The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 12, No. 344 (Supplementary Issue)

Various

The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction / Volume 12, No. 344 (Supplementary Issue)

Ehrenbreitstein on Rhine

Here Ehrenbreitstein, with her shattered wall,Black with the miners' blast, upon her height,Yet shows of what she was, when shell and ballRebounding idly on her strength, did light;A tower of victory! from whence the flightOf baffled foes was watched along the plain:But peace destroyed what war could never blight,And laid those proud roofs bare to summer's rain,On which the iron shower for years had poured in vain.Childe Harold.

SPIRIT OF THE "ANNUALS."

We have the pleasure of presenting to the readers of the MIRROR, the completion of our notices of these very elegant publications; and in pursuance of the plan of our former Supplement, we are enabled to assemble within the present sheet the characteristics of eight works, whilst our quotations include fourteen prose tales and sketches, and poetical pieces, of great merit.

The above engraving and its pendant are copied from the Literary Souvenir, specially noticed in our last Supplement. The original is a drawing by J.M.W. Turner, R.A. and the plate in the Souvenir is by J. Pye—both artists of high excellence in their respective departments:—

The waters of the Rhine have long maintained their pre-eminence, as forming one of the mightiest and loveliest among the highways of Europe.

But among all its united trophies of art and nature, there is not one more brightly endowed with picturesque beauty, or romantic association, than the fortress of Ehrenbreitstein. When the eye of our own Childe Harold rested upon its "shattered wall," and when the pencil of Turner immortalized its season of desolation, it had been smitten in the pride of its strength by the iron glaive of war: and its blackened fragments and stupendous ruins had their voice for the heart of the moralist, as well as their charm for the inspired mind of genius. But now that military art hath knit those granite ribs anew,—now that the beautiful eminence rears once more its crested head, like a sculptured Cybele, with a coronet of towers,—new feelings, and an altered scale of admiration wait upon its glories. Once more it uplifts its giant height beside the Rhine, repelling in Titan majesty the ambition of France; once more, by its united gifts of natural position and scientific aid, it appears prepared to vindicate its noble appellation of "the broad stone of honour."

The Musical Souvenir

This is an elegant little collection of seven songs, a trio, duet, and glee, set to music, or "as they are appointed to be said or sung." As we have not our musical types in order, we can only give our readers a specimen of its literary merits. The first piece is Akenside's beautiful Invocation to Cheerfulness; this is pleasingly contrasted with a Song to the Forget-me-not, by Mrs. Opie. Then follow five pieces from recent volumes of Friendship's Offering and the Amulet. The three remaining compositions (expressly for the work) are a Song by T. Bradford, Esq.; a Scotch Song, by Mr. Feist; and the following pathetic Lines, by the Rev. Thomas Dale:—

Oft as the broad sun dipsBeneath the western sea,A prayer is on my lips,Dearest! a prayer for thee.I know not where thou wand'rest now,O'er ocean-wave, or mountain brow—I only know that He,Who hears the suppliant's prayer,Where'er thou art, on land or sea,Alone can shield thee there.Oft as the bright dawn breaksBehind the eastern hill,Mine eye from slumber wakes,My heart is with the still—For thee my latest vows were said,For thee my earliest prayers are pray'd—And O! when storms shall lourAbove the swelling sea,Be it thy shield, in danger's hour,That I have pray'd for thee.

Whether we consider the purity of its sentiments and the amiable tone of feeling, or its merit as a musical work, we are induced to recommend the present volume as an elegant present for a musical friend, and it will doubtless become a favourite with thousands of graceful pianists. Thanks to the Muses, our lyrical poetry is rapidly rising in the literary scale, when such beautiful compositions as those of Mrs. Hemans and Miss Landon are no sooner written than set to music.

The Musical Souvenir is embellished with two engravings and a presentation plate, and bound in crimson silk—so that it has all the attractions of the annual Christmas presents, except prose.

The Keepsake

Edited by F.M. Reynolds, Esq

This is a magnificent affair, and is one of the proud triumphs of the union of Painting, Engraving, and Literature—to which we took occasion to allude in a recent number of THE MIRROR. Each department is unique, and the lists are like the Morning Post account of a drawing room, or Almack's—the princes of the arts, and the peers of the pen. Painters—Lawrence, Howard, Corbould, Westall, Turner, Landseer, Stephanoff, Chalon, Stothard, &c. Engravers—C. Heath, Finden, Engleheart, Portbury, Wallis, Rolls, Goodyear, &c. Contributors—Scott, Mackintosh, Moore, the Lords Normanby, Morpeth, Porchester, Holland, Gower, and Nugent; Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge, Shelley, Hook, Lockhart, Croker, Mrs. Hemans, and Miss Landon; and the cost of the whole eleven thousand guineas! Of course, such a book has not been the work of a day, month, or, perhaps, a year; and its literature entitles it to a permanent place in the library, where we hope to see it stand auro perennius; were its fate to be otherwise, we should condemn the public—for we hate ingratitude in every shape—and write in the first page the epitaph—For, O, for, O, the hobby-horse is forgot. A guinea to twopence—Hyperion to a Satyr—how can we extend the fame of The Keepsake!

We cannot particularize the engravings; but they are all worthy companions of the frontispiece—a lovely portrait of Mrs. Peel, engraved by Heath, from Sir Thomas Lawrence's picture. In the literary department—a very court of fiction—is, My Aunt Margaret's Mirror, a tale of forty-four pages; and, The Tapestried Chamber, by Sir Walter Scott; both much too long for extract, which would indeed be almost unfair. Next comes an exquisite gem—

ON LOVE

By Percy Bysshe Shelley

What is Love? Ask him who lives what is life; ask him who adores what is God.

I know not the internal constitution of other men, nor even of thine whom I now address. I see that in some external attributes they resemble me, but when, misled by that appearance, I have thought to appeal to something in common, and unburden my inmost soul to them, I have found my language misunderstood, like one in a distant and savage land. The more opportunities they have afforded me for experience, the wider has appeared the interval between us, and to a greater distance have the points of sympathy been withdrawn. With a spirit ill-fitted to sustain such proof, trembling and feeble through its tenderness, I have every where sought, and have found only repulse and disappointment.

Thou demandest what is Love. It is that powerful attraction towards all we conceive, or fear, or hope, beyond ourselves, when we find within our own thoughts the chasm of an insufficient void, and seek to awaken in all things that are, a community with what we experience within ourselves. If we reason we would be understood; if we imagine, we would that the airy children of our brain were born anew within another's; if we feel, we would that another's nerves should vibrate to our own, that the beams of their eyes should kindle at once, and mix and melt into our own; that lips of motionless ice should not reply to lips quivering and burning with the heart's best blood:—this is Love. This is the bond and the sanction which connects not only man with man, but with every thing which exists. We are born into the world, and there is something within us, which, from the instant that we live, more and more thirsts after its likeness. It is probably in correspondence with this law that the infant drains milk from the bosom of its mother; this propensity develops itself with the development of our nature. We dimly see within our intellectual nature, a miniature as it were of our entire self, yet deprived of all that we condemn or despise, the ideal prototype of every thing excellent and lovely that we are capable of conceiving as belonging to the nature of man. Not only the portrait of our external being, but an assemblage of the minutest particles of which our nature is composed: a mirror whose surface reflects only the forms of purity and brightness: a soul within our own soul that describes a circle around its proper Paradise, which pain and sorrow and evil dare not overleap. To this we eagerly refer all sensations, thirsting that they should resemble and correspond with it. The discovery of its antitype; the meeting with an understanding capable of clearly estimating our own; an imagination which should enter into and seize upon the subtle and delicate peculiarities which we have delighted to cherish and unfold in secret, with a frame, whose nerves, like the chords of two exquisite lyres, strung to the accompaniment of one delightful voice, vibrate with the vibrations of our own; and a combination of all these in such proportion as the type within demands: this is the invisible and unattainable point to which Love tends; and to attain which, it urges forth the powers of man to arrest the faintest shadow of that, without the possession of which, there is no rest or respite to the heart over which it rules. Hence in solitude, or that deserted state when we are surrounded by human beings, and yet they sympathize not with us; we love the flowers, the grass, the waters, and the sky. In the motion of the very leaves of Spring, in the blue air, there is then found a secret correspondence with our heart. There is eloquence in the tongueless wind, and a melody in the flowing brooks and the rustling of the reeds beside them, which, by their inconceivable relation to something within the soul, awaken the spirits to dances of breathless rapture, and bring tears of mysterious tenderness to the eyes, like the enthusiasm of patriotic success, or the voice of one beloved singing to you alone. Sterne says that if he were in a desert he would love some cypress. So soon as this want or power is dead, man becomes a living sepulchre of himself, and what yet survives is the mere husk of what once he was.

This and a fragment, with a character of Mr. Canning, by Sir James Mackintosh, are the transcendentals of the volume; as are the tale—The Half-brothers, by Mr. Banim, with an Ossian-like plate of the heroine; The Sisters of Albano, by Mrs. Shelley—Death of the Laird's Jock, by the author of Waverley—and Ferdinando Eboli, by Mrs. Shelley, with Adelinda, a plate, by Heath, on which we could feast our eyes for a full hour. Next, a sketch, by Theodore Hook, part of which will serve to vary our sheet:—

THE OLD GENTLEMAN

"To-morrow morning," said my friend, "when you awake, the power will be your own; and so, sir, I wish you a very good night."—"But, sir," said I, anxious to be better assured of the speedy fulfilment of the wish of my heart, (for such indeed it was,) "may I have the honour of knowing your name and address?"—"Ha, ha, ha!" said the old gentleman; "my name and address; ha, ha, ha! my name is pretty familiar to you, young gentleman; and as for my address, I dare say you will find your way to me some day or another, and so, once more, good night."—Saying which, he descended the stairs and quitted the house, leaving me to surmise who my extraordinary visiter could be. I never knew; but I recollect, that after he was gone, I heard one of the old ladies scolding a servant-girl for wasting so many matches in lighting the candles, and making such a terrible smell of brimstone in the house. I was now all anxiety to get to bed, not because I was sleepy, but because it seemed to me as if going to bed would bring me nearer to the time of getting up, when I should be master of the miraculous power which had been promised me. I rang the bell; my servant was still out; it was unusual for him to be absent at so late an hour. I waited until the clock struck eleven, but he came not; and resolving to reprimand him in the morning, I retired to rest. Contrary to my expectation, and, as it seemed to me, to the ordinary course of nature, considering the excitement under which I was labouring, I had scarcely laid my head on my pillow before I dropped into a profound slumber, from which I was only aroused by my servant's entrance to my room. The instant I awoke, I sat up in bed, and began to reflect on what had passed, and for a moment to doubt whether it had not been all a dream. However, it was daylight; the period had arrived when the proof of my newly acquired power might be made.—"Barton," said I to my man, "why were you not at home last night?"—"I had to wait, sir, nearly three hours," he replied, "for an answer to the letter which you sent to Major Sheringham."—"That is not true," said I; and, to my infinite surprise, I appeared to recollect a series of occurrences, of which I never had previously heard, and could have known nothing: "you went to see your sweetheart, Betsy Collyer, at Camberwell, and took her to a tea-garden, and gave her cakes and cider, and saw her home again: you mean to do exactly the same thing on Sunday, and to-morrow you mean to ask me for your quarter's wages, although not due till Monday, in order to buy her a new shawl."—The man stood aghast: it was all true. I was quite as much surprised as the man.—"Sir," said Barton, who had served me for seven years without having once been found fault with, "I see you think me unworthy your confidence; you could not have known this, if you had not watched, and followed, and overheard me and my sweetheart; my character will get me through the world without being looked after. I can stay with you no longer; you will please, sir, to provide yourself with another servant."—"But Barton," said I, "I did not follow or watch you; I—"—"I beg your pardon, sir," he replied; "it is not for me to contradict; but you'll forgive me, sir, I would rather go; I must go."

At this moment I was on the very point of easing his mind, and retaining my faithful servant by a disclosure of my power; but it was yet too new to be parted with; so I affected an anger I did not feel, and told him he might go where he pleased. I had, however, ascertained that the old gentleman had not deceived me in his promises; and, elated with the possession of my extraordinary faculty, I hurried the operation of dressing, and before I had concluded it, my ardent friend Sheringham was announced; he was waiting in the breakfast-room. At the same moment, a note from the lovely Fanny Haywood was delivered to me—from the divine girl who, in the midst of all my scientific abstraction, could "chain my worldly feelings for a moment." "Sheringham, my dear fellow," said I, as I advanced to welcome him, "what makes you so early a visiter this morning?"—"An anxiety," replied Sheringham, "to tell you that my uncle, whose interest I endeavoured to procure for you, in regard to the appointment for which you expressed a desire, has been compelled to recommend a relation of the marquess; this gives me real pain, but I thought it would be best to put you out of suspense as soon as possible."—"Major Sheringham," said I, drawing myself up coldly, "if this matter concerns you so deeply as you seem to imply that it does, might I ask why you so readily agreed to your uncle's proposition or chimed in with his suggestion, to bestow the appointment on this relation of the marquess, in order that you might, in return for it, obtain the promotion for which you are so anxious?"—"My dear fellow," said Sheringham, evidently confused, "I—I—never chimed in; my uncle certainly pointed out the possibility to which you allude, but that was merely contingent upon what he could not refuse to do."—"Sheringham," said I, "your uncle has already secured for you the promotion, and you will be gazetted for the lieutenant-colonelcy of your regiment on Tuesday. I am not to be told that you called at the Horse-guards, in your way to your uncle's yesterday, to ascertain the correctness of the report of the vacancy which you had received from your friend Macgregor; or that you, elated by the prospect before you, were the person, in fact, to suggest the arrangement which has been made, and promise your uncle 'to smooth me over' for the present."—"Sir," said Sheringham, "where you picked up this intelligence I know not; but I must say, that such mistrust, after years of undivided intimacy, is not becoming, or consistent with the character which I hitherto supposed you to possess. When by sinister means the man we look upon as a friend descends to be a spy upon our actions, confidence is at an end, and the sooner our intercourse ceases, the better. Without some such conduct, how could you become possessed of the details upon which you have grounded your opinion of my conduct?"—"I—," and here again was a temptation to confess and fall; but I had not the courage to do it. "Suffice it, Major Sheringham, to say, I knew it; and, moreover, I know, that when you leave me, your present irritation will prompt you to go to your uncle and check the disposition he feels at this moment to serve me."—"This is too much, sir," said Sheringham; "this must be our last interview, unless indeed your unguarded conduct towards me, and your intemperate language concerning me, may render one more meeting necessary; and so, sir, here ends our acquaintance."—Saying which, Sheringham, whose friendship even to my enlightened eye was nearly as sincere as any other man's, quitted my room, fully convinced of my meanness and unworthiness; my heart sank within me when I heard the door close upon him for the last time. I now possessed the power I had so long desired, and in less than an hour had lost a valued friend and a faithful servant. Nevertheless, Barton had told me a falsehood, and Sheringham was gazetted on the Tuesday night.

I went into the Water-colour Exhibition at Charing-cross; there I heard two artists complimenting each other, while their hearts were bursting with mutual envy. There, too, I found a mild, modest-looking lady, listening to the bewitching nothings of her husband's particular friend; and I knew, as I saw her frown and abruptly turn away from him with every appearance of real indignation, that she had at that very moment mentally resolved to elope with him the following night. In Harding's shop I found authors congregated "to laugh the sultry hours away," each watching to catch his neighbour's weak point, and make it subject matter of mirth in his evening's conversation. I saw a viscount help his father out of his carriage with every mark of duty and veneration, and knew that he was actually languishing for the earldom and estates of the venerable parent of whose health he was apparently taking so much care. At Howell and James's I saw more than I could tell, if I had ten times the space afforded me that I have; and I concluded my tour by dropping in at the National Gallery, where the ladies and gentlemen seemed to prefer nature to art, and were actively employed in looking at the pictures, and thinking of themselves. Oh! it was a strange time then, when every man's heart was open to me, and I could sit, and see, and hear, all that was going on, and know the workings of the inmost feelings of my associates; however, I must not detain the reader with reflections.

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