Part 3

Oviedo extols the pine-apple above all the fruits which grew in the famous gardens of his time, and above all that he had tasted in his travels in Spain, France, England, Germany, the whole of Italy, Sicily, the Tyrol, and the whole of the Low Countries. "No fruit," says he, "have I known or seen in all these parts, nor do I think that in the world there is one better than it, or equal to it, in all those points which I shall now mention, and which are, beauty of appearance, sweetness of smell, taste of excellent savour; so that there being three senses out of the five which can be gratified by fruit, such is its excellence above all other fruits or dainties in the world, that it gratifies those three, and even the fourth also; to wit the touch. As for the fifth, that is to say, the hearing, fruit, indeed, can neither hear nor listen, but in its place the reader may hear and attend to what is said of this fruit, and he will perceive that I do not deceive myself in what I shall say of it. For albeit fruit can as little be said to possess any of the other four senses, in relation to the which I have, as above, spoken, of these I am to be understood in the exercise and person of him who eats, not of the fruit itself, which hath no life, save the vegetative one, and wants both the sensitive and rational, all three of which exist in man. And he, looking at these pines, and smelling to them, and tasting them, and feeling them, will justly, considering these four parts or particularities, attribute to it the principality above all other fruits."

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STONE-MASON'S CRITICISM

Mr. Bowles, the vicar of Bremhill, Wilts, is accustomed occasionally to write epitaphs for the young and aged dead among his own parishioners. An epitaph of his, on an aged father and mother, written in the character of a most exemplary son--the father living to eighty-seven years--ran thus:--

"My father--my poor mother--both are gone, And o'er your cold remains I place this stone, In memory of your virtues. May it tell How _long one_ parent lived, and _both_ how well," &c.

When this was shown to the stone-mason critic, (and Mr. Bowles acknowledges he has heard worse public critics in his time,) he observed, that the lines _might_ do with a _little_ alteration--thus:--

"My father, and my mother too, are dead, And here I _put_ this grave-stone at their head; My father lived to eighty-seven, my mother No quite _so long_--and _one_ died after _t'other_."

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PLEASURES OF HISTORY.

The effect of historical reading is analogous, in many respects to that produced by foreign travel. The student, like the tourist, is transported into a new state of society. He sees new fashions. He hears new modes of expression. His mind enlarged by contemplating the wide diversities of laws, of morals, of manners. But men may travel far, and return with minds as contracted as if they had never retired from their own market-towns. In the same manner, men may know the dates of many battles, and the genealogies of many noble houses, and yet be no wiser. Most people look at past times, as princes look at foreign countries. More than one illustrious stranger has landed on our island amidst the shouts of a mob, has dined with the king, has hunted with the master of the stag-hounds, has seen the guards reviewed, and a Knight of the Garter installed; has cantered along Regent-street; has visited St. Paul's, and noted down its dimensions, and has then departed, thinking that he has seen England. He has, in fact, seen a few public buildings, public men, and public ceremonies. But of the vast and complex system of society, of the fine shades of national character, of the practical operation of government and laws, he knows nothing.--_Edin. Rev._

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CHARMS OF SAVAGE LIFE.

It is remarkable that whites or creoles do not always avail themselves of opportunities to return to civilized society. There seem to be pleasures in savage life, which those who have once tasted, seldom wish to exchange for the charms of more polished intercourse. For example, a creole boy was carried off at the age of 13; at 26 he returned to Buenos Ayres, on some speculation of barter. He said that whoever had lived upon horse-flesh would never eat beef, unless driven by necessity or hunger; he described the flesh of a colt to be the most deliciously flavoured of all viands. This man, having transacted the business which led him to Buenos Ayres, returned voluntarily to his native haunts, and is probably living amongst the Indians to this day.--_Mem. Gen. Miller_.

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PATRONS OF ASTRONOMY.

The Emperor of Russia has presented to the Observatory of Dorpat, a magnificent telescope by Franenhofer, with a focal length of 13 feet, and an aperture of 9 inches; the cost was £1,300. The king of Bavaria followed his example by ordering a still finer instrument for the same purpose; and the king of France, with a liberality still more patriotic, has had executed in his own capital, an achromatic telescope, surpassing them all in magnitude and power. What a misfortune it is to English science, that the name of the most accomplished prince who has as yet occupied the throne of Charles I. does not appear in the list of sovereigns, who have been thus rivalling each other in the patronage of astronomy! What a mortification to English feeling, that the subject of sidereal astronomy created by the munificence of George III. should thus be transferred to the patronage of foreign monarchs. A slight exception must be made in the case of Edinburgh. During the King's visit, the observatory had permission to take the name of the _Royal Observatory of George IV._; and it has received from government £2,000. to purchase instruments.--_Quarterly Rev_.

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SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

DINNERS.

A Family Dinner! Pot-luck, as it is called, in Scotland--when the man's wife is in the sulks, the wife's man proportionably savage, the children blear-eyed from the recent blubber in the nursery--the governess afraid to lift her eyes from her plate--the aunt sourer than the vinegar cruet--and we--alas! the stranger, stepping in to take pot-luck--we, poor old Christopher North, thanklessly volunteering to help the cock-y-leekie, that otherwise would continue to smoke and steam unstirred in its truly classical utensil! What looking of inutterable things! As impossible to break the silence with your tongue, as to break pond-ice ten inches thick with your knuckle. In comes the cock that made the cock-y-leekie, boiled down in his tough antiquity to a tatter. He disappears among the progeny, and you are now tied to the steak. You find there employment sufficient to justify any silence; and hope during mastication that you have not committed any crime since Christmas, of an enormity too great to be expiated by condemnation to the sulks.

A Literary Dinner! apparently the remains of the Seven Young Men sprinkled along both sides of the table--with here and there "a three-times skimmed sky-blue" interposed; on each side of the Lord of the Mansion, a philosopher--on each hand of the lady, a poet--somewhere or other about the board, a Theatrical Star--a Strange Fiddler--an Outlandish Traveller--and a Spanish Refugee. As Mr. Wordsworth rather naughtily sayeth,

"All silent, and all damn'd!"

Still the roof does not fall, although the chandelier burns dim in sympathy,

"And all the air a solemn stillness holds."

Will not a single soul in all this wide world, as he hopes to be saved, utter so much as one solitary syllable? Oh! what would not the lady and the gentleman of the house give even for a remark on the weather from the mouth of poet, philosopher, sage, or hero! Hermetically sealed! Lo! the author of the very five-guinea quarto, that lay open, in complimentary exposure, at a plate, up stairs on the drawing-room table--with his round unmeaning face "breathing tranquillity"--sound asleep! With eyes fixed on the ceiling, sits at his side the profound Parent of a Treatise on the Sinking Fund. The absent gentleman, who has kept stroking his chin for the last half hour, as if considering how he is off for soap,--would you believe it,--has just returned from abroad, and has long been justly celebrated for his conversational talents in all the coteries and courts of Europe. If that lank-and-leather-jawed gentleman, with complexion bespeaking a temperament dry and adust, and who has long been sedulously occupied in feeling the edge of his fruit-knife with the ball of his thumb--do not commit suicide before September,--Lavater must have been as great a goose as Gall. You might not only hear a mouse stirring--a pin dropping--but either event would rouse the whole company like a peal of thunder. You may have seen Madame Toussaud's images,--Napoleon, Wellington, Scott, Canning, all sitting together, in full fig, with faces and figures in opposite directions, each looking as like himself as possible, so that you could almost believe you heard them speak. You get rather angry--you wonder that they don't speak. Even so with those living images. But the exhibition is over--the ladies leave the room--and after another hour of silence, more profound than that of the grave, all the images simultaneously rise up and--no wonder people believe in ghosts--disappear.

A Return Dinner! Thirty people of all sorts and sizes, jammed--glued together--shoulder to shoulder--knee to knee--all with their elbows in each other's stomachs--most faces as red as fire, in spite of all those floods of perspiration--two landed gentlemen from the Highlands--a professor--four officers, naval and military, in his Majesty's and in the Company's service--some advocates--two persons like ministers--abundance of W.S.'s of course--an accoucheur--old ladies with extraordinary things upon their heads, and grey hair dressed in a mode fashionable before the flood--a few fat mothers of promising families--some eldest daughters now nubile--a female of no particular age, with a beard--two widows, the one buxom and blooming, with man-fond eyes, the other pale and pensive, with long, dark eye-lashes, and lids closed as if to hide a tear--there they all sit steaming through three courses--well does the right hand of the one know what the left hand of the other is doing--there is much suffering, mingled with much enjoyment--for though hot, they are hungry--while all idea of speaking having been, from the commencement of the feast, unanimously abandoned--you might imagine yourself at an anniversary GAUDEAMUS of the Deaf and Dumb.--_Blackwood's Mag._

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THE SCOLD.

IMITATED FROM BERNI.

To dine on devils without drinking, To want a seat when almost sinking, To pay to-day--receive to-morrow, To sit at feasts in silent sorrow, To sweat in winter--in the boot To feel the gravel cut one's foot, Or a cursed flea within the stocking Chase up and down--are very shocking: With one hand dirty, one hand clean, Or with one slipper to be seen: To be detain'd when most in hurry, Might put Griselda in a flurry;-- But these, and every other bore, If to the list you add a score, Are not so bad, upon my life, As that one scourge--a scolding wife!

_New Monthly Magazine_.

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SELECT BIOGRAPHY

LEDYARD THE TRAVELLER.

_Concluded from page 113_.

Ledyard was one of the marines who were present at Cook's death, of which he gives an account (as appears from extracts of his journal already mentioned,) somewhat different from that in the authentic narrative of the voyage--and different, also, we must add, from his own private journal, which, at least the portion of it relating to that event, is still in the Admiralty. It must be mentioned in favour of Ledyard's sagacity, that the visit to Nootka Sound suggested to him the commercial advantages to be derived from a trade between the north-west coast of America and China; and the views which he took of this subject very much influenced the succeeding events of his life.

Towards the end of December, 1782, we find Ledyard serving on board a king's ship in Long Island Sound, from which he obtained leave of absence to visit his mother; but, either from a sense of duty and honour, which obliged him not to act with the enemies of his country, or from a dislike of the service, he never returned. He had conceived, and now began to endeavour to execute, the grand project of a trading voyage to Nootka; for this purpose he went to New York and Philadelphia, and, after addressing himself to various individuals, he prevailed at last on the Honourable Robert Morris to promise him a ship. The projected voyage, however, was ultimately abandoned.

Finding, nevertheless, that they all failed him, and heartily sick of the want of enterprise among his own countrymen, he resolved to try his fortune in Europe. He visited Cadiz, from thence took a passage to Brest, and from Brest to L'Orient, where he was successful in prevailing on some merchants to fit out a ship for his north-west adventure; but this project also failed, and Ledyard became once more the sport of accident.

He now proceeded to Paris, where he was received with great kindness by Mr. Jefferson, the American minister, who so highly approved of his favourite scheme of an expedition to the north-west coast, that, we are told by his biographer, the journey of Lewis and Clarke, twenty years afterwards, had its origin in the views which Jefferson received from Ledyard. Here, also, he met with the notorious Paul Jones, who was looking after the proceeds of the prizes which he had taken and carried into the ports of France. This adventurer entered warmly into his views, and undertook to fit out two vessels for the expedition. It was settled that Jones was to command the vessels, and carry the furs to the China market, while Ledyard was to remain behind and collect a fresh cargo ready for their return, after which he meant to perambulate the continent of America, and show his countrymen the path to unbounded wealth. Jones, it seems, was so much taken with the plausibility of a scheme, which presented at once the prospect of adventure, fame, and profit, that he advanced money to Ledyard to purchase a part of the cargo for the outfit; but, being suddenly called away to L'Orient, to look after his prize concerns, his zeal for this grand scheme began to cool, and, in a few months, the whole fabric fell to the ground.

Ledyard now felt himself a sort of wandering vagabond, without employment, motive, or means of support; the supplies he had received from Jones had ceased, and he was compelled to become a pensioner on the bounty of the American minister and a few friends. It would appear, however, from some lively letters written by him at Paris, that his flow of spirits did not forsake him.

"The two Fitzhughs," he says, "dine with me to-day in my chamber, together with our worthy consul, Barclay, and that lump of universality, colonel Franks. But such a set of moneyless rascals have never appeared, since the epoch of the happy villain Falstaff. I have but five French crowns in the world; Franks has not a sol; and the Fitzhughs cannot get their tobacco money. Every day of my life," he continues, "is a day of expectation, and, consequently, a day of disappointment; whether I shall have a morsel of bread to eat at the end of two months, is as much an uncertainty as it was fourteen months ago, and not more so."

While in this state of penury he received a visit, the object of which was so creditable to a gentleman still living, and not unknown in the annals of science, that it gives us pleasure to print the story in Ledyard's own words:--

"Permit me to relate to you an incident. About a fortnight ago, Sir James Hall,[8] an English gentleman, on his way from Paris to Cherbourg, stopped his coach at our door, and came up to my chamber. I was in bed at six o'clock in the morning, but having flung on my _robe de chambre_, I met him at the door of the ante-chamber. I was glad to see him, but surprised. He observed, that he had endeavoured to make up his opinion of me, with as much exactness as possible, and concluded that no kind of visit whatever would surprise me. I could do no otherwise than remark, that his _opinion_ surprised me at least, and the conversation took another turn. In walking across the chamber, he laughingly put his hand on a six livre piece, and a louis d'or that lay on my table, and with a half stifled blush, asked me how I was in the money way. Blushes commonly beget blushes, and I blushed partly because he did, and partly on other accounts. 'If fifteen guineas,' said he, interrupting the answer he had demanded, 'will be of any service to you, there they are,' and he put them on the table. 'I am a traveller myself, and though I have some fortune to support my travels, yet I have been so situated as to want money, which you ought not to do. You have my address in London.' He then wished me a good morning and left me. This gentleman was a total stranger to the situation of my finances, and one that I had, by mere accident, met at an ordinary in Paris."

Ledyard observes, that he had no more idea of receiving money from this gentleman than from Tippoo Saib. "However," he says, "I took it without any hesitation, and told him, I would be as complaisant to him if ever occasion offered."

His schemes for a north-west voyage, either for trade or discovery, being now wholly abandoned, he set about planning, as the only remaining expedient, a journey by land through the northern regions of Europe and Asia, then to cross Behring's Straits to the continent of America, to proceed down the coast to a more southern latitude, and to cross the whole of that continent from the western to the eastern shore. The empress of Russia was applied to for her permission and protection, but while waiting for her answer Ledyard received an invitation to London from his eccentric friend, Sir James Hall. He found, on his arrival there, that an English ship was in complete readiness to sail for the Pacific Ocean, in which Sir James had procured him a free passage, and to be put on shore at any spot he might choose on the north-west coast. The amiable baronet, moreover, presented him with twenty guineas, as Ledyard says, _pro bono publico_, and with which he tells us, "he bought two great dogs, an Indian pipe, and a hatchet." In a few days the vessel went down the Thames from Deptford, and Ledyard thought it the happiest moment of his life; but such is the uncertainty of human expectations, while he was indulging in day-dreams of the fame and honour which awaited him, he was once more doomed to suffer the agonies of a disappointment to his hopes, the more severe, as being so near their consummation--the vessel was seized by a custom-house officer, brought back, and exchequered.

This was undoubtedly the most severe blow he had yet received; but Ledyard never desponded--no sooner was one of his castles demolished, than he set about building another. "I shall make the tour of the globe," he says, "from London eastward, on foot." To aid him in this object, a subscription was raised by Sir Joseph Banks, Sir James Hall, and some others. By this means he arrived at Hamburgh; whence he writes to colonel Smith:--"Here I am with ten guineas exactly, and in perfect health. One of my dogs is no more: I lost him in my passage up the river Elbe, in a snow storm: I was out in it forty hours in an open boat."

At the tavern he went to, he learnt that a Major Langhorn, an American officer, "a very good kind of a man," as his host described him, "and an odd kind of a man, one who had travelled much, and fond of travelling in his own way," had left his baggage behind, which was sent after him to Copenhagen, but that, by some accident, it had never reached him. He had left Hamburgh, the host told him, with one spare shirt, and very few other articles of clothing, and added, that he must necessarily be in distress. This man, thought Ledyard to himself, is just suited to be the companion of my travels. The sympathy was irresistible; besides, he might be in want of money; this was an appeal to his generosity, which was equally irresistible to one who, like Ledyard, had ten guineas in his pocket. "I will fly to him and lay my little all at his feet: he is my countryman, a gentleman, and a traveller, and Copenhagen is not much out of my way to Petersburgh," and, accordingly, in the month of January, 1787, after a long and tedious journey, in the middle of winter, through Sweden and Finland, we find him in Copenhagen, having discovered Langhorn shut up in his room, without being able to stir abroad for want of money and decent clothing. After remaining a fortnight, he made a proposal to the Major to accompany him to St. Petersburgh. "No: I esteem you, but no man on earth shall travel with me the way I do," was the abrupt refusal to the man who had gone out of the way several hundred miles to relieve his wants, and given him his last shilling.

The visit being ended, and the amicable partnership dissolved, it became necessary for our traveller to think of raising the supplies for a journey round the Gulf of Bothnia, which was now rendered impassable, the distance being not less than twelve hundred miles, chiefly over trackless snows, in regions thinly peopled, the nights long, and the cold intense; and, after all, gaining only, in the direct route, about fifty miles. A Mr. Thompson accepted his bill on Colonel Smith, for a sum which, he says, "has saved me from perdition, and will enable me to reach Petersburgh." This journey he accomplished within seven weeks; but he writes to Mr. Jefferson, "I cannot tell you by what means I came, and hardly know by what means I shall quit it." Through the influence of Professor Pallas, but more especially by the assistance of a Russian officer, he obtained the passport of the empress, then on her route to the Crimea, in fifteen days. His long and dreary journey having exhausted his money, and worn out his clothes, he drew on Sir Joseph Banks for twenty guineas, which that munificent patron of science and enterprise did not hesitate to pay.

Fortunately, a Scotch physician, of the name of Brown, was proceeding in the service of the empress as far as the province of Kolyvan, who offered him a seat in his kabitka, and thus assisted him on his journey for more than three thousand miles. Having reached Irkutsk, he remained there about ten days, and left it in company with lieutenant Laxman, a Swedish officer, to embark on the Lena, at a point one hundred and fifty miles distant from Irkutsk, with the intention of floating down its current to Yakutsk. On his arrival at this place, he waited on the commandant, told him he wished to press forward, with all expedition, to Okotsk before the winter should shut in, that he might secure an early passage in the spring to the American continent. The commandant assured him that such a journey was already impossible; that the governor-general, from whom he had brought letters, ordered him to show all possible kindness and service, "and the first and best service," said he, "is to beseech you not to attempt to reach Okotsk this winter." Ledyard still persisting to proceed, a trader was brought in, who, in like manner, declared the journey utterly impracticable.

While thus detained for the winter at Yakutsk, he drew up some very just observations on the Tartars, which were afterwards published.