Page images
PDF
EPUB

The Gatherer.

Almost all countries present examples of the strange love which mankind have of doing things in a roundabout way. In England, a member of parliament does not give up his seat-he only "accepts the Chiltern Hundreds." In the Ottoman empire, when the Sultan wants to dismiss a grand vizier from office, he sends a messenger, who enters the vizier's house, walks up to his table, and wipes the ink out of his golden pen. No more is said or done, but the vizier understands that he is forthwith dismissed.

Spirits.-23,216,272 gallons have been distilled in the United Kingdom, in the year 1834. The return for England is 4,652,838 gallons; Scotland, 9,193,091; Ireland, 9,370,343. The amount of duty stands thus: England, 2,866,6127. 17s. 6d. ; Scotland, 1,007,5077. 3s. 4d.; Ireland, 1,369,3187. 6s. giving a total of upwards of five millions sterling.

Miniature Steam-Engine.-An inhabitant of Sheffield has constructed a beautiful model of a steam-engine of an extraordinarily small size. Notwithstanding the weight of the whole, including the fly-wheel, does not exceed two ounces and a half, and its size scarcely exceeds that of a hen's egg, yet the most minute parts are fitted up in a style of the utmost perfection, and the motions are performed with the greatest velocity.

Liverpool and Manchester Railway. At the seventh half-yearly meeting of the Directors, they reported a continued increase in the traffic, as compared with the correspond. ing six months of the former year. The receipts of the half-year ending 30th June, amounted to 99,4747. 16s., and the expenses to 61,8147. 6s. Id., leaving a net profit for six months of 37,6601. 9s. 10d. A dividend of 41. 10s. per share was recommended by the

Directors.

The first exhibition at Somerset House was in 1769, the number of works of art being 136.

Epitaph at Bristol, on Hippsley the Actor.

Here lies John Hippsley, a lad in truth, Who oft, in jest, died in his youth; Preferr'd from candle snuffing art, He with applause play'd many a part: The Collier first advanc'd him higher; Next Gomez, plagu'd with wife and friar; Fam'd in Flewellin, Pistol's Hector; Then was of playhouses projecter, And author too, and wrote a farce; But there, all say, he show'd an ass. If acting well a soul will save, He sure a place in heavn'n shall have: And yet to speak the truth, I ween, As great a scrub as e'er was seen. Cholera. The last caravan attacked by the cholera at Mecca, worn down with fatigue and destitute of water, almost wholly perished. No less than 40,000 pilgrims were left behind in the desert! The dust of the desert sur

G. K.

[blocks in formation]

He that wyll have here any thynge done,
Let hym com fryndly, he shall be welcom;
A frynd to the owner, and euymy to no man,
Call all here frely to come when they can;
For the fase of trothe I do alway protesse,
Myller, be true, disgrace not thy nest;

If Falsehood appere, the fault shal be thyne,
And of sharpe pouishment think me not unkind;
Therefore, to be true yt shall thee behove,
To please God chifly, that sitthye above.

Ivy. In all the ruins I have seen in Ger many, (and that is no small number,) I have never discovered the least vestige of ivy.Coleridge.

German Beer.-They were brewing at the inn, (Hessen-Dreisch,) I inquired and found that they put three bushels of malt and five large handsful of hops to the hogshead. The beer, as you may suppose, is but indifferent stuff.-Coleridge-New Monthly Magazine.

Coleridge, speaking of some half-naked children, describes their only covering as "the relics of a ci-devant shirt.”

The Statue of the Duke of Kent, at the top of Portland Place, is nearly lost, through its not being in proportion to the site on which it stands. Indeed, this is a situation in which something bold and imposing should be placed, in order to correspond with the buildings around, and to make a handsome termination to the street; and also, in some measure, to correspond with the Duke of York's pillar, in Carlton Place.- Gardener's Magazine.

National Gallery.-At the sale of books and drawings of the late Mr. Nash, there was a design for a National Gallery at Charing Cross even more commonplace than that

which is now in course of erection. It contained three tiers of glazed windows, and eight or ten doors at regular distances; and, in fact, was only distinguishable from a row of street houses by having a central portico and some other columns and cupolas. If these had been removed, it would have been impossible to distinguish the proposed public building from a row of private houses.-Gardener's Magazine.

There is as perfect a friendship between the Arab and his horse, as there is between us and the dog.

Erratum at page 160:-The date of the psalter, the earliest printed book with a date, is 1457, and not 1547, as there misprinted.

Printed and published by J. LIMBIRD, 143, Strand, (near Somerset House,) London. Sold by G. G. BENNIS, 55, Rue Neuve St. Augustin, Paris, CHARLES JUGEL, Francfort; and by all News men and Booksellers.

No. 743.]

OP

LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1835.

[PRICE 2d.

[graphic][merged small]

The nests of the latter are, however, most remarkable. India produces several species of tailor-birds, that are instructed by their Creator to sew together leaves for the protection of their eggs and nestlings from the voracity of serpents and apes; they generally select those at the end of a branch or twig, and sew them with cotton, thread, and fibres. Colonel Sykes has seen some in which the thread was literally knotted at the end. The inside of these nests is lined usually with down and cotton.†

1. The Bird. 2. Nest of ditto. 3. Portion of the Nest, to show the stitching of the leaves. We recently took occasion to illustrate the of them have been denominated weaver and wisdom and contrivance shown in birds' tailor-birds. nests by their tiny architects.* The above is, however, a more extraordinary specimen of them than any yet quoted. Its builder is one of the order of Perchers, which are the best nest-builders of all the feathered tribes. They do not usually select, like the Climbers, the interior of a hollow tree or similar situations, but most commonly interweave their nests between the twigs and branches of shrubs, or suspend them from them, or even attach them to humbler vegetals; some having even exercised arts from the creation, which man has found of the greatest benefit to him since he discovered them. These birds, indeed, may be called the inventors of the several arts of the weaver, the sempstress, and the tailor, whence some * See Mirror, vol. xxiii. p. 295. VOL. XXVI.

R

But, tailor-birds are not confined to India or tropical countries. Italy can boast a species which exercises the same art: one of our most eminent ornithologists, Mr. Gould,

+A nest of the Indian tailor-bird will be found engraved in the Mirror, vol. xiv., p. 120. 743

has a specimen of this bird in his possession; and the Zoological Society have a nest in their museum; from which sources, the originals of the annexed engraving have been lithographed.*

This little bird was originally described and figured by M. Temminck, in 1820; but its singular instincts, as to its mode of nidification, were afterwards given in detail by Professor P. Savi. It is called by the Pisans, Becca moschino, and is a species of the genus Sylvia, (cisticola.)

In summer and autumn it frequents marshes, but in the spring it seeks the meadows and corn-fields; in which, at that season, the marshes being bare of the sedges which cover them in summer, it is compelled to construct its nest in tussocks of grass on the brinks of ditches; but the leaves of these being weak, easily split, so that it is difficult for our little sempstress to unite them, and so to form the skeleton of the fabric. From this and other circumstances, the spring nests of these birds differ so widely from those made in the autumn, that it seems next to impossible that both should be the work of the same artisan.

The latter are constructed in a thick bunch of sedge or reed; they are shaped like a pear, being dilated below and narrowed above, so as to leave an aperture sufficient for the ingress and egress of the bird. The greatest horizontal diameter of the nest is about two inches and a half, and the vertical is five inches, or a little more. (See Fig. 2 in the Engraving.)

The most wonderful thing in the construction of these nests is the method to which the little bird has recourse to keep the living leaves united, of which it is composed. The sole interweaving, more or less delicate, of homogeneous or heterogeneous substances forms the principle adopted by other birds to bind together the parietes or walls of their nests; but this Sylvia is no weaver, for the leaves of the sedges or reeds are united by real stitches. In the edge of each leaf, she makes, probably with her beak, minute apertures, through which she contrives to pass, perhaps by means of the same organ, one or more cords formed of spiders' web, particuarly that of their egg-pouches. These threads are not very long, and are sufficient only to pass two or three times from one leaf to another; they are of unequal thickness, and have knots here and there, which, in some places, divide into two or three branches.

This is the manner in which the exterior of the nest is formed; the interior consists mainly of down, chiefly from plants, a little spiders' web being intermixed, which helps to keep the other substances together. În the upper part and sides of the nest, the two

** To illustrate the Rev. W. Kirby's Bridgewater Treatise.

walls, that is the external and internal, are in immediate contact; but in the lower part, a greater space intervenes, filled with the slender foliage of grasses, the flores of Syngenesious plants, and other materials, which render soft and warm the bed in which the eggs are to repose.

This little bird feeds upon insects. Its flight is not rectilinear, but consists of many curves, with the concavity upwards. These curves equal in number the strokes of the wing, and at every stroke its whistle is heard, the intervals of which correspond with the rapidity of its flight.

Perhaps, of all the instincts of birds, those connected with their nidification are most remarkable; and of all these, none are so wonderful, as those of the tribe to which be longs the little bird, whose proceedings in constructing its nest have just been described. In the Indian tailor-birds, the object of their sutorial art has been stated; and, doubtless, in the case of the Italian, the attack of some enemy is prevented by her mode of fabri cating her nest. Situated so near the ground, her eggs, but for this defence, might become the prey of some small quadruped or reptile. He who created the birds of the air taught every one its own lesson, and how to place and construct its nest, so as to be most secure from inimical intrusion.†

TO THE CОМЕТ.
MYSTERIOUS stranger-thou art come at last-
Thy wild career-
Whether it omens us or good or ill,
Or whether thou art but as meteor still-
Is surely near;
And, brief as it began, will soon be past.
Star of that vast Eternity, whose track

No calculations measure-eye can bound:
All that the world can give of awe thou hast ;
For awe doth thine erratic course surround,
Yet not the slavish, overwhelming fear

Of ignorant suspicion and mistrust, But awe of an Almighty presence near, And feelings suitable for humble dust, Who witnesseth, yet knows not how or why Thou canst pursue thy path amidst the sky. When Earth beholds thee next, new forms shall hail thee,

And fear thee as they hail, as we do now; And fruitless cogitations shail assail thee,

As those which weary many a mind below; Yet thou wilt pass upon thy destined way, Heedless as thoughtless of vain sons of clay. Have other worlds, as ours, proclaimed thee nigh, And waited for thy coming-as our own? Did other inmates of more regions sigh,

Knowing, as thou revolvest, they are goneFled, as the Autumu's leaves, which only grew To feel the sunshine, and inhale the dew. Mysterious token of the Uncreate!

Who can, untremblingly, gaze on the air, And see the record of Eternal Fate,

Thy presence and thy magnitude declare; Without the conscious knowledge-there is One, Who reigns amid infinitude alone.

Abridged from the Seventh Bridgewater Treatise. On the History, Habits, and Instincts of Animals. By the Rev. W. Kirby, M.A, vol. ii. pp. 465-470.

What that infinitude we scarce can guess

We only know its space we cannot span;
And what the orbs that hold their destined place
Beside the boundary ordained for man-
What we now are, we know not-or to be-
Our life, use, fate, are lost in mystery.

To Him who made those stars we fain would turn-
Omnipotent, as throughout all divine-
Humbly adoring feel our spirits burn,

That we are suffered to approach his shrine;
Who, more benignant, deigus our wants to hear-
To hear and graut his humblest creature's prayer.
Mysterious strauger-thou art come at last,

True to each foretold presage dark and dim; So, in predicted time, in ages past,

Came forth thy promised star, Jerusalem!
When all creation saw their Glorious King
For human sins be human offering.

Though less, not loved the least-a triumph given
Unto our world amongst the hosts of heaven-
In darkest gloom that Glorious Light appear'd,
And from the darkest gloom man's spirits rear'd,
Teaching the prayer of thanks we daily raise-
Oh, Lord thy will be done-receive our praise!
A. C. R.

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

THAT vague and pleasing melancholy which persons of sensibility feel, on beholding the mouldering remains of former greatness, whether it be the tower "by war or tempest bent," or the baronial castle, proud in beautiful decay, rearing its broken turrets to the sky; or the old manor house, with tall chimneys, shrunk moat, and antique windows; or the abbey, where whispering ivy clings, and the piping winds make sad music through the dilapidated cloisters; all alike excite that sadness which is not akin to grief-a pensive, yet soothing mood of melancholy, from which we wish not to be freed-which brings before the mind's eye, visions of far-off and twilight years; while the days that are gone "roll by us with all their deeds," and we commune in spirit with departed time. We stand where they have stood, who have long been dwellers of other worlds,-where they have lived, loved, joyed, sorrowed, and gone through all the changes of this most fleeting dream of being; "life's little day is past, and they are gone;" we call, and are only answered by lone echoes. Yet, their majestic dwellings remain, and will remain, when we who now muse upon their owners, shall be as they are.

These feelings were called forth on visiting the noble and beautiful ruins of Thornton Abbey, some account of which, with an Engraving, may be found in the Mirror, vol. xxvi. p. 281. Its situation is five miles from Barton-on-Humber, and adjoins the village of Thornton. As a turning in the road brought the venerable pile in full view, what a feeling of reverence did its proud decay inspire! The " eager arms of time were still warded off by the thick clustering ivy, which in green luxuriance clasps the grey walls up to the very top. Beautiful was the

[ocr errors]

effect of the incessant rustle and motion to the summer air of this verdant tracery, in contrast with the stern and immovable edifice. Old oaks, of immense magnitude, spread their giant arms, the last remnants of the good greenwood which once surrounded the domain. You enter the ruin through a broad gateway, and find, ranged on either side, deep niches, the remains of the dim cloisters. A small door on one side opens into an apartment, which has evidently been used as a kitchen; here is the wide, open fireplace, and numerous small openings in the wall, resembling closets. Passing through another low door, (which, as Mrs. Radcliffe would have said, "slowly creaked on its hinges," you find yourself at the foot of narrow, winding stone stairs, which conduct to the top of the building; a view of the surrounding country being seen at intervals, through the narrow loopholes. At the first landing, is the grand banqueting room, of noble dimensions, having a bay window with the sculptured stone-work still entire; there, we may suppose, in 1541, the obsequious monks entertained the burly King Henry VIII., with his gentle queen Jane Seymour. What suit and service were paid, in this very room, by the bare-headed fathers to their royal guest, ali unconscious that the destroyer was so near! fancy pictured the monarch's glance of design, scanning the outward and visible signs of internal wealth, displayed around him, and even then planning its appropria tion. Now, rank weeds cluster on the mouldering floor, and the fragments of some gipsy's fire remained on the desolate hearthstone! What a homily did the present decay afford on the vanity and fleeting nature of all things earthly.

Endless would it be to enumerate the cells, chambers, and passages of the abbey, calculated to stand through many a coming year, if we may judge by the thickness of the walls. Imagination was busy, and it was a luxury to rest on a pile of moss-grown stones in front of the building, and indulge her vagaries. She brought again the matin bell, which, when the morn "in russet mantle clad," lighted up the old woods around, rang drearily through the silence; and while the monotonous day faded in the crimson west, the vesper chimes broke softly on the calm twilight hour. To the left, is a dark walk, the trees meeting overhead,-in the shadow of the "dim, religious light" beneath, who may tell what steps have traversed-what hearts have there sighed over the world they had forsaken, over scattered prospects, blighted hopes, and withered affections! the future closed by a life-long vow, which, like the mountain barriers and iron gates which closed round the " happy valley" of Rasselas, for ever shut out the world beyond. Centuries have rolled by, and in their sweeping

[ocr errors]

course have brought a change over all things. In the once sacred precincts of this stately relic of mouastic pride, the cattle were quietly browsing; while rank grass and nettles grew thickly in the vacant courts, where "all devouring Time, is sitting on his throne of ruins hoar."

Leaving the abbey, we passed on some short distance to the ruined chapter-house, and the abbot's lodgings. The former is in complete but beautiful ruin; and through the Gothic windows, and solitary arches, the haymakers were seen busily and blithely employed in a field on the other side, presenting a gay and scenic contrast to its solemn beauty.

Rangoon to Gooty, passing between the Andaman Isles and the coast of Tenesseram, at half-past seven A.M., went over a coral shoal ten fathoms at the edge next the coast, and the bottom; with which circumstance we commence our anecdote, because B— says expressly, "This shoal is not known, neither is it marked in Horsburgh's Charts; the captain fifteen years since came upon it, but no attention was paid by the proper authorities to his notice of the circumstance, because being then young in his profession, it was thought he might be out in his reckoning."

As the vessel must pass Achen, and the crew were short of live stock, the captain determined to anchor near, or amid the numeBut the most curious records of the things rous islands termed by mariners, Achen Head; that were to be seen in this interesting place and he did so on the 1st of August, when a are the lately excavated remains of a magni- hard-blowing, adverse gale had subsided. ficent church, which from the space now There were but three British officers on board, spread open, must have been an immense a major, a lieutenant, and an ensign, of the structure. The stone lies in broken but East India Company's service; and these richly-carved masses, fresh from its long bu- gentlemen starting at daybreak for the shore, rial as if newly hewn, although trees of great landed, after sailing about three miles up a size have flourished in leafy pride for years river, or creek. This stream was narrow, above this buried "work of long forgotten and, at low water, so shallow, as scarcely to hands!" All unconscious had each pro- afford sufficient depth to float a moderately prietor been of the immured treasure, until sized boat; a footpath pleasantly shaded an observant person remarked the brown hue with trees ran along the river banks from the of the grass, extending to some distance sea, to the spot whereat B- and his companear the chapter-house, and sagaciously con- nions landed. They found the houses of the cluded that some cause must exist for the inhabitants of Achen, like those of the Bur phenomenon. The spade soon brought to mese, built of bamboo, and similar in appear. light the spot sacred to the worship and the ance and arrangement; to each, a garden is burial of a past age: long rows of tombstones attached in front: the canoes and boats of extending up the aisles, with the carved base- the natives are also upon the Burmese plan. ments of fluted columns on each side. The There is not, (or, at least, was not at that inscriptions are mostly illegible: one we period,) an European settler on the island; could decipher, contains the dust of "Ro- but a great deal of traffic appeared to be berti and Julia," date 1443. And who were going forward, whilst the active, businessthey, who in the days of the meek King like air, and industrious stir of the scene, Henry VI., here found repose from the fever- presented rather a singular spectacle for an ish dream of life? Conjecture is left to Indian settlement. The natives of all ranks speculate on the parts they have acted in the carry a creese in their girdles, and some, in wild drama of human existence. It was a addition, wear a sword. As previous to the stirring and awful thought to stand over the landing of our military, the people had never buried dust of four centuries, which, however seen any but naval officers, the appearance of great, or beautiful, or beloved, had thus left the three in question was quite an event, nothing but a name to tell that such had and, evidently, they were regarded as lions. been! In moments like these, how vividly In the course of the day, B- strolled forth is the fast fading nature of our little span of to reconnoitre; and, after walking about a life presented to the mental eye, with the mile, came to an old fort, which he was about small importance of those idols of the world to enter, when three or four men stationed as which we so fondly grasp at; while the stream guards at its gate, opposed his progress, and of time which stays not in its course, is bear- authoritatively demanded who and what he ing us and our transient joys and sorrows, was, and what he wanted at the king's parapidly on its bosom towards the wide ocean lace? Now for aught B- knew, the King of eternity! ANNE R. of Achen might be a mortal enemy to the Company's officers; or, at the least, he might be strangled or beheaded as a spy, so that never came such sudden approximation to royalty less welcome. He was staggered for a moment, but soon recovering his selfpossession, replied with composure, that he was an Englishman, and had business with

Anecdote Gallery.

ADVENTURE AT ACHEN.

On the 25th of July, 1825, the transport
Robarts, which was conveying troops from

« PreviousContinue »