The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 12, No. 348, December 27, 1828

Yet, though I was to be thus abandoned by my fox-hunting friends, I was by no means to feel myself the inhabitant of a solitary world. If the sudden discovery of kindred could cheer me under my calamities, no man might have passed a gayer life. For a long succession of years I had not seen a single relative. Not that they altogether disdained even the humble hospitalities of my cottage, or the humble help of my purse; on the contrary, they liked both exceedingly, and would have exhibited their affection in enjoying them as often as I pleased.

But I had early adopted a resolution, which I recommend to all men. I made use of no disguise on the subject of our mutual tendencies. I knew them to be selfish, beggarly in the midst of wealth, and artificial in the fulness of protestation. I disdained to play the farce of civility with them. I neither kissed nor quarrelled with them; but I quietly shut my door, and at last allowed no foot of their generation inside it. They hated me mortally in consequence, and I knew it. I despised them, and I conclude they knew that too. But I was resolved that they should not despise me; and I secured that point by not suffering them to feel that they had made me their dupe. The nabob's will had not soothed their tempers; and I was honoured with their most smiling animosity.

But now, as if they were hidden in the ground like weeds only waiting for the shower, a new and boundless crop of relationship sprang up. Within the first fortnight after my return, I was overwhelmed with congratulations from east, west, north, and south; and every postscript pointed with a request for my interest with boards and public offices of all kinds; with India presidents, treasury secretaries, and colonial patrons, for the provision of sons, nephews, and cousins, to the third and fourth generation.

My positive declarations that I had no influence with ministers were received with resolute scepticism. I was charged with old obligations conferred on my grandfathers and grandmothers; and, finally, had the certain knowledge that my gentlest denials were looked upon as a compound of selfishness and hypocrisy. Before a month was out, I had extended my sources of hostility to three-fourths of the kingdom, and contrived to plant in every corner some individual who looked on himself as bound to say the worst he could of his heartless, purse-proud, and abjured kinsman.

I should have sturdily borne up against all this while I could keep the warfare out of my own county. But what man can abide a daily skirmish round his house? I began to think of retreating while I was yet able to show my head; for, in truth, I was sick of this perpetual belligerency. I loved to see happy human faces. I loved the meeting of those old and humble friends to whose faces, rugged as they were, I was accustomed. I liked to stop and hear the odd news of the village, and the still odder versions of London news that transpired through the lips of our established politicians. I liked an occasional visit to our little club, where the exciseman, of fifty years standing was our oracle in politics; the attorney, of about the same duration, gave us opinions on the drama, philosophy, and poetry, all equally unindebted to Aristotle; and my mild and excellent father-in-law, the curate, shook his silver locks in gentle laughter at the discussion. I loved a supper in my snug parlour with the choice half dozen; a song from my girls, and a bottle after they were gone to dream of bow-knots and bargains for the next day.

But my delights were now all crushed. Another Midas, all I touched had turned to gold; and I believe in my soul that, with his gold, I got credit for his asses' ears.

However, I had long felt that contempt for popular opinion which every man feels who knows of what miserable materials it is made—how much of it is mere absurdity—how much malice—how much more the frothy foolery and maudlin gossip of the empty of this empty generation. "What was it to me if the grown children of our idle community, the male babblers, and the female cutters-up of character, voted me, in their commonplace souls, the blackest of black sheep? I was still strong in the solid respect of a few worth them all."

Let no man smile when I say that, on reckoning up this Theban band of sound judgment and inestimable fidelity, I found my muster reduced to three, and those three of so unromantic a class as the grey-headed exciseman, the equally grey-headed solicitor, and the curate.

But let it be remembered that a man must take his friends as fortune wills; that he who can even imagine that he has three is under rare circumstances; and that, as to the romance, time, which mellows and mollifies so many things, may so far extract the professional virus out of excisemen and solicitor, as to leave them both not incapable of entering into the ranks of humanity.

SPIRIT of DISCOVERY

SPECIFIC GRAVITIES

Table

Showing the proportion per cent, of alcohol contained in different fermented liquors.

The figures set down opposite each liquor, exhibit the quantity of alcohol per cent. by measure in each at the temperature of 60°. Port, Sherry and Madeira, contain a large quantity of alcohol; that Claret, Burgundy, and Sauterne, contain less; and that Brandy contains as much as 53 per cent. of alcohol. In a general way, we may say, that the strong wines in common use, contain as much as a fourth per cent. of alcohol.

Extraordinary Effect of Heat

During Captain Franklin's recent voyage, the winter was so severe, near the Coppermine River, that the fish froze as they were taken out of the nets; in a short time they became a solid mass of ice, and were easily split open by a blow from a hatchet. If, in the completely frozen state, they were thawed before the fire, they revived. This is a very remarkable instance of how completely animation can be suspended in cold-blooded animals.

J.G.L.

Method of Softening Cast-Iron

The following method of rendering cast-iron soft and malleable may be new to some of your readers:—It consists in placing it in a pot surrounded by a soft red ore, found in Cumberland and other parts of England, which pot is placed in a common oven, the doors of which being closed, and but a slight draught of air permitted under the grate; a regular heat is kept up for one or two weeks, according to the thickness and weight of the castings. The pots are then withdrawn, and suffered to cool; and by this operation the hardest cast metal is rendered so soft and malleable, that it may be welded together, or, when in a cool state, bent into almost any shape by a hammer or vice.

W.G.C.

Washing Salads, Cresses, &c.

A countryman was seized with the most excruciating pain in his stomach, and which continued for so long a period, that his case became desperate, and his life was even despaired of. In this predicament, the medical gentleman to whom he applied administered to him a most violent emetic, and the result was the ejection of the larva, and which remained alive for a quarter of an hour after its expulsion. Upon questioning the man as to how it was likely that the insect got into his stomach, he stated that he was exceedingly fond of watercresses, and often gathered and eat them, and, possibly, without taking due care, in freeing them from any aquatic insects they might hold. He was also in the frequent habit of lying down and drinking the water of any clear rivulet when he was thirsty; and thus, in any of these ways, the insect, in its smaller state, might have been swallowed, and remained gradually increasing in size until it was ready for the change into the beetle state; at times, probably, preying upon the inner coat of the stomach, and thus producing the severe pains complained of by the sufferer.

We are surprised we do not hear more of the effects of swallowing the eggs or larva of insects, along with raw salads of different kinds. We would strongly recommend all families who can afford it, to keep in their sculleries a cistern of salt water, or, if they will take the trouble of renewing it frequently, of lime and water; and to have all vegetables to be used raw, first plunged in this cistern for a minute, and then washed in pure fresh water.—Gardener's Magazine.

Insects on Trees

Mr. Johnson, of Great Totham, is of opinion that smearing trees with oil, to destroy insects on them, injures the vegetation, and is not a certain remedy. He recommends scrubbing the trunks and branches of the trees every second year, with a hard brush dipped in strong brine of common salt. This effectually destroys insects of all kinds, and moss; and the stimulating influence of the application and friction is very beneficial.

Manna

The manna of the larch is thus procured:—About the month of June, when the sap of the tree is most luxuriant, it produces small white drops, of a sweet glutinous matter, like Calabrian manna, which are collected by the peasants early in the morning before the sun dissipates them.—Med. Bot.

Electricity on Plants

It is very easy to kill plants by means of electricity. A very small shock, according to Cavallo, sent through the stem of a balsam, is sufficient to destroy it. A few minutes after the passage of the shock, the plant droops, the leaves and branches become flaccid, and its life ceases. A small Leyden phial, containing six or eight square inches of coated surface, is generally sufficient for this purpose, which may even be effected by means of strong sparks from the prime conductor of a large electrical machine. The charge by which these destructive effects are produced, is probably too inconsiderable to burst the vessels of the plant, or to occasion any material derangement of its organization; and, accordingly, it is not found, on minute examination of a plant thus killed by electricity, that either the internal vessels or any other parts have sustained perceptible injury.