392 Ice Manufacture-Lord Byron's Plagiarisms. [VOL 3 In the beginning of the seventeenth found a ready sale, and was the occasion century, however, drinking cups made of so great an increase in the number of of ice, and iced fruits, were brought to sellers of lemonade, that in the year 1676, table; and before its conclusion the the lemonadiers of Paris were formed French began to congeal all kinds of into a company, and received a patent well-tasted juices, which were served up from the government. as refreshments at the tables of the great and wealthy. In the beginning of the next century, the principle of congealing water by the In the year 1621, Barclay's Argenis, mixture of salt or nitre with ice and snow an interesting romance, was published was so well known, that it was then beat Paris; and its author places on the come, in Paris and elsewhere, a common table of Juba, in the middle of summer, amusement for children, who had a trick fresh apples for Arsidas, one half of of placing a jug containing a mixture of which were incrusted with transparent snow and saltpetre on a table over which ice. A bason of ice filled with wine water had been poured, and agitating was also handed to him, and he was in- the mixture with a stick, till the jug beformed that to prepare all these things came firmly frozen to the table.* in summer was a new art. In this, and the succeeding month, A few years after the publication of much knowledge may be gained of mathe book just mentioned, a new beverage rine plants, shells, &c. &c., by those who was introduced, called lemonade, which visit the sea-coast. The healthful amusesoon came into high repute, and was rec- ment of wandering over the sands or ommended by physicians against putrid beach, and among the caverns of our diseases. About the year 1660 an Ital- sea-girt isle, may easily be rendered imian from Florence, having learnt a pro- proving to the mind, as well as the body, cess of freezing confectionary, which had by bringing us acquainted with the great. been before employed only by jugglers, Author of Nature, in the apparently conceived the happy idea of converting most insignificant, but wonder-fraught, such beverage entirely into ice. This works of his almighty hand. + Very easy and simple directions for making iceeups for drinking of wine in summer, will be found in Mr. Boyle's History of Cold. title xiv, page 137. * See Mr. Parkes's Chemical Essays, vol. i, p. 239 ; Rees's Cyclopædia, art. Cooling of Liquers; and Beckmann's History of Inventions, vol. iii. LORD BYRON. From the Gentleman's Magazine, May 1818. And priests and warriors, in the gleam, -But was it the tempestuous air, THAT Lord Byron, notwithstanding And in murmurs swept the arras behind; In his "Fair Isabel," Mr. Polwhele thus describes what he calls "the breath of the wintry night." "While oft to eddying gusts, the fane Very similar is the following passage "As he heard the night-wind sigh– Was it the wind through some hollow stone Like the figures on arras that gloomily glare As they seem through the dimness about to come down From the shadowy wall, where their images frown As the gusts on the tapestry come and go." Siege of Corinth. VOL. 3.] Varieties. VARIETIES. CRITICAL, LITERARY, AND HISTORICAL. From the London Monthly Magazine. POP m 393 It appears from Seneca, that the anPOPE'S HOMER. cient Egyptians, in the disposition which POPE'S moonlight scene, from the they allotted to the genders of their Iliad, though perpetually cited, and nouns, paid a singular and delicate comthough praised by mechanical critics, pliment to the fair sex. In the four eleis mere verbiage. Pope had no percep- ments, beginning with water: they aption of the picturesque,-which consists pointed the ocean, as a rough boisterous in distant and individual painting he existence, to the male sex: but streams generalizes what in Homer is particular, and fountains they left to the more gentle and gives us traditionary metaphors and females. As to earth, they made rocks vague bombast ; "the lamp of night," and stones male, but arable and meadow and "floods of glory." What is lands female. Air they divided thus: worse,--he had not the feeling to be to the masculine gender, rough winds touched with the solitariness of the and hurricanes of every kind; to the shepherd,-who is described as cheered female, the sky and the zephyrs. Fire, by the sight of the starry heavens. We when of a consuming nature, they made have a whole gang of country folks, male, but artificial and harmless flames peering up at the sky, and blessing the they consigned to the feminine class. "useful light" of the moon. Cowper Not so the Romans. They made a has turned this with happy simplicity -Heaven opened wide, All glitters, and the shepherd's heart is cheer'd. The following makes no pretensions to be considered as a successful translation; it is au experiment, only to show that the passage is capable of being rendered in rhyme, within a much narrower range than Pope has taken : As the chief stars glow visible on high, Round the bright moon, in calm and breezeless sky; The cliffs, the beacon-heights, emerge to sight, And all the glimmering glens are touch'd with light: The shepherd muses in his joy alone. From the European Magazine. The ladies were no great favourites of the Greek comic poets-Will they pardon a translation of an extract from a comedy of Eubulus, not very remarkable for its gallantry. May Jove confound me, if my mind most awkward, and, in some instances, existence of their art. attachment to The women of Plautus are almost uniformly bad. Those in Terence are little better; and the only one among them who had done a good action, begs pardon of her husband, as being convinced of her own criminality in doing it. "Mi Chreme, peccavi! Fateor Vincor."* Terent. Heaut. The prose writers of the Augustan era seem to have favoured the sex no more than the poets; and Seneca's account of the ladies of his time is at least as bitter as the sixth satire of Juvenal. There was published at Leyden (about the year 1754) a Syriac translation, with a Latin version, of two epistles, said to be written by St. Clement of Rome, the disciple of St. Peter the Apostle, but It will hardly be believed, by the unclassical reader, that the fault for which the good lady bege pardon in these humble strains, "I was wrong, my Chremes! I own it; I am convinced of it ;" was neither more nor less, than the saving her child from being murdered, as her husband and its father had ordered. 394 Original Anecdote of Rousseau-Mahomet's Prohibition of Wine. [VOL3 much more probably the production His companion angrily withdrew his arm, of some bigotted monk of the early saying: "Allow me to use my own faages, than of an almost immediate suc- culties." Some coaches, passing by at cessor of Jesus Christ. As a specimen the time, parted them; each took his of his work, the following extract will own way, and this was the last as well as probably be thought suflicient. He the first time that Gretry saw the philoso From the same. MAHOMET'S PROHIBITION OF WINE. The prohibition of wine by the great prophet of the Mussulmans is grounded on the following legend: Two angels, Haroth and Maroth,were sent from heaven to the earth to govern mankind, and to teach them in particu speaks to his brethren as to the pro- pher. per conduct to be observed concerning women:-"Let us neither eat, nor drink, nor inhabit, nor have any thing in common with them. If we are benighted at a distance from home, and invited by any of our friends, let us, if possible, lodge with a single man. But at any rate, let us admit no woman into our company, but let man officiate only with man. If it happens that there are lar to abstain from three things-murder, only women in the place, let us convene them together, and, after having addressed to them an edifying discourse, let us request the oldest and most reserved to give us a lodging where there is no woman, and after having brought us a lamp and other necessaries, to leave us to ourselves." From the New Monthly Magazine, June 1818. ANECDOTE OF ROUSSEAU. judging unjustly, and drinking wine. For some time matters went on wonderfully well: men learned by degrees to throw off the dominion of the senses and appe. tites; they became rational, kind, and sociable, and the two angels were every where lauded to the skies as the wisest of rulers and the most just of judges. One beautiful and at the same time artful woman destroyed all this happiness. She was engaged in a law-suit with her At the performance of an opera, com- husband, and to gain over the two saposed by Gretry, the latter was introduc- preme judges to her side, she invited ed to Rousseau who thus addressed him: them one morning to breakfast, and took "How happy I am to see you! I had good care to mingle wine profusely with long believed my heart to be closed the viands. The unsuspecting angels against the soft emotions which your freely partook of the savoury dishes, till music has excited in it. I must make at length desires unbecoming of angels your acquaintance, Sir; though it would were awakened in them. The woman be more correct to say that I am already smiled at the success of her stratagem, acquainted with you from your works. but was not to be purchased at a cheap But I wish to be your friend. Are you rate. She wished to make an excursion married?"--"Yes."-"Have you mar- in the air, and even to heaven; she thereried a woman of esprit as it is called?" fore insisted that one angel should teach "No."-"I thought so!"- My wife her the magic words which would enable never says any thing but what she feels, her to ascend thither, and the other those and simple Nature is her guide."- which would secure her return. The "So I thought! O, I love the artists; anger of heaven was inflamed at this prothey are children of Nature; I must ceeding. The angels were summoned, learn to know her; I must see her and were obliged to pronounce their often."-During the performance he own sentence, which was, that they several times pressed the hand of Gretry, should be suspended by a chain, and who remained with him, and they left thus languish till the great judgment-day. the house together. In the street they The woman was transformed into the came to a heap of stones, left by the pa- star Lucifer. viours, which Rousseau seemed not to So far the Arabian prophet. To this observe. Gretry, apprehensive that he story, pregnant with meaning, he subwould tumble over them, took him by joins the question:-" Is not this cust the arm and begged him to take care. sufficient to avoid wine!" VOL. 3.] From the Literary Gazette, June 1818. ANECDOTE. Varieties. Doctor Garth, who was a great frequenter of the Wits Coffee House (the Cocoa-Tree, in St. James'-street,) sitting there one morning conversing with two persons of rank, when Rowe, the poet, (who was seldom very attentive to his dress and appearance, but still insufferably vain of being noticed by persons of consequence) entered, and placing himself in a box nearly opposite to that in which the Doctor sat, looked constantly round with a view of catching his eye; but not succeeding, he desired the waiter to ask him for his snuff-box, which he knew to be a valuable one, set with diamonds, and the present of some foreign prince; this he returned, and asked for so repeatedly, that Garth, who knew him well, perceived the drift, and accordingly took from his pocket a pencil, and wrote on the lid the two Greek characters P (phi rho,) which so mortified the poet that he quitted the room. 66 And ten low words oft creep in one dull line." In the following lines from ShakPope. speare's Julius Cæsar, there are no less than sixteen monosyllables: "I am glad that my weak words Have struck but thus much show of fire from Brutus." HANDSOME COMPLIMENT. Lady C was rallying the Turkish Ambassador concerning the Alcoran's permitting each Mussulman to have many wives. "Tis true, Madam,' replied the Turk; and it permits it, that the husband may, in several, find the various accomplishments which many Englishwomen, like your Ladyship, singly possess.' PRIDE OF ANCESTRY. 395 INDIAN. Such is the baptismal appellation given to this Indian on his conversion to the Christian faith. During his stay in England he was taught the English language, in which he has made a very tolerble proficiency, and his hand writing is legible. In his person he is well made, his complexion a copper color, and he is about five feet six inches in height: he is robust and very active. His canoe, which is now on board the Isabella, sent out to explore the arctic regions, is the same in which he was found at sea. It is fifteen teet long, and entirely formed from the skin of the sea calf; it is sea proof. Each end is pointed, like those boats that ply on the Thames, and which are called funnies; but the upper part is open like the deck of a little sloop. In himself, which comes up to his loins; the midst is an opening in which he seats then, by means of a belt made of the intestines of the whale, he fastens round his body the skins that are placed round this opening; and the upper part of his body is so well wrapped up in furs, that only his hands and face are exposed to the water. In this position, with one single paddle, he manœuvres his canoe either in advance or retreat, with the most surprising swiftness, and far superior to that of any fouroared cutter; but what is the most astonishing of all his manœuvres, he can give to his vessel all the properties of a diving machine, and shelter himself like an aquatic fowl in the most stormy weaIn the castles and palaces of the an- is totally plunged under the water, while ther he lays it entirely on one side, and cient nobility of France, the tapestry fre- his canoe, still following the same direcquently presents memorials of their pride tion, has its keel turned upwards: he of ancestry. On the tapestry of an then goes on the other side and places apartment in the palace of the Duke de himself as before: what renders this Croy, at Paris, is a representation of the movement the more extraordinary is, that Deluge, in which a man is seen running during all this time he never lets go his after Noah, and calling out: "My good My good paddie. He has shown these mancufriend, save the archives of the CROYS!" Another piece of tapestry in the pa- crowd of spectators. When he throws his lace of the Duke de Levis represents the dart he never misses his aim, and he throws Virgin Mary with an ancestor of the de a long lance to a considerable distance. vres on the river to the astonishment of a 396 Coxe's Memoirs of Marlborough-The Royal George. [VOL. 8 MONTHLY REGISTER OF LITERATURE, ART, AND SCIENCE. THE NEW PUBLICATIONS, WITH CRITICAL REMARKS. From the Monthly Magazine, June 1818. HE Memoirs of John Duke of Marlborough, with his original cor respondence; by WM. COXE, M.A.-will fill up an important hiatus in the biography of illustrious men. The first volume of this work is just published. What Mallet and Glover did not, or could not, accomplish, seems now in a fair way to be done, in the best manner, by the present historian; who has had access to a very voluminous mass of papers; not only the different collections in this country, but even the Continent has been laid under contribution for materials of this life of the hero of Blenheim. The present volume details the events of the Duke of Marlborough's life, from his birth in 1650, to the year 1706,-a period of time most eventful in the annals of England. We recommend this work as one which will do honour to our national character. The style is easy and unaffected, and will add further meed to the already wellearned literary merits of the Archdeacon of Wilts. Extracted from the Monthly Review. We bouts for some weeks afterwards. 'INSCRIPTION FOR A MONUMENT 'To the memory of those sailors, whose bodies were (after the wreck of the Royal George, who sunk at her anchors at the beach at Ryde, in the Isle of Wight, Spithead, in the year 1782,) cast up on and buried in a small meadow under the woods of St. John's near that place. "Thou! who dost tread this smooth and verdant mead, On either hand, a sylvan theatre; These mould'ring heaps, which the blue spiry grass Scarce guards from mingling with the common earth The clashing wave in horrid whirlpool rush'd: "Then day by day, A Description of the principal Pictu- She reeled and sunk.-Over her swarming deeks resque Beauties of the Isle of Wight. By Sir H. C. Englefield, Bart. ....On the picturesque scenery of the island we forbear to dilate, because it has been already presented to our contemplation by tourists and topographers; the ensuing episodical effusion, however, we may venture to say, has not been anticipated : "Near this stream several rows of graves still rise above the general level of the turf. These I had often noticed with out a suspicion of what they really were, till one day meeting an old fisherman, I asked him why those heaps so like graves had been thrown up. The man in a low tone, and with a sort of sullen look said, "They are graves :-the bodies thrown ashore after the loss of the Royal George were buried here. We did not much like drawing a net herea The livid corpse: and his o'erloaded net And wish of quiet consummation: For in their country's service these men died.”* • The facts above mentioned are historically tree. The ship, when first she filled, fell over so as to dip Then rolling the flag at her mast-head in the sea. back, she fell over to the other side till her yard-arras touched the water. She then righted, and sunk nearly upright. While she was sinking, nearly every soul on board came on deck; and I was told by Admiral Sotheby, then a lieutenant on board the next ship, that this mass of people gave a cry so lamentable, that it was still ringing in his ears. It was supposed that at the time of the accident, above a thousand persons, men and women, were on board: not four hundred were saved. The eddy made by the sinking ship was so great, shat a large victualling barge which lay along side was drawn in, and lost with her." |