"The good Abderites," writes Wieland in his Abderiten, "once got the notion that such a town as Abdera ought no longer to be without its fountain. They would have one in their market place. Accordingly, they procured a celebrated sculptor from Athens to design and execute for them a group of figures representing the god of the ocean, in a car drawn by four sea-horses, surrounded by nymphs, and tritons, and dolphins. The sea-horses and the dolphins were to spout a quantity of water out of their nostrils. But when all was completed, it was found that there was hardly water enough to supply the nose of a single dolphin. So that when the fountain began to play it looked for all the world as if the sea-horses and the dolphins had all taken a miserable cold, and were put to great shame there in the public place by reason of this dropping rheum. As this was too ridiculous for even the Abderites to endure, they removed the whole group into the temple of Neptune; and now, as often as it is shown to a foreigner, the custodian, in the name of the worthy town of Abdera, bitterly laments that so glorious a work of art should have been rendered useless by the parsimony of Nature."

In like manner, our good Brightonians lately got possessed of the notion that their sea-beaten town ought no longer to be without its fountain. They accordingly procured, not an artist from Athens, but a tall iron machine from Birmingham, tall as their houses, and much resembling in form one candlestick put upon another. This they placed in the choicest site their town afforded. Its ugliness was of no importance, as it was to be hidden underneath the graceful and ample flow of water. But when this water-spouting instrument was erected, it was found here too that no water was to be had—no natural and gratuitous supply. And now when the stranger wonders at this tall disfigurement, and inquires into its meaning, he is told how the spirited efforts of the Brightonians to adorn their town have been rendered fruitless by the parsimony of water-companies. Once a week, however, his cicerone will advertise him—once every week and for two hours together—the fountain is let off to the sound of music, and the people are gathered together to see it play—or rather, he might add, to weep—for even at these moments it feels the effect of the same cruel spirit of parsimony.

Our countrymen had better leave fountains alone. The introduction of them into London is nothing but a thoughtless imitation of what can only be a pleasing and natural ornament in a quite different climate. Who cares to see water spirting in the fog of London, in an atmosphere cold and damp, where there is rain enough to drown the fountain, and wind enough to scatter it in the air? Out of the whole twelve months there are scarce twelve days where this bubbling up of water in our city does not look a very discomfortable object.

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18

Or as 2 to 3 nearly.

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19

Guizot's Essais Sur l'Hist. de France, 475, 476.

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20

Porter's Parliamentary Tables, xii. 6.

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21

Parl. Paper. Porter, xii. 247.

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22

Porter's Parl. Tables, xii. 36.

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23

Porter's Parl. Tables, xii. 37, 42; and xi. 275.

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24

Lords' Report on Burdens on Real Property, 1846, p. vi.

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25

Lords' Report on Burdens on Real Property, 1846, p. 6.

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26

Ibid. p. 7.

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27

Ibid. 1847, p. 8.

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28

Lords' Report, 1847, p. 7.

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29

Prices of wheat average, per Winchester quarter, in the years after mentioned, viz.:—

Tooke on Prices, ii. 389, and Lords' Report on Burdens on Real Property, App. No. 26.

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30

Net amount of income tax for year ending 5th April, 1845:—

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31

Report, p. 9.

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Blackwood&apos;s Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 61, No. 376, February, 1847

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Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 61, No. 376, February, 1847