Various

“ The great pyramid occupied a hundred thousand men for twenty years in its erection, without counting the workmen who were employed in hewing the stones and conveying them to the spot where the pyramid was built. ”

“ To enable them the better to prosecute this valuable commerce, the East India Company sought and obtained permission to build a factory at Canton, where their agents were permitted to reside six months in the year—a favour specifically accorded as a matter of compassion to foreigners, who are carefully debarred all intercourse with the interior of the country; a dread being entertained that the introduction of Europeans to settle in China, would lead (according also to ancient prophecy) to the total subversion of the empire. ”

“ As each, in succession, lifted his head up above the rocks, and really saw the SEA, nothing could exceed the affecting display of gratitude and enthusiastic rapture!—some embraced, some cried like children, some stamped like madmen, some fell on their knees and thanked the gods, others were mute with gratitude, and stared as if bewildered! ”

“ Our facts must stand isolated, since to weave them into an argument would be altogether foreign to our purpose.
East India Company.—Although the East India Company can alone import tea, they cannot choose their own time of sale; they are compelled to put up the tea at an advance of one penny (they do at one farthing) per lb.; they are obliged to have twelve months' stock in hand; and while the tea in America has increased in price and diminished in consumption, the very reverse has taken place in England, as official returns prove! ”

“ We have here endeavoured, to the best of our ability, to describe an African horse-race, but it is impossible to convey a correct idea of the singular and fantastic appearance of the numerous groups of people that met our view on all sides, or to describe their animation and delight; the martial equipment of the soldiers and their noble steeds, and the wild, romantic, and overpowering interest of the whole mass. Singing and dancing have been kept up all night, and the revellers will not think of retiring to rest till morning. ”

“ He is remarkably consistent in all his proceedings, however, and the outward man is a perfect and complete type of the inward, and vice versa. His soul is never out of pumps and silk stockings, and picks its way amidst the little mental puddles and cross-roads of this world with a chariness of step, which is at once edifying and amusing. ”

“ The markings on the back represent to their fertile imaginations the head of a perfect skeleton, with the limb bones crossed beneath; its cry becomes the voice of anguish, the moaning of a child, the signal of grief; it is regarded, not as the creation of a benevolent being, but as the device of evil spirits—spirits, enemies to man, conceived and fabricated in the dark ”

“ The love between friends is certainly most harmonious when wound up to the highest pitch; but at that very time, is in greatest danger of breaking: and upon the whole, the strongest friendships may be compared to the strongest towns, which are too well fortified to be taken by open attacks; but are always liable to be undermined by treachery or surprise. ”

“ Equality.—All men would necessarily have been equal, had they been without wants; it is the misery attached to our species, which places one man in subjection to another: Inequality is not the real grievance, but dependence. It is of little consequence for one man to be called his highness, and another his holiness ”

“ Those living on the borders of the numerous lakes and rivers of Canada, which are invariably stored with fine fish, are provided with either a light boat, log, or what is by far the best, a bark canoe; a barbed fishing spear, with light tapering shaft, about twelve or sixteen feet long, and an iron basket for holding pine knots, and capable of being suspended at the head of the boat when fired. ”

“ The "Martinet" is the name of a genus, not of a species; the title of a race variously feathered, but having specific qualities in common. There is your military martinet, your clerical martinet, your legal martinet, and the martinet of common life, ("Gallicrista fastidiosa communis," Linnaeus would class him,) who is to the others what the house-sparrow is to the rest of his tribe. It is with him alone we have to do. The "martinet" is a person who is all his life violently busied in endeavouring to be a perfect gentleman, and who almost succeeds. He misses the point by over-stepping it. ”

“ In 1773, the East India Company made a small adventure of opium 6 from Bengal to Canton; and the consumption of opium increased as rapidly among the Chinese as tea did among the English, until it now yields (although a contraband trade) 14,000,000 Spanish dollars annually, 7 and pays a revenue to the Indian Government of 1,800,000l. sterling. Raw cotton forms another extensive article of export to China; it is in general a less profitable remittance than bills of exchange, but the exportation is [pg 222] encouraged for the benefit of the Indian territories. ”

“ We may here pause to observe, en passant, that the antipathy which people of all ages and nations have felt against every reptile of the serpent tribe, from the harmless worm to the hosts of deadly "dragons" which infest the torrid zone, and the popular opinion that all are venomous, often in spite of experience, seems to be not so much superstition, as a terror of the species, implanted, since the fall, in our bosoms, by the same Divine Being who at that period pronounced the serpent to be the most accursed beast of the field. ”

“ It may be entertaining to many of your readers now that emigration occupies the thoughts of so many, to sketch a short account of the method chiefly employed in Canada, in capturing fish, which to very many settlers is an important adjunct to their domestic economy. ”

“ On the right, is a young man carrying up on his back his aged father who has lost his helmet—the trumpeter lower down, is blowing a blast to collect the rear guard which are mounting behind him, while near the mare's head is the [pg 219] Greek band with trumpets and cymbals encouraging the men. The army is rushing up under an opening of the rock to the left, while the advanced guard of cavalry are trotting down the shelving top of a precipice, the horses excited and snuffing up the sea air with ecstasy. ”

“ But it is not so: there are facts in these pages which interest every one and come home to every man's mouth: the political purpose is to us like chaff; and these facts like grains of wheat, so we will even pick a few. Meanwhile, the whole pamphlet must be important to all, as to ourselves parts are interesting: it represents the literature of the tea trade, and, best of all, the profitable literature of L.s.d. ”

“ It would, however, be difficult to convey, by description, the overpowering energy and mighty struggle of the scene before us, or the masterly skill with which the painter has brought within a few square feet of canvass, one of the most astounding events in the history of man. ”

“ To a commercial union of wealth, and a co-operation of talent and patriotism, a small island in the Western Atlantic is indebted for the acquisition of one of the most splendid empires that ever was subjected to the dominion of man, and [pg 221] also for the rise and progress of an extraordinary commerce with a people inhabiting a distant hemisphere, and heretofore shut out from all intercourse with the majority of the human race;—a commerce equal in extent to 10,000,000l. ”

“ The effect of the whole would be agreeable if it had the appearance of a solid basement to stand upon; but as tradesmen find it necessary to have as much open space as possible to exhibit their goods, the mass of architecture above must appear to be supported by the window-frames of the shops, although in reality they are based upon small iron columns of four and six inches diameter, which are scarcely seen, and which offer the slightest possible impediment to the exhibition of goods. ”

“ Character of the Chinese.—The Chinese are a haughty and independent race of people, whose commercial policy it is to prohibit, as much as possible, every species of manufactures 8 and bullion; and encourage the importation of food, and raw produce; holding themselves aloof from Europeans, and particularly jealous of Great Britain, on account of the proximity of her Indian empire ”

“ Belon, "and of the borders of Lake Gourd are firmly persuaded that the Carp of those lakes are nourished with pure gold; and a great portion of the people in the Lyonnois are fully satisfied that the fish called humble and ernblons eat no other food than gold. There is not a peasant in the environs of the Lake of Bourgil who will not maintain that the Laurets, a fish sold daily in Lyons, feed on pure gold alone. ”

“ The youngest being not more than three, was held on the back of his animal by a male attendant, as he was unable to sit upright in the saddle without this assistance. The child's dress was ill suited to his age. He wore on his head a tight cap of Manchester cotton, but it overhung the upper part of his face, and together with its ends, which flapped over each cheek, [pg 218] hid nearly the whole of his countenance from view; his tobe and trousers were made exactly in the same fashion as those of a man, and two large belts of blue cotton, which crossed each other, confined the tobe to his body. ”

“ It has been stated that the majority of the actors in the scene sat for their portraits in this picture. Mr. Kemble, however, refused, when asked to do so by Mr. Welsh, strengthening his refusal with emphasis profane. Harlow was not to be defeated, and he actually drew Mr. Kemble's portrait in one of the stage-boxes of Covent Garden Theatre, while the great actor was playing his part on the stage. The vexation of such a ruse to a man of Mr. Kemble's temperament, can better be imagined than described: how it succeeded, must be left to the judgment of the reader. ”

“ Any young gardener, who besides prosecuting his particular profession, wishes to be apprized of what is going on in the great world of human action generally, cannot possibly spend 5s. more efficiently than in the purchase of this book ”

“ This was not by any means so good as the first, owing to the greater anxiety which the horsemen evinced to display their skill in the use of the spear and the management of their animals. The king maintained his seat on horseback during these amusements, without even once dismounting to converse with his wives and children who were sitting on the ground on each side of him. His dress was showy rather than rich, consisting of a red cap, enveloped in the large folds of a white muslin turban; two under tobes of blue and scarlet cloth, and an outer one of white muslin ”

“ Herodotus speaks of this work as a torment to the people, and doubtless, the labour engaged in raising huge masses of stone, that was extensive enough to employ a hundred thousand men for twenty years, equal to two millions of men for one year, must have been fearfully tormenting. ”

“ Below the army are rushing up—in the centre is an officer, on a blood Arab, carrying his wife. A veteran soldier on his left is supporting an exhausted youth who has sunk on his shield, and pointing out the path to the army. ”

“ They have a little too much speed, and a little too little tact. The martinet is always bent upon thinking, saying, doing, and having, every thing after a nicer fashion than other people, until his nicety runs into downright mannerism ”

“ Flying into their apartments in an evening, it at times extinguishes the light, foretelling war, pestilence, famine, and death to man and beast. * * * This insect has been thought to be peculiarly gifted in having a voice and squeaking like a mouse when handled or disturbed; but, in truth, no insect that we know of has the requisite organs to produce a genuine voice ”

“ The fable of the Kraken has been referred to imperfect and exaggerated accounts of monstrous Polypi infesting the northern seas; how far may not the Cuttle-fish have given rise to this fiction? In hot countries (our readers will remember that in a late paper, Mirror, vol. xvii. pp. 282-299, we directed their attention to the similarity of superstitions in every country of the world, hence infering a common, and most probably oriental origin for all) —in hot countries cuttle-fish are found of gigantic dimensions; the Indians affirm that some have been seen two fathoms broad over their centre ”

“ Tea in Ireland.—In Ireland, the consumption of tea in the year 1828, was 1,300,000 lbs. less than in 1827; and although the population of Ireland has rapidly increased, indeed, nearly doubled itself, since the commencement of the present century, yet the quantity of tea imported into that country is 400,000 lbs. ”

“ The Chinese will not admit a foreign nation to trade at two places; for instance, the Russians are excluded from Canton because they enjoy an overland trade at Kiachia, which is 4,311 miles from St. Petersburgh, and 1,014 miles distant from Pekin.
Printed and Published by J. LIMBIRD, 143, Strand, (near Somerset House.) London ”