The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 19, No. 532, February 4, 1832

There is some talk of an annual national meeting on this day among the parties with whom this "Festival" originated: but we think others will say it were better to leave ill-done alone, lest it become worse. Probably the next "Noctes" of Blackwood's Magazine will set the matter at rest by giving the world the only true and faithful account of this memorable meeting.

RETROSPECTIVE GLEANINGS

LACONIC JUSTICE

Over the door of the town-hall, in Zante, one of the Greek Islands (the better to instruct the magistrates in their public duty) these verses are inscribed:—

Hic locus 1 odit, 2 amat, 3 punit, 4 conservat, 5 honorat,1 Nequitiam, 2 pacem, 3 crimina, 4 jura, 5 probos.

Thus Englished by G. Sandys.

This place doth 1 hate, 2 love, 3 punish, 4 keep, 5 requite,1 voluptuous not, 2 peace, 3 crimes, 4 laws, 5 th' upright

From Heylyn's Cosmographie.

FLOATING SCHEME

In George the Third's collection of tracts, now in the British Museum, is a broadside of one page, commencing thus:—"In the name of God, amen! John Bulmer, of London, esquire, Master and Surveyor of the King's Majesties Mines, &. &. propoundeth—by God's assistance, that he the said John Bulmer, shall and will, at and in a flowing water, set out a boat or vessel with an engine, floating with a man or boy, in and on board the said boat, in the River of Thames, over against the Tower-wharf, or lower. Which said boat, with the said man or boy, in or aboard her, shall the same tide before low-water again, by art of the said John Bulmer, and help of the said engine, be advanced and elevated so high, as that the same shall pass and be delivered over London Bridge, together with this said man or boy, in and on board her, and float again in the said River of Thames, on the other side the said bridge in safety." He then proceeds to covenant for himself, his heirs, &., to perform this within the space of one month, &., or so soon as the undertakers, wagering against him six for one, should have deposited in the assurance office such a sum as he should consider sufficient to countervail his charges of contriving the boat and engine. Captain Bulmer was also to deposit his proportion of money, &. This scheme was brought out in 1643.

W.G.C.

THE GREEK SAILORS

Still preserve the custom mentioned by Homer, of hauling their vessels on shore with the prows resting on the beach; having done this, they place the mast lengthwise across the prow and the poop, and spread the sail over it, so as to form a tent; beneath these tents they sing their songs, drinking wine freely, and accompanying their voices with the lyre, or three-stringed viol.

T.G.

BILLS OF MORTALITY

"Bills of Mortality took rise," says Pennant, "in 1592; in which year began a great pestilence; which continued till the 18th of December, 1595. During this period they were kept, in order to ascertain the number of persons who died; but, when the plague ceased, the bills were discontinued. They were resumed again in 1603. At their original institution there were only 109 in parishes; others were gradually added; and, by the year 1681, the number was 132. Since that time, 14 more have been added, so that the whole amounts to 146, viz. 97 within the walls; 16 without the walls; 23 out-parishes in Middlesex and Surrey; and 10 in the City and Liberties of Westminster."

W.G.C.

TAILORS

Sir John Hawkwood, (the first English general,) was usually styled Joannes Acutus, from the sharpness, it is said, of his needle or his sword. Fuller, the historian, says, he "turned his needle into a sword, and his thimble into a shield. He was the son of a tanner, and was bound apprentice to a tailor, and was pressed for a soldier." He served under Edward III., and was knighted, distinguished himself at the battle of Poictiers, where he gained the esteem of the Black Prince, and finished his military career in the pay of the Florentines, in 1394, at his native place, Hedingham, in Essex. There is a monument to his memory in the parish church.

Sir Ralph Blackwell was his fellow apprentice, knighted for his bravery by Edward III.; married his master's daughter, and founded Blackwell Hall.

John Speed, the historian, was a Cheshire tailor.

John Stowe, the antiquary, was also a tailor; he was born in London, in 1525, and lived to the age of 80.

Benjamin Robins was the son of a tailor, of Bath; he compiled Lord Anson's Voyage round the World.

Elliott's regiment of light-horse was chiefly composed of tailors; and the first man who suggested the idea of abolishing the Slave Trade, was Thomas Woolman, a quaker, and tailor, of New Jersey. He published many tracts on this species of traffic, went great distances to consult individuals on the subject, on which business he came to England, and went to York, where he caught the small-pox, and died October 7, 1772.

T.G.

HINTS TO COCKNEY EQUESTRIANS

The following hints are offered "in the milk of human kindness" to all "young gentlemen" who hire a horse, or a horse and gig, to go the amazing distance of Kew or Richmond, on Sundays; and may be compelled to flog the "tired jade" the last three miles back, in order to get it home before midnight; also to prevent the annoying necessity of pulling up in a street adjacent to the livery-stables, to cut off the frayed end of the whip thong, that the ostler may not detect their flagellation.

M.A.S.

I. How to make a horse go that is utterly tired.

Dismount from thy horse and prick his sides all over with little holes with a nayle or fine awle, in the spurring place. Take then window glass and stamp it unto a subtile powder, which rub into his pricked sides; then mounting, but touch him not with the spur, and you shall have your desire, for be sure if he have any life in him he will not fayle to go.

II. Here followeth another torment.

Dismount from thy horse and get a stick, which with your knife, jag and cut like unto the notches of a saw, make then a slit with your knife in the ear of the horse, thrust therein the stick, and when you find him to tyre, by working the stick backwards and forwards in the ear, you will have your desire, for be sure if he have any life in him, he will not fayle to go.

III. Another torment may be used as follows.—

Dismount from thy horse (or gig) and take two round, smooth pebbles, which put into one ear of your horse, and tye up the ear, that they escape not, then mounting and proceeding on thy journey, thou shall have thy desire, for the noise of the stones jingling in his ear, will not fayle to make him go, until he is utterly tired.—Markham's Farriery.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

BEAUTIES OF THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS

The characteristic peculiarity of the Pilgrim's Progress is, that it is the only work of its kind which possesses a strong human interest. Other allegories only amuse the fancy. The allegory of Bunyan has been read by many thousands with tears. There are some good allegories in Johnson's works, and some of still higher merit by Addison. In these performances there is, perhaps, as much wit and ingenuity as in the Pilgrim's Progress. But the pleasure which is produced by the Vision of Mirza, or the Vision of Theodore, the genealogy of Wit, or the contest between Rest and Labour, is exactly similar to the pleasure which we derive from one of Cowley's Odes, or from a Canto of Hudibras. It is a pleasure which belongs wholly to the understanding, and in which the feelings have no part whatever. Nay, even Spencer himself, though assuredly one of the greatest poets that ever lived, could not succeed in the attempt to make allegory interesting. It was in vain that he lavished the riches of his mind on the House of Pride, and the House of Temperance. One unpardonable fault, the fault of tediousness, pervades the whole of the Fairy Queen. We become sick of Cardinal Virtues and Deadly Sins, and long for the society of plain men and women. Of the persons who read the first Canto, not one in ten reaches the end of the first book, and not one in a hundred perseveres to the end of the poem. Very few and very weary are those who are in at the death of the Blatant Beast. If the last six books, which are said to have been destroyed in Ireland, had been preserved, we doubt whether any heart less stout than that of a commentator would have held out to the end.

It is not so with the Pilgrim's Progress. That wonderful book, while it obtains admiration from the most fastidious critics, is loved by those who are too simple to admire it. Doctor Johnson, all whose studies were desultory, and who hated, as he said, to read books through, made an exception in favour of the Pilgrim's Progress. That work, he said, was one of the two or three works which he wished longer. It was by no common merit that the illiterate sectary extracted praise like this from the most pedantic of critics, and the most bigoted of tories. In the wildest parts of Scotland the Pilgrim's Progress is the delight of the peasantry. In every nursery the Pilgrim's Progress is a greater favourite than Jack the Giant-Killer. Every reader knows the straight and narrow path as well as he knows a road in which he has gone backward and forward a hundred times. This is the highest miracle of genius,—that things which are not should be as though they were,—that the imaginations of one mind should become the personal recollections of another. And this miracle the tinker has wrought. There is no ascent, no declivity, no resting-place, no turn-stile, with which we are not perfectly acquainted. The wicket gate, and the desolate swamp which separates it from the City of Destruction,—the long line of road, as straight as a rule can make it,—the Interpreter's house, and all its fair shows,—the prisoner in the iron cage,—the palace, at the doors of which armed men kept guard, and on the battlements of which walked persons clothed all in gold,—the cross and the sepulchre,—the steep hill and the pleasant arbour,—the stately front of the House Beautiful by the wayside,—the low green valley of Humiliation, rich with grass and covered with flocks,—all are as well known to us as the sights of our own street. Then we come to the narrow place where Apollyon strode right across the whole breadth of the way, to stop the journey of Christian, and where afterwards the pillar was set up to testify how bravely the pilgrim had fought the good fight. As we advance, the valley becomes deeper and deeper. The shade of the precipices on both sides falls blacker and blacker. The clouds gather overhead. Doleful voices, the clanking of chains, and the rushing of many feet to and fro, are heard through the darkness. The way, hardly discernible in gloom, runs close by the mouth of the burning pit, which sends forth its flames, its noisome smoke, and its hideous shapes, to terrify the adventurer. Thence he goes on, amidst the snares and pitfalls, with the mangled bodies of those who have perished lying in the ditch by his side. At the end of the long dark valley, he passes the dens in which the old giants dwelt, amidst the bones and ashes of those whom they had slain.

Then the road passes straight on through a waste moor, till at length the towers of a distant city appear before the traveller; and soon he is in the midst of the innumerable multitudes of Vanity Fair. There are the jugglers and the apes, the shops and the puppet-shows. There are Italian Row, and French Row, and Spanish Row, and Britain Row, with their crowds of buyers, sellers, and loungers, jabbering all the languages of the earth.

Thence we go on by the little hill of the silver mine, and through the meadow of lilies, along the bank of that pleasant river which is bordered on both sides by fruit-trees. On the left side, branches off the path leading to that horrible castle, the courtyard of which is paved with the skulls of pilgrims; and right onwards are the sheepfolds and orchards of the Delectable Mountains.

From the Delectable Mountains, the way lies through the logs and briers of the Enchanted Ground, with here and there a bed of soft cushions spread under a green arbour. And beyond is the land of Beulah, where the flowers, the grapes, and the songs of birds never cease, and where the sun shines night and day. Thence are plainly seen the golden pavements and streets of pearl, on the other side of that black and cold river over which there is no bridge.

All the stages of the journey,—all the forms which cross or overtake the pilgrims,—giants and hobgoblins, ill-favoured ones, and shining ones,—the tall, comely, swarthy Madam Bubble, with her great purse by her side, and her fingers playing with the money,—the black man in the bright vesture,—Mr. Worldly-Wiseman, and my Lord Hategood,—Mr. Talkative, and Mrs. Timorous,—all are actually existing beings to us. We follow the travellers through their allegorical progress with interest not inferior to that with which we follow Elizabeth from Siberia to Moscow, or Jeanie Deans from Edinburgh to London. Bunyan is almost the only writer that ever gave to the abstract the interest of the concrete. In the works of many celebrated authors, men are mere personifications. We have not an Othello, but jealousy; not an Iago but perfidy; not a Brutus, but patriotism. The mind of Bunyan, on the contrary, was so imaginative, that personifications, when he dealt with them, became men. A dialogue between two qualities, in his dream, has more dramatic effect than a dialogue between two human beings in most plays.

The Pilgrim's Progress undoubtedly is not a perfect allegory. The types are often inconsistent with each other; and sometimes the allegorical disguise is altogether thrown off. The river, for example, is emblematic of death; and we are told that every human being must pass through the river. But Faithful does not pass through it. He is martyred, not in shadow, but in reality, at Vanity Fair. Hopeful talks to Christian about Esau's birthright, and about his own convictions of sin, as Bunyan might have talked with one of his own congregation. The damsels at the House Beautiful catechise Christiana's boys, as any good ladies might catechise any boys at a Sunday School. But we do not believe, that any man, whatever might be his genius, and whatever his good luck, could long continue a figurative history without falling into many inconsistencies.

The passages which it is most difficult to defend, are those in which he altogether drops the allegory, and puts into the mouth of his pilgrims religious ejaculations and disquisitions, better suited to his own pulpit at Bedford or Reading, than to the Enchanted Ground or the Interpreter's Garden. Yet even these passages, though we will not undertake to defend them against the objection of critics, we feel that we could ill spare. We feel that the story owes much of its charm to these occasional glimpses of solemn and affecting subjects, which will not be hidden, which force themselves through the veil, and appear before us in their native aspect. The effect is not unlike that which is said to have been produced on the ancient stage, when the eyes of the actor were seen flaming through his mask, and giving life and expression to what would else have been an inanimate and uninteresting disguise.

The style of Bunyan is delightful to every reader, and invaluable as a study to every person who wishes to obtain a wide command over the English language. The vocabulary is the vocabulary of the common people. There is not an expression, if we except a few technical terms of theology, which would puzzle the rudest peasant. We have observed several pages which do not contain a single word of more than two syllables. Yet no writer has said more exactly what he meant to say. For magnificence, for pathos, for vehement exhortation, for subtle disquisition, for every purpose of the poet, the orator, and the divine, this homely dialect—the dialect of plain working men—was perfectly sufficient. There is no book in our literature on which we would so readily stake the fame of the old unpolluted English language—no book which shows so well how rich that language is in its own proper wealth, and how little it has been improved by all that it has borrowed.

Cowper said, forty or fifty years ago, that he dared not name John Bunyan in his verse, for fear of moving a sneer. To our refined forefathers, we suppose, Lord Roscommon's Essay on Translated Verse, and the Duke of Buckinghamshire's Essay on Poetry, appeared to be compositions infinitely superior to the allegory of the preaching tinker. We live in better times; and we are not afraid to say, that, though there were many clever men in England during the latter half of the seventeenth century, there were only two great creative minds. One of those minds produced the Paradise Lost, the other the Pilgrim's Progress.—Edinburgh Review.

THE GATHERER

A London publisher advertises a collection of Nursery Tales as a "handsome present for youth." Here the schoolmaster is surely behind-hand.

IMPROMPTU.—TO A LADY

(From the Italian.)Think not thy faults, my pretty scold,Like transient clouds will pass away;Thine image in the rose behold,Whose leaves fade ere the thorns decay.E.L.J.

This trifle was sent to the Mirror a few days since, and last Saturday it appeared in the Literary Gazette, with the same signature, E.L.J.—Is not this double-dealing?

Pantomimes.—Four hundred persons are nightly employed in the pantomime at Covent Garden Theatre, on the stage, behind the scenes, and in the orchestra. Of this number are 90 carpenters in the machinery, property, and scenic department. The usual cost of one of these relics of olden Christmas at a patent theatre is £2,000.; and upwards of £10,000. are annually expended in producing pantomimes for the amusement of the large and little children of this great metropolis.

How to keep away the Cholera.—Fear has proved at all times, but more particularly during the prevalence of cholera, a fruitful predisposing cause of disease; be firm, therefore, and confident. Cheerfulness of disposition, equanimity and serenity of mind, are essential means of preservation from epidemic disorders, cholera especially. You have now the consoling assurance of the New Board of Health, in confirmation of what we, the anti-contagionists, in regard to cholera, had long before declared and contended for, that the disease does not pass to those about the sick, and seldom spreads in families. Cholera, therefore, is thus disarmed of one of its worst terrors. You only run the average share of risk of one in 1,200,000 individual inhabitants of the metropolis, of being affected by the epidemic influence of the atmosphere, while that influence lasts; and as you are put in possession of several means to counteract that influence, the chances are greatly in your favour that you will not be attacked by cholera at all. To this conclusion I am authorized to come by my experience, which has been very considerable, and my observations, in more than one general epidemic, and by what I have read in all the authors (twenty or thirty of them) who have treated of cholera.—Dr. Granville.

The Cholera.—An interesting experiment was tried at Newcastle last week, on the state of the atmosphere. A kite was sent up, having attached to it a piece of fresh butcher's meat, a fresh haddock, and a small loaf of bread. The kite ascended to a considerable height, and remained at that elevation for an hour and a quarter. When brought to the ground, it was found that the fish and the piece of meat were both in a putrid state, particularly the fish; and the loaf, when examined through, a microscope, was discovered to be pervaded with legions of animalculae. It may be worth while to repeat the experiment in other places to which cholera may unfortunately extend itself.—Evening Paper.

Foreign Books.—From official accounts it appears that the foreign books imported into the United Kingdom in the year 1830, weighed 3,441 cwt. 3 qrs. 13 lbs. the amount of duty upon which was £11,865 4s. 4d. We find this in a paper on the Duties on Foreign Books in the Foreign Quarterly Review, just published; in which the imported old books have obtained a considerable ascendancy over the new ones.

The lovers of the Fine Arts will hear with sorrow, the destruction by fire of Mr. Wilmshurst's splendid Painted Window of the Tournament of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, described at page 246, vol. xv. of The Mirror. It was completed about two years since at a cost of nearly 2,000l., and three years' labour of the artist.

FAMILIAR SCIENCE

This Day was published, with many Engravings, price 5s.,

ARCANA OF SCIENCE,

AND

ANNUAL REGISTER of the USEFUL ARTS,

for 1832:

Abridged from the Transactions of Public Societies, and Scientific Journals, British and Foreign, for the past year.

*** This volume will contain all the Important Facts in the year 1831—in the

MECHANIC ARTS,

CHEMICAL SCIENCE,

ZOOLOGY,

BOTANY,

MINERALOGY,

GEOLOGY,

METEOROLOGY,

RURAL ECONOMY,

GARDENING.

DOMESTIC ECONOMY,

USEFUL AND ELEGANT ARTS,

GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERIES,

MISCELLANEOUS SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION.

Printing for John Limbird, 143, Strand; of whom may be had volumes (upon the same plan) for 1828, price 4s. 6d., 1829—30—31, price 5s. each.