The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 12, No. 340, Supplementary Number (1828)

Excerpt

Vicenza.

SPIRIT OF THE "ANNUALS," FOR 1829.

For some days past our table has been glittering with these caskets of song and tale in their gay attire of silken sheen and burnished gold—till their splendour has fairly put out the light of our sinumbra, and the drabs, blues, and yellows of sober, business-like quartos and octavos. Seven out of nine of these elegant little books are in "watered" silk bindings; and an ingenious lady-friend has favoured us with the calculation that the silk used in covering the presumed number sold (70,000) would extend five miles, or from Hyde Park Corner to Turnham Green.

Brilliant as may be their exteriors, their contents are, as Miss Jane Porter says of her heroines, "transcendently beautiful." But of these we shall present our readers with some exquisite specimens. Our only trouble in this task is the embarras du richesses with which we are surrounded; otherwise it is to us an exhaustless source of delight, especially when we consider the "gentle feelings and affections" which this annual distribution will cherish, and the innumerable intertwinings of hands and hearts which this shower of bon-bons will produce; and such warm friends are we to this social scheme, that our presentation copies are already in the fair hands whither we had destined them.

We begin with the parent-stock,

The present volume, in its graphic and literary attractions is decidedly superior to that of last year, an improvement which makes us credit what the Ettrick Shepherd says of the proprietor—"There's no a mair just, nay, generous man in his dealings wi' his authors, in a' the tredd, than Mr. Ackermann."

This beautiful Annual contains the original of our ENGRAVING, from a plate by A. Freebairn, after an admirable picture by S. Prout, of which the following story is illustrative:—

THE MAGICIAN OF VICENZA.

In the year 1796, on one of the finest evenings of an Italian autumn, when the whole population of the handsome city of Vicenza were pouring into the streets to enjoy the fresh air, that comes so deliciously along the currents of its three rivers; when the Campo Marzo was crowded with the opulent citizens and Venetian nobles; and the whole ascent, from the gates to the Madonna who sits enthroned on the summit of Monte Berrico, was a line of the gayest pilgrims that ever wandered up the vine-covered side of an Alpine hill; the ears of all were caught by the sound of successive explosions from a boat running down the bright waters of the Bachiglione. Vicenza was at peace, under the wing of the lion of St. Mark, but the French were lying round the ramparts of Mantua. They had not yet moved on Venice; yet her troops were known to be without arms, experience, or a general, and the sound of a cracker would have startled her whole dominions.

The boat itself was of a singular make; and the rapidity with which this little chaloupe, glittering with gilding and hung with streamers, made its way along the sparkling stream, struck the observers as something extraordinary....