Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

EXTRACTS FROM THE COMMON-PLACE BOOK OF

A LITERARY LOUNGER. NO, IV.

POVERTY OF AUTHORS.

RARELY does good fortune accompany merit. Homer, poor and blind, recited his verses in squares and highways, to gain his bread. Plautus, the comic poet, lived by turning a mill-wheel. Xelander sold, for a little broth, his commentary upon Dion Cassius. Aldus Manutius was so poor that he was rendered insolvent merely by the small sum he borrowed to enable him to transport his library from Venice to Rome. Sigismond Galenius, John Bodinus, Lelio Giraldo, Ludovico Castelvetro, Archbishop Usher, and a multitude of other learned men, died in poverty. Agrippa died in the hospital; Paolo Borghese, who had written a Jerusalem Delivered on the plan of Tasso, was acquainted with fourteen trades, and could not make a living by them all. Tasso was reduced to such extremity that he was obliged to borrow a crown from a friend for his week's subsistence, and to beg his cat, in a pretty sonnet, to lend him the use of her eyes during the night, Non avendo candele per scriver suoi versi.' And how melancholy is it to see Cardinal Bentivoglio, the ornament of Italy and the belles lettres, and the benefactor of the poor, after so many important services rendered to the public, by his embassies and his writings, languishing in poverty in his old age, selling his palace to pay his debts, and dying without leaving wherewithal to bury him!

In France, André Duchesni, the learned historian ; Vaugelas, one of the most polished of writers, and amiable of men; Baudoin, of the Academie Francoise, and de l'Etoile, have lived in misery, and died in poverty.

BREAKFAST IN THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII.

Some centuries since, ale and wine were as certainly a part of a breakfast in England, as tea and coffee are at present, and even for ladies. The Earl of Northum

berland, in the reign of Henry VIII., lived in the following manner :-On flesh days through the year, breakfast for my lord and lady was a loaf of bread, two manchets, a quart of beer, a quart of wine, half a chine of mutton, or a chine of beef, boiled. On meagre days, a loaf of bread, two manchets, a quart of beer, a quart of wine, a dish of butter, a piece of salt fish, or a dish of buttered eggs. During lent, a loaf of bread, two manchets, a quart of beer, a quart of wine, two pieces of salt fish, six baconed herrings, four white herrings, or a dish of sproits.'

TIGRE NATIONAL.

After the French Revolution a man who showed wild beasts at Paris had a tiger from Bengal of the largest species, commonly called the Royal Tiger. But when royalty, and every thing royal, was abolished, he was afraid of a charge of incivism; and instead of Tigre Royal, put on his sign-board Tigre National. The symbol was excellent, as depicting those atrocities which have disgraced the cause of freedom, as much as the massacre of St. Bartholomew did that of religion.

SALARIES OF ACTORS IN CHINA.

In Canton there are about thirty companies of native players, besides about ten of others from beyond the river, as people from the upper provinces are called. A company is generally composed of from forty to seventy persons, and excepting about ten or twelve who take the principal parts, the rest are paid at from twenty and thirty to one hundred and thirty dollars per annum those who enact the superior parts. in which are comprised female characters, deities and emperors, generals and ministers, buffoons and clowns-can earn from three hundred to one thousand dollars per annum, besides their living, which is always at the cost of the manager. The usual price paid for the performance of a set of plays, such as occupy the greater part of a day, is from sixty to seventy dollars, and an engagement is, generally speaking, for five, six, or seven days. There is a law which prohibits the continuance of any per

formance in Canton after six o'clock, p m. but in the suburbs it is not strictly enforced. Engagements for parties at private houses prove the most profitable service for the actor: here they perform during the longprotracted meal of dinner; and it is considered a proper compliment to the host, for the guest to send money to the stage. Though it is not comme il faut for ladies to appear openly at a play, yet when the performance is near any convenient apartments, they are allowed to view it from behind a bamboo screen, so contrived that they are not seen by the company. The Canton actors affect to carry on their dialogue in the Mandarin tongue, but it is so villanously spoken by them that people of education find little pleasure in their performances; whilst with the lower orders they are great favourites. They chiefly excel in feats of tumbling.

A DEXTEROUS KNAVE.

A Florentine notary, who had little employment, bethought himself of the following expedient to raise money. Having called on a young man whose father was lately dead, he asked him whether he had received payment of a certain sum which his father had lent to another person who had also died shortly before. The son told him he had not found any such debt among his father's papers. I drew the obligation with my own hands,' said the notary, and have it in my possession; you have only to make me a reasonable allowance for it.' The young man purchased the forged deed, and cited the son of the alleged debtor. The defendant maintained, that it appeared by his father's books that he had never borrowed a farthing; and immediately called on the notary to tax him with the forgery. 'Young man,' said the notary, you were not born when this sum was borrowed; but your father paid it back at the end of six months, and I am in possession of the discharge. You have nothing to do but to make me a reasonable allowance for it.' The young man did so, and thus the notary cheated both plaintiff and defendant.

[ocr errors]
[graphic][merged small]

THIS animal, which has the figure of a mouse, with a body about five inches long, is one of the greatest pests of some parts of the north of Europe. They inhabit the mountains of Norway and Lapland, whence they occasionally issue in such incredible numbers that the simple inhabitants of Lapland believe they fall from the clouds.

They seem to be endowed with a power of distinguishing the approach of severe weather; for previously to the setting-in of a cold winter they quit their haunts in the aforementioned countries, and emigrate in immense multitudes southward towards Sweden, always endeavouring to keep a direct line. These emigrations take place at uncertain intervals, though generally about once every ten years: and, exposed as they are to attack, they of course become the prey of a variety of animals. Multitudes also are destroyed in endeavouring to swim over the rivers or lakes. From these different causes, very few of them survive to return to their native mountains, and thus a check is put to their ravages, as an interval of several years is necessary to repair their numbers sufficiently for another invasion. They are bold and fierce, and will even attack men and animals if they meet them in their course; and they bite so hard, as to allow themselves to be carried to a considerable distance, hanging by their teeth, before they will quit their hold. It has VOL. 1. May, 1830.

S

been remarked, that no opposition impedes the progress of these animals in their migrations.

If a lake or a river impede their route, they all together take the water, and swim over it; if a fire or a deep well present itself, they boldly plunge into the flames, or leap down the well, and are sometimes seen climbing up on the other side; if a stack of hay or corn interrupt their passage, instead of going over or round it, they gnaw their way through; and if they are stopped by a house which they cannot get through, they continue there till they die. They have sometimes been known even to endeavour to board or pass over a vessel.

Their march is chiefly by night, or early in the morning; and they make such devastation among the herbage, that the surface of the ground over which they have passed appears as if it had been burned. They are even thought to infect the plants which they gnaw; for cattle turned into pastures where they have been are said frequently to die in consequence.

Enemies so numerous and destructive would soon depopulate the country that produced them, did not the same voracity which prompts them to destroy the labours of industry, at last impel them to prey upon each other. After committing incredible devastations, they sometimes divide into two armies, and fight with deadly fury. From these battles, the superstitious inhabitants of Sweden and Lapland pretend to foretel not only wars, but also their success, according to the quarters the animals come from, and the side that is defeated.

What becomes of the victors or the vanquished is unknown; it is probable, that, having devoured every thing else, they subsist on each other; and being on their whole migration towards the sea attended by larger animals of prey, their ranks thus grow thinner and thinner, till they all either are destroyed or expire naturally. Sometimes such numbers have been found dead, that their putrid carcasses have infected the surrounding air, and occasioned malignant distempers.

These animals are prolific beyond conception; and, though millions thus leave the country where they are

« AnteriorContinuar »