Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

1809. June 2. Snow upon all the hills and the vale of St. John's covered with it: a thing never before remembered. Within a fortnight grass which had then been buried beneath the snow, was mown.

Nov. 3. The first effect of winter upon the flowers, the nasturtiums just touched by the frost.

| fast at Lancaster, which is the more unreasonable because the coach is changed there, and if you do not choose to run the risk of losing your luggage, you must lose your breakfast. I found time to abridge mine by swallowing two raw eggs; 18. 9d. each the charge, so that you must eat at the rate of two-pence a minute to make a saving

1821. June 9. Snow upon Causey Pike bargain. and the Borrowdale Fells.

1822. Sept. 26. First snow on Helvellin. 1828. Nov. 9. There has been no snow yet.

Nov. 10. The first.

1833. Sept. 1. Cucumbers on the frame, vegetable marrows, and such kidney beans as were not sheltered from the east, cut off by frost.

Monday, 24th Oct. 1836. LEFT Keswick with Karl in the stage. Found the squaw in it, and dropt her at what used to be John Stanley's-the public house in Legberthwaite. No other passenger the whole way. They have played the Quaker with Ivy Cottage. Saw Wordsworth and Mr. Robinson in Ambleside. Took our places for Liverpool at the Commercial Inn, Kendal, and slept there.

Tuesday, 25th. Called at half-past four. Two heads are better than one, said a man who was assisting to pack the coach, and to enforce the remark he added, I had rather have two sovereigns than one. I dissented from the opinion, and reminded Karl | of Eteocles and Polynices,—for we had been reading the Thebaid.

Set off half-past five by moonlight. A man in the coach talked about Bishop Watson, and said that when a school-boy at Hensingham, his schoolfellows used to laugh at him for coming in a homespun coat and clogs, and gave him some nickname in consequence. I cannot think the clogs would have exposed him to any ridicule in this country, and especially at that time.

They allow only ten minutes for break

Passed Hesketh Hall, and in the adjacent village was recognized to our mutual surprize by Mr. Hodgeson, John Wordsworth's late curate, who had recently removed to this place. He introduced me to Mr. Addington, who was going to Liverpool on his way to London, a very agreeable, gentlemanly, well informed man, a friend of Mrs. Charles Warren. He told me that Sharpe had left his sister-in-law only £50 a year! It ought to have been £500.

Reached Liverpool a little after three, and finding no place could be taken for Ellesmere till to-morrow evening, off we set for the Birkenhead steamer, and at half-past five were packed up in the mail for Chester. We had a very intelligent companion upon the stage, a most incurious one from Lancaster. He was a person in business at Liverpool, who had never been to London, nor indeed fifty miles from home, except once, for a fortnight to the Isle of Man by the steamer. He works in a counter from morning to night, and is evidently killing himself thereby: but broad hints and good plain advice seemed to be bestowed upon him in vain.

Tuesday, 25th. Our way into the inn was up a flight of steps, and then across one of those rows which make Chester one of the most remarkable cities in England It is a large old rambling house, and our bedroom was so far back that we were not molested by any noise from the street. The gas was so offensive in the public room that we could not endure it.

Walked round the walls before breakfast.

MISCELLANEOUS ANECDOTES AND GLEANINGS.

Spirits. ENRY MORE thought it was manifestly indicated in the Scriptures, "That there is no such necessary union between the soul and the body, but she may act as freely out of it, as in it: as men are nothing the more dull, sleepy, or senseless, by putting off their clothes, and going out of the house, but rather more awakened, active, and sensible."-Theological Works, p. 19. "Besides, it is not unreasonable but that she (the soul) and other spirits, though they have no set organs, yet for more distinct and full perception of objects, may frame the element they are in into temporary organization and that with as much ease and swiftness as we can dilate and contract the pupil of our eye, and bring back or put forward the crystalline humour."-Ibid. p. 26. Why has not man a microscopic eye? Because it is impossible: that is, not only inconsistent with his nature, and the order of the universe, but incompatible with it. But a pneumascopic or angeloscopic eye is not impossible.

"THE Battas (Sumatra) think their ancestors are a kind of superior beings attendant on them always."-Phil. Trans. Abr. vol. 14, p. 317.

into elements in their rapture, and nothing but their soul was received into Abraham's bosom. I smell the leaven of the Sadducees

here; for certainly the origin of it came from such as they, who resisted the truth, and held that a body could not be exalted to heavenly places."—Ibid. p. 428.

"The spirits of the faithful may appear; those of the wicked not."-Ibid. p. 436. A forcible passage.

[ocr errors]

PROCLUS, according to Rabelais (vol. i. p. 102), says, Qu'en forme leonine ont esté diables souvet veus, lesquels en la presence d'un coq blanc soudainement sont disparus." But M. le Duchat says, the colour of the cock is not specified.

"THE miracle of the herd of swine has never been better explained than thus ; that the devils were suffered to go into the swine, to make it appear that they were indeed evil spirits which had possessed the men, and thus practically confute the doctrine of the Sadducees, who denied that there were any spirits."-JENKINS' Reas. of Christianity, vol. 1, p. 259.

"Good spirits as numerous and active as bad."-Ib. p. 325.

Dryden's Philidel (a poor imitation of Ariel) laments

"For so many souls as, but this morn, Were clothed with flesh, and warmed with vital blood,

"NUMBER in the air."—BISH. HACKETT, But naked, now, or shirted but with air.” Sermon, p. 212. King Arthur, vol. 6, p. 284. Monthly Review, vol. 2, p. 427. A CURIOUS argument for the existence of evil spirits, drawn from dreams, by Seed.

"SOME Jewish Rabbins have presumed to teach more than Scripture, that the bodies of Enoch and Elias were dissolved

Query? To the number of those on which they prey ?-or does he mean that creatures of prey are few in proportion as they are large ?

IN Pierce Penniless his Supplication, it | portion to the number of the smaller."— is said, "The spirits of the air will mix Ibid. vol. 16, p. 308. themselves with thunder and lightning, and so infect the clime where they raise any tempest, that suddenly great mortality shall ensue to the inhabitants. The spirits of fire have their mansions under the regions of the moon."-BOSWELL's Shakspeare, vol. 15, p. 287, n.

[Horses.]

"JOHN DUCROw, the clown at Astley's,

GHOST in the form of a dog.—Gent. Mag. buried in the burial ground of Lambeth Old

vol. 1, p. 31.

Animals.

"THEIR more refined properties."

HENRY MORE, Theol. Works, p. 33. "Their shadow of religion."—Ibid. p. 34.

"NATURAL religion, historians tell us, is observable in other creatures as well as men.”—ADAM Littleton, p. 96.

MUSSEL-Elephants-MARIGNY, Revolution, vol. 1, p. 274.

WALKING Stuart called himself an Homoousiast, as akin to all animated beings. -MRS. BRAY's Letters.

"FISH that are kept in jars, when they have lived awhile together, contract so great an affection for each other, that if they are separated they become melancholy and sullen, and are a long time before they forget the loss."-Phil. Tran. Abr. vol. 9, p. 323. "Mr. Anderson put two ruffs into a jar of water about Christmas; and in April he gave one of them away. The fish that remained was so affected that it would eat nothing for three weeks; so that fearing it would pine to death, he sent it to the gentleman on whom he had bestowed its companion. On rejoining it, it eat immediately, and recovered its former briskness."-Ibid.

"SIZE, I believe, says J. Hunter, is in those animals who feed on others, in pro

Church, 27 May. The hearse was preceded at his particular desire, by his two favourite small white and chestnut coloured ponies, each led by an attendant, and having on its head a plume, and a rich velvet cloth spread over the back.”—Times, 31 May, 1834.

[blocks in formation]

MAJOR MOIR Says "There is a something in the elephant, independently of its bulk, I think, which distinguishes it from other quadrupeds. No person or persons would commit any act of gross indelicacy or indecency in the presence of an elephant, more than in the presence of the wholly reasoning. The same feeling would not prevail touching the presence of a stupid rhinoceros, almost as bulky.”—Oriental Fragments, p. 485.

WATTS thought their spirits might perpetually transmigrate. Sometimes he thought it hard to ascribe sensation to them: sometimes could hardly avoid thinking them reasonable.-Vol. 7, p. 579.

“ καὶ τὰ μὲν σημαίνομαι, Τὰ δ ̓ ἐκπέπληγμαι, κὐκ ἔχω μαθεῖν ὅτε. SOPHOCLES, Ajax, v. 31.

Names.

"THE King of Ethiopia calls himself the king at whose name the lions tremble. Yet the hyena comes into the middle of his capital."-GEDDES' JENKIN, vol. 2, p. 46.

Adam Littleton, Adam Clarke, Adam Sedgewick, each has eaten largely of the fruit of what is now no longer a forbidden

tree.

to be called, and thus then the only effable name serves also for an epoch, by which the evils of the reign are dated. Much confusion has been caused by some emperors capriciously altering their epochal names. One who reigned fifty-four years assumed no fewer than eleven."-Phil. Trans. vol. 7, p. 431.

In the Lucidario, or Book of the Master and Disciple, the D. asks if the angels have names, and the M. answers, "Gli Angeli hanno tanta scientia che non hanno bisogno di nome." Upon this, the disciples observe that "Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, are names." M. "They are rather surnames (sopra nomi) than names, because

MRS. GARRICK's name was Eve Maria.- they are imposed by men, per accidente; P. STOCK, vol. 2, p. 144.

"UPON Elizabeth's death it was given out that an old lion (ess?) in the Tower, bearing her name, pined away during her sickness, and died."-ELLIS's Orig. Letters, 2 Series, vol. 3, p. 195.

"THE names of women should be agreeable, soft, clear, captivating the fancy, auspicious, ending in long vowels, resembling words of benediction."-INST. OF MENU, SIR W. JONES, vol. 7, 116.

See also pp. 154, vol. Ibid.
Barbot, p. 244. Churchill's Col. vol. 5.

Canoes, Ellis, vol. 1, p. 169.
Pigs, Ib. vol. 2, p. 53.

"THE St. Bernard's dog, which we saw stuffed at Berne, and which had saved the lives of fifteen men, was called Barry."DOWNES' Letters from the Continent, vol. 1, p. 88.

"IN China the Emperor's proper name must not be pronounced during his life. Nor after his death; for they are as it were consecrated by a surname, and by that surname are received into the burial place of their ancestors, and called in history. But in their lifetime they choose a name by which

in heaven they have no proper names. By accident it is that the first angel obtained his name, Sathan or more properly Sathael, that is to say, enemy, or opposed to God." Antitheist.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

"CHARLES II. named a yacht the Fubbs, in honour of the Duchess of Portsmouth, who we may suppose was in her person rather full and plump. Sculptors and painters apply this epithet to children, and say, for instance, of the boys of Fiammingo, that they are fubby. In this yacht he narrowly escaped shipwreck. Mr. Gostling, Subdean of St. Paul's (a famous singer) one of the party, struck with a just sense of his deliverance, and the terrific scene from which he had escaped, he, on his return to London, selected from the Psalms those passages which declare the wonders and terrors of the deep, and gave them to Purcell to compose as an anthem. This Purcell did, and adapted it so peculiarly to the compass of Mr. Gostling's voice, which was a deep bass, that hardly any person but himself was then, or has since been, able to sing it."-HAWKINS's Hist. Mus. vol. 4, p.

359. N.

A. GUISE christened Paris by the city which stood sponsor.-BRANTOME, vol. 8, p. 147.

Why Montluc christened a son Fabian. -Ibid. vol. 7, p. 295.

Feeling toward Inanimate Objects. WHEN the Chancellor Cheverny went home in his old age for the last time, "Messieurs, (dit-il aux Gentilshommes du canton accourus pour le saluer) je resemble au bon lievre qui vient mourir au gîte.

66

Arrivant au Chateau de Cheverny, trouvant que l'on luy avoit fait changer un vieux place, il se fascha, et voulut que l'on remit lit, pour en remettre un plus beau à sa son vieux lit avec la vieille tapisserie en ladite chambre, qu'il n'a jamais voulu ceux-là, disant qu'il les aimoit plus que tous changer, ni se servir d'autres meubles que les beaux qui estoient en sa maison, comme luy ayant servi à sa naissance et durant toute sa vie."-Coll. des Mem. tom. 50, p. 33.

ONE of Bishop Hobart's juvenile correspondents writes to him-"Your good friend while here, accidentally saw your little trunk in one corner of the room, and actually manifested as much joy at the sight of it as if it had been an old friend."--MR. VICKERS' Memoir of Bish. Hobart, p. 128.

"NEAR Mealhada is a fine forest of great extent, and so intricate, that even the natives are sometimes bewildered by the multitude of tracks. My guide said that it abounded in wolves, and desired me to observe the stump of a tree recently felled, telling me that a young man, assailed by three of those ferocious animals, had taken refuge in its branches, and had afterwards cut it down as a memorial of his escape, and in testimony of his gratitude. I thought this an odd mode of returning thanks, and tacitly determined never to endanger my safety for a native of Mealhada. Different nations have certainly different modes of expressing their sense of services conferred. A Portuguese fells a tree for the same reason that an Englishman would effectually protect it."-LORD CAERNARVON'S Portugal and Gallicia, vol. 1, p. 56.

« НазадПродовжити »