Various

“ The landscape presents an air of warmth, dryness, and maturity; the eye roams over brown pastures, corn fields "already white to harvest," dark lines of intersecting hedge-rows, and darker trees, lifting their heavy heads above them. The foliage at this period is rich, full, and vigorous; there is a fine haze cast over distant woods and bosky slopes, and every lofty and majestic tree is filled with a soft shadowy twilight, which adds infinitely to its beauty—a circumstance that has never been sufficiently noticed by either poet or painter. ”

“ Till then, with regular strokes and a sweeping sound, the sweet and flowery grass falls before them, revealing at almost every step, nests of young birds, mice in their cozy domes, and the mossy cells of the humble bee streaming with liquid honey; anon, troops of haymakers are abroad, tossing the green swaths wide to the sun. It is one of Nature's festivities, endeared by a thousand pleasant memories and habits of the olden days, and not a soul can resist it. ”

“ There creep the various species of heath-berries, cranberries, bilberries, &c., furnishing the poor with a source of profit, and the rich of luxury. What a pleasure it is to throw ourselves down beneath the verdant screen of the beautiful fern, or the shade of a venerable oak, in such a scene, and listen to the summer sounds of bees, grasshoppers, and ten thousand other insects, mingled with the more remote and solitary cries of the pewit and the curlew! ”

“ Freeze the heart's blood, and turn us all to stone."
Were Saturn thus situated, what would the inhabitants of Herschel feel, whose distance is still further?—pursuing this train of reasoning, the heat in the planet Mercury would be seven times greater than on our globe, and were the earth in the same position, all the water on its surface would boil, and soon be turned into vapour, but as the degree of sensible heat in any planet does not depend altogether on its nearness to the sun, the temperature of these planets may be as mild as that of the most genial climate of our globe. ”

“ His concentrated powers—his breathings for the happiness and liberty of mankind—his splendid intellectual flowers, culled from a mind stored with the choicest exotics, and cultivated with the most refined taste are all still fresh in recollection. As the value of precious stones and metals have become estimated by their scarcity, so will the fame of Byron live. ”

“ In all public situations the patriotic actions of certain citizens were represented, that beholders might be induced to emulate their virtues. On contemplating these masterpieces of art, which were so truly exquisite that the very coldest spectator was unable to resist their almost magical influence, the vicious were reclaimed, and the ignorant stood abashed. Indeed, it has often been asserted, that the statues by Phidias and Praxiteles were so inimitably executed, that the people of Paros adored them as living gods. ”

“ Bands of mowers, in their light trousers and broad straw hats, are astir long before the fiery eye of the sun glances above the horizon, that they may toil in the freshness of the morning, and stretch themselves at noon in luxurious ease by trickling waters, and beneath the shade of trees. ”

“ The most hot and sandy tracts, which we might naturally imagine would now be parched up, are in full glory. The erica tetralix, or bell-heath, the most beautiful of our indigenous species, is now in bloom, and has converted the brown bosom of the waste into one wide sea of crimson; the air is charged with its honied odour. ”

“ Spring-flowers have given place to a very different class. Climbing plants mantle and festoon every hedge. The wild hop, the brione, the clematis or traveller's joy, the large white convolvulus, whose bold yet delicate flowers will display themselves to a very late period of the year—vetches, and white and yellow ladies-bed-straw—invest almost every bush with their varied beauty, and breathe on the passer-by their faint summer sweetness. ”

“ The campanula rotundifolia, the hare-bell of poets, and the blue-bell of botanists, arrests the eye on every dry bank, rock, and wayside, with its beautiful cerulean bells. There too we behold wild scabiouses, mallows, the woody nightshade, wood-betony, and centaury; the red and white-striped convolvulus also throws its flowers under your feet; corn fields glow with whole armies of scarlet poppies, cockle, and the rich azure plumes of viper's-bugloss; even thistles, the curse of Cain, diffuse a glow of beauty over wastes and barren places. ”

“ It is impossible to describe the strange unnatural light reflected through its crystal wall, the roar of the waters, and the blasts of the hurried hurricane which perpetually rages in its recesses. We endured its fury a sufficient time to form a notion of the shape and dimensions of this dreadful place. The cavern was tolerably light, though the sun was unfortunately enveloped in clouds. His disc was invisible, but we could clearly distinguish his situation through the watery barrier. The fall of the cataract is nearly perpendicular. ”

“ This planet, called also Uranus, was discovered by Herschel on the 13th of March, 1781. It is the most distant orb in our system yet known. From certain inequalities on the motion of Jupiter and Saturn, the existence of a planet of considerable size beyond the orbit of either had been before suspected; its apparent magnitude, as seen from the earth, is about 3-1/2 sec., or of the size of a star of the sixth magnitude, and as from its distance from the sun, it shines but with a pale light, it cannot often be distinguished with the naked eye. ”

“ We have only to suppose that a small quantity of caloric exists in Mercury, and a greater quantity in Herschel, which is fifty times farther from the sun than the other, and there is no reason to believe that those planets nearest the sun suffer under the action of excessive heat, or that the more distant are exposed to the rigours of insufferable cold, which, in either case, might render them unfit for the abodes of intellectual beings. ”

“ The old woman raised her hands in supplication and tottered to her chair while the Cotter, bursting out into a paroxysm of violent rage, clutched his son's arm, and exclaimed in a loud voice:
"Make fast the door, boy, an thou'lt not have my curse on thee!—I tell 'ee, she shan't come hither!—No—never—never;—there's poison in her breath—a' will spurn her from me!—A pest on her!—What; wilt not do my bidding?"
"O! feyther, feyther!" cried the young peasant, whose heart seemed overcharged with grief, "It be a cold, raw night—ye wou'dna kick a cur from the door to perish in the storm! ”

“ Willows are now beautiful objects in the landscape; they are like rich masses of arborescent silver, especially if stirred by the breeze, their light and fluent forms contrasting finely with the still and sombre aspect of the other trees. ”

“ There is a sound of tinkling teams and of wagons rolling along lanes and fields the whole country over, aye, even at midnight, till at length the fragrant ricks rise in the farmyard, and the pale smooth-shaven fields are left in solitary beauty. ”

“ A passion for unnecessary expense is, under different circumstances, frequently repressed by an inability to procure credit; but it is the curse and bane of Mr. Omnium's nephew, and Miss Saveall's niece, that so far from any obstacle being opposed to their prodigality, almost unlimited indulgence is offered, nay, actually pressed upon them, by the trades-people of their wealthy relations; who take especial care that their charges shall be of a nature to repay them for any complaisance or long suffering, as it regards the term of credit, they may be called upon to display. ”

“ All the Greek cities which contained the greatest treasures were demolished, and all the pictures5 and statues fell into the hands of the victorious general, who had them carefully preserved and conveyed from the land where they had been adored. Of the estimation in which these great works were held by the Romans, we may form some idea by the general assuring a soldier, to whose charge he gave a statue by Praxiteles, that if he broke it, he should get another as well made in its place. War is a very destructive enemy to painting and sculpture ”

“ The thunders which bellowed from the abyss, and the loveliness of the falling element, which glittered like molten silver in the moonlight, seemed to complete in absolute perfection the rare union of the beautiful with the sublime. ”

“ The severed head, passing through a red-coloured bag fixed under, fell to the ground—the blood spouted forth from the neck like water from a fountain—the body, lifted up without delay, was flung down through a trap-door in the platform. Never did capital punishment more quickly take effect on a human being ”

“ But, alas! it too often happens that, encouraged by the probability of succeeding in a few years to an independent property, and ambitious, moreover, of making such an appearance in society as will afford the old gentleman or lady no excuse for being ashamed of their connexion with him, he launches into expenses he would never otherwise have dreamed of incurring, and contracts debts without regard to his positive means of liquidating them, on the strength of a contingency which, if he could but be taught to believe it, is of all earthly anticipations the most remote and uncertain. ”

“ To reach the top of the platform, to be fast bound to a board, to be placed horizontally under the axe, and deprived of life by its unerring blow, was, in the case of this miserable offender, the work literally of a moment. ”

“ Of all the miseries of human life, and God knows they are manifold enough, there are few more utterly heart-sickening and overwhelming than those endured by the unlucky Heir Presumptive; when, after having submitted to the whims and caprices of some rich relation, and endured a state of worse than Egyptian bondage, for a long series of years, he finds himself cut off with a shilling, or a mourning ring ”

“ The temples were magnificently erected, and adorned with numerous statues of pagan deities, before which, in reverential awe, the people prostrated themselves. Every man of any substance had an idol in his own habitation, executed by a reputed sculptor. ”

“ I could make a long story of it, were I to detail all my adventures; they may, however, be easily imagined from what has been stated, and from which it is evident, that in too many instances, the world pays more respect to the coat, than to the man, and therefore that a man would often derive more consequence and benefit if he had the advantage of having for his patron—a tailor instead of a man of rank. ”

“ SIR WALTER SCOTT, the author of Waverley, has become the biographer of Napoleon Bonaparte; and the deepest interest is excited in the literary world to know how the great master of romance and fiction acquits himself in the execution of his task. In the preface to this elaborate history, Sir Walter, with considerable ingenuousness, informs us that "he will be found no enemy to the person of Napoleon. The term of hostility is ended when the battle has been won, and the foe exists no longer." ”

“ Robespierre possessed this advantage over Danton, that he did not seem to seek for wealth, either for hoarding or expending, but lived in strict and economical retirement, to justify the name of the Incorruptible, with which he was honoured by his partizans. He appears to have possessed little talent, saving a deep fund of hypocrisy, considerable powers of sophistry, and a cold exaggerated strain of oratory, as foreign to good taste, as the measures he recommended were to ordinary humanity. ”

“ FINE ARTS. THE CHIEF CAUSES OF THE SUCCESS OF PAINTING AND SCULPTURE IN GREECE AND ROME. (For the Mirror.)
A cursory glance at the principal occasion of the amazing success obtained by the Greeks and Romans, in painting and sculpture, during the early ages, may perhaps prove interesting to the lovers of the arts in this country. ”

“ The arts were neglected in Rome until the introduction of the popish religion. At that eventful era, statues and pictures were eagerly sought for; the admirable Grecian works were appropriated to purposes quite contrary to their pagan origin, for in many cases heathen deities were converted into apostles. The labours of Phidias, Myron, Praxiteles, Lysippus, and Scopas,6 were highly valued by the Romans, who became the correct imitators, and in time the rivals, of those celebrated sculptors. ”

“ BYRON AND OTHER POETS COMPARED. (For the Mirror.)
There is a natural stimulus in man to offer adoration at the shrine of departed genius.—
"There is a tear for all that die."
But, when a transcendant genius is checked in its early age—when its spring-shoots had only began to open—when it had just engaged in a new feature devoted to man, and man to it, we cannot rest ”

“ Boys will now be seen in the evening twilight with match, gunpowder, &c., and green boughs for self-defence, busy in storming the paper-built castles of wasps, the larvae of which furnish anglers with store of excellent baits. ”

“ They who know little about it may deem the strong penchant of our poets, and of ourselves, for rural pleasures, mere romance and poetic illusion; but if poetic beauty alone were concerned, we [pg 10] must still admire harvest-time in the country. The whole land is then an Arcadia, full of simple, healthful, and rejoicing spirits. Overgrown towns and manufactories may have changed for the worse, the spirit and feelings of our population ”