Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

heath. He, poor fellow, was likewise forbid the house, because according to my directions, he made my cloaths to fit easy. A more fashionable operator was charged with preparing a new suit with gold button-holes. He made them to fit so exactly, that I dare not bring my hands to meet before me for fear of laying open my spinal bone.

My hat is not to be flapp'd any more, even though the sun shines full in my face.I am no longer suffered to wash my face, according to custom, every morning at the pump in my back yard, though nothing was more refreshing; nor any thing more handy, than the towel which revolved on a roller at the back of the kitchen door.

On my return home the other day from visiting a patient, I found the maid had set my study to rights, as she called it: but the confusion which the regularity has occasioned, is almost inconceivable. My toe-pin, my shoeing-horn, and tobacco-stopper,are lost for ever: my papers are disposed in such order, that I know not where to recur to any thing I want.

Two pair of old Manchester velvet breeches, which I left on the back of a chair, have disappeared; and instead of the easy slippers which I had made out of an old pair of shoes, by cutting the straps off, I found a new pair, of red leather, adorned with white stitches round the edges, and made so neat, that I can't bear to walk in them.

My woollen night-cap is condemned, in company with my brown hose, to the vile purpose of rubbing the grates and fenders; and my wife insists that I wear one of linen, flounced on all sides, and adorned with a black ribband, which tying together the aperture within an inch and a half of the top, carelessly flows down on the side. I took such a

violent cold the first night, that it brought a defluxion of humours into my right eye, which very nearly deprived me of sight.

The staircase and stones are all waxed; it saves the expense of mops indeed; but I have such falls, that I have almost dislocated every joint about me.

My neck is stretched out in such a manner,that I am apprehensive of having my throat cut with the pasteboard.

When I remonstrate on any of these articles, she stops my mouth by a kiss, and says-my dear angel-we must have some little regard to appearances.

She is, as I told you, but six years younger than myself: yet she dresses, dances, and drives as if she was but five and twenty.

This however, and much more, I could bear-I deserve it:-I am content she shall consume six and thirty yards more than my old maid Hester in the spinnings of her gown--she may play a shilling a fish at quadrille; she may do, aye, she may do what she pleases, let me have but my study to myself; let my night-cap and my slippers be restored, and I will submit to wear the new coat and the wig every Sunday.

I am, Sir, your much distressed, confused, humble Servant,

Benedict Blister.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

Q! who can tell, in wisdom school'd "Twere better to have liv'd and rul'd; To feel th' unnumber'd anxious cares That press each brow the crown that wears; Suspected hate, and dreaded scorn, That turn each jewel to a thorn; While thousands round the footstool bend, To stand too high to have a friend; To know not whom to trust; to fear Each proffer'd service insincere; To be the statesman's plaything made, To be caress'd-to be betray'd; Of each substantial joy bereav'd, Cajol'd, hail'd, flatter'd, and deceived; With faults-expos'd and magnified, With virtues-oft, too oft, denied Perhaps, to injure, to oppress; To joy in war, to spread distress; To play th' unfeeling tyrant's part, To own the selfish, sensual heart, The passions all without control; The giv'n-and then, the squander'd soul? O! woe-fraught life! O blest release!Sleep, still-born infant,-sleep in peace!

Perhaps, on holier, happier ground, (For who th' Eternal's pow'r shall bound?) Further than furthest comets run, The mother yet may clasp her son, And say,-"Behold me, King of Heav'n; "Me, and the infant thon hast giv'n! "Behold us cast before thy throne "Our brighter crowns: receive thine own."

We know not-but there speeds an hour When fades to dust terrestrial pow'r ;When many a sceptr'd mass of clay May wish he ne'er had seen the day;

[blocks in formation]

(Which, like the sensative plant) Enhances admiration whilst it appears recede from it,)

Still marked his character; And (a lesson for the professors of fancied elegance)

He disdained not the productions of others of his profession,

But sang them occasionally; And, not blinded by self-love, it is doubtful But he prized them equally.

In his manners, he was to his friends Courteous without affectation, aud familiar without rudeness;

And though he possess'd no sort of religion, His gratitude for Nature's blessings And admiration of her works, Proved he could not be an atheist.

To sum up his character,

He was a tame linnet, who piped the tunes taught him by a bird organ, and the glass which contained his seed, not being properly adjusted, he was found dead in his cage, May 15th.

EPITAPH

On Mrs. Jane Nicholls, who departed this life January 2d. 1821, in the 74th year of her age, and inhumated on the 12th following, in the new burying ground belonging to St. Giles's Parish, a few paces north from the Cenotaph to the memory of Mrs. Soams.

"Sic vita est Hominum.”*

Titles may charm the vain, inglorious mind, 'But what are these, the soul to virtue blind?

But gilded flies upon a worthless thorn,
Or rays that gleam above a wintry morn.
When all beneath presents a gloomy scene
Sterile of good, to cheer the drooping mein :
The corse below in animation's hour,
Had more to claimthan vain ingloriouspow'r;
The greatest ornaments of human life,
The tender Parent! and the faithful Wife!
Patience was her's in every stage of ill,
And resignation to her Maker's will;
For others wrongs she always had a tear,
Her friendship ardent! lasting! and sincere,
Till Heav'n uprais'd her from this world of

woe,

To find that bliss the good alone can know, The Husband writes these lines upon the

stone,

To teach that worth which dignifies a throne! T.N.

Death is the fate of all that live.

Humour.

COURT SERVICE.

The favorites of princes would seldom be envied, if it were always known how dearly they sometimes purchased their good fortune. The princess Ursini, that celebrated woman who once played so brilliant a part in Spain, describes very amusingly in a letter to the Marshal Noailles, all the burthens that were united with her situation. It must be remembered that she was a woman of elevated birth, and still more elevated spirit, how great then will be the astonishment at the humility to which an unbridled ambition submitted, when she looked upon it, as the means of attaining her purpose.

"Good God! what have they made of me? I enjoy not the least rest, and have scarcely a moment to speak to my secretary. I must not even think of enjoying the secsta, or of eating when I am hungry. I must be glad, when in flight, I can swallow down a couple of bits; and even this is not enough, for I am often called, when I have only just sat down to table. Really Madame de Maintenon would laugh, if she was made acquainted with all the little details of my services. For I am she, who has the honor to receive the king's night gown when he gets into bed, and to give him the same again, together with his slippers, when he gets up. This might do well enough. But that, on every evening, (when the

king goes to the queen,) the Count Benavente with his majesty's sword, to be loaded with a pot de chambre and night lamp, which last I generally spill upon my clothes, that is then indeed too vexatious. If in the morning I did not draw open the king's curtains, I really believe he would never get up, for no person besides myself must dare to enter the bed chamber, whilst the king is in bed with the queen. Lately the night lamp went out, for I had spilled half the oil; crushed my nose to pieces against the I could not find the window, and almost wall: the king got up, we tapped about for half a quarter of an hour, and sometimes gave each other pokes in the ribs at the window. His majesty I am so much in favour with, that he sometimes makes me come to his bed, even two hours before day, to talk with him. The queen, it is true, takes a share in this pastime, but I have never been able to instil into her so much confidence, as she grants to her Piedmontese chamber-maid. That surprises me, for I serve her better than she does, and I am certain, that "I wash her feet, and draw on her stockings, &c. &c. the best and the quickest." It must be confessed, that the price with which the princess purchased the royal favour, would be for many too high.

[ocr errors]

Hymns.

I saw the virtuous man contend
With life's unnumber'd woes,
And he was poor-without a friend,
Press'd by a thousand foes.

I saw, too, Passion's pliant slave,
In gallant time and gay:
His course was pleasure's placid wave,
His life a summer's day.

And I was caught in Folly's snare,

And join'd her giddy train:

But found her soon the nurse of care,
And punishment, and pain.

There surely is some guiding Power,
Which rightly suffers wrong,
Gives Vice to bloom its little hour,
But Virtue late and long.

Inscriptions.

ANECDOTE OF AN ARABIAN. Almansur, a noble and rich Arab, ate, drank, gamed, and wallowed in all kinds

of luxury. One day, as he was tortured with ennui, and attacked with disgust and loathing, he conceived the strange whim of visiting all the graves of his forefathers. He descended into the tombs, aud wandered among the mouldering bones, not with the serious thoughts that one day even his ashes would be mixed with their's, but with the ideas of a voluptuary: "That here it was delightfully cool, and excellently adapted to promote the business of digestion."

Suddenly his attention was attracted by a half obliterated inscription: "In this grave," so it imported, lies a much greater treasure than was ever possessed by Crasus." Almansur, whose riches were pretty well exhausted, with joyful eagerness ordered the grave to be immediately opened, and he found a handful of dust under a marble tablet, on which were engraven the following words:

"Blind mortal, when thou profanest this vault with daring hand, know that here reigns UNINTERRUPTED PEACE--a treasure that even Cræsus himself never possessed."

Miscellanies.

--

PORTRAIT. Could you not give a little expression to that countenance? said a gentleman to an eminent painter, who shewed him a portrait that he had just finished; I have made that attempt already, replied the painter, but, what the picture gained in expression, it lost in likeness; and by the time there was a little common sense in the countenance, nobody knew for whom it was intended. I was obliged, therefore, to make an entire new picture, with the face perfectly like, and perfectly unmeaning as you see it.

ecclesiastics. A young gentleman who
lodged in an attic, and was their close
neighbour, frequently entertained him-
self with thinning this covey of black
game, by means of a cross-bow. On
the opposite side lived a curious old civi-
lian, who, observing from his study that
the rooks often dropt senseless from their
perch, no sign being made to his vision
to account for the phenomenon, set his
wits to work to consider the cause. It
was probably during a profitless time
of peace,
and the doctor, having
plenty of leisure, weighed the mat-
ter over and over till he was at length
satisfied that he had made
a great
ornithological discovery. He actually
wrote a treatise, stating circumstantially
what he himself had seen, and in con-
clusion giving it as the settled convic-
tion of his mind, that rooks were subject
to epilepsy.

. I went last

THE SALAMANDER.
evening with many others, by polite in-
vitation from Monsieur Chabert, to see
him perform his fiery experiments. From
the number of Artists who were seated
around me, I have little doubt but that
this foreign Salamander invited the
Royal Academy of Arts, supposing it
to be the Royal Society, or some other
Academy of Science.---What a mistake!

It may be sufficiently incredible, if I add, that he actually went through the following warm work with the utmost coolness. He put his naked fist into melted lead; he swallowed two table spoonsful of boiling oil, and bathed his hands and face in the same; he melted sealing wax, letting it drop flaming on his tongue, whence two gentlemen took impressions of their seals; and after various other experiments, he finished by eating five fair-mouthfuls of lighted torch, wax, tow, and all, as if it were sallad.---Your constant Reader, VERITAS.

A LEARNED DISCOURSE.---Among Friday Morning, Feb. 27, 1818.
the discoveries of the learned which
have amused mankind, the following in-
stance merits a conspicuous rank.---
Some years ago there were several large
elm-trees in the College-Garden, behind
the Ecclesiastical Court, Doctor's Com-
mons, in which a number of rooks had
taken up their abode, forming in ap-
pearance a sort of convocation of aerial

COUNSELLOR Grady, on a late trial
in Ireland, said, he recollected to have
heard of a relentless Judge; he was
known by the name of the hanging
Judge, and was never seen to shed a
tear but once, and that was during the

representation of the Beggar's Opera, In Spain and Portugal

when Macheath got a reprieve.

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small]

DIED, in the parish of Aiglish, in the vicinity of Killarney, at the very advanced age of 115 years, Theodore O'Sullivan, the celebrated Irish Bard. This extraordinary man who was a gre it composer in his native language, expired suddenly on Wednesday last, whilst sowing oats in the field of one of his great grandchildren, and retaining his faculties to the last moment! He is said to have sung to the plough one of his favorite lyrics, and actually breathed his last at the final stanza of his national melody.. The deceased also followed the occupation of a cooper, and is said to have. made a churn, from which butter was taken for the christening of his 26th great grand-child.

--

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

In the United States

In the Mahommedan States

10,000 3000

of Asia, Europe, and Africa 4,000,000 In Persia and the rest of Asia, including China and India

Total

500,000

6,598,000

THERE is a case now in Chancery in which the executors of a person lately deceased resist the payment of a doctor's bill, partly on the ground of its enormous amount. The following items read in Court certainly shew an uncommon fondness for physic in the deceased: ---Fifteen visits in the day-time, and nine visits at night, at a guinea each time; five thousand seven hundred and twenty-eight draughts; one hundred and sixty-eight mixtures; one hundred and nineteen bolusses; sixty-eight lotions; seventy-eight liniaments; two hundred and fifty-eight boxes of pills and other doses of various descriptions to the amount of seven hundred!

Sonnets.

On the Death of SPRIGGINS, a favourite Cat, aged 16 years.

Spriggins, thy sorrowing mistress drops a

tear,

And much laments she ne'er again shall see Thee frisk about with grave agility, And on thy hind supporters proudly rear Thy supple form-Alas! thou dost appear A poor and loathsome corpse, unfit to be Before the eyes of fair humanity, Which cannot need an object so severe, Unless perchancethesightofdeathshouldbring Even in the shape of a four-footed thing Reflection to the mind?---farewell "kind brute;

My soul is dispossessed of all its mirth, And every feeling shaken to the root, To see my fellow-animal thus turn'd to earth! M.R. S.

ON THE GRASSHOPPER and CRICKET.

I.

[FROM POEMS BY JOHN KEATS.] THE poetry of earth is never dead:

When all the birds are faint withthe hot sun And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run

From hedge to hedge about the new-mown

mead;

That is the Grasshopper's ;—he takes the lead

« AnteriorContinuar »