The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 290, December 29, 1827

Intended for three waiters:
Ere Lansdowne's speech is at an end,
I see a board of lamps descend,
Whose orbs in bright confusion blend,
And strew the floor with splinters.

"Their smooth contents spread far and near,
And in one tide impetuous smear
Knight, Waiter, Liveryman, and Peer:
Nay, even his Royal Highness
The falling board no longer props,
Owns, with amaze, the unwelcome drops
And, premature anointment, swaps
For oozy wet his dryness.

"Fear shrieks in many a varied tone,
Pale Beauty mourns her spotted zone,
And heads and bleeding knuckles own
The glittering prostration.
Behold! thou wip'st thy crimson chin,
And all is discord, all is din;
While scalded waiters swear thee in
With many an execration.

"Yet, Lucas, smile in Fortune's spite;
Dark mornings often change to bright;
Ne'er shall this omen harm a wight
So active and so clever.
How buoyant, how elastic thou!
With a lamp halo round thy brow,
Prophetic Magog dubs thee now
A Lighter man—than ever."

New Monthly Magazine

ROYAL APPETITES

Charles XII. was brave, noble, generous, and disinterested,—a complete hero, in fact, and a regular fire-eater. Yet, in spite of these qualifications and the eulogiums of his biographer, it is pretty evident to those who impartially consider the career of this potentate, that he was by no means of a sane mind. In short, to speak plainly, he was mad, and deserved a strait-waistcoat as richly as any straw-crowned monarch in Bedlam. A single instance, in my opinion, fully substantiates this. I allude to his absurd freak at Frederickshall, when, in order to discover how long he could exist without nourishment, he abstained from all kinds of food for more than seventy hours! Now, would any man in his senses have done this? Would Louis XVIII., for instance, that wise and ever-to-be-lamented monarch? Had it been the reverse indeed—had Charles, instead of practising starvation, adopted the opposite expedient, and endeavoured to ascertain the greatest possible quantity of meat, fruit, bread, wine, vegetables, Sec. &c. he could have disposed of in any given time—why then it might have been something! But to fast for three days! if this be not madness—! Indeed, there is but one reason I could ever conceive for a person not eating; and that is, when, like poor Count Ugolino and his family, he can get nothing to eat!

Charles, now, and Louis—what a contrast! The first despised the pleasures of the table, abjured wine, and would, I dare say, just as soon have been without "a distinguishing taste" as with it. Your Bourbon, on the contrary, a five-mealed man, quaffing right Falernian night and day; and wisely esteeming the gratification of his palate of such importance, as absolutely to send from Lisle to Paris—distance of I know not how many score leagues—at a crisis, too, of peculiar difficulty—for a single pâte! "Go," cried the illustrious exile to his messenger; "dispatch, mon enfant! Mount the tricolor! Shout Vive le Diable! Any thing! But be sure you clutch the precious compound! Napoleon has driven me from my throne; but he cannot deprive me of my appetite!" Here was courage! I challenge the most enthusiastic admirer of Charles to produce a similar instance of indifference to danger!

There is another trait in the character of Louis which equally demands our admiration, and proves that the indomitable firmness may be sometimes associated with the most sensitive and—I had almost said—infantine sensibility. Of course, it will be perceived that I allude to the peculiar tenderness by which that amiable prince was often betrayed, even into tears, upon occasions when ordinary minds would have manifested comparative nonchalance. I have been assured that Louis absolutely wept once at Hartwell, merely because oysters were out of season!—a testaceous production, to which he was remarkably attached, (whence his cognomen of Des Huîtres, by corruption Dix-huit;) so much so, indeed, as to be literally ready to eat them, whenever they were brought into his presence. It is said that this worthy descendant of the Good Henrí used to put a barrel of Colchester oysters daily hors de combat, merely to give him an appetite.

Monthly Magazine

PORSON AND SHERIDAIT

The worst effect of "the scholar's melancholy," is when it leads a man, from a distrust of himself, to seek for low company, or to forget it by matching below himself. Porson, from not liking the restraints, or not possessing the exterior recommendations of good society, addicted himself to the lowest indulgences, spent his days and nights in cider-cellars and pot-houses, cared not with whom or where he was, so that he had somebody to talk to and something to drink, "from humble porter to imperial tokay," (a liquid, according to his own pun,) and fell a martyr, in all likelihood, to what in the first instance was pure mauvaise honte. Nothing could overcome this propensity to low society and sotting, but the having something to do, which required his whole attention and faculties; and then he shut himself up for weeks together in his chambers, or at the university, to collate old manuscripts, or edite a Greek tragedy, or expose a grave pedant, without seeing a single boon companion, or touching a glass of wine. I saw him once at the London Institution with a large patch of coarse brown paper on his nose, the skirts of his rusty black coat hung with cob-webs, and talking in a tone of suavity approaching to condescension to one of the managers. It is a pity that men should so lose themselves from a certain awkwardness and rusticity at the outset. But did not Sheridan make the same melancholy ending, and run the same fatal career, though in a higher and more brilliant circle? He did; and though not from exactly the same cause, (for no one could accuse Sheridan's purple nose and flashing eye of a bashfulness—"modest as morning when she coldly eyes the youthful Phoebus!") yet it was perhaps from one nearly allied to it, namely, the want of that noble independence and confidence in its own resources which should distinguish genius, and the dangerous ambition to get sponsors and vouchers for it in persons of rank and fashion. The affectation of the society of lords is as mean and low-minded as the love of that of cobblers and tapsters. It is that cobblers and tapsters may admire, that we wish to be seen in the company of their betters.

New Monthly Magazine

THE "STAY-AT-HOME."

I'll never dwell among the Caffres;
I'll never willing cross the Line,
Where Neptune, 'mid the tarry laughers,
Dips broiling landsmen in the brine.

I'll never go to New South Wales,
Nor hunt for glory at the Pole—
To feed the sharks, or catch the whales,
Or tempt a Lapland lady's soul.
I'll never willing stir an ell
Beyond old England's chalky border,
To steal or smuggle, buy or sell,
To drink cheap wine, or beg an Order.

Let those do so who long for claret,
Let those, who'd kiss a Frenchman's—toes;
I'll not drink vinegar, nor Star it,
For any he that wears a nose.
I'll not go lounge out life in Calais,
To dine at half a franc a head;
To hut like rats in lanes and alleys—
To eat an exile's gritty bread.

To flirt with shoeless Seraphinas,
To shrink at every ruffian's shako;
Without a pair of shirts between us,
Morn, noon, and night to smell tobacco;
To live my days in Gallic hovels,
Untouched by water since the flood;
To wade through streets, where famine grovels
In hunger, frippery, and mud.

Monthly Magazine

THE SELECTOR; AND LITERARY NOTICES OF NEW WORKS

ART OF DRINKING WINE

The order of taking wine at dinner has not been sufficiently observed in this country. "There is," as the immortal bard beautifully expresses it, "a reason in roasting eggs;" and if there is a rationale of eating, why should there not be a system of drinking? The red wines should always precede the white, except in the case of a French dinner, when the oysters should have a libation of Chablis, or Sauterne. I do not approve of white Hermitage with oysters. The Burgundies should follow—the purple Chambertin or odorous Romanee. A single glass of Champagne or Hock, or any other white wine, may then intervene between the Cote Rotie and Hermitage; and last, not least in our dear love, should come the cool and sweet-scented Claret. With the creams and the ices should come the Malaga, Rivesaltes, or Grenache; nor with these will Sherry or Madeira harmonize ill. Last of all, should Champagne boil up in argent foam, and be sanctified by an offering of Tokay, poured from a glass so small, that you might fancy it formed of diamond.

Literary Pocket-Book

STRATFORD-ON-AVON

I was detained at Stratford nearly two hours, and endeavoured to see whatever I could, in so short a time, relative to Shakspeare. The clean, quiet, uncommercial appearance of the town pleased me; but I was interested beyond expression on seeing the great poet's house. When I entered the untenanted room where he first drew the breath of this world, I took off my hat with, I hope, an unaffected sentiment of homage. The walls and ceiling of this chamber are covered with names and votive inscriptions, among which I saw the signatures of Sir Walter Scott, Mr. Lockhaft, Washington Irving, and many others familiar to me, foreigners as well as English. I did not sign my name, for I felt that it had no right in such a place; but I brought away a minute relic, in the shape of a bit of rotten wood, pinched from the beam that supports the chimney.

From the birth-place of the illustrious man, I found my way to his corpse-place; and never had I beheld so beautiful and venerable a church, or so tranquil and lovely a spot. The approach to the edifice, which is situated at some distance from the town, upon the banks of the fresh and murmuring Avon, is through an avenue of lime-trees, the branches of which are interlaced archwise, as Lord Bacon would say, so as to form a green canopy of some length. The scenery is not what is called romantic, but soft and quiet, and calculated, above all things, to surround the tomb of the genial poet of human nature.