So long as the fine blendings of humour and pathos have charms for the sensitive reader, the writings of LAURENCE STERNE will be cherished with fond regard. In the school of morality, Sterne is what Hogarth is in that of paintingand he is aptly termed the "painting moralist." The brightness of fancy, the playfulness of wit, the pungency of safire, the chastisement of folly, and the wholesome reproof of knavery and vice, all succeed each other in lights and shadows of great breadth and beauty; and if they whip not "the offending Adam" out of us, the memory of the writer should be respected for his benevolent views.

The Engraving is consecrated by its association with the above and many more traits of genius. Sterne was presented with the curacy of Coxwould, in the year 1760, by Lord Falconbridge. It is situate in the North Riding of Yorkshire. In 1762 Sterne went to France, and two years after to Italy for the reco-" covery of his health. In the summer of 1766 he wrote his "Sentimental JourVOL. XVI. 2 C

ney;" and at the end of 1767 he came to London, to superintend its publication. In March, 1768, he died in Bondstreet, at the age of 53.

Many of Sterne's "Letters" are dated from Coxwould. The first we meet with is dated August 3, 1760," to my witty widow, Mrs. F." to use his own words, "wrote with the careless irregu larity of an easy heart." In this letter, he calls Coxwould "this Shandy castle of mine;" and says, "I have just finished one volume of Shandy." In a letter of the following year he says, "To-morrow morning (if Heaven permit) I begin the fifth volume of Shandy :" he does not, however, enjoy his solitude at Coxwould, "for, unless for the few sheep left me to take care of in this wilderness, I might as well, nay better, be at Mecca." The following letter, however, gives Coxwould a more favourable complexion :

"TO A. LE, ESQ. "Coxwould, June 7, 1767. "DEAR L E, I had not been many days at this peaceful cottage before your

461

letter greeted me with the seal of friendship; and most cordially do I thank you for so kind a proof of your good-will. I was truly anxious to hear of the recovery of my sentimenal friend, but I would not write to inquire after her, unless I could have sent her the testimony without the tax; for even howd'yes to invalids, or those that have lately been so, either call to mind what is passed or what may return; at least I find it so. I am as happy as a prince at Coxwould; and I wish you could see in how princely a manner I live: 'tis a land of plenty. I sit down alone to venison, fish, and wild fowl, or a couple of fowls or ducks, with curds, and strawberries, and cream, and all the simple plenty which a rich valley (under Hamilton Hills) can produce, with a clean cloth on my table, and a bottle of wine on my right hand to drink your

health. I have a hundred hens and chickens about my yard, and not a parishioner catches a hare or a rabbit, or a trout, but he brings it as an offering to me. If solitude would cure a love sickheart, I would give you an invitation; but absence and time lessen no attachment which virtue inspires. I am in high spirits; care never enters this cottage. I take the air every day in my post-chaise, with two long-tailed horses -they turn out good ones; and as to myself, I think I am better upon the whole for the medicines and regimen 1 submitted to in town.-May you, dear

L

Iwant neither the one nor the other ! " Your's truly,

"L. STERNE."

We must temper our opinion of Sterne's writings with lamenting their occasional indelicacies. He was, in many respects, a man of the world, and passed much of his time in the hey-day of gay life; but we believe him to have possessed great sincerity. In one of his Letters he says, "My Sentimental Journey will, I dare say, convince you that my feelings are from the heart, and that that heart is not of the worst of moulds. Praised be God for my sensibility! Though it has often made me wretched, yet I would not exchange it for all the pleasures the grossest sensualist ever felt."

Sterne has been accused of neglecting his mother, which charge, if true, would evince a bad heart. Lord Byron says Sterne preferred "whining over a dead ass to relieving a living mother;" but this comes with ill grace from Byron, who turned from his mother's funeral to fisty-cuffs.

THE NAUTILUS. (To the Editor of the Mirror.) in No. 381 of the Mirror, in giving an I BEG to correct an error which appears tilus. It is there stated, that the shell account of the Argonaut, or Paper Nauof this interesting creature is no thicker than paper, and divided into forty compartments, or chambers, through every connected as it were by a thread. This one of which a portion of its body passes, is not the fact. The Argonauta is an only one chamber. The shell described entire spiral involute shell, consisting of as being divided into forty compartments is the Nautilus Pompilius, very erroneously called by several authors, Nautilus Græcorum; whereas the Nautilus; and it is to this shell our celetilus of the Greeks was the Paper Naubrated poet refers :

Learn of the little nautilus to sail;

for it is not proved in any satisfactory manner that the other kind, or Chambered Nautilus, ever sails or navigates his shell; nor has that animal the power of leaving his shell, inhabiting the upPermost or open chamber, which is considerably larger than the others. The rest remain empty, except that the pipe, or siphunculus, which communicates from chamber to chamber, is filled with an appendage or tail of the animal, like a gut or string; whereas in the Argonauta, the animal fills the entire single chamber of the shell, although the animal hitherto found in the few specimens of that shell in a living state, is believed by many scientific men to be a parasite, from not having been found attached to, and not the original builder of, the shell.

J. W.

THE PATRIOT'S CALL.

(For the Mirror.) THE Song (of which the following translation attempts to convey an idea) was written when the invasion of Napoleon called the German youth to arms. The author was a young man named Arndt, a native of Pomerania, who by his patriotic songs, materially assisted to excite the nation in the war of deliverance. He was appointed Professor of History at the University of Bonn, but was dismissed in 1820 from that situation, in consequence of an abortive attempt to regenerate Germany.

The metre has been preserved in the translation, sometimes perhaps at the expense of the poetry. M. U. S. RAISE the heart, raise the hand,

Swear the holy oath of vengeance Swear it by your father-land.

Swear by your ancestral might,

By old Deutchland's honest fame, Swear it by a freeman's right,

Swear it by the holiest name. Hover, hover, high in glory,

Holy flag, in fight our guide, No one e'er shall shrink before thee, Floating o'er war's angry tide. Raise the heart, raise the hand, Earth and Heaven shall us hear, And our sacred vow revere, Pledge of truth to father-land. Each our country's symbol cherish, Be her sons to danger steel'd By a thousand deaths to perish, Ere they quit the battle field. Raise the heart, raise the hand, Let the noble banner wave, Ensign of the free and brave, For our holy father-land.

*Germany,

The Selector;

AND

LITERARY NOTICES OF NEW WORKS.

PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE UNDER DIFFICULTIES, VOL. II. (Library of Entertaining Knowledge.) THIS volume is an improvement upon its predecessor. The anecdotes, instead of being brief, and little more than names and dates, extend into pleasant biographies, and their influence is increased by the means of the subjects rising to eminence being more fully developed.

We quote an interesting account of Mr. Parkes, author of the well-known "Chemical Catechism :"

"Mr. Parkes, as we learn from a communication with which we have been favoured by his surviving daughter, was born in 1761, at Stourbridge, in Worcestershire, where his father was a small grocer. At five years of age he was sent to a preparatory school in his native town; and it is remembered that during the time of his attendance at this infant seminary, Mr. Kemble's company of itinerant players having visited Stourbridge, and remained there for some months, that gentleman placed his daughter at the same school, the child. who became afterwards the celebrated Mrs. Siddons. When ten years old, Parkes was sent to another school, at Market Harborough; but, after remaining here only a very short time, he was taken away, and apprenticed to a grocer at Ross, in Herefordshire. This person happened to be a man of some education, and to be possessed of a few books, which he very kindly lent to his appren

tice, and endeavoured to give him a taste for reading; but could not, it is said,' gain much of his attention. It does not appear how long young Parkes continued in this situation; but at last his master failed, and he returned home to his father. We now hear no more of him till he had reached his thirty-second year, up to which time, it seems, he remained at home, assisting his father in the shop. It is probable, from the resources he afterwards displayed, that the foundation of many of his acquirements was laid during this interval. Perhaps he had also saved a little money; for he now went to Stoke-upon-Trent, began business on his own account as a soapboiler, and married. The new line upon which he entered shows that he had been already directing his attention to practical chemistry; but, after perse-' vering for ten years in this business, he met with so little success as to be obliged to give it up; and at the age of forty-two he came up to London, with no property in the world except ten pounds, which had been lent him by his father. It was hard enough to be' obliged, as it were, to begin the world again at this time of life; but there was no help for it, and he set to work resolutely. Some friends whom he had made lent him a little assistance, and he began manufacturing muriatic acid, for the use of dyers. It is very evident that, although he had come to town without much money in his pocket, he had brought with him some useful knowledge one fruit, at least, of the labours of his previous life, of which fortune had not been able to despoil him. This he now turned to excellent account. To his muriatic acid he soon added other chemical preparations, his skill in manufacturing which was not long in being generally appreciated, and eventually procured him a large trade and a high reputation.

At

Although Mr. Parkes had probably given considerable attention to some of the practical parts of chemistry before he came up to London, it was only after he had established himself in this lastmentioned line of business that he began to study the subject scientifically. this time, as we have seen, he was above forty years of age, so that he may be quoted as another most encouraging example for those who have been prevented by any cause from commencing their studies till late in life. Notwithstanding the time he had lost, Mr. Parkes became eventually a most accomplished' chemist, and gave to the world a succession of works relating to that science

which, ever since their publication, have held the rank of text-books of high authority. The earliest of these was his 'Chemical Catechism,' which first appeared in 1805, and of which twelve very large impressions have since been sold. It was translated, soon after its publication, into the German, French, Spanish, and Russian languages; and in Spain and Germany it is the standard manual of instruction in the public schools. By the sale of this work alone the author realized 5,000. The Catechism was followed by another work, The Rudiments of Chemistry; and that by the Chemical Essays,' in five volumes. This last, in particular, of which a new edition has lately appeared, is an excellent performance, and strikingly shows the author's extensive acquaintance with his subject. Like their precursor, these two works were also translated into the principal continental languages, and obtained great popularity abroad, as well as in this country. Among other gratifying testimonies which the author received of the sense entertained of his labours, was a splendid ring presented to him, for his services to science, by the Emperor of Russia.

"One of the chief merits of the elementary works published by Mr. Parkes, and what must doubtless more than any thing else have helped to make them popular, lies in this-that in all his explanations the author begins at the beginning, and nowhere assumes any information necessary for understanding the subject to exist in the mind of the reader beyond what he has himself communicated.

"Mr. Parkes, in his latter and more prosperous days, used often to dwell with pleasure on his struggles in early life, and naturally felt proud of relating the hardships he had surmounted by his own industry. The success of the different works he published gave him, as might be supposed, the highest gratification. In addition to the literary performances which we have already mentioned, we ought to notice two pamphlets, which he gave to the public in the years 1817 and 1819, in support of the attempt then making, and which was eventually successful, to obtain a repeal of the salt duties. He was one of the most active of the persons who stirred in this matter, anticipating, as it has been already noticed that the celebrated inventor of the Logarithms appears to have done, great advantages to agriculture from the use of salt as a manure. Engaged, as he was, in the management of an extensive chemical manufactory,

which required unremitting attention, his hours of literary labour were those which he stole from repose, or from the time which most men give to relaxation and amusement. Yet, besides the different books which, in the course of a few years, he published in his own name, he wrote also numerous papers for the different scientific periodical works of the day. As another evidence, too, of his punctuality and indefatigable industry, it may be mentioned that he had, from an early age, been in the habit of keeping a regular diary of every action of his life, and never retired to bed till he had committed to writing the events of the day. This, and all his other industrious habits, he kept up to the last; and, even up to within a few days of his death, although he had long been suffering under a painful disease, his attention to business, and especially to his scientific pursuits, continued unrelaxed.

"He closed his valuable and active life on the 23rd of December, 1825, in the 65th year of his age."

At the close of the memoir of Sir H. Davy, which follows that of Mr. Parkes, is the following:

"No better evidence can be desired than that we have in the history of Davy, that a long life is not necessary to enable an individual to make extraordinary advances in any intellectual pursuit to which he will devote himself with all his heart and strength. This eminent person was, indeed, early in the arena where he won his distinction; and the fact is a proof how diligently he must have exercised his mental faculties during the few years that elapsed between his boyhood' and his first appearance before the public, although, during this time, he had scarcely any one to guide his studies, or even to cheer him onward. Yet, notwithstanding that, he had taken his place, as we have seen, among the known chemists of the age almost before he was twenty-one, the whole of his brilliant career in that character, embracing so many experiments, so many literary productions, and so many splendid and valuable discoveries, extended only over a space of not quite thirty years. He had not completed his fiftyfirst year when he died. Nor was Davy merely a man of science. His general acquirements were diversified and extensive. He was familiar with the principal continental languages, and wrote his own with an eloquence not usually found in scientific works. All his writings, indeed, show the scholar, and the lover of elegant literature, as well as the ingenious and accomplished philo

sopher. It not unfrequently happens that able men, who have been their own instructors, and have chosen for themselves some one field of exertion in which the world acknowledges, and they themselves feel, their eminence, both disregard and despise all other sorts of knowledge and acquirement. This is pedantry in its most vulgar and offensive form, for it is not merely ignorant, but intolerant. It speaks highly in favour of the right constitution and the native power of Davy's understanding, that, educated as he was, he escaped every taint of this species of illiberality; and that while, like almost all those who have greatly distinguished themselves in the world of intellect, he selected and persevered in his own favourite path, he nevertheless revered wisdom and genius in all their manifestations."

Of Canova, there is a delightful biography; but we have only room for another page or two from the Memoir of Bloomfield:

"The frequency of the developement of literary talent among shoemakers has often been remarked. Their occupa tion being a sedentary and comparatively noiseless one, may be considered as more favourable than some others to meditation; but, perhaps, its literary productiveness has arisen quite as much from the circumstance of its being a trade of light labour, and therefore resorted to, in preference to most others, by persons in humble life who are conscious of more mental talent than bodily strength. Partly for a similar reason, literary tailors have been numerous. We have mentioned in our former volume the Italian writer Gelli, our learned countrymen Hill and Wild, &c.; and to these we might add many others, as, for example, George Ballard, author of 'Memoirs of Learned British Ladies,' and who made himself a good Saxon scholar while practising his trade; the antiquaries Stow and Speed, who both flourished in the sixteenth century, the former the author of The Survey of London,' and other very elaborate works, and the latter of a valuable History of Great Britain; and the late celebrated mathematician, Jean Henri Lambert, who, when young, after working all day with his father, who was a tailor, used often to spend the greater part of the night in reading, and in this manner, by the assistance of an old work which came by chance into his possession, instructed himself in the elements of mathematical science. Of literary shoe makers again, or persons who have contrived to make considerable progress

in book-learning, while exercising that handicraft, we have already noticed, among others, Benedict Baudouin, Anthony Purver, Joseph Pendrell, Gifford, and Holcroft. We may add to the list that extraordinary character Jacob Behmen, the German mystic, of whose works we have an English translation, in two volumes quarto, and who continued a shoemaker all his life. But Bloomfield, before entering upon the exercise of this trade, had had the education of his faculties begun while following the equally contemplative, and much more poetical occupation of a keeper of sheep -a condition, the leisure and rural enjoyment of which had fed the early genius of the painter Giotto, the logician Ramus, the mechanician Fergusons the linguist Murray, and many other, of the lights of modern literature and art, as in the ancient world it is said to have done that of the poet Hesiod.— Bloomfield's literary acquirements, however, with the exception of his acquaintance with the mere elements of reading and writing, appear to have been all made during the time he was learning the business of a shoemker, and afterwards while he worked at the same business as a journeyman.

"It was while he sat plying his trade in his garret, in Bell Alley, with six or seven other workmen around him, that Bloomfield composed the work which first made his talents generally known, and for which principally he continues to be remembered, his Farmer's Boy.' It is a curious fact, that, notwithstanding the many elements of disturbance and interruption in the midst of which the author must in such a situation have had to proceed through his task, nearly the half of this poem was completed before he committed a line of it to paper. This is an instance of no common powers, both of memory and of selfabstraction. But these faculties will generally exist in considerable strength when the mind feels a strong interest in its employment. They are faculties also which practice is of great use in strengthening. Bloomfield's feat, on this occasion, appears to have amounted to the composing and recollecting of nearly six hundred lines without the aid of any record; and the production of all this poetry, in the circumstances that have been mentioned, perhaps deserves to be accounted a still more wonderful achievement than its retention."

Such a work as the present needs no recommendation beyond specimens. Its object is plain, straightforward, and useful, and its style abundantly entertaining.