The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 12, No. 325, August 2, 1828. VariousЧитать онлайн книгу.
Harfleur, were called "The King's Chamber," and "The King's Hall." They had purple sails, and were large and beautiful.
Party rage ran so high in 1403, that an act of parliament was found necessary to declare, "Pulling out of eyes and cutting out of tongues to be felony."—Dr. Rush, of Philadelphia, in his "Inquiry into the effects of spirituous liquors on the human body, and their influence on the happiness of society;" says, "Among the inhabitants of cities, spirits produce debts, disgrace, and bankruptcy. Among farmers, they produce idleness with its usual consequence, such as houses without windows, barns without roofs, gardens without enclosures, fields without fences, hogs without yokes, sheep without wool, meagre cattle, feeble horses, and half clad, dirty children, without principles, morals, or manners."
P. T. W.
Shower of Sugar Plums—Charles XI., attended by his court, had been hunting in the neighbourhood of Carcassone. After the stag had been taken, a gentleman of the neighbourhood invited the king to a splendid dinner which he had prepared for him. At the conclusion of the banquet the ceiling of the hall suddenly opened, a thick cloud, descended and burst over their heads like a thunder storm, pouring forth a shower of sugar-plums instead of hail, which was succeeded by a gentle rain of rose-water.
The Coin Guinea—In the reign of king Charles II., when Sir Robert Holmes, of the Isle of Wight, brought gold-dust from the coast of Guinea, a guinea first received its name from that country.
A Motto.—A constant frequenter of city feasts, having grown enormously fat, it was proposed to write on his back, "Widened at the expense of the corporation of London."
Sedan-chairs and Hackney-coaches.—Sir S. Duncombe, predecessor to Duncombe Lord Feversham, and gentleman pensioner to King James and Charles I., introduced sedan-chairs into this country, anno 1634, when he procured a patent that vested in him and his heirs the sole right of carrying persons up and down in them for a certain sum. Sir Saunders had been a great traveller, and saw these chairs at Sedan, where they were first invented. It is remarkable that Capt. Bailey introduced the use of hackney-coaches in this year; a tolerable ride might then be obtained, in either of these vehicles for four pence.
Heroism—Seward, "the brave Earl of Northumberland," feeling in his sickness that he drew near his end, quitted his bed and put on his armour, saying, "That it became not a man to die like a beast," on which he died standing; an act as singular as it was heroic.
Epigram on Epigrams.
What is an epigram? a dwarfish whole,
Its body brevity, and wit its soul.
W. H. H.
"THE MOUSE TOWER,"
A GERMAN LEGEND
The bishop of Mentz was a wealthy prince,
Wealthy and proud was he;
He had all that was worth a wish on earth—
But he had not charitie!
He would stretch put his empty hands to bless,
Or lift them both to pray;
But alack! to lighten man's distress,
They moved no other way.
A famine came! but his heart was still
As hard as his pride was high;
And the starving poor but throng'd his door
To curse him and to die.
At length from the crowd rose a clamour so loud,
That a cruel plot laid he;
He open'd one of his granaries wide,
And bade them enter free.
In they rush'd—the maid and the sire.
And the child that could barely run—
Then he clos'd the barn, and set it on fire.
And burnt them every one!
And loud he laugh'd at each terrible shriek,
And cried to his archer-train,
"The merry mice!—how shrill they squeak!—
They are fond of the bishop's grain!"
But mark, what an awful judgment soon,
On the cruel bishop fell;
With so many mice his palace swarm'd,
That in it he could not dwell.
They gnaw'd the arras above and beneath,
They eat each savoury dish up;
And shortly their sacrilegious teeth
Began to nibble the bishop!
He flew to his castle of Ehrenfels,
By the side of the Rhine so fair;
But they found the road to his new abode,
And came in legions there.
He built him, in haste, a tower tall
In the tide, for his better assurance;
But they swam the river, and scal'd the wall,
And worried him past endurance.
One morning his skeleton there was seen,
By a load of flesh the lighter;
They had picked his bones uncommonly clean,
And eaten his very mitre!
Such was the end of the bishop of Mentz,
And oft at the midnight hour,
He comes in the shape of a fog so dense,
And sits on his old "Mouse-Tower."
PRUSSIC ACID
The circumstance of Montgomery's recent suicide in Newgate, has led me to send you the following remarks upon the nature and properties of that most violent poison, Prussic acid, with which the unfortunate man terminated his existence.
Were we to consider the constituent parts and properties of the most common things we are in the habit of daily using, and their poisonous and destructive natures, we should recoil at the deadly potion, and shrink from the loathsome draught we are about to take. That which we consider the most delicious and exhilarating portion of our common beverage, porter, contains carbonic acid gas, commonly known by the "spirit," and which the poor miners dread with the utmost horror, like the Arabian does the destructive blast of the simoon. Oxalic acid, so much the fear of those accustomed to the medicine—Epsom salts, is made from that useful article, sugar, by uniting with it a smaller portion, more than it has naturally, of oxygen gas. The air we breathe contains a most deadly poison, called by chemists azotic gas, which, by its being mixed with what is called vital air, (oxygen gas,) becomes necessary to our existence, as much as the one (vital air or oxygen gas) would be prejudicial without the other; and Prussic acid, the most violent of all poisons, is contained in the common bitter-almond. But these most destructive substances are always found combined with others, which render them often perfectly harmless, and can be separated only by the skill of the chemist.
The Prussic acid (by some called hydrocyanic acid) is a liquid, extracted from vegetables, and contains one part of cyanogen and one part of hydrogen. It is extracted from the bitter-almond, (as has been stated,) peach-blossom, and the leaves of the laurocerasus. It may also be obtained from animal substances, although a vegetable acid. If lime be added to water, distilled from these substances, a Prussiate of lime is formed; when, if an acid solution of iron be added to this mixture, common Prussian blue (or Prussiate of iron) is precipitated. The acid may be obtained from Prussiate of potash, by making a strong solution of this salt, and then adding as much tartaric acid as will precipitate the potash, when the acid