The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 270, August 25, 1827

but in thy silv'ry veil still half conceal
Thy modest loveliness, nor more reveal;
For oh! fair queen, no mortal now can soar,
Or, love, as thy fond shepherd did of yore!

THE KING'S FEET-BEARER

During the ancient days of Welsh royalty, among the twenty-four ranks of servants that attended at court, was one called "the king's feet-bearer." This was a young gentleman, whose duty it was to sit upon the floor with his back towards the fire, and hold the king's feet in his bosom all the time he sat at table, to keep them warm and comfortable. A piece of state and of luxury unknown in modern times.

MONTPELLIER

Within the last century it has been fashionable in England to give the name of Montpellier to many places, new streets, rows of houses, terraces, and gardens, where the situation has been supposed to have been at all favourable; indeed, there seems to be something attractive in the very sound of the word Montpellier; but the original city has much fallen off, and is not so much frequented now, but on account of its former fame, and the assemblage of the States of Languedoc during the winter, when the noble families still maintain their old exemplary hospitality. Joseph Scaliger is known to have asserted, that if he had his choice where to end his days, of all cities in the world he should prefer Montpellier; but since that time physicians have agreed that there has been a remarkable change of climate; and from my own observation I must declare, that I knew several consumptive patients who seemed to have recovered at Marseilles, and almost all relapsed again after they had remained for some time at Montpellier.

Cradock's Literary Memoirs.

ANECDOTES AND RECOLLECTIONS

Notings, selections,
Anecdote and joke:
Our recollections;
With gravities for graver folk.

FASHION

Pignotte places the temple of this deity in the moon; and it may therefore be presumed that it was the walls of this edifice that Professor Grinthausen, of Munich, lately mistook for an immense fortress. The error of the German astronomer would seem to corroborate the hypothesis of the Italian poet, who doubtless did not assign that local habitation to the goddess of fashion without mature reflection. Indeed, it cannot be denied that that planet possesses some mysterious influence over female fashions, analogous to that which it has over the tides; hence the cause, for we really know of none better, of monthly fashions. Let not however any malicious wit suppose that the moon has anything whatever to do with monthly periodicals!

HOW TO CHOOSE A RELIGION

Karamsin, in his history of Russia, relates that when the inhabitants of Livonia were first converted from Paganism to Christianity, they hesitated whether they should adopt the faith of the Russian or German church; at length in their extreme perplexity, they determined to decide their doubts in a most summary manner by casting lots, when chance prevailed in favour of the latter. There are many cases in which this example might be followed very advantageously, thereby saving a great deal of time and vexation to the parties; for instance, it might be very beneficially introduced into the court of chancery, for then let the decision fall out as it might, the suitors would resign themselves to it as the decree of fate, as they must do even in the end after waiting half their lives. If the adage of Bis dat qui cito dat, be true, it is no less certain that he who denies at once, at length gives us something, for he gives us time.

RELIGIOUS BOOKS

There is an amusing anecdote related of a country curate, who having published a volume of sermons, in which he more particularly pointed out the dangers of a lax morality, and the want of strict religious principles among the higher classes of society, wrote a few weeks afterwards to a friend in town, inquiring in his extreme simplicity, "whether he did not observe any signs of reformation in the fashionable world?" the answer that he obtained may easily be divined. The good man had entirely forgotten that those who most needed his exhortations, were precisely those who would not read them; or who, if they read, would be the last to attend to them. If books could reform the world, it had been reformed long ago; but no disparagement either to good books—something else is necessary.

AN AMBIGUOUS COMPLIMENT

An author having shown a portion of a manuscript, which he was preparing for the press, to a friend, the latter suggested some improvements, and pointed out some errors; but instead of receiving his suggestions, the irritable man of letters plainly showed that he did not intend to adopt them. A short time after, he submitted the remainder of his work to the same judge, who having perused it, exclaimed, it could not possibly be better. "Indeed, you really think so?" "Yes," returned the other, "I really do; for how can it possibly be better when you are resolved to adopt no improvements?"

GLORY

During the war in the Peninsula, two British soldiers were regaling themselves after a long fast, on a crust of mouldy bread. "This is but sorry fare, Tom," observed one of them, "especially after the hardships and dangers we have suffered." "What do you mean by sorry fare," exclaimed his comrade, with philosophical composure, at the same time holding up a piece of the mouldy bread; "this is what the good people in England, who sit down to a comfortable hot dinner every day, call military glory!"

TORTURE QUINTUPLE

That solid preacher and able annotator, Philip Limborch, quotes in his History of the Inquisition, a writer of the name of Julius Clarus, who, it would appear formed a very forcible idea of the powers of imagination, since he allows them four parts in five of the torments decreed by that satanic tribunal. "Know," Limborch represents Clarus saying, "that there are five degrees of torture, videlicit, first, the torture of being threatened to be tortured; secondly, the torture of being conveyed to the place of torture; thirdly, the torture of being, and bound for torture; fourthly, the torture of being hoisted on the torturing rack; and fifthly, and lastly, the torture of squassation."

APPEARANCES

Bourganville, when trading to Otaheite, was accustomed to leave there two of some kind of European domestic animals. In his last voyage he had on board a Capuchin and a Franciscan, who differ from each other in the single circumstance of one having the beard shaved and the other wearing it long on the chin. The natives who had successively admired the various animals as they were disembarked, whether bulls and cows, hogs and sows, or he and she goats, shouted with joy at the appearance of the Capuchin, "What a noble animal! what a pity there is not a pair!" scarcely was the wish expressed, when the shaven Franciscan made his appearance, "Huzza, huzza!" exclaimed the savages, "we've got the male and the female."

W.C.B.—M.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

FIRESIDE ENJOYMENTS

The evening of Thursday, the 15th of February, 1827, was one of the most delightful I ever remember to have spent. I was alone; my heart beat lightly; my pulse was quickened by the exercise of the morning; my blood flowed freely through my veins, as meeting with no checks or impediments to its current, and my spirits were elated by a multitude of happy remembrances and of brilliant hopes. My apartments looked delightfully comfortable, and what signified to me the inclemency of the weather without. The rain was pattering upon the sky-light of the staircase; the sharp east wind was moaning angrily in the chimney; but as my eye glanced from the cheerful blaze of the fire to the ample folds of my closed window-curtains—as the hearth-rug yielded to the pressure of my foot, while, beating time to my own music, I sung, in rather a louder tone than usual, my favourite air of "Judy O'Flannegan;"—the whistling of the wind, and the pattering of the rain, only served to enhance in my estimation the comforts of my home, and inspire a livelier sense of the good fortune which had delivered me from any evening engagements. It may be questioned, whether there are any hours in this life, of such unmixed enjoyment as the few, the very few, which a young bachelor is allowed to rescue from the pressing invitations of those dear friends, who want another talking man at their dinner tables, or from those many and wilily-devised entanglements which are woven round him by the hands of inevitable mothers, and preserve entirely to himself.—Talk of the pleasure of repose! What repose can possibly be so sweet, as that which is enjoyed on a disengaged day during the laborious dissipations of a London life?—Talk of the delights of solitude! Spirit of Zimmerman!—What solitude is the imagination capable of conceiving so entirely delightful, as that which a young unmarried man possesses in his quiet lodging, with his easy chair and his dressing-gown, his beef-steak, and his whisky and water, his nap over an old poem or a new novel, and the intervening despatch of a world of little neglected matters, which, from time to time, occur to recollection between the break of the stanzas or the incidents of the story?

Such were the reflections that hastily passed along my mind, on the afternoon of Thursday, the 15th of February, 1827, as I sat with a volume of the Tor Hill in my hand, in the back drawing-room of my lodging in Conduit-street. It was about ten o'clock in the afternoon. My dinner was just removed. It had left me with that gay complacency of disposition, and irrepressible propensity of elocution, which result from a satisfied appetite, and an undisturbed digestion. My sense of contentment became more vigorous and confirmed, as I cast my eye around my apartment, and contemplated my well-filled book-case, and the many articles of convenience with which I had contrived to accommodate my nest; till, at length, the emotions of satisfaction became too strong to be restrained within the bonds of silence, and announced themselves in the following soliloquy:—

"What capital coals these are!—There's nothing in the world so cheering— so enlivening—as a good, hot, blazing, sea-coal fire."—I broke a large lump into fragments with the poker, as I spoke—"It's all mighty fine," I continued, "for us travellers to harangue the ignorant on the beauty of foreign cities, on their buildings without dust, and their skies without a cloud; but, for my own part, I like to see a dark, thick, heavy atmosphere, hanging over a town. It forewarns the traveller of his approach to the habitations, the business, and the comforts of his civilized fellow-creatures. It gives an air of grandeur, and importance, and mystery, to the scenes: it conciliates our respect. We know that there must be some fire where there is so much smother.—While, in those bright, shining, smokeless cities, whenever the sun shines upon them, one's eyes are put out by the glare of their white walls; and when it does not shine!—why, in the winter, there's no resource left for a man but hopeless and shivering resignation, with their wide, windy chimneys, and their damp, crackling, hissing, sputtering, tantalizing fagots."—I confirmed my argument in favour of our metropolitan obscurity by another stroke of the poker against the largest fragment of the broken coal; and then, letting fall my weapon, and turning my back to the fire, I exclaimed, "Certainly—there's no kind of furniture like books:—nothing else can afford one an equal air of comfort and habitability.—Such a resource too!—A man never feels alone in a library.—He lives surrounded by companions, who stand ever obedient to his call, coinciding with every caprice of temper, and harmonising with every turn and disposition of the mind.—Yes: I love my book:—they are my friends—my counsellors—my companions.—Yes; I have a real personal attachment, a very tender regard, for my books."

I thrust my hands into the pockets of my dressing-gown, which, by the by, is far the handsomest piece of old brocade I have ever seen,–a large running pattern of gold hollyhocks, with silver stalks and leaves, upon a rich, deep, Pompadour-coloured ground,—and, walking slowly backwards and forwards in my room, I continued,—"There never was, there never can have been, so happy a fellow as myself! What on earth have I to wish for more? Maria adores me—I adore Maria. To be sure, she's detained at Brighton; but I hear from her regularly every morning by the post, and we are to be united for life in a fortnight. Who was ever so blest in his love? Then again John Fraser—my old schoolfellow! I don't believe there's anything in the world he would not do for me. I'm sure there's no living thing that he loves so much as myself, except, perhaps, his old uncle Simon, and his black mare."

I had by this time returned to the fireplace, and, reseating myself, began to apostrophize my magnificent black Newfoundland, who, having partaken of my dinner, was following the advice and example of Abernethy, and sleeping on the rug, as it digested.—"And you, too, my old Neptune, aren't you the best and handsomest dog in the universe?"

Neptune finding himself addressed, awoke leisurely from his slumbers, and fixed his eyes on mine with an affirmative expression.

"Ay, to be sure you are; and a capital swimmer too!"

Neptune raised his head from the rug, and beat the ground with his tail, first to the right hand, and then to the left.

"And is he not a fine faithful fellow? And does he not love his master?"

Neptune rubbed his head against my hand, and concluded the conversation, by again sinking into repose.

"That dog's a philosopher," I said; "He never says a word more than is necessary:—then, again, not only blest in love and friendship, and my dog; but what luck it was to sell, and in these times too, that old, lumbering house of my father's, with its bleak, bare, hilly acres of chalk and stone, fat eighty thousand pounds, and to have the money paid down, on the very day the bargain was concluded. By the by, though, I had forgot:—I may as well write to Messrs. Drax and Drayton about that money, and order them to pay it immediately to Coutts's,—mighty honest people and all that: but faith, no solicitors should be trusted or tempted too far. It's a foolish way, at any time, to leave money in other people's hands—in anybody's hands—and I'll write about it at once."

As I said, so I did. I wrote my commands Messrs. Drax and Drayton, to pay my eighty thousand pounds into Coutts's; and after desiring that my note might be forwarded to them, the first thing in the morning, I took my candle, and accompanied by Neptune, who always keeps watch by night at my chamber door, proceeded to bed, as the watchman was calling "past twelve o'clock," beneath my window.

Blackwood's Magazine.

TO THE LADY BIRD

"Lady Bird! Lady Bird! fly away home"—
The field-mouse is gone to her nest,
The daisies have shut up their sleepy red eyes,
And the bees and the birds are at rest.

Lady Bird! Lady Bird! fly away home—
The glow-worm is lighting her lamp,
The dew's tailing fast, and your fine speckled wings
Will flag with the close-clinging damp.

Lady Bird! Lady Bird! fly away home—
Good luck if you reach it at last:
The owl's come abroad, and the bat's on the roam,
Sharp set from their Ramazan fast.

Lady Bird! Lady Bird! fly away home—