The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 12, No. 341, November 15, 1828

WOMAN'S EYE

The light that beams from woman's eye.And sparkles through her tear,Responds to that impassion'd sighWhich love delights to hear.'Tis the sweet language of the soul,On which a voice is hung,More eloquent than ever stoleFrom saint's or poet's tongue. Forget Me Not—1829.

"NIMIUM NE CREDE COLORI."

Jack Taylor once said to a water-drinking person, with a purple face, "better things might prima facie be expected."

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

MR. ABERNETHY

Of Mr. Abernethy's independence and strict veneration of what is right, we have many examples. Among others, the following is characteristic:—A certain noble personage, now enjoying a situation of great responsibility in the Sister Kingdom, had been waiting for a long time in the surgeon's anteroom, when, seeing those who had arrived before him, successively called in, he became somewhat impatient, and sent his card in. No notice was taken of the hint; he sent another card—another—another—and another; still no answer. At length he gained admission in his turn; and, full of nobility and choler, he asked, rather aristocratically, why he had been kept waiting so long?—"Wh—ew!" responded the professor; "because you didn't come sooner, to be sure. And now, if your lordship will sit down, I will hear what you have to say."

One thing Mr. Abernethy cannot abide, that is, any interruption to his discourse. This it is, in fact, which so often irritates him, so often causes him to snarl.—"People come here," he has often said to us, "to consult me, and they will torture me with their long and foolish fiddle-de-dee stories; so we quarrel, and then they blackguard me all about this large town; but I can't help that."

That Abernethy is odd all the world knows, but his oddity is far more amusing than repulsive, far more playful than bearish. Yates's picture of him last year was not bad; neither was it good—it wanted the raciness of the original. Let the reader imagine a smug, elderly, sleek, and venerable-looking man, approaching seventy years of age, rather (as novel-writers say) below than above the middle height, somewhat inclined to corpulency, and upright in his carriage withal; with his hair most primly powdered, and nicely curled round his brow and temples: let them imagine such a person habited in sober black, with his feet thrust carelessly into a pair of unlaced half-boots, and his hands into the pockets of his "peculiars," and they have the "glorious John" of the profession before their eyes. The following colloquy, which occurred not many days since, between him and a friend of ours, is so characteristic of the professor, that we cannot resist its insertion:—

Having entered the room, our friend "opened the proceedings." "I wish you to ascertain what is the matter with my eye, sir. It is very painful, and I am afraid there is some great mischief going on."—"Which I can't see," said Abernethy, placing the patient before the window, and looking closely at the eye.—"But—" interposed our friend.—"Which I can't see," again said, or rather sung the professor. "Perhaps not, sir, but—"—"Now don't bother!" ejaculated the other; "but sit down, and I'll tell you all about it." Our friend sat down accordingly, while Abernethy, standing with his back against the table, thus began: "I take it for granted that, in consulting me, you wish to know what I should do for myself, were I in a predicament similar to yourself. Now, I have no reason to suppose that you are in any particular predicament; and the terrible mischief which you apprehend, depends, I take it, altogether upon the stomach. Mind,—at present I have no reason to believe that there is any thing else the matter with you." (Here my friend was about to disclose sundry dreadful maladies with which he believed himself afflicted, but he was interrupted with "Diddle-dum, diddle-dum, diddle-dum dee!" uttered in the same smooth tone as the previous part of the address—and he was silent.)—"Now, your stomach being out of order, it is my duty to explain to you how to put it to rights again; and, in my whimsical way, I shall give you an illustration of my position; for I like to tell people something that they will remember. The kitchen, that is, your stomach, being out of order, the garret (pointing to the head) cannot be right, and egad! every room in the house becomes affected. Repair the injury in the kitchen,—remedy the evil there,—(now don't bother,) and all will be right. This you must do by diet. If you put improper food into your stomach, by Gad you play the very devil with it, and with the whole machine besides. Vegetable matter ferments, and becomes gaseous; while animal substances are changed into a putrid, abominable, and acrid stimulus. (Don't bother again!) You are going to ask, 'What has all this to do with my eye?' I will tell you. Anatomy teaches us, that the skin is a continuation of the membrane which lines the stomach; and your own observation will inform you, that the delicate linings of the mouth, throat, nose, and eyes, are nothing more. Now some people acquire preposterous noses, others blotches on the face and different parts of the body, others inflammation of the eyes—all arising from irritation of the stomach. People laugh at me for talking so much about the stomach. I sometimes tell this story to forty different people of a morning, and some won't listen to me; so we quarrel, and they go and abuse me all over the town. I can't help it—they came to me for my advice, and I give it them, if they will take it. I can't do any more. Well, sir, as to the question of diet. I must refer you to my book. (Here the professor smiled, and continued smiling as he proceeded.) There are only about a dozen pages—and you will find, beginning at page 73, all that it is necessary for you to know. I am christened 'Doctor My-Book,' and satirized under that name all over England; but who would sit and listen to a long lecture of twelve pages, or remember one-half of it when it was done? So I have reduced my directions into writing, and there they are for any body to follow, if they please.

"Having settled the question of diet, we now come to medicine. It is, or ought to be, the province of a medical man to soothe and assist Nature, not to force her. Now, the only medicine I should advise you to take, is a dose of a slight aperient medicine every morning the first thing. I won't stipulate for the dose, as that must be regulated by circumstances, but you must take some; for without it, by Gad; your stomach will never be right. People go to Harrowgate, and Buxton, and Bath, and the devil knows where, to drink the waters, and they return full of admiration at their surpassing efficacy. Now these waters contain next to nothing of purgative medicine; but they are taken readily, regularly, and in such quantities, as to produce the desired effect. You must persevere in this plan, sir, until you experience relief, which you certainly will do. I am often asked—'Well, but Mr. Abernethy, why don't you practise what you preach?' I answer, by reminding the inquirer of the parson and the signpost: both point the way, but neither follow its course."—And thus ended a colloquy, wherein is mingled much good sense, useful advice, and whimsicality.—New Monthly Magazine.

GIPSIES

Whether from India's burning plains,Or wild Bohemia's domainsYour steps were first directed:—Or whether ye be Egypt's sons,Whose stream, like Nile's for ever runsWith sources undetected,—Arab's of Europe! Gipsy race!Your Eastern manners, garb, and faceAppear a strange chimera;None, none but you can now be styledRomantic, picturesque, and wild,In this prosaic era.Ye sole freebooters of the woodSince Adam Bell and Robin Hood—Kept every where asunderFrom other tribes—King, Church, and StateSpurning, and only dedicateTo freedom, sloth, and plunder.Your forest-camp—the forms one seesBanditti like amid the trees,The ragged donkies grazing,The Sibyl's eye prophetic, brightWith flashes of the fitful light,Beneath the caldron blazing,—O'er my young mind strange terrors threw:Thy history gave me Moore Carew!A more exalted notionOf Gipsy life, nor can I yetGaze on your tents, and quite forgetMy former deep emotion.For "auld lang syne" I'll not maltreatYon pseudo-Tinker, though the Cheat,Ay sly as thievish Reynard,Instead of mending kettles, prowlsTo make foul havock of my fowls,And decimate my hen-yard.Come thou, too, black-eyed lass, and tryThat potent skill in palmistry.Which sixpences can wheedle;Mine is a friendly cottage—hereNo snarling mastiff need you fear,No Constable or Beadle.'Tis yours, I know, to draw at willUpon Futurity a bill,And Plutus to importune:—Discount the bill—take half yourselfGive me the balance of the pelf.And both may laugh at fortune.Ibid.

GEORGE HARVEST

The Rev. George Harvest, of Trinity College, Cambridge, having been private tutor to the Duke of Richmond, was invited to dine with the old duchess, and to accompany her party to the play. He used to travel with a night-cap in his pocket, and having occasion for a handkerchief at the theatre, made use of his cap for that purpose. In one of his reveries, however, it fell from the side-box, where he was sitting, into the pit, where a wag, who picked it up, hoisted it upon the end of a stick, that it might be claimed by its rightful proprietor. Judge of the consternation of a large party of ladies of rank and fashion, when George Harvest rose in the midst of them, and claimed the night-cap (which was somewhat greasy from use) by the initials G.H., which were legibly marked on it. The cap was restored to him amidst shouts of laughter, that ran through the pit to the great discomfiture of the duchess and the rest of the party.—Ibid.

SCIENTIFIC RECREATIONS

ELECTRICAL PHENOMENA

(From the Treatise on Electricity—in the Library of Useful Knowledge.)

The colours produced by the electric explosion of metals have been applied to impress letters or ornamental devices on silk and on paper. For this purpose Mr. Singer directs that the outline of the required figure should be first traced on thick drawing paper, and afterwards cut out in the manner of stencil plates. The drawing paper is then placed on the silk or paper intended to be marked; a leaf of gold is laid upon it, and a card over that; the whole is then placed in a press or under a weight, and a charge from a battery sent through the gold leaf. The stain is confined by the interposition of the drawing paper to the limit of the design, and in this way a profile, a flower, or any other outline figure may be very neatly impressed.

Most combustible bodies are capable of being inflamed by electricity, but more especially if it be made to strike against them in the form of a spark or shock obtained by an interrupted circuit, as by the interposition of a stratum of air. In this way may alcohol, ether, camphor, powdered resin, phosphorus, or gunpowder be set fire to. The inflammation of oil of turpentine will be promoted by strewing upon it fine particles of brass filings. If the spirit of wine be not highly rectified, it will generally be necessary previously to warm it, and the same precaution must be taken with other fluids, as oil and pitch; but it is not required with ether, which usually inflames very readily. But on the other hand, it is to be remarked that the temperature of the body which communicates the spark appears to have no sensible influence on the heat produced by it. Thus the sparks taken from a piece of ice are as capable of inflaming bodies as those from a piece of red-hot iron. Nor is the heating power of electricity in the smallest degree diminished by its being conducted through any number of freezing mixtures which are rapidly absorbing heat from surrounding bodies.

HEATING ROOMS

A new invention for heating rooms has met with much encouragement in Paris. A piece of quick-lime dipped into water, and shut hermetically into a box constructed for the purpose, is said to give almost a purgatory-heat, and prevent the necessity of fire during winter.—Lit. Gaz.

THE SELECTOR; AND LITERARY NOTICES OF NEW WORKS

GOLDEN RULES. TO RENDER MEN HONEST, RESPECTABLE, AND HAPPY

By Sir Richard Phillips

All members of the human family should remember, that the human race is, as to time and nature, but as one totality; for, since every man and woman had two parents, each parent two parents, and so on in geometrical progression, hence every individual, high or low, must necessarily be descended from every individual of the whole population as it existed but a few hundred years before, whether they were high or low, virtuous or abandoned; while every procreative individual of the existing race must be the actual progenitor of the entire race which may exist at the same distance of future time. What motives for charity, for forbearing from injuries, for benevolence, for universal love.

The bed of sickness, with its increased sensibility of nerves, is a delicate test of man's conscience, and of self-approbation or reprobation. Requiring sympathy himself, he now sympathizes with others; and, unable to direct his thoughts to external things, they are forced upon himself. Great is then his solace, and efficacious his medicines, if he has no other reflections than such as are supplied by his justice, liberality, and benevolence; but accumulated will be his sufferings, and dangerous the result, if crimes and misdeeds force themselves at such a time on his mind; while in any delirium of fever he will rave on those subjects, and, without vision, will often perceive, by the mere excitement of his brain, the spectres of the injured making grimaces before him.

If you are rich, and want to enjoy the exalted luxury of relieving distress, go to the Bankrupt Court, to the Court for Insolvent Debtors, to the gaols, the work-houses, and the hospitals. If you are rich and childless, and want heirs, look to the same assemblages of misfortune; for all are not culpable who appear in the Bankrupt and Insolvent Lists; nor all criminal who are found in gaols; nor all improvident who are inmates of work-houses and hospitals. On the contrary, in these situations, an alloy of vice is mixed with virtue enough to afford materials for as deep tragedies as ever poet fancied or stage exhibited; and visiters of relief would act the part of angels descending from Heaven among men, whose chief affliction is the neglect of unthinking affluence.

Marriage is a circumstance of life, which, in its actual course, involves the feelings and fortunes of human beings more than any other event of their lives. It is a connexion generally formed by inexperience, under the blindness and caprice of passion; and, though these conditions cannot be avoided, as forming the bases of the connexion, yet it is so important, that a man is never ruined who has an interesting, faithful, and virtuous wife; while he is lost to comfort, fortune, and even to hope, who has united himself to a vicious and unprincipled one. The fate of woman is still more intimately blended with that of her husband; for, being in the eyes of the law and the world but second to him, she is the victim of his follies and vices at home, and of his ill success and degradation abroad. Rules are useless, where passions, founded on trifling associations and accidents, govern; but much mischief often results from fathers expecting young men to be in the social position of old ones, and from present fortune being preferred to virtues; for industry and talent, stimulated by affection, and fostered by family interests, soon create competency and fortune; while a connexion founded on mere wealth, which is often speedily wasted by dissipation, habits of extravagance, and the chances of life, necessarily ends in disappointment, disgust, and misery.

Wretched is the man who has no employment but to watch his own digestions; and who, on waking in the morning, has no useful occupation of the day presented to his mind. To such a one respiration is a toil, and existence a continued disease. Self-oblivion is his only resource, indulgence in alcohol in various disguises his remedy, and death or superstition his only comfort and hope. For what was he born, and why does he live? are questions which he constantly asks himself; and his greatest enigmas are the smiling faces of habitual industry, stimulated by the wants of the day, or fears for the future. If he is excited to exertion, it is commonly to indulge some vicious propensity, or display his scorn of those pursuits which render others happier than himself. If he seek to relieve his inanity in books, his literature ascends no higher than the romances, the newspapers, or the scandal, of the day; and all the nobler pursuits of mind, as well as body, are utterly lost in regard to him. His passage through life is like that of a bird through the air, and his final cause appears merely to be that of sustaining the worms in his costly tomb.

The decline of life, and the retrospections of old age, furnish unequivocal tests of worthiness and unworthiness. Happy is the man, who, after a well-spent life, can contemplate the rapid approach of his last year with the consciousness that, if he were born again, he could not, under all the circumstances of his worldly position, have done better, and who has inflicted no injuries for which it is too late to atone. Wretched, on the contrary, is he, who is obliged to look back on a youth of idleness and profligacy, on a manhood of selfishness and sensuality, and on a career of hypocrisy, of insensibility, of concealed crime, and of injustice above the reach of law. Visit both during the decay of their systems, observe their feelings and tempers, view the followers at their funerals, count the tears on their graves; and, after such a comparison, in good time make your own choice.

Constant change is the feature of society. The world is like a magic lantern, or the shifting scenes in a pantomime. TEN YEARS convert the population of schools into men and women, the young into fathers and matrons, make and mar fortunes, and bury the last generation but one. TWENTY YEARS convert infants into lovers, and fathers and mothers, render youth the operative generation, decide men's fortunes and distinctions, convert active men into crawling drivellers, and bury all the preceding generation. THIRTY YEARS raise an active generation from nonentity, change fascinating beauties into merely bearable old women, convert lovers into grandfathers and grandmothers, and bury the active generation, or reduce them to decrepitude and imbecility. FORTY YEARS, alas! change the face of all society; infants are growing old, the bloom of youth and beauty has passed away, two active generations have been swept from the stage of life, names so cherished are forgotten, and unsuspected candidates for fame have started from the exhaustless womb of nature. FIFTY YEARS! why should any desire to retain their affections from maturity for fifty years? It is to behold a world which they do not know, and to which they are unknown; it is to live to weep for the generations passed away, for lovers, for parents, for children, for friends, in the grave; it is to see every thing turned upside down by the fickle hand of fortune, and the absolute despotism of time; it is, in a word, to behold the vanity of human life in all its varieties of display!

Social Philosophy.

THE GATHERER

A snapper up of unconsidered trifles.—SHAKSPEARE

SHERRY

Commentators have puzzled themselves to find out Falstaff's sherries sack: there can be no doubt but that it was dry sherry, and the French word sec dry, corrupted into sack. In a poem printed in 1619, sack and sherry are noted throughout as synonymous, every stanza of twelve ending—

Give me sack, old sack, boys,To make the muses merry,The life of mirth, and the joy of the earth,Is a cup of old sherry.

CURIOUS WILL

By a Student of the University of Dublin.Cum ita semper me amares,How to reward you all my care is,Consilium tibi do imprimisFor I believe that short my time is;Amice Admodum amande,Pray thee leave off thy drinking brandy,Video qua sorte jaceo hic,'Tis all for that, O sick! O sick!Mors mea, vexat matrem piam,No dog was e'er so sick as I am.Secundo mi amice bone,My breeches take, but there's no money,Et vestes etiam tibi dentur,If such old things to wear you'll venture;Pediculos si potes pellas,But they are sometimes prince's fellows;Accipe libros etiam musam,If I had lived I ne'er had used them,Spero quod his contentus eris,For I've a friend almost as dear is,Vale ne plus tibi detur.But send her up, Jack, if you meet her.C.K.W.

OLD ST. PAUL'S

In the old cathedral of St. Paul, walks were laid out for merchants, as in the Royal Exchange. Thus, "the south alley for usurye, and poperye; the north for simony and the horse fair; in the middest for all kinds of bargains, meetings, brawlings, murthers, conspiracies; and the font for ordinary paiements of money, are so well knowne to all menne as the beggar knows his dishe."

THE LINCOLNSHIRE EEL,

A bit of Munchausen

In the year 1702, there was a universal complaint among the feeders of cattle in the fens, that they frequently lost a horse, an ox, or a cow, and could not discover by what means; when watching more narrowly, they observed a horse, and presently after a cow, go to the river to drink, and suddenly disappear. On going to the river-side they saw an eel, the body of which was as large as an elephant. They could not doubt but this was the thief who had so often robbed them of their cattle, and they very reasonably concluded if they could catch the eel, their cattle would henceforth drink in safety. A council being called among the farmers, they determined upon the following expedient:—They sent to London and purchased a cable and anchor, by way of fishing-line and hook, and roasted a young bullock, with which they baited the hook, and fastened the end of the cable round a barn, which stood about a hundred feet from the river, and then waited to see what the morning would produce. At break of day they repaired to the riverside, when, to their great astonishment, they found that the eel had been there and swallowed the bait, but in endeavouring to disengage himself, had pulled the barn after him into the river, and having broken the cable, made his escape.

With the present is published a SUPPLEMENTARY NUMBER, containing the SPIRIT of "the ANNUALS" for 1829—with Critical Notices of their Engravings and Literary Contents, copious Selections, and Unique Extracts, and a FINE ENGRAVING from a splendid subject; in one of the most popular of these elegant works.

LIMBIRD'S EDITION OF THE FOLLOWING NOVELS ARE ALREADY PUBLISHED:

1

Dr. Stukely, who says, that acan in the Chaldee signifies a serpent, and hac is no other than a snake. In Yorkshire they still call snakes hags; and in the British language pen denotes a head.

2

The only place in which they do not progress mutually is the theatre. Look at the scenery of our patent theatres, and compare it with the vulgar daubs even of John Kemble's time. Some of the scenes by Stanfield, Roberts, Grieve, and Pugh, are "perfect pictures." Yet the language of the stage is at a stand, and insipid comedy, dull tragedy, and stupid farce are more abundant than before the "march of mind".

3

While on the subject of wood-engraving, perhaps we may he allowed to mention our own humble plan of illustrating a sheet of letter-press for twopence. Of course, perfection in the engraving department would have ruined all parties concerned; for each of our subjects (as the miniature painters tell you of their works) might be worked up to "any price". It is now six years since the MIRROR was commenced, and as we are not speaking of ourselves, individually, we hope we may refer to the progressive improvement of the graphic department without any charge of vanity.

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