Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

O! that men should put an enemy into their If you would expose both your folly and mouths to steal away their brains. Your secrets, be a drunkard; and they will soon run out while the liquor runs in.

SHAKSPEARE. All the crimes on earth do not destroy so many of the human race, nor alienate so much property, as DRUNKENNESS. LORD BACON, IF you wish to be always thirsty, be a drunkard; for the oftener and more you drink, the oftener and more thirsty

you will be.

If you seek to prevent your friends raising you in the world, be a drunkard; for that will defeat all their efforts.

If you would effectually counteract your own attempts to do well, be a drunkard; and you will not be disappointed.

If you wish to repel the endeavours of the whole human race to raise you to character,credit,and prosperity, be a drunkard; and you will most assuredly triumph. If you are determined to be poor, be a drunkard; and you will soon be ragged and pennyless.

If you would wish to starve your family, be a drunkard; for that will consume the means of their support.

If you would be spunged on by knaves, be a drunkard; and that will make their task easy.

If you wish to be robbed, be a drunkard; which will enable the thief to do it with more safety.

If you wish to blunt your senses, be a drunkard; and you will soon be more stupid than an ass.

If you would become a fool, be a drunkard; and you will soon lose your understanding.

If you wish to incapacitate yourself from rational intercourse, be a drunkard; for that will render you wholly unfit for it. If you wish all your prospects in life to be clouded, be a drunkard; and they will soon be dark enough.

If you would destroy your body, be a drunkard; as drunkenness is the mother

of disease.

If you mean to ruin your soul, be a drunkard; that you may be excluded from Heaven.

If you are resolved on suicide, be a drunkard; that being a sure mode of destruction.

If you are plagued with great bodily Strength, be a drunkard; and it will soon be subdued by so powerful an antagonist.

without knowing how, be a drunkard ; If you would get rid of your money and it will vanish insensibly.

If you would have no resource when past labour but a workhouse, be a drunkard; and you will be unable to provide any.

mestic harmony from your house, be a If you are determined to expel all dodrunkard; and discord, with all her evil train, will soon enter.

If you would be always under strong suspicion, be a drunkard; for,little as you think it,all agree that those who steal from themselves and families will rob others.

cessity of shunning your creditors, be a If you would be reduced to the nedrunkard; and you will soon have reason to prefer the bye-paths to the public

streets.

If you like the amusements of a court of conscience, be a drunkard; and you may be often gratified.

If you would be a dead weight on the community, and "cumber the ground," be a drunkard; for that will render you useless, helpless, burdensome, and expensive.

If you would be a nuisance, be a drunkard; for the approach of a drunkard is like that of a dunghill.

If you would be odious to your family and friends, be a drunkard; and you will soon be more than disagreeable.

a

If you would be a pest to society, be drunkard; and you will be avoided

as infectious.

If you dread reformation of your faults, be a drunkard; and you will be impervious to all admonition.

If you would smash windows, break the peace, get your bones broken, tumble under carts and horses, and be locked up in watch-houses, be a drunkard; and it will be strange if you do not succeed.

Finally, if you are determined to be utterly destroyed, in estate, body, and

[blocks in formation]

soul, be a drunkard; and you will soon know that it is impossible to adopt a more effectual means to accomplish your-END.

DRUNKENNESS expels reason-drowns the memory-defaces beauty-diminishes strength-inflames the blood-causes internal, external, and incurable wounds Is a witch to the senses, a devil to the soul, a thief to the purse-the beggar's companion, a wife's woe, and children's sorrow-makes a strong man weak, and a wise man a fool. He is worse than a beast, and is a self-murder

[VOL. 2.

er, who drinks to other's good health,
and robs himself of his own.
Fly drunkenness, whose vile incontinence
Takes both away the reason and the sense,
Till with Circaan cups thy mind possest,
Leaves to be man, and wholly turns a beast.
Think, whilst thou swallow'st the capacious
bowl,

Thou let'st in seas to wreck and drown the
soul****

***Quite leave this vice, and turn not to't
again,
Upon presumption of a stronger brain:
For he that holds more wine than others can,

I rather count a hogshead than a man.

VARIETIES:

CRITICAL, LITERARY, AND HISTORICAL.

From the Monthly Magazine.

RANDOLPH.

We are reminded of the literary pleasures of with three different plums. In the reign our youth in the appearance of a third vol

ume of Mr. d' Israeli's Curiosities of Litera- of Elizabeth, Edward Grindal, afterture. We remember no work, since their wards archbishop of Canterbury, refirst appearance, that has gratified our pal- turning from exile, transported here the ate in an equal degree. They did not con

sist of sirloin and plum-pudding, but they medicinal plant of the Tamerisk: the first presented a feast of sweetmeats and delica- oranges appear to have been brought incies, derived from all seasons and countries, to England by one of the Carew family; which were capable of gratifying a literary

epicure. The present volume sparkles less for a century after, they still flourished with that vivacity of manner, which, in his at the family seat at Beddington, in former works, has sometimes been ascribed to the author as a fault in this feature he Surrey. The cherry orchards of Kent seems to have corrected himself, while, in were first planted about Sittingbourne, his discrimination of subjects, he has been quite as happy as in his former volumes. by a gardener of Henry VIII.; and the His entire table of contents is, in truth, a currant-bush was transported when our list of curiosities, and no book ever answer- commerce with the Island of Zante was

Essay on Pantomimical Characters, on

ed better to its pretensions. The Historical first opened in the same reign. To Sir Charles the First and his Queen, and on Walter Rawleigh, we have not been Licensers of the Press, are peculiarly pleas- indebted solely for the luxury of the ing and original; the Anecdotes of Audley the Miser, of Felton, and of Tea and Coffee, tobacco-plant, but for that. infinitely are rare and curious; and the defences of useful root, which forms a part of our Defoe, and of the partizans of Mary Stuart, daily meal, and often the entire meal of are just and generous; while every article is marked by the good taste of its criticisms, the poor man--the potatoe, which deby the propriety of its selection, and by the served to have been called a Rawleigh, purity and elegance of its style. Mr. d'Israel has had many imitators, and he must Sir Anthony Ashley first planted cabexpect to see many others, but he will have bages in this coentry, and a cabbage at his feet appears on his monument. - Sir Richard Weston first brought clover grass into England from Flanders, in 1645; and the figs planted by Cardinal Pole at ΤΗ HE great number of our exotic flow Lambeth, so far back as the reign of ers and fruits were carefully trans- Henry VIII. are said by Gough to be ported into this country by niany of our still remaining there; nor is this surtravelled nobility and gentry; some prising, for Spilman, who set up the first names have been casually preserved. paper-mill in England, at Dartford, in The learned Linacre first brought, on his 1590, is said to have brought over in his return from Italy, the damask-rose; and portinanteau the two first lime-trees, Thomas Lord Cromwell, in the reign of which be planted here, and which are Henry VIII. enriched our fruit-gardens still growing, and worth seeing. The

few rivals in this walk of literature. That we have not over-praised the labours of Mr. D'ISRAELI will be evident from the following extracts.]

EXOTIC FLOWERS AND FRUITS.

De Foe's "Robinson Crusoe."

63

VOL. 2.] first mulberry-trees in this country are hints to the mature state, to which only now standing at Sion-house. the genius of De Foe could have wrought The very names of many of our vege- it. Captain Burney, in the fourth voltable kingdom indicate their locality: ume of his " voyages and discoveries to from the majestic Cedar of Lebanon, the South Sea," has arranged the evito the small cos-lettuce, which came dence in the clearest manner, and finally from the isle of Cos; the cherries from settled a point hitherto obscure and unCerasuntis, a city of Pontus; the peach, certain. I have little to add; but, as or Persicum, or mala Persica, Persican the origin of this universal book is not apples, from Persia; the Pistachio, or likely to be sought for in Captain BurPsittacia, is the Syrian word for that ney's valuable volumes of voyages, here nut. The chesnut, or Chataigne, in it may not be out of its place. French, and Castagna in Italian, from The adventures of Selkirk are well Castagna, a town of Magnesia. Our known; he was found on the desert plums coming chiefly from Syria and island of Juan Fernandez, where he had Damascus, the damson, or Damascene formerly been left, by Woodes Rogers plum, gives us a recollection of its distant and Edward Cooke, who in 1712 puborigin.

Some lines at the close of Peacham's emblems give an idea of an English fruitgarden in 1612. He mentions that cherries were not long known, and gives an origin to the name of Filbert.

"The Persian peach, and fruitful quince;
And there the forward almond grew,
With cherries known no long time since;
The winter warden, orchard's pride;
The philibert that loves the vale,
And red queen-apple, so envide
Of school-boies, passing by the pale.”

ROBINSON CRUSOE.

lished their voyages, and told the extraordinary history of Crusoe's prototype, with all those curious and minute particulars which Selkirk had freely communicated to them. This narrative of itself is extremely interesting; and has been given entire by Captain Burney; it may also be found in the Biographia Britannica.

In this artless narrative we may discover more than the embryo of Robinson Crusoe.-The_first appearance of Selkirk, "a man clothed in goats' skins, who looked more wild than the first owners of them." The two huts he had built, the ROBINSON CRUSOE, the favourite of one to dress his victuals, the other to the learned and the unlearned, of the sleep in; his contrivance to get fire by youth and the adult; the book that was rubbing two pieces of pimento wood toto constitute the library of Rousseau's gether: his distress for the want of bread Emilius, owes its secret charm to its and salt till he came to relish his meat being a new representation of human na- without either; his wearing out his shoes, ture, yet drawn from an existing state: till he grew so accustomed to be without this picture of self-education, self-in- them, that he could not for a long time quiry, self-happiness, is scarcely a fiction, afterwards, on his return home, use them although it includes all the magic of ro- without inconvenience; his bedstead of mance; and is not a mere narrative of his own contriving, and his bed of goattruth, since it displays all the forcible ge- skins; when his gun-powder failed, his nius of one of the most original minds teaching himself by continual exercise to our literature can boast. The history of run as swiftly as the goats; his falling the work is therefore interesting. It was from a precipice in catching hold of a treated in the author's time as a mere idle goat, stunned and bruised, till, coming to romance, for the philosophy was not his senses, he found the goat dead under discovered in the story; after his death him; his taming kids to divert himself it was considered to have been pillaged by dancing with them and his cats; his from the papers of Alexander Selkirk, converting a nail into a needle; his confided to the author; and the honour, sewing his goat-skins with little thongs as well as the genius, of De Foe, were of the same; and, when his knife was alike questioned. worn to the back, contriving to make The entire history of this work of ge- blades out of some iron-hoops. His nius may now be traced, from the first solacing himself in this solitude by sing

64

Varieties: Critical, Literary, and Historical.

60

(VOL. 2.

ing psalms, and preserving a social feeling political warfare, condemned to suffer in his fervent prayers. And the habi- imprisonment, and at length struck by a tation which Selkirk had raised, to reach fit of apoplexy, this unhappy and unproswhich, they followed him, "with diffi- perous man of genius on his recovery was culty climbing up and creeping down reduced to a comparative state of solimany rocks, till they came at last to a tude. To his injured feelings and lonely pleasant spot of ground, full of grass and contemplations, Selkirk in his desert isle, of trees, where stood his two huts, and and Steele's vivifying hint,often occurred; his numerous tame goats shewed his and to all these we perhaps owe the insolitary retreat;" and, finally, his in- structive and delightful tale, which shews difference to return to a world, from man what he can do for himself, and which his feelings had been so perfectly what the fortitude of piety does for man. weaned. Such were the first rude Even the personage of Friday is not a materials of a new situation in human mere coinage of his brain; a Mosquitonature; an European in a primeval state, Indian described by Dampier was the with the habits or mind of a savage. prototype. Robinson Crusoe was not The year after this account was pub- given to the world till 1719; seven years lished, Selkirk and his adventures at after the publication of Selkirk's Adventracted the notice of Steele; who was tures. Selkirk could have no claim on not likely to pass unobserved a man and De Foe; for he had only supplied the a story so strange and so new. In his man of genius with that which lies open paper of "the Englishman," Dec. 1713, to all; and which no one had, or perhaps he communicates further particulars of could have, converted into the wonderful Selkirk. Steele became acquainted with story we possess but De Foe himself. him; he says, that he could discern Had De Foe not written Robinson that he had been much separated from Crusoe, the name and story of Selkirk company, from his aspect and gesture, had been passed over like others of the There was a strong but cheerful serious- same sort; yet Selkirk has the merit of ness in his looks, and a certain disregard having detailed his own history, in a to the ordinary things about him, as if manner so interesting,as to have attracted he had been sunk in thought. The man the notice of Steele, and to have inspired frequently bewailed his return to the the genius of De Foe. world, which could not, he said, with all its enjoyments, restore him to the tranquillity of his solitude." Steele adds another curious change in this wild man, which occurred some time after he had seen him. "Though I had frequently conversed with him, after a few months absence, he met me in the street, and, though he spoke to me, I could not recollect that I had scen him. Familiar converse in this town had taken off the loneliness of his aspect, and quite altered the air of his face. De Foe could not NEW fail of being struck by these interesting particulars of the character of Selkirk; but probably it was another observation of Steele, which threw the germ of Robinson Crusoe into the mind of De Foe. "It was matter of great curiosity to hear him, as he was a man of sense, give an account of the different revolutions in his own mind in that long solitude."

The work of De Foe, however, was no sudden ebullition; long engaged in

After this, the originality of Robinson Crusoe wil no longer be suspected; and the idle tale which Dr. Beattie has repeated of Selkirk having supplied the materials of his story to De Foe, from which our author borrowed his work, and published for his own profit, will be finally put to rest. This is due to the injured honour and the genius of De Foe.

Further extracts in our next.

From the New Monthly Magazine,

PUBLICATIONS IN JULY, 1817, WITH
CRITICAL REMARKS.

France. By Lady Morgan.

already so well known by her publications, The fair author of this interesting work is that we cannot help thinking she would have acted wisely in suppressing the ebullition of for the asperity with which they treated her her resentment against some of the reviewers early productions. This would have been the more advisable, as we fear there are some furnish ample scope for still severer criticism. things in the present performance which will

Our satisfaction, however, at the treat which this ingenious lady has spread before us, will

furnish a ready apology for much of that egotism and superstitious conceit which she

[ocr errors]

VOL. 2.] Morgan's "France"-Coleridge's Life-Hazlitt on Shakspeare.

has displayed while doing the honours of the table. The variety of anecdote here exhibited, and the characteristic sketches of manners and opinions, cannot but prove highly amusing to every class of readers, whether acquainted with France or not; though we should bave been much better pleased had Lady Morgan told what she saw rather than what she felt, and had been content with giving us the result of her own observations, instead of weakening them by adding the designing reports of others. We have been induced to make this remark, not from any wish to undervalue a work which is on many accounts rich in statistical intelligence and entertaining description, but solely from a desire to render the useful matter which it contains more substantially beneficial. The performance is divided into eight books and four appendices; the former by Lady Morgan and the latter by her husband. The first book exbibits a view of the peasantry of France before and since the Revolution, with much upon domestic manners, rural economy, and incidental subjects. The second and third books are devoted to a more general view of society, with a larger portion of politics than we could have wished. The three next books are devoted to Paris; the seventh to the French theatre; and the last to eminent and literary characters, among whom the principal is La Fayette, who appears to be a prime favourite with the author. The Appendices by Sir Charles Morgan are on the state of law finance, medicine, and political opinion in France; upon all which subjects much diligent inquiry has been employed, in a spirit of strict candour with the obvious view of practical utility.

BIOGRAPHY.

Biographia Literaria; or Biographical Sketches of my Literary Life and Öpinions. By S. T. Coleridge, esq.

Self biography is a very delicate undertaking, and few instances can be mentioned wherein it has yielded satisfaction. The late Gilbert Wakefield, of learned but irascible memory, gave a sad example of the vanity of human wisdom, and Mr. Cumberland who was not a whit less irritable, published a memoir of himself in a much better spirit. After all, however, the very act of drawing public attention to the private history of a man's own temper and studies savours so much of that self-importance, happily ridiculed in the "Memoirs of P. P. clerk of this Parish," we are sorry to see this practice taken up by any person of extensive knowledge and approved principles. But genius and madness are very nearly allied, and of the tenuity of the partition the present volumes exhibit, we think, a melancholy illustration. Here and there some amusement and information will be found but the whole that is valuable is intermingled with such a cloudiness of metaphysical jargon in the mystical language of the Platonists and schoolmen, of Kant and Jacob Betmen, as to lose the good effect which it might have produced had it been presented with more simpli city. One chapter upon the misfortune of making authorship a profession is worth all the rest; but it is too short, and appears to disadvantage amidst disquisitions on poetry and the abstractions of the human intellect; the associations of ideas, and the progress of the doctrine of materialism. We are whirled about in such rapid confusion from Aristotle to Hobbes, from Thomas Aquinas to Hume,

K Vol. 2. ATHENEUM.

65

then by abrupt transitions to Southey and Cowley, to Wordsworth and Milton, that in the endless maze we forget our company, the subjects on which we have been engaged, and are as glad to escape from the literary life and opinions of Mr. Coleridge, as we would to the light of day from the darkened cell of a religious enthusiast whose visions and prophecies have rendered confinement necessary for himself and society.

Rachel:

EDUCATION.

: a Tale.

We were at a loss under what head to class

this excellent little piece; and had some thoughts at first of giving it a place under the head of romance; but upon second consideration the book appeared to be too good for such an allotment, and not well knowing how to announce it, we have mentioned it here as admirably calculated for female education. The story is simple, but forcibly instructive, and exhibits, with great life, the contrast between affected sentiment and the sensibility of nature. There are also many valuable remarks scattered throughout on the necessity of cultivating the art of pleasing, no less than of adhering firmly to the simplicity and candour of truth."

MISCELLANEOUS.

Characters of Shakspeare's Plays. By William Hazlitt.

We have long since been disgusted with the commentators and illustrators of Shakspeare, who continue, however, to swarm in abundance every season, as if there was something new to be said upon the genius of that immortal bard. The volume before us is a fresh offspring of vanity, and exhibits no other novelty than

[ocr errors]

profaneness, of which we shall give an instance in what the critic says of the wit of Falstaff :--He carves out his jokes as he would a capon or a haunch of venison, where there is cut and come again; and pours out upon them the oil of gladness. His tongue drops fatness, and in the chambers of his brain it snows of meat and drink. He keeps up perpetual holiday, and open house, and we live with him in a round of invitations to a rump and dozen."

suffered to rest from the exorcising torture of Poor Shakspeare! when will thy spirit be criticism! To our readers, however, we owe perhaps an apology for this extract, in which it would be difficult to shew whether the blasphemy or the stupidity be mest prevalent. In his preface the author abuses Dr. Johnson as an ignoramus, who had neither genius nor taste; but who measured every subject by a two foot rule, or counted it upon ten fingers. From the passage we have selected, and many others, we might with more reason infer, that the calumniator of the great moralist has no higher sense than that which is attracted by the charms of a full flask, or a rump and dozen!

Louis XVIII, and a Husbandman of Gallarden, or a Narrative of the Extraordinary Circumstances which have occurred respecting the Predictions of Thomas Ignatius Martin: his Examination before the Bishop of Versailles and the Ministers of Police, &c.: and finally, his interview with the King.

Our readers, no doubt, are already well acquainted with the story of the apparition of

« AnteriorContinuar »