The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 19, No. 548, May 26, 1832

The Gatherer

Oriental Apologue.—A blind man having contracted a violent passion for a certain female, married her, contrary to the advice of all his friends, who told him that she was exceedingly ugly. A celebrated physician at length undertook to restore him to sight. The blind man, however, refused his assistance. "If I should recover my sight," said he, "I should be deprived of the love I have for my wife, which alone renders me happy." "Man of God," replied the physician, "tell me which is of most consequence to a rational being, the attainment of happiness or the attainment of truth?" S.H.

Honour.—William the Third having insisted on Lord H–n's giving him his honour not to fight a man who had given him a box on the ear, his lordship was obliged seemingly to comply; but as soon us he was out of the king's presence he fought the man. The king was, at first, highly incensed at his breaking his word with him, and asked him how he came to do so, when he had just given him his honour. "Sire," replied his lordship, "you were in the wrong to take such a pledge, for at the time I gave it you, I had no honour to give." S.H.

Doll's Eyes.—Insignificant as may appear this petty article of commerce, it is well known to keep in employ several thousand hands, and goes to show the vast importance of trifles to a country of decided commercialists. Mr. Osler, an intelligent manufacturer of Birmingham, gave the following statement before the Committee of the House of Commons, in 1824. "Eighteen years ago, on my first journey to London, a respectable looking man in the city asked me if I could supply him with doll's eyes, and I was foolish enough to feel half offended; I thought it derogatory to my new dignity as a manufacturer, to make doll's eyes. He took me into a room quite as wide, and twice the length of this, (one of the large rooms for Committees in the House of Commons,) and we had just room to walk between the stacks, from the floor to the ceiling, of parts of dolls. He said these are only the legs and arms, the trunks are below, but I saw enough to convince me that he wanted a great many eyes; and as the article appeared quite in my own line of business, I said I would take an order by way of experiment, and he showed me several specimens. I copied the order, and on returning to the Tavistock Hotel I found it amounted to upwards of five hundred pounds.'" SWAINE.

Eggs.—The duty paid on eggs imported at Ramsgate within the last three months, exceeds the sum of 2,000l.—(Morning Herald.) The rate of duty is, as stated in our last, l0d. on every 120 eggs.

The Druids and the Mistletoe—Pliny, in his Natural History, tells us, "The Druids held nothing so sacred as the mistletoe of the oak, as this is very scarce and rarely to be found, when any of it is discovered, they go with great pomp and ceremony on a certain day to gather it. When they have got everything in readiness under the oak, both for the sacrifice and the banquet, which they make on this great festival, they begin by tying two white bulls to it by the horns, then one of the Druids, clothed in white, mounts the tree, and with a knife of gold, cuts the mistletoe, which is received in a white sagum; this done, they proceed to their sacrifices and feastings." This festival is said to have been kept as near as the age of the moon permitted to the 10th of March, which was their New Year's Day. The common mistletoe was the golden bough of Virgil, and was Aenea's passport to the infernal regions. P.T.W.

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notes

1

We hope this note may meet the eye of some of our Yorkshire correspondents.

2

Is not this a species of land-crab?—ED. M.

3

By Mr. A. Aikin, in Trans. Soc. Arts.

4

Marmion.

5

See Mirror, vol. xiii. p 415.—One of the best features of the establishment is the gratuitous circulation of the library for twenty miles round; the books being lent to any householder of good report residing within twenty miles of the castle.

6

This should be John Lenton, and the year 1603,—See Mirror, vol. xvii, p. 181.

7

There is an old (full-length) engraving of this personage, and I am in the possession of one.