The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 376, June 20, 1829

The Casket.

THE COSMOPOLITE

COUNTRY CHARACTER

(For the Mirror.)

Country society has but little relief; and in proportion to intellectual refinement, this monotony appears to increase. We have always been favourable to Book Clubs in country towns, and about ten years since, established one in the anti-social town of –. The plan worked well; its economy was admired, and extensively adopted all over England, but we heard little of its contributing to the social enjoyments of the people. Twenty families reading the same books, and these passed from house to house, among the respectability of the town, might have brought about a kind of consanguinity of opinion, and led to frequent interchange of civilities, meetings of the members at each others' houses, or at least a sort of how-d'ye-do acquaintance. The case was otherwise. The attorney and the doctor joined our society that their families of ten or twelve sons and daughters might keep under the sixpences and shillings of the circulating library; but they soon became jealous of new books, although they often returned them uncut and unread; and so far from knitting the bonds of acquaintance, we at last thought our plan served to estrange the members, by affording the little aristocracy frequent opportunities for venting their splenetic pride; the books were like disjunctive conjunctions, and when we left the place, the "society" did not promise to live another year.

We could entertain ourselves, at least, with sketches of a few of the members of this disjointed body; but we must be content with one, and that shall be the bookseller of the town.

Imagine a man of middle height, rather inclined to obesity, and just turned of fifty-eight. He had a broad, low forehead, sunken eyes, an aquiline nose, a heavy, hanging lip, and a chin which buried its projections in ample and unclassical folds of neckerchief. He was bald, except a tuft on the occiput, or hinder part of his head, and on dress occasions he wore powder. He was a widower, his wife having been dead about ten years, leaving him two daughters, the amiability of whose dispositions was a painful contrast to the uneven temper of their father. He kept a good table, and had the best cellar of grape wine in the town, but entertained little company. His guests were usually the valets or butlers of the gentry in the neighbourhood; but the housekeepers were never invited by his daughters, a point of propriety in male and female acquaintanceship which amused us not a little. His business was of a most multifarious description, and besides the trades of bookseller, stationer, and druggist, he had a printing-office, and was, moreover, a self-taught printer, He was post-master and stamp sub-distributor, receiver of bail, and agent for insurances—little official appointments which would have made him mayor in a corporate town. Of late years, he seldom meddled with these matters of business; but tired of their common track, he struck out a course of life, which was neither public nor private, but made him a sort of oracle in the town, whose opinions were freely printed and gratuitously circulated, whilst the author was seldom seen except at vestry-meetings. In this way he acted as secretary to a benevolent society established by the gentry, and such was his enthusiasm that he gave his services and £200. worth of printing during the first year; and the Committee in return presented him with a handsome piece of plate with a complimentary inscription, which he had the modesty to keep locked up, and never to display even to his visiters. This proved him to be a benevolent man, and he would have been ten times more useful had not his charitable disposition been over tinged with oddity and caprice. His contact with the poor of the parish soon made him overseer, although his religious observances would not qualify him for churchwarden; for he only went to church at funerals, to which he was frequently invited, his staid appearance, and a certain air of gentility of which he was master, being in such cases no mean recommendation. Overseer and select vestryman, he printed the parish accounts, for the most part gratuitously, although the poor and even the better portion of the towns-people never gave him full credit for this generosity, conceiving that he was repaid by some secret services or funds. The oddity of his pursuits was only exceeded by their variety. In politics he was a disciple of Cobbett, and year after year, foretold a revolution, an alarm which he communicated to every one of his household. He took extreme interest in all new mechanical projects, but seldom indulged in the practical part of them. In wine-making he was once a very experimentalist, and studied every line of Macculloch and unripe fruit; next, he turned over every inch of his garden, analyzed the soil à la Davy, and salted all his growing crops. His cogitative habits led him to take long walks in the country, and he soon flew from horticultural chemistry to real farming; and about the same time took to road making and macadamization, and became a surveyor of the highways. But the trustees wanting to macadamize the miserably pitched street of the town, he bethought him of dust in summer and mud in winter, and drew up a long memorial to the lords of the soil, remonstrating with them on their impolitic conduct; but all in vain. It is curious, however, to reflect that what the people of a country town about ten years ago thought a curse to their roads should now be adopted in many of the principal London Streets. The last we heard of our bookseller's hobbies, was that he had bought the lease of a house for the sake of the large garden attached to it, and here, like Evelyn in his Elysium Britannicum, he passes his days in the primitive occupation of gardening.

Our bookseller is a self-educated man, and in some pamphlets on the charitable institution to which we have alluded, are many of the errors of style peculiar to self-educated writers. Among his acquaintance we remember an attorney who practised in London, but had a small house in the town. He had been editor and proprietor of four or five morning and evening newspapers, and furnished our bookseller with all the news off 'Change and about town. This friend and the journals were his oracles, and their influence he digested in morsels of political economy, so introduced into his pamphlets as not to offend the landed gentry of the neighbourhood. To them, it should be mentioned, he was a most useful personage, and his aid and auspices, were almost necessary to the success of any project for the interest of the town. The trades-people looked up to him; they would agree if Mr. – did, or they would wait his opinion.

We have heard that he has been a gallant in his time; and more than once he has told little stories of dances and harvest homes, and merry meetings at the wealthy farmers' in the neighbourhood, of the moonlight walk home, and of his companions counting their won guineas on their return from an evening party—all of which throw into shade the social amusements of our artificial times. We have said that he kept a good table; for presents of game poured in from the gentlemen's bailiffs in the neighbourhood, fish from town to be repaid by summer visits, and if the fishmonger of the place was overstocked, the first person he sent to was our bookseller. Again, he would take a post-chaise, or the White Hart barouche, for a party of pleasure, when his neighbours would have been happy with a gig. He did not join, or allow his daughters to mix with them at the tradesman's ball, but they staid moping at home, because there was none between the gentry and trade. Yet the professional and little-fortune people cried – trade, and thus our bookseller belonged to neither class. The people of the place know not whether he is rich; he has been "making money" all his life-time say they, but he has "lived away." It is, however, to be regretted that they cannot settle the point, since they determine to a pound the income of every gentleman and lady in the neighbourhood, and, doff their hats according to the total.

To sum up his character, he is just and sometimes generous; hospitable but not unostentatious; dictatorial and circumlocutory to excess in his conversation, and of an inquisitive turn of mind, and considering his resources, he is well informed and even clever in matters of the world; in short, he is a perfect pattern of the gentleman tradesmen of the present day.

PHILO

NOTES OF A READER

EMIGRATION

A pamphlet of Twenty-four Letters from Labourers in America to their Friends in England, has lately reached our hands. These letters have been addressed by emigrants to their relatives in the eastern part of Sussex, and have been printed literatim. We are aware of the strong prejudice which exists against the practice of parishes sending off annually, a part of their surplus population to America; but some of the statements in these letters will stagger the Noes. We quote a few from letters written during the past year:

Brooklyn, Jan. 14, 1828.

John is at work as carpenter, for the winter; his Boss gives him 5s. a day, our money, which is little more than 2s. 6d, English money. They tell us that winter is a dead time in America; but we have found it as well and better than we expected. We can get good flour for 11d. English money; good beef for 2d. or 3d do, and mutton the same price; pork about 4d.; sugar, very good, 5d.; butter and cheese is not much cheaper than in England; clothing is rather dear, especially woollen; worsted stockings are dear.

New Hereford, June 30, 1828.

Dear Father and Mother,

I now take the opportunity of writing to you since our long journey. But I am very sorry to tell you, that we had the misfortune to lose both our little boys; Edward died 29th April, and William 5th May; the younger died with bowel complaint; the other with the rash-fever and sore throat. We were very much hurt to have them buried in a watery grave; we mourned their loss; night and day they were not out of our minds. We had a minister on board, who prayed with us twice a day; he was a great comfort to us, on the account of losing our poor little children. He said, The Lord gave, and taketh away; and blessed be the name of the Lord. We should make ourselves contented if we had our poor little children here with us: we kept our children 24 hours. There were six children and one woman died in the vessel. Master Bran lost his wife. Mrs. Coshman, from Bodiam, lost her two only children. My sister Mary and her two children are living at Olbourn, about 80 miles from us. Little Caroline and father is living with us; and our three brothers are living within a mile of us. Brother James was very ill coming over, with the same complaint that William had. We were very sick for three weeks, coming over: John was very hearty, and so was father. We were afraid we should loose little Caroline; but the children and we are hearty at this time. Sarah and Caroline are often speaking of going to see their grandmother. Mary's children were all well, except little John; he was bad with a great cold. I have got a house and employ. I have 4s. a day and my board; and in harvest and haying I am to have 6s. or 7s. a day and my board. We get wheat for 7s. per bushel, of our money; that is about 3s. 7d. of your money; meat is about 3d. per pound; butter from 5d. to 6d.; sugar about the same as in England; shoes and clothes about the same as it is with you; tea is from 2s. 6d. 3s. 6d. of your money; tobacco is about 9d. per pound, of your money; good whisky about 1s. 1d. per gallon; that is 2s. of your money.

Hudson State, New York, July 6, 1828.

I must tell you a little what friends we met with when we landed in to Hudson; such friends as we never found in England; but it was chiefly from that people that love and fear God. We had so much meat brought us, that we could not eat while it was good; a whole quarter of a calf at once; so we had two or three quarters in a little time, and seven stone of beef. One old gentleman came and brought us a wagon load of wood, and two chucks of bacon; some sent flour, some bread, some cheese, some soap, some candles, some chairs, some bedsteads. One class-leader sent us 3s. worth of tin ware and many other things. The flowers are much here as yours; provision is not very cheap; flour is 1s. 7d. a gallon of this money, about 10d. of yours; butter is 1s., your money 6d.; meat from 2d. to 6d., yours 1d. to 3d.; sugar 10d. to 1s. yours 5d. and 6d. Tell father I wish I could send him nine or ten pound of tobacco; for it is 1s. a pound; I chaws rarely.

Constantia, Dec. 2, 1828.

Dear Children,

I now write for the third time since I left old England. I wrote a letter, dated October 8th; and finding that it would have four weeks to lay, I was afraid you would not have it; and as I told you I would write the truth, if I was forced to beg my bread from door to door, so I now proceed. Dear children, I write to let you know that we are all in good health, excepting your mother; and she is now just put to bed of another son, and she is as well as can be expected. And now as it respects what I have got in America: I have got 12-1/2 acres of land, about half improved, and the rest in the state of nature, and two cows of my own. We can buy good land for 18s. per acre; but buying of land is not one quarter part, for the land is as full of trees as your woods are of stubs; and they are from four to ten rods long, and from one to five feet through them. You may buy land here from 18s. to 9l. in English money; and it will bring from 20 to 40 bushels of wheat per acre, and corn from 20 to 50 bushels per acre, and rye from 20 to 40 ditto. You may buy beef for 1-3/4d. per pound; and mutton the same; Irish butter 7d. per pound; cheese 3d.; tea 4s. 6d.; sugar 7d. per pound; candles 7d.; soap 7d.; and wheat 4s. 6d. per bushel; corn and rye 2s. per bushel. And I get 2s. 4d. a day and my board; and have as much meat to eat, three times a day, as I like to eat. But clothing is dear; shoes 8s.; half boots 16s.; calico from 8d. to 1s. 4d.; stockings 2s. 9d. to 3s. 6d.; flannel 4s. per yard; superfine cloth from 4s. 6d. to 1l.; now all this is counted in English money. We get 4s. per day in summer, and our board; and if you count the difference of the money, you will soon find it out; 8s. in our money is 4s. 6d. in your money.

The reader will perhaps think we give only the "milk and honey" of these letters, but they bear the stamp of authenticity.

KENILWORTH

Every body knows the delightful romance of Kenilworth,—a tragedy, of which the dramatis personae are the parties themselves, called up from their graves by the novelist magician. Students who attend St. Mary's Church, Oxford, still look out for the flat stone which covers the dust and bones of poor Amy, and could any sculptured effigies supply the place of the whole historical picture, then imagined in the mind's eye? More than once attracted by the old ballad,[1 - We believe, in Evans's collection.] we have, when undergraduates, walked to the "lonely towers of Cumnor Hall," fancied that we saw her struggle, and heard her screams, when she was thrown over the staircase (the traditional mode of her assassination,) and wondered how any man could have the heart to murder a simple lovesick pretty girl. Even now, in sorrow and in sadness, we read this account:—

The unfortunate Amye Duddley (for so she subscribes herself in the Harleian Manuscript, 4712,) the first wife of Lord Robert Dudley, Queen Elizabeth's favourite, and after Amy's death Earl of Leicester, was daughter of Sir John Robsart. Her marriage took place June 4, 1550, the day following that on which her lord's eldest brother had been united to a daughter of the Duke of Somerset, and the event is thus recorded by King Edward in his Diary: "4. S. Robert dudeley, third sonne to th' erle of warwic, married S. John Robsartes daughter; after wich mariage ther were certain gentlemen that did strive who shuld first take away a gose's heade wich was hanged alive on tow crose postes." Soon after the accession of Elizabeth, when Dudley's ambitious views of a royal alliance had opened upon him, his countess mysteriously died at the retired mansion of Cumnor near Abingdon,[2 - It is only three miles from Oxford, and six or seven from Abingdon.] Sept. 8, 1560; and, although the mode of her death is imperfectly ascertained (her body was thrown down stairs, as a blind,) there appears far greater foundation for supposing the earl guilty of her murder, than usually belongs to such rumours, all her other attendants being absent at Abingdon fair, except Sir Richard Verney and his man. The circumstances, distorted by gross anachronisms, have been weaved into the delightful romance of "Kenilworth."

Of the goose and posts, we can suggest no better explanation than that the goose was intended for poor Amy, and the cross posts for the Protector Somerset, and his rival Dudley Duke of Northumberland, both of whom were bred to the devil's trade, ambition. Others may be possessed of more successful elucidation. At all events, it is plain that the people had a very suspicious opinion of Leicester, amounting to this, that he was a great rascal, who played a deep game, and stuck at nothing which he could do without danger to himself.[3 - His general mode of murder was by poison; and it is said, that he so perished himself.]– Gentleman's Magazine.

MEXICAN MINES

It appears that, on an average of the fifteen years previous to the revolution, about twenty-two millions of dollars were exported, and that there was an accumulation of about two millions. Since the revolution, the exports have averaged 13,587,052 dollars, while the produce has decreased to eleven millions. This change was the natural consequence of the revolution. The favourable accounts of Humboldt excited a spirit of speculation that was wholly regardless of passing events; and the Act of Congress, facilitating the co-operation of foreigners with the natives, produced a mania which has been destructive to numberless individuals, who trusted too much to names. Seven English companies, with a capital of at least three millions, were established, and these were followed by two American, and one German, companies. Such was the rage for mining on the Royal Exchange, that for a time it was only necessary for any one to appear with contracts made with Mexican mine owners to establish a company. Many who were so ignorant as not even to know the difference between a shaft and a level, commenced speculators, not for the purpose of fairly earning a reward for doing some service to those to whom they offered their mines, but to fill their own purses without reference to consequences. Such a system of unprincipled conduct could not last; almost all the minor performers have been driven from the stage, and the respectable associations alone maintain their footing, though the want of returns for the immense sums invested has tended to produce a general want of confidence.

Since these enterprises have been undertaken, an immense and fruitless expenditure has been incurred by sending out machinery, which could be of no earthly use—by despising the native processes, and substituting others that have been found wholly inapplicable—and by introducing British labourers, who when abroad reverse all the good qualities for which they are valuable at home. A reform in this system we believe to have been generally adopted, and we are sure that a reduction of expense, a management purely European, and native labour, with only such modifications in working, smelting, or amalgamating, as experience will prove to be advantageous, will, in a moderate time, return the capital already expended, with a commensurate advantage. But these things can only take place provided the public tranquillity be maintained, and the government keep their engagements with foreigners inviolate. The insecurity arising from the domestic feuds now disturbing this fine country, must, if it continues, finally annihilate its best resources.—Foreign Quarterly Review.

Of the abhorrence with which the Dutch regard the French tongue, the following lines of Bilderdyk are an amusing example:—

Begone, thou bastard-tongue! so base—so broken—
By human jackals and hyaenas spoken;
Formed for a race of infidels, and fit
To laugh at truth—and scepticize in wit;
What stammering, snivelling sounds, which scarcely dare,
Bravely through nasal channels meet the ear—
Yet helped by apes' grimaces—and the devil,
Have ruled the world, and ruled the world for evil!

Ibid.

COALS

One of the pamphlets of the age of the Commonwealth is said, in the title-page, to be

Printed in the year
That sea-coal was exceeding dear.

The remembrance of this inconvenience, which the Londoners had suffered during the stoppage of their supply from Newcastle, made "the committees of both kingdoms conclude and agree among themselves, that some of the most notorious delinquents and malignants, late coal-owners in the town of Newcastle, be wholly excluded from intermeddling with any shares or parts of colleries;" "but as the parliament might find a difficulty in driving on the trade, they did not conceive it for their service to put out all the said malignants at once, but were rather constrained, for the present, to make use of those delinquents in working their own collieries as tenants and servants." The more stubborn and wealthy, therefore, were selected for example; and the others had this favour shown them.

LADY-POETS OF ENGLAND

The following is a Frenchman's expression of homage to our modern female poets, in which we excel all the world:—

It is remarkable, that in the latter years of the eighteenth century, and also during the whole course of our revolution, there appeared in England a whole school, as it were, of female authors, whose pure and graceful productions are disfigured by no exaggerations, nor are they of that sombre character which distinguishes the modern literature of their country. Of the lady-authors of England, the most celebrated is Lady Wortley Montagu, the contemporary of Pope, who has left poems, but more especially letters, highly remarkable for their talent and philosophy. It is impossible to give here the names of the authoresses who appeared all on a sudden about half a century after Lady Wortley Montagu. One of the earliest of them was a lady of the same name, Mrs. E. Montagu, the author of the Essays on Shakspeare, and Mrs. Anna Laetitia Barbauld, who wrote numerous poems and admirable hymns for children. There is great beauty in the Epistle of Mrs. Barbauld to Wilberforce, on the subject of the Abolition of the Slave Trade (1781.) Mrs. Hannah More has also written several works of religious fiction, and above all, some charming poems; Florio (1786,) and the Blue Stocking, or Conversation. The Blue Stocking is a burlesque name given to a lady's coterie, in which several females attempted to start a sort of bureau d'esprit under the direction of Mesdames Robinson and Piozzi, a coterie innocent enough, but which excited the wrath of Mr. Gifford, the Editor of the Quarterly Review, who fulminated against it several satires in excessively bad taste, and written in a tone of disgusting pedantry. The verses of Mr. Gifford are infinitely more ridiculous than those he pretends to correct. Amongst the English ladies who have written romance, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs. Inchbald, and Lady Morgan, are worthy of especial note. Several ladies, without having written works of great importance, have still produced poetical pieces of graceful beauty; in this number it is but justice to distinguish Mrs. Opie. And lastly, in order to finish this hasty catalogue, we may remark that there have appeared in England, in our days, several ladies of a high order of literary, poetical, and at the same time, philosophical talent. Lady Morgan herself has contrived to mix up history and romance in her writings, with great ability; but among the ladies, who inscribed their fame on monuments more durable than romantic stories, we must select for honourable mention the names of Joanna Baillie, Aikin, Benger, and Helen Maria Williams. Miss Baillie, sister of the celebrated Dr. Baillie, the physician, is a woman of the highest talent. It is not your pretty nothings, your elegant trifles, which occupy her genius; on the contrary, she has attempted in a series of dramatic pieces, to paint the most energetic passion of the human heart; and her pieces, written in the most elevated and Shakspearian tone, will always be regarded as the work of a superior mind. John Kemble, in the part of Montfort, reached the sublime of agony. In the writings of Miss Baillie there is a combination of the solemn and the poetical, which is rarely observed in women. Miss Aikin has written some charming poems, far more beautiful than any I have met with in the writings of Miss Landon and Miss Mitford. The Mouse's Petition, by Miss Aikin, is a chef-d'oeuvre. Miss Benger has published some historical works of great interest, which place her in the same line with Miss Aikin. Lastly, there is Helen Maria Williams, whose muse, half English, half French, has published poems, sonnets, and other pieces of verse, besides several political and historical works. This superior woman, at the same time that she gave birth, under the influence of sensibility and fancy, to works of inspiration, portrayed the details of the events of the French revolution, in the centre of which she threw herself, in 1792, from pure enthusiasm for liberty.—Foreign Quarterly Review.

AMERICAN LAW

"No commentator," says Judge Hall, in his Letters from the West, "has taken any notice of Linch's Law, which was once the lex loci of the frontiers. Its operation was as follows:—When a horse thief, a counterfeiter, or any other desperate vagabond, infested a neighbourhood, evading justice by cunning, or by a strong arm, or by the number of his confederates, the citizens formed themselves into a "regulating company," a kind of holy brotherhood, whose duty was to purge the community of its unruly members. Mounted, armed, and commanded by a leader, they proceeded to arrest such notorious offenders as were deemed fit subjects of exemplary justice; their operations were generally carried on in the night. Squire Birch, who was personated by one of the party, established his tribunal under a tree in the woods, and the culprit was brought before him, tried, and generally convicted; he was then tied to a tree, lashed without mercy, and ordered to leave the country within a given time, under pain of a second visitation. It seldom happened that more than one or two were thus punished; their confederates took the hint and fled, or were admonished to quit the neighbourhood."

MONUMENTAL ALTERATION

The following odd story is related respecting a monument in a chapel, adjoining Stene, a fine family seat in the north:—The sculptor, in that vile taste which seems to have originated in an unhappy design of making every thing connected with the grave revolting to our feelings, had ornamented this monument with "a very ghastly, grinning alabaster skull;" and the bishop one day expressed a wish to his domestic chaplain, Dr. Grey, that it had not been placed there. Grey, upon this, sent to Banbury for the sculptor, and consulted with him whether it was not possible to convert it into a soothing, instead of a painful object. After some consideration, the artist declared that the only thing into which he could possibly convert it was—a bunch of grapes! and accordingly, at this day, a bunch of grapes may be seen upon the monument; for the chapel, which for a time had been abandoned to the rooks and daws who built their nests among the monuments, has been repaired, and is now united to the rectory of Hinton.