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About Southern literary gazette. (Charleston, S.C.) 1850-1852 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 18, 1852)
1852.] ‘all to be guilty, and went by the name of iW , the murderer. The owner of the gig consented to take Mr. Webster with h m, and they started, chattering on on various subjects, until suddenly, at a very lonely part of the road, his compan ion turned abruptly toward Mr. Webster, and said : ‘Do you know who you are riding with V Without a moment’s hes itation. Mr. Webster answered : ‘Yes— with M , the murderer and, in his turn, asked : ‘And do you know’ with whom you are riding?’ M at once answered: ‘Yes, —with Daniel Webster; and 1 believe, too, the only man in the United States who would dare say to me what you have just said.’ The boldness <>f the answer suited the savage spirit of M , and he often afterward related the anecdote. A. R. T.” A MAN EATEN BY MACKEREL. In “Ross’s Yacht Voyage to Norway,” is the following extraordinary story: — Near the village of Sand, in Norway, lived an old woman who was constantly rowing about in the Fiord. She rowed her pram round the same circle, never deserting the spot, but whistling and chanting by turns; she kept her face turned in one direction that she might watch the central surface or the water. “What means that old woman ?” asked R. of several men who were observing her, and, clustering round the pilot, seemed to be gathering all the informa tion he could give. “She is mad, my lord,” the sailor made reply. “Mad?— why mad ?” repeated R. “The pilot says, my lord, that she is so, and look mg for her husband,” the cockswain re plied. “Where’s her hu^b^nd? Is he drowned eh ?” continued R. “No, my iord,” the sailor said, twitching up his trowsers and walking aft towards the quarter-deck ; “her husband was cjrfi>fjer .nan, and lived hard-bv, my lon?—up there. About fifteen years ago the man was bathing hereabouts and was eaten up by the mackerel; but the old woman thinks, my lord, he has only dived, and will soon rise again.” And so indeed the legend goes. One morning, fifteen summers past, the poor fisherman plunged into the element that had been his sole sustaining friend from youth, to bathe, and before scarce fifteen minutes had e apsed, surrounded by a shoal of mackerel, and in sight of home and her who had made home pleasant, was de voured by these ravenous fish. When he raised his arms out of the water, to show the dreadful fate that threatened him, and to arouse the alarm of his un conscious wife, a hundred mackerel hung like plummets from the flesh. The fish erman sank, and was never seen or heard of more. From that morning until to day, his widow, having lost her reason, SOUTHERN LITERARY GAZETTE. ever rows her husband’s pram about the spot where he perished, in full persuasion that he has gone to seek a sunken net, and in a little while will emerge again ; and so she prays the crew r of every ves sel sailing by, to stay and see the truth of what she relates. — Christian Advocate. THE MOUTH. The mouth, like the eyes, gives occa sion to so many tender thoughts, and is so apt to lose and supersede itself in the affectionate softness of its effect upon us, that the first impulse, in speaking of it, is to describe it by a sentiment and a trans port. Mr. Sheridan has hit this very hap pily—see his “Rivals:” — “Then, Jack, such eyes ! Such lips ! Eyes so ! We never met with a passage in all the poets that gave us a livelier and softer idea of this charming feature, than a stanza in a homely old writer of our own country. He is relating the cruelty of Queen Eleanor to the Fair Rosamond : “With that she dash’d her on the lips, So dy6d double red : Hard was the heart that gave the blow, Soft were the lips that bled.” [ Warner's Albion's England, Book vii. chap. 41. * Sir John Suckling, in his taste of an under Jip, is not to be surpassed : “Her bps were red, and one was thin Conipaied with that was next her chin, Some bee had stung it newly.” The upper lip, observe, was only com paratively thin. Thin lips become none but shrews or niggards. A rosiness be yond t hat of the checks, and a good tem pered sufficiency and plumpness, are the indispensable requisites of a good mouth. Chaucer, a great judge, is very peremp tory in this matter : “With pregnant lippbs, thick to kiss precase; For lippfes ihin, nut fat, but ever lean, They seive of naught; they be not worth a bean; For if the base be lull, there is delight.” [The Court of Love. A mouth should be of good natural dimensions, as well as plump in the lips. When the ancients, among their beauties, make mention of small mouths-and lips, they mean small only as opposed to an excess the other way ; a lault very com mon in the south. The sayings in favoui of small mouths, which have been the ruin of so many pretty looks, are very absurd. If there must be an excess ei ther way, it had better be the liberal one. A petty, pursed up mouth is fit for noth ing but to be left to its self-complacency. Large mouths are oftener found in union with generous dispositions, than very small ones. Beauty should have neither; *As exquisite as Sir John Suckling’s, is the following description, (translated, we think, from Tasso,) of a beautiful mouth : “A crimson shell where pearls of snowy sheen Appear its smooth and curved lips atween.’’ but a reasonable look of openness and delicacy. It is an elegance in lips, when, instead of making sluup angles at the corner of the mouth, they retain a certain breadth to the very verge, and show the red. The corner then looks painted with a free and liberal pencil.— Hunt. GALT'S PSYCHE. # * We take the following account of Galt and his Psyche from the Argas. It is referred by that paper to a writer in the Whig. 1 have just returned from a visit to Galt’s Psyche, now on exhibition at the room of the Historical Society in the Athenaeum. To say that I was pleased, would but faintly express my feelings. I was more than gratified. 1 was charmed, and the more closely and earnestly 1 studied it; the more powerfully were the magic touches of the chisel exhibited. One by one, beauties before unseen became de veloped, till at last the wonderful whole burst upon me, and I felt that here in deed is a master piece of art; here truly is the embodiment of soul. The works of mail are never perfect; but claiming to possess some taste in matters of tliis kind, 1 say with truth, 1 have never seen a piece of statuary to surpass it. The faculties, features, the heavenly expression, the folds of the dra pery, that inimitable little ear, itself a study for an hour, have established be yond cavil, the reputation of the artist. But who is Mr. Galt ? This question will not be asked twelve months hence. Mr. Galt is a Virginia boy, born in Nor folk. From earliest boy hood he exhibited remarkable talent for sculpture. Amongst the miscellaneous collection usually found in a school-boy’s pocket, is a piece of chalk for chalking his taw —this was the capital stock on which young Galt com menced business; his pen knife was his graver, and many a pretty little figure did he rough hew out of this coarse ma terial. His next effort was in alabaster. Here genius began to develop itself, till finally he aspired to the more elevated art of cutting cameos from the conch shell; and many a fair bosom amongst his particular friends is at this time decked with the efforts of his youthful labour. Four years ago he went to Italy, w here he is now enthusiastically pursu ing his profession. His first effort in marble was a bust of Virginia, which was purchased by the Art Union in New- York, and is now on exhibition there, and greatly admired. Psyche is the second piece, and be longs to a company of gentlemen in Norfolk. He is now engaged on a Bac chante and a Columbus, for gentlemen of Philadelphia and Virginia. His Bacchante was exhibited at the late annual meeting of the Society of Arts in Florence, and 281
