The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 19, No. 542, April 14, 1832

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Various. The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 19, No. 542, April 14, 1832

THE BEULAH SALINE SPA, NORWOOD

RETROSPECTIVE GLEANINGS

ANCIENT LAWS

OLD WEATHER RHYMES

CROWLAND ABBEY

THE HOBBY HORSE

HOLY LAND

ANCIENT AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES

THE SELECTOR; AND LITERARY NOTICES OF NEW WORKS

LANDERS' DISCOVERY OF THE TERMINATION OF THE NIGER

SONGS OF THE GIPSIES

THE GIPSY QUEEN

A SONG OF PITCAIRN'S ISLAND

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

TROUT TICKLING IN IRELAND

NOTES OF A READER

AMERICAN LIFE

THE COSMOPOLITE

SUPERSTITIONS, FABLES, &c. RELATIVE TO ANIMALS

THE GATHERER

Отрывок из книги

The following quaint observations possess peculiar interest at the present moment:

"Among the ancient Druids," says Mr. Owen Feltham, "it was absolutely forbidden to register their laws in writing. And Caesar, in his Gallique Wars, gives us two reasons for it. One, that their mysteries might not come to be profaned and encommoned by the vulgar: another, that not being written, they might be more careful ever to carry them in their thoughts and memory. Though doubtless it was as well to preserve their own authority, to keep the people to a recourse to them, and to a reverence and esteem of their judgments. Besides, it oft falls out that what is written, though it were a good law when made, yet by the emergency of affairs, and the condition of men and times, it happens to be bad and alterable. And we find it to be evidently true, that, as where there are many physicians, there are many diseases; so where there are many laws, there are likewise many enormities. That nation that swarms with law and lawyers, certainly abounds with vice and corruption. Where you find much fowl resort, you may be sure there is no want of either water, mud, or weeds.

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In the days of Monks and Friars, the following lines in bad Latin, were composed on Crowland, Lincolnshire, or the adjoining Abbey:

They are thus translated in the Beauties of England and Wales (1767):—

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