The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828

THE FLOWER AND THE OAK.
IMITATED FROM THE ITALIAN

(For the Mirror.)

 
A flower beheld a lofty oak,
And thus in mournful accents spoke;
“The verdure of that tree will last,
Till Autumn’s loveliest days are past,
Whilst I with brightest colours crown’d,
Shall soon lie withering on the ground.”
The lofty oak this answer made:
“The fairest flowers the soonest fade.”
 

FROM ZAPPI

 
Cries Phillis to her shepherd swain,
“Why is Love painted without eyes?”
The youth from flattery can’t refrain,
And to the fair one quick replies:
“Those lovely eyes which now are thine,
In young Love’s face were wont to shine.”
 

ANNA.

CROMLEHS

(To the Editor of the Mirror.)

In No. 328 you have given an account of a cromleh in Anglesea. Perhaps it may not be amiss to inform you that the word cromlech, or cromleh, is derived from the Welsh words crom, feminine of crwm, crooked, and lech, a flat stone. There are some cromlehs in Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire, which are supposed to have been altars for sacrifices before the Christian era.

W.H.

THE ALPINE HORN

(For the Mirror.)

The Alpine Horn is an instrument made of the bark of the cherry-tree, and like a speaking-trumpet, is used to convey sounds to a great distance. When the last rays of the sun gild the summit of the Alps, the shepherd who inhabits the highest peak of those mountains, takes his horn, and cries with a loud voice, “Praised be the Lord.” As soon as the neighbouring shepherds hear him they leave their huts and repeat these words. The sounds are prolonged many minutes, while the echoes of the mountains, and grottoes of the rocks, repeat the name of God. Imagination cannot picture any thing more solemn, or sublime, than this scene. During the silence that succeeds, the shepherds bend their knees, and pray in the open air, and then retire to their huts to rest. The sun-light gilding the tops of those stupendous mountains, upon which the blue vault of heaven seems to rest, the magnificent scenery around, and the voices of the shepherds sounding from rock to rock the praise of the Almighty, must fill the mind of every traveller with enthusiasm and awe.

INA.

SPIRIT OF DISCOVERY

ENGLISH GARDENING

Mr. Corbett has just published a useful little volume, entitled the English Gardener, which is, perhaps, one of the most practical books ever printed. At present we must confine our extracts to a few useful passages; but we purpose a more extended notice of this very interesting volume.

Laying out Gardens

In the work of laying-out, great care ought to be taken with regard to straightness and distances, and particularly as to the squareness of every part. To make lines perpendicular, and perfectly so, is, indeed, no difficult matter when one knows how to do it; but one must know how to do it, before one can do it at all. If the gardener understand this much of geometry, he will do it without any difficulty; but if he only pretend to understand the matter, and begin to walk backward and forward, stretching out lines and cocking his eye, make no bones with him; send for a bricklayer, and see the stumps driven into the ground yourself. The four outside lines being laid down with perfect truth, it must be a bungling fellow indeed that cannot do the rest; but if they be only a little askew, you have a botch in your eye for the rest of your life, and a botch of your own making too. Gardeners seldom want for confidence in their own abilities; but this affair of raising perpendiculars upon a given line is a thing settled in a moment: you have nothing to do but to say to the gardener, “Come, let us see how you do it.” He has but one way in which he can do it; and, if he do not immediately begin to work in that way, pack him off to get a bricklayer, even a botch in which trade will perform the work to the truth of a hair.

Seeds

I incline to the opinion, that we should try seeds as our ancestors tried witches; not by fire, but by water; and that, following up their practice, we should reprobate and destroy all that do not readily sink.

Melons

It is a received opinion, a thing taken for granted, an axiom in horticulture, that melon seed is the better for being old. Mr. Marshall says, that it ought to be “about four years old, though some prefer it much older.” And he afterwards observes, that “if new seed only can be had, it should be carried a week or two in the breeches-pocket, to dry away some of the more watery particles!” If age be a recommendation in rules as well as in melon-seed, this rule has it; for English authors published it, and French authors laughed at it, more than a century past!

Those who can afford to have melons raised in their gardens, can afford to keep a conjuror to raise them; and a conjuror will hardly condescend to follow common sense in his practice. This would be lowering the profession in the eyes of the vulgar, and, which would be very dangerous, in the eyes of his employer. However, a great deal of this stuff is traditionary; and how are we to find the conscience to blame a gardener for errors inculcated by gentlemen of erudition!

Sowing Seeds

I do hope that it is unnecessary for me to say, that sowing according to the moon is wholly absurd and ridiculous; and that it arose solely out of the circumstance, that our forefathers, who could not read, had neither almanack nor calendar to guide them, and who counted by moons and festivals, instead of by months, and days of months.

Brussels Sprouts

It is, most likely, owing to negligence that we hardly ever see such a thing as real Brussels sprouts in England; and it is said that it is pretty nearly the same in France, the proper care being taken nowhere, apparently, but in the neighbourhood of Brussels.

Horse-Radish

After horse-radish has borne seed once or twice, its root becomes hard, brown on the outside, not juicy when it is scraped, and eats more like little chips than like a garden vegetable; so that, at taverns and eating-houses, there frequently seems to be a rivalship on the point of toughness between the horse-radish and the beef-steak; and it would be well if this inconvenient rivalship never discovered itself any where else.

Eating Mushrooms

I once ate about three spoonsful at table at Mr. Timothy Brown’s, at Peckham, which had been cooked, I suppose, in the usual way; but I had not long eaten them before my whole body, face, hands, and all, was covered with red spots or pimples, and to such a degree, and coming on so fast, that the doctor who attended the family was sent for. He thought nothing of it, gave me a little draught of some sort, and the pimples went away; but I attributed it then to the mushrooms. The next year, I had mushrooms in my own garden at Botley, and I determined to try the experiment whether they would have the same effect again; but, not liking to run any risk, I took only a teaspoonful, or, rather, a French coffee-spoonful, which is larger than a common teaspoon. They had just the same effect, both as to sensation and outward appearance! From that day to this, I have never touched mushrooms, for I conclude that there must be something poisonous in that which will so quickly produce the effects that I have described, and on a healthy and hale body like mine; and, therefore, I do not advise any one to cultivate these things.

Peas

The late king, George the Third, reigned so long, that his birthday formed a sort of season with gardeners; and, ever since I became a man, I can recollect that it was always deemed rather a sign of bad gardening if there were not green peas in the garden fit to gather on the fourth of June. It is curious that green peas are to be had as early in Long Island, and in the seaboard part of the state of New Jersey, as in England, though not sowed there, observe, until very late in April, while ours, to be very early, must be sowed in the month of December or January. It is still more curious, that, such is the effect of habit and tradition, that, even when I was last in America (1819), people talked just as familiarly as in England about having green peas on the king’s birth-day, and were just as ambitious for accomplishing the object; and I remember a gentleman who had been a republican officer during the revolutionary war, who told me that he always got in his garden green peas fit to eat on old Uncle George’s birth-day.

Cider

Mr. Platt had a curious mode of making strong cider in America. In the month of January or February, he placed a number of hogsheads of cider upon stands out of doors. The frost turned to ice the upper part of the contents of the hogshead, and a tap drew off from the bottom the part which was not frozen. This was the spirituous part, and was as strong as the very strongest of beer that can be made. The frost had no power over this part; but the lighter part which was at the top it froze into ice. This, when thawed, was weak cider. This method of getting strong cider would not do in a country like this, where the frosts are never sufficiently severe.

Keeping Apples

When there is frost, all that you have to do, is to keep the apples in a state of total darkness until some days after a complete thaw has come. In America they are frequently frozen as hard as stones; if they thaw in the light, they rot; but if they thaw in darkness, they not only do not rot, but lose very little of their original flavour. This may be new to the English reader; but he may depend upon it that the statement is correct.

To Keep Chestnuts

To preserve chestnuts, so as to have them to sow in the spring, or to eat through the winter, you must make them perfectly dry after they come out of their green husk; then put them into a box or a barrel mixed with, and covered over by, fine and dry sand, three gallons of sand to one gallon of chestnuts. If there be maggots in any of the chestnuts, they will come out of the chestnuts and work up through the sand to get to the air; and thus you have your chestnuts sweet and sound and fresh.

Plums

The Magnum Bonums are fit for nothing but tarts and sweetmeats. Magnum is right enough; but as to bonum, the word has seldom been so completely misapplied.

British Wines

That which we call currant wine, is neither more nor less than red-looking, weak rum, the strength coming from the sugar; and gooseberry wine is a thing of the same character, and, if the fruit were of no other use than this, one might wish them to be extirpated. People deceive themselves. The thing is called wine, but it is rum; that is to say, an extract from sugar.

Birds

The wild pigeons in America live, for about a month, entirely upon the buds of the sugar-maple, and are killed by hundreds of thousands, by persons who erect bough-houses, and remain in a maple wood with guns and powder and shot for that purpose. If we open the craw of one of these little birds, we find in it green stuff of various descriptions, and, generally, more or less of grass, and, therefore, it is a little too much to believe, that, in taking away our buds, they merely relieve us from the insects that would, in time, eat us up. Birds are exceedingly cunning in their generation; but, luckily for us gardeners, they do not know how to distinguish between the report of a gun loaded with powder and shot, and one that is only loaded with powder. Very frequent firing with powder will alarm them so that they will quit the spot, or, at least, be so timid as to become comparatively little mischievous.