Various

“ Who dare to love their COUNTRY, and be poor.
—The Grotto, has, however, crumbled to the dilapidations of time, and the pious thefts of visiters; but, proud are we to reflect that the poetry of the great genius who dictated its erection—LIVES; and his fame is untarnished by the canting reproach of the critics of our time. True it is that the best, or ripest fruit, is always most pecked at. ”

“ I am sure, when I recollect, at leisure, everything I have seen and heard among them, I cannot make out what they do that is so virtuous, as to set them up for judges of morals. And I am sure they never speak the truth about any thing, and there is no sincerity in either their love or their friendship. An old Welsh bard here, who wears a waistcoat embroidered with leeks, and is called the Green Bard of Cadair Idris, says the Scotch would be the best people in the world, if there was nobody but themselves to give them a character: and so I think would the Londoners. ”

“ Our ancestors paid their compliments to sex or rank—ours are addressed to the person. There is no flattery where there is no falsehood—no falsehood where there is no deception. Loyalty of old was a passion, and passion has a truth of its own—and as language does not always furnish expressions exactly adapted, or native to the feeling, what can the loyal poet do, but take the most precious portion of the currency, and impress it with the mint-mark of his own devoted fancy? ”

“ Nothing denotes the advances of life, at once so surely and so pleasantly as children springing up around a good man’s table. Perhaps our famous Queen, in her latter days, though full of honours as of years, would gladly have changed places with the wife of any yeoman that had a child to receive her last blessing, whose few acres were not to pass away to the hungry expecting son of a hated rival. ”

“ My guardian was a man of the world; he said nothing to me on the subject, but he begged me to accompany him on a short tour through a neighbouring county. I took leave of Lucy only for a few days as I imagined. I accompanied my guardian—was a week absent—returned—and hastened to the cottage; it was shut up—an old woman opened the door—they were gone, father and daughter, none knew whither!
“It was now that my guardian disclosed his share in this event, so terribly unexpected by me. He unfolded the arts of D——; he held up his character in its true light. ”

“ It is an odd thing in the history of the human heart, that the times most sad to experience are often the most grateful to recall; and of all the passages in our brief and checkered love, none have I clung to so fondly or cherished so tenderly, as the remembrance of that desolate and tearful hour. ”

“ It may be, that they shrink from the reflection of their wrinkles, not as from the despoilers of beauty, but as from the vaunt-couriers of dissolution. In rosy youth, while yet the brow is alabaster-veined with Heaven’s own tint, and the dark tresses turn golden in the sun, the lapse of time is imperceptible as the throbbing of a heart at ease. ”

“ It is easy for a Whig, or a Puritan, or any other unimaginative blockhead, to cry out against all this as nauseous flattery, and assert that after all she was rather an unpoetical personage than otherwise—a coarse-minded old maid, half prude, half coquette, whose better part was mannish, and all that belonged to her sex a ludicrous exaggeration of its weaknesses. But meanwhile, they overlook the fact, that not the woman Elizabeth, but the Virgin-queen, the royal heroine, is the theme of admiration. ”

“ Potter, in his “Antiquities of Greece,” says—“Salt was commonly set before strangers, before they tasted the victuals provided for them; whereby was intimated, that as salt does consist of aqueous and terrene particles, mixed and united together, or as it is a concrete of several aqueous parts, so the stranger and the person by whom he was entertained should, from the time of their tasting salt together, maintain a constant union of love and friendship.” ”

“ None but the blessed few that, having dedicated their spring of life to Heaven, behold in the shedding of their vernal blossoms, a promise that the season of immortal fruit is near. It is a frailty, almost an instance of humanity, to aim at concealing that from others, of which ourselves are painfully conscious. ”

“ The fairies who dropped gold in your shoe, on the morning when I ceased to be a respectable man in London, will soon find a talismanic channel for transmitting you a stocking full of dollars, which will fit the shoe, as well as the foot of Cinderella fitted her slipper. I am happy to say, I am again become a respectable man. It was always my ambition to be a respectable man, and I am a very respectable man here, in this new township of a new state, where I have purchased five thousand acres of land, at two dollars an acre, hard cash, and established a very flourishing bank. ”

“ Whoever saw their first grey hairs, or marked the crow-feet at the angle of their eyes, without a sigh or a tear, a momentous self-abasement, a sudden sinking of the soul, a thought that youth is flown for ever? ”

“ The gem of the estate is, however, the above Grotto, which is situate at the end of a canal running through the grounds. Upon this labour of leisure much expense and good taste have been bestowed. It consists of four rooms, but one only, for the refreshing pastime of tea drinking, appears to be completed. It is almost entirely covered with a white spar, intermixed with curious and unique specimens of polished pebbles and petrifactions. The ceiling is ornamented with pendants of the same material; and the whole, when under the influence of a strong sun, has an almost magical effect. ”

“ The notes of Touchandgo and Company, soft cash, are now the exclusive currency of all this vicinity. This is the land, in which all men flourish; but there are three classes of men who flourish especially, methodist preachers, slave-drivers, and paper-money manufacturers; and as one of the latter, I have just painted the word BANK, on a fine slab of maple, which was green and growing when I arrived, and have discounted for the settlers, in my own currency, sundry bills, which are to be paid when the proceeds of the crop they have just sown shall return from New Orleans ”

“ Forgive me, then, if I implore you to think earnestly and deeply of the great ends of life; think of them as one might think who is anxious to gain a distant home, and who will not be diverted from his way. ”

“ Others tell us, that salt being apt to preserve flesh from corruption, signified, that the friendship which was then begun should be firm and lasting; and some, to mention no more different opinions concerning this matter, think, that a regard was had to the purifying quality of salt, which was commonly used in lustrations, and that it intimated that friendship ought to be free from all design and artifice, jealousy and suspicion. ”

“ Not the petty virtues, the pretty sensibilities, the cheap charity, the prim decorum, which modern flatterers dwell upon, degrading royalty, while they palaver its possessor, but Britannia’s sacred majesty, enshrined in chaste and lofty womanhood. ”

“ Love usually accompanies poetry, and, in my case, there was no exception to the rule.
“There was a slender, but pleasant brook, about two miles from our house, to which one or two of us were accustomed, in the summer days, to repair to bathe and saunter away our leisure hours. To this favourite spot I one day went alone, and crossing a field which led to the brook, I encountered two ladies, with one of whom, having met her at some house in the neighbourhood, I had a slight acquaintance. ”

“ We request the reader to enjoy with us the delightful repose—the cool and calm retreat—of the Engraving. Be he never so indifferent a lover of Nature, he must admire its picturesque beauty; or be he never so enthusiastic, he must regard with pleasure the ingenuity of the artist. To an amateur, the pursuit of decorating grounds is one of the most interesting and intellectual amusements of retirement. We have worshipped from dewy morn till dusky eve in rustic temples and “cool grots,” and have sometimes aided in their construction. ”

“ A musician of the name of Goodall, who belonged to the orchestra of the Theatre Royal, Richmond, in 1767, was fonder of his, or any other man’s, bottle than his own bassoon. The natural consequence was, that he frequently failed in his attendances at the theatre. Upon one occasion, after an absence of a week, he returned in the middle of the performances for the evening. A piece was being acted called the “Intriguing Chambermaid,” in which there is a character of an old gentleman called Mr. Goodall, who comes on as from a journey, followed by a servant carrying his portmanteau. ”

“ It is a much easier thing to assure a homely female, in prose or rhyme, that she is beautiful, than to represent her so upon canvass. Her effigies are, I believe, pretty numerous, varying in ugliness, but none that I have seen even handsome—prettiness, of course, is out of the question. ”

“ However, our second experiment was more fortunate; and we are pretty well lodged in a house of three rooms on a floor—I should say the floor, for there is but one.
This new state is free to hold slaves; all the new states have not this privilege. Mr. Touchandgo has bought some, and they are building him a villa. Mr. Touchandgo is in a thriving way, but he is not happy here: he longs for parties and concerts, and a seat in Congress. He thinks it very hard that he cannot buy one with his own coinage, as he used to do in England. ”

“ Besides, he is afraid of the Regulators, who, if they do not like a man’s character, wait upon him and flog him, doubling the dose at stated intervals, till he takes himself off. He does not like this system of administering justice: though I think he has nothing to fear from it. He has the character of having money, which is the best of all characters here, as at home. He lets his old English prejudices influence his opinions of his new neighbours; but I assure you they have many virtues. Though they do keep slaves, they are all ready to fight for their own liberty ”

“ It may be, the ground of this custom was only this, that salt was constantly used at all entertainments, both of the gods and men, whence a particular sanctity was believed to be lodged in it: it is hence called divine salt by Homer, and holy salt by others; and by placing of salt on the table, a sort of blessing was thought to be conveyed to them. To have eaten at the same table was esteemed an inviolable obligation to friendship ”

“ So entirely is man a social animal, so dependent are all his feelings for their very existence upon communication and sympathy, that the “fee griefs,” which none but ourselves are privy to, are forgotten as soon as they are removed from the senses. ”

“ None came from Lucy. Afterwards, I learned that D——, whom my guardian had wisely bought, as well as intimidated, had intercepted three letters which she had addressed to me, in her unsuspecting confidence—and that she only ceased to write when she ceased to believe in me.
“I went to reside with my guardian. A man of a hospitable and liberal turn, his house was always full of guests, who were culled from the most agreeable circles in London. We lived in a perpetual round of amusement ”

“ The artifices to which so many have recourse to conceal their declining years, are often intended more to soothe themselves, than to impose on others. This aversion to growing old is specially natural and excusable in the celibate and the childless. The borrowed curls, the pencilled eyebrows,
“The steely-prison’d shape,
So oft made taper, by constraint of tape,”
the various cosmetic secrets, well-known to the middle ages, not only of the softer sex, are not unseemly in a spinster, so long as they succeed in making her look young. They are intolerable in a mother of any age. ”

“ Although this place be, as it were, forsaken of all, and true men seldom frequent the same, but upon deveyne occasions, yet it is visayed by thieves, who assemble not there to pray, but to waite for prayer; and many fall into their handes, clothed, that are glad when they are escaped naked. ”

“ The pith of that story has truth, and Lucy was at once the heroine and victim of the romance. Now, then, I turn to somewhat a different strain in my narrative.
“You, A——, who know so well the habits of a university life, need not be told how singularly monotonous and contemplative it may be made to a lonely man. ”

“ The next day, before noon, I was at the door of Lucy’s cottage—I was in the little chamber that faced the garden, alone with her father.
“A boy forms strange notions of a man who is considered a scoundrel. ”

“ God is good, and Russia strong!”
Englishman’s Magazine, No 1.
[pg 237]
QUEEN ELIZABETH. From a paper on the Fine Arts of old in England, in Blackwood’s Magazine.
The sex and character of Elizabeth herself was no weak ingredient in the poetic spirit of the time. Loyalty and gallantry blended in the adoration paid her; and the supremacy which she claimed and exercised over the church, invested her regality with a sacred unction that pertained not to feudal sovereigns. It is scarce too much to say, that the virgin-queen appropriated the Catholic honours of the Virgin Mary. ”

“ He was sensible how much peculiar circumstances had obliged him to leave his daughter unprotected; he was sensible, also, that from my birth and future fortunes, my affection did honour to the object of my choice. Nothing would have made him so happy, so proud, had I been older—had I been my own master. But I and he, alas! must be aware that my friends and guardians would never consent to my forming any engagement at so premature an age, and they and the world would impute the [pg 230] blame to him ”