The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 12, No. 348, December 27, 1828

A FRIEND

In utter prostration, and sacred privacy of soul, I almost think now, and have often felt heretofore, man may make a confessional of the breast of his brother man. Once I had such a friend—and to me he was a priest. He has been so long dead, that it seems to me now, that I have almost forgotten him—and that I remember only that he once lived, and that I once loved him with all my affections. One such friend alone can ever, from the very nature of things, belong to any one human being, however endowed by nature and beloved of heaven. He is felt to stand between us and our upbraiding conscience. In his life lies the strength—the power—the virtue of ours—in his death the better half of our whole being seems to expire. Such communion of spirit, perhaps, can only be in existences rising towards their meridian; as the hills of life cast longer shadows in the westering hours, we grow—I should not say more suspicious, for that may be too strong a word—but more silent, more self-wrapt, more circumspect—less sympathetic even with kindred and congenial natures, who will sometimes, in our almost sullen moods or theirs, seem as if they were kindred and congenial no more—less devoted to Spirituals, that is, to Ideas, so tender, true, beautiful, and sublime, that they seem to be inhabitants of heaven though born of earth, and to float between the two regions, angelical and divine—yet felt to be mortal, human still—the Ideas of passions, and desires, and affections, and "impulses that come to us in solitude," to whom we breathe out our souls in silence, or in almost silent speech, in utterly mute adoration, or in broken hymns of feeling, believing that the holy enthusiasm will go with us through life to the grave, or rather knowing not, or feeling not, that the grave is any thing more for us than a mere word with a somewhat mournful sound, and that life is changeless, cloudless, unfading as the heaven of heavens, that lies to the uplifted fancy in blue immortal calm, round the throne of the eternal Jehovah.—Noctes—Blackwood's Magazine.

ENGLISH LANDSCAPE PAINTING

The English school of landscape painting has come to be of the first rank, and the contemporaries of Turner, Constable, Calcott, Thomson, Williams, Copley Fielding, and others whom we might name even with these masters, have no reason to reproach themselves with any neglect of their merits. The truth with which these artists have delineated the features of British landscape is, according to general admission, unmatched by even the most splendid exertions of foreign schools in the same department.—Quarterly Rev..

PANORAMA OF THE RHINE

Mr. Leigh, who is well known as the publisher of the best English guides all over the continent, has just added to their number a Panorama of the Rhine and the adjacent country, from Cologne to Mayence, with maps of the routes from London to Cologne, and from thence to the sources of the Rhine. The Panorama is designed from nature by F.W. Delkeskamp, and engraved by John Clark. It consists of a beautiful aqua-tint engraving, upwards of seven feet in length, and six inches in width, representing the course of the Rhine, and its picturesque banks, studded with towns and villages; whilst steam-boats, bridges, and islets are distinctly shown in the river. It would be difficult to convey to our readers an idea of the extreme delicacy with which the plate is engraved; and, to speak dramatically, the entire success of the representation. A more interesting or useful companion for the tourist could scarcely be conceived; for the picture is not interrupted by the names of the places, but these are judiciously introduced in the margins of the plate. In short, every town, village, fortress, convent, mansion, mountain, dale, field, and forest, are here represented. By way of Supplement to the Plate, a Steam-boat Companion is appended, describing the principal places on the Rhine, with the population, curiosities, inns, &c. We passed an hour over the engraving very agreeably, coasting along till we actually fancied ourselves in one of the apartments of the Hotel of Darmstadt at Mayence, when missing our high conic bumper of Rudesheim—we found our thanks were due to the artist for the luxury of the illusion. The Panorama folds up in a neat portfolio, and occupies little more room than a quire of letter paper.

EDINBURGH IN SUMMER

A' The lumms smokeless! No ae jack turnin' a piece o' roastin' beef afore ae fire in ony ae kitchen in a' the New Toon! Streets and squares a' grass-grown, sae that they micht be mawn! Shops like bee-hives that hae de'd in wunter! Coaches settin' aff for Stirlin', and Perth, and Glasgow, and no ae passenger either inside or out—only the driver keepin' up his heart wi' flourishin' his whup, and the guard, sittin' in perfect solitude, playin' an eerie spring on his bugle-horn! The shut-up play-house a' covered ower wi' bills that seem to speak o' plays acted in an antediluvian world! Here, perhaps, a leevin' creter, like ane emage, staunin' at the mouth o' a close, or hirplin' alang, like the last relic o' the plague. And oh! but the stane-statue o' the late Lord Melville, staunin' a' by himsell up in the silent air, a hunder-and-fifty feet high, has then a ghastly seeming in the sky, like some giant condemned to perpetual imprisonment on his pedestal, and mournin' ower the desolation of the city that in life he loved so well.—Noctes—Blackwood's Magazine.

NAVARINO

A Correspondent has sent us a copy of some "Stanzas written in Commemoration of the Battle of Navarin," written by A. Grassie, piper on board H.M.S. Glasgow, R.N.—or "by a sailor in the engagement." One of the twelve stanzas is as follows:—

 
To save the sacrifice of life,
Was valiant Codrington's design;
And for those Turks it had been good.
If to his terms they would incline:
They fired upon the Dartmouth's boat,
And killed some of its gallant men;
But that distinguished frigate had
Complete revenge at Navarin.
 

This specimen of nautical numbers reminds us of Addison's suggestion for setting the Chelsea and Greenwich pensioners to write accounts of the battles in which they had served; and we hope others will follow Mr. Grassie's example in these piping times of peace.

CARVING AND GILDING

A point of some importance in the internal decoration of palatial houses, viz. the introduction of "ornaments of the age of Louis XIV." is now canvassing among connoisseurs, or rather among those who direct the public taste. Some of our readers are probably aware that the mansion built for the late Duke of York, and Crockford's Club-house, are embellished in this style, which, to say the best, is gorgeous and expensive, without displaying good taste. We ought to leave such matters to the classical Mr. T. Hope, who has written a folio volume on "Household Furniture and Internal Decorations;" or the Carvers, Gilders, and Cabinet-Makers' Societies might sit in council on the subject. The question is interesting to all lovers of the fine arts, and to men of taste generally.

Is there any thing in this?

"It were no preposterous conceit to affirm, that nature typifies in each individual man the several offices and orders which our commonwealth distributes to the several ranks and functionaries of the state. There are the Operative Energies, Talents, Passions, Appetites, good servants all, but bad masters, useful citizens, always to be controlled, but never oppressed, and most effective when they are neither pampered nor starved. There, too, is the Executive Will; Prudence, Chancellor of the Exchequer; Self-love, minister for the Home Department; Observation, Secretary of Foreign Affairs; Poetry, over the Woods and Forests; Lord Keeper Conscience, a sage, scrupulous, hesitating, head-shaking, hair-splitting personage, whose decisions are most just, but too slow to be useful, and who is the readier to weep for what is done, than to direct what should be done; Wit, Manager of the House of Commons, a flashy, either-sided gentleman, who piques himself on never being out; and Self-Denial, always eager to vacate his seat and accept the Chiltern Hundreds."—Blackwood's Mag.

MAN

Man is so pugnacious an animal, that even the quakers, who in all other things seem effectually to have subdued this part of their animal nature, carry on controversy, whenever they engage in it, tooth and nail.—Quarterly Rev.

RETROSPECTIVE GLEANINGS,

GLEANINGS ON GLUTTONY

Against Voracitie and immoderate drinking, instanced by sundry histories

Vitellius, an Emperour of Rome, was among divers other his notorious vices so luxuriously given, that at one supper he was served with two thousand fishes of divers kindes, and seven thousand flying foules; he was afterward drawne through the streets with a halter about his neck, and shamefully put to death.

But what shall we wonder at emperours prodigalities, when of later yeares a simple Franciscan frier, Peter de Ruere, after hee had attained to the dignitie of cardinall by the favour of the pope, his kinsman, hee spent in two yeares, in which he lived at Rome, in feasts and banquets, two hundred thousand crownes, besides his debts, which were as much more.

In our time Muleasses, King of Tunis, was so drowned in pleasures, that being expelled from his kingdome for his vices, after his returne from Germanie, being denyed of ayd hee sought of the Emperour Charles the Fifth, he spent an hundred crownes upon the dressing of a peacocke for his owne mouth. And that hee might with more pleasure heare musicke, he used to cover his eyes.—But the judgment of God fell upon him; for his sone or brother dispossessed him of his kingdome, and provided him a remedie that his sight should be no longer annoyance to his hearing, causing his eyes to be put out with a burning hot iron. He that is given to please his senses, and delighteth in the excesse of eating and drinking, may, as Sallust saith, bee called animal, for hee is unworthy the name of a man. For wherin can a man more resemble brute beasts, and degenerate from his angelicall nature, than to serve his belly and his senses? But if our predecessors exceeded us in superfluitie of meats, wee can compare and goe beyond them in drinking and quaffing.

King Edgar so much detested this vice of drunkennesse, that hee set an order that no man should drinke beyond a certaine ring, made round about the glasses and cups, of purpose for a marke.

Anacharsis saith, that the first draught is to quench the thirst, the second for nourishment, the third for pleasure, the fourth for madnesse.

Augustine Lercheimer reporteth a strange historie of three quaffers in Germany, in the yeare one thousand five hundred and fortie nine; these three companions were in such a jollity after they had taken in their cups, according to the brutish manner of that countrey, that with a coale they painted the divell on the wall, and dranke freely to him, and talked to him as though hee had been present. The next morning they were found strangled, and dead, and were buried under the gallowes.

Surfeits maketh worke many times for the physician, who turning R into D giveth his patient sometime a Decipe for a Recipe; and so payeth deerely for his travell that hastneth him to his end. Horace calleth such men that give themselves to their belly, a beast of Arcadia that devoureth the grasse of the earth.

Cornelius Celsus giveth this counsell when men come to meat: Nunquam utilis nimia satietatis, saepe inutilis nimia abstinentia; over-much satiety is never good, over-much abstinence is often hurtfull.

Mahomet desirous to draw men to the liking of him and his doctrine, and perceiving the pronenesse of men to luxuriousness and fleshly pleasures, yet dealt more craftily in his Alcoran, than to persuade them that felicitie consisted in the voluptuousenesse and pleasures of this life, which he knew would not be believed nor followed but of a few, and those the more brutish sort, but threatened them with a kind of hell, and gave them precepts tending somewhat more to civilitie and humanitie, and promised his followers a paradise in the life to come, wherin they should enjoy all maner of pleasures which men desire in this world; as faire gardens environed with pleasant rivers, sweet flowers, all kinde of odoriferous savours, most delicate fruits, tables furnished with most daintie meats, and pleasant wines served in vessels of gold, &c. &c.

The Egyptians had a custome not unmeet to bee used at the carousing banquets; their manner was, in the middest of their feasts to have brought before them anatomie of a dead body dried, that the sight and horror thereof putting them in minde to what passe themselves should one day come, might containe them in modesty. But peradventure things are fallen so far from their right course, that that device will not so well serve the turne, as if the carousers of these later daies were persuaded, as Mahomet persuaded his followers when hee forbad them the drinking of wine, that in every grape there dwelt a divell. But whun they have taken in their cups, it seemeth that many of them doe feare neither the divell nor any thing else.