relate), on that hill near Annesley,† which, in his poem of The Dream,' he describes so happily as crowned with a peculiar diadem. No one, he declared, could have told how much he felt-for his countenance was calm, and his feelings restrained. The next time I see you,' said he, in parting with her, I suppose you will be Mrs. Chaworth ;' and her answer was, I hope so.' It was before this interview that he wrote, with a ners, too, at that period, rough and odd, ; and, (as I have heard from more than one quarter,) by no means popular among girls of his own age. If, at any moment, however, he had flattered himself with the hope of being loved by her, a circumstance mentioned in his Memoranda,' as one of the most painful of those humiliations to which the defect in his foot had exposed him, must have let the truth in, with dreadful certainty, upon his heart. He either was told of, or overheard, Miss Chaworth saying to her maid,' Do you think I could care anything for that lame boy?' This speech, as he himself described it, was like a shot through his heart. Though late at night when he heard it, he instantly darted out of the house, and scarcely knowing whither he ran, never stopped till he found himself at Newstead. The picture which he has drawn of this youthful love, in one of the most interest-first, though offered a bed at Annesley, to reing of his poems, The Dream,' shews how genius and feeling can elevate the realities of this life, and give to the commonest events and objects an undying lustre. The old hall at Annesley, under the name of the antique oratory,' will long call up to fancy the maiden and the youth' who once stood in it; while the image of the lover's steed,' though suggested by the unromantic race-ground of Nottingham, will not the less conduce to the general charm of the scene, and share a portion of that light which only Genius could shed over it. He appears already, at this boyish age, to have been so far a proficient in gallantry as to know the use that may be made of the trophies of former triumphs in achieving new ones; for he used to boast, with much pride, to Miss Chaworth, of a locket which some fair favourite had given him, and which probably may have been a present from that pretty cousin, of whom he speaks with so much warmth in another place. He was also, it appears, not a little aware of his own beauty, which, notwithstanding the tendency to corpulence derived from his mother, gave promise, at this time, of that peculiar expression into which his features refined and kindled afterwards. With the summer holidays ended this dream of his youth." "He saw Miss Chaworth once more in the succeeding year, and took his last farewell of her* (as he himself used to Of the formation of this attachment, Mr. Moore says: "To the family of Miss Chaworth, who resided at Annesley, in the immediate neighbourhood of Newstead, he had been made known, some time before, in London, and now renewed his acquaintance with them. The young heiress herself combined with the many worldly advantages that encircled her, much personal beauty, and a disposition the most amiable and attaching. Though already fully alive to her charms, it was at the period of which we are speaking that the young poet who was then in his sixteenth year, while the object of his adoration was about two years older, seems to have drank deepest of that fascination whose effects were to be so lasting;six short summer weeks which he now passed in her company being sufficient to lay the foundation of a feeling for all life. He used, at turn every night to Newstead, to sleep; alleging as a reason, that he was afraid of the family pictures of the Chaworths, that he fancied they had taken a grudge to him on account of the duel, and would come down out of their frames at night to haunt him.' At length one evening, he said gravely to Miss Chaworth and her cousin, In going home last night, I unintelligible to the young ladies, he explainsaw a bogle,'-which Scotch term being wholly ed that he had seen a ghost, and would not, therefore, return to Newstead that evening. during the remainder of his visit, which was From this time, he always slept at Annesley interrupted only by a short excursion to Matlock and Castleton, in which he had the happiparty; and of which the following interesting ness of accompanying Miss Chaworth and her notice appears in one of his memorandumbooks: When I was fifteen years of age, it happened that, in a cavern in Derbyshire, I had to cross in a boat (in which two people only could lie down,) a stream which flows under a rock, with the rock so close upon the water as to admit the boat only to be pushed on by a ferryman (a sort of Charon) who wades panion of my transit was M. A. C., with whom at the stern, stooping all the time. The comI had long been in love, and never told it, though she had discovered it without. I recollect my sensations, but cannot describe them, and it is as well. We were a party, a Mr. W. two Miss W.'s, Mr, and Mrs. Cl-ke, Miss R., and my M. A. C. Alas! why do I say MY? Our union would have healed feuds in which have joined lands broad and rich, it would blood has been shed by our fathers, it would have joined at least one heart, and two persons not ill matched in years (she is two years my elder,) and-and-and-what has been the re sult?" " +"Among the unpublished verses of his in my possession, I find the following fragment, written not long after this period: pencil, in a volume of Madame de Maintenon's letters belonging to her, the following verses, which have never, I be lieve, before been published : 'Oh Memory! torture me no more, "In the following year (1805) Miss Chaworth was married to his successful rival, Mr. John Musters; and a person who was present when the first intelligence of the event was communicated to him, thus describes the manner in which he received it. I was present when he first heard of the marriage. His mother said, Byron, I have some news for you.' 'Well, what is it?' Take out your handkerchief first, for you will want it.' 'Nonsense!' Take out your handkerchief, I say.' He did so to humour her. 'Miss Chaworth is married.' An expression very peculiar, impossible to describe, passed over his pale face, and he hurried his handkerchief into his pocket, saying, with an affected air of coolness and nonchalance, 'Is that all?' Why, I expected you would have been plunged in grief!' He made no reply, and soon began to talk about something else." From the mass of letters, upwards of two hundred and forty, interspersed through the pages of this volume, we pick out the subjoined, which contains some very curious matter. The first, written to a friend when he left England for the Continent, is a laughable picture, and displays a vein of the richest humour; the other is of a different character, it makes the amende honourable towards the author of the Lay of the last Minstrel,' a performance which he satirized with petulance and injustice in his English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. "Falmouth, June 25th, 1809 "My dear Hodgson,-Before this reaches you, Hobhouse, two officers' wives, three children, two waiting.maids, ditto subalterns for the troops, three Portuguese esquires and domestics, in all nineteen souls, will have sailed in the Lisbon packet, with the noble Captain Kidd, a gallant commander as ever smuggled an anker of right Nantz. We are going to Lisbon first, because the Malta packet has sailed, d'ye see?-from Lisbon to Gibraltar, Malta, Constantinople, and all that,' as Orator Henley said, when he put the church, and all that' in danger. This town of Falmouth, as you will partly conjecture, is no great ways from the sea. It is defended on the sea-side by two castles, St. Maws and Pendennis, extremely well calculated for annoying every body except an enemy. St. Maws is garrisoned by an able-bodied He person of fourscore, a widower. has the whole command and sole management of six most unmanageable pieces of ordnance, admirably adapted for the destruction of Pendennis, a like tower of strength on the opposite side of the Channel. We have seen St. Maws; but Pendennis they will not let us behold, save at a distance, because Hobhouse and I are suspected of having already taken St. Maws by a coup de main. The town contains many quakers and salt-fish the oysters have a taste of copper, owing to the soil of a mining countrythe women (blessed be the corporation therefore!) are flogged at the cart's tail when they pick and steal, as happened to one of the fair sex yesterday noon. She was pertinacious in her behaviour, and damned the mayor. Hodgson, remember me to the Drury, and remember me to-yourself, when drunk :-I am not worth a sober thought. Look to my Satire at Cawthorne's, Cockspur Street. I don't know when I can write again, because it depends on that experienced navigator, Captain Kidd, and the stormy winds that (don't) blow' at this season. I leave England without regret—I shall return to it without pleasure. I am like Adam, the first convict, sentenced to transportation; but I have no Eve, and have eaten no apple but what was sour as a crab; and thus ends my first chapter. Adieu, Yours, &c.' In this letter the following lively verses were enclosed : Falmouth Roads, June 30th, 1809, Bend the canvass o'er the mast. Cases cracking, Now our boatmen quit their mooring, 'Have a care! that case holds liquor- All are wrangling. Now we've reach'd her, lo! the captain, Why, 'tis hardly three feet square'; Not enough to stow Queen Mab inWho the deuce can harbour there?' · Who, Sir? plenty Nobles twenty Did once my vessel fill' How you squeeze us! Fletcher! Murray! Bod! where are you? As the hatchway down he rolls; Now his breakfast, now his verses, Vomits forth-and damns our souls. Here's a stanza Breezes foul and tempests murky But, since life at most a jest is, Still to laugh by far the best is, Let's have laughing- "On the 2nd of July the packet sailed from Falmouth, and, after a favourable passage of four days and a half, the voyagers reached Lisbon, and took up their abode in that city.' your explanation is too kind not to give me pain. The satire was written when I was very young, and very angry, and fully bent on displaying my wrath and my wit; and now I am haunted by the ghosts of my wholesale assertions. I cannot sufficiently thank you for your praise. And now, waiving myself, let me talk to you of the Prince Regent. He ordered me to be presented to him at a ball; and after some sayings peculiarly pleasing from royal lips, as to my own attempts, he talked to me of you and your immortalities; he preferred you to every bard past and present, and asked which of your works pleased me most. It was a difficult question. I answered, I thought the Lay.' He said his own opinion was nearly similar. In speaking of the others, I told him that I thought you more particularly the Poet of Princes, as they never appeared more fascinating than in Marmion' and the Lady of the Lake.' He was pleased to coincide, and to dwell on the description of your Jameses as no less royal than poetical. He spoke alternately of Homer and yourself, and seemed well acquainted with both; so that (with the exception of the Turks and your humble servant) you were in very good company. I defy Murray to have exaggerated his Royal Highness's opinion of your powers, nor can I pretend to enumerate all he said on the subject; but it may give you pleasure to hear that it was conveyed in language which would only suffer by my attempting to transcribe it, and with a tone and taste which gave me a very high idea of his abilities and accomplishments, which I had hitherto considered as confined to manners, certainly superior to those of any living gentleman. "This interview was accidental. I never went to the levee: for having seen the Courts of Mussulman and Catholic sovereigns, my curiosity was sufficiently allayed; and my politics being as perverse as my rhymes, I had, in fact, no business there." To be thus praised by your sovereign, must be gratifying to you, and if that gratification is not alloyed by the communication being made through me, the bearer of it will consider himself very fortunately and sincerely, Your obliged and humble servant, BYRON." Here we must conclude our selections from this seductive work, which we have little doubt will find a place in every library both at home and abroad, and rank by the side of the most esteemed and best written biographies. The Zoologist. INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. (For the Olio.) THE study of Natural History having, within the last few years, kept pace with the rapid march of intellect, and diffusion of knowledge among all classes of the community, it is my intention to present to the readers of the Olio a series of familiar papers on the subject of Zoology; and in the present, merely to offer a few remarks upon the manner in which the juvenile naturalist is to make his observations so as to retain the most important within his memory. The whole range of animated nature is comprehended under the term of Zoology, from the most minute animalcula, to the leviathan of the deep, or the terror of the forest, all claim the attention of the philosopher, and it is to be regretted that those which are the most important to a civilized nation, viz. those we domesticate, are the least thought of, and studied by the public at large. The vast expanse of the creation presents us with objects for contemplation and praise to the omnipotent deity. Oftentimes have I, on a fine Sunday morning, enjoyed a Zoological_ramble; what a treat has been afforded me, when contemplating, for example, the various changes that take place in the Frog, (the Rona Temporaria,) from the simple developement of the globule, (the ovum,) to the appearance of the tadpole, and its subsequent metamorphosis into the perfect frog. Passing from this class of reptiles to those of another, we find amusement and instruction in examining the different orders of insects, beetles, snails, and other inhabitants of the fields of verdant green. Taking a range through the menageries, both public and private, we there behold (for a trifling sum,) those wondrous animals in a state of confinement, and which may observe, is unnatural, but yet they answer a most important purpose, they divert the juvenile mind from those fabulous stories they have heard respecting them, and prove that they never existed, conveying to the senses the correct forms of the various animals, inciting their inquiring mind to possess information as to their real history, manners, &c. &c. The Rev. Gilbert White, and Mr. Knapp, living in the country, observed and remembered what they saw; they have handed their remarks down to us in a most instructive and familiar manner. In the Author of the Natural History of Selbourne. + Author of the Journal of a Naturalist. country much more is to be learnt than in a city like London; in the former nature is seen as she is, but in the latter she is distorted and deranged, yet considerable information is to be derived by the indusThe domesticated trious philosopher. birds may be partially studied even in a bird-shop; the structure and forms of the various orders of fishes, even at the fishmongers; and many other animals by those who keep them whether for amusement or profit. The reader may smile at my stating the above, but something important may be gained sometimes from the mest trivial circumstances, proving ultimately of great advantage in after life. In fact, common sense_points out so many plans of acquiring Zoological knowledge, that I shall conclude my present paper by simply observing, that wherever an object, either living or dead, is found, it must be considered a subject fit for investigation, and by the help of proper works, must be studied by those who aim at prosecuting Zoological instruction. I make these remarks prior to the Zoological observations that will follow, in which the various habits, manners, &c. of the different orders composing the animal kingdom, will be described; and which I hope to render easy of compre hension to the scientific and general reader. The student will do well to keep a journal after the following plan, observing to rule it in columns. Date. Days of the Month. Temperature. State of Barometer. Remarks as to the productions of the fields, viz. what migratory birds have been observed, &c. Proceedings of the day's excursion, with observations thereon. By keeping a diary of this nature, it becomes a work of great value for after reference, and which I have found exIt should always be ceedingly useful. written on the student's return. RULES FOR THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY. ful to be remembered, and may be kept The following rules will also be uselikewise in the shape of a journal. Name of the animal. in which it has been placed by naturalNatural habitation, and sub-divisions ists. Peculiarities presenting themselves. Whether domesticated or wild. Supposed age. By whom brought into this country. W. H. DEWнURST. Jan. 14, 1830. Surgeon, dles, cockle shells, the ordure of oxen and other animals. He drank urine, mixed with wine or beer. He ate hay, straw, and stubble, and swallowed two living Professor of Anatomy and mice, which, for half an hour, continued Zoology. CHABERT AND HIS ANTIDOTES-CLAUDIUS THAT COULD SWALLOW A CALF-THE SOLDIER STONE-EATER-LAZARUS THE GLASS-EATER. (For the Olto.) THAT Monsieur Chabert, erroneously denominated the Fire King,' is capable of enduring heat to a high degree, is obvious to every one who has been at any pains to examine the construction of the oven in which he roasts raw meat without himself being roasted. But it is not equally certain, that the experiments which he tries with phosphorus and prussic acid, are without deception. By the scepticism which has prevailed in the daily prints, unaccompanied with advertisements, paragraphs, and personal favours, the public begin to imagine Chabert to be more intimate with the slight of hand of Breslau, than capable of enduring the tests which, to any other person, would insure torment and death. Though Chabert has made his exhibitions in the presence of medical practitioners, it is not conclusive that he has actually realised a perfect and indubitable proof of counteracting, or even of taking poisons into his stomach. Indeed, the idea carries absurdity on the face of it. Yet, on the other hand, history supplies instances quite as marvellous, and, apparently, quite as inconsistent. In 1632, a Lorainer, named Claudius, of low stature and thin, about 58 years of age, loathed nothing putrid, or otherwise offensive. He had been often seen to chew and swallow glass, stones, wood, bones, hares' feet, and other animals, together with the hair, linen and woollen; fishes and other animals alive; nay, even metals, and dishes and globes of tin; besides which, he devoured suet and can * A printed disclosure of the secret is in circulation. 'If you anoint your hands with two ounces of bol armentan, one ounce of quicksilver, half-an-ounce of camphor, and two ounces of brandy, well mixed together. You may steep them in a pot of boiling lead, If you prepare yourself with liquid storax, you may enter a fire, eat fire, have a seal put on your tongue, (we advise no female to try an impression) or, finally, swallow oil. This storax also enables you to undergo baking in an oven; and, as for taking poisons, that is easy enough, if you have an antidote AFTER. WARDS.' biting at the bottom of his stomach. He promised, for a trifling reward, to eat a whole calf raw, together with the skin and hair. 'Mirabile dictu!' A private soldier in England, was very famous for digesting stones. A person, more inquisitive than Chabert's disciples, had the curiosity to watch the soldier for twenty-four hours at a time, and observed that he ate nothing in the duration except stones of a considerable size. To find the cause of this voracity of the body, would exceed physiological power. Columbus, however, observed in the body of Lazarus, a celebrated glass-eater, the fourth conjugation of nerves which nature ordained for tasting, came neither to the palate nor the tongue. Whatever the moderns of the physiological school may assert as to the mapping the skulls of persons green enough to submit them to the operations, our forefathers must have possessed fine materials for being gulled by the miracles which are said to have been performed in almost every shape. The instances quoted are given by Boyle with great seriousness, and he felt assured of their accuracy by acknowledging the credentials of writers, and faithfully translating their report. PYLADES. |