mrs. Midwood and Miss Shartland; there are also day charity schools, on the Lancastrian system, for the children of convicts, labourers, &c. The boarding houses and hotels are well conducted and comfortable; at the latter, every accommodation to be found in one of the best English inns may be had, but at a truly English price; the low public houses and the grog shops are of the vilest description. An active and vigilant police has been recently reorganised, under the superintendence of two officers from England, whose exertions are already attended with the most beneficial results.

"The climate is most salubrious, the mean temperature being 60 deg. Fahrenheit; the extremes, 36 deg. 80 deg. The spring usually commences in September; the summer in December; the autumn in April; and the winter, seven weeks of which is very severe, in June."

The Panorama is well executed throughout, and in parts, with much delicacy and finish. The distant country, bays, and points, are for the most part delightfully painted. Here and there are spots which almost remind us of Virgil's

--locos loetos, et amoena vireta, Fortunatorum nemorum, sedesque beatas:

and, without any view to a transportable offence, a man might well wish to settle himself here "for life."

But we are moralizing, and this may not be the most showy inducement for the reader to visit Mr. Burford's Panorama, and admire its pictorial beauties. Let him do so; and before he leaves the place, turn about, and think for himself, and be assured there is good in every thing.

INK LITHOGRAPHY.

PHILANTHROPY

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

PUNCH AND JUDY.

One day last summer I happened to be travelling in the coach between Lanark and Glasgow. There were only two inside passengers besides myself; viz. an elderly woman, and a gentleman, apparently about thirty years of age, who sported a fur cap, a Hessian cloak, and large moustaches. The former was, I think, about the most unpleasant person to look at I had ever seen. Her features were singularly harsh and forbidding. She was also perfectly taciturn, for she never opened her lips, but left me and the other passenger to keep up the conversation the best way we could. The young man I found to be a very pleasant and intelligent fellow--quite a gentleman in his manners; and apparently either an Oxon or a Cantab, for he talked much and well about the English universities, a subject on which I also happened to be tolerably conversant. But, agreeable as his conversation was, it could not prevent me from entertaining an unpleasant feeling--one almost amounting to dislike and hostility--against the female; whom I regarded, from the first moment, with singular aversion. We were not troubled, however, very long with her company, for she left us at Dalserf, about half way between Lanark and Hamilton.

"It is very curious, sir," said I to the stranger when she had gone, "that I should feel so strangely annoyed as I have been with that woman. I absolutely know nothing about her, and cannot lay a single fault to her charge, but plain looks and taciturnity; and yet I feel as if no inducement would tempt me to step again into a coach where I knew she was to be present. And after all, for any thing I know to the contrary, she may be a very good woman."

"Unfortunately, Mr. Hookey, besides being a great talker, was a native of the same part of the country as myself, and having been absent from thence several years, was anxious to hear of any event and change that had taken place since he left it. He accordingly bored me with questions which I could not but answer. I could not answer them decently without raising my head--and I could not raise my head without encountering the nose of Miss Snooks.

"Supper being removed, wine was introduced; and I had the honour of pouring out a glass of port to Miss Snooks. She thanked me with an inclination of her head--or rather of her nose--and drank to my health, and to that of the rest of the company. While performing the process of drinking, I could not help gazing upon her, to see how so very remarkable a person would go to work. The peak of her nose actually dipped down over the farthest rim of the glass--spanning it as a rainbow spans the Vale of Glengarry, while the 'limpid ruby' rolled in currents within the embrace of her delighted lips. The more I gazed upon her, the greater did my surprise at this extraordinary feature become.

"It is unnecessary to detail at length, the conversation which ensued. It was tolerably connected, as might be looked for in so small a company, seldom, branching out into miscellaneous details, and turning chiefly upon literary matters. But I found it impossible to join in it with any degree of relish. In vain did my opposite neighbour call up before my imagination the scenes of my birthplace; in vain did our landlord crack his jokes--for he was a great humourist--and rally me upon my dulness; in vain did he allege that I was in love, and good-naturedly fix upon two or three girls as the objects of my affections. Worthy man! little did he imagine that I was in love with his cousin's nose.

"This event had nearly capsized me, and brought me back into my old way, when I poured out another glass of wine, and hastily swallowed it, which in some measure restored the equilibrium of my faculties. I looked again at Hookey, and saw him distinctly--the shade was gone, for Miss Snooks had leaned back, in a languishing mood, upon her chair, and taken her nose along with her. At this moment I fancied I saw her ogling me with both eyes, and resolved to be upon my guard. I remembered the solemn vows already made to my dear Cecilia; and on this account determined to stand out against Miss Snooks and her nose.

"But this was only a temporary relief. Again did she lean forward, and again was the nose protruded between Hookey and myself. It acted as an eclipse--it annihilated him--made him a mere nonentity--rendered him despicable in my eyes. It was impossible to respect any man who lived in the shade of a nose, who hid his light under such a bushel. Hang the ninny, he must be a sneaking fellow!

"The wine now began to circulate more freely round the table, and the tongues of the company to get looser in their heads. Miss Snooks also commenced talking at a greater stretch than she had hitherto done. I soon found out that she was a poetess, and had written a couple of novels, besides two or three tragedies. In fact, her whole conversation was about books and authors, and she did us the favour of reciting some of her own compositions. She was also prodigiously sentimental, talked much about love, and was fond of romantic scenery. I know not how it was, but although her conversation was far from indifferent, it excited ridiculous emotions in my mind, rather than any thing else. If she talked of mountains, I could think of nothing but the hump upon her nose, which was, in my estimation, a nobler mountain than Helvellyn or Cairngorm. If she got among promontories, this majestic feature struck me as being sublimer than any I had ever heard of--not excepting the Cape of Good Hope, first doubled by Vasco de Gama.--When she conversed about the blue loch and the cerulean sky, I saw in the tip of her nose a complexion as blue or cerulean as any of these. It was at once a nose--a mountain--a cape--a loch--a sky. In short it was every thing. She was armed with it, as the Paladins of old with their armour. Nay, it possessed the miraculous property of rendering a human being invisible, of concealing Mr. Hookey from my eyes; thus rivalling the ring of Gyges, and casting the invisible coat of Jack the Giant-killer into the shade.

"I know not whether it was the effect of the old port, but, strange to say, I could not for some time view Miss Snooks in her former capacity, but simply as Judy. She was magnified in size, it is true, from the pert, termagant puppet of the fairs, and was an authoress--a writer of tragedies and novels--in which character, to the best of my knowledge, the spouse of Punchinello had never made her appearance, but then the similitude between them, in other respects, was so striking as to constitute identity. Eyes, chin, voice, nose, were all precisely alike, and stamped them as one and the same individual.

"But this strange illusion soon wore away, and I again saw Miss Snooks in her true character. It would perhaps be better if I said that I saw her nose--for somehow I never could look upon herself save as subordinate to this feature. It were an insult to so majestic a promontory to suppose it the mere appendage of a human face. No--the face was an appendage of it, and kept at a viewless distance behind, while the nose stood forward in vast relief, intercepting the view of all collateral objects--casting a noble shadow upon the wall--and impressing an air of inconceivable dignity upon its fair proprietor.

SANDY HARG.

The night-star shines clearly, The tide's in the bay, My boat, like the sea-mew, Takes wing and away. Though the pellock rolls free Through the moon-lighted brine, The silver-finn'd salmon And herling are mine-- My fair one shall taste them, May Morley of Larg, I've said and I've sworn it, Quoth young Sandy Harg.

He spread his broad net Where, 'tis said, in the brine, The mermaidens sport Mid the merry moonshine: He drew it and laugh'd, For he found 'mongst the meshes A fish and a maiden, With silken eyelashes-- And she sang with a voice Like May Morley's of Larg, "A maid and a salmon For young Sandy Harg!"

Oh, white were her arms, And far whiter her neck-- Her long locks in armfuls Overflow'd all the deck: One hand on the rudder She pleasantly laid, Another on Sandy, And merrily said-- "Thy halve-net has wrought thee A gallant day's darg-- Thou'rt monarch of Solway, My young Sandy Harg."

She knotted one ringlet. Syne knotted she twain, And sang--lo! thick darkness Dropp'd down on the main-- She knotted three ringlets, Syne knotted she nine, A tempest stoop'd sudden And sharp on the brine, And away flew the boat-- There's a damsel in Larg Will wonder what's come of thee Young Sandy Harg.

"The sky's spitting fire," Cried Sandy--"and see! Green Criffel reels round, And will choke up the sea; From their bottles of tempest The fiends draw the corks, Wide Solway is barmy, Like ale when it works; There sits Satan's daughter, Who works this dread darg, To mar my blythe bridal" Quoth young Sandy Harg.

From his bosom a spell To work wonders he took, Thrice kiss'd it and smiled, Then triumphantly shook The boat by the rudder, The maid by the hair, With wailings and shrieks She bewilder'd the air; He flung her far seaward, Then sailed off to Larg-- There was mirth at the bridal Of young Sandy Harg.

THE GATHERER.

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