The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 17, No. 476, February 12, 1831
TekstTHE GATHERER
A snapper up of unconsidered trifles.
SHAKSPEARE.
A clergyman of the name of Mathson was minister of Patteesdale, in Westmoreland, sixty years, and died at the age of ninety. During the early part of his life, his benefice brought him in only twelve pounds a-year; it was afterwards increased (perhaps by Queen Anne's bounty) to eighteen, which it never exceeded. On this income he married, brought up four children, and lived comfortably with his neighbours, educated a son at the university, and left behind him upwards of one thousand pounds. With that singular simplicity and inattention to forms which characterize a country life, thus he himself read the burial service over his mother, he married his father to a second wife, and afterwards buried him also. He published his own banns of marriage in the church, with a woman he had formerly christened, and he himself married all his four children.
W.G.C
THE POPE PUZZLED
Pope Alexander the sixth asked the Venetian ambassador at Rome, "What right his republic had to the dominion of the Adriatic See?" "It will be found," replied he, "on the back of the donation of the patrimony of St. Peter to his successors."
W.A.R
CHANGING SIDES
"I am come from Naples to support you," said one of the old opposition one night to a member on the ministerial benches. "From Naples!" was the ready rejoinder; "much farther—you are come from the other side of the House!"
TO MOLLY
Mollis abuti,
Has an acuti,
No lasso finis,
Molli divinis.
Omi de armistres,
Imi na distres.
Cant u discover,
Meas alo ver.
—SWIFT.
KINGS OF FRANCE
It is worthy of remark, that none of the Kings of France have been succeeded by their sons for nearly two centuries. Phillippe, the present King of the French, succeeded to the regal sway in consequence of the dethronement of Charles the Tenth; who succeeded his brother, Louis the Eighteenth; who succeeded his brother, Louis the Sixteenth; who succeeded his grandfather, Louis the Fifteenth; who likewise succeeded his grandfather, Louis the Fourteenth, when only five years of age.
H.B.A
PANDORA'S BOX
The Prince of Piedmont was not quite seven years old, when his preceptor, Cardinal (then Father) Glendel, explained to him the fable of Pandora's Box. He told him that all evils which afflict the human race were shut up in that fatal box; which Pandora, tempted by Curiosity, opened, when they immediately flew out, and spread themselves over the surface of the earth.
"What, Father!" said the young prince, "were all the evils shut up in that box?"
"Yes," answered the preceptor.
"That cannot be," replied the prince, "since Curiosity tempted Pandora; and that evil, which could not have been in it, was not the least, since it was the origin of all."
J.G.B
SQUALL AT SEA
The other evening a surgeon in the navy stated the following curious circumstance:—
While off Madagascar, in the ship Scorpion, he with the other officers of the ship were dining with the Captain (Johnson) who had just looked at the glass; it being a very fine day no one had any apprehension of a squall. The dinner was hardly over when the captain's eye caught the glass: he suddenly rose from table and hurrying on deck, ordered "All hands to turn up, and furl all sail immediately." They had just completed the order and were descending, when the ship was laid on her beam-ends, most of the men had a ducking, but that was all the mischief that happened. Three or four East Indiamen had already been destroyed by the same accident; and if the above order had not been complied with immediately as it was, nothing could have saved the ship, it being only a quarter of an hour since the first notice of it. The captain was afterwards made commissioner of Bombay, where he died.