Various

“ It is unnecessary to look across the Atlantic, to prove the existence of the pure plant in its most healthy and vigorous growth. The new world is dedicated to the cause of liberty, and from that good seed is now springing forth fruit an hundred fold; the progress of civilization, of knowledge, of virtue, and happiness in the United States, is, by every recent traveller there, proved to be immense. The example of her own children is becoming an additional security for right principles to the mother country; and long may it so continue ”

“ Although a mountainous country like Greece, situated in the loveliest climate in the world, must of course have some effect on the spirit of the people, yet the degree of it seems extremely uncertain. ”

“ Now it is not probable that the same climate which is favourable to the study of the sciences and to the reasoning powers, would prevent their being pushed to the utmost extent; and the solution of this difference may, perhaps, depend on the question, whether a general diffusion of learning among a people is a state of things usually accompanied by a remarkable perfection in particular persons. A man of ordinary acquirements in the present day might have passed for a prodigy in the thirteenth century ”

“ The more degraded and stupid the condition of any set of people may be, the more meritorious and thankworthy are those efforts that are made to advance them one point nearer to the heavens—one step above the beasts that perish. ”

“ I was inclined to regard this bottle as a more genuine specimen of oriental art, than one of those, which, enamelled, with gold, stands forth in its way an elegant of the first water, and I hoped to have kept it long. On visiting my Otto shortly afterwards, I found that not only had it all evaporated, but destroyed its receptacle. Its strength (I conclude) had dissolved the cement of the aforesaid coloured bits of glass, and left me only an empty and plain bottle, the ugliest of the ugly. I mention this circumstance as a caution to amateurs in Atar Gul. ”

“ Russian leather is tanned in an infusion of birch bark, and is said to be afterwards mixed with a quantity of birch tar, to give it that odour for which it is peculiar, which renders it valuable for book-binding, on account of preventing it from being attacked by insects. Tawed leather, used for gloves, is made by impregnating the skin with a liquor containing alum and salt, and afterwards washed in a mixture of yolks of eggs and water; the saline and animal matters combine, and give it that peculiar softness, and such leather is afterwards coloured as may be required ”

“ A free government, high public spirit, and an eager desire for wisdom, are permanent securities for the welfare of the state, and the happiness of the citizens; and though we cannot control nature, let us endeavour by art to supply what is wanting, where her bounty has been limited; "let us," in the words of Lord Bacon, "labour to restore and enlarge the power and dominion of the whole race of man over the universe of things!" ”

“ The Swiss seem in a great measure to have lost their renown for patriotism, by their slavish submissions to foreign yokes during the late war, and by the apathy with which they allow their rights to be trampled on at this day by a tyrannical aristocracy at home. ”

“ The German, on the other hand, in order to prove to you the general proposition of the unthankfulness of men to their benefactors, gives you the instance that has recently happened. To the one, the fact is interesting, because it proves the proposition; to the other, the proposition is a conclusion, which he hastily draws from an individual occurrence that has suggested it.
The climate does not appear to affect even the bodies of men to any great degree. ”

“ It is the rallying point of our earliest associations; it has ever given an additional charm to our firesides; and tends, perhaps, more than any one thing, to confirm the pre-existing domestic habits of the British public. Its exhilarating qualities are eagerly sought after as a restorative and solace from the effects of fatigue or dissipation; the healthy and the sick, the young and the old, all equally resort to the use of it, as yielding all the salutary influence of strong liquors, without their baneful and pernicious effects. ”

“ A great variety of substances have been used for tanning, as the acorn-cup of the oriental bark; catechu and sumach have been also used; but the oak bark is most generally used, as furnishing a large quantity of astringent matter. It is not the business of the chemist to describe the different kinds of leather, but I may just mention, that the upper leather of shoes is called curried leather; the leather having been tanned, is rubbed over with oil before it is dried, and it is then very flexible, pliable, and durable ”

“ Our course is rather that of a good-humoured exposé, the worst effect of which will be to raise a laugh at the expense of poor humanity, or a merited smile at our own dulness and mistaken sense of the ridiculous. ”

“ But you may ask why the tanner does not put the skins at once into a strong liquor? The reason is, that the exterior surface of the skin would soon become tanned, and the central part would remain untanned, which, in a short time, would begin to rot and decay, and the leather so treated would soon fall to pieces. The tanner, therefore, judges of the perfection of the tanning by cutting through the leather ”

“ The architecture of the whole is cold and unfeeling, and even the columns supporting the porticoes are of a very rigid order—when we consider that the clubhouse is not an official establishment, but one intended for luxurious accommodation, and that it would have admitted of much more florid embellishment. ”

“ We are friends to the exposition of the weak sides of great men, inasmuch as it reads them a valuable lesson on their own infallibility, and tends to lower the molehills of conceit that are raised in the world as stumbling-blocks along every road of petty ambition. ”

“ It is most difficult to procure the genuine Otto of Roses, since even in the countries where it is made, the distillers are tempted to put sandal wood, scented grasses, and other oily plants into the still with the roses, which alter their perfume, and debase the value of the Atar; colour is no test of genuineness ”

“ We trust we shall not give offence to such of our readers as wear the Celtic appearance, if we assume, as undisputed, the general superiority of the Teutonic to the Celtic or Slavonic races in mental acquirements. We believe that the German race are pre-eminent for their sense of order, of law, and of social institutions ”

“ We cannot even contend that the sun has the effect of inflaming the imaginations of men, and infusing into them either vivacity or a poetic spirit. The French, Greeks, Egyptians, and Persians are all remarkable for gaiety; while the Spaniards, Turks, and Chinese, the latitudes of whose countries vary but little, are noted for a grave and serious deportment. ”

“ I need scarcely expatiate upon the delicate and long-continuing fragrance which this luxuriant perfume imparts to all things with which it comes in contact; it is peculiarly calculated for the drawer, writing-desk, &c. since its aroma is totally unmingled with that most disagreeable effluvium, which is ever proceeding from alcohol. ”

“ Whoever hits the tail is entitled to another prize not inferior to the last; but he who wounds the body of the bird is complimented with the principal one which weighs at least 65 ounces of silver, and is honoured with the title of the "BIRD KING." These prizes are surmounted with the royal cipher and crown. His Danish majesty opens this ceremony in person, and is entitled to the first shot, and the queen to the second, then they are followed by the other branches of the royal family in succession. The firing continues until the bird falls. ”

“ The complexion and appearance of the Jews, and other emigratory races, is the same in all parts of the world. And a stronger proof cannot be given, than the marked distinction which still exists among the three great families that divide Europe. ”

“ This formidable and terrific creature, when full-grown, measures about 17 feet long from the extremity of the snout to the insertion of the tail, above 16 feet in circumference round the body, and stands above 7 feet high. It runs with astonishing swiftness for its great bulk, at the bottom of lakes and rivers, but not with as much ease on land. When excited, it puts forth its full strength, which is prodigious. ”

“ The tanner steeps the skin at first in a weak infusion of bark, until it has acquired a nutmeg brown colour, and then he gradually increases the strength of the steeping liquors, and after a time he draws the skin out, and finds that it is converted into leather. A thick piece of hide requires ten, twelve, or fourteen months, to be converted into good leather ”

“ If we reason on Bishop Berkeley's theory—that all the mansions, equipages, &c. we see abroad, are intended for our gratification—we must soon forget the turtle, venison, and claret that are stored in the larders and cellars of club-houses, whilst our admiration is awakened at the taste which is lavished on their exteriors. ”

“ Zimmerman, a very grave man, used to draw conclusions as to a man's temperament, from his nose!—not from the size or form of it, but the peculiar sensibility of the organ; while some have thought, that the temperature of the atmosphere might be accurately ascertained by the state of its tip! ”

“ A simple and unsophisticated shrub, in little more than half a century, has become an article of such general consumption, that it seems to form one of the prime articles of existence among the great bulk of mankind. ”

“ The east of Europe contains the Sarmatian and Slavonic tribes, with dark hair and eyes, darker skin than the Germans, and larger limbs than the Celts. This race includes the Russians, Poles, Croats, Slavons, Bohemians, Bulgarians, Cossacks, and other tribes using the Slavonic language. ”

“ Are we to conclude that the races of men are essentially different, or that the variations are attributable to the various degrees of moral cultivation that each nation has received? And our answer is, that we are inclined to believe the capacities for improvement of races, as of individuals, to have been differently bestowed by nature; but that none are actually incapable of culture. There is no land, however sterile, that the art of man may not make to produce fruit ”

“ Persia, Turkey, and Egypt, are the principal countries in which it is manufactured, and the Atar of Persia is generally allowed to be the most superior, and the most difficult to be obtained genuine. The rose of Cashmire is proverbial throughout the east for its brilliancy and fragrance; and "the Roses of the Jinan Nile, or Garden of the Nile, (attached to the Emperor of Morocco's palace) are unequalled; mattresses are made of their leaves for the men of rank to recline upon." ”

“ Virginia Water was planted, and the lake executed, under the direction of Paul Sandby, at a time when this part of Windsor Forest was the favourite residence of Duke William of Cumberland. The artificial water is the largest in the kingdom, with the single exception of Blenheim; the cascade is, perhaps, the most striking imitation we have of the great works of nature ”

“ The proprietor returned it to the water unhurt, for he would by no means suffer it to be killed, but caused food from time to time to be thrown into the stream. This food chiefly consisted of meal and flour, made into small balls, which allured the trout to remain near the mill-head. When the particulars concerning this remarkable fish were circulated, many persons came from different parts of Kent, and even from London, to obtain a sight of it.
Numerous individuals now living at Farningham can attest the truth of this account; and, probably, the painting may still be seen at that place. ”

“ We cannot pronounce that it is the sun which makes the African black, when we see the same heat pouring down on the copper-coloured American, in the same degree of latitude, though in another longitude. The inhabitants of Terra del Fuego are of a very dark hue, approaching to black; and yet that island experiences as severe cold as any part of the earth, as Sir Joseph Banks and Dr. ”

“ We fear that the soil of the Negroes3, of the American Indians, and of the Esquimaux, must be laboured at early and late, before it brings forth even an average crop. But we do not despair even here. Still less could we for a moment depreciate the labours of those who are carrying education to the utmost bounds of the earth. ”

“ The opposite shore was rich with the heather-bloom; and plantations of the most graceful trees—the larch, the ash, and the weeping birch ("the lady of the woods") , broke the line of the wide lake, and carried the imagination on, in the belief that some mighty river lay beyond that screening wood. The cascade was at length reached. Cascades are much upon the same plan, whether natural or artificial; the scale alone makes the difference. This cascade is sufficiently large not to look like a plaything ”