cheer we met with after our long voyage. I'll engage we wasn't long getting the camp-kettles to work. Oh there was beef and mutton for picking up, and turkeys and chickens enough to stock all the uphoulsterers in the United Kingdom. Oh, your honour, didn't we live like fighting cocks, sure! Faith, but there's ration-time, and so I must bid you good day. I hope no offence, but I should be proud to do my self the honour of your acquaintance, so I would; and if you could make it convanient to give poor Pat a call now and then, arrah 'twould cause joy to dance in his heart, and pleasure would stretch out the wrinkles in his wither'd counte nance. Long life to your honour, and may God bless you יין The veteran rose from his seat, gave his hand a military flourish to his hat, drew himself up to his extreme height, and march'd off, in ordinary time, to dinner. Being an old trooper myself, with all its prejudices and partialities, I have taken the liberty, Mr. Editor, to send you the above Sketch from life, knowing the satisfaction you find in contemplating a picture of originality. Should it be deem'd worthy of insertion in the Literary Gazette, it will be an inducement to send occasionally one or two from the same source. Believe me most respectfully yours, CORNELIUS BUFFSTICK. (Lit. Gaz.) THE GRACES, OR LITERARY SOUVENIR FOR 1824. THIS volume, which is dedicated to the accomplished Lady Leicester, contains a great variety of attractive matter Poetry in all popular styles, sentimental, martial, and dramatic, for the lovers of verse; Tales, for the romantic; Bon-mots, from and for dinersout of the first reputation; and an Obituary, containing brief memoirs of the most brilliant and distinguished persons who have died during the year, "to point a moral and adorn a tale" for the brilliant and distinguished among their survivors! If all this were done, it must obviously form a highly amusing and interesting volume; and its present place in our columns may be taken for satisfactory evidence of our opinion. We have taken the following extracts merely with a view to the convenience of our columns in the selection; more or less favourable was not in the question. Brevity of extract in a publication which, like ours, labours to embrace all the prominent passing topics of the literary day, is an essential. Those who look for more must look to the volume. The preface is headed by a little Poem, half dedicatory, half descriptive,which we first quote; of course, we must not allow ourselves to do more than allude to the name of the charming Lady at whose feet it is laid. But if taste in every pursuit that can embel lish the female character, and the possession of every virtue that can give it personal dignity and honour, may point out an individual, there could be found age of public ability. no fitter object for the respect and homSir John Leicester's name in the DediThe mention of cation was due to one of the most munificent protectors of British Art that has appeared in the age. THE GRACES. I lay upon a bank with harebells strown; fond play Danced round and round a slow-descending car, From which a radiance shone, richer than Sun or Star. And from it stooped upon the flowery bank Three shapes of beauty; yet they wore no plume, In reverent worship at their feet I sank: "We come," said they, and Echo said, "We come," In sounds that o'er me hovered like perfume, "We come, The Graces three! to teach the spell, That makes sweet woman lovelier than her bloom." Then rose a heavenly chant of voice and shell: "Let Wit and Wisdom with her sovereign beauty dwell Every Month has a poetical description. We shall exemplify them by OCTOBER. Then came October, full of merry glee, Spenser. THERE are vapours on the sky, By thy noontide let me rove Deeper medicine to the mind,- There is also a prose description; for instance, "MAY. "May is proverbially the loveliest month in the year. - - "It was called by the Saxons Tri Milchi, from the rude but pastoral observation of the increase of milk from the springing grass. "Flower Garden Calendar. "In this month an enemy scarcely less formidable than the inclemency of the skies requires all the vigilance of the flower-gardener. Insects of almost every species, that had lain torpid during the winter, now come out in full appetite, and with the most extraordinary and subtle means for its indulgence. It is not the least advantage of Gardening, that it compels the mind to some knowledge of Nature-a knowledge which, rightly followed, leads the hu man spirit up with reverence and homage before the great Author of all wis dom, fitness, and beauty. "The mechanism of the insect world, repulsive as its general aspects are, abounds in proof of an invention, an exact application of the means to the end, a variety of powers, functions, Time and storm have stained their brand, and faculties, altogether beyond the art, And from floor to fretted roof, Then, with often pausing feet, What to this are palaces, or even the imagination of man. The deeper we penetrate into the inquiry, the more singular, delicate, and astonishing seems the work of this minute creation. The most powerful microscopes only show us, that beyond the smallest species that we can investigate, there is something smaller still; that life, thought, the power of satisfy ing their wants, of providing for their security, of passing through space with a comparative swiftness of foot, or wing, to which the most rapid speed of the higher animals is slow, and from time to time a lavish and oriental splendour of ornament and colour, to which gold and gems are pale, are to be found in creatures that almost elude vision. It is not improbable that this descending creation may have as many degrees as the ascent of man to the most glorious spirit that ministers before the throne in Heaven; that there may be creatures to whom a leaf is a world, or a drop of water an ocean. Human imagination is confounded by such conceptions; but they may be truths to our powers cleared in a nobler state of existence, and they may be among the direct motives of the intellect risen from grave, to offer the eternal honour of its reason and its heart to Him who has filled the heights and depths of the universe with wonder and beauty with out end." the -- The Deipnosophist is the title of the facetia department. "The Continental Governments could not go on without a Secret Police,' said one of the foreign Corps Diplomatique. I doubt it as a maxim,' replied an illustrious personage. Á Secret Police may have some conveniences to a weak ministry, but it is an incumbrance to an intelligent one. A system of espionage is an acknowledgment of public incapacity; Who but the blind walk by the ear?' "The prince de reconcile two things which were never attempts to reconciled since the beginning of time -popularity and parsimony. At his last fête, half the wines were sour. "What!" said 'does he expect to make his way through the world, like Hannibal, by vinegar? "The French Revolution produced some undoubted advantages to the people.' 'Yes; but they paid rather too high for them,' said an illustrious personage. "The crew warmed their fingers by blowing up the magazine? "At one of Napoleon's last superb levees, Carnot observed, "The miseries of France exist only in the mouths of faction. A splendid court makes a splendid nation.' 'Perhaps so,' rejoined the Minister; when the top and bottom of the hour-glass can be full at the same time.' "The rumours relative to the late Queen of Holland's conduct are known. Napoleon at length grew weary of her solicitations for territory. How many provinces will this woman want for her children said Napoleon, to the most distinguished of his ministers. As many as your Majesty pleases.' 'But how many children does she intend to have ? As many as your Majesty pleases,' was the answer. 6 "On the accession of the Fox Ministry in 1806, Doctor, a physician, applied to the new Chancellor for his patronage, My dear Sir,' said the Chancellor, your profession puts it out of my power to assist you. I cannot make patients for you. Will you try the Church? The Church was tried, and the Doctor was inducted into a valuable Kentish living. On this story's being told, Why,' said J, the barrister, the change after all was not extreme; he only left the Mortar for the Canon.' "In a conversation on the merits of 6 the successive Ministers during the late war, it was observed in dispraise of Pitt, that he suffered no man of talents in the cabinet, while some of his successors adopted a more liberal system." 'Sir,' said Sir P. Francis, in his peculiar style, I owed the living man no love-but I will not trample on any man in his coffin. Pitt could fear no antagonist, and therefore could want no auxiliary. Jackalls prey in packs; but who ever heard of a hunting party of lions! "The rage for continental travelling was the topic. Lord A.- Lord B., to Greece,' said Lady D., known for with a crowd of other Nobles, are going Italian literature. Aye,' said J. the barrister, it is to verify the Scripture phrase, to the Greeks foolishness.' meet "So Regnault de St. Angely is gone: of what did he die?' said ing one of the Chamber of Peers. Of a fever on the brain,' was the answer. Impossible! there was no foundation for the report,' rejoined There's the D-- of M-, after all his "Time is the great teacher, after all. dashing, turned a pattern of domestic virtues, and all that sort of thing,' said Lady J-. He is, I am told, grown as abstemious as a hermit.' 'Likely enough,' replied C-, the man may fairly be presumed to have done with his dinner, who sends away his plate."" 456 Original Poetry-Capt. Cruise's Travels in New-Zealand. In various parts sweet miscellaneous poetry of a high order is introduced. We give some examples: SONG. Flower of Beauty! in thy halls So, her stately breast may prove Rather pine in cold disdain, Lady sweet! thy struggling slave THE PARTING. Farewell! I've broke my chain at last, Nor love, nor scorn, shall wring me more. The madd'ning hour when first we met, Too lovely-Oh, too loved, farewell! And die thy slave and martyr,-Love! VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. (Lit. Gaz.) JOURNAL OF A TEN MONTHS' RESIDENCE IN NEW-ZEALAND. THE "The belief in the re-appearance of the dead is universal among the New Zealanders they fancy they hear their deceased relatives speaking to them, when the wind is high; whenever they pass the place where a man has been murdered, it is customary for each person to throw a stone upon it; and the same practice is observed CONCLUDED. by all those who visit a cavern at the North Cape, through which the spirits of depart ed men are supposed to pass on their way to a future world. "In alluding to their superstitions, it may not be irrelavent to observe, that they as cribe the most fatal consequences to the act of eating in their houses. "A daughter of King George being very ill, food was occasionally carried to her from the ship; and her parents were erged on no account to permit her to expose herself to the open air; but the injunction could not be complied with and in the most inclement weather she was obliged to abandon her but whenever she had occasion to eat. supposed to await those who enter a house "Consequences no less calamitous are where any article of animal food is suspended over their heads. A dead pigeon, or a piece of pork hung from the roof, was a better protection from molestation than a sentinel; and latterly this practice has been followed by our people, who lived on shore, with great success, whenever they wished to be free from the intrusion of the natives. ... "The custom of preserving heads is universal among these islanders. They bring them back from their wars, in the first in stance, as a trophy, and, in the event of peace, to restore them to the party from whom they had taken them : an interchange of heads being a common article in their treaties of reconciliation. They now barter them to the Europeans for a trifle." Of the good effects produced by the Christian labours of the missionaries, we regret to observe the accounts are not very favourable. "The natives (says Captain C.) knowing too well that the missionaries are in their power, commit extensive depredations upon them, not unfrequently aggravating their extortions by acts of gross insult; indeed we always found the tribes among whom our countrymen lived, more troublesome than those whom we met with elsewhere. - - "In visiting the missionary settlement at Tippoona, we learned that a very shocking murder had been committed there during our absence at Shukehanga. A female slave belonging to one of the chiefs, whom he had ill-treated, was said, in the bitterness of her heart, to have cursed him, a crime in that race never forgiven; and, as she was standing on the beach opposite to the settlers' houses, he walked up to her, and with one blow of his meareé (or club) laid her dead at his feet. There is a pool of fresh water close to the house of Mr. King, a missionary, to which the body was immediately carried. The entrails were taken out, it was divided into quarters, and washed perfectly clean. The chief then threw it into a canoe, and, with some of his tribe, crossed over to a neighbouring island to devour it. This horrible act was perpetrated in the presence of some of the mis sionaries." The Shukehanga here alluded to, had not been before visited by Europeans. A priest of this part of the country affords a tolerable sample of the native character. "The day after we arrived, one of the natives whom we had brought round from the Bay of Islands announced his intention of leaving us. This man called himself the priest and the pilot of the Shukchanga, and was supposed by his tribe to have power over the winds and the waves; an influence, which, when he was asked to exert during the late gale, he declined, by say ing, that he could not do so in the Dromedary, but that if he were in his own ca. noe, at his word, the storm would instantly abate." "During his stay in the ship there certainly was nothing of a very sacred character about him; he was by far the wildest 58 ATHENEUM VOL. 14. of his companions, and, unfortunately, on the morning fixed for his departure, a sol dier having missed his jacket, there was so great a suspicion of the pilot's honesty, that the centinel at the gangway took the liberty of lifting up his mat, as he prepared to go down the side, and discovered the stolen property under it. The jacket was of course taken from him; and as the only excuse he had to offer for his misconduct was, that he had lost a shirt that had been given to him, and that he considered himself authorised to get remuneration in any those presents which were given to the way he could, he was dismissed without others." fashion of measuring the ship. One of the chiefs adopted a novel "He was in his war canoe, paddled by thirty men, and attended by another canoe, carrying nearly the same number of his tribe. He alone came up the side; and, after gazing about for some time, proceedThis he effected by prostrating himself upon ed to measure the ship from stem to stern. the deck, and marking upon it the distance between his feet and the extreme ends of his hands, which he extended as far beyond his head as he could, counting at the same time the number of prostrations he had made. When he had got the length, he asthe vessel, and announced it from the poop certained in the same way the breadth of to his astonished followers, who sat in their canoes, and patiently waited the return of their chief." Tattooing, as those who have seen the baked heads in London know, is carried to great perfection in New Zealand. Our author had an opportu nity of seeing it performed on a young native: the operation is styled the umoco,* and is thus described. resting upon the knees of the operator, who "He lay upon his back, with his head sat upon the ground, and for whose guidance the intended form of the Amoco had been previously traced in black lines upon the patient's face. The point of the tattooing chisel was about half a quarter of an inch wide; it was made of the wing-bone of an albatross, and fastened in a transverse wooden handle. Before each incision the instrument was dipped in a calabash of charcoal and water, and then laid on the part, and lightly struck with a bit of stick not larger than a common pencil. As the lines of the amoco became more contracted, a parrower instrument was used. "Some peculiarity in the figure of the amoco distinguishes the members of every tribe; and a gentleman of the Dromedary, who had a coat of arms engraved upon his seal, was often asked if it was the amoce of his tribe." |