Imatges de pàgina
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When the bloomy hue of youth hath past,
And budding hopes have met their sear,
And sunny smiles are changed at last,
By lowering fate, to regnant care.
And forms that flickered in the break
Of op'ning life, and memory's goal,
Are gone, but never will forsake
The imagery of the soul.

"Tis then we ween that solitude

Not wanting is of tinted gloom, Or in the purlieus of the wood,

Or city's maze, she builds her home.
We roam right on through turmoiled street,
Nor heed the noisy passing throng,
We banish these, and lonesome greet

The thought in other scenes among.
And when perchance that years have ran
Their changing round, and fate again
Shall cast us there, where erst began
The course of life, from sorrow twain;
Again, we dote in childhood's reign,

And drown intruding nearer hours, 'Again we trip the well-known plain,

While fancy strews her new blown flowers.

We climb the tree, each branch we know
An old acquaintance, and the road
We whilom trod to church; we go
Again, o'er memory's lore to brood.
We mount again the throne of death,
The tomb, the wanderers resting place,
And solitudes last home, beneath

All else when she hath run her race.

We muse-when lo! the treacherous eye Doth rest upon some moss clad stone, Teeming with kindreds last good bye,

And all the pictured zest is gone. There some sweet coz. doth claim a tear Beneath her gleby canopy, Where both have romped, and exiled care, And little recked time's dynasty.

The eye is flooded in heartfelt springs, While gazing round, we recognize Each dear amission, memory's wings Ascend, and greet them in the skies.

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How lovely it is to stand on yon cliff,
Or to sail o'er the lake in my light little skiff,
On the calm summer night, when the pale
moon-beams

With silvery radiance tinges the streams: When the splash of my oars, or the soft ze. phyrs break

The silence alone that hangs over the lake: When clear and calm is the deep blue sky, As the breast of a saint when his death hour is nigh: And unbroken the lake's glassy smoothness by wave,

As in dangerous hour is the heart of the brave: When the air is all odour, and balm, and per

fume,

And the earth is all flowers, and blossom, and bloom,

'Tis lovely, 'tis lovely, to see such a night, Oh! would that my hopes were as shining ant bright.

K.

ACCOUNT OF THE BHATS, OR BARDS OF INDIA.

THE Bhâts are a sacred order all through Rajpootana. Their race was especially created by Mahadeo, for the purpose of guarding his sacred bull, but they lost this honourable office through their cowardice. The god had a pet lion also, and as the favourite animals were kept in the same apartment, the bull was eaten almost every day, in spite of all the noise which the Bhâts could make, greatly to the grief of Siva, and to the increase of his trouble, since he had to create a new bull in the room of every one which fell a victim to the ferocity of his companion. Under these circumstances, the deity formed a new race of men, the Charuns of equal piety and tuneful powers, but more courageous than the Bhâts, and made them the wardens of his menagerie. The Bhâts, however, still retained their functions of singing the praises of gods and heroes; and, as the hereditary guardians of history and pedigree, are held in higher estimation than even the Brahmins themselves, amongst the haughty and fierce nobles of Rajpootana. In the yet wilder districts to the south west, the more warlike Charuns, however, take their place in popular reverence. A few years back, it was usual for merchants or travellers going through Malwah and Guzerat, to hire a Charun to protect them, and the sanctity of his name was gene

rally sufficient. If robbers appeared, he stepped forward, waving his long white garments, and denouncing in verse, infamy, and disgrace on all who should injure travellers, under the protection of the holy minstrels of Siva. If this failed, ne stabbed himself with his dagger, generally in the left arm, declaring that his blood was on their heads; and if all failed he was bound in honour to stab himself to the heart, a catastrophe of which there was little danger, since the violent death of such a person was enough to devote the whole land to barrenness, and all who occasioned it to an everlasting abode in Padolon. The Bhâts protect nobody; but to kill or beat one of them would be regarded as very disgraceful and ill-omened; and presuming on this immunity, and on the importance attached to that sort of renown which it confers, they are said often to extort money from their wealthy neighbours, by promises of spreading their great name, and threats of making them infamous, and even of blasting their prospects. A wealthy merchant of Indore, some years since, had a quarrel with one of these men, who made a clay image, which he called after the merchant's name, and, daily in the bazar, and in the different temples, addressed it with bitter and reproachful language, intermixed with the most frightful curses, which an angry poet could invent. There was no redress; and the merchant though a man of great power and influence at court, was advised to bribe him into silence, this he refused to do, and the matter went on for several months, till a number of the merchant's friends subscribed a considerable sum, of which, with much submission, and joined hands, they entreated the Bhât to accept. Alas! was his answer, "why was not this done before? Had I been conciliated in time, your friend might yet have prospered. But now, though I shall be silent henceforth, I have already said too much against him; and when did the imprecations of a bard, so long persisted in, fall to the ground unaccomplished ?"

The mer

chant, as it happened, was really overtaken by some severe calamities, and the popular faith in the powers of the minstrel character, is now more than ever confirmed.-Bishop Heber's India.

Eccentric Biography.

JEFFERY, THE COURT DWARF.
THIS singular personage, who figures

so conspicuously in one of Sir Walter Scott's Novels, and whose life was full of events, first saw the light at Oakham in Rutlandshire in 1619, and about the age of seven or eight, being then but eighteen inches high, was retained in the service of the Duke of Buckingham, who resided at Burleigh on the Hill. Soon after the marriage of Charles I, the King and Queen being entertained at Burleigh, little Jeffery was served up to table in a cold-pie, and presented by the Duchess to the Queen, who kept him as her dwarf. From seven years of age to thirty he never grew taller; but after thirty he shot up to three feet nine inches, and there fixed. Jeffery became a considerable part of the entertainment of the court, Sir William Davenant wrote a poem Jeffreidos, on a battle between him and a turkey cock, and in 1638, was published a very small book called the New Year's Gift, presented at court from the Lady Parvalu to the Lord Minimus, (commonly called little Jeffery) her Majesty's servant, &c., written by Microphilus, with a little print of Jeffery prefixed. Before this period Jeffery was employed in a negociation of great importance, he was sent to France to fetch a midwife for the Queen, and on his return with this gentlewoman, and her Majesty's dancing master, and many rich presents to the Queen from her mother Mary de Medici, he was taken by the Dunkirkers. Jeffery thus made of consequence, grew to think himself really so. He had borne with little temper the teazing of the courtiers and domestics, and had many squabbles with the King's gigantic porter, at last, being provoked by Mr. Crofts, a young gentleman of family, a challenge ensued, and Mr. Crofts coming to the rendezvous only with a squirt, the little creature was so enraged that a real duel ensued, and the appointment being on horseback with pistols, to put them more on a level, Jeffery with the first fire shot his antagonist dead. This happened in France, whither he had attended his mistress in the troubles. He was again taken prisoner by a Turkish rover, and sold into Barbary. He probably did not long remain in slavery, for at the beginning of the civil war he was made a captain in the Royal Army, and in 1644 attended the Queen to France, where he remained till the restoration. At last

upon suspicion of his being privy to the Popish plot, he was taken up in 1682, and confined in the Gate House, Westminster, where he ended his life in the sixty third year of his age.-Dallaway's Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting.

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VENERATION OF THE ANCIENTS FOR

THEIR BEARDS.

THE most celebrated ancient writers, as well as those of latter times, have made honourable mention of the beards of antiquity. Homer speaks highly of the white beard of the venerable Nestor, and that of Priam King of Troy. Virgil de scribes Mezentius's to us as being so thick and long as to cover all his breast, Chrysippus, the stoic philosopher praises in his writings the noble beard of Timo thy, a famous flute player of his time. Pliny the younger tells us of the white beard of Euphrates, a Syrian Philosopher; and he takes pleasure in relating the respect mixed with fear with which it in spired the people. Plutarch speaks of the long white beard of an old Laconian, who, being asked why he let it grow so, replied Tis that seeing continually my white beard, I may do nothing unworthy of its whiteness," Strabo relates that the Indian philosophers, the Gymnosophists, were particularly attentive to make the length of their beards contribute to captivate the veneration of the people, Diodorus Siculus after him in his writings, gives a particular and circumstantial history of the beards of the Indians. Juvenal the satirist does not forget that of Antilochus, the son of Nestor. Fenelon the author of Telemachus in describing a priest of Apollo in all his magnificence tells us, that he had a white beard down to his girdle. But Perseus seems to out-do all these authors, this poet was so convinced that a beard was the symbol of wisdom, that he thought he could not bestow a greater encomium on the divine Socrates, than by calling him the bearded master.-Magistrum Barbatum.

presume to disturb their peace, or contravene such measures. He is called by Cicero the father of eloquence, and a singular good doctor. Tully commends the subtlety of Lycias, the acuteness of Hiperides, the sound of Aeschines, the force of Demosthenes, but the sweetness of Isocrates. And Philostrates denominates him as the Athenian Syren, telling us that the syren was placed on his sepulchre, as it were, singing. In the Greek Anthology, he is called the Light of Rhetoric. The Roman orator compares his school to the Trojan Horse, out of which most eminent rhetoricians came forth. Isocrates, who loved his country with the utmost tenderness, could not survive the loss and ignominy with which it was covered by the event of the battle of Choronea. The instant he received the news of it, being uncertain what use Philip would make of his victory, and determined to die a freeman, he hastened his end by abstaining from food. He was 98 years of age. His writings were so pre cious that he sold only one oration for 20 talents. P.

DISTINCTIONS OF PEOPLE OF COLOUR.

THERE is little doubt but what many of our readers who hear or read of various appellations that are applied to the different grades of negroes, people of colour, &c., are quite ignorant as to the comprehending fully what is meant by the various names by which the different races are distinguished; to such, we think the following information will not be unacceptable:

A Samboe is the highest remove from

Sketches of Orators, No. 3. black, being the child of a Mulattoe fa

1SOCRATES..

ISOCRATES, the son of Theodorus, was born at Athens, 436, A. C. Defective in his pronunciation, he came not into the Forum to plead causes, yet he reconciled Philip by his letters to the Athenians, and in his excellent panegyric, he stirred up the Greeks against Asia, and intimated that Athens, if it would be happy, and in tranquility, ought to confine her dominions within just bounds, not to affect the empire of the sea, for the sake of lording it over all other states; but to conclude a peace, whereby every city and people should be left to the full enjoyment of their liberty, and declare herself the irreconcilable enemy of those who should

ther, and Negro woman, or vice versa. A Mulattoe is the child of a white man by a Negress. A Quadroon is the child of a Mulattoe mother, by a white father. The child of a Quadro on by a white man, is a Mustee. The child of a white man by a Mustee woman, is a Mustiphini. The child of a Mustiphini, by a white father, is a Quintroon; and the child of a Quintroon woman by a white, is free by law. Some authors who have treated on the West Indies, do not count so far; whilst others state the having seen more than one family of Quintroons by Musti phini mothers in a state of slavery; which of course would not have been the case, had they been those persons called white by law.

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DATE. DAYS.

Diary and Chronology.

DIARY.

DATE.

CORRESPONDING CHRONOLOGY.

June 18 Wed. Sts. Marcus and June 18 St. Marcus and Marcellianus; these saints were

Marcellianus.

Sun ris. 43m af. 3

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twin brothers, and born of an illustrious family in Rome. They suffered martyrdom by order of Fabian, who condemned them to be bound to two pillars, with their feet nailed to the same; in this posture they were stabbed with lances. 1483.-The youthful King Edward V. Deposed by his ambitious uncle Richard, Duke of Gloster. 1815.-Fought on this day, the glorious and decisive Battle of Waterloo, which ended the personal power of Napoleon, the loss sustained in killed and wounded on both sides in this victory has been computed at 60,000.

1827.-Died on this day Lord de Tabley, the liberal patron of literature and the fine arts. The death of this nobleman is deeply regretted by almost every English artist.

19 These two saints were termed the Protomartyrs of Milan, and are supposed to have suffered in the first persecution under Nero.

1215.-The bulwark of English liberty, Magna Charta was confirmed by King John on this day. The performance of this act was effected by compulsion, the Barons being all in arms against the king.

1565 Mary Queen of Scots, was delivered on this day of a son, afterwards our James I. 20 St. Silverius was the son of Pope Hormisdas, he succeeded Agapetus I, in the papacy, he was deposed by Belisarius, by order of the Empress Theodora, for refusing to acknowledge an heretical bishop, he died during his banishment in the Island of Pontia, A. D 538.

1814. Anniversary of the grand review of troops, which took place in Hyde Park. The troops were reviewed by the present King, then Prince Regent. The Emperor of Russia, King of Prussia, and the foreign Generals then here on a visit to the Prince Regent.

21 St. Eusebius, bishop of Samosata, was banished by the Emperor Valens. After whose death he

was ordered by the Council of Antiochia, to visit the churches of Mesopotamia, upon arriving at Dolichæ to fulfil his mission, he was killed by a woman of the Arian persuasion, A. D. 378. 1377. Expired at Richmond, King Edward III, ET 64, in the 53rd year of an eventful reign, during which was fought the memorable battles of Cressy and Poictiers.

1813. Victory of Vittoria was obtained on this day. When the French army under Joseph Buonaparte and Marshal Jourdan, were signally defeated by the army of Lord Wellington. The valor and well concerted operations of Lord Hill, and that brave general Sir Thomas Picton, principally effected the discomfiture of the French upon this occasion.

22 St. Paulinus was born at Bourdeaux, A. D. 358. He was chosen bishop of Nola in the year 409. His death happened in 431, when many miracles are said to have happened.

1679. The battle of Bothwell Bridge was fought on this day, when the Duke of Monmouth, dispersed the rebellious covenanters, upwards of 700 fell by the effective execution of the Duke's cannon, whilst pursuing them, and 1200 were taken prisoners, unto whom this generous noble. man behaved with the greatest humanity. 23 St. Etheldrida, this saint was a daughter of Annasor Anna, the holy King of the East Angles, she was married to Toubercht, who settled upon her the Isle of Ely for her dowry, at which place she founded a monastery, and ended her pious and exemplary life, A. D. 179.

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