The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 12, No. 332, September 20, 1828

A LAPLANDER'S FAREWELL TO THE SETTING SUN

(For the Mirror.)Adieu thou beauteous orb, adieu,Thy fading light scarce meets my view,Thy golden tints reflected stillBeam mildly on my native hill:Thou goest in other lands to shine,Hail'd and expected by a numerous line,Whilst many days and many months must passEre thou shall'st bless us with one closing glance.My cave must now become my lowly home,Nor can I longer from its precincts roam,Till the fixed time that brings thee back againWith added splendour to resume thy reign.IOTA.

ANCIENT VALUE OF BOOKS

(For the Mirror.)

We have it from good authority, that about A.D. 1215, the Countess of Anjou paid two hundred sheep, five quarters of wheat, and the same quantity of rye, for a volume of Sermons—so scarce and dear were books at that time; and although the countess might in this case have possibly been imposed upon, we have it, on Mr. Gibbon's authority, that the value of manuscript copies of the Bible, for the use of the monks and clergy, commonly was from four to five hundred crowns at Paris, which, according to the relative value of money at that time and now in our days, could not, at the most moderate calculation, be less than as many pounds sterling in the present day.

H. W. P.

MARINE GLOW WORMS

(For the Mirror.)

These extraordinary little insects are more particularly noticed in Italy, during the period of summer, than in any other part of the world. When they make their appearance, they glitter like stars reflected by the sea, so beautiful and luminous are their minute bodies. Many contemplative lovers of the phenomena of nature are seen, soon after sun-set, along the sea coast, admiring the singular lustre of the water when covered with these particles of life, which it may be observed, are more numerous where the alga marina, or sea-weed abounds.

The marine glow-worm is composed of eleven articulations, or rings; upon these rings, and near the belly of the insect, are placed fins, which appear to be the chief instruments of its motion. It has two small horns issuing from the fore part of the head, and its tail is cleft in two. To the naked eye of man, they seem even smaller than the finest hairs; and their substance is delicate beyond description. They first begin to make their appearance upon the sea-weed about the middle of April, and very soon after multiply exceedingly over the whole surface of the water.

I think it is more than probable, that the heat of the sun causes the marine glow-worm to lay its eggs; at all events it is certain, that terrestrial insects of this species shine only in the heat of summer, and that their peculiar resplendency is produced during the period of their copulation.

G. W. N.

EPITAPHS

(For the Mirror

The origin of epitaphs, and the precise period when they were first introduced, is involved in obscurity; but that they were in use several centuries prior to the Christian era is indisputable. The invention of them, however, has been attributed to the scholars of Linus, who, according to Diogenes, was the son of Mercury and Urania; he was born at Thebes, and instructed Hercules in the art of music; who, in a fit of anger at the ridicule of Linus, on his awkwardness in holding the lyre, struck him on the head with his instrument, and killed him. The scholars of Linus lamented the death of their master, in a mournful kind of poem, called from him Aelinum. These poems were afterwards designated Epitaphia, from the two words [Greek: epi], upon, and [Greek: taphios], sepulchre, being engraved on tombs, in honour or memory of the deceased, and generally containing some eloge of his virtues or good qualities.

Among the Lacedaemonians, epitaphs were only allowed to men who died bravely in battle; and to women, who were remarkable for their chastity. The Romans often erected monuments to illustrious persons whilst living, which were preserved with great veneration after their decease. In this country, according to Sir Henry Chauncy, "Any person may erect a tomb, sepulchre, or monument for the deceased in any church, chancel, chapel, or churchyard, so that it is not to the hindrance of the celebration of divine service; that the defacing of them is punishable at common law, the party that built it being entitled to the action during his life, and the heir of the deceased after his death."

Boxhornius has made a well chosen collection of Latin epitaphs, and F. Labbe has also made a similar one in the French language, entitled, "Tresor des Epitaphes." In our own language the collection of Toldewy is the best; there are also several to be found among the writings of Camden and Weaver, and in most of the county histories.

In epitaphs, the deceased person is sometimes introduced by way of prosopopaeia, speaking to the living, of which the following is an instance, wherein the defunct wife thus addresses her surviving husband:—

"Immatura peri; sed tu, felicior, annosVive tuos, conjux optime, vive meos."

The following epitaphs, out of several others, are worth preserving. That of Alexander:—

"Sufficit huic tumulus, cui non sufficeret orbis."

That of Tasso:—

"Les os du Tasse."

Similar to which is that of Dryden:—

"Dryden."

The following is that of General Foy, in Pere la Chaise:—

"Honneur au GENERAL FOY.Il se repose de ses travaux,Et ses oeuvres le suivent.Hier quand de ses jours la source fut tarie,La France, en le voyant sur sa couche entendu,Implorait un accent de cette voix cherie.Helas! au cri plaintif jeté par la nature,C'est la premiere fois qu'il ne pas repondu"

The following is said to have been written by "rare Ben Jonson," and has been much admired:—

"Underneath this stone doth lieAs much virtue as could die;Which, when alive, did vigour giveTo as much beauty as could live."

To these could be added several others, but at present we shall content ourselves with quoting the two following, as specimens of the satirical or ludicrous:—

Prior, on himself, ridiculing the folly of those who value themselves on their pedigree.

"Nobles and heralds, by your leave, Here lie the bones of Matthew Prior, The son of Adam and Eve, Let Bourbon or Nassau go higher."

"Here, fast asleep, full six feet deep,And seventy summers ripe,George Thomas lies in hopes to rise,And smoke another pipe."B. T. S.

The following inscription, in a churchyard in Germany, long puzzled alike the learned and the unlearned:—

O quid tua tebe bis bia abitra ra raeset inram ram rami iMox eris quod ego nunc.

By accident the meaning was discovered, and the solution is equally remarkable for its ingenuity and for the morality it inculcates:—"O superbe quid superbis? tua superbia te superabit. Terra es, et in terram ibis. Mox eris quod ego nunc."—"O vain man! why shouldst thou be proud? thy pride will be thy ruin. Dust thou art, and to dust shalt thou return. Soon shalt thou be what I am now."

W. G. C.

THE COSMOPOLITE

WET WEATHER

(For the Mirror.)

"John's temper depended very much upon the air; his spirits rose and fell with the weather-glass."—ARBUTHNOT.

No one can deny that the above is a floating topic; and we challenge all the philosophy of ancients or moderns to prove it is not. After the memorable July 15, (St. Swithin,) people talk of the result with as much certainty as a merchant calculates on trade winds; and in like manner, hackney-coachmen and umbrella-makers have their trade rains. Indeed, there are, as Shakespeare's contented Duke says, "books in the running brooks, and good in every thing;"2 and so far from neglecting to turn the ill-wind to our account, we are disposed to venture a few seasonable truisms for the gratification of our readers, although a wag may say our subject is a dry one.

In England, the weather is public news. Zimmerman, however, thinks it is not a safe topic of discourse. "Your company," says he, "may be hippish." Shenstone, too, says a fine day is the only enjoyment which one man does not envy another. All this is whimsical enough; but doubtless we are more operated on by the weather than by any thing else. Perhaps this is because we are islanders; for talk to an "intellectual" man about the climate, and out comes something about our "insular situation, aqueous vapours, condensation," &c. Then take up a newspaper on any day of a wet summer, and you see a long string of paragraphs, with erudite authorities, about "the weather," average annual depth of rain, &c.; and a score of lies about tremendous rains, whose only authority, like that of most miracles, is in their antiquity or repetition. In short, water is one of the most popular subjects in this age of inquiry. What were the first treatises of the Useful Knowledge Society? Hydrostatics and Hydraulics. What is the attraction at Sadler's Wells, Bath, and Cheltenham, but water? the Brighton people, too, not content with the sea, have even found it necessary to superadd to their fashionable follies, artificial mineral waters, with whose fount the grossest duchess may in a few days recover from the repletion of a whole season; and the minister, after the jading of a session, soon resume his wonted complacency and good humour.3 Our aquatic taste is even carried into all our public amusements; would the festivities in celebration of the late peace have been complete without the sham fight on the Serpentine? To insure the run of a melo-drama, the New River is called in to flow over deal boards, and form a cataract; and the Vauxhall proprietors, with the aid of a hydropyric exhibition, contrive to represent a naval battle. This introduction during the past season was, however, as perfectly gratuitous as that of the rain was uncalled for. Had they contented themselves with the latter, the scene would have been more true to nature.

We carry this taste into our money-getting speculations, those freaks of the funds that leave many a man with one unfunded coat. The Thames tunnel is too amphibious an affair to be included in the number; but the ship canal project, the bridge-building mania, and the penchant for working mines by steam, evidently belong to them. The fashion even extends to royalty, since our good King builds a fishing-temple, and dines on the Virginia Water; and the Duke of Clarence, as Lord High Admiral, gives a dejeuné à la fourchette between Waterloo and Westminster bridges.

Whoever takes the trouble to read a paper in a late Edinburgh Review on the Nervous System, will doubtless find that much of our predilection for hanging and drowning is to be attributed to this "insular situation." Every man and woman of us is indeed a self pluviometer, or rain-gauge; or, in plain terms, our nerves are like so many musical strings, affected by every change of the atmosphere, which, if screwed up too tight, are apt to snap off, and become useless; or, if you please, we are like so many barometers, and our animal spirits like their quicksilver; so "servile" are we to all the "skyey influences." Take, for example, the same man at three different periods of the year: on a fine morning in January, his nerves are braced to their best pitch, and, in his own words, he is fit for any thing; see him panting for cooling streams in a burning July day, when though an Englishman, he is "too hot to eat;" see him on a wet, muggy ninth of November, when the finery of the city coach and the new liveries appear tarnished, and common councilmen tramp through the mud and rain in their robes of little authority—even with the glorious prospect of the Guildhall tables, the glitter of gas and civic beauty, and the six pounds of turtle, and iron knives and forks before him—still he is a miserable creature, he drinks to desperation, and is carried home at least three hours sooner than he would be on a fine frosty night. Then, instead of fifteen pounds to the square inch, atmospheric pressure is increased to five-and-forty, not calculating the simoom of the following morning, when he is as dry as the desert of Sahara, and eyes the pumps and soda- water fountains with as much gout as the Israelites did the water from Mount Horeb.

Man, however, is the most helpless of all creatures in water, and with the exception of a few proscribed pickpockets and swindlers, he is almost as helpless on land. This infirmity, or difficulty of keeping above water, accounts for the crammed state of our prisons, fond as we are of the element. On the great rivers of China, where thousands of people find it more convenient to live in covered boats upon the water, than in houses on shore, the younger and male children have a hollow ball of some light material attached constantly to their necks, so that in their frequent falls overboard, they are not in danger. Had we not read this in a grave, philosophical work, we should have thought it a joke upon poor humanity, or at best a piece of poetical justice, and that the hollow ball, &c. represented the head—fools being oftener inheritors of good fortune than their wiser companions. As the great secret in swimming is to keep the chest as full of air as possible, perhaps the great art of living is to keep the head a vacuum, a state "adapted to the meanest capacity." But had kind Nature supplied us with an air-bladder at the neck, the heaviest of us might have floated to eternity, Leander's swimming across the Hellespont no wonder at all, and the drags of the Humane Society be converted into halters for the suspension and recovery of old offenders and small debts.

A wet day in London is what every gentleman who does not read, or does not recollect, Shakspeare, calls a bore,4 and every lady decides to be a nuisance. Abroad, everything is discomfiture; at home all is fidget and uneasiness. What is called a smart shower, sweeps off a whole stand of hackney-coaches in a few seconds, and leaves a few leathern conveniences called cabriolets, so that your only alternative is that of being soaked to the skin, or pitched out, taken up, bled, and carried home in "a state of insensibility." The Spanish proverb, "it never rains but it pours" soon comes to pass, and every street is momentarily washed as clean as the most diligent housemaid could desire. Every little shelter is crowded with solitary, houseless-looking people, who seem employed in taking descriptions of each other for the Hue and Cry, or police gazette. On the pavement may probably be seen some wight who with more than political obstinacy, resolves to "weather the storm," with slouched hat, which acts upon the principle of capillary attraction, drenched coat, and boots in which the feet work like pistons in tannin: now

The reeling clouds,Stagger with dizzy poise, as doubting yet,Which master to obey.

Company, in such cases, usually increases the misery. Your wife, with a new dress, soon loses her temper and its beauty; the children splash you and their little frilled continuations; and ill-humour is the order of the day; for on such occasions you cannot slip into a tavern, and follow Dean Swift's example:

On rainy days alone I dine,Upon a chick, and pint of wine:On rainy days I dine alone,And pick my chicken to the bone.

Go you to the theatre in what is called a wet season, and perhaps after sitting through a dull five-act tragedy and two farces, your first solicitude is about the weather, and as if to increase the vexation, you cannot see the sky for a heavy portico or blind; then the ominous cry of "carriage, your honour"—"what terrible event does this portend"—and you have to pick your way, with your wife like Cinderella after the ball, through an avenue of link-boys and cadmen,5 and hear your name and address bawled out to all the thieves that happen to be present. Or, perchance, the coachman, whose inside porosity is well indicated by his bundle of coats, as Dr. Kitchiner says, is labouring under "the unwholesome effervescence of the hot and rebellious liquors which have been taken to revive the flagging spirits," and like a sponge, absorbs liquids, owing to the pressure of the surrounding air.

That we are attached to wet weather, a single comparison with our neighbours will abundantly prove. A Frenchman seldom stirs abroad without his parapluie; notwithstanding he is, compared with an Englishman, an al fresco animal, eating, drinking, dancing, reading, and seeing plays—all out of doors. A shower is more effectual in clearing the streets of Paris than those of London. People flock into cafés, the arcades of the Palais Royal, and splendid covered passages; and as soon as the rain ceases, scores of planks are thrown across the gutters in the centre of the streets, which species of pontooning is rewarded by the sous and centimes of the passengers. In Switzerland too, where the annual fall of rain is 40 inches, the streets are always washed clean, an effect which is admirably represented in the view of Unterseen, now exhibiting at the Diorama. But in Peru, the Andes intercept the clouds, and the constant heat over sandy deserts prevents clouds from forming, so that there is no rain. Here it never shines but it burns.

Wet-weather in the country is, however, a still greater infliction upon the sensitive nerves. There is no club-house, coffee-room, billiard-room, or theatre, to slip into; and if caught in a shower you must content yourself with the arcades of Nature, beneath which you enjoy the unwished-for luxury of a shower bath. Poor Nature is drenched and drowned; perhaps never better described than by that inveterate bard of Cockaigne, Captain Morris:

Oh! it settles the stomach when nothing is seenBut an ass on a common, or goose on a green.

We were once overtaken by such weather in a pedestrian tour through the Isle of Wight, when just then about to leave Niton for a geological excursion to the Needles. Reader, if you remember, the Sandrock Hotel is one of the most rural establishments in the island. Think of our being shut up there for six hours, with a thin duodecimo guide of less than 100 pages, which some mischievous fellow had made incomplete. How often did we read and re-read every line, and trace every road in the little map. At length we set off on our return to Newport. The rain partially ceased, and we were attracted out of the road to Luttrell's Tower, whence we were compelled to seek shelter in a miserable public-house in a village about three miles distant. No spare bed, a wretched smoky fire; and hard beer, and poor cheese, called Isle of Wight rock, were all the accommodation our host could provide. His parlour was just painted; but half-a-dozen sectarian books and an ill-toned flute amused us for an hour; then we again started, in harder rain than ever, for Newport. Compelled to halt twice, we saw some deplorable scenes of cottage misery, almost enough to put us out of conceit of rusticity, till after crossing a bleak, dreary heath, we espied the distant light of Newport. Never had we beheld gas light with such ecstasy, not even on the first lighting of St. James's Park. It was the eve of the Cowes' regatta, and the town was full; but our luggage was there, and we were secure. A delicious supper at the Bugle, and liberal outpourings of Newport ale, at length put us in good humour with our misfortunes; but on the following morning we hastened on to Ryde, and thus passed by steam to Portsmouth; having resolved to defer our geological expedition to that day twelve months. Perhaps we may again touch on this little journey. We have done for the present, lest our number should interrupt the enjoyment of any of the thousand pedestrians who are at this moment tracking

The slow ascending hill, the lofty woodThat mantles o'er its brow.

or coasting the castled shores and romantic cliffs of Vectis, or the Isle of Wight.

PHILO.

MANNERS & CUSTOMS OF ALL NATIONS

DUELS IN FRANCE

Duels had at one time become so frequent in France as to require particular enactments for their prevention; as, for example, when the debt about which any dispute occurred did not amount to five-pence. The regulation of the mode in which the barbarous custom might be maintained had engaged the attention of several of the French kings. In 1205, Philip Augustus restricted the length of the club, with which single combat was then pursued, to three feet; and in 1260, Saint Louis abolished the practice of deciding civil matters by duelling. With the revival of literature and of the arts, national manners became ameliorated, and duels necessarily declined. It was still, however, not unusual for the French to promote or to behold those single combats over which the pages of romance have thrown a delusive charm, and which were, in early times, hallowed, in the opinion of the vulgar, by their accompanying superstitious ceremonies. When any quarrel had been referred to this mode of decision, the parties met on the appointed day, and frequently in an open space, overshadowed by the walls of a convent, which thus lent its sanction to the bloody scene. From day-break the people were generally employed in erecting scaffolds and stages, and in placing themselves upon the towers and ramparts of the adjacent buildings. About noon, the cavalcade was usually seen to arrive at the door of the lists; then the herald cried, "Let the appellant appear," and his summons was answered by the entrance of the challenger, armed cap-a-pie, the escutcheon suspended from his neck, his visor lowered, and an image of some national saint in his hand. He was allowed to pass within the lists, and conducted to his tent. The accused person likewise appeared, and was led in the same manner to his tent. Then the herald, in his robe embroidered with fleur-de-lis, advanced to the centre of the lists, and exclaimed, "Oyez, oyez! lords, knights, squires, people of all condition, our sovereign lord, by the grace of God, King of France, forbids you, on pain of death or confiscation of goods, either to cry out, to speak, to cough, to spit, or to make signs." During a profound silence, in which nothing but the murmurs of the unconscious streamlet, or the chirping of birds might be heard, the combatants quitted their tents, to take individually the two first oaths. When the third oath was to be administered, it was customary for them to meet, and for the marshal to take the right hand of each and to place it on the cross. Then the functions of the priest began, and the usual address, endeavouring to conciliate the angry passions of the champions, and to remind them of their common dependence on the Supreme Being, may have tended to benefit the bystanders, although it generally failed of its effect with the combatants.

If the parties persisted, the last oath was administered. The combatants were obliged to swear solemnly that they had neither about them nor their horses, stone, nor herb, nor charm, nor invocation; and that they would fight only with their bodily strength, their weapons, and their horses. The crucifix and breviary were then presented to them to kiss, the parties retired into their tents, the heralds uttering their last admonition to exertion and courage, and the challengers rushed forth from their tents, which were immediately dragged from within the lists. Then the marshal of the field having cried out, "Let them pass, let them pass," the seconds retired. The combatants instantly mounted their horses, and the contest commenced.—Foreign Review.

SUPERSTITION RELATING TO BEES

On further inquiry, it has been found that the superstitious practice, formerly mentioned,6 of informing the bees of a death that takes place in a family, is very well known, and still prevails among the lower orders in this country. The disastrous consequence to be apprehended from noncompliance with this strange custom is not (as before stated) that the bees will desert the hive, but that they will dwindle and die. The manner of communicating the intelligence to the little community, with due form and ceremony, is this: to take the key of the house, and knock with it three times against the hive, telling the inmates, at the same time, that their master or mistress, &c., (as the case may be,) is dead!

Mr. Loudon says, when in Bedfordshire lately, "we were informed of an old man who sung a psalm last year in front of some hives which were not doing well, but which he said would thrive in consequence of that ceremony. Our informant could not state whether this was a local or individual superstition."—Magazine of Natural History.