The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 12, No. 332, September 20, 1828

Company, in such cases, usually increases the misery. Your wife, with a new dress, soon loses her temper and its beauty; the children splash you and their little frilled continuations; and ill-humour is the order of the day; for on such occasions you cannot slip into a tavern, and follow Dean Swift's example:

On rainy days alone I dine,
Upon a chick, and pint of wine:
On rainy days I dine alone,
And pick my chicken to the bone.

Go you to the theatre in what is called a wet season, and perhaps after sitting through a dull five-act tragedy and two farces, your first solicitude is about the weather, and as if to increase the vexation, you cannot see the sky for a heavy portico or blind; then the ominous cry of "carriage, your honour"—"what terrible event does this portend"—and you have to pick your way, with your wife like Cinderella after the ball, through an avenue of link-boys and cadmen,[5 - Towards the close of the last opera season we heard a ludicrous mistake. One of these fellows bawled out "the Duke of Grafton's carriage;" "No," replied the gentleman, smiling, and correcting the officious cadman, who had caught at the noble euphony, "Mr. Crafter's."] and hear your name and address bawled out to all the thieves that happen to be present. Or, perchance, the coachman, whose inside porosity is well indicated by his bundle of coats, as Dr. Kitchiner says, is labouring under "the unwholesome effervescence of the hot and rebellious liquors which have been taken to revive the flagging spirits," and like a sponge, absorbs liquids, owing to the pressure of the surrounding air.

That we are attached to wet weather, a single comparison with our neighbours will abundantly prove. A Frenchman seldom stirs abroad without his parapluie; notwithstanding he is, compared with an Englishman, an al fresco animal, eating, drinking, dancing, reading, and seeing plays—all out of doors. A shower is more effectual in clearing the streets of Paris than those of London. People flock into cafés, the arcades of the Palais Royal, and splendid covered passages; and as soon as the rain ceases, scores of planks are thrown across the gutters in the centre of the streets, which species of pontooning is rewarded by the sous and centimes of the passengers. In Switzerland too, where the annual fall of rain is 40 inches, the streets are always washed clean, an effect which is admirably represented in the view of Unterseen, now exhibiting at the Diorama. But in Peru, the Andes intercept the clouds, and the constant heat over sandy deserts prevents clouds from forming, so that there is no rain. Here it never shines but it burns.

Wet-weather in the country is, however, a still greater infliction upon the sensitive nerves. There is no club-house, coffee-room, billiard-room, or theatre, to slip into; and if caught in a shower you must content yourself with the arcades of Nature, beneath which you enjoy the unwished-for luxury of a shower bath. Poor Nature is drenched and drowned; perhaps never better described than by that inveterate bard of Cockaigne, Captain Morris:

Oh! it settles the stomach when nothing is seen
But an ass on a common, or goose on a green.

We were once overtaken by such weather in a pedestrian tour through the Isle of Wight, when just then about to leave Niton for a geological excursion to the Needles. Reader, if you remember, the Sandrock Hotel is one of the most rural establishments in the island. Think of our being shut up there for six hours, with a thin duodecimo guide of less than 100 pages, which some mischievous fellow had made incomplete. How often did we read and re-read every line, and trace every road in the little map. At length we set off on our return to Newport. The rain partially ceased, and we were attracted out of the road to Luttrell's Tower, whence we were compelled to seek shelter in a miserable public-house in a village about three miles distant. No spare bed, a wretched smoky fire; and hard beer, and poor cheese, called Isle of Wight rock, were all the accommodation our host could provide. His parlour was just painted; but half-a-dozen sectarian books and an ill-toned flute amused us for an hour; then we again started, in harder rain than ever, for Newport. Compelled to halt twice, we saw some deplorable scenes of cottage misery, almost enough to put us out of conceit of rusticity, till after crossing a bleak, dreary heath, we espied the distant light of Newport. Never had we beheld gas light with such ecstasy, not even on the first lighting of St. James's Park. It was the eve of the Cowes' regatta, and the town was full; but our luggage was there, and we were secure. A delicious supper at the Bugle, and liberal outpourings of Newport ale, at length put us in good humour with our misfortunes; but on the following morning we hastened on to Ryde, and thus passed by steam to Portsmouth; having resolved to defer our geological expedition to that day twelve months. Perhaps we may again touch on this little journey. We have done for the present, lest our number should interrupt the enjoyment of any of the thousand pedestrians who are at this moment tracking

The slow ascending hill, the lofty wood
That mantles o'er its brow.

or coasting the castled shores and romantic cliffs of Vectis, or the Isle of Wight.

    PHILO.

MANNERS & CUSTOMS OF ALL NATIONS

DUELS IN FRANCE

Duels had at one time become so frequent in France as to require particular enactments for their prevention; as, for example, when the debt about which any dispute occurred did not amount to five-pence. The regulation of the mode in which the barbarous custom might be maintained had engaged the attention of several of the French kings. In 1205, Philip Augustus restricted the length of the club, with which single combat was then pursued, to three feet; and in 1260, Saint Louis abolished the practice of deciding civil matters by duelling. With the revival of literature and of the arts, national manners became ameliorated, and duels necessarily declined. It was still, however, not unusual for the French to promote or to behold those single combats over which the pages of romance have thrown a delusive charm, and which were, in early times, hallowed, in the opinion of the vulgar, by their accompanying superstitious ceremonies. When any quarrel had been referred to this mode of decision, the parties met on the appointed day, and frequently in an open space, overshadowed by the walls of a convent, which thus lent its sanction to the bloody scene. From day-break the people were generally employed in erecting scaffolds and stages, and in placing themselves upon the towers and ramparts of the adjacent buildings. About noon, the cavalcade was usually seen to arrive at the door of the lists; then the herald cried, "Let the appellant appear," and his summons was answered by the entrance of the challenger, armed cap-a-pie, the escutcheon suspended from his neck, his visor lowered, and an image of some national saint in his hand. He was allowed to pass within the lists, and conducted to his tent. The accused person likewise appeared, and was led in the same manner to his tent. Then the herald, in his robe embroidered with fleur-de-lis, advanced to the centre of the lists, and exclaimed, "Oyez, oyez! lords, knights, squires, people of all condition, our sovereign lord, by the grace of God, King of France, forbids you, on pain of death or confiscation of goods, either to cry out, to speak, to cough, to spit, or to make signs." During a profound silence, in which nothing but the murmurs of the unconscious streamlet, or the chirping of birds might be heard, the combatants quitted their tents, to take individually the two first oaths. When the third oath was to be administered, it was customary for them to meet, and for the marshal to take the right hand of each and to place it on the cross. Then the functions of the priest began, and the usual address, endeavouring to conciliate the angry passions of the champions, and to remind them of their common dependence on the Supreme Being, may have tended to benefit the bystanders, although it generally failed of its effect with the combatants.

If the parties persisted, the last oath was administered. The combatants were obliged to swear solemnly that they had neither about them nor their horses, stone, nor herb, nor charm, nor invocation; and that they would fight only with their bodily strength, their weapons, and their horses. The crucifix and breviary were then presented to them to kiss, the parties retired into their tents, the heralds uttering their last admonition to exertion and courage, and the challengers rushed forth from their tents, which were immediately dragged from within the lists. Then the marshal of the field having cried out, "Let them pass, let them pass," the seconds retired. The combatants instantly mounted their horses, and the contest commenced.—Foreign Review.

SUPERSTITION RELATING TO BEES

On further inquiry, it has been found that the superstitious practice, formerly mentioned,[6 - See page 75.] of informing the bees of a death that takes place in a family, is very well known, and still prevails among the lower orders in this country. The disastrous consequence to be apprehended from noncompliance with this strange custom is not (as before stated) that the bees will desert the hive, but that they will dwindle and die. The manner of communicating the intelligence to the little community, with due form and ceremony, is this: to take the key of the house, and knock with it three times against the hive, telling the inmates, at the same time, that their master or mistress, &c., (as the case may be,) is dead!

Mr. Loudon says, when in Bedfordshire lately, "we were informed of an old man who sung a psalm last year in front of some hives which were not doing well, but which he said would thrive in consequence of that ceremony. Our informant could not state whether this was a local or individual superstition."—Magazine of Natural History.

NOTES OF A READER

LAW REFORMS

We copy the following eloquent and impassioned paragraph from the last Edinburgh Review:—

"Thanks unto our ancestors, there is now no Star-chamber before whom may be summoned either the scholar, whose learning offends the bishops, by disproving incidentally the divine nature of tithes, or the counsellor, who gives his client an opinion against some assumed prerogative. There is no High Commission Court to throw into a gaol until his dying day, at the instigation of a Bancroft, the bencher who shall move for the discharge of an English subject from imprisonment contrary to law. It is no longer the duty of a privy councillor to seize the suspected volumes of an antiquarian, or plunder the papers of an ex-chief justice, whilst lying on his death-bed. Government licensers of the press are gone, whose infamous perversion of the writings of other lawyers will cause no future Hale to leave behind him orders expressly prohibiting the posthumous publication of his legal MSS., lest the sanctity of his name should be abused, to the destruction of those laws, of which he had been long the venerable and living image. An advocate of the present day need not absolutely withdraw (as Sir Thomas More is reported to have prudently done for a time) from his profession, because the crown had taken umbrage at his discharge of a public duty. It is, however, flattery and self-delusion to imagine that the lust of power and the weaknesses of human nature have been put down by the Bill of Rights, and that our forefathers have left nothing to be done by their descendants. The violence of former times is indeed no longer practicable; but the spirit which led to these excesses can never die; it changes its aspect and its instruments with circumstances, and takes the shape and character of its age. The risks and the temptations of the profession at the present day are quite as dangerous to its usefulness, its dignity, and its virtue, as the shears and branding-irons that frightened every barrister from signing Prynne's defence, or the writ that sent Maynard to the Tower. The public has a deep, an incalculable interest in the independence and fearless honour of its lawyers. In a system so complicated as ours, every thing must be taken at their word almost on trust; and proud as we, for the most part, justly are of the unsuspectedness of our judges, their integrity and manliness of mind are, of course, involved in that of the body out of which they must be chosen. There is not a man living whose life, liberty, and honour may not depend on the resoluteness as well as capacity of those by whom, when all may be at stake, he must be both advised and represented in a court of justice."

Our readers will easily recognise the great events in the history of the law in England, to which the reviewer alludes. Seldom have we read a more masterly page; it would even form an excellent rider to Mr. Brougham's recent speech on the same subject.

SUPPERS

It is a mere mistake to condemn suppers. All the inferior animals stuff immediately previous to sleeping; and why not man, whose stomach is so much smaller, more delicate, and more exquisite a piece of machinery? Besides, it is a well-known fact, that a sound human stomach acts upon a well-drest dish, with nearly the power of an eight-horse steam-engine; and this being the case, good heavens! why should one be afraid of a few trifling turkey-legs, a bottle of Barclay's brown-stout, a Welsh rabbit, brandy and water, and a few more such fooleries? We appeal to the common sense of our readers and of the world.

TEA

The consumption of tea is increasing every year. In 1823, the importation was 24,000,000 lb.; in 1826 it was 30,000,000 lb.; and in the year ending Jan. 5, 1828, 39,746,147 lb.—Oriental Herald.

POETS NOT BOTANISTS

Addison, who was probably unacquainted with the flower described by Virgil, represents the Italian aster as a purple bush, with yellow flowers, instead of telling us that the flower had a yellow disk and purple rays.

Aureus ipse; sed in foliis, quae plurima circum
Funduntur, violae sublucet purpura nigrae.

Virgil, Georgic iv.

The flower Itself is of a golden hue,
The leaves inclining to a darker blue;
The leaves shoot thick about the root, and grow
Into a bush, and shade the turf below.

Addison.

Dryden falls into the same error:—

A flower there is that grows in meadow ground,
Aurelius called, and easy to be found;
For from one root the rising stem bestows
A wood of leaves and violet purple boughs.
The flower itself is glorious to behold,
And shines on altars like refulgent gold.

    Mag. Nat. History

RIVAL SINGERS

In 1726-7, there was a sharp warfare in London between two opera singers, La Faustina and La Cuzzoni, and their partizans. It went so far that young ladies dressed themselves a la Faustina and a la Cuzzoni. We need not wonder, therefore, at the hair à la Sontag in our days, or gentleman's whiskers à la Jocko.

SHARKS

In a recent voyage from Bombay to the Persian Gulf, an Arab sailor of a crew, who was the stoutest and strongest man in the ship on leaving Bombay, pined away by disease, and was committed to the deep by his Arab comrades on board, with greater feeling and solemnity than is usual among Indian sailors, and with the accustomed ceremonies and prayers of the Mohamedan religion. The smell of the dead body attracted several sharks round the ship, one of which, eight feet in length, was harpooned and hauled on board.—Oriental Herald.

JONAH'S "WHALE."

At a late meeting of the Wernerian Society at Edinburgh, the Rev. Dr. Scot read a paper on the great fish that swallowed up Jonah, showing that it could not be a whale, as often supposed, but was probably a white shark.

MUSHROOMS

The large horse-mushroom, except for catsup, should be very cautiously eaten. In wet seasons, or if produced on wet ground, it is very deleterious, if used in any great quantity.—Mag. Nat. Hist.