The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 12, No. 327, August 16, 1828

WINDSOR CASTLE

Windsor Castle loses a great deal of its architectural impression (if I may use that word) by the smooth neatness with which its old towers are now chiselled and mortared. It looks as if it was washed every morning with soap and water, instead of exhibiting here and there a straggling flower, or creeping weather-stains. I believe this circumstance strikes every beholder; but most imposing, indeed, is its distant view, when the broad banner floats or sleeps in the sunshine, amidst the intense blue of the summer skies, and its picturesque and ancient architectural vastness harmonizes with the decaying and gnarled oaks, coeval with so many departed monarchs. The stately, long-extended avenue, and the wild sweep of devious forests, connected with the eventful circumstances of English history, and past regular grandeur, bring back the memory of Edwards and Henries, or the gallant and accomplished Surrey.

On Windsor Castle, written 1825, not by a LAUREATE, but a poet of loyal, old Church-of-England feelings. ⁸

 
Not that thy name, illustrious dome, recalls
The pomp of chivalry in banner'd halls;
The blaze of beauty, and the gorgeous sights
Of heralds, trophies, steeds, and crested knights;
Not that young Surrey here beguiled the hour,
"With eyes upturn'd unto the maiden's tower;"⁹
 
 
Oh! not for these, and pageants pass'd away,
gaze upon your antique towers and pray—
But that my SOVEREIGN here, from crowds withdrawn,
May meet calm peace upon the twilight lawn;
That here, among these gray, primaeval trees,
He may inhale health's animating breeze;
And when from this proud terrace he surveys
Slow Thames devolving his majestic maze,
(Now lost on the horizon's verge, now seen
Winding through lawns, and woods, and pastures green,)
May he reflect upon the waves that roll,
Bearing a nation's wealth from pole to pole,
And feel, (ambition's proudest boast above,)
A KING'S BEST GLORY IS HIS COUNTRY'S LOVE!
 

The range of cresting towers has a double interest, whilst we think of gorgeous dames and barons bold, of Lely and Vandyke's beauties, and gay, and gallant, and accomplished cavaliers like Surrey. And who ever sat in the stalls at St. George's chapel, without feeling the impression, on looking at the illustrious names, that here the royal and ennobled knights, through so many generations, sat each installed, whilst arms, and crests, and banners, glittered over the same seat?—Bowles's History of Bremhill.

THE THREE TEACHERS

To my question, how he could, at his age, have mastered so many attainments, his reply was, that with his three teachers, "every thing might be learned, common sense alone excepted, the peculiar and rarest gift of Providence. These three teachers were, Necessity, Habit, and Time. At his starting in life, Necessity had told him, that if he hoped to live he must labour; Habit had turned the labour into an indulgence; and Time gave every man an hour for every thing, unless he chose to yawn it away."—Salathiel.

IRISH POOR

The poor of England have suffered much and deeply from the change made in the administration of the poor laws in 1795; but of late years they have suffered still more from the influx of Irish paupers. Great Britain has been overrun by half-famished hordes, that have, by their competition, lessened the wages of labour, and by their example, degraded the habits, and lowered the opinions of the people with respect to subsistence. The facilities of conveyance afforded by steam-navigation are such, that the merest beggar, provided he can command a sixpence, may get himself carried from Ireland to England. And when such is the fact—when what may almost without a metaphor be termed floating bridges, have been established between Belfast and Glasgow, and Dublin and Liverpool—does any one suppose, that if no artificial obstacles be thrown in the way of emigration, or if no efforts be made to provide an outlet in some other quarter for the pauper population of Ireland, we shall escape being overrun by it? It is not conceivable that, with the existing means of intercourse, wages should continue to be, at an average, 20d. per day in England, and only 4d. or 5d. in Ireland. So long as the Irish paupers find that they can improve their condition by coming to England, thither they will come. At this moment, five or six millions of beggars are all of them turning their eyes, and many of them directing their steps to this land of promise! The locusts that "will eat up every blade of grass, and every green thing," are already on the wing.—Edin. Rev.

According to the parliamentary returns of 1815, the number of paupers receiving parochial relief in England amounts to 895,336, in a population of 11,360,505, or about one-twelfth of the whole community.

There are many on the continent who might far better have been treading their turnip-fields, or superintending their warehouses at home, than traversing the Alps, criticising the Pantheon, or loitering through the galleries of the Vatican.

Twenty years ago there were at Saffet and at Jerusalem but a small number of Polish Jews—some few hundreds at the most; there are now, at the very least, 10,000.

Bishop Watson compares a geologist to a gnat mounted on an elephant, and laying down theories as to the whole internal structure of the vast animal, from the phenomena of the hide.

It is the harmony of strong contrasts in which greatness of character truly dwells. As it rises, its variety and rich profusion, only remind us of those southern mountains, whose majestic ascent combines the fruits of every latitude, and the temperature of every clime; the vineyard is scattered around its base to gladden, and the corn-field waves above to support, the family of man: mount a little higher, and the traveller is surrounded by the deep, umbrageous forest, whilst the next elevation will place his foot on its magnificent diadem of eternal snows.—Edin. Rev.

PSALMODY

Is it not a melancholy reflection, at the close of a long life, that, after reciting the Psalms at proper seasons, through the greatest part of it, no more should be known of their true meaning and application, than when the Psalter was first taken in hand in school?—Bishop Horne.

The most northern library in the world is that of Reikiarik, the capital of Iceland, containing about 3,600 volumes. That of the Faro Islands has been recently considerably augmented. Another is establishing at Eskefiorden, in the north of Iceland.—Foreign Q. Rev.

FRENCH-ENGLISH

All recent works of fiction exhibit the deplorable corruption of the vernacular English. You cannot open a novel or book of travels printed within the present year without stumbling on French or Italian words, and so frequent is their occurrence, that they are often printed in the same type as the rest of the page, not in italic, as of old. In short, some of the authors of the present day seem to have "worn their language to rags, and patched it up with scraps and ends of foreign." This, in great measure proceeds from "some far-journeyed gentlemen, who, at their return home, powder their talk with over-sea language. He that cometh lately out of France, will talk French-English, and never blush at the matter."

DEBAUCHERIES OF PARIS

We see daily instances giving us cause to lament protracted residence abroad, and also the haunts of incessant transit across the channel, which makes our young men more familiar with the passages, arcades, and cafes of the Palais Royal, than with the streets of our own metropolis. We have seen many who could name each single quay along the borders of the Seine; but who were totally ignorant of those great works of art, the bridges, docks, and warehouses of their native Thames, otherwise than as they were hurried past them in the Calais steam-boat.—Quarterly Review.

We have been somewhat amused with the oddity of a few similes in the article in Phillips's State Trials, in the last No. of the Edinburgh Review. Thus an ordinary reader would lose his way in Howell's State Trials, at the second page, "from the number of volumes, smallness of print, &c." "A Londoner might as well take a morning walk through an Illinois prairie, or dash into a back-settlement forest, without a woodman's aid." Mr. Phillips has "enclosed but a corner of the waste, swept little more than a single stall in the Augean stable;" "holding a candle to the back-ground of history," &c.

LORD COLLINGWOOD

Went to sea when eleven years old. He used, himself, to tell as an instance of his simplicity at this time, "that as he was sitting crying for his separation from home, the first lieutenant observed him; and pitying the tender years of the poor child, spoke to him in terms of such encouragement and kindness, which, as Lord C. said, so won upon his heart, that taking this officer to his box, he offered him in gratitude a large piece of plum cake, which his mother had given him."