The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 14, No. 387, August 28, 1829. Various
yet, every year does this common patrimony of all the heirs to decay, still exhibit a rapidly increasing size, a fresh and wider line of boundary, and a new belt of young plantations, growing up between new flower beds of graves.
"There, said I to myself, lie, scarcely one foot beneath the surface of a swelling soil, ready to burst at every point with its festering contents, more than half the generations whom death has continued to mow down for nearly four centuries in the vast capital of Islamism. There lie, side by side, on the same level, in cells the size of their bodies, and only distinguished by a marble turban somewhat longer or deeper—somewhat rounder or squarer—personages, in life, far as heaven and earth asunder, in birth, in station, in gifts of nature, and in long laboured acquirements. There lie, sunk alike in their last sleep—alike food for the worm that lives on death—the conqueror who filled the universe with his name, and the peasant scarcely known in his own hamlet; Sultan Mahmoud, and Sultan Mahmoud's perhaps more deserving horse;4 elders bending under the weight of years, and infants of a single hour; men with intellects of angels, and men with understandings inferior to those of brutes; the beauty of Georgia and the black of Sennaar; visiers, beggars, heroes, and women.'"
The approach to Constantinople from the sea of Marmora is likewise thus beautifully described by the same author, and will form an appropriate conclusion:
"With eyes rivetted on the expanding splendour, I watched as they came out of the bosom of the surrounding waters, the pointed minarets, the swelling cupolas, and the innumerable habitations, either stretching along the jagged shore, and reflecting their shape in the mirror of the deep, or creeping up the crested mountain, and tracing their outline on the expanse of the sky. At first agglomerated in a single confused mass, the lesser part of this immense whole seemed, as we advanced, by degrees to unfold, to disengage themselves from each other, and to grow into various groups, divided by wide chasms and deep indentures; until at last the clusters, thus far still distantly connected, became transformed, as if by magic, into three distinct cities, each individually of prodigious extent, and each separated from the other two by a wide arm of that sea whose silver tide encompassed their base, and made its vast circuit rest half on Europe, and half on Asia."
Since writing the above we have visited Mr. Burford's New Panorama of Constantinople, which has lately been opened for exhibition in the Strand; and although we cannot in this Number enter into the detail of its merits, we recommend it to our lionizing friends as one of Mr. Burford's most finished paintings, and equal if not superior in effect to any exhibition in the metropolis; but we reserve an account of its pictorial beauties for our next publication.
TWO SONNETS
I met thee, –, when the leaves were green
And living verdure clothed the countless trees
When meadow flowers allured the summer bees
And silvery skies shone o'er the cloudless scene
Bright as my thoughts when wand'ring to thy home
Where Nature looks as though she were divine
Not in the richness of the rip'ning vine
Not in the splendour of imperial Rome.
It is a ruder scene of rocks and trees
Where even barrenness is beauty—where
The glassy lake, below the mountain bare
Curls up its waters 'neath the casual breeze
And, 'midst the plenitude of flower and bud
Sweet violets hide them in the hilly wood.
I parted with thee one autumnal day
When o'er the woods the northern tempest beat—
The spoils of autumn rustling at our feet
And Nature wept to see her own decay.
The pliant poplar bent beneath the blast
The moveless oak stood warring with the storm
Which bow'd the pensive willow's weaker form
And naught gave token that thy love would last
Save the mute eloquence of forcing tears
Save the low pleading of thy ardent sighs
The fervent gazing of thy glowing eyes
A firm assurance, spite of all my fears
That, as the sunshine dries the summer rain
Thy future smile should bless for parting pain.
ILLUSTRATION OF SOME OLD PROVERBS, &c
"Ax." To ask. This word which now passes for a mere vulgarism, is the original Saxon form, and used by Chaucer and others. See "Tyrwhitt's Glossary." We find it also in Bishop Bale's "God's Promises." "That their synne vengeaunce axed continually." Old Plays. i. 18. Also in the "Four P.'s," by Heywood, "And axed them thys question than." Old Pl. i. 84. An axing is used by Chaucer for a request. Ben Jonson introduces it jocularly:
"A man out of wax,
As a lady would ax."
"Between the Cup and the Lip." The proverb that many things fall out between the cup and the lip, is a literal version of one in Latin. Multo inter pocula ac libra cadunt. The origin of which was as follows:—A king of Thrace had planted a vineyard, when one of his slaves, whom he had much oppressed in that very work, prophesied that he should never taste of the wine produced in it. The monarch disregarded the prediction, and when at an entertainment he held a glassful of his own wine made from the grape of that vineyard, he sent for the slave, and asked him what he thought of his prophecy now; to which the other replied, "Many things fall out between the cup and the lip," and he had scarcely delivered this singular response, before news was brought that a monstrous boar was laying waste the favourite vineyard. The king, in a rage, put down the cup which he held in his hand, and hurried out with his people to attack the boar; but being too eager, the boar rushed upon him and killed him, without having tasted of the wine. Such is the story related by some of the Greek writers, and though evidently apocryphal, it certainly is productive of a good practical moral.
"In the merry pin." This is said of those who have drunk freely and are cheerful in their cups. Among the ancient northern nations, it was customary to drink out of large horns, in which were placed small pins, like a scale of distances, and he who quaffed most was considered as a toper of the first magnitude, and respected accordingly. The merry pin was that which stood pretty far from the mouth of the horn, and he who, at a draught, reduced the liquor to that point, was a man of no ordinary prowess in bacchanalian contest.
"Under the Rose be it spoken." The rose being dedicated by Cupid to Harpocrates, the god of Silence, to engage him to conceal the amours of Venus, was an emblem of Silence; whence to present it or hold it up to any person in discourse, served instead of an admonition, that it was time for him to hold his peace; and in entertaining rooms it was customary to place a rose above the table, to signify that what was there spoken should be kept private. This practice is described by the following epigram:—
Est rosa flos, Veneris cujus quo facta laterunt,
Harpocrati matri dona dicavit Amor,
Inde rosam mensis hospes suspendit amicis
Convivii et sub ea dicta tacenda sciat.
"Cant." This word, which is now generally applied to fanatical preachers, and hypocritical apprentices in religion, derives its name from two Scotch Presbyterian ministers, in the reign of Charles II. They were father and son, both called Andrew Cant; and Whitelocke in his "Memoirs," p. 511, after narrating the defeat at Worcester, in 1651, says, "Divers Scotch ministers were permitted to meet at Edinburgh, to keep a day of humiliation,
"Sultan Mahmoud's horse was actually interred in the cemetery of Scutari, under a dome supported by eight pillars."