FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   >>  
ials, and only a few coopers are requisite to make the commencement. The consumption of wine in Georgia, and above all at Tiflis, is prodigiously great. From the prince to the peasant the ordinary ration of a Georgian, if we may believe M. Gamba, is one _tonque_, (equal to five bottles and a half of Bordeaux) per day. A _tonque_ of the best wine, such as is drunk by persons of rank, costs about twenty sous; the inferior wines are sold for less than a sous per bottle.--_Foreign Quar. Rev_. * * * * * HISTORICAL FIDELITY. The court historiographer of the Burmese, has recorded in the national chronicle his account of the war with the English to the following purport: --"In the years 1186 and 87, the Kula-pyu, or white strangers of the west, fastened a quarrel upon the Lord of the Golden Palace. They landed at Rangoon, took that place and Prome, and were permitted to advance as far as Yandabo; for the king, from motives of piety and regard to life, made no effort whatever to oppose them. The strangers had spent vast sums of money in their enterprise; and by the time they reached Yandabo, their resources were exhausted, and they were in great distress. They petitioned the king, who, in his clemency and generosity, sent them large sums of money to pay their expenses back, and ordered them out of the country."-- _Crawfurd's Embassy to Ava._ To quote a vulgar proverb, this is making the best of a bad job. * * * * * DRESS. How far a man's clothes are or are not a part of himself, is more than I would take on myself to decide, without farther inquiry; though I lean altogether to the affirmative. The inhabitants of the South Sea Islands were astonished and alarmed when they, first saw the Europeans strip. Yet they would have been much more so, could they have entered into the notions prevalent in the civilized world on the subject of a wardrobe; could they have understood how much virtue lies inherent in a superfine broad cloth, how much respectability in a gilt button, how much sense in the tie of a cravat, how much amiability in the cut of a sleeve, how much merit of every sort in a Stultz and a Hoby. There are who pretend, and that with some plausibilty, that these things are but typical; that taste in dress is but the outward and visible sign of the frequentation of good company; and that propriety of exterior is but evidence of a general sense
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   >>  



Top keywords:

strangers

 

Yandabo

 

tonque

 

visible

 

decide

 

frequentation

 
propriety
 

company

 
farther
 
inquiry

Islands

 
astonished
 
inhabitants
 

outward

 
altogether
 

affirmative

 
Embassy
 

vulgar

 
general
 

Crawfurd


ordered

 
country
 

proverb

 

clothes

 

alarmed

 

making

 

evidence

 

exterior

 

respectability

 

button


plausibilty

 

things

 

inherent

 
superfine
 
cravat
 

pretend

 

amiability

 

sleeve

 

virtue

 

coopers


Europeans

 

typical

 
expenses
 

subject

 
wardrobe
 
understood
 

civilized

 
prevalent
 
entered
 

notions