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and the less it is taxed for awhile after eating, or by candle-light, the better.-Curtis. Cause of Diseases of the Eye.-These affections most commonly arise from derangement of the digestive organs, acting on the ganglia and great sympathetic nerve, which has such an extensive influence on the whole system. It is from medical men not bearing this in mind, that cases often seem incurable,

and are found so troublesome.-Ibid.

Omens. When George III. was crowned, a large emerald fell from his crown: America was lost in this reign.-When Charles X. was crowned at Rheims, he accidentally dropped his hat: the Duc d'Orleans, now Louis Philippe, picked it up and presented it to him. On the Saturday preceding the promulgation of the celebrated ordonnances by Charles X.'s ministers, the white flag which floated on the column in the Place Vendome, and which was always hoisted when the royal family were in Paris, was observed to be torn in three places. The tri-color waved in its stead the following week. The morning of the rejection, by the House of Lords, of the first Reform Bill, I never shall forget the ominous appearance of the heavens; it might be truly said

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At the period of Napoleon's dissolution, on the 4th of the month in which he expired, the island of St. Helena was swept by a tremendous storm, which tore up almost all the trees about Longwood by the roots. The 5th was another day of tempests, and about six in the evening, Napoleon pronounced tete d'armee, and expired. INNES.

The Thames blown out.-Among the phenomena of the recent storm of wind, we find the following noted in the Morning Herald: "The wind, as the sailors say, blew all the water out of the Thames, and persons were fording the river at Waterloo bridge. The tide had not been so low for many years. The shoal just below London bridge was high out of water, and the Margate and Gravesend steam-boats were for a short time hard aground, and unable to get away. The return of the tide was very remarkable, for, without any previous indication whatever, (as it appeared to be running down with great velocity the instant before,) it rose at once, nearly a foot, rolling in like a wave, and in less than three minutes after, the persons on the shoals took to their boats, the shoals were under water, and the steam-boats afloat and under way."

Australian Thieves.-A ludicrous theft upon a thief, followed by an equally ludicrous termination to the legerdemain of two thieves was practised some time back in the neighbourhood of Penrith. A man in the employ ment of the chief-justice at Edenglassie, hung out his shirt to air by the banks of the

Nepean. An observer on the opposite side, stript, and swam across, and took possession of the white or striped pennant. During his absence, another had been equally as busy as himself, and had made as free with his shirt

as he had done with that of the man of Edenglassie. A third happened to have his eyes upon both of the shirt appropriators, and took upon himself to see the trick and countertrick properly adjusted before the magistrates FERNANDO. at Penrith.

Romish Miracle.-Marco Polo, who travelled in the East in the thirteenth century, tells us, " At a convent of monks, in Georgia, dedicated to St. Lunardo, the following miraculous circumstances are said to take place. In a salt water lake, four days' journey in circuit, upon the border of which the church is situated, the fish never make their appearance until the first day of Lent, and from that time to Easter Eve they are found in vast abundance, but on Easter day they are no longer to be seen, nor during the remainder of the year."

Kings of Georgia.-" In Gorzania, I was told," says the Venetian traveller, "that in ancient times the kings of the country were born with the mark of an eagle on the right shoulder." By this pretended tradition it may be understood that they were, or affected to be, thought a branch of the Imperial family of Constantinople, who bore the Roman eagle among their insignia.-INNES.

A sublime Prayer.-"O! Eternal, have mercy upon me because I am passing away; O! Infinite, because I am but a speck; Ŏ! most Mighty, because I am weak; Õ! source of Life, because I draw nigh to the grave; O, omniscient! because I am in darkness: O, all bounteous, because I am poor; O, all sufficient, because I am nothing!"

Flacourt, in his History of the Island of Madagascar, gives the above sublime effusion as emanating from the savages of that island. Savages, quotha!

Epigram.

(From the French.)

On a French translation of Horace. Let us devote this brace of Horaces To two divinities; between us, We'll give the Latin one to Venus, Since she is mistress of the Graces;

INNES.

The other one, her spouse may claim, For Vulcan like this version's lame.

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AMSTERDAM was for nearly two centuries the centre of exchange for Europe. Its history may be briefly told: it was unknown before the latter end of the thirteenth century; it first acquired a commercial character about the year 1370; its opulence and splendour increased from its capture by the Hollanders, in 1578, until its invasion by the French in 1795; its importance then declined, till the revolution of 1813, since which period its commerce has increased very considerably. Nevertheless, it is again said to be on the decline, owing to the more favourable circumstances of the rival cities Rotterdam, and Hamburg. No city in Europe, however, possesses so large a portion of disposable capital as Amsterdam, and hence, it continues to be a place of the first commercial consequence.

Amsterdam is situate in Lat. 52° 25′ N. Lon. 4° 40′ E. at the confluence of the rivers Amstel and Y, or Wye, near the southwestern extremity of the Zuyder Zee. It ranks as the capital of the northern division VOL. XXII. M

of the Netherlands, as it formerly did of the republic of the Seven United Provinces.

"The city extends in the form of a semicircle on the southern bank of the Y, which is its diameter; on the land side it was surrounded by a wall and bastions, with a broad and deep fosse : the wall is dismantled, but the bastions still remain, and are used as sites for corn-mills. The Amstel, on entering the city, divides into two branches, from each of which issue numerous canals, forming a collection of islands, connected with each other by 290 bridges. That part of the river Y which forms the port of Amsterdam is guarded by a double row of piles, with openings at intervals for the admission of vessels: these openings are always closed at night. The deeply laden ships lie outside the piles, in a place called the Laag. During the period of Dutch prosperity, a hundred vessels have entered the port in one tide, and six or seven hundred were to be seen there at anchor together. On the opposite side of the Y are the locks by which ships enter the great

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canal, which is carried thence, in a straight line, northwards to the Texel; thus preventing the risk and delay of a voyage through the Zuyder Zee. This canal, which has been recently finished, is 120 feet wide at the surface, and twenty-five deep. It was constructed at an expense of 1,000,000l. sterling. "The canals with which the city is inter sected, though extremely convenient and ornamental, are attended with one very disagreeable consequence: from the stagnation of the water, and the collection of offal of every kind discharged into them, they send forth effluvia equally offensive and unwholesome, which all the characteristic cleanliness of the inhabitants has not been able wholly to remove. Mills have been erected on their banks, to promote a circulation of air by ventilation; others, called mud-mills, from the purpose to which they are applied, are also used to raise and remove the slime which the river deposits largely.

"In consequence of the badness of the foundation, the whole city is built on piles driven endways into the mud; a circumstance which occasioned the witty remark of Erasmus, on visiting it," that he was in a town where the inhabitants lived, like rooks, on the tops of trees." This circumstance also occasioned the restriction of coaches to men of consequence and physicians, who paid a tax for the privilege of using them; the magistrates conceiving that the rolling of the wheels produced a dangerous concussion of the piles.

"The streets in general are narrow, with the exception of a few which present a fine appearance, and are adorned with spacious mansions. The principal square is the Dam, in front of the palace; besides which there are three others, where markets and an annual fair are held. The palace, formerly the Stadthouse, or town hall, is considered to be the most magnificent building in Holland. It forms an oblong square, 282 feet in length, 235 in breadth, and 116 in height, besides the tower, which is 67 feet high. Within is a spacious hall, 150 feet long, 60 broad, and 100 high.

"The royal museum contains, besides other curiosities, a fine collection of paintings, chiefly of the Flemish school. It is said that the emperor Alexander offered the sum of 30,000l. for one alone.

"The exchange is a large but plain building, 230 feet in length and 130 in breadth: it is capable of containing 4,500 persons; and is divided into thirty-six compartments, for the transaction of the various kinds of commercial business carried on there."

The places of public worship are not of striking architectural elegance. The total number of churches is, 10 reformed Dutch, 22 Catholic, one French reformed, one English presbyterian, three Lutheran, one Anabaptist, one Walloon, one Greek, and seven

synagogues. The old church of St. Nicholas has some fine painted windows. The new church of St. Catherine's contains a splendid monument of white marble, erected to the memory of admiral de Ruyter. The Portuguese synagogue is said to have been built in imitation of the temple of Solomon. The churches of the established religion, which is the reformed or Calvinistic, are distinguished by being the only places of worship which are allowed the use of bells. Many of these edifices are embellished with paintings of great value. A recent tourist is inclined to class the churches, in point of size and height, with the tower and spire of St. Martin's in the Fields, and in point of general appearance in the architecture, to St. Mary's, or the New Church, in the Strand.

"The management of the penitentiaries is peculiarly worthy of notice. The number of convicts is great, not because crime is more common, but because the punishment of death is seldom inflicted; imprisonment for various periods, in most cases, supplies its place. In this place of confinement, no one is suffered to be idle.

"The workhouse is intended for minor offences; some of which are not recognised by our laws. Husbands may send their wives thither on a charge of drunkenness or extravagance; and they are themselves liable to punishment for the same offences. Young women, also, even of good families, are sometimes sent thither as to a school of rigorous reformation.

"The charitable institutions are numerous, and generally well conducted. The hospital for lunatics is among the earliest of those in which gentler modes of treatment were substituted for severity and strict coercion."

Amsterdam boasts of a fair proportion of literary and scientific societies. The principal of these is the Felix Meritis. It has a public Botanic Garden, and a Royal Academy of Liberal Arts. It has also "naval schools, wherein children of common seamen when properly recommended, are educated gratuitously; as are the sons of officers, on the payment of a small pension. All are treated alike; and almost every officer who has elevated the naval character of his country has received his education here."

Amsterdam has an abundance of public walks; for its canals are bordered by rows of large trees of oak, elm, and linden, not inferior to those of the Boombtjes of Rotterdam. Little can be said for the salubrity of these walks, from the consequences already explained.*

The population of Amsterdam, by the latest accounts, amounts to about 235,000: of these about 48,000 are Catholics, 24,000 Jews, and the rest Protestants of various sects. *Cabinet Cyclopædia, vol. vii. Ency. Brit. 7th edit. 1832.

THE EFFECT OF CRITICISM ON

AUTHORS.

SIR WALTER SCOTT declared (and who could suspect the Author of Waverley of telling an untruth) that, for the last thirty years, he never read a review of any of his works, and never minded the "toothy critics by the score" a jot. Criticism fell off Samuel Johnson like rain off a duck's wing. The learned Bentley felt not the sting of Pope. And Burns scarcely knew what criticism was: he cared not for it, he "rhymed for fun."

But there is another class of authors on whom severe criticism has laid very frequently too severe a blow: these were writers who were over sensitive, the least thing which would have merely twitched others, entered into their hearts, the spear pierced "helmet, man, and shield."

Pope, when young, bore an immense enmity against the critics; he saw the future pain he would receive, and soon commenced showing the world that he was never to be

brow-beaten.

In 1711, was published the Essay on Criticism, in which several almost concealed allusions were made against John Dennis, the celebrated critic of the day. Dennis was greatly annoyed, and called Pope a little, affected hypocrite, who had nothing in his mouth at the same time but truth, candour, friendship, good nature, humanity, and magnanimity." The pamphlet, says Johnson, is such as rage might be expected to dictate. Dennis was a cool, lashing critic, who feared neither friend nor foe, and, when provocation was given, laid about right and left at will-with great judgment and knowledge, detecting errors, and exhibiting faults in such a manner as must sadly have galled Pope, who for ever after writhed under the lash of his enemy. Though, says Johnson, he professed to despise him, he discovers, by mentioning him very often, that he felt his force

or his venom.

Pope lifted now his mighty pen and determined to chastise all critics, and all incapable of replying, with one severe blow-this was about the year 1728-and not long after The Dunciad made its appearance. Every one has read the Dunciad, and so its plan need not be again repeated. The subject itself had nothing interesting: the poor authors who were so bitterly lashed could not conceal their pain, but printed epigrams and invectives in every newspaper, till the public began to take a warm interest in the debate. Dennis printed a pamphlet, entitled Remarks on the Rape of the Lock, written a long while before, intending it to come out when it should be required; the time was now, so it was immediately published.

Pope now crowed aloud and exulted over his victims; but the least thing vexed and

annoyed him—and he still meditated revenge, for "vengeance is sweet ;" adding to this, some little provocation which Cibber soon gave, made Pope usher out the fourth book of the Dunciad, in which Cibber is sufficiently flogged and then rubbed down with gunpowder.

The author of The Apology of course replies, and Pope's indignation is again aroused. Theobald is immediately taken off his place, poor Colley is mounted on the vacant throne, and Osborne is made to contend for the prize among the booksellers. The "shafts of Cibber and Osborne;" Johnson observes, satire were directed equally in vain against

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dence of one, and deadened by the impassive being repelled by the impenetrable imprudulness of the other." Pope confessed his pain by his anger.

This was the last paper war of Alexander Pope; who appeared content with the bruises he had given, and the pain which these blows had brought.

The next criticism which occasioned the

reply of a sensitive author was the review of Grainger's Tibullus, in the Critical Review, conducted by Smollett: it led to nothing but

a mere paper controversy.

The tender mind of Kirke White felt hurt by the notice of his poems in the Monthly Review, for February, 1804. He wrote an answer couched in pleasant terms to the reviewers, who, in their address to correspondents, declared that they sympathized with his expostulations.

Keats had a mind in many respects similar to White's; he soared higher as a poet, but in that lofty flight completely lost himself; his verses are unconnected, and almost every other ten lines are upon subjects not at all relating to the story; in fact he seemed to have no story, but wrote on endeavouring to invent one, and in doing that was bewildered in his boundless imagery of glory and bliss.

Keats's mind was of the sensitive kind: the least poignant criticism galled and harassed him. When his Endymion was published, a lashing review made its appearance in the Quarterly, undoubtedly written by a bitter critic, William Gifford, a man imbued with plenty of acrimony, and extensive learning, to which he added nothing of an original kind, so that his knowledge became commonplace without any of those redeeming points which Warburton had to a high degree. This review, in many parts true and clever, was nevertheless uncalled for, and moreover uncivil. Keats felt it bitterly, and this anguish brought on a disease which ended soon after with his life; the greatest injury criticism ever did to literature. On hearing of Keats's death, Shelley wrote the following:

Who killed Johnny Keats,
I said the Quarterly,
So savage and Tartarly
"T was one of my feats.

The same whip which scourged Keats served to chastise Hazlitt. But Hazlitt's mind was of a more vigorous nature, so that he replied, like Cibber of old, by means of a pamphlet, of which he sold fifteen, (Charles Lamb shrewdly observed), and the Quarterly sold some fifteen thousand.

Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss.
Authors are partial to their works 'tis true,
But are not Critics to their judgment too.

*

We will now see how the critique in the Edinburgh Review of the Hours of Idleness preyed on the mind of Lord Byron. This criticism, written by Lord Brougham, was unjust, and, moreover, too severe on the writings of any beginner. Moore speaks thus: "The effect this criticism produced upon him can only be conceived by those, who, besides having an adequate notion of what most poets would feel under such an attack, can understand all that there was in the temper and disposition of Lord Byron to make him feel it with tenfold more acuteness." * "A friend, who found him in the first moments of excitement after reading the article, inquired anxiously whether he had just received a challenge? not knowing how else to account for the fierce defiance of his looks." Mr. Moore proceeds to say, It would, indeed, be difficult for sculptor or painter to imagine a subject of more fearful beauty than the fine countenance of the young poet must have exhibited in the collected energy of that crisis. His pride had been wounded to the quick, and his ambition humbled; but this feeling of humiliation lasted but for a moment. The very reaction of his spirit against aggression roused him to a full consciousness of his own powers; and the pain and the shame of the injury were forgotten in the proud certainty of revenge." Moore's Life, vol. i. p. 206. (Ed. 1832.)

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Wrath was visible on the poet's forehead till he had relieved his mind in rhyme: "after the first twenty lines," he said, "he felt himself considerably better;" the day he read the criticism he drank three bottles of claret to his own share after dinner.

The satire he produced was the English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, which immediately silenced all his enemies and made many of them his friends, without one tithe of the talent and venom of Pope. But Pope had to deal with more troublesome enemies; the enraged Dennis was a legion himself and the sensitive mind of Pope thought trumpery pamphlets hostile armies. Men did not feel the sting of Byron as critics had felt that of Pope three quarters of a century before. One side surrendered at discretion, the other held their fortress, and played their almost silent guns, which did next to nothing.

Gifford's Baviad and Maviad produced the contrary effect on "Thrales' gay widow."

Mrs. Piozzi's account of her revenge is inte resting: "I contrived to get myself invited to meet him at supper at a friend's house, soon after the publication of his poem, sat opposite to him, saw that he was perplexed in the extreme; and, smiling, proposed a glass of wine as a libation to our future goodfellowship. Gifford (she adds) was sufficiently a man of the world to understand me, and nothing could be more courteous and entertaining than he was while we remained together."* This was exceedingly well managed of Mrs. Piozzi, who was a cleverer and shrewder woman than the world have allowed her to be.

The late review in the Quarterly of T—'s poems was sufficiently annoying to the author who laid the severe notice to the critic's enmity and jealousy of the publisher !! (bravo.)

We shall only now take notice of a mean way critics have of receiving presents, under the promise of giving a favourable notice, nothing can be meaner than the conduct of both parties. When Huggins had finished his translation of Ariosto, he sent a fat buck to Smollett, who at that time conducted the Critical Review; consequently, the work was highly applauded; but the history of the venison becoming public, Smollett was much abused, and in a future number of the review retracted his applause.

So critics are mean enough to receive, and authors apparently, rich enough to give. L. T.

MADAGASCAR. (Continued from page 71.)

THE history of these singular islanders presents a remarkable instance of the successful

resistance of a barbarous nation to the more barbarous attempts of civilized foreigners to bring them under their yoke; and, it is, perhaps, the only case, in the history of modern times, in which such resistance has been attended with success. In general, the means employed by the discoverers of new countries have been so superior in every respect to those of the simple tribes, with whom they have had to contend, that the latter have fallen an easy prey to their cruel invaders. Such was the fate of the aborigines of America, of the eastern nations of Asia, and of Southern Africa. But, in Madagascar, every attempt of Europeans to subjugate the natives, and to colonize their island, has been frustrated, and the agents employed either sacrificed by the islanders, or obliged to fly for their lives. This has been, in part, owing to the meagre and inadequate means adopted; but, chiefly, to the extreme jealousy of the natives of their liberty as a nation, and their superior intelligence as to the mode and *Piozziana, p. 4.

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