266 New Work-Woman: or Minor Maxims. [VOL. 4 had she appeared so attractive, so re- ding, that is no reason I should have spectable Mr. Knowlesdon felt, in it as thin as water-there is reason in one moment the full worth of woman." all things." A character strongly opposed to that "Sir Gabriel knew that well; and of Mrs. Egerton, is Lady Wronghead, he knew also that every general rule belonging to the class of females, un- had some exceptions-Lady Wronghappily too numerous, who imagine that head, for instance, had she any reason? they are displaying all the refinements But he went on eating his soup. of sensibility, when they are in fact only betraying the workings of egotism. The profound selfishness of beings of this description is strikingly and dramatically exhibited: "The day continued raw and gloomy. Lady Wronghead, shivering and uneasy, pronounced herself miserably cold;' fresh fagots were piled on the hearth, and another shawl thrown round her form. Pray, Jack, shut the door -it is always left open-James has no sense of feeling.' "He should have, Madam,' replied Jack, for he has been cooling himself these two hours, washing bottles in an outhouse; he should have a fellowfeeling for you.' "Lady Wronghead was not talking about fellow-teeling. She rose to cross the hall; her own maid was there, holding the house-door partially open; and now asked if her ladyship would please to relieve that poor negro. 'He is cold, wet, hungry-a stranger, my lady.' "Bless me, Margaret! where, is your feeling? Don't you see how the damp air blows in upon me? Shut the door, pray-Never had woman such unfeeling servants!' 66 "Margaret shewed her feelings, and shut the door upon the unrelieved, cold, wet, and hungry stranger, who mourn fully retired to seek a shelter in a humbler shed;" not however before Jack had thrown up the dining-room window, and flung a crown into his bat." "And that mutton-it is roasted to a chip!" "The Baron looked upon the exuding gravy, as he poured half a dozen spoonfuls on the slice destined for his better half-but he risked no reasoning. "Jack carelessly exclaimed, You complained sadly of the under-done haunch last week, Mother.' "Well, Sir, and is that any reason why this leg should be burnt to a cinder?" "Reason again! The word bothered Sir Gabriel, as "teeling" had in the morning annoyed his son; and he drank wine with Miss Patty, the better to gulp it down." The following passage is peculiarly whimsical and ingenious: "Lady Wronghead's senses were so exquisite, that they were always tormenting her. Whether this is the service for which senses are bestowed, is a question we leave to the discussion of our sagacious readers our present business is with Lady Wronghead. "I have such an unfortunate nose, I smell every thing in a moment, and there is always some disagreeable scent to offend me; take away those flowers, they are too sweet for me.-To be sure, mine is such an unlucky taste; I can discover the slightest unpleasant flavour. How you are eating those peaches, Sir Gabriel! they have a something, I know not what, that makes them very unpalatable; at least to my taste.You all of you enjoyed the music last We have soon afterwards a specimen night. Well, that was so odd to me, of the good humour of this amiable for my ear was offended a hundred dame :times. Jack, your blackbird must be "The dinner appeared. Lady removed; I hear it sometimes, and its Wronghead found some fault in every notes do so jar upon my ear.-Oh, my dish on the table. "The soup was too dear, I am sure that is your uncle in thick." the park. My sight is so remarkably You thought it too thin yesterday clear: it is quite a misfortune to be so my love.' quick-sighted. Indeed, Mr. Twist, "I know that, Sir Gabriel; but chilly as I am, I cannot buy a stuffthough I don't like it as thick as pud- gown, my touch is so wretchedly sus VOL. 4.] Resources of Genius-Lee and Addison. ceptible: I cannot describe how, but I shonld have such a feel every time my hand fell on my dress." 267 nine times out of a hundred the trick is seen through, and (the term is rather harsh) despised. Lord Rochfort, in a moment transformed from a gallant One of the ball-room artifices of a admirer to an exasperated contemner, girl in her teens is very fairly exposed: turned from the artful fair, and sought "Susan Knowlesdon, bewildered a more courteous damsel. Mr. Barton with the gaiety of the scene, and with led his triumphant partner to the dance. the number of strangers moving around. "TheSolicitor bad marked the whole her, was continually recurring to her transaction, and, with his usual incivility, uncle for information. My dear Sir, exulted in what he was pleased to callwho is that gentleman ?" the defeat of the cunning of his niece. At the end of the first dance, as Susan was seated regaling herself with the pretty nothings of the fancied Earl, Mr. Knowlesdon contrived to whisper in her ear, You have done wisely, Susan, in selecting a partner nearest your own rank.' 66 "Mr. Knowlesdon mistook the direction of her eye- Mr. Barton, Susan.' "And who is that next to him?" 'Lord Rochfort.' "The mistake was complete-Susan had first looked at the peer, and last at the commoner. It happened (for odd things will sometimes happen) that both the gentlemen, probably attracted by the pointed gaze of Susan's bright eye, resolved to ask her hand for the ensuing dances. The brisk noble was however at her side much before the tardy Mr. Barton. Under the impression of her recent mistake, this however was a very unpalatable arrangement to the fair belle; she contrived therefore, at the moment, dexterously to avert her head from the supplicant, and laughing immoderately at what was best known to herself, to give the supposed titled laggard time to approach. "Am I not dancing with lord Rockfort?" exclaimed the dismayed Susan. 'No, child, no,' responded the malicious lawyer; 'you are sitting still with Mr. Barton.' "Susan was electrified; her smiles vanished, and a pouting lip and scorndarting eye met the gaze of her hitherto enraptured partner. No longer courting his attention-no longer drawing her arm through his, in all the innocent frankness of guileless beauty, the grocer's grandson (Mr. Barton) began to wonder what had happened. The second dance was heavily got through, and Susan retired from the festive throng with the loss of a second ad "However adroitly practice enables young ladies to perform this maneuvre, mirer." yet they may be assured that, ninety To be concluded in our next. I From the New Monthly Magazine, October 1818. NUGE LITERARIÆ. No. II. "Then grieve not thou to whom the indulgent Muse Vouchsafes a portion of celestial fire; Nor blame the partial Fates if they refuse The resources of Genius. N his musing mood the poet exists in another world, peopled by the beings of his own prolific imagination. He is there compensated for the neglects he meets with in life. There every thing is adjusted to his taste; his rivals are always disgraced and his nymphs noble tragedy Cato opens, appears to are always kind.--" Les malheureux have been borrowed from Lee's Alexqui ont de l'esprit trouvent des res- ander. sources en eux-memes," says Bon bours: LEE and ADDISON. Beattie's Minstrel. Song writing [VOL 4 About her shoulders shone her golden locks, Tasso merely observes that a young female appeared before him with her golden locks shaken out in the wind. The exquisitely graceful addition of the translator may however be traced to a Sonnet by Lorenzo de' Medicis, with whose writings Fairfax was very well acquainted. Quando sopra i nevosi ed alti monti Sonnet 73. Tal i crin suoi sopra la bianca gonna. Stage Directions. Is a talent entirely " per se," and given, like every other branch of genius, by nature. Shenstone was labouring through his whole life to write a perfect song, and succeeded no better than Pope did in his attempts at a Cecilian Ode. Mr. Moore is one of the very few poets who have entered into the spirit of this style of composition. His in some of our old English plays, that songs abound in the most exquisite similies, and generally conclude with one, which may he said to be to the piece, like the dew-drop at the end of an unfolding rosebud, which, tinged with the colour of the flower, adds brightness to its hues, delicacy to its shades, beauty to its shape, and fragrance to its perfume! It appears from the stage directions part of the minor speeches were left to the direction and invention of the actors The Shifts of Ignorance in Places of Seat of Modesty. The conduct of a man in public Aristotle observes that lovers gaze life, occupied in concealing his ignoron no part but the eyes of those they ance, is an absolute system of taclove, which is the abode of modesty. tics. It is curious to remark his stuPliny, however, places it in the cheeks; died silence when the conversation but Erasmus in some measure illustrates the meaning of the Stagyrite, by affirming that modesty is said to be in the eyes, because children when they blush cover their eyes. He adds that the Poets feign Cupid blind because he is so impudent; were his eyes open nobody would trust him. “Which is the villain, let me see his eyes That I may avoid him." Much Ado, &c. turns upon a subject which he is conscions he ought to know well, and of which he is equally conscious that he knows nothing; to see how he slinks away when this conversation approaches too near him, and the looks of the circle around seem to express that they are all expectation to hear his opinion. He goes up in an absent way to the chimney-piece, takes up some papers that lie there, and begins to look them over with profound attention, while, nevertheless, if he hears any thing said on which he may venture with confidence to put in a word, 'tis so, says be, exactly so, not taking his eyes however from the papers till the moment when he can adroitly give another turn to the conversation; and to this resource he has been obliged to recur so often, that it has become entirely familiar to n. Sometimes he will be a little more adventurous; and if a debate arises in his company upon the period when some event of antiquity happened, or upon the distance between two large towns, and several different opinions on the question are supported with equal pertinacity, one maintaining, for instance, that it was the year 300, before our era, another, that it was the year 200, one that the distance between the towns was 2000 leagues, another that it was 2400, he will fix the period Curious Epigram. 269 The following epigram occurs in a very rare and curious selection, not mentioned by Ritson, entitled "The two last Centuries of Epigrammes," Printed by J. Windet, (no date.) Made breeches fit to hide themselves withal; The friendship of Apollo dangerous. at the year 250, the distance at 2200 leagues: this is a medium he ventures to take without having any notion ous; he treats poets with the same whatever upon the subject, only he feels kindness as he did his favourite comconfident that he cannot be very wide panion Hyacinthus.* Phoebus amat !" a See the story of Hyacinthus, Ovid, book 26, who was killed by a quoit from the band of Apollo. Moliere From this of the mark. But with such fortunate thought the device of Tasso was opportunities to display his knowledge, hyacinth, with the motto, "Sic me he is not often favoured. It is more easy for him to terminate a controversy on any axiom laid down, since he has always some common-place remark, or assertion ready at hand, suited to the Pillaged without scruple the thoughts occasion. Sometimes he takes his re- of others. The scene of the Pyrrhonian venge; and if he happens to have philosopher in the Forced Marriage, is been reading in the morning, in the way taken word for word from Rabelais. of his business, any paper or papers, The play of the "Physician in spite of through which he has acquired some himself," is founded on the circumstance piece of statistical knowledge, he does related by Grotius; the story of George not rest till he gives the conversation Dandin is stolen from the Decameron. such a turn, as will enable him to bring To Bergerac he is indebted for his it out. Wo, then, to any one who character of the Pedant, ridiculed in thinks he shall pay his court to him by the cheats of Scapin. making many inquiries on the subject, or who offers some slight objection, that he may ask for an explanation ;our man of ignorance is already at the full length of his tether; he answers only by monosyllables, and becomes evidently out of humour.-M. de Stael. Illustration of a passage in Milton's Lycidas. Warton, in his criticism on Lycidas, observed, that, by "the grey fly winds her sultry horn," the poet describes the sunset, and the buzzing of the chafer. This opinion appears to be erroneous; sultry agrees much better with noon, than with sunset. The horn of the grey fly is probably the peculiarly distinct tone of the gnat. With regard to the epithet applied to the insect by Milton; Shakspeare designates the waggoner of Queen Mab, "a small greycoated gnat." Unwillingness of Men of Genius to be satisfied with their own productions. though men of ordinary talents may be It has been very justly observed that tions, men of true genius never are. highly satisfied with their own producWhatever be their subject they always seem to themselves to fall short of it, even when they appear to others most to excel; and for this reason, because they have a certain sublime sense of perfection which other men are strangers to, and which they in their performance are not able to exemplify. Don Quixote. Lord Orford used to say of Don Quixote, "that when the hero in the outset of the novel is so mad as to mistake a windmill for a giant, what more is to be said but an insipid repetition of mistakes, or an uncharacteristic deviation from them! 270 Modern Persia. [TOL. 4 ing, some beauty which had escaped Conrad Gessner. This is too harsh; it is the very minute description of life and character as him before. they occur in Spain, that interests us in reading Don Quixote, and makes us The death of Conrad Gessner is said pardon the extravagance of the chief to have been similar to that of Petrarch, character, and the insipidity of the pas- "Capite libris innixo mortuus est intoral scenes. The episodes are bad; the fate of the Spanish captive and his moorish mistress excepted, which is an exquisite piece of truth and na ture. ventus," (vita Petrarcha.) He was found dead in his study with his head leaning on some books.-Most of his writings exhibit uncommon force of imagination, but very indifferently regulated, with much of that meretricious substitution of glittering words for ideas, so common to the German School It is observed in the life of Day (the author of the Dying Negro) that he regularly perused this work once a year, and fancied he discovered in each read- of poetry. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS IN MODERN PERSIA. From the Literary Gazette, Sept. 1818. A SECOND JOURNEY THROUGH PERSIA, ARMENIA, ASIA MINOR, &C. BETWEEN THE YEARS 1810 AND 1816. BY JAMES MORIER, ESQ. &c. &c. LONDON. 1818. T him, Is there any chappow (plunder) in Paradise? To which the other said 'No.' 'Ah then,' said he, Paradise won't do for me.'" HE military history of the Persians was a saint; and he excited them to is as humorous as their domestic bis- take forts, and to oppose any numbers tory is strange and unamiable; we have to the enemy, by promising Paradise many entertaining anecdotes on the as a reward. They went with alacrity former subject scattered through this whithersoever he directed them, and volume. Our readers know that Abbas met their death with constancy. When Mirza, the heir apparent, residing at Beg Jan was one day describing the Tabriz, has succeeded in introducing delights of Paradise, an Uzbeg asked the European system of tactics into his army, perhaps one of the most important events for his country since the days of Timour. Boasting of this improvement, and of the facility it would This Beg Jan's history is very cuafford, through the use of artillery, of rious; but we shall pursue our military conquering the Uzbeg Tartars, he ex- extracts for the present. The unparalclaimed," Ah! it would indeed be leled answer to the Shah's summons an easy matter! What do they know will perhaps be thought bolder than it of guns, or manœuvres, and of firing appears at first sight, when we mention ten times in a minute? I recollect the that even with Abbas Mirza, and his time when we Persians were as bad as European assistance, the fort of Abbasthey. My father, the Shah, once be- abad, the plan of which was given by sieged a fort, and had with him one the French general Gardand, by an argun, with only three balls; and even chitectural arrangement peculiar to the this was reckoned extraordinary. He Persians, has the heaviest stones at top fired off two of the balls at the fort, and then summoned it to surrender. The besieged, who knew that he had only one ball left, sent him this answer: "For God's sake fire off your other ball at us, and then we shall be free of But the frontier or border war with you altogether." He continued to say, the Russians, which had lasted 11 years, "The Uzbegs not long since had a fa- and was finally negotiated into a treaty mous fellow amongst them, called Beg of peace through our mediation, affords Jan, who made them believe that he the finest examples of Persian tactics instead of being at the foundation, so that even without the pawnbroker's number of halls being discharged at it, large portions of the wall tumbled down every year. |