Part 3

Monkeys are certainly, there is no denying it, very like men; and, what is worse, men are still more like monkeys. Many worthy people, who have a high respect for what they choose to call the Dignity of Human Nature, are much distressed by this similitude, approaching in many cases to absolute identity; and some of them have written books of considerable erudition and ingenuity, to prove that a man is not a monkey; nay, not so much as even an ape; but truth compels us to confess, that their speculations have been far from carrying conviction to our minds. All such inquirers, from Aristotle to Smellie, principally insist on two great leading distinctions--speech and reason. But it is obvious to the meanest capacity, that monkeys have both speech and reason. They have a language of their own, which, though not so capacious as the Greek, is much more so than the Hottentottish; and as for reason, no man of a truly philosophical genius ever saw a monkey crack a nut, without perceiving that the creature possesses that endowment, or faculty, in no small perfection. Their speech, indeed, is said not to be articulate; but it is audibly more so than the Gaelic. The words unquestionably do run into each other, in a way that, to our ears, renders it rather unintelligible; but it is contrary to all the rules of sound philosophizing, to confuse the obtuseness of our own senses with the want of any faculty in others; and they have just as good a right to maintain, and to complain of, our inarticulate mode of speaking, as we have of theirs--indeed much more--for monkeys speak the same, or nearly the same, language all over the habitable globe, whereas men, ever since the Tower of Babel, have kept chattering, muttering, humming, and hawing, in divers ways and sundry manners, so that one nation is unable to comprehend what another would be at, and the earth groans in vain with vocabularies and dictionaries. That monkeys and men are one and the same animal, we shall not take upon ourselves absolutely to assert, for the truth is, we, for one or two, know nothing whatever about the matter; all we mean to say is, that nobody has yet proved that they are not, and farther, that whatever may be the case with men, monkeys have reason and speech.

The monkey has not had justice done him, we repeat and insist upon it; for what right have you to judge of a whole people, from a few isolated individuals,--and from a few isolated individuals, too, running up poles with a chain round their waist, twenty times the length of their own tail, or grinning in ones or twos through the bars of a cage in a menagerie? His eyes are red with perpetual weeping--and his smile is sardonic in captivity. His fur is mouldy and mangy, and he is manifestly ashamed of his tail, prehensile no more--and of his paws, "very hands, as you may say," miserable matches to his miserable feet. To know him as he is, you must go to Senegal; or if that be too far off for a trip during the summer vacation, to the Rock of Gebir, now called Gibraltar, and see him at his gambols among the cliffs. Sailor nor slater would have a chance with him there, standing on his head on a ledge of six inches, five hundred feet above the level of the sea, without ever so much as once tumbling down; or hanging at the same height from a bush by the tail, to dry, or air, or sun himself, as if he were flower or fruit. There he is, a monkey indeed; but you catch him young, clap a pair of breeches on him, and an old red jacket, and oblige him to dance a saraband on the stones of a street, or perch upon the shoulder of Bruin, equally out of his natural element, which is a cave among the woods. Here he is but the ape of a monkey. Now if we were to catch you young, good subscriber or contributor, yourself, and put you into a cage to crack nuts and pull ugly faces, although you might, from continued practice, do both to perfection, at a shilling a-head for grown-up ladies and gentlemen, and sixpence for children and servants, and even at a lower rate after the collection had been some weeks in town, would you not think it exceedingly hard to be judged of in that one of your predicaments, not only individually, but nationally--that is, not only as Ben Hoppus, your own name, but as John Bull, the name of the people of which you are an incarcerated specimen? You would keep incessantly crying out against this with angry vociferation, as a most unwarrantable and unjust Test and Corporation Act. And, no doubt, were an Ourang-outang to see you in such a situation, he would not only form a most mean opinion of you as an individual, but go away with a most false impression of the whole human race. _Blackwood's Magazine._

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SONNET WRITTEN IN THE SPRING.

How heavenly o'er my frame steals the life-breath Of beautiful Spring! who with her amorous gales Kissing the violets, each stray sweet exhales Of May-thorn, and the wild flower on the heath. I love thee, virgin daughter of the year! Yet, ah! not cups,--dyed like the dawn, impart Their elves' dew-nectar to a fainting heart!-- Ye birds! whose liquid warblings far and near Make music to the green turf-board of swains; To me, your light lays tell of April joy,-- Of pleasures--idle, as a long-loved toy; And while my heart in unison complains, Tears like of balm-tree flow in trickling wave, And white forms strew with flowers a maid's untimely grave! _New Monthly Mag._

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THE KING OF ARRAGON'S LAMENT FOR HIS BROTHER.[1]

"If I could see him, it were well with me!" _Coleridge's Wallenstein._

There were lights and sounds of revelling in the vanquished city's halls, As by night the feast of victory was held within its walls; And the conquerors filled the wine-cup high, after years of bright blood shed: But their Lord, the King of Arragon, 'midst the triumph, wailed the dead.

He looked down from the fortress won, on the tents and towers below, The moon-lit sea, the torch-lit streets--and a gloom came o'er his brow: The voice of thousands floated up, with the horn and cymbals' tone; But his heart, 'midst that proud music, felt more utterly alone. And he cried, "Thou art mine, fair city! thou city of the sea! But, oh! what portion of delight is mine at last in thee? --I am lonely 'midst thy palaces, while the glad waves past them roll, And the soft breath of thine orange-bowers is mournful to my soul.

"My brother! oh! my brother! thou art gone, the true and brave, And the haughty joy of victory hath died upon thy grave: There are many round my throne to stand, and to march where I lead on; There was _one_ to love me in the world--my brother! thou art gone!

"In the desert, in the battle, in the ocean-tempest's wrath, We stood together, side by side; one hope was our's--one path: Thou hast wrapt me in thy soldier's cloak, thou hast fenced me with thy breast; Thou hast watched beside my couch of pain--oh! bravest heart, and best!

"I see the festive lights around--o'er a dull sad world they shine; I hear the voice of victory--my Pedro where is _thine?_ The only voice in whose kind tone my spirit found reply-- Oh! brother! I have bought too dear this hollow pageantry!

"I have hosts, and gallant fleets, to spread my glory and my sway, And chiefs to lead them fearlessly--my _friend_ hath passed away! For the kindly look, the word of cheer, my heart may thirst in vain, And the face that was as light to mine--it cannot come again!

"I have made thy blood, thy faithful blood, the offering for a crown; With love, which earth bestows not twice, I have purchased cold renown: How often will my weary heart 'midst the sounds of triumph die, When I think of thee, my brother! thou flower of chivalry!

"I am lonely--I am lonely! this rest is ev'n as death! Let me hear again the ringing spears, and the battle-trumpet's breath; Let me see the fiery charger's foam, and the royal banner wave-- But where art thou, my brother?--where?--in thy low and early grave!"

And louder swelled the songs of joy through that victorious night, And faster flowed the red wine forth, by the stars and torches light; But low and deep, amidst the mirth, was heard the conqueror's moan-- "My brother! oh! my brother! best and bravest! thou art gone!"

_Mrs. Hemans.--Monthly Magazine._

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A SUMMER TOUR.

If called upon to propose any summer's journey for a young English traveller, (and it is a call often made with reference to continental tours,) we might reasonably suggest the coasts of Great Britain, as affording every kind of various interest, which can by possibility be desired. Such a scheme would include the ports and vast commercial establishments of Liverpool, Bristol, Greenock, Leith, Newcastle, and Hull; the great naval stations of Plymouth, Portsmouth, Chatham, and Milford; the magnificent estuaries of the Clyde and Forth, and of the Bristol Channel, not surpassed by any in Europe; the wild and romantic coasts of the Hebrides and Western Highlands; the bold shore of North Wales; the Menai, Conway, and Sunderland bridges; the gigantic works of the Caledonian Canal and Plymouth Breakwater; and numerous other objects, which it is beyond our purpose and power to enumerate. It cannot be surely too much to advise, that Englishmen, who have only slightly and partially seen these things, should subtract something from the length or frequency of their continental journeys, and give the time so gained to a survey of their own country's wonders of nature and art.

To the agriculturist, and to the lover of rural scenery, England offers much that is remarkable. The rich alluvial plains of continents may throw out a more profuse exuberance and succession of crops; but we doubt whether agriculture, as an art, has anywhere (except in Flanders and Tuscany alone) reached the same perfection as in the less fertile soils of the Lothians, Northumberland, and Norfolk. Still more peculiar is the rural scenery of England, in the various and beautiful landscape it affords--in the undulating surface--the greenness of the enclosures--the hamlets and country churches--and the farm houses and cottages dispersed over the face of the country, instead of being congregated into villages, as in France and Italy. We might select Devonshire, Somersetshire, Herefordshire, and others of the midland counties, as pre-eminent in this character of beauty, which, however, is too familiar to our daily observation to make it needful to expatiate upon it.

Nor will our limits allow us to dwell upon that bolder form of natural scenery which we possess in the Highlands of Scotland, in Wales, Cumberland, and Derbyshire, and which entitles us to speak of this island as rich in landscape of the higher class. In the scale of objects, it is true that no comparison can exist between the mountain scenery of Britain, and that of many parts of the continent of Europe. But it must be remembered, that magnitude is not essential to beauty; and that even sublimity is not always to be measured by yards and feet. A mountain may be loftier, or a lake longer and wider, without any gain to that picturesque effect, which mainly depends on form, combination, and colouring. Still we do not mean to claim in these points any sort of equality with the Alps, Apennines, or Pyrenees; or to do more than assert that, with the exception of these, the more magnificent memorials of nature's workings on the globe, our own country possesses as large a proportion of fine scenery as any part of the continent of Europe.--_Q. Rev._

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Notes of a Reader

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HERODOTUS.

Perhaps few persons are aware how often they imitate this great historian. Thus, says the _Edinburgh Review_, "Children and servants are remarkably _Herodotean_ in their style of narration. They tell every thing dramatically. Their _says hes_ and _says shes_ are proverbial. Every person who has had to settle their disputes knows that, even when they have no intention to deceive, their reports of conversation always require to be carefully sifted. If an educated man were giving an account of the late change of administration, he would say, 'Lord Goderich resigned; and the king, in consequence, sent for the Duke of Wellington.' A porter tells the story as if he had been behind the curtains of the royal bed at Windsor: 'So Lord Goderich says, 'I cannot manage this business; I must go out.' So the king, says he, 'Well, then, I must send for the Duke of Wellington--that's all.' This is in the very manner of the father of history."

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SPLENDOUR OF THE CHURCH OF ROME.

"In the days of her power and importance, the church of Rome numbered amongst her vassals and servants the most renowned spirits of the earth. She called them from obscurity to fame, and to all who laboured to spread and sustain her influence, she became a benefactress. Her wealth was immense, for she drew her revenue from the fear or superstition of man, and her spirit was as magnificent as her power. The cathedrals which she every where reared are yet the wonders of Europe for their beauty and extent; and in her golden days, the priests who held rule within them were, in wealth and strength, little less than princes. For a time her treasure was wisely and munificently expended; and the works she wrought, and the good deeds she performed, are her honour and our shame. She spread a table to the hungry; she gave lodgings to the houseless; welcomed the wanderer; and rich and poor, and learned and illiterate, alike received shelter and hospitality. Under her roof the scholar completed his education; the historian sought and found the materials for his history; the minstrel chanted lays of mingled piety and love for his loaf and raiment; the sculptor carved in wood, or cast in silver, some popular saint; and the painter gave the immortality of his colours to some new legend or miracle."--All who have visited the cathedrals and churches of the continent, or who have studied their history at home, must acknowledge the truth and force of these excellent observations. They are copied from an ably-written article on the History of Italian Painting, in the second number of the _Foreign Review_.

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Frederick the Great, in a letter to Voltaire, says, "I look on men as a herd of deer in a great man's park, whose only business is to people the enclosures."--This is one of the _great men_ of history.

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POTATOES.

A few years after the discovery, potatoes were carried to Spain at first as sweetmeats and delicacies. Oviedo says that "they were a dainty dish to set before the king," Labat describes potatoes a hundred years ago, as cultivated in Western Africa, and says of them, "_Il y en a en Irlande, et en Angleterre_," and that he had seen very good ones at Rochelle.

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PAINTING

Represents nature, or poetic nature at the most, and, therefore, addresses itself as much as poetry does to the feeling and imagination of man. Though it deals in nature exalted by genius, embellished by art and purified by taste, still it is nature, still it makes its appeal to the men of this world, and by them it is applauded or condemned. It works for men, and not for gods; therefore every man, as far as his taste is natural and sound, is a judge of its productions.--_For. Rev._

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LAVER.

Such of our readers as are not addicted to epicurism may have been somewhat puzzled at the display of "_Fine Fresh Laver_" in the Italian warehouses and provision shops of the metropolis. The truth is, laver is a kind of reddish sea-weed, forming a jelly when boiled, which is eaten by some of the poor people in Angus with bread instead of butter; but which the rich have elevated into one of the greatest dainties of their tables. In Scotland, laver is called _slake_; and Dr. Clarke mentions that it is used with the fulmar to make a kind of broth, which constitutes the first and principal meal of the inhabitants. It is curious to know that what is eaten at a duchess's table in Piccadilly as a first-rate luxury, is used by the poor people of Scotland twice or thrice a day. It is an expensive dish; but knowledge of this fact may perhaps abate its cost.

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GARDENS.

Ferdinand I. of Naples prided himself upon the variety and excellence of the fruit produced in his royal gardens, one of which was called Paradise. Duke Hercules, of Ferrara, had a garden celebrated for its fruits in one of the islands of the Po. The Duke of Milan, Ludovico, carried this kind of luxury so far, that he had a travelling fruit-garden; and the trees were brought to his table, or into his chamber, that he might with his own hands gather the living fruit.

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SNUFF.

Even among the rudest and poorest of the inhabitants of Scotland, and at a period when their daily meal must have been always scanty, and frequently precarious, one luxury seems to have established itself, which has unaccountably found its way into every part of the world. We mean tobacco. The inhabitants of Scotland, and especially of the Highlands, are notorious for their fondness for snuff; and many were the contrivances by which they formerly reduced the tobacco into powder. Dr. Jamieson, the etymologist, defines a _mill_ to be the vulgar name for a snuff-box, one especially of a cylindrical form, or resembling an inverted cone. "No other name," says he, "was formerly in use. The reason assigned for this designation is, that when tobacco was introduced into this country, those who wished to have snuff were wont to toast the leaves before the fire, and then bruise them with a bit of wood in the box; which was therefore called a _mill_, from the snuff being _ground_ in it." This, however, is said to be not quite correct; the old snuff-machine being like a nutmeg-grater, which made snuff as often as a pinch was required.

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Estimating the population of London and its environs at 1,200,000, its proportion of paupers would amount to 100,000!

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SCOTCH LIVING.

Roast meat was formerly seldom seen among farmers in Scotland; and is even now rare, compared with its use among the same class in England. Less than half a century ago, a _mart_ was regularly bought or fattened by the most respectable farmers, and even by many citizens. This was a cow or ox killed and salted at Martinmas for winter provision; a custom which, though not uncommon in England, perhaps, one hundred years ago, has certainly not been followed, except in remote and sequestered districts, or by very old-fashioned farmers within that period.

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Falstaff's "Buck-Basket" has puzzled the commentators; but Dr. Jamieson thus explains it:--_Bouk_ is the Scotch word for a lye used to steep foul linen in, before it is washed in water; the buckbasket, therefore, is the basket employed to carry clothes, after they have been bouked, to the washing-place.

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PLEASURES OF EGYPT.

Sweet are the songs of Egypt on paper. Who is not ravished with gums, balms, dates, figs, pomegranates, circassia, and sycamores, without recollecting that amidst these are dust, hot and fainting winds, bugs, mosquitos, spiders, flies, leprosy, fevers, and almost universal blindness.--_Ledyard's Travels._--The same writer also says the people are poorly clad, the youths naked, and that they rank infinitely below any savages he ever saw.

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There cannot be a more ill-boding sign to a nation, than when the people, to avoid hardships at home, are forced by heaps to forsake their native country.--_Milton._

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TOBACCO.

As the devil is a deceiver, and hath the knowledge of the virtue of herbs, so he did show the virtue of this herb, that by the means thereof they might see their imaginations and visions that he hath represented unto them.

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WHISKY.

From official documents it appears that long previous to 1690, there had been a distillery of _aqua vitae_, or whisky, on the lands of Farintosh, belonging to Mr. Forbes, of Culloden.

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TRAVELLING INCENTIVES.

If there be a sudden accession of fortune, the earliest use of it is in passing over to the continent; if misfortunes occur, the first suggestion is that of seeking solace in another land. The assumption of the _toga virilis_ by our youth, may be practically translated, the putting on of the travelling cloak. Marriage, instead of being the means of more extended family union, is the plea for immediate separation; and the newly-married pair drive from the church to the packet-boat. If the elders of a family are snatched away by death, the first idea which occurs to their successors, is that of distant removal from home. Sorrows are not endured, but fled from; and misfortune becomes the signal for dispersion to those who survive it.--_Q. Rev._

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Christoval Acosta, speaking of the _pine-apple_, says that "no medicinal virtues have been discovered in it, and it is good for nothing but to eat."

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SMOKING.

Joshuah Silvester questioned whether the devil had done more harm in latter ages by means of fire and smoke, through the invention of guns, or of tobacco-pipes; and he conjectured that Satan introduced the fashion, as a preparatory course of smoking for those who were to be matriculated in his own college:

As roguing Gipsies tan their little elves, To make them tann'd and ugly, like themselves.

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LAW

Must be kept as a garden, with frequent digging, weeding, turning, &c., for that which was in one age convenient, and, perhaps, necessary, becomes in another prejudicial.--_Roger North._

THE GATHERER.

"A snapper-up of unconsidered trifles." SHAKSPEARE

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THE WIFE'S COMPLAINT.

Havard, the actor, (better known from the urbanity of his manners, by the familiar name of Billy Havard) had the misfortune to be married to a most notorious shrew and drunkard. One day dining at Garrick's, he was complaining of a violent pain in his side. Mrs. Garrick offered to prescribe for him. "No, no," said her husband; "that will not do, my dear; Billy has mistaken his disorder; his great _complaint lies in his rib_."

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HOW TO SECURE A COACH.

A facetious friend of Dr. Kitchiner's, on a very wet night, after several messengers, whom he had despatched for a coach, had returned without obtaining one; at last, at "past one o'clock, and a rainy morning," the wag walked himself to the next coach-stand, and politely advised the waterman to mend his inside lining with a pint of beer, and go home to bed; for said he, "there will be nothing for you to do to night, I'll lay you a shilling that there's not a coach out." "Why, will you, your honour? then done," cried Mr. Waterman; "but are you really serious, 'cause, if so be as you be, I must make haste and go and get one." Being assured he would certainly touch the twelvepenny if he did, he trotted off on his "nag a ten toes," and in ten minutes returned with a leathern conveyance.

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Epicure Quin used to say, it was "not safe to sit down to a _Turtle Feast_ at one of the City Halls, without a _basket-hilted knife and fork_."--Another of his quips was, "Of all the banns of marriage I ever heard, none gave me half such pleasure as the union of ANN-CHOVY with good JOHN-DORY."

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ONION SOUP