Martinmas-Day-St. Cecilia's and St. Catherine's Days. [VOL. 4

Mayor's wife in that city, during her thrown into a furnace of boiling water life, but that her husband's title died and scalded to death. Others say that with his office ;-and the following she was stifled in a bath, a punishment couplet is cited in evidence

VOL.4.] Advent-St. Andrew's Day-Barrett's New Work, Woman.' 117 the most flagrant acts of tyranny and with the cross before, enamelled and oppression. She was condemned to chased on rays of gold, the cross and suffer death by rolling a wheel over her feet resting upon a ground of enamelled body stuck round with iron spikes.- green; and on the back enamelled on a Catherine-Tide is very generally ob- green ground, a thistle gold and green, served in Wiltshire and parts adjacent, the flower reddish, with the above motwhere it is supposed to be kept in hon- to round it. The collar consists of our of a certain bonne vivante queen, a thistles and sprigs of rue interspersed, namesake of the saint to whom this day and from the centre is suspended the is dedicated. image of St. Andrew; the whole of gold, enamelled.

ADVENT SUNDAY, NOV. 29. This and the three subsequent Sundays, which precede the grand festival of Christmas, take their name from the Latin advenire, to come into, or from the word adventus, an approach.

SAINT ANDREW, NOV. 30. Andrew was the son of James, a fisherman at Bethsaida, and younger brother of Peter. At the dispersion of the apostles, the province assigned to Saint Andrew was that part of the world then distisguished by the name of Scythia, and its neighbouring countries. Having travelled in these parts, and converted many to the Christian faith, he returned and preached the gospel in Epirus. After he had planted Christianity in several places, he came to Patræ, a city of Achaia, where Ægeus the proconsul condemned him to be crucified on a cross of the form of an X; and, that his death might be more lingering, he was fastened with

cords.

The order of the Thistle was instituted by Achaias, King of Scotland, in 787, restored by Jais V, 1540, revived by King James II. in 1687, and re-established by Queen Anne,in 1703.

It consists of the sovereign and twelve brethren or knights, making in the whole thirteen, and four officers. The star is worn on the left side of the coat or cloak, and consists of a St. Andrew's cross, of silver embroidery, with rays going out between the points of the cross on the middle a thistle of gold and green upon a field of green, and round the thistle and field a circle of gold, having on it the following motto, in green letters: NEMO ME IMPUNE LACESSIT (no man provokes me with impunity). The badge or jewel is worn pendant to a green riband over the left shoulder, and tied under the arm. consists of the image of St. Andrew,

WOMAN.

A Poem. By W. S. Barrett.
From the New Monthly Magazine, August 1818.
In a modest and well written preface,
Mr. Barrett asserts, "that though the
fair sex have occasioned many disserta-
tions in English prose, they have never
yet found a champion in the more con-
genial field of English poetry." With
this declaration, however, we do not
of Woman; Mr. Southey's first Epic
agree: Parnei has a poem on the Rise
celebrates the wonderful exploits of the
Maid of Arc; and one of the most
elegant of his minor productions is
denominated the "Triumphs of Wo-
man. Besides these, many of the most
popular authors of all ages, compliment
her in various passages of their poems.
We copy the following singular verses
from the works of Sir Aston Cokayne;
which, as they have become exceedingly
scarce, may not be deemed unaccepta-
ble to our readers:-

I wonder why by foul-mouthed men
Women so slandered be,
Since it doth easily appear
They're better far than we?
Why are the Graces every one
Pictured as women be,
If not to shew that they in grace
Do more excel than we ?
Why are the liberal Sciences

Pictured as women be,
If not to shew, that they in them
Do more excel than we?
Why are the Virtues every one
Pictured as woman be,

If not to shew, that they in them
Do more excel than we ?*
Since women are so full of worth,
Let them all praised be;
For commendation they deserve
In ampler wise than we.

It

* He might have added,

"Why are the Muses every one," &c.

118

Varieties: Critical, Literary, and Historical.

[VOL. 4.

There is great delicacy in the follow- champion in the field of English poetry." ing lines:

*

Ask the grey pilgrim by the surges cast

On hostile shores, and numbed beneath the blast,
Ask who revived him? who the hearth began
To kindle? who with spilling goblet ran?
O he will dart one spark of youthful flame,
And clasp his withered hands and woman name.

This recals forcibly to our recollection the pathetic little song of the Duchess of Devonshire on the hospitality of a negro woman to the enterprizing trayeller Mungo Park :—

The loud wind roar'd, the rain fell fast,
The white man yielded to the blast;
He sat him down beneath the tree,
For weary, sad, and faint was he :
But ah! no wife or mother's care
For him the milk or corn prepare.

*

*

*

The storm is o'er-the tempest past,
And merey's voice has hushed the blast:
The wind is heard in whispers low:
The white man far away must go ;
But ever in his heart will bear
Remembrance of the Negro's care.

Ledyard also beautifully eulogizes the fair sex in his verses, entitled "The Character of Women;" he tells us that they are—

46 Alive to every tender feeling,

To deeds of mercy ever prone;
The wounds of pain and sorrow healing
With soft compassion's sweetest tone.
Form'd in benevolence of nature,
Obliging, modest, gay and mild,
Woman's the same endearing creature,
In courtly town, and savage wild.

When parch'd with thirst—with hunger wasted,
Her friendly hand refreshment gave;
How sweet the coarsest food has tasted,
What cordial in the simple wave!
Her courteous looks-her words caressing,
Shed comfort on the fainting soul;
Woman's the stranger's general blessing
From sultry India to the Pole !"

Surely Mr. Barrett has never seen

Certainly no one ever advocated her cause so effectually as he has done in the poem before us; but we will continue our extracts.-After describing the difference of the pursuits and characteristics of each sex, he goes on to show that women excel us in devotion, chastity, modesty, charity, good faith, forgiveness, and parental affection; and enumerates the various arts and attractions which give them so strong an ascendancy over us.

She by reserve and awful meekness reigns;
Her sighs are edicts, her caresses, chains.
Why has she tones with speaking music strung?
Eyes, eloquent beyond the mortal tongue ?
And looks that vanquish, till, on nerveless knee,
Men gaze, and grow with gazing, weak as she?

Tis to command these arts against our arms,
And tame imperious might with winning charms.

#

*

*

*

But can all earth excel that crimson grace,
When her heart sends its heraid to her face?
Sends from its ark its own unblemish'd dove,
A messenger of joy, of truth, of love!
Her blush can man to modest passion fire,
Her blush can awe his arrogant desire;
Her blush can welcome lovers, or can warn,
As ruddy skies announce both night and morn.

p. 48.

We wonder it should not have occurred to our author to place woman in the most interesting situation possible, by representing her as the sweet soother of our cares amid the storms of adver

sity, and ready to endure deep and
protracted anguish for the sake of the
object beloved. These beautiful lines
from Marmion might have furnished
him with the hint-

"Oh Woman! in our hours of ease,
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
And variable as the shade

By the light quivering aspen made;
When pain and sickness wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou!"

Or these from Dodsley's fragment, entitled "The Wife,"

Does fortune smile, how grateful must it prove
To tread life's pleasing round with one we love!
Or does she frown? the fair with softening art
Will soothe our woes, or bear a willing part.

We shall conclude by the following extracts, which, we will venture to af

these lines, or he would not have as- firm, are not often excelled in the com

serted, that woman has found

no pass of modern poetry.

VOL. 4.]

Useful Arts.-Impo

reat-Remarkable Phenomenon.

The same important advantages wi be found in boiling and evaporating a kinds of vegetable, oily, or saline sub stances; and any operation requiring a heat considerably above that of boili water may be performed with certain and safety. It is particularly applic ble to many chemical operations, ar various other branches of business

such as soap-boiling, salt-refining, dy ing, tallow-melting, chandling, &c.

119

meet him again ere long, and once more
to have an opportunity of offering to
the world our testimony of his merits.

From the Literary Gazette, Aug. 1818.
ANECDOTES.

When the French minister Valory took leave of Frederic the Great, he could do his Prussian Majesty a pleaasked him by what the King his master

sure? ""

Edict of Nantes," answered Frederic.
By a second revocation of the

Then follows a description of the apparatus for boiling sugar and distilling rum by the heat of steam :-the steamA person of the name of Millot There is much of the pathetic ten- wrote a book which he called "Mega derness of Byron in this passage. The antropogènésie, or the Art of procreating wise Children.” "Tis a pity. said R. that the author's father did

next will be found very strongly to resemble the elegant simplicity of Gold

smith.

Light specks of fleecy gold bestrew the skies,
The dewy ox is on his knee to rise;
The mist rolls off in eddies-smokes begin
From opening cots, and all is still within.
The pastoral family due task prepare

For whetted scythe, the milk pail, and the share;
And haste where lark and zephyr, rill and bee,
Mix harmless their primeval minstrelsy.
One damsel chuckles shrill; her cackling train
Run with spread pinions, and dispute the grain :
Another up her rested pitcher heaves,
Encamps small heaps of hay, or girdles sheaves:
Else spinning pats her busy foot, and trills
Some dittied plaint about a love that ki'ls.
The laden wife meantime to market goes,
Or underneath the bawthorn knits her hose;
Or lays moist kerchiefs on the sunny grass,
Or checks her pottage billowing o'er the brass;
While clatter'd plates, and roots in hurry peeled,
Announce her good man trudging from the field.
p. 94.

The poem concludes with an invocation, of which the following is a part:

not understand this art.'

Specimen of ambiguous writing. from one of the London Newspapers. "The East India Company, when it is refined, sell saltpetre in the English market for 21. 4s. 6d. the cwt.

From the same.

REMARKABLE PHENOMENON.

M. C. Hallascka, Professor of Natura! Philosophy at Prague, has published a description of the effects of an Air Spout (so be calls it in contradistinction to Water Spout) which happened on the 10th of May, on the estate of Prince Joseph Von Lobkowitz. After three weeks continuation of a degree of heat very uncommon in April, and during which the sky was constantly serene, a natural phenomenon, of a singular and terrible description, took place in the estate of Gistebnitz, near the town of the same name, in the Circle of Tabor. On the 10th of May (Whitsunday,) about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, the sky being perfectly clear, thunder clouds suddenly rose in the East, which rapidly inveloped the whole East and South of the heavens. The West and North sides of the horizon remained unclouded, and the heat of the sun continued to be very oppres sive. About 5 o'clock the Westwind became more violent, and rapidly alternated with the East, so that violent conflicts between the two winds was perceived, which is shewn also by the direction in which the corn is laid. During this conflict there was formed amoog the clouds, which grew blacker, and throu h where the lightning flashed, a dark opa e pillar (or Air Spout), the diameter of which was above 20 fathoms, and which rose in a whirlwind from the earth to the clouds, which bung very low. The Air Spout thus formed, committed dreadful ravage the fields, carrying with it in its cure, or scattering all around, stones, sand, and earth, and continued its progress, with a hollow sound, towards the East. By the refraction and reflection of the sun's rays falling from the West on the pillar of dust, it loo'd like a column of fire that reddened the clouds. For this thought see a note in Lord Byron's Thunder claps being heard at the same time. 'Bride of Abydos." the inhabitants of the neighbouring places

Oh, give me, Heaven! to sweeten latter life,
And inend my wayward heart, a tender wife,
Who soothes me, tho' herself with anguish wrung,
Nor readers ill for ill, nor tongue for tongue;
Sways by persuasion, kisses off my frown,
And reigns, unarm'd, a queen without a crown.
Alike to please me, her accomplished hand
The harp and homely needle can command;
And learning with such grace her tongue applies,
Her very maxims wear a gay disguise.
Neat for my presence, as if princes came;
And modest, e'en to me, with bridal shame;
A friend, a playmate, as my wishes call,
A ready nurse, though summoned from a ball;
She holds in eye that conquest youth achiev'd,
Loves without pomp, and pleases unperceiv'd.

Wishing Mr. B. such a wife, we take our leave of him, sincerely hoping to

120

Useful Arts-Important A

hastened to the spot with fire engines.
mile from the fields of Kriwoschin, where,
properly speaking, the terrible scene began,
the fiery column stopped over a fallow field,
and began to rage. This terrible pillar of
fire revolved with incredible rapidity in a
circle, sometimes horizontally, sometimes
vertically, shot forth red scorching beams,
and furrowed the ground, which it tore up,
and with it stones several pouads in weight,

be

an

rary, and Historical.

[VOL. 4.

hampion in the field of English poetry." ause so effectually as he has done in A tertainly no one ever advocated her poem before us; but we will conque our extracts. After describing difference of the pursuits and chanit wateristics of each sex, he goes on to tew that women excel us in devotion, of leastity, modesty, charity, good faith, orgiveness, and parental affection; and umerates the various arts and attracons which give them so strong an asendancy over us.

which it hurled, whizzing like sky-rockets, into the air. This lasted about 15 minutes, A silvery stripe, in the shape of a tunnel, the point of which was turned towards the earth, was now formed in the middle of this Air Spout, which began at its top, and almost reached the centre. This silvery stripe contracted itself several times, and at last entirely disappeared. After this phenomenon, which had continued almost three quarters of an hour, the Air Spout again began to move forward, and, in the back ground, a splendid rainbow appeared, which formed, as it were, a bridge over the colossal pillar. Meantime vivid lightning and constant thunder issued from the clouds, which were partly black, and partly reddened by the fiery pillar. The phenomenon, which much resembled a volcano, then proceeded slowly to the Galgenberg, near Gisthenitz, from which the observers were driven by a shower of sand and stones.

Here the fiery phenomenon was changed into a cloud of dust, which proceeded from

fell in the drop of Naw
of Kauryim, such a prodigious quantity of
hail, that all the ditches and hollow_places
were full on the fifth day after. At Prague
we saw, towards the East, the dreadfully
black clouds which threatened a destructive
tempest, but did not affect us. The barom-
eter fell the succeeding days much below the
mean height of the mercury. The tempera-
ture of the air gradually cooled, so that the
thermometer of Reaumur at sunrise, on the
31st of May, was only 3 degrees of heat.
This Air Spout is, in the chief particulars,
like that which was observed on the 30th of
August, 1806, at Palma-Nova in the Venetian
Frioul.

USEFUL ARTS.

From the Monthly Magazine.
PATENT LATELY ENROLLED.

To Philip Taylor, of Bromley, Middle-
sex; for a Method of applying the
Heat of Steam in the Operations of
Boiling, Distilling, &c.
THE
HE inventions hitherto offered to
the distiller have generally had for
their object some one of the following
advantages:-

To reduce the consumption of fuel;
To enable the distiller to work with great-
er rapidity;

To guard against accidents from boiling

over;

To prevent the injurious effect of fire on the wash or other fluid subjected to distilla

tion.

is found very economical as to the consumption of fuel; the saving generally amounts to one third, and in some cases even more.

As the vessels or stills are not exposed to the destructive action of the fire, they are not liable to wear out; they are more easily cleaned; and may be made of any material capable of containing the boiling fluid. It being necessary to surround them with brick work, much expense is saved; and, from their occupying less room, a far more convenient arrangement of them can be made. The buildings in which such vessels are placed need not be lofty; neither fireplace nor ash-pit being required under them, they may stand but little elevated from the ground.

In attaining some one or two of these advantages, others of equal or greater jimportance have always been sacri- In the distillation of spirits, essential ficed ; or the stills have been rendered oils, simple waters, vinegar, &c. the difficult to manage, and not at all suit- improvement in flavour and quality will ed to operations on a large scale. The be found very considerable; at the same plan now proposed is free from these objections, and will be found to combine th foregoing advantages with several others of considerable value.

Mr. Taylor's mode of applying heat

time that a larger product may be obtained, from its being possible to continue the operation until the last portions are drawn over, without risk of injuring the still.