Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

obscure the symmetry it affected to protect. The Rev. Gentleman sang and danced, and prided himself on performing the movements and evolutions of the quadrille, certainly equal to any other divine of the Established Church, if not to any private lay gentleman of the three kingdoms. It often happened, too, that Mr. Maturin either laboured under an attack of gout, or met with some accident, which compelled the use of a slipper or a bandage, on one foot or one leg, and, by an unaccountable congruity of mischances, he was uniformly compelled on these occasions to appear in the public thoroughfares of Dublin, where the melancholy spectacle of a beautiful limb in pain never failed to excite the sighs and sympathies of all the interesting persons who passed, as well as to prompt their curiosity to make audible remarks or inquiries respecting the possessor.

The effect upon a person of this temperament of the unexpected success of Bertram, led to some untoward consequences. The profits of the representation, and the copyright of that tragedy, exceeded, perhaps, one thousand pounds, while the praises bestowed upon its author by critics of all classes, convinced Mr. Maturin that

he had only to sit down and concoct any number of plays he pleased, each yielding him a pecuniary return, at least equal to the first. Unfortunately, the brightest hopes of genius are often the most fallacious, and so it proved in the present instance. A few months produced a second tragedy, which failed, and with it faded away the dreams of prosperity, in which the author of Bertram indulged. Time enabled Mr. Maturin gradually to extricate himself from embarrassments, occasioned by the failure of his hopes; and having thus had the wings of his ambition somewhat shortened, he in future pursued a safer flight. His eccentricities, however, remained in their former vigour, and in the coteries of Lady Morgan, or the romantic solitudes of Wicklow, the vain oddities of the curate of St. Peter's continued as remarkable as during the height of his tragic triumphs.

Of late years, his pen was chiefly employed on works of romance, in which he evinced great powers of imagination and fecundity of language, with evident and lamentable carelessness in the application of both. He wrote rather for money than for fame, and drew a considerable revenue from the sale of his productions.

He died October 30, 1824, after a protracted illness.

LA HARPE.

THE Academy of Rouen having proposed a subject for a prize in poetry; when the pieces for competition were read, the judges were unanimous in acknowledging the superiority to two odes, but the difficulty that now arose was, to which to give the preference: at length, after long discussion, finding that they were unable to decide otherwise, they determined to divide the prize between their respective authors. On opening the sealed billets sent with them, they found in each the name of La Harpe.

PARNELL.

RUFFHEAD, on the authority of Warburton, gives the following account of the cause which led to Parnell's intemperance.

"When Parnell had been introduced by Swift to Lord-Treasurer Oxford, and had been established in his favour by the assistance of Pope, he soon began to entertain ambitious views. The walk he chose to shine in, was, popular preaching: he had talents for it, and began to be dis

VOL. I.

tinguished in the mob-places of Southwark and London; when the Queen's sudden death destroyed all his prospects, and at a juncture when famed preaching was the readiest road to preferment. This fatal stroke broke his spirits; he took to drinking, became a sot, and soon finished his course."

MINUTE WRITING.

THE "Iliad" of Homer, in a nut-shell, which Pliny says Cicero once saw, might have been a fact, however to some it may appear impossible.

Antiquity and modern times record many such penmen, whose merit consisted in writing in so small a hand, that what was written could not be legible to the naked eye. One wrote a verse of Homer on a grain of millet, and another, more indefatigably trifling, transcribed the whole "Iliad" in so very confined a space, that it could be enclosed even in a nut-shell.

Menage states, that he read an Italian poem in praise of the Dauphiness of France, containing some thousand verses, written by an Officer, in the space of a foot and a half.*

* It is worthy of remark, that this species of "curious idling" has not been neglected in our country. About a

CORONATION OF BARABALLO.

BARABALLO, ABATE DI GAETA, who flourished in the days of Leo the Tenth, is far more famous for his inordinate vanity and ludicrous conceit, than for any real merit. He carried his stupid vanity so far as to compare his improvisations to the sonnets of Petrarch, and actually claimed the honour which that poet had received, of being crowned in the Capitol. This idea opened a fine prospect of amusements to Leo and his Court; his pretensions were acknowledged by acclamation, and it was arranged that his coronation should take place upon the festival of St. Cosmus and Damian. The Pope was so enchanted with the ludicrous anticipation of Baraballo's self-complacency, and of his utter insensibility to the real nature of the part he had to play, and of

century ago, this minute writing was a fashionable curiosity. A drawing of the Head of Charles I. is in the Library of St. John's College, Oxford: it is wholly composed of minutely written characters, which, at a small distance, resemble the lines of engraving. The lines of the head and the ruff contain the Book of Psalms, the Creed, and the Lord's Prayer.

« ÎnapoiContinuă »