735 Henpecked Husband. 736 wife. I am not so rich as Croesus, | but I hope, in future, I shall be more on nor am I stingy with what I have, but I wish to have things managed rightly, so as in some measure to make both ends meet, as they call it. I will just give you an idea of my beloved's management. First, when we were married, she made a pudding that lasted (from its enormous size) nearly a week; although ourselves and the maid constituted the whole of the family. It would take an acre of ground, I believe, to supply her with vegetables, every thing is upon such a large scale; and to her variety in nick-knacks there is scarcely any end. It puts one in mind of what history says of Mark Antony's kitchen when in Egypt, where a person saw six wild boars roasting at one time, and that only for a repast for himself and Cleopatra. But these articles I should have deemed unworthy of notice, were they not connected with others of a more serious aspect, which drain my purse, and threaten us with ruin. We have a large house, of which we make little further use than to employ servants to keep it clean. Every room, however, must have its due proportion of furniture; and throughout the week the sound of the scrubbing-brush is constantly to be heard. We have beds, in which no one ever slept; and carpets, on which none besides the servants scarcely ever tread. With constant polishing, several of our tables and chairs have caught the rickets. Our fire-irons are polished too highly to be touched; and the shining gridiron is suspended in a large kitchen, to convince spectators that it was never laid upon the coals. In the laying in of provisions, my dearest is equally profuse. In these articles, quantity and variety strive for mastery, and I am at a loss to know to which I should assign the pre-eminence. I have occasionally ventured to hint that this mode of conduct is susceptible of some amendment; but I am instantly silenced with this remark, that I know nothing about housekeeping, and that she is sorry to find I have no better taste. The dress of my good lady corresponds with her other extravagances. To bonnets, caps, furbelows, flounces, and ribands, there is scarcely any end. I one day happened to smile, when the milliner's girl brought home her box, and began to unload her gaudy cargo; my guard, as it had nearly cost me the semblance of authority which I had endeavoured to retain. Unfortunately, she discovered the risible muscles of my countenance gathering into a smile; but whether from a consciousness that she had merited what she condemned, or from a design to admonish me that I was deficient in the rules of politeness and good breeding, I know not; but I well recollect, that I received from her such a frown as will not hastily be forgotten, and such an one as I hope never more to raise. From the observations which I have made, I presume, Mr. Editor, that you can easily guess my situation, and enter into my feelings; and should I be so happy as to excite your sympathy, I hope one great end of my writing will be answered. I wish to live in peace with one whom I sincerely love; and yet, the price at which I have hitherto been doomed to purchase it, is more than my purse can well afford. In this dilemma, my only hopes lie in an appeal to you. I do not attribute the evils of which I complain to any bad disposition in my wife, but to the manner in which she received her domestic education. Were servants perhaps to attend to economy more than they do, in their masters' concerns, they would ulti mately benefit themselves, in gaining or keeping good habits. As my wife is a constant reader of the Imperial Magazine, I am not without hopes that something of this kind may do her good; but then, I must not let her know that I had any hand in it. Upon the whole, we live very happily together; but there is a point, beyond which, it would not be prudent, perhaps, for me (though ever so indalgent) to give way. To give the reins entirely out of my own hands, will not do. Masters in their own houses, all men ought to be; but then, their sovereignty should be used in such an agreeable manner, that while bringing about their own designs, whatever they may be, their partners shall appear to reform themselves. Far be it from me to intimate, that any harshness should be used with the ladies; I consider them in the light rather of good watches, which only want the regulator to be altered a little, to put all to rights. It must be obvious to every one, 737 Affecting Incident. 738 that unless a person regulate his ex- | studding sails, and all her stay-sails, penditure by his income, so as to live within it, ruin, or something equally bad, must ensue. What would be extravagance, perhaps, in a person of limited means, would be but just expenditure with a person of a larger property. What I wish is, that my beloved rib may see that there are others who appear at least to think on these subjects the same as I do, which will have no inconsiderable effect in bringing about a reformation in her con duct. By inserting this, with any corrections you may think necessary, you will do me a real service; but should your endeavours to serve me fail of success, I am afraid I must be content to be what I have styled myself, A Henpecked Husband. AN AFFECTING INCIDENT. and the sea was running very high. In this situation I saw your son going astern. I immediately wore the ship on the other tack, while the men took in all our light sails, and reefed the top-sails, for it was blowing too heavy to bring the ship on a wind but with double-reefed top-sails. In a few minutes we lost sight of him; but as soon as possible I tacked the ship and stood on a wind, and in about forty minutes I saw him again from our main top-mast head a long way to windward. We made every signal possible, but it appeared that he saw none. He was sitting on the thaught, a little above the middle in water. We passed under his lee about one mile. He said, that when he saw this, he began to think we had not seen him. We stood on until we lost sight of him a second time, in order to make sure of his being drifted under our lee against we returned. THE following extract is from a letter "In about fifteen minutes we saw written by Mr. William Coomb, cap-him from the mast head. I then came tain of an American ship called the Felicity, to Mr. B. Banks, captain of an English trading brig; giving an account of the narrow escape of Mr. William Banks, son of Captain Baker Banks, who, in the summer of 1806, sailed with Captain Coomb from Liverpool to Charleston. The letter is dated, Glasgow, October 19th, 1807. "DEAR SIR, "YOURS of the 16th inst. I have this moment received, and I will with pleasure give you every information relative to your amiable son. down, keeping him in sight, until by degrees I got on deck, when we got all our lee side manned with running bowlines. I then put my second mate at the helm, with orders to mind no further instructions than what I was then going to deliver, not even of your son himself. I saw plainly, that if we missed him that time, it would all be over. "The sea was still continuing to run very high; but when I found that I could fetch him, I ordered the mate to bear down on him, and take the boat on the lee cat-head, and then clap his helm a lee; by so doing we had time to catch him from the fore to the mizzen shrouds, which we fortunately did by one of the running bow-lines being put over his head and round his body. The end of this rope was secured; and it broke the fishing line with which he had made himself fast, it being in the boat when she broke adrift." "In the morning, before we made the land of Charleston, he was on deck with myself, going to take a double altitude, as the sun had been obscured for several days, and our reckoning was out. He went into the boat which was suspended over our stern, to do something to the ropes, when, on twisting one of the bolts, it broke, dragging with it some of the timbers. The boat, on falling, received a sudden jerk, which carried away the stern; when, with the young man on board, having both bow and stern torn out, it fell into the water, and, instantly filling, it was left by the ship. At that time we were going away with the Mr. William Banks, at the time the wind quarterly, blowing a strong gale; above accident happened, was about the ship was under her three top-gal-sixteen years of age. He was in this lant sails, lower and fore-top-mast perilous situation about two hours and 66 Adieu, I will send you another letter in two or three days, "Yours, with love, 66 gratitude, and esteem, 739 Comets.-Egyptian Tomb. forty minues. Towards the end of the year 1806, he sailed to the coast of Africa, on board an American ship, called the Kitty, and, after an illness of three days, died under an awning on the ship's deck, on the 23d of Feb. 1807. OBSERVATIONS ON COMETS. (From Nicholson's Natural Philosophy.) He says, Besides the seven primary planets and their moons, there are other bodies that revolve round the sun, and claim peculiar distinction on several accounts. These are called Comets, and they appear occasionally in every part of the heavens, their motion being formed in very long ellipses, whose lower focus is in or very near to the sun. By observations of parallax it is found, that at their first appearance they are nearer to us than Jupiter; whence it is concluded, that they are most commonly less than that planet, for if they were as large as Saturn they would be seen as far off. When comets arrive within a certain distance of the sun, they emit a fume or vapour, which is called the tail. This shows that they contain a portion of matter more rare and volatile than any on the earth; for the tail begins to appear while they are in a higher, and consequently colder region than Mars. The tail is always directed to that part of the heavens which is directly opposite to the sun, and is greater after the comet has passed its perihelium than at its approach. That part of a comet's orbit which comes under our observation, is so small in proportion to the whole, that in most it does not differ from a parabola by quantities that observation can distinguish; for which reason, the dimensions of their orbits and periodical times, cannot be determined from a single appearance with any degree of exactness. But from the re-appearance of comets after long intervals of time, in the same region of the heavens, and moving in the same curve, it is decided that they revolve about the sun in very eccentric ellipses, being governed throughout by the same law of describing equal areas in equal times, which is found to take place in the inferior part of their orbits. The comet that appeared in the year 740 1661, was seen before in the same orbit, and under the same circumstances, in the year 1522, which gives its period to be 129 years; and that very remarkable comet (1680) is shewn to be the same with that which appeared in the year 1106, its period being 575 years. The number of comets is very much greater than that of the planets which move in the vicinity of the sun. From the reports of former historians, as well as from the observations of late years, it is ascertained that more than 450 have been seen previous to the year 1771; and when the attention of astronomers was called to this object, by the expectation of the return of the comet of 1759, no fewer than seven were seen in the course of seven years. From this circumstance, and the probability that all the comets recorded in ancient history were of considerable magnitude, the number is far beyond any estimation which we can make. But the number of comets whose orbits are settled with sufficient accuracy to ascertain their identity when they may appear again, is no more than 59, reckoning as late as the year 1771. Their motions in the heavens are not all in the order of the signs, or direct like those of the planets; but the number whose motion is retrograde, is nearly equal to that of those whose motion is direct. After what has been said, we may infer, that if comets are habitable, they must be possessed by creatures very different from any we have been used to behold. There may be, however, other uses, for which it is probable they may have been formed; the matter which composes their tails must fall in process of time to the sun, or the nearest planet that may pass through it, where it may supply defects, and answer purposes which our total ignorance of its properties scarcely allows us even to conjecture. Egyptian Tomb. MR. EDITOR. In this age of indefatigable research, and ingenuity of invention, subservient to the elucidation of its object, when our imaginations are conveyed back to the very uttermost verge of antiquity, by contemplating, as it were, amidst the silent repository of 741 Egyptian Tomb. 742 kings, the vast magnitude and design | with a bas-relief, representing an oval, in which is sculptured a scarabæus or beetle, and the figure of a man, with the head of a hawk: on each side of this emblem are two figures, in the act of adoration. We then descend along each corridor, staircase, entrance hall, and different excavations, each named by Mr. B. as it struck his imagination, till we arrive at the sacred depositum of the king, Psammis;* and more fully to illustrate and convey an idea of this singular place, a model of the alabaster Sarcophagus+ is placed in the saloon, as Mr. B. names this inner chamber. of whose gigantic palaces, temples, and mausoleums, the mind can scarcely fathom, we are led into a train of melancholy reflections at the colossal strivings to perpetuate to the latest posterity their existence, and their almost indissoluble works. This surely is a theme to call forth all the energies of the philosopher and the historian. I was led into the above, and a train of similar reflections, after visiting the Egyptian tomb in Piccadilly, the other day, which, though it did not perfectly gratify my most sanguine expectations, yet viewed as the intention of the projector was, to convey some faint ideas of the extraordinary sepulchre itself, which for its great beauty and grandeur of ornament, executed in the very infancy of the arts, is surely deserving our warmest commendations. My present intention is, to convey to those who have not either leisure or opportunity of viewing the mimic resemblance, some slight idea of the whole. From the confined nature of the premises, we are at once ushered into the solemn assembly of deities and kings, surrounded by all their symbolical and mythological designations; but we are the next moment instructed by the attendant guide to proceed above, to survey first the model of the whole, presenting to the view a pleas-ments of terra cotta, and lacrymatoing representation, in miniature, of the entire formation of this stupendous catacomb; then we commence at the Entrance Partats, which Belzonie observes, are generally surmounted *This was the room in which Mr. B. found himself, after he had passed through the small aperture in the painted wall, spoken of in his publication, and to this apartment he gave the name of Entrance Hall. Its dimensions are 27 ft. by 25 ft. 11 in.; and the pillars are 4 ft. square. Immediately in front of the door, as you enter, is the finest painted group of the whole sepulchre, consisting of four figures, and representing the reception of some distin guished personage, by Osiris, the great divinity of the Egyptians An explanation of the subject of this group, will serve as a specimen of the manner in which these curious pictures have been interpreted by the eminent scholar to whom he is indebted for the Appendix to the second edition of his Travels. Osiris is seated on the throne of state, supported by pillars or feet: he holds a book in each hand, and in the left a flail, also king Psammis, with his name on his belt, is presented to him by the Egyptian Apollo, Arueris, who has the head of a hawk: behind Osiris, is a female figure, probably the goddess Buto, with a cage, and a After viewing the model, which gives a pleasing, and I have no doubt, as far as ingenuity could accomplish, a correct idea of the place itself, we proceed to several cases of Egyptian antiquities, well worthy the attention of the antiquary and the scholar, to elucidate the history and the antiquities of that extraordinary portion of the globe. The collection is rich in fragments, highly embellished with hieroglyphics, mummies, curious specimens of idols, of fine workmanship and brilliancy of colours, of which several of porcelain are particularly beautiful. There are also some of scarabai of basalt and verde-antico; one of a square form, used by the kings of Egypt, and worn as an ornament on their breasts. Some frag ries, also appear, together with various figures of alabaster, and plates of the same substance, supposed to have been used for religious ceremonies; likewise vases and fragments bird over her head: according to the Egyptian mythology, she was the nurse of the children of Osiris and Isis. The dress of Osiris is almost entirely white, which, Plutarch says, was the usual colour of his attire, though sometimes it was black. The whole tablet is surmounted by the winged globe, accompanied by the inscription which is scarcely ever wanting, when this tutelary genius is introduced, whose name seems to be indicated by a bent bar, with a hand. The other characters appear to mean, the Sacred Father of the protecting powers, living unalterable, reigning and ministering. The Sarcophagus is of oriental alabaster, nine feet five inches long, and three feet seven inches wide, its thickness is only two inches, and it is semi-transparent when a light is placed in the inside. It is minutely sculptured within and without, with several hundred figures, which do not exceed two inches in height, and represent, it may be supposed, the whole of the funeral procession and ceremonies, relating to the deceased, united with several emblems, &c. of alabaster, and tomb-stones, from the mummy pits at Gournou, richly covered with hieroglyphics; also several vases containing the bowels of mummies; idols of wood; a most beautiful head of black basalt from Sais, in high preservation, representing the bust of a negro, finely sculptured, and rendered singularly striking by a vein of a dun colour running across the forehead, which the ingenuity of the artist appears to have had in view, in order to its embellishment. There are also ancient shoes, and ropes made of the leaves of the palm-tree; tresses of hair in a state of wonderful preservation; two fine specimens of mummies; one is that of an Egyptian priest, remarkable for the singular position and bending of the arms, which appear to be that of adoration; the other was opened a short time since in England; " It is more perfect (observes Mr. B.) than any of those I unfolded in Egypt, during six years' research." The box out of which it was taken, is richly covered with hieroglyphics finely painted. Amongst the great variety of the collection, is a portion of the original tomb of Psammis, which had fallen off from the wall, sufficient to give an idea of the infinite diversity and ingenuity of the ancient Egyptian artists. But by far the most valuable specimen of Egyptian antiquities, is a manuscript of papyrus, said to be the largest known, measuring twenty-three feet in length, in the most perfect state of preservation, the character beautifully, and, to all appearance, elaborately executed. This, were it possible to decipher it, would at once open to us a door through which all their magical illusion of character might be viewed unencumbered by Psammis, one of the most powerful of Egyptian kings, whose father Pharaoh-Necho is recorded in Holy Writ, as leading captive into his dominions Jehoahaz the brother of Jehoakim, king of Judah and Jerusalem. The most remarkable feature (says Mr. B.) of the whole embellishments of the Catacomb, consists of a procession of captives; which will be seen on the left, immediately as you enter the chamber on the lower tier, or com partment of the wall:-Before a hawk-headed divinity, are four red men, with white kirtles; then four white men, with black beards, and with a simple white fillet round their black hair, wearing striped fringed kirtles. Before these are four negroes, with hair of different 744 conjecture and theories, plunging us still farther into the depths of baseless speculations, without advancing one step towards the development of truth. But, alas! that is for ever closed. Ages have buried amidst the desolation of empires, the key to their mysterious language. Having thus gratified our curiosity by the survey of these early relics, we descend to the inspection of those superb paintings in relief, copied from the tomb, and various parts adjacent, arranged in the order of the different compartments, as nearly resembling the original positions as the confined space will admit. Those selected for exhibition, are chosen for their beauty of design, and their exact counterparts of the original workmanship, for which we are indebted to the indefatigable zeal and perseverance of Mr. B. in taking wax impressions of the most prominent for beauty and design, of the great assemblage of gods, deities, triumphs, sacrifices, &c. &c. displayed in the tomb of Psammis. In the centre of so much attraction, the mind naturally becomes embarrassed for a subject to fix upon for reflection; here then, on the left of the entrance, is one peculiarly striking: I mean four figures represented in the procession of captives. They are Israelites: no one can mistake them; and here I am led to remark the striking similarity be tween the ancient Jews, and those of the present day. The same contour of visage, short thick neck, black bushy beards, peculiarly arched eye-brows, quick penetrating and inquisitive eye, in short, the first glance of those figures must strike the most superficial observer, that they are designed to personify the seed of Abraham, and evidently to grace the triumph of their conqueror.§ Numerous other casts colours, wearing large circular ear-rings, having white petticoats, supported by a belt over their shoulder: and next in order march four white men, with smaller beards and curled whiskers, bearing double spreading plumes on their heads; tattooed, and wearing robes or mantles, spotted like the skins of wild beasts. Mr. B. considers the red men as black-bearded men as Jews, and the tattooed Egyptians, the accord remarkably well with the history of the as Persians; and these conjectures seem to times concerned: for Necho, the father of Psammis, whose tomb this is supposed to be, is known, both from sacred history and from Herodotus, to have had wars with the Jews, and with the Babylonians; and Herodotus |