Various

“ Change of Circumstance.—In our estimate of the ills of life, we never sufficiently take into consideration the wonderful elasticity of our moral frame, the unlooked for, the startling facility with which the human mind accommodates itself to all change of circumstance, making an object and even a joy from the hardest and seemingly the least redeemed conditions of fate. The man who watched the spider in his cell, may have taken, at least, as much interest in the watch, as when engaged in the most ardent and ambitious objects of his former life ”

“ The most indifferent observer cannot fail to remark that the cottager who devotes his hours of leisure to the improvement of his garden, is rarely subject to the extreme privations of poverty, and commonly enjoys a character superior to the circumstances of his condition. His taste is a motive to employment, and employment secures him from the temptations to extravagance and the natural consequences of dissipated habits."1 Further, we learn, one great object of the society is to educate a certain number of young men as gardeners. ”

“ Far from confining himself to the usual method adopted by most young artists of servilely imitating old paintings, young Nasmyth very soon began to copy nature in all her varied freshness and beauty. Scotland contains much of the picturesque, and from this circumstance he seized every opportunity to cultivate his genius for landscape-painting. ”

“ Consolation.—Her high and starry nature could comprehend those sublime inspirations of comfort, which lift us from the lowest abyss of this world to the contemplation of all that the yearning visions of mankind have painted in another.
It is a fearful thing to see men weep.
We are seldom sadder without being also wiser men. ”

“ On our way we fell in with the foresters, who were going a deer-stalking; they had a buck to kill for the duke, so we joined company, and gave that satisfactory shrug of the shoulders, with the expectation of sport, that a spider would feel while sitting in the corner of a hollow nut-shell, and seeing his victim already entangled in his web, while he was whetting his appetite with suspended hope, in dream of anticipated fattenings.
We made the best of our way to the watering-place haunt of the deer. ”

“ The Philosophical Society of Manchester is universally known by its excellent published Memoirs: it has its Royal Institution; its Philological Society, and public libraries; so that incentives to this improvement have grown with its growth. Among these is the Botanical and Horticultural Society, formed in the autumn of 1827, whose primary object was "a Garden for Manchester and its neighbourhood." Previously to its establishment, Manchester had a Floral Society, with six hundred subscribers, which was a gratifying evidence of public taste, as well as encouragement for the Garden design. ”

“ Eternal Punishment.—So wonderful in equalizing all states and all times in the varying tide of life, are the two rulers yet levellers of mankind, Hope and Custom, that the very idea of an eternal punishment includes that of an utter alteration of the whole mechanism of the soul in its human state, and no effort of an imagination, assisted by past experience, can conceive a state of torture, which custom can never blunt, and from which the chainless and immaterial spirit can never be beguiled into even a momentary escape. ”

“ The city, however, as a whole, presents a combination of magnitude and grandeur, which we should in vain look for elsewhere, although with all its immensity it has not yet realized the quaint prediction of James the First,—that London would shortly be England, and England would be London. ”

“ First and fairest of flowery visiter—through the dark winter I have dreamed of thy paleness and thy purity—youngest sister of the lily—likelier, thou art to be loved for thine own sake. Can so delicate a thing spring from an Earthly bed? or art thou, indeed, fallen from the heavens as a Snowdrop? ”

“ Our hearts, too full, leapt into our mouths, but our guns were turned into tons of lead, and ere we could heave them up to our shoulders of clay, the thousand had fled into the eternal grey mist of the mountain, like the dispersion of a confused dream. ”

“ At Birmingham too, there is a Public Garden, similar to that at Manchester, where we hope the Artisan may enjoy a sight at least of nature's gladdening beauties.
In the suburbs of our great metropolis, matters are not so well managed; though Mr. Loudon, we think, proposes to unite a Botanic with the Zoological Gardens. Folks in London must study botany on their window-sills. The wealthy do not encourage it. Their love of the country is confined to the forced luxuries of kitchen-gardens, conveyed to them in wicker-baskets ”

“ All the ardent and daring spirits in the parliamentary party were eager to have Hampden at their head. Had his life been prolonged, there is every reason to believe that the supreme command would have been entrusted to him. But it was decreed that, at this conjuncture, England should lose the only man who united perfect disinterestedness to eminent talents—the only man who, being capable of gaining the victory for her, was incapable of abusing that victory when gained.
"In the evening of the 17th of June, [pg 141] Rupert darted out of Oxford with his cavalry on a predatory expedition. ”

“ The system of building, or rather "running up" a house first, and afterwards providing it with a false exterior, meant to deceive the eye with the semblance of curved stone, is in itself an absolute abomination. Besides, Greek architecture, so magnificent when on a large scale, becomes perfectly ridiculous when applied to a private street-mansion, or a haberdasher's warehouse. ”

“ The shivering sweep, who has just travelled through half a dozen stacks of chimneys, also quickens every motion of his weary little limbs, when he comes within sight of the destined breakfast, and beholds the reversionary heel of a loaf and roll of butter awaiting his arrival. ”

“ The argument was maintained with great warmth on both sides, until at length Sheridan affected to lose his temper, and pulling the check-string, commanded the coachman to let him out instantly, protesting that he would not ride another yard with a man who held such opinions, and supported them in such a manner. So saying, he descended and walked off, leaving Richardson to enjoy his fancied triumph, and to pay the whole fare. Richardson, it is said, in a paroxysm of delight at Sheridan's apparent defeat, put his head out of the window and vociferated his arguments until he was out of sight. ”

“ No man of his day possessed so much tact in appropriating and adorning the wit of others. He pillaged his predecessors of their ideas, with as much skill and effrontery as he did his contemporaries of their money. ”

“ As "an inviting scene of public recreation," it is observed, "those who are little interested in the cultivation of Botany, and who may regard the employments of Horticulture with disdain, may still be induced to frequent the Botanical garden, for the beauty of the objects, the pleasures of the society, and the animating gaiety of the scene."
The Manchester Garden, we should think, must, by this time, have an Eden-like appearance. The Committee began fortunately. Mr. Loudon, in one of his valuable Gardening Tours,2 refers to "a few traits of liberality in the parties connected with it ”

“ Though to the skill and perseverance of the cottager we are confessedly indebted for the improved cultivation of many plants and fruits, an extensive acquaintance with the choicest productions of nature, and a philosophical investigation of their properties, are very frequently to be met with in the Lancashire Mechanic. But whilst some knowledge of the principles of Horticulture is almost universal ”

“ We find the promised advantages of the plan thus strikingly illustrated in an Address of the preceding date, "The study of Botany has not been pursued in any part of the country with greater assiduity and success than in the neighbourhood of Manchester. Far from being confined to the higher orders of society, it has found its most disinterested admirers in the lowest walks of life. ”

“ Nobody believes in these predictions, yet every one likes hearing them.
Gardening.—'Tis a winning thing, a garden! It brings us an object every day; and that's what I think a man ought to have if he wishes to lead a happy life. ”

“ But your traveller forgot that in countries which abound in wheat, rye is seldom eaten; and that on the same principle, in Scotland, where coal and peat are abundant, the "natives," like the ancient Vestals, never allow their fires to go out, but keep them burning through the whole night. The business of the "gude man" is, immediately before going to bed, to load the fire with coals, and crown the supply with a "canny passack o' turf," which keeps the whole in a state of gentle combustion; when, in the morning a sturdy thrust from the poker, produces an instantaneous blaze. ”

“ On such occasions we have often wished ourselves "far from the sight of city, spire, or sound of minster clock." One feels most for the sheep and lambs, when the softened fancy recurs to the streams and hedgerows, and pleasant pastures, from whence the woolly exiles have been ejected ”

“ Again, as the Alderman is a hop-factor, why observe "he is said to have realized a considerable fortune by his fortunate speculations in hops." This describes him as a mere speculator, and not as an established trader in hops.
The present volume of the Georgian Era is handsomely printed, and is, without exception, the cheapest book of the day, considered either as to its merit or size—quality or quantity: what can transcend nearly 600 pages of such condensed reading as we have proved this work to contain—for half-a-guinea! ”

“ Suspense.—Of all the conditions to which the heart is subject, suspense is the one that most gnaws, and cankers into the frame. One little month of that suspense, when it involves death, we are told, in a very remarkable work lately published by an eye-witness,7 is sufficient to plough fixed lines and furrows in a convict of five-and-twenty—sufficient to dash the brown hair with grey, and to bleach the grey to white. ”

“ Whatever regard is due to the rational gratifications of which the most laborious life is not incapable, there is a moral influence attendant on horticultural pursuits, which may be supposed to render every [pg 130] friend of humanity desirous to promote them. ”

“ The news of Hampden's death produced as great a consternation in his party, according to Clarendon, as if their whole army had been cut off. The journals of the time amply prove that the Parliament and all its friends were filled with grief and dismay. Lord Nugent has quoted a remarkable passage from the next Weekly Intelligencer. 'The loss of Colonel Hampden goeth near the heart of every man that loves the good of his king and country, and makes some conceive little content to be at the army now that he is gone. ”

“ Darwin's opinion, that the reason why the bosom of a beautiful woman possesses such a fascinating effect on man is, because he derived from that source the first pleasurable sensations of his infancy. Sheridan ridiculed the idea very happily. ”

“ Moore states, that the only time he could have had for the pre-arrangement of his conceptions, must have been during the many hours of the day which he passed in bed; when, frequently, while the world gave him credit for being asleep, he was employed in laying the frame-work of his wit and eloquence for the evening. ”

“ We need scarcely observe, by way of introduction, that Hampden fell in the great contest between Charles and his parliament; and that when the appeal was to the sword, Hampden accepted the command of a regiment in the parliamentary army, under the Earl of Essex; the Royal forces being headed by Prince Rupert.
"In the early part of 1643, the shires lying in the neighbourhood of London, which were devoted to the cause of the Parliament, were incessantly annoyed by Rupert and his cavalry. Essex had extended his lines so far, that almost every point was vulnerable. ”

“ We are the contemporaries of a street-building generation, but the grand maxim of the nineteenth century, in their management of masonry, as in almost every thing else, as far as we can discover, appears to lie in that troublesome line of Macbeth's soliloquy, ending with, "'twere well it were done quickly." ”

“ Hampden had, on the preceding day, strongly represented to Essex the danger to which this part of the line was exposed. As soon as he received intelligence of Rupert's incursion, he sent off a horseman with a message to the General. The cavaliers, he said, could return only by Chiselhampton Bridge. A force ought to be instantly dispatched in that direction, for the purpose of intercepting them. In the meantime, he resolved to set out with all the cavalry that he could muster, for the purpose of impeding the march of the enemy till Essex could take measures for cutting off their retreat. ”

“ The preservation of eggs in this manner, has long been practised in all "braid Scotland;" but it is not so much as known in our own boasted land of stale eggs and bundle-wood.
In Edinburgh, I mean the Scottish and not the Irish capital, M.L.B. may actually eat new laid eggs a year old! How is it that this great comfort is not practised in the navy? The Scotch have also a hundred other domestic practices for the saving of the hard earned "siller;" and are far from the commission of any such idle waste as M.L.B.'s story exhibits. ”

“ They say that no town in Europe is without a Scotchman for an inhabitant. This trade in London is generally professed by North Britons, and it is always a cause of alarm to a stranger if he notices the enormous column of black smoke which is emitted from their premises at the dawn, of the morning. ”