Kitabı oku: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 17, No. 479, March 5, 1831», sayfa 5

Blackwood's Magazine

NOTES OF A READER

FAMILIAR LAW

We cordially add our note of commendation to those already bestowed on a little Manual, entitled "Plain Advice to Landlords and Tenants, Lodging-house Keepers, and Lodgers; with a comprehensive Summary of the Law of Distress," &c. It is likewise pleasant to see "third edition" in its title-page. Accompanying we have "A Familiar Summary of the Laws respecting Masters and Servants," &c.

On looking into these little books we find much of the plain sense of law. There is no mystification by technicalities, but all the information is practical, all ready to hand, we mean mouth; so that, as Mrs. Fixture says in the farce of A Roland for an Oliver—"If there be such a thing as la' in the land," you may "ha' it." Joking apart, they are sensible books, and of good authority.

Suppose we throw ourselves back in our chair, and for a minute or two think of the good which the spread of common sense by such means as the above must produce among men: how much bile and bickering they may keep down, which in nine law-suits out of ten arise from want of "a proper understanding." The reader may say that in recommending those fire-and-water folks, landlords and tenants, and masters and servants, and those half-agreeable persons, lodging-house keepers and lodgers—to purchase such books, we advise every man to act with an attorney at his elbow. We can but reply with Swift:—

 
"The only fault is with mankind."
 

CRUELTY TO ANIMALS

A very laudable work appears quarterly, entitled "The Voice of Humanity: for the communication and discussion of all subjects relative to the conduct of man towards the inferior animal creation." The number (3) before us, contains a paper on the Abolition of Slaughter-houses, and the substitution of Abattoirs, a point to which we adverted and illustrated in vol. xi. of the Mirror. The Amended Act to prevent the cruel and improper treatment of cattle, follows; and among the other articles is a Table of the Prosecutions of the Society against Cruelty to Animals, from November 1830, to January 1831, drawn up by our occasional correspondent, the benevolent Mr. Lewis Gompertz.

THE MUSE IN LIVERY

We have been somewhat amused with the piquancy and humour of the following introduction of a Notice of a volume of Poems, "by John Jones, an old servant," which has just appeared under the editorship of Mr. Southey and the Quarterly Review:—

Shakspeare has said, "What's in a name?—a rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet!" But here we have a convincing proof of the necessity of attending strictly to names, as the commonest regard to the fitting attributes of a "John Jones," would have kept the victim of such an appellation quite clear of poetry. It is next to impossible that a John Jones should be a poet;—and some kind friend should have broken the truth to the butler, before he endeavoured to share unpolished glory with uneducated bards.

An inspired serving-man, in a livery of industry, turned up with morality, is a species of bard which we never expected to find in the service of the Muses, or bringing a written character from his last place, and vaunting of his readiness and ability to write epics and wait at table. The work we should have looked to meet with, emanating from the butler's pantry, was a miscellaneous volume full of religious scraps, essays on dress, receipts for boot-tops, wise cooking cogitations, remedies for bugs, cures for ropy beer, hints for blacking, ingredients for punch, thoughts on tapping ale, early rising and killing fleas. The mischief of the wide dissemination of education is now becoming apparent, for, poor as authors confessedly are, they have generally been gentlemen, even in rags—learned men of some degree, though with exposed elbows—folk only a little lower than the angels! But never until the schoolmaster was so abundantly abroad, distributing his spelling-soup to the poor, did we ever hear of a butler writing poetry, and committing it to the press. The order of things is becoming reversed. The garret is beginning to lose its literary celebrity, and the kitchen is taking the matter up. A floor near the sky in Grub-street is no pen-spot now; but down fifty fathoms deep in Portland Place, or Portman Square, or some far-retired old country house, you shall find the author: his red cuffs turned up over his light blue jacket sleeves, the pen in his hand, and his inspired eye looking out upon the area. There doth he correct the brain-work which is to carry his name up above the earth, and keep it there, bright as cleaned plate. In the housekeeper's room, inspiration gives a double knock at his heart. An author in a pantry certainly writes under great disadvantages, for it cannot be said that he is there writing for his bread. In such a place, the loaf is in his eye—the larder is so near, he may almost dip his pen into it by mistake—and positive beef gleams through the veil of the safe, softened to his eye, yet still solider than beef of the imagination. In truth, a man has much to overcome in preparing food for the mind, in the very thick of food for the body;—for a good authority (no less a man than Mr. Bayes) has strenuously advised that the belly should be empty when the brain is to be unloaded. How can a gentleman's gentleman, with a corpus that banishes his backbone nearly four feet from the table at which he sits, betake himself to his cogitations over a tankard of October, and expect to beat your true thin garret-haunting devil, with an inside like a pea-shooter, who can scarcely be said to be one remove from the ethereal, and who writes from that best of inspirations—an empty pantry? We shall presently see whether an author from below is better than one from above—whether it will be more eligible that the Muses should have several more stories to descend, when their nine ladyships are invoked so to do—and that the pen should be taken out of the scraggy hand of a gentleman in rags, and be placed in the plump gripe of a gentleman in tags.

Before we proceed to give an account of the book before us, we must yet take leave to indulge in a few reflections on the effect of this mental explosion in the noddles of John and James and Richard, upon reviewers, publishers, and the world in general. This change of lodging in the author will turn many things topsy-turvy, and conjure the spirit out of much long-established facetiousness. Pictures of poets in garrets will soon not be understood; bathos will be at a premium! the bard will be known, not by the brownness of his beaver, but by the gold band that encircles it. The historian shall go about in black plush breeches; and the great inspired writers of the age "have a livery more guarded than their fellows." Authors shall soon be, indeed, even more easily known by their dress. How often, too, shall we see Mr. Murray or Mr. Colburn descending "with the nine" to the hireling scribe, who is correcting the press and locking up the tea-spoons, against his coming; or they may have occasionally to wait below, while their authors are waiting above. Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green (almost a batch of he-muses in themselves), will get a new cookery-book, well done, from a genuine cook,⁵ who divides his time between the spit and the pen; and the firm need not, therefore, set Mrs. Rundell's temper upon the simmer, as they are said to have done in days past. Reviewers too!–will they ever dine together anon?—surely not. Authors are known to be in the malicious habit of speaking ill of their friends and judges behind their backs; and at dinner-time they will soon have every opportunity of so doing. How unpleasant to call for beer from the poet you have just set in a foam; or to ask for the carving-knife from the man you have so lately cut up! We reviewers shall then never be able to shoot our severity, without the usual coalman's memento of "take care below!" One advantage, however, from the new system must be conceded, and that is, that when an author waits in a great man's hall, or stands at his door, he will be pretty sure of being paid for it; which, in the case of your dangling garreteers, has never hitherto happened. Crabbe's story of "The Patron" will become obsolete. High Life will, indeed, be below stairs!

There is a lively spirit of banter in these observations, which is extremely amusing. They are from the Athenaeum of last week, which, by the way, has more of the intellectual gladiatorship in its columns than any of its critical contemporaries.