Loe raamatut: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 17, No. 488, May 7, 1831», lehekülg 5

BALLET OF KENILWORTH, AT THE KING'S THEATRE

There is a very curious and ingenious, though not original, exhibition in this ballet. Among the festivities at Kenilworth Castle, in honour of the royal guests, a pantomimic "masque" of the gods and goddesses of Olympus is introduced. The divinities, instead of appearing in genuine Grecian attire, present themselves in the mongrel costume visual on such occasions in the time of Queen Elizabeth. This is droll enough, but more whimsical still is the style of their dancing. This, too, is meant as an imitation of the limited choregraphic savoir faire of the age. It is as if Mons. Deshayes had triumphantly intended to portray the first dawn of an art which he considers to have now reached the summit of perfection. But who knows but the Monsieur Un tel of 1931 may, with equal boldness, parody the pirouettes of Monsieur Deshayes? Even the music to this mythological interlude is borrowed from ancient scores; a happy thought, which deserves commendation.—Ibid.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

THE NEW MAGAZINE

Mr. Campbell, the Poet, has seceded from the New Monthly Magazine, and commenced a magazine of his own—The Metropolitan. Without prejudice to the first-mentioned work, he has our best wishes for his new undertaking. The New Monthly Magazine has, however, supplied the Mirror with brighter columns than any of its contemporaries, and we are mindful of the obligation, especially for that gay and lively description of writing which is really the patter of literature. It will soon be seen whether Mr. Campbell and his forces succeed. The Number before us is, for a first, excellent. The Editor's Paper on Ancient Geography, with which it opens, is worth the price of the whole magazine: nay, it is worth more than many a modern quarto. Other papers are attractive; and there is much of the spirit of the times throughout the Number.—Poland, the Political Times, and the Lord Chancellor's Levee—are vividly written. The last is a good specimen of the "keep moving" style of a Magazine. We intend to quote largely from the

Memoirs of the Macaw of a Lady of Quality,

BY LADY MORGAN:

I am a native of one of the most splendid regions of the earth, where nature dispenses all her bounties with a liberal hand; and where man and bird are released from half the penalties to which, in other climes, their flesh is heir. I was born in one of those superb forests of fruit and flowers so peculiar to the Brazils, which stood at no great distance from an Indian village, and was not far removed from an European settlement. This forest was impervious to human footsteps. A nation of apes occupied the interior; and the dynasty of the Psittacus Severus, or Brazilian queen macaw, inhabited the upper regions.—Several subject-states of green and yellow parrots constituted our colonial neighbours. My family held the highest rank in the privileged classes of our oligarchy; for our pride would not admit of a king, and our selfishness (so I must call it) would allow of no rights. We talked nevertheless in our legislative assemblies of our happy constitution, which by tacit agreement we understood to mean "happy for ourselves;" but the green and yellow parrots too plainly showed a strong disposition to put another interpretation on the phraseology. My paternal nest was situated in the hollow of one of the most ancient and lofty trees in the forest. It had once been rich in fruit and flowers, gums and odours, and all in the same season; and though it was now scathed at the top, hollow in the trunk, and was threatened with total ruin from the first hurricane, we still preferred it, because it was the oldest. I owed all my early impressions, and much of my acquired superiority, to my great grandfather, who lived to an extreme old age, and attained a celebrity, of which we were ourselves at that time unaware. He was the identical bird which was brought from Marignan to Prince Maurice, governor of the Brazils, and whose pertinent answers to many silly questions are recorded in the pages of the greatest of English philosophers. My great grandfather was soon disgusted with the folly and cruelty of what is called civilized life; and having seen an Indian roasted alive for a false religion's sake, he thought that some day they might take it into their heads to do as much by a macaw, for the same reason. So he availed himself of an early opportunity of retiring without leave from the service, and returned to his native forest, where his genius and learning at once raised him to the highest honours of the Psittacan aristocracy. Influenced by his example, I early felt the desire of visiting foreign countries. My mother too (who, though fond and indulgent, like all the mothers of our race, was as vain and foolish as any that I have since met with in human society) worked powerfully on my ambition, by her constant endeavours to "push me up the tree," as she called it, in her way. I was already a first-rate orator, and a member of the great congress of macaws; while in our social re-unions I left all the young birds of fashion far behind me: and as I not only articulated some human sounds picked up from the Indians, but could speak a few words of Portuguese and Dutch, learned by rote from my great grandfather, I was considered a genius of high order. With the conceit, therefore, of all my noble family, I was prompted to go forth and visit other and better worlds, and to seek a sphere better adapted to the display of my presumed abilities, than that afforded by our domestic senate and home-spun society. On one of those celestial nights, known only in the tropical regions, I set forth on my travels, directing my course to the Portuguese settlement, which the youthful vigour of my wing enabled me to reach by the break of morning. Having refreshed myself with a breakfast of fruit, after the exhaustion of my nocturnal flight, I ascended a spacious palm tree, which afforded an admirable view of the adjacent country, and a desirable shelter from the ardours of the rising sun. My first impulse was to take a bird's-eye view of the novel scene which lay before me, and I gazed around for some minutes with intense delight; but fatigue gradually obtained the mastery over curiosity, and, putting my head unconsciously beneath my wing, I fell into a profound sleep. How long this continued, I know not; but I was suddenly awakened by a strange muttering of unknown voices. I looked, and beheld two creatures whose appearance greatly surprised me. They had nothing of the noble form and aspect of our Indian neighbours. One of them considerably resembled the preacher-monkey in countenance and deportment; his head was denuded of hair, and his person was covered by a black substance, which left no limb visible except his ancles and feet, which were very much like those of an ape. The other had all the air of a gigantic parrot: he had a hooked bill, a sharp look, a yellow head; and all the rest of his strange figure was party-coloured, blue, green, red, and black. I classed him at once as a specimen of the Psittacus Ochropterus. The ape and the parrot seemed to have taken shelter beneath the palm tree, like myself, for the purposes of shade and repose. They had beside them a basket filled with dead game, fruit, and honey; and the parrot had a long instrument near him on the ground, which I afterwards learned was a fowling-piece. They talked a strange jargon of different intonation, like that of the respective chatter of the grey and the green parrots. Both seemed to complain, and, by the expression of their ugly and roguish faces, to interrogate each other. As soon as they went away, I endeavoured to mutter to myself the sounds they had uttered, but could retain only two phrases. The one had been spoken by the ape, and ran thus—"Shure it was for my sweet sowl's sake, jewel;" the other was—"Eh, sirs, it was aw' for the love of the siller." I was extremely amused by my acquisition; and, being convinced that I was now qualified to present myself at the settlement, was about to descend from my altitude, when the two strangers returned: they had come back for the gun, which they had left behind them. As they picked it up, it went off, and I was startled into one of my loudest screams. The strangers looked at me with great delight, he whom I likened to the parrot exclaiming—"Weel, mon, what brought you here?" I answered in his own words, for want of better—"Eh, sirs, it was aw' for the love of the siller." He dropped his piece, and fled in consternation, calling lustily—"Its auld clooty himsen, mon, its auld Horny, I tell ye; come awa, come awa." His friend, who seemed more acquainted with our species, encouraged him to return; and offering me some fruit from his basket, said—"Why, Poll, you cratur, what brought you so far from home?" I endeavoured to imitate his peculiar tone, and replied—"Why thin it was for my sweet sowl's sake, jewel."—"Why then," said my interlocutor, coolly (for I never forgot his words) "that bird bates cockfighting." They now both endeavoured to catch me. It was all I wanted, and I perched on the preaching-monkey's wrist, while he took up the basket in his left hand, and in this easy and commodious style of travelling, we proceeded. On approaching the settlement, a fierce dispute arose between the friends; of which, by each tearing me from the other, I was evidently the object; and I am quite sure that I should have been torn to pieces between them, but for the timely approach of a person who issued from a lofty and handsome edifice on the road side, attended by a train of preacher-monkeys, of which he was the chief. He was quite a superior looking being to either of my first acquaintance, who cowered and shrunk beneath his eagle look. They seemed humbly to lay their cases before him; when, after looking contemptuously on both, he took me to himself, caressed me, and giving me to an attendant, said—"This bird belongs to neither, it is the property of mother church:" and the property of mother church I remained for some years. Of my two friends of the palm-tree, one, the preacher-monkey, turned out to be a poor Irish lay brother, of the convent of which my new master (an Irishman too) was the superior. My yellow parrot was a Scotch adventurer, who came out to give lectures on poleetical economy to the Brazilians: and who, finding that they had no taste for moral science, had become a servant of all-work to the brotherhood. My dwelling was a missionary house of the Propaganda, established for the purpose of converting (i.e. burning) the poor Indians. The Superior, Father Flynn, had recently arrived from Lisbon with unlimited powers. He was clever, eloquent, witty, and humorous; but panting for a bishopric in his native country, he was principally employed in theological writings, which might bring him into notice and hasten his recall to Europe.

Next to the servant's hall of a great English family, the first place in the world for completing the education of a macaw of genius, is a convent. Its idleness and ennui render a monkey, or a parrot, a valuable resource; and between what I picked up, and what I was taught by the monks of the Propaganda, my acquirements soon became stupendous. Always following my kind master from the refectory to the church, assisting at mess or at mass, being near him in the seclusion of the oratory, and in the festivities, he frequently held with his more confidential friends; I had loaded my astonishing memory with scraps of theology and of fun. I could sing a French drinking song, taught me by the sub-prior Frere Jacques, and intonate a "Gloria in Excelsis" with a true nasal twang. I had actually learned the Creed in English;³ and could call all the brothers by their name. I had even learned the Savoyard's dance from my friend Frère Jacques, and sung "Gai Coco" at the same time, like Scaliger's parrot, from whose history Frère Jacques took the idea of teaching me. I did this, it must be acknowledged, with great awkwardness, turning in my toes, and often tumbling backwards in a clumsy and ludicrous way. But this amused my religious friends more than all the rest; for, like the great, they loved a ridicule as well as a talent; and, provided they were amused, were not nice as to the means. My fame soon began to spread on all sides, and the anecdotes told of the macaw of the Propaganda soon reached the circles of the Governor of the Brazils, who wrote to request the pleasure of my company for a few weeks at the palace. This was a compliment which he had never paid to the learned superior of the order, and my master was evidently hurt. He declined therefore the invitation for me, on the plea that he would soon visit Rio Janeiro himself, when I should accompany him into the vice-regal presence.

This visit shortly took place, not for the object supposed by the community, (who parted with me, even for a short time, with great regret,) but for another purpose. The British ambassador, Lord –, who had recently arrived at Rio, was a countryman of Father Flynn's. He enjoyed eminent literary celebrity, was a delightful poet, and well acquainted with the Portuguese language. The superior had no doubt that his own literary and theological merits were equally known to his excellency, whom he visited with a view to negotiating a passage in the British man of war; for he had been called on a secret mission to Ireland, and wished to depart without notifying his intention to the subaltern of the Propaganda. I was not included in the muster-roll of this expedition; but anxious to lose no opportunity of seeing the world, and desirous of beholding the Governor, who had shown his taste and politeness by inviting me to his court, I contrived to nestle myself in the carriage without the superior's knowledge, and followed his steps to the very ante-room of the embassy. It was too late to send me back; for I was instantly seized by a company of pretty young animals, the very reverse in appearance of the preacher-monkeys of the Propaganda; they all seemed to find in me a kindred soul: my master was ushered into the cabinet, and I was left with my new acquaintance, who were called "attachés," but whom I at once classed with the secretary-birds,⁴ while here and there, I thought, was mingled among them a specimen of the booby, or Pelicanus Sula. Two of these mischievous creatures seemed to delight in tormenting me from mere idleness and ennui, which I bore for some time with great patience, as I saw the boobies pay them much respect. One was called Lord Charles, and the other the Hon. Mr. Henry. I learned these names with facility, and contrived to repeat them, as they had been taught me, by the frequent iteration of one of the boobies.