The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 12, No. 328, August 23, 1828

A Literary Dinner! apparently the remains of the Seven Young Men sprinkled along both sides of the table—with here and there "a three-times skimmed sky-blue" interposed; on each side of the Lord of the Mansion, a philosopher—on each hand of the lady, a poet—somewhere or other about the board, a Theatrical Star—a Strange Fiddler—an Outlandish Traveller—and a Spanish Refugee. As Mr. Wordsworth rather naughtily sayeth,

"All silent, and all damn'd!"

Still the roof does not fall, although the chandelier burns dim in sympathy,

"And all the air a solemn stillness holds."

Will not a single soul in all this wide world, as he hopes to be saved, utter so much as one solitary syllable? Oh! what would not the lady and the gentleman of the house give even for a remark on the weather from the mouth of poet, philosopher, sage, or hero! Hermetically sealed! Lo! the author of the very five-guinea quarto, that lay open, in complimentary exposure, at a plate, up stairs on the drawing-room table—with his round unmeaning face "breathing tranquillity"—sound asleep! With eyes fixed on the ceiling, sits at his side the profound Parent of a Treatise on the Sinking Fund. The absent gentleman, who has kept stroking his chin for the last half hour, as if considering how he is off for soap,—would you believe it,—has just returned from abroad, and has long been justly celebrated for his conversational talents in all the coteries and courts of Europe. If that lank-and-leather-jawed gentleman, with complexion bespeaking a temperament dry and adust, and who has long been sedulously occupied in feeling the edge of his fruit-knife with the ball of his thumb—do not commit suicide before September,—Lavater must have been as great a goose as Gall. You might not only hear a mouse stirring—a pin dropping—but either event would rouse the whole company like a peal of thunder. You may have seen Madame Toussaud's images,—Napoleon, Wellington, Scott, Canning, all sitting together, in full fig, with faces and figures in opposite directions, each looking as like himself as possible, so that you could almost believe you heard them speak. You get rather angry—you wonder that they don't speak. Even so with those living images. But the exhibition is over—the ladies leave the room—and after another hour of silence, more profound than that of the grave, all the images simultaneously rise up and—no wonder people believe in ghosts—disappear.

A Return Dinner! Thirty people of all sorts and sizes, jammed—glued together—shoulder to shoulder—knee to knee—all with their elbows in each other's stomachs—most faces as red as fire, in spite of all those floods of perspiration—two landed gentlemen from the Highlands—a professor—four officers, naval and military, in his Majesty's and in the Company's service—some advocates—two persons like ministers—abundance of W.S.'s of course—an accoucheur—old ladies with extraordinary things upon their heads, and grey hair dressed in a mode fashionable before the flood—a few fat mothers of promising families—some eldest daughters now nubile—a female of no particular age, with a beard—two widows, the one buxom and blooming, with man-fond eyes, the other pale and pensive, with long, dark eye-lashes, and lids closed as if to hide a tear—there they all sit steaming through three courses—well does the right hand of the one know what the left hand of the other is doing—there is much suffering, mingled with much enjoyment—for though hot, they are hungry—while all idea of speaking having been, from the commencement of the feast, unanimously abandoned—you might imagine yourself at an anniversary GAUDEAMUS of the Deaf and Dumb.—Blackwood's Mag.

THE SCOLDIMITATED FROM BERNITo dine on devils without drinking,To want a seat when almost sinking,To pay to-day—receive to-morrow,To sit at feasts in silent sorrow,To sweat in winter—in the bootTo feel the gravel cut one's foot,Or a cursed flea within the stockingChase up and down—are very shocking:With one hand dirty, one hand clean,Or with one slipper to be seen:To be detain'd when most in hurry,Might put Griselda in a flurry;—But these, and every other bore,If to the list you add a score,Are not so bad, upon my life,As that one scourge—a scolding wife!New Monthly Magazine.

SELECT BIOGRAPHY

LEDYARD THE TRAVELLERConcluded from page 113

Ledyard was one of the marines who were present at Cook's death, of which he gives an account (as appears from extracts of his journal already mentioned,) somewhat different from that in the authentic narrative of the voyage—and different, also, we must add, from his own private journal, which, at least the portion of it relating to that event, is still in the Admiralty. It must be mentioned in favour of Ledyard's sagacity, that the visit to Nootka Sound suggested to him the commercial advantages to be derived from a trade between the north-west coast of America and China; and the views which he took of this subject very much influenced the succeeding events of his life.

Towards the end of December, 1782, we find Ledyard serving on board a king's ship in Long Island Sound, from which he obtained leave of absence to visit his mother; but, either from a sense of duty and honour, which obliged him not to act with the enemies of his country, or from a dislike of the service, he never returned. He had conceived, and now began to endeavour to execute, the grand project of a trading voyage to Nootka; for this purpose he went to New York and Philadelphia, and, after addressing himself to various individuals, he prevailed at last on the Honourable Robert Morris to promise him a ship. The projected voyage, however, was ultimately abandoned.

Finding, nevertheless, that they all failed him, and heartily sick of the want of enterprise among his own countrymen, he resolved to try his fortune in Europe. He visited Cadiz, from thence took a passage to Brest, and from Brest to L'Orient, where he was successful in prevailing on some merchants to fit out a ship for his north-west adventure; but this project also failed, and Ledyard became once more the sport of accident.

He now proceeded to Paris, where he was received with great kindness by Mr. Jefferson, the American minister, who so highly approved of his favourite scheme of an expedition to the north-west coast, that, we are told by his biographer, the journey of Lewis and Clarke, twenty years afterwards, had its origin in the views which Jefferson received from Ledyard. Here, also, he met with the notorious Paul Jones, who was looking after the proceeds of the prizes which he had taken and carried into the ports of France. This adventurer entered warmly into his views, and undertook to fit out two vessels for the expedition. It was settled that Jones was to command the vessels, and carry the furs to the China market, while Ledyard was to remain behind and collect a fresh cargo ready for their return, after which he meant to perambulate the continent of America, and show his countrymen the path to unbounded wealth. Jones, it seems, was so much taken with the plausibility of a scheme, which presented at once the prospect of adventure, fame, and profit, that he advanced money to Ledyard to purchase a part of the cargo for the outfit; but, being suddenly called away to L'Orient, to look after his prize concerns, his zeal for this grand scheme began to cool, and, in a few months, the whole fabric fell to the ground.

Ledyard now felt himself a sort of wandering vagabond, without employment, motive, or means of support; the supplies he had received from Jones had ceased, and he was compelled to become a pensioner on the bounty of the American minister and a few friends. It would appear, however, from some lively letters written by him at Paris, that his flow of spirits did not forsake him.

"The two Fitzhughs," he says, "dine with me to-day in my chamber, together with our worthy consul, Barclay, and that lump of universality, colonel Franks. But such a set of moneyless rascals have never appeared, since the epoch of the happy villain Falstaff. I have but five French crowns in the world; Franks has not a sol; and the Fitzhughs cannot get their tobacco money. Every day of my life," he continues, "is a day of expectation, and, consequently, a day of disappointment; whether I shall have a morsel of bread to eat at the end of two months, is as much an uncertainty as it was fourteen months ago, and not more so."

While in this state of penury he received a visit, the object of which was so creditable to a gentleman still living, and not unknown in the annals of science, that it gives us pleasure to print the story in Ledyard's own words:—

"Permit me to relate to you an incident. About a fortnight ago, Sir James Hall,8 an English gentleman, on his way from Paris to Cherbourg, stopped his coach at our door, and came up to my chamber. I was in bed at six o'clock in the morning, but having flung on my robe de chambre, I met him at the door of the ante-chamber. I was glad to see him, but surprised. He observed, that he had endeavoured to make up his opinion of me, with as much exactness as possible, and concluded that no kind of visit whatever would surprise me. I could do no otherwise than remark, that his opinion surprised me at least, and the conversation took another turn. In walking across the chamber, he laughingly put his hand on a six livre piece, and a louis d'or that lay on my table, and with a half stifled blush, asked me how I was in the money way. Blushes commonly beget blushes, and I blushed partly because he did, and partly on other accounts. 'If fifteen guineas,' said he, interrupting the answer he had demanded, 'will be of any service to you, there they are,' and he put them on the table. 'I am a traveller myself, and though I have some fortune to support my travels, yet I have been so situated as to want money, which you ought not to do. You have my address in London.' He then wished me a good morning and left me. This gentleman was a total stranger to the situation of my finances, and one that I had, by mere accident, met at an ordinary in Paris."

Ledyard observes, that he had no more idea of receiving money from this gentleman than from Tippoo Saib. "However," he says, "I took it without any hesitation, and told him, I would be as complaisant to him if ever occasion offered."

His schemes for a north-west voyage, either for trade or discovery, being now wholly abandoned, he set about planning, as the only remaining expedient, a journey by land through the northern regions of Europe and Asia, then to cross Behring's Straits to the continent of America, to proceed down the coast to a more southern latitude, and to cross the whole of that continent from the western to the eastern shore. The empress of Russia was applied to for her permission and protection, but while waiting for her answer Ledyard received an invitation to London from his eccentric friend, Sir James Hall. He found, on his arrival there, that an English ship was in complete readiness to sail for the Pacific Ocean, in which Sir James had procured him a free passage, and to be put on shore at any spot he might choose on the north-west coast. The amiable baronet, moreover, presented him with twenty guineas, as Ledyard says, pro bono publico, and with which he tells us, "he bought two great dogs, an Indian pipe, and a hatchet." In a few days the vessel went down the Thames from Deptford, and Ledyard thought it the happiest moment of his life; but such is the uncertainty of human expectations, while he was indulging in day-dreams of the fame and honour which awaited him, he was once more doomed to suffer the agonies of a disappointment to his hopes, the more severe, as being so near their consummation—the vessel was seized by a custom-house officer, brought back, and exchequered.

This was undoubtedly the most severe blow he had yet received; but Ledyard never desponded—no sooner was one of his castles demolished, than he set about building another. "I shall make the tour of the globe," he says, "from London eastward, on foot." To aid him in this object, a subscription was raised by Sir Joseph Banks, Sir James Hall, and some others. By this means he arrived at Hamburgh; whence he writes to colonel Smith:—"Here I am with ten guineas exactly, and in perfect health. One of my dogs is no more: I lost him in my passage up the river Elbe, in a snow storm: I was out in it forty hours in an open boat."

At the tavern he went to, he learnt that a Major Langhorn, an American officer, "a very good kind of a man," as his host described him, "and an odd kind of a man, one who had travelled much, and fond of travelling in his own way," had left his baggage behind, which was sent after him to Copenhagen, but that, by some accident, it had never reached him. He had left Hamburgh, the host told him, with one spare shirt, and very few other articles of clothing, and added, that he must necessarily be in distress. This man, thought Ledyard to himself, is just suited to be the companion of my travels. The sympathy was irresistible; besides, he might be in want of money; this was an appeal to his generosity, which was equally irresistible to one who, like Ledyard, had ten guineas in his pocket. "I will fly to him and lay my little all at his feet: he is my countryman, a gentleman, and a traveller, and Copenhagen is not much out of my way to Petersburgh," and, accordingly, in the month of January, 1787, after a long and tedious journey, in the middle of winter, through Sweden and Finland, we find him in Copenhagen, having discovered Langhorn shut up in his room, without being able to stir abroad for want of money and decent clothing. After remaining a fortnight, he made a proposal to the Major to accompany him to St. Petersburgh. "No: I esteem you, but no man on earth shall travel with me the way I do," was the abrupt refusal to the man who had gone out of the way several hundred miles to relieve his wants, and given him his last shilling.

The visit being ended, and the amicable partnership dissolved, it became necessary for our traveller to think of raising the supplies for a journey round the Gulf of Bothnia, which was now rendered impassable, the distance being not less than twelve hundred miles, chiefly over trackless snows, in regions thinly peopled, the nights long, and the cold intense; and, after all, gaining only, in the direct route, about fifty miles. A Mr. Thompson accepted his bill on Colonel Smith, for a sum which, he says, "has saved me from perdition, and will enable me to reach Petersburgh." This journey he accomplished within seven weeks; but he writes to Mr. Jefferson, "I cannot tell you by what means I came, and hardly know by what means I shall quit it." Through the influence of Professor Pallas, but more especially by the assistance of a Russian officer, he obtained the passport of the empress, then on her route to the Crimea, in fifteen days. His long and dreary journey having exhausted his money, and worn out his clothes, he drew on Sir Joseph Banks for twenty guineas, which that munificent patron of science and enterprise did not hesitate to pay.

Fortunately, a Scotch physician, of the name of Brown, was proceeding in the service of the empress as far as the province of Kolyvan, who offered him a seat in his kabitka, and thus assisted him on his journey for more than three thousand miles. Having reached Irkutsk, he remained there about ten days, and left it in company with lieutenant Laxman, a Swedish officer, to embark on the Lena, at a point one hundred and fifty miles distant from Irkutsk, with the intention of floating down its current to Yakutsk. On his arrival at this place, he waited on the commandant, told him he wished to press forward, with all expedition, to Okotsk before the winter should shut in, that he might secure an early passage in the spring to the American continent. The commandant assured him that such a journey was already impossible; that the governor-general, from whom he had brought letters, ordered him to show all possible kindness and service, "and the first and best service," said he, "is to beseech you not to attempt to reach Okotsk this winter." Ledyard still persisting to proceed, a trader was brought in, who, in like manner, declared the journey utterly impracticable.

While thus detained for the winter at Yakutsk, he drew up some very just observations on the Tartars, which were afterwards published.

He had not remained long at Yakutsk, when Captain Billings returned from the Kolyma. This officer had attended the astronomer Bayley, as his assistant, on the last voyage of Cook, and was, of course, well known to Ledyard. Being on his journey to Irkutsk, he invited Ledyard to accompany him thither. They travelled in sledges up the Lena, and reached Irkutsk in seventeen days, being a distance of fifteen hundred miles. Scarcely, however, had he arrived at this place when he was put under arrest, by an order from the empress. He now experienced no more of that concern for his welfare on the part of the commandant, and even Billings kept away from him. All he could learn was, that he was considered as a French spy, which Billings could at once have contradicted. His state of suspense was very short, as, on the same day, he was sent off in a kabitka, with two guards, one on each side.

In this manner was our traveller conveyed to the frontiers of Poland, a distance of six thousand versts, in six weeks. "Thank heaven," says he, as he approached Poland, "petticoats appear, and the glimmerings of other features. Women are the sure harbingers of an alteration in manners, in approaching a country where their influence is felt." He has bestowed, indeed, a beautiful and touching tribute to the excellence of the female character, not more beautiful than just, which cannot be too often recorded in print.

On setting our traveller down in Poland, the soldiers who had guarded him, gave him to understand that he might then go where he pleased; but that, if he again returned to the dominions of the empress, he would certainly be hanged. It did not appear for some time what the real cause was of this proceeding; but there is every reason to believe it arose out of the jealousy of the North-west Russian Fur Company, whose head-quarters were at Irkutsk, and that their influence at Petersburgh had procured from the empress the annulment of her previous order, together with the present inhuman mandate. Ledyard, however, knew nothing of this; and, having neither relish nor motive for making the experiment a second time, he took the shortest route to Konigsberg, where he found himself destitute, without friends or means, his hopes blasted, and his health enfeebled. In this forlorn condition, he bethought himself once more of the benevolence of Sir Joseph Banks, and had the good luck to raise five guineas, by a draft on his old benefactor, with which he reached London. Here he was kindly received by Sir Joseph Banks, who gave him an introduction to Mr. Beaufoy, the secretary of a newly-formed association for promoting discoveries in Africa.

"Before," says Mr. Beaufoy, "I had learnt from the note the name and business of my visitor, I was struck with the manliness of his person, the breadth of his chest, the openness of his countenance and the inquietude of his eye. I spread the map of Africa before him, and tracing a line from Cairo to Sennaar, and from thence westward in the latitude and supposed direction of the Niger, I told him, that was the route, by which I was anxious that Africa might, if possible, be explored. He said, he should think himself singularly fortunate to be trusted with the adventure. I asked him when he would set out. 'To-morrow morning,' was his answer. I told him I was afraid that we should not be able, in so short a time, to prepare his instructions, and to procure for him the letters that were requisite; but that if the committee should approve of his proposal, all expedition should be used."

In a few weeks all was ready for his departure. The plan was, to proceed up the Nile as far as Sennaar or the Babr-el-Abiad, and from thence to strike across the African continent to the coast of the Atlantic.

His letters from Cairo are full of interest. Of the Nile itself he speaks contemptuously, says it resembles the Connecticut in size, or may be compared with the Thames.

After some delay, the day is fixed on which the caravan is to leave Cairo. He writes to his friends and to the African Association in great spirits; talks of cutting the continent across, and raises the expectations of his employers to a high pitch;—the very next letters from Cairo brought the melancholy intelligence of his death. It seems he was seized with a bilious complaint, for which he administered a strong solution of vitriolic acid, so powerful as to produce violent and burning pains, that threatened to be fatal unless immediate relief could be procured, which was attempted to be got by a powerful dose of tartar emetic. His death happened about the end of December, 1788, in the thirty-eighth year of his age.

Thus perished, in the vigour of manhood, the first victim, in modern times, to African discovery. Too many, alas! have since shared the same fate in pursuit of the same object; which, so far from deterring, seems only to stimulate others, and produce fresh candidates for fame to tread the same perilous path.—Quarterly Review—Article "Ledyard's Travels."

THE GATHERER

"A snapper-up of unconsidered trifles."SHAKSPEARE.LARGE BONNETS(For the Mirror.)

The immense large bonnets which decorate the ladies of the present day are truly "over the borders," and seem to keep pace with the "march of intellect." A garden seems to bloom on their exterior, and roses and lilies vie with each other above and below, for underneath the living roses flourish on the cheeks of the fair. Perhaps in a few years small bonnets will usurp the day, for

"Extremes produce extremes, extremes avoid,Extremes without extremes are not enjoyed."

Some years ago, when straw bonnets were all the rage, the following pithy lines were composed by M. P. Andrewes, Esq.:—

"Some ladies' heads appear like stubble fields;Who now of threaten'd famine dare complain,When every female forehead teems with grain?See how the wheat-sheaves nod amid the plumes!Our barns are now transferr'd to drawing-rooms,And husbands who indulge in active lives,To fill their granaries may thrash their wives."P.T.W.

Our facetious correspondent does not notice the golden oats; but doubtless he recollects the anecdote of the horse mistaking a lady's hat with a tuft of oats for a moving manger stocked with his natural provender.—ED.

1

The sum of 144l. 5s. was expended in the rebuilding.

2

By an odd mode of expression in the MS., it should seem as if this tower itself, or at least some building adjoining it, was formerly made use of as a royal residence, for the words are, from hence went a fair embattled wall, guarded for the most part with the mill-stream underneath, till it came in the high tower, going under St. George's College, and the king's house employed formerly as a campanile belonging to that church.

3

Grose fell into an error on this point, in his 3rd volume of Antiquitica, for in his copy of Aga's plan, he placed a large keep tower just at the foot of an artificial mount—an anomaly in fortification. The same punster who described fortification as two twenty fications, would call this a Grose blunder.

4

When Robert D'Oiley, in the reign of Henry V. built the abbey at Osney, for monks and regulars, and gave them the revenues, &c. of the church of St. George, in the Castle, it is said in the Osney chronicle, that there "Robert Pulen began to read at Oxford the Holy Scriptures, which had fallen into neglect in England. And after both the church of England and that of France had profited greatly by his doctrine, he was called away by Pope Lucius II., who made him chancellor of the holy Roman church." This short effort, to which the Pope's preferment put a stop, seems to have been the true origin of the DIVINITY LECTURE, and of the DIVINITY SCHOOLS at Oxford; and of the studies of the SORBONNE at Paris.

5

For an interesting account of the founding and a view of this abbey, see the MIRROR for Sept. 30, 1826.

6

Eastmead's "Historia Rievallensis."

7

Of Skelton Castle, author of "Crazy Tales," and of the "Continuation of Sterne's Sentimental Journey."