The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 20, No. 569, October 6, 1832

The shrievalty of Mr. Hoare, and his brother officer, expired on the 28th of September, and about seven o'clock in the evening the indentures with the new sheriffs were executed at Guildhall, "and the charge of the gaols and all other trusts relating to this great and hazardous, though otherwise honourable, employment, delivered over to them. And after being regaled with sack and walnuts, I returned to my own house in my private capacity, to my great consolation and comfort."

In concluding this account of a manuscript, which illustrates so many of the customs and privileges of the city, it should be mentioned that it includes various notices of the treats or dinners which the Lord Mayor and the sheriffs give by turns to the judges, sergeants, &c. at the beginning and end of the respective terms; as well as of the manner of delivering petitions to the House of Commons, which is generally done by the sheriff; the city having a right to present petitions by an officer of its own, and without the intervention of any member.

THE NATURALIST

THE NIGHTINGALE

The nightingale is universally admitted to be the most enchanting of warblers; and many might be tempted to encage the mellifluous songster, but for the supposed difficulty of procuring proper food for it. In the village of Cossey, near Norwich, an individual has had a nightingale in cage since last April; it is very healthy and lively, and has been wont to charm its owner with its sweet and powerful strains. The bird appears about two years old: it has gone through this year's moulting. It is kept in a darksome cage, with three sides wood, and the fourth wired. The bottom of the cage is covered with moss. Its constant food is a paste, which is composed of fresh beef or mutton, scraped fine with a knife, and in equal portions mixed with the yolk of an egg boiled hard. The owner, however, about once a-day, gives it also a mealworm; he does not think this last dainty to be necessary, but only calculated to keep the nightingale in better spirits. The paste should be changed before it becomes sour and tainted.

PHILOMELOS.

NOTES

Abridged from the Magazine of Natural History

Silkworm.—(By a Correspondent.)—It has occurred to me, and I have not seen it remarked elsewhere, as a striking and interesting peculiarity of this insect, that it does not wander about as all other caterpillars do, but that it is nearly stationary in the open box or tray where it is placed and fed: after consuming the immediate supply of mulberry leaves, it waits patiently for more being provided. I apprehend this cannot be said of any other insect whatever. This docile quality of the worm harmonizes beautifully with its vast importance to mankind, in furnishing a material which affords our most elegant and beautiful, if not most useful, of garments. The same remark applies to the insect in the fly or moth state, the female being quite incapable of flight, and the male, although of a much lighter make, and more active, can fly but very imperfectly; the latter circumstance ensures to us the eggs for the following season, and thus completes the adaptation of the insect, in its different stages, to the useful purpose it is destined to fulfil for our advantage.

The Possibility of introducing and naturalizing that beautiful Insect the Fire Fly.—It abounds not only in Canada, where the winters are so severe, but in the villages of the Vaudois in Piedmont. These are a poor people much attached to the English: and, at 10s. a dozen, would, no doubt, deliver in Paris, in boxes properly contrived, any number of these creatures, in every stage of their existence, and even in the egg, should that be desired: and if twenty dozen were turned out in different parts of England, there cannot remain a doubt but that, in a few years, they would be common through the country; and, in our summer evenings, be exquisitely beautiful.

Vigne, in his Six Months in America, says:—"At Baltimore I first saw the fire-fly. They begin to appear about sunset, after which they are sparkling in all directions. In some places ladies wear them in their hair, and the effect is said to be very brilliant. Mischievous boys will sometimes catch a bull-frog, and fasten them all over him. They show to great advantage; while the poor frog, who cannot understand the 'new lights' that are breaking upon him, affords amusement to his tormentors by hopping about in a state of desperation."

The Vampire Bat.—Bishop Heber's opinion of the innocence of this creature by no means agrees with what one has read of his bloodthirsty habits; and particularly the instances given by Captain Stedman, in his Travels of Surinam, who, more than once, individually, experienced the inconvenience of the Sangrado system of blood-letting, or, more properly, blood-taking, pursued by this practitioner.

 
"Non missura cutern, nisi plena cruoris hirudo."
 

HOR.

 
"This leech will suck the vein, until
From your heart's blood he gets his fill."
 

In answer to a query, "whether the vampire of India and that of South America be of one species," Mr. Waterton replies, "I beg to say that I consider them distinct species. I have never yet seen a bat from India with a membrane rising perpendicularly from the end of its nose; nor have I ever been able to learn that bats in India suck animals, though I have questioned many people on this subject. I could only find two species of bats in Guiana, with a membrane rising from the nose. Both these kinds suck animals and eat fruit; while those bats without a membrane on the nose seem to live entirely upon fruit and insects, but chiefly insects. A gentleman, by name Walcott, from Barbadoes, lived high up the river Demerara. While I was passing a day or two at his house, the vampires sucked his son a boy of about ten or eleven years old, some of his fowls and his jack-ass. The youth showed me his forehead at daybreak: the wound was still bleeding apace, and I examined it with minute attention. The poor ass was doomed to be a prey to these sanguinary imps of night: he looked like misery steeped in vinegar. I saw, by the numerous sores on his body, and by his apparent debility, that he would soon sink under his afflictions. Mr. Walcott told me that it was with the greatest difficulty he could keep a few fowls, on account of the smaller vampire; and that the larger kind were killing his poor ass by inches. It was the only quadruped he had brought up with him into the forest.

"Although I was so long in Dutch Guiana and visited the Orinoco and Cayenne, and ranged through part of the interior of Portuguese Guiana, still I could never find out how the vampires actually draw the blood; and, at this day, I am as ignorant of the real process as though I had never been in th« vampire's country. I should not feel so mortified at my total failure in attempting the discovery, had. I not made such diligent search after the vampire, and examined its haunts. Europeans may consider as fabulous the stories related of the vampire; but, for my own part, I must believe in its powers of sucking blood from living animals, as I have repeatedly seen both men and beasts which had been sucked, and, moreover, I have examined very minutely their bleeding wounds.

"Wishful of having it in my power to say that I had been sucked by the vampire, and not caring for the loss of ten or twelve ounces of blood, I frequently and designedly put myself in the way of trial. But the vampire seemed to take a personal dislike to me; and the provoking brute would refuse to give my clavet one solitary trial, though he would tap the more favoured Indian's toe, in a hammock within a few yards of mine. For the space of eleven months, I slept alone in the loft of a woodcutter's abandoned house in the forest; and though the vampire came in and out every night, and I had the finest opportunity of seeing him, as the moon shone through apertures where windows had once been, I never could be certain that I saw him make a positive attempt to quench his thirst from my veins, though he often hovered over the hammock."

THE STORK

Is now rarely seen in Britain; one was killed a short time since in the neighbourhood of Ethie House, and is to be seen in Mr. Mollison's Museum, Bridge-street, Montrose. The editor of the Montrose Review believes that a stork had not been killed in Scotland since the year 1766.

FINE ARTS

THE GRAVE OF TITIAN

Beneath this plain sepulchral stone, in the church of Santa Maria de Frari, at Venice—rest the ashes of TITIAN, the prince of the Venetian school of painters, and who, "was worthy of being waited upon by Cæsar." Yes, this alone denotes his grave at the foot dell'Altare di Crocisfisso.

Titian was born at a sequestered town in the Alps of Friuli, in the year 1477, his father being of the ancient family of Vecelli. He began very early to show a turn for drawing, and designed a figure of the Virgin, with the juice of flowers, the only colours probably within his reach. He was the scholar of Giovanni Bellino, but adopted the manner of Giorgione so successfully, that to several portraits their respective claims could not be ascertained. The Duke of Ferrara was so attached to Titian, that he frequently invited him to accompany him in his barge from Venice to Ferrara. At the latter place he became acquainted with Ariosto. In 1647, at the invitation of Charles V. Titian joined the imperial court. The emperor then advanced in years sat to him for the third time. During the time of sitting, Titian happened to drop one of his pencils, the emperor took it up; and on the artist expressing how unworthy he was of such an honour, Charles replied, "that Titian was worthy of being waited upon by Cæsar." But, "to reckon up the protectors and friends of Titian, would be to name nearly all the persons of the age, to whom rank, talent, and exalted character, appertained. Being full of years and honours, he fell a victim to the plague in 1576, at the age of ninety-nine. To perpetuate his memory, the artists at Venice proposed celebrating his obsequies, with great pomp and magnificence in the church of St. Luke, the programme of which is given at length, by Ridolfi; but, owing to the prevalence of the plague, no funeral ceremony was allowed by the state: the authorities, however, made an exception in Titian's favour, and suffered him to be buried in the church of Friari, as we have stated."

Sir Abraham Hume, the accomplished annotator of the Life and Works of Titian, observes: "It appears to be generally understood that Titian had, in the different periods of life, three distinct manners of painting; the first hard and dry, resembling his master, Giovanni Bellino; the second, acquired from studying the works of Giorgione, was more bold, round, rich in colour, and exquisitely wrought up; the third was the result of his matured taste and judgment, and properly speaking, may be termed his own; in which he introduced more cool tints into the shadows and flesh, approaching nearer to nature than the universal glow of Giorgione." After stating what little is known of the mechanical means employed by Titian in the colouring of his pictures, Sir Abraham observes: "Titian's grand secret of all, appears to have consisted in the unremitting exercise of application, patience, and perseverance, joined to an enthusiastic attachment to his art: his custom was to employ considerable time in finishing his pictures, working on them repeatedly, till he brought them to perfection; and his maxim was, that whatever was done in a hurry, could not be well done." In manners and character, as well as talent, Titian may not inappropriately be associated with "the most eminent painter this country ever produced"—Sir Joshua Reynolds.