Obrazy na stronie
PDF
ePub
[ocr errors]

Materials for Thinking.

EXTRACTED FROM THE WORKS OF

ANCIENT AND MODERN AUTHORS.

WHATEVER CHARITY WE OWE TO MEN'S PERSONS, We owe none TO THEIR ERRORS.”—Bishop Burnet.

No. III.]

Published Weekly.

[Price One Penny.

56. Anecdote of a Celebrated Beauty; &c.-At Bologna they shewed us the skeleton ofa celebrated beauty, who died at a period of life when she was still the object of universal admiration. By way of making an atonement for her own vanity, she bequeathed herself as a monument to curb the vanity of othRecollecting on her death-bed, the great adulation that had been paid to her charms, and the fatal change they were soon to undergo, she ordered that her body should be dissected, and her bones hung up for the inspection of all young maidens who are inclined to be vain of their beauty.

ers.

Our late visit to the famous convent of Capuchins, about a mile without the city of Palermo, brought this anecdote to my remembrance. It contains nothing very remarkable but the burial place, which indeed is a great curiosity. This is a vast subterraneous apartment, divided into large commodious galleries, the walls on each side of which are hollowed into a variety of niches, as if intended for a great collection of statues. These niches, instead of statues, are all filled with dead bodies, set upright upon their legs, and fixed by the back to the inside of the nich. Their number is about three hundred. They are all dressed in the clothes they usually wore, and form a most respectable and venerable assembly. The skin and muscles, by a certain preparation, become as dry and hard as a piece of stock-fish; and although many of them have been here upwards of 250 years, yet none are reduced to skeletons. The muscles, indeed, in some appear to be a good deal more shrunk than in others; probably because these persons had been more extenuated at the time of their death.

Here the people of Palermo pay daily visits to their deceased friends, and recall with pleasure and regret the scenes of their past life. Here they familiarize themselves with their future state, and choose the company they would wish to keep in the other world. It is a common thing to make choice of their nich, and to try if their body fits it, that no alterations may be necessary after they are dead; and sometimes, by way of a voluntary penance, they accustom themselves to stand for hours in these niches.

The bodies of the princes and first nobility are lodged in handsome chests or trunks, some of them richly adorned. These are not in the shape of cofNEW SERIES,

fins, but all of one width, and about a foot and a half, or two feet deep. The keys are kept by the nearest relations of the family, who sometimes come and drop a tear over their departed friends.

I am not sure if this is not a better method of disposing of the dead than ours. These visits must prove admirable lessons of humility; and I assure you they are not such objects of terror as you would imagine. They are said, even for ages after death, to retain a strong likeness to what they were when alive; so that as soon as you have conquered the first feelings excited by these venerable figures, you only consider this as a vast gallery of original portraits, drawn after the life, by the justest and most unprejudiced hand. It must be owned that the colours are rather faded: and the pencil does not appear to have been the most flattering in the world. But no matter, it is

the pencil of truth and not of a mercenary, who only wants to please.

We were alleging too, that it might be made of very considerable utility to society; and that these dumb orators could give the most patuetic lectures upon pride and vanity. Whenever a fellow began to strut, or affect the haughty supercilious air, he should be sent to converse with his friends in the gallery; and if their arguments did not bring him to a proper way of thinking, I would give him up as incorrigible.

If the lady above-mentioned had been preserved in this moral gallery, the lesson would have been stronger; for those very features that had raised her vanity would still have remained, only divested of all their power, and disarmed of every charm.

Some of the capuchins sleep in these galleries every night, and pretend to have many wonderful visions and revelations; but the truth is, that very few people believe them.-Elegant Anecdotes.

57. The Ballot is a form of election that injures no person, but leaves to each citizen a reasonable hope of serving his country-Montesquieu.

58. Temperance.-Upon consulting general experience we shall learn, that both the healthy and the sickly are to be found indifferently amongst the abstemious, the temperate, and the intemperate. But we must recollect, that men are so differently constituted, and their constitutions so variously strengthened or weakened by education and circumstances, that some are far better able to resist the effects of bad habits than others, and that it yet remains to be ascertained, whether those who have apparently continued to suffer the least from their excesses, might not have enjoyed more perfect health, both of mind and body, and had their life protracted many years, if they would have subjected their several appetites and inclinations, to the rules prescribed by Temperance.

59. Undertakings.-"Tis easier to undertake than to retract, especially in momentous affairs. Good, excellent is the advice of the poet Shenstone : “Whatever situation in life you ever wish or propose for yourself, acquire clear and lucid idea of the inconveniences attending it." Zimmerman.

60. Education.-Education is to the mind what cleanliness is to the body; the beauties of the one, as well as the other, are blemished, if not total ly lost, by neglect: and, as the richest diamond cannot shoot forth its lustre wanting the lapidary's skill, so will the latent virtues of the noblest mind be buried in obscurity, if not called forth by precept and the rules of good

manners.

That father, says the learned Baudier, who takes care to feed and clothe his son, but neglects to give him such accomplishments as befit his capacity and rank in life, is more than half his murderer; since he destroys the better part, and but continues the other to endure a life of shame. Of all the men we meet with, nine out of ten are what they are, good or evil, useful or not, by their education; it is that which makes the great difference in mankind: the little, or almost insensible, impressions on our tender infancy have very important and lasting consequences.

Virtue is the hard and valuable part to be aimed at in education; all other considerations and accomplishments should give way and be postponed to this.-Maxims and Observations.

61. Desire of Change.—The desire of Change betrays itself on our very entrance into life, and continually operates in us till we die. We desire change of posture, of action, of food, change of all objects affecting the senses, for the eye cannot long remain fixed upon one object, and the mind still less upon one idea. Nature seems to have implanted this desire in us, amongst many other wise purposes, in order timely to arrest us in the midst both of our labours and pleasures, lest we continue either of them to our prejudice; and happy is he, who early acquires the habit of most commonly obeying her gentle admonitions, without waiting until she upbraid him more or less loudly, for unreasonable and repeated procrastination. By doing so, he escapes numerous evils, not only temporary but permanent, for seasonable changes are indispensable to the steady well-being both of the mind and body.

62. Equality is deemed by many a mere speculative chimera which can never be reduced to practice. But if the abuse is inevitable, does it follow that we ought not to try at least to mitigate it? It is precisely because the force of things tends always to destroy equality, that the force of the legis lature must always tend to maintain it.-Rousseau.

63 Voluntary labour, taken in due place and season, doth save much exertion afterward; and moderate care enables a man commonly to pass his life with ease, comfort, and delight; whereas, idleness frequently doth let slip oportunities and advantages which cannot with ease be retrieved, and letteth things fall into a bad case, out of which they can hardly be recovered. Barrow.

64. Opinions-Take nature's path and mad opinions leave.—Pope.

65. The Inquisition was introduced first into Spain by Ferdinand the Catholic, in 1470; and scarcely had it been established, when two thousand people were burnt by order of the Grand Inquisitor, Jean de Torquemada. It was at that period that the Jews chiefly suffered for refusing baptism. The religious persecutions of Charles V. are well known, to whose bigotry no less than a hundred thousand persons fell victims. On his son Philip II succeeding to the crown of Spain, he proved as inflexible as his father, and established the inquisition in the Netherlands, and not only took the lives of hundreds of heretics, but confiscated their property. It was on the 4th of December, 1808, that Buonaparte abolished the tribunal of the Inquisition at Madrid, but it is shrewdly suspected that it has been again put in force by the present monarch.

Sketch of the Times, 1830.

66. The Chinese. They differ in particular from other nations in this, -that their history makes no mention whatever of a college of priests, at all interfering with or possessing any influence over the laws. The Chinese do not go back to those savage and barbarous times, when it was nccessary to practice deceptions on men, in order to govern them.

of

Their vast and populous empire was already governed as one family, whom the monarch was the father, and of whom forty legislative tribunals were regarded as the eldest brothers, when we were wandering, few in number, in the forests of Ardannes.--Philosophy of History.

67. Fear of Shame the effect of Pride.--Do but increase a man's pride, and his fear of shame will ever be proportioned to it; for a greater value a man sets upon himself, the more pains he will take, and the greater hardships he will undergo to avoid shame.

Mandeville's Fable of the Bees.

68. Inconvenience of a numerous Nobility-A numerous nobility causeth poverty and inconvenience in a state, for it is a surcharge of expense; and besides, it being of necessity that many of the nobility fall in time to be weak in fortune, it maketh a kind of disproportion between honor and means. —Lord Bacon's Essays.

69. "Men change with fortune, manners change with climes;
"Tenets with books, and principles with times."-Pope.

70 Anarchy and Despotism.-The nature of anarchy has never been sufficiently understood. It is undoubtedly a horrible calamity, but it is less horrible than despotism. Where anarchy has slain its hundreds, despotism has sacrificed millions upon millions, with this only effect-to perpetuate the ignorance, the vices, and the miseries of mankind. Anarchy is a shortlived mischief, while despotism is all but immortal. It is to despotism that anarchy is indebted for its sting-Godwin.

71. Sports. How assiduously intent and eager may we observe men -to be at sports; how soon will they rise to go forth to them; with what constancy and patience will they toil in them all the day; how long will they sit poring on their games, dispensing with their food and sleep for it. But how much in such cases do men forget what they are doing, that sport should be sport, not work; to divert and relax us, not to employ and busy us; to take off our minds a little, not wholly to take them up; not to exhaust or tire our spirits, but to refresh and cheer them, that they may return with renewed vigour to more grave and useful occupation.-Barrow.

72. Systems of Education futile.-Were we all gifted with nearly the same capabilities, and combinations, and degrees of dispositions, and were most individuals of the same class, pretty nearly similarly circumstanced, it would be comparatively easy to adapt systems of education to the several ranks of persons in society. But as the perception of things produces effects according to the constitution and present temper of the mind, in the same manner, as the same sort of food is differently digested, according to the constitution and present state of the stomach, &c. no author has attempted to do more, than to suggest some general principles for the management of youth, to be applied at the discretion of the governor, according to the peculiarities of each constitution both of mind and body, present state of feeling and health, existing circumstances, and future prospects in life.

73. Fenelon on Predestination.-Fenelon, archbishop of Cambray, was a great enemy to the doctrines of the Fatalists, which he called cruel, unpitying, and tending to plunge their votaries into despair; and, in order to combat these doctrines, he consulted his heart more than his theology: -“What a terrible Being" said he "do they make of God! For my part, I consider him as a Good Being, and I never can consent to regard him as a tyrant, who having fettered us, commands us to walk, and then punishes us because we cannot obey him."—Elegant Anecdotes.

74. Experience-The present only has a being in nature; things past have a being in the memory only; but things to come have no being at all, the future being but a fiction of the mind, applying the sequels of actions past to the actions that are present, which with most certainty is done by him that has most experience.-Hobbes.

75. To be distinguished is every thing. So great is the concern we have for the fate of the beautiful, and the well-informed, the brave, or the great, that we hear of their vices with emotion; whilst those of the deformed, or the cowardly, the ignorant, or the poor, scarcely appear to exceed what we expected. To be distinguished is every thing.-Zimmerman.

76. Liberty. Those who care not for the loss of their liberty will never defend it.-Zimmerman.

« PoprzedniaDalej »