Читать книгу The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 12, No. 348, December 27, 1828 - Various - Страница 3
Barber's Barn, Hackney
LAST DAYS OF, AND ROUGH NOTES ON, 1828
Оглавление(For the Mirror.)
It was but yesterday the snow
Of thy dead sire was on the hill—
It was but yesterday the flow
Of thy spring showers increased the rill,
And made a thousand blossoms swell
To welcome summer's festival.....
And now all these are of the past,
For this lone hour must be thy last!
Thou must depart! where none may know—
The sun for thee hath ever set,
The star of morn, the silver bow,
No more shall gem thy coronet
And give thee glory; but the sky
Shall shine on thy posterity!…
So there's an end of 1828; "all its great and glorious transactions are now nothing more than mere matter of history!" What wars of arms and words! what lots of changes and secessions! what debates on "guarantee," "stipulations," and "untoward" events! what "piles of legislation!" what a fund of speculation for the denizens of the stock-exchange, and newspaper press!—all may now be embodied in that little word—the past; and only serve to fill up and figure in the pages of the next "Annual Register!"—sic transit gloria—"but the proverb is somewhat musty." One, two, three.... ten, eleven, twelve, and now "methinks my soul hath elbow room."
Those versed in the lore of Francis Moore, physician, which must doubtless include most of our readers, are aware that our veteran friend, eighteen hundred and twenty-eight, has been for some time in what is called a "galloping" consumption, and it is certain cannot possibly survive after the bells "chime twelve" on Wednesday night, the thirty-first of December,—
"—as if an angel spoke,
I hear the solemn sound,"
when he will depart this life, and be gathered to his ancestors, who have successively been entombed in the vault of Time.
Well, taking all things into consideration, we predict he will not have many mourners in his train. "Rumours of wars" have gone through the land, and the ominous hieroglyphics of "Raphael" in his "Prophetic Messenger," unfold to the lover of futurity, that "war with all its bloody train," will visit this quarter of the globe with unusual severity the coming year—and we have had comets and "rumours" of comets for many months past, while the red and glaring appearance of the planet, Mars, is as we have elsewhere observed, considered by the many a forerunner, and sign of long wars and much bloodshed. To dwell further on the political horizon, or the "events and fortunes" of the past year would be out of place in the fair pages of the MIRROR; and should it be our fate to present its readers with future "notings" on another year, we will then dwell upon the good or ill-fortune of Turk or Russian to the quantum suff. of the most inveterate politician.
"Enough of this:" 1828 has nearly got the "go-by" and we have outlived its pains and perils, its varied scenes of good or evil, and its pleasures too, for there is a bright side to human reverse and suffering, and we are ready at our posts to enact and stand another campaign in this "strange eventful history." We often find that the public discover virtues and good qualities in a man after his death, which they had previously given him no credit for; let this be as it may, 1828 may be deemed a very "passable" year. To use a simile, a sick man when recovering from a fever, makes slow progress at first; and we should fairly hope that the gallant ship is at last weathering the hurricane of the "commercial crisis," and that the trade-winds of prosperity will again visit us and extend their balmy influence over our shores; and to borrow a commercial phrase, we trust to be able to quote an improvement on this head next year.
I stood between the meeting years
The coming and the past,
And I ask'd of the future one
Wilt thou be like the last?
The same in many a sleepless night,
In many an anxious day?
Thank heaven! I have no prophet's eye,
To look upon thy way!
L.E.L.
The march of mind is progressing, and the once boasted "wisdom of our ancestors" and the "golden days of good Queen Bess," are hurled with derision to the tomb of all the Capulets. We regret that we cannot chronicle a "Narrative of a first attempt to reach the cities of Bath and Bristol, in the year 1828, in an extra patent steam-coach, by Messrs. Burstall, or Gurney." The newspapers, however, still continue to inform us that such vehicles are about to start, so we may reasonably expect that Time will accomplish the long talked of event. Nay, we even hear it rumoured that the public are shortly to crest the billows in a steamer at the rate of fifty or a hundred miles an hour! and this is mentioned as a mere first essay, an immature sample of what the improved steam-paddles are to effect—also in Time; who after this can doubt the approaching perfectibility of Mars? Oh, steam! steam! but this is well ploughed ground.
Art, science, and literature, also progress, and we almost begin to fear we shall soon be puzzled where to stow the books, and anticipate a dearth in rags, an extinction of Rag-Fair! (which will keep the others in countenance,) the booksellers' maws seem so capacious. Christmas with its rare recollections of feasting (and their pendant of bile and sick headache) has again come round. New Year's Day, and of all the days most "rich and rare," Twelfth Day is coming! But it is in Scotland that the advent of the new year, or Hogmanay is kept with the most hilarity; the Scotch by their extra rejoicings at this time, seem to wish to make up for their utter neglect of Christmas. We may be induced to offer a few reminiscences of a sojourn in the north, at this period, on a future occasion. The extreme beauty of the following lines on the year that is past, will, we think, prove a sufficient apology for their introduction here:—
In darkness, in eternal space,
Sightless as a sin-quenched star,
Thou shalt pursue thy wandering race,
Receding into regions far—
On thee the eyes of mortal men
Shall never, never light again;
Memory alone may steal a glance
Like some wild glimpse in sleep we're taking.
Of a long perish'd countenance
We have forgotten when awaking—
Sad, evanescent, colour'd weak,
As beauty on a dying cheek.
Farewell! that cold regretful word
To one whom we have called a friend—
Yet still "farewell" I must record
The sign that marks our friendship's end.
Thou'rt on thy couch of wither'd leaves,
The surly blast thy breath receives,
In the stript woods I hear thy dirge,
Thy passing bell the hinds are tolling
Thy death-song sounds in ocean's surge,
Oblivion's clouds are round thee rolling,
Thou'lst buried be where buried lie
Years of the dead eternity!
It is needless to add that our old friend will be succeeded in his title and estates by his next heir, eighteen hundred and twenty-nine, whose advent will no doubt be generally welcomed. We cannot help picturing to ourselves the anxiety, the singularly deep and thrilling interest, which universally prevails as his last hour approaches:—
"Hark the deep-toned chime of that bell
As it breaks on the midnight ear—
Seems it not tolling a funeral knell?
'Tis the knell of the parting year!
Before that bell shall have ceas'd its chime
The year shall have sunk on the ocean of Time!"
And shall we go on after this lone hour? no, we will even follow its course, draw this article to a close by wishing our readers, in the good old phrase, "a happy New Year and many of them;" and conclude with them, that
Our pilgrimage here
By so much is shorten'd—then fare thee well Year!
VYVYAN.
