Harpers-Ferry free press. [volume], May 28, 1823, Image 4

About Harpers-Ferry free press. [volume] (Harper's Ferry, Va. [i.e. Harpers Ferry, W. Va.]) 1821-1824

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a It is the gift of Poetry to consecrate
every place in which it moves, to breathe
around nature an odour more exquisite
than the perfume of the rosey and to-shed
over it a tint more magical than the blush
of the morning.”
The following exquisite little song is
from the pen of Mrs. Muzzy, of this city.
It is a gem of the first water—drop
from Helicon it self.—-A*. Y. Statesman.
“Take back, take back thy rosy wreath,
And bind it on some gayer brow ;
The anxious eye that droops beneath,
Would make it seem but mock’ry now, ,
Take back thy roses, gay and fair,
The chaplet is not meet for me ;
This pallid cheek, so bleach’d with care,
A sad, sad contrast offers thee.
Take back thy gift—some lighter heart
May prize thy wreath of blooming flowers;
To me they out a pang impart,
Recalling earlier, happier hours.
Take back thy dewy gems again,
While o’er my brow I see them wave
It seems like decking victims slain,
kike twining garlands o’er a grave.”
VERSES TO PITY.
Oh ! Pity-r-daughter of the sky
With throbbing breast and streaming eye,
In mercy sent below ;
To bid us for another feel,
To share the pang we cannot heal.
And smooth the path of woe.
To cheer the clouded brow of care,
Revive the form of wan despair,
Thine is the task assign’d ;
Steal from distress its frightful hue,
And gently pour thy fostering dew
Into the troubled mind.
Nor e’er is beauty more displayed,
Than when it courts thy soft’ning aid,
And heaves the gentle sigh ;
Thus brightest still the sun appears,
When beaming through the morning
tears,
He rises in the sky.
Oh pity ! while through life I stray,
Be thou companion of my day,
Still to the wretched dear;
Nor shall I deem thy price too high,
Though purchas’d still with many a sigh,
With many a pang and tear.
kHH Qb
ELOQUENCE OF SHERLOCK.
Bishop Sherlock, in one of his ser
mons, has the following elegant passage,
Which is quoted by Mr. Blair, in his lec
tures on Rhetorick and Belles Lettres,
as a remarkably fine example of the figure
of personification. The author is com
paring our Saviour with Mahomet.
<s Go,” says he, “ to your natural reli
gion, lay before her Mahomet and his
disciples arrayed in armour and blood,
riding in triumph over the spoils of
thousands who fell by his victorious
sword. Show her the cities which he set
m names, tne countries wnicn ne ravaged
and destroyed, and the miserable distress
of all the inhabitants of the earth. When
she has viewed him in this scene, carry
her into his retirement; show her the
Prophet’s chamber ; his concubines and
his wives; and let her hear him allege
revelation, and a divine commission, to
justify his adultery and lust. When she
is tired of this prospect, then show her
the blessed Jesus, humble and meek, do
ing good to all the sons of men. Let her
see him in his most retired privacies ;
iet her follow him to the mount, and hear
his devotions and supplications to God.
Carry her to his table, to view his poor
fare, and hear his heavenly discourse.
Let her attend him to the tribunal, and
consider the patience with which he en
dured the scoffs and reproaches of his
enemies. Lead her to his cross ; let her
view him in the agony of death, and hear
his last prayer for his persecutors : Fa
ther, forgive them, for they know not what
they do! When natural religion has
thus viewed both, ask her where is the
prophet of God ? But her answer we have
already had, when she saw part of this
scene, through the eyes of the centurion,
who attended at the cross.—By him she
spoke, and said, Truly this man was the
son of God.”
This, says Blair, is more than elegant;
it is truly sublime. The whole passage
is animated ; and the figure rises at the
conclusion; when natural religion, who
before was only a spectator, is introduced
as sneaking by the centurion’s voice.—
It has the better effect, too, that it oc
curs at the conclusion of a discourse,
when we naturally look for most warmth
and dignity.
SENSATIONS AN AMERICAN TRAVELLER
IN ENGLAND.
The following extract from “B'racebridge
Hall,” by our countryman Irving,.well
describes the feelings of an American
on visiting Europe.
Having been born and brought up in a
new country, yet educated from infancy
in the literature of the old one, ray mind
was early filled with historical and poeti
cal associations, connected with places,
and manners, and customs of Europe;
but which could rarely be applied to those
of my own country. To a mind thus pe
culiarly prepared, the most ordinary ob
jects and scenes, on arriving in Europe,
are full of strange matter and interesting
novelty. England is as classic ground
to an American, as Italy is to an English
man ; and old London teems with as
much historical association as mighty
Rome. |
Indeed, it is difficult to describe the
whimsical medley of ideas that throng
upon his mind on landing among English
scenes. He for the first time sees a world j
about which he has been reading and
thinking in every stage of his existence.
The recollected ideas of infancy, youth
and manhood; of the nursery, the school,
and the study, come swarming at once
upon him; and his attention is distracted
between great objects; each of which,
perhaps, awakens an equally delightful
train of remembrances.
But what more especially attracts his
notice, are those peculiarities which dis
tinguish an old country and an old state
of society from a new one. I have ne
ver yet grown familiar enough with the
crumbling monuments of past ages, to
blunt the intense interest with which I
at first beheld them. Accustomed al
ways to scenes where history was, in a
manner, in anticipation; where every
thing in art was new and progressive,
and pointed to the future rather than to j
the past; where, in short, the works of |
man gave no ideas but those of young j
existence, and prospective improvement ;
there was something inexpressibly touch
ing in the sight of enormous piles of ar
chitecture, gray with antiquity, and sink
ing to decay. I cannot describe the route
but deep-felt euthusiusm with which I
have contemplated a vast monastic ruin,
like Tin tern Abbey, buried in the bosom
of a quiet valley, and shut up from the
world, as though it bad existed merely
for itself; or a warrior pile, lik* Conway
Castle, standing in stern loneliness on
its rocky height, a mere hollow yet threa
tening phantom of departed power. They
spread a grand, and melancholy, and to
me, an unusual charm over the landscape;
I for the first time beheld signs of na
tional old age, and empire’s decay, and
proofs of the transient and perishing glo
ries of art, amidst the ever-springing and
reviving fertility of nature.
But, in. fact, to me every thing was full
of mutter; the footsteps of history were
every where to be traced ; and poetry had
breathed over and sanctified the land. I
experienced the delightful freshness of j
feeling of a child, to whom every thing j
is new. I pictured to myself a set of in- i
habitants and a mode of life for every j
habitation that I saw, from the aristocra- |
tical mansion, amidst the lordly repose I
of stately groves and solitary parks, to
the straw-thatched cottage, with its scan- |
ty garden and its cherished woodbine. I j
thought I never could be sated with the j
sweetness and freshness of a country so j
completely carpeted with verdure ; where !
every air breathed of the balmy pasture, j
and the honey-suckled hedge. 1 was con- j
tinually coming upon some little docu- !
ment of poetry in the blossomed haw- 1
thorn, the daisy, the cowslip, the prim- j
rose, or some other simple object that
has received a supernatural value from
the muse. The first time that I heard
the song of the nightingale, I was intoxi- ;
cated more by the delicious crowd of re- j
membered associations than by the me- 1
lody of.its notes; and I shall never for
get the thrill of ecstacy with which I first ,
saw the lark rise, almost from beneath
tny feet, and wing its musical flight up j
into the morning sky.
-——«««■ mcm —
Goethe, the celebrated German writer 1
aged 78 years, was at the point of death
on the 24th of February. The Austrian j
government has sentenced M. Pellico,
one of the most distinguishe.d poets in
Italy, to fifteen years imprisonment for ,
being a Carbonari.
———
Two highwaymen were crossing Houns
low heath, when one of them observed a
gibbet.—■“ Curse those gibbets,” said he;
if it were not for them, ours would be the
best trade in the world.”—You are a
fool,” cried the other ; there’s nothing
better for us than gibbets ; for were it ;
not for them, every person would turn I
highwayman, and we should be ruined.”
A person speaking of another who died
in consequence of his intemperance, said
‘ he burnt his inside out with rum.3 A
Frenchman having occasion to relate the
fact, and wishing to preserve the same
phraseology, said64 Rum burnt him wrong
side outwards ! ,
From Lay Casas11'Journal.
bonapahte’s opinion of the emperor
ALEXANDER.
“ As to the Emperor of Russia, he is a
man infinitely superior to the other mon
archs ; he possesses wit, grace, informa
tion, is fascinating; but he is not to be
trusted; he is devoid of candor; a true
Greek of the Lower Emfiire.-—At the same
time he is not without ideology* real or
assumed : after all it may only be a smat
tering derived from his education and his
preceptor. “Would you believe,” said
the emperor,“ what I had to discuss with
him ? He maintained that inheritance
was an abuse in monarchy, and I had to
spend more than an hour and employ all
my eloquence and logic in proving to him
that this right constituted the peace and
happiness of the people. It may he, too,
that he was mystifying : for he is cun
ning, false, and expert. *# * * *
* * ; he can go a great length. If I die
here, he will be my real heir in Europe.
I alone was able to stop him with his de
luge of Tartars The crisis is-great, and
will have lasting effects upon the conti
nent of Europe, especially upon Constan
tinople ; he was solicitous with me for
the possession of it. I have had much
coaxing on the subject; but I constantly
turned a deaf ear to it, That empire,
shattered as it appeared, would constant
ly have remained a point of separation
between us ; it was the marsh that pre
vented my right being turned. As to
Greece, it is another matter.” And af
ter talking a while upon that country, he
resumed the subject: “ Greece awaits a
liberator 1 there will be a brilliant crows
of glory I—he will inscribe his name for
ever with those of Homer, Plato, and E
paminondas ! I perhaps was not far from
it When, during my campaign in Ita
ly, I arrived on the shores of the Adriatic,
I wrote to the Directory that I had before
my eyes the kingdom of Alexander ! Still
later, I entered into engagements with
Ali Pacha; and, when Corfu was taken
from us, they must have found there
ammunition, and a complete equipment
for an army of fifty thousand men. I had
caused maps to be made of Macedonia,
Servia. Albania. &c.
“ Greece, the Peloponnesus at least,
must be the lot of that European power,
which shall possess Egypt. It should be
ours.—And then, an independent king
dom in the North, Constantinople with
its provinces, to serve as a barrier to the
power of Russia ; as they have pretended
to do with respect to France, by creating'
the kingdom of Belgium.”
Literary and Scientifiic Intelligence.
Baron Lindeneau has recently publish
ed seme observations respecting the di
minutio* of the solar mass. It will be
found, he says, that the sun may have
been imperceptibly subject to successive
diminution since the science of Astrono
my has been cultivated. The Baron sup
poses the sun’s diameter to be 800,000
miles—4,204,000,000 feet, or nearly 2000
seconds. We have not, he observes, hi
therto possessed any instrument for mea
suring the diameter of heavenly bodies
to a second. The sun may therefore di
minish 12,000 miles of its diameter, or
2,162,000 feet, without the possibility of
its being perceived. Supposing the sun
to diminish daily two feet, it would re
quire 3000 years to render the diminution
of a second of its diameter visible.
Sir Everard Home, in an introductory
lecture, lately delivered in London, ex
plained an important discovery, which
he had made on the component parts of
the blood. His new theory is, that car
bonic acid gas iorms a large proportion
of the blood, and that this fluid is of a
tubular structure. The immortal Har
vey, the discoveror of the circulation,
and Hewson and Hunter, who have most
studied the composition of the vital fluid,
failed to make this important discovery,
and should time, the only test of truth,
prove the justness of this new theory,
Sir Everard will be ranked among the
first phisiologists of the day. He asserts
that carbonic acid gas exists in the blood
in the large proportion of two cubic inch
es to an ounce, and that it is given out
in large quantities from the blood of a
person after a full meal, and very little
from the blood of a feverish person.
The fact of the appearance of the tubes
passing thro5 every particle of the blood,
he was led to discover, by observing the
growth of a grain of wheat daily, thro’ a
microscope;, he first saw7 a blob, and then a
tube passing from it; the blob was the
juice of the plant, and the tube was form
ed by the extrication of carbonic acid
gas. Reasoning from analogy he exami
ned a globule of blood, and found it com
posed of similar tubes, which he was
enabled to inject under the exhausted re
ceiver of an air-pump.™- XT. S. Gazette.
Printing Press. We have seen this
morning a proof sheet specimen of print
ing, on an octavo form, pica type, by a
new printing press, got up in this city,
with improvements upon the London
Steam Press, by Mr. James Booth. The
impression is perfect, and will throw off
twenty-jive hundred sheets an hour, and
requires only two hands to feed it. The
engine which moves the whole machinery
is only one horse power,.™-•■/V. Y. JE. Post.
An English paper nientio, the i'oil ow
ing singular instance of nutnerial coinci
dence. There is now living, near Brigh
ton, a man who has been three times mar
ried ; each of his wives’ names were the
same ; he has had three children by each,
and each lived with him three years. He
was a widower between each marriage
three years, has three children living, the
third by each wife, and whose birth-days
are within three days of each other. His
last wife has been dead three years, and
he expects to be married again in three
months I
An eccentric individual, at an advanc
ed age, lately died in London, who had
not changed his clothes, nor lain in a bed,
for above 15 years; he used to sit in a
large wicker arm chair before the fire,
; from which he very unwillingly moved,
; chopping even the wood he used as fuel
on one of the arms of his chair. In the
extremity of death be fell from his seat
: to the floor, and when taken up and un
I dressed, he presented a shocking specta
cle as a corpse. He was not in a state
i of want, having a competent annuity;
but his habits were the effects of eccen
tricity.
DRUGS $ MEDICINES.
JUST received, several dozen bottles
best CASTOR OIL, which we will
sell low by the bottle—Epsom Salts, 8cc„
&c. which, together with our former
stock, will make our assortment of Me
dicines complete.
WEED & WARING.
May 14, 1823.
WM. P. BOWLES
ESPECTFULLY offers his services
to the citizens of Harpers-Ferry and
its vicinity, in the practice of
Medicine and Surgery,
and solicits such part of their patronage
as his strict attention to business, and
skill in the profession, shall, in the opin
ion of an intelligent public, entitle him.
He may be found at his father’s, just above
| the Shenandoah works.
March 26, 1823.
i--;——---..
NOTICE.
~|r| EING at this time indisposed, and
ill consequently incapable of attending
personally to my business, I request those
indebted to me to make immediate pay
ment to Mr. William Ltng, who is au
thorised to transact my business.
PETER CONLAN.
Harpers-Ferry, April 23, 1823.
LIME.
THE subscriber has for sale, at the
Brick Mill, on the Road between
Charlestown and Harpers-Ferry, several
thousand bushels of LIME, of a very su
perior quality.
Mr. Peter Staley will attend to the sale,
measurement, and delivery.
JOHN PETER.
April 30, 1823.—6w.
SHOES, §c.
TRUNKS, containing a most ex*
tensive assortment of
BOOTS and SHOES;
amongst which are black and colored
Prunelle and Kid Pumps,
and Children’s Kid Mockasins, just open
ed by WEED & WARING.
May 7, 1823.
Messrs. Roger Perry and others,
TAKE NOTICE.
THAT, on Saturday the 31st instant,
between the rising and setting of
the sun, I shall proceed to take, at the
house of Jacob R. Thomas, at Harpers
Ferry, the depositions of William Cahill
and Orson Bestor, which depositions, so
taken, I shall offer as evidence in a suit
now pending ip the Court of Chancery of
Jefferson county, in which I am plaintiff,
and you are defendants.
May 21, 1823. PHILIP STRIDER.
LOST,
Yesterday, bv the subscriber, between
this place and Charlestown, a Silver
headed SWORD CANE, with the initials
of the owner’s name on the head—If left
with the subscriber a reasonable reward
will be paid. D. A. WEED.
May 21.
-atf-~--—— ---
Just Published,
And for sale at the Printing Office,
CHILDREN’S Toy Books—a pleasing
variety, and of different sizes,
Wood’s New York Primer,
W'ebster’s Spelling Book, and various
other School Books. May 14.
HONEY.
A HOGSHEAD of best quality, for
sale by WEED & WARING.
May 7, 1823.
BLANK NOTES;
For sale at the Printing Office.
Clean Linen and Cotton Rags,,
1 Bought at this office.