Chapter D: A. M (13)

There are two theories on this subject among the moderns. Harvey, Stenon, Graaf, Redi, and other celebrated physicians, maintain that all animals are oviparous, and spring from eggs, which in the animal kingdom are what seed is in the vegetable. Hartsoëker and Lewenhoek are of a different opinion, and maintain that all animals spring by metamorphosis from little animals of extreme minuteness.

The first of these systems is merely a revival of that taught by Empedocles, as cited by Plutarch and Galen, and next to him Hippocrates, Aristotle, and Macrobius. The other system, that of animalcula or spermatic vermiculi, is but a revival of the opinions of Democritus and other ancients.

Hippocrates, founding himself upon a principle universally received by antiquity that nothing arises from nothing, advanced that nothing in nature absolutely perished; that nothing, taking it altogether, was produced anew; nothing born, but what had a prior existence; that what we call birth, is only such an enlargement as brings from darkness to light, or renders visible, those small animalcula which were before imperceptible. He maintains that every thing increases as much as it can, from the lowest to the highest degree of magnitude. These principles he afterwards applies to generation, and declares that the larger sizes arise out of the lesser; that all the parts successively expand themselves, and grow and increase proportionally in the same series of time; that none of them in reality takes the start of another, so as to be quicker or slower in growth; but that those which are naturally larger sooner appear to the eye, than those which are smaller, though they by no means preceded them in birth or existence.

_Polypi._--The multiplicity of animation of which the polypus is capable, supposed to have been discovered by the moderns, was known to the ancients. There are passages of Aristotle and St. Augustine, wherein they speak of it as a thing which they knew from their own experience. The latter, in his book entitled “De Quantitate Animæ,” relates, that one of his friends performed the experiment before him of cutting a polypus in two; and that immediately the separated parts betook themselves to flight, moving with precipitation, the one one way, and the other another. Aristotle, speaking of insects with many feet, says, that there are of these animals or insects, as well as of plants and trees, that propagate themselves by shoots: and as what were but the parts of a tree before, become thus distinct and separate trees; so in cutting one of these animals, says Aristotle, the pieces which before composed altogether but one animal, become all of a sudden so many different individuals. He adds, that the animating principle in these insects is in effect but one, though multiplied in its powers, as it is in plants.

_The Sexual System of Plants._

Vivunt in Venerem frondes, omnesque vicissim
Felix arbor amat, nutant ad mutua palmæ
Fœdera, populeo suspirat populus ictu,
Et platani platanis, alnoque assibilat alnus.

_Claudian. de Nuptiis Honorii et Mariæ._

Claudian’s verses have been thus familiarly Englished:--“The tender boughs live together in love, and the happy trees pass their time entirely in mutual embraces. Palms by consent salute and nod to each other; the poplar, smitten with the poplar, sighs; whilst planes and alders express their affection in the melody of whispers.” This allusion to the “Loves of the Plants” was not a mere imagination of the old poet: their sexual difference was known to the old philosophers. “Naturalists,” says Pliny, “admit the distinction of sex not only in trees, but in herbs, and in all plants.”

ASTRONOMY--MATHEMATICS--MECHANICS--OPTICS, &c.

_The Vibration of the Pendulum_ was employed, for the purpose it is still applied to, by the ancient Arabians, long before the epoch usually assigned to its first discovery. A learned gentleman at Oxford, who carefully examined the Arabian manuscripts in the library of that university, says, “The advantages recommending the study of astronomy to the people of the East were many.” He speaks of “the serenity of their weather; the largeness and correctness of the instruments they made use of much exceeding what the moderns would be willing to believe; the multitude of their observations and writings being six times more than what has been composed by Greeks and Latins; and of the number of powerful princes who, in a manner becoming their own magnificence, aided them with protection.” He affirms, that it is easy “to show in how many respects the Arabian astronomers detected the deficiency of Ptolemy, and the pains they took to correct him; how carefully they measured time by water-clocks, sand-glasses, immense solar dials, and even by _the vibrations of the pendulum_; and with what assiduity and accuracy they conducted themselves in those nice attempts, which do so much honour to human genius--the taking the distances of the stars, and the measure of the earth.”

_Refraction of Light._--According to Roger Bacon, Ptolemy, the great philosopher and geometrician, gave the same explanation of this phenomenon, which Descartes has done since; for he says, that “a ray, passing from a more rare into a more dense medium, becomes more perpendicular.” Ptolemy wrote a treatise on optics whence Alhazen seems to have drawn whatever is estimable in what he advances about the refraction of light, astronomical refraction, and the cause of the extraordinary size of planets when they appear on the horizon. Ptolemy, and after him Alhazen, said, that “when a ray of light passes from a more rare into a more dense medium, it changes its direction when it arrives upon the surface of the latter, describing a line which intersects the angle made by that of its first direction, and a perpendicular falling upon it from the more dense medium.” Bacon adds, after Ptolemy, that “the angle formed by the coincidence of those two lines is not always equally divided by the refracted ray; because in proportion to the greater or less density of the medium, the ray is more or less refracted, or obliged to decline from its first direction.” Sir Isaac Newton subsequently deducing the cause of refraction, from the attraction made upon the ray of light by the bodies surrounding it, says, “that mediums are more or less attractive in proportion to their density.”

_Astronomic Refraction._--Ptolemy, acquainted with the principle of the refraction of light, could not fail to conclude that this was the cause of the appearance of planets upon the horizon before they came there. Hence he accounted for those appearances from the difference there was between the medium of air, and that of ether which lay beyond it; so that the rays of light coming from the planet, and entering into the denser medium of our atmosphere, must of course be so attracted as to change their direction, and by that means bring the star to our view, before it really come upon the horizon.

_Why Stars appear largest upon the Horizon_ is attempted to be accounted for by Roger Bacon. He says it may proceed from this, that the rays coming from the star are made to diverge from each other, not only by passing from the rare medium of ether into the denser one of our surrounding air, but also by the interposition of clouds and vapours arising out of the earth, which repeat the refraction and augment the dispersion of the rays, whereby the object must needs be magnified to our eye. He afterwards adds, that there has been assigned by Ptolemy and Alhazen another more reasonable cause. These authors thought that the reason of a star’s appearing larger at its rising or setting than when viewed over head arose from this, that when the star is over head there are no immediate objects perceived between it and us, so that we judge it nearer to us, and are not surprised at its littleness; but when a star is viewed on the horizon, it lies then so low that all we can see upon earth interposes between it and us, which making it appear at a greater distance, we are surprised at observing it so large, or rather imagine it larger than it is. For the same reason the sun and moon, when appearing upon the horizon, seem to be at a greater distance, by reason of the interposition of those objects which are upon the surface of our earth, than when they are over head; and consequently there will arise in our minds an idea of their largeness, augmented by that of their distance, and this of course must make them appear larger to us, when viewed on the horizon, than when seen in the zenith.

_Perspective of the Ancients._--Most of the learned deny the ancients the advantage of having known the rules of perspective, or of having put them in practice, although Vitruvius makes mention of the principles of Democritus and Anaxagoras respecting that science, in a manner that plainly shows they were not ignorant of them. “Anaxagoras and Democritus,” says he, “were instructed by Agatarchus, the disciple of Eschylus. They both of them taught the rules of drawing, so as to imitate from any point of view the prospect that lay in sight, by making the lines in their draught, issuing from the point of view there, exactly resemble the radiation of those in nature; insomuch, that however ignorant any one might be of the rules whereby this was performed, yet they could not but know at sight the edifices, and other prospects which offered themselves in the perspective scenes they drew for the decoration of the theatre, where, though all the objects were represented on a plain surface, yet they swelled out, or retired from the sight, just as objects do endowed with all dimensions.” Again he says, that the painter Apatarius drew a scene for the theatre at Tralles, “which was wonderfully pleasing to the eye, on account that the artist had so well managed the lights and shades, that the architecture appeared in reality to have all its projections.” Pliny says, that Pamphilus, who was an excellent painter, applied himself much to the study of geometry, and maintained that “without its aid it was impossible ever to arrive at perfection in that art.” Pliny elsewhere says, that Apelles fell short of Asclepiodorus in “the art of laying down distances in his paintings.” Lucian, in his Dialogue of Zeuxis, speaks of the effects of perspective in pictures, and Philostratus, in his preface to his Drawings, or History of Painting, makes it appear that he knew this science; and in his account of Menoetius’s picture of the siege of Thebes, describes the happy effects of perspective when studied with care.

_Optical Problem._--Aristotle was the first who proposed the famous problem respecting the roundness of that image of the sun, which is formed by his rays passing through a small puncture, even though the hole itself be square or triangular. “Why is it,” inquires Aristotle, “that the sun, in passing through a square puncture, forms itself into an orbicular, and not into a rectilinear figure, as when it shines through a grate? Is it not because the efflux of its rays, through the puncture, converges it into a cone, whose base is the luminous circle?”

_Squaring the Circle._--If there remain any hope of solving this problem it is founded on that discovery of Hippocrates of Chios, called the squaring of the _Lunulæ_, which is said to have first put him in heart, they say, to attempt the squaring of the circle. This Hippocrates must not be confounded with the father of medicine, who was of the isle of Cos. He who is spoken of here was a famous geometrician, and lived about five hundred years before Jesus Christ.

Anaxagoras appears to have been the first who dared this enterprise, and it was when he was in prison at Athens. Plutarch says positively that he achieved it; but this must be looked upon only as a general expression. Aristotle in many places mentions the efforts of the Pythagoreans Bryson and Antiphon, who likewise flattered themselves with having found out the square of the circle. Aristophanes jeers the learned of his time for attempting to resolve this problem. One of the nearest approximations to the solution of this problem is that of Archimedes. He found the proportion of the diameter to the circumference to be as 7 to 22, or somewhat between 21 and 22; and it is in making use of Archimedes’s method, that Wallis lays down rules for attaining nearly the square of the circle; yet they bring us not fully up to it, how far soever we advance. Archimedes contented himself with what he had in view, which was to find out a proportion that would serve all the purposes of ordinary practice. What he neglected to do, by extended approximations was afterwards performed by Apollonius, and by Philo of Gadare, who lived in the third century.

_The Squaring of the Parabola_ is one of the geometrical discoveries which has done most honour to Archimedes. It is remarked to have been the first instance of the reducing a curve figure exactly into a square, unless we admit of Hippocrates’s squaring the _lunulæ_ to have been of this sort.

_The Burning Glasses, employed by Archimedes_ to set fire to the Roman fleet at the siege of Syracuse, Kepler, Naudéus, and Descartes have treated as fabulous, though attested by Diodorus Siculus, Lucian, Dion, Zonaras, Galen, Anthemius, Eustathius, Tzetzes, and other eminent authors. Some have pretended to demonstrate by the rules of catoptrics the impossibility of it; but Kircher, attentively observing the description which Tzetzes gives of the burning glasses of Archimedes, resolved upon an experiment; and having, by means of a number of plain mirrors, collected the sun’s rays into one focus, he by an increased number of mirrors produced the most intense degree of solar heat. Tzetzes says, that “Archimedes set fire to Marcellus’s navy, by means of a burning glass composed of small square mirrors, moving every way upon hinges; which, when placed in the sun’s rays, directed them upon the Roman fleet so as to reduce it to ashes at the distance of a bow-shot.” Buffon’s celebrated burning glass, composed of 168 little plain mirrors, produced so considerable a heat, as to set wood in flames at the distance of two hundred and nine feet; melt lead, at that of one hundred and twenty; and silver, at that of fifty.

Anthemius of Tralles in Lydia, celebrated as an able architect, sculptor, and mathematician, who in the emperor Justinian’s time built the church of St. Sophia at Constantinople, wrote a small treatise in Greek, which is extant only in manuscript, entitled “Mechanical Paradoxes,” wherein is a chapter respecting burning glasses, with a complete description of the requisites, which, according to this author, Archimedes must have possessed to enable him to set fire to the Roman fleet. His elaborate description demonstrates the possibility of a fact so well attested in history. Zonaras, speaking of Archimedes’s glasses, mentions those of Proclus, who, he says, burnt the fleet of Vitellius at the siege of Constantinople, in imitation of Archimedes, who set fire to the Roman fleet at the siege of Syracuse. He intimates that the manner wherein Proclus effected this, was by launching upon the vessels, from the surface of reflecting mirrors, such a quantity of flame as reduced them to ashes.

_Refracting Burning Glasses_ were certainly known to the ancients. Pliny and Lactantius speak of glasses that burnt by refraction. The former tells of balls or globes of glass, or crystal, which exposed to the sun transmit a heat sufficient to set fire to cloth, or corrode away the dead flesh of those patients who stand in need of caustics; and the latter, after Clemens Alexandrinus, takes notice that fire may be kindled, by interposing glasses filled with water between the sun and the object, so as to transmit the rays to it. Aristophanes, in his comedy of the Clouds, introduces Socrates as examining Strepsiades about the method he had discovered for getting clear for ever of his debts. The latter replies, that he thought of making use of a burning glass, which he had hitherto used in kindling his fire; for, says he, should they bring a writ against me, I’ll immediately place my glass in the sun, at some little distance from the writ, and set it a fire.

* * * * *

ERRATUM.

Col. 455, line 10 from the bottom, for “Hartley Common,” read
“_Startley Common_.”

* * * * *

_For the Table Book._

FREE TRANSLATION

OF A

DRINKING SONG, BY GOETHE.

SUNG BY THE POET AT A MEETING OF FRIENDS, TO JOIN WHICH HE AND OTHERS HAD TRAVELLED A CONSIDERABLE DISTANCE.

1.

Celestial rapture seizes me,
Your inspiration merely;
It lifts me to the winking stars,
I seem to touch them nearly:
Yet would I rather stay below,
I can declare sincerely,
My song to sing, my glass to ring
With those I love so dearly.

2.

Then wonder not to see me here
To prop a cause so rightful:
Of all lov’d things on this lov’d earth
To me ’tis most delightful.
I vow’d I would among ye be
In scorn of fortune spiteful;
So here I came, and here I am,
To make the table quite full.

3.

When thus we should together meet,
Not quickly to be sunder’d,
I hoped at other Poets’ songs
My joy, too, should be thunder’d.
To join such brothers who would grudge
To travel miles a hundred!
So eager some this day to come,
Through very haste they blunder’d.

4.

Long life to him who guards our lives!
My doctrine’s not learnt newly:
We’ll first do honour to our King,
And drink to him most duly.
May he his foes without o’ercome,
Within quell all unruly;
And grant support of every sort,
As we shall serve him truly!

5.

Thee next I give--thou only one,
Who all thy sex defeatest!
Each lover deems right gallantly,
His mistress the completest.
I therefore drink to her I love;
Thou, who some other greetest,
Ne’er drink alone--still think thine own
As I do mine--the sweetest!

6.

The third glass to old friends is due,
Who aid us when we need it.
How quickly flew each joyous day
With such kind hearts to speed it!
When fortune’s storm was gathering dark
We had less cause to heed it:
Then fill the glass--the bottle pass--
A bumper!--we’ve agreed it!

7.

Since broader, fuller, swells the tide
Of friends, as life advances,
Let’s drink to every lesser stream,
The greater that enhances.
With strength united thus we meet,
And brave the worst mischances;
Since oft the tide, must darkly glide
That in the sunlight dances.

8.

Once more we meet together here,
Once more in love united:
We trust that others’ toils like ours,
Like ours will be requited.
Upon the self-same stream we see
Full many a mill is sited!
May we the weal of all men feel,
And with it be delighted.

J. P. C.

Vol. II.--53.

This portrait of the elder brother of Robert Bloomfield, “the Farmer’s Boy,” is here presented from a likeness recently drawn in water colours from the life, and communicated to the _Table Book_ for the purpose of the present engraving.

The late Mr. Capel Llofft, in a preface to Robert Bloomfield’s “Farmer’s Boy,” relates Robert’s history, from a narrative drawn up by George Bloomfield. It appears from thence, that their father died when Robert was an infant under a year old; that their mother had another family by John Glover, a second husband; and that Robert, at eleven years old, was taken by a kind farmer into his house, and employed in husbandry work. Robert was so small of his age, that his master said he was not likely to get his living by hard labour; his brother George informed his mother, if she would let him have Robert, he would take him and teach him his own trade, shoemaking; another brother, Nathaniel, offered to clothe him; and the mother and Robert, who was then fifteen years old, took coach, and came to London to George Bloomfield. “I have him in my mind’s eye,” says George; “a little boy; not bigger than boys generally are at twelve years old. When I met him and his mother at the inn, (in Bishopsgate-street,) he strutted before us, dressed just as he came from keeping sheep, hogs, &c.--his shoes filled full of stumps in the heels. He, looking about him, slipt up--his nails were unused to a flat pavement. I remember viewing him as he scampered up--how small he was--little thought that little fatherless boy would be one day known and esteemed by the most learned, the most respected, the wisest, and the best men of the kingdom.” Robert developed his talents under the fostering of George, to whose protection he was left by their mother. “She charged me,” says George, “as I valued a mother’s blessing, to watch over him, to set good examples for him, and never to forget that he had lost his father.” Her injunctions were strictly observed till Robert was eighteen, when George, having housed him, and taught him his trade, quitted London, and left Robert to pursue shoemaking and playing on the violin. “Robert told me in a letter,” says George, “‘that he had sold his fiddle, and got a wife.’ Like most poor men, he got a wife first, and had to get household stuff afterward. It took him some years to get out of ready furnished lodgings. At length, by hard working, &c. he acquired a bed of his own, and hired the room up one pair of stairs, at No. 14, Bell-alley, Coleman-street. The landlord kindly gave him leave to sit and work in the light garret, two pair of stairs higher. In this garret, amid six or seven other workmen, his active mind employed itself in composing the _Farmer’s Boy_.” George, with filial piety and fondness, tells of his mother’s pains to imbue Robert’s mind in infancy with just principles. “As his reason expanded,” continues George, “his love of God and man increased with it. I never knew his fellow for mildness of temper and goodness of disposition; and since I left him, universally is he praised by those who know him best, for the best of husbands, an indulgent father, and quiet neighbour.”

The progress and melancholy termination of Robert Bloomfield’s life are familiar to most readers of sensibility: they may not know, perhaps, that his brother George has long struggled with poverty, and is now an aged man, overwhelmed by indigence.

Two letters, written to a friend by a gentleman of Thetford, Mr. Faux, and some manuscripts accompanying them in George Bloomfield’s hand-writing, are now before me. They contain a few particulars respecting George Bloomfield and his present situation, which are here made known, with the hope of interesting the public in the behalf of a greatly distressed and very worthy man. The following extract from one of Mr. Faux’s letters introduces George Bloomfield’s circumstances, and conveys an idea of his character: it will be seen that he, too, is a versifier.

“_Thetford, Oct. 15, 1827._

“I have found the letter you allude to, regarding his _application to the overseers_ of St. Peter’s. I was rather inclined to send you a bundle of his letters and poetry, but I hardly think it fair without first consulting poor old George, and obtaining his permission. The letter enclosed, in answer to my invitation to him to be present on the day the duke of Grafton laid the first stone of the Pump-room, will show you what a _shy_ bird he is. His presence on that occasion would have been highly beneficial to him; but his extreme modesty has been a drawback upon him through life, leaving him generally with a coat ‘scarcely visible.’ I believe he has been always poor, and yet a more temperate man never lived.”----

The following is the note above referred to.

_From_ GEORGE BLOOMFIELD _to_ MR. FAUX.

“_Wednesday_, 3 o’clock.

“I was just folding the papers to take them to Stone, when the Master Fauxes came in, with great good nature in their countenances, and delivered their father’s very kind invitation. I feel truly grateful for the kindness: but when I can, without offence, avoid being seen, I have, through life, consulted my sheepish feelings. I have been accused of ‘making myself scarce,’ and been always considered an ‘unsocial’ fellow: it is a task to me to go into a situation where I am likely to attract attention, and the observation of men. In childhood I read of an invisible coat--I have sometimes worn a coat _scarcely visible_; but I want a coat that would render me _invisible_. I hope to be excused without giving offence, as I should be very ill at ease.

“Mr. Faux would have been presented with the enclosed papers a fortnight back, but I waited a favourable opportunity. This week I had but little work to do.--Lo, lo! here they are.”

A poem by George Bloomfield, called “The Spa,” which, being of local interest, has scarcely passed beyond provincial circles, induced the following public testimonial to his talents and virtues.

LINES ADDRESSED TO GEORGE BLOOMFIELD, BY THE REV. MR. PLUMTREE, LATE
FELLOW OF CLARE HALL, CAMBRIDGE.

Hail, aged minstrel! well thine harp thou’st strong,
Tuneful and pleasingly of Thetford sung;
Her abbey nunnery, and her mounds of war,
Her late discovered, healing, blessed, Spa;
And with a skilful hand, and master’s art,
Hast poured the tribute of a grateful heart.
Thy talent must not sleep. Resume thy lyre,
And bid it in some deeper notes respire.
Thy great Creator and thy Saviour claim
The emanations of a poet’s flame.
Poets and prophets once were names entwin’d:
Ah, why was virtue e’er from verse disjoin’d?
Ah, why have Christians lent a willing ear
To strains ’twas sin to sing, ’twas sin to hear?
Will Christians listen to a Byron’s lay?
To Bloomfield, rather, admiration pay.
His simple verse, with piety enjoin’d,
More grateful steal on my attentive mind;
And if it thrills with less tumultuous joy,
It is a pleasure free from all alloy.
Then, aged minstrel, strike thy lyre again,
And o’er the land be heard thy pleasing strain.
And, oh! may Britain’s sons thy lay regard,
And give the aged minstrel his reward:
Not the cheap recompense of empty praise,
Nor e’en the crown of never-fading bays;
But such as may effectually assuage
The wants and cares of thy declining age;
And the last lay that shall thy lyre employ,
Accompany a “heart” that sings for joy.

The hand of the “aged minstrel” is now too weak to strike the lyre; nor will his voice again be heard. Mr. James Burrell Faux, of Thetford, Norfolk, is anxious for immediate assistance in George Bloomfield’s behalf; and to that gentleman communications and contributions should be addressed. All that the _Table Book_ can do, is thus to make known the _necessity_ of the case, and to entreat pecuniary relief from those who have hearts to feel, and ability to give.

* * * * *

~Garrick Plays.~

No. XLVI.

SERIOUS FRAGMENTS.

1.

Misery lays stronger bonds of love than Nature; and they are more one,
whom the same misfortune joined together, than whom the same womb gave
life.

_H. Killigrew._

2.

_Dying Person._

---------- my soul
The warm embraces of her flesh is now,
Ev’n now forsaking; this frail body must
Like a lost feather fall from off the wing
Of Vanity--

_W. Chamberlain._

3.

------------- eternity:
Within whose everlasting springs we shall
Meet with those joys, whose blasted embryos were
Here made abortive--

_W. Chamberlain._

4.

_Crown declined by a Spiritual person._

I know no more the way to temporal rule,
Than he that’s born, and has his years come to him,
On a rough desart--

_Middleton._

5.

_To a Votaress._

Keep still that holy and immaculate fire,
You chaste lamp of eternity; ’tis a treasure
Too precious for death’s moment to partake,
The twinkling of short life.--

_Middleton._

6.

The fame that a man wins himself is best;
That he may call his own: honours put to him
Make him no more a man than his clothes do,
Which are as soon ta’en off; for in the warmth
The heat comes from the body, not the weeds;
So man’s true fame must strike from his own deeds.

_Middleton._

7.

_Adventurers._

The sons of Fortune, she has sent us forth
To thrive by the red sweat of our own merits.--

_Middleton._

8.

_New made Honour._

------------- forgetfulness
Is the most pleasing virtue they can have.
That do spring up from nothing; for by the same.
Forgetting all, they forget whence they came.

_Middleton._

9.

_Œnone forsaken._

Beguil’d, disdain’d, and out of love, live long, thou Poplar tree,
And let thy letters grow in length to witness this with me.
Ah Venus, but for reverence unto thy sacred name,
To steal a silly maiden’s love I might account it blame.--
And if the tales I hear be true, and blush for to recite,
Thou dost me wrong to leave the plains, and dally out of sight,
False Paris! this was not thy vow, when thou and I were one,
To range and change old love for new; but now those days be gone.

_Peel._

10.

_Epilepsy._

--your [Cæsar’s] disease the Gods ne’er gave to man,
But such a one as had a spirit too great
For all his body’s passages to serve it;
Which notes the excess of your ambition.

_Chapman._

11.

We are not tried but in our misery. He is a cunning coachman, that can
turn well in a narrow room.

_Anon._

12.

_Gray hairs._

---- upon whose reverend head
The milk-white pledge of wisdom sweetly spreads.--

_Lodge._

13.

_Ladies Dancing._

---- a fine sweet earthquake, gently moved
By the soft wind of whispering silks.--

_Decker._

14.

---- sharp witted Poets; whose sweet verse
Makes heav’nly Gods break off their nectar draughts.
And lay their ears down to the lowly earth--

_Anon._

15.

_Grandsires’ Love._

Old men do never truly doat, untill
Their children bring them babies.

_Shirley._

16.

_To a false Mistress._

------ thy name,
sweeten’d once the name of him that spake it.--

_Shirley._

17.

_Herod, jealous, to Mariamne._

Hast thou beheld thyself, and could’st thou stain
So rare perfection?--ev’n for love of thee
I do profoundly hate thee.

_Lady Elizabeth Carew._

18.

_Cleopatra._

The wanton Queen, that never loved for Love.--

_Lady E. Carew._

19.

_Conceit of a Princess’ love._

’Twas but a waking dream,
Wherein thou madest thy wishes speak, not her;
In which thy foolish hopes strive to prolong
A wretched being: so sickly children play
With health-loved toys, which for a time delay,
But do not cure the fit.

_Rowley._

20.

_Changing colour at sudden news._

Why look’st thou red, and pale, and both, and neither?--

_Chapman._

21.

_Rich Usurer to his Mistress._

I will not ’joy my treasure but in thee,
And in thy looks I’ll count it every hour;
And thy white arms shall be as bands to me,
Wherein are mighty lordships forfeited.--
Then triumph, Leon, richer in thy love.
Than all the hopes of treasure I possess.
Never was happy Leon rich before;
Nor ever was I covetous till now,
That I see gold so ’fined in thy hair.

_Chapman._

22.

_Puritan._

------ his face demure, with hand
On breast, as you have seen a canting preacher.
Aiming to cheat his audience, wanting matter.
Sigh, to seem holy, till he thought on something.--

_Anon._

23.

_Sects._

Eternity, which puzzles all the world
To name the inhabitants that people it;
Eternity, whose undiscover’d country
We fools divide before we come to see it,
Making one part contain all happiness,
The other misery, then unseen fight for it.
All sects pretending to a right of choice,
Yet none go willingly to take a part.

_Anon._

24.

Man is a vagabond both poor and proud,
He treads on beasts who give him clothes and food;
But the Gods catch him wheresoe’er he lurks,
Whip him, and set him to all painful works:
And yet he brags he shall be crown’d when dead.
Were ever Princes in a Bridewell bred?
Nothing is sinfully begot but he:
Can base-born Bastards lawful Sovereigns be?

_Crowne._

25.

_Wishes for Obscurity._

How miserable a thing is a Great Man!--
Take noisy vexing Greatness they that please;
Give me obscure and safe and silent ease.
Acquaintance and commerce let me have none
With any powerful thing but Time alone:
My rest let Time be fearful to offend,
And creep by me as by a slumbering friend;
Till, with ease glutted, to my bed I steal,
As men to sleep after a plenteous meal.
Oh wretched he who, call’d abroad by power,
To know himself can never find an hour!
Strange to himself, but to all others known,
Lends every one his life, but uses none;
So, e’er he tasted life, to death he goes;
And himself loses, e’er himself he knows.

_Crowne._

26.

_Mind constituted to Goodness._

---- you may do this, or any thing you have a mind to; even in your
fantasy there is a secret counsel, seeing that all your actions, nay
all your pleasures, are in some exercise of virtue--

_H. Killigrew._

27.

_Returned Pilgrim._

To man how sweet is breath! yet sweetest of all
That breath, which from his native air doth fall.
How many weary paces have I measured,
How many known and unknown dangers past,
Since I commenced my tedious pilgrimage,
The last great work of my death-yielding age!
Yet am I blest, that my returning bones
Shall be rak’t up in England’s peaceful earth.

_Anon._

28.

_Usury._

Nature in all inferior things hath set
A pitch or term, when they no more shall get
Increase and offspring. Unrepaired houses
Fall to decay; old cattle cease to breed;
And sapless trees deny more fruit or seed:
The earth would heartless and infertile be.
If it should never have a jubilee.
Only the Usurer’s Money ’genders still;
The longer, lustier; age this doth not kill.
He lives to see his Money’s Money’s Money
Even to a hundred generations reach.

_Anon._

29.

_Love defined by contraries._

Fie, fie, how heavy is light Love in me!--
How slow runs swift Desire!--this leaden air,
This ponderous feather, merry melancholy;
This Passion, which but in passion
Hath not his perfect shape.--

_Day._

30.

_Good Faith._

What are we but _our words?_ when they are past,
Faith should succeed, and that should ever last.

31.

_Weeping for good news._

I knew your eye would be first served;
That’s the soul’s taster still for grief or joy.

_Rowley_

32.

_Forsaken Mistress._

I thought the lost perfection of mankind
Was in that man restored; and I have grieved,
Lost Eden too was not revived for him;
And a new Eve, more excellent than the first,
Created for him, that he might have all
The joys he could deserve: and he fool’d me
To think that Eve and Eden was in me:
That he was made for me, and I for him.

_Crowne._

33.

_Love surviving Hope._

’Tis a vain glory that attends a Lover,
Never to say he quits; and, when Hope dies,
The gallantry of Love still lives, is charm’d
With kindness but in shadow.

_Browne._

34.

_Warriors._

I hate these potent madmen, who keep all
Mankind awake, while they by their great deeds
Are drumming hard upon this hollow world,
Only to make a sound to last for ages.

_Crowne._

35.

_Life._

What is’t we live for? tell life’s finest tale--
To eat, to drink, to sleep, love, and enjoy,
And then to love no more!
To talk of things we know not, and to know
Nothing but things not worth the talking of.

_Sir R. Fane, jun._

36.

_Brother, supposed dead, received by a Sister: she shews him a letter, disclosing an unworthy action done by him; at which he standing abashed, she then first congratulates him:_

---- now I meet your love. Pardon me, my brother; I was to rejoyce at
this your sadness, before I could share with you in another joy.

_H. Killigrew._

37.

_Person just dead._

’Twas but just now he went away;
I have not yet had time to shed a tear;
And yet the distance does the same appear,
As if he had been a thousand years from me.
Time takes no measure in eternity.

_Sir Robert Howard._

38.

_French Character._

The French are passing courtly, ripe of wit;
Kind, but extreme dissemblers: you shall have
A Frenchman ducking lower than your knee,
At the instant mocking ev’n your very shoe-tyes.

_Ford._

39.

_Love must die gently._

I hoped, your great experience, and your years,
Would have proved patience rather to your soul,
Than to break off in this untamed passion.
Howe’er the rough hand of the untoward world
Hath molded your proceedings in this matter,
Yet I am sure the first intent was love.
Then since the first spring was so sweet and warm,
Let it die gently; ne’er kill it with a scorn.

_Anon._

40.

_Poetic Diction._

----- worthiest poets
Shun common and plebeian forms of speech,
Every illiberal and affected phrase,
To clothe their matter; and together tye
Matter and form with art and decency.

_Chapman._

41.

_Author Vanity._

------ the foolish Poet, that still writ
All his most self-loved verse in paper royal,
Or parchment ruled with lead, smooth’d with the pumice,
Bound richly up, and strung with crimson strings;
Never so blest as when he writ and read
The ape-loved issue of his brain; and never
But joying in himself, admiring ever--

_Chapman._

42.

_Good wit to be husbanded._

------ as of lions it is said, and eagles,
That when they go, they draw their seres and talons
Close up, to shun rebating of their sharpness:
So our wit’s sharpness, which we should employ
In noblest knowledge, we should never waste
In vile and vulgar admirations.

_Chapman._

43.

_Impossibility of attaining, a bar to desire._

Nothing is more ordinary, than for my Lady to love her Gentleman; or
Mistress Anne, her father’s man. But if a country clown coming up
hither, and seeking for his lawyer in Gray’s Inn, should step into the
walks, and there should chance to spy some mastership of nature; some
famed Beauty, that for a time hath been the name; he would stand
amazed, perhaps wish that his Joan were such, but further would not be
stirred. Impossibility would

stop more bold desires,
And quench those sparks that else would turn to fires.

_Edmund Prestwick._

44.

_Theory of men’s choice in a Beauty._

1.--She has a most complete and perfect beauty; nor can the greatest
critic in this sort find any fault with the least proportion of her
face, but yet methought I was no more taken with it, than I should be
with some curious well-drawn picture.

2.--That is somewhat strange.

1.--In my mind, not at all; for it is not always that we are governed
by what the general fancy of the world calls beauty; for each soul
hath some predominant thoughts, which when they light on ought that
strikes on them, there is nothing does more inflame. And as in music
_that_ pleaseth not most, which with the greatest art and skill is
composed; but those airs that do resemble and stir up some dormant
passion, to which the mind is addicted; so, I believe, never yet was
any one much taken with a face, in which he did not espy ought that
did rouse and put in motion some affection that hath ruled in his
thoughts, besides those features which, only for the sake of common
opinion, we are forced to say do please.

_E. Prestwick._

C. L.

* * * * *

GENERAL REMINISCENCES

OF

THREE, THIRD, AND THRICE.

“Thrice the brindled rat hath mewed--
Thrice to thine and thrice to mine,
And thrice again to make up nine.”--_Shakspeare._

The ordinal, cardinal, or numeral, THREE, possesses stronger power of associating application than any other figure in history, or literature. From the first notice of the Creation, _Ælohim_ is understood to signify the Trinity. When the third day was created, the sun, moon, and stars, were set in the firmament. Christ’s resurrection was on the third day, and his crucifixion between two thieves. Noah’s sons were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Job’s daughters were Keziah, Jemima, and Kerenhappuck; his comforters were Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. Time is divided into three parts. The ancients rose at the third hour. The Brahmins have their Birmah, Vishnu, and Siva; the Persians their Oromanes, Mithra, and Mithras; the Egyptians their Osiris, Isis, and Orus; the Arabians their Allah, Al Uzza, and Manah; the Phœnicians and Tyrians their Belus, Urania, and Adonis; the Greeks their Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto. Aristotle, Plutarch, and Macrobius, wrote on the doctrine of numbers. Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, were three Fates. The children that endured the fiery furnace were Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Jupiter’s thunderbolt had three forks; Neptune’s trident, three prongs; Cerberus three heads. The Pythian priestess sat on a tripod.[512] There were the three Parcæ; the three Furies; three attributes of the sun, Sol, Apollo, and Liber; of the moon, Hecate, Diana, and Luna. David prayed three times a day. The Hindoos make three suppressions of the breath when meditating on the triliteral syllable O’M. The Sabians prayed morning, noon, and night. Three bows of the head, and three prostrations are peculiar to some nations. In England, are king, lords, and commons. The ancients washed their eyes three times; drunk potions out of three cups. The Salians beat the ground three times in their dance. Three times were allowed for execrations, for spitting on the ground and sneezing. Juno Lucina was invoked three times in favour of childbirth. Three steps were allowed to ascend the throne or the altar. Persons dipped thrice into wells for cure. Persons were touched thrice for the king’s evil. Three parts of the old world only were known. The three professions are law, divinity, and physic. Three chirps of a cricket is said to be a sign of death. Coleridge makes his mastiff bitch howl three times for his Lady Christabel. The papist crosses himself three times. The raven’s croak, or the owl’s triad screech, indicates (it is said) ill omens. Three crows in a gutter betoken good to the beholder. The funeral bell is tolled thrice for the death of a man. The third attack of apoplexy is thought fatal. The third finger of the left hand bears the marriage ring. A Latin motto is _tria una in juncta_. The witches in Macbeth ask, “When shall we three meet again?” There are signs of the Three Crowns, Three Pigeons, Three Cups, Three Tuns, Three Brewers, Three Johns, Three Bells, and others, to an infinite degree. In the church service are the clerk, curate, and preacher; three priests serve at the papal shrine. In the courts of justice are the judge, the jury, and the culprit. In physic, the physician’s consultation is three. An arbitration is three. A dual public-house sign is, with the gazer added quaintly, “We _three_ loggerheads be.” The three warnings are celebrated. The Jews boasted of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The United Kingdom is England, (Wales included,) Ireland, and Scotland. Who has not read of Three-fingered Jack? of Octavius, Lepidus, and Anthony? A nest of chests is three. The British toast is echoed by hip! hip! huzzah! Three signals decided the fate of Lucius Junius. In the third year of Cyrus the name of Belteshazzar was revealed to Daniel: his prophecy was, that “three kings should stand up in Persia;” and Daniel mourned three weeks by reason of his vision. The beast that he saw, had three ribs in the mouth of it. The householder went about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the market-place. Daniel’s petition was made three times. In the Revelations, the third part of the creatures which were in the sea and had life, died. Faith, Hope, and Charity, are three virtues. The priests’ abodes in Eziekel were three chambers. In the prophecy it says, “A third part of the hair shall be burnt; a third part fall by the sword; a third part scattered by the wind.” Demosthenes says, “Three years after, he met with the same fate as Æschines, and was also banished from Athens.” History unites an Aristides, a Cimon, and a Phocion. Peter’s denial was given by the cock crowing thrice. Homer, in his Frogs and Mice, says,

“Three warlike sons adorned my nuptial bed,
Three sons, alas! before their father, dead.”

Pope Alexander III., 1182, compelled the kings of England and France to hold the stirrups of his saddle when he mounted his horse. King Richard III. put an end to the civil wars between the houses of York and Lancaster, 1483. Peter III. was deposed 1762. Virgil, 565, lib. viii. says, Nascenti cui _tres_ animas Feronia mater--_ter_ letho sternendus erat: and again, _tres_ ulnas--_tribus_ nodis. Milton’s three fierce spirits were Ariel, Arioch, and Ramiel. Lord Nelson’s ship, the Victory, attacked the Trinidad.[513] Fairs are usually chartered for three days. Persons used to walk three times round Horn church. The pawnbroker has three balls. A hearth has a poker, tongs, and shovel.[514] The sentinel asks--“Who comes there?” thrice, before he dares level his firelock at the intruder. Three candles in a room are said to indicate death in the family. The bashaw wears three tails. The passion flower has three spires.

Thus, it will be readily seen, how intimately the number _three_ has been, and is, connected with events and circumstances, hypothetical and absolute. Were the subject worth tracing further, scarcely a poetic or prose writer, but is liberal in the use of this number. Considering, however, that the adductions already given are such as to satisfy the most fastidious disciples of the square root, need I perform a triple evolution in this threefold science of pure and mixed numbers? I conclude by apologising for not having treated the subject like a lexicographer, in technical and alphabetical routine.

J. R. P.

_December, 1827._

[512] A milking-stool has three legs. It is superstitiously left in
the field to keep witches from injuring the cattle.

[513] The _Tres Horas_ are explained in the _Every-Day Book_.

[514] For the use of which threepence, hearth money, was formerly
paid.

* * * * *

_For the Table Book._

DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM.

Ελευσονται (γαρ) ημεραι εν αις ουκ αφησονται λιθος επι λιθω ος ου
καταλυθησεται.

Luc. Ev. c. xxi. v. 6.

1.

Hark! again to the onset--the portals gape wide--
And the warriors stream forth in the rush of their pride,
The cold reckless eye of the Roman glows red,
At the sound of their deathlike and trumpetless tread;
For he knows that the workings of frenzy are there,
The triumph of death and the might of despair.
Hearts--that wildly live on but to riot in pain--
Lips--that laugh, as in scorn, at the links of the chain--
And full many a plume shall yon eagle let fall,
Ere she wing her fierce flight o’er the rift of the wall;
Ere she soar on the dark cloud of conquest and rest,
On the rock of that temple, the strength of her hest.

2.

Thy foes are around thee, fair city of peace!--
Thy sons are fast sinking, the wicked increase--
Yet proudly, ev’n now, thy high-place dost thou hold,
Girt round with the pomp of their steel and their gold;
And a pearl of rich price, on thine hill-top art thou,
Meet to jewel the crown of a conqueror’s high brow.
Yet deem not thy sons to that haughty array,
Will fling thee unheeded, unbled for away.
Shall the proud heathen tread where thy prophets have trod?
Shall, the Flamen exult in the “Holy of God?”
No--the hearts of thy children are one,--to hurl back
The merciless wrath of the Gentiles’ attack.
For the home of their fathers towers yet in their eye,
As they lived will _they_ live, as they died will _they_ die.

3.

But weak is thine armour, and worthless thy might,
A fiercer than man strives against thee in fight,
And in vain shall the chiefs of thy battle withstand
The voice of his thunder, the bolt in his hand;
His wrath knows no refuge, his might knows no bar.
The stout spear he rendeth, and burns the swift car.
Thou shalt crumble to nought in the day of his wrath,
Like the reed trampled down in the whirlwind’s wild path.

4.

Weep, daughter of Judah! that tempest hath come,
And it laugheth to scorn the mild vengeance of Rome.
Weep, daughter of Judah! a vengeance so dread
Is bursting e’en now o’er thy desolate head,
That the stern Roman eyes it with doubt and with fear.
O’er the cheek of the conqueror there steals a soft tear
Aye! the heathen for thee feels a pang of regret--
--One blaze--and thy sun shall for ever be set;

5.

One short flickering blaze;--and then passeth away
The glory of years in the work of a day:
The fair crown of Jacob lies trod in the dust.
And shipwreck’d is now the strong hold of his trust;
Tho’ the foxes have holes, and the fowls have a nest,
Yet the “seed of the Promised” finds nowhere to rest;
And despised shall he live on, in darkness and night,
Till a Salem more blessed shall gladden his sight;
The courts of whose house, in their measureless girth,
Shall compass the tribes and the thousands of earth;
Where none, save in triumph, their voices shall raise,
And no trump shall peal forth save the trumpet of praise,
In a realm far above, o’er that red eagle’s nest,
Where the proud cease from wrong, and the poor are at rest.

B.

* * * * *

APOSTLE SPOONS.

_To the Editor._

Dear Sir,--In Roger North’s Life of his brother, Sir Dudley North, (4to. London, 1744,) occurs the following passage, which, in connection with the account you gave your readers (_Every-Day Book_, vol. i. p. 176,) of “Apostle Spoons,” may be acceptable to you.

Mr. North, after some opposition, was elected sheriff of London; and after stating this, his biographer thus proceeds: “When all the forms of this shrieval instalment were over, Mr. North received the honour of knighthood ... and, as the custom of feasting, lately laid aside, was now resumed, Mr. North took a great hall, that belonged to one of the companies, and kept his entertainments there. He had diverse very considerable presents from friends and relations, besides the compliments of the several companies inviting themselves and wives to dinner, _dropping their guineys, and taking apostles’ spoons in the room of them_; which, with what they ate and drank, and such as came in the shape of wives, (for they often gratified a she-friend or relation with that preferment,) carried away, made but an indifferent bargain. The Middle Templars, (because of his relation to the lord chief justice North, who was of that Society,) came with a compliment, and a purse of one hundred guineys, and were entertained. The mirth and rejoicing that was in the city, as well at these feasts as at private entertainments, is scarce to be expressed.”

In perusing this quaintly written volume, there occur two or three passages, which deserve to be ranked as aphorisms. For your own reading I here add them:--

“Better a loss at sea than a bad debt on land. The former has no worse consequence than itself; but the other draws loss of time and pains, which might be employed to more profit.”

“Whoever serves a community, and does not secure his reward, will meet with quarrels instead of thanks, for all the good he may have done it.”

Sir Dudley was wont to remark, “_Lay nothing to heart which you cannot help._” A most useful principle of life.

I am, &c.

_Whitehaven_,

J. G.

_Sept. 12, 1827._

* * * * *

PATIENT COURTSHIP.

_For the Table Book._

I knew a man that went courting his sweetheart the distance of three miles every evening for fourteen years, besides dodging her home after church, Sunday afternoons; making above 15,000 miles. For the first seven years he only stood and courted in the door-porch; but for the remaining period, he ventured (what a liberty after a septennial attachment!) to hang his hat on a pin in the passage and sit in the kitchen settle. The wedding--a consummation devoutly to be wished--was solemnized when Robert and Hannah were in their “sear and yellow leaf.” They had no family “to cry their fading charms into the grave.” Though their courtship had been long, cool, and deliberate, they were not the happiest couple in the village; to that union of temper, which is so essential in wedded life, they were strangers.

*, *, P.

* * * * *

OLD AND FAITHFUL SERVANTS.

“In their death they were not divided.”

2 _Samuel_ i. 23.

_To the Editor_

Sir,--The following memorial I copied from a tablet, on the right hand side of the clergyman’s desk, in the beautiful little church at Hornsey. The scarceness of similar inscriptions make this valuable.

S. T. L.

“ERECTED _to the memory_ of MARY PARSONS, the diligent, faithful, and
affectionate servant, in a family during a period of 57 years. She
died on the 22d day of November, 1806, aged 85.

“ALSO _to the memory_ of ELIZABETH DECKER, the friend and companion of
the above; who, after an exemplary service of 47 years in the same
family, died on the 2d of February, 1809, aged 75.

“THEIR REMAINS, _by their mutual request_, WERE INTERRED IN THE SAME
GRAVE.”