Various

“ Will these super-delicate critics favour a plain man, by informing me which of the great singers I have heard for the last thirty years I should select as my canon of true Italian pronunciation—Catalani and Camporese, or Garcia the Spaniard and Begrez the Fleming? There is not more difference between the English, whether we look to phraseology or pronunciation, of a Londoner, a Gloucestershire man, or a Northumbrian, than there is between the Italian of a Tuscan, a Venetian and a Neapolitan. ”

“ I will venture to affirm that, on this side the Alps, there is no country in Europe whose natives have so little to learn, or to unlearn, in acquiring a good Italian pronunciation, as the English. We have neither the gutturals of the German and the Spaniard, nor the mute vowels and nasal n’s of the French to get rid of; there is scarcely a sound in the Italian language which we are not in the daily habit of uttering, and nearly our whole task would be confined to the learning that certain conventional alphabetical symbols, which represent one sound in English, represent another in Italian. ”

“ But I shall be told that few of our native artists can speak the Italian language, or sing Italian music, and more especially recitative. My answer is, let them once know that the mere circumstance of their being English born does not shut the stage-door of the King’s Theatre against them, all will look up to its boards as the goal of their ambition, and the study of Italian and recitative will form an important part of every singer’s education. Another common objection is, that we cannot acquire the purity of pronunciation required by the refined audience of the King’s Theatre. ”

“ Has Italy ever sent us a prima donna, considered as a singer only, like Billington? On the contrary, do we not, in gauging our progressive musical importations, subject them to immediate comparison with Billington and Braham? And who, except Catalani and Fodor, Siboni and Donzelli, would bear that comparison? The French, the Germans, cultivate assiduously native talent, and we import, now a Fodor, and now a Sontag; we English alone persist in the sapient policy of making the exclusion of the native artist from the highest point to which his ambition could be directed, the rule ”

“ Scarcely, however, had she proceeded a few steps, when she discovered that the castle was on fire. The marquess had, in his distraction, overturned the tapers, and the room was instantly in flames. Every effort was made to save the unhappy nobleman, but in vain: he perished in the utmost tortures, and his bones, as the traveller may be aware, still lie where they were collected by the neighbouring peasants—in the corner of the apartment from which he had expelled the beggar woman of Locarno.—Edinburgh Literary Journal and Gazette. ”

“ A most sublime conception is displayed in the design. The allegory is finely imagined; and had he not sacrificed the result of the whole to the prominence of his group, the grand and united effect of the statue and its pedestal striking at once upon the eye, would have been unequalled in the works of man. A mass of granite, of a size at present most immense, but formerly most astonishing, is the pedestal. A steep acclivity, like that of a rugged mountain, carries the eye to its summit, which looks down on the opposite side to a descent nearly perpendicular. ”

“ The barometer has been called a weather glass. Rules are attempted to be established, by which, from the height of the mercury, the coming state of the weather may be predicted, and we accordingly find the words “Rain,” “Fair,” “Changeable,” “Frost,” &c., engraved on the scale attached to common domestic barometers, as if, when the mercury stands at the height marked by these words, the weather is always subject to the vicissitudes expressed by them. ”

“ Meary has more than once put a stop to its encroachment;—the same skill, the same means, the same God to bless you, is left still. Do not, I beseech you, by that care you ought to have of yourself, by that tenderness I am sure you have of us, neglect your own and our safety too; do not, by a too pressing care for your children, endanger the only comfort they have left. ”

“ Families were broken up, and the survivors became helpless outcasts; for the people of each country raised only as much grain as was sufficient for their own use, and could not supply their neighbours. War often produced still greater miseries. In all these distresses, the spirit of Christianity constantly urged those who were influenced by this enduring spring of action, to exert themselves in affording relief;—to clothe the naked and feed the hungry,—to visit the sick—and bury the corpses of the departed. ”

“ The legendary lore of mountainous and mining countries, is, with little variation, the same; and whether America, Germany, Sweden, Scotland, Wales, or our own peculiar mining districts in England be the locale of such, still may be discovered, under different names indeed, and circumstances, the demons of the mines, the guardians of hidden treasures, the freakish dwarfs and fays, who delight in unexpectedly enriching the poor and virtuous, whilst they delude most miserably all idle and worthless treasure-seekers, &c. ”

“ Away, then, with the jargonal pretence that English singers cannot acquire a good and pure Italian pronunciation; make it worth their while, open the stage-doors of the King’s Theatre to the native artist, and you will soon find talent more than enough. ”

“ A fluctuating and unsettled state in the mercurial column indicates changeable weather.
The domestic barometer would become a much more useful instrument, if, instead of the words usually engraved on the plate, a short list of the best established rules, such as the above, accompanied it, which might be either engraved on the plate, or printed on a card. It would be right, however, to express the rules only with that degree of probability which observation of past phenomena has justified. There is no rule respecting these effects which will hold good with perfect certainty in every case. ”

“ And though they may occasionally have attempted to extend their privileges beyond their proper bounds, yet, in a monarchy, the existence of any one rank or order invested with franchises which the king must not assail, is in itself a strong and direct protection to the privileges of all other ranks of the community. Powerful as the nobles may have been, it is doubtful whether they could have maintained their ground, had they been deprived of the support which they derived from the Bishops and Abbots, who stood foremost in the ranks, amongst the peers of the monarchy. ”

“ So strictly did the temporal laws protect the observance of the seventh day, the right and privilege of the poor, that the master who compelled his slave to work on the Sunday, was deprived of the means of abusing his power,—the slave obtained his freedom.
A tenth part of the produce of the land was set apart for the maintenance of the clergy, and the support of the destitute. Charity, when resulting from the unaided impulses of humanity, has no permanence. Bestowed merely to relieve ourselves from the painful sight of misery, the virtue blesses neither the giver nor the receiver. ”

“ It is brimful of all the new facts that have shown themselves above ground in the course of the year. Every page is a volume, and many contain the results of whole years of ingenious labour and experiment. Every description of discovery, invention, experiment, receipt, observation, or memorandum of a remarkable occurrence in nature or art during the year, is here recorded, briefly, but clearly.—It, in fact, is the very essence or extract of the scientific pursuits of the whole world for one year. ”

“ The victorious animal is proudly rearing on the highest point of the rock, whilst his imperial master stretches forth his mighty arm, as the father and protector of his country. A serpent, in attempting to impede his course, is trampled on by the feet of the horse, and writhing in all the agonies of expiring nature. ”

“ Whatever change of weather suddenly follows a change in the barometer, may be expected to last but a short time. Thus, if fair weather follow immediately the rise of the mercury, there will be very little of it; and, in the same way if foul weather follow the fall of the mercury, it will last but a short time.
If fair weather continue for several days, during which the mercury continually falls, a long continuance of foul weather will probably ensue ”

“ Wood’s appearance and success at the opera as an auspicium melioris ævi, as the dawn of a coming day, when the staple commodity of our Italian opera shall be furnished by our own island, instead of being imported from a country which, I boldly assert, does not produce either superior voices, or better educated musicians than our own—nay, so well educated. Has Italy ever furnished us with such a tenor singer as Braham ”

“ The nights begin to be very short early in May, and from the middle of that month to the end of July, darkness is absolutely unknown—the sun scarcely quits the horizon, and his short absence is supplied by a bright twilight. Nothing can surpass the calm serenity of a fine summer night in the Shetland Isles. ”

“ It is not our intention to follow the biographers of Locke further than by quoting from the last published Life of the Philosopher1 a brief example of his filial affection:—
John Locke, says the biographer, was the eldest of two sons, and was educated with great care by his father, of whom he always spoke with the greatest respect and affection. In the early part of his life, his father exacted the utmost respect from his son, but gradually treated him with less and less reserve, and, when grown up, lived with him on terms of the most entire friendship ”

“ However, we have finished; for less than a folio could not do that justice to our subject in its various bearings which it requires;—nor, indeed, would less than an intimate acquaintance with all the tongues and traditions of all nations that are, or ever have been, upon the face of the earth—so intermingled are divine revelations, corrupt mythologies, wild and palpable fictions, fantastic imaginings, exaggerated allegories, poetical machinery, and the very insanity of human hopes, fears, and wishes, &c. &c., in the great and never to be analyzed body of popular superstition! ”

“ Factions arise on every side, and threaten the tranquillity of your native country. But, whatever happen, do you faithfully honour and obey your prince, and adhere to the crown. I charge you never to forsake the crown, though it should hang upon a bush. ”

“ As the weight of the human body does not always bear the same proportion to its bulk, the skill of the swimmer is not always to be estimated by his success; some of the constituent parts of the human body are heavier, while others are lighter, bulk for bulk, than water. ”

“ One end of the glass is attached to the axle of a wheel, which the clock-work keeps in a state of constant rotation, and the other end is concealed in a vessel, designed to represent a reservoir or basin. The continual rotation of the twisted glass produces the appearance of a progressive motion, as already explained, and a stream of water continually appears to flow from the fountain into the basin. ”

“ In this island there had been an ancient Roman temple, consecrated to Apollo. And Sebert, perhaps on account of the seclusion which Thorney afforded, resolved to build a church on the site, and he dedicated the fabric to St. Peter the Apostle. This church is now Westminster Abbey; the busy city of Westminster is old Thorney Island, that seat of desolation; and the bones of Sebert yet rest in the structure which he founded. Another great church was built by Sebert, in the city of London, upon the ruins of the heathen temple of Diana. ”

“ The difficulty of keeping so great a mass of weighty metal in so volant an attitude, has been admirably overcome by the artist. The sweep of the tail, with the hinder parts of the horse, are interwoven with the curvatures of the expiring snake ”

“ But mankind were then subjected to many calamities, which have been moderated in our times. If crops failed, and the earth did not bring forth her fruit, vessels arrived not from distant parts, laden with corn. ”

“ I should be glad to be informed by your correspondent, James Silvester, Sen., on what authority he grounds his assertion (contained in No. 484.) that it was in the fortress of Corfe Castle that the unfortunate Edward II. was so inhumanly murdered. I have always, considered it an undisputed fact that the scene of this atrocity was at Berkeley Castle, in Gloucestershire. Hume states, that while in the custody of Lord Berkeley, the murderers, Mautravers and Gournay, “taking advantage of Berkeley’s sickness, in whose custody he then was, came to Berkeley Castle, threw him on a bed,” &c. &c. ”

“ But proceeding from the love of God, it is steady and uniform in its operation, not wayward, not lukewarm, not affected by starts and fancies, and ministering to more than the bodily wants of those who are in need. ”

“ All the knowledge which distinguishes civilization from savage life was entrusted to them. Admitted into the supreme councils of the realm, they became an order, possessing acknowledged rights which could not be lawfully assailed. ”

“ At last, he began to laugh so heartily that he was nearly choked, and his wife pressed him to tell her the cause of his mirth. This he did; but no sooner had he uttered the words “Tell Dildrum that Doldrum’s dead,” when his own favourite grimalkin, who had lent an attentive ear to his narrative, whilst demurely basking before the fire, started upon his feet, and exclaiming, “O murder! and is Doldrum dead?” dashed up the chimney, and was never seen more.
A Scottish tradition concerning The Cat o’ the Craigs, as given by a correspondent in vol. iv. of the Mirror, p. ”