THE MIRROR
OF
LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.

THE NEW CHURCH OF ST. DUNSTAN IN THE WEST.

In our fourteenth volume we took a farewell glance of the old
church of St. Dunstan, and adverted to the proposed new structure.
Little did we then expect that within three years the removal of
the old church would be effected, and a fabric of greatly
surpassing beauty raised in its place. All this has been
accomplished by the unanimity of the parishioners of St. Dunstan,
unaided by any public grant, and assisted only by their own right
spirit, integrity, and well-directed taste. The erection of this
Church, as the annexed Engraving shows, is not to be considered
merely as a parochial, but as a public, benefit, and must be ranked
among the most important of our metropolitan improvements. The
different situation of the new and the old churches will occasion
an addition of 30 feet to the width of the opposite street, and it
will be perceived by the Engraving,¹ that
improvements are contemplated in the houses adjoining the church,
so as to give an unique architectural character to this
portion of the line of Fleet-street.

The church has been built from the designs and under the
superintendance of John Shaw, Esq., F.R. and A.S. the architect of
Christ’s Hospital. The tower is of the Kelton stone, a very
superior kind of freestone, of beautiful colour, from the county of
Rutland. Of this material King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, and
many other of our finest edifices have been constructed. The tower
has below an entrance doorway, finished with rich mouldings and
tracery; on each side are the arms of his Majesty and the City of
London. Above is a clock with three dials, and a belfry to admit
the fine set of bells² from the
old church, the sound of which will doubtless receive effect
through the four large upper windows which are the main features of
the tower. Above these windows, the tower, hitherto square, becomes
gradually octagonal, springing from corbeled heads; till terminated
by four octagonal pinnacles, and crowned by an octagonal moulded
battlement. Upon the tower is an enriched stone lantern, perforated
with gothic windows of two heights, each angle having a buttress
and enriched finial; the whole being terminated by an ornamental,
pierced, and very rich crown parapet. The height of the tower, to
the battlements, is 90 feet; and the whole height of the tower and
lantern is 130 feet.

The body of the church is of fine brick, finished with stone,
and of octagon form, about 50 feet diameter. The interior has eight
recesses; one of these being occupied by the altar with a large
pointed window above, and three others by the organ and galleries
for the children of the parish schools: the remaining four recesses
are unoccupied by galleries; against their walls are placed the
sepulchral monuments from the old church. The octagon form was
often adopted in the lady-chapels at the east end of our most
ancient cathedrals, where the recesses were devoted to tombs and
private chapels. The upper or clere story is supported on arches,
with an enriched gothic window in each compartment. The roof
springs from clustered columns, branching into an enriched groined
ceiling, with a very large and embellished pendent key-stone in the
centre, from which will be suspended the chandelier to light the
whole of the interior. The ornaments of this key-stone are of a
very elegant character: its foliated tracery, as well as the
richness of the bosses, corbels, and other embellishments
throughout the interior, are extremely beautiful. The pewing,
gallery fronts, and fittings will be of fine oak; and we learn that
the altar and eight clere story windows will be filled with painted
glass. The church is calculated to hold about 900 persons.

The tower is connected with the main body by a lobby, and will
front the street, enclosed with a handsome railing. The builders of
the church are Messrs. Browne and Atkinson, of Goswell-street,
London; and the pewing and interior fittings are about to be
executed by Messrs. Cubitt.

We could occupy a column or a page with enumerating the
monumental remains of the old church, although we have already
mentioned the principal of them. (See Mirror, vol. xiv. p.
145-243.) It is our intention to return to them, even if it be but
to point the attention of the lover of parochial antiquities to a
Series of Views of St. Dunstan and its Monuments, with an
Historical Account of the Church, by the Rev. J.F. Denham; which by
its concise yet satisfactory details, leads us to wish that every
parish in the metropolis were illustrated by so accomplished an
annalist.

ITALIAN HYMN TO THE MADONNA.

ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE FOOD.

“For my part I do much admire, with what soul or with what
appetite the first man, with his mouth touched slaughter, and
reached to his lips the flesh of a dead
animate.”—PLUTARCH.

We ought not perhaps to insist too much on the opinions of the
heathen philosophers, because the extension of knowledge, and a
more matured experience, has shown the fallacy of many of their
notions; but if we were permitted to lay any stress on the
authority of these celebrated men, we might bring forward a mine of
classical learning in commendation of a vegetable diet; we might
point to the life of a Pythagoras, or a Seneca, as well as to the
works of a Plato, and show how the wisest among the ancients lived,
as well as thought, with regard to this subject.

But we shall be contented, as far as authority is concerned, to
rest our claims to attention, rather upon that which bears a more
modern date, and to bring forward the evidence of facts instead of
the theories of ingenuity. The subject itself we may venture to
hope, though a little homely, is not without interest, and
certainly not unimportant. It is somewhat scientific from its very
nature, and so far from being a matter confined to the medical
faculty, it is one on which every man exerts, every day of his
existence, his own free choice, as far indeed as custom has allowed
him the exercise of that freedom.

But, though we will not go back to the dreams of our
forefathers, (who, if they had more genius, had fewer materials for
it to work upon than their servile children,) yet we must always
make the Bible an exception, and in the present case we find it
expedient as well as becoming, to refer to that oldest and most
valuable of records. We have there no express mention of eating
flesh before the Flood; but, on the contrary, a direct command that
man should subsist on the fruits of the earth. (“Behold I have
given you every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of the
earth, and every tree in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding
seed; to you it shall be for meat“—Gen. i. 29.)

After the Flood, when the Israelites were distressed for want of
food in the Wilderness, we find that it was sent to them from
heaven in a vegetable form, and to denote its divine origin and its
superior excellency, it is called in the Scriptures “the corn of
heaven,” and “angels’ food,” &c. Oftener than once this
favoured but ungrateful people despised and loathed this miraculous
provision; they called out for animal food, and accordingly quails
were sent them, but they were punished with destruction by the
flesh which they desired; (“And while the flesh was yet between
their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the Lord was kindled
against the people, and the Lord smote the people with a very great
plague.”—Numb. xi. 33.)

Thus in the first ages of the world, and during the shepherd
state of society, men lived upon berries, and such fruits as the
earth spontaneously produced; we have mentioned generally how the
philosophers of Greece and Rome preferred to live, and there are
not wanting instances of men bred up in the sensuality of modern
times who have followed their example. The philosopher, Franklin,
who reached a great age, for a considerable portion of his life
kept entirely to a vegetable diet; and Abernethy, a name yet more
familiar in our ears, has left us this maxim, that “a vegetable
diet and abstinence from fermented liquors tends more than anything
else to tranquillize the system.”—(vide the Abernethian
Code.) Another popular and scientific writer of the present day
makes a similar confession, which coming from such an unexpected
quarter carries weight: “Although professedly friends to
gastronomy, moderated by a decided aversion to anything like
sensuality, we are of opinion that man is less fit to feed upon
carnal than vegetable substance.” (Accum’s Culinary
Chemistry.)

The author of The Art of Improving Health, has also a
passage in point: “An animal diet, especially in temperate
climates, is more wasting than a vegetable; because it excites by
its stimulating qualities a fever after every meal, by which the
springs of life are urged into constant and weakening exertions: on
the contrary, a vegetable diet tends to preserve a delicacy of
feeling, a liveliness of imagination, and an acuteness of judgment,
seldom enjoyed by those who live principally on meat.” Thus we
might go on multiplying authorities on this subject, but we shall
content ourselves with referring briefly to one or two authors of a
more literary stamp, [pg 36] and have done with quotation. The
eloquent Shelley, in his notes to Queen Mab, pretty roundly
assures us, that “according to comparative anatomy, man resembles
frugivorous animals in everything, carnivorous in nothing;” and the
famous author of the Anatomy of Melancholy, has quaintly but
nervously observed, “As a lamp is choked with over much oil, or a
fire with too much wood, so is the natural heat strangled in the
body by the superfluous use of flesh; thus men wilfully pervert the
good temperature of their bodies, stifle their wits, strangle
nature, and degenerate into beasts.” The somewhat visionary but
fascinating Rousseau, has also in his Treatise of Education,
to which we refer our readers, most powerfully condemned the use of
flesh, and he humorously attributes the proverbial boorishness of
Englishmen to their fondness for roast beef!

And now let us look a little to facts: in all ages of the world
those have ever been the most savage nations which observed an
animal diet. Thus the Tartars, the Ethiopians, the Scythians, and
the Arabians, who live wholly on animal food, possess that ferocity
of mind and fierceness of character, common to carnivorous animals,
while the vegetable diet of the Brahmins and Hindoos gives to their
character a gentleness and mildness directly the reverse; potatoes,
chestnuts, &c. satisfy the wants of the Alpine peasant, and
there are numerous, harmless tribes, who feed solely on vegetables
and water. Even Homer in his time has made the Cyclops, who were
flesh eaters, horrid monsters of men, and the Lotophagi, he has
described as a people so amiable, that when strangers had once
become acquainted with them, and tasted the fruits on which they
lived, they even forgot their native country to take up their abode
with their hosts. But in those civilized countries where animal
food is commonly eaten, it must follow that the lower orders, who
compose the great majority of the population, cannot partake of it
in any great quantities; now it does not appear that the rich enjoy
better health from this luxurious mode of living, or that the poor
are less healthy from the want of it; on the contrary, the
wealthier classes are subject to many chronic and other disorders
arising from their aliment, and they have a very large body of
physicians, who subsist by a constant attendance on them, while on
the other hand, those in the lower walks of life are seldom out of
health, owing to their more simple and less injurious mode of
living; they suffer only from accident and natural disease, and,
generally speaking, when they are attacked, it proves their first
and last illness. Moreover, as the poor are more at ease while they
live, so too experience shows that they live longer; cases of
longevity are very rare with those in affluent circumstances, while
most of the famous instances on record of persons arriving at
extraordinary old age, have been peasants, fishermen, &c.

An hospital was established some short time since in the
neighbourhood of London for the purpose of experiment, and it was
ascertained by actual computation, and by comparison with the bills
of mortality, that an average number of persons will reach a
greater age by observing strictly a vegetable diet.

Compared with the English, the French have a greater proportion
of arable land than pasture, and consequently they rear fewer
cattle, yet they have a thriving population, and that would hardly
be if they were stinted in quality or quantity of food. The Irish
peasantry live principally on potatoes, yet they have seldom been
found fault with as labourers, and seem to be a well-built and
able-bodied race of men. But we have not only sufficient proof of
the beneficial effect of vegetable aliment—there are many
instances on record, if we had time or space for them—to show
how detrimental the contrary regimen has sometimes been. One
example is worth mentioning: a man was prevailed on by a reward to
live upon partridges without any vegetables, but he was obliged to
desist at the end of eight days, from the appearance of strong
symptoms of putrefaction.

That we live upon meat, and yet increase in growth and strength
is little to the point, but whether we might not be still better
without it; dogs thrive upon flesh, but biscuits are better for
them: that we are fond of it is still less pertinent, for who does
not know that custom alters nature itself, that it becomes, in
fact, a second nature, and that such things as we are accustomed
to, though actually evil in their own nature, yet become gradually
less offensive, and at last pleasant. We have very remarkable
proofs of this in all parts of the world. In China they eat cats
and dogs, while the poorer classes think rats, mice, and other
vermin, no bad food. The Romans thought peacocks a dainty, which we
quite nauseate. The Greenlander and the Esquimaux relish train-oil,
whilst these and all savages, on first tasting our wines are
disgusted and spit them out. Horse-flesh is commonly sold in the
markets of the north. Then again, there are some wandering Moors,
who subsist entirely on gum senegal, and there have been many cases
of shipwreck where the mariners have even subsisted for weeks on
old shoes, tobacco, or whatever they could get; in short, what
cannot custom effect? The Turk, by constant habit, is enabled to
take opium in quantities that would soon destroy us; and every one
must have known private cases where individuals in this country
could take laudanum in surprising doses; we have all more or less
experienced the power of habit in our acquired tastes, [pg 37] and
whether we derive pleasure from the fumes of tobacco, or approve
the flavour of olives, we may remember that at first we disliked,
or were indifferent about either. History itself informs us, that
Mithridates was able to drink poison; and there was a female slave,
sent to Alexander by King Porus, who was even brought up with it
from her infancy. But to bring this influence of custom upon the
taste, still more in point, we find recorded in a work upon
zoology, the following remarkable case:—The provender for a
lamb, which a ship’s company had on board, was all consumed; in the
absence of other food they offered it flesh, which it was at last
compelled to devour, and gradually acquired such a relish for this
new aliment, that it could never after be prevailed on to eat any
thing else.

It is very certain that the most natural tastes are the most
simple: our first aliment is milk, and it is only by degrees we
bring ourselves to relish strong food; one speaking proof that such
stimulating diet is not natural to the human palate, is the
indifference children have for such food, and they evidently prefer
pastry, fruit, &c., until the digestive organs become more
depraved. Neither has man the peculiarities of a carnivorous
animal; he has no hawk-bill, no sharp talons to tear his prey, and
he wants that strength of stomach and power of digestion which is
requisite to assimilate such heavy fare; his tongue is not rough,
but, as compared with that of ravenous animals, of a very smooth
texture; neither are his teeth pointed and rough like a saw, which
above all is a distinguishing mark. It is well known that in our
West Indian colonies, all the negroes still surviving, who were
originally brought over from Africa, have their teeth filed down to
this day, which was at first expressly done for the purpose of
tearing and eating human flesh. It is probable that the first man
who adopted this most horrible custom, was driven to it by
necessity and the want or scarcity of other food, and we know
certainly that cannibals are as much excited by the spirit of
revenge as by an appetite for flesh, in devouring their captured
enemies; we, however, have not even this poor plea; we are even
ungrateful in attending to the satisfaction of our desires, for we
kill without remorse, as well the ox that labours for us, as the
sheep that clothes us, and disregarding all the natural wealth of
the fields, and the delicacies of the garden, we capriciously
destroy creatures who are no doubt sent into the world to enjoy
life as well as ourselves. But you who contend that you are born
with an inclination to such food, why object to kill what you would
eat? do it, however, with your own hands, and without the aid of a
knife; tear your victim to pieces with your fingers, as lions do
with their claws, and after worrying a hare or a lamb, fall on and
eat alive as they do; drink up the flowing blood, and devour the
flesh while it is yet warm! Is not the very idea horrible? we know
we could not do it; as it is, the sight of uncooked flesh with all
its raw horror excites loathing and disgust, and it is only by
culinary preparation, it can be softened and rendered somewhat more
susceptible of mastication and digestion; it must be completely
transformed by roasting, boiling, &c., and afterwards so
disguised by salts, spices, and various sauces, that the natural
taste is gone, the palate is deceived into the admission of such
uncouth fare, and finds a flavour in the taste of these cadaverous
morsels.

May we be allowed to take for granted, that health may be
preserved through the same means by which it is recovered? If so,
animal food is clearly an impediment to a healthy state of body,
for health is restored by a simple and fleshless diet, and
therefore may be preserved by the same regimen. That animal food is
highly stimulant there can be no doubt; but like all other
stimulants, it produces weakness eventually, for when excitement
has been brought to its acme, debility must of necessity
succeed.

The grand objection to an animal diet, is its detrimental effect
upon the mind: it is well known that flesh-eating makes the body
strong and lusty, (and it is for that reason recommended to
pugilists who are in a course of training,) but the mind becomes
weak and inactive; for it must needs happen, where a muddy and
clogged body is shackled down by heavy and unnatural nourishment,
that all the vigour and brilliancy of the understanding must be
confused and made dull, and that, wanting clearness for nobler
things, it must ramble after little and unworthy objects. The
passions cannot fail to be excited, and thus the whole of the
irrational nature becoming fattened as it were, the soul is drawn
downward and abandons its proper love of true being. The truth of
this we must all more or less have experienced: we are never so
lively when we have dined, and the studious man knows well that the
morning is the more proper time for his employment.

Why then should we not liberate ourselves from such
inconvenience, by abandoning as far as we can a fleshy diet? and
let us remember, that even on the score of comfort, the pain of
indigence is much milder than that which is produced by repletion.
We should thus free ourselves at once from a heavy and somnolent
condition of body, from many and vehement diseases, from the want
of medical assistance, from “the crassitude of the corporeal bond,”
and above all, from that savage and unnatural strength which
incites to base actions, so as to escape an Iliad of evils!

F.

MY FATHERLAND.

FROM THE GERMAN OF KORNER.

THE NATURALIST.

ERRORS IN NATURAL HISTORY.

(From Chit-chat, in the Magazine of Natural History, by
Dovaston and Von Osdat.)

Dov. Ray tells a humourous story, that, after the
patiently exploring commissioners, at the end of their long
examinations, deliberately confessed their utter ignorance to
account for the Goodwin Sands, an old man gravely asserted
Tenterden steeple to be the cause.

Von Os. Tenterden steeple!

Dov. Ay; Tenterden steeple: for that those sands first
appeared the year it was erected.

Von Os. And the slightest interview with the mass of
mankind, any hour, will prove the race of Tenterden philosophers to
be far from extinct.

Dov. Particularly with regard to facts relative to
natural history: and this is the more lamentable, and perhaps the
more surprising, when we consider its unlimited adaptability to all
capacities, ages, sexes, and ranks; and, moreover, the absolute
necessity of many parts of it to their intellectual existence.

Von Os. There is in our village, a slater, very fond of
keeping bees. These useful insects, he says, at breeding-time sweat
prodigiously; and each lays four eggs at the bottom of each cell:
soon after which, he has observed the combs to become full of
maggots, which must be carefully destroyed by smoke! When any one
of his numerous family is buried, as the corpse passes out of the
house, he carefully loosens every hive, and lifts it up; otherwise,
he says, the bees would all die!

Dov. The superstitions about bees are numberless.

Von Os. And yet this poor fellow believes himself
inspired with “grace abounding;” and readily undertakes to
“spound,” as he calls it, any verse read to him, however
remotely insulated from the context.

Dov. But what would you think of a gentleman I have the
pleasure of visiting in the higher ranks, and whose conversation is
really a happiness to me, who talks of little young bees?—and
really believes that they grow! He smiled at me compassionately
when I told him that insects never grew when in the perfect state;
but, like Minerva from the brain of Jove, issue full-armed with
sharpest weapons, and corslets of burnished green, purple, and
gold, in panoply complete: yet is this gentleman a man of genius,
wit, and very extensive knowledge.

Von Os. Not in bees.

Dov. He was not aware of the numerous species of British
bees; and that several, of a small intrepid sort, will enter the
hives, and prey on the treasures of their more industrious
congeners.

Von Os. Reasoning from analogy does not do in natural
history.

Dov. No; for who, without observation, or the information
of others, ever by analogical reasoning could reconcile the
enormous difference of size and colour, in the sexes of some of the
humble bees?—or ever discover that in some species there are
even females of two sizes?

Von Os. But these never grow.

Dov. Certainly not. Bees, however, hatched in very old
cells, will be somewhat smaller: as each maggot leaves a skin
behind which, though thinner than the finest silk, layer after
layer, contracts the cells, and somewhat compresses the future
bee.

Von Os. No ignorance is so contemptible as that of what
is hourly before our eyes. I do not so much wonder at the fellow
who inquired if America was a very large town, as at him who,
finding the froth of the Cicada spumaria L. on almost every blade
in his garden, wondered where were all the cuckoos that produced
it.

Dov. They call it cuckoo-spit, from its plentiful
appearance about the arrival of that bird.

Von Os. That is reasoning from analogy.

Dov. And yet I see not why the bird should be given to
spitting; unless, indeed, he came from America.

Von Os. The vulgar, too, not only delight in wonders
inexplicable, but have a rabid propensity to pry into futurity.

Dov. I believe that propensity is far from being confined
to the vulgar.

Von Os. True; but not in so ridiculous a way: as they
prophesy the future price of wheat from the number of lenticular
knobs (containing the sporules) in the bottom of a cup of the
fungus Nidularia.

Dov. The weather may be foretold with considerable
certainty, for a short time, from many hygrometric plants, and the
atmospheric influence on animals.

Von Os. And from Cloudology, by the changing of
primary clouds into compound; and these resolving themselves into
nimbi, for rain; or gathering into cumuli, for fair weather. This
is like to become a very useful and pleasing science.

Dov. It is wonders of this kind, and forewarnings of this
nature, that natural history offers to the contemplative mind: in
the place of superstitious follies, and unavailing predictions,
such as the foretelling of luck from the number or chattering of
magpies; and the wonder how red clover changes itself into grass,
as many a farmer at this moment believes.

Von Os. Linnaeus himself was a bit of a prophet; as,
indeed, thus well he might; for experience and observation amount
almost to the power of vatacination. In his Academic
Aménities he says, “Deus, O.M. et Natura nihil frustra
creaverit. Posteros tamen tot inventuros fore utilitates ex muscis
arguor, quot ex reliquis vegetabilibus.”

Dov. English it, Von Osdat; thou’rt a scholar.

Von Os. “God and Nature have made nothing in vain.
Posterity may discover as much in mosses, as of utility in other
herbs.”

Dov. And, truly, so they may: one lichen is already used
as a blessed medicine in asthma; and another to thicken milk, as a
nutritive posset. And who, enjoying the rich productions of our
present state of horticulture, can recur without wonder to the
tables of our ancestors? They knew absolutely nothing of vegetables
in a culinary sense; and as for their application in medicine, they
had no power unless gathered under planetary influence, “sliver’d
in the moon’s eclipse.”

Von Os. When Mercury was culminating, or Mars and Venus
had got into the ninth house.

Dov. ‘Tis curious to reflect, that at the vast baronial
feasts, in the days of the Plantagenets and Tudors, where we read
of such onslaught of beeves, muttons, hogs, fowl and fish, the
courtly knights and beauteous dames had no other vegetable save
bread—not even a potato!

Von Os.

Dov. And when the cloth was drawn—

Von Os. Cloth!—

Dov. They had scarce an apple to give zest to their
wine.

Von Os. We read of roasted crabs; and mayhap they had
baked acorns and pignuts.

Dov. Ha! ha! ha!—Caliban’s dainties. Now we have
wholesome vegetables almost for nothing, and pine-apples for a
trifle. Thanks to Mr. Knight—push the bottle—here’s to
his health in a bumper.

Von Os. Who, walking on Chester walls in those days, and
seeing the Brassica oleracea, where it grows in abundance, would
have supposed that from it would spring cabbages as big as drums,
and cauliflowers as florid as a bishop’s wig?

Dov. Or cautiously chaumbering an acrid sloe,
imagine it to be the parent of a green gage?

Von Os. This is the Education of Vegetables.

Dov. The March of Increment!

THE TULIP TREE.

This tree is now in bloom. It is a native of North America,
where it is vulgarly called the poplar. The first which produced
blossoms in this country, is said to have been at the Earl of
Peterborough’s, at Parson’s Green, near Fulham. In 1688 this tree
was cultivated by Bishop Compton at Fulham, who introduced a great
number of new plants from North America. At Waltham Abbey, is a
tulip tree, supposed to be the largest in England. The leaves of
the tulip tree are very curious, and appear as if cut off with
scissors. The flowers, though not glaring, are singularly
beautiful, resembling a small tulip, variegated with green, yellow
and orange, standing solitary at the ends of the branches. I saw
one of these curious trees in full bloom a few days since between
Edmonton and Enfield.

P.T.W.

CHANGES DURING THE MATURATION OF FRUIT.

The sap is changed into a viscid fluid, which circulates under
the bark: this is called cambium. When it is too abundant it
is effused, part of its water evaporates, and it becomes gum. If
the vital circle is not interrupted, the fluid traverses the
branches, and the peduncle arrives in the ovary, and constitutes
the pericarp. In this passage it is partly modified: it
appropriates to itself the oxygen of its water of composition;
hence the malic, citric, and tartaric acids. As the fruit becomes
developed, the pellicle thins, becomes transparent, and allows both
light and heat to exercise a more marked influence. It is during
this period that maturation commences. The acids react on the
cambium, which flows into the fruit, and, aided by the increased
temperature, convert it into saccharine [pg 40] matter;
at the same time they disappear, being saturated with gelatine,
when maturation is complete.—London Medical and Surgical
Journal.

We may here observe that in a recent paper, by Mr. J. Williams,
in the Transactions of the Horticultural Society, the cause of
apples becoming russet is attributed to the alternating
temperature, light, shade, dryness, and moisture, which occur many
times in the course of a day, when July or August is showery.
Continued rain, preceded and followed by a cloudy sky, does not
seem to produce the same effect, but the sudden, intense light
which commonly succeeds a shower at the time the fruit is wet,
injures the skin, and occasions small cracks, like the network upon
a melon.

MIGRATION OF BIRDS.

Whatever theory of instinct may be finally fixed upon as the
most correct and philosophical, (to account for the migratory
movements of birds,) it is obvious that we cut rather than untie
the gordian knot when we talk of the foresight of the brute
creation. We might as well talk of the foresight of a barometer.
There can be little doubt that birds, prior to their migratory
movements, are influenced by atmospherical changes, or other
physical causes, which, however beyond the sphere of our
perceptions, are sufficient for their guidance. That they are not
possessed of the power of divination may be exemplified by the
following instance. The winter of 1822 was so remarkably mild
throughout Europe, that primroses came generally into flower by the
end of December,—rye was in ear by the middle of March, and
vines, in sheltered situations, blossomed about the end of that
month,—so that an assured and unchecked spring was
established at least four or five weeks earlier than
usual;—yet neither the cuckoo nor the swallow arrived a
single day before their accustomed periods. They are indeed,
beautifully and wisely directed,—”Yea, the stork in the
heavens knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle, and the crane,
and the swallow, observe the time of their coming.”—(From a
delightful paper upon American Ornithology, in the Quarterly
Review, just published.)

FINE ARTS.

STATUE OF MR. PITT.

This splendid tribute to the memory of the darling minister, has
been placed at the south side of Hanover Square. It is of bronze,
and stands on a granite pedestal, of size disproportionate to the
height and bulk of the figure. The artist is Mr. Chantrey: the work
being at the cost of the nobility of the land, and a few ardent
admirers of “the system” introduced by Mr. Pitt into the government
of this country. We have long had festal celebrations and joyous
commemorations of the natal day and deeds of the
minister—”the darling of fame”—but the above is the
most lasting memorial. Its bronze will in all probability outlast
the mettle of party. The resemblance is considered striking, and
the effect of the statue is bold and dignified. Biographers tell us
that “in person, Pitt was tall, slender, well-proportioned, and
active. He had blue eyes, rather a fair complexion, prominent
features, and a high, capacious forehead. His aspect was severe and
forbidding; his voice clear and powerful; his action dignified, but
neither graceful nor engaging; his tone and manners, although
urbane and complacent in society, were lofty, and even arrogant, in
the senate. On entering the house, it was his custom to stalk
sternly to his place, without honouring even his most favoured
adherents with a word, a nod, or even a glance of recognition.”

THE DIORAMA, REGENT’S PARK

Has reopened with two new views—Paris from Montmartre, (by
no means a new, but, perhaps, the best, point of view of the
city,)—and the famed Campo Santo of Pisa. The execution of
both scenes is calculated to maintain the unique reputation
of the establishment. They have the fine effects, the finishing
touches, of master-hands.

NEW BOOKS.

THE TRIALS OF CHARLES I.

(With those of some of the Regicides have been prepared for the
31st volume of the Family Library. We suspect the editor to
be M. D’Israeli, who has been poring over the records and fingering
the dust of the Royal “martyr” for many years past. Our honourable
friend, Clavering, of the Metropolitan, in his recollections
of the British Museum, long since, says, “there sat D’Israeli,
daily extracting from the voluminous M.S. letters of James I. and
Charles I.” Whoever the compiler of this volume may be, it must be
allowed that, in the form of notes and biographies, he has brought
into less than 350 pages a greater collection of interesting
incidents connected with his main subject than many writers would
have cared to assemble; and he has accordingly produced a work, in
every respect, fitted for popular reading. We quote passages from
the Execution to the Interment of Charles, but we have not room for
the Editor’s very pertinent “Remarks on the Trial.”)

On the morning of his death, Charles, according to the relation
of his faithful attendant, Sir Thos. Herbert, awoke about two hours
before daybreak, after a sound sleep of four hours. He called to
Herbert, who lay on a pallet, by his bedside, and bade him rise;
“for,” said the King, “I will get up, I have a great work to do
this day.” He then gave orders what clothes he would wear, and said
to his attendant, “Let me have a shirt on more than ordinary, by
reason the season is so sharp⁴ as
probably may make me shake, which some observers will imagine
proceeds from fear. I would have no such imputation. I fear not
death—death is not terrible to me. I bless God, I am
prepared.” Soon after the King was dressed, Bishop Juxon came to
him, according to his appointment the night before. He remained an
hour in private with him, when Herbert was called in, and the
Bishop prayed with the King, using the prayers of the church, and
then read the 27th chapter of St. Matthew, which so beautifully
describes the passion of our Saviour. The King thanked the Bishop
for his choice of the lesson; but he was surprised and gratified to
learn that it was the lesson for the day according to the
calendar.

About ten o’clock Colonel Hacker knocked at the King’s chamber
door, and, being admitted by Herbert, came in trembling, and
announced to the King that it was time to go to Whitehall, where he
might have further time to rest; and soon afterwards the King,
taking the Bishop by the hand proposed to go. Charles then walked
out through the garden of the palace into the Park, where several
companies of foot waited as his guard; and, attended by the Bishop
on one side, and Colonel Tomlinson on the other, both bare-headed,
he walked fast down the Park, sometimes cheerfully calling on the
guard to “march apace.” As he went along, he said, “he now went to
strive for an heavenly crown, with less solicitude than he had
often encouraged his soldiers to fight for an earthly diadem.”

At the end of the Park, the King⁵ went up
the stairs leading to the long gallery, and so into the Cabinet
Chamber of the Palace of Whitehall. Being delayed here in
consequence of the scaffold not being ready, he offered up several
prayers, and entered into religious discourse with the Bishop.
About twelve he ate some bread, and drank a glass of claret,
declining to dine after he had received the sacrament.

When Charles arrived at Whitehall, the Colonels Hacker, Huncks,
and Phayer produced to Tomlinson the warrant for his execution; and
in the Horn Chamber the King was delivered by Tomlinson into the
custody of those officers; Charles requested Tomlinson, however, to
remain with him to the last, and acknowledged his kind and
respectful conduct by presenting to him a gold toothpicker and case
which he carried in his pocket. Tomlinson also introduced to him
Mr. Seymour, who brought a letter from the Prince to his father,
with whom the King conversed, and charged him with various messages
for the Prince.

In the mean time a different scene was passing in Ireton’s
chamber, a small room in another part of the palace. Ireton and
Harrison were here in bed; and Cromwell, Axtell, Huncks, Hacker,
and Phayer were present. Cromwell commanded Huncks to draw up an
order to the executioner pursuant to the warrant for the King’s
execution. Huncks refused; whereupon Cromwell was highly incensed,
and called him a peevish, froward fellow; and Axtell exclaimed,
“Colonel Huncks, I am ashamed of you:—the ship is now coming
into the harbour, and will you strike sail before we come to
anchor?” Cromwell then went to a table, and, as it would appear,
wrote the order to the executioner, and then gave the pen to
Hacker, who, as one of the officers charged with the execution of
the warrant, signed it.⁶ Cromwell,
and the rest of the officers, then went out of the chamber, and, in
a few minutes, Hacker came and knocked at the door of the chamber
where the King was, with Tomlinson, the [pg 42] Bishop,
Herbert, and some of his guards. Herbert and the Bishop were deeply
affected at this signal for their final separation from their
sovereign and master. The King stretched out his hand to them,
which they kissed, falling on their knees and weeping, the King
helping the aged bishop to rise. He then bade Hacker to open the
door and he would follow; and he was conducted by Hacker,
Tomlinson, and other officers and soldiers, through the banquetting
house by a passage broken through the wall, where the centre window
now is. The street now called Parliament Street was at that time
crossed by two ranges of buildings belonging to the palace of
Whitehall, with wide arched gateways crossing the street, and
forming the public thoroughfare. One gateway was opposite to Privy
Gardens; and there was a way over it from these gardens belonging
to the palace, to pass into St. James’s Park. The other building
traversing the street was the sumptuous gallery of Whitehall, built
by Henry VIII., the scene of so many adventures and events of
various descriptions in the reigns of Elizabeth, James, and the two
Charles’s. Connected with this gallery was “a beautiful gatehouse,”
over a noble archway. Lord Leicester says, in his Journal (p.
60.),—”The scaffold was erected between Whitehall gate and
the gallery leading to St. James’s.” Lilly asserts, that it was
just at the spot where the blood of a citizen had been shed at the
commencement of the rebellion, when a mob were vociferating “No
Bishop” under the windows of the palace, and some cavaliers
sallied out to disperse them, and one was killed. A strong guard of
several regiments of horse and foot being posted about the
scaffold, so that the people could not approach near enough to hear
any discourse from the King, he addressed his last sentences
chiefly to the Bishop, Colonel Tomlinson, and the other officers
who stood near him.

“The Bishop. Though your Majesty’s affections may be very
well known as to religion; yet it may be expected that you should
say something thereof for the world’s satisfaction.”

“The King. I thank you heartily, my Lord, for that I had
almost forgotten it. In troth, Sirs, my conscience in religion, I
think, is very well known to all the world; and therefore I declare
before you all that I die a Christian, according to the profession
of the Church of England, as I found it left me by my father; and
this honest man, I think, will witness it.”

Then to Colonel Hacker he said, “Take care that they do not put
me to pain: and, Sir, this and it please you—”

But a gentleman coming near the axe, the King said, “Take heed
of the axe, pray take heed of the axe.”

Then speaking unto the executioner, he said, “I shall say but
very short prayers, and when I thrust out my hands—”

Then turning to the Bishop, he said, “I have a good cause, and a
gracious God on my side.”

“The Bishop. There is but one stage more, this stage is
turbulent and troublesome, it is a short one; but you may consider
it will soon carry you a very great way, it will carry you from
earth to heaven; and there you will find a great deal of cordial
joy and comfort.”

“The King. I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible
crown, where no disturbance can be, no disturbance in the
world.”

“The Bishop. You are exchanged from a temporary to an
eternal crown; a good exchange.”

Then the King said to the executioner, “Is my hair well?” and
took off his cloak and his George, giving his George to the Bishop,
saying, “Remember.” Then he put off his doublet, and being in his
waistcoat, he put on his cloak again; then looking upon the block,
he said to the executioner, “You must set it fast.”

“Executioner. It is fast, Sir.”

“The King. When I put out my hands this way (stretching
them out), then—” After that, having said two or three words
to himself, as he stood with his hands and eyes lift up,
immediately stooping down, he laid his neck upon the block.⁷ And then the executioner again
putting his hair under his cap, the King, thinking he was going to
strike, said, “Stay for the sign.”

“Executioner. Yes, I will, and please your
Majesty.”—After a little pause, the King stretching forth his
hands, the executioner at one blow severed his head from his body,
and held it up and showed it to the people, saying, “Behold the
head of a traitor!” At the instant when the blow was given, a
dismal universal groan was uttered by the people (as if by one
consent) such as was never before heard; and as soon as the
execution was over, one troop of horse marched rapidly from Charing
Cross to King Street, and another from King Street to Charing
Cross, to disperse and scatter the multitude.

Though Joyce and Hugh Peters have been suspected of inflicting
the murderous blow on Charles, and though another claimant for this
infamous distinction is put forward in the Gentleman’s Magazine for
1767, there seems little doubt that Richard Brandon, the common
hangman, assisted by his man, Ralph Jones, a ragman in Rosemary
[pg
43] Lane, in fact perpetrated the deed. Among the tracts
relative to the Civil War presented to the British Museum by George
III., in 1762, are three on this subject, which are fully noticed
in a note to Mr. Ellis’s Letters on English History, vol. iii.
(second series.) It appears, by the register of Whitechapel Church,
that Richard Brandon was buried there on the 24th of June, 1649;
and a marginal note (not in the hand of the Registrar, but bearing
the mark of antiquity), states, “This R. Brandon is supposed to
have cut off the head of Charles I.”—One of the tracts,
entitled “The Confession of Richard Brandon, the Hangman, upon his
Death-bed, concerning the Beheading of his late Majesty,” printed
in 1649, states, “During the time of his sickness, his conscience
was much troubled, and exceedingly perplexed in mind; and on Sunday
last, a young man of his acquaintance going to visit him, fell into
discourse, asked him how he did, and whether he was not troubled in
conscience for cutting off the King’s head. He replied yes, by
reason that (upon the time of his tryall) he had taken a vow and
protestation, wishing God to punish him, body and soul, if ever he
appeared on the scaffold to do the act, or lift up his hand against
him. He likewise confessed that he had 30l. for his pains,
all paid him in half-crowns within an hour after the blow was
given; and he had an orange stuck full with cloves, and a
handkircher out of the King’s pocket, so soon as he was carried off
the scaffold; for which orange he was proffered twenty shillings by
a gentleman in Whitechapel, but refused the same, and afterwards
sold it for ten shillings in Rosemary Lane. About eight o’clock at
night he returned home to his wife, living in Rosemary Lane, and
gave her the money, saying, it was the dearest money, he earned in
his life, for it would cost him his life. About three days before
he died, he lay speechless, uttering many a sigh and heavy groan,
and so in a desperate state departed from his bed of sorrow. For
the burial whereof great store of wines were sent in by the
sheriff of the city of London, and a great multitude of people
stood wayting to see his corpse carried to the churchyard, some
crying out, ‘Hang him, rogue!’—’Bury him in the
dunghill.’—Others pressing upon him, saying they would
quarter him for executing the King, insomuch that the churchwardens
and masters of the parish were fain to come for the suppressing of
them: and with great difficulty he was at last carried to
Whitechapel churchyard, having (as it is said) a branch of rosemary
at each end of the coffin, on the top thereof, with a rope crosse
from one end to the other, a merry conceited cook, living at the
sign of the Crown, having a black fan (worth the value of
30s.), took a resolution to rent the same in pieces: and to
every feather tied a piece of packthread, dyed in black ink, and
gave them to divers persons, who, in derision, for a while wore
them in their hats.”—See Ellis, ubi supra. The second
tract states, that the first victim Brandon beheaded was the Earl
of Stratford.

“When the body was put into a coffin at Whitehall,” says
Rushworth, “there were many sighs and weeping eyes at the scene;
and divers strove to dip their handkerchiefs in the King’s blood.”
A general gloom and consternation pervaded London on the day of
this atrocious perpetration; many of the chief inhabitants either
shut themselves up in their houses, or absented themselves from the
city. On that day none of the courts of justice sat; and on the
next, Whitelocke, one of the commissioners of the Great Seal, says,
“The commissioners met, but did not think fit to do any business,
or seal any writs, because of the King’s death.” Whitelocke says,
“I went not to the House, but stayed all day at home in my study,
and at my prayers, that this day’s work might not so displease God
as to bring prejudice to this poor afflicted nation.”⁸ Evelyn, in his Diary, writes, “I kept
the day of this martyrdom as a fast, and would not be present at
that execrable wickedness, receiving the sad account of it from my
brother George and Mr. Owen, who came to visit me this afternoon,
and recounted all the circumstances.” Archbishop Usher came out to
witness the scene from his house at Whitehall; but he fainted when
the King was led out on the scaffold.

The Journals of the Commons show, either that nothing was done,
or that it was thought fit to enter nothing on these eventful days.
On the day of the execution there is only the following remarkable
entry:—

“Ordered, That the common post be stayed until to-morrow
morning 10 o’clock.”

On the 31st, Commissary-general Ireton reports a paper of divers
particulars touching the King’s body, his George, his diamond, and
two seals. The question being put, that the diamond be sent to
Charles Stuart, son of the late King, commonly called Prince of
Wales, it passed with the negative. The same question was
then put, separately, as to the garter, the George, and the seals:
as to each, it passed in the negative.

When the news of the decapitation of the King reached Scotland,
that loyal people were moved with horror and indignation.

Most of the gentry put on mourning; the chair of state in the
parliament house, the uppermost seats in the kirks, and almost all
the pulpits, were clothed in black.

The body of the King being embalmed, under the orders of Herbert
and bishop Juxon, was removed to St. James’s. The usurpers of the
government refused permission to bury it in Henry the VII.’s
Chapel, from a dread of the indignation of the crowds who would
assemble on so solemn and interesting an occasion; but, at last,
after some deliberation, the council allowed it to be privately
interred in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor, provided the expenses
of the funeral should not exceed five hundred pounds. The last
duties of love and respect were (according to Charles’s express
desire) paid to their sovereign’s corpse by the Duke of Richmond,
the Marquess of Hertford, Lord Southampton, Lord Lindsey, the
Bishop of London, Herbert, and Mildmay, who, on producing a vote of
the Commons, were admitted by Whichcote, the Governor of Windsor
Castle, to the chapel. When the body was carried out of St.
George’s Hall, the sky was serene and clear; but presently a storm
of snow fell so fast, that before it reached the chapel the pall
and the mourners were entirely whitened. When the bishop proposed
to read the burial service according to the rites of the Church of
England, this fanatical governor roughly refused, saying, “that
that Common Prayer Book was put down, and he would not suffer it to
be used in that garrison where he commanded.” Clarendon thus
describes, with graphic simplicity, the sad scene to its
close:—

“But when they entered into it (the chapel), which they had been
so well acquainted with, they found it so altered and transformed,
all inscriptions and those landmarks pulled down, by which all men
knew every particular place in that church, and such a dismal
mutation over the whole that they knew not where they where; nor
was there one old officer that had belonged to it, or knew where
our Princes had used to be interred. At last there was a fellow of
the town who undertook to tell them the place where, he said,
‘there was a vault in which King Harry the Eighth and Queen Jane
Seymour were interred.’ As near that place as could conveniently be
they caused the grave to be made. There the King’s body was laid,
without any words, or other ceremonies, than the tears and sighs of
the few beholders. Upon the coffin was a plate of silver fixed,
with these words only, ‘King Charles, 1648.’ When the coffin
was put in, the black velvet pall that had covered it was thrown
over it, and then the earth thrown in; which the governor staid to
see perfectly done, and then took the keys of the church.

“Owing to the privacy of this interment, doubts were at the time
current as to its having actually taken place. It was asserted that
the King’s body was buried in the sand at Whitehall; and Aubrey
states a report, that the coffin carried to Windsor was filled with
rubbish and brick-bats. These doubts were entirely removed by the
opening of the coffin (which was found where Clarendon described
it,) in the presence of George the Fourth, then Prince Regent, in
April, 1813—of which Sir Henry Halford has published an
interesting narrative. On removing the black pall which Herbert
described, a plain leaden coffin was found, with the inscription
‘King Charles, 1648.’ Within this was a wooden coffin, much
decayed, and the body carefully wrapped in cerecloth, into the
folds of which an unctuous matter mixed with resin had been melted,
to exclude the external air. The skin was dark and
discoloured—the pointed beard perfect—the shape of the
face was a long oval—many of the teeth remained—the
hair was thick at the back of the head, and in appearance nearly
black—that of the beard was of a redder brown. The head was
severed from the body. The fourth cervical vertebra was found to be
cut through transversely, leaving the surfaces of the divided
portions perfectly smooth and even;—’an appearance,’ says Sir
H. Halford, ‘which could have been produced only by a heavy blow
inflicted with a very sharp instrument, and which furnished the
last proof wanting to identify King Charles I.'”

(The volume is embellished with a Portrait of the King, and
Outline Prints of the Trial and Execution.)

NOTES OF A READER.

ATLAS OF THE BIBLE.

The Biblical Series of the Family Cabinet Atlas has just been
completed with the Sixth Part, containing the Title-page, Contents,
Preface, Plans of Jerusalem, the Temple, and Maps of Palestine,
according to Josephus and the Apocrypha. These occupy seven plates,
all exquisitely engraved on steel. There is, moreover, a
letter-press Index of reference to the places in the Maps, printed
on fine plate paper, and occupying 120 pages. Or, this portion
rather deserves the distinctive title adopted by the editors, viz.
“A New General Index, exhibiting, at one view, all that is
geographically and historically interesting in the Holy
Scriptures.” It presents such a digest as we rarely witness, and to
give the reader some idea of its laborious preparation, we select a
specimen, the matter being arranged in a tabular or columnar form,
thus:

Scriptural Name—JEZREAL, Valley, or Plain.

Classic Name—Esdraelon.

Tribe—Issachar.

Country—Canaan.

Scriptural Reference—Judges, vi. 33.

No. of Map.—ix.

Modern Name—Merdj—Ibn Aamer.

Distance and bearing from Jerusalem—40 N.b.E.

Lat. North—32.27.

Long. East—35.25.

Quarter—Asia.

Country—Palestine.

Province—Akka.

Remarks—Here the spirit of the Lord descended upon
Gideon, and here the Lord gave him the sign he required by causing
the fleece to be wet or dry at his bidding.

The projector and artist is Mr. Thomas Starling, and its
execution, whether graphic or literary, is calculated to give the
public a very high opinion of his taste, talent, and
application.

GEOGRAPHY.

Mr. Dowling, of Woodstock Boarding-School, has put Goldsmith’s
Grammar of Geography into question and answer for junior
pupils, or, rather, he has seized on the simplest part of the
information contained in the above work, and added a chapter on
latitude and longitude. We hope the attention of teachers will be
directed to his Compendium, as it appears to leave nothing to be
desired in facilitating the progress of the learner.

OUTLINES OF KNOWLEDGE.

Mr. Ince, whose Outline of English History we noticed a
few weeks since, has been stimulated to the production of an
Outline of General Knowledge. His present Compendium is
satisfactory as a little book of Facts, and may serve as well for a
whet to the memory of adults as for the tuition of
children.

CURIOSITIES OF PHRENOLOGY.

The Third Edition of a Catechism of Phrenology, published at
Glasgow, induces us to pick out a few of the author’s facts,
and we accordingly select the developements of the Feelings and
Faculties. Thus, of Amativeness, the organs are very large in the
casts of Mitchell, Dean, and Raphael. In Dr. Hette, very small.

Philoprogenitiveness, or love of children—the Hindoos,
Negroes, and Charibs.

Combativeness—The Charibs, King Robert Bruce, General
Wurmser, David Haggart, and generally in those who have murdered
from the impulse of the moment.

Destructiveness—In the heads of Dean, Thurtell, King
Robert Bruce, Bellingham, in cool and deliberate murderers, and in
persons who delight in cruelty, where the organ is large; and, in
general, in the Hindoos, small.

Combinativeness—In Raphael, Michael Angelo, Brunel,
Haydon, and Herschel, where it is very fully developed; the New
Hollanders, have it small. Being indispensable to the talent for
works of art of every description, it is found large in all those
painters, sculptors, mechanicians, and architects, who have
distinguished themselves in their particular departments.

Love of Approbation—In King Robert Bruce, Dr. Hette, Clara
Fisher, and the American Indians, where it is large. Such likewise
is uniformly the case in bashful individuals; this disposition
arises in a great measure from a fear of incurring
disapprobation.

Cautiousness—In the Hindoos, large; in Bellingham,
moderate. Robert Bruce and Hannibal were remarkable for valour,
while they at the same time, possessed cautiousness in a high
degree.

Benevolence—In Henri Quatre, where it is large. In
Bellingham, Griffiths, and the Charibs, very small. In King Robert
Bruce, moderate.

Veneration—An individual may have this organ very large,
without possessing a high degree of religious feeling. Voltaire, in
whom the organ was extraordinarily large, affords a striking
example of this. He embraced every opportunity of turning religion
into ridicule; but still, in him, we find the strong manifestation
of the faculty, in the high and almost servile degree of deference
which he paid to superiors in rank and authority. In Raphael,
Bruce, and the Negroes, this organ is large. In Dr. Hette,
small.

Firmness—In King Robert Bruce and the American Indians,
large.

Hope—In Raphael, large; in Dr. Hette, small.

Ideality—In Milton, Shakspeare, Raphael, Wordsworth,
Haydon, and Byron, large. In Mr. Hume and Bellingham, small.

Wit—According to Dr. Spurzheim, the formation of this
faculty is to give rise to the feeling of the ludicrous, creating,
when strong, an almost irresistible disposition to view every
object in that light, while Dr. Gall defines it to be the
predominant intellectual feature in Rabelais, Cervantes, Boileau,
Swift, Sterne, and Voltaire. In Sterne, Voltaire, and Henri Quatre,
this organ is large. In Sir J.E. Smith, Mr. Hume, and the Hindoos,
small.

Imitation—In Raphael, Clara Fisher, and uniformly in those
artists and players who have distinguished themselves for their
imitative powers, large.

Individuality—In the French, generally large; moderate in
the English, and in the Scotch, small.

Form—To judge of form in general. The [pg 46] function
of this faculty is essential to those engaged in the imitative
arts: it enables the painter to distinguish the different casts of
features and countenances in general; and upon the same principle,
is of the most essential service to the mineralogist. The organ is
found large in King George III., and in the Chinese sculls.

Weight or resistance, essential to a genius for mechanics,
enabling the individual to judge of momentum and resistance in that
branch of science. The organ is large in Brunel and Sir Isaac
Newton.

Colouring—remarkably developed in the portraits of
Reubens, Rembrandt, Titian, Salvator Rosa, and Claude Lorraine,
where its large size is indicated by the arched appearance of the
eyebrow in its situation; and in the masks of the late Sir Henry
Raeburn, Wilkie, and Haydon, by the projection forwards of the
eyebrow at that part.

Locality—or the power of remembering localities, in
Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Tycho, Descartes, Sir Walter Scott, and
Captain Cook, is large.

Number, or a talent for calculation—in the portraits of
Euler, Kepler, Laplace, Gassendi, &c., and in George Bidder,
Humboldt, and Colburn, large.

Tune—In Gluck, where it has a pyramidal form. In Mozart,
Viotti, Turnsteg, Dussek, and Crescenti, where it is distinguished
by a fullness and roundness of the lateral parts of the
forehead.

Language—in Sir J.E. Smith, Humboldt, and Voltaire,
large.

Comparison—in Pitt, Roscoe, Raphael, Burke, John Bunyan,
and Mr. Hume.

Casualty, or the connexion between cause and
effect—remarkable in the portraits and busts of Bacon, Kant,
Locke, Voltaire, Dr. Thomas Brown; and in the masks of Haydon,
Brunel, Burke, Franklin, and Wilkie, where it is largely developed.
In Pitt, and Sir J.E. Smith, it is moderate, and in the Charibs and
New Hollanders, very deficient.

SONGS BY BARRY CORNWALL.

PAST TIMES.

THE STRANGER.

THE QUADROON.

THE PAST.

FRENCH MANNERS.

(The Duchess of Abrantes, in her recently published Memoirs,
gives a striking picture of the difference in the fashions and
habits of living which has resulted from the old French
Revolution.)

Transported from Corsica to Paris at the close of the reign of
Louis XV., my mother had imbibed a second nature in the midst of
the luxuries and excellencies of that period. We flatter ourselves
that we have gained much by our changes in that particular; but we
are quite wrong. Forty thousand livres a-year fifty years ago,
would have commanded more luxury than two hundred thousand now. The
elegancies that at that period surrounded a woman of fashion cannot
be numbered; a profusion of luxuries were in common use, of which
even the name is now forgotten. The furniture of her sleeping
apartment—the bath in daily use—the ample folds of silk
and velvet which covered the windows—the perfumes which
filled the room—the rich laces and dresses which adorned the
wardrobe, were widely different from the ephemeral and insufficient
articles by which they have been replaced. My opinion is daily
receiving confirmation, for every thing belonging to the last age
is daily coming again into fashion, and I hope soon to see totally
expelled all those fashions of Greece and Rome, which did admirably
well under the climate of Rome or Messina, but are ill adapted for
our vent du bize and cloudy atmosphere. A piece of muslin
suspended on a gilt rod, is really of no other use but to let a
spectator see that he is behind the curtain. It is the same with
the imitation tapestry—the walls six inches thick, which
neither keep out the heat in summer, nor the cold in winter. All
the other parts of modern dress and furniture are comprised in my
anathema, and will always continue to be so.

It is said that every thing is simplified and brought down to
the reach of the most moderate fortunes. That is true in one sense;
that is to say, our confectioner has muslin curtains and gilt rods
at his windows, and his wife has a silk cloak as well as ourselves,
because it is become so thin that it is indeed accessible to every
one, but it keeps no one warm. It is the same with all the other
stuffs. We must not deceive ourselves; we have gained nothing by
all these changes. Do not say, “So much the better, this is
equality.” By no means; equality is not to be found here, any more
than it is in England, or America, or anywhere, since it cannot
exist. The consequence of attempting it is, that you will have bad
silks, bad satins, bad velvets, and that is all.

The throne of fashion has encountered during the Revolution
another throne, and it has been shattered in consequence. The
French people, amidst their dreams of equality, have lost their own
hands. The large and soft arm-chairs, the full and ample draperies,
the cushions of eider down, all the other delicacies which we alone
understood of all the European family, led only to the imprisonment
of their possessors; and if you had the misfortune to inhabit a
spacious hotel, within a court, to avoid the odious noise and
smells of the street, you had your throat cut. That mode of
treating elegant manners put them out of fashion; they were
speedily abandoned, and the barbarity of their successors still so
lingers amongst us, that every day you see put into the lumber-room
an elegant Grecian chair which has broken your arm, and canopies
which smell of the stable, because they are stuffed with hay.

At that time, (1801,) the habits of good company were not yet
extinct in Paris; of the old company of France, and not of
what is now termed good company, and which prevailed 30
years ago only among postilions and stable-boys. At that period,
men of good birth did not smoke in the apartments of their
wives, because they felt it to be a dirty and disgusting
practice; they generally washed their hands; when they went
out to dine, or to pass the evening in a house of their
acquaintance, they bowed to the lady at its head in entering and
retiring, and did not appear so abstracted in their thoughts as
to behave as they would have done in an hotel. They were then
careful not to turn their back on those with whom they
conversed, so as to show only an ear or the point of a nose to
those whom they addressed. They spoke of something else, besides
those eternal politics on which no two can ever agree, and which
give occasion only to the interchange of bitter expressions. There
has sprung from these endless disputes, disunion in families, the
dissolution of the oldest friendships, and the growth of hatred
which will continue till the grave. Experience proves that in these
contests no one is ever convinced, and that each goes away more
than ever persuaded of the truth of his own opinions.

The customs of the world now give me nothing but pain. From the
bosom of the retirement where I have been secluded for these 15
years, I can judge, without prepossession, of the extraordinary
revolution in manners which has lately taken place. Old impressions
are replaced, it is said, by new [pg 48] ones; that is all. Are,
then, the new ones superior? I cannot believe it. Morality itself
is rapidly undergoing dissolution—every character is
contaminated, and no one knows from whence the poison is inhaled.
Young men now lounge away their evenings in the box of a theatre,
or the Boulevards, or carry on elegant conversation with a fair
seller of gloves and perfumery, make compliments on her lily and
vermilion cheeks, and present her with a cheap ring,
accompanied with a gross and indelicate compliment. Society is so
disunited, that it is daily becoming more vulgar, in the literal
sense of the word. Whence any improvement is to arise, God only
knows.

THE GATHERER.

CURRAN AND THE MASTIFF.

Curran told me, with infinite humour of an adventure between him
and a mastiff when he was a boy. He had heard somebody say that any
person throwing the skirts of his coat over his head, stooping low,
holding out his arms and creeping along backward, might frighten
the fiercest dog and put him to flight. He accordingly made the
attempt on a miller’s animal in the neighbourhood, who would
never let the boys rob the orchard; but found to his
sorrow that he had a dog to deal with who did not care which end of
a boy went foremost, so as he could get a good bite out of it. “I
pursued the instructions,” said Curran; “and, as I had no eyes save
those in front, fancied the mastiff was in full retreat: but I was
confoundedly mistaken; for at the very moment I thought myself
victorious, the enemy attacked my rear, and having got a reasonably
good mouthful out of it, was fully prepared to take another before
I was rescued. Egad, I thought for a time the beast had devoured my
entire centre of gravity, and that I never should go on a
steady perpendicular again.” “Upon my word, Curran,” said I, “the
mastiff may have left you your centre, but he could not have
left much gravity behind him, among the
bystanders.”—Sir Jonah Barrington.

Bishop Ken.—This English prelate died as he was on
a journey to Bath, in March, 1710, in the seventy-fourth year of
his age. He had been in the habit of travelling many years with his
shroud in his portmanteau, which he always put on when attacked by
illness; of this he gave notice the day before his death, in order
to prevent his body from being stripped. P.T.W.

Warning to Cowards.—There was a soldier that
vaunted before Julius Caesar, of the hurts he had received in his
face. Caesar knowing him to be but a coward, told him, “You had
best heed next time you run away, how you look back.”—Lord
Bacon.

Love and Murder.—”Hipparchus, going to marry,
consulted Philander upon the occasion; Philander represented his
mistress in such strong colours, that the next morning he received
a challenge, and before twelve he was run through the
body.”—Spectator.

Portugal.—Its ancient name was Lusitaenia. Its
present name is derived from that of an ancient town called
“Calle,” on or near the site of the present Oporto, which was
called “Portus Cale,” or the Port of Cale; and in process of time
the name of this port was extended to the whole country, whence
“Portucal,” or Portugal. Portus Cale was afterwards
called “O Porto” (the harbour,) which name the town of Oporto
ultimately received. P.T.W.

Perfection of Steam Navigation.—During the last
four months, the Firebrand, steam-vessel from Falmouth, has
traversed two voyages to Corfu, and one to Lisbon, a distance of
11,500 miles, which gives for the number of days, 66; she steamed,
an average of 174 miles per day.

Sore Eyes and Wine.—It was a right answer of the
physician to his patient that had sore eyes. “If you have more
pleasure in the taste of wine than in the use of your sight, wine
is good for you; but if the pleasure of seeing be greater to you
than that of drinking, wine is naught.”—Locke.

Chinese and Russian Cookery.—In China, if the cook
employed in preparing the Imperial repasts, introduces any
prohibited ingredients, even by inadvertence, he is punished with a
hundred blows; if any of the dishes of food be not clean, he is
liable to eighty blows; and if the cook omits to ascertain the
quality of the dishes by tasting, he incurs fifty blows.

There cannot be a grand dinner in Russia without sterlet. In
summer, when brought alive from Archangel, &c., these cost from
five hundred to one thousand rubles each; a fish soup, made with
champagne and other expensive wines, has been known to cost three
thousand rubles; no water is allowed to enter into the composition
of these expensive soups; and the whole company get very merry and
talkative after partaking of them.

Honest Tar.—John Barth, the Dunkirk fisherman, rose
by his courage and naval skill, to the rank of commodore of a
squadron in the navy of France. When he was ennobled by Louis XIV.
the king said to him, “John Barth, I have made you a commodore.”
John replied, “you have done right.”

Footnote 1:(return)

Copied, by permission, from a handsome Lithograph, published by
Mr. Waller, Fleet-street.

Footnote 2:(return)

The tower of the old church was furnished with a set of eight
very excellent bells: there was also a bell of a smaller size
suspended in one of the turrets, which was rung every morning at a
quarter before seven o’clock. On the walls of the belfry were some
records of exploits in ringing, which had been performed there on
different occasions.

Footnote 3:(return)

Blucher.

Footnote 4:(return)

The day was so piercing that the king, at the persuasion of
Bishop Juxon, wore a cloak till the moment of his death.

Footnote 5:(return)

The late Sir Henry Englefield related a traditional anecdote,
that Charles, in passing through the Park, pointed out a tree near
the entrance from Spring Gardens (where the cows at present stand,)
saying, “That tree was planted by brother Henry.”

Footnote 6:(return)

See the evidence on the trials of Hacker, Axtell, and Hulet,
State Trials, vol. v.

Footnote 7:(return)

It being doubted whether the king would submit to the
executioner, staples were driven into the block, and hooks
prepared, in order, if necessary, to confine his head forcibly to
the block. On the trial of Hugh Peters in 1660, it was sworn that
this was done by his orders given on the scaffold to one Tench, a
joiner; in Houndsditch. See State Trials, vol. v.

Footnote 8:(return)

There is, I am informed, a tradition in Westminster School, that
South, the celebrated divine, was the boy whose turn it was to read
prayers on the day of Charles’s death; and that he read the prayer
for the king as usual. South at that time must have been about
fourteen years of age. Five years afterwards, when the loyal and
learned divine was at Christ Church, Oxford, we find his name to a
copy of Latin verses, addressed to the Protector on his conclusion
of a treaty with the States of Holland. This, no doubt, was a mere
college exercise. See Musae Oxoniensies, 1654.

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