I was sent to see Kean the first night of his performance of Shylock, when there were about a hundred people in the pit, but from his masterly and spirited delivery of the first striking speech, "On such a day you called me dog," &c. I perceived it was a hollow thing. So it was given out in the Chronicle, but Perry was continually at me as other people were at him, and was afraid it would not last. It was to no purpose I said it would last: yet I am in the right hitherto. It has been said, ridiculously, that Mr. Kean was written up in the Chronicle. I beg leave to state my opinion that no actor can be written up or down by a paper. An author may be puffed into notice, or damned by criticism, because his book may not have been read. An artist may be over-rated, or undeservedly decried, because the public is not much accustomed to see or judge of pictures. But an actor is judged by his peers, the play-going public, and must stand or fall by his own merits or defects. The critic may give the tone or have a casting voice where popular opinion is divided; but he can no more force that opinion either way, or wrest it from its base in common-sense and feeling, than he can move Stonehenge. Mr. Kean had, however, physical disadvantages and strong prejudices to encounter, and so far the liberal and independent part of the press might have been of service in helping him to his seat in the public favour.

THE GATHERER

"I am but a Gatherer and disposer of other men's stuff."

—Wotton.

INSANITY

A French physician, in a recent work on the moral and physical causes of insanity, noticing the influence of professions in promoting this affliction, brings forward a curious table, showing the relative proportion of different professions in a mass of 164 lunatics. It runs thus:—merchants, 50; military men, 33; students, 25; administrateurs et employés, 21; advocates, notaries, and men of business, 10; artists, 8; chemists, 4; medical practitioners, 4; farmers, 4; sailors, 3; engineers, 2. Total 164.

Never were the afflictions of Insanity more vividly portrayed than in the following lines from Churchill's Epistle to Hogarth:—

Sure 'tis a curse which angry fates impose, To mortify man's arrogance, that those Who're fashioned of some better sort of clay, Must sooner than the common herd decay. What bitter pangs must humble genius feel, In their last hour to view a Swift and Steele! How must ill-boding horrors fill their breast, When she beholds men, mark'd above the rest For qualities most dear, plung'd from that height, And sunk, deep sunk, in second childhood's night! Are men indeed such things? and are the best More subject to this evil than the rest, To drivel out whole years of idiot breath, And sit the monuments of living death? O galling circumstance to human pride! Abasing thought! but not to be deny'd. With curious art, the brain too finely wrought, Preys on herself, and is destroyed by thought. Constant attention wears the active mind, Blots out her pow'rs and leaves a blank behind.

MACADAMIZATION

The cost of converting Regent-street, Whitehall-place, and Palace-yard, into broken stone roads, has been £6,055 8s. 3d.

Value of old pavement taken up and broken for that purpose £6,787 7s. 0d.

Total: £12,842 15 3

Parliamentary Papers

SILK

According to a late statement of Mr. Huskisson, the silk manufacture of England now reaches the enormous amount of fourteen millions sterling per annum, and is consequently after cotton, the greatest staple of the country.

NEW LAMP

At a recent meeting of the Royal Institution an ornamental lamp was placed on the library table, the elegant transparent paintings and spiral devices of which were kept in rotary motion by the action of the current of heated air issuing from the chimneys of the lamp, which contrivance is well adapted to a number of purposes of ornamental illumination.

First and last there have been 120,000 copies printed of "Domestic Cookery, by a Lady," (Mrs. Rundell;) and 50,000 "Receipt Book," by the same authoress.

Printed and Published by J. LIMBIRD, 143, Strand, (near Somerset-house,) and sold by all Newsmen and Booksellers.

1

From "Cameleon Sketches," by the author of "The Promenade round Dorking." In the press.

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Too much praise cannot be conferred on this and similar instances of provincial improvement; while it is much to be regretted that such praise cannot be extended to the metropolis of England; for, strange to say, LONDON is still without a market-place suitable to its commercial consequence. Hence, Smithfield market is almost a public nuisance, while its extensive business is settled in public-houses in the neighbourhood; and the hay market, held in the fine broad street of that name, but ill accords with the courtly vicinity of Pall Mall and St. James's. It is, however, to fruit and vegetable markets that this observation is particularly applicable: for instance, what a miserable scene is the area of Covent Garden market. The non-completion of the piazza square is much to be lamented, while splendid streets and towns are erecting on every side of the metropolis. How unworthy, too, is the market, of association with Inigo Jones's noble Tuscan church of St. Paul, "the handsomest barn in Europe." To quote Sterne, we must say "they manage these things better in France," where the halles, or markets are among the noblest of the public buildings. Neither can any Englishman, who has seen the markets of Paris, but regret the absence of fountains from the markets of London. They are among the most tasteful embellishments of Paris, and their presence in the markets cannot be too much admired. Water is, unquestionably, the most salutary and effective cleanser of vegetable filth which is necessarily generated on the sites of markets; but in London its useful introduction is limited to a few pumps, and its ornamental to one or two solitary jets d'eau in almost unfrequented places. It should be added, that in Southwark, an extensive and commodious market-place is just completed, and the tolls are proportionally increasing. A similar improvement is much wanted in Covent Garden, by which means many of the evils of that spot would be abated, and instead of seeing Nature's choicest productions huddled together, and being ourselves tortured in the scramble and confusion of a crowd, we might then range through the avenues of Covent Garden with all the comfort which our forefathers were wont to enjoy on this spot, or certainly with comparative ease.—ED.

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The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 276, October 6, 1827

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THE GATHERER

INSANITY

MACADAMIZATION

Parliamentary Papers

SILK

NEW LAMP

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2

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