Various

“ Why, will he say, cannot I, if I frequent the same place, see and hear what those who are employed for the press see and hear there? He can; but the fact is, that our police reporters are by far too clever to set down the words of other people, without throwing in something of their own. Their plan is to drop the duller parts of a story or a speech, and to embellish its livelier portion—to select the tit-bits, and sauce and spice them up sufficiently high to please the palates of the news-reading public. ”

“ Books that are to be written hereafter cannot be criticised by us; those that were written formerly have been criticised long ago; but a new book is the property, the prey of ephemeral criticism, which it darts triumphantly upon; there is a raw thin air of ignorance and uncertainty about it, not filled up by any recorded opinion; and curiosity, impertinence, and vanity rush eagerly into the vacuum. A new book is the fair field for petulance and coxcombry to gather laurels in—the butt set up for roving opinion to aim at. ”

“ Or can I taste this pleasure by proxy? Or am I in any degree the wiser for their knowledge? Yet this might appear to be the inference. Their having read the work may be said to act upon us by sympathy, and the knowledge which so many other persons have of its contents deadens our curiosity and interest altogether. We set aside the subject as one on which others have made up their minds for us, (as if we really could have ideas in their heads,) and are quite on the alert for the next new work, teeming hot from the press, which we shall be the first to read, to criticise, and pass an opinion on. ”

“ Many cases which, on hearing, are dull and oftentimes disgusting, under the magic pens of the police-office scribes become lively and entertaining; they are furnished with the raw material—the metal in its ore—which they purify and polish, until it bears little or no resemblance to what it was before it underwent the process of manufacturing for the paper-market under their skilful hands. There are many who delight to visit the police-offices for the sake of seeing those beings who appear there, of whom others only read: some of our readers may, perhaps, be bitten with a similar fancy ”

“ An author now alive, has a right to calculate upon the living public; he cannot count upon the dead, nor look forward with much confidence to those that are unborn. Neither, however, is it true that we are eager to read all new books alike; we turn from them with a certain feeling of distaste and distrust, unless they are recommended to us by some peculiar feature or obvious distinction. Only young ladies from the boarding-school, or milliners' girls, read all the new novels that come out. ”

“ POLICE OFFICES AND POLICE REPORTS.
The police reports are frequently the most amusing part of the daily press: they let the reader into many of the secrets of low, and, now and then, of high life; they are redolent of the phraseology of the vulgar; they often tickle our fancies by their humour, and sometimes touch our sympathies by their pathos. As anecdotes of real life; daily catalogues of droll and dismal occurrences among our fellow-citizens; pictures of what is passing in the streets while we, who are sober sort of folks, are dreaming in our beds ”

“ We allude only to the cases of humour which occur at the police-offices: those reports which can be interesting only in proportion as they are correct, are, in general, accurately given; but the matrimonial squabbles, the Irish farçettas, and the frays between the Dogberrys of the night and late walkers—albeit they may, peradventure, contain the leading facts disclosed—are highly wrought up by the fanciful powers of those who cause the public and feed themselves at a per-line-age for the daily press. ”

“ A new work is something in our power; we mount the bench, and sit in judgment on it; we can damn or recommend it to others at pleasure, can decry or extol it to the skies, and can give an answer to those who have not yet read it, and expect an account of it ”

“ It is not immediately that we enter into the merits of a style of beauty very different from that which we have been accustomed to. Perhaps it is owing to this circumstance that I was not struck by so many instances of individual attractiveness as might have been expected in so crowded a galaxy. The traits that first strike a stranger in a Portuguese belle, are the tendency to embonpoint in the figure, and to darkness—I had almost said swarthiness, in complexion. ”

“ If we cannot write ourselves, we become, by busying ourselves about it, a kind of accessaries after the fact. Though not the parent of the bantling that "has just come into this breathing world, scarce half made up," without the aid of criticism and puffing, yet we are the gossips and foster-nurses on the occasion, with all the mysterious significance and self-importance of the tribe. If we wait, we must take our report from others; if we make haste, we may dictate ours to them. ”

“ A piece of waste land, especially where the ground is broken up into little inequalities, as Hampstead-heath, for instance, is now a most bright as well as picturesque object; all the ground, which is in light, giving the sun, as it were, gold for gold. ”

“ It is not often that we look in at morning or evening sitting of the magistrates; we are content to have the police reports served up to us with our potted beef and buttered toast at breakfast; we enjoy them, although we feel convinced that many of them bear no more resemblance to the affairs they are founded on, than mock-turtle to calf's-head ”

“ And if the little delicate white flowers have at last withdrawn from the hot sun, the wastes, marshes, and woods are dressed in the luxuriant attire of ferns and heaths, with all their varieties of green, purple, and gold. ”

“ Thank heaven, there are, and must be, seasons of some repose in agricultural employments, or the countryman would work with as unceasing a madness, and contrive to be almost as diseased and unhealthy as the citizen. ”

“ The galaxy, or via lactea, (milky way,) is a remarkable appearance in the heavens, being a broad ray of whitish colour surrounding the whole celestial concave, whose light proceeds from vast clusters of stars, discoverable only by the telescope. Mr. Brydone, in his journey to the top of Mount Etna, found the phenomenon make a most glorious appearance, "like a pure flame that shot across the heavens."
Dr. Herschel made many observations on this portion of the heavens, using a Newtonian reflector of twenty feet focal length, and an aperture of eighteen inches. ”

“ The offices afford them an excellent variety of characters, which, like skilful dramatists, they work up until they become really humorous: many of the cases afford them capital plots, into which they cleverly dovetail pleasant little episodes, and adhere no closer to the deposed facts than many of our by-gone playwrights have done to the sacred page of history. ”

“ It is not a race, then, for priority of information, but for precedence in tattling and dogmatising. The work last out is the first that people talk and inquire about. It is the subject on the tapis—the cause that is pending. ”

“ The leopard of Southern Africa is known among the Cape colonists by the name of tiger; but is, in fact, the real leopard, the Felis jubata of naturalists, well known for the beauty of its shape and spotted skin, and the treachery and fierceness of its disposition. The animal called leopard (luipaard) by the Cape Dutch boors, is a species of the panther, and is inferior to the real leopard in size and beauty. Both of them are dreaded in the mountainous districts on account of the ravages which they occasionally commit among the flocks, and on the young cattle and horses in the breeding season. ”

“ The life of this aged citizen is marked with circumstances which never befel any other man; for he saw greater events than any man, at least, since the Patriarchs. He saw the same spot of earth, in the course of his own life, covered with woods and bushes, the receptacles of wild beasts and birds of prey, afterwards become the seat of a great city, not only the first in wealth and arts in America, but equalled by few in Europe ”

“ The enterprise against Spain, he considered as the French army commonly did, to be a mere excursion of pleasure, which, while it led them into a country which many of them had never visited before, would also afford them the occasion of gathering laurels which might serve to redeem somewhat of their lost glory. He therefore looked forward to the expedition, on the whole, with feelings of ardour and delight, and even longed for its approach. Not so Rosalie! She looked on war and bloodshed with the natural apprehensions of her sex ”

“ When hunted, as he usually is with dogs, he instinctively betakes himself to a tree, when he falls an easy prey to the shot of the huntsman. The leopard, however, though far inferior in strength and intrepidity to the lion, is yet an exceedingly active and furious animal; and when driven to extremity, proves himself occasionally an antagonist not to be trifled with. The colonists relate many instances of arduous and even fatal encounters with the hunted leopard. ”

“ In his noviciate, when he shoulders the shallow tray, and whistles cavalierly on his way in his sausage-meat-complexioned-jacket, there is something marked as well in his character as his habits, he is never moved to stay, except by a brother butcher, or a fight of dogs or boys, for such scenes fit his singular fancy. ”

“ Time passed on; letters were received from Henri, which spoke in ardent terms of his journey, and of the new and singular scenes unfolded to his view. He adverted also to his return, mentioned the war as a mere pastime, and as an agreeable jaunt, the termination of which he only desired, because it would once more restore him to his Rosalie. It was remarked, however, that she never recovered her cheerfulness; to all her lover's assurances she could only reply with expressions of distrust, and with feelings of sorrow ”

“ The ladies are carried in palanquins, and each received at the street entrance by the master of the house—or if there be more than one lady, by some gentlemen deputed for that purpose—who takes her hand, and so ushers her up stairs. There is much of this elaborate gallantry observable in the manner of the Portuguese towards the sex. Thus, a man never passes a lady in the street, or in her balcony, without taking off his hat, and this whether he be acquainted with her or not. ”

“ The South African panther is a cowardly animal, and, like the hyena, flies from the face of man. The leopard also, though his low, half-smothered growl is frequently heard by night, as he prowls like an evil spirit around the cottage or the kraal, will seldom or never attack mankind, (children excepted,) unless previously assailed or exasperated. ”

“ Who has often filled the anatomical chair at the Royal Academy, is no less abstruse and instructive than pleasant and amusing. His illustrative anecdotes are always excellent, and his way of telling them quite dramatic. ”

“ Close on our right a lofty peak presents its rocky face to the valley, to which it bears down in a magnificent mass, shouldering its way, as it seemed, half across it. The opposite sides appear more bare, precipitous, and lofty ”

“ What is an Author?—He is a man who weaves words into sentences; he dissects the works of his predecessors and contemporaries, and ingeniously dovetails the pieces together again, so that their real owners can scarcely recognise them. ”

“ The usual conversation of ordinary women very much cherishes the natural weakness of being taken with outside appearance. Talk of a new-married couple, and you immediately hear whether they keep their coach-and-six, or eat in plate. Mention the name of an absent lady, and it is ten to one but you learn something of her gown and petticoat. A ball is a great help to discourse, and a birthday furnishes conversation for a twelvemonth after. ”

“ Our ancestors used to burst into an enthusiasm of joy at the end of harvest, and even mingled their previous labour with considerable merry-making, in which they imitated the equality of the earlier ages. ”

“ Some people deny that there is any standard of female beauty; and, at any rate, there is no doubt but that habits and associations, as well as complexional and sentimental considerations, interfere more with our perceptions in respect to this than any other object of taste. ”

“ Butcher recommends a leg or a loin; and then he so very politely cuts off the fat, in which his skilful hand is guided by the high or low price of mutton fat in the market. He is the very antipode of a fop, yet no man knows how to show a handsome leg off to better advantage, or is prouder of his calves. ”

“ Pascal, one of the greatest geniuses and best men that ever lived, entertained a notion that God made men miserable here in order to their being happy hereafter; and in consequence of this notion, he imposed upon himself the most painful [pg 84] mortification. He even ordered a wall to be built before a window in his study, which afforded him too agreeable a prospect. He had also a girdle full of sharp points next his skin; and while he was eating or drinking any thing that was grateful to his palate, he was constantly pricking himself, that he might not be sensible of any pleasure. ”

“ From the appearance of the galaxy it seems to encompass the whole heavens, as it certainly must if the sun be within the same. From succeeding observations made by Dr. Herschel, he gathers that the milky way is a most extensive stratum of stars of various sizes, and our sun evidently one of the heavenly bodies belonging to it. In viewing and gauging this shining zone in almost every direction, he found the number of stars composing it, by the account of those gauges constantly increase and decrease in proportion to its apparent brightness to the naked eye. ”