Imatges de pàgina
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gentleman commonly thanks the deputation for the attention of the club, to one so unworthy as himself, and promises to consider

the matter.

It sometimes happens, that several days elapse, and the "strange" gentleman thinks no more of the club. He has perhaps repeatedly looked into his own glass, and wondered what, in the name of sense, the club could have seen in his face, that should entitle him to the distinction they would confer on him.

He is, however, waited upon a second time by the most respectable members of the whole body, with a message from the president, requesting him not to be diffident of his qualifications, and earnestly desiring "that he will not fail to attend the club the very next evening-the members will feel themselves highly honoured by the presence of one whose appearance has already attracted the notice of the whole society."

"Zounds!" he says to himself on perusing the billet, "what do they mean by teasing me in this manner? I am surely not so ugly," (walking to his glass,) to attract the notice of the whole town on first setting my foot upon the wharf!"

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"Your nose is very long," cries the spokesman of the deputation. Noses," says the strange gentleman, are no criterion of ugliness: it's true, the tip-end of mine would form an acute angle with a base line drawn horizontally from my under lip; but I defy the whole club to prove, that acute angles were ever reckoned ugly, from the days of Euclid down to this moment, except by themselves."

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"My jaws," says the ugly man in a pet, are such as nature made them: and Aristotle has asserted, that all her works are beautiful.”

The conversation ends for the present. The deputation leaves the strange gentleman to his reflections, with wishes and hopes that he will consider further.

Another fortnight elapses, and the strange gentleman, presuming the club have forgotten him, employs the time in assuming petit-maître airs, and probably makes advances to young ladies of fortune and beauty. At the expiration of this period, he receives a letter from a pretended female, (contrived by the club,) to the following purport:

"My dear sir,

"There is such a congeniality between your countenance and mine, that I cannot help thinking you and I were destined for each other. I am unmarried, and have a considerable fortune in pine-barren land, which, with myself, I wish to bestow upon some deserving man; and from seeing you pass several times by my window, I know of no one better entitled to both than yourself. I am now almost two years beyond my grand climacteric, and am four feet four inches in height, rather less in circumference, a little dropsical, have lovely red hair and a fair complexion, and, if the doctor do not deceive me, I may hold out twenty years longer. My nose is, like yours, rather longer than common; but then to compensate, I am universally allowed to have charming eyes. They somewhat incline to each other, but the sun himself looks obliquely in winter, and cheers the earth with his glances. Wait upon me, dear sir, tomorrow evening.

"Yours till death, &c.

"M. M." "What does all this mean?" cries the ugly gentleman, " was ever man tormented in this manner! Ugly clubs, ugly women: imps and fiends, all in combination to persecute me, and make my life miserable! I am to be ugly, it seems, whether I will or not."

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At this critical juncture, the president of the club, who is the very pink of ugliness itself, waits upon the strange gentleman, and takes him by the hand. My dear sir," says he, "you may as well walk with me to the club as not. Nature has designed you for us, and us for you. We are a set of men who have resolution enough to dare to be ugly; and have long let the world know, that we can pass the evening, and eat and drink together with as much social glee and real good humour as the handsomest of them. Look into this Dutch glass, sir, and be convinced that we cannot do without you."

"If it must be so, it must," cries the ugly gentleman, "there seems to be no alternative; I will even do as you say!"

It appears from a paper in "The American Museum" of 1790, that by this mode the "ugly club" of Charleston has increased, is increasing, and cannot be diminished According to the last accounts, 66 strange gentlemen who do not comply with invitations to join the club in person are elected honorary " members, and their names enrolled nolens volens.

P. N.

SUMMER DRINKS.

IMPERIAL.

Take two gallons of water, two ounces of ginger bruised, and two lemons; boil them together; when lukewarm, pour the whole on a pound and a half of loaf sugar, and two ounces of cream of tartar; add four table spoonfuls of yeast, and let them work together for six hours; then strain the liquor, and bottle it off in small stone bottles: it will be ready for use in a few hours.

SHERBET.

Take nine Seville oranges and three lemons, grate off the yellow from the rinds, and put the raspings into a gallon of water, with three pounds of double refined sugar, and boil it to a candy height; then take it off the fire, and add the pulp of the oranges and lemons; keep stirring it till it be almost cold, then put it in a vessel for use. LEMON WATER.

Put two slices of lemon, thinly pared, into a tea-pot, with a little bit of the peel, and a bit of sugar, or a large spoonful of capillaire, pour in a pint of boiling water, and stop it close for two hours.

GINGER BEER.

To four gallons of water, put three pounds of brown sugar, two ounces of ginger, one ounce and a half of hops, and about half a pound of fern-root cut small; boil these together till there be about three gallons. To colour it, burn a little sugar and put it in the liquor. Pour it into a vessel when cold, add two table-spoonfuls of barm, and then proceed as with common beer.

CABBAGE, AND TAILORS.

The Roman name Brassica came, as is supposed, from " præséco," because it was cut off from the stalk: it was also called Caulis in Latin, on account of the goodness of its stalks, and from which the English name Cole, Colwort, or Colewort, is derived. The word cabbage, by which all the varieties of this plant are now improperly called, means the firm head or ball that is formed by the leaves turning close over each other; from that circumstance we say the cole has cabbaged-From thence arose the cant word applied to tailors, who formerly worked at the private houses of their customers, where they were often accused of cabbaging: which means the rolling up pieces of cloth instead of the list and shreds, which they claim as their due.*

• Phillips's Hist, of Cultivated Vegetables.

APRIL.

FROM THE FRENCH OF REMY BELLEAU.

APRIL! sweet month, the daintiest of all,
Fair thee befall:

April! fond hope of fruits that lie
In buds of swathing cotton wrapt,
There closely lapt

Nursing their tender infancy

April! that dost thy yellow, green, and blue, Around thee strew,

When, as thou go'st, the grassy floor Is with a million flowers depaint, Whose colours quaint

Have diaper'd the meadows o'er

April! at whose glad coming zephyrs rise With whisper'd sighs,

Then on their light wings brush away, And hang amid the woodlands fresh Their aery mesh,

To tangle Flora on her way

April! it is thy hand that doth unlock,
From plain and rock,

Odours and hues, a balmy store,
That breathing lie on Nature's breast,
So richly blest,

That earth or heaven can ask no more

April! thy blooms, amid the tresses laid
Of my sweet maid,

Adown her neck and bosom flow;
And in a wild profusion there,
Her shining hair

With them hath blent a golden glow

April! the dimpled smiles, the playful grace,
That in the face

Of Cytherea haunt, are thine;

And thine the breath, that, from the skies,
The deities

Inhale, an offering at thy shrine

'Tis thou that dost with summons blythe and soft, High up aloft,

From banishment these heralds bring,
These swallows, that along the air
Send swift, and bear

Glad tidings of the merry spring.

April! the hawthorn and the eglantine,
Purple woodbine,

Streak'd pink, and lily-cup and rose, And thyme, and marjoram, are spreading, Where thou art treading,

And their sweet eyes for thee unclose. The little nightingale sits singing aye On leafy spray,

And in her fitful strain doth run
A thousand and a thousand changes,
With voice that ranges

Through every sweet division

April! it is when thou dost come again,
That love is fain

With gentlest breath the fires to wake,
That cover'd up and slumbering lay,
Through many a day,

When winter's chill our veins did slake.

Sweet month, thou seest at this jocund prime
Of the spring time,

The hives pour out their lusty young,
And hear'st the yellow bees that ply,
With laden thigh,

Murmuring the flow'ry wilds among.

MAY shall with pomp his wavy wealth unfold, His fruits of gold,

His fertilizing dews, that swell

In manna on each spike and stem
And like a gem,

Red honey in the waxen cell.

Who will may praise him, but my voice shall be, Sweet month for thee;

Thou that to her do'st owe thy name, Who saw the sea wave's foamy tide Swell and divide,

Whence forth to life and light she came.

ETYMOLOGY.

The following are significations of a few

common terms:

Steward literally means the keeper of the place; it is compounded of the two old words, stede and ward: by the omission of the first d and e the word steward is formed.

Marshal means one who has the care of horses: in the old Teutonic, mare was synonymous with horse, being applied to the kind; scale signified a servant.

Mayor is derived from the Teutonic Meyer, a lover of might.

Sheriff is compounded of the old words shyre and reve-an officer of the county, one who hath the overlooking of the shire. Yeoman is the Teutonic word gemen, corrupted in the spelling, and means a

commoner.

Groom signifies one who serves in an inferior station. The name of bridegroom was formerly given to the new-married man, because it was customary for him to wait at table on his bride and friends on his wedding day.

All our words of necessity are derived from the German; our words of luxury and those used at table, from the French. The sky, the earth, the elements, the names of animals, household goods, and articles of food, are the same in German as in Eng

lish; the fashions of dress, and every thing belonging to the kitchen, luxury, and ornament, are taken from the French; and to such a degree of exactness, that the names of animals which serve for the ordinary food of men, such as ox, calf, sheep, when alive, are called the same in English as in German; but when they are served up for the table they change their names, and are called beef, veal, mutton, after the French.*

ORGANS.

For the Table Book.

A few particulars relative to organs, in addition to those at col. 260, may be interesting to musical readers.

The instrument is of so great antiquity, that neither the time nor place of invention, nor the name of the inventor, is identified; but that they were used by the Greeks, and from them borrowed by the Latins, is generally allowed. St. Jerome describes one that could be heard a mile off; and says, that there was an organ at Jerusalem, which could be heard at the Mount of Olives.

Organs are affirmed to have been first introduced into France in the reign of Louis I., A. D. 815, and the construction and use of them taught by an Italian priest, who learned the art at Constantinople. By some, however, the introduction of them into that country is carried as far back as Charlemagne, and by others still further.

The earliest mention of an organ, in the northern histories, is in the annals of the surnamed Copronymus, sent to Pepin of year 757, when the emperor Constantine, France, among other rich presents, a "musical machine," which the French writers describe to have been composed of "pipes and large tubes of tin," and to have imitated sometimes the "roaring of thunder," and, at others, the "warbling of a flute."

Bellarmine alleges, that organs were first used in churches about 660. According to Bingham, they were not used till after the time of Thomas Aquinas, about A. D. 1250. Gervas, the monk of Canterbury, who flourished about 1200, says, they were in use about a hundred years before his time. If his authority be good, it would countenance a general opinion, that organs were common in the churches of Italy, Germany, and England, about the ten h

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PERPLEXING MARRIAGES.

At Gwennap, in Cornwall, in March 1823, Miss Sophia Bawden was married to Mr. R. Bawden, both of St. Day. By this marriage, the father became brother-inlaw to his son; the mother, mother-in-law to her sister; the mother-in-law of the son, his sister-in-law; the sister of the motherin-law, her daughter-in-law; the sister of the daughter-in-law, her mother-in-law; the son of the father, brother-in-law to his mother-in-law, and uncle to his brothers, and sisters; the wife of the son, sister-inlaw to her father-in-law, and aunt-in-law to her husband; and the offspring of the son and his wife would be grandchildren to their uncle and aunt, and cousins to their father.

In an account of Kent, it is related that one Hawood had two daughters by his first wife, of which the eldest was married to John Cashick the son, and the youngest to John Cashick the father. This Cashick the father had a daughter by his first wife, whom old Hawood married, and by her had a son with the exception of the former wife of old Cashick, all these persons were living at Faversham in February, 1650, and his second wife could say as follows:

My father is my son, and | My sister is my daughter, I'm mother's mother; | I'm grandmother to my brother.

STEPS RE-TRACED.

Catherine ae Medicis made a vow, that if some concerns which she had undertaken terminated successfully, she would send a pilgrim on foot to Jerusalem, and that at every three steps he advanced, he should go one step back.

It was doubtful whether there could be found a man sufficiently strong and patient to walk, and go back one step at every third. A citizen of Verberie, who was a merchant, offered to accomplish the queen's vow most scrupulously, and her majesty promised him an adequate recompense. The queen was well assured by constant inquiries that he fulfilled his engagement with exactness, and his return, he received a considerable sum of money, and was ennobled. His coat of arms were a cross aud a branch of palm-tree. His descendants preserved the arms; but they degenerated from their nobility, by resuming the commerce which their ancestor quitted."

Nouv. Hist. de Duch. de Valois.

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Maundy Thursday.

THE THURSDAY BEFORE GOOD FRIDAY.

There are ample particulars of the present usages on this day at the chapel royal, St. James's, in the Every-Day Book, with accounts of celebrations in other countries; to these may be added the ceremonies at the court of Vienna, recently related by Dr. Bright :

:

"On the Thursday of this week, which was the 24th of March, a singular religious ceremony was celebrated by the court. It is known in German catholic countries by the name of the Fusswaschung, or the 'washing of the feet.' The large saloon, in which public court entertainments are given, was fitted up for the purpose; elevated benches and galleries were constructed round the room for the

reception of the court and strangers; and in the area, upon two platforms, tables were spread, at one of which sat twelve men, and at the other twelve women. They

had been selected from the oldest and

most deserving paupers, and were suitably clothed in black, with handkerchiefs and square collars of white muslin, and girdles

round their waists.

"The emperor and empress, with the archdukes and archduchesses, Leopoldine and Clementine, and their suites, having all previously attended mass in the royal chapel, entered and approached the table to the sound of solemn music. The Hungarian guard followed, in their most splendid uniform, with their leopard-skin jackets falling from their shoulders, and bearing trays of different meats, which the emperor, empress, archdukes, and attendants, placed on the table, in three successive courses, before the poor men and women, who tasted a little, drank each a glass of wine, and answered a few questions put to them by their sovereigns. The tables were then removed, and the empress and her daughters the archduchesses, dressed in black, with pages bearing their trains, approached. Silver bowls were placed beneath the bare feet of the aged women. The grand chamberlain, in a humble posture, poured water upon the feet of each in succession, from a golden urn, and the empress wiped them with a fine napkin she held in her hand. The emperor performed the same ceremony on the feet of the men, and the rite concluded amidst the sounds of sacred music."

VOL. I.-16.

Good Friday-Easter.

"VISITING THE CHURCHES" IN FRANCE.

On Good Friday the churches are all altars, and the altars themselves are dedressed up; canopies are placed over the corated with flowers and other ornaments,

and illuminated with a vast number of wax candles. In the evening every body of every rank and description goes a round of visits to them. The devout kneel down and repeat a prayer to themselves in each; but the majority only go to see and be seento admire or to criticise the decorations of the churches and of each other-to settle which are arranged with the most taste, which are the most superb. This may be called the feast of caps, for there is scarcely a lady who has not a new cap for the occasion.

Easter Sunday, on the contrary, is the feast of hats; for it is no less general for the ladies on that day to appear in new hats. In the time of the convents, the decoration of their churches for Passion-week was an object in which the nuns occupied themselves with the greatest eagerness. No girl dressing for her first ball ever bestowed best advantage than they bestowed in demore pains in placing her ornaments to the corating their altars. Some of the churches which we visited looked very well, and very showy: but the weather was warm; and as this was the first revival of the ceremony since the revolution, the crowd was so great that they were insupportably hot.

panied the French army on its evacuation A number of Egyptians, who had accom. of Egypt, and were settled at Marseilles, were the most eager spectators, as indeed I had observed them to be on all occasions of any particular religious ceremonies being performed. I never saw a more ugly or dirty-looking set of people than they were in general, women as well as men, but they seemed fond of dress and ornament. They had swarthy, dirty-looking complexions, and dark hair; but were not by any means to be considered as people of colour. Their hair, though dark, had no affinity with that of the negroes; for it was lank and greasy, not with any disposition to be woolly. Most of the women had accompanied French officers as chères amies: the Egyptian ladies were indeed said to have had in general a great taste for the French offi

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• Miss Plumptre.

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