Various

“ Among the remedies for cholera, or perhaps we should rather say attempted remedies, the vapour-bath is conspicuous over all the other means of cure, external and internal: stimulants, frictions, rubefacients, blisters, have that for their indirect object which the vapour-bath accomplishes directly, namely, to produce heat on the surface of the body, and thus restore that correspondence between the temperature of the interior and exterior parts, which in the disease is so strangely disturbed. There are two difficulties in the application of the vapour-bath, which are not easily overcome. ”

“ Lady Romford has a private box, which she visits only in preference to staying at a still duller home, on a disengaged evening; and Bagot occasionally drags me to the play, to make my foreign ignorance and inexperience a pretext for following Lady Clara to a spot which no one seems to visit without an apology. People in society give as many reasons for having done so strange a thing as go to see the new tragedy, as they would invent in Paris to excuse a similar omission. ”

“ The morning after his return to Paris, M. Permon had just risen, when footsteps were heard loud on the staircase, and in burst Citizen Thirion, two other patriots of the Sectional Committee, and the carpetman's shopboy. (Madame Junot's Narrative commences here.)
"My father was shaving himself. Naturally quick tempered, his impatience was extreme when he recognised the individual, and he was imprudent enough to make a menacing gesture the moment they broke into his dressing-room. 'I am here to see the law enforced,' cries Thirion, on seeing my father advance with the razor in his hand. ”

“ To the east—while the eye follows the course of the Aire towards the Humber, the fertility of the country, the spires of churches, and two considerable hills, Brayton Barf, and Hambleton Haugh, which rise in the midst of a plain, and one of which is covered with wood, increase the beauty of the scene. ”

“ I found myself compelled to make Druso my confidant in this matter, and my companion in some of my first attempts at following the hideous occupation recommended by my deceased friend. By degrees I grew accustomed to the horrors of the room and of my employment. Druso, who found himself better engaged in courting the living than in cutting up the dead, was no longer necessary to me in the prosecution of my hateful studies, and kept aloof, but I soon discovered the value of them, in my increase of knowledge, employment, and reputation. At last an epidemic raged in Padua, proving very fatal ”

“ Sheep, also, and goats have multiplied enormously in the New World, as have also the cat and the rat, which last, as we before stated, has been imported unintentionally in ships. The dogs introduced by man, which have at different periods become wild in America, hunted in packs like the wolf and the jackal, destroying not only hogs, but the calves and foals of the wild cattle and horses. ”

“ We give to thee our guiltless blood to drink.
We may now pass over matters of minor importance in the history of Pontefract to the time of Charles I. In the King's contest with his Parliament, this was the last fortress that held out for the unfortunate monarch. At Christmas 1644, Sir Thomas Fairfax laid siege to the castle, and on Jan. 19, following, after an incessant cannonade of three days, a breach was made: the brave garrison would not surrender; the besiegers mined, but the besieged counter-mined, and the work of slaughter went on till the garrison were greatly reduced. ”

“ Since the Kemble munia, and the Byron mania, there has been a general affectation of indifference towards poetry and the drama; your true fashionable never mentions either without ridicule—the natural consequence of previously exaggerated enthusiasm.
But above all the absurdities connected with this national weakness, stands that of the public prints. So much importance is given by the newspapers to every thing relating to the histrionic art, that we are daily informed of the whereabout of all the third-rate performers of the minor theatres ”

“ In the whole of the machines for applying the bath, the patient is exposed to [pg 55] more or less tossing about; which, from the extreme prostration of strength in cholera patients, is always injurious; and as the patient must, when taken from the bath, be replaced on a comparatively cold bed, the sudden change will often do more ill than the bath will do good. To these must be added, in a disease which chiefly affects the poor, another item, forming an important drawback on the utility of the ordinary vapour-bath,—the application of it is attended with no inconsiderable expense. ”

“ The extraordinary herds of wild cattle and horses which overran the plains of South America, sprang from a very few pairs first carried over by the Spaniards; and they prove that the wide geographical range of large species in great continents does not necessarily imply that they have existed there from remote periods. ”

“ Books are at last the best companions: they instruct us in silence without any display of superiority, and they attend the pace of each man's capacity, without reproaching him for his want of comprehension. ”

“ The Castle of Pontefract was built on an elevated rock, commanding extensive and picturesque views. The north-west prospect takes in the beautiful vale along which flows the Aire, skirted by woods and plantations. It is bounded only by the hills of Craven. The north and east prospect is more extensive, but the scenery is not equally striking and impressive. The towers of York Minster are distinctly seen, and the prospect is only bounded by the limits of vision. ”

“ Many native birds of prey have also been the subjects of unremitting persecution. The eagles, larger hawks, and ravens, have disappeared from the more cultivated districts. The haunts of the mallard, the snipe, the redshank, and the bittern, have been drained equally with the summer dwellings of the lapwing and the curlew. But these species still linger in some portion of the British isles; whereas the large capercailzies, or wood grouse, formerly natives of the pine forests of Ireland and Scotland, have been destroyed within the last fifty years. ”

“ The King swore vengeance for the death of his favourite, which led this weak sovereign into a long series of dissentions with the barons, at the head of whom, was the Earl of Lancaster. Both parties now flew to arms, but Lancaster soon found himself ill supported by his compeers, and marching northward for reinforcements from the celebrated Bruce, King of Scotland, the King in the meantime, sent the Earl of Surrey and Kent to besiege the castle of Pontefract, which surrendered at the first summons. Lancaster was next closely pursued by the king with great superiority of numbers. ”

“ Even a clever actor, when satisfied that he is to receive judgment from an unrefined and uneducated audience, will degenerate and grow slovenly; and from what I have observed of the London stage, I see it is the custom to daub for the galleries, or to creep through the business under cover of a cold, tame mediocrity. ”

“ Yet, notwithstanding all this clamour of popularity—all this infatuation—there [pg 56] is no branch of the arts so grossly neglected in England as the drama. It is no longer the fashion in London to attend the theatres. Owing partly to the increase of private amusements, and partly to the late hours gradually adopted during the reign of George the Fourth, the custom of play-going has declined among the higher classes, and naturally produces the reaction of bad pieces and indifferent performers. ”

“ They grazed together in herds, and, when attacked, defended themselves with their mouths. If a horse happened to stray into the places where they fed, they all fell upon him, and did not cease biting and kicking till they left him dead.
The first hogs were carried to America by Columbus, and established in the island of St. Domingo the year following its discovery in November, 1493. In succeeding years they were introduced into other places where the Spaniards settled; and, in the space of half a century, they were found established in the New World, from the latitude of 25 deg. ”

“ These changes, we may observe, are derived from very imperfect memorials, and relate only to the larger and more conspicuous animals inhabiting a small spot on the globe; but they cannot fail to exalt our conception of the enormous revolutions which, in the course of several thousand years, the whole human species must have effected. ”

“ A disgust of life frequently proceeds from sheer vanity, or a wish to be supposed incapable of deriving gratification from the ordinary routine of happiness.
It sometimes happens that with men as well as animals, that evidences of spirit are only the effect of excited fear. ”

“ A few persons of rank and fortune are provided with private boxes at the national theatres; but these are usually let by the night to plebeian tenants. It is rare indeed to observe a family of distinction in the dress circle of either Drury Lane or Covent Garden; while the French play is never deficient in a fashionable audience. ”

“ Next to the direct agency of man, his indirect influence in multiplying the numbers of large herbivorous quadrupeds of domesticated races, may be regarded as one of the most obviate causes of the extermination of species. ”

“ All the floors in the building are made fire-proof, generally by being arched with brick; but that of the Library is rendered secure from fire by the ceilings of the vestibules underneath being formed of real stone, supported on iron girders and bearers, and divided into panels and compartments after the manner of the roofs of the peristyles of the ancient temples.
There are three entrances from Chancery-lane: that in the centre is exclusively for members, and leads to all parts of the building ”

“ Without the slightest patronage from the court or substantial encouragement from the fosterers of literary merit, these luckless personages are expected to attempt the same exertions and intense study, which is rewarded, in foreign countries, by the most flattering and judicious attention; as well as by a pension, to cheer the infirmities of old age. ”

“ Money was a wise contrivance to place fools somewhat on a level with men of sense.
It will be observed, that people have generally the identical faults and vices they accuse others of; we may instance cowardice. ”

“ Wherever art has travelled out of her proper sphere to ape nature, she has proved herself but a miserable mimic, even in her most approved efforts.
We must not allow ourselves to dwell too seriously on life ”

“ There is no topic more universally discussed than the decadence of the drama, or the engagements, merits, and adventures of the performers. Neither the Lord Chancellor nor the Archbishop of Canterbury is ever so familiarly known by name and person to the public, as the first tragedian and comedian of the day; and the theatrical belles and heroines are either elevated to the peerage by matrimony, or lowered by the undertaker into Westminster Abbey. As some French Vaudevillist observed, "Moliere was denied in France the rights of sepulture, while ”

“ That in the centre is exclusively for the members; that to the left leads to the staircase to the Secretary's apartments; and the other, to the right of the centre, is for strangers to enter who have business to transact in any of the rooms appropriated to public business. On the ground floor of this part of the third division is a large Committee Room, and an ante or waiting room adjoining, and the great staircase to the rooms above. On the first floor are the rooms for meetings on matters of business connected with the law ”

“ General Lambert commanded the Siege, being appointed thereto on the death of General Rainsborough, who was intercepted and killed at Doncaster, by a party from the Castle, as he was going to take command."
General Lambert raised new works, and vigorously pushed the siege; but the besieged held out. On January 30, 1649, the King was beheaded; and the news no sooner reached Pontefract, than the royalist garrison proclaimed his son Charles II. and made a vigorous and destructive sally against their enemies. ”

“ The young are branded with a mark peculiar to each herd, and some of the most wealthy owners mark as many as fourteen thousand a year. In the northern plains, from the Orinoco to the lake of Maracaybo, M. Depons reckoned that one million two hundred thousand oxen, one hundred and eighty thousand horses, and ninety thousand mules, wandered at large. In some parts of the valley of the Mississippi, especially in the country of the Osage Indians, wild horses are immensely numerous. ”

“ Humboldt observes, in his Travels, on the authority of Azara, that it is believed there exist, in the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, twelve million cows and three million horses, without comprising in this enumeration the cattle that have no acknowledged proprietor. In the Llanos of Caraccas, the rich hateros, or proprietors of pastoral farms, are entirely ignorant of the number of cattle they possess. ”

“ Baker and Son (the builders of the King's library and new galleries of the British Museum, &c.) who have executed the beautiful finishings of the interior: these contracts amount to upwards of £12,000. ”

“ Pontefract Cakes, impressed with the arms—three lions passant gardant, surmounted with a helmet, full-forward, open faced, and garde-visure. We have likewise seen them impressed with the celebrated fortress, and the motto "Post mortem patris pro filio,"—after the death of the father—for the son—denoting the loyalty of the Pontefract Royalists in proclaiming Charles II. at the death of his father.
"LACONICS," GUESSES AT TRUTH, &c. (For the Mirror.)
It is the interest of an indolent man to be honest: for it requires considerable trouble and finesse, to deceive others successfully. ”