A CONSTANT READER.
To the latter correspondent’s observations, this answer has been received from the gentleman to whom it became the editor’s duty to transmit it for consideration.
For the Every-Day Book.
The object of those who fixed the day for the celebration of Easter, was to prevent the full moon being on the Sunday on which the offices for the Resurrection were to be performed, and the custom of astronomers has nothing to do with the question. The full moon according to them might be on the twenty-third hour of the Saturday, but this would be eleven o’clock of Saturday, at which time the Romish and English churches would be performing the offices of the Resurrection; this was the point to be avoided, and this is done by the ecclesiastical canon and the act of parliament.
THE AUTHOR OF THE ARTICLE ON EASTER.
In this correspondence Easter is disposed of. The rubric clearly states the rule for finding the festival, and the last letter represents the ground whereon it was deemed expedient that the church should celebrate it according to that rule.
Chronology.
1595. Torquatus Tasso, the poet, died at Rome. He was born, in 1544, at Sorrento in Naples, wrote verses at nine years of age, became a student at law, and composed the “Rinaldo” at seventeen. Although his celebrated epic “Jerusalem Delivered” is that whereon his poetical fame is chiefly grounded, yet his “Aminta,” and other pieces are rich in fancy and beautiful in style; he was also excellent in prose. The most remarkable feature in his character was a hopeless passion for the princess Eleanora, sister of the duke of Ferrara, that he conceived early in life, and nourished till his death.
1800. William Cowper, the poet, died at Dereham, in Norfolk; he was born November, 26, 1731, at Berkhamstead, in Hertfordshire. When a child he was shy and diffident. “His own forcible expression,” says Hayley, “represented him at Westminster-school as not daring to raise his eye above the shoe-buckle of the elder boys, who were too apt to tyrannize over his gentle spirit.” Fear of personal publicity increased with his years. At thirty-one it was necessary that he should appear at the bar of the House of Lords, to entitle himself to the appointment of clerk of the journals which had been obtained for him, he was incapable of the effort, his terror overwhelmed his reason, and he was subjected to confinement till his faculties recovered. Morbid glooms and horrors of the imagination clouded his mind throughout life, and he more than once attempted self-destruction. When not subjected to these dreadful affections he was cheerful and amiable. Innocence of heart and extreme modesty were the most remarkable features in his character. His poetry is in the hands of every body; its popularity is the best praise of its high merits. He was enabled by his fortune to indulge his love of retirement, surrounded by a few friends whom he ardently loved. He speaks of himself, in a letter to Mr. Park, so as to exemplify his usual habits—“From the age of twenty to thirty-three I was occupied, or ought to have been, in the study of the law; from thirty-three to sixty I have spent my time in the country, where my reading has been only an apology for idleness, and where, when I had not either a magazine or a review, I was sometimes a carpenter, at others a birdcage maker, or a gardener, or a drawer of landscapes. At fifty years of age I commenced an author:—it is a whim that has served me longest and best, and will probably be my last.” A little volume entitled the “Rural Walks of Cowper,” illustrates his attachment to the country, by a series of fifteen views from drawings made and engraved by Mr. James Storer; they exemplify scenery in Cowper’s poems, with descriptive sketches; it is an agreeable assistant to every one who desires to know something of the places wherein the poet delighted to ramble or meditate. There is a natural desire to become acquainted with the countenance of a man whose writings we love or admire, and the spots that were associated with his feelings and genius. Who can read Cowper’s letter to his friend Hill, descriptive of his summer-house, without wishing to walk into it? “I write in a nook that I call my boudoir; it is a summer-house not bigger than a sedan chair; the door of it opens into the garden that is now crowded with pinks, roses, and honeysuckles, and the window into my neighbour’s orchard. It formerly served an apothecary as a smoking-room; at present, however, it is dedicated to sublimer uses; here I write all that I write in summer time, whether to my friends or to the public. It is secure from all noise, and a refuge from all intrusion.” The present [engraving] of it is taken by Mr. Storer’s permission from his design made on the spot.