Various

“ Each division is so abundantly attractive to the observer of Nature in field or folio, that we scarcely know how to decide on an extract; and the reader will readily admit this dilemma, if he but recollects the early enthusiasm, wonder, and delight, with which he must have regarded a Bird’s Nest, unless he has been pent up all his life in the brick and mortar and chimney groves of a metropolis. Even then, the ingenuity of rooks may have occurred to him as not a whit less wonderful than the proud glories of art with which he has been environed. ”

“ The terrace and slopes of the Castle have been thrown open to the public, the park grounds are no longer kept clear of visiters, and access to the Castle itself may be much more freely enjoyed than during the late reign. The King and the Queen may be seen daily in the real luxury of conjugal and domestic comfort. Plainness of purpose, and affectionate amiability of manners, have done much towards their popularity; and the love of a good and wise people cannot be better secured than by such fostering consideration from their rulers ”

“ They, however, who remember no other generation of actors than the present, will not be persuaded that there has ever been one more perfect. Be this as it may, all are agreed that the drama itself has woefully degenerated, though it is the only species of literary labour which is well paid; they are agreed also as to the cause of this degeneracy, attributing it to the prodigious size of the theatres; the finer tones of passion cannot be discriminated, nor the finer movements of the countenance perceived from the front, hardly from the middle of the house. ”

“ If he is tall, you may discover that his person is ungraceful, and that he wants the dapper-size of Garrick. If short, he is much under the proper size, and can never play the character of a hero, which is always fixed at five feet ten inches. If his features are small, you can find out that they want expression; if large, his face is vulgar, and his nose too much beyond the dramatic size. If his face be unexceptionable, you may with some pains discover a something in his eye. If his eyes are piercing and intelligent, perhaps his features are stiff and unmanageable. ”

“ Once allow him to turn seventy, he has then escaped the fatal three-score-and-ten, and would consider himself an ill-used person should he receive notice of ejectment a day short of ninety. Ninety comes, and he grows insolent. Death, he thinks, has passed on and overlooked him. He asks why Nature so long has delayed to claim her debt. She has suffered thrice seven years to elapse beyond the period usually assigned for payment, and he indulges in wild fancies of a Statute of Limitations. In his most rational moments he talks of nothing but Old Parr. ”

“ But although the savage, in the course of ages, may attain as much civilization as would lead him to the construction of a new Parthenon, the wood-pigeon will continue only to make a platform of sticks to the end of time. It is evident, from a contemplation of all nature, that the faculties of quadrupeds, birds, insects, and all the inferior animals, are stationary: those of man only are progressive. ”

“ The several species of herons may not improperly be ranked among the platform builders; for though they construct a shallow depression in the centre of the nest, which is by all the species, if we mistake not, lined with some sort of soft material, such as dry grass, rushes, feathers, or wool, the body of the nest is quite flat, and formed much in the manner of an eagle’s eyry, of sticks crossing one another, and supported upon the branches or between the forks of high trees. All the species also are social, nestling in large communities, after the manner of rooks ”

“ The Inner Court, or Quadrangle, is a connected building of three sides, the fourth being formed by the Round Tower, or Keep.
The improvements of the interior of the Quadrangle having been already detailed by us,1 we pass on to observe, that the low French windows of St. George’s Hall, which faces the side in our Engraving, have been replaced by long pointed arch windows, of elegant proportions. Nothing can exceed the splendour of the look-out from these windows through the arched entrance to the “lengthened vista,” or Long Walk, as shown in the Engraving. ”

“ It is this distinction which enables him, agreeably to the will of his Creator, to ‘have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.’—But within their limited range the inferior animals perform their proper labours with an unwearied industry, and an unerring precision, which call forth our wonder and admiration. ”

“ N.—Parr was a mischievous old fellow: he has left a pernicious example of longevity behind him. At sixty-nine a man will look with complacency to the approaching termination of his career, as an event to be expected in the ordinary course of Nature. ”

“ Poland is in general a very level country, (if we except the Carpathian mountains,) fertile in corn, having long furnished Sweden and Holland; its horses are some of the finest in Europe, and its salt-works are very productive; the towns collectively are built of wood ”

“ Not to know a hawk from a heronshaw (the former name for a heron) was an old adage, which arose when the diversion of heron-hawking was in high fashion. It has since been corrupted into the absurd vulgar proverb, “not to know a hawk from a handsaw!”9 The flesh of the heron is now looked upon as of little value, and rarely if ever brought to market, though formerly a heron was estimated at thrice the value of a goose, and six times the price of a partridge.10
The heronries recorded to be existing at present in this country are in Windsor Great Park, on the borders of Bagshot Heath ”

“ We have only to remark that the picture appears to us exceedingly well drawn, and equally coloured. Objection has been made to the large size of the epaulettes, and the colouring of the sea. To the first opinion we may subscribe, but doubt whether the objection ought to extend to the latter, especially if we remember the great height of the cliff on which Napoleon stands, and the [pg 279] usual sombre appearance of the ocean towards the last minute of sunset. The lower part of the figure, particularly the left leg, half advanced, is admirably drawn. ”

“ The ancients, indeed, to secure what might be humanely termed a perpetuity to their laws and edicts, had them graven on brass. But what is the perpetuity even of brass itself, when opposed to the irresistible advance of Time? ”

“ A work of great interest might be compiled upon the origin of popular fiction, and the transmission of similar tales from age to age, and from country to country. The mythology of one period would then appear to pass into the romance of the next century—and that, into the nursery tale of subsequent ages. ”

“ His features are remarkably masculine, regular and well formed. His skin is coarse, unwrinkled and weather-beaten, his eyes possess a natural and unaffected fierceness, the most extraordinary I ever beheld: they are full, bright, and of a brassy colour. ”

“ Old people say the acting was better in their younger days, because there were more schools for actors; and the theatres being smaller, the natural voice could be heard, and the natural expression of the features seen, and therefore rant and distortion were unnecessary. ”

“ The best description I ever saw of Napoleon’s appearance was in the letter of an Irish gentleman, named North, published in the Dublin Evening Post, and as it is so very characteristic, it may amuse the visiter. He saw him at Elba in 1814, and thus paints him:—
“He but little resembles the notion I had of him, or any other man I ever saw. He is the squarest figure I think I ever remember to have seen, and exceedingly corpulent. His face is a perfect square, from the effects of fat, and, as he has no whiskers, his jaw is thrown more into relief ”

“ A gentleman hastily alighted, entered her humble abode, and, stating that his lady required her assistance, scarcely allowed the good woman time to wrap a few garments around her, ere he hurried her into the carriage, which drove off with both of them, as if coachman and horses were mad. ”

“ Such an investigation, while it went greatly to diminish our ideas of the richness of human invention, would also show that these fictions, however wild and childish, possess such charms for the populace, as enable them to penetrate into countries unconnected by manners and language, and having no apparent intercourse to afford the means of transmission. ”

“ Authors, therefore, substitute what is here called broad farce for genuine comedy; their jests are made intelligible by grimace, or by that sort of mechanical wit which can be seen; comedy is made up of trick, and tragedy of processions, pageants, battles, and explosions. ”

“ The king was elected by the whole body of the nobility and gentry in the plains of Warsaw, and before this choice they obliged him to sign whatever conditions they thought proper. The Polish armies were not paid by the king; every nobleman or gentleman gave his attendance in time of war, at the head of his vassals, and retired from the fatigues of the campaign when it suited his own inclination. In the year 1779, a singularly bold partition of this country was effected by Russia, Prussia, and Austria ”

“ Of these remarkable qualities we have given abundant examples in the preceding pages; and they are not without moral instruction. Elevated as our minds are in the comparative scale of nature, we may still take example from the diligence, the perseverance, and the cheerfulness, which preside over the Architecture of Birds. ”

“ There is nothing in our history more uncertain than their nature and the extent of their power. Blackstone says, that “the original or first institution of parliaments is one of those matters which lie so far hidden in the dark ages of antiquity, that the tracing of it out is a thing equally difficult and uncertain ”

“ Addison says, that a dog has been the companion of man for nearly 6,000 years, and has learned of him only one of his vices; that is to worry his species when he finds them in distress. Tie a tin canister to a dog’s tail, and another will fall upon him; put a man in prison for debt, and another will lodge a detainer against him. ”

“ Indeed, the wide diffusion of popular fictions may be compared to the facility with which straws and feathers are dispersed abroad by the wind, while valuable metals cannot be transported without trouble and labour. ”

“ Yet how delightful is it to reflect that such effects are within the span of a few square yards of canvass, and how ennobling is the recollection that genius, (ill-fostered as it has been in the case of the painter before us) enables one man to produce such sublime and agreeable impressions on his fellows. ”

“ If he is a scholar and a critic, and repeats a line as you never heard it repeated before, he must be a word-catcher. If his manner is graceful, he has studied dancing too much; but if his manner is not graceful, be sure to tell him he must go to the dancing-school. If you can discover no fault, you must prove how much better Garrick, Powel, Holland, or Barry, performed the character ”

“ But that the rule by which birds conduct their architectural labours is exceedingly limited must be evident, from the consideration that no species whatever is in a state of progression from a rude to a polished style of construction. ”

“ That part of Poland which is subject to Austria, bears the designation of the kingdom of Galicia and Lodomiria. Its population amounts to 4,370,000 souls. The present kingdom of Poland is hereditary in the person of the Russian autocrat and his successors, and comprises a superfices of 6,340 square leagues, having a population of 3,850,000 souls. It is divided into eight waiwodeships, namely, Warsaw, Landomir, Kalish, Lublin, Plotzk, Mascovia, Podolachia, and Augustowo. ”

“ Pierre’s tale, are doomed to vanish when the truth is ascertained! The fact is, that these tombs have been built to gratify the eager desire which the English have always evinced to behold such interesting mementos. Formerly only one was erected; but the proprietor of the place, finding that all the English visiters, on being conducted to this, as the tomb of Virginia, always asked to see that of Paul also, determined on building a similar one, to which he gave that appellation. ”

“ Of this story we have reason to believe that there are various readings, besides those of the Scotch and Welsh, and that it may be met with in England and Ireland, with slight variations and interpolations, if in no other countries.
Have our readers ever heard any fearful story of a spirit attesting the reality of its apparition, by leaving a burnt impress of fingers upon whatever it hath touched? ”

“ The birds are classed according to their peculiar labours: thus, there are Mining Birds, Ground Builders, Mason and Carpenter Birds, Platform Builders, Basket-making Birds, Weaver Birds, Tailor Birds, Felt-making Birds, Cementers, Dome-builders, and Parasite Birds. ”