Various

“ One tenanted brick building will be driven up to the door of another. A further improvement may here be suggested. Jonathan is fond of chairs with rockers, that is, chairs with a cradle-bottom, on which he see-saws himself as he smokes his pipe and fuddles his sublime faculties with liquor. Now by putting a house on rockers, this trouble and exertion of the individual on a scale so small and unworthy of a great people would be spared, and every tenant of a brick building would be rocked at the same time, and by one common piece of machinery. ”

“ Let not our towns be the seat of war; let not our houses be stained with bloodshed; let the blood of the enemy be spilt at a distance from our wives and children. Yet some of you talk ignorantly; your words are the words of children or of men confounded. I am left almost alone; my two brothers have abandoned me; they have taken wives from another nation, and allow their wives to direct them; their wives are their kings! ”

“ The trusses that support the ceiling of the corner drawing-room are beyond measure massive, and the ground apartment is rather a diminutive catacomb than a library in a northern latitude. Yet these blemishes, and Lord Hervey's wit, who said 'the house was too small to inhabit, and too large to hang to one's watch,' cannot depreciate the taste that reigns throughout the whole. ”

“ When their terrible resolution is taken, their eyes appear to flash fire, their countenance assumes an expression of preternatural fury; and springing suddenly on their feet, they unsheath their daggers, plunge them into the heart of every one within their reach, and rushing out into the streets, deal wounds and murder as they run, until the arrow or dagger of some bold individual terminates their career. ”

“ Vertigo, or giddiness, though unattended with pain, is, in general, of a more dangerous nature than the severest headach. Vertigo consists in a disturbance of the voluntary power, and in some degree of sensation, especially of vision; and thus it shows itself to be an affection of the brain itself; while mere pain in the head does not necessarily imply this, it being for the most part an affection of the membranes only. In vertigo, objects that are fixed appear to be in motion, or to turn round, as the name implies. The patient loses his balance, and is inclined to fall down. ”

“ And the reason why the plummet tends much more strongly towards the earth than towards the hill, is only that the earth is larger than the hill. And at New South Wales, which is a point on our globe nearly opposite to England, plummets hang and fall towards the centre of the globe, exactly as they do here, so that they are hanging up and falling towards England, and the people there are standing with their feet towards us. Weight, therefore, is merely general attraction acting every where. It is owing to this general attraction that our earth is a globe. ”

“ With what pomp and form they used to enter and depart from their house of God! I still saw with the mind's eye the widow Hogarth, and her maiden relative, Richardson, walking up the aisle dressed in their silken sacks, their raised head-dresses, their black hoods, their lace ruffles, and their high-crook'd canes, preceded by their aged servant, Samuel; who, after he had wheeled his mistress to church in her Bath-chair, carried the prayer-books up the aisle, and opened and shut the pew! ”

“ The cause of the extraordinary phenomenon, which we call attraction, acts at all distances. The moon, though 240,000 miles from the earth, by her attraction raises the water of the ocean under her, and forms what we call the tide. ”

“ Being left entirely at liberty, and extremely well fed, the tiger grew rapidly, appeared tame and fondling as a dog, and in every respect entirely domesticated. At length, when it had attained a vast size, and notwithstanding its apparent gentleness, began to inspire terror by its tremendous powers of doing mischief, a piece of raw meat, dripping with blood, fell in its way. ”

“ Vertigo is exceedingly frequent at an advanced period of life, and generally indicates the approach and formation of disease in the brain. Accordingly, it is a frequent forerunner of apoplexy and palsy.
The immediate or proximate cause of giddiness, or vertigo, that is, the actual condition of the brain at the moment, is probably some partial disturbance in the circulation there; which all the occasional causes mentioned are obviously calculated to produce. It is more or less dangerous, according to the cause inducing it, and the state of the brain itself, which may be sound or otherwise. ”

“ Our countrymen at home are frequently perplexed by the apparent contradictions of a traveller from the East, when describing the characters and manners of the inhabitants of Hindostan. If, for instance, he alludes to our gallant sepoys, he pours forth unmeasured praise, and appears altogether charmed with their docility, courage, honour, and fidelity. ”

“ Ladies are not good hands in painting heroes, nor gentlemen always equal to the portraying of heroines. The author of Werter knew that, and therefore he did not disfigure his wicked and interesting work with an artificial Charlotte: he leaves her to the reader's own fancy, who has nothing to do but to fancy himself Werter, and his own imagination will paint Charlotte.
When the hero is made the vehicle of one moral lesson, as Vivian, in Miss Edgeworth's "Tales of Fashionable Life," then there is no need of artificial ornament ”

“ Even among the ancients, though many of their geometricians had acknowledged the sphericity of the globe, it was for a long time imagined that the earth was a third longer than it was broad, and thence arose the terms of longitude and latitude. ”

“ It is commonly supposed, that if a person have made himself warm with walking, or any other exercise, he must wait till he becomes cooled before he should plunge into the cold water. Dr. Currie, however, has shown that this is an erroneous idea, and that in the earlier stages of exercise, before profuse perspiration has dissipated the heat, and fatigue debilitated the living power, nothing is more safe, according to his experience, than the cold bath. ”

“ His head is a humming-top, and his tight blue little body like a tomahawk, cased in glittering steel, which he takes a delight in whirling against your head. I really believe, that to confine a nervous man in a room with one of these winged tormentors, on a July day, would inevitably destroy him in less than an hour. ”

“ You must require strength for the business you have to perform: you shall drink a glass of wine with me." He filled a glass for the executioner, another for the turnkey, and one for himself, and went to the place of execution, where he met death with the courage that distinguished almost all the victims of that fearful period. ”

“ The inventor of this simple and cheap mode of moving tenanted brick buildings, is entitled to the thanks of the public. In the course of time, it is likely that houses will be put up upon ways at brick or stone quarries, and sold as ships are, to be delivered in any part of the city.—American Paper.
In the course of time we really do not know what is not to happen in America. Jonathan promises to grow so big, and to do such wonders in a day or two, that no bounds can be placed to his performances in the future tense. ”

“ The larger court, dignified by picturesque cedars, and the classic scenery of the small court, that unites the old and new house, are more worth seeing than many fragments of ancient grandeur which our travellers visit under all the dangers attendant on long voyages. ”

“ The planets, those apparently little wandering points in the heaven, yet affect, by their attraction, the motion of our earth in her orbit, quickening it when she is approaching them, retarding it when she is receding.—Arnott's Natural Philosophy. ”

“ They do not merely give one scene, or character, or class of characters; but their principles are generally applicable to a very wide extent—they exercise the mind to a habit of observation, and so far from giving false views of life, they more frequently direct us to its true estimate. ”

“ In the mean time infuse four pounds of hops in a little hot water; and put the water and hops into the tub, and run the wort upon them, and boil them together three hours. Strain off the hops, and keep for the small beer. Let the wort stand in a high tub till cool enough to receive the yeast, of which put two quarts of ale, or, if you cannot get it, of small-beer yeast. Mix it thoroughly and often. When the wort has done working, the second or third day the yeast will sink rather than rise in the middle ”

“ At all times, your prognosis should be guarded; because vertigo seldom occurs under favourable circumstances of age and general health; unless when produced by so slight a cause as bloodletting, or a trifling blow upon the head. ”

“ If the colour be not full enough, add, when racking, some brandy colouring, which soon gives to it that pleasing appearance peculiar to good porter. Do not fill the cask quite full; bung it close the following day, but leave the peg-hole open for a few days, or a week, according to the state of the atmosphere; peg it when you think it is fine; and if it appear to be fast approaching to clearness, and has stood long enough for the attainment of maturity, tap it, and draw it quickly; for porter, in cask, always requires a quick draught, and when it gets flat bottle it off as soon as possible. ”

“ It is a very weak charge against novels, that they present false views of life; for, when they do, none but silly people read them; and they are just as wise after, as they were before.
If there be any evil in novels at all, it is when they take people from their business—when they occupy a mother's time to the neglect of her children—when [pg 119] they lead idle boys to neglect their lessons, and when they lead idle gentlefolks to fancy themselves employed, when they are only killing time. W.P.S.
CARRIER PIGEONS. (For the Mirror.) ”

“ A pen and ink were brought to him, and he wrote with some difficulty on a slip of paper, that he firmly hoped he had not failed in his attempt to destroy himself, for life was of no value without honour. ”

“ Everything will of course be on a scale of grandeur proportioned to his country, which, as he observes in his Travels in England, is "bigger and more like a world" than our boasted land; instead, therefore, of going about in confined, close carriages as people do here, the Americans will rattle through the streets to their routs and parties in their houses. ”

“ One of Miss Edgeworth's failings is of great service to her, in this kind of painting: she wants what some persons call feeling, that is to say, she does not believe in the omnipotence of love, and therefore would never have written such a book as the "Sorrows of Werter;" ”

“ A ram or wether lamb, after being weaned, is called a hog, or hoggitt, tag, or pug, throughout the first year, or until it renew two teeth; the ewe, a ewe-lamb, ewe-tag, or pug. In the second year the wether takes the name of shear-hog, and has his first two renewed or broad teeth, or he is called a two-toothed tag or pug; the ewe is called a thaive, or two-toothed ewe tag, or pug. ”

“ Your noisy people generally grow taciturn in their cups—but Sir Blue-bottle, though he drinks deep draughts of your wine, particularly if it abound in sweetness, is never changed. He is naturally giddy, and according to entomologists, always sees more than double, while his head was never made to be turned. ”

“ May evil overtake the disobedient! May they be broken in pieces! Be silent, ye women!" (addressing them,) "ye who plague your husbands, who steal their goods, and give them to others, be silent; and hinder not your husbands and children by your evil words. Be silent, ye kidney-eaters,1 (turning towards the old men,) ye who are fit for nothing but to prowl about whenever an ox is killed. If our cattle are carried off, where will you get kidneys?" ”

“ Novels are productions more easily criticised than any others: every one may judge for himself of the truth or probability of the events, and the accuracy of the features of character. It is impossible almost to deceive a reader—to palm upon him fiction for truth ”

“ The Jew's harp has three different tones; the bass tones of the first octave bear some resemblance to those of the flute and clarionet; those of the middle and high, to the vox humana of some organs; lastly, the harmonical sounds are exactly like those of the harmonica. It is conceived, that this diversity of tones affords already a great variety in the execution, which is always looked upon as being feeble and trifling, on account of the smallness of the instrument. ”

“ The pigeons performed this journey in two hours and a half. The messenger had a young brood at Aleppo, and was sent down in an uncovered cage to Scanderoon, from whence, as soon as set at liberty, she returned with all possible expedition to her nest. It is said that the pigeons when let fly from Scanderoon, instead of bending their course towards the high mountains surrounding the plain, mounted at once directly up, soaring still almost perpendicularly till out of sight, as if to surmount at once the obstacles intercepting their view of the place of their destination. ”

“ If houses can be put upon cradles for launching, they can be put upon cradles for rocking; and if tenants do not object to being conveyed from one part of the city to another in their mansions, they will not surely take fright at an agreeable stationary see-saw in them.—London Magazine. ”

“ The inhabitants of the Indian Archipelago, and particularly of the island of Java, are of a very sullen and revengeful disposition. When they consider themselves grossly insulted, they are observed to become suddenly thoughtful; they squat down upon the ground, and appear absorbed in meditation. ”

“ They are chiefly composed of merchants, copying clerks, mechanics, and domestic servants, and are invariably refused admittance into the company's army. These people are vastly inferior to the natives of the upper provinces in mental and corporeal energy, though more polished in their manners, and more easily initiated into the arts and mysteries of civilized life. I will illustrate the nice sense of honour which distinguishes the native soldier by the following anecdote. ”

“ All its parts being drawn towards each other, that is, towards the common centre, the mass assumes the spherical or rounded form. And the moon also is round, and all the planets are round; the glorious sun, so much larger than all these, is round; proving, that all must at one [pg 128] time have been fluid, and that they are all subject to the same law. ”