Kitabı oku: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 12, No. 323, July 19, 1828», sayfa 6
SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS
NORFOLK PUNCH
AN INCANTATION
Twenty quarts of real Nantz,
Eau-de-vie of southern France;
By Arabia’s chemic skill,
Sublimed, condensed, in trickling still;
’Tis the grape’s abstracted soul,
And the first matter of the bowl.
Oranges, with skins of gold,
Like Hesperian fruit of old,
Whose golden shadow wont to quiver
In the stream of Guadalquiver,
Glowing, waving as they hung
Mid fragrant blossoms ever young,
In gardens of romantic Spain,—
Lovely land, and rich in vain!
Blest by nature’s bounteous hand,
Cursed with priests and Ferdinand!
Lemons, pale as Melancholy,
Or yellow russets, wan and holy.
Be their number twice fifteen,
Mystic number, well I ween,
As all must know, who aught can tell
Of sacred lore or glamour spell;
Strip them of their gaudy hides,
Saffron garb of Pagan brides,
And like the Argonauts of Greece,
Treasure up their Golden Fleece.
Then, as doctors wise preserve
Things from nature’s course that swerve,
Insects of portentous shape—worms,
Wreathed serpents, asps, and tape-worms,
Ill-fashion’d fishes, dead and swimming,
And untimely fruits of women;
All the thirty skins infuse
In Alcohol’s Phlogistic dews.
Steep them—till the blessed Sun
Through half his mighty round hath run—
Hours twelve—the time exact
Their inmost virtues to extract.
Lest the potion should be heady,
As Circe’s cup, or gin of Deady,
Water from the crystal spring.
Thirty quarterns, draw and bring;
Let it, after ebullition,
Cool to natural condition.
Add, of powder saccharine,
Pounds thrice five, twice superfine;
Mingle sweetest orange blood,
And the lemon’s acid flood;
Mingle well, and blend the whole
With the spicy Alcohol.
Strain the mixture, strain it well
Through such vessel, as in Hell
Wicked maids, with vain endeavour,
Toil to fill, and toil for ever.
Nine-and-forty Danaides,
Wedded maids, and virgin brides,
(So blind Gentiles did believe,)
Toil to fill a faithless sieve;
Thirsty thing, with naught content,
Thriftless and incontinent.
Then, to hold the rich infusion,
Have a barrel, not a huge one,
But clean and pure from spot or taint,
Pure as any female saint—
That within its tight-hoop’d gyre
Has kept Jamaica’s liquid fire;
Or luscious Oriental rack,
Or the strong glory of Cognac,
Whose perfume far outscents the Civet,
And all but rivals rare Glenlivet.
To make the compound soft as silk,
Quarterns twain of tepid milk,
Fit for babies, and such small game,
Diffuse through all the strong amalgame.
The fiery souls of heroes so do
Combine the suaviter in modo,
Bold as an eagle, meek as Dodo.
Stir it round, and round, and round,
Stow it safely under ground,
Bung’d as close as an intention
Which we are afraid to mention;
Seven days six times let pass,
Then pour it into hollow glass;
Be the vials clean and dry,
Corks as sound as chastity;—
Years shall not impair the merit
Of the lively, gentle spirit.
Babylon’s Sardanapalus,
Rome’s youngster Heliogabalus,
Or that empurpled paunch, Vitellius,
So famed for appetite rebellious—
Ne’er, in all their vastly reign,
Such a bowl as this could drain.
Hark, the shade of old Apicius
Heaves his head, and cries—Delicious!
Mad of its flavour and its strength—he
Pronounces it the real Nepenthe.
’Tis the Punch, so clear and bland,
Named of Norfolk’s fertile land,
Land of Turkeys, land of Coke,
Who late assumed the nuptial yoke—
Like his county beverage,
Growing brisk and stout with age.
Joy I wish—although a Tory—
To a Whig, so gay and hoary—
May he, to his latest hour,
Flourish in his bridal bower—
Find wedded love no Poet’s fiction,
And Punch the only contradiction.
Blackwood’s Magazine.
NOTES OF A READER
DUELLING
Two French officers resident at Kermanshaw, lately quarrelled; a challenge ensued; but a reconciliation was effected; when the incident drew forth the following natural and affecting remark from a native:—“How foolish it is for a man who wishes to kill his enemy, to expose his own life, when he can accomplish his purpose with so much greater safety, by shooting at him from behind a rock.”
SPINNING VIRTUE
A young preacher, who chose to enlarge to a country congregation on the beauty of virtue, was surprised to be informed of an old woman, who expressed herself highly pleased with his sermon, that her daughter was the most virtuous woman in the parish, for “that week she had spun sax spyndles of yarn.”—Sir W. Scott.
AT LINCOLN
There is a beautiful painted window, which was made by an apprentice, out of the pieces of glass which had been rejected by his master. It is so far superior to every other in the church, that, according to the tradition, the vanquished artist killed himself from mortification.
A great lawyer in the sister kingdom, when asked by the viceroy, what Captain Keppel meant by his “Personal Travels in India, &c.” replied, that lawyers were wont to use this word in contradistinction to “Real.”
It is said that the intestines of the Carolina parrot are an instantaneous poison to cats.
CHINESE DUNNING
When a debtor refuses payment in China, the creditor, as a last resource, threatens to carry off the door of his house on the first day of the year. This is accounted the greatest misfortune that could happen, as in that case there would be no obstruction to the entrance of evil genii. To avoid this consummation, a debtor not unfrequently sets fire to his house on the last night of the year.
During the times of Catholicism in Scotland, Fishing was prohibited from the Sabbath after vespers, till Monday after sunrise. This was termed Setterday’s Slopp.
THE TOWER OF BABEL,
says a recent traveller in the east, now presents the appearance of a large mound or hill, with a castle on the top, in mounting to which, the traveller now and then discovers, through the light sandy soil, that he is treading on a vast heap of bricks. The total circumference of the ruin is 2,286 feet, though the building itself was only 2,000, allowing 500 to the stadia, which Herodotus assigns as the side of its square. The elevation of the west side is 198 feet. What seems to be a castle at a distance, when examined, proves to be a solid mass of kiln-burnt bricks, 37 feet high, and 28 broad.
SPANISH LITERATURE
The Spaniards are particularly averse to borrowing from the intellectual treasures of other nations. They glean the field of their own muses to the very last ear, and then commence the same labour over again.
EVERY MAN HIS OWN LAWYER
Here is a well-turned reply to plaintiff’s counsel, available in all suits and times. It occurred in the trial of Lord Danby, in the time of Charles II. “If the gentleman were as just to produce all he knows for me, as he hath been malicious to show what may be liable to misconstruction against me, no man could vindicate me more than myself.”
In modern education there is a lamentable lack of veneration for the great masters of English literature. Spenser, Milton, and Dryden are altogether less familiar to the present generation than they were to that which preceded it. “We will not say that our Shakspeare is neglected, for his age is ever fresh and green, and he comes reflected back to us from a thousand sources, whether in the tranquillity of home, the turbulent life of capitals, or the solitude of travel through distant lands.”—Edin. Rev.
RISE AND FALL
What an idea of the dismantling of our nature do the few words which Roper, Sir Thomas More’s son-in-law, relates, convey! He had seen Henry VIII. walking round the chancellor’s garden at Chelsea, with his arm round his neck; he could not help congratulating him on being the object of so much kindness. “I thank our lord, I find his grace my very good lord indeed; and I believe he doth as singularly favour me as any subject in his realm. However, son Roper, I may tell thee, I have no cause to be proud thereof, for if my head would win a castle in France, it would not fail to be struck off.”—Edinburgh Review.
There is not only room, but use, for all that God has made in his wisdom—a use not the less real, because not always tangible, or immediate.—Ibid.
Nicholas Brady, (the coadjutor of Tate, in arranging the New Version of Psalms,) published a translation of the Æneid of Virgil, which (says Johnson,) when dragged into the world, did not live long enough to cry.
Blue appears to be the most important of all colours in the gradations of society. A licensed beggar in Scotland, called a bedesmen, is so privileged on receiving a blue gown. Pliny informs us that blue was the colour in which the Gauls clothed their slaves; and blue coats, for many ages, were the liveries of servants, apprentices, and even of younger brothers, as now of the Blue Coat Boys, and of other Blue Schools in the country. Women used to do penance in blue gowns. Is it not unseemly that blue which has hitherto been the colour of so many unenviable distinctions, should be the adopted emblem of liberty—English True Blue!
SONG
By JOANNA BAILLIE
The gliding fish that takes his play
In shady nook of streamlet cool,
Thinks not how waters pass away,
And summer dries the pool.
The bird beneath his leafy dome
Who trills his carol, loud and clear,
Thinks not how soon his verdant home
The lightning’s breath may sear.
Shall I within my bridegroom’s bower
With braids of budding roses twined,
Look forward to a coming hour
When he may prove unkind?
The bee reigns in his waxen cell,
The chieftain in his stately hold,
To-morrow’s earthquake,—who can tell?
May both in ruin fold.
