The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 20, No. 558, July 21, 1832

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Various. The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 20, No. 558, July 21, 1832

THE NEW CHURCH OF ST. DUNSTAN IN THE WEST

ITALIAN HYMN TO THE MADONNA

ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE FOOD

MY FATHERLAND

THE NATURALIST

ERRORS IN NATURAL HISTORY

THE TULIP TREE

CHANGES DURING THE MATURATION OF FRUIT

MIGRATION OF BIRDS

FINE ARTS

STATUE OF MR. PITT

THE DIORAMA, REGENT'S PARK

NEW BOOKS

THE TRIALS OF CHARLES I

NOTES OF A READER

ATLAS OF THE BIBLE

GEOGRAPHY

OUTLINES OF KNOWLEDGE

CURIOSITIES OF PHRENOLOGY

SONGS BY BARRY CORNWALL

FRENCH MANNERS

THE GATHERER

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In our fourteenth volume we took a farewell glance of the old church of St. Dunstan, and adverted to the proposed new structure. Little did we then expect that within three years the removal of the old church would be effected, and a fabric of greatly surpassing beauty raised in its place. All this has been accomplished by the unanimity of the parishioners of St. Dunstan, unaided by any public grant, and assisted only by their own right spirit, integrity, and well-directed taste. The erection of this Church, as the annexed Engraving shows, is not to be considered merely as a parochial, but as a public, benefit, and must be ranked among the most important of our metropolitan improvements. The different situation of the new and the old churches will occasion an addition of 30 feet to the width of the opposite street, and it will be perceived by the Engraving,1 that improvements are contemplated in the houses adjoining the church, so as to give an unique architectural character to this portion of the line of Fleet-street.

The church has been built from the designs and under the superintendance of John Shaw, Esq., F.R. and A.S. the architect of Christ's Hospital. The tower is of the Kelton stone, a very superior kind of freestone, of beautiful colour, from the county of Rutland. Of this material King's College Chapel, Cambridge, and many other of our finest edifices have been constructed. The tower has below an entrance doorway, finished with rich mouldings and tracery; on each side are the arms of his Majesty and the City of London. Above is a clock with three dials, and a belfry to admit the fine set of bells2 from the old church, the sound of which will doubtless receive effect through the four large upper windows which are the main features of the tower. Above these windows, the tower, hitherto square, becomes gradually octagonal, springing from corbeled heads; till terminated by four octagonal pinnacles, and crowned by an octagonal moulded battlement. Upon the tower is an enriched stone lantern, perforated with gothic windows of two heights, each angle having a buttress and enriched finial; the whole being terminated by an ornamental, pierced, and very rich crown parapet. The height of the tower, to the battlements, is 90 feet; and the whole height of the tower and lantern is 130 feet.

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The author of The Art of Improving Health, has also a passage in point: "An animal diet, especially in temperate climates, is more wasting than a vegetable; because it excites by its stimulating qualities a fever after every meal, by which the springs of life are urged into constant and weakening exertions: on the contrary, a vegetable diet tends to preserve a delicacy of feeling, a liveliness of imagination, and an acuteness of judgment, seldom enjoyed by those who live principally on meat." Thus we might go on multiplying authorities on this subject, but we shall content ourselves with referring briefly to one or two authors of a more literary stamp, and have done with quotation. The eloquent Shelley, in his notes to Queen Mab, pretty roundly assures us, that "according to comparative anatomy, man resembles frugivorous animals in everything, carnivorous in nothing;" and the famous author of the Anatomy of Melancholy, has quaintly but nervously observed, "As a lamp is choked with over much oil, or a fire with too much wood, so is the natural heat strangled in the body by the superfluous use of flesh; thus men wilfully pervert the good temperature of their bodies, stifle their wits, strangle nature, and degenerate into beasts." The somewhat visionary but fascinating Rousseau, has also in his Treatise of Education, to which we refer our readers, most powerfully condemned the use of flesh, and he humorously attributes the proverbial boorishness of Englishmen to their fondness for roast beef!

And now let us look a little to facts: in all ages of the world those have ever been the most savage nations which observed an animal diet. Thus the Tartars, the Ethiopians, the Scythians, and the Arabians, who live wholly on animal food, possess that ferocity of mind and fierceness of character, common to carnivorous animals, while the vegetable diet of the Brahmins and Hindoos gives to their character a gentleness and mildness directly the reverse; potatoes, chestnuts, &c. satisfy the wants of the Alpine peasant, and there are numerous, harmless tribes, who feed solely on vegetables and water. Even Homer in his time has made the Cyclops, who were flesh eaters, horrid monsters of men, and the Lotophagi, he has described as a people so amiable, that when strangers had once become acquainted with them, and tasted the fruits on which they lived, they even forgot their native country to take up their abode with their hosts. But in those civilized countries where animal food is commonly eaten, it must follow that the lower orders, who compose the great majority of the population, cannot partake of it in any great quantities; now it does not appear that the rich enjoy better health from this luxurious mode of living, or that the poor are less healthy from the want of it; on the contrary, the wealthier classes are subject to many chronic and other disorders arising from their aliment, and they have a very large body of physicians, who subsist by a constant attendance on them, while on the other hand, those in the lower walks of life are seldom out of health, owing to their more simple and less injurious mode of living; they suffer only from accident and natural disease, and, generally speaking, when they are attacked, it proves their first and last illness. Moreover, as the poor are more at ease while they live, so too experience shows that they live longer; cases of longevity are very rare with those in affluent circumstances, while most of the famous instances on record of persons arriving at extraordinary old age, have been peasants, fishermen, &c.

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