Kitabı oku: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 20, No. 556, July 7, 1832»
SURREY ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS
CIRCULAR BUILDING FOR LIONS, TIGERS, &c.
INTERIOR OF CIRCULAR BUILDING.
ROCKWORK FOR BEAVERS, &c.
SURREY ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS
[Although the reader will scarcely fail to recognise the typographical amendments contemplated in the Preface to our last volume, we may be allowed to point attention to the most important change. To give our souls "elbow-room," we have widened our columns so as to add upwards of two pages throughout each sheet of our future volumes: that is sixteen pages of the size of the present will be found to contain as much as eighteen pages the size of those in our last volume. But the page has not been widened like the citizen's back—at the expense of the corporation—or of the public. The whole of the type is new, having been cast, as the prospectus says, expressly for this work; its face is as brilliant as our hopes, and so, now, with the reader's permission, Flow on thou shining river.]
We commenced our last volume with three Vignette Views in the Surrey Zoological Gardens. The season was then cold and ungenial, the trees leafless; in short, it was about mid-winter, but the magic pencil of our artist invested his scenes with all the pride of summer. Upon the present occasion, our Engravings need not the aid of his creative fancy. The Gardens are now
made glorious by the summer sun
—the weather and the public are all propitious, and hundreds of gaily dressed folks are flocking to inspect the zoological and botanical curiosities of the place.
During the six months since our last visit, Mr. Cross has been indefatigable. The grounds have been laid out under the superintendance of Mr. Henry Phillips, the author of Sylva Florifera, and it is almost impossible to give the reader an idea of their beauty and variety. The avenues to the various buildings are planted with forest-trees, and each tree and new plant has its name affixed on a tally; a botanical garden, on a small scale, is, moreover talked of.
But we are forgetting the zoological tenants. The visiter enters by a broad walk, beside which Parrots, Maccaws, and Cockatoos are uncaged on perches; so that we may almost say with Montgomery:—
The blossoms swung like blossoms on the trees.
To the right is a semicircular glazed house containing many beautiful foreign birds, and two Boas, which, from their torpidity, appear nearly as harmless as their shaggy namesakes that encircle many a fair neck. The movable aviaries are too numerous to describe; but we must notice, in one of them, a fine pair of Great Crowned Pigeons from New Guinea; their front colour is a bright slate, as is that of their crests of fine silky feathers. We next pass the circular Confectionary room, and reach the curvilinear glazed building of 300 feet in diameter. (See the Cut.) This has been planned by Mr. Henry Phillips; of the execution we spoke in The Mirror, No. 528. There are four entrances to this well-contrived building. Immediately within the wall, and all throughout the circle, is a channel of water containing gold and silver fish; from the margin of which plants are to be trained up within the glass. Next is a circular range of seats, then a broad walk, and in the centre of the building are placed the cages of carnivorous quadrupeds, as Lions, Tigers, Leopards, Hyaenas, &c. The Lions are especially worth notice: they are African and Asiatic, and the contrast between a pair from the country of the Persian Gulf with their African neighbours, is very striking. A sleek Lynx from Persia, with its exquisite tufted ears, and a docile Puma, will receive the distant caresses of visiters. The fronts of the cages are ornamented with painted rock-work, and our artist has endeavoured to convey an idea of the lordly Lion in his embellished dwelling. The whole building is admirably ventilated.
Another addition is an octagonal walled enclosure, the entrances to which are surmounted by pairs of magnificent horns. Here are cages for large birds, as the Ostrich, Emu, and Cassowary; and foreign pecora, as the Llama and Camel, and a pair of Gnus of great beauty.
Next is an enclosure containing two pair of fine Pelicans, and the solitary kennels of an Alpine and Cuban Dog: the Armadillo house, with a pair of eight-banded inmates: near the latter a sty or cage is preparing for Porcupines. At this extremity of the grounds, is the Deer paddock, with about forty specimens, among which the Axis or spotted varieties are very beautiful. We now reach a picturesque group of rock-work, (See the third Cut), the lower part of which is intended for Beavers, the upper craigs being at present occupied by Vultures and Eagles. The rock-work consists chiefly of granite, with a few masses of the rock of Gibraltar.
Of the lake, hermitage, and boathouse we have already spoken. The long, or rather semicircular, glazed building is now finished for the Monkeys, as is an adjoining house for large birds of prey: here we should notice a fine Ruppell Vulture, from Senegal, (named after Major Ruppell, the celebrated traveller in Africa,) a chanting Falcon from Brazil, and a white Hawk, from New Holland, the latter especially rare in this country.
Among the improvements we ought not to omit the affixing of the scientific and popular names to the abodes of the respective animals. This is one of the beneficial results of the honorary aid of Messrs. Swainson and Gray, the distinguished zoologists.
By the way, there has been in these grounds a Fancy Fair with the laudable object of aiding the funds for the repair of the Ladye Chapel of St. Saviour's Southwark. We anxiously hope the faire ladyes were successful in their appeal to the fancy of their visiters.
THE LATE MR. COLTON
(To the Editor.)
Having observed in several papers and periodicals, (amongst which is The Mirror, No. 553,) sketches of "the late Mr. Colton," and none of these tending, in my opinion, to convey a correct idea of the character of this extraordinary man; allow me to offer you a slight sketch of the latter period of his life.
I am aware I shall be met by many with the squeamish proverb, De mortuis nil nisi bonum; though I am not disposed at this moment to enter on a discussion of the merits of this received axiom. Shakspeare tells us "The evil that men do, lives after them."
Mr. Colton, or as he was vulgarly called, Parson Colton, arrived in Paris in the year 1825 or 1826, from America, to which country he sailed from England shortly previous to the murder of Weare. He was at that time in possession of very little money; this small stock he increased by borrowing upon the security of some valuable jewellery which he took out from his creditors in this country. With this sum he commenced his career as player at the public gaming-tables in Paris, more particularly that at 154 in the Palais Royal. The system upon which he played was at once bold and original, and attended with great success. I have good authority (his own) for stating, he was at one period a winner of upwards of £10,000. He subsequently lost nearly half this sum, and he expended the remainder in paintings by the ancient masters, of which, in the year 1828, he had a splendid collection. These pictures he intended for the English market; but in the latter part of the same year, he became unfortunate at the gambling tables, and they were parted with by degress, the proceeds lost, and their late owner, in a short time, reduced to beggary, or nearly so. His last literary labour, if it is worthy of the name, was a history of the Three Days of July, published by Galignani.
In person, Mr. Colton was ungainly; he stooped much, his gait was slovenly, and his dress mean and dirty; the reason he assigned for not removing the dirt that accumulated on the lower part of his trousers and upon his boots, was that none but shoeblacks looked below the knee in so dirty a city as Paris. As if fond of contradiction, he wore at the same time a ridiculous superfluity of jewellery; his unwashed hands were adorned with rings, and his shirt, which probably had not visited his blanchisseuse for a fortnight, was garnished with numerous brooches and pins of considerable value. A heavy gold chain secured his watch in his waistcoat pocket, and he carried two massive gold boxes, one for snuff, though he took none himself, and the other for tobacco. His face was pale and emaciated, the cheek bones being remarkably prominent; his left arm was considerably contracted, as he was fond of saying, from a pistol wound received in a duel. His habits were low; when not at the gaming house, he was to be found in one of the lower English houses, smoking and drinking, entertaining his pot companions, and acting what is vulgarly called, the "king of the company." He possessed a fund of anecdote and wit, and had his manners been more polished, and his character less exceptionable, his society would doubtless have been much courted.
His lodgings, which were in the Palais Royal, above the Café Phoenix, were particularly filthy; his bedroom, into which all visiters were shown, was truly disgusting; though he had at the same time two sitting-rooms, handsomely furnished, which were constantly locked, and into which he himself perhaps did not enter once in a month. An anecdote, which he related to me, will tend to illustrate his character and style of living. A pair of his pantaloons became much worn in the pockets, and he took them to a tailor to be repaired. They were brought home when he was absent, and left below with the porter, who gave them to him on his return. The following morning the tailleur called while Colton was still in bed, for the cash; he was shown into the bedroom by the miserable little urchin who attended daily to light the fire, &c., and demanded in payment twenty sous; this was resisted on the part of Colton as exorbitant, and the tailleur, vexed at having parted with his work before payment, seized a pair that were at the bedside, (imagining them the same that he had stitched,) and was about to quit the room with them as security, when the reverend gentleman, drawing a pistol from under his pillow, and presenting it at the terrified mender of garments, swore he would favour him with the contents unless the pantaloons were replaced: this was of course complied with, and our indignant tailleur immediately proceeded to Monsieur le Commissaire, who dispatched messengers to require the attendance of the party who had thus threatened the life of a Citizen of Paris. Colton then explained that the pantaloons of which the plaintiff had taken possession, were those he had worn on the preceding day, and contained cash that he had brought from the gaming-house to the amount of nearly £2,000. He was of course discharged on payment of the twenty sous to the tailor.
Although generally considered mean, I have much pleasure in stating that I have known him perform many acts of charity, frequently giving a dinner to some one of his reduced countrymen, (of whom there are too many in Paris,) and occasionally assisting them with small sums of money. It has been stated that the dread of an operation which became necessary for a complaint under which he laboured, was the cause of his suicide; this I much doubt, since I have never met with a man of greater fortitude and stronger nerve. I am rather disposed to think that the depressed state of his finances, severing the only hold he had on his dissolute associates, and the attention paid too often to wealth, though accompanied by vice, having disappeared, he found himself pennyless and despised; he was without religious consolation; his health declined, his spirits were broken; he was, and felt himself, alone in the world, without friends and without commiseration, and in a moment of desperation he put a period to his reckless existence.
Your correspondent, Enort, has certainly viewed the sunny side of his character; and that too I am disposed to think, with a burning glass. I have passed many hours in his society, pleased with his wit and epigrammatic sallies, but strive in vain to call to my recollection "the spontaneous flow of his Latin, his quotations from the ancient and modern poets, and his masterly and eloquent developement of every subject that his acute intellect chose to dilate upon." His conversation was ever egotistical in the extreme: the bold assertion that his Lacon was the most clever work in the English language, was ever on his lips, and I regret to add, obscenity and irreligion too often supplied the place of wit or rational converse.
Palace Row, New Road.
W.W.
