The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 14, No. 401, November 28, 1829

One fine autumnal evening found me, as usual, in my favourite retreat. The rays of the departing sun streamed in rich dyes through the coloured window, and fell with softened glory on the picture of a bridal ceremony. I was surprised that it had never before engaged my attention. The bridegroom was young, graceful, and noble—the bride, fair, soft, and delicate. By her side stood a form of unequalled loveliness: it seemed too beautiful to have belonged to a daughter of earth; and I imagined the painter had designed it to represent the guardian saint of the youthful pair. I inquired of my ancient conductress the history of this picture, and whether the beautiful female was not an ideal being? "Alas!" said she, "it commemorates a heavy day for the house of D–; on that day the last and fairest of its race sunk the victim of unrequited affection. That is her picture; but, oh! her soul was more angelic than her person; she"—but, reader, let me give the story in my own words. The Lady Isabel was the last descendant of the family of D–; her father had fallen in battle; his lady did not long survive him; and thus, at an early age, Isabel became an orphan. Her mother's brother was appointed her guardian, and, with his son Albert, came to reside at the Castle. The children, thus insulated from the world, and educated entirely at home, saw nothing so worthy to be loved as each other, and their attachment was as romantic as the scenes around them. They both (but particularly Isabel) delighted in the high chivalrous legends of antiquity—and the tales of eternal constancy and self-devoted affection recorded of some of the earlier heroines of her family, were read with sacred veneration by the young enthusiast. In a mind of ordinary temperament, little harm would have resulted from the indulgence of such a taste; to the impassioned soul of Isabel it was destructive and fatal. Deprived by death of the mother who might have taught her to restrain and regulate her ardent feelings, they acquired by neglect additional strength, and eventually concentrated into a passion deep and lasting as her existence. As years passed on, so did her love increase; she regarded Albert as the perfection of human excellence, and worshipped him with all the full devotedness of her warm heart. It was not so with Albert; he thought of his fair cousin with pride—with tenderness; but it was only the calm affection of a brother: other feelings than those of love possessed him—he languished for fame, for honourable distinction among his fellow men, and at length left his peaceful home, and the sweet companion of his youth, to fight the battles of his country. His career was glorious; and after an absence of three years, he was recalled by the death of his father. Isabel welcomed him with rapturous joy; he embraced her with a brother's fondness, and gazed with delight on her improved beauty. He suspected not that she loved him with more than a sisterly affection, and thought not of the wound he was about to inflict on this tender, enthusiastic being. He told her of his attachment to a fair girl, who had consented to become his bride at the expiration of the term of mourning for his father. She heard him with death-like silence, checked the groan that was bursting from her agonized heart, and strove to assume a look of cheerfulness. Retired to the solitude of her apartment, she wept in bitter anguish—her young soul was blighted; she had nothing left to live for; hope, happiness, and love were at an end; for love would now be guilt. At length she grew calm, but it was the fearful calmness of despair; she complained not—reproached not; for she felt that she had been self-deceived; she could not, however, conceal the devastation which sorrow was making in her graceful form. Albert beheld her with concern, but ascribed the alteration to her grief for his father's loss, for Isabel had tenderly loved her uncle. She rejoiced at his mistake, and attempted not to undeceive him: one only wish possessed her—it was, to see the chosen of her Albert; and, with a feverish impatience, she urged him to accelerate his nuptials. The appointed day arrived—Isabel, attired in robes of richest state, stood beside the altar, and witnessed the annihilation of all her earthly happiness; still she sunk not; but, with a mighty effort, pronounced a blessing on the wedded pair. The excitement brought back a vivid colour to her cheeks, and rekindled the lustre of her large dark eyes. The painter had seized that moment to depict her glowing form—the enthusiasm was but momentary—her angel face soon lost its lovely tint, and her beautiful eyes sunk again into languor. The castle was thronged with noble guests—sick at heart the wretched Isabel wandered abstractedly amid the gay assembly—her large floating eyes seemed straying vacantly around, until they met the bridegroom's look of joy. Then came the madness of recollection; with a convulsive shuddering she averted her head, and stole unnoticed from the company. Morning came, but she appeared not; her chamber was searched—she had not entered it. Albert flew distractedly into the park, and, at length perceived her quietly sitting by the side of the lake, near a bower, which, when a boy, he had helped to decorate. She was still clad in the robes of last night's festival. He ran eagerly towards her—she spoke not—he entreated her to answer him, but he implored in vain—there was neither breath, nor sense, nor motion—she was dead! 'Twas a mournful sight! one white hand, stiffened to marble, was pressed upon her broken heart, as she had sought to stay its painful throbbings—the cold night dews hung in large drops upon her silken hair, and shed a tremulous gleam upon the diamonds that sparkled on her pale, icy forehead—the withered leaves had found a resting place upon her bosom, and her white garments were embroidered by their many colourings. The castle became hateful to Albert after this event: he removed to a distant part of the country, and never again revisited the scenes of his earlier years. He also was dead; and Isabel, her love, and her despair, were forgotten by all, save one aged, isolated being, whose time-whitened locks and decrepit frame showed that she too was rapidly descending to the silence of the grave.

London University Magazine. No. II.

NOTES OF A READER

MOLES

Are so voracious as not even to spare their own species. If two are shut up together without food, there will shortly be nothing left of the weakest but its skin, slit along the belly.—Cuvier.

SCOTCH ALE

The strength of Scotch ale, whence it deserves the name, ranges between 32 and 44 pounds weight to the imperial barrel, according to the price at which it is meant to be sold. The general mode of charge is by the hogshead (about a barrel and a half,) for which five pounds, six, seven, or eight pounds are paid, as the quality may warrant; the strength for every additional pound of price being increased by about four pounds per barrel of weight.—Library of Useful Knowledge.—Scotch two-penny was so called because it was sold at twopence the Scotch pint, which was nearly two English quarts.

In a Scotch brewer's instructions for Scotch ale, dated 1793, we meet with the following curious mystical instruction:—"I throw a little dry malt, which is left on purpose, on the top of the mash, with a handful of salt, to keep the witches from it, and then cover it up. Perhaps this custom gave rise to the vulgar term water bewitched for indifferent beer."

AMERICAN LAW

A recent traveller, in describing the American courts of law and their proceedings, says, in one instance Counsellor Lloyd had grossly insulted Judge Turner in the street, and was tried for the offence by the judge. He was half-drunk, but defended himself by the vilest abuse of the judge, who could not silence him. No jury was appealed to; but (we suppose for contempt of court) he was ordered to give security for one year's good behaviour, and, not procuring sufficient bail, was committed to prison.

The Galwegians who attended David I. of Scotland to Custon Moor, had a favourite amusement of tossing infants upon their pikes!

A CAT STORY

Lady Morgan tells a story of an "amiable and intelligent" grimalkin, which belonged to a young girl who was subject to epileptic fits. Puss, by dint of repeated observation, knew when they were coming on, and would run, frisking her tail, to the girl's parents, mewing in the most heart-breaking tones, and clawing at their legs, till she made them follow her. Her name was Mina; and her history is extant in "choice Italian." At length the girl died, and poor puss went to the funeral of her own accord. Being a black cat, she was already in mourning—"nature's mourning!" She wanted to jump into the grave, but that was prevented. So puss, the "chief mourner," was carried home again. But her amiable heart could not survive the shock, for, after pining three months, refusing boiled liver and new milk, poor grimalkin was found "dead upon the green mound that covered her beloved mistress's remains." There was a cat for you!

TURKS AND RUSSIANS

The character of the Russ differs from that of the Turk in little more than in the quality of his barbarism. The Turk loves blood;—the Russ loves craft;—The Turk takes at once to the dagger;—the Russ begins by the snare; but when the matter presses, he will use the steel as readily as any Turk on earth. The ferocity of the Turk flourishes in the streets, in his own house, in the seraglio—every where that he has a victim within his reach, and that it pleases him to destroy that victim. The Russ knows something more of the law, and is by no means so domestic a cut-throat; but his mercy in the field or in the stormed city, is massacre.—Monthly Magazine.

MR. PITT

Lady Hester Stanhope related the following to Mr. Madden:—

When Mr. Pitt was out of office, I acted as his secretary, and he had then as much business as when he was in. He very seldom opposed my opinions, and always respected my antipathies. In private life he was cheerful and affable; he would rise in the midst of his gravest avocations to hand me a fallen handkerchief; he was always polite to women, and a great favourite with many of them; but he was wedded to the state, and nothing but death could divorce him from his country. He was fond of me; he loved originality in any shape. His great recreation, after the fatigue of business, was stealing into the country, entering a clean cottage, where there was a tidy woman and a nicely-scoured table, and there he would eat bread and cheese like any ploughman. He detested routs, and always sat down to plain dinners. He never ate before he went to the House; but when any thing important was to be discussed, he was in the habit of taking a glass of port wine with a tea-spoonful of bark.

ENGLISH AND FRENCH

In the arts, while French productions display resource, ingenuity, and dexterity, they at the same time show a striking want of the sense of fitness, and are unfinished and flimsy. Such, in the cities of France, is remarkably the case with whatever regards furniture and decoration, while the productions of cookery are at once impregnated with filth, and admirably calculated to conceal it. In the country, again, with a climate superior to that of England, there is everywhere to be seen open fields, later harvests, corn full of weeds, and inferior grain. The difference between French and English taste in dress is very remarkable. Even when English women take a hint from French contrivances, they endeavour to be more natural, modest, and classical. As to male dress, an English gentleman always desires his tailor to avoid the extremes of fashion; and, as his dress is grave and manly, it is generally followed throughout Europe. The French use of forks, napkins, &c. really requires some notice. A French gentleman, in adjusting himself at his coarse deal table and shabby cloth, does not hesitate to fix a napkin about his neck, in such a manner as to protect his clothes in front against the certainty of being bespattered by his mode of eating. An Englishman of the middle class would be ashamed of such a contrivance; for, without any particular care, he eats so as not even to stain the damask cloth with which his mahogany table is covered. The French gentleman is perpetually wiping his dirty fingers on a napkin spread out before him, and of which the beauties are not invisible to his neighbours on each side. The Englishman of the middle class requires no napkin, because his fingers are never soiled. The French gentleman, incapable of raising his left hand properly to his mouth, first hastily hacks his meat into fragments, then throws down his dirty knife on the cloth, and seizing the fork in his right hand, while his left fixes a mass of bread on his plate, he runs up each fragment against it, and having eaten these, he wipes up his plate with the bread and swallows it. An English peasant would blush at such bestiality. A French gentleman not only washes his filthy hands at table, but, after gulping a mouthful, and using it as a gargle, squirts it into the basin standing before him, and the company, who may see the charybdis or maelstrom he has made in it, and the floating filth he has discharged, and which is now whirling in its vortex. In England this practice is unknown, except to those whose taste and stomach are too strong for offence. It has been stupidly borrowed from the Oriental nations, who use no knives and forks, and where, though it has this apology, it has always excited the disgust of enlightened travellers. When dinner is over, the Englishman's carpet is as clean as before; the Frenchman's bare boards resemble those of a hog-sty. In short, in all that regards the table, the French are some centuries behind the English.—Blackwood's Magazine.

In the last Quarterly Review we find that "the safety of the British empire is now entrusted to 130,000 men. Now France, we believe, maintains about 200,000 soldiers. The forces of Austria and Prussia have always been on a much higher footing than ours. Even the late King of Bavaria kept, we know not how, 70,000 men under arms. Indeed Old England is by nothing more happily distinguished from her neighbours than by the silence of the trumpet and drum. At this moment, moreover, the due level of our peace establishment is but an object of speculative research. No man who looks to the placing of Roumelia, or whose vision reaches even to the palace of Elysée Bourbon, would consent that this country should lose the aid of a single right."

ALI PACHA'S HEAD

Dr. Walsh tells us that the head of Ali Pacha was sent to Constantinople, and exhibited to the public on a dish. As the name of Ali had made a considerable noise in Europe, and more particularly in England, in consequence of his negociations with Sir Thomas Maitland, and still more, perhaps, the stanzas in Childe Harold, a merchant of Constantinople thought it no bad speculation to purchase the head and dish, and send them to London for exhibition; but a former confidential agent obtained it from the executioner for a higher price than the merchant had offered; and together with the heads of his three sons and grandson, who, according to custom, were all seized and decapitated, had them deposited near one of the city gates, with a tombstone and inscription.

THE GOUT

Imagine a sensation in the great toe, as if it had been suddenly seized with a pair of red-hot pincers. Whew! There they are at it! nipping and tearing the flesh, and then rubbing the lacerated joint with aquafortis, or a solution of blue vitriol. And now, the pain shoots along the nerves on that side, till my head bumps and bumps as if a legion of imps were playing at leap-frog in it.

AMERICA

The state of business in the United States is thus described in a letter from Boston, dated the 7th of last July:—"The commercial world over the globe seems paralyzed, and many manufactories on a large scale, with the proprietors and stockholders, have failed, and are utterly ruined. All business is confined to the wants only of the day, teaching a necessary absolute economy, which men of business in times past have not been accustomed to."

Rice Paper is the pith of the Tong-t-sao—a valuable Chinese tree.

THE SELECTOR and LITERARY NOTICES OF NEW WORKS

EMIGRATION TO NEW SOUTH WALES

People who are accustomed to sit half the day with their hands folded, over a bright November fire, talking of hard times and other standing grievances, will do well to read "A Letter from Sydney, the principal town of Australasia, edited by Robert Ganger;" and study an annexed system of colonization as a remedy for their distress. The Letter is written by a plain-sailing, plain-dealing man of the world, and though on a foreign topic, is in a homely style. We are therefore persuaded that a few extracts will be useful to the above class of thinkers and readers, as well as to others who do not, like the great man of antiquity, sigh for new worlds.

Climate and Soil

All that you read in the works of Wentworth and Cunningham, as to the healthfulness and beauty of the climate, is strictly true. There are scarcely any diseases but what result immediately from intemperance. Dropsy, palsy, and the whole train of nervous complaints, are common enough; but then, drunkenness is the vice par excellence of the lower orders; and the better class of settlers have not learned those habits of temperance which are suited to the climate of Naples. The two classes often remind me of English squires and their grooms, as I used to see them at Florence, just after the peace; masters drinking at dinner, because they were abroad, and after dinner because they were Englishmen; the servants drinking always, because wine and brandy were cheap. Perhaps a generation must pass away before the people here will accommodate their habits to the climate, which is that of Italy, without either malaria or the sirocco.

The soil of New South Wales is not particularly fertile. The plains of the Granges, and of the great rivers of China, the lowlands of the West India islands, the swamps of the Gulf of Mexico, and even the marshes of Essex, produce crops of which the people here have no conception; but then, as we are without great masses of alluvial deposit, so are agues and intermittent fevers absolutely unknown. In point of natural fertility, I am inclined to compare this soil to that of France; and I have no doubt that, if the same quantity of agricultural labour as is employed in France, were here bestowed upon an area equal to the French territory, the quantity of produce would fully equal that of France. Timber, coal, iron, and other useful minerals, abound; the harbours and rivers teem with fish; cattle of all sorts thrive and multiply with astonishing rapidity; every fruit that flourishes in Spain and Italy comes to the highest perfection; and Nature fully performs her part in bestowing upon man the necessaries, comforts, and luxuries of life.

Value of Land, &c

I was told that an estate of 10,000 acres might be obtained for a mere trifle. This was true. I have got 20,000 acres, and they did not cost me more than 2s. per acre. But I imagined that a domain of that extent would be very valuable. In this I was wholly mistaken. As my estate cost me next to nothing, so it is worth next to nothing. It is a noble property to look at; and "20,000 acres in a ring fence," sounds very well in England; but here, such a property possesses no exchangeable value. The reason is plain: there are millions upon millions of acres, as fertile as mine, to be had for nothing; and, what is more, there are not people to take them. Of my 20,000 acres I reckon about 5,000 to be woodland, though, indeed, there are trees scattered over the whole property, as in an English park. For my amusement, I had a rough estimate made of the money that I could obtain for all this timber, were it growing in any part of England. The valuation amounts to above £150,000.

Building

Having fortune enough for all my wants, I proposed to get a large domain, to build a good house, to keep enough land in my own hands for pleasure-grounds, park, and game preserves; and to let the rest, after erecting farm-houses in the most suitable spots. My mansion, park, preserves, and tenants, were all a mere dream. I have not one of them. When, upon my first arrival, I talked of these things to some sensible men, to whom I was recommended, they laughed in my face. I soon found that a house would, though the stone and timber were to be had for nothing, cost three times as much as in England. This was on account of the very high wages required by mechanics; but this was not all. None of the materials of a house, except stone and timber, are produced in the colony. Every pane of glass, every nail, every grain of paint, and every piece of furniture, from the kitchen copper to the drawing-room curtains, must have come from England. My property is at a distance of nearly seventy miles from the sea, and there is no road, but a track through the forest, for two-thirds of that distance. The whole colony did not contain as many masons, carpenters, glaziers, painters, black and whitesmiths, and other mechanics, as I should have required. Of course, I soon abandoned all thought of building a mansion. As for a park, my whole property was a park, and a preserve for kangaroos and emus.

A friend of ours, a free emigrant, has more than once facetiously wished for our company in the colony; but judging from the following, we had rather "let well alone," and stay at home, than play the schoolmaster or march-of-intellect-man at Sydney:—

As for mental wants, talking and reading are out of the question, except it be to scold your servants, and to con over a Sydney newspaper, which contains little else but the miserable party politics of this speck upon the globe, reports of crime and punishment, and low-lived slang and flash, such as fill the pothouse Sunday papers of London.

Literary men, men of science, philosophers, do not emigrate to new countries where their acquirements would be neither rewarded nor admired. Sir Walter Scott, Sir Humphry Davy, and Mr. Malthus, would not earn as much in this colony as three brawny experienced ploughmen; and though the inordinate vanity of a new people might be gratified by the possession of them, they would be considered as mere ornaments, and would often be wholly neglected for things of greater utility.

House-rent, that great bugbear of certain economists, is indeed a grievous affair at Sydney, as page 20 proves:—

Behold me established at Sydney, in a small house, a poor vamped-up building, more inconvenient, and far more ugly, than you can imagine, for which I pay a rent of £250 a year. For half the money you could get twice as good a house in any English country town. This excessive house-rent is caused by the dearness of labour, which enhances the cost of building; for, either the builder will exact a rent proportioned to his outlay, or (if he cannot obtain such a rent) he will not build.

Free Emigrants

Of what class then, you ask, have been the great mass of emigrants from England, not convicts? Excellent people in their way, most of them; farmers, army and navy surgeons, subalterns on half-pay, and a number of indescribable adventurers, from about the twentieth rank in England. They came here to live, not to enjoy; to eat and drink, not to refine; "to settle"—that is, to roll in a gross plenty for the body, but to starve their minds. To these must be added convicts, many of whom are become rich and influential; and some, not exactly convicts, to whom England ceased to be a convenient residence. The English who live at Boulogne, some for cheapness, some from misfortune, and some from fear, would offer, I should think, a fair sample of the materials which compose the best society in New South Wales; though, I must admit, that the bustling, thriving settler of New South Wales is a companion, rather ignorant though he be—far away preferable to the not more enlightened, but melancholy English sluggard of Boulogne. To form a due conception of the "upper classes" here, suppose all the natives of France annihilated, and the whole country belonging to the English residents of Boulogne. In that case, there would be an almost perfect resemblance between those Englishmen who, across a narrow channel, can see their own country, and those who, at its antipodes look upon the Pacific Ocean.