Various

“ So great was the universal joy at having their enemy in their power, that even the wives and daughters of the most distinguished citizens were anxious to view the punishment inflicted upon him whom they considered the grand cause of all the national evils. Isabel was not of this number; but her father sternly compelled her to be a witness of the dismal scene. The hour of noon was fast approaching, and the bell of the cathedral heavily and solemnly tolled the knell of the unfortunate Spenser. The fatal cavalcade approached the place of execution. ”

“ The royalist soldiers, without any distinction as to rank or character, suffered the ignominious punishment to which they were condemned, and the streets of Hereford were blocked up by gibbets, which the most timid and merciful of its inhabitants gazed upon with satisfaction and triumph.
Sir Hugh Spenser, both on account of his rank and of the peculiar degree of hatred with which each bosom beat against him, was reserved to be the last victim. On the day of his execution the streets were lined with spectators, and the principal families in the city occupied stations round the scaffold. ”

“ Again, the sufferings of men of genius are increased by their own reflection on them, and in addition to real woes they thus inflict on themselves thousands of imaginary ones. A loss in trade may be repaired by the profits of the succeeding day, and all be set right, where gain is the sole idol; but when fame is mixed up in the pursuit, there is a suffering beyond the hour, the day, or the year—mixed up in the defeat. ”

“ The disastrous intelligence which he received from Bristol, however, made him doubtful whether he should hold inviolate the truce which he had granted to the besieged. He did not doubt but that the Earl of Kent and his troops, flushed with conquest, would hasten to his destruction, and to the relief of Hereford, and that unless he could possess himself of the city and castle, and by shutting himself up in the latter be enabled to bid defiance to his enemies, the fate of his father must inevitably be his own. ”

“ Fly with me, fly!—with thy heart and hand reward my love, and think no more of those grim walls, and sullen citizens, with souls as iron as their beavers, and hearts as cold as the waters of their river. ”

“ Wine is dearer in Calais than, perhaps, in any other town in France, that could be named; but still you may have an excellent table wine for 1s. per quart bottle; and they make a very palatable and wholesome beer, for 1-1/2d. and 2-1/2d. per bottle—the latter of which has all the good qualities of our porter, and none of its bad. Fish is not plentiful at Calais, except the skate, which you may have for almost nothing, as indeed you may at many of our own sea-port towns. ”

“ With our usual literary honesty, (we trust a characteristic of our whole conduct,) we have to acknowledge our obligations to the "Travels" of M. Pouqueville for the preceding view. "The port of Navarino, certainly one of the finest in the world," says Sir William Gell, in his interesting Journey in the Morea, "is formed by a deep indenture in the Morea, shut in by a long island, anciently called Sphacteria, famous for the defeat and capture of the Spartans, in the Peloponnesian war, and yet exhibiting the vestige of walls, which may have served as their last refuge. ”

“ This amusement had become so much a custom with them, that the most timid females were not afraid to venture alone and at night in a small skiff, with which almost every family of respectability was provided; and on a bright moonlight night, the bosom of the river was beautifully diversified by the white sails glittering in the moonbeams, while sweet female voices would be heard warbling some popular melodies, the, subjects of which were usually the praises of prince Edward, or execrations of Spenser and those who had corrupted the king. ”

“ Light and fickle as is the public taste for literature, we are disposed to think that, (barring the influence of great names) the chances of success are as frequent in this as in any other field of human ingenuity ”

“ The rocks, which show themselves in every direction through a scanty but rich soil, are limestone, and present a general appearance of unproductiveness round the castle of Navarino; and the absence of trees is ill compensated by the profusion of sage, brooms, cistus, and other shrubs which start from the innumerable cavities of the limestone.
The remains of Navarino Vecchio, or ancient Navarino, consist in a fort or castle of mean construction, covering the summit of a hill sloping quickly to the south, but falling in abrupt precipices to the north and east. ”

“ The struggle was short but sanguinary—the invaders were beaten back at every point, their best troops were left dead in the trenches, and above two hundred prisoners (among whom was Sir Hugh Spenser himself) fell into the hands of the citizens. The successful party set no bounds either to their exultation or their revenge. ”

“ These words were uttered with an animation and vehemence so unusual to her, that Walter stood for a moment transfixed with wonder; and before he recovered his self-possession, Isabel, with the velocity of lightning, had regained her skiff, and was sailing before the wind to Hereford. "Curse on my amorous folly!" he exclaimed, "that, for a pair of pale cheeks and sparkling eyes, has perhaps ruined a better concerted stratagem than ever entered the brain of the Grecian Sinon. I must away, or the false girl will wake the slumbering citizens to their defence before the deed is done ”

“ When the news of this catastrophe reached the younger Spenser, he was at the head of a fine army, which had sat down before the city of Hereford, for the purpose of reducing it to obedience to king Edward. The formidable force which he commanded had struck terror into the hearts of the citizens, so that notwithstanding their attachment to queen Isabella, and their detestation of Spenser, they had shown symptoms of their willingness to yield to the latter upon reasonable terms ”

“ Mr. Purdy, in his New Sailing Directory for the Mediterranean Sea, says, "from the sea, a frigate might, in two or three hours, batter down the walls (of Navarino) ; the artillery of the place (in 1825) consisted of forty pieces of cannon; the greater part in the fort, eight on the battery at the entrance of the harbour, and a few in some of the towers along the city." It should be added that the port is said to be capable of containing 2,000 sail; and the population of the town is about 3,000, the most of whom are Turks. ”

“ The body is exposed much in the same manner, at home; but the convoi, or passage from the habitation to the sepulchre, is generally considered as an occasion which calls for the utmost display. Torches, priests, psalmody, are sought for with a spirit of rivalry which easily explains the sumptuary laws of the Florentine and Roman statute-books, and which, unnoticed but not extinguished in the present age, in a poorer must have been highly offensive to the frugality and jealousies of a republic. ”

“ In France, the system of mutual instruction among the working classes prospers in the bosoms of the ports, and schools are founded for the particular instruction of the sons of the inferior officers of the arsenals, in the elements of calculation, of geometry, and of design, as far as necessary for the plans of ships ”

“ It is surrounded only by a wall without a ditch; the height commanding the city is a little hexagonal, defended by five towers at the external angles, which, with the walls, were built by the Turks in 1572, but were never repaired till after the war with the Russians in 1770; the Turks having previously taken it from the Venetians in 1499. At the gate of the fortress is a miserable Greek village; and the walls of the castle itself are in a dismantled condition. ”

“ It is true that such details have raised a spirit of sympathetic forbearance towards the distresses of men of letters, except in the breasts of the most barbarous and vulgar. But their sufferings are doubly acute, and their perceptions doubly tender. ”

“ Although a fine woman, in the strictest sense of the term, and still handsome, though not still very young, she was even more distinguished by her air of high supremacy, than by her beauty. She sat loftily in a lofty phaeton, which was emblazoned with arms, and covered with coronets ”

“ In their intercourse with mankind, they become flattered by associates, and it not unfrequently happens that men who are the most ready to quote such ascendancy or superiority in society, are the first to break the charm they have created, by some act of extreme rigour. ”

“ Those who belong to the first class are, with all their property, at the disposal of their masters. The second, though they cannot, before emancipation, inherit or acquire property, have many privileges, and cannot be sold or transferred. A female, who has a child to her master, belongs to the privileged class; as does a slave, to whom his master has promised his liberty, on the payment of a certain sum, or on his death.—Sir J. Malcolm's Sketches of Persia.
The Gatherer.
"I am but a Gatherer and disposer of other men's stuff."—Wotton. ”

“ They flew to arms. The king of France, the queen's brother, assisted them with men and money; the Count of Hainault, to whose daughter Philippa, the young prince had been contracted, did the same. The king was driven from London, and forced, with the elder Spenser, whom he had created Earl of Winchester, to take refuge in Bristol. Being hotly pursued to this city by the Earl of Kent and the Count of [pg 353] Hainault, at the head of a formidable army, he was obliged to flee into Wales, leaving the elder Spenser governor of the castle of Bristol. ”

“ The Georgians, Nubians, and Abyssinians, and even the Seedee, or Caffree, as the woolly-headed Africans are called, are usually married, and their children, who are termed house-born, become, in a manner, part of their master's family. They are deemed the most attached of his adherents: they often inherit a considerable portion of his wealth ”

“ In one, which seemed to be venturing nearer to the camp of the enemy than the others, might be seen a light and delicate female form, and on the shore which she was approaching, a little above the village of Northbrigg, stood a soldier, whose accoutrements bespoke him to belong to the army of Sir Hugh Spenser. ”

“ The transformation of the deserted cases of numberless minute insects into a constituent part of a solid rock, first formed at the bottom of a lake, then constituting the sides of deep valleys, and the tabular summits of lofty hills, is a phenomenon as striking as the vast reefs of coral constructed by the labours of minute polyps. ”

“ The superstitious notions current among the lower orders were, that at about the hour of eight on every evening, a female was seen in a small vessel sailing from Hereford to Northbrigg, a little village then distant about three miles from the city, of which not even the site is now discernible; that the vessel sailed with the utmost rapidity in a dead calm and even against the wind ”

“ The religious orders, the Capucins particularly, are in constant requisition; not a day that you may not meet two or three of their detachments in various parts of the city:—-the religious or charitable fraternities, such as the Fratelli della Misericordia, of which the deceased is generally a brother or a benefactor, or both, think it also a point of duty and gratitude to swell the cortège, and in the greatest numbers they can muster to attend. Their costume, which is highly picturesque, is always a striking feature, and adds much to the brilliancy of the display. ”

“ A mathematical instrument maker at Paris, of the name of Conti, has conceived the notion of a portable instrument which he calls a tachygraph, by means of which any person may write, or rather print, as fast as any other person can speak. ”

“ As to the wages of female servants, they can scarcely be considered as much cheaper, nominally, than they are with us. But then the habits of the servants, and the cost of what they eat, make their keep and wages together amount to not more than half what they do with us. ”

“ An elastic or swinging seat, couch, or bed, for preventing the uneasy motions of a ship or a carriage, has recently been invented. To effect this, the frame of the seat or couch is suspended on juribals or joints, turning at right angles to each other, and an elasticity is produced both in the seat or cushion, and in the swinging frames, by the use of spiral metal springs. ”

“ Harwood, is I think, doubtless, of greater proportionate magnitude than in any other quadruped, and not only does it exhibit in its countenance, the appearance of sagacity, but its intelligence is in reality far greater than in most land quadrupeds: hence its domestication is rendered much easier than that of other animals, and it is susceptible of more powerful attachment. ”

“ Calais may, for various reasons, be looked upon as one of the dearest towns in France. An excellent suite of furnished apartments may be had in one of the most respectable private houses in Calais, consisting of a sitting-room, three bedrooms, and a kitchen, for twenty shillings a week, and smaller ones in proportion, down to five shillings a week for a bachelor's apartment. ”

“ One of the most recent of useful discoveries in agriculture is to mix layers of green or new cut clover with layers of straw in ricks or stacks; thus the strength of the clover is absorbed by the straw, which, thus impregnated, both horses and cattle eat greedily, and the clover is dried and prevented from heating. ”

“ The royalists, by means of an unexpected attack during the truce, and aided by internal treachery, hoped to make themselves masters of the city of Hereford. The citizens, however, had by some unknown means obtained intelligence of the designs of the enemy, and were prepared to repel their attacks. ”

“ These have been generally constructed by the Turks, since the expulsion of the Venetians; for it appears, that till the long continued habit of possession had induced the Mahometans to live upon and cultivate their estates in the country, and the power of the Venetian republic had been consumed by a protracted peace, a law was enforced which compelled every Turk to have a habitation in some one of the fortresses of the country. But the habitatations," says our traveller, "present generally an indiscriminate mass of ruins ”

“ And they should keep who can,"
the city of Hereford was distinguished by the zeal and patriotism of its citizens, and by the unshrinking firmness with which they adhered to the cause of queen Isabella, and the young prince her son, afterwards the renowned king Edward the Third, in opposition to the weak and ill-fated monarch who then wore the crown, and his detested favourites the Spensers, father and son. ”

“ Some select four or five pieces of the leaves of grass, which they glue together into a shapely polygonal case; others employ portions of the stems of rushes, placed side by side, so as to form an elegant fluted cylinder; some arrange round them pieces of leaves like a spirally-rolled riband; other species construct houses which may be called alive, forming them of the shells of various aquatic snails of different kinds and sizes, even while inhabited, all of which are immovably fixed to them, and dragged about at pleasure. ”