Kitabı oku: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 376, June 20, 1829», sayfa 5

MEXICAN MINES

It appears that, on an average of the fifteen years previous to the revolution, about twenty-two millions of dollars were exported, and that there was an accumulation of about two millions. Since the revolution, the exports have averaged 13,587,052 dollars, while the produce has decreased to eleven millions. This change was the natural consequence of the revolution. The favourable accounts of Humboldt excited a spirit of speculation that was wholly regardless of passing events; and the Act of Congress, facilitating the co-operation of foreigners with the natives, produced a mania which has been destructive to numberless individuals, who trusted too much to names. Seven English companies, with a capital of at least three millions, were established, and these were followed by two American, and one German, companies. Such was the rage for mining on the Royal Exchange, that for a time it was only necessary for any one to appear with contracts made with Mexican mine owners to establish a company. Many who were so ignorant as not even to know the difference between a shaft and a level, commenced speculators, not for the purpose of fairly earning a reward for doing some service to those to whom they offered their mines, but to fill their own purses without reference to consequences. Such a system of unprincipled conduct could not last; almost all the minor performers have been driven from the stage, and the respectable associations alone maintain their footing, though the want of returns for the immense sums invested has tended to produce a general want of confidence.

Since these enterprises have been undertaken, an immense and fruitless expenditure has been incurred by sending out machinery, which could be of no earthly use—by despising the native processes, and substituting others that have been found wholly inapplicable—and by introducing British labourers, who when abroad reverse all the good qualities for which they are valuable at home. A reform in this system we believe to have been generally adopted, and we are sure that a reduction of expense, a management purely European, and native labour, with only such modifications in working, smelting, or amalgamating, as experience will prove to be advantageous, will, in a moderate time, return the capital already expended, with a commensurate advantage. But these things can only take place provided the public tranquillity be maintained, and the government keep their engagements with foreigners inviolate. The insecurity arising from the domestic feuds now disturbing this fine country, must, if it continues, finally annihilate its best resources.—Foreign Quarterly Review.

Of the abhorrence with which the Dutch regard the French tongue, the following lines of Bilderdyk are an amusing example:—

 
Begone, thou bastard-tongue! so base—so broken—
By human jackals and hyaenas spoken;
Formed for a race of infidels, and fit
To laugh at truth—and scepticize in wit;
What stammering, snivelling sounds, which scarcely dare,
Bravely through nasal channels meet the ear—
Yet helped by apes' grimaces—and the devil,
Have ruled the world, and ruled the world for evil!
 

Ibid.

COALS

One of the pamphlets of the age of the Commonwealth is said, in the title-page, to be

 
Printed in the year
That sea-coal was exceeding dear.
 

The remembrance of this inconvenience, which the Londoners had suffered during the stoppage of their supply from Newcastle, made "the committees of both kingdoms conclude and agree among themselves, that some of the most notorious delinquents and malignants, late coal-owners in the town of Newcastle, be wholly excluded from intermeddling with any shares or parts of colleries;" "but as the parliament might find a difficulty in driving on the trade, they did not conceive it for their service to put out all the said malignants at once, but were rather constrained, for the present, to make use of those delinquents in working their own collieries as tenants and servants." The more stubborn and wealthy, therefore, were selected for example; and the others had this favour shown them.

LADY-POETS OF ENGLAND

The following is a Frenchman's expression of homage to our modern female poets, in which we excel all the world:—

It is remarkable, that in the latter years of the eighteenth century, and also during the whole course of our revolution, there appeared in England a whole school, as it were, of female authors, whose pure and graceful productions are disfigured by no exaggerations, nor are they of that sombre character which distinguishes the modern literature of their country. Of the lady-authors of England, the most celebrated is Lady Wortley Montagu, the contemporary of Pope, who has left poems, but more especially letters, highly remarkable for their talent and philosophy. It is impossible to give here the names of the authoresses who appeared all on a sudden about half a century after Lady Wortley Montagu. One of the earliest of them was a lady of the same name, Mrs. E. Montagu, the author of the Essays on Shakspeare, and Mrs. Anna Laetitia Barbauld, who wrote numerous poems and admirable hymns for children. There is great beauty in the Epistle of Mrs. Barbauld to Wilberforce, on the subject of the Abolition of the Slave Trade (1781.) Mrs. Hannah More has also written several works of religious fiction, and above all, some charming poems; Florio (1786,) and the Blue Stocking, or Conversation. The Blue Stocking is a burlesque name given to a lady's coterie, in which several females attempted to start a sort of bureau d'esprit under the direction of Mesdames Robinson and Piozzi, a coterie innocent enough, but which excited the wrath of Mr. Gifford, the Editor of the Quarterly Review, who fulminated against it several satires in excessively bad taste, and written in a tone of disgusting pedantry. The verses of Mr. Gifford are infinitely more ridiculous than those he pretends to correct. Amongst the English ladies who have written romance, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs. Inchbald, and Lady Morgan, are worthy of especial note. Several ladies, without having written works of great importance, have still produced poetical pieces of graceful beauty; in this number it is but justice to distinguish Mrs. Opie. And lastly, in order to finish this hasty catalogue, we may remark that there have appeared in England, in our days, several ladies of a high order of literary, poetical, and at the same time, philosophical talent. Lady Morgan herself has contrived to mix up history and romance in her writings, with great ability; but among the ladies, who inscribed their fame on monuments more durable than romantic stories, we must select for honourable mention the names of Joanna Baillie, Aikin, Benger, and Helen Maria Williams. Miss Baillie, sister of the celebrated Dr. Baillie, the physician, is a woman of the highest talent. It is not your pretty nothings, your elegant trifles, which occupy her genius; on the contrary, she has attempted in a series of dramatic pieces, to paint the most energetic passion of the human heart; and her pieces, written in the most elevated and Shakspearian tone, will always be regarded as the work of a superior mind. John Kemble, in the part of Montfort, reached the sublime of agony. In the writings of Miss Baillie there is a combination of the solemn and the poetical, which is rarely observed in women. Miss Aikin has written some charming poems, far more beautiful than any I have met with in the writings of Miss Landon and Miss Mitford. The Mouse's Petition, by Miss Aikin, is a chef-d'oeuvre. Miss Benger has published some historical works of great interest, which place her in the same line with Miss Aikin. Lastly, there is Helen Maria Williams, whose muse, half English, half French, has published poems, sonnets, and other pieces of verse, besides several political and historical works. This superior woman, at the same time that she gave birth, under the influence of sensibility and fancy, to works of inspiration, portrayed the details of the events of the French revolution, in the centre of which she threw herself, in 1792, from pure enthusiasm for liberty.—Foreign Quarterly Review.

AMERICAN LAW

"No commentator," says Judge Hall, in his Letters from the West, "has taken any notice of Linch's Law, which was once the lex loci of the frontiers. Its operation was as follows:—When a horse thief, a counterfeiter, or any other desperate vagabond, infested a neighbourhood, evading justice by cunning, or by a strong arm, or by the number of his confederates, the citizens formed themselves into a "regulating company," a kind of holy brotherhood, whose duty was to purge the community of its unruly members. Mounted, armed, and commanded by a leader, they proceeded to arrest such notorious offenders as were deemed fit subjects of exemplary justice; their operations were generally carried on in the night. Squire Birch, who was personated by one of the party, established his tribunal under a tree in the woods, and the culprit was brought before him, tried, and generally convicted; he was then tied to a tree, lashed without mercy, and ordered to leave the country within a given time, under pain of a second visitation. It seldom happened that more than one or two were thus punished; their confederates took the hint and fled, or were admonished to quit the neighbourhood."