PERSIAN BATH. The luxurious indulgence of baths in the East is generally known to the reader of travels, so as to render acceptable the following details. They are extracted from Mr. Buckingham's Travels, and bear all the graphic minuteness of his entertaining pen. The Bath is one of the principal ones of Kermanshah, an important frontier town of Persia. "It was entered by a porch, extremely... more...

LISBON. LISBON. Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, was called by the ancients Ulyssippo, and the foundation is fabulously ascribed to Ulysses. The situation is grand, on the north bank of the river Tagus, in lat. 38° 42-1/3′ N., lon. 9° 8-1/3′ W. The harbour, or rather road, of Lisbon, is one of the finest in the world; and the quays are at once convenient and beautiful. On entering the river, and... more...

BIRTHPLACE OF THE EARL OF ELDON. Little need be said, by way of explanation, for the addition of the present subject to our collection of the birthplaces of eminent men. It is something to know that John Scott was born at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in the principal dwelling represented in the above Engraving, in the year 1751; that he received the rudiments of his education at the free grammar-school of the... more...

A shot from the alarm-gun! Timidly does the citizen examine the dark corners of his house to discover whether any strange man be hid there. The peasant in the field stops his horses to consider whether he would wish to meet with any fugitive, and earn capture-money, or whether he should save some desperate man, in spite of the severe punishment with which every one was threatened who enabled a deserter... more...

BIRTHPLACE OF DR. JOHNSON, AT LICHFIELD. In the large corner house, on the right of the Engraving, SAMUEL JOHNSON was born on the 18th of September, N.S. 1709. We learn from Boswell, that the house was built by Johnson's father, and that the two fronts, towards Market and Broad Market-street stood upon waste land of the Corporation of Lichfield, under a forty years lease; this expired in 1767,... more...

DEDICATION. To my dear Friend Solomon Hertzel. Without your knowledge I dedicate this work to you, who have taken so kind an interest in it, whose excellent library has so often helped when other sources failed, and where, as industrious collectors, we have examined so many old flying sheets and manuscripts. To you also these records of the olden times, in which the private life and feelings of the... more...

OLD HALL, IN DERBYSHIRE. This picturesque specimen of olden architecture stands upon the Norton Lees estate, on the northern verge of Derbyshire upon the adjacent county of York; about a mile from Sheffield, and eight miles north of Chesterfield, and but a short distance from Bolsover Castle, pictured in No. 566 of The Mirror. "The estate, in the reign of Henry VII., was the property of the family... more...

INTRODUCTION. The Man and the Nation! The course of life of a nation consists in the ceaseless working of the individual on the collective people, and the people on the individual. The greater the vigour, diversity, and originality with which individuals develop their human power, the more capable they are of conducing to the benefit of the whole body; and the more powerful the influence which the life... more...

Sir Walter Scott was the third son of Walter Scott, Esq., Writer to the Signet, in Edinburgh, and Anne, daughter of Dr. John Rutherford, Professor of Medicine in the University of the above city. His ancestry numbers several distinguished persons; though the well-earned fame of Sir Walter Scott readers his pedigree comparatively uninteresting; inasmuch as it illustrates the saw of an olden poet, that... more...

CHAPTER I. THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR.--THE ARMY. The opposition between the interests of the house of Hapsburg and of the German nation, and between the old and new faith, led to a bloody catastrophe. If any one should inquire how such a war could rage through a whole generation, and so fearfully exhaust a powerful people, he will receive this striking answer, that the war was so long and terrible,... more...