Obrázky stránek
PDF
ePub

lingly expose his bare buttockes in that opprobrious and ignominious manner to the laughter of euery spectator. Surely it is the strangest custome that euer I heard or read off, (though that which I haue related of it be the very naked truth) whereof if some of our English bankrouts should haue intelligence, I thinke they would hartily wish the like might be in force in England. For if such a custome were vsed with vs, there is no doubt but that there would be more naked buttocks shewed in the terme time before the greatest Nobility and Iudges of our land in Westminster hall, then are of young punies in any Grammar Schoole of England to their Plagosi Orbilij, that is, their whipping and seuerely-censuring schoole-masters."

We now come to what has been always considered the most singuiar portion of Coryat's Crudities, viz. his " observations on the most glorious peerelesse, and mayden citie of Venice;" which he calls maiden, because it never was conquered. His entertaining and industrious details upon this place occupy no less than 133 pages. His application was here so intense, that he states in his letter, before quoted, that " divers Englishmen that lay in the same house with me, observing my extreme watching wherewith 1 did grievously excruciate my body, incessantly desired me to pity myself, and not to kill myself with my inordinate labours."

The passage in which he compares the poverty of the Venetian theatres with " the stately play-houses in England" has been quoted by Stevens in his notes to Shakspeare. At Bergamo he could procure no lodging, and was obliged to sleep in a stable between hor: es; for which he was repeatedly jeered on his return to his native country. After leaving Italy he enters Rhetia, and inserts in his book a long oration in praise of travel in Germany, and several Latin letters which passed between him and some of the learned reformed clergy of Switzerland. After he leaves Italy the work certainly becomes less amusing. Quitting Basle he visits Strasburgh, in High Germany, and very minutely describes the celebrated clock there. At Heidelburg he saw the great tun, upon the top of which he sat and drank a cup of Rhenish; he speaks much in detail of it, as "the strangest spectacie that he saw in his travels." Near Frankendahl he was in great danger of suffering severely from the hands of a German boor, who seized his hat, and threatened to beat him for taking a few grapes out of a vineyard. At Mentz he dilates upon the discovery of printing by Guttenburg, and passes by water to Frankfort, where he is present at the Autumn fair, and is much delighted with the wealth displayed there. Colen and Nimiguen next occupy his attention; and he bestows great praise upon Gorcum, on the Wael, which is certainly not very well merited. Dortrecht, Middleburg, and Flushing are the last places he mentions; from whence he sails for England; where he arrives on the 3rd of October, 1608; having started on the 14th of May. The last two pages are filled by an enumeration of the distances between the different cities he had passed through.

Such are the contents of Coryat's Crudities; in which, as our readers will perceive, is a vast collection of desultory information, collected without judgment, and inserted without order. The criticism of George Wither upon this author, in his " Abuses stript and whipt," is severe, but on the whole just.

-Th' other who are knowne

To have no gifts of nature of their owne,

For all their knowledge gotten in the schooles,
Are worse, by much odds' than unlearned fooles.

Now thou that wouldst know rightly these men's state,
Goe but a while, and talke with Coryate,

And thou wilt soon be able to maintaine,

And say with me, that learning's somewhere vaine.

Lib. ii. Sat. 1, 1613.

The laborious and learned Hearne, in a letter recently printed in sir E. Brydges' Restituta, dated Sep. 9, 1726, speaks of it thus; "I have not yet seen Mr. Lang to thank him for his very kind present of Coryat's Crudities, which is a most rare boek, &c. As there are abundance of very weak idle things in that book, so there are withal very many observations that are very good and useful, as was long since noticed by Purchas and some others."

This work which usually sells at from eight to twelve guineas, has an engraved title and several plates representing the Tun at Heidelburg, the Venetian Courtezan, &c.

C. P. J.

Elementary Exercises in Geography for the use of schools. By Samuel R. Gummere. 162 pages, 18mo. Philadelphia, 1816. Price 37 1-2 cents

THIS Small compilation is properly topographical, for it contains nothing but the boundaries of countries, and the names of the principal towns and rivers, disposed in the form of a very brief gazetteer. It is so defective and erroneous that we scarcely think it fit to be put in the hands of children, for whose use it appears to be designed. The author tells us that "his plan is novel, and that he has had it in view to lighten the labour of teachers, and to facilitate the progress of their students." He has succeeded in lightening the labour of teachers, for by the scantiness of his plan, he has removed the labour out of their way, and left them very little to do; and he has been equally successful in facilitating the progress of learners, for when they have advanced a very short distance, they will find themselves at the end of their journey. Except the gazetteer of towns and rivers, often villages and creeks, we discover no novelty in this treatise; for we observe that Mr. G. has taken from the literary property of some of his predecessors more than strict justice and the law of patents would vindicate. In this country literary property is not respected, and

we think ourselves at liberty to take as much of our neighbour's as we want. This violation of the rights of others seems to arise from our habits of copying or re-writing British publications, which are public property on the west side of the Atlantic.

The principal characteristics of a country, or tract of land, are its surface, climate, soil, and productions. But these attributes do not enter into the plan of this publication. We cannot waste our time in a formal refutation of the novel notions advanced in the preface. They are repugnant to common sense, and to the experience of preceptors of talents and liberal education. We refer our readers to the fourth and fifth paragraphs of the preface, and reply to them as follows: New England is hilly and mountainous, rough, stony, and generally barren. Switzerland, Norway, and Sweden are extremely mountainous, rocky, and barren. Holland, Prussia, Poland, and the greater part of Russia are generally level. We ask Mr. G. if these properties are not as correct and definite as any part of his book. It is no advantage to a learner, to be told that Britain and Iceland are two islands in the eastern hemisphere, unless we also tell him what sort of islands they are, what their relative positions are, and how they differ in other respects. Mr. G's book reminds us of the naked aspect of a wood after a conflagration, where we perceive nothing but the burnt stocks of trees without life or verdure.

As we have accused Mr. G. of errors, we must substantiate our charge by a few examples. He tells his pupils that Mount Washington is 10,000 feet, or nearly two miles above the ocean. That Bath (in Maine) stands on a bay of the Atlantic; that there are no rivers of much importance in the states of Delaware and Rhode Island; that Brussels and Ghent are towns in France; that Manchester stands between the Irk and Irwell; that Portsmouth (in England) is situate on an island (during a flood he should have added); that Providence stands at the head of Narraganset bay; &c. &c.

But our limits do not permit us to take notice of the greater part of the defects, imperfections, and errors, which constitute the chief novelty of this performance We shall proceed to give a short specimen of our author's manner of description. He calls the Moselle, Meuse, and Scheldt rivers of France.

"The Meuse rises in the east of France, and running north, passes by Liege and Charlemont, and enters Holland. At Dort it divides into four principal branches, which form the islands of Yoslemond, Voorn and Overflachree, and empties into the German Ocean or North Sea." Page 63.

"Ghent-on the Scheldt, the Lyss, the Lien, and Maese, which run through the city in the north east of France." Page 65.

The other articles of this epitome, to wit, the boundaries, and the names of towns and rivers, are expressed in the same manner, and often in the very words, that we find in a small volume com

piled for the use of schools, by a bookseller of this city. We allude to the neat and perspicuous treatise of Mr. Nichols, which contains a greater number of authentic facts respecting the present state of the world, than any work of a similar kind. Of this volume, Mr. Gummere's appears to be a meager and servile copy. The price of each is the same. Nichols's, besides being better printed, contains 162 pages and two plates: the other has only 123 pages and no plate. It is true that, in the latter we find 39 pages of questions, for the help of illiterate teachers and to swell "the volume's price a shilling." We recommend that these questions should be written on a roller, which could be turned by steam. Any mistakes in the answers might be detected by those boys who are ambitious of being at the head of the class, and thus the expense of tutors would be lessened very considerably. To speak seriously on this subject, we think it our duty to protest against this mode of helping ignorant and illiterate men to undertake the important business of education. We need scarcely suggest to parents, that the teacher who is not able to frame a question is not fit for the office of an instructor. The good old books which have stood the test of ages, are silently disappearing from our schools, and their places are supplied by such bungling performances as that which is now on our table. Sometimes three or four teachers club their ingenuity and industry to pilfer from a few English books of established credit, a something which they baptize an American, or a Columbian grammar. They refuse to allow any other to be used in the institutions over which they preside, vend them to their less fortunate brethren at a low price, and thus force their crudities into general circulation. To the deficiency of our school books both in quality and number, may be attributed, in part, the literary ignorance of our youth of both sexes, after they have finished their education. This is owing to worthless books, illiterate teachers, indolent trustees, in the first place, and secondly, to the criminal indifference of pa rents, who think if they pay the highest prices, at the most fashionable schools, they have discharged the obligations which God and their country have imposed upon them.

We must now dismiss this manual in which we find nothing to praise, and wish that we had seen less to censure. When we consider the simplicity and brevity of the plan and the abundance of excellent materials, which are accessible to every compiler, we are surprised that Mr. Gummere should presume to offer so incorrect and imperfect a performance to the public notice, and aver that it is the "BEST calculated for the use of schools."

We have done our duty in pronouncing a judgment upon its merits; and we have taken the liberty of recommending another, which has received the sanction of skilful teachers and learned men. Every parent is therefore able to learn how the time of his children is employed: and if he thinks his money is properly

[blocks in formation]

spent in supporting a system of geography which places Ghent in France and makes an island of Portsmouth, we shall only have to regret that our labour has been in vain.

REMARKS ON ANTIQUITIES, Arts, and Letters, during an excursion in Italy in the Years 1801 and 1803. By JOSEPH FORSYTH, Esq. Second Edition. Murry, London. 1816. 8vo.

[From the Augustan Review.]

THE length of the period during which our countrymen were deterred from visiting the scenes of classical renown, has served to awaken a keener relish for the enjoyment of this gratification now that a facility of obtaining it is afforded. Those who have been so long obliged to visit only in imagination, or through the medium of books of travels, the native soil of Cicero, Virgil, Marcellus, and the Caesars, are now crowding with eagerness to behold it in person, and to supply the defects of academic and fire-side conjecture, by their own actual observation. Already do many of them tread on spots, where the heroes of Roman glory achieved their noblest exploits; where the greatest of poets, orators, and historians wrote; on the sites of edifices, whose massy ruins, broken arches, and prostrate columns, display the pristine grandeur and magnificence of the Roman capital, and prove the justice of her pretensions to the title of Mistress of the World. Already do they behold the Po flowing through the meadows of Mantua, and the Anio dashing its foaming surges over the steeps of Tivoli; already do they traverse the shores of Baiae, and wander amidst the groves of Umbria. And, surely, though the politician may deplore the enthusiasm that induces Englishmen to spend their money in a foreign country, while it is but too much needed at home, the philosopher will applaud the feeling which leads our youth to an extensive knowledge of persons and places, which expands the mind, and tends to remove local prejudices by a comparison between their own and foreign countries; which supplies new sources of pleasing and useful information, and promotes the increase of philanthropy and generosity of sentiment. He who is confined to his own country, reads but one page of the book of Nature, and perpetually studies the same lesson; and even this can be but half understood, from an ignorance of its relative importance, and of its connexion with the other parts of knowledge. Invincible, indeed, must be that dulness, which can behold human manners assuming new features, and see the face of nature continually varying its predominant characters, without emotion-without a secret and powerful impulse to extend the course of thought, and enlarge the scope of meditation.

The traveller in Italy has been much assisted in his observations, and, at the same time, instructed and entertained in his progress, by the Classical Tour in Italy by Mr. Eustace, of which

« PředchozíPokračovat »