Various
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction / Volume 10, No. 283, November 17, 1827
HADDON HALL
A few years before the death of Mrs. Radcliffe, the writer of "The Mysteries of Udolpho," and several other romances, a tourist, in noticing Haddon Hall, (and probably supposing that Mrs. R. had killed heroes enough in her time,) asserted that it was there that Mrs. R. acquired her taste for castle and romance, and proceeded to lament that she had, for many years, fallen into a state of insanity, and was under confinement in Derbyshire. Nor was the above traveller unsupported in her statement, and some sympathizing poet apostrophized Mrs. R. in an "Ode to Terror." But the fair romance-writer smiled at their pity, and had good sense enough to refrain from writing in the newspapers that she was not insane. The whole was a fiction, (no new trick for a fireside tourist,) for Mrs. Radcliffe had never seen Haddon Hall.
In the "Bijou" for 1828, an elegant annual, on the plan of the German pocket-books, (to which we are indebted for the present engraving,) are a few stanzas to Haddon Hall, which merit a place in a future number of the MIRROR.
POETICAL LOVE-LETTER
(For the Mirror.)The sweeper of New Haven College, in New England, lately becoming a widower, conceived a violent passion for the relict of his deceased Cambridge brother, which he expressed in the following strain:
Mistress Ay.
To you I fly,
You only can relieve me;
To you I turn,
For you I burn,
If you will but believe me.
Then, gentle dame,
Admit my flame,
And grant me my petition:
If you deny,
Alas! I die
In pitiful condition.
Before the news
Of your poor spouse
Had reached our New Haven,
My dear wife died,
Who was my bride,
In anno eighty-seven.
Then being free,
Let's both agree
To join our handsfor I do
Boldly aver
A widower
Is fittest for a widow.
You may be sure
'Tis not your dow'r
I make this flowing version;
In those smooth lays
I only praise
The glories of your person.
For the whole that
Was left to Mat,
Fortune to me has granted
In equal store,
Nay, I have more.
What Mathew always wanted.
No teeth, 'tis true,
You have to shew;
The young think teeth inviting
But, silly youths,
I love those mouths
Where there's no fear of biting.
A leaky eye,
That's never dry,
These woeful times is fitting;
A wrinkled face
Adds solemn grace
To folks devout at meeting.
A furrow'd brow,
Where corn might grow,
Such fertile soil is seen in't,
A long hook nose,
Though scorn'd by foes,
For spectacles convenient.
Thus to go on,
I could pen down
Your charms from head to foot
Set all your glory
In verse before you,
But I've no mind to do't.
Then haste away,
And make no stay,
For soon as you come hither
We'll eat and sleep,
Make beds and sweep,
And talk and smoke together.
But if, my dear,
I must come there,
Tow'rd Cambridge strait I'll set me,
To touze the hay
On which you lay,
If, madam, you will let me.
EARLY RISING
(For the Mirror.)"Whose morning, like the spirit of a youth,
That means to be of note, begins betimes."
It is asserted by a tragic poet, "est nemo miser nisi comparatus;" which, by substituting one single word, is exactly applicable to our present subject; "est nemo serus nisi comparatus." All early rising is relative; what is early to one, is late to another, and vice versâ. "The hours of the day and night," says Steele, (Spec. No. 454.) "are taken up in the Cities of London and Westminster, by people as different from each other as those who are born in different countries. Men of six o'clock give way to those of nine, they of nine to the generation of twelve; and they of twelve disappear, and make room for the fashionable world, who have made two o'clock the noon of the day." Now since, of these people, they who rise at six pique themselves on their early rising, in reference to those who rise at nine; and they, in their turn, on theirs, in reference to those who rise at twelve; since, like Homer's generations, they "successive rise," and early rising is, therefore, as I said, a phrase only intelligible by comparison, we must (as theologians and politicians ought oftener to do) set out by a definition of terms. What is early rising? Is it to rise