FROM THE UNIVERSAL MAGAZINE. London; being a complete Guide to the British Capital; containing an accurate and succinct Account of its Origin, Rise, and Progress, the Increase and Extent of its Buildings, its Commerce, Curiosities, Exhibitions, Amusements, Publick Calamities, Religious and Charitable Foundations, Literary Establishments, Learned and Scientifick Institutions, &c. &c. Interspersed with a variety of Original Anecdotes, Eccentrick Biography, Critical Remarks, &c. &c. Faithfully abridged from Mr. Pennant's London, and brought down to the present year. By John Wallis. 12mo. 1810. TO this compilation we give our unqualified approbation. We have read it with pleasure and with instruction. It is judiciously and faith fully abridged, from Pennant's larger work, and contains, besides, much new matter. There is nothing of any importance that is omitted; and, as it is neatly printed, and cheaply published, we may confidently expect that it will meet with such approbation from the publick as it assuredly deserves. As a specimen of the manner in which it is compiled, we will extract the account of Topham, which contains particulars not very generally known, and will interest most readers in the perusal: "Cold Bath Fields, in this vicinity, was likewise chosen for a singular exhibition of bodily strength. Topham, about three score years ago, generally known by the name of the strong man, kept a publick house, the sign of the apple tree, at no great distance from Cold Bath Fields, in 1741, and chose that spot to exhibit one of his feats, viz. lifting three hogsheads of water, weighing 1836 pounds, upon a kind of scaffold, as it was then said, in honour of admiral Vernon, on account of his taking Porto Bello with six ships only. Topham was then so confident of lifting these hogs heads, that he wanted three children to stand under them at the time; but this the populace would not permit, though he performed the undertaking with ease. "Topham was then about thirty one, in the prime of life "The first publick feat performed by Topham, of much notoriety, viz, his pulling against a horse, was in the neighbour. hood where he then lived, viz. Moorfields; neither was it against stumps that he put his feet, but against the dwarf wall dividing Upper from Lower Moorfields. He afterwards pulled against two horses; but as his legs were placed horizontally, instead of rising parallel to the traces of the horses, he was jerked from his seat, and had one of his knees much bruised and hurt; whereas, it was the opinion of Dr. Desaguliers, that had he been in a proper position, he might have kept his situation against the pulling of four horses, without the least inconvenience. "The feats which Dr. Desaguliers says he himself saw him perform, are as fol low: "By the strength of his fingers he rolled up a very strong and large pewter dish. He broke seven or eight short pieces of a tobacco pipe by the force of his middle finger, having laid them on his first and third finger. Having thrust the bowl of a strong tobacco pipe under his garter, his legs being bent, he broke it to pieces by the tendons of his hams, without altering the bending of his legs. Another bowl of this kind he broke between his first and second finger, by pressing them together side. ways. He lifted a table with his teeth six feet long, with half a hundred weight hanging at the end of it, holding it in a horizontal position a considerable time. "He took an iron kitchen poker, about a yard long, and three inches round, and struck upon his bare left arm, between the elbow and the wrist, till he bent the poker nearly to a right angle. "With such another poker, holding the ends of it in his hands, and the middle of it against the back of his neck, he brought both ends of it together before him; and what was yet more difficult, he pulled it almost straight again. "He broke a rope of two inches circumference, though, in consequence of his awkward manner, he was obliged to exert four times more strength than was necessary. "He lifted a rolling stone of eight bundred pounds weight, with his hands only, standing in a frame above it, and taking hold of a chain that was fastened thereto. "Dr. Hutton, of Birmingham, speaking of Topham, is right in asserting that he also kept a publick house at Islington; he likewise confirms what was said of him by Dr. Desaguliers; besides his lifting two hogsheads of water, heaving his horse over the turnpike gate, carrying the beam of a house as a soldier carries his firelock. These, Dr. Hutton observes, were the reports circulated respecting Topham in the country. But, however belief might be staggered, he observes, she recovered herself, when this second Samson appeared at Derby as a performer in publick, at a shilling each. Upon application to alder. man Cooper, to exhibit, the magistrate was surprised at the feats he proposed; and as his appearance was like that of other men, he requested him to strip, that he might examine whether he was made like them, but he was found extremely muscular. What were hollows under the arms and hams of others, were filled up with ligaments in him. "From the jerk he received from the two horses, Dr. Hutton observed, that he limped a little in his walk; and though a well made man, had nothing singular in his appearance. "The performances of this wonderful man at Derby, in whom the doctor observes, the strength of twelve men were united, were the rolling up of a pewter dish of seven pounds, as a man rolls up a sheet of paper. Holding a pewter quart at arm's length, and squeezing the sides together like an egg-shell. Lifting two hundred weight with his little finger, and moving it gently over his head The bodies he touched seemed to have lost the power of gravitation. He also broke a rope fastened to the floor, that would have sustained twenty hundred weight; lifted the oak table with half a hundred weight to it; a piece of leather being fixed to one end for his teeth to hold, and while two of the feet stood upon his knees, he raised the end of it, with the weight, higher than that in his mouth. Mr. Chambers, then vicar of All Saints, in Derby, who weighed twenty seven stone, he took and raised with one hand, his head being laid on one chair, and his feet on another. Four people, also, fourteen stone each, sat upon Topham's body, and these he heaved at pleasure. At one blow he struck a round bar of iron, one inch in diameter, against his naked arm, and bent it like a bow. Weakness and feeling seemed fled together. 66 Being a master of some musick, Dr. Hutton says he entertained the company at Derby with Mad Tom. The Doctor also heard him sing a solo to the organ (then the only one in Derby) in St. Werburgh's church; but though he might perform with judgment, yet the voice, more terrible than sweet, scarcely seemed human. The ostler at the Virgin inn, where Topham put up, having insulted him, he took one of the kitchen spits from the mantlepiece, and bent it round his neck like a handkerchief; but as he did not choose to tuck the end in the ostler's bosom, the cumbrous ornament only excited the laugh of the company, until Topham undertook to untie his iron cravat. Had he not abounded with good nature, the men might have been in fear for the safety of their persons, and the women, for that of their pewter on the shelves. One blow from him would for ever have silenced those heroes of the fist, who boast so much of boxing. "But the circumstances here related by Dr. Desaguliers and Dr. Hutton, were only the common place performances of Topham, when he went about purposely to show himself; some aged persons who knew him in his neighbourhood, relate a variety of pranks which he was occasional. ly in the habit of playing; for instance, one night finding a watchman fast asleep in his box, near Chiswell street, he took both, and carrying the load with the greatest ease, at length dropped the watchman and his wooden case over the wall of Tindall's burying ground, where the poor fellow, only half awake, and doubting whether he was in the land of the living, in recovering from his fright, seemed to be waiting for the opening of the graves around him.Another time, sitting at the window of a low, publick house, in the same street, while a butcher from a slaughter-house was going by with nearly half an ox on his back, Topham relieved him of it with so much ease and dexterity, that the fellow, almost petrified with astonishment, swore that nothing but the devil could have flown away with his load. A third time, thinking to enjoy a little sport with some bricklayers, by removing part of a scaffold just before they intended to strike it, from a small building, his grasp was so rude, that a part of the front wall following the timber, the fellows conceived it had been the effects of an earthquake, and immediately ran, without looking behind them into an adjoining field. Here, however, Topham was near paying dearly for his jest, as one of the poles struck him on his side, and gave him great pain. "Another time, being persuaded by one of his acquaintance to accompany im on board a West India-man in the river and being presented with a cocoa nut, he threw one of the sailors into the utmost astonishment, by suddenly cracking it close to his ear, with the same facility as we crack an egg shell: and upon some remark being made upon an observation deened rather insolent, by the mate of the ship, Topham replied, that he could have cracked the bowsprit over his head; and of the truth of which there was not the least doubt. "Another time, a race being to be run on the Hackney road, when a fellow with a horse and cart would attempt to keep close to the contending parties, much to the displeasure of the spectators in gene. ral, Topham, who was one of them, steping into the road, seized the tail of the cart, and in spite of all the fellow's exer. tions in whipping his horse to get forward, he drew them both backwards, with the greatest ease and velocity: and while the pleasure of the beholders was at the highest point of gratification, the surprise and rage of the driver seemed to be beyond all expression; nothing preventing him from exercising his whip, upon the immediate cause of his chagrin, but the probable fear of his being pulled or crushed to pieces. “During_the_time he kept a publick house, two fellows, extremely quarrelsome, though patiently born with for a considerable time, at length proceeded so far, that nothing would satisfy them but fight ing the landlord. But as they could be ap. peased no other way, Topham, at length, seizing them hoth by the nape of the neck, with the same facility as if they had been children, he knocked both their heads together, till perfectly sensible of their errour, they became as abject in asking pardon, as they had before been insolent in giving offence. "There is a report, that being opened after his death, the ribs, which are detached in other persons, were found in him in a manner connected into one solid substance. "He is said to have been extremely irritable in his temper, but had sometimes such a command over himself, that, to prevent its effects, he would lock himself up in a room till he found himself calm. To his own violence, however, he at length fell a victim; his jealousy of his wife induced him to beat her so severely, that fear and remorse, as to the consequences, had such an effect upon him, that he put an end to his own existence. A plate was engraved, representing him in the act of lifting the hogsheads of water in Cold Bath Fieldds; but this was the last feat he ever exhibited. "There were several signs some years ago in different parts of the metropolis referring to Topham's strength; one of the last of these was in East Smithfield, where he was represented as 'The strong man pulling against two horses." FROM THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. History of Brazil. By Robert Southey. Part the First. 4to pp. 660. London, 1810. IT is by no means easy to mention a style of composition which Mr. Southey has not attempted, and it would be still harder to point out one in which his talents might not be expected to raise him to distinguished eminence. Few authors of the present age, have written so much as he has done, and still fewer of any age, have written so well. As a poet, we conceive his name has not yet arrived at the reputation which it is hereafter destined to attain; and, as a historian, the expectation excited by his previous and less important essays, will not be disappointed by the present, bulky volume. With a share of genius and fancy equalled but by few; an honesty surpassed by none; and an extent and variety of information marked with the stamp of that industrious and almost forgotten accuracy which brings us back to the severer days of English study, he possesses a commanding knowledge of his mother tongue, which, though the ostentation of power sometimes produces pedantry, and its attendant negligence betrays him too often into antiquated homeliness, is strongly, however, and, we think, advantageously contrasted with the monotonous and unbending dignity which distinguishes the greater part of modern historians. No author could be fixed upon to continue, with greater prospect of success, the task of American history, which Robertson left unfinished; and none is better adapted to correct and supply, by superiour minuteness, zealous research, and lively painting of nature and manners, the cold, and often inaccurate outline of that sensible and pleasing, but, certainly, superficial writer. That portion of American annals* which, in this literary colonization, has fallen to Mr. Southey's share, has less, indeed, of the usual common places of history, less that is refined, or splendid, or illustrious, than is offered by the revolutions of Europe and of Asia, or even by the transactions of the Spaniards in Mexico and Peru. "I have to speak," are Mr. Southey's words, " of savages so barbarous, that little sympathy can be felt for any sufferings which they endured, and of colonists, in whose triumphs no joy will be taken, because they added avarice to barbarity. Ignoble men, carrying on an obscure warfare, the consequences of which have been greater than were produced by the conquests of Alexander or of Charlemagne, and will be far more lasting. Even the few higher characters which appear, have obtained no fame beyond the limits of their own religion, scarcely beyond those of their language." With all these defects incidental to his subject, we agree with him in rating its importance highly. Much yet remains to be learned concerning the habits and character of savages, and it is a topick on which erroneous opinions have done such infinite harm, that a philosophick mind can hardly bestow its attention better, than in illustrating those barbarous manners and strange superstitions which, wild as they seem, are the rudiments, perhaps, and, as it were, the grammar of political man. And, however inglorious the agents in the colonization of Brazil, the mariners, the missionaries, the exiles of one of the least of our European nations; it cannot be an unimportant labour to trace the process by which their slender means achieved effects so apparently disproportioned. In these rude efforts of an infant state, these struggles with their savage neighbours, or the more important warfare which they have carried on against the beasts of the wood, the dragons of the fen, and the unkindly effects of strange and adverse climates, we are reading the original history of every civilized nation in the world; the tales of Cadmus and Jason devested of fable: it is to such expeditions as these that Europe owes its present glories: Sic fortis Etruria crevit Scilicet, et rerum facta est pulcherrima Roma! And if the end of history be, indeed, instruction, what better lesson can she afford to individual and private exertion than the contemplation of their gigantick result? What more important warning and example to those high-souled men, who (should the increasing calamities of Europe produce another age of colonies) may bear, with equal courage, and with greater mercy, a purer faith and better constitution than those of the conquerors of Brazil, to shelter beyond the reach of despotism amid the forests of New Zealand, or the countless isles of the Polynesian Archipelago? It was Vicente Yanez Pinzon, a Spaniard, and a distinguished associate of Columbus, who, in the year 1500, discovered the coast of Brazil. As usual, in those days, the Castilians met with gold and giants, and carried as many infidels as they The title of "History of Brazil" is hardly adequate to the subject, as Mr. Southey's work comprises the rise and progress of all the European colonies, from the Andes to the Atlantick, and from the Piata to the river of Amazon. could catch, into exile and slavery. But this was all the profit which they derived from their discovery. The land was to the east of Pope Alexander's famous boundary line; and Pinzon had not yet brought the news of his success to Europe, when the fleet of Portugal, under Cabral, was driven, by a fortunate storm which befel them in their way to India, to that country which had been thus blindly allotted to their future empire. Cabral was followed by the famous Amerigo Vespucci, a really able navigator, who, while he narrowly missed the honour of discovering the Straits of Magellan, has, by a singular fortune, been recompensed far above his deserts, in imposing, perhaps unconsciously, his name on a mighty continent. The country thus partially explored, bore, according to Garcia, the native name of Arabutan. Cabral, however, called it Santa Cruz, and, within a few years after its discovery, both appellations were forgotten in the new one of Brazil, derived, as Mr. Southey thinks, from the valuable wood which was brought from thence, or, as appears to us also possible, from the Milesian Fables, introduced to our acquaintance in the notes to the poem of " Madock," and to the present volume. With out, indeed, recurring to the Platonick Atlantis, or the lucky guess of Seneca, who foresaw, according to Garcia, the discovery of America, "como suelen adivinar los freneticos i poctas por calentarse demasiadamente el celebro;" it is a very perplexing and curious question, nor, as yet, by any means sufficiently explained, from what source, prior to Columbus, the suspicion arose, so prevalent in the darker ages, of countries "Farre in the sea, beyond West Spayne." To the voyage of St. Brandan and his monks, and that of Mr. Southey's Cambrian Hero, may be added the extraordinary expedition of Dante's Ulysses, whom the poet conducts in a second ramble, far by the same track with Columbus, more adventurous than the first, and, to suffer shipwreck on the dusky and mountainous shore of the TerTwo fabulous, Atlantick islands, of restrial Paradise. [Inferno, canto 26.] the names of Brazil and Antilia, nish voyage. The first of these may occur in maps anteriour to the Spahave been taken from an old Irish superstition, founded on a natural phenomenon, and a name once fa ferred, as was at least the case with mous might have been easily transAntilia, to the discoveries afterwards made. the red die of Brazil, in the same But Chaucer, when he mentions breath with "graine of Portingale," its produce which is very perplexdisplays a premature knowledge of ing, and the more so, because we cannot find any sufficient authority to prove that the wood existed in the ancient hemisphere, or that Brazil has a meaning in any eastern or European language. Is it absurd to suppose that specimens of Amerithe western shores of Europe in sufcan timber may have been cast on ficient quantities to become a rare and valuable article in dying? Or that such arrivals may have been thought to proceed from the enchanted Island of O-Brazil? This wood, however, which, except parrots and monkics, was the only article of exportation Brazil was then tiger's wool, though mentioned in known to afford (for gryphons and been very rare commodities indeed, an old English statement, must have and Pinzon was mistaken in his golden tales) was not of sufficient value to make the country of any great importance in the estimation of the * Him needeth not his colour for to dien |