Various

“ Coffee occupies a grand place in the life and pursuits of the gastronomer. Oft-times on leaving table his head aches and becomes heavy; he rises with pain; the savoury smells of viands, the flame of wax-lights, and the imperceptible gases which escape from innumerable wines and liqueurs, have produced around him a kind of mist or shade, equal to what the poet calls darkness visible. ”

“ The injustice of men has made England odious to me; it has separated us for ever; after the death of man, however, if it be true that the soul survives, I should be delighted to inhabit it, as a pure spirit. ”

“ The spheres which we behold may each have their variety of intelligent ‘being,’ as links in nature’s beautiful chain, connecting the smallest insect with the incomprehensible and immutable God. The beautiful variety we see in his works portrays His will, and we are justified in following this variety up to His throne. ”

“ The four outside lines being laid down with perfect truth, it must be a bungling fellow indeed that cannot do the rest; but if they be only a little askew, you have a botch in your eye for the rest of your life, and a botch of your own making too. Gardeners seldom want for confidence in their own abilities; but this affair of raising perpendiculars upon a given line is a thing settled in a moment: you have nothing to do but to say to the gardener, “Come, let us see how you do it.” He has but one way in which he can do it ”

“ There is a class of travelling oddities—the dandy voyageurs of Britain, who, teeming with the proud consciousness of their excellence in comparison with the rest of human kind, swoln with self-sufficiency, float like empty bubbles on the water’s surface, and who seem as if they would break and be dissolved by contact with a vulgar touch. ”

“ All have different capacities for enjoyment, all have pleasure and delight, from the lark warbling above her nest, to man walking in the resplendent gardens of heaven, and enjoying, under the smiling approbation of Providence, the flowers and fruits that surround him. ”

“ It is thus that you call your son! Minister of that God who reads the hearts of men, learn, my reverend father, that it is beyond your power to discover an Atheist, even if his own mouth made you the hypocritical confession. ”

“ If Lord Byron ever uttered such words as are here attributed to him—”I am still an Atheist“—it must have been in a fit of the most malignant obstinacy that ever distorted and disgraced the human mind—or perhaps in that spirit of malicious banter with which he was accustomed to torment his best and nearest friends. That such was his genuine sentiment, we can never bring ourselves to believe; and whatever standing is possessed by us in the world, should willingly be staked upon this point. As a romance of the pen, and not as a pure narrative of facts, we trust the following will be received ”

“ It is only when a dip at the Fishmonger’s has been rather too often tried, or Stultz’s billets-doux have been repeated with increasing ardour on the part of the Tailor-lover until he delegates the maintenance of his baronial purse to some dandy-detesting attorney, that they feel it expedient to brave the dangers of sea and land, and, unscrewing their brass spurs, folding up their mustachios in a port-feuille, they hasten them from life and love, and London, and set them down at Meurice’s, the creatures of another element ”

“ In the work of laying-out, great care ought to be taken with regard to straightness and distances, and particularly as to the squareness of every part. To make lines perpendicular, and perfectly so, is, indeed, no difficult matter when one knows how to do it; but one must know how to do it, before one can do it at all. If the gardener understand this much of geometry, he will do it without any difficulty; but if he only pretend to understand the matter, and begin to walk backward and forward, stretching out lines and cocking his eye, make no bones with him ”

“ Imagination cannot picture any thing more solemn, or sublime, than this scene. During the silence that succeeds, the shepherds bend their knees, and pray in the open air, and then retire to their huts to rest. ”

“ In the year 1437, an obscure man, Nicola di Rienzi, conceived the project of restoring Rome, then in degradation and wretchedness, not only to good order, but even to her ancient greatness. He had received an education beyond his birth, and nourished his mind with the study of the best writers. After many harangues to the people, which the nobility, blinded by their self-confidence, did not attempt to repress, Rienzi suddenly excited an insurrection, and obtained complete success. He was placed at the head of a new government, with the title of Tribune, and with almost unlimited power. ”

“ The De Veres, Earls of Oxford, whose names are blazoned in our history, held the manor from the reign of Henry I. till that of Elizabeth, and one of the noble family obtained a charter from Edward III. authorizing his tenants at this place to pass toll-free throughout all England, which grant was confirmed by Elizabeth. But the manufacturing celebrity of Lavenham has dwindled to spinning woollen yarn, and making calimancoes and hempen cloth; the opulent clothiers have shuffled off their mortal coil, and proved that “the web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.” ”

“ The difficulty of respiration, called in some places la puna, and in others el siroche, experienced in those parts of the Andes which most abound in metals, was so great at times, that, whilst on the march, whole battalions would sink down, as if by magic, and it would have been inflicting death to have attempted to oblige them to proceed until they had rested and recovered themselves. In many cases life was solely preserved by opening the temporal artery. ”

“ People deceive themselves. The thing is called wine, but it is rum; that is to say, an extract from sugar.
Birds.
The wild pigeons in America live, for about a month, entirely upon the buds of the sugar-maple, and are killed by hundreds of thousands, by persons who erect bough-houses, and remain in a maple wood with guns and powder and shot for that purpose. ”

“ During certain months of the year, tremendous hail-storms occur. They have fallen with such violence that the army has been obliged to halt, and the men being compelled to hold up their knapsacks to protect their faces, have had their hands so severely bruised and cut by large hail-stones as to bleed copiously. ”

“ This method of getting strong cider would not do in a country like this, where the frosts are never sufficiently severe.
Keeping Apples.
When there is frost, all that you have to do, is to keep the apples in a state of total darkness until some days after a complete thaw has come. In America they are frequently frozen as hard as stones; if they thaw in the light, they rot; but if they thaw in darkness, they not only do not rot, but lose very little of their original flavour. This may be new to the English reader; but he may depend upon it that the statement is correct.
To Keep Chestnuts. ”

“ Is it the fault of the Creator if men are misled by false doctrines? God never predestined their perfect knowledge. Think you that peace of mind, and health of body can be the lot of him, whose life is perpetually in contradiction to that of other men? His reason is perverted who doubts the infinite power of God, and the man inscribed on the list of Atheists must be necessarily unhappy.”—“Atheist! Atheist! ”

“ The temporary loss of sight is occasioned by the impossibility of opening the eye-lids for a single moment, the smallest ray of light being absolutely insupportable. The only relief is a poultice of snow, but as that melts away the tortures return. With the exception of twenty men and the guides, who knew how to guard against the calamity, the whole division were struck blind three leagues distant from the nearest human habitation. The guides galloped on to a village in advance, and brought out a hundred Indians to assist in leading the men. ”

“ Thunder-storms are also particularly severe in the elevated regions. The electric fluid is seen to fall around, in a manner unknown in other parts of the world, and frequently causes loss of life. Such storms have often burst at some distance below their feet, as the army climbed the lofty ridges of the Andes. ”

“ If you can, drink your coffee without sugar, for then it preserves its natural flavour, and is much more efficacious than when mixed with other ingredients. Laugh at the doctors who tell you that hot coffee irritates the stomach and injures the nerves; tell them that Voltaire, Fontenelle, Stacey, and Fourcroy, who were great coffee-drinkers, lived to a good old age. ”

“ Constitute a sort of nobility of the Jews, and it is the first object of each parent that his sons shall, if possible, attain it. When, therefore, a boy displays a peculiarly acute mind and studious habits, he is placed before the twelve folio volumes of the Talmud, and its legion of commentaries and epitomes, which he is made to pore over with an intenseness which engrosses his faculties entirely, and often leaves him in mind, and occasionally in body, fit for nothing else ”

“ We live in too advanced a state of refinement to appreciate the ecstasy which his labours in the great and glorious cause must have inspired among the native population of the scene of these exploits; but as a fellow-countryman, we have reason to be proud of his name, and of the high rank it will hereafter occupy in the records of human character. ”

“ If age be a recommendation in rules as well as in melon-seed, this rule has it; for English authors published it, and French authors laughed at it, more than a century past!
Those who can afford to have melons raised in their gardens, can afford to keep a conjuror to raise them; and a conjuror will hardly condescend to follow common sense in his practice. ”

“ Sometimes men, at the head of a battalion, would continue to follow the windings of a deafening torrent, instead of turning abruptly to the right or left, up some rocky acclivity, over which lay their proper course; whilst others who chanced to be right, would pursue the proper track. The line was so drawn out, that there were unavoidably many intervals, and it was easy for such mistakes to occur, although trumpeters were placed at regular distances expressly to prevent separation. ”

“ No man without the support and encouragement of friends, and having proper opportunities thrown in his way, is able to rise at once from obscurity, by the force of his own unassisted genius.—Pliny’s Letters. ”

“ After horse-radish has borne seed once or twice, its root becomes hard, brown on the outside, not juicy when it is scraped, and eats more like little chips than like a garden vegetable; so that, at taverns and eating-houses, there frequently seems to be a rivalship on the point of toughness between the horse-radish and the beef-steak ”

“ Of course, it is easy enough for any enthusiast to put such words as the following into the mouth of a man who has been reviled and attacked by thousands; but we hope, for the credit of the reading world, that such stories as the following, seldom find implicit credence. ”

“ He served with the British army in Spain and America, from 1811 till the peace of 1815. In 1816 and 1817, he devoted some attention to mercantile affairs; but being of an ardent spirit he finally resolved to engage as a candidate for military honour in the struggle in South America. Colombia was overrun with adventurers; and Miller directed his course to the river La Plata. He left England in August, 1817, when he was under twenty-two years of age, and landed at Buenos Ayres in the September following. In a month after, he received a captain’s commission in the army of the Andes. ”

“ From concurrent antiquarian authorities we learn that the church was built by the De Veres, in conjunction with the Springs, wealthy clothiers at Lavenham. This is attested by the different quarterings of their respective arms on the building. The porch is an elegant piece of architecture, very highly enriched with the shields, garters, &c. of many of the most noble families in the kingdom, among which are the letters I.O., probably intended for the initials of John, the 14th Earl of Oxford, who married the daughter of Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk. ”

“ The barber-surgeons had a by-law, by which they levied ten pounds on any person who should dissect a body out of their hall without leave. The separation did away this and other impediments to the improvement of surgery in England, which previously had been chiefly cultivated in France. The barber-surgeon in those days was known by his pole, the reason of which is sought for by a querist in “The British Apollo,” fol. ”

“ If we open the craw of one of these little birds, we find in it green stuff of various descriptions, and, generally, more or less of grass, and, therefore, it is a little too much to believe, that, in taking away our buds, they merely relieve us from the insects that would, in time, eat us up. Birds are exceedingly cunning in their generation; but, luckily for us gardeners, they do not know how to distinguish between the report of a gun loaded with powder and shot, and one that is only loaded with powder. ”

“ The cavalry also passed without any accident by going a few at a time, and each man leading his horse. When the artillery came up, doubts were entertained of the possibility of getting it over. The general had placed himself on an eminence, to see his army file to the opposite side of the river. A consultation was held upon the practicability of passing the guns. Captain Miller volunteered to conduct the first gun. The limber was taken off, and drag ropes were fastened to the washers, to prevent the gun from descending too rapidly. ”

“ The brochure, for such it is, is wound up with “the natural history of coffee,” and an appendix of “English receipts,” &c.
PERILS OF THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE IN SOUTH AMERICA.
A work of extraordinary and soul-stirring [pg 236] interest has lately appeared on the Revolutions of South America. It is entitled “Memoirs of General Miller, in the Service of the Republic of Peru,” and is compiled from private letters, journals, and recollections, by the brother of the general. ”