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

METHOD OF ASCERTAINING THE STATE OF THE LUNGS

(For the Mirror.)

Persons desirous of ascertaining the true state of their lungs, are directed to draw in as much breath as they conveniently can; they are then to count as far as they are able, in a slow and audible voice, without drawing in more breath. The number of seconds they can continue counting must be carefully observed; in a consumption, the time does not exceed ten, and is frequently less than six seconds; in pleurisy and pneumonia, it ranges from nine to four seconds. When the lungs are in a sound condition, the time will range as high as from twenty to thirty-five seconds.

G.W.N.

THE COSMOPOLITE

ARTISTICAL ERRORS.

A SECOND CHAPTER OF BULLS

(For the Mirror.)

I saw a picture not long since, in Edinburgh, copied from an engraving in Boydell's Shakspeare; subject,—"Lear (and suite) in the storm," but coloured according to the imagination and taste of the artist; its name ought assuredly to have been Redcap and the blue-devils, for the venerable and lamented monarch had fine streaming locks of the real carrot hue, whilst his very hideous companions showed blue faces, and blue armour; and with their strangely contorted bodies seemed meet representatives of some of the infernal court.—In a highly adorned prayer book, published in the reign of William III., the engravings of which are from silver-plates, one print illustrates our Lord's simile of the mote and beam, by a couple of men aiming at each other's visual organs, ineffectually enough, one having a great log of wood growing from his eye, and the other being blind in one eye from a cataract; at least, though I think I do not err in saying, a moat and castle, in it—I have seen an old edition of Jeremy Taylor's "Life and Death of Christ," illustrated with many remarkably good engravings. Of one of these the subject is, the Impotent Man at the Pool of Bethesda; the fore ground is occupied by our Saviour, the cripple, and other invalids; and in the distance appears a small pond palisaded by slender pilasters; over it hovers an angel, who, with a long pole, is, to the marvel of the beholders, dexterously "troubling the waters." In the same volume, some of the figures are clad in the garb of the time when drawn, and St. Jude is reading the New Testament in a pair of spectacles!—In Holyrood House, and in one of the rooms added in the days of Charles II., is a panel-painting of "the Infant Hercules strangling the serpents;" and leaping up in front of the cradle, appears one of those pretty and rare spaniels called King Charles's breed. In the same palace, and in one of the chambers, once occupied by the unfortunate Mary, is a very old painting, intended, as the guide assures visitors, to represent St. Peter's vision of the great sheet; it may be, but if so, one archangel in military sandals, holding in his hands a small towel, represents (by a figure in painting I presume,) St. Peter, the sheet, and its innumerable living contents. He must have taken a hint, from the artist who painted for the passage through the Red Sea nothing but ocean, assuring his employer, that the Israelites could not be seen, because they were all gone over, and the Egyptians were every one drowned!—"I once saw," writes a friend, "a full length portrait of Wordsworth, in a modern painting of 'Christ riding into Jerusalem;' it was amongst a group of Jews, and next to a likeness of Voltaire. I believe the painter intended to contrast the countenances of the Christian and infidel poets, and thus pay a handsome compliment to the former; but the taste that placed the ancients and moderns together, remind me of a fine old painting of the Flemish school; a 'David with Goliah's head,' in the fore-ground of which were a number of fat Dutchmen, dressed in blue coats and leather breeches, with pipes in their mouths."—"Raphael," says a little French work on painting, in my possession, speaking of unity of time, "A peché contre cette regle, dans son tableau d'Heliodore, ou il fait intervenir le Pape Jules 2 dans le Temple de Jerusalem porte sur les epaules, des Gonfalonniers." The same work notices a breach of the unity of design in Paul Veronese, "qui dans la partie droite d'un de ses tableaux, a represente Jesus Christ benissant l'eau, dont il va être baptise par St. Jean Baptiste; et dans la partie gauche notre Seigneur tente par le diable."—Upon the celebrated "Transfiguration" of Raphael, I heard an artist remark, "undoubtedly it is the first picture in the world, yet the painter has erred in these respects:—the upper portion of the picture is occupied by the subject, but the lower and fore-ground by the Healing of the Demoniac. Now that event did not happen until after the transfiguration, and we infringe upon our Saviour's ubiquity by supposing it to occur (contrary to the sacred story) at the same time. He may, indeed, as God be omnipresent, but as man, the New Testament no where asserts that the Incarnate Presence was in different places at the same moment." Instances of erroneous judgment are frequent in those who illustrate holy writ. Some have attempted to embody Him, "whom no man hath seen at any time." Some have filled their skies with beings as little aerial as possible, or apotheoses of the Virgin and sundry saints. Angels, as some represent them, even in whole lengths, are by anatomists regarded as monsters; but what then are the chubby winged heads without bodies, with which some artists etherealize their works. Some err by mingling on the same canvass the sacred and profane; scripture characters and the non-descripts of heathen mythology. Nor is poetry free from the latter error, as is exemplified in the major and minor epics, &c., of many Christian poets. The drawings of the monks, splendid in colouring and beautiful in finish, are mostly ludicrous in design, from glaring anachronisms, erroneous perspective, &c. I saw a print in Montfauçon, where fish were gamboling like porpusses on the surface of the sea, and one or two were visible through the paddles of a boat. In the same volume was a print of the apotheosis of St. Louis, from an illumination. The holy prince was represented dying in the fore-ground, but over head were a couple of angels flying away with his soul, (under the figure of a wretched infant, skinny and naked, save the glory that covered his head,) in a kind of sheet, or rather sack.

But to detail all the absurdities and indecencies of these revered artists, whether limners, or carvers in wood, were endless. Their anachronisms, however, have been of considerable service to the antiquary. Sculpture has its monstrosities, architecture its incongruities, though not so palpable as those of painting, because the art is less generally understood by the common observer, or rather pictorial errors are in general easily detected by the eye alone, and sometimes by the most commonly informed mind; but architectural defects are only recognisable by those who have studied the principles of this fine art. Poetry, I am sorry to say, is not exempt from bulls and blunders, of various kinds and degrees of enormity; many of which have been, from time to time, exposed in a very amusing manner. I shall therefore, in conclusion, crave the liberty of producing one which has lately come under my own cognizance. A modern poet, whose compositions are fraught with beauty and genius, sings:—

"Then swooped the winds, that hurl the giant oak
From Snowdon's altitude."

And another, in stanzas of extreme strength and eloquent description, describes a storm at night "among the mountains of Snowdon," with these expressions:—

——"The bird of night
Screams from her straw-built nest, as from the womb
Of infant death, and wheels her drowsy flight
Amid the pine-clad rocks, with wonder and afright."

——"The night-breeze dies
Faint, on the mountain-ash leaves that surround
Snowdon's dark peaks."

Now, a painful pilgrimage of eleven hours, up Snowdon and back again, enables me to declare that had oaks, pines, and service-trees adorned that appalling and volcanic chaos, five or six years since, some storm sufficient to have shattered the universe, must have swept them all away, ere I looked upon that dreary assemblage of rocks which seems like the ruins of a world. I ascended from the Capel Cerig side of the mountain, and therefore venture not to say what may be the aspect of the Llanberries; but the only verdure I beheld, was that of short, brown heathy grass, a few stunted furze-bushes, and patches of that vividly green moss, which is spongy and full of water. The only living inhabitants of these wilds were a few ruffian-like miners, two or three black slugs, and a scanty flock of straggling half-starved mountain sheep, with their brown, ropy coats. The guide told me, that even eagles, had for three centuries abandoned the desolate crags of Snowdon; and as for its being a haunt for owls, neither bird nor mouse could reside there to supply such with subsistence. Snowdon appeared to me too swampy to be drained for cultivation in many parts, and in most others its marble, granite and shingles, forbade the idea of spontaneous vegetation. I am sorry for the poets, having a sincere regard for the fraternity, but Snowdon is not adorned with pines, firs, larches, and service-trees, like parts of the Alps; it is not wooded like the romantic Pyrenees, nor luxuriantly fertile in fruits, flowers, and grain, like the terrible, but sylvan Etna.

M.L.B.

OLD POETS

DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN

["A Lover of Old English Poetry," has, in the last London Magazine, a short paper on DRUMMOND of HAWTHORNDEN, a name dear to every poetical mind, and every lover of early song. His intention, he says, is "rather to excite than satiate" the taste of his readers for the poetry of Drummond,—an object in which we cordially agree, and would contribute our offering, had not the task, in the present instance, been already so ably performed. We cannot, therefore, do better than introduce to our readers a few of his judicious selections. They are exquisite specimens of the evergreen freshness of old poetry, and by their contrast with contemporary effusions will contribute to the mosaic of our sheet. By the way, we hear of a sprinkling of the antique world of letters in some of the "Annuals"—an introduction which reflects high credit on the taste of the editors, and serves to prove that sicklied sentimentalities, like all other sweets, when enjoyed to excess, will cloy the fancy, but not so as entirely to unfit the mind for a higher species of intellectual enjoyment. We would have old and new alternate in the literary wreath, lest, by losing the comparison, the "bright lights" of other times should be treated with irreverence and neglect.]

FROM THE "HYMN ON THE FAIREST FAIR."

I feel my bosom glow with wonted fires:
Raised from the vulgar press, my mind aspires,
Wing'd with high thoughts, unto His praise to climb
From deep Eternity who call'd forth time:—
That ESSENCE, which, not mov'd, makes each thing move,—
Uncreate beauty—all-creating love…
Ineffable, all-powerful GOD, all free,—
Thou only liv'st, and all things live by thee…
Perfection's sum—prime cause of every cause,
Midst and beginning, where all good doth pause…
Incomprehensible, by reachless height;
And unperceived, by excessive light.
O King! whose greatness none can comprehend,
Whose boundless goodness does to all extend,—
Light of all beauty, ocean without ground,
That standing, flowest—giving, dost abound…
Great Architect—Lord of this universe,—
That sight is blinded would thy greatness pierce.

Then follows this noble simile, nobly sustained, and with a flow and harmony of verse not common in the poets of his period:—

Ah! as a pilgrim who the Alps doth pass,
Or Atlas' temples crown'd with winter glass,—
The airy Caucasus, the Apennine,
Pyrenees' cliffs, where sun doth never shine;—
When he some craggy hills hath overwent,
Begins to think on rest, his journey spent,
Till mounting some tall mountain he do find
More heights before him than he left behind,—
With halting pace so while I would me raise
To the unbounded limits of Thy praise,
Some part of way I thought to have o'errun;
But now I see how scarce I have begun—
With wonders new my spirits range possest,
And, wandering wayless, in a maze them rest.
Oh! that the cause which doth consume our joy
Would the remembrance of it too destroy!

LIFE

Woods cut again do grow:
Bud doth the rose and daisy, winter done,
But we, once dead, do no more see the sun!
What fair is wrought
Falls in the prime, and passeth like a thought.

SONNET.—SPRING

Sweet Spring, thou com'st with all thy goodly train,—
Thy head with flame, thy mantle bright with flowers:
The zephyrs curl the green locks of the plain,—
The clouds for joy in pearls weep down their showers;—
Sweet Spring, thou com'st—but ah! my pleasant hours,