Introductory material (continued 4)

Pausilippo.

Is the name of a mountain in the kingdom of Naples, which is pierced through the middle, and forms a passage for travellers. This chasm, according to the popular notion, was effected by the magic of Virgil’s Muse.

Gesner.

Conrad Gesner died at Zurich in 1565, aged forty-nine. This great man, who had passed all his life in labouring for the benefit of literature at large, was seized with the plague, and finding his disorder incurable, was by his desire conveyed to his study, where he shortly expired. Thus, dying on the spot in which during his life he had composed his immortal works.

Futurity.

As to what becomes of the soul after death, we may be very sure that not the apparent interval of an instant takes place between our loss of consciousness here, and our waking in the wide world of eternity. Even supposing that a hundred million of years were to elapse between the moment of our death, and the moment at which we are to rise to judgment, those long years would not seem to us more than the space of a minute. Time is an invention of our own, or at the utmost, is but marked by the consciousness of passing events; as soon as that consciousness is at an end to any one, time is annihilated also: whether judgment follows instantly upon death, or thousands of years intervene, we shall perceive no difference, and to us it will be immediate.

Death.

Ambergris.

Ambergris is made of the honey which abounds in the long mountains on the coast of Ajan; which being melted by the sun, and flowing into the sea, is thus congealed by the cold water. Hence we often see flies enclosed in pieces of amber.

Quinquina, or Peruvian Bark,

Is the bark of a tree found in the province of Quito, in America. The tree is of a moderate size; its leaves resemble those of a plum-tree, but have no medicinal power, nor has the wood. The gum which flows from the tree, and the seed which it produces, are equally efficacious in curing a fever with the bark itself. The Americans discovered the medicine in the year 1640. The properties of the bark were made known to the various parts of Europe by Cardinal de Lago and some other Jesuits, and thence has been called Jesuit’s Powder.

Critique on David’s Picture of the Deluge.

“A modern painter, certainly possessing very great talent, has attempted a picture of the Deluge. He has crowded into it a great many horrors, all very horrible; but the principal group will be sufficient.

“It consists of a family vainly endeavouring to escape from the surrounding destruction by climbing a rock in the foreground. The agonies of such a moment might have been expressed most touchingly, had the artist chosen to keep within the bounds of moderation: but no, he must out-Herod Herod; and consequently, he has contrived to make one of the most dreadful situations the human mind can conceive actually ludicrous. The principal figure is that of a man, who, like pious Æneas, carries his father on his back, certainly not in the most elegant or picturesque attitude possible, while with one hand he pulls his wife up after him rather unceremoniously. The wife, for her part, suffers considerable inconvenience from a young gentleman behind, who, having a mortal aversion to being drowned, has got his mother fast hold by the hair, by means of which he almost pulls her head off her shoulders. The whole family are certainly not very comfortably situated, and in fact the old gentleman who is riding on his son’s shoulders is the only one at all at his ease, and he appears to have a very good seat, and not to care much about it. Yet I have heard this picture lauded to the skies, both in France and England.”

THE END.

Chiswick: Printed by Charles Whittingham. 1846.