قراءة كتاب The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 14, No. 388, September 5, 1829

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‏اللغة: English

The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 14, No. 388, September 5, 1829

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg

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management. The Memoirs of 1828 record a singular circumstance with regard to this point, on the authority of De Santis. While, on Friday, July 12th, the sixth day of the insurrection, he was sitting in his judgment-seat, a female masked, or man in woman's habit, approached and whispered, 'Masaniello, we have reached the goal, a crown is prepared, and it is for thy brows.'—'For mine?' he replied, 'I desire none but the green wreath with which we honour Our Lady's festival in September. When I have delivered my country I shall resume my nets.'—'You find them no more. Rebellion should not be undertaken, or it should be carried on to the end.'—'I will resume my nets,' said Masaniello steadily. 'You will not find them,' said the intrusive monitor. 'What, then, shall I find?'—'Death!' answered the masked figure, and withdrew into the crowd. An evidence of the purity of his intentions, though combined with gross ignorance, was afforded by the rigour with which he insisted on the destruction of the treasure and rich movables found in the houses which were destroyed during the first days of the tumult. Latterly, indeed, he yielded to the suggestions of Genuino and d'Arpaya, that these things should be preserved for the good of the state, and for the purpose of presenting them as a donative to Philip IV. in place of the abolished gabelles. But whatever was the case with regard to less scrupulous insurgents, he participated in no plunder, until vanity produced madness, or madness vanity. On the whole we may conclude, that he was a man whose principal characteristic was the boldness with which he pursued an object ardently desired, but who was alike incapable, from want of knowledge and talents, to avail himself of the success which so wonderfully crowned his enterprise. How far his cruelty was the effect of natural disposition, or a consequence of his malady, is a question that must be left to Him to whom alone it can be known."

LONDON.

Literally translated from a Chinese Poem, by a Chinese who visited England in 1813.

The towering edifices rise story above story,

In all the stateliness of splendid mansions:

Railings of iron thickly stud the sides of every entrance;

And streams from the river circulate through the walls;

The sides of each apartment are variegated with devices;

Through the windows of glass appear the scarlet hangings.

And in the street itself is presented a beautiful scene;

The congregated buildings have all the aspect of a picture.

In London, about the period of the ninth moon,

The inhabitants delight in travelling to a distance;

They change their abodes and betake themselves to the country,

Visiting their friends in their rural retreats.

The prolonged sound of carriages and steeds is heard through the day;

Then in autumn the prices of provisions fall,

And the greater number of dwellings being untenanted,

Such as require it are repaired and adorned.

The spacious streets are exceedingly smooth and level,

Each being crossed by others at intervals;

On either side perambulate men and females,

In the centre, career along the carriages and horses;

The mingled sound of voices is heard in the shops at evening.

During midwinter the accumulated snows adhere to the pathway,

Lamps are displayed at night along the street sides,

Their radiance twinkling like the stars of the sky.

Mozart was rather vain of the proportion of his hands and feet—but not of having written the Requiem or the Don Juan.

BURMESE DIGNITY.

Mr. Crawfurd, in his account of the Embassy to Ava, relates the following specimen of the dignity of a Burmese minister. While sitting under an awning on the poop of the steam vessel, a heavy squall, with rain, came on.—"I suggested to his excellency the convenience of going below, which he long resisted, under the apprehension of committing his dignity by placing himself in a situation where persons might tread over his head, for this singular antipathy is common both to the Burmese and Siamese. The prejudice is more especially directed against the fair sex; a pretty conclusive proof of the estimation in which they are held. His excellency seriously demanded to know whether any woman had ever trod upon the poop; and being assured in the negative, he consented at length to enter the cabin."

STEAM.

A quotation from Agathias clearly establishes a knowledge of the applicability of steam to mechanical purposes so early as the reign of the emperor Justinian, when the philosopher Anthemius most unphilosophically employed its powerful agency at Constantinople to shake the house of a litigious neighbour. It is also recorded, that Pope Sylvester II. constructed an organ, that was worked by steam. As compared with recent ingenuity, however, these applications may fairly bring to mind the Frenchman's boast of his countryman's invention of the frill and the ruffle; while his English opponent claimed for his native land the honour of suggesting the addition of the shirt.

MEDICAL MUSIC.

Sharp, the surgeon, Sir Charles Blicke's master, was a great amateur of music, but he never used it as a means of curing patients, only in attracting them. It was said that he "fiddled himself into practice, and fiddled Mr. Pott out of it;" certain it is Mr. Pott, not being a flat, did not choose to act in concert with Sharp, and made a quick movement to the westward.

Boerhaave tells us, that one of the greatest orators of antiquity, Tiberius Gracchus, when animated, used to cry out like an old woman; to avoid which, he had a servant, who, at these periods, sounded a pipe, by way of hint, as well as to pitch the tone, so sensible was he of the importance of a well-regulated voice.

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