Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

WEEKLY CALENDAR.

Stevens, an ingenious critic and writer, and well known as a distinguished commentator on Shakspeare.

1788. Our great and lamented poet, lord Byron, was born on St. Vincent's day.

January XXIII.-Sunday.

High Water, Morn. IV. 17 m.-Aft. IV. 32 m. Sunday Lessons, Morn. Isa. 55. Matt. 21. Even..

Isa. 56. 1 Cor. 6.

ANNIVERSARY CHRONOLOGY.-1570. The earl of Murray, regent of Scotland, during the minority of James VI., was shot at Linlithgow, by Hamilton of Bothwelhaugh, who, after the battle of Longsidehill, had been condemned to death as a rebel, but, on the intercession of Knox the reformer, obtained pardon. Part of his estate was, however, bestowed upon one of the regent's favourites, who seized his house, and turned out his wife naked, in a cold night, into the open fields, where, before the next morning, she became furiously mad. This injury made a greater impression on Hamilton than the mercy he had received; and from that moment he vowed to be revenged on Murray. After perpetrating the deed, he escaped to France.

1776. Expired at Bethnal-green, William Caslon, universally esteemed as a first-rate artist in the art of letter founding; his foundry in Chiswell-street having been one of the most capital in this, and equal to any in foreign countries.

1806. Expired at his house, Putney, William Pitt, second son of the earl of Chatham.

January XXIV.-Monday.

High Water, Morn. IV. 47 m.-Aft. V. 3 m. Hilary Term begins. ANNIVERSARY CHRONOLOGY. 76. The emperor Adrian born at Rome. In a visit to Britain, he built the famous wall which still bears his name. It extended from the Solway Frith to the river Tyne, where Newcastle now stands. The design of it was to secure the Romans from the incursions of the Caledonians.

.

1781. Expired Edward Capell, a gentleman well known as an enlightened editor of Shakspeare's works, in 10 vols. 8vo. GARDEN AND ORCHARD.-Nail up and trim your wall-fruit espaliers. Cleanse trees of moss, if the weather be moist. Gather scions for grafts, before the buds sprout, and graft them in the stock-pears, cherries, and plums; and remove your kernel-stocks to more commodious distances in your nursery, cutting off the top root; set beans, peas, &c. Sow seed for early cauliflowers. In wet weather, cleanse, mend, and sharpen garden tools. Turn up your bee hives, and sprinkle them with a little warm and sweet wort.

January XXV. ST. PAUL.-
Tuesday.

High Water, Morn. V. 19 m.-Aft. V. 35 m.

03

The festival of the conversion of St. Paul, whatever the reason may be, has always been reckoned particularly ominous of the future weather of the year; and what is curious, this notion prevails in many countries distant from each other. In Bourn's Antiquities is the following

If St. Paule's day be fair and cleare, It doth forebode a fruitfull yeare. as being superstitious :Gay advises the rejection of these rules

All superstition from thy breast repel : Let credulous boys and prattling nurses tell, How, if the festival of Paul be clear, Plenty from liberal horn shall strew the year; When the dark skies dissolve in snow or rain, The labouring hind shall yoke the steer in vain'; But if the threatning winds in tempest roar, Then war shall bathe her wasteful sword in

gore.

January XXVI.—Wednesday. High Water, Morn. V. 57 m.-Aft. VI. 19 m.

ANNIVERSARY CHRONOLOGY.-1789. Expired Frances Brooke, a lady as remarkable for her virtues as for her great literary accomplishments. Her principal works are Julia Mandeville, and Emily Montague, novels; the Old Maid, a series of periodical papers; Virginia, and the Siege of Sinope, tragedies; two musical dramas, and several esteemed translations from the French.

Fruits in prime and yet lasting.-ArPLESEs-Kentish pippin,russet pippin,golden pippin, kinton pippin, john apple, winter queening, marigold, harvey apple, pomeroy, golden doucet, loneo pearmain, &c.

PEARS.-Winter musk, winter Norwich, excellent when well baked; winter bergamot, winter bon chretien, both mural; the great souvrein and others.

January XXVII.—Thursday.

High Water, Morn. VI. 44 m.-Aft. VII. 9 m.
Moon first quarter, Morn. VIII. 24 m.
Duke of Sussex born in 1773.

WEATHER SIGNS.-If the sun rise red and fiery, wind and rain.

If cloudy and it soon decreases, certain fair weather.

If small clouds increase, much rain. If large clouds decrease, fair weather. Mists, if they rise in low grounds and soon vanish, fair weather.

If mists rise to the hill tops, rain in a day or two.

A general mist before the sun rises, near the full moon, fair weather.

If mists in the new moon, rain in the old; and vice versa.

Observe, that in eight years' time there is as much south-west wind as north-east,

and consequently as many wet years as dry.

N.B. FRANCIS MOORE has prophesied stormy weather, from the 27th to the end of the month.

January XXVIII.-Friday.

High Water, Morn. VII. 39 m.-Aft. VII. 8 m.
Sun rises, VII. 34 m.; sets IV. 26 m.

ANNIVERSARY CHRONOLOGY.-1547. Died, after a life distinguished by caprice, violence, and tyranny, Henry VIII. He had reigned thirty-seven years and nine

months.

1596. Expired on board his ship, near Terra Firma, sir Francis Drake, who, as Fuller quaintly expresses it," lived by the sea, died on it, and was buried in it.” This distinguished naval hero was the son of a sailor, and born near Tavistock in Devonshire, about the year 1546. By his great abilities, his valour, and enterprising spirit, Drake improved the art of navigation, opened the way to our commerce in the East, was the founder of our naviga tion to the West, gave a shock to the whole power of Spain, and was the first Englishman, and the first commander, that circumnavigated the globe.

1745. Peter the Great expired at Petersburg, in the 53d year of his age, and 29th of his reign. This monarch gave a new face to the Russian empire; he rendered it at once formidable and flourishing, by disciplining his troops-creating a powerful navy-educating the young nobility-establishing manufactures-giving vigour to commerce and encouraging arts and sciences.

NATURAL HISTORY.-Buds and em-bryo blossoms, in their silky, downy coats, often finely varnished to protect them from the wet and cold, are the principal botanical subjects for observation in January, and their structure is particularly worthy of notice; to the practical gardener an attention to their appearance is indispensable, as by them alone can he prune with safety. Buds are always formed in the spring preceding that in which they open, and are of two kinds, leaf-buds and flowerbuds, distinguished by a difference of shape and of figure, easily discernible by the observing eye, the fruit-buds being thicker, rounder, and shorter than the other hence the gardener can judge of the probable quantity of blossom that will

appear.

COMMERCE, LONDON, Jan. 14. COTTON.-The market has been steady this week, and the late advance fully maintained. COFFEE. The public sale of coffee yesterday, went off with some briskness; the Demerara and Berbice description 2s. or 3s. higher.

SUGAR-At the close of the market to-day,

there was great briskness in the demand, and prices fully ls. in advance of the currency of yesterday obtained.

SPICES.-Spices have become rather dull; nutmegs are lower, 5s. 3d. or 5s. 4d.; pepper is less inquired after, but the prices are supported.

SPIRITS.-The demand for rum lately has been general and extensive; the prices advanced from the lowest point 2d. per gallon.

FRUIT.-The demand for Denias in baskets have been very extensive, the whole having been bought up by the grocers (about 8000 baskets) at 37s. and a small parcel of Valentias at 56s.; the remainder of a large cargo was afterwards taken off at 53s. Red Smyrna raisins go off slowly at 50s. Turkey figs are more in demand; currants maintain their prices, and Muscatels are rather more in request.

LONDON MARKETS, Jan. 14.

CORN. In the Corn Market the supply has exceeded the demand, and in consequence of the dulness that prevails, a decline of 2s. in wheat, and 2s. to 4s. in barley has been Flour, top price, 70s. submitted to.

BUTTER.-What is now coming from Ire

land will lose about 10 per cent. Cambridge,

50s. to 52s. Dorset 47s. to 54s.
to 52s. Irish 102s. to 108s.

BACON. On board, 55s. to 56s.
60s. to 61s.

ཏཱ

York 50s.

Landed,

CHEESE-There is every probability of a great deal of money being lost by cheese. All the agents have heavy stocks; and the cheesemongers, who ought to be their customers, are fully supplied. Cheshire, old, 76s. to 90s.; middling, 66s. to 75s.

FISH.-Salmon, 8s. a pound; cod, a good sized one, 20s.; other fish in proportion.. beasts 2,995, sheep 21,760, calves 270, pigs

CATTLE. The supply this week has been,

270.

MEAT. Veal is extravagantly dear, 9d.the pound by the side; fine dairy-fed pork about the same; but the Whitechapel Irishers may be had at any price.' Lamb, very fine, is very scarce; a hind quarter 18s. to 20s. Leicestershire A very fine wether, or maiden ewe, will fetch 5s. 6d. the stone, 8d. the pound by the carcass ; poor sheep bring 6d. by the carcass. Economists must stick to beef, (an alterna-` tive not be grumbled at,) which brings 6d. a pound by the carcass.

POULTRY getting cheaper.

Of

COALS. 28 ships of Sunderland coals have arrived this week, of which eight still remain unsold. The lowest price has been 33s. per chl. and the best sold on Friday only brought 40s. 6d.-a fall of about 3s. Newcastle, 63 ships have been sold at 32s. to 42s. 9d. Forty ships now lie unsold. In Smithfield, the best meadow hay brought 41. 10s.-Straw 21. 5s. to 21. 8s.— Clover 51. 10s.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

A Subscriber shall be accommodated the first opportunity. The subject of Z.'s impromptu is too trifling for a place.

To P. C. W.'s second query, we answer "Yes," if the matter be of interest.

London: Printed by A. APPLEGATH, Stam-, ford Street, for THOMAS BOYS, No. 7, Ludgate Hill, to whom all Communications (free of expense) are requested to be addressed; and sold also by all Booksellers, Newsmen, and Venders in Town and Country,-Published every Saturday.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][graphic][subsumed][merged small]

Ir must be owned, there is a great difference between going up a mountain and descending into a cavern; one excites a sort of inspiration-a swelling of the heart, in contemplating the sublimity of nature; the other fills us with strange terrors and "horrible imaginings." Old associations revive,-Tartarus, Styx, and the "bottomless pit" float before the imagination; the abyss of fire, which some philosophers say fills the centre of the globe, rises to view: add to which the darkness-the sulphureous heat-the noise of falling water and the dim, demoniacal visages of the miners-and there is enough, I think, to appal the stoutest heart, and account for the unpleasant sensations usually felt on first attempting a subterraneous descent-and which, I confess, were experienced by me in lately explor ing the lead mine of Allenheads.

VOL I.

(I

This mine is situated about eight miles from the town of Allendale, and eighteen from Hexham in Northumberland. Arriving at the entrance, my companion and I (for I took care not to be solus in the adventure) began our preparations, with clothing ourselves in the miner's dress, consisting of coarse canvass, the jacket lined with flannel, a large slouch hat, and enormous wooden shoes, bound with iron. thought of Burke, who went down into a coal-pit in a collier's sack.) Thus accoutred, and provided with a candle, round which was a lump of clay, to prevent the heat of the hand from melting it, we seated ourselves in a small muddy waggon, drawn by one horse, with a lantern attached to his head, and were hurried along a railway, amid the noise of the iron, the splashing of water, and the cries of the driver, urging the animal forward. At the distance of a

F

A

mile we arrived at a whimsey or shaft, where the workmen were drawing up the lead ore and rubbish from the pit below. little further we began our descent by a number of ladders, to another level, fifty fathoms from the surface; in this level was placed a machine, like a winnow, to circulate air through the mine, and put in motion by a boy quite naked, who appeared excessively hot. Near this place we again descended by other ladders to the third level, at the end of which we descended by a large rope, worked by a windlass, to the fourth level: here we found our iron shoes of great service, as the pendulous motion of the rope made it necessary to present the point of the shoe to the side of the shaft, to prevent our swinging against it.

Sometimes walking, at others crawling, we came to the first group of miners, who were just preparing a blast; which was performed by inserting a match, or fusee, in a hole, communicating with a small bed of gunpowder; at the top of the match is placed, crosswise, a small piece of touchpaper, which being lighted, the miners retire to wait the explosion, which generally detaches about three feet square. In this place the drawing of the “Miners at Work" was made; it was with some difficulty I could secure it, as each person wished to possess it from the circumstance of its having been drawn in the mine. The men are dressed in canvass trowsers, and a black cotton cap; and, when waiting an explosion, their appearance is extremely picturesque, each hastening to a spot of security with his candle, whose light, throwing some into partial shade, and others into a broader glare, contrasted with the gloom of the surrounding cavern, gives to the whole a most banditti aspect.

Near this spot I had an opportunity of seeing an immense natural cavern of carbonate of lime, fluor spar, intermixed with glance lead, which glittered and sparkled in the most beautiful manner, from the reflected lights of the candles. I was now two miles distant from the entrance of the mine, and 500 feet from the surface of the earth. I next went to see the principal pump for raising water from the mine; it is a large wheel, of great weight, and gives motion to a horizontal beam, to which are attached the pistons. I had now seen all that was interesting; having, by means of my companion, who was overseer of the mine, been a greater distance than any stranger had hitherto been permitted.

Black Monday.",

"And then the whining schoolboy with his satchel

And shining morning-face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school."-
As you Like it.

THAT the ancients had certain days set apart by habit, or superstition, as devoted to good, or subservient to evil, will be admitted by all those who have become at all acquainted with Roman, or Grecian, story. It will also be allowed that wonders and portents, (to be accomplished at particular periods,) were then of sufficient occurrence to create dismay, or beget joy, in the people of that age, when oracles and prophecies were perseveringly consulted and reverentially believed.

But evident as all this is, and extraordinary as were many of the fatalisms of that hour, there is still a day in these our own more enlightened times, which will not yield in the direst auguries to the " Ides of March" or any other woful and eventful period of those customs which now only exist in the pages of the historian, and the memory of the patriot.

That day, to a numerous class of little folks the darkest in the calendar, is "Black Monday." It is possible, kind readers, that you will not find it in your almanacs, and your souvenirs, but I will tell you where its commentary will be. It will be in your feelings and your reminiscences, in the tear-filled eyes of your little ones, and the shorter circle of your firesides. School-time is come again, the holidays are over, and pride and feeling are struggling for the masterdom in young bosoms, and the contest is strong between the tear and the smile; "home, sweet home," is to be exchanged for five more months of fancied thraldom, and awful labour, and to-day is the prologue to the trial; and the wife of a Cæsar, or the mother of a Gracchus, never looked with more anxiety for the conclusion of a husband's and an offspring's dangers, than do the little brotherhood and sisterhood, of whom I speak, for the announcement of its conclusión.

Marvel not that I endeavour to awaken your sympathies for those which, by many, will be deemed the trivial trials of life, for I would have you recollect, that we are as yet but "children of a larger growth," and therefore that the inconveniences, and grievances, of childhood may form no contemptible parallel, and convey no useless lesson, when contrasted with those which in later, and maturer years, it has been, or is, our fortune to encounter. I have called the ills that hover about the morning of life imaginary ones, and I therefore may be supposed likely to agree in the common observation,

CLOCKS AND WATCHES.

that our earliest are our happiest days. Probably mine were so,-but as a general assertion I dispute its validity, inasmuch as a good proportion of those difficulties and perplexities we encounter in active life, are of our own creation, very fancies of the brain, born of apathy, and nurtured by discontent.

As children, we have to tear ourselves from the cradle, as it were, of comfort, and the nursery of parental affection, to encounter a little epitome of the world which the arena we now enter so peculiarly describes as men, we have to break from ease, from splendid or squalid sloth, to bear our share of the buffets of life, and to maintain our stations with honour, and our comforts with honesty. In the one case we have to master the language, and to consult the triumphs, of the mighty dead; in the other to compete with, and rival, the acuteness and the perseverance of the industrious and powerful living-in both so to tune our minds, and direct our faculties, that we may be found "profitable servants," and honour may inscribe our names in a worthy temple already splendid with the titles of noble ancestors, and able contemporaries.

But I shall be asked by some one, "a wearied of the world," what are the heartburnings, the wearinesses, the sighs, and the tears of childhood, compared to his? What bitter draught have they who are of it to swallow, what cup of despair to drain? He will tell me that their darkest clouds are summer ones, their heaviest storms but the transient visitation of an April shower, their sorrows but a pebble rippling, not staining the current of their fortunes, their deprivations but one cup the less in life's banquet:

"The tear down childhood's cheek that flows
Is like the dew-drop on the rose,
When next the summer breeze comes by
And waves the bush, the flower is dry."

Well, then, "Black Monday" is not so very terrible, and yet I am afraid I shall fail in inducing its victims to colour it of a more sprightly hue. N'importe-it will be conquered, and pride and duty will be its executioners. It will become less feared, less thought of as my young friends progress onwards in competition with time, anon it shall be forgotten altogether, and its opponent hour, that of emancipation from study, shall appear-the cheerest sun that ever gilded the horizon-and the schoolboy shall be happy again. More happy than before by a few months' experience, and a little larger stock of knowledge, more happy still in the feeling that he is nearer to the stature of man, and shall soon claim the privilege to enter upon the duties, and try his strength with the

67

struggles that, at one time or other, environ that "lord of the creation."

Ye of the world-who deem all your days dark ones-cease to despair!-See brighter dawns approaching, con the lesson I have attempted, and become, in its spirit, once more, and for a little, a schoolboy.

SONNET.

To * *

'Tis not that luxury hath forsook the halls Where once she ruled profuse, in heedless state, 'Tis not that now the once bedizen'd walls Wear a chill face all chang'd and desolate, That I, who erst did scarcely know to sigh, (So fickle is the fortune of our fate,) Now weep salt tears of very agony ! But 'tis that thou-thou my own summer flower

Who wert not wont to bide a winter's storm,
Should be, aye, driven from out the rosy bower
That was the parallel to thy sweet form.
For this I weep and sigh again for power!
But, oh! 'tis folly, for my doting eyes,
Where'er thou art, should see a Paradise!

Arts and Sciences.

IMPROVEMENT IN CLOCKS AND WATCHES.

AN ingenious substitute for bells in clocks and watches has lately been introduced into this country from France. The tone of a bell depends upon its size; and when the space allotted to the striking part is contracted, as in ordinary clocks and repeaters, the sound it produces is necessarily both weak and acute. The improvement we are going to explain, consists in using, in the place of a bell, a metallic spiral, a, or rod b if the same length and thickness; it is struck by a hammer, c,in the usual manner, and the tone elicited will depend upon the length of the spiral, and the quantity of metal employed in its construction. Upon this principle a tone may be produced, exactly resembling that of the great bell in St. Paul's cathedral, from a very small steel spiral. When adapted to repeaters, two spirals are fixed to the inside of the internal case of the watch immediately around the works: they are of different lengths, and consequently, when struck by two small hammers connected with the striking part of the watch, two distinct tones are produced; the one indicating the hour, and the other the quarters.

It is probable that, by arranging these spirals of different lengths, a very portable musical instrument might be constructed, of considerable variety and intensity of tone: the great length ne cessary for musical instruments, where the sounding body is supported at both ends, would be avoided, and the tone of such an instrument would probably be at least equal in sweetness to that of any stringed instrument,

« НазадПродовжити »