A snapper up of unconsidered trifles.
SHAKSPEARE.
When Queen Elizabeth dined with Sir Thomas Gresham, before she proceeded to name the Royal Exchange, Sir Thomas pledged her majesty in a cup containing a pearl made into powder, of the value of £1,000. So runs the story, but we should think Sir Thomas superior to such a piece of ostentatious folly. The display of his grasshopper crest on the pinnacles of the Old 'Change was in much better taste.
The old fashion of transacting public business after dinner is not unworthy of remark and contrast with the present custom. In 1696, the foundation-stone of Greenwich Hospital was laid by John Evelyn, with a select committee of commissioners, and Sir Christopher Wren, precisely at five in the evening, after they had dined together, Flamstead, the royal astronomer, observing the time punctually by his instruments. In our days the only public business transacted after dinner is that of parliament, and the alteration of this to the morning has often been suggested: but if the motto in vino veritas hold good, it were better left as it is.
All public business in England is an occasion of eating and drinking, which gave rise to "wretches hang that jurymen may dine." Gourmands of fruit all flock to the Horticultural Society's dinner for the sake of its dessert; and by a recent regulation, tea, coffee, and cakes are handed round at the evening meetings of the Antiquarian and other societies.
Professor Jameson, in noticing the Berlin Geographical Society, says, "It does not give prizes, nor publish a journal, but confines itself to its meetings, which, agreeably to the custom of the country, are concluded by a jovial banquet." Thus, we are not alone in our festal predilections, and were all meetings of our public societies terminated like those of the Fellows of Berlin, science would become more popular, and the lovers of good living be gainers. Still, we recommend the fellows to keep out of their after-dinner conversations, all such topics as the course of the Niger, or the position of a new magnetic pole.
Q.
Bells are for all things, all events:
For victories, for fires.
For hanging crimes with ill intents,
Or law proscribed desires.
For this, St. Bride her turret rocks,
For that St. Dunstan rings;
The last St. Sepulchre so shocks,
That all about him swings.
Mr. Jerdan—in the Gem for 1830.
Nobody is anybody, until he takes the title of somebody, and is laughed at by everybody.
We are surprised that fifty accidents do not happen every day at the Zoological Gardens—for mothers let their children rove just as if they were in the most innocent company on earth; and due credit ought to be given to the wild beasts in general for their considerate conduct in not eating up half the rising generation that pay their shilling apiece to see the Zoological show.—Monthly Mag.—Apropos, we find there are now seven leopards in the society's collection, and that one day last summer the receipts at the gate amounted to. £108. 12s.
Some people mistake the three French Consuls for the three per cent. Consols; quote Moore's Almanac in illustration of Moore's Melodies; inquire whether those two great poets, Hogg and Bacon, were not of the same family; and when asked their opinion of Crabbe, give a decided preference to lobster. Who has not heard Hervey's Meditations and Harvey's Sauce mixed up in a most unbecoming manner; and culprits talking of detaining counsel, whereas the "detention" applies only to themselves.
The good people of Stockholm have a public holiday in honour of Bellman, a Swedish poet, who died forty years ago. We thought our gold-laced Christmas rhymsters were the only poets of that name.
The Swiss are so much attached to their native country, that a certain song, called Ranz de Vaches, sung by the cowherds and milkmaids, affects them so much, when in a foreign land, that they must return home, or pine away and die!
Oh, when shall I return to stay
With all I love, now far away;
Our brooks so clear,
Our hamlets dear,
Our cots so nigh,
Our mountains high,
And sweeter still than mount or dell,
The ever gentle Isabel,
Beneath the elm, in verdant mead,
Dance to the shepherd's rural reed.
Oh, when shall I return to stay,
With all I love, now far away,
My father, mother, I'll caress,
My sister, brother, fondly press,
While lambkins play,
And cattle stray,
And smiles my lovely shepherdess.
Napoleon, when in Flanders, caused a double row of trees to be planted on each side of the public roads; but the present government have caused them to be cut down (though not at full growth) and others planted.
PHILO-VIATOR.
ANNUALS FOR 1830.
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Footnote 6:(return)See, for instance, the narrative of an accident from the rising of such an animal, in W. Tench's "Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson."
Footnote 7:(return)See a remarkable instance in Voyage de la Perouse autour du Monde, vol. iii. p. 10.
Footnote 8:(return)All this must be understood with some limitations, otherwise we must suppose that all the inhabitants of Egypt had not only learned to write, but that they had sufficient talents and knowledge of the laws, to draw up their own defences, which is not to be supposed. This law then must have been liable to some exceptions and modifications. We must say the same thing of other countries where they tell us there are no advocates, and that all trials are carried on in writing, as in Siam, China, Bantam, &c. Origin of Laws, G.M. Gognet.
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