Papurau Newydd Cymru

Chwiliwch 15 miliwn o erthyglau papurau newydd Cymru

Cuddio Rhestr Erthyglau

9 erthygl ar y dudalen hon

_.. THE COURT. ---

J< ! POLITICAL GOSSIP. --

THE ARTS, LITERATURE, &c.j…

OPINIONS OF THBS PRESS. --

OUR MISCELLANY. --+-

Newyddion
Dyfynnu
Rhannu

OUR MISCELLANY. --+- The Language of the Workshop.-It might surprise an English inquirer into nautical philology to learn that much of the language of shipboard was very good Dutch, Low German, and even French. It might shock his national pride to find that the terse phrase- ology over which he had been accustomed to chuckle, as so thoroughly English, was but the echo of the lan- guage of the Havre de Grace, the Vorsetzen at Ham- burg, or was borrowed from the dictionary (if he had one) of Van Tromp. Yet this is the simple truth; and the same common parentage may be traced in much of the ordinary language of the goldsmith's workshop. Although, like water-worn pebbles, the technics), words there in use are now smooth enough English, if we trace their original structure we shall find that in grain they are often German or Frerch.- The Working Man. Swedish Volunteers.-Alilitary drilling is a regular portion of the Sunday duty, it being in no way incompatible with Swedish notions to display allegi- ance to both the heavenly and the earthly ruler on the same day. Volunteer corps are cow formed through- out the length and breadth of the land, in which all of the gentry and the peasantry are enrolled. Gustavus Adolphns enforced prajer and the singing of hymns in the Swedish army, and the volunteers are faithful to the venerated custom. Thus one reads in the papers of volunteer corps having divine service during tneir exercise, with a sermon, on the love of their native land, preached in the open air; or, perhaps, of their inarching to some country church, and there attending divine service. Drilling seems especially to be the consecrated work of the sabbath, perhaps because the onerous labours of the week day cannot afford the necessary leisure. The Osterhanninge riflemen meet on the Sunday afternoon between'the church and the house of the Komminister; and when their drilling duties are over, they march to the little church and sing together, "God bless our King and Fatherland," or some other patriotic verses.—Twelve Months with Frederiha Bremer in Sweden. By Margaret Howitt. A New Explosive.—A few days ago we noticed the fact of the master of the ship St. Joseph, recently arrived at this port, having found a suspicious box on board his vessel, marked "sodium," flung it over- I board, and as soon as the package touched the water an explosion occurred, lifting the sea into an immense column to the stern of the TesseL We infer from t a San Francisco journal that it was a new cbymical | mixture called sodium-amalgam. This material is I j never manufactured in very large quantities, though I it has been advertised for sale in San Francisco, j one firm claiming to have as much as 200 oz. for sale! The amount does not seem l!rge, but when it is under- stood that the explosive power of loz. of sodiotn Is equal to that of about 251b. of gunpowder, oy 2tlb. of nitro-glycerine, it can readily be conceived that even 15oz. or 20oz., exploded in one place, would create immense havoc. And when one farther reflects that even so little a thing as a i-poonful of watsr coming in contact with 200oz. of sodium would o-icasion an explosion equal to that which would be occasioned by the ignition of 5,0001b. of powder, or the concussion of 5001b. of nitro-glycerine, we can form some con- ception of its tremendous destructive Boston Journal. Moral Sentiments in Hovels and on the Stage.—In order to find anything like the moralising of the penny novels in fictions of the higher class we I must go baok to Richardson. He was the first to I make the novel very popular among us, and one of the means by which he tucceeded in making it popular was by a high seasoning of moral reflections, showing what wonderful lessons of virtue were to be learnt from his stories. That high seasoning did its work, although it soon became nauseous to healthy tastes, and is now one of the chief causes why Richardson is little read. Fielding laughed it out of fashion, and fiction of obtrusive morality has never since been writ- ten by first-rate romancers. Nor even in the class of fictions which take with the British workmen is the moralising of precisely the fame kind as that which we find in Richardson. Heis ever bent in giving clear moral lessons—he preaches. That is not what the British workmen now want; they want rather to have the story- well lashed with moral sentiment. It need have no very strict application to the story, if there it is. We are reminded of a well-known anecdote which may illustrate this. There was an inferior actor who had only one speech to deliver in a certain play. The speech was nothing—" The carriage is ready," or something equally commonplace. But the actor was sighing for applause, and he determined to tag to it a moral sentiment, which would of a surety bring down the cheers of the "gods." He fixed upon three lines from the Honeymoon, and delivered himself of the following sentence:— The carriage waits, and, sir, The man that lays his band upon a weman, Save in the way of kindness, is a wretch, Whom 'twere gross flattery to name a coward." Macmillan's Magazine. The Captain.— My wife and child they pray for me When the seas are white with foam On the dreadful deep their forms I see, That are bowed for me at home, When the storm is loud, and above the eloud Glows like a fiery dome. I sometimes think that I can hear Their voices in the blast, And turn to see that vision dear, To me o'er all the past. 'Tis but the sail torn in the gale, And the storm-bird, white and ghast. Hark! how the thunder treads the air! Methinks our doom is said; Yet life with those was wondrous fair And cold are the ocean dead. What cheer, my men ? shall we look again On the Downs, or Beachy Head ? My gallant hearts are true as steel, My ship is stout and strong; And not a thing from top to keel, Would play me false or wrong: But the cruel wave is shroud and grave To many a goodly throng. Must it be so f Why, then, farewell; 0 for one parting kies On those young lips that faintly spell A prayer for such as this Methinke 'twould lift from the briny drift To the highest soul in bliss. Farewell, good crew and gallant ship; Yon wave shall wash us down. Deith, thou art cold. to the throat and lip, And blood is on thy crown. True eyes! dear eyes you star the skies 1 What care I though I drown ? —The Quiver. The Common Shore Crab.- In f,:he miniatllre crests of marine vegetation that grow in the rock pools, the crab is perfectly a.t home, scampering about as if he were a crustacean monkey with a decided bent for mischief. Now, to appreciate the character of a orab, you must know moro of him thar is to be learned from scientific works on natural history, or from post- mortem dissections at the snpper-table; and therefore he should be captured and dropped into the can, ctra being of course taken that he is not dismembered or otherwise injured in the process, which is sometimes a difficult task to accomplish. About four years since, I conveyed ashore a crab alive from Broadstairs to London, and fitted up for his accommodation a habi- tation of rocks and seaweed, containing about a. gallon of sea-water. In a few weeks he became so tame that he would feed on shreds of mussel that were offered to him, which he would takefromthe fingers with his claws, like a monkey, to the grei, t delight of the juveniles, who always made a point of being present when Jack was at his breakfast. He gradually became so accustomed to this, that about feeding time in the morning, if he were not supplied with his usual morsel, he would tap at the sides of the gla.-s, and continue making a noise till he received his food. After some time, however, he became shy, and apparently indis- posed, hiding away out of the range of observation and one evening I was informed that poor Jack had breathed his last. He was accordingly removed and received decent burial under a rose bush. lie had won our affection, so we were resolved not to disturb his garden, which contained several specimens of algiB in a healthy condition; but we were startled by hearing the old familiar sound of tapping in the glass. Had there been any precedent, we should certainly have concluded that Jack's ghoat was revisiting his house- aig ghosts that have a domiciliary attachment are said to do. Upon looking in, however, we found him perched upon his favourite piece of stone, tapping away with all his might. The real state of the ease became at once apparent. Finding he had grown too large for his shelly coat, he had taken it off, and that in euch a perfect condition—legs, claws, head, end all— as to deceive us into the belief that his body wa.s inside. He did this on several subsequent occasions, ) grew to four'times his original size, lived in confine- ment upwaris of two years, and died through the I accidental administration of a dose of green paiut. Holiday Hours at the Seaside. .— e

[No title]

35XTBACTS PEOM "PTOaa"$•!7rixn."…

THE SADDLE C:-T THE SIOHT

[No title]