As that of breaking Priscian's head."
Butler's Hudibras, Part II. Canto II. lines 223, 224.]
[745] [Brougham, in the famous critique of Hours of Idleness (Edinburgh Review, January, 1808, vol. xi. pp. 285-289), was pleased "to counsel him that he do forthwith abandon poetry and turn his talents, which are considerable, and his opportunities, which are great, to better account." Others, however, gave him encouragement. See, for instance, a review by J.H. Markland, who afterwards made his name as editor of the Roxburgh Club issue of the Chester Mysteries (whence, perhaps, Byron derived his knowledge of "Mysteries and Moralities"), which concludes thus: "Heartily hoping that the 'illness and depression of spirits,' which evidently pervade the greater part of these effusions, are entirely dispelled; confident that 'George Gordon, Lord Byron' will have a conspicuous niche in the future editions of 'Royal and Noble Authors,' etc."—Gent. Mag., 1807, vol. lxxvii. p. 1217.]
[NR] To marshal onwards to the Delphian Height.—[MS.]
[746] {552}["Three small vessels were apparently all that Columbus had requested. Two of them were light barques, called caravels, not superior to river and coasting craft of more modern days.... That such long and perilous expeditions into unknown seas, should be undertaken in vessels without decks, and that they should live through the violent tempests by which they were frequently assailed, remain among the singular circumstances of those daring voyages."—History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, by Washington Irving, 1831, i. 78.]
[NS] As Women seldom think by halves——.—[MS. erased.]
[747] {554}This extraordinary and flourishing German colony in America does not entirely exclude matrimony, as the "Shakers" do; but lays such restrictions upon it as prevents more than a certain quantum of births within a certain number of years; which births (as Mr. Hulme [perhaps Thomas Hulme, whose Journal is quoted in Hints to Emigrants, 1817, pp. 5-18] observes) generally arrive "in a little flock like those of a farmer's lambs, all within the same month perhaps." These Harmonists (so called from the name of their settlement) are represented as a remarkably flourishing, pious, and quiet people. See the various recent writers on America.
[The Harmonists were emigrants from Würtemburg, who settled (1803-1805) under the auspices of George Rapp, in a township 120 miles north of Philadelphia. This they sold, and "trekked" westwards to Indiana. One of their customs was to keep watch by nights and to cry the hours to this tune: "Again a day is past and a step made nearer to our end. Our time runs away, and the joys of Heaven are our reward." (See The Philanthropist, No. xx., 1815, vol. v, pp. 277-288.)]
[NT] Which test I leave unto the Lords spiritual.—[MS. erased.]
[748] {555}Jacob Tonson, according to Mr. Pope, was accustomed to call his writers "able pens," "persons of honour," and, especially, "eminent hands." Vide Correspondence, etc., etc.