Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

2. To what end has poetry been employed from the age of Homer to that of modern romance ?

3. How does war appear to those who know it in all its enormity and misery?

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

:

Sir Christopher Wren.

On this day, in 1723, died, in the ninety-first year of his age, that most illustrious English architect, Sir Christopher Wren. He was the son of Christopher Wren, dean of Windsor, and was born in 1632. He studied at Wadham College, Oxford; where he took the degree of A.M. in 1653, and was chosen fellow of All Souls' College. In 1657 he was made professor of astronomy at Gresham College, London; which he resigned in 1660, on being chosen to the Savilian professorship of astronomy in Oxford he was in 1658 created LL.D., and in 1663 was elected F. R. S. He was one of the commissioners for the reparation of St. Paul's; and in 1665 travelled into France to examine the most beautiful edifices there, when he made many curious observations. At his return to England he drew a noble plan for rebuilding the city of London after the fire, which he presented to parliament; and upon the decease of Sir John Denham, in 1668, was made surveyor-general of the king's works, and from that time had the direction of a great number of public edifices, by which he acquired the highest reputation.

He built St. Paul's Cathedral, the churches of St. Stephen, Walbrook, and St. Mary-le-Bow, the Monument, the modern part of the Palace of Hampton Court, Chelsea College, one of the wings of Greenwich Hospital, the magnificent theatre at Oxford, and many other beautiful edifices. He was president of the Royal Society, one of the commissioners of Chelsea College, and twice member of parliament for Plymouth, and then for Melcombe Regis.

This great man also distinguished himself by many curious inventions and discoveries in natural philosophy. He contrived an instrument for measuring the quantity of rain that falls on any space of land for a year; he invented many ways of making astronomical observations more accurate and easy; and was the first author of the anatomical experiment of injecting liquors into the veins of animals, &c.

[ocr errors][merged small]

JOHN PHILIP KEMBLE.

79

3. What titles are denoted by the abbreviations A. M., LL.D., and F.R.S.?

4. Mention some of the most celebrated buildings of which he was the architect.

LESSON LVII.

FEBRUARY THE TWENTY-SIXTH.

John Philip Kemble.

It was on the 26th of February, 1823, at the age of sixtysix, that this most admirable actor closed his mortal career, among the picturesque beauties of Lausanne, in Switzerland. John was the eldest son of Mr. Roger Kemble, manager of a company of comedians making the circuit of Lancashire and some of the neighbouring counties. Being intended for the Roman Catholic priesthood, he was sent from the school at Sedgeley Park, in Staffordshire, to the university of Douay: but theatrical propensities, naturally encouraged by his early association, soon turned him from the church.

Already an accomplished scholar, he left the university, and became an actor on that stage where he was yet to rise to the highest professional distinction. After an experimental and somewhat diversified career, through the provincial theatres, he first came forward in London, at Drury-lane Theatre, September 30, 1783. His character was Hamlet; and the novelty, spirit, and depth of his conception produced a strong sentiment: but it was not till the retirement of Smith, an actor who has left no record behind, that he was placed in that foreground, where he stood unshaken and supreme, until he felt old age upon him, and voluntarily retired.

For about ten years, while he was in the full flow of his popularity, he held the laborious situation of manager of Drury-lane Theatre; and by his taste, his knowledge, and his influence with the public, he gave a singular and unequalled interest to the theatre and the profession.

In 1802 he travelled for the purpose of investigating the continental drama; and after a year spent in France and Spain, he returned to London, and took the management of Covent Garden Theatre, in which he had purchased a sixth share. His career continued uninterrupted and brilliant until the burning of the house in 1809. Kemble now began to feel that the time was come when he had to consult his enjoyment of life in other ways than in the tumults of theatres. After some intimations of a wish to retire, which were heard with regret by every friend of genius and the drama, he bade his patrons and admirers

farewell on the 23d of June, 1817; having finally closed a progress which in length, popular admiration, and private honour, had found no superior on the stage.

With the commanding figure and noble countenance of a classic hero, he had a melancholy beauty of expression, and even a tone of voice, that gave the whole rich and profound sentiment of Shakspeare. It has been said that his powers were limited in comparison with the versatility of other performers. But he who had made Coriolanus, Hamlet, and Macbeth his own, beyond rivalry, and had the power to embody the rigid and antique grandeur of the Roman, the sublime abstraction and exquisite human sensibility of the "rose and fashion of the fair state,” and that matchless combination of mortal feeling and demoniac splendour which makes Macbeth the most magnificent figure among all the creations of poetry, possessed a range and comprehension of dramatic power that it may take another age to restore.

[ocr errors]

1. When and where did John Philip Kemble die?

2. For what was he originally intended?

3. When did he make his first appearance on the London boards? 4. To what part of the world did Mr. Kemble go in 1802, and for what object?

5. In what characters was he unrivalled?

LESSON LVIII.

FEBRUARY THE TWENTY-SEVENTH.
John Evelyn.

On the 27th of February, 1705, died the celebrated John Evelyn, aged eighty-five. He was author of "Sylva, or a Discourse of Forest Trees," and also of the most interesting piece of autobiography ever laid before the public. The greater part of the woods which have been raised in consequence of Evelyn's writings have been cut down; the oaks have borne the British flag to seas and countries which were undiscovered when they were planted, and generation after generation has been coffined in the elms. The trees of his age, which may yet be standing, are verging fast toward their decay and dissolution; but his name is fresh in the land, and his reputation, like the trees of an Indian paradise, exists, and will continue to exist, in full strength and beauty, uninjured by the course of time.

Thrones fall and dynasties are changed:

Empires decay and sink

Beneath their own unwieldy weight;

JOHN EVELYN.

Dominion passeth like a cloud away.
The imperishable mind

Survives all meaner things.

81

No change of fashion, no alteration of taste, no revolution of science, have impaired or can impair his celebrity. Satire, from which nothing is sacred, scarcely attempted to touch him while living; and the acrimony of political and religious hatred, though it spares not even the dead, has never assailed his memory. How, then, has he attained this enviable inheritance of fame? Not by surpassing genius-not by pre-eminent powers of mind-not by any great action, nor by any splendid accident of fortune-but by his virtue and his wisdom-by the proper use of his talents, and of the means which God had entrusted into his hands-by his principles and his practice. The circumstances in which he was placed were all fortunate; but how many men in every generation are placed in circumstances equally propitious and with equal talents, who yet for want of the same prudence and the same principles have gone through the world without being either useful to us or happy in themselves, with no other respectability than mere wealth and talents, unemployed or misemployed, could command; and sometimes perverting both, so as to be the pests, the firebrands, and the disgrace of their country! And this has happened even to men who have set out in life with generous feelings and good intentions; for evil principles end in corrupting both, and, like diseased and putrid humours, carry with them the curse of assimilating to their own nature the subject into which they are introduced.

The youth who looks forward to an inheritance which he is under no temptation to increase, will do well to bear the example of Evelyn in his mind, as containing nothing but what is imitable, and nothing but what is good. All persons, indeed, may find in his character something for imitation; but for an English gentleman he is the perfect model. Neither to solicit public offices, nor to shun them, but, when they are conferred, to execute their duties diligently, conscientiously, and fearlessly; to have no amusements but such as being laudable, as well as innocent, are healthful alike for the mind and for the body, and in which, while the passing hour is beguiled, a store of delightful recollection is laid up; to be the liberal encourager of literature and the arts; to seek for true and permanent enjoyment by the practice of the household virtues, the only course by which it can be found; to enlarge the

sphere of existence backward by means of learning through all time, and forward by means of faith through all eternity; -behold the fair ideal of human happiness! And this was realized in the life of Evelyn.

1. What was Evelyn the author of?

2. By what means did Evelyn obtain his enviable inheritance of fame? 3. What was realized in the life of Evelyn?

LESSON LIX.. -FEBRUARY THE TWENTY-EIGHTH.
Of the Attraction of Cohesion.

THE attraction of cohesion is that power, or principle in nature, which keeps the parts of bodies together when they touch, and prevents them from separating; or which inclines the parts of bodies to join or unite, when they are placed sufficiently near to each other.

It is in proportion to the different degrees of attraction Iwith which different substances are affected that some bodies are soft, or hard; tough, or brittle.

As by this kind of attraction the parts of solid bodies are held together; so when any substance is broken or separated, it is because the attraction of cohesion has been overcome in that particular part. This may have happened by a fall, as accidentally letting a glass slip out of your hand, whereby it is broken; or by a knife, as voluntarily separating or cutting a stick; or by fire, as in the process of melting lead.

The same principle in nature also disposes the parts of bodies, which have been separated, to re-unite, if put in contact, or placed in a proximate position to each other. For instance, if two leaden bullets, the surfaces of which shall have been first scraped flat and smooth, to the extent of a quarter of an inch in diameter, be placed the one upon the other, and then strongly pressed, by a twist, in close union, they will adhere together with such force as frequently to require a weight of a hundred pounds to separate them.

Again; Take two polished plates of brass, or of marble, and let both be smeared with a little oil to fill up the pores; then place their surfaces together, they will stick so powerfully to each other as to require no small degree of force to separate them.

Two globules of quicksilver, or two drops of water, placed so near one another as to be within the sphere of

« ForrigeFortsæt »