Omniana.
Taste.
Taste is the discriminating talisman, enabling its owner to see at once the real merits of persons and things, to ascertain at a glance the true from the false, and to decide rightly on the value of individuals.
Nothing escapes him who walks the world with his eyes touched by this ointment; they are open to all around him—to admire, or to condemn—to gaze with rapture, or to turn away with disgust, where another shall pass and see nothing to excite the slightest emotion. The fair creation of nature, and the works of man afford him a wide field of continual gratification. The brook, brawling over its bed of rocks or pebbles, half concealed by the overhanging bushes that fringe its banks—or the great river flowing, in unperturbed majesty, through a wide vale of peace and plenty, or forcing its passage through a lofty range of opposing hills—the gentle knoll, and the towering mountain—the rocky dell, and the awful precipice—the young plantation, and the venerable forest, are alike to him objects of interest and of admiration.
So in the works of man, a foot-bridge, thrown across a torrent, may be in it as gratifying to the man of taste as the finest arch, or most wonderful chain-bridge in the world; and a cottage of the humblest order may be so beautifully situated, so neatly kept, and so tastefully adorned with woodbine and jessamine, as to call forth his admiration equally with the princely residence of the British landholder, in all its pride of position, and splendour of architecture.
In short, this faculty is applicable to every object; and he who finds any thing too lofty or too humble for his admiration, does not possess it. It is exercised in the every-day affairs of life as much as in the higher arts and sciences.—Monthly Magazine.
Two Ravens, abroad.
On the quay at Nimeguen, in the United Provinces, two ravens are kept at the public expense; they live in a roomy apartment, with a large wooden cage before it, which serves them for a balcony. These birds are feasted every day with the choicest fowls, with as much exactness as if they were for a gentleman’s table. The privileges of the city were granted originally upon the observance of this strange custom, which is continued to this day.
Two Ravens, at home.
In a MS. of the late Rev. Mr. Gough, of Shrewsbury, it is related, that one Thomas Elkes, of Middle, in Shropshire, being guardian to his eldest brother’s child, who was young, and stood in his way to a considerable estate, hired a poor boy to entice him into a corn field to gather flowers, and meeting them, sent the poor boy home, took his nephew in his arms, and carried him to a pond at the other end of the field, into which he put the child, and there left him. The child being missed, and inquiry made after him, Elkes fled, and took the road to London; the neighbours sent two horsemen in pursuit of him, who passing along the road near South Mims, in Hertfordshire, saw two ravens sitting on a cock of hay making an unusual noise, and pulling the hay about with their beaks, on which they went to the place, and found Elkes asleep under the hay. He said, that these two ravens had followed him from the time he did the fact. He was brought to Shrewsbury, tried, condemned, and hung in chains on Knockinheath.
The last Tree of the Forest.
Whisper, thou tree, thou lonely tree,
One, where a thousand stood!
Well might proud tales be told by thee,
Last of the solemn wood!
Dwells there no voice amidst thy boughs,
With leaves yet darkly green?
Stillness is round, and noontide glows—
Tell us what thou hast seen!
“I have seen the forest-shadows lie
Where now men reap the corn;
I have seen the kingly chase rush by,
Through the deep glades at morn.
“With the glance of many a gallant spear
And the wave of many a plume,
And the bounding of a hundred deer
It hath lit the woodland’s gloom.
“I have seen the knight and his train ride past,
With his banner borne on high;
O’er all my leaves there was brightness cast
From his gleamy panoply.
“The pilgrim at my feet hath laid
His palm-branch ’midst the flowers,
And told his beads, and meekly pray’d,
Kneeling at vesper-hours.
“And the merry men of wild and glen,
In the green array they wore,
Have feasted here with the red wine’s cheer,
And the hunter-songs of yore.
“And the minstrel, resting in my shade,
Hath made the forest ring
With the lordly tales of the high crusade,
Once loved by chief and king.
“But now the noble forms are gone,
That walk’d the earth of old;
The soft wind hath a mournful tone,
The sunny light looks cold.
“There is no glory left us now
like the glory with the dead:—
I would that where they slumber low,
My latest leaves were shed.”
Oh! thou dark tree, thou lonely tree,
That mournest for the past!
A peasant’s home in thy shade I see,
Embower’d from every blast.
A lovely and a mirthful sound
Of laughter meets mine ear;
For the poor man’s children sport around
On the turf, with nought to fear.
And roses lend that cabin’s wall
A happy summer-glow,
And the open door stands free to all,
For it recks not of a foe.
And the village-bells are on the breeze
That stirs thy leaf, dark tree!—
—How can I mourn, amidst things like these,
For the stormy past with thee?
F. H. New Monthly Magazine.
Miss Polly Baker.
Towards the end of 1777, the abbé Raynal calling on Dr. Franklin found, in company with the doctor, their common friend, Silas Deane. “Ah! monsieur l’abbé,” said Deane, “we were just talking of you and your works. Do you know that you have been very ill served by some of those people who have undertaken to give you information on American affairs?” The abbé resisted this attack with some warmth; and Deane supported it by citing a variety of passages from Raynal’s works, which he alleged to be incorrect. At last they came to the anecdote of “Polly Baker,” on which the abbé had displayed a great deal of pathos and sentiment. “Now here,” says Deane, “is a tale in which there is not one word of truth.” Raynal fired at this, and asserted that he had taken it from an authentic memoir received from America. Franklin, who had amused himself hitherto with listening to the dispute of his friends, at length interposed, “My dear abbé,” said he, “shall I tell you the truth? When I was a young man, and rather more thoughtless than is becoming at our present time of life, I was employed in writing for a newspaper; and, as it sometimes happened that I wanted genuine materials to fill up my page, I occasionally drew on the stores of my imagination for a tale which might pass current as a reality—now this very anecdote of Polly Baker was one of my inventions.”
Bread Seals.
The new conundrum of “bread pats,” as the ladies call the epigrammatic impressors that their work-boxes are always full of now, pleases me mightily. Nothing could be more stupid than the old style of affiche—an initial—carefully engraved in a hand always perfectly unintelligible; or a crest—necessarily out of its place, nine times in ten, in female correspondence—because nothing could be more un-“germane” than a “bloody dagger” alarming every body it met, on the outside of an order for minikin pins! or a “fiery dragon,” threatening a French mantua-maker for some undue degree of tightness in the fitting of the sleeve! and then the same emblem, recurring through the whole letter-writing of a life, became tedious. But now every lady has a selection of axioms (in flower and water) always by her, suited to different occasions. As, “Though lost to sight, to memory dear!”—when she writes to a friend who has lately had his eye poked out. “Though absent, unforgotten!”—to a female correspondent, whom she has not written to for perhaps the three last (twopenny) posts; or, “Vous le meritez!” with the figure of a “rose”—emblematic of every thing beautiful—when she writes to a lover. It was receiving a note with this last seal to it that put the subject of seals into my mind; and I have some notion of getting one engraved with the same motto, “Vous le meritez,” only with the personification of a horsewhip under it, instead of a “rose”—for peculiar occasions. And perhaps a second would not do amiss, with the same emblem, only with the motto, “Tu l’auras!” as a sort of corollary upon the first, in cases of emergency! At all events, I patronise the system of a variety of “posies;” because where the inside of a letter is likely to be stupid, it gives you the chance of a joke upon the out.—Monthly Magazine
Bleeding for our Country.
It is related of a Lord Radnor in Chesterfield’s time, that, with many good qualities, and no inconsiderable share of learning, he had a strong desire of being thought skilful in physic, and was very expert in bleeding. Lord Chesterfield knew his foible, and on a particular occasion, wanting his vote, came to him, and, after having conversed upon indifferent matters, complained of the headach, and desired his lordship to feel his pulse. Lord Radnor immediately advised him to lose blood. Chesterfield complimented his lordship on his chirurgical skill, and begged him to try his lancet upon him. “A propos,” said lord Chesterfield, after the operation, “do you go to the house today?” Lord Radnor answered, “I did not intend to go, not being sufficiently informed of the question which is to be debated; but you, that have considered it, which side will you be of?”—The wily earl easily directed his judgment, carried him to the house, and got him to vote as he pleased. Lord Chesterfield used to say, that none of his friends had been as patriotic as himself, for he had “lost his blood for the good of his country.”