Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

"AN ingenious observer of nature conveyed water on a dunghill in the summer months in such quantity, as to make a kind of fermenting chaos, for the purpose of animating the whole mass. It became full of insects, and was used in the autumn as manure; and he believed with much greater powers than it would otherwise have possessed."-DARWIN'S Phytologia, p. 240.

Darwin recommends that dunghills be thus watered for the purpose of encouraging the propagation and nourishment of myriads of insects, and be thus used as manure! Beast that he was!

In a not much better spirit (p. 243,) he would have "burial grounds divided into two compartments; the earth from one of which saturated with animal decomposition should be taken away, once in ten or twenty years, for the purposes of agriculture; and sand, or clay, or less fertile soil brought into its place. Nor would the removal of this earth, if the few bones which might be found, were again buried for a further decomposition, be likely to shock the relations of the deceased; as the superstition concerning the earth from which we rose, and into which we return, has gradually vanished before the light of reason!"

"Or insentient entities, of mere vegetables, none yet pretend to the honour of a

stomach."-HOPE's Origin and Prosperity of Man, vol. 2, p. 130.

"POULTRY are fed for the London market by mixing gin and even opium with their food, and keeping them in the dark; but they must be killed as soon as they have fattened, or they soon become weak and emaciated like human drunkards."DARWIN, Phytologia, p. 337.

"THE first law of organic nature might be expressed in the words 'Eat or be eaten!' It would seem," he says "to be one great slaughterhouse, one universal scene of rapacity and injustice." But looking for " a benevolent idea to console us," he finds it in "the happiness which organised beings. acquire from irritation only;" and among consolatory reflections observes that, in consequence of this eat or be eaten law, "before mankind introduced rational society, and conquered the savage world, old age was unknown on earth."-Ibid. 556-7. "That sort of superstition which may be called Theophobia."

THEOPHILE de Garancières imputes "cette triste et noire mélancolie, cette sombre consomption qui devore le peuple Anglois," to the great use which they make of sugar.SALGUES, Erreurs, &c. vol. 1, p. 370.

Physiognomy of oysters.

LET there be no skull and cross-bones carved upon my tomb-stone.

Were I a recluse or a hermit, a skull should be no part of the furniture of my cell.

A hermit's might be a very agreeable life, provided he had a good Mrs. Hermit, and a due number of chubby-cheeked young Hermits playing about his hermitage. Place it then, if you will, far in a wild, unknown to public view, let them have some halfdozen such hermitages within needful and social reach, and the climate be good, and no wild beasts there, and no savages, and his only care to provide the subsistence

which Nature affords in such climates for very little labour-and then methinks one need desire no circumstances in which one could, with more ease and contentment, "Serve God, and be cheerful."

BECAUSE there is no portrait of D. D. therefore in this world it exists only ideally, and probably only in my mind. His perfect likeness no doubt there is, or will be, the number of archetypal faces not being infinite.

Treating portraits with disrespect, was in his mind, as bad as outraging a monu

ment.

I cannot have it painted from memory, and cannot delineate it myself. Mason's Gray. And what can description effect. See how little! Let a dozen artists paint such eyes and nose and mouth as are here described and there will be no resemblance between any two of the countenances."

"TOUSJOURS pouvons-nous bien dire ce qu'avons teu et non pas taire ce qu'avons publié."-BOUCHET, 12 Seree, ff. 377. The horse said to be the most rational of all beasts, " à cause du temperament de son cerveau."-Ibid. p. 358.

A man wagered "qu'il failloit dire la gueule à toutes bestes, et qu'il n'y avoit que l'homme qui eust bouche;" but the judge who was appealed to for deciding the wager determined "qu'à cause de l'excellence du

cheval, il falloit dire la bouche." The wager began about a horse.”—Ibid. 9 Seree,

p. 300.

gouster. Nous ne demandons pas ce que vous en pensez, mais ce qui vous en plaist." -Ibid. p. 360.

Motto for the 2nd vol. of D. D.-Ibid. vol. 2, p. 539.

A SAILOR On board of one of his Majesty's ships, who had been for several years on a foreign station, and had hardly ever been on shore, asked leave last week to have a trip by land, and accordingly proceeded to Alverstoke, where, for the first time in his life, he witnessed a funeral. He was evidently very much surprised at the ceremonial, and when he returned on board at night, could talk of nothing but what he had seen in the churchyard. "Why, what d'ye think they does with the dead corpseses ashore ?" said he to a shipmate. should I know," said the other. "Why then, Bill, may I never stir," replied Jack, "but they puts 'em up in boxes and directs 'em."

"How

"J'AY tousjours ouy dire qu'il y avoit cette difference entre ce que disoient les Predicateurs et les Medecins. Il faut faire ce que ceux-là disent, sans s'arrester à ce qu'ils font; et de ceux-cy, faire tout ce qu'ils font, et ne rien faire de ce qu'ils disent."-La Pretieuse, vol. 2, p. 51.

A COMPERE of Louis XIII.-"Comme il n'avoit point de Terre ny de seigneurie qui pût former un titre glorieux, il s'avisa de escus."-Ibid. p. 510. se qualifier Seigneur de Dix sept cens mil

A QUESTION commonly asked at table: "Qui est le plus gourmand; ou celuy qui se brûle, ou celuy qui souffle, ou qui attend?"

"L'ame du Mary defunct est contristee par les secondes nopces de sa femme-si nous voulons croire le paragraphe Nos igitur en l'authent. de nuptiis."-Ibid. 5-Ibid. p. 538. Seree, p. 174.

"Nous nous contenterons de sçavoir que vous la lisez, et nous vous permettons de croire et de penser tout ce qui vous plaira, et mesme de n'y penser pas."-Epistle Ded. to La Pretieuse, 1 part.

་་

"Il n'est pas question de juger, mais de

"J'AY servy ma passion à plusieurs mets; il n'est point de ragoust d'injures dont je n'aye repû ma colere."-Ibid. p. 558.

"-Vous ne connoissez pas l'autheur de ce livre. Il ne craint rien, et fait son livre aux dépens de tout ce qui luy tombe dans

l'esprit. Il n'est pas si fou que de se donner une peine chagrine, ni d'en faire un travail fâcheux. Il se divertit luy-meme en hazardant de vous plaire. Il est le premier à le censurer, à s'en railler, et à condamner sa façon d'écrire. Il n'en fait pas un fonds de gloire, ou il vueille faire naistre ny subsister sa reputation. Il n'a pour but que de se plaire en deplaisant à ce qui luy deplait."-Ibid. vol. 4, p. 68.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

"LET no man think me a fool; if other- is no man,

wise, yet as a fool receive me :—

"To satisfy the desolate and waste

"For ye suffer fools gladly, seeing ye ground; and to cause the bud of the tenyourselves are wise."

der herb to spring forth."-Job, chap. 38,

[blocks in formation]

our friends are at hand, but also their

"WHO provideth for the raven his food,

when his young ones cry unto God.”—Ibid. | thoughts when they are very distant.” verse 41.

[blocks in formation]

"POTORIBUS atque Poetis Quidlibet audendi semper fuit æqua po

testas." JANUS DOUZA, p. 366.1

[blocks in formation]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]
« AnteriorContinuar »